Happy Day!

I'm around for another little while longer! Thank you, American government (words that usually taste like ashes on my tongue). I'll keep spending, paying my taxes, having terrible health care coverage and loving it, and not be able to vote and living in a hovel in Brooklyn (what what) and you keep approving my visa applications, okay? Clearly a higher power wants this (see above).

For menorah's sake...

I'm trying to find an appropriate Hanukkah present for a middle-aged couple who have everything. I don't know them well enough to give them this, but wouldn't it be fun if I could? I'm just going to end up sending them a big bag of chocolate candy
(gelt, I love learning new words) that will invariably melt in the mail into a big pile of golden-flecked chocolate seeping through packing materials and then they're going to shake their head (middle-aged couples only have one head), wipe smeared chocolate off their hands and shiny floors and think of the many Jewish girls their son could be dating instead but I'll be laughing because I'm totally converting him into a Zen Buddhist. What a shanda.

Shamefully excited

Anton Corbijn is making a biopic about Ian Curtis and Joy Divison. Some kid, Sam Riley is going to play him. He's a bit too dishy, but it works.

I think "Love will Tear Us Apart" is one of the most-covered songs ever. This is kind of awesome, but then I read that U2 touched it with their tentacles of lameness and performed it with Arcade Fire. Shudder.

You know it's time to do some wikiresearch...

When your company is installing RSS readers on your computer and you don't even know what it means except for trying to panicked-ly trying to close Firefox and iTunes before Sparky with the clipboard erases my hard drive. Our IT department gave an indepth orientation on Outlook when I first started here, to give you an idea of their tech-savvy.It's like reading Rolling Stone for the latest in indie music.

Even though this week is the CareBears National Care Week, today I:

1. Got yelled at by an unCaring author.
2. Got almost knocked over by an old lady in front of Whole Foods, causing me to stumble into my own hair with my cigarette. I lost a 2-inch tress.

According to the Care Calendar, I was supposed to hold a door open for someone today. Instead, my hair smells like burning hell.

the gayest thing I can think of...


Alright, enough already. There's a NY Post cartoonist, Sean Delonas, who is seriously burning my ass. I won't do him a service by reposting his cartoons here (for my legions of readers, holla!) but his homophobia manifests itself in low-quality art that is:



1. Sophomoric.
In a ruling on Wednesday, October 26th, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided that gay couples are entitled to the same legal rights and financial benefits as heterosexuals. To commemorate the occasion, Delonas busts out with some sophisticated, subtly-messaged comic art...Really? Gay people fuck sheep? Or do frat boys fuck sheep?


2. Unfunny.
It's very creative to dismiss a woman's qualifications for office by making reference to her physical appearance. Yes, Jeanine Pirro is pretty vile (and Republican (!)), and is under investigation for misappropriation of public funds (she wiretapped her philandering husband to find evidence of his philandering), but it's comforting to know that a bigot like Delonas will always get personal, in the least interesting, easiest, and most insulting way. At least bigots are consistent. In their fear of women, that is.


3. Very wise.
He seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of gayness. For example, in this cartoon, we have a mincing Jim McGreevey (foot up in the air, apparently wearing a ballet slipper) trying to comfort a weeping Mark Foley (fucker). Now for the real genius, which, as always, is in the details. There is a cocktail with a supergay umbrella in it on Foley's desk, a painting of the Village People on the gay-amoeba-flocked wall, a gayly-empty hamster-cage (hamster suspiciously absent), and the pièce de resistance . . . through a doorway, a darkened bedroom is visible and on the bed is what appears to be a teddy bear (gay) or sheep (spouse/partner, see above) with a big black dildo. I kind of like the teddy-bear/dildo imagery, it's like something out of a high-school zine my friend used to have. Delonas's id is a frightening place, filled with frothing waves of crazy.


Now, write a letter to the Post that won't get read, get drunk on the pinkest cocktails you can find, wear a feathered boa and red heels on Halloween (like I don't always wear a boa and red heels), drive up to Westchester, and shit on some Republican lawns. Film it, call it "Oppression No. 3432: Proustian dreams", post it on your blog. Thanks to viral video, you get discovered, get a book deal, and get paid. Now that is gay.

Welcome to the world, little Yariguies brush-finch!


Scientists discovered a new species of punk-rock-plumaged bird in an undiscovered bit of Andean cloud forest this week, and now the area is going to be a protected national park. Hoorah, little one! In a week filled with terrifying nuclear testing, an assassination of a journalist, and planecrash scares, Orhan Pamuk and this cool-ass bird were the only bright spots. Oh, and the arrival of Carlos, of course! Welcome to the world to you too, peanut.

three cute blue-eyed cubs=one angry tiger stranded on boat

The New York Times is all about trendspotting. You don't say, people use this thing called craigslist for more than just sketchy apartment rentals? Really? People still care about looks even though it's online dating? I think they should do an article about super-snobby subway reading. There are the Post readers (would be treated with barely-veiled scorn, maybe by Michiko herself), the Metro readers (desperate) the Times readers with the intricately (inexplicably!) folded paper turned to the Travel or Books section (professors taking the train up to Columbia, core audience) and then there are the various types of book-readers. Man reading dog-eared Colette? Perv looking to impress . . . impressionable young hipster girl with headphones, who is reading Bukowski but wishing she was reading the new Jennifer Weiner book. Legions reading fat paperback Left Behinds, Zane (et al.) and Terry Goodkind novels (they live in different universes (red states?), critics can't be expected to explain them) . . .

So, according to the Times, the F train is the intelligentsia train, chock-full of aspiring writers and acclaimed novelists (I'm sure someone spotted one of the Jonathans once. I've only spotted Jon Heder and Ana Gasteyer, so it's become the nonstop laugh-track/body odor/unwashed hair/eating large containers of chinese food train to me). I would link you to the article but unfortunately, it's Times Select. But man, is the teaser exciting. So what happened to me on this genius train, finally reading Life of Pi? I actually got a scornful look by some guy reading Notes from the Underground. Please. That was so 1995. Or 1864. At least I was wearing black nail polish when I read it. Whatever. I'm not going so far as to endorse some sort of populist view on literature, because really, it's not for everyone. If it were, we would live in a different sort of world. Platonic? Fascist? We'll never know. But you can't deny that people do check out each other's reading material, just like we try to sneak a peak at each other's iPods. And we make judgments. But everyone should get a get-out-of-jail-free for subway reading, since we're really reading so we won't have to focus that someone's hand is resting on our asses and our heads are cradled gently in some guy's armpit. So, whatever looses you from the bonds of reality, whether it be Dan Brown, lurid headlines or Russian existentialist literature . . . go for it. But, I bet the woman reading the steamy romance novel is escaping from her surroundings a lot more effectively than you, Mr. Dostoyevsky. If looking up every other word in the dictionary interrupts the narrative flow, I guess you'd better get back to imagining that pregnant woman naked. Good thing you didn't offer her your seat.

Did you know that the saying egg-sucking (and the reverse, which I used to use as a pretty big insult as a kid, e.g. Your Red Rover technique sucks eggs!) can refer to the practice of dogs who steal eggs on chicken farms? Of the many things I've learned from Johnny Cash--Juarez is DANGEROUS, you can't build a luxury car from stolen car parts, and frost on cotton leaves means that you're in the South--this one is the most useful. Because while telling someone to go suck an egg (or eggs) can mean something really lewd, that's really not the way we meant it when we were screaming it in the schoolyard. And it's always nice to find a curse that doesn't involve fellatio. G.M., tormentor of my elementary school years, (sigh, did you know how much I loved you, with your puffy hair and yellow adidas shorts?) you're a dirty old egg-sucking dog!

stewart and colbert in '08! Scorn and Zegna suits all around...

And the dork-girls in glasses go doo doo doo, doo, doo, doo . . .

It's not like he said, "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."




(Oh Sherman, when am I going to do a book about you?)

I want to be in a band when I get to heaven...



I went to see the Shins at Mccarren Pool yesterday, and they were really great, even though they played 3 new songs, "the bane of the concertgoer's experience". And the best part of the night was that they forgot the words to New Slang at first, which was awesome, especially if you're a fan of the Shins pre-Natalie Portman and her fucking headphones. I feel that head-bopping and back-and-forth swaying are the dance moves most suited to the Shins, don't you agree? There was a lot of unselfconscious bopping and big smiling going on last night, which was nice.

I almost got crushed in the revolving doors at work today. Let me preface this by saying that over the past 1.9 years, I have had many near misses, always followed by a panicked-looking-around and a nervous giggle. This time I was really distracted, thinking about eating my halal chicken platter feast-lunch (btw, vote for the boys on the northeast corner of 23rd and bway for at least an honourable mention at the Vendy's) and not remembering what the last meal I actually had was, thinking about other things too, like that C., even with her black feet, really does look better in this shirt, and wondering how I could have left the house with pouftastic hair, oh wait, the pouf cannot be escaped or can it be separated from the poufter, and then I also might have been swinging my bag and smiling, the latter of which often throws off my equilibrium (and gives me a cramp) because it happens so rarely. So the combination of various percentages of all of the above made me think I could fit into a 3-inch revolving-door gap. And it could have worked, if there wasn't a very shocked woman (wtf, mullethead, watch where you're going. She really did have a blonde mullet) already in the door. So I swore (more shocked looks) and escaped some horrible injury by about 0.7 inches.

But then I felt better (sore shoulder, though) because I found this hilarious and affirming thing...

...which made me think of this...(see it live). Totally logical.








(map to conversational tangents: overtired distraction-->near death-->goth wedding blog-->goth wedding dress-->sleep=death-->my sweet sweet bed.

Wow, this song has me shaking it in my chair. At work.

Like a tender kiss from Corleone. Sorry, Joe. If you weren't into it (I see indecision in your face), you shouldn't have made out with him out of pity. Any 14-year-old could have told you that.

I once read somewhere that red shoes were only for hookers and children. Me and my red high-heels feel closer to god already...

Update: Remember fat man sweating while eating pudding on the subway platform? From yesterday? That was at Hoyt-Schermerhorn station. Where all good thoughts go to die. And the latest issue of the L Magazine agrees with me. The rape station (urban legend says that a woman was dragged to the abandoned railway track and raped while commuters watched) featured in a section entitled "5 Best Places to Trigger an Existential Crisis":



"Hoyt-Schermerhorn Subway Station Have you ever been to Hoyt-Schermerhorn station, midwife to melancholy? Paint chips cling desperately to rust-stained concrete columns, low-watt bulbs illuminate the grey walls half-heartedly and the approaching rumble of an oncoming train causes the blank-faced passengers to stir reflexively from their torpor."

Ah, torpor. Sounds like lukewarm yellow pudding.

One last thing on this triple-play blogging day. I forgot to add the last strange thing I saw on my train ride in this morning, but it wouldn't have fit into the sexual misconduct theme I had going below. Unless you're into that sort of thing.

My roommate and I were getting off the G to get on the Manhattan-bound C (just crossing the platform) when I saw the horror. A very fat, sweating man sitting on a bench was eating liquidy vanilla/banana/some yellowish pudding out of a styrofoam container. My roommate refused to look because he's a delicate flower, so I thought I would document it here. Looks like sick.

Even though my only experience with this heatwave will probably involve drugs, romance novels and chest hair (see below), apparently some of us are feeling the joie de vivre.

note pinched facial expressions and awkward body positions...ah, romance!

Everyone is obsessed with the weather, how hot it is, how smelly it is, how humid it is, how much sleep you're not getting, how many times you showered versus how many times you should have showered, ad infinitum. I'm going to add my observations to the bunch. I suggest that I'm suffering a lot, maybe just as much as those poor souls (and conscientious objectors) who don't have air conditioning, because I have a summer cold. Can you imagine feeling feverish and woozy in this weather? The bonus is I get to overmedicate. So I'm on the train, fresh off a sick day, and stoned on robitussin (need it, hacking cough) and dayquil (need it, or else will sleep into purchase orders) and I see a few weird things. I mean, weird even by NY standards.



First, I see a woman reading The Virgin ___(not blanked out for any reason other than I couldn't turn my head 90° and read the title unobtrusively), a steamy romance (could tell from the embossed heaving bosoms, tanned male pecs and thrown-back manes of hair). The woman is totally getting into it, perspiring, fanning herself and making little faces at the book. I'm afraid I might witness something that might make me celibate forever, so I turn away. Btw, she was totally the bookish D&D type with flowered summer dress and large spectacles, if anyone was getting unduly excited. I turn around into the sweating chest of a husky (am being kind) sweat-drenched man. He's wearing a grey shiny dress shirt (probably the most unforgiving colour in this weather), unbuttoned to reveal his hairy chest (really, I turned right into his chest hair) and he had a frayed Oscar de la Renta STUDIO tie on (by far, the saddest part of this story). This is the incredible part. He simultaneously shot me a dirty look for bumping into him and stared directly down my top. I felt like applauding. This dude clearly was on his way to a heart attack, had middle-eastern playboy fashion sense (from 1982), and had had a bad morning, but he still had the presence of mind to make me feel bad for klutziness and also slutty for not wearing a top buttoned up to my neck in 100° degree. It was all about inappropriate sexual behaviour on my train ride this morning, kids. I'd almost prefer a run-of-the-mill masturbator. But that could be the blessed cold pills talking.

Our lovely cat, Sam Mathew, passed away this morning. He was the best cat in the world (sorry Sarah), and my sister's boon companion/better half. Brave and strong, with a badass streak (he never met a litterbox that he liked), Sam also had a flair for aesthetics, was possibly gay, and I think, looked a bit like Rimbaud. We'll love you forever.

(JB sucking with a beard at a piano)


For the second time in my life, someone has written a song for me. Instead of pathetic loser singing about me walking through a meadow (hello, had he ever met me before?), this song was written by superfriend extraordinaire, Ms. E. I. Written not in love (but where did that get me?) but in hate, I think. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever read.

(To be sung to the tune of "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt)

You're e-evil

You're e-evil

You're e-evil, it's true

I saw your face

In a pentagram

And I don't know what to do

To escape your black voodoo.

To sign a petition about the banal suckwattage of James Blunt: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/JBSUCKS

Viva l'Italia!

Sports reporter extraordinaire's predictions for the World Cup final:


On merit/In reality: Germany and France
The two best teams. Will be a great match.


For emotional value: Italy and France
Italy hasn't won since 1982, but this will be Zidane's last game in professional soccer.


For relative hotness of players: Italy and Portugal
love love love. Oh, they're great soccer players too.




Franceso Totti (l) and Ricardo (r)

My roommate reminded me that Angelina Jolie was on Anderson Cooper tonight, so while watching a healthy dose of therapeutic Law & Order, I decided to flip to the inanity that is CNN during the commercials.

I know this is pretty heart-of-darkness, and I know that she is doing great things raising awareness in war-torn and poverty-stricken developing countries, but goddamn, she is annoying. Don't you think it takes away from the gravity of the situation when you constantly make reference to how the misfortunes of others makes you cherish what you have (hello, it's a lot) even more? And even though I know the dowager Anderson is omniscient and all-powerful, she still sounded a bit dumb in comparison. Well, Anderson said one idiotic thing, something like, "Don't you wish you could just tell the paparazzi who follow you around to just go to the Congo?". I don't mind him though, because I think fondly back on him tearing a strip off of Trent Lott's back for worrying about his mansion during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And one more thing, the TWO HOUR special was called Angelina Jolie: Her MISSION and Motherhood (caps mine). Tacky CNN, as per usual.

I only saw about seven minutes, so maybe things got better or things got worse, but I was just glad I didn't have to hear about fucking Shiloh again. Fine, I'm bitter. But not because of Brad Pitt or your puffy lips or lesbian icon status. You may nor may not believe this, but a few months ago, after reading a dreadful book on civil war history, I decided the imaginary product of my imaginary love affair with my gbf (a la Doris Day-Rock Hudson but he's not as cute as Rock Hudson was and I'm cuter than Doris Day) should be named Shiloh.

You steal everything, Angelina.

Ack. Totally stoned from novocaine. At work.

Let's see if a monkey really can do my job...

Great birthday weekend. That never happens, usually sunk in self-pitying morass and existential can't-sleep-at-night-sadness (also self-pitying).

p.s. Still have to get my tooth drilled tomorrow.

Watch Fearless Freaks. One of the best rock-u-mentaries I've seen. Except for I Am Trying to Break your Heart.

Jesse fucking Helms?

There's nothing sadder than the death of a childhood crush, is there? Especially a long, drawn-out death, like being shot in the stomach and burbling your last bloody breath out, except instead of the last 5 minutes of a movie, this lasted 15 years. Bono, this is how you did it. With a helpful timeline.


0. My sister and I used to act out the video for "With or Without you" when I was 12, especially the parts when you swung your guitar (didn't notice the leather vest worn shirtless, cringe), memory a bit unclear but I may have been you, and my sister might have been the guitar. Love is still as yet unsprung, as was heavily into Madonna for the only time in my life. N.B. It's funny what the tapes your parents bought for you (Sade, Madonna, Whitney, Blondie) said about your parents. Like, my dad is a total diva and my mom (ABBA and Billy Joel) is a gay man.

1. I fell in love with your blond-frosted mullet when I was fifteen. I loved U2 with all the power of a 15 year-old romantic heart and thought you were rebels and freedom-fighters. You forced me out of a short stint with NKOTB, for which I will always be grateful, no matter how much of a douche you are now.

2. My room became papered with your posters, edging out Motley Crue (sorry, Nikki) and my teddy-bear-pushing-a-wheelbarrow-full-of-vegetables tapestry. My friend even mounted my favourite poster, a Joshua Tree-era black and white concert shot for my birthday one year. Even though my sister soon pierced your mounted crotch with a pair of scissors during one of our epic fights, the altar-like effect of having the huge poster propped up on a dresser surrounded by books and candles was unaffected.

3. Fast forward through the years, I loved your new hair, debuted in the "Mysterious Ways" video (probably why I still have a predilection for slightly greasy guys with leather pants and too-long hair), and even though I cried the first time I heard Zooropa (not in a good way, I came home from school, ran upstairs to my room, put the cd on and then wept for 45 minutes, facedown into my pillow. I am also slightly diva-like) I convinced myself that I could grow to like it and the new stage performer mutiple-personas (wtf, Mephisto?). However, "The Wanderer" introduced me to Johnny Cash, who I will never tire of, so thanks again, douchebag.

4. Now we're at university, and suddenly, even though I'd brought all your cds with me, I found myself listening to very different music. I felt sad about it, like outgrowing a baby blanket. Note, I still bought Original Soundtracks 1 and Pop (which I didn't mind), out of guilt and loyalty.

5. When I moved to Philadelphia for grad school and was severely homesick, All That You Can't Leave Behind was a brief comfort, thank god for Brian Eno (sigh, Roxy Music) and Daniel Lanois, who is amazing and super-underrated as an artist in his own right. But the cheese-factor of "Beautiful Day" and the Salman Rushdie tie-in of "The Ground Beneath her Feet" should have warned me that worse times were to come.

6. And they did, with the monstrous crap that was the How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb album. Watershed moment: the first U2 album that I didn't buy. Not that it mattered, because I didn't have to feel loyal any more. For some reason, you have a new generation of fans who actually like the banal shit that you do now. They also buy your red and black iPod (for shame) and buy into your ambassador for the world schtick.

7. And then you had dinner at the White House.

8. And then you paid thousands of dollars to ship your diva/army/bowler hat, on a first class airline ticket to whatever speaking engagement/pale shadow of a U2 concert you were doing in Italy.

9. But you weren't dead to me until I saw that Mary J. Blige has a cover of "One" on her new "album", and that not only were you not suing her, you were singing with her. Poof. Good luck on your next collaboration with Hillary Duff or Eminem, I'm sure it'll be awesome.

Nostalgiaville, population:1. Top 10 U2 songs.

1. The Unforgettable Fire
2. Where the Streets Have No Name
3. Sweetest Thing (old version)
4. The Wanderer
5. Mysterious Ways
6. With or Without You
7. MLK
8. Red Hill Mining Town
9. Lady with the Spinning Head
10. Ultraviolet

So, three hours later, I'm sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor listening to all of my U2 albums. And singing, a bit tearily. I still can't get the pitch right on "With or Without you" right. Remember when I sang/whispered "Where the Streets have No Name" into a tape recorder and then hid it under my bed? When I played "In a Little While" on the phone for my sister from a million miles away? Damn you, Bono, just when I think I'm done with you..

But you still look like an ass in that Che hat.

El Greco, The opening of the Fifth Seal of the Apocalypse


















Who the hell gets cavities after the age of 11? Maybe you, if you have an all-pixie-stick-all-the-time habit or brush your teeth with lye and Coke. But unless smoking and angst rots your teeth, I think I'm getting a second opinion. That dark spot on my tooth could be anything.

p.s. Clearly, font is brown for rot.
p.p.s. Thanks, fucking Damien, with your number of the beast day. Suggest trying apocalyptic events on a grander scale than my teeth, unless my cavity will set in motion a chain of events that will result in rivers of fire and pestilence falling from the sky. That would be cool. Just do it before 6/19 because I would like to be spared the drilling.
p.p.p.s. Happy 30th, pkl. Yes, your birthday ranks lower than my cavity.
p.p.p.p.s. Must research connection between instant karma and cavities.

There are some days when everything is beautiful.

She just doesn't give a shit...



















I might have done that...













I am sick. Why don't people stay at home when they're sick so as not to infect the vulnerable and whiny? Blech. I've been trying to distract myself with sweet thing like this explodingdog.com Sam Brown illustration...and with funny things like this crazy dude. (see link below). I am going to crawl into bed with soup and Nyquil and watch X-Files. I'm glad I'm not a parent, at least to a child, imagine having to take care of someone else when you're feeling selfish and only want someone to pet your head and feed you tea? Sarah fucking sucks as a caregiver.

http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/05/051606.html

Every sitcom, hackneyed movie, and David Sedaris was right. Holidays can only be tolerated with large quantities of alcohol.

the fluke hates easter too.

The madness has to stop! I'm watching X-Files 24 hrs a day. I just finished season 1 and now I'm on season 2 (and in panic that the X-Files marathon of hermiting could end in the near future, I've already ordered season 3). It's worse than that, I ordered sushi for lunch and falafel for dinner last night, I'm really hibernating.

I'm trying to extricate myself from the tentacles of Mulder and Scully's big love and my renewed belief that the government is engineering viral bees for our destruction by going to Easter dinner today. Ugh, hate the holidays, and I was only able to eat one Cadbury easter creme egg this season. I know, bad for the diet, but those eggs are like sweet crack. And you can't find them anywhere in the city!! I bet hipsters use them in their installation art. Bad mood brought to you by Christian holidays, here I come!

What to say about Matthew Barney? Drawing Restraint 9 was visually and acoustically stunning (though the operatic howling almost drove me mad, Bjork's soundtrack almost overshadowed the movie), and everything else was inexplicable. The narrative was curiously and comfortingly linear, with Bjork and Barney arriving onboard separately and being bathed, clothed, adorned and shaved for an elaborate wedding ritual below-deck on the Nisshin Maru, while the whaling ship operates 'normally' above. Normal meaning that the whalers create a huge Vaseline sculpture on the deck by pouring liquid jelly into a mold. Everything is going well, below and above-deck, and then a storm hits the ship. The sculpture melts and fills the lower deck and the Occidental Tourists unite in love, hacking each other's lower bodies to pieces. Their lower bodies turn into whale tails (fins?) and they end by feeding each other delicate pieces of their own flesh. There were also rocky spines, mermaid-like oyster divers, children singing, priests and shrimp in cement...


I found everything to be ornate and shockingly beautiful, and much more delicate (if vats of petroleum jelly and floating bits of human flesh can be delicate) than the Cremaster visuals. I think the ideas of life and death, creation and destruction were not meant to be subtle, but there was a stark quietness to everything in the movie that lent Drawing Restraint a sense of deep sensitivity and tranquility. Could have used a few more floating testicles, phallic imagery and bees, though.

I just took an "Are you normal?" quiz. Apparently I'm 47% normal:


Wonderful eccentric: You've earned the title of wonderful eccentric, and while you're not a wild, gun slinging maverick, you certainly like to follow your own way. Of course, you probably don't think of yourself as eccentric. As Einstein might say, "It's all relative."

Lame. Of course, I did just buy this hat.

http://www.chatterbean.com/cb/runormal/?INKLE_AB=1

How much do you love the end of Reality Bites? Winona is not a good actress, but Ethan Hawke was luminous. His mojo lasted until 1999. Singles is on right now, vs. my bed.

p.s. My font is brown in Eddie Vedder's honour.

I went to the Bring Em Home concert for peace last night, and the music was pretty great. Though when Rufus sang Hallelujah, I wished it was Jeff Buckley instead, like every time I hear that song. P.S. What do serious neoliberal kids have against dancing? Fischerspooner and Peaches were wasted on that crowd, they would have loved 3 hours of Bright Eyes. Annoying.

before coming undone


Two guys on the train sang 'She's Come Undone' tonight, complete with acoustic guitar and portable drum set; one of the guys came and sat down beside me while singing. They actually started singing 'Smoke on the Water', then stopped and serenaded me with The Guess Who. Have you ever listened to the lyrics of that song? (useful horn section version of the song with lyrics below)

http://users.cis.net/sammy/undone.htm

I'm pretty sure it's about suicide. Thanks, guys.

Since today is Obvious yet Irrelevant Day, as well as well as look-like-the-Cryptkeeper-or-Eddie-from-Iron-Maiden-day (see previous post):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-clooney/
i-am-a-liberal-there-i-_b_17119.html


God, who cares.

I drank coffee too late last night and couldn't/can't sleep. And now it's 4:26am and I'm in the danger zone (remember from when you would stay up all night studying? Past 4am means that no alarm in the world is going to wake you up the next morning). So far, I've read two chapters, realized it was antisocial sleepover (with myself) behaviour, and started uncontrollably watching the following movies:

1. Sense and Sensibility. My favourite movie, not likely to help me sleep.
2. The Shaft. A horribly campy movie about a possessed elevator shaft in the Millenium Building, an analog of the Empire State Building, but then it turned out that the elevator was being experimented on by a rogue Army Intelligence dude who was working on AI and built a computer chip melded with human tissue. Naomi Watts was in it, inexplicably, not a high point for her.
3. Stigmata (on now). Hoorah! I love the cheesy soundtrack to this movie, billy corgan did it...

Oh irony of ironies, Lindsay Wagner and her Sleep Number bed commercial is on tv. I think my sleep number is 48. There are a lot of life insurance, don't leave your family with your funeral bills commercials on this late at night, I feel bad for the old people they're targeting, it seems cold-blooded to take advantage of the fact that they don't sleep much.

This has been super fun, sleepover, but tomorrow I'll be moping around the office, cranky and overcaffeinated. I kind of miss all-nighters, I haven't had one or stayed up this late (and been home) since I left school. No regrets, because I don't want to be reading Plato. Right now, Gabriel Bryne is a dashingly haunted priest, and that's as complicated as it's going to get at 4:36am.

"We believe we are the first to record neural activity from a monkey doing a somersault"

So says a scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle. Apparently when a monkey is free to tumble, sets of neurons controlling opposing muscle groups are both active throughout many movements. Understanding this may be vital in creating a muscle-stimulating prosthesis to restore movement to a limb paralysed by nerve damage.
How can we use this technology to suck billions of dollars away from domestic matters and social programs and make it a crucial aspect of the war on terror? Remote-controlled 'stealth' sharks, of course (always a good idea to 'train' one-ton killing machines for advanced counterintelligence)

Engineers funded by the U.S. military have created a neural implant designed to enable a shark's brain signals to be manipulated remotely, controlling the animal's movements. For spy purposes. This is a fact (newscientist.com), and needs little tweaking to make this into the premise of a blockbuster Michael Bay movie (I don't know how they'll top the genius of Deep Blue Sea, though). In the film, the implant must degrade/go haywire. Either...

1. the sharks become sentient, as the implant degrading causes irregular growth (not cancer, but increased intelligence) in brain matter. They will turn against us.
2. the malfunctioning implant will reverse the direction of the mind-control beam (?), allowing them to control us. We will be forced to raise the sea level to flood our low-lying areas. They will eat us. The people in high elevations will survive, the rest of the movie will be like an Appalachian Mad Max.
3. half the spy sharks go over to the other side and sell Pentagon secrets to Iraqi insurgents, and the other half develops a conscience and realize that the war against terrorism must be fought by all patriotic Americans, humans and sharks alike. Even if it means fighting your brothers. The rest of the movie will be like North and South.


Rise up against the man, shark-brethren!

Why watch the Oscars?

There's a Law & Order Marathon on all night. Jon Stewart should be entertaining, even though he's bloated with self-love. Even though it will be cringe-worthy to see Jack Nicholson stumble onto the stage to give another one of his doddering friends an honorary award for longevity, I do love the clench-jawed clapping of the losers, and the cameras always pan to them when they're names are not called. I would like to see Ang Lee win an Oscar, though I thought the Brokeback sheep were criminally overlooked in the best supporting actor (not gender or species specific) category. Animals are often part of the landscape of a movie, and provide a foil for the characters, e.g. Would Ennis have been as endearing if he hadn't carried a baby lamb on his shoulders across the river? Even though he did leave them to be attacked by wolves, it was to have hot sex (wow) with Jack. Understandable. Arianna Huffington called George Clooney the Karl Rove of the 2006 Oscars, but he's so pretty and suave. He should win the Channeling Cary Grant award/Best recovery after extreme weight gain award. Jordan Catalano could learn something from him. Well, have a beer and a bowl of chili, our Superbowl is about to start...

I'm finally going to see them in Sayreville, NJ. Where is that? Don't know, but maybe there won't be as many NY music snobs there.

I'm watching The Aristocrats, which is hilarious and horrifying. So far, the mime, Bob Saget and Carrie Fisher have told the joke the best. And the Smothers brothers.

Sing, goddess of the wrath of...'The Iliad' by Michael Kors.

I haven't decided whether this is the best or the worst classical allusion I've ever seen.

Why the Iliad?
Maybe it's the epic lines? (Paeans will be sung to these shoes)
The timeless hero legend? (We catch up with one brave woman, in media res, as she spends one full day in these shoes: a morning commute, work (with no kicking off of shoes under her desk) out at night to play and down the rabbit hole, home to Brooklyn, on the train)
The clash of egos? (see above woman vs. Michael Kors, now that I've seen him on Project Runway, I have no doubt I can take him)


It's a beautiful poem, and a beautiful shoe. That's all we need to say.

Happy weekend!

Listening to: The sound of my stomach rumbling (forgot lunch in storm of thrift shopping) and The National. V. good.
Doing this weekend: The Met, again. Dinners and sedateness as opposed to last weekend's hungover haze with my sister.

and this...

(cw from top. Venus and Cupid (Lorenzo Lotto), Ariadne (de Chirico) and Mother and Child (Calatrava)


The Met was beautiful today, and today was a perfect day for it. We cruised (walked) down from the Met to 42nd street (where all good intentions and goodwill goes to die) on beautiful, sunny Fifth Ave. I bought an I love Paris (the city) calendar from the gift shop for a dollar, I figured Atget's photos will remind me that I have to go, and you can't beat spending 2 dollars (one for admission) for a full day of art. Ooh, not to be gross and celebrity stalkerish, but we saw Paul Rudd waiting at the front of the line at the Neue Gallerie (we wanted to get sachertorte, but the lineup was too long. I would have drank coffee though, sachertorte sound gross), and he was way cuter in person, with a Harry Potter scarf and taller. I saw him and said, "Hey, that looks like..." and my friend did a "Wow, that's Paul Rudd". I think he heard and was scared that we were going to rush him. If I didn't crawl into Alan Cummings' lap (spotted Thursday night at Orchid Lounge) I was not going to embarrass myself for Paul Rudd. Like that's true. This was VERY stalkerish, apologies. Back to highbrow. Here are a few of my favourite things from today.