This gun's for hire

We made a video to win Springsteen tickets, and it's pretty much cinematic genius:

And in case you haven't had a chance to see it at any point during the last. . .25 years, here is the original.

There's another photo shoot happening at my house

. . .what else is new?

This is just me being a creep off to the side; I'm sure the finished photos will be wildly superior. This photographer girl even speaks better French than I do. Damn.

Also, Erica should wear this outfit out sometime.

The leaves have turned

view from the porch

from Chapter 8

When in the house of Saturn there are things an EMF member must do, instructions that were given to us, drawn up under roofs of lead. Things to be done if one is ever lucky enough to be in proximity to the enemy. The carnation knife must be pulled out of the waistband and then put to the throat of Saturn, dragging the blade across the skin and stubble of his neck, letting his ink drip. Because if that is what he wants, to write, let him write his own blood letter on the cloth and foam of his mattress. A dense, warm prose that stains the floors and always reappears six coats of paint later. Something that will remain longer than any novel will.

At the very least, if rushed, steal the plot lines and the hundred and five pages that have been written. Leave nothing behind but the title page and table of contents, on which you write, "you are not so powerful."

But I left my carnation knife in my pocket and was careful not to touch anything. Sabotaged nothing, simply waited for Saturn to rise and walk into the living room.

Even if I believed in Federico de la Fe's cause and in the fall of Saturn, there is an etiquette that must be followed, even in war. You cannot kill or steal from a man while he is asleep and heartbroken. While it is said that everything is fair in love and war, the dictum is nullified when both love and war occur simultaneously; then, the rules of battle become more stringent. The politics that lead to war can always be argued, but there is an undeniable sympathy that must be extended when a woman leaves a man. Saturn waited ten years from the time Merced left Federico de la Fe before he decided to invade the privacy of Federico de la Fe. I would only be extending the same courtesy.

from The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia, pp. 104-105

SMILEY

I never told de la Fe. I unbuttoned my shirt, shaking it until all the bits of sky were emptied from its pockets. At night, from my porch I could see the gap in the sky. The unpatched hole, twinkling as the light from Saturn's bedroom was turned on and off.

"Smiley, do you think Saturn is gone?" Froggy asked.

"It is just sad," I said.

"Planets cannot be sad," he said.

"What about Pluto?" I asked.

"Yes, but that is a very small planet."

Froggy was of the belief, grounded in ancient philosophy, that after a certain amount of accumulated mass, sadness ends. And so he cited:

Saint Nicholas

Don Ho

Winston Churchill

Sir John Falstaff

All fat and jolly people. Though jolliness was the saddest form of happiness, it was a happiness nonetheless.

But Froggy did not mention the nights when Don Ho wept on Hawaiian sands, not rising until long after the tiki lamps had been extinguished. or the hours Saint Nicholas spent pulling splinters from his fingers and sniffing turpentine. He never even mentioned the sadness of the Elder Elvis. Or the saddest of them all: Don Francisco, always tangled in velvet with hired women while commercial jingles played in the background, ditties for soap and mops. The women were not the prettiest, but they all resembled his first love, and he asked them if they would not mind very much if he could call them "Porfedia."

from The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia, p. 151

Let the wild rumpus begin!

In honor of  Where the Wild Things Are, I made some shirts. My roommates and I are fersher going to be the coolest kids at the theater.

hand-stenciled using Jacquard Textile Colors in Black, Yellow, and Flourescent [sic] Pink and an old cutout I made a million years ago for a guy I was dating at the time

They're kinda cheesy, but didn't turn out too bad, considering how hungover I've been all day.

If you want one, just give me a jingle or a text or an email or a tweet or a facebook message or say something when you run into me at a bar or something. And give me a light-colored t-shirt. As Paypal has dropped my debit card for not updating my info, I am currently accepting payment in the form of booze, cigarettes, or sexual favors.

Another female Nobel laureate!

Congratulations to Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University for taking (okay, sharing, but it's still the first time a woman's ever gotten it) the prize in Economics!

Cupcakes are like so 2007 anyway

Two major announcements on the Oh Hey Guys Women Are People Too agenda:

First, the bad news: Misogynist anti-abortion loonjobs have decided that today is National Pro-Life Cupcake Day. Seriously. I'm not nearly creative enough to be making this shit up. As if it isn't bad enough that some people consider the rights of my hypothetical lima bean to be more important than my own as an adult citizen and fully-integrated member of society, they wanted to drag sweet, innocent cupcakes into it. My friends and I are considering starting our own pastry-related celebration of feminism and rational thought, but it will be far superior because it will celebrate our right to choose from a wide variety of delicious baked goods.

And now for the good news: though eclipsed by the buzz surrounding Obama winning the Triwizard Cup or whatever, this has been a record year for female Nobel laureates. Americans Elizabeth Blackburn (also kind of a badass for standing up for stem-cell research, which lead to her controversial dismissal from Bush's President's Council on Bioethics [oxymoron??]) and Carol Greider took the prize in medicine for genetics research including the discovery of telomerase. Israeli Ada Yonath took the prize for chemistry, which has not been awarded to a woman since 1964. Finally, Romanian Herta Mueller won the prize for literature. Congratulations, ladies!

Models in Photo May Be Fatter Than They Actually Appear

My sincere apologies for the lack of amateur XXX food pictures, but I've been quite poor and busy as of late, which has meant a lot of pasta and eggs and freezer pizza. I also recently sustained some pretty dramatic mouth injuries, which has meant soup. And this lamesauce is not organic.

Our good friend Dan, however, has pointed me to this fascinating site steaming with culinary impropriety, created by the writer of this particularly indulgent and well-written food blog that has been occupying the majority of my procrastination time over the past twelve hours or so. Mm. I am typing left-handed (because I found some leftover freezer pizza, you sick bastard).

***

On the other side of the topic of food is an issue that I've been kicking around as a possible thesis topic for next semester: in an effort to combat the spread of eating disorders like anorexia, lawmakers in the U.K. and France have been pushing to require that retouched pictures in advertisements and fashion editorials come with a sort of disclaimer that they have been Photoshopped . Here is the first article I read on the subject [note: sorry, it's in French, but the Google translator does a pretty decent job for those of the non-francophone persuasion], and here is another one (in English).

This is a fantastic idea. Sure, there are a few issues with it, including the fact that pretty much all published photographs are retouched in some way or another (I like the idea of a 'ratings' system, as proposed at the end of the second article), but if French women get any skinnier, they're actually going to disappear completely.

Seriously, though. Consider the prevalence of websites that promote eating disorders with tips on how to lose weight, how to hide such unhealthy habits from friends and family, and 'thinspiration' (simply do a Google search on 'pro-ana' and prepare to be shocked and saddened). While the idealization of a specific female body type is as old as civilization itself, the contemporary shift of media consumption has enabled a fetishism of disorders like anorexia and bulimia that is beyond upsetting. What's even worse is how young some of these girls are.

It's great that people are looking to change this overseas, but will it ever make its way to America? I'm not feeling optimistic. Back in April, French Elle ran editorials photographed by Peter Lindbergh featuring Eva Herzigova, Monica Bellucci, and Sophie Marceau sans maquillages et sans retouches. Obviously, good photography, flattering lighting, and, y'know, being a friggin' supermodel all ensure the fact that the models still look absolutely stunning, but this isn't about hating on the pretty people. It's about being at least a little realistic about our standards of beauty. Will American magazines ever run something like this? Fat chance (groan).

I leave you now with a video you may remember from a few years ago from an old Dove campaign that I think (and my mother agrees) every prepubescent girl should be required to watch:

Why? Pourquoi pas?

What's the best thing to do on a Tuesday night when money is tight, you're busy, and you have to wake up early on Wednesday morning? Pick up some PBRs and go to the Union to see the band Why?, obviously. And then go to the 'Dise to drink more. And then walk two miles home to make food, miss the pan, and end up frying an egg directly on the burner.

Drunkasaurus Rex for the win! Raaaargh!

The show was pretty good, despite not being able to see the band, due in part to the fact that Der Rathskellar was surprisingly crowded for a Tuesday night, partly because Yoni Wolf is a man of truly diminutive stature. I forgot how much I enjoy Why?. When Alopecia came out, I think I had it in constant rotation for an entire month. Guess that's my usual approach to music, which is why my acquisition of an iPod is like the most considerate thing I've ever done for my friends. 

You're welcome.

Okay, back to the proverbial grindstone. If you find yourself unhappy on this gorgeous day (savor it, we're not going to see another one for a while), here's something completely charming to cheer you up:

Completely Uninteresting Dispatch #2

DO I ONLY LIKE QUESTIONABLE CONTENT BECAUSE MARTEN LOOKS LIKE DAN PERNIK???

AAAH!!!

p.s. I'm on 771 now. I'm working backwards. It's hella postmodern.

p.p.s. I think this officially makes me an insomniac.

p.p.s. . .LIKE HANNERS???

Completely Uninteresting Whiney Update

Had an accident this weekend on the old vélo. Buying some new front teeth tomorrow with money that doesn't exist. Chris Guess is a seriously stand-up guy for taking care of me during my bloody post-catastrophic hysteria. Only 808 Questionable Content's (what is the plural of this? What is each installation of a webcomic called? Maybe I actually did knock something loose the other night, but 'strip' is making me giggle too much) to go before I find a new obsession.

Everything I need to know I learned from Wikipedia

There's a lot going on. Lots of work, lots of running around, lots of biking in the rain, lots of fucking rain today. Not a whole lot of money, which so far has amounted to a metric shitton of stress.

***

Finally finished a couple books.

First is Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang, which is a truly excellent novel, especially for the ecologically-minded reader who isn't particularly interested in the crunchy vegan PETA/Sierra Club-minded fluffy shit. (speaking of PETA, check out how unfortunate their blog name is!) These people want their wilderness back, so they're going to blow up the fucking dam. And then get drunk. And then destroy some more shit. It's awesome. While it may buy into the quasi-misogynistic stereotypical male gender roles of eatin' meat and slammin' beers and shootin' guns, I actually found it pretty refreshing and invigorating, given the tree-hugginess at the core of the book. Definitely required reading.

The other book I've read recently was Joseph O'Neill's Netherland. It was mostly about cricket and New Yorkers who were scared shitless after 9/11. But really, it was mostly about cricket, which drove me crazy because a) cricket is a totally incomprehensible game to begin with, and b) what the fuck is with otherwise great writers and sports? It drives me insane. Don DeLillo won't shut up about baseball, Nick Hornby, soccer, David Foster Wallace, tennis. Et cetera ad infinitem.

Anyway, Netherland was alright, but I don't know what James Wood was smoking when he called it a "postcolonial re-writing of The Great Gatsby", because seriously, it was all about cricket. Yeah, yeah, it's a metaphor or whatever, but still. It's cricket, and the only good thing that ever came out of cricket was one of the best/most ridiculous Bollywood flicks ever made.

Next up: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence. [Edit: Years? Huh. Just noticed that.]

***

But, of course, despite all business there's always time to dick around on Wikipedia (and write inarticulate book reviews nobody will read). Here's the best thing I've found this evening: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diner_lingo.

Check the ice.

Morning Procrastination

Today's supposed to be the day I conquer the world. I literally have a million things to do in the next eight hours, then work, then part three of that photo shoot. The problem is that my bed feels so amazing right now.


By the way, here are the proofs from the first shoot. They're practically unedited, and we've since changed the concept, the location, the outfits, and my hair color. . .so we can't use them, but it was a start.

Ugh, okay. Pluck the day.

Finding My Inner Blonde: Chapter One

[disclaimer: the photos you are about to view are a little MySpace-esque. That's just how it had to be.]

As part of a general effort to simplify my life, I have decided to return to my natural hair color. Yes, I know, my hair is wildly important shit.

In all seriousness, though, I'm sick of frying my hair, redying the roots, spending money and time and effort every six weeks on something so silly as my freaking hair. I haven't seen my natural color in five years, but since then, it's been every shade of brown, red, and for a while, bleach-white (which would unfortunately sometimes turn a delicate shade of lavender because of all the toning products to keep it from looking the color of baby chickens).



This was what I started with on Wednesday:

Then I stripped the color and the result was this hot mess:

So then I tried to dye it blonde. That didn't lift the red. Then I bleached it again. Then I added a demipermanent medium golden blonde dye (which, I think, is something like my natural color). And here's what we've got now:

Strictly speaking, this is not at all what I was going for. The bad news is that I'm going to have to keep dying it with the semipermanent stuff every three weeks or so until it all grows out, and the texture is exactly what you'd expect after all those chemicals. The good news is that it doesn't look completely terrible. It is very ginger. Hm.

I'm in Chicago for a little while in an attempt to sort some things out.


I'll be back by the weekend, probably.

Everyone should have a hobby.

Rolling up to the ranch after a night of showing our Australian couchsurfer the finer establishments of Madison nightlife (read: The Plaza), I noticed a sheet of paper on the ground next to the street sign to which I usually hitch my pony. It turned out to be page three of a sad attempt at some kind of creative writing assignment. So I made some corrections:

You can click on the image to read it, but I wouldn't particularly recommend it.

In conclusion, if I had to compartmentalize myself by means of some kind of visual representation of two finite sets, I am the football shape between People Who Are Total Jackasses and People Who Are Total Nerds.

P.S. I love Venn diagrams almost more than I love editing things with pink markers.

Pttthpthh

It's 3:28 in the morning. Everyone went to bed a long time ago, so I've been amusing myself by clicking 'random' on xkcd for hours. Seriously. And I have come to two conclusions:

1. Randall Munroe is the kind of man (maybe the actual man, he's only 24) I want to marry, if I ever even become a dateable person again, which is unlikely.

2. I totally forgot that the very sentiment for which I love David Foster Wallace was articulated a couple years earlier in Sandman, and I don't know how I feel about this. Which is nerdier? Or does it matter?


P.S. God I'm such a creep.

Nom nom nom

Yesterday was delicious This picture is for Dan.

Happy Labor Day weekend!

This blows my mind.

An't got no liquidity, guess that prevents pinguidity. . .

(952): going out? Paunchy penguins?

This is a text I just received from my friend Mike. It's a Thursday night, but. . .maybe you should be sitting down for this: I'm actually at home. And I plan on staying right here until my first class tomorrow. No money, so no Paunchy Penguins, nor Chubby Chipmunks, nor Beefy Belugas for me tonight.

It all started (as too many things do) with a drink special.


As all good Madisonians know, The Vintage, a decent downtown joint with a massive patio (and surprisingly good pancakes and a Bloody Mary bar, if you're in the mood for that kind of thing on a Sunday afternoon), has a special on Monday nights where any Wisconsin beer is $1 until midnight, which includes many local favorites, including Fat Squirrel, a nutty brown ale from New Glarus.

Now, New Glarus beers also have wacky names, like Dancing Man, or Totally Naked, or the ubiquitous Spotted Cow. They do this because they are a Local Brewery, which is apparently synonymous with Very Quirky. But one day, while I was facing the beer and wine section at Trader Joe's, which is a store that tries very hard to be Very Quirky because they want to seem like a Local Grocery Store (Freal. The emphasis on Tiki-Themed Maniacally Friendly Employee Culture is specifically geared toward making you think that it's like the Willy Street Co-op. Which it isn't), when I came across something called Fat Weasel.


So I'm all like, Seriously? How many Adipose Animal-themed beers are out there?

***

And so it began. Portly Possum. Obese Ostritch. Glandular Guinea Pig. Stout Stoat. Flabby Fox. Et cetera et cetera ad infinitem, literally. Except that tonight I was tired and checked a thesaurus for more fat words. Unfortunately, there was only one that hadn't yet been used: the word pinguid.

pinguid |ˌpɪŋgw1d|
adjective formal
of the nature of or resembling fat; oily or greasy.

DERIVATIVES
pinguidity noun

ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from Latin pinguis ‘fat’ + -id

Which, until you read the definition, is kind of the most adorable fat-word I've ever heard. If I ever make a beer (and given the current trendiness of homebrew coupled with the desire to redeem myself after that wretched absinthe I made last year, it could happen), I'm calling it Pinguid. And on the label would be something like this:

Which then makes me think of those awful quizzes they put in pamphlets in the student clinic, or sometimes around the gym that ask How many cheeseburgers did you drink last night? (answer: you don't want to know).

***

And this confuses me. Does alcohol really make you fat? Do I simply exist in this magical 22-year-old world where I actually am invincible and I can drink as many cheeseburgers as I want and still stay the fairly slender woman I am? Because I always thought the mythical "beer belly" came from those three Pizza di Roma slices you thought you needed between the Plaza and bed. Or the high-calorie mixers people put in their cocktails, illustrated quite graphically in this sick New York public health campaign. Or the fact that post-bender breakfasts tend to resemble something like this (thank you, thisiswhyyourefat.com).

Oh, and just so you know, I can has fifty-four (54!!!) cheezburgers in one month. Holy shit.

jour 1: la victoire, plus ou moins

First day back went well, I guess. I think I've gotten stupid over the past year. Au moins, j'ai oublié tout mon vocabulaire.

But anyway. Snippet from an old notebook from the last time I was in England:

Stories about Gran’s family: there was her sister Liz, who was a Catholic fanatic, and then there was the nun, who was less religious than Liz but had an eating disorder that prompted her to request odd foods that couldn’t be found on the East End of London, so the kids had to go to every shop in Hackney and suffer the embarrassment of asking if they had Fig Newtons or Cottage Cheese or Syrian bread, whatever that was. And the horrible presents she would give. One time she gave Margaret a green silk cravat—
“What’s a cravat?” asked my little cousin.
“A. . .it’s like a neckerchief. A man’s green silk neckerchief with paisleys on it. And after saying oh thank you, it’s lovely, she said go on, why don’t you wear it? So I put it on and she made me go down to the commons with her. . .”
“She made you what?” My dad asked, wiping tears of laughter from under his glasses.
“She made me”—more laughter—“She made me put it on and then go down to the commons—to the park with her—and walk with her and say the rosary. In public. And she was nearly blind, you know. But she still used to crochet. Did she ever crochet anything for you, Michael, a waistcoat or something? Because I had a green silk neckerchief that would go right nicely with it.”

First day of school!

This morning's playlist:




(I should be sick of this song by now, but I'm not)

Milwaukee's alright.

Oh, jeez.
First day of class tomorrow, and although I didn't make it to the going-away party I should have attended (he probably got too drunk to notice I wasn't there), I also didn't manage to sleep like a normal person last night, staying up until dawn reading the ridiculous Playboy Bartender's Guide and smoking the rest of that terrible tobacco Dan got me last Christmas. And now it's quarter to three and I have so much to do!

Coming soon for your viewing pleasure:
-pictures of the new pad (I have to clean first)
-a new essay on feminism
-updates on the photoshoot (it's taking a lot longer than we'd expected)

Anyway. Last Friday evening, Erica and Chris and I crammed our bikes into the back seat of his old 'Rolla, all three of ourselves into the front seat, and set out on impromptu adventure in Milwaukee. Our first stop was the Milwaukee Art Museum, where there was some kind of event with a band and a $10 cover that allowed you to do arts and crafts and sample homebrew. Unfortunately, the beer was gone, we we hopped on our vélos and rode off in the rain to Riverwest, where we saw a friend of a friend's band play at Live on North, then a place called Nomad on Brady Street, where what they call the "Prix Fixe" special gets you a can of PBR, a shot of Jameson, and a cigarette, all for five dollars. Best ever. And yes, you can still smoke in bars in Milwaukee.

Before passing out for the night, we picked up some Chicago dogs at the Dog Haus off Brady Street. I swear to god I couldn't tell you the last time I had a hot dog, but it did remind me of that old place down Irving Park Road called Bowser Dog I used to go to all the time as a kid, which I guess makes it authentic enough despite the fact that hot dogs are still kind of gross. The guy who sits outside is quite friendly and entertaining, and prevented Chris from leaving behind his "purse" and the camera within it. Nice place.

The next morning (well, noon), we all met back up at a place called Comet on Farwell (their menus described themselves as a 'slow-food' establishment. One of those), where we waited forever to be seated, but were rewarded with stellar coffee, fabulous breakfast sandwiches (fried egg, mayo, lettuce, tomato, bacon, on fresh bread with hand-cut fries) and even better Bloody Marys. Because they were made with Guinness, and were garnished. . .with bacon.

Coming soon!

Tomorrow afternoon, my friend Chris Guess (see his work here-- he mostly does documentary and photojournalism) is coming to Madison, and we're doing a photo shoot that will feature my roommate Erica and myself dressed as 1950's housewives. All I'll say right now is that it will be suggestive, subversive, and all the booze on set will be real. And I am incredibly excited.

Stay tuned. . .

The law won.

Remember when I mentioned the bike cops in Madison were starting to crack down on naughty cyclists? Yeah. Blew through a stop sign at State and Lake with two other people today, and we totally all got ticketed. The citation will either cost me $63 or an evening at Bike School.

I guess I could afford to be less of an asshole on the road, but what really kills me is the fact that I got pulled over today, in the middle of the afternoon, sober as a goddamn Mormon. There is an astounding amount of overlap between time spent under the influence and time spent on my bicycle, and this is when they got me?

Suppose it's for the best, huh?

Update

I have moved. I will put up pictures when I have the Intertubes again.
I have no Intertubes until tomorrow. Finally.
The employment situation is a bit shaky.
My school situation is a bit shaky. . .but what else is new. I think I'll be able to pull through this time.
I swear to god, I've been drunk for the entire past month. I shouldn't be alive right now.

Also, I'm finally changing my much-beloved Trek 420 (no, seriously, I can't believe it hasn't been stolen yet) frame from a three-speed to a fixie. Everyone is going to make fun of me, but I'm done with all this jingly-jangly heavy shit I don't use. And those fucking brakes that don't work in the rain. And I have finally accumulated enough Bike Culture friends to help me do this, because I don't know shit about anything except that riding my roommate's new bike is an absolute dream and I want that.

Rabble Rabble

I haven't felt like writing lately. I've been social, I've been biking around town, I've been drunk. So many people I know are moving away, so I've been attending going-away events, which have led to the aforementioned.

I should be packing, since I move in two days. Haven't done a goddamn thing. Read over some old journals tonight, though, and I present you two wicked truisms I at some point recorded by girls with whom I have lived:

'Wouldn't you give anything to be vegetation in a rainstorm?'

-B. Baumgartner

'Regardless of whether my hair looks greasy or not, there are still no good-looking men at The Plaza.'

-A. Marek

Knickers in a twist

Oh, and here's some news: having solved the Brittany Zimmerman case and eradicated all violent crime besides, Madison's Finest decides to crack down on cyclists.

Now, I'm usually okay with the police. As I am past the age of twenty-one, any illegal activities I may pursue tend to be fairly innocuous, and I'm happy to pay the taxes that pay their salaries so they can keep us all safe (insofar as anyone is happy to pay taxes), and there is one very nice lady Sergeant down on Carroll Street who was very generous in helping me out with some costumes I needed for a film this spring.

But seriously? Check out the little sidebar on the Cap Times website listing 'other stories'. Such as:

-Woman needs 4 stitches after being mugged downtown
-Man arrested for fifth OWI after allegedly driving in wrong lane at cop
-Man beaten by two men on Frances Street
-Three teens arrested fleeing scene of alleged burglary
-Teen allegedly mugs student, UW cops make arrest
-Panty Raid at East Towne: 500 panties stolen from Victoria's Secret

Can we please prioritize for just like a goddamn second here? We've got some serious problems out on the mean streets of Madison, and I leave you with the Cap Times' warning (which works on levels both literal and, perhaps, deeply metaphorical): "If someone offers to sell you women's panties at a deep discount, there's a good chance the undies are hot."

Oh, Craigslist.

Yeah, totally got a Missed Connection. Check it out:

http://madison.craigslist.org/mis/1301288744.html

Who wants to take me on vacation?

the Pacific Ocean

I don't know what it is, exactly, but there's something about the light this morning that makes me kind of sad. It reminds me of the light in southern California, and there's a certain freshness to the air (that is very much unlike southern California). Maybe it's the weather, or that tomorrow will be August, or that it hasn't really felt like summer at all, really, or that even though I was so lost and confused last summer, I am so, so much more lost now.

I wish I could have gone down to Hermosa Beach this year. My uncle lives there, and as much as most of L.A. makes me feel kind of weird and uneasy, there is something to be said about a life on the beach, where the hazards to a completely idyllic life seem to be sunburn and the fact that avocados are just too damn cheap. My usual warm-fuzzies for Madison and the Midwest seem to have fluttered off somewhere. I don't know why, but I would give anything to be anywhere else right now.

Here's the product of a long time of internet creepage this afternoon

This video:

MGMT - The Youth from Eric Wareheim on Vimeo.

and My favorite thing on Craigslist to date.

Cultured as Fuck: Cy Twombly's Peonies

Here is one of my favorite paintings. It's part of a series on peonies that is completely fabulous and makes me like peonies even though they look like inappropriately drunk old women and are always crawling with ants. On a related note, if you find yourself in the Chicagoland area, you should go visit the Modern Wing at the Art Institute. Just do it, trust me.


The haikus of Takarai Kikaku:

AH! The Peonies
For which
Kusonoki
Took off his A(r)mour

The White Peony
at the moon
one evening
crumbled
and
fell.

From the heart
of the peony
a drunken
bee.

The Peony fell
Spilling out
yesterday's
rain.

The Peony
Quivers
Quivers.

The good kind of messy

Good friends, cheap drinks, bike rides around town, the odd questionable decision, reading, painting, discovering that holy shit, you can watch every PBS Frontline on the interweb (I just watched the one on Hugo Chavez). Things are okay. Here is a work that is very much in progress (for example, it's really, really not pink anymore):

UPDATE

7:19:52. Finished Assassination Vacation. Stretched and primed a 26"x28" canvas. Don't know what to do with it. Well, maybe I do. Haven't painted anything in a long time.

Update

5:08:47 of Assassination Vacation. Holy shit, Charles Guiteau was completely fucking insane.

It's better to hear it read in Brad Bird's crazed monotone. Brad Bird, Wikipedia tells me, is a director of computer-animated movies such as Ratatouille, a film that is weirdly quite close to my heart.

Update

Update:

4:42:53 into Assassination Vacation. The death of President James Garfield, the Republican from Ohio whose first term was cut down to a meager 199 days by a bullet from a man named Charles Guiteau, arguably creator of the first Garfield Minus Garfield. Incidentally, Garfield's voice has an odd and unmistakable hint of New Jersey Jew to it.

Going on a bike ride tonight with a disreputable gentleman (though he refers to himself as a libidinous profligate). Til then, I'm eating Rainier cherries and doing laundry. And finally stretching that goddamn canvas.

the Couchsurfer from Kalefornia

We're hosting a Couchsurfer. He looks like a cross between DFW and maybe Jesus. He's reading Infinite Jest, actually, and seems like he's got a bit of money to be funding this three-month trip across Ameriac starting in Berkley, and something about his intensity makes it clear that he is a pretty odd duck. Two nights ago, I took him to Four Star, we rented Wet Hot American Summer, a movie he mentioned he once had in absurdly heavy rotation back when he used to sell weed, and we drank a couple beers and he passed out at nine. The movie, which he claimed would "blow my mind", was alright.

Last night he made us dinner. It all started with two pounds of kale he got at the Farmers' Market and a little ingenuity or MSG or something, and it turned out like this:

lightly boiled kale and extra-firm tofu dressed in seasoned rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil, and something called "Bragg", a liquid amino sauce by which Couchsurfer Alex swears.

fake chicken patties (the Quorn kind, which is by far the best fake meat substitute thing out there. My understanding is that it's kind of made out of fungus.)

sauce made out of the leftover grease from the fake chicken patties, the juice of four oranges, some orange zest, and a pinch of spicy garlic sauce leftover from some Thai carryout

pardon the poor lighting quality, but I was too hungry at this point to care. Also, I do happen to like wheat beers a lot.

This is what summer is for

I so childishly wished this weekend would never end.

Things almost never go right when I bring people back to Chicago with me. I always extend an invitation to a friend or roommate because it's not that far and we are, of course, welcome to stay at my parents' house that offers the luxuries of food and cats and easy access to the Blue Line. The last few times, however, have been either dissatisfying (getting stranded in Rogers Park while intoxicated in the middle of the night), or distressing (one friend got her car windows smashed outside my folks' house), and of course, there's that one time that friend-of-a-friend was selling ecstasy out of the spare room during Lollapalooza three years ago.

But this was perfect. My two roommates and I lived like kings on burgers and guacamole and potato salad and fresh fruit, spending the long days at quite a few impressive performances and too much of the night trying to get a stupid northbound Ashland bus.

Highlights? The National was the best. No, they were amazing. I wish I could watch them like that every night of my life. It was solid, loud, perhaps Springsteeny, lush, heavy, and it was great to see someone like that Matt Berninger commit himself so intensely to the music. Guess we'll see if the audio turns out, but I'm afraid it will be peppered with some really cool conversations between me and my friend Chris from high school.

I guess I can back up here. By the time we got to Union Park on Friday, Yo La Tengo had just started, so we hovered on the periphery and spent most of their set trying to find our various friends. They seemed alright (the band, not our friends. I don't like friends), and we sort of hovered on the periphery for The Jesus Lizard, which was a set that seemed to please a lot of aging hipsters of the agier and grungier varieties. Built to Spill was pretty good, though I have to admit I was distracted by some kind of joyful orgy situation happening between two girls and a guy over to the right of us. We all were. Whatever they were on, we wanted it.

We returned around maybe 3 Saturday afternoon. The Pains of Being Pure of Heart were a little disappointing because not only do they have the dumbest name ever, but their vocals didn't live up to dense harmonies on their recordings (read: the girl maybe can't actually sing). Yeasayer was the next one we caught, which was another high point, maybe actually peaking when the intensity of their music rose in perfect unison with the onsets of rain followed by sunshine. I've never seen so many happy people in the rain. Beirut was lovely, and The National, well, really did it for me that night.

Beirut and their many, many instruments

We didn't make it back to the Park until a little after 2:30, which pissed me off because I really wanted to catch Blitzen Trapper, a band that has become a recent favorite of mine. Of course, this was the day security decided to actually search our bags, so while I contemplated quickly stuffing the whole cheesy-and-onion-roll affair into my face before entering, I decided to cut my losses and catch more of the show. I was not disappointed. Women, however, was lame. The Thermals were okay-- I thought their best was a cover of Nirvana's "Verse Chorus Verse", but the big crowd-pleaser was Green Day's "Basket Case". Come to think of it, I don't know if they played any of their own music. The Walkmen were great, M83 was quite the party, and Grizzly Bear alternated between some really excellent complex layers of sound and melody, and some really boring jam-out times.

Then the entire crowd shifted eastward toward the Aluminum Stage, and there we waited for the Flaming Lips to emerge from the go-go dancer's giant light-up vagina. Oh, it was the Flaming Lips alright, and though they're not, like, a band I listen to on a regular basis, the exuberance and general gratuitousness of the performance blew me away. There were balloons, confetti, confetti cannons, balloons filled with confetti, the famous giant hamster ball thing, dancing frogs, dancing gorillas, dancing go-go dancers, and of course, the effervescent Wayne Coyne. They weren't too bad as a band, either.

Pitchfork time!

Today I leave for Milwaukee, then down to Chicago for Pitchfork Music Festival. Bands I'm excited to see:

Friday

Yo La Tengo

The Jesus Lizard

Saturday

The National

Beirut

Yeasayer

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (sort of. Also, I can't say that to anyone  because I'm actually too embarrassed to say their stupid name)

Sunday

Grizzly Bear

The Flaming Lips

The Walkmen

The Thermals

Blitzen Trapper

Plus I'm sure there will be all kinds of fabulous surprises along the way. No, I will not be Tweeting it live. See ya, suckers!

Okay, back again.

Change of plans. I'm not really in the mood for French Existentialism today, as it turns out, and maybe I never really am. What I realized I should be doing is cleaning my room, but I first made sure to download my free audiobook as advertised at the end of the This American Life podcast (you should do it, too. It's a pretty good deal). After much debate, I settled on Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation because I have a huge boner for Sarah Vowell and her squeaky little voice and geeky demeanor. Also because it features Jon Stewart as President James A. Garfield.

From the iTunes description:

Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other, a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.

So far, it's pretty good. About 19 minutes in, I realized that I was going to need some coffee if I was going to get anything done today, so I rustled up some café au lait (I've changed my mind about everything), and went outside for some nicotine and obviously helpful list-making:

clean room

tampons
toilet paper
antiseptic mouthwash

That's as far as I got. Looking over at the White Trash Rock Garden as I absentmindedly alternated between sips of coffee and puffs of cigarette, I noticed something amongst the sad shrubs and cigarette butts and the garden gnome. It was a book, The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey, dropped down for me from the upstairs neighbors' fire escape. I climbed over the railing, careful to avoid the broken glass and spider webs, and picked up the paperback. Safely back on the stoop, I flipped through the pages, skipping the introductions and prologues because I never read those, and found the first paragraph of the novel proper:

Dr. Sarvis with his bald mottled dome and savage visage, grim and noble as Sibelius, was out night-riding on a routine neighborhood beautification project, burning billboards along the highway-- U.S. 66, later to be devoured by the superstate's interstate autobahn. His procedure was simple, surgically deft. With a five-gallon can of gasoline he sloshed about the legs and support members of the selected target, then applied a match. Everyone should have a hobby.

I know I have like five books going at this point, but Christ. I'm excited for this one. It's a good day when books just fall out of the sky at me.

Happy Bastille Day!

C'est le quatorze juillet! Let us eat cake!

To celebrate, I am going to spend the day reading Simone de Beauvoir's Le deuxième sexe, drinking French roast coffee, and eating leftover birthday cake. Then Liam and I are going out for a New Glarus beer tasting at an Italian restaurant, which does not fit with the theme, but whatever, he's buying.

I leave you now with the best version of La Marseillaise I could think of:

And the child born on the Sabbath day is bonnie and bright and good and gay

What's that? Two cakes! The one on the left is from my mom, the one on the right is from my roommates-- they're subtle variations on my personal cake of choice (each made in ignorance of other possible cake-related plans) , yellow cake with chocolate frosting from a can. My mom's is more fine and dense, and she used the whole can of frosting and drew pictures of cats on it, while my roommates' is very rich, crumbly, and buttery, and there are sprinkles. Um so we've got some cake to eat before we go to Milwaukee/Chicago on Thursday. . .


I haven't been this happy in quite some time. Granted, I felt pretty rough today after the two Bells Oberons I had before dinner, the champagne the bartender I work with bought us when we got to the restaurant, the wonderful Belgian white wine we had with dinner, the many beers at Brocach when my friends met up with us after dinner, the martini I drank for some inexplicable reason, then that horrible mixed drink and the shot of Patron I had with the bartender at the Plaza before swan-diving into my bed. I also had to work a full shift, which was absurdly difficult for obvious reasons.

But you know what? There's no way around this corniness of what I'm saying here, but I'm just so over the goddamn moon about what wonderful family and friends I have. I think everyone had a great time last night, and I was so happy to have the night off to hang out with them, and the small collection of gifts they gave me today made me so happy not so much for the accumulation of various material objects, but the simple fact that everybody knows me so well and cares about me enough to search out such thoughtful little items, and as I sip the last of the Prosecco I brought from work to accompany Cake Time, I can't help but get a little misty thinking about them. Aw. But no, really.

Speaking of gifts. Many were food-related. My parents (among other things) gave me two (two!) boxes of Frango Mints, Sarah (among other things) gave me a bottle of hot chile pineapple grilling sauce and a jar of mixed nuts that's all good nuts like cashews and almonds and pecans and no peanuts, and Lisa (among other things) gave me cookie cutters in the shape of a bunny, a kitty, and a squirrel, a jar of artichoke piquillo bruschetta, and a year subscription to Bon Appétit magazine!

I am a lucky duckling. Unfortunately, though, I finished the Prosecco, so now it's time for me to fall into bed and not get out of it for a long, long time. Goodnight.

P.S. I have consumed about seven thousand calories today. Jeesus.

What one sacrifices the old lifeblood for these days.

I cannot wait to get paid tomorrow. I ended up missing most of the food-related portion of our neighbors' fish fry yesterday because I went to give plasma, which sucked, because 1) it took three fucking hours 2) it hurt more than usual 3) apparently my plasma is worth five dollars less per session than it was a week ago 4) all I wanted in the world during those three hours was some deep-fried tillapia 5) I was doing it because I needed to put seven extra dollars in my bank account so that my rent check, which my landlord luckily had not yet deposited, would not bounce and subsequently bury me in overdraft fees again because I'm apparently too stupid to keep my checkbook in order.

Also, I'm signing a lease today, which is exciting. Hopefully I can take a fifteen-minute break from my shift to do that. Also, I hope the new landlord (uh, she goes by 'Jazz') will accept a postdated check.

And there's more, but it's not interesting. I thought I was going to get to stop worrying about money for like two seconds, but I guess I'm naïve. Oh bother.


P.S. the deep-fried tillapia and homemade fries were delicious, even if it was cold by the time I got there. And they still had plenty of beer left. No pictures, but I guess this fish fry business is going to become a regular thing, and I like everything about that.

Yay Muffins!

Sorry to disappoint yesterday. Guess I had other things on my mind besides food. I'll make it up to you, though. Look what I found in the kitchen when I got up this morning:

God I love when the Muffin Fairy visits. They're made with sour cream and fresh cherries and a smattering of raspberry preserves. Soo perfect and buttery and delicious. . .

Musings and Amusings

Writing a blog is kind of hard. The most difficult part, in my mind, is the constant attention one must pay to what kind of gesture one is making in posting created material in a public place. I guess that since I have never been published (I was going to, but sadly, that offer has been rescinded), I have never really had to confront the idea of writing for or to an audience, and this concern opens up a whole 'nother can of proverbial worms: appropriateness, self-censorship, general presentation of myself, etc. etc. It's kind of an annoyingly necessary evil of publication (even the softcore self-publication of a blog) that I have to consider each thing I write as a real speech-act.

For example, I just split up with my boyfriend of a year. And let me tell you (like this is some kind of news), there are all kinds of feelings happening apropos to that little life-change. But I tend to be a pretty private person. But I sometimes feel so sad, or so bitter, and I have had many sad and bitter words to say about it. But do I want to present myself to the world (or the Interwebs) in that way? Do I want to be so dramatic? How should I consider the fact that he reads this blog? Like c'mon, let's not get all LiveJournal about this.


I guess there have been a lot of life changes in recent weeks. For example, I am further giving up my isms, which means I have been not quite the strict vegetarian I used to be, nor the sort of bullshitty pescatarian I have been for the past year. Why? Oh, who knows. I'm finding it hard to care about things like that. I don't know what that says about me. I guess it comes at some kind of intersection of generalized apathy and my recent inculcation with a culture of food and cooking. I'm not quite a 'foodie' yet, but it could happen. Bring on the ridicule; I'll keep the delicious treats to myself.

In conclusion, I've spent the long, bikini-clad day off sitting in the sun with a full glass of cold Italian Blood Orange Soda and my old dog-eared paperback copy of Gone With The Wind. I haven't read it since I tore through it the summer after 6th grade, but so far, it's been amazing. It's funny, as an educated white Yankee of the Future, to read something so nostalgic for the lifestyle of the antebellum South, especially given that Margaret Miller was actually mourning an era where the privileged enjoyed their various comforts at the expense of, y'know, slaves. It's a good book, though. I'd even go so far as to say that it's better than the movie, but I have to say, I love the movie as well.

Here's the most amusing quote so far:

The more sedate and older sections of the South looked down their noses at the up-country Georgians, but here in north Georgia, a lack of the niceties of classical education carried no shame, provided a man was smart in the things that mattered. And raising good cotton, riding well, shooting straight, dancing lightly, squiring the ladies with elegance and carrying one's liquor like a gentleman were the things that mattered. (p. 6)

What a culture. And what men. Feminist leanings aside, who wouldn't swoon at a man who rode well, shot straight, danced lightly, and carried his liquor like a gentleman?

If you're interested, here's the New Yorker article that inspired me to watch the movie again, and embark on my current summer reading. Victor Fleming was quite the character. And the New Yorker is quite the entertaining rag.

At least food will never let me down

It's been a very, very rough past couple of days. Luckily, I work around 45 hours a week, which takes my mind off the various bullshits of the personal variety that have reared their stupid, ugly, philandering heads. . .but what to do once I've clocked out? Booze is an option, but after all those martinis we had the other night when the bartender tried to steal my credit card and we ended up being the only white people dancing at Michael Jackson tribute night at Café Montmartre and I couldn't peel myself out of bed the next morning, I am forced to acknowledge the dysfunctionality of that route. No money yet for other sorts of recreational drugs. And while yes, I am surrounded by lovely friends who would gladly indulge my desire to bitch, I don't feel like I can confront any 'feelings' just yet without completely losing what few marbles I may have had left.

So where do I turn?

marinated mahi-mahi

Sorrento salad mix with Gorgonzola, candied walnuts, and champagne pear vinaigrette

and Lisa made an amazing batch of chocolate chip cookies

Let's take one more look at these puppies. Oh fuck yes.

P.S. Don't forget the Bell's Oberon. I didn't say I was swearing off booze completely. Come on now.

Summer Indulgences

It’s a hot, hot day under the Madisun, and baby, I’m sweatin’ like a whore in church. I can’t decide whether it would be nicer to sit outside, where the vague possibility of a fresh breeze might be just that, or to stay here on the couch, where two fans circulate the warm air throughout the living room. I don’t mind the heat, though, especially when I think about how wretched the winters here are. I could easily live in a place where it’s hot all the time.

Before I go to work, I am indulging my hot-weather tastes as much as possible. I have had at least five glasses of iced coffee, I’ve spent some quality time with Love in the Time of Cholera, and I’m waiting for rice to cook so that I can make curry. There’s just something about spicy food and magical realism on a day like today.

I highly recommend pairing curried rice with the fine malt beverage of your choice.

Oh god macro food porn. . .

Scratch that, I am always fun to be around

A day off!

What a week. Starting two new jobs has meant forty hours on my feet, dozens of names to remember, frantic bike rides, 7am start times, hundreds of wine cases lifted, maintaining the required maniacal cheerfulness, maintaining poise, getting rained on, killing gnats, filling water glasses from heavy metal pitchers in a partially-lit dining room, et cetera et cetera et cetera. I would kill for someone to rub my shoulders. I came back to my house last night from a party that was a block away to use the bathroom, and after sitting on the couch for a second, realized I wasn’t going to be able to stand up again. Oops. Hopefully these jobs will whip my pansy ass into shape pretty soon.

And just to make this clear: I’m really happy that I’m working, that I have work, that I’ve been working so much. I don’t mind waking up early, or doing some heavy lifting, but my normal sleep schedule and my skinny arms are rebelling. And hey, I work at a place that does frequent tastings and Sandwich Saturdays. I for goddamn sure can’t complain about that.


But anyway, zonked out early last night without warning. Woke up today, made myself some iced coffee, a fried egg on toast, and settled back into bed for The Onion’s crossword puzzle and this week’s worth of Daily Shows and a box of Joe-Joe’s (uh, they’re like Oreos). Bliss, right?

Well, that was the idea. Ugh. Fucking Mike Huckabee. Who’s he again? Oh, right, he’s that guy who tried to run for president in a fit of epic failure, and he’s the governor of Arkansas, and he shares a name with that sort of amusing movie with Jason Schwartzman and Marky Mark. Oh, and he’s a huge douchebag.

First of all, I’m pissed because he ruined the entertainment value of my little Daily Show watching time to which I had so, so looked forward. Like I said, it’s been a long week.

But more importantly, Mike Huckabee ruined the radiant and sunshiney joy that Jon Stewart brings to my life with his decision to discuss his bullshit old white guy opinions on the government’s right to my vagina. Not only do I not care for one goddamn second what he thinks about abortion, since he will never have to consider getting one, but this is an issue I have already spent three slightly rageful, slightly weepy long-distance hours arguing this week, and I emotionally exhausted by it, and it’s now fucking up my day off.

The intensity of said argument was apparently my own personal prejudice against people who love Jesus, or who love babies; I was told I have some sort of appalling incapability to lend a sympathetic ear to powerful white males and the women who love them. Please. I think babies are great. Everybody thinks babies are great. Abortion is sad and expensive and dangerous as any other invasive medical procedure. Duh.

But hey. I don’t care if Obama went to that silly Catholic university with the football team and shit and gave a nice diplomatic speech about hey-guys-can’t-we-all-just-get-along, because a) I'm starting to think he's full of shit anyway (for more reasons than just that, believe me), and b) I am aware that babies are great, and most people think babies are great, but if we’re going to talk about Mindfulness and all that quasi-New Age-y bullshit invented by grad students who smoke too much cheap marijuana and can’t get real jobs (more eloquently described by an incredible man of genius who sadly could not live by these words*), then it should be quite obvious that the issue for which there needs be more awareness is the subtle ways in which women are marginalized. And by subtle, I mean ‘less obvious than the adorableness of babies.’

Seriously. The world is currently a misogynist place, and it pretty much always has been. Maybe there are very few people who maintain a conscious and literal mantra of hatred towards women, but there are many, many more who complacently operate within a social and political structure designed to keep the powerful white guys in power. For those who have read the DFW speech above, this is water. This is fucking water.



Here’s the deal. Nobody is allowed to mess with my vagina unless I give my explicit permission. This includes but is not limited to: my boyfriend, my gynecologist, the government, Mike Huckabee, and Jesus.

There is no reason a woman should face the consequences of an action a man also performed, yet the man is able to walk away with impunity.

If this offends you, then I support your choice to go read something else. Also, please suck it.



Postscript. I still love Jon Stewart. Obviously.



* highly recommended