Danger Den

Becky Lang: Creative at Zeus Jones, co-founder of The Tangential, eater of chicken fingers.  

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Scully

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Hi all. Started a new Tumblr for my art project, Likeness Portraits. Follow if you want to see drawings of badass female protagonists and fluffy dogs. Thx! 

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Tyra Banks as Jackie Ames on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

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Emoji Analysis: Upside-Down Smiley Face

One day as I was preparing to send a friend (or possibly the ultimate friend: my mom) a message, something unexpected showed up under my finger. What is that curious creature? Why it’s an upside-down smiley face! Somehow this emoji had gone unnoticed between the more eye-catching new emojis, like the tongue-out cash face or the huggy hands blushing face. Once I saw this emoji, he quickly joined beer cheers and winky ghost face in my “frequently used” dash.

There’s something enigmatic about upside-down smiley face. His misplaced smile reminds me of the sheen of sweat you get when you’re happy from say, too many beer cheers, but you realize that it’s not going to feel good tomorrow. It’s like a smile ghosting out of a room, slowly rolling away and whispering, “byeeeee.”

I was surprised when I found this article on The Verge, saying that “We are wasting the upside-down face emoji on sarcasm.” Somehow I had missed that we as a species have finally found the written equivalent of saying something and meaning the opposite. I had to stop and get a bit excited about this. How many friendships and relationships have ended because people did not properly signify sarcasm over instant message? Thousands? This little guy could save families.

The article makes a good point, that this isn’t our first attempt to “hang a lantern” on sarcasm. After all, how many blogs have gone back to posts and added THIS IS SARCASM under the headline to appease angry commenters? Such a signifier often feels misapplied (if it was actually funny, would we need such a disclaimer?). But other times it’s truly difficult to figure out whether or not a post about batty things Ann Coulter said is real or if the site we stumbled upon was a university’s attempt to create the next Onion.

When we get to private conversations between two people who don’t claim to be masters of the written word, addressing sarcasm gets even trickier. Does adding vowels to a word suggest meaning the opposite? (Nooooooooo.) What about adding a smiley face after saying something rude? Is that sarcasm, or just passive aggression?

An emoji that signifies sarcasm can fix a lot of things, but it can’t fix one of them main problems with sarcasm: people aren’t always very good at it. What seems like a dry joke to a speaker can come off as rude sincerity to a listener. How many times have you not realized someone was “just messing with you” and “totally jk?” because they thought their off-color comment was a sarcastic joke? Can this adorable, noseless face fix this larger problem? Nooooooo? 😉

But for the most part, it makes sense to use this emoji to denote sarcasm. After all, the existential uncertainty of glee and the fear of committing to one’s words are the beloved territory of the sarcastic person.

That said, I agree with the Verge’s premise that we shouldn’t limit this wonderful inversion of the human face to just sarcasm. An upside-down face can mean so much in our complex world of cat gifs and comic sans doges. Let’s give it some time to stretch out. For now, I say, upside-down smiley face, you are my favorite emoji since winky sad face ;(

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what i remember about children’s books

I have a really bad memory when it comes to the plots of books. When it comes to children’s books i haven’t read since i was < 12, I remember about 1 or 2 strange details from each. Observe:

The Boxcar Children

They often ate bread chunks dipped in milk.

One of the kids had a chipped cup he liked.

Their dog was named Watch.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

She got a candy cane for Christmas and licked it once a day so that it would last a long time.

They used the Sears catalogue as toilet paper.

Baby Sitters Club

Stacy had diabetes.

Claudia hoarded M&Ms.

Animorphs

Tobias had a bad home life but got stuck as a falcon and that seemed to go well for him.

Someone was a mouse once and their train of thought was mostly ‘How do i not die?/I want some food.’

Addy series from American Girl Doll books

After Addy escaped from slavery, she got to try ice cream and really liked it.

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I am now seeing that as a kid, I was mostly struck by how characters ate differently from me and that is what I chose to remember most.

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me on a first date 

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been researching women’s relationships to their bodies and culture for work and I think this sums up a lot.

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tyra for life

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quotes from my niece and nephew

Levi, 4-years-old

“I’m hitting the wall because there’s bears in the wall."

“I did a puddle jump and I didn’t even die." 

“Sometimes there’s tons of tornados." 

“Is that cowboy [in a music video] god?" 

“I just like the word ‘god.’" 

[Whispering ominously in baby Lily’s face]: “Game over." 

[Sulking] “Wishbone wishes for a bone." 

“I wish I had never even seen Wishbone." 

“I’m going to go poop.” “Levi’s pooping.” [Leaves bathroom and shouts] “You don’t need to go tell everyone I’m pooping!” [Returns from bathroom after several minutes.] “I just peed." 

Kaylee, 6-years-old

Becky: Levi likes girls with long hair. Kaylee [pulls Becky down and whispers]: I don’t know if that’s true. He likes bald-headed babies too. [To Becky]: I think Neil likes you. I mean he’s hung out with you for four years. 

Becky: Who are the smart kids in your class? Kaylee: Me.

“I know all of math already. I mean 100 + 100 is 200. What more is there to know?"

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the female-to-male ratio on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is probably about equal to the male-to-female ratio on The Wire. 

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"When I used to get sad, I used to jump up and down and say, 'I'm not really here.'" "You have enough for a book here."

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Trying to screencap some of the funnier lines from the new Tina Fey show.

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Kids and TV Photos from the book “Living For Today”, 1972

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My Top 10 Movies of 2014

These movies are ranked by how obsessed or touched I was by them rather than which ones are best as Cinematic Pieces of Art. This is coming late because I hoped to see every movie that got a lot of buzz this year, but I failed to see them all, including Gone Girl, Interstellar, Selma and The Theory of Everything. Stop reading now if that makes you mad! Here’s my list:

1. LEGO movie

LEGO movie was the sweetest surprise. I expected total garbage from a movie about toys and was immediately corrected. (Weird, but I also thought Battleship wasn’t bad.) LEGO movie had everything. Amazing animation. Hilarious writing. Awesome voice acting (Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, etc). It was imaginative and philosophical, and made me think about creativity for days. To top that off, it completely questioned and subverted the gender roles of protagonists in action movies. I couldn’t shut up about this movie. It was my #1, I have to say. 

2. Obvious Child

Who is my girl crush of 2014? Jenny Slate duhhh. If I didn’t love her I would have to hate her for being so pretty and cool and hilarious. Obvious Child was one of the first movies ever that allowed a female character to actually have an abortion (why oh why did that take so long?), and it explored her emotions around it with heart, humor and a few tears. I loved it and can’t wait to see what she does next. If it’s only Kroll show skits, well, at least they’re funnier than SNL most of the time (oh burn ….).

3. Boyhood

I went to this movie not really knowing what it was. I thought it was either going to be a documentary about a real boy or a Tree of Life boringfest of dinosaurs and screensaver animation and boys getting scabs. Instead I was treated with a wonderfully personal movie about a boy living in a very broken family, growing up to be an artsy guy who is probably going to smoke a lot of weed in college. Not only did this movie create a whole new genre that I hope more filmmakers will experiment with, but it poignantly depicts how crappy childhood is for so many people.

4. The One I Love

This strange movie about a couple dealing with relationship problems (a.k.a. he cheated on her), takes a strange turn about a fourth of the way through. Surreal on a level slightly less bizarre than Being John Malkovich or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, its conceit is satisfyingly cathartic. Plus Elizabeth Moss and Mark Duplass from The League are both delightful.

5. Palo Alto

I thought I was going to hate this movie. Another Coppola directing things? A cinematic version of James Franco stories? (Not that I hate Coppolas or James Franco, but that sets your expectations in such a weird spot that I felt the movie inevitably wouldn’t land well.) I was wrong. (I’m wrong a lot, we’re learning.) Palo Alto was an unapologetic and poetic gaze into the complications of being a teenager, and I found myself thinking about the characters for days. It’s kind of like a movie version of Skins, in a good way. Gia Coppola, godspeed.

6. Big Hero 6

It’s going to be very hard for a kids’ movie to contend with LEGO movie for my heartspace, but Big Hero 6 came close. A healthcare robot who takes care of a little boy after his big brother dies? I’m tearing up just thinking about how sweet that premise is. Set in the fictional world of San Fransokyo, it mashes Japanese and American culture together in an imaginative and delightful way. I’ll accept a dystopian future of sentient robots if they’re going to be this huggable …

7. Birdman

This movie is pretty much the male version of Black Swan. Both are surreal thrillers about the very real pressure people face, showing just how often it drives us to madness. After seeing this, I spent some time thinking about how Black Swan demonstrates the way women feel pressure to be “perfect” while Birdman demonstrates the way men feel pressure to be “great.” Maybe not true for everyone, but as a set they’re an interesting comment on the neuroses of our time. 

8. Wild

Book club books turning into killer movies? How often does that happen? Wild saves us from a world of bad Eat, Pray, Love cinematic interpretations with a story full of ambivalence, sadness and a little bit of humor. This movie accomplished the seldom-done feat of being exactly as good as it seems like it’s going to be in the preview, which in this case is surprisingly good. If your jaw wasn’t trembling out of intense emotion for at least 50% of this movie, you’re probably on a lower estrogen form of birth control than I am. Plus Reese Witherspoon is back! I missed her.

9. The Fault in Our Stars

The opening lines of this movie would have blown my teenage mind: “There are two ways to tell a story: the one with a happy ending and the truth.” I’m approximating what it was, as I saw it awhile ago … but yes. I cried along to this movie in a satisfying way. It wiggles into your heartspace and your top ten list. It’s worth the tears.

10. The Skeleton Twins

Not only are Kristin Wiig and Bill Hader some of the best people to graduate from SNL in the new millennium, but, as I learned from this movie, they’re quite capable of playing estranged siblings with suicidal tendencies. They even bring a lot of humor to that sad and complex premise. This movie is definitely worth a Redboxing if you didn’t see it.

Other movies of note in 2014:

Top 5

Chris Rock has been delivering some major truths about Hollywood lately, and I was excited to see his latest film Top 5. It was funny and kind of sad, but a bit too linear to make my top ten.

Guardians of the Galaxy

I didn’t quite love this movie the way everyone else did. Open to hearing explanations of why it was great.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay

A good movie. Very dark and upsetting. But ultimately transitional.

Inherent Vice

I loved the style of this movie, but I need to see it again before I can decide if it was genius or just weird.

The Interview

I won’t be redundant by speculating on the Sony hacks and North Korea and whatnot. This movie was no Pineapple Express but it did have a few funny lines, like “all dogs run to the sea.” Still not top ten material.