Lilly and Her Purple Plastic Purse Full of Favorite Things

Hello!

So I’ve recently discovered that declaring, “I miss writing! I want to be writer!” is not same thing as sitting down and writing your first blog post. All your confidence melts away as you stare at the blinking cursor while Leslie Odom Jr.’s voice declares “AND HAMILTON WROTE THE OTHER 51!” in the background on your iTunes. It is definitely a new phenomenon of our generation that suddenly a large group of us feels bad for not being Alexander Hamilton, but I digress. The big problem is I don’t know what to say. I sit here desperate for someone else to ask me to write about something. Where are my essay assignments of yesteryear? As I am sitting here being useless and filled with angst, however, I realize that my best work was originally “unprompted.” I declared I wanted to write my thesis on Pixar my freshman year at school. I didn’t know what about Pixar I wanted to write about, but I did know I wanted to figure out why the movies they made were so good. I cannot emphasize enough the fact that nobody asked me to do this. I just wanted to. And I guess this blog is a chance for me to keep asking that question. Why is what [X] made so good? So there we have it: a topic. It is a vague topic I know, but at least it is some sort of guiding principle. 

So, the next question is naturally, what do I think is good? Any one who knows me could answer that as “many things.” I am both forgiving in my taste and incredibly forthcoming with my enthusiasm. The worst thing that a movie can be for me is boring. I will take “so bad it’s funny” every day over boring. The thing is, I don’t really want to talk about what I don’t like. Too many artists put blood, sweat, and tears into things I don’t like for me to wish to insult them. Instead, today I’m going to give you a random sampling of things I do like and are important to me. With these I hope you come out with a better idea of who I am and the context I’m coming from. I will also try to restrain myself from too many exclamation points and I have vowed to not include any emojiis out of respect to the written language.

So here are my random selections:

Random Selection Number 1: My favorite piece of art is Spectrum V by Ellsworth Kelly and it hangs in the modern art section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It is a series of pastel blocks of color arranged into a spectrum and every time I look at them I feel calm and happy.

Random Selection Number 2: While I am terrified to declare any movie my favorite movie, the closest I’ve come is “The Philadelphia Story.”

Random Selection Number 3: I think that season 3 of Parks and Recreation is a perfect season of television.

Random Selection Number 4: I think Mad Men’s “The Suitcase” is a perfect episode of television.

Random Selection Number 5: The most life-changing lecture I ever listened to was Professor Scott Higgins’ lecture on color in Meet Me in St. Louis. 

Random Selection Number 6: Bernadette Peters in the 2003 revival of Gypsy taught me what star power is.

Random Selection Number 7: The spin shot in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly got be so giddy that I spun around in circles myself and it also changed the way I look at cinema forever more.

Random Selection Number 8: I saw Hamilton in October and it shook me to the point that I still have trouble articulating why I can’t stop thinking about it.

Random Selection Number 9: I spent the greater part of my freshmen and sophomore years live-blogging watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel to three of my closest friends and it is was both one of the best bonding experiences and viewing experiences I have ever had.

Random Selection Number 10: One of the times I have laughed the hardest in a movie theater is at falling toffee during Mr. Hulot’s Holiday and sadly very few people will understand this reference.  

So, ten is a good place to stop, but I realized I haven’t even begun to talk about Harry Potter, Doctor Who, especially Vincent and the Doctor, Taylor Swift, Alfred Hitchcock, Captin Jack Sparrow, Tamora Pierce, shot by shot breakdowns and a variety of other things I’m obsessed with. The good news is that it means there is more to say. I will also try and expand on some of these ten over the coming days, but I thought that this post was getting long. So stick with me. I also promise I am 22 years old and not 10. I think at some points this will not be clear so I wanted to get it out of the way now.

Thank you so much for reading. I truly appreciate it if you read all the way to the end. I hope you have a wonderful day, that you take care of yourself, and that you keep checking back for more blogs.

Much love,

Lilly