Impudent Ways

A Gift, A Choice, A Revolution

2011-08-15T11:10:00.001-04:00

I was asked to write something for two lovely friends' lovely wedding. It was my honor to read for the very best-est bride and groom. I'm only glad I didn't blubber through the whole thing.

When we were in school, E used to advise me, "Love wastefully."

There is a story about Jesus preaching to a crowd. Thousands of hungry people have come to listen to him, but there are only six loaves and six fishes. Jesus instructs his disciples to start handing out food, and somehow there is enough to feed everyone.

Lo, it is a miracle.

By giving the food away like they would never run out, they never did.

If, on the other hand, they had tried to split up the meager rations so that everyone got what they deserved, but no more, no one would have received anything of nourishment. Of substance.

It is only by giving everything away that we have enough for everyone.

You can interpret this story any number of ways, but I chose to think that this story, like all good stories, is about love.

When we attempt to assign how much love is rightfully owed, there is never enough, least of all for ourselves. And yet, if you give love away like you'll never run out, you never will.

On the contrary, you'll find that the more you give, the more there is.

It builds up inside of you, and soon you find that your heart is simply too big for the rest of you.

We must love with our whole hearts.

With both hands.

We must love. Wastefully.

It's hard to remember this when you are young and striving to be good at love. We treat it like the most precious of finite resources; there is so little love in the world, how can we possibly give our away? And so it withers in result.

When we are a little older, and maybe a little wiser, we get better at loving as if it were a skill, a muscle that needs strengthening which, of course, it is.

Rilke wrote,

To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is prehaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

In tackling this most difficult of tasks, in this most rewarding of challenges, we make a choice.

We chose to believe that the very best of gifts is one whose worth is only ever increased when it is given freely. We choose to risk frustration and the very deepest of hurts because know the reward can bring us joy, threefold.

We choose to believe in a glass half full.

We choose to believe, like T and E have chosen to believe, in love.

In hope.

In the full glass.

In optimism.

This belief, above all others, has the power to move still waters, unseat tyrants, and invigorate that which apathy has withered.

It is revolutionary, this choice to invest in love.

To risk.

To vow.

In asking us here today, to witness them stand together before their chosen face of God, E and T have asked us to be participant in their revolution.

With all the love they have given to each other, and to all of us here today, without asking anything in return, it is clear to me that they will never, ever run out of love.

***
E&T<3
Illustration by Shepard Fairey.

The Vanishing Act

2011-07-09T04:44:00.001-04:00

I was very happy to asked by my friend, Mr. Hamish Robertson, to contribute to his magazine, Afterzine. I was asked to write on the topic of coincidence.

Here is a little peek at my piece, "The Vanishing Act."

My very last night in New York, I was running late. I'd already moved out of my Brooklyn apartment, and was staying in the strange hinterland of the Upper East Side, but needed to get over to Chelsea in time for my friend's birthday dinner. Cabs were nowhere to be seen, even on Fifth Ave. and I was going to be at least an hour late. I left defeated. The City had finally beat me. Then the fireworks started.

It was the night before the Marathon, and it just so happened that where I was standing, right on the west side of Fifth Ave., right across from the pond, right in a gap in the trees of Central Park, was the best place in all of New York City to see the Marathon fireworks.

They had a lot of my favorite ones, the best one, the huge slow golden ones that look like champagne bubbles falling over the skyline. Standing alone in my coat and heels on my last night in New York, the air sharp with the promise of winter, I watched the fireworks until they were done, and then got into the cab which appeared suddenly. When I got to Chelsea, my friend hadn't even been seated yet.

Growing up I was one of those girls who loved horses. I broke bones, and severed nerves, got up at 4 in the morning and gave up birthday parties on the weekends. It made me tough and taught me responsibility, and I wanted more than anything to be good at it. I felt sorry for adults who would wistfully at a horse and say, "I used to ride," and I promised I would never give it up. Of course I eventually did. I sold my horse back to my trainer for ten dollars and moved to Poughkeepsie for school. Now I explain that the dent in my thigh comes from the days when "I used to ride." I feel ashamed, guilty even, that I grew out of it, like Wendy turning away from Peter to her terrible grown up face.

I felt the same way about leaving New York.

To read the rest of "The Vanishing Act," you can purchase Afterzine here, for ten dollars, and it will be shipped to you. It is very, very pretty.

Jay Aaarrrrrrrrrr

2011-07-06T15:42:00.001-04:00

These have been documented already, but here's a new-ish (pre-Carroll Gardens) JR here in Los Angeles.

Mozart Was A Mets Fan

2011-06-10T13:48:00.000-04:00

Okay! Are you ready for some new levels of geekness?

Observe, the Mets song. It's fricking GREAT. please observe the lovely melody of the part that goes "Eastside! Westside!"

And now, please observe Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A! Observe the same opening melody!

That is all. I love baseball!

Question Time!

2011-06-09T06:47:00.004-04:00

As I previously threatened, I decided to take a page from Apocalypstick and answer some of your questions. Apologies for the low quality in camera work, lipstick application and comedy.

Additions!

Here is a video of that street artist Gaia that I was talking about!

I love the piece, but also those sweet dance movez.

And here is some of Swoon's work! And then here is a pretty amazing .gif (I think?) of one of Insa's walls.

Lastly, if you decide you'd like to know more about David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, you can read the book blurb I wrote for Palisades Village Books! And then you can order it from us!

Thank you everyone for your questions! If I didn't get to them this time, I will next time! (Unless everyone really hates this idea, in which case, sorry! Just trying new things!) And if you'd like to ask me something.... please do!

Ask Me Something! (Please Don't Make Me Regret This!)

2011-06-07T22:20:00.002-04:00

My good friend Almie Rose, she of Apocalypstick, had told me she wanted to borrow what she called my "idea" of interviewing followers. I was furious, of course, so I'm borrowing her (bad) idea of having a formspring page where you could ask me a question, if you wanted, and I will make a video of the response! (Like hers!)

Or something.

Probably, "or something."

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/EAHanks

Ghosts Like Swayze

2011-05-04T16:07:00.001-04:00

Spotted these on Canyon Dr above Franklin. Anyone recognize who they're by? Did Stikman and Invader have Ghost Babies? That's possible, right?

I really like how they line up perfectly with the inner arrow on the speed bump, which then lines up with the point of the outer arrow.

Anyway, if you know whose work this is, give me a shout, won't you?

Moustache Man Hits Hollywood Stars

2011-04-30T07:56:00.007-04:00

You guys, it's pretty meta. Thanks to a kind (and pretty dang vigilant!) reader, here's Moustache Man going to the source of all moustaches. Maybe not the first moustache, but maybe the seminal moustache?!

Previously: Moustache Man Goes Big On Sunset Blvd.

Moustache Man Goes Big On Sunset Blvd (Updated!)

2011-04-30T03:56:00.007-04:00

Here in Los Angeles, we seem to have been graced with the presence of the madcap himself, Moustache Man, an Official Person I Once Interviewed On This Blog!

Perhaps he's in town to see MOCA's epic "Art in the Streets" retrospective? It's drawn most of the big players in the street art world, some of whom like the Frenchman Space Invader have found themselves on the wrong side of the law.

Reports are coming of Moustaches around the general Hollywood area -- so if you happen to spot any, make sure to send those in!

Updated!: Moustache Man Hits Up Hollywood Stars.
Related: My Interview With Moustache Man

It Counted

2011-03-28T01:47:00.003-04:00

"All I ever did to that apartment was hang fifty yards of yellow theatrical silk across the bedroom windows, because I had some idea that the gold light would make me feel better, but I did not bother to weight the curtains correctly and all that summer the long panels of transparent golden silk would blow out the windows and get tangled and drenched in the afternoon thunderstorms.

That was the year, my twenty-eighth, when I was discovering that not all the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion, and every procrastination, every mistake, every word, all of it."

-J.D.

An IMtimate Conversation With: Moustache Man

2011-03-04T01:22:00.008-05:00

Oh, hey. So, remember me? I sorta of run this blog. Because it's been so long, I'm changing the name of this feature, and trying to get back on the whole scene with this new thing called "blogging." It's like a longer version of tweeting or something. I've heard it's the new rage -- all the kids will be doing it soon.

ANYWAY. So I'm changing the name of the feature, and I'm kicking things off with this conversation with Mr. Mustache. Who is that? Well, he's a man who makes moustaches. As you can see by clicking on the above photo, which was original posted on here. (Please observe the shout out to me on Mr. Efron's face.) Read on to hear more about running from the cops, guerilla art posing as Oscar-nominated films (kinda? sorta? maybe?) and being Keith Richards' daughter.

EA: First off, I usually ask people "What is your name, and what do you do," but you're my second interviewee who needs to remain anonymous -- so I'll ask, how are you known, and what are you known for?

Moustache Man: I'm known as Moustache Man, although people call me a lot of different things- the Moustache Madcap, Moustache Bandit, Moustache Artist, or just Moustache. I write "moustache" where moustaches should go on posters, mostly in the subway, but also on the street, on buses. If there's an ad that needs a moustache, I'm there.

(One of Moustache Man's favorites taken by Jon Gorga. Who is not Moustache Man!)

EA: So you haven't given yourself this name, people have just started calling your variants thereof?

MM: I gave myself the name Moustache Man. The other names came from people who put up stuff about my moustaches on the web.

EA: Do you consider yourself a Street Artist? And what does that title mean to you?

MM: That's a tough question because I'm a big fan of "street art." To me, a street artist is someone who puts their art out for everyone to see- no galleries, no museums in the way. And I love that. I love that I can go down to the Candy Factory or walk around Williamsburg and see museum quality work (in some cases) at 4 in the morning, for free. Some people call me a street artist. It's flattering, but I'm not sure that I deserve it. When I think street artists I think Faile, Judith Supine, Specter, Gaia, etc. And I'm definitely not in that class.

EA: What's the difference between street art and tagging, if anything?

MM: Tagging is putting your name up in as many places as possible. Street art often doesn't have a name on it at all. People say street artists these days are only in it to eventually get gallery shows and make money, and that might be true for some people. But there's still a good population in New York putting art on the street for no commercial gain- for the sole purpose of beautifying the city. Tagging is definitely more of an ego thing.That being said, the moustaches are closer to a tag than traditional street art. But it's all about placement and context. If I just wrote "Moustache Man" on someone's forehead, it probably wouldn't go over as well.

EA: How did you get started?

MM: I wrote my first moustache last March. I think I saw a subway poster that someone had tagged. They tagged their name on someone's face, and from far away it looked like a moustache. So I figured if there's gonna be text on someone's face, it should be "moustache." I wrote the first one and got that high of doing something you're not supposed to be doing.

EA: Which leads us to why I'm not using your real name. Why am I not using your real name?

MM: Well if people found out that I'm actually Keith Richards's daughter, I'd get in big trouble.

EA: HUGE.

MM:New York is just so militant about this kind of stuff.

EA: Do you only do mustaches, or do you have other work around the city?

A short interlude interrupts here where Mustache Man and I discuss what exactly he can and cannot say about what other work he may or may not be doing.

MM:[...]I do other stuff on the street, slightly more legitimate art, but I'm focusing mostly on the moustaches these days.

EA:When someone puts something on the wall, a tag or anything else, is that a political act? An artistic act? A combination of the two? Or a complete affront to our ideas about both categories?

MM: I think there are probably different motivations for every tag, for every piece of street art. For me, I'm of the thinking that if corporations are going to bombard us with advertisements, we have every right to talk back. It's nothing new. Poster Boy did it and went to Rikers for it. Jordan Seiler does it. Ron English, Banksy, etc. And a lot of graffiti comes from that mindset as well. If someone is going to put up an ugly building in my neighborhood, why should I have to walk by it every day and not be allowed to react to it or communicate with it? Put up a Frank Gehry building in my neighborhood and I won't touch it. But if there's a shitty brick building left to deteriorate, just becoming an eyesore, adding some street art to it certainly won't hurt it.

EA: It seems to me like a lot of the fun in this is in the grey areas -- it's anonymous, but it's ego. It's secret, but everyone sees it. Street Art certainly has broken out of the cult, underground scene -- now there's an Oscar nominated "documentary" (which may or may not be a piece of guerilla art itself) -- is something lost when the secret is out?

MM: I mean, as far as the Oscars go, they never intended to give Banksy an award for that movie. They nominated him so they could cash in on the Banksy craze and get young people to pay attention. It was a cheap move. But you're right about the fun in secrecy. That's part of the appeal. I love seeing these new pieces pop up out of nowhere and not having any idea who put them there or what their story is.
Then again, the ones who put their stories out there, sometimes I appreciate their work more when I have more context.

EA: Do you think it matters whether or not Theirry Guetta is a real artist or not?

MM: I mean, he's definitely something. Performance artist, actor, who knows. It doesn't matter. It's kind of more fun not knowing what's real and what's fake.

EA: You and I have had to talk about what you're willing to say on the record and what you're not -- because at the end of the day what you're doing is illegal. Describe the thrill that you get from doing something you know you shouldn't.

MM: It's a rush. It takes longer than you might think to write this one quick word, because I try to make them look nice. When I have friends stand guard with me, they're more nervous than I am because they think it should be over so quick but I'm only halfway through the word and they think all eyes are on us. And throw cops into the equation and you've got yourself a real life adventure. I don't think my heart has ever beat so fast as the few times I've had to run away from cops.

EA: How do you feel about police? Do you empathize with them at all?

MM: THEY'RE FUCKING PIGS! Just kidding. Of course I do, my dad was a cop, his dad was a cop, his mom was a cop. None of that is true.

EA: You've been so serious! Now when I ask about cops it's all jokes.

MM: But I understand where they're coming from and I understand where the people who shake their heads at me when they see me doing a moustache are coming from. They don't want a return to the New York of the 80's. And they see someone defacing subway posters and they think we're just going to spiral back into some huge crack epidemic. At the same time, though, come on people. It's a little joke. A cursive word written on the upper lip of a stupid actor or actress. Chill out, Officer Krupke.

EA: So in this space where anonymity and reputation collide, there's the internet. Is is strange to see people document your work? Do you document your work?

MM: It was definitely weird to see the 'staches pop up on flickr at first. Now they're on their pretty regularly because I try to hit as many posters in as many stations as possible. I take pictures every now and then, but there's no way for me to document most of them. I do them and then I get the hell out of there. Or on a train. Or just stand around on the platform while people look at me and think "What's that dude's problem?" But it's always cool finding something about them on the internet. The whole reason I started this thing in the first place was to give people a laugh. So when people post them and say that they make their boring commute a little less boring, I feel like I've accomplished that goal.

EA: There is one person in particular who has paid particular attention to you, a blogger known as BitchCakes.

MM: Ah, BitchCakes.

EA: She originally wrote a post about you, and then you wrote her a mustache. But she has blogged about further mustaches made in her honor and seems to doubt whether in fact they are from you. Would you care to comment?

MM: Wait, which ones has she doubted? WHO DOUBTS THE
'STACHE?

EA: The "Mr. Moustache hearts Bitchcakes"

MM: I wrote the Moustache Man Hearts Bitchcakes. And that station has little police booths on the actual platforms, so I was super paranoid about writing on those posters, which explains not crossing the T (rookie mistake). But that level of handwriting analysis that she and her commenters make is so awesome.
I love that they can spot a fake as easily as I can.

EA: Bitchcakes seems to be very personally attached to your back and forth -- and has written that she was hurt when you didn't reply to her response tags. Are you as personally invested as she seems to be?

MM: I mean, that Moustache Man hearts Bitchcakses thing was not meant to be a romantic gesture, although it might have been taken as one. I just wanted to express my love for who she is and what she does. But I certainly didn't mean to go breaking any hearts.

EA: So you would not classify this interaction as romantic?

MM: No, just a mutual respect for each other. Besides, if she realized I'm actually a balding, 48-year old father of four little terrors, she wouldn't be into me anymore.

EA: I know it's what turned me off.

MM: I expected you to see through that and see the real me inside.

EA: So I know you can't talk about what other projects you're doing/planning on doing/might one day do, but can you say whether or not you want to stay in New York or venture out?

MM: I've been spreading the staches out a little already. I've hit LA, Atlanta, even a few spots in South America. I definitely plan on going back to LA at some point. Those bus stop bench ads are so terrible.
Those big stupid faces of realtors and lawyers. If there's anyone in the world that deserves a moustache, it's those people. Now I've completely alienated my huge fan base of real estate agents and attorneys.

EA: And finally, if you could tell people one thing about what you do, what would it be?

MM:I carry on the legacy of Keith Haring. Kidding! I don't take myself that seriously. Hopefully, I give a few people something to smile about. For those of us who are interested in our surroundings, who aren't wrapped up in our iPods or Blackberries or our own heads, there's a whole world of neat little things to find.
In whatever tiny way I can, I'd like to contribute to that movement.

Slouching Towards Somewhere, Vol 2

2010-03-16T01:34:00.001-04:00

There are some basic guidelines to living in New York. The most important, I believe, is that people walk here like you drive anywhere else. The sidewalks are our roads -- walk accordingly.

There are slow lanes, and fast lanes, and it is inappropriate to stop in either. Should you need to stop, you need to signal, then merge to the shoulder of the road. It is never, ever appropriate to stop in the middle of the road to stare at the Madewell store, or anything else. Similarly, it is ineffably rude to line up in a row with your party and take up all the lanes in any direction of traffic. While single file is preferred, it can be appropriate to walk in a twosome -- but then you MUST be in the slow lane.

While walking in New York is perilous business, eating is something else altogether. Accordingly, it has its own rules and regulations. Today I will be discussing one of the most important: eavesdropping.

It is unavoidable that you will overhear personal conversations in the city. We all accept it. You just have to hope that it's not someone who could ruin your life, personally or professional. [Sidebar: my favorite note in the gloriously TK collection of advice and rules for Vanity Fair interns involved a little play in which some Snotty Interns are complaining about their job, only to find RICHARD JOHNSON is listening in! OMFG2006!]

As dangerous as public dining can be, the rules of public conversations are pretty simple: If you're eating by yourself, and people are talking next to you, pretend to either be reading (book or mobile phone time waster, it's up to you) or perhaps seriously interested in what you're eating. That way the people next to you can talk reasonably comfortably -- they understand that you are abiding by the general social contract. Sure, you might repeat something funny you overheard to your friends, but that's unavoidable! At least this keeps the talkers up on their raconteur skills!

Should you be dining in pairs, however, the rules shift, dramatically. You must maintain your own conversation no matter what. At no point is it appropriate for your party to sit in silence while the people next to you are talking about something -- be it mortally embarrassing, hilarious, important, pedantic or inane. A pair of silent eaters who are clearly just sitting there letting the other pair do the talking work is like wrangling total strangers into your bad date, And I have enough of those to worry about my own, thanks.

Speaking of which!

Older couple who were sitting next to me in SoHo last night: While I was perfectly happy to tell my friend about my farcically bad time of it with a fellow, I don't feel like I know you well enough to share the story with you. Because you were total strangers. And I feel inclined to let you stay that way as you clearly were not abiding by the rules! While it was neither our faults that the vaguely mean hostess sat you down RIGHT NEXT TO US in a nearly empty restaurant, I feel very strongly you were not abiding by the social contract and were leeching off our conversation.

What was I to do? I was nearly whispering towards the end there, and my friend (unfortunately) can't read lips. While I'm sure you got a kick out of just how bathetic my life is -- and trust me, I think it was pretty funny too, once I got home in one piece -- I just feel like I wasn't really ready share that with you. Because you were total strangers. I know I have trust issues (or, should I say, I'm rapidly getting them...) but I'm sure you can see my point.

What was I to do? NOT talk with my friend? Do you know how hard it was to actually get it together to see her, in person, out in public? It was an epic struggle, let me tell you. I had so many new documentaries on Netflix streaming to watch, for one.

You couldn't chit chat about what you did that day? You couldn't complain about the fish tacos? You couldn't share your thoughts on our Do Nothing Senate? What about that Wallace Shawn book of essays, that seems right up your alley! Christ, couldn't you have at least visited the good old days with Mandy Patinkin? What were you two doing below 72nd, anyway?

Anyway people, there are rules. WHICH APPARENTLY NO ONE FOLLOWS. OH GOD, WHY BOTHER.

Slouching Towards Somewhere, Vol 1

2010-03-04T01:39:00.001-05:00

While it's definitely going to snow at least once more before Easter rolls around (see below, ugh) I was walking down the streets of Brooklyn today feeling at least a little lighter because: it's not February any more.

February has nothing to recommend it. It is, in all seriousness, the August of winter.The joys have long faded. The holiday season, with its aromatic bustling streets, and freshly dry-cleaned layers of bundling feeling subtly sensual, have now given way to snow the color of feces of nine types of species, and all those layers of bulky clothes make you feel like a lumbering tauntaun, sure to eat it on the slippery sidewalks while some asshat toddler laughs at you.

And February has Valentine's day, which is genuinely offensive in it's hetero-normativity and blah blah blah.

But today was March 3, and while it's gonna snow again, I have that springish optimism that tells me, "this rain is nourishing, the soil needs snow so that it can replenish the roots, and trees and flowers can bud and eventually blossom!"

If you're wondering, yes, I even bother me when I start thinking like that. Not that that's so difficult to imagine.

...Which is to say, I was walking down my neighborhood streets today because I was making a trek to Bergen Street Comics. If you actually pay attention to my twitter, you'll have noticed that I've recently fallen into the TOTAL AND UTTER BLACK HOLE OF AWESOMENESS (...so many inappropriate jokes spring to mind, but I'm trying to get use to letting those pass by as I get closer and closer to being a published children's author) that is Fables by Bill Willingham.

I'm on the 6th volume of a series of which there are more than 90, so you know... You'll all be (un)lucky if you ever hear from me again. (...I couldn't have found them at the start of winter?)

Anyways, because I like to give my unwisely spent money to independent operations, (click on that! it will tell you you're nearest indie!)) I was thrilled that Carrie Cheek told me of this hot spot.

(Side bar: Carrie Cheek makes movies and films things -- and edits to them too. She is a champ, and if you need something filmed and or edited, you should use her. She did my Super Tuesday videos for Glamour, and I was very glad for it!)

So, I was wandering on a cold spring day, looking forward to spending too much money on not enough comics from my local comic shop. I have one of those. I also have a local hippie food grocery store, and a local pharmacist, and a local electronics store and a local almost everything and over the years I've gotten to know these people, and sometimes it seems like they sorta recognize me as that girl who comes in sometimes, looking like a Star Wars animal.

Anyway, I was walking and then I realized that I was standing outside of some good friends' old apartment.

I think it must be a marker in every New Yorker's city existence when your first friend leaves for another town. I remember crying when they told me. Of course, they're a couple, of course, they moved to Portland, and while I would go on to visit them there, and be envious of their good food, large yard, and fabulous new friends, I was really crushed to know that I would be loosing two touchstones in the Big Bad Big Apple. Crushed, and flabbergasted.

You're leaving? But why? You'll have to get a car! You won't have a deli! (Which, I maintain, is New Yorks' most genius and beloved offering). How will you do things? How will you function?

But it's nearly four (or is it five?) years since then, and much has changed. I'm at not on the bottom-rung of a massive editorial machine that eats its young, I'm not in apartment with two other girls, trying to figure out how people in New York get to the ER when they're bleeding profusely, etc. I don't know the city totally (who does?) but I know it well.

Oy. That sound you might be hearing, or making, is the sound of so many people getting mighty cranky because they've been here longer, they've worked harder, they've seen more they've done more, and they've lost more people -- and not just to charming hippie towns where it rains more. (Or less).

Yeah, well. Fair enough. C'est le guerre.

But I know it well enough to watch a slow and steady stream of people leave it, and standing outside that apartment, where I had dinner parties and dance parties, and good cries and bitter laughs -- and it wasn't even my own goddamn apartment -- I realized that I'll probably be the next to go -- because I'm going, somewhere -- and come next fall someone will move into my apartment, and not know anything about who I am, or what it was like when I lived in New York, or why I left.

Because, well, why should they?

Suddenly, this all made me wish for spring even more. Because if this is going to be my last summer in New York, I want it to be a good one -- an epic one. The sort of summer that I'll remember for the rest of my life.

Which probably means it'll suck, and rain every day of June like it did last summer, but oh well.

It'll still be good.

Snow Dogs

2010-03-01T01:40:00.000-05:00

Hello, Foto.

2010-02-24T01:32:00.002-05:00

In an effort to get rid of some of the junk taking up space on my about-to-croak blackberry, here are some photos that I've taken over the years, mostly because they make me giggle.

Right, okay, this is one of my favorite things I have ever seen, ever. I saw this bookshelf in a Waterstone's (I think? Maybe a Blackwell's?) in Greenwich right outside of London. I burst into loud, inappropriate laughter rather frequently, but I didn't even laugh when I saw this -- I made insane, gasping noises until I nearly died. If you look closely, you'll notice the first title is Beyond Ugly. Yes, I checked. No, there wasn't an author's photo.

I saw this sign as I was waiting outside a Sigur Ros show, and burst into laughter. All the faerie children looked at me with total loathing.

I still love you though, New York!

Further Notes On That Thing Some People Didn't Like For Various Reasons

2010-01-29T01:41:00.000-05:00

Hello out there in Internet Land!

I've been missing from these here parts, I know. Things with my big project continue and there have been other things floated about here and there.

Now, if you've read the "there" bit, you know that the majority of the commenters were not happy with me -- my writing, my opinion, and in some cases, er, just me in general/my existence on this planet. INTERNET SMASH!

C'est le guerre!

Since not only did I really anger complete strangers, but also some personal friends, I've been thinking a lot about what I was trying to say, and (I think) have zeroed in further on what prompted me to write in the first place.

Firstly, the whole thing got started because I got obsessed with Bob Dylan's 1963 speech to the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee. Dylan had been doing a lot of work on behalf of the civil rights movement -- singing old labor songs revamped to fit the moment, singing soul and gospel songs, making appearances and speechifying with people like Dr. King and Pete Seeger. My point is, he was really active in trying to lend a hand to the movement. So the NECLC gets together, and they decide to give him the Tom Paine award at a fancy dinner in New York, and they all talk about how talented and gifted and young he is. So he goes, and in his speech.. He essentially tells them all to go shut the front door (as it were -- trying to clean up the language here!)

I want to thank you for the Tom Paine award in behalf everybody that went down to Cuba. First of all because they're all young and it's took me a long time to get young and now I consider myself young. And I'm proud of it. I'm proud that I'm young. And I only wish that all you people who are sitting out here today or tonight weren't here and I could see all kinds of faces with hair on their head - and everything like that, everything leading to youngness, celebrating the anniversary when we overthrew the House Un-American Activities just yesterday, - Because you people should be at the beach. You should be out there and you should be swimming and you should be just relaxing in the time you have to relax. It is not an old peoples' world. It is not an old peoples' world. It has nothing to do with old people. Old people when their hair grows out, they should go out. (Laughter) And I look down to see the people that are governing me and making my rules - and they haven't got any hair on their head - I get very uptight about it.

The crowd did NOT go wild. The crowd felt completely alienated and ticked off that he was not thanking them profusely for the award and all the money and energy they gave for the civil rights movement. (If you want to read more, click here. There's the rest of Dylan's speech, a defense of him, and then a mea culpa/explanation he wrote in response to bad press.)

I just could not believe that Dylan had told a group of people who were FOR such a good thing to go fly a kite. Who does that? Why? What was his deal? Sure, if it were a coalition of old white people pleading for him to sing songs for their efforts to save Stick On Pencil Erasers, maybe I would get it, but this was about the civil rights of entire disenfranchised people. WTF?

But in re-watching the Scorsese documentary "No Direction Home," as I do obsessively, like every three weeks, I realized that Dylan was saying that he was nobody's singing monkey -- not even for the people he agreed with. Not even for the people he loved. (See: Pete Seeger attempting to cut off the electric music at Newport WITH AN AXE.)

And that seemed to me to be a new form of identity, something rooted not in identity with other people or the group dynamics of a shared politics, but an identity formed out of a constant attempt to transcend the moment to reach a level of, dare I say it, righteousness.

" [...]A constant attempt to transcend the moment to reach a level of, dare I say it, righteousness."

Jesus. I need help. Or an editor. Really, both.

Secondly, the reason that the letter was not about "breaking up" with the Democrats, was because as a political body made of flawed human beings trying their best (well, some), I expect that it will be just that -- flawed. The DNC is not about furthering principles, or morals as such, but about securing power. By endorsing Democratic candidates, I invest trust that they will use power that power for good -- as I understand "good" (gay rights, women's rights, polar bear rights, etc.)

The Left on the other hand, as I understand it, is an entire ideology that exists outside of politics. As well as being "a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture" it is also a code of conduct, an infrastructure of principles and morals, which I still believe in.

In college, I rooted my self in clearly defined ideological stance: I am a feminst, I am anti-war, I am pro-gay rights, I am against this, I'm for that. It was personally validating for me, as well as important part of my attempt at maturation, to recognize that as I was becoming an adult, I was a member of multiple communities. It made me feel like I had agency, that I was not complicit in culture of death and mayhem, and helped me feel not so shitty about the world at large.

All of which is important for me, personally but had little effect politically on any scale.

But I'm no longer interested in being identified with anything -- even the things I agree with.

(Of course, the kicker of this is that I will always and forever be identified and associated with one thing (person!) that I have no control over -- either over my existence as such, or that people will always choose this one thing to praise/condemn/dismiss me for. UP TOWN PROBLEM!)

Anyway, back to things that (sort of, not really) matter: being through with identity politics.

My argument in the original piece was that the Left, in relying totally on political bodies which can only accomplish political gains -- rather than the psychological and spiritual gains made when someone decides that they were wrong, we are all created equal -- is not only fallible, but... too small? It seems too small to house all the changes I think we need.

But! You say it's "too small" but it's all we have! You should work with what we have before you abandon everything.

No, the Left isn't "all we have." We have our individual actions, which I think do more to change the world that any group can.

Are you saying that no protest group has made real, substantial change?

No, I'm saying that the Leftist groups we have now don't seem to be able to effect real change -- because they seem to be made up of a bunch of who-ha's. Every time I see a Code Pink lady screaming in the back of a DC hearing, I want to tear my hair out.

An example of group protest that actually worked: the civil rights marches in the south. But you know what strikes me about them? Their dignity. Their quiet, powerful, tenacious, unrelenting dignity. They were better than the forces they were against.

Someone with a papermache George W. Bush puppet with a swastika on its forehead has no dignity. They make people who agree with them, agree with them more, and antagonize further those who don't. They are not better than the thing they are protesting.

I know this dude, who does not like women. Sure, he likes "getting" women, and all, but I think we all know that's the not the same as respecting women, and enjoying all the things we culturally understand to mean "woman" (which is... problematic, I know, but work with me). OH MAN DID I USE TO RAG ON HIM. All the time with the ragging! Every time he called a woman a slut (even though he had also hooked up with her) I was there. Each time he complained about having to "deal with" a woman's emotions, I had thoughts and I made them known. I did not want to let him get away with the barest HINT of misogyny.

I'm sure you're not surprised to learn that he did not wake up one day thinking, "I think I hate women. I think I resent them for having what I want, and then I disrespect them when they give it to me. I think I project all my feelings about my mother and the one ex-girlfriend I actually cared about onto all women, ever. I should stop doing that!"

Nope, he did not.

I did not change his mind. SUPRISE.

So now I use a different tactic. I figure the best way I can prove that not all women are judgmental, flighty, nags is to... Not judge him, try to be an example of responsibility, and to respect his choices, even I don't agree with them.

Sure, if he really upsets me, I'll say something like, "Oh man, if you're gonna be a drag, could you do it elsewhere?" but other than that, I've tried to stop talking about what a strong woman can be, and actually try to be a strong woman in his life.

So you're disillusioned with hippies. Big fucking whoop - grow up already. [ Editor's Note: This could also be substituted with: "Welcome to being an adult. This is nothing new, get over yourself," a statement which seems to infer I am too old to be writing so naively. This seems to be the exact opposite than the previous statement, which infers I am too young to be writing about this, or perhaps any other topic, ever.]

Anyway, these are some of my thoughts. Other people have had them before, of course, but I'm just trying to "[keep] records of [my] troubles."

On The Death JD Salinger

2010-01-28T01:42:00.000-05:00

Because I have this stupid habit of writing where I was when I finished a book, I know that the most recent time I finished re-reading The Catcher in the Rye was March 29, 2002, at the Peppercorn Café where I was waitressing in Poughkeepsie, but it’s closed now because the owner had a gambling problem. Or so I heard.

I hadn’t read it since my original reading in the eighth grade, which I guess is when you’re supposed to read it. And like othersI was a little embarrassed by it and its voice, and by who I was when I first read it, when a teacher told me that I needed to for my own peace of mind.

Mr. Q had handed me his own original copy and told me that everything Mr. Antolini says to Holden, was what he had to say to me.

“I have the feeling that you’re riding for some kind of terrible, terrible fall. But I don’t honestly know what kind […] It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, ‘It’s a secret between he and I.’ […]

Among other things you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as some day, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful, reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.”

It scared me that someone I respected so much believed that I was headed for a “terrible, terrible fall” and it scared me even more that all the annoyance (and hate?) and I had for the other kids – the few that I was able to bully myself as well as the others who shoved me into lockers – was so obvious.

I asked Mr. Q what I could do to stop myself from falling, and he answered me in one word: “Write.”

And that's sort of how I got here.

So as embarrassed as I am by the person I was in the eighth grade (very!) and as much as we take Salinger and his tone for granted (since it’s now the tone of the entire internet), I’d like to add my glass to the many that will be raised in honor of his passing.

The Lower Ninth Ward, Four Years Later

2009-11-11T03:01:00.004-05:00

The Lower Ninth Ward 4 Years Later (EA Hanks & Jonah Evans) from EA Hanks on Vimeo.

Oh, hello old blog! Did you know you're less of a pain in the ass than my new blog? So I am throwing some attention back at you, like a guy who left you but then... maybe, sort of, regrets it? So he hooks up with you again, but maybe only a little making out, and then makes up his mind and then REALLY leaves you?

Anyway:

I was really blessed to be able to go New Orleans over the weekend, and while I was thrilled to spend some time with some amazing World War II veterans, I'm also grateful that I got to spend time in New Orleans away from the madness that comes along with Hanks Cola -- that is, with good friends who showed me their new home.

Jonah Evans, who you might remember from earlier in this blog, showed off his beloved new hometown, and since we were wandering around the Lower Ninth Ward, I thought I would take a chance and start filming.

Please forgive the general lack in quality in regards to: the audio, the visuals, the editing, my hair.

There's more to come of Jonah talking further about the need to save Charity Hospital.

Spare Some Change?

2009-08-18T12:38:00.002-04:00

OMFG! Impudent Ways has a new home!

Hope you don't hate it!

http://impudentways.wordpress.com/

Yes? No?

My website has hit puberty.

xox

HAHAHAHAAAAWHAHAHAWAAAAAA WAAAAA!

2009-08-18T11:11:00.002-04:00

That was me laughing until I was crying:

Indian film stars and political leaders expressed anger on Sunday at what they called the humiliating treatment of Shah Rukh Khan, right, the Bollywood star who was detained for questioning by American immigration officials at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday, The Associated Press reported. Immigration officials said that Mr. Khan was stopped for a routine examination when his name came up on a computer alert list but that he was not “formally held.” The officials also said that the examination, which lasted a little more than an hour, would not have taken as long if his luggage had not been lost. Mr. Khan told reporters in Chicago on Saturday that he thought “it’s a procedure that needs to be followed.” He was traveling while promoting his film, “My Name Is Khan,” which explores the racial profiling of Muslims after Sept. 11, 2001.

-Rachel Lee Harris, NYT

Qu'est-ce Que Cest?

2009-08-16T10:21:00.004-04:00

Did you wake up this morning really wanting a dose of the most fierce, fat, queertastic punk band you ever did see?

Me too!

Behold. The Gossip and Beth Ditto.

And while we're on the subject of Ms. Ditto, I can't remember the last time I read something in a magazine that I loved every second of (lie: I do remember. It was Newsweeks behind the scene's play by play of the election.) but this story by Michelle Tea of The Believer about going to the Paris fall fashion shows with Ditto is really great. Good musings on punk, fashion, being poor, being bougie, being fat, being queer, being outsiders on the inside. All good stuff. I highly suggest a read!

Hold On To Your Ego

2009-08-15T12:26:00.005-04:00

Back when I was a teenager, and everything was about me, someone gave me a book to read. It was called The Four Agreements. My first reaction was pretty much, “Fucking hippie book!” but after I actually read the thing, I found myself pretty stunned.

One of the main tenets of the book was, to put it bluntly: Nothing anyone ever does ever has anything to do with you.

My brain farted.

What? Nothing? EVER? That seemed insane. Obviously every insult or slight was meant as an attack on me as a person, meant to hurt me in a way that I’ve never been hurt before. Every declaration was meant for me, Elizabeth, simply because I’m just so bleeding loveable.

I balked. I argued, “What about compliments? If you say you like someone’s eyes, how that possibly be about you? You don’t have their eyes!”

Ah, to be fourteen again. What stunning intellect I had. Oy.

Now, a couple years on, I know this strange little fact to be entirely true. It is never about you, and, moreover, you can’t take that personally.

Fact: it sucks when the person you like, doesn’t like you back. (this works platonically and professionally as well, but the feelings rustled up by an unrequited dramafest are the most identifiable. We’ve all be there.)

It puts you into a tornado of hurt and anger and doubt. Am I not smart enough? Skinny enough? Successful enough? Do they not like my hair? Did they notice that one of my eyelids is larger than the other (…Shut up…)? Am I not funny enough? Do I try too hard to be funny? Am I not the right kind of funny?

And then this slides right on in to anger: Well screw you! I am smart enough, skinny enough, successful enough, my hair is fabulous, my eyelids are… workable, and I am perfectly hilarious in just the right way, and if you can’t see that, well you must be an ASSHOLE and I’m GLAD you don’t like me because I DON’T LIKE YOU, ASSHOLE!

Of course it hurts when someone doesn’t like you, or likes you but not the way you want them to. Or if they want to date you, but not the way you want them to date you. It hurts when we don’t get want we want! But the truth is, it’s not about us.

That feeling of anger comes from, “I know what I want – I want you. So obviously, you want me back. How can you NOT want what I really, really want?”

(This, by the way, is exactly how a cat thinks. Proof here.)

I was reminded of this recently when I went to go see “Adam” with Goody Warren.
If you haven’t seen it, I will give everything away by explaining that the movie is pretty much “Say Anything” plus Asperger’s. Seriously. Down to the plot of the charming girl having an over-involved, charming dad who is charged with a white collar crime, and then ends up being guilty.

Any who, the charming young man (Hugh Dancy, sigh) with Asperger’s – which most people define as a milder form of Autism – is trying to woo the new girl (Rose Byrne) while also trying to explain his situation.

One night, he takes her to the park to see some raccoons, and when boy and girl are done with the montage part, he asks her “Were you excited? Sexually?”

Freaked, the girl goes to leave, and --

You know what? This all happens in the trailer, so I’ll just put that here.

Ok.

So what happens after this scene is that Hugh Dancy explains that part of Asperger’s is a sort of literalness – an inability to read facial cues and interpret what they mean. When he was younger, he would assume that everyone around him was feeling the same thing he was feeling – he calls this “mind blindness.”

As he got older, he learned to ask people what they were feeling, to make sure he understood their point of view. Yadda yadda yadda, “Were you excited?”

I mention this (sweet, but uneven) movie because when I was watching it, I immediately likened the tendency to assume that other must want what we want as a sort of Mind Blindess. I like you – you must like me back!

I was reminded of this again when I saw “500 Days of Summer” (I don’t have air conditioning. Come summer, I have to go somewhere!)

Like some, I’ve had a hard time with some of the movies featuring Ms. Deschannel, mostly because they rank really high the on Manic Pixie Dream Girl scale. Namely, these roles are always about how the girls functions merely as a reflection of what the male character wants. She never has her own desires, or history, or conflict. "Now I have this loveable quirky girl on my arm, and I drop my brooding ways and finally be a happy attractive intellectual!"

Well, “500 Days” was aiming to be the mother of all those-kindsa-movies: Boy meets girl, they date, they break up, boy spends third act trying to get her back. So I was happily thrown off by the news, right at the front of the movie, that “this is not a love story.”

I’m not ruining anything when I tell you that Joseph Gordon Love Hewitt falls for his co-worker, Zoey Deschannel (vegan!) but she doesn’t really believe in love or relationships. When they start kissing, she tells him, point blank, that she doesn’t want a relationship, and while she wants to have fun, she also wants to keep things casual.

Now, in another movie, the girl would fight the boy off for as long as possible, and then would one day realize, “Wait! I DO want what he wants! Let’s be in love! End the movie!”

But, happily, this does not happen.

Well, of course the boy totally ignores the girl and what she wants, and practicing mind blindness, he convinces himself that through their intimacy, he is breaking down all the barriers the Vegan has, and she will love him as he wants to be loved.

Except, no.

That doesn’t happen. Girl breaks up with boy because things are getting not casual, which is not what she wanted.

JGLH is destroyed and goes on a bender (montage!) and eventually a bad date with someone else. Of course he spends the whole night talking about what he wants – Summer! Until the new, unwanted girl says,

“Let me get this straight. This girl told you, right up front, she didn’t want a relationship?”

Oh riiiIIIiiiight!

Remember how she was really clear about she wanted and didn’t want? Remember how you can’t make her want something else?

Now, maybe in another movie, Joseph Gordon Love Hewitt would then go apologize to Zoey Deschannel, and she would be so fucking ensorcelled by a guy actually listening to her, she would throw herself in his arms, and love him the way he wanted to be loved.

Except, no.

When they run into again, Zoey Deschannel has fallen in love. Fallen in love so much that she’s engaged. Engaged! To someone else! Boy is enraged! How can SHE who didn’t believe in LOVE, be getting MARRIED?

Ah! It’s all revealed: She didn’t love him. But that doesn’t mean she can’t love someone else. Because her entire world doesn’t revolve around the guy on the third rock from the sun.

(Yuk yuk yuk!)

She has her own deal going on. Gasp! Amazing.

Because of all this, mumblecore bedamned, I heartily enjoyed “500 Days of Summer”.

And because thing always came in threes, this Modern Love column from the New York Times also caught my eye:

A man and woman have been married for many years. One day, he comes to her and says: “I don’t love you any more. I don’t know if I’ve ever loved you. I want out.”

And the woman realizes, this has nothing to do with me. This about the man I love going through something and being unable to deal with it internally, so he’s going to try to change the externals of his life.

So she pretty much just says, “Well, I’m not letting you go, but please tell me what the kids and I can do to let you have the space you need to sort this out. In the mean time, I think I’m going to go for a swim. You can come if you want!”

And she ambles off, upset, of course, but not angry. Because she’s not taking it personal. Even when people want her to!

MY trusted friends were irate on my behalf. “How can you just stand by and accept this behavior? Kick him out! Get a lawyer!”

I walked my line with them, too. This man was hurting, yet his problem wasn’t mine to solve. In fact, I needed to get out of his way so he could solve it.

A couple months goes by, and, what do you know, the husband has sorted out his shit, and shows up, ready to part of the family again.

This column is now over my desk, and in big letters, a post –it that says,

HOLD ON TO YOUR EGO.

Anyway, my point is, when you let go of the shit you have no control over, and stop taking it personally, there is an overwhelming sense of relief. Walking away from other people's neurosis-as-weapons make everything so much easier.

I can't believe no one's ever said this before!

The Rules.

2009-08-13T18:09:00.002-04:00

What's that feeling?... Oh, it must be the cockles of my heart being warmed.

Oh, the regality! You will give me your hand, because I want it, and that is the rule. Now, see, isn't this enjoyable? Everything I want, I get, and you will like it. And you will enjoy it. That is the rule.

Alternative To What?

2009-08-10T18:59:00.003-04:00

...So I happened to catch this ad for the Navy before "500 Days of Summer" (more on that later).

AKWARD!

See how HIP it is! See how crazy the Navy could be! They're so MetaIndieHipsterCredtastic!

"Filmed entirely on location wherever Freedom is being protected!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

That is so ALTERNATIVE!

This is just like how missionaries in my neighborhood don't have to wear suits, they get to wear "alternative" clothes like plaid shirts tucked into mom jeans. Still with the name tags though!

Oh, dear.

2009-08-10T17:29:00.001-04:00

It seems something is afoot.

Go Read This Thing: Columbine, By Dave Cullen Now With Comments From The Author Himself!

2009-08-07T18:46:00.007-04:00

Here's my review of David Cullen's most excellent book, Columbine.

***

I hesitate to say that the shootings at Columbine "affected me," since whenever I hear someone say "September 11th really affected me," when they were far away and usually think of New Yorkers as godless heathens,and the city as a blight on the nation, I want to hit something, but, you know...

Columbine really affected me.

So. I'm stating here that I know this is both unfair and hypocritical (and probably douchey) of me to say.

Whether or not my innate fascination with grisly occurrences (ask me anything about Jonestown, or the Donner party, or the Hale-Bopp cult deaths!), was my impetus for reading this, or an attempt to exorcise my sort-of left over feelings of that first dousing of existential dread and anger, I don't really know. But either desires were more than satisfactorily met.

Cullen knows everything about this case. He knows the people, the time lines, the coverage, and the outcomes. Going so deep into something so senseless and violent can feel a bit like diving into the bell jar, but Cullen keeps the narrative from dipping into a fetishistic glamorization of Eric Harris' and Dylan Klebold's minds, and that could not have been easy.

While it was sometimes hard to keep track of just the second to second "schedule" of what happened during the shooting (which, if you didn't know, was supposed to be a bombing larger than the Oklahoma City attack), that all seems secondary to the main drive of the book's purpose: to explain that there is no answer to the question, "Why did they do it?" The shooters had vastly different personalities (and illnesses) and thus had diametrically opposed reasons.

This question slowly became a gaping psychological and spiritual maw that ate up everything in its path, haunting the community at large, but also the killers' parents more than anyone else. In an effort to fill that hole (or, if you like, for the more nefarious purposes of making a story tidy and sellable) the media was all too happy to collect stories and create a narrative of the killers and the shootings that just weren't true. For instance:

The killers were not members of the Trench Coat Mafia, they were not loners who were picked on, they did not target jocks and Christians, and the were no Christian martyrs in the shooting.

Who and what the killers actually were is best left to Cullen to attempt to explain. I highly recommend this book.

***

You can see other things I've been reading over on my Goodreads page!

Stay Classy, Grey Lady.

2009-08-07T13:28:00.002-04:00

"“Julie and Julia” is rated PG-13. It has mild profanity, and the indulgence — in exquisite moderation — of a few choice vices."

Haha, New York Times! You crazy!

Go Read This Thing: Tiger Beatdown

2009-08-07T00:14:00.004-04:00

This might be guilt for my previous post, but whatever.

Tiger Beatdown is a fan-frickin-tastic ladybusiness blog. I highly suggest you begin with this post about hipster racism and sexism.

The cockles of my heart warmed when she drew comparisons between Megan Fox and Zooey Deschannel. Mmmmm! Emosogyny!

(Also, if you look hard enough, you'll see I've commented on the blog somewhere, which is apparently something I do now.)

Liz'sez of the World Unite! Updated!

2009-08-06T14:43:00.009-04:00

We all remember the time when I wrote genius things about missing cultural landmarks only to stumble on to them way late in the game, wondering how the hell they fell off my radar.

The latest thing that I'm only just starting to comprehend as awesometastica is "30 Rock." The discover of all the episodes on hulu, nothing is getting done.

Oh Liz Lemon. With your inability to communicate, your fondness for cheese and slankets and your love of a good poo joke, I feel a kinship.

Hanks out.

Related!: An IM With Andy

me: Whats in Boston? Besides bricks and history.

andy: My sister's wedding ceremony is on Saturday

me: Mazel! Do boys do that thing where at weddings, they look at everything and decide whether they'd want it at their wedding? Wedding wedding wedding, wedding wedding -- wedding?

andy: I don't think guys do that, no.

me: My brother does it now. But I think that's only because he's actually getting married.

andy: Right. I think that makes sense. I'm pretty far from marriage at this point, i think

me: I am too, but for some reason, it's like, that doesn't matter at all.I can understand why Liz Lemon bought a wedding dress because it was on sale.

...And I hate the feeling of slowly going MAD.

I'm IMing you from inside the bell jar.

andy: Yeah?

me: Worst thing about it? That shit is CLEAR. I can see the sane world from here,I just can't be a part of it.

(Pictures like this:

DO NOT HELP)

FREAK OUT

2009-08-04T11:53:00.002-04:00

I'm going to take a deep knee bend and a series of long breaths and remember that the people who make movie trailers are not the same people who make the movie.

This will help me not track down the Narrator and inflict great bodily harm upon his person.

Go Read This Thing: Locked Up Vanity Fair Intern

2009-07-28T23:06:00.005-04:00

Many moons ago, near Yesteryear, in my salad days, I was once a Vanity Fair intern. I worked there for two (count them!) years and was eventually called an "Editorial Research Assistant." Really, I was perma-lancer who got to occasionally do some secondary reporting.

The gig alternated between a lot of fun and gouge-my-eyes-out-with-a-dull-spoon levels of frustration, but I learned a lot and made good friends who are still around to watch me mess things up and laugh at me.

(Honestly, it wasn't that long ago. If they were my salad days, I guess I'm in my Nutritious Side Dish days.)

Anyway! As a nice little visit to old stomping grounds, I interviewed current VF.com intern Thomas Kaplan, who is in the middle of a little bizarre project -- something I was never forced to do, that's for sure.

But what he's doing doesn't beat the time I had to--

On second thought, I'll keep that one to myself.

You can read my interview with the impressive Mr. Kaplan over at the Awl (while you watch him via the internets!)

Things That Are Awesome: Sour's Hibi no Neiro Music Video

2009-07-20T10:32:00.003-04:00

Coolest music video ever?

Come on kids, what's YOUR favorite music video?

(Remember when MTV played them!? (Is it now even more lame to talk about how MTV doesn't play music videos than it is that MTV doesn't play music videos?))

Back! Original Cat Video!

2009-07-19T10:50:00.007-04:00

Hello, Friends and Enemies, I'm back!

And to celebrate, I have something really special. If you, perchance, happen to follow me on twitter (I know! It's retarded! But it's what all the kids are doing!) you'll know that I celebrated waking up yesterday by sharing a lovely little video of a kitten rolling around like a drunk turtle/kitten in the vicinity of a hackysack. Remember those things? What dipshits!

Anyway!

I am super honored to report that someone made me my VERY OWN CAT VIDEO.

I know! Contain yourselves!

Much in the way of a dog watching video of a dog with a cat, with a cat, here is Atari the Cat watching the video of a cat that I posted yesteday.

Squee!

The disdain! The haughty brilliance! The Blue Steel of it all!

So many thanks to Delta Brilliant and Verbose Coma. I feel the love.

(And, on another note -- this is the same sort of cat I had growing up. Bert was a lovely cranky old thing who was indifferent to me during the day, and then slept next to me every night, drooling like a leaky faucet. He's the basis of all my subsequent human relationships. Kidding! Ish!)

What I Shall Read

2009-07-05T10:03:00.004-04:00

(Re: This)

Hello out there in InternetLand --

Thanks to everyone for their recommendations about what I should read. I'm happy to report that I'm ignoring all of you, and going for the most obnoxious thing I could possibly bring (besides War and Peace, which I lugged on my last vacation).

Proust, mother fuckers!!!11!!!1!

This will be my second official attempt at Reading Proust, the first being about two years ago when I thought it would be a good idea to read it on the subway.

I don't know how you people put up with me.

So this is tootaloo for a wee bit because I'm unplugging. When I return...

Big news.

Busy Nothings

2009-07-04T18:11:00.003-04:00

... Was it going to be rated R for velociraptor vs. t-rex violence? Naw Coppers, that wouldn't make no sense, would it? M'yeah, see?

"We Are Not A People Who Fear The Future"

2009-07-04T12:49:00.003-04:00

We are a people who make it.

Happy 4th, everybodies!

You Watching A Video Of A Dog Watching A Video Of A Cat. With A Cat.

2009-07-02T12:50:00.000-04:00

What, Punk?!?

2009-07-01T21:47:00.003-04:00

Excuuuuuuuuse me, Mark Leibovitch?

Calamity is just part of the equation here, as if God gave California so much glamour and grandeur and great weather that he had to throw in some apocalyptic menace to provide a little balance. Earthquakes, say. Or Sacramento.

I know you didn't just talk shit about my hometown.

Dude, I will sock you in the kisser.

Or, write stupid things about you on my stupid blog.

An IMteresting Conversation With: An Anonymous Fan Fiction Writer

2009-06-30T15:53:00.009-04:00

This week's IMteresting Conversation requires a little bit of explanation.

I read fan fiction. I do. Got a problem with that? Don't know what the hell I'm saying? Fan fiction is original fiction that uses unoriginal characters. It got started when 1970's ladies started writing gay ("slash") Kirk/Spock fan fiction, and now you can read fan fiction from almost any "fandom" you could think of. Including the Bible.

So I read this stuff. This geeky, geeky stuff. (As my rabidly devoted readers know, I don't own a tv, so I have to do SOMETHING with my down time, right? There are only so many movies on Netflix streaming. ) Yes, there is HORRIBLE fanfiction out there -- sometimes you'll notice that certain fandoms seem to only have shitty fic (Twilight, I'm looking at you.)

However, there's a pretty wide swathe of fiction out there that's, dare I say it?, really good. I mean, really good: sophisticated character development, flawless syntax and grammar, interesting well-paced plot, etc.

So I'm coming out of the fanfiction closet!

To celebrate, I asked one of my favorite fic writers if she wouldn't mind being bothered by me, and she actually said yes! (So no, this is not me interviewing me, pretending to not be me). Read on for: tween's ideas about tantric sex, battlestar dramatica on the interwebs, and the secrets between a husband and wife.

EA Hanks: Usually I start these by asking "What is your name and what do you do?" but we've agreed to keep you anonymous. So, instead, I'll ask, How are you known on the internet, and what do you do there?

Mrs. Tater: My handle's MrsTater, but I answer to Tater or even Mrs T, which is, admittedly, slightly disturbing.

EA: And you use this handle for what purpose?

MrsT: Oh, sorry! I use it because I've got that oh-so-embarrassing hobby of being a fanfiction writer.

EA: What kind of fanfiction do you write?

MrsT: Currently I'm active in the Heroes and Star Trek (Reboot) fandoms, but I've also written a lot of Harry Potter and Lost and a smattering of miscellaneous TV series/books/movies. Actually I'm about to get active in HP again, because I'm a moderator at a Remus/Tonks fanfic LiveJournal community called Metamorfic_Moon, and we've got an event coming up in just about a week.

EA:What is it about these fandoms that attracted you to them, both as fan and as a writer?

MrsT: Every time I've gotten involved in a fandom it was because I fell in love with a romantic pairing that didn't get a great deal of exploration in the original material. For example, in the 6th HP book, you find out near the end of the book that Remus and Tonks, who are both miserable for pretty much the entire book, are miserable because they're in love but not together because Remus thinks he's "too old, too poor, and too dangerous" for Tonks.

(Ed Note: You will kindly notice that writing based on characters briefly seen in another earlier work is exactly what Tom Stoppard did in the mind-boggingly good play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," which fills in the gaps for two bit pieces in "Hamlet." True, it would be more fan ficky if they occasionally made out, but I'm gonna bet that's out there too.)

Immediately this set my imagination on fire about their relationship prior to that point, which we of course don't see except as incidental moments since the books are called Harry Potter, not Remus Lupin. (Even though I think they'd be a LOT more exciting if they were about Remus...) So, I went looking online for Remus/Tonks fanfic filling in the blanks JK Rowling left, and though I enjoyed most of what I read immensely, none of it really fit what my imagination wanted to do for them, so I started writing my own Remus/Tonks fics. And that's pretty much how it goes for my other fanfic pursuits: relationships in progress that demand filling in. (Sexy leading men don't hurt the inspiration, either...)

EA: How did you get into fanfiction to begin with -- how did you learn it even exists?

MrsT: Oh gosh, I've been at this for such a long time the details are getting fuzzy to me... I was about 15 or 16 and caught re-runs of the brief 90's drama Christy, which ended on a love triangle cliffhanger. I turned to the internet to find out if there were any more episodes resolving the series (there weren't), but I stumbled onto a usnet group (message board/email list ) where people were posting stories called fanfiction to conclude both the show and follow up the original novel. I started writing my own fanfic, and I haven't stopped since.

EA: You also write original work. Is there a connection between your fanfiction work and your original writing?

MrsT: Well, for one thing, I wouldn't be pursuing a writing career if it weren't for fanfiction! I've met so many talented writers who recognized my ability as a teen and encouraged me to keep writing. They gave me a lot of constructive criticism that in some ways was more helpful than anything I learned in creative writing classes in college -- I learned how to write dialogue and create clear character voices by emulating the speech patterns of already existing characters. So there's definitely that aspect of fanfic writing that ties into my original work.

There's also the aspect that I use fanfiction to practice stylistic or thematic elements I want to use in my original fiction. My original characters often share qualities that draw me to other people's fictional characters -- I like the older man/younger woman dynamic in romantic pairings, or the man with a tortured past to overcome. (So far, dabbling in the Heroes fandom has not let me to write any serial killers, but you never know...)

EA: There is some stunningly bad fanfiction out there. What are your pet peeves about bad fanfiction?

MrsT: Haha...How much time do you have? ;)

You know once I posted fanfic pet peeves on my LJ, meaning it all in good fun, but it created massive fandom drama.

EA: Oh, we'll get to that in a bit. Is that your way of saying you don't want to say?

MrsT: No, no, it's cool!

Let's see, my peeves: Well, the most obvious one is it's horrible when characters act or speak...out of character (OOC). Like, when in the HP books did Remus ever growl at anybody? Or wear shorts? People do some really bizarre stuff with the characters.

EA: So there needs to be a balance between being original wtih someone else's characters, and yet still keeping true to what readers loved in them

MrsT: Right. And I admit, it's a tricky balance to achieve, and it's even tricky to state particular things that constitute OOCness.

I guess in HP one of the easier things is that there's obviously the factor that you're dealing with British characters.So you can help yourself out characterization wise by keeping in mind that they're going to naturally speak differently than American characters would.

EA: Any other big peeves?

MrsT: Badly written sex.

EA: ! Amazing. Examples?

MrsT: One of the hilarious things in fanfic, actually, is when you're reading a sex scene and clearly it can't have been written by anyone who's HAD sex.

Lots of teenagers write fanfic, so there's not always a lot of experience behind the sex that rings true with a reader. It's either over the top emotional, or physically impossible.

EA: How old are you?

MrsT: 26

EA: And married.

MrsT: Yes, to Mr. Tater. :)

EA: You mentioned drama. You're one of the most popular writers in the fandoms you write for -- how much crazy do you get sent your way?

MrsT: Well, once in the Lost fandom I got plagiarized. Someone took three short stories I"d written, posted them as chapters, and then wrote new chapters.

I've gotten a few flames -- one person read my Transfigured Hearts series, which was a fairly PG-13 series all the way through, and then had a hissy fit when Remus and Tonks finally slept together in the last installment. She did not mince words telling me I'd ruined the story by actually writing a sex scene, and that a simple fade-to-black would have done.

Which was odd considering how many people read fanfic almost purely for sex...

Mostly my fandom experiences have been really good, though. There was a bit of drama once when a post about HP fanfic pet peeves wasn't taken in the spirit of good fun it was intended to be, but I sucked it up and apologized and went on my merry way.

EA: Do you find that there's a certain sort of... rabid level of attention? I mean, you have FANS.

MrsT: You know, it's weird, I really don't think about it that much. Especially on LJ I feel like the people who comment on my stories are my FRIENDS, not FANS. Though I do find reviews a bit addictive. You don't get that level of feedback for original fiction.

EA: Do you know them, I hesitate to use the word "actually" but I guess I mean, do you know them "in real life"?

MrsT: I know what you mean. I've met a few of my online friends, yes. None in my current fandoms, but that's only because a lot of them live out of state or even out of the country. I exchange real mail with a few people.

EA: So you have a fairly delineated line between your online life and your offline life.

MrsT: I do. For professional reasons, of course, but even more than that, people in "real life" just don't usually get the whole fanfic thing. Most people don't care that much about fiction beyond watching a show or reading a book and don't understand why anyone would care enough to make up stories of their own.

It's not something you necessarily feel comfortable with telling people you do, because they give you weird looks, either not knowing what fanfic is, or knowing what it is by its weird reputation.

EA: What do you think the general consensus on fanfiction is?

MrsT: That it's just about one of the geekiest hobbies there is. Especially if you write Harry Potter or Star Trek.

EA: Do you think it IS geeky, and you're proud of it, or do you think it's NOT geeky and they're just haters?

MrsT: Kind of a mixture of both? On the one hand, I know I'm a geek, and I'm rather proud of it (especially since I don't live in my parents' basement and I do have social skills), but on the other hand, I think sci-fi and fantasy are becoming increasingly more mainstream (dare I say, even cool?) so why should it be geeky to indulge in an artistic hobby like fiction writing, even if it is with someone else's universe/characters? Of course, I did mention fanfic to a real-life friend recently, and to her, fanfic was synonymous with porn, so there's also that issue to contend with.

EA: Do you ever think about what the original authors think of fanfiction? Anne Rice wrote "I do not allow fan fiction. The characters are copyrighted. It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters. I advise my readers to write your own original stories with your own characters. It is absolutely essential that you respect my wishes."

And then she made sure all the fanfiction written with her characters was taken down.

I feel comfortable adding that I think Anne Rice might be nutsy mckookoo.

MrsT: I know there are a lot of writers who encourage it -- JK Rowling largely approves, and Neil Gaiman encourages it, too, even had a Chronicles of Narnia story published, not sure how he managed to swing that... I think if anyone ever wrote fanfic based on my original characters, it would be the highest compliment I could be paid, that someone would love my characters enough to want to continue their stories. And I couldn't very well discourage people from doing what I consider to be the most essential exercise in developing my own writing skills. (I read recently that Dorothy Sayers got her start writing some form of fanfic or other...) If I were ever going to teach writing, I'd have my students write fanfic. But to get back to the question....

...I guess it's Anne Rice's prerogative to say she doesn't want fanfic written about her characters, and I can kind of see her point about the need for people to develop their own characters. But then again, people might need that outlet to get a grasp on writing original characters. I know I certainly did. I actually think it's detrimental to literature as a whole to have copyrights on fictional characters. Arthurian literature, for example, is the product of people for centuries writing stories about somebody else's characters. The Greek myths...

EA: When did you tell your husband that you write fanfiction? Has he read your stuff?

MrsT: I 'fessed up not long after we started dating, and when he didn't immediately break up with me over it, or even mock me unduly, I knew he was a keeper. ;)

I'm still usually self-conscious about writing a new fandom, so I don't tell him unless he asks. (so far he hasn't asked me if I'm writing Star Trek fic...)

He has NO interest in reading my stuff. Thankfully. I think I'd die if he read any of the romantic stuff, lol.

EA: Do you fall in love with the characters?

MrsT: Oh yes. They're all my fictional boyfriends. Though I think I wouldn't want any of them in real life. Too high-maintenance. And you know, Sylar is prone to kill his girlfriends...

EA: When your original writing career kicks in and rockets you to fame, do you think you'd still write fanfiction?

MrsT: Thanks for the vote of confidence. ;) I've thought about this, and I really don't know. Not that I think my inclination to write fanfic will ever go away, but I suppose it'll be down to time and whether or not I can (or should) retain anonymity as a fanfic writer. I'd really love to know if there are any working writers out there also publishing fanfic. I wouldn't be at all surprised.

EA: Do you have any feuds with another writer, someone who works in the same fandoms as you?

MrsT: Not that I'm aware of!

EA:If someone was reading this and thinking "Good lord, what on earth is she talking about? I would never!" and you wanted them to read something you're almost SURE would change their mind and turn them into a fanfiction-reading machine, what would you send them?

MrsT: Oh, there are so many amazing fics I would rec that I have an entire Delicious account just for bookmarking my faves. I think for the HP fanfic skeptic I'd recommend "Cards on the Table," by Gilpin because it features a lovely little R/T romance surrounded by the Order of the Phoenix who are all wonderfully in-character. It's Harry Potter for grown-ups and I think really showcases what good writing is out there in fanfic land, and reminds you why you liked the HP books in the first place.

EA: And if you could say something to JK herself?

MrsT: "All was well?" All was NOT bloody well!

Big, Big Hippie.

2009-06-29T11:38:00.003-04:00

Available here from Aardvark. Attained via one of my favorite PrettyPorn blogs, Lobster and Swan.

(Caveat: I think it should say "bake cakes" and I do not promote the playing of kazoos.)

An IMteresting Conversation With: Mike Sacks, Author

2009-06-25T12:13:00.008-04:00

And you thought my freakishly small group of friends revolted and refused to put up with my stupid questions any more! Ha!

This week's IMteresting Conversation is about bringing the funny, writing the funny, and two inch cocks. Oh, and vast Jew-led conspiracies. Sorta kinda.

EA Hanks: Firstly, what is your name and what do you do?

Mike Sacks: My name is Mike Sacks, but you can call me "Da Count." That was my doo-wop nickname, when I grew up on the streets of Virginia and Maryland. I work on the editorial staff of Vanity Fair magazine and I freelance for various other publications, such as Esquire, GQ, Radar, The New Yorker, McSweeneys, and Inches.

EA: Ok, well there's no need to brag.

MS: I have an ego as large as my 2-inch cock.

EA: You and everyone else who works on the editorial staff of Vanity Fair. You have a book coming out -- tell me about it.

MS: The book is called "And Here's the Kicker," and it contains interviews with 21 famous humor writers, such as Buck Henry, Stephen Merchant, Bob Odenkirk, Mitch Hurwitz, David Sedaris and that fat guy who writes gags for the Oscars. Actually, not him.

EA: Good call.

MS: Right. For his "crazy" T-shirts alone, he should be banished from the continent.

EA: That's quite a list. How did you get them all to agree to talk to you? Charm?

MS: I don't know why they offered to give me from five to ten hours of their time, quite frankly, I really don't. None knew me. But, I do have to say, that quite a few said that they weren't interested. Mostly women, for some reason. I asked about 15 top women writers if I could interview them, and all either didn't get back to me or didn't want to do it. Maybe it's a lack of ego thing, I don't know.

EA: Ah! The ol' "I'm not sexist!" disclaimer! And there goes the crux of all my further questions. What is it about comedy that interests you -- other than the chuckles?

MS: Just the bizarre process that it takes to write humor. It seems to remain as mysterious to those who have been in it for five decades as to whose who are just starting.

EA: Would you say that's something than runs throughout all the interviews? Are there are things you found that kept popping up?

MS: Yes. It's a strange thing. Writing humor is not like being a plumber or a doctor or an electrician. With those professions, the more you work, the more you know, and the easier it gets. Not so with writing humor. Larry Gelbart, who's been writing for over five decades, still expresses frustration with the process. As far as other similarities, the common one was, not surprisingly, depression. More surprising was O.C.D. I only asked them if they suffered from O.C.D. because I, too, suffer from it. I'd say that 70% of the authors have it.

EA: It's hard to talk about what makes someone funny, or what makes a good bit funny -- it's usually the easiest way to make something instantly a drag -- Did that carry over into talking about writing the funny?

MS: I never asked them that, really. But it usually came out in their answers, anyway. One thing I did ask a few writers was what makes them NOT laugh. What are their humor pet peeves.

EA: Any stand outs?

MS: Merrill Markoe, who was the first head writer for Late Night with David Letterman, had a long list, but my favorite was that she hated political-satire songs, in the Capitol Steps and Mark Russell vein.

EA: Oh yeah. Fuck those political-satire songs.

MS: The worst. I come from the D.C. area and grew up with that shit. It's the devil's work.

EA: What do you think is funny?

MS: I loved Chris Elliott when he was on Letterman in the 80s. Brilliant.

These days, I like Scharpling and Wurster, who have a show here in New York. I think they're flat-out amazing. Really smart, long-form radio comedy, which you don't hear anymore.

EA: Is there a comedian who in your minds, is the be all, end all? Everyone else is just a rip off of them?

MS: Truthfully, I'm not a huge fan of stand-up. I think George Carlin was brilliant. Today, I like Brian Regan a lot. I think he's one of the best. I don't tend to like some of the "alterna comics," quite frankly. Although Zach Galafanakis is great, especially when he's on Tim and Eric.

EA: There's a difference between people who do stand-up, or perform and people who write the material. And some times the dynamics between a team of writers and the performers can be... "interesting." By which I mean, a lot of times they want to kill each other. How much of comedy do you think comes from these sort of tensions? Writers vs. Performers. Writers vs. Depression. Writers vs... Everyone who isn't a writer.

MS: Sometimes it helps the comedy, but I think it often hurts it. When a performer doesn't understand a piece, or wants to "tweak" it, the piece usually doesn't come out as good as it could have. With that said, I think the tension between writers and depression is an interesting one. It's certainly been looked into before, but there's a definite connection. Whether comedy causes depression, or whether one deals with depression with comedy is the million-dollar question. But I've rarely known a comedy writer who smiled when he or she wrote. Or when told a joke.

EA: Only civilians laugh at a good bit. A comedian nods and says, "Good bit." (ed. note: I'm so close to deleting this because it's one of the most obnoxious things I've ever said, but I'm leaving it in because I think it's good for reminding me not to be so obnoxious.)

MS: Right. It's like when a porno star makes love to his wife. Do porno stars "make love," by the way?

EA: TUNE IN TO THE NEXT IMteresting CONVERSATION TO FIND OUT. When did you start writing?

MS: High school, but only by accident. I had no desire, but I had to switch out of biology in the 11th grade (yes, I was a year behind) and the only classes available were gym and creative writing. I love sports but hated gym, mostly the idiotic PE teachers. Anyway, I took creative writing and was forced to write creatively for the first time. But I really began in earnest just after college, when I began to contribute to some magazines. I was working in a record store in New Orleans and had nothing else to do with my time, quite frankly, besides gain weight from Popeye's fried chicken and biscuits.

EA: I think that's how Joyce started too. BTW, have you ever read his dirty letters to his wife?

MS: Not sure about Joyce, but I do know that after Robert Frost won his Pulitzer, he stopped at Libby's for a chicken-fried steak and a basket of curly fries. I have, yes. Dirty, dirty, dirty Joyce, how I love him.

EA: When and why did you move to New York?

MS: My then girlfriend, now wife moved up here for a job. At the time, I was working at the Washington Post and didn't want to come right up. So I waited a year and then applied for various jobs. Vanity Fair accepted me, most likely due to my dig ol' bick.

EA: Do you lay awake at night thinking about the death of magazines, books, the things we've spent our lives trying to be good at/loving?

MS: No, not really. Something will come and take its place, and I hope to be involved. And, quite frankly, I wouldn't mind a few of these obnoxious behemoths brought to their bony, arthritic knees.

EA: Zing!How did you prepare for your interviews with all these people? I would fuck it up by trying to be funny myself (ed. note: see above.)

MS: A tremendous amount of research. Up to 20 to 30 hours per person. I wouldn't feel comfortable otherwise. And I edited out all the parts where I tried to be humorous. No need for that, now . . .

EA: Was there someone you were shit-your-pants-nervous to meet and talk with?

MS: I shit my pants but it had nothing to do with nerves. (I'm lactose intolerant.)

No, not really. I used to be incredibly shy, but I seemed to have burned that out of my system with a daily cocktail of meds.

EA: So you live in New York. You work at Vanity Fair. You've written a book about a bunch of comedians (JEWS). Do you feel like a tried and true member of the liberal media elite (JEWS)?

MS: Yes, and I have to say that it feel really good. When I pass a Jew on the streets, or in a hallway, we'll just look at each other and wink. We know what that means. We're members of the same tribe, and we both love gefilte fish.

EA: And horseradish! This is your first book, yes?

MS: First book I've written alone. I've contributed to a few other books, for Esquire and McSweeneys.

EA: Book tour? Hotels? Idiot interviews? Are you feeling properly fetted?

MS: No. Haven't you heard that I'm extremely reclusive? I ain't leaving the apartment. Except to cheer up the homeless down at the bus depot. I put together a little magic act.

EA: I've heard it's nearly impossible to get you to leave the den, yes. What's next for you, Mr Sacks?

MS: I'm going to self-publish (Kindle only?) a collection of previously published humor pieces that no major publisher wants because some of them are "offensive." Maybe it's the story about the wild-child who makes a BM on the floor of a high school. Also, I think (figers crossed) that I am close to selling a book about a secret topic that begins with S and ends with X.

EA: Do you own a Kindle?

MS: No.

EA: Do you know anyone who owns a kindle?

MS: No.

EA: My dad has one. He's obsessed with it. So, you've got a reader locked.

MS: Good. Your dad is Dave Coulier from Full House, right?

EA: You cut. It. Out.

MS: Sorry. How may I make it up to you? A flower? A hug? A clock in the shape of a hot dog?

EA: Anything else to say to my tens of readers?

MS: The book is available now on Amazon and other sites. It will become available in stores on July 8th. I love you all. And I'll see you at our favorite hangout, the bar with "Piano Man" on the juke.

EA: Play him off, Keyboard Cat.

(Make sure to read this interview Mike conducted with the Colbert Report's Allison Silverman, excerpted on Vanity Fair.com!)

Bah Dum...

2009-06-24T01:13:00.004-04:00

My new joke for explaining everything about everything:

A guy walks into a bar with a duck stuck on his head.

The bartender takes one look and is shocked. "Oh man!" he says. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

And the duck goes, "Yeah, get this douchebag's head off my ass, would you?"

You got a joke that explains the human condition for you?

The Video.

2009-06-22T11:12:00.007-04:00

There's a video out there of a young woman who's been shot while protesting in Tehran. She dies in her father's arms, who is apparently screaming hysterically all the while.

I say "apparently" because I haven't seen the video, and I don't plan on seeing it.

My first instinct is to say that I'm not saying that to make myself feel better than all the people who have watched the video, and I don't, but after reading the comments on all the various different sites that have posted it, I can't help but wonder... Why would you watch it?

(I'm not linking to the video, but you can find it easily enough.)

Nearly everyone who has seen the video and commented on it has either said, "I can't sleep now" or "I've had nightmares" or "I can't stop crying." It sounds horribly upsetting -- and I'm not surprised. An innocent woman has been shot (no one's sure by whom) and she dies.

Maybe people were expecting the fact that they're watching it through a screen, through a lens to soften that reality, but of course it's upsetting.

What a pale, useless word, "upsetting."

Did people watch the video for news purposes? To get an understanding of what it's "really" like in Tehran right now? Was it plain morbid curiosity? Were people planning on exposing it as a fraud? Do people watch it to bolster their political stances? Do people watch it because they've never seen someone die before?

Have you seen the video?

Why did you watch it? Are you glad that you did? Do you think others should as well?

What Should I Read?

2009-06-19T11:56:00.004-04:00

Hello, friends and enemies.

I come to you in need of a recommendation.

Any time I pack, the most stressful part of the whole process is books. Firstly, I usually have to pack a lot of them, because reading is sort of... I don't know, my "thing." Also, I read uber fast. Boy, this is getting unpalatable really fast, isn't it?

Anyway, books are heavy and even worse, take up a lot of space, and this conflicts with my number one travel rule (though I have many, due to many many years of frequent travel): never. ever. check. luggage.

It just should never be done.

In the near future I'll be going to the middle of nowhere for about two weeks, and I need a book to read. A big book.

What should I read?

Before you suggest it, the last time I went to the middle of nowhere, I took War and Peace.

Whatever it is, it needs to be over or around 1,000 pages, or, if you prefer, you could suggest two 500 page books, but then they need to be paperbacks.

Possibilities already on the list include The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (nothign says "Vacation!" like...) and Infinite Jest, although with all due respect to Mr. DFW and all my dear friends to whom his work is meaningful and important, I've struggled with his essays (Consider the Lobster). He is, roughly put, not my style.

So! While I would be tickled pink for me to actually show up with a huge tome on the Nazis (because really, can you ever know enough about them?) I though I would ask the internets: what should I read?

Bon Amis, Bon Appetit

2009-06-17T18:55:00.006-04:00

Support The Puppies!

2009-06-13T19:50:00.003-04:00

So, usually I try to keep a line which delineates me from... You know. That whole thing.

But this is for a good cause. And who doesn't like puppies?

Assholes, that's who.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Tom Hanks Care Package

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Stephen Colbert in Iraq

Sponsor care packages to our troops at uso.org!

Still Breathing

2009-06-10T00:43:00.001-04:00

Don't worry! I've not disappeared from the universe OR the internets. Things are a foot, which I can't wait to share with all my favorite strangers.

Until the future!

My Heart Is About To Burst

2009-05-23T20:14:00.006-04:00

Oh my goodness.

You know when people first started making cookie dough ice cream, and your first thought was, " Good God, what a stunning combination of two amazing things coming together to form one MASTER amazing thing?!"

Like a cyborg/werewolf/giant hybrid, which is clearly more than the sum of its parts, to mix metaphors, it was both a genius and a joyous coming together, right?

Well that's sort of how I feel about Jane Campion making a movie about the relationship between John Keats and Fanny Brawne.

Jane Campion, a Kiwi who now lives in Australia, is a director and, dare I say it without cringing?, an Artist who manages to make fascinating, beautiful, competent films about women.

Her first time at the Cannes Film Festival, she won the coveter Palme D'Or for her short film "Peel." Then, and this is probably what you might know her from, her full-length feature "The Piano," which also won the Palme D'Or, as well several Academy Awards.

She manages to make feminist films that have nuance and balance, never falling into didacticism or the shallower depths of the politically effective.

Anyway. I heart.

And as for Keats, and Keats and Brawne, well... I just can't even get into that here.

Suffice it to say, I am both thrilled and terrified to see "Bright Star" -- and not because I'm worried I won't like, but that it will leave me as a mere jellyfish, rather than a human woman.

Observer, this New York Times story:

In Ms. Campion’s film, the bright star is Fanny, played by the Australian actress Abbie Cornish as a girl more passionate about sewing and fashion than poetry. This 19th-century romance resonates: at the end of the screening, there were few dry eyes. [...] Fanny blooms with health and beauty, while the poet, played by Ben Wishaw, withers away: tuberculosis killed him at 25. His last sonnet, “Bright Star,” was written on the ship that took him to Rome, where he died.

If this sounds like it's verging on the sentimenal, trust me, it's not. I can explain it all to you over a glass of wine.

Here you can observe my previous post on this. This one's for you, avb!

Bringing the Hate: Robert Passikoff

2009-05-22T14:17:00.005-04:00

Re: How tabloid speculation on the status of the marriage of Jon and Kate Gosselin is sure to drive up numbers for the TLC hit show "Jon and Kate Plus 8" which focuses on the young couple trying to raise a set of twins and a set of sextuplets without losing their minds:

"Attention and big audience are desirable," said Robert Passikoff, president of the market research firm Brand Keys, "but not at the expense of the network's brand -- or the audience and advertisers who like the show the way it is.
Story continues below

"I can't imagine this does anything to reinforce the core values of TLC or the show itself."

Or, you know not at the expense of the lives of the people at the center of this mess. You know, children? Human beings? Mortal bodies wrapped around immortal, imperfect, perfect souls?

Robert Passikoff, that was a horrible, horrible thing to say.

Source.

No YOU Don't Understand!

2009-05-21T17:15:00.003-04:00

Obviously, obviously, I care very deeply about Keyboard Cat. Mostly it's fear.

However, this video pretty much manages to sum up how I feel bout cats, AND the internet.

In Which My Colors Are Revealed

2009-05-21T10:15:00.005-04:00

You know, I like a lot of geeky things. Really geeky things. I'm not going to list them, because that would just be too pathetic.

However. It was a point of pride with me that of all the geeky things I'm into, at least Star Trek wasn't one of them.

It always seemed too campy for me, and usually all my geeky things have at least some hint of romance there -- and if you're thinking of Riker and Troi, well I'll have to say that Next Generation just wasn't really on my radar.

However, several other members of my family are into Star Trek, and pretty much made it clear that if I didn't see it, I might get post-emptively aborted.

(I kid. Ish.)

By the way, those people are never allowed to make fun of me for being in the Harry Potter fan club in high school ever again. (I was head of Slytherin House. Don't get me started.)

Long story long, I didn't understand a whole lot of it, but who cares? It was fun.

But something occurred to me while on a run this morning, and I think this is pretty genius:

I was thinking about what a spectacular failure the newer Star Wars were, and how part of what made them so stiff (beside some pretty mechanical writing) was that each of the movies had to push the narrative to a specific point. Since they were all prequels, they had to get to the part where the older movies started -- get Luke on Tattoine, get Leia on Alderaan, get Anakin deadish, get Padme really dead, etc.

Which, as a prequel, this new Star Trek would normally have to do as well.

However! JJ Abrahms, who I've never really been into, found a pretty fantastic loophole:

*Spoiler Alert*

At some point, Hot Spock talks about the fact that because the Nero and the Romulans have gone back in time and altered what happened, everyone is now in an alternate reality. Right?

So THAT means, that the rest of the new Star Trek's don't have to eventually lead to the older ones, ie, like the newer Star Wars all had to lead to the older ones, as prequels usually do.

WHICH MEANS!

This is anyone's ball game.

Also, Spock and Uhura don't necessarily have to break up.

Yes. This is what I think about when I run.

"Silent, Upon A Peak In Darien"

2009-05-13T16:36:00.003-04:00

Ben Winshaw as John Keats, in Jane Campion's "Bright Star."

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
In some untrodden region of my mind,
Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind

The Knowledge

2009-05-02T12:42:00.004-04:00

I've been thinking about nonsensical, totally pointless kindness from strangers. Not why those people have been good to me -- because there's no reason in trying to figure out the reasons that they had -- but just about the moments when someone has reached out and propped me up.

If you've even had a migraine, chances are you remember the first. You probably felt like you were dying. I thought I was dying. If I wasn't dying, I was going to die from the pain. I couldn't tell if the pain was so bad it made me want to vomit, or if the feeling of impending up-chuckage was somehow part of the whole migraine scene, but I knew that if I didn't get up, I was going to throw up over everyone.

I was fifteen, and I was in London for the summer. I was seeing a play -- it was Raph Fiennes in "Coriolanus"-- and I remember that it was in an old bruised building that had been gutted especially for the production. It was supposed to be hip, but all I could focus on was how unbearable it was to feel my skin touch anything, even the inside of my clothes. Touching metal seemed to cause a ripple of agony up my fingers which then clawed into the crown of my head, and made my right temple throb. I sat for ten minutes, before I leaned over and said, "I have to go to the bathroom" and stumbled up and out of my seat.

My stupid black velvet slides clip-clopped on the industrial chic slabs of concrete and I was shhhhhhsshed! on the way out to the fancy-version of port-a-potties they had outside of the theater. I tried to vomit in one of them, but I couldn't see straight and I couldn't tell that it was my head, not my stomach that was killing me.

When I tried to get back to my seat, thinking that if I was going to be in horrible pain, it should be with Shakespeare as its soundtrack, but the usher's said I'd have to wait until intermission. I could either lean against cinderblock and cry for the next 45 minutes, or figure out how to get home.

The problem was, I had no idea where that was. None. This was before my love affair with London, so even going around the corner, I was helplessly lost.

I stumbled down to the road, and held up my hand. A black cab promptly pulled over.

"I'm don't have any money, and I don't know how to get where I'm going," I sobbed, one eye jack-hammering shut in the light.

Without pause, the driver said, "Get in, Love."

London taxi drivers, if you didn't know, undergo an immensely, seriously difficult test called The Knowledge. It's not uncommon to attempt The Knowledge three or four times before you pass and can get licensed. Part of the test includes 400 or so combinations of starting points and ending points, along with quizzes of what pubs, hotels and restaurants are along the way -- and those points must be known by name. On top of that, during the oral exam, candidates can be yelled at, teased, insulted and ridiculed.

So the driver knew exactly where to take me, and when he saw how sick I was, he started talking to me about what he'd done that morning to keep my mind off being sick all over his cab. "C'mon, Dearie, just take your eye off the pain for a moment."

I remember he must have been in his early sixties, and he was wearing a collared shirt and pullover.

When he pulled over in front of the house, he opened the door and helped me out, delivering me to a perplexed housekeeper and told her "Poor Chuck, doesn't know what hit her."

I must have looked insane -- I've seen my face when I'm in the grip of a migraine -- it's like a death mask, all white with huge black spots under my eyes, my jaw grinding shut. I was American (I promised to pay him when I had 'cash') and young, and really close to vomiting all over his immaculate cab.

But he drove me home nonetheless. I know that as a cabdriver, that was his job, but it's not his job to drive someone who might not be able to pay them, and it certainly wasn't his job to comfort a sick girl.

Has a stranger been thoughtlessly, needlessly kind to you? Tell me all about it.

You Mean, Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton?

2009-04-30T11:59:00.003-04:00

I had reason to go back and read some old posts, and I'm not gonna lie, this made me laugh out loud:

Go read some Norman Mailer and jack off to your dirty, secret picture of Hillary, you loathsome douchefaces of intellectual mediocrity.

And while I'm enjoying the cesspools of vanity, I invite you take a look at the new Take Part -- it has a spiffy new design -- including! -- the ability to become a fan of your favorite blogger.

Ahem?

I Wish I Were A Slut

2009-04-29T19:40:00.003-04:00

No IMteresting Conversation this week, kiddies, sorry.

But, there IS this fabulous interview with novelist and prat John Banville from the Spring 2009 Paris Review. Here's a bit that made me laugh, and a bit that made me nod.

Laugh:

Interviewer: When did you being to write your [pseudonymous] Benjamin Black books?

Banville: I finished [Man Booker prize winner] The Sea in September 2004, and it was published in April 2005. I started writing Christine Falls in March 2005 and it went very quickly. I was staying at the house of a friend in Italy. I sat down at nine o'clock on a Monday morning and by lunchtime I had written more than fifteen hundred words. It was a scandal, I thought, John Banville, you slut.

Nod:

Banville: [...]I'm trying to be honest here. I 'm not going to pose as a caring novelist. Art is a hard business. It's a matter of sentiment, but not sentimentality. I do it for myself. The coincidence is that what I do for myself chimes sometimes with the experiences and emotions and desires of other people. This is a kind of miracle, but I don't intend for it to happen -- it just does. Art is like sex: when you're doing it, nothing else matters. Away from his desk the novelist can care deeply about the social, political, moral aspects of what he is writing but when he sits down to writer, all those concerns fall away and nothing matters except the putting down of one carefully chosen word after another carefully chosen word, until a sentence is finished, then a paragraph, then a page, then a chapter, then a book. When I'm working I don't care about anything, not even myself. All my concentration is directed towards the making of the thing on the page. The rest is just stuff -- even though it is the stuff of life.

Genius Has A Name... And It Is Maru.

2009-04-24T19:49:00.003-04:00

Guys. Guys.

Remember Cat With The Thing On Its Head? You know, the one I called the "The Remembrance Of Things Past" of Cat bloopers? Well, that cat, Maru, is BACK.

And this time, he has a box.

Also, a kind reader (who I'm not related to! or guilt tripped into reading this sad excuse for a blog) has asked me the method behind my tags. Well Fan, I can't explain the method for all my tags -- why would Coke give away the secret of how to make Coca Cola? -- but I will give you this:

If you have patience, you shall see.

Go Read This Thing: Jon Donahue

2009-04-23T18:42:00.006-04:00

Hello out there in Internetland --

I'd like it if you read this thing about a man named Jon Donahue. He's pretty much a terrific fellow, talented and funny to boot, and you should all know who he is. He loves movies in a way I'm envious of.

Give him click love, won't you?

(Photo by Kevin Scanlon, via LA Weekly)

An IMteresting Conversation With: Jonah Evans, New Orleans Advocate

2009-04-23T15:05:00.006-04:00

This week's IMteresting Conversation is with Jonah Evans, advocate and lover of New Orleans -- and Recovering New Englander. Read on for: what happens when a white guy works for the NAACP, how facebook kills political careers, and if New Orleans is still Anderson Cooper standing in "muck."

Also! This interview is cross-posted over at Take Part!

***

EA Hanks: Firstly, what's your name and what do you do?

Jonah Evans: My name's Jonah Evans and I'm the producer and co-director of SaveCharityHospital.com

EA: What is Charity Hospital and why does it need saving?

JE: Charity Hospital is a public hospital in New Orleans, one of the oldest in the country. It was founded in 1736 and has served the city since. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit, the hospital was closed by Louisiana State University, despite that fact that over 200 doctors, nurses, volunteers and soldiers from the 82nd Airborne fixed it up

LSU's now trying to push an ill-conceived plan to build a new hospital that would destroy 67 acres of our city, take over a decade to build, and cost us over $2.2 billion. Charity Hospital can be rebuilt for a lot less, in half the time, and help us rebuild downtown New Orleans in the process

[Editor's Note: Please enjoy Jonah's dulcet tones in this video which explains his arugment on behalf of Charity Hospital further.]

EA: How is a university responsible for this? Shouldn't this be a gubernatorial issue?

JE: Well LSU is really powerful in the state of the Louisiana. After the storm, FEMA offered the state $150 million for "storm-related" damage for Charity Hospital. But LSU has appealed saying that they're owed $492 million because of storm damage. The pictures show a different story.

EA: How long have you been living in New Orleans?

JE: I've been living down here for about a year and a half but started working down here with the NAACP National Headquarters right after Katrina.
It's an easy city to fall in love with!

EA: So you're Post-Katrina.

JE: A recovering New Englander =)

EA: Has the city fallen in love with the influx of Post Katrina transplants in turn, or is there tension there?

JE: I just read that about 10% of New Orleanians today didn't live here [before the] storm. [Editor's Note: Check out this info on page two of the "NOLA Master Plan."] There's some tension with those folks I'm sure but everyone in the city is here for a reason. For those that came back home since the storm, and for those of us that moved here to make this our home I feel like there's a common sense of purpose

If anything, there is a new commitment for rebuilding our city in a more transparent way. Which is why this Charity Hospital fight is really striking a chord in the city.

EA: You came to the city with the NAACP, and now you're working to rebuild a part of the city that is historically Black. You're also a 6'4 guy from Massachusetts who could not be any whiter.

JE: I definitely had to wear my "NAACP Staff" jacket everywhere in the beginning.

EA: You're touching a lot of live wires here -- race, class, new people moving into an old town.

JE: This city is remarkably more diverse and welcoming than most places I've lived
I remember being shocked when people called me "Baby" when I first started working here. You ever been down here? [...] It's absolutely gorgeous and so alive! I think a lot of folks still have the image of Anderson Cooper standing waist deep in N'awlins muck. We've come a long way.

EA: You're describing New Orleans as though energy of the city, and the love people have for it -- whether you're new there or old -- makes the conversation about race null, or at least, not important. Do you think that's how most people feel, or do you feel like that's your take on it, that is, a perspective that could be defined as White?

JE: I'm not suggesting that the energy of the city post-Katrina somehow overlooks the deep racial tensions. If anything, the storm showed how horrible those disparities could be.

But I feel like BECAUSE people are dedicated to rebuilding New Orleans, there's an enhanced sense of engagement in what's happening to our city and who's making the the decisions that affect our future.

And I believe that level of community engagement means that we have the opportunity to address a lot of racial, social and economic justice issues in a new way. And that reaches across racial boundaries

EA: What do you love about New Orleans?

JE: Wow. There's so much -- the people, the music, the food, but that just sounds like tourist speak. You know another tall white guy from Massachusetts once wrote, "it is required of a person that they share the passion and action of our time at peril of being judged not to have lived."

In New Orleans, every day is one where you share in the passion and action of our time.

EA: The city takes up a huge space in the American cultural zeitgeist. It feels like a city that is both the epitome of America, and completely outside of it -- with its French influences and its African influences and the sense that things just function differently there.

JE: More Havana than Atlanta

EA: Right. Do you think that one of the many many reasons that the reaction to Katrina was... such that it was, is that the rest of America doesn't really understand the city beyond Bourbon St. ?

JE: Some people think it's just Mardi Gras beads and booze, but I think that the response after Katrina was remarkable. There are still volunteers that come down here week after week.

EA: The city, and the state for that matter, have a long history of a violent and fetid underbelly -- crime is still a huge issue there. How are all these volunteers and new energy mixing with that side of New Orleans?
Your house has been broken into, two, three times?

JE: Every city has it's problems and the crime in New Orleans is a very serious one. I'm definitely not an expert in this area and not sure what the answer is.

EA: But that part of life in the city is folded into the parts that are more traditionally celebrated -- the culture of community that's built around food and music and the identity of being from New Orleans. I'm just interested in how those two blend together. Crime is a part of every city, but it's rare that it's part of a city's consciousness the way it is in New Orleans.

How did you start working for the NAACP?

JE: I moved to DC after graduating college. I think I borrow too much West Wing from you in college. When Katrina hit, one of my best friends from New Orleans moved in with me NAACP had one of those numbers that scrawled across CNN during the storm... "If your need help, call here" kind of things. I started volunteering there and fielding those phone calls. I stayed for weeks and just never left.

EA: You call yourself a Recovering New Englander. What's to recover from?

JE: I love New England. Die hard Red Sox fan. But the states are so small up there!
I've felt incredibly lucky to get to work and live in other parts of the country that aren't in the Bermuda Triangle of Boston-NYC-DC.

EA: do you see yourself staying in new orleans?

JE: Definitely.

EA: What do you think will happen to Charity Hospital?

JE: I think we're going to win. If there's one thing I saw [working on the on the Obama campaign in Georgia and Michigan] it's how committed people are to having a say in what happens in their community.

Good health care and smart planning is too important to the people in New Orleans for them to let these decisions happen behind closed doors.

EA: Do you see yourself running for office? Does that interest you at all?

JE: Absolutely never ever ever! What about you E.A.? High priestess of New York City?

EA: There's one too many photos of me being a raging liberal out there.

JE: Facebook has destroyed many a fledgling political career.

***

Snakes on a Train!

2009-04-20T00:01:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, on the subway, I realized I was sitting next to a woman who had a snake on her hand. A snake snake. An alive snake. Just chilling, hanging out, bein' all snakey.

I looked around to see if anyone else was having the reaction I was having (roughly: 'Lady, stop bringing your crazy 'it's totally normal for me to bring a snake on the subway' crazy where I have to deal with it!') when I realized...

The man on my other side had a tattoo of a snake on his hand... and it was fairly obvious they were not some weirdo snake-fetish couple. Totally strangers -- as evidence by his total annoyance at also having to deal with someone bringing their crazy onto his commute.

I was between two snakes...

WHAT COULD IT MEAN?

Also, how did I not know Kenan Thompson was in "Snakes On A Plane"?

An IMteresting Conversation With: Alicia Menendez, Democratic Strategist

2009-04-15T18:50:00.003-04:00

This week's IMteresting conversation is with Alicia Menendez. In this photo, she's with her father, Senator Bob Menendez. Just so you don't think she's a old man who just stands behind a podium for fun sometimes. Read on for backstage drama with Anne Coulter, what Obama has fumbled, and wild nights with Sudoku.

***
EA Hanks: What is your name, and what do you do?

Alicia Menendez: Alicia Menendez. Communication Consulting.

EA: What does that mean?

AM: Good question. The "consulting" element is rather new (for me). I do a variety of things: build press plans, write online content, and handle incoming media requests.
I think about how the different mediums: radio, television, print, online can all be best integrated to convey a cohesive message.But the consulting part means that I don't have to work for just one person/group/organization.

EA: In politics.

AM: Mostly. But even within politics, there are campaigns, and non-profits, and specific issue based campaigns. So there is variety under the politics umbrella.

EA: How did you get into this line of work?

AM: Quite by accident I suppose. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. Well -- no -- that's not true. I always thought getting a JD and becoming a lawyer would be a very sensible thing to do before running for office. Running for office was the real goal.
But in 2006, I worked as a paralegal (which will make you not want to go to law school).

EA: I'm quoting someone, but being a lawyer seems like a lifetime of doing homework.

AM: And I also began to question whether or not I wanted all of the limitations that come with public life.So I found myself 22 and never having thought about what my plan B would be. And staring at computer and boxes full of files.I had underestimated how important it was to me to have creativity in my work. Once I realized that I'd like to have a creative component to my work, law school was out. And after working on my father's 2006 campaign I was tired of being poked and prodder. So I worked at a small television station thinking that poking and prodding would be more fun than being poked. It wasn't.

EA: Ain't that the truth. Your father is Bob Menendez, the Democratic senator from New Jersey. Was politics dinner table talk, or was it left at the office?

AM: He always wanted to leave it at the office, but even as a kid I loved talking about politics -- it felt very grown-up. And if you're a curious kid, then you pick up everything - even things that aren't meant for you: one side of telephone conversations, the front page of local papers -- y' know.

EA: Do you believe in the phrase "the personal is political"? Does that phrase have meaning for you? And is it different than "Politics is personal"?

AM: The personal is, of course, political for those who view the world in a political light. But I think that is one of those points of differentiation =- people who see problems, challenges, limits and think "Politics/policy/good government could change that!" -- even if there notion of changing that problem/challenge/limit might be making the government "smaller." And then people who are rather apolitical -- whose brains don't synapse that way. I think there is great limitation to anyone whose politics rely solely on the personal.

There needs to be a certain respect for empirical data, and an intellectual ability to grapple with conflicting ideas -- even if they are outside one's own realm of "personal" understanding. Likewise, the idea that politics is personal depends upon the individual -- which perhaps makes it undeniably personal. But they are different ideas to me -- in that the former indicates a causal relationship and the latter is more relational.

EA: Is being apolitical the same as being apathetic?

AM: In some cases they are exactly the same. But in others, someone can care deeply about an issue or cause but not identify the solution with one political ideology or party.

EA: You've recently started to be featured on news programs as a talking head, if you will. What on earth is that like?

AM: It's a lot of make up.

EA: You're introduced as a Democratic Consultant? What's the title?

AM: Democratic Strategist. It's a very generic title that has little meaning to most people (including anyone in politics). The idea of a "strategist" is pretty much a television creation -- even when you're talking about people who have been working in politics for 20 years. They do something much more concrete than "strategy." If you watch some of the cable stations you'll see them trending away from the generic chyron and towards more specific resume points.

EA: When you go on these shows, are you offering a personal opinion or an opinion that pushes an organized message, or agenda?

Alicia: It depends on the show! On the questions! Hannity's show, for example, on Fox News Channel, is much more about the individual expressing their views with the understanding that the producers have specifically crafted the group to feature a political range.

EA: Right.

AM: But there are certainly occasions on which it's a role-play of sorts.

EA: When it becomes a role play, does anyone win? Besides the host?

AM: If there are two good role players and a good host absolutely! At a minimum, it can be a controlled point/counter-point. At best, it can be a really enlightening exchange over when the ideologies overlap and where the diverge. And a clarifying glimpse at why each side believes their way is the right way. And I think that helps people who don't have an opinion to form one.

EA: Don't people who watch CNN or MSNBC or FOX already have an opinion?

AM: On Fox in particular, I feel my role is to give the audience -- the majority of which one imagines leans Conservative (whatever that means these days) a reason to question their views -- or at least the absolutism of their views. I think CNN ends up having quite a few people who tune in to watch news and stay for the political shows. So who knows?!

EA: Is it fun? Doing these shows?

AM: I think it's such fun. I get a rush right before and then the feeling once it's all done (minus the hate mail) is great. I worry sometimes that it's all an exercise in vanity -- but I think at its core, there is value.

EA: What is the hate mail like?

AM: Well that depends on the show I've just been on. I went on O'Reilly maybe more than a month ago and I am still getting mail about "going to Mexico and fighting for my country," "being a stupid greaser," "killing my anchor babies." I mean tons of hateful stuff. The Hannity hate mail is more crass: "Stupid bitch," "You good use a good..."

You get the idea.

EA: What were you talking about on O'Reilly?

AM: Immigration. And the best part is that my blog allows me to see the Google search terms that bring someone to my site. I have learned that it is very difficult for people to spell my name. And many searchers would like to know if I have a boyfriend, am married or engage or am a lesbian.

EA: Any greenroom/make up chair antics you can report on? Your tweets from the green rooms are always hilarious. I feel like I've snuck into a Masonic ceremony -- so secret.

AM : Best run-ins include Mike Huckabee, Ann Coulter and Karl Rove. Ann Coulter was most interesting.

EA: Wow. That is quite the list. Go on.

AM: Because she feels so comfortable extolling her views as though her audience is A. captive and B. in agreement. She was holding court in the Green Room.

EA: With regards to her assumptions, isn't that what Bill O'Reilly as well as Keith Olbermann does?

AM: Right, but the show has [their names] on it. [They have] a network and a platform. Anne Coulter was in a room full of other guests and she just started telling stories like she was the star. On one hand, just hearing her talk is like nails on a chalk board. On another level, I have to admire her bravado. I can't tell if she's incredibly confident or insecure. Or if maybe she's just so completely un-self aware that she is able to talk and talk and talk without checking in on non-verbal cues to see if anyone is listening.

EA: What is the state of the GOP right now?

AM: Disarray! I think there are two separate but related conversations going on simultaneously. There is at once a struggle to define conservatism, and a visible fight for the soul of the GOP. The conservative conversation is much more intellectual - much more academic.

EA: Than before, than the Dem's then.. what?

AM: Than the GOP conversation.(Editor's note: Connoting a difference between the Republican Party as it stands, Base voters and Conservatives who feel left behind.) And [the GOP] is being under minded by folks who are more concerned with better TV ratings than with the actual question of how we define conservatism.

EA: So how do you define the GOP "conversation"?

AM: The GOP conversation is about a few things. First of all, there is a lot of ego.
You can practically see the supposed 2012 front-runners (apparently we didn't learn from 2008 that this speculation is useless) elbowing each other out of the way.Governor Sanford isn't thinking about the people of South Carolina when he turns away stimulus money. He's thinking "this is a major gamble and if I hit this right, I will be President Sanford." I think the alternative budgets we saw from Republicans was a good, tangible example of how they don't know what their minority game plan is.

EA: Which is the same gamble Jindal and Palin are playing.

AM: ABSOLUTELY!

EA: What about the Dems? Because the Democratic party is not the same thing as the Obama administration, and the party seems to be as lost and incompetent as it ever was, only know it's an incompetent majority rather than minority.

AM: I think at the end of the day there is much more unity than folks realize.
Unity doesn't sell papers (though one has to ask what DOES sell papers these days).I think folks are just getting accustomed to the idea of being able to get things done. They are also still struggling to figure out how to communicate that we are where we are because of eight years of wreckless Republican spending - and I say that not as a political talking point - seriously - but as a generational perspective on how the GOP has really disappointed millenials.I don't agree with the GOP, but I can respect their basic logic. They spent the last eight years acting out of step with their own credo. And now Democrats need to find a way to explain that they are good mechanics with a hell of a lemon and they're doing the best they can as quickly as they can.

EA: It would seem to me that Obama has literally changed the game. When I see the Dems and GOPers flobbing talking points at each other, (or at the administration) it's like they're trying to get in a gunfight with some dull rapiers...When the GOP attempts to paint the Obama budget plan as "vague"and goes back to grinding on and on about earmarks, which are actually a miniscule part of any budget.

AM: I suppose. [But there are questions that should be asked of Obama.] Like - did Obama make a major mistake by setting standards for his nominees that were unmeetable?
What does bi-partisanship look like? Should Obama have tackled the "how" of bipartisanship sooner?

EA: How would you judge the Obama administration's first 100 days?

AM: Predictably rocky but generally well-executed. The notion of the first 100 days - and I'm sure you'd agree - is rather inorganic.

EA: What do you think will happen with the midterms?

AM: Senate races should be fine - maybe even a few pick up opportunities for Democrats. On the House side, I don't think - pending a major disaster or a major upswing-that we'll see much movement either way. Much like people voted Bush back into office in 2004, I think most people prefer stability at times like this -- especially in light of the recent and dramatic change we made to our elected body.

EA: You live in DC -- what's it like to live there and what's it like to live there as the daughter of a Senator?

AM: Well I am like a little old lady so it's what it's like to live anywhere as a little old lady.

EA: I know what that's like.

Alicia: I wake up, I take the metro to the gym, I go to the gym, I stop at Starbucks, I work, I take the metro home, make dinner and watch The Wire with my boyfriend. On a really crazy night I might do a Sudoko puzzle on the metro home or pick up some ice cream but that's about it.
I do appreciate that my friends here (all two of them) are able to talk politics but also able to shut it off. That's the weird thing about DC. It's politics, politics, politics all the time. Is LA like that with entertainment?

me: FUCK IF I KNOW. We all just sit around talking about GOOP -- Oh wait, that's Brooklyn. So you are outside of the social/power scene.

Alicia: I think the idea that there is a social/power scene is ridiculous. I have dinner with a United States Senator once every two weeks. It's not much of a scene.

EA: In my conversations with Meghan McCain, she's talked a lot about people who come on to her as a way of starting THEIR political career.

AM: I don't think I've ever had that happen. I also have to wonder how much of that is reality and how much is perception. What is that quote?
I think it's Sharon Stone about how you can sleep your way to the middle; you have to work your way to the top. That is what that reminds me of!

EA: Last thing: any comment for those Fox viewers who want to know about your love life?

Alicia: Nah! Let's keep them Googling.

***

Photo via DayLife

What Do YOU Think They're Fighting About?

2009-04-14T22:06:00.001-04:00

...I think it's that the black'n'white didn't refill the Brita.

An IMteresting Conversation With: Sam Wasson, Author

2009-04-07T15:39:00.007-04:00

Hold on to your hats and glasses folks, cuz this blog's the wildest ride in the internets!

I'd like to introduce you to a new feature here at Impudent Ways, IMteresting Conversations, wherein I interview my friends like they're famous over IM (GET IT!?) Some of them might be a little famous or more, and a lot of them won't be famous at all, but the goal is to talk to interesting people who do interesting things.

Hopefully, you'll be able to check in here every Tuesday for a new interview. I've thought about it, and Tuesday has nothing going for it -- it's not even the hump day -- so I thought this would be a good day to start.

Our inaugural interview is with Sam Wasson, author and cinefile, whose book A Splurch in the Kisser: The Movies Of Blake Edwards will be available in September 2009 from Wesleyan University Press.

***

EA Hanks: Firstly, what is your name and what do you do?

Sam Wasson: My name is Sam Wasson and I'm a writer. Are we done yet?

EA: Nearly.

SW: Okay.

EA: What sort of writing do you do? Have long have you been doing it?

SW: Right now I'm writing books about the movies I've been writing casually - well, not really casually - about the movies for a long time, but then...

EA: What projects are you working on now?

SW: A book about Breakfast at Tiffany's. The history of... The production...The incredible legacy...

EA: A book about a movie based on a book.

SW: You got it. It's a massive phenomenon.

EA: What came first for you, movies or writing (about movies)?

SW: Writing! But before that Movies! So I guess my answer is: First, movies. Then, writing. Then writing for the movies. Then writing about the movies.
Got it?It's confusing, but those were confusing times.

EA: What do you like about movies? What about the medium appeals to you? Do you like the cultural phenomenon around them, or the substance of the art itself, or a mixture of both?

SW: Mostly the art. I love that movies combine all the arts, at their best, I mean: sound, picture, literature, visuals. And time and space can be transcended.
The cut is a beautiful thing! As is the close up! These are two things that you don't have in theater, but you have them in film.

And emotion - let's not forget that. Because, honestly, nothing moves an audience like a movie.

EA: Do you think that's what the masses are attracted to in movies -- transcendence, in however they understand it? Because of all the arts, there's a huge argument to be made that movies are the most popular.

SW: They are the most popular! I think, yes, sometimes, but they don't always call it that.

EA: What do they they call it? Escapism?

SW: Escapism is a kind of transcendence -- some people go into the movies to shut off.
I tend not to like those kinds of movies, but then I'm accused of being a snob.
There is another escapism, though, that takes you out of your head and into - for lack of a better organ - your heart. That's the kind of escapism I like to write about
because that's the kind I see in my favorite movies. But that isn't specific to Fellini or Antonioni or Bergman -- it happens in popular movies too
Like The Naked Gun! That to me is pure transcendent bliss!

EA: You've mentioned the difference, or the space between, the phenomenon around film, and the films themselves. In terms of Breakfast at Tiffany's, how do you see that playing out?

SW: It's trickier. With BAT, you're talking about a less tangible kind of excellence.
It's not as much about aesthetics as it is about nailing the zeitgeist -- in other words, why people love the movie, I think.

EA: Has the movie has earned that love, by its quality?

SW: I don't think so, no. It has less to do with its artistic components than its progressive attitudes. That is, I think it's more about the meaning of Audrey -- a new kind of Audrey, one that has SEX, and lives ALONE, and wears PROVOCATIVE clothing, none of which were the custom of 1961.

EA: The public had only really seen her in films like Roman Holiday, fawnish and innocent.

SW: That's right. Suddenly, the princess has a night life. And young women across the country are going, "What the--Hey, wait a second! That looks fun!"I want that!"They're thinking, if Audrey does it, it's kinda okay.

EA: I remember telling a friend in high school that Holly is a prostitute, and she refused to believe me until I explain "$50 for the powder room."

SW: Exactly. You're talking about a message so well coded, even girls today miss it.
But that's proof of how progressive it was.

EA: Do men like this movie? Do you think Audrey has sexual draw for men's tastes today?

SW: Audrey was not as sexual draw, no. Not in the way that Marilyn was. That's not to say that people didn't find Audrey sexy, but that she was not [cast] with sex in mind. That's another reason she appeals more to heterosexual girls and women.

EA: Do you think that the fact that Audrey wasn't an overtly "sexy" actress was part of why the movie could get away with what it got away with?

SW: Yes! You know, Marilyn was an early casting choice. But imagine the movie with Monroe as Holly!She loses her intelligent hold on men. Marilyn's hold was purely erotic, and a little pathetic. You wanted to take her to bed, and then, when you saw how mushy she was, you wanted to cradle her like a baby. That's a male fantasy.

EA: And Audrey?

SW: Audrey is different! You want to BE Audrey.
Because she conforms to no one and nothing. In the fifties, there was no one that looked like her. In this era of pervasive commonality, she was saying, "I can be me, and far from being strange, it's actually fun!" James Dean was dangerous in his rebellion.Audrey was polite.But subversively polite.

EA: This is where I have to ask about Mickey Rooney in that movie: "What the fuck is with Rooney in that movie?"

SW: Haha! You're in Blake Edwards' world, don't forget.That means you're never far from a pratfall.

EA: Do you think the movie sacrifices subversion of race to push the boundaries of sex?

SW: No. Casting The Mick as Mr Yunioshi was a move Blake regrets.He fucked up. He did.
But let's not forget: Rooney's damn funny. Those two things need to be kept separate

EA: You've mentioned close ups. Let's talk about this in terms of what it does for the whole medium. What does it do, for story, for the art of cinema?

SW: The job of the director is to tell the story in pictures. And close-ups can tell you that story by showing you what a character is thinking. Either by showing that character's face or hand or some body part that carries emotion, or by showing you what he's looking at, like a point of view shot. Theater can't do that, and neither can books.

EA: Can you think of some of your most favorite close ups, and why they're so near and dear to you?

Sammy: Well, one that comes to mind: Ingmar Bergman's movie Autumn Sonata...With Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Bergman.

EA: Talk us through it.

SW: Mother and daughter, full of resentment for one another. They have it out in the living room in the middle of night. Bergman cross-cuts these close ups that put us right in their faces -- he NEVER lets us look away. Rather, instead throws us into the middle of their hurt. It's one of the most visceral experiences I've ever had in a movie. Of course, Bergman has been holding back on close-ups until this point. Mostly, the movie is shot wide: open spaces, furniture.And then WHAM! It's like he grabs you by the fucking neck, and shoves you into it.

EA: I like in Bringing Up Baby, Hawks waits until Hepburn realizes she's got a window of time wherein she can lure Grant out of his engagement and into her arms. Hawks slams the camera in, gets right into the flat planes of her face, framed by the car window. And you get a whole sense of how tenacious and ludicrous this woman is going to be. The close up is a device that works in both drama and comedy.

SW: That's one of my favorite movies -- I remember that. Exactly.

EA: You went to Wesleyan for undergraduate. What did you study?

SW: Film and English.

EA: And then you went to USC for post-graduate work in film as well. Did you find it worth your while?

SW: Yes, I did. The only way to learn how to make movies is to make movies.

EA: You've been writing about film professionally (in that you have two books coming out) -- do you think you'll go back to making films yourself?

SW: 3 books!

EA: Well fuck my soul.

SW: HAHAHAHAHA! Can I HAHAHA in an interview? ... Yes, I do think I'll go back to making films.

EA: All the films you mentioned (...with the exception of the Naked Gun) have been older. What do you think about current cinema?

SW: Hollywood? It's a poop show. How's that for insightful analysis?

EA: Thrilling. What makes it bad?

SW: Oh so many things make it bad. But, at risk of oversimplifying, one thing in particular: it isn't run by showmen -- it's run by suits.

EA: Go on.

SW: Money has always been the bottom line - as it should be - but guys like Mayer, Selznick, and Thalberg before dreamt of good pictures, too. Bucks were half of it.
Quality was the other half.

EA: When did things change?

SW: End of the 50's

EA: A lot of people hail the 70s as the last real heyday of moviemaking

SW: Oh it was! Definitely! And I would add: the real independent scene of the 90's.

EA: With such films as?

SW: Metropolitan!

EA: I have a theory

SW: Lets have it.

EA: That something else that has change significantly is that in the "golden" years of films, there was no real difference between high caliber actors, and "Stars" -- whereas now, there are two definite groups, with maybe one or two crossovers.

SW: Well, there were always stars, but they were employees.Now they're running the show.

EA: Do you think celebrity culture helps film or kills it?

SW: Depends. There was always celebrity culture in Hollywood.The problem now is that celebrities make the movies.

EA: Go on. What are the direct consequences?

SW: Often, that is not a problem. Many celebrities make great movies! But too often there is a casualty.

EA: In that they become star vehicles?

SW: Yes, but idiotic ones. Don't get me wrong - a movie star is a wonderful thing!
But with power comes responsibility. And when they make decisions, sometimes story goes out the window.

EA: Have actors always been paid more than actresses?

SW: For the most part, yes.

EA: Why do you think that is?

SW: That's a really good question. Well, I don't think it's very clear.
I just think it depends on the market. There's no limit to how much a studio will pay for talent. Liz Taylor was the first actor or actress to get a million for a movie.
Carole Lombard was once the highest paid actor at Paramount. But the biggest star in the world is Will Smith, so he can demand the highest fee. If Jada became bigger, she'd get more money.

EA: You live in LA, which IS Hollywood, and vice versa. Do you like living there?

SW: Yes. I love it.

EA: What about it do you love?

SW: That's a huge question! LA has the highest concentration of creative people anywhere in the world. It's like Paris in the 20s - but always. That's what I love.
And Hollywood is not evil.It's not a sinister place. It's a business like any other.
But it's my favorite business because when it's good, it doesn't make cars, or canned goods, or diapers, it makes great entertainment. And sometimes art. That's my kinda town.

***

Go Read This Thing: Tori's New Single

2009-04-06T20:37:00.005-04:00

I'm a HUGE Tori Amos fan who thinks her albums have been wretched for the past ten years. Her new single, "Welcome To England" prompted a bizarre, probably ill-advised binge of criticism from me.

You can read it here.

My "Missed Connection" Dream Comes True! Ish! Updated!

2009-04-05T16:45:00.006-04:00

Ok kids, remember way back when I made a totally predictable confession that I love the "Missed Connections" section of Craigslist, and check it out from time to time? Well guess what? I HAD MY OWN MISSED CONNECTION! I know, thrilling.

Last night I went dancifying with Ms. Laura Griffin, because sometimes, I just want to dance. And dance we did, at Southpaw's monthly jamfest, "The Rub" till around 2:30 in the AM . I was making my somewhat inebriated way home (read: totally drunk), enjoying my quasi-broken headphones when this guy came running up to me saying something about the "Bail House" -- did I know where it was? The Bail House? The Beale House?

It took me a second to realize, that while yes, I was totally drunk, he was also talking in a particularly thick accent that I didn't recognize at all. When I asked him to spell the name of the place he answered "B-E-L-L House" and looked at me funny.

I took out my blackberry, found it, and gave him directions, then he took off running.

Now, I was sober enough to realize that he was cute AND sober enough to get home,AND think to myself, "What the hell? Might as well. You've always wanted to do this, and who knows, maybe he'll actually answer!Maybe you'd actually like him!" And so I wrote the following:

I was walking down 7th avenue around 2:30 AM, all danced out and looking forward to bed, when you sort of came out of nowhere with your "Where's the bell house?" and your rather thick foreign accent. I'm sorry I asked you to spell the word "Bell," but with your distractingly handsome face (and, said foreign accent) and me being all perhaps-one-too-many Tecate's and all, I didn't really stand a chance. I found it for you on my very nifty black berry (I've never been so glad to have one) and then you told me you had to run. And then.. you literally ran away. I've always liked a spry man. Hope you made it and also that you weren't a Tecate/Southpaw induced hallucination.

Maybe a little more flirty then I'd normally go for, but at this point, it's 3:15 in the morning and I am still Drunky McFly. But coherent, right? No spelling mistakes, there's an attempt at humor, I get the logistics of the whole thing down. Not too shabby, I'd say.

Cut To: This afternoon, I'm in the park reading the Sunday Times, when I actually get a response! Me! Think of everything that could happen! What promise, what suspense, what thrilling joy!

I got there ok thanx I wanyed to stay and chat but u seemed drunk and I was in a rush I can't quite remember ur face thoughg
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

(sic)

...Aye, there's the rub.

UPDATE!And now I've received this seemingly random response:

in response to the "bell house chronicles"...

i want to bump into you one night and ask where a pretty girl like you lives...and you would promptly pull out your sexy little blackberry and proceed to find it!

...and then i shall take you by the hand...still clasping the blackberry...and we shall run to my newfound destination...and upon arriving and entering...i shall ask.."where is your bedroom?" and you will proceed to flip the blacberry onto the couch and grab me by the arm and whisper.."no blackberry needed for that one!"

and we shall run merrily into your bedroom and create mad fantastic orgasms throughout the weekend!

i will never forget the bell house!

I will say that I am almost, *almost* charmed by the phrase "mad fantastic orgasms."

AND THEN I REMEMBER HOW CREEPY THIS IS.

Consider my Missed Connections dream dead. Like, really dead.

This Nearly Killed Me

2009-04-04T22:10:00.004-04:00

Ok guys. I know I've flooded this blog with random cat bloopers, calling each one hilarious and one of a kind, etc. But I tell you now, this cat blooper has reached a new level of genius. This is the "Remembrance of Things Past" of cat bloopers. You must wait till 1:20. Trust me. TRUST ME.

I saw white light.

Goodbye To All That

2009-04-01T13:33:00.007-04:00

Do you sometimes feel like this is all a dream, and Barack Obama didn't win the presidency? That after eight years of... you know, all that, we've all just retreated into the cozy hallows of our brain and are playing pretend?

Well, he did win! Hurray!

And because of this, I'm gonna let some things go, because I'm tired of dragging them around. This is a new time, and I'm eager to move past the anger and cynicism that I pretty much made my religion for the past eight years. Cheesy? Yes! I don't care!

One of the only things that made the previous presidency livable was some of the great art (although, there was some pretty embarrassing stuff too), and satire that came out. And I was really grateful for it, at the time, but times have changed and it's time to move on. Timey time times on times of times recorded by time in timey timed time.

But as a last huzzah, here are my two favorite Previous-Presidency pieces of art.

The first is "Windowsill" by Arcade Fire.

Arcade Fire has a way of treating subjects that we are all familiar with, in a way the manages to escape sigh-inducing obviousness. There's nuance here, which is the difference between art and... I don't know, poop? (...Speaking of a lack of nuance.)When Win Butler sings

World war three, when are you coming for me?
Been kicking up sparks to set the flames free
The windows are locked now, so what'll it be?
A house on fire or the rising sea?

I can feel that stymied, hysterical disbelief that simmered in my gut, and in the collective guts of everyone who I would commiserate with -- whether it was my room mates, as we watched coverage of the war getting worse and worse, or with complete strangers as we were pelted by Bush supporters at his second inauguration -- for eight years. The relief of that feeling, that angst, prompted me to burst into tears as President Obama finished his oath of office. Seriously. I didn't understand the phrase "burst into tears" until I was standing there like a normal person, and then suddenly tears went flying out of my eyeballs and I was grabbing strangers (also crying) and hugging them. One woman kept saying "It's over! It's over!"

I'll never, ever forget looking up and realizing that everyone else around me was crying as well. Ok, since I'm getting all teary-eyed even thinking about it, I'll move on.

As far as I'm concerned, Stephen Colbert's 2006 speech at the White House Correspondent's dinner is the bravest, most patriotic, most... good thing, I've ever seen. Ever. EVER EVER. He spoke truth to power -- yeah, but the power was sitting RIGHT THERE. Literally. He was standing feet away from the President, tearing him to pieces with some of the best material, political or not, I've ever heard.

I'm proud, very very proud, to know someone who worked on this speech -- which you can read the transcript of here. Actually, I will probably never ever be really comfortable around them, because I know they worked on this speech. When I die, I'll think to myself, "Well, at least I knew someone who worked on Stephen Colbert's 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner speech. So, I did something good."

Have you ever had to speak in front of people? Not necessarily do stand up, it could be a wedding speech, or just trying to be funny in class -- you make a joke, and there's no response? It's the worst feeling. You flounder. You try to laugh off your bad joke. You make another joke, and that one falls flat too. You attempt to get them back, you plead to get the crowd back, and they are not having it. Finally, you give up and just start talking really fast so you can sit down and disappear as soon as possible.

Stephen Colbert essentially bombs the entire length speech, and it's a long speech. Most of the crowd's reactions are either shocked gasps, a few nervous laughs, and a lot of moans of disbelief. But he...just...keeps...going.

He doesn't speed up. He doesn't give a look of "C'mon, gimme a break!" he doesn't break for a moment of an iota of a second. He sticks with it the entire time, and walks away like... Nothing. Like he didn't just completely rip the facade off the event, the Presidency, the war. Like he didn't just expose every lie and falsehood that resulted in thousands of needless deaths.

Ok, I'm getting all faklempt again, so I'll end there.

These are the two pieces of art from the previous presidency that I'm letting go of. What are some of the things that made YOU feel better during the past 8 years that you're willing to part with?

I'm Sorry, I Can't Stop

2009-03-30T18:44:00.000-04:00

Thanks, GoogleAds

2009-03-26T10:54:00.002-04:00

The Genius of Kate Moss

2009-03-26T10:39:00.005-04:00

The woman gets her ear pierced five more times, and wears clothing to match.

Photo via Hollywoodrag.com

Things That Are Awesome?: Pauly Shore Going To Africa?

2009-03-19T21:04:00.006-04:00

OK, I recently had reason to catch a little bit of that comedic, cinematic GEM "Jury Duty" and you know what? It validated me as a life long fan of Pauly Shore.

"ADOPTED" - Movie Trailer (2009)

Totally racist? Totally hilarious? A little of both? Let's see what the internet says -- because dialogue on the internet is always coherent and constructive!

CAT TOWER!!!!

2009-03-14T17:09:00.004-04:00

Approximately 1/4 of this video is awesometown.

And, for the record, I don't even own a cat. I used to -- one with three legs, named Ernie.

But now I have to make do. Thank Jesus for the Cat Diaries! I don't know what I'd do without them -- I can't wait to check out the 12 other "episodes"!

And Now For Something Completely Different: Lanvin

2009-03-11T08:35:00.009-04:00

I'm always linking to this whenever fashion comes up, but Tim Gunn really hit the nail on the head when it comes to fashion:

"I'm the first to encapsulate this realistically. Nobody needs it. We need clothes, do we need fashion? No. And fashion, when it's good, comes out of a context that's societal and cultural and historic and economic and political -- so it's of a time and a place."

With the world's economy going as it is, I'm not surprised to see designers sending throwbacks of the 30's and 40's down the runway: triangular shapes of softly square shoulders over sleek pencil skirts, ladylike long gloves, sturdy heels, not a whole lot of patterns, rather good solid black, tweeds, etc. There is also a lot of fur -- which, oy, I'm not nuts about.

Here's my favorite's of Albert Elbaz's line for Lanvin Fall 2009 RTW. You'll notice that a lot of the silhouettes are really similar, but that's another throwback: it's better to go for great, flattering designs that look good wherever you wear them, rather than design a lot of fussier pieces that need to be "fashiony" and require buying and wearing five pieces. Jacket! Skirt! Done! Dress! Gloves! Done!

Also, if you're wondering why designers roll out their fall designs right before spring starts, fashion runs on a delay so magazines have time to shoot all the clothes, stores have time to decide how much of the collections they'll carry, etc.

You'll be seeing Natalie Portman in that, I'm pretty sure.

Paging Tracy Lord!

I Just Got Into This Great Pop Band From Liverpool, Can't Think Of Their Name...

2009-03-08T22:52:00.009-04:00

Sometimes it happens that you manage to miss out on something that would have been, according to the unwritten laws of taste and preference, in your catalog of things you love.

What?

Let me try that again: Sometimes you hear a band or read a book or see a movie, way after its new and shiny and hip, and you think... "How the hell did I miss this? Where was I when everyone else was clued in? What was I doing, reading Star Wars novels?"

Last summer I "stumbled" onto Sleater Kinney, only possibly the most famous, beloved and well-reviewed of the "riot grrrl" bands of the 90's. I ended up spending the entirety of the season listening to them exclusively and telling people, "Hey, you know what, Sleater Kinney really IS good!"

This earned me some well-deserved eye rolls, but also several rounds of "How have YOU missed out on Sleater Kinney until now?"

I guess it's not that nuts of a question. I did spend most of my adolescence rocking out to Bikini Kill, Alanis and Tori (as much as you can really rock out to Tori) -- so one would think that somehow, someone would have said, "Yeah, Alanis is ok, but if you want really good music, and if you're into female punk bands, Sleater Kinney is the way to go."

Alas, that never happened.

However, in college, I heard about them all the time -- but for some reason I never got it together to actually give a listen. It wasn't until my dear friend Erica found out how much of a lack of Sleater Kinney I had in my life, that she freaked out and very generously made copies of every single one of their records for me -- plus some rare B sides.

And you know what? They fucking rock! So it's really annoying that I didn't get into them when I was 17 and they were still a band. Of course I only get into them only after they break up and thus no longer tour.

I did this with Rainer Maria too -- the first time I saw them, it was their last show ever. "Goddamn it!" (a litte RM humor there, for the fans.)

Anyway, here's SK on the Henry Rollins show, doing my favorite song of theirs, "Entertain" :

Not too shabby.

These days I'm wondering, "Why the hell didn't I get into Joanna Newsom when everyone I knew told me to?"

Here's my favorite single from her first record, "The Milk-Eyed Mender," "Peach Plum Pear":

Not for everyone, I know, but I dig it the most.

What music, books, movies have you somehow missed and are only now cluing into?

(Oh, and I recently saw "Manhattan for the first time, and was talking to someone about how great the opening titles are for it, and they looked at me like I needed to repeat the first grade. Again. Apparently it's famous. Also, I'm reading "The Brothers Karamazov" -- ever heard of it?)

New Things!

2009-03-08T15:27:00.002-04:00

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry but I've enabled GoogleAds on this blog. If they really drive everyone insane, I will either get rid of them, or re-organize them. I figure I must be true to my 12 rabid followers.

But I'll make it up to you!

Below each post are now three boxes which will act as feedback: I like, I don't like, Shut up. Now you can tell me to shut up without having to sign in to leave comments!

And that is my gift to you.

And Now For Something Completely Different: Dior

2009-03-06T19:35:00.014-05:00

Hi, Mr. Galliano? I hear you're designing for Christian Dior, one of my favorite labels. Could you, um, not make your Fall 2009 RTW* line SO UNBELIEVABLY GORGEOUS? These days I feel guilty splurging on a large shrimp fried rice, so if you could make it a little easier for me to not feel constantly crushed by the fact that there is no way I can buy any of this, that would be great. Just, back off the stunning for a bit, would you? And yes, I've noticed that with my new Louise Brooks bob, everything would look perfect on me (with the help of some pam non-sticking spray and fishing line).

Also, don't think I haven't noticed that these clothes, clearly inspired by Depression era styles are actually super expensive. I find your irony hurtful, Mr. Galliano.

* - Ready To Wear, ie not Haute Couture. Photos via nymag.com

Hey, Go Read This Thing: TakePart

2009-03-06T13:23:00.001-05:00

I'm the new blogger over at Participant Production's social action, uber hippie awesomeness blog, TakePart.

Check it out, won't you?

Things That Are Awesome!

2009-02-26T18:45:00.004-05:00

It's been a little while since I shared something that is awesome! Boo! Here are three awesome things! Yay!

First, here's the Coen Brothers'ses commercial explaining "clean coal"

Funny and right, right?

And secondly, here's PRI's Bookworm interview with poet Rae Armantrout. She likes to write poetry inspired by particle physics and string theory! What!? I know! Awesome! She even has a collection called "Dark Matter" -- and we know how I feel about that!

You can buy her new book Versed, here. OR!

You can go to my third awesome thing, IndieBound, a website that will tell you the nearest independent bookstore to you.

Full Circle

2009-02-26T18:18:00.004-05:00

I don't know if this is karma, or just the universe being both horribly cruel and funny, but Val Kilmer

hath become Brando from "The Island Of Dr. Moreau"

Which Kilmer was actually in, albeit in his previous form

Fangirl's Heart: Done Exploded

2009-02-25T18:10:00.002-05:00

Via Edgar's flickr

I've Done It Again

2009-02-22T00:53:00.003-05:00

That last post seems to have cost me a Follower -- or perhaps I've been wearing on them slowly, and then that was just the last straw.

Was it the crack about Hitchens?

So tetchy!

Bringing The Hate: These Nitwits

2009-02-19T13:39:00.006-05:00

From time to time I check out the Craigslist postings for writing and editing gigs because freelancing has dried up and I like to see what's out there. Today, I stumbled upon this little jem:

Wanted: Eager young man (or emotionally stable woman) to intern in an exceptionally fast-paced media office. We are a privately owned company that publishes both print and online properties, and we're in search of a bright person to shift between both. The intern will work directly beneath the editor-in-chief and must be willing to work at least 30 hours per week.

Qualified candidates will exhibit the following:

1. A reasonable phone manner. Not saccharine, but not bitchy. Able to command the respect of whomever is on the line.
2. A reasonable understanding of correspondence. Do you end e-mails with "Sincerely" or frequently use the term "LOL"? Not here you don't.
3. A healthy disdain for "the average." We'll put it this way: Don't talk to us about *The Hills*. Ever.
4. A willingness to perform light childcare. Not every day, but as needed, and with aplomb.
5. A unique tolerance for pressure. Please, no tears. It's grating.
6. Experience with French - *Parisian* French.
7. A presentable appearance. What's a "hoodie"?
8. The ability to lift light weights. Never more than 20 pounds.
9. A breadth of cultural knowledge, from Koolhaas to Kant to Klimt.
10. An ability to take direction. Simple enough.

Pay for this position is a $10 daily stipend, invaluable experience and the occasional byline. Opportunity move up quickly (6-12 months) to a staff editor position.

This job demands confidence and assertiveness. To apply, please send us an email with a CV and a brief description of a scenario in which you were "truly the best." We can't overstate this point: Contact us ONLY if you fulfill the above requirements. No phone calls.

Ahem. Well. Lord knows I wouldn't want these people to think I'm one of those "emotionally unstable" women, but I'd like to point out something about the sentence:

"A willingness to perform light childcare."

Namely, that it makes no sense. Does one "perform" childcare? Can childcare be quantified as "light"? Wouldn't it make better sense to ask that applicants have the ability to "Occasionally act as babysitter"? Or would that just be too... petite bourgeoisie? (That's Parisian French, by the way, not that filthy African French!)

If there's something that gets my Carrie-Bradshaw-loving, Yankee-Candle-owning, frumpy-sweater-wearing, maniacal-boy-calling knickers in a twist, it's this stuff.

The brand of arrogance that comes from a very special strain of asininity mixed with complete lack of humor (easily spotted thanks to its inept attempts at masking stupidity with pseudo Old Money condescension, and disdainful, quasi-Continental intellectual masturbation) really bugs the shit out of me. Yes, deign to pay the poor schmuck who ends up working for you a whole ten dollars a day!

I hate to break it to you, but someone already came up with the "Paris Review," wearing a suit from Brooks Brothers does not give you a faint whiff of intellectual superiority, and you will never be as witty as you think Chris Hitchens is.

Honestly, I don't want to hear about "The Hills" either, but not because I'm morally or intellectually superior, because it's a drag.

Sort of like these fucktards.

Hope they find their "professional intern," though. Bon chance!

xox
ea

A Day In Geneva With The Best Tour Guide Ever

2009-02-13T10:25:00.016-05:00

The Protestant big wigs. Somebody, John Calvin, Somebody, Knox (whose house is on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh)

Ah, to be Swiss and in love and make out in front of statues of old crotchety Reformers, including...

Roger Williams, who was kicked out of Boston for being all... you know so he went and started Providence, RI. I was miffed there was no monument of Anne Hutchinson. Whatever, she had more screen time in The Wordy Shipmates.

We talked our way in here, which is the room where the Red Cross Treaty was signed in 1864. You might know it as "The Geneva Convention."

And this is the longest bench in the world.

So, you know, good day. And you're not even seeing the stuff from the UN, which according to some smells like "coleslaw and rollercoasters."

You Were Never Born. You Will Never Die

2009-02-12T17:26:00.025-05:00

Ok, people. I'm breaking a taboo of mine to dish on something that I got to see that most people won't get to. This morning I got to go into the inner workings of the large hadron collider at CERN, the European Organization For Nuclear Research, where they smash particles together in search of the God Particle, otherwise known as the Higgs Particle, Higgs Boson, or the Higgs Field (they are not the same, and they are -- something you hear a lot from physicists, as I just discovered over some lovely red wine).

If you have no idea what the hell I just said, read this from the BBC.

I've written about particle physics here before, much much earlier in the life of this blog, attempting to explain why I dig it so much, and why it's my bizzaro pastime. If you think you could get into it, I highly recommend Brian Greene's Elegant Universe (mostly about string theory, which is just that: highly highly theoretical -- you can also watch the NOVA special here) and Leon Lederman's The God Particle.

Anyway, here are the photos!

Green means go!

This is the detector, where the particles collide, and data is taken from the explosions. It is way, WAY hotter than our sun in there, but you know, no biggie. They built it like a ship in a bottle -- all the pieces, weighs hundreds of tons, lowered through a huge whole in the ground at an angle, and then built in the lower chambers.It's hard to tell from this, but it is seriously, seriously massive and weighs more then the Eiffle Tour. The slightly brass looking thing is the muon detector (or the Alice detector? Maybe they're the same thing? Readers who are Particle Physicists, now's your time to shine!) and looks like a massive penny. But you know, no Lincoln.

Here's a photo from the CERN website to offer some perspective -- though it's taken from the other side of the dectector:

The Atlas project hub, where the data from the collisions is amassed. I asked how long it took from the time of collisions (they have them going constantly) to data breakdown, that is, how long it takes them to understand what they've just seen. It was the first of many times I heard "Well, sometimes it takes five minutes. Then othertimes it will take us five decades. Maybe more! Ha ha!"
When I was there they had data from a lepton collision (or a collision resulting in leptons, I couldn't tell). Leptons and Quarks are the smallest known particles of matter as of yet. There are six of each (not counting anti-quarks and anti-leptons).

More from the data hub.

Ok, so this is hard to put in perspective. This is looking straight down, from the first floor of the structure, into the cavern where they build the collider from pieces. All the pieces went down this thing, which is HUGE. This, by the way, is as far as most people get to the collider.

You can get a better idea of the size here, also it's taken from the bottom looking up: (Photo from CERN website)

That blue thing is one of the accelorating magnets coming down.

Below the dectector, en route to the accelerators.

The beginning of a ring of accelerators, which are actually magnets. For the actual Big Bang Project, they conduct and steer protons (hence super-conducing super-collider). The ring of magnets measures 27km. Someone else can figure that out in Americanese, but I know it's alot. Right now the collider is measuring other types of collisions while they check and reinstall the magnets for the proton collisions (the ones people think are going to rip the fabric of spacetime and create black holes on Earth).

Update!! So when I was going through the press handouts, I realized all the magnets I was seeing were blue and equipped with liquid helium, whereas the magnets I was seeing were red. Being a totally obsessed dork, I wrote our very very kind tour guide Dr. Markus Nordberg, asking if there were multiple rings of accelerators for different projects, or if the other magnets were further down the ring. And he totally wrote back to me! Here's words from one of the masters:

As to your question: that was the main ring were were in. The red magnets are the so-called focusing magnets that squeeze the accelerated protons into dense bunches before they collide at the center of ATLAS. So indeed, the blue magnets (dipoles, as they are known) are further away in the tunnel. Remember: the particles more 99.999999% of the speed of light (300 000 km/s) so some 200m before the collision they are no longer “needed” and there still needs to be time to correct the bunches on their orbits.

Again, it was a pleasure to host you yesterday and whatever your future career plans may be, I’d encourage you to consider that science would be part of them!I would have liked to ask you whether you are actually studying physics as your questions were VERY GOOD.

I left that last part in there just to brag.

The accelerating magnets feeding into the detector. The big round Death Star looking thing (which I believe is the muon detector).

This isn't part of anything sciency, but doesn't it look cool? This is the Sphere, the welcoming center for CERN and was beautiful in the snow. They were doing a press conference here for some movie, I don't know. I was looking for young, male particle physicists.

Over dinner in a small, smokey restaurant in snowy Geneva, I had the privilege to imbibe and discuss with three fascinating, funny, and generous souls from CERN, Rolf Landua, Tara Shears and a very nice man named James, whose last name I didn't catch, and which I apologize for, especially because we talked about His Dark Materials, and the role Dark Matter plays in Pullman's masterpiece.

As the night got colder and darker, we talked about the difference between fields and particles, the difference between Higgs field /God Particle and Higgs Boson, and how good "Blade Runner" is. But my favorite thing that I heard, maybe of the whole day, was when I asked Dr. Landua what he wants everyone to know about particle physics. If he could tell the whole world one thing that he knows, what would it be?

"That you are 13.7 billion years old. Everything that you are, was created at the beginning of the universe. And when you die, it will return to the universe and go on to be something else."

*

We were never born, and we will never die.

*One of the first images from CMS, showing the debris of particles picked up in the detector's calorimeters and muon chambers after the beam was steered into the collimator (tungsten block) at point 5

Oh, Welcome!

2009-02-10T15:31:00.004-05:00

I would like everyone to meet Josie Rose, my new favorite human being. Mazel Tov on her (to her?), and her parents Timmy and Courtney. Also, I should let the Sacramento Kings, the SF Gi-gi's, and (G-d help her) the 49er's know they have a new fan.

No, you're not imagining it. My new favorite human being is GIVING ARETHA A RUN FOR HER MONEY -- and she's not even a week old. That is fierce.

Signs Of The End Times

2009-02-07T13:33:00.006-05:00

I have decided that there are two things that signify that you may be, in fact, becoming an adult.

Sign One:

You keep the gum wrapper.

You understand that you won't always be chewing this gum. In fact, in about 2 minutes (if you're me, and don't chew for pleasure) you will want to spit the gum out. When you do that, in the future, you don't want to just spit it out on to the concrete -- only dicks do that. So wouldn't it be a good idea to think ahead, to understand the moment is passing, and therefore prepare yourself for the future?

Keep the wrapper, and you won't have to flail about searching for a receipt to use, or keep the tasteless lump under your tongue until you find a trashcan. Keep the wrapper, and you'll be good and classy.

Sign Two:

You stop tearing out photos from magazines of cute/hot people and putting them all your walls, and you start tearing out pictures of couches and paste them in notebooks.

That's a nice couch. It's affordable, and aesthetically pleasing, but mostly I love that it feels like home. I could invest in that couch and wouldn't regret it. When I sign up for that couch, I know what I'm getting, and trust that it will give me what I need, and in return, I will take care of it and cherish it, so that it continues to give me(and everyone looking for a really good couch) what I need.

Gum and couches.

I should add, I fucking hate my couch.

Hello, Goodbye

2009-02-03T13:43:00.004-05:00

OK, so, it's been a while.

I've been trying to compute that whole "inauguration" thing. As you know, I was twittering, in a manner that was somehow both unabashed and ashamed. Obviously, one-liners can't really sum up the experience. Except for the time I ran from the Western States ball. There really was no other way to express that feeling other than "Abort! Abort!"

If someone ever offers you the opprotunity to run (run) around in DC in the middle of January in high heels and the equivalent of a nightgown, I suggest you politely turn them down. You will underestimate how hard it is to throw yourself over a stone blockade. I felt a bit like Gavroche, but less dead and less French.

Anyway, the ceremony itself was very emotional, and I won't try to describe to you what that was like, because I will fail. I will say that I cried a whole lot, and I am flabbergasted that anyone would describe President Obama's speech as dour or somehow unimpressive in comparison with previous speeches.

I will, however, attempt to show you what it was like after the ceremony. A couple of night ago, I had a dream I was in a press corps waiting to interview Valerie Jarret .

Never underestimate my dorkiness.

Anyway, in the dream, there was some sort of fire nearby, and everyone was told to evacuate. Rather than a panicked free-for-all, the whole crowd quietly made its way to safety, and along the way hugged, shook hands, and occasionally told total strangers, "I'm so glad I got to share this moment with you!"

That is exactly, EXACTLY, what it was like leaving the Mall. Minus the fire, of course. People were laughing, crying and pausing along the way to hug and shake hands. It was like that moment in a church service, the only one I really like, where strangers turn to each other and wish, "Peace be with you."

And it was beautiful.

But I have to say, in another vein of beauty, was the moment when we were all paused as a car was let through the path. A huge roar came up from the crowd, and everyone turned and craned their heads to look up: and there was Marine One, taking that man away. Forever.

If people were crying before, the immediate three hundred people around me started sobbing in full-out cathartic breakdown. Everyone waved goodbye to him, and then, getting louder and louder, the mass of people started singing.

"NA NA NA NA... NA NA NA NA... HEY HEY HEY! GOODBYE!"

Seriously.

2009-01-18T18:32:00.003-05:00

This day has left my mind blown and my ears ringing.

I met him. And it was like looking directly into the sun.

My twitter is up and running, so that's the place for moment by moment coverage of me freaking out.

HAPPY OBAMA!!

2009-01-18T00:28:00.005-05:00

HAPPY OBAMA!!!

Ok, so I'm in DC for the inauguration, and I'm as giddy as a school girl. The entire town seems pretty giddy actually. I've only been here a couple of hours, and people are hugging and chit chatting and everything. It's like election night -- so I'm hoping to make out with a total stranger. And by "total stranger" I mean Reggie Love.

Sunday night I will be live blogging with my dear old friends from the HuffPo from the HuffPo "Ball," and in the mean time I will try to set up one of those new fangled "twitter" things to keep things moving.

Everyone should watch the "We Are One" concert at the Lincoln Memorial. It's live at 2:30 PM EST, on HBO.

Did you know? Abraham Lincoln's mother?

Nancy Hanks, bitches.

FIIIIIVE GOOOOOOOLD RIIIIIIINGS

2008-12-24T12:55:00.004-05:00

Happy Merry, everyone!

I enjoy a day arbitrarily assigned to help people remember charity, joy, beauty and all that good shit.

Ok, I have to get back to playing Rock Band. But before I do, here's my favorite Christmas song.

Do People Read During Complete Economic Meltdowns?

2008-12-17T17:27:00.004-05:00

Google, are you trying to be ironic?

I Could Have Loved You

2008-12-16T16:41:00.012-05:00

Hi!

Ok, so everyone has their dinner party question, wherein since you don't know anyone you attempt to make conversation that is A. fun, B. won't insult anyone and C. helps you get to know the people you're forced to talk with and eat next to for the rest of the evening.

Or, at least, I have a dinner party question just like that.

It goes like this:

"What celebrity or famous person crush do you have that flares the crazy-voice in the back of you head that makes you think, 'No, seriously, if we met, I bet you we'd really actually like each other. I could totally see us going out, for serious."

I have heard many interesting answers as my time as That Girl Who Feels Like She Has To Force Conversation: George Clooney, Julian Schnabel, Eva Mendes, Kurt Cobain (...yikes...), Sean Lennon and many, many more.

While my longest standing crush has been Trent Reznor (I swoon for industrial uber-angst) I will say that my I-Could-Love-You-If-You'd-Let-Me-Wait-Why-Are-You-Running-Away crush is someone whose name sounds like "Shmeego Blortensen."

Who is yours!?

Guh.

2008-12-12T16:01:00.005-05:00

She's not really selling a movie, she's selling herself as being as hot or equally hot than a particular "other woman." But riddle me this:

Jennifer Aniston has to be naked on the cover of GQ to sell a movie about a dog? Srsly?

Speaking of naked people, here are some more, but in a less hateable sceanario. Suitable for work.

Oh David Byrne. So weird. So weirdly attractive.

(Sorry for the formatting issues!)

Cat Vs. Printer

2008-12-12T14:25:00.002-05:00

It is hard to change ink cartridges when you don't have hands. And are a cat.

Le Sigh.

2008-12-10T18:06:00.003-05:00

Sofia Coppola, arch goddess of PrettyPorn strikes again.

Egads, but this is powerful stuff.

I want the perfume! I want the dress! I want the bicycle! I want Paris!

I want to always be lit like that!

I'm An Idiot

2008-12-10T17:34:00.006-05:00

My friend Emma and I were trying to work our schedules out to go do yoga together, and while she was racing to get things done at her office, her away message was "Trying to get to a 6:45 yoga class. It might be a stretch."

This was last week.

I JUST got it.

I know what you're thinking: why are you still thinking about your friend's away message from a week ago? To distract you from this totally logical question, here's a list of other things I've been a total numbskull about:

1. "The Immaculate Collection."

I just thought Madonna thought her "Best Of" record was really, really, really good.

2. Martin Luther King Jr.

Just yesterday I realized that without the "King" bit, he's got the same name as Martin Luther. Is there something about that name that makes people go around, over throwing shit?

3. The first grade.

Best two years of my life.

4. Most things that don't have to do with cats falling down.

Or Beatles trivia.

Forget What I Said, The Internet Is Awesome

2008-12-05T15:03:00.003-05:00

Oh. Mai. Gawd.

A. Frontline is now online.

B. Mormons.

(You know how we do.)

Things That Are Awesome: Charley

2008-12-04T21:36:00.004-05:00

Ok, seriously, it's been a while since something made me both laugh and cry at the same time.

It might have been when you vomited parrot bay and chili cheese fries.

Anyway, here.

On an animal related note, while the trailer for "Marley and Me" does make me laugh (...don't give me that look. A cat on a Roomba made me giggle until I snorted, remember?) there is no way I will be seeing it.

I don't need to have read the book to know that dog is going to die.

Nuh uh. No way. I'm still recovering from "All Dogs Go To Heaven."

Go Read This Thing: PrettyPorn

2008-12-03T14:54:00.007-05:00

If you're nice, you'll go read my piece on what I'm calling PrettyPorn over at the HuffPo. And then if you're nice AND CUTE you'll buzz it on my BuzzFeed page.

I know, I ask a lot of you. But remember that time when I held your hair back while you vomited Parrot Bay and chili cheese fries? It was really gross. You totally owe me.

Photo: thecherryblossomgirl.com

Things That Are Awesome: This

2008-12-03T14:43:00.001-05:00

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

I would like to point out that this takes place at a Sacramento Community College. Woo woo!

Happy Merry

2008-12-01T18:43:00.006-05:00

I have a lot of memories of playing tag with my brother at the nursery in Sacramento where we bought our tree every year -- the lot so packed with potentials it was like a real forest. In the car on the way home I'd smell my coat sleeves to hang on to the scent of them.

This morning I passed my first Christmas tree line-up on my street in Brooklyn. I couldn't help but pause and breathe deeply for a little bit. The guy working there smiled and paused with me. Then I nodded and he nodded back and we went back to our days.

I hope it snows soon.