kidchamp dot net: cautionary tales

04.20.05

and with that, our five-minute spring is over! it's been muggy all day, with the gusts of energetic wind that come before storms. i loved those when we sublet in inwood and i snuck out to dance on the roof; not so much in our building now, as the stairs collect water and i end up doing butt-plants on the stoop. must protect the ass for its second photo shoot next month; it needs all the help it can get. yesterday was our sixth anniversary - anniversaurus, as i think it should be called. we eschewed fripperies and had dinner at kashkaval, a gourmet deli / restaurant up ninth avenue. joe called their fondue the best he'd ever had, and a friendly cat wound around our ankles. a good night.

more of my gimpy shirt design up for punishment at threadless; no harsh words yet, but i'm sure they'll come. planning a floral pattern with disembodied abraham lincoln heads - results, as always, to follow.

can't stop the rats, can't-stop-the-rats: today's inflatable, in front of the brooklyn diner, features a red MTA baseball cap. i find the diner fairly gross, but the business park next door just planted tulips and smells like glorious fresh sod. mmm, sod.

rats: 3.5
star: 3

04.18.05

my design for the threadless / maxim hot 100 contest is up and running for the next four days; drop by and join the circle of angst, won't you?

04.14.05

rodents and the red carpet, episode 3: it's getting heated. saw jessica hecht (aka ross's ex-wife's new wife from friends) on the way home from the video cafe; while wondering whether or not to count her (conclusion: 0.5), passed ethan hawke on a cell phone. the giant rat struck back this morning in front of the red eye cafe (home of the dancing shrimp).

rats: 2.5
star: 3

whiled away the hours yesterday by designing a shirt for threadless (with emergency layer help from lesley); am sure it will be savaged by the regulars, but it kept me busy. will update if i make it past the submission trolls.

music quiz-a-roo from bluishorange: the following are twenty of my favorite bands/artists. figure out my favorite song by each, and i'll post the correct guess/guesser. this isn't as exciting as it would be if i had alison's readership, but hey. write to cuttlefish[at]gmail[dot]com, as always.

ac/dc: (you shook me) all night long [paul]
belle & sebastian: this is just a modern rock song [jacob]
belly: spaceman [jacob]
david bowie
the cars
johnny cash: folsom prison blues [erin]
the clash: spanish bombs [paul]
elvis costello
the cure: just like heaven [paul]
the magnetic fields: 100,000 fireflies [mari]
modest mouse
pavement
pulp
rasputina
the rolling stones: shattered [jacob]
the smiths
throwing muses: cry baby cry [paul]
the velvet underground: sweet jane [sara]
the who: a quick one while he's away [joe]
wilco

04.13.05

fun with photos continues: i've uploaded johnny cash, he of the needlepoint project that took an extra week when i screwed up, and have started cobbling together a wee art page at getcrafty (see sidebar). in the unreasonably swelled head department, someone wrote after seeing my first piece to talk about a mini-show in her gallery. i hardly have the requisite quantity for something like that, but yay for props! the craft ego loves 'em.

pitch black (++1/2). tight little sci-fi / horror flick: because the beasties are so rarely seen, one has little time to become annoyed with CGI. i quite like vin diesel as riddick (so much, apparently, that i dreamed last night of a water pistol shootout between him, me, and a pregnant woman at disneyland's haunted mansion), and i appreciate david twohy's willingness to kill just about everyone. joe points out that the beast-screeches sound like the police cruisers that swoop by our window. props to vin for delivering "did not know who it was fucking with" sans giggles.

the chronicles of riddick (1/2). someone's got some bad dirt on judi dench, i'm guessing: sure it's fun to play an elemental, but it can't have been worth being associated with this movie. one of my favorite fake words, necromonger (someone who raises shellfish from the dead), is redefined as 'englishmen with mullets who talk to puddles,' and shame on everyone for that. poor use of a good character, nonsensical plot, stupid ending. this ain't pitch black 2, it's the scorpion king redux. blech.

04.11.05

and there was great rejoicing: as i now have a digital camera, kidchamp can genuinely join the brave old world of photoblogging. more importantly, i can bombard getcrafty with pictures of my needlepoint. world, meet the debbie harry project that sucked up my summer of '03. the color is far more even than it appears, but whatever.

in the clash between celebrities and the union rats, the combatants are neck and neck: came across rudy giuliani (0.5 in each category) at regis high's production of romeo and juliet on friday and saw sex and the city's chris noth emerge from the 49th street N/R station on saturday.

rats: 1.5
star: 1.5

04.08.05ii

celebrities v. the union rats: who will rule?

as of today, tracking personal sightings of page six manhattan notables and the giant rodents who pop up when big business goes bad. on a walk around the block just now, big-ass critter in front of hooters.

rats: 1
star: 0

(with apologies to anne sexton)

04.08.05

happiest of birthdays to jen, who reaches the ripe old age of, say, twenty one today. which means that i am twenty. which is awesome. i will give you your birthday hug, my dear, when we frolic at ye olde five year college reunion this fall.

penning a page for the reunion class book was less taxing than it could have been; i suppose it will be more stressful when we've been out for ten years, or twenty five years, and everyone is talking about winning pulitzers and their trilingual children. this time i managed to include the words procreate, grave digger, and cockroach while summarizing my life, and i feel very arty.

bless the giant newsstand for its copies of zyzzyva; it's quite agreeable to read west coast poetry in manhattan in the spring. howard, if you're out there, great issue.
A reader writes to complain
that there are no cellphones in my poems,
so here is one,

its body chrome,
its face a metallic blue.
It's neither transmitting nor receiving.

A woman from Duluth requests
that I cease sending secret messages
to her in my poems.

This I will do forthwith.

And the blackbird at evening.

She says, You have misrepresented the river
there where it turns

by the holm oak and the bed
of winter hyacinths.

This I will correct.

(michael palmer, from "night gardening," zyzzyva xxi, 1)

04.07.05

the having of an office is marvelous; the decorating of an office is laborious. i have more storage here than at my apartment and am tempted to fill a particularly large file cabinet with my winter clothes; am discouraged by the thought of, if fired one day, having to do the walk of shame with a pile of sweaters and long underwear. one shelf is packed with back issues of my magazine, another with connoisseur '88-'91, another with things like butterworth's medical dictionary, dr. susan love's breast book, and the quotable woman 1800-1981. these are not mine.

purchased for office:

- incredible hulk knitted finger puppet
- chartreuse fiestaware bud vase
- silverplate sugar caddy, c. 1900 (for pens)

from the swag table and the beauty closet, repurposed for office:

- poster-size mag cover blowup feat. angelina jolie (slim pickings; my boss has one of prince harry)
- western-style frame from a very special lunch with matthew mcconaughey (photo removed)
- "dirty girl" chalkboard
- apple green leather notebook
- bottles of perfume (3), scented candles (2), pots of bath salt (4)

i'm working on it.

04.01.05

i'd update you on the ass adventure, but the fireworks are over for now; the next few weeks are frantic trips to the gym and daily treatments. no change in cellulite, but i have the smoothest butt ever.

thank you, m. qwantz, for inventing the best format for music ever - that is, songs as lists. ex (tm offensive_mango):

Things which I will do for love:

- Anything

Things which I will not do for love:

- That

{champ status log, via twitter}

and you will know us by the stuff we've read (the recent dozen, plus a few stragglers):

faithful place (tana french) :: super sad true love story (gary shteyngart) :: the drowned library (paul kerschen) :: travels in siberia (ian frazier) :: death be not proud (john gunther) :: the magician king (lev grossman) :: mockingjay (suzanne collins) :: catching fire (suzanne collins) :: the hunger games (suzanne collins) :: the silver swan (benjamin black) :: life (keith richards) :: the magicians (lev grossman) :: the pale king (david foster wallace) :: villette (charlotte brontë) :: homer's odyssey (gwen cooper) :: christine falls (benjamin black) :: cloud atlas (david mitchell) :: ghostwritten (david mitchell) :: a visit from the goon squad (jennifer egan) :: neon angel: a memoir of a runaway (cherie currie with tony o'neill) :: the ask (sam lipsyte) :: coco chanel (justine picardie)