(no subject)
For those of you who were wondering what happened with the last LJ Idol round, the poll was discarded due to a surge in sockpuppet accounts in the voting (more details at the comm). I'm hugely relieved, regardless of the reason, because I was really, really unhappy about that last "twist" in the game and it was casting a pall over everything.
Now we're essentially redoing the last round, with a new topic: It's Super Seekrit! Question for readers/voters: do you think I could get away with a dark entry for that prompt? That's what seems to want to be written.
We saw The Butler last weekend, and really enjoyed it. I was most impressed by Oprah Winfrey, who has proved she can act (and probably should have done more of it all these years). She had an interesting character to work with, one whose reality kind of leaked out the corners of various scenes. She took a fairly raw approach to it-not over-the-top and loud, but just laying the character's faults out in the open, nakedly and unreservedly. The main character is more repressed (necessarily so, due to the situation), but I do love Forrest Whittaker and it's nice to see him work his subtlety into a quieter performance. The historical moments that cropped up in the movie felt as vital as in their own time (the Woolworth lunch counter sit-in was one of my favorite parts, because it showed how hard and how brave it was for the protesters to subject themselves to that anger and violence while remaining firm and unresistent).
I do recommend staying away from the message boards at imdb.com. They are full of racist deniers, who seem to think the depiction of actual history is propaganda. We need to do a better job of covering this period in schools-it is an ugly and shameful part of our past, but if there are people who are convinced it has been overblown or exaggerated then we REALLY need to get the truth out there. Relentlessly.
Speaking of truths and countering racism, a coworker has this awesome warrior-Obama picture as the Windows background on his PC, and THAT is the kind of thing I want to see more of in general!
We had Persian ice cream yesterday, which is flavored with saffron and pistachios. It was interesting and also good, though I prefer my ice cream sweet rather than savory. The saffron seems to linger around inside you for awhile, which was kind of unsettling (and I like saffron!) OTOH, it would be hard to overeat this stuff, unlike virtually any other kind of ice cream, so there's that.
All right, off to bed soon. I woke up with a cold on Monday morning, but it might yet die off if I'm lucky. And the scratchy throat doesn't keep me awake all night. :(
Now we're essentially redoing the last round, with a new topic: It's Super Seekrit! Question for readers/voters: do you think I could get away with a dark entry for that prompt? That's what seems to want to be written.
We saw The Butler last weekend, and really enjoyed it. I was most impressed by Oprah Winfrey, who has proved she can act (and probably should have done more of it all these years). She had an interesting character to work with, one whose reality kind of leaked out the corners of various scenes. She took a fairly raw approach to it-not over-the-top and loud, but just laying the character's faults out in the open, nakedly and unreservedly. The main character is more repressed (necessarily so, due to the situation), but I do love Forrest Whittaker and it's nice to see him work his subtlety into a quieter performance. The historical moments that cropped up in the movie felt as vital as in their own time (the Woolworth lunch counter sit-in was one of my favorite parts, because it showed how hard and how brave it was for the protesters to subject themselves to that anger and violence while remaining firm and unresistent).
I do recommend staying away from the message boards at imdb.com. They are full of racist deniers, who seem to think the depiction of actual history is propaganda. We need to do a better job of covering this period in schools-it is an ugly and shameful part of our past, but if there are people who are convinced it has been overblown or exaggerated then we REALLY need to get the truth out there. Relentlessly.
Speaking of truths and countering racism, a coworker has this awesome warrior-Obama picture as the Windows background on his PC, and THAT is the kind of thing I want to see more of in general!
We had Persian ice cream yesterday, which is flavored with saffron and pistachios. It was interesting and also good, though I prefer my ice cream sweet rather than savory. The saffron seems to linger around inside you for awhile, which was kind of unsettling (and I like saffron!) OTOH, it would be hard to overeat this stuff, unlike virtually any other kind of ice cream, so there's that.
All right, off to bed soon. I woke up with a cold on Monday morning, but it might yet die off if I'm lucky. And the scratchy throat doesn't keep me awake all night. :(