Yeah, I know.

I saw Sam Song’s list though (which Blake pointed out to me) and what can I say: I got list envy.

Also I finally clinched seeing Avatar last night, which was (other than The White Ribbon) the last “awards season” movie I needed to see this year.

Which doesn’t mean I saw all of the movies I needed to see this year, far from it. I’m merely trying to play catch-up with end-of-the-year buzzes; a failing, I suppose.

So here, in no particular order are some of the movies other people might be considering which I did not see this year:

Tulpan, Still Walking, The White Ribbon, The Sun, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, Bright Star, An Education, Treeless Mountain, La Danse, The Baader-Meinhoff Complex, The Informant!, The Headless Woman, Police, Adjective, Nine

It should be noted that I saw Afterschool, but now that I’m acquainted with the dude it feels weird to talk about it.

It should also be noted that I very much enjoyed my friend and peer Zach Weintraub’s film Bummer Summer, but that it was not commercially released, thus making it ineligible for this list, which brings me to:

WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN MY NUMBER 1 MOVIE IF IT HAD ACTUALLY BEEN RELEASED:

(Sorta)1. LIFE DURING WARTIME

Todd Solondz’s opus shows not only the filmmaker’s most concerted effort since Welcome to the Dollhouse, but an intense appreciation of the universe and people he has created. Like the show The Wire, from which Mr. Solondz draws one of his stars, Michael K. Williams, Life During Wartime serves as both a self-contained film with its own pleasures (and plentiful sorrows), but also as the continuation of a world he has established, a sense of anti-abandonment. Which really, is what Solondz’s cinema is all about. Throughout his about 20-year career (give or take), he has presented us with character who are pathetic, risible, disgusting or repugnant, and he has consistently embraced them. His filmmaking is a celebration of the outcast risen to signature level, a show that even as the world rejects these people, like the father in Happiness or Dawn in Dollhouse or Scooby in Storytelling, we stay with them, on their level, living through their travails. In Life During Wartime, Solondz provides no easy solutions and little redemption, only the promise of living in a flawed world with flawed people and seeing the beauty in their struggle. He is a humanist filmmaker in the truest sense, like few others since Tod Browning.

***

Alright, so now that that is out of the way, here’s the real thing:

A FEITELIAN TOP 10 of 2009 or “WHY THE FUCK ARE THE OSCARS EXPANDING THIS YEAR WERE THERE EVEN 10 GOOD MOVIES PERIOD?”

10. AVATAR

This movie was the nail-biter (read: procrastination excuse) for when I was going to write this list this year. My idea of the film began at a groaning “well, I have to see it” to a somewhat-less-groaning “well, when is it even coming out” to me apparently stealing my friend Chadd’s tickets, while holding him to a promise that he would give them to me even after the conflict he had was gone. What did I get for my dastardly act, my IMAX goggles and my 16 dollars owed to Chadd (currently unpaid)? Something that was surprisingly fun and silly, which I hadn’t expected. For those imposing a “white-guilt” or “Dances With Smurfs” narrative on to this movie, let me suggest to you something: you are taking James Cameron to seriously. You counter, “What are you talking about? The guy spent 250 MILLION dollars!” I reply, “Yeah, but yakno, that’s his thing.” Unlike some of the stupid films of last year for which I wondered why indie movies weren’t getting the cash, Avatar delivers a director’s loopy dream, as fully realized as possible. Is it plot-holey and overstuffed? Yes. Is the dialogue often laughable? Yes. Is it possibly racist? Quite possibly. But these things are only apparent if you have so thoroughly squelched the child inside of you that you cannot enjoy the spectacle of the world that James Cameron has created, hopefully if you saw it right, in IMAX 3D. Was it an insane venture? Definitely. But no more insane really than Cameron’s previous production process of submerging his crew for 12 hours a day in making The Abyss. And in a way it heartens me to see an auteur gain such creative control, to really go out and make his visions, no matter how crazy they are. Even though Avatar is ungodly expensive, it serves in someway as a beacon of hope for aspiring filmmakers everywhere, that a dream sometimes, even if it is crazy, can come true. It can happen to you. But much more likely if you are James Cameron.

9. PRECIOUS

For those of you who have not seen the movie, that picture up above is Mariah Carey (yes, formerly of Glitter) and no, she does not look like that in the movie. In the movie she looks so pale and weird that Lee Daniels actually cast her as a Jewish character (take that, Philip Roth), Ms. Weiss, whom the eponymous main character often alludes to, in their social-work sessions as “Ms. White”. I am sure I will get some flack from people for putting this movie on this list, but what can I say, except that I really thought it was a very good movie. Just like Avatar, it was silly and often insane and over-the-top, but like Avatar, that’s what you sign up for when you go to see the film and unlike Avatar, the messages and purpose of this zaniness is clear: to offset a difficult story. As many have heard by now, yes, Precious is the story of a morbidly obese, mostly illiterate, HIV-positive teenager, who, subject to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, completes the film with two children sired by her father, one of whom has Down syndrome. However, to look at the film in this way is like reading statistics and making assumptions: it forgoes the human story. What Precious is really about is Precious, the main character, a woman coming of age with more struggles than most, but with grace and intelligence and most of all, a good and enduring sense of humor. Her circumstances are worse than most, for certain, but in many ways it is a story about growing up and finding one’s self, a journey that itself can be perilous, even taken without those factors. The interviews with the director, Lee Daniels, are abhorrent and he comes off as a self-aggrandizing, self-important asshole, a fact which sadly, as my Pops points him out puts him “comfortably in the world of filmmakers”. Regardless, Daniels the director never looks down at Precious or her journey, he allows her to shape her own story, to make her own world, as she find people to love and have love returned, herself included. Great ancillary performances by Lenny Kravitz (whodathunkit) as a male nurse and Precious’s classmates (a vibrant and talented young group of actors) seal the deal. If it’s racist, I feel I’m not the one to judge. But take for instance this conversation I had with my cousin Lenny, the family rabbi:

I had come for Shabbat dinner, in response to an invitation I had received from another cousin of mine, Lenny’s daughter, and I was excited to use the opportunity to ask a rabbi what he thought of A Serious Man (spoiler alert?) He told me that he enjoyed it as we discussed the messages we took from it and found several agreements we could make, which made me feel less ignorant in my sophomoric comprehension of Judaism. When I told him that the Jewish film critic Richard Corliss had found the movie to be “anti-semitic”, he told me that “A Serious Man shows a full portrait of the Jewish community, with some of its unsavory aspects. Some Jews are insecure and when they see a portrayal of the community like that, they jump on it as anti-semtic.” While the two movies are not analogous (and nor would I suggest that the Black and Jewish experiences are), the comparison might stand that the subject of the movie might be arousing more difficult than the substance, which I feel is at least, meritorious.

8. BIG FAN

What a remarkable debut. Coming off the tremendous funny/sad/insightful script that Robert Siegel wrote for that hack Aronofsky with The Wrestler, Siegel did the true film student thing to do with another script he had sitting on the shelf: he sat around Aronofsky’s set and convinced all of the assistants to come work as full-fledged crewman on this small script he was working on for little to no money. Thus with a half-baked crew and a rented RED camera was the best comedy of the year and this year’s true heir to Taxi Driver (beating out the universally odious Observe and Report) made. Siegel, with little to no knowledge of directing and a pedigree that included editing The Onion and one script, put a lot of trust in his DP, his editor and most of all his actors, who seemed to take the deep and funny script and run with it, as far as they damned pleased. Shouts go out to Kevin Corrigan, who seems to be coming up in the model of a John Tutturro or Steve Buscemi given his presence in indie movies and the oft-underused Michael Rappaport, another great TV actor who rarely gets his due as the film’s ultimate villain, Philadelphia Phil. But really, a lot of the credit here goes to Patton Oswalt, who had alrady proved that he could do a lot with his voice in Ratatouille and here proves that not only can he act, but that he can act! His loser portrayal of a glorified meter-maid who sits in a booth all day and lives with his mother rather than abandon the sports-radio life he loves is as nuanced as it is stubborn and real, a character whose un-desperate madness recalls the passions of real characters like the players from last year’s The King of Kong. The finale does a great job of coalescing your hopes and fears into a victory unimagined, but delightfully true to the world of the film. It is Siegel’s sort of moviemaking that not only draws nostaglia from me for the early films of Scorsese and Forman, but makes me optimistic about what a lot of heart, a little bit of money and not a lot of experience can still accomplish.

7. THE BEACHES OF AGNES

Man, this film was the biggest guilt trip I have ever seen. I hadn’t even watched a goddam Agnes Varda film before this one. Shit, I hadn’t even watched a film by Jacques Demy, her late husband. And even though the films of both are excerpted, often to stunningly beautiful effect in The Beaches of Agnes, one can’t help but feel a profound sense of guilt and loss, that one hasn’t seen the films of what are obviously two masters. Because even looked at without those films, The Beaches of Agnes is clearly a masterpiece, in the sense of its craft, but also, more profoundly, in the sense that is the cap, the finishing touches on the career of a filmmaker. Resembling nothing less than a much more refined and elegant though just as personal Tarnation, Varda’s film takes us seamlessly through her life, her films, her marriages, lovers and friends and, inexplicably, wonderfully, to the beaches she has been near and far away from in her life. She discusses Jim Morrison, her husband’s death from AIDS, the French New Wave from a first-person point of view and her friendship with the filmmaker Chris Marker, here represented by a giant blue animated cat. Somehow nothing is incongrous, this is not the cinema of Errol Morris, a detective story where one roots around for meaning in search of discovery or revelation. Instead, The Beaches of Agnes is the cinematic equivalent of a warm embrace, a taking-into-the-fold of the viewer by a woman who loves cinema and thus you, the audience, as well. It is a beautiful film, the sum of a career, indescribable in its completeness and clarity. I can only hope one day that I might be able to make something so clear-sighted about myself, looking back on my life.

6. 35 SHOTS OF RUM

I admit being mostly unaware of Clare Denis. When I went to go see Medicine for Melancholy, an honorable mention this year, I heard from Barry Jenkins, that film’s director, that he was inspired by Denis’s Friday Night in making his own film, one that if you asks me bears more of a resemblance to Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise than anything else. Still, I hadn’t seen Friday Night, nor had I seen any of Denis’s movies. When I finally did see 35 Shots of Rum upon its release, I was absolutely charmed by the feel of it. Denis certainly had a feel for both the easy and the complicated relationships that we enjoy, the dynamic of the privileged and the underprivileged, the French class dynamic and the particular perspective of one man. Just as Lionel (Alex Descas) sees his life as a train conductor as one that allows him access to his daughter, his neighborhood and his “family”, his fellow train conductor feels trapped and kills himself on the rails. What separated these men is, if not the main subject, the point of the film; the way our societal bonds complete us and coterize our wounds. If the end left me dissatisfied, it is a fitting homage to Ozu’s Late Spring and admirable it’s unconventionality. After all, 35 Rhums ain’t an American film and thus is excused from giving all its characters a “happy ending”. I think Ms. Denis, in my small exposure to her, prefers “complex” to “happy”, as more true to life.

5. A SERIOUS MAN-

I forget who I was talking to the other day, but somehow the conversation came over to Mel Brooks (who Amos Poe recently accused of bad taste, I think) and History of the World, Part I, which famously ended with “JEWS! IN! SPAAAAAACE!”. Looking back, I’m amazed to think what a golden age for Jewish Cinema it must have been with Brooks operating around the same time as Allen and Allen’s Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex… coming out within a fear years of History and even closer to Blazing Saddles. Look at what we’ve got now? Some old Holocaust drudgery, some tired Spielberg crap and Daniel Craig playing some badass Romanian Jew who in reality, unlike Craig, was wider than he was tall. It’s a shame, but at least thank G-d we’ve got the Coens, who have decided to take a break looking at Midwesterners and George Clooney-types to instead focus on the home team. As I mentioned in my blurb on Precious, they may be fairly critical of the home team, but at the same time they pay it the greatest respect: honesty. The Coen’s take on the Book of Job (much like their take on The Odyssey in O Brother, Where Art Thou) doesn’t seem to take itself so seriously, but actually manages to capture the tone of what it was inspired by. In Job, G-d takes everything away from a virtuous successful man bit by bit, until he cries out to G-d, asking him why he’d inflict such terrible things upon him, to which He replies by pointing to the universe and its greatness. Here that pointing comes in the form of a biblical-style Tornado and a modern phone-call in a character-split between virtuous father and mischievous pot-smoking son. The film is littered with good performances by relatively unknown actors (here’s hoping Michael Stuhlbarg gets at least a nomination for his part in the lead) and the “wisdom” of Rabbis as men try to interpret the will of G-d. What we are left with though, from both the film and its folkloric prologue, is the unknowableness of G-d. Just like in the Book of Job, the Coens point to the vastness of G-d’s power and creation in explaining that G-d and his works are a question posed to us all (here, Jews) and that it is up to us to interpret them as we will. There are no answers in G-d, only in ourselves and the world around us, the Book of Job seems to say. It’s a very Jewish-intellectually idea, a very Jewish movie and one of the Coens’ finest.

4. TWO LOVERS

This movie feels like in came out in 2008, when it was made, but really it was just a sneak into the first couple months of 2009, placed their ignominiously so as to be ignored, an example of Indiewood’s estimation of director James Gray after his thriller We Own The Night failed to make inroads at the box office. And even though it felt like a 2008 release and came out so many months ago, its pleasures and its resonance are such that they remind me all the way to so high on this list. Leonard (an Oscar-worthy Joaquin Phoenix) is a late-blooming Jewish kid out of Brighton Beach, but this isn’t the place of Aronofsky’s hyperboles, puffed up with music and drugs, but a dark and colorful prison replete with the expectations of family, society and culture. Like a mental patient just off his meds, Leonard is reeling at his lifestyle and questioning the strange and strangling existence of “love” and “tranquility” that he’s experienced up to this point living in his parents’ apartment. He is like a man lobotomized or an amnesiac, trying to figure out what he’s missing. Enter the namely Two Lovers. Sandra (Vinessa Shaw) is the perfect neighbor next-door. Beautiful, elegant and rooted, she represents one form of manhood, the manhood of responsibility, sacrifice and domesticity that comes with running a business and raising a family. Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), on the other hand is a bottle-blond hot-headed flower, a Wall-Street mistress tucked away in Brooklyn for safe keeping. To Leonard, she represents something exotic and new, a life beyond the one he knows, a voice and a sense of freedom. As Gray guides us through Leonard’s dalliances and flirtations, it’s easy to see that what he’s talking about in his self-penned script is not just the allure of women, but the allures of adulthood and reconciling one’s dreams with one’s reality. In the world of Brighton Beach though, dreaming is ephemeral and the dreams themselves immaterial, existing only long enough to be a platform for Leonard’s tragedy, all the more devastating for its presentation to us as something “happy”.

3. UP!

The only movie I cried at this year, is perhaps Pixar’s finest, and the first animated movie I’ve seen in a while with a serious chance at Best Picture. I remember walking along a hilly road one day in Vermont, during my tenure as an assistant counselor and dormhead at the Putney School Summer Programs. As we scouted locations for our students’ films, the head teacher Jon and I discussed our favorite Pixar movies. As I mentioned the favorite at that time, WALL-E, as well as the other popular ones, Toy Story 2 and The Incredibles, Jon asserted that there was one film that was beyond all the others for him and that was Monsters, Inc. A fine movie, I never thought it a contender until Jon explained the basic humanity of it to me, the bond between a child and a father figure and the restorative power of joy in the world. Looking back on that film, I remember it better now and I am all the more certain that Up!, by Monsters, Inc’s Pete Docter, is an even better film. In a story that never gets boring, Docter manages to tackle the hopes and inequities of middle age, remembrance, longing and loss in a way that’s surprisingly head-on. I remember watching films like The Incredibles and Finding Nemo and being impressed that films marketed as children’s movies were even skirting serious adult issues, like adultery and the loss of a child. Here however, Docter makes clear that he believes in us. He believes in the children in adults and the potential for maturity in children. He believes that we have something to teach each other and something to learn. We see that our heroes are not also who we want them to be and just as we may not be able to hold on to childish admiration, we have to let go of our baggage at some point and live in the moment, a point in spectacular visual fashion in the film. At one point, maybe sometime after WALL-E, I hated Pixar because I wanted to hate them, frustrated that they managed to be so commercial and yet so good. But now with Up!, I realize that I’m throwing my emotions the wrong way and should be thankful for something that educates and delights us and causes us to think, just like the animated TV of my youth did to me.

2. THE HURT LOCKER

When I first saw Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, it was not during its buried summer release, but during a FilmComment Selects screening that Chadd convinced me to go to, primarily based on the fact that it would have free booze. I knew nothing about the movie, except that the woman who had made it was apparently married to James Cameron at some point and made a movie that Rob really liked about surfer-crooks. What I got, I was floored away by. Not only was the movie stunningly good, a procedural look at the day-to-day mechanics of war which owed much to films like Escape from Alcatraz, but the director was stunningly hot–at 57. And if that shit was Botoxed, it did not look it. She must have found the fountain of youth. All comments about the director aside (a likely candidate for Best Director this year), the film was a day-by-day depiction of the war in Iraq, the likes of which (and apparently the accuracy of which) we have only seen in the misjudged, almost-forgotten HBO mini-series Generation Kill. As a touchstone, it helps that both that show and this movie were based off the testimony of journalists embedded within the armed forces as they described their circumstances. And while The Hurt Locker may lack Generation Kill’s sublime sense of indifference to society, like the scene in that show where the soldiers “borrow” their journalists picture of his girlfriend to masturbate to–and decline to give it back, The Hurt Locker makes up for its lack of grand scheme, by its moment-to-moment precision of the sights, sounds and thrilling uncertainties of war. Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner, in yet another Oscar-worthy performance) is our hero, the savior of many lives, but he also dangerously unbalanced, an adrenaline addict who lives off the thrill of defusing complex IEDs with their Radio Shack parts; every day he stays alive is another fix. His fellow soldier Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), doesn’t understand his insanity, but is only barely holding off the thrilling madness that grips James, with his only exercise of joy depicted as an expression of violence. However, the most damning and most perfect scene in The Hurt Locker, for all its heat, claustrophobia and evocation of Iraq, happens at the end of the film, where James, having returned home to the normal choices of a married father, looks at different cereals in a big box store, and the an who makes choices to stay alive is left impotent and unable. In the next scene, he’s back in Iraq and we’re back there with him. It’s a tragedy from a distance, but to her credit, Bigelow never gives you that distance by which to judge James. You’re always caught up in the same thrill he’s riding. The best Iraq War film ever made and close to the best movie of this year. That is, except for…

1. ANVIL!: THE STORY OF ANVIL

It says something about these times that my favorite movie of the year, I saw not in theaters, but at home, uncut on VH1. To be fair I had wanted to see Anvil! this past summer when it was out there, but it was one of those movies that I could never get anyone to go see with me, the sort of film that’s good, but as not as sexy as a blockbuster or a new release in the elusive game of trying to get people to go see movies with you. Ultimately there was a collective shrug, as summer turned to fall, my life was wrapped up in a play, new movies came out and Anvil! was mostly forgotten. But when I finally did see it, browsing through the channels with Eva one night, even what I had heard about it turned out to be far more paltry than the glorious truth. I knew the film had made a convert out of that high-society curmudgeon Anthony Lane of the New Yorker, who Armond White once described to me aptly as “the sort of film critic you love if you hate movies”. Even he had been floored by the film despite his lack of knowledge of, as he put it, “the Jewish-Canadian Death Metal scene”. And no knowledge is required. We are given two middle-aged Canadian Jewish guys, Robb Reiner and Steve Kudlow, who knew their lives that they wanted to rock and committed to it. This meant playing in shitty bars and working with terrible, undermining managers. This meant dropping out of high school and having only a few die-hard fans. This meant, for Robb at least, taking a job making middle-school meals en masse, carrying trays, all to service their need to rock. Robb and Steve, known as Lips, through it all have become brothers, best friends, occasional enemies and partners in keeping each other from suicide. They may have never been Metallica or even Megadeth or Slayer, but they never compromised their ideals, never sold out, so in the end it is impossble to call them failures. In Anvil!, lovingly made by the band’s former roadie, Sacha Gervasi, we get the best story of the year, the best characters, the most complete world, fiction or otherwise. We are given two men and see them create themselves and live with it. They don’t give up and most of all, they rock. Amen, my Jewish brothers. And Rock On.

HONORABLE MENTIONS (In brief):

MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY- A black mumblecore film might be a strange duck, but this highly personal journey film by Barry Jenkins was one of the most honest and well-felt movies of the year. Here’s to a long career, Mr. Jenkins.

ADVENTURELAND- Greg Motolla’s follow up to his superb Superbad casts him out from Apatow’s grand shadow and shows his pessimism and his remembrance of the time immediately after college, where life is about picking diamonds from the shit you’ve only just realized the world has taken on you.

LORNA’S SILENCE- A metaphysical and intense drama about European affairs, identity and the extent to which one can quell one’s own conscience. A daring lead performance, if an uncertain end.

TONY MANERO- Bizarre and brilliant, barely released/mostly unseen. The best film I saw at NYFF last year and a deeply critical political statement. Intensely worth the watch.

TYSON- The most frightening movie of 2009. In this man, we, society, has created a monster. James Toback shows us how the man who wished to “punch through” his opponents’ skulls came into being, through the violence and indifference of our culture.

WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR THAT I SAW-

TIE!

INVICTUS/ANTICHRIST- When “auteur” directors pull ploys for some sort of “greater meaning”, they tend to fall flat on their face (see: Kundun). Clint Eastwood and Lars Von Trier both made some grab for self-importance and elitism with their films that ended up feeling either hokey or disgusting, but both ultimately pointless. They should go back to taking themselves less seriously and reflect upon the pieces that they did in past years (Gran Torino, Manderlay) that better showcase their talents, as opposed to these trumped-up shitfests that amount in their indifference and idiocy to a waste of a collective 21.50 and several hours of my life that I wish returned.

OVERRATED (briefly)-

FANTASTIC MR. FOX- An Anderson-ian mess, lacking in the real sentiment Anderson used to reach for so easily in his first three films. In turning into a megalomaniacal animator, Anderson has gained little except some hipster-y animation moves (“Real fur, ooh!”) and his same old style. One good brit-kid song, doesn’t erase all the overplayed rock he uses in the film.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS- I liked QT better when he was having chicks kill people with swords as opposed to his current Jew-o-philia. Eli Roth sucked balls in the movie, as did most people who weren’t named “Hans Landa”. A fun and dissonant action movie that stumbles upon its own length as well as its two opposingly-toned stories.

HUNGER- Irritatingly serious and fake “intimate”, the directorial debut of Steve McQueen (no relation) is often monotonous when it isn’t occasionally gripping. An art-house-style disappointment.

UP IN THE AIR- God, should this be my worst movie of the year? This film was awful! The National Board of Review voted this somehow the “Best Movie of the Year”. I reiterate my buddy Dave Broad’s sentiment: “It’s a series of music videos strung together by bad dialogue.” Bad direction too, I would add, with a tack to obtain relevance that borders on seriously offensive.

PONYO: The worst Miyazaki movie. Half-assed toward the end, though parts of it are beautiful. After an only partially satisfying Howl’s Moving Castle, here’s hoping that Hayao can get his groove back somehow.

OTHER MOVIES I LIKED BUT WHICH WEREN’T INCLUDED FOR SOME REASON

Beeswax, Summer Hours, The Box, Bad Lieutenant: POCNO, Where the Wild Things Are, World’s Greatest Dad, Coraline

As Ro-In-Control-Of-His-Beardo would say:

Clom out.

I’m going to do something I never do, and that is beg. PLEASE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE. It doesn’t matter if, by the time you read this, it’s been decided. Please vote. Even if you don’t know who the fuck these people/ bands are (usually X Factor people have no idea who Rage are), listen to both and then vote.

Personally I’d go for Rage Aginst the Machine because I am fucking sick of Satan Cowell monopolising the UK Christmas Number One and it’s time for us to take the power back. Plus, Joe McElderry’s “The Climb” is as bland as…well, a bland thing in Blandland on bland tablets. There’s nothing that would convince me to go for him anyway. No power. No emotion. Cowell obviously abducts the public and uses mind-control techniques to brainwash everyone into buying “The Climb”.

Anyway…

Beh. That’s what Italians say. I promise you. I am taking Italian. It comes up in conversations in the textbooks. “Beh, [insert Italian sentences here]“. It’s like going “hmmphhh” or “uuuurggghhhh” when you’re fed up, sure as shit is brown and turd covers vomit, such as Leona Lewis doing Oasis’ “Stop Crying Your Heart Out”. My God. She’s done two covers, and they are both godawful. She needs to stick to her own. Really. Truly. And I don’t even like Oasis. Whoaaa, stream of consciousness. And Alicia Keys has really thrown it down the shitter recently, like the Black Eyed Peas – neither of them have released anything good since “Fallin’” and “Where Is The Love?” respectively. Although to be fair, “No One” was good, from Alicia. Oh my God, I am a bitch. I really mean it.

Although at least I can accept other peoples’ contrasting opinions on things I love or like. Most of the time. More than others, and that’s no-one in particular, I just hate it when people categorically refuse to accept other peoples’ opinions. That’s just it. This is it, etc., banana, amen. And I love Innocent Smoothies. When I rule the world I will make them cheaper so EVERYONE CAN BUY THEM. Well. That’s what would happen if I rule the world.

–>Back on track: I saw “Avatar” on Thursday. Yep…the one with Zoe “Uhura” Saldana in. The one by James Cameron. The one that’s been hyped up for a million years. I was half expecting it to be absolute balls (big budget + some big names + big name behind big film + 60% CGI =/ a good film) but it was an absolutely heartbreaking film. I shit you not. I rarely cry at films (or I try not to, being the ‘ard nut I am) but I nearly cried twice during it. It’s quite good. I’m going to post a picture if I can find one. It’ll probably consist of 9′-tall, blue-skinned, yellow-eyed cat people:

There you go – a shot you’ve seen a lot, probably. Neytiri (Saldana) and Avatar’d Jake Sully (Wothington). Anyway…point being…I was relieved that it wasn’t shit. It was quite a heartbreaking film. See it, damn it. SEE IT. Ah well, I’m plugging it like a motherfucker. Still doesn’t quite beat “Public Enemies” and “Star Trek”, mind. And “Harry Potter” 6 was shit, before anyone else mentions that.

I’ve been ill since Wednesday, with a flu I haven’t had since I was 14. I’m a LOT better than I was since Wednesday, but I’m still feeling pretty crap. It’s not overly fair .

I’m off. I’ll either be celebrating or commiserating Rage Against The Machine’s Xmas Number One victoire. If I don’t see you before Christmas, have a cracking one. Or Hanukkah. Or pagan rituals. Whatever you do…

Have a cracker, motherfuckers, and see you in the New Year!!

xx Mika Haeli Linx

I believe that half the pleasure of receiving a gift is due to the lovely gift-wrapping itself. The shiny wrapper. The silky ribbon. The rustle of bright coloured tissue. A glimpse of cursive writing on the little gift card. The anticipation before releasing the ribbon. The happiness in the reception of a gift starts from the moment one lays one’s eyes on the package. Hopefully my gift wrapping for the buyers this season will create some magic for the receivers…

My two ladies are on the news!! To read this this article, please click here .

A first hand account, here.

We didn’t call them super-villains back then, we called them assholes. As in, “Did you see what that asshole Brainiac did to the Corn Exchange?”

A friend sent me this flyer today! Am pleased to see quite a few dear friends also in the photos… ! I hope everyone had a great night. I DEFINITELY did, not just because of the exhibition, but the night was also topped off by a great degustation experience at Ecco for a friend’s birthday dinner after.

I don’t know why I chose that title.

I’m not sure it even makes sense.

I was interviewed this morning. The interviewer was Austin, a handy/capable (not handi-capable) grip and actor from my short-film shoot. I was obliged to work on it, by the law of film-school-favors, wherein if he works on my film for free I am obliged to work on his. What he in turn needed me for was to ask me about life after film school for a documentary project he was doing on recent film alums for his documentary class, ironically the same one I had taken in the same semester he had taken it, with the same teacher.

It was raining, the sporadic, tantrum-style rain of recent New York City days–brief, in intense and varying spurts–and I huddled across the street on the bench in front of the old-fashioned coffee shop, after an early morning wake-up that consisted of leftover sitcoms and an over-dose of repetitive, concurrent video-gaming.

Austin was late by a couple minutes, but staring in to the faces of his crew was like looking in a funhouse mirror into all the ways you might be reflected. One of them was Israeli talking on the phone to his mom in Hebrew and comparing how our recently cut Jew-fros might have matched up had they been present. One of them was talking about an introductory film class disdainfully, since he was unsure he would be able to make a “serious” movie in it, as he said so with a “serious” face. A final one was ministerial, overseeing the others as he picked out restaurants around the street he might take his crew out to, in exchange for their willingness for a film-school school-project schlep.

“Was there any point when you realized that you weren’t going to have a job when you got out?”

Austin came and the interview began. I sat on the same bench facing Austin trying to chose between playing my bravado to him or the camera, knowing my old teacher Sam Pollard would be seeing this and trying to figure out, somewhere in my head, how to make him laugh.

“You know, I’m optimistic.” I told Austin as he assumed the squinting stare of the nouveau-documentarian. “I’ve only been out of school for 6 months. It’s true I used to think that I would have a job when I got out of college, that the people who didn’t have jobs were losers. But I work somewhere I like, even if I don’t get paid and I’m part of something I believe in. Now you can talk to me in another six months when I’m unemployed and my film’s been rejected and I still don’t know what to do with my life. But I live my life in horizons and when this job ends I’ll have one. And I’ll try to find the next one from there.”

The questions continued, but I’m a bad/good interview and every time Austin gave me a question, it was another excuse for me to tell a story, to give a viewpoint. Talking for me, conversation, sometimes feels like a theater in which I can relive the best moments of my life, revive the confidence and energy that I’ve felt previously, or just even articulate and work out what’s in my head, like a shower or a good BM. In any case the kiddos looked on enraptured and I felt like I had a job well-done. I told them whatever success stories I could think of, from my friend Zach Weintraub who had shot a good feature for nothing on a digital-picture-camera, to my friend Chadd, whose star-studded-celebrity-event I was attending the next day. But as they left, I realized the stories I told them, I told myself and that it was time for a self-revival.

***

The truth is, denizens of Feitelogram: I haven’t been writing enough.

Or even more than that, more simply, I haven’t been doing.

When I met with Antonio Campos, he told me to make another short film. There’s nothing stopping me from doing that except for me and my own head. If I wrote something, I could gather friends, shoot on weekends, ask my parents for money probably and they’d probably shell out.

I could sit at home and finish a screenplay I haven’t touched in three weeks, or at least begin the process of beginning.

The truth is, having a job, an internship, some structure, has both stabilized me and squelched me.

Since I have structure to my life, times that I am busy for much of the week, I have less need to write, less emotional, desperate lashing (though I still seem to do much of that here). At the same time, I have less energy to write, less drive, since my job has made it so I can’t attend or even schedule my writer’s group, meaning that I’m not even around anyone who is writing.

In short, I need to work harder or smarter or both to carve out a niche for myself if I want to continue to be creative. When I think of the people who I told stories about to that film crew this morning, it was people that decide to do something, to only worry so much about how good it would be and just get it done. To be creative in the literal meaning of the word.

That’s what I need in my life and that’s where my blog comes in. Where y’all help.

As I once told Jason Lee, whose blogposts have now returned to a consistent diet of job hunting and Nicholas Cage film-blogging after a queasy experience as an Asian-food-deliveryman, blogging is writing, it’s working out your muscles, it’s keeping in shape. It’s a lifeline back to the world of your mind, the world it is easy to get out of touch with when you are forced to explore the questionable territory of your own value by a job or an internship.

It’s good just to keep it out, keep it going.

And if I’m posing, I’ll be damned if I ain’t posing here.

***

If there’s a reason if I gotta self-analyze that I chose this title for this post, it might be an unconscious need for Karaoke.

Much like my lapsed writer’s group, Karaoke has been something missing in my life as I face challenges to schedule it that I did not face in my grand summer of after-school unemployment. It’s become so distant that I often can’t even think of singing my own songs, like I once did, when I spent a whole couple afternoons listening to “Thunder Road” on repeat so I’d get the cadences right as to not embarass myself, which I’m sure I still did.

Instead I think of my friend Rob Returning-Beardo Malone and think of songs for him to do. As a gesture, when we went together, I’d often write his name down for a song I’d thought for him to do, something I had anxious anticipated. As I’ve written before, Rob has a crooner, eccentric-PA style that often goes well with campy songs sung un-ironically like “MacArthur Park” by Richard Harris or “Rich Girl” by Hall and Oates.

I feel like he could do a good rendition of “Highway to the Danger Zone” if he tried, but recently, while brushing my teeth, my Pandora Radio put on “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day, an iconic song of 90s teen angst which seems anathema to Rob, but which I pondered what his spin would be like. Would he croon it, or go for a straight-up Billy Joe-impression? Or would he simply pass and give me a withering “come on, Bro-ham-amus!” kind of look? I couldn’t say honestly and I smiled through my brushing teeth.

“You know,” I told Austin playing this one to the camera. “Last night I had a friend invite me to see 2012 at midnight. And most people when they would do that, they’d do it with excitement or not at all, dismissing the movie, rightly, as trash. But my friends I made in film school can do it someway where it’s ironic and it’s genuine and it’s a fun time for both of it all at once.”

I paused.

“Doesn’t mean I fucking went, 2012 looks awful.” I said. “But if I hadn’t gone to film school, where would I have ever met people like that?”

Every now and then, one comes across something that makes you scratch your head. Like this buffalo woman brooch. I was wondering if there is something about buffalo + women that I wasn’t aware of, and tried Google. Something came up relating to ‘hot buffalo women’. Not quite what I was expecting, but given the nudity of the lady on the brooch, perhaps the artist is trying to make a statement about these ‘hot buffalo women’. Tell me if you know anything I don’t. PS – the bufflo head on the brooch is mobile and can cock her head to an angle too. Hm.

Don’t get me wrong, I think what Beau and Trouble make are really cool. Check out their website.

Anyway, here’s some moose facts that may help you identify with the moose pendant.

I usually have an issue with art that is too literal. If an object is too busy trying to be something that it obviously is not, it usually loses the opportunity of representing the qualities of that which it could have been. But I don’t have issue with these lovely things by Selvedgehouse – literal or not, the baboushka dolls are such little darlings. And on a thundery night like this, I wouldn’t mind the hippo of a pillow to hide with me under the duvet.

Wednesday = Hump Day.

My usual defence against hump-day blues is to dress up a little more on Wednesdays: you are what you eat and you feel however you dress… A big sundial pendant from lola&bailey would be perfect for sprucing up my yellow top tomorrow. And I really really like the art deco pendants that also look like they are logos of some comic characters from Marvel – they would make me feel just that bit more super to deal with a Wednesday.

Melbourne Cup Day is pretty much the only day of the year which I would EVER put a dollar on any horse. Have not won on horses yet, but am feeling a little lucky this year in 2009. Having said that, could have done with my lucky number 18 around my neck. Except someone bought it from right under my nose  just as I laid me eyes on it. Closely avoided a tussle – gritted my teeth, squared my jaw, I looked at the buyer in the eye and said tersely “that’s a good number’, to which she replied with a firm nod and mumbled assent that it was her lucky number. Grrr. Maybe I should stick to the alphabets.

MELBOURNE CUP DAY TOMORROW!! Had Friday and today off work, so wonder what the people at work have planned other than (hopefully) roast chicken and coleslaw… I should really have picked up one of these darling vintage hats from miss amy lane while at the markets over the weekend. It would be good to impress the Roman Emperor.

What better thing to do on a cloudy drizzly lazy sunday morning than to curl up on one’s extremely comfortable goose-feathered couch and blog about jewellery? In all honesty, the baby faces by liana kabel freak me out a little – yours truly  does not have a strong disposition for doll faces, body parts and other macabre horror type things, but the fact that these are coloured to seem good enough to eat, makes it heaps better. Looking at all the other lolly-looking earrings is strongly reminiscent of a recent trip to the cinemas where I was having trouble deciding between jaffas, strawberries&cream, sour colas and skittles. At least these won’t make add calories to your diet… quite the contrary, the many choices may help the wallet go a little leaner.

It was a free costume.

It had come in through my work, in the mail and having been sent back down with the books and other minutiae, I had, with baited breath, asked my boss if I could take it home.

Previous Halloweens had been spent somewhere in a cesspool between despair and guilt at my lack of ability and/or interest in costuming. Like crossing the street against a light, not wearing a costume on Halloween was a childhood tradtion I could grow out of, except that when I transgressed, I would always feel the pang of guilt or remorse echoing back from childhood as if to let me know that I had just made it more distant.

Half-assed attempts had been made.

Last year, I had gone as Seth Rogen, a transformation that was both easy and awkward to affect as I just looked like myself, putting on a slight swagger and a throaty voice that might cause the people who would ordinarily (read: drunkenly) mistake me for him, to mistake me even more.

Still, people seemed to always have some expectation that I should be in costume as I walked down the street and could see through my half-assery, especially when they had something intense like an axe through their head.

More than that, it was also a tradition of making one’s self vulnerable by putting on a Halloween costume: it was making a decision about your appearance that you could be judged upon, something I had tried to strenuously reject for most of my life, but in so rejecting, had made such a decision anyway.

It was also like a club, I could recount, recalling parties where Charlie Chaplin had stolen looks from Annie Hall, while I stood in the corner trying to figure out how guilty I should be about taking Jello shots while still maintaining some vestiges of masculinity.

Eventually, a guy or a lady would come up to me and ask me what I was, as I would look bitterly upon costumed couples and I would give them the turgid reply I had put on in years past:

“What? I’m Nick Feitel.”

And then, a pause:

“Isn’t that scary enough for you?”

They would walk away disappointed.

But no more.

I was Waldo this year.

In case you haven’t found me yet.

***

Really though, I was outdone.

My friend Zach Weintraub, who I had been busy browbeating about submitting to festivals, had come as a unique/missable movie reference that I couldn’t get but all my friends somehow did: as Drew Barrymore from the opening sequence of Scream.

When we met up to go see a pre-Halloween House of the Devil, somehow Chadd was able to get the reference with only a couple hits while I was perpetually perplexed. When it was finally explained to me that it was a reference to Scream, I felt like I had to give a response that would raise my film school hackles against the otherwise intimation of indifference and ignorance, firing back:

“Well, didn’t Wes Craven direct Music of the Heart?”

(In fact, I had only found this out upon vainly looking at my own iMDB page to see Jay O. Sanders movie history when describing who he was to someone at work. On set he was talking a little about working with Oliver Stone. I wish now I could have asked him what working with Wes Craven on a melodrama/romance was like.)

The next quotable quote I gave during the movie was pointed at Ro-Recently-Recovering-His-Beardo, a Zach/Drew accompanier.

Rob, who has recently proven that I’m a douchebag for not making movies by casting my very own banana-phile girlfriend Eva in his new movie Puppy Whistle, had mentioned his idea for “mumble-gore” as a genre he had to invent, somewhere between talking about different clone/reanimation Jean Claude Van Damme movies, namely Replicant and The Ultimate Soldier.

“Sorry, Rob.” I told him, as Greta Gerwig, of mumbling fame, showed up in House of the Devil playing the virginal protagonist’s girl-friend.

The movie was good, a faithful 80s horror pastiche that essentially functioned as a rehash of Rosemary’s Baby, with some nice twists, including an appropriately weird Tom Noonan.

A urinal discussion on Gerwig’s part in the film proved interesting, as neither one of us had ever seen her working in anything but the self-referential style and genre of “mumblecore”, in which actors improvise and often play shades of themselves.

“Well, I thought that she was still acting in a mumblecore movie.” I told Rob over streams. “A different movie than everyone else.”

“I thought she was great. She was a good 80s ‘best-friend’.” Rob fired back. “I just think a mumblecore actress and an 80s best friend have some overlap in common.”

“Couldn’t agree more.” I replied as we petered out.

I can’t remember if I washed my hands.

***

The end of the pre-Halloween night found us almost all in costume on my friend Nina Roussarie’s roof surrounded by Georgians of the non Stalin-ite variety.

At this point I had received a few “I found you” and “Got it” and facetious “Where are you”s as I wandered from movie to rooftop, but again my costume was dwarfed by the hatchet-job Rob had done with his costume.

Converting a “governator” mask, Rob had constructed with loincloths, plastic swords, some gaffer’s tape and his own abundance of chest hair, a Conan the Barbarian costume, which he complimented with line readings from the film.

While I admit to not liking pictures on this blog, a place of writing, I wish I had this one.

Or I suppose you just had to be there.

The real trick of it was that he was shirtless on the Upper East Side rooftop as he danced around Eva and Zach, who seemed daunted as well by Rob’s sheer commitment to the bit.

There were a plethora of costumes and alcohol that night and I wasn’t sure if I would actually stand out, but at least for one night, no one would think I was Seth Rogen.

“Look!” Eva pointed at a girl dressed as a blond Velma from Scooby-Doo. “It’s someone dressed up as ME.”

“Jinkies.” I said as we made out between Heineken Light cans on the rooftop, which my friends thought were disgusting, but I found alright.

We set out to the Finders Keepers Markets at the Old Museum near RNA Showgrounds this morning to check out the handiwork of our talented designers and makers from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. There was already quite a good crowd from the word go, and got increasingly packed as the day wore on… I was armed with the very high-tech camera that Danny had to show me how to use, with the different lenses so good shots could be taken of the craftwork for the blog. Everyone was good natured in putting up with my photo-taking, so we did manage to get nice shots while trying not to elbow enthusiastic buyers! For the next week I will be featuring individual makers and providing links to their websites so you can all go and check them out.

Today’s featured maker is Brooke Johnston with her beautiful doily jewellery. It was only the fact that I didn’t have any cash that stopped me from whipping out the wallet and getting the ring for myself, but by god I wanted one!!

I am a big fan of local talent especially if this local talent is world-class. I am hoping that I’d have readers from other countries soon, and with that I hope I could help spread the word about Cebuano local talent.

Cattski Espina is one of the local talents here in Cebu, Philippines that I admire the most. She is a good songwriter and her songs are very easy to listen to and sometimes very addictive.

I am one of the lucky few who she chose to share some of her live demos in hopes that we would also spread the music. Well here’s my little way of doing so and I hope that you also appreciate her talent.

To watch her other live demos or just simply show her some love, visit her at the following websites:

http://cattski.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/CATTSKI
http://cattski.tumblr.com/
http://reverbnation.com/cattskimusic
http://www.cattskisings.multiply.com
http://www.myspace.com/cattskimusic
http://vimeo.com/cattskimusic
http://www.youtube.com/CattskiMusic

Whoa, holy shit, NINE views yesterday?! Why? And hello Krishan P., whoever you actually are. You’ve put a link to here from your FBook? Thankyou. Wow. Not quite sure why, though, ’cause it’s not like I’m overtly interesting.

Anyway, as the title says, I’m going to talk to you about a TV series which is currently gnawing away at the fringes of my mind…wow, that’s actually a little extreme…but anyway, I love it muchly and I think you will too (if you like the idea of irony in America, that is).

It is called…

(Thanks to http://capnsmirks.files.wordpress.com/ for the picture.)

It is quite popular, or so it seems…it’s not very well publicised over here in the UK but when I mention it to people, 90% of the time they HAVE heard of it. Which always surprises me. And I have the distinct feeling that I keep spelling “surprises” wrong. What kind of Lit student am I eh? (lol). Anyway…what a lot of people don’t know is that the TV series is based off a (superior) book series by a bloke called Jeff Lindsay. All with alliterative titles, all very sharp, all with irony in. Brilliant. And like the TV series (excluding Season Four because I’m not going to see THAT for at least another year over here), the order quality goes like this:

#2 (“Dearly Devoted Dexter”)

#1 (“Darkly Dreaming Dexter”)

#4 (“Dexter By Design”)

#3 (“Dexter in the Dark”)

And there’s a fifth one coming out soon as well, supposedly – called “Dexter is Delicious”. To which I now think, “you’re not joking, mate” (okay, Michael C. Hall IS quite fit from the neck down even if he IS old enough to be my father ;) ). Anyway! I’m storming through Season Two of the series at the moment. Not liking Dexter 2.0, developed by the Lila Tournay company. I know what happens to her – I managed to catch the last 2, 3 episodes on ITV at the start of the year – but I needed to catch up with the whole kaboodle before Season Three (kinda failed on that point as I was STILL halfway through Season One). Point being I have almost fully caught up with Dexter now; closing the gap between S2 ep. 8 and S2 ep. 10 like a train-track closes gaps between teeth. Not a nice image.

D’you have a blank look on your face with regards to what it’s about? Okay, I can sum it up in less than ten words: forensics bloke is vigilante serial killer by night. That’s all, really. That’s the simplest way I can explain it to you without spoiling it or spending all night on it when I really should be planning English Literature coursework!! Oh, and Rolfe Kent’s title theme is great – like Danny Elfman went to Latin America for a few weeks and then wrote this. Almost. The music used throughout the show is great as well – there’s one theme I want to know the name of.

Anyway.

Watch it, damn you, and then let me know what you think. In the meantime, cause I’ve really got to get on, here’s the Danny-Elfman-in-Latin-America theme tune. I hope…This account doesn’t have speakers.

xx Mika

Check out my debut on Colbert Nation (colbertnation.com) featuring Colin Beaven, the No Impact Man:

Watch it here! The more you do, the more I look good to my bosses!

Bad thing. Good thing. Bad thing. Good thing. WHERE DO I START? Actually I will start by apologising for the complete lack of updates lately. I haven’t had anything to talk about. Fact is, I never have anything to talk about but you guys must be at least semi-interested otherwise you wouldn’t keep coming back like you do. Hot drink and something to eat? Actually, I’d like a hot drink myself. Waiting for Mum to get back before I make one. Or is she back…

Quick hello to those who apparently referred to me: Hello, Matt Griffiths, friend of my former crush Matt Blaker. Hello,  Antonia Kesel, friend of Charlotte Seymour, whom I know but am not exactly overtly close with. Yes, I look to see who has referred to me. LOL!

Anyway, onto the subjects at hand.

1: X-Factor

Ah, “The X-Factor”. Basically, it’s like Pop Idol, American Idol, all that crap, but it’s current. And not American. Obviously. I don’t watch it by my eleven-year old brother has a strange fixation on it and even my parents catch it. Mum says she doesn’t like it but I call bullshit on her. Lawl. Anyway, apparently there are these twins, John and Edward Grimes aka Jedward, and they are truly terrible or something. I dunno. They’re in the final, and Simon Cowell says he would leave the country if they won. AND YET HE WAS THE ONE WHO SENT THE WELSH GIRL HOME AS OPPOSED TO THEM! Maybe in his mind he’s done right but if I was in his shoes – and if I knew what they were like – I’d send them home. I blame twelve-year old girls keeping them in because “OMG theyr soo hotttt!!!!11!!!11!!!!” (Mind you I am like that over Zachary Quinto, but he is actually lovely to look at as opposed to those two.) I really, honestly, truly hope Jedward fuck X-Factor up to the point where it won’t be recommissioned (right word or wrong word?) next year. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. I suppose that’s why Robert Pattinson is so popular, y’know. Teenagers scream over him, and I personally think he looks like a stoner who has just rolled out of bed (sorry, Looby [http://makedetailednotes.wordpress.com], I know you love like him ). Speaking of celebrities others regard as “bed-worthy”, this brings me onto my next subject. Good Lord, I can feel myself going traffic-light-red already. Must be the Irish in me.

2. Zachary Quinto

You may also know him as Sylar off “Heroes” or the (younger and bloody sexier) Spock off the new “Star Trek” film (OUT ON DVD THIS TIME NEXT WEEK BY THE WAY! Buy it. It’s GOOD.) Or you may not know him at all, in which case…where HAVE you been for the past six months? Or maybe as a fangirl for just under 2 years I do pay attention. Aha. Anyway. Here’s a picture. This blog hath been devoid of a handsome face for a while.

(Churz to http://community.zacharyquinto.com/entry/6a0115723d1888970b012875678fc2970c for the picture.)

See, now, I’m lost for words. And tomato red. Come on. How can you not give in to the guy? Tall, dark, handsome AND plays a hooded-eyed serial killer. Ticks all my boxes. *grins like a frakking moron* I’d hate to meet him, mind: the first words I’d probably say to him would be:

Gnngghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnkkk

or

Hi, I’m Mika, I make music, and I’ve had a massive crush on you since I was 15.

Mika not being my real name. But you’re getting it. AND OH MY GOD I’VE JUST HAD MY FIRST CUP OF TEA OF THE DAY. Sweet Lord. Zachary Quinto AND tea in the space of five minutes. ANYWAY. I could probably listen to his voice all day. And other…things that aren’t weird but may seem weird once taken out of context (i.e. running my hands all over him, paying special attention to his…HANDS! HA!).

Anyway, I’m going to stop being a fangirly now. Lawl. I think he’s the only actor I do get fangirly over, despite the fact that his surname means “fifth” when translated into English. That’s one of the few crap things about the guy that I know so far.

I’m going to enjoy my tea and bother other people now. I’ve bothered you long enough and if I talk about Mr Spock any more I may explode.

BYE!!

xx Mika

Rebecca Ward told me at the market that her recycling of used biro pens into jewellery is a subtle reminder to people that the pen is mightier than the sword. The phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” is coined from English author Edward-Bulwer Lytton for his play.

True, This! —
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! — itself a nothing! —
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Cæsars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword —
States can be saved without it!

In these modern days, can one be forgiven for using the pen as a weapon? Physically, I mean. With the number of un-agreed opinions I had with someone last week, I have had to resist several strong urges to stab him with every biro on Rebecca’s earrings. (no, it’s not Danny, and I am obviously banking on the fact that the person in question doesn’t read girly blogs like these)

PS – Biros must be good for stabbing. Should avoid felt-tips. They might leave a stain on the shirt.

Well, back to Rebecca,  she’s also collaborating with Shannon Garson to combine ceramics and jewellery. It’s all very lovely. Watch their spaces.

One of the wonderful things that human beings possess is memory. Memories are a collective set of experiences that we are able to hold which make us who we are. It is not only wonderful that the memories we have are part of what has happened to us, but is also part of what we give others.

I feel that the beauty of Kim Wallace’s work with the crocheted doilies lies therein her extraction of memory through application of the old onto the new; the dishes give a faint reminiscence of what it must be like to have tea with our nannas ( I say ‘must be’ because I’ve never actually had the opportunity to have tea with my grandmother, so I can only imagine. A reminder to all that you must cherish your nannas and their wisdom while they are still with you.)

Found this touching poem and thought I’d share it with you here.

In the Shadow of the Design (by Susan B. Auld)

When I found the doily
it lay folded,
forgotten among the trappings
of my family gatherings,

its unfolding released
dusty and hazy memories
intensified by the motion
of my hands

as I smoothed away
the creases.

Yellowed threads,
looped and knotted
by the strength of ancestral history

created a lacy snowflake
on the wall when held up
in the day’s streaming brilliance.

I found my grandmother
in the shadow of the design.

I watched as she stroked my hair and
smoothed the doily over the headrest
of the stuffed chair in her parlor.

The sun moved and I lost her.

Two loose threads dangled
from the doily’s edging
each going its own way

as generations will,
but still bound by the constancy
of kindred connections.