Movie Monday: Oscar Time!

I L-O-V-E love the Academy Awards.  I think I might get more excited for them than I do the Super Bowl.  Scratch that -- I definitely get more excited about the Oscars.  And this year I seemed to be even more into them.  I try to make it a habit to see as many nominated films as I can, but this year it was easy.  They were all movies I had already seen or wanted to see before I knew they were nominated.  All in all, I'd say 2011 was a good year for Hollywood.  There were so many great performances.  I myself was so torn between Viola Davis (The Help) and Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) for best actress.  You all know that I love me some Meryl.  Mamma Mia Meryl and Out of Africa Meryl.  Bridges of Madison County Meryl and The Devil Wears Prada Meryl.  The woman can literally do no wrong in my book.  But Viola Davis deserved the Oscar too.  Her performance in The Help moved me to tears (well, more tears than usual -- what can I say, I'm a weeper).  Was she snubbed, I don't know.  But both she and Meryl Streep have been so gracious and supporting of one another during the award season and it's so refreshing.  I know that The Help has its critics, but I'll stand by it as a film with mainstream appeal that touched a lot of people.  I mean, we took my grandma to see it.  Speaking of my grandma -- I went to her house to watch the Oscars this year.  We played Oscar Bingo.  It was pretty awesome.  You know what else was pretty awesome?  Uggie the dog from The Artist in a tuxedo on stage when they won best film.  Another deserving win.  I can't wait till next year!

This photo pretty much sums it all up!  

It's my birthday, y'all!  

I'll be in the car pretty much all day -- so hit me up and keep me company!

[A Little Long-Winded] Wednesday's Wonderings

1.  Could Barack Obama get any cooler?  I don't think so.  First of all, blues night at the White House.  Now that's a party I want to get invited to.  Second, the man can sing.  My favorite POTUS.  And that's saying something.  Well, hold up -- I've never heard LBJ sing (or play basketball) so I shouldn't rule him out so quickly.

2.  I'm in an immigration history class this semester and the deadline for my semester paper proposal is fast approaching.  What do I want to write about?  I have no clue!  Okay, that's a lie -- there are so many different things!  And trust me, I never thought I would be saying that about immigration history.  Initially, I wanted analyze immigrant memoirs/autobiographies.  More of a literature review kind of thing -- work in how the immigrants themselves talked about things like assimilation, nativism, ethnicity, race, etc.  But part of me thinks it might be time to return to Dirksen and LBJ (I spent probably half of my undergrad career researching them in some way or another).  There might be a story there with the Immigration Act of 1965.  It abolished the quota system that was currently in place.  I'm not sure how Dirksen voted, but he was the son of German immigrant parents, representing an extremely xenophobic constituency.  So there might be a story there.  And then (yes, the mind reels that there could be more), I spent the last week reading Sarah Gualtieri's Between Arab and White.  It focuses on the ways that Syrian immigrants to the United States defended their whiteness.  Pretty interesting stuff -- and it got me thinking about the community in which I grew up.  Peoria, Illinois has an extremely large Lebanese population. Not only that, but Lebanese Americans hold many prominent positions within the city.  The former mayor.  The sheriff.  Our former congressman.  And growing up, I never thought of them as anything but white.  So that's definitely something worth looking into.  So many choices!

3.  Can Friday get here sooner???  I cannot -- repeat, cannot -- wait to head back to Illinois on Friday. Partly because of this.  Warning -- do not click on that link unless you want to get angry.  Seriously, what kind of state am I living in?  I think I need to have a Thin Mint to cool down just thinking about it.  But Friday I get to head home for the birthday weekend extravaganza.  Technically, the festivities begin tomorrow night with my Bloomington basketball birthday.  We're all heading out to the IU women's basketball game vs. Wisconsin and then having drinks at Upland.  Friday morning, I'm hitting the open road to return to my beloved alma mater.  There's no place I would rather spend my birthday than Monmouth College.  Coffee with some history department friends, dinner with more friends, supporting the ladies of Alpha Xi Delta at Xi man -- it doesn't get much better!  Then Saturday it's the family birthday party lunch.  I'm pretty stoked for that pizza and ice cream cake (I don't like birthday cake...weird, I know).  Last, but certainly not least, I'm going out to dinner with my high school crew.  I cannot wait for the gang to be back together again!

Tuesday Tune-Day: Chillin' Like Bob Dylan

I absolutely love the 1960s.  Favorite decade hands down.  I have many loves in this time period.  Lyndon Johnson.  Civil Rights.  Bobby Kennedy.  The Lunar Landing.  Jack Kerouac (and speaking of Kerouac, I cannot wait for the Polish Brothers' new movie Big Sur to come out. It's based on his memoir-ish novel and features Stana Katic as Lenore Kandel). The rise of feminism.  Mary Poppins.  French New Wave.  Johnny Cash.  The demand for individual freedom.  And this guy...Bob Dylan.

I first fell in love with Robert Zimmerman of Minnesota during my sophomore year of undergrad.  Sure, I knew his most well-known songs before then, but in my History of American Music class I fell in love.    That was the year I fell in love with pretty much everything to do with the 1960s.  And Dylan's music is the soundtrack to the decade.  His lyrics were protest.  His words were the words of a generation pushed to the brink.  He was the guiding spirit of the counterculture.  His songs embodied the anti-war and civil rights movement.  Like Woody Guthrie, his songs had an intellectual quality.  They were literature.  They were poetry.  And best of all, they are still relevant today.

Movie Monday: Black History Month

February is Black History month.  And so this weekend I wanted to watch some films that fell in with this theme.  As an undergraduate, I ended up doing a lot of research on civil rights.  A full years worth when it comes down to it.  Now that I'm in grad school, people have asked me why I chose to study what I study.  To be honest, I'm still not quite sure how to answer that question.  Maybe it's because I didn't grow up in a racially diverse area.  At all.  And so I was curious.    Maybe it's because I don't see race first when I look at a person.  Maybe it's because I voted for the first black president.  Or maybe it's because I saw Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and thought, "Wow, this must have been incredible for it's time."  And it definitely was.  1967 -- the height of the civil rights era -- a nation pushed to the edge.  And along came Joey Drayton and John Prentice (Sidney Poitier), the couple who shared the first on screen kiss between an interracial couple.  Oh yeah, the film also starred Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn as the young white woman's parents.  It was absolutely groundbreaking.  Interracial marriage was still illegal in 17 states when the film made its debut.  From a historical standpoint, it is an incredible primary source for civil rights.

And then, I wanted to watch The Bodyguard starring the late Whitney Houston and my favorite man ever, Kevin Costner.  This film is not overtly about interracial dating or civil rights.  But the relationship portrayed by Houston and Costner was something special.  It transcended race.  As I listened to Kevin Costner's eulogy at Houston's funeral on Saturday, my respect for him grew.  His producers tried to talk him out of casting Houston for the role.  They told him that he could find a white actress.  But he wanted Houston.  Not because she was black.  But because the color of her skin didn't matter.

But...I couldn't get The Bodyguard on Netflix Instant, so I had to go with another Kevin Costner period piece (because come on, he's pretty great).  So I watched The War.  I remember watching this 1994 film set in the post-Vietnam War South when I was younger.  But this weekend, I was struck by the relationship between Costner's on screen children and the African American children in their small Mississippi town.  Segregation still ruled the town and surely citizens must have looked down at their family for allowing the children to play with blacks.  It made me wonder, what kinds of decisions would I have made if I lived then.  Would I have gone on freedom rides?  Would I have been able to sit at that lunch counter?  Would I have dated a black man?  Or would I have played it safe?  I'd like to think that I would have taken a stand for what I believe in.  I'd like to think that I would have been as brave as Katharine Houghton's character in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.  And this February, I am thankful for those who did take a stand and broke down barriers. Thankful for Martin Luther King, Jr.  Fannie Lou Hamer.  Stokely Carmichael. W.E.B. DuBois.  Medgar Evers.

fill in the blank friday

1.   I am       a lover of Jesus.  The biggest nerd ever.  A loyal friend. A grad student. Fond of my morning coffee. A reformed tomboy. A letter writer. A hater of socks. Always listening to music. An introvert who occasionally spazzes out with excess extrovertive(?) energy  .

2.  The bravest thing I've ever done was    ummm...I don't normally think of myself as a brave person, but I'm sure that as an RA I had to do something brave.  One time is definitely coming to mind, but I don't feel like I should broadcast it   .

3.  I feel prettiest when        I just finish working out.  Must be the endorphins  .

4.  Something that keeps me awake at night is   the future.  And to-do lists too.  But generally, I don't have much trouble falling asleep.  At all.  I think I could sleep just about anywhere    .

5.  My favorite meal in the entire world is     tacos/burritos/enchiladas  Of any variety from anywhere.  You probably thought I would say breakfast food right?  Gotcha on this one.  While I do have a strong love for pancakes...I think Mexican takes top prize...at least for today  .

6.  The way to my heart is         through spending quality time and having fun...lame answer, I know, but I've got nothing else  .

7.  I would like to        get rid of this sore throat...and have winter go away!   .

xo

{Hope}

Isn't She a Beauty?

What were you expecting?  A baby?  A dog?  Maybe a car?  Nope.  Try a pizza.  Half a pizza to be exact. I know I've mentioned my cooking adventures before, and how they usually end with the smoke detector going off.  Or how I once stood on the other side of the room while a friend made lemon bars because I was afraid my mere presence would ruin them.  But as of late, I've been doing pretty good in the kitchen.  And I was proud of my fresh mozzarella and oregano pizza I made tonight.  It was the cheese that did it for me.  I think I could spend a significant portion of my paychecks just on cheese.  I don't know if I've ever met a cheese I didn't like.  Or any dairy product for that matter.  Which is making this sore throat/cold I have all the more unbearable.  No milk for this kid!  Here's hoping I get better soon, or I'll be going through withdrawals!