Friday, November 9, 2012

It's better to help people than garden gnomes.

Hello snail mailers!

I recently re-watched Amelie, which is one of my favourite all time movies. It's a positively delightful movie and I'd recommend it if you haven't watched it.

Anyway, I immediately started thinking about how much more fun our lives would be if they were narrated like Amelie's. For example, my voice-over would go something like:

Laura is a former magazine editor who is trying to figure out how to be a proper adult.
She has always been neurotic and slightly twitchy.
Laura Ly doesn't like asymmetrical fries (AKA "demented" fries);
using a dishwasher;
or the words "jeggings," "purse," "lol," or "rofl."
She likes to randomly recite lines from The IT Crowd;
sing the Spiderman theme song in public;
empty out her stationery box,
clean it thoroughly,
and finally, put everything away carefully.


I personally think that it would make meeting new people a hell of a lot more awesome. No more chit-chat, let's just get to the meat of our neuroses!! Then, instead of wasting time on talking about the weather (YAWWWNNNN), we could be talking about why you secretly hate forks (or spatulas or llamas or whatever). Way better.

Plus, if you secretly wanted to take over the world, we could discuss that in earnest. As it stands in a currently-voice-over-less world, it's a little difficult to bring that up in a polite conversation. "Hey, how about those Knicks and-what-is-your-plan-for-world-domination-and do you think they'll make the playoffs?"

What would your voice-over be?

Incoming:



A Fall-themed letter from Jay. Sadly, it looks nothing like leaves and such where I am. Instead, it looks like the Abominable Snowman exploded in my backyard.

By special request, Felicia's letter was recieved by The Hulk. But he wants to make it perfectly clear that he's a superhero, not a model. And while he's posing for photos, the world is at risk. 

Incoming from Jess

Letter #1 from Patty

Letter #2 from Patty

Both of Patty's letters contained cool envelope/folder enclosure neatness! She also taught me a cool trick to use up my excess envelopes, which is something I was grumbling about in a previous post.

Writing inspiration from Mary

Jelly Belly goodness from Miki. All the fun of a sugar rush, without the guilt.

A letter from Bonnie Jeanne

Outgoing:


A weirdly blurry photo of a postcard I sent Julie. To be fair, it's not blurry if you squint. A lot.

Outgoing for Natasha!

And that's it from me. If this were a movie, my narrator would say "Now Laura is going to go cut and fold some paper and then cut and fold some more. Laura clearly needs to get out more."

I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

20 comments:

  1. I think my narrated life would be super-annoying.
    "Rhiannon is currently sat in bed, not doing much, not wanting to get up and shouting "nooOOooo" at the light coming through the curtains."
    "Rhiannon is still sat down, but this time dancing and doing over-exaggerated mimes to songs."
    "She's just spent £38 on a jumper because there was nobody there to restrain her from doing so."
    Theme music would be fun though. Mine would be well jazzy.

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    1. Jazzy theme music is a must! And I'm of the opinion that if I randomly spent 38 pounds on a jumper, I would feel infinitely better if someone narrated that. I wonder if I could hire someone to follow me with a mic and a speaker to act as my narrator--that's not odd, right?

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  2. And why is it so wrong to discuss world domination in a voice overless world. It just doesn't seem fair. I mean we have so many good ideas.

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  3. My voice over? - Oh I think it would go something like this:
    Jennifer is obsessed with pugs and hot men.
    that is all.

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    1. That is an excellent voiceover. Short and to the point.

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  4. I love your outgoing and incoming mail so very much. So much fun to see all the art work.

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  5. I love amelie! It's such a quirky film. I actually found the cafe she works at in movie when I visited Paris. I had a little espresso at the bar.

    This is Allison. She works at a fabric store with old ladies. Her favorite color is green, but for some reason everyone at work insists it is turquoise (which is actually somewhere on the list of favorites but not the top). She often wonders why favorite color is a go to thing to share when meeting new people....

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    1. Ooooohh, that's a great story! I'm not at all green with envy and who the hell am I kidding? I TOTALLY AM. :)

      A fabric store! How fun! I wandered into a fabric store recently and was consumed by a desire to buy tons of fabric. I don't sew, I CAN'T sew, but I really wanted to make a cape. Strangely, the opportunity to wear a cape doesn't come up as often as I might hope.

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  6. Amélie is an incredible movie and I'm always happy to get little reminders of this movie wherever possible. I'm going to have to get back to you on what my inner voice over would be, but it's a great idea. It would probably make the world simpler in a great way. Also, I'm glad you got my writing challenge. Also, I'm in Canada. Toronto, actually. Also, I'm tired.

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    1. I can't wait to hear what your inner voice over would be! Also, what are you doing in Toronto?! Also, are you feeling slightly Canadian now?

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  7. OMG, Amelie = Best Movie in the World. Ever!
    I'm fairly certain my movie voice over would include lines like, "Sarah doesn't understand or communicate well with people but strikes up conversations with her dog and sings him random pop songs heard on MTV", and "Sarah has mastered the art of looking busy whilst doing nothing". That kind of thing. :)
    ~S. xo

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    1. Excellent voice over material. I am especially interested in the montage of you pretending to look busy while doing nothing....

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  8. How tragic that you didn't receive anything from me this week! At least *I* received something from you, so it's not the end of the world.

    Voice-over:

    Julie likes receiving mail.
    She especially likes receiving mail from Laura.
    Julie likes mail.
    She doesn't like not receiving mail.

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    1. YAY! I'm so glad that you got my letter finally. That only took way too long.

      Julie knows what she likes and what she doesn't like. That's a great thing.

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  9. I've never seen Amelie. I'm fired, aren't I?

    Please tell the Hulk thank you very much for posing with my letter. I know the world was put in grave danger whilst he did so, but luckily nothing too terribly bad happened!

    My voiceover would probably go like this:
    "This is Felicia. She likes owls and chocolate. (Montage of me eating chocolate). She lives in a little house with her husband and two cats who cause problems. Felicia likes mail and obsessively checks her mailbox every day. She becomes very sad when it is empty, which is 90% of the time."

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    1. YOU'VE NEVER SEEN AMELIE?!!! Fired doesn't even cover it!

      The Hulk says, "You are welcome, but my powers are better used elsewhere." He's a sweet guy, but kind of a broken record. We get it Hulk. You're a superhero.

      Would your movie also have a montage of you and owls? Would it feature real owls? Or paper ones?

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  10. After finally recovering (mostly) from her flu, Kay sat hunched in front of her computer desk with a box of tissues and her lucky fuzzy leopard slippers. She glared at the computer screen, waiting impatiently for the blog to load--for she had a desperate message that needed to be shared with the world and, more importantly, the penpal who had recklessly let loose a giant green rage monster on her mailbox. Becoming more and more impatient as she waited for the page (and half watching Simon's Cat videos on youtube when she really ought to be writing that boring paper for class), Kay began to hatch a plan (and pondered the meaning of that phrase, because that surely seems like an odd thing to do--why would leopard loving Kay sit on something to hatch it? it wouldn't be very comfortable) to travel to California, stalk Edward Norton Hulk, kidnap him and bring him back to the chilly midwest to fight off Mark Ruffalo Hulk in an epic giant green death match (Billy, hide the kids--Bob, get ready to sell some tickets!).
    And it would never have happened if a certain gunslinging jeggings hater hadn't carelessly used Hulk stickers on her envelope...as Kay went to write, however, she became too distracted by the awesomeness of Ioan Gruffud being all young and awesome and British navy like and quickly forget the well muscled green person trashing her lawn, the fact that it snowed earlier and she spent the entire day hissing like a cat hanging from her claws by the ceiling, and she has a giant bandaid on her big toe because she's awesome like that.

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    1. There is so much to say about this comment. So let's just number them, shall we?

      1: The prize for longest comment on this blog goes to Stupendous Kay.
      2. The flu, oh no! I hope you tackled that flu and showed it who is boss.
      3. I HAD to let the giant green monster loose on your mailbox. He was just tearing mine to shreds. It was time to pass that menace on.
      4: Edward Norton Hulk totally stomps Mark Ruffalo Hulk to pieces. In the words of our giant green monster friend, he "hulk smashes" him. OOOH!
      5. Ioan Gruffudd is not Notation Hornblower.
      76: I never learned how to count properly.

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  11. Awe! I posted about how I'd be introduced in Amelie when I first started blogging. I can't remember what I said, but I'm sure it wasn't as cool as your intro. I LOVE the part when the speaker says the cat likes to listen to children's stories! I love that part so much that I always feel like crying ... I'm now thinking that's kind of weird, haha, but for some reason that part touches me. What an adorable movie! I almost went to see Yann Tiersen live when he performed in Buenos Aires, but tickets were too pricy.

    I see you got my letter! ;p

    I, too, hate the term "lol", haha, and I don't know what "rofl" means, I should look it up. And I actually love asymmetrical fries! The ones that look like small nuggets are probably my favorite because they're crispy, yum!

    ... Now I want fries!

    Hope you have a wonderful weekend, Laura! ;D

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  12. Ooo, a mention on Laura's blog-- I feel famous. I was going to leave a little note here earlier, but you know what? I couldn't because Ginger in a parallel universe did exactly that. And once we factor in all the other Gingers, it becomes pretty clear: Ginger in this universe could only respond at 7:03 pm Sunday night because all the other slots were taken (damn Ginger in that universe who got to post at 7:00! That's totally the time I wanted).

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