MUSIC!

OK everyone, this may sound like an advertisement but I just had to let everyone know of my great joy in a simple pleasure. This is the music that you now see on the right-hand side of my blog. I am so excited about it. I actually first saw it on a dear friend's blog and thought "I must have this!"

Basically you can create your own playlist of any music they can find in their database that is linked to other sites. You can't download it, but can listen whenever on-line. I'm sure half of you already knew about this eons ago, and are laughing at my ineptness. Well...FINE, I don't care. I would like to point out some of my favorite discoveries currently on my list:

1. En Vouge: If you never discovered this group in your middle-school years, (or later if you're a young whipper-snapper) I highly recommend adding a few of their songs to your playlist. I currently have my favorite "Never Gonna Get It," and need to add the classic "Free Your Mind." Lots of sass and tight harmonies. They truly are funky divas.

2. Mozart: Specifically speaking, the Queen of the Night's aria from The Magic Flute. It's like listening to vocal acrobatics and it's soooo purdy! It also brings back memories of 2nd grade when I'd make my friends listen to it with me when they'd come over. Early signs that I was a nerdy intellectual were already emerging.

3. Eva Cassidy: Amazing blues/folkish/jazz singer. If you like any of those genres, you'll LOVE her. I especially love her renditions of "Blues in the Night," "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and "Fields of Gold" in addition to about every other song she's ever done. AMAZING voice.

4. MC Solaar: French rap artist.Seriously, hearing someone rap in French, and rap well in French is incredible. I don't know much about him except that he's highly respected as an artist in France for his amazing handle on the language. Also, he's not a frog, though he is French.





Well those are the highlights so far. So go ahead, create your own playlist! Go wild!!

A day in the life of Gentlemen Broncos

So, for the last 2 weeks my husband has been working on the set of Gentlemen Broncos and invited me to come visit him one of the last days of filming. So, I decided to visit Studio 5 that night to see what could be seen and meet who could be met.

As I approached the rear of the studio, I saw a deer (stuffed) go by with rockets attached to its side and loaded into a truck. Once inside the studio (I made sure the red light was off when I entered), an actor wearing a beard that Moses would envy, was being held above the ground by a rope attached to a crane. Most of the almost 40-foot high studio was covered in green-screen. I realized how much I had underestimated the color green when I felt like I was being swallowed by it. Turning away from the plethora of bright green before me, I saw another deer, but this poor fellow had only his front half and his eyes had been replaced with little telescopes. It was a little eerie.

Finding that the deer had little to say, I found my husband-who said they were just setting up for the next shot, so it was great timing. One of the crew came up to us, and I thought "This guy sort of looks like a lost character form Napolean Dynamite." This is how the conversation ensued:

Man: Hey Nathan, is this your wife?

Hubby: Yah, this is Laurel. Laurel this is Jared.

Me: Hey! Nice to meet you (Jared....I know there's a Jared working on this film...but it's not-)

Man who is Jared Hess: Did she get a hamburger?

Hubby: Oh, she can't actually eat them so-

Jared Hess: Oh, well I ate yours then.

Me: Ha! (OK, show off how witty and charming you are) yah...well....at least it didn't go to waste! Ha, ha!

Jared: Yah, well nice to meet you.

Hubby: Wow, that was really nice, you don't always get to meet the director.

Me: Wait-that was Jared Hess? (Damn, I'm clever!)

Following that monumental conversation, my husband introduced me to the crew. Several of them seemed surprised.

Hubby: Yah, I like bringing you on set so people know I'm old enough to be married.

I then watched them film the actor being held a few feet above the green ground with his beard blowing in the fan-wind. He wasn't actually doing anything except hanging kind of limply and occasionally saying "oh yah." in an odd, relaxed sort of way. Logically, my first thought was-
"If all of civilization was destroyed and they could only find the film footage from this take-a man hanging in the wind surrounded by green-what would they think of us?"

Seriously though, what do you think it would be interpreted as?

No internet....

For all 5 of you who read this, I just wanted to say that I have not been posting of late due to a lack of internet connection at our new apartment. But fear not! I am amassing oodles of wisdom (which is the standard unit of measurement for wisdom if you didn't know) and will impart useless, but interesting, meanderings soon enough-after we and our allies (next door neighbors) actually call Comcast to set up internet. YEAH!!

If genies were still around, we'd have conference talks advising against them

You're supposed to have great ideas come to you in the shower. Here's mine from tonight...

I won't go through my entire train of thought (it would be long and bizarre), but I was thinking about if I had a genie and 3 wishes, what would I wish for? A few things came to mind: money (or at least financial security), health, and super-human powers. But then I realized that if a genie made me wealthy I probably wouldn't be able to pay tithing on it since I didn't really do anything myself to earn it, and I don't think I could justify the genie as an investment.

As for the health, I think being disabled by chronic fatigue has really humbled and made me happier for the things I can still do. If the genie by-passed that I would probably be superficial and catty with 10 pairs of uggs in my closet and really, really, bad blond extensions.

The super-powers would just be cool, but really, this isn't a cosmic-genie, more like a household one.

Speaking of household genies, (which is what I decided they were since this is my mind) there-in lies the problem. They aren't super-power genies that can conquer nations, but rather can only help individuals in their personal ambitions that don't directly affect the agency of others. So of course good members of the church get a hold of one and think 'hey, this is a fast fix to the top!' only to find out that they don't know anything once they get there because they skipped the whole journey thing....

This would lead to general conference talks addressing the fact that none of us can find a quick-fix to success and we should avoid such pitfalls. A few years later, a general authority would specifically mention that we should avoid genies, witches and sprites and there would be much debate on if this is actual doctrine or up to the individual since only witches are mentioned in the scriptures specifically. A few years later the church would publish in the Bishop's handbook the need to council members away from any non-human creatures found in Fairy Tales, the Arabian Nights or folk-lore. Soon after this you'll have a flood of Ensign stories about women who promised their first-born children to trolls or other creatures in return for eternal beauty or losing their pregnancy weight, only to realize that it wasn't such a good trade after all. The only way to break their hold is to find a funny name in the scriptures and say it to them.

After all the Disney movies and bed-time stories you think we'd learn, but we're just so stubborn....

The problem with "Cool Corruption"

So a quick thought from the recent Vegas trip:
While standing at the Bellagio fountains to film a little parody for Divine Comedy, I thought about the film Ocean's 11. I mean it's cool that such nice, attractive guys like Brad Pitt, George Clooney and that cute Cockney guy swiped millions of dollars from the mean, unattractive casino owner, right? He stole George's wife, hires goons to beat people up, and puts enough oil in his hair to supply a fast-food chain, so we know he's awful. But the problem is, the movie never shows the after-math of this ingenious heist. I mean, sure these 11 peeps (well 12) got millions, but what about all the employees of the casino? The Casino's investors and investments and all the people they employ? Can you imagine how many lay-offs resulted from this theft?

The problem is, George and Brad are just so dang cute and charming that they probably could have robbed a safe full of babies and we would have cheered, though mostly because babies don't keep well in safes. However, my point is that the movie paints the corrupt heroes in such a positive light and the bad-guy in such a negative, dark light (but not a black light-that would make people associate him with coolness and the Blue Man Group) that anything they did was rooted-for by us. So this question I pose to my dear friends... If you could pick the title and subject for another totally different Ocean's installment, what would it be?

UT is addicted to 80's music

I'm sure I'm not the first to notice that BYU and UT Valley as a whole seems to have this nostalgia for the past-be it in hairstyles or building designs. In general I can enjoy hair inspired by late 70's beauty-queens, or buildings that must have been cutting-edge in 1965. However, the one thing I can't stand is the radio stations that seem to long for the 80's. When I'm in the car and feel like listening to the FM, this is what has often happens:

Hit 1-"Now you have a friend in the diamond.." Ugg.
Hit 2- Crappy techno song with an 80's-inspired beat. Blech
Hit 3- Random 80's song that was never popular but for some reason is playing. Why?
Hit 4-"University of Phoenix offers..." You send me enough spam, now you have to assault my radio waves?
Hit 5-An early 90's song that can't let go of it's 80's roots. One more station....
Hit 6- A current song that's being "retro" by sampling 80's beats/lyrics/re-doing the entire song. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Oh, and just to clarify, I don't have a problem with 80's music in general, it's just that I never hear any good 80's or 80's-sounding music on the radio. But I'm sure it's just all part of bringing back the "good old days" where we can remember a simpler time before we had heard of the "ozone layer," "video-games" or "outsourcing to 3rd-world countries." Aaaaaaaaahhh....I need to go watch the Breakfast Club.

Hip-Hop dancing makes you whiter

So this is my random thought:
Have you ever noticed that if you have little to no experience in hip-hop, then taking a class in said style actually makes you feel whiter? I seriously love hip-hop dance as well as break-dancing, step and anything related, so whenever I could take a hip-hop class (before I got too sick to do so) I jumped at the opportunity to let my bad self loose...But when my bad self (who is really a black woman much cooler than me) realizes she's stuck in a butt-less body trained in ballet and modern, she just laughs at me and leaves me to pop and lock alone with no attitude. I try and get her back with my ferocious dance faces or pretend I'm too cool to care, but it never seems to work and I'm left contemplating why Scandinavians never had the sense to develop body rhythm in their culture but instead spent their time burying fish in lye. It's one of the great mysteries my friends, but perhaps it means I have an inherent sense for lutefisk. One can only hope can't they?