Pamela Ribon is an author, screenwriter, actor, and Wonder Killer. This is her diary. Sort of.

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Daniel J. Blau writes musicals, recaps for TWoP, and travels back and forth between New York and LA because he's just that cosmopolitan.

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Tuesday, September 16, 2003

a high incidence of incidentally

Incidentally, Stephen Colbert is the funniest man in the history of television.

Incidentally, I’ve been officially Friendster-free for ten full days. And not one person has noticed.

Also, incidentally? This hurricane isn't going to TOUCH us. So everyone just. Calm. Down.

# posted by Daniel : 9:11 PM

book I'm allegedly reading

I've been on every plane in America.

Thank you, Pamela, for the greatest time of my young (shut up, I'm young) life. I'm exhausted, disheveled, laundry-less (well, the clean kind), in possession of a new job, and completely unsure as to where I am at any given moment. But LA was the most fun, and I'm glad for its existence. And I'm glad I'm home. And I'm glad that LA feels like my home as well. Look at me, all 14,000 Things To Be Happy About. Also, puppies and lollipops and fresh peanut chews! Sorry. Perhaps I'll balance out the karma of the universe and tell you in the next paragraph a lot of things that kind of suck.

Oh look, the next paragraph.

Okay. A story. My friend Miranda once called me "the single most impatient person [she's] ever met in [her] life, ever. Ever." Then she paused. And then she thought about it. And then she added "ever." The suspense of waiting for that final, punctuated, completing-the-rule-of-threes "ever" damn near killed me. And it made me very strongly agree with her assessment of my patience, compared to that of the rest of the universe.

And, I mean, it's kind of true. I like it when people answer the phone after one ring. Or fewer, if possible. I take the lack of an idling train waiting for me when I arrive at the subway track as a personal affront against me, nature, and logic. I don't ever understand where the cable guy is when he's not at my house, fixing my cable. I like things done.

There is, however, one notable exception.

I have patience for crappy books. And I read a lot of them, I think. Yes, I read classics. But also, I read trash. I'm kind of a whore to the bestseller list, and I'm not above admitting that The Devil Wears Prada is about me and that I loved The DaVinci Code because I think it's a stunning testament to literature that a writer can effectively describe a really kick-ass car chase. I'd never read a book with a car chase in it! And now I have. I slogged all the way through Atonement, the most Anglophile-friendly overwrought pomp since "Champagne Supernova," a book in which the narrative gaze seems to freeze permanently on an alabaster fountain, and the only action that gets described is that which inadvertently wanders in front of said fountain. I read The Corrections in three days and loved it, and I read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay in three months and loved it. The only thing I didn't like about the book of The Hours was the bittersweet sadness I felt every time I read a word, knowing that I would never have the chance to read that word for the first time ever, ever again. I don't lose patience with any book. I'm amazed that people can write books at all.

There is, however, one notable exception.

I cannot finish Life of Pi. Have you read this book? One of my very best friends in the world (and my eighth-grade lab partner…well, my former eighth-grade lab partner) told me I had to read it. And I am reading it. And I'm glad I am. Except. Well, this isn't a spoiler (and it probably doesn't matter if it is or not…I feel like if you haven't heard of the book by now, you're never going to read it. AND IT'S NOT LIKE THEY'RE GOING TO MAKE IT INTO A MOVIE BECAUSE OF THAT ONE PART WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS), but sometimes kind of nothing happens. And sometimes things TOTALLY happen. Sometimes a Bengal tiger devours the entire stomach of a still-living zebra. But then, sometimes, this:

"It was the gaffs that finally proved to be my most valuable fishing equipment. They came in three screw-in pieces: two tubular sections that formed the shaft -- one with a moulded plastic handle at its end and a ring for securing the gaff with a rope -- and a head that consisted of a hook measuring about two inches across its curve and ending in a needle-sharp, barbed point. Assembled, each gaff was about five feet long." (p. 194)

"I would wait. I would wait for hours." (ibid.)

My epic patience is being tested. But it's supposed to change my life, so they say. So I'll keep you posted. Why do I stop so abruptly? I lack the patience to continue.

# posted by Daniel : 9:06 PM

My Ex-Boyfriend David Blaine's Making Such an Ass of Himself

Oh, to be in London right now. I've never been prouder. And how not surprised am I that Harmony Korine is the jag behind this mess?

If anybody goes down there, please send photos. I love this story.

# posted by pamie : 10:35 AM

More like CabOUT Fever.... (sorry).

The blog wasn't updated yesterday! That hasn't happened in the history of the blog. Sorry, neglected, young blog. Sorry.

I'm rather swamped with work this week, and spent four consecutive hours yesterday on the phone with meetings, so I ran out of blog-time. And I was wrong about Chris' birthday, which was yesterday and not Sunday. Which means when I called to wish him a belated, I was actually right on time. What a great friend am I.

I thought you'd appreciate this review of the book I received today: "I enjoyed the book -- though it's flawed and not really my cup of tea."

In other words, "I liked it, even though I shouldn't have."

So Once Upon A Time in Mexico: yay. But as I've told everyone, you can't put Johnny Depp in a Robert Rodriguez movie and have me not like it.

But then we saw Cabin Fever. Good golly, that's a bad movie. Please see 28 Days Later for all your flesh-eating virus movies. Because instead of this virus making you want to kill, it just makes you sleepy. Therefore there's nothing to run from, nothing to hide from, and so the kids just yell and accuse each other of things, in between having sex with each other in ways that don't let you see any nudity except for the one girl who apparently wasn't allowed to ever wear a stitch of clothes the entire film. Because she was "the slut." And in case we couldn't figure that out on our own, they called her that a few times.

The script is filled with gem lines like, "What the fuck is your fucking problem, you fucking bitch? Why are you so gay?" It seemed to not know if it wanted to be a comedy, a satire, a straight horror movie or some kind of statement on race relations. It also didn't care if we understood why the screen turns red every once in a while, or how a "deserted" town can have hundreds of people, a hospital, a jail and several well-built homes all next to one "secluded" cabin. I was sure after Party Monster that I'd at least appreciate every film I saw for the next week, but I'd gladly sit through Culkin and Green's NancyDance Fiesta one more time before I'd see the mentally-offensive Cabin Fever again.

# posted by pamie : 10:26 AM

archives

if (location.href.indexOf("archive")!=-1) document.write("<br><strong><a href=\"http://www.pamie.com/\">Current Posts</a></strong></br>");

Tuesday, September 16, 2003

a high incidence of incidentally

book I'm allegedly reading

My Ex-Boyfriend David Blaine's Making Such an Ass of Himself

More like CabOUT Fever.... (sorry).