twinkle twinkle blah blah blah etc.

Think of a number. Divide it by two.

So I'm standing in front of the gym locker with a new combination lock and I'm tryna figure out how to remember the combination.

Left Brain: 34-16-2. How will I remember this?

Right Brain: How about 34 divided by 16 equals 2?

Left Brain: Works for me!

Marry me, Patrick

It was kind of heartbreaking and sweet, really, like watching someone with Down Syndrome teach a monkey to wear pants.

Fucking Finally

Dong Resin is back, for now.

I am a patient boy

OK. If service on the Lex between 42nd and 14th Streets is gonna be halted because of "sick passengers" at Union Square, there better be headless fucking torsos twitching on the tracks.

So last night, I went to a meditation session at the Sufi bookstore in TriBeCa. I know what you're thinking [gross!] but it was hosted by Noah Levine who is conceivably one of the only people I'd ever listen to talking about religion (aside from like Brion Gysin) and besides, N's worked with him and so we thought we'd go check it out. Anyhow, I was unfamiliar with him until last night, but he has an interesting story to tell: punk rock nihilist finds Buddhist enlightenment while incarcerated. Now he teaches meditation to both the general public and to juveniles and incarcerated folks. As morally relativistic as this may sound coming from a hardcore atheist, I think that what he does is far more noble than, say, your average pious third-world-white-man's-burden types who proselytize while they dole out rice porridge. Also, he says "fuck" a lot. I liked him.

I've always thought that meditation, like volunteering to read to the blind, was a noble thing to do. For other people. I'm not even sure I was doing it right last night. This morning, however, as I stood on the train somewhere between 28th and 23rd, the stressful thoughts in my head multiplying in a Fibonacci sequence, I regretted leaving the class early.

Juan Doe

Juan Doe is here and you are warned.

All God's Critters

They got bird problems over at My Life as an American Gladiator:

The wifely friend and I have an ongoing pitched battle with a pair of morning doves. The previous owners of our house, in a fit of extremely eclectic outdoor decorating sensibility, placed an old empty stereo cabinet in the yard. It fit in nicely with the rusted out hot water heater, I guess. When we viewed the house originally, we noticed that there was a bird's nest on top of this cabinet. In general, I have always been one of those people who say "Aw, a bird's nest!", visions dancing in my head of happy tweeting baby birdies perching on my fingers, and perhaps producing an elegant frock for me to wear to the prince's ball that evening.

Meanwhile, back home at the ranch...

Big thanks to N/C for filling in a week's worth of vitriol for me. If I were a genetic female, and he unincarcerated, I'd ask him to marry me.

Spending a week away from the blog isn't as relaxing as one would assume. Ironically, I worked so hard on *real* work last week that I don't feel at all refreshed from my time off. Is this how normal, productive people feel all the time? Suckas.

Speaking of time off, Maud Newton is back, thanks god. I was worried she wouldn't come back. I hear that Canada's air has a miraculous non-frizzing quality rendering all curly-haired Canadian women absolutely contented.

Speaking of contented, I discovered a bar within walking distance of LIC that has a pool table (an essential quality, in N's estimation): The Mark Bar. They also have an impressive array of beer. One of their drink specials is a Berry Julep, which has muddled strawberries in with the mint. I WHOOOOO'd my way across the Pulaski Bridge after a couple of those: "I'm in Brooklyn! Now I'm in Queens! Now I'm in Brooklyn!"

Anyhow, I'm back. Hope y'all had a good weekend.

All the mystery is taken as fact

I'm only working a half a day today and will be no doubt knee-deep in sangria, sunshine and ceviche by the time you read this.

I just wanted to say that it's been a pleasure, you're the greatest audience in the whole wide world and I love each and every one of you as much as if I had passed you through my birth canal myself.

I was going to go off about how any band without Johnny Thunders in it cannot be called the New York Dolls and how sad this whole reunion thing is in general (with the exception of Mission of Burma--ONoffON is easily one of the best records of the last 5 years). Then I remembered that this wasn't 1994, that the topic had been done to death and the whole Woe Is Me rant thing has a very limited welcome and I'd hate to wear it.

Especially since it's my bread, butter, milk, cheese and orange soda combined.

Anyway, that's it for me--drive friendly, America.

Infected girls do it better

Despite my charming demeanor and pleasing scent, I'm totally persona non grata at my job. I used to have friends here, I swear, but they've all evaporated into the mists of more money and less oppression. I am forced to walk these beige corridors alone, a ghost, a sad reminder of a time when they still hired people who didn't play golf.

I'm not really bothered by this because I get along fine with everyone I need to get along with (except my sorority girl all growed up boss, but she's another series of stories) and, as far as I'm concerned, I barely work here. My actual job takes up about 5% of my brain, none of my free-time and I essentially consider it the place where I come during the day to work on freelance. Albeit the place that's also slowly stealing my soul, thickening my tongue and making me aware of shit like what it's like to see Clay Aiken live (thanks to the woman with whom I share a wall...and absolutely nothing else).

That said, though, I just had one of the single worst office experiences a guy in my position can have--the unrequited hello. I see a guy, a guy I don't hate, a guy who I've said hello to a few times and, cheerful as I am today, I say "Hey Vince." I get nothing. I get a look, but I don't get a smile, I don't even get a nod. I just get a expression that's half blank stare and half stink eye. So I shuffled away muttering to myself.

Still, that pales in comparison to the outright humiliation that I witnessed over the weekend at the show. No one can experience being totally blown off by a baby and come out of it uneffected.

I saw a woman get down on her knees and clap and twitter and screech for a baby to come to her...and the baby just ran by without even a nod. It wasn't like he was going to his mother or to Cookie Monster, either. He just wanted to slap the side of the door. I watched the woman, who really only had two paths to follow after that--she could either try even harder to please that heartless infant or she could recognize her defeat. She sighed, she stood up, dusted off her pants and headed straight for the wine table, no doubt with the knowledge that she'd be a horrible mother.

At least I can always get another job--she's going to have that barren womb forever.

You're not blank, so baby we're through

We live on a slippery slope, my friends. Every day something that was, just yesterday, completely unacceptable becomes commonplace and even encouraged. Whether its dining with the bottle on the table, growing a beard or choosing to become a bike messenger, things seem to getting worser and worser as we speed toward the End Times.

The latest proof of this is the backpack situation. Listen, if you're a male over the age of 11 and you're not in the fucking French Foreign Legion, you probably shouldn't even own a backpack, but if you must, don't use both of the straps when you're just walking from the subway to your cubicle in the AON building. And, if you absolutely insist on using both straps, do not under any circumstance, use that little strap that connects the two in the center. Seriously, who are you, Captain Von Trapp? Unless you're carrying a week's rations and/or your papoose, there's no reason to truss yourself up like that.

I initially suspected these were the same people who ride those fucking little scooters through the Loop, but, after closer inspection, they're actually a lot younger, and many even have a slightly indie rocker sensibility--even in their white shirts and ties. I think maybe the Emo kids and the Mormons are merging, which makes a lot of sense given that both religions share the same core beliefs and are tacitly "whites only."

So when it become the Jimmy Eats World Tabernacle Choir, you'll know I was right and you can all celebrate my vision.

If you can't give me everything, don't you give me nothing at all

There is nothing more frustrating that having to watch a relationship that should never have been sputter and cough and die in slow motion--especially when you're not even in the relationship in the first place.

A friend of mine has been seeing a married man who lives in California for several years now, and for nearly as long, I've been Dr. Love on-call when things go awry. Which is every single afternoon. Now, I know as well as you do that these things never work out, that he's always going to be leaving his wife next month, that he's sorry he can't come out again this weekend and that maybe the little blue box he's sending over will help smooth things out.

I don't know, the whole thing is frustrating and, when it's not frustrating, it's at least depressing and sad. If only because she's actually not in it for the blue boxes, but for the long run. The other day she was talking about how she's been forced to give up her extra parking space and lamented "This just sucks because when Ted moves out here and we get married he won't have a place to park"

(sfx:"boing" )

Every other person in her life has pretty much told her, in the immortal words of that white Rapper, "Drop the zero and get with a hero," but she's in LOVE. Since I'm a much nicer person in real life, I try to be supportive, or as much so as one can be given the circumstances. I'm pretty much to the point where I try to get her to admit every week that she's already broken up with him in her head, which she does, and then point out that maybe that should tell her something. Which it doesn't.

I don't know, I'm pretty much at the end of my rope. I've had it with keeping my little black bag next to door, at the ready and full of cookie dough and Xanax. I don't know what to do, but I have a feeling it's going to be a lot less than I've been doing so far.

On a semi-related topic, Dana insists that I keep this funny and, re-reading this entry, it's really not. So pretend that this "Friend" is really George Foreman and that "Ted" is also George Foreman. That's fucking hilarious.

I'm okay on my own, but I've been so long alone

I just have returned from another trip to the East Coast. This is where, from what I understand, a lot of Dana's regular readers live, and honestly, I have to ask, What is it with you people? It's like someone cut the bottom out of Pink Flamingos and shook it out onto the streets. Everyone you see is a honking, screaming hunchback in an Iverson jersey or is entirely made up of 90 degree angles and unnatural colors.

Granted, me saying that Philadelphia = The Entire Eastern Seaboard is tantamount to one of you visiting Milwaukee and assuming that my Chicago is nothing but an undead smelting plant as well. Sill, no one ever went broke over-generalizing and preaching prejudice and division, so I'm going to continue to ride this train of thought anyway.

I've touched on this subject before elsewhere, and I swear to you I'm not trying to revive some kind of Billy Crystal circa '83 "Wow, the Midwest sure is different" bit, nor am I an innocent naïf who's wandering into town for the first time with a head full of big city spook stories and diagram showing which one is the salad fork pinned to the inside of his coat. I know stuff, I've been places, I've done things...but really, it's like a different planet there. A planet made up entirely of shellac and press-on nails.

There was a moment that perfectly crystallizes my entire weekend, as well as my feelings about that geographical area. My girlfriend and I had spent several hours helping our mutual friend set up and host his MFA show and we were exhausted and going back to our hotel with his wife for a quiet drink before turning in. Not only could neither of the Philly natives think of anywhere nearby that wasn't "totally gross," but when we finally gave up and walked into the hotel bar, we were greeted with the wails and shrieks of Philadelphia Karaoke (a euphemism dying to be defined). We were able to get a table outside, but we had to literally walk across the "stage" to get there--and I apologize to the guy singing Copacabana, I didn't mean to step on your cord and unplug the microphone, even if it really was best for everyone involved.

Anyway, so we were outside talking and watching the locals slither by when I saw a guy walk in from the lobby, belly up to the bar and begin to play a frantic air-guitar solo to the wretched version of Magic Man that some shrill nail tech was belting out behind him. It was short, but it was intense and it answered that age old question:

"Who plays air guitar to Karoake?"

"Some guy in Philadelphia"

I know you've all probably lived there for so long that you don't even notice this stuff any more, but, seriously, the next time you're out in public, really take a look at your surroundings and remember it doesn't happen everywhere else.

(and I say that knowing full well that I live in the city that brought you Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy and, for a time, even Jeffrey Dahmer)

My blood was blacker than the chambers of a dead nun's heart

Live and latebreaking! My good friend Negative/Charge might come around to guest-blog in the next week or so. Of course, he never fucking updates his own blog so don't hold your breath.

As an intro, I could say a lot of things. N/C is wicked funny, smart, and talented. My conversations with him generally go like this:

Me: I'm so bored.
N/C: That's because you're an asshole.
Me: Is this how they teach you to deal with your aggression in your court-appointed pedo group therapy?
N/C: Is that how they say hi in whoretown?
Me: Fuck you.
N/C: You're abt. 20 years too old for me.

Anyhow, there you go.

Who's Zoomin' Who?

The other night I was stuck behind a Ford Fiesta tooling down Livingston at ~15 mph. The Fiesta had a bumpersticker that read "If you aren't outraged, you are not paying attention," a very fitting statement for a vehicle that must be pedaled up hills.

But seriously. This morning brought so much bad news that I feel like Yosemite Sam. Have you been following this shit?

House passes bill on taxes:

Treasury Secretary John Snow said the vote marked an "important step toward ending the burden of the tariffs currently being imposed on U.S. exports."

Some Democrats said parts of the GOP-drafted tax cut, such as new tax rules for multinational corporations, promise to produce more jobs in other nations than employment in their home states.

"Under truth in packaging, it should be called the overseas job creation act," said Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich....

The second item would pay tobacco farmers nearly $10 billion to give up a federal quota program that has propped up their crop prices.

Charles Rangel called this bill putting lipstick on a pig. I'm inclined to agree.

Then, there's this little thing about the Republicans blocking the torture memo subpoena:

[Orrin Hatch] described the Democrats' subpoena request as a "dumb-ass thing to do" and a "fishing expedition . . . to make a political point" but added that "I think the White House should comply" with the committee's earlier requests for the documents.

Democrats, accusing the administration of having "snubbed" and "stonewalled" the Senate on the issue, remained skeptical of administration intentions, however, and argued that subpoenas were the only guaranteed way to get the material.

"Hiding these documents from view is the brazen sign of a coverup, not cooperation," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), ranking minority member, who requested the subpoena on behalf of Democrats on the panel. "I haven't seen this kind of stonewalling since the Nixon era," he added.

Interesting to note that WaPo house style hyphenates "dumb-ass." Me, I would make it one word.

So, yeah. Fucking pay attention dumbasses.

In more pleasant, happy-little-trees news, Crimson Sweet is playing tonite at Siberia, 356 W. 40th Street (between 8th and 9th Aves), now conveniently attached to the Bellevue, so if you get bored with the hipsters, you can go watch porn. From the press release:Too fast for love, a hot hand in your glove, this fiery NYC band strips down the rock and rides it back sweating! This is the sound of Silverhead's whip coming down - a burning lash you'll want to feel! Right. Go check them out, it's 5 bucks, bands start at 9. (Also playing: The Gazelles, Ghetto Ways--ha! I just got that--and the Socials.) Crimson Sweet is one of my favorite live bands, and they are thoroughly loud enough to drown out my nonstop thoughts of forming a militia.

Finally, I'm going on vacation for the next few days. I'll be back next Friday, maybe. Smell yous later.

Tonite

You should go check out the opening of Larry Fink: The Forbidden Pictures at PowerHouse Books.

Here's a sample of his newest stuff, with tributes to Grosz, Dix, and Beckmann. I'm sure you catch the reference.

If not: FREE WINE!

Well you gotcher guitar and yer practice amp

This is a neat little project--pitchformula.com: music criticism as a creative tool.

By writing software to statisically analyze the content of several thousand record reviews from the Pitchfork music website, I generate a set of compositional guidelines based on the musical preferences expressed by the critics.

Kind of a Komar and Melamid for the Modest Mouse set.

Via MeFi.

The Red, Maple-Leaf-Shaped Menace

From the UN Observer, Canada Refuses to Change Its Name to Ronald Reagan, by Andy Borowitz.

(Via SuperNovaScotian.)

It's all here--fast-kicking, low scoring, and ties? You bet!*

Well, well, well. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. I personally watched the Lakers get served, until it got too hot to sit in my living room any longer.

So I retired to my air-conditioned bedroom where I finally got down to perusing the New Yorker summer fiction issue. Can someone explain to me why Alice Munro has not one, but three stories? (NB: There's also a few "Holiday" pieces, one by TC Boyle and another by my future husband Junot Diaz.) Three stories? What gives, Deb?

I know that hating on Alice is like hating on Santa Claus, but c'mon. Enough with the steadfast midcentury Canadian matrons already.

This morning I was in Duane Reade buying bandaids and Rough Boy by ZZ Top began to play over the loudspeaker. There are some songs I just wish would've disappeared into the ether right after they were released. I don't want to know about the sensual stylings of middle-aged bearded men.

I bet Alice Munro LOVES ZZ Top.

* TV Announcer: You'll see all your favorite soccer stars. Like Ariaga! Ariaga II! Bariaga! Aruglia! And Pizzoza!
Homer: Oh, I never heard of those people.
TV Announcer: And they'll all be signing autographs!
Homer: Woo-hoo!

I Am Currently Powering My Computer with the Electricity generated by William Carlos Williams Spinning in His Grave

the poem, in effect is about a husband taking the last juicy plum from the fridge, and leaving a note on the fridge door ( the actual poem) that simply states:( paraphrased) I apologize for taking the last plum from the refridgerator. I know you were planning on eating it. It was so Juicy, and so cold.

So I work my youth away

My annual review on Friday went not as bad as expected, but I was informed that I spend too much time "typing," which is old-lady code for surfing teh intarweb. No kidding, I thought, as I checked the "check this" box and signed my name. Another year in the can at the vertical plantation.

For some reason, I associate blogging with work, so it's nigh-impossible for me to write posts at home. In fact, if I am sitting in front of my home computer and am online, it's a sign of failure on my part, because it means I'm not doing Writing. Which I haven't been doing much of anyhow.

I ran into a friend of mine on the train last night who described to me how she and another friend email each other a mandatory three pages of Writing once a week. Not for review, she added, but just as evidence that each of them is, in fact, Writing. That seems like a good idea. Except that I know how it'd work for me: I'd go about three weeks with the assignment, and then give up completely. And in my shame, I would likely stop returning emails and phonecalls from the other participants. And I might change my phone number. And start wearing a wig.

I guarantee that if I owe you an email right now it's because I've done something I'm ashamed of that I can't bear to tell you about.

There are a couple different things, but I'll come clean about one of them:

I really, really like Franz Ferdinand.

Anyhow, I don't know if any of you bothered to go to the LIC Open Studio weekend, but it was a blast and you missed out bigtime if'n you didn't. N, Russell, and I spent all Saturday afternoon at Crane St. Studios (AKA 5 Pointz). It was the Bataan Death March of Culture for us, and by the time we made it to the local watering hole, our knees were bent inward from standing on concrete for 4 hours, our brains all febrile from absorbing all of the Art (which I can pronounce only one way: Ott. This is how my family says it. The word was bandied about for many years when I was in Art School. "So you do ott, sweetie? Will you be a schoolteacher when you get done with college?" This, of course, was when I was actually *in* art school. Now that art school is a misty encaustic-and-plaster memory, they still think I'm a schoolteacher, because it's easier than telling them I'm an editor.).

Some folks dread going to open studios because they don't like direct interaction with the artists, particularly the shite ones. I enjoy talking with artists, even if it means spending ten painful minutes chatting with a man who specialized in Pet Portraits, because unlike chatting up my favorite bands after the show ("I really love your sound, man. Good call on the [insert obscure No-Wave band here] cover"), I can talk about their work with *some* semblance of intellect, having been edjumacated in it myself. (The opening query from an artist is always "Are you an artist?" Unlike bankers and stockbrokers, who say "So, what is it that you do?")

Anyhow, there were a number of artists whose work I liked very much. The ones who have a web presence are:

• Mark Brotherton


• Leoworks, from whom I bought a beautiful necklace


• Tom Snelgrove, whose site is sorta down right now


• Keith Gamache


• Jennifer Ross, whom dong resin would like


• Christine Whittaker

Also, I met my local soft-handed councilmember, with whom I posed for a "I'm looking at and appreciating ott" photo for Newsday. I hope he didn't have higher political asperations, because the documentation of our brief relationship might drag him down in the future.

Speaking of ott and politics, this is disheartening:

Federal authorities became involved on May 11, following the death of Kurtz's wife, Hope, of heart failure. Emergency personnel responding to Kurtz's home noticed the laboratory equipment the University at Buffalo art professor uses in his installations, became suspicious and notified the FBI....The equipment was to have been used at MASS MoCA to conduct simple experiments on food products to determine if they contained GMOs, genetically modified organisms. Critical Art Ensemble has staged such performative-art installations in this country and Europe to call attention to the proliferation of food-related biotechnology.

Ugh.

Peripherally related, a friend of mine and I discovered that we could both recite Jello Biafra's "Running for Mayor" from I Blow Minds For A Living nearly verbatim, twelve years after the fact. Five or six years ago I was tempted to sell my copy of this record because it seemed so dated and silly, but just like the return popularity of parachute pants and skinny ties, it's comin' round again. (Of course, that's not to say JB doesn't rankle me with his "Herald my genius, Earthlings" style, but you know, just like Tim Duncan, he's still one of the good guys. Besides: Businessmen in clownsuits? That's damned funny.)

Score one for the good guys

I 'ave a 'orrible cold today. I actually took a half sick-day (as opposed to my usual half-sick days) this morning in order to sleep in. I had a dream in which I was out on a date with Tim Duncan and he was showing me how to improve my defensive rebounds. Then he offered to let me use his shower to wash off. In my dream, his bathroom was so large that I had to climb over the tub wall. The showerhead was so far up that the water barely even made it down to me. And his towels (peach--everything was peach-colored) were like tarpaulins.

I don't have to prove! That I am creative!

Hey Queens-phobes and art lovers alike. This weekend in Long Island City is the big arts weekend, which means that there'll be tons of open studios and galleries and stuff to see.The Noguchi Museum is reopening after two years of renovations, and theFischer Landau Museum is featuring Ed Ruscha, among other luminaries. It'll be fun.

Will you miss me when I burn

I am gonna miss HereIType when she leaves NYC forever. Here is part of her review of Supersize Me:

Everyone I was with complained that there wasn't enough Animal Rights, and striking workers brought up during the film. I was suspicious, so I asked them where they had heard this criticism. I realize that it's rude to assume that your friends can't criticize something on their own, but it seemed like such an asinine complaint. I mean, they also didn't bring up the overwhelmingly (I'm totally making this up) male board of trustees at McDonalds, or the fact that McDonalds is going in to developing democracies and trying to free market their way to a lot of loose laws. And then in the lamest of arguments, I'm not naming any names said that Americans were fat because they take food from other people. Whatever, dude, there's no shortage of food in the world. That's pretty fucking widely understood.

It's like we have conjoined brains sometimes.

And everybody's doing just what they're told to*

Heh. Kimmel gets his show yanked after some unkind remarks about Detroit:

"They're going to burn the city of Detroit down if the Pistons win, and it's not worth it," Kimmel cracked to Tirico.

Quickly, first of all: IF the Pistons win? There is no question of that. Second, as crass as it is, what that lardass, lazy-eyed, couldn't-find-funny-if-it-was-hiding-under-his-nutsack douche said has grain-of-truth potentiality. Third, it *is* an insensitive comment, maybe not worthy of being put on probation for, but I'm willing to promote a By-Any-Means-Necessary tack to rid the air of all things Jimmy Kimmel.

*TTBBBE, now with 45% more compound adjectives.

Girlie Action

Is it that time already? Tonight is the launch party for Sweet Action Magazine #2! Yum.

Drink Tickets

...are the root of all evil.

If anyone would like to partake of some gratis Premium Beverages at Bowlmor Lanes, let me know. We won't be needing them, as one thing is certain: We will never drink again.

Some claim it rains so much in Bretagne because of her

Everyone, DJ Janine!

Before I forget (again)

Shit, I'm a week late in celebrating the launch of Double-Tongued Word Wrester. I clearly cannot be trusted with such things.

The latest entry? Wad.

The premise: William Kunstler takes over your penis

The long-awaited Q&A between Maud Newton and Brigid Hughes is up! Subjects touched on include unsolicited fiction submissions to the Paris Review, just how unsavvy are these unpublished rubes, and the niggling question of whether Yiyun Li was truly an unpublished, undiscovered author:

I can only tell you that "Immortality" was accepted in July 2003 and published in the fall 2004 issue of The Paris Review. Her essay appeared in the fall issue of The Gettysburg Review. I have no idea when that piecewas accepted....But those articles miss the point entirely. Isn't the real question: Is the story good? Did it deserve the acclaim it received? I think Li is a very talented writer, and I'm delighted that her work appeared in The Paris Review.

The creamiest dreamiest audible within 10 yards

Complaints about noise are not frivolous, says Bloomberg. He's proposing some changes to the way the city handles noise complaints. I am all for that. Frankly, I'd like to blow up every car with a car alarm in the 5 boroughs. Don't even get me started on the suped-up cars with the headers and the baffles and the woofers and whatnot.

Also, pacifiers and bottles should be outfitted with harnesses and chokechains. But that's a whole 'nother issue.

But this, dammit, is just taking it a bit too far: Sometimes you just want a quiet time, and Mister Softee is making noise just like that. Of all the components of the cacophony that is NYC in the summertime, singling out the mellifluous tinkling of the ice cream truck instead of, say, the Acura with the faux-spoiler and the Maaco paintjob on the corner blaring THESE CHICKS DON'T EVEN KNOW THE NAME OF MY BAND for hours on end is the textbook definition of barking up the wrong tree.

You know what song I like even better than the Mister Softee tune? The Koolman tune, which I can't precisely find online but it goes something like this:

[woman's voice] Hel-LOOOOO!
[horns, cymbals]Duh duh duh DAH duh, duh dah duh duh, duh dah duh DAH duh DUH DAH DUH....

Anyhow, you get the picture. If you go check out this episode of Radio Lab, you can learn about all aspects of noise, unpleasant and pleasant alike, and in particular (at about 27 minutes in) you can check out an interview with Erin McGonigle (of E-xplo), a sound artist who rode around with the Kool Man fleet and composed some new tunes for them, which of course we'll never get the chance to hear if Bloomberg silences them.

(First two links snagged from The Morning News.)

Let's sing and shout and walk and talk it

I saw Saved! this weekend and I highly recommend it. It's a big hug of a movie!

Maccaulay Culkin was especially good, and almost (dare I say) cute. I don't know if I believe this due to my handicap fetish or because I've seen those Harmony Korine photos and I know what's in his pants.

Other people had less fortunate moviegoing experiences this weekend:

As we pulled out of the parking lot and watched everyone standing around buzzing and excited, I realized that this was like fucking Christmas on the fourth of July for these people. They got to see a shitload of fire trucks, they got a story they could tell forever and they got to stand there breathing deep in hopes that they could sue someone for smoke inhalation or some shit and never have to go back to the quarry again. The only thing that could have made the evening better would have been if the ghosts of Dale Earnhardt and Selena came down to fuck in the flames.

Inner (but not that far in) monologue

One of my seemingly infinite number of pregnant coworkers has given birth. News of this was posted on the wall by the elevator. The announcement mentioned the birthweights, names, and appearances of the twins. And it spoke of my coworker's well-being by saying "She is recovering nicely after a problem-free vaginal birth."

I heretofore would like to say that I never, EVER, want any mention of my vagina appearing on the front wall of my office.

(Or in the bathroom, for that matter.)

All Due Respect

Yesterday my father, just returned from his trip to Italy, came into town to dump one of his air conditioners on me. (I know this sounds ungrateful but my father's MO with disposing of large appliances has historically been "gifting" them to his daughter...at one point I had three television sets because throwing one away at the waste transfer station in his town costs $25. Anyhow.) So, just in time for The Sopranos finale (and the coronation of RJD devil horns as the third most metal moment in history), my father gave me a lurvely red coral Corno from Capri, *just* in case my outright appearance (e.g., the copious body hair, my face being the map of the Mediterranean) isn't enough to convey my Eye-talianness to the world. Finally I can counter the malocchio with style and certainty. Actually, he had been looking for the SuperGobbo amulet, a multigenerational rearview-mirror accessory in my family, couldn't find one. Something makes me suspect that it might be a bit overstated for real Italians.

I can hear the Great Leader cringeing from here.

Squares

Go check out Archipelapogo's amazing assemblage of links related to Tiananmen Square.

And here is some background on Suprematism.

[Edited to add: Reeves said: in the gallery of 20th century icons, it's amazing to know that we don't even know who this guy is (was?). to me, it's the most inspiring image of my lifetime. For those of you who didn't click through the above link, here's the article about the Tank Guy.]

Um, Hi

Enron traders openly discussed manipulating California's power market during profanity-laced telephone conversations in which they gloated about ripping off "those poor grandmothers" during the state's energy crunch in 2000-01, according to transcripts of calls.

Can someone please fucking explain to me why this story is not on the home page of the Times? Or Google News?

Looking at the peaches

Every time I saw something I wanted to take a picture of on vacation (the family of purple and orange starfish I saved from impending seagull genocide, the bar where we played pool on a table with a bullet hole in it, the church with the marquee that read "God responds to KNEE-mail," etc.) I either didn't have my camera with me or N politely dissuaded me from whipping it out. But here's what I got:

Feets!

Waves!

More waves!

I am a cinematographer!

Google DEEZ NUTS, Caitlin

I'm sure that I, being the whingeing, harridan feminist that I am, have said this more than once, but Caitlin Flanagan is a dumb cunt:

"She’s got a shtick: attacking other women. Catfight sells. Nasty, ad hominem, bitchy attacks on other women sell magazines. She’s made her name by this stuff."

(No, that quote isn't referring to yours truly, though I kinda wish it were. Where's MY piece of the pie, Mr. Remnick? How many more goddamned buttons do I have to sew on those tattersalls of yours before you throw me a bone?)

(P.S. I hate everyone named Caitlin.)

(P.P.S. My brother-in-arms, possibly the only person who dislikes CF more than I do and has the energy to dissect her arguments rather than hurling invectives willy-nilly, has weighed in.)

Toad in the hole!

I'm back from vay-cay but busier'n a one-legged man at an asskicking contest, which is ironic because I actually spent all weekend *at* a Memorial Day Asskicking Contest and you'd be surprised at how agile the differently-abled can be.

More later.