Archive for the ‘Robert Pattinson’ category

« ManicDDaily home page
Newer Entries »

Charm, Charisma, Disheveled Hair – Teen Choice Not Swan Lake

August 15, 2009

I know I said I wouldn’t  (see post re not watching the Teen Choice Awards) but I did just watch a couple of clips, very brief ones, with you know who.  (I’ll give you a hint–not Voldemort.)

It’s an interesting lesson in charm.  (I couldn’t stop smiling.)

Yes, I’m sorry, it’s ridiculous.  (See, e.g. post re why my feelings for Robert Pattinson must be strictly maternal.)

Still (watch me try to turn this into an academic issue), I find the whole thing fascinating.  What is it that makes for charm?  Charisma?

In Pattinson’s case, there’s the face, of course.  And body.  And disheveled, hand-raked hair.

But a lot of the actual charm, I think, comes from  (i) his genuine (seemingly genuine) amazement, the fact that he still looks flabbergasted at all the screaming.

(ii) there’s also the seeming politeness.    He put his arm around Megan Fox in a manner that didn’t appear to be the normal gush of Hollywood overfamiliarity, but was friendly, gentlemanly, supporting her as they walked to the stage in the way that an older-fashioned man might take a woman’s arm crossing the street.  (No, it wasn’t  patronizing and yes, I’ve always been very naive.)

He pointedly thanked the fans,  Catherine Hardwick, and Stephenie Meyer.   (All with that same air of Britishy self-deprecating amazement.)

So there’s the charm.

Now the charisma.

Okay, my eyes are drawn to him for some strange reason.  (See again e.g. post re maternal feelings.)   But I don’t think this is just because of the face (or the body).

There is also such a quality as stage presence.  When they flashed the images of the “teen hotties” –what a term!   (see again e.g. post re not watching Teen Choice awards)—I was struck by the fact that the other male choices couldn’t hold my glance even when they were the only ones on the screen.

This evening I was lucky enough to catch the last few minutes of a South Indian dance performance in Battery Park City.  There were two female dancers, both excellent.  Both held their fingers in lotus-like extensions, both flexed their feet, strutting about rhythmically, both opened their eyes wide wide wide.

And yet I found myself focusing almost solely on one.

At first, I wondered if it was because she was on a more convenient side of the stage for my gaze.  (I was sitting at an angle.)  But when the dancers changed sides in the second half of the dance, my focus changed sides as well, my eye still drawn to the one dancer.

I couldn’t understand why.  Because her movements were sharper?  Maybe.  But I could never keep my eyes on the other one long enough to be sure of that.

Were her eyes more animated?  Was her presence more authoritative?

I tried to compare the two dancers, but the only difference I could be certain of was that the one I watched was shorter.

But (as I discovered when she thanked the musicians), she was also the leader of the troupe.

One of the first times I was truly conscious of stage presence was years ago when I was lucky enough to go to the ballet fairly frequently.  I saw Nureyev dance repeatedly.  Your eye (my eye) simply could not leave him when he was onstage.  Even when he was just standing quietly to the side, I watched him, unable to pay attention to the rest of the action, the troupe, even the ballerinas.   Charisma radiated from him like light from a supernova.  He wasn’t a very big person, and, of course, he was dark, his hair dark, the shadows below his cheekbones prominent.  Still, he captured all the light on the stage.

Baryshnikov also commanded the stage, only his charisma seemed to me to come from his skill, his energy, his ebullience.   He was such a great dancer when he first burst on the Western scene—he leapt so incredibly high–you felt like you had to watch him constantly simply so you wouldn’t miss anything.

But Nureyev commanded the stage even in stillness.

Okay Rob, maybe I’m getting grandiose here.  I don’t really think I can compare you to Nureyev, and the Teen Choice Awards (the little I saw) were definitely not Swan Lake.

The actual awards seemed to be full-sized surf boards.

And, frankly,  after all this, I’m beginning to forget about charisma and wonder more about my issues with biggish dark hair, high cheekbones.

Hmm….

Categories: Robert Pattinson
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Six Reasons Why Modern Females May Prefer to Click on Robert Pattinson Rather than Marlon Brando.

August 11, 2009

The one person in my office who knows about my maternal interest in Robert Pattinson (see earlier post, “why my feelings for Robert Pattinson must be strictly maternal”) is mystified.

He can’t believe that anyone, including anyone of the female persuasion, is actually interested in Robert Pattinson.  He starts going on about Marlon Brando and Clark Gable.  They were men, he tells me, while Pattinson, like so many modern male movie stars he says, is just a grown-up boy.

I agree with him.  (See e.g. Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Leonardo DiCaprio.)

Though, of course, in Pattinson’s case, he still really is kind of a boy.

I also agree that as some of these “boys” i.e. Brad, Tom and Leonardo, age, they lose a lot of their appeal.  (Although I have to confess I never ever understood the appeal of a Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise.)

I blame it a lot on bone structure.   But my friend doesn’t listen to me.  He goes on and on and on about Marlon Brando.   Now there was someone, he says, for women to get excited about.

Having, by chance, recently revisited clips from both On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire , I have to admit that my mystified friend has a point.  The young Brando is physically beautiful.  Then there is his power, passion, intensity.   I follow his hooded eyes, especially in Streetcar, my own eyes sometimes becoming hooded because the movie is so very painful.

Still, there are reasons why some modern females may prefer to spend their down time clicking on images of Rob.   Here are a few of them:

Six Reasons Why Modern Females May Prefer to Click on  Robert Pattinson Rather than Marlon Brando

  1. He’s alive (putting all vampiric characterizations aside.)
  2. He has not yet put on over a hundred pounds or so, and then charged astronomical fees for very small parts.
  3. Yes, he is less threatening than Brando.  For one thing he’s British, seemingly middle-class.  It is hard to imagine someone with his accent and bearing slamming a woman against a mirror. (Although I guess there will be some female vampire slinging in the upcoming Eclipse movie, vampires don’t seem as vulnerable as Vivien Leigh.)Most modern females aren’t really comfortable with the idea of being slammed against a mirror, no matter how passion-filled and intriguingly sweat-soaked the slammer.
  4. He (RPatz) looks like a male model.  I do not believe that most modern females actually want to be involved with someone who looks like a male model; however, they like the idea of being desired, at least talked to in a friendly way, by someone who looks like a male model.  There’s simply that elusive quality:   when you look at Brando and Gable, you kind of know that they will end up with some woman, no matter what.  But you suspect that it will be a faintly blousy,  big-hearted woman.  (Sort of like Belle, the good hearted madam in Gone with the Wind.) Yes, there’s Eva Marie Saint, but there’s also Stella.But the modern boy-type actors with the fashion model faces somehow seem more unavailable than Clark or Marlon.  Perhaps because they have such a definite hint of narcissism in their features.  While any woman’s good sense should tell her to stay away from narcissists, many women just love a challenge.  (If you can capture the heart of a narcissist, then, you must be very special indeed.)

    The weird thing here is that Brando, off-stage, really was an egomaniac, whereas Pattinson, with his self-deprecating Britishness, makes his fans think that maybe, despite the face, he isn’t.

  5. The modern boy types, even scruffy, have a certain affluence.  (It’s probably the feeling that they could always make money modeling.)  Whereas Brando carries himself like someone who would immediately spend (or lose) any money he made.    (See e.g., It Happened One Night where Clark is a down and out reporter and Guys and Dolls where Marlon ends up working for the Salvation Army.)
  6. A lot of modern women (e.g. me) are deeply tired, and prefer, in their down time, relatively soothing fantasy to gut-wrenching intensity.  You actually have to sit and, wincing, watch Streetcar; i.e. it’s not a flick for the quick passing click.

Categories: Marlon Brando, Robert Pattinson, Uncategorized
Tags: , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Nine Reasons Why I’m Glad I Won’t Be Free to Watch Tonight’s Teen Choice Awards

August 10, 2009
  1. Because I really do understand that my attachment to Robert Pattinson is bizarre and embarrassing and that it’s best not to feed it.
  2. Because I’m afraid that my bizarre and embarrassing attachment to Robert Pattinson won’t survive actual, meaning virtual, exposure to him.   (No offense, Rob.)
  3. Because it’s hard to imagine myself watching any show in which Brittney Spears may be receiving some kind of lifetime achievement award.  (No offense, Brittney.)
  4. Because I used to think of myself as a person who really liked Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Nadine Gordimer, James Joyce, Palestrina, Steve Reich….  (No offense, Charles, Virginia, Nadine, James, Pal, Steve.)
  5. Because I’m seeing a dear old friend instead who had Nureyev quality bone structure as a young man, and may, come to think of it, be part of the reason for my bizarre and embarrassing obsession, but most likely wouldn’t understand it.  (No offense, Rudy.)
  6. Because I won’t be able to stand listening to a lot of teenagers saying “phenomenal” no matter how good looking they are.  (No offense, teens.)
  7. Teen Choice Awards?  Who ever heard of the Teen Choice Awards?
  8. I don’t even watch the Oscars.
  9. Because if I continue with embarrassing bizarreness, I can always fast fast fast forward on youtube.

I’m sure there are many more reasons.  Apologies for those rooting for my better nature!

Categories: Robert Pattinson, Uncategorized

Comments: Be the first to comment

To Robert Pattinson Re Leaving New York and Fast Sporty Cars

August 7, 2009

Dear Rob,

It’s so boring here in New York now you’ve gone.

As an admirer whose feelings are strictly maternal (check out July post, why my feelings for Robert Pattinson must be strictly maternal), a part of me is happy for you.  Those paparazzi were such thugs.  The endless click of their cameras on all the youtube videos was like the sound of huge skittering cockroaches.  Their voices, calling out your name, sometimes lewd questions too, were crude, thick, loutish.  I got such satisfaction out of absolutely hating them on your behalf.

And I did feel truly sorry for you.  Seriously.  Maternally.  Which, I have to confess, was a great way to use up my downtime.

Besides all the photos.  Dozens of them every single day.  You in Washington Square, out on Long Island, Brooklyn, Central Park.  And though I think it’s more a tribute to your features than the talent of those bloodsucking (oops! Sorry!) paparazzi, an amazingly large number of them were pretty charming shots.

But now you’ve gone back to LA and the paparazzi just don’t seem to have the same access.  I guess that’s because it’s a place where you don’t walk or take cabs, but drive everywhere in fast, sporty cars.

Speaking of fast, sporty cars, you seem to have gotten yourself a new one. You apparently lost your old car (which I imagined as used and agreeably beaten up) because, in the chaos of your new fame, you forgot where you had parked it.  (This made me feel doubly maternal towards you–a misplaced car almost automatically raises maternal feelings of some kind.)

I have to confess, though, that there is something that bothers me about LA (besides the fast, sporty cars).  Maybe it’s the conspicuous wealth.  Or the ability to hide wealth.  Or the fact that wealth in LA can be conspicuous and hidden at once.  Meaning that people can both flaunt what they’ve got and also live in an enclave.

New York City certainly has its share of very wealthy people.  But here, at least, the rich and the poor have to walk the same sidewalks, and, in your case, get mobbed by the same crowds.  (Only yours are usually young female crowds.)

Maybe the saddest thing for me about knowing that you’re driving around LA in a fast, sporty car, is that it somehow destroys my already feeble fantasy that I could somehow, someday, write a book that you would be interested in, and somehow, someday, get you the manuscript, and somehow, someday, convince you to be in the movie based on that manuscript.

Yes, I know it was very silly.  People who know my work will point out that you don’t look anything like an elephant.  Still while you were here, walking behind several supposedly lax security guards, there seemed to be always the chance.

To see my counting book for children and elephants, check out the link for 1 Mississippi.

Categories: Robert Pattinson, Uncategorized, writing
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Continuing Response To RPatz Re Edward’s Appeal

July 28, 2009

(This is a continuation of prior post “To Robert Pattinson Re Edward’s Appeal…”   See earlier post especially if unfamiliar with Cullen.)

Okay, there are the looks.  Every page of the Twilight Saga tells us how Edward resembles a a model/greek god/marble statue/angel.  Normally, I might say that Stephenie Meyers might “show” a bit in place of so much “telling”, especially when it comes to the beautiful crooked smile, but Pattinson, as Edward’s personifier, has taken the books a long way in the “showing” direction.

Then there’s the money.  Edward is rich, due in part to investing for 100 years and also to having a sister with precognition of stock market trends.  For someone in my generation (i.e. within memory of Woodstock), this is not the most appealing part of Edward’s character.  The obsession with expensive cars is cloying.  The fact that neither Edward nor anyone in his family ever needs a job for money seems a bit adolescent.  On the other hand, as a mother of college-age children, I found Edward’s  repeated offers to pay Bella’s college tuition to  have a definite cachet.

But what it finally comes down to is the adoration.

He adores her.  She tells us (and she’s the main narrator, our source of truth in the story)  that she is more or less ordinary.  Of course we don’t really believe that.  She’s the main narrator!  And besides she’s the stand-in for each of us.  Still, it’s not like she’s magic, fantastical–at least not that magic, fantastical, i.e. she eats and sleeps and doesn’t transfigure.

And he doesn’t just adore her  “essence”–he adores her smell.

He especially adores the smell of her blood.

The books say nothing on the subject of menstrual cycles (which come to think of it, might have some import in a human-vampire relationship) until the fourth book.   Even then, there’s no blip in the adoration.

When she cries, he tastes a tear.  When she vomits, he soothes her hair from her face.   (She tells him to go away, he says the equivalent of ‘no way’.)  When she really really cries, his well-tailored shirts soak it up.

He holds her all night long, watching her sleep.  (Ah!)  He himself smells incredibly sweet, even after long runs through the forest.  (In my experience, this is somewhat different from the average American male.)

He picks her up; he is always on time (sometimes just barely, but that’s only when she’s in danger and the story is in need of a dramatic interlude.)

He literally picks her up.  He’s strong enough to make any woman feel as light as a feather.

He loves to listen to her talk.  He’s always asking her what she’s thinking.  He really really really wants to know.

And talk about protectiveness.  I have a feeling that’s the big appeal for older women, all those single mothers, or virtually single mothers, or overworked mothers, or mothers with a memory of the Woodstock generation who didn’t think they wanted protection.   He’s devoted to taking care of Bella.  He is contantly trying to save her from accidents, danger, even from his own weaknesses.   He  desperately wants to get married.

She saves him often enough too, a fact he always acknowledges.   (Wow!)

Finally, finally, he has that sweet crooked smile.

So does Pattinson.

(Wow!)

If interested, check out counting book, 1 Mississippi, on Amazon, counting book with elephants in gouache.

Categories: Edward Cullen, Robert Pattinson, Uncategorized

Comments: Be the first to comment

To Robert Pattinson re Edward’s Appeal to Women

July 28, 2009

Robert Pattinson says that he doesn’t understand Edward Cullen’s appeal to women:  “if Edward wasn’t a fictional character and you met him in reality, he is like one of those guys who would probably be an axe murderer or something.”

Edward Cullen, in case you don’t know, is the hero of the enormously popular Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer; the vampire who falls in love with a human girl, Bella, whose scent holds a unique and nearly irresistible attraction for him.

By strange happenstance,  Edward also holds a unique and nearly irresistible attraction for Bella.  Bella , and about a zillion other women, who, since the publication of the series have gone gaga.   Though a fictional character, the web is full of Edward Cullen  fan clubs.  Pattinson, a human stand-in for Cullen, is mobbed in the streets.

I have to admit that I am one of Edward’s admirers, though I try, given my age and education level, to keep it a secret.

Still, I very much understand Pattinson’s confusion.  There is a lot about Edward that really should not be likeable.

First, although Edward and his family aspire a lifestyle of  vampire vegetarianism in the books (i.e. they don’t  regularly suck the blood of humans), Edward admits to a past of vigilantism.  He tells us he spent at least  ten years cutting down (and drinking the blood of) assorted assailants who, but for him, would have assaulted otherwise defenseless women in dark alleys and elsewhere.

(Sorry, Rob, but women sort of like that kind of thing.)

Secondly, Edward has a self-confessed problem with his temper, a potential for murderous rage.  (But hey, it’s self-confessed.  And in Edward’s defense, he always controls the rages.  Also, they are directed at people, usually men, who are either insulting, threatening, attacking, or otherwise laying an unwarranted claim to, his girl.)

Third, he regularly drives over 100 miles an hour.  (But has never had an accident.)

Fourth, he lies frequently (but in an almost dutiful way, striving to either a. protect his girl again, or b. protect his family.)

Fifth, he’s more than a bit of a stalker.  Which is creepy.   But again, there’s the protecting the girl thing going on.  Oh yes, and the adoration thing.  (More on this later.)  And, even as he stalks, the reader always has the feeling that he would go away if Bela wanted him too (which she wouldn’t.)   (Or at least he’d stay out of sight.)

He’s kind of a control freak too.  (Though he backs off on that one in Book 3.)  And did I mention the protecting his girl bit? And the adoration thing.

The two negative behaviors which are not really justified in the books are, first, an occasional prissiness.   But hey,  Stephanie Meyer’s a morman.  And besides that, Edward’s human instincts (that is, his sex drive) have been buried for eighty years by his blood drive.  It takes a while for lust to triumph over blood lust.   (Nearly three books.)  And, oh yes, did I mention the protective thing? And the adoration?

The second fault is more serious.  This is Edward’s…passivity, the way he and the other Cullens allow various non-vegetarian vampires to suck their way through nearby humans without much of an attempt to rein them in (except when they are threatening Edward’s girl Bella).  To their defense, there’s only so much they can do, right?   But, at the same time, they do seem a bit uncaring, standing by in discomfort, but not true suffering, for example, as a large group of tourists is devoured (okay they’re tourists.)

In other words, Edward is no super hero charging around saving the world.  To be fair, he warns Bella of that  in Book I.  Sort of:   “what if I’m not a super hero?  What if I’m the bad guy?’

But when someone with Edward’s/Robert Pattinson’s eyes, lips, bone structure, HAIR, asks a question like that, what can Bella, the viewer, and the reader possibly say?

OMG.

To be continued.

P.S.  Please check out 1 Mississippi at Amazon, counting book for kids and elephants:  http://www.amazon.com/1-Mississippi-Karin-Gustafson/dp/0981992307/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248829291&sr=8-1

If you’ve seen the book, and like it, please review!

Categories: Robert Pattinson, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

10 Reasons Why My Feelings For Robert Pattinson Must Be Strictly Maternal

July 25, 2009

1.  It upsets me when I see pictures of him a. smoking, b. drinking a coke.  (I don’t mind all the coffee.   It’s the niccotine, tar and high fructose corn syrup that get to me.)

2.  I worry about him going to martini bars.

3.  The way the papparazzi hound him makes me feel extremely sorry for him.

4.  All the bad weather we had in New York when he was filming Remember Me made me feel extremely sorry for him.

5.  Almost any slight makes me feel extremely sorry for him, even though others insist he’s had a pretty lucky year.

6.  I overlook what the media criticizes,  e.g. he probably didn’t understand New York tipping standards.  Besides, maybe he wasn’t even picking up the tab for that meal.  Also he’s young.  (And if he had a martini, he shouldn’t have, though actually the drinks list for that meal, which I just happened to have seen somewhere only mentioned him having Italian beer and a free prosecco.)

7.  I immediately shut down any youtube video in which he says something which begins to sound crude;  everything else he says sounds extremely intelligent to me  (especially in his drawling English accent, accented by hands pushing through hair).

8.  I did not go to Little Ashes.

9.  I like Kristen Stewart too, but when I see her out of character and coated in eye make-up,  I can’t believe she’s truly his type.

10.  I wonder that my daughters (around his age) are not more interested in him.  Whenever I mention his name, they shoot me troubled glances and mutter something about an intervention.

Check out my children’s book 1 Mississippi on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/1-Mississippi-Karin-Gustafson/dp/0981992307/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248573092&sr=8-1

Categories: Robert Pattinson, Uncategorized
Tags: , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Hello world!

July 25, 2009

Hello  World!  This is my first post and I want to tell you a little about myself.

I love Robert Pattinson.  I also love Walt Whitman, W.B. Yeats and Virginia Woolf, so please don’t judge me too harshly.   Though I’ve actually been quite amazed by my love for Pattinson.  It is not just his looks (okay, it’s his looks), but also an inherent, seeming, sweetness.   The casual smile, upturned lips, harassed hair, truly harassed self.  (Additional love is engendered by pity, the poor guy seems to hardly have a life, at least not a life that can be led in any public forum.)

I’m not sure it is the sweetness of the Lake Isle of Innisfree, of clay and wattles, of nine bean rows, and a hive for the honey bee, or of the Q that Mr. Ramsay endlessly searches for or even of the sands of the Pahmanouk (excuse the spelling), that is, Brooklyn beach that Whitman throws himself onto, endlessly rocking.   But there is something there.  Beauty that must be conscious of itself but runs its fingers through careless hair as if not.

Can’t help it.

Anyway, my obsession for Pattinson is a small and relatively secret part of me.  But it does make for a certain uplift (even though I’m a woman).  Something to pour myself into other than the collapse of the economy, the nadir of stock prices, the weight of college tuition, the fear of the future, the endless grimness of print everywhere and all that’s happening.   The sight of a  sweet unselfconsious smile makes for a good break.   I go to google news, type in Robert Pattinson, and can enter a paparazzi-made bee-loud glade, laughing at the silliness of it all, for just a moment, and then, if I’m at my office, quickly deleting all search history.

Oh, by the way, speaking of sweetness, and this is only a bit of a plug, I also love elephants, drawn in a slightly anthropomorphized fashion.  If you like them too, check out a new children’s counting book  called 1 Mississippi, available at Amazon.  http://www.amazon.com/1-Mississippi-Karin-Gustafson/dp/0981992307/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248491601&sr=1-10

Categories: poetry, Robert Pattinson, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Newer Entries »