Hilary McHone

I'm a smile-wearer, a picture-taker, a people-meeter, a fun-maker, an adventure-seeker & a life-liver!

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July 07, 01:49 PM
Garden 2011 Update
July 07, 01:21 PM
4th of July, Hollywood Bowl Style

For the 2nd year in a row, Rick & I spent our July 4th at the Hollywood Bowl!

Last year was fun, as my mom and her husband were visiting us & got to experience it for the first time.

This year it was just the two of us. Well...us AND over 17,000 other people. We did the Park & Ride option, which makes the experience less exhausting. We parked in Arcadia and took a bus back & forth to the Bowl.

When we got there, they checked our bags. I'd already checked to see what we could bring food-wise and all that. When I opened my bag, I was shocked that they weren't going to let me in with my camera because it had a detachable lens.

Well...there was no way I was going to trek to the spot where we were told we could leave it...around a corner and up a hill and who knows where. We went to the back of a different line, I tucked my camera under my jacket and over my arm, and we went on in. I wasn't the only one - there were cameras (with detachable lenses) everywhere.

I only had my macro lens, so couldn't zoom in and out. The photos below are what I could get with it!

July 06, 07:40 PM
Cinefamily: Everything Is Festival: Day 3, Part 3 & Day 4

In the previous posts, I neglected to mention the 4th and final Cinefamily show that we attended on Saturday night: Supercuts & Trash Compactors. Highly entertaining! I'll just quickly mention two of my favorite videos that were shown. One was an edited version of a Christmas episode of (the original) Beverly Hills 90210. Everything was edited out EXCEPT every occurrence of the word "Christmas". Man, they said it A LOT. Another was a two minute version of the film Doubt. I've never seen the film, but found this to be pretty freakin' awesome. It's basically the intro, a monologue by Meryl Streep about her...well...doubt, and the end credits. Genius.

Which brings me to Day 4 - the final day that we attended the festival.

The first screening of the day began at noon and the place was packed! It was Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. Back in 1982, a group of teens began a shot by shot remake of the original film! It took 6 years to complete. The "star" and producer Chris Strompolos grew up before our very eyes! He was at the screening and his stories were amazing!

July 06, 08:20 PM
Cinefamily: Everything Is Festival: Day 3, Part 2
Note: A couple people have asked me if., after seeing Andrew W.K., I looked him up to see if past appearances have been similar to what I experienced at Cinefamily. I have not! As long as I don't know any better, this was a unique event. :) I'm sure that what follows is more a reflection of me than of Andrew W.K. or the audience...

---

Saturday evening at Cinefamily included what was billed as the Andrew W.K. Party Lecture.

I must admit that I had only vague ideas of Andrew W.K. Optimistic, right? Enthusiastic? Positive? Life's a party?

What happened on stage was completely different from what I had imagined. It was fascinating and ended up being one of the highlights of the whole festival for me.

At once, I felt like everything done and said was sincere and in-the-moment AND like it was planned and meant to mess with my head.

Andrew W.K. came onto the stage in his white pants and white t-shirt and sat down at his keyboard. He looked like this:

July 06, 05:38 PM
Cinefamily: Everything Is Festival: Day 3, Part 1

Saturday at Cinefamily's Everything Is Festival was our longest day!

Luckily, one of the perks of having a membership is the ability to be let in before the other patrons. And the main reason that's important is that there are 8 couches up for grabs in the theater... There are a lot of members (and on certain rare occasions a couch may be reserved), so you still have to show up a bit early to make absolutely sure you can get cozy and comfortable. That's what we did.

Another cool thing is that with our festival passes, we could just leave stuff on our couch and claim it for the duration of our stay. On Saturday our stay was over 8 hours!

First up was David O'Reilley's Found Animation. This was far from my favorite part of the festival, but there was a lot of variety and I hadn't seen anything before. "If you love Pixar, you will hate this!" the program said.

David O'Reilly:

July 06, 05:39 PM
Cinefamily: Everything Is Festival: Day 2

On Friday night, Rick and I headed back to Cinefamily for more fun & entertainment!

First up was the festival's "Keynote Presentation" by Mark Hosler of Negativland. The festival program asks "Is Negativland a 'band'? Media hoaxers? Activists? Artists? Musicians? Filmmakers? Culture jammers? Comedians?" They seem to be a pretty good combination of all of those things...and have been since 1980!

July 06, 12:46 PM
Cinefamily: Everything Is Festival: Day 1

On Memorial Day weekend, Rick and I bought fancy 1 year memberships to one of our favorite LA spots - Cinefamily! They have all sorts of cool screenings and events, but it had been a while since we'd been there.

One thing we looked forward to taking advantage of was the Everything Is Festival! "If something pleases people, if something is entertaining, if something is good...it's just good."

The first round of entertainment was on Thursday, June 30. Rick & I went to two of the three events. First was a Conan O'Brien Writers Showcase. A row of 10-ish writers/past and present sat before us and talked about their process and presented various clips from the many versions of Conan's late night shows. It was fun and entertaining - especially hearing about various ideas that never made the cut...and some that DID unexpectedly. The only thing I wish was that the one woman (who was also the only person there who was a monologue writer) had been encouraged to speak! There was limited time and there were a lot of people who wanted to talk, but perhaps the moderator could have come up with a question or two to throw her direction.

Next up was a presentation of episodes of Thu Tran's IFC series Food Party. She is bonkers! And hilarious!

Here is a taste:


After watching a bunch of stuff, she had a...presentation. She made mayonnaise in her mouth. She made mashed potatoes in her mouth. And she made meatloaf...in her mouth. Then she passed them around! Goofball. I want to be her friend.

August 30, 08:04 PM
History with Hilary: July 20



On July 20, 2001, the film Ghost World was released in NY and LA. It was written by Daniel Clowes (the creator of the comic book) and directed by Terry Zwigoff.

Here I am as the main character, Enid. In the film she was played by Thora Birch.

When I was searching for costume items, I found this t-shirt on indigofeet's Etsy store! Isn't it amazing?! Perfect recreation of the t-shirt in the film. You can get one too and check out the other great items she has!
www.etsy.com/shop/indigofeet

The skirt came from Target and the suitcase was $6 at St. Vincent's. I got a green one too, but decided I liked the red better for the photo.

Thank you to Rick, who drove all over town with me looking for a bus stop that would work! He even looked up the actual film location, but learned that a bus stop was placed there for the movie and then taken away again.

This one is in Altadena in a spot that in way too sunny and shadowy all day long. So we got up at 6am today to take it. (It also happens to be overcast today, which is great!)

I'm typing a lot. Just one more thing, though...

This was in part for my friend Jimmy, who loves this movie too and who named his cat Enid.

Yay!
August 30, 08:05 PM
History with Hilary: April 4


In 1996, a new version of the Muppet Show called Muppets Tonight began airing! It didn't last nearly long enough, in my humble opinion.

My very favorite episode aired on April 4, 1996. It guest-starred Cindy Crawford. In one sketch, she plays a much younger version of herself, "Cinderella Crawfordopolis", the newest member of the Frogeteers! This has given me a chuckle every time I've remembered it for the past 14 years. :D

In it, Kermit asks her about her hobbies and she tells him that she likes to dress up in really pretty clothes and walk up and down her driveway. Teehee.

You can watch it if you go here and skip to 6:30...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3GZdBpzZ-E

Oh, lordy. I loved that show.

Oh, and you can get this hat at Sears. Who knew?!
August 30, 08:06 PM
History with Hilary: February 14


On February 14 (Valentine's Day!), 1991, The Silence of the Lambs was released in US theaters. The film was directed by Jonathan Demme and starred Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins.

Which reminds me...I was at the NY premiere of Red Dragon in 2002. Sitting behind me the whole time? Ralph Fiennes. CREEPY! ;)

Thanks to Rick Baker for drawing the skull! And I found the moth at a paper store...
July 23, 11:40 AM
It's a 99 cent film!

It's a 99 cent film! What's that?! I made it up last year, but haven't made any new ones in a long time! I go to a 99 cent store, pick something out, and use it in a video. :)



FUN!

July 20, 11:58 AM
A Hilary Update!

(NOTE: I started this post by calling it "Public Transportation in LA" thinking I'd simply document my travel time for today using trains and the bus. But when I started writing, something else happened.)

So I am car-less!

My year of super sweet deals with Ford is over and I am now fending for myself. I lack money for a car, so I bought a folding bike and have been getting around using it and the metro!

Reminder: I'm in Los Angeles now.

It has actually been pretty cool so far - I've discovered streets I've never seen before and get a lot more people watching in! And I'm remembering all the things that inspired me to really start taking photos on a regular basis while walking around NYC. I see a lot more on train/bus/bike/foot than I do in a car. For good reason, of course...while driving in LA it's not smart to multi-task. In part because so many other people DO. Like the woman I saw "driving" on the freeway while using both hands to put curlers in her hair. People like her are fairly stress-free, I suppose - they let everyone else do the maneuvering. :)

I've come up with a few projects that I'd like to work on while commuting.

Also, I haven't given up on some old projects - like History with Hilary. I will end up with 365 photos in that series - it's just a matter of time.

The last several months have been so different for me. I started working part-time at a job I can't write/talk/tweet about. And although it has been part-time hours, it took full-time energy for a while there.

I feel like I'm gearing up for a big creative push again.

Meanwhile, I started my first garden. (My husband argues that my garden is very creative...so I suppose I'm using my creativity - just in some new ways.) I love my garden! I started it at the end of May and just ate my first squash out of it last week. The tomatoes are coming. Lots and lots of tomatoes. I may have overdone it! There will also be peppers (jalapeno, cayenne, poblano), cucumbers, and eggplant. And I have basil, cilantro, sage, and dill. And poppy and nasturtium and amaranth and sunflowers.

I don't have a lot of ground space, so much of it is in containers. LOTS of containers of various sizes - it's all a big experiment. A super-fun experiment!

I have big plans for making pickles, salsa, and gazpacho. The whole thing has been an unexpected lesson in patience. I've gotten used to instant gratification. It has been great to watch and help everything grow over the last couple months! Exciting to see little seedlings pop out from the soil and get bigger and grow flowers and fruit. And it has made me more interested in knowing where all of my food comes from.

I highly recommend planting something.

Gardening has also made me learn a lot about things like...mites and ladybugs and those blasted moths that keep laying eggs that hatch cute, but HUNGRY caterpillars...and spiders . There are A LOT of spiders around now. Most of them I let go about their business , but I killed this one last week:



It's a brown widow, I believe. I wear gloves more often while gardening now.

What else? WELL, my husband took a sculpture class at Pasadena City College in the spring. Now I'm thinking I want to take that class! And lots of classes. It's really inexpensive and...well...isn't learning grand?! I can enroll as of tomorrow morning. Plus there are other benefits of being a student - what a creative way to have a place to go if you've got the sniffles! Ah, Health Services! It's not the best health care (in undergrad, I was once given an unnecessary IV at NYU when they misdiagnosed me as having low blood sugar when I actually had an inner ear infection), but it's something! And I've been without "something" for too long. And I can get student discounts at museums and stuff! And maybe even for public transportation? I have to look that one up.

Hey! Last week Rick and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary. Can you believe it? Here's a little reminder of how we spent our wedding road trip...



We went on an adventure on our anniversary - we walked in a heart in Malibu. Great day for the beach as it was HOT HOT HOT that day. 20 degrees cooler at the beach - perfect!

This was our route:


You can see all my pictures here, but I'm posting a few for your viewing pleasure...









You may remember that on our wedding day, we went hang gliding! Well, now we're going skydiving... It'll be sometime in August. Fun fun fun!

So... I'm still doin' stuff and makin' stuff and enjoying life. And hopefully you'll hear about it on a more regular basis. :)

March 18, 11:32 PM
History With Hilary - March 19

On March 19, 1947, actress Glenn Close was born.

One of her most memorable roles was in Fatal Attraction, in which she played a *slightly* obsessive lover of Michael Douglas. He got more than he bargained for with this one night stand!

The term "bunny boiler" came from this film. It refers to a former lover, usually a woman, who stalks the man who spurned her.

Be careful out there!

March 18, 11:33 PM
History With Hilary - March 16

On March 16, 1850, "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne was published.

Thanks to Rick (silav) for branding me with this scarlet letter...

March 18, 11:27 PM
History With Hilary - March 2

On March 2, 1904, Theodor Seuss Geisel was born. You probably know him as Dr. Suess! In honor of Dr. Suess, March 2 is also National Read Across America Day!

This grafitti is (was?) at 5 Pointz, Long Island City, Queens, NY. I went there on a photo walk with my friend Lee Semel.

March 18, 11:24 PM
History With Hilary - March 1

March 1, 2010 marks the 60th anniversary of Silly Putty's debut!

It was an accident... In 1943, James Wright (a Scottish engineer for General Electric) combined boric acid and silicone in an attempt to make synthetic rubber. When marketing consultant Peter Hodgson saw it, he purchased the idea and packaged 1 ounce clumps of it in plastic eggs.

A writer for The New Yorker bought some in a bookstore and wrote a short article about it. Within three days Hodgson received 125,000 orders for Silly Putty!

In 2001, Silly Putty was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame.

I bought a couple newspapers today thinking I'd use the Silly Putty on one of the images from a March 1 news story. Unfortunately, most of the interesting photos seemed to be in color and the Silly Putty didn't pick it up very well.

SO! I drew my self-portrait today in pencil, picked it up with Silly Putty and asked Rick to hold it for a test shot. I took some photos of myself holding the putty, but decided I liked the test shot best. And...well, it's still a self-portrait, right?I drew myself AND took the photo! OH! AND you can see me in the reflection in Rick's ring. Sweet. :D

Go get some Silly Putty. It's fun! And cheap!

February 28, 08:56 PM
History with Hilary - February 28

A Tree Grows in BrooklynHilary!

On February 28, 1945, the film A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (directed by Elia Kazan) opened in US theaters. The novel, by Betty Smith, was published two years earlier. It's a coming-of-age story about a girl living with her impoverished family Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the early 1900s.

I've never read it or seen it. Have you?



Become a fan of History with Hilary on Facebook!

What is History With Hilary?
Every day, I take a self-portrait based on that day in history! The plan is to eventually make a book and/or calendar!

Select prints from my History With Hilary are for sale. Proceeds help to support the project, which is getting a little pricey! View them at Etsy!

I'm also accepting donations, including costumes, wigs, fabric, and props! Please email me at historywithhilary@gmail.com.

February 28, 08:55 PM
History With Hilary - April 18

Once in a while, I mess up on the dates of something and so have to make a decision about what to do with it.

I took this photo thinking that the movie Be Kind Rewind was released on February 28, but it was released on the 22nd!

So I looked at the other possible dates for the film and picked the release date in SWEDEN!

As you know, if you've seen Michel Gondry's film, Jack Black's character accidentally erases every single video in a rental shop. The easiest possible fix to this solution was to re-make all the films himself! Right? The process, they claim, is called "sweding".

The first film they re-make is Ghostbusters.

Here I am sorta sweding the sweded version of Ghostbusters - specifically the library scene. I ain't afraid of no ghosts.

Thassright.

Rick made my awesome costume with aluminum foil and duct tape. I made the Ghostbusters sign with construction paper. The book is hanging from a hook in the ceiling with fishing line and a fish hook.

This was FUN.



Become a fan of History with Hilary on Facebook!

What is History With Hilary?
Every day, I take a self-portrait based on that day in history! The plan is to eventually make a book and/or calendar!

Select prints from my History With Hilary are for sale. Proceeds help to support the project, which is getting a little pricey! View them at Etsy!

I'm also accepting donations, including costumes, wigs, fabric, and props! Please email me at historywithhilary@gmail.com.

February 26, 08:45 PM
History with Hilary - February 26

Happy birthday to John Harvey Kellogg (born February 26, 1852)! He was the American physician who developed dry cereal!

I asked Twitter & Facebook what cereal they think of first when they think of Kellogg's...here are the results!

Frosted Flakes - 8 (They're g-r-r-r-eat!)
Corn Flakes - 6
Special K - 4
Raisin Bran - 1 (Two scoops!)
Rice Krispies - 1 (Snap Crackle Pop!)
Froot Loops - 1 (Follow your nose!)
Honey Smacks - 1

I watched a bunch of old commercials on YouTube. Remember when Honey Smacks were called Sugar Smacks? And when Raisin Bran commercials instructed you to add sugar at home? Yep.



Become a fan of History with Hilary on Facebook!

What is History With Hilary?
Every day, I take a self-portrait based on that day in history! The plan is to eventually make a book and/or calendar!

Select prints from my History With Hilary are for sale. Proceeds help to support the project, which is getting a little pricey! View them at Etsy!

I'm also accepting donations, including costumes, wigs, fabric, and props! Please email me at historywithhilary@gmail.com.

February 26, 01:36 AM
History with Hilary - February 25

February 25, 1997 marked the first official re-release of "Black Monk Time" by The Monks.

This date was suggested to me by my friend Mike Fornatale, who was promoted by The Monks from "fan" to "singer" in 1999, when Gary lost his voice. Mike describes himself as their "Organist and Hitter of High Notes".

I know Mike Fornatale through Loser's Lounge. Don't miss out on a chance to hear that man sing!

Oh, I was going to try to be Larry in this Monks photo:
www.diskull.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/01monkspr...

I put on a fake mustache, but it looked decidedly wrong. :D

February 25, 02:27 AM
History with Hilary - February 24

On February 24, 1979, swine breeder Russ Braize of Stamford sold a pig (named Glacier) for the highest price ever recorded at the time: $42,500. Glacier held the world record for the most expensive boar of all breeds for 18 years.

That's some pig!

Thanks to Rick (silav)for drawing my ear and snout! :D

February 23, 11:29 PM
History with Hilary - February 23

On February 23, 1968, Cool Hand Luke opened in theaters in...Finland! (The US release date was November 1, 1967.)

Nobody can eat 50 eggs. Except, of course, Paul Newman! You can see the egg scene from the film here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNyl6gXLMLQ

I went to Costco today and purchased 60 eggs for $6.05. I hard boiled a couple dozen. Cracked another dozen raw because the shells from the uncooked eggs looked better for the photo.

I ate 2.5 of them. That was quite enough! Perhaps I'll post an outtake of a real reaction to having that egg in my mouth. Yuck! :)

February 23, 11:31 PM
History with Hilary - February 22

On February 22, 1987, Andy Warhol died at the age of 58.

There are lots of ways to make these "pop art" images online! If you want to do one like this, check out FotoFlexer.com! You're just a click away... ;)



Here is the photo I started off with. I like it.

February 23, 11:33 PM
History with Hilary - February 20

On February 20, 1965, Vic Dana performed "Red Roses for a Blue Lady" on "American Bandstand."

I just happened to have some blue face makeup and my Valentine's Day roses.... :D

If you want to hear the song, you can do so here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB_67zLhbEs

February 23, 11:34 PM
History with Hilary - February 16

After many weeks of careful excavation, on February 16, 1923, British Egyptologist Howard Carter opened the inner chamber of KV62 - Tutankhamun's tomb. It was on that date that he first saw the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun. (It was conveyed to the public by H. V. Morton, the only journalist on the scene.)

I, of course, got MY inspiration for the photo from Steve Martin. You can see his Saturday Night Live performance here:
www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/king-tut/976141/

"Born in Arizona...moved to Babylonia...King Tut!"

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