Enjoy my (fairly predictable) Spring music piece at Lacroix: the Beauty Blog.  Though, I’ll have you know I didn’t even mention Ryan Adams…even though rigth now I’m super into Love is Hell Part I (just The Shadowlands, really), and Cold Roses.   Shocking!

Just a quick note that unfortunately, due to Stella and my various other outside projects we’re struggling to balance, our posts will be fewer and further between until further notice. 

Though, this also may mean that bigger, more exciting projects are in the works for this blog that we’re sure you will appreciate…OR ELSE.  J/k!

Buchanan

Having not seen the entire 1975 Grey Gardens documentary, I was a little spotty on some of the details about the lives of “Big” and “Little” Edie Beale.  Thus, perhaps I have a different (and inaccurate?) perspective on how well this movie does justice and compliments the original documentary.  Overall, I have to say that I found this movie to be at once sad and really inspiring.  Though it could be a little Lifetime-y at times, and though it could be argued to be far too happy as compared with the reality of their situation, I really enjoyed it.

Barrymore and Lange, in the Behind-The-Scenes clips on HBO On Demand, have both iterated that this film is a love story between a mother and daughter.  But more than that, I found this to be about how these women felt the need to distance themselves from society to feel free, and yet were also trapped from and by themselves. 

Specifically, what was most illuminating and interesting to me, at least in this film, was “Little Edie.”  All she wanted to do was act and dance, fulfill the types of dreams she perceived her mother not to have fulfilled for herself, and wasn’t interested in getting married (“The only thing I’m looking for in a man is a dance partner”).  However, it seems that although “Little” Edie  felt a certain responsibility in taking care of/living with her mother, she may have used that as an excuse to not try to succeed in the world again.  To a certain extent, going back to living in Grey Gardens, secluded from the world, can be seen as a rebellious act.

“Little” Edie may have, in fact, been taking an uncompromising position toward the way the world demands women should live and who they should be.  She may not have wanted to lie to herself and follow her mother’s advice in “having your cake and eating it too” by getting married and just “doing whatever” she wanted.  As time would prove, “Big” Edie was totally wrong and didn’t get what she wanted after all. 

Of course, there are the typical mother-daughter issues highlighted in this movie that many of us face, and there was certainly an unhealthy co-dependency that existed between these two women.  Though, it made me wonder: were these women truly insane?  Or were they just reacting to an insane situation?  Perhaps a little bit of both.  Maybe that’s the definition of the human condition?

Anyway, I couldn’t help but take joy in the end, though, when “Big” Edie finally let “Little” Edie go, in a sense, and after “Big” Edie’s death, when “Little” Edie finally found the success she always wanted, against any normative standards of who should and should not live this type of success.  It was actually very inspiring, especially since, I have to say, I related to “Little Edie” a great deal.  

As far as the performances, I have to say that this is Barrymore’s best work to date, and she was actually perfectly cast.  I’m not sure if it was the strength of the story, direction or what, but I really have changed my mind about her as an actress.  Lange obviously nailed this, though some reviewers faulted her for, in the flashback scenes, having a face as “immobile as a mask” (I think that was New York Mag).  The film was also criticized for fetishizing and somehow prettifying the horrible squalor these women lived in.  I have to disagree there….I thought they did a pretty good job of making it come across as pretty foul. 

Anyway, despite its faults, I think it’s a pretty unique movie in that it’s entirely focused on the experiences of women, and specifically, mothers and daughters.  Again, it was incredibly inspiring and rare to see a woman like “Little” Edie Beale not completely demonized and pitied.  And to an extent, if being a crazy cat lady means making up crazy costumes and being just as fabulous as “Little” Edie Beale, bring it on…sans the squalor.

For all the morose, maudlin crybaby music I’ve been posting lately, I hope this comes as a welcome relief.  However…..get ready for some goddamn whimsy!  Even though one might find “Daylight” and/or Matt & Kim, in general, a little too abrasive in this particular way, I think they are quintessential listening material for spring and summer.

I’m sorry, but, whether you find them annoyingly cute or not, this is a great song.

It makes me think of friends I have, where we can essentially be anywhere (yes, even a dumpster!) and I still have fun with them, laughing and laughing and all into our own little world.  Or, like the simple adventures around the city with friends that you’re more likely to take now that it’s getting warmer.  Or like in the beginning of a relationship right when you start to feel comfortable enough with that person to be your total goofy self, and yet the newness of it is still very exciting.

All of these things are blatantly calling out spring to me.  If you’re still stuck in one or various wintertime-era funks, I think this is just the song to pull you out.

Oliver Hartman is a friend of the blog, and a freelance writer currently residing in the City of New York.  He is a Resident Bargain Whorespondent for Broke Ass Stuart’s Goddamn Website/blog.  The most unexpected/hilairous thing he’s ever said to either Stella or I: “I slept in a car last night on St. Mark’s !”

CB: Where you from & where do you stay at? 

OH: I grew up in a very small town called Whitefield, Maine and currently stay in Central Harlem.

CB: Who is your Daddy, and what does he do?

OH: An old retired man who does Hospice volunteering.  He turned 70 a few weeks ago.

CB: What is your problem?

OH: I was hoping you were going to tell me!  That is what you promised!

CB: What sound or noise do you love?

OH: Cheesy but true, cats purring. I used to love “You’ve Got Mail” . Now, and I cannot believe it still fucking exists, but I heard it on the Bolt Bus to Boston, it just sounds dumb.

CB: Oysters or Peanuts at happy hour?

OH: Who’s paying?

CB: If I was over at your house, would it be cool if I crash there?

OH: Yup!  Matches are in the little bamboo box on the back of the bowl.

CB: Do you think you’ve “sold out”?

OH: Not yet, still looking for a goddamn buyer. 

CB: Would you welcome the opportunity to “sell out”?

OH: When people get angry at sell outs it says more about them than the person selling out.  If it makes the person happy, you should be happy for them.  That said, I would not welcome the opportunity to compromise my fake integrity.  But I would welcome money, so if you know any sponsors…

CB: What are the first 5 songs on your “recently played” playlist?

OH: I have one long podcast I downloaded and have been listening to on repeat titled “Electo House, Filthy House, Dirty Electro, ohhh…and Funky house”

CB: If Hollywood made a movie about your life, whom would you like to see play the lead role as you?

OH: There was some lanky ass clown in Art School Confidential who could probably do a pretty good job putzing it up as me.

Him?

CB: Define the word “burrito.”

 

OH: A little burro. 

CB: Name a food that you used to hate but you love now.

OH: Mushrooms.  I don’t know what I was thinking!  Stupid, immature tastebuds.

CB: What is the finest quality a person can possess?

OH: Nothing good can really come without compassion – its pretty much the basis for anything non-sociopathic. And a sweet ass.

CB: When have you felt most loved?

OH: Those nights when I would have nightmares as a child and my parents would come in and read to me. Or even better, when I would go sleep in their bed.  To be 17 again…Seriously, I don’t want to cheapen that response , forget the 17 joke.

CB: What’d you do today?

OH: I woke up, crawled out of my sleeping bag and awkwardly rolled off my air mattress onto the floor – it never supports my attempt to gracefully push myself up.  I wrote a post for a cheap living blog, then made a burrito.  Ran to the Y, worked out, ran home.  Wrote some more.  Scheduled a meeting for tomorrow, and then got asked to do this interview.

CB: What’s a guilty pleasure for you?

OH: Britney Spears’ Toxic, TaTu “All the Things She Said”, and porn.  Still feel a little guilty about that.

CB: What actor or actress’s fame is totally undeserved?

OH: Keanu Reeves, but he is also a testament to the power of dedication, networking, and an absence of an awareness of Sartre’s “Other”. Inspiring, in a sick, depressing way.

CB: You have to move to another city that you’ve never even visited and live there for at least one year. Where do you go?

OH: Hong Kong. 

CB: Invent a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor that incorporates the name of a band. Go.

OH: Mouthful O Monster Bawls n’Nuts  – Sorry I used 2. Malted milk balls and honey roasted cashews in vanilla ice cream with strawberry swirls, and an energy drink core.

CB: If your country of origin suddenly adopted an Israeli/Italian policy towards defense, and you had to join the armed forces in some capacity, what would you choose to do?

OH: I would join both sides using a clever alias in each instance and then defect to Russia and start an bar in an old submarine called “Subversion”

CB: Brandon, Dylan or Steve?

OH: I don’t know what you are talking about (see first response) but Dylan is the preferred of the 3 names.

Posted by: Stella Glass

The week before last was one for the record books. I think I consumed my weight in alcohol and probably got about 19 hours of sleep combined, from Monday through Sunday.  My Saturday hangover hung around until almost Tuesday and Monday evening I mandated that no alcohol be consumed for the rest of the week.  My boyfriend tried to balk at this but when asked to recall his feelings after waking up on Sunday morning he quietly agreed.

I wasn’t concerned about the Monday-Friday; I reminded myself that I had plenty of shit to do around the house and not being able to go to happy hour or meet people for drinks was a great excuse to get some of that stuff done (it didn’t get done) and I was convinced that it wasn’t something I’d be craving and it really wasn’t. A few more joints were rolled than usual , and with the exception of having two glasses of wine at a Seder (which does not count), I didn’t even really think about alcohol.

The weekend was trickier though and I started stressing about it on, like, Wednesday. “What do grown people do at night on the weekends that doesn’t involve alcohol?” I wondered.  This was certainly not a question any of my friends had the answer to; I was on my own for this one.

I thought of the most grown up things I could imagine; the things that, as a child, I thought I’d be doing every night of my adult life: going to cocktail parties, going out to fancy dinners in high heels, drinking champagne on the roof of a building while a crescent-roll shaped moon hung over my head, having sex.

Well, the first three inherently involve alcohol and if we’re honest with ourselves, more often than not, the 4th one does too.  So I was fresh out of ideas…or was I?

Yes.

But the MTA wasn’t!  Wednesday afternoon as I took the bone-rattling 2/3 train home from work, sandwiched in between the usual plethora of morbidly obese commuters that that particular subway line attracts, I saw an ad for the Metropolitan Opera.

Yes! It was a revelation! The Opera! Nothing in the world is more grown up and alcohol-free at once, than going to the opera.  But, unfortunately, as it turns out, nothing is more prohibitively expensive or unappealing to my boyfriend than going to the Opera, either, so I suggested a play.  Not a musical, a play. A cheap one. With tickets purchased on Craigslist.

As has been documented earlier here, theater is not my absolute favorite thing in world. This is a view that my boyfriend thankfully shares.  But in an effort to expand our cultural horizons beyond pandora.com, he agreed to to go to the play “just this one time” and I was able to find cheap tickets to Neil LaBute’s “Reasons to Be Pretty” starring that chick from Coyote Ugly.

After smoking a joint and  suffering a harrowing, suffocating walk through tourist-glutted Times Square at twilight, we were in our seats.  I was optimistic, he was less so.  I was convinced that the contemporary bent of the play and it’s focus on issues that are compelling to me (physical beauty and relationship longevity!) would endear the production to me.

Of course, I was wrong.

Lesson Learned: Theater, in any capacity,  is not for me.  I was entertained, certainly but more for the wrong reasons.  I tried to stifle embarrassed laughter during the “intense” parts.  My boyfriend and I amused one another during set changes by thinking of the various things we could shout out during the performance that would be bizarre enough to throw seasoned actors off their game and render them speechless.  I dared him to take out his ipod and watch an episode of South Park, laughing loudly which he almost did until I chickened out. Then I accidentally dropped a bunch of M&Ms on the floor and let them clatter, loudly down the aisle.  In this way, the time passed.

Halfway through the first act I realized that the problem with theater, is theatrics.  Yes, it’s true. When I watch a play, I think to myself “must every single sentence, every utterance be delivered with such over-the-top drama?” And each and every time the answer comes back “Yes.  It’s theatre.”  I cannot tell you whether the play was good or bad cause I don’t even know how to begin to evaluate a production that uses The Arcade Fire as a “back from intermission”musical overture.  We got the understudy for the lead female role and I thought she was pretty whack; really over-acting-y and uber-dramatic and gestural, but I guess that’s actually the idea.

This evening, after attempting to coax Aunt Helen out of her cups, I came across this video by the much-adored-by-me St. Vincent. .  In the video she tries to get various actors to cry while she herself looks utterly composed and lovely, further highlighting what I feel is often the excruciatingly awkward process of what acting always feels like to me:  watching a grown person pretend.

[This review contains spoilers]

I really wasn’t sure what to expect going into Observe and Report. I knew the director, Jody Hill, had something to do with Eastbound and Down, which what little I’ve seen, I think is hilarious. Certainly, I did not expect a Seth Rogen comedy to be so dark….or deeply disturbing.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some funny moments, plus the fact that Hill’s playing around with realities was interesting, fairly unique, and a bit more sophisticated than what I was expecting. But overall, the whole thing didn’t gel for me, and in the end, I was left feeling disgusted with the humanity portrayed on the screen as well as the brand I witnessed in the theatre itself.

I “get” that Rogen’s character is supposed to not be likeable. And according to Hill’s latest interview with the AV Club, he’s clearly very concerned with pushing the envelope. Here, Hill responds to a controversial scene in the film, where Rogen’s character essentially date rapes a character played by Anna Faris.:

I dunno. I’ve always kind of liked scenes that you talk about how fucked-up they are. I would have been happy without any dialogue in that scene. I wanted to show them just having sex and her passed out, and I thought that would have been funnier. But I think I have a darker sense of humor than most people. So at the end, [Faris’ character] is okay with it. [Laughs.] And that was like, “I’ll shoot it both ways.” So I actually shot it both ways. I just kept the camera rolling. There’s like a line that’s “We’re okay laughing, and you’re pushing the envelope.” But you’re not really pushing the envelope until you cross that line where a lot of people don’t go along with you. I tried to do it in a few scenes in this movie, where a lot of people aren’t going to go along with the film or with what we’re trying to do. Hopefully that means we’re actually pushing the envelope. [Laughs.] You know what I mean by that? I think if you’re really pushing the envelope, you have to not include everybody, if that makes sense. Or else it’s not really pushing the envelope.

Though there are a lot of excruciatingly insane things wrong with this statement, I really have to wonder—what the fuck is he pushing the envelope FOR? What is his point? What’s the point of pushing the envelope if you don’t appear to have anything to say? Not to mention why the fuck he thinks it would’ve been funnier without Faris’s character’s consent? Why is pushing the envelope a goal in and of itself?

Hill claims to be inspired by/takes his cues from films like Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, and novels like A Catcher in the Rye, explaining his interest in jaded, angry, outsider male characters. Here’s the thing, though…..none of those things are comedies. I mean, I get that it’s really, really hard to do a dark comedy. Death To Smoochy, though, is an example of a dark comedy done well (though, clearly, not everyone thought so), that still pushed the envelope, didn’t walk on eggshells, etc. But, honestly, what is Observe and Report accomplishing exactly? So that the degenerate ticking time-bombs in the audience creepily chuckling at every over-the-top violent, racist, misogynistic scene could have their borderline-sociopathic desires legitimized?

Taxi Driver is THE classic example of a movie with a cult following of assholes who misunderstand what the movie is about, and instead, idolize the main character…because those people are PIECES OF SHIT. Observe and Report doesn’t even have the benefit of being good movie as a whole on any level, really. Sure, it may get people “talking”… but does it really challenge them to be critical about themselves and dominant cultural values? It doesn’t have to be a heavy-handed thing, but, do assholes REALLY need another reason to be assholes?

1.  This is the one I stole from The Masked Drinker.  But I fucking love TS Eliot, so whatever.  This one comes from The Wasteland:

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
‘Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

This music crept by me upon the waters’
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

2.  This second one, also from TS Eliot, has been pretty beaten to death in pop culture– from Gavin Rossdale to Donnie Darko.  I still like it though, and have since 10th grade.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

………….

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

3. This is a favorite from college (obviously called “Daddy”), when I became totally obsessed with Sylvia Plath.  All of my Women’s Lit courses were amazing, but I remember this class where we deconstructed this poem being particularly amazing.  My favorite line is definitely the very last one.

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
……….
Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
……………
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
………
If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two–
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There’s a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

4.  This last one is from Audre Lorde’s “Making Love to Concrete”:

To make love to concrete
you need an indelible feather
white dresses before you are ten
a confirmation lace veil milk-large bones
and air raid drills in your nightmares
no stars till you go to the country
and one summer when you are twelve
Con Edison pulls the plug
on the street-corner moons Walpurgisnacht
and there are sudden new lights in the sky
stone chips that forget you need
to become a light rope a hammer
a repeatable bridge
garden-fresh broccoli two dozen dropped eggs
and a hint of you
caught up between my fingers
the lesson of a wooden beam
propped up on barrels
across a mined terrain

between forgiving too easily
and never giving at all.

But this is kinda how I feel.

Fatlip, I salute you.

Cy Coleman originally wrote this song for Frank Sinatra, and I guess this version from Fiona Apple has been floating around lately, from a concert in January.  As per usual of Ms. Apple, her version of this song (listen to the original here) is extraordinarily sad….and so, predictably, I freaking love it.

Here are the lyrics:

I’m sentimental
So I walk in the rain
I’ve got some habits
That I can’t explain
Could start for the corner
Turn up in Spain
Why try to change me now
I sit and daydream
I’ve got daydreams galore
Cigarette ashes
There they go on the floor
I go away weekends
And leave my keys in the door
But why try to change me now
Why can’t I be more conventional
People talk
People stare
So I try
But that’s not for me
Cuz I can’t see
My strange little world
Go passing me by
So let people wonder
Let ‘em laugh
Let ‘em frown
You know I’ll love you
Till the moon’s upside down
Don’t you remember
I was always your clown
Why try to change me now
Don’t you remember
I was always your clown
Why try to change me
Why try to change me now

It’s possibly one of the saddest things ever.  It at once swells with loneliness and hints at regret or shame.  And yet, there’s an underlying confidence, almost and resignation that this is simply the state of affairs: that you won’t ever really fit in or be able to please someone in the way you would like.  And though you’ll still care about that person, and you’re sad that you can’t please them, you’ve been around for a while now, you’re no beginner, and you are who you are…so why try to change me now?

It’s kind of growing into the heartbreaks and disappointments that happen as an adult.  Instead of flying into a rage or feeling lost, there’s a sense of calmness in the loneliness you’ve now gotten used to as a result of not compromising yourself.