Archive for Deborah Lipp

Monday Movie Review: The Departed

October 16, 2006 / / 2 comments

The Departed (2006) 9/10
Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) grows up under the tutelage of Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), ruthless boss of Boston’s Irish mob. Sullivan becomes a police detective, working as a mole to protect Costello. Meanwhile, Internal Affairs places Bill Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) as a mole in Costello’s mob, taking the trouble to first hide any evidence that he is still a police officer. The two moles come closer and closer to finding each other’s identity. Directed by Martin Scorsese.

Among other things, The Departed is a work of technical virtuosity. Here is a film in which all the pieces come together; it is brilliantly filmed, edited, performed, and scored (in Scorsese’s trademark pop/rock style). Scorsese has perhaps never been so confident as a director, so mature.

The movie reminds me, and many others, of Goodfellas, although I caught enticing whiffs of Taxi Driver. » Read more..

Follow the money

October 15, 2006 / / 3 comments

Here’s a thing. When the Bush administration starves our school districts of cash and then makes them waste what they do have on NCLB, wingnuts are empowered to destroy school systems that don’t have the funds to fight back. “Lawsuit” is a very scary word when there’s no money in the till.

I was thinking about the art teacher in Texas. The news report say she was fired based on one parent complaining. One. After multiple approvals and winning awards and blah blah. One. Which reads to me like fear of lawsuit, and that implies things about the pressures that the school district is under and how much money it has to fight if it chose to fight.

A big chunk of the wingnut agenda has been to take over the schools. Weaken the schools by starving them of money, and they’re easier to take over. Maybe it’s just that simple.

(No cross-post left behind.)

Absence of right answers

October 15, 2006 / / 3 comments

(The following is some writing I did today for a forthcoming book. I thought it was worth sharing.)

In order to be Pagan, you have to feel comfortable with an absence of right answers. There are many right ways to do things, and there are definitely wrong way to do things, but if you are convinced that there’s one truth that overrides all other truths, and that anything that contradicts truth must be false, well, Paganism is probably not for you.

Pagans have to be comfortable with many gods, many ways, many possibilities. We have to be able to know that Wicca is right, and Asatru is also right, and Christianity is also right (although there are definitely some Christians who are dead wrong, especially when they talk about killing Pagans). We have to be able to say that Thor is the thunder god, and Chango is the thunder god, and not be freaked out by two “the”s that seem to contradict each other.

Some Pagans believe that “all paths lead to the same place.” I don’t happen to feel that way. Many paths lead to very similar places, but I don’t care to mush them all together. What’s necessary to be Pagan is simply to believe that there is more than one true path.

Happy Blogiversary to Me!

October 14, 2006 / / 13 comments

I actually started this blog on January 31, 2005, but was using it entirely as a “What’s New” event/update page. I had a brief sputter of sort of interesting posts in the next few months, not much.

(Seriously, the above-linked posts are the only ones worth revisiting between January 31 and October 10 of 2005.)

So what happened on October 14, 2005, that started me blogging in earnest? Daniel Craig.

You know, I’d like to say that I was inspired by the current political climate, or by an overwhelming urge to reach out to the world, but no, it was James Bond. For some reason, I became a real blogger after that, and within the next six weeks had put up my first political snark, started some movie blogging, had started to tie the personal to the philosophical, and begun posting Fun With Language and feminism.

And now it’s one year later. Please send champagne.

Hairy-handed gent

October 13, 2006 / / 6 comments

He’s the hairy-handed gent who ran amok in Kent.

It’s such a great line. Such an elegant use of language, so flowing, while at the same time bizarre and funny.

Some people don’t get Werewolves of London, but to me, a song that lets you howl during the chorus needs no explanation. I’ve often imagined that the song was written around the excuse to howl, or perhaps around an image of a werewolf at Trader Vic’s or of Lon Chaney Jr. with the Queen. (This is a hobby of mine, imagining how a song came to be written. Okay, not much of a hobby. But I digress.)

Well, while looking for a link for lyrics to add to this post, I found the real story:

Zevon wrote this with guitarist Robert “Waddy” Wachtel. When Zevon was working with The Everly Brothers, he hired Wachtel to play in their backing band. At one point, Phil Everly asked them to write a dance song for the Everly Brothers called “Werewolves Of London.” Wachtel and Zevon were good friends and were strumming guitars together when someone asked what they were playing. Zevon replied, “Werewolves Of London,” and Wachtel started howling. Zevon came up with the line “I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand,” and they traded lyrics back and forth until they had their song.

Anyway, I’d like to meet his tailor.

Friday Catblogging: Small spaces

October 13, 2006 / / 6 comments

One of the very first photos I kittenblogged (now there’s a formation!) was of the Gang in a basket.

Now only half a Gang fits:
Fanty Fits
» Read more..

Added to the Blogroll

October 12, 2006 / / 10 comments

Some famous and some not-famous blogs I recently decided I wanted to reside in my right-hand column (in alphabetical order):
Creek Running North
Fetch My Axe
Hullabaloo
Medical Reviews of House
Nemeton

UPDATE: All links fixed.

I am a ditz

October 12, 2006 / / 6 comments

(And Roberta says, “Yes yes, we know.”)

I saw Before Sunrise on TV a few weeks ago, and I liked it enough to want to see the sequel. So I added Before Sunset to my Netflix queue.

Except I just got a notice from Netflix that Before Sunrise has shipped. Fuck. Now I know why they put numbers in the titles of sequels.

This is like the time I tried to rent Edward Scissorhands and came home with Ed Wood. Hey! Not my fault! Same director, same star, “Ed” in the title, next to each other on the alphabetical shelf. Anyone could have done it! (Although the current mix-up is worse, because I actually hadn’t seen Ed Wood, and I ended up enjoying it.) A week later, I actually came home with The Lady Eve as intended, even though All About Eve and The Three Faces of Eve were right there. It was pretty stressful, lemme tell ya.

Oy.

Relational Rights

October 11, 2006 / / 4 comments

Per Shakes, today is National Coming Out Day. Shakes posted a list of reasons why she, a straight woman, is so fierce an advocate for gay rights. I want to add my own.

Gay rights are my rights. Yours too.

If gay rights aren’t a reality, we’re voting “yes” on standardized sexuality; on forcing all of us to goosestep to a sexual norm. And I may not be gay, but I ain’t normal.

Is anyone? (Actually, yes, some people are.) Most of us like a little kink, or have strolled into the forbidden zone. Few of us want to be confined by a bunch of heterosexual rules that expand like housework to fill the space allotted them.

Gay rights are human rights. They are relational rights. They are our rights no matter who we are.

Halloween is coming

October 11, 2006 / / 14 comments

So is Samhain, but I’m not talking here about the Celtic Day of the Dead, or the honoring of the Ancestors, or any of that religious stuff.

I’m talking about costumes.

My office has a come-in-costume tradition. The only such office I’ve ever worked in. I have no idea where I was in 2004; in 2005 I was in Tennessee, so this will be my first Halloween with the costume crew.

What to wear, what to wear.

I made a kickass pirate at Starwood, but I’m thinking gypsy. It’s almost the same as a pirate except a skirt instead of pants and I don’t have to say “Matey.” Which is an advantage. Plus I have massive gold ring earrings.

What are you wearing (and to where)?

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