Bunheads

Is Bunheads merely a bad show or is it honestly one of the worst shows on television?

To put it mildly, two fans of SMASH dissed me for watching it. One called it the most obnoxious thing she'd ever seen. This woman, my mother, watched the entire first season of SMASH and only disliked that Debra Messing had an affair.

Created by the great Amy Sherman Palladino, creator of Gilmore Girls, Bunheads is unsurprisingly driven entirely by quippy dialogue and female relationships. Every character on the show can reference a full range of pop culture and high culture. In the first five episodes, characters have dropped mention of everyone from Joffrey Baratheon (or should I say Joffrey Lannister) and Carol Burnett to Martha Graham and Waiting for Godot. And Kristen Wiig and Sylvia Plath and... yeah.

And the star, Sutton Foster, is one of the strangest actors to put on television. The woman is a Tony winner and is most definitely meant for Broadway, not a sitcom. Her faces and gestures have not been downsized from their stage size, and oh boy, does that lead to some jarring moments for the viewers. The grandma from Gilmore Girls is a lead as well, thank God.

Guys, this show is too weird for words. The girls who play the ballet students the show are just absolutely awful, the plot line is super weird, and the sets are clearly sets. The whole set-up for the show is ludicrous, and the dancers fit into the most stereotypical roles possible. I LOVE IT.

There's a dance number to that songs that goes "Istanbul, not Constantinople," you know what I'm talking about, and also one about recycling. I can't put these into words. So here's a video.

Also, the most recent episode was titled "No One Takes Khaleesi's Dragons." If that doesn't get you to watch, I don't know what will!

Anthony Bourdain

There needs to be no more proof.

I love this man.

Silver Fox.

Weird Stuff On Etsy

Woah, sorry, it's been a minnit.

Etsy is a super-rocking Internet marketplace for handcrafted and vintage items. It acts as a connection between buyers and individual sellers.

While Etsy is a great place to find adorable home decor and vintage items (ankle boots, yes.), it also plays host to some crazy stuff. Here's a small sampling of weird things I saw on Etsy today.

This magnet. Funny, no?

GOOMBA EARRINGS.

A wolf hair amulet. Necessary.

Oscar Wilde Prayer Candles, just in time for Lent!

A bobcat skull! YES.

If you prefer embalmed octopi in jars, you can find that, too.

Tambourines

Best instrument ever: the cello.
Second best instrument ever: the lute.
Instrument I like: the TAMBOURINE.

The tambourine may not be the coolest, most technical, or most unique instrument. Actually, as an instrument, it kind of sucks. But aesthetically, the tambourine is really fun.

It's rhythmic and fun and jangly and can be pretty and yes.


Tambourines are a lot like me. Kind of useless, mostly filler, but SUPER FUN.
Seriously any band is better with a tambourine.

Peter Gabriel Revisted

Remember when I professed my love for Peter Gabriel?

I still do...

Check it.

Tetris

Imagine, if you will, an alternate world.

A world in which I have a better GPA and social skills, blog more regularly, and cultivate useful hobbies.

There is only one factor that needs to change between this world and that one:

Tetris would have to go.

I love Tetris.

Lately I've been playing Type B/Level 0/High 4 on my Game Boy Color. (Mine is raspberry.)

If you know what I'm talking about: I love you. Let's get married.

Even if we have to go to another state to do so.

We'll watch "West Wing"

and play Tetris

and eat Pringles and Red Vines

for the rest of our lives.

But I digress.

If there was no Game Boy Tetris, I would be reduced to such pasttimes as playing Tetris using cut-up freezer waffles. See below.

Thankfully, I still have Tetris, even though my Game Boy is running low on batteries.

I would write more, but I have, you know, stuff to do...

"O Brother Where Art Thou" (the soundtrack)

Oh Lordy. The Hunniez have been busy lately. But obviously not with this. Never fear, dear readers, never fear. We are so back.

Yeah so, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time listening to the "O Brother Where Art Thou" soundtrack. The relationship between a film and a soundtrack can be a complicated thing, especially when you're dealing with a reimagination of a Greek epic poem (in this case, The Odyssey, just in case you didn't know) and a powerful Americana musical setting.

With voices like Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris among a host of others rooting the film in the cultural traditions of Appalachia.

If you haven't seen it, watch it. If you haven't heard it, listen.

Here's a clip. And the soundtrack itself, I guess.

Music That Sounds Like Summer

As August marches relentlessly on, the end of summer's freedom draws closer and closer. The Fly Hunniez will officially walk the hallowed halls of our university once again on September 2nd (the effervescent H. Boldt on crutches).

But some songs will carry a hint of sun and sand and warm breezes with them through the fall...

Here are some of my "songs of the summer"...

Freeway - Kurt Vile

Beach Comber - Real Estate

French Navy - Camera Obscura

Contender - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

Glad - Glasser

Warm Heart of Africa (feat. Ezra Koenig) - The Very Best

things will never be the same again -jj

Deadbeat Summer - Neon Indian

Seasun - Delorean

What are yours?

The West Wing

I've had a pretty quiet social life this summer, which can only mean one thing:

I've been watching a LOT of "The West Wing."

This show is so. awesome. (So is Leo McGarry.)

Donna went to UW Madison for a while.

Ainsley Hayes and Sam Seaborn for sure both worked for the Santos administration and got together post-series. Such smart, cute, legal-eagle children!

I'm pretty sure that C.J. Cregg and Leo were really running the country the entire time. And C.J. looked really good and did an amazing lip sync to "The Jackal" while doing it.

Josh Lyman, you renegade, being all Deputy Chief of Staff and insolent and not getting together with Donna until the very end.

And hey, before going undercover as Gus on "Psych," Charlie Young was the BEST presidential aide ever.

Lipstick

So I made a discovery: red lipstick tasted just like Red Vines.

This leads me to suspect that Red Vines just taste like dye.

Why not just wear lipstick instead of eating Red Vines, then?

I used to be a huge lover of lipstick, but somewhere along the line, I decided to be like everyone else and wear sheer glosses that sparkle and shine and make hair stick to my mouth.

What sticky lipgloss deserves:

I don't like those glosses very much. So I went for Burt's Bees Pomegranate lip balm, which has a nice tint to it. But sometimes, I just need that little extra POP.

That's where lipstick comes in.

It helps that lipstick has recently seen a resurgence in popularity among Fly Hunniez everywhere.

I feel a little retro, a little modern, and a lot sexy when I wear lipstick.

Who cares if no one notices? I notice.

And I imagine that I look like this:

Red Vines

Candy can be a divisive issue among friends. Several of my close friends do not like licorice, but I find licorice to be a good thing. I would not dedicate a whole post to licorice in general, but there is a particular variety that I eat constantly, even though I'm not sure if I actually like it.

Red Vines.

Red Vines have the fairly unique quality of functioning as a high quality straw, which can then be eaten after use. Not all beverages are conducive to the Red Vine-straw; milk for instance would be a huge mistake. Dr. Pepper, orange juice, and your preferred cola are all great options to drink through a licorice straw, as is, of course, Mr. Pibb, as recommended in the classic SNL digital short "Lazy Sunday," promised to be "crazy-delicious."

Warning: In high quantities, Red Vines can begin to create the sensation that you are eating mildly-flavored wax. Don't let it get to that point, trust me.

Pablo Neruda

This FlyHunnie loves poetry and first encountered Pablo Neruda in eighth grade.

I was sleeping over at a friend's house and her older brother had left his junior English book out, and being my nerdy self, I decided to read it when said friend fell asleep before me.

And what lay within? 

A whole BUNCH of great poetry.

The first poem I read was "Ode to My Socks," and I was struck. Anyone who could write like that

- about socks of all things -

had me on their team. I continued on in my search for Neruda and stumbled upon "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair."

(Holy mackerel, did I hide that from my mother. 

An eighth grade girl's first encounter with passion and sensuality is a very memorable thing, let me tell you.)

I will also always be thankful to finding Robert Bly's translations of Neruda because they led me to Bly's own poetry, another staple of the Brigid poetry arsenal.

And the thing is, they are still as fully moving and heart-breaking and pit-in-my-stomach-inducing as they were in the days before I had even been kissed.

Being fourteen and fascinated with the idea of love, I devoured those songs and odes and sonnets

like I could never be satisfied.

I'm still not satisfied. I could eat those words for the rest of my life and not be finished until ink is running down my chin.

Universality. Pablo Neruda graffiti:

These are poems I can read forever and only hope to someday understand.

I wonder sometimes if it is possible for mere people like myself, no poet, to feel things so beautiful and so deep.

Hopefully someday, I can let you know.

Some Neruda for you.

Beyoncé Knowles

Sometimes I forget something I like for a while.
Tonight I remembered one: Beyoncé Knowles.

Beyoncé has pretty much everything going on. Her resumé reads like Lil Rail's best flyers:

Singer
Actress
Dancer
Designer
A-Lister
Married to an rapper (namely: Jay-Z)

Not only is she, like, insanely talented vocally, but she is also awesome. Seriously.

She's on the list of top ten people I would want to be. Maybe top five.

But check it. What girl doesn't want to be...

...classy and sexy...

...sweet and sexy...

... or a little bit crazy and sexy?

Want to know the answer? Come on. You know already.
Every girl wants to be like that.

She doesn't pull crazy tabloid shit.
She's responsible and knows what she wants.
(I am writing this after reading about her dreams for Broadway and about how she's waiting to have kids until she can be a responsible mother, not focused on her career.)
She's crazy-talented and has a distinct sound and style.
And last but not least, she's gorgeous. And hot.

From the time she was "jumpin' jumpin' " with Destiny's Child until her recent turn as Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé is essentially irreplaceable.

(P.S. If anyone knows where I can get a bra like the one she wears in the "Irreplaceable" video, let me know. I want it.)

The Thing FlyHunniez Hate: The Paul Bunyan Room

Special Post Alert!!!

We, as a collective, do not support disliking things, 

but here is an exception: 

The Paul Bunyan Room in the Memorial Union at Wisconsin.

This is the worst room in the history of time.

There have been several meetings for a committee we are all on here, and it sucks.

The temperature in here is comparable to the center of the earth, 

the murals are baffling and overwhelming, 

and the layout is terrible for any kind of group discussion.

Here's an example of the wall decor:

There is also a fish-cat thing. I don't know either.

We need to get out of this room.

Ballerinas

It's essentially my greatest life-long dream to be a ballerina.

(My cousin Morgan and I were cute and in puzzle form.)

For a long time, I was sure I had some really serious talent and would put on shows in the house for paying customers, including my parents and indulgent aunts and uncles. I often even coerced my brother and cousin Christopher into wearing leotards and tutus. There is evidence, but I am not cruel enough to share it here.

After a decade of dance lessons and a lot of work, I finally came to an understanding with my body that I was never made to be a ballerina.
If you know me, you know that I am not tall, do not have long, graceful limbs, have little to no coordination, and in short, would never be a talented dancer, no matter how many piqué turns, relevés, and grand jetés I did in class.

Let's be real here. I sucked.

So I settle for being a fake ballerina for Halloween and loving art featuring dancers, especially ballerinas.

I do love me some Degas, but I also love me some mid-century photography.
So here!

Enjoy some lovely dancers, a lovely music video of a song about dancers, and then download said song. Then go see the band performing said song at the High Noon in the coming weeks.


Degas...



Edward Clark...


Norman Parkinson...


Patrick Baldwin...


Alfred Eisenstaedt...


Lois Greenfield...


Kim Camba...


Backstage with the Modern Dancers - Great Lake Swimmers



Enjoy the dancers. I will continue to live vicariously.

Schwinntonation

With a name like "Schwinntonation" can you really go wrong at all?
Schwinntonation could be some kind of bike gang of white boys that releases bad rap mixtapes, and with a name like that, I'd still probably defend them to people.

Even better, though, is that Schwinntonation is actually awesome. I've been describing the sound as "ambient sound experimentation made using bikes," but that sounds ridiculous and pretentious, so let's see what the Schwinntonation MySpace has to say.

"The project that is Schwinntonation takes the various sounds that bicycles can make and turns it into music."

Does that sound like something that could be bad? Does this look like something that could be bad?


I don't think so and neither should you.

These dudes are from Chicago, and I think they're going to be at the Bicycle Film Festival in Minneapolis the summer, so hopefully I'll be able to head up to that with Brenna&co. in a few months.

They released their album for free, so I'm going to share it with you in it's entirety, guilt-free.

Baby Mammals

Let's be quite honest. Small things are extremely cute. Furry things are extremely cute. And everyone loves new things.

Mix these three together, and you get baby mammals. I was going to say baby animals, but human babies are too adorable to leave out of the classification. (And I feel bad calling babies 'animals' in the same way I feel bad for referring to a baby as 'it.')

There is a modern fetish of obsessing over cute things, and I am completely prepared to buy into it right now.

If you are prone to cavities, you should stop reading here.
If you have a super-sweet tooth, continue on, dear reader.

Baby hedgehogs are quite possibly one of the cutest species of baby mammal. I love the big floppy ears next to his little face and impossibly tiny nose. He looks ready to snuffle, which is both the sound hedgehogs make and also an adorable action of the baby hedgehog.

The universal appeal, though, may lie in the contrast between the spiny back and the impossibly soft little tummy.

Yes, I said tummy. So sue me.

Yes, there is a little baby mammal in this photo. It's like the "Where's Waldo?" of cuteness.

See it? See it? Adorable.

Too bad most cats really don't like me very much.

Puppies, on the other hand, puppies love me. These puppies are snowy, too, which adds an entirely new dimension of heartwarming love to this photo.

Can't you just imagine them frolicking in the snow under fir trees, chasing snowballs that disappear when they hit the ground and being confused? Eating the snow, maybe? Rolling around, nibbling each other's ears with their sharp but harmless milk teeth?

Have you noticed how much I love puppies?

This is my protegee/goddaughter. Check out those cheeks. And that pout. And her eyes. And her eyelashes - sorry, you can't really see them here. She's a snuggly little joy of a toddler.

"Aristocats," anyone? This one is about the tiny paws and the fact that the kitten's fur is all over the place.

Farm animals can also be extremely cute. These particular lambs were at The Farm in Door County. If you know what I'm referring to, you understand that The Farm is where cute reaches extreme levels that are slightly overwhelming to amateurs (i.e. people who weren't desensitized to the cuteness by going to The Farm every summer since they themselves could be classed as baby mammals).

The appreciation of cuteness in baby mammals by other baby mammals may be the purest and highest form of cuteness in baby mammals. This photograph may have more love in it than any other in the world. And also more cuteness.

(Disclaimer: I took some of these pictures from various websites, stole one from an acquaintances facebook and one from my dad's Shutterfly, and took a few of them myself.)

ETA: A very cute song for all of you to download. Be Gentle With Me - The Boy Least Likely To.

Her Morning Elegance

There is something about this video and song combination by Oren Lavie that just gets me.

The song is honest and poetic in my favorite way - the most is said between the lines, in what gets left unsaid. This is sounding super pretentious, especially because it's not some ground breaking musical or lyrical work. It's just a good song with an intriguing video.

The video, which is really the reason for this post, is striking and simple, complementing the song and actually adding quite a bit to it.

I'm not articulating within this post very well, but hey, I've been pretty verbose in the last few, so I will just leave you with a link to full details on the video from Oren Lavie's MySpace. I read them for you first, and I would say they are worth your 5 minutes.

Then be like me and spend a significant amount of time watching the video.
Again.
And again.
And again.

Here's the song: Her Morning Elegance - Oren Lavie.

The Boys

There is this crew of boys who tend to just be around. I'm not quite sure how I fell in with a group of such hooligans, but I guess they're okay.

William, Intensity, and Sam are classy dudes. Except Sam, who looked like the lovechild of Juno and a hoodrat today.

Will got a tattoo of the NMH aeroplane today. If you needed proof that he's a legitimate person to hang out with, that should be enough. Kid is legit. Also, he likes my sister's hamster. I also like my sister's hamster.

Sam had a long, interesting day today. I don't think I'm quite at liberty to tell the tale. Otherwise I would, since it describes Sam really well. We also sit together in our Physician in History lecture. I don't think either of us are totally sure what's going on in there at any point in time.

J. Ash really is classy. He was really sleepy since he stayed up incredibly late for no real reason yesterday with Intensity and I. John is really good at school, I think. Also, he was part of the monster truck fiasco, which makes him markedly cooler than many other people.


Pictured above is Brandon, aka Intensity. Intensity has really good taste in music and also wears some pretty sweet Chucks on a regular basis. Intensity is also our most dedicated blog reader, so big ups for that one, kid.

Thumbs up to these three and also Todd, who wasn't here this afternoon and so didn't get in the body of this post. Kid is cool, though, and I like him, too.