Welcome Back

wow! i haven't posted anything in a loooooong time. A lot has happened this summer. I went up to Omega for a songwriting workshop that couldn't be beat, and I just got back from visiting everybody up at the lake. I used lots of sunblock, but i never did break out the bug repellent. that's the second time i brought that with me and didn't use it. does bug repellent expire? does it work on "city bugs"? can i just rub it on my kitchen counter? i'd like to repel bugs now because i'm starting to feel bad about killing them. i feel bad about it, but i still really, really want to.

summer went by fast this year, didn't it??

August: Osage County

My sister, Joan and I went to see August: Osage County last week. I thought it was eh. Maybe it was because half the cast abandoned ship after the Tonys. Maybe it was because it has been compared to A Long Day's Journey Into Night. I just didn't think it was great. I thought it was funny, but play-funny not funny-funny. These are tropical birds! [go to 5:36] strikes me as the kind of line that wouldn't get that big of a laugh if it were in a movie or on a sitcom—well, it would on a sitcom bcs they'd add it with a laugh track. I wonder. Does the audience at a play, knowing how much they paid for their ticket and how long they'd have to wait to get in to see the play again, does that make them want to like it so much that they laugh extra hard and kind of over-enjoy a play? there was a woman sitting in front of me who was practically laughing at the lighting cues.

I guess i was just expecting more. It didn't have the poetry of an O'Neill play or the vulnerability of a Tennessee Williams play. I pretty much knew everything that was going to happen before it did, including what saucy put-down was going to come out of Mom's mouth. Again, it could've been the performances. I was lucky enough to see The Producers with Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane. I can imagine that after seeing it with John Stamos and Tony Danza you might wonder what the big deal was about. I know i was disappointed when i found out i wouldn't be seeing Mr. Katimski from My So-Called Life, although i was happy to see Jim True-Frost and he was great!

P.S. I'm not equating Estelle Parsons and the rest of the new people with Tony Danza, i'm just saying cast changes can have a big effect on the experience.

Did I really need to buy the movie Chicago? Not really, but it's so easy to buy stuff on iTunes and I really wanted to see Cellblock Tango and youTube wasn't cutting it.
P.S. i knew that i recognized Deborah from MILF Island as Sheila from A Chorus Line. NOW i know why she looked so familiar when I saw her in A Chorus Line. She's "Squish"!
P.P.S. "Pop" and "Squish" are my faves.

Wicked Betty

Great Ugly Betty episode this week. yes, it was a repeat but it was the first time I'VE seen it. Lots of Wicked, a very silly and inappropriate allusion to the civil right movement and Marlo Thomas. I love that in the beginning of the episode they did a little Marlo homage. When Daniel is pressuring Betty to tell him who she's taking to see Wicked she points waaay across the office at Gio and says, "That Guy!" :-]

What the...???

Last week i did the weirdest thing. I forgot how to get the key out of my door. i thought there was something wrong with the key and then i finally realized...after having the problem THREE TIMES...that it has to be horizontal i was trying to pull it out when it was vertical. Why i all of a sudden lost this memory that's always been second nature to me is completely beyond me. This didn't even happen when i first got the lock. Is my brain taking nothing for granted? Am i subconsciously craving change? Or just losing it?

Enchanted

I saw Enchanted last night. Boy, were they lucky to get Amy Adams! I'm not sure if that movie would've worked with anyone else. It was cute. I kept wanting Idina Menzel to turn into Elphaba and start flying around though. The "extras" on the DVD were pretty useless.

In rereading this post i realize that it sounds like i didn't like this movie and i did. i really thought it was very cute. i thought amy adams was great and james mardsen was really funny and i remembered that patrick dempsey is kind of nerdy in a good way.

Margo At The Wedding

This movie was disappointing. It was a waste of some great acting [not by Jack Black though]. I can't put my finger on exactly what was wrong with it [except Jack Black] but here's one thing. It seemed like a husband's idea of what's going on between his wife and her sister and not what would actually go on between two sisters. Sister's don't talk about f***ing each other's husbands. We're a lot more subtle and confusing than that. There are scenes in Hannah and Her Sisters that are accurate. The scene when they're having lunch and Holly is passive-aggressively punishing Hannah by only ordering a salad, while the sister who really is f***ing Hannah's husband is trying to be really nice to her which only kind of freaks Hannah out and makes her uncomfortable. That's what sister's are really like. They don't say, "you ruined my life, you're a crazy bitch." What fun would that be? Plus, you know you're gonna have to hang out with them again, so you tend to keep the cards closer to the vest.

This is reminding me of one of my biggest movie disappointments to date, Ghost World. This may surprise you because it wasn't a bad movie at all. It just wasn't the story I wanted to see. The Ghost World stories in the comic book, Eightball captured that time in female friendships when dealing with boys and differing levels of ambition can break up the best bff's. The growing gap between the two girls and the tiny little things that mark it's progression are a truly sad/beautiful thing to see. So i wasn't super-psyched that it turned into another coming-of-age/quirky love story. There aren't that many movies about females fighting that feel authentic [Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion being an exception that leaps to mind]. So it makes me sad when I see such good material thrown away. Steve Buscemi was great, but he's always good. They could've made a whole other movie out of Eightball stuff for him to be in and left the girls alone.