Month: July 2007

seven seven movies for 7/7/7

Today is July 7th, 2007. As in 07/07/07. A freakin’ cool date. Inspired by sevens, I had to put together a list. (My urge is to put together several lists. Seven, even. But I doubt I’ll have time.) This list is of movies. Seven movies. Seven seven movies.

seven movies featuring seven

  1. The Seventh Seal/Det Sjunde inseglet (1957)
    Ingmar Bergman’s classic drama of Death.
  2. The Seventh Sign (1988)
    These would be signs that the end of the world (as we know it) is near.
  3. The Seven Samurai/Shichinin no samurai (1954)
    Akira Kurosawa’s classic film with samurai (7 of ’em) who aid a village besieged by bandits.
  4. The Magnificent Seven (1960)
    The Seven Samurai reinterpreted as a western.
  5. The Seven Year Itch (1955)
    The image of Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway grate with her dress blowing up may be more famous than the movie it came from…
  6. Se7en (1995)
    A thriller about a serial killer who takes his inspiration from the seven deadly sins. (I don’t believe itching is one of them.)
  7. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
    Doc, Dopey, Sneezy, Sleepy, Sleezy, Happy, Bashful and Grumpy. Oh, wait. That’s eight.

ants in my pants

Yesterday was the 4th of July. A rather straightforward statement to make on the 5th of July. But, as you likely know, the Fourth of July is also the way most people refer to the US holiday officially called ant_bunch_sm.jpgIndependence Day. This holiday is often celebrated with parades, fireworks, barbecues and picnics. In fact, yesterday we managed to pull of a picnic of sorts at a nearby park. And in the great tradition of outdoor eating, we did get visited by some ants.

In honor of picnics, I bring you some ants.ant_sm11.jpg

    them02.jpg

  1. A Bug’s Life (1998)
    The Pixar animated movie about bugs. A sort of retelling of the Seven Samurai, but with bugs. (Also a bit like ¡Three Amigos!, but with bugs.) ant_sm2.jpgThe main character is an ant, voiced by Dave Foley, who seeks help to save his ant colony from bullying grasshoppers.
  2. Antz (1998)
    1998 was clearly the year for animated ant features. This Dreamworks one was more adult-oriented and had the voice of Woody Allen.
  3. Them (1954)
    A movie featuring giant mutant ants.
  4. The Ants Go Marching, a children’s counting song, to the tune of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”

    The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
    The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
    The ants go marching one by one,
    The little one stops to suck his thumb
    And they all go marching down to the ground
    To get out of the rain
    boom, boom, boom

    5. ant_sm3.jpg

  5. The ant from “High Hopes,” sung by Frank Sinatra:

    Just what makes that little old ant
    Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant
    Anyone knows an ant can’t
    Move a rubber tree plant

    But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes
    He’s got high apple pie in the sky hopes

    6. ants_in_line_sm1.jpg

  6. Dance Ants
    A video that someone put together to Fall Out Boy’s “Dance, Dance”. It’s pretty random, but I found it funny. Especially the textual re-interpretation of the original lyrics, like “these are the gloves you’d love to eat”. And yes, the video does have some ants. That dance.
  7. ants in your pants
    An expression. Someone with ants in their pants is so wound up they can’t keep still. A popular reference in songs, like in “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” by Rodgers and Hart, a song sung by many, including the amazing Ella Fitzgerald:

    Romance, finis. your chance, finis.
    Those ants that invaded my pants, finis.
    Bewitched, bothered and bewildered – no more

    Or “I got ants in my pants,” by James Brown (hear it here)

    ‘Cause I can’t dance,
    I can’t dance,
    I got ants in my pants,
    Got ants in my pants,
    Now, I can’t dance, ant_2sm1.jpg
    I can’t dance,
    Got ants in my pants!
    Got ants in my pants!

  8. Want to see some real ants? You can see lots of them in time-lapsed videos through the wonder of YouTube. Like ants eating ant poison, or 7 minutes of ants eating a dropped piece of food, or a variety of ants in action in ant farms.

ants_in_line_sm2.jpg

vegetables are kicking my ass

I’m running a bit behind in the vegetable preparation and consumption. The fridge is loaded to the brim with lettuce, greens, beets, scallions and such. (There’s lots of lettuce again, but due to a ninja woodchuck who did in the lettuce seedlings a while back, there won’t be lettuce again for a bit. I swear I didn’t pay him to do it.) We got to pick our own peas (snow peas and snap peas) this week and last, which was fun.

Tonight I cooked up 3 heads of bok choi, and made a ginger cashew sauce to go with it. The sauce came out moderately well, in spite of my scorching many of the cashews in an attempt to multitask. (Did you know that cooking involves lots of swearing and shouting? It’s long been the case with me. I love cooking, but you wouldn’t know it to hear me at work. If I had a cooking show, it would either be rated R or would have lots of bleeping. Bok fucking choi. Bleep bleep cashews.)

One reason I’m behind in my veggies is that things have been hectic the past week or so. One major thing that’s been eating up extra time is planning this trip. We are definitely going. We bought air tickets. (The prices are outrageous, and shot up hundreds of dollars over the course of days. Effectively ending the debate over whether to get Phoebe her own seat on the plane. A lap baby she will be. Which, by the way, still costs over $300.) I’ve registered for the conference in Saarbrucken, Germany. My mother will be meeting us in Paris. Phoebe now has her passport. (Hurray!) Still to do is to square away lodgings for both Paris (we’re planning to rent an apartment) and Saarbrucken (we’ll do a hotel room). Also train reservations.

I continue to be wiped out, sleep-deprived, and behind in many things besides the vegetables. (Commenting, for example. I have not had much chance to comment on other people’s blogs. If you’ve noticed my absence, please know that I’m still reading, though!)

I find myself resenting the 4th of July, as it means that Phoebe will not be in daycare. (She goes there 3 days a week, and I commute 2 days a week. Wednesdays are my non-commute work-at-home day.) But with Phoebe at home, I won’t be able to get any work or much of anything else done until she’s in bed. If I am lucky, she will have a long nap, and I will have a couple of hours to either sleep or be productive. (Does sleep count as being productive?) I feel like perhaps we should do some sort of fun family thing for the 4th, and forget that I have lots of work to do. And just enjoy the extra day together. I’ll work on it, but I’m too tired to figure out something to do just now. Perhaps we will have a fun and festive Independence Day salad toss. Or maybe beet bowling. Anyone know of a craft project using kale and baby onions?

the weekly pants

After my most recent post of seriousness, and being too tired/sleep-deprived just now to put together coherent thoughts, I feel compelled to return to our regularly scheduled silliness. And what could be sillier than pants?

I also feel that while this blog boasts more posts on pants that the average blog, I can do better. I’m sure I can bring you more pants. With that goal in mind, I’ll try to post on a pants topic once a week. I won’t commit to a day. I’ll just surprise you with pants some day each week, out of the blue. Pants! And besides, every day of the week should be pants day.

To get the pants rolling (can pants roll?), I’ll share a tidbit from a lovely book called Unfortunate English: The Gloomy Truth Behind the Words You Use, by Bill Brohaugh. This book, given to me by the friend who was recently brave enough to be one of our house guests, contains some very entertaining etymological goods. According to Unfortunate English, pants are “a garment that has its origins in buffoonery and farce:”

The word traces back to commedia dell’ arte, an old Italian theatre form (beginning in the 1500s) combining improvisation and standard bits actors could weave in at appropriate moments. One of the stock characters in this theatre form was Pantalone, a mean, miserly merchant and a bit of a dirty old man.[…]

The Pantalone character wore tight-fitting trousers or leggings. Trousers like those worn by Pantalone were called pantaloons in the 1600s, and by the 1700s the word was applied to trousers (as opposed to knee breeches) in general. By the mid-1830s, the word had been shortened to pants… (p. 75)

Another point made by the author is that because of the associations with the dirty old man Pantalone character, a comic figure, the term pantaloons has roots in “making light of old folk:”

…by the 1600s the word pantaloon meant “old codger.” (p. 76)

It’s interesting to see how pantaloon’s descendent pants has matured, having now lost this meaning of mockery of the matured.