"When a character is born, he at once acquires such an independence, even of his own author, that the whole world can imagine him in innumerable situations other than those the author thought to place him in."

-Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author

I am Intern

So, I have this internship. I have the title of "Costumes Intern," but when it comes down to it, my job is to make order out of a stock room that looks like this:

This is not actually a picture of the stockroom. Rather, it is a random picture I found when I did a google search of "messy closet." (I found it here by the way. Do not worry, I'm not trying to poach other people's pictures of messy closets. Credit where credit is due!) The photo is nevertheless quite accurate. After hours of lifting heavy coats high above my head and slouching over pants to measure their waistlines, my shoulders hurt. I am a grumpy monkey.

Grumpy monkey found here.

Oh, hot cereal

The Oatmeal is both horrifying and wonderful.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/failed_experiment

Tumblr

I have decided to start a Tumblr. It will be the place I dump all the images I find, so I don't have to inundate this blog with them. It is therefore named The Deluge. Visit it at crowlivia.tumblr.com.

Soaping out my brows

Today, I had a little fun with hair and make up and managed to make myself look like this:

The eyebrows were the tricky bit. I have thick, dark brows, and so even after I soaped them (like it sounds, I used soap to flatten my eyebrows to make them easier to cover over), used coverup, foundation, and powder over them, they were still there. So, I penciled the new brows over anyway and used photoshop clone stamp (otherwise known as photoshop's gift to the world) to fix it up.

So now you know.

Ode to Joss Whedon

Just watched Serenity again and remembered that it was incredible. It also made me think of a speech Joss Whedon gave:

(To jump straight past Meryl Streep, go to 1:50)

A Couple of Reviews

So, my semester is over. Yep, on Friday at 3:00 pm I walked out of my last final a free woman. However, finals week doesn't actually end until today at 4:00, and a great deal of my friends are still in the process of finishing their work. To ward off boredom, I have been reading a lot of books and watching a lot of movies. In the last three days, I have read 750 pages, and watched eight and a half hours of video (not including the countless number of YouTube clips). In this time, I have discovered two gems, which I would like to share with you, readers:

MOVIE:

BUBBA HO-TEP

directed by Don Coscarelli

I'm going to paraphrase what my boyfriend said about this movie: If someone were to tell me that there was a movie about Elvis (played by a B movie actor) living out the end of his days at a retirement home because the impersonator he payed to switch places with him dies before they can switch back, AND THEN old Elvis fights a mummy in cowboy boots that threatens the souls of the elderly at this retirement home was going to be subtle and heartfelt, I would laugh and not believe it. Sure, I might believe it was campy, ridiculous, and good fun, and I'd probably have a strong impulse to watch it.

The thing is, it is campy, ridiculous, and good fun, but it also manages to be subtle and heartfelt. While the parts with the mummy are about as campy as any B movie could get, the rest of it adresses getting older, lost dreams and families, regrets, patronizing nurses, and illness better than any movie I've seen in a long time. And even though juxtaposing this with images of Elvis fighting an enormous scarab beetle with his walker, bed pan, and a fork sounds like a horrible idea, it works.

I think this is one of those perfect movies. It set out to do something, and it did it. If this were gymnastics, it would have stuck the landing. I didn't find any of it superfluous, the dialogue rubbed me the wrong way, and I don't think I've met a better cast of characters in years.

BOOK:

FIRMIN

by Sam Savage

This book really surprised me. When I saw it at Powell's Books, I knew right away I was the target audience. See that white chunk on the right side of the cover? It's a literal chunk taken out of the book. As though I rat had nibbled it. On the back, it said it was a book about Firmin, a rat who begins by consuming literature, but soon finds it consumes him. It's about a rat who loves books. Perfect for me. So I bought it, guessing it would be a fun, cute summer read, with little substance.

It isn't cute, and it certainly isn't lacking in substance. Rather, it is a beautiful exploration of a lonely genius. I couldn't help but identify with Firmin the rat as he navigated the human world, separated by his lack of voice and the fear most humans hold for rats.

The cast of characters is rounded out by a bookshop owner, a compassionate (but probably off-his-rocker) sci-fi author, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (who are residents of Fermin's fantasy life), and hundreds of books. In his isolation, the books Firmin reads become his companions, adapting to fit into his world. Perhaps my favorite line is the following:

"And I introduce people. I put Baudelaire on the raft with Huck and Jim. It did him a lot of good."

I loved it only a few pages in, but I also realize that I would probably find it pretentious if it wasn't about a rat. As it is, it's the perfect balance between profundity and humor--very dark humor.