What's in a name? A 1980s Tom Hanks movie, perhaps?

There are certain movie trailers that make me wonder, "how did that happen?" The one I choose to single out this week is Post-Grad.

For starters, the premise looks a lot like my current life situation.

I am (fingers crossed) a post-graduate of a four year college.

I am (fingers covered in cheese powder) unemployed.

I am (fingers as guilt and age-inappropriately angst-ridden as every other inch of my body) living at home with my parents.

Does this make me want to see the movie? Haiiilll no.  My life is boring, and kind of depressing. Additionally, Alexis Bledel is a lot cuter than I am (this is not meant to elicit "shaddup u r a hottE" comments, I'm just telling it like it is.) If I convince myself that she and I are one and the same, I'll leave the theater with the mistaken impression that I can just pursue an acting/modeling gig to solve my workless woes.

Also, I have to pick on the name Ryden Malby. "Malby," as you'll see in the diagram below, is less common than "Malchiodi" as well as (although it's not displayed below) the surname "Gaa."

"Ryden" is not even listed in the top 1,000 census baby names for any year, let alone 1987.

Fine. She's a uniquely named girl. I guess I'm just being cranky. The name just strikes me as a little too perfectly quirky, and too modern for a character my age.

Maybe I'm just jealous because my Google-images collage of the most famous Margarets that I could find looks something like this:

(Top Left: Margaret Atwood, Bottom Right: Margaret Thatcher, Background: Margaret Mitchell's Grave)

This talk of names brings me to a little digression I'd like to call
"The Madison Rant."

(Before I start, I would like to clarify that I think Madison is a great name, and it fits my pretty, funny, and intelligent younger cousin beautifully.)

Having said that, I now draw your attention to the 1984 movie Splash. When Daryl Hannah, the Mermagonist, names herself "Madison" after the famous New York Avenue, Tom Hanks's first reply is that "Madison" is not a real name.

Perhaps dear Tom was being a bit rash, but my point is that in order for that dialogue to work, "Madison" could not have been a popular girl's name.

Nowadaisies, "Madison" has climbed to #4 most popular girl baby name.

Now, I know Tom Hanks is persuasive, but was Splash really capable of making such waves in American nomenclature?

Meaningful Equations

Agree or disagree?

Saturday, a Day for Favorite Things: Part II

"Silver White Winters"

Liz: Being with Dennis is easy. If you give into it, you just start to feel kind of numb, and warm, and then you just get sleepy. It's not that bad.

Jenna: That's exactly what they say it's like when you freeze to death.

I know I watch an unhealthy amount of 30 Rock.

I know: I watch an unhealthy amount of 30 rock.

But instead of focusing on the negative, i.e. my "friends" are mere television characters, I'm choosing to bring positivity to non-fictional people--dare I say, friends? (someday? You can comment later)--i.e. anyone who happens to stumble across this blog.

Saturday, a Day for Favorite Things: Part I

"Whiskers on kittens"

Was it the cat's meow, or his pajamas?

Either way, both expressions are near death (or archaism)

and I am curious as to why.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

For fun I've taken on the task of transcribing an episode of one of my favorite shows, Mad Men. This task, which is both a pleasure and a pain, serves several purposes:

-Gives me something "to do" while still watching TV

-Is practice with screenplay formatting

-Helps to tide me over while I await the season 3 premiere (tomorrowow!)

-Illuminates character elements/dialogue details that I missed before

I've chosen S02E02, "Flight 1," and I'm only 15 pages in. (The first 7 minutes took me an hour. I say this is parenthesis because I feel like that should be a "guilty" confession. Going out of parenthesis...now.)

One thing that I love about Mad Men is its natural dialogue and the way the show's writers seamlessly work early-1960s jargon into the script.

"WHEN THE BEES STING"

For example, in the opening party scene in "Flight 1," Paul Kinsey argues on behalf of his New Jersey digs, telling his work buddies that "Montclair is the knees."

The bee's knees.

If that expression were a snack, it'd be ritz crackers and chocolate milk. Almost too hokey, but not quite.

There's something about 1950s/60s slang that I find so attractive. Maybe it's that so many expressions seem fundamentally euphemistic; each individual word in a given idiom is squeaky clean, even if the cumulative connotation isn't.

Then vs. Now..ish

Dreamboat vs. Hunk/Hottie

Beach Blanket Bingo vs. Sex on the beach

Birds and the Bees vs. Sex Ed & Family Planning

Square (var.: L7) vs. Loser

Of course I'm exaggerating. I can't speak from experience; all I have to back up my flimsy claims is my affinity for Beach Boys songs and a handful of movie/TV-derived stereotypes. I do realize that these expressions were not integral parts of the average 1950s/60s teenager's daily lexicon.

I'm sure come mid-1960s, most people's views of these idiomatic expressions were probably pretty similar to my current opinion regarding slanguage like "the/da Bomb," "Phat," and a bunch of those hand signs from Clueless. (To be fair, I tend to shun anything that draws attention to my hammerhead thumbs.)

But what can I say? Regardless of its authenticity, that past parlance still tickles me pink.

Any expressions you wish were more popular/hadn't died out?

Rainy Thursday

My Father, The Weirdo

This is how I found him, a couple minutes after he finished his bowl (see item on head) of chips.

Apples and trees...

Laundromat Politics

I'll Be Smelling You

The following is a piece I wrote for a creative non-fiction class I took this past spring. The assignment for that week was to write a humorous piece about food. I wasn't feeling very humorous because my grandmother had just passed away, but the writing process was surprisingly easy, and I ended up pretty fond my final product.