Party Down

I've been trying to limit the amount of tv that I watch.  Unfortunately, the fact that I keep starting awesome shows is making that difficult.  

Party Down is basically about a group of aspiring actors and writers, who can't get payed acting gigs and are subsequently part of a catering team that is run by the biggest idiot in the world.  Please watch it.  The douchey-ness of some of the characters along with pretty much constant hilarity makes this like my new favorite show.

danielle is driving me INSANE

Is Winter over yet?  Is it time for next quarter?  Please?  I know that I was complaining about it before, but I want to go back.

It's so sad that I can like her so much sometimes, and yet she's totally ruthless.  She knows exactly how to make me feel like a piece of shit.  And of course she always does when we're arguing.  She doesn't fight fair.

B: "Can you pleeeease take 5 minutes away from that football game (OSU v. BYU on tv) to help me clean the kitchen before mom gets home?"

D: "No, I'm busy.  I'm watching the football game!  I'll do it later."

B: "C'mon, just pause it.  That's what DVR is for."

D: "Look, I know that our college experiences have been different.  I'm sorry that you're unhappy and just don't like anything, okay?  But that's not my fault.  I told you'd I do it later, so just get off of my ass."

B: "Okay."

And then I just gave up.  Because do you know how ridiculous it sounds to yell at someone, "I'M NOT UNHAPPY."  And who knows if it would even have been true.

But still, she doesn't fight fair.

Sizzling Starbucks Brunette - m4w - 30 (Pico/Robertson)

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Date: 2009-12-19, 4:47PM PST

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You are absolutely adorable. You have the cutest little features and standing right in front of me as I type this. I want to talk to you so badly but can't imagine you are single.
They just shouted your name "natalie" peppermint mocha. So sad...there you go. If you see this I was the guy in the leather chair opposite the counter, typing away on my macbook.
I will be here until 7pm. Please let me buy you coffee # 2.

Through the Looking Glasses

Eyewear says a lot about a person, I think.  Frame, shape, color... even how often you wear them says something about your personality.  Yes, it could be just a pair of glasses that you wear while reading before bed, OR it could be a fashion statement.

Unfortunately, my glasses don't say much.

Or if they do, it's that I'm too damn lazy to get them adjusted because they fall off of my face while I'm trying to read at night.  And when I get up to pee.

Which is why I'm getting a new pair.  Not that I don't like them, because I do, but... I just need another pair.  Does that make sense?  To the girls, at least?

I just need more, okay?  Don't judge me.

But I'm having trouble deciding what kind of frames to get.  I already have some rather rectangular ones, so maybe something slimmer?

Here are some options, please help me decide!!

Club Monaco

D&G

DKNY

Dolce&Gabbana

Ralph Lauren

Ray Ban

As far as color goes, I'd be willing to try black, but I'm thinking that I want a dark brown or tortoiseshell.  The ones I have now are kinda brown on top and bluish on bottom.  It's hard to describe, but suffice it to say that they don't really "go" with everything.

Oh, and none of these glasses have the big sides - you know what I mean?  Like thick sides?  I didn't really see any of those that I was crazy about on the website.  They all have a ton of shit written on the sides, which I'm not really into.  However, if anyone runs across ones with big sides that seem classy, let me know.

Let me stop you before you think I'm moonlighting

But apparently this is where I'll be in 7 years. And just fyi - I watched 5 episodes of 30 Rock today.

Which is why I know that the title of this personal ad is a quote from 30 Rock.

I want to go to there. - 28 (Los Angeles)

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Date: 2009-12-14, 10:14PM PST

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Overdosing on “30 Rock” and wishing I had someone to enjoy it with on this chilly winter evening. To that end, here’s one more SWF ad on CL. I’m a working stiff, road raging, veggie eating, class taking, pleasure reading deprived, caffeine junkie, sarcastic, list writing nerd. I like silly conversations and smoldering glances. I also like tallish menfolk (I'm 5'7) between 25 and 33. Write soon.

I love this album cover

I pretty much had to post this after wednesday

1. I LOVE the women in the crowd who are singing their hearts out
2. The orchestration is great!
3. Okay, she practically melts into the stage at the end
4. The woman can do whatever the hell she wants on stage
5. While I'm at it, I should add that if you wanna see the real shit, take a look at this... unless you've seen Funny Girl a gazillion times like some of us shut-ins

I swear I won't post anything else until after finals.

But since finals are around the corner, it seems kind of appropriate to comment on what music I listen to while "studying".  Which is exactly what I spend most of the time doing.  "Studying", not Studying.  Eh, what can you do?  I'm trying a few different things this time, like a lot of Neko Case along with old jazz and musicals.  So far Les Mis is a Yes and A Chorus Line is a definite NO.  If I could find my Phantom cds that would probably be a Yes, too.

I really like Julie London.  I've always like Julie London.  But some people weren't that impressed with her when she first started singing - they'd much rather have looked at her than heard her.  She started as a pin-up girl when she was 17.  How many Allied soldiers had pictures of her in WWII, do you think?



Here's a version by Susan Boyle that I rather like.  I'm really impressed by her.  She has a musicality about her singing that's not seen very often, at least in her sort of genre.  (I'm placing her in the ex-Broadway star category, since that's what she sings most of the time)  This is a song that can't be too subtle - less is literally more - and most people oversing it (in my opinion).



And just because, here's a version by Babs.  I think it's a little overdone, which only proves my point that it's a hard song to get right for most divas.  

It was one of the best experiences of my life

I was in the pit of the musical Company during high school, playing principal alto sax. If I regret anything about my experiences in band, it's that I waited so long to join APA. I mean, god... my senior year. By the time I realized how great it was to be in an ensemble like that, it was too late. I loved every minute of it, and I sorely regret not getting the balls to do it earlier.

Anyways, one of the girls in the musical sang this song that was incredible. I simple could not believe that she could do it. It was an act of sheer human magnificence. It was this song, and she sang it better:

Obviously, TCM is more awesome in France

Like Firefly, but with cooler music and British accents?

Perhaps.  But it still looks pretty awesome.


SLINGERS from Mike Sizemore on Vimeo.

And for a moment I felt like Carole Lombard

I'm kind of in love with the score to this movie.

Smile

Has anyone ever looked in the comments section of a well-known and much-beloved song on youtube and been utterly surprised by how many people seem to have heard it for the first time on that webpage?



Like, someone will write, "Hey, this is pretty good!" in the comments section of "Hey Jude".  


It's kind of alarming.


Anyways, I just happened to see that Glee was doing a cover of one of my favorite Nat King Cole songs, so I looked it up.  It's... eh.  I really like the way that they arranged the harmonies at the beginning, but for the most part it sounds more like Boyz II Men song than anything else.  They're always too on the beat when they sing as a cast.  That bothers me, too.


Compare for yourself after the jump

a story, and I figured out how to add jumps to the end of my posts. by the way, is this new format weird?

JOHN CHEEVER

The Enormous Radio

Jim and Irene Wescott were the kind of people who seem to strike that satisfactory average of income, endeavor, and respectability that is reached by the statistical reports in college alumni bulletins. They were the parents of two young children, they had been married nine years, they lived on the twelfth floor of an apartment house near Sutton Place, they went to the theater on an average of 10.3 times a year, and they hoped someday to live in Westchester. Irene Wescott was pleasant, rather plain girl with soft brown hair, and a wide, fine forehead upon which nothing at all had been written, and in the cold weather she wore a coat of fitch skins dyed to resemble mink. You could not say that Jim Westcott looked younger than he was, but you could at least say of him that he seemed to feel younger. He wore his graying hair cut very short, he dressed in the kind of clothes his class had worn at Andover, and his manner was earnest, vehement, and intentionally naïve. The Westcotts differed from their friends, their classmates, and their neighbors, only in an interest they shared in serious music. They went to a great many concerts - although they seldom mentioned this to anyone - and they spent a good deal of time listening to music on the radio.

Their radio was an old instrument, sensitive, unpredictable, and beyond repair.

A thing that I like about West Side Story

I've heard (on more than one occasion) people say that this is one of the weakest songs from the whole production. I'm not sure why... there's probably some musical theory about how the harmonies don't change from minor to major fast enough or something.

I don't know.

But, to me, that's why it's music and not science. It helps me to not be able to figure these things out - that way something in my life can have a little magic.

I'm feeling transcendental... am I here?

One of my favorite performances by any singer, ever.

“I was all smooth surface with nothing inside except emptiness.”

Ray Carver captivated me the very first time I read this story. He seemed both broken and whole, knowing and confused, and it's only recently that I'm coming to realize the extent of power that was wielded over him by an editor. Gordon Lish was a great discoverer, but not a great writer. But for all of his meddling, and the extent to which he altered truths and minimized character, Carver's stories were not destroyed. It's kind of amazing when you start to read through the rough drafts, startling to see the broad-handed strokes of difference.

Carver's anthology came out recently and I'm interested to read it. I might go to the library some time this week to see if they have it. Until then, I'll have to make do with one of my favorite collections of his:

A look at Ray Version vs. Lish's:

My friend Mel

Herb
McGinnis
, a cardiologist,
was talking. Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist, and sometimes that gives him the right. ¶ The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. It was Saturday afternoon.
Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. There were Mel Herb
and me I
and his second wife, Teresa—Terri, we called her—and my wife, Laura. We lived in Albuquerque,
then. But but
we were all from somewhere else. ¶ There was an ice bucket on the table. The gin and the tonic water kept going around, and we somehow got on the subject of love. Mel Herb
thought real love was nothing less than spiritual love. He said When he was young
he’d spent five years in a seminary before quitting to go to medical school. He He’d left the Church at the same time, but he
said he still looked back on to
those years in the seminary as the most important in his life.
Terri said the man she lived with before she lived with Mel
Herb
loved her so much he tried to kill her.
Herb laughed after she said this. He made a face. Terri looked at him.
Then Terri she
said, “He beat me up one night, the last night we lived together
. He dragged me around the living room by my ankles. He kept saying, , all the while saying,
‘I love you, don’t you see?
I love you, you bitch.’ He went on dragging me around the living room. My , my
head kept knocking on things.” TerriShe
looked around the table at us and then looked at her hands on her glass
. “What do you do with love like that?” she said.
¶ She was a bone-thin woman with a pretty face, dark eyes, and brown hair that hung down her back. She liked necklaces made of turquoise, and long pendant earrings. She was fifteen years younger than Herb, had suffered periods of anorexia, and during the late sixties, before she’d gone to nursing school, had been a dropout, a “street person” as she put it. Herb sometimes called her, affectionately, his hippie.

“My God, don’t be silly. That’s not love, and you know it,” Mel
Herb
said. “I don’t know what you’d call it,
—madness is what I’d call it—
but I sure know you wouldn’t call it it’s sure as hell not
love.”
“Say what you want to, but I know it was
he loved me
,” Terri said. “
I know he did.
It may sound crazy to you, but it’s true just the same. People are different, Mel Herb
. Sure, sometimes he may have acted crazy. Okay. But he loved me. In his own way, maybe, but he loved me. There was was
love there, Mel Herb
. Don’t say there wasn’t deny me that
.”
Mel
Herb
let out his breath. He held his glass and turned to Laura and me. “The man
He
threatened to kill me, me
too.
” Mel said. He finished his drink and reached for the gin bottle. “Terri’s a romantic. Terri’s of the ‘Kick-me-so-I’ll-know-you-love-me’ school. Terri, hon, don’t look that way.” MelHe
reached across the table and touched Terri’s her
cheek with his fingers. He grinned at her.
“Now he wants to make up,” Terri said.
“After he tries to dump on me.” She wasn’t smiling.

“Make up what?” Mel
Herb
said. “What is there to make up? I know what I know. That’s
, and that’s
all.”

“What would you call it then?” Terri said.
“How’d we get started on this subject anyway?” Terri said. She raised her glass and drank from it. “Herb always has love on his mind,” she said. “Don’t you, honey?” She smiled
now
, and I thought that was the last of it.
“I just wouldn’t call Ed
Carl
’s behavior love. That’s
, that’s
all I’m saying, honey,” Mel Herb
said. “What about you guys?” Mel he
said to Laura and me. “Does that sound like love to you?”

I shrugged.
“I’m the wrong person to ask
.
,” I said. “I didn’t even know the man. I’ve only heard his name mentioned in passing. Carl.
I wouldn’t know. You’d have to know all the particulars. Not in my book it isn’t, but who’s to say? There’re lots of different ways of behaving and showing affection. That way doesn’t happen to be mine.
But I think what you’re saying, Herb,
is that love is an absolute. ?
”
Mel said, “The kind of love I’m talking about is
,” Herb said
.
“
The kind of love I’m talking about, you don’t try to kill people.”

How do you learn your lines?

"Well, you don't learn your lines, you live in the imaginative moment and the line is inevitable in that situation." - Fiona Shaw

Something that's always fascinated me about acting.

Roberta

Irene Dunne is an almost forgotten name to
today's movie audiences. Indeed, if she is
remembered at all it is through the Cary Grant
connection. For her contribution to Hollywood's
history is but a rumour, a whisper lost in the
winds of time. Is that fair?

"If one is not willing to yield to Irene Dunne's temperament, her talents, her reactions, following their detail almost to the loss of one's own identity, one will not know, and will not care, what the film is about." - Stanley Cavell

"She always knew how to put a man in her place, but at the same time leave him room to maneuver out of it." - Richard Schickel



I netflixed this, only to realize about 2 minutes in that I'd already seen it. But not for years, so I watched it. As it turns out, it really was the first Irene Dunne film that I'd seen! I didn't even remember her from the last time!

As much as I love Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rodgers, I have to say... I'm not really a huge fan of Randolph Scott. He's too... overbearing? It's hard to describe the feeling that I get from him.

For instance, there's a plot point where he and Irene are running Roberta's (dress shop) together and they're viewing all of the dresses in their Fall line. She says to him, "If there's anything that you don't like, just tell me." He responds with, "Oh, gee. I'm sure I'll like everything!" As the girls come out and model the dresses, they progressively become more and more horrific (in my eye). They are dripping with gaudy gold sequins and lace, with yards and yards of fabric layered one upon another. It's really quite terrifying. And then a girl comes out wearing something which (at the time) must have been quite revealing, just a simple sleeveless halter, floor-length dress. Something that you'd probably see at the Oscars nowadays. And he is shocked. No, not just shocked - horrified. It was vulgar and tasteless - she would have been more appropriately dressed had she been naked! Irene then tries to alter the dress, raising the back, etc, but he just says, "No! Throw it out! I want it out!" So much for liking everything.



I think this old fashioned style of singing is an acquired taste for many, but Irene's voice is lovely.

If you've never seen Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance together, you must watch this.

Alone in Kyoto

This has been one of my favorite songs for years. I feel almost haunted every time I hear it. This is a live version just cause.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

So I have to go present a poster at the Sigma Xi conference this weekend. And as it turns out my parents are leaving as well - they're going camping with some friends. I probably could have had a party. Or at the very least, not had anyone make fun of me for sleeping until 11:30am. Back on sunday.

Is it strange how utterly fascinating I find craigslist?

In fact, I think I'm going to have to start a new category in my sidebar that's dedicated solely to the strange stuff I find on there.

Young pet needed by mature couple - mw4w - 56 (East and South Bay)

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Date: 2009-11-08, 1:31PM PST

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Do you enjoy the idea of going on fun outings? Do you enjoy not having to decide and prefer being instructed as to what will happen?

I am 56 and my partner is mid 40s. Both of us are tall, slender and relatively good looking. But most importantly, we both know how to communicate our wishes and will never accept less than what we desire.

The pet we are seeking would be pampered as any well behaved pet would be, but you will be punished as any misbehaved pet would be if you fail to follow instruction.

Whether the outing is for a simple dinner out, a weekend wine tasting in Napa, or an evening in - you will always know what to do since you will be instructed. And of course you know that being a well behaved pet, you will be rewarded with treats.

If it looks like addiction and feels like addiction, isn't it addiction?

I think I've probably seen this video about 100 times over the past couple of months. So I thought I'd draw everyone else into my madness.

In the Pocket (Rhodes and Moog Light Paint) from Ethan Goldhammer on Vimeo.

eff baseball. now MY season's started.

can someone buy this for me, please?

....no?

okay, fine. I'll have to save that for my next next paycheck.

I like making tables with my data but I don't like when it's weird.

what happened, cell fraction 3?

Point me to the mic

So "The Wild Party" is one of my favorite musicals of all time. I mean, if someone asked me I'd probably have to say that "Les Mis" is my *favorite*, but there's just something about this one that I adore. So much of it is exactly what musical theater is supposed to be - people with huge voices and characters with huge personalities who can just belt it out for a whole show. I would've loved to be able to play in the pit for this musical. Hell, I'd just love to see it somewhere.

Happy Place

I don't know about you, but I liked Cordelia from the beginning.

Hang On

I'm sure some people are really pissed because I've only posted clips from the female singers from my new collection. Not everyone. But some people. So I guess I'll put this up since the list was probably 50/50 and I've started to delve into the other half.

It kind of reminds me of the Kinks. Anyone else get that feeling?

Oh and also, for anyone who's interested in the PW's new cookbook, here's a fun review that's making me even more excited for it!

In case you haven't noticed

I have a slight crush on Neil Gaiman. Slight.

And, as such, I am currently reading Neverwhere. Again.

But I'm feeling restless. Literarily.

Which is weird because I just went to the library and got these:

And I've started (but not finished) these:

And people have gifted me these to read:

I feel like I'm having a literary freak-out. I can't finish anything. I mean, I can't even start reading Dan Brown's new book. My mom and I waited for his book to come out for years. I find myself laying in my bed and looking over at the shelf and just pulling down anything; usually, whatever my eye hits first.

A couple of days ago I actually read a whole scene from "A Streetcar Named Desire" just because the T section of my bookshelf is about eye-level when my head is on the pillow. And then when it's something that I start to get into (such as the aforementioned "Neverwhere") I fall asleep almost instantly. I mean, that's not so unusual. In high school, I used to wake up in the morning in these really awkward positions with my glasses on and my face pressed against a book.

But still, it's a little bizarre that it happens so often and quickly. I'm not really sure what I can do to get me out of this funk. As you can see, I don't have a shortage of genres. Maybe I'll just have to wait it out.

The XX

Continuing the trend...

now can someone please tell me where I've heard this chick's voice before??

Lay Low

Because I want to keep posting some of the audio from the stuff I just got...

That made me think of

My previous post forced me into a tangent that I will (unfortunately) have to indulge.

No One Said This Would Be Easy

Continuing on my aural journey, here's a clip from The Postmarks' 2009 album, "Memoirs at the End of the World". This song makes me feel like a spy. Or this.

Or this:

Dying Day, live

Anna's Diary

Recent Acquisitions, thoughts

Oddly enough, I posted these albums in reverse order of their acquisition. This was the last album I got, but probably the most anticipated. I remember finding this little gem a couple of years ago. Not when it came out in 2005, but hey we can't all be fabulous all the time. This was in my pre-music connoisseuring days. But that was in the past. Please listen to this. I can't recommend a song because they are all good. Seriously.

Iceland? Really? Btw this is my FAVORITE ALBUM COVER EVER. Look at the OWLS. Look!! Try "I Forget It's There". And don't judge it because it's got a little twang. We could all use a little twang, I feel.

I'm still having trouble believing that this isn't 1) from a 60's French New Wave film and 2) that girl is from Tel Aviv. Really? Tel Aviv? "My Lucky Charm" makes me feel like Christmas.

I think I read somewhere that John Mayer said that this is the best album of the year. Because they share a name (one sur- one last-), one might ask? PERHAPS. Perhaps. But it could also be because it's the most inspired Motown throwback that I've heard since Amy Winehouse in 2007. Could be. Listen to "Make Her Mine". Oh and also I feel compelled to add that I've never EVER bought anything on iTunes. Never. Until this.*

"The Rabbit, The Bat, and the Reindeer". Oh and what's going on with all of the 70s today?

So MOF was kind of an awesome idea. And it turned out really well! Who woulda thunk it. "Dear God" is my favorite track so far, but they're all pretty good. I haven't had enough time to really listen to the whole album yet but I like what I've heard so far. But be aware, you kind of have to be in a mood for this.

Okay, so I haven't heard any of her music other than that one song. Which I kind of liked, so I decided to look her up. Uhm. Okay, so I'll just say it. Does she sound like she's either 1) Underwater or 2) Singing from a room down the hall from the mic? The songs are actually pretty good, but that weird sound is just... irking me.

Just close your eyes, sit outside in the warm California breeze, listen to this, and just try to pretend it's NOT 1975. Just try.

Very indie. I can think of a couple of people who would love this band. The female lead sounds kind of familiar, but I can't place it... If you look them up, check out "Crystalised", I think that's my favorite so far.

I actually really like this band, even though it's sort of a different style than what I've been listening to lately. The lead sounds a bit Dylan-esque but it a way that makes it possible to not want to change the song as quickly as possible.

*okay, I had a gift card.

the crimson tide

You know how in the wizard of oz, whenever the tin man stood still for too long (or it rained) he got stuck and couldn't move anymore? I think that's happening to me in slow motion. I spend too much time at this desk and in class and bending over lab benches (I've been spending a LOT of time hunched at work, doing weird hunch-y things with weird hunch-like machines). This morning I woke up and could barely move. I turned to the side and my neck was killing me, I sat up and my lower back hurt, I tried to get out of bed and I felt like my ovaries were going to pop (yes, it's that time again).

And so I watched this and everything got better:

Some new stuff I've run across

love Mayer Hawthorne, still deciding about Girls, though... something about the "heir to elvis costello" comments floating around the internet are kind of disturbing to me

Wouldn't it be great if EVERYTHING was explained a la School House Rock

Nothing Is The Same

RT

I just found out Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay for the version of Sense & Sensibility in which she appeared. And wait...there's more...

...At one point she lost the whole screenplay on her computer, so she ran it over to her friend's flat. He and his flatmate fixed it...

...And the flatmate was none other than Hugh Laurie, who plays Mr. Palmer in the film. Ahhh. My life is now complete for I know the truth.

Would you still do it, Eddie Fisher?