I asked you a simple question! Do you love her? YES! But don't hold that against me, I'm a little screwy myself!

Thursday, May 18, 2006

In Case You've Been Consulting Dan Brown for the Dow Jones Report...

So, it turns out that Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy had a love child.

I'm serious. This is totally true.

They had a love child and now that she's grown she's working at the CIA as a top-secret undercover operative. She's fighting in far-off lands to preserve our American way of life.

Well, okay, it's not actually true. It's the plot of Ewan McGregor's trash novel in A Life Less Ordinary. But it would be cool, right? I mean, you enjoyed the story, right? The interweaving of history and fiction?

Okay, here's another one: The founding fathers of the US were all Freemasons, which is to say they were all in this secret society. And when they were doing all this stuff like setting up a democracy and voting on things and writing out documents, they were also hiding some treasure. They even put a map on the back of the Declaration of Independance (like that document didn't have enough to do).

That one is the plot of National Treasure. No, no, don't worry. It's not true either. Please, do not attempt to steal the Declaration of Independance to see the map. There are big guards and little tiny jail cells.

Try this: Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were married. They had kids. Nobody wants you to know this. There are these guys in this secret society called the Priory of Scion who are all about keeping it secret but also honoring it. Or something. Anyway, these other guys in this shady sect of the Catholic church (Opus Dei) are totally worried about the Priory of Scion hiring a DNA specialist and a PR guy to get Jesus and Mary's descendent on the talk show circuit, thereby exposing the church as a mafia-style power-mongering hoax. Or something. There's a lot of rooting around in churches for artifacts and killing of people.

Of course, this last one is the much-anticipated DaVinci Code. Now, to my knowledge, no one is out looking for the lovechild of Kennedy and Monroe. I have not heard of a rash of attempted burglaries of the Declaration of Independence. Possibly this is because nobody but me and Sam remember A Life Less Ordinary and, really, no one believes Nicolas Cage has hair, much less the key to some Masonic treasure. It is strange, however, that so many people are so freaked out by The DaVinci Code.

I'll admit, I haven't read it. I've only seen the incredibly Ron Howard-y movie, and it didn't blow my mind or anything. It is hard to understand why everyone is trying to disprove it. I mean, the History Channel is disproving it every hour on the hour for the foreseeable future. And churhes are handing out preventative pamplets that argue against it.

But, you guys? It's fiction. Dan Brown, whatever you may think of him, didn't write a newspaper article or a history book or a religious tract or anything else that might hinge on an assumption of credibility or knowable truth. And yet, when it comes down to it, people seem strangely unable to react in a rational manner to the meshing of fact and fiction.

Think back a couple of years and consider The Passion of the Christ. An interpretation of a story in the Bible brought in gory detail to the screen--and churches have private advance screenings. As much historical basis fleshed out with guesswork and dramatic touches as The DaVinci Code, but more palatable to Conservative Christians, and so they help to distribute it. Think about James Frey. He exaggerates the events of his life for his memoir (which, you know, I'm sure no one else in the world has done) and the entirety of our popular media breaks out the stones.

This leaves me with this feeling that storytelling is a misunderstood process in our culture. Perhaps the advent of "objective" newspapers and broadcast news have blinded us to the mechanics of relating a story, factual, exaggerated or otherwise. Regardless of the cause, however, the phenomenon leaves me exasperated and continually wanting to scream, "That's not the point!"

The point, of course, is not how factual a story is, but how well it is told. And for The DaVinci Code movie, the answer is...not that well. If a person sees that movie and decides to change their whole religion and start looking for descendents of Jesus, they deserve what they get. The theories about Jesus and Mary Magdalene are interesting and seem plausible enough to me. But I could cobble together a theory that Jesus and Peter were lovers and make it seem just as plausible while at the same time being more offensive to the Catholic church and less flattering to feminists. When your source material comes from that long ago and has been through so many judgmental hands, there's no way to be certain, or even pretty sure. So this all just seems like energy wasted and mountains popping out of molehills.

I prefer to spend my time and energy hacking into the CIA for the whereabouts of Sasha Kennedy-Monroe so I can tell her to stop wasting her time as a spy and become the first female president of the US. I mean, who wouldn't vote for her?

Monday, May 15, 2006

Top Ten Things That Are BETTER Than a Weekend at Alabama Shakespeare Festival

1. Finding treasure chest full of gold under the bed.
2. Winning Pulitzer Prize for essay on tadpoles written in the fifth grade.
3. Running into Johnny Depp on the street; having ice-cream lunch with him the next day.
4. Never reading about Britney Spear's pregnancies ever again.
5. Eating homemade lasagna while riding in a gondola in Venice.
6. Time travel.
7. Spending the whole day in your pajamas--also with Johnny Depp.
8. Realizing Chris Daughtry did not, in fact, get voted off "American Idol."
9. Dancing on-stage with 1980s Madonna during both "Holiday" and "Material Girl."
10. Finding autographed copy of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night next to that treasure chest. The inscription reads: "To my '06 homegirls with love. See you in the future! [Heart], W. Shakespeare." Yes!

(And they say the Red States have no culture. Check out the ASF production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" while you still can!)

Friday, May 05, 2006

I'm Wearing You Down, Baby: The Soundtrack to My Crush on Percy*

Oh, don't pretend like y'all don't daydream about your life being an hour-long drama on ABC, and there's a montage about the previous year during the opening credits, and there's a really cool font for the names of the cast members (your friends and family). And what's a scene in an hour-long drama without that perfect song, the song that expresses what the main characters feel? I call those songs Script Doctor Shorthand.

Now, then--I crafted a 23-song SDS for my mega-crush on Percy. It's the end of the school year now, though, so I have to retire that bad-boy. (Sigh.) But you, beloved Babetteers, can enjoy some highlights from "I'm Wearing You Down, Baby: The Soundtrack to My Crush on Percy":

1. Why Don't We Do It in the Road?--The Beatles
KEY LYRICS: No one will be watching us/Why don't we do it in the road?
[I've heard this song is actually about toking up, but the innuendo still works for me.]

2. Take On Me--A-Ha/Reel Big Fish
KEY LYRICS: You're shying away/I'll be coming for your love anyway.

4. No Sleep Tonight--The Faders
KEY LYRICS: So I'll just make this a little more obvious/Because I get what I want, and I want you to get with me.
[In real life--not fake ABC-drama life--I'm not so aggressive as all of this. Play-pretend is fun!]

8. El Scorcho--Weezer
KEY LYRICS: Come out in the street and dance with me!

14. Happy Meal II--The Cardigans
KEY LYRICS: Arrange my books in order/Make up some nice stories to amuse you.
[This is probably the closest to "macking" I'll ever get. Boys love books and stories, and I've got those in spades.]

15. Bohemian Like You--The Dandy Warhols
KEY LYRICS: No, I haven't heard your band 'cause you guys are pretty new.
[Percy + bass = Yum.]

20. Faded--Souldecision
KEY LYRICS: What I gotta say to you to get some play?
[I mean, damn.]

21. Something About Us--Daft Punk
KEY LYRICS: I might not be the right one/It might not be the right time/But there's something between us.

23. The Way I Feel Inside--The Zombies
KEY LYRICS: But till I can see/That you'd really care for me/I'll keep trying to hide/The way I feel inside.

My show would premiere on a Tuesday at 8:00. Tune in for the killer drama and killer-er soundtrack.

*His name totally isn't Percy. Everyone on Earth knows that.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Post-MFA Lifeplan

Hooray. I wrote a collection of short stories over a span of two years. One-hundred twenty-five pages, y'all--you can count them.

I would feel a sense of accomplishment, but, gosh, I have so many things I need to do now:

1. Teach self how to do The Lambada without a partner. The dance will only be half-forbidden now.

2. Build entire routine around "Veronica Mars" and "Veronica Mars" reruns.

3. Learn to sew. Create new wardrobe for travels in Europe.
3a. Save up for trip to Europe.
3b. Spend saved Europe funds on "Xena" DVDs.
3c. Feel shame. Give up on sewing.

4. Sit in lawn chair and read entire book.

5. Memorize entire episodes of "Firefly."
5a. Find ringtone of the opening theme.
5b. Make sweet love down by the fire with Nathan Fillion.

6. Learn to ride a bicycle.

7. Write and file elaborate plans for raising my children.
7a. Find husband.
7b. Have children.

8. Learn to cook.
8a. Get Stephanie to do all the cooking.

9. Write a novel.

As you can see, there's no rest for the weary. Catch me if you can this summer...