Muse: Wall-E

There he is. The love of my life.

He's a mix of E.T. (big eyes, low-centered belly), R2D2, and more than a couple dashes of genius from the Pixar boys.

He's a robot, yes -- but he's intimately human. Without wanting to give too much away about Wall-E, I can safely say it is one of my new favorite movies, and possibly the best I've seen so far this year.

Wall-E is communicative, spry, dedicated, patient, and inquisitive. In a movie where humans take a more back-seat role, Wall-E and Eve (Eeee-va), through the use of no more than a handful of decipherable words, play out their own poignant and personable love story.

Through some incredible sound work, Wall-E and Eve are alive. I used to have trouble believing however-much-percentage of communication was non-verbal or not about words. No more.

In fact, I liked Wall-E so much that I'm now hungry for more amazing movies. With awards season looming, I have a sudden urge to check out any and every movie that has started popping up on nominations lists.

I have a sudden and inescapable urge to be filled with great stories, and I think that's for two reasons. One: hearing one great story always makes me want to hear more. Two: I'm in the process, the baby step stages, of starting to tell more stories, and to tell your own stories well, of course, you've just got to call on the prowess of great storytellers before and around you.

So, with all that in mind, I implore any readers to please, please offer suggestions for great new favorite movies. I've got a five-day weekend staring me in the fact, and I'd love to make good use of it.

musing #5 -- happy-ness

A few things first.



1.) apparently i just can't update this thing more than once a month. i'm working on it.



2.) running the 5k Saturday, still have yet to run more than 2.8 miles at a time. wish me luck, i'll need it.

And now:

All i want to do is share my internet happies. Here are a few:

http://www.icanhascheezburger.com/ (oldie but a goodie)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M-jsjLB20Y (ZOMG)

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/traveltips/08/13/pandas/index.html (dream vacation)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUk3T2Kfno (also classic)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yGp84i8GpQ (i've always wanted an Asian baby)

and last but definitely not least:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzRH3iTQPrk

I promise to try and update more frequently (she said to no one in particular).

musing # 4 -- the interwebs

How important are the interwebs? How much do you need to understand them if you're gonna be president of this country?

This story from Salon exposed McCain for the old fogey it turns out he officially is. He's never "felt the particular need" to send an email. He relies on his wife for help. His e-campaign director insisted back in June that though he doesn't use the internet, he "understands it." I'm gonna go ahead and contend that notion.

There are ideas, jokes, and tragedies our parents just don't understand (thanks, Will Smith) because of the internet. (Check out http://www.postcardsfromyomomma.com/ for a priceless and heartworming trove documenting, basically, a generation gap.) There are yet-to-be-revealed psychological and social implications of our ceaseless communication and self-broadcasting, and I'd like to have our commander-in-chief in touch with them, at least to the point that he can. send. an. email.

I'm horrified at how plugged in, blogged out, and short-attention-spanned I am now. I can only imagine what will happen when we (us young, Gawker-cruising Facebook addicts, that is) have babies and are in various positions of power in say, 10, 20 years.

One of my work tasks today, one of the things I'm being paid to do, is explain a Blackberry to my boss. He has one, and has had one for a year, but until now has stubbornly stayed put in the last century. He regularly places news stories about Blackberry and cell phone addiction on my desk, particularly "helpful" sections highlighted in his deep yellow Sharpie. When we first tried to do this a few weeks ago, he literally did not understand that a Blackberry was an email device and a telephone too. He did not know which end of the cell phone to speak into. Now, we are headed to a national convention, where he might need to use it, and it is my task to explain it all to him from square one.

The funny thing is, despite my best efforts, it undermines his crediblity. It makes him seem slightly provincial and irrelevant. And I thought, after feeling guilty about giggling at his indeptitude, about the less-than-warm reception of a tech-illiterate president by a nation full of gigglers. Could be rough out there for him.

musing # 3 -- 5k

That's Cooper Keefer on the right there. This'll be a brief post, but I've decided to run my first 5K on Sept. 20 in Lawrence. Cooper's momma works at LAC, where I teach Zumba. He's got an altered chromosome (number 9, to be precise), and heart defects because of it. He's had multiple heart surgeries, which, of course, have lead to staggering medical bills.

So the family, in what my opinion is a show of great strength and resolve, has started a foundation called Cooper's Cause, and this will be their first 5k too. Seems like a perfect fit to me. Anyone who'll be around Lawrence and is interested in running or donating, please visit http://www.cooperscause.com/index.html.

I'll be there, 8 a.m., with bells on. Now I've just got to start training...

muse # 3 -- Obama

Never until now have I felt swept up by a presidential candidate. I just signed up for Obama's newsletter (note the adorable family pic on the site.) True to charismatic form, the email updates speak in terms of "we" and "us", and, of course -- change.

Caveat: I've heard the detractors. I know he may not be experienced enough. I'm fully prepared to be proven wrong four years down the road.

But the plain and simple truth is this: I really like Barack Obama. I said it, I mean it, and as sure as his face gazes at me from a postcard taped to my computer, I'm not afraid to explain my reasoning in the most basic of terms:

1.) The speech he gave on race made me well up like a sissy, and reminded me of one of my favorite documentaries of all time, A Time For Burning.

2.) I instinctively trust and like him. This, of course, is not the most intellectual or verifiable of reasons to vote for someone, but, hey, I'm not the only one who chooses this way. I like his policies, but I loved the fist bump. (Er, excuse me, "closed-handed high five.")

We'll see what happens come November, but my fingers are crossed and I may even prove Christian Lander right by doing this.

muse # 2 -- Beto Perez

Alberto "Beto" Perez is the creator of Zumba. Don't know Zumba? Try a quick Youtube search. It's like Jazzercise, only with more ass-shaking involved (arguably).

It's been around since the mid 90s, when, as "legend" has it, Beto forgot his music for an aerobics class one day, and swapped in his own stuff -- Cumbia, Merengue, Salsa, Reggaeton.

Flash forward ten years, and I'm in a gym in Lawrence, KS, trying Zumba, after one of my college classmates has written a story on it for KU's magazine. This cute little blond thing who shouldn't be able to shake her culo like she can by all normal laws of nature is leading a class, and I'm panting and sweating and loving it.

It's like I'm out somewhere dancing, except without fear of the crotch-first "nice to meet you" sneaking up on me from behind.

Flash forward another year, to last night. I've gone to Nebraska to get certified, I've paid $200 to have this little latina tell me I've got to add "flavor" to my moves about 30 times in 6 hours, I've auditioned for the aerobics class coordinator at the same gym I've been going to since I first tried the class, and I'm in. Zumba is the only excercise I have ever. wanted. to. do. regularly. (which, basically, is its entire appeal.)

It's my first night teaching, and my class is hanging with me. The blonde has left for grad school and the east coast, and I'm here, doing my best to remember her routines until I can add some of my own. I'm shaking my own pompa (so many Spanish words for booty, so little time...), I'm screwing up on the choreography once and while, but mostly, I'm smiling. Because this is fun. And instead of paying to work out, I'm now getting paid.

Gracias, Beto.

musing # 2 -- the "look at me" generation

Jennie Yabroff closed her article "Here's looking at you, kids" in Newsweek of March 24th with these words:

"One thing you can say for the Look at Me's is that they won't suffer the collective amensia of their boomer elders, who often boast about being too stoned during their youth to remember it. But this generation may have something else in common with boomers: they are so busy documenting their experiences, and being documented, that they may end up with postcards of a trip they have no memory of taking."

She's talking about the documentation generation. She defines them (us/me) as those born after '82, but I'd push that barrier back a few years. We're also apparently called "Millenials."

And it all reminds me far too much of something (brace yourself) John Mayer sang years ago (2001), before Facebook was even around (hard to believe, but the 'Book launched February of 2004):

"I'm writing you to catch you up on places I've been

You held this letter probably got excited, but there's nothing else inside it

didn't have a camera by my side this time

hoping I would see the world with both my eyes

maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm in the mood to lose my way with words"

and then later:

"Oh, today I finally overcame

trying to fit the world inside a picture frame..."

I always liked those lyrics. Now I know why. I've never been one to take pictures excessively, I didn't actually ask for the digital camera I got as a gift a few Christmases ago, but this weekend, as Lawrence celebrated KU's Final Four victory over UNC, I got a text from my sister, cheering on the Hawks from Washington, D.C.:

"Send pics if u can!!"

I grabbed my phone, (I had left my camera behind half on-purpose), hopped up on a planter at 9th and Massachussetts St., and joined in the fray of flashes to make sure and document what I could already see with my own eyes.

musing #1 - spring break/what college still does for me

This weekend marks the the end of my alma matter's spring break. [caveat: I've never been a big spring breaker. My only college trip was an 18-hour drive to Pensacola last year with my dad—and I wouldn't have had it any other way.] Anyhow, I'm a working girl now, but spring break still affected me in a few ways this week, as a recent graduate:

1.) I'm about to get a heaping dose of envy. My friends will be coming home within the next few days, sunkissed, or, at the very least, gloating about some random bar/street fair/specific alcoholic beverage prepared perfectly for them by some excessively attractive bartender.

2.) Because I've just started work, spring break is an irksome reminder of the fact that until I've accrued my 6.67 hours of vacation per month, and until I reach that elusive six-month mark (Sept. 1, baby) after which I can actually take any of that vacation, I'll be spending most of this summer indoors. Bummer.

3.) I'm going to have to deal with thousands (okay, hundreds) of new Facebook status updates like the one I just read, care of a girl I went to high school with: "We drank all of the tequila in Acapulco. No really, it's all gone, and I bungee jumped over the ocean. Mexico es muy bueno!" She's jumping in a swimsuit on the beach in her new profile photo.

However.

Despite all of this bitching, the most notable thing about spring break, for me, this year, was this: It got me out of work an hour early.

My boss asked me to check out some books at KU's library, and I was happy to oblige. But as I padded up the damp marble steps of Watson Library last Sunday, I realized I could see absolutely no one else on campus. I walked to the door, and sure enough, because of spring break, the library was closed, and would have shortened hours that entire week.

I presented my situation to my boss the next morning, to which he replied:

"Well why don't you just take off an hour early today and go get them?"

[Insert a moment of inside-the-head tap dancing and the restraint of a smile]

"Sure," I replied.

I may not get a week-long or summer-long break anytime soon, but at least this year, spring break still nabbed me an hour of freedom. And in celebration, I might just treat myself to an umbrella-adorned drink tonight.

muse # 1 - marketa irglova

Marketa Irglova is the 20-year-old, Czech Republic-born musician who delivered just over one minute of total Oscar bliss after she had been unintentionally cut off by that infamous music while attempting to accept the Oscar for Best Song.

Irglova and musician Glen Hansard, 17 years her senior, made a movie together, called Once. I went to see it bearing absolutely no preconceptions (coincidentally, my favorite way to check out a movie) at a local independent theatre, and after a few minutes adjusting to Hansard's strong, delightfully rough voice, pretty much flat-out fell in love with both Hansard and Irglova, and especially the two of them together. Partway through the movie, my boyfriend at the time (who of course, was a musician), leaned over and kissed me, swift and hard.

"What was that for?" I whispered.

"I love you," he responded.

We went home, he figured out "Falling Slowly" (the song that would later win the Oscar) within five minutes on the guitar, and we proceeded to sing in his bedroom, perched on drummer's thrones and high on that unique soul-rumble that can only from a truly great song.

It was much to my giggly cheer, then, to learn months later that Irglova and Hansard are actually dating in real life, and to hear Irglova's words after Jon Stewart graciously asked her back on stage:

"The fact that we're standing here tonight, the fact that we're able to hold this, it's just proof that no matter how far out your dreams are, it's possible," Irglova said during take two. "And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream, and don't give up. This song was written from the perspective of hope, and hope, at the end of the day, connects us all, no matter how different we are."

Spoken quickly, effortlessly, and with the grace of someone twice her age, Irglova rocketed her way to tons of best Oscar moments lists, and damned near made me cry.