chronicles of a dog creep pt I

r.i.p. winter quarter 2008! After writing a paper for 16 hours straight on SPACE and ART and LADIES and CHINA and DOCUMENTARIES, I passed out last night to saved by the bell. Ending this quarter with a bang, y'all.

It's officially spring now, so I can pack winter away and look forward to some spring time vibes. Even though I had to wait until the 19th to make it official, spring started in a little burst this time last week when I was in austin, tx. just shows & friends & beers & sunshine. Best friends forever, woods, and vivian girls at the mohawk, kid sister on a roof, no age and fucked up on the pedestrian bridge, why? at emo's, my first time ever seeing stand-up that I liked... it was too good. On Sunday while we were walking down south congress, though, the world took a peek at my diary and figured there was one more thing that would make it the best weekend:


9 PUPPIES. When I saw them I just started yelling, "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!!" like I was hyperventilating obscenities. It turns out that the owner has been out on the lawn all week trying to pitch a movie idea she has for them, called Black Dog. I thought that just seeing nine puppies was going to be the pinnacle of the day, but as she continued to explain how it was all going to go down, I realized how wrong I had been. Each puppy is named after something Johnny Cash related: Cash, June, Carter, Sue, Rhythm, Johnny, etc. She was very open to new ideas (animated ring of fire, anyone?) so it was difficult to get a grasp on the original premise, but I gathered that was a heist comedy mixed with what sounded like an I'm Not There style biopic about Cash, where all the dogs act out different points in his life. If someone didn't discover this Hollywood goldmine by last Sunday evening, all the pups were going to get adopted. Let's all hope Richard Linklater was taking a stroll that evening.

paradise by the neon light

winter has been pretty harsh this year. the cold is awful, but the worst part is when the weather psyches you out, and it alternates between bearable and miserable within hours. luckily i've found refuge right outside my kitchen window.

i just gaze and sigh at this baby every night. it's a giant, neon "chin up, tiger!" that i've come to rely on when i'm making dinner. and if my neighbors are the superheroes that i believe them to be, in the coming weeks someone will be under that tree, drinking something tropical from a swirly straw in nothing but their thermal underwear and a bikini.

at least someone in hyde park knows how to do winter right. i'm proud to live next door to such a great fuck you to cold weather.

message from the people to the people

i encourage everyone to celebrate Kurt's birthday, on February 20th, in some way. i believe he would have been 42. spread the word. R.I.P Kurt, you would despise what music has become since u died, we need u back.

screenings that already happened

This was a week ago, but I would like to commemorate the first REEL genius screening with the announcement that was sent when it was actually about to happen. In a few weeks, the screenings will start again, involving The Muppet Movie in some capacity. Becca and I need to figure out what could possibly measure up to it in a double feature.

REEL GENIUS::DOUBLE FEATURES

7PM this wednesday at
Co-Prosperity Sphere
3219 S Morgan St


THE EMPEROR’S NAKED ARMY MARCHES ON (120 min, japan, 1987)
After getting out of jail for the murder of a real estate agent, world war ii
veteran Okuzaki Kenzo attempts to find the source of the mysterious deaths of several of his fellow soldiers, which he suspects were acts of cannibalism. Almost 40 years after the war ended, Okuzaki violently interrogates dying soldiers in an attempt to find the truth about these cannibalistic acts, closing the gap between his aggression and the crimes of his subjects. Documentarian Kazuo Hara films his final and most elaborate attempt to overthrow the emperor system in Japan.


CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (95 min, italy, 1980)
A professor goes in search of four missing filmmakers, only to discover footage of their attempted documentary on cannibal tribes in South America. As he watches the footage, he witnesses the obscenely sensational behavior of the filmmakers' interactions with the South American tribes. In what appears to be an attempt to form a critique of contemporary culture, director Rugerro Deodato forms a horrifying, racist construction of tribal cultures.


the start of something great! later days, past!

WELCOME TO THE NEW MILLENIUM

the impossible is officially possible. first the segway, now i have the internet in my very own apartment. after months of living in the stone age, liza, anna, and i are officially up to 2000, at least.

after months of nothing but brief spurts of internet at the library, we are free to waste as much time as we want looking at videos of animals doing things humans do and pictures of people that we think someone we know might know. my self esteem is sky rocketing.

there are problems with having the internet in our house, though. i never once thought i would need to worry about y2k, and i don't even know where to begin preparing. i have also received calls from like, 50 sexual predators that have been notified of my presence on the internet. liza also fell asleep watching youtube videos, which worries me, because i've read enough goosebumps books to understand the dangers of falling asleep with the tv on - and i'm sure the same science transfers to computer screens. if she gets sucked up into a bizarro techno world, i don't want to be the one to have to save her. all in all, though, the risks are more than worth it.

surfs up, dudes. the future is bright.

ACK!!!

i haven't been able to do any school work lately, and it's stressing me out. i feel like cathy before swimsuit season. i thought about getting one of those sounds of ocean waves cds (and maybe the babbling brook one for good measure), but then i realized i could just play this on repeat and it was much more effective:

pillows of the revolution

mission accomplished re: pillow fight. i wanted to post some sort of photo here, but all of the photos google image search gave me were a little too sexy.* a real pillow fight, like the one becca and i had in front of her theories of media class this evening, requires a lot more energy than google's naked ladies seemed to be exerting. after two minutes, my knees were shaking with exhaustion. maybe it was just my shock that i completely kicked becca's ass.

i've been talking about starting a blog for a month or two now. i didn't think i would ever end up actually doing it, though. blake wants me to include how he felt and what happened throughout his day, too. he considered making his own blog called "henry's log" but before he sets one up he needs to figure out what the difference between a chat room, message board, and blog are. i think we have a long road ahead.

*with the exception of this photo, which not only features fully clothed people, but is also most reflective of my experiences this evening, seeing as the kid standing on the left is catching a serious groove