This will amaze you. Just watch.
[Posted by Kathleen]
Category Archives: dance
update on my east coast adventures.
It seems that every so often, Kathleen or I get busy with exciting things going on in our real lives, and then we write a post apologizing for our embarrassing lack of blogging. I clearly just took a little hiatus myself, so let’s get you updated on my life, shall we?
The reason I’ve been more or less out of commission the past few days is that I made a huge, grown-up move to Washington DC. Hooray for me! I’m so mature that I even ordered our cable and Internet and bought (and put together!) my own bed. Chuckle all you want, but these things are huge for me. We didn’t have to do that stuff at my college. (Side story about the bed: I ordered it from Craigslist from this stranger boy, and arranged for it to be dropped off the next morning, while I was alone in my apartment. I told my mother this plan, and she immediately freaked out and assumed that I would be raped and murdered by said stranger boy. So naturally, I Facebooked him to see if I could gauge his rapist tendencies. Turns out, we sort of have a mutual friend, and also, he’s a professional lacrosse player. He didn’t rape or murder me, and now I get to sleep where a professional athlete once slept. Take that, Mom.)
Aside from slowly becoming a huge fake adult for the past few days, I’ve also been up in New York/New Jersey visiting some of my best friends from college. I hadn’t seen any of them all summer, and I was insanely excited to be reunited. The weekend did not disappoint.
For starters, I got to see the Counting Crows live, which made me giddy because they are my favorite band and I’d only seen them once before. Katie and I maybe had a little too much cheap wine before the concert, and we maybe forgot to eat dinner, and Katie maaaybe slept through Maroon 5, who opened, but it was still wonderful. I don’t care if Adam Duritz is old and kind of unattractive; he has dreadlocks and I’d like to marry him.
The rest of the weekend was filled with straight-up college-style debauchery, just as we hoped. There was drinking, excessive eating, obnoxious dancing, and enough stories to fill several books. Here are some highlights (and I truly wish I didn’t have to censor these, but if I’m ever going to change the world, people have to think I’m respectable):
- Katie’s poor boyfriend having to meet all FOUR of Katie’s parents at once. It was so fun to watch. Katie’s dad and stepmom were coming home to meet the boy (whom we will call “DJ”), so Katie’s mom decided that she would come over with her own boyfriend and add to the awkwardness. I must say, DJ performed quite well.
- DJ telling me I look like Karen from Californication. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THIS MEANS TO ME?! She is my idol, and I don’t know that any compliment will ever again make me as happy as that one did.
- The fact that Madeline and I actually won two out of three pong games to win the only portion of Beer Olympics that we actually paid attention for. Have I mentioned that I’m TERRIBLE at pong?
- The end of my vegetarianism. Did I not totally predict this shit? The offending meats were breakfast sausage and pepperoni, obviously.
- Making friends with all of our NYC cab drivers. We met the greatest people! One man, Ram Lama, was a sherpa in Everest who worked as the head sherpa on like a million expeditions. I’ve never understood why sherpas don’t get more credit. We freak the fuck out when some American white dude climbs Everest, but sherpas climb it regularly. Without oxygen. While carrying all of the American white dudes’ crap. It’s amazing. We also met a Pakistani cab driver who essentially said that because I dressed like a whore, I could never be a Muslim. (And, for the record, I was not really dressed like a whore. My dress just happened to be, er, a little short.) I proceeded to get in a bit of a religious debate with this driver while my friends laughed from the backseat.
Exciting things that did NOT happen this weekend: I didn’t get to ride in the Cash Cab. Sigh. Maybe next time.
[Posted by Mallory]
Filed under adventures, blogging, celebrities, dance, drinks, food, music, post-college depression, religion, TV
being bad feels pretty good, huh?
We all know that The Breakfast Club is a great movie. I mean that dialogue, those clothes, that touchy-feely message, and the romance? Cinematic genius. Last night I went up to Red Rocks to see the movie as part of their summertime film series, Film on the Rocks. Rather than sitting in a theater, you get to watch movies in a place that looks like this:
Amazing, right? The movie experience is enhanced to begin with based on the setting, and then on top of that, people are generally a lot more vocal during the movie. They cheer at everything, and throw in great comments like “Emiliooooooooooo!” or “What a bitch!” when Molly Ringwald is being annoying. All of this, plus The Breakfast Club’s sheer greatness, made me love the movie even more. And Judd Nelson? HOT. Who knew the Seattle grunge look, bike gloves, and a nose scar could be so attractive?
As Kathleen would say, rawr!
And look how fashion-forward Claire was:
High-waisted skirt? Check. Riding boots? Check. AND she eats sushi.
I’ve been sketching around IMDB to keep my Breakfast Club fix going, and I found this excellent tagline for the film:
They were five total strangers, with nothing in common, meeting for the first time. A brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel and a recluse. Before the day was over, they broke the rules. Bared their souls. And touched each other in a way they never dreamed possible.
Touched each other in a way they never dreamed possible? Shit, they must have shown the PG version last night.
In other news, I have decided that this is the best line in the whole movie, spoken by Emilio himself:
Yo wastoid, you’re not gonna blaze up in here.
I’m totally incorporating ‘wastoid’ into my daily vocabulary.
Okay let’s watch one quick clip and then we can all get back to work. According to my friend Leah, this is the best scene. I think I’d have to agree:
Bitchin’.
UPDATE: Neo, our soon-to-be Eastern Hemisphere Correspondent, just informed us that there is a terrible, terrible new JCPenney ad with all the key scenes from TBC, only with more racial diversity. Take a look:
For the record, Molly Ringwald would NEVER wear anything from JCPenney.
[Posted by Mallory]
everyone deserves music. and ice water.
As Kathleen mentioned, we are very sorry for being so delinquent the past few days. It may not seem like it, but blogging is stressful! Sometimes you just don’t want to blog, but then your millions of fans (or your sister) are all “Heeey why no blogging the past few days?? I’m angry! Write more!”
The reason for my lack of blogging is that I had a visitor this past weekend and was out actually living my life. Exciting, right? (I was extremely proud of myself for not looking at the blog for a full three days…normally I can’t last three minutes). My friend Katie was visiting from Maine, so we were running around doing lots of fun things. Most notably, we attended the Mile High Music Festival, which was absolutely amazing but also absolutely exhausting. Sitting out for hours in 95 degree heat is not exactly relaxing.
The first day of the concert, Kelsey, my sister Maddy, Katie, and I came — we thought — well-prepared, with snacks, flasks hidden under our dresses, and plenty of water. We didn’t consider the fact that water warms up pretty quickly when it has no ice in it, and so by about 2:00 p.m., our water was a few degrees away from boiling. From 3:00 to 4:00, I actually thought I might die. I was sort of limping from stage to stage, clutching my throat, and begging every beer man I saw for some of the ice that was keeping the beers cold. (“Please sir! Can I have some ice?!”)
Though my martyrdom was reaching epic proportions, I was aware that I wasn’t the only one at the concert who was dying of heat. It was very entertaining to see people fighting for the tiniest amounts of shade in the strangest of places: under a large pole, behind a row of porta-potties, beside a trash can, etc. People were getting desperate, man.
Luckily, things cooled off by about 5:00, and then everyone stepped away from the porta-potties, regained their senses, and focused on the music. It was about this time that we were upgraded to VIP tickets, which means we got free beer and wine, free food, a nice cool tent to sit in, and shuttle rides from stage to stage. Baaaaaller. Then we got to see Spoon, which got us all going (read: dancing like crazy, unashamed hippies). It was Michael Franti and Spearhead, however, that made the weekend for me.
Now, I’m not a huge Michael Franti fan. It’s not that I don’t like him; I just don’t know a lot of his stuff. But Katie, being the best fake hippie among us, wanted us all to go, and we obliged. His show was awesome. He had that intangible thing that only a few artists have that makes a concert truly kickass, whether or not you know the music. He had everyone in the crowd dancing like maniacs, and he was clearly having a great time, which makes a huge difference. After his performance, we were all blissfully happy and more or less remained that way for the rest of the weekend.
I won’t go through every single performance we saw over the course of the weekend (that could take a while), but let’s talk about John Mayer for a second.
The entire festival was extremely well-organized, and as part of that, all of the artists were very punctual. They started and ended exactly when they were supposed to, every time. So we’re all lounging around waiting for John Mayer to come on at 6:00 on Sunday, and at 5:30 people start cheering. We stand up and see that some dude has taken the stage and has begun to sing “Start Me Up.” We were confused. Our conversation went a little something like this:
“Wait, that can’t be John Mayer.”
“Yeah, why would he start so early?”
“And why would he be wearing a tank top?”
“And why would he open with a cover?”
“And since when is his entire left arm tattooed?”
“It must just be some random filler guy that they put onstage to kill time.”
“It really sounds like John Mayer, though.”
“Oh my god, is he wearing CAPRIS?”
The stranger onstage was, indeed, John Mayer, and he was, indeed, wearing a tank top, manpris, and black tennis shoes. Ouch. Other than the frightening wardrobe choice (where’s the womanly influence, Jen?), he was looking pretty good. Especially when he took his shirt off for the last song (sure, it was a little unnecessary, but who am I to complain?):
John, have you been working out?
Anyway…the concert was fabulous and you should all come next year. We’ll have a special SWTCTW section, with lots of ice and Coors Light.
Before I wrap this up, I have to recognize the two MVP’s of the concert. First, Mr. Michael Franti for reasons stated above:
Okay one more of him, courtesy of Katie, just because these are cool photos:
The second MVP award goes to Dave Matthews’ drummer, Carter Beauford, for being the jolliest human I have ever seen:
Carter, I dig you.
[Posted by Mallory]
Filed under adventures, blogging, celebrities, crushes, dance, music
white owl, won’t you be mine?
My little sister is an undergrad at the University of Kansas (rock chalk!), and we’re going to have to disown her because she didn’t get her hands on this guy first:
Dear readers, meet White Owl (the Casanova on the left). White Owl is beloved by Jayhawk fans and many consider him to be Kansas’ number one fan. My sister even tells me that Coach Mangino, who led the Jayhawk football team to their best season ever, thinks that White Owl was their good luck charm. According to my sister, White Owl likes to hang out on the KU campus singing and dancing and showing the students what they might be like after 45+ years of recreational drug use. He’s especially loved for his antics at basketball games (please notice how frightened the girl next to him looks):
But hang onto your hearts, ladies, because he’s off the market. After a month-long courtship, White Owl got engaged to Julia Lee, a KU undergrad who is (are you sitting down?) 39 years his junior. The two knew it was love after only one week, according to Julia, and even though not everyone understands their relationship (Julia’s poor, poor mother, for instance), those who know them well are happy for them. I hate to quote nearly an entire article (from the Daily Kansan), but I think their how-we-met story is worth sharing in its entirety:
The two have only known each other a little more than a month but White Owl said he felt they were destined to be together. He first noticed Julia at the end of last semester when she was standing around Wescoe Beach. White Owl said he sensed she was missing something in her life.
“I saw an injured spirit and I am all about helping people and being a light,” White Owl said, “I prayed that night that she would be sent to me somehow.”
White Owl’s prayers were answered. The next day, White Owl was a guest speaker in Julia’s “American Studies” class. White Owl talked to the class about believing in themselves and loving one another. After class, Julia told White Owl how much his message meant to her.
And the rest is history. They were inseparable from that moment on, and even though he’s been married twice before (and has two sons), White Owl says that he has not “felt this love as a person since [his] mother babied [him].” Want to see some photos of the happy couple?
More? I thought so…
If you can’t attend their wedding in at the end of the summer — to which everyone is invited — hopefully you can catch them at Wakarusa Festival in Lawrence, Kansas…White Owl says the couple hopes to form a band and perform next year.
[Posted by Mallory]
Filed under celebrities, dance, random
boulder is a trippy place, man.
My apologies for my lack of postings this weekend. I’d like to say that I was just pretending this was a real job and taking the weekend off, but really, for the entirety of this weekend I was too drunk or too hungover or too asleep or my fingers were too covered in Smartfood to write anything. And this morning, I went through my usual routine of setting my alarm for a reasonable time, like 8:00, picking up my phone and bringing it into bed with me when the alarm went off, reading my emails in bed (because I’m so important that I have a Blackberry solely for the purpose of reading my emails in bed), tucking my phone under me, and falling back asleep for three more hours. Looks like all that rest left me with the energy to write run-on sentences that would make my AP English teacher weep.
Anyway. On Friday Kelsey and I took our out-of-town visitor, Sarah, to Boulder and met up with my friend Anne. We had dinner at this great little tavern which served my new reason to believe in God, goat cheese macaroni. I’d like to shake the hand of the person who invented that. I could bathe in the stuff. Once we were energized by the goat cheese, we ventured out onto Pearl Street Mall. Pearl Street is one of my favorite areas in Boulder. It’s a pedestrian mall that stretches for four blocks and is lined with trees, used bookstores, stores like Banana Republic and Volcom, bars, and street performers. The street performers are the best part. While we were at dinner, Anne (a CU grad) was telling us about this “Zip Code Guy” who performs on Pearl Street every so often. Apparently, she has always wanted to see him and never got the chance.
As it turned out, God smiled down on us on this particular evening, and we ran into Zip Code Guy, who was just beginning his performance. A crowd had formed around him, and he was asking for people from out of town to tell him their zip codes. Once he knew the zip code, he told the crowd exactly where that person was from. It was absolutely amazing. He could even get zip codes from random countries like Moldova. As he spoke, he was making a map of the US on the ground with a yellow chain.
After this warmup, he began to place people on the map according to their zip codes. I was placed on in 23173 (Richmond, Virginia, where I went to school), Kelsey was placed nearby in Williamsburg, and Sarah was placed up in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. (Anne made the mistake of staying in Colorado her whole life, so she didn’t have any obscure zip codes to throw out.) Zip Code Guy placed about 30 people on this map, from Maine to Wayne, Indiana, to Arizona. Once everyone was placed in their respective towns, he went through and recited every single person’s zip code, pausing to juggle five balls at once when he needed a little extra time to think. It was honestly one of the most impressive random talents I have ever seen. When we ran into Zip Code Guy after the show, he told us that it took him a few years and some driving around the country to finally memorize everything. Nutso.
It seemed that Zip Code Guy would have talked to us forever had we not ended the conversation, which made us feel bad for him (as in, he probably has nowhere else to go), and we were depressed until we stumbled upon some drummers. The drummers were a group of five or six guys just jamming out on a variety of bongos and other drums whose names I obviously don’t know. They also had these random girls who would come into the center of the circle and dance like maniacs every so often. These dancers were eventually joined by some brave crowd members: children; some drunk 30-something couples; a girl wearing a hat, a scarf, and mittens even though it was 70 degrees; and a man who could be your father (or maybe your weird single uncle), dancing to the beat even though he had his own Walkman on. Here, take a look:
This all was great fun. We spent an hour or two just wandering around and watching people before realizing that it was almost midnight and maybe we should go, you know, drink. (We also got a bit disillusioned by the whole street performer thing when we found a five-year-old girl whose parents had very obviously trained her to sing and play the guitar for money. We agreed with some random boy who muttered “That’s great parenting,” and then Anne told us that that very boy had gotten arrested his freshman year for beating his girlfriend. Sweet.) We met up with some friends at a bar a little farther down Pearl, and when we stepped in, it actually felt like a different world. “Sexy Can I” and “Please Don’t Stop the Music” were playing in the background, girls were wearing “labia skimmers,” or dresses that should have been shirts (a crime which I was accidentally guilty of on Saturday), and everything was all dark and trendy. The contrast between these people and the strung-out hippies selling lanyards that appeared to be made of their own dreadlocks was striking.
Like I said, Boulder’s a weird place. If you’ve never been, go. Tell Zip Code Guy I said hello.
[Posted by Mallory]
Filed under adventures, blogging, dance, music
cyd, i wanted to be you.
Not to get too serious, but I wanted to take a break from politics to comment on the passing of Hollywood dancer Cyd Charisse today. Singin’ in the Rain is one of my all-time favorite movies, and she is one of my all-time favorite dancers. Old movie musicals are not everyone’s thing, (my roommate informed me of this quite frequently when she’d come home to find me sitting in the room alone, in pajamas and glasses, eating a tub of frosting and watching one) but talent is talent, and it must be recognized. She was known for her impeccable grace, elegant movements and top notch legs. I can remember watching her in movies and just wishing I could be that good. Come to think of it, she may have been my first girl crush.
And not to sound like my grandma reminiscing about the old days, but we don’t have the same appreciation for the arts as we used to. When Lil’ Mama (of America’s Best Dance Crew) is seen as a legitimate dancer and one deemed to judge other dancers, we might have a problem.
Cyd, thanks for the inspiration. I’ll close with a great quote from Fred Astaire:
“That Cyd — when you’ve danced with her, you stay danced with.”
Watch her elegance in this one:
Watch her legs (so jealous) in this one:
[Posted by Kathleen]
Filed under dance, RIP, the arts, Uncategorized
six words to change the world. 