Takk Dirty

Feb220017
Originally uploaded by jrmystone.

Sigur Rós graced Indianapolis with their presence on President’s Day. It was as fantastic as I thought it would be. Rather than relying on the disingenuous “quiet-loud-quiet” formula that the Indy Star music critic is using, here is a list of images that their live show conjured for me:

• Freezing fog
• Napping under stained-glass windows
• Ice-coated trees refracting light under street lamps
• Spelunking under stalactites
• My childhood music box
• Swimming with albino fish in a cenoté
• Shattering icicles

My rib cage practically snapped from their bass lines. I am happy.

Side note: Can someone tell me why I am compelled to chew the faces of Icelandic women when they talk? The way they curl their tongues to form purrs of sentences is disarming.

overheard in pilates class

let's hike our legs like my dog pierre.

a light dusting with a dash of publicity

Due to my past entry on PETA and food fights on fur-clad celebrities, I feel obliged to comment about the most recent incident on Paris “won’t take my clothes off for Playboy but I’ll answer my cell phone while doing it doggy-style” Hilton and designer Julien MacDonald.

Tsk, tsk, tsk, PETA. I gave you a brava on Wintour because of the humiliation factor. The torture of being pummeled by a pie in front of her peers was spectacular, especially when she has only eaten souls for the last twenty years. However, your incident in England is unacceptable.

Entirely edited and designed by Tr3nt via source.

According to PETA, the reason for the WMD, or War on Manic Debutantes, is that they “may have been able to ignore images of bloody skinned animals gasping for breath in the past, but hopefully a dash of flour will help [them] rise to the occasion and forsake fur once and for all.” [Source]

Well done, PETA. Well done. I’m sure MacDonald and Hilton are back at their estates contemplating the errors of their fashionable flubbers. Especially after all of the wonderful publicity you have afforded them. Honestly, MacDonald looks as if he received an invitation to the grandest ball in France circa 1796, complete with powdered wigs and panniers. And don’t confuse Paris, she may think she is in the grandest coke party in L.A.

After all, the only fashion crime she has committed is this:

"I am two with nature." Woody Allen

I hate to admit this -- there are two television programs that I absolutely must see and get thoroughly entangled in: Gauntlet 2 and Project Runway. The first step to recovery is admitting, right? Anyhoo, I figured out why Robin from the Gauntlet fascinates me. Check it:

Sources: Robin / Scarlett

If you stripped Scarlett Johansson from her L'Oreal contract and fantastic scripts…If she was a cracked out deviant, she would resemble MTV’s Robin. Now that that’s settled…

For my literati peeps (possible spoiler alert). Toombsday and I saw Match Point over the weekend. We didn’t know much about the film, only that it was written and directed by Woody Allen. In the opening scene, I was taken aback. Quoi? Woody Allen writing an English film? Has he even been outside of New York? How does he plan on bottling l’eau d’anglais?

I adore Allen for his capacity of capturing human flaws while adding a New Yorker’s sensibility (read: neurotic). Allen has only been writing films for forty years. Maybe he’s a little bored with New York’s inspiration. Drawing from his film’s portrayal of the British, I have determined the following: 1) They all play croquet; 2) They all wear heavily starched dress shirts; and 3) They all skeet shoot after drinking G&Ts.

But if you have not yet had an opportunity to see Match Point, please do so. Some have compared it to Woody Allen channeling Hitchcock. And a film can never go wrong when you combine those two. In short, his film compared love versus lust, and the emotive complexities between the two. Love is a soft, comfortable place where his character continually returns for validation, renewal, security, yada yada. Lust, a manic state, is exciting and thrilling -- an addiction of sorts.

Maybe this is why he chose to go with a British flair -- perhaps with our overindulgent American qualities, our current pop culture consciousness can not do justice to this level of writing. We do not exude “the fitness of character,” that is required in a traditional tragedy (and by traditional, I mean Aristotelian). The British still have traditional elements of language, culture, etc. that they have not yet destroyed (correct me otherwise). This also may be why he chose Scarlett Johansson to play this role -- she’s an oversexed American tart who spins men into a tizzy. By placing her within this film’s environment, her character suffers an absurdity of her own false expectations from Britain’s entertainment industry and a married man. The contrast makes England a fitting location for this tension. In essence, Scarlett’s end is our end (and I won’t tell you what that is).

This is probably Woody Allen at his best. Even though it is part Hitchcock, it is in essence homage to Greek tragedy with an American spin (even though it’s “English”). To accomplish this, there is a “whole” plot in which we are introduced to the characters untainted by their flaws, only to have them succumb to their faults and finally reach a concluding catharsis. What makes this equally Allen and Aristotle is the catastrophe, or the reversal of events, which is entirely wrapped up in the Allen’s symbol of tennis and the fate of “the net,” hence the name Match Point, from the protagonist:

The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net and for a split second it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck it goes forward and you win. Or maybe it doesn't and you lose.

There are no coincidences in this work, only a fated connection between events strung together by human flaw. Allen even gets to dash a few of his quirky stylistic effects of post-war operas and angry ghosts. And this, my friends, is what makes Allen rock. And this film is utter genius.

I would love to draw out these Greek/American/British comparisons on an etch-a-sketch for you, but I don’t want to alienate anyone (if I haven’t already). Please comment if you want to kibitz about it.

"Conjugate positive vibes"

Preface: If you don’t want to read my entry, at least scroll down to the last paragraph and check out the links to the video and Biker Fox. You won’t be sorry.

When a friend first told me that the city of Carmel was considering a speed limit for the northern part of the Monon Trail, I said, “What a great idea.” In 2005, a cyclist was killed in a traffic accident when she crossed a street that the trail occasionally intersects. Perhaps a 15 mph restriction would prevent accidents like these from occurring. “No, no, no,” he clarified, “They want to put a restriction on the trail itself. To keep bikes from speeding over 15 mph.”

Now that’s an interesting concept. I really enjoy the trail, one of the few redeeming qualities of Indianapolis. By far, it is one of the most creative uses of urban space (I would almost say nationally if not regionally) by converting an abandoned railroad into a walking/biking/rollerblading trail. The Monon Trail is one of the few places where I can take The Toby to sniff other dogs’ anuses without apologizing, run without fear of being sideswiped by a vehicle, and actually enjoy my surroundings. Sure, the cyclists are a little annoying, especially when they whizz by you at lightning speed, screaming, “On your left!” It’s even funnier when a dyslexic cyclist screams, “On your right!” then zags left, and misses The Toby by a few inches.

The speed restriction seems a bit unnecessary. As far as I have read or seen, no one has been injured on the trail because of cycling. And cyclists are far less annoying than the SAHM’s pushing double-stroller SUVs. I imagine it is the SAHM profile whose primary concern on the trail is “discourteous speeding.” This may be just a Carmel effort of segregating itself from the rest of the city, which I have seen before (ahem, Nichols Hills in Oklahoma City? You know, where the citizens have their own water supply, but during a black out insist that they be serviced first before the rest of the city.). But this is all speculation, even though the demographic who responded to the trail survey was described as “white, non-Hispanic, college-educated users earning $40,000 or more per year.”

Even though I do not own a bicycle, I actually empathize with Indy cyclists. They passed the speed restriction today, which brought to mind a couple of questions. If the speed limit deters bikers, where are they supposed to train and commute? What message is this sending to Indiana’s initiatives to overturn obesity, such as InShape? How do they plan on policing this restriction? Will I get to see some racy, high-speed Pacific Blue type chases on bike? Oh, well, I don’t have answers to any of these questions. But this is the perfect excuse to segue into Tulsa’s biking situation via this locally directed video by James Plumlee that includes Oklahoma legend Biker Fox. Enjoy!

filibusted

The Ballad of Jed Clampett: "America is addicted to oil." Isn't that kind of like the pimp pointing out the obvious to the pervert right before he sells him his favorite beyotch even though she may have emotional issues and venereal diseases?

Lest I remind you of Internal Revenue, Section 179, Mr. President.

good morning

Somebody explain to me the logic behind this:

I have these problems with alarm clocks. Number one is that they exist. Number two is that I hit snooze about five times before I even think about getting out of bed. Not even Eagles’ “Hotel California” can repulse me out of bed long enough to get in the shower. So in an effort to calm the storm which is Lizz at 5:45 a.m., Toombsday bought me a new alarm clock.

It’s an Emerson Research alarm clock. Not only can it alert individual alarms throughout the week, it also can set its own time according to the arrangement of the planets and wind direction. Plus it has the name “Research” in it. Über genius, I know.

What the genius designers didn’t consider is that the firking bejerkin sleep button is nestled into the snooze bar. Let me clarify: When I roll over in my coma to shut off Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” and I accidentally hit the snooze bar (which, again, cradles the sleep button), it automatically shuts itself off not to be snoozed again. The designers thought, “Hey, any normally functioning person can distinguish between the snooze bar and the sleep button and depress the corresponding and desired function.” Not so, Emerson Research, not so. I can’t even find the front door knob in the morning let alone zone in on a snooze bar.

Toombsday and I have one last ditch effort of annihilating the sleep button before dropping another $30 on an alarm. To Emerson Research, may birds of hell PLUCK OUT YOUR EYES for your poorly designed monstrosity of utter intelligent confusion.