Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Long Awkward Post about Long Awkward Pose

I realize that sometimes I'm prone to hyperbole, but I think this might be the most brilliant thing I've ever seen (and I wish I'd thought of it first):

Long Awkward Pose

You have to clink the link and watch all of the videos. It's brilliant. The blog is quite simply videos of people who think they're posing for photographs but are actually just holding really awkward poses for this woman (her name's Katie Dippold and she's a genius) who's videotaping them.

It's my new favorite thing. I love it. I wanna marry it. I wanna register at Ikea and later adopt asian babies with it. Okay, but actually, seriously: I really wanna start tricking people into posing long and awkwardly and submit my videos to Long Awkward Pose. (She takes submissions!)

So watch the freak out, next time I try to take a picture of you. I might be Long Awkward Posing you. (Of course, the likelihood of me Long Awkward Posing you would be much greater if I actually owned a camera with a video function.) (If you ever catch me trying to Long Awkward Pose you with a disposable camera from Rite-Aid, please politely say "nice try, bud" and move away from the camera.) (Because I'm not against the idea of fake Long Awkward Posing you--after all, even without a video record of the moment, it might still be a fun moment, the longer and more awkwarder the better.)

I was going to try to write a really long and awkward blog entry so I could justify titling it "Long Awkward Post," but I'm not sure if that's going to happen or not.

But let's see, maybe it's time for a list (I haven't written a list in a long time) (I'll try to stay on theme and only mention potentially awkward subjects):

1. I didn't have time to shower this morning.

2. So I'm substitute teaching and I feel really grungy.

3. However, (fortunately), I don't smell, because I plastered on the deodorant.

4. At least I think I don't smell.

5. But who knows.

6. Oh, and to add to the non-showered look, my shirt (which is happily clean) is really wrinkled.

7. And my hair is doing whack things. Majorly whack things. Like, I walked by some reflective glass (not a mirror, mind you--just some glass that was giving off mad reflection) and I saw myself and I stopped--yes, my reflection literally caused me to stop in my tracks--and I was like, "seriously?" (When I said "seriously," it should be noted that I was talking to my hair.) (Because, like I said, it's seriously out of whack and all partially Kramerish and sticking everywhere while also being kinda matted down at the same time.) (The combined effect of crazy Kramer and mutely matted makes it really obvious that I didn't shower this morning.) (Because showered hair could not possibly do this.)

8. The alliteration in the second to last sentence of #7 makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit, but I'm leaving it because that which feels awkward must stay in this "Long Awkward Post" if this post ever has any hope of being either long or awkward.

9. I'm totally into midgets right now.

10. Midgets isn't the correct term at all anymore, I did my research and the correct term is actually "little people," but I figured I should start off with the awkward term, and then get PC.

11. But I seriously am totally into little people. Oh gosh, here goes. Here's the thing:

12. On Friday night, my good friend Stephanie took me to Mabou Mine's "Dollhouse" at UCLA Live (a late birthday present). We both loved the play, and I'm so happy I got to see it, and you should go see it too (Kyle, I know you had problems with the play, and you thought it was kinda Lynchian, but maybe that's why I loved it so much) (cuz I love me some Lunch) (okay, that was honestly supposed to read "cuz I love me some Lynch" but "cuz I love me some Lunch" is such a better sentence for so many reasons. First off, it's unexpected; and secondly, it's true; and thirdly, now I'm really hungry.) (I feel like I've been blogging hungry a lot lately.) (Not that I've been blogging a lot lately, but when I've blogged it's been on an empty stomach, and i wonder if that affects quality.)

13. Back to "Dollhouse," it's running through this weekend and there were lots of empty seats on Friday night, so you can probably still get tickets. It's an adaptation of Ibsen's "A Doll's House," natch, and one of the conceits of the production is that all of the female characters are played by very tall women (over 6 feet tall) and all of the male characters are played by short men (around 3 feet tall), and the visual pun of the height differences was fun to watch (the women were constantly forced to walk on their knees and crouch down and crawl around in order to find some sort of equal footing with the shorter men of higher stature). As Stephanie and I were walking back to our cars after the play, we had a lot to talk about--we found the production funny, moving, and excitingly theatrical, (if you want to read more about the production, you can go here).

14. But one thing I didn't tell Stephanie as we were walking back to our cars was that I found the production sexy. Really very sexy. The lead actor who played Torvold was charming and hot and I cannot stop thinking about about him. More specifically, I cannot stop thinking about having sex with him.

15. On Saturday night, I went to see my cousin Matt in a play at his high school (he was the lead and he was awesome) and after the play a gaggle of people went back to my aunt and uncle's house, and I was sitting in the kitchenette area with my Aunt Jill and my Cousin Ilene and a friend of the family known as Jill from Canada, and I was talking about my new thing for little people, and we noticed that my other aunt and uncle had a computer in the kitchenette area, and Jill from Canada and I decided to look up midget dot com, and suddenly all of this porn popped onto the screen. Midget porn. And we both started screaming because (1) we were in a kitchen with all of these random people from the high school who'd come back to the house after the play (fortunately no one else saw what was on the screen) and (2) my aunt and uncle's computer was suddenly showing us midget porn! We quickly closed all of the screens and deleted the computer history and the cookies and then ran out of the room to get as far away from the computer as possible, and we didn't tell my aunt and uncle that their computer had gotten kinda porny (though now that I'm blogging about it, they're destined to find out) (sorry!)

16. I would say it's more of a fascination than an obsession, but, regardless, I'm definitely open to dating a little person.

17. Just putting that out there.

18. Is this post long and awkward yet?

19. I was teaching an AP English class, we were talking about Hamlet, and we were actually having a really interesting discussion. The kids were making great points, I was making great points, I felt like a real teacher, it was awesome. And then, in a really quiet moment, my cell phone, which I'd forgotten to put on silent, started to ring. The thing you have to know about my cell phone, though, is that I have different ring tones for different people, and Jessica was calling me, which meant that "Hedwig's Theme" from Harry Potter started to play. And the thing about "Hedwig's Theme" from Harry Potter is that is sounds really ethereal and not at all like a cell phone ring, so all of the students started to look around the room, like, when did we all transport into the middle of one of the Harry Potter movies? And then I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket to silence it and the jig was up and when everyone realized that I had a Harry Potter ring tone, I had completely lost all semblance of authority and there was no way we were ever going to get back into that thoughtful discussion of Hamlet. Hell, no. From that point on, all anyone wanted to talk to me about was Harry Potter. (The ironic thing is that I like Harry Potter, but I'm not obsessed by any means--Jessica's the one who's obsessed, that's why it's her personal ring tone on my phone.)

20. I just thought I'd share that Harry Potter ring tone story because it was embarrassing.

21. Other ring tones on my phone include (but are not limited to):

(a) Sweet Child of Mine by Guns 'N Roses
(b) Hey Ya by Outkast
(c) Roses by Outkast
(d) Goonies are the Best by Cyndi Lauper

22. I don't think this post is as long as I wanted it to be, but I have to do some actual teaching (my students have been reading silently) and the most awkward way to end this post would be to just go ahead and end it, so.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

First.

And I liked the Lynchian about Dollhouse too. And I LOVED the Nora. Love love LOVED her. I think the show's at least partly her brainchild, too, which makes her even more amazing. Don't get me wrong; I liked a lot of stuff about the show; it just also made me a little crazy.

I wasn't too turned on by the guys in this production, but Peter Dinklage in The Station Agent is pretty hot. I guess he was in early workshops as Torvald, but had to drop out. I read that somewhere.

drc said...

That's great about the ringtones...I have "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" for my s/o. And speaking of Little People, I have the Munchkins singing "Follow The Yellow Brick Road" for my son's psychotic g/f.

And don't worry about looking funny as a substitute: Substitutes are supposed to look funny and slightly out of whack. Remember Richard Whatshisname in Teachers???

Wpprh: Will Penelope properly retaliate here?

Erik said...

FWL,

I thought the actor who played Torvold was hotter than Peter Dinklage. But that doesn't mean I don't think Dinklage is awesome, I saw him in the Charlie Kauffman thing last year and he was great.

Erik said...

drc,

I'm intrigued by Penelope's dilemma. I like when the word verification phrases get my imagination going.

And I love that you have the Munchkins song as a ring tone. That's pretty brilliant.

Joe Chandler said...

erik - i know the actor who played Torvald. He's my roommates cousin. I've written a sketch for him.

Love,

Joe

Erik said...

Joe, you don't even know how happy your comment makes me. Just to think of you and the actor who played Torvold working on a sketch together...in the same room together...it's lovely, i love it! The little man and the giant.

(He's totally married, right? Not gay and available?)

Joe Chandler said...

Married. Kid. Another on the way. But I'll pass your interest along in case something goes wrong.

Erik said...

I appreciate it, Joe.

Anonymous said...

Wow, you actually wrote about it! (And I got mentioned in your blog...how thrilling!)
If you know how to get songs for specific people on your cell phone, I could use a course in remedial ringtones! Hmmm, which would I pick for you???

Anonymous said...

how cool! the little man on nip/tuck this season is totally hot and totally brilliant. i love him and am so f'ing glad he got a good long-time role this season.

and, what's my ringtone? yours is "dream on" by aerosmith. i just thought you'd like the pathos of it.

Erik said...

Ilene, I will totally teach you everything you ever need to know about ringtones. Our other cousin Nikki actually just taught me all about answer tones, which is a while different ball of wax, but also kinda cool.

Erik said...

Aims, your ringtone is "Smells Like Teen Spirit."