dreamworks, miseducating our youth

i'm tired of movies that miseducate our children. movies that show children the impossible (i.e., walking into a closet and finding another world on the other side) that intend to expand the imagination our kids are one thing -- they do a service to our children in teaching them how to think outside of the box. i'm talking about movies that are just scientifically sloppy -- because someone thought that was funnier or more interesting or just didn't do research. these movies do a disservice to our kids.

dreamworks has apparently decided that male protagonists are more interesting than female protagonists, and that this justifies an entire re-writing of how the natural world works. in both bee movie and antz, they invent male workers. (here's an article from the ny times on the topic.) what's the point of this? are female characters so lacking in interest? are men so important that we must re-write the laws of nature to invent more male characters?

(don't even get me started on the nickelodeon pile of dung, barnyard, in which cow characters who are male have udders. how? and more importantly, WHY?)

joy v2

thank goodness i have this to keep me happy.

diversity of campaign staff

dude, no he didn't

my favorite quote from the willy week's review of OTO's muscle max:

"Dave Nemorino (Zakk Hoyt) is the wiener-slinging hero pining after bracelet-bedecked Adina (Natasha Risotto), who harbors a wet spot for hunky Steve Belcore (Michael Miersma)."

hmm. i didn't know one could "harbor" a wet spot.

anyway, my real point is: is the term "a wet spot" really appropriate in this review? (or any review?) having personally seen the show in question, i can find no justification for the use of such an overtly sexual reference in the review of a show that is so insanely PG in its portrayal of the characters' sexuality. lacking substantive reason for the use of blatantly sexual terminology, the reviewer's choice of words is just plain crass. (i'm sensing some gay-boy girl-hating in this choice of words -- the female character is the only one who is so crassly and unnecessarily and inappropriately sexualized -- but that's another conversation.)

here's to a new low in my favorite reviewer's body of work, published by my favorite local paper!

should overweight be my goal?

hmm. here's an article on an interesting story from all that's fit. seems that mortality rates are lower among the overweight (but not obese) than among people with "normal" or "ideal" weights. maybe i should stay closer to my current bmi of 30 than my goal of 23? or maybe it's just that the goal should be physical ability rather than physical appearance?

bicycle city

the top emailed article in the ny times today is about portland and -- what else -- bicycles.

damned if you do, doomed if you don't

An interesting look at the perceptions of women in the workplace from all that's fit to print.

“Most of what we learn shows that the problem is with the perception, not with the woman,” he said, “and that it is not the problem of an individual, it’s a problem of a corporation.”

Duh. But thank you for putting it in print.

it's halloween in the castro - every day but halloween

not sure which is more interesting -- this article about gay neighborhoods or the fact that this article is currenlty the 2nd most emailed article at nytimes.com

sleep

a whole section in the ny times on one of my favorite topics...

*drats. one day later and the science section is no longer just sleep articles. but here are links to some of the sleep articles:

sleep and memory
nightmares
too little sleep
sleep and aging
sleep drugs
co-sleeping
thoughts on sleep

disturbia

<~~~~it may be the metropolitan opera, but it's still new york city...

It’s interesting to walk through a place without the tunnel-vision of living there. How did I never notice that you can see Times Square all the way down Seventh Ave at W. 14th St.?

Oh, New York, you are your own unique, totally dysfunctional world.

I stopped at Whole Foods in Chelsea to pick up an apple and a couple bucks worth of hot food for dinner. On my way from produce to the prepared foods, I spotted the check-out line, laughed out loud, and left the store. Over a hundred people stood in line, most of whom had less than ten items to purchase. And to them, this was normal and okay.

More people have touched my body in the past four days than in the past six months. It is never dark here. It is never quiet here. I have to crane my neck to see sky. If I hadn’t stayed near Central Park at first – and now by Prospect Park, cat-sitting for friends – I’d not have seen any significant greenery.

The unnaturalness of the city is unsettlingly disturbing and phenomenally magical.

Yes, I admit it: I can see why people love NYC. I get it, really, I do. But how can one live in this place and not go crazy? It’s like living in some sort of fantastical mental illness to live here. I’m far too practical to cede my sanity for that high.

I’ve also been particularly aware on this visit, despite wearing flats, of how short New Yorkers are. Where are the sons and daughters of Norway and Germany?

memory

I’m not at all the nostalgic type. Quite the contrary, I spend such exorbitant amounts of time planning that I barely have time for living the present, much less the past. So it’s generally a pleasant surprise when memories pop up and bop me on the head.

I’m in NYC for the week for work. Since I’m catching some opera while I'm here, I booked a hotel on the Upper West Side. I’m at Broadway and W. 73rd in short term apartments (the clientele is certainly tourist, not business, but the price and location were right). It’s surprisingly large, it has a clean (and private) bath and an illuminated cross next door welcomes me home each evening. (Ah, vestige of old New York...)

Trying to be a good opera singer, what with the Oregon District MONC next weekend, I figured I ought to limit the use of AC in my room. Since there was an arctic chill upon check in, I turned the AC off before heading out for the evening. (Five days of AC in the office plus flying PDX to Orlando to NYC to PDX this week should provide ample dehydration to battle.) I returned from using the free wifi at Cosi a couple blocks uptown to the faintest smell of garbage and fish in my room.

Bop! I was back in my first apartment in the city. My best friend Jamila and I were sharing a bedroom (and a bed) in downtown Brooklyn in a loft space converted to a 3-bedroom. The first floor was a fish fry place and the second floor was a beauty parlor. Thus, the place smelled like fish in the afternoon and we had no cold water from 8am to 5pm. That lasted about two months. (We found out years later, when a lawyer contacted us while researching his case, that the entire building was zoned for commercial use only and the guy from whom we were subletting was several years behind in rent, having been “subletting” the apartment for years and pocketing the money.)

joy

opinions

morsels for thought...

revisionist supreme court justice jerks...

the place of 9/11 in the presidential race...

debate: headshots

well, i'm only moderately happy with the results of my photo shoot. but all you need from a photo shoot is one good shot, and i came out with a couple viable options, so i guess it was a success.

here are my best shots. please comment and let me know which one you would get printed up if you were me.

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Option 4

elsa

it was a spontaneous decision, but one several years in the making. the universe offered up a little dog to me, and i took her. meet elsa. she's a chi-poodle (or poo-huahua, take your pick), 2 months old*, not even a pound yet and totally adorable.

* footnote: just found out that elsa's actually about 4 weeks, not 2 months like the owner said. she really should still be with her mommy. but seeing as the lady who owns her mommy is trying to get rid of the puppies asap, it doesn't look like that would happen even if we returned her. so out to the store for puppy formula i go...

water and woods

after weeks of a light work load, i suddenly find my plate overfloweth. it's 10pm and i'm just getting started (or rather, stalling on getting started). oh, the blessing and curse that is working from home.

i'm counting down the days until the weekend. heading up to the hood river area for "wild women in the woods" -- a loosely organized weekend of hiking, kayaking and general debauchery. i'm excited about some time with dirt under my feet, communing with the trees and playing multi-person solitaire. i was hoping for warm enough weather to swim, but alas, frolicking at sauvie island labor day weekend gave me swimmer's ear. swimming just isn't satisfying if i can't completely submerge my merself. swimming or not, i'm still hoping for warm weather because the 40-degree rating on my hot pink camo sleeping bag is a lie! note to self: must remember to administer my ear drops three times per day even when swimming in vodka.

shot through the heart

well, actually shot in the face -- but not in the dick cheney's hunting buddy way.

i decided that my headshot is overdue for an update. my hair isn't short anymore. and it's blonde now. and i'm no longer twenty. and i'm using it for opera instead of theatre.

so, i gathered up some of my fanciest dresses and a wad of cash (emptying my checking account in the process) and went over to see owen carey. in about a week i'll get to see the results, but glancing through the thumbnails on his camera, i'm optimistic.

and i had fun playing princess for the afternoon. (i can just hear you, every one of you, saying "of course you did.")

comic con

i went to comic con in san diego to perform the too much coffee man opera a month ago. it was a trip. the convention floor was, what, like a quarter mile by 100 yards? the scale of everything was pretty rad -- tens of thousands of people, gigantic sauron and voldemort, batman and chewbacca twice my height made of legos, and whatever the huge blue thing at the sci fi channel's booth was.

gosh were there some fun toys.

i was expecting more attendees in costume, but i got much pleasure from the homemade costumes -- anything made with a cardboard box as its base gets my vote.

some other highlights of the weekend...

• a skinny, cranky, aviator-bespectacled girl throwing rocks at joey outside the airport


• laughing blue gatorade out through my nose a half hour before go


• the man in the front row who brought his own cushion for the theatre chair


• celebrity sighting: danny bonaduce (avec wife) at starbucks and joss wheedon at the dark horse booth (alors, no jessica alba pour moi...)


• the almost dining at ch1ve and search for another restaurant fiasco


• my first in & out burger


• gorging myself on cas' pizza (and getting a shiner from hero during a game of tickle torture gone bad)
  
• swimming in the pacific
  
• walking through the people lined up to see us perform as we entered the theatre!

btw, check out shannon wheeler's comics in russian on livejournal. too much coffee man in по-русски ... Очень Хорошо!

what's the world coming to?

you've got to be effing kidding me. jail time for sagging jeans?

narcissus

i had fun with photo booth yesterday. yes, i'm vain. i like pictures of me. i want you to like pictures of me. i want you to like me. sigh.

the album's at http://www.myspace.com/deeluxegal, if you have a myspace account.

meanderings

sunshine is nice. walked to the pearl in it. feel like a person again.

reading is nice too. makes me a calmer person. half way through as simple as snow (loaned to me by zerd -- probably the best read person i personally know). it's weird to read a novel about high schoolers who are texting and emailing each other, since that wasn't a part of my high school experience or in any of the literature that shaped my world view. but it's a good book thus far.

made a lovely salad at whole foods. julienned beets, strawberries and romaine lettuce with a touch of red wine vinegar and oil. rich popping colors and a crispy/sweet/earthy thing going on. mmm for all the senses.

found cute boots that fit my feet for the first time in like five falls. found two pairs even!

i decided that ice cream calories don't count if you eat the ice cream while walking. but i didn't enjoy the ice cream as much. poo.

funniest pick up line i've heard in a while: i'm walking down nw second ave carrying said boots, guy on bicycle goes by, circles back around and says "can i help you carry those...or wash?" then he proceeds with "i'll give you a ride home. i know how to wipe my own ass." if this isn't evolution of the species, what is? it was everything i could do not to spread my legs right then and there.

are you ready for some football?

on saturday we went up to seattle for what was the end of one football season and the start of another. as most of you know, my sweets plays for the portland shockwave, which is part of the iwfl (a national women's tackle football league). the iwfl season ended a couple weeks ago, right about the time nfl pre-season got started.

the seattle majestics invited us up to scrimmage them as part of the pre-game programming at the seahawks/vikings pre-season game. the lady ballers also got to unfurl and wave the 20yd x 15yd flag during the anthem. then we went up to our nosebleed seats to sit behind melissa's bachelorette party and watch the game. (i have to admit, the veil pinned to the "melissa's bachelorette party" trucker hat was cute.) although i had been on the field during halftime at the meadowlands during a week 16 giants vs. cowboys game (to take pictures of a scrimmage when darleen played for the ny sharks), saturday was my first "nfl game" from up in the stands. i expected the players to look smaller than they did from the nosebleeds, but i was pleasantly surprised.

i'm looking forward to this fall. hoping to enjoy LT and the duo of reggie bush/deuce mcallister as much as i did last season. we'll see if brady quinn and jurevicius and a couple other key trades/drafts can help the browns get anything started this year (although one naturally doesn't expect real results for a couple seasons). but funniest nfl news thus far? some guy on ebay is selling michael vick cards that have been chewed by a dog!

plant love

plants: in my garden
this grey weather has me feeling like summer is already over. i never did get around to expanding my garden. the unusually ickles weather has been a mixed blessing -- i didn't need to water everyday and therefore didn't develop the usual depth of relationship with my garden; but being away from home so much this summer was easier knowing that one day without water wasn't going to kill my geraniums.

plants: organizational system
as i search for motivation to get my act together with fall auditions, i keep running into carl linnaeus. (okay, not actually running into him, but coming across references to him.) developing binomial nomenclature for my to-do list might not speed things up, but it would be a fun procrastination method.

plants: reasons to buy stuff
eco-consumerism inspires people in some, um, interesting ways. take cargo's plantlove lipstick -- the packaging is made from corn instead of petroleum and part of the packaging can be planted in your yard and will sprout wildflowers. lindsay lohan even designed one of the colors. i want the job of the person who got paid to come up with this stuff.

max roach (1924-2007)

grandpa nick's gonna enjoy having max roach on the other side with him. they'll light up a joint and talk philosophy through the music.

darcelle's

here is the one joke worth keeping from the show at darcelle's on saturday night:

a really tragic event happened the other day in washington d.c.
george w. bush's library caught on fire.

(pause)

bush is really sad because it destroyed both of his books.

(pause)

and he hadn't finished coloring them yet.

real and imagined

the disparity between fantasy and reality is lately shocking me. i try to uncover the moment of fissure whenceforth my mind continued on the course of things expected while reality turned and took a different path. alas, said moment alludes me.

little river flows

eyes closed in joy do not see

rocks changing her path

and there you have it...there's the reason i'm not "a writer." you should see the equally lame poetry from the teen years.

speaking of which, check out the show mortified the next time it plays in your city. maybe even pull out your old journals and audition.

(btw, like the little rock art we found at babgy by some andy goldsworthy imitator?)

cascade locks

yesterday mon cher ami smuggled me aboard a jet boat tour up to cascade locks. (alas, no disguises or bondage were required. that fantasy about a hood over my head and waking up in the trunk of a car will have to wait.)

our tour narrator extraordinaire imbibed us with all kinds of neat knowledge. my nerd self was soaking it up. some of my favorite factoids:

during the month of august, the columbia flows backwards. due to the moon's closeness to the earth and the ocean's influence on the river, the columbia right now is flowing about 2 mph away from the pacific instead of its usual 8 mph out to sea.

the original burnside bridge was moved and is now the sellwood bridge (which is apparently a very unsafe bridge -- stay away from it). what is now the burnside bridge was built a couple years thereafter.

the city's building a new bridge to sauvie island. the one that is currently there is going to be moved and set up around flanders st or something like that.

the center span of the fremont bridge was lifted and put into place in about an hour. it was a record breaking dead-lift. 26 barges held the piece before it was lifted into place!

(i didn't realize i like bridges so much, but i must since that's most of what i retained. i also appreciated the beauty of the st. johns bridge...two years here and it was my first time seeing it.)

one of highlights, naturellement, was going through the lock at bonneville dam. when i was in 4th grade, my girl scout troop volunteered for a day at a lock house in maryland. we wore period dresses. (the little house on the prairie replica was not a flattering look for my pre-pubescent body, and the thick itchy fabric was nothing like the gone with the wind attire i had been hoping for. sigh.) we used period brooms to sweep out the original lock-keeper's house as we told visitors about how the lock worked. but the lock was no longer working, and it was small, and we just stared down into it briefly.

we entered the large cement pen which is the bonneville lock. the crew tied the boat to the side of the lock, and the huge doors behind us grinded shut. un peu de claustrophobia set in, but i held it mostly at bay. somehow i expected water to flow in from somewhere visible, but instead it bubbled up from under us -- raising us just over 50 ft in the process. after a light lunch at the cascade locks visitor's center and a short walk through downtown cascade locks (happening place that it is -- what vacant looking people), we returned through the locks. during the descent, wheels somewhere in the lock made creepy ringing siren calls in major thirds, creating the expectation of some creature to come forth when the doors opened. alas, the other side just held river, but it also held enough sunshine to make the choppy ride back mostly enjoyable.

of meat and men

oh, the silliness of it all. more fab reporting from all that's fit to print.

myspace whore

so, not only have i started taking and posting those myspace surveys, i've started writing ones. what a dork.

btw, here it is. i thought it was clever at the time. why do i feel like i need to share this stuff about myself?

Age: 29
Birthplace: bartlesville, ok
Children: soon (i hope!)
Drug: sugar
Emotion: longing
Fear: depression
Goal: international fame (not that i’m aspirational or anything)
Home: wherever i am
Inspiration: generosity of others
Joy: music
Kink: biting
Love: water
Memory: snow up to my waist
Nickname: magoocher (in my wee years)
Occupation: helping people sell more shit
Priority: do right
Quirk: must do certain tasks in multiples of 4 or 5
Revelation: infinite capacity for love
Sense: smell
Temptation: cigarettes
Unacceptable: dishonesty
Vice: gluttony
Wealth: doing something that feeds you soul
Xenophilic or xenophobic?: neither and both
Youth: overrated
Zodiac: taurus with leo rising

road trip with the bro

i was lately blessed with a visit from my younger brother, including an awesome roadtrip around northwestern oregon. we camped (he enjoyed playing firemaker), took in several very different views of the pacific, hiked in search of petroglyphs (found!) and dipped in a couple rivers.

some highlights:

(since i rather not prioritize importance of one experience versus another, i've used sequential order of occurrence as my organizing principle)

• the view from the astoria column
• curry chicken quesadillas at urban cafe
• revolver-bearing firing range warning signs and cold war era light towers at cape disappointment (which i always mistakenly call cape despair or cape desolation...i'm so emo)
• the tsunami warning signs along 101
• sunset at canon beach
• the driftwood cemetery that is the beach in lincoln city
• touring and tasting at the rogue brewery & distillery
• sand drifts at agate beach in newport
• petroglyphs (mostly bears and water) east of sweet home
• the river in cascadia
• the stars in mt hood national forest (so many! so bright!)
• watching zack make fire and take pictures of it (for hours)
• bagby hot springs
• diving into the river/waterfall by babgy (perhaps more awesome than the hot springs)
• ending it all with yumminess from pastini back in portland

what's wrong with people?

someone let their dog piss on my vespa this morning. how is it that you're on your morning walk with frodo, fido or fifi and he lifts his leg to piss on someone's vehicle and you let him? makes me want to lay a little snip-tuck on dog and owner.

mississippi

my heart goes out to anyone in minneapolis affected by the I-35 bridge collapse. the pictures are crazy -- i can't imagine how bizarre it is in person. well actually, i can (i'm sure it's no more for the mind to take in than ground zero was), but it's still a lot to wrap one's head around.

rufus

the sweets and i saw rufus wainwright at the crystal ballroom last night. 'twas lovely to see someone so adored for marching to his own drummer. (actually, marching to his own full orchestra, i suspect.) it's also refreshing to hear live music that's in tune!

(as you can see from the patterns adorning some of his flaming-er fans, his fans also march to their own drummers.)

one member of his band deserves a particular shout out. decked in thick rainbow suspenders, he played tenor sax, soprano sax, flute, recorder, piano and sang some lovely countertenor backup vox. hello, mr. most talented.

one of the highlights of the evening was an irish folk song that rufus and band performed sans amplification. maybe it was just me, but the crowd went crazy for this -- perhaps more so than for the old favs they came to hear him sing. pardon my new-agey moment, but there's magic in the unadulterated transmission of sound waves from human vessel to human vessel. one of my favorite aspects of the operatic tradition is said physical connection (sound produced by one person's body vibrating another person's body -- at a cellular level even!) conscious of it or not, people respond to this human connection when you give it to them -- last night being exhibit a-439.

the other highlight, of course, was the encore in which rufus lip synced to his cover of "get happy" dressed à la garland. with his band giddily participating as the dancing boys clad in black suits and baby pink shirts, they re-enacted the scene from summer stock -- complètement camp, mais complètement fab!

rufus performing the second act in lederhosen was quite adorable, too.

pass me the lead paint, would ya?

yet another reason to skip giving a barbie to the kids in your life -- lead paint.

yup. in the "made in china" era, lead paint is no longer just an issue relegated to those who live in pre-war buildings and have kids with a penchant for dining on paint chips. no! lead paint is now a concern for anyone with kids who like to put toys in their mouths. not that kids ever do that.

rats are little people too

according to all the news that's fit to print, rats are ticklish and giggle like human babies. which makes me think of mimi, pet rat of my friend lisa haas (playwright and performer extraordinaire), who was very cuddly and intuitive and totally lisa's familiar. and also about pulling my sandal-clad feet up onto the bench when making out in central park on a summer's night because, personally, having those little critters scurry over my feet does not encourage sexy feelings. thank you, rats, for such varied emotions and experiences.

we're gonna be priced out

i'm seeing all this stuff in the media about how the presence of gays and artists positively impacts the economy of a city. (here's one for example) well, duh...we're fabulash. all the media attention this is getting is a) good news and b) bad news. people are saying positive things about gays and artists -- yeah! we're gonna get priced out of the neighborhood we made desirable even more quickly now -- boo! *sigh* i'm so conflicted.

star anise

i had a lovely day despite the drizzle. (i've been sore about the grey and rain lately because it is the promise of a sunny july & august that keeps me going through the rainy winter.) i picked up the final installment harry potter, did a little joy riding (gosh i love to drive) and spent an hour in sephora (girly girl heaven -- i swoon). not a bad start.

then came the real fun -- hanging with my elizaebeth. we saw 'hairspray', which is a thoroughly awesome flick. bouncy music, positive social/political messages, fantastically campy choreography and john waters in what is one of my favorite movie cameos. we followed the movie with dinner at pho van -- not my introduction to vietnamese food, but my first time with the pho family of restaurants. tres yummy!

we topped the evening off with another portland-area first pour moi -- a trip to uwajimaya. i picked up glass noodles (who knew they were made with sweet potatoes?), my favorite japanese roasted mixed nuts ("a happy present from the earth" the package reads, and i concur), banana tapioca and myriad other goodies. (okay, maybe not ten thousand other goodies, but quite a few nonetheless.)

while in the spice aisle at uwajimaya, i spotted dried star anise. i've seen many pictures of star anise and knew exactly what i was looking at, but as i picked up the package i realized that i had never physically seen star anise before -- just photos of it. it seemed a strangely momentous occasion -- a reminder that even after nearly thirty years, there remain plenty of simple experiences yet to be had for the first time. it's nice to know that there are new things small as well as big to look forward to. (i know, i know, one doesn't end a sentence with a preposition, but "to which to look forward" seems awkward. hmm, awkward doen't look like it's spelled correctly, but yeah, i guess that's how it goes. it's fitting that the word looks its meaning, non?)

rascal scooter

the past two months have been a test in stamina under stress exacerbated by sleep deprivation. death, wedding, reunion, performance and work have taken their toll (as has the chronic dehydration of five cross-country flights in six week's time). my body has become exhausted to the point of mindless submission, which bizarrely has lead to very good voice lessons. (is the mind too tired to get in the way of the body or the body too tired to listen to the mind?)

i've taken sizable joys in the study of the species this exorbitant travelling has afforded. however, it was upon homecoming that i stumbled on a true treasure of people watching pleasuredom. (keep portland weird, right?)

apparently today is creative use of rascal scooter day among the frosties of gateway. there was the old lady on the red rascal scooter in the drive thru line at burgerville, sandwiched between the black mid-sized SUV and the silver 4-door sedan. no less than an hour later i saw yet another red rascal scooter in automotive territory (although admittedly in the crosswalk and making its way towards the sidewalk). captained by a time-compacted grey-haired male, there was a rope tied to the back of the scooter, and in tow was a wheelchair bearing a round, beret clad old dame. she held the thin rope with both frail hands while her swollen, house-slippered feet shuffled against the ground (as her wheelchair was lacking in footrests and her legs lacking in musculature).

perhaps only a wheelchair towing scooter could top a drive thru scooter.

why this, of all life events, seemed a worthy impetus to commence el bloggo, je ne sais pas. it was simply too preciously strange a sight not to share.