Ginger's follies, foibles and fixations.
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| You Listen to Me, Mr. Kick-Ass Ginger's follies, foibles and fixations. |
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Saturday, May 25, 2002 Oh, by the way, today is the one-year anniversary of my last working day at Amazon.com. Thus, I've been officially without benefits or a reliable income for a full year. Still, I manage to live in the most expensive city in the world. I don't understand it, really. posted by Ginger | 8:14 PM I feel better now. It got pretty bad there, but a couple of days of shooting cold medicine and watching nonstop DVDs (Oceans 11, The Man Who Wasn't There, Strictly Ballroom, Armageddon) fixed me right up. My adventure of the day was to hit the Star Wars NYC meeting, which was just down the street at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. It was a little surreal because the vast majority of the group at the meeting today can be spotted in this hilarious Conan O'Brien clip. [This link should work, by the way--the link I provided a couple days ago has since gone dead. Download it, really. It's priceless.] Though I've been to the odd Star Wars Celebration, appeared in a Star Wars fan documentary, and created a Star Wars-themed website, for some reason I avoided associating myself directly with the gen-u-wine costume-wearin', line-waitin' nerds of starwarsdom. You can call yourself a geek with a self-deprecating wink forever, but how do you know when you actually become one? Attending a Star Wars fan group meeting probably qualifies. In other exciting news: I picked up some fiddlehead ferns for dinner because they look sort of like prehistoric insects--so, it follows, why not try to eat them? I also got jicama and blood oranges, look out! I am opting for a fresh fruit and vegetable-heavy diet these days, mostly because my apartment remains--no matter the temperature outside--a balmy 85 degrees. Who can cook in this? posted by Ginger | 7:36 PM Thursday, May 23, 2002 I'm sick. I must be. I am coughing a lot, and feel like shit. So that's settled. Just got back from Topdog/Underdog where, as predicted, we sat in the front row, practically under the stage. We could still see pretty well -- almost TOO well in some cases (Jeffrey Wright walking around in his underwear was something to behold). I really enjoyed the play, very intense. I am a big fan of Wright, but arguably the bigger, showier part belonged to Mos Def. The mighty Don Cheadle originated this role before the show hit Broadway, and though I consider Cheadle one of our greatest living actors and a national treasure, Mos Def is better for the part. Cheadle can do anything, but he always has an inherent sweetness to him. Def is wonderfully layered as troubled Booth--but he's not sweet, appropriately. Also his youth really helps. Don looks great at 37, but I don't think he would fly as the younger brother to Jeffrey Wright who is, in fact, younger than Cheadle. Though there are those who might praise Def as doing a great job for a rapper, it's clear that theater is in his blood--he's just plain great. The show was an unexpectedly ripe time for star-spotting as well. As we waited outside for the theater doors to open before the show, I looked up and suddenly Natasha Lyonne was standing directly in front of me. She sat a few rows behind us. At intermission someone pointed out that Tyne Daly was sitting on the other end of the aisle, and that she was. Neat. As we left the theater we saw Wright chatting with some well-wishers and posing for photographs, and we stuck around long enough to spot Mos Def leaving with his mini-entourage, but that wasn't exactly surprising. I guess I've lost my taste for attempting "face time" with celebs, as we didn't make any attempt to approach anyone. An auspicious moment today: I wrote my first rent check. Well, I wrote a rent check when I moved in--I paid six months in advance, with the idea that only a shiftless layabout without an ounce of ambition would not have a steady decent-paying job after six months. Uh... Finally, from our friends at Star Wars NYC -- Triumph the Insult Comic Dog visits the Attack of the Clones premiere line at the Ziegfeld! This is priceless, way way worth waiting for it to download. posted by Ginger | 12:52 AM Wednesday, May 22, 2002 From today's New York Times (emphasis added): Federal and local law-enforcement officials yesterday issued a warning of vague and uncorroborated threats against the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty as the city imposed security measures not seen since the first months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Good thing I didn't know about this before Melanie and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday afternoon. It was a lovely (though chilly) day, and a fine walk. I can't decide whether I'm sick or just have allergies (much like JD, apparently!). I have been coughing a lot the last week, and it got worse last night. This morning on top of the cough I felt stuffy, so I took some allergy medicine, which always makes me feel sleepy and a bit off, like I'm sick. So I have no idea, really. I certainly don't feel motivated to do anything. Meanwhile, Melanie got up early and got us cheap tickets to tonight's Topdog/Underdog, starring Jeffrey Wright (Basquiat, Shaft) and Mos Def. I really want to see it, and Melanie thinks we're in the front row. I just hope I don't start coughing! She's now off enjoying the city on her own. She called me from Central Park. I'm jealous, because it looks gorgeous outside. If I'm sick, it will be the first time in a year--being unemployed does wonders for your health. posted by Ginger | 1:27 PM Monday, May 20, 2002 Sorry I haven't been updating, but what with my sister in town again, I haven't had the time. The big news is that I was in the New York Times today. Or rather, my words were. Or, more precisely, fairly accurate paraphrasing of words I actually said were. For some reason, since the first time I was quoted in a newspaper (Sr. year of high school), I've been interviewed for print and broadcast media from time to time, on a variety of topics. I must be in someone's Rolodex as an attention-craving media whore who will provide an incendiary sound bite on just about anything, whether or not I have any knowledge of or experience with the given topic. Fine with me! So anyway, this litte nugget of immortality is kind of fun, even if only a handful of people read that far into the article. I've now seen Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (hereafter referred to as, uh, something shorter) for a second time, with my sister. Given that it was Saturday night and we didn't purchase tickets in advance, we found ourselves at a crappy theater in Chelsea--the only reasonably-located place that wasn't entirely sold out. Forget digital projection--it wasn't even THX! How horrid. It didn't matter much to Melanie, and she liked the movie alright, even though she thought the script was terrible. Well, duh--but it was soooooo much better than Phantom Menace! I was really in love with EpII after the first time, and I still think it's a great Star Wars film. Its flaws were more obvious, less easily ignored the second time. Still, the one thing I wanted from this film was that it would transport me to that "Star Wars" place, and that it delivered in abundance! What comes up again and again in casual conversations and in personal (as opposed to professional) reviews is that EpII made viewers feel "like a kid again" (something which the supposed "kid's film" Phantom Menace largely failed to accomplish, even with actual kids). And really, that's as high praise as any Star Wars movie could hope for. Other than that, I've been spending most of my time consuming other forms of entertainment--specifically live theater. With my sister--the freshly granulated music-theater major and bona-fide professional actress--visiting I am getting my periodic dose of the Broadway offerings. Sunday night we caught Urinetown, the "surprise" hit that started at the Fringe Festival and ended up on the Great White way. Who knew that a satire of musicals which happens to be a great musical in its own right would be so popular? It's the one thing I really wanted to see on Broadway, so I'm glad I got the chance. Last week we saw Puppetry of the Penis (Off-Broadway), because I could get us in for free (a perk of my semi-employment). Watching two guys play with their dicks for an hour was, well, just that--fairly amusing, slightly cringe-inducing (they claim nothing they do is painful, though it's hard to believe when you're watching redness develop "down there" over the course of the show), and mostly pointless. But hey, I'm all for anything that encourages playful nudity. We Americans can use all the reminders we can get that the doffing of garments is, by itself, an unremarkable thing. After the show we discussed whether a similar show could be mounted (ha ha) with women instead of men. Probably not, I posited, and not just for the obvious reason that our genitalia does not lend itself to sculpture. My theory was that when a woman gets onstage naked, it automatically becomes a sexually-charged situation. Our society is too hard-wired (har har) to think of a naked woman as a sexual creature no matter how many jokes she tells. But when a guy gets onstage naked, it's no problem to think of it as non-sexual because our first impulse is to laugh. Think about that next time you're on a hot date, fellas! I'm not sure I really believe that (remember what I said about the incendiary sound bites?), but it sounds like something I would have written a paper about in college. posted by Ginger | 3:22 AM |
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