Pageantry Day 3 - The Final Countdown

We've reached the final day of pageantry, and the Hoovers have reached their destination!  Look as Steve Carell and Toni Collette bail out of that van, throwing the sliding door to the ground!  And is that a tiny little Paul Dano in the backseat?

Unfortunately, I've drained all my pop-culture pageant knowledge on the first two.  I really am fresh out of information on fake pageants... So let's turn to the real one.  Tonight the Miss NH program will be crowning its new Miss NH, in a show that revisits the events from the previous nights.  Right away, they'll announce the top twelve (of the total twenty-eight) contestants, who will then present their evening gowns, and from that alone the Top Ten will be selected.  The Top Ten will present their talents and swimsuits, and based on all tonight's events we'll have a Top Five.  And then, finally, from the Top Five, they deliver a ranking that culminates in the announcement of a new Miss NH, who will represent the state in Atlantic City at the Miss America pageant this fall!

And now you know more than you ever imagined you would need to about the Miss America pageant system!  "But Evan," you say, "Reading about it is all well and good, we want to SEE it!"

Readers, you are in luck: New England news source WMUR is livestreaming the event tonight starting at 6:00!  And, as I have for the past two nights, I'll be live-tweeting for your enjoyment.  Though the good natured tweets of the past two nights may turn a little more competitive...

So enjoy if you'd like, but even if you're not watching, send good vibes Sarah's way.  She's in the market for a new hat, and a tiara will do just fine.

"Whatever happens, you tried to do something on your own, which is more than most people ever do. I include myself in that category. You took a big chance, it took guts, and I'm proud of you." - Alan Arkin as Grandpa in Little Miss Sunshine

Pageantry Day 2 - Here Comes Bunny Boo Boo

Night one of pageantry is over, and while two nights still remain, it came with it's own exciting finale (like a season of Lost or something).  At the end of each night, they award trophies to the winners of Best Talent and Best Lifestyle and Fitness in Swimsuit... And I came home with a trophy!  Yes, though my outfit choice was deemed unorthodox by some, I brought home the Best Swimsuit Trophy for the night!  Okay, yes, I was bringing it home for Sarah who won it last night.  Tonight, she'll be competing in talent and on-stage interview, so be sure to send good thoughts her way!

In the meantime, as the Hoovers get further across the banner (what will happen when they reach their destination tomorrow?) we dive further into the web world of pageantry.  Entertainment Weekly put together a list of their top beauty pageant movies, adding eight more to the two we covered yesterday.  I've only ever heard of To Wong Foo... and I Know What You Did Last Summer, but Happy, Texas sounds worth tossing on the Netflix queue.  It's worth noting that the movies are presented in chronological order, though I would argue that results in saving the best for last.  But Little Miss Sunshine came out in 2006.  Where have the big screen queens of the pageant world been since then?

The answer: The screen has shrunk and so have the queens.  TLC's terrifying hit series Toddlers & Tiaras premiered in January 2009 and is now in its fifth season.  While I haven't seen a single episode, the ads have been enough to tell me what it's about (parents play competitive dress-up with real live human children!) and that I never want to watch a full episode.  Curious as I am to find out if six year old Catlyn does indeed grow up to be a "princes in a big castle," I don't have the patience to stick around for the full series to find out.  Then, of course, there's the ubiquitous spin-off Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, which follows one contestant and her family in the world outside of pageantry.  Again, I'm not watching, but one promo clip of Alana "Honey Boo Boo" Thompson from the original series suggests inspiration from a scene of legendary drunk dancing prowess from a TV show I actually watch.  (Jump to the 55 second mark of the Honey Boo Boo clip to see what I mean.  Seriously. Check it out. It's uncanny.)

More adorable and less terrifying than all of those toddlers and their tiaras, though, comes from my new favorite Twitter account, @MyRabbitGotSwag.  A series of photos of a rabbit with stuff on it, this account picked up 100,000 followers like it was nothing.  Bunny Boo Boo in her (his?) tiara is the most relevant for today's events, but Pocahontas on the lookout is my favorite.

That's all for today!  We'll be back tomorrow with the results of Day 2, a preview of Day 3, and more things that are somehow tangentially related a little bit to pageants.  For now, it's time to start pushing the van again.  (Gotta remember to park that thing on a hill.)

"No one gets left behind! No one gets left behind! Outstanding, soldier, outstanding!" - Steve Carell as Frank in Little Miss Sunshine

Pageantry Day 1 - The Perfect Date

After a day of travel and an afternoon in my favorite neighborhood in America, I'm back and reporting live from New Hampshire.  But the travel's not done.  For the next three days, the Mousseaus will be piling into our bright yellow Volkswagen T2 Microbus and hitting the road each night to support my sister in the (Little) Miss New Hampshire Pageant!  So, as Sarah moves forward in her quest for the crown, Little Miss Sunshine's Hoover family will be moving across the banner.  And the Report will be celebrating some of the fine cultural touchstones that have come to us as a result of the wide world of pageantry.

Little Miss Sunshine is obviously the pinnacle of these products of pageantry, and possibly my favorite movie.  (E.T. and I are still grappling with this recent realization.)  Hilarious and heartwarming, with the cheesiest cover of America the Beautiful, it's certainly the best film to feature Proust scholars, Nietzsche, and ice cream.  And I think it served as one of Sarah's major inspirations as she prepared her talent portion of this year's pageant.  And I can't wait to dance with her! 

If Little Miss Sunshine takes the title, then Miss Congeniality must go to... Miss Congeniality, mostly because of the great Sir Michael Caine.  His Britishness gives him great insight into the crown.  Most of all, though, it's a perfect reminder of this pageant's perfect timing.  There is no better date for a pageant than April 25th, simply because April 25th is the perfect date.  It's not too hot, it's not too cold.  All you need is a light jacket.

Now it's time for me to take off.  Grandpa's in the trunk of our car, I've stopped speaking because of Friedrich Nietzsche, and -- Where's Olive?

Wish us luck!

"A real loser is someone who's so afraid of not winning, they don't even try." - Alan Arkin as Grandpa in Little Miss Sunshine

Reading By Flashlight

Today, according to the Children's Bookstore I walk past on the way to work each day, is World Book Night.  Apparently, the worthy goal of this project is to "spread the love of reading, person to person," accomplished by distribution of World Book Night paperbacks to "light and non-readers."  What an excellent program, and the books they've selected this year are excellent, as well, and a lot of them suit the mission.  The Phantom Tollbooth is a dominant title in the formation of my own love of reading and wordplay (and Michael Chabon's!); Good Omens, Me Talk Pretty One Day, and Bossypantsare perfect laugh-fests; and Looking for Alaska and The Lightning Thief are sure to bring teen and pre-teen readers into the literary fold.  The one exception I can see right off on the list: My Antonia could prove a major turn-off... Though that's my high school memory of the book speaking.

Given this booky day, I dug into the dusty link archives to share a literary link to inspire you all to read beyond the Report today.  First up, a beautiful site that archives inscriptions found in found books.  As a huge fan of inscribing books as gifts, I really enjoy this project.  I find sharing a book with someone and inscribing it with specific reason to be such a thoughtful gesture.  Of course, not all the inscriptions here are like this.  Some are notes written by the book's owner as a declaration of optimism or a careful barb in a sibling rivalry.

In light of the mission of World Book Night, I'd like to compile a list of book recommendations to share with the readership, so I'm proposing another interactive project.  Any one who wants to share a ONE SENTENCE recommendation of a book (or two or three...), send them in, and one day next week I'll include them in a Report.  It's as close as we can get to anonymously, digitally inscribing books to each other.  Plus, it's great timing as we begin to move toward Summer Reading season.

I'll kick things off with a book about books: Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Shadow of the Wind: This suspenseful Spanish novel features a mystery about books and the most frightening villain I've ever read.

Finally, there seems to be some sort of vehicle making its way into the banner.  Looks like the Report is going on a road trip this week.  Stay tuned for more...

As Marcel the Shell would say, READ ON!

--Evan

“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.” -Carlos Ruiz Zafon