Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Be this riddle or real?

I know there are whack postings to be found on Craigslist. I know there are ca-razy "Missed Connections" postings.
But this gem was nuzzled in amongst the normal:
one bedroom, Los Feliz.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

No more! (wipe your tears away)

The idea of writing another post for my blog makes me cringe. I do believe I am approaching the point of diminishing returns as regards my tolerance for this medium. Me, me me me me. Blah blah blah. My mother and I are forming a unified front on this.
Some people might initiate an antiblog-blog at this point.
Questions? Comments?

Monday, March 14, 2005

I made a list (revised)

I have been asked over whiskeys and at other junctures what my favorite recent movies are, etc. I am never able to deliver the goods. I ramble and get distracted and cannot make thorough recall.
Now I have made a list, inspired by a post on Majikthise, which prods us to list the best films so far of the Oughts, the '00s, because Lindsay was prodded to do so by some other blog.
Really these are not in any order per se. I picked 12 as tops.

1. Fellowship of the Ring, Return of the King , then Two Towers in that order and this counts as one (1) film indeed. I am referring to the Extended versions here of course.
2. Donnie Darko - definitely not the Director's Cut. Ouch. Please, no.Sucked.
3. Wonder Boys
4. Waking the Dead
5. Jesus' Son
6. Almost Famous
7. An Everlasting Piece
8. Sexy Beast
9. Master and Commander: Far Side of the World (creaking! biology! water!)
10. Bloody Sunday
11. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
12. Whale Rider


Special Mentions: Billy Elliot, Atanarjuat,Requiem for a Dream, Tape, Last Orders, The Believer, Dancer In The Dark, Spy Kids, About A Boy, Pieces of April, The Anniversary Party, Fahrenheit 9-11,13 Conversations About One Thing,A.I. (not including the last hour which belongs in a separate category - sorry Alex), In America, Before Sunset, Sky Captain and The, Hedwig and the Angry Inch,I Heart Huckabees, School of Rock, All the Real Girls, Punch Drunk Love, The Slaughter Rule, Rabbit Proof Fence, Laurel Canyon,Adaptation,Liam, the Good Girl, Moonlight Mile, and Barbarian Invasions.

Extra Special Mention, Existentially Questionable Filmmaking Award: Reign of Fire.

Bill Murray's Polonius was good.

Sunday, March 13, 2005

The Great Loud Beast of Large-scale-yet-stunningly-intimate Concerts Has Passed Me By

If I were to be my eighth grade self today, my eighth-grade self would be stunned at my out-of-touchness.
My eighth grade self would never have imagined that there could or would be a day wherein I would not know that U2 tickets were going on sale, and she would have probably not believed me if I told her I failed to know the proper time to assume position in a long line to obtain tickets to one of five (5) shows.
My eighth grade self would have pointed to the moulding of my old bedroom as evidence of my once-hearty involvement in all things EastSideDublin-based. The moulding went around the ceiling of my old room, and onto it, in Sharpie-marker faerie-font, I wrote out the words from The Unforgettable Fire's "Bad":
Desperation.
Dislocation.
Separation.
Condemnation.
Revelation.
In temptation.
Isolation.
Desolation.

And then my eighth-grade self continued the tradition in Sharpie marker, all around the place:
Emancipation.
Elevation.
Disintegration.
Violation.
Masturbation.
Injection.
Prognostication.
Oration.

She was so devoted, that girl.
Robyn told me a story the other day about this friend of ours who once was staying in a hotel where it turned out the band was also staying. This friend heard singing and she stood in the doorway of the ballroom and saw Bono rehearsing for a show that night, a small man expressing sound in an echoey room, and this friend said she understood what she previously had not about U2 in that moment.

When I heard this story, the eighth-grade version of my self leapt up into my throat and tried to climb out of my mouth so that it could yip about in jealousy and jump up and down; thus my current self couldnt get obtain words to provide Robyn with a reaction to that story.

I can't speak to you of the holy feeling I get when the white lights go on in all our faces at a certain point in their shows. It isn't ludicrous, it isn't an exaggeration. It is simply very true.

Sunday, March 06, 2005

music-makers, dreamers of dreams



Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.
I was on the unit last Saturday when I met two fellows.
They were in my patient's room, standing over her bed. She - 6 years old but looking 3 - just stared up at them while they bent over her making bizarre giggling noises and doofus sounds. She, with her left arm swollen for unknown reasons to four times it's normal size, looked up at them, and then looked down to attend to her coloring book.
The two men were not deflated by her lack of enthusiasm. Instead they signed two pieces of paper and tucked them under her pillow and said goodbye.
I heard them giggling and doofusing on down the hall to the next room. I looked under her pillow to discover two autographed pictures of Spongebob and Patrick. Those people were Spongebob and Patrick!
Patrick was tall and looked like Patrick and Songebob was small with a halfway Buddy Holly haircut, smallness being reminiscent of Spongebob. The woman who does the voice of Bobby from King of the Hill was there too along with a Simpson's artist. I got me a Wiggum from him. Chief. I felt like a whore, really really whore-like, for doing this afterwards because those people were there for the kids and not the staff. But I didnt reallly ask for one. I just asked if he did Wiggum portraiture, and bam, there it was.

Last night I heard some excellent people read some excellent things at our 826LA benefit: Aimee Bender read a short story about the Devil and a Skeleton who work for the International Red Cross rowing dead families across a river in Hades; there was a short excerpt about Teddy Roosevelt hunting 'squatch from an upcoming book on Yeti/Sasquatch by Joshua Bearman; a story about a cook working for a famous celebrity, referred to in the story only as 'Monster' and the celebrity's house only as "the Lair" by Jervey Tervalon; a brief display of drawings of "hand signs particular to El Monte flower-picking gangs now facing extinction" from one Salvador Plascencia; and a hot sticky one from Rachel Resnick who is the kind of person who emanates toughness, even through a fitted blazer.
The new site for 826LA is up, so go peek at it.
We are proud.

But this week I learned that I will never again attempt large-volume handsewing projects at the tail end of a very busy week of shifts and pediatric advanced life support certification courses. I watched Gattaca, some TiVoed Survivor and 24, the most recent U2 concert at Slane castle, and heard the director/writer commentary of Return of the King all while trying to finish pillowcases by hand. It went on into the night. It was a moment of futility defined.
In the morning I went to the Pasadena Sewing and Vacuum Supply Store with my sack, my five yards of pathetically handstitched, unfinished and incorrectly sized corduroy and dealt with a strange woman who helped me out in a manner that demonstrated that she didnt really want to help me but since I would probably start crying at any moment, she decided she would.

In other news, there isn't any.

Yer pal,
Lebo

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Return the Map,


robinhood
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.
Return
What
You Have
Stolen From Me......Most Fabulous Object In the World...Your Money Or Your Life...
Don't Touch It, It's Evil.