Halloween costume!

I made a Star Trek insignia out of a pasta box, a piece of paper, some tape, a pin, and some fancy magic markering. Red shirt, pants, boots, and I may splurge on a plastic sci-fi looking gun.

Also, boobs.

Invictus, William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

(Watched the trailed for the movie this morning. Looks good.)

The Left-Handed Gun

Oh Paul Newman, you handsome devil. Even when you're in a movie loaded with homosexual undertones, you're still a wily scamp. Sigh.

Clint Eastwood = Wolverine = <3

High Plains Drifter. In literally every movie that I have watched this weekend, Clint has taken off his shirt at least twice.

Two Mules for Sister Sara. (also watched: The Apartment. Shirley MacLaine is the shit.)

The Outlaw Josey Wales. (Which was really good but I'm about 52% sure that most of it was filmed in someone's basement with a flashlight.) 'Spose it were a good weekend to be a shut-in, but I reckon it best be time to gettin' back to the ol' homestead.

On slate tonight:

Every Which Way But Loose followed by Conan the Barbarian. I need some cheering up on this depressing, rainy, dismal Friday and hot young Clint Eastwood fondling an orangutan followed by Schwarzenegger "acting" is just what the doctor called for. At some point I'm sure I will start to feel embarassed by this growing crush on young Eastwood, but... look at him. Dude looks good.

8 1/2

Fall!

In rural Pennsylvania, that is. Or was. Me. I was there. Yes. So pretty.

HORSE! I don't know this woman, I was just excited to see a horse out and about in the wild, I couldn't resist.

P.S. Yep totes magotes cried at the end of WtWTA. Officially a wimp.

Watched: Oldboy

Oldboy. Ugh. I had to take a shower, make a huge bowl of pasta and watch an episode of the ridiculously over-the-top in a pretty silly way Lie To Me just to feel better. It is an incredibly fucked up, beautiful, gut-wrenching movie. The whole trilogy is on Neflix instant, but I don't think I can watch them all at once.

Also watched: Persepolis. I cried several times, it was so sad. Not maudlin though, it's very funny too and while it's so foreign because my experience growing up was so safe and different from Satrapi's I think I can still understand feeling ambivalence and confusion towards your own country. Again, not that I have to leave the US to feel safe, but it struck a chord. It's really well animated, and I'm currently trying to find its kickass soundtrack to download illegally. Because I'm a BAMF like that. Except not, because lately I've started doing this thing where I cry during movies. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly opened the floodgates, and now this movie. Plus I've been listening to Russo's new novel, That Old Cape Magic, and I cried at the ending on the way to work yesterday morning. AWKWARD.

Going to see Where the Wild Things Are in an hour. I may review Good Hair for next week's IB. It's a movie intensive kind of week; next week I'll be studying for Gender&Africa midterm.

Watched: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

For the first 2 and half hours I was mildly interested, curious to see just how unattractive Leone could make Wallach and digging the Civil War theme running throughout but a little bored, then that last half hour... BAM! So good. So freaking intense. Netflix Instant had to pause the movie to buffer for a minute and I almost had an aneurysm I was so intent on the bridge scene, then the final showdown between the three men. I think that scene of Truco running through the graveyard was completly mesmerizing, the mixture of greed and tragedy and triumph was such a brutal juxtaposition. Just amazing.

But more importantly, why did no one inform me that Clint Eastwood was such a fucking fox?

DAMN. I always thought him of squinty and bleh but now I think I get it. I also think that I have a thing for blonde-haired, blue-eyed taciturn manly actors of yore (See: Mcqueen, Steve; Newman, Paul; Dean, James; et. al.). So there's that. Up next: Unforgiven.

One of the best quotes from one of my all-time favorites,

Well, I want to congratulate you. Shake your hand. Congratulations! You've been named the world's biggest cockroach. This award is given in recognition of your unparalleled lack of decency and humanity. Bravo. You're going to die friendless and alone.

Shut up! If I want you to speak, I'll wave a snausage under your nose.

And that is why Veronica Mars is my homegirl.

A couple of post weekend reflections.

1. Sundays are the Fredos of weekdays. They're weak and stupid.


2. New format, for my 0 readers! What, what?


3. Look who showed up in my life this weekend!
   

We kicked it old school. Busy week ahead, followed by another weekend of busy-ness. You know what I need?

A little Canadia.

Bonus!

First attempt at vegan cooking. Orange pepper, yellow squash, potato, tomato, onion, mushroom, and garlic, paprika, and cumin. It tasted way better than it looks.

Should I be studying? Probably.

But am I? No. Instead I'm going to post these pictures I found while Googling Tilda Swinton (procrastination, it's a bitch). They're from some magazine called An Other. I knew I kind of liked that Swinton character when I saw her in Thumbsucker. Then she was Gabriel in Constantine, and I was all, WHO IS THIS PERSON? By the time of Broken Flowers I kind of seriously dug her whole shtick. When she showed up in the Chronicles of Narnia (as JADIS, no less!) I was completely sold, and when I watched Orlando in my World Cinema class I was pretty sure it was love. Then she actually managed to make about 20 minutes of Benjamin Button not be deathly boring and I knew it was a love that would last. I don't even care that she signed that stupid petition to let Polanski off for raping a little girl. Because she's awesome, and entitled to her opinion. And I seriously doubt she gives a fuck what I think either. That being said, behold:

She is glorious.


















As are these dresses.

If I had that figure, I'd rock the crazy pink ribbon dress or the Star Wars-computer-esque necklace or the cable knit fishtail. Hell, I'd rock them all. AT THE SAME TIME.















Yeah, Tilda. That just happened.



































Also, I am majorly excited about this. I read about Elizabeth Bathory when I read The Most Evil Men and Women in History on summer vacation one year during high school. Good beach read. Kepts the creeps away. Also... she was a crazy bitch, and I hope that's the way they play this.

FYI:

This is how you kick your mom's ass at Scrabble.

I am mercilessly competitive at Scrabble. I will never say die. I will never pass. And I will never stop putting ridiculous fake words on the board that I will convince you are real (and that you've just never heard of them).

I think I will be seeing this.

"Now this is going to be a little difficult, so stay with me. How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you're carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff you have in your life, and start with the little things; things on shelves, in drawers, the knickknacks. Then start adding larger stuff; clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your tv. Backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home, I want you to stuff it all into that backpack.


Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office, and then you move into the people that you trust with your most intimate secrets; your brothers, sisters, your children, parents, and finally, your husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend. You get them into that backpack. Feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake. Your relationships are the heaviest components of your life, all those negotiations and arguments and secrets, compromises. The slower we move, the faster we die. Make no mistake. Moving is living.


Some animals were meant to carry each other, to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We're sharks."