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.

BCE place, Toronto

Magical day off tomorrow, going to see the Calatrava exhibit at the Met. Hoorah for George Washington's birthday.

Baby three-toed sloth smiles for the camera


My first blog written in my pyjamas. To commemorate a day of sushi, The Cutting Edge and my roommate from Japan taking a picture of me with bedhead and an NYPD sweatshirt so she'll remember new york forever....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVPVtUWm0NE

listening to: sufjan stevens illinoise, courtesy of my sister.

For better or worse, I joined a bookclub. Not a joiner, I know, but our first book is The Namesake. What does it matter what a bunch of overeducated women think about this book when A Million Little Pieces of Shame is still #9 on Amazon? But, I did really like this book a lot: I stayed up all night to finish it when I read it for the first time about two years ago. A little contrived (father's love for Russian literature saved him from a train wreck) and a little cliched (protagonist succumbs and marries a Bengali girl, who leaves him for a French scholar. Who wouldn't leave whoever for a French scholar?) but descriptions of cooking for big family parties, sneaking booze and cigarettes, the gulf of misunderstanding separating Indian parent and 'desi' child which only highlights the love and tenderness in their relationship made this book a worthwhile read.

It's been a long time since I posted, I guess contented=more blogging, cranky=less. That doesn't really translate for the great writers of the world, though. Usually when there's more angst, there's more and better writing (and more bad writing, but I digress...) At any rate, rereading Jhumpa (not her good name, btw, but her pet name. I should publish under 'mole') made me miss my mother and father and then not, and miss good food, but the whole book is written with a sense of nostalgia, of moments melding into each other into the blur that is Gogol's 32-year old memory. I can't help but think of Marquez and the vivid prose of a nonagenarian (though Melancholy Whores was not his finest work) and how he treats memory and nostalgia and I think Lahiri has more to grow as a writer. Which is unfair, but whatever. She's gorgeous and young and a Pulitzer Prize winner, I can be jealous...

Turn your speakers up and find out why indeed Anna is cuter.

Website baby Jesus	Anna
Creepy old man whisper	Cute gurgly saliva bubbles
Sad, martyred look	Cheerful wave and peppy smile
Headless floating	Turns over, from stomach to back
Saved people from their sins	Shit up her back, twice

Um. I really miss smoking. Nine days.

So far I've eaten two cookies and looked up a gym membership. Since I've decided to replace cigarettes with wisdom and not food, here's my quote of the day:

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.

So says the Buddha. Peace.

Unfortunately, my house is no longer celebrating the Festival of Lights. Our blue and white lights are no more, we now have far less cheery red white and green lights decorating our house. Too bad, our ecumenicalism might have done some good for our eternal souls. My mom is always worried about that.

Since being home, all they've been talking about on the radio has been the upcoming 2005 Team Canada lineup. Other than the every-Canadian-understands-hockey-and-is-vaguely-interested-in-it-no-matter how-scornful-they-appear theory of genetics, I can't explain why I knew some of their names and teams.

Brendan Shanahan made the team, hoorah. I had a huge 2002 olympics crush on him. You would too.

My first post from home....I still ate too much/not enough of my mom's cooking, she got mad at me for saying something anti-Christian, I haven't had a cigarette in 48 hours (to be remedied momentarily...but i think my dad is bribing me with something big to quit smoking which I promised to do anyway. I feel VERY guilty about this. My sister's friend came out for lunch with us, and I haven't seen her in a long time, and neither have my parents, but they were still asking her advice about me and whether she thinks I would be able to quit smoking. Very convoluted.)

Speaking of convoluted, we went to a Pakistani grocery store/movie rental place and my parents bought a Bollywood movie for us to watch later (cringe) and casava chips (painful that I can be bought off so easily). Like most of us, I revert back to childish behaviour when sleeping in my childish bed, so I stayed in my room after dinner for as along as I could to delay the watching of the movie (called Garam Masala in case want to netflix it) but eventually I found myself curled on my couch with my pajamas from 1998 on and my A Life Without Classics is for the Dogs (obviously a picture of Actaeon being ripped apart by hounds and Artemis on the front) tshirt bonding with my parents. I watched for about 15 minutes and then promptly fell asleep. Let me tell you how awful and boring yet complicated and filled with hijinks this movie was. The sidekick, John Abraham, is an absolute hottie of the David Beckham genus and species (and he's half Malayalee, see above). Which is why we had to watch it, so my parents could convince me that my big fat CPA Indian husband could look like John Abraham. And that's why we always watch M. Night Shyamalan's movies (full-blooded Malayalee) because then they could convince me that my big fat computer programmer Indian husband could be the next Hitchcock. Okay, I must confess, in my search for images, the first 15 were horrible pornstar/Fabio style grossnesses, and this one is actually quite tame and uncheesy...anyway, to sum up the movie was so boring that a cutie like this couldn't keep me awake. At 9:15.

Further descent into childish behaviour, I was sleeping on the couch while my parents are roaring with laughter at the hilarity of Garam Masala (the main character is a player who has 4-5 different girlfriends who are all air-hostesses (and yes, they are called that in Bollywood movies) and thus they're all in town at different times, and he has 4-5 different pictures that he has to keep switching out of a picture frame everytime a different girlfriend comes into town, he has a Shakespearean-style servant (comic relief) who always cooks the wrong favourite food for the wrong girlfriend and then the hottie sidekick who ends up with the girl) and I got mad at them for being so loud and interrupting my sleep. Then they went to bed and I watched The Jacket, which was also shite, don't get me wrong, but I guess it was guys-get-objectified night in our household because I only watched it for the lovely Adrien Brody. I think he looks a little bit Malayalee around the eyes, don't you? God, internet lightning will probably strike twice and he'll sue me for slander for saying that he looks Malayalee. Fine. I think you're cute, sue me, I think you're cute, sue me, I think The Pianist was a bad movie, sue me, but you look good in it, I loved you in Dummy and i'm even afraid of ventriloquist dolls but i'm truly scared of your new ripped King Kong physique, why bother working out and looking all healthy when your face is all heroin chic? it just looks weird and makes me not love you so much when you're fakely posing on a sailboat with your shirt open.


Average age regression per day spent at home: 4.7 years. I should be experimenting with heavy black eye makeup soon and fantasizing about marrying Bono tomorrow morning...

Whoever said that Christmas in New York is a wonderful thing must have been the crackhead on the corner. People are shove-y, there was almost a transit strike (actually, there still might be) and shopping for presents, while wonderful, is exhausting. I'm considering getting everyone The Nightmare Before Christmas next year. EVERYONE.

But here's why I love the holidays:

1. It's almost always a white Christmas in Toronto. I think I'll always feel like a little kid, getting up early and running to the window to see the snow. This year my cigarette butts won't be littering the snow.
2. We usually go to see a movie with the whole family every Christmas, this time is Syriana I think. I love the fact that our movie choices have nothing to do with Christmas cheer.
3. I get to see my friends back home and sleep over in Anne's guest bedroom and she always puts flannel penguin sheets on the bed. HEART!
4. This year I get to meet Patti's baby and see her menagerie...oh and see Sault Ste. Marie for the first time. Somehow that's less thrilling than seeing the new family...
5. Our house always has blue Chanukah lights and since the majority of my neighbourhood is of non-Caucasian heritage, no one cares or thinks it's weird.
6. My mom gets more excited about Christmas than we do.
7. My mom always puts money in our stockings and tell us not to tell our dad.
8. I'm 30 and I still get a stocking.
9. My mom has great taste in sweaters and I always score...
10. My dad still does the, "I have to shower and eat breakfast first before we open our presents" charade, I guess the best thing about Christmas is the continuity and sense of tradition and family. Cheesetastic! but true.
11. We always have appam and chicken curry for breakfast...since I had leftover sushi for breakfast this morning, it'll be nice to have homecooked meals.

Sadnesses:

1. New Year's Eve always sucks.
2. My cat will be here and lonely.
3. A lot of people commit suicide.

So, happy holidays, loyal readership. I'll see all 4 of you back home. Chanukah rocks!

I've had a bad day.

hilarious.

i like her style, even though her mother insists on dressing her in wal-mart clothing.

what does patti like to wear, you ask?

j. crew.

anna baby, when you want to be emancipated at 18, come to me and i'll give you some good dish on your mom.

Nobody knows you...

I'm sick, I need to stop listening to this band. So you start listening to them. Canadians unite. http://www.newmusiccanada.com/genres/artist.cfm?Band_Id=11211

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANNA!

Two months, and you finally look like your mom...I know you're going to be beautiful but try not to talk at any great length about the perfection of your nose; it tends to foster resentment (loving) in others. . .

Ephemeralization vs. CNN morning news

I woke up this morning and felt like watching the news instead of the Weather Channel, so I turned on CNN. Guess what? Jon Stewart isn't a comic genius, he's just an astute observer of the car crash that is the American media. I know, why beat a rotting, liquefied, already-reincarnated horse to death? Because it's fun. Here's what I learned this morning.

Ben Bernanke:

1. scored 1590 on his SATs (so did Bill Gates, but Paul Allen scored 1600)
2. skipped classes at M.I.T. in 1975 to watch the world series (CNN commentator: "I guess that makes him a Red Sox fan; a man can't be perfect)
3. used to work at South of the Border
4. did well in English classes
5. won the South Carolina state spelling bee, missed the word 'edelweiss' (dumb fuck, I wouldn't have missed that one)

Nothing about his background, his politics, his economic world view. Then, in a very natural segue, the idiot anchorpeople started talking about VH1. It might have been a slow news morning, but if Bruce Springsteen is releasing a remastered Born to Run boxset today so how slow could it have been? They could have just played that song for 30 minutes with stills of Bruce punching the air and it would have had more social relevance than CNN news stories. Sickening.

At least Bernanke is smart. Academic credentials never impress me (some of the biggest assholes I've ever met have been Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford grads) but MIT grads do. I just imagine superconductors and compression machines and giant magnets and lasers...hoorah! I'm sure that in another life, when I was born with an real attention span and an abstract-problem-solving capability, I was a mediocre computer programmer who ended up marrying someone who was an MIT professor and we had a long unhappy marriage filled with inadequacy, emasculation, eyeglass prescriptions for our children and mathematical sex. Hence my geek fetish.

Interesting fact. Wikipedia has a list of polymaths through time (don't anyone steal that book title, something like Pigs in Space... Polymaths through Time...) Nat Hentoff and Nick Cave made it on the list!!! So did Condoleezza Rice (she plays the piano and brokers fake peace treaties in the Middle East--genius.) and Danica McKellar (that chick from the wonder years that every guy my age inexplicably adored. She had a huge moon face. ) , who apparently is a mathematician.

But my genius pinup is Richard Buckminster Fuller. My favourite molecule (actually, most people's favorite molecule C60), Buckminsterfullerene, is named after his geodesic dome design. But he should have more things named after him, he was a true genius, philosopher and crazy as shit. He was also expelled from Harvard for dancing and lack of motivation. Any enemy of Harvard is a friend of mine...

Another reason to hate the wedding. I lost my lipgloss there. I know that sounds really Heathers, but come on. I really loved that lipgloss. I bite my lips a lot and thus ingest a lot of lip gloss, balm and lipstick, and for my money, this stuff was the best going down.

I know that you all are dying to hear about my cousin wedding. First, I tried on one of my mom's saris. To her credit she did pick a beautiful black one out for me; she is my mother after all. Well, the blouse was too big (big hooters mom) and since a sari really depends upon the fittedness of the blouse (the rest having a drapey curtain-like effect), I looked pretty silly. So I ended up wearing my Michael Kors shirt and a tiered skirt and 3-inch heels, same old coconut girl. Brown on the outside, white...I hate that, I shouldn't perpetuate that racist shit. Total of three 'so, when are you getting married?' inquisitions (not including my own parents). By the end of the night I decided to have fun with it . One 'auntie' said, "I'll get you married" and tried to drag me out to the dancefloor for the dance part of my wife audition, I assume. Actually, I had already had a few watered-down drinks by that point (not enough, not nearly enough. I don't blame them for watering down the drinks, I saw that pitiful tip jar) and of course, alcohol+yasmin's blood+any music other than house music=painful urge to dance, so I ended up dancing for about 45 seconds to...Runaround Sue. Sigh. Another 'uncle' asked me when I was going to get married and I told him I was already married and walked away. He was a pervert, he deserved it. The worst/best moment was this horrible drunk Indian woman (Ever been to a wedding with a deserted open bar? To avoid the shame of actually getting a drink from the bar and having every woman in the room counting your drinks, some of the men went for the flask of Chivas in their jacket pocket option. Smart. But Indian women aren't supposed to drink at all, she was an anomaly...) accosting Liz' (bride) mom in the bathroom...here's how it went:


Dramatis Personae
Setting: Sheraton hotel bathroom
Drunk auntie (millionaire, so can act however she wants, D.A.M)
Bride''s mother, (blond-bobbed unwitting victim (B.B.U.V), she was actually wearing a powder-blue suit, poor dear)
Two women in the background, dressed in black, laughing hysterically, playing the role of the Chorus, manically washing cigarrette stink off their hands)

DAM: So, you finally got your daughter married. But she's the oldest, isn't she?
Chorus: (whispering) Oh no she didn't...
BBUV: Yes, she has two younger sisters. They're very happy for Liz. (trying to leave, DAM is holding on to her sleeve to continue the conversation)
DAM: Now you just have to get them married too. I have been married for 35 years with two grown children who are both doctors and they're both happily married with children. At least Liz finally got married. You better get Liz and Angus to give you a grandchild soon.
Chorus: (whispering) Her carrot-red dye job and sweet disposition must be the reason for the longevity of her marriage, she's absolutely irresistible...
BBUV: Well, they did just get married, we should give them some time.
DAM: Of course, of course. But they shouldn't wait too long.

Exeunt BBUV (running) and DAM (stumbling)

Chorus: (addressing the audience) Even though this was funny, it was also tragic. A good person/Chorus would have stepped in and tried to change the subject or lighten the mood. But knowing the nature of Indian mother on the prowl for an audience for a recitation of her children's accomplishments, whose joy is only ever fully realized when she can simultaneously inflate her own ego (has married doctor children) and deflate yours (unmarried, aging smoky girl with bare legs and no sari), the Chorus chose not to engage the predator for fear of bringing the full force of her velociraptor gaze upon themselves. It's every woman for herself in the land of the emasculated man and the determined mother. And you wonder why Indians almost had the world's first female prime minister (damn you, Siramavo Bandaranaike) ?


Scene

P.S.

Anna is so freaking cute. I asked for a baby bath picture of her, because those are the the cutest and babies look like little tadpoles or little worms. Judge for yourself. I love obese babies the best, with the rolls on their arms and on their knees, and Anna is fairly skinny (damn you, Patti), but there are a few budding rolls on her arms. Good girl, keep up the relentless breast-feeding, Patti can take it.

I'm going home to Toronto for a few days for my cousin's wedding. Should be okay. I don't think I'll wear a sari because I'm pmsing and feel like the Michelin man, but I do have something nice to wear. Too bad, mom, all black is very chic. I miss my friends back home so it will be nice to see them, and I hear my sister has a paper she needs help writing.

Shocking.

I saw The Piano Teacher last night, jesus. I know I have sort of a Victorian thing going, but that's really limited to manners, gagging at horrible smells and my distaste for handling money. Oh and the colonial heritage thing. But Isabella Huppert masturbating with a straight razor was a bit much for me. It was excellent though, shocking and disturbing, but subtle and funny as well. Isabelle Huppert is a daunting, prim-looking conservatory, master-class teaching piano teacher who lives with her demented mother and her 'love' interest is a gorgeous blonde puppyish boy who literally bounces around with enthusiasm, talent and everything beautiful and shiny. She says at one point, to paraphrase, "You're so good looking that you will never have to suffer anything". It was oddly easy to identify with her, even taking into account her extreme sadomasochistic urges, I guess all marginal people in the world have to unite against the blonde, brilliant and beautiful (he even played hockey). But she isn't a victim either, she lashes her students and uses her intelligence as a weapon. I thought of my father who took this movie out from the library by mistake. He called me up to tell me, because he was so horrified, but was too prim to tell me why it was so shocking...

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5, lost a point for the razor scene). If you think you're into S&M because you liked Secretary, this movie is not for you.

I woke up with heartburn this morning, I think I got it from watching this movie. Downgrade. 3.5 stars.

Spear of bees! If another shitty day like this one happens along, I will cut through it with a spear made of bees. I'm not crazy, this phrase was originally coined to describe PJ Harvey's guitar skills, but I'm adopting it. Reasons why today sucked so hard:

1. Nor'easter.
2. Because of Nor'easter, flat hair and having to wear most-hated coat ever that makes me look twelve
3. Avalanches and snowballing effect of work-related woes and fires that needed to be put out that I was instead fanning in hopes that it would burn the whole damn thing down.
4. A nice blogger was fired from Conde Naste (bastards, want to hire me?) for putting work-related stuff on his blog
5. Cute art department boy spoke disparagingly about girls who wore all black as I walked by to pick up my ugly art (the only non-black thing on my person, including my thunderous face)
6. My mother called me three times at work on my cell
7. I forgot to put on antiperspirant.
8. I woke up before my alarm and couldn't go back to sleep
9. My coworker, who is the willing/captive ear for all my work-related woes and otherwise (don't feel bad for him, I make them funny) is on vacation. I'm talking to myself mostly.

Reasons why tonight will be better:

1. Netflix
2. I love my cat
3. Red wine
4. Nor'easters sound lovely when tucked into bed
5. I still love my fishnet tights I wore today, I will give them an approving pat on the shoulder before I throw them in the wash ( invariably, to be chewed up. Wash them by hand, jerk.)
6. Listening to PJ Harvey and imagining all bad things in the world being eaten up by a swarm of skinny, but fierce English bees.

Ciao.

On the UPN news last night (whatever, I was watching America's next top model) one of the top stories was about angry Park Slope parents (aren't they adorable?) who got a racy billboard removed because it was across the street from a school. I assume they accomplished this by throwing millet at the offending billboard, firing off irate letters to their local city councilperson on recycled protest paper, and shielding their children's eyes with handknit balaclavas. What are Park Slopers worried about anyway? It's not like this will encourage their children to have sex. They grew from pods, as will their children. Why hate on Park Slope so much, you ask? Because there's a fucking crack house across the street from a primary school in my neighbourhood that hasn't quite made the news yet. From Eugene Mirman's column 'Around Town':

Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill and Park Slope are beautiful neighborhoods filled with everything from delicious restaurants to shops that sell weird crappy glass things from Europe. Hey, do you know where I could get a children's shoe made of silver to hang in my kitchen? Yes, there are five stores for that. Where can a guy go to get a glass penis with eagle wings (hand crafted in Vermont!)? Where can't you buy that, fuckface? Is there an accessories store whose tag line is "Peace is always in fashion"? Yes. Finally, a skirt that says (through its spirit of design), "We should not have entered Iraq under false pretenses," or a pair of mittens that frown upon America's actions in Chile.

To all Torontonians should recognize this wasteland as Yorkville sounding, but at least there are fucking couture shops there. This is just food co-ops, bad clothing stores and gelaterias (go Brooklyn!). For about five more minutes, my neighbourhood is going to stay dirty, with no bookstores and one Brazilian coffeeshop and real children playing in schoolyards (pity about the crackhouse though), just the way it should. Until the pod people move in. You can't defeat the pod people. I've always wanted blonde hair in braids and a Che t-shirt, I could maybe do it.

A man was standing on the median at Broadway and 23rd, in front of the Flatiron during the 1pm runtogetfedbeforerushingbacktothecubes witching hour, just lounging. A brave woman/coworker/tourist asked, "Are you getting some fresh air?" and he said, "I just got my divorce settlement and thought I would just hang out here and think about it". Really, I couldn't have made up a better joke that had to be followed by a drum roll.

I'm locked up in my office feeling very antisocial right now. Inexplicably, because it's beautiful outside and I just had spicy tuna rolls and seaweed salad. I think it's the lag time between eating and the nutritive proteins getting metabolized and in about twenty minutes I'll be my normal tweaking self.

I went to see Neil Jordan's latest movie, Breakfast on Pluto, last night. It was good, even very good. Cilian Murphy makes one beautiful woman, but unfortunately, is only really hot when his head is shaved, when he's covered in blood and being chased by zombies. But still, he rocked a turquoise peignoir and platform boots.

Your Personality Profile

You are elegant, withdrawn, and brilliant. Your mind is a weapon, able to solve any puzzle. You are also great at poking holes in arguments and common beliefs. For you, comfort and calm are very important. You tend to thrive on your own and shrug off most affection. You prefer to protect your emotions and stay strong.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

All of this is true, of course. I mean, either they are true (thriving on own like camel, cactus etc!) or they are the things that I would love to be true (elegant, wtf). I find myself wondering about Patti's baby, what kind of personality is she going to have. I just got new pictures, here's my favourite.

Ode to Anna

You are red and white and beautiful
(can you get any more Canadian?)
Forget secession, frenchies, this is a
maple-leaf baby
Your poop is a weapon
There's vomit in Patti's hair
Don't lick the cat litter
If your parents teach you French
I'll teach you Greek or Latin
(not both, because I want you to have friends)
But, if you ever get me sick
This love affair is over.
Babies are Typhoid Marys
I'll still send presents, though.
Clash CDs and smutty poetry
Grow up fast
We already love you more
Than we do your mother.
Love, Aunt Yasie

p.s. bad purple can happen to good people. I chose it as the accent colour on my business cards and it looks like a muddy brown. This purple looks pretty shitty too. Thanks, Anna.

I have something against watching movies with 'happy' or 'good' in the title. They are often quite the opposite. Except for Happy Gilmore and Goodburger. Don't get me wrong, I prefer morose to peppy all the time, but if I know from the beginning that something is going to be stab-you-in-the-heart depressing, it's hard to get motivated to see it. But I saw Happy Together (love love love Netflix) finally. It was so beautiful, of course, and I have a hardcore crush on Tony Leung (for obvious reasons, see right) and I would give anything to see the world in Wong Kar-Wai's reds and oranges and yellows and shadows. It was achingly, squirmingly, and ordinarily sad, with the occasional laugh that jarred you out of your complete absorption in the movie. Moments like being woken up in the middle of a feverishly ill night to cook for your lazy, broken-handed boyfriend, like having to buy cigarettes for him at 3am, it was the ordinariness that was both touching and funny.

About the humour in everyday life, I fell down the stairs yesterday. Just another highlight in a miserable week of trying to quit smoking and failing, of worrying about my friend and her cancer scare, and then feeling depressed that the threat of cancer looming all around isn't quite scary enough to make me quit smoking, and then feeling ashamed because somehow everything always has to be about me, thinking I was head-injured, and having a battle of wills (in my mind, but as she probably doesn't give a fuck, I guess that means she wins the battle of wills hands down) with my useless fucking roommate who will never clean the kitchen. Oh, and I killed a huge Chernobyl cockroach that FLEW into my room this week. I thought cockroaches only flew in the southern hemisphere (payback for hot weather, mangoes and lychees all year round). Money also makes me feel blue. I have to pay back my student loans and the monthly payments are not small, so I want a laptop (need) and want to go to Paris to use up my vacation before I lose it (yeah, I know, Paris is so over) and I can't do either. Wow, tears just filled my eyes, I have to stop and have a laugh-at-myself-for-the-pity-party and get-some-perspective moment. I guess I just have to get my ass in gear and try to get more freelance work.

I guess this is what mundane sounds like. It's not expansive blue-washed waterfall scenes and beautiful people looking sad in cabs. It's killing fucking cockroaches, forgetting to buy cat litter, being poor, hating your roommates and having an ugly bruise on your shoulder that looks like stretch marks.

Here's something that isn't false advertising. A list of truly happy movies. Not poignant happy, or a succession of tragedies ending in one small happiness, or huge romantic happy movies that make you feel sad about your life, but real I-feel-like-hugging-myself-afterwards and kissing the world happy movies:

1. Anne of Green Gables (epic, romantic, CANADIAN! orphan makes good story, what more could you ask?)
2. The Cutting Edge (included in the 'any dance movie is cheerful' category)
3. When Harry Met Sally (you must sing 'Surrey with the Fringe on top' for this to work)
4. Any Jane Austen book adapted for the screen. I highly recommend Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma (shudder, Gwyneth). Hijinks in pinafores, repressed lust and choreographed dances in drawing rooms!
5. Whale Rider (uplifting movie, totally kickass little girl and Maori tattoos)
6. 200 Cigarettes. (Great music, Dave Chapelle, and finally the right girl ends up with the right guy, Janeane Garofalo + Elvis Costello)
7. Se7en (happy movie only for me because Gwyneth Paltrow's head gets chopped off)
8. Sneakers (any hacker movie with themes of bringing down big business. See Hackers, Antitrust, WarGames, The Net)
9. Eat, Drink Man Woman (most movies about food fall into this category, not cannibalism a la The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her lover or Hannibal (both very cool though), or stupid Big Night, but greats like Scent of Green Papaya, Like Water for Chocolate, Mystic Pizza...which brings me to the final and the most perfect happy movie ever, that is romantic, uplifting, funny, and murderous and empowering and timeless and perfect....
10. Fried Green Tomatoes. Everything about this movie is wonderful, and just because you cry everytime doesn't mean it isn't happy. We just do that sometimes.