T-gives 10

This year, I am thankful for the movies.

Thanksgiving at midnight Part One comes out.  I'm not sure _where_ I'll be watching it yet, but I'll be watching it, and you should too.  A speculative review.


edit:  WRONG GUYS!  I got all my dates confused.  It's the Thursday BEFORE T-gives, and we should all see it at the Riverview.

hairy gums

submission

This is probably the first time in a while that I haven't found myself in a creative rut.  I've been painting and sewing and taking photographs and writing letters and everything.  But sometimes, it's good to have a little motivation.  Here's a blog post that's just about four things you could/should be doing, right now and tomorrow and this month.

1.  Design/create/submit a font to Veer.  I've been getting a little yawny over Design Sponge lately because I'm finding it's direction is changing and it's geared towards those who really want to make it in the design game.  Which is fine, but isn't me.  I also can't even begin to think about being able or wanting to spend $150 on a desk accessory or placemat or something.  Anyway though, this one contest seems pretty okay, and I think a lot of people have nice handwriting, so maybe, even if you don't get the whole graphic design end of things, you could try a hand-drawn font.  Just an idea.  Submissions due November 9.


2.  Next?  Philadelphia Photo Day.  WHICH IS TOMORROW.  It's just taking a picture of or in Philadelphia that day, submitting it online, and then they put your piece in the exhibit. Then we can all go to the show, which is at Crane, and we should be going there more often than we do anyway.  Good, right?   Submissions are due Halloween at 8, and the show is November 11.
I'm looking at you: Kim, Gallman, Josh, Ryan, Carina, Melissa, Nikki, Liza everyone.


3.  Write something for Sandro's zine, "Anchor Baby".  Issue 2's deadline is coming up, and he's accepting stories about weird food, or weird stories about food.   Also drawings.  Or probably whatever.  It's a zine, after all.  Email him submissions at anchor.baby.zine@gmail.com.  Everyone's invited, and also anyone can get a copy.  Deadline Nov 21.  You, Siobhan, and you, Fran.  HZ.  Ethan.

4.  Hyphen, Temple's magazine/literary publication is accepting artwork and words right now too.  I've never read it, and it  might be crappy, but still fun to be in something, right?  Andy, Amber?  Do it for me, I'm not allowed.







What else is happening that we should do?  I would love some more suggestions/motivation.

Great Halloween costume ideas I had for Kelly and Greg as a team that they rejected

Mulder and Skully
Leo Johnson and Shelly
David Copperfield* and David Copperfield**
Seal and Heidi Klum
Josh Ballard and Roxy

I think they're still in the market for ideas if you have any.



*novel
**magician

field trips

I've had a lot of field trips this semester.  While I don't like the idea of mandatory attendance (especially since it's usually on weekends), so far, they're really good.  Last week I went to Please Touch at Memorial Hall, which made the old Please Touch Museum seem like a scary basement.  The new spot is rad.  Go see it, even without kids.

This weekend, I went on a school field trip before the actual field trip, so I didn't have to go with my whole class (of 40ish students).  We went to Doyelestown, where the Mercer Museum, Fonthill, and Moravian Tile Works are.

We spent the day in Fonthill.  It was AMAZING.  Our tour guide was pretty adorable, and the castle was castle-y, and had about a billion staircases and stories and big wooden doors, and libraries, and collections, tiny staircases, and So Many windows and a skull.  Mercer made the place himself with a few workers and a horse.  Lucy.

They're doing total in-the-dark tours Halloween weekend.  And I think I have too many plans that weekend to make the trip, but it might be super awesome.  It's b-y-o flashlight, and goes into the "off limits" areas of the castle.  You know, like Beauty and the Beast.
Anyway:  recommended.

Oh, and we also saw a guy practicing his nunchuck and knives skills in the woods.

tv

Yesterday's ProRun was pretty intense.  Thank goodness we're keeping Mondo, too bad we have to keep watching Gretchen's frowny  mouth all the time, and Andy?  Thanks for answering all the mohawk-extensions questions I've had over the past couple months.

moral

Today I twice heard the fable about the hare and the scorpion.  (Maybe you did too if you have the same media habits as I do), and I don't know whether I'd ever heard it before in my life.

We do what's in our nature?
Still figuring out mine.

tied up

I'm not sure whether I get* belted cardigans.  Girl's are always doing it, and sometimes, it looks okay.

I tried it out this morning (in my room, not in real life).  Not so good.
Maybe I just don't have the right cardigan.  Or the right belt.  Or the right waist.

*get = understand, like, back

owl

Went to Coney Island, got my fortune from a machine fortune teller.  Did not BIG.  Advice about taking trips, keeping secrets.

fake out

I was excited to get home late(ish) and have so many emails.  Turns out exactly half of them were about a murder on campus.

Awesome.  I'm supposed to register for classes on Monday.  Sign me up.

Go...Owls?  I think we're owls.

graphic

Cool bicycle prints, Barbs.

terror

For so long (years), I've been wanting to and meaning to go to TERROR BEHIND THE WALLS.   For those of you who don't know (my faithful readers in India), this is a haunted house in a real (scary) abandoned prison in the city, Eastern State Pennitentary.

Saturday, I finally got to go.  And with the person I know who watches the most amount of Ghost-Hunters and other ghosty tv.  (So:  both the safest bet?).

ANYWAY:  got there, didn't have tickets (which I guess is a bad plan on a Saturday night), bought some from some scalpers, signed a release and went in.  All the employees, including the one who checks your purse for mace, are dresses as prison guard zombies.

There's a lot of little parts I could tell you about.  Outfits, makeup, scare tactics, spin rooms, 3d spots, screaming teenagers.
Instead, I'll say that Eastern State is pretty scary, and haunted houses are medium scary, but putting them together didn't really multiply the experience.  I'm really glad I saw it though.

IJ

Yesterday, I got a Blockbuster card.

And we rented, watched all three* Indiana Jones movies.  In a row.  Sandwiched between meals.  Sundays.



*I hope you know which one we didn't see.

tracks

So, I have a shot now.   Like a shot, named after my dental deconstruct:  "trolley tracks".

Thanks girls.

licca

Chris and Rebecca got married, Carina took some really great bear photographs at the studio.  As usual*.

*except the bear.  That part isn't usually part of it.

tags

Dear Anthropologyie,

Maybe if you didn't put weird tags like this on every item of clothing you sell, they would cost less.  For you, for us, for everyone.

No one is going to fill out a wish on a clothing tag, and stick it back into a little sweater bottle, and hope it comes true. 

Love,

S

P.S.  Kitten liked the sweater bottle.  For like one minute.

P.P.S.  I will still buy your clothes, but only sometimes, and mostly on sale.

in trouble

This morning, I was sitting and waiting for the Broad St Line at Sesquenhanna-Dauphin, and this boy came and sat down next to me.  His arm was all bandaged up, and he was squeezing one of those hand/spring/exercising things pretty ferociously.

"I just got kicked off the football team."
"No way, what happened?"
"I was fighting with some other players.  On the field.  But one of them shot me!  I can't have that!  I mean, I'm a man, a man, and I'm not scared of anything, but that shit is scary."
...(me, probably making a scared face, being pretty glad I had no intention of seeing college football anyway)
"I can try out again next semester."
"Good luck?"

townie

Yesterday we saw The Town, in which Ben Affleck is the bad guys, and Don Draper is the good guys, but you end up rooting for the bad guys because of their craft, skill, charm, lot in life.

I like movies that make you like robbers, and bank robbery planning, and costumes to get out of jams and everything.  So this was pretty good.   Probably better than Easy A, which is the other movie I would have seen.  I mean, the movies on Sunday is pretty great even if it's bad, but especially good if it's good, right?

A whole lot of bad neighborhood/good neighborhood type stuff too, which is easy to ignore because it was set in the far-off world of Boston, but what if it wasn't?  What if it was about how all the bad guys come from Kensington or something?  Then what?
There was this funny quote at the beginning about how being a townie literally ruined guy's life, but he was still super proud of it.  Which is funny, but so true - I mean, people are proud of being from a neighborhood here (Fishtown springs to mind), and don't leave it ever, and acknowledge the scary parts of it like a badge of honor, which is super weird.  Like liking the home team, because it's the home team.  (So much sports lately too, huh?).
Ramblin'.