Sunday, May 31, 2009
What is the best pro-choice charity?
Which charity should I choose?
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Juicing
[T]hese drugs are the bedrock of a burgeoning anti-aging industry, where those nearing 40 and beyond can go to a clinic and take effective and controlled steps that will aid them in reversing the aging process. Science, in the long run, will win out.Hmph. Not survival. I doubt people are likely to breed more with steroid use. Life extension, I can see. For dudes. HRT for women has had mixed results. What happens if you give women steroids and balance them out with estrogen and progesterone supplementation? The same things? Or would that just be a one-way ticket to Chynatown?
At least that’s what Clapp, who takes a Darwinian view of the matter, believes.
“If you have the intellectual capacity to move against [when you’re going to die,]” he says, “you’re going to move against it.
“There’s many more important things here than how a man gets a bigger bicep or hits a ball farther,” adds Clapp. “The survival of the human race can be based in this thing we’re talking about.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Dinnerblogging: Trout and such
Arugula Salad
Chopped caramelized pecans, shaved Gruyere, and balsamic vinaigrette over baby arugula: mmm.
Baked Waxy Potatoes
White new potatoes, washed and chopped into 1 inch cubes, tossed with a dash of olive oil, salt, pepper, dried chives, and a dash of turmeric. Bake wrapped in foil at 375 for 45 minutes. Cheerfully yellow and yummy.
Lemon Thyme Trout
Place fillets skin-side-down on nonstick sheet, salt and pepper, sprinkle with 1 tbsp lemon thyme leaves, and adorn with small cubes of butter (total about 1-2 tbsp). Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or so (next time, would turn heat up to 400 or 425 and bake for less time). Very tasty.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Survey
Mandatory disclaimer to my recently married friends: Your weddings were awesome.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Uniquely ridiculous?
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Särbo & Sambo
Friday, May 22, 2009
Playing your song
When the song ended, I went outside, sat on the curb, and cried. Sure, I had lost my boyfriend, but it was more than that. I had also lost my favorite love song. The problem with the songs that once made you happy is they tend to remind you that you were happy once.I relish how the passage of time has worn away the associations between some much-beloved songs and prior context. There is nothing like getting one of your favorite songs back.
...
[L]ove songs have no sense of timing. You can't choose which one is yours. You can try to cue up your favorite song to play at the precise second you decide you've fallen for someone, but in the end, something like "Funkytown" is going to play at some perfect moment, and then you're stuck with it.
Do androids dream of electric bags of sand?
Non sequitur : Is Richard Morgan not a big fan of the ladies? Because from the writing of the sex scenes in Thirteen, I'm thinking he might not be. Breasts are always "sagging into" men's hands, and women's nether parts are described as "rubbery."
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Baby's got her blue genes on.
Friday, May 15, 2009
The psychology of Facebook profile pictures
[BLURRY FETUS] is cooking dinner
[BLURRY FETUS] is studying for pre-comps
[BLURRY FETUS] is scrapbookingIt's like a cross between Look Who's Talking and Ally McBeal or something. Isn't accommodating pictures that are not of you the very reason why there is a distinction between profile pictures and other random albums you upload?
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Walcott.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Hypothetical
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Review: Star Trek
I was afraid that I would be, per Belle, one of "the grateful mildly obsessive fans ... who are generally so happy to see some new incarnation of their Most Favorite Thing Ever that they are way too forgiving of the flaws and thus express too much enthusiasm," but it turns out that I am more of a "purist[] too devoted to The Canon and thus likely to be too critical of any endeavor." Eomer kept noshing on the scenery at every spare moment, but the guy playing Rebooted Kirk was not bad. The fanservice recitation of cliched lines was simultaneously cringeworthy and enjoyable. The pre-credits sequence was an exercise in eyerolling, but I loved the Young Spock interlude (although Winona Ryder's old lady makeup was really distracting---she is only six years older than the actor playing her son! Like there aren't actual age-appropriate actresses who need work?).
And now we get to the heart of my ambivalence: Spock. Constant Readers know that I have a soft spot for Spock. In my long-ago days as an avid consumer of Star Trek fanfic, Spock/Uhura was my preferred het ship. But seeing it play out on the big screen just showed how part of the appeal was the improbable and forbidden nature of said ship! In the grand scheme of canon rape, it was a small thing, considering the wholesale rejiggering of the Trek universe through time travel. But it undermined my enjoyment a bit, as did the almost total annihilation of the most interesting of the Federation's member races. These new factors may eliminate the Amok Time storyline! Does rebooted Spock even have to worry about pon farr? And isn't the logical choice at the end to avoid the false dichotomy, get some Spock gametes, and set about rebuilding the Vulcan race through artificial means? Does anybody else care? Okay, it's just me.
But things get blowed up real good, and Kirk fights lots of baddies, and Leonard Nimoy, looking older than God, passes the torch with wry aplomb. Sulu/Harold is a total badass and that Shaun of the Dead guy does a good Scotty. Go see the movie.
Corsetry to the rescue?
Monday, May 11, 2009
Your My favorite band sucks.
(Full disclosure: I am typing this while listening to Ashlee Simpson, with a cat named after a Harry Potter character in my lap.)
(edited to clarify that Ms. Simpson is not my favorite anything.)
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Playing catch-up with my vamp media
* Apparently there is also a love triangle in both involving the vampire, the human girl, and a shapeshifter who can turn into a canine, but I haven't gotten that far in True Blood yet.
Friday, May 08, 2009
You mourned insufficiently for the bodega!
During a recent crime wave, I'd kept the bat by the front door, somehow imagining that I could use it to defend my family. Then, earlier this same evening, I had heard a scream outside. I grabbed the bat and ran into the cold dark streets. A young woman cried out "I've been robbed!" She pointed at a shadowy figure running across Tremont Street, the boundary between my turf and alien turf. I chased him. ... In a flash of panic, I swung the bat, and he fell.What's the "change" that should have taken place? Calling the police (we've already heard that this is a swipply thing to do)? Ignoring the screams of your neighbors?
Later, sitting in my dining room, all I could think was: I'm no hero. I hit a man with a baseball bat. A brown-skinned man. A poor man. Was this the "diversity" I had bargained for? This was the bat I had used growing up in relentlessly suburban, middle-class Lexington, Massachusetts, where diversity meant playing with a few Catholics and an occasional Jew. Six years ago, I had moved my family to Boston's South End, reveling in its economic and racial variety. Did I feel virtuous living there? Our son's school was a model of statistical integration: one-third black, one-third white, one-third "other." We met with neighbors on the multiracial council. Our boys played with black kids who lived down the block. The Latino guy across the street repaired our car. We sat on the front stoop on summer evenings and sipped Chardonnay while the world cruised by.
And now, I had raced out into those same streets and knocked a man down with a baseball bat. I had demonized the muggers and the burglars who were preying on our neighborhood, and now I had descended to their level. Or worse. Doubts welled up in my mind. Did I really understand what it means to live in a diverse neighborhood? Or did I just want cosmetic diversity as a backdrop for imposing my white, professional-class ways? Was our experimental elementary school serving the kids from the housing projects as well as it served the kids from the townhouses? When we celebrated the opening of a new trattoria around the corner, did we mourn for the bodega it displaced? Did we really appreciate the smell from the all-day backyard pig roast next door and the salsa music blaring from open car windows?
I looked at the splintered shank end of my Little League bat. This is what it means, I thought, to try to impose your will, your ways. If you really care about diversity, embrace it. And change.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Random Roundup
The spectrum of online friendship.
Kindle book pricing. I admit that I am much more likely to buy a book if it is less than $9.99, and almost certain to buy it if it's less than the paperback price. Those things make me feel like I'm getting a deal. Oh, and the most deadly thing Amazon is doing is to make the first book in a series $0-1. The $1 Robin Hobb book ended up costing me about $50.
Relatedly, Amazon should pay me to read my Kindle on Amtrak. I think at least three people are buying Kindles after seeing and talking to me during one ride, and I wasn't even trying.
El Presidente goes to my local burger joint.
Monday, May 04, 2009
If all your friends were dating vampires, would you date one too?
ETA: Apparently the recent influx is coming from here.
You really must check out the comments on the post linked above. Apparently I am just jealous of Our Heroine Bella because "[m]aybe [I] never had a boyfriend or got ask to the prom either."
Twilight the Movie: Liveblog
Belle and I got tipsy* and watched the Twilight movie. This is the result.
(Belle Lettre: Apologies for the bad formatting, though we tried really hard to extensively edit a raw Gmail chat transcript. Apologies for the lack of the "more" tag, for which we do not know the html. Apologies also for the insane length, but this was a two hour movie. But you're welcome for the hilarity that will ensue as we infuriate yet more teenagers, who are thankfully not a significant part of Amber's blog demographic.)
Belle: Hi Amber
Amber: Hi.
Belle: These brandy alexanders ROCK
Amber: They are creamy, boozy goodness.
Belle: So, ready to get crunked and watch Twilight and then blog our not-so-secret shame Amber?
Amber: I will now look askance at you for sayin "crunked."
Belle: You keep saying that I talk with a Southern California accent. I may as well go all the way. Anyway, preliminary observation: Kristen Stewart: pretty, but in a vapid, slightly plain way
Amber: Well, that pretty much sums up her character so it's good.
Belle: Robert Pattinson: I confess that I found him cute in that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie. I feel dirty saying this, because he's not much older than my oldest nephew. I keep getting older, and the hotties stay hot, and as my nephew ages so does my potential for shame.
Anyway, Pattinson/Edward Cullen: way too much hair in this movie. I fear the hair! It's like Flock of Seagulls kind of shit.
Amber: I found him aesthetically pleasing, but he's less good looking here from what I can tell.
Belle: Hmm, interesting. His good looks shift in quality? We will one day have to talk about what is 'good looking' and infuriate everyone in the blogosphere.
Amber: This is an important conversation. But right now, I will just say that I prefer alive to dead.
Belle: So, I haven't seen this movie, and I haven't read these books, out of principle--the principle that evil, shitty movies with bad moral messages should be avoided at all costs.
Amber: Right, and I've read the entire series, which I blame on a ticket snafu in Penn Station and subsequent inability to look away from trainwrecks.
Belle: It's okay. I still love you. I judge you, but I still love you.
(next conversation: love is not unconditional and allows for judgment)
Amber: But will you love me by the end of tonight? ( I knew I should have put more brandy in.)
Belle: I am ready to be corrupted! Love corrupts, as we all know. I will love you more by the end of the night, when we are both equally bad people. Let us show Amber to be likewise the unprincipled person that I am! Bring on the brandy ice cream and craptastic teen romance!
Amber: Let's get started! Right now all I'm seeing is deer butt.
(First part of the movie, a soliloquy from Bella. Soliloquies are very useful vehicles for narrative exposition. They are also appropriate for emo teenagers. See also, Hamlet.)
Belle: I don't get the "I never thought about how I would die" line from Bella. Every emo teenager thinks about that! And these are the emo-est! Tickle Me Emo; Whiny McEmoPants, etc.
Amber: We can tell Mom is wacky because she wears sequins and cowboy hats.
Belle: Dude, girlfriend is wearing a lot of clothes for Phoenix. Also, way unfreckled for a Sunbelt State resident. I call out the costume director and makeup artist.
Amber: And now ... BLUE! filter.
Belle: It's to enhance the emo. Though is she were tan, it would look like Jungle Fever starring Annabella Sciorra and Wesley Snipes, circa 1991 when she embraces the deathly pale Edward (and I know she will, teen movies are so predictable)
Amber: (The dad, in a fit of latent paternalism, has decorated his daughter's room in purple, the favorite color of five year olds.) Purple is cool. Not as cool as Black, of course. Black like her dreams.
Belle: Awkward but tender moment with absent, estranged dad. Are we watching an afterschool special? (Dad gives Bella a beat up old pickup as a present. It looks like something out of a documentary about The Dustbowl and the Great Migration.)
Amber: Okay, who's the hot kid? Oh, Jacob. He looks completely age appropriate. It's doomed.
Belle: She can't get very excited, even about her Piece of Shit (POS) car. Was I this morose as a teenager, such that even my moments of excitement conveyed a deep ennui that weighed my limbs to the very earth? Probably. I was one of those kids that read Plath.
Amber: She doesn't know what a clutch is but they bought her a manual transmission truck?
Belle: She probably won't like Jacob back the way he seems to like her. He's cute, but Native American is not different enough. Must be a VAMPIRE to be forbidden love.
Amber: Me neither.
Belle: I hope that no one pounces on that as a pun of "that's what she said!"
Amber: Why is Eric wearing a tie?
Belle: Asian hipster kid: no chance with Bella. Oh hey, scene of co-ed PE. Why is the PE co-ed? Why do people play volleyball indoors? They should only play volleyball in the Southwest, where you can play outside year 'round. (traumatic flashback) In high school, they called me "Butterfingers" because I kept missing the ball with my arms in volleyball. Fuck high school.
Amber: I always got hit in the head.
(Amber and Belle have a bonding moment about high school ostracism. Movie shifts to some guy kissing Bella on the cheek as she's surrounded by new friends. Amber and Belle have flashes of indignation at undeserved acceptance of awkward Bella by the entrenched social clique.)
Amber: Okay, sexual assault much, kissy boy?
Belle: I don't get how she is so popular. She has NO personality.
Amber: And nobody knows her.
Belle: Auto ethnography: the popular kids are criticizing the Cullens for being "insular," and they mention the incest taboo.
Amber: Edward Cullen: totally gorgeous? What's up with those mismatched eyebrows?
Belle: Edward Cullen: So PALE! Such big hair! Scary ass motherfucker.
Amber: Definitely a Secret ad
Amber: Strong enough for a man, but pH balanced for a vampire.
Belle: Ha, and she's sniffing her hair. Why is he gagging?
Belle: Who wears t-shirts on the outside of long sleeved thermals this side of 1994?
Amber: Yes
Belle: Weird. Maybe she uses that Pheromone perfume from the 90s. It is always about the '90s.
Amber: Gardenburgers, very 90s also.
Belle: I hate Gardenburgers.
(Movie transitions to some scene involving vampires attacking some fisherman. Sucks to be the fisherman.)
Belle:
Amber: Shift to dramatic pursuit scene.
Belle: "Security guard killed by some kind of animal" Somewhere in here is a terribly written essay about the destruction of authority by the anthropomorphized beastly outlaw.
Amber: Edward questions Bella's judgment... also foreshadowing.
Belle: Their kids will be like phosphorescent white.
Amber: You'll see.
Belle: Bella has a minor league baseball player stepdad: Bull Durham, ten years later, with a vampire-obsessed emo teenage stepdaughter, and hilarity ensues.
Amber: You'd think after 100 years he would have a better comeback when people noticed his color-change irises. "Fluorescent lights"?!
Belle: Edward Cullen looks like James Dean, but if possible, even more sullen and emo.
Amber: Yet the other vampires are angry.
Belle: They are BAD vampires.
Amber: No, they just don't understand how good she smells
Belle: Dude, Peter Facinelli looks like a freak show.
Amber: It's probably because they don't age. they need some way to alter their appearance.
Belle: "I am super pale and freaky looking. Let me bleach my hair and look even freakier and completely devoid of pigment!" Anyway, I guess that's one way of dealing with a 200 year beauty rut. According to the women's magazines, because I have been wearing the same hairstyle and lipstick for ten years, I am in such a rut.
Amber: Is Bella having a sexytime dream? There was an awful lot of panting for a PG13 movie
Belle: Edward in bedroom! Vampires show up in your room at night to watch you sleep and talk to you about Serious Stuff! They copied Buffy!
Belle: I feel dirty.
He is so rejected! And yet, I feel for him.
Amber: Ouch.
Belle: I was a late bloomer. Also, psycho strict parents a known commodity, so why bother asking.
Amber: how did Edward know about her private conversation with another guy? and why is he bitching her out for slipping?
Belle: My dad is like that
Amber: Your experience will help you understand this movie.
Belle: Sometimes I'm worried that I'm a social conservative, because divorce makes me sad.
Amber: Divorce is sad.
Belle: Dude, if your mood swings are so volatile for a TEENAGER, you are BEYOND emo.
Amber: If he really gave a crap he would just not talk to her at all
Belle: E: "What if I'm the bad guy." B: "But you're not. I can see that it's a defense mechanism. Let's hang out." This is FUCKED UP.
Amber: Well, yes.
Belle: Oooh, feminism, sort of! Bella counsels friend to ask a guy out!
Amber: Hot Native guys approach!
Belle: This is the one glimpse of chutzpah! This is it, isn't it.
Amber: pretty much
Belle: If I were centuries old, I would have more than a high school education.
Amber: But then you'd look like a dropout to all the HS hotties
Belle: All vampires are hot. Why is that?
Amber: Because the vampire magic keeps away zits?
Belle: I don't get why she doesn't buy that book on myths and monsters from Amazon, when there was clearly that purchase option.
Amber: Because then Edward couldn't stalk her to the bookstore
Belle: It is anti online shopping.
Amber: Oh look, more apples
Belle: Oh yeah, I just noticed that.
Amber: Bella is the worst friend ever
Belle: Yes.
Amber: We can reestablish it by condemning this scene
Belle: But we are good friends.
Amber: Girl attacked by dudes, tries to take control, but must be saved by scary dude
Belle: Man, I hate gang rape scenes. What did Edward do, growl at them?
Amber: Yes
Belle: I wish she had busted out Krav Maga.
Amber: Her dad is a cop
Belle: Seriously.
Amber: because vampires are indestructible, practically
Belle: Whatever. Bad message.
Amber: I can hear an angry parent now
Belle: It is highly dramatic to pretend to leave a restaurant when you have no car and no means to get home from the boondocks of wherever.
Amber: she could have gone home with the girls
Belle: Her mind is not so impenetrable or insightful. He is not missing much by not being able to read her mind.
Amber: Of course But of course she immediately thinks there is something wrong with her
Belle: E: "I don't have the strength to stay away from you anymore." B: "Then don't!" They stole this line from "Meet Joe Black."
Amber: At least this movie is shorter
Belle: If his hand is so cold, having sex with him must be painful. Much less pre-teen technical virginity stuff.
Amber: Maybe he could wear a hot water bottle as foreplay.
Belle: I swear the Dad Vampire is wearing Max Factor pan cake makeup.
Amber: If only she had the pepper spray earlier this evening ...
(Bella is looking through the book of myths and monsters and figures out that duh, Edward is a vampire.)
Belle: Sarah Vowell wrote that her favorite thing about Buffy was that The Scooby Gang's immediate response to any problem was to research it. It was the ultimate in nerd pride! Somehow, despite the fact that Bella is going to the books to figure out this, I am not optimistic about the conclusions she'll reach.
Amber: To be fair, she has no Giles
Belle: It's like "Oh, so they're cold blooded killers. But so dreamy, too!"
Amber: It's like women who marry imprisoned serial killers
Belle: YES.
Amber: they're so intense
Belle: cough Mrs. Menendez cough.
Amber: why is she walking in the woods alone after realizing that he's a killer?
Belle: Her laundry list of his attributes makes him very unappealing. What does she see in this dude?
Amber: all the camerawork is making Amber dizzy
Belle: I like walking in the woods. I do it recreationally. I am mad that they are making this some dangerous, taboo activity fraught with the potential for emotional betrayal. Next thing you'll tell me is that they're going to the same to sex.
Amber: it is when the woods are rife with murderers
Belle: The spinning cinematography and lens filter reminds me of an R&B music video, and not in a good way.
He looks like one of those hologram stickers from Lisa Frank. Vampires' skin sparkles like diamonds?!
Amber: Edward, trying to push Bella away: "I'm a killer!"
Belle: It's like this line from 30 Rock: "I have hunted the most dangerous game. Man...(cough), excuse me, as I was saying, "manatee."
Amber: I think he could be tried as an adult
Belle: Edward: "Your scent...it's like drug to me...you're...like....my...own...brand....of...heroin."
Amber: His delivery here is so stilted. I can tell that the actor had utter contempt for the character. (Which is apparently true.)
Belle: I can imagine all the teen girls masturbating to this scene on repeat.
Amber: ew, let's not
Belle: Pause, question: would we have felt so intensely attached to this book/movie at 17?
Amber: No. But then I didn't watch Titanic eight jillion times either.
Belle: me neither.
Amber: Other girls will be eaten by vampires. It's Darwinian
Belle: We will be bitter and alone, but we will be ALIVE!
Amber: Love is a sickness, Belle.
Belle: Did my parents escape Communism for no reason?!
Amber: He needs to accept a higher power and learn to live one day at a time without Bella-smell.
Belle: This movie is EVIL .Teenage girls everywhere are now afraid of the power of their sexuality
Amber: Even alcohol cannot mask its insidiousness
Belle: they are now apotheosizing themselves and their sexual powers and allure, and thinking it's THEIR FAULT some guy goes crazy obsessive in love in a borderline abusive, controlling way with them
Amber: totally
Belle: Did you read that Hilzoy post responding to Hirschman on domestic violence?
Amber: Yes, it was great.
Belle: How Hilzoy described a learned helplessness model of DV, one in which the victim learns to be weak, and that it is all her fault?
Amber: Her agency is a sham. She's shuttled from place to place, herded like a cow to slaughter by this ancient, pasty freak, and then she just falls in love with him.
Belle: I'm getting total domestic violence vibes from this.
I don't get why she trusts him.
Edward: "I've been waiting for you for a long time." I fucking hate this whole "feelings of destiny" bullshit.
Amber: The lion/lamb thing is a very religious piece of imagery
Belle: Yeah, I hate that.
Amber: There is really no other religion in here, though, besides the Native myths.
Belle: Love is not transcendantly spiritual.
Amber: Doesn't anyone care about the existential questions raised by vampirism?
Belle: So, when Edward first saved Bella, and scooped her up, it reminded me of religious iconography of ascendance
Amber: He is the resurrection and the life? Or at least he is in Book 4.
Belle: I have to admit, I was once this fervently in love.
Amber: Yes.
Belle: Ah, and now they go "public" with their relationship. It is sad that so many young relationships are shrouded in shame (over what?) and "to go public" still means so much. I can sort of get it in the vampire-human context, but I bet teen girls everywhere are celebrating the gallantry of Edward owning up to actually liking/respecting a girl. See also, "Grease." Anyway,
Amber: Except that was actually good.
Belle: Yes, true.
(In which Edward tells Bella that he and his family are "good" vampires, who eat animal blood rather than human blood, and thus consider themselves "vegetarians." And in which Edward invites Bella to meet his family, which is apparently scarier than finding out your boyfriend is a vampire.)
Amber: This whole veggie vampire thing is silly
Belle: Seriously!
Amber: I have it on good authority that vegetarians can be completely satisfied.
Belle: I wish my boyfriend liked tofu. Vegetarians should be offended at this movie.
Amber: We are lucky to have the closed captioning on so we know this is a slow, exotic theme.
Belle: Why did he have to rush around the car?It's not that hard.
Amber: so they can get to the house with all the other vampires super fast?
Belle: I really love Danish modern furniture. These vampires have good taste!
Amber: wait, they don't have to hide in their house? the walls are made of windows!
Belle: They even cook well!
Amber: and why is jasper all freaked? he goes to school every day with humans.
Belle: This is a very weird.
Amber: He has no bed.
Belle: No sex!
Amber: This does not bode well for her no-pants dreams
Belle: That solves that.
Amber: he does have a car
Belle: he wants to make her dance?!
Amber: the problem is that her hold on him is not vampire-strong. she could die
Belle: His world sucks. Even if it includes beautiful views.
Amber: She has to leave her world and enter his
Belle: What do they have to talk about?
Amber: I never saw that
Belle: Ok, I, Super Emo Girl (TM) am hereby declaring a ban on the Emo Boy leading boy character.
Amber: Ew, her dad is pumping her about boys. And her mom.
Belle: Creepy. He breaks and enters.
Amber: And of course she apologizes
Belle: He broke into her room! He kissed her first! He now says he'd lose control with her! Her sexuality is too powerful!
Amber: Why is she snuggling him? Isn't he like 60 degrees?
Belle: Edward is used to courting people in the 18th century.
Amber: and assuring men that he'll care well for their chattel
Belle: Even though my dad would prefer that.
Amber: Your dad has no say by this time.
(Edward, resigned to let Bella stay in his life, invites Bella to play baseball with his vampire family. They can only play during thunderstorms because their superhuman strength means that the bat hitting the ball makes a sound like thunder. They must be using titanium bats, because a wooden bat would break and a metal bat would dent. But whatever.)
Belle: Are the vampires trying to embrace some American past time by playing baseball?!
Amber: I guess.
Belle: I like baseball a lot.
Amber: I don't think it's physically possible to hit a baseball with an aluminum bat so hard it's thunderous
Belle: This is a perversion.
Amber:
Belle: Scary Goth vampires with dread locks and long hair approach!
Amber: Since when do French vampires play baseball?
Belle: Seriously. Now there's a showdown, with both sides of vampires in a half-crouching, ready to wrestle position. This is like the Pat Benatar Love is a Battlefield (wordplay!) video with the vampires facing off in that pose.
Amber: Why are Edward and Bella leaving alone?
Belle: Seriously.
Amber: Isn't she safer with a half dozen vamps?
Amber: can she even rent a motel room?
Belle: This is heartbreaking to watch her leave her father.
Amber: But it's for his own good
Belle: This movie is making me campaign for more parental authority.
This movie is evil.
Amber: she has to very obviously leave so the tracker vamp won't go to the house
Belle: The family that slays together, stays together.
Amber: she's part of the family after about five dates?
Belle: Seriously.
Amber: She is his life! His undead life! She's only not safe because of him
Belle: Bella: "I'd never given much thought to how I would die. But dying in the place of someone I love seems a good way to go."
Amber: and it's not even effective
Belle: seriously?! creepy: slasher porn. Bad vampire wants to film himself devouring her?!
Amber: Don't worry, stalker boy will save her
Belle: This is a very violent against women movie.
Amber: He has to make a choice?
Belle: Seriously! Even Mary Jane got to choose to stay with Peter in Spider Man! I actually liked that line. "Don't you respect me enough to let me choose for myself?" This is lacking from this movie.
Amber: You can't suck venom out. Someone is going to die of snakebite from this movie.
Belle: Lack of Female Agency In Twilight: A Deontological Discussion.This is like a really bad dissertation.
This movie IS evil!
Amber: It is the worst movie ever
Belle: Great, another teen movie celebrates death by saying "Death is beautiful....easy. Life is harder."
Belle: This movie is a glorification of The Guy In a Hoodie.
Amber: See, now it's her fault if she gets hurt
Belle: Great, he is breaking up with her to protect her from getting hurt.
Amber: because he told her he'd hurt her more if she stays
Belle: Bella: "We can't be apart. You can't leave me."
Amber: Oh, it's Jacob!
Belle: Ok, WTF. Native American dad of Jacob pays his son to tell her to break up with her boyfriend
Amber: She decided she wanted Edward, that's where her agency stops.
Belle: And this is the main problem of Twilight. This is a chattel model of love.
Amber: At least her dad didn't sell her to Edward for dinner.
Belle: I think we have stared into the heart of evil. And it makes her puke.
Amber: Because Forks is liberal enough for fake gambling at prom but not for freak dancing
Belle: Why aren't they breaking out in a coordinated dance number like in "She's All That"?
Amber: He's telling her she's dancing, but he's doing it all for her.
Belle: Yes.
Lack of Agency, again.
she wants to spend eternity with him, and will die if she lives without him.or rather, she'll die eventually and that sucks, because life without him, or death without him, is hell.
Amber: They don't even know each other!
Belle: I know!
Amber: He is illogical
Belle: She'll grow old, and he'll always be beautiful
Amber: Maybe he digs grannies
Belle: It's like failing to plan for retirement when you're 17.
She is incapable of escape, flight, freedom, without him.
Amber: This music is so obvious
Belle: I feel really shitty right now.
Amber: I guess middle school girls are not subtle
Belle: and it's not because of the delightful brandy alexanders. Of which we only had one.
Amber: It was only a dollar
Belle: And yet I feel compelled to read/watch the other books/movies in the series.
Amber: Don't do it!
Belle: This is like Dan Brown for teenage and middle aged women. Compulsively readable, but complete shit.
Every sentence is 3-5 words. Every paragraph is 3-5 sentences. It is really bad writing obscuring weak ideas, shitty philosophy, and EVIL moral premises.
Amber: It's just emotional pornography. porn is popular.
Belle: true. Why am I not surprised that Linkin Park is part of the soundtrack?
Amber: Wretched, poorly directed, distracting camera work, and evil.
Belle: Me too.
Amber: This was fun! Sort of.
Belle: It was!
Amber: Insofar as evil can be fun
Belle: Yes. Maybe we should watch some other evil movie together. If we watch good movies, we would have nothing to talk about. Let's rewatch Titanic.
Amber: It's like MST3K but for teen lameness ... and on that nerdy note I will sign off.
Belle: Me too. Night!
* One beverage apiece. Because we are lightweights. Always drink responsibly, kids.