Have you ever watched a conversation between a film-buff and a non-film buff? It can be pretty painful. These sorts of conversations can creep up on you sometimes, though. Like maybe you're talking to someone and they ask you if you've seen The Hangover and you say you have and this makes them think you watch as many movies as they do and suddenly you're having a conversation about Philip Seymour Hoffman and you don't even know who that is.
Did you know that about 800 movies hit theatres last year? I watch maybe 15 films a year and these films range from sort-of alright, kind-of highbrow to...well, The Hangover. Generally if someone well-versed in the way of movies tries to talk to me, they realize the error of their ways within 15 minutes and try talking to me about books instead, and when that fails, they remember they have something to print out at the library and they make a hasty retreat. But then sometimes they're stuck in the car with me for seven hours and have no other option but to try to talk to me about films. Then the conversation goes like this:
Film-Buff: Have you seen American Psycho?
Me: Yes. It was pretty good.
FB: Have you seen Magnolia?
Me: No.
FB: Philip Seymour Hoffman was great in it.
Me: I don't know who that is.
FB: Well have you seen Flawless?
Me: No.
FB: He played Rusty. Have you seen The Talented Mr. Ripley?
Me: No.
FB: He played Freddie Miles. Have you seen Capote?
Me: No.
FB: He played Capote. Have you seen The Big Lebowski?
Me: Yes...
FB: He played that big guy.
Me: I don't remember him.
FB: The Big Lebowski was pretty good.
Me: Have you seen Ginger Snaps?
FB: No.
Me: It's a Canadian Werewolf movie.
FB: Oh.
Me: It's secretly my favourite movie. Except that's not actually secret because I talk about it all the time to everybody.
FB: Oh.
Me: And no one will watch it with me so I have to trick them into it, like how Franklin Graham tries to convert people to Christianity by telling them they're going to a concert and they get there and it's like "SURPRISE YOU'RE IN THE CRUSADES" except I just tell people the movie is about hot lesbian werewolves and then they watch it and it's like SURPRISE this movie is all about teenaged girls menstruating.
FB:...
Me: I think it's a great commentary on PMS.
FB: ...Uhm...Do you like the Coen Brothers?
Me: Who are they?
FB: They did The Big Lebowski.
Me: It was pretty good.
FB: They did True Grit
Me: Haven't seen it.
FB: They did Burn After Reading
Me: Oh I've heard of that one.
FB: I really loved the ending of that movie.
Me: Oh wait, this is probably a movie I want to see
FB: Especially the part when he suddenly realizes...
Me: oh dear, is this a surprise ending? I'll think about something else. I'll look out the window. Look at all that snow
FB:...and then his face when he...
Me: LALALALALA snow LALALA snow
FB: It was pretty great.
Me: It sounds good.
FB: Okay, well they also did O Brother Where Art Thou
Me: Um...I think I saw...half...of that...
This can go on for hours
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Road to Regina is Paved in danger
This last weekend, I was at the Pop Culture Conference at the U of R. It was incredibly fun, once we actually managed to make it there.
I've complained about the road trip so many times to so many different people, I feel like doing it again would be redundant. So instead I'll just post this picture:
Yeah, that basically sums up the experience. We were actually only stranded on highway 2 for about 4 hours, but that was long enough to make us miss the entire first day of the conference. What a bit of misfortune.
When we finally got to the conference on Saturday morning, we were celebrities. Thanks to technology, I had been updating the conference organizers on an almost hourly basis to let them know how horrible the wind was and how badly I needed to pee*. I proudly passed around my phone with the photos of the horrifying snow drifts on it, and we all laughed jovially about the irony of how, even when one is snowed in to a space the size of a closet with very few amenities for 4 hours, one can still update one's Facebook.
I must say, it was an excellent conference. They gave us reusable loot bags with some pretty sweet stuff in it, like CDs and credit card organizers and U of R frisbees, which was pretty exciting because I haven't had a frisbee for a while and last year someone was like "we should go out and toss around the frisbee" and I was all "I don't have one" and then they were unimpressed with me and we had to borrow one from my brother-in-law and then we didn't use it. But this time, I will have a frisbee.
All the presentations were actually interesting and the presenters were all quite talented. Por ejemplo, here was a powerpoint presentation discussing how Heidegarian theory related to Dungeons and Dragons, which went straight over my head since I don't know who Hiedegar is. There was also a paper on the Medicalization of Transgendered Children that everyone got very excited about but they all waited until the evening to discuss it so that they could drink copious amounts of beer before arguing about it and then there was lots of clapping and cheering and it sounded more like a Beat Poetry Night than an argument about sexuality. I've been in enough debates about transgendered children for now, though, so I sat out of earshot and talked about Shakespeare instead**.
I received a lot of very encouraging responses about my short story, too, and that was a great confidence boost, so, yay! As far as I know I did not form any connections with publishers who want to publish any unborn novels I may produce. I also did not have a fabulous shoe collection and impeccable fashion-sense (although I was very well colour-coordinated. I was very green. People kept on asking me "what's with all the green?" and every time I was surprised because I had forgotten what I was wearing). I am not too surprised by this, though. All in all it was a very enjoyable experience.
*Well I didn't say that out loud but I feel that the note of urgency in my voice made this clear to them.
**I will allow the reader to decide whether anyone was there with me, or whether I was just talking to the wall.
I've complained about the road trip so many times to so many different people, I feel like doing it again would be redundant. So instead I'll just post this picture:
Yeah, that basically sums up the experience. We were actually only stranded on highway 2 for about 4 hours, but that was long enough to make us miss the entire first day of the conference. What a bit of misfortune.
When we finally got to the conference on Saturday morning, we were celebrities. Thanks to technology, I had been updating the conference organizers on an almost hourly basis to let them know how horrible the wind was and how badly I needed to pee*. I proudly passed around my phone with the photos of the horrifying snow drifts on it, and we all laughed jovially about the irony of how, even when one is snowed in to a space the size of a closet with very few amenities for 4 hours, one can still update one's Facebook.
I must say, it was an excellent conference. They gave us reusable loot bags with some pretty sweet stuff in it, like CDs and credit card organizers and U of R frisbees, which was pretty exciting because I haven't had a frisbee for a while and last year someone was like "we should go out and toss around the frisbee" and I was all "I don't have one" and then they were unimpressed with me and we had to borrow one from my brother-in-law and then we didn't use it. But this time, I will have a frisbee.
All the presentations were actually interesting and the presenters were all quite talented. Por ejemplo, here was a powerpoint presentation discussing how Heidegarian theory related to Dungeons and Dragons, which went straight over my head since I don't know who Hiedegar is. There was also a paper on the Medicalization of Transgendered Children that everyone got very excited about but they all waited until the evening to discuss it so that they could drink copious amounts of beer before arguing about it and then there was lots of clapping and cheering and it sounded more like a Beat Poetry Night than an argument about sexuality. I've been in enough debates about transgendered children for now, though, so I sat out of earshot and talked about Shakespeare instead**.
I received a lot of very encouraging responses about my short story, too, and that was a great confidence boost, so, yay! As far as I know I did not form any connections with publishers who want to publish any unborn novels I may produce. I also did not have a fabulous shoe collection and impeccable fashion-sense (although I was very well colour-coordinated. I was very green. People kept on asking me "what's with all the green?" and every time I was surprised because I had forgotten what I was wearing). I am not too surprised by this, though. All in all it was a very enjoyable experience.
*Well I didn't say that out loud but I feel that the note of urgency in my voice made this clear to them.
**I will allow the reader to decide whether anyone was there with me, or whether I was just talking to the wall.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Fail.
UW has incredibly generously* granted us Conference-goers money to get to the conference, and are even paying for our registrations. Of course, with the lack of communication between departments, it will be a wonder if I ever get the money for registration.
Dr. M: The cheque they're giving you for the conference doesn't include registration money, but I've arranged for you to get it out of petty cash. We just need to wait for Dr. C to sign to forms, then talk to J.
J: Dr. C has not signed the forms. Come back later.
Dr. C: The forms? I signed them this morning. Why are you talking to me? Dr. M is in charge of this.
J: So now I have magically produced the form that Dr. C signed...some time...somewhere. Just take it down to Finance and they'll give you the cash.
Finance: Where's your receipt?
Me: Oh I haven't paid for it yet. We're paying for it with the petty cash you're going to give us.
Finance: You need a receipt.
Me: Oh alright well then...do you think they give receipts at conference? I'm just going to pay at the door.
Finance: When you pay online they'll mail you one. Then you can come get your cash.
Me: But they said if I give you this form...
Finance: but I can't just give you money. I need a receipt. Why does no one understand this?
Well, then. I guess the worst that could happen is that the UWFA goes on strike, the world falls to shambles, and I don't get my $30 back. Very small price to pay, considering how much it's going to cost the university in painkillers to cover up the splitting headache they'll be dealing with anyway.
*and no, this is not sarcasm. They really have been quite helpful about it.
Dr. M: The cheque they're giving you for the conference doesn't include registration money, but I've arranged for you to get it out of petty cash. We just need to wait for Dr. C to sign to forms, then talk to J.
J: Dr. C has not signed the forms. Come back later.
Dr. C: The forms? I signed them this morning. Why are you talking to me? Dr. M is in charge of this.
J: So now I have magically produced the form that Dr. C signed...some time...somewhere. Just take it down to Finance and they'll give you the cash.
Finance: Where's your receipt?
Me: Oh I haven't paid for it yet. We're paying for it with the petty cash you're going to give us.
Finance: You need a receipt.
Me: Oh alright well then...do you think they give receipts at conference? I'm just going to pay at the door.
Finance: When you pay online they'll mail you one. Then you can come get your cash.
Me: But they said if I give you this form...
Finance: but I can't just give you money. I need a receipt. Why does no one understand this?
Well, then. I guess the worst that could happen is that the UWFA goes on strike, the world falls to shambles, and I don't get my $30 back. Very small price to pay, considering how much it's going to cost the university in painkillers to cover up the splitting headache they'll be dealing with anyway.
*and no, this is not sarcasm. They really have been quite helpful about it.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Is moral bankruptcy something you need to file for?
For an unsettlingly long time, I've held an unshakeable fascination for Texts from Last Night. It's a website where people can post the bizarre drunken text messages they received from their friends the night before. If these texts are all genuine, I would have to conclude that most people text in full sentences and proper punctuation even when they're texting their friends about strippers and blow, and I must say I'd be rather impressed if that turned out to be true.
Regardless of whether or not the documented texts are real, I feel that the site provides a lot of insight into the mindset of depraved students (and most anyone who works on Wall Street). Surely it must be useful for something. Last year I was fixated on the idea of somehow turning TFLN into a Cultural Theory essay for my Lit Theory class. Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly a workable idea. I feel like maybe if I were in sociology I could have made a stab at it. Still, I could not shake the idea that I could take advantage of this site. What were these texts about spring break, body shots, and waking up naked covered in glitter, good for? Could they become a novel? A thesis, maybe?
Probably not, but I've found they come in handy for relieving writer's block. For instance, if you're sat in front of your computer trying to hammer out one more poem for the poetry anthology that's due tomorrow and your mind remains a complete blank, why not take a look at TFLN, grab the first text you see, and use it as the first two lines of your poem?
I wish we had morning classes together
so we could spike our coffee,
slumping down in the back-row
of that crowded lecture hall
for Intro to Biology,
or maybe New Psychology.
Nestled within three-hundred science students,
no one would ever even notice us,
giggling to ourselves,
racing eachother
to the bottom of our paper cups;
I begin to wonder why
we wasted our days
becoming English majors;
with 12 people to a seminar
we’d never get away with it
and now I see the beauty
of the elusive science degree
and why they always ask us
who the hell would become
an English major?
they’re not snubbing us
for our bad choices.
They just understand
the importance of
day-drinking.
or...
So thats when we found her crawling
hands and knees up first street singing
‘hold me closer Tony Danza’
as loud as she could,
a vision in spandex and faux-leather,
evidence of the triumph
of gravity over spiked heels
but bravely, unceasingly, increasingly fighting
our best efforts to slow her progress,
she thought she was on Morton Hill,
trying to go back to the bars.
See how the poem juxtaposes the low-brow custom of texting with the high-brow artform of poetry to demonstrate that true art knows no class (nor subject matter)? If that isn't A+ material, I don't know what is.
edit: ooh, new challenge. START the poem with one text. End it with the text right below. For instance: "I woke up and the dog was eating spaghetti off my chest." ... "And then he tried to convert me to Islam." What has begun as a cure for writer's block has become another distraction. Shoot. Maybe I should just write a poem about aprons and call it a day.
Regardless of whether or not the documented texts are real, I feel that the site provides a lot of insight into the mindset of depraved students (and most anyone who works on Wall Street). Surely it must be useful for something. Last year I was fixated on the idea of somehow turning TFLN into a Cultural Theory essay for my Lit Theory class. Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly a workable idea. I feel like maybe if I were in sociology I could have made a stab at it. Still, I could not shake the idea that I could take advantage of this site. What were these texts about spring break, body shots, and waking up naked covered in glitter, good for? Could they become a novel? A thesis, maybe?
Probably not, but I've found they come in handy for relieving writer's block. For instance, if you're sat in front of your computer trying to hammer out one more poem for the poetry anthology that's due tomorrow and your mind remains a complete blank, why not take a look at TFLN, grab the first text you see, and use it as the first two lines of your poem?
I wish we had morning classes together
so we could spike our coffee,
slumping down in the back-row
of that crowded lecture hall
for Intro to Biology,
or maybe New Psychology.
Nestled within three-hundred science students,
no one would ever even notice us,
giggling to ourselves,
racing eachother
to the bottom of our paper cups;
I begin to wonder why
we wasted our days
becoming English majors;
with 12 people to a seminar
we’d never get away with it
and now I see the beauty
of the elusive science degree
and why they always ask us
who the hell would become
an English major?
they’re not snubbing us
for our bad choices.
They just understand
the importance of
day-drinking.
or...
So thats when we found her crawling
hands and knees up first street singing
‘hold me closer Tony Danza’
as loud as she could,
a vision in spandex and faux-leather,
evidence of the triumph
of gravity over spiked heels
but bravely, unceasingly, increasingly fighting
our best efforts to slow her progress,
she thought she was on Morton Hill,
trying to go back to the bars.
See how the poem juxtaposes the low-brow custom of texting with the high-brow artform of poetry to demonstrate that true art knows no class (nor subject matter)? If that isn't A+ material, I don't know what is.
edit: ooh, new challenge. START the poem with one text. End it with the text right below. For instance: "I woke up and the dog was eating spaghetti off my chest." ... "And then he tried to convert me to Islam." What has begun as a cure for writer's block has become another distraction. Shoot. Maybe I should just write a poem about aprons and call it a day.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
My Cat Smells like Disturbing Memories
Way back in grade 12 Biology class, I had the great pleasure of dissecting a baby shark with my soon-to-be-ex-friend Bobby. The shark was about the size of a small cat and smelled strongly of raw fish and embalming fluid*, and Bobby and I were assigned the job of dissecting the sharkling's head. Bonus points for getting the brain out intact.
So we started hacking away at the thing. I don't remember the flesh-rendering process but suddenly we were looking at the shark's skull, with yellowy strings of shark-nerves** protruding out from the springy bone mass. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure now whether Bobby was as determined to get that brain out as I was, but at the time I believed it was our collective dream and I was set on making it a reality. I bravely attacked the skull with my scalpel, chipping away at the stubborn surface with wild abandon. My abandon was so wild that I barely noticed that the chips of skull-shrapnel were zinging in the direction of Bobby's own face, until one notably large piece of shark skull, complete with shreds of nerve-endings, landed in his mouth. At which point he took over the skull dissection and I sat and watched. And you know, it's funny, we managed to remain friends for nearly a year after that incident.
I haven't thought of that incident for a very long time. I thought of it today, though. Remember my cat? The gross one whom I love theoretically? The balding one with the flea allergy, over-active shedding issues, and excessive dandruff? Well, last week I finally decided to stop complaining about Capu's disgusting maladies and do something about them. So I went to the pet store and bought an amazing shedding brush (this one seems to be more in the family of a garden rake than of a hair-brush) and a bottle of "Catch of the Day Alaskan Salmon Oil" which will "contribute to better skin and coat along with healthy joints." I have been raking and oiling my cats for a week now and I will admit, Capu doesn't seem quite as disgusting as he used to.
One unfortunate side-effect of this fish oil is that now my cats both have fish breath, which smells remarkably like that baby shark I dissected with poor Bobby. Now I must decide which I prefer: ugly flakey cats who smell like cat-food, or shiny flake-free cats who smell like disturbing memories and bad hand-eye coordination. I may never be able to sort this one out.
*This of course is just a theory. I have at least managed to block the memory of which chemical was used to preserve the shark babies; I know not the name, but the scent only.
**or something
So we started hacking away at the thing. I don't remember the flesh-rendering process but suddenly we were looking at the shark's skull, with yellowy strings of shark-nerves** protruding out from the springy bone mass. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure now whether Bobby was as determined to get that brain out as I was, but at the time I believed it was our collective dream and I was set on making it a reality. I bravely attacked the skull with my scalpel, chipping away at the stubborn surface with wild abandon. My abandon was so wild that I barely noticed that the chips of skull-shrapnel were zinging in the direction of Bobby's own face, until one notably large piece of shark skull, complete with shreds of nerve-endings, landed in his mouth. At which point he took over the skull dissection and I sat and watched. And you know, it's funny, we managed to remain friends for nearly a year after that incident.
I haven't thought of that incident for a very long time. I thought of it today, though. Remember my cat? The gross one whom I love theoretically? The balding one with the flea allergy, over-active shedding issues, and excessive dandruff? Well, last week I finally decided to stop complaining about Capu's disgusting maladies and do something about them. So I went to the pet store and bought an amazing shedding brush (this one seems to be more in the family of a garden rake than of a hair-brush) and a bottle of "Catch of the Day Alaskan Salmon Oil" which will "contribute to better skin and coat along with healthy joints." I have been raking and oiling my cats for a week now and I will admit, Capu doesn't seem quite as disgusting as he used to.
One unfortunate side-effect of this fish oil is that now my cats both have fish breath, which smells remarkably like that baby shark I dissected with poor Bobby. Now I must decide which I prefer: ugly flakey cats who smell like cat-food, or shiny flake-free cats who smell like disturbing memories and bad hand-eye coordination. I may never be able to sort this one out.
*This of course is just a theory. I have at least managed to block the memory of which chemical was used to preserve the shark babies; I know not the name, but the scent only.
**or something
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Dentist Dodging
If you've ever complained about the cold-hearted, uncaring attitude of your spineless dental clinic, you've never been to the Ellice Dental Group. They are very committed to my dental health. In fact, they are far more committed to me than I am to them. I've spent the last 6 months playing a complex game of hide-and-seek with them. They phone, I don't answer. They leave messages, I don't return them. They call me at work to remind me that I haven't seen a dental hygienist in 4 months!! I promise to make an appointment later and make an excuse to hang up. They call and call again: your teeth have not been seen to! Your teeth have not had a good professional cleaning in months! Call me! We're playing Uninterested and Jilted Lover; they are the stalker to my stalkee, a faithful admirer that I've been woefully neglecting. Don't call me, I'll call you. I'll call you when I'm ready, I'll call you when I'm free, I'll call you when I'm interested just stop calling me.
It was the at-work phonecalls that turned me against the dentist. Beforehand, I was always flattered that they would think to call me. But after they started phoning me at work, they took on that semi-telemarketer quality that I detest. They left a message on our home answering machine again last week, and, as usual, I ignored it until it was finally deleted. I thought nothing of it. But Ellice Dental Group is not to be ignored. They've upped the ante now. When I got home from school today, what was sitting on my doorstep? A shiny new postcard with a decidedly sinister flare to it. On the front is a drawing of a decrepit, disembodied tooth. "Preventative Dentistry for a healthy smile", it reads. And then "It's time for your dental check-up and cleaning. Call today for an appointment."
This is no ordinary dentist's office. This is a Dental Mob. This postcard is saying "we know you've been ignoring us. And we know where you live," complete with an image of an extracted tooth to remind me of what will happen if I don't call today. Tomorrow morning I expect to wake up to a horse's bloody, severed jaw-bone tucked into the foot of my bed. But will I cave under this sort of pressure? Will I heed these toothy threats? Will I finally return my dental hygienist's calls? Tune in to find out in next week's episode of Patient to the Mob
It was the at-work phonecalls that turned me against the dentist. Beforehand, I was always flattered that they would think to call me. But after they started phoning me at work, they took on that semi-telemarketer quality that I detest. They left a message on our home answering machine again last week, and, as usual, I ignored it until it was finally deleted. I thought nothing of it. But Ellice Dental Group is not to be ignored. They've upped the ante now. When I got home from school today, what was sitting on my doorstep? A shiny new postcard with a decidedly sinister flare to it. On the front is a drawing of a decrepit, disembodied tooth. "Preventative Dentistry for a healthy smile", it reads. And then "It's time for your dental check-up and cleaning. Call today for an appointment."
This is no ordinary dentist's office. This is a Dental Mob. This postcard is saying "we know you've been ignoring us. And we know where you live," complete with an image of an extracted tooth to remind me of what will happen if I don't call today. Tomorrow morning I expect to wake up to a horse's bloody, severed jaw-bone tucked into the foot of my bed. But will I cave under this sort of pressure? Will I heed these toothy threats? Will I finally return my dental hygienist's calls? Tune in to find out in next week's episode of Patient to the Mob
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