v awesome fashions

New Shirt Concept

2010-01-30T13:18:00.001-05:00

Destination Maternity

2010-01-21T22:01:00.006-05:00

Libra

You and all of your friends swear that you will never attempt impregnation because you love having/fucking a fit body. Little do you realize that as you age you'll go crazy and fall ill with baby fever.

Most Compatible: with Scorpio
Lucky Show: Death First @ Death By Audio

On Monday and Wednesday afternoons I hang out at the Williamsburg public library and help elementary school students with their homework. I point to words as the children read them and coach writing in full sentences and then I tutor math, hangover permitting. It's not so much fulfilling or rewarding as it is fun and good practice for motherhood. (Right?)

Like every girl, I enjoy wearing "baby doll" dresses - they puff after the bust with a floral or otherwise effeminate pattern and then end halfway between the crotch and the knee - best known for masking middle-region body fat. I found a red one with white flowers for $2 at a donation thrift store in the Quad Cities. The brand? Motherhood Maternity.

Most of the kids I tutor live and attend public school in Williamsburg, almost serving as little testaments against the paranoia of gentrification. Sometimes they ask me about hot spots in Williamsburg, like Sea and The Edge, and I try to answer their questions as I would for any miniature adults whom I don't know very well - dishonestly and with clean language - in hopes that they'll tell their parents how respectful and helpful I am. A few weeks ago I wore my red baby doll dress to the library.
"Is your dress from American Apparel?" a fourth-grade girl asked me, subtly calling me a hipster. She and a second-grade girl were doing their homework at my table.
"No," I said defensively, "it's a maternity dress. It's what people wear when they're pregnant."
The two girls gasped. "Are you pregnant?!" exclaimed the second grader.
"Noooo," I howled, shaking my palms in front of me as though trying to erase my unnecessary explanation of the clothes best suited for harboring a child. "I'm not pregnant. I don't even have a boyfriend."
"You don't need a boyfriend to be pregnant," the second grader sing-songed. At once it was all "too real-life" Brooklyn and, because I had no response, a clear case of being outwitted by a seven year old.

On Christmas eve my extended family and I went to Chapel Hill Mall in Tallmadge, Ohio. I generally freeze up at the whisper of "mall" but because I hadn't bought presents for anyone in my family except my dad, the heat was on. While scrambling between Victoria's Secret and Claire's Accessories and Lids and Jimmy Jazz I somehow found time to stop in Destination Maternity to pick out something special for yours truly. I found a few jersey cotton 2XL-pregnancy-shirts-to-become-baby-doll-dresses that I wanted to try on, and when I started walking toward the dressing room the one woman behind the register called after me: "There's a pad in the fitting room so you can see how the shirts'll look when you're further along." I pulled back the curtain to reveal a tan, strap-on stomach pillow in the shape of a pregnancy, and yelled, "Cool!" back to her.

I decided to buy one of the shirts - maroon with a weird, downward, crescent-shaped pinch under the bust, designed to follow the line between a swollen stomach and two drooping breasts - and whisked it to the register. It had come to my consciousness that I should limit the time I spend in Destination Maternity for fear of being spotted by other Stamatises and wrongfully alerting my boisterous aunts that I'm expecting a lovechild. The woman at the register asked if I had found everything I was looking for and I told her that I had and thanked her. She then asked for my name and zip code and phone number, and, unable to locate me in the Destination Maternity customer files, asked for my address. Then she followed it up with, "And when are you due?"
I paused to imagine a due date for my inconceivable child. "Uh... April?" April is the month I was due (born), so it was my fastest idea. I realized that April meant I was almost six-months pregnant; but then, considering how fat my stomach can look after a season of heavy drinking, maybe the prediction was wholly believable.

"All right then," chirped my cheery wet nurse (by which I mean that she was whetting my appetite for maternity wear). "I'm jus' gonna go ahead and get'ch'ya a $400 gift certificate for diapers and formula sent to your home, courtesy of Destination Maternity. I'm also gonna include this envelope of freebies - who doesn't love freebies when they're pregnant - a gift to you from Destination Maternity."

The thick plastic envelope she slipped into my shopping bag included a Colgate WISP single-use toothbrush-floss-and-under-gum-pick, a coupon for a dollar off a 16-pack of Colgate WISPs, a sample of Wet Ones, a sample of Preparation H Portable Wipes with witch hazel, a coupon for Huggies featuring the image of a postpartum woman in her cotton underwear (you can tell she recently gave birth by the weird bellybutton), a coupon toward the purchase of a thermometer that takes baby's temperature by swiping its head, an ad for twitter.com/babytips, and a pamphlet that I don't want to unfold because the cover reads, Discover The Power Of Your Newborn's Cord Blood.

I'm more excited for what coupons may come in the mail; I have a P.O. Box in Manhattan but it's very hard for me to remember its address off-hand [319 Lafayette St #191, 10012] so for Destination Maternity I recited the address of the building I live in, which doesn't have a mailbox. Any mail to 957 Broadway in the zip code 11221 is delivered to a 24-hour Korean-owned fancy-food bodega that I shop in daily. There are equally high chances that Mr. Kiwi, upon acceptance, will throw my diaper coupons away, pass them off to an actually-impregnated Korean in his life, or embarrass one of my male roommates by giving them a fuschia envelope that screams, "Find the perfect baby name!" as they do a little light shopping.

Canchya hear the words that I'm saying to you?

2010-01-06T15:36:00.000-05:00

Come and keep your comrade warm

2009-12-09T13:50:00.003-05:00

American Scream

2009-12-05T23:00:00.001-05:00

Fading Obsession

2009-12-01T02:43:00.000-05:00

Rider Strong

2009-11-28T14:49:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I went on a scavenger hunt. Here's what I had to find:

Carrot Juice
Multivitamin juice
Dried fruit packets (apricots, mangoes, raisins etc)
Brazil nuts, pistachios, cashews and peanuts (small bag of each rather
than mixed please).
Fresh ham ie not processed
Diet coke (cans not bottles)
Veggie dip tray
1 x tin of Heinz spaghetti Bolognese or Ravioli (If not Heinz, at
least a brand where the tin doesn’t require
a tin opener)
2 x pre-made salad bowls you get from supermarkets. (1 vegetarian, 1
with chicken).
Hummus
Pita Bread
Rye Bread
Selection of fresh Cheeses
Vanilla Soya Milk
2 x packs of Mint chewing gum

Carrot juice was easy enough to find, but Multivitamin juice is a European phenomenon - a sweet and unidentifiable super-infused concoction best used to insure that little EU-lings don't encounter scurvy - so I bought blue-and-raspberry-smoothie juice (but the substitution apparently did not qualify because it was left untouched). I bought commercially dried fruit (including orange-flavored Craisins) because of the list's use of the word "packets," which probably saved some serious money. The list's preference against mixed nuts would have been understandable enough if there was a preferred nut (as I, in my own time, exclusively buy roasted, unsalted cashews), but in requiring all nuts, separate but equal, it's hard to hold sympathy. "Fresh ham" was a new phrase for me, as I have always understood ham to be a salted rump of poor health, but Food Dimensions had slices of it "cooked" and not "cured," so I bought it and quickly removed it from its cheap-looking packaging (this worked like a drug, as there was no fresh ham to be found at the end of the night). I was supposed to buy cans of Diet Coke and Not bottles but I bought bottles to be contrary. Food Dimensions doesn't sell vegetables-with-dip trays because nobody in Bushwick hosts corporate events, so I bought a bunch of vegetables and Kraft ranch dressing; Nicky Devine, my friend who has held several food service jobs, artfully arranged the baby carrots and broccoli spears in a disposable baking pan. I was unable to find pre-made salads, especially ones with chunks of grilled chicken, so I bought two packages of the organic Baby Spring Mix greens (both of which were unopened, and I later dreamt that they were donated to a food drive despite being obvious perishables). For hummus, I bought the cheapest, plainest container at Mr Kiwi; later, when I found myself excitedly scarfing the leftovers, I wished I had purchased a Pine Nut Oil or Lemon Zest variety. The pita bread was TKO'd but the loaf of rye bread was probably a waste. For the Selection Of Fresh Cheeses, I opted away from a wheel of cheap brie, instead presenting the judges with a ball of mozzarella, a tube of basic goat, and a triangle of blue cheese (each cut from their hard plastic packaging to appear more artisanal, each still here so I can make epicurean omelets). The vanilla soy milk was not finished, and at the end of the night everyone I knew was chewing mint gum. My favorite scavenged item, however, leftover and left 'til the end (although appearing in the center of the list) was the Tin Of Heinz Spaghetti Bolognese Or Ravioli, If Not Heinz, At Least A Brand Where The Tin Doesn’t Require A Tin Opener.

When I was in college and organized a few school-sponsored concerts, I received the Riders of some fair-sized bands. Although I rarely provided any of the items requested, I'd read through them with curiosity. Bands usually asked for whiskey and beer and sometimes they'd ask for red wine. Some wanted healthy energy bars and one solo artist asked for weed. But never, ever, in the history of payment paperwork, mine and talent buyers across the world, has a musical act asked for Chef Boyardee. So I bought it. And the band didn't eat it, even though the can did not require a can opener. So if you or anyone close to you wants a once-celebrity-owned can of Chef Boyardee (ravioli of course), feel free to email me at hmsalaina@gmail.com.

I Could Live With You In Another World

2009-10-27T16:28:00.000-04:00

New Kind Of Neighborhood

2009-10-19T17:52:00.002-04:00

Why Read The Paper When I Can Tell The Headlines?

2009-10-08T15:44:00.000-04:00

Unemployed but thoughtful I've tried to develop a reading schedule for the week. Monday I read as much of a novel as possible - currently Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut, with a hopeful undertone of visiting the islands next year upon flying to Ecuador to see my childhood friend Taub. On Tuesdays I buy the New York Times in print, which costs $2, because it has the science times and because I absently associate the internet with playtime. Wednesday is magazine day so I buy either the New Yorker or New York Magazine and read about half of it, extracting from them what would best serve me at a party or dinner function with people I dislike or don't know very well. I link Friday to the weekend, when I don't have to read unless I want to, so Thursday is left in sort of a limbo, but I've thought of a way to keep it educational; I'm going to make it the day wherein I read the Bible and the Farmer's Almanac.

Thursday will be the day that inspires me. I will process information so different from that which I can casually understand, and in turn (probably) learn a lot about myself.

I haven't visited KMart or whatever retailer one seeks for these freak books, so in the meantime I watched this YouTube video that my friend Jason sent me. He grew up in Baltimore and turned out pretty okay, and I think it's because people in Baltimore praise skills and make movies in a style that nobody else had previously invented. If anyone can explain the plot of this upcoming film I will kiss them furiously.

Best of LA

2009-09-09T14:24:00.000-04:00

Pictures of me [sleeping] from Atiya and Mia.

=

5 Short Reads

2009-09-09T01:57:00.000-04:00

If time truly is money, then saving time can be financially resourceful, especially in a recession. But a very good use of time, as with money, can be beneficial, and reading is one of the good-est endeavors a sighted person can pursue. When factoring these two common perceptions [the high value of time and the very goodness of reading] the conclusion reached is that reading in short increments is one of the finest possible activities, especially for young paupers.

With consideration to this lopsided pile of syllogisms I have composed a list of 5 great short books. Each book has less than 200 small pages, each averaging about a minute-and-a-half in reading-time. Technically, in the time it took me to sit through Watchmen with Greek subtitles, I could've stayed home, saved 10€ [14 USD] and learned something about life and myself.

EUROPEANA: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by Patrik Ourednik [translated from the Czech]
Europeana is the shortest book on the short list, despite covering the whole of the twentieth century. Ourednik looks back on recent history with dark, eastern European glasses whose arms are thorny, pricking and stinging the reader's head in sentence-long anecdotes. Ourednik's calm and dispassion make rare, horrific facts all the more disturbing.

OF WALKING ON ICE by Werner Herzog
Herzog in Munich hears that his friend in Paris is dying. Wishing to be by her side, he decides to walk through harsh winter weather to Paris "against her death, knowing that if I walked on foot she would be alive when I got there." He kept a diary of all of his observations, as though a small book was pressed to his stomach while he trudged, and it reads like an epic poem. Herzog basically precedes and perfects Twittering by about 30 years.

SUMMER CROSSING by Truman Capote
Summer Crossing fabulously follows a country clubbing girl and the lower-middle-class boy she emotionally abuses à la Philip Roth - but short! It was the first novel Capote ever attempted but it was never finished so it ends on a boring cliff-hanger.

I REMEMBER by Joe Brainard
Every mini-paragraph of Brainard's memoir starts with, "I remember," which proves to be one of the sweeter verb conjugations in modern English. And sweet the book turns out. Brainard apparently leads a hokey, cheerful existence for a young gay painter in the 1950's. Most of the joy in reading comes from recognizing his memories as your own: "I remember the sound of the ice cream man coming. / I remember once losing my nickel in the grass before he made it to my house. / I remember that life was just as serious then as it is now." Ourednik later wrote Year24 in this same form, covering his adolescence in Czechoslovakia under Communist control. It appears to be very potent and educational but has not yet been translated into English.

GOD BLESS YOU MR. ROSEWATER by Kurt Vonnegut Jr
Excellent display of Vonnegut - ya got your Kilgore Trout, ya got your poo-tee-weet - and it's all done before dinner's ready. Vonnegut's interpretation of money in our society is about enough to make you give yours all away. [I stole this copy from my high school after it had been removed from the curriculum.]

Trying To Take Kitty For Walks

2009-09-07T02:09:00.000-04:00

My Belgian Things

2009-09-04T22:41:00.000-04:00

When I went to Belgium for the first time, I bought a disposable camera at a shop around the block from a bar my boyfriend-at-the-time was playing music in. It was the only camera in the store, and the paper shell of the camera was detailed like an American flag with a few scattered Statues of Liberty. I took pictures throughout the trip, and on the night that it ran out of exposures, I noticed a message on the bottom of the camera, warning "Develop Film By 12/2006." It was either 2 or 3/2009 at the time.

Atiya told me that for her past birthday (12/2008) she had asked for disposable cameras as gifts; her roommate in Brooklyn bought her the same Freedom Ain't Free disposable camera that I had used in Belgium but loaded with non-expired film.

Today Atiya and I killed an hour while our matching cameras were processed at CVS. When we retrieved our little envelopes from the photo counter, the trained technician asked if one of us had gone through an ex-ray with our camera. I said that I had at least three times, and that the film was already expired, and that I was excited about it.
"Yeah," the woman replied. "One of them came out real funny. As long as you're not mad!"

You Wanna Smoke Crack?

2009-09-04T15:29:00.001-04:00

Grand

2009-09-03T20:19:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty happy that it's September.

Unpretentiously Luxurious

2009-08-29T20:06:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned earlier certain value systems involving luxury and how it should be enjoyed befuddle me. Pet resorts, pedicures, big cars, big televisions, silk, suede, Icelandic wool, espresso machines for the home, marble desks for the office, beef that came all the way from Japan, there is no end to my misunderstanding. This has always been the case, for most shows of extensive wealth reliably inspire in me the sort of amusement a child feels upon watching one puppet hit another puppet on the head. In turn, I was able to join the rest of the world in thinking that solid gold toilets are very silly.Recently my major responsibilities have been taking care of my family's seven pets - no fish, no turtles, five cats and two large dogs. Feeding the dogs often involves cooking ground beef, which conjures a smell I'm not used to, and all of the animals require that I manage their waste. The cats shit in a bin beneath the jungle gym of their big cube cat house on the balcony (entrance through a small door in the window) and the dogs shit in the grass in front of houses. Every few days the cats' bin gets emptied into a garbage bag and the garbage bag is dropped down the garbage shoot near the elevator. Every few hours I trail the dogs and wait for them to shit; I had never cared about flies walking on my food but when I see how quickly three of them will land on a log of fresh dog shit I really start to feel embarrassed. I reach down to pick up dog shit with a biodegradable mini-bag over my hand and the flies disappear. Through the bag I can feel how warm the shit is and think about how warm the inside of the dogs' bodies are. Then I consider how warm human shit must be. Dog bodies are 3 degrees warmer than human bodies, but that temperature difference is difficult to feel with a covered hand. I have never touched human shit because when I need to shit I go into privacy and lounge in an armless, porcelain easy chair. My shit is dropped into a bowl of cold water and then removed from sight through pipes and deposited on Staten Island.

Not all humans have the same shitting experience, but most Americans do. If most Americans had to crouch with their legs spread open every time they needed to shit, they would probably be more agile and have nicer calves. In the scheme of things the "American standard" is actually quite luxurious. For this reason, solid gold toilets seem like a natural improvement in the face of extensive wealth.
Reviews for the solid gold toilet:

"We've never seen anything like this before. When you see it for the first time, it's like the most beautiful thing....the most, most beautiful thing." -Anon

"What I mean is, wouldn't it be better if the toilet was open and each person could shut the door and use it -- could sit down and really feel what it's like?" -Gao Qingyin

"What the hell happens on a $35,000 toilet that makes it so special? While you're sitting on it, does it magically transport you to the Maldives?" -Matt Littman

Best of Showpaper

2009-08-25T18:40:00.000-04:00

Today marks the release of the 60th issue of Showpaper, the free, heavenly, every-other-weekly single-sheet of newsprint that lists affordable, all-ages shows on one side and features images by high-and-rising artists on the other. It's gorgeous, impressive, and easy to love. When I reference it, as I do now, my chest heats up as though I'm Showpaper's proud third-grade teacher or long-term cleaning lady - a memorable helper but certainly not the parent. (Actual daddies include Joe Ahearn, Edan Wilbur, and Todd Patrick.)

Over the past 30 months I've held a handful of responsibilities for Showpaper, but none so regularly as horoscope writer. I pitched the horoscopes as a secondary supplement to the "I Saw You" missed connection section, for which I would write short, raunchy things about real musicians and showgoers in txt msg language. The relevance of horoscopes, I reasoned, would come when I'd "predict" a zodiac sign's Lucky Show - a show that appeared within Showpaper's listings - which was lifted from Seventeen Magazine's recommendation of a lucky color to wear during an upcoming month.
Sick-azz layouts by Miss Maggie Matela.
Showpaper is not available online and only modest jpegs of the issues' art are documented in the publication's MySpace. I've decided to take this holiday as an opportunity to post some of my favorite Showpaper covers of Showpapers past, and old horoscopes that I still think are funny.

ISSUE 2
by Ben Jones

ISSUE 8
by Chris Johanson

ISSUE 10
Scorpio

For Scorpio, opportunity periods for personal gain occur October 1 – 5, so keep your eyes down. Someone’s bound to have dropped a dimebag.

Most Compatible: with Libra
Lucky Show: Magik Markers @ Death By Audio

ISSUE 11
by Sumi Ink Club (Sarah Rara and Luke Fischbeck aka Lucky Dragons)

ISSUE 12
Leo

While all of your friends are dressing as sexy nurses and sexy devils this Halloween, try a more creative get-up. Tie your ankle to your thigh, string on a camouflage bikini, and voilà: sexy Vietnam Vet.

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: Lollipop Factory @ Cake Shop

Capricorn

When you’re in the moment you have trouble remembering the 8 New Tantalizing Ways To Make His Toes Curl that you learned from the cover story of October’s Cosmo. It’s O.K. They’re all made up on-the-spot by interns who never score it with anybody.

Most Compatible: with Leo
Lucky Show: Pit Er Pat @ Silent Barn

ISSUE 14
Virgo

You, or a woman close to you, are going to have a pregnancy scare. Either way, you should not be too concerned. With the way you kids drink there’s really no way a baby would survive.

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Endless Mike And The Beagle Club @ Sealab187

Sagittarius
As Mars passes Saturn and Venus to join Uranus, you contemplate anal sex within your long-term relationship. Most of the rumors about what it does to your body are false so don’t worry too much about taking the brown line. Just make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons, not the Catholic ones.

Most Compatible: with Leo
Lucky Show: The Shrimps @ Vox Pop

ISSUE 15
by David Horvitz

ISSUE 16
Aries

Because your actions are governed by your instincts during this Horoscopic period, you may be prone to eating meat if you are currently a vegetarian, eating cheese if you are a vegan, or eating the genitals of a person you’ve always considered a close friend.

Most Compatible: with Aquarius
Lucky Show: Dean & Britta @ Maxwell's

Gemini

A woman on the street will offer you a psychic reading for $5 (and then offer you tea candles and some clean rocks to take home for another $15). Politely turn it down. You already receive broad, inaccurate advice for free.
Most Compatible: with Gemini
Lucky Show: Zaimph @ Silent Barn

Libra

This month, no means yes.

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: Hatebreed @ Toad’s Place

Aquarius

You like yourself just the way you are but the New Year is coming. Abstain from cigarettes for the rest of the month, so when it’s 2008, your New Year’s Resolution can be to start smoking.

Most Compatible: with Leo
Lucky Show: Bee’s Nest @ Zebulon

ISSUE 18
Gemini

You're romantically involved with half of a set of twins, and the other half is getting pissed off. Time to crack open a Budweiser and start living single, seeing double, and sleeping triple.

Most Compatible: with Aquarius
Lucky Show: These Are Powers @ Uniondocs

ISSUE 21
by Peter Edwards (Casper Electronics)

ISSUE SxSW #1
by PFFR (Wonder Showzen)

ISSUE 23
Taurus

Something that happened in March will be vastly improved in April. It may be career-related, or the status of a romantic relationship, but it's probably a rash around your groin that will go from raised and red to clean, clear, and under control.

Most Compatible: with Virgo

Lucky Show: Black Pus @ SUNY Purchase

Pisces

Your significant other will be drag you to the music show of a band you consider embarrassing. Just find the bar and nod your head rhythmically because that's what love is. Later, bring her or him to see the Pharmacy.

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: The Pharmacy @ Market Hotel

ISSUE 26
Aries

It's time for you to fuck with some gender roles, by which I mean adhere to them. If you're a female, attempt a domesticated act, like a nice apricot shortbread. If you're a male, spend the next week trying to land a threesome. Sometimes we all need to be reminded why we lead an alternative lifestyle.

Most Compatible: with Cancer

Lucky Show: In The Distance: A Light! @ SUNY Purchase

Cancer

You are likely to be shipwrecked/stranded after a plane crash soon, so definitely wane yourself off of being too pampered. Otherwise the absence of 'product' will leave you haggard from withdrawal when the strong, all-American coast guarders come to rescue you.

Most Compatible: with Scorpio

Lucky Show: BunnyBrains @ The Ontological Theater

ISSUE 27
by Emilie Halpern

ISSUE 28
Scorpio

The weather is so nice now that there isn't any reason for you to be getting in internet fights.

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: Lucky Dragons @ East River Amphitheater

Sagittarius

Your receding hairline is making you self-conscious and you've been thinking about buzzing your scalp. Definitely don't. Heads are lumpy, veiny things that God wants us to keep covered with hair and yalmulkas. The confidence you'd exude by allowing your forehead expand while secretly taking restoration medication is way more attractive. Supplemented by a display of chest hair is also a good look.

Most Compatible: with Aquarius
Lucky Show: Martha Wainwright @ Joe's Pub

ISSUE 30
by Raymond Pettibon

Leo

The only thing worse than having dirty, dreaded hair and bacne and crusted alternative piercings is having dirty, dreaded hair and bacne and crusted alternative piercings while buying UTI medicine. Remember that.

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: Zs @ Zebulon

ISSUE 31
by Maya Hayuk

Scorpio

Nothing masks ugliness like a pretty sun dress.

Most Compatible: with Scorpio
Lucky Show: Psychothriller @ Death By Audio

Capricorn

You're destined for really great things, so discontinue getting so wasted that you sweet-talk 12-year-old boys or mistakenly urinate in embarrassing places. It's the kind of behavior that resurfaces in a big way when you're big.

Most Compatible: with Aquarius
Lucky Show: Akron/Family @ Castle Clinton

ISSUE 32
Aries

You, or someone close to you, have a mouse problem in your extremely humble abode. If you've decided to lay down traps, use the cartoony metal ones that snap, which in reality break the mouse's neck. If you use the adhesive mouse traps, you'll avoid mouse blood shed, but only because the mouse will be alive for 2+ days, squeaking and writhing about until you feel so terrible that you grease up a pair of rubber
gloves and slide the mouse off of the trap. At which point it will wriggle free and run back under your stove and return to being a problem.

Most Compatible: with Cancer
Lucky Show: Artanker Convoy @ Death By Audio

Cancer

Riding a mountain bike is great! They're a little clunky and kinda heavy, but they have breaks and traction and all the other things you need to survive. That's why there are never any white mountain bikes attached to the sidewalk.

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Artanker Convoy @ Death By Audio

Leo

You live across the street from a Pentecostal Church (which is essentially in an apartment building) and early on Sunday mornings you can hear someone on a megaphone singing, changing the lyrics from, "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" to "If you love el nino Jesus then you're saved." Get all your weekend drinking done on Friday so you can make Saturday your day of rest.

Most Compatible: with Libra
Lucky Show: Artanker Convoy @ Death By Audio

Scorpio

It can still be TMI even if what you're saying isn't off-color. Like if you recount how many hours you slept when nobody asks. Or you romanticize your hometown and upbringing when nobody asks. Or you announce that you need to urinate when nobody asks. Sometimes any information is too much information.

Most Compatible: with Aquarius
Lucky Show: Artanker Convoy @ Death By Audio

Capricorn

The nicest guy a girl knows is her dad, and a mom is the best lady to come home to. So there's nothing wrong with getting Oedipal.

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: Artanker Convoy @ Death By Audio

ISSUE 33
Gemini

You've felt nervous in your neighborhood, concerned that it may be dangerous, but never fear. Even if you get shot in the face, modern medicine can still revive you.

Most Compatible: with Gemini
Lucky Show: Terror Cathode Secretion @ Silent Barn

Scorpio

Before they're taken off the market, buy Sparks every time you resort to deli drinks. Soon you'll have to return to the efforts of scoring coke.

Most Compatible: with Scorpio
Lucky Show: Aesop Rock @ Toad's Place

Capricorn

Don't blog unless you're really funny and go on a lot of adventures. If you're taking pictures of your dinner and posting stories about things that made you smile, you're poisoning the blogosphere.

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Dirty Projectors @ South Street Seaport

ISSUE 34
Taurus

Don't go on WebMD and try to self-diagnose your minor aches and chafes because it's going to give you anxiety and anxiety causes cancer.

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: Zeke Healy @ The Errant Garrison

Cancer

Everyone at Welcome To The Johnson's is old and everyone at 151 is foreign and all the art at Gallery Bar is whack and all the drinks at the Macando taste like mud and all the bands that play in the Lower East Side are cheesy and all the people who go to see them are ugly and all of this has finally come to your realization this summer. Head east, young man. Brooklyn welcomes you.

Most Compatible: with Virgo
Lucky Show: Dark Dark Dark @ Zebulon

Sagittarius

Take advantage of 24-hour retailers like Duane Reade and the Apple store that looks like a cube. When China takes over and everything's communist, all of the stores will have to close at the same time.

Most Compatible: with Scorpio
Lucky Show: Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players @ Bowery Poetry Club

ISSUE 35
Aries

Even though it's meatless jerky, you should eat it as though it's beef/ostrich jerky: not in public.

Most Compatible: with Taurus
Lucky Show: Free Blood @ Market Hotel

Sagittarius

You didn't buy the shirt that read, "I survived the blackout of 2003," that summer so long ago but you wish you had and it haunts you still. The closest you can get to righting this wrong is to buy one of those shirts with Obama giving a 'pound' to Malcolm X; you will still like it in 5 years.

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Awesome Color @ Terrace Club

ISSUE 37
Scorpio

Just because it's almost possible to make direct eye-contact when videochatting doesn't mean you should maintain an LDR [Long Distance Relationship]. Videochat cybersex is never as good as actually getting your dick wet.

Most Compatible: with West Indian
Lucky Show: Man Man @ Heirloom Arts Center

Capricorn

You read a 33 1/3 book on a band you have always liked and know a lot about and it was a great disappointment for you; maybe it was poorly written with corny jokes, maybe you didn't learn enough secrets about Stephen Merritt, but either way you swore the whole series off. Problem is, you've gone about those books the wrong way - choose them for the writer, not the subject. Sure you like Unknown Pleasures, but
who the fuck is author Chris Ott [christopherott.com]? Get the 33 1/3 book John Darnielle wrote about Black Sabbath [from the view of an institutionalized 15 year old]; it'll be 99.9% enriching.

Most Compatible: with Polish
Lucky Show: Daniel Carter @ Zebulon

ISSUE 38
by Aurel Schmidt

Aries

It's easy to make new friends but it's hard to make new friends who don't have a boring history of substance abuse that they like to make reference to.

Most Compatible: with Aquarius

Lucky Show: Marnie Stern @ Smog Garage

Cancer

If American Apparel says they're doing an open call for models, they're fucking kidding. Don't show up in knee high socks and a resume with your picture on it. Also, at 25, the only advertising you have a future in will begin, "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up."

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Hercules & Love Affair @ Gibson New York Showroom

ISSUE 39
Aries

You have a popular, American name [Emily, Daniel, Melissa] but unfortunately for you, it's chic in adulthood to have irregular first and last names. Don't try to to jazz yourself up by creating a nickname that sounds like a real, rare name or by using your middle name as an extra three syllables on your first name. Rather than try
to switch teams, simply admit defeat and then do the right thing when you become a parent. Until then, the Lancelots and the Nickodemuses and the Alainas will have everything under control.

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: Busy Bee @ Danbros Studio

Gemini

Don't use "shat" as the past tense of "shit." It always sounds stupid because "shit" isn't a real verb and doesn't warrant a grammatical change. "Took a shit," will suffice for all of your horror stories.

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Extra Life @ Issue Project Room

Capricorn

Make some sort of living will wherein you tell your friends NOT to make a Facebook Group about you if you should unexpectedly die. People always write the trashiest comments on those.

Most Compatible: with Gemini
Lucky Show: Eric Hnatow @ Video

Pisces

Persevere! Just because your band's lead vocalist and songwriter died 10 years ago doesn't mean you can't continue playing shows in Connecticut.

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: Blind Melon @ Toad's Place

ISSUE 40
Taurus

You, or someone close to you, has begun training for Iron Man 2009. Once a person decides that they will feel no sense of completion until they've biked for 112 miles in a single afternoon and then promptly thrown their bicycle and sprinted another 30 miles, there's really no alternative you can offer. The best you can to do is be supportive and/or avoid yellow swim suits for the three-mile swim in Hawaiian
waters; when sharks confuse the human pelvis with a Twinkie, it sucks for everybody.

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: Extra Life @ Zebulon

Libra

You love getting hyper but drinking coffee puts blood in your stool. Fuck with some Yerba maté and you'll be totally jittery, just like old times.

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: Hell's Hills @ Paris London West Nile

Scorpio

Stop Googling your boyfriend/girlfriend's ex! Nothing's new!

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: Amanda Diva @ Knitting Factory

Aquarius

Drink more water than dairy and you won't get calcium build-ups, which are essentially a set of fake vampire teeth in your throat/vagina.

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: Golden Error @ Asterisk

ISSUE 41
Libra

Red Bull DOES contain vitamin b but it's not the kind that blocks anemia and pancreatic cancer. It has the kind that burns holes in your stomach lining and turns your turds chartruese.

Most Compatible: with Sagittarius
Lucky Show: Cale Parks @ Market Hotel

Leo

If you pick up a hitchhiker, don't take it to a motel and fuck it all night long. Otherwise things will get really awkward when you wrongfully accuse it of stealing.

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: The Mae Shi @ Silent Barn

Sagittarius

Your Thanksgiving was rough because your family is insane and it really has you down. Confide in a lover or a trusted friend, but don't express your woes in your AIM Away Message; it just leads acquaintances from your high school to make fun of you.

Most Compatible: with Leo
Lucky Show: Larkin Grimm @ Housing Works

Capricorn

Your significant other is the best you can possibly do, better than what you probably deserve, so stop trying to appear single on Facebook.

Most Compatible: with Scorpio
Lucky Show: Fred Frith @ Knitting Factory

ISSUE 42
Taurus

Your New Year's Resolution should be to stop taking Xanax and Acid at the same time.

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: Tyvek @ Market Hotel

Cancer

Your New Year's Resolution should be to go to all of the They're Going To Die Soon concerts in Manhattan. You skipped the Isaac Hayes show over the summer and still haven't forgiven yourself.

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Timothy Cushing @ Video

Leo

Someone close to you's New Year's Resolution should be to stop calling you "a little pussy" in front of your friends.

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: U.S. Girls @ Death By Audio

ISSUE 45
Aries

You were having weird dreams so you bought a lime green dream catcher and now your whole subconscious portrays you murdering the elderly in their homes which actually look like church of your childhood. Essentially, the Native Americans have cursed you for putting a "fun" spin on their heritage. If you really care about your psyche then toss that shit but definitely keep it up if you often have guests; it sounds awesome.

Most Compatible: with
Lucky Show: Showpaper Film Night @ Monster Island

Taurus

Don't flake out on your friends. When you're in some sort of long term domestic situation in a more rural area of the country, you're going to wish there was somewhere to have brunch and someone to talk about cock with.

Most Compatible: with
Lucky Show: Dan Deacon @ Danbro Brewery Warehouse

ISSUE 46
Aries

The smell of weed is not so strong or lingering that you need to use incense or scented candles. Despite their packaging and convincing commercials, they don't smell like violets or recently-baked apple pie - they smell like chemicals.

Valentine: Capricorn
Lucky Show: Psychothriller @ Video

Virgo

Something about your significant other's BFF makes you totally horny. Fight that urge! Plenty of other disassociated fish that you can cheat with in the sea.

Valentine: Pisces
Lucky Show: Iran @ Death By Audio

Libra

You're pregnant and you're excited to be a young parent. Similarly, you're making the biggest mistake of your life.

Valentine: Gemini
Lucky Show: These Are Powers @ Other Music

Scorpio

Unfortunately, your balance is not very good so you probably shouldn't try to catch tags on bridges. No one wants to see you Saturday Night Fever it.

Valentine: Taurus
Lucky Show: High Places @ New Museum

Sagittarius

Don't invite your drunko roommates out; once one person you're with hits the bouncer, everyone's getting in the cop car.

Valentine: Cancer
Lucky Show: The Paris-Maine Crossing

ISSUE 47
Aries

Your March will come in like a lion. Consider hard alcohol the chair and whip with which to tame it.

Most Compatible: with Taurus
Lucky Show: Blank Dogs @ The Shank

Taurus

Obsessing over something builds expectations and eventually depreciates the value of the thing. Essentially, your jealous girlfriend is making you look bad.

Most Compatible: with Scorpio
Lucky Show: Red Dawn II @ Death By Audio

Gemini

A girl not-super-close to you is in prison and you're wondering if you should write to her. Would she want to hear from you, you wonder, or would it be mortifying? If you think about it, you'll realize that of course she would like a penpal. Plus, she'll be getting letters postmarked from New York City - she'll be the coolest girl on the cell block!

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: Hipster Holocaust @ ABC No Rio

Virgo

Candlelight, soft music, carpeting made of bear hide - try fucking next to these things. It really does make it better!

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Jana Hunter @ Market Hotel

ISSUE 48
by Shoboshobo

Aries

You want white shoes but you don't want to look like a geriatric visiting Disney World. Buy them and wear them as your only shoes on a trip through the wilderness. Dirty white shoes look so dope!

Most Compatible: with Aquarius
Lucky Show: U.S. Girls @ The Stood

Gemini

Why pluck your eyebrows when you can shave them!

Most Compatible: with Virgo
Lucky Show: Human Host @ Wrench In The Works

Cancer

It's customary to put makeup on your hickeys to cover them up so it's probably for the best if you conceal that black eye, especially when your boyfriend gave you that bruise, too.

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Team Robespierre @ The Shank

Capricorn

Being bald with a mustache is cool and gay. Being bald with a beard sends the message that you Could grow scalp hair if you wanted and Choose to be bald; and people hate to be lied to.
Most Compatible: with Cancer
Lucky Show: Knyfe Hyts @ Knitting Factory

ISSUE SXSW #2
Sagittarius

Don't try to scare people with your gun; they'll take it away and hurt you.

Most Compatible: with Gemini
Lucky Show: Jeremy Jay @ Mohawk

Aquarius

On the next Saturday that you want to get up on the bar for some yippie yo kay-raoke, make sure to remove your boots first. Otherwise you're sure to slip on some lemon water and be a Dead-Neck Woman.

Most Compatible: with Cancer
Lucky Show: Nite Jewel @ Quack's Bakery

Pisces

You play in a band with your friends but everytime you perform you get so nervous that you sweat like a virgin at a prison rodeo. Use it as an excuse to take off your shirt! Fastest way to get fans.

Most Compatible: with Virgo
Lucky Show: Dirty Projectors @ Ms Bea's

ISSUE 49
Cancer

Your significant other's mother's birthday is coming up but you don't know what to get her. Don't settle for a nice hand cream or a silk scarf or a gift certificate to a spa. Instead get her something you'd want for yourself - like a frog-skin coin purse - so she gets a better feel for what kind of colorful kid you really are.

Most Compatible: with Cancer
Lucky Show: DJ Dog Dick @ Silent Barn

Scorpio

Peep toe boots are so you!

Most Compatible: with Scorpio
Lucky Show: Growing @ Monster Island Basement

Capricorn

You want to get back together with your exes but so far they haven't been trying very hard. Text them late at night when you're shitfaced

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Xiu Xiu @ Monkeytown

ISSUE 50
Gemini

"Cold turkey" is a term invented by tobacco companies and nicotine patch distributors and the people who were in the process of developing e-cigarettes as a way of scaring mothers-to-be into thinking that quitting an addiction is hard. In reality, it's the only way to quit smoking.

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: Boo And Boo Too @ Death By Audio

Virgo

You wear deodorant so often, slathering it on every day that you skip showering, so when you finally do wash yourself and your armpits are momentarily uncovered, they tingle and burn, as if asking you, "Who am I? Who am I Now? Who am I TO YOU?" Cool it on the deodorant; it's going to give you pit cancer.

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: The Brothers Peeesseye @ Paris London West Nile

ISSUE 51
Aries

Not all of your friends are crazy. Plenty are dumb.

Most Compatible: with Taurus
Lucky Show: Quintron @ Market Hotel

Taurus

People actually DO like hearing about your dreams, but only if they're exceptionally violent and if your re-telling is the length of the actual dream [10 - 20 seconds].

Most Compatible: with Gemini
Lucky Show: Despot @ Terminal 5

Gemini

You've only had sex with two woman in the past three years, one of which is your girlfriend and the other with whom you still have contact. However, neither have any pink bumps like you do. There are small pink bumps around the shaft of your penis, not on it, but in the pubic hair area at the base of it. They don't really itch and are about the size of a pimple. There is also a larger bump that resembles a mole in the outer area of your pubic hair. Only, it too is pink. None of these are painful but you would like to find out what is going privately via WikiAnswers. Unfortunately, it'll be a waste of your time. Every response you'll get will be, "See a doctor," and your post may be copied and pasted elsewhere as a joke.

Most Compatible: with Cancer
Lucky Show: Black Feelings @ Silent Barn

Leo

Sharing an eating disorder with a significant other will keep you two together with the adhesive strength of a hard duo-drug addiction.

Most Compatible: with Virgo
Lucky Show: Black Pus @ Death By Audio

Libra

Obviously you're going to get hit on in the supermarket at 9pm if you're buying rice cakes. You look so desperate!

Most Compatible: with Scorpio
Lucky Show: John Zorn @ The Stone

Capricorn

If you give a feral kitty a cookie it might just break into your plastic bag.

Most Compatible: with Aquarius
Lucky Show: Anamanaguchi @ The Stephens Institute of Technology

Aquarius

A lofted bed may free up some floorspace but when you experience the full reduction of fun from your sex life, what went up will come down.

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: Michael Jordan @ Eclectic House

ISSUE 52
Taurus

Actually, your opinions and detailed personal life become Less interesting once you've had 4 drinks.

Most Compatible: with Cancer
Lucky Show: USAISAMONSTER @ Market Hotel

Cancer

It must be summer because the days are long and your ex-girlfriend is fucking some of your friends again.

Most Compatible: with Virgo
Lucky Show: Chamber music from Romania @ Paris London West Nile

Libra

You may be a vicious asshole but you're no sociopath; sociopaths are marred by a more conventional appearance.

Most Compatible: with Sagittarius
Lucky Show: Drown The Swim Team @ The Saint

Sagittarius

You'd like to throw a horror-themed dress-up party because it's a good excuse to make red, highly-alcoholic drinks. Definitely fill your event with costumed werewolves, rather than zombies or vampires; the undead make everything too bourgeois.

Most Compatible: with Aquarius
Lucky Show: Turbosleeze @ Westpac Space

Capricorn

Don't play chess with Death; Death wins against the computer all the time.

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: Defiance, Ohio @ Death By Audio

Pisces

The best way to wear a little extra weight is naked, hairy, and drenched in old sweat.

Most Compatible: with Taurus
Lucky Show: We Are The Seahorses @ Asbury Lanes

ISSUE 53
Aries

Donate the clothing you don't want to wear anymore. The only things you should sell are your soiled panties on Craigslist.

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Brendan Fowler @ Knitting Factory

Taurus

The nice thing about living on the fifth floor of a walk-up is that you get your farts for the day over-with in privacy.

Most Compatible: with Leo
Lucky Show: So So Glos @ Market Hotel

Cancer

You or someone you're intimate with is too large for the average ribbed or scented condoms, which is as inconvenient as having too much weed on a Friday.

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: Anamanaguchi @ Death By Audio

Virgo

Disconnecting without ejecting doesn't harm your device That much.

Most Compatible: with Sagittarius
Lucky Show: Jessica Rylan @ Issue Project Room

Scorpio

It doesn't take ESP to feel that everybody hates you.

Most Compatible: with Taurus
Lucky Show: Quiet Hooves @ Market Hotel

ISSUE 54
Taurus

You can´t run away from your problems. You could if they had a knife but in most instances your problems have a gun and can fly.

Most Compatible: with Aquarius
Lucky Show: The Fly Girlz @ Shea Stadium

Cancer

All the weird, technically-legal plant extracts that you can score at head shops are just weak versions of a real street drug. Skip that shit and support your local dealer.

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: the tribute to Pete Seeger @ Pier A Park

Leo

If you wear Hawaiian shirts, Wranglers and deck shoes, you´ll make all the girls want to go shoop.

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: Le Rug @ Meatlocker

Virgo

If you don´t like a genre of music, try listening to what is considered a bad example of the sound, i.e. a reggae compilation that Rastafarians hate. You´ll probably like it.

Most Compatible: with Aquarius
Lucky Show: BARR @ New Museum

Sagittarius

No matter how thick your leggings are strangers are still going to envision your vagina.

Most Compatible: with Leo
Lucky Show: Gay Beast @ Market Hotel

ISSUE 55
by Seripop

Aries

Remember not to run from the police; take the bus from the police.

Most Compatible: with Pisces
Lucky Show: 311 @ Rumsey Playfield

Virgo

Remember that nobody cares about your unemployment.

Most Compatible: with Cancer
Lucky Show: Blues Control @ Goodbye Blue Monday

Capricorn

Remember to delete your childhood Livejournal.

Most Compatible: with Leo
Lucky Show: No Bunny @ Death By Audio

ISSUE 56
Cancer

You really want to call your pot delivery boy but you only have $5. Don't do it. A nickle bag would only be a key bump of weed.

Most Compatible: with Leo
Lucky Show: Cerebral Ballzy @ Lit Fuse Cyclery

Libra

Squatting over a sheet of paper and dripping period blood onto it in an ornamental fashion Does constitute as art.

Most Compatible: with Scorpio
Lucky Show: Religious Girls @ Death By Audio

Scorpio

You want the $80 Ed Hardy bra with the rhinestone tiger head across the front but irony ends at $11.50.

Most Compatible: with Libra
Lucky Show: caUSE co-MOTION! @ 979 Broadway

Sagittarius

It's okay to judge a band by its name.

Most Compatible: with Scorpio
Lucky Show: Jay Reatard @ Stuy Town Oval

ISSUE 58
Aries

Next time try not to say, "You can thank HELL for little girls," in front of the American Girl Cafe.

Most Compatible: with Cancer
Lucky Show: These Are Powers @ X-Initiative

Gemini

You live with your significant other and the motherfucker will Not leave the apartment. They don't have a job, eat all of your food, and then call their parents in LI/CT/NJ to tell them that they're doing 'em proud. Unless they're really doing you something salacious, definitely kick 'em to the suburb.

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Harry Merry @ Silent Barn

Libra

You hooked up with your friend and you both consider it a mistake. Just pretend it never happened and your lives will go on as though it never did. Awkwardness is just a trick of the mind!!!

Most Compatible: with Cancer
Lucky Show: Blues Control @ Cinders

Sagittarius

Chances are your mother Had told you not to talk to or fuck sunburned homeless beach bums.

Most Compatible: with Capricorn
Lucky Show: Gang Gang Dance @ Prospect Park

Capricorn

Someone you don't know that well has a disease and frequently updates about it on Facebook. Send him or her quotes about strength and healing in a message so that it doesn't show up on the news feed.

Most Compatible: with Cancer
Lucky Show: Laurie Anderson @ The Stone

Aquarius

Don't go back to your hometown. It'll always be there, festering with sad opportunities and broken people, and reminding you of where its high suicide rate is coming from.

Most Compatible: with Aries
Lucky Show: So So Glos Music Video Premiere @ Silent Barn

ISSUE 59
Leo

Sex on the beach sounds cool except for the ass-sand, but the real problem is appearing like a pair of disgusting monsters soiling the scene to the people having bonfires and playing acoustic ABBA covers.

Most Compatible: with Libra
Lucky Show: Das Racist @ The Bell House

Aquarius

If your friends see homeless people and are instantly reminded of you, it's probably not be because of your body odor; it's due more to your Eeyore sweatshirts and tendency to use plastic bags as shoes.

Most Compatible: with Gemini
Lucky Show: Ava Luna @ Silent Barn

Pisces

Don't heckle policemen when they show up to the party. They usually leave after not too long, plus they know you ain't gonna hurt nobody and that you're just dancin' y'all.

Most Compatible: with Leo
Lucky Show: Juiceboxxx @ 979 Broadway

ISSUE 60
Aries/Cancer/Scorpio/Pisces

You or someone close to you thinks samplings of new horoscopes from Showpaper will be available online, but it actually goes against everything Showpaper believes in. Close the computer, take life to the streets, and pick up the new issue at a happenin place near you.

Most Compatible: ??
Lucky Show: TBD

Bad Shirt Idea

2009-08-20T21:16:00.000-04:00

I realized on Tuesday while I was drinking vodka-Dews that I vaguely want to make a RUN DMB shirt, but today I found out that the pun already exists. It can refer to Dave Matthews Band for idiots (like me) but to most people its a plea for DaMarcus Beasley, American soccer player in Scotland, to hurry it up.

Rock Dove

2009-08-17T17:46:00.000-04:00

The real fear in dating musicians - past any notion of predatory groupies or their opportunities to sway toward really hard drugs - is that they'll begin to wish you were a musician, too. Because if they were dating a musician they could watch her play her instrument, her cello, her violin, naked and how great would that be.

Vincent Gallo

2009-08-16T21:26:00.000-04:00

Three days ago Atiya and I saw Vincent Gallo play music at the Coronet. He was crouched on the floor so we could see his dreamy-ass boxer briefs, switching between guitar and bass and then looping them. He jammed with two guys who were adding slow, percussive compliments with clanging effects. As they played on the three would -synch- and it was serene and pleasant. Afterward there was an intermission and then Sean Lennon and his girlfriend played music from their new band.

The audience was, as you'd imagine, great looking and very well dressed. One of the two regrets I sustained from the night was that Atiya and I didn't arrive earlier because we could have made friends (and drank more).

My other regret was that I did not have the woman sitting next to me ejected from the theater. I had made an active effort to stop at the theater at 7:05 so I could sit third-row-center, but my neighbor (age: 55) and her husband's seats were slightly more central. Before the performance the staff of the Coronet (a lush, red velvet theater) implored the audience that talking and texting and photography and recording to make ringtones are not allowed at all and that they will be watching for rule-breakers. Ten minutes into Vincent Gallo's set the woman seated next to me began mumbling to her husband regularly and laughing aloud. She paired it with big, animated, outlandish body movements - looking behind her to the right, sitting up high to see the faces of the people in front of her, lashing herself to the left, keeping her flattened hand above her forehead - "looking" for the audience's response. It was stupid and distracting so I caught her eye. Instead of being embarrassed, she crept to my ear and said, "Do you love this?"
"Yes," I instantly replied, "can I have your seat?"
She told me that I couldn't, which I sort of expected, and then actually stayed still for the rest of the performance. She was either trying to understand it, or bizarrely mocking the calm behavior of someone who was "actually" enjoying it.

When intermission started Atiya and I went straight to the bathroom, and the long line formed behind us. While I was in a stall I heard a newly familiar voice whining, "pretentious!" and "a big fuck-you to the audience."

Upon returning to my seat the woman was already back and immediately made eye contact with me.
"You're back," I said.
"Wha?" she clucked.
"You're back. I'm surprised."
"Let me ask you, let me ask you - what did you like about that?"
"It's the kind of music I like."
"What kind of music is it?"
"Experimental music."
"Experimental music?" It was akin to chatting with an aggressive, judgmental, middle-aged parrot. "What does that mean?"
"It means they're experimenting and trying new things with sound. It's a genre of music."
"So it's like jazz?"
Yup.
"O.K. O.K. So does that mean there are other places where you can see this type of music?"
Yup.
"Name some."
"Pehrspace, the Smell, Echo Curio-" I dislike being on trial when I'm right so I asked her, "What kind of music do you like?"
"Let me ask you-"
"What was the last show you went to?"
"What?"
"CONCERT. What was the last concert you saw?"
"Don't try to turn this on me."
"Why not?"
"Don't you think this is the kind of music you could make in the basement with your friends after a few joints?"
Nope.
"Didn't you think the whole thing was just pretentious?"
No. Pretentious is the adjective of people who feel left out based on their mental inferiority and inability to locate educational resources. I wasn't begging the woman to explain Julie & Julia so I could attack and torture her.
"Didn't you think [Vincent Gallo's] turning-his-back on the audience was a big Fuck You to the audience?"
Nope. "Just because he's famous doesn't mean he has to act like a rock star."
"Oh so it's about the FAME, I get it."
"NO!" You deaf hag!
"So you thought that drummer was keeping a good beat?"
"Yes. They were creating two separate beats that correlated but didn't match."
"They make disconnected connections," Atiya addded in, also annoyed her attention was being pooled into this.
"A disconnected connection," the woman repeated to herself. "That's interesting." It wasn't interesting. None of it was interesting. The lights went out for Sean Lennon to begin, and people started clapping and I couldn't hear anything, and the woman tried to continue our debate so I, like so many times before, told her "No."

For about 70 seconds I thought the Sean Lennon set was going to be great. He was sitting in a chair with a wa-wa pedal, playing licks while an extremely thin woman played an old piano on the far left of the stage. It sounded really good. After those 70 seconds the woman left the piano and sat next to Sean Lennon and put a tambourine in her lap. It then became apparent that they were both chewing gum.

I was surprisingly in a lot of pain during Sean Lennon's set. He and his model girlfriend made annoying banter, including jokes about chewing gum and an extensive background of every song, and then played boring folk with corny, faux-literary lyrics. The woman-next-to-me and her husband loved it. They cheered hysterically and she cackled after every anecdote. Sean Lennon and his girlfriend called up an unrehearsed drummer who proceeded to play a slow di-dah with rough, fifth-grader's-first-kit form. I prayed for sleep but sleep would not come.

When it was finally over I stood up and hovered over the woman seated third-row-perfectly-center.
"I didn't like that," I easily admitted to her. "But you didn't know! So next time you go to a show and YOU don't like it, follow MY example."
I turned around and exited the aisle. "What did you like about it?" she shouted after me. "You didn't like it?" She had run after me and put her hand on my shoulder so I walked faster and then rolled my shoulder toward my chest. "Wasn't that engaging?"
I flipped around. "I don't need to be engaged, I have a boyfriend." And then I weaved away and left the theater.

I don't really know what I meant by my last comment, but I really don't understand the person who feels a connection or an ability to relate to, who feels they more easily have a friend in the son of a Beatle and his model girlfriend than a man who got to the stage solely by his art. And I think if we were stoned in a basement, my boyfriend and I could probably make the music of the former - but I'd need to lose a little weight first.

Owen

2009-08-16T01:41:00.000-04:00

chudbabies (10:38:37 PM): I almost had a faux paus in my thank you letter to the deaf guy

chudbabies (10:38:41 PM): I almost wrote

chudbabies (10:39:09 PM): "I really am thankful for everything, and I can't wait to hear from you soon!

chudbabies (10:39:13 PM): Owen thaxton!"

Veela7 (10:40:08 PM): OOOOOOOOOOPZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Veela7 (10:40:15 PM): lulli

chudbabies (10:40:35 PM): yeah, that was a close one

chudbabies (10:40:47 PM): thank god college taught me to proofread

Spending Time With My Dad

2009-08-13T23:17:00.000-04:00

New Bag: FINALLY

2009-08-12T19:00:00.000-04:00

I've wanted (to make?) this bag for a really long time, probably since my last trip to Disney World or the Roosevelt Field Mall. Somewhere I saw an elderly woman with a handbag that displayed pictures of toddlers and one high schooler in a suit on the outside of it. I don't have grandchildren or printed pictures of anyone else I know, and if I had either I wouldn't care enough to brag about them on a tote.

However I did have big plans so I searched high and low in a frames store near our apartment for a photo-display bag. When they didn't have one I went online and actually found one - and I don't know if your ready for this nostalgia but it was - on the Oriental Trading website. Oriental Trading, the uncomfortably-named, scout-leading-mom's bible was delivered to most households involuntarily throughout the 1990's. Need an inflatable guitar with flames? Grass table skirts in five colors? How about fortune cookies that quote the Gospel or a potato sack reading, Leap For The Lord? If you'd like 48 packages of Fun Dip for less than $10, I have just the catalog for you!

But now it's online so I ordered a canvas tote bag with plastic pockets. On the website the bag was printed with, Grandma's Love Is Like No Other, which seemed like an insane bonus. When I sent the image of it to Lyle, Lyle said, "Yo my grandma, who I don't even fuck with, had that bag the last time I saw her in Florida."

Atiya and I went to the Fairfax High School swap meet and found a booth that just had shoeboxes filled with pictures. Most of glossies had belonged to dead people, but some of them were just discolored or had fingers in the shot, so they might have been donations from CVS. Atiya collected a bunch of portraits of ugly white couples kissing to hang up in work locker, but I grabbed a bunch with no overriding theme except that all had made me laugh.

Yesterday the photo tote came in the mail but it didn't have any words on it! Oriental Trading had completely forgotten about Grandma's love. The catalog apparently expects me to add my own Grandmother-based or otherwise-appropriate message around the picture slots with multicolored letters that they didn't provide in the box, and I am not interested. There's only so much effort I can funnel into irony before it makes me sick.

Here are some other possible combos including pictures bought from the Fairfax High School swap meet:

OTC Bum Fighter

2009-08-12T18:24:00.000-04:00

Chew Shoes

2009-08-12T18:18:00.000-04:00

Bold Age

2009-08-10T14:29:00.000-04:00

This morning Jenius Jones showed me a fashion blog that beats the -shit- out of my fashion blog. It's called Advanced Style and it documents fly old people. Fly old people are 40% of the reason I'd want to live in Uptown Manhattan and the only reason I'd actually want to grow old (the alternative being to let the cancer take me). The blog recently posted a video of an elderly lady doing incredible karaoke so I'm going to RT it now.

New Bag: LA Fitness

2009-08-06T23:59:00.000-04:00

Today I bought a brown, tubular, suede bag from an estate sale on Santa Monica Boulevard. A guy working at the sale remarked, "That bag is just so cool. I just knew someone was going to buy it to keep their yoga mat."
I don't dislike yoga but I haven't done it since Roslyn High School gym with Ms. Jake, and even then it was only a six-week elective. I felt embarrassed so I responded with, "Oh, I was going to keep my gun in it."
"Really," the guy asked cautiously while his smile melted to his chin. Then he nodded.
"No! No. I'm just kidding. I don't have a GUN!" At that point I kind of wish I did own a gun, one that I didn't use or look at, whose nonexistence I could have been lying about at that moment. The guy ran off to his coworkers laughing and re-told them what I'd said.

To clarify, this isn't an online confession of how much I'd like to own a gun because I do not want to own a gun.

Swamp Thing

2009-08-05T19:05:00.000-04:00

It would seem that I found my new bicycle in a swamp but I actually bought it from my neighbor. Atiya and I sat on his couch silently, which he had requested through a series of exaggerated gestures, while he loudly consoled a movie director over the phone.
"It's not your vision, you know? You feel pressure to go with them because they're the first to bite, but, you know, if they were so quick to jump on the project they'll still be interested later. If they're not who you want, they're not who you want. I'm working on a project right now, sort of a lower budget thing, and we're in talks with Jerry Stiller, you know, you never know who's gonna be interested."
Atiya and I listened intently and then mouthed jokes about his furniture. To be fair, he had nice armoires and shelving units and an old set of Thesaurus-and-Rhyme-Dictionary, but he also had a small framed poster of The Fountainhead, whose lighthearted end-moral about compromising your morals and artistic drive for the sake of true happiness [by way of cashing-in] contradicted what we were overhearing.

"O.K. girls," he said when he eventually retrieved us. He lead us to his shed, out of which he was selling 20 or 25 old roadsters. Atiya coo-ed at the sight one of the yellow bicycles. "This is a little project I got on the side with my friend Jimmy," he explained.
"Cool, Jimmy," I thought. "I'll bring it up to him next time I see him."
"But yeah," he continued, "I'm pretty sure this is the only bike I have at that price."
The one I'd come for was the cheapest, heaviest, and although not necessarily the oldest, it certainly had the most rust per alumina.

It's a 1973 or 1974 Schwinn Suburban and it rides like its wheels are made out of smooth boulders. At a slight incline, the pedals resist as though I'm riding it out of the swamp for the very first time. Although it's probably dangerous for long distances, it's excellent as a non-stationary exercise machine.

Today I stopped the bike to let a neighbor cross the street in front of me. I'd never seen him before but upon hearing the bicycle stop he remarked, "Quiet bike."
Get it? Get it? It's because the breaks sound like a newborn banshee.

That's Alaina 4 U

2009-08-05T02:59:00.000-04:00

I'll always remember Nashville fondly because I was there for two days with Jon and Taub, and on one of the nights we went to a honky tonk and then a Garth Brooks karaoke bar. The city seemed so alive and progressive, especially for its region and in sharp comparison with Memphis. So a few days ago when I read that Nashville has an extremely high violent crime rate I initially didn't understand why. But I get it now.

The Sun!

2009-08-02T17:20:00.000-04:00

Cyclops on the Bus

2009-07-30T02:06:00.000-04:00

A lot of the monsters invented by the Ancient Greeks' mythology were later seen as predictions of the genetic deformities brought in by modernity. Dryads and Kraken and Hydra alike, all rearing their heads in the digital age in varying shades of unfortunate. At the Musée Fragonard d'Alfort, a taxidermied oddities museum attached to the main veterinary hospital in Paris, I learned that Cyclops, too, are amongst us. I saw myopic cows and bunnies and realized that any mammal can have an Eye of Providence hovering above and between where its two eyes ought to be. And then, two days ago on the 4 bus, I saw a live one! A lady cyclops was (appropriately) seated in the handicapped section in the front. Unfortunately she displayed some unfriendly behavior, as beasts so often do, so I didn't feel comfortable asking her where she'd bought her protective glasses.

Old Gift: ABBA Clock

2009-07-28T19:40:00.000-04:00

I know I said [on Twtr] that I wasn't going to talk about ABBA anymore, but I just found this ABBA clock in the cabinet under the sink in the bathroom that I share with Atiya. I had given it to Mia for a birthday or Christmas in the early 2000's, which I had used as an excuse to FINALLY buy a clock from Mod World. The ABBA Clock is simple and glittery, garnished with children's beads, some of which help to spell out Dancing Queen. Despite this, the image of the group that encompasses the face of the clock is clearly of them lip-syncing, "When I Kissed the Teacher" in Poland in 1976. I like the clock more now than when I bought it [for Mia], having originally picked it because it was inexpensive. Another clock in Mod World was the reason I'd frequent the store - to make sure it was still there. It was a Pink Flamingos-inspired clock, the body of which was a pink lawn flamingo trimmed with AstroTurf and heart-warming pictures of Divine. It cost several hundred dollars so no one would buy it, and I don't think anyone ever did. RIP Mod World.

Best of Maine

2009-07-26T12:45:00.000-04:00

New Necklace

2009-07-25T11:20:00.000-04:00

This necklace is great for summer. It's a miniature ice cream scooper that used to be a freezer magnet but now has a suede ribbon strung through it. I bought it for $1 because why the hell not. I have time on my hands.

Biz's Karaoke

2009-07-25T08:41:00.000-04:00

I definitely identify with Biz Markie. I hope that I'll eventually be the Biz Markie of my chosen field: not impressively or even technically skilled but so jokey and defiant that it passes as excellently-thought-out. His alias is a pun beyond what he seems capable of after hearing Toilet Stool Rap - goofy flow, daffy rhymes, Puffy AmiYumi scratching - but that's most of his charm! In his song, Chinese Food, wherein he names good dishes, Biz Markie sends a Rest In Peace to Aaliyah and then shouts out Bruce Lee and Jet Li. My other deep connection with Biz Markie is his love for Gilbert O'Sullivan [another GR8 moniker] which he professed with an unofficial and unauthorized cover of Alone Again (Naturally), for which he was later sued. The lawsuit burned when rubbed into the financial failure of his album, I Need A Haircut, but four years later Biz Markie was healed by his own classic rendition of Elton John's Benny and the Jets. He sustains an entertainment value throughout the whole song without proving a pinch of musical competence, which, for me, is awfully inspiring.

Being Frank

2009-07-24T12:22:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went to Walmart to accompany Tim while he bought a knife. Near the check-out aisle we saw a children's homework folder featuring a florescent peacock whose claws were locked into a big read heart. The heart donned a sash that read, "Ed Hardy.""Isn't that horrible?" I remarked to Tim. "What does this have to do with elementary education?"
"What is that?" He seemed to agree. "Is this the new Lisa Frank?"

What a good point! I'm pretty ashamed for not realizing it earlier.

Lisa Frank essentially raised the girls and lady boys of this generation, teaching us to love nature and music in terms of the neon hues and an unrelenting sunniness that don't exist in nature or music. She made a pass at designing clothes, but I have no memory of anyone showing up to a sleepover in a knee-length teddy bear sweatshirt. [Of course I'd torch a children's hospital to wear one now.]

And once our generation's guard was down, Christian Audiger came in and created a dangerous version of Lisa Frank. As Ed Hardy he employed dragons in the place of unicorns, skulls instead of rainbows, and used neon tigers to replace neon tiger pups with long eyelashes. Once he cornered the corny clothes market, he went back to where Lisa Frank had left off [when she was sued for $30,000 for asking little girls for their birthdates and addresses and then fell into obscurity] and rejuvenated the trend of blinding school supplies.

I was pretty down about this, having not heard from Lisa Frank for over a decade, thinking about the world my children will someday think was brightened by Christian Audiger. Today I went to two Dollar Tree retailers [I usually go to them in Illinois and Florida] because they were next-door to most of the guitar stores in Portland, ME. I weaved around the store, considered buying candy, and then found something even sweeter --

the Lisa Frank section! I only had two dollars so I didn't buy everything I wanted [stickers, mini notebooks, fold-out gift boxes printed with a beautiful Lisa Frank gumball machine] but I did get a set of four Lisa Frank keychains! The charms are too fragile [cardboard] to actually be thrown into my bag with my keys and loose coins and old food so they became single-use necklaces!

Matchy Matchy

2009-07-22T12:19:00.000-04:00

Colby and I both have jean jackets here in Maine (I flew mine in from Los Angeles) but he refuses to wear his when I wear mine and then take a picture. He seems to think it's uncool when couples pose as fraternal twins that make out. Lotta wild freaks, man. Can you dig that? It's far out.

17 Saved Voice Messages

2009-07-21T21:56:00.000-04:00

My cell phone's voicemail message includes a really tiring joke about how I'll return the call that I've just missed "in four days." It actually serves as a warning, excusing myself in advanced for a slackidaisical response time, due partially to an unwarranted reluctance to listen to my answering machine at all.

This behavior is made even less functional because my phone can only hold 3 unheard voicemails. If I listen to a message in full, which in reality is quite rare, and then immediately hang up without pressing any numbers, the voicemail is permanently saved. Over time I've had as many as 19 accidentally-saved voicemails, but in combing through them and choosing favorites, I've narrowed it down to 17. Everytime I have 3 New Voicemails and my Mailbox Is Full, I'm scolded by a severe voice actress and ordered to delete the Stored ones.

From time to time I'll go through the 17 voicemails to see if I've kept an accidental message that I don't really need or like or want in an attempt to delay the necessity to check them - 3 New Messages comes pretty quickly for me. Right now is one of those times, and after entering my password and pressing pound, I still love them like 17 audio children.

1. A thick accent from either a Ming Dynasty or David King employee, saying, "I guess, this is your Chinese food here, we're waiting for you."

2. Jared Chester with my high school friends in the background, saying, "In 3 hours you may be feeling this good. Happy New Year."

3. "Sam Jaffe calling from Purchase Television," with a faux-friendly-detailed-professional accent.

4. Toby calling me and yelling with Billy Hertz and then both of them coughing profusely.

5. Taub called me beccause, "tomorrow, Sunday, May 6th, and you're actually the first person I'm letting to know this, who I'm letting to, this sounds really bad, that I'm coming home. I'll be back early in the morning. We should get together, meet up, bring your friends, I could say Hi to Rocawear, and talk about how we don't really know him." Later in the voicemail he makes fun of Julia for being in Vietnam. I think it was from the start of the summer after Junior year.

6. When I was going out with Rocawear I had once made a plan to meet him on the LIRR. I got to the train late and we decided to meet at the Manhasset train station. During that ride, a drunk yuppie who was eating fried chicken started hitting on me. I thought I had only given him my email address, but I guess gave him my phone number because I wanted him to leave me alone. He apparently fostered a filthy Long Island accent since 2005. He called to say, "Hello, this is Dominic, and I've seen to have gotten your number in my cell phone. Um, [4 second pause] I don't know who you are. I don't know who Lena is. And I was just curious to see who it belongs to."

7. Nini calling in her remarkably slow, breathy voice. "I'm comin, ya know, from Jersey and want to know how to, uh, drive in somewhere, park somewhere. I just wanted to find out, ya know, how to get to your apartment in Brooklyn. And if, ya know, I would be intruding." She's talking about the apartment I had with Jenny on Lorimer two summers ago. I was most-likely canceling plans to see her.

8. My cousin Lucas, probably six years old, who I see or want to see something of myself in. "I was in the Championship baseball game. We came in second place, we didn't win. Love you and miss you and love you. Bye."

9. A call from Julio. The call time was I think 4:35 a.m. "Yo Alaina it's Julio, I know it's like, really early in the morning. But I wanted to see what you're up to at this hour, this ungodly hour. But yeah I'm hanging out, just wanted to see what you're doing. Hit me up."

10. Rocawear crying to Beau about how I'd just been arrested because he hadn't hung up his phone.

11. "Alaina Hi, My name is Brian Sids, I'm calling from a law firm, I was given your number in that you had called in response to a commercial on TV offering to help people who had injured kidneys as a result of having heart surgery."

12. Colby alternating between high-pitched and long, hollow sound effects. I had missed his call because I was at the Parthenon replica in Nashville, TN with Jon and Taub.

13. Colby calling me while driving mail to a post office for an employer. He seemingly forgets that he's leaving a voicemail, slowly narrating what he's driving by, yawning through sentences. He tells me how much he'll be paid for working on the 4th of July, "so you know, you can be happy for me," and then admits to having smoked weed the night before, "but to compensate I've had 3 cups of tea already today, and I plan to have at least 2 more." He ends the voicemail by telling me what street he's turning onto and then says, "And that's what dreams are made of."

14. Colby calling from France via Skype the week before I fly to Paris.

15. Colby calling from France via Skype, incomprehensible.

16. Colby's five-year-old brother Finlay calling me, with Colby telling him half-sentence by half-sentence what to say and then Finlay reciting it.

17. Josh Brown singing, Nobody Knows It But Me by Babyface.

BRB

2009-07-16T12:20:00.001-04:00

A Nice Thing That Left Vegas

2009-07-15T16:50:00.000-04:00

Las Vegas is really dissimilar to the way its advertised. It's not dangerous or seedy, and aside from the capacity to order prostitutes, there isn't very much sinning going on. I daresay its the least wild place I've ever been. Because while most cities have a Disney World-style strip - New York has Times Square, Los Angeles has Hollywood Boulevard, Paris has the Champs-Élysées, Chicago has the area surrounding the Rock N Roll McDonald's - the entirety of Las Vegas is a Disney World, and upon visiting you are trapped.

Nothing happens in Vegas and the only things that stay are your gambled amounts of money and your loose stools stemming from any of the many casino-hotel buffets. Upon returning to Los Angeles I began to notice billboards in favor of the "resorts" in Vegas, recognizing each themed monstrosity by name. An ad for the Monte Carlo pictures a man and woman and a bottle of vodka and reads, Unpretentiously Luxurious, which, if you think about it, sounds like the wrong kind of luxury. "Unpretentious" means Not Smart and Not Thought Out Well and Not Culturally Significant; so when partnered with a word that means Feels Good, one could say that settling in for a night of animal porn and Oil of Olay sounds unpretentiously luxurious.

I went to Old Vegas, or Downtown Las Vegas, where all the famous moving florescent statues are: the cowboy giving the thumbs up, the cowgirl lifting her leg, the boy holding a disproportionate donut or burger over his head. It's the Vegas of Swingers and Honey We Blew Up The Kids, rather than of CSI: Miami in Vegas and The Hangover. It's slightly dirtier and has more sad alcoholics, plus many more penny slot machines (which make it impossible to win anything and are mainly in place for recovering gambling addicts). The free drinks were weaker so I liked it less, but I did chance upon a Native American supplies store. I found a pair of moccasins [or makasin, mohkisson, mokussin, makizin, Mi'kmaq, m'kusun or maxkeseni] in sandy, smooth leather. They have 'W's stitched on the top to help grip the slippers to my feet. They were the rarest, prettiest things in Las Vegas, and they had stayed there long enough.

This Is What It Would Look Like If I Was A Model

2009-07-15T13:56:00.000-04:00

Weather & Lace

2009-07-13T17:21:00.000-04:00

In April I went to London with Colby and his cousin Brad. We didn't see Big Ben or have tea or harass any stationary guards but chose instead to spend the days sleeping in the city's massive public parks. We never bought a map, probably on my bad advice and irrational thriftiness, so wandering lost became our normal form of transportation.

Looking for Abney Park, which features an old, overgrown cemetery, we went to the wrong part of town and then a localized public park. The park was lined on one side with Hasidic establishments, so we were able to eat bagels - a foodstuff that receives 0 recognition in Paris - before napping in the grass. The weather was windy and I only wore a t-shirt or tank top so we stopped at a thrift store (which obviously sold the belongings of dead Hasids). The shirt I picked was 7€ but I bought it on sale for 3€50.

The shirt is thick cotton with something elastic blended in, and long sleeves, all of which is printed with the animated image of lace. Parts of the pattern are studded with a single teal sequin. Lace was really hot in the streets earlier this year, so at 3€50 the shirt was a v practical steal.

Kitty Day

2009-07-12T22:39:00.000-04:00

Right before Colby moved to Paris, when I still lived in New York, I would call him while he was at work to tell him Americans-learning-French jokes.
"Hon, I can only talk for 15 seconds," he'd say when he picked up. "What's up?"
"Honey, honey - why do French men only eat one egg at a time?"
"Uh, what?"
"Say why."
"Uh, why?"

Sometimes Colby would be in the midst of saying Goodbye and I'll See You Really Soon, and I'd squeeze in a quick, "So there were two cats that were racing along the Seine..."
"What?"
"And one of them was named Misses and the other was named Un Deux Trois."
"O.K. Hon, I can call you in a--"
"And you wanna know what happened in the race? UN DEUX TROIS CAT [Quatre] SANK [Cinq]! IN THE SEINE!"
"Bye!"

My favorite joke, which is decidedly the least clever and hardest to understand for both Americans and Frenchies, is:
Why is Easter a good idea?
Why?
Because it's a bon idée! [The answer, in some pronunciation, is supposed to sound like Bunny Day, somehow.]

I liked the joke so much that I tried to alter it to make sense.
Why is Halloween a good idea?
Why, Alaina, why?
Because it's a BONEY day! [This nabs the correct pronunciation but, as in the original joke, brings up an awkward and/or imaginary way of describing the fated holiday.]

But I didn't like my new version more. I liked the other one more because I liked talking about bunnies. Bunnies, kitties, puppies, duckies, even ratties, these things are common points of conversation for me. And I really liked saying, "Bunny day," even if it didn't form a sensible phrase. I began answering my phone calls from Colby as "Hello Bunny Day," much to his chagrin.

When I eventually moved to Paris, too, I didn't live with any pets. I would get extremely excited to see animals on the street, and from there began to call to French dogs passing by with, "Oh! Bon soir Puppy day!"

This habit has since spilled into my American life, often still with the parts of [poorly pronounced] French. I live with four adult cats and two extra-large dogs, but to me they're just a festival of puppy and kitty weeks. Prarie made a series of kitty day necklaces for a show we did at the house in New York, and when I returned from my Euro Trip one had come for me in the mail. The image of her black and white cat, Crybaby, appears in a purple teardrop gem with a hint of gold glimmering from the bottom. She has since made more necklaces in honor of her little honey. Yesterday, Mia asked if my necklace was of Socks: First Cat, of whom I had many t-shirts as a child. Prarie usually also mothers 2-5 fancy rats, so I'm hoping she comes out with thick rings or charm bracelets celebrating the ratty days sometime soon.

Tiny Tim

2009-07-07T19:56:00.000-04:00

Google Image Search brought this to me and I realized this dog is named Tiny Tim because it limps like the sick little boy in A Christmas Carol. When I was little my family and I saw Tiny Tim near the baggage claim at JFK. My only memory is that he was wearing a suit with his pants pulled up high, and from there I could see his decorative, child-like socks. I didn't know to look for Miss Vicki and I don't know if she would've been traveling with him anymore, anyway.In middle school I heard about CelebrityMorgue.com from Howard Stern's radio show, which I listened to as part of my early-morning ritual. On the website I saw Tiny Tim for the second time in my life - arms crossed, in a coffin.However, it was not until his cover of, "Living in the Sunlight, Loving in the Moonlight," appeared in a sequence on the first episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants did I finally get what was going on. His ukulele and his falsetto and his song choice and the fake drum sounds were everything I needed. Tiny Tim was made for me to love him, and a powerful spiritual force had been trying to inform me for almost a decade. And who was I or who had I been, unknowingly or with good conscience, to turn away from the ordained? The man speaks quickly and with his listeners in mind; his minimal success coming from his work as a one-man midway. He appeared on network talk shows, putting forth a awkwardly meek but shameless persona, getting laughed at by the hosts and their studio audiences, and then taking his ukulele out of its case and playing to loud applause. While Tiny Tim was obviously in control of his weirdness, how much of it was natural? Past the spouting nose and dark, sunken eyes, did he find himself attractive with rough, unkempt hair and flamboyant clothing -- the way I see myself at my best? When he finally found love in a 17-year-old (Miss Vicki), did he see himself as pathetic, or just proven right?By the time he covered Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," Tiny Tim was coffin-bound. The video came in the 80's, preceding the renewed popularity of the song as fostered by Ally McBeal. Tiny was bloated, wearing tight clothes in all-one-color, and surrounded by women with bangs and red lipstick. It was depressing, repetitive, and of home movie-quality. Soon after its release, Tiny Tim fell off a stage during a ukulele festival; he never really got back up.

Treat Me Rough (the complete collection)

2009-07-03T10:10:00.000-04:00

Good evening, American roughians. This is Alaina Stamatis and you're looking at the complete collection of Treat Me Rough, my radio show through the American University of Paris. Alongside the links and their lengths I've included asterisks to indicate which episodes I recommend the most. Episodes 2 and 3 have an exceptionally low ratings because they were recorded poorly, and this post is the debut of Episode 9 on "v awesome fashions". So free up your hard drive, cancel your Friday-night plans, and enjoy a-little-less-than 9 hours of my thinned blood, caffeinated sweat, and tearful history.

Episode 1 (58 mins) ****
Episode 2 (57 mins) **
Episode 3 (55 mins) ***
Episode 4 (60 mins) *****
Episode 5 (58 mins) ****
Episode 6 (56 mins) **** (birthday episode!)
Episode 7 (52 mins) *****
Episode 8 (50 mins) *****
Episode 9 (51 mins) *****

Kool-Aid Mountain Girl

2009-06-17T12:54:00.013-04:00

In childhood Colby's first father-figure was Steve. He was his mother's high school sweetheart, shaped most strongly by the rustic Maine lifestyle and his service in Vietnam. He has a thick Maine accent, which takes into account Maine's location - between Boston and Hallifax. It's easy to see that he views Colby as a son, and in turn has always opened his home to me.

In Steve's bathroom was a catalog of workmen's clothing that I continued to flip through long after I'd finished peeing. The standard leaf-and-trees camouflage was there, along with Timberlands and pocket machetes. There was, however, one shirt I had never conceived of. It came in neon orange and sulfur, with a breast pocket and suspender-like strips of reflective tape (which continued onto the pocket). In a non-rushed way I felt that I had to have it.

In the coming weeks I'd search for the shirt online and wouldn't be able to find it. I visited the L.L. Bean megastore and the employees weren't sure what I was explaining. Reflective vests are everywhere but a t-shirt was something I must had imagined.

In New York for a week, visiting friends and monuments, I tried to walk everywhere, especially on interborough trips. I walked from Williamsburg to Long Island City from my friend Jason's apartment to my friend Gabby's job. I followed Nassau Ave to McGuinness, where I looked for places to buy cigarettes. I got to a corner and got the green light to walk. I passed a store I'd seen many times that sells construction-site apparel. When I had crossed half the street, a car stopped to my left, I went to blink and the shirt glimmered behind my left eyelid. I continued and almost made it to the corner, jigged a little, and then turned around, ignoring how crazy I was about to look. I then jogged into the man's man store. In celebration of summer my friend Todd organized a BBQ on Rockaway Beach. I went and wore my brand-new shirt, bright and blaring as the sun. It brought me to the attention of strangers, who would narrate my actions: She totally just peed in the water. She has a beer in her pocket! She's been here all day.

In the evening I made a stop at San Loco (on the Lower East Side). As I waited for my food, sunburned and stinking of salt, a woman looked to me and said, "You look like you've been doing community service all day. Like that shirt, it looks like you're on parole."
"Yeah, I've been by the highway picking up garbage. And now I'm getting a guacoloco."

In a book I was reading today, which was lent to me by my friend David, a young mother on acid named Mountain Girl told a quick story: "We got 'em at the uniform store," she says. "Aren't they great! There's this old guy in there, says, 'Now, you ain't gonna cut them flags up for costumes, are you?' And so I told him, 'Naw, we're gonna git some horns and have a parade.' But you see this? This is really why we got 'em."

England's Rose and Floral Prints

2009-05-20T05:37:00.006-04:00

Most want to say that the 1990's are back but I'd argue they never left; that the 90's, like the spirit of Santa, exists in all of us. We never stopped liking Nike or Clueless and never really wanted our men to stop looking like Kurt Cobain. Because 90's fashion was characterized by anti-fashionable behavior, it followed the belief that things that technically don't go well together or match at all... now do. And that clothing meant for lumberjacks and hicks are actually perfect for us. It was an unconscious reaction to the hyper-stylized 80's and an attempt to erase the trend of the decade uniform, while simultaneously inventing irony.

For this reason, I'm not buying the 90's revival. Newly-made floral skirts and expensive tube tops have no place in my heart. Most items of flannel can go fuck themselves, too.

However, if you still crave a style icon from way back when, definitely go with the Jackie Onassis of 1996 - Diana, Princess of Wales.

We're Still Having Fun And You're Still The One

2009-05-14T05:59:00.002-04:00

A Night Without Armor

2009-05-13T17:37:00.005-04:00

Jewel's book of poetry, A Night Without Armor, now available on Amazon.com for $.01, explores the fire of first love, the fading of passion, and the loneliness of living in a car following divorce. It was published a decade before she gave up pursuing pop music for the ever-easier-to-succeed contemporary country bracket.

In 1993, Michael Balzary (better known as Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) met Jewel after he saw her perform at a local cafe. They went back to her van and she sang a few songs for him. He described her voice as being "beautiful" and "breathtaking."In 2007 Jewel was a judge on Iron Chef: America, in which Bobby Flay scorched David Burke. Since then, challengers have rarely decided to battle Chef Flay in order to save face.

Puddle Wonderful

2009-05-08T09:57:00.007-04:00

When I see a puddle of gasoline on wet pavement I start smiling like a child. Most people feel excitement at the sight of rainbows but no one else I know wants to talk about how nice an oil leak looks or to take a picture of it for me.I was able to find some photos of oil rainbows on Google Image Search but 85% of them had been digitally altered to show excessive vibrancy. Flickr seems to favor images of nature so infused with neon that making an unauthorized inspirational poster for your local guidance counselor must be easier than ever! "The squeaky parking lot gets the oil spill." I'd much rather be looking at Lisa Frank directly.

Cinco de Mayo

2009-05-05T15:16:00.003-04:00

Girl Crazy

2009-05-05T12:06:00.003-04:00

I would argue that the only time Ira Gershwin showed a real talent for lyric-writing was with anxious ballad, Treat Me Rough, in the two brothers' musical Girl Crazy. Coincidentally there are two ways to help me celebrate Ira's finer times: by listening to episode 8 of my radio show - a 49 minute MP3, or by tuning in to AUPRadio.org tonight for episode 9!

Talking French

2009-05-01T13:09:00.003-04:00

I would actually love to start a clothing line called Talking French but it already exists but not to the capacity that I would have imagined.

Vermeer In Furs

2009-04-27T09:00:00.009-04:00

Anyone with an outside-knowledge of the Dutch masters will recall that Johannes Vermeer deeply favored specific accessories and pieces of women's apparel; namely, pearls and a golden velvet jacket. The subjects would vary but these items would appear, and while it's easy to believe that more than one wealthy woman in Holland owned pearl jewelry, I doubt the popularity of a flashy yellow coat, thick-trimmed with white fur which was speckled with black diamond spots, in the mild and bashful 1660's. The women he adorned with the things he adored would, by modern standards, be mistaken for sufferers of a genetic disease, but in his time and place they were considered at least decent beauties. It's quite difficult to tell if any of the paintings were of the woman of Pearl Earring fame, or if they all are. I'd say the woman receiving news from a messenger at her desk looks the most like Scarlett Johansson.

American whatevers in Paris

2009-04-24T10:06:00.007-04:00

One of our American friends in Paris was robbed at gunpoint a few months ago. Police reviewed security cameras from the dark parking lot but did little to follow up on the case, and after he canceled his credit cards though Skype, Parisian life resumed its reliably-safe demeanor.

Upon moving to Paris I noticed a hobby store near our apartment that sells everything one would need to build an intricate train set and thick, black BB guns that look an extraordinary amount like actual handguns. The BB guns lack the large orange tip required of children's playthings in America; in America, they're necessary to distinguish a gun possessor from a cowboy or a pirate, a preventative measure taken to curb accidental Halloween deaths at the hands uppity law enforcement. This precaution is irrelevant in France because no one celebrates Halloween and because it's nearly impossible to obtain a real gun.

In turn, our friend may have been robbed at BB gunpoint. It isn't shameful at all considering how authentic they look and how stupid it would be to call a weapon on being a bluff. Moreover BB's hurt quite a bit and are probably fatal if they hit the neck or that big artery just South of the buttocks.

There are lots of Americans living in Paris. Many come for specific jobs and others, like myself, are freelance hooligans, buying up all the 2€ wine and paying for croissants in small change at Eric Kayser and Paul boulangeries. The majority of Americans in Paris are students, often made to feel comfortable about not knowing French or anything about French culture through immersion in institutions with exclusively other Americans: American University of Paris, NYU at Paris, etc. This stops the American students in Paris from making French friends or entering establishments that their Parisian peers patronize. It also gives them the impression that they can approach people in bars if they overhear spoken English, to spark up a where-are-you-from-oh-I've-never-been-there conversation -- about which they are gravely mistaken.

I have French friends but my French is so atrocious that we always speak English. And despite my poor language skills I don't think I've socially met anyone who was rude; I would easily assert that the French are miles-more pleasant than the average New Yorker. Even French strangers, upon being asked for directions or a cigarette, will usually exclaim, "Viva Obama!" as a way of assuring Americans that any negative stereotype is truly false. Still, if I'm in a vintage store and a slew of girls come in yelling in American accents, I'll quietly glare at them in an attempt to make them feel unwelcome in the city. I'm happy that Paris has been so kind to me but I'm an extremely polite guest.

Last weekend we went to a bar because our [French] friend was deejaying. I had a good time, but in the middle of the night, five American girls came over to our table and tried to relate to us; they came from Texas, dressed poorly, and couldn't read in our faces that nobody wanted to dance with them. My friend Isabelle called to me, "Alaina, these girls are American," knowing full-well that I didn't want to be outed.
"O-ba-MA!" I yelled back, emphasizing the last syllable as French pronunciations always do.

I assume that this loathing will subside before I go back to the US and have nothing to overhear but American accents everywhere I go. After all, I don't hate America; I just hate its loud, ugly brats. But until then, if I should fall upon economic hardships while still living in France, I will most likely invest in a dangerous-looking BB gun and use it to stick up the Americans in Paris; there's a high chance that they won't know any better.

Got Any Plans For Summer?

2009-04-23T02:38:00.002-04:00

Careers @ Gap Inc.com to me

Dear Alaina:

Sales Associate - Gap - Beverly Drive Beverly Hills-00A5B has opened and matches your profile interest.
The job is open and posted on www.gapinc.com.

If you would like to apply for this position, click here. You can also visit our website to review a list of all open positions.

We thank you for your interest in Gap Inc.

Best regards,
Gap Inc. Careers

If you do not wish to receive further job posting notifications, unsubscribe now. You can
subscribe again later, while applying for a position or reviewing your profile.

Replies to this message are undeliverable. Please do not reply.

Rough Treatment

2009-04-21T06:21:00.006-04:00

The seventh installment of Treat Me Rough was one of those hour-long periods of time wherein I'm unable to open my mouth without fucked and horrible things dripping out. Listen in tonight at 22h [4pm EST] to AUP Radio [http://aupradio.org] as I try to out-do myself for the eighth time.
EPISODE 6 (56 minutes)
EPISODE 7 (53 minutes)

You Make The Outside Of The Club Look Like The Inside

2009-04-20T13:05:00.006-04:00

East And West

2009-04-19T12:04:00.006-04:00

I was walking home and saw a curious clock tower in the near distance. I started toward it but slowed to a stop when I saw a small shop's window, displaying beaded jewelry and several action figures of dancing men wearing tall, black fezzes.

The store was lined with books in Arabic and Turkish, so they looked to me the way English had when I was very young. There were rotating stands with beaded key chains and rearview mirror ornaments, with colored beads arranged to spell out years like, "1907" and "1967". If these years marked a bloody revolution or extremely holy occurrence that I hadn't learned about in high school, I feared I would not be permitted to buy them.

As I considered leaving, the shop's proprietor approached me holding a glass cup and dish set with hot tea, a tiny spoon, and a big sugar cube. I was shy to accept but it's extremely difficult to turn down free tea. He led me to a table near the back of the store where a girl was sitting with her own cup of tea and a small notebook. She was wearing a black veil around her hair and neck and was cradling a strand of thick beads in her left hand. I worried that she was a fortune teller, that I had been lead there to be swindled. I began making forced comments about not having money and needing to go to the bank. She shrugged and recalled a bank someplace nearby.

I sipped the tea and it was excellent, a cross between brown rice and oolong but obviously containing neither. There were clocks on a wall next to us, and they too were intricately beaded and detailed with "1907" and pictures of lions and roses. I asked the girl what they signified, and she said she didn't know, "maybe something from Turkey's history." There was a hallway stemming from the back of the store to an assumed storage closet, and the proprietor had walked back there. She followed after him to ask about the clocks for me.
"They're for football clubs, and the years they were started," she explained, "and they're 75 and 95." She sat down again, picked up her beads, and then asked me about myself.

She is studying at the Sorbonne but hasn't had a class since January. She's learning Norwegian languages but doubts any possible related-jobs in Paris. She drives a motorcycle and just passed her car-driving test and although she's half-Turkish, she's never been to Turkey.
"This summer, I hope, we'll all go in a car."
I began fantasizing about our new friendship. I had left my phone at home, and had never memorized my Parisian phone number, but surely I could write down her phone number and give her my email address. We could ride on her motorbike to the Louvre and walk past all of the tourists, the most heart-warming combination of East and West. And when I go back to America, we could remain penpals, alternating between handwriting letters in English and Swedish.
"I have to go into the back and pray now," she said, looking at her phone. "We usually pray at two-thirty but the, the mosquée was closed. I'll be right back."
I could come here everyday at three. She could talk to me about the female-Muslim lifestyle, and I could tell her about the wild American-atheist persuasion. Best not to tell her I'm Greek yet, I thought.

While she was gone, I picked up a catalog filled with ads for Turkish establishments in Paris and hummed the only parts I know from "We are the World." A boy with his own set of beads came into the shop and sat down at the table. He helped himself to some tea as well and explained that he lived just around the block. He better explained to me that the shop was a relaxing French-Muslim hangout, where members of the community could come and buy books and listen to Pure Moods-esque ney music [Turkish reed flute].

My new Best Arab Friend Forever came back and greeted the guy who had come in. They were already acquainted well enough and began speaking to each other very quickly in one of the languages I don't know. Then she turned to me and asked, "Did you go to the bank yet?"
"Ah, no, not yet," I said to her good idea.
She turned back to the guy and they continued talking. They were laughing at things that the other said and I realized I hadn't been laughing at all since I'd sat down. And neither had she. When there was a break in their conversation I announced that I was going to the bank. She looked at me as if she hadn't understood me, and then asked the guy for clarification.
"Oh yes," she said, remembering now. "Okay."

The proprietor had told me where a bank was, but upon following his instructions, I ended up on a street where I knew there are only shoe stores and cafes. I walked back around the block, and then considered not going back to the store at all.
I've got it, I thought. I'll go shopping for food or something, take a really long time, and then go back. They'll have assumed that I wouldn't return, and mourn me, and then when I do return they'll have a rejuvenated interest in being my friend!

I followed my plan. I bought petrified duck eggs and rice noodles that are too thick for me to properly prepare, pre-popped popcorn, Israeli lemon cookies, and a bushel of asparagus, most of which came from different markets. I came back to the Turkish shop, having lost a lot of the money that I had taken out, and found that my friend and her friend were still chatting excitedly. The store had filled with young boys who were fingering and then dropping and leaving on the floor the beaded soccer club trifles that had originally interested me. I picked up the largest one and brought it to the register.

The piece is a yellow, beaded diamond-shape, with beaded tassels hanging from the bottom. The top reads MASALLAH in beads, under which are two, three-dimensional beaded birds, with beaded strings hanging from their beaded beaks. Under the birds are the numbers 1, 9, 0, 7.
I somehow understood the proprietor, who was speaking to me in Turkish, but a man behind me in line was also translating everything he said into English, just to assure me that I was right. "All of the beaded crafts in the store were made by people in prison," said the translator. "The prisoners just make beaded crafts and smoke cigarettes all day."

I walked back to the tea table with my new possession. Nobody looked up until I held out the MASALLAH and whispered, "Look." I continued to stand, waited for another break in their conversation, and then said goodbye.

Bro Bait Dressed As Hipsters For Halloween

2009-04-18T11:52:00.002-04:00

Josh feels the costume was more, girl about to be reamed by a group of guys from the basketball team.

Blind Culture

2009-04-16T09:28:00.002-04:00

A few months ago Terry and Mia went to a production of the musical Pippin. They rarely want to see musicals and never had a desire to hear someone belt the piano-bar-ballad Corner Of The Sky; in fact they went to hear as little as possible. The play's direction was based around making the night accessible to the deaf, with several deaf actors singing and all of the dialogue signed out as it was spoken. Terry and Mia said that at the end of the play, everything went silent and then the principle character, alone on stage, performed the last monologue with just his hands. Near the closing of his monologue, all the deaf and otherwise sign-language-literate members of the audience burst into laughter; Terry and Mia sat quietly and grinned.

Deaf culture is strong and unified, birthed from an active community and use of the word "handicapable." Such is not the same with the blind, although not because of difficulties relating to one another. They all use the same color cane purposely, and shop in the grocery store [alone] in the same way; having tried to memorize the layout of the shop, they'll go to where the peanut butter generally is, wait for someone to walk by, and then ask the shopper to hand them a jar. However, because of how hard solo actions can be, it's harder for them to get together on their own.

Many of them are illiterate, by which I mean that they can't read Braille. "Why waste the time teaching Braille when so many audio books are available?" goes the argument. And while listening to an audio book still probes the imagination, there is something in the effort that it takes to interpret a tone on your own that makes reading all the more enriching in the long run.

Reading Braille must take longer than with a printed language, at least for new readers, and I've often wondered if it's more satisfying to finish a Braille book because of the extra time invested. Then I've wondered if jokes are much funnier in Braille because of how long the build up is to the punch line. Last week, after coming home from Mains d’Œuvres, I spent an hour sitting on the floor, scouring YouTube for videos of blind people reading a sentence in Braille and then laughing.

I found tons of videos of kids pretending they couldn't see and then running into walls with shopping carts, and one video of a girl pretending to read erotic Braille and touching herself and then getting teased by another girl who could see her doing it and was also able to read Braille. It made me think of idioms like, "the blind leading the blind," and "you'd have to be blind to," and "are you blind, bitch?" Those poor people! They deserve so much more respect, and in the meantime, a solid Braille joke book.

I solemnly swear to write one one day but until I do, David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day is available in Braille for $44.95. The man is quite a miracle worker.

I Would Wear This $64 Sports Bra As A Shirt

2009-04-15T05:32:00.005-04:00

As seen on NBC's The Biggest Loser.

Athletic Heirloom

2009-04-13T08:35:00.007-04:00

Last night I videochatted with my dad and held up this shirt. He recognized it from his last year of high school, when he moved from Greece to New Jersey to avoid serving in the army and to go to college in America.I found it on the first floor of my grandmother's house, which she built in the mid-60's along a river before other land-locked Greeks had considered the value of living near water. The shirt was folded and crisp with dirt in my aunt's childhood room, which had been rendered unlivable by floods and stray cats and a long period of neglect. Upon realization of the shirt's greatness, its velveteen letters cracking and turning gray, I stuffed it into my handbag and then my duffel bag without mention, unable to risk it being wrongfully claimed after all this time.

We All Will Be Received In Iceland

2009-04-11T06:58:00.005-04:00

The slightly-stronger-than tentative plan is to, instead of flying from France to America, fly from Paris to Iceland, knock around Iceland for a week [either with my dad or alone] and then fly to New York. If I should end up alone, here is my adventure skeleton:

Day 1 Reyjavik - http://www.reykjavikbackpackers.com/
Day 2 Blue Lagoon (sleep in Reyjavik)
Day 3/4 bus to Höfn í Hornafirði http://www.nat.is/travelguideeng/bus_stop_to_hofn.htm and then go to Vatnajökull glacier
Day 4/5 Skaftafell National Park--->Svartifoss (Black Falls) / Lónsöræfi [depending whether this is day 4 or day 5]
Day 5 bus to Reyjavik http://www.nat.is/travelguideeng/bus_stop_to_hofn.htm
Day 6 bus to Keflavik - http://www.nat.is/travelguideeng/bus_stop_keflavik_reykjavik.htm and then if i need to sleepover - http://www.hostelworld.com/findabed.php/ChosenCity.Keflavik/ChosenCountry.Iceland - but hopefully back to Reyjavik
Day 7 Reyjavik to New York

things to see in Reyjavik:
The Hallgrimskirkja Church - designed to look like Black Falls
The Perlan Observatory
Zoo - ride Icelandic horses / Botanical garden
Buy a bunch wool crafts and go to hipster bars - http://nogoodforme.filmstills.org/blog/archives/2008/10/29/nogoodforme_in_4.html

outstanding ways to break vegetarianism:
hákarl (putrefied shark cubes)
svið, singed sheep's head
Slátur, consists of lyfrapylsa, a sausage made from the offal of sheep, and blóðmör which is similar to lyfrapylsa only with the sheep's blood mixed into it
Lundabaggi (Sheep's fat)
hrútspungar (pickled ram's testicles)
hot dogs (but exotic!)

Birthday Brood

2009-04-10T17:22:00.004-04:00

I got high yesterday and came to the 'realization' that I generally feel ashamed celebrating a birthday. I like the perks of a solo anniversary - forcing people to hang out with me, getting to choose what we have for dinner, etc - but I feel uncomfortable at the idea that everyone should submit themselves to me for 24-hours for no serious reason. As a species we've taken the struggle to survive out of our day to day regiment, so to me aging really doesn't feel like an accomplishment worth mentioning. In early high school I dated a Jehovah's Witness for about a week, and in that week he came up to me and said, "Today is my birthday, not that it matters"; I don't act like that but when I want to reference something that happened the same date that I was born, especially if that date was within the past week, more often than not I'll leave the holiday element out of the retelling.

I wondered if there was another, more innate reasoning behind my discomfort. Do I really dislike birthdays because the people of my heritage prefer to celebrate saint-related Name Days? Or because birthdays were invented by a defunct cult? Maybe, after 19 conscious years, I'm bored of constantly celebrating other people's special day and reflect upon it when it's time to deal with mine.

These are all things to consider as you download the lightly-Birthday-themed episode of Treat Me Rough, which aired Tuesday on AUP Radio. The 56 minute MP3 is available today.

Being Cool

2009-04-09T07:33:00.004-04:00

Wikipedia censored it almost immediately, but I was able to first capture this moment of playful ill-intent. You can see from the original content that I was v accurate.

Old Blue Eyes

2009-04-08T15:55:00.004-04:00

Blue-eyed soul (also known as Aryan soul) is rhythm and blues or soul music performed by white artists. Blue-eyed soul has always been one of my favorite genres because, as with it's artists, I've always wanted to be black but was born too corny. I'm so boring and white that I have to dress like a circus so people will care when I come to town. And worst of all, I inherently can't sing or dance. Life's just too unfair to the fairest.

Watch now as 60's teen idol Paul Anka pretends that he was in the rat pack, and does karaoke, his way.

Rock Me Amadeus

2009-04-07T09:09:00.002-04:00

Today in 2003 the Billboard #1 song was 50 Cent's first hit, and when people would ask what I was up to later, I'd mock him with, "You can find me in the cluuuuub," despite it's obvious improbability. For 2006 it was "Had A Bad Day," a lullabye for receptionists written by James Blunt-impersonator Daniel Powder, and before that, in 2000, "Butterfly" by Crazytown was at the top of the Top 40. But my favorite song of April seventh would have to be 1899's smash hit, "I Guess I'll Have To Telegraph My Baby."

However, if you really want to be playing my song, you'd first need to powder your nose and then your wig, and then put on 1986's Rock Me Amadeus.

Excessive Dramamine Usage

2009-04-06T15:03:00.003-04:00

Dan- "Dude, what are you doing?"
Me- "I'm swimming"
Dan- "Man that's a table, not water"
Me- "Your face is melting."
Dan- "what the hell?"
Drew- "Dude he took like a billion dramamine pills earlier, he's tripping the fuck out"
Dan- "sweeeet gimme some'a dem shits"

Ladysmith Black Mambazo: Best Dressed Band Of The 20th Century

2009-04-03T07:59:00.013-04:00

I almost called Ladysmith Black Mambazo the "best dressed band of all time" but then thought for a moment and realized that I liked the things Mozart wore more. My twenty-third birthday is on Tuesday, April seventh. If you live in America and are the type of person who would buy me a present, you should get this shirt for me. If you know other people who might take this advice, talk it over with them first before bidding; otherwise you might needlessly drive up the price fighting for me against someone who is also fighting for me.

How You Gonna Wear Sandals With Nasty Corns?

2009-04-02T11:27:00.004-04:00

This Sporty Theivz video has way more zingers than I ever gave it credit for, alongside timeless, tried-and-true fashion tips. If I was Left Eye I would've driven my car off the road, too.

Most Unique

2009-04-01T20:06:00.004-04:00

Not to toot my on horn too loud but when I was a senior in high school the yearbook committee invented a new superlative that I was an obvious shoe-in to win: most unique. It doesn't mean anything, but because I had no qualities that would bring me recognition as Friendliest or Nicest Hair and because I got a 2 on the AP art test and in turn wasn't even in the running for Most Artistic and because I was enough of a high school personality to deserve extra pictures in the yearbook, especially because my actual yearbook picture was surprisingly ugly, the yearbook committee gave me my due. And because superlatives were set up so that one girl and one boy won for each category, a kid I had never really spoken to and I were photographed together. I initially assumed he was undeserving and lucky that I was around but tonight I found a picture of him from 2003 on Facebook, and because somewhere beyond the studs and chain wallet there seems to be something special, I'm beginning to think that I thought wrong.

Summer Lovers

2009-03-31T17:26:00.005-04:00

We were in Greece for these past ten days and it ended up exactly like Summer Lovers with Peter Gallagher. The sun, the strangers offering us cocaine, the all-day-but-extremely-tender threesomes; Summer's lease had all too short a date. You can listen now for the rejuvenated joy in my voice during episode 5 of Treat Me Rough on AUP Radio.
EPISODE 4 [60 mins]
EPISODE 5 [57 mins]

Breaking Vegetarianism

2009-03-21T09:15:00.007-04:00

This morning Colby nearly flipped me over the ramp of our bunk bed, which would have landed my neck at the top of our television, my legs scraping along our metallic clothesline, during which he shouted, "I'll feed you the applesauce!" but I saw where he was coming from; I was in the middle of glamorizing the way the snails that I had sucked from their shells with my mouth the night before were wiggling, reaching out with their little feeler-eyes to touch my tongue and then retract back in. He wasn't with me when I ate 10 snails. I had brought a box of 12 to Isabelle's apartment. She tried one [and disliked it]; as for the other unaccounted for snail, I had been trying to wrench it out without a utensil and, accidentally exhaling too hard, had shot the snail [still nestled in its shell] to the other side of her kitchen.

Having fattened up on bread and cheese and every pastry I've been attracted to, adding red wine weight to my mid and lower drifts, I was hungry to find a new way to ingest French culture. Reading translated books that drop names like "Faubourg Saint-Martin" and "Nanantatee" excited me but didn't leave me with a stomach ache and a need to lay down.

Colby's other apartment is near a small, foot-street composed of clean-cut, swirling cobblestones. The bakeries and chocolatiers are famous and everyone on the strip is expensively-dressed. Near the opposite end of the blocks is a restaurant called Escargot, signified by a large bronze [smiling?] snail. It gave me the idea to try something French that, unlike tenderized duck liver, is not specifically an animal rights violation. At least, as far as I'm concerned. A plate of escargots at Escargot is 50€ which is the amount I spend on a week of food, including wine if I don't drink out. Luckily, there are snails sold at Picard.

"It says, The Class Of Gastropoda Is Second Only To Insects..."
"See! They're dumber than insects!"
After the attempted murder, Colby had climbed down the ladder and opened up his computer. I assumed he was reading the Wikipedia page on snails. I was still in bed, defending my last dinner.
"It says, Snails Are Eaten In Several European Countries. They Are Not Insects They Are In Fact Animals. It says, If You Are Vegetarian You Are Definitely Not Allowed To Eat Snails..."
"Oh what-ever, what-ever." He was clearly getting creative with the text.

Picard, my snail provider, is a frozen food grocery store. Everything in the store is in a box in a freezer that you can look down upon, so from the street it's a big white room with big white boxes. When I first noticed Picards around town, usually at night, I pointed out how empty they were, usually inhabited by one or two cashiers. I thought how backward they were, seemingly the "supermarket of the future" in a world evolving toward farmer's markets and re-usable containers.

I'm wrong, though! Picard sells frozen vegetables at a reliable quality in a country where most produce needs to be imported. And cheap! They sell frozen soups and hors d'œuvres and 12 macarons for a few euros that simply defrost by keeping them in the refrigerator, and they taste just like expensive bakery macarons. The box of 12 escargots, pre-buttered and spiced green and kept in their coiled shells, was 3€. I shouldn't have even eaten all of them at once! It was more than enough snails for two. But after this morning I've sworn them off because Colby's right; based on their feelers, gastropods have feelings, too.

Copycat Abba Group

2009-03-17T13:38:00.009-04:00

I secretly [depending on who you talk to] wanted to start a copycat Abba group but apparently Maywood totally beat me to it! They're even from the same general area of Europe. Like Abba, most of their music is unlistenable and like Abba, they feature several Spanish-sounding tracks dealing with things they know nothing about, like war or Southern California.

Their video for "Late at Night" stands as proof to me that, no matter where in the world, all boring suburbs look basically the same.

New Wallet

2009-03-16T14:28:00.005-04:00

I realized my wallet was gone when we got to the subway station and I reached for money to buy a ticket. Colby helped retrace my steps, but the only hunch we had was that a cackling homeless man with a really cute dog had possibly found my wallet; if we responded to his heckling by giving him a euro, maybe he would return my wallet. We fought that notion though and saved the euro, having only lost a few in losing my wallet. Colby walked me home and I canceled my credit cards through Skype.

The wallet I used to have was from the Gaylord Opryland gift shop in Nashville, TN. It was black and dependable, and printed with "Grand Ole Opry" in orange and brown. It was a great conversation piece with people at the bank.

Last week Colby went to Portugal and Spain with his father, leaving me alone in our dark, eerie apartment that doesn't have a smoke or carbon monoxide detector. I was bitter, but he made it up to me by buying the cutest coin purse in Southern Europe. In needle-point, it depicts an indigenous couple celebrating the harvest or something. Colby later admitted to me that he bought it in the Portuguese airport, but it made little-to-no difference in the way I felt.

I'm Throwing My Life Away Living In France

2009-03-15T09:35:00.005-04:00

Special thanks to Gabby Shaw for alerting me immediately and subsequently breaking my heart. My question to her was, could it have been considered a "walk-in" if I just happened to be there anyway?

The Innocent Eye Test

2009-03-13T18:19:00.001-04:00

Les Enfants Intelligents

2009-03-13T16:02:00.003-04:00

Every time I see a seeing-impaired bébé in a stroller, they always look up and around wearing bottle cap glasses. They don't look that cute so I think it's definitely a Harry Potter reference, but who's making it? Are French parents reading Harry Potter et l'ordre du Phénix and modeling their children after the protagonist, or are these babies reading books? I initially ruled the latter out, as I probably learned to read when I was 13 but as kids keep getting smarter, with European kids progressing at a faster rate than young Americans, I am left to wonder - how would doctors know to prescribe lunettes pour les enfants if not by having them read back a seeing-eye chart?

No Radio Show Tonight!

2009-03-10T11:20:00.004-04:00

Take this opportunity to get caught up with past episodes of Treat Me Rough! Tune in next Tuesday to AUP Radio at 22h [4pm EST] for a new installment of advice, long distance dedications, and soothing songs from now and then.
EPISODE 3 [55 mins]
EPISODE 2 [57 mins]
EPISODE 1 [58 mins]

New Necklace

2009-03-09T19:23:00.008-04:00

The street I live on in Paris has multiple Middle Eastern eateries and West African electronics stores. There are also two major French-chain grocery stories, one hip bar, and a handful of mild-mannered homeless people that I've come to recognize. Everyone on the street looks different from everyone else; presumably, rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis is the only Parisian melting pot.

Down the block there's a store that mainly vends evil eye amulets on varying decorative strings. As soon as I saw the store I wanted to buy the biggest, heaviest one and start wearing it around as a medallion, but there's a lot of voodoo around them. They're meant to block away the curses cast by people with particularly strong glares. The Greeks believe they're as harmful to the people who are cursed as they are to people who cast the spell; Muslims put the pattern on the wings of their airplanes. It's common to find a girl wearing a bracelet with small evil eye charms, but they're always modest. Legend has it that if you put a piece like that on yourself, bad luck will follow you everywhere. How would my neighborhood, with so many differences and proud nationalities, respond to my jokey jewelry?

I went to the store when I saw in the window that they were selling gold bells on thin yellow ropes with plastic beads in primary colors. I bought one for 2€ and wore it home with earbuds plugged into my iPod so I didn't notice that I was ding-a-linging. I've since gotten into the habit of stuffing the bell with paper. But right before I pack my things, I'm going to buy the prettiest evil eye in the store for when I'm back in the US, hanging out in places with like-minded people and a culture of tolerance for anti-religious behavior.

I Thought He Mostly Played Saxophone

2009-03-09T13:41:00.002-04:00

Dead Flowers

2009-03-09T09:45:00.008-04:00

On the day I arrived in Paris Colby greeted me with a unplaceable yellow flower, best explained as a gourmet dandylion. We put some water in a measuring cup and, weaving the flower through the spice rack, gave his present to me a permanent home.

Now, nearly two months later, the flower's petals are brown. It's small leaves are dark and wrinkled. I saw today that the stem was no longer touching water through a natural combination of absorption and evaporation. Colby had mentioned throwing it away but neither of us had mobilized and I wondered if today would be the day. Then I noticed that the flower, in fact, has three leaves that seem to be thriving, one of which is actually perked straight up as though attached to a plant with roots and soil.

I pulled out the measuring cup, filled half of it with fresh water, and slipped it back under and around the stem of the flower. So when somebody asks you can tell them what kind of person I am.

Yoko Oh-No!

2009-03-08T18:53:00.000-04:00

Dubbed Down

2009-03-07T11:12:00.005-05:00

When Colby and I went to Belgium everyone we met spoke at least near-perfect English. It made it easier for us to make (Facebook) friends than we had previously experienced, and one of them pointed out that they (as a people) had learned their English from American television and movies.
"We don't dub it like the French do," said Elke, twirling three fingers around one of her blond dreads.

New Kitchen Decoration

2009-03-04T10:50:00.003-05:00

Gatsby Gatsby

2009-03-04T08:42:00.009-05:00

I went to college in Westchester and would often take a bus through the "city" of White Plains in order to reach the Manhattan-bound commuter rail. Discounting "White Plains" and "Westchester," most locations in Southern New York have Native American-inspired names. The bus I took would cross Mamaroneck Avenue, a main street which shares its name with a village purchased by the English from Chief Wappaquewam and his brother Manhatahan prior to the Revolutionary War. On one of the corners of Mamorneck Avenue there was a store of ugly, mostly-brown men's clothing that I would always laugh at because - its sign in a very 80s art deco style - the store was named Gatsby Gatsby.
The town I grew up in, Roslyn, originally named Cow Neck and given a Scottish name in the 19th Century, is marketed to be nestled along the Gold Coast of the Long Island Sound. It's home to a large estate of the Frick family, who were major benefactors for the Museum of Natural History and whose home now exists as a museum itself. It was the kind of place F Scott Fitzgerald was referring to and, because of its proximity to my childhood home, I spent many afternoons there - drawing, taking pictures, or just eating fried chicken with the boys. And so, when I showed Mia my new shoes [10€ during January sale season] over Skype, and she responded, "Oh, very Gatsby of you," I agreed whole-heartedly.

Mini Europe

2009-03-03T11:23:00.002-05:00

2008 was a huge year for Mini Europe. The park added the Széchenyi Baths of Budapest, the Magdeburg (Germany) Millenium Tower, Bulgaria's Rila Monastery, and Slovinia's three bridges of Ljubljana. They also purchased a replica of an Air France Airbus A380 from a well-regarded hobby store across the street from the Gravenstein Castle in Gent (Belgium).

For only 12€90 guests can "discover Europe's nicest places" with 300 models celebrating the landmarks of 27 countries. No other theme park in Brussels can boast that! Although nothing in the park is accompanied by holes of put-put golf, many of the mini-monuments have animatronics, used to emulate the real-life movement of the site. There's even a rotating ferris wheel - but you're too big to ride it! For some famous places, with a just a press of a button, visitors can watch a reenactment of a historical event, illustrating its importance and EU symbolism from a hawk's eye-view. Watch now as Mini Europe relives the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The mascot of Mini Europe is an orange turtle who poses as a young traveler, his only home attached to his back. He is your guide to uncovering the Mystére à Mini Europa. And as your navigator, the turtle will be sure to bring you to Austria's Melk Abby, Stokholm's City Hall, and the Monument to Fallen Shipyard Workers in Gdańsk (Poland). He'll teach you the French national anthem for the sing-along in front of the mini Eiffel Tower and keep you posted on which mini-monuments you're allowed to touch (hug). You won't miss the mini Acropolis or the mini-Big Ben, but most of your time will probably be spent in the Mini Belgium area, which features the park's most expensive model: the Grand Palace of Brussels, whose production cost about 350,000€ in parts and labor.

My only qualm with the theme park is the low mini-representation of Romania, i.e. no Transylvania to be found. Should one be unveiled in 2009-10, I will do my best to reach the ribbon-cutting.

No Need To Feel Foreign!

2009-03-02T08:17:00.002-05:00

My deejay group Club Fromage is hitting the decks at la Mécanique Ondulatoire tonight. If you will not be in Paris to appreciate it, don't worry! Tomorrow night is the fourth broadcast of my show - Treat Me Rough on AUP Radio. It can be streamed from a computer from http://aupradio.org, of all things! Until then, definitely download this 55 minute MP3 of last week's show.

New Bag: Big Shopper

2009-02-27T11:06:00.009-05:00

One afternoon while Colby was babysitting I went to Fran Prix grocery store. [I've started cooking so much that I will probably be starting a What I Ate For Dinner blog with Josh Brown and one of the Mike V's in my life.] I bought olive oil and something else that came in glass. French supermarkets do not utilize the tool that holds plastic bags open so you can pack your groceries while you're being rung up; they simply leave a small pile of bags near the end of the counter, most of which are attached and clinging, keeping the situation as inconvenient as possible. On this day there were only two plastic bags available. My French being what it is, and the environment suffering as it does, and a line forming steadily behind me, it only seemed right that I pack my things in one bag.

I bought vegetables at a market and when I was a block away from our apartment the olive oil broke through the plastic bag and smashed on the ground. And as usual, I was not dressed incognito, so I had no choice but to cross the street and hide in a store [in which I could replace the olive oil]. I also had to buy a buy-two-get-one-free pack of Buenos to keep from crying.

And so I have invested in a reusable grocery bag. The first time I saw the Big Shopper bag was on the subway. A homeless guy was passed out near the train door, and under some plastic bags he carried around was a filthy Big Shopper bag. I knew I had to have it. I found it later at a hardware store near our apartment for 4€50.

God Knows I've Fallen In Love

2009-02-27T05:58:00.001-05:00

Sex Over The Phone

2009-02-26T06:09:00.003-05:00

The police officer, who also appeared as a Navy Commander for the In The Navy video, was the only member of the Village People who was openly straight. Victor Willis was the lead singer but left the band in 1984. He had a revival in 2007 with his Victor Willis Dance Tour, and his autobiography, probably titled Just A Gigilo, is due out this year.

The last Village People album, named Sex Over The Phone after their final single, was recorded with a replacement frontman. Attempting to fill the heterosexual void created when Victor Willis left, the band hired sexually-charged women for its music video, and sometimes pretended to call them for phone sex.

Treat Me Rough

2009-02-23T10:15:00.005-05:00

For someone endured adolescence with internet access and digital cable, I actually listened to the radio quite a bit. For thousands of mornings my clock radio would awaken me for school with the Howard Stern show. Often if I somehow stayed asleep, I would dream for a few seconds that Howard, Robin Quivers and I were on an adventure together. After school ended I would go home and listen to Cool 96.7, a now-defunct radio station that exclusively played doo-wop and other genres of mega-uplifting oldies. Evening rush hour was the best time to listen to college radio stations, and on Sunday nights I would turn on Fordham's Big Band Broadcast and make cutesy illustrations of the lyrics I found to be particularly clever.

Other than the Big Band Broadcast, weekend radio was usually the weakest and worst, more so in the mornings; college radio broadcasts were either Celtic music or medical talk shows and the rock stations would play the same songs as the classic rock stations. I started listening to the main Top 40 station in New York, which would syndicate Casey Kasem's American Top 40 Countdown. The songs were all contemporary garbage with interspersed old-timey trash, like David Cassidy or tracks off the Grease soundtrack.

There was something about Casey Kasem, from his impossibly fake name to his exceptionally positive and corny sentiments, that for me was so uniquely different from the way everything else was packaged and marketed. He had obviously been doing the same show for such an extremely long time from the biggest radio station in Detroit, Michigan, that his position as Shaggy on Scooby Doo and the Muslim first name he used to have had all but melted away. The way he speaks, so gentle but just hoarse enough to be masculine, was as awkwardly tempo-ed and varied tonally with as little regard to the content of what he was saying as a quintessential Christopher Walken-impression.

Ryan Seacrest now hosts the American Top 40 Countdown, and clogs it up with celebrity guests and other attempts to fool people into listening to the radio. I looked up some Ryan Seacrest quotes on Casey Kasem, which included statements on how Casey Kasem was the famous person who made him most nervous and the celebrity to whom he had looked up to for the longest. I read up on Casey Kasem, who has publicly endorsed Nader and Kucinich for the past 9 years, and also published a pamphlet entitled Arab Americans: Making A Difference. I realized that I could probably say those adoring things, too, about Casey Kasem's impact on my creative life; I would just need to be a little liquored up, first.

Tune in tomorrow to AUP Radio for my show Treat Me Rough at 4pm EST [22h - 23h in gay Paris]. This Tuesday's broadcast will include a long distance dedication to Josh Brown, for making the flier you see above. Until then, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

Getting Bent In Historical Gent

2009-02-22T10:21:00.012-05:00

We've been staying in the student apartment of Colby's childhood friend Libby. I'm grateful but sometimes he [fake] makes fun of me because of the way I look. They never had MLK in Belgium, so there's no MLK Day, and in turn the zero tolerance policy is in effect. His room is full of treasures though.

Greetings From Belgium

2009-02-20T07:46:00.001-05:00

The second installment of my radio show, Treat Me Rough, aired Tuesday night on AUP Radio. Delete the last radio show from your iTunes to make room for the new 57 minute MP3 today!

Why Do Good Things Happen To Dumb People

2009-02-15T17:04:00.005-05:00

A lot of people have been posting Youtube videos of children on their Blogspots and the children have either been exceptionally adorable or surprisingly, unintentionally clever. Charles possesses neither of these qualities, and while news of his two-faced kitten was chain-emailed from cubicles to home desktop PCs across the nation in 2007, his level of comfort in front of the camera adds a new sensation to the story. Enjoy this inbred innocent as he tries to make sense of his position as miracleworker.

'Tis The Season

2009-02-14T07:18:00.000-05:00

Shorty Right There Is A Ten

2009-02-13T09:57:00.006-05:00

The first celebrity sighting I had in Los Angeles, if you don't count the Ruff Ryders without DMX, which I don't, was Peter Dinklage AKA the Station Agent, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love A Shorty. I could see him through the window of a restaurant near our apartment at the time and recognized him instantly, so I stopped and stared at him. He noticed me and looked away uncomfortably, and I worried that he thought I was staring at him because he's little. Little does he know, he's so hot! I was watching him eat the way a girl with limited interests might stop to watch Ryan Seacrest eat. But whatever his interpretation, I was probably making him feel as though he was in the zoo, so eventually I looked away and walked home.

Touch That Dial A Lot!

2009-02-11T10:50:00.004-05:00

Last night my radio show, Treat Me Rough, premiered on AUP Radio at 22h [roughly 4pm EST]. For those of you who missed it, you can catch up with me by downloading the 58 minute MP3.

The second episode of Treat Me Rough will premiere next Tuesday from 21h - 23h [3pm - 5pm EST], streaming live on http://aupradio.org.