I just discovered that I've had my own blog since 2008. It's called The 100-Meter Sashay. And I gave myself the name "Germaine Avatar" with the help of a seldom-used throwaway email address. All of this is just more evidence of my own awesomeness.
Except...
...I have no recollection of doing this.
None.
Still, it makes me wonder why I'm here. And not there.
Maybe just so I could share this picture of Camus. I mean, that's reason enough, right? Which is to say, who is Ryan Gosling? Never heard of 'im.
However did we let such an astonishing name sink into the caliginous* depths of American history?
Rutherford Birchard Hayes. Say it with me... Rutherford. Birchard. Hayes. So poetic! So dignified! So arboreal!
Trivia
Nickname: Dark-Horse President
Legacy: With wife, Lucy, conducted the first Easter egg roll on the White House lawn
Technology: Was president when Alexander Graham Bell installed the first telephone at the White House and the first to use a typewriter (be still, my heart) - ahem, so now we can put to rest some of those erroneously perpetuated derisions
Wife: "Lemonade Lucy" - wouldn't serve alchohol in the W.H. - Uh oh. That's just not American. I mean, that's a real stumbling block, a P.R. problem if I ever heard of one.
In any case, Rutherford Birchard, on this day that has nothing to do with your birthday or the day you died or became president, on this day that has no relevance to you or your family or your presidency whatsoever, I tip my hat to you. Someday, I aspire to be known as "Dark-Horse Hammock Jockey Mumbler." I'm just biding my time...
Look at him! Hey girl, he looks like Ryan Gosling!
*-Did you really just use that word?
- Hells yeah, I did!
Whenever I watch a movie like A Better Life or Sin Nombre, my mind inevitably hearkens back to the last time I visited the outlet mall or the expensive cheese section of my grocery store, and I am reminded of the obscene amount of money that I spend annually at both. These thoughts fill me with such a sense of self-loathing that in order to cope, (clearly) it is necessary for me to invoke the anesthetizing properties of the marathon online shopping binge. The sheer magnitude of charging involved in these episodes eventually forces my sister to bean me in the face with a two-by-four, separating me from the computer and sending me sprawling onto the floor, where, as I lie twitching, the narcotic consumerist voltage eventually dissipates from my central nervous system.
Follow along with me now because the next part gets a little circuitous…
When I put The Artist on hold at my library, it was still on order, meaning that they had not yet procured the actual DVDs, but they were in the process of doing so. It may have still been playing at one or two of the cheap theaters. Even still, after placing my hold, I discovered that I was #1286 in line. I expect I will be seeing The Artist possibly next February.
A month or two ago, I finally got around to going through the list of Academy Award nominees and reserving anything I hadn’t already seen. It turned out that Demiàn Bichir was nominated for Best Actor for A Better Life, neither of which I had ever heard of before. Everybody else in the world probably already knew this, just as they know he didn’t win the award. Jean Dujardin from The Artist did.
Anyway, so I put A Better Life on hold, and I was #58 in line. Now I think of all those people who are going to watch The Artist and who probably won’t see A Better Life. And it makes me sad because in my opinion A Better Life should be required viewing for anyone taking for granted the McDisney dream that a lot of us live every day. People like me. And I’m not saying that I’m a terrible person or anything. But, if you want to talk about 1%, it means a different thing when applied globally.
I don’t want to get all preachy. That’s no fun. Putting the politics away now.
A Better Life is really the story of a father’s love for his son. And it’s this element of the film that could make even the Grinch’s heart grow three sizes. And then the Grinch would start bawling uncontrollably, simultaneously hiccupping and sobbing about how he hasn’t spent enough time with his father since he moved away, rivulets of snot cascading from his nostrils into a handkerchief with the words, “I’m Toast” embroidered on the corner.
Then the Grinch would visit the J.Crew online factory website just, you know, to see…
It looks really odd and borderline creepy if you have a framed picture of your spouse/significant other on your desk and it's only them and nothing else in the picture. Double whammy if it's a professional photo. Think of John Candy's picture of Marie that he carried with him on his shower curtain ring sales trips in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Granted, she was dead (spoiler?) but still....is it that tough to find a photo of both of you, or at least throw in the family pet? You see him/her every night, do you need to gawk at their mug all day at work? Worse yet, do you have the photo up just to make him/her feel good when they drop in for a surprise visit to the office?
A couple weeks ago, I witnessed a man taking a picture of his wife at Washington Park in Portland, and I stepped in to offer to take a picture of both him just so he could avoid this very calamity of which I speak. I was quite proud of myself.
