Superlative Sunday :: the 2011 SAG Awards and how I feel about them

The SAG Awards are possibly the least entertaining of the big award shows, honestly.  (This could account for why they’re shown on TNT and not one of the larger networks?  I speculate.)  It’s sweet to see actors awarding actors, but there’s just, I can’t quite explain it, a sense of almost lifelessness in the room during the ceremony.  The speeches seem dry.  Even the crying and “OH MY GOD”-ing comes off a tiny bit hollow.  And I find it a teensy bit pretentious that they can’t just say “actor” and “actress,” it has to be “male actor” and “female actress.”  I am both an actress and a feminist, and the word “actress” doesn’t offend me.  But, maybe that’s just me.

A startling amount of the awards handed out echoed the Golden Globes.  To synopsize:

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role (Christian Bale, The Fighter)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role (Melissa Leo, The Fighter)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Lead Role (Colin Firth, The King’s Speech)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Lead Role (Natalie Portman, Black Swan)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series (which I am basically counting the same as Best Series) (Boardwalk Empire)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series (Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries (Al Pacino, You Don’t Know Jack)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries (Claire Danes, Temple Grandin)

All of the movie awards were well-deserved, and I don’t argue them.  Television, maybe a bit wonky.  Personally, I don’t think that Alec Baldwin needed a fifth trophy for 30 Rock, but I’ve never actually watched 30 Rock, maybe he did, I don’t know.  Betty White proooobably just got that award for a show nobody’s ever heard of because she’s old.  Julianna Margulies keeps getting awards for some show I’ve never seen even on the guide listings and I don’t know anyone who watches it, but.  (I admit to being super-biased in that category because ELISABETH MOSS NEEDS SOME LOVE PEOPLE, but hey.)  And, yeah, I’d have given the ensemble in a comedy to Glee and not Generic Show About Families and Stuff, oops, I mean Modern Family.  But the world is not perfect.

 

–your fangirl heroine.

 

Spoiler Alert Saturday :: my thoughts on The Green Hornet

Seth Rogen has made a career out of playing lovable d-bags, and his Britt Reid is no different.  I will admit that I’m not really familiar with the source material aside from the fact that the Green Hornet theme music is on the Kill Bill soundtrack, so don’t expect critique in those terms.

Britt Reid is kind of the d-bag you sort of wanna punch, but at the same time you let him be.  Mostly, I would have been okay just letting him be, but meh.  In retrospect most of the characters could have really been left alone.  Jay Chou’s Kato was pretty b.a., but he didn’t actually have that much of a personality, c’est la vie, I guess.  Really, most of them didn’t, but hey.  You can’t expect too much from a superhero movie, I guess.

Well, that isn’t true.  Kick-Ass.  Both of Chris Nolan’s Batman movies.  BUT, there weren’t as many overt moments of lolworthiness as in, say, Spider-man 3, and it wasn’t as painfully boring as the Ang Lee Hulk, at least?

Cameron Diaz’ Lorena, meh.  I am just generally sort of meh about Cameron Diaz in general, not that she isn’t capable of contributing to something good (Gangs of New York) but left to her own devices, I feel like she sort of just plays Generic Spunky Cardboard Woman a lot.  And Christoph Waltz was underused and it made me sad.  He had a couple of brilliant funny moments that made me want to scream “HEARTS!” but he didn’t really know what the heck to do in such a situation as a weird bro-y superhero movie.

Stuff exploded, that was cool.  The 3D was completely unnecessary and added nothing to the experience whatsoever.  Meh, it was — it was okay.  It wasn’t great.  It wasn’t the worst crap I’ve ever seen, but I’ve seen Supergator, so that would take a lot to beat.

–your fangirl heroine.

Fictional Friday :: The E Word [an Envy Adams fanmix]

1. Black Sheep (Metric)
Now that the truth is just a rule that you can bend, you crack the whip, shapeshifting trick the past again.

2. Something Borrowed, Something Blue (Ben Lee)
I get the feeling I could leave you on the interstate, I get the feeling that I just broke through.  I get the feeling that you never mattered anyway, something borrowed, something blue.

3.  Laisse Tomber Les Filles (April March)
Laisse tomber les filles, laisse tomber les filles, un jour c’est toi qu’on laissera.  Laisse tomber les filles, laisse tomber les filles, un jour c’est toi qui pleureras.

4. Nothing Better (The Postal Service)
Will someone please call a surgeon who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart that you’re deserting for better company?  I can’t accept that it’s over…

5. The Fear (Lily Allen)
And I’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless ’cause everyone knows that’s how you get famous.

6. Hypermusic (Muse)
You wanted more than I was worth and you think I was scared and you needed proof.  Who really cares anymore?

7. You, Me and the Bourgeoisie (The Submarines)
And here we are in the center of the first world, it’s laid out before us, who are we to break down?  Every day we wake up, we choose love, we choose light, and we try, it’s too easy just to fall apart.

8. See Fernando (Jenny Lewis)
You’ve been Jezebeled, back from hell, cooling off, feeling well, tired of talking, talked out, ticked off or toughed up, too talled or backed up, haven’t made your mind up, tbd’d or tb’d, tired of falling to your knees.

9. The Denial Twist (The White Stripes)
So to you, the truth is still hidden and the soul plays the role of a little lost kitten, but you should know that the doctors weren’t kiddin’, she’s been singing it all along but you were hearin’ a different song.

10. Mrs. Actually (The Like)
You feed me a line, we’ll travel to the sky, but you leave me behind.  I could never run away, no, I could never run away this time…

11. Front Row (Metric)
He’s not perfect, he’s my hero, smashing the piano, spitting in the front row, chronic confrontation, psychic conversation, radical compassion louder than the action, all of us, burned out stars they shine so bright.

12.  Taking Control (Eisley)
You’ve been taking control of our lives and you’ve been letting us go (I can’t be the one to finally pull you out again, out again, no I can’t be the one to finally pull you out again, out again).

13. In the Underground (The Spring Standards)
Place your bet: stage is set, better face up or face regret.  Your voice is tired and it makes no sound.  Underground, the walls are thick.

 

–your fangirl heroine.

 

Theatre Thursday :: colloquial retellings of Greek tragedies, part two

As promised, I bring you two more Greek tragedies retold humorously.  As far as Greek tragedies go I actually sort of don’t mind Antigone, but I hate Hippolytus with the passion of a thousand burning suns, so.

 

Antigone, Sophocles
Now, although Antigone is Oedipus’ kid, this is not a sequel.  (My professor compares it to Star Wars: the ones that happen later in the timeline were written first.  Unlike Star Wars, the ones that happen later in the timeline are less utterly painful.)  It’s presumed that Antigone has grown up more or less under the care of Creon since her mom killed herself and her dad blinded himself, then died, and her submissive wimp of a sister Ismene and two brothers were also under Creon’s watchful eye.  But there was a wacky mishap in which the two brothers had promised that one would rule for a year, then the next, and so-on.  Eteocles wouldn’t give it up, and Polynieces was pissed, so he got some foreign bros to back him and a battle was waged.  The brothers then killed each other in a very dramatic way.  In true Greek fashion, all of this happened before the play began, and the most action we get is the retelling of this event.  Sigh.  Antigone’s pissed, too, because Creon (who now has to accept the duty of ruling wearily) has declared Polynieces a traitor, pretty arbitrarily, and declared he’s not to be properly buried so he can’t cross the River Styx or what have you.  Well, Antigone is not having any of that, and although Ismene is too wussy to join in, she says screw it, I’m gonna go bury my brother, even though it’ll probably get me killed.  (She knows that she’s doing something to bring a tragic fate on herself, and does it anyway.  Oedipus just stumbled onto his.  Who’s more tragic?  Uh, y’know, I think Antigone, but that’s maybe because I think fate is crap.)

Creon finds out and, being the hard-ass he is, immediately declares that Antigone should be killed.  Also in true Greek fashion, he sentences her to be sealed in a cave with no food or water or anything.  Because just slicing her head off would be so overrated, not to mention messy.  His son Haemon is engaged to Antigone, yet says his dad’s totally got this one under control.  (Since Creon was Jocasta’s brother, and Jocasta was Antigone’s mother, this would make Haemon and Antigone cousins, but marrying cousins was okay in the day, just not moms.  Even though they’d still make wacky inbred babies probably.)  Ismene, meanwhile, is all take me with you and Antigone basically laughs in her face.  Ismene wasn’t into it before, but now she feels compelled?  Bitch, please.  Haemon was sorta just lying to his dad, though, and goes to Antigone’s death cave, only to find she’s rebelliously hung herself.  Stick it to the man, Antigone.  He then kills himself too, because life without his cousin-fiancee is unbearable or some such.  Then Creon’s wife Eurydice, who’s just been knitting the whole time, kills herself out of grief for her son.  She slices her entrails out somehow, but we don’t get to see.  Darn those Greeks, taking the fun out of everything.

Now Creon has no family.  SUCKS FOR YOU DUDE, YOU BROUGHT IT ON YOURSELF.  THE END.

 

Hippolytus, Euripides
Holy moly.  This is a stupid, stupid play, and really, it can be summed up in four words: “Aphrodite is a twit.”  (And you could replace the vowel in ‘twit’ and you’d get what I really think of her.)  Basically, there’s this kid Hippolytus.  He’s the son of Theseus and Hippolyta, the Amazon.  (It doesn’t really go into a lot of detail about that in the play, but I know my Midsummer Night’s Dream, so.)  He’s been exiled and is kicking it in Theseus’ homeland, even though he’s an illegitimate love baby ’cause Theseus is married to Phaedra.  Hippolytus, being a chaste warrior sort, worships Artemis, the chaste warrior goddess.  He isn’t into sex and the like.  But Aphrodite is having none of that.  Apparently, my concept of Greek gods was wrong, and it wasn’t convenient to have so many ’cause you could worship the ones you liked best: she’s pissed that he won’t worship her.  Because I know that if I was a god (if, if, blasphemy not relevant and all that) I personally would spend all of my time worrying because one stupid kid didn’t worship me.  So she’s so pissed that she decides to make Phaedra fall in love with her stepson.  And stepson love is as bad as bio-son love to the Greeks, so she’s all ashamed of herself and decides the best course of action would be to go crazy and starve herself.  (What is it with these folks and long, drawn out deaths?  Seriously.)

She does giant crazy monologues (and not even fun crazy, just sort of is it over yet? crazy) for a while, then the walking talking plot device that is her Nurse is all, whatchu talkin’ bout Willis Phaedra? Finally, crazy Phaedra, after rambling off some more crazy, says she’s in love with Hippolytus.  Oopsies.  The Nurse then decides the best course of action would be to go talk to Hippolytus about it.  This makes Hippolytus go off on a giant misogynistic rant that sort of made me lose any sympathy for him I might have had if he was, y’know, actually a three-dimensional character ever.  Then knowing that he knows, Phaedra goes ahead and kills herself with shame, leaving behind a note saying btw, Hippolytus raped me.  ‘Cause that makes sense.  Theseus is seriously pissed, and banishes Hippolytus, meanwhile invoking the power of his bio-daddy Poseidon to smite him.  Well, Poseidon does this smiting, but Artemis shows up and tells Theseus that Aphrodite was just being a twit and it wasn’t Hippolytus’ fault, so, smote, Hippolytus returns and the father and son forgive each other.  Then Hippolytus dies, and Artemis swears vengeance against her sister the twit.  THE END.

 

Yeah.  Greek plays are cool ’cause of what they did for plays, in that they were the first, but seriously dudes?  Seriously?

 

–your fangirl heroine

Whimsy Wednesday :: the single freakiest Hello Kitty I’ve ever seen

(Not counting ones drawn by someone not associated with Sanrio.)

I am a Hello Kitty aficionado.  I always have to pick my new favorite; for a long time it was angel Hello Kitty, and now it’s sexy librarian Hello Kitty.  I’m just that kind of person.  If a thing exists that I need and said thing can be bought with Hello Kitty on it, that’s probably the version I’ve got.  I was turned onto the magic of Hello Kitty by a Japanese four-year-old at the summer daycare camp I counselor-in-training-ed at the summer before my sixth grade year; she had all sorts of adorable Hello Kitty things.  Over the summer we grew very close, and by summer’s end she was babbling in English (which she did not speak at summer’s start) and, as a token of affection, gave me Hello Kitty gel pens.  I’ve never looked back, and am unashamed to be a twenty-year-old Hello Kitty freak.

This in mind, the Japan store at Epcot in Disney World is one of my favorites, thanks in large part to their huge Sanrio section.  So I was perusing the store quite thoroughly this last time I was there.  In addition to the sexy librarian Hello Kitty and pajama party Hello Kitty and strawberry Hello Kitty and dozens of other variations, I saw:

I saw it on a backpack, but the effect was the same.  I was goggling, jaw hitting the floor, eyes wide in disbelief.  The collection, made to complement the angel collection I assume, is “demon” Hello Kitty.  Before I knew that officially, thanks to the magic of the interwebs, I was calling her succubus Hello Kitty, which isn’t too far off (“a demon in female form, said to have sexual intercourse with men in their sleep” according to dictionary.com).  She was black!  She had horns and bat wings!  At least on the backpack, you could see her panties.

Naturally, the side of me that went this past Halloween as a psychotic British vampire adored the idea of succubus/demon Hello Kitty.  The prudish eleven year old in me was horrified.  I feel like this is a reasonable description of the effect the collection is supposed to have.  Adoration mixed with horror.  My childhood (or, well, my adolescence) has been corrupted.  And I sort of don’t mind.

– your fangirl heroine.

Television Tuesday :: I’d do anything for Summer Glau, pretty much, but campy superheroes are fun too.

I’m guessing not a lot of people have been watching NBC’s The Cape.  I will state right off the bat that were it not for my ladylove Summer Glau, I probably wouldn’t have started.  But while, dear sweet lord, I do love her, it’s fun for other reasons too.

For one thing, I’m kind of just a sucker for pure camp.  It’s sort of like watching the 1960s Batman but with higher production value and (kind of, I think anyway) tongue-in-cheek.  The dialogue is ridiculous, but a lot of comic book stuff is.  And it has the decency not to make the mistake a lot of superhero movies make and try to take itself too seriously.  Sure, there’s death and family angst and just sort of angst in general.  But it’s still very much aware that yes, it is a television show about a superhero who’s buddies with a camp of thieving circus freaks.

(I also commend the circus freaks for not being too overtly clowny, because clowns are creepy and bad.  These guys may be thieves, but they’re the good kind of thief.  They stick together, and they help the protagonist Vince [David Lyons] in his quest for justice. )

You can see a lot of the plot twists coming a mile away, but that isn’t really the point.  It’s just good wholesome ridiculous superhero fun.  James Frain as Peter Fleming, the main villain, is sort of amazingly creepy a lot of the time.  (You might know him from his roles as Cromwell on The Tudors or Franklin on True Blood.  This leads me to believe that at some point, obviously in the distant future as he’s the series’ main villain right now, he will of course be killed off in a grotesque fashion.  It’s what he does.)

And, okay, the circus freaks.  You’ve got a whole passel of them (hey!  It’s that little person who isn’t Verne Troyer!  And a cool wise African-American man who’s sort of like Lucius Fox and Yoda rolled into one!) but so far my personal favorite is Izabella Miko as Raia.  I don’t know, maybe I just like her ’cause she was a whore who got murdered on Deadwood (season two) and maybe I just like her ridiculous corset-y circus costumes, she hasn’t actually done a lot yet.  But she’s quickly becoming the face that I put to the Nolanized Harley Quinn in my head.  And she’s cute.  And, you know, corsets for the major win, always.

But, well, the main draw here is of course my girl Summer.  She’s insanely beautiful as usual, and useful to boot.  She’s sort of like the Cape’s girl Friday who actually does things for one and has really swanky technology to mess with in her random lair of maybe-doom.  And now there have been hints that she’s the evil guy’s daughter, soooo.  Also, can I just say:

All arguments have been rendered invalid.

In short, I’m sticking with it so far.  I keep using the word ridiculous, but I mean it lovingly.  It’s camp in such a fun way, and this world needs more of that.

 

–your fangirl heroine.

Monster Monday :: a love letter to grindhouse cinema

Dear Hollywood,

You could stand to learn something from the trash of days gone by, you know?  There was a certain strange magic to the days of less-than-perfect special effects and cheesy storylines.  Days when there were actual classes of movies, A, B, etcetera.  Leave the highbrow to the A movies, let the B movies be ridiculous.  And let the ridiculous movies stay ridiculous, not get bogged down in billions of computer-generated bugs and plants and things and unnecessary 3D and an attempt at serious acting.

Imagine a world where someone could go to see a movie about aliens or a runaway train or friends with loose morals and not have to expect anything more than camp and trash.  A world where someone could just enjoy a movie without having to take it too seriously.  And, mind you, there’s nothing wrong with serious films, I’m quite a fan honestly.  But every so often I’d like to be able to see trash about a giant killer mutant (insert fearsome creature here) from outer space in theaters and really get the full experience, and the B monster movie is a dying art.

Sure, you’ve got the SyFy network cranking out gems like Mansquito and Sharktopus pretty regularly, but that’s only cable television.  There’s thousands of people who don’t even get that channel, and besides it’s just not quite as fun when you aren’t surrounded by a few dozen other people having a good time laughing at the crap on the screen.  There’s something visceral about B-movies, something that isn’t often found elsewhere anymore.  (Why do you think people still do midnight Rocky Horror?)  And I think we’re due for a proper resurgence.

So, Hollywood, jump on this.  The ridiculous premises you’ve been popping out have been far too heavy-handed, and all of the fun is sucked out of them.  Sometimes, we just want trashy fun, is that too much to ask?

–your fangirl heroine.

Sundry Sunday :: 10 lady-type reasons that gingers aren’t evil

Because, honestly, how could you judge a category containing all of these women as being anything but adorable and awesome?  Honestly?

10. Alison Pill as Kim Pine in Scott Pilgrim
Yep, she won my heart almost instantly.  Even though she’s a conditional ginger, still, awwww.  Repping the sarcastic girls, the ones in the background of everyone else’s life, the ones who dress Gothic Lolita just for the heck of it.  Too much awesome, and she counts because I said so.

9. Neko Case
Not only is her music beautiful, uhm.  PACIFIC NORTHWEST, WHAAAAT.  Way to be someone cool, Neko Case.  Way to be someone cool.  And way to be randomly featured in that crappy movie Hell Ride with Eric Balfour.  Boom, all sorts of crap, then, oh hey, Neko Case song.  Made of win.

8. Deborah Ann Woll (here seen as Jessica Hamby in True Blood)
She’s singlehandedly the reason I prefer the TV show’s canon a little bit.  She’s just all kinds of precious, and I kind of adore her.  And Deborah Ann Woll?  Yeah, more with the precious.  And I’m a sucker for blue eyes, and — aw.  Way to be.  The whole coming to terms with one’s vampirism bit is quite well played, and… yeah.

7.  Emma Stone
She’s sort of always awesome.  She’s feisty, and I like that about her.  She rocks the glasses in The House Bunny, and the con-woman thing in Zombieland, and she even manages to make a black eye cute in Superbad.  Her episode of SNL was one of my favorites of the season so far; that French dancing random skit was too adorable for words.  Apparently she’s in the Spider-man reboot?  Well, if it doesn’t go as terribly as the Spider-man musical, cool I guess, even though she won’t be repping the ginger there.

6. Jayma Mays (here seen as Emma Pillsbury in Glee)
I’m pretty sure she is the dictionary definition of the word “precious,” actually.  Especially on Glee.  Nobody else could get away with dressing that precociously as an adult, but she rocks it, and even though they changed the lyrics of “Touch-A” all to hell, she did it so cutely.  (She really is kind of a perfect ginger!Janet.)  Like actually a lot of the women on this list, she has an amazingly expressive face.

5. Jenny Lewis
My goddess of song.  Really, this woman is infallible.  I even allow her to wear rompers, and that is something most human beings just should not do ever.  Her songs are beautiful, whether it’s with Rilo Kiley or her solo stuff.  (Her second solo album especially has gotten so much play from me.)  She’s talented and awesome and she really does put on a great show.

4. Felicia Day
(Shockingly, I’d never come across the awesome that is this picture before.  I’m completely in love.  Nothing more awesome than a fierce Joss-mafia sexy librarian.)  She’s kind of one of my heroes, being all-around awesome and all.  Not only is she by all calculations Joss’s most used femme (Buffy, Dr. Horrible, and Dollhouse all) she’s the enterpreneur behind her very own webshow of geeky awesome.  I admit I haven’t actually watched most of The Guild but it’s on my list, okay?  Definitely on my list.

3. Kate Nash
I’ve always been a sucker for British singers who actually sound British when they sing, but Kate Nash charmed me instantly.  Her music is adorable, and I can probably find a Kate Nash song for most not ultra depressive moods and emotions.  And she’s sort of adorable too.  One of those girls who just vintages it up in ways you wouldn’t even think of, yet it always comes together so well.

2. Alyson Hannigan
Is literally the single most AW-inducing person on the planet.  I admit I could be slightly biased for Willow Rosenberg-shaped reasons, but.  AW.  Rarely does an actress make me smile so hard just by existing.  And, y’know, adorable Alexis Denisof showmance, that’s a big plus too.  Just all sorts of AW.

1. Christina Hendricks
As if anyone else could have topped my list.  Saffron, Joan, my ladylove.  Bombshelling it up all over Hollywood, being awesome and beautiful and funny and talented.  I legitimately admire this woman.

Well, there you have it.  Really, this could have also been titled “10 ginger girlcrushes,” but hey.

–your fangirl heroine.

Sarcastic Saturday :: a tactical analysis of Space Mountain

(I just found this mini-essay in a notebook I took on my last trip to Florida, and figured it warranted sharing.  It does make startlingly good points, despite almost doubtlessly being written to ease airplane boredom.)

I will say before I begin this tirade that Space Mountain is almost positively my favorite Disney roller coaster, and finally opening my eyes during the flashing light tunnel is an insignificant moment that I am still nonetheless proud of.  It’s nice not having seizures and whatnot.  But, well, there are design flaws.

For starters, none of this applies if you subscribe to the school of thought that Space Mountain represents a space station.  The only observation I have in that case is that unless it is a space station in deep orbit or some such, they likely wouldn’t launch shuttles from it.  Shuttles dock on larger ships, then are used by small factions of crew for short-range missions.  Stations are where smaller ships dock, period.  Not as small as a shuttle, especially if the shuttle doesn’t have a large trajectory.  And since the announcers on Space Mountain do call the cars you ride in shuttles, this is completely relevant.

If you take Space Mountain to represent a spaceship in and of itself, it is of remarkably inefficient design, at least in Disneyland.  Assuming that the queue line is the cargo bay of the ship (and it really wouldn’t be anything else), there is a great deal of wasted space, particularly under the line platforms themselves.  Were these large cubbyholes filled with additional queue, great.  Were they enclosed with doors, they could serve as effective cargo holds, but open as they are, objects could slide out and break, or – were these objects illicit – be discovered.  Disney World’s layout is slightly more useful, but the long queue’s outward-pointing walls achieve little more than aesthetic value.  Depending on the make and model of the ship, this could be intentional.  If impressing those aboard was the goal, well, somewhat achieved.  If a practical use of space was the goal?  Could be improved upon.

It’s also sort of strange that the cockpit is in the ship’s center.  Having it toward the ship’s front makes more sense, particularly since said cockpit’s windows only look out onto hallway and cargo areas.  (This applies more to Disney World’s layout, I ought to clarify.)  It’s important for a pilot to, you know, see where they’re going some, but maybe there’s vidscreens in the cockpit that just aren’t visible from the queue that serve the same purpose?

I will say that at least from a ride-designing standpoint having the queues wind and loop around as they do makes sense, but from a ship-designing standpoint less so.  If the line was designed as leading through, say, corridors and such, then that would be better, but at least in Disneyland, it’s just a really big empty cargo bay.  Well, empty save the queue.  At least Disney World tries to keep up the pretense of the queues leading to and through the Alpha Lounge and Omega Lounge.  I honestly have no idea the difference, as both times we were sent to the Alpha Lounge, but I imagine there isn’t much of one.  (Dark rides are neat that way.)

And then there’s the problem of the so-called shuttles.  They’re better designed in Disneyland, what with the two by two seats.  The single-file line in Disney World perhaps enhances the last seat’s intensity, but that means three other seats don’t have anything special, and anyway, there’s not room for your legs no matter the position you ride in.  Your knees are jammed up against the seat in front of you, and your only choices are to awkwardly feel crammed in to the point of not being able to lower your lap bar enough for comfort or to awkwardly wrap your legs around the person in front of you’s while still feeling jammed in.  This makes very little sense; only a tiny person would be able to fit comfortably, yet tiny people aren’t permitted to ride.  (True story, we saw a little girl get told she couldn’t ride because she was too short.)  Disneyland at least has a tiny bit more room to fit your legs and your bags.

I will say, though, that at least Disney World’s queue, despite being slightly windy and not entirely efficient, does have the advantage of more informative surroundings.  Disneyland’s queue offers very little in the way of, well, anything but structure, but Disney World’s provides not only a basic raygun shooter for those queues that don’t move for half an hour, but a collection of maps and diagrams of surrounding planets and systems.  (Another true story, I couldn’t help but observe, much to my dorky delight, that one of the system maps indeed showed a planet called Miranda.  Now, it’s quite possible, even likely, that the system was primarily called after Shakespeare characters.  Another planet was Caliban, and another Cordelia [King Lear, though I still giggled over it for other reasons].  BUT I chose to believe that someone had ulterior motives, and that therefore that someone is epic.  Either that or that’s why Miranda was called Miranda, literary allusion.  It’s quite chicken-or-egg.)

Mind you, this says nothing of the ride itself.  Once the shuttles launch, both rides are enjoyable and I get rather giddy on them.  (Though I can’t help but force myself to pretend that there’s either an insular dome roof over our heads or that we’re wearing space suits of a kind, lest blood boil out of our ears out amongst the stars like that.)  I just can’t help but noticing technical inadequacies that likely come from most people not caring as much for the context of a thing as I freakishly do.

–your fangirl heroine.

Fashion Friday :: my fierce fashion idol, Joan Holloway.

I’m sure I’m not the first blogger to do a DRESSING LIKE JOAN HOLLOWAY post.  Nor should I be, because this is a style that is completely worth idolizing and emulating.  Christina Hendricks is the first woman on television that I’ve been able to look up to, looks-wise, and that she’s a complete bombshell just makes matters better.  (It probably helps that I finally have access to a pin-up boutique of sorts in town, too.)  And even for those of us who aren’t hourglassy, early sixties class is effortlessly pretty and sexy without trying too hard.  I’ll probably be doing DRESS LIKE posts for all of the Mad women, but I just had to start with my girl.

We begin with this, ModCloth’s Fiery Personality Frock.  There are dozens of dresses possible to achieve this look, and the brands Stop Staring!, Bettie Page, and Pin-Up Couture are good places to start the search.  (Stop Staring! even makes what they call the “Mad Men dress,” but I wanted to use a red one to match the example photo.)  Pin-up/retro dresses are form-fitting and they fit the woman’s body properly; it’s not just the situation of making everything based on the proportions of the smallest size.  Curves are hugged, assets are emphasized.  It’s not too low-cut.  It’s a classy kind of sexy.  The hemline is also always below the knee, a refreshing change from recent fashions.

The shoes are pretty straightforward, but for Joan, heels are a must.  And nothing too flashy.

And, of course, the pen necklace is a must.  Having one of these is actually really practical as well as aesthetically pleasing; it’s better than having to rummage around for a pen in your purse when the waiter forgets to bring one with your receipt.  The brand 1928 makes one that’s very reasonable and the perfect addition to anyone’s collection.  (In fact, inspired by it, I’m starting a collection of practical necklaces.  I have a turtle-shaped clock necklace too.)

Showing it all is so overrated.  Sixties sexy is where it’s at.

–your fangirl heroine.