Chicago dressed up as winter for Halloween this year. This is me trying to help children and grandmothers cross the street while being unable to see two feet in front of my face. Thanks, I hate it.
Five Things I’ve Liked That You Might Also Like:
Holy crap, When Franny Stands Up came out ONE YEAR AGO TODAY. In that time, I’ve gotten to meet amazing writers and readers, teach some classes, do some talks, travel some places, freak out about everything, calm myself down, freak out again… and it will never stop boggling my noggin that real human beings who don’t even know me have chosen to spend their one wild and precious free time reading this book and sometimes having enough energy afterwards to tell the internet how much they loved or hated it. It’s been a wild ride. And hey - the ebook of FRANNY is on sale for $2.99 on all ebook platforms for the whole month of November, if you need a fix!
I rewatched But I’m a Cheerleader for the first time in 20 years, and I’m pleased to report that in addition to the feast for the senses that is googly-eyed baby dyke Natasha Lyonne, the movie actually still feels fresh and funny and I will never not love seeing RuPaul act macho.
I know Halloween is officially over, but why not do what I did and pop over to the Dollar Tree website (!) and buy a WHOLE CASE of these taper candles that look like a stack o’ skulls and “bleed” when you light them? Nothing says Xmas like a pile of gore!
I have watched this video like five times, and I can’t believe I haven’t posted it before! Theater director David Herskovits talks about all the ways he embeds failure into his artistic practice and how he finds ways to “break the dead hand of mastery,” which is a quote I think about every day. If you have 45 minutes and need some creative inspiration, give it a watch.
Allow me to leave you with a story of the time I got hit on as a crossing guard. It was raining. I was wearing my glamorous ankle-length neon yellow rain coat and a baseball cap. A fellow in a matte black muscle car pulled over and rolled down his window. “Do all crossing guards look as good as you?” he asked. “Is this really happening right now?” I sputtered, squinting through the icy rain. He looked hurt. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t make it weird.” At this point, I started laughing and couldn’t stop. This, it seems, was when he realized I wasn’t interested, and he sped off, never to return. My loss!
Bonus Lewd Animal Fact
So dinosaurs don’t exist anymore, as you may know. What that means is, when they appear on screen, sound designers have to fudge what they sound like, often using recordings of other animals. In the case of the terrifying velociraptors in Jurassic Park, those “other animals” were tortoises, and those tortoises were fucking. According to sound designer Gary Rydstrom: “I recorded that at Marine World … the people there said, ‘Would you like to record these two tortoises that are mating?’ It sounded like a joke, because tortoises mating can take a long time. You’ve got to have plenty of time to sit around and watch and record them.”