Archive for July, 2010
Eat Pray Shop
July 27, 2010
While shopping online for an ottoman for my front porch, Google suggested I look at World Market. So I headed over to their website and was hit with this message:
World Market’s Eat Pray Love Shop Has Arrived!
There are Italy/India/Indonesia-themed bamboo shades. There is a Roman Bistro set. The Eat Pray Love Block Print Paisley Tunic is modeled by a woman who could be… if you squint… Elizabeth Gilbert.
If you don’t know what Eat Pray Love is - if you’ve been living on a remote island, meditating, or maybe if you’re a man – it’s a memoir written by Elizabeth Gilbert. For reasons unknown, probably even to the author herself, this book became the Harry Potter for women in a certain age demographic. Maybe those in their late 20s through 40s. The book describes the journey Gilbert made from Italy to India to Indonesia after a rough divorce. Yes, she was trying to “find herself.” And she succeeded. And she found the man of her dreams in the process. It’s a completely romantic book. It’s very cool that it happened to her but for the rest of us it probably serves the purpose of escapist fantasy.
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Ah, Sophia
July 26, 2010
Well, this is now dragging out quite a bit, isn’t it? I feel as if I owe readers a bit of a recap so we can all remember where we were in the saga when it was so abruptly dropped.
There were some guys in Sheffield, England who formed a band. For various reasons (aka: luck) they became Def Leppard, a top-selling “metal” band of the 1980s and perhaps 1990 and maybe three or four months in 1991. I wrote “metal” because there seems contention out there over whether or not D.L. is actually a metal band. It depends… do you buy that Poison was a metal band? Poison makes D.L. look like metal gods. Anyway…
They went on some U.S. tours, where they were beloved. They put out a successful album. But then there were problems. Joe wanted to work too hard, push things. All he cared about was the band’s fame and fortune. Rick wanted to party and drive fast and in return he lost an arm. Now everything is up in the air (except for that arm). Is it the end of D.L.?
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I went on vacation and I forgot to post this before I “left”:
Not Shallow Will Be Back Soon
Which is too bad because I think that would have been inspiring to a lot of people out there. But now vacation is over and it’s more like:
Har, har, har!
I’m A Drummer! Reliving Hysteria Part VI
July 14, 2010
It’s a time for the guys to have some life-altering revelations. Sometimes you lose a limb. Sometimes having looks, girls and money doesn’t guarantee happiness. Neither does a ratty wig. Sometimes you’re in a pretty famous rock band, make a lot of money and have a lot of hits and someone decides to make a limp biopic that boils it all down to some formulaic scenes. That’s how it goes. Ask Ritchie Valens. Well, OK, can’t do that… Ask Jim Morrison… Oh… Ask The Beatles… Oh. Well, ask Ringo.
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A photo from the now possibly-never-to-be- released feature film The Beaver, directed by Jodie Foster, in which Mel Gibson plays, “a guy who walks around with a puppet of a beaver on his hand and treats it like a living creature.”
Hmmm… how oddly fitting. Box office poison or box office gold?
I’m A Drummer! Reliving Hysteria Part V
July 12, 2010
And now we come to the real “meat and potatoes” of this story. Ah, Episode V, where it all comes together and it all falls apart…
This section of the movie was partially based on a school essay by Cole Montgomery, age 15, titled “Why I Want To Be A Rock Star.” As you’ll see, his reasoning is somewhat sound – no homework, no adults telling you what to do (except for your manager and your band mates), lots of drinking, all-you-can-eat titty bar, lots of drinking, drugs, rad clothes, sports cars and drinking.
But, lo, what is this? Why, it’s a cautionary tale…
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If you’re a regular reader of Not Shallow, then you may have read an earlier post about the webcomic Gentleman’s Gentleman, which is drawn by my husband, Keith Pille. He’s currently raising funds on kickstarter.com for a print edition of G.G., with an entire “rewards” system set up for backers (my only complaint, really, is that I feel a gian SloPoke should be a reward for the $20 level, just like in grade school when you sold magazine subscriptions). He just started fundraising last week and he’s already about 30% there, which is tremendous, I think.
Even without the hoopla of physical rewards, backing G.G. is pretty great just because you’re supporting a specific endeavor of someone who works a day job and then spends a hell of a lot of time drawing cartoons because he loves it and believes in it. Every time I start to feel lazy about Not Shallow, he’s at his drawing board, cooking up another comic and I think, “Damn you! Damn you and your DIY ambition to hell!” But I’m not really mad. I’m inspired.
I’m asking anyone out there who gives a damn about comics, cartoons, etc. to consider backing this project for $10 or $20. Today we all got the news that Harvey Pekar died and I saw that someone tweeted, “In honor of Harvey Pekar, spend some time today drawing comics that are yours and don’t belong to a big corporation.”
I feel the same way about writing. Spend some time today writing (or painting or crafting or cooking) just because you can and because you love it!
If you’ve never been to kickstarter.com before, you’ll find many other worthy projects there as well. If comics aren’t your thing, at least take a look at all the other projects people want to do. If you would rather fund a short film about a school for clowns or a photography exhibit about dog noses, that’s your prerogative, just like Bobby Brown sez.
Working From The Margins
July 11, 2010
Like many others in Minneapolis, I adore the public library. I have built a queue of books on my “Request” list that rivals that of my Netflix queue. Whenever I hear about a new book I want to read, I search for it on the library’s online catalog, accepting in advance that I will most likely have to add it to my list of requests.
I patiently wait. “Oh, look,” I might think. “I’m now number 128 on the list for that novel. I remember when I was 234. Progress!”
The result of all this requesting is that books tend to come in every week. Sometimes it is one per week, sometimes six will somehow show up, like a book landslide. “Watch for books falling from your queue list.”
As a result of all this reserving, queuing and holding, I’m somewhat of a regular at my neighborhood branch. Granted, I don’t hang out there reading People Magazine or the newspapers. I don’t secret myself away in one of the window nooks to do “research” while hacking into a handkerchief. I don’t sit on the computers on a beautiful summer afternoon searching Google for images of Jennifer Lopez or the cast of Jersey Shore.
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