Carla Gypsygirl's Blurty

Ham ham ham!
This week has been all about HAM! No, not the stuff you put in your sandwiches. Let me explain...

HAM QUEEN
Geoff's latest nickname for me is "Ham Queen". Guess he's not the type for cutie-pie nicknames, hey. The reason, dear friends, that he calls me Ham Queen is because I am overtly dramatic. Allow me to demonstrate with a story. A few weekends ago, I decided that I really, really needed a pair of over-sized, retro sunnies, a la Mary-Kate Olsen (look, Australian Harper's Bazaar agrees with me- she IS a style icon!). Geoff was with me when I was trying sunglasses on in Portmans. And, as he is a man, he said, "Honey, don't you already have a pair of sunglasses?" I felt so ashamed of my materialistic urges that I walked out of the shopping centre without the sunglasses. But later on that day, we were walking down the street and the sun was in my eyes. I started to moan, "My eyes! My eyes! I'm blinded!" I held my hand out in front of my face for that realistic touch. I grabbed onto Geoff's arm and staggered uncertainly forward. I continued to cry, "If only I had a new pair of sunglasses to shield my eyes from this glare!" Geoff started to laugh at me, and he said, "You are such a ham. I'm going to call you 'Ham Queen' now." I sobbed in reply, "What if I was so blinded that I wandered onto the road and got hit by a truck? I bet you wouldn't care AT ALL!" I still don't have the sunglasses, but hey, at least I got a new nickname. They do say, you know, that nicknames are a sign of endearment.

HAMLET
I am feeling soooooooooooo clever and cultured right now, because on Wednesday night, I went to THE THEATRE. That's right: no tele-tele-bunkum-box entertainment for me, dear friends, I am the highest of the highbrow. I am so cultured, in fact, that I ALREADY KNEW THE STORY OF HAMLET before I saw the play that night! Instead of sitting there and thinking, "Duh, those Hollywood teen adaptations are way better- at least they are speaking in Modern English," I instead understood all the nuances, sub-plots and Elizabethan jokes. I felt so smug. Of course, this smugness was largely due to the fact that, when I was in high school, I was a HUMUNGOUS English literature nerd. I was such a nerd, dear readers, that I had a joke with one of my fellow 3-unit English friends: whenever anyone talked about "themes", we would chirp, "Hey, I'm Hamlet with a lisp! 'Themes, madam? Nay, it is, I know not 'THEMES'." Anyways, one of the HSC kids at Geoff's church gave him two tickets to see the latest NIDA production of Hamlet. We got such a buzz out of going! It was a really clever production. If you don't know the story of Hamlet, well, it's sort of like The Lion King, only the lions are people instead, and there's lots of subplots about lust, plus it's a lot more evil and violent and grown-up. Anyway, when we entered the theatre, it was set up like a funeral with a black coffin out the front. The actors murmured to us, "Thank you so much for coming. Please pay your respects before you sit down." And, as I am the Ham Queen, I totally loved the audience-involvement thang. I grasped the hands of the actors and whispered, "How are you doing? Are you all right?" I stood in front of the coffin with my hand over my heart and with my head bowed. The costumes were excellent and very glam- they had a bit of a Spanish touch to them, so there were ruffled skirts, fishnets, mantillas and red lipstick. Hamlet is such an awesome play. It has everything- comedy, tragedy, love, ghosts, skulls, royalty! The highlight of the production for me was the re-interpretation of the characters of Hamlet's courtiers and guy friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. In this production, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were...GIRLS! They were ditzy, trashy girls who flapped around in high heels and big hair. Instead of being Hamlet's mates, they were his bimbo playthings. GIRL POWER!

HAMMY
So, here are 5 reasons why you should go and see the latest computer animation movie, Over the Hedge!

1. Over the Hedge is the story about a bunch of hungry animals who discover that, during their winter hibernation, most of their forest has been turned into a new suburb with giant McMansions. And hello, who can resist a tale about a bunch of cute animals? I don't care what you say, I KNOW you would go goo-goo-ga-ga over these little critters!
2. The little animal characters are SO funny. There's Hammy, the super-hyperactive squirrel; Vern, the wise and gentle turtle who gets naked every now and then; RJ, the conniving raccoon; a vain cat ("My father was so beautiful, he could scarcely breathe") and a smart-talking skunk.
3. Over the Hedge is not your average cartoon story. The film is also a clever (yes, clever!) portrayal of the cookie-cutter nature of life in suburbia, the effect of junk food on our bodies (that Supersize Me guy would be proud), and the destruction wreaked by humans on precious ecosystems.
4. Speaking of suburbia, who else could rock the suburbs but BEN FOLDS? Ben Folds sings and writes most of the songs on the Over the Hedge soundtrack. His melancholy voice, simple tunes and everyman lyrics are a perfect match for the themes of the film. There's even a cuss-free version of his song, Rocking the Suburbs, at the end of the movie! Maybe Ben did this one for his kids. Whatever his reasons, I love him even MORE now.
5. And, of course, the animation is fantastic!

Here's a picture of RJ (left) and Hammy (right). Hammy is so much like my little brother- hypo, and crazy about cookies and chips!

And so I bid you goodbye, my dear readers, until my next post! I hope you all have a great weekend, full of ham-related things.

I remain your ever-faithful, Ham Queeny and nerd-like,

Carla Gypsygirl xxx