Pining For England: Reason 2

Winston Churchill.

And everything he ever said.

action.

Does anyone else realise the importance of tennis? How else would we know spring is kind of here without the sound of thwacking of rubber balls 'n rackets? It's the greenest of all sport.

There is no better way, besides peace sign gestures and a real good romp in the sheets, to actively prove our youth and vitality.

Final summation: A trip to Benny's to find the cheapest tennis racket is in order.

oscar.

My favourite description of James Cameron I have ever heard comes from Alice Gregory:

"WHO AM I? I divorced the hottest woman in the world, I married a woman who resembles a raw vegan instead, I look like a lesbian, and all I didn’t get was this stupid Academy Award."

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing particularly against James Cameron - I'm a huge Titanic fan, but, uhh, I'm over it, and glad about Kathryn Bigelow's win. Granted, this is coming from one of the 2% of the country who has not seen Avatar [or The Dark Night]. [editor's note: 2% is a random number, not at all a real statistic.]

Now, to be honest, I watched the whole show last night [after zipping back from pre-show fun that aired on ABC6 in Provvy]. I adore you, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin, you're a cool dude, but, speaking truthfully here, for all it's worth, Ben Stiller stole the whole damn show.

By the way, I was one of the red carpet photographers at Oscar Night America: Providence. If you were watching ABC6 before the Oscars began, you may have seen me trying to look profesh with my clunky white Holga and two rolls of Lomo film. They gave me a photo assistant. Always in style. And if you watch the highlights, you may not be able to find my face, but you can definitely see my flashes...from my camera.

Go Oscars.

throw y'hands in the air..

I'm truly obsessed with this song.

Enjoy the spinning record. Now get to downloadin'...

more of what we want & can't have.

How badly do I want to go to this:

The answer is: Very. Very badly.

But I can't. Music Festival in THE GORGE, WASHINGTON. Memorial Day Weekend. And it sounds brilliant on many accounts. I didn't post the trailer because, actually, I don't like the trailer. The audio is very not pretty. BUT, personally, I've been itching to go to Oregon/Washington for many a year and, well, I guess England typically prevails, BUT srsly, in my dreams.

Name a list of all my favourite bands and a good majority would be at this festival. Here's a few! [There's more bands than this, but these are ones that I'm titillated by because this is my blog, and I can]...

Saturday, we've got My Morning Jacket, Miike Snow, The Hold Steady, and GET THIS, my beloved Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.

Sunday, we've got Dirty Projectors, Tallest Man on Earth, Girls, and The Fruit Bats [who I totally missed in Boston back in September for no good reason!] Oh, and, yeah, haha, the comedy stylings of Mr Mike Birbiglia: My favourite stand-up comedian, in fact, the only one I've ever really given two crappers about.

And Monday, holy crap: MGMT, New Pornographers, Band of Horses, Dr Dog [who I'm seeing in May anyway], and the frickin Mountain Goats! [though I guess I've seen them already at least].

But, I mean, really.

writing: it's what i do.

After spending approximately four minutes reading the Wikipedia article on dalmatians, I, unrelated, decided it was about time I post what I actually write to th'blog. Which isn't blogging. I've only got a couple months left of undergrad, which means only two months left of somebody handing me clever exercises to keep me regularly writing. I'll post some of the one pagers from my Creative Nonfiction course.

The following exercise was simply to describe a place that suggests a story. Enjoy:

What is that song?

The usual sounds were there -- Voices figuring out if they needed the Northern Line or Piccadilly Line [an American couple deciding upon the Black line rather than the Blue line], voices competing over who was more pissed last night [Richard or Rodge?], voices considering which show to go see tonight [always insulting choices -- Wicked or We Will Rock You or Mamma Mia--]

That's it! It's 'Dancing Queen.' He's playing Dancing Queen.

No one riding the tubescalator -- The escalator, that is -- Had ever seen the guy play anything quite as melodically complex as 'Dancing Queen' before. Anyone staring down, angled at him, were staring into his bucket -- Because unlike the other buskers who all used the case their instruments came and went in, he used a blue twelve-gallon bucket, like one a horse would drink out of. How a vacuum cleaner saxophone playing robot thought he would ever make twelve gallons of loose 5p coins was absolutely ludicrous. It is this realisation alone that would make twelve people go by completely looking away -- And it is difficult to look away from a vacuum cleaner robot that is playing "Dancing Queen" on a vacuum cleaner saxophone.

The tubescalator seemed to move extra slow. It is around the end of the day and the beginning of the evening -- Not the night, but the evening, specifically -- That this appears to happen. It doesn't actually move any slower. There is probably, or maybe, no way of controlling the speed of the tubescalator, but when it is so completely filled with tourists who haven't been warned of the law about standing to the right and letting others pass -- That pulling out your excessively large Tube map completely last minute or finding your souvenir Tube map thong you just shamelessly purchased -- is not nearly as important as other people getting to where they need to go -- This is the pride and joy of the London transport system -- A seamless flow.

Without a seamless flow, life is harder to observe on account of building frustration. The big Leicester Square roundel looms overhead -- The legendary red circle with the horizontal blue bar with white text reading either 'Underground' or whatever station it is ornamenting. If the miners had such a simple, soothing logo such as this reading 'Underground,' the idea of that word may have not been filled with such anxiety. A seamless flow.

On the walls, lining the tubescalator, are rectangles -- Approximately twelve inch by eighteen inch rectangles. They're usually filled with ads, often for plays and shows going on, often for travel, and even more often for Virgin gym. They were not filled with ads then, but were instead filled with morose, pleading faces of frustration -- Faces that were still able to feel complete narcissism despite the congestion. The space looked so dark in the rectangles -- And the world seemed to move even slower. Nearing the end of the moving stairs, finally able to maybe break free of the backed up humans, five people struggled in woolen pockets for change. Maybe the vacuum cleaner saxophone playing robot needed some after all. Only he could make "Dancing Queen" last what seemed like forever. And when a seamless flow of people heads down a brightly lit white hallway into a stream of building heat, it was probably a good time to empty heavy pockets.

et encore.

Sans toi, les émotions d'aujourd'hui ne seraient que la peau morte des émotions d'autrefois.

[amélie]

Srsly.

if vernon is walking down the sidewalk at one mph, will gregor pass him if...

A Breakdown of the Greatest Social Problem of Our Time:

When approaching somebody, and they are approaching you, there is an obvious debate about what to do next. Do you look away? Act natural? SAY HI??

A lot more thought than we realise goes into this problem and I think it is based on these factors:

-How well you know the person

-How happy you typically are to see this person

-When is the last time you spoke to one another

-Has anything awkward happened between you, ever

-How aesthetically pleasing are they/you

-Are you walking with somebody

-Are you walking with a group of people

-Are you in the middle of doing something [ie texting, iPodding, studying how many more licks there are to your tootsie pop...]

-Will you actually cross paths or are one of you turning

-Is there weather? Specifically, inclement weather

-Do you have the testicular fortitude to completely ignore somebody you know?

And then it leads into the question of: Do you Stop & Talk, Say Hey, or Wave, or just Smile, or even just Half Smile?

It's all extremely confusing. Even a social genius couldn't solve a problem like this.

I feel like if I was any good at mathematics, I'd be able to figure this out that way, rather than psychoanalytically.