‘Adventure’ Category

  1. R is for Rotterdam, good enough for me.

    August 17, 2010 by ms. xandra

    Hey everyone, I am in Rotterdam!

    I am now officially ON VACTION NOT DOING WORK for the next week and a half.  Then it’s back to London and back to researching for me.

    I met up with Aaron in Brussels at the Pantone Hotel, which, yes, is paint chip themed hotel.  We were on the orange floor.  It was pretty amazing.  At breakfast I almost accidentally ate a raw egg, because there was a bowl of raw eggs right beside the bowl of hard boiled ones.  I cracked it open and thought, “Gosh, Europeans really like their eggs soft boiled,” and then I noticed it pouring out of the egg cup.  Another excellent job.

    And now we are in Rotterdam, in a hotel in a barge in a canal!  It is called the H2otel.  Every piece of furniture in the room is spray painted silver, which, truly, is a marker of style and class.  My general inclination while travelling is to stay in wonderfully silly accomodations whenever possible, and that particular goal has been realized quite effectively on this trip.

    Rotterdam is fascinating – the city was completely bombed out in World War II, and rather than reconstruct, the way many European cities did, they took the opportunity to just start brand new.  So the architechture is mostly very interestingly modern, with odd smatterings of pre-war buildings.  As a post-war-ist, I kind of love it.

    And my goal of eating mainly cheese and beer on this trip is going very well:  yesterday we had fondue for dinner, and today we had dinner on an all-you-can-eat pancake boat, which is a wonderful thing that really, really exists in the world.  You pay your 15 euros, you get a seat by the window and a cruise through the harbour, and you get to go and get as many pancakes as you want from the pancake closet (actually a thing) and top them with as much ridiculous stuff as you want.  Topping choices included peaches, apples, salami, wedges of brie (cheese requirement fulfilled!), syrup, nutella, sprinkles, candied ginger, and weird little candy covered cruchy bits.  Also, some of the pancakes had apples and bacon baked into them.  And pannekoekenboot is my new favorite dutch word.

    Tomorrow we are going to Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog for the day, which is a Belgian exclave in the Netherlands with dutch enclaves in it.  The purpose of this trip is mainly to take pictures of ourselves jumping from one country to the next and to go to this restaurant that has something like 500 kinds of beer.  And then on Thursday, we’re going to Gouda for the day.  The purpose of that trip is mainly cheese.

    Some pictures!  For your edification.

    The color scheme of our room at the Pantone, where everything has a color number.  Everything.  Including the teas at breakfast.

    Rainy Brussels from the Pantone Hotel fire escape

    Canals and bicycles abound in Rotterdam

    Rainy Rotterdam skyline, as seen from the Pancake Boat

    Aaron likes pancakes!

    I also like pancakes!  I like them with jam and brie!  (Weird.)

    Also, I was in Liverpool last week and lots of things happaned including me refusing to go to any Beatles-themed attraction that you had to pay for,  me not understanding anyone’s accent,  and also me  discovering wine that comes in a pre-poured plastic glass with a tin foil top like a yogurt container that you can get for two pounds at Marks and Spencer, which I took as proof that the British understand my needs.  But I will write a proper Liverpool report later!

    Category Adventure | Tags: | 2 Comments

  2. Not dead yet

    August 9, 2010 by ms. xandra

    Hey, did you know that domain names expire if you forget to renew them cause you’re so busy going to England?  Funny, that.  But it’s ok!  I fixed it!  There was no blog here for a few hours today, but it’s back!  Good grief.  Clearly I should not be allowed more than one task at a time because damn if I can handle it.

    So, I’m in England!  I had a scant 24 hours in London, then a weird couple of days in Wigan (a small town that was once the spot to be for Northern Soul, and now has a mall at the former site of the Wigan Casino Club, which was the spot to go dancing to Northern Soul, but don’t worry!  They’ve named the food court the Casino Cafe in memoriam).  Wigan is a funny, small town with not much to do in it, and I finished with the research-related stuff I wanted to do fairly quickly.  And the town was kind of quaint and sleepy, but just quaint and sleepy enough to send me spiralling into an OH MY GOD I CAN NEVER WRITE A DISSERTATION BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THINGS type of identity crisis, so I didn’t sleep very well and sent what, in retrospect, was a totally pathetic and unfortunate email to my dissertation advisor explaining said crisis, and luckily she wrote back approximately five minutes later and told me that everything would be fine and that research trips basically make everyone feel disoriented and alienated.  And then I had a good night’s sleep and then I felt better.

    Now I’m in Blackpool (the hilarious Niagara Falls of England, minus the falls, with a lovely ocean, and just enough rain and clouds to make for a right crummy day at the beach) and tomorrow I’m going to Liverpool.  A quick google search of upcoming cultural events in Liverpool tells me that there is going to be a John Lennon Memorial Poetry Contest tomorrow at the Beatles Experience museum, so I could go to that!  Or I could shoot myself!  Or more likely, I could stay in the hotel room and wash my underwear in the sink.

    But I’m actually having a really good, productive time. I’ve gotten some good work done, and I’ve really enjoyed riding trains around the countryside.  I’m looking forward to being in a big city tomorrow, though.

    Further observations about the United Kingdom:

    THINGS THE BRITISH DO WELL:

    Jaywalking.  Good god.  It could be because I’ve gotten acclimated to LA, where if you jaywalk, you’ll probably either die or get ticketed because the LAPD don’t have enough to do, but holy fuck, the British seem completely unafraid of death by speeding car.  And I’m sure I look like a total tool as I patiently wait for the walk signal.

    Prepackated foods.  Oh, Marks and Spencer!  I am basically surviving on your little pies and your little salads because it’s cheaper than eating out every night, so Marks and Spencer Picnic in the hotel room (while watching Antiques Roadshow) is quickly becoming a bit of a tradition.  Also, walking around your stores is weirdly relaxing and therapeutic, more so than walking around a Trader Joe’s, which is how I relax and unwind and end up making unfortunate food purchases (ie:   those awful frozen avocados) in LA, largely because everyone in Trader Joe’s are always all Busy and Important and that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

    Tawdryness.  Blackpool is a little bit amazing.  Because it’s kind of shoddy and falling apart, and there are these old Victorian pleasure piers with rides and attractions on them that people clearly LOVE even though they are a little unfortunate and decrepit.  Also, they are currently getting ready for the Illuminations, which, basically, are piles and piles of Christmas lights that they run up and down the shore every fall for, um, some reason?  It’s kind of unclear. But people are very excited because ROBBIE WILLIAMS is coming to town to flip the on switch for the illuminations this year!  Gee golly.  So, basically, I sort of love Blackpool in spite of/because of this tawdryness.  As a devoted student of kitsch, it’s been a fascinating educational experience, because it is such an interestingly different kind of kitsch than SoCal Kitsch, with which I am intimately acquainted.

    THINGS THE BRITISH ARE LESS GOOD AT:

    Free wireless.  AAAAGGHH!!!  Some people need wireless internet a little too much.  This person needs wireless internet a little too much.  There is wireless in coffee shops here, yes, but it is almost always owned by British Telecom and is stupidly expensive (5 pounds for, like 1.5 hours!) which I resent deeply.  Luckily, I know that in London there will be wireless at the British Library and at St. Pancras station, both of which are basically across the street from where I’m staying, thank goodness.

    So that’s all for now!  Liverpool tomorrow, and then I will be reunited with my dear Gentleman Caller in Brussels for the ACTUAL VACATION part of this trip:  We will eat and drink our way through all of the cheese and beer in Belgium and the Netherlands.

    Category Adventure | Tags: | 1 Comment

  3. DINOSAUR DAY 2010!!!!!

    July 23, 2010 by ms. xandra

    If I go down in history for anything in the world, I want it to be for inventing Dinosaur Day, the day on which we honor our long lost reptilian overlords, the dinosaurs, by going on Dinosaur Pilgrimage.  Last year, we celebrated the inaugural dinosaur day with a trip to the Cabazon Dinosaurs, home of a terrifying creationist museum.  This year, aided and abetted by roadsideamerica.com, a website that has come to dictate far too many of my day to day activities, we went on yet another ambitious journey into the desert, in the middle of July, where it reached 44 fucking degrees celcius.  But nothing will stop Dinosaur Day!

    Armed with seven hours worth of educational paleontology podcasts, we ventured forth to Apple Valley, California (stopping along the way at the Donut Man, in Glendora, the Official Donut Purveyor of Dinosaur Day), home of the now tragic, crumbling Apple Valley Dinosaurs.

    What was once a magnificent . . . mini golf course, is now a tragic monument to the loss of our long-departed lizardly overlords.  I braved six inches of barbed wire to get close to one, and, apart from that time at the Cabazon Dinosaurs, and that time at the Natural History Museum, and that time at Science North when I was five, and that time at the Bruce County Museum, and all of those other times when I’ve stood next to fake and/or reconstructed dinosaur skeletons, it was the closest I’d ever been to a dinosaur.

    So, I cannot over-emphasize the strangeness of this place, you know?  Wire and cement skeletons of fake dinosaurs were everywhere, a few had vestiges of their original paint jobs, and it was so hot and desolate.  I’m fascinated by the strangely melancholic desert cities in the middle of California – who are the people who choose to live there and why?Once, the area was booming, but it certainly isn’t anymore.  And, most importantly, who builds their dinosaur golf course out there?  My theory is that since Apple Valley is Route 66-adjacent, it might have been a tourist draw once, but now, there is nothing surrounding it.  Nothing, nothing, nothing.

    Anyhow, we stopped at the Route 66 Museum in Victorville because it was there and because it was free, and it was fascinating too.  They have a 9 foot tall hula girl statue from Hulaville, which looms large over the entire museum, and which Aaron completely failed to notice because he is an oblivious boy who was busy reading the descriptions of antique radios.  And also the Route 66 Museum is right next to a Wonder Bread/Hostess warehouse store (yes, really) so next time we go out into the middle of the desert for no good reason I am going to buy a gross of Twinkies.

    And then we were off to Peggy Sue’s Diner and Diner-saur park.  If you’re going to have a giant 50′s diner with an entrance shaped like a jukebox, you need something to distinguish yourself from all of the other 50′s diners.  And apparently that thing is dinosaurs.  And to think I was already excited that there were sandwiches named after Fabian and Frankie Avalon and Richard Nixon!  I could eat a Frankie Avalon sandwich AND ALSO there were dinosaurs.

    And King Kong, don’t forget King Kong.

    And in case anyone needed any help with dinosaur identification, voila!  A handy guide to dinosaur taxonomy:

    And then we went home and watched The Land that Time Forgot, which had WONDERFUL and TERRIBLE fake dinosaurs in it and also cave men and Really Excellent Science.  Although it did suffer from a little too much “we are on a German U-boat and not very pleased about it”-style exposition before we got to the actual dinosaurs, but they were such good actual dinosaurs that I can’t complain much.  We also made our own Special Edition Dinosaur Day Ice Cream by throwing vanilla ice cream in the stand mixer with blue food coloring, malt balls, chocolate chips, and marshmallows, which, somehow, stands for dinosaur?  Whatever, it was awesome.

    I am thinking that for next Dinosaur Day we need to do something really big, and maybe actually involving real dinosaurs, like volunteering on a paleontology dig or something?  Whatever we do it will be amazing because Dinosaur Day is officially the BEST DAY OF THE YEAR.

    There are more Dinosaur Day pictures on that facebook thing, if you want ‘em.

    Category Adventure, Dinosaur! | Tags: | 3 Comments

  4. Operation Desert Storm

    July 15, 2010 by ms. xandra

    Many Moons Ago, my Gentleman Caller took me away for a suprise weekend of tramping about the desert.

    We went to Joshua Tree, which was much like Northern Ontario (rocks and trees and trees and rocks, and rocks and trees and trees and rocks, and waterrrrr), only completely different (rocks and cacti and cacti and rocks, and rocks and cacti and cacti and rocks and sannnnnnnnd).

    Aaron wore his jaunty, cactus-inspectin’ hat.

    And no, this is not a picture of me emerging from a giant cement vulva!

    It is a picture of me emerging from a giant cement (historically inaccurate and somewhat offensive but we’ll let it slide just this once cause it was the 1950s) teepee!  My Gentleman Caller is very good at helping me fulfill my insatiable need to experience as much novelty architechture as possible.  We stayed at the Wigwam Motel in lovely, scenic Rialto!

    Rialto has some very good mid-centuriness happening in it, like DJ’s Coffee Shop, which had tasty tasty breakfast.

    And the next day we went on a hilarious ghost town tour, stopping in Calico, a mining town turned ghost town turned historical re-enactment site/theme park at some point in the 60s that has changed very little since and thus remains hilarious and weird,

    And we went to California City, a weird planned city/social experiment that never really worked out – you should read about it.  All that’s there are the roads that were laid out for a city that was planned, but never populated because, shockingly, nobody wanted to move out to the middle of the desert.

    And then there was this, the most glorious sign I’ve ever seen, on a sadly closed-down drive in, somewhere outside Barstow:

    Category Adventure | Tags: | No Comments

  5. Recent Culinary Adventures, episode two!

    June 4, 2010 by ms. xandra

    Bless me father, for I have sinned.  I made this thing out of gelatin, cheese, and carrots:

    So, there is a story here:  back in the long-ago days of when I was singing in choir in Kitchener-Waterloo with Leith, the church we sang at was having a book sale, and we found an AMAZING two-volume Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking, from 1954, by one Ms. Meta Given, who seems to have been, like, the poor woman’s Betty Crocker, from Pittsburgh, and who is potentially fascinating.  Someone’s dissertation should be on atomic-age cookbooks and gender and domesticity, and there should be a chapter on Meta Given, but because I am in Musicology they want my dissertation to be about music, or something, so that won’t be my dissertation, sadly.  ANYHOW, the Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking is ridiculous and has lots of horrible gelatin-based things in it because it was the Atomic Age, and, you know, Better Eating Through Chemicals and things!

    And one of the most amazing recipes was cheese carrots.  I cannot remember the actual specifics of the cheese carrots recipe because the book is at home in Canada somewhere in my parents’ basement, so I had to recreate this from vague memory, and in my vague memory the recipe for cheese carrots was this:  you take your carrots, you grate them.  You take your cheese, you grate it.  You mix them with gelatin, mold them into teensy, canape-sized carrots, and you make carrot greens with sprigs of parsley.  Um, yeah, I know right?

    And then one day, for reasons far too complicated to explain to anyone who has not been in Musicology wing of the Schoenberg Music Building this past quarter, I needed to make food that was a culinary representation of the musical oeuvre of Lady Gaga (for homework, because graduate school has done nothing but equip me with useful and practical skills with real-world application), and that is when I decided that cheese carrots were the only possible thing.

    My blissful unawareness of certain important facts like, say, the proportions of the ingredients, did not prevent me from boldly sallying forth on this journey of culinary blasphemy.  So when the cheese carrot batter was too runny to roll into tiny canape-sized carrots, we MacGuyvered a mold out of a loaf pan, cardboard and some tin foil, poured the mix in, and giant cheese carrots were, unfortunately, born.

    They’re more art than food, really, and remarkably inoffensive in flavor.  But the texture is . . . just not the texture of something you really want to eat. Oh, 1954.  Truly, you were another planet.

    As a counterpoint, I also made this blackberry/muscat jelly from a Nigella Lawson recipe, and it was legitimately delicious, although less like Lady Gaga.

    Also:  in the UK gelatin is measured in leaves, and in the US gelatin is measured in packets, and neither of these units of measurement  is not even remotely related to the metric system and therefore I throw my Canadian hands up in exasperation at both of them.  For the record, 1 leaf gelatin = 1/4 packet of gelatin, or something, I think, I don’t actually remember.  So this recipe calls for five leaves of gelatin which is 1 and 1/4 packets, which is a stupid amount, because what do you do with 3/4 of a packet of gelatin?  Add it to your cheese carrot batter, I guess.  Too bad.

    Is that math even right?  Who actually counts things anymore, anyhow?  Whatever.

    Category Adventure, Food | Tags: | 2 Comments

  6. Further adventures of a lady about town

    May 20, 2010 by ms. xandra

    Small adventures: I don’t know what you’re doing for your North American National Holiday (July 1 or 4, depending), but I have vacation plans that will top them all:  somehow, miraculously, I have convinced my dear Gentleman Caller that it is of Utmost Importance that we be in Roswell, New Mexico for the annual UFO Festival.  We have reached a point where every second conversation we have is something like “Are you sure you aren’t just humoring me?  I mean, we really don’t need to drive into the desert to hang out with a bunch of UFO crazies/purchase, cook, and serve an ostrich egg/sample every variety of donut in Seattle/start a 1930s dustbowl revival musical act/etc. if you don’t really want to.  I can always do these exceptionally ridiculous things on my own,” and his answer, because he is exceptionally super-duper, is invariably something along the lines of “No, I think that’s a great idea,” and that is why I keep him.

    Larger adventures: First of all, let’s let the cat out of the bag:  I won’t be coming home to Canada this summer, which I feel kind of sad and guilty about, even though my mother keeps saying “why would you bother coming home?  It doesn’t make sense for you to go out of your way to come home,” as though coming home is some kind of exceptionally taxing chore (it isn’t.)  But I have a very good reason for not coming home!  I am going to England for much longer than anticipated because I got a travel fellowship!  So what this means is that I will be travelling in and around Liverpool for the first few weeks of August, and then meeting up with Gentleman Caller for a quick trip to a yet-to-be-determined locale (he will be on the continent because he is touring with the Bulgarian folk band that he plays in) and then I’ll be in London for the month of September!  I am obviously fairly excited about all of this, and flights are booked, and an apartment in London has been secured, and I just need to piece together the rest of the trip, and move my stuff out of my apartment and into storage (sure to be a headache, but what can you do?) and get my British Library reader pass, and then I’ll be all set!  I’ve never been to the UK before, so if anyone has any travel tips, I would appreciate them!

    Consumerist adventures:  I think I want these.  I have been reading the Pamela Des Barres book which makes me covet some late-60′s-style summer shoes.  Internet, what thinks you?

    Also, I have pictures of Ostrich Egg Giant Breakfast!  Soon!  I promise!

    Category Adventure | Tags: | 2 Comments

  7. VOCABULARY WORD OF THE DAY:

    May 2, 2010 by ms. xandra

    Megavertebrate.

    I learned this word at the Wild Animal Park, which is where our adventuring took us this fine Sunday mid-morning.  Megavetebrates include rhinos, elephants, and similar.  I learned this word from our safari tour guide, who was loose and fast with the slightly inexplicable metaphors (ie:  ”the Cheetah’s fur is butterscotch and cream”) but who has provided me with a vocabulary word that will surely make an excellent name for either my heavy metal band or my pan flute quintet.

    ALSO, how cute is a baby elephant???  You have no idea how cute a baby elephant is.  It is so cute.  And there where, what, five of them?  And they were so wobbly and smiley!  Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of the cuteness because at this point in the afternoon I was too lazy to get my camera out of my bag and was content to let my Gentleman Caller do the phototaking, but here is a picture of a sassy lion chilling in the back of a truck which is also pretty awesome.

    BUT MOST AWESOME OF ALL:  on the outskirts of Escondido, California, we came upon a produce stand.  And at said produce stand, what did we find?  OSTRICH EGGS.  For the reasonable price of $25, which, compared to the $40 they were charging at Ostrich Land, is a bargain!

    Here it is, our very own Ostrich Egg!  Shown aside some less giant but no less noble chicken eggs for comparison:

    OSTRICH EGG NUTRITIONAL FACTS:  Contains 500% Daily Intake of AWESOME.

    I am very excited for next weekend’s Giant Brunch, featuring Giant Egg, Giant Toast, Giant Pancake, Giant Sausage, and, most importantly GIANT MIMOSA!   Who’s in?

    INSPIRATIONAL RECIPES FROM BRAVE CHEFS WHO HAVE GONE BEFORE:

    Deviled Ostrich Egg

    Scotch Ostrich Egg

    Ostrich Egg Omelette

    Ostrich Egg Frittata

    Ostrich Egg with Tarragon and Pine Nut Tarator

    Category Adventure, Food | Tags: | 3 Comments

  8. Treasure hunts

    April 26, 2010 by ms. xandra

    We went to the flea market today.  Whenever I go, I usually don’t take more than $20 because it is guaranteed that I will spend any dollars I bring on something stupid like the time I almost bought an entire set of vintage Samsonite luggage because it was purple.  That would have been a bad idea, but luckily, I was out of cash.

    What I really like to do, though, is to find a single, weird treasure that, ideally, costs about $2.  I usually have really good luck with this.  I have a tiny promotional calendar from 1957 that was printed for a beauty salon and every month has a different hairstyle pictured and some hilarious, 1957-style woman-to-woman advice that I got there once for, like, a dollar.  This is a prime example of the kind of treasure I go searching for.

    Today, I got this old picture:

    I want to be this lady when I grow up.  Who is she?  Why is so so dramatically lit?  Look at all the lines in her face – they’re amazing and beautiful.  Look at how melancholy her expression is.  Look at how expressive her eyes are.  I think, although I have no way of knowing, that this is a headshot and that she was an actor.  There’s an address on the back, and a phone number, and a name that I can’t quite make out – Marie something?  Elena?  Ellen?  Plum?  O’Something?  Who even knows – which is of course driving me, crazy because if I had that last name I would IMDB her.  But I love that the address is on Vine, which is such a famed, Old Hollywood thoroughfare, even though it’s kind of shitty and unremarkable now.  And I love that it’s so old that it was before 7 digit phone numbers – the HO at the beginning of the line of numbers at the bottom stands for Hollywood, the name of the telephone exchange.  And I love this picture in a lot of inexpressible ways.

    Some day I want to have a wall in my home hung with fascinating old pictures of strangers.

    Category Adventure | Tags: | No Comments

  9. Adventurtimes!

    April 22, 2010 by ms. xandra

    So I went to Seattle for the Pop Conference!  It was pretty successful, I’d say:  I met lots of cool folks, and managed to not make out with Chuck Klosterman or similar (this was facilitated by the fact that Chuck Klosterman was not there; and I was accompanied by my gentleman caller, who may have frowned upon such behaviour).  And I gave a paper about Lady Gaga, so that was pretty neat.  I have come so far as a scholar!  It was but a year ago that my students in the LGBT Pop class were all turning in terrible papers about Poker Face and I was like “who is the Lady Gaga that the young folk are so excited about?”  Ah, yes.  Don’t say we’re not busy doing important things over here in Musicologyland.

    And also I think you’ll be able to download and listen to my talk on iTunes University!  I’ll let you know if this actually happens.  This is pretty cool, but also slightly mortifying, because it means that my technological snafus are forever immortalized, as is the moment in my presentation when I meant to say Jay-Z but accidentally said Kanye instead.  But oh well.  Nobody’s perfect.

    I accidentally managed to book us into the Shepard Fairey room at the hipster hotel.  I mean, I intentionally booked us into the hipster hotel (it was cheap and has free waffles at breakfastime!) but I did not bargain for the Shepard Fairey room, which meant having to cope with this wallpaper for four days:

    Also, this icon, which clearly indicates “milk bottle, present, Hershey Kiss,” was on the little cabinet in the room, and the cabinet did not contain any of these things, so I must assume it is hipster code for “towels, condoms, coffee,” which is what the cabinet did contain.  MYSTERIOUS!  I am still disappointed that I didn’t get any Hershey’s Kisses, but I probably shouldn’t complain because there were, indeed, those waffles.

    As is my wont, I dragged my gentleman caller stumbling through Seattle on a steady diet of neon and donuts:

    And we went to the Greenwood Space Travel Supply Company, where I bought a map of the known universe.

    I am ten years behind in emails right now – Canadian friends, I will write you tomorrow, I swear it on the ghost of Annette Funicello’s girlish figure.

    Category Academe, Adventure, Awesome, Food | Tags: | 1 Comment

  10. 34 different kinds of rootbeer, in my fridge, right now, waiting.

    March 27, 2010 by ms. xandra

    It’s true:  there are 34 kinds of rootbeer in the fridge, in preparation for the forthcoming Rootbeer Tasting Soiree (the rootbeer will be accompanied by what is certain to be a terrible (where”terrible” means “wonderful”) film, starring Rock Hudson as a young soda jerk in love with Piper Laurie.  Sounds great).  Also, hilariously, Mr. John Nese, owner of the Soda Pop Stop, helped us carry our collection of exotic rootbeers to the car, because he is gentlemanly.

    There are few things in the world that are better than having 34 different varieties of rootbeer in the kitchen.  However, there have been other good things going on as well.  I just got back from San Diego, where it was hazy and sleepy and I did a lot of swimming in a hotel pool in the nighttime.  We saw a baby panda at the zoo, but, alas, the slow loris was hiding somewhere in its enclosure and wouldn’t come out to shower us with cuteness.  Luckily, the internet continues to deliver.

    Also, I’ve been planning my girl group class, which starts this week and is going to be wonderful fun.  We’re starting with Gidget.  I feel that it’s important for the undergraduates to see excerpts from Gidget Goes Hawaiian, the  moral of which is “don’t talk to anyone, ever, or everyone will think you’re a slut, also, try surfing,” as it provides important context regarding representations of girl identity in the early 1960s.

    Discussion Questions:

    Who is cuter?  Slow loris or Maru, the internet’s best greatest cat? (Category of “internet’s greatest cat” was bestowed upon Maru by a non-partisan panel of internet cat video experts, consisting of myself.)

    How much rootbeer would a slow loris drink if a slow loris were larger than a bottle of rootbeer?

    Why is Gidget played by a different actress in every Gidget movie, when clearly Deborah Walley is the best Gidget?  And why is It’s a Bikini World (hilarious, quasi-feminist beach party movie, involving a skateboard race, and cameo from the Animals who perform “We’ve Gotta Get Out of This Place” at the Haunted House, which was once a monster-themed club with giant papier mache lizard creatures, and is now a porn theatre , her Greatest Film Ever, not available on DVD?

    Who wants a postcard with a panda on it?  I have three left, I’ll even sign them with a lipstick kiss so your mailman thinks you’re getting love letters from a Hollywood starlet.  Ooh, gossip and excitement could circulate about you in your very own hometown!

    Category Adventure | Tags: | 4 Comments

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