I usually make "New Years Intentions". Which I think I'm going to skip this year. Other than wanting to clean up my room by the end of the year, that's it.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Again, A New Year
So, the New Year is upon us yet again. I always find myself feeling a bit snarky around this time, barking about how time is a human construct (I mean the labeling of time in minutes, hours, day, night, weeks, months, years, etc.), and how making New Years Resolutions is a complete set up for failure. This could be likely due to the amount of times I have made a Resolution and felt totally guilty for failing in that commitment. Which we all do. Most of us anyway.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
ISE 3 - Snore Bore
Well, here we are at the third installment of ISE 3. I keep falling asleep.
Jeff Salzman is like a creepy clown circus ring master.
The whole thing is heartless, energy-less and completely snore bore.
I miss Marc.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Lo, The Moving Magazine
After a day of a spiritual community meeting event with Marty's teacher earlier today, I'm sitting here in a cafe, waiting for the laundry. The Velo Rouge Cafe, the hipster little cafe down the street from the house, is playing Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits album and I'm feeling completely charmed. I love this quality of the human world. Bless the Egyptians (probably even the Sumerians and Babylonians) for the existence of the Cafe. And the French and Italians for perfecting it. It's like its own little contained world. People, food, music, the buzz and chatter of life going by. You can be social or not, with someone you came with or not. You can people watch, you can computer watch. You can eat or drink, be merry. Or not.
The Velo Rouge doesn't have an internet connection (on occasions sometimes the mysterious Linksys you see around the city is up), which seems strange in our digital age, especially our digitally oriented cafe age. But due its smaller nature, it is encouraged to use up seats even if someone is sitting at a table already. Meaning, if one person is sitting at a table with three seats, it's etiquette here to allow others to sit at the same table with you. Marty and I have done this several times. Usually with someone studying on one edge of the table while we tappy tap away at our keyboards with our iPads. Once, we got crammed into the corner where there are some funky "couch/chair" like items with a couple whom we ended up striking up a conversation with. So in this way, this particular cafe encourages a more social quality.
Marty has joined me and is reading Wired magazine on his iPad while I write this. He'll be finishing up the laundry since I have to go off to a night photography class down at Pier 39.
I've always kind of poo poo'd the idea of reading books or magazines on a screen, hence never have gotten into the Kindle or Nook or any other reading device, nor even really the iBooks on my iPad. There is something to me about holding that hunk of paper in my hands. But in light of my beginning (well, always) bent towards environmentalism, I recognize that it would be more ecologically mindful to have digital copies as well as more convenient, considering you can carry several issues of many magazines/journals in one slim, light little place. And once I got Newsstand going, pulling down copies of some subscriptions I already had in place, I was sold. Blazing quality, definitely readable without eyestrain, and usually adjustable. Also, I got into comic readers as well, downloading the entire "The Walking Dead" series to read on comic. Talk about not having to worrying about archival problems.
But one thing that I really love about Newsstand and now having some of my magazines on here is something Marty and I were talking about a couple of weeks ago (while here at the Velo Rouge, doing laundry) was the musing that media such as magazines can go completely interactive in this format. And lo, as I mess around with my fitness magazine, I run across an exercise about bar lifting or some such and it shows the little pictures of how to do it, naturally, but then I notice a box with that all familiar arrow play button. So I press it and lo, it pulls up a video that proceeds to show me how the exercise is done. Okay, I am completely sold now.
The Velo Rouge doesn't have an internet connection (on occasions sometimes the mysterious Linksys you see around the city is up), which seems strange in our digital age, especially our digitally oriented cafe age. But due its smaller nature, it is encouraged to use up seats even if someone is sitting at a table already. Meaning, if one person is sitting at a table with three seats, it's etiquette here to allow others to sit at the same table with you. Marty and I have done this several times. Usually with someone studying on one edge of the table while we tappy tap away at our keyboards with our iPads. Once, we got crammed into the corner where there are some funky "couch/chair" like items with a couple whom we ended up striking up a conversation with. So in this way, this particular cafe encourages a more social quality.
Marty has joined me and is reading Wired magazine on his iPad while I write this. He'll be finishing up the laundry since I have to go off to a night photography class down at Pier 39.
I've always kind of poo poo'd the idea of reading books or magazines on a screen, hence never have gotten into the Kindle or Nook or any other reading device, nor even really the iBooks on my iPad. There is something to me about holding that hunk of paper in my hands. But in light of my beginning (well, always) bent towards environmentalism, I recognize that it would be more ecologically mindful to have digital copies as well as more convenient, considering you can carry several issues of many magazines/journals in one slim, light little place. And once I got Newsstand going, pulling down copies of some subscriptions I already had in place, I was sold. Blazing quality, definitely readable without eyestrain, and usually adjustable. Also, I got into comic readers as well, downloading the entire "The Walking Dead" series to read on comic. Talk about not having to worrying about archival problems.
But one thing that I really love about Newsstand and now having some of my magazines on here is something Marty and I were talking about a couple of weeks ago (while here at the Velo Rouge, doing laundry) was the musing that media such as magazines can go completely interactive in this format. And lo, as I mess around with my fitness magazine, I run across an exercise about bar lifting or some such and it shows the little pictures of how to do it, naturally, but then I notice a box with that all familiar arrow play button. So I press it and lo, it pulls up a video that proceeds to show me how the exercise is done. Okay, I am completely sold now.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Mission Impossible: Some Thoughts on Male Embodiment Types
Marty and I went to see "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" today. On IMAX, natch. Which I usually find a bit overwhelming. Unless you're Avatar and in awesome 3-D and then I'll show up three times to watch.
So it was huge and loud and all that. Marty thought it sucked. Compared, in his tiny brain, to Mission Impossible 3, which he liked the best out of the series.
I, as usual, thought it was okay, maybe even good at parts. A couple of scenes pop out at me that I very much liked, action sequence-wise and some of the cinematography. The scene with Renner and Cruise and the gun was excellent. The sandstorm shot with Cruise running away was fantastic. Overall, decent. But I'm the kind of person that can look at the gun scene alone and be like, "That was a great movie!" because I can generalize well. Marty... not so much.
This trailer contains those scenes, although in the movie, of course, looked much better on the big screen. Gun scene (about half of it) is around 2:50.
But in any case, the movie, which I am not really going to review as a movie in itself but rather some thoughts that came up out of it. Which any movie, really, should do. Even the dumb ones. Like "Should I have gone to see that?"
One of the thoughts arising is that I am slightly in love with Jeremy Renner. I'll get to this later.
The movie was a little slow at times. I do agree with Marty that the chemistry seemed to be missing between the actors. Tom Cruise seemed more pompous than usual. And old and more... girthed than usual. Perhaps his deal with the devil is finally running out. But the guy is still in great shape. "For someone in his 50's", Marty said. And I looked it up. Cruise was born in 1962 making him 49. However, Robert Downey, Jr. was born in 1965, so is now 46 and I really don't think three years would make that much of a difference? Because Downey has an incredible body. But maybe three years does make a difference. But like with Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and Harrison Ford's rather flaccid appearance there (and having grown up with him as an amazing physical kind of action hero), I kind of couldn't keep my eyes off how kind of "out of shape" Cruise (and Ford) seemed. Now I know this must seem incredibly shallow, seeming like I only care about looks but I am leading up to the other thought.
Which is styles of physical embodiment and how various actors (and people!), let's shall we say, "inhabit" their own skin, muscle and flesh. This is actually ASIDE from how they look in the face. (Although for me, this embodiment goes a HELL of a long way to adding to the entirety of how someone looks to me. Renner. Later.). I, as a young girl child, never really had cute boys on my wall. At one point, I think I had Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard and Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, natch. But no boy bands or cute boy actors. So later in life (hmm... maybe around 36 or 37, whenever Avatar came out, maybe a little before), I started noticing this actor by the name of Sam Worthington. And I just think he is SOOOO DREAMY. The first male actor to receive this illustrious title from me. So Marty got me a calendar of photos of him to put, aha!, on my wall. So, I finally have a dreamy guy on my wall.
But I have noticed that, when I look at "cute" or "handsome" or even "dreamy" men, I have come to realize that it's not their face I'm focusing on (except maybe Sam). And all of this is also just to have fun looking at these different ways of being in one's body, to be clear. I'm not doing a fashion review. Although Sam is so damn dreamy. But that aside. But also in that vein, I'm only focusing on men. Not that I don't find women attractive, because I do find them sexy but I don't experience the same energetic and physical inhabitation in my own gender as I seem to find in men. Perhaps this is due to men tending to be more oriented towards the physical because now that I think on it, it seems that I sometimes feel this inhabited (or not) quality in female athletes. So maybe it's got more to do with physicality than anything else.
So, I came up with some categories of Male Embodiment Types. I'll probably end up adding to these categories but these were the first to make themselves known as I was riding back from the movie. Not much to do riding on a scooter two-up other than look around. And think on stuff like this. A couple of notes on these "categories". One is that mostly these are energetic qualities, not necessarily physical typings, although I have noticed that there is a certain body "type" that correlates to a specific category, but for the most part, it is a more energetic feel of movement and inhabitation. And of course, all of this is from my own perception. Other people could and would probably see and "feel" these differently.
* Sloppy Body = Puts on a Pretty Boy skin suit and prances about, often in a physical fashion, action heroes and what not, but always appears very uncomfortable in their own skin.
The physical type here is often very good looking, is or bordering "cute" or "pretty" in the face, usually physically well put together.
Tom Cruise is an excellent example of this. I do find Cruise "cute in the face" but I just can't not get over how damned uncomfortable he "feels" in his body, no matter how action-y he can get. Plus, in this movie, he does A LOT of running. A LOT. And the man runs with "theater hands", you know, the closed finger knife hands. And as he's running, looks... uncomfortable and... well, you get the point. And this is not to say that he is not beautiful as an action hero, he's been doing it a long time. But, well, he's always felt technical in it. So a great physical technician but not a lot of body soul.
* Stiff Body = Like putting on the attire of a formal body suit. Usually presents as actually physically stiff in the body. Also feels very uncomfortable in their body.
Could be any physical body type, but usually characterized by a stiffness, an unmoving, blocked quality in the upper body.
Think here of our lovely Timothy Olyphant (he's a beautiful man but... well, stiff). I swear to the gods that man broke his back at some point in his life and has steel rods in his upper back because he is one of the stiffest, unmoving people I've seen on screen. In "Justified" he does seem to be loosening up a bit. Keanu Reeves is another good example of this style. The man is very stiff in the upper body. I think Neo was a perfect role for him because of this.
Rugged Masculine Body = A man's man. Wait, I don't mean in that way! A very fully present and very physicalized masculine. Very comfortable and at ease in their body.
Physical body type here tends towards dense, compact, could be tall or shorter, think "cowboy body" here.
Some examples might be Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig (although Craig to me lives a lot in the "Contained Violence" category), Harrison Ford. Hugh Jackman is one of the most comfortable men I think I've ever seen in their own body.
Graceful Masculine Body = A sense of fluid movement while still engaging a sense of real masculine. Also comfortable in the body but in a different way than Rugged.
Physical body type here tends towards tall and lean, one might almost call it a "dancer body".
In this category I put Ryan Gosling and Jeremy Renner. Gosling in "Drive" was this quality. Something sort of sweet about him in moments with a fluidity that seems to suggest dance background or some such. And he's that tall, lanky type.
However, Jeremy Renner really isn't the physical type. He's well built but shorter, got some of that dense quality to his body. And I've always kind of gone "Who is that guy?" but then never really paid attention because he just wasn't in a lot of stuff at the time. He's been in quite a few movies but it seems that he really hit his stride after "The Hurt Locker" came out and suddenly he's been booked everywhere. "Mission Impossible", the new Avengers movie, the new Bourne movie, Hansel and Gretel, some James Gray project. He was in a very fun, clever, unfortunately cancelled after 10 episodes, show called "The Unusuals". So even though he's been around for a little bit, seems kind of out of the woodwork.
So, since I haven't really seen him that much and the last movie that I really went "Wow, who IS this guy?" was "The Hurt Locker" and he was often covered in gear or mucking about in bombs and dirt. And unfamiliar. The more familiar I get with someone on screen, the more I can sort of "feel" into them.
Some other categories might include:
Midliners = Don't quite fit in one category or another. They might be moving from one to another. Like Vin Diesel. He seems to not quite fit any of these categories, yet. And I have considered making another category for men like him with the really built up bodies, like The Rock and Sylvester Stalone, since they do seem to carry themselves differently.
Contained Violence = There's also another category that some men fall into (and some of those already listed, might brush into) which is a sense of comfort in the body but has a sense of contained violence. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean somehow their energy is always poised towards explosive and "hard" movement. I'd put people like Jason Statham here. And as mentioned before, I think Daniel Craig often lives in this space, especially for his Bond roles.
Young = There are some people who have defied categorization to me thus far and not because they were Midliners either. I couldn't put my finger on it. I know I like Sam Worthington's face, but I can't get the sense of his body type, one way or another. I mentioned this to Marty and he said, "Well, he seems kind of young." And that was it. There's something kind of "young" about Worthington (sorry, Sam! But don't worry, you're still sooooo dreamy!!!), in his energy, his movements. Like he hasn't quite settled down into his body yet. And this is different from a Midliner, because they feel like they belong already in several or between categories. Chris Evans (another cutie to me!) falls into this category as well.
So it was huge and loud and all that. Marty thought it sucked. Compared, in his tiny brain, to Mission Impossible 3, which he liked the best out of the series.
I, as usual, thought it was okay, maybe even good at parts. A couple of scenes pop out at me that I very much liked, action sequence-wise and some of the cinematography. The scene with Renner and Cruise and the gun was excellent. The sandstorm shot with Cruise running away was fantastic. Overall, decent. But I'm the kind of person that can look at the gun scene alone and be like, "That was a great movie!" because I can generalize well. Marty... not so much.
This trailer contains those scenes, although in the movie, of course, looked much better on the big screen. Gun scene (about half of it) is around 2:50.
But in any case, the movie, which I am not really going to review as a movie in itself but rather some thoughts that came up out of it. Which any movie, really, should do. Even the dumb ones. Like "Should I have gone to see that?"
One of the thoughts arising is that I am slightly in love with Jeremy Renner. I'll get to this later.
The movie was a little slow at times. I do agree with Marty that the chemistry seemed to be missing between the actors. Tom Cruise seemed more pompous than usual. And old and more... girthed than usual. Perhaps his deal with the devil is finally running out. But the guy is still in great shape. "For someone in his 50's", Marty said. And I looked it up. Cruise was born in 1962 making him 49. However, Robert Downey, Jr. was born in 1965, so is now 46 and I really don't think three years would make that much of a difference? Because Downey has an incredible body. But maybe three years does make a difference. But like with Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and Harrison Ford's rather flaccid appearance there (and having grown up with him as an amazing physical kind of action hero), I kind of couldn't keep my eyes off how kind of "out of shape" Cruise (and Ford) seemed. Now I know this must seem incredibly shallow, seeming like I only care about looks but I am leading up to the other thought.
Which is styles of physical embodiment and how various actors (and people!), let's shall we say, "inhabit" their own skin, muscle and flesh. This is actually ASIDE from how they look in the face. (Although for me, this embodiment goes a HELL of a long way to adding to the entirety of how someone looks to me. Renner. Later.). I, as a young girl child, never really had cute boys on my wall. At one point, I think I had Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard and Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, natch. But no boy bands or cute boy actors. So later in life (hmm... maybe around 36 or 37, whenever Avatar came out, maybe a little before), I started noticing this actor by the name of Sam Worthington. And I just think he is SOOOO DREAMY. The first male actor to receive this illustrious title from me. So Marty got me a calendar of photos of him to put, aha!, on my wall. So, I finally have a dreamy guy on my wall.
But I have noticed that, when I look at "cute" or "handsome" or even "dreamy" men, I have come to realize that it's not their face I'm focusing on (except maybe Sam). And all of this is also just to have fun looking at these different ways of being in one's body, to be clear. I'm not doing a fashion review. Although Sam is so damn dreamy. But that aside. But also in that vein, I'm only focusing on men. Not that I don't find women attractive, because I do find them sexy but I don't experience the same energetic and physical inhabitation in my own gender as I seem to find in men. Perhaps this is due to men tending to be more oriented towards the physical because now that I think on it, it seems that I sometimes feel this inhabited (or not) quality in female athletes. So maybe it's got more to do with physicality than anything else.
So, I came up with some categories of Male Embodiment Types. I'll probably end up adding to these categories but these were the first to make themselves known as I was riding back from the movie. Not much to do riding on a scooter two-up other than look around. And think on stuff like this. A couple of notes on these "categories". One is that mostly these are energetic qualities, not necessarily physical typings, although I have noticed that there is a certain body "type" that correlates to a specific category, but for the most part, it is a more energetic feel of movement and inhabitation. And of course, all of this is from my own perception. Other people could and would probably see and "feel" these differently.
* Sloppy Body = Puts on a Pretty Boy skin suit and prances about, often in a physical fashion, action heroes and what not, but always appears very uncomfortable in their own skin.
The physical type here is often very good looking, is or bordering "cute" or "pretty" in the face, usually physically well put together.
Tom Cruise is an excellent example of this. I do find Cruise "cute in the face" but I just can't not get over how damned uncomfortable he "feels" in his body, no matter how action-y he can get. Plus, in this movie, he does A LOT of running. A LOT. And the man runs with "theater hands", you know, the closed finger knife hands. And as he's running, looks... uncomfortable and... well, you get the point. And this is not to say that he is not beautiful as an action hero, he's been doing it a long time. But, well, he's always felt technical in it. So a great physical technician but not a lot of body soul.
* Stiff Body = Like putting on the attire of a formal body suit. Usually presents as actually physically stiff in the body. Also feels very uncomfortable in their body.
Could be any physical body type, but usually characterized by a stiffness, an unmoving, blocked quality in the upper body.
Think here of our lovely Timothy Olyphant (he's a beautiful man but... well, stiff). I swear to the gods that man broke his back at some point in his life and has steel rods in his upper back because he is one of the stiffest, unmoving people I've seen on screen. In "Justified" he does seem to be loosening up a bit. Keanu Reeves is another good example of this style. The man is very stiff in the upper body. I think Neo was a perfect role for him because of this.
Rugged Masculine Body = A man's man. Wait, I don't mean in that way! A very fully present and very physicalized masculine. Very comfortable and at ease in their body.
Physical body type here tends towards dense, compact, could be tall or shorter, think "cowboy body" here.
Some examples might be Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig (although Craig to me lives a lot in the "Contained Violence" category), Harrison Ford. Hugh Jackman is one of the most comfortable men I think I've ever seen in their own body.
Graceful Masculine Body = A sense of fluid movement while still engaging a sense of real masculine. Also comfortable in the body but in a different way than Rugged.
Physical body type here tends towards tall and lean, one might almost call it a "dancer body".
In this category I put Ryan Gosling and Jeremy Renner. Gosling in "Drive" was this quality. Something sort of sweet about him in moments with a fluidity that seems to suggest dance background or some such. And he's that tall, lanky type.
However, Jeremy Renner really isn't the physical type. He's well built but shorter, got some of that dense quality to his body. And I've always kind of gone "Who is that guy?" but then never really paid attention because he just wasn't in a lot of stuff at the time. He's been in quite a few movies but it seems that he really hit his stride after "The Hurt Locker" came out and suddenly he's been booked everywhere. "Mission Impossible", the new Avengers movie, the new Bourne movie, Hansel and Gretel, some James Gray project. He was in a very fun, clever, unfortunately cancelled after 10 episodes, show called "The Unusuals". So even though he's been around for a little bit, seems kind of out of the woodwork.
So, since I haven't really seen him that much and the last movie that I really went "Wow, who IS this guy?" was "The Hurt Locker" and he was often covered in gear or mucking about in bombs and dirt. And unfamiliar. The more familiar I get with someone on screen, the more I can sort of "feel" into them.
Some other categories might include:
Midliners = Don't quite fit in one category or another. They might be moving from one to another. Like Vin Diesel. He seems to not quite fit any of these categories, yet. And I have considered making another category for men like him with the really built up bodies, like The Rock and Sylvester Stalone, since they do seem to carry themselves differently.
Contained Violence = There's also another category that some men fall into (and some of those already listed, might brush into) which is a sense of comfort in the body but has a sense of contained violence. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean somehow their energy is always poised towards explosive and "hard" movement. I'd put people like Jason Statham here. And as mentioned before, I think Daniel Craig often lives in this space, especially for his Bond roles.
Young = There are some people who have defied categorization to me thus far and not because they were Midliners either. I couldn't put my finger on it. I know I like Sam Worthington's face, but I can't get the sense of his body type, one way or another. I mentioned this to Marty and he said, "Well, he seems kind of young." And that was it. There's something kind of "young" about Worthington (sorry, Sam! But don't worry, you're still sooooo dreamy!!!), in his energy, his movements. Like he hasn't quite settled down into his body yet. And this is different from a Midliner, because they feel like they belong already in several or between categories. Chris Evans (another cutie to me!) falls into this category as well.
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