In which I refuse to self-edit

Bogus review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:
I don't like Jim Carrey. Or Kirsten Dunst. Or Elijah Wood. And Mark Ruffalo was such a weiner. I actually fell asleep for ten minutes at the beginning. Yet I persevered because Kate Winslet is so pretty, and it's fun to listen to her talk with an American accent. Why do you think I've seen Titanic more than once? I have a real crush on her again now.

I really liked how everything played out in Joel's head, but I couldn't find it in me to care, to even want Joel and Clementine to be able to work it out. I blame this on Jim Carrey, because I did care about Clementine. I just wanted to steal her. Hellooooo, she works at Barnes & Noble and, you know, looks like Kate Winslet. What more could I want from a woman?

I'm not the only one who knew that the movie started after both their memories had been erased, right? I don't know if that was supposed to be obvious, because I fell asleep once the opening credits started rolling, so I'm not quite sure how we got into Joel's head, except that he found out Clementine had erased him, so he wanted to erase her (but I knew that going in). Anyway, the fact that the name Clementine had no associations whatsoever for Joel made it clear that he'd erased everything that had anything to do with her. No one is that cut off from the world.

Okay, so maybe if I hadn't fallen asleep, I'd have found a way to connect with this movie. But it mostly seemed like a fancy conceit without real characters to keep me interested. Like Adaptation--that had some really good acting in it, too, but, like, I didn't care. I really can't articulate it any better than that. Boo on me.

Anyway, that girl whose name I never seem to be able to remember has another new song! Whee! I spent all last night listening to it thanks to the lovely people at againtoday.com--and even worked out the lyrics myself, like, immediately. It's so good! I just don't know who wrote this one. It doesn't sound like Tim, so I'd say it's Brandi's--and for the first time, I totally love a lot of the words. Here:

"Avenue of Second Starts"
Icicles are fallin’ down
from the rooftops
of the tiny town
Behind the glass
(A winter land)
(Silent storms) in the palm of your hand

Tell me how can this be
I’m stuck inside a game in which I know I’ll only lose
I’ve never felt so free,
but I’ve never been so blue
I’m lost inside your love, and there is nothing I can do

Maybe we can meet again
On the avenue of second starts
And we have to fall in love because we both have broken hearts
Maybe it’s just a dream
that we’ll never live to see come true
But you’re out here by my side,
and I’m already missin’ you

Bicycles
Spinning wheels
Spinning round
That’s how I feel
The carnival
has moved away,
and all that’s left
are thoughts of you, night and day

Tell me how can this be
I’m lost inside a game in which I know I’ll only lose
I’ve never felt so free
but I’ve never been so blue
I’m lost inside your love, and there is nothing I can do

Maybe we can hitch a ride
to a faraway distant land
We can watch the clouds roll by
and write our names into the sand

Maybe if we close our eyes
we can let our souls run free
and meet behind the stars
in some other galaxy

Tell me how can this be
Tell me how can this be

I’m stuck playin’ a game in which I know I’ll only lose
I’ve never felt so free,
and I’ve never been so blue
I’m lost inside your eyes, and there is nothing I can do

I know this is epically nerdtastic, but "and meet behind the stars/in some other galaxy" made me think of Bastian meeting the Childlike Empress for real after the destruction of Fantastica. Whatever! I don't remember how it looked in the movie, because I have repressed the movie, but "behind the stars/in some other galaxy" calls up my mental picture of their meeting quite nicely. Any. Way.

Katherine Heigl, the girl who made me gay, no longer has any effect on me. Do you know how much I do not want to see 27 Dresses? And I watched some bad movies this girl did, just because I loved her. Bride of Chuckie, My Father the Hero, Wish Upon a Star--okay, I still kind of love Wish Upon a Star. And I mean, first season Isabel Evans will always and forever be awesome, but present-day Katherine Heigl, girl who made me gay though she is, is pretty much dead to me.

Now, the fact that she made me gay does not mean she was my first girlcrush--she was just the first girlcrush that made me, um, rethink some things. First real girlcrush? Jewel Staite, when I was eleven, and she had rainbow-colored hair. How gay is that? I keep forgetting that all the Whedon nerds know who she is now, because she was in Firefly and Serenity, but to me, she will always be Catalina, from Saturn's moon Titan, who had an invisible (not imaginary) friend named Suzee. It was totally bogus, too, when Jewel Staite got a job on the Disney Channel and left Space Cases to have Suzee take her place in some kind of dimensional exchange. Boo. Of course, I watched Flash Forward like it was my job, but she ended up falling in love with her boy best friend Tucker (Ben Foster!) at the end of the series, which I just haaaaaaate. I think even Sam and Clarissa had some kind of weird, but mercifully brief, romance thing. Did Alex and Ray? God, I hope not. I can't remember. Oh, oh! Before she realizes how she feels about Tucker, Becca (Jewel's character) dates a grotsky Ryan Gosling! I think that's why I can't stand him to this day. Anyway, back to the boy/girl best friend romance disasters: Pete and Ellen did it; even Zack and Jessie had that stupid episode where they were doing Snow White and decided they actually liked each other. The worst one, though: Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable actually start dating. (Shut up, I love cartoons.) You know how I feel about Georgie and Izzie. It happened in that stupid teen movie Whatever It Takes with Shane West and Marla Sokoloff, too. It happens in a lot of stupid teen movies, but that's the one that sprang most readily to mind. I only like stories about falling in love with your best friend when both best friends are girls. That's not yet quite enough of a cliche--only because it doesn't happen in mainstream media. But it's rather a large lesbian cliche.

Anyway, that was not supposed to devolve into a bitter rant against straight entertainment, but really. Girls can be friends with guys without sex getting the way. Why can't anyone accept that?

Oy, I can't believe I'm doing this--it seems so gauche--but I just found a blog post on afterellen.com about the character archetypes of Little Women being represented in television shows featuring gangs of women, and you know I was all over that, but I kind of faded out when I she mentioned "Southern hospitality" as an aspect of the book. I don't know what it is about books that take place during the Civil War (but I will blame Gone with the Wind), but they seem to call up an image of the South, rather than the land of us harsh Yankees, but come on, people. The bulk of Little Women takes place in Concord, Massachusetts (the rest of it takes place in New York City and parts of France). Then this got me: the blogger said Jo sold her hair for her sisters, which not so much. Jo sold her hair to take care of her father, to "mak[e] Father comfortable and bring him home" when he fell ill in Washington during the war. I mean, I do appreciate the idea of this post, but it makes me nuuuuuts when people can't get details like that right.

Okay, so the interesting thing was that the point of this article was that you can apply the Little Women characters: beautiful, maternal Meg; tomboyish Jo; shy Beth; vain, artistic Amy, to many of the female gangs on tv. The ones she used as examples, I can't comment on, because I've not seen the shows (The Facts of Life, Golden Girls, something else), but she did say towards the end that Sex and the City and even Cashmere Mafia could fit into this mold. So first I tried Sex and the City and immediately decided that Charlotte would be Beth and Carrie, Amy, but I was rather puzzled as to what to do with Samantha and Miranda. In the end, I decided Sam would be Jo and Miranda, Meg, because Samantha is bold and forthright and all that, like my dear Jo, and well, Miranda is more maternal than Samantha is, anyway. Miranda really doesn't fit as Meg. I'm not pleased.

Cashmere Mafia was even harder. I would put Zoe as Meg, because she kind of is what I imagine Meg would be in the twenty-first century, trying to be a working mom extraordinaire. Then I lost it. Caitlin would be Amy, maybe, because she kind of gets treated like a younger sister by the other girls--and she looks like Amy would have looked--and Mia could be Jo, brash and bold and not afraid to get into it with men. But Juliet is not Beth. None of them is Beth. Not even close.

Perhaps this is so hard for me because I have more than just a vague idea of these characters, having read the book and its sequels a million times. They don't match up to any other characters closely enough for me. So, conclusion: I don't buy it. Interesting theory, though. Very interesting.

I like Margaret Cho's theory on girl gangs better: "and then there's the ho." You know, you have one smart one, one nice one, and...then there's the ho. I think she used Charlie's Angels for that theory, but I cannot comment on that either, because I have not seen the television show. The movie, however... Cameron's the nice one, Lucy's the smart one, and Drew's the ho? I guess that works. It works for Sex and the City: Miranda's the smart one, Charlotte's the nice one, and Samantha's the ho. Carrie, as lovely as Sarah Jessica Parker seems, is...blech. Mia's the smart one, Zoe's the nice one, and Caitlin's the ho. Juliet is excluded, because I don't like her. Look! It even works for Little Women: Jo's the smart one, Meg (and Beth--but she dies) is the nice one, and Amy's the ho! "Look around, which one are you?"

Book crises abound

I told Allison that the film adaptation of The Golden Compass hurt my soul, and she said, "I like that books are part of your soul. It gives you character." Snerf. She may have been making fun of me a little bit, and I may have exaggerated when I said that, but I think books are part of my soul. I certainly would not be who am I without all the books I've read. If I ever go blind, my life will be over. Um, until I learn Braille.

Well, The Golden Compass topped the box office this weekend, but it only did 26 million dollars. That's half of what it needed to do to be considered a success because of the enormous budget--allegedly: some bitch I saw on CNN the other morning said that it needed to do $50 million opening weekend. This is bad news, bears. And pretty pathetic compared to what The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and even The Chronicles of Narnia did on their various opening weekends. (I don't know why, but I was so surprised that I wasn't the only person in America dying to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.) His Dark Materials is a better series than all of those--except The Lord of the Rings, I guess. I mean, I love The Lord of the Rings, but Tolkein's writing is really not very accessible. Pullman's is. Rowling's is almost overly accessible. C.S. Lewis's is juuuust right. Also, the fact that I love both His Dark Materials and The Chronicles of Narnia is causing an epic struggle in my soul, because His Dark Materials is, like, a rebuttal of The Chronicles of Narnia, which Pullman called "religious propaganda." Sigh. You can't ignore the Christian themes in Narnia, but I don't know. I love it anyway. Hopefully, I can work out some way where I can love both of these series without having to fight with myself.

I'd really like to know, too, since The Golden Compass was barely hyped up (compared to these other fantasy franchises), how many people who haven't read the books actually went to see it. Mike and I both wanted to see it before even I'd read the books, but that's because we're kind of obsessed with movie trailers. And! Did the people who've read the books boycott it? God, I hope not. I know I was hard on it, but I think the movie has some merits. Maybe I am just saying this, because I want The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, which is the best book, to be made into movies. They should have just filmed all three at once like The Lord of the Rings, but it would seem that that's the only trilogy that could have ever guaranteed that all three movies would be box office smash hits. Maybe they should have waited fifty years to make His Dark Materials, giving the nerds a real chance to get obsessed. (I don't really think that would have worked, but I just don't know what to do.)

Spoiler alert!

I wonder if the non-readers picked up on what might happen next, though, because Roger and Lyra won't stop saying, "We're in this together. Together. Togethertogethertogether" at the end of the film. I imagine most people would be like, "Hmm. Perhaps you're going to be separated," but I don't think anyone will be prepared for just how heartbreaking their separation is. I know I sure as fuck wasn't. When I was re-reading the book last week in preparation for seeing the movie, this line: "only Pantalaimon, shaking Salcilia [Roger's daemon] firmly, was able to keep Roger from shouting out and leaping up to greet his best friend, his comrade in arms, his Lyra" made me cry because now I knew what was coming. Roger would follow Lyra to hell without a second thought--and that's where she takes him, and it hurts my heart how that happens. But the best part is that she fucking follows him, eventually, in spite of the enormous pain it causes her and Pan, because Lyra is nothing if not loyal.

And, while I'm here, let me bitch about this: Mrs. Coulter telling Lyra that she's her mother irritated the piss out of me, because Mrs. Coulter never admits to being Lyra's mother (to Lyra) until The Amber Spyglass. I don't know if she even knows that Lyra knows. Clearly, I need to read the rest of the trilogy again. But anyway, I guess it's more dramatic the way it happens in the movie than just having John Faa tell Lyra, and it's nothing on my irritation scale compared to what happens next. While Mrs. Coulter is telling Lyra that she's her mother, Lyra has taken out the mother-fucking alethiometer to verify this information! What the hell? How on earth is Mrs. Coulter supposed to fall for the spyfly tin trick if you have the alethiometer in your hands right in front of her? When Mrs. Coulter tries to weasel the alethiometer away from her daughter, Lyra has it stashed away in the ceiling with her winter clothes. Because she is smart. And! Because the Master told her to keep the alethiometer secret--but most of all never to show it to Mrs. Coulter--and she does all she can to keep it away from that woman. She never, ever would have whipped it out in front of her. God, I can't believe I forgot to bitch about that until just now.
No more spoilers.

Who is doing the voiceover at the beginning of the film, by the way? Lyra as an adult? I effing hate the voiceover at the beginning of the film.

You know the thing that hooked me, though, on the book? The very beginning, when little British Lyra fucking hides in a wardrobe--and keeps the door open a crack because, of course, "it is very foolish to shut oneself up in any wardrobe." Or she wants to spy on the scholars some more, but whatever. Lyra is almost nothing like Lucy, though, but that doesn't matter. Both of their adventures begin because they've hidden in a wardrobe.

You know what I kind of want to know now? If Madeleine L'Engle had an opinion on His Dark Materials. She seems like the kind of religious person who could get behind Pullman's message, that dogmatism and oppression have got to go.

Um, more spoilers, all the way through the end of the trilogy:
Here's a thing: I've read some criticism that Pullman doesn't even broach the subject of Jesus in his retelling of Paradise Lost, and thus everything is simply too shallow (or some shit), but I would like to argue that Will and Lyra play the part of Jesus, descending into hell to free the souls trapped there. Seriously, when they're in the land of the dead, they even create a landslide, which is exactly what happened when Jesus went down there--according to Dante, anyway. Will and Lyra have conquered death, you see, just like Jesus did. SO SUCK ON THAT. They're even better than Jesus, because there's no need for a bloody fucking sacrifice--but they both make a huge sacrifice to be able to go to down to the land of the dead, just as hard, if not harder, than Jesus's giving himself up to the Roman soldiers. Then they have to make another sacrifice to keep the door out of the land of the dead open--but it's nothing compared to the first sacrifice they made. So Will and Lyra are not only Adam and Eve, but they are also the redeemers. Since there is no God in His Dark Materials, Pullman can't do a "son of God" thing, so I don't know how you can even list that as a criticism, but he does have characters who do what Jesus was sent to earth to do. Isn't that awesome, though? The characters who were viewed as the root of sin are actually the saviors of humanity. Come on! Philip Pullman, I could kiss you on the mouth. end of spoilers

Interestingly, it's not C.S. Lewis's Adam and Eve (King Frank and Queen Helen) who bring evil into brand new Narnia--it's Digory, who isn't an allegorical figure as far as I can tell. But I guess Digory still commits the original sin--then rectifies it (for a time--of course the Jesus lion has to rectify it for good a thousand years later) by picking (but not eating) an apple. Blarf. Original sin is ridiculous. However! Most of English literature has been influenced by the Bible, and if I just look at it as a bunch of stories and not the answer to life's questions, I can handle it. Most of the time. Like when Madeleine L'Engle retells the story of Noah and the flood in Many Waters--I love that. She's the greatest, Madeleine L'Engle is. Or was, I guess. Sigh.

I really will never learn

I have never been more disappointed in the film adaptation of a book I loved. Wait, did I say that about The Neverending Story already? Well, it's close between these two, then. Serious spoilers for both film and book versions of The Golden Compass follow. As well as spoilers for the other books in the His Dark Materials trilogy. Also, if you've seen the movie but not read the book (and you want to), please don't read any further, because the movie doesn't contain the ending of the book, and I don't want to give it away.

Okay, seriously, I even already knew that the ending to the film was wrong, but I was still shocked and outraged by what had been done when I actually saw it for myself. Because it's awful. It's just awful, what they've done to the book. This is one of those times when I wish I had seen the movie first and then been all, "I must now read the book!" because I have this serious problem, which I only became able to articulate when I took novels into film senior year (best class ever--and it was an honors credit): I cannot separate the movie from the book upon which it was based and discuss it as a separate piece of art--which it is. If I've read the book first, anyway--and, if I loved the book, it of course becomes more difficult.

And people, I love The Golden Compass. Let's start with the end, shall we? The end of the movie is everyone together in Lee's balloon, going off to save Lord Asriel. This could not be more different than the ending of the book: everyone's scattered; Roger's dead; and Lyra is totally and utterly on her own--except for Pan. I cannot believe they did not finish the story; Lord Asriel has not created his bridge; Lyra has not betrayed her best friend--what the fuck? I really don't understand how they could begin a movie with what was supposed to happen at the end of this one. Especially when the next installment begins in our world with a completely new character. And if we only find out what happened because Lyra tells Will or some shit, I will scream. This was one of the most heart-wrenching things ever: when Lyra realized just what, exactly, she had brought her father, and leaving it out just sucked any power out of the movie.

A lot of things they left out sucked out the power from the movie. Like the daemon connection--that barely came across in the movie. And, oh god, when Lyra finds Tony Makarios, and he keeps asking for his Ratter, and no one will go near him because to see a human without a daemon for them is like seeing someone without a head for us--it is so sad. And then when he dies! And Lyra scratches "Ratter" on a coin for him, trying to make sure that he and his daemon stay together in death--I totally cried. And that is not in the movie at all! When Lyra comes back with Billy (who plays the part of Tony for the film, I guess), everyone's just like, "It'll be okay, Billy. We'll get Ratter back" like seeing him without his daemon did not totally terrify them. And no! It will not be okay! He and his daemon are separated forever. Why did they leave that out? They left out the adults who'd had the intercission done, too, so we don't really know what Mrs. Coulter is trying to accomplish from just what we get in the film.

Okay, so second of all, the plot is totally out of order: in the movie, Lyra is taken to Svalbard when she's captured by the Samoyeds, which is just retarded, but I see that it had to be that way so that the movie could end the way stupid Chris Weitz wanted it to. And then when she goes to Bolvangar by herself and enters it willingly, it just makes no sense. You never really get to see just how cunning and resourceful she is, and that's a big part of why Lyra is so awesome. Anyway, since they did the bear part out of order, I guess I'll talk about how that was all wrong next.

I realize that things have to happen faster in a movie than they usually do in a book, but still, this thing with the bears happened way too fast. We didn't see any of how Iofur Rakinson (which is not the bear king's name in the movie, by the way, for no reason I can see--but I can't remember what they named him, so I'm just going to call him Iofur Rakinson) has been trying to turn the bears into humans--and that is exactly how Lyra is able to manipulate him and exactly how Iorek is able to defeat him. Because Iorek tells Lyra that is impossible to trick a bear, because bears are not like humans. But when bears act like humans, they can be tricked, Miss Lyra discovers. That is also why Iorek christens her Silvertongue--because she tricked a mother-fucking bear. He still calls her Silvertongue in the movie, but for no fucking reason, because we don't know that you cannot trick a bear. And, when he learns how Lyra has tricked Iofur, Iorek tricks him himself, pretending to be wounded to take the king off his guard--and ultimately defeating him. Also! They totally made up why Iorek was an exile--and how Iofur came to be king. Iorek never lost a single combat; he killed a bear, and that is why he was exiled. Oooh, ooh, this is also important, because it parallels him to Lord Asriel. He fought with another bear over a female and won, but the bear wouldn't back down, so Iorek killed him and was exiled. And Lord Asriel had an affair with Mrs. Coulter, and when Mr. Coulter found out and tried to kill Asriel, Asriel killed him and was exiled, basically. And Asriel and Iorek are the two male figures Lyra admires most in her life (until the very end of the novel), and these details are very important, okay? Argh.

Poor Serafina Pekkala did almost nothing in the movie, and that made me sad, but I don't feel the need to go any further than that.

I am very upset that Fra Pavell is in the movie--we don't meet him until The Subtle Knife, and then he is only given one specific job to do. And I am very upset that he tried to poison Lord Asriel, not the Master of Jordan College, because having the Master try to poison Asriel, who seems to be one of the good guys, just makes the whole thing more complex. Who is right and who is wrong? It's way too clear in the movie that the magesterium is evil, and those who oppose it are good.

Okay, so I didn't expect the religious parallels to be so evident as they are in the books, but they are utterly absent from the movie. How are they going to deal with what comes later, then? Because Lyra, Will, and Mary are ultimately recreating the story of Eve, Adam, and the serpent in the garden--and you cannot escape that. Lyra has a name that only the witches call her, and Mrs. Coulter goes through any lengths she can to learn this name, torturing witches, until one finally confesses that it is "Eve." Lyra is the second Mother Eve. Like, god damn, that's pretty serious. In the novel, Asriel tells Lyra that Mrs. Coulter and her ilk believe Dust to be the physical evidence of original sin, and that is why they want to do away with it. In the movie, Mrs. Coulter tells Lyra that a long, long time ago "some of our ancestors" made a very bad decision, and that is how Dust got into the world and started fucking everything up. Good god, how vague is that? But I guess when you're making a movie, you have to be vague, because the entire trilogy basically seems to exist to say that organized religion is a crock of shit--used by the few to keep the many submissive and weak. Which is Marxist, isn't it? And I love it. But you know that would offend all kinds of crazy bastards.

So. This was clearly a difficult movie to translate to film, and I did not expect it to be perfect, but shit, bitches, it wasn't even close. There are more things that just made me ill, but I can't think of them now. I'm sure I'll be writing about this for days.

I saw this coming

Oh my god, you guys, The Neverending Story is so bad. I couldn't even, like, watch it--I had to get up and clean my room while it was on, because, yuck. No wonder Michael Ende didn't want anything to do with it, because it has almost nothing to do with the story he wrote. Everything is wrong! I mean, I won't even talk about how it's so visually unappealing, because this movie is as old as I am, so what do you want? The eighties were not a pretty decade. However, I could go on and on and on about what was wrong, even if I don't bitch and moan about how the entire second half of the book is gone, but I won't. Yet. Also, even ignoring that the story is all wrong, the movie is still painful to watch because Noah Hathaway, portrayer of Atreyu, is quite possibly the worst child actor I've ever seen. This became abundantly clear during the death of Artax, which, um, might have made me cry in the book--but just made me cringe and pick up some dirty clothes when I saw it on screen. Also, I don't know if this is just me, but Atreyu seemed much more solemn in the book--like, he was ten, but he was wise beyond his years somehow--and this Noah Hathaway made him such a fucking spaz. Blergh. Also, he's not green. Why not?

Okay, I know this is supah queeah, but really, one of the best scenes in the book is when Atreyu is trying to make his speech rhyme, so he can talk to the Southern Oracle, and of course that was so not in the movie, and the Oracle was much more forthright--everyone is much more forthright--and it was lame. I can't even tell you how many times I just yelled, "Oh, weak!" at the screen.

I really wish someone would make this a movie again, like Lord of the Rings style, because it could make a really great film. They could do it in two parts, you know, ending the first one right after Bastian finally saves Fantastica and beginning with his adventures in the forest/desert. But I doubt that Michael Ende's estate will ever let that happen--or that anyone would even want it to happen except for me.

The other thing that bugged was that they injected this "do what you dream" message that's totally not in the book. Well, maybe it is, in a more subtler way: since humans are no longer using their imaginations, both Fantastica and the human world are perishing, so people need to stop being so...German (you know, boring and industrious), and both worlds will get better. (I'm just kidding, German people, but you somehow got stereotyped that way in the twentieth century.) But in the movie, Bastian's dad is all, "Get your head outta the clouds, boy," and that's why Bastian can't give the Empress her name, because he won't let himself believe that this is really happening. The book Bastian just has low self-esteem; he thinks he can't possibly be the savior of Fantastica, that the Empress must be talking about somebody else, and that's why it takes him so long to save her. But the movie does pretty much ignore the personal journey of Bastian, which is the entire point of the book, so eff you, movie! Plus that "do what you dream" bananas is just so cheesy.

I could go on, but I'd have to read the book again. I can't do the kind of ranting I can do for Narnia, because I have those books memorized, but The Neverending Story will probably earn a spot close to the Narnia books. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I have never been so disappointed in a film adaptation of a book I loved. Here's my last gripe: the movie ends with Falkor, I believe, narrating and telling the audience that Bastian made many more wishes before he returned to the ordinary world, "but that's another story." Um, no it's not--it's this story. Assbags.

I've always said that the best folk music comes from the Dutch

Since last summer, Wikipedia has removed every reference to Brandi Carlile's being a lesbian from its info on her. Way back when I'd spend most days at my internship listening to a loop of her self-titled album and Regina Spektor's Begin to Hope, I decided, during "Happy," that this girl was kind of gay, so I went to the internets for confirmation. (Also, just look at the cover of her debut CD--pretty gay.) Then, the Wikipedia article claimed she'd come out in 2003, and there was a link to an article in some Washington university's paper in which somebody connected with the Brandi Carlile Band said something like, "Brandi's a lesbian, so our shows are always full of girls." That link was still there a few months ago. Now it's gone. What the eff? Is someone shoving her back into the closet? Is she not a lesbian anymore? (How is that possible?) Was she ever a lesbian in the first place? I don't know anything anymore--but I do know that she wore a Boy Scout uniform to her tour opener in Oregon. That's pretty gay, right? (Picture stolen from againtoday.com)

While I'm talking about Brandi Carlile, I'll add this to my "I love country music, and I have to kill myself" story: one of her new songs "How These Days Grow Long," which I fucking love is even more country-fried than "Closer to You." So there. That's all.

Also, she did a video for "Turpentine," and in it, she is wearing this horrible vest (with nothing underneath it--which has to mean she's either a lesbian or Ani DiFranco--and Ani's at least half gay), and the whole time I was watching the video, I was not really paying attention to the song or the story, because this exchange was running through my head:

Gretchen: Regina, you're wearing sweatpants. It's Monday.
Regina: So...?
Karen: So that's against the rules, and you can't sit with us.
Regina: Whatever. Those rules aren't real.
Karen: They were real that day I wore a vest!
Regina: Because that vest was disgusting!

Because, y'all? That vest was disgusting. But it did let me see that Brandi has matching tattoos on her upper arms of what looked to me like balls of snakes, but were most likely not actually balls of snakes. I'll have to watch the video again to see what they really are, but seriously. That vest. It kills me. I've even seen her wear it before, but she was wearing a t-shirt under it then, and so it wasn't so bad.

Also! In some shots, she looks orange, like they put bronzer on her or something, which--unnecessary. On the whole, though, she looks more like real Brandi than she did in the video for "The Story," but I just totally don't love it when they put all that Hollywood makeup on her.

That vest, though. I wouldn't let her eat lunch with me if she were wearing it, either.

Oh, of course I would. She's Brandi Carlile, and I'm certainly no Regina George. I do prefer the Boy Scout uniform shirt, though.

On a completely unrelated (but still important) note, why do the Red Sox do this to me every year? 3 and a half games? When once it was 14? What the fuck? Every year. And every year, the Yankees suck until the All-Star break, and then they're like, "Later, suckers!" and they steal every hope and dream away from Boston. (Except for 2004, which was sweet, but seriously, if that shit only happens once every eighty-six years, I will cry tears of blood.) 14 to 3 and a half. 11 games left. Good Christ, please, please, please, don't blow this, Boston.

Um, I don't even know what to say about this one

I'm having another book crisis (surprise, surprise), but this one has been brewing for quite some time, and it's real. It's troubling me. I don't know what to do about it.

Since the sixth grade, The Chronicles of Narnia have been at the top of my favorite books list--especially The Voyage of the Dawn Treader--but now... Now. Oh, they're too damn Christian. This was not a problem for me when I was a teenager and still, nominally, Christian my own self, but then I had a spiritual crisis right before Easter junior year of college, and I have been unable to accept the beliefs of Christianity ever since. I was able to reconcile Madeleine L'Engle's Christianity with my own lack of it easily. She's Episcopalian, which was my denomination until I fell into heathenism, and she's... I don't know, but it's so much more than some stupid doctrine, her religion, so I can get behind that. I like Jesus just fine as a dude. I will never believe he is the son of god. Never. But the things he said--some of them, the important ones, anyway--I like a lot. But everything that grew up after he died--that's what I have a problem with, and C.S. Lewis is often too rigid about that shit. I have been uncomfortable for quite some time with the entire existence of Calormen, because it sounds just like the Middle Eastern Muslim countries, and Lewis has nothing but contempt for these dark-skinned Southerners. They're all evil, except for two of them. I don't know. I don't know! I had this problem when the movie came out, with the Jesus thing, but I made it go away, because I liked the movie.

But you know what I really hate? That scene at the end of The Last Battle when all the creatures of Narnia come before Aslan, and those who look at him and love him are permitted into heaven, and those who look at him and...don't love him are banished into the darkness. That's horrible. Like Lewis wants people to be excluded from his world. Like Susan. I have such a problem with how Susan turned out. Such a problem. But whatever. I can't articulate it well enough for it to be worth it. I can't articulate any of this well enough, except... Why does Christianity always end up excluding people? That's not the point.

Anyway, here's the crisis, in a nutshell. I hate the theological tenets of Christianity--I hate the belief in the existence of heaven and hell, especially. So how can I still love The Chronicles of Narnia? Can I even? Is the phrase "theological tenets" redundant?

Apocalypse now

So it finally happened. I finally read a book that was decidedly worse than the movie. I know. I know. I am shocked my own self, but here's the thing, y'all. The Devil Wears Prada is bad. Baaaaad. It's not well-written; the characters are little more than cliches; and, since I'd seen the movie first, the outrageous behavior of the titular character did not shock or delight or whatever me. I mean, seriously, Miranda Priestly on a printed page absolutely pales in comparison to Meryl Streep. Now. I didn't even like the movie all that much, but Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt managed to make it mostly enjoyable. And Stanley Tucci! Who doesn't even exist in the novel, so. The movie took a lot of creative liberty, which was good, because the book was long and boring and didn't really tell a compelling story, but it still ended up with a plot identical to that of the film version of The Princess Diaries. (What is up with that, Anne Hatheway? Seriously. The only other Anne Hatheway movie I've seen is Brokeback Mountain, which obviously bears no resemblance to that plot, but what of her other films? I wonder...)

Basically, the novel sucked; the movie was only enjoyable because of the actors. In fact, I would watch it again right now just for Emily Blunt. I even liked The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants better as a novel. And that movie had Alexis Bledel in her underwear! So, for real. The Devil Wears Prada is bad. Sorry, Lauren Weisberger. Oh, wait! Here's a thing that she did that I hate that I just remembered. Allegedly, Miranda Priestly is based upon uber-bitch Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue, which is just fine, but then at the end of the novel, Miranda actually encounters Anna Wintour at some Paris fashion hootenany, and our narrator remarks that Anna and Miranda are always being compared, because they're both fashion bitches who put out important magazines. Like, leave it alone! If you're basing a character on someone real, leave the real person out of the story. That's just so dumb. And heavy-handed. Like, just in case you didn't see the similarities I'd drawn between my character and this real life fashion editor, LET ME POINT IT OUT FOR YOU LIKE THIS.

I need to stop ending paragraphs with all this yelling.