Into you like a train

Can I just say how disappointed I am not to be included in the Sex Advice from Bloggers piece in Nerve? I am a font of good blog sex advice.

Like: It's okay to sleep with a blogger whose Technorati rank is lower than yours if they have the goods to back it up. (Conversely, it's NEVER okay to sleep with an A-Lister if he has a small pecker. If he tells you all those uniques turn to dick at midnight, girls, he's lying.)

And: Sure, it's okay to kiss someone after a literal rim job--but it's EXPECTED that you kiss them (or at least give a reciprocal link) after they've figuratively tongued your ass on their blog. (But never promise to collaborate until you get to put it in his/her butt.)

And finally: It's okay to sleep with older, married bloggers if their spouse consistently fails to come out to the Magician with the rest of you. Why? Because, to paraphrase Ben Franklin, they're so grateful.

Goodnight, sweethearts

I am adding to the chorus of fond farewells to the Cupcake Series. You will be missed. (Come back anytime, I'm saving the piece with the flowers on it for you.)

To really find me, I gotta look inside me

This week has been a blur. Who knew I was important enough to actually be busy? Most weeks, my day is spent Apple+Tab-ing between CelebritySkin.com and a HILARIOUS fake pie chart I downloaded from College Humor.

Yet somehow this week I've been too busy to be at my computer. This is probably a good thing, and in the long run will forstall for a few minutes at least the inevitable cataracts and ovarian cancer I'll contract from extended contact with the heavy metals in my CPU.

IN THE MEANTIME, I just want to tell you all that We Jam Econo is playing at Lincoln Center on May 24. (Thanks, Krimur!)

Buy your tickets early, because they will sell out. I learned my lesson the hard way with tomorrow night's Wedding Present show. (Does anyone have an extra ticket? I need a miracle, man.)

"Joey took everything that was wrong with him and made it beautiful"

Word up. Tonight on PBS, Independent Lens presents a documentary about Queens' finest export, The Ramones. (Well, in NYC it's on tonite at 10. If you don't live in NY, there will probably be a wildlife documentary about seagulls instead.)

Everybody has their own opinion

Yeah, this "my music is being perverted by evil consumerism" trope is, well, getting trope-ish, but goddamn: what sort of idiot advertises his beer using a song about heroin addiction? Coors Light does, that's who.

Do not go gentle into that good night

With the aid of Craigslist, I sold my car. It saddened me to do so. I sold it to a man named Moe. He was polite, efficient, almost perfunctory. I signed the papers and he drove it to Canarsie. (If he made it that far. I was careful to temper the bill of sale with caveats such as "SELLER accepts no responsibility if car explodes into firey ball," though if it does catch on fire I suppose it doesn't matter what the bill of sale says.) I am now officially sans car. Good night, sweet prince.

All houses dream in blueprints

Every freaking day I walk past the new Astor Place highrise, which is growing like a weed in the spot that was formerly a parking lot. The Sculpture for Living, as it is called. This cracks me up, because the taller, shinier, and more hubristic this abomination gets, the more it becomes (in my eyes) the Sculpture for Dying (When Either a) the Building Goes Up in Flames and Melts Like a Shrinky-Dink Before They Can Save You or b) Some Terrorists Decide to Fly A Plane Into It Because They Simply Cannot Resist, The Temptation Is Too Great).

Peripherally related: I don't get why this piece in the current New Yorker about the behemoth doesn't once reference the fact that the whole "Sculpture for Living" dealie seems like a riff on the Le Corbusier's concept of a machine for living. Can I get a witness?

[Insert "Hotel California" Reference Here]

So get this: Jeff Gannon visited the White House almost 200 times in two years...on a day pass...and sometimes he didn't sign out. I can't wait for the deafening silence from the mainstream media on this one!

Eat your heart out, Kottke.

It's almost like the late-90s bubble never burst: Congrats to Brittney, who is now getting PAID TO BLOG. Whoo-hoo! (She says she's going to be in the newsroom, behind the anchors. Does this mean she'll take requests and hold up handwritten shoutouts to us, her fanbase? One can only hope.)

Married, Not Buried

I am fickle about My Boyfriends, but don't think for a second that I'm a fair-weather Johnny Damon fan: here is a nice gallery of his big, oily, stupid self, writ large. (I'm not going to say anything about the fact that he takes his hairstylist on his honeymoon with him.)

Is camel toe a carnal or venial sin?

It's shaping up to be one of those freakish, unexpected hot days, so you know what that means: untanned, stubbly legs and calloused, un-pedicured feets poking out of last year's sandals.

(Well, that's what that means for me.)

I had a bit of an epiphany on the train this morning. It happened on the subway when I glanced up from my book* and looked around me:

When we look back on the fashions of the first five years of the 21st century, we are going to be really embarrassed. Seriously.

Specifically I am referring to the introduction of Lycra into the wardrobe of the general populace. It's not unlike the argument against GMOs: If we start planting GMOs next to nonmodified crops, how long until the GMOs creep their way into everything we grow? I have the same misgivings about women's clothing.

This isn't a weight issue, either. No. See, it doesn't matter what your body looks like. If you're wrapped up in some sort of synthetic sausage casing masquerading as the unintentionally humorously named "Correspondant Pant", it just ain't pretty. I haven't studied anatomy since college, but when I see a woman in those pants, I see little bits of Latin floating in the air, with little arrows pointing to her ass. I can also hear her vagina screaming for air.

Same goes for those tops breezily dubbed "The Perfect T-Shirt" or some such misnomer bullshit, because let's face it: no T-shirt is really "perfect" if it offers your fellow subway passengers a detailed architectural rendering of your brassiere.**

Me, personally? I have my own problems. I can't seem to find a button-down shirt, suitable for work, whose Lycra inner workings don't hug my arms like a fat kid on a Carvel cake. (Goddamned Ethel Merman arms.)

*Which, incidentally, is Scott Wolven's Controlled Burn, and it is fucking awesome and also really humbling.

Just stop it with the plastic clothing, people. You're not in Liquid Sky, for fuck's sake.

It's a shame that Ann Coulter couldn't be inside of the smokestacks while they demolished them*

Waterwire's done a nice histoical background of the soon-to-be-gone Schwartz Chemical Factory. Also, go check out the new Forgotten NY page. (Thanks, Vidiot!)

*Viz.

Keep your money in your shoe

I got some harebrained idea to compose a Big, Meaningful Post on Art yesterday and I kinda lost steam halfway. In the meantime, go read other, better stuff like That's Just the Booze Talking, who's advising a friend on how to land a man:

And don’t talk about a dead parent on a first date. You may well recall how we once got c*ck blocked from beyond the grave by this girl’s dead mother. Seriously, one minute we’re about to make our first foray into her Shameful Baby Area, the next minute it’s as if a pair of spectral hands were slapping away at our tumescence like a Thalidomide baby trying to play Gnip Gnop. Turns out the day we got together for drinks was the 3rd anniversary of her moms going peace out like Hoon. If nothing else, this brought into question the girl’s ability to use a calendar.

You don't say

I rode up in the elevator today with a man who bragged to a coworker that this weekend he'd attended a private concert...by Huey Lewis and the News!

Things are so darned exciting around here.

Keep your hand on the plow

And now the third of the four smokestacks is scaffolded and the disassembly continues. The Great Leader was kind enough to send over a little film, shot by the Minister of the Moving Image, which I will call: Inside the Schwartz Chemical Company. Watch it and imagine where the Pilates studio and the smoothie bar will be!

[NB: Don't try this at home, kids.]

Equips a young man for society

From yesterday's Juventus v Liverpool match. What you don't see is the Liverpool fans who were holding up the sign that reads AT LEAST WE DON'T FUCKING CRUSH OURSELVES TO DEATH IN A FATUOUS, MINCING ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE RIOTING HORDES.

Did you know that's how the FBI captured Capone?

What happens when you rag on a washed up former pro-wrestler for being a racist bigot?

His Director of Communications calls your father a candy ass and threatens you via email:

Your ego has gotten the better of you, Richard.  I see by reading a bit of your site that you've been threatened before.  However, you're in the big leagues now.  This is serious business.  Warrior fought a five-year legal battle with Titan Sports to secure ownership of his character - and he prevailed.  You're little more than a fly to be swatted to Warrior and myself.  And Richard, when we swat a fly - we swat the hell out of it.

Ya hear that? Swat! Swat the hell out of it!

[Via Grubby Kid.]

Light your blunts and down your beers 'cos you can never fuck with number one hit song....

So, the smokestacks at the Schwartz Chemical Plant are being dismantled as we speak. I noticed the scaffolding about a week ago, first on one chimney, then on another, and then the slowly diminishing height.

When I really want to get my Irish up I go over to the Queens West discussion board, which is essentially a message board for the residents of the two giant apartment towers in LIC.

When they're not complaining about the flowers in the lobby, bitching that the 7 train's motormen are too heavy on the brakes when they're traveling under the East River*, or bemoaning the absence of a Gap or McDonalds** in LIC, they're rubbing their hands together in delight that the McKim, Mead & White designed Schwartz Chemical Company is coming down.***

The Class War will be televised on the closed-circuit security cameras in the high-rise lobbies, motherfuckers.

*This cracks me up, considering the commute from the Vernon Blvd 7 station to Grand Central takes all of 5 minutes. Suck it up, pantywaists.

***Another funny thing: Half the participants on the board are historical revisionists who don't even believe that the plant was designed by MM&W. I'm sure their background as...stock market lackeys and marketing flacks?...makes them experts in architectural history.

I ask you:

What reputable fucking insurance company would use a logo like this? These are the people with whom I'm negotiating a (please god let it be) big payout for the stupidity of their stop-sign running client.

For the visually impaired, let me break it down for you. It's an outline of the United States as envisioned by someone using a slice of American cheese and his teeth. Inside, a rasterized eagle that I'm pretty certain is ripped off from the US Post Office sits atop a child's drawing of a car.

I need to emphasize that this insurance company specializes in insuring taxi and livery drivers. The next time you get into a cab or a black car, think about this. Think about the efficacy of an insurance company whose corporate identity was designed in MS Paint.

The Bride Stripped Bare By CSS, Even

Lately I'm feeling uncharacteristically short on words. I've also been contemplating a redesign of the site (actually, I guess it's more of a "design," seeing as what exists right now is an unmodified Movable Type template) that also changes the format, output, and subject matter of Twinkle Twinkle Blah Blah Blah Etc. (Incidentally, if you are a designer who's really into that whole "beauty of CSS" thing and are looking for some freelance work, send me an email and let's talk.)

But enough meta-chat. The Great Leader has released a couple of not-entirely-unflattering videos of, as he dubs it, "The Secret Wedding." He and Her Greatness were the only witnesses to the elopement process and kind of went out of their way to make the morning of our flight to Las Vegas memorable and special. And fun. They arrived bearing two bottles of Veuve Clicquot (one fancy, one Extra-Special-Fancy, for after the ceremony), a box of food to take on the plane (artisanal cheeses, green apples, Jacques Torres chocolates, and a loaf of French bread), and a special elopement CD. After having some champagne, they drove us to the airport in the elopementmobile, which was all dolled up in flowers and white gauzy material.

Needless to say it blew our minds and we were--and remain--humbled and touched.

Oh, and in case you needed any aural confirmation of what a liberal-arts-college-educated swell I am*, please watch this video, which was meant to convey the extraordinary length of the MGM Grand's hallways but has the unintentional side effect of reminding me that I ought to learn, in the words of Bobbi Flekman, not to talk so much, to just smile and look smart.

*The drunker I get, the more I start speaking with a disembodied Locust Valley Lockjaw--I don't know why, don't ask--but Jesus, the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? How many Sidecars did I drink that night?

Take a whiff on me

Ingrate that I am, I requested a review copy of Akashic Books' Cocaine Chronicles and subsequently forgot to mention it here. It's a collection of short stories with the same theme: cocaine and its multifarious forms.

It's a diverse group of writers, from Lee Child to Jerry Stahl to Laura Lippman. Stahl's contribution, Twilight of the Stooges, is by far my favorite. Nina Revoyr's Golden Pacific and Susan Straight's Poinciana are both poignant, hideous portraits of the inevitable sex work driven by the need for crack. And the fantastic Chemistry, by Robert Ward, is like a cross between Gaddis and the Twilight Zone.

Anthologies never fail to have a couple head-scratching duds, and I was particularly disappointed by Lippman's story, The Crack Cocaine Diet, and James Brown's The Screenwriter. Still, Chronicles was a fun, fast (heh) read. It's a bit of a time capsule of the late 80s and early 90s, which were truly the golden years of crack. In a few more years, I'll expect a lot of really, really long crystal meth anthologies.

My registry.

At first I thought a bridal registry was sort of uncouth. I thought it'd be better if, say, everyone who wanted to give a wedding present instead donate money to a worthy charity, like UNICEF or NAMBLA.

But I came around on the flight home from Las Vegas. I thought, why not make it easy on everyone and register at Sky Mall, global purveyors of all inessential items.

OK, this is what I want:

An angry cat.

This duster, which makes it easier for your illegal alien housekeeper to clean your McMansion.

This shredder, because it's hard to destroy CDs.

This clipper, because it makes fly-aways less of a nuisance in, like, restaurants.

This, which runs on 24 AA batteries, plus 16 AAA batteries for the remote.

Golf Ball Finder glasses? More like Goofball Finder Glasses! (Dude, where's my Vikes?)

At first I thought I wanted the Single Pet Stroller.
But I decided instead on the Double-Decker Pet Stroller. Because it's more bathetic.

Imagine the fun! Just imagine it.

This, because hotdogs are hard to make.

This, because it answers the age old question of exactly what pigs do when we aren't looking.

This, because I want to liven up any party with a flowing...fountain...of chocolate.

I want one of these AND
one of these. Hours of entertainment.

Note the initials. I want photos of Jeff Gannon's ass RIGHT NOW.

This, because the ceramic figurine looks embarassed for you.

This, because it would be fun for parties.

The lamp...because she has a lampshade on her head! Ah ha ha ha! (Cast in "quality designer resin.")

"Fra-JEE-lay! It must be Italian!" The MoMA Design Store sold out of these.

Wait, forget about it...I bet my Aunt Linda is getting me this.

Send them c/o the hollow log.

The bitch is back

OK, so I've been away.