on the holiday music comments, i would add that, like the missus, i hate almost all of it; even a charlie brown christmas would have to sneak into our place in an empty throwing muses jewel case. my parents never subjected us to the steamroller, but dad loved anne murray; i'd dash into traffic to avoid "no room at the inn." there are a few tracks i can handle a very few times each year - the ramones' "merry christmas (i don't want to fight tonight)," and (cough) wham's "last christmas"*** - but the only song that gets a universal pass is run-d.m.c.'s "christmas in hollis." and you, internets?
*that recap is actually for the saturday show, but several of the songs and poems popped up in both.
**the tree equivalent of killing your own dinner? i know, it's still wrong.
***the musical equivalent of killing your own dinner.
*A YULETIDE CHAT WITH BILLY IDOL ("Christmas is not about...hammer and tonging it. Christmas is about the fireside.") is up over at his myspace page.
*when mom sold the house, the new owners promptly axed the tree. i wish them ill.
**and besides, if i had a yard, i'd have a goat. no baby tree could withstand a hungry goat.
***that is, the sidewalk in front of the deli.
*this was quite lucky for us, actually, as the word on the street was that he wasn't repeating songs in new york.
**rolling stone disagrees, which is interesting for at least four different reasons.
***the twin, not the matriarch. she was wearing a black minidress that looked like it had been shredded by a cougar; i'm tempted to add half a point to both my "rats" and "star" tallies, but i don't know for sure that she's inflatable - and the whole celeb relative thing was questionable enough when i counted haylie duff.
i know that counting haylie duff as a celebrity last month left the door open for some looser interpretations of rat, but i didn't think things would get this random this fast. the new office building next door is run by...rat catchers? or rats, until so recently that they couldn't call off the inflatable strike but did manage to substitute a superhero cat? the whole "dissent via the macy's thanksgiving parade" genre confuses me. i need a nap.
rats: 4.5
star: 8
*in my opinion, it should be packaged in smaller quantities, with recipes.
**in my opinion, gerry butler used a butt double for the scenes with gorgo, but i was too chicken to confirm. also, it was a bit miserly to show us a mere 30 minutes of the movie, audience full of slavering spoilertastic comic book industry professionals or no.
***in my opinion, this was probably an excellent play - like the house of yes, its theater roots were re-eally apparent, which is occasionally awkward. not bad, though, and joe really liked it.
****in my opinion, americans have strange ideas about what others will consider appealing (both physically and philosophically).
naturally, joe is out working the streets. his most recent prediction* was the house by 15, and that we wouldn't take the senate. me, i'm managing my expectations: i'm just glad that i won't have to hear about jeanine pirro any more. side note to my peeps in california: re-elect arnie and you're dead to me.
side note, via our freedom fighting friends at the bassett dispatch: need a button?
*as of when i asked a few days ago, that is.
i have cropped pants, and lord help me, i'm pleased. i'll try to use them for good, not evil, but i don't know that i should be trusted.
*random aside: apparently "white gummy bear" is a secret order at jamba juice, a la the 'animal style' and '3-by-3' special burgers from in-n-out. "cranberry craze" would be one, too, but apparently the recipe disappeared with the menu listing. bite me, jamba juice.
joe, phil, dave, and i braved the spookies of friday the 13th and checked out pure food and wine near union square. i was pretty excited; as sara noted when we chatted the other day, the food looks gorgeous (on their site, mind you - i know my photo stinks), and local foodie sites seem up on the place. two raw dishes and $75/person later, i say...meh. raw* food, like other vegan food, calls for a special kind of thinking: if you compare it to with eggy/milky/meaty versions of the same dish, you're going to be disappointed. unfortunately, raw food chefs like to mimic regular menu items, which is wildly hit-or-miss. my appetizer (above), a napoleon of black trumpet mushrooms, was fabulous; the cashew 'cheese' wasn't cheesy, per se, but the texture was pleasant and the pinot noir sauce was lovely. my entree, on the other hand, was chalky parsnip 'pasta' with seriously overherbed sauce. joe said it reminded him of savory key lime pie, and if that sounds good to you, i'm never coming to a dinner party at your house. dessert - particularly dave's mint chip ice cream - was spectacular and is available for take-out; if you feel like going raw, i recommend picking up a carton of that** and skipping the full sit-down experience. then again, it's no secret that i have a white trash palate - if a splashy, wacky dinner is up your alley, give the ol' raw food a try. it's certainly singular.
*per PF&W, "the term raw refers to keeping all of the ingredients under 118 degrees. this preserves food's natural enzymes which catalyze digestion. wheat, dairy, soy and refined sugars are naturally omitted in raw food preparation."
**lord only knows how much it would cost, though; raw ice cream is coconut meat and cashew sweetened with agave nectar, which is freakishly expensive on its own. the restaurant's snack site suggests calling for prices.
the young, interesting me would have gone for it, but the new, responsible me is in the middle of closing an issue of the ladymag and can't dematerialize for more than five minutes at a stretch. oh, fun. it was nice to know you.
*you can take the girl out of the san francisco hippie shit, but you can't take the san francisco hippie shit out of the girl.
Assignment #63my report, courtesy of my sister (the phrase) and made of felt (the banner):
Make an encouraging banner.
Think of something encouraging you often tell yourself. For example: Everything will be ok. Or: Don't listen to them. Or: It'll blow over. Now draw each letter of the sentence on a large piece of colored construction paper or big squares of fabric. One letter per piece. Draw them blocky so you can cut them out. Cut them out. Glue each one onto a piece of construction paper or fabric that is a contrasting color. Then glue the edges of all the pieces of paper or fabric together to make a banner. Hang the banner in a place where you or someone else might need some encouragement, for example, across your bathroom. Or between two trees so that you and your neighbors can receive encouragement from it. Or in a gas station.
*i shouldn't be bored, since october is easily my favorite month. we have a remedy (we have?): henceforth it's rocktober.
**i don't actually hate starbucks; i quite like clean bathrooms, and the word on the street is that they treat their employees quite well. i simply prefer to purchase beasts from people who make them by hand (like beth, whose critters are gorgeous).
***however, i do not consider haylie duff my boyfriend.
Karl Lagerfeld's amazing. We have so many of the same thoughts and we teach each other something new all the time.
- Lindsay Lohan (via popbitch)
*(featured)
**('s blogged excerpts of mountain man dance moves)
Spain's crackdown may have stemmed from women's advocacy groups and medical associations in Spain that protested last year that too many models looked skeletal.this i find somewhat insulting. it's horrible that the fashion industry causes some women (and, gulp, children) to hate themselves, but shielding the fashion week crowd from the psychic shock of malnourished models smacks of paternalism to me. i do feel that girls' magazines should self-censor, and i'm glad that my ladymag eschews ze skeletons (i find them sci-fi and boring - fine for art photography, not particularly useful when i'm trying to figure out what to wear this fall), but the idea that adult women need protection from designer mind games is just sad. thanks, spain, but no thanks.
The 68 models who showed up to audition for Madrid Fashion Week this time had been told in advance that they would be examined by several specialists. The inspectors included a doctor with Spain's National Endocrinology Society and an obesity consultant at a hospital.
The five who flunked the physical were taller than 5 feet, 7 inches, weighed less than 121.25 pounds and had a body mass index under 18 - below the BMI minimums set by the endocrinology society and the World Health Organization.
Ernest Hemingway was once prodded to compose a complete story in six words. His answer, personally felt to be his best prose ever, was For sale: baby shoes, never used. Some people say it was to settle a bar bet. Others say it was a personal challenge directed at other famous authors.meh to the photo element (i'll leave the fancy snapping to the pros), but the story idea i like: caterina's commenters have done some fine work with it.
I'd like you to post a photo with a Six Word Story in the title section of a Flickr photo. Be as inventive as possible. Have those few words tell the whole tale, and let the picture be its visual interpretation.
I was so happy [about the possible trans-fats ban]; I mean, sad too, because I'll never taste them again. But I don't have to constantly think, What am I eating here?
[...]
I'd love to wake up and eat a stick of butter and take a shot of vodka.
[...]
I don't give a damn [about the spinach warning]. I just know that's not how I'm going to die — it's too sad. Killed by something I don't even enjoy eating — that would be definitive proof of lack of God.
[...]
Tired all day, ended up just slurping some black-bean soup at home and eating a crapload of very tasty apples. My girlfriend is from California where they eat that type of thing. My stomach cried me to sleep.
*good things, that is, in addition to our getting all of the fun stuff on it. i still find that kind of shocking.
**that's a lie - bride and groom cat outfits would be awesome. [aerosmith] jude looks like a lady... [/aerosmith]
***i won't just be watching television, mind - there's a new needlepoint project afoot.
*i didn't realize until i was walking around the amish market with a printout that said recipe comes from a site called "modern wife." aaugh, wife!
**admittedly, total brand tzatziki or yoghurt would make most anything edible. the greeks are not fooling around with that stuff.
*translation: ask me in person about why i've grown a separate ego to deal with collaborative commercial publishing.
**and that list in mountain man dance moves, which is now in stores (woo!), though getting additional work on the strength of a boob joke is unlikely. the rest of the book, by the way, is funny - i'd say at least two thirds of the other lists are better than mine, which is right about where i like to be.
*which joe does not recognize. screw joe; i've heard plenty of guys talk about their anniversaries in increments other than years.
fortunately for my pocketbook, i'm just crafty enough myself that when i go to craft fairs like this i'm prevented from buying things because i keep thinking, "i could make that!" of course, i probably won't ever have the time, but it helps keep the cash in my wallet. so do the prices, actually. i don't begrudge any of the artists their right to make a profit (or at the very least support their crafty habit), but $35 for a t-shirt is sadly out of my price range. for the sake of all DIY designers out there today hopefully not all the shoppers were as poor (and potentially crafty) as i am.
*on a related note, i find open source art like cory arcangel's super mario clouds really interesting. i can't imagine feeling secure enough in my own originality that i'd want to encourage people to replicate my projects.
**i'm not calling my stuff art, mind you - i simply know more about my own skills (or lack thereof) than i do about others'.
*marriage is so convenient! now i can name drop my fake boyfriends (carville, gus hansen, andrew bird, etc) without mixing them up with my ex-boyfriend (the missus).
**on a totally unrelated note, i noticed in looking that up that preston has another book called the demon in the freezer; imagine my disappointment when i found out it was just about bioterror.
*this was actually the first time we've purchased pillows for ourselves; the others just materialized, probably from our parents. if you think about just how long we've been living together, this is pretty gross.
**yes, the incredible hulk green is no more. i was really fond of it - and it did make the room look larger than café-au-lait beige does - but the new walls are definitely more restful, and much easier to decorate.
*i should have implemented the aforementioned wearing-the-wedding-dress-once-a-week thing instead of sending it home with my mom - on four flights, we didn't get a single cute newlyweds first-class upgrade. it wasn't that big of a deal on the domestic legs of the trip - or the trip from new york, even - but getting to jump the three hour line for the metal detectors at heathrow would have been huge. at least we got to suffer with stewart and hodge, who got caught in the same hell on the way to boston from ireland and were bumped right next to us in line.
**one pound per cat, five for each of us. pretty impressive, when you consider that they each weighed about ten pounds total beforehand.
***there was no actual dancing, at least not until everyone discovered the fancy bar and joe killed the playlist in favor of snoop dogg.
it's been a long, strange california week. i've actually only been here since ten on wednesday morning, but i was awake for the first thirty or so hours of the trip (give or take a cat nap on the plane); new york is far away. at my grandfather's funeral in los angeles, i saw my mother's side of the family (not my mother, but that's another story) for the first time in, say, six years. i won't be seeing many of them again for a while, i think.
it's the end of an era here at casa de ladymag. as of 4pm this afternoon, i'm out of my very own office and on my way to the new megabuilding. the loss is incalculable: no more reckless book-hoarding,* no more AC/DC at top volume as i pick through medical studies, no more lounging behind my big desk sans pants. just look at those stacks of dollies, waiting to rip my stuff apart and carry it across the city like so many malevolent fuzzy rainbow ants. "my stuff" is a misnomer, though - we aren't allowed to have plants, candles, bulletin boards, or "large personal items" in our new digs, so i'll be lucky if i squeak in with my shiny, shiny pen cup and a few photos of joe and the cats.
then, o then, there's the likely new dress code. since i'm rarely needed at meetings and never have to meet clients, i roll into the office in tees and jeans - never together, mind you, but we define our 'office casual' rather liberally. now that we're to share escalators and elevators with the folks in corporate, i fear that nylons and i are going to get reacquainted.
goodbye, sweet privacy. hello, um, pants.
*this is probably a good thing - i don't really need a copy of barbara boxer's first novel or fifteen vegan cookbooks - but the apartment is looking pretty crowded now that my lovely auxiliary library is taking a dirt nap and its contents have been repatriated. i had twelve huge shelves, people.
is it upside down? should it be ninety degrees clockwise? is it a cautious nexus of control and inevitability? is it an acid sandwich? this is why i need you, dear readers. it's the mystery canvas challenge!
mischa barton quote of the day (courtesy of julia):
Q: Are you going to walk her [the dog]?
MB: Yes. She's never seen SoHo or Tribeca, and I grew up there, so I feel it's necessary. But it's horrible, because she's way too little to put down. I have to walk around with her in my arms, and I look like one of those girls who has a small dog.
(newsweek, 5.29.06)
You see, Access Hollywood sends daily press releases plugging whatever will be on that night’s show. Tonight, it’s an interview with O.C. starlet Mischa Barton (who coincidentally used to date charming Brandon Davis). Well, that’s nice. Except that the email completely spoils tomorrow night’s season finale. IN THE SUBJECT LINE. No warning, no looking away, no escape — if you so much as glance at your inbox, Access is going to fuck up your Thursday.i'm virtually certain that i haven't passed the spoilage on to you, dear readers, as 1) jacob could be the only man alive who follows this site and watches the o.c., and $10 says he saw these rumors weeks ago, and 2) even i guessed that mischa would get it, and i'm so slow that saved by the bell twist endings used to shock me. all that, of course, is beyond the point - the point is that unless the spoiler hoax theorists on the television without pity boards are on to something, our bony little friend will no longer be blocking a small sliver of my view of newport beach on thursday nights. zounds!
Sure, the season’s outcome was rumored in a few publications, but to have it confirmed by the show’s star? Via Access, of all places? That’s just not right. It’s like when the Times spoiled Million Dollar Baby. Except more retarded.
[...]
From: NBC flack
To: Gawker
Sent: 4:14 PM
Subject: ON THE NEXT “ACCESS HOLLYWOOD:” MISCHA BARTON CONFIRMS HER CHARACTER ON “THE O.C.” DIES AND REVEALS WHAT THE SHOW HAS IN STORE FOR FANS
*best guess gets my august 20, 1990 issue of us weekly. cover lines include harrison ford: presumed cool and spike lee: why is he so angry?
on saturday night, joe and i wandered up to lincoln center to see david blaine in his giant manbowl. almost a week into "drowned alive," his experiment in self-pickling, several hundred people were watching him blow bubbles and make mysterious gestures at foreign tourists (and, let's be honest, a lot of locals).
"No one would analogize what David Blaine does to what occurs on our stages," said Reynold Levy, the president of Lincoln Center. "But the emotions he evokes, the feelings he has engendered, are universal. He is doing to New Yorkers what almost no one can. He's stopping them in their tracks. I look at their faces, and I see complete wonder and bewilderment."
Ann Sheridan, a Manhattan resident who took in Mr. Blaine's watery world about 10 p.m. on Thursday with several friends, drew comparisons to the public art project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude that swaddled Central Park in sheets of saffron last year. "It's like 'The Gates,' " she said. "Nobody understood what 'The Gates' meant, but everybody went and saw them."
(new york times, 05.07.06)
According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was "a gigantic dwarf," and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
(George Orwell, "Charles Dickens")
*the zombies themselves weren't the problem - it was that i was supposed to be revivifying a horde of them while shopping for a rehearsal dinner outfit and my syringes lacked the proper amount of serum, so they kept coming halfway to life and stumbling all over the store and getting in my way. also there was a small dog on fire.
Come down, come down from your ivory tower
Let love come into your heart
Don't lock yourself in an ivory tower
Don't keep us so far apart
I love you, I love you
Are you too far above me to hear?
Come down, come down from your ivory tower
You'll find true love has its charms
It's cold, so cold, in your ivory tower
And warm, so warm in my arms
I love you, I love you
Are you too far above me to hear?
Come down, come down from your ivory tower
You'll find true love has its charms
It's cold, so cold, in your ivory tower
And warm, so warm in my arms
it's wing, or springer, or something like that. the plaza this morning was a far cry from the drifty blizzard zone of a few months back; our view from the third floor (this is from our stoop) was a sea of blossoms. hours later it was pummeled in a freak snowstorm; snakes on a plane, man. snakes on a plane.
mischa barton quote of the day:
"There's something about not being the quintessential Hollywood person who has to drive to every meeting themselves. You're in your own little area more. Somebody drives me to work - either my mom or an assistant. Or my boyfriend."
(jane, october '04)
At long last we have finalized the lineup for our forthcoming book Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists that is scheduled for publication through Vintage in September of this year, and I'm pleased to report that at least one of your lists has been chosen for this volume.again, yay for vague wording: i was aiming for some action on the website, but this is listastic as well. it's even better, really, as i'll 1) be earning $25 for my efforts, 2) appear in mainstream print for the first (and probably last) time, and 3) get to use the phrase "mountain man dance moves" on my resume if the spirit moves me. as the moat girls would say, how good?!
