An excerpt from Isaac Fitzgerald and Wendy MacNaughton’s Pen & Ink, featuring tattoo stories from, among others, our own Roxane Gay.
Jon Burge is out of prison. He should be in it for a long, long time [insert Gandalf’s well-known speech about how many people who deserve prison escaping it, and many who deserve freedom being in prison, so just apathetically sit around accepting the horrors of the world, or something.]
This is what Canadians are laughing hysterically at right now. We’re a simple folk.
Email breakups are the way to go. I have only ever been broken up with, as I am a mewling ball of emotional need, so I know from breakups, and I support email dumpings 100%. Preserve dignity. Mallory and I are also pro-ghosting under the right circumstances. No one has ever broken up with my husband, so I think there must be a secret darkness inside him that has not been purged in the healing light of misery and rejection and loss.
What do I LOVE? Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Who is the best part? Everyone but especially Andre Braugher:
After “Men” was canceled, the co-creator of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” Michael Schur, contacted Braugher about playing Captain Holt. Braugher was intrigued that Holt was a gay man in a stable relationship, whose sexual orientation was never played for cheap laughs. In the process of fleshing Holt out, he has wholly reimagined the trope of the humorless police chief. There’s a moment in an episode last season, when the buttoned-up Holt walks in with a cast on his arm. The detectives try to guess how it happened. Peralta theorizes that he hurt his arm when he tried to smile. Holt walks over to Peralta and tells him that he sprained it in a Hula-Hoop class. He pulls out his phone to show him the evidence and says gravely: “I’ve learned all the moves. The pizza toss. The tornado. The scorpion. The oopsie doodle.”
Peralta looks at him with horror. “Why are you telling me this?”
Holt deletes the pictures, speaking even more slowly. “Because no one will ever believe you.”
on the racism disclaimers placed on Tom and Jerry cartoons
Bitches Gotta Eat on how to take a sexy selfie:
so i get a text the other day from a number i’d already deleted that was like, “yo, sam. you been on my bird lately. send me a pic and show me what i’ve been missing.” first of all, kill yourself. second, do you really expect me to push this cat off my lap and empty the crumbs from the trader joe’s pastry pups that have settled in my bosom over the trash can and put some lipstick on just to take a picture of the same haggard face you grew tired of looking at five yea–OH OKAY FINE I’M BORED AND THIS EPISODE OF MY CAT FROM HELL IS A RERUN ANYWAY.
Jessica Valenti talked to the parents of Rehtaeh Parsons and Audrie Pott, both of whom took their own lives in the wake of their sexual assaults, and it’s pretty bad but also necessary. On the issue of publishing Parsons’ name, here’s some background reading.
just give up we’ll all be working for buzzfeed in five years look at all these jobs
Tina Vasquez in Autostraddle on the legacy of abuse.
The New Yorker said Alexis Coe’s Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis (pre-order here!) tells the story of Alice and Freda “with the color and liveliness of a novel,” and we take full credit for it, despite deserving none.
Roxane talked to Lena Dunhamh, Rebecca Traister talked about Lena Dunham, Mallory read the book and was bored to tears, I read the book and kind of liked it. Rich tapestries.
“you been on my bird”? I… what? What part is the bird? Please clarify for the oldz.
Pretty sure it’s an autocorrect for “mind”, which makes me think that we should come up with a newfangled version of Cockney rhyming slang with words whose letters are close to each other on a mobile keypad.
You know, I thought about cockney rhyming slang, but the only word I could think of that rhymed with bird and made even a little sense was “turd”, which a) is gross, and b) probably reflects poorly on my mind-set.
She is looking-and I mean this as a highest order compliment-a lot like Ursula in that pic.
It is gross, but “turd” is one of the best words in the English language. I can’t even think it without smiling.
I thought it meant “I’ve seen you post on Twitter”, and now I’m disappointed.
I thought maybe it meant brain, as in bird brained? But I think I was the bird brained one.
In parts of Canada, ‘bird’=’cock’=’penis’. Oddly enough it’s older people who use it here.
That’s what I thought he meant…
I had to shut off the interview with Dunham on “Fresh Air” (and I love Terry Gross!) because it was so boring, so I think I’d probably be with Mallory on this one.
How can I break this gently to straight writers? Your experiences are sometimes not as interesting as you think they are. Get a queer editor.
Your experiences are sometimes not as interesting as you think they are.
Also I want this to be shouted with megaphones in front of every male writer in America who wants to write a “memoir” or whatever. No.
Read it, too – also with Mallory.
It’s not that I didn’t like it because she’s self absorbed (I wouldn’t trust a writer who wasn’t, at least a little bit), and it’s not that I didn’t like it because she’s rich and white (I liked that one Nicole Holofcener film I saw!) – I didn’t like it because ultimately, there’s nothing there that couldn’t have been written by any random MFA student. With a few exceptions (the story aoout her assualt, the one about her sister, and the one about pricks in Hollywood), everything was written in Gerneric Self-Deprecating Upper-Class Woman. It’s maddening.
Whoops! Thought you were saying that you read it. Sorry!
Oh God, that breakup article. Why did I not have this five years ago when I was breaking up with my bizarre, clingy boyfriend at the time? We had stayed the night at a friend’s house after a house party, and I woke him up at seven in the morning, while he was still drunk from the night before, and told him “I’m breaking up with you.” Then he clung to my arm (literally) while I scrabbled around looking for my clothes, and pleaded “But why? Why are you breaking up with me?” and I didn’t have the heart to tell him “Because I never liked you all that much to begin with” so I just weaseled around with “Oh, I just….need space…” and put on my coat and ran to get the bus and inhaled a bagel. Then I went home and scrubbed all the floors in my apartment.
This could have been so much easier and I wouldn’t have been forced to escape a house like I had been held captive there by some kind of sea creature who wouldn’t let go of my fucking arm.
Yep, I could of used it too but there was no email, Facebook, etc. in my day because you know, Old. It was cringy, face-to-face “This isn’t working out, sorry” then exiting as quickly as possible. I liked reading the comments from that article and this one stood out as a solid:
“…And lastly, if you are the one being dumped, don’t look for “closure.” It’s a bullshit concept and you’ll never find it. Besides, you know what’s more satisfying then closure? Writing people off.”
I feel like The Toast saying “our own Roxane Gay” must feel similar to what it’s like when a newly married person says “my husband/wife” for the first time. *smitten*
I felt it too! There was an actual hug embedded in the sentence.
It made me feel all warm and secure, like being wrapped in a big, fluffy blanket of womanly solidarity.
I love that piece about the tattoos. Not all tattoos need stories, but I am always interested in the ones that do. And I love the party bear. Party bear is everything I want to be in life.
I’m also very interested in the piece about the Tom and Jerry disclaimers – the history of animation is very interesting, and T&J plays a big part in it – so I think that the disclaimers may be a good way of approaching the situation while acknowledging that “hey these are actually hella racist so be warned.” But at the same time, I’m conflicted, because they are still harmful stereotypes that I don’t think should be perpetuated.
Is it time to tell tattoo stories? I think most are probably pretty mundane. Personally, I got a sketch of an elephant on my left shoulder when I was 20. They’re my favorite animal and I just really wanted a tattoo. So it’s a plain black outline of a baby elephant with a tiny tusk and two ribbons tied on its tail, one my favorite color (purple), one my husband’s (green). He was my boyfriend at the time because I was only insane enough to get married at 21, not 20.
SEE
Your tattoo is cute, you are lovely, and you get a high five from a fellow lady who married young (22).
I entertain the idea of getting a tattoo on and off, but I can’t think of something that would be meaningful enough that I would want it on my body for the rest of my life. (Like, I love Sappho’s fragment 24a, but do I love it THAT MUCH?) Also I can’t have blood drawn or get vaccines without crying because I’m that scared of needles, so a tattoo gun would probably send me screaming for the hills.
if it’s the sight of the needle that is the issue, you don’t see them in the tattoo machine – the bit that does the business looks more liek a pen nib than anything else. I find giving blood much more traumatic than being tattooed.
I’ve got my own art tattooed on me – not much of it is ‘meaningful’ in that way – it’s the same abstract swirly design that I can doodle for hours on end and that I used to cover my exercise books with at school, but I love being covered in my own personal artwork.
Yeah, the needle thing wasn’t too horrifying to me when I’ve had my tats done. There isn’t really a visible needle (and you don’t even have to watch!) and it feels NOTHING like an injection or a fingerstick or anything. Not one bit similar. Mine are on the tops of my feet, which are notoriously painful, and the pain was probably most similar to taking, I don’t know, a piece of broken glass and scraping it over the spot. It doesn’t even register like needle pain.
taking … a piece of broken glass and scraping it over the spot
you’re not exactly making it sound appealing though 😀
Oh, no! It hurt like a motherfuck! But feet are a really painful spot to have done, and all my friends have told me that most other spots aren’t quite so painful, and it’s nothing like a needle. This is probably not helping, but….well, it hurt, but not THAT kind of pain?
(That’s not helpful.)
I found it most like a cat scratch. it’s not ‘pleasant’ but I’ve always found it perfectly easy to sit still and let it be done. I think what helps is that Rod doesn’t do much at a time, so he fills the machine, does about three seconds worth, stops, wipes it off, refills the machine, etc etc, so even if it hits a nervey bit (there are definite bits where it’s going over a nerve that are unpleasant), I know it’s only going to be OWWWW for a very short time, and most of it is perfectly bearable.
Cat scratch is also my go-to comparison. Unless it’s in a tender part, very near a bone or just sensitive skin–then it might feel a bit bruisey from the pressure, too.
When I started getting larger tattoos I noticed that things only felt cat-scratchy for about half an hour, and then I was flooded with endorphins and didn’t really notice the scratching at all. For a few hours. I did have one tattoo that went on for four hours and that was about seventy-five minutes too long.
Yes, my one and only four-hour session was too much! I am definitely done after three hours, and these days I book big ones in two-hour sessions so I know I’m OK to drive home afterwards and not too wobbly. I normalyl fall asleep after about half an hour, then towards the end it starts getting harder. My calligraphy horse-head on my ribcage had to be done in one go because of how detailed it was, and that was about 2.5 hours, I was very ready for it to be over by the end.
It really does depend where you get it – my cousin has a large backpiece and said it hurt most when the tattoo gun passed over his spinal area, and a friend with a full sleeve said the inner elbow is ridiculously painful. But my tattoo is on my right side just below my hip, and it’s a pretty fleshy area, so honestly it just felt like someone applying firm pressure with the tip of a pen – a little uncomfortable, but calling it painful would be going too far.
And then my spine was fine (I was expecting horror), but over my kidneys and the sides of my lower back where it’s fleshier was really painful and bruised badly too, the only bits that have bruised.
Up the back of my neck was weird because it was vibrating all the way through my skull, and there was a line on my ribcage where I felt it in the back of my knee. Same on both sides!
you know how if you scratch your fingernail over and over again in one spot and it gets oversensitive and it’s painful but not like super painful? for me it was like that. and since they only do a small section at a time, each little section was done before it really hurt – it was mostly just intense.
but I also got mine on my hip right below my hipbone and there’s a little more cushion there that tends to help.
I have a full-color one on my ribcage so I got to experience the full range of the tattoo experience (on the bone, off the bone, lines vs shaders vs color, etc) and here is what I learned: go with linework on parts of your body that go squish. Do not go with colorwork (uses groups of needles rather than just one, for better coverage and so you’re not there for months on end) on parts of your body that go clunk when you rap them with your knuckles. One of these things is a much worse time than the other of these things.
Oh! I love Sappho, and I love that fragment, and I love Anne Carson’s translation! Get it, get it!
I have three tattoos–right back/hip, left shoulder blade, and right inner calf. Not one was excruciating. The one on the shoulder blade felt unexpectedly nice, in fact–like a vigorous back scratching. The only parts I really disliked about the experience? I sleep on my back, so the first two were uncomfortable for a couple of nights, and the itching as it heals is pretty annoying.
Awesome! I think my next tattoo will be an elephant, because they are awesome, and I was also thinking shoulder. I actually wouldn’t mind a small filled-in one on my wrist, but I already have some Shakespeare lines on one wrist, so I’m not sure.
Anyway, yay elephants! Yay tattoos!
21 year old Christy givin’ me side-eye! I love it. Also, that elephant is cute!
Side-eye expert since 2009!
That photographer said something about how I don’t even know how good-looking I am. Which was maybe the nicest thing anyone who isn’t Scott has said about how I look. So, good on you, Alexis of Studio Xplore!
Was your photographer a member of One Direction?
Yay tattoos! Yours is super adorable, and I love the idea of getting a tattoo just because you want one and you think a design is pretty. I don’t buy into the nonsense that every tattoo needs to be ~super meaningful~ in order to validate why you want one. Mine is pretty much just a pair of eyes inside the infinity symbol made of leaves and ivy, because I had just read House of Leaves and liked the line “through all the windows I only see infinity”, and I liked the design, and so I just went for it!
I like your elephant! i have a giraffe tattoo on my ankle, same reason. I just like giraffes. People usually seem disappointed when I don’t have an exciting story, but I think it’s as good a reason as any…I mean, I’m not likely to start hating giraffes so presumably I will love my tattoo until the end of my days.
I love the point that everyone should charge for womansplaining, because it is fucking work. YES. If you are going to give me a headache arguing with me about what it’s like to be a woman, you should pay for the damn privilege.
Oh god I could probably quit my job if I could charge for womansplaining and have the pay be commensurate with how much it fucking stresses me out/infuriates me/exhausts me
The same people wringing their hands over mentioning Tom and Jerry is racist are probably the same people who talk on Facebook about how the world was much better without Facebook and cartoons back in their childhood*.
* Even though some of these people are probably my age or younger.
The only time I broke up with someone was over the phone, which is the 1988 version of the e-mail break up. I did it over the phone because the reason I was breaking up with him was I found out he had a problem with his temper. He was totally yelling at me over the phone and I just hung up on him.
Yes, I was going to say, they missed the pretty obvious reason for breaking up with someone by phone/email: you aren’t confident the dumpee will react in a safe, controlled way. Personal safety is a pretty damn good reason for ending things telephonically/electronically.
I have not had enough caffeine today and read telephonically/electronically as “telepathically,” which is also a decent option under the circumstances.
Maybe THAT’S what people are going for when they just stop answering one’s calls/emails/texts. “Oh, didn’t you get my thought projection? Sorry, man, I thought you intuited that we were broken up.”
I broke up with my ex over email about twelve times, because he kept responding with thousand-word essays as to Why I Shouldnt, so I sent one last breakup email then set up a filter so his emails didn’t come to my inbox, but Gmail apparently sent him an email notifying him of that (wtf, Gmail?!) So he turned up at my house to Demand An Explanation, whereupon I flipped and yelled at him that he wasn’t entitled to *any* explanation for anything. That actually kinda shut him up, wish I’d done it sooner. Anyway, after all that, the breakup finally took.
The Womanizer. Via PayPal. I am clapping.
Clapping with you (dare we do a standing ovation? Yeaaaaah!)
So Nicole has never broken up with anyone, and Nicole’s husband has never been broken up with…
I’ve never been the dumper either (and oh LORD I should have been)! Nicole is making me feel so much better about that.
There are people who don’t think Andre Braugher is the best part of Brooklyn Nine Nine?
He is everything I aspire to as a teacher.
Kwazy Kupcakes.
Don’t forget the backwards W.
Kwazy is…a difficult word to say in anger.
the scene where he and stephanie beatriz go face to face repeating “i’m sorry.” “i’m sorry.” “i’m sorry.” until he says, “that’s the one.” makes me cry with laughter every time.
Last night’s ep, when he told someone their joke was very funny (I’m leaving the name out so you can be surprised and delighted) I was the happiest I’d been all day. He is the best.
I’ve been trying to think of what Holt said in that episode that killed me and I believe that it was.
I laughed all the way through ep.1 of season 2, but never so hard as when the captain told Sarge he gave him his smile back.
“MY WIFE WAS KILLED BY A MAN IN A YELLOW SWEATER!” was, for me, the turning point in the entire series.
yes there are people who don’t think Andre is the best part of Nine Nine because Terry Crews is, bring it
THEY ARE BOTH THE BEST and also Melissa Fumero’s various faces of disgust.
Captain Holt is my favourite.
Literally every character on that show, somehow even Jake, is amazing. I’m concerned that they’re going a direction of Rosa and Boyle getting together, and I’ve known it was coming, but I’m SO AGAINST IT.
I hope they keep it as Boyle and Rosa being friends, because I like the idea of them platonically hanging out.
It’s the Boyle and Gina storyline that has me most confused/concerned…
Well, Toasties, I have found my Halloween costume: Sexy Gregor Samsa.
….
Yup.
the briefcase is the most essential part.
perfection
Momentary confusion before clicking that link: my brain made that read Sexy Gregor Clegane and the possibilities there were…interesting.
I do believe I’ve found MY Halloween costume as well, now.
Same. The picture was…not what I was expecting.
Excellent. Just beware of apples.
That tattoo piece was really great. Thanks for that. My husband and I have decided that if/when we make it to 50 we’re breaking the Jewish taboo against tattoos (which is really just against permanent self-mutilation in memory of the dead) and getting beautiful matching hamsas. Maybe 40.
i like tatto piece too 🙂
Hot rabbi debunks tattoo taboo. Another rich tapestry.
http://boston.forward.com/articles/185241/rabbi-d…
Have we discussed this truly sad-making example of the mighty falling yet?
http://www.vox.com/2014/10/5/6909837/naomi-wolf-i…
I broke up with my controlling, asshole ex over text in a Burger King drive-thru. I did it and enjoyed a 2-for-1 chicken sandwich special. It remains one of the best decisions I’ve made.
Love it. I will carry this tale with me all week.
Speaking of funny sports moments this weekend:
Please, someone help me understand what happened here. He does not try to correct his fall. Is that because he was semi-fainting? Was the temperature high at that game? Was it late in the game?
He was trying not to have a false start but then lost his balance. The commentators described him as being very committed to his stance.
Hahaha. I think football players also tend to be very inflexible in their ankles, shin, and thigh muscles, so it is hard for them to do the little micro-adjustments that the rest of us do to keep our balance.
Yoga! that’s what this man needs!! and lots of it! 🙂
(but seriously)
Amazing, A+, 10/10, would LOL again
Actual lols, this is the best thing I’ve seen all day.
I am kind of…indifferent to Lena Dunham’s book, not having read it yet, but not even sure I want? I mean, I like Girls fine, but not in the comfortable way I like Castle or the devout way I like Sherlock or the excited way I like Brookyln Nine-Nine, but I like it.
I really enjoyed this review by Heather Havrilesky, though.
Larry Pott tells me that his nine-year-old daughter recently asked him, “Daddy, why don’t girls ever assault anybody?”
Brutal.
I have 5 tattoos, and I usually loathe explaining them to people – the reactions are all very “……” As if my tattoo needs to make sense to that specific person to be a valid choice? I don’t know. I got an Achewood tattoo for 23 Year Old Reasons, people! What do you want from me?!
The one exception: I have a giant moon on my right shoulder that I love to explain to strangers, especially gentlemen. Because its entire story is: my best friend and I always have our periods at the SAME TIME even though we have not lived near each other in years. MOON SISTAZ 4 LYFE
I feel like “because I wanted to” should be reason enough. Not everything I have tattooed symbolizes something, sometimes it’s just because I fucking wanted it, and yes I will still be okay with it when I’m seventy, capiche?
What’s your achewood tattoo?
The Notorious L.I.N.C.O.L.N. And attempting to explain that strip to strangers is an act of performance art in and of itself.
That sounds fantastic. I have seen pictures of actual instances of the “carbon: only game in town” tattoo, as well as ice cream headache. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time trying to get someone to get a tattoo of Todd on their butt – it just seems so appropriate, I might have to do it myself.
He gets with women but in the end they do not like him!
I am now trying to imagine an Achewood tattoo, and everything I’m coming up with is delightful.
For myself, I would be torn between “I’m the dude who sucks, plus I got depression” or maybe just Philippe frowning at something.
Lyle vomiting at the football
I have the Deathly Hallows symbol from Harry Potter on my ankle. The first time I met this one friend-of-a-friend, she asked, “Do you really like geometry?” and then, when I looked confused gestured at my tattoo. I explained what it was and she looked back at it, then at me, and said, “You should probably just say you really like geometry.”
OK THANKS WE’RE DONE HERE
I recently got an Adventure Time tattoo on my right shoulder. It is not small, heh. I’m 34 years old and I have zero fucks to give about what people think of how I choose to adorn/alter my body.
I love all of my tattoos, but I’m not a fan of explaining them to strangers, UNLESS you want to hear the looooong and super boring (to other people) tale of spiritual discovery that led to me getting a fox tattooed over my left breast. The others have stories but they’re private. I get a lot of shade for not wanting to explain the personal meaning behind my tattoos — “Why would you get tattoos in such visible places if you don’t want to explain them?” uuuuuuugh, go eat worms, asshole — but this means that they are excellent asshole radar.
A stranger once asked me why I got a tattoo, and I said, “Because i wanted a tattoo.” He smirked and asked me what it means. “It means I wanted a tattoo.”
Not sure why he felt he had a right to ask, or the right to an answer. I should work all that into the answer more explicitly next time.
I have a deep phobia of roaches, and while looking at that in daylight hours at work didn’t really trigger it, I cannot even imagine how much I would panic if I were walking down the street at night, or mildly inebriated at a party, and saw it. Aaaaaaaahhhh
Super clever, though. A+
Sigh, ETA – this was in response to winterbymorning’s link to the Sexy Gregor Samsa costume.
Yeeeeah, when a Sexy Gregor Samsa pic flitted by on Twitter, I yelped and jumped as if a roach had magically materialized on my laptop screen. If that costume walked into a party, I think I’d have to leave, and I wouldn’t even be able to muster up the courage to tell them how clever it is. Phobias are WEIRD.
Oh, Pen & Ink! I submitted my tattoo stories a couple years ago but I hadn’t heard anything about the project since then. Except that I frequently get spam email from them, like “your gmail has been compromised and is emailing everyone mysterious links” spam.
I’m trying to think if I’ve ever broken up with or be broken up with by anyone by email. I think not, unless you count the “that was fun but I’m not interested/available to pursue it further” emails one or two dates in, and I don’t.
Instant message though. . . I’m afraid I have broken up with people via IM.
You might see if you could go with a friend who is getting tattooed. Some places don’t mind. As other folks have said below, tattoo guns are extremely different in look and feel from any other kind of needle experience you can have, so it’s hard to know how you’ll feel about it unless you see it.
I’ve gotten much flinchier about shots and blood-drawing needles as I’ve gotten older, which is inconvenient as blood tests are more frequently necessary, but tattoo needles feel more like scratching than injecting to me.
Everything is written by dads.
There is something about writing a textbook that turns everyone into dads. The text I use for one of my classes was written by our former department head, and I know for a fact that she’s an older lady with no children, and yet? Total dad book.
My high school calculus book was amazing in this way. All of the real-life examples took place in Frostbite Falls, MN. And there was a graph, where you had to calculate the shaded area under the parabola. The caption was “who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? THE SHADOW KNOWS.”
And it was amazing. My teacher and I were the only ones who appreciated the jokes, though.
I love tattoos and hearing people’s tattoo stories. But I don’t have any stories about my tattoos and they don’t really have any deep meanings for me. They are just Things I Wanted As Tattoos at a particular time. This seems to annoy the shit out of people for some reason and often they imply that I’m doing it wrong somehow. I’m like what, it’s just skin! Skin I can put stuff on! One day it’ll just be cremated along with the rest of me, who cares. Even the first tattoo that I got at 18 that I surely would not pick out now doesn’t bother me or upset me or give me any feelings at all besides “Neat! Tattoos! They’re neat!” and then I resume like, putting on lotion or what have you.
YES.
And to clarify, my way of thinking about tattoos is not “better”. I think meaningful tattoos are great, I just don’t have any!
Those excerpts from Pen & Ink are lovely, but if you want to cry and then be inspired by humanity allow me to link to Saaed Jones’ tattoo story from the same collection.
The retirement community my parents live in has it’s own weird message board. I once made the mistake of reading their take on tattoos. Apparently, my one easily hidden line of poetry makes me a criminal slut with multiple diseases. This just made me want to start saving up for another.
Andre Braugher is amazing and Captain Holt is brilliant.
“Looks like we both want that stapler.”
“Seems that way, based on what happened.”
I know, never read the comments, but OH MY GOD that first comment on the Jon Burge piece! “This sounds kinda bad, but you know what’s even worse? BLACK PEOPLE.”
aghhhhhhhhhhh
So, I’m psyched for this “A Brief History of Time Travel” documentary, but I just wanted to let any fellow time travel junkies know about this existing movie called “The History of Time Travel” (screening at the Austin Film Festival this month, the only reason I know about is that I was a pre-screener, but I just loved it so much).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJfSCDTf4eU
Essentially, it’s a time travel story told in the form of a crappy TV documentary. It was a student thesis film, it has almost no budget, it’s all storytelling and moxie…. and it has some amazing structural tricks up its sleeve that I don’t want to give away, just in case it goes on netflix or youtube someday.
omg Andre Braugher is such a delightful nerd.
Buzzfeed! Jobs are good, paying internships are good, calling one of its (paying) internship positions a “Pintern” is a little silly, asking all Pintern applicants to first make a Buzzfeed profile and contribute a bunch of free content to the site so they can pick a person who “gets” the Buzzfeed voice is… grrr.
Many years ago a friend and I went to a special screening of racist cartoons at a theatre in Vancouver (The Ridge? Can’t remember) that included post showing lectures, etc. Jesus, some of those cartoons were…um….disquieting, to say the least. And yes “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” was included on the bill. I was, and still am, a Golden Age Looney Tune junkie.
I also dragged same aforementioned friend to a very small theatre/performance art house screening of very early pornography (1912 silent film early) and that was hilarious. OMG, the voice cards alone were worth the price of admission (however, the masturbating dude two rows up-WAY less funny).
ETA: Bitches Gotta Eat, YAY! I got Samatha bookmarked, how do I keep missing her new posts?!
Same on being a Looney Tunes junkie, and good on you for being willing to confront their less awesome aspects. Too many fans aren’t.
TWIN PEAKS
2016
OMG OMG OMG
LOOK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNHsA4WIFvc
I was hoping someone ’round these parts would be rejoicing about this. Yesss. I’m in the middle of rewatching season two on Netflix, and I guess this means I should get back to work on it!
SO EXCITED! I finished a rewatch last week. And just finished Cooper’s autobiography.
Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends.
-Gandalf
I typed that from memory. It is a difficult and occasionally bitter thing to balance justice and mercy. Sometimes that quote and the possibility of redemption are all that give me hope.
The only thing that could have made that Mark Donnelly video more Canadian is if he tripped over a beaver on his way to get a plate of poutine. I mean, you have: O Canada, hockey, skating, a man who keeps on singing O Canada even as he’s flat on the ice, tangled up in red carpet, and a crowd that doesn’t jeer but, instead, sings along helpfully as if nothing had gone wrong at all.
I think I might love this country, after all.
Look out bad guys, it’s Barley and Jimes!
Happy Nationals Elimination Day, the Toast. Which National are you most hoping will openly weep on the field? Bryce Harper is the obvious and (I think) the correct answer.
I broke up with my emotionally abusive mother by email on Saturday. So far, it is far superior to the trial separation conversation we had last year, which occurred over the phone.
that must be hard, but also a huge relief.
sending you plenty of virtual hugs/warm vibes from the great internet aether!
I did it over the phone once (long term relationship, we lived in the same place), but only because he forced my hand. I said that I wanted to talk to him when he got back (he'd gone home for the weekend) and he was all, "what, are you BREAKING UP WITH ME? lol no" and I was like "uhhhhhhhhhh"