December 2008
2 posts
Calamity Jane
I officially love Doris Day and Howard Keel. Both. They are the stars of MGMs Calamity Jane (1953). Her sweet, effervescent rendition of the backwoodsy Calamity Jane is smirk-inspiring. One of the books I read about it said that the real Jane would roll in her grave if she saw the bubbly Day’s performance.
Little did I know that Howard Keel is apparently the go-to guy for the fronteir...
Nail Biters
Sheesh. I’ve been pounding the keyboard for weeks now with final papers and final projects. So I didn’t exactly forget to blog after Thanksgiving, it just took a backseat to my 10 pg. Hitchcock paper that is now 13.5 pages and due today and not quite polished as much as I would like. And/or the content is not AT ALL what I envisioned when I decided to write about Hitchcock’s...
November 2008
7 posts
Election
I am pleasantly surprised by the amount of people from my predominantly Caucasian, red county, Carroll County, IL, who have put their faith into a minority Democrat. That’s saying something, because racism is still a problem in small Midwest towns.
What rings loud and clear is that Obama has impressed people with his ideas on change. For people to overlook their social makeup to choose a...
Twilight
So the reason that I’m blogging so close to my bedtime is that I’ve been absolutely captivated by the Twilight series. I haven’t read something that I’m positively compelled to finish since the seventh Harry Potter last summer, so I am happy to find something new.
But that also means that I’m enjoying fewer hours of sleep, because these books are constantly...
I don't podcast
Surprise, surprise, I’m resistant to yet another form of technology. I don’t podcast because I don’t listen to my iPod except when working out. And I will always choose music over a book on tape or a podcast. I guess I like my information from a source I’m comfortable and/or satisfied with, and don’t necessarily want to change it. I can read a book myself, and am...
DIY Incubator’s first podcast, an interview...
Symbolism for Dummies
I bounced between elation and ridicule during Joel Wright’s 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice. I love the story and always have. I enjoy the Colin Firth four-hour movie version, though as a film student, I know at least an hour could have been cut. But this version both excited and disappointed me more.
Keira Knightly is an unfortunate choice for Elizabeth Bennett. Bennett’s...
Rikki's Election 2008 Experience
A Toast to Gene Kelly
Here’s to a dancer who defied gravity. Here’s to a man whose film Singin’ In the Rain became a chronicle of film’s great transition to sound. Here’s to a man who couldn’t do ballet, so instead, cobbled together his own version of acrobatic genius. Here’s to a somewhat strange tenor, whose melody was never melodic, but it was endearing. Here’s to an...
October 2008
9 posts
Multi-tasking
I like multimedia journalism online. I don’t like reading long print stories on the computer, so when I find a feature story with supplemental video/audio, I find it much more compelling than straight literary and photojournalism.
I can’t think of a specific instance to relate, other than CNN experiences, because my RCN Internet is so slow that I will forsake multimedia, and thus the...
High Noon
Once while in high school, I watched nearly all of High Noon, right up until the climax when the class ended and we never got back to finishing it. So I called up good ol’ Netflix and ordered me a western.
The film is about a frontier Marshall about to give up his gun-totin’ ways to marry the delicate Grace Kelly whose Quaker roots make violence unpalatable. Unfortunately, an outlaw...
Everyblock Skyline
One of the things I like best about my neighborhood (and apparently everyone else does as well, because most of the Everyblock hits are photos at different places and times of day) is the ready availability of the full-blown Chicago skyline. I can walk two blocks from my apartment and see the best version of it (a cut in of the sidewalk on East Roosevelt Rd). It always amazes me that man could...
Swingtime
Just as stylistic or more so than Top Hat, which was filmed only a year and a half earlier, this film made at the peak of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers duo is probably their best.
Less cutesy than Top Hat, Swingtime’s dance numbers are heartbreakingly lovely. The stakes are raised, as they are no longer dancing as a protestation of joy, but because their very existance depends on it. As...
Oct 15 Presidential Debate
I was not able to see the presidential debate, as I had a class. However, from what I read, it was no contest (although, don’t they all say that lately?)
It concerns me, however, that people are SO sure of Obama. From what I read in Chris Cillizza’s Washington Post story, Obama wasn’t nervous or flustered because “he didn’t have to be.”
I personally want my...
Top of the World
If anyone has not seen Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance together, as I had not until this morning, watch Top Hat (RKO). It’s a gorgeous film with gorgeous people. No story whatsoever, a chance mistaken identity fosters a string of funny, (yes funny, even in a musical) events.
It astounds me that Fred Astaire can be considered a romantic lead. His nearly bald head at age 30, his long,...
A Star Is Born
Judy Garland is my newest idol.
Once synonymous with Dorothy Gale, I never looked past the muffled whisperings about her life- a young death, a weight problem, a drug addiction. Like Garland who disregarded the role of Esther Smith (Meet Me In St. Louis) because it was too young for her, I disregarded her as “kid stuff.” She was nothing more or less than a bright ruby red spot in my...
Anti-social web
I don’t have much of a relationship with the social web. I get on Facebook often enough to see that the system is completely different from the last time I used it. My Myspace still has the default background from when I set it up three years ago. I don’t think I’ve changed my profile on either since I created them.
I don’t see how facebook junkies even have TIME to spend...
Bad Mornings
This morning I woke up late. Well, that’s a lie. I woke up on time, but decided to rest my eyes for just a minute more, no need to set the alarm. That never works.
So I’m scrambling around the apartment trying to find all of the things I will need for the whole day, trying to mentally pack my bags because I’m leaving for the weekend, and I realize that I never finished a second...
September 2008
10 posts
I'm a Loner
Group work frustrates me.
As much as I know it shouldn’t, that people have to work in teams, that people should get along and help each other and brainstorm and blossom, I usually hate it. Give me an enthusiastic group where no ideas are scoffed at and everybody does their share, and I’m in wholeheartedly. But so often this is not the case, though I am thrilled to say that my group...
Autumn
I found out today that a farmer my boyfriend works for will be starting harvest this week. Most would react indifferently, but I know that from now until December I’m going to be spending a lot of my time alone or riding in the cab of a tractor. Someday October will mean I’m watching my own crops be combined.
City people love the fall. The weather turns crisp and heady, the air blooms...
Internet and Impact
I was one of the unfortunate kids whose parents didn’t hop aboard the web train until I was in high school (no matter how much I begged, reasoned or pouted). So I was stuck in the dark ages for five years or more after MSN instant messager became HUGE in fourth grade. And then I had to wrestle my brother for the keyboard, a tug-of-war which soon came to resemble preschool before naptimeand I...
Roommates
Because I once again have a block about my personal blog this week, I turned to my roommate and said, “What should I blog about?”
She replied, “Blog about me.” Slightly egotistical, but yet, a viable topic.
I was one of the lucky freshman, you know, one of the situations that they said would never happen. I remember reading in the Columbia roommate handbook that...
“So I was once myself a swinger of birches
And so I dream of going back to be.”
– Robert Frost
X marks the spot
With the bankruptcy of yet another bank weighing heavily on my mind, I am considering (not seriously) about withdrawing all of my money out of the bank and burying coffee cans in my backyard. With interest rates so low my cash isn’t making any money anyway, this just seems like the wisest maneuver.
At the same time, being historically savvy I know that this could only make the bank...
Blogging
I thought I would start this blog off correctly by relating my personal relationship with this sport. I have done it, only when pressed to do so by technologically savvy teachers. I’m just a little skeptical that anyone would really be interested in any random thing that I have to say about my personal life- which, by the way, is sooooo interesting you should be hanging on the edge of your...
Changing Journalism
I am concerned about the changing face of journalism, I will admit. Though I do not have a writing concentration, I am interested in copy editing. I’m concerned that displaced writers will become editors to pay the bills, and their experience will most definitely trump mine. Every time writers are laid off, I question once again why I chose this career path. I think only being versed in...
Hello.
Hi, I’m Rikki. Nice to meet you.