May 2009
3 posts
September 2008
2 posts
Infinite
dearoldlove:
You were the first and only person I wanted to talk to when I heard about David Foster Wallace.
Dear Future America's Next Top Model Contestants
If Tyra asks you about your favorite heroine in English literature, like she did to that Harvard girl on Wednesday, there’s really only one acceptable answer: Rosalind, the heroine of “As You Like It.” First of all: Shakespeare. Tyra will love that — shows you’re sophisticated. Second, Rosalind is a strong woman. We all know how ANTM feels about strong women. And...
August 2008
7 posts
Joyce Carol Totes
Granted, I have a massive girl-crush on Curtis Sittenfeld, a crush so powerful it withstood the experience of reading The Man of My Dreams in hardback as soon as it came out (in terms of letdowns, roughly the same as being the first person in line at the midnight showing of Harold and Kumar II). And granted also, I think Joyce Carol Oates is kind of a hack, what with her sixty different literary...
The Best Idea I Had All Summer
Referring to the cat as “Ball-of-fur Eliasson.”
Didn't the Onion Call This?
New York Magazine, yesterday: Will McCain’s Surrogates Bring Up Barack Obama’s Destitute Kenyan Brother?
The Onion, August 13: Obama’s Hillbilly Half-Brother Threatening To Derail Campaign
Capsule Review: Vicky Cristina Barcelona
It’s sweet that Woody Allen thinks a post-collegiate free spirit ScarJo type would never have had a threesome before.
A Gross Sound
coffeeflavored:
Air kisses in the next room.
Kids in America
I’m a little surprised this article on the British teen show Skins didn’t once mention the words “gossip” or “girl.” The show was born when a TV producer’s son pointed out the problem with most dramas about teenagers:
“He said that being a teenager, by definition, means behaving badly, having sex, flirting with drink and drugs,” Mr. Elsley said,...
Forest, Trees, Etc
I’m back from self-imposed exile, if only for a moment, just because I cannot wrap my mind around Jezebel’s response to the concept of the Quirky Aggressive Female archetype, as invented by Lauren Bans (who is also a founding member of my book club!) Lauren writes:
Signs You Are A Quirky Aggressive Female:
#1.) You do drugs or you like talking about how you do drugs.
#2.) You use...
July 2008
8 posts
The Good Old Days
From a Talk of the Town about the history of New York’s poop scoop law:
Then you had your community activists—Max Schnapp, of POPA (Pet Owners Protective Association), a labor organizer and the owner of two Great Danes (Tiger and Sampson), a pet crow (Mitzvah), three rabbits (Pinkie, Dutchie, unnamed), a white mouse (Piggy), a baby squirrel (Elmer Wiggley), a gerbil, and half a dozen alley...
“If I were a saxophonist who played on the street” is an amazing phrase with which to tag blog entries.
They Say the Lights Are Bright
Every time I think about this, my brain gets a little bit seared by the awesomeness. From Gothamist:
It’s time to start getting really, really excited about Spider-Man the Musical, which will feature a score by U2’s Bono and the Edge and direction from Julie Taymor of Lion King fame. In May, Marvel Executive Peter Cuneo announced that the show could open as soon as next year, with Jim Sturgess...
5G37
cabdriverstellmeimpretty:
His name was Wade Tango.
I was caught up in thinking about this, and the short story character his name could become, when he proclaimed, “You will have a great evening.”
He repeated it and added, beaming, “I just came from praying. You are the first to enter my cab since my prayers.”
It was only noon, so it seemed a bit early to be making predictions about my...
California: Where Animals Perch on Other Animals
One day on our honeymoon we saw a little turtle standing on a bigger turtle:
We were extremely impressed. Until half an hour later, when we saw this:
June 2008
12 posts
Rules for Brides
A few days before the wedding, listen to “Exile in Guyville.” It will sound completely different now that you’re committing to a lifetime of letters and sodas — like a well-constructed memoir instead of a bad-idea blueprint.
Have a bachelorette party. For one thing, it’s actually a good idea to mark a distinction between your single past and your wifely future. For...
On ugliness
doree:
There’s an article in USA Today by Michael Gartner, who hired Tim Russert to host Meet the Press, and there’s a long digression about how Russert was initially reluctant to host the show because he thought he was too ugly:
Finally, I told him he should be – had to be – the moderator of Meet the Press, which wasn’t doing well.
“No way,” he said again.
We argued. We debated. We fought. He...
WatchI’m not saying you shouldn’t go see You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. I’m just saying that if you wanted to experience every joke in the movie in under seven minutes, you could just watch this old Saturday Night Live parody.
I Dunno, I Think Carrie's More of an Obama Girl
Remember two weeks ago when Slate ran an essay connecting Hillary Clinton’s campaign to the Sex and the City movie? And the author not only hadn’t seen the movie but also didn’t know much about the show? And most of his argument, such that it was, consisted of using detailed demographic research to prove that both the campaign and the movie appealed to, um, women?
Because...
Construction workers in New York have started... →
dearyouloveme:
paultough:
“He didn’t say nothing back, he just kept on climbing, just gave us a thumbs-up and kept climbing. He’s more crazier than we are — power to him.”
The My Friends Do Cool Stuff Digest
Annie has a play!
Ed is reading in Chicago!
Ben dances!
Other Ben’s band made a music video!
Gabe is approved of!
Did I leave anyone out? I want to start doing this regularly — e-mail me at standardpretty@gmail.com with suggestions. (Prettystandard was taken, but I kind of like it better inverted anyway.)
Speaking of drinking beer for breakfast:...
I'm Going to Miss These Little Chats
Me: who is raphael?
Todd: our tech intern!
with whom we had lunch
Raphael: Hi!
Me: oh yes! sorry
i was picturing the ninja turtle and got confused
that actually happens to me a lot
Craig: haha, you have severe homo-tortio dysmorphia
May 2008
21 posts
The Lying, the Bitch, and the Wardrobe
Anthony Lane’s Sex and the City review in the New Yorker is all one-liners: “Apparently,” I said to the woman behind me in line, “some of the girls have problems with their men, break up for a while, and then get back together again.” “Oh, my God!” she cried. “How do you know?” To be fair, there are four of them—banded together, like hormonal hobbits, and all obsessed with a ring. Think of...
Water, Fire, and Rhode Island's Most Adorable...
“Waterfire?” my brother asked once, right after I moved to Providence. “Isn’t that where they put a lit match in the river, and it’s so polluted that the whole thing goes up in flames? That is SO COOL.” “That would be cool,” I’d said at the time, “but actually it’s just this bullshit New Age art project.” There’s a lot wrong with this, not least the fact that into our late teens neither...
Amanda Lorber, you have sort of forsaken me
doree on The Paper: …I’ve been on Team Amanda pretty much since the get-go, and I was totally down with her chats with the really pissy, immature Alex, especially when she told him that he was living in the past and just needed to get over the fact that he wasn’t elected editor-in-chief. But what I wasn’t down with was Amanda’s curious opposition to Mrs. Weiss’s team-building excursion....
This and New Order’s “Bizarre Love...
Just Because It's Impossible to Identify with...
Annalee Newitz’s rant about women and sci-fi just made my whole office explode, in a good way. A sample: If there’s something keeping women away from enjoying science fiction, it’s not spaceships. It’s not “aliens on some far-off planet.” It’s the fact that people on our very own planet keep telling us that women aren’t supposed to like science...
Headline News
I can’t believe the New York Times couldn’t find one person to defend on-air profanity. More importantly, I can’t believe how many people are OK with using the term “F-Bomb.” I know the Quakers brainwashed me pretty hard and I know I’m treading into dangerously self-righteous territory here, but is it possible that the word “bomb” doesn’t have any connotations for...
One More Book!
I can’t believe I posted about Everyone Has a Book Day and left out Ben Wallace. The Billionaire’s Vinegar also came out yesterday, and while you’re stocking up on Personal Days and American Nerd you should buy a copy of that as well. Although then you might look like some kind of geek-loving wine aficionado who works in an office, rather than the rugged cattle rustler that you...
Hold Me Closer, Bleeding Bouncer
Someone got shot at Sing Sing! In the chest! While an amateur was belting out Elton John! The following is a public service announcement from a New York Post commenter: THE BEST WAY TO ENJOY A KARAOKE PARTY IS IN A PRIVATE SETTING WITH DECENT PEOPLE THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW. ANY OTHER WAY, YOU ARE TAKING A CHANCE WITH YOUR LIFE.
Sure, it's 28 days old and about a festival that... →
Help! I Don’t Know How to Feel About Steampunk!
Last night halfway through dinner I decided I was officially done with the Decembrists. My iPod was playing some song about the plenary and the cassowaries and Birkenau, and out of nowhere my tolerance for Colin Meloy’s vocabulary just evaporated. Anyway, apparently my cultural sensors are razor sharp, because today the New York Times Style Section has a piece about the rising trend of...