I don't do romantic comedies

I read a blog this afternoon that had reposted a BBC online article stating that watching romantic comedies leads to failed relationships as viewers will develop false notions about sex and love. The blogger reposting it offered the conclusion that romantic comedies are to women what porn is to men, which made me realize that when it comes time for me to plunk down my hard earned cash at the cineplex, it's pretty much never on the romantic comedy fare. The last three movies I saw have been Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Happy Go Lucky, and Role Models. None of them were chick flick rom com stuff. Rather, when it comes to comedies I tend to favor the more frat boy variety, the stuff marketed to men primarily. Crude jokes about sexuality I suppose are just more appealing to me than a comedy centering on a woman who is always a bridesmaid and never a bride (27 Dresses, awful movie.)
Maybe also it is the fact that unlike many other women in my age range, I do not have aspirations of finding a husband or falling in love. Perhaps to me sex is just all a big joke, and not the stuff of sentimentality.





With that said, I totally stood in line opening weekend for the Sex and the City movie.

(Role Models and Zach and Miri are extremely funny, if you're in a noncerebral mood they're good fun.)

a charming coincidence

yesterday while on the F train going to Broadway Lafayette I was sitting and listening to a Tegan and Sara song on my ipod. Then at Delancey I noticed a girl get on the train and stand in front of me, she had some plastic thing in the outer part of her ear so I did a double take, wondering if she was deaf. Then I looked at the girl's face and realized that it was Sara/Tegan standing in front of me (I can't tell them apart, but I think it was Sara.) I stared at her, she stared back so I just smiled and resisted the urge to ask her if she was in town for a show.
That's one of the weird things about New York, there really is a chance the person you're playing on your ipod will magically materialize. I think if it had been Cat Power that had magically appeared I would have let out an audible yelp of surprise.

gaitskill interview

This Thursday I am going to be interviewing Mary Gaitskill at her home in Red Hook. Because mail seems to mysteriously vanish before it gets to my hands (my Juliana Hatfield Cd and book also never made it to my door) I have not yet gotten her new collection of short stories so I am fretting that it might not get to me in time. I'm nervous, because not only is Gaitskill one of my favorite writers, she is also the subject of my MA thesis (which I finally finished last week.)

I was thinking today as I walked through cold, austere Prospect Park that perhaps what made me connect so much to her work during my late teens--early twenties is the fact that she has always written on the darkness and trauma that seems to be inherent in sexuality, something that I was always aware of growing up.

Alba in adaptation of Bender novel

I discovered a few weeks ago--via both IMDB and Perez Hilton--that my favorite author Aimee Bender (I am writing my master's thesis on one of her books) has adapted her book An Invisible Sign of My Own into a screenplay that is now filming. Cast in the lead role is....Jessica Alba! While Ms. Alba is always worthy eye candy in action flicks I can't help but suggest that perhaps Zooey Deschanel, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman etc. might have all been far better options. Still, I hope the flick is as good as the novel, even with Alba.

Thank god for Obama

I had been nervous all of October about the election, hoping and praying that Obama would win. But other than adorning my sweaters and belongings with pins and stickers I found little else I could feasibly do. I was relieved and overjoyed with the word came that Obama was the projected winner. I stayed up until the wee hours of the night hopping from Brooklyn bar to the next, watching the tally of electoral votes and finally being rewarded with Obama's victory speech and McCain's eloquent concession.

A woman in the bar bought everyone champagne and the bartender gave us a round on the house as we cheered along with other patrons whose eyes were also glued to the screen. A parade of children marched in the street banging drums and screaming Obama until adults joined in. All night the streets were lit up with cheering and fire crackers snapping, and it was incredible to see so many people so happy over his win. As I have been a registered DFL voter since senior year of high school this has been the first time my presidential pick has one, utter joy.

Rachel Getting Married

Tonight I was fortunate enough to get press spots to Rachel Getting Married, Jonathan Demme's new film starring Anne Hathaway. I've been dying to see it for ages, especially since this summer offered up little else to me cinematically than pure chick flick fluff (Sex and the City) and lots of over the top frat boy esque comedies (Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder). But nowhere this summer did I find means to satisfy my indie drama craving, hence my anticipation for Rachel Getting Married. The film was shot primarily with loosely staged scenes, so there's a strong sense of naturalism in the cast's interactions. Hathaway was wonderfully intense as Kym, with somehow not being over the top. I think she really has a larger range as an actress than she's shown thus far (albeit her supporting role in Broke Back Mountain.) I identified a lot with Kym as the recovering addict who just can't pull it all together.



I felt teary eyed and affected by the film and wandered around the artificial austereness of the east side of midtown while listening to Ipod letting everything wash over me. It's been awhile since a film has had the strength to affect me personally.

It's still three weeks before National Coming Out Day

Today Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson came out of the closet, as did Clay Aiken. Strange it all happened on the same day.

Kudos to them, even as obvious as it was.

Yummy

I am so in love with Shirataki tofu noodles, they are all I seem to eat--if I eat at home--nowadays. I bought six bags last night, and a bag of seaweed noodles. I can't eat pasta, but I can eat these, one serving is only 20 calories, and if you eat the whole bag, it's only 40 calories. My friend's exboyfriend says they smell like fish, but if you nuke them they taste and smell just like normal noodles (and you don't have to boil
them as they are already soft.) I ate them for breakfast today smothered in garlic and tomato sauce.

The trouble with shoes

I have an interview tomorrow so I bought these wedge heel shoes that are grey and purple with polka dot bows, because I realized I already destroyed the other pair of girl shoes that I bought. I am not a girly shoe person. I like boots with an atheletic heel, so if need be I can run from an attacker or perhaps on to a soon to depart subway train or kick open the back doors of buses. New York City is a tough place, you cannot make it on wobbly Manolos. Heels hurt my feet and prevent me from speed walking, why wear them? I bought my first pair of high heels last month and took them off my feet within an hour because they hurt so much. How do you ladies do it? I'm not very good at being a girl. Plus my feet are 10/11, not girly girl Cinderella sized, rather monster sized, but they let me run fast and kick hard so I don't complain.

New Kids on the Block and Embarassing Celebrity Crushes

So my friend Paul asked me to go see the New Kids On the Block reunion show at Madison Square Garden. I actually was saddened to admit that I never liked them the first time around, I mean even at the age of seven I knew what sucky manufactured music was and knew somehow that liking it was bad.

Secretly though, I envy my friends who liked them, who still have NKOTB merchandise shoved in the back of some closet somewhere, who went to concerts with all their best girl friends and had crushes on the "band"'s members. I don't have any embarassing celebrity crushes, or any embarassing CDs in my collection. I feel gypped in a way, like there isn't any nostalgia for me. Once an Irish friend of mine was having drinks with me in a seedy bar and she said "Okay, most embarassing celebrity crushes." So I told her everyone going back to age seven. And she said "None of those are at all embarassing, there must be something worse." But there's not. I used to like Garbage and Shirley Manson, is that embarrassing?

I will confess: I got teary eyed at the Sex and The City Movie.

So I saw the Sex and the City movie on Saturday, something I have already been unduly criticized for, especially from my friends of the male gender. I bought four tickets for my friends and I a full week in advance and then my (dear) pal Sarah and I stood in line for an hour to make sure we got good seats front and center, and then fought off anyone who attempted to take the seats we saved for my other pals.

So yes, the movie's plot is meandering and messy, and full of little small half hour television show sized problems that vanish in twenty minutes. And Jennifer Hudson is a bit annoying, but her role wasn't that great to begin with.

But I will admit I got teary eyed at the end of the flick. As did Sarah. As did many girls in the audience, including some who were full on crying. Despite its materialism, and it's cheesiness, it struck a chord in me. I am a girl who shipped off to New York City in my twenties, who has never had a boyfriend, and who has a large group of girlfriends who all kvetch about men. I can identify, I lack Carrie's shoes and income, but it still relates to my life in the end. There was just so much love between best friends in that movie's audience, it was a powerful feeling, all these girls joined together and bonding.



And I still contend that the show (and film) are feminist, not a terribly intellectual feminism but feminist nonetheless. I was particularly pleased with Samantha's statement that she's tired of her life being centered around a man. Miranda, Samantha, and Carrie all encounter pitfalls with the men in their lives but everything is okay in the end because they have each other.
Remember the episode where Charlotte says "How about the men will be just for fun, and we'll be each other's soul mates?"
How can you not love a show with that kind of message?

The newest band in my Ipod, The Long Blondes

One of my closest Brooklynite friends is in the process of convincing her long lost true love from high school to relocate to New York from their remote Massachusetts home. In an effort to do so, she has been plotting an extensive parlay into the cultural offerings of the city and asking me--the girl who can never spend a night in--to aid in the planning.
One problem is how little her and I actually pay to see live music, which was suprising to me considering how live music was a weekly aspect of my schedule as an undergrad (but I worked at the college radio station and got more than my fair share of guest list spots.) But really, the only time I go to see bands is when in conjunction with one those infamous dance parties (Mondo, TisWas, Rated X) or at many of the fabulous outdoor concerts New York offers.


But a band I have been really getting into lately are The Long Blondes, sort of spacey, sort of dancey, kind of like Blonde Redhead with a new wave beat. They're coming to Greenpoint's Studio B on the 15th. Can't wait.

So far we have that and the Slipper Room for burlesque on the agenda, with a possible trip down to Love on MacDougal, which is where I once spent one of the best Valentine's Days of my life, dancing all night with fabulous gay men dressed as cupid.

a new start

This blog is an attempt at public blogging. For six and a half years I have mainted an overtly intimate private blog at www.livejournal.com/shescreamed, which tracked my path from an academically ambitious high school senior to a listless graduate student in new york city. The only problem is when potential employers and coworkers ask me if I blog I have to either lie and say no, tell them yes and then neglect to give the address, or give them the address and hope to god I haven't written anything embarassing in the past few weeks.

Also my habit of utter honesty in that blog has burned a couple of bridges