Husband just sent me this & I can’t decide which part is more awesome, the hair or the Exorcist-inspired breathing technique:
edited to add: Just hours after we watched this and I posted it, we went to yoga. I’ll be damned if the teacher didn’t say, “you can use lion breathing here…” which I’d never heard of so I snickered at the coincidence, then she added, “just stick your tongue out and pant.” I nearly fell over, and I don’t mean that as a cute expression, I mean that I nearly fell over.
Over at VanityFair Daily’s Culture and Society Blog, Paul Cullum posts about the truly horrific-sounding film, “Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage.” Specifically, about the ridiculous memo Kinkade apparently sent to his crew – which posted in it’s glorious entirety at the end of Cullum’s commentary.
Cullum writes:
Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light™, extends his purview to motion pictures with this week’s release of Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage, an inspirational holiday pastiche based on one of his paintings. Produced by Lionsgate, the film stars Peter O’Toole and Marcia Gay Harden. But not even a name cast could stop it from being unceremoniously dumped to home video a year after its planned release.
One reason might be that Kinkade, a postmodern Norman Rockwell for the evangelist set, instructed the crew to adhere to an aesthetic code that wouldn’t have flown in a first-year film class. The list of 16 “guidelines” on how to create “The Thomas Kinkade Look” on film, which was circulated to crew members in memo form, has been obtained exclusively by VF Daily.
I was trying to figure out what sort of things sounded less pleasant than working on this movie. Do you remember Truth Be Told, the pilot episode of Alias? Having a molar yanked out with a pair of pliers seemed pretty awful, didn’t it? That didn’t make my list.
Kinkade’s instructions are incredibly funny, but I think my favorite item is his “advice” to the cinematographer, who must have consumed his weight in diazepam not to strangle the man:
10) Short focal length. In general, I love a focal plane that favors the center of interest, and allows mid-distance and distant areas to remain blurry. Recommend “stopping down” to shorten focal lengths.
Hooboy.
I seem to have gone from bacon week to photography to cult week, although I’m not sure how or why. These things just happen, I guess.
Husband has become obsessed with the Tom Cruise video and has found the entire Scientology awards ceremony on google video. It’s divided into two 20 minute videos. Part 1 and Part 2.
“A handful of us are working our guts out to beat Deadline Earth!”
I haven’t watched all of it, but Husband is transfixed. Maybe he’s infested with Thetans.
Watching the [tag]Tom Cruise[/tag], [tag]Scientologist[/tag] video posted on [tag]Gawker[/tag] is like driving by an accident that you can’t help staring at.
By now, presumably, you’ve marveled at the whole bizarre mess . If you haven’t watched Tom Cruise talk about his scientology mission, go watch it now.
Then, have a good stiff drink and come back.
Then, watch [tag]Craig Ferguson[/tag]. His version of the video is as funny as the original is scary:
Husband tells me this isn’t in the Bible. I tell Husband he clearly has the wrong translation. If he doesn’t want to sing along, well, that’s just his problem.
Martha loves me, this I know
For the Bible tells me so.
Excellent recipes to her belong
We are weak, but she is strong.
Yes, Martha loves me.
Yes, Martha loves me.
I do have a small problem, though. It’s hasn’t been as easy as just accepting Martha in my heart as The One True Savior Who Shall Lead Us Out of Darkness Along the Path of Righteousness. I need to acquire something. Specifically, a baby. I need a baby. By tomorrow. You see, tomorrow they’re re-running the episode where one of Martha’s guests is this fantastically insane woman Isabelle Ortley, who makes costumes for babies. Turkey costumes. And lobsters costumes. Even an apple pie costume.
Image: Isabelle Ortley’s turkey-baby costume, as seen in MakeZine.
These aren’t your standard onesie zip-up type baby costumes that your little pooper rolls around the floor in while everyone oohs and ahhs and snaps photos. These bad boys are on platters. With garnishes. You can put them in the middle of your dining room table as a centerpiece, we’re told!
Really.
Video: Martha Stewart Show – Adorable Infant Food Costumes, Part 1.
Is this a great country or what?
Seriously. Here’s the Baby as Roast Turkey pattern so you can make your own at home. Oh, awesome, here’s the website with pictures of all of the other costumes, too. [2011 update: dead links]
Maybe instead of finding a baby and making a costume, I’ll just tivo the episode instead and periodically marvel at it’s nuttiness. That’s a whole lot easier.
What led me out of the wilderness and enabled me to find The One True Religion? One word: contrariness. There’s no sport in hating Martha, so you might as well get a bottle of Old Crow and learn to love her.
I was going to say more but I got distracted reading this EW.com interview with Joss Whedon about the upcoming Buffy season 8 comic books and totally lost my train of thought.
Update: Here’s a youtube clip of the Martha episode in question, in case the other link doesn’t work for you:
Here’s a 2011 post at MakeZine about Isabelle Ortley’s baby costuming: Baby Food: The Halloween Genius. I’ve posted the photo from the article, which appears to be one of the original publicity shots Ortley was using in 2006, in case these links also disappear in the future.