November 2008
97 posts
White Christmas Appreciation
The 1954 musical is divisively campy and barely even about Christmas—but it’s been a longtime favorite in my family and I’ve got a well-worn VHS copy with Channel 22 news promos from 1987 to prove it. Enjoying White Christmas is an exercise in abandoning all cynicism, and isn’t that what the holiday’s all about? Here’s how to get the most out of the Irving...
When you do your Christmas shopping online, it...
How to meet my soulmate
People keep remarking on how hard it must be to meet decent dudes in New York, but I think I can improve my odds by engaging in the following situation:
Go incognito as a member of the opposite sex or race or class.
Meet soulmate while in costume, realize own feelings but also the impossibility of real courtship. Because of the hidden identity.
Endure a series of near-reveals.
When backed...
Kids say superlatively endearing things
I have very vivid memories about the circumstances in which I learned some words in my childhood, much like some people have vivid memories about the first time they heard a very special song or saw a very special episode of Blossom (though wasn’t every episode special?).
I was as pretentious a child as I am an adult, and I took to language at a young age. I especially enjoyed words that...
Things to buy if I escape a near-trampling
Just kidding, that will never happen because I’m too much of an elitist to set foot in a Walmart or any other retailer that sells baking soda, maternity clothing and Travel Scrabble in the same space.
I like to buy gifts that will be big hits on Christmas morning (coffee table books, novelty candy) for the affirmation from my family and also I can enjoy them too. Here are some items...
Corrections
My new roommate browsed though my blog for the first time yesterday, and though she recognized my obvious talent and wit, she had one complaint: while I was right to bemoan the disservice to women that Confessions of a Shopaholic will surely be, perhaps Sex and the City isn’t, as I asserted, a “perennial boil on the buttocks of feminism.”
There are two schools of thought on...
Shaq's Top Ten Tweets →
Like two million pounds of peanut butter to Africa.
Poor, poor pitiful we
I was walking up Second Avenue last night, right behind an average-looking middle-aged woman. As a group of several young people in hipster fashion walked past us, she said (quite audibly), “Oh, the ennui!” without missing a step.
Given an ironic observation of an ironic subculture, do the ironies cancel each other out? Was this the most sincere moment I’d ever witnessed in...
Teach them well and let them lead the way
me: Spencer and Heidi eloped! This is important I think!
Duval: How old are they?
me: Our age, I believe.
Duval: Jesus. The world, when we're all in our 40s and in control is going to be some kind of shit show.
me: Ugh, I know.
Duval: It's our children I worry about. Not like in the paternal sense. But like, that they'll kill us or put us in some sort of internment camp.
What's on my mindgrapes (Thanksgiving edition)?
I won’t be with my parents this Thanksgiving. Instead, I’m tagging along with my sister to her boyfriend’s parents’ home.
Other than my crippling phobia of being someone’s houseguest (which absolutely stems from too many viewings of What About Bob? on The Family Channel in the nineties), I’m concerned about the discomfort of eating another family’s...
[Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)]
Is it too early for Christmas songs?
I don’t care, the Phil Spector Christmas album is the only thing keeping me from listening to crappy breakup music.
Good call, Denton
Alex Carnevale makes me want to start reading Gawker again with his epic post on Five Celebrity Couples We Can’t Believe Are Real for these five reasons:
5. On Jessica Biel & Justin Timberlake: “Apparently these two are pre-engaged, a marital state that my Dad says doesn’t exist.”
4. On Milo Ventimiglia: “I’d judge him more harshly, but three years in close...
An ode to Julia: the Lily Tomlin to my Jane Fonda
I’ve been so bored today; unable to leave to house because I’ve lost my voice. Finally, Julia returned from a day at The Whitney, all giddy and inspired by the Calder exhibit (much like I was last weekend). We had a great chat (and, due to my laryngitis, by “chat” I mean she talked, I whispered) about (seriously!) our hopes and dreams, but without the...
From the Canadian Hollywood archives
There are so many amazing things in this synopsis of The Paperboy on Netflix, the presence of Baywatch non-babe Alexandra Paul chief among them:
“After his mother dies, paperboy Johnny (Marc Marut) murders an old woman in an attempt to lure her grown daughter, Melissa (Alexandra Paul), back to his town for the funeral. When the plan works, Johnny does his best to impress Melissa, hoping she...
STFU
I’ve come down with a serious case of laryngitis, and it’s getting worse by the minute: this morning I was able to carry on a raspy phone conversation with my mother, but now I’m reduced to a forced whisper with the occasional words cracking through in a sort of honk.
I probably aggravated this last night at the bar, where I engaged in the following activities: drinking...
Bitches!
Confessions of a Shopaholic: another movie wherein a clueless woman simply falls into a job at a major magazine where she’s allowed countless screw-ups before finally exploring her potential and discovering her self-worth.
I fault this, The Devil Wears Prada, and perennial boil on the buttocks of feminism Sex and the City for filling New York with so many idiot women in the past few years...
Silver linings in this dark, crappy cloud of a...
Eating everything with sporks at the office.
Somehow, Tumbltape still hasn’t been shut down.
New, full episodes of The Office and 30 Rock await me on Hulu when I get home.
Bronx. Mowgli. Simpson. Wentz.
Went to see AA Bondy last night at Union Hall....
soupsoup:
stalk:
Chromeo re-mixing Vampire...
I have a lot of feelings
And when I have a lot of feelings I like to read about and listen to the feelings of others.
Good examples: Judy Blume’s medium-maturity work (books like Tiger Eyes or Deenie), the This American Life archives.
Bad examples: Metaphorical poetry, this Frisky post.
Premonitions
This November (and maybe every November) feels like a deep breath before the tectonic plates shift over the holidays, readying themselves for a new arrangement in the new year.
Famous people on Twitter I have a crush on
John Hodgman. The funny thing about John Hodgman is that he’s not a PC or a Mac; he’s more like a Teddy Ruxpin: ahead of his time and probably a good hugger.
Wil Wheaton. The boy actor (Stand by Me, other crap) turned geek! He and Danica McKellar would make such a great power couple pair of action figures to smash together to make it look like they’re kissing.
Rachel Maddow....
“I really opened myself up in ‘JCVD.’ I peeled back the skin of the...”
– Man of the hour JCVD to Newsweek (via Videogum). Read the whole thing. He also hits on the woman interviewing him over the phone.
Waiter, there's a pun in my bar review →
In which I review new concept cocktail lounge Madam Geneva for The L Magazine and employ the phrases “pumpkin innards” and “halved animal femur.”
Business plan
The lighting in Sephora is so harsh and unforgiving I’m more inclined to buy a burqua than foundation. Many of my insecurities can be traced back to ill-placed fluorescent bulbs: in the girls’ bathrooms in high school, in the dorm hallways in college, in my apartment building’s elevator every time Hot Fifth Floor Guy rides with me.
However! I look great basking in the glow of...
How can I get Dustin Hoffman to only star in...
His victory line in Outbreak, “General, with all due respect, fuck you, sir,” is my new “Get off my plane.”
Sick, I tell you. Sick!
I finally caught Julia’s cold and it’s the worst. Anyways, I’m pretty sure there’s an adage that goes “feed a cold, starve a fever,” so here’s the only medication I need, you voodoo doctors with your Tylenol and your Vapo-Rub:
Toasted challah. Melt butter on it! Put jelly on it! Dip it in tea! It’s like a bear hug from your childhood...
Internet magic!
The stars are aligning for my first real startup idea: I got my first choice of domain name and Twitter name, my ‘net-savvy friends are on board, and the concept wasn’t already taken. Stay tuned for a whole heap of dot com awesome.
