p.t. barnum would agree

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.
-Groucho Marx

they gave away all the sticky

"People can be abstinent, and it’s not weird."
-Jami Waite, a teenager in Hallsville, Texas
Abstinence Education Faces an Uncertain Future, NYT

Yuh-huh.

acting and scientology

"The purpose of the acting art is not to bring about therapy... One taps their own experience of love or violence and tries to pull from it whatever is possible in terms of an association or understanding, but there is also the imagination and the character and the writing. The personal thing is always very strong and can be created, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you go into the traumas of your life in order to get it."
-Milton Katselas, quoted in "The Actualizer," Mark Oppenheimer, NYT

Sounds pretty sensible to me; this style of acting has nothing of "be the bacon." Mr. Katselas is associated with the Church of Scientology; apparently the religion has tenets based on observation and clarity, which can be helpful to acting technique. Some performers that I especially admire (including John Travolta, Jason Lee, and Beck) are also believers in this religion that has infiltrated Hollywood. When discussing these performers my friends tend to say "oh, too bad he's a scientologist, I don't like him so much anymore." Which bothers me -- judging someone by what religion they espouse, as opposed to how they behave, is prejudice. Though I am non-religious myself (and in fact I believe that L. Ron Hubbard was one of the worst sci-fi writers I ever read), I don't see why the religion of performers should affect my enjoyment of their work. If a friend tried to proselytize me, it would bother me and affect the relationship; that would be true no matter what the religion was. But I don't know these people; I can only judge them by what they do in the public eye. And if scientology makes them better actors and happier people, I say go to.

marie

My step-grandmother Marie's funeral is this morning in Elizabeth City, NC. She passed away last Sunday after a battle with colon cancer. She was a kind and wonderful lady and was always so sweet to me and to anybody I brought home with me, especially David. Her grown kids are also great people and my thoughts are with them today; I wish I could be there.

http://www.funeralplan.com/twifordfh/obits?id=101992

Marie was my grandfather Roy's second wife; they had been sweethearts as teenagers before he met my grandmother, and after Grandmama died, Roy and Marie met again and married. Their happiness late in life was an inspiration to me -- maybe you have to wait until you're in your sixties or seventies, but you can still find true love.

well-done b-movie

Last night while doing homemaker chores I watched 1994's Reform School Girl on late-night cable. It was a fine example of the genre, containing all the necessary elements (if a little more clean than the usual, due to its made-for-tv nature--no broom rape): bad boy leading good girl astray, lecherous adults in authority, shower scenes, schoolgirl uniforms, food fight, dancing with a mop, slow-motion running, the isolation cell, young lesbian love, rivalry between prep school girls and convicts. And it had the added value of an uplifting ending, cool 50s cars, and Matt LeBlanc playing bad boy Vince (so badly it seemed that Joey was playing the part). Loved it!!

and if you're really bored

here are the photos from my road trip to Graceland, with my husband for our 5th anniversary:
Anniversary Americana Tour 2007

taut i taw a putty tat

There's no point chasing after answers to life's important questions. They all have fickle, highly whimsical minds of their own. Nevertheless. If you're patient, if you don't rush them, when they're ready, they'll smash into you. And don't be surprised if afterward you're speechless and there are cartoon tweety birds chirping around your head.
-Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl