everything but the girl

Small Heroes spoiler for tonight's ep behind the cut, but if you have ever watched the show and stopped, you might want to read it.

( This amusement never ends! )
Yeah, I'll be vidding tomorrow.

From today's NYDailyNews.com:

ABC is heating up with "St. Elmo's Fire," the upcoming series based on the Brat Pack movie of the same name.

According to HollywoodReporter.com, the show will be based on, but will not replicate the film about six Georgetown grads entering adulthood. The three guys and three girls who play the lead roles will still live in Georgetown and still hang out at the St. Elmo's Bar & Restaurant, now referred to as St. Elmo's Bar & Grill, but they will all have fresh characters and story lines.

Imagine "Friends," a bit more serious and a half an hour longer. Dan Bucatinsky, who will take on screenwriting duties for the series, has no problem with reframing that coffee-house convention.

"I feel it is time to re-create 'Friends' in the hourlong genre and feel like this is the perfect opportunity," he said.

Assuming the show is set to start in January, who would you cast? It has to be people who're available to act full-time in a series as of this fall - in other words, no matter how perfect you think Jared Padalecki would be in the Judd Nelson role or Ashley Simpson in the Ally Sheedy part (to randomly pick names out of a hat) they're not available and can't do it.

Would you keep the genders all the same? Would you add in a wider range of races, sexual orientations, religions, etc.?

Would you update the theme song and if it was to be a straight-out cover, which current band or singer would you have cover it?

(I've had two glasses of shiraz and the best berry-bread-pudding evrr at Emeril's Tchoup Chop restaurant at Universal so I'm feeling a bit goofy ATM. Hurrah, for I will see Erin of House of Black tomorrow!)

You gave me James Spader and Jon Cryer and a litle bit of Robert Downey, New Order songs and Suzanne Vega's Left Of Center, which I played on a cassette tape far too often my sophomore year of high school, and at my sister's bat mitzvah. You gave me something to say back in 2005 when my mom and sister really did forget my birthday, and made me try hats, and see pink as occasionally transgressive, and really well-matched with Doc Martens. You got me to look at La Grande Jatte as closely as I could, but I never got up the nerve to stand in a window and look down from such a great height. I already had Matthew Broderick, but you brought him, and Charlie Sheen and Jennifer Grey to everyone, and you gave me something to say when I'm calling my kids and they're not coming and I monotone "Buehller? Bueller?" and while they don't yet know exactly what that means, someday they will. You're why I just downloaded "Molly" and why I am rereading jlh's Duckie Dale/Cameron Frye fic, Sensoria as soon as I post this. You penned "demented and sad, but social" and it all got a little twitchy sometime after 1989, but that's ok because what you did between 1983 and 1988 created my teenagerhood, and we've wondered what happened to make you lose your edge after that, but really, we just thank you so much for what you gave us that made the 80s what they were.

Earlier today, I was thinking about making a hashtag on twitter for Songs That Kids These Days Wouldn't Really Get, and I was thinking about 'Hang Up the Phone' which Annie Goldin* sang on the 16 Candles soundtrack (and which someone was nice enough to upload to YouTube) because it's all about getting a busy signal when trying to call That Special Boy. And for those of you who didn't live through 1983, check out the vid for a very Seventeen Magazine view on what was fashionable back then - yes, I wore a neon blue shirt over a white tee, and rolled the sleeves, and paired them with acid-washed-to-almost-white jeans. And jazz shoes.

I enjoyed Michael Jackson songs well enough most of the time back in 1983 and 1985 and 1987, but I loved John Hughes movies - enough that I actually watched Career Opportunities when I was in college because he was John Hughes.

Tip of the cute fedora to you, sir, to the tune of an Echo & the Bunnymen tune. You'll be missed, but your works will live on.


* who played Squeaky Fromme in Assassins, who is going to be released from a CA prison shortly [random]

Prologue of Importance re Azkatraz: If you have submitted a programming proposal for Azkatraz and have not been sent an email about the presenters' Yahoogroup, or some other email from flourish you need to get in touch with the programming team at submissions @ hp2009.org (without the spaces) so you can get your confirmation and release sent in by June 10, or you will not be able to present at Azkatraz. We need to finish the program and we can't do it without the confirmation paperwork in hand.


1. When taking kids to a kids-camp thing on a cruise ship put their names on their shoes - they might get taken by another kid who's about the same size late on the first night but you'll have an easier time claiming they're yours the next day at the pool.

2. What a thunderstorm looks like coming over a tiny bahamian island, and how a daquari tastes with a little sand in it (not terrible)

3. What the prices are for badge holders at ten different imprinting companies

4. That "Waking Up in Vegas" might make for a cracktastic HP vid, but I'm still looking for prompts to vid for Azkatraz. If you have a dream HP vid, tell me the song and a prompt in comments and if it inspires me, I'll vid it for the vidding show that chaeche is organizing for Azkatraz.

5. What a house looks like when balloons float it to South America.

6. That there still is no six. SQUIRREL!

7. That Chris Pine played Bill Pullman's son in Bottleshock, which also starred Alan Rickman.

8. The possible and/or proper size of a stage for Wrock performances

9. Some scheduelish things for Comic Con

10. Disney's put out a Wilderness Explorers' Guide that contains all the badges from the movie, and how to earn them - plus how Russell earned each of them. Make sure you look at the last page, and any kid or grownup who loved UP will adore all the stickers. I still hope Disney makes them into pins - I would love to pretend-earn them with my kids. I know some of you have kids who do boy scouts, but we wouldn't because we disagree with many of the national positions and mandates. Our kids get a lot of the same activities and information via temple activities, but this is different, and it's a terrific way for a former Girl Scout like me to share the enjoyment of badge-earning with my kids. Sometimes, I am so thankful that the Girl Scouts movement doesn't have the same issues as the boys.

11. How to change the pitch on an audio track.

12. What it feels like when your kid has only one more year of elementary school, and wins the award for most books AR points accumulated in the school for the year.

13. What it feels like to break a pinky-toe on the diagonal. Unlike copperbadge I have decorated my boot in pink sparkly heart stickers made of foam. But we agree that we should start a club for Fandomers With Broken Bones In Their Feet. We will call it the Club Foot (Sam's idea).

14. That I really should have been watching AI all season because I sort of adore Adam Lambert and Kris Allen more or less equally, and think that parallels the fact that for the last two years the two artists I've listened to most on iTunes are the Scissor Sisters and Jason Manns.

15. That YouTube won't allow the song Tall Cool One on a vid, but iMeem is ok with it, so I've posted my livelongnmarry vid commissioned by the fantastically patient yourlibrarian set to said song here. Formal posting sometime tomorrow or later tonight if I'm not exhausted by the time the kids go to sleep.

16. That the occupational license people here require a copy of the back side of my Bar Card even though there is no personalized content on that side, thereby necessitating extra walking by me and my broken foot. Fail, city.

17. That my sixth grade class was very trendsetting because on the way home from my 11th birthday at a skating rink in south Miami back in 1982 me and all the girls in my class sat in the back of the school bus we'd rented for the day singing "Don't Stop Believing" over and over and over. Oh, GLEE!

18. Oh gosh, so much more. I have recs and squee and OMG Azkatraz news and photos from Universal of the fantabulous Wizarding World of Harry Potter (under construction) and so much love for the sandy beach on Disney's Castaway Cay and at Universal's Portofino Bay hotel but I have four or five more vids to edit, some ephemera to create, kids to get to sleep, a camp duffel to finish packing and stuff to write for the Azkatraz program and popcorn to make (on the stove, with olive oil)

19. Total Eclipse of the Heart! Have you seen the Literal Version of the vid yet? If not, GO NOW! ETA Oh, look! There are now t-shirts, and it just hit over one million views! Go, them!

matociquala has put together an amazing collection of 80s music videos here, which led to me looking for ( this Total Coelo video ) and caused me to create the following poll:

[Poll #1101876]

Oh, and speaking of the 80s, Slate Magazine asks the question, "Should children read Philip Pullman's trilogy—or the incest classic Flowers in the Attic?"

I guess people can't read both? There's a limited number of words one's brain can read in a month or a year or a decade? Huh.

The article is definitely not perfect, and there's some apples-and-avocados comparisons, but I found this paragraph of particular interest given recent actions by 6A:

At the same time, when I think back to my own preteen reading, I'll admit that the whole point was to read books that I wasn't ready for, without my parents' approval. Is this kind of illicit read damaging to kids, or is it an inevitable excursion into pseudo-maturity that beats a lot of the other likely avenues? Better a disturbing, too-adult book than an indelibly horrifying movie or Internet game or video (or, it goes without saying, an encounter with real scary people)?

Is here. And what a good childhood it was! Weebles, Pac Man, Goonies, General Hospital circa 1981, vinyl Charlie's Angels lunchboxes, those barettes with ribbons in them - it's all there.

And out of all the above things, the one whose inclusion amazes me most is the listing for ribbon barettes.
As the blurb says, they were a craft thing that we all did after, or around the time that, we saw Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu. I spent a tonne of time in my parents' breakfast room making them - they're long gone now, but if someone had the instructions, I might just make them again.

Wouldn't wear them, but I would make them.

I wanted to be Janey from Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, but it seems I'm...

Who's Your 80s Movie Icon Alter-Ego? Find out @ She's Crafty
Note: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is one of the best movies ever, and that's not just because it's got Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt (with dinosaurs in her hair), Shannen Doherty or Jonathan Silverman in it...