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Paul at The Sun Keeps Rising was my first and best "next blog" click. I found him very shortly after I started writing and I left my first comment about a week later. Oddly enough, that comment is sandwiched between a comment from his Mom and his Step-Dad, both of whom I now read. (Actually, I read most of the folks on his blogroll.)
David likes to tease me by assigning nicknames to the people I talk about a lot - "your boyfriend," "your crush," etc. Paul was "your penpal." When I demurred, he said "Check Paul's blogroll. Is there anyone on it who he doesn't know personally besides you?" Well, no actually, at the time there wasn't. Which I found completely flattering and it improved my day for at least a week.
I was once at Starbucks and a young lady at the next table was talking to a friend and to her Mom about starting as an RA and what that would entail. She left the Starbucks with Paul's url scribbled on a scrap of paper from my purse. ("There's this guy I read who's an RA in Wyoming....").
Paul is going to start student teaching and students these days are very apt to Google their teachers. Shauna shut down her blog after she got Googled by parents who didn't like that she was writing about her job and, therefore, her students. And Shauna is quite possibly the most postive human being ever. So you can imagine that having a blog and teaching can be, shall we say, incompatible.
But, dammit, I'm really, really, really going to miss reading The Sun Keeps Rising. Fortunately, Paul has my e-mail address and I have his, so it's not like when a favorite tv show goes off the air and all one has are the re-runs. (Actually, I won't even have the re-runs. When he deletes the blog, it'll be completely gone. Blogger is pretty thorough that way.)
And so, like a clip from a favorite episode, here for my nostalgic pleasure is the first exchange via comments that I had with Paul. The scene: He had written (and I quote) " (someone ask me why "Birth of a Nation" was the most damaging film ever made, even ahead of Nazi propaganda. Go ahead, ask me). " So, in my snarky little way, I wrote: Yes, why is that? Especially as I always thought that "Flashdance" was the most damaging movie in all history. (Snarkiness aside, I saw "Birth of a Nation" in school when I was in junior high, although I don't remember why.)
So Paul wrote a nice, long, intelligent, irate post about Birth of a Nation during which he accidently used the interesting constuction "thiefs." Here's his opening paragraph, which changed forever how I refer to Leonardo DeCaprio, and the comments exchanged between us. Just because both still make me laugh.
Okay, Dearest Readership, I agree that "Flashdance" is pretty bad, though if pressed I'd rank the 1996 godforsaken pile of shit version of "Romeo and Juliet" starring Clare Danes and Leonardo Di-Crap-io right up there. Only movie I've
ever walked out of.
Leta said...
Okay, I am forced as a former English major and current pedant to do this, so I apologize. Thiefs?
I stumbled across your blog when I was mousing around and really enjoy reading what you have to say. Count me among your readership.L.
6:49 AM
Paul said...
Ya got me. I thought I remembered scenes depicting theivery; I could be making that up. I have a fairly active imagination.
Anyhoo, I edited it out. P
7:53 AM
Paul said...
*thievery, not theivery.
Jesus.
7:54 AM
Paul said...
OH GODDAMMIT!
It just occurred to me that you might have been questioning my spelling of "thief" in the plural, not whether they existed in the film.Ugh.
12:26 PM
Leta said...
Well, yes, it really was just the spelling. On the plus side, the name "Leonardo Di-Crap-io" is going to amuse me for the rest of the day and your points on "Birth of a Nation" are well taken.Have a stress free weekend......L
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