fishnet_hamster

I was going to ramble and rant about some lame stuff in my life, but then I heard this on the radio aaaaand WHOA. I think I just had a musically spiritual experience.

I've posted this on Facebook, and now it's on my LJ. I JUST HAVE TO TELL AS MANY PEOPLE AS I CAN ABOUT THIS BAND AND SONG.



So what do YOU think of it?

1. For all my fellow MST3K fans...ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG AND IT'S HAPPENING IN ROCHESTER: http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/Comedy/RiffTrax.aspx

2. Interesting things are starting to pop up locally. This weekend, some classic rock cover band will be performing in the park downtown. Hopefully they won't suck, and hopefully not too many drunks will show up. Next week, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra is doing a symphonic tribute to Pink Floyd, but the tickets are bit on the ridiculous side. Also next weekend, Micky Dolenz of The Monkees will be performing at Oswego's Harborfest and that'll be free. I like The Monkees, but I'm not a huge fan. Still, seeing a Monkee live and in action would be quite a memorable experience. I'm torn between paying out my nose to hear beautiful symphonic renditions of one of my favorite bands and seeing/possibly meeting a Monkee for free. I wish my life was always this somewhat interesting.

3. I've finally caved in and gotten a Facebook username. It feels too Myspace to me, but it'd be cool to easily get people to my profile. So, if you have a Facebook account and want to friend me, go to http://www.facebook.com/crustlesspie. Oh ho ho, I made an obscure reference to something! When you friend me please also let me know who you are so I don't think you're some random internet person that I don't know.

4. It's been two days, so I figure people are done guessing on the band photo meme in my previous entry. If you're curious, I've got the names of the bands that were unguessed behind this here cut.

(  Yep, this cut right here. )

I'm going to go make some Ramen and try to finish reading Breakfast of Champions.

This has popped up about three times on my flist so far this week. It looks like fun.

1. Open a music player.
2. Go to 'all music'/'library'.
3. Hit shuffle/repeat/randomise.
4. Find photos of the first 30 artists/bands that come up (no repeats and no cheating).
5. Have people guess who the artists/bands are.
6. Paste this in your journal and do it too, so I can have fun guessing as well.

( Photos behind the cut! )

I really shouldn't still be awake. Work tomorrow is going to suck if I'm sleep-deprived. Ah well.

Seriously, folks? How could this be allowed to happen?

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Pool-Boots-Kids-Who-Might-Change-the-Complexion.html

---
More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason.

"I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child,'" said camper Dymire Baylor.

The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers' first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.

"When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately."

The next day the club told the camp director that the camp's membership was being suspended and their money would be refunded.

"I said, 'The parents don't want the refund. They want a place for their children to swim,'" camp director Aetha Wright said.

Campers remain unsure why they're no longer welcome.

"They just kicked us out. And we were about to go. Had our swim things and everything," said camper Simer Burwell.

The explanation they got was either dishearteningly honest or poorly worded.

"There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club," John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.
---

( More rant behind the cut )

FIGHT THE POWER!

I'm sure you guys are getting sick of Michael Jackson LJ-posts. I promise this is my last MJ-related post. Pinky swear. Maybe. I dunno. Alright, I'm not making any promises. Get over it.

Sooooo...I missed the live airing of Michael Jackson's memorial service, because I was at work. I've seen some clips and "highlights", and here are my thoughts on what I've seen so far:

-WHO THE HECK INVITED CHRIS BROWN?

-Seeing his coffin at the foot of the stage is unsettling, but I understand its presence.

-Stevie Wonder broke my heart. His song choice was so frighteningly appropriate. He said something about never wanting to live to see this day, and I started thinking about if...well, when Stevie dies. That will be another really hard celebrity death for me to handle.

-I have conflicted feelings about Al Sharpton's speech. On the one hand, I loved how he directly addressed Michael's kids by saying something along the lines of "Your daddy was not weird, how the world treated him was weird!". PREACH ON, BROTHER SHARPTON! But then he went on yelling and waxing poetic and something about it didn't feel right.

-I also feel conflicted about Michael's kids being on stage. However, seeing as I've not yet experienced the death of my father, and my father isn't a massive celebrity, I shouldn't have any opinions on the matter anyway. So long as they were comfortable enough to do it, it was okay.

-With that said: Paris, you made my heart explode into tiny shards of nothing. I cannot imagine saying something like that to a crowd of over 20,000 people (and also the world) at the age of twelve. Holy wow.

-I'm not gonna lie, Jermaine Jackson's performance had me bawling like a baby. I let out such a weird sad groan when his eyes started welling up and he had to pause near the end of the song. I'm absolutely shocked at how much emotion Michael Jackson's death has stirred in me. I've never felt this way about the death of someone I didn't know. Elon James is a comedian that I've recently discovered, and he said that Michael Jackson's death was like losing a distant uncle. That's true for me too, I think. He was so ubiquitous in my early life that it does feel like losing a distant loved one.

-I still think it's weird and verging on outright disrespect to be selling tickets for a memorial event, no matter who it is one is honoring.

-It's sad that so many home videos and photos of Michael are being released after his death. Michael's intense privacy was his greatest weak point. He was so eccentric but also so private. Because of that combination, people would believe anything about him because they really knew so little about him. It's all so sad.

-Due to my emotional reaction to Michael Jackson's death, I've been mentally compiling a list of celebrities whose death will make me sad, if not teary-eyed, if not flat out cry. Maybe I'll post that someday, but my LJ has been too morose lately. I don't want you guys to think I primarily focus on stuff like this.

I'm off to wash dishes while listening to "You Are Not Alone" on a loop.

When I recommend music to someone, I try to recommend something based on my friend's personality and taste. Since this question isn't directed toward a specific friend, I'm going to try to develop a list of musical acts that I think everyone should experience at least once. I'll avoid classic rock artists and other artists that most people already know or listen to.

*Ahem*

Sigur Rós- Sigur Rós is my all-out favorite band of all time ever. Their music is an emotional experience as well as an auditory one. They're not a traditional rock band and they don't have an easily definable sound. They've been described as Experimental, Post-Rock, Orchestral, Avant-Garde and so on. With each album, they change and evolve and it's always amazing. They're absolutely mind-blowing.

Here's a song from their most recent album, which was recorded at Abbey Road with a full orchestra and a boy's choir. It's easily one of the greatest things they've ever done. I cried when I first heard this:



( Three more behind the cut )

That's all for now, I suppose. There's a few others I'd recommend, but this post has gotten too long and I'm tired.

( Yesterday, I had the following conversation with my radio on the way to job orientation. )

You ever stop listening to a band you really like for a while? I do that sometimes when a band's music starts sounding bland and uninspiring to me. When I start listening to that band again, it's cool to remember why I fell in love in the first place. I'm experiencing that right now with Silverchair. What a criminally underrated band. Diorama is a beautiful album, one of my all-time favorites.

In conclusion, a meme:

Leave me a comment and I will give you a letter.
Then, write 10 things that you love starting with that letter.
Post the list in your journal.
Give out letters to your commenters in return.

mystic_blue gave me 'W'

1. Whole Wheat Bread
2. "What is Life?" by George Harrison
3. Wolf, Patrick...that counts!
4. Wide open outdoor spaces
5. Wilderness
6. Water Street Music Hall
7. Wearing tie-dye shirts.
8. Water Parks
9. William Blake's Poetry
10. Waxing nostalgic

I feel clever!

As sad as I was about MJ passing, I think the amount of news coverage focused on him is unreasonable. I mean, does the world really need to know every single detail of this guy's life and death? To me, the straw that broke the camel's back was some news show yesterday that showed Michael being lifted in a stretcher into an ambulance outside of his home. Dude, at that point the guy was essentially dead. Showing a picture of a person in that state on national television is completely disrespectful, no matter who they are.

I was worried at first when I learned that the court had given custody of Michael Jackson's kids to his mom (ACK KEEP THEM AWAY FROM JOE), but now that I know Katherine and Joe have been separated/divorced since the 80s, I'm a lot happier. Joe is a psychopath who was responsible for a lot of his son's emotional and mental turmoil, and I hope he spontaneously combusts sometime soon.

ANYWAY...

My friend Emily, aka broadwaypoetez, has come up from the Albany area to visit her boyfriend Mike, who coincidentally has been one of my best friends since Kindergarten. No joke. We're all hanging out today, and I'm stoked.

In other news: According to an online quiz called "Which Swinging 60s Chick Are You?" that won't post the way I want it to on here, I am Mary Quant. DAISIES DAISIES DAISIES AND MINISKIRTS.

The last time I talked to my dad, we somehow ended up talking about the day Marvin Gaye died. My dad said that since it was April Fool's day, everyone assumed it was a joke and dismissed it at first.

Oddly enough, that's how I felt this afternoon, when I found about MJ. I thought it was a fluke, or that I had misheard the news anchor. For those of you who may not know (Hey, you never know), Michael Jackson collapsed in his LA home on Thursday and soon died of cardiac arrest.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ANCHORS IN THIS VIDEO ARE IDIOTS. THIS IS NOT RANDY, THIS IS JERMAINE JACKSON SPEAKING.



I haven't felt this emotional about a celebrity dying since Rick Wright last year.

( Obligatory LJ Tribute to Michael Jackson )

Michael, I'm not mourning who you became...



I'm mourning who you were.







Thanks for existing,
fishnet_hamster

"Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon

Dude, what the flaming fuck did I just finish reading?

I bought this book because I heard it was a challenging yet worthwhile read. Cool. I like a challenge. I started reading it, and was really interested by the initial prose and premise. So I dropped the 20 dollars for it and continued reading. After a while, the whole thing stopped making sense, but I trudged along, because once I start a book I commit to reading until the very end. Also I was hopeful that the characters and subplots would all start coming together. Okay, I'll be honest. I just didn't want to feel like I had wasted twenty dollars on a book.

They never did. In over 700 pages, it never started to make sense again.

"Gravity's Rainbow" is a book set in WW2 England, and it follows various individuals who are involved with determining the exact location and time of German missile launches. Okay, cool. The book goes on to focus on the lives and secrets of each character. This is when it stops making sense.

The book shifts points-of-view with very little warning. Once I figured that out, I was okay with it. However, it also shifts location and time. One minute a dude is making pancakes in an abandoned hotel, the next minute some girls are attacked by an octopus and after that someone shoves a light bulb into their anus (this particular section of the book was told through the perspective of the light bulb). "Naked Lunch" made more sense than this book. "Naked Lunch" was basically William Burroughs on a four-year heroin binge, so I can't help but wonder what Thomas Pynchon was using when he wrote this. My guess is that he wasn't using anything at all, he just had a light bulb wedged in his butt.

I firmly believe that this is one of those books that people regard as a brilliant work of art simply because they can't understand it. This happens a lot, and it annoys me. If it makes no sense and I get nothing out of it other than confusion, it is not brilliant. It is a pretentious jerk taking advantage of people who want to be viewed as superior to those who are honest enough to say they don't understand it.

I'll conclude this with a simple exercise. If you want to recreate the effect of reading "Gravity's Rainbow" but don't want to put yourself through seven hundred pages of random math equations, spontaneous musical outbursts and equally spontaneous orgies, just do this:

1. Grab a brick.
2. Hit yourself in the face with the brick.
3. Repeat until unconcious.

Congratulations! You have just experienced "Gravity's Rainbow" without actually reading it.

I'm going to go make lunch now and try to forget that book ever happened.

So apparently that sandwich I had at the restaurant this afternoon had something really dodgy in it. I feel awful.

Anyway, I've been thinking of ways to advertise my radio show for next year because I've had very little else to do. I feel pretty brilliant despite the never ending wave of nausea. I'm thinking of posters with a modern artist on one side, and an artist I'd play on Retro Rockfest on the other. Then it'd say something like:

-If you prefer Pete Townshend to Pete Wentz...listen to Retro Rockfest
-If you prefer Pink Floyd to Pink...listen to Retro Rockfest
-If you prefer Doobie Brothers to Jonas Brothers...listen to Retro Rockfest

Another poster I thought of was "Listening to Retro Rockfest will introduce you to all sorts of girls.", then scattering names across the poster like Layla, Polly, Melissa, Angie etc. Another possible one would say "Only one radio show can take you on the Stairway to Heaven and the Highway to Hell in one hour".

I could go on forever.

HAHA FUNNY THAT YOU ASK, ELJAY.

A bit of background: I was raised in a very Christian-oriented environment. I went to a American Baptist church with Sunday school afterward, vacation bible school in August and a religious summer camp.

I was never one to accept beliefs simply because I was told they were the right beliefs. I was always asking questions about God and religion ever since I first started going to church. My inquisitiveness turned to skepticism which turned to disdain. I stopped identifying myself as Christian when I was in my early teens because I felt too skeptical of the whole concept. I also strongly disagreed with a lot of the Baptist church's social and political views.

I never could bring myself to be an atheist, though. I still feel that there's some form a spiritual presence in this world, but I didn't know of any religions that reflected my views. For a long time, I've felt sort of like Bethany at the beginning of Dogma. I have faith, I just don't know where to put it.

I've been researching various religions for the past year or two, and the one that I like best is Quakerism. Yes, Quakers. Before you start a joke about oatmeal, don't.

Although Quakerism is associated with Christianity, it's not what one may call "mainstream Christianity", whatever that may be. Quakers believe that each person has an inner light within them that should be used as an intuitive force to guide one's life. They also believe that since each person is of God and has an inner light, each person should be regarded as equal in society. For this reason, Quakers were the first religious group in the U.S. to support gay rights (I LOVE THIS FACT). Quakers also support social justice and service as a component of their faith.

I really, really dig Quakerism. The next step is to attend a Quaker Meeting to get a true feel for the religion. According to quakerfinder.org, there's no Meeting Houses in Wayne County (FAIL) but there's Meeting Houses in Rochester and Oswego. I want to go to a Meeting in Oswego to find out if this is really for me. I'm not sure if this counts as a religious conversion, but that's what came to mind when I read the Writer's Block question.

I don't know if it's disturbing or appropriate that I'm listening to "Friend of the Devil" by The Grateful Dead while I write about religion.

The other day I was at a picnic, and a family friend let me hold their new baby, Cecilia. Of course, I had to ask how many people have sung the song "Cecilia" by Simon and Garfunkel to her. Her mom sort of rolled her eyes and said "Quite a few."

To the best of my knowledge, there are at least three or four songs that have my name in the title and lyrics. There's "Amanda" by Boston, which is a rather dull squishy soft rock ballad. There's "Crazy Amanda Bunkface" by Sum 41, which is a pop-rock song about a bad relationship. Then there's "Mandy" by Barry Manilow, which is THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. First of all, I hate when people shorten Amanda to Mandy, it sounds too cutesy-wootsy. Second, when I worked with the kindergartners at the Cortland MEOP program, the teacher was thoroughly convinced that the only thing that would put the kids to sleep for naptime was a Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits CD. Imagine having to listen to Barry Manilow for an hour, five days a week. Don't imagine too hard or it'll give you nightmares. Overall, my name doesn't seem to be the coolest when it comes to musical inspiration.

What I want to know is: Is your name in any songs that you know of? Do you like that song, or does it annoy you? Do people associate you with that song?

I'm gonna say it like a man and make you understand,
Amanda

I'm usually hard-wired to hate any and all commercials. I hate corporations trying to tell me to buy this or that just so they can make some money. It's all a part of the capitalist machine. Bah! But for the life of me I cannot hate this commercial. I actually quite enjoy it:



It's so clever! It really says nothing important about the product (What's the fuel mileage? How has it done in crash tests?), but...PREEEETTTTYYYY!

If I was in this commercial, I'd totally want to be one of the butterflies. I've gotten into early Genesis lately (I never knew Peter Gabriel was such a nut) so I'd also want to be one of the flowers, but only so I could yell "A FLOWER!" as my petals open.

Cheers,
Amanda

Nothing much has been happening in my life that's interesting. This is the first summer that I've been in my hometown for the whole summer, and it seems that everyone has forgotten about me. I've gotten no invitations to go anywhere and no calls from my high school friends. I've run into Eva and Mike, but that was sheer coincidence. Hmph. I announced my loneliness through my Facebook status, and one of my English friends said "I'd love to visit you but you're sooooo farrrr away." Great. One of the few people who care about my existence is on a different continent. (/emo ramble)

I've also been having this recurring dream involving goldfish. I'm in a huge white room filled with various-sized fish tanks and fish bowls. Everything seems to be going fine, but then the fish start freaking out and throwing themselves out of their water. I spend the entire dream trying to keep them in water, but they won't cooperate. Some of them die which causes me to start crying, but I continue to save as many fish as I can. According to dreammoods.com:

To see a goldfish in your dream, signifies, wealth, success, and pleasant adventures. Alternatively, goldfish represents some important emotional matter or valuable insight.

Hmmm...

Yesterday at the gym I heard a symphonic rendition of "Stairway to Heaven". It's not the best thing to work out to* but it certainly caught my attention. It had a very Lord of the Rings feel to it. Anywho, I asked one of the workers about the song, and she played it again but cranked it up really loud. The gym is located under a bookstore, and I'm pretty sure everyone in the bookstore thought we were being viciously attacked by Sauron's minions. It was great.
( It sounds like this )

I've decided that if I were alive in the 1960s, I'd want to look just like P.P. Arnold. Google her. She's beautiful and fascinating. I may just dedicate a future post to her.

I'd like to thank i_hate_music for the Hljómar mp3s. It's brilliant stuff, and I especially love the cover of "California Dreaming". Are they all covers? Some of the songs I recognize as covers, and some sound familiar but not enough to trigger a title in my memory.

Right then. Goodnight everyone. Have a happy weekend.

*I always prefer loud hard rock with my workout. AC/DC makes running on a treadmill a piece of cake!

Just got back from the library, where I went to pick up a copy of A Rasin in the Sun. Unfortunately, I seem to have ordered the Danny Glover stage version instead of the Sidney Poitier film version. I didn't want to raise a stink about it, so I accepted it. I'll watch it anyway, then compare it to the Poitier version, which will probably be superior.

Anywho, I'm going to show you something I've been doing lately. There's a website called Polyvore, where you can use images to make collages, fashion sets, arty bits and so on. I've been hooked for the past week. I was also on an intense Pink Floyd kick last week, which explains some of what I've made.

Here's the first thing I made. It's inspired by "Baby Lemonade" by Syd Barrett:


( But wait, there's more! )

In conclusion: I'M OBSESSED WITH THIS SONG. Holy bees, it has the best new bass line I've heard in a long time! Soooo good!



Whee.

This weekend was spent with my friends that I've known since I was born. That's probably not an exaggeration. During this visit, I had one of the most amusing conversations I've had in a while. To set the scene: There's a family barbeque going on. My friend Ben and I are in the house getting food, while our friend Sol sits outside at a picninc table.

Ben: Sol looks kind of like a young David Gilmour, doesn't he?
Me: Wow. I never noticed that. He kinda does.
Ben: It's the beard isn't it?
Me: Yeah, I suppose. I've always thought he looked like a blonde version of John Entwistle.
Ben: That's possible.
Me: Well, Sol does play guitar and bass, so it could be either or.
Ben: Hmmmm...
Me: Hmmmm...

For the rest of the day, Ben and I kept glancing at Sol, trying to figure out which rock star he more resembled. I still say Entwistle.

Right then. How about a meme? This one is from erizabeff

1. Put your music player on "random." Skip songs with not-very interesting titles (such as "Concerto #4 in E minor")
2. List the titles of the first 35 songs to come up.
3. Put "in my pants" after each title.
4. Bold the ones that actually made you laugh

1. Duncan in my pants.
2. Itchycoo Park in my pants.
3. These Boots are Made For Walkin' in my pants.
4. Make it Up in my pants.
5. Pets in my pants.
6. Sell Out in my pants.
7. 1/2 in my pants.
8. Friend Like Me in my pants.
9. Scooby Snacks in my pants. Ew. That sounds messy.
10. We're Not Gonna Take It in my pants.
11. Jim Henson's Dead in my pants. Everything about this is wrong, but hilarious.
12. Workin' for MCA in my pants.
13. The Spicy McHaggis Jig in my pants.
14. The Dazzled in my pants.
15. Oh, How to Do Now in my pants.
16. Better Than Worse in my pants.
17. Dog Problems in my pants. EEEEEEW BUT HAAAAA BUT EEEEW AGAIN.
18. Where did Our Love Go in my pants.
19. Spinal Remains in my pants. I have some weird crap in my pants.
20. Let it Down in my pants.
21. Success in my pants. This could be interpreted in several different ways.
22. Með Blóðnasir in my pants. (This translates to "I have a nosebleed in my pants.")
23. Daughter in my pants.
24. Wear Your Love Like Heaven in my pants.
25. Surfin' Bird in my pants.
26. We Tigers in my pants.
27. Providence in my pants.
28. Wild One in my pants.
29. Still Fighting It in my pants.
30. I Put a Spell On You in my pants.
31. Common People in my pants.
32. White Unicorn in my pants.
33. Don Quixote in my pants.
34. Be Strong Now in my pants.
35. Innocent in my pants.

Good night, everyone!

ASDFGHJKL;' THIS BOOK WAS SO AWESOME.

*ahem* Sorry about that outburst. But it's true! SOOO GOOD!

"Howl and Other Poems" by Allen Ginsberg

Last summer, I worked with a girl who was obsessed with poetry. I told her I could never really wrap my head around poetry, and that I preferred novels. She said that I just hadn't found "my poet" yet, the one that really speaks to me. I started looking for "my poet", and was frustrated when I couldn't really find anything. Then I heard my pseudo-beatnik friend mention Allen Ginsberg, and Kristen quoted him in her LJ, so I decided to check him out.

He. Is. So. Brilliant.

"Howl" is a poem about the Beat Generation, how they tried to escape mundane mainstream society through travel, music and drugs. It's a long poem, but not a bit of it bored me. It all sounds so exciting, even though a lot of it ends miserably. The whole shunning of the uptight society of the 50s sounds like such fun. Every word made me wish I was there to experience it for myself.

Other winners include "Sunflower Sutra", a poem about a dirty flower that Ginsberg compares to humanity and "In back of real", another astute observation of a flower. My personal favorite is "America". It starts out as a lament for American society, how it's been destroyed by capitalism and paranoia. Ginsberg then takes on what he considers the collective American state of mind, paranoid and power-hungry. I loved it.I also really dig how each poem has a musical flow. At least, that's how I felt while reading them.

I think the one complaint I have about this book of poems is the metaphor in one poem. How exactly does one's arm muscles comapre to a vagina, Mr. Ginsberg? How? Wait...NO ONE ANSWER THAT, I DON'T REALLY WANT TO KNOW. The book itself is also too short, only fifty-seven pages! Still, this provides ample oppurtunity for re-reads, which I've done about three times in the past week.

This book is amazing and this poet is amazing. Hooray for the Beat Generation. I crave more books like this.

It's good to know I'm not a lost cause for poetry. I just wasn't looking in the right places.

Right now I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. I don't really know what to make of it. Just when it starts to make sense, there's a ramble about Dodo birds or a twenty-page Hansel and Gretel-themed threesome that has nothing to do with anything. I'm on page 120 out of seven-hundred-something. Oi vey.

This entry was going to be a review of a book of Allen Ginsberg poems (AMAZING, by the way). However, I've been distracted by something completely different, thanks to Turner Classic Movies.

Has anyone else seen In The Heat of the Night? Holy wow, what a movie.

If you haven't seen it, it's a film from 1967 about a Black police officer from Philadelphia (played by Sidney Poitier) who gets stuck in an incredibly racist town in Mississippi after the murder of the richest man there. He's asked by the town's sheriff to help solve the case, but many of the townspeople aren't too keen on a Black man trying to solve a crime in their town. Racial tension and personal revelations ensue.

I haven't seen a movie that made such an impact on me in a long time. Wooooooooooooow. I can't imagine seeing this film in theaters in 1967, what with all of the racial politics that were happening at the time. I also am dumbstruck by Sidney Poitier's acting capability. I...it...wow. I just can't imagine being a Black actor portraying a character that is called nigger, boy and even slapped in the face. Even though it's just acting, I would still think that something like that takes a boatload of inner strength. That's what struck me most about this film, the fact that Poitier took the role despite the struggles of the character. This was a film that really needed to be made at the time, and Poitier earns my respect for recognizing that need.

Man. What a film. Go see it. Now. Tomorrow I should be getting A Patch of Blue and Easy Rider from the library and I'm now extra excited about A Patch of Blue, since it's another Sidney Poitier film.

In other news, my sinuses have decided to hate me, and I've been sniffly and sneezy all day. Perhaps this was triggered after I played in the perfume section at Peeble's yesterday. BAD IDEA. I still smell like old-lady perfume, man. Three different old-lady perfumes at the same time! No wonder my sinuses hate me.

Today I have to do the dishes and the laundry, then go to the bank to make a HUGE withdrawal from the bank to pay for my car. THAT'S RIGHT, I'M GETTING AN AUTOMOBILE. Anyway, I'm a bit off-schedule because while washing the dishes I discovered how to blow soap bubbles with a spatula. I was ridiculously amused for about a half hour.

Anyway, I have about an hour or so to kill, sooooo here's a brief update on my life and some memes.

1. As I mentioned, I'm getting a car today and I'm super-excited! It's a 1999 Honda CRV, and I love it. Behold my Honda in all its glory!

2. I have a job interview tomorrow. Crap, that reminds me! I have to get ready for that!

3. I got all of my spring semester grades back. Two As, two A minuses and an S, which means Satisfactory aka I showed up to Women's Chorus and sang. This makes a semester GPA of about 3.8 (I'm not fully certain because NazNet is broken at the moment). I'm pretty happy.

H'okay, I still have some time. Here's some memes. The first is from mercurystar, and it's behind a cut because it's rather long.

( Long meme is looooooong )

Also, I stole this from pretty much everyone on my flist:

A) First, recommend to me:
1. a movie:
2. a book:
3. a musical artist, song, or album:

(B) I want everyone who reads this to ask me three questions, no more, no less. Ask me anything you want.
1.
2.
3.

(C) Then I want you to go to your journal and copy and paste this, allowing your friends to ask you anything.

Adios amigos!