4 posts tagged “awesome”

Joe snagged this huge freaky fish pillow as part of his Yankee Swap at work. Romeo promptly took it over. Go kitty!

Fishies R Yum!

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He has conquered!

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Yvaine & Tristan

In a rare move, I went to see a movie by one of my favorite authors (Neil Gaiman) although I had not yet read the book (in my defense it was originally a graphic novel and I just haven't read many books in that genre). Maybe that was okay, because I absolutely loved the movie. It's good not to feel frustrated about cut scenes or ending changes (which I understand happened in this case), or characters not being represented like I thought they should.

I will go get the book, but for now I'll continue to think about Stardust the movie, which my husband and I went to see today (after much hemming and hawing on his part because he doesn't really like movie theaters). What a beautiful, beautiful, sweet, funny, exciting, well-done film.

Clare Danes played Yvaine, a fallen star. Charlie Cox plays Tristan, a boy who is on a trek to find the star and bring back the star to a local girl who he wants to marry--although he doesn't realize that the star is actually a woman. And Michelle Pfeiffer--oh I have always loved her and in this she was magnificent--played a perfectly beautiful and perfectly hideous evil witch. De Niro played Captain Shakespeare, a closeted gay pirate. Absolutely brilliant performance.

One of the key witchy things that happens in the movie is a few scenes of divination by looking at entrails. Icky, but I thought it interesting because in ancient times, divination through entrails after a ritual sacrifice was very common. I have several scenes in my novel about divination along these lines. If the liver was a certain shape or color it meant something. If there were deformed or missing organs it might mean another. In the case of Stardust, the entrails told the witches where to find the star.

Overall this is an enchanting fairytale that kids and adults alike will love for many years to come. Definitely will be snatching this up on DVD when it comes out!

Tuesday is JUST around the corner!

Morrissey is a God

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I posted this to my Last.fm as well and rather than write something new I chose to be lazy...

Fountains of wayne

Last night's Fountains of Wayne show at the Paradise here in Boston was absolutely great. We got there a bit early and scored balcony spots so we had a killer view. The show was sold out but being up high we weren't packed in with the masses which was nice--both Joe and I don't have any sort of height advantage so it was a very good thing to snag that spot.

They didn't play very long, unfortunately, because they got started late. They didn't have time for full setup before the show so they took 45 min after the opening band, Robbers on High Street, in order to do sound checks which was frustrating. Joe and I were shocked that ROHS said who they were--opening bands never tell you who they are and you end up leaving thinking--Oh, I would have checked them out but I never found out who it was. They were decent but their best song was the last song when the bassist suddenly turned into a horn player. They should go more that route--that was where they started to shine.

Back to the sound check--one of the most icky, horrible EXTREMELY GROSS things about the night was the way one of their roadies did sound checks--pretty much licking and pushing his entire mouth around the microphones. It was just plain nasty. Everyone around us was cringing and shuddering. Joe joked that if the entire band came down with "the hep" that we'll know why.

Unfortunately, they didn't play Red Dragon Tattoo, which is one of my all time favorite songs by any band and that made me sad. But other than that, it was a lot of fun. They sounded fantastic, just very well put-together. Someone to Love was one of the best songs of the night, as was It Must Be Summer. I was surprised though, that they didn't do Hotel Majestic--that's one of the better tracks on the new album, IMHO.

I love their music primarily because the songs go beyond just a snappy beat. They tell stories about people that are really like you and me, in situations and with feelings that the listener can easily relate to. And well, they ARE very snappy and singable and fun.

Oh and it was even more awesome that we scored Kojak-style parking. We drove up and lo! and behold! a spot RIGHT in front. Doesn't get better than that!