The Laramie Project

I watched The Laramie Project today. We've had the movie at home for weeks, gathering dust by the TV, and I've often asked Roy if he wanted to watch it.

"Too depressing," he said.

And that's true. It's the story of Matthew Shepard and the hate crime committed against him in October 1998. It's not exactly light and fun. But in the spirit of what today stands for, I decided to watch it. And I'd recommend it.

The most emotional part was the dramatization of Dennis Shepard's (Matthew's father) speech, which can be heard in the video below:



The full text of the speech can be found here. It's definitely worth a read.

At the risk of sounding trite, I'll say this: I will never forget Matthew Shepard or his legacy of social justice and equality.

Ezekiel 25:17

The other night I saw this:



And it reminded me of how much I love this:



Particularly this:



So Roy and I sat down and watched the movie, and I had a chocolate shake that wasn't a $5 shake and thought about how awesome it would be to be Samuel L. Jackson.

The end.

Things That Make Me Go "Wow"

This is a collection of cool things I've come across lately.

1)



2) I found this on Kari's blog. Hilarious.



3) The Head Project!



(Image by the ever-so-lovely and talented Elle Moss.)

4) Things I've seen around town that have made me smile:





5) Angelina and I embraced our inner dancing queens when we saw Mamma Mia! today. What a great movie! I haven't been able to stop dancing yet. I'm even dancing as I write this. Just in case you've been living under a rock, here's the trailer:



6) Jenn showcased her radness when she sent me an edible arrangement as a thank you for taking her engagement pictures. Yummy, pretty, and incredibly thoughtful! Thanks so much, Jenn!





I have (what feels like) a bazillion posts in progress, so I'm going to try to catch up on those this weekend.

Church vs. State vs. the Dark Knight vs. the Joker: Day Six of Our Anniversary Trip

We spent the majority of our last day in Minneapolis with Stacy (Wade's girlfriend) while Wade worked. Our first stop was Stacy's ultra-cool apartment, where we had the extreme pleasure of meeting Flash the bulldog and Lydia the hairless rat.









Stacy drove us out to Minnehaha Falls, and we walked around for awhile. It was so gorgeous there!











After lunch at Sea Salt, we drove out to St. Paul. Stacy was convinced that we needed to see the capitol building, as well as St. Paul's Cathedral. I'm very grateful for her convictions, as both were well worth the time.

Since Charles Schultz was a St. Paul native, there are Peanuts statues all over the city. We saw this one in a park near the capitol building.



The capitol building was awesome! We decided to head out on our own instead of joining a group for a tour. We almost immediately ran into a very sweet old man who was carrying the same camera I was hauling around. We got to talking a bit, and then I asked him if I could take his picture. (I'm not going to post it here, though, because it's not a very good picture.)

Anyway, here are a few highlights from the capitol building.















We joined a tour group just in time to go to the roof of the building.





(There's nothing like gold horse asses, is there?)

Then we went to the bottom floor of the building. I really liked looking at the portraits of all the Minnesota governors.







Stacy made a friend!



Our next stop was the Cathedral of St. Paul. What a truly amazing place. Since I was raised Catholic, I felt a special sort of affinity for it, even though I am not practicing anymore. It's hard to describe, but let's just say that I can appreciate the beauty and history in such a sacred place and even experience a sense of awe at being in such a place. I just have no desire to return to Catholicism - ever.





This is St. Patrick. He was my favorite out of all the statues there.









We were exhausted by the time we were done at the Cathedral, but we made one last stop: the shoe tree. As you can see, this is a tree with tons of shoes hanging from its branches. I'm not sure what the history of this is, but it's pretty cool to look at.



Stacy was an awesome tour guide. She even dropped us at Wade's to rest up for the evening to come. Without her, we would not have gotten to see St. Paul at all. Thank you, Stacy!

We had a few hours of downtime at Wade's house, so we rested and read. I photographed Wade's extensive book and music collection.





A little later, Roy and I took one last walk so I could get a few photos.





Once Wade was off work and Stacy came over (again), we headed over to the Bad Waitress for our final Minneapolis dinner.







Afterwards, we went to a late showing of The Dark Knight. It was awesome; the only thing that annoyed me was Christian Bale's voice (as Batman). Otherwise, it was a great flick, and I highly recommend it. It may even be my new favorite Batman film, although it's hard to top Batman Returns.

We got home around 1:30 AM and were asleep by 2 AM. And then we were awake four hours later to catch our flight home. We made it to SLC early and then had to sit in the plane for an hour, but other than that, we made it home without a hitch.

Am I happy to be home? Sure, all our stuff is here, as well as our cats and our life. But it's been hard adjusting to reality since we had such a wonderful time in Minneapolis. We have Wade and all of his group (especially Stacy) to thank for showing us a little bit of what the city has to offer. Thank you for having us, Wade. We are so grateful.

Memento Mori in Art and Film: Day Three of Our Anniversary Trip

Tuesday began as I woke up in our very comfortable bed. Before our noon check-out time, Roy and I decided to go have breakfast in the Grand Hotel restaurant, Martini Blu.



The place was completely deserted when we got there. It felt like the absolute best place to have a murder mystery dinner theatre performance, with its blue lighting and dark wood. After wandering around for a few minutes, we were finally greeted by someone who turned out to be our server.

I ordered the rosemary potatoes and a side of bacon. The potatoes were to die for. I'm not one to normally take pictures of food, but I should have taken a whole portfolio of those babies.

Wade picked us up at noon, and after dropping all of our crap off at his place, we went to the grocery store for some provisions for the week. After lunch, we went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to check out some art objects. It was free, which was very cool. And the art contained within wasn't too shabby, either. Below are some of my favorite pieces.

This one is by Georgia O'Keefe.



These next two are by my new favorite artist, Yves Tanguy. I love me some surrealism.





I have no clue who did this one, but it's super creepy and awesome.



This one is also creepy, especially because the placard indicated that the portrait of the girl on the left was probably based on how she looked after dying (apparently, the shadows under her eyes and the coral she's holding are symbolic of death). Freaky, yes?



The second after I took this photo of this clock detail, one of the museum security guards told me I couldn't photograph it. But I kept the illegal pictures I had already taken anyway.



Love this, but I have no idea who the artist is. I suck.



I call this one "Lady Looks Like a Dude."



Scary stuff.



Another illegal photo. Photography was not allowed in this room, but Wade really wanted this picture. How does that saying go? "Ask for forgiveness, not for permission"? Works for me!



We decided to have a laid-back night at Wade's place, watching movies and eating crap. Unfortunately it took us a long time to get situated. I was convinced that Wade needed to see Amelie (Hello! Best movie ever!), which led us back to the Electric Fetus in search of a used copy. There were none to be found there, so we went to Target. No Amelie there, either - but we did pick up a movie called Control and a shitload of junk food. After a stop at the grocery store, we were finally ready to sit down and watch movies all night.

But we only ended up watching Control, which was a kind of depressing movie about the lead singer of Joy Division. I enjoyed the movie, but I kind of wanted more from it.

After a day spent under the influence of different depictions of death, sleep was a welcome reprieve.