Movie Millisecond: Happy Thanksgiving Thursday from Wednesday

Addams Family Values (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1993).

Wednesday: You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now, my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides; you will play golf, and enjoy hot hors d’oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, “Do not trust the Pilgrims … especially Sarah Miller.”

Amanda: Gary, she’s changing the words!

Wednesday: … And for all these reasons, I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.

edit 11/24/11: Several months ago I screencapped the hell out of a gorgeous, HD version of AFV with subtitles. Then my desktop hard drive crashed. I’ve been limping along on the strength of my laptop as I attempt to reconstruct the desktop with the help of others, but I hadn’t realized the breadth of my little tragedy until I went to put together my hotly anticipated Wednesday Thanksgiving post and brokenheartely remembered that batch of files hadn’t been transferred on to my external hard drive (which I frequently updated as a backup to both systems in the face of just such an eventuality as this). Sad. I’m sad about this.

Retread — Burroughs Month: Thanksgiving Prayer

“To John Dillinger and hope he is still alive.
Thanksgiving Day. November 28, 1986.”

Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shat out through wholesome
American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin’ lawmen,
feelin’ their notches.

For decent church-goin’ women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for “Kill a Queer for
Christ” stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody’s allowed to mind their
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories — all right let’s see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.

I do not believe it is as hopeless as all that. This year, I am incredibly thankful to be alive at all, let alone to live where I do with the people I love. I understand Mr. Burroughs’ criticisms, I just think that we must keep caring and trying to win out against the sense of defeat and cynicism, and maybe then the dream can still be saved. I don’t believe people are inherently bad; I believe the opposite, and I won’t get discouraged and filled with bitterness toward all of humanity just because of the publicized exploits and outrages of the bad apples in our barrel. I believe that for each one of the headlines that sends people in to despair over the state of the world, there are a thousand unreported little kindnesses and gestures of love and connection.

And world peace. I know. I get cheesey. I’m just feeling very happy and free and alive.

Almost all photos via Square America.

This post originally appeared on November 26, 2010.

Daily Batman: Still I’d like to express my thanks

“Batman v. Turkey” photographed by sltaylor on the flickr, 2008.

Got no checkbooks, got no banks,
Still, I’d like to express my thanks
I’ve got the sun in the morning
And the moon at night.

And with the sun in the morning
And the moon in the evening
I’m all right.

“Batgirl resting” by Aubery Mirkwood on the d.a.

Sunshine gives me a lovely day,
Moonlight gives me the Milky Way.
Got no heirlooms for my kin,
Made no will but when I cash in
I’ll leave the sun in the morning
And the moon at night.

And with the sun in the morning
And the moon in the evening
I’m all right.

I’m all right.


(Irving Berlin. “I’ve Got the Sun in the Morning.” Annie Get Your Gun. 1946.)

Burroughs Month: Thanksgiving Prayer

“To John Dillinger and hope he is still alive.
Thanksgiving Day. November 28, 1986.”

Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shat out through wholesome
American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin’ lawmen,
feelin’ their notches.

For decent church-goin’ women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for “Kill a Queer for
Christ” stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody’s allowed to mind their
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories — all right let’s see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.

I do not believe it is as hopeless as all that. This year, I am incredibly thankful to be alive at all, let alone to live where I do with the people I love. I understand Mr. Burroughs’ criticisms, I just think that we must keep caring and trying to win out against the sense of defeat and cynicism, and maybe then the dream can still be saved. I don’t believe people are inherently bad; I believe the opposite, and I won’t get discouraged and filled with bitterness toward all of humanity just because of the publicized exploits and outrages of the bad apples in our barrel. I believe that for each one of the headlines that sends people in to despair over the state of the world, there are a thousand unreported little kindnesses and gestures of love and connection.

And world peace. I know. I get cheesey. I’m just feeling very happy and free and alive.

Almost all photos via Square America.

Movie Millisecond: Happy Wednesday!

Addams Family Values (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1993).

Wednesday: You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now, my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides; you will play golf, and enjoy hot hors d’oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, “Do not trust the Pilgrims … especially Sarah Miller.”

Amanda: Gary, she’s changing the words!

Wednesday: … And for all these reasons, I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.

Showdown!: Shirtless with black bra edition

“I would love to have Monica Bellucci’s figure, but I’m never going to get it. I’m naturally who I am.”

(Keira Knightley, May 21, 2007 on British television.)

Oh, the hell you’re that naturally thin. This is not sour grapes, this is me saying I have naturally slender friends (Cinder, Paolo, Corinnette) that you make look gluttonous by comparison.

I think Keira Knightley is very beautiful and I like that she dislikes paparazzi and publicity shenanigans, but I do not like that I can see all the knobs of her spine and she hasn’t got the sense to stop shopping around the tired genetic excuse which could never possibly account for the degree of boniness to which she has descended in the last decade. I like tone and I like cheekbones, but when chicks get that kind of Predator protusiveness to their clavichles and elbows, I get this skeevy, recoiling feeling.

via

I can’t even look at animal bones. Ask my family about the Thanksgiving that I walked in to help clean the kitchen and my aunt hadn’t wrapped the remainder of the carcass in foil yet. I literally fainted. I could never be a battlefield nurse nor a professional taxidermist (as opposed to your hobby-taxidermy). Haven’t got the stomach.

Photograph by Lauren Greenfield for her Thin showing. Yes, it’s the same girl, only in her second picture she looks pretty.

So when I say protrusive bones skeeve me out, I’m not jumping on a thin-girls-are-anorexic bandwagon where the in-flight movie is Envy and we are all served with tall glasses of haterade by morbidly obese stewardesses selected specifically to make us feel good in comparison because we’re sick enough to mentally pit ourselves against other women. I’m serious. Bones like that freak me out and upset me and make me think of the Holocaust which then makes me want to cry until I vomit.

So for the love of God, Keira Knightley, if I have to see you in another goddamned Pirates of the Caribbean movie which all United States citizens are required by law to attend or face public headshaving, would you please eat spaghetti before stepping in front of the camera?? Thank you.

Anyway, here they are again. Showdown!: Shirtless with black bra edition — whose body rocks the party?

Top: Keira Knightley; Bottom: Monica Bellucci.

I believe in yesterday

So, I went to the mall with Miss D yesterday to check out the new H&M store. The women’s stuff was all fine and good, some cute things I guess although nothing unmissable, but I struck awesome gold in the little boys’ department: scored two totally pimp Star Wars sweatshirts. One is a zip-up hoodie and the other is a purple pullover with Yoda on it. Freaking sweet as heck!

There were fantastic Star Wars t-shirts, too, but I was already over the spending limit I’d mentally set for myself. Still, looking at the sweatshirts? Totally worth it, and Miss D got this pretty necklace that looks like cranberries at the store next door to H&M, while kidlet snagged a hot pink headband with a bow that is pure Madonna circa 1985. So a great haul was yielded by all!

I was right about the first Diana roll sucking. The pictures came out horribly. I mean, just the absolute Suck. Only like three even printed. It’s my fault because I am so heedlessly impatient and thoughtless that I didn’t take the time to get it right before snapping away in the heat of the moment. I need to work on this, but I will not let it get me down. Hopefully my next roll will come out better.

In the evening, we had a small pre-Friend Thanksgiving with Christo since he will be gone on real Friend Thanksgiving. It was really great; we went around the table saying what we were thankful for. I was thankful to be home, and put the period right there. Then I jetted to Panda’s and whisked her off to the pub cause she had had a motherfucker of a day, like with dead pets and everything, it was horrible. We met up with Jonohs (who had new guylights — between him and Panda going blonde, I am beginning to feel totally untransformed!) and sort of did trivia, but mainly Panda and I focused on beer and chat.

All in all, it was a surprisingly full day, and I did a lot more driving on city streets than I normally care to, but a really excellent day. What I said at dinner, I meant. Days like yesterday, both the good and bad, can take my breath away with how fortunate I am to be in a place I think of as home, to be with my friends and family. I’m ridiculously lucky.