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Mar. 22nd, 2003 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksJ-chan, I mailed your CDs this afternoon, so please let me know when they get there-- the guy said he had no idea how long it would take as 'all international mail can be weird right now' but thought maybe about a week.
Now accepting nominations for next semester's Friday night film series: Movies That Warped Us Unspeakably In Childhood. I am defining childhood here as before thirteen years old, and I don't want movies that warped people based on the old standard phobias, horror movies seen too young that have caused you to twitch ever since at the sight of power tools or that sort of thing. No, I want the movies we all sat up bolt upright over years later and said, wow, that was actually amazing, the movies that scared us silly at the time and then we noticed years later had crept into our bloodstreams, infiltrated our belief systems, and caused us to become the deranged people we are today. I want the movies we insisted on watching sixteen times in a row until the tape wore out and then quoted lines from incessantly until our parents had the script memorized too despite trying not to listen. And I want you to list these movies for me even if you aren't a person who is here at BMC and will be watching them with us, because I want to see the movies that made you all the insane people I know and love.
My list (I'm sure there will be overlap):
The Aristocats. When I was three or four or five, I was a tom cat, baby. An alley cat, I was, and there was a short while on the playground of my preschool when I ran faster than anybody, climbed higher than anybody, played rougher than anybody, and made the boys stop bullying the girls who had to wear little frilly dresses, which latter fact was directly responsible for the first time I ever got to kiss a girl (she'd seen TV and she knew how to thank people who stopped other people from bothering her). This was a better presage of the way my mind would work in years to come than any other one I can think of. Pity first grade convinced me I was human.
The Last Unicorn. I woke up at three AM at a slumber party when I was about ten to find that this had just come on the TV, which had been left running on mute. I watched the whole thing in silence and was in bed by five AM. It played like the most beautiful dream I'd ever had, and, frankly, it still does.
The Dark Crystal. I watched this at a New Year's party, of all places. My dreamscape has never been the same.
Labyrinth.
Return to Oz. Possibly the single most truly strange children's movie ever made, which is saying something. Scary as all get out, too.
The Care Bears in Wonderland. Don't ask. Just... don't ask.
The Adventures of Baren Munchausen. Terry Gilliam is, in fact, God.
Hello, Dolly. You can't tell me that a movie which causes someone to go on a four-year Barbra Streisand movie kick doesn't qualify as serious mind-warp. I have seen this movie seventeen times. Fourteen of them were in the same month. I was a very odd thirteen-year-old.
Grease. It had sex in it. I was traumatized. And every single girl in my seventh grade class knew every single word to every single one of the songs, which was and remains scarier.
So send me movie recs.
As to my actual life, it goes well. The Jim Henson Tea was lovely, and the Witches' Collective did a really nice equinox ritual. They are somewhat more formal than the groups I have worked with in the past, but they manage to maintain a non-hierarchical structure, which is a Good Thing, and I must say I find the whole chalice-and-blade cast-four-quarters ritual-dress aspect of paganism both fun and in many ways genuinely meaningful. I like symbolism. It is fun to play with and has powerful effects on the mind. And nobody there is of the annoying type who insist that everybody pick one pantheon, or one deity, or make sure to invoke the male principle, or make sure not to invoke the male principle, or wear white or black or nothing or everyone the same thing. I used to get so much flack in high school for calling myself a lightside practitioner and wearing black to rituals. I like black, though if I ever find the right shade of gray I will probably switch to that for religious practice. So there is a coven, and it is a good thing, and they understand how solitaries usually work to such a great extent that if I don't show up they don't get mad and if I do they're thrilled to see me. This is how religion ought to work. Happy.
And the smells outside have all changed to spring and life and mud and things growing and decay. It's in spring I realize how much my sense of smell is wasted in winter, because in winter all there is to smell is the weather and the people around, whereas this time of year there are a thousand thousand scents on the air and just sitting here at the computer with the window open I can smell wet grass and wet earth and yesterday's rain and mushrooms growing and the geese outside and the fox who lives in the woods out back and snoops around the lawn, and I can feel the wind change in the back of my throat. It really is like coming back to life again; my nose is at least half of the information I gather about the world, and I've come to realize that one of the things I hate about, say, New York City is that I have to shut down my sense of smell in self-defense. (It's a peculiar blind spot that I can't smell myself, or my own scent on anything. But I've tried tracking other people through crowds before by smell alone and it worked.) So I feel much, much better in many ways than I did all winter. Purr.
Now accepting nominations for next semester's Friday night film series: Movies That Warped Us Unspeakably In Childhood. I am defining childhood here as before thirteen years old, and I don't want movies that warped people based on the old standard phobias, horror movies seen too young that have caused you to twitch ever since at the sight of power tools or that sort of thing. No, I want the movies we all sat up bolt upright over years later and said, wow, that was actually amazing, the movies that scared us silly at the time and then we noticed years later had crept into our bloodstreams, infiltrated our belief systems, and caused us to become the deranged people we are today. I want the movies we insisted on watching sixteen times in a row until the tape wore out and then quoted lines from incessantly until our parents had the script memorized too despite trying not to listen. And I want you to list these movies for me even if you aren't a person who is here at BMC and will be watching them with us, because I want to see the movies that made you all the insane people I know and love.
My list (I'm sure there will be overlap):
The Aristocats. When I was three or four or five, I was a tom cat, baby. An alley cat, I was, and there was a short while on the playground of my preschool when I ran faster than anybody, climbed higher than anybody, played rougher than anybody, and made the boys stop bullying the girls who had to wear little frilly dresses, which latter fact was directly responsible for the first time I ever got to kiss a girl (she'd seen TV and she knew how to thank people who stopped other people from bothering her). This was a better presage of the way my mind would work in years to come than any other one I can think of. Pity first grade convinced me I was human.
The Last Unicorn. I woke up at three AM at a slumber party when I was about ten to find that this had just come on the TV, which had been left running on mute. I watched the whole thing in silence and was in bed by five AM. It played like the most beautiful dream I'd ever had, and, frankly, it still does.
The Dark Crystal. I watched this at a New Year's party, of all places. My dreamscape has never been the same.
Labyrinth.
Return to Oz. Possibly the single most truly strange children's movie ever made, which is saying something. Scary as all get out, too.
The Care Bears in Wonderland. Don't ask. Just... don't ask.
The Adventures of Baren Munchausen. Terry Gilliam is, in fact, God.
Hello, Dolly. You can't tell me that a movie which causes someone to go on a four-year Barbra Streisand movie kick doesn't qualify as serious mind-warp. I have seen this movie seventeen times. Fourteen of them were in the same month. I was a very odd thirteen-year-old.
Grease. It had sex in it. I was traumatized. And every single girl in my seventh grade class knew every single word to every single one of the songs, which was and remains scarier.
So send me movie recs.
As to my actual life, it goes well. The Jim Henson Tea was lovely, and the Witches' Collective did a really nice equinox ritual. They are somewhat more formal than the groups I have worked with in the past, but they manage to maintain a non-hierarchical structure, which is a Good Thing, and I must say I find the whole chalice-and-blade cast-four-quarters ritual-dress aspect of paganism both fun and in many ways genuinely meaningful. I like symbolism. It is fun to play with and has powerful effects on the mind. And nobody there is of the annoying type who insist that everybody pick one pantheon, or one deity, or make sure to invoke the male principle, or make sure not to invoke the male principle, or wear white or black or nothing or everyone the same thing. I used to get so much flack in high school for calling myself a lightside practitioner and wearing black to rituals. I like black, though if I ever find the right shade of gray I will probably switch to that for religious practice. So there is a coven, and it is a good thing, and they understand how solitaries usually work to such a great extent that if I don't show up they don't get mad and if I do they're thrilled to see me. This is how religion ought to work. Happy.
And the smells outside have all changed to spring and life and mud and things growing and decay. It's in spring I realize how much my sense of smell is wasted in winter, because in winter all there is to smell is the weather and the people around, whereas this time of year there are a thousand thousand scents on the air and just sitting here at the computer with the window open I can smell wet grass and wet earth and yesterday's rain and mushrooms growing and the geese outside and the fox who lives in the woods out back and snoops around the lawn, and I can feel the wind change in the back of my throat. It really is like coming back to life again; my nose is at least half of the information I gather about the world, and I've come to realize that one of the things I hate about, say, New York City is that I have to shut down my sense of smell in self-defense. (It's a peculiar blind spot that I can't smell myself, or my own scent on anything. But I've tried tracking other people through crowds before by smell alone and it worked.) So I feel much, much better in many ways than I did all winter. Purr.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-03-22 08:01 pm (UTC)But in spring, you get the distinct smell of dead worms, which always makes me feel of elementary school, and sometimes makes me cry. You find yourself ten paces away from flowers, breathing in smell you have not yet found a source for. And you again smell the running water.
My smell smells like I think it ought to; I have been searching for years for something I saw that was like a perfume stick which only enhanced your body's natural scent. It was fasicnating in that each of us who wore it ended up smelling like the perfumes we would have used anyway.
My nominations: The Brave Little Toaster. Animated The Hobbit. The Grinch Halloween Special. Watership Down. Both Oz Movies. The aforementioned Alice. Kotik the White Seal. Probably a few more I will get upon rummaging through my collection of old videos at home, or once I think of them. A TV episode stands out in my mind as beautiful and brilliant--an early Nickelodeon offering with two pastel koala bears who could move through dreams, specifically an episode about Australia (?)..but that will probably not be find-able.
And One More Comment...
Date: 2003-03-22 08:24 pm (UTC)Don't ask me. I was just five.
Re: And One More Comment...
Date: 2003-03-22 08:29 pm (UTC)Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
no subject
Date: 2003-03-22 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-22 10:16 pm (UTC)YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!!! Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!!!!!
And now, for warpy movies. Watership Down. I saw it when I was in second grade, and saw it every year from second grade until 5th, because they showed it at my school. I loved it to bits and punced on the book the first time I saw the book in a library, even though it took me a whole week to read (I was 10, give me a break). And definitely, it had an effect--look at how I write now!
God, I miss that book. I need to buy a copy of it when I got to Tokyo next. They had it at Kinokuniya.
Another one is "The Plague Dogs." It was based on another book by the same guy as did Watership Down. Only that one, like, seriously traumatized me. The opening sequence is a dog being made to swim until he physically can't anymore and has to be dragged out with a hook, to the sound of gospel music "I can't feel no pain no more/I'm goin' home/Where I belong/No I don't feel no pain no more." It's all about two dogs that have been experimented on in a lab, and escape, trying to find their promised land. One of them has a phobia of water (quelle surprise) and the other hallucinates about his dead master who was killed saving him from bneing hit by a car randomly because his brain was experimented on.
*blink blink* But it's very telling that my favorite animated movie from my childhood was "Watership Down." Mind you, I only saw a few, 'cause mom didn't take me to the movies or rent movies very often, and I was entertained reading the encyclopedia and the children's Bible Stories books (very pretty watercolor pictures). Wow. I should actually be far more warped than I am, actually...
no subject
Date: 2003-03-23 04:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-23 06:24 am (UTC)Hmm. I'm not really sure there are any, to be honest. Mostly because I didn't watch all that many movies as a kid. The closest thing I could think of would be that episode of Star Trek (TOS) with that wierd freaky floating-head thing.
no subject
Date: 2003-03-23 02:39 pm (UTC)ANd the Muppets, though I don't think "warp" is the right word for what muppets do.
And I still say you are a DAMN sexy alley cat.
Love.
Ruth.
no subject
Date: 2003-03-24 03:56 pm (UTC)