By request

My friend Nancy asked my mom would review the following celebrities. Here goes:

Leonardo DiCaprio — I don’t know who that is.
Reese Witherspoon — Who? Is that the plain-looking one?
Natalie Portman — Who?
George Clooney — Who is — oh, is that the one in Up in the Air? I like him.
Hugh Jackman — Who is that?

And there you have it.

Movies for Mom

My mom and I were talking about what movies she could go see that weren’t violent, too sexual, or stupid. This narrows down the list to about nothing. Like she really dug An Education with Carey Mulligan, but that’s not average movie fare and my mother is not exactly the demographic studios target. Anyway, this is what she had to say on certain celebrities and movies, and I thought I’d include it here, because this is why my mom is awesome.

Angelina Jolie—I hate her. I don’t like her lip. Artificial.
Johnny Depp—I hate him. Pretentious. I don’t see the real him. He never act like a real person, or serious. Cartoon character.
Gwyneth Paltrow—Ugh. I don’t like the way of her look and her acting, the way she look, everything I hate her. She acts like she’s the most glamorous blond white actress, but actually she’s not. Connections, everybody has connections.
Matt Damon—I don’t like it. Good in Mr. Ripley but not handsome at all but acts like he’s handsome.
Robert DeNiro and Ben Stiller—Okay for comedy
True Grit—Too violent
Country Strong—No
The King’s Speech—Bleech
Tron—Aaaay
Black Swan—Ugh

We boiled it down to How Do You Know and Little Fockers. Little Fockers won. I’ll let you know if she actually sees it. She is my idol because she doesn’t give a damn what’s popular or who’s famous. She is just an equal opportunity slammer.

Bruce Beck

I have no idea who Bruce Beck is, he is some sort of sports figure, but I passed a poster of his face tonight that made me think he looked a lot like A.L.F.

Korean pop music, 70s era

My uncle loves music. After work, he’d come and put on these massive, Princess Leia bun-size head phones and get lost. On road trips, we’d all get to hear his favorites, and I was introduced to some cool music (Harry Belafonte, Simon & Garfunkel) and some decidedly not as cool music (The Carpenters, Korean pop songs). These Korean pop songs were love songs, and I had no idea what they were singing, on account of the fact that I’m not fluent, which didn’t necessarily deter me from singing along or thinking about them. You can always make up the words phonetically like Mega-case-suh-jew. (What does Mega-case-suh-jew mean anyway? Probably nothing, because I most likely completely distorted the original source.) The songs all seemed to start with the sound of a boat fog horn or helicopter taking off, which according to my aunt, set up the song as someone’s main squeeze leaving the scene. Then the singer himself, or herself, comes on, intoning very dramatically. And there’s always a bit where there is some meaningful whispering. (Like Fergie and Nelly Furtado rapping in between stanzas, Koreans monologued in between singing as well.) Like, My love, when you left this morning for the bagel store, I didn’t think I would ever get over my broken heart, or whatever it is, before the voice would jet off into acrobatics, backed with horns. I don’t have any music theory in my belt (any more anyway), so I can’t tell you what kind of keys the songs were always in, but it must be like the same one, b/c they sounded identical and always melancholic.

That’s all. Sometimes, I think of those songs and make myself laugh, and sing the chorus to that one song I still remember. Who can forget a Korean love song about Jews.

Greetings from the Wild

What happened to my sweet, serene Buddhist monk baby? His calm demeanor has been mysteriously supplanted by that of a wild animal. At home, it’s like babysitting a drunk Mickey Rourke. He nose dives for whatever catches his eye, taking you with him. When I try to diaper his goods, he kicks so hard he levitates off the couch. These kicks also have precision (right in the boob, sister). He prefers vacuum cords to toys. He prefers paper above all. I cannot tell you how many times I have to pry his jaw open to extract gloms of chewed-up magazine flyer or…used tissue (that was really special). Whenever he’s quiet for too long, it’s because he’s found a random envelope or receipt. Our apartment looks Apocalpyse Nowish, and he barely crawls. Wait till he runs!

Day care teachers describe him as a quiet, observant boy, excellent at feeding himself both solids and milk from a bottle. Ha! At home, I’ve given him the bottle, positioning his hands properly, and they fall away like limp broccoli. With finger food, it must be fed to him, Greek emperor meal-style. He looks at me and says, “Woman, that is not going to fly.”

Still, he’s got these tiny chiclet teeth. That alone kills me, and that’s only the beginning of my list. Oh sure, then there’s when he laughs, or when I talc his bum — that reminds me patting a chicken breast with flour before frying. I tell him that every time we go there.

My new boyfriend

I recently checked out the Yoshitomo Nara exhibit at Asia Society, and I loved it. This artist grew up as a latchkey kid and now paints snarky portraits of innocents smoking or listening to the Ramones, and is good friends with Green Day. The only drawback of entering a relationship having Yoshitomo as a boyfriend is his hair. Plus, I’m married, etc. Plus, I don’t speak Japanese, etc. Doomed before we even get a chance to begin.

Danger Babies

I get to see cool milestones — Army crawl on the belly, eating a lot of paper until it reaches its original pulpy state, drinking water from a cup, saying “mamamama” and “um mah,” but this is also a period where he’s starting to get into trouble a lot faster. He pulled the toiletpaper holder down (ours is freestanding) and gave himself a red bump on his head. I gave him a candle holder to play with while I got his food ready and he dropped, which meant broken glass all over the kitchen floor. That was all months ago, and this past week, he choked on a button he ripped from a sensory play wall at day care. Awesome. I am only now recovering and coming down from that heart attack one week later. People, I’m really just trying to keep him alive. One year! That’s my goal! After that, we’ll reassess.