Don't forget.

In The Know: Has Halloween Become Overcommercialized?

There's another choice . . .

If you are a Utah resident preparing to vote, you should know that there's another choice for governor. You don't have to vote for Huntsman or Springmeyer.
You can vote for this guy.
It should be noted that this is not entirely a joke. He is actually on the ballot with a statement about how if you open your heart and ask God, your answer will be that he should be our governor.

(It should also be noted that just because you can vote for him doesn't mean you should.)

Speaking of choices, I've been looking at some of the other things that will be on my ballot, and I'm annoyed. Every single proposition has an argument for, but not one has an argument against. Surely there is some opposition to these proposed amendments, but how am I supposed to find out what it is? How can I participate in the democratic process if I don't know the full story on these things? And why on earth should I care if the legislature meets a week later? These are important issues, and I want answers. This, more than anything, is the reason I'd really like to see a two party system in Utah.
I was going to vote early yesterday, but I wasn't feeling well, so I think I'll head over tomorrow. Nothing like voting to make your Halloween. Maybe I'll do a Thriller dance out of the booth.

Ah yes! I remember it smelled . . .

I think that smell is the greatest vehicle for nostalgia that we have. Sometimes I find myself thrust into the past over sounds (songs especially) or sights (pictures, returning to places), but as far as that really crazy near deja vu experience goes, smell is in a class on its own.
I started thinking about this concept a few weeks ago when I was walking home from the park. I smelled some overripe grapes while I was walking by one house, and it reminded me of the grape vines in our backyard in Bountiful. That has always been part of the smell of fall to me: overripe grapes, rotting leaves, bonfires. It takes me back to those days of raking up the leaves from our maple tree and building forts out of them with Tyson and Melissa.
Since then I've been noticing smells. I think fall is one of the more potent times for it, because everything has been sending me reeling. Last winter my mom gave me this little stuffed dog with a rice bag in its stomach. Every time I heat it up now the smell reminds me of the craziness of last winter, especially of waking up at 5 am with my bed still a little warm and trying desperately to talk myself into getting up and driving to Spanish Fork again.
I also go through stages with my lotion, which creates some interesting smell memories. I'll wear one scent for a little while, then switch to something else or nothing else. Lately I've been using my White Tea and Ginger again, and it's been taking me back to my first reading of Twilight. Weird, huh? Wearing Brown Sugar and Fig takes me back to the Christmas when Landon set me up with a kid named Evan, who took me to see The Chronicles of Narnia.
That rotting leaves smell I talked about earlier - that shows up all over the place, especially in canyons and parking lots. You know the one I mean - kind of a sickly sweet smell of decay and rain and leaves. It makes me think of one year at the Glenwood when I always smelled it in this one little place on my walk to school and it was a comforting smell. It brings back memories of listening to the Black Crowes and getting over things.
Add to that smells like baking cookies and cinnamon potpourri and new car and the blue Herbal Essences shampoo, and you pretty much have me remembering my whole life. It makes complete sense to me that the change of seasons and Christmas and things like that hit you harder. There's more to smell and more to remember.
I thought if I wrote long enough I'd figure out a point to this post. No such luck, just some meandering thoughts. Annie Dillard I am not, but maybe if I keep it up I'll work it out someday.

GREat

I am really happy that the GRE is over. After a week of harder core studying (especially yesterday) and six weeks of less hard core studying, I went to Lindon this morning to brave my first computerized standardized test.
I liked doing the writing part on the computer. I inevitably change my mind about how I want to start essays, and it was nice to have that option instead of just sticking with my initial start because I didn't want to scribble things out.
There's always a dummy section on the GRE - you either get two verbal sections or two quantitative sections, and you don't know which one doesn't count. Except I'm pretty sure that the first of my quantitative sections was my dummy section, because I completely bombed it, and the second one went a little better. My score wasn't as ridiculous as it would have been if I'd got the first score, so I'm thankful for that. The verbal was okay - it's kind of luck of the draw on whether you know the words, but it wasn't too awful.
I had knots in my stomach for several hours afterward. That stupid timer is stressful. It didn't help that BYU cut it a little too close for comfort today.
Tonight was our family Halloween party, which meant doughnuts, apple juice and homemade chili. (How do you spell that when you mean the food and not the country? Chilie? Chilli? Chilly? Okay, now they all look weird.) My nephews were adorable as super heroes (Ironman, Captain America, Batman, Robin) and Savy made a beautiful Sleeping Beauty with light up shoes. I'll have to steal pictures from someone and post them.
Sleeping tonight and beginning next week without feeling like I should be studying vocabulary is making me happy right now. Also, the thought of making Halloween costumes with Lindsey and Whitney, and the fact that Sami will be trying to make my hair less boring on Monday. (Not shorter, just more exciting - layers, possibly pin-backable fringe. We'll see how brave I get.)

I suck at studying.

But have I mentioned lately that I love M. Ward?

And M. Ward playing with Zooey Deschanel?


Because it's a lot.

Down with the creepy Stepford picture!

This is mostly for Treb, but the rest of you can enjoy as well.

About Today

In the spirit of Halloween, today I rented two movies. 1) Truly Madly Deeply (not scary, but has ghosts) and 2) The Stepford Wives (1975 version). I'm pretty excited about both. The picture on the back of Stepford is absolutely terrifying (it's a different picture of the character whose picture I posted - why are her eyes completely black??), but honestly, what could be better than a horror movie with a feminist agenda? (Nothing. That's the answer. Unless you also have popcorn as well. That would be better.) Anyway, Lin and I have plans to watch one or both tomorrow night, and hopefully Miri and Krissie and Whitney will be joining us when their schedules permit.
I took a GRE practice test today. I need to brush up on my math. Yikes. But my timing was pretty good - I managed to answer all of the questions, and once I got the hang of things it wasn't too horrible. I'll be taking a few more this week, as well as reading other select bits of my Princeton Review book and studying GRE hit list words. Sigh. C'mon 1000 the first time so I only have to take it once.
Also, Mormons are weird. Tonight we played dodgeball for FHE. With toilet paper. Being pegged with a roll of toilet paper hurts more than you would think. I'm pretty sure I have a bruise from my home teacher hitting me in the arm with a roll. It was a fun time . . . but pretty funny in terms of what people do for fun in the real world verses what we do here.
I applied for a cataloging job in the library today. I would really like it. I'm afraid that there will be other, more experienced catalogers who have friends in high places. But I can dream, can't I? Keep your fingers crossed just in case.
And now I am very excited to go to bed, because I washed my sheets and pajamas today and they smell good.

You have a Julius Caesar world?

Last night Whitney and I saw a production of Julius Caesar in Cedar City that completely changed the way we will see that play forever. In Whitney's words, it rocked our Julius Caesar worlds. (Lindsey and Miri immediately noted that it was cool that we have Julius Caesar worlds. Not everyone does.)
It was a modern dress production, which always makes things more interesting for me. I had never see Caesar live, and though I've read it a few times, the only version I'd seen was the old James Mason/Marlon Brando version, and I'd always read it just the way they performed it. I saw Antony as a big hero standing up against terrorists or power-hungry fanatics. I saw Cassius as a sleezy, smooth-talking creep who pulled the wool over poor, noble Brutus's eyes.This production was not the same old Julius Caesar.

This picture comes from the second act. Antony is the Italian-looking guy in green, Brutus is the one with the red beret, and Cassius is the one snarling.

The way the characters were played contributed a lot of my new mental version of this play. Cassius was played more sympathetically than I had ever imagined him. I could actually understand why Brutus respected and followed him. Antony, on the other hand, was a crazy playboy who seemed out of touch with the political implications of Caesar taking the crown. Brutus's speech seemed completely legitimate, while Antony seemed to be working to incite the citizens to riot, which he did. The end result of his "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech was a lot of screaming and breaking glass and fire, and after intermission we had entered a military state that reminded me of some African countries and a documentary I saw about elections in Bolivia.

Although I still didn't think that Brutus and his buddies were in the right when they killed Caesar, it made more sense to me this way. They didn't seem to be after power, and Brutus in particular didn't seem to be lured by the idea that he should raise himself higher. They seemed genuine in their push for a better Rome, their desperate attempt to save their country from tyrants. When Cassius and Brutus killed themselves at the end, it didn't feel like they were doing it because they were feeling guilty; instead, it referred back to a speech Cassius had made about how all men are free from tyrants if they choose to be so (with the help of a knife). They seemed to have abandoned hope under the new Octavius/Antony administration and saw no other way out.
It was truly a fascinating production, and I am glad to say that not only do I have a Julius Caesar world now, but it has been rocked like crazy.

My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion - A Playlist

A few weeks ago the A.V. Club posted a pretty great autumn playlist, "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground: 25 Sad Songs for the Changing Seasons." I like the idea of this playlist, and thought I'd add my own autumn songs to the list (although with less explanation than they write. I'm not getting paid for it.) My current iTunes playlist includes theirs (as availability in my library allows) and the following:

• "Yardwork in November" by The Actual Tigers - The Actual Tigers are severely underrated, and this song is one of their best. It's perfect for this time of year, with images of flower beds losing their color and life, people listening for the sound of snow on their roofs, etc. It's a beautiful and worthwhile song at any time of year, but more so right now.
• "Autumn" by Carla Bruni - Even her voice sounds like leaves rustling. It's awesome.
  
• "Autumn" by Paolo Nutini - This is a beautiful song with a nice use of the autumn/death metaphor.
  
• "Lost in Autumn" by The Sea and the Cake - Chill, melancholy, the end of autumn equals the realization that there never was a relationship and life is dark and gloomy. Perfect. :)
• "Autumn Walker" by Jets to Brazil - Autumn is a reminder that "all things must end, but did you know what that meant?"
• "My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion" by The Flaming Lips - This is awesome. It provides a reminder that everything dies and changes, and "only a fool believes that he is different from the birds in the sky," but ends up with the rebellion - "This one bird didn't leave you . . . yes it's true, everything dies, but we won't let that defeat us." As trippy as the Flaming Lips are, they still have some pretty great sentiments.
• "September Baby" by Joseph Arthur - "You can feel the falling leaves filling up our vacant lives/When I fall onto my knees, I pray you don't leave me behind. Summertime is over, I don't owe you nothing."
  
• "Summer Skin" by Death Cab for Cutie - The saddest of all relationship endings - "the season's change was a conduit, and we left our love in our summer skin." Tragic.
  
• "Pale September" by Fiona Apple - A reversal of some of the other songs - September comes and she thinks that everything is going to sink into the oblivion of death and sadness, but instead someone comes and she keeps him warm. Lovely.
  
• "August & September" by The The - Summer ends, so does relationship. Typical. But a pretty classy song.
  
• "November" by Duncan Sheik - an incredibly over-the-top melancholy song about how sad and dark November is as we remember May.
  
• "A Long December" by The Counting Crows" - There's still little that is more poignant than the thought that "there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last.
  
• "Cold December" by Matt Costa - Despite the winter month in the title, this song is still about the birds flying south, the guy weeding the garden, and the girl leaving, and the plea, "If only time could slow down." Indeed.
• "December Baby" by Ingrid Michaelson - You guessed it - it's December, and the guy is avoiding her eyes and refusing to hold her hand. Tragic.
  
• "Snow Don't Fall" by John Gorka - a lovely song that is maybe a little more hopeful about the winter relationship than most. :)
  
• "The Other Side of Summer" by Elvis Costello - a reminder that "there's malice and there's magic in every season."
• "The End of Summer" by Dar Williams - Dar turns the end of summer into the time of year when you leave - "It's just that time of year when you have to move ahead." Incredibly melancholy with images of hanging flowers up to dry and leaving the familiar behind and going off to school with boxes in your car. Good stuff.
• "Scattered Leaves" by The Be Good Tanyas - a new discovery which I love - "Fall was just the calm before the next spring riot." Yes.
  
• "A Hazy Shade of Winter" by Simon and Garfunkel - Need I say more? "Seasons change with the scenery, weaving time in a tapestry, won't you stop and remember me?"
• "Winter" by Joshua Radin - an excellent song "I should know myself by now." Indeed, Joshua, and isn't winter the time when we realize that?
• "Things to Forget" by Sarah Harmer - Autumn as a time to move on, ahead, etc.
  
• "Poses" by Rufus Wainwright - This song isn't as autumn-centric as some of the others, but it's got the same introspective melancholy, and I love the line "The green autumnal parks conducting/ All the city streets, a wondrous chorus singing . . ." Beautiful.
  
• "The Swell Season" by The Swell Season - An instrumental peace by Glen and Marketa that definitely sounds like autumn going into winter to me.
  

Some things

Well, we're back from our cross country adventure. I'll probably post more about that later, when I snag some pictures from Lindsey. But Lindsey is back in Utah, and life is lovely. I don't have much else to say, but I'm sick of the last post, so I'll say a few things anyway. Bear with me.
Meanwhile, now I am back to hunting jobs, studying for the GRE (oh dear, lots of that still to do), and treasuring my remaining time at the library. Today I did some painting at Clark and Linda's because they needed it done and figured that I need money, so they may as well hire me as someone else. They may regret that - today I was a little sad about how many times I got yellow paint on the blue walls, but I guess I can always touch up afterward, right? Anyway, day one left me with paint in my hair, up and down both arms, and just above the pockets of my pants. I have no idea how it got some of those places, but I'm sure I'll be just as much of a mess tomorrow.
Tomorrow night is the last debate, and I have to admit that my hopes aren't high. I seriously hope that we can get some real answers for the third one, because the last debate was pretty lame.
I'm glad that we get a little more nice weather, before winter begins in earnest, but I have to admit that I'm pretty excited about breaking out my scarves and winter coats, not to mention drinking hot chocolate. I'm trying to look on the bright side, because I am not so much a fan of scraping windows or shivering.
Sorry that I said very little in this post. To make up for it I'll post this picture from a couple of years ago, which has been making me smile for the last few days since I found it and made it my wallpaper.

Appurtenances

I know this post might look like a waste of time, but I am using a GRE word for the subject line. So it isn't. And Toothpaste for Dinner is hilarious.

'Cause all you people are vampires . . .

For those of you who rely on the Halloween playlist to inform your October listening, I think you should know that I've added a few songs to this playlist from last year. New songs so far for this Halloween season include, but are not limited to, the following:

• "Vampire" by Antsy Pants
• "Welcome, Ghosts" by Explosions in the Sky
• "Lullaby" by The Cure
• "Perhaps Vampire is a Bit Strong But . . ." by The Arctic Monkeys
• "Scary Monsters (& Super Creeps)" by David Bowie
• "The Sharpest Lives" by My Chemical Romance
• "Chasing a Ghost" by The Morning Benders
• "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts" by Wolf Parade
• "Dead Man (Carry Me)" by Jars of Clay
• "Bodysnatchers" by Radiohead
  

Watch this space for more additions!

Open mouth, insert foot.

Funny story, and a quasi rant that you've kind of heard before.
So today we had a brunch between two very lovely sessions of Conference, and we sat out in the sun in the solarium and talked to some people in our ward. One of the guys was talking about being from Southern California and proceeded to go off about how people always ask if he's liberal because everyone from So Cal is liberal except him. And then he said, and I quote, "It makes me sick that there is a BYU Democrats club."
Now, normally I would be pretty royally offended by this comment. (I would be upset if someone said they were sick that there was a BYU Republicans club as well. We're all about choices here, and there's no need to jump all over people for making choices that are different than yours, regardless of what they are.) But I could tell that the poor kid had no idea what he was saying. He was just saying something, and somehow he thought that this was what was expected of him. So Whitney and I gently knocked him on his ear and then proceeded to explain to him why we are currently supporting the Democratic party. Then we asked him why he thought Democrats were such bad news. "Well," he said, "their stance on abortion."
Blink, blink.
So we explained to him our stance on that (definitely pro-life, but think that the Church's stance about the cases of rape and incest being possible exceptions is sound and reasonable, so having difficulty being okay with making it completely illegal under every circumstance, and also not able to choose my candidate on that issue alone), as well as our candidates' stance on gay marriage (from Joe Biden's own mouth - he's does not support it, but believes there should still be hospital visitation rights and so forth, which is fine with me because I believe in treating people like people even if I don't agree with their lifestyle choices), and we explained that we also thought that at this particular time, those issues were generally being handled on a state level or not really red flag issues at the moment, whereas issues about the economy and foreign policy and education and energy seemed to be more immediately pressing on a federal level, and we prefer the Democrats' stance on those things right now.
I think he was seriously considering voting Democrat by the end of our conversation. It was hilarious. He had no idea what he was talking about and we talk about this constantly, so he pretty much didn't stand a chance.
I have no problem with people whose opinions differ from mine. I just have issues with people who have opinions based solely on hearsay and smear campaigns. (At one point in the conversation he said, "But I heard Obama wasn't patriotic and doesn't salute the flag." Buddy, you may as well decide you're against him because he's a Muslim. Seriously. Do your research.) There may be a lot of Republicans in Utah, but that doesn't mean it's a sin to vote Democrat, especially when you've done your research and watched the debates and read the issues and feel really good about the candidate you've picked. I'm afraid that I've jumped on a couple of people this week who have pulled the "Well, Obama's talk is all rhetoric," card on me one too many times. Honestly, I'd be willing to bet money that I've spent more time researching the policies behind that rhetoric (which, by the way, is a political tool that has been used for centuries, so get used to it - McCain does it too for all of his "straight talk") than you have, and while I may not understand it completely, I bet I know what he's saying better than you do from your clips of watching an Obama rally on the news. And don't tell me that the research I've been doing is all liberal, because I read Drudge Report and Drudge Retort. I'm very balanced. :) But please, prove me wrong by explaining to me what exactly you don't like about him and the Democrats.
I very much appreciate people who want to argue with me for legitimate reasons. If they legitimately hate Obama's economic policies, I can understand that. If they really think McCain's foreign policy better, I can respect it. They can hate universal health care and are in favor of off-shore drilling over the search for alternate energy solutions and tell me why they think we should just chillax in Iraq until we're good and ready to get out, no matter how long it takes, and I'll be happy to listen to their informed, well-researched point of view and I'll be a better citizen because of it. But if they're voting Republican because it's "God's party" (sorry, but if apostles can be Democrats, so can I) and because Obama is a communist who going to legalize gay marriage (no, no he's not, and it's not under his jurisdiction anyway) and they think Sarah Palin is adorable (Say it ain't so, Joe! *winkie face*), they'd better not expect to make me see the error of my ways over brunch, because I will eat them with syrup, and they will be delicious.
That was longer and more telling than I planned for it to be. I think I'll post it anyway.

A FEW OTHER RELATED THINGS THAT I DON'T WANT TO PUT IN THEIR OWN POST: I want to add this BYU forum/devotional by Harry Reid.
And also this interview with Marlin K. Jensen
The most relevant part of the latter article (to my post, anyway) I'll put here also:

Tribune: Some LDS members subscribe to the notion that it is difficult, if not impossible, to be a faithful Mormon and a Democrat. People point to such things as the gay rights and pro-choice planks of the national Democratic Party. How do you respond?

Jensen: That’s true. And it is a challenge. And yet, you know, the Republicans came very close last time to bringing a pro-abortion plank into their platform. That was maybe the biggest battle of their convention. Which shows that if you’re a pure ideologue, eventually you’re going to have trouble in either party.

When people say to me, “How do you rationalize being a Democrat?” I just say I take everything that’s true and good and hang onto it. And the basic, historically the basic foundational principles of the Democratic Party have appealed to me more. But that’s a matter really of personal choice, it has nothing to do with our salvation.

I think everyone who is a good Latter-day Saint is going to have to pick and choose a little bit regardless of the party that they’re in and that may be required a lot more in the future than it has been in the past. But I think there’s room for that and the gospel leaves us lots of latitude . . .

[I skip a couple of paragraphs here for the sake of space]

And I guess we would probably hope that they wouldn’t abandon a party necessarily because it has a philosophy or two that may not square with Mormonism. Because, as I say, they in their philosophies ebb and flow. I think the main thing is to stay involved and work within the existing framework, work for changes if they need to brought about.

And maybe, to succeed in Utah especially, a politician if he’s Democratic, is going to have to say, “I’m a Utah Democrat. I’m different than the national party in some important ways.”

It's a really excellent interview, and I highly recommend it.

Things I Like

For no particular reason:

• purses/bags - no matter how many of these I get, I still like buying both and finding reasons to use them
• journals
• those uncut pages on books
• taking off the seals on CDs and DVDs
• putting things together, like bookcases and CD towers, especially if a hammer is involved
• polka dots and stripes, together or separate
• banjos
• picture frames
• lamps
• jewelry with words on it (like my ring that says "To thine own self be true" and my bracelet with a Thoreau quote on it)
• awkwardness, especially someone else's
• colored shoes
• bumper stickers
• things that are free
• sushi, especially when it has tempura batter
• baking things when I actually have what I need (so in my mother's kitchen)
• inventing new milkshakes or smoothies
• yogurt
• boxes, especially wooden ones
• creating costumes, especially with other people
• politics (which was a surprise to me when I discovered it)
• answering questions or helping people to find the answer to questions
• text messages, especially funny ones
• road trips
• hats and scarves
• frisbees, especially ridiculous ones like the one in my closet with the history of England on it
  
• bracelets, even though I don't wear them very often
• my room
• really fun kleenex boxes
• blankets, and making them
• flying, especially the part where the plane leaves the ground
• organizing things
• really long, slow-moving movies
• BBC miniseries movies (is that redundant?)
• short stories and essays
• soda crackers
• bananas with plastic cheese (which I saw on Mr. Rogers)
• chopsticks
• music videos
• hanging pictures
• rain
• lists
• orange gum (Trident)
• pumpkiny things
  

So you'll have something to wear on your sleeve of sleeves.

I haven't said much about the movies I've been seeing at International Cinema this semester, but I've seen several, and they've all been fantastic. The movie I saw tonight was the first that really necessitated a post though, because I am in need of some processing time, and I know that Treb, at least, will actually read and enjoy the review.
Tonight's movie was an Iranian film called The Willow Tree. It's about a man named Yousef who lost his sight when he was a small child, I think because he burned his corneas on fireworks. He ends up in the hospital because he collapses, and they send him to France for an operation, and against everyone's expectations, he regains his sight.
I'd never thought about this before, but it was absolutely fascinating to think about it tonight: if you don't see for 38 years of your life and then you suddenly regain your sight, does it help you? Yousef comes back and doesn't recognize the people he loves by sight, doesn't know how to get to his house, and isn't sure how to function as an adult with sight. In one scene, his daughter is quizzing him on his colors.
All through the beginning of the movie, Yousef keeps praying to God, saying that if he could only see he would never turn away from his God again. The actual result of his blessing is poigniant and painful to watch, but very real - life in all of it's beauty and ugliness.
All of the movies that I've seen so far have been excellent, but I think one of the reasons I really enjoyed this one was that I had to work for it. I was thinking about the possibly symbolism of the events and shots all the way through, and the end result was a half-grasped meaning that I'm still working on, but which was well worth the effort. Some of my favorite IC movies have been the less accessible ones - The Passenger, which I saw last year, was slow and confusing and had minimal dialogue, but was one of my favorite experiences because the thoughts it brought up were so fascinating. Same deal tonight.
Also, Erin and I went and got sushi tonight at a place on Center that has $3.50 sushi rolls on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Most excellent and cheap - I'm sold, and kind of hooked on sushi.