Sridevi Portrait
I sketched this drawing of Sridevi (from Mr. India) one night while I was bored at the sandwich shop. You'll notice there's a supply and demand graph
in the upper left hand corner. I forget exactly why I put that there. (I drew this a couple of months ago. I just figured out how to use the stupid scanner with my laptop). I know I was having some conversation with my boss that required the visual aid. The picture I sketched is from a huge beautiful coffee table book about Bollywood that I'd borrowed from the library. Unfortunately I couldn't find a copy of it online so I've included this little picture of her to give you an idea of what she really looks like. Isn't she adorable?
2006-03-31 17:08:38 UTC
Dress? Check!
So this is a sneak preview of my wedding dress. I sketched it while ignoring a classroom full of students. I found some lady who's going to turn a dress that's not me into one that is me. I am going to have my 50's style party dress, damn it! The original dress is a floor-length purpley satin. The seamstress is going to cut it off just below the knee and make a huge red can-can to wear underneath. I couldn't over-emphasize how huge I want it to be. I'm envisioning like a diameter of six feet. She's going to make a matching red belt as well. I knew the seamstress understood exactly what I meant when she remarked, "Sounds very Elizabeth Taylor." And yes, I will be stabbing puppies with my sceptre as I walk down the aisle.
2006-03-31 16:34:50 UTC
The Patriotic Bride
So this is the wedding dress I want but can't have. Being the dumbass I am, I waited until there were only two months left before the wedding to start planning. I can't get this dress, or any it seems, until at least a month after the wedding. If it were possible, I think I'd get this dress in the teal color, maybe with the rust-colored sash. It's the only "bridesmaid's" dress I found that had a real 50's feel to it. Lots of the top designers are going back to 50's styles, but the trend hasn't trickled down to the discounted designers yet. This one is only $120! At first I was slightly unsure about the collar, but upon consideration I realized I really liked it. It's just so unique to have a collar like that on a taffeta dress. I have a couple of 50's style poly/cotton sundresses that I got from Penney's this summer that have a similar collar and a big, full tea-length skirt. (They were super cheap too as the season was ending; I think they were like $10). I love the style. Alas, the dress will never be mine. So, I think I might just go with this one:
After Noah and I read our vows we can take a loyalty oath. USA! USA!
2006-03-24 16:32:32 UTC
Reanimated Dog Heads Are Cool
This photo is a still from Experiments in the Revival of Organisms, a film documenting some insane Soviet experiments in 1940. Download the film for free here. I highly recommend watching the whole thing. It's about 20 minutes long and totally worth it. The mad scientist in me crept frighteningly close to the surface. I could feel a giddy excitement threatening to overtake the "humane" ethical disgust. I mean, if this film isn't fraudulent Soviet propaganda, they actually cut off a dog's head and reanimated it! Later in the film the Soviet scientists kill a dog and then reanimate it ten minutes after death with no obvious consequences. Though many think the film is just crazy propaganda (designed to scare the hell out of the capitalists?), here's a fascinating essay by a guy who thinks it might be real. He also describes some similar experiments in the US, including one in which a Midwestern doctor successfully switched two monkeys' heads. I found the links here. Man, I know we're supposed to be shocked and horrified, and don't get me wrong, I am... But I have to admit I have a real soft spot for the mad scientists of this world. They're equipped with the kind of insanity that gets things done! Normal people might think, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could reanimate the dead?" but they'd never follow through. The mad scientist makes society's crazy-ass ideas into realities, for better or for worse. Would it be illegal to perform similar experiments on my cats? I'd never have to clean the litterbox again!
2006-03-21 22:08:44 UTC
The Confederate States of America
I saw CSA: The Confederate States of America this weekend. I had really been looking forward to it but I was pretty disappointed. I loved the idea: a Ken Burns-style documentary (complete with period music, trustworthy historians, and frustratingly slow zooms on old photos) that imagines what it would have been like if the South had won. Unfortunately it doesn't hit its mark as either an alternative history or as a biting satire. As an alternative history, the director (Kevin Willott) seems to bite off more than he can chew, attempting to cover 150 years of Confederate history in 90 minutes. It's too crammed with his predictions (which are obviously informed and sometimes very clever) to make much of an impact. Even worse though is that it just plain isn't funny. He doesn't delve into any of his predictions enough to mine their satiric possibilities. His sole satiric point, that despite the Union's victory the Confederate legacy survived, isn't too original and he puts more energy into unnecessarily proving it than into making anyone laugh. I'm being really hard on the guy but the unrealized potential of the film just pissed me off. Really, it's just very uneven. There are some great moments. The picture shown is from D.W. Griffith's The Hunt for Dishonest Abe in which Lincoln dons blackface to escape the Confederates and attempts to fool them with a minstrel-y performance. There's another good scene from a fake movie called I Married an Abolitionist. Here Willott perfectly mimics a 1950s horror film in which a woman is horrified to discover that her husband has been reading Uncle Tom's Cabin and other subversive texts. (The Communist scare of the 1950s is replaced with an "Abbie" scare). Willott also punctuates the documentary with commercials and these are also hit and miss. Like the rest of the movie, he poorly executes some great ideas.
2006-03-20 15:33:29 UTC