Pedantic

The A.O. Scott/Richard Brody debate about (neo-)Neo-Realist--I shudder at the term--has been somewhat inescapable in the circles I run in, both internet and otherwise.

Am I the only one that thinks this is a non-issue? While I'm not really comfortable with the birth of movements in general, I can't help but acknowledge the actual grouping of "hyperlink films" coined several years ago. However, this idea of a new Neo-Realist movement seems silly. When did this aesthetic ever go away entirely? Don't we arbitarily "rough up" the look of our films when when want them to be taken seriously? How is any of the American independent (hello, Jim Jarmusch) of the past different from these new films?

On the other hand, I think Brody is a jerk. (Did he really just admit to not liking those films in a rhetorically formal list?) Maybe I'll just throw my towel in with Tony--I like granola and I like cinema and they are two great tastes that taste good together, so I'm glad somebody is championing them.

------

Speaking of tastes, I like the fact that the Slanted Door is getting press (example: this months Saveur) but I really don't need the competition getting a reservation for their deliciously smoky crab glass noodles. I've only been able to eat there at the bar during lunch carrying my Farmer Market's score.

------

Lastly, I've clearly been spending too much time on the internet (it's very very rainy outside in the Bay) but I think I have a new crush: Winston. Sorry honey but I am totally enamoured of that tiny speaker of yours. Is that wrong?

Cooking up the bounty

dB and I have and will probably continue to cook up a storm while i'm around (that is until Nathan and I go to this: http://blog.missionstreetfood.com/ on Saturday--good food and good cause? Sign me up.)

Also what does it say about me that I bought the cheapest granola and most expensive chocolate chips from the the Berkeley Bowl bulk food section?

Heady...

Umm... fresh blood.

Interruption to your usually scheduled program. Brought to my attention by my fabulous friend Alex:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI7t63pwbNM&feature=player_embedded

Little Bean arrives!

Little Bean arrived this afternoon for another delightful holiday visit in the Bay. This time it's for gefilte fish and Easter bunnies! We've already done the New Year's bubbly and Valentine's chocolate...perhaps to the dismay of lB's boyfriend, whom I have yet to meet. He seems too charming to be real, and thus my default causal reasoning suggests that he is actually a string of zeros and ones. =P I wait to be proven otherwise.

In amidst the catching up and boy gossip, we shared our wearable creations with each other:

Below is the adorable knee-high sock lB is making:


lB being cute with her token sock:


Me modelling my "neurd" dress:


Guess I'm a Phashion Designer (aka PhD) in the making. Ok, ok, I'm lay off the puns now and leave you with a hilarious clip of quality professor evaluations instead.

Sounding off

Packing for California (can everything fit in a small backpack and my messenger bag?) and listening to some tunes.

But here's a confession. I write enough usually to assume that even my co-blogger doesn't even read my entire posts. Will I continue my long, slightly pedantic academic musings? Yeah. Probably. I'm pretty unafraid of professional retribution from this weird little blog.

The converse of that is that I say what I mean kind of without regard to public opinion. Such a revelation is to follow: I listen to this song a lot. To my defense, I know the guy (he spent his getting famous years in San Diego coffee shops while I was growing up). Even though this song is now featured prominently in various commercials and (lyrically) mundane as f!@#, it's catchy and his Tracy Chapman like voice is intriguing. Who the hell scats anymore? Let alone in a top 20 song. Plus I'm jealous. If I owned an avocado farm, I'm sure I wouldn't think about anything except for hippy happy thoughts too.

Enough embarrassment for now. I'm knitting these:Gonna watch this old xlr8r video and catch the jet plane to that record store.

Collective Brain Fart

I feel it too dB. I really do. Everytime I sit to write or think about what i'm doing, especially when it comes to school. But I'm making an honest effort to get back on the train, read everyday, audit a class, etc.

On the other hand I've rarely been so happy in between my moments of school freak outs. My knitting needles are full (I'd show you but that lack of camera thing occasion does affect my life), I'm reading and watching what I want, and I have a boy I'm silly crazy about (I'm thinking about knitting him another hat--not that he really needs one, but I like seeing him in things I've made. On the flip side of that, color choice has been killing me. You have an opinion on this?Too light and girly? I love the mossy color but what do I know? I'll wear almost anything and he does dress better than I do).

Also work husband sent me this and this and they make me very happy indeed. What's better than British spoofs of two of my favorite movies? And then there's the music. I don't think I've listened to so much since I was djing. I sort of fell out of the habit when I moved to Chicago and it's a very good feeling to be surrounding myself with all sorts of sounds, whether they be new, old, or anything in between, again.

As far as the work goes, I've been thinking about what I really like about the program I'm in. I think coming from a rhetoric department where "subjectivity" is the catchphrase, I've been trying to distance myself and get into more concrete subjects. But the rub is that I'm interested in some very technical things which I may not be smart enough to really understand. Am I doomed to the vague platitude spouting I derail all the time? My harshest criticism of film theory in other fields is their lack of understanding of the actual film (the most obvious example being the wholesale endorsement of Blade Runner by postmodernists when the film is actually very conventional while films with actual structural anomalies--like say horror--get the shrift). However my own lack of understanding about film, especially the digital and peripheral film practices i'm interested in, not to mention the technologies portrayed in film that I love (does anyone know anything about VR besides what we learn in movies?) leaves me very very worried.

Also I need to learn French stat. Back on the train.

Living up to my name

Well, it's official. I'm a dumb bunny, and my advisor surely thinks I'm retarded. He keeps catching errors in my data and figures. Ugh, how do I turn my brain on...

What happened to me?