16 November 2007
15 November 2007
coral and bells announces: Sexiest Man Alive!
Currently, the Sexiest Man Alive is: Mike Farrell, circa 1979 (the glorious year of my birth). He's delightful now, but when I watch M*A*S*H - ooooooh.
Last night's TVLand rerun had a SHOWER SCENE! it was, you know, pretty tame because it was early 80s tv and we hadn't had dennis franz's pasty ass on the networks yet, but still.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
There are no photos that i can find that do justice to him. Tall, lanky, hot. the pink thermal shirts! the army green pants! and oh gods!!! the chuck taylors!My all-time current Sexiest Man Alive, however, goes that darling dreamboat:
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT!
Who's your top pick? now, or of all time?
Who's your top pick? now, or of all time?14 November 2007
sexiest man ....are you kidding me???
cnn.com reports that people magazine has selected its latest "SEXIEST MAN ALIVE."
and that man is...............
Matt Damon?
Matt DAMON?
are you kidding me?
to whom is Matt Damon the sexiest man alive, besides maybe some 14 year old girls? Does Matt Damon shave yet? What is sexy about him? He's like the least sexy man out there. He's cute, for sure, but in a totally toothless, unsexy way.
I spend my days on a college campus. Every day, I see 19 and 20 year old boys who look like this. And I think: "cute, but just a kid."
Looking like you're still going through puberty is not sexy. sorry, but it isn't. What has Matt Damon ever done that was sexy?
Here are some examples of sexy, like real, actual, SEXXXY:
Rufus Wainwright. Youthful, yes, but he's got a little smolder about him. You can imagine him actually getting down and dirty. Matt Damon, I imagine him looking at Playboy and giggling about boobies.
Johnny Depp. A Classic. My own mother loves him. 10 year old girls love him. Wide appeal. He's got the smolder, too. And he seems like the sort of person who would be amazing in bed AND make you laugh. This is an unbeatable combination, in my book. And he's aged astonishingly well: this is an actual, grown-up man, not a boy.And here we have Gale Harold,
who has a most unfortunate name, but is quite the sexy man. I know him from Queer as Folk, which has - oh, probably HOURS - of screen time with Gale shirtless and/or naked. This guy has one hot body, and I'm not usually all that impressed with that sort of thing. But watch pretty much any episode of QaF and you will be treated to a most delightful, and sexy, sight. Gale also does possibly the best Face of Scorn and Contempt I have ever seen (you get a hint of it in this picture - perhaps he was just told that Matt Damon is sexiest man alive?).So: to recap. these are just a few of the truly sexy famous men out there. and People Magazine (or was it Teen People?) went and chose
matt damon.
11 November 2007
07 November 2007
dancing with the stars?
why do people go on that show? I've never seen more than a minute or two of it, but every time I read or hear something about it, and the "stars" who dance, I cringe and feel really embarrassed.
tonight's provocateur (provocateuse?): jennie garth.
just....why?
reality shows with "celebrities" are embarrassing.
tonight's provocateur (provocateuse?): jennie garth.
just....why?
reality shows with "celebrities" are embarrassing.
05 November 2007
Union YES!
So the Writers' union has gone out on a strike. For the people who watch scripted shows, this is not so good (scripted shows include everything from soap operas to Letterman, Leno & co to Grey's Anatomy).
For myself, the only scripted shows I watch are the ones shown late at night on TVLand - Golden Girls! Roseanne! M*A*S*H! and of course, Queer as Folk which I get on DVD anyway, so the strike doesn't have major impact on my personal entertainment habits.
But I always support a workers' strike. It doesn't matter if it's the teamsters or teachers or writers or nurses or needletrades or hotel workers. Strikes only happen when both sides - BOTH sides - are stuck. Obviously, the studios and producers of the shows are not playing fairly with the writers - this issue is about revenue from DVD and internet sales of shows, by the way. People should be paid, and paid fairly, for their work. DVD/internet sales are huge business, and the writers - the people who CREATE the product, really - should get a reasonable and fair piece of the pie.
We tend not to think about the writers of films and tv shows. we never see them, unless, like Tina Fey they also act in their shows. But THEY are the people who come up with the gripping plotlines, the bizarre situations, the one-liners. They invent the characters, through dialogue, and that's no mean feat. I *always* support writers (well, good ones) and I certainly support the Writers' Guild on this one.
It should be interesting to see what happens. Reality tv booms in such times - they are unscripted shows. But Letterman, Leno & co are already on shut-down. Most sitcoms and dramas have a few shows in the can, to last a few more weeks: but then, it's time for re-runs. I wonder if the studio/producers will cave. I wonder if people will become even MORE addicted to shitty reality TV (Project Runway coming up....wait: is that a scripted show?????).
The writers' strike has support from the teamsters, who said over the weekend they won't cross picket lines (go teamsters!). but the shut-down of production affects thousands and thousands of wallets and pocketbooks across the land: all the crew, staff, location people - out of work.
Meanwhile, I'll be sitting pretty with the last season of Queer as Folk, and the Golden Girls. Though on the surface, you'd think those two are very different, but there's a broad streak of queerness running through the Golden Girls (and I'm not talking about Bea Arthur, either).
happy striking - best of luck to the writers!
For myself, the only scripted shows I watch are the ones shown late at night on TVLand - Golden Girls! Roseanne! M*A*S*H! and of course, Queer as Folk which I get on DVD anyway, so the strike doesn't have major impact on my personal entertainment habits.
But I always support a workers' strike. It doesn't matter if it's the teamsters or teachers or writers or nurses or needletrades or hotel workers. Strikes only happen when both sides - BOTH sides - are stuck. Obviously, the studios and producers of the shows are not playing fairly with the writers - this issue is about revenue from DVD and internet sales of shows, by the way. People should be paid, and paid fairly, for their work. DVD/internet sales are huge business, and the writers - the people who CREATE the product, really - should get a reasonable and fair piece of the pie.
We tend not to think about the writers of films and tv shows. we never see them, unless, like Tina Fey they also act in their shows. But THEY are the people who come up with the gripping plotlines, the bizarre situations, the one-liners. They invent the characters, through dialogue, and that's no mean feat. I *always* support writers (well, good ones) and I certainly support the Writers' Guild on this one.
It should be interesting to see what happens. Reality tv booms in such times - they are unscripted shows. But Letterman, Leno & co are already on shut-down. Most sitcoms and dramas have a few shows in the can, to last a few more weeks: but then, it's time for re-runs. I wonder if the studio/producers will cave. I wonder if people will become even MORE addicted to shitty reality TV (Project Runway coming up....wait: is that a scripted show?????).
The writers' strike has support from the teamsters, who said over the weekend they won't cross picket lines (go teamsters!). but the shut-down of production affects thousands and thousands of wallets and pocketbooks across the land: all the crew, staff, location people - out of work.
Meanwhile, I'll be sitting pretty with the last season of Queer as Folk, and the Golden Girls. Though on the surface, you'd think those two are very different, but there's a broad streak of queerness running through the Golden Girls (and I'm not talking about Bea Arthur, either).
happy striking - best of luck to the writers!
23 October 2007
dumbledore gay?
This is a copy of a message I posted to a professional listserv to which I belong, in response to the list's discussion of J.K. Rowling's "outing" of Dumbledore.
I always look for the queer. I've wanted there to be some queerness in HP for years. I really do like the books a LOT, and re-read them frequently. But I'm only totally critically blinded by one author (Philip Pullman), and JKR pisses me off (pardon my language). I have my queer-spotting goggles on all the time (tongue-in-cheek), and I never got that special feeling when i read Dumbledore. He wears purple and likes chamber music - are those my queer cues? He was intellectual best-buddies with Grindelwald? Again - not too erotic.
And I would argue that sexuality matters, always. The absence of Dumbledore's alleged homosexuality is a glaring kind of presence in the texts. He isn't written as gay; he's written as friendly old God. It's cheap and cowardly to claim queerness so long after the fact. And yeah, the books have Harry's POV, but he's not a 5-year-old happily cuddling with his friendly gay teachers; he's a teenager, especially after book 4, who understands the world in a sexualized and complex way. We also get a LOT of secondary reportage on Dumbledore, and - I'd have to re-read for sure - I don't recall any hints of Dumbledore's gayness. He's "mad" and "eccentric" which maybe signal gay - eccentric old bachelors means gay, right??? in 1940 or so? There are also Dudley's weird anti-gay jokes in early Book 5 - he makes jokes about Harry saying "Cedric" in his sleep. And Harry's enraged (which in some ways, he should be - being taunted about Cedric sucks, but I can't help reading that as partly the defensive anger of straight gays when they are accused of being gay).
Waller made me grin with relief when he stated, emphatically, there IS no Dumbledore other than those marks on the page. I frankly don't give a flying fig what Rowling had in her mind for 15 years. In MY mind, for years, I've had any number of things, none of which exist. I've got a whole delightful invented backstory for Howell, before he becomes Wizard Howl (in Diana Wynne Jones's outstanding book, Howl's Moving Castle). This doesn't make it TRUE. I believe in story, and creativity, and storytelling, but Rowling is obsessively controlling about her texts in a way that makes me want to call bullshit.
MY take: how could you possibly create a rich and loving and emotionally complex relationship between the gay male headmaster and a male student without everyone and his grandma shrieking PEDOPHILE!!! ?? I keep thinking of the scene in Book 5 when Dumbledore cries as he tells Harry how much he, Dumbledore, loves Harry. Put your queer goggles on (insert homophobia lenses first) and suddenly you have a creepy pedophilic predator on your hands.
I really resent the way Rowling continually fleshes out her books in interviews and talks. I don't CARE if it's in response to a question asked by a paraplegic little girl with cancer who was orphaned in a third-world country; if this stuff is so important to OUR understanding of the texts, it had better be in the books. I'm pretty loosey-goosey on my fetishization of The Book, and still this bothers me.
In another context: I don't want Philip Pullman to tell me what happens to Will; I want him to MAKE it happen through writing. JKR's statements about her characters are like me discussing the garden I have in my head, but that doesn't yet exist, and possibly never will. My tulips and apple trees and weigela and climbing roses are fabulously detailed in my head. But until I turn the soil and plant them, they aren't real.
the thing is, I really do like these books. I like imagining the Potterverse, I like daydreaming about the classes at Hogwarts, and the contents of Honeydukes, and what the limitations on magic might be. But if Rowling has more story to tell, she needs to write it down. If she can't let go of her Potterverse, then she either needs to continue developing and creating it, or she needs a good therapist.
I always look for the queer. I've wanted there to be some queerness in HP for years. I really do like the books a LOT, and re-read them frequently. But I'm only totally critically blinded by one author (Philip Pullman), and JKR pisses me off (pardon my language). I have my queer-spotting goggles on all the time (tongue-in-cheek), and I never got that special feeling when i read Dumbledore. He wears purple and likes chamber music - are those my queer cues? He was intellectual best-buddies with Grindelwald? Again - not too erotic.
And I would argue that sexuality matters, always. The absence of Dumbledore's alleged homosexuality is a glaring kind of presence in the texts. He isn't written as gay; he's written as friendly old God. It's cheap and cowardly to claim queerness so long after the fact. And yeah, the books have Harry's POV, but he's not a 5-year-old happily cuddling with his friendly gay teachers; he's a teenager, especially after book 4, who understands the world in a sexualized and complex way. We also get a LOT of secondary reportage on Dumbledore, and - I'd have to re-read for sure - I don't recall any hints of Dumbledore's gayness. He's "mad" and "eccentric" which maybe signal gay - eccentric old bachelors means gay, right??? in 1940 or so? There are also Dudley's weird anti-gay jokes in early Book 5 - he makes jokes about Harry saying "Cedric" in his sleep. And Harry's enraged (which in some ways, he should be - being taunted about Cedric sucks, but I can't help reading that as partly the defensive anger of straight gays when they are accused of being gay).
Waller made me grin with relief when he stated, emphatically, there IS no Dumbledore other than those marks on the page. I frankly don't give a flying fig what Rowling had in her mind for 15 years. In MY mind, for years, I've had any number of things, none of which exist. I've got a whole delightful invented backstory for Howell, before he becomes Wizard Howl (in Diana Wynne Jones's outstanding book, Howl's Moving Castle). This doesn't make it TRUE. I believe in story, and creativity, and storytelling, but Rowling is obsessively controlling about her texts in a way that makes me want to call bullshit.
MY take: how could you possibly create a rich and loving and emotionally complex relationship between the gay male headmaster and a male student without everyone and his grandma shrieking PEDOPHILE!!! ?? I keep thinking of the scene in Book 5 when Dumbledore cries as he tells Harry how much he, Dumbledore, loves Harry. Put your queer goggles on (insert homophobia lenses first) and suddenly you have a creepy pedophilic predator on your hands.
I really resent the way Rowling continually fleshes out her books in interviews and talks. I don't CARE if it's in response to a question asked by a paraplegic little girl with cancer who was orphaned in a third-world country; if this stuff is so important to OUR understanding of the texts, it had better be in the books. I'm pretty loosey-goosey on my fetishization of The Book, and still this bothers me.
In another context: I don't want Philip Pullman to tell me what happens to Will; I want him to MAKE it happen through writing. JKR's statements about her characters are like me discussing the garden I have in my head, but that doesn't yet exist, and possibly never will. My tulips and apple trees and weigela and climbing roses are fabulously detailed in my head. But until I turn the soil and plant them, they aren't real.
the thing is, I really do like these books. I like imagining the Potterverse, I like daydreaming about the classes at Hogwarts, and the contents of Honeydukes, and what the limitations on magic might be. But if Rowling has more story to tell, she needs to write it down. If she can't let go of her Potterverse, then she either needs to continue developing and creating it, or she needs a good therapist.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)