Welcome to Obsessed, a weekly series featuring everything the KQED Arts gang can’t stop talking about. We’re bringing the conversation from the water cooler to cyberspace! This week, we’re freaking out over Serena Williams’ Beyoncé tribute, a famous carpet, a sexually transmitted curse, and more!
Editor, KQED Pop
Serena Williams Does Her Best Beyoncé Impression
There are few things I love more than celebrities geeking out over other celebrities, like when Eden Sher lost her mind upon meeting Taylor Swift. While not as hilarious as that (although what is, really?), Serena Williams’ recreation of Beyoncé’s “7/11” music video is supremely entertaining, in a Stars—They’re Just Like Us! kind of way. Haven’t we all recorded ourselves lipsyncing to a song by our favorite singer or band? Haven’t we all pulled our backs out while recreating Robyn’s dance routine from “Call Your Girlfriend”? Oh, that’s just me.
Producer,
Art School
PDX’s Carpet Named Grand Marshal
Did you know the Portland Airport’s carpet is famous? In the tradition of keeping it weird, Portland rolled up a piece of their airport carpet last week and named it the Grand Marshal of the Starlight Parade for the Portland Rose Festival. Known as Pedey (or PD or Petey), the carpet was quickly anthropomorphized with a hat, a belt, and two large googly eyes. People are so fond of the carpet’s retro design that you can get socks, T-shirts and more printed with the beloved ’80s pattern. The carpet covers 13 acres of the airport and is currently being replaced, hence the nostalgia. Long live Petey! I wonder if someone is going to sell pieces of him like they do with the Berlin wall.
Music Editor,
KQED Arts
‘Liar’s Club’
The bonus to coming across ‘What is This Thing Called?’—my addiction from last week’s Obsessed column—is that I remembered a game show that my dad told me about long ago. He, as a construction worker, and I, as a kid helping out on job sites, would discover unusual objects and commence playing “Liar’s Club,” where we gave outlandish descriptions of the object’s purpose to each other until we a) settled on the one that made the most sense or b) bowled over laughing, and then got back to nailing baseboard. Our little game was based on the 1970s game show Liar’s Club. I hadn’t thought to look up the show on YouTube until this week, and man, I’m hooked. Celebrity guests pass around a weird object, tell bizarre stories about what it’s for, and contestants have to guess which one’s actually telling the truth. Catch an episode with Betty White, Peter Marshall, Larry Hovis and Pat McCormick above!
Social Media Specialist, KQED
‘It Follows’
A sexually transmitted curse, which manifests as a slowly advancing figure and mangles you to death when it catches you? A pseudo-’80s suburban setting? “Never go anywhere with only one exit”?! Come on, the trailer alone for this movie made me want to see it so badly that I was basically trying to feed my admission fee into my laptop’s CD slot. It Follows is definitely more haunting than terrifying, so don’t fall for the “scariest horror of the last ten years” hype, but it’s got an awesome atmosphere of dread (adults can’t help you, kids!), shockingly gorgeous cinematography that makes everything look like a Gregory Crewdson photo and, above all, an insanely good John Carpenter-esque soundtrack by Disasterpeace. It’s most obviously indebted to Halloween, but with its social smarts, relentless supernatural pursuer and general mood of despair, It Follows reminds me most of a suburban teen Candyman. Which is — duh — the best thing possible.
Want more? Check out our past obsessions!
