Marke Johnson (via ronen-v)
I’ve been saying this a lot lately. It’s a nicer (or at least sneakier) way of telling someone to their face that you believe they are lying. ;)
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Playing with the new “snap photo” feature in the Tumblr photo post. Snazzy.
Also, nice new edit forms, Jacob!
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Movie Reviews
Here are some Movie Reviews I wrote for my cousin Rian’s website five or six years ago. I still don’t know why I don’t have a high-paying job as a critic yet.
9/5/04
SUMMER MOVIE REVIEWS
Even though I’ve been working on a real tour-de-force of a novel in my free time, I never really write any of it, so I’m going to start writing some movie reviews on here, as to inspire me.
The trouble is that I don’t really have enough money to see any movies anymore, and so I’ll be trying to recall movies that I saw a while ago. And my memory is almost as shitty as my imagination.
The Bourne Supremacy is the sequel to The Bourne Identity, and it is still about Jason Bourne, but in the first twenty minutes of the movie, his wife who is Franka Potente dies, and then in the rest of the movie people are pursuing him, and then there is a car chase. NOTE: IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY SEEN THIS MOVIE, AS MY OLDER BROTHER HADN’T WHEN HE READ MY WICKED REVIEW, DO NOT READ THE PREVIOUS REVIEW BECAUSE IT TELLS YOU THAT FRANKA POTENTE DIES. HENCEFORTH I SHALL WARN THE READER IN ADVANCE.Dogville (SPOILER ALERT) is about a lady who represents a divinity, and I’m told the movie is a scathing critique on American life, and there is also a blind man in the movie who likes to feel the sun on his face, but who also is eventually mean to the woman like everybody else in the town who uses sheltering her as leverage to abuse and misuse her. Then she kills everybody.
Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2 are about Uma Thurman totally kicking ass after recovering from totally getting her ass kicked.
The Passion of the Christ (SPOILER ALERT) is about when Jesus died for our sins. And it is about nothing else. Billy Grahm really liked it, though, and so you should too. Warning for pussies: It’s really violent.
Catwoman is about Halle Berry being sexy but sort of dumb, too. I didn’t see it, but Sharon Stone is in it, although not in the same sort of way she was in Basic Instinct. I don’t really know, though, because I didn’t see that either.
Troy is about Brad Pitt being Achilles and Orlando Bloom being a big pussy in the Illiad, but don’t see it with a bunch of fellow acting students who think acting is a mystical and sacred art, because seeing it with a bunch of fellow acting students who think acting is a mystical and sacred art is shitty.
The Pianist is a moving story about a Polish pianist who survives the Holocaust, but the funniest part about it is giggling when somebody asks you if you want to go see The Pianist. Because “The Pianist” sounds like “The penis.”
Holes is a crappy Disney adaptation of a mediocre children’s book about a boy who digs holes and has a great, great, pig-stealing grandfather or something.
Cheaper by the Dozen is based on the book Cheaper by the Dozen, except with Steve Martin and Ashton Kutcher and Hillary Duff. I haven’t seen it, but Hillary Duff is the cutest thing since Madonna.
The Terminal is a really funny movie about Tom Hanks being stuck in an airport with an accent, and it made me feel very happy about life. Until I left the theater, anyway. Also, (SPOILER ALERT) Catherine Zeta Jones is in it as well, and she is very cute, but she was cuter in The Mask of Zorro when Zorro who is really Antonio Banderas cuts her dress straps away while they are swordfighting and flirting at the same time, which only happens in movies, but is still cool.
Secret Window is a movie where Jonny Depp again defies audience expectations, except this time by being in the crappiest movie ever.
Lost in Translation is a movie about how Scarlett Johannsen is really cute.
Dodgeball is a movie about dodgeball, and from what I gathered, that was the joke.
I didn’t see Anchorman because the previews looked crappy, but a couple of people told me that it was pretty good for, “you know, that sort of movie.” Which is good enough for me.
I don’t know what Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was about, but it is the best movie I’ve ever seen about love, and it made me miss M———- (whose name is a secret because she’d kill me if she knew I was still writing about her) even though I’m not Jim Carrey and didn’t try to have my memories of her erased, and even though Jon Brion didn’t do the soundtrack to my life.
Coffee and Cigarettes is a movie that is about a lot of different people drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, but should have just been about Jack White and Meg White (and Jack Black?) drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, because I liked that segment the best, even though I also liked some of the other segments as well.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the best Harry Potter movie yet, although the first one holds a magical quality for me because I saw it before I really knew anything about who Harry Potter is and Ron and Hermione and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, who is Lord Voldemort, and Dumbledor too. I saw the first one on a snowy night with a bunch of people and also with my ex-girlfriend, whose name was Kristen, and she sat on the other side of the aisle than me, and so I wrote her a note that went like this:
“Do you want to sit next to me and hold hands? Yes. No. (Circle one)”
But instead of circling one, she wrote “Hell no.”The Dreamers is a movie that I think is called The Dreamers, but I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s about an American boy who goes to Paris and lives with a brother and sister and has sex if it is indeed called The Dreamers. I only saw it because it was rated NC-17 and I could. And if you are 17 or older, you should too.
Farenheit 9-11 is a movie that I don’t even want to talk about. Mainly because I haven’t seen it, though.
The Village is a movie about how you’re really fucking stupid if you didn’t learn your lesson with Signs.
Of course, I didn’t see The Village, and I only saw half of Signs because I spent the first half waiting outside for M to show up until she called to say she couldn’t show up, so I could be wrong.
But probably not.(It should be noted that I thought Signs was really good until somebody told me that it wasn’t supposed to be a comedy.)
Anyway, I can’t think of any more movies to write about, so I’m going to read some more of G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, or maybe continue in Wuthering Heights before I go to bed. And as I’m going to bed, I’m going to try to be happy instead of very anxious and dead-feeling, and I am going to do this by thinking about how a cup of tea will taste nice in the morning, because I have learned that it is good to take life one step at a time, and drinking a cup of tea in the morning is something which is simple to do and happy, but not in a terrible way. I’m also going to try thinking about Hillary Duff right before I fall asleep, because then maybe I will dream that I am thinking about Hillary Duff.
+ [found] + Zachary +
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Okay, I’m not exactly saying my daughter looks like Hitler here… but I’m gonna go ahead and hide all my Nietzsche books for the foreseeable future.
+ maxx + not hitler +
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WAR IS OVER!
Yesterday marked the anniversary of the death of John Lennon. In tribute, Yoko Ono and the Imagine Peace team are crowd-sourcing translations of the famous John & Yoko “WAR IS OVER!” poster for people to print and share over the holiday season as cards or posters.
(via: Yoko Ono official)
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For instance, most of what I did this last summer was lay in my bed, as far as I can remember. I’m not necessarily the best authority on this, though. Because I was drunk a lot of the time. Drunk people are not very good authorities on most things, which they compensate for by saying everything much louder.
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I’m trying to wrap my brain around this: it’s a concept album set in ancient Greece that’s based on the first three-way tie in Jeopardy history. Oh, and it’s all Creative Commons-licensed.
I think I need to hear this.
Um, yes please.
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Book Reviews
I haven’t been able to post any new drawings or paintings here for a long time because I’ve been working full-time on illustrating The Gospel According To Luke with my brother Marke at The Made Shop. The Gospel According To Luke is a book about a guy named Jesus, written from a guy named Luke’s perspective. The main character dies in the end, but don’t worry because three days later he miraculously comes back to life and flies into the sky and everyone is like, “Ooh! Wow! Awesome!” It’s a pretty good book.
Anyway, in the meantime I thought I’d post some old Book Reviews I wrote for Rian Johnson’s website a few years ago.
3/11/08
Book ReviewsFantastic Mr. Fox
by Roald DahlI read this when I was about nine years old, and it made me want to be a fox who lived in a rich, cozy, imaginatively decorated little burrow underground. This is probably because I happened to read the version not illustrated by Quentin Blake. Among intelligent adults, Mr. Blake seems to be widely regarded as a terrific illustrator of beloved children’s books. And he might be, but as a nine-year old boy I thought his drawings were total pieces of shit.
James and the Giant Peach
by Roald DahlI read this when I was about ten years old, and it made me want to be a little orphaned boy who made friends with human-sized mutated insects inside a delicious, sumptuous-looking giant peach. This seems inexplicable on its own, so it was probably for the same reasons as above.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
by Roald DahlI read this when I was about ten and a half years old, and I loved it because at this time I started to realize that, contrary to what my unsuspecting parents believed, Roald Dahl was sort of seriously fucked up!
Danny the Champion of the World
by Roald DahlI read this when I was about eleven years old, on my brother Nathan’s recommendation, and I loved it. Nathan, incidentally, used to tell me great bedtime stories about a boy and a girl (named Priscilla, I still remember) who went on great adventures together all over the world. In one adventure they flew to Egypt together by riding on the wing of a 747 airplane, which is totally impossible.
Bruno and Boots:
This Can’t be Happening at Macdonald Hall
Beware the Fish
The War With Mr. Wizzle
by Gordon KormanTaken from the Wikipedia entry: “Bruno and Boots is the name of a series of young adult novels by author Gordon Korman; they are arguably his most famous works.” There’s nothing arguable in that statement. I’ve spoken with the six people who have read these books, and they simply ARE his most famous works. I won’t fault Wikipedia for annoyingly using the word “arguably” though, because I wrote my own Wikipedia entry, so obviously any hack can be on there. My entire Wikipedia biography is arguable. Indeed, as my brother Marke once pointed out, saying “arguably” to ostensibly disclaim any statement that is inherently subjective by nature or cannot be scientifically measured, is pretentious and redundant, and anyone who does so is arguably an asshole.
Anyway, these three books are arguably the best books ever written.
Anna Karenina
by Leo TolstoyThe fact that it took me nearly five whole months to make it half-way through this gigantic book has almost nothing to do with it being an extremely immense, complex, and intricately-woven epic, requiring devotion and dedicated perseverance from its readers, and almost everything to do with the fact that I was watching a lot of reality TV at the time. In the ongoing battle between Good and Evil, I like to think I’ve struck a pretty big blow for Evil. Fuck you, Russian literature! You ‘aint got shit on Flava Flav!
On Bullshit
by H. G. FrankfurtI really enjoyed this little book (or hardcover-bound essay, to be precise), but this is what I hilariously told my brother Marke when I returned his lent copy to him: “Dude, that book was bullshit.”
Like I said, hilarious.
The Bible
by GodThis is probably a really great book, but not if you have to read it nonconsecutively, a few randomly chosen chapters at a time, and then are made to memorize tons of individual verses by rote by your Bible teacher for a grade in a class at a private Christian school which will actually affect your high-school GPA and, conceivably, affect your chances of getting into a good college and ultimately leading a successful life.
But honestly. Imagine reading Harry Potter, all fun and shit, and then being like “Oh shit!” because you remember that you have to memorize large passages of its text and recite them verbatim for a test next week. By the time you hit your sophomore year in highschool, you’d probably be all like, “Fuck you, J. K. Rowling. I don’t even believe you exist.”Lolita
by Vladimir NabokovWho knew that a dark, intensely drawn, complexly psychological novel about aberrant sexual behavior (namely, pedophilia) could be so hilarious? The dirty looks I got from Meredith whenever I laughed while reading this book were priceless. They also successfully made me feel bad about myself.
American Psycho
by Brett Easton EllisI tell people to read this book all the time, but nobody ever does. That’s usually because then I remember what’s in this book and mumble, “Actually, nevermind.”
The Yearling
by Marjorie Kinnan RawlingsThis book apparently won a Pulitzer in 1939. I don’t know why, though. It’s four hundred and sixteen pages long, and it’s about a boy and his adopted deer. Gay.
The Fountainhead
by Ayn RandI really love this book dearly, but like everyone else, I was a total asshole for two straight years after I read it. My friends claim this has nothing at all to do with reading this, or any, book, and also scoff loudly about the “two years” part, exclaiming, “Two years? Two years?! Please.”
My friends are assholes.
The Da Vinci Code
by Dan BrownEveryone has read this book, and everyone thought it was totally awesome, so don’t even bother pretending like you haven’t read this book, or that you didn’t think it was totally awesome. Consider this: In his genius, unparalleled description of the physical appearance of lead character Robert Langdon, Brown actually drops all traditional literary methods and pretty much just says that Langdon looks like Harrison Ford.
To be perfectly clear: Brown doesn’t describe Harrison Ford’s features when introducing Langdon. He literally says that Langdon looks like Harrison Ford. Seriously.Awesome? Totally!
My other favorite part is when Brown makes an incredibly culturally-savy joke that goes something like this:
Character 1: What book are you talking about?
Character 2: Only the best-selling book in history!
Character 1: (Gasp!) You mean Harry Potter?
Character 2: No! I mean The Bible!
Both Characters: Ha ha ha ha.This book is so awesome that sometimes I can’t even believe it. In fact, the only thing more awesome than The Da Vinci Code was any book written by a Christian author actually taking The Da Vinci Code seriously.
“Oh shit! Dan Brown wrote a crappy fictional airplane novel which questions whether or not my belief system is valid! Please tell me somebody is writing a book to refute it, or else I might start to question the entire Judeo-Christian faith myself, because I’m a total idiot!”
“Stay calm, stay calm! We’ve got our best theologians on the job, because we’re total idiots too!”“Oh, thank God. Could every church in America also make sure to spend an entire month of sermons devoted to refuting it when the hollywood movie version directed by Ron Howard and staring Tom Hanks comes out later this summer?”
“Yes.”
The Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor DostoevskyI’ve never read a book greater in depth or scope. This masterpiece, completed shortly before Dostoevsky died, is about nothing less than the entirety of life and existence. I don’t know how anybody has had the balls to write a book since, but I respect anyone who has greatly. And that obviously includes women who have had the vaginas to write one.
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Hal & Mario
- Hal: Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?
- Mario: I give.
- Hal: You get someone who stays up all night torturing himself mentally over the question of whether or not there's a dog.
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My friends' clothes...
I like wearing my friends’ clothes. I have done it since I was little, through borrowing or the ever-wonderful hand-me-down/clothing exchange/”here you take this, I don’t wear it anymore”. It doesn’t matter how it happens. I like owning and wearing and seeing within my own possessions, my friends’ former things.
I have jewelry that a good friend’s first love gave her in high school. It isn’t right for me (i.e. I look silly in it), but I keep it in a box next to my bed, and when I am looking for a safety pin or an earring, I come across it, and I remember her heartache and flame, the stories and the suffering, the old life—the one she might have chosen that would have ensured that I never would have met her and loved her and been loved by her. The jewelry is a cairn that was erected by a lover I don’t know in her life before I knew her. My keeping it accomplishes nothing except that it recalls to my mind that she loved and was loved years before I ever met her.
Right now, I am wearing an old pair of jeans of Katie’s. They’re a bit too tight in the butt, although I don’t really care. In some ways, their over-snugness makes them even nicer to wear because I have to remember the jeans while they’re on my body, which means I also remember Katie, who is beautiful and subtle, shimmering and deceivingly placid. Her body is made up of pale, long lines, and when not-pale, not-long-lined me wears her old jeans, I feel present with her in a strange and intimate way—to the lines and angles of her limbs and hips, her narrow feet and the slight freckling across her forearms, and to all the other things about her, too. The things that have nothing to do with clothing: her voice and her work, her laugh when she is in the other room on the phone, the way she looks when she awakens from a nap.
I have an AC/DC sweatshirt that my husband bought a couple years ago at a vintage clothing store. It’s a hoodie from the Back In Black years, and I feel like a teenage boy when I wear it. Who knew feeling like a teenage boy could be so relieving to a woman in her early thirties? Chad did. The day he bought it he had tried to convince me that I would love it, but I’d shunned the thing and the idea that he might know what clothes I turn to for comfort. He wore it for a month before it took up residence on my side of the closet or on my person: safe and warm and Midwestern and ever-so-slightly rebellious (for a preacher’s kid who wasn’t allowed to listen to secular music, AC/DC ranked high on the list of do-nots). When my friend Will Gray sees me in it, he asks what is wrong, and rightly so: it is the thing I wear then the world feels like it is too much for me, it is my turtle’s shell to pull into. It is the thing my husband saw and knew I could/would take refuge in.
When my friends, Marke and Kim and their daughter Maxx, moved away from Cambridge to Denver this past summer, they left me with a box of clothes that they couldn’t fit in with all their other move-ables: pants and t-shirts, mostly. I kept a lot of it, but my overwhelming favorite is a yellow, 3/4-sleeve Missouri Tigers jersey with a half-moon tear right across my chest so that I have to wear something underneath it. By the way it fits me, I’m assuming it was Kim’s, although I never saw her in it. But when I wear it, with its heavy, soft fabric against my skin, it is easy to imagine her: younger, in college, taking elementary education classes even though she would never become an elementary school teacher, worrying about papers and grades and faux lesson plans—her life before I was in it. Her life apart from me.
My friend, Kate, had a blue sweater that she wore constantly in college. I don’t remember how it made its way to me, but I have been scurrying about in it now for at least five years. It zips up to a place just under my nose, and it requires the sleeves to be cuffed, and even though it’s been washed scores of times since I acquired it from her, every time I put it on, I swear I can still smell the linseed oil she used in her paintings her senior year in the old art annex with the sloping, condemned, fun-house floor and the requisite open window (even in the dead of winter) to keep herself safe from the oil’s fumes.
And I think this is why I love my friends’ former things: I love to be reminded of their lives apart from me. That before I was a consideration, they were. That now, whether or not we are far from one another, they are. Friendship in the contemporary age (for me, at least) functions like it seems some love affairs used to. I don’t mean that they are sexual, I just mean that they feel necessary to me: essential and blessed, in the stars or set in motion by some benevolent god. If all my clothes and jewelry and hair-dos and shoes were things that my friends used to wear, the world would be as I have always envisioned it in its finest hour: full of fraternity and shot-through with proof of interconnectedness, radiating with shared life and lives and the strange happenstance of love. I like being non-essential. And I like very much that all this evidence of life going on apart from me only underscores (for me, at least) that love is a very delicious and undeserved and fully-operational in-and-of-itself thing.
