paperback writer

today at book club (for which i did not read the book. i'm nothing if not consistent) i learned that the hardy boys and nancy drew books were written not by one author, but by an assembly line of many authors who were fulfilling the vision of one young adult novel mastermind.

and they had to follow all kinds of rules, such as 50 required jokes per every 25 chapters and only one "said" per every 10 statements, with the rest using gems like "exclaimed," "gasped" and, a personal favorite, "chortled."

not having read the book club books (one hardy boys, one nancy drew) i can't state this from experience, but i understand that this does something to explain the quality ("quality") of the books. i am also told that the moral of said books is to be slender, with nice legs and things will work out just fine.

precisely what our young people need to hear, no?

and, while we are on the topic of factory writing, i just read this headline:

prince harry's nude photos endear him, royal expert says

factory or not, coming up with headlines like that seems like the perfect writing job to me.

you can thank me later

here is just a little treat to send you into the weekend, namely 11-year-old ryan gosling (and his sister) performing a truly ah-mazing dance routine at none other than a mormon talent show.





honestly, i cannot get enough of this video. his mischievous grin? his smooth moves (see: pelvis thrusting)? his oversized silk shirt? it slays me.

it's pretty easy to see how that kind turned into this dude.

the only mystery left is one posed by my friend heathergirl: how did we lose him?

root, root, root for the home team

it was mormon night at the nationals tonight, so AWD and i headed to the ballpark to watch the home team defeat the atlanta braves.

the game was OK, but the stormy sunset sky was spectacular.

the babe with the power

dear neighborhood of rosslyn,

many thanks for hosting an "i love the 80s" outdoor film festival so amanda and i could enjoy this slice of movie wonder.

sincerely,

the girl who screamed when david bowie came on the screen

p.s. next time can you bring enough free chips for everyone? thanks so much!

dear david bowie,

you are awesome.

the end.

sincerely,

the girl who screamed when you came on the screen

p.s. also, thanks for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UoG-xQ9Lqc

dine in

if you ever come and visit me in d.c. (or should i say when?) i will take you here.

(if you live in d.c., we totally have to go here.)

it is a magical place where you can eat diner food, like say, a club sandwich with onion rings and a milkshake, and watch a movie at the same time, all while sitting in a charming enclosed patio.

emily and i enjoyed a little artery clogging and "sleepless in seattle" on friday night.

next time i think you should enjoy it with me, too.

idolize 2.0

let it be known that david archuleta fan(atic)s are among the most fervent you will ever meet.

they scream louder than you have ever heard in your life. (their dads all wear ear plugs.)

they chant, clap their hands and sing along.

they cry tears of unadulterated joy (as evidenced by the girl sitting behind us), while repeating with almost manic ardor, "ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh."

some of these fans are moms.

they move en masse, trailing gleeful squeals and giggles.

they snap up merchandise at alarming rates. (i was tempted to procure a t-shirt of my very own. but not tempted enough.)

some of these fans are you friend neil, try as he might to deny it. (if you think you spot a friend at a david archuleta concert, just send him a text. when you see him open his phone a few seconds later you'll know it's him, even though he'll try to tell you that it's not. then he'll try to blame it on his little sister.)

now, not to go all mrs. robinson here, but i think i get it. david archuleta is straight-up darling. he's just so happy to be here, back home and he can't believe the crowd. i mean, wow, you guys! he wants to take your picture. he bounces around the stage in his white sneakers and hoodie and sings so earnestly about all his nights alone without your love. and even though you know he can't possibly have any idea what that's really like, he's just so darn cute, it doesn't matter.

and, though he's not a lyrical or musical genius (let's remember, "this crush ain't goin' away"), his tunes are clean and catchy. and i am not ashamed to say that i danced.

in short, if i were a 12-year-old, i would totally tap that.

idolize

let it be known that i have never watched a full episode of "american idol." i prefer my reality TV to be of the humiliating and devastating dating variety, thankyouverymuch.

but, let is also be known that tonight i am off to a david archuleta concert, because i don't think it is ever a good idea to pass up free tickets to anything, especially not to concerts put on by an aw-shucks, squeaky-clean "idol" sensastion who finished last season as runner-up but still, apparently, can draw a crowd. especially here in his home state of zion.

just between us, i am a little terrified, given my nearly paralyzing fear of tweens, who will surely be out in force. i feel like every time i see a tween or teen they think to themself, "i am way cooler than that girl." and they are probably right. though sarah points out that they will probably be so busy texting eachother and taking pictures on their phones, they won't even notice i am there.

plus, i am a total sucker for lyrics like, "i know this crush ain't goin' away" and general teen angst. click here if you dare see what you're missing.

be still my beating heart. (and yours, too. no?)

thorny

{boo! hiss!}

once upon a time i lived with boys. we will call them reed and carid, because those are their names. and those boys loved "the bachelor."

no joke.

they loved "the bachelor" with a love that is true. certainly with a love truer than anyone actually on "the bachelor" has ever experienced. every monday night there the three of us were, camped out on the couch (usually with a bunch of ice cream), watching the train wreck (so awful but can't. look. away.) that is reality tv dating.

i am pretty sure the season we watched was the one with dr. travis stork, though it also might have been "the bachelor: an officer and a gentleman" with andy baldwin. they all sort of run together. (though i know for sure it wasn't the one with the fake italian prince.) i do have a very clear memory of reed being really upset when the bachelor made out with five girls in one episode. i think the conversation went something like this:

reed: dude! that is just not classy.

me: seriously? welcome to the premise of the show. looking for love on tv is not classy.

reed: well, i wouldn't go that far.

sadly, i don't live with the boys anymore, and it is sad mostly because they always took out the garbage. and because i would really love to know what they thought of the finale of this season of "the bachelor." (i guess i could call them and ask, but i would feel sort of dumb. how could i feel any more dumb about calling them than i do about writing a whole blog post about "the bachelor," you ask? well, that's a good question.)

for those of you just returning from some sort of media hibernation, this season's bachelor, jason, turned out to be a total tool and proposed to melissa but then changed his mind six weeks later, dumped her on national television and went after runner-up molly, who decided to take him back with alarming rapidity. (check out my favorite recounting of the events here. there is also a pretty great jimmy kimmel interview with the beep-hole bachelor here.)

to quote reed, "dude! that is just not classy."

not that i should be expecting much from people who go on tv to find true love, of course, but i did find the whole thing rather infuriating. mostly, i think, because this selfish, leave-every-door-open compulsion is a pernicious presence in real life, non-tv dating as well, and it makes me so mad i could just spit meaningless neil lane diamond rings. you just don't get take-backs on stuff like that. you don't get to say, "i love you, i love you, i love you with all my heart" and then turn around to "follow your heart" somewhere else.

to quote jen: "he didn't follow his heart. he followed his weiner."

do you hear me, jason? if i meet you in real life, i will ignore you. and i mean it.

all of that said, though, it wasn't totally depressing. partly because it's just tv and it doesn't really matter. (easier said than done, my friends.) but mostly because, as we watched tv-true love go down in flames on the screen, we were stuffing jen's wedding invitations. solid proof that, in real life, real true love triumphs.

satisfaction

i have a theory that my family didn't start doing cool things until after i left home. this isn't actually true, but it is true that they continue to do cool things without me, which always makes me sort of mad. not that they can help it, of course, but it doesn't seem fair that they get to meet al gore, or take an alien tour in roswell, or go to a rolling stones concert without me. because, you know, i wanna go, too.

i feel like things have evened out a little bit though, thanks to my recent viewing of "shine a light," a really fantastic documentary about the stones (or, as they say in spain, los rolling). watching the movie is basically like being in the front row of a stones concert, so nana-nana-boo-boo there, plus the movie also features martin scorsese engaging totally awesome conversations like this:

assistant: mick can only be under the lights for like 18 seconds before he burns.
marty: burns? what do you mean, burns? like flames?
assistant: yes, burning flames.
marty: well, that won't work. we can't burn mick jagger.

true fact.

there's also tons of really great (and hilarious) archival footage of old stones shows and interviews. plus, it's educational. i mean, mick jagger and his skeletal frame are basically a walking PSA about the dangers of eating disorders/lifetime heroin use.

and, as if it could get any better, my bag of rock n' roll swag from the salt lake film center included this.




yes, it is exactly what you think it is.

take home message? even rockers put safety first.

i've got soul and you can be my soldier

{editor's note: i have some good news and some bad news. the good news is, through the magic of this here interweb, the killers have caught wind of this here blog post. (swoon! sigh!) the bad news is, they have requested (somewhat unreasonably, if you ask me) that the pictures be taken down until the video is released. because i would kiss any one of them on the lips, i have reluctantly agreed. but, in more good news, the pictures will be back as soon as the video drops, which i believe is happening on sept. 22. in the meantime, my stunning and witty prose is still available for your reading pleasure.}


dear the killers:

(aka: brandon flowers, lead singer/hottie; dave keuning, guitar/vegetarian; mark stoermer, bass/curly hair-conscious; and ronnie vannuci, drums/fan of the ladies)

i just wanted to write a quick note and let you know how much sallee and i enjoyed working on your music video shoot over the weekend.

we were a little panicked when we almost ran out of gas on our way, but luckily we stumbled upon the (literally) hole in the wall gas station (literally) just in time. i bet you passed it, too, but you were probably asleep on the tour bus.

preparing food and snacks for 50 hungry people (sometimes more) was something of a challenge as we have no catering experience, and the facilities were, ahem, less than desirable. (just for the record, RV kitchens are not made for bulk and cooking usually goes better with running water.)

some of your grips were a little mean about our efforts at first (and, by the way, you might want to tell them that nipple rings are kind of gross), but we won over even the crankiest ones by the end. (frankly, your cinematographer was the worst. i don't care if he did shoot "jurassic park.") and it looked like you enjoyed our culinary delights, especially sallee's authentic north carolina barbecue beef, as well, (hope your portobello mushrooms were also delicious, dave!), even if the whole operation was a little more "down home" than usual, as ronnie put it.

i can see why your tour manager said you guys are a 10 on a niceness scale of 1 to 10. ronnie even remembered my name (though my exhortation to put on sunscreen went unheeded), and mark gave us a big "thank you" when he passed us hauling a massive cooler full of water down to the set. i bet mark wouldn't even be mad if he knew that sallee found his guitar pick in the bathroom and we kept it, even when someone came over the radio and asked if anyone had a pick he could use because his went "missing." (we figured someone who could pay $10,000 for one of the original light sabers used in the "star wars" movies could probably afford to buy a new one. but, mark, if you really need it, i'll send it back. i'll just have to take it out of the frame.)

and brandon, we exchanged a few words and i caught you watching us with, was it fascination?, on many ocassions, but you never came over for a proper conversation. i would have initiated something more substantive than passing comments about cookies if i wasn't so intimidated by the "no soliciting the band" rule. and the feathers on your suit jacket. if you had come over, we could have talked about this whole i'm-an-active-mormon-but-i-smoke-and-drink-sometimes thing. i also heard you drop the f-bomb. you can do better than that, flowers! (call me!)

i know it was a long, hot day for everyone (having the set in the middle of the desert, at the bottom of a steep canyon, probably seemed like a good idea at some point, right? just not when you were hiking up and down in polyester leopard print) but i think the video is going to look awesome!

i am guessing all the european tourists who tried to steal our water think so, too. it was totally fun to watch you guys rocking out down there. i just wish i had more pictures of our time together. but, i get it. closed set, celebrity privacy and all that. (though i am pretty sure a couple from florida wearing socks with their sandals got some of your performance on tape before the park ranger shut them down. you might want to watch out for that.)

the thing i am most sad about, though, is that none of you ever got to ride in the helicopter. aaron, the pilot, was so nice to take us on a little spin once the shooting was done, and it was truly unbelievable. sort of like riding a motorcycle in the air. if you get another chance (and you seem like the kind of guys who can make stuff happen) i highly recommend it.

in the meantime, good luck with the rest of your european tour and the new cd and all that. if you're ever in the area and looking for a mean dutch oven cobbler, you know where to find me. (i wrote it in lipstick on the tour bus mirror.) (not really.)

until next time!
(i love you!)
frances

wednesday wishing well

it is currently my fondest, fondest dream that a scene like this would unfold at my office. or at the grocery store. or on my front lawn. or anywhere else where i could see it. and maybe even join in.

so say we all

this blog has been pretty light on the soul-baring confessional, but i am about to make a big share, so everyone get ready. it's time for me to just get it out there. i am addicted to "battlestar galactica."

there. i said it. i am addicted to the spaceships-and-robots, possible-end-of-humanity, purveyor-of-mystical-religious-dogma, sci-fi wonder that is "battlestar galactica." and, believe me, i am just as shocked as you. baffled, really. still completely mystified that i am drawn to my television like a junkie to crack, watching hours of episodes on end. i even went to the video store on a sunday-- a sunday!-- to rent the first disc of season two, because i couldn't stand to have the season one finale cliffhanger unsolved a moment longer. i know, i know. i probably need an intervention. but since i have brought my roommates down with me, i don't think there's much hope for any of us.

the catalyst for this downward spiral into science fiction obsession was chris, who told me for ages how awesome the show was. and i, as you might expect, dismissed it out of hand as something ridiculous that i would never like. but, it only took watching the pilot episode before i was depriving myself of sleep, night after night, to watch just one more episode, thinking of the galactica crew as my friends and family (especially dream-yacht lee adama), and worrying about possible cylon double-agents in my midst (those would be robots programmed to perfectly approximate human behavior until they are activated to carry out some deadly mission against humanity. don't judge me. please). i knew i was in deep when someone pointed out the constellation orion to me one night and i blurted out, with no thought at all, "orion points the way to earth!" brother. my subsequent rattling on about the arrow of apollo and the tomb of athena (like that's supposed to make me seem less insane) most definitely did not help my case.

ashamed and confused, i have held this a little-known fact for a long time. but, as today marks the premiere of the last season of BSG (yes, i am obsessed enough to abbreviate it), i felt like i should come clean. i have actually learned to embrace this newfound part of myself. i now see "battlestar galactica" as a tool for learning and awareness. the show intelligently addresses lots of present-day issues, including terrorism and torture and military occupation and abortion. not to mention spiritual "big issues," like The One True God and forgiveness and resurrection and redemption. it's almost like going to church. almost. and, have i mentioned lee adama is totally hot?






i thought so. join me, won't you?