January 2012
“I know it was you, Nichols. You broke my heart.”
– Something Richard Kimble COULD have said, in “The Fugitive.”
SO, "The Fugitive" Is On
Because I party HARD ON NEW YEAR’S WHAT WHAT, and, gosh, what a fun movie, you know? I love this movie. Richard Kimble is so awesome at being a successful fugitive in every single way except for NOT LOOKING UP WHEN PEOPLE SAY “RICHARD?” TO HIM when he’s trying to be all “I am not Richard Kimble.”
December 2011
If Russell Brand and Katy Perry Can't Make It Work
…the rest of us should obviously just give up and learn to live a life of quiet solitude.
A Modest Proposal
Considering the prowess of modern dentistry and the stubborn caveman workings of the human metabolism, perhaps we, as a society, could replace the idiomatic expression ‘like pulling teeth’ with ‘like losing the baby weight.’
Just a thought.
Longreads: Edith Zimmerman: My Top 6 Longreads of... →
longreads:
Edith Zimmerman is a writer and co-editor of The Hairpin.
***
“All the Single Ladies,” Kate Bolick, The Atlantic
Kate’s story on the current state of marriage, and men, and women, is sad and happy and fascinating, and just generally makes me want to give her a high-five and…
Edith, being my spirit animal, yet again. All of these are great, I’m reading ‘The Medium...
One Of The Reasons Our Marriage Works
…is that we are the only two people in the world with such gargantuan egos as to infuriate all other partners.
Case in point.
Industrious: I cannot stand this useless loser kid in Tron: Legacy. With his fucking Ducati and his directionless rebellion and his entitlement.
Lazy: Wait, weren’t you tooling around angrily on a motorcycle being pissy and rebellious and good-looking when...
I Finally Watched Tron: Legacy
Which was…not good. No, no, I mean, it looked fantastic, right, and DAFT PUNK ALWAYS YES, but it’s obviously no good.
Good things:
Michael Sheen and James Frain
Jeff Bridges always being Jeff Bridges no matter what.
Lights go ZOOM
DAFT PUNK ALWAYS YES
Bad things:
CGI Jeff Bridges (it will look unbelievably worse in ten years, like everything else, even the stuff that looks...
I Can't Believe I Missed That
My family contains more than its fair share of good-natured stoners, now going back three generations. So, since there were so many people around for Christmas, a certain unnamed fifty-something matriarch had to break out her back-up pipe and actual wooden matches.
‘This is just like Little House on the Prairie!’ she said, happily.
We’re a good lot, you know.
The Almost-Perfect Secular Christmas
Re-reading Shalom Auslander’s truly wonderful memoir, ‘Foreskin’s Lament,’ snuggling with baby and husband and domesticated mammals, eating an elk roast I found in the deep freezer with a suspiciously ‘2009’-looking date (in a fit of housewifery, I rearranged about four hundred pounds of frozen livestock and hunting booty by date) and gleefully anticipating the...
Right ON, Jess's Kid!
From a great Feministe thread on not forcing your kids to hug and kiss relatives:
Jess 12.21.2011 at 3:30 pm
I have always been a bit of a stickler about this. When relatives push for hugs I was very firm about it being up to my kids wether they gave out hugs or not. When my daughter was about three we were at a family gathering. One of my (now) exhusbands relatives (distant cousin ...
The First Installment of Matt Zoller Seitz's Best...
…contains two of my personal favourites: Justified’s “Reckoning,” and Louie’s “Airport/New Jersey.”
By the way, if you haven’t read the Awl’s latest Louis CK love-in, you may have missed this perfect analysis of a common yearning directed towards said comedian: “The show makes me both want to fuck Louie and to rock him to sleep.”
...
My People, My People.
This sort of thing tickles me so much.
Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said the Santa Monica situation was “one of the cutest success stories of the season.” This year, the Wisconsin-based group has put up its own version of a manger in the Wisconsin State Capitol, with Einstein, Darwin and Emma Goldman standing as the wise men and a black female...
Don't You Die On Me, Prince Philip
I mean, he’s ninety, it’s bound to happen eventually. But he’s easily one of my top fifteen favourite members of the Royal Family.
I Mean, I Hesitantly Support The Return of Horse...
…although I would only ever consider humanely euth-ing and paying for disposal of my own horses, but:
a) it costs a fortune to get someone to euth and take away your 1400lb animal in the dead of winter, which isn’t an option for a lot of struggling farmers/ranchers, and it’s actually illegal to bury a horse on your own property in many places, and…
b) horses are...
Seriously, Ron Paul
I love how he ‘takes responsibility’ for the racist and homophobic nonsense in the (ahem) Ron Paul newsletter, but then is annoyed people keep asking him questions about it and criticizing the content.
What, exactly, does he think ‘taking responsibility’ means?
WHY Do I Never Check That Email?
So, every six months or so I remember I have a lazy dot reviewer at gmail address, and then I have to spend three days WILDLY RESPONDING to lovely people who have written me.
So, um, expect a response over the next three days! Unless you are my niece, in which case EXPECT A RESPONSE TODAY, LOVE YOU.
xoxoxox
Lazy
It's Time For More "Harvard Magazine" Personals!
Highlights from January-February 2012!
Red flags:
- “I’ve started to play duplicate bridge”
- “Professional, loving Jewish-Italian family…with mature, beautiful and accomplished daughter age 21 seeks applicants for position of son-in-law. Must be at least 21, family and career oriented with great expectations. No political tests though occupants of Zuccotti Park...
If I Ever Write a Movie
I’m going to have a scene where the protagonist has a sudden coughing fit, horks a chunk of phlegm into a tissue, examines it, discovers there’s no huge clot of dark blood inside, tosses the tissue in a trash can, and goes back to living his or her life.
Perhaps You Would Like To Read a Book By My Much...
Education in Early 2nd Millennium BC Babylonia (Cuneiform Monographs), Alexandra Kleinerman
This book examines a collection of twenty-two literary letters and related compositions the Sumerian Epistolary Miscellany (SEpM) studied as part of the Old Babylonian Sumerian scribal curriculum, in an attempt to better understand the education system at this time. The author includes discussion...
In Lieu of Watching "Moves Like Jagger"
…I instead finally saw the excellent 1992 documentary Brother’s Keeper (via Netflix Instant). It’s about the Ward brothers of upstate NY, who lived together in convivial squalor on their dairy farm until one of them may or may not have suffocated one of the others in a mercy killing (the investigators referred to them amongst themselves as the “Smothers Brothers,”...
That Was Awesome
We have a neighbor who plays in the NBA, and he dropped by to see the baby before heading out to ski with Industrious.
The neighbor is 6’11, the baby is now 8lbs 6oz. When he picked her up it looked like she was Pippin being held by Treebeard.
Sometimes, You Just Miss Things
You know? Things in the news? And you think, “I’m just not going to bother with this one,” and ignore any and all articles about it?
Well, I just realized that I actually do not know what SOPA is (not a clue, it could be an old, old wooden ship for all I know), and have never heard “Moves Like Jagger.”
One of these is obviously more regrettable than the other.
This One Random Thing I Do Now, After Over Ten...
…I say “zee” instead of “zed.” I don’t know when it happened. Sometime after people stopped laughing when I said “bagel,” and sometime before I got my green card.
Language is a virus!
See, I Want To Buy the Entire Run of Sesame Street...
Starting with the glorious 1960s and 1970s. And, being willing to exchange actual cash money for such a purchase, I had assumed the Children’s Television Workshop would hook me up.
So what is this weak-ass shit? I don’t want an “Old School” HIGHLIGHTS reel, y’know? I want all of it!
I wonder if I can buy the weird Canadian-content add-on? Do my fellow Canadians...
introvertedexcesses asked: Lazy, I've been meaning to ask, what do you think of this War Horse movie/play/book? I don't even own a horse and I can barely stand watching the commercials, it makes me so sad, the concept of horses combined with the beginnings of mechanized war. It it truly horse snuff film like it appears to be?
Important Question.
Was anyone else out there completely incapable of seeing the “Magic Eye” images they sometimes ran in newspapers in the 1990s? Where you’re supposed to hold it up close to your face, and then slowly pull it away until a hidden image pops into your field of vision?
It has never, ever, ever happened for me.
Which reminds me of the plot of a novel I read when I was a kid (jump in...
Fact-Checking 'We Bought a Zoo'
(Okay, they had a clip on the Daily Show.)
Anyway, the clip shows a porcupine shooting its quills at Matt Damon.
This is inaccurate. Quills only become embedded on contact with the porcupine. They cannot be forcibly ejected as a defensive gesture.
You are welcome. I am here all week, happy to ruin upcoming films.
(Sherlock 2 was great, btw. Especially Jared Harris.)
Hysterical Laughter
Invoking ‘Olivia from Law & Order SVU’ as an argument against rape/incest exceptions in an actual discussion about abortion?
This happened, just now, on a baby-related message board I frequent.
Now, personally, I think that forced-birth advocates who favor rape/incest exceptions are just proving the underlying misogyny of their cause: it’s about punishing women for their...
breadandginger asked: Hi Lazy...a question for you, I think I would like to start watching Doctor Who...where do I start?
"Rudy" Indicted For Stock Fraud
…finally.
No, I mean, I love Sean Astin, and everything, but I was in the Catholic school system from second through thirteenth grade (Canada, you know), and was therefore forced to watch “Rudy” on rainy days at least sixteen, seventeen times.
No movie is more frequently screened for innocent young Catholic children than “Rudy.” It’s like a G-rated...
Dear Prudence!
….has a letter from a woman lamenting that her boyfriend, who she plans on marrying, is horribly allergic to her eight-year-old cat, and she feels she must therefore re-home said cat, who is developing behavioral issues from being left home alone while she spends the night at his place constantly.
FORSOOTH, letter-writer!
No, seriously, lady. Prudence is all “you can’t die...
Although I Adored Hitchens
If you didn’t, by all means write nasty things about him. He would have wanted that.
Remember when they brought him on to talk about Falwell before Falwell was cold? And he said he was a hideous creature who should, by all rights, be on the street selling pencils from a cup?
Yes. Be truthful!
And Now.
Because I am genuinely sad about Christopher Hitchens, I’m sitting here watching the odd, uncomfortable twilight work occur, as the nation’s journalists hastily fact-check and update their pre-prepared obituaries, which have been sitting on ice since 2010 when he was first diagnosed.
RIP, Christopher Hitchens
I don’t give a shit about not thinking women were funny, and I don’t care that he was wrong about Iraq. You can be wrong about things for decent reasons. He was the best. He was a fantastic writer, and could argue better while completely drunk than anyone else in the world could sober.
I’m going to miss him. In his honour, I would like to remind everyone that there is...
We Finally Watched "The End of Time"
Because, you know, it was our second wedding anniversary, and I said I want mall hibachi and then I want to watch David Tennant die today.
No! Not really. Maybe a little? Yes.
(He’s not my favourite. Also, did you know he’s engaged to the pretty blonde who played his daughter in ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’? After previously dating the pretty blonde who played Madame...
Ugh, Two Month Vaccinations
(She wound up having a nasty reaction a few hours later, but is fine now.) When they first injected her, though, and she was pissed, I debated treating her like a horse: If you accidentally whack your horse in the face with something, it’s better to pretend it didn’t happen than to make a fuss and pet them and go find a carrot, because horses (at least mine) are very dim, and likely...
Rewatching Gilmore Girls
UGH, why is Dean so pissy? What was Rory thinnnnnking??
Disclaimer: I never really liked any of Rory’s boyfriends.
Disclaimer 2: That included Jess. Jess was a dick.
“You know, VS Naipaul is a real dick, but he ain’t using emoticons in his...”
– Me, just now, on Salman Rushdie
“He’s just pandering to your generation’s well-documented historical...”
– Annie, to Pierce on Community, saying what we’re all thinking about the Boomers.
Apropos of Nothing
I’ve been imagining a cutting political parody video in which Bella Swan gives birth to Tim Tebow.
Taylor Lautner is still welcome to imprint, naturally.
Back In The Saddle
Oh, my God. Sitting on my beloved mare for the first time in ten months?
Perfection.
She was a Ferrari, as promised. Light in the hands, turned when I *looked* in a new direction, amazingly tolerant of my occasional lurching and slumping and poor timing.
And BIG movement. Super forward, super fit, ears perked. She looked like a million bucks.
I did not think ONCE about my human baby until...
Teachers Narc'ing on Santa
Sigh. I mean, poor move on the teacher’s part, but you can’t expect the entire world to participate in your weirdly sacrosanct largely-invented-by-Coca-Cola-in-the-1930s fable forever.
I definitely think we gloss over the impact on poor kids who show up after Xmas to see the rich kids playing with their Wiis. Santa hearts the offspring of the 1% more, children!
But, shit, I...
Spotted!
(Or, more accurately, ‘recognized by voice.’)
Dougal from ‘Father Ted’ as a cat-faced alien in a David Tennant ‘Doctor Who.’
Oh. Wow.
So, after 48 hours of awakeness with sick baby, caused partly by my masochistic ‘this would be a great time to ditch the supplemental formula in one swoop and just feed on cue’ decision, I brought baby down to Industrious and was all ‘you must take the One Ring,’ which he did.
I made it to bed, and either fell asleep or passed out.
Awake to find baby totally out,...
