05.30.07

ah, the first stirrings of summer in new york, when a young woman's fancy turns to thoughts of o god i should wear the air conditioning unit as a backpack. it isn't actually that warm, yet; joe posits that we've developed an addiction to constant cold air and are deeply unnatural creatures. my only defenses are that my customary body temperature is low (around 96.8), and that i stored so much pretty sparkly sunshine by growing up in southern california that i don't have to feel the day star on my shoulders, or hear anyone speak without irony, ever again. who can say?

work is easing up, as my new associate has finally arrived and the current issue of the magazine is queuing up for the publisher in a calm and orderly fashion.* i've gotten over the fear that having to boss someone around would lead to my death (my issues with authority figures have nothing on my issues with being an authority figure) and have gotten to the stage where i just want her to like me. it's tough to tell how things are going so far: i'm trying to be friendly and supportive, but i keep forgetting that the first few days at a new job can be crazy intimidating, and that i should let her get her shit in order on her own. we needn't braid each other's hair.

the other upshot of the work-settling is that we should finally be able to vacation; i've let go of my dreams of a "woo new job!" trip to iceland (flights are cheap, but nothing else is), but i plan to get to california and chicago as soon as is humanly possible. in the interim, jake is doing us the favor of coming out for the weekend so i will have someone to cry with about the end of veronica mars (for the record, i think the last two episodes worked quite well as a series finale - long live LoVe!). this is a good thing, and there are more (hopefully very cold) good things a-comin'.

*by the end of the last closing period, by contrast, i was hovering at my phone at 10 pm waiting for do-or-die calls about porn. it was unpleasant.

05.29.07

work is eating my life. here is stuff.

brain dump 003 [05.07-06.07]

mesh cloche from mothology (the second picture down on the right). i have no business buying outfits for my herbs, given that most of them are long gone, but these are sexy as hell - what sweet basil plant wouldn't flourish beneath such finery? also, i could sneak one onto joe's head as he sleeps.

fafarazzi.com, a "fantasy celebrity league;" earn points when your celebs spawn, overdose, try to sneak a gun through the airport, and so on. believe it or not, i'm probably too squeamish to take pleasure in doing well at something like this; i'd go for fantasy soap league instead (earn points when your characters are possessed by satan, &c), but that's joe's specialty.

the harry-est town in america, amazon's list of the folks who pre-order the most copies of harry potter and the deathly hallows. i am shocked, in all seriousness, that palo alto is not on this list. [okay, shocked when i first started this post. it's getting up there now.]

sweet deliverance, a community-supported agriculture distributor ("You can also sign up for fresh flowers [zinnias, snapdragons, sunflowers], eggs, dairy, and cheese"). i lunged at this - a green market at our door! - before i realized that the food is prepared as well as selected for you. alas, we can't spend $250/wk (!) for fancy organic food; this sure makes the people who spend $40/day on zone chefs food look like suckers, though.

white lion babies, not to be confused with the other kind.

the new york times loves the future perfect. i admit that i feel terribly superior for having owned two jason miller pieces ("i was here" tables) since '03.

learning to love you more, the book! both jen and i got e-mails about being considered for publication, but mine (which arrived yesterday) had a note about dpi; sadly, my documentation might not be clear enough for reproduction. this is what i get for being too chicken to upload huge files (and for deleting old photos from my camera). ironically, i had the same problem a day earlier, when an nyc lesbian lifestyle magazine wanted to use my photo of water taxi beach (warning: no lesbians in picture, probably). boo.

personal news, other than the work-life-eating? at a dinner party last night, i sat across from a woman who had an affair with brando. she also performed with a heap of jazz greats, and had fantastic stories that involved things like staying up all night in a crappy west side hotel rehearsing with duke ellington as the cleaning people vacuumed the empty corridors. okay, that's not really personal news, but damn was she cool.

05.14.07

101 in 1001: 090 walk the length of manhattan [completed 05.13.07]

the manhattan challenge: frequently asked questions

Q. why 'the manhattan challenge'?

joe wanted to call it the tenderfoot challenge, for lordy did we hurt by the end, but i reject the newbie association: i'll have you know that i hiked 11 miles from glacier point at yosemite, um, a decade and change ago. i liked 'the manhattan project,' but then sarah told us a terrible story at dinner last night about nuclear wind blowing the skin off of horses in japan.

Q. what was your route?

we started at the henry hudson bridge (220th) and followed broadway down to columbus circle, where we switched over to eighth avenue until we got below times square; then we took seventh ave until it turned into varick, followed varick south for a while, and cut east until we hit broadway again - then broadway, more or less, all the way to battery park.

Q. why north to south?

because no one wants to end up exhausted in inwood at dusk. trust me, i lived there for three months. a guy who blogged his south to north trip (on the east side, moreover) sounds like he had a much sexier time than we did - resting on the steps of the met! - but celebrating the end in battery park sounded much better. also, we hit the most interesting (and unfamiliar) stuff in the first hundred blocks or so; if we'd done the trip in reverse, i'd have been too tired to check out washington heights. washington heights smells fantastic, by the way.

Q: any advice for other folks who want to do the walk?

1: bring your own toilet paper.
2: don't wear rings; your hands will swell.
3: take advil before you leave.

Q: how long did it take?

subtracting time for brunch at columbia, about four and a half hours. before and after we hit the aimless mass of humanity that is the upper west side, we averaged about a block a minute. this made me feel like a badass, at least until i remembered that jen will be running twice as far (we walked about 15 miles) in a few months.

Q. would you do it again?

totally, but not for a while - and i'd probably do the east side instead, even though i wouldn't be able to pee at my own apartment.

Q. hey, can you feel your legs today?

no.


click on the photo up top to go to ye olde photo set (i snapped something every ten blocks or so, at least for the first few hours). more questions? hit me.

05.10.07

i made a big hippie salad for dinner on monday. it was good - i've been eating it for lunch all week - but the best thing about it is the exotic frisson associated with saying quinoa aloud. "keen-wahh," i said in a worldly voice as i presented the bowl to joe. we both contemplated it. "hey, they're all wearing hula hoops!"

i miss tony blair already. is that wrong?

05.03.07

brain dump 002 [04.07-05.07]

anthony lane's spider-man 3 review. not sure when anthony lane took over for pauline kael as my new yorker critic of choice, but he kills me. on tobey maguire: "Dumbest of all is the change of hair style, as Peter stops combing his bangs sideways and lets them flop down over his brow. He looks like the bronze medalist in a teen-age Hitler-impersonation contest."

two zesty clips via cute overload, a site that usually focuses on tiny toes and hamster tongues:* an '06 championship dressage routine (beautiful if you're into equestrian events, worth it - if you aren't - for the way the rider hugs his horse at the end**) and (the) private life of a cat. a 22-minute, maya deren-produced film of a mum bearing and raising her kittens. the latter, i think, is what i'd project on the wall if i ran an arty bar - leavened with an occasional meshes of the afternoon showing.

'artie' the artichoke, scottsdale community college's mascot. i discovered him in a random craft search, but joe and artie go way back, since they're both from arizona. scc shirt acquisition is underway.

why i want to own an apartment, part 332: so that i can hang sinister old skool wallpaper, which would be way too expensive and self-indulgent in a rental. i'm particularly fond of "bat and poppy," "rook and holly," and "whoot," but $7/foot - yeow!

new york city pervasive smell of the day: cheddy brats, these hickory farm sausages my mum would pick up at the mall and bring home to make for dinner. when you sliced into one, it would bleed cheese; disturbing, but delicious. side note: does anyone else remember the weird meat lollipops sold in front of hickory farms? they were all over the place in the '80s. i miss our weird old mall.

*note that i'm not sneering at the regular content; on the contrary, baby animals heal my soul when i overdose on gawker.

**full disclosure: the hug made me cry.

04.30.07

so i recently finished perfect from now on: how indie rock saved my life, john sellers's paean to guided by voices and catalogue of a life of musical crushes. i've been predisposed to sneer at rockcriticboys since chuck klosterman took a cheap shot at a friend of mine in sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs, and i generally have little or no patience for books that read, at first glance, like extended music blog posts. that said, this one is sticking with me* - particularly because of this passage:

Why is it, by the way, that few men get whopping crushes on female musicians and ramp up their interest in the music as a result? There's rarely any swoon factor, at least in the circles I've hung out in. I'm sure you can find countless guys who'd say that Harriet Wheeler was a chipmunk-cheeked cutie, or discuss their inexplicable attraction to Kim Deal, or utter the unspeakably dumb words "Liz Phair? I'd fuck her." But not one of these dudes would say that looks factored into their assessment of the music; music is either worth listening to or it is not. And they certainly wouldn't stoop, as one breathless female Village Voice critic did, to opening a review of a Decemberists album with four hundred words about her attraction to the band's frontman and other indie darlings just like him. Holy shit, that sucked.

eight different feminist steam pockets exploded in my head when i first read it, but damn it, he's right. except for a kid i knew in high school who, when asked about why he dug kristin hersh's music, would start mumbling incoherently about her blue eyes, i've never met a guy who favored a hot chick's music because she was hot. plenty of female artists are marketed for their looks - your gwen stefanis, your britneys, your pussycat dolls [shudder] - and yet their consumer base is overwhelmingly female, too. you can't really compare acts like those (in terms of hetero sex appeal and how it translates to sales) to, say, justin timberlake, a decent musician whose squee! factor made him a superstar. what gives, man?

my theory, or the only theory i've got thus far that doesn't make me ashamed to be a lady, is that fangirls are a byproduct of mainstream (sometimes aggressive, sometimes subliminal) sexual repression. they crop up in periods like the '50s, when shrieking and swooning and gettin' all flushed was acceptable at a concert but a no-no on a date, and the '80s, ten of the unsexiest years in modern history; boys and men don't need to squee! because they get away with more (a guy with a playboy is normal; a girl with a playgirl is...do girls even buy playgirl?). this doesn't sound quite right, though, and it certainly doesn't explain why i had a door poster of jon bon jovi on my wall in sixth grade. any theories, folks?

*my verdict on sellers and the book is still out, pending additional explanation of this passage in appendix a:

TOP FOUR INDIE-ROCK ARTISTS WHOM EVERYONE LIKES BUT WHOM I AM LUKEWARM TO, AND WHY

1. Elvis Costello
"Alison" ruined everything else for me.

04.24.07

bloody hell, man! how was i unaware that my herbs had a suicide pact?

they went from looking fine to like this overnight. how absolutely unnecessary.

at the attractive end of the death spectrum, i've been fixated on the flooded grave, a bitchin' photomontage we saw at moma's jeff wall exhibition on saturday (the whole thing - gigantic, mostly staged photos in mounted lightboxes - was pretty engaging; if you're in town, check it out). it reminded me of ariel's song from the tempest:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

hear that, cilantro and dill? i expect you to have turned into a lavender cheesecake by the time i get home tonight.

04.23.07

i stumbled into hearing about the jarvis cocker shows at webster hall (review, photos), and am i ever glad i did: apparently he hasn't played in the states for nearly ten years, and his whole north american tour this time is teeny. joe and i were there last night, and it was one of the best concerts i've ever seen.* as i'd expected after seeing live forever (a 2003 britpop documentary), m. cocker's chatter** was endearing and odd; i was wholly unprepared, though, for the lanky-man-dance-hurricane. as another attendee noted, it was like seeing (skinny) elvis. no one seemed to mind the utter absence of pulp songs, though we did catch our collective breath when he announced that he'd run out of new material for the encore and would have to play older stuff. he meant older covers - talking heads' "heaven" and black sabbath's "paranoid"*** - and both were great. my one regret is that i couldn't pick up a shirt in honor of the best song of the night: where can one wear "cunts are still running the world" on one's chest?

i went to bed wondering if that was, in fact, the best show i've attended. i've been more emotionally attached to other performances - i saw the cure in high school, for example, and lou reed at a benefit a decade ago - but the venues were huge, and the showmanship was lacking. tell me, internets: what's the best performance you've caught? what earned it the gold star?

*even though i didn't see karl lagerfeld, who's supposedly BFF with jarvis's wife and topped my celebrity sighting wish list for the night. i hear wes anderson was all over the place, however.

**on webster hall: "i like this venue; it's a bit like being in the ark of the covenant, what with all the arcane symbols. we're like the contents of the box, and if you lifted the top off we'd be able to dissolve people, which would not be a bad power to have."

***i confess i felt terribly superior when the guy in front of me texted it as "IRONMAN!" to a buddy. i know jack about ozzy, but i know the bone lick for ironman; that wasn't it.

04.19.07

a surprise gem in the boston phoenix's 100 unsexiest men 2007:

[17] CHUCK KLOSTERMAN
Fratboy humorist

Corn-fed, ass-faced classic-rock apologist is on book five of a schtick that wore out after book two.

i find the list a bit harsh elsewhere - bob saget (no. 91) is by many accounts the nicest guy in the universe,* and david lee roth (no. 75) is, well, diamond dave - but hee.

in other news, please note the queue, haiku link at top right. i was recently 1) talked into joining netflix and 2) struck by the realization that having completed less than 20% of the items on my 101 in 1001 list, including the ultra-passive ones about watching movies, is utterly pathetic - so i'm chronicling both in an attempt to keep myself moving. the godfather (part I) is on the list (no. 53) but doesn't get a mention, both because actually i rented it on the fly at the local blockbuster and because i was reluctant to admit that i found young al pacino kind of preppy-hot (and that for the first half of the movie, i didn't actually realize michael corleone was al pacino). anyway, woo hoo! movie haiku!

*which is but a single and traditionally unsung component of sex appeal, of course, and i'm not personally hot for the man - i'm just saying.

04.17.07

i overheard someone saying today that perhaps the virginia tech tragedy will be like 9/11 or kennedy's assassination - that is, we'll all remember where we were when we heard about it. i was napping, as it happens, and woke up to a gun control round table on the evening news. it took me a few minutes to figure out what had prompted it (i'd been without media for the morning/afternoon). that initial groggy disconnect has stuck with me, and i've been bewildered and vaguely grossed out for the past day. i was going to post this afternoon about the movies i've been watching for my 101 in 1001 list, but i remembered how i'd been criticized for a personal post on 9/11 ("...how trite and insular she is."). god, i thought, it could be really tasteless to talk about my life right now. never mind, of course, that i have neither a personal angle on what happened nor an expert one on what it means. honestly, is anyone burning to know how someone who blogs about their underwear and house plants feels about a massacre? tonight's american idol began with dimmed lights and ryan seacrest sending goodwill to virginia; that felt selfish to me. i don't need to wear my heart on my sleeve.

at the other end of the spectrum, the television is still full of heads who want to talk politics about the shootings. guns terrify me, and no one - law-abiding citizens, criminals, even law enforcement - would carry them if i had my way, but cranking up the national debate immediately feels a bit selfish, too. maybe i am trite and insular, but i think we should keep our mitts off of those poor people for a while. it's their story.

04.13.07

the team across the hall at work, famous for leaving baby shower banners up for two weeks and bringing wine to meetings, have a new banner today:

IT'S FRIDAY THE 13TH...ALL THINGS BLACK

what does that mean, exactly? they aren't wearing (more) black (than most new yorkers do), they aren't pitching black to advertisers; they aren't sacrificing black roosters in the bathroom, as far as i can tell. friday the 13th has captured the popular imagination today, it seems. the local news had a lengthy segment on it* (filmed in front of 13 west 13th street) and claimed that some people are actually staying home. is that the answer to being unable to take off for judeo-christian holidays? i should tell HR that agnostics can't work on friday the 13th. anyway, stay safe, internets! just a few of the abominations that reared their heads today:

wilco tickets: on sale at noon, now double the price!

dogs in strollers!**

en-suite garages the size of our apartment!

i'm taking a nap.

*roger clark yelled STAY AWAY FROM BLACK CATS! just as a big fat one sat in my lap.

**my three-legged cat doesn't even have a stroller. people are pathetic.

04.12.07

i've been meaning to post about practical problems lately (how to transfer my herb project to the fire escape?* how to wear long shorts without looking like a man?**), and in researching a story today, i discovered the site with all the answers. tell me, have you ever checked out wikihow ("the how-to manual that anyone can write or edit")? if wikipedia is a sign of the apocalypse, wikihow is at least one of the seven last plagues (darkness, and maybe giant hailstones). amateur strangers contributing advice, now! it is also the most entertaining site i've discovered in a while. a few of my favorite passages:

(from "how to air kiss")

For an extravagant, boisterous touch, exclaim a person's name with a smile as you approach. Since the air kiss is all about showing affection without actually giving it, this is another way to reinforce a positive interaction without physical contact.

(from "how to be cool")

Have good stories you can inject into the conversation. But don't use them just to look cool. Use them only when the conversation has right spot for them. Remember, cool people have many cool stories because their life is so cool.

(from "how to date a bisexual")

Remember that even though bisexual people are attracted to both sexes, this doesn't mean they are attracted to everyone. They have limits and standards, just like everyone else.

*the sprouts are getting too big for the baggies i'm using to cover them, but if i remove the baggies inside, the cats will eat the herbs; if i remove the baggies outside, the pigeons will eat the remaining seeds. i could buy a terrarium with a mesh lid to stick out on the fire escape (i priced them yesterday, and the setup would be like $15 total), but that seems a bit involved.

**emboldened by my short pants adventures this fall, i test drove the gap's long shorts (essentially slacks hacked off above the knee) yesterday. since i haven't actually seen my knees in a while, i'd forgotten how weird they look (big old soccer scars and so on). also, despite my zero tone program, i still have awkward calf muscles. i nearly shrieked "there's a man in my pants!" in the dressing room. stupid legs.