anniversary

“A typical week begins with producers calling the core cast members on Sunday and getting intel on what’s happened to them over the weekend. An e-mail update is sent to the staff that night so everyone can prepare for Monday’s ”story meeting,” in which the producers and story editors sit around and dissect the Hills girls’ personal and social lives. From that, they determine whom to film during the week. (On average, it takes editors four to six weeks to cull through the footage and put together an episode.) Lauren and her costars are forbidden to attend these meetings. ”I would love to sit through one of those,” says Lauren, ”because it’s really them being like, ‘Yo, did you hear what this person said?”’

OMG DREAM JOB!!! this is a really good article, maybe the best one i’ve ever read about “the hills.” there is a lot i would like to say about it but i am trying to avoid burning out and using up all my material before the season even starts. (unless someone wants to quote me in something that i can add to my sad, flimsy resume since i spent this year writing a blog about “the hills” instead of submitting stories to small literary magazines like i was supposed to and so now i have to build a portfolio and do tedious grad school applications at the exact same time that i am writing obsessively and at great length and hopefully with video illustrations about this (possibly final) season of the most important show on television.)

on a related note, today is my one year anniversary! thanks so much to everyone who read, commented, or wrote or linked to me, especially virginia heffernan, rex sorgatz, michael newman, and also crypto who i never ever link to but who is always writing the nicest fucking things about me.

117 posts (favorite #1,2,3)

126,000 words (roughly) (favorite #1,#2)

196 comments (favorite)

6 chapters of fan fiction (favorite)

50 songs (favorite)

8 videos (favorite)

75,844 hits (favorite)

siskel and ebert review “the hills” season 4

i know this is crudely done, sorry. my brain is broken.

tangents:

• siskel and ebert review “kids” in 1995.
• whitney’s ex-boyfriend, ben lyons, is the new ebert.
• wyatt mason on fitzgerald on reviews (one post of several)

digression – objectification

“The Eiffel Tower is often a symbol of romance, a site of romance, or a backdrop to romance. But in this case it becomes the object of romance itself.

Channel 5 brings us a documentary on the woman who has married the Eiffel Tower. Erika La Tour Eiffel, like Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer – the woman who married the Berlin Wall, is an “objectum sexual”, people who fall literally in love with buildings and objects. They have sex and relationships with them; their passion as ardent as any human relationship.”

…

“She mused that someone must have loved the Wall to bring it into the world; what made them not love it now? Political history meant nothing to her, the Wall was a simple victim of neglect. She didn’t care if people called her “cuckoo”, and while the programme could have easily done that and turned the women’s stories into a guffaw-a-minute freak show, somehow it strove for understanding. There should have been easy laughs, but instead it was moving – particularly when a priest counselled Amy after finding her sexually communing with his altar rail. This was absurdity not treated absurdly – and the Empire State Building did look mighty thrusting and fine.”

part 1

part 2

dear heidi, part 7

“I’m an American artist, and I have no guilt.
I seek pleasure. I seek the nerves under your skin.
The narrow archway; the layers; the scroll of ancient lettuce.
We worship the flaw, the belly, the belly, the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore.
He spared the child and spoiled the rod. I have not sold myself to God.”

dear heidi, part 6

tangents:

• cindy sherman at fashion week, lauren conrad at fashion week
• cindy sherman for balenciaga, heidi montag with a balenciaga, heidi montag and sarah jessica parker in balenciaga
• cindy sherman is the subject of a weird obsessive movie by a troubled person, heidi montag is the subject of a weird obsessive movie by a troubled person.
• i couldn’t find one of kanye’s hundreds of posts about murakami to neatly tie this together, but here’s a picture of jay-z backed by a giant projection of the damien hirst skull at glastonbury.
• also, from last sunday, kanye giving marc jacobs bunny ears.
• also, HE DESIGNED THE LEGO BALENCIAGAS!
• off theme but really great: audrina discusses the funny side of “the hills,” including a deleted scene involving a shaved cat. there is an incredible wealth of this kind of material on this site which i will surely have more to say about in the future (for example, whitney notes that she is more than just facial expressions). the audio commentaries are my favorite.
• “In 6th grade I wrote a really sweet letter to Jonathan Knight, because I always thought he looked sad (those puppy dog eyes!) in pictures, and I decided it was because he didn’t get as many letters as Jordan or Joey. I told him he was my favorite, even though he wasn’t. This pretty much set the pattern for many future pity-dating scenarios. Sadness.?”