Pieces Video Log 1: Meet the Cast

myTunes: Soldier by Hanson

First, I would like to make an announcement:  If you're already laughing at me...you can just click your little back button and back off.  Hanson is awesome.  They always have been.  And until they get abducted by aliens and are altered in such a way that they are no longer themselves in any way, shape, or form...they will always continue to be awesome.

If you weren't already aware of their amazingness...you'll get no judgement from me.  I am not here to judge you but to educate you.  Ignorance isn't always the fault of the individual.  (But if you have read this far already, you no longer have any excuse for any further naivete on your part, at least when it comes to the subject of Hanson and their awesomeness.)

I will even grant you this...you may have heard Hanson before (who hasn't?  Except for those people that have been living under rocks that are being exploited by the new Geiko commercial) and thought that you didn't like them.  A poor life choice?  I'm gonna go with "probably yes."  But we all make those every once in a while.  I, myself, had salt and vinegar potato chips and Sour Patch Kids for breakfast.  Yes...I do have a fault or two...but I try to keep them under wraps for the most part so as not to alarm the lot of you.  (It should be noted that I was too weak to cook anything and those two regrettable items were out on the coffee table.  So at least I have an excuse for eating them...buying them?  No.)

Anyway, here's your chance to understand the truth: Hanson is great.  I would go into all of the reasons...but I honestly haven't the time to do so right now.  So if you're going to sit around and be a pouting doubting Thomas, then you can just go listen to the JoBros and live in the darkness of musical unawareness.

So here's the deal, when I was home at my parents' house for part of Spring Break, I grabbed some of my old CDs to put them back into my iTunes library (after having lost my music).  When doing a Google Image search for the album art for 3 Car Garage, the album cover did not show up until the sixth page of results.  This is a sad day.  It's kind of a rare record, I know.  But still.  It was the first CD I ever bought myself (my first CD ever was Abbey Road).  It's a great CD.  The world needs to know about it.

Soldier has always been one of my favorite songs from 3 Car Garage and from all of Hanson's songs in general.  The brothers wrote and composed the song (as they did with all of the songs on 3 Car Garage) and it is just sublime.  3 Car Garage was made from 1995-1996, starting two years before their first major label album release, Middle of Nowhere.  The video that I have for you is not the original recording of the song but a revisitation of the song from a recording of their Albertane Tour, so it's naturally in a different key because they had aged.

There you have it.  Awesome.  Now, back to being productive (and not eating chips and candy).

Stay Classy,

LT

myTunes: Vintage by Break of Reality

This post is mostly for Kristen...but it also applies to anyone with awesome taste in music.  Love you, Sis.

Flicks I've Picked: The Last Exorcism

This is the second installment of Flicks I've Picked.  As you have probably surmised already by reading the title, the flick that I picked this time was Daniel Stamm's The Last Exorcism.  (Just so you know, that website is way scarier than the movie itself...but the website is rather scary, as far as websites go.)

The film is set up like a documentary, following the "final exorcism" of Reverend Cotton Marcus (played by Patrick Fabian), a scammer/preacher, who has been faking exorcisms for money.  This documentary is meant to expose exorcism as the sham that Cotton believes it to be.  When Cotton arrives at the Sweetzer farm to meet with the tragically possessed Nell Sweetzer (played by Ashley Bell) however, he is unexpectedly faced with something that he has never encountered: The possibility that this young woman may actually be possessed by Satan.

The resultant questions are these:

• Is Nell possessed?
• If so, what is a phony exorcist going to do about it?
• If not...what exactly is going on?!

I don't want to give anything away here, in case you're planning on watching the film (which I will get to in a minute), but suffice it to say that one or more of those questions may remain unanswered.  (They certainly did for me...at least after one initial viewing.)

Speaking of "one initial viewing," will I watch this again?  The answer is yes, I will.  Why?  Because much like Winter's Bone, something in the end of the movie all but demands that I watch it again, to search for clues and answers that I may have missed.  To me, if I did miss them (which I'm sure I probably did), then that warrants a second viewing.  Why?  Because I care...I care enough about the people in the film that I want to know what actually happened...what didn't happen...and why.  If I didn't miss anything...then I may be frustrated by a second viewing, feeling that I've wasted my time on a DVD with nothing but loose ends and the mother of all abrupt, confusing, and possibly pointless endings.

Yeah, you heard me.  The mother of all abrupt, confusing, and possibly pointless endings.  When I run into something that steals that accomplishment away from TLE, I'll be sure to let you know.

What's good about this movie?

The way that it was made is absolutely fascinating and captivating.  Stamm's direction seems to have been trying to get as close to reality as possible...without actual reality.  The creepy farmhouse that much of the movie takes place in is a real creepy farmhouse...not to be confused with its distant cousin, the fake creepy farmhouse.  Additionally, most of the actors (aside from Fabian and Bell) played characters with the same first name, in order to keep them from escaping too far.  They weren't looking for actors acting...they were looking for people experiencing.  And that comes across absolutely brilliantly in the film.

What's even more brilliant about the film is Ashley Bell, a relative newcomer to the filmmaking scene.  Her performance is so lavishly layered and creepily crisp (please take note of that awesome alliteration) that even if I didn't want to watch the film again to try to piece the puzzle together...I might just watch it again for her performance.  Little trivia tidbit here for you, according to IMDB, "Bell did all the bends and contortions of her body on her own.  No special effects were used - she has hyper-mobility."  That statement will mean very little until you see the film...or at the very least the film's trailer.

What's that you said?  Trailer?  Yes...here it is...but be forewarned.  Not only is the trailer (like the website) way scarier than the movie itself...but the trailer is also...well...in my opinion...terrifying.  So if you think that you might be frightened by the trailer...then by all means, DO NOT WATCH IT.  If you do and you get scared, I totally warned you.

So yeah, that's the gist of it.  If you're looking to be scared out of your wits (which I wasn't) then you may be let down by TLE.  If you're like me and you can appreciate a film, even with its shortcomings *COUGH-ENDING-COUGH*, for the unique way that it was made, and a cornucopia of stunning performances (not just Bell), then TLE may be worth your time.

If you've seen it, or see it after reading this, let me know what you think.

Stay Classy,

LT

myTunes: Sons and Daughters by The Decemberists

The winds are blowing like crazy outside and I love it.  There's just something about the wind...the idea that the air that I breathe and that gives me life takes on a life of its own.  There's a natural strength to it.  Oftentimes it is a subtle strength, but on nights like tonight, it's a force to be reckoned with.  I think that we all have that inside of us.  Anyway, I just think it's awesome.  It actually has nothing to do with this post (well, I guess now it does, but whatever).

I really don't have anything to say other than those airy thoughts (pun intended).  It's just that I finished watching Tuesday's episode of Glee a little while ago and the final song from that episode got me to thinking about what my favorite songs on the planet are.  I'm thinking I want to integrate that into my blog somehow, but I'm not sure how yet, and I don't care to take the effort to even think about that right now.  Just wanted to share this song.  I took my brother to see The Decemberists for a graduation gift last summer.  Not this past summer, but LAST summer, you know?  I guess that doesn't really matter to you.  Oh well.

This has always been one of my favorite songs of theirs and one of my favorite songs, period.  When they closed the show with this song, I'm not going to lie, I cried.  Just so simply beautiful and beautifully simple.  No complexity.  Just hopes and dreams and the belief that we can make them so.

When we arrive
Sons & daughters
We'll make our homes on the water
We'll build our walls aluminum
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now

These currents pull us 'cross the border
Steady your boats
Arms to shoulder
'till tides will pull
our hull aground
Making this cold harbour now home

Take up your arm
Sons and daughters
We will arise from the bunkers
By land, by sea, by dirigible
We'll leave our tracks untraceable now

When we arrive
Sons and daughters
We'll make our homes on the water
We'll build our walls aluminum
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now
(We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now)

When we arrive
Sons and daughters
We'll make our homes on the water
We'll build our walls aluminum
(Sons and daughters)
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon
(We'll make our homes on the water)
We'll make our homes on the water
(When we build our walls of aluminum)
(We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon)

Here all the bombs they fade away (x20)

That's all for now.  Just wanted to share that awesomeness with you guys.

Okay, now I think that I may be adding this as a section entitled myTunes.  We'll see.  I'm accruing a lot of sections these days, it seems to me.

SC,

LT

Thoughts and Prayers for Today

This morning, after doing my Bible Study, I stopped by my friend Becky's blog.  It was a beautiful follow-up to this morning's readings.  So thanks for that, Becky.

Things have been a bit ca-ray-zay here lately, so I've fallen off of the blog-reading-wagon.  When I was on ol' B-Dizzle's blog I gravitated towards another post of her's from January.

I don't know what it is that drew me to that particular post.  Could it have been the title?

If You Read Only One Post of Mine, Make it this One

Nah.  Doesn't really grab you does it?  Don't you just kind of get the feeling that you could read it...or not...?

Okay, no.  I didn't get that feeling.  So I read it.  It has reopened my eyes to a tragic reality that must return to my daily prayers and consciousness.  I've known about this, but have known about a lot of things, and in my prayers, sometimes specificity takes a backseat to me saying "Listen God, we all pretty much just need you down here on Earth, and badly, so thanks for anything that you can do."

Becky's blog post that day was about the atrocious reality of human trafficking.  It really hit me.  I followed links from her post and found another blog to follow.  That blog is called stopredlights.com.  Also an organization to look into called Tiny Hands International.

Okay, if I keep going on like this I'm just going to end up posting all the same links that Becky did...so if you haven't already, please read that post of hers and check out those links (some are on my page but more are on hers).

Anyway, I found something on stopredlights.com that I felt compelled to share here on my blog.  It's a video.  And all I ask of you is that if you have two minutes and fifty-three seconds to spare, please watch it, consider it, and pray.  Please.  Pray.

I couldn't say it any better than Becky did:

"Praying is never just 'the least' we can do...  It's the most we can do..."

Today, and from now on, I am making a conscious choice and effort to pray for those who are enslaved by the terrors of human trafficking and for the young people, teenagers (and others) of our world who are, many of them, suffering (frequently in silence).


Stay Classy...but above all, stay in prayer,
LT

Thrilled Squared

I love the arts.
If you know me, you know this.
If you've ever read this blog, you probably know this too.
My life, my love, my hope, and my dreams are in the Lord.
I have been blessed with the opportunity to express my life, my love, my hopes, and my dreams through the arts.

When I was a kid, it was music.  There was a little fork in the road (but I've recently decided to strive towards blowing that fork into smithereens and getting back into music) and I've found myself in theatre, and am very happy here as well.

One thing that thrills me is to see amazing art, of all kinds, that pushes the boundaries.  Art that takes something that we know already and simultaneously respects and transforms the original.

Music thrills me.
Drama thrills me.  (Not social drama.  Can't stand that.)

This video was both of these thrills in one.  I feel it would be terribly inappropriate, after being so taken by this video, to not share it with all of you.  Please enjoy.

Gross...Just Gross

On a note very different from my post earlier today...a commercial that I just saw has all but forced me to create the second post in the growing (it has doubled, just today) category of posts entitled The Critical Corner.  To see this category's first post, click here.

Anyway...I really have nothing clever or funny to say about this.  It's just disgusting.  I don't think it's funny.  You may think it's funny...and if you do...that's fine...but the fact is this...in my world...frequently referred to by myself as "reality," this is not funny at all.  It's stupid...gross...and a poor excuse for an advertisement.  Gross, gross, gross.  (Note...there are three "grosses"...not four...because this does not deserve four.)



So there you are folks...

I just...there are really no words.

Stay classy...or at least classier than these guys.

Peace,
LT

Amazing Video from my Dad

My dad sent this video to me in an e-mail.  It's absolutely lovely, and you should really check it out if you have the time.  Be sure to press pause on the music that I have playing on the right-hand-side of my page so that you hear the David Crowder Band song in the video!  I always am bugged by that hassle of you guys having to stop the music from my blog to watch the videos...but I really love being able to share some of my favorite songs on my blog by having them play as people read.  Anyway, right now, as I write this, the music player looks like a cassette tape (I love this player so it will probably stay this way for a while)...so just find the pause button and pause it. :)

A Video to Brighten Your Day

Yesterday, I learned that not only do people read this blog, they actually react to it.  Case in point: my mother is, at this moment, on her way down to Indianapolis to help me out.  Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers.

You're the best.

Now, on to business.  I was checking my e-mail, got one (actually a million) from Facebook (yes I still have those pesky notifications turned on...because Heaven forbid I miss a comment about an event that I will never attend) from my friend who is running for Butler Homecoming Queen (GO STEPH!).  Anyway, it was telling me that I would receive a link for voting soon (I have never cared about homecoming court until now...but now I totally do) and she provided us all with a video to entertain us while we waited for the link (still waiting).

Anyway, it was the video of the otters holding hands.  If you haven't seen it, check it out...it really is cute.  And be sure to watch until the end, after the otters separate.  That's what makes it amazing.

Video of Otters Holding Hands

But, moving on, yet again.  The otters are not actually the video to brighten your day that I mentioned in the title...the video below is.  And before anyone gets concerned, don't be.  This is a rescue and release program that cares for marine animals in such a way that they can be released back into the wild.  This isn't abuse, this is assistance.  Kind of like my mom coming down to help me.  That corollary was not planned...but I like it...besides...I kinda looked like this seal when I was a baby.  My parents always said I resembled a dead bird, but I'll show this to my mom when she's here and we'll just see.

Guess what I use for a beanbag chair. A raisin.

So I'm watching the incomparable Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends while working on some costume design homework.  I have Moose and Squirrel on fullscreen but then I heard the familiar "bing" telling me that I had an e-mail.  Come to find out that it was a Facebook notification that a friend from work, Jackie, had posted a video on my wall.  I laughed so hard.  I am still laughing.  I am still watching it.  Over and over.  I wish I knew how these people made the mouth on Marcel the Shell because if I knew, I would totally make a video like this (because I definitely have the spare time).  Hmmm...well I do have a directing project due today...maybe I'll throw that together into video form just for kicks.  It won't be anything like this...but hey...what can you do?  Anyway, I'm staging Romeo and Juliet in a five section tableau with objects...what are these objects?  I will tell you...

...AFTER I present it at 1:00 pm!  How terrible would it be if I posted on here what my concept was and then somebody else came to class with the same concept?!  Surely someone is reading this right now...you know who you are (actually, I bet nobody is reading this right now, I'm just being silly and pretending that I have an idea brilliant enough to catch the attention of suave spies like Borris and Natasha [Can anybody say FULL CIRCLE?])...just trying to figure out what to do for our project for William today.  Alas, you non-existant hypothetical idea stealer...I am not an idea revealer!

Okay, this is getting dumb now.  I'm fully aware, so Kyle, if you're reading this, no need to point it out.  Anyway, the point of this was just to show everyone this awesome video!!!!



Stay tuned for Romeo and Juliet with objects!!!!

SC,
LT

P.S.  Go watch it on Youtube, if you want.  The blog kinda cuts off part of the screen.  By kinda I mean, it really does.