blog: tng

2010-07-30T06:17:00.000-07:00

I'm a follower, I do what my friends do, I got a tumblr.

2010-07-29T15:16:00.000-07:00

Can't believe I've never seen Earth Girls Are Easy before, and there is no off-screen couple I care more about than this dearly departed one.

2010-07-24T18:28:00.001-07:00

Everyone has a Tumblr. I don't understand them. I don't understand how they work. I don't understand how to comment. Should I slog on through the end of Gangs of New York or give up now at the 43 minute point?

2010-07-17T17:07:00.000-07:00

Bored by this movie but always compelled by this screenshot.

2010-07-15T04:47:00.000-07:00

Am more certain this week than the week before that I was meant to be a twentysomething in the early nineties.

$135

2010-07-11T13:12:00.001-07:00

2010-07-10T21:04:00.000-07:00

Forgot to mention in the last post my desire to go on mini-trips to Washington DC and Philly. Okay, diary. Done.

to do soon

2010-07-10T15:17:00.000-07:00

Greenwood Cemetery
Minigolf at Governor's Island
Spa Castle
Wave Hill
Flushing/Corona Park
Atlantic City
& All Dem Beaches

a pound of fresh

2010-06-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

I had a really Jewish day today. I wore a Hebrew bracelet, went to the library in East Williamsburg to take out a book I had interloaned about contemporary Hasidic women, ate falafel for dinner with a friend over which we discussed my impending Bat Mistvah, and then saw an old Yiddish movie at Light Industry. Finally I arrived home, overheated yet too cheap to buy an air conditioner, and came up with the Shylock joke "a pound of fresh." Yep, I'd say all an all this was a really Jewish day.

2010-06-24T16:23:00.001-07:00

Had a dream the other night where I had to do an impromptu stand-up comedy set, my first one ever, in front of my father and a boy I used to, ahem. This dream was set in the house I grew up in, in the kitchen and on the stairs. But my dad never showed up! Just the boy, and he was really critical of my nervous and half-assed routine! WHAT COULD THIS DREAM MEAN? It's so delicate; so subtle.

recording a pun

2010-06-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a pun I made up at work. The name of a breastfeeding-centric magazine for breastfeeders and those who love them, filled with advice, how-to's, reviews, and care.

Tit For Tot: A Breeder's Digest.

Have I reached the pinnacle of my life, creatively? Not sure.

living a pun

2010-06-14T15:21:00.000-07:00

Right now I am literally living a pun (eating hot beets).

2010-06-13T05:45:00.000-07:00

NYT.com bonus/interactive features get better every week.

long form essay questions on billy madison

2010-06-11T15:12:00.000-07:00

1) Billy Madison comes off as mildly retarded throughout most of the movie but especially in the beginning (Nudie Magazine Day, the penguin, falling down, Shampoo, etc.). Is Billy simply dumb, is he a drunkard, or does he have a marijuana problem that didn't make it past the censor board?

2) While Veronica Vaughn is definitively endeared to Billy after the "if peeing your pants is cool, consider me Miles Davis" scene, she does not reprimand him after he grabs her boob (something that should get him expelled from school), and jokes with him affably on an intimate walk after said sexual harassment about how she's trying to "hold him to the same standards as the other students." What made Veronica's attitude towards Billy change, since he was the same Billy she had loathed so strongly earlier? Is she a gold-digger after the Madison fortune?

3) Do you think director Tamra Davis' gender (..female) had any influence on this movie at all? Where in the film do you see her past experience directing music videos reflected?

2010-06-04T19:33:00.001-07:00

Recording this here, for posterity's sake: imagine this headline in the film review section of US Weekly:

SEX AND THE CITY 2: GET THEM TO THE SHEIK !

2010-06-03T06:41:00.000-07:00

New York Magazine is really, really good

i just rode my bike to manhattan and found a pile of money and shopped on the steven alan website

2010-06-01T19:20:00.001-07:00

I'm into it ($248):

I'm REALLY into it ($305):

This beauty looks like a Fred Tomaselli painting or something and it is average yet unique and I covet it.

2010-05-26T21:53:00.003-07:00

I just drove my bike drunk for the first time!
With a helmet on!
And I did REALLY WELL!

2010-05-25T15:17:00.000-07:00

Anti-smoking but still:

2010-05-24T16:53:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a dream where I met a generic-looking comedian on the Greyhound bus and we had sex a lot in this magnificent yet shabby hotel where he was organizing a comedy festival. And at first I was really flattered for the attention and totally into it, but then I began to grow uncomfortable and smothered by his nonstop desire for throwing me onto a bed and his bad prop-based sketch comedy. WHAT COULD THIS MEAN?! VERY ABSTRACT.

2010-05-22T15:03:00.000-07:00

Heaven is an unexpected piping hot ear of corn on the cob.

2010-05-15T19:23:00.000-07:00

My ideal customer is: a girl who works at a cafe, or man at the counter with his girlfriend. They previous just utterly "get" it and the latter are polite without being threatening, order simply and regularly, nearly always tip a dollar to show off to their lady and to obey standard codes of chivalry, and are sympathetic even if they are alone ("this girl works behind a counter serving food, just like my girlfriend!"). Exception exception exception: the "Dairy King" at Chums.

hmm maybe i should have chosen these careers instead of being a teacher

2010-05-14T05:18:00.000-07:00

I could be very happy as a:

1. animal trainer
1a. racist dog deprogrammer - there must be a need for at least five of these "in real life" and not just in White Dog, right? This would perfectly combine my love of social work and doggies.
1b. dog trainer for dog shows
1c. dog groomer
1d. dog walker
1e. zoo trainer (cute animals only, no uglies)

2. mailwoman

3. chef

4. museum tour guide - this is applicable to my education degree I suppose
4a. at the Tenement Museum

2010-05-11T06:52:00.001-07:00

Perhaps against my better judgement, I just bought the Daria set - that's 26 hours of Daria - on Amazon for $48. I don't like to spend money on DVDs and I liked Daria a lot, as much as everyone else did, but can't quote it extensively. But buying it just seemed the right thing to do.

et tu brute?

2010-05-09T06:16:00.000-07:00

~~Why is it that the coffeeshop around the corner from my apartment has to be the most annoying one in the whole city?~~

I strike this from the ledger because it is far too beleaguered and Ghost World-y a thing for a twenty-three-and-a-half year old to say.

2010-05-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

Most Jewish things about me:

3. Love of pumpernickel bagels, lox, pickles
2. Getting chills and shouting "that was terrific!" after a poignant Broadway showtune
1. CRIPPLING LIFE-HALTING SEASONAL ALLERGIES

dream log

2010-05-03T05:04:00.001-07:00

Last night and the night before's dream log, short and sweet:

1. That I went to the Daniel Clowes signing at The Strand on Wednesday but FORGOT MY COPY OF GHOST WORLD!

2. That I was going on a Christian field trip to the Congo but FORGOT TO SET MY ALARM and FORGOT TO PACK and thus decided not to go, since it just wasn't worth it to rush.

2010-04-28T08:39:00.000-07:00

The rise of ginger-based non-candy candy...I'm into this.

2010-04-27T05:54:00.000-07:00

My Favorite Therapists

5. Dr. Mumford - Remember very little about this movie except that I liked it in high school (although probably only because it was an "independent film"), Dr. Mumford was a skillful albeit unqualified therapist, and was blandly good looking.
4. Dr. Anna Freud - nepotism done right.
3. Dr. Sigmund Freud - He's pretty famous and sort of looks like Indiana Jones.
2. Dr. Brode - my teenage therapist who never suggested we play a board game about feelings, never told me anything about herself until our very last session, and patiently listened to me talk about being too hideous to love.
1. Dr. Niles Crane - obviously a brilliant man and the heart and sole of nineties television; would never talk about himself during a session, I'm sure of it, would only give some snarky "it isn't about me right now" reply. Never sold out his professional credibility for radio stardom.

that last scene of the movie "hair" is really powerful

2010-04-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

"A report out this week estimates that 27 percent of all Americans of recruitment age—that's 9 million young adults—are too fat to fight for their country." [via Slate]

Hotel La Rut #3

2010-04-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

2010-04-21T06:11:00.001-07:00

Quick, there is still time! Check out H&M's garden collection before its natural resources are depleted!

but on a lighter note; gchat

2010-04-19T13:18:00.001-07:00

Carrie: that's silly
no one thinks about Columbine as much as me
Eric Harris is my greatest fear
step aside, weimeraners

2010-04-18T03:43:00.001-07:00

The scene: an office meeting, a small branch of a large company; affluent thirty-somethings and their three young assistants are sitting around a table making innocuous chitchat before getting down to business. Most of them had seen Russell Brand perform stand-up the night before. They are raving to the staff who had not attended the show.

BOSS 1: I can't believe how funny he was.
ASSISTANT 1: I know.
BOSS 1: He's brilliant.
ASSISTANT 2: How does he even come up with his jokes?
ASSISTANT 1: It's totally beyond me.

Cut to ASSISTANT 3. She still has vague dreams of a career in comedy even though this job often leaves her too emotionally devastated to be creative. She is very uncomfortable.

BOSS 1: And the thing was, do you believe it, this girl was heckling him. At his comedy show!
ASSISTANT 2: That's insane.
BOSS 1: She was like, "I want you Russell, you're so sexy, I want you!," and Russell got so pissed, after a while, he had the tech guy turn the house lights on her, and then he made her stand up and he had the whole audience jeer at her, this fat girl, and then she ran out crying.

[ASSISTANT 1, ASSISTANT 2, BOSSES 1-7 laugh.]

BOSS 3: She was totally asking for that!
ASSISTANT 1: I know! I mean, doing the sort of stand-up he does...doing stand-up...it's like doing brain surgery. You can't interrupt that!

[ASSISTANT 3 sits, incredulous, and knows that she can never truly live in a world where Russell Brand has found success, no matter how good a song "Hot and Cold" is.]

smiles and oates

2010-04-18T03:42:00.001-07:00

While this movie obviously represents some evil task force and our parents' secret hidden agendas, I cannot help but be perpetually endeared by this scene.

2 cinematic observations, 1 my own

2010-04-15T12:40:00.000-07:00

1. Apollo 13 is missing Jeff Goldblum - seriously, how did he not get cast in that movie?
2. "Sentences I never thought I'd write: Nicholas Cage gives the most nuanced performance in this movie." - Dana Stevens, Slate, on Kick-Ass

mixed athlete

2010-04-10T22:22:00.001-07:00

Well, I joined a neighborhood basketball team BUT more importantly I can say that I am no longer a D+ bike rider, I'd put myself sort of solidly at a B- right now, and will do even better once I finally figure those darn gears out.

don't remember if it's on that page of vanity fair

2010-04-07T05:11:00.000-07:00

CULINARY MUSTS:

* Kashi Crisp! Berry Toasted Crumble - goes above and beyond any reasonable expectation of a breakfast cereal and into some benevolent other space.
* Brooklyn Brine Lavender-Pickled Asparagus - words cannot describe. Complex but also natural. Is sold at Urban Rustic for a lofty $11 a jar that you can quantify once you savor them over the course of a week and wonder how you can re-use the brine after. Fact: I might be thinking of the wrong local pickling company, the guy who gave me my latter two tattoos works for Brooklyn Brine? and I remember he also has a dog; what a life, to be a dog owning multi-artisan. This made me question what I was doing with my own life.
* Mimi's Hummus in Ditmas Park - due to neighborhood synergetic laws can only go here on a day when I have class and it's nice outside.

the best page of vanity fair

2010-04-05T08:44:00.000-07:00

While life may seem pretty grim sometimes, little decisions can make a big positive change; specifically, I am referring to switching from Secret Flawless deodorant to Dove Ultimate BeautyCare deodorant.

2010-04-04T15:42:00.001-07:00

Am more excited to see Lucky than, oh I don't know, any movie ever?!

?!?!

?!!?!?!

Bannsbannsbannsbannsbanns

2010-04-02T20:13:00.001-07:00

Today I went to the Prospect Park Zoo, a terrible zoo with the MOST HASIDICS I HAVE EVER SEEN. I saw men wearing white stockings with black skirt-y things, which I have never seen before, and in research found THIS FUCKING INCREDIBLE PUN. Anyway...apparently there's like a good book or all-inclusive article about the Crown Heights riot, does anyone know what it is?

2010-03-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

LAWYER 1: Could Molly be friends with Ben Stiller "in real life" ? I'd like to make the arguement that yes, she could. Using the evidence from recent film Greenberg...
LAWYER 2: Your honor, I object. Stiller is just a priviledged Los Angeles brat.
LAWYER 1: But in Greenberg, he showed more of a sense of self; delivered lines with such comic timing...it seems like he'd be able to make fun of himself, you know? He's not making jokes about Billy Corgan with Bob Odenkirk anymore, or making fun of a handicapped guy while getting kicked in the balls. He's an adult who it'd probably be interesting to get dinner with.
LAWYER 2: But just dinner; could you honestly see Rosen and Stiller's friendship having legs? I mean, he's a classic self-obsessed comedian who obviously hates women - he's married to the new Marsha Brady, and manages to make her even less funny when he places her in his movies.
LAWYER 1: But he had a cameo in Freaks and Geeks!
LAWYER 2: Both Night at the Museum movies are about as recent a trip into Stiller's current emotional state as Greenberg...do you really want the client to be hanging out with the man who brought us Night at the Museum?
LAWYER 1: You know what I say? Great! He loves history.
LAWYER 2: Don't make excuses for him.

2010-03-23T19:54:00.000-07:00

Today I had two utterly revelatory experiences.
1. Going to Blue Bottle Coffee on 160 Berry and having the best cafe au lait I've ever had.
2. Finishing Ethan Frome and experiencing the best pacing ever written / best closing sentence / best Penguin Deluxe Illustrated Classics cover.

2010-03-21T16:21:00.000-07:00

Check out this poem I wrote when I was bored!

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

"dayyyyyumn!" steven alan

2010-03-13T18:18:00.000-08:00

I passed this dress in the shop window and literally did a double take, as though I was a large doofy man in a television show seeing a beautiful lady.

This dress fits all my desires, and since I'm so rich, $250 is not a big deal for me, so I'm gonna lay down $500 and get it in black and white, too.

in my humblest opinion

2010-03-11T21:01:00.000-08:00

Summer Heights High is the best comedy ever made, and although yes, Mr. G is the initial attention-grabber, Jonah is just this beautiful OMG of a tragic arc and ultimately the strongest character, and one that I cannot stop thinking about every time I hear a student call a teacher "miss." Which is nearly every day.

2010-03-09T21:32:00.000-08:00

Traditionally I've had good luck befall me on Free Iced Coffee Day in May, imagine what will happen now that Dunkin Donuts is giving out free iced coffee for every Monday left in March?

2010-03-09T12:55:00.000-08:00

"Buying a new body wash: truly one of life's simple pleasures."
- text from A. Allen

Readership, I agree with this quote one hundredfold and am thusly inspired to ask you: close your eyes: you're in the Body section of Target, Duane Reade, CVS. What brand/type of body wash do you ultimately reach for?

--

Sappy: The sun is shining bright, I am in a tee shirt and learning legally required information about salmonella, there is a beautiful new cafe around the corner from my apartment with unlimited coffee refills, I chill with high schoolers, my mother is visiting soon, life is filled with simple pleasures in New York City spring.

2010-03-02T09:29:00.001-08:00

It's starting to become warmer outside. This season, from Built By Wendy...

It's been done before, but I love the color scheme and length.

It's been done before, but I love the sleeves.

My favorite. Totally nails the African tonalities that American Apparel is so blundering. Imagine this with a solid colored tee shirt layered under it...in the winter with a long sleeve? This will be the one I invest in once it goes on sale.

Probably the best piece in the collection, keeping their target demographic in mind. My second dress choice.

Probably hard to pull off but really in the lilac color on the site.

2010-02-26T12:31:00.001-08:00

Great wiki

2010-02-23T19:08:00.001-08:00

Dead Poets Society sucks so far

2010-02-23T19:00:00.000-08:00

Here are some conversational highlights/lowlights from the two twentysomething boys I shared a table with at Ground Support (coffee shop in Soho, near where I had barista training. I was not hanging out in Soho for leisure). Although both of them live alone, and one of them has a recording studio, they came here to write lyrics to their second song together. Every few minutes they would stop to sing and harmonize and try out their lyrics. I liked the brunette way WAY more than the blonde.

The only lyrics they wrote while at the coffee shop were:
"I left my lover at the Mason-Dixon line"
"take me from my armor"

BRUNETTE: You didn't tell me you were writing with a Mont Blanc before!
BLONDE: I thought you knew?
BRUNETTE: It's probably the most expensive thing I own...that's a joke.
BLONDE: It's probably ONE of the most expensive pens I'll ever have.
BRUNETTE: Oh?
BLONDE: I once bought my friend an $800 pen, and in return he gave me this, a $750 pen. I used to be very rich.
BRUNETTE: What happened? You started doing things you love instead of things that make you rich?
BLONDE: I started modeling.
BRUNETTE: Ah, that's always a mistake, I've found.
(long pause)
BRUNETTE: Okay, I think we have two lines of the song done.

BLONDE: Everyone I meet these days are directors and screenwriters, and all these directors just want to do a video with me.
BRUNETTE: ...oh.
BLONDE: Chloe [his girlfriend, I gleaned] and I might do a TV show with Bravo.

(the conversation turns to that BRUNETTE's parents might cut him off and make him go back to med school)
BRUNETTE: I'm still very much straddling the lifestyles right now.
BLONDE: I just wrote down "take me from my armor."
(long pause)
BRUNETTE: To chai or not to chai?

2010-02-19T17:49:00.001-08:00

If I had a time machine, I might use it to french late 70's-mid 80's Albert Brooks, I really might.

2010-02-17T07:26:00.000-08:00

favorite dogs at the dog show:

bernese mountain dog
basset hound
golden retriever
cooorgiiiiiii
beagle
bloodhound
great pyranees
chow chow
alaskan malmalute
labs, kuvasz
tibetan mastiff
great dane
colored bull terrier
german shepherd
vizsla
newfoundland
samoyed
st. bernard
english bulldog
keeshond
&
the collies

2010-02-13T12:39:00.001-08:00

Celebrities I Would Throw Up With Excitement If I Met
1. David Hyde Pierce
2. Prince

Celebrities I Would Throw Up If I Met
1. Jack Nicholson

Seriously, that's it. Later, blog.

2010-02-09T13:33:00.000-08:00

Well, in comes employment at one independent dairy contractor, out goes the other. In the interim I have two weeks (!) with no part time job so let's go CRAZY and go to Spa Castle or something?

pig

2010-02-08T23:06:00.001-08:00

A strange change has come over me. I'm way more of a "veggie burrito," "egg dish" sort of person and don't crave meat or have it that often. But. Lately I've been thinking about pork a lot and it's climbed to the ignoble spot of my number one meat of choice. Pork. It's so weird because 1) it's certainly the least practical meat and never one I've prioritized in the past and 2) pigs are the animals I'd like to eat the least; I have the most sympathy for them; some pigs are known to be so smart that they try to escape their cages by struggling with latch-locks with their noses. It's not like fish where I fear them, and thus feel no remorse.

Updated: Heirarchy of Meats*
1. Not-meat
2. Fish
3. Pork (chart-climber)
4. Turkey
5. Red
6. Chicken
7. Lamb, venison, goat, blah, blah, etc.

2010-02-08T17:57:00.000-08:00

Can someone clarify for me...who am I supposed to be rooting for in history, Catholics or Protestants? Not "riffing" here. People who wanted boring church ceremonies and pressed Giles Corey to death, or people who used torture racks and wasted lots and lots of money on gold leaf? Someone tell me what to think, besides my biased Catholic roommates, because I have wondered this for a long time.

a dirty trick

2010-02-03T10:44:00.001-08:00

It is a dirty trick (and a "full-on Monet") when you see a puppy from far away, you smile really big, you get closer, hand extended outwards, ready to engage the owner in a cooing congratulatory discourse, and you see it's just a really old little dog, some of the time even with a small gray beard.

irrefutable list

2010-02-01T20:27:00.000-08:00

Here is an irrefutable lists of the best songs of 2000-2009. As a former employee of Sam Goody my opinion of music is gospel and this list is, thus, as mentioned, irrefutable.

5. [holding this spot for whatever I'm forgetting but am considering "Paparazzi" or something off of, like, I dunno, Is This It]
4. PAPER PLANES - M.I.A.
3. HEARTBEATS - The Knife
2. IGNITION: THE REMIX - R. Kelly
1. MAPS - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

This, and grocery lists, is what I think about on the G Train Shuttle.
Confirm/Deny/Confirm?

employee picks

2010-01-24T20:46:00.001-08:00

Can anyone recommend a good nonfiction book about?:

1. The history of the New York subway system
2. Hasids
3. Teddy Roosevelt
4. The Titanic
5. Harry Houdini

?

2010-01-20T05:33:00.000-08:00

Yo I Gotta see this before it closes. I was born five to ten years too late to have Tower Records nostalgia but this tugs at my heart-strings in a really acute way.

I am only now beginning to comprehend the consequences of what a schedule will be with classes from 4:30 to 8:30 in distant Flatbush and work all day Saturday and Sunday, but at least I can, um, go to free galleries during the day?

2010-01-14T14:46:00.001-08:00

There have been some important changes in my life with the coming of grad school. While I have obtained new employment working in the Brooklyn Flea food court, the most important change in my life, obviously, is vaginal. See: texts.

Me: I understand, have way bad cramps, I got an IUD today
Sally: Slut award!!!! From WHO?

LAST DAYS

2010-01-12T09:11:00.000-08:00

12:10 PM
Janelle
molly.
did you send me a fake autographed picture of morgan freeman via interoffice??
Me
HAHAHAAAA
NOOOOO
BUT I LOVE THIS
Janelle
this is the STRANGEST THING EVER
Me
WHOOOO

Seven and a half work days left at WME, and mysteries still emerge.

2009-12-31T12:33:00.001-08:00

Are You a TRUE Juggalo Your Result: Almost.. but keep tryin'. You just need to learn more.. Youre a fan, but not quite yet a Juggalo. Keep trying and one day you might understand the Dark Canival and get to enjoy Faygo like a Juggalo does.
DowN wIT dA KloWn tiLL YoU dEAd iN Da GRoUnd!
At least you tried..
Juggahoe Alert!! Load your glocks!!
Are You a TRUE Juggalo Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

OK so um...best movies of the year...like...
1. Good Hair
2. This Is It
3. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
4. Bluebeard
5. Adventureland
6. Princess and the Frog

And also a list in progress of THE WORST MOVIES OF THE DECADE:
1. V For Vendetta
... to be continued

my friends and i are so smart!!!!

2009-12-30T05:30:00.001-08:00

Chloe Sevigny::Zooey Deschanel as Otto Dix::Max Ernst

Anyway, my time in the corporate world is dwindling, need to start picking out my last-day-of-work-outfit and working on my Cher Horowitz manipulation skills so I can student teach next semester.

2009-12-29T06:11:00.001-08:00

I'm sure the Waltham (781) and Brooklyn (718) confuses everyone else too, right?

hey guys, i'm back from israel!

2009-12-29T05:24:00.000-08:00

"And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!" - The Crucible

2009-12-10T14:33:00.000-08:00

To make you all stop begging me, the best books of the year, from a poet and an industry professional (this why I put TITLES IN CAPS), are:

1. DON'T CRY - Mary Gaitskill
2. COLUMBINE - David Cullen
3. EVERYTHING RAVAGED, EVERYTHING BURNED - Wells Tower
4. All of SWIMMING except for the ending - Nicola Keegan
5. BORN ROUND I guesss but this just doesn't, in my heart, feel like "top five material" - Frank Bruni

Why aren't all women rained Mary Gaitskill books, like the Joker drops dollar bills from the sky into Times Square in the first Batman movie? Why wasn't everyone talking about the Columbine book (aka IN COLD BLOOD 2) all the time?! I only really feel super-strongly about those top two.

Books that I thought came out this year but in retrospect they didn't but would totally dominate that list if they had: BOTTOMLESS BELLYBUTTON, THE BOOK THIEF

Books that I haven't read yet that will probably be on this list: CHRONIC CITY, FEMALE CHAUVINIST PIGS, A GATE AT THE STAIRS.

Books that I haven't read yet that will maybe on this list: LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN, that TC Boyle doorstop my mother lent me, A SHORT HISTORY OF WOMEN, OPEN: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

a poem

2009-12-09T19:11:00.000-08:00

Today was a really hard day, with the minute details of work, insurance, grad school, etc. really taking its toll on me. Rather than act out upon my stress through wrath or sadness, I decided to write a poem to vent and just get everything off my chest!

I call this piece "Up in Here."

Y'all gon' make me lose my mind
up in HERE, up in here
Y'all gon' make me go all out
up in here, up in here
Y'all gon' make me act a FOOL
up in HERE, up in here
Y'all gon' make me lose my cool
up in here, up in here

Hold up! ERRRRRRRR!
One.. two.. meet me outside
meet me outside, meet me outside
All my Ruff Ry-DERS gon' meet me outside
meet me outside, meet me outside
All my big ball-ERS gon' meet me outside
meet me outside, meet me outside
All my fly lad-IES gon' meet me outside
meet me outside, meet me outside
All my street street peoples meet me outside
meet me outside, outside motherfucker

X is got y'all bouncin again
Bouncin again, bounce-bouncin again
Dark Man X got ya bouncin again
Bouncin again, bounce-bouncin again
Swizz Beatz got y'all bouncin again
Bouncin again, bounce-bouncin again
Ruff Ryders got y'all bouncin again
Bouncin again, bounce-bouncin again
Dark Man keep you bouncin again
Bouncin again, bounce-bouncin again
Dark Man keep you bouncin again
Bouncin again, bounce-bouncin again
All my streets they bouncin again
Bouncin again, we're bouncin again
Swizz Swizz Beatz we bouncin again
Bouncin again and we bouncin again
Double R keep it comin, ain't nuttin y'all
Ain't nuttin y'all can do, now..

2009-12-08T19:17:00.000-08:00

Martha, Martha, Martha! Find it hard to believe that, while she consumes all the locally sourced cheese goods I could never afford to, she has somehow never tried maple ice cream? As soon as I am in school, I'm going to a filming.

Not quite as morally reprehensible as I WAS TOLD THERE'D BE CAKE, but close

2009-11-29T15:04:00.001-08:00

I can't believe I spent $25 on a copy of Cheerful Money. Fuck all contemporary memoirs. Seriously, people. If you haven't escaped the Sudan by riding atop a lion, your wacky family who drinks a bit too much at gatherings is 100% not interesting or remarkable enough to substantiate a hardcover/trade paperback.

2009-11-24T08:09:00.000-08:00

Favorite bookstores that I cannot leave without buying something, justifying with "but this is such a great independently owned bookstore, if I don't get anything here today it might close!":

1. WORD (greenpoint)
2. St. Marks Bookstore (st. marks)
3. P.S. Books (dumbo)
4. Skylight Books (los feliz)
5. Borders Mt. Kisco (nostalgic reasons only; not a great bookstore)

2009-11-23T13:38:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been thinking about:

My senior year of college, first semester, I took an improv class to fulfill the "arts" requirement. The students - most of whom were bros looking for a fine arts class with no tangible work - slowly came to the realization, over the course of the class, of "why haven't I been doing this my whole life? I'm so talented at riffing about Steve Irwin's death during a serious scene about two badgers who have recently divorced!" The teacher was very encouraging, the exercises were therapeutic, and most people were very good at hiding rolling their eyes.

We had one project where we came into class as one of our parents and did improv games for a day as our mother or father would. The obvious standout was a guy who, as his mother, snippy, holding a Blackberry, and wearing a woman's scarf, indignantly stormed out about twenty minutes in and didn't return for the other hour and ten minutes of the class, and when I went to pee later I saw he was hanging out with his friends on the quad. He was praised for how seriously he committed. But. There was this guy who came in as his father, who is a reporter, and he just walked around the room with a notepad and pencil "acting observant" and furrowing his brow. He tried to look puzzled the whole time and asked a few questions, as a reporter would. At the time I found this vomitously cheesy, but for some reason I've got the image of his face, his eyes looking upward at the stupid tweed Irish cap he was wearing, for inspiration or clues, then "aha!"ing and scribbling on his notepad, in my head, and it now in retrospect seems really heartfelt.

Anyway, enough dad and improv stuff. Which is a better song overall, Heartbeats or Paper Planes?

2009-11-19T13:08:00.001-08:00

Awful things to talk to acquaintences about:

1. Regional pride. Boston pride is appalling, New York City pride is mortifying, Portland pride is embarrassing. There are three places it is acceptable to have regional pride from: Pittsburgh, Washington D.C. (only kind of, though), and the state and cities of Virginia. Also falling under "regional pride" is discussions of what soda is called in your hometown.
2. Your ethnic background. "It's actually kind of crazy...on my mom's side I'm like, half Polish, but then Native American and German? But on my dad's side it's really crazy, like, all over Eastern Europe. When we came to Ellis Island..." Blah blah blah blah.
3. Any dreams that aren't mine. My dreams are devastating, fascinating, bleak, inspirational, etc., but stories about dreams longer than a one-line long summary are best left to your astrological sign-embossed ~Dream Diary~.

2009-11-18T13:15:00.000-08:00

Although it is but November 18th I can officially grant Atlanta Fox News (via Zan's linkshare) with providing the best piece of web-journalism of 2009.

I would officially like to grant a contributor to Mr. Beller's Neighborhood with providing the worst piece of web-journalism of 2009.

Other best-of accolades include cauliflower (Best Vegetable I Didn't Know I Liked Until 2009), Martha Stewart (Best Television Personality of 2009), and a tie between a Judy Blume Diary (via William Morris book closet) and a Virginia Slims "little black book" (via Emily's costume workshop) (Best Vintage Unused Finds of 2009).

2009-11-17T20:48:00.000-08:00

Fuck dude I just went to WORD today and Penguin has rereleased DA FLYEST SHIT. Check out their new velvet hardcovers and Damien Hirst-illustrated Origin of Species, DAYUMMMM. Maybe I am a "regular" there because every time I nerd out over how this publishing house is #1 PIMP

2009-11-17T07:12:00.000-08:00

I want to be a "regular" somewhere or have a "regular" order.

3. Guy who bought porn at Sam Goody and would always say "Oh boy-oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy!"
2. Angry couple at Chums, the Dairy King and Queene, a very special pair of regulars because they were loners who came into Chums to order disgusting amounts of dairy seperately, and then fell in love and ordered together. The Dairy King would always order for them: "Grilled cheese, one pizza bagel, an order of mozzarella sticks, a cappuccino, and a nice, tall, glass of milk." A nice tall glass of milk indignantly closed every order. They were jerks.
1. Best regular of all time, Rivers at Kims, who would stagger to the counter in a Hawaiian shirt with a randomly selected foreign rew release and say the same thing every time: "the name's Rivers, and I'm payin for it."

These people have made such a strong impression on me as a Woman Behind the Counter that I want have this somewhere with someone. To be someone they roll their eyes at, but who secretly means a lot in their predictability and support. Does anyone have any suggestions of places to become a "regular"? Is any sane person under the age of 25 a "regular" anywhere?

2009-11-13T11:14:00.001-08:00

"Your One Beauty!:" Little Women, Sex and the City, and Foucault's Repressive Hypothesis

In The History of Sexuality (1976), Michel Foucault writes about the "repressive hypothesis" - that, in human desire to become fully liberated and the masters of sexuality, their overbearing discourse and need to tell about it has actually made us more subject to it than ever. This example of duped self-owning can perhaps best be seen in two works about nauseatingly zesty women written over two centuries apart: the March sisters (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy) of Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) and the "fashionistas" of HBO's Sex and the City (Miranda, Carrie, Charlotte, and Samantha). While all of these women openly discuss their liberation, one cannot help but notice their slavery to the heteronormative white male regime. And above all: none of these women can really grasp how truly annoying they are because of this.

Carrie Bradshaw/Jo March are writers: by nature, they reveal all, and think their lives are the braver for it. Carrie writes orgasm after orgasm and metaphor after metaphor, and Jo writes demure romances and vampire stories (which, updated on scale to today's standards, are probably similarly soft-core). Carrie/Jo assume all the stylized zest that comes with being a "writer:" having witty reparte with men, claiming their genius, wearing progressive clothing, and being incredibly selfish. And yet, they trick themselves into denying how backwards they really are! Carrie, by writing about sex, is obsessed with it. She tells all day, and is utterly controlled by men and their opinions of her. Jo is, simply put, a hypocrite. While she is a teacher in a male profession and writes her memoirs and urges her sisters to be strong - especially in the film version - she does not achieve true happiness until she is married to Friederich Bhaer, and, when she inherits money, she opens a school...for boys. Jo is "so the Carrie" - with all her big words about changing the regime, she only works to further it. The more these women talk about their control, the more it slips away.

The other sisters, too, fall neatly in line. Meg and Miranda are fussy and goal-oriented and work hard as a governess and a lawyer to save; but the louder Miranda speaks her liberation ("You two are crazy to get married. Marriage ruins everything," loudly promoting her vibrator), but she is the first to become ensnared in a marriage, and punished from a fun lifestyle with pregnancy and her husband's infidelity. Meg resists her suitors but then suddenly finds herself with twins and a redheaded bore of a husband. This is what being sarcastic and practical and voicing your aspiration yields: proof of lack thereof. The more they claim to like being old maids, the more they silently freak out and ultimately settle to solve their husbandless crises.

Amy and Charlotte are young, foolish, pretty, and fanciful. They loudly profess their spoiled natures and their desires to be a lady in a way that is similar to a sexual repressive discourse: as they discuss their aspirations of delicacy and admirations of nice things, they admit their utter lack of charm. Amy, to be a sophisticate and a show-off, steals citrus fruit, proving herself an utter rube; Charlotte claims to be worldly but still treats all gay men as novelties and accessories. Charlotte works in an art gallery and discusses art all day without producing it herself, and Amy produces maudlin landscapes for consumption in tea parties and other domestic atmospheres. They are also extremely reliant on men, although they insist otherwise. While Amy talks about travel and art, she quickly rushes into a marriage with drunk Laurie with little urging. While Charlotte pretends to be a fierce and independent city girl, she also rushes to intense relationships and marriage with any man she meets; many of whom are far below her standards (one is bald and Jewish, and she is punished for not marrying a normative Gentile with - gasp - an adopted Asian baby).

And finally, there are Beth and Samantha - both characters of much derision, but, I would argue, the only characters with any sense of irony about how fucking awful their cohorts and existences are (for which they are rewarded with consumption and cancer). Beth is a wimp and does not pretend to be lively or vivacious like her other siblings do. She knows her place is to gather rolls and sew. She does not talk about her freedoms or her goals, and thus retains some shred of likeability, and goes to heaven for it. Samantha Jones is a joke, a drag queen, and entirely one-dimensional - but unlike the other Sex and the City girls, she competely realizes this and winks to the camera. Her delivery is camp, unlike Carrie's earnest "if men were pairs of shoes..." monologues. She is Mae West among Doris Days. She is loathesome and when she talks about sex she admits she is entirely its subject and controlled by it. When Samantha coos a painful pun you wince, but it's just because of the bad script writing, not because, like the other three girls, she is living a lie. When Beth dies, you're sad, not because the character dies in such a sappy way, but because that's one less character to buffer yourself from the others; repressed even by the the standard of the 1800's.

2009-11-12T11:47:00.000-08:00

I know everyone says this about everything, but I remember Big Dog shirts were a lot more innocent when I was younger.

2009-11-12T11:11:00.000-08:00

CLOTHING!
Specifically, German clothing!

I care about more important things than clothing, though. I also care about the weather, and going to the doctor as much as possible before I go to school and don't have Cigna. I also care about books! I am part of a new book club society with three other co-workers called WORD, Women On Roald Dahl. We are starting with Matilda. But seriously, how cool would it be if I could afford Hui Hui clothing?

2009-11-10T12:22:00.000-08:00

Sent at 3:13 PM on Tuesday
Zan: you literally are the grinch

The ugliest thing I have ever seen.

2009-11-09T11:44:00.001-08:00

The ugliest thing I have ever seen.

2009-11-03T07:05:00.000-08:00

Dear TRADER JOE'S,

Do know that I am a passionate fan of your Brand, but moreover, I do not mince words. So I must say that your decision to add two locations to the UPPER WEST SIDE and CHELSEA is 100% MORALLY REPREHENSIBLE. Adding locations to two very affluent neighborhoods, one of which is within WALKING DISTANCE from a current location, sickens me. If the residents of Chelsea are too lazy to walk to the Union Square location, they DON'T DESERVE discount groceries at all. And please, let's not even get into the sickening choice of an Upper West Side location - a veritable land of milk and honey for supermarkets. Whole Foods. Fairway. All those expensive Jewish-slanted places. Dozens of Gristides-type joints. Appalling.

You know where the two new locations should go? I'll tell you. THE BRONX and LONG ISLAND CITY. I know in my heart that there should be a TJ's in the Bronx (or, at the very least, in Inwood), but it's of very little relevance to me lest my greatest GEOGRAPHIC FEARS come true and I student teach there, but let's talk LIC: a fine produce and microwavable burrito center for the denizens of the SEVEN TRAIN, the "far end" of the G away from the easy tidings of Cobble Hill, the E and the V: a supermarket for the part of Queens that DOESN'T HAVE A CAR. I DO NOT "GET" QUEENS, but I "get" that this need must be filled, and I "get" that justice must be served.

I will continue to buy your pizzas and edamame, and to have heartwrenching conversations with every checkout person I meet, but DO KNOW SIRS that it will be through clenched teeth and twisted heart!

- Molly

2009-11-01T11:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Emily and I accomplished a WHOLE LOT, and it heralded back to a day last May which, in many ways, I consider to be the "best day ever" because of the synergy and productivity involved:

7:00 - wake up, walk from Greenpoint to the Marcy JMZ, get a pumpernickel bagel with scallion tofutti and tomato from Bagelsmith. For today is not an ordinary day with an ordinary commute: today is JURY DUTY.

8:00-9:30 - watch hilarious instructional videos about the law and slowly realize, after being shifted from help desk to help desk, that I was incorrectly called into Manhattan Jury Duty, while I am actually a Brooklyn resident. I am dismissed and, rather than drudge into midtown for work, I do not divulge that I was dismissed and take the rest of the Thursday to my personal gains. Such as:

10:00 - 11:30ish - Brooklyn Trader Joe's - uncrowded and lovely
12:00 - 1:30 - TAKING A POWER NAP on my couch while watching a DVD
1:30 - 3:00 - GRILLING CORN on the fire escape with the roomie - and directly before this, I picked up some interlibrary loans around the corner, that's how "on" this day was.
3:30ish - BIKRAM YOGA on N7th and smiling smugly the whole time

6:00ish - meet Meg at the New Museum for free day and saunter through the "eh" exhibit dutifully yet joyously. We get ICED COFFEE and then SEE STAR TREK, which, while I am no fan of the Union Square movie theater, was so so so awesome.

Then I went to sleep, probably before 12.

Whenever I think of this day I smile so big. The only thing that could have made it better would be if I actually had jury duty. But some day. Some day.

2009-10-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

Asian Things I Like!
1. All my Asian friends
2. Pork ramen
3. Bikram
4. Sunset Park

Asian Things I Am On The Fence About!
1. Filial piety
2. Mango lassi
3. Hong Kong cinema
4. Queens

creeper

2009-10-25T20:15:00.001-07:00

Celebrities I Feel Deeply Drawn To, Like, A Strong Connection in the Bottom of my Stomach, Not in a John Hinkley Way, But in a Strongly Compelled Way (and what first made me feel "that way")

1. Martin Starr (Adventureland)
2. Albert Brooks (Broadcast News)
3. Harry Dean Stanton (Wild At Heart)
4. Adam Goldberg (VBS)
5. Kristen Stewart (Seen and not heard)
6. Louis Theroux (Off-Off Broadway)

2009-10-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

If I win the lottery, I'm going Clocktower

2009-10-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

Area Gentrification "Cafe" watch

Benevolent
Urban Rustic, far N12th st (gold; chicken sandwiches)
Brooklyn Standard, Nassau (silver; ice cream sandwiches)
Boneshakers, Kingsland (bronze; giant iced coffee jars)

Average to Boring
Second Stop Cafe, far Lorimer
Cup, Norman (only top of this section due to friend's employement there)
Champion, far Manhattan Ave
Variety, far Graham
Uro Cafe, Driggs
Lucky Shot, Driggs (booooring)

Hall of Dishonor
Cafe Grumpy, Messerole (for "norms" writing novels)
Beaner Bar, far Graham (WTF)
El Beit, far Bedford (WTF)
Forest Natural, Norman (WTF)

Special Intricate Disappointment League
Eat, Messerole (shunned for phasing out music and cafe yet redeemed from lowest ranks for go-by-the-week CSA baskets)

gonna shout it through the mountaintops

2009-10-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

Which of my neighbors and car-drivers of McGuinness could tell I was only listening to this song over and over for thirty minutes:

This song is the best. It's the best song in the whole world. All the soloists but especially the "main girl" whose voice "is really crazy" and "does fancy stuff" really kill it. If I could have any music-affiliated wish, it would be to sit in on the recording of this dope jam, or to have the original girls sing it for me in a middle school-style concert.

2009-10-14T11:56:00.000-07:00

Wish I had this idea first

2009-10-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

People Magazine Halloween Headline Gmail Pun-Off
Starring Pete, Zan, Other Zan, and Molly

M: TRICK OR TWEET!: We sit down with the founder of Twitter to discuss the future of technology, the presidency, and just what he's dressing up as this Halloween!
Z: HAPPY HALLI-WEEN!: Geri Halliwell discusses love, life, and her secret candy apple recipe!
P: IRAQ-NOPHOBIA!: U.S. Soldiers discuss the horror of the ground war in Iraq, and why spiders totally freak them out!
M: THIRD DEGREE BOO-URN VICTMIS SPEAK OUT: "We're Not Freaks!" and/or GHOST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER SUFFERERS SPEAK OUT: "We're Not Freaks!"
Z: R. U AFRAID OF THE DARK?: R. Kelly discusses his new album Dark Chocolate and his Halloween plans!
O.Z.: MISCHIEF NIGHT: M. Night Shyamalan, the "bad boy" director of Hollywood, talks about fame, dealing with the critics, and why Halloween is his favorite holiday!
Z: DONNIE DARKO: Donnie Osmond on his battle with schizophrenia
M: HAUNTED "HOUSE": Hugh Laurie dishes on his character's dark side, and, also, CANDY KORN: Jonathan Davis proves this band's new album is a trick AND a treat!
P: HELLRAZOR: Troubled young women discuss their struggles with self-mutilation, and their sexiest halloween costumes!

I am proud of "ghost traumatic stress syndrome" but I think this round goes to Zan?

2009-10-08T14:36:00.001-07:00

It's a bit tricky recommending Wetlands because it's really shocking - you're warned things are "really graphic" but are often "eh," but this book really brings it. Putting your own removed ass skin on a mushroom pizza and eating it. Drinking your best friend's vomit. But this book has So. Much. Heart. I highly recommend. Such a great voice and some of the best divorce angst since Jungle 2 Jungle.

2009-10-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

Nope, nope, I don't like you, Geographic edition
Arizona Iced Tea
70% of things Italian (excepted: pizza, the way Italians decorate their houses at Christmas, my roommate)
Californication - the posters for the TV show, and the RHCP song
Catered breakfasts; Danish-heavy
New York University grad school prices
Oh, why not...the Mexican Hat Dance

2009-10-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

You know what's a truly awful feeling? Seeing someone who has/had a crush on you, and thinking, "wow, I might feel really gross right now, but at least I'm going to give John Doe a total boner," and then John is totally nonplussed and ambivalent, and it's like, "well I don't even have that." Boner is a strong word but I bet you all know what I'm talking about here.

broken

2009-10-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

Whenever I see someone on crutches I cringe with the inevitability that sometime within the next five years I am bound to trip and break my leg and how much will it suck to hobble down the subway steps taking ten minutes while my friends silently freak out and pretend to be "okay with it" ? I know this will happen to me soon and the question is, when, and will I have health care?

2009-10-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

What am I doing with my life?

a couple of situations

2009-09-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

A couple of situations.

My new bedroom is ultimately decorated like an eighth grader from a poor family in the part of Illinois nobody has been to who has never been to an Anthropologie store but looks at pictures in the catalogue and aspires to work there one day, maybe during college.

---

I showed two of my friends a picture of a man who I found attractive and they booed me.

---

I have the "no you exploit women" rejection letter prepared in my head were I ever approached for any creative involvement by Vice, which is why I'm confused by all the big names they have in their recent film issue. Is Werner Herzog a fan or is he just trying to connect with a young audience? And surely David Lynch has better interviews he could get...

Anyway, Miranda July, as usual, "gets it" more than anyone else and has the best magazine spread I've seen in recent memory.

---

As of my most recent trip to Trader Joe's I am at a pro-bag-of-hard-boiled-eggs stance.

---

It's a year away but I am hatching an exciting plan for Summer 2010 that involves subletting my room and living in Los Angeles with my mom for two months or so, getting a coffee shop or video store job or BOTH, shunning the concept of making new friends besides the three I already have there, reading and hiking and volunteering with high schoolers and hanging out with the dog during spare time, saving lots of money, and then with that money going to Spain with Mommy for a week, couchsurfing in Berlin for a week, and the WWOOFing in the Austrian countryside.

brief interviews with hideous men

2009-09-27T08:53:00.001-07:00

So it's probably a failure if you host a screening and Q&A of your movie and the viewing group leaves not only hating your movie, but also leave thinking that you come off like an incredibly annoying person who they would constantly shit-talk if you were in their group of friends?

2009-09-25T07:13:00.000-07:00

What I will get from the Built By Wendy Fall 2009 collection when it is heavily on sale:

Nondenominational Dress

Jewish Shirt