Where's the Joe The Plumber'o lantern...?

Via Better Living Through Design:

These are wonderful. Download the patterns here.

Because I Love the Bizarre...

Video from Banksy's first US exhibit, via Men.Style.Com:



Mm... I'm totally craving Chicken McNuggets now.

Movie Review: Dans Ma Peau

(Originally, I published this on my blog. But then Ryan got all huffy, and asked if I was anti-URFCKD, so I added an image and posted here as well. Sorry for being so lazy.)

I'm a big fan of gore/violence in movies. No joke. While I may cringe, or hide in my hoodie, generally it's in mock-horror. In actuality, I find gratuitous carnage entertaining, even satisfying.

However, even I have my limits and "Dans Ma Peau (In My Skin)" (2002) is the first film I've seen in a long time that went beyond them.

"Dans Ma Peau" is about a woman named Esther (played by Marina de Van) who lives an ostensibly normal life, complete with a patient, understanding boyfriend and a moderately successful career. Her choice in friends is a bit off, but otherwise, she's doing alright. But there's something amiss, some sense of dissatisfaction, or perhaps ennui, as evidenced by her impulsive 'escape' from a work party her friend drags her to. While exploring a construction site (in the dark, by the way), she trips and gashes open her leg. We're to believe that she fails to notice the cavernous wound, until several hours later when she finally has to go to the bathroom. Instead of rushing to the hospital, she goes out for drinks.



The accident inspires a sort of fascination in Esther that leads her to self-mutilation via box-cutters, hinges, and steak knifes, and culminates in self-cannibalism. At one point, she tans a strip of her own flesh out of a sort of perverse sentimentalism.

The movie itself is an interesting look at mortality and vanity, catharsis and repression, belonging and alienation, pain, love, etc., etc., blah blah blah. And perhaps it would've been more tolerable with a different leading lady, but Maria de Van was, I guess, intent on being involved with every facet of the film (she also wrote and directed it.) Short of being difficult to look at, de Van seems like a bad character actor.

I will say this for the movie: it's disturbing enough to watch a woman, supine on a cheap hotel floor, sawing chunks out of her thigh, blood dripping all over her face. Or to see her gnaw on her arm, then pause, pull a nugget of her own skin from between her teeth, look at it... THEN PUT IT BACK IN HER MOUTH AND RESUME CHEWING. But de Van shows us all of this without offering us the relief of music. It's just her, her flesh, the viewer, and the sounds of self-mutilation. It's an uncomfortable silence. It adds an intensity that I can't recall experiencing in any other movie I've recently watched. And I watch a lot of movies. I felt the need to ask Louise to hug my head at one point, because tensing up in the fetal position wasn't enough. Ryan described the movie as inciting his Cremasteric Reflex. Louise actually left the room.

It was horrifying. But not the kind of horrifying that leaves you gratified, feeling like your suffering was justified, because there's no real payoff. In the end, I just kind of felt like I'd been held at Guantanamo for eight years, just for Googling "World Trade Center."

My body hurts just thinking about it.

Mixtape

I stole the idea from Dallas, so I can't take credit, but she didn't post hers here (it's posted on her blog) so I thought I would. The playlist isn't new, exciting, or rife with hot new bands. Autumn tends to be a time that I fall back to what is comfortable.

The Playlist:

1. "Halfway Home" - TV on the Radio

I've been enjoying the new TVOTR album, quite a bit actually, but lately I've been having trouble getting past the first track. I can easily say it is the best on the album, which stirs the debate of whether or not its placement as the opening track is a wise one. I vote yes.

2. "Opium Typhoon" - Vampire Hands

I've been doing a lot of writing lately, or rather trying to do a lot of writing, and this track tends to be playing through most of my attempts. The energy that goes into their music is evident, and their shows are never dull. They win.

3. "Pterodactyls" - Fujiya & Miyagi

Great track from a trio of Brit gents pretending to be japanese. Their second album is the perfect followup to Transparent Things by not trying too hard to be completely different. They found their niche and it works.

4. "I'm Good, I'm Gone" - Lykke Li

A catchy pop song from an artist whose lyrics are simple without being trite.

5. "Come Into Our Room" - Clinic

I've been listening to their newest album a lot lately which has spurred me to go back and re-listen to their older works. I forget how much I like this band. This track is an old favorite.

6. "Caribou" - The Pixies

It's The Pixies, come on. I was listening to their greatest hits the other night, chain smoking, and nostalgic for times at the First Street house when often we needed little more than to listen to records, smoke, and sit in the company of friends. The UK Surf Mix of "Wave of Mutilation" has been in heavy rotation, as well.

7. "Eyes" - Rogue Wave

Oh what a year it has been. This song wraps it all up in a neat little package, with a simple arrangement.

8. "Heart of Chambers" - Beach House

I always tend to revisit a few bands when Autumn finally descends upon us, and this is definitely one of them.

9. "White Gymnasium" - Talkdemonic

This song has been and possibly will always be my Fall anthem. There is something so joyous and hopeful about it that never ceases to make me at least a little bit more optimistic.

10. "The Transfiguration" - Sufjan Stevens

Another artist who seems to get more play on my headphones during the transitional seasons. It's Sufjan, we all know it's good, but somehow his most outwardly religious album Seven Swans has always been this atheist's favorite. This song will, without fail, soon be replaced by "Sister Winter" from his Christmas collection.

leaving noises...not to be confused with arriving noises...

I will soon be joining the ranks of folks who were formerly missoulians.

It is not leaving Missoula that I am struggling with...it's making preparations to leave that is the trouble. Ive got too much crap and can't possibly take it all with me. Besides the exception of 60% of my closet, my records, coozies, tuna and my mother's trunk (oh and the back seat of the v. smokes van that is now mine), most of the things I possess will have to go. Liquidation sale? I don't know how to go about the weeding out process. If any of you want to accumulate more things, let me know if theres anything you have your eye on. Especially art and a set of dining room chairs.

And if anyone wants to get in on a garage sale of epic proportions, I bet that would help my situation as well.

It's weird how people don't tell you that they appreciate you or the things you do until you tell them you're moving away. I think it's just the nature of human folk.

Our Blog Manifesto

Our mission statement is much like the OK Soda manifesto, it goes like this...

1. What's the point of URFCKD?  Well what's the point of anything?

2. URFCKD emphatically rejects anything that is FCKD, and fully supports anything that is not FCKD.

3. The better you understand something, the more FCKD it turns out to be.

4. URFCKD says, "Don't be fooled into thinking there has to be a reason for everything."

5. URFCKD reveals the surprising truth about people and situations.

6. URFCKD does not subscribe to any religion, or endorse any political party, or do anything other than trying not to feel FCKD.

7. There is no secret to feeling FCKD.

8. URFCKD may be the preferred blog of other people such as yourself.

9. Never overestimate the remarkable abilities of URFCKD blog.

10.  Please wake up every morning knowing that things are always going to be FCKD.

(I know not everyone grew up in a test market for the short lived OK soda (94-95), but Coke, its parent company, may just have pinned down our generation more than it thought with its quirky ad campaign.   OK Soda's manifesto was just one part of its subversive marketing tactics, and one of the most endearing things about the deceased brand.   And of course it sort of fits what I think we're aiming for here at URFCKD.

Plus its fairly hip to reference obscure and no longer available soft drinks.)

My New Goal In Life.

I want a monkey in dolls' clothes to fetch me Diet Cokes from the fridge.

internet social networking is making me an introvert

i used to love myspace.  and facebook.  i enjoy being able to keep in touch with certain friends that geography separates me from.  these sites offer easy ways to look up old friends, or send a note to someone whose e-mail address or phone number you've lost.

but everytime i go on myspace, some stupid band wants to be my friend.  on facebook, its one of my friends telling me i need to be friends with this or that person that i knew when i was seventeen and totally forgot existed.  my energy is thus wasted considering whether i need to add bands to my friend base or whether i might what to say something to an old friend that is now fat and has kids.

i really just want ryan cote to write something funny on my wall.  or get a funny comment or e-mail from any of the other bloggers on this page.  

i don't care about your band.  or your event.  or your cool new little group on facebook.  i'm content without these social considerations.  and if i haven't talked to you in ten years, maybe sending me an e-mail isn't going to change my mind.

things won't change.  other than the fact i may check all these stupid accounts less.  i do have better things to do.  it's all those fake friends that are ruining the internet for me.

A drinking game for politcally-savvy young adults

Every time Sarah Palin says "maverick", you take a shot.

Guaranteed drunk.