Monday MEME

A New Year is Monday’s Meme


With all the counting down that happens this time of year, perhaps we should do a bit ourselves?

But what is the question? Books? Movies. Music? World Events? Fashion?

And should we do best of show or worst ever?

Here is you challenge then. Create a countdown list in the comments. Minimum of 5 but maxing out at ten. Don’t limit yourself. Any topic. Here’s mine:

Top Five Setbacks for Women

 (and by extension the other gender)

in 2008

1) Sarah Palin being the most qualified woman McCain could find to run with him.

2) The media’s sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton. (When cankles and pantsuits are debated seriously by pundits, we might as well start lobbying for our own Liberia.)

3) The Bush Administrations rush to implement protection for health care workers tender consciences (here’s hoping you never need a blood transfusion and your doctor is a Jehovah’s Witness).

4) Oprah is fat again. (If a billionaire kingmaker like Winfrey can’t elude the superficial demons of American culture, the rest of us are doomed.)

5) Caroline Kennedy makes the cut for possibly replacing Clinton in the Senate. (A setback? Surely I jest? Nope, the media is giddy with the idea Kennedy can be compensated for her losses with a Senate seat because being a Harvard lawyer with constitutional credentials out the ying-yang and years of experience running mega charities don’t count as much as having been semi-orphaned and photogenic as a girl-child.)

Can’t wait to read yours.

Monday Memeing is Stolen


Or “borrowed”. I was reading David Bridger’s new live journal blog and it led me here. However since it doesn’t appear to be original to her, I won’t feel badly lifting it. Generally I prefer making up my meme’s but I was wrung dry creatively by the Christmas cookie baking thing yesterday. Baking is an energy suck.

And since I didn’t write a film review for the weekend (and I am working on something involving time travel), a movie meme is a good way to make amends to my patient readers.

1.Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times.

Well, I watched Moonstruck again this weekend with Rob, who has never seen it. I have watched it many times over the last twenty years. Aside from Nic Cage’s horrid acting – it always makes me laugh.

2.Name a movie that you’ve seen multiple times in the theater.

I’ve seen all the original Star Wars movies more times than I care to admit in the theater. I even went to see the re-releases in the 90’s. But I don’t do that anymore. That is for young people.

3.Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie.

No one can lure me to see a movie on the strength of the cast. I have to want to see the film based on the story and the reviews. I do read and take reviews into account knowing they are sometimes wrong because I don’t have the time or money to waste on potentially lackluster or bad movies.

4.Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a movie.

Easy. Tom Cruise. I loathe him and have seen but one film he was in since Top Gun and that was Interview with a Vampire which was awful, but I had loved the novel.

5.Name a movie that you can and do quote from.

My friend Sarah and I used to be able to recite dialogue from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I love Much Ado about Nothing.

“I wonder Signeur Benedick that you are still talking. Nobody marks you.”

“What? My dear Lady Disdain? Are you yet living?”

“How could disdain die when it hath such meat food to fed upon as Sig. Benedict?”

Or this one:

“If I were a man, I would eat his heart in the marketplace! but I cannot be a man by wishing, so I will die a woman weeping.”

6.Name a movie musical that you know all of the lyrics to all of the songs.

Okay, anything Rodgers and Hammerstein. If I have seen it, I know the lyrics. Grease, naturally. And The Nightmare Before Christmas.

7.Name a movie that you have been known to sing along with.

As a child (okay as an adult too), I would sing along with commercials, so there really isn’t an instance where I wouldn’t sing along – softly – if I knew the lyrics.

8.Name a movie that you would recommend everyone see.

I don’t think a film like that exists.

9.Name a movie that you own.

I own a few, but I don’t really go in for that kind of thing. Libraries are best for collections.

10.Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops.

Robin Wright Penn. I saw her on the soap opera Santa Barbara back in the mid 80’s. She was not notable.
11.Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? If so, what?

Did nothing but see films at the drive-in as a child and teen. Probably one of the last generations to have access. All the Disney stuff, horror flicks and James Bond. Cheech and Chong was drive in fare too.
12.Ever made out in a movie?

Theater? Not unless massaging my husband’s inner thigh counts.

13.Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven’t yet gotten around to it.

Movie watching isn’t this high on my priority list.

14.Ever walked out of a movie?

No.

15.Name a movie that made you cry in the theater.

AI. It’s so sad. I cried the whole way home the first time I saw it and hated the film really. It wasn’t until I saw it again on tv that I developed an appreciation for it. I still think it should have ended with David finding the Blue Fairy but I understand the reasons for continuing and for his happily ever after to be a mixed bag because there are no fairy tale endings – just reality, which is what you choose to make of it.

16.What’s the last movie you saw in the theater?

Wall-E.

17.What’s your favorite/preferred genre of movie?

Eclectic.

18.What’s the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?

Song of the South at the Orpheum in Dubuque, IA when I was 6 or 7. My mom took me.

19.What movie do you wish you had never seen?

If I ever had that initial reaction, the film was ultimately unmemorable because I can’t think of a single title off-hand.

20.What is the weirdest movie you enjoyed?

Donnie Darko

21.What is the scariest movie you’ve seen?

The scariest stuff I have ever seen have been tv productions of Stephen King stuff not movies in theaters.

22.What is the funniest movie you’ve seen?

Something About Mary really made me laugh the first time I saw it but probably A Fish Called Wanda or Trading Places.

So I don’t expect full disclosure, but a couple of answers for a couple of questions for the comment box would be really nice.

Gift Lists are the Monday Meme


I was reading Ask Allison last week while waiting for the doctor’s office to open (BabyD had pink-eye) and her topic was the publishing industry’s holiday campaign to convince the public to give books this Christmas.

I like books. I am getting two books myself from Rob, but I wonder just how convinced the general population will be by this ad.

I liked Jon Stewart’s subtle reminder of just how addicted many of us our to the screen, but I like Maya Angelou’s the best – because she was very right.

I was reminded again of the important role certain books play in our lives when an old friend from grade school turned up on Facebook. She told me she had recently found a book that she says I introduced her to back in the 3rd grade called Shadow Castle. I couldn’t place it, so a quick google refreshed my memory a bit about the plot. It takes place in a castle on the edge of fairyland where a fairy prince and his family have been living under a spell that reduces them to mere shadows. The prince is a fairy creature but his wife is mortal. I don’t recall their love story exactly but they are separated somehow by the shadow spell and long to be together and only the main character, a little girl named Lucy, can reunite them.

I may have to hunt this book down and add it to my collection of old Scholastic paperbacks of my childhood. I originally began searching for them for BabyD. I hoped to pass these stories to her. She does love to be read to but is having problems learning to read herself. This makes me sad and it scares me a bit, despite knowing she can’t get sick like her dad, every time something that reminds me of his illness crops up (he completely forgot how to read and hid it for months from everyone), I panic just the tiniest bit deep inside. I hate that I constantly scan her for what killed him, but it was a genetic illness and you can never truly say never.

Giving books though is problematic if you don’t know the other person’s taste because like books, you can’t judge people by what they appear to be interested in on the surface.

But if not books, then what? Leave your Christmas wish list here, Santa reads my blog.