Favorite Movies of 2009 Monday, Mar 22 2010 

movies thisgaudygildedstage 12:29 pm

I was in Germany during the Oscars telecast and didn’t get to see the show. Not that it mattered much, since everyone pretty much knew who was going to win beforehand. I really hope Meryl Streep wins another Best Actress Oscar soon — she’s deserved it now a couple of times in a row.

I always try to get my list of favorite pictures out before the Oscars, but this year I’ve been so busy with work and traveling that I haven’t had time to get it all together. So, I’m finally listing my top ten movies of the past year.

Number 1: The Hurt Locker

I reviewed The Hurt Locker here, so won’t rehash that here. But I will reiterate how impressed I was with this film. It took a subject I didn’t particularly want to see a film about and totally engrossed me in it. Furthermore, the final two scenes of the movie really threw me for a loop but totally recasting everything that we had seen before. It offers an interesting take on war and the obsession with it. It’s also an interesting exploration of modern masculinity. The entire cast is excellent, and I’m glad that Katherine Bigelow won the Oscar for Best Director. She deserved it.

(more…)

 

Visiting Leipzig Sunday, Mar 21 2010 

museums and travel thisgaudygildedstage 2:33 pm

Last week, I spent three days in Leipzig, Germany. My university has a long-standing relationship with the University of Leipzig, and I was sent by our Office of Education Abroad to learn more about the program that currently exists and to see if we can find ways to interest more of my college’s students to participate.

This is the first trip I’ve ever taken where other people made most of the arrangements, paid most of the bills, and just generally showed me around. It was great! I arrived on Sunday evening, having flown on Saturday from Columbus to Detroit and then to Paris, where I had a long layover on Sunday. From Paris, I flew to Leipzig. The university arranged for a driver to pick me up at the airport (fancy!); he took me to one of the university guesthouses, where I stayed in a studio apartment. Here’s what the guesthouse looked like from the outside:

I think my apartment was the one right above where person on the right is standing.

(more…)

 

Everytime We Touch by Cascada Friday, Mar 19 2010 

music and song of the week thisgaudygildedstage 11:44 am

I spent the first week of my trip to Germany and the Netherlands without PJ, who met me in Amsterdam last Saturday morning. I had checked into our hotel on Friday evening. When he got on the train from the airport to Amsterdam’s central train station, he called me and then I met him at the station.

While walking to the station, which was only about three blocks from our hotel, I couldn’t get Cascada’s “Everytime We Touch” out of my head. So, I’ve decided to make it my song of the week:

While I enjoyed all of my trip, I have to say that the best part was meeting PJ at the station and spending a weekend together in Amsterdam. I missed him terribly while we were apart. I managed to work myself up to a major case of nerves before I left for the trip — I supposed because it was the first time I had traveled abroad on my own in 10 years and because I was meeting with lots of people, etc. — which ultimately affected me physically during the week I was away without him. Not surprisingly, all of that went away (almost) as soon as I was with him again.

Cascada is actually the name of a group rather than the lead singer’s name, which is Natalie Horler. The group originated in Germany, and when they started getting international attention Horler became synonymous with Cascada. I guess it’s not the first time that the lead singer of a group has taken over its identity!

Since I was just in Germany, it seems particularly appropriate to choose a song from a German group for my song of the week. While I was there, I also reconnected to my love for Euro-trash pop music, which I’ll blog about later. Until then, I’ll just keep singing, “Everytime we touch ….”

(more…)

 

Back from Europe Thursday, Mar 18 2010 

travel thisgaudygildedstage 10:58 am

Old City Hall in Leipzig, Germany

I’m now back from my trip to Germany and the Netherlands. While abroad I visited Leipzig, Germany, and three cities in the Netherlands: Leiden, the Hague, and Amsterdam. It was a long trip — I was away a total of 11 days, which is about my limit for traveling — but I had a great time.

The weather was a little dreary for most of the trip — cold, overcast, sometimes snowy, and a little rainy towards the end. But I learned a lot about the study abroad programs in Leipzig and Leiden, and I couldn’t have had more fun with PJ in Amsterdam. We thoroughly enjoyed our three-day weekend together.

As I mentioned before I left, the goal of the trip was to learn more about study abroad opportunities for my students in Leipzig and Leiden, the latter of which is the center of a multi-university program that matches students up with European faculty allowing them to work together on a research project. A couple of my students are currently interested in the program, so I was there to check it out.

(more…)

 

Leaving for Germany and the Netherlands Saturday, Mar 6 2010 

travel thisgaudygildedstage 10:45 am

Photograph by Jon Hicks/CORBIS, National Geographic Magazine

My university is sending me to Leipzig and Leiden for the next week. I leave this evening and won’t be back until the 16th. I’ll be in Germany for two days of meetings and then travel to the Netherlands for a day-and-a-half in Leiden before meeting up with PJ in Amsterdam for a long weekend.

The main goal of the trip is to visit some study abroad programs to learn more about them. I might be able to help get more of our students interested in these programs in the coming years. One is a new program for us, so I’m also supposed to check it out and see what it’s all about. I should learn a lot during the trip.

I’m always a nervous traveler, and I’ve been getting more and more anxious about the trip as it’s approached. It doesn’t help that I’ll be going on my own; this is the first international trip I’ve made alone since my first trip to England in the summer of 2000. Work has been busy, so the stress and the nerves have worked together to exhaust me. I’m looking forward to a few days in Amsterdam to relax and have a little fun with PJ.

Throughout the trip, I’ll get to visit some museums. I’m also scheduled to attend a concert in Leipzig. So, I’ll have lots to write about when I get back. Until then, cheers!

 

Telephone by Lady Gaga f. Beyonce Wednesday, Mar 3 2010 

music and song of the week thisgaudygildedstage 3:36 pm

My song of the week this week is Lady Gaga’s “Telephone.” Like so many of her songs, this one is infectious. I realized recently that I hadn’t downloaded it onto my iPod. When I did, I couldn’t stop listening to it, and now whenever I’m not thinking about anything else I find the chorus playing over and over again in my head!

This is third or fourth Gaga song that I’ve selected as a song of the week. She’s clearly my favorite artist right now. I’m not sure that nearly 40-year-old gay men are her target audience, but that’s how it goes — artists can’t predict or control who loves their work.

I love the way the song begins relatively quietly and then builds to its dancing climax. She’s a great performance artist and musician, a rare combination, I think. I’m especially reminded how much I lover her music and performance art as I watch the new (and so far dreadful) season of American Idol get underway. Where’s the new Adam Lambert when you need him (or her)?! Say what you will about Lady Gaga, her drive and ambition are relentless. Fortunately, she’s also extremely talented.

(more…)

 

Young Victoria: A Review Tuesday, Mar 2 2010 

movies thisgaudygildedstage 3:15 pm

PJ and I recently saw Young Victoria starring Emily Blunt as Victoria. The movie depicts her life just before ascending to the throne and explores her complicated relationships with the people who are all fighting to control her as she prepares to assume her duties as queen. Here’s the trailer:

PJ and I were both a little surprised by the fact that we each liked this film more than we thought we would. What little I had heard about the film made it sound like people were rather underwhelmed by it. But I saw it as a more than capable biography of this woman’s rise to power, one that interestingly explored the difficulties of becoming queen at such a young age.

(more…)

 

HotM: Judith Leyster Sunday, Feb 28 2010 

art and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century 'hotties' thisgaudygildedstage 1:36 pm

Back in October, PJ and I were in Washington, D.C. While there, we visited the National Gallery of Art, which at the time had a special exhibit on seventeenth-century Dutch painter Judith Leyster. Since I’m about to head off to the Netherlands for a week (more about that sometime this week), I’ve decided to make Leyster my hottie of the month.

Leyster, pictured here in her self-portrait at the age of 21 in 1630, was born in 1609 and died in 1660, which means that she lived just long enough to make my hotties list (which generally covers the period from 1660 to 1820).

She was well-known in her own time but quickly fell into obscurity after her death. The pamphlet that accompanied the exhibit suggests two possible reasons for her disappearance. First, she largely stopped painting after she married in 1636. She married another painter, and her work became more of a collaboration with him. Thus, her individual identity was lost. Second, the pamphlet suggests that her habit of signing her paintings with just her initials might have contributed to her subsequent neglect — people may have simply forgotten who the initials stood for.

Both of these explanations seem plausible, especially since women in all fields of art were so often neglected after their deaths. In my own period and national literature there are countless examples of this, including Aphra Behn, Katherine Philips, and “Ephelia,” whose identity remains shrouded despite efforts to identify her. Fortunately, we now value these women’s contributions to art and their cultures enough to recover them and their works.

(more…)

 

Hunger (2008): A Review Saturday, Feb 27 2010 

movies thisgaudygildedstage 3:10 pm

Last night, PJ and I watched Hunger, a 2008 movie starring Michael Fassbinder as Irish republican Bobby Sands who died in a British prison after a 66-day hunger strike in 1981. Here’s the trailer:

If I remember correctly, we put this movie on our netflix queue after seeing Fassbinder in Inglourious Basterds. PJ read about this movie and put it on our queue. Neither of us knew much about “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland or about this specific story, the revolutionaries’ hunger strike as an attempt to force Margaret Thatcher’s government to treat them as political prisoners rather than common criminals.

So, we went into this film with very little knowledge about what it is about. I think that ignorance made the film even richer for us. It allowed us to just go along with the ride, so to speak. Apparently, Steve McQueen, the director, is known for his experimental/lyrical style of storytelling. For instance, although the film is ultimately about Bobby Sands’ hunger strike, that’s not where the film starts.

(more…)

 

“Giving Up the Gun” by Vampire Weekend Tuesday, Feb 23 2010 

music and tennis thisgaudygildedstage 8:11 pm

I’ve been hearing about Vampire Weekend and their new album for some time now but hadn’t paid any attention. Until now, that is. A couple of the blogs I read have featured their new video, which features the likes of Joe Jonas and Jake Gyllenhaal playing tennis against a very competitive female player. The video is for their new single, “Giving Up the Gun,” which is now my song of the week:

I love the video’s playfulness. Jonas is looking less twinkish, which is good. (I love the hand wipe after shaking her hand!) And the montage of players losing to the red head is great! The song is also really good. I like it’s upbeat rhythm. And the lyrics have real substance. My favorite lines are these:

When I was 17
I had wrists like steel
And I felt complete
And now my body fades
Behind my brass charade
And I’m obsolete

After listening to the song a few times, I purchased the new album on iTunes. I’ve heard it through once so far and really like it. Maybe I’ll write a review once I’ve heard it a few more times.

(more…)

 

« Previous Page — Next Page »