“Beware the lollipop of mediocrity; lick it once and you’ll suck forever.”—Brian Wilson
November 2011
“the key to being a good dad? well, sometimes things work out just the way you want…sometimes they don’t. you gotta hang in there, because when all is said and done, 90% of being a dad is just showing up.”
—jay pritchett
“Austin is one of the top 5 best dressed cities… All our souls have our own style and we’re trying to portray that in a lot of ways, where as that cookie-cutter clothing that middle America and the rest of the country stick to is basically a conformist type of attitude that they buy into…They want to look like everyone else so they’re not judged, they’re scared of being judged, in any way.” - Jonathon Galyon, American Icon
modern family
“Sometimes this age thing knocks you in the head… I always knew your mother might remarry after I’m gone, it never bothered me. I always figured her husbands would be your dad, me, and some putz who could never live up to me. But what if I’m not the main guy? What if some other guy is? What if i’m the putz?”
“When my mom and dad got divorced, do you have any idea how many guys chased after her? The phone didn’t stop ringing. Men would stop her on the street, guys would propose to her from moving cars. They were good-looking guys, Jay, with money… When you showed up, I didn’t think you had a chance. You were so nervous and sweaty, I felt sorry for you. But of all people, my mom fell for you. She said she fell in love with you during your first fight, she said she finally found her match. So if you think she’s just going to replace you after you’re gone, then you are the putz.” - Jay & Manny
“you can’t give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. until they’re strong enough to run into the woods. or fly into a tree. then a taller tree. then the sky. that’s how you’ll end up… if you let yourself love a wild thing. you’ll end up looking at the sky…”
—capote
“…but believe me, it’s better to look at the sky than to live there. such an empty place, so vague. just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear…”
—capote
the fun factory
The key to Pixar, I came to realize, is that what it seeks to enact, as corporate policy, and what it strives to dramatize, in its art, spring from a common purpose, and a single clarion call: You’ve got a friend in me.
In cinema, as in fiction, friendship is a more durable substance than we give it credit for, and often more resilient than love. Indeed, it may be the hardiest strain of love that we possess, untroubled by erotic fragrance; once Huck Finn and Jim—to take the most obvious ancestors of Woody and Buzz—meet on Jackson’s Island, they don’t declare their friendship to one another, or let it disturb their sleep. They just get on with it. That practical momentum, conservative in its emotions but radical in its taste for adventure, runs through Westerns, Andy Hardy movies, “The Flintstones,” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” before arriving at the land of Pixar. It is there in Mike and Sulley; in the anxious Marlin and the brainless Dory, in “Finding Nemo”; in Remy the rat and Linguini the kitchen boy, in “Ratatouille”; in the aging grouch and the tubby little scout, in “Up”; and in Lightning and Mater, the rusty pickup truck, in both servings of “Cars.” [from Anthony Lane’s “The Fun Factory”]
