À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

Eating: Pumpkin scones from SBUX. They are sooooo good. They are also 500 calories, which lands on the not so good side. So as long as you just don’t eat anything else…

Making: Vaguely knitting socks for Dad and socks for me. Vaguely. [All the same quilts in all the same stages they’ve been in.]

Reading: Same as last week…since I spent a gazillion hours at the Chicago Film Festival I’ve barely done any reading at all: At home I’m reading the Ford-edited short stories from our July / October challenge. On the train I’m reading “The Conversations at Curlow Creek” by David Malouf which is very slow and measured but weighty in its own way.

Watching: The Offce, Pushing Daisies and Sons of Anarchy. Those three are definitely my favorite shows right now so I generally watch each episode a few times. You know, once the night it’s on, once the next night while I’m falling asleep, once over the weekend when I don’t feel like doing anything on my to-do list… [As well as random online video interviews of my future husband. They do keep popping up!]

Listening to: Last few days I’ve been listening to everything I bought in August, September and so far in October in one big shuffled pack. I am particularly loving Mumford & Sons White Blank Pages, First Aid Kit’s cover of “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” (Fleet Foxes), Carla Bruni “Tu es ma came”, The New Frontiers “Mirrors”, Jump Little Children “Cathedrals” (old and kinda cheesy but damn I can’t stop listening to it), Ryan Auffenberg “Pictures (of Someone Else), but that’s just a samplin’.

Favorite Album of Today

“Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford” Everlast
I’ve loved his gravelly thick voice for a long time and if you’ve never heard his cover of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”…then you probably didn’t get a mix from me during that two-year period when I put it on every mix because I just couldn’t stop listening to it. He also does the theme song to Saving Grace (love the song way more than the show!).
I guess they probably file him under rap/hip-hop? But he’s not really a rapper. Some of the lyrics are a bit rough and tumble…if you’re feeling a little murderous, they certainly keep you hyped up and may push you over the edge into actual violence, ha ha ha (I’M KIDDING). But that’s only some of the songs. And there’s his lovely bass singing over a kind of rollicking rambling background that is sometimes hip-hop-ish in its beats, but sometimes almost country.

David Sedaris on the “Undecided” Voters.

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?

[Link via Three Imaginary Girls, via Slog via The New Yorker]

My Evening with Kevin Smith / Big Screen: Zach and Miri Make a Porno

7:30pm – Already in line for Zach and Miri an hour from now (ridiculous).

7:31pm – But turns out pomegranate jelly bellies are addictive. So there’s that.

7:43pm – This is worse than the Battlestar lines at Dragon*Con. And no twins here to keep me company.

8:35pm – Oh shit Kevin Smith is actually going to be here!!
[Viewing Zack and Miri Make a Porno]

10:31pm – Kevin Smith Q and A is making me very happy!

10:37pm – Someone just asked “Kevin, did George Lucas step on your balls about Star Whores?”

10:43pm – Kevin Smith used to be a Front Wiper. I do not jest. [Until Harley Quinn’s birth when a nurse told him he should be doing it the other way!]

10:47pm – His next movie* is so bleak “it makes Dark Knight look like Beverly Hills Chihuahua.”

11:12pm – Rosario Dawson was supposed to play Miri. [They moved the timing of filming and that made it conflict with “Eagle Eye” so they had to find someone else relatively last minute. But Elizabeth Banks is actually perfect in it (my opinion AND his) so it worked out great. Per Kevin: “She really grounds the movie.”]

11:24pm – Kevin Smith’s all-time fav porn title: “Jerk my cum crayon and color me white.”

*Next movie = Red State. Described as him finally finding a way to talk politics. A political horror film. Not funny at all. Having trouble finding financing.

Explanatory:
At Chicago Film Festival to see Zach & Miri. Often there are directors and/or actors who take Q&A afterward but it’s generally noted in the program. This one didn’t say so but surprise surprise. So sad my dad couldn’t be here to see this!!! If you don’t know: Kevin Smith LOVES doing Q&As. If you’ve ever listened to a SModcast or watched one of his An Evening with Kevin Smith DVDs, you can pretty much imagine how a) awesome and b) funny this was. And also how insanely comfortable he is talking about any and/or every personal detail of his life.

Other random quotes that I didn’t actually twitter:
Ben Affleck on viewing Jason Mewes’ nude scene: “You realize Mewes is just one pump away from full liftoff, right?

Personal note to Ben from me: Are you just maybe kinda jealous because Jason Mewes is so smokin hot in this movie? [I’m so not joking. Skinny and his hair all clean cut? And damn those shoulder tattoos are AWESOME.]

After talking about Red State and saying “Sorry for bringing the whole room down”, someone started their question with “Not to bring the whole room down again” and KS yelled “So Don’t!” and tried to move on. Turned out the dude wanted to ask him about the whole “how’re you doing on your diet thing?” [What a dick.] KS wasn’t necessarily “happy to” but he, in his usual brutally honest way, did respond and chat about it. But the best part was when he pointed out “You know, some skinny motherfucker always has to point out how fat I am!!!” And the whole audience looked at the questioner disapprovingly! Ha!

And the movie?
Lots of fun. Totally crude and nasty and gross. And soooooo funny and very sweet and romantic. Honestly, the last five minutes, even with the Dutch Rudder jokes, were so touching. YAY!!! [And I don’t even like Seth Rogen.] Also Darryl from The Office? is HYSTERICAL in this. Brandon Routh was a total Tom Cruise doppelganger. So much so it gave me a little doubletake each time. A great night at the movies. The flick alone made me grin like an idiot. And then Kevin Smith’s appearance just sent the evening over the top.

*Bliss*.

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

Eating: Way too much. Every day. I can’t be stopped. I WILL be the fattest girl in the universe, just give me a couple more days.

Making: Started a pair of dad socks. That’ll only take me 10,000 years. Have one quilt basted and another just about to be but won’t be have time to work on either of them for a week or so at least.

Reading: At home I’m reading the Ford-edited short stories from our July / October challenge. On the train I’m reading “The Conversations at Curlow Creek” by David Malouf which is very slow and measured but weighty in its own way.

Watching: A crapload of movies at the Chicago International Film Festival. You can follow the updates on the 2008 movie page. Or you can wait for me to post about them here.

Listening to: Not a damn thing. Dad was here for a few days so all the times I’d normally be listening, I was busy talking to him. And just a few hours after he left, the Film Festival started and now all the times I’d normally be listening, I’m in a dark movie theater mostly watching totally intense, brutal movies where people’s hopes and dreams are crushed to pieces and/or ripped to shreds, which may sound like the same thing but isn’t necessarily so.

Big Screen: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

Sweet but cheesy. I enjoyed it more for the NYC settings (oh nostalgia to my early NYC days…Ludlow Street, I miss you!) than for the plot which I thought was sadly more juvenile than I expected. Unlike Juno, which was very much a movie about growing up, Nick and Norah was just about “being that age.” Also found the title a bit of a misnomer. Like buying a sign that says “we really want to hype our soundtrack.”

But Michael Cera did give a wonderfully tender, nuanced performance. So there’s that.

Big Screen: Burn After Reading

On the surface, a very funny, often abruptly violent movie that you could easily just laugh through and enjoy “for what it is.” Dig a little deeper and there’s some very prescient criticism of the (practically defunct? hello 9/11) US spy system.

Hilarious and very twitchy performances by Clooney, Pitt and McDormand. Over the top and really hilarious belligerence by Malkovich.

People and Things Other People Hate* that I Love

  • Philip Roth / and his books
  • Madonna
  • Films of Keanu Reeves, in general.
  • “Point Break” in particular.
  • “Ishtar”

People and Things I Hate* that Other People Love
  • Cormac McCarthy / and his books
  • Renee Zellweger or, interchangeably, Gwyneth Paltrow
  • Films of Mel Gibson, in general.
  • “Braveheart” in particular.
  • “Knocked Up”

*Hate merely as opposite to Love, when it could technically just be “don’t particularly care for” or “like to criticize” and is not necessarily of the “hatred running through my veins at all times” variety. Although in some cases…
I’m sure this will be added to. Intermittently.