A self-mythologizing memoir
August 1, 2018 6:33 AM   Subscribe

 
Whoops. I guess Parker Posey would run away from me. It's nothing against Best in Show. I don't seem to like Christopher Guest movies. Maybe it's mocumentories in general. I do love Parker Posey, though. Party Girl, House of Yes, the Doom Generation. She's fab.
posted by greermahoney at 7:21 AM on August 1, 2018


Also, she's great as a bad guy in Netflix's reboot TV series of Lost in Space. Manipulative and creeeepy.
posted by turkeybrain at 7:40 AM on August 1, 2018 [5 favorites]


One of my favorite scenes in "Waiting for Guffman" is Parker Posey's character, Libby Mae Brown, cooking a lone piece of chicken on a barbecue pit while smoking and fanning the piece of chicken. She is so sweet and sad in that moment and all the little details just make it so much more touching. "I'll always have a place at the Dairy Queen."

My husband and I do joke about that scene, though. He threatens to go through the trouble of grilling one piece of chicken for me when I can't decide what I want for dinner. Then we laugh and eat pizza rolls.

And after bad days we will yell to let off steam, "And I'll tell you why I can't put up with you people! Because you're bastard people!" Thanks Corky St. Clair!
posted by narancia at 7:57 AM on August 1, 2018 [3 favorites]



Also, she's great as a bad guy in Netflix's reboot TV series of Lost in Space. Manipulative and creeeepy.


She is great in it. I'm watching it with my kids, and my oldest (12) with mild autism has not yet really caught onto the fact that she's not really a good person, which I'm finding interesting and I think it says something about how well she plays the role.
posted by nubs at 8:35 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


Somehow the idea of finding Parker Posey in the parking lot of a Lowes in upstate New York strikes me as somehow curious and exceptional.

I am reminded (because I am strange) of this story about William Riley Shelton, with it's punch line: Gosh, little woman, I've got to be somewhere in the world!

So yeah, Parker Posey has to be somewhere in the world, but it just strikes me as really odd that it might be there in particular. Like people I know only through seeing them in movies or on TV live in some other reality where they don't need replacement air filters for their house HVAC system or whatever she was doing there.
posted by Naberius at 8:47 AM on August 1, 2018


*swoons*
posted by humboldt32 at 9:09 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]


Just came to say I love Parker Posey more than is wise. Ms Wimp, please forgive me...
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:15 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]


I love my Parker so very much. I bought the book, but right now I'm just leaving it face up on the table, letting the anticipation build. I pass it by and smile and daydream a bit about antiquing together in Hudson. But for now, it's enough knowing that she's in my house and wanting to tell me stories.

*sigh*
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:25 AM on August 1, 2018 [3 favorites]


That was great. I could hear her tone right through the writing.

Mind you I could listen to backstory from Guest films all the live long day. Like Tony Hendra describing how Spinal Tap saved his life.

I'll be picking this book up for sure.
posted by lumpenprole at 11:45 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]


Guardian interview: This has often made it a financially precarious career. Despite acclaimed arthouse work in Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming and The House of Yes, that “Queen of the Indies” label became something of a curse. “I’ve gotten some little parts in big films,” she says. “Something new would come up, like a three-scene part as the wife of Matt Damon in some big movie and I’d go: ‘God, why didn’t I get cast in that, just tell me what the feedback was, what did they say?’ and the response was: ‘You’re too much of an indie queen’. So my brand, or what I was called, just separated me from the work.”

Parker Posey in Dazed and Confused had a huge impact on my tiny tweenage self. Until this round of book promotion, I hadn't thought of her for years. And...yes, when I clicked the interview, my first thought was to wonder what happened to her. I assumed it was usual evil Hollywood ageism stuff. (Or maybe they all just started putting Judy Greer in Parker Posey roles instead?) I mean, blah blah Hollywood is always infuriating, but Posey was never there to be the Demure Wife or The Hot One. She's freaking funny!
posted by grandiloquiet at 5:57 PM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


A friend bought her book last week and I'm waiting for him to finish it so I can ask if she likes being publicly beloved by Gen X librarians, as she must be.
posted by goofyfoot at 12:00 AM on August 2, 2018


I'm about an hour in on the audiobook (which I bought in addition to the hardcover). It is even more of a delight than I'd expected.
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:48 AM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]


Finished the audiobook, and it was simply a delight from start to finish.

It's a one-sided conversation set on an airplane, and she talks about everything and nothing. She has chapters on doing yoga, on pottery class, on painting her kitchen, and she can go into some detail describing the processes of each. Movie making, family members, her dog Gracie -- so many subjects are described in a loose, joking, familiar way.

While there are biographical elements, this is not a biography. She is not presenting her story -- other people can do that. Rather, Parker shows the reader who she is as a person, which is a far more difficult and rewarding task. I like to think she succeeded, but who would ever really know?

I could not be more pleased with the book. Wonderful.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:12 AM on August 28, 2018


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