I refuse to play stupid anymore. I won’t just sit here and be lied to by the one thing that has always been a consistent presence in my life. Entertaining me, making me laugh, and making me cry…

No.

No sir. Not this guy.

I will not let movies tell me bald-faced lies ever again.

I don’t care how irrelevant the character; you can’t just change the actor / actress from sequel to sequel. Sure, maybe Katie Holmes was a distraction in Batman Begins.

[Don’t even lie to me. You know that you sat there, conferring with your friends on whether the drooping left side of Katie Holmes’ face was caused by a mild stroke or countless beatings at the hands of a certain “Ethan Hunt.”]

But that doesn’t make it ok to replace Stroke-Face with Maggie “I’m-so-average-looking-that-I’m-probably-worse-looking-than-my-gay-cowboy-brother” Gyllenhaal. COME ON! Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Why couldn’t you have just killed off Katie Holmes at the end of Batman Begins? Wouldn’t have required a lot of work; just as she’s going on her bitter diatribe about missing the old Bruce Wayne after Bruce tells her he’s Batman, you could’ve had her gasp and fall as Alfred is standing behind her with a smoking gun saying, “I had to do it sir. She knew! It’s better this way.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve been lied to. I mean, face it, the Batman movies are probably the worst offenders of all! Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, GEORGE CLOONEY?

girlish sigh

I hate you Maggie Gyllenhaal. So, so much.

Anyways…I’ll give you 5 points if you can name two or more movies / sequels that changed actors / actresses.

-Jonathan Carden

A guest post by Jennifer’s brother, the inestimable Jonathan Carden, who we previously introduced here.

. . . .

I CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN.

Not figuratively. I literally climbed a mountain.

Here’s the problem with any story that starts with those four words: all of you naysayers come shooting out of the woodwork, giving me lip and questioning my integrity as a writer. You know what? FINE, it wasn’t a mountain like Mount Everest…BUT it was like 1500 feet high.

See, here’s the deal. I’m not what you would call a climber. I don’t have a “climber’s build.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not like Chris Farley fat. Hell, I’m not even Jack Black fat, but people don’t generally look at me and say “Hey, go climb that tree…you look like a climber!”

(Unless they’re jerks and are taunting me)

Anyways, like I was saying, I’m not a climber. So you’re asking yourself, “Why’d you climb a FREAKING HUGE MOUNTAIN, I mean, a HUGE mountain, if you’re not a climber Jonathan?” Well, I went on a camping trip with a few of my friends a few weekends ago, and, well, they’re more the climbing type than I am…also, they lied to me.

There is a subtle but crucial difference between a “hike” and a “mountain climb.” The main difference being the odds of me cutting (actually, change that to gashing…yeah…gashing) my hand on a rock while hanging on the side of an open faced cliff are greatly increased on a “mountain climb.”

[quick side note…I didn’t ever actually hang from an open faced cliff, but I did cut…nay…gash my hand on a rock when I slipped on another rock while climbing.]

So, when they said, “Are you ready for the hike Jonathan?” I readily answered “No.” Which is not nearly the emphatic “I WILL KILL US ALL FIRST!” that would’ve been screamed violently had they said what they really meant: “Are you ready for the potentially lethal mountain climb Jonathan?”

Yeah. So we climbed.

I swear, my friends are like Tolkien-Faun-like-beings (half-men / half-goats for all of you non-Tolkien readers out there). They kept doing the thing where they would go way, way ahead of me, and then they’d all stop and rest / watch me fall UP the mountain while spit dribbled down my chin. To my credit, I did have a bleeding hand. BLOOD! REAL BLOOD. GASHED!

I saw a snake. NO ONE ELSE SAW IT. I saw it though. TWICE. On the way up and on the way down. Probably not even the same snake. There were probably hundreds of snakes. They probably smelled the blood from my hand with their tongue. That’s how snakes smell; with their tongues.

When we made it to the top, everyone stopped to bask in the sunlight of our achievement (and the actual scorching sun). Another thing you should know about me, I’m not what you would call “tan.” I might not even have the capability of being “tan.” I have two reactions to the sun: (1. I burn (2. I stroke.

As you might’ve guessed, this story has a happy ending. I lived.

- Jonathan “Who’s Bear Grylls?” Carden

I realize this is technically supposed to by my blog and all, but I have to tell you, writing piece for the conversation section falls on my priority list right now somewhere behind picking out my gravestone. I’m moving back to Texas this Friday, so I can plan my wedding, and thus I’m finishing up the four jobs I’ve been attempting to balance all summer. Oh, and did I mention “I’m planning my wedding?”

So, as I said, the priority list… has kind of excluded sharing my observations on life—though here’s a freebie: “packing is the suck.” But because I care about you, and because I don’t want the click you just spent on this site to be wasted, please give a warm welcome to your temporary guest blogger, Mr. Lord of the Dance himself ( and also my brother ), Jonathan Carden. He’ll keep you entertained until my life quiets down. From what I hear, we have similar senses of humor – although, if I’m forced to be honest (when he’s not around), I might admit that he’s probably a little bit on the funnier-than-me side.

But don’t go telling him that.

See you when I climb out from under these boxes,

-Jennifer

Hey, there. I’m Jennifer Carden.

A long time ago, in a town about 26 hours away, when I was very, very small, I was born. After many exciting things happened— including, but not limited to my learning how to ride a bike and floss my teeth— I grew up.

Kinda.

After growing a few inches, surviving my dad’s entrepreneurial bent (an ostrich farm, Dad? Really?), and coming to the realization that I would probably never be able to marry Mr. Rogers, Zorro, OR Cary Grant, I was pretty happy, if a bit of a pragmatic existentialist.

I learned how to read and write somewhere in those formative years, and discovered early on that there was little I liked better than a good story, well told.

You northerners may not understand this (or how to cook, for that matter), but in the South, a good story is nearly mythological. Around the Carden dinner table, you didn’t say much unless you had a story to tell, and if no one laughed by the time it was done, you didn’t say much again for a long, long time. During my years of silence, I started listening to the things that made people laugh, that made stories interesting: the turn of a phrase, a slight pause before the next line, the razor-clean characterizations that made even the most minor characters seem vivid and important. I didn’t realize it at the time, but around that dinner table, while the food got cold, I decided to be a journalist.

A few years later and a few inches taller, I find myself at age twenty-two, on the brink of getting married to a guy who’s managed to thoroughly trump Mr. Rogers and Cary Grant (though Zorro will probably always have a special place in my heart), living far, far away from the Weatherford, Texas, the Cutting Horse Capital of the World, and still, really, more than anything else, loving a good story.

I spent a long time prior to writing this piece determining what my “niche” would be as a Kritik conversationalist. David’s going to be chronicling his New experience in New York ( see what I did there? ), and Dr. Cann is going to be working on the whole world peace thing, starting with you and your boyfriend. What, I wondered, could I contribute?

The short answer is…well, not that short, because I, frankly, suck at theme statements.

Problem is, I’m a selfish writer. I like to write about things that I find interesting; that I find humorous… in short, pretty much my own observations.

My college journalism professor always chided me about that tendency— about injecting too much of myself into my articles— not drawing from the wealth of my sources’ opinions ( also about using too many dashes ).

But really, who cares about what they think?

In this age of new media, more than ever, journalism is a field where personality reigns; where who you are says a lot more than what you say; where a healthy bout of alcoholism (see: Hitchens, Christopher ) or a nice pair of legs ( see: Couric, Katie ) can take you further in the business than a firm grasp on subject-verb agreement.

I’m not an alcoholic—a statement my mother is reading with unjustified relief—and I can’t exactly showcase my legs through this medium… but I think you’ll find that while my failings are many, “lack of personality” isn’t among them. And if my personality sits reasonably well with you, then you’ll probably enjoy its output in my writing.

So, here’s a quick personality breakdown:

I appreciate sarcasm and people who spell and punctuate correctly. I like red, black, and white in almost any combination (which should explain a lot about Kritik, in general). I frequently try to impress my fiancé by recognizing the fonts used in various advertisements (doesn’t work) and introducing him to the members of my expansive shadow puppet library (also doesn’t work).

I’m a frustrated graphic designer, an enthusiastic piano teacher, a failed former blogger, and a pretty decent cook. My love language is witty banter, and I hate pens without ink, diet drinks, low carbs, and when you lose a cell phone somewhere in your room, and it dies. Oh, the beeping. The bleeping beeping.

I can put my legs behind my head, tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue, and both of my front teeth are the same width as my pinky. Oh, and I can’t whistle, and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop trying to convince me that it’s SO easy. It’s insulting.

I’m also the Editor here at Kritik, which apparently justifies my place in the Conversation section, but really, I basically whined enough about not having a forum to publish the things I love to write until we made a new section.

Well, okay. Maybe not exactly.

But really, I am very excited about this part of the site, and I’m looking forward to sharing a few observations, stories, and generally earning my seat at the table. I can’t guarantee I’ll always have a great story for you, but when I don’t, just think— David Sessions and Dr. Fladosch are just a few clicks away.

-Jennifer