Stuff We Did This Weekend
Monday, March 1, 2010
1. Went running. Again did not think about queries. This time accidentally ended up in the middle of a sixteen-block Purim celebration complete with legions of small children costumed as stuffed animals, princesses, King David, and police officers (?); young Hasidic gentlemen standing on the roofs of "Party Buses" doing covert dances to Hebrew techno; and many, many persons dressed as clowns.
2. Oh look! It's Women's History Month! Also known as "Those 31 Days One or Two Public Officials Pretend They Give a Shit About the Ladies So As to Guiltlessly Spend the Other 334 Days of the Year Denying Us Reproductive Rights, Paying Us Less, Taking Away Our Children, Refusing Us Healthcare, and Passing a Bunch of Really Creepy Legislation--and That's Just in the U.S.!!!" In honor of Women's History Month, we will be boycotting the state of Utah. Also in honor of Women's History Month, we will be attending the midnight screening of one of the best feminist movies ever made next weekend, where we will be the lady screaming FUCK YES RIPLEY and pretending all the aliens are Utah senators.
3. Received random mass email from mysterious personage entitled "Edward Champion" which we almost deleted but then it turns out this entity is also affiliated with "The Bat Segundo Show," a podcast series of interviews with, like, almost every interesting author in the universe. Thanks, Edward Bat!
4. Pretty sure the gun laws in Utah are really, really lax. Food for thought.
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Your running routes sound a lot more fun than mine. Sometimes I see someone not scooping after their dog, but that's about it.
It helps to live in New York. If you were thinking of leaving Utah. Hee, hee. "Author-friend Laurel and the National Parks: Utah's Only Redeeming Features."
There are pictures of me dressed for Purim as Queen Esther, and my brothers dressed as a Yankee and a Met. Purim costumes: Biblical exegesis in action.
And where were the King Ahasuerus-es and the Mordecais on your route??
Last weekend I treated my daughter to her first viewing of Aliens. I told her I love a movie where there is a female lead that kicks butt. She's still too young for Resident Evil but one day...one day (wipes tear from corner of eye).
I wish running was that interesting around here. The only thing that would get me running would be a truck full of brownies ahead of me and a pack of of rabid coyotes behind me.
ALIENS (that's the second one, people, with an S on the end... there's a difference, mainly, it's better than the first one) IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER!
Wish I could make it to that midnight screening, so you wouldn't have to scream alone.
In other related news, my weekend consisted of YAY I'M FINALLY OVER THE STUPID FLU BUT SHIT NOW MY KID IS SICK WILL I EVER GET AN EFFING BREAK.
Yeah, something like that. And now I must go back to wiping snot and flushing vomit.
I'm not sure that there is a series I grew up on more than the Alien Trilogy. I loved it so much. Have you heard that Ridley Scott is making a prequel to the first movie?
re Utah: Crap, sometimes you guys really scare those of us living north of the 49th. Is there anything in your constitution that allows you to boot out states that show severe mental deficiency coupled with antisocial behaviour? Or at least quarantine them while you stage an intervention and rescue all the women? Or maybe just send in Ripley with a forklift.
Anyone remember "The Handmaid's Tale"?
I am horrifed to admit I live in Utah (no, I am not mormon)and am seriously contemplating moving. Ugh.
I only visit Utah. I live in Georgia. It amounts to the same thing except here we are Baptist. And our college football is good enough that we don't feel the need to back legislation challenging the BCS based on anti-trust regulations.
My Utah friend cannot wait to move back to NYC. I will visit her with much greater frequency then.
You had me at Ripley. Hell yes - aliens and feminism!!!
Is PURIM why I saw all kinds of crazy costumes all over LA yesterday? I felt as if I didn't get a very important memo, because I will use any excuse to dress up in a costume.
If I tried to run it would kill me, but I love hearing about your adventures! Today is my Sunday and the most exciting prospect is a trip to the laundromat.
When I go running, the only thing of interest I *ever* really see is the person's ass in front of me in the next row of treadmills. As it turns out, there's lots of eye candy at my gym *and* I write romance novels...so this ends up working out for the most part because I come up with some decent ideas this way. I call my discreet ogling "research". My husband calls that "bullshit", but thinks it's funny anyway :)
Oh, Aliens. I might write romance novels, but I'm here to tell you that ass-kicking, alien blasting heroines are where it's AT for me. Love that!
Lydia, ugh. It's going around here, too. I so feel your pain :(
Aliens is one of my most favorite films ever. It has love, suspense, conflict, and of course triumph. Where's the love, you ask? Oh, between Ripley and what's his face, played by DELECTABLE Michael Biehn? NO! It is NOT! It is the scene with Goreman and Vasquez in the air duct and aliens are coming at them from both sides and Goreman pops a grenade top and hugs Vasquez and she hugs him back and they blow up themselves and the aliens for the good of anyone else who might have escaped....and Goreman and Vasquez HATED each other! Ahhh my heart is oozing love and marshmallows thinking about it. Sweetest most romantic scene ever.
Lydia,
I'm totally with you. I've been sick, my wife's been sick, my daughter's been sick, my son's been sick... and now even the VAMPIRE INFANT is sick. And I thought they were immune to such earthly things. I am so not fond of this ZOMBIE PLAGUE. If an ALIEN pops out of my belly I am going to be so pissed. Ripley pissed. Give-me-the-flamethrower pissed. Grrrrr.
And there are no parades when I go running. I did get dive-bombed by a flock of hummingbirds, though. I didn't even know they came in flocks. Perhaps only for kamikaze missions when all the fuel runs out.
Sierra, THAT RIGHT THERE is why we are having a torrid affair despite my primary commitments as one of Le R.'s many worthy fiancees. YES, HELL YES, for Vasquez and Gorman, because everyone knows calling someone an asshole at the moment before death is macho space-marine talk for "I love you."
And let's not forget Alien 4, in which is it proven that Sigourney Weaver is the shit.
Favorite line : "I don't know if you've been keeping up with current events but we just got our asses kicked." - Hudson/Bill Pullman
Vasquez had the hots for Drake, not Goreman. You'll hug whoever is next to you if there is an alien on the other side.
I'm a fan of Alien & Aliens. The others sucked royal di*k in my humble opinion.
Aliens of Utah. I would buy that.
Although I am, like any red blooded man, a huge fan of Aliens - I find it ironic that the few chances women get to lead a movie or kick ass, they have to do it in a very masculine way.
Take Vasquez from the same movie - in order to be an effective ball-cruncher, you have to do so in a very male way.
I work in cross-cultural and cross-gender issue resolution all the time and one of the most entertaining parts of my work with women is the many ways in which they surprise me... A typically female response to any situation can almost always (in general) be seen to be more long term, more thought out and more cerebral than the male equivalent...
I look forward to the day when female leads can kick ass and crunch balls in a decidedly female way while still being feminine...
No more shaved heads and bulging muscles! (Ripley, GI Jane etc..)
Who can compete with Sigourney Weaver? She is the definition of badass. I loved ALL of those movies.
SANJAY! SHE GETS THE BABY OUT! COME ON! We personally would like to heavily advocate for the fact that "typical" lady-type persons can also be bonkers, have hairtrigger tempers, minimal long-term decision-making skills, and look fucking hot with no hair. Not that we, like, see ourself in this representation or anything.
Yours in anti-essentialism,
le r.
OMG AUTHOR-FRIENDS MAYBE THEY SELL FLAMETHROWERS OVER THE COUNTER IN UTAH!!! FIELD TRIP!!!!
Sanjay - Ripley was not ripped. She was a worker on the first mission. She had long hair, walked around in her shitty hip-hugger underwear, and had the smarts to be the survivor. She had enough heart to risk her life for her cat Jonesy. The in the second she saved Newt. Vasquez had muscles and a shaved head but was hardly manly with her ginormous breasts.
Go rent Resident Evil. You'll see a svelte Milla Jovovich kick some major zombie ass - mind you in a smokin' red dress and rockin' boots.
Why don't we have a male lead that finds his fuzzy side and goes back to save his cat? Puh-leeze.
Sanjay,
You seriously need to read my first sci-fi novel. The lead protag is a dress-wearing, high-heel-sporting, waist-long-haired ultra-feminine YET READY TO KICK ASS AT THE DROP OF A HAT... scientist. Not kidding. And the lead antag? Also a woman, and a total psychopath. There is an AWESOME ESTROGEN SHOWDOWN at the end.
And Le R, my aforementioned protag USES A FLAMETHROWER ON GIANT SCORPION-LIKE CREATURE THINGS at one point, not long before the aforementioned showdown.
Looks like I found my audience. Haha.
I swear on everything holy I did not just make that up for the sake of this thread. I wrote the book nearly two years ago. Honest. :)
@ Lydia: I totally want to read that. Can I buy it?
@ Mary: The Fifth Element is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. I love the scene where she opens a can of whoop-ass on the lumpy dudes. Milla Jovovich has definitely found her niche. Although her turn as the evil, insectile model/designer in Zoolander was sheer bliss.
I second the field trip, but since Ripley is taken many times over, I'll come as Tank Girl. With a little more hair. Okay, a lot.
Why do people have to take a sensible argument and carry it too far?
Making it illegal for a woman to pay a man to beat her and so cause her to lose her child: Logical.
Making it illegal for a woman in her first trimester who didn't even know she was pregnant to lose her baby because she got blind drunk: Really? um...
RE: feminist movies. You should see if you can get your hands on Azumi. If you don't find fake blood spraying everywhere for 2 hours, it's great!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azumi
All this talk about Sigourney Weaver in Aliens or Uma Thurman in Kill Bill as the best feminist movie is a whole lot of hooey.
Everyone knows that Jean Peters in Anne of the Indies is the mould from which all these others are cast.
Did Sigourney Weaver have a cool pirate name like Captain Providence? Nope. Was Jovovich the Terror of the Spanish Main? Nope. Could Thurman go toe-to-toe with Blackbeard and win? Nope - not without all the special effects.
What about dastardly deeds like kidnapping the French spy's wife to sell on the slave market for revenge? What about spitting in Blackbeard's eye? What about out-sailing and out-foxing the Royal Navy?
Weaver, Jovovich, and Thurman are the PowerPuff Girls compared to the dread pirate Captain Providence. They didn't even have a loyal crew of bloody cutthroat minions to do their bidding. Captain Providence didn't need any fancy space guns or super powers or skimpy outfits, no Ma'am!
So hooey I said and hooey I maintain against these latter-day pseudo-tough fem fatales.
Sheesh!
A plea from this author friend... don't judge the whole state and all its residents by our completely idiotic, assinine, time-wasting, busy-work legislature! My hubby and I have both lived in Utah since we were born and I swear to you, we spend the entire legislative session shaking our
heads, throwing things, laughing maniacally, and swearing. A lot. And we're not the only ones.
Other fantastically stupid bills that were proposed this time: cutting twelfth grade, and relaxing the child car seat laws. Thankfully both of those died quick deaths, but COME ON.
And yes, we are Mormons. And yes, lax gun laws here, although I don't know anyone with a flamethrower. But they might sell them at WalMart. You can stay with us on your field trip.
I remembered one other bill that sadly also died a quick death.
One brave (probably radical, flaming liberal) legislator proposed modifying sex ed classes to include information about STDs and contraception. It was quickly voted down in committee.
GAH.
@ STEPH "NOT A GIT" GITTINS:
I stand with you. (Also a Utahn, but both a Mormon & ex-Mormon, in defiance of the Law of Contradiction.)
One quick point of clarification: flame-throwers are in fact legal and are in fact available for purchase at any fine drug- or grocery store. To clarify: all one needs to make a flame-thrower is a can of hairspray and a cigarette lighter. To further clarify: I used my flame-thrower to repel representative Jason Chaffetz when I ran into him at the local Orem, UT Rudfuckers. Interesting fact: Chaffetz was not in fact repelled by the flames; they didn't even burn him; they in fact excited and seemed to even empower him. How I defeated the evil Jason C: I threw a glass of water on him. He immediately melted, screaming, into the floor.
Heh. My dearest Lydia neglects to mention who actually wrote the flamethrower scene. Her doting hubby, of course.
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