dulcet
Earmark of a good Saturday: Your son calls from the bathroom, “Mum! I have diarrhea. Come wipe my butt.”
Oh, gee, can I?
Our 4th of July was alright. I spent most of the first part of the day rolling around and moaning. I had a horrible headache and allergies, but once I got my act together we went to a picnic/graduation party for a cousin of mine. The baby joined a game of wiffle ball and I got pretty happy about the fact that he felt comfortable just playing with some kids he didn’t know. I could never do that when I was a kid. Hell, I can’t do that now.
We stopped by the mother-in-law’s house and tried to figure out where to go to see fireworks. The sister-in-law got a text message from her friend, Maria, and we remembered that she lives on the South Side Slopes with an amazing view of downtown. We sped over there and when we stepped onto one of her THREE decks we saw:
Pretty, no?
The fireworks themselves were kind of meh. I kept trying to take pictures but my little digital camera really isn’t up for low-light and long exposures. I got a few alright shots, though:
When we got home, the husband and I watched Assassin of Youth. When Incredibly Strange Video was going out of business, I bought a bunch of campy old drive-in movies about young women with loose morals and a few movies about the devil reefers. They’re kind of entertaining, but they get tedious after awhile. Plus, it’s just downright infuriating that people still kind of think that way.
And obviously the depiction of high school life in the late 30s, before the word “teenager” really existed to describe people of that age group, is somewhat exaggerated. But imagining a life where listening to 78s and doing the Charleston was the general idea of a wild Saturday night was kind of depressing.
Also, these movies were made purely for the propaganda/shock factor, so there wasn’t a whole lot of time to worry about the plot making sense.
In a similar vein, we watched most of Brazil on Thursday night. I really, really wish I could psychotically love that movie the way everyone else does. But it’s just SO weird. Everyone and everything in that movie makes me feel vaguely sick and it reminds of some long not-quite-terrifying nightmare I would have had as a kid. The soundtrack does kick ass, though.
July 6th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I didn’t really like Brazil. I’m not a big fan of Gilliam in general.
July 6th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I’m not consistently a fan of his, but I love Holy Grail and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and I really like 12 Monkeys. It’s his more fantastical stuff that I just can’t get into, like Brazil, Time Bandits, and Baron Munchausen.
July 7th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
i really don’t know what you guys are looking for in films that gilliam doesn’t deliver. Time Bandits and Brazil are both so fucking brilliant that it hurts.
July 7th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I used to live on the Slopes. I miss that view!!