lizzielou.com

Here are my selections for five favorite movies watched in 2007. These are movies that had my full attention, made me want to watch them again right away, had me talking about them to Lolly and thinking about them for a while afterwards. I didn’t keep track of what I watched specifically this year, and the year flew by so quickly, so I had trouble with picking, but I’ll stand by these choices. Alphabetically, they are…

The Brave One (07)
The Dead Girl (06)
Grindhouse: Death Proof (07)
Police Beat (05)
Shut up and Sing (05)

Although, disturbingly, I am now seeing that these, with the exception of Police Beat, center around the abuse of women in some way. That’s fucked up… even if they’re not ‘xploitation and some of them return the ass-kicking in the end, I’m feeling a little hinky about my list here.

Really, I’m not a freak. No, really.

My friend T-Bone used to keep a blog about the weeklyish brunches of the weeklyish brunch group that she graciously organizes with her H-Band, Matt. This Sunday Lolly + I accidentally had brunch with T-Bone + Matt, so I decided to do a Brunch Blog in their honor.

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After I did some housecleaning this morning, activating my allergies, and Lolly finished up some work, it had already turned into afternoon and we wanted to go see the squid exhibit but first we needed a meal so we decided to have brunch although it was well after lunch time and more like “lunner” or maybe “dinch.” There had been no previous brunch notifications for the day (and it would have been too late anyway if there had been) so we sallied forth to the Sunlight Cafe, hopefully for some falafel (but that’s apparently an inappropriate brunch food item ’cause it wasn’t on the menu today) or a pancake, but when I started getting congested I thought I would have something spicy but ultimately went with the #3 which wasn’t spicy at all and quite good anyway.

But before the eating started, we got a table and menus and when I looked up T-Bone was laughing at us because they were eating there too in the next room. Surprise! No brunch = brunch! Then they didn’t join us at our table big enough for four, but went back to their own table because they were having a private party at which they were eating plates of food that they were vague about later, referring to them only as “piles” and “more tortilla shaped” leading me to suspect that they really were having a private affair, shrouded in secrecy and perhaps some falafel.

When they finished their veiled vegetarian vittles we scooched over and they joined us, T-Bone said, to watch us eat our food, but really I think they wanted to hang out with us and catch-up on things and chat and get us to invite ourselves over for New Year’s Eve, and I have to say they were Very Crafty about it but successful in the end because as soon as Lolly went to the Ladies Room I quickly succumbed to their manipulative monkey-shines and did just that. There’s always the possibility that we’re being had and we’ll show up for ball-dropping and board-gaming with our cocktails and our sleeping bags and be left out in the cold like styrofoam wooden-legged bunny statues in prairie dresses. (And if that happens, I will start singing “Wuthering Heights” ala Kate Bush because in addition to balls and games there was also supposed to be some dancin’ and singin’ but just nice regular singing of songs not necessarily to further a plot and not that awful shout singing, with all due respect to our differing opinions.)

But before we made plans for later and were standing outside in the cold watching T-Bone dance as we almost always request of her — Lolly especially likes the hip hop dancin’ although today T-Bone invented a new style of dancing that is half tap dancing and half hip hop dancing and you can pick which half you want to be which, like the top half does pop and lock while the bottom half does soft-shoe and I suppose you could have the right half krumping and the left half shim-shamming but we didn’t think of that then — we talked about various things while we sat around the table eating or drinking coffee and sneezing and getting dripped on by a pipe in the ceiling or not depending on where one was sitting. A list of topics discussed:

I. Christmas

1. Montana and Wyoming, sameness of
2. decorations or lack of

1. pleasant
2. effect on TiVo of

1. lady no longer hogging the roles of all three ghosts
2. The Black Nativity, inclusion of Pam
…..a. goodness of show
…..b. yes, met her several times even since her haircut

II. Movies

1. Grindhouse – Planet Terror
…..a. too long
…..b. appreciating cinematography and style of
…..c. Matt liking better than Death Proof
2. Grindhouse – Death Proof
…..a. may also be too long
…..b. disappointment with Tarantino dialogue therein
…..c. first half v. second half
……….i. Lolly’s appreciation of seeing parts of Austin
……….ii. LizzieLou’s appreciation of girls kicking ass
…..d. coolness of car chase
…..e. hotness of Zoe Bell

1. Sweeney Todd
…..a. not seen yet
…..b. bloodiness of as reported by cousin
…..c. Angela Lansbury
2. Across the Universe
…..a. lesbian cheerleaders
…..b. Julie Taymor

1. those preferred by lolly
…..a. Hedwig
…..b. the Buffy episode
2. those dreaded by Lolly
…..a. Oklahoma
……….i. autoharp playing
……….ii. prestige of playing autoharp compared to sticks or cymbals
……….iii. differences between recorders and Flutophones
…..b. Sound of Music
…..c. pretty much everything else

III. Pets

1. fine
2. attempts at, yet ultimately failing, to open doors
…..a. lack of thumbs
…..b. unspoken acknowledgment of lack of brains

1. enforcement of statute by local authorities, notable lack of and thankfulness for
2. enforcement of statute by shelter workers, questionable and variability of
…..a. answers that should not be given to screening question, “What will you do when your cat misses the litter box the first time?”
……….i. “Beat it!”
……….ii. “Preheat the oven to 350!”
3. originations of statute, reasons
…..a. crazy cat ladies
…..b. number v. size and/or type of pet
……….e.g. 3 legal pet elephants v. 4 illegitimate small cats
…..c. alternatives including basing statute by weight of pet, overlooking of
……….e.g. one ton of pet(s) = one elephant or 200 cats

IV. New Year’s Eve

B. people who invite themselves over

When Mother was last here she brought me some books she had found at a library donation drive where she was volunteering. One of them, from 1903 (C.E.), is called “Letters Home” by W. D. Howells. W. D., according to the title page, is “Author of ‘Literary Friends and Acquaintance,’ ‘Literature and Life,’ ‘The Kentons,’ ‘Their Silver Wedding Journey,’ Etc. Etc.” On the inside front cover someone has noted that this is a “First Edition” but I think it was probably the Only Edition.

I started reading the first of the letters home from one “Mr. Otis Binning to his sister-in-law Mrs. Walter Binning (of Boston)” and was pleased to find that he (Mr. Binning) writes about how fabulous and terrible is New York City. Then I find, next to the passage that says, “…no one that is any one lives there, for New York is in nothing more anomalous than in having the east side for her fashionable quarter…,” a comment, in pencil, that informs me: No longer so – 1917.

It would seem that one Mrs. Ellen Allison Kerney, as noted on the label pasted in the front of the book, wanted future readers to know that the East Side was less than fashionable a scant 14 years after this book was written. Mrs. Kerney made other notations as well, more ambiguous, via underscores, margin squiggles, Etc. Etc. However, one could guess Mrs. Kerney liked that New York was described as “this apotheosis of Opportunity, this myriad-visaged Chance, this Fortune on a million wheels!” One could also assume Mrs. Kerney agreed that, “there is something about the New York way of dressing and talking that makes you know them at once as far as you can see them.”

Where the author writes, “…in an old place like this there must be a society so sufficient to itself that it need not be at the pains to be exclusive…,” Mrs. Kerney wrote: This is true – there is a New York who refuses to know the Astors and the Vanderbilts & who does not hang on the outskirts of highish society.

To the author’s quip that “…nothing would do American but to come to New York. That was better than Europe, anyway…,” Mrs. Kerney enthusiastically penciled: Yea, verily – Here is better than that!

Sadly, Mrs. Kerney seems not to have read past chapter XII. Or perhaps she lost her pencil.

I think if she were around today, she’d blog.

i feel pretty, o so pretty

i feel pretty and witty and gay

celebrity edition 2

I am actually quite disgusted that I even know who “Paris Hilton” is. She’s done nothing but get in the news and she didn’t even do any sensational acts of violence to do it. Yet. Trump is a clown and an asshole, but does at least do something to earn his celebrity and he gives out paychecks. OJ is a disaster. If I ever get hit on the head and the paramedics need to assess basic brain function they could ask me “Where were you when OJ was acquitted?” Although if things keep going like they have, I may have to answer, “Which time?” Kiefer is in jail now too, right? for DUI or running over some senior citizens or eating babies or something? Whatever. I had to stop watching “24″ because if I heard that first-lady-wannabe say the word “Da-vid” one more time I was going to have to get drunk and drive into some senior citizens or eat a baby or…. hey!

celebrity edition

I think I may have seen the stupidest product advertised on television to date. Sometimes I am amazed when people are so inept at chopping carrots or peeling potatoes that they need a special device. You know the lady I’m talking about. She tries so hard to chop and peel, but she makes A Mess and Sometimes Hurts Herself, plus it takes A Lot of Time. So she furrows her finely arched brows and gasps in horror and frustration. Someone, please HELP HER.

Ok, so this is even stupider than that: pantyliners that you stick to the bottom of your feet while you sleep so they can draw out all the toxins. OHMyGoD! Just look at how toxic you are! Those feet minipads are absolutely black with your toxic filth! Can you believe how disgusting and poisonous you are? Of course you can’t – just look at your furrowed finely arched brows and your mouth agape with horror and disbelief.

I couldn’t remember what they were called so I had to Google “toxic feet pads” and would you believe, there is more than one brand of these things? You have to keep using them until you wake up in the morning and your foot maxis are no longer stained with your detritus. There are “lab results” that back up these claims too. The advertisers use words like “pH” and “negative ions” and “infrared technology” to prove their successes. Maybe the troubled folks could just wash their feet before bed?

(In case you don’t the basic cable channels where these adds are being show, I will reluctantly link here to not one, but two, different sellers of these things. Please be warned however, that some people have really disgusting goo feet.)