But some of us do vibrate for 15 minutes a day and are still pleasantly plump, but can maybe open bottles with our lady parts?

Marmsies: Low Buzz Might Give Mice Better Bones and Less Fat. (vibrating mouse platform)

PR: I think you can get diseases from putting vibrating mouse platforms in ur vajajajajajajay. just noting. I also wonder if I used said platform as a vibrating device would my vajajajajajajay get weirdly skinny?

Marmsies: No, just bony? I was just trying to increase my bone density! It’s always an s-e-x joke with you!

PR: Did you spell wex like s-e-x so your work doesn't pick up on it or are you trying to admonish me? But on the wex topic, what is the general opinion on bony vajajajajays because I vibrate things on mine a lot and now I'm LOLscared my sweet vajajajajay will become like a velociraptor exhibit at the Natural History Museum.

Marmsies: Both! But now I like wex better. Hmmmm…I don’t know. On one hand, it might be scary at first, but on the other, you could use it to open old time soda bottles. So I’m not sure if one should really stop…

PR:I dunno, the new kind of men in this Terror Dream world might not appreciate a lovely lady who can open a post-coital bottle of beer with her wex tool.

Amaze.

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But I loved Rushmore...

I went to see Darjeeling Ltd. this afternoon by myselfsies because Simone was rightfully doubtful and apparently less tempted by misogynistic messes than I am. Like most reviewers have said already, it's beautiful to watch, a bit overly precious, and totes racist.

Of course, as ush, Wes Anderson develops his precocious, heart-broken white male protagonists by simplifying everyone else--the Indians, the women, the Indian woman. Apparently in Wes's world, possessing some sort of lonely white male sorrow gives one license to be an incorrigible asshole to everyone and still somehow likable. I don't really have time to go into all the contextual details of his racism and misogyny tonight so you can just read about it here and here. I would, however, like to bring up Wes Anderson's little meta-apology, which only serves to make the racism and misogyny all the more irritating.

First, some brief background: Like any young emotard in a Wes movie would do, Jason Schwartzman's character has a quickie with the gorgeous Indian stewardess on the Darjeeling Limited train to get over his ex-girlfriend played by Natalie Portman. True to form, this isn't just a quick meaningless sex thing (believe me, it would have been less offensive if it was)-- no, Schwartzman has to set "Sweet Lime" up as some sort of exotic savior telling her "I need to talk to someone" and "I know you can help me" like her ethnic vag holds the secret to his stiff white universe. I mean of course it is, in the end, just meaningless sex dressed up in some male existential bullshit. Thanks Sweet Lime, you seemed superficially interesting for a moment, and you looked totally hot in that bathroom scene, but now we must be on our way on this long train ride into profundity. How do you say goodbye in Indian? (Is that the name of your language, btw?) Namaste!

At this point, we've already seen a snippet of Schwartzman's torturous past relationship with Portman in the opening short. Portman shows up at his hotel room in Paris. She says, "I love you, I never meant to hurt you" as well as "If we fuck, I'll feel like shit tomorrow." Schwartzman replies, "I don't care" and "That's okay with me." But hey, listen, those lines just sound so callous because they're removed from the context-- seriously, he's not being an asshole, he's just really really angsty and sad! This isn't some patriarchal set-up where men vilify women to deal with their own inadequacies, or to demonstrate the greater emotional depth and existential awareness that men possess. He is just terribly sad and deep, okay? And this is all her fault, obvs.

Portman, let me get this straight: you protested the smoking in the script and insisted on toothpicks? Should I have started a MISOGYNY CAUSES CANCER campaign for you to say no to the rest of it?

Look at you, you're already wasting away. Read this, it's like chemo.




The worst part of all of these various bad "isms", is the fact that Anderson is obviously hyper-conscious of them and even snidely tongue-in-cheek about it. As the brothers are leaving the Darjeeling train, Schwartzman goes over to the window to say goodbye to Sweet Lime. She is crying. Clearly those ridiculous emo-potent lines worked on her.

Schwartzman looks up at her, smiles, and says, "Thanks for using me."

I'm pretty sure this is a meta-joke said to the one character that embodies both of the "others" (Indian, female), a kind of self-satisfied "I know who I'm using and how in this script, but I don't care." I wanted to throttle Jason Schwartzman at this moment. The movie just isn't good enough to get away with self-aware, offense white male centrism-- like c'mon, a movie about character journey demonstrated literally via a train journey in an exotic country? Seriously, no one has ever done that before!

Sweet Lime, of course, unironically whispers, "You're welcome."

I think I can say that we all watch Gossip Girl because it's downright exhilarating in its obviousness and caricatures. Maybe also because we're tired of watching Jane Alexander suck a dick, frankly. Never surprise me, GG, it would crush the powerful sense of intelligence I get from watching you. The Gossip Girl coverage from New York mag is gold, mainly because they write up everything we were thinking when watching the show, in a hilarious fashion. I especially enjoyed the following passage for its prescient truthiness, because yes, while Serena gets courted by the perfect man spouting the perfect lines, we had to suffer through high school boyfriends who thought renting Jenna Jameson porn along with Chinese takeout was a romantic date. I mean, maybe it would be now that I have a more developed sense of irony, but there is no irony to be found in high school until you're out of high school.

A word about Dan. We've said this before, and we're going to elaborate now: No teenage boys are like Dan. Teenage boys are not quick-witted enough to make the right joke at the right time. They are not sensitive or unself-conscious enough to sit in the hallway with your bitch best friend and console her when she's having a hard time. They do not have values, or make "bold gestures." Nor are their jaws chiseled, their clothes artfully, sexily ruffled, their brown eyes deep and searching as they lock onto yours and tell you, "Just for the record, I like you." The generation of tweens watching Gossip Girl, take note: Dan is your Jake Ryan, and believing that guys like this exist can ruin your life.

Apparently in order to attend a Morrissey concert you should be smugly married or smugly gay and committed. However they don't ask you if you're either when you purchase tickets online from Ticketmaster, so that's how we managed to sneak by last night. I agreed to go to Morrissey before I had the chance to realize at some point during my adult life, I had gotten over The Smiths. I wonder when it was. And why I didn't notice. I have a suspicion it must have been this one time when I was smoking hella weed and watching Adult Swim on my couch in Providence and my roommate Will turned on Hateful of Hollow for the third time in a row, and I was like "If I have to listen to this one more time, I am going to have an EMOaneurysm which will shut off the blood supply to the rational part of my brain and I'll only be able to converse in sing-song Dashboard Confessional lyrics. Do not make me suffer that fate!!!"

Werthsies and I were in the nosebleed seats, and Gaby and Kat were on the floor. Before the show Friend and I grabbed a drink(s) at a nearby bar known on Yelp for it's "hot Dominican bartenders in dresses". We stayed too long at the bar but apparently not long enough to miss the opening act, which bleeeeew. Usually when I'm wasted I can get behind even the Toy Story Soundtrack, but this act was not passing. I texted Gaby.

"This peson sucks!"

"What is a peson?"

"You know. I luv you more than Jesus luved his puppy."

"This is terrible music."


The woman on stage, who by the way was Kristen Young, announced what I thought was "And this next song is called Nazi Cunninglingus"

I immediately texted, "Wait, I love her."

Gaby wrote back a while later: "I am overheating and everyone is old and yelling."

Today I've been searching these internets high and low and I can't find any song by Young entitled "Nazi Cunninglingus". So the jury, or my jury at least, is still out on that one. You wanna good blog review Kristen? Send me an mp3 of "Nazi Cunninglingus".


Morrissey is nearly 50. He walked a bit on stage. Sometimes he twirled his microphone cord. Often during the instrumentals he just bent over like the music was too much for him, or he had an ulcer, or he was preparing for anal. But it couldn't have been the latter; Morrissey is celibate!


Werthsies and I tried dancing but I kept slipping on our spilled Long Island Iced Tea (not my choice!). Then we started passing out Werther's to our surrounding emotards but we only managed to endear ourselves to one chubby gay couple, and a lonely hearted man with a New Jersey accent. That was fine though. It started to feel like we were part of a small nosebleed community. It was warm, and it was really hot temperature-wise.

My favorite part of the night was when Werthsies was telling me about her relatively new 4-month boyf, and how every time she takes an Ambien before bed she starts grilling him on his past relationships. So now at Ambien time, he's like, "omg, here comes the Spanish Inquisition", then they have sex, and he still falls asleep before her. I couldn't tell if this was supposed to be a funny relationship woe story or not, but it sounded kind of great to me. I was like, "Then do you Ambien binge eat at his apartment?!" and she was like, "Yeah, we wake up in the morning and the Ben & Jerry's is gone!" and I was like, "I want that! Love is binge-eating on Ambien at your new boyfriend's apartment!"

How many posts can Ryan Gosling appear in during the course of a week?

Marmsies: They fired Ryan Gosling for getting fat.

PR: Just the neg he needed to go out with me!

Marmsies: It’s just like that old Minneapolis folk saying, “Tell Ryan Gosling he’s fat if you want him to go out with you.”

PR: Yes yes, I love that one. My grandpa also used to sing us this age-old Yiddish nursery rhyme right after we recited the Shma' before bed:

"To get Ryan Gosling to go out with you (with you! with you!)/
This is what you must do (must do! must do!)
Roll yourself in latex wax/ Clean your hole with AJAX/
Pretend you are a Real doll (a doll! a doll!)/
and he will be at your beck and call."

Marmsies: Oh my god I am DYING over here!!!!!!
You should probs blog that.

PR: I promised myself I would stop blogging emails, but what's one more time?



And as long as I broke my new rule, I need to post Liz's no-explanation-needed hilarious commentary on Tell Jew You Love Pee: "I'm kind of over watching jane alexander suck a dick, frankly."

Self-destruction has begun.

PR: Yo-- I am having a huge problem joining Second Life. Not technically, just mentally-- I've been staring at the entry screen for 8 minutes. i have the worst feeling I'm going to become addicted and, like, fucking marry an avatar in second life paris or something.

Marmsies: Ah. So you’re afraid you’re going to like it and then not be cool any more? I think I would be worried about that, too. Do you need moral support?

PR: would marrying an 85 yr old pervy grandpa in Milwaukee whose avatar looks like Ryan Gosling be "not being cool anymore"? and by moral support do you mean having avatar sex with me so I don't have to do it with LOLstrangers?!


Marmsies: No, that is not what I meant at all. I meant like sit in the same room while you register. I think if you looked in the dictionary under “not cool anymore”, there would be a pain-stakingly-etched, multi-panel drawing of that exact event occurring.

PR: Yeah, will you sit in the room with me?
Also my avatar self is HOT. Ren Barbasz is the LOLessence of sophistication and confident beauty. see attached!




Marmsies: Nice sandals, nerd.

PR: Ha. Dude I'm going to Second Life Urban Outfitters in like a nanosecond to buy myself a tunic dress and flashy tights a la my real world style. I ain't interviewing/boning no avatars in a tee-shirt and Birkenstocks. I have standards, even online.

Marmsies:I hope you are serious.

PR: After Urban I'm going to go to SL Chili's and getting some Southwestern Vegetable Soup and an Awesome Blossom. Then if it's delish, I'll go give the teenage line cook a great blow job.


Marmsies:Is there a Second Life Chilis?!

PR: If there's not, I'm outtie.

Marmsies: What will you tell your editor??!!!

PR: Simply: "How could you send me on assignment to a world in which Chili's does not exist?!"

So I spent a decent amount of my lovely Sunday afternoon indulging my fancy for bosom-boasting, tummy-hiding fashions of the late 16th century by going to see Elizabeth: The Empire Strikes Back or Elizabeth and The Chamber of Secrets or Tell Jew You Love Pee, whatever the Elizabeth sequel was called. Cate Blanchett seriously gets more beautiful with each passing year. As a misogynist would say, I like my women as I like my wine: ripe with age. (Remember this slant-rhyming mantra Apaturds: "Just because it's positive, doesn't mean it's not misogynist!")

The first Elizabeth was up for an Academy Award in Costume Design in 1998, but it didn't win. This one better. The costumes were so fucking gorgeball I had to interrupt SarGo and Liz's viewing experience several times to be like, "For my birthday, I want my head on THAT DRESS for the photocake"....then several minutes later, "No, THAT dress"....and so on and so forth. This white, hoopy number was one of my favs. Hot damn ghost.



It needs to be said that this movie shouldn't have been made. Oscar-caliber films are not supposed to get action-packed sequels, and the dialogue suffered for it. But the acting was nearly good enough to make up for some of the Velveeta-oozy lines. At one point, Clive, who plays Elizabeth's non-lezzie love interest, explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, is describing what it's like to be at sea and spot land in the distance. The lines are atrociously something like this, "For days you think that it is a vision in the distance, like the curve of a woman's breast...you just stand there, waiting, straining your eyes, not daring to speak, not daring to move...then it becomes a smudge on the horizon, like God's glorious painting..." I mean I could go on with this bullshit, but it's probably horribly inaccurate--I do not take a notebook to movie viewings. Point is, the speech was bad, but Clive delivered it so well that he made Cate start crying, which in turn made me start crying, even against the violent protests of my brain. Acting is sooooo powerful.

Clive and Cate's (or Elizabeth and Walt's) union was unbelievable. It's shit like this that makes me have unrealistic standards of love. Like now next time I have sex I'll be enraged that my partner is not cupping my cheek, looking at me like he's never seen such beauty, and flutter kissing every inch of me while dressed in rugged pirate garb and smelling like Old Spice (No, the movie did not come with smells, but it was quite obvious Clive was wearing Old Spice). Also, their great minds as a united force totally defeated the Spanish Armada with one simple conception: fire boats!

I think we can all get behind Blanchett/Owen 2008. Please unite our country with your anti-terror fire boat platform and shocking good looks.



Also, can we just fixate on Clive, the man behind the man for a second? This guy knows how to get the ladies, especially the middle-aged divorcees, to adore him-- by marrying someone totally normal-looking even though he's a hot stud. He may be an LOLClive, but this is no LOLlove:



I also, tangentially, simply adore this failed Love Is comic:




I cannot figure out how to unitalicize this post.

This is all a brilliant sexual metaphor.

Rosalie Preuss, the school nurse, said that when she heard Ms. O’Keefe’s announcement she raced to the door of the infirmary, and was met face-to-face with the bloodied buck.

What happened next amazed her.

“When he saw me, he started climbing in,” Ms. Preuss said. “I thought he’d back up, but he started coming forward, so I shut the door and went, ‘Eek! Eek!’”

The buck, a large, four-point antlered adult, took about a 10-minute tour through the front lobby, the nurse’s office and the teachers’ lounge. It struggled to run and mostly slid over the school’s bloodied terrazzo flooring, Ms. O’Keefe said.

She said the deer did not try to attack anyone. Indeed, she said, it seemed to be “afraid and a little bit disoriented.”

I was sitting in the middle seat on my Sun Country flight outta here Friday night, sandwiched between a scientist and someone reading the WSJ (obvs I did not need to gather any more character info on him), when the pilot announced, "Well folks, we've got about 45 planes ahead of us and each takes around 2 or 3 minutes to make it down the jetway....you do the math." There was about 30 seconds of silence as we all furiously multiplied in our heads, and then a communal groan.

I did what any good middle seat passenger should-- took two Tylenol PMs and passed out on the shoulder of the friendly scientist. I didn't wake up until the plane hit the ground in Minnesota. The boom and vibration startled me. It seemed pretty obvious that we had just been hit by a shoulder-launched missle at the exact right moment for the plane to come crashing down into the Mall of America (this plot is always in the back of my mind as I fly home-- the terrorists have won!). For a split-second, I was sure I felt us starting to careen downwards. Life flashed before me. My first and last thought:

"FUCK. I have not seen Lars and The Real Girl yet!!"



Does this make me a shallow person? Yes, probably. But I am just dying to see their chemistry onscreen.

However with this new lease on life a lot was accomplished during my short stay at the bosom. I bought a crazy-sexy red skintight satin dress for my sister's wedding. My Mom was like, "I guess your old enough to make your own taste decisions-- but maybe wear your glasses to tone it down."

My Grandma, multiple times throughout my stay, randomly started offering nuggets of life wisdom which were very akin to Hold Steady lyrics, only with the added element of Judiasm (i.e. There's always other boys, there's always other boyfriends.... but only Jewish ones!.) I told her I was making her a mix CD of indie rock bands that lyrically echo her age-old wisdom. She didn't know what a CD was. Sometimes I forget that she's as old as she is-- she's so damn sassy.

I saw Liz-- which was obvs totes great. We talked about the aesthetics of the face and the class issues surrounding Rachael Ray's recipe for pizza cobbler.

Lars, unfortunately, was not playing in Minneapolis yet. This made me feel uneasy as I had another life-threatening flight ahead of me, and I didn't want to take my second chances for granted. There was nothing to be done though, except to transfer my cinematic craving to a different picture--Across the Universe.

I've never been obsessed with The Beatles, though I've always liked them. The movie clearly borrowed much from Moulin Rouge (which I thought was absolutely brilliant in a myriad of ways), but Across the Universe did an even better job with the musical numbers. Every aspect-- the musical interpretations, the striking choreography, the visual imagery-- was crafted so painstakingly and deliberately. It was beautiful and smart at once.

The dialogue between songs however was lacking. Evan Rachel Woods should not be allowed to act. I do not understand how she was even able to make this movie. She should be grounded for years and years for her rampant displays of choke sex with Manson. WHERE ARE THIS GIRL'S PARENTS? DO NOT MAKE ME CALL YOU BY ALL THREE NAMES, RACHEL, STOP YOUR CHOKE SEX RIGHT THIS INSTANT!!!



I would just like you to know, that in order to post this choke sex video I actually had to create an account with YouTube to verify that I was over 18. I was pretty high, and with Gaby, so my user password obviously manifested itself "bonermcgee". Yet YouTube security only rated this password as "fair" and I started shouting at the website, "What is wrong with you? That is the BEST PASSWORD EVER."

Evan Rachel Wood's boring onscreen presence was made up for wholly by the introduction of Jude. Let me introduce Jude (aka Jim Sturgess) to the blog.

Hey, Jude.




I especially enjoyed this fan video medley. Fan videos in general are fantastic:





If Jim Sturgess is not famous in two years I will cut off my pinkie and mail it to him with an obsessive fan letter written in Klingon on my decaying digit. He is already famous for the feeling he inspired in my loin. By God boy, sing to me.

On the way out of the movie, my Mom had a freakish fall in the parking lot, hit her head, and lost consciousness. She came to in the ambulance. I barfed up my popcorn. We were at the hospital all Sunday night. It was really scary. Thankfully, she is okay now. Except she looks like a battered wife and is too embarrassed to leave the house.

My parents, like most parents of people my age, are completely inept with new technology yet insist on acquiring the latest gadget once it becomes in vogue. Before I left this afternoon, my Mom begged me to transfer the pictures on her digital camera onto our computer for her. I did. I found these videos, obviously taken inadvertently by my parents and my uncle and aunt. They feature my dog in a dog stroller. Why, I do not know. What I do know is that this is the funniest video I have ever seen (perhaps you have to be related to these people to love it), and that my dog, Annie, is thinking two things:

1.) Why do you have me in a stroller?

2.) You people are idiots.

Also, having the volume up is key.

I realize that there are as many angles to Al Gore's current tired, bloated face as there are sad little polar bears drowning in the Artic, but please, for the love of eyes, will members of the media please limit themselves to one of the following photos, both of which can drive the point home better anyhow. Also, nice job Gore-Bear! Now ditch the Tip!

The Uncanny Home.

The factor of the repetition of the same thing will perhaps not appeal to everyone as a source of uncanny feeling. From what I have observed, this phenomenon does undoubtedly, subject to certain conditions and combined with certain circumstances, arouse an uncanny feeling, which, furthermore, recalls the sense of helplessness experienced in some dream-states. As I was walking, one hot summer afternoon, through the deserted streets of a provincial town in Italy which was unknown to me, I found myself in a quarter of whose character I could not long remain in doubt. nothing but painted women were to be seen at the windows of the small houses, and I hastened to leave the narrow street at the next turning. But after having wandered about for a time without enquiring my way, I suddenly found myself back in the same street, where my presence was now beginning to excite attention. I hurried away once more, only to arrive by another detour at the same place yet a third time. Now, however, a feeling overcame me which I can only describe as uncanny, and I was glad enough to find myself back at the piazza I had left a short while before, without any further voyages of discovery. Other situations which have in common with my adventure an unintended recurrence of the same situation, but which differ radically from it in other respects, also result in the same feeling of helplessness and of uncanniness. So, for instance, when, caught in a mist perhaps, one has lost one’s way in a mountain forest, every attempt to find the marked or familiar path may bring one back again and again to one and the same spot, which one can identify by some particular landmark. Or one may wander about in a dark, strange room, looking for the door or the electric switch, and collide time after time with the same piece of furniture -- though it is true that Mark Twain succeeded by wild exaggeration in turning this latter situation into something irresistibly comic.-Freud, "The Uncanny"

I returned home for the first time since starting college over Thanksgiving my freshman year. I walked into the room I had literally lived in for 18 years (albeit through several design reincarnations) and was immediately taken with this overwhelming sense of existential dread which seemed very important at the time because I was (am?) cheesy, so I made a mental note, "Lauren, remember this! Always!" Really, it was the "I don't live here anymore" realization, which is not a big deal once one has gone through it several times, but the first time it happened I felt totes angsty. Luckily, I had been assigned Freud's "The Uncanny" for a psychology course already, so I knew what was up and I dealt with the feeling as cannily as I could.

This picture of me and Dad still makes me feel a little weird, mostly because it makes me think maybe I was a boy at birth.

I still fantasize about the amazing amount of light in this room-- it looks out onto a huge open park, with a field of flowers and a baseball diamond. Heaven is that room with an endless amount of Gossip Girl books.

I have an unhealthy image of home as the cure-all for everything. Sometimes I wish I could just go back to living in that house, which ultimately is just a wish to be small again. I usually only desire this when I'm sad, which fortunately isn't very often. My parents around this time last year were thinking about selling Legend of 1100 (my sister and I started calling the house that after we saw the Tim Roth movie "Legend of 1900" for some reason) and moving here, but I was like "no fucking way." So instead they basically spent a lot of money making the house handicap-accessible in preparation for their senior years. The thought of their senior years also gives me unheimlich emotions, so I try not to think about it often.

I'm going home this weekend for a short visit. I really feel like I need to pet some dawg, stat.

Like who in their right mind would not want to pet this dawg?



The weather is gorgeous there now, and there is a stunning overlook of the Mississippi approximately three blocks from my house that is often the subject of Minnesota postcards. This is the view to the right:



And this is the view of the St. Paul skyline, across the way to the left:



GORGEBALL!

When I'm home I usually make a cup of coffee early in the morning and, mug in tow, walk Annie down to the overlook. She's always frisky and looking for small critters to kill so I often have to scold, "Annie, simmer down! I am trying to think deep thoughts here!"

In convincing my parents to shell out $200 for this weekend's plane ticket I was obnoxious. Obnoxiousness works on them: "You leave me guilt-soaked messages like every day about how you don't know what's going on in my life in New York and how I never call you and how you miss me and now when I actually want to come home you won't let me?!"

My Mom was like, "Well now that you're not dating you've been calling three times a day and we don't miss you anymore!"

My dad interjected (he's always listening on another phone in the house): "I want to talk to you! We can talk about law school-- your LSAT score is going to expire soon!"

To Mom: "Yeah, I want to come home and talk about law school with Dad, for serious this time."

Mom started to protest, but Dad talks louder, "When do you want to leave? I'll get your tickets tomorrow."

Dad is a character.

Finally, something to look forward to.

I went on datezzz with this author John this summer. He wrote some book with "Canaan" in the title that won some award-- it sounded boring. He talked about himself incessantly, he was quite attractive, he lied non-stop. He also was 36 and seemed like he just wanted a vagina through which to make little brainy writerish offspring and carry on his good genes. He said "you're funny" several times like this was both shocking and maybe bad. During the course of several drinks on our first date he brought up basically everything that was Googlely available to my person (like Tulip Sweet, election bumper stickers, SD abortion, Brown...seriously)and would not admit that he had Googled me. I was like, "Oh you googled me?" and he was like, "No I just saw a Clinton bumper sticker on the way over and thought 'I wonder how they came up with that design?'" or "Oh, I was in Providence recently-- have you ever been there?" Um yeah.

His major lie however pertained to Ani Difranco. He said that he was her first kiss when they were seven. Then he made a big fuss about telling this story ("Oh I shouldn't tell!".."C'mon! You have to!"..."I really shouldn't, but"..) about how he had been back in Buffalo over the holidays last year, and had reconnected with Ani, and she tried to drug him and seduce him. In game talk that is a DofHV and he would have been better off getting me drunker and telling me that my eyeballs were too fat in order to get me in the sack with him. My sensible part did not believe the Ani story. Too convenient. But there was a nagging doubt that maybe it was true. Today upon reading the amazing Guardian profile of Ms. Difranco, that doubt has been vanquished.

The key passages:


She has always been outspoken about her feminism; in that same Joni Mitchell interview she suggested that her subject, who has been disparaging of feminism, might embrace the concept. Mitchell simply responded, "I prefer the company of men." DiFranco went on to write that "Either you are a feminist or you are a sexist/misogynist. There is no box marked 'other'."



Patriarchy hurts all of us. You know" - her voice takes on an ironic tone - "I hate to sound like some 'crazy feminist', but" - she reverts to her usual drawl - "the older I grow, the more I understand peace and stability as a product of balance, and human society is fundamentally imbalanced. Patriarchy is like the elephant in the room that we don't talk about, but how could it not affect the planet radically when it's the superstructure of human society?"

Feminism gets a bad name from stupid articles like this

Rena Corey writes in the Washington Post:

Each time I feel a sense of satisfaction at how my Magic Eraser is removing the smudges from my white kitchen cabinets, whenever I smile to see all the dirt and dust clinging to my Swiffer, I realize I am a traitor to the cause. Betty Friedan must turn over in her grave, I think, to see me derive gratification from such menial (and unpaid) labor.


Lady, no feminist cares if you enjoy cleaning the floors or picking your nose. It's oversimplified articles like this that make one a traitor to the cause. Ew, what a gross phrase, by the way. As Marmsies says, this is like an Esquire article that's like "I'm a girl, but I like boys and sex-- Sorry Feminism!"

Who is paying these people?


Unrelatedly, this is AMAZE--

Iris Murdoch's 1973 novel The Black Prince was marketed as a supermarket aisle checkout book. Most of the late 1970 editions the cheap sluts in my book club ordered off half.com and ebay featured a Harlequinesque cover depicting lovers entwined with the seductive pull quote: "An astonishing tale of passion gone awry, intrigue, and mystery."

Though it's pretty apparent five seconds into the novel that this is not the written equivalent of One Tree Hill. It begins with an editor's foreword-- a fake editor's foreword-- explaining his mysterious relationship to the supposed author of the text, Bradley Pearson, a man who has lived out the incredible tale that is to follow, and automatically gets douchetard status for claiming he will do the impossible:

Although several years have now passed since the events recorded in this fable, I shall in telling it adopt the modern technique of narration, allowing the narrating consciousness to pass like a light along its series of present moments, aware of the past, unaware of what is to come. I shall, that is, inhabit my past self, and for the ordinary purposes of storytelling, speak only with the apprehensions of that time.

(If only Tom Clancy protagonists had such lofty literary ideals perhaps American readers would be smart enough to realize the Angus Beef Third Pounder is a reaaaally bad idea.)


I have a love/hate relationship with unreliable narration. On a basic level I enjoy trusting and liking my characters since I'm going to probably end up spending some depressing Saturday nights alone with them. But unreliable narration has its seductive traits too-- it's like a big street sign that announces "Get ready--this is going to be something BIG MEAN and META about the purpose of literature and art, and, by extension the ultimate meaning of life!!!!" Then again, as a construct, that can get annoying.

All the characters consider themselves artists. Bradley Pearson is an unsuccessful writer because his obnoxious philosophical pretenses about writing render him absolutely unable to put a word down on a page. His frenemy Arnold Baffin, is a wildly successful mainstream author who churns out endless piles of stupid shit like he was simply going to a 9-5 job at the factory every day. The women who "love" them consider themselves stifled artistic souls who, trapped in the shadow of their husbands, are prevented from achieving greatness.

It's funny that the book is outwardly marketed as a "tale of passion." As far as the plot is concerned I suppose it is-- Bradley begins a torrid affair with Arnold's wife, Rachel, as well as Rachel's daughter, Julian. (There is lots of modern-day porn about this type of arrangement) Arnold falls in love with Christian, Bradley's ex-wife (there is also porn about this). There are secret rendezvous, some mildly hot sex scenes, long monologues of adorations.

But they're all too self-conscious of their constructed identity as artists to actually feel anything. Bradley begins the affair with Rachel, thinking perhaps that experiencing the emotion of the affair will help him "write the book I've been waiting all my life to write." During their lovemaking Rachel announces that their bond is just like the love in "the great novels" of their age. There is no passion free from intellect even in the most intimate scenes. The love scenes are simply mutual masturbation.

They are all pretentious sociopaths. I hated all of them. Gossip Girl, the book, was like this too-- full of unsympathetic characters. Thank God the TV show makes Serena and Dan goodish. (Dan- spotted Friday night at the taco stand in Soho. He wasn't that cute.)

The dialogue in The Black Prince is amusing. All the characters are trying to push one another into their own theoretical Jello molds, because that's what meglomaniacs do. I overheard things akin to this dialogue multiple times during college. I mean, who are these people?

Of course, in this instance, these people are Bradley and Christian's brother, Francis, who obviously has a sweet little gayish crush and goes about expressing it with mind-numbing egoism. I loved this conversation:

"Have you ever realized you're a repressed homosexual?"

"Look," I said, "I'm grateful to you for your help with Priscilla. And don't misunderstand me, I am a completely tolerant man. I have no objection to homosexuality. Let others do as they please. But I just happen to be a completely normal heterosexual--"

"One must accept one's body, one must learn to relax. Your thing about smells is a guilt complex, because of your repressed tendencies, you won't accept your body, it's a well known neurosis--"

"I am not a neurotic!"

"You're trembling with nerves and sensibility--"

"Of course I am, I'm an artist!"

It's hard to find Iris Murdoch in any part of The Black Prince. In some ways she is similar to Bradley-- a writer with deep philosophical ideals and a philosophy background, in others she is like Arnold-- this was her 15th book, she popped them out faster than Anna Nicole popped in pills.

I'm pretty sure, if I can trust her husband John Bayley's memoir, that she had an extremely good marriage. I want their marriage so so hard one day. It seems totally lovely.

Someone once asked John what the secret to their perfect union was and he replied "We had cats instead of kids."

I think I want kids, not cats, though.

Where: 11217, Park Slope

Where the nearly 30-year-old baby mommas and daddies congregate and produce pretty colorful waves of 0 to 10-year-olds. Where during the day, the baby daddies stay in the neighborhood pushing their offspring's stroller in the same zig-zag pattern of 65 year old Park Slopians dying off. Where there is a suspicious precipitious drop in girls of the age of 7.

I ask you, Slopians, what is happening here?

Dogs, and their Sisyphusic Rock

Throw away your germy toilet copy of Gilgamesh-- your canine will, perhaps even intentionally (do you really know what he's thinking?), teach you all you need to know about the contradiction that is human existence. A dog in costume, more than any other animal, provides a window into the excruciating burden and delightful lightness of human living (Thanks, Kundera.) Forced into a garment made of itchy synthetic fibers, they troll around uncomfortably with bodies constricted, betraying their mind's instruction-- sadly emulating the humans they so dearly desire to be. Yet it is just a tragic mockery. Their doggy eyes scream "Why are you doing this to me Daddy? Why?", but at the same time one can spot a glint of resignation in those watery pupils. Their desire for love is utmost, so they settle themselves into their fate as a jester for your amusement-- "Yes, Daddy, for you. I will do this for you. So you love me more."

I only ask when you look at this comedic parade of humiliated canines below, you inwardly acknowledge their ultimate sacrifice.

A Brief Pictoral Ode to Shift Dresses from Decades Past That I Would Consider Stealing from a Planet Hollywood Display

Audrey Hepburn; button shift; plays down big boobs nicely. Obviously not necessary for Hepburn, which is why it should belong to me.




Edie Sedgwick; shirt dress; hides track marks; elevates muse status. I am not going to specify for which of those features I desire this dress, but duhz, I'm not suspiciously skinny.



Twiggy; sleeveless monotone shift; hides anorexia, sort of (omg, her legs!). This dumb bitch doesn't deserve clothes after her mean-spirited comments to any girl over, like, 70 pounds on ANTM. Give me.

Besides for Adrian Grenier, Baby Dayliner's new video is utterly charming.