a nice break to remind myself theres still laughter in the world...

I am writing from the cesspool of anxiety and tension that is the university library right now, where I am studying for my exam tomorrow and finishing up a few other projects. I've found a break is much needed; so here are some things coming up in the comedy world that I am particularly excited about.

1. Kristen Wiig's upcoming film "The Comedian" -> As furious as I am with Wiig for leaving SNL last year (why couldn't you have stayed seven more years!!!), my anger won't deter me from keeping track of this hilarious actresses career. This film is still in pre-production according to it's imdb page, but it's directed by Sean Penn and will also star Robert de Niro. Not much is known about the film's plot other than it is described as a "romantic comedy drama". Not much info to go on as of right now, but with such fabulous people working on it, it's sure to deliver!

2. Larry David's upcoming TV movie Clear History -> Again, not much is known about Larry David's upcoming film (whose brief plot synopsis is "A disgraced former marketing executive plots revenge against his former boss who made millions from the electric car company the once owned), but the fact that it's written by David should be enough to inspire excitement. Further more, the cast is so prime as to be unbelievable: Kate Hudson, Eva Mendes, Michael Keatan, Amy Ryan, Jon Hamm and Bill Hader are all joining David for this made for TV movie.

3. Stephen Colbert's Hobbit Week -> Due to the outstanding work of my blogmate Shannon, I'm sure none of you are unaware that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first film in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy comes out on thursday. Funny man and conservative pundit impersonator Stephen Colbert is a fanatic Tolkein fan, and so last week he devoted his show The Colbert Report to "Hobbit Week". He commenced the week with Jackson himself as guest star and then interviewed cast members Andy Serkis, Martin Freeman, and Ian McKellen. It's fun and endearing to watch Colbert geek out with the stars of his favorite series. Incidentally, Jackson is so appreciative of Colberts shared Tolkien love that it has been announced that Colbert will make a cameo appearance at some point in the story, although it won't be in this first film!

4. Guess! -> Of course, I would never make a list of upcoming comedy events without talking about the upcoming continuation of Arrested Development. According to recent announcements, shooting of the upcoming fourth season will take longer than expected. This crushed my hopes that the vague release date of 2013 would mean January 1, 2013, but I cannot really despair, because the reason it will take longer is the season will actually be longer than expected! During shooting, writer Michael Hurwitz came up with unexpected plot lines that would not fit in a mere 10 episode season. As much as fans of the Bluth family are anxious to see the new episodes (which will air on Netflix exclusively), we cannot complain that there will be more episodes in the long run, and everyone seems confident that the show will still be ready to air in the spring (so like February 1st? Thats spring RIGHT!?!?!?). What this news means in terms of the proposed movie, I'm not quite sure.

Musac mublin's

This post is a little different from my usual ones, but it is meant as a manifesto about something that is very important to me. It's built on this piece of advice:

Stop bitching about contemporary music. In fact, stop bitching about music in general and just enjoy what you love and ignore what you hate.

Perhaps in your internet explorations, dear reader, you've stumbled across this gem:

My response to this is:

Sugar,
Oh Honey Honey.
You are my candy girl.
and you got me wanting you. ("Sugar Sugar" The Archies 1969)

I provided this example to show that inane, silly lyrics are not a recent invention, . In fact The Archies were part of a music genre from 1968-1972 called "bubblegum pop", a genre devoted to preteens and teenagers that inexplicably swept adults up in its path- so basically the 70s version of bieberfever. Now tell me all music was better “back then”.

I want to make two things about what I'm advocating very clear:

1. There is obviously nothing wrong about listening to older music. In fact, by all means, listen to old music! Listen to the Velvet Underground! Listen to Michael Jackson from when he looked like a human! Listen to Bob Dylan from when he didnt sound like an asthmatic toad! Listen to Janis Jopin! Hell, take it back further! Listen to Beethoven! Listen to Chopin! Listen to Hildegard von Bingen!

2. There is nothing wrong with "shitty" music. You don't have to call Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" your guilty pleasure just because it's not amazingly poetic or intellectually stimulating. According to it's Wikipedia page, it's one of the best selling digital singles of all time, so you are not alone!

It just angers me to see people my age who rant about how music was so much better over 40 years ago. First off, enough reminiscing you weren’t even fucking alive then. Second, why do you have so little faith in our generation to produce innovative and revolutionary music? Is it really fair to judge our entire generations musical taste by what's on Billboards Hot 100? Think of every person whose musical taste you ever respected and ask yourself if they spent most of their time listening to the mainstream radio.

Yes, mainstream music of today has very little merit. Sex, drugs, drinking, and pathetic love songs dominate the radio stations and it's all pretty much the same. so you know what you do? turn off the radio and find GOOD music… trust me, if you open your mind a little your itunes library will thank you. Theres lots of resources to find it too…

Go on the websites of local music venues. Most places will have a pretty extensive list of shows well in advance, and lengthly descriptions of the bands in question. Find ones that look appealing, and find a way to check them out (hint- youtube). This way, you not only get introduced to a new band, but you're all set to go to see them live!

Music to me is a very social thing, so if you want to expand your library, get out and talk to people about it! Ask them for favorite bands or tracks or albums and check them out! They might even allow you to take tracks from their libraries through cd’s or flashdrives. Music’s a great way to bond, so not only will you get great tunes, you may actually make a friend, perhaps one with whom you can go to concerts with!

If you read this last paragraph with a sense of terror at the prospect of being social (don’t worry my interweb friends, i know we tend to be a shy bunch and I don’t judge) NEVER FEAR!!! The internet is a beautiful thing and there are lots of ways for you to discover new tunes without any sort of awkward social interactions. You can creep on peoples facebooks, tumblrs, or twitters for music they like. Theres also pandora.com, where you can get introduced to music based on tracks or artists you already know and love. Finally, there's my little secret. There are websites called video 2 mp3 converters that allow you to take youtube or other online videos and convert it to mp3 files that are combatible with itunes… so pretty much any song you can find a video of is yours to own!

The trick is to remain openminded. I never really listened to much hiphop/ rap or electronic before coming to college, as the only stuff I was exposed to was mainstream on the radio. However, after being introduced to certain rappers and artists, I found myself really loving it. Same thing with electronic/ rave music.

It's irritating with all the resources to find great stuff at our disposal to hear people bitch. What's the point of it? If you really genuinely feel that no music produced after 1975 is worth listening to here is my advice: lock yourself in your house with your record player on Stairway to Heaven on repeat, burn incense, and cry into the tie-dye pant suit your hippie great aunt wore to Woodstock to lament the tragedy of being born in 1991. Just make sure your window is also closed and locked to make sure no openmindedness can work its way in!

Senioritis

           It's the last day of classes, and I don't have twelve substantial blog posts. Oops. My senioritis is hitting me hard, and it’s not even my last semester. I still got one more of these, and I if I keep up this steady decline in motivation, then I’m going to get to the point where I not only never leave my bed, I actually have fused with the bed itself, and we have become one.

I’m not actually a huge fan of my bed, it’s small and kind of uncomfortable, so I would prefer for this not to happen. I’ve been brainstorming some ideas to help me get excited about school again.

1.                    Pretend that every essay I write is some important document that needs to be drafted for the president in order to save the world from an alien invasion and/or zombie uprising. Why would a thoughtful look on the role of hope in the Divine Comedy have anything to do with keeping the undead at bay? Let’s leave the particulars to the president, shall we?

2.                    Make my bed even more uncomfortable. Ensuring that there is no comfort in my house makes the prospect of going to class or studying at the library an inviting one indeed.

3.                    Take classes where the homework is to look at cats online. That’s the most foolproof option I can think of.

That’s what I got so far. I would think of more but eh, I’m just so tired. I’m going to go sleep for fourteen hours and then watch an episode of Lost while pretending to study. 

Vlog: Our Generation is Cold.

Hey there,

I made a vlog that was inspired by my research for my current events post (see below). Here 'tis. Enjoy. 

Some Current Events

In case anyone has an insulated house that they haven’t left for the past few days, or if they have an incredible amount of body hair, I’d like to make it clear that it’s been FREEZING IN BURLINGTON. It’s been absolutely, blood-chillingly, cryogenic levels of cold out there, and the stunning thing is that, comparably, this is not even that bad. Global Warming’s made us all soft.

In fact, according to the NOAA, the most recent year that Burlington was the coldest it’s ever been was in 1979. 1979. That was over 30 years ago.

So we can’t be blamed for being wimps. We’re young; we don’t remember when it was so cold that you couldn’t step outside without being frozen in place. Our winter last year was one of the warmest on record! Until last month, it had been a year and half since a month hadn’t been above average temperatures. Our blood has effectively thinned.

But this year, it’s going to be cold. According to the Farmer’s Almanac it’s going to be colder than usual, drier, and have less snow. So it’s basically just going to suck. If you’re hyperventilating right now at the prospect of having to warm yourself, check out these lifehacks that can help. Drink lots of tea and hot chocolate. Be active. We’ll get through this together.

But I do want to give one last important word of advice, and that is that if you lose your clothes at the naked bike ride, the dorms will not let you back inside. So make sure you hold onto those, or have someone you trust hold them, or have someone you trust where layers that you can then borrow. Please, please don’t get stuck outside. It’s making me cold just thinking about it. 

A look back at what Twilight has done for us.

Let's take a look-see,

Successfully sullied the reputations of Dracula and Nosferatu.

            These iconic vampires did nothing wrong. They couldn’t have known how disgraced their species would become. But now, thanks to Stephanie Meyer, when I hear “vampire” I think about Robert Pattinson’s hair.

Turned Cedric Diggory into sparkly nonsense. 

            I can’t see Harry Potter now without thinking about Cedric ripping his shirt off and glittering in the sun like a Kindergartner’s art project. I do not like this.

Taught our young girls that abuse is romantic.

            Here’s the kicker. This is what shifts Twilight from being an annoying fad to being downright dangerous. Stephanie Meyer has an incredible amount of influence, influence that most of us could only dream of, and she is not using it responsibly.

            First, let’s look at how she managed to get that influence. Twilight’s popularity baffled me for a while. Why should a glittery undead kid from Washington suddenly capture every tween heart in America?

            The answer is actually quite simple. Bella Swan, Meyer’s klutzy, self-conscious protagonist, has absolutely no personality. There is nothing to her that is unique or out of the ordinary. In fact, she could basically be any girl in America. Which is why it is so goddamned easy to project your own personality onto her. Bella becomes her reader, and the reader becomes Bella. The reader falls in love with Edward. The reader thinks it’s romantic for Edward to sneak into her room to watch her sleep. The reader thinks it’s ok for Edward to steal the engine out of her car when he doesn’t want her to go to Seattle with her friends. The reader would readily alter her entire being for a man.

            So now that the reader is fully immersed in Edward’s sparkly arms, they start to take away values. Tweens are extremely impressionable, which is why I was absolutely horrified when I saw the latest Twilight movie. I don’t want to give away any spoilers (I lied I totally do) but in the end, Bella and Edward live happily ever after. A bit too happily ever after. Literally nothing sad happens. Jacob’s love for Bella is abated when he realizes that he’s actually in love with her newborn daughter (apparently there’s nothing wrong with that), Eddie and Bells have their happy little family, and no one, not even one person that they loved got killed. Or even hurt in any way. Even though the existence of the insane bloodthirsty monster baby was dangerous to absolutely everyone, everyone walks away without a scratch.

            I take issue with this.

            Let’s compare it to Harry Potter for a second. In Harry Potter, the characters are forced into situations where they must fight for good. They do not have a choice in the matter. They must make decisions, decisions that have consequences, and if they make the wrong decision, they must learn from their mistakes. In The Order of the Phoenix, Harry acts without thinking and his godfather dies. And he doesn’t come back. This is something that Harry must accept and grow from.

            In Twilight, Edward and Bella are not forced into anything. They choose that they want to be together. They choose that they want to keep the child when it turns out to be a monster. Bella decides that she wants to become a vampire. All of these decisions should have consequences, but Stephanie Meyer decided that they actually don’t. Bella and Edward can be as selfish as they damn well please, and absolutely nothing negative will happen because of it.

            This concept terrifies me. The fact that young girls can read this and think that this is how the world works and that they can follow their heart with no regard to the people around them, means that this up-and-coming generation might be the death of us.

Just some food for thought.