Consumables #40, or "Have You Ever Read that Ray Bradbury story?"

There are a lot of people in my city obsessed with the weather. I can't hold myself apart from this- I am as guilty as anyone. I check the weather reports obsessively, and do a disproportionately jubilant dance whenever the sun decides to show itself. I have made valiant efforts to not talk about it so dang much, and although I want full credit for mostly succeeding at this, I also have to dock points for the fact that I would actually, in complete seriousness, describe my efforts as "valiant."


This obsession with talking about weather amongst my Seattle peoples is highest in spring time. I think we can partly blame this on the Facebooks and the Tweeters, as we can blame almost anything. Springtime is when many other places in the US are telling us via their Facebook and Twitter statuses about sunshine, and flowers, and putting on shorts. Seattle has to wait longer than most other places for these sentiments, and so looking at those statuses all day long makes us hemmorage agitation.

This is the paragraph where I disclaim the pants off of all that I am saying and acknowlege all the messy scary weatherness in the news. Places that are not Seattle are being tornadoed to Kingdom Come and I know I am a horrible person for talking about a measly lack of sunshine. But trust me, Seattle during the month of May is full of horrible people just like me. Just know that I am aware of our collective disgustingness. Thanks.

My friend and coworker the Soggy Librarian and I have a special weather-complainant bond. As I said I have valiantly cut down on the weather drama, but that does not extend to my conversations with TSL. She is in the ok-to-whine zone. And part of what makes her be in that zone is her dedication to her weather rage. She actually makes weather rage sort of fun. It doesn't even feel whiney. It feels like a sport. How many ways can she and I complain about the lack of sunshine? Turns out, millions of ways. Millions.

This year, TSL has extended the weather rage into full on storytelling. It starts like this. "Have you ever read that Ray Bradbury story?" Then she'll tell you the summary of "All Summer in a Day," a story that takes place on another planet, where the residents only see the sun for one day out of seven years, or some crazy shit like that. The rest of the time it rains. So basically, the "other planet" is Seattle. Whenever she brings this up, everyone around her says "Wow. That is so us." And we bond in our feelings of Vitamin D deficiency. There is one character in the story who is from Earth. All her little kid friends have never seen the sun, but she has, and she misses it badly. And when the day finally comes where the sun will come out? Her bastard friends lock her in a closet and she MISSES THE WHOLE THING. Because kids are little angels, that's why. Oh Ray Bradbury. Such a joyful sort.

This weekend was the first weekend of sun that Seattle saw in for-freaking-ever. People were planning for this weekend like it was their prom or something. And you know what happened? I got sick with the worst cold. Right on the sunny days! Like, right on them. Square on the nuts.

And thanks to TSL, I could wallow in the misery of not being out in the sun by thinking of that Ray Bradbury story. I AM THE LOCKED IN THE CLOSET GIRL! Not to be confused with the Locked in the Closet boy, R. Kelly. I don't think even Ray Bradbury could have dreamed that guy up.

So I spent most of the sunny days in my house, under a blanket, sipping soup and watching movies. Boo hoo!

Here's what I watched. It's a lot of movies. I was sick for a while.

My Date with Drew
A documentary in which this dude wins $1100 on a game show. He decides to give himself 30 days with this budget witht the goal of ending up on a date with his childhood crush, Drew Barrymore. He manages to go the whole movie trying to get in touch with Drew in all kinds of ways. And bee-tee-dubs, he somehow never comes off as a stalker, which is pretty impressive.

Restrepo
A pair of embedded journalists document a group of soldiers deployed in the mountains of Afghanistan, in an area that is known for being one of the most dangerous for American soldiers.

Following Sean
In 1969, filmmaker Ralph Arlyck makes a short film where he interviews Sean, a 4 year old. Sean lives in the Haight with his hippy parents, and talks frankly about things like the fact that he already smokes pot. The movie got a lot of attention back then and caused lots of people to speculate about what would happen to Sean when he grew up. This movie finds Sean as an adult to answer that question.

Dear Zachary
Movies don't tend to make me have nightmares. Not ghosts, or zombies, or even serial killers. This one made me have nightmares. A few years ago, the filmmaker's lifelong friend, Andrew, was murdered by his ex-girlfriend. After his murder, the ex-girlfriend gave birth to a child that was fathered by Andrew. The filmmaker travels across North America interviewing as many people as possible that ever knew Andrew so that he could give the finished movie, full of remembrances, to Andrew's son Zachary. Things go downhill from there. Like, as heartbreaking as that sounds, it gets so much more heartbreaking.

Between the Folds
Documentary about crazy cool origami art. What more is there to say?

Last Dance
Documentary about the collaboration between Maurice Sendak and Pilobilus. If you know anything about Sendak, and about Pilobolus, you know that they are both cranky but awesome entities. Half the fun is seeing who can out-cranky the other. The collaboration's result is an abstract(ish) dance piece about the Holocaust. The thing I liked seeing was the rehearsal and creative process. If you're wanting to see the actual finished piece, they don't really show much of that. I can see how that might bug some viewers, but I was ok with it.

Purple Rain
Ok, I hadn't seen this in years, and I saw it now and I was totally appalled. Prince beats up Appelonia! Like, full on smacks her up. And pushes her down, and threatens to beat her up some more. And Jerome throws a mouthy woman in a DUMPSTER. And Prince identifies with his domestic abuser father and never really rejects that whole mess, even at the end. And lots of other jacked up shit. I mean, I know I shouldn't expect Prince to be the model of gender equality or anything, but COME ON. This was way, way, waaaaay over the line. I sort of can't get over it.

Kings of Pastry
Fancy pastry chefs competing to become MOFs (highest culinary honor in France- you thought I said MOFOs didn't you?). The pastries in this were r'dick. I have to say though, they didn't look tasty to me. They were amazing, but they didn't make my mouth water or anything. It was more like an amazing sculptural feat than anything else. Then again, I think the best dessert ever made is probably, oh, like an ice cream sandwich or something. That's how I do. MOF that shit.

127 Hours
I know we're not supposed to like James Franco anymore, but I still do.

The Next Three Days
I was mad that the Elizabeth Banks character was so...not assertive. But not too mad, because how much am I really going to get riled about a Russell Crowe thriller? Not that much.

Red Dawn
Patrick Swayze never looked like a teen, even when he was a teen. He must have spawned onto this earth as a thirty year old man, I swear.

Bridesmaids
Ok, I'm cheating- I saw this in the theater a week ago. I thought is was adorbs.