This week I am in love with Not Bakula and enjoying the endorphins from discovering something new and amazing. I can't even bring myself to be snarky about a movie this week; I'm filled with that much love. Today, I am 85% love. (And 15% dorkosity.)

So this week in Questionable Taste Theatre, I present SOAPDISH. Soapdish is more or less the soundtrack to my life; not one day goes by wherein I can't quote this movie. Having a family of performers, way more theatre experience than is healthy, and a work history that includes working next to soap-opera writers convinced me that this movie, while it may seem to be a comedy, is in fact exactly like life.

Nutshell: There's a soap opera, which is hilariously bad. Everyone involved? Hilariously bad. Dialogue? Best ever.



Join us for some of my favorite quotes from this movie, partly because the plot defies description, so I won't bother, and partly because, no joke, some of the funniest lines I've ever heard.

( I like the word Peppy, and the word Cheap. Peppy and Cheap. )

This is how last night went:

1. Went to the reading at South Street last night; had a very good time.

2. Raced home to finish Operation Not Bakula.

3. Finished.

4. Immediately queued up the whole thing and started again until I fell asleep at about 3am.

5. Woke up 45 minutes early this morning to watch some more before work.

I'm still on such an experience-high that I'm not even tired. I am a nerd beyond measure.

So, the Costume Institute Gala was last night.

You would think that, as a costume/fashion nerd, I would be all over it. And you would be correct, except that I've been to two, and I have a near-pathological aversion to the ENTIRE MET that I am only slowly overcoming.

I worked that event two years in a row with the event production company.

JESUS GOD.

( I drop names! I whine! I make my own dress! Details inside! )

You know you haven't tangoed in a while when you're standing in a subway car, it lurches, and you go up on your toes to absorb the impact amid the sound of your own crunching bones.

Then the woman next to you is so freaked out she shoves her way to the other side of the car to avoid you, and the triumph of your moment is sort of squelched.

I've got to stretch in the mornings so my feet don't get that shock.

(Tango dancers' feet look like ballerinas' feet; I'm one of the few women I know not in the care of a podiatrist, and I left my last one because he told me to stop dancing.)

I am so addicted to writing with the right music, I can't even tell you.

Dear emo music, thank you for making this evening possible.

(One of the best Futurama lines ever is during Bender's fake funeral:

Amy: Bender was a -
Bender: LOUD.ER and SAD.DER!

That's how I like my music: louder and sadder.)

[Scene: a tango practica. GENEVIEVE is approached by PUSHY TANGO WOMAN, who rubbed intimate parts all over Genevieve the only time Genevieve made the mistake of dancing with her. PTW is known for approaching leaders and demanding they dance with her. It usually works.]

PTW: Are you going to lead me?
G: Oh! Well, I have my street shoes on, I was on my way out.
PTW: Let me ask you - do you just not want to dance with me any more? Because I've asked you, like, twelve times in the last year and you always say no. Is it that you don't want to dance with me any more?

[GENEVIEVE dies inside that someone is so unable to get a clue.]

G: [trying to allow PTW some dignity] I just usually dance with friends.
PTW: Well, I'm your friend, and I REALLY liked dancing with you. Just tell me you don't want to dance with me! I'm asking!
G: I usually prefer to dance with my friends, I'm sorry.
PTW: Fine!

[PTW suddenly morphs into Glenn Close.]

PTW: ...we're still friends.
G: ...
PTW: Well, goodbye.

[PTW sits down, stares directly at Genevieve.]

[Fin.]

I should feel creeped out, but instead I am just MORTIFIED that someone is so unable to read a room that after 12 "No"s she's still trying for "Yes".

Other people need more shame. It would spare me being ashamed on their behalf.

So, I've had a job since I was eight. (Car-wash-business owners of the world unite! Mission statement: "Carry that bucket proudly, washing cars up and down one side of your street until a parent walks you safely across to the other side!")

For a while, I saved money, but since that job, my job seems to simply be a way to support my fannishness. I now look at money as something I should hide as fast as possible upon receiving it, or else it will go to a fifteen-DVD set about the history of the petticoat.

Note: if this DVD set exists, uh, let me know.

( The sad extent of my fannishness, inside. )

You would think that Il Fantasma dell'Opera>would be the first time in a person's life when she would have seen a man getting it on with an animal.

Well, guess what!

Nutshell: An adaptation of Honore Balzac's short story, Passion in the Desert centers around a French officer who gets separated from his regiment and ends up forming a bond with a female leopard who helps to keep him alive. And, uh...other things.



Yeah, those things.

( I almost can't believe I saw this years ago, mostly because you'd think it would have inured me to ratsex. But nope! )

Group Costume YES:





Group Costume NO:




And finally:



A CHEMISE. HOW HARD IS IT.

(This lady is incredible; she hand-quilted the underskirt for her 18th-century wedding dress, and I don't know if you can see in this picture, but she's embroidered her pocket hoops, which no one will actually see, so she's just hardcore, is what.)

(photos from this dude.)

For the gentlemen who don't give a crap: someday I'll do a post about something incredibly manly. Like...lumberjacking. I promise.

So, capitalism is alive and well, whatever, *cough* sometimes I want a wireless cafe without having to go into the city so I hit the new Panera *cough*.

Just a public service announcement for anyone who might ever go there: their chai latte tastes like the butt of a clove cigarette. It is FOUL. It's like rotten licorice and old smoke. It was so awful I made everyone at my table try some too, and then kept taking sips because I repeatedly convinced myself that it couldn't possibly be THAT bad.

WELL, IT WAS.

(It's also a good thing evolution didn't take totally legitimate revenge on me and poison me for continuing to drink something I could clearly identify as liquid evil.)

More than a day later, I still cannot fully rid myself of the taste. (BUTT OF A CLOVE CIGARETTE.)

So what I'm saying is, next time you find yourself in a Panera, order the chai, and suffer as I have suffered!

So, guess who will be talking about Clarissa this week?

GOOD GUESS.

I managed to devour the whole thing in a single night, cursing a blue streak all the way through. I'm not sure how much of it I can watch again, though, because it's basically four hours of watching a bird get crushed under a boot-heel in slow motion and you spend most of it yelling, "STOP!" or "RUN!" or "NO CHEMISES!" and get all stressed out.

Anyway, expect a lot more about this in the coming days, because if I had to suffer, then dammit, so do you.

(Totally accurate gowns, totally accurate stays - NO CHEMISES. They show womein in underwear like, six times. NEVER A CHEMISE. Are they trying to kill me? They're trying to kill me.)



Underneath these gowns, all these women are chemiseless.

From the kingdom of Anachronia, Spring/Summer Collection 1165.

Yeah, those are bolero jackets over princess-seamed dresses. The patterns are from the upholstery fabrics so ugly The Other Boleyn Girl turned them down. Also, that girl on the right is wearing a weave made out of cotton candy.





Then, an Enya video vomited.

The girl on the middle right is wearing a blue wrap dress with cleavage down to her sternum.

I have got to get hold of this movie.

Actual conversation over the phone. All parties are played by themselves except me; I am played by Walter Matthau.



Me: Hey, Mom! I placed a story!
Mom: Oh my god, is it a horror story?
Me: No.
Dad: [mumbled]
Mom: Your father wants to know if it's too weird.
Me: ...no?
Mom: Well, can Grandma read it?
Me: ...I guess.
Mom: Well, then that's great, honey!


I guess that's a temporary pass on changing my name.

Okay, whatever I do to this movie? IT DESERVES.





ETA: Holy crap, EVERY TIME she says, "I love only Lorenzo!" with her head shaking like a dashboard puppy, I crack up.

ETA 2: This is a film adaptation of "The Decameron." We're boned.

So coming up on Questionable Taste Theatre is a random spate of period dramas. I'm a costume whore, what can I say?

We begin Ye Olde Monthe with the 14th century mystery The Reckoning. (The link goes to the trailer, which is worth seeing.)

Nutshell: Disgraced priest Paul Bettany falls in with a group of traveling actors, led by the MOST SINEWY PERSON IN THE WORLD, Willem Dafoe. When they hit a town that's less interested in morality plays than in convicting the local deaf woman for the murder of a young boy, the troupe ends up caught up in history's first-ever episode of Law & Order: Swyved Victimmes Unit. Which I spoil, so, you know, spoilers.



( She couldn't have done it! SHE COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT! )

1. Fun story! This morning on my way to work there were some workmen across the street. (Just so we set the scene, I was in loose pants, top, loose blazer.) I got the following.

Worker: *wolf whistle* *WOLF WHISTLE* Hey sexy! Hey! HEY YOU! HEY, BITCH, WHERE ARE *YOU* GOING? BITCH!

And I kept my eyes ahead of me and my hand on my cell phone because he had other men with him and I was alone, and at 8:00am one block from an elementary school I was worried that this guy would run after me for not being appreciative of his attention.

There's no red button in the world big enough, okay? There's just not.


2. I am planning a big post for the tango bitchface filter, showing what real tango is and is not, with multiple video examples, some of which are flattering, some of which are really not. I have no desire to publicly humiliate (most of) these people, so if you want in on the [tango bitchface] filter, speak up!


3. I had my tango lesson yesterday. Very interesting. This'll be a separate post. It's all about free will! Well, free will and high heels.


4. Uh, I like cake! (Now I'm just filling.)


5. I should have made this post just three things.

For those who would like a little break from the crazy, here's a beautiful tango video of two guys dancing one of the most romantic tangos ever composed, "Vida Mia".

A lot of times I am indifferent to, or even dismissive of, same-sex tango couples, because they seem to be playing around and not respecting the connection or the music. These guys are both incredibly musical and incredibly connected. They switch lead and follow, but no matter who's in what role, the one who is leading is LEADING, the one who is following is FOLLOWING. The moments of close embrace in this dance are really beautiful to me.



I have a private lesson later tonight with an Argentine teacher who has made several of her students cry. Uh, WISH ME LUCK.

I'm still debating making this public, but I know how angry I am right now and I just need to get this out so I can stop gnawing on the inside of my own mouth in disgust.

But apparently, because of the Open Source Boob Project, people at cons are now subject to having to state their groping amenity levels, because dammit, the objectification of women was really in need of a boost.

SO. Just to make it clear:

Anyone who, at any time, makes a physical or verbal overture to me? Is subject to having their hand mailed back to them in a box.

Thank you, and goodnight.

ETA: Made this public, because I woke up this morning and behold, verily I was just as pissed! Please let me know if you want your comments screened, etc.

ETA2: I finally found the shortest way to sum up my feelings that don't involve punching someone:

My body does not exist in the binary of SOME GUY'S ACCESS TO IT.

So here's how my day usually goes:

( Enemies of freedom, biological modification, and/or numbered lists need not click. )

I lasted exactly 98 minutes in Comic Con. I am the worst geek in the world.

( When you start with a Stormtrooper blasting 'Come On, Ride the Train', there's nowhere to go. )