Formation

By now, everyone and their mother has seen Beyoncé's Formation video.  The think piece cottage industry has dutifully performed its reactionary function with assiduous alacrity, SNL has done a spoof, we've almost (but not quite) gotten to the inevitable backlash.

My immediate reaction to the video was a deep understanding of why black social media was so enthusiastically embracing this recognition from their self-anointed Queen coupled with a healthy dose of skepticism about Beyoncé's sudden political awakening.  I had an in-depth conversation with Dr. Rei about it, where we discussed whether this piece was "for" a non-black audience and who gets to say whether Bey is "authentic" or not, and I've had some time to marinate in this and absorb some thoughts from people much smarter than I, enough to formulate a tenuous, hopefully reflexive response, with the caveat that, as regular and faithful readers of this blurg now, I have not now, or ever been a member of the Bey-hive.

1) I made peace with the authenticity of Bey's strategically timed-political awakening (the timing, not necessarily the authenticity as a whole).  If she wants to get overtly political in her work now, then she's a grown a** woman, making her way in a workaday world, so if she wants to address this head-on now, then by all means, go for it.  And if it makes her basic white girl fans take a minute to contemplate the larger issues and systemic oppression of black bodies in contemporary North American society, all the better for it.

2) I would argue that the imagery of the video, the aestheticization of the black experience and the signifiers of southern blackness that she/the director (and for the purposes of this writing, Bey herself will stand in for the choices of the director) are invoking, the heavy hand with which these are put into play, diminishes the affect and meaning.  There are real bodies that drowned in New Orleans.  Creating that stylized aesthetic distance is somewhat problematic, but I'm not sure where I stand on that, only that I have misgivings.

And because I am now, and forever more rooted in a Marxist understanding of class and cultural studies, I would argue that the substitution of Bey's body for those real people, is a semiotic leap I cannot, in good faith, take.  The class privileges afforded to Bey separate her from those bodies.  Those people drowned not just because they were black, but perhaps moreso because they were poor, and the collusion between those two lines is impossible to untangle.  If Bey was actually in Katrina, there is no way that George W. Bush himself wouldn't have sent Air Force One to lift her out.

I get what she's getting at, but despite her southern black roots, I feel like the association has been severed.  You can't be BFFs with Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, possibly the personification of clueless white/class privilege and then think that your black female body can be inserted into that symbolic narrative.

Or can you?  I don't think so.  I am also suspect of the invocation of Katrina, over 10 years after the fact.  But who am I to say?  Am I allowed to talk about this?  Do identity politics and resistance necessarily entail a zero-sum game where we have to pick which of our identities we privilege - why does Bey have to choose whether shes' identifying as a woman, black, or rich?

Post-colonial studies taught me about strategic essentialism as a tool for working around the homogenizing effects of global capitalism.  Is that what Bey is doing?

3) I think it's important to divorce the reception of the video and read that as a separate thing.  There's the video itself, the audience, the constructs that make the production of such a video possible (music industry), the author of the video, and meaning is constructed in the spaces between all of these forces/actors.  I think the fact that for the most part, black social media lauded the video and wanted to see this mass-market representation of a particular black experience reflected is in itself, a worthy by-product and its own discussion.  Who is the audience for this video?  Is it white America?  Is it black America?  Is it a primer for white America to understand black America?  Does this hunger for reflection trump the more problematic, perhaps (and I say, perhaps) exploitative elements of the imagery?

I haven't come to a conclusion on this, but these considerations, this nuance, is all a necessary part of the conversation.

Less controversial - Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau's cringe-inducing number at an MLK event:

I showed this to Academic Book Club last week.  When I showed it to the Dotytron, I was like, "Isn't this the worst?!" and he's like, "Totally, she white-lines it through 9 different key changes in that last line!" which I think misses the point, but is so endearingly Dotytron.

Pretty low-key weekend up ahead for us, for which I am extremely grateful.

Fin.

On Treme

Things that burn me:

1) Getting mail addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. I. Dotytron."  I literally SEETHE.  I'm sorry, I don't have a name or identity any more?!  WTF?  The surest way to get me to irrationally dislike whatever missive you've sent me via post is to address it like that.

2) The fact that no one watches Treme.  I've made no bones about the fact that we are die-hard Treme fans in this house.  Really, if The Wire wasn't such a huge thing I wouldn't even care that people pass by Treme.  It's the fact that there are legions of rabid Wire fans and no one knows Treme that gets me.  I think it has a lot to do with the subject matter - studying post-Katrina New Orleans is not as "cool" as studying drug dealers.  The subculture down there isn't as tied into popular culture's fetishization of urban, ghettoized black masculinity.

Here's the thing: it's easy to love The Wire.  The packaging is all set up for you!  And the civics/socio-economic lessons in The Wire, while perhaps ground-breaking at the time, in contrast to the nuance of Treme are incredibly pat.  The observations are nowhere near as keen (case in point: the youth drug-dealers using chess as a metaphor for how they're "pawns" in the towers drug trade is incredibly trite and to me, is sloppy writing).  Treme is even MORE David Simon than The Wire.  Instead of the narrative device of each season exploring a different societal aspect, what you have is incredibly deep, rich, layered characters living their lives in a town that is emblematic of all that is beautiful and deplorable in America.  Because of this, you really get to inhabit the world of Treme, in a much deeper way than you were allowed to in The Wire.  So yeah, it's not "cool" in the same way to be following New Orleans public defense lawyers and bar owners and councillors, chefs, and musicians, but the social commentary is no less incisive for it.  Every time we watch an episode, we turn to each other and say, "I love this show."

So yeah, of course, all the chef-insider business and all the musician insider business is tailor-made for me and the Dotytron and our respective interests, but I defy you to watch the recreation of a second-line tribute to a fallen musician with the sounds of the Rebirth Brass Band swelling in the background and not be moved.    What's not to love about a culture with a second-line?!  A culture with jazz funerals?!  It's a beautiful thing and y'all are missing out big-time.  Don't even get me started on the women of Treme.  Fierce, strong, stalwart, steely.

3) How busy I am right now.

Fin.

I promise you

...that this lil' old space 'pon the web of mine won't devolve into a rundown of all my running activities.  Because I fully know that that is the BORINGEST thing that could EVER possibly happen in life.  But!  This morning I went for my 3.5km route which I heretofore have been completing in about 22 minutes.  And this morning I did it in 17.  That's weird, right?  Like, I do one 5km and all of a sudden my body is like, "oh, so that's what we're doing now?" and I can breeze through 3.5km?  Weirded out!  I think it's all psychological.  I LOATHE running with every fiber of my being and I always run the same route that is exactly my 3.5 or 5km or whatever.  So I think that changing the end point and extending the run just tricked my body into pushing through the first part of it, faster.  If only I could do the same thing with portion control, then I wouldn't ever have to run again!

Last night we engaged in the rare act of having friends over for dinner on a weeknight.  It was kind of a big deal.  We had my friend H and her new beau J over for dinner.  They're veggies so I made us shakshuka eggs with roasted cauliflower and asparagus and a caramel cake for dessert:

I over-baked the caramel cake.  Whoops.

Then we watched the second episode of Girls.  Still kind of meh about it.  I don't really get why everyone is saying that it's so "real" when Zosia Mamet's character is so overdrawn it's like she's been photoshopped in from another show entirely.  Yeah, I get it - Dunham is okay getting down starkers and letting it all hang out...but you can't build a show on that gimmick alone.  I'm pro letting people of all shapes and sizes be on TV, but I'm not loving Dunham's face in general.  I just don't want to look at it for long periods of time - does that make me a bad person?!?  Also, aside from the random "heh" now and then, the show just doesn't turn my crank.  I'd much rather watch New Girl, from which I'm guaranteed to get some chuckles.  It's pretty telling that the Dotytron keeps clamoring to watch Downton Abbey.  This from the say guy who regaled us at the dinner table last night with a fully fleshed-out highly detailed synopsis of the plot of Short Circuit 2.  LOL!  So funny.  He makes me laugh so much.

Other good ideas from the Dotytron: I was mentioning to H & J my issues with the gendered marketing to kids and how we know that person who makes her kid into a mini-Barbie doll and it's so disturbing and the Dotytron thought we should totally do a photo shoot with the Big Yam where we put him in head-to-toe pink and give him lipstick and paint his fingernails and put one of those "headbands with the giant puffballs" on him and then get Ehmdo to take photos.  LOL!  So funny!

H's new beau owns a store, Ransack the Universe, and apparently the two of them go to estate sales all the time, which sounds like the FUNNEST!  So I think we're going to join them one Saturday in the near future.  Who knows what kind of goodies you'll find?!?  Y'all know how much I loves me a good junk store find.  Speaking of which, this store, Ethel, is moving to Corktown.  Sadface.  I'm going to drag the boys this weekend and see if there are any vintage glass/barware or other tchotchkes to be scooped up for cheap.  I feel like some of the vintage furniture stores that I love in Leslieville are starting to move to cheaper locations as rent goes higher in keeping with the increase in gentrification.  It's too bad...but I guess there's nothing you can do about it.  It's a cycle that's bound to repeat itself.  As long as we don't turn into Bloor West Village or the Beaches (which I think is exceedingly unlikely), then I'm okay with it...especially if it just means that more and more restaurants are going to open up, I guess.

The other day the Big Yam was sitting with our neighb's kid, who is the closest in age to Master T on the street (she's 5 weeks younger).  They were both sitting on a concrete step and the Big Yam started off with stroking her hair, and touching her hands, and then leaning in for a kiss!  LOL!  All he ever tries to do is sneak kisses of other babies.  It's pretty cute/heartbreaking, because he's always being rebuffed.  I keep remembering how he would wait for Little Big Cuz to turn around and then try to toddle over and sneak a kiss onto Little Big Cuz's back.  He definitely didn't pick up my misanthropy.

Imagine how many rainbows and unicorns exploded out my heart when I came home from work today and saw this on the dining room table:

I'm like, "what's that?" and the Dotytron says, "that's his bean."  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  HE SPROUTED A BEAN, GUYS!  I don't know why I find it so unbearably cute, but it just is, aight?  It's just so heart-tuggingly adorable to picture a bunch of barely-talking toddler sprouting beans.  I feel like the only thing cuter would be a bunch of septuagenarians also sprouting beans.  For some reason, I feel like the age-appropriate kid (like, a 6 year old) sprouting a bean is gross and not endearing at all.  LOL!  I'm such a weirdo.

Today was Dr. Rei's birfday so I took her out for a hilarious and filling Kathmandu all you can eat Indian buffet lunch, stuffing myself so much with curried goat and butter chicken and way too much starch that I was emitting audible groans at my desk and couldn't eat dinner tonight.  

Now I'm about to settle down with my dear Dotytron for some Downton Abbey and Friday night luxuriating.

Fin.

Because I am not as smart as my heroes

...and never will be.  Here is what John Green has to say about The Hunger Games movie (which dovetails neatly into what I have to say next):

What is very, very interesting to me is the ways in which the plot of both book and movie explore the extremely complicated and ethically fraught relationship between observer and observed—the way resource-laden Person X paying attention to the plight of resource-deprived Person Y shapes both the lives of Person X and Person Y. (The most interesting moment in the movie to me is when Katniss gets the salve from a sponsor that allows her to survive: Lawrence’s complicated thank you in that moment is maybe even more evocative than in the book. Katniss is benefiting from the generosity of the rich, but she only needs this generosity because the social order that created the wealth is also the social order that put her in the games.)

Like, what Collins explores with real brilliance is that most social orders are more or less designed to be unjust because they are less concerned with justice than they are with stability.

And when you yourself are the victim of this injustice, you’re aware in a heightened way of what gets sacrificed in the name of stability. But the vast majority of people benefit from stability, or at least feel that it is better than taking a chance at instability. (And in this respect, we’re not entirely wrong. Like, it’s still unclear whether the radically unjust but relatively stable rule of a Hosni Mubarak, for instance, will be replaced by something better.)

Because I am not, nor will I ever be, as smart, or as good of a writer as John Green, here is what he has to say about the resolution of Konygate:

Some Appropriate Responses to the News That Invisible Children Co-Founder Jason Russell Was Arrested for Being Drunk and Masturbating in Public

1. Make a gift to a highly rated, respected, efficient charity that works in Uganda, like Save the Children.

2. Join the Kiva nerdfighters group and lend to entrepreneurs in Uganda, the DRC, and other nations affected by the LRA.

3. Remind yourself always to do some research before giving to any organization, like for instance by making a quick visit to charity navigator.

4. Remember that the masturbatory habits and/or substance abuse problems of cofounders of charities are not nearly as important as the work those charities do and the efficiency with which they do it. I, for one, am far more concerned that Ugandans seem generally disgusted about Kony 2012 than I am with this news.

5. Acknowledge that the LRA sucked 10 years ago, and sucks today, and will suck tomorrow, and that it remains our job to pay attention in a patient and sustained way to the world in which we find ourselves.

Uhhh, yeah, what he said.  I am continually humbled by the brilliance of John and Hank Green, to the point where, should I be blessed enough to bear another child, they shall be named Jhankgreen.  Jhankgreen Lagerfeld (because I am starting a semi-serious campaign now that the next child should have my last name, as a bid to counteract patriarchal naming conventions.

So smart!  This week has been insanely, insanely busy.  Busy at work, busy with school, and our nights are busy.  To wit:  Monday night, we were both home to put the Boobla to bed together (my favorite!).  Tuesday night, I had class.  Wednesday night, the Dotytron had a parent council meeting to attend.  Tonight, the Dotytron wants to catch our friend A's set at The Rex.  Friday night, I have book club (where I will probably have to defend YA AND Mindy Kaling to my professor friends, who are SERIOUS INTELLECTUALS) and then Saturday we have to do house/grocery stuff and then I'm shopping with Dr. Rei and then seeing the Hunger Games with her.  Sunday we have brunch at the Dotytron's Aunt's house in King City or wherever and then we're taking my mum and Poh Poh out to dinner.  PHEW!  That means that the only night we had with both of us at home was Monday and Sunday.  That's too few!!!

Reasons why I love Dr. Rei and the fact that she's working at the Ministry of Magic.  Getting texts like: "dude! We still have to talk about the Budget!" (the provincial budget dropped on Tuesday...kind of a big deal.)  We are literally the only two people we know in the world who care to talk about the budget and provincial politics in any great detail.  I love that gal.

Feeling pretty stressed right now.  I have two 25 page papers I want to have done by the middle of April so I can have a clean slate before my last class starts in May.  I'm losing a big chunk of Easter weekend for the best reason possible, which is to celebrate the nuptials of H & A.  I'm super pumped about it!  

In other news...so many babies born!  All little girl babies too.  My colleague K had her baby this past weekend and Uncle Jesse and N had their daughter on Monday.  I am feeling tinglings in my uterine region!

 Wednesday night's dinner was those black bean and spelt burgers I make on occasion.  But with the addition of a runny fried egg (makes everything better!) and some baby arugala in addition to the smoked Spanish paprika feta spread on Pita Break One Bun.

Tonight's dinner was a cabbage and beet borscht, which had all the colour leached out of it from sitting in the slow cooker all day.  Still tasty though.  I tried to find some beef shanks or shins to dress it up but no dice.  Settled for pork ribs instead.  Served with oven-warmed Ace bakery roasted garlic bread.

Fin.

Retraction

Don't ever say that I can't admit that I'm wrong.  

I've been very vocal about my initial love affair and subsequent breakup with Zooey Deschanel as a style icon and then as a female figure in popular culture starring in a hit sitcom.  Initially, I really disliked the show New Girl because of the whole "adorkable" thing which was way too twee and infantilizing for my liking.  Well, I've come around.  We find the show pretty funny and I can admit it.  

I will say that the show has definitely taken steps to reduce the undue focus on Zooey Deschanel's character Jess, as a series of walking quirks and has taken steps to mature the other members of the cast into a really likable, funny, watchable ensemble.  The show has even addressed the criticisms of the tweeness (I'm not the only one who has said it!) head-on, most notably in a confrontation between Jess and her roommate's high-powered, very un-cute lawyer girlfriend, which included the following diatribe from Jess: "I brake for birds. I rock a lot of polka dots. I have touched glitter in the last 24 hours. I spend my entire day talking to children. And I find it fundamentally strange that you're not a dessert person. That's just weird, and it freaks me out. And I'm sorry I don't talk like Murphy Brown. And I hate your pantsuit. I wish it had ribbons on it or something to make it just slightly cuter. And that doesn't mean I'm not smart and tough and strong."  Which was a little heavy-handed for my liking.  But lines like this one (Jess, bemoaning her inability to make an apology): "I hate groveling. I wouldn't have lasted two minutes in the court of the Sun King. I think about that all the time," made me LOL like a mother.

This past weekend when I was hanging with the neighbs the Big Yam was giving me guff about wearing his hat and I was telling him, "you wear a hat when you're outside!" and he took the hat off and THREW IT ON THE SIDEWALK at which point I told him that he has to listen to mama and hustled him inside while he kind of twisted and bucked in my arms like a 28lb giant Southeast Asian grub.  Later on, I took him back outside and he wasn't wearing a hat, so one of my neighbs needled me, "where's his hat?" (I forgot to put it on him) and so I said, "the important thing is not whether he's protected from the sun at all times or not.  The important thing is that he knows that if it is my will that he wear a hat, he has to wear a hat."  LOL!  I'm pretty sure they think I'm the meanest parent on the block.  I rule with an iron fist.  I went back in to tell the Dotytron and he supports me 100%.  The Boobla neither has the mental capacity (right now) or the history to understand context, therefore, it's my job as the parent to decide when he has to wear a hat or not.  But if I say, we wear a hat when we go outside, then he better do it, because my word is LAW.  

How many times have I seen a parent, obviously not happy about their kid doing something they don't want them to do, standing there, arms akimbo, earnestly saying, "Madison, can you please stop taking the sand out of the sandbox? Madison?  When you take the sand out of the sandbox, then there won't be enough sand the next time you want to play with it.  Madison, I asked you to please leave the sand in the sandbox," and on and on with their voice going up at the end and I'm like, why are you pleading with your kid?  Why are you trying to reason with them?  They don't understand the long-term ramifications of their actions!  Every day is a new day to them...they're not going to get that if they shovel all the sand out of the sandbox now, that at some date in the not-too-distant-future, the level of sand in the sandbox might decrease to the point where it will have a negative impact on their sandbox fun!  **I** barely understand that concept (see: my clothes buying habit and my credit card balance)!  It's all about conditioning them.  So yeah, maybe I treat my kid like a dog in the court of a slightly-more-strict version of the Sun King.  But at this age, they kinda ARE like dogs!  Is that wrong?  Am I not supposed to say that?  Obviously, the personality of the kid makes a huge difference too.   Some kids might not be as receptive to direction.  But maybe it's the cultural studies in me but I believe that like, 98% of the time you can mould general behavior.  That's how I learned that murdering people is wrong, right?  

So despite the individual personality of the particular kid involved, I think that it's a symbiotic relationship between the parent and the kid (within reason).   Kids who come out of the womb more sensitive can have the edges smoothed a bit by a parent who doesn't give into those sensitives, or have those edges sharpened by a parent who gives into those sensitivities.  That's why as a general thing, people have an easier time with their second child, because they're less anxious and stressed out than they were with bambino number one.  I can draw an anecdotal conclusion that the parents I know who still have babies that get up in the night repeatedly, if you ask them, "well, how long do you let them cry for?" will almost always say, "I can't bear to listen to them cry!" That being said, I'm pretty sure if we have another baby, that #2 is going to be a hellraiser of the highest order, just to shake up my world a bit.  At which point, I will post another retraction.  Stay tuned!

Tonight I have class.  It's my last Tuesday class before the summer term starts in the beginning of May.  The summer class ends on July 14th and then I will be DONE MY DEGREE!!!  THE STUPID DEGREE THAT PROBABLY WON'T ADVANCE MY CAREER PROSPECTS IN THE LEAST AND WHICH I RUINED MY MATERNITY LEAVE WITH MY FIRST CHILD FOR!  

Sigh.  

Fin.

Weekend in review

FAO DR. REI - this post might contain Hunger Games movie spoilers!  You've been warned!  Same goes for anyone else in my pathetic readership who hasn't seen the movie yet.

This weekend was kind of bucktown.  We went with some crew to AYCE Hot Pot for dinner and it was THE BEST!  Well, some people didn't love hot pot as much as we do.  I find it odd, and I know that Dr. Rei considers it like, a personal insult any time I take friends to a Markham favorite that she's been to and they don't like it as much as she does.  In her mind, that means they don't "deserve" to go.  LOL!  It's kind of cute.  Is it wrong that I secretly agree?  You're either on board or you're not!  You either can accept the glory of AYCE hot pot (and the unlimited eggs for dipping!) and cold, sweetened (and free!) chrysanthemum tea into your heart or you can't.  

It's the same with the Hunger Games.  I've basically turned into a one-woman Hunger Games defender.  There's been some kind of weird anti-Hunger Games backlash popping up on my social media and I swear, I'm turning defending the Hunger Games into a part time job.  I get so mad!  Why haters gotta be hatin' so bad?  Seriously?  It's always the duy-duys who have no idea about popular culture and dislike anything that's popular, too.  Guys: SOMETIMES PEOPLE GET IT RIGHT (ie. suffrage, civil rights, public healthcare, Harry Potter, the Hunger Games).  It's okay!  It's not that big of a deal to participate in a collective cultural experience!  It's also always the same duy-duys who like, dislike it because it's not "intellectual" like, say, Mad Men.  People talking about how "intellectual" Mad Men is makes me want to braf.  HOW?  WHY?  Because it's super-boring?  It's such an insular character study.  Even though I find i the least-compelling television ever, I can get the appeal.  But don't be trying to convince me that it's the SMARTEST TELEVISION IN FOREVER.  And that's it's all high brow high culture just because it's all mid-century modern and because people are conflicted.    Uh, no thank you.  The Mad Men-repping crew is always the same as the Six Feet Under crew or like, the Jonathan Frantzen crew and you know what I have to say about that?  I've had enough about white people and their white people problems, thanks.

I feel like the same thing that happened with Konygate is the same thing that happened with Lana Del Rey.  No matter what, there is no way that you can convince me that stopping Kony wouldn't benefit Uganda, or if you want to get specific, it would reduce the kidnapping-children-for-child-armies numbers.  What's galling is that the same liberal intellectuals who are all like, "Kony 2012 is complicated!" are also the same ones who are like, "stop globalisation!" or like, "stop the Israeli occupation of Palestine!" which is a WAY MORE COMPLICATED ISSUE!  Like, exponentially!  It's just the internet and the media whipping themselves up into a froth.  Which is what happened with Lana Del Rey.  Girl wrote (or had ghostwritten, seriously?  How is that an issue anymore?) a catchy song that capture a very evocative vibe that is really underrepresented and then did a semi-nervous performance on SNL (which wasn't even as bad as everyone made it out to be) and people raked her over the coals for it.  Whaaaaaa?  I'm an original hater and I frequently hate things randomly (ie. my hatred for the Jigga Man) but my gift is being able to step outside of myself enough to know when it's irrational and inconsistent.  And the attempt to take down LDR was totally irrational and bizarre. Like, she's being taken to task by the bloggerati for being contrived?  For being manufactured?  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...sorry, I'm already asleep from this BORINGEST CULTURAL CRITICISM CONVERSATION IN 50 YEARS.  

Move along!

ANYWAY, hot pot wasn't the most successful but the night was the best anyway because the crew was the best, anyway.  One of our friends didn't know that at most AYCE restos a 10% gratuity is included and ended up paying way more for a tip and the Dotytron was like, "You know what?  That's a n00b mistake.  I'm not even going to offer to pay you back because you have to learn your lesson!"  LOL!  I'm always bigtime embarrassed/find it hilarious when the Dotytron gets all hilariously uppity about "teaching people lessons" (except when the lesson learner is me, obvs.)  We got to the theatre (an hour early) and we totally thought our ticket taker was just acing the deadpan ennui delivery when he told us there was a line already.  We're all like, "Aw, Brandon! You card!  Very funny! Haha!  A line an hour early!?  Why I oughta..." and then we found out that we were in the SECOND line for our screening.  PSYCHO KILLER, QU'EST-CE QUE C'EST?!  We were okay though and got decent seats.

Did I mention that I braided my hair into a side braid a la Katniss Everdeen?  When I saw the flick, I realized that I've been rocking the winding-around-the-head French braid for longer than Katniss.  No big deal, they just used my styles for inspiration.  I was also wearing a hob t-shirt that SMckay got for me.  And she was wearing her Hot Topic District 12 tank which I almost wanted to rip off her body, but I didn't, because I was trying to be cool in front of her beau.  They showed a Hunger Games commercial before the movie started and SMcKay and I did the salute from District 11 and Lolly was like, "you guys are such nerds," and I said to her, "Uhhh...HOW ELSE WOULD WE HONOUR RUE, HUH?"  *rolls eyes*

Afterwards we went for frozen yogurt at Pac Mall and it was the best!  Funnest night evers.  So so good.  I'm glad I get to see the movie again this weekend with Dr. Rei and the Roomie.  I totally came home from the movie (we were out SOOOO late!  Didn't get home until 2am!  What?) and tried to will my brain into having sexy dreams about Peeta.  I'm like, such a shipper.  I have been since I was a kid.  I think my shipping started with Lady J and Flint from the GI Joe cartoon.  I have a long shipping history but haven't gotten to the point where I write fanfic (yet.)  What!  I would NEVER!  Hahaha...just kidding.  I might.  Someday (tomorrow.)  

I'll do my movie review at the end of the post so that people who want to avoid spoilers can.

Yesterday the Dotytron was preoccupied with getting his stuff ready for his teaching evaluation that's happening today and I spent a good chunk of time outside with the neighbs chilling and weighing in on our one neighbour's siding dilemma.  I love my hood.  So hard!  According to this site that calculates walkability (using a very simple metric), my neighb scored a very nice 88/100!  That's a solid A, folks!

Friday night's dinner was delicious - a folded pizza bread sandwich thing, stuffed with chopped anchovies, olives, a sundried tomato tapenade, and sauteed rapini with fresh mozzarella.  This was a briny, delicious delight.

Tonight for dinner we had chicken stew with sweet potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and peas and dilled cornmeal dumplings.  So, basically the return to cold weather was the fault of this meal

Okay.  Time to get serious.  Hunger Games movie review.

Overall, really really liked the movie.  They stayed true to the spirit to the book and the changes they made in order to make the story flow, made sense.  Some people have been griping that it wasn't as violent as the book and that it was toned down too much to make for a PG 13 movie, but I think those people are sociopaths.  I don't *need* to see someone getting mauled to death.  The before and after are enough for me and it still evokes the horror of what the Capitol makes them do without being gratuitous.  When the film first started, I was a little worried that the jumpiness and fast edits was going to continue through the film, but thankfully, it dies down.  Gary Ross does a great job with strategic flashbacks and knows when to lay on the music-video-effects touches and when to pull them back.  Jennifer Lawrence is a PERFECT Katniss Everdeen (I called it AGES ago!) and Josh Hutcherson is a good Peeta.  Liam Hemsworth as Gale is also good, even if he's reduced to making the same perturbed-but-stoic one expression for the few minutes he's in the film.  Here are my thoughts in point form:

- I know why Madge had to go, but the symbolism of the mockingjay pin then gets all garbled.  In this case, Katniss picks it up in the hob and gifts it to Prim, saying that it will protect her (no explanation of symbolism of mockingjays!) IT FAILS TO DO THIS because Prim gets picked in the Reaping.  Then she gives the mockingjay pin (which I would think is now CURSED) back to Katniss to "protect" her.  Bad symbolism guys, bad symbolism.

- Prim is THE WORST.  When my sis and I saw her casting, we were like, "UGH, UNIBROW!"  You're supposed to love Prim on sight.  FAIL!  Big casting mistake.

- The chariot scene suffered from some seriously bad CGI.  Admittedly, they had a small budget to work with...but you could've done better than that!  It looked really really cheesy and had me concerned before the rest of the film settled my fears

- Elizabeth Banks was PERFECT as Effie and the character of Effie was perfect.

- I'm not sold on Woody's Haymitch.  They also make Haymitch way more sympathetic than he is in the book, which doesn't do justice to the complexity of his character.

- LOVED Donald Sutherland's President Snow.  Also loved the speech about hope and why a little hope is good but too much is bad.  Loved the improved presence of Seneca Crane.  Also loved the final touch of killing Seneca Crane by putting him in the room with the poison berries.  Although we were joking after that that if we were Seneca, we would've been, "Well, this is getting a little obscure.  I guess President Snow is late for the meeting" and the final scene would be him still sitting in the room, looking at his watch, getting all exasperated.  LOL!

- it seems like just about EVERYONE IN THE WORLD pictured the cornucopia as like, a French horn half buried in the ground.  LOL!  People were NOT expecting it to look so futurismo, but I get it.  Making a giant golden French horn probably wasn't in the budget.

- Totally cried like a baby when Rue died.  Loved seeing the uprisings in District 11

- Didn't need Cato's speechifying at the end.  I don't need Cato to be rehabilitated.  He's a Career.  That's what he does.  I didn't want Cato to be humanized.

- Totally thought the shippers were robbed by the scene where Katniss kisses Peeta not for show in the cave.  In the movie, they just show her looking at Peeta in a new way (way to go Jennifer for the ace acting chops!) and then cut to daylight.  Lame!

- In our theatre, when Katniss kisses Peeta and they cut to Gale watching from District 12, the whole theatre went, "Awwwwwww" in sympathy for Gale.  It was hilarious.  And awesome.  

Overall, it was a very satisfying fanboy film experience. My quibbles are small and my appreciation is great.  I read recently that The Fault in Our Stars has been optioned for a film.  Pretty pumped about that.  With Batman and The Avengers opening this spring/summer...it's going to be a very satisfying fanboy summer for me.

Fin.

NYC!

I can finally tell you guys about NYC!  

Finished a long-overdue paper last night and I'm feeling pretty good.  Tonight we're going to see The Hunger Games with SMcKay, Lolly, R, and SMcKay's new beau.  To say that I'm PRETTY PUMPED would be the overstatement of the not-so-new millennium.  I'm BEYOND excited.  I've been waiting for this for what feels like years!  We're also doing a round of pre-movie AYCE hot pot, AND I just came back from Canadian Tire with 3 new Rubbermaid storage bins to do some reorganizing, which pretty much just launched this day into the stratosphere.

The Big Yam is doing his first sleepover at Nana's house tonight and there are plans a-foot for a late night mission to Pac Mall.  Sounds like the best damn night, in oh, I don't know, FOREVERS.  The only thing marring my anticipation is the knowledge that I didn't jump on that Hot Topic District 12 tank when I first saw it.  I went back yesterday on my day off to buy one and they're all sold out!  Sold out online, too!  Booooo...so sad!  I still might do up my hair in a side braid, though.  Squeeeeee!!! So excited!!!  

So.  NYC.  Overall, not the best place to go with a baby the Big Yam's age, when you do NYC the way we like to do it.  That generally means, not a lot of museums, and a lot of hanging out maxing, relaxing all cool.  But it was still fun, and Momma D watched him one night so we could have a fabulous 5 hour meal with our NYC friends.

On the plane ride over, a man stopped to spend an extended amount of time talking to the gentleman half of the couple sitting in the row in front of us.  Finally, we heard the wife, say, exasperatedly, "He doesn't know you." which made me and the Dotytron almost die with laughter.  LOL!  This was made even more funny because the stewardess who gave us the "how to hold a baby on the plane" safety rundown had made a big show of "recognizing" the Big Yam and saying stuff like, "Oh, I remember this little man!  He's grown so big!" and telling the other flight attendant that the Big Yam was a "frequent flyer."  After hearing the "he doesn't know you" line, we wanted to use it on the flight attendant when she came back to offer drinks and make a big showing of knowing the Boobla.  LOL!  I mean, maybe she was our flight attendant when we flew Porter to Boston, but that was 8 months ago...I have a hard time believing that the Big Yam was the baby she was remembering.

 We stayed at the Tryp Hotel in Times Square.  It's newly opened and had the biggest rooms of any of the ones I had checked into (280sq feet).  It's also got some cool family-friendly features.  Our room had this little extra bar/counter area with an extra sink, an empty bar fridge, as well as free wi-fi.  The deal I got us also got us complimentary drinks one night.  Some of the other "family" rooms have murphy bunk beds that swing down from the wall, which would be perfect for a family of 4 staying together.  The rate we got was $169 all in, per night, which anyone I've told has said is insane and a great deal for Manhattan.  Momma D?  Not so much.  She said she was used to thinking of $100/night as her maximum for a hotel.  I didn't clarify if she was talking in like, Eerie Indiana or NYC in 1972 or something, but it was pretty funny.  

 Our first day we had lunch at Luke's Lobster, which is a great alternative to Pearl Oyster Bar.  They have multiple locations (no line!) and are routinely listed as one of the top 5 lobster rolls in NYC.  It's a great, classic lobster roll: top-split bun, the barest hint of mayo, huge chunks of lobster.  Served with a pickle, kettle chips and a boutique soda.  Perfect.  I think I prefer my lobster roll with a touch more mayo, but that's just me.  We got a lobster roll and a crab roll.

 This was my crew.

 At the MOMA.  I saw this Picasso and said to the Dotytron, "this is exactly what you look like naked."  *pause*  "I'm pretty sure that's a woman."  LOL!  We saw the Cindy Sherman retrospective which was awesome as well as a Diego Rivera special exhibit.  This was strictly for Momma D's benefit.  Left to our own devices, we're not really museum goers.  The Big Yam had fun listening to the audio tours, though:

For dinner we had intended on going to Shake Shack but with the weather being so nice while were there, the lineup in Madison Square park stretched almost around the whole perimeter.  We ended up at Hill Country Texas BBQ Market and am I ever glad we did!  It's kind of like a Marché type concept: all the offerings (meats, sides, desserts, drinks) are printed on a little card, you bring your card with you to the station, they serve you up, note what you ordered, and you pay at a cash when you leave.  Easy peasy.  SO DELICIOUS!  I am haunted by the taste of the juicy brisket, the beef shoulder, and their ribs.  The sides were divine, the corniest, creamiest corn pudding you ever done ate in your life.  

That was Day 1.  

Day 2-4 to come tomorrow.

Fin.