babel

context is king.

you know how sometimes you can experience something in an ambivalent or slightly appreciative way, tinker a bit, return, and get blown?

about a month ago i picked up the collected stories of issac babel. wikipedia describes him as "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry"

holler.

last night i had a few beers and decided to get back into babel. the rush of the commuter train and the molecules of belgian beer diffusing in my bloodstream rerouted the reading experience into something literally joyful - babel's frantic, gurgling, slick, and always sort of snowy prose had never felt so fucking packed with energy. i had battery fingers and a full-blown face boner. there were Odessa girls and naked men hugging russian trees, soilders getting pissed on and then gunned down in trenches, nurses tearfully exposing their breasts to crippled men. do you understand? this collection is amazing.

parker lewis

recently i've been feeling the rentals - a splurge inspired by one benji f-p. there's something really rewarding about their 90's vibe and you know i like my music with some WHOOOOOOwoowooWHOOOOs

i saw the rentals at the 9 30 club 3 or 4 years ago; along the way i met an extraordinarily kind DC policeman who complimented me on my safe-evening walking skills (?) and ran into a bunch of kids from my elementary school, which was unimaginably magical.

today whilst blasting "the love im searching for" i noticed some intriguing youtube links, the best of which was a compilation of episodes from "Parker Lewis Can't Fail" - network television's response to the popularity of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I remember watching this show on my family's black and white TV with the crazy bunny ears that had foil-scrunches on top, in the kitchen of my house on Meurilee Lane. I'm sure that a bunch of you once got into this to.

Adorable high jinx from Santa Domingo High

stuff white people like

Ms. Titze and Mr. Bahlman have named the single cygnet in the northern family Honey Bear because, as Ms. Titze put it, “He makes bear sounds.”

loutoo

i feel EVERYTHING!

take a look at these beautiful friends:

today I call you to my riverside

make it up as we go along

anthony, can you please comment?

"In the last couple of weeks, the prime minister has been compelled to publicly deny that he takes antidepressants, that he is on the verge of going blind and that President Obama is deliberately avoiding him."

expressions i never give

i'm learning to play the guitar which means i'm mostly hanging out with neil young. it's all about 3 chord combinations while i wait for my calluses to come in. last night i got too excited with G and dropped the pick inside of the guitar's woody intestines. things were looking grim. fortunately my roommate is studying to be a doctor and she concocted an ingenious sticky snipe - it's going to remain on hand for any future mishaps. now it's just me and neil and this slippy pick. also did you know that once neil young and rick james were in a band together? so real it hurts ...

in DC

- starlets wear fascinating amounts of glitter, but you know, tasteful
- it's really fun on the town with my dudes
- i hurt my elbow but amanda is a superior nurse
- jessie brought back the pizza bagel, she is on her game


- hangover rainy day + mom and the pink panther
- comet pingpong was once delicious thai food, but now it is delicious wood and dancing
- gin and tonics are free
- inevitably, so is paul simon
- see you so soon!

my boss is norwegian

this means he is practical and socialist. isn't it good?
last night he taught me this norwegian saying,
"there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing"
he is not a fashion-plate, he just believes in attitude, and i am sort of digging on this right now.
it's like awhile back a radiolab episode explained that every drug in existence - advil, nyquil, marijuana, heroin ... the properties of every drug in existence already exist within our brain.

of every drug.

that's why placebo is such a real thing - if we tell ourselves that something is taking effect in our body, if we believe it hard enough, our brains have the capacity to delude us, yes, but also kick in the significant chemical urgency.

it sort of just means in a way that anything is possible in our brains.

in general, anything is possible, like B movie actresses writing tell-alls about consensual incest. WHAT?! Qaddafi says swine flu could have been manufactured in labs first, and this is also a possibility. it is also possible that tonight i am watching sword swallowers in DC with beer and jessie and wally and maybe everyone i've ever met in maryland.

i have more to say but im already late for the bus. can't wait motherfuckers.

in the future

you get your ears scratched

last night walking home i saw this man getting carried by his mom, he looked really tired but all brown and perfectly happy to be living. i did a little research and have learned the french bulldogs pretty much love to live in apartments and cuddle all day. this is my future

i should have guessed

Bradford Sprague, Kirk Fountain, and Donovan Blevins that your respective emails requesting additional information were merely a ruse to sell me viagra.


Also, when I was little my mom had a favorite song to cry to, and I just remembered a part about "down to the ground, down to the ground" and I mentioned it to my outstanding HR manager who immediately knew it was Joan Armatrading's Down to Zero

there's something about whistles

in songs

that just about turns me right back outside of myself
and get out the jaunty a little on the sidewalk

same when boys and girls sing together
thanks, BPB
and edward sharpe


in other news, arthur russell is pretty great.

goodbye summer

we did really good though, see you next time!

it's classy

earlier i declined these cookies on the premise of being healthy, but looking down i spy chocolate smeared into my shirt

last night i went into the weight room on the premise of lifting weights - you know, the 8lbers, but then i sat across from this giant and he started lifting 300 pounds and shrieking and i finished my routine and quietly left

last week i asked the dj to play some daft punk, instead he says "SRSLY!?" and then played the circus. by now he's probably dead.

this morning i tried arm-wrestling the doorman because he looked a little soft but he killed me.

chocolate candy jesus christ

saw this on blue cheese highway, can't stop singing and dancing in the cubicle, elevator, train tracks. thanks whitney, thanks tuesday, thanks most adorable duo that is humanly possibly other than strawberry ice cream with chocolate sprinkles.

what

do our grandparents think of mad men?

computers of tomorrow

Among the chief potential users of custom information are persons engaged in simulation studies and dynamic modeling

netfacts

the story of Netflix's million dollar predictability contest is great because it highlights some important conclusions:

1) when you are trying to work out a problem, it is best to have a variety of people thinking differently to combine and give the best possible answer. is this the secret of marriage?

2) the equations used to more accurately predict Netflix user's taste choices will probably be used in the next ten years to more accurately target consumers across a variety of fields, thus paving the way for our lives to become more like Minority Report

3) hopefully this technology will make it so that Netflix stops recommending Father's Day, the quirky comedy starring Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, and Billy Crystal's forehead.

Leviathan

The longing is to be pure. What you get is to be changed.

thursday forever

the other day a colleague told me she had just been notified of eviction over the telephone. she had to leave work to go see if she could grab any of her stuff. i didn't see her for a few days, and then when i finally did, she was looking at houses, a little frayed from crying, and explaining, with gratitude, that she never knew she had so many friends.

as a current resident of the house of blues, i totally appreciate that sentiment and am in fact reveling in the deluge of love and luck that has accompanied some dizzy-stepped heartbreak. yesterday my boss gave me chocolate, i had my first writing class, and then i had birthday beers and danced until 3ish in the morning with a collection of colleagues that tore the shit out of the dance floor, t-rex style.

i haven't danced in a minute, and i forgot how freeeeeee it feels

my old roommate was a writer who started dancing to get out of his head - it's the opposite of dwelling, over-thinking, punishing. when you move you can't think about it too much or else you become a stunted sneevil. what i mean to say is

get on the floor
let's dance some mo



and that i am thankful. <3

east coast reconstruction tour

and it begins. see you soon richmond robot.
you're next cereal...

the wheel

today i can't stop crying out of my eyes
but
there was free pizza for lunch!
but
we had to learn about healthcare
but
we learned that in an emergency we are ALWAYS paying IN network which is good
but
i still have to pay the dentist 900 dollars
but
the shirt i am wearing is one dollar and i am a consummate professional
end note / balance is forever / mutability is our tragedy, but it is also our hope / jessie is not a boy / this is neither good nor bad.

there is

joy

infectious

Christakis and Fowler say they have for the first time found some solid basis for a potentially powerful theory in epidemiology: that good behaviors — like quitting smoking or staying slender or being happy — pass from friend to friend almost as if they were contagious viruses. The Framingham participants, the data suggested, influenced one another’s health just by socializing.

yesterday it came out

that boys might be happier if they looked at more pictures of puppies. seriously. stop hating yourself and get into this shit. it will give you life boners.

upstanding community members

newsflash: this guy gets laid!

not only by his bored wife, but by power-hungry female lobbyists in california!
santiago, you might be saying, it is none of your business whom this man coerces into sexual situations. just because mike duvall pays for sex instead of serving his constituency doesn't mean any of us need to interfere in his personal life.

this is entirely true.

and yet, this poor schlump accidentally bragged about his sexual exploits while the microphone was most decidedly on. ooof. fortunately someone posted this on youtube. unfortunately, his attempts to be filthy are overshadowed by the fact that he's a sad old man, and describes the action before spanking buns as "making love". later he talks about making it past third base and still later equates the feeling of breasts as similar to a bag of sand. sike, i'm not saying it's not true, i'm sure plenty of people had sex with mike duvall, i'm just saying that afterwards they probably showered thrice and had a good cry.

cell phone radiation

best and worst


brought to you by, suze loutoo, who in high school taught us about ear tumors

just another day at the racetrack

Democratic campaign officials said that in the first eight hours after Mr. Wilson’s outburst gained attention, his potential Democratic opponent, Rob Miller, received nearly 3,000 individual campaign contributions totaling about $100,000

Part II

Last night on the bus these old Brooklyn men were arguing real seriously and I assumed it would be about health care or the content of Obama's speech but upon listening closer, they were just talking about how they wanted to be bartenders

you're extremely elegant

funions

do scallions provide any kind of nutritional benefit? i would be satisfied with maybe even a little better than a skittle.

me and pam, online

me: what if everyday was a three day weekend?!

Pam: that's what they promised us when I was your age -- they said computers would give us all a 4 day work week... they lied. it turned out work weeks are longer

me: oh no
Pam: when are you gonna see Julia and Juulia?

ancient scrolls of wisdom

democracy now

its really just a beauty pageant

mom talks I

last night my mom and i were on the phone for maybe 2 hours. obviously the talk got around to marriage, and when i asked my mom what she thought were the most important characteristics of a good marriage were she goes, without hesitation:

compatibility and communication

and i'm kind of like, hey girl, those are good answers, but what does compatibility actually mean? and then she started talking about her friend leonore and how she was super fat now, "like two people on her back" and how that was bad for marriage and then she started talking about make-up, and i knew things were going to go from bad to worse so i tried to steer the conversation in another direction and then we started talking about how my brother is shallow.

beautiful.

this morning on the train i noticed this 9/11 poster, they have a bunch up always about symptoms from working on or near the site and how you are entitled to cash if you have particular symptoms, and one poster was written in spanish and among the symptoms were "problemas de sinusitis" and i ask you, how many latin people do you know with sinus problems? i will answer that for you. most every. all. go find a latin person and ask them about their sinuses, and i guarantee you will be in for it. go find even a partially latin person, a 50 percenter; talk to me about my fucking sinuses, i have days of material: air conditioning oy, don't you ever touch my nose, etc.


back to mom.

i was kind of giving her a mentally hard time about how quickly any relationship talk / advice turns to physical beauty. because it inevitably does with her. but. then i remember that my mom was a kid in mad men times. she burned her bra and shit, but was probably wearing lipstick to do it. i understand where she is coming from, she was in the workforce in the 70's and 80's and had weiner bosses try and undress her, back her into corners, etc., so i cannot necessarily fault her for her perception of beauty and maleness and female beauty, all. the thing is though, times are a bit different. this is the 2000's baby, anything goes.

i want to say this.
i am not a beautiful woman. and i am not looking for handouts here. i know i am not a beautiful woman because i live in brooklyn, and every second woman is a number one stunna, like ready for publication beautiful. the publication might sometimes be like Delias, but that's still, you know, a sort of publication.
i will say this though.
i'm cute as fuck, and i like to laugh, i don't give a shit about where your jeans came from, and i like to eat. what i mean to say is, i do alright for myself, and i don't know how i would have fared in the 70's, and i don't know how i would fare in brooklyn as a single lady, but these things are not measurable, and i don't have a time machine.
do you guys feel me? beauty is different than for our mom's, right? certainly this is indicative of the background of my mom and her family - i am sure that you all might have moms that don't suggest that you wear more make-up, but then again maybe plenty of you have to break it down to your moms like: yo, if i get married, it will be BYOB and naw, i'm not trying to wear lipstick, and seriously, if i get fat as shit quadruple-chins gargle chocolate milk at bedtime, more of me to love, Ma!

found it

what if your job

was to make these?



furry puppet studio

reinvention

successful folks make it sound like it is a natural element, like picking up and going is the easiest thing in the world. the picking up part has always been fucking complicated, large and lovely and.. large.

how real is reinvention? is there an ideal place that you are at your most luminous, your most "you" or is it inevitable that you will always end up back at your roots, your youest you, xy axis, base zero, regardless. ?

in other news, ben has the swine:


:( sorry friend, puke it out

When Spike Jonze was 9, he was Adam Spiegel, a shy, sensitive kid growing up in Bethesda, Md., a suburb of Washington.

g chat

when your friends are rich, it's called fundraising

frown

this questionnaire would be so much sweeter with accompanying smiley, medium, and frown faces, and blood

Pfizer pfined

2.3 billion for shitty, over-marketed pain killers*
what an extraordinary amount of money, i wonder how on earth they can pay that?

an equation:
birth control (yasmin) = $25 dollars / month
x 12 months = $300 / year / 1 person

Females 18+ on the island of NYC: 570,065.5
(minus the over 65 crowd, I would hope they no longer need to ingest birth control, not for lack of sexual activity, just because their reproductive wells have long since craggled)

x $25 dollars (or one month's worth of birth control) = $ 14,251,637.5
x 12 months = the possibility of generating $171,019,650 / year in NYC alone

Current female population of the United States = approximately 152,029,862 women.
x $25 dollars (one month of BC) = 3,800,746,550 or almost 4 billion dollars if every American woman ingested this particular form of birth control for 1 month.



PS, the pull-out method is 88% effective, says Planned Parenthood, and decidedly free of charge.

*The FDA approved Bextra to treat arthritis as well as menstrual pain in very
limited doses. Kopchinski alleged in his qui tam lawsuit -- which the
government joined -- that Pfizer promoted Bextra for uses and in doses that
far exceeded what the FDA had approved. This put patients at risk for serious
health problems such as heart attack, stroke and pulmonary embolism (blood
clot in the lung). The lawsuit also said that Bextra paid doctors kickbacks in
various ways to influence them to prescribe and endorse Bextra for these
"off-label" uses. Bextra was withdrawn from the market in 2005.

yes

today

so dizzy

beautiful weather, a dizzy brain

in other news, amanda is on a plane with michael bluth, pictured here, on drugs