Better Living Through Literature
Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
1. Not only is it Friday, it is going to be 75 degrees. Papa Hemingway says it best: “When spring came…there were no problems except where to be happiest.”
2. Happy birthday to Mark Strand, whose poems appear here fairly often.
3. The MST3K tumblr I follow pointed out this clever person doing a series of MST3K-themed cocktails. Below is the Gamera:
If you’re not into papercrafts and/or you know someone who loves Mystery Science Theater 3000 (ahem), then these are for you:
(Found via this Tumblr.)
1. Fellow Misties, have you heard that Joel Hodgson is hosting a new incarnation of the Turkey Day MST3K Marathon? It will start streaming online at noon Eastern on Thanksgiving–there will be six episodes with new segments (written by Hodgson) in between.
2. I know it’s a little soon, but I’ve really been enjoying this vintage Christmas card collection on PInterest. The wintry cottages! The cats! The COLORS!
Here are a few more photos from Comic Con, also known as My New Favorite Place. It really is like prom for nerds, with an entire convention center to admire your outfit.
I admired this TARDIS ball gown:
And these steampunk wings that folded and unfolded:
And this guy’s Crow T. Robot puppet that he built:
Speaking of Mystery Science Theater, by Friday afternoon I was brave enough to approach Kevin Murphy, voice of Tom Servo on the show, and very patient photograph poser (!):
He even threw in an autograph (!!). I had him make it out to “Rowsdower” (!!!).
1. This weekend is all the time I’ll have to throw together my steampunk Amelia Earhart costume. Good thing I have some accessories coming together–with some help from my dad, who made the big prop at top (!) and contributed an old pilot’s wings pin :
(Yes, steampunk pictures require ALL the vintage photo filters.)
2. This quote has been on my mind lately (see project above):
I can tell you that it’s Emily Dickinson’s birthday today and that I did not go for a hike over the weekend, due to shopping and projects and snowing. I said this:
And Emily said this:
There’s a certain Slant of lightThere’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons—
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes—Heavenly Hurt, it gives us—
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are—None may teach it—Any—
‘Tis the Seal Despair—
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air—When it comes, the Landscape listens—
Shadows—hold their breath—
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death—
1. This is pretty much the best scathing restaurant review I’ve read, of Guy Fieri’s new restaurant in Times Square, full of utterances like:
Mr. Fieri not only serves truly horrible-tasting food, an awkward origami of clashing aleatory flavors, but he serves this punishing food emulsified with a bombastic recasting of deep-fried American myth.
and
When they come, the fries are a sticky supernatural orange simulacrum of a former potato, fried to paralysis.
2. The Rifftrax live Birdemic screening didn’t disappoint. I leave you with “slpnls”:
I think if you’ve been reading for a while you know that I love Mystery Science Theater 3000. I saw the final seasons on TV in high school and then rediscovered it online, along with Rifftrax (a new venture with Mike and the voices of Servo and Crow riffing current movies as a voiceover track).
Well, the Rifftrax crew is riffing the 2010 “hit” Birdemic: Shock And Terror live and broadcast to theaters tonight, and I’m going. Check out the official trailer (yes, the official trailer) to see what I have in store for me, and then imagine the possibilites for riffing:
That’s all for now, though. I gotta go, I hear a mountain lion!
1. I’m going to see this little guy tonight:
Yes, he’s sitting in a pot, and he looks so unsure about it, he needs a hug from his auntie.
2. How about a little MST3K for Friday? I feel like Gypsy all the time when I deal with people:
1. Let’s just say, hypothetically, that you are going on a date for the first time in 4.5 years. What do you do? How do you act? Fortunately, Mystery Science Theater 3000 has found us this educational film, “What to Do On a Date.”
“How about a weenie roast?” “Nick, NO!”
2. Related but not as funny, this essay about a first dance could have been written by me, down to the dress I was so convinced I had to have and the inevitable disappointment:
I cried because I’d believed with all my being that once I put on eyeshadow and a turquoise dress, I’d turn into a heroine of any of the slumber-party movies I’d watched. […] I cried because at that moment, in a gymnasium decorated with crepe paper so that the gifted kids could feel not just smart but glamorous, I began to understand that not everything would come easy to me, and that some forms of failure could be intangible, inexpressible, and nonetheless undeniable. I cried because I wanted to be seen, and because nobody was ready or willing to see me.
3. And unrelated: Happy birthday to our friend W.A. Mozart.