Most of the time, when I have a crush (or a "crush") on someone their looks are only a small part, or even a nonexistent part, of why I find them attractive. I love their sense of humor, their confidence, their style, their talent... Except I really don't know much about David Wenham. I saw him as Faramir in The Lord of the Rings, but I can't draw any definite conclusions about his acting talent from one project. I know he's Australian, but beyond that I couldn't tell you anything about him. Except that he's damn sexy. He even makes a shirt with a questionable floral pattern sexy.

Oh, Willow. She went through a rocky seven years, transforming from a shy, awkward outcast into a powerful witch recovering from her villainous actions triggered by the death of her beloved. I didn't love all of the phases and trials she went through over the years (Sob! Tara! Sob!), and more than once I found myself desperately yearning to like Willow again. But I was always ready to take her back whenever she redeemed herself.

Sure, there were nerdy female characters before Willow, and plenty since, but she somehow became the ideal embodiment of the archetype. "The Willow character" has become shorthand amongst my friends to describe tech-savvy, nerdy female characters who seem like someone you could know in real life and would totally have a crush on. But Willow will always be my favorite awkwardly babbling, werewolf-dating, academic insecurity-having, rebellious banana-eating, crazy birthday cake shirt-wearing, misogynist asshole-flaying, "That was nifty!"-exclaiming, Jewish, lesbian(?) witch.

I could attempt to describe all of the reasons I love Carol Burnett – her talent, her humor, for being a trail blazer for female comedians and, indeed, all female performers – but I think this quotation demonstrates the greatness of Ms. Burnett better than I ever could:

The weirdest [question] I think I ever got was from a woman in Texas...and she said, 'If you could be a member of the opposite sex for 24 hours and then be able to pop back into being yourself, who would you be and what would you do?'

I said I'd be Osama bin Laden and I would kill myself.

"You said, 'I love you,' I said, 'Wait.' I was going to say, 'Take me,' you said, 'Go away.'"

– Catherine, 'Jules et Jim'

Although [Jules et Jim] is named for the men, its animating force is Catherine, a creature both utterly timeless...and forever changing...claiming for herself the reckless male freedoms that women have been traditionally denied. Time and again, she literally dresses herself in the garb of masculinity.

On paper, the mercurial Catherine seems an implausibly grandiose conception, a woman both giddy and tragic, protofeminist and male-dominated, driven by Eros and Thanatos, love and death. But as played by Jeanne Moreau, a pop-eyed siren with the ferocity of Bette Davis and the kitty-cat wiles of Tuesday Weld, Catherine becomes one of the modern movies’ triumphant characterizations—the anima as autocrat. Whether playing with vitriol or jumping into the Seine, she elevates capriciousness to an existential principle. When Jim says he understands her, she replies, “I don’t want to be understood.” And this is absolutely true. The movie lives in the shuddering distance between Catherine’s imperious, doomed physicality and the two men’s shifting perceptions of her, perceptions that rearrange but never destroy their glowing friendship.
– John Powers, "On 'Jules and Jim'"

The folk delight Lavender Diamond originated from Bird Songs of the Bauharoque, an operetta inspired by the work of American painter Paul Laffoley. Vocalist Becky Stark wrote and created the piece with a friend, and she starred as a character named Lavender Diamond, a charming part-bird/part-human who wants peace on earth. An album of Stark's songs was sold on tour, and Lavender Diamond became a four-piece band when Stark relocated from Providence, Rhode Island to Los Angeles.

Lavender Diamond has a knack for creating songs that feel both fresh and timeless, blending percussion, strings, guitar, and piano into gorgeous, folksy arrangements. But I think it's the delicate yet sure voice of Becky Stark that I love best. Stark can sound despairing, hopeful, vulnerable, and triumphant within the space of only a few minutes, especially on songs like "Rise in the Springtime," "Oh No," and "You Broke My Heart," which sounds like someone's heart swelling until it bursts.

Lavender Diamond - "You Broke My Heart"

I admit that I find it difficult to separate Seth Green from Oz, Willow's sweet, laconic, guitar-playing, werewolf boyfriend on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But if I can still get excited about Seth's presence in a project after growing up with Austin Powers, Idle Hands, and Without a Paddle, there must be something about Seth himself that tickles my fancy.

He has made better films since I was a teenager like Party Monster and The Italian Job, which are both fun, entertaining movies. He has been working mostly in animation since departing from Buffy, which is a little disappointing just because we don't get to see that sexy, slow smile of his. Robot Chicken isn't quite my brand of humor, but I gotta love a guy who loves stop motion.

And points for Seth being into Scrabble: he played in a celebrity Scrabble tournament for the game's 60th anniversary and plugged the new Super Scrabble during the Buffy panel at Paley Fest in 2008. He also seems to be very loyal to his friends, and I think it's kinda sweet how he ran interference for Sarah Michelle Gellar at Paley Fest by joking with reporters who became critical of her not previously participating in fan events such as the festival.

Also, he's short. Short men are sexy.

I think I most admire Tilda Swinton's sense of self and the unapologetic way that she lives her life. She is five-foot-ten and wears heels. She is 48-years-old and regularly shows up places like David Letterman and the Academy Awards wearing little or no makeup. She has played male characters a couple times and doesn't mind a good genderfuck. She lives platonically with the father of her kids and has a romantic relationship with a German painter 18 years her junior. She is articulate as hell and extremely intelligent, not to mention fiercely talented.

Like Mirah, Nina Nastasia is an artist whom I think everyone should know because she is crazy talented. But at the same time I love that I don't have to share her with so many people.

Nina is one of very few artists who makes albums worth hearing in their entirety. She crafts songs from her intricate guitarwork and haunting vocals, frequent collaborator Jim White's distinct drums, and an eerie violin or two. The woman knows how to use a dramatic string section. Her lyrics sound like fables, nearly true tales set in a place both a part of and apart from the world that I know.

I never skip a track when listening to one of her records, and indeed I almost feel like I can't. She creates such intimate, spectral music that even the small spaces of silence between songs seem to jar me out of some spell she has cast. I keep coming back to her most recent album You Follow Me, which somehow feels like her biggest album even though it features the fewest instruments, and I always listen to her 2003 record Run to Ruin on repeat because it just gets under my skin.

Nina Nastasia - "Stormy Weather"

My crush on Mirah dates back to college and a friendship I had with a girl named Katie. She was one of those people whom I meet and immediately want to be friends with but I'm too shy to actually talk to because they just seem that awesome. But Katie really was that awesome and actually talked to me about amazing things and made me mixed CDs with people like Devendra Banhart and Wolf Colonel. And Mirah.

Sigh, Mirah. Not only is she a talented musician but she's a CGiCG as well (Cute Girl in Cute Glasses).

What I love about Mirah's music is that when I listen to her albums, I feel like I'm sitting at the kitchen table with her and it's a rainy day outside and we're drinking tea together and she's telling me things about herself that she's never told anyone before. With her gorgeous voice, sensitive lyrics, and intricate instrumentation, Mirah crafts songs that are both intimate and grandiose, from "Cold Cold Water" that feels like the musical equivalent of a spaghetti Western, to "Mount St. Helens" that compares the end of a relationship to the destructive force of a volcano, to "Love Song of a Fly" that describes a house fly's perceived courting of a human in similar terms as Rostand's romance of Roxanne by Cyrano de Bergerac.

Mirah has a new album of old stuff out called The Old Days Feeling, which is a compilation of some of her early material and B-sides.

Mirah - "Cold Cold Water"