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Wednesday, May 10th, 2006
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So, I came across this link to Stephen Colbert's brutal burst of truthiness at the White House Correspondents' Dinner a couple Saturdays ago and I clicked it. Dude, Stephen Colbert has balls. Now, a lot of schmu -- er, people at Fox News have been protesting Mr. Colbert's performance, but personally I found it inspiring. So I tried to make this t-shirt for him:
But those cowards at CafePress have refused to print the shirt because, apparently, the mere invocation of Mr. Colbert's last name strikes fear into the hearts of their lawyers. Who'd've thunk? Lawyers with hearts.
Anyway, even though Stephen's a man of the people, those factorneys think there might be lawsuits if they helped put Stephen's balls on people's chests. (Does Charlene work for Cafepress?) They think there's some "right of publicity" or "right of privacy" that should keep Stephen's balls in his own closet, instead of our nation's wardrobe.
So, instead, they're just willing to print "I'd rather have balls like Stephen than a Bush like George". With no "Colbert". As if any old Stephen would do, not just THE Stephen. Or, I could go with "I'd rather have balls like Colbert than a Bush like George", you know, just in case there's somebody out there who'd really like to have gigantic French balls like Jean Baptiste Colbert. Needless to say, it's the kind of unamerican censorship that only a bear could love. In fact . . .
To quote Stephen (THE Stephen): "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" Anyway, if you happen to run into Stephen (THE Stephen), can you ask him to tell Cafepress to let us wear his balls on our chest?
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Goodness, it's been quite a while.
I'm still working on that pesky novel, which'll be quite good when it's done. At my current pace, that should be sometime in 2047. :-/
In the meantime, I've put up a page on myspace to flog some of my crass commercial stuff, and I may start blogging there. So be a dear and add me so I can feel all popular and studly.
http://www.myspace.com/teestyle1
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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I can't believe it's been over a year since I last updated this blog. I meant to, really, I did. I had a rather clever bit of shinyblogging about "furryoverlord," perhaps the best blog I've seen yet from a cat. Some day.
But for now, I'm writing something else. Something novel. A novel, to be precise. The introduction and the first two chapters of Monsters In Love, A Bedtime Story are now online at http://www.lulu.com/monstersinlove.
Truth be told this isn't a novel, it's a jailbreak. Day by day, my professional world is grueling the happy out of me, grinding me down with spreadsheets and CYA memos about things no ordinary person could ever imagine caring about. I'd rather be writing, so here we are.
These are the chapters of Monsters In Love, A Bedtime Story, as I write them, when I write them. One way or another, it will indeed become a fully fledged novel, with paper and cover and binding and all, available at Amazon.com of course, but for now I'm publishing it in electronic format, serial-style. That means that I can still edit things, so don't be surprised if you see new versions of old chapters popping up. The first clump of chapters will be free. Eventually I’ll start charging 99 cents or so per chapter or clump o’ chapters, so I can keep myself in socks and such. From time to time I might put old drafts or commented drafts up, too, just in case you’re interested in my, ahem, “process.”
I'm also going to sporadically blog as ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) monstersinlove -– very sporadically -- about the writing process, just in case you're interested. Feel free to suggest edits or ask questions over at monstersinlove, or just sit around reading the book. If you like what you're reading, buy a copy for a friend. If you don't like what you're reading, buy a copy for someone you despise. If you'd like to offer me a magnificently lucrative book or movie deal to get the story out faster, I'd be very much in love with you. Because I'd like nothing better than to just write this story for you.
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Comments: Read 13 or Add Your Own.
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Welcome back, my best beloveds. It's been a while since I've seen you here. We have quite a bit of shinyblogging before us, work to do, work to do.
But before we get there, I wanted to announce that pumpsnail rules. Being new to livejournaland, I've been hunting about for usericons, and I mysteriously found myself on pumpsnail's page, and she had the cutest little kitten-in-a-basket icon:
As you'll recall, I have a soft spot for tipsy kittens, as my umlauts have a habit of tumbling off their vowels like tipsy kittens off a kitchen counter when they've had a wee bit too much kitnip. So I asked pumpsnail if I could "borrow" her icon, and she said yes! Yay pumpsnail! All praise pumpsnail!
I had hoped to dub the icon "Tipsy kitten contemplates shinyblogs contemplating blogs. (Courtesy of pumpsnail. Yay, pumpsnail!)" but, as you may already know, LiveJournal sorta limits how you get to title an icon. No html. Not too many characters. And commas will segment your title into alphabetizable clumplets of text that might not wind up in the order you'd hoped them to go. So I kept fiddling with the icon "keywords" and fuddling with the icon "keywords" until, finally, I managed an exasperated "TipsykittenwatchesShinyblogs-tyPimpsnail." Now, you might notice, in between the smished-up consonants, that there's a little typo there. I didn't notice it myself. pumpsnail did.
I feel like such a pitz. So, yeah, sorry 'bout that. Because, you know, it's obvious that pumpsnail is in no way pimpy. She's got class. She's like, pumpescargot. Except that, meandering through her blog, I suspect that while her future will be tasty like escargot -- though perhaps with more garlic than butter in this hourglass-figure-conscious time -- it won't be arriving at a snail's pace. Because her blog is just lovely, full of cute turns of phrase and seamonkeys and the witty sorts of introspections that make a blog lovely. So, if you happen to see her, be a dear and offer her some garlic butter and tell her I'm sorry I got her name wrong.
Also on the icon front, a quick shout out to theatresphynx, who took a stab at creating a custom icon for me! Behold her rendition of me getting eaten by vegetarian supermodels
Oops, looks like that link just disappeared. Still, I feel quite shiny just thinking that somebody's out there, reading my stuff, thinking of things to make. And that those things aren't all straightjackets. underwatercolor, whose own icons are gorgeous, may also try his hand at something. My general icon whims, for those of you who just yearn to sate my icon yearnings, are discussed in the comments to a wispfox post, over here, which might seem like an odd place to discuss them, but, well, there they are. wispfox is just such a gracious hostess, I suppose.
(In my own mind, if you're wondering, the vegetarian-supermodel-eats-shinyblogs scenario has always been more of a Xiao Xiao kinda thing. But with more of an Alex Leon sort of emotional resonance. If you're not familiar with Alex Leon, go watch his Mario 1, and then his Mario 2, and then his Mario 3. Then, like me, you'll be shaking for your Mario 4 fix like booty in a Mystikal video. I so crave the next Mario installment right now. Alex, if you're out there, you're a frikkin' genius.)
And now, that out of the way, it's on to the shinyblogging!
I confess it has taken me a while to come up with someone to shinyblog about. I suspect that if you printed out the overall thought process, it'd run about 12 feet before we made it to today's shinybloggee, and it'd be full of twists and turns and perilously distracting links. Let's test that theory . . .
Here we go:
I wish Tim Burton kept a blog.
I just saw Big Fish the other night and it was a fantastic, well, "movie" doesn't sound quite artistic enough. And it's not so much a "motion picture" as a motion painting, dancing across the screen to Danny Elfman's tapestries of sound, woven together into a rich, fabulous tale, or tal-icious fable, about storytelling and storytellers and the truths in between. It's the sort of film that only a genius could imagine, let alone bring to screen. And Burton's particular brand of genius is just right for this particular story, which, if you didn't know, is about a writer's attempt to discover the truth of his father's life, because his father has always been a teller of "tall tales" instead of flat truths. We, the audience, experience both the writer's "real" world and the vibrant "fantasy" world of the father's stories, which are ultimately woven together into a moving kind of truth. It's just a beautiful film in every sense.
And perfect, I think, for Tim Burton, the man who brought us Edward Scissorhands, itself a fairy tale told in response to the question "Where does snow come from?" I'm actually a bit surprised to discover that the screenplay for Big Fish was written not by Caroline Thompson (who wrote the ones for Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas) but by John August (who brought us the Charlie's Angels movies, but who also brought us Go, so I guess he's got some game), because there's a sense of wonder and emotional complexity and storytelling-as-reality to the film that I really associate much more with Burton's Scissorhands and Nightmare classics than, say Batman Returns (or, be honest now, McG's Charlie's Angels). Plus, there's a line about a father and son fishing in Scissorhands so I'd've expected a Burton adaptation of a book about a father and a son and a fish to rely on Thompson for the screenplay. But Big Fish is, nevertheless, every bit as much a classic as Scissorhands and Nightmare. Perhaps more of one.
So, I guess you could say I liked it. ;) I guess I'll have to read the book now. It appears to be short. Dennis Kucinich short, even.
As for the film, though, my one regret is that I didn't smuggle in sushi. I'm a smuggle-food-into-movie-theatres kind of shinyblogs, and when possible, I like to bring in food that fits the film. The last time I smuggled in sushi -- other than a couple juicy-sweet rolls to chomp along with Gollum during Lord of the Rings -- was for Finding Nemo, and, I felt kinda wrong about it. I mean, inasmuch as it's possible to feel wrong when you're eating sushi. I was feeling Tony-the-Tiger gr-r-reat during the spicy tuna roll. But, midway through my california roll, covered in those little orange bits of roe they cover sushi with sometimes, I saw that scene where the papa clownfish comes home to find all of his babies eaten except for l'il Nemo, and I thought, "Y'know, I feel a little guilty."
And I did. Because I had finished the wasabi, and there wouldn't be any left for l'il Nemo if, looking over at my tasty rice and seaweed, he decided to swim over for a nice off-screen feeding scene. And I figured that, if he was going to be eaten after all -- and it was looking pretty grim for him in a few scenes -- he would've wanted to be eaten in a spicy way. I mean, Pixar was really depending on Nemo to bring home the box office, and a spicy death scene would've really helped. Just think about the scenes in Fellowship of the Ring. And l'il Nemo's a give-his-all-for-the-team kinda fish, so, if the movie had tanked just because he didn't let me eat him in a spicy way, he would've felt pretty bad. Like Boromir-after-he-tries-to-take-the-Ring bad.
Fish hate flops. Even outside of the movie business, you'll rarely see a fish flopping and being happy at the same time. I've only seen 'em flop when they've run out of water and are pretty much disgusted with the whole situation. They probably flop more often in California, as the water is in surprisingly short supply there for a place that borders an ocean. Although California rolls are really tasty, so maybe the fish just roll around instead of flopping. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen a "California flop" on a sushi menu. Although that may be because sushi bars are trendy and floppies are so passé. I've never even seen a "California zipdrive" for that matter. No matter what the configuration, though, I'll bet California sushi would be MicroTummy compatible.
But anyway, as it was, Finding Nemo was pretty successful -- without Nemo getting eaten at all! -- so I decided Pixar was going to be ok even if I didn't have any wasabi left over for Nemo. If there's ever a sequel, though, I promise to bring extra wasabi, just in case. Especially if Nemo's all grown up and has a spicy girlfriend, maybe voiced by Marisa Tomei. Marisa, if you're out there, I will always have extra wasabi for you, but, even if I didn't, you'd still be tasty. Even now, in this final year of your twenty-teens, you're still as fresh as the fish at Nobu. Which I can't afford. So I'll only have extra wasabi for you. You'll have to bring your own Oscar-worthy California role.
But, even if I could have afforded a trip to Nobu, I didn't have time to smuggle sushi into Big Fish. I got caught up at work and raced off to meet D at the theatre, stopping only to grab some buy-one-get-one-free goodies at an Au Bon Pain on the way. D's on one of those just-so-everybody-at-my-high-school-reunion-knows-I'm-hotter-than-them-now diets -- which is like Atkins but without the intention to cause your own heart attack -- so I had Au Bon Pain remove all the calories from the cookies. And that takes a surprisingly long time.
Time that turned out to be unnecessary because, after the first few moments of the film, we never touched a cookie again. We just sat there wide-eyed and open-mouthed, my arm around D's shoulder and her head on mine, the scent of forgotten pastries mingling with the popcorn fantasy stretched out before us. I'm ordinarily not one to take a date to a Tim Burton movie. They (the movies) tend to portray a kind of love, fantasized -- mythologized, even -- that's awkward to think about too early in the dating process. You know, before you know if it's a relationship or a friends-with-benefits or a Jesus-Christ-this-was-even-more-painful-than-that-Passion-movie-I-keep-getting-spammed-about kinda thing.
And, by the way, let me just say that "friends with benefits" is, itself, pretty awkward these days, because, as a relatively small volume dater, I'm not really equipped to provide the same sort of benefits as a more established companion. Like, the cost of healthcare is just crazy, and I can't offer that much of a 401(k) match. And a vision plan? No way. Honestly, the more up-to-date your contact lens prescription, the more unlikely my getting lucky. Plus, I can't really offer benefits to someone who's not an employee, and I just hate having to put people on the payroll to be my friends. Bad enough that I have to do that Friendster thing to continue snogging M, and you know how I feel about that.
But it was still comfy watching Big Fish with D, even though my contact lens made one of my eyes tear up a bit -- I really should look into that vision plan thing -- and she asked me if I was crying at the end of the movie. Please, Shinyblogs is all man, baby. Shinyblogs doesn't cry at movies. Besides, tears would've made it harder to see Alison Lohman or Helena Bonham Carter, and that'd be just plain unacceptable. I mean missing the chance to see either one of them naked would make me cry. But in a manly way. A sensitive manly way. It'd be very 90s of me, which is now sort of vintage, right? I'm so stylish I don't even need tattoos or piercings. I wonder if I should shave my chest, though. Or my loins. Or my feet. Crap. Now that beards are in again, where am I supposed to shave?
Anyway, after the movie we got big bowls of vietnamese noodle soup (mine with seafood and fish balls, D's with beef and beef balls so we could both say things like "Would you like to experience my balls?" or "These are the best balls ever. I'm so excited about these balls." because that's what mature people do if the date goes well, right?), and talked about life and movies and pizza and cheesecake and supervillian laughs and my ambitions for this blog. I generally don't reveal my secret real life Shinyblogs identity to people I haven't seen naked first, but I generally don't date people I haven't seen naked first, so, well, you do the math. Here, I'll help you . . .
Let's see, 2004 minus 19somethingorother, carry the abacus, plus B over O to the I minus n*k, divided by that one pi-some at the party that time (because sometimes you want just a little bit more than a threesome, but a foursome still seems a bit piggy), equals . . .
Um . . .
Excel sucks.
Ok, so I don't date that many people. Maybe I should change my standards.
But D does know my secret identity. Which is only fitting, because D's really into the whole secret super agent thing. Like, she's jealous of M for having a name that makes her sound like a 007 secret agent girl. And the cool car that can drive underwater -- oh, wait, that's in Big Fish. I'd prefer that D be jealous of M for having me but apparently only the name's really a point of envy. Hmm, what if M is a secret agent girl and impersonated D to discover my secret identity? Nah.
Actually, that little moment of secret identity paranoia brings me back to Big Fish. And, if you haven't seen or book it yet, go see or book it right now, and then come back. Or skip the next paragraph. Either way, see you in a bit.
Ok, so, if you're reading this paragraph, you've either seen or read Big Fish. Or you're just not afraid of spoilers. Big, pudgy spoilers. Huge tracts of spoilers. Spoily spoily stinky spoily spoilers. Drilling for spoil we go . . . Ok. So ultimately Big Fish is about a writer's secret identity, or lack of one. It's about the notion of truth in the fiction and fiction becoming the truth. In the end, no matter how fantastic the father's stories were, they ultimately became the truth of his life. More true than the real facts. His stories saturate his waking world and become his identity. They become the father his son loves, the husband that his wife married, the adventurer that a giant befriended, the wanderer that a little girl in a story grows up to wait for in real life.
Which I, for one, find fascinating. (Heh, the folks who didn't want to read spoilers are like "What? What did you find fascinating? Curse you! Why do you taunt my browser so?" I'm so mean. Thank god I keep my identity secret, or y'all'd be beatin' me up right now.)
It's a bit like a moment in the Bernie Mac show a couple weeks ago, when Baby Girl discovers that her favorite TV puppet isn't real. And she asks Bernie if Santa and the Easter Bunny aren't real either. And Bernie Mac, tender big man that he is (you'll recall, from Ocean's Eleven, that he yearns for softer hands), tells her they're as real as she wants them to be in her heart. And isn't that, in the end, the ultimate truth about stories? That no matter how much taller than the truth the tale may be, the telling itself reshapes our reality if we're willing to let it.
And I like that thought. A couple blogs ago, I thought of it really just as a virtual-versus-online-persona sort of thing. I liked the thought that, even if, by day, I'm just a pudgyblogs slowly balding to spreadsheets in a cubicle, by night I am shinyblogs, lemon poppy muffin of stud, spinning yarns across the web to keep The Y'all safe from cannibal vixens and corporate privacy intrusion policies, swapping comments with models and artists and e-mails with actresses and Margaret Cho -- well, Margaret Cho's agent anyway. I wonder if Margaret Cho's agent's hot.
Or maybe it's the reverse. Like, by night I'm shinyblogs, doomed to send unanswered fan mail to Ian McKellen and likevoltron (Jason Sho Green), but by day I'm Machismor, cloaked in rumpled business casual garb that renders me capable of passing through your office without notice by even the cutest of receptionists. And, as Machismor, I can bend Excel spreadsheets to my iron will with only, well, actually not even a half dozen phone calls to tech support would be enough to bend an Excel spreadsheet to my iron will. I really need to bone up on my iron will. I do have a copy of The Men's Guide To Ironing, but I think that's more about unrumpling my business casual garb than anything else. I should probably look into that. It's not easy being an unrecognizably rumpled Machismor. By the time the cute receptionist finally notices me, she's like "What's your name again? Macho Smurf? No, definitely not. Snacky Smores? Nope, not exactly cake material. Munch-some-more? No, thank you, I'd rather diet."
Oh, also, about that TV puppet thing from a few paragraphs ago. If you like shows about TV puppets, go find a recording of Ben Edlund's spectaculicious "Smile Time" episode of Angel from a couple weeks ago. And if it comes around again during rerun season, set your VCR on stun, pounce on that episode like a pack of supermodels on a herd of lettuce, and let it marinate in your mind like a tasty something. Yeah, that's right, a "tasty something." Because it's about the marinade, baby, not the marinated. Hmm, I wonder what the fuck that meant. Sounded pretty cool, though. (Ah, the joys of verbal self-gratification. Where's that lube?)
Anyway, I still like that thought of virtual versus online persona. Like a Secret Blog of Walter Mitty. A virtual Picture-of-Who-Dorian-Gray-Could-Be. Isn't it interesting, by the way, how so many artists seem to be their own Picture of Dorian Gray, creating fantastic art while their own lives fall into disrepair? Michael Jackson anyone? No? Snacky Smores? No? Let's move on, America.
Much as I like the Secret-Blog-of-Walter-Mitty paradigm, I also like the thought that, even though I'm not actually a balding pudgy man staring at spreadsheets in a cubicle, you, gentle reader are willing to let me be one. Oops, didn't mean to end the sentence right there. Um, let's pick it up from "to let me be . . . "
. . . to let me be one of the storytellers in your day, filling your browser with tipsy umlauts and Amelie moments until my own experience becomes, in the reflection of your comments, chock full of the very gemütlichkeit I blog tall blogs about, until my shiny cool "virtual" persona gives way to a slightly cooler "real" one (although, truth be told, I'm still not going to be hooking up with Christina Aguilera unless she's willing to share my approach to bathing).
And so it was that, my evening with D cut short by her later-evening duties to a friend, we reached my stop and stole a quick kiss, and as she thanked me for the evening and said that Big Fish was good, she added "but not as good as shinyblogs" and I swelled with raw shinyblogs machismo and said: "Awww. You are so getting lucky." And I'm pretty sure everybody who heard me say that -- a few heads did turn -- wants D to get lucky with me. And I'm certainly on D's side. I mean, not at the moment or anything, but, you know, at some point. So, anyway, D, if you're reading this, thanks. I owe you magnificent sexual gratification, even if does, apparently, cause cancer.
In the meantime, I owe the rest of my gentle readers some vigorous blogging, as it's been a while, and, let's face it, I punted a bit on Valentine's Day. I had planned to do much more on Valentine's Day, and write about some good political blogs and the same-sex marriage ban debate and the attempt to ban Valentine's Day itself itself in some parts of the world.
But I didn't. Oops.
I haven't quite found a political blog worth treating with the same attention as, say, vivnsect's journal. The bits of Jumping to Conclusions written by David Nieporent are often good, but I'm not very impressed with the other writers on that blog, and even Nieporent tends to think like a lawyer just a bit too often. (The study of law, like an ordinary vice, tends to deepen the mind but also narrows it.) I also think johnkerrymouse has a really adorable post here, but I was more of an Edwards fan. I just think recent American history has shown that Democratic presidents are more likely to be reelected if women want to sleep with them. And I just think the image of a Heinz-covered Kerry is a bit dis-appetizing. Just doesn't cut the mustard for me. (I don't know about you, but I heard those rumors about Kerry sleeping with an intern and I was like "Pshaw. As if. Clinton, maybe. The original JFK, you bet. But would you let Kerry tumor you?")
I do, however, think that johnkerrymouse deserves great thanks for sharing this link with the blogosphere, so, if you happen to bump into her at a Kerry rally or something, please extend to her the very best in carcinogenic displays of affection. Or, you know, just shake her hand or something. Or give her a Can Bush t-shirt, if you're Michael-Jacksonish about touching other adults. (Poor Michael. See what I was saying about Dorian Gray?)
Plus, if she's actually a mouse, you might want to steer away from too much physical contact. Seriously, heed this harrowing cautionary tale. Really, heed it. Just heed the damn cautionary tale, would ya? I'll wait for you at the upper lefthand corner of the next paragraph.
See, wasn't that worth heeding? Told ya so. Sort of like a cross between Office Space and Better off Dead. So, let that be a lesson to you.
Anyway, so it's been tough to find a blog worth shinyblogging, especially since I'm afraid to look for one while I'm at work. I mean, you saw what happened to the guy in that cautionary tale you just heeded.
Plus, being relatively new to the blogosphere, I've also spent some time just plain exploring the habitat. And, you know, the blogs of attractive women. Which, as you'll recall, is quite dangerous. It's actually more dangerous than I realized. I used to think that the only real risk was running into a cannibalistic supermodel but it's much worse than that. Basically, the women on my friends list were so distracting I couldn't take my eyes off my monitor, and walked right into my bedroom door. But then I had a moment of divine inspiration and decided to use ljmatch.com to try to find blogs worth shinyblogging.
But, you know, that turned out to be a little disturbing, because ljmatch has this weird test to figure out if you're going to be sexually compatible with someone and, well, I kinda skewed the results. I mean, just for fun, I decided to claim that I really liked dominantly worshipping the feet of furry critters while drunk, stoned, bound, bitten, and clad in nothing but a pair of leather reverse cowgirl boots. And, it turns out, I was really sexually compatible with tons of religious fundamentalists in Kentucky.
And I really didn't know how to react to that. Because ljmatch makes it kinda hard to tell exactly who it is you're checking out, and it takes a while to sleuth out their livejournal, and then, when you do, how do you introduce yourself? I felt really awkward being like "Um, hi, so I just checked out your profile on ljmatch and I think you're just a superhot potato, and I was wondering if you'd like to share this hamster I found." Because, deep down, I'm just more of a cat person.
Plus, I'd be worried that one of the hamster-loving religious fundamentalists is actually "Kyle," the stupid sot who was so eager to share his Passions with everybody that he started spamming people's journals with comments about how brilliant the movie was, based on his opinion of the trailer. If you're reading this, "Kyle," my hamster-loving comment-spamming friend, let me just say that I doubt there's enough lubricant in the world to make sharing Passion of any kind with you enjoyable. But please go test that theory. Kindly blow a few pieces of silver on some K-Y, apply it to your official 2-foot Share The Passion Of The Christ nail pendant and shove said pendant as deep into the chasm of your buttocks as you possibly can, until you manage to hook an ear or something, so you can pull your head out of there. That way, if anybody ever wants to get anonymous posts about people critiquing pre-release critiques of movies with trailers you like, you can actually hear them tell you if they give a damn.
And, um, that'd be my thoughts about that. Which are, perhaps, a bit less shiny than the usual thoughts of a shinyblogs. Oh well. I have no thoughts on the movie itself though. Haven't seen it. Book's not bad, but I prefer the original. Because, you know, in the New Testament, they stopped that whole no-eating-pork thing, and I think there'd be less spam about the movie if pork were still illegal. I do really like bacon though. Hmm. Margaret Cho liked it so maybe it's worth a peek. I'll probably rent the DVD if they have these outtakes. (Or maybe I will go see it in the theaters just so I can do these horrible things for which I would surely go to hell.)
So anyway, I gave up on ljmatch and started friend-surfing across LiveJournaland, sort of bouncing through the Friends pages of people who added me to their Friends pages, and trolling around a bit. Trolling in a bouncily Shinyblogs kinda way. Like, not trolling like the all-the-other-cast-members-get-covered-in-babes-but-I-just-get-this-filthy-Gollum-hand-me-down-loin-cloth troll in Fellowship of the Ring or the hey-you-got-your-wand-in-my-peanut-bogies troll in Harry Potter or the woah-my-wallet's-talking-oh-no-the-sun-woah-i'm-so-stoned trolls in The Hobbit. More like, tro-la-la-la-la. And from time to time I'd drop a little comment here or there.
Unfortunately, LiveJournal tracks how many times you've dropped your comments, but doesn't really help you remember where you dropped them, which is a bit annoying. It's like "Na-na-na-na-na. You dropped your comment, you'll never find it. You're just a looo-ser." Thank god LiveJournal doesn't let you drop your car keys. But, anyway, I'm going to try to remember to put comments worth remembering in my Memories list. And from time to time I'll just copy bits of my comments and post them here as if they were new and shiny. Hee hee.
One of the bothersome things I've been noticing, though, is that lots of people have privatized their journals. Which is bad, like a Republican model of social security, only it's not designed to make executives rich. Rather, it seems that a lot of bloggers out there don't have secret identities. They just put themselves right out there on the web. Which is pretty brave. But then they get comment-spam from "Kyle" and just don't feel like sharing their Passion with the rest of the web anymore. Or they get random freaky stalkers.
I hate stalkers. They're always getting in my way. Like there I'll be, hanging upside down from a tree branch with my super-Machismor night-vision binoculars, and I'll have to be like: "Hey, you, in the black with the knife. No, not you, the other one. Right, you. Could you move to your left? I can't see Neve Campbell's boobs. No, no, the other left. Thank you!" And that's just a pain in the butt. It's even worse when they're stalking a muppet, because muppets are really fidgety about stalkers. Seriously, they even have a terrorist warning system:
Plus, to get the stalker to move out of your way you have to speak Swedish Chef to communicate with him. And it's like "Hey, yuoo, veet zee kneeffe-a. Nu, nut yuoo, Beeg Burd, zee gooy in zee cheff's het. Reeght, yuoo. Cuoold yuoo mufe-a tu yuoor lefft? I cun't see-a Meess Peeggy's buubs. Nu, nu, zee oozeer lefft. Bork Bork Bork!"
Plus, that annoying spam from "Kyle" scared this picture out of one of Poisonlipgloss's posts:
Isn't that just heart-breaking? I feel so sorry for the lighting in that shot. You can tell, if you look through enough of poisonlipgloss's photos, that the poor little beam of light is totally in love with her, always brightest when it's close to her, even at the risk of leaving the rest of the room in shadow. And so here, in this picture, you can see that the little beam of light tip-toed its way to the bed, and caressed her cheek. So softly. Trying so hard not to wake her. And then it sat there, tenderly lingering for a moment on her shoulder as it went to adjust the blanket. It didn't want to disturb her sleep. It just wanted to let her wake of her own accord and roll over and stretch out to her little beam of light like a yawning kitten toward a ball of yarn, and purr out for coffee. Which the little beam of light, adoring her as it does, has probably already started brewing in the kitchen. (Let's face it, poisonlipgloss's beam of light is just a wee bit whipped.)
But our little light beam was sorely (having been whipped) disappointed, because that comment-spammer "Kyle" barged his way into the post, blabbing about his Passion, and waking the photo with such a sudden noise that it jumped off the page entirely, leaving the beam to fall on its bum, roughly, and leave a blank spot on the page. Stupid stalky jerks. Let's go throw some rocks at them.
Anyway, luckily, my browser caught the photo -- we're always playing cache, little Mozilla and I -- so it delights me, or little-beam-of-lights me, as the case may be, to share it with you here. (Assuming poisonlipgloss doesn't mind my doing so. Just purr up if you do, dear.)
It's difficult, I suppose, to be a monogamous beam of light. kellylind's beam of light has it much easier, as he's quite obviously joyous in his polyamory. I'm not sure that beam of light has ever met a women he hasn't liked. It's as if he met kellylind and went "Hey there Kelly, how's it hangin'? Hey, wait a sec . . . you're a guy????? Fuck that. Hmm. And that. And that. And that right there. And her. And her. And, yeah, ok, her too. And, oh, dammit. Hey, you with the chainsaw. No, not you, the other one. Yeah, you. Could you move a little to the left please? I can't see her boobs. No, the other left. Thanks."
But I've really gotta hand it to that beam of light, because he really knows how to make a woman look spectacular. Like a cross between a gothic sculpture and a renaissance sunset. Which is probably at least somewhat attributable to some fine woman-painting by Kelly Lind's girlfriend, alexandrial, who's rather sculpty herself.
But, seriously, if I were ever going to play the male lead in an orgy in a high-end erotic film (Hee hee. I said "high end." Raise that bottom!), and there had to be another guy in the scene, I'd want it to be kellylind's beam of light. But I'd want the women to be pretty well fed first, because kellylind tends to work with women who are slender enough to be potentially dangerous. Not too well fed, though. Just fed enough to not be dangerously close to cannibalism. Because if I'm going to be in an orgy scene, I wouldn't want one of the women to be like "Man, I'm so full. I swear, I couldn't put one more thing in my mouth. Oh, well, maybe that. That's probably small enough. A bit wrinkly though. Oh, look, it's trying to stand up! Isn't it cute? Look everybody! It's like a baby walnut! Oh, poor thing, it fell over." Hearing that just wouldn't make Mr. Little Shinyblogs happy. Because he's sensitive. Really, he wears protection, like, all the time.
By the way, as long as we're talking about pretty pictures and women and such, let me just direct your attention over to the photo over here. Ladies and gentlemen, I present Mrs. and Mrs. Rosie O'Donnell (or at least that page does). Huge congrats to the both of 'em. And huge kudos to the mayors of San Francisco and New Paltz and Nyack for taking a stand. As a general rule, I've always found it pretty hard to say "Nyack" without giggling. I just want to go "Nyackity Nyack! Dont talk back!" And I'm not a big fan of New Paltz. I was one of those folks who preferred the taste of Old Paltz, and am still waiting for them to change it back to Paltz Classic.
But, for now, I'm really a fan of both New Paltz and Nyack, and really feel sorry for New York City, which is now being upstaged by all these piddly Paltzers and Nyackites in the "Ha! We're the place for good old-fashioned anti-Christian values." category of metropolitan achievement. I think it all started with the Disneyfication of Times Square.
Actually, whether same-sex marriage is against Christian values is a pretty interesting question. On the one hand, the world didn't end after the first same-sex wedding bell tolled, but, on the other hand, those bastards at "the WB" did decide to cancel Angel. And now that the city's best-dressed men are busy marrying one another, heterosexual HBO subscribers have suddenly found that there's no new Sex and the City to be had at all and everybody's singing Sopranos. But, on the other hand, there are some pretty strong arguments that good old-fashioned Biblical values just weren't that good or fashionable. Lo and behold if you're interested in a here's-a-bunch-of-crap-the-Bible-says-and-it's-crap approach to thumping a Bible-thumper near you. I'm all for thumping Thumper, because I've always been more of a Bambi-lovin' kinda guy, but if you'd like to take a more intellectual approach, check out this meaty discussion of the Old Testament's beef with homosexuality and the New Testament's rejection of that beef (because, hey, now they could eat pork). It's quite interesting indeed. As is this article suggesting that even some saints may have been parties to same-sex marriage.
For what it's worth, here are my thoughts on the matter:
1) Of the Ten Commandments, the first one goes something like "I am the Lord, your God. Thou shalt have no other God before me." Of the Constitution, the First Amendment goes something like, "Hi God. How's it hangin'? We won't put any other Gods before you, but we won't put 'em after you either. We'll just sort of let you all mill about in a great big orgy of expression. Speaking of orgy, check out that Hindu God! She's got, like, fourteen hooters!" So, basically, I don't think the Judeo-judeeeyo-judeylight-come-and-me-wanna-go-home-Christian interpretation of marriage, even if it's the majority, necessarily gets to trump gay rights. Rather, I think the First Amendment enshrines our right, and our leaders' duty, to tell God to take a back seat to freedom of religion, association, and boinking.
2) Women should be allowed to marry whomever they want. The only way I want to get between two women who want to love one another is, you know, physically.
3) Rick Santorum is an ideologically flatulent ass. His gay-marriage-will-lead-to-polygamy argument is like saying that ice cream should be banned because it will lead to lactose intolerant people dying in the streets. Which, come to think of it, is how they banned pot. (Santorum's argument is actually probably grounded less in legal analysis than in brute homophobia. And possibly a heck of a lot of really bad drugs. This is, after all, the guy who equated homosexuality with "you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.") Oddly enough, polygamy is a marriage that happens in the Bible. I'm actually not so sure that consensual polygamy -- as opposed to a guy marrying a big bunch of underage girls -- is necessarily a big bad evil thing, but I'm still opposed to legalizing it because I have a hard enough time finding dates as it is. Plus, if men could marry more than one woman at a time, poor Viggo Mortensen would be buried alive under three billion bridesmaids, and who would feed his horse? Clearly not Rick Santorum.
4) Mmm, women loving one another. And ice cream.
5) A lot of folks seem to like the marriage-is-about-nurturing-children idea, another Santorum argument. I get the appeal, but isn't that just a wee bit of an insult to every marriage between people who can't have children, and to every same-sex couple that wants to adopt, and to every heterosexual woman or man who wants a husband or wife but not a pregnancy, and to every couple that stays married even after their kids go off to college? Marriage is about nurturing children -- in those marriages that decide to be about that -- for a relatively short moment. At all other moments, marriage is about a joining of two lives. It is an exercise of the most basic of an individual's rights: the right to choose who to share your individuality with. Sexually, socially, emotionally, economically, et cetera. Even if I could bring myself to believe that Mrs. and Mrs. O'Donnell won't be great at nurturing children -- despite Mrs. O'Donnell's willingness to risk million-dollar litigation so she could stay home with her adopted children -- I'm not ready to say they can't have the same sexual, social, emotional, economic, etc. connection to one another as a heterosexual couple just because neither one of them has a penis. I have a penis, and I'll be the first to tell you that, sure, it's all that and a bag of chips, especially when I'm feeling salty. But I still don't think Rosie should need my penis just to share her life with a woman. Heck, most of the women I share my day with are happy to tell me that they're getting along just fine without my penis. Dammit.
6) This would be really horrible if it were actually a reaction to this. (It wasn't, though, so you're allowed to enjoy it. Penguin-beater. You're also allowed to enjoy violette for that penguin-love post. Well, to enjoy her blog, anyway. I have no authority whatsoever regarding your ability to enjoy violette herself. I do, however, command you to adore her for posting that post. So there.)
7) Same-sex marriage is probably more likely to strengthen the institution than diminish it. Imagine for a moment what the world could learn if people of the same sex could marry. For one thing, a woman could finally marry someone who could find the clitoris, leaving cartographers free to map all the other uncharted regions of the world. But, more seriously, a marriage without gender roles, without pre-conceived notions of who wears the pants in the family and who cooks dinner and so on -- a marriage of equals -- is something American society has been working toward for only a matter of decades. And I think it'd be nice to see more of it.
8) And more lesbians.
9) Rick Santorum also argues that gays can get all the rights of married people through contracts. That's just plain wrong. Some rights, like the privacy of pillow talk between spouses, actually can't be dictated by contract. Rosie O'Donnell couldn't protect the privacy of her e-mails to her bride-to-be, because she couldn't get married. And contracts can't actually change evidentiary law. But even if that weren't the case -- even if every man who wants to marry a man and every woman who wants to marry a woman could, through sheer force of lawyering, get access to every right and benefit accorded to heterosexual marriages -- a same-sex "life partner," or whatever she'd have to call herself, would have to spend countless hours and thousands of dollars to get countless lawyers to draft countless documents to secure countless rights. A wife of a man need only spend two syllables: "I do." And at the end of the day, it takes only two syllables to sum up what I think about that: that's really fucking wrong.
11) Damn. I suck at math.
12) Ok, argument #9 would go away if every state in the union decided to permit same-sex "civil unions" that, by law, would be treated in every way but name exactly the same way as a "marriage." That separate-but-equal "solution," from a first-glance legal perspective, is probably true. (I say "probably" because I tend to doubt all 50 states would get the language right. Californian conservatives, after all, have been baffled by the semicolon of civil rights.) But so what? Why should we go out of our way to give people equal rights but call them by a different name? Just because Magritte's "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." picture of a pipe makes for a good poster doesn't mean we should make it a way of life. That way lies bigotry. Even when the "equal" is equal, the "separate" is wrong. And, frankly, this artificial Equal is less sweet when it isn't shared. If you really think calling another couple's relationship a "marriage" will somehow diminish your relationship with your spouse, your children, your god, your country, or your dog, then perhaps you need to talk to your therapist before you write to your Senator. Because God knows Rick Santorum needs no encouragement. "Marriage" isn't the term he needs to limit.
Hmm. We appear to have come a long way from poisonlipgloss's pillow. I suspect that's because we've only got a picture of the pillow here. If I were anywhere within hugging distance of the actual pillow, I'd be loathe to leave it behind.
Anyway, for now, back to my quest for a blog to shinyblog. After much tro-la-la-la-ing about in Livejournaland, I rested my weary browser for a moment in the journals of inflammatio. I thought pretty seriously about shinyblogging her journal for Valentine's Day, and I'm going to do it right now.
I first met inflammatio in the comments of a vivnsect post. Vivienne had just read my shinyblog of her, and passed out. Which isn't really the response I was looking for. I generally prefer women I shinyblog to send me pictures of themselves in various states of disrobement. But that hasn't happened yet, so, though it pains me to admit this, Viv's pretty much ahead of the curve simply by swooning. Anyway, various folks commented in Viv's post about my post, and inflammatio had a pretty neat spin: "Woah. He (the reviewer) writes like juggling lemons on a unicycle. Fun!"
Now, I'll be honest, at first I wasn't too sure about that review. I thought "well, that'd be quite uncomfortable." For one thing, I have terrible balance and pretty much no eye-hand coordination outside of a tetris game, so I'd feel a bit awkward and precarious. And for another, even if I didn't, unicycle seats just aren't that comfortable for men. Especially men like me who're built like Ron Jeremy. Above the waist, anyway. But then I realized that, if I did have good eye-hand coordination, balance, and a comfortable seat (or mithril loins), juggling lemons on a unicycle would be pretty fun.
So I decided to check out inflammatio's blog. And, as you may already know, inflammatio's blog kicks butt. Not a nasty, dirty, pudgy butt, filled with the remnants of calories and an unpleasant smell, nor yet a dry, bare, skinny butt with nothing in it to sit down on or to gaze at: it kicks an inflammatio-kicked butt, and that means craftsmanship. Well, actually, there is one rat butt, perched atop inflammatio's shoulder like a parrot on a pirate but, mercifully, without any squawking I could notice, but even a rat becomes whimsically artistic on inflammatio's page. Like, perched atop her shoulder, that rat could easily be johnkerrymouse, although inflammatio tends to give her little wards names like "LOL" and "ROFL" (alas, RIP). (Sadly, the public won't always get to see the artistic whimsy of inflammatio's photos. The rat butt, for example, is perched atop her shoulder in a private post, so, if you're not on inflammatio's friend list, you won't see it. Which really isn't the way you'd usually expect a private screen to work. Like, when's the last time you went to a bar that was just too hip for you to get into, and the bouncer looked down at your shoes and said "No rat butt for you!" Luckily, inflammatio isn't a snooty bouncer kinda gal, and, in any event, most of her posts are open to the public at large.)
When I first clicked my way over to inflammatio, though, it wasn't really photos I noticed. Instead, it was all full of poems and fragments of prose, and these amazing graphite sketches. And these works were less whimsy than fantasy, magical with a little extra something. Magick, you might say. It feels new and Old at the same time, unique yet familiar, spare yet nuanced. Like, if it were music, it would be gypsy fiddles in the firelight, as mysterious as The Music of Erich Zann, but without the Lovecraftian dread. I mean, there is a tinge of the dark and Lovecrafty to her craft, but the style feels more Eastern than Lovecraft. Like Bulgakov maybe. (And you know how I love Bulgakov.) Yes, it's Bulgakovian. Except that it's got more birdy things going on than catty things. Bulgakov was big into big talking cats, while inflammatio has more of a bird thing going on. Possibly because her rats would freak out if she started drawing catty things. (Also, as you'll recall from a couple posts ago, being catty is addictive. Put the tabby down, Viv.) Anyway, there's more of her art up at zendinou.com and a nice profile at Scene360. There's something inherently appealing to me about graphite drawings. Just the notion of someone being able to craft an image out of nothing but a lump of charcoal, the expansive imagination it must take to wring beauty from compressed dust. (And, getting back to Kyle's passion for The Passion for a moment, it's the something-from-nothingness of creation that I find inspiring in a religion, not the all-day-long-I-took-these-crucifictions-for-you-and-now-you-wanna-marry-some-other-guy thing I sometimes see the pastors flock to.) Incredibly, the first inflammatio art I saw was created while she was recuperating from having her wisdom teeth out. (My own wisdom-tooth extraction story was far less productive. Perhaps some day I'll share with you that tale of fear and pain and the world's biggest bumble bee, but not this day.)
But inflammatio's imagination has a way of expanding off the page entirely, like a Big Fish tall tale swishing its way into the waking world, until her sketches and poems become real creatures, instead of the other way round. Like, bopping back through her posts to the summer of 2003, there's this moment when a few of her sketches became puppets, springing up from her imagination to a marionettist's hands until they found their way back to her in a UPS box marked fragile (for imagination always is) and poked their heads back up through her art-journal and, eventually, linked their way back to her livejournal blog to nudge her to go get some more. (Which she did, to the marionettist's delight.) I can't imagine what it must be like to get a Scott Radke marionette or a Zendinou original in the mail. Heck, I'm practically beside myself right now just because my chinese food arrived. Mmm, salt & pepper squid. Oh, pooh, they never give me chopsticks. That does make it harder to be a piglet.
Well, I'll leave it at that, and let you explore inflammatio and her Zendinou creations for yourself. And, for that matter, inflammatio's friends list shows remarkable taste, and leads to other pages that are quite stunning. Like those of minn, who's so beautiful it seems almost unfair that she can create art instead of just starring in it, but whose art is so lovely that we'll get over the injustice. And iamkatia, whose photographs are so still and yet so moving. I love this one and this one and this one and, ooh, this one will make you giggle and the one here will just make you feel good even if you don't know why. And there are more personal ones there that I'll leave for you to discover. Just beautiful. I'm plunking both journals down on my own friends list, lest we accidentally lose them. There they can join mimle, who can do to plants what poisonlipgloss can do to her little beam of light. Seriously, look at how this tree loves mimle, and these flowers, and these leaves that linger on the ground just so she can find them. Mmmimle. Ooh, and ezirith, who I spotted in a mimle-journal comment, because she has a cute penguin-love icon and a wonderful sense of whimsy throughout her journal.
But, back to inflammatio herself for a moment. You should, indeed, check out her journals, but Woohoodorks beware. As so often seems to happen, the artist is, herself, quite the creation, wearing pink hair the way Hepburn wore -- well, like Hepburn wore anything really. Hepburn made pretty much anything look natural, and that's what inflammatio does with pink. Still, though she may not eat your heart like all those other beautiful women I've warned you about (and I've used that link quite a lot lately, haven't I?), yet may she break it. That's right folks, she's not just a thproing and a "d'oh!" on the woohoodork scale like vivnsect with her "S" or poisonlipgloss with her pillow and her mirror and her poor little beam of light, or angrr with her Dave Attell or circekills with her helicopter and Miranda Otto with The One Sheet, inflammatio gets a full "Dammit!" She's . . . married.
But as horribly depressing as that is, there's also something really cool about it. Apparently, her husband -- who has the good sense to be a musician so it's just a given that he gets all the great women (and his music would actually be perfect for those Zendinou puppets to bop to, in a strange way) -- is another LJer, and actually first met her via a LiveJournal post. I think he saw her usericon in a comment or something, and chased after her from the page into the waking world. Which I think is just beautiful and romantic and . . . shit, I'm really going to need an amazing user icon if I'm ever going to meet Mrs. Shinyblogs.
And a more accurate way of wielding ljmatch. Which brings me to the last little blog I'm gonna tell you about today . . .
I decided that, as long as I limited my ljmatch.com research to people who hadn't filled out the sexual compatibility profile, I probably wouldn't have to worry about accidentally clicking on someone whose preferences included gagging, binding, and lubricating me and then shoving me up a furry ferret bottom. I mean, if you were looking for someone compatible with your furry ferret fetish, wouldn't you fill out the sexual compatibility profile?
So I gave ljmatch another whirl, completely disregarding anybody who I'd be even 1% sexually compatible with. I figure, hey, maybe I won't meet a Mrs. Shinyblogs that way, but I'm bound to meet a suitable journal-match and find someone worth reading without having to worry about finding a hamster in my bottom if I leave a comment. Sure enough, I stumbled across someone I was able to find on LiveJournal. You see, ordinarily, ljmatch will let you basically pay to find out who somebody is. But, if you're not some big moneyblogs, you can still read the journal posts of someone you find; you just won't be able to leave them a comment or find out who they are in real life. (In fact, ljmatch has now edited my userprofile 3 times to keep other people from finding me -- to the relief of daughters' mothers everywhere, no doubt.) Anyway, every now and then, you find someone who actually drops a hint in their blog, like so:
Polar bears at the Singapore zoo have algae growing in their fur and have thus turned green. The zoo plans to paint the bears white again, since they apparently can't get rid of the algae. I can't imagine how they're going to do that though. If they can paint the bears white, why can't they scrub them clean? Either way it seems as if they'll have to tranquilize them, and paint can't be too good for the bears.
Hmm, actually, that didn't really help me find her at all. It just made me giggle. Giggle in a raw shinyblogs machismo sort of way, of course. Let's see . . .
There's this guy who sells a newspaper called Spare Change News which deals with issues that homeless people face. I started picking it up regularly a couple of years ago when post 9-11 bullshit made it seem even more important to have alternative news sources. I usually only buy it from the guy in my neighborhood, because he always remembers me and is so appreciative when I buy a paper.
I did so this week, after waiting for a mother with a stroller to do the same. When he gave me the paper he said, "Hey you. I love you. You're always so nice to me. No matter how cold it is, you always stop to buy a paper. May I have a hug?" I obliged.
"Thank you. I needed that. I needed that as much as I need the money. I don't mean I'm trying to pick up on you..."
I had crossed his speech of thanks with many expresssions of "You're welcome. I understand, I completely understand."
See, that was Tuesday, and I hadn't had a hug since Friday. I'd gotten six at that time, which is a decent hauil, but I was still overdue. It's funny how I still count the number of hugs I get. I know when I get them I give them too, but I hardly ever think of it in the giving sense, and it makes me wonder if there will ever be a time I'll give a hug to someone who needs it more than I do?
Hmm, actually, that didn't really help either. Just made me think of my Amelie moment with Travis and want to give this phantom bloggeress a hug. I mean, you've gotta hug someone who likes a "decent haul" of hugs. Well, a decent "hauil," anyway. That's just so huggable. Ok, let's try again:
I've written a lot about hugs lately. I have a few blurred or blended memories of my dad that involve them that I just wanted to set down. I remember one time he gave me a very light hug. I think this may have been in highschool when I was first becoming a hug conniseur. I made a comment that it was a bad hug. He was surprised and said, "There's no such thing as a bad hug."
Maybe not, but some do the job better than others. One of the best compliments I've ever received came from my friend Coree in highschool.
"You give good hugs, I mean, strong hugs. Most people just go 'eh.' " Then she later stated a better version of it:
"You give the best hugs. I always look forward to them. Alexandra hugs!" Then she smiled and waved her hands around like a happy baby.
Yay! More hugs! And they even sound like hugs that make the recipients cute, "like a happy baby." Don't you just want to hug Alexandra? That's right, now we know that her name is Alexandra. LJmatch is no match for my sleuthing skills! I mean, hey, how many Alexandra's can there possibly be in LiveJournaland? Hmm, actually, LiveJournal will only let me find one. And it's the wrong one. Hmm, and there are forty-one LiveJournalists with "Alexandra" as one of their interests! You go girl! Get those huggies! Oh, wait, huggies are a brand of diapers. Ok, let's put those down then, and see if we can't find just a little bit more . . .
I thought this was sort of appropriate because my username means "the river" in French, which of course I chose for every lame metaphor about "flowing" one can think of.
Yes! I speak French! I'm listening to Jean Leloup right now! Oh, actually no I'm not, I clicked over to Ariane Moffat from that Jean Leloup page. "Point de mire" is a really good song. I wonder what it means . . .
Oh, crap! I've forgotten all my high school French! Why, dammit, why? Why did I take Russian in college? (Seriously, all I can remember how to say is "Ooh mnya mnohga midvidye," which means . . . "I have many bears." I'm not sure I could ask anybody in Moscow for directions without getting shot in the bum with a tranquilizer dart. And I'm just not into that scene, you know?)
Ok, stay calm. It's just "the river." How hard can that be . . . Oh, duh. LaRiviere! Nope, that's someone else. Someone with no posts at all. Hmm. la_riviere</i>? Nope. Maybe it's a specific river . . . laseine? Nope. leseine? nope. leriviere? nope. lerivier? nope. lasource? nope. lesource? nope. thuhreever? nope.
Wow, this is really hard. No wonder those stalkers are always in my way. They're too tired to move!
Hmm, thing back shinyblogs, back, back . . .
But suddenly Gollum remembered thieving from nests long ago, and sitting under the river bank teaching his grandmother, teaching his grandmother to suck -- "Eggses!" he hissed. "Eggses it is!"
Nope. "Eggses" would be rather a nice username, though. Has a certain flow . . .
Oh, duh, lafleuve!!! There she is. Go take a peek everybody.
And as for you, dear, welcome to my friends list. I hope you find it comfortable, as I like the way you blog. And if I'm ever wandering around your zip code, I'd be delighted to hug you. Not knowing what you look like, I figure I'll just look for someone wearing this:
I'll probably be wearing the "I'm buff (in my other shirts)" shirt from the same place but, if you wind up hugging someone else, enjoy it.
Til 'then, consider this post a 14-some-odd-foot stretch of cyberhugging, full of links worth holding in your browser for a good long time.
I hope you liked it.
Anon, y'all. I'm spent. The next shinyblog will likely be shorter. ;)
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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Saturday, February 14th, 2004
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Happy Valentine's Day! Or, for you single folks, Happy International Quirkyalone Day!
Alas A's out of town today, and, there's no International Quirkyalone Day party nearby, so I'm afraid I'll just have to go snog-free. Woe is shinyblogs. So I sent myself this Hallmark card to cheer myself up:
Ah, Hallmark. Some of their stuff is really great. If only saccharine didn't cause big lumpy tumors.
I also like Jason Sho Green's stuff. Seriously, I liked it so much I turned it into an animated gif, but PhotoBucket smooshed it a bit. Hmm. Bad Photobucket. No chocolates for you! Ok, hold your sweetie tight for a moment, I'm going to try to do something neat and funky.
Hmm. Let's see:
Hmm, I can't get it all to fit in one line, or even mostly on one line, so you'll just have to whip your mouse back and forth every 4 seconds or so. This moment of carpal tunnel syndrome is brought to you by me and my fear of smudging the art by shrinking it. Or you could just go right to Jason's youyesyou page and fidget about through the static images. Then download them in hi-res format and print them onto nice paper. And drop a big wad of love in Jason's tip jar.
Actually, that sounds a bit yuckier than I intended. I just meant that, since he's made these images for free, just for us, and given instructions on how to turn them into cards, we shouldn't leave the tip jar on his site unattended. Or, if you're broke, like me, just pop him a nice e-mail to say he rocks, or leave a nice comment somewhere on his blog. Because that'd be the sweet thing to do and, if you're reading this, you're probably a big 'ol sweetie. Aw, and you're just so cute when you blush. Go you.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, February 8th, 2004
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So, I was reading Vivienne's blog, because it's so darn good, and she had a post about my post about her, which apparently made her pass out. (She blames the flu, but we know, gentle reader, that she really swooned from my raw shinyblogs machismo.) And there's a comment by one of her readers toward the bottom of the page that's like "I liked the person's review of your LJ despite his obsession over jillian ann."
And I'm thinking to myself, "Obsession? Obsession?!"
Pshaw, as if a musician-model of Jillian Ann's calibre could possibly be the subject of a Calvin Klein fragrance. So 80's, so preppy, so yuppie love. Obsession. No, my silly, silly man, it would be entirely inappropriate to have an Obsession for Jillian Ann. I mean really, look at what she's wearing in some of those pictures on her site. I have a Jillian Ann fetish. And that's entirely appropriate.
Except that my bum looks silly in latex. And it's always asking me for change.
Seriously, style's not my thing. I couldn't dress myself if I had a live-in Yaya Han. Then again, if I had a live-in Yaya Han, I'd probably be pretty depressed if I had to wear clothes. I mean, her clothes are beautiful and all, but have you seen Yaya Han? She's ultra-babelicious. And ultra-babelicious isn't even a real word. That's how hot she is. Pity she doesn't keep a blog, because her costume design is so creative and what little bloggish writing she has on her site seems grammatically correct and thoughtful at the same time, which is getting rarer and rarer these days.
There are a whole bunch of folks out there who I wish had blogs. Like, I wish Heather Juergensen had a blog. She was just so awesome in Kissing Jessica Stein, which she co-wrote. So funny and strong and even poignant in some scenes. And, yeah, I'll admit it, hot. Really hot. Like, I-can't-believe-she's-a-Stuyvesant-grad hot. And McGill, too. Hot and brainy, which makes her even hotter. Like magna cum laude-have-mercy hot.
Maybe she got hot in Canada. Like, she was awkward and gawky and oops-I-dropped-my-pocket-protector-in-the-frog-during-AP-bio in high school, but then she went up to McGill and it was really cold out during the winter and she had to adapt by getting hot to survive because otherwise she'd freeze during the winter and burst like a pipe or something. And, you know, plumbers won't come over to fix people, just pipes. Unless you're living in a porn movie instead of real life, like "Ass Crack 5. Deep Plumbing" or something. (I wonder if that's a real title. God I hope not.)
But, anyway, I think Kissing Jessica Stein is just a great bit of writing, and I wish Heather kept a blog because I'd like to see more of her writing. And more of her, for that matter, but I'll settle for the writing. She co-wrote KJS with her co-star, Jennifer Westfeldt, who was also great, and who I'd also like to see keep a blog, naked, but, as far as I can tell, Jennifer doesn't even have a website yet, so, you know, a blog'd probably be too much to ask for.
And Tony Shalhoub should have a blog. Because he's just so brilliant in Monk and Big Night and Men In Black that I want to know what he's got ticking in that brain of his. (The last two Monk episodes, by the way, have been great. The last episode had Sarah Silverman, and the one before that had John Turturro, who was magnificent.)
Or Ron Jeremy, because he's really a likeable guy on The Surreal Life. And you know what they say about the size of a guy's blog, right?
I don't, actually. I hope it's something good, because my posts tend to be enormous.
But I've digressed. Where were we? Oh, yes, dressing myself. So I'm out with M on Friday night, and she's got the style thing going on. Being a guy, I can't remember what she was wearing, but it was stylish. From her shoes to her makeup to the top of her head. And I had on a pair of sneakers, jeans, and a gray cashmere sweater. And the sweater would have been really cool if I hadn't been wearing it inside out. God only knows how we wound up snogging. Thanks for that, big guy. Um, big Guy. My guess is that she figured she could make me more stylish if she covered me in lipstick. Which actually made me feel more like a big pudgy Marilyn Manson, but without the latex. (Because it makes my bum look silly. Especially after I've ignored his request for change, my eyes carefully faux-focused on other things.)
Anyway, the next morning M's getting out of bed way too early and putting her it's-lacy-just-in-case-he's-going-to-see-it-tonight lingerie back on, and she's like "Are you on Friendster? Because I really want to have lots of friends" and I'm thinking to myself, "I think that lingerie's pretty much going to guarantee that. I mean, that's some nice lingerie. Why does Victoria keep that stuff secret? I'll bet her bum's much better behaved than mine." But I figured it'd cut down on my future snogging ability if I said that out loud, so I didn't. Nor did I say "As a guy, I'm not that concerned about wearing cool lingerie myself. I figure, once you see my skivvies, they're coming off as quickly as the immutable laws of physics will permit. I'm not saying I wander around in my Rick Santorum Superoos or anything, I'm just saying I don't want to wear anything that looks so good you might not let me take it off."
But I'm not on Friendster. It sort of creeps me out. The notion of having a bunch of people you know basically say "I know this person, and he's ok" to validate your online persona. I don't want a validated online persona that meshes with my real life. I want a cool rental persona. I want to flip the keys to the valet and go, "Yeah, park this next to Britney's ex's porsche. And key it for my friend Christina here." And I'd feel less comfortable instructing the valet to key Britney's ex's car in real life. Because in real life I generally travel by subway. And the valet would be, like, "I'm sorry, sir, but I'm afraid your trolley isn't appropriate for our garage." And then he'd sort of smirk so Christina could see his haute-valet contempt for me. And I just don't think you can score with Christina Aguilera after the valet disses your public transportation wheels, you know? The girl's gotta have some standards, right? And, seriously, if you can't score with Christina Aguilera, who can you score with?
But part of me can't help but wonder. What if M was snogging with me just to improve her Friendster rating? Is that something a girl would do? A lot of girls? Is there a list? Can I have it?
No, seriously, what is it about Friendster, and, for that matter, about friending on LJ, that gives so many people a sense of acceptance? I'm not immune to the phenomenon myself. As you'll recall, I was pretty full of studly joy when Jillian and "damia90e" (who I still believe is secretly mmMilla Jovovich) added me to their friends lists. And I'm pleased that Vivienne has done the same, even if I am a little troubled by this incriminating photo of her:
Really, friends don't let friends snort tabby. I mean, it's not like, after a long night of indulging in cat, you can just nurse your hangover with a little tail of the dog. It's just not done. Remember kids: be cool, stay in school, and just say no if a stranger offers you kitty. It's addictive. So don't be catty.
But I digress. Back to being friended. And not being friended, for that matter. Like, there was somebody who had added me as an LJ friend after my review of Viv, but then deleted me after my review of Margaret Cho. And I can't remember who it was, but, deep down, I wish I knew whether he or she unfriended me because I didn't friend him/her back, or because he/she found my review of Margaret Cho offensive (or my views on gay marriage or lesbian porn or Howard Dean therein), or whatnot. And so I'm like, hmph. Kinda makes you want to go do a hit of tabby. Sniff. Yeah, I'll be right back.
Ok, I'm back. This neighborhood needs more cats.
So, where were we? Right. Friending. I guess what confuses me about things like Friendster is that they seem a bit insular. Like, generally people are writing about people they already know, just to let them know they like them. Now, that's nice and all, but my thinking is, if I already know you personally, and I've decided I like you enough to merit an expression of affection, Friendster's not really the manner of expression I'd choose. I'd rather just share a nice bath with some ginger foam and feed you grapes or strawberries, occasionally pausing to indulge in ice cream and rum and flavored tobacco, so we can blow bubbles with the smoke and watch them drift, lazy and heavy like a Sunday afternoon, to the sounds of Frou Frou or Peter Gabriel, and then giggle together as the bubbles stop and pop on your belly in tender wisps. Which is probably why most of my closer friends are women petite enough to fit in my bath tub with me. (Oh my God. I really do have a Jillian Ann fetish!) Even with a male friend, though, I'd rather split a pitcher of beer than write him a Friendster blurb.
But, as I'm sure you've noticed by now, I do like the idea of friending complete strangers. I like the idea of taking a moment to notice people in a positive way. It's sort of an Amelie thing. I've had that movie on my mind lately. There's a scene where Amelie sort of whisks a blind woman about, narrating all the sights to her as they go. And so the morning before my snogging with M, I had a moment like that as I stepped out from a local Walgreen's. I tend to buy stuff at Walgreen's these days, because the CVS across the street always asks me if I have a CVS card. And I'm like "Well, no, I don't, because I usually hate the idea of giving corporate America a way to track my purchases of Q-tips and toilet paper. But right now, as I stand at this counter with my array of flavored condoms and lubricant, I'm thinking, what the heck, let's let your CEO know about my sex life. You're actually using the info, right? Like, do I get a congratulatory Barry White album after I buy these 30 gallons of lube?" But that seemed to make the girl behind the counter uncomfortable, so I don't shop there anymore. I mean, if you're not into Barry White, you just don't deserve my lubricant patronage.
So I'm stepping out of the Walgreen's with my just-in-case-I-get-some supply of condoms, bubbles, ice cream and lube (They make "warming liquid" now. Who knew?), and there's this guy in a wheelchair, with a big thing of paint supplies in his lap. And he can't hold his supplies and roll his chair at the same time, because they were really awkward and bulky. So he's asking passersby to give him a push, if only for a block or two, so he can make his way home. And everybody's doing their very best to ignore him. I walked past him and just froze, watching as a couple talked to him for a moment and then declined to give him a hand. I stared at their backs as they headed off in the very direction he was trying to go, and I was just disgusted. Not so much at the fact that the couple had just abandoned this guy to a terribly humiliating situation, but at the realization that I had been about to do the same thing. So I turned around, took the handles, and wheeled Travis the five or six blocks to his apartment building, wincing at every crack in the sidewalk as I felt, vicariously, the bumps of Travis' daily experience. And he told me about his attempts at abstract art, and about the way strangers treated him because they mistook him for a bum (even though he looks nothing like my bum), and I told him about the time, years ago, when a photographer wandering by my college dorm snapped a photo of me for an expose she was doing on the homeless. (I wasn't homeless at the time, but it was laundry day.) So we shared a laugh, and agreed to share a beer next time we're both at the local pub. And as I left Travis's building, the sun came out, and a little old lady said "Isn't it a lovely day?" and I thought "Shit. I wonder if my ice cream's going to melt."
But then I realized that, if my ice cream did in fact melt, I could tell M why it had melted, and she'd decide that I was really sweet, and I'd get some serious snogging points. And I thought, "Wow. That's kind of a twisted way to think about it. I mean, what a stupid reason to help someone. I could have just melted the ice cream in the microwave." But later on, back in my house, as I gently heated my Godiva White Chocolate Raspberry ice cream in my shiny new double boiler, I found myself looking forward to meeting Travis for a beer and finding out what he had painted. "I'm going to make it as abstract as I can," he had told me, "so that somebody'll decide they see their mother in it, and then they'll just have to buy it." I hope he sells it to one of the people who pretended to ignore him.
Anyway, I never actually got to share the melted ice cream with M, or even tell her about Travis, because we snogged too quickly and she left too early. I never even got to share that bath with her. That's ok, though. I'm man enough to take the occasional bubble bath all by lonesome, and still find it relaxing. I have no idea what to do with the thirty gallons of lube, though.
But the moral of this story is . . . pretty much a mystery to me.
Anyway, go notice a stranger today. Go see something nice in someone you don't know, and take a moment to tell them about it.
Along those lines, I'm going to start expanding my LJ friends group a bit, to include folks even if I'm not writing shiny blog entries about them. Since I'm adding strangers, I'm thinking of the Friends page as sort of like a mix tape. I won't necessarily add folks just because they add me. And won't delete folks just because they don't. I just want a page full of writing or images that I think blend nicely together and are worth reading. If you find yourself on it, and don't want to be, let me know, and I'll sulk. And then remove you.
Also along those lines, here's a shout out to Heather Juergensen even though she doesn't have a blog. Heather, your portrayal of Helen in Kissing Jessica Stein was just wonderful. Just a great indie muse of a woman in the tradition of Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny or Kate Hudson in Almost Famous. And the fact that you didn't just act her, but also wrote her, fills me with admiration. And, um, lust. So, to quote Val Kilmer, "if there's anything I can do for you, or, more to the point, to you, you just let me know." No, seriously, even platonically speaking, that was just a wonderful bit of work. Thanks for it. Now go write a damn blog.
Which I should do myself, really, because I haven't done a shiny blog review since Margaret Cho. A surplus of snogging has crimped my blogging. I don't know how Vivienne manages to update her blog so often. No wonder she's snorting tabby.
Anyway, I've chosen my next victim, so here's a teaser. Somewhere in Minnesota, there's a girl folding sweaters in a Kmart and dreaming of Dave Attell. And she's got this website that's--
Oh, screw it, I'll just tell you about her now. I mean, you know what they say about the size of a guy's blog, right? (You'd better know by now. I mean, I asked you like 97 paragraphs ago.)
I don't really know anything about Duluth, Minnesota. My guess is, it's cold, and there's not much to do at night. But the Kmart's probably worth a visit, because that's where Angela works. And she's worth a look. Now, if you're not in Duluth at the moment, or if you're not into Kmart, then you can check Angela out at her website, Silencia.net, which I deem check-it-out-worthy, like Foxworthy, but without the redneck comedian and with more check-it-out in front.
I stumbled across Angela, gracefully, by way of her livejournal, which is also visible on her website. Two things struck me in her journal. The first was this odd post commenting on someone else's journal, which is something I usually do. But she doesn't say who's journal she's commenting on. And so I wandered all over her blog trying to figure it out, but couldn't. Hmph. I think it was a response to a friends-only post by someone else. Hmph.
The second thing that struck me in her journal was a post where she had a survey asking people what they thought about various aspects of her. Like, was she cute, did she drink too much, etc. And I can't find that post anymore. But when I saw it, I was like, hmph. But in a more upbeat way than the previous hmphs. And I figured that as long as I was going to be trollishly hmphing at her journal, I might as well give her some feedback. But I'm not a survey-taking kinda guy. Like, just the other night, some random automated survey thing that's been leaving messages on my machine for the last few weeks ("This was a public interest survey. We may call back.") finally got me, and it asked if I thought children were better off living with two birth parents, and I said "It depends." and the automated survey thingy, clearly a Republican machine, demanded that I "say either yes or no." So I told it where it could shove its linguistic totalitarianism. And I guess it was a bit taken aback by my characterization of its motherboard, because it hung up on me. Aww, does the wittle reactionary sissyborg want its motherboard? Oops, sorry, got catty for a moment. I told you it was addictive.
So, anyway, I figured I'd respond to Angela's call for comments here. But now I can't find the post with the comments she wanted, so I'm pretty much on my own. And I'm actually not sure if I saw the post on her LJ blog or her site, so I've been bopping back and forth between the two--bopping in my pudgy machismo way, that is--and just can't find it. So I'm like, hmph. And I've been hmphing quite a bit in this particular blog entry, which might make a lesser man sore. But real men come prepared for such contingencies. (99 gallons of lube on the wall, 99 gallons of lube . . . )
So, anyway, in bopping about the various Angela postings, there's an overall theme developing: this girl is really funny. Wicked funny. Funny in ways that might make other people uncomfortable but, let's face it, if you've read this far in this entry, you're probably going to hell anyway, so here're some Angela-ic nuggets:
I still wonder how actors in herpes commercials get dates. "Hey! You look familiar, I think I've seen you somewhere. Yeah, in a commercial, I think, wasn't it for ... Oh gosh look at the time, I gotta go."
Nubbins are officially frozen off. I'm in my warm jammies.
And a bathrobe means naked time is all the time! Score. I haven't had a robe before. Well, I had a fleece one that zippered, but who the hell wants to reach down to their ankles to zipper something that long? Plus it was ugly. This robe I got is a lovely grey color, and it wraps around and ties and feels like terry cloth. Soft, soft. An entire post about a bathrobe. Yes I really am that boring. Actually, this has been one of my more interesting posts, if I do say so myself.
Ah now I feel hot enough to lose my pajamas and touch myself. I love you guys.
I can't believe no one else in all of livejournal land doesn't have "slutty pop princesses" in their user interests. I mean really. -scoff.
I hate my department manager. Glenda. The good witch, she is not.
Ang i just sent Dave those red lingerie pics
dmso i feel for the thrashing his penis is going to get.
Ang damn. right.
This is not your average Kmart sweater-folding girl. There's just something blunt and honest and insidiously clever about her, and I usually don't expect that at Kmart. Or even Sears. Not even at the softer side of Sears where they sell warm jammies for frozen nubbins. I'm more of a surly side of Sears kinda guy myself. Except that I look dorky around power tools. Or light bulbs. Or light sources of any kind, really. Let's move on.
The penis-thrashing Dave of that last Angela quote is comedian Dave Attell, upon whom Angela has, shall we say, a crush. Or perhaps a squeeze, because she's met him in person and, shall we say, squeezed up against him. Apparently Mr. Attell smells nice. I can relate. I just finished soaking in a bubble bath with this mix of ylang ylang, ginger, and patchouli, so I smell pretty much like a cross between a gingerbread cookie and the incense our parents must have used to cover the smell of marijuana when they were teens living in our grandparents' houses. By the way, just a word of advice to all you youngsters out there: incense is a silly way to try to hide your pot. If you're burning incense, your parents will already assume that you smoke pot. Pot you've been growing yourself. Hmm. If they're right, can I come over? Then again, if you're smoking pot and I smell like a ginger bread cookie, that might not be the safest place for me to be . . . As you'll recall, I have a healthy fear of cannibalism.
Anyway, I respect admiring a stand-up comic from afar. I mean, hey, Margaret Cho was my last shiny blog review, right? Granted, I don't want to squeeze Margaret so much as split a round of beers and listen to her say funny things into the wee hours, but, still, I have a soft spot in my heart for people with soft spots in their hearts for stand-up comedians.
But what really struck me about Angela--and, gentle reader, I generally prefer not to be struck, as I bruise easily, so cut it out or I'll tell Mom about your pot--is that she's sort of a younger version of Vivienne. For one thing, she has cats. But, more importantly, she's a creative aggregator, a sharer of nice things, an enabler of connections and conversations, and she's sort of just beginning to become whatever it is that she's going to be. She has "cusp" written all over her. Well, except her boob, which Dave Attell signed. And which I can't find any pictures of online. Hmph.
Ahem. Not that I lubed, er, looked. Actually, Angela's a tad young for me. She's only 21, blackjack, not even snake-eyes with glasses (by which I mean 22), although she does wear glasses. There were screenshots of her somewhere, but I can't remember where. Hmph. For you younger men, she's cute enough. Although, well, I shouldn't say it. Well, ok, I'll say it, but only to younger men. Women, and especially Angela, please go to the next paragraph. There was this one pic -- I said go to the next paragraph, dammit -- where the camera takes in a bit of cleavage -- as in the paragraph below this one, don't make me tell your mom about your pot -- and the cleavage looks amiable enough, but she's wearing glasses, and for some reason in this particular photo the glasses reminded me of -- and please don't tell her I said this -- Harry Potter. And I'm like, dammit, now I'm imagining Harry Potter with big boobs. Like, Hooter Potter. Oh, dammit, he does have an owl. Ok, I need to move on from this horrible place. I'm just going to say that, if you're Ron Weasley, and you're reading this, then that picture's going to put you in therapy for a long time. And they'll probably put you in a room next to that obnoxious Gilderoy putz whose memory you destroyed. Which, frankly, is what you get for ogling mammaries online. Watch the Super Bowl, it's safer.
Anyway, though cute, that's not what makes Angela like Vivienne. It's deeper than that. Basically, like Viv or Jillian, Angela's basically self-made. You can tell from her writings that she's not really a product of Duluth, that she just sort of wound up there, tugged along in the orbit of her parents I suppose. She must have moved around in high school or something, or slipped through the cracks somehow, because it feels like she should have wound up at Brown or NYU or Chicago or maybe Berkeley, someplace artistic and funky and full of bustling brightlings. But instead she's in Duluth, developing herself on her own.
And developing websites, too.
Lots of websites. There's silencia.net and silenciadesign.com and The Glitter Directory and Expo and then, and I just love this, there are the Fanlistings. There's a fanpage for Dave Attell, a fanlisting for the 80s (That's right, an 80s page from a girl who missed the first chunk of the decade.), and, I kid you not, a fanlisting for masturbation. That last one immediately made me think about that tragic mishap where Jillian wrote about masturbation but did a video about celibacy. Then it made me think, "Oh! That's what I could do with 30 gallons of lubricant."
Anyway, it's the directories and the fanlistings, and not just the masturbation one, that made me think Angela deserved a shinyblogging today. It just fits with the theme of noticing people from afar and finding something nice in them. Angela's giving people conduits to do that. She's helping people connect by sharing their appreciation for, well, ok, for masturbation. Oh, or Dave Attell. Or the 80s. Ah, the 80s. When video had only just begun to beat the snot out of the radio star. When even Californians were surprised to see piercings anywhere but the earlobe. When Janet was "Miss Jackson if you're nasty." And when masturbation was -- well, actually, masturbation's still pretty fun.
And I like that. Not masturbation you pervert (Well, ok, that too. Got lube?). I mean I like that Angela's building things about liking things and liking people. Even though she's trapped in a Kmart in Minnesota.
But it looks like that last bit's about to change. Angela's thinking about going to an interior design program in Minnesota. Which makes some sense, if you ask me. Which I note you have not. Put the pot down. Except for you, Viv. You just need to drop the tabby. Anyway, Angela's obviously design-oriented. She likes futzing with her websites and fiddling with backgrounds and brushes and other assorted phpery on the periphery of my own webby geekishness. And that's pretty cool. Cool enough that other folks have started stealing her designs, which is less cool. But she's winning awards and such, and that's not bad for a self-made girl trapped in a Kmart in Minnesota.
So it makes sense that she'd want to move in another dimension. And interior design would let her do that. Because interiors are usually designed in 3 dimensions, instead of 2, and that's just more than the average website. I just wonder about the Minnesota thing. I think she's really a New Yorker. Or maybe a Seattlite. But probably a New Yorker. Like a Park Slope New Yorker. Or maybe an Upper East Sider. Someplace with lofts and brownstones and decent parks and serious chinese food around the corner. And men so gorgeous I hate them on sight. Oops, got catty again. Dammit Viv, keep your tabby to your self. (I am just a little bit heterophobic, though. I mean, don't get me wrong. I adore heterosexual women. I just don't like good-looking straight guys. I have no problem at all with straight guys who look like Ron Jeremy.)
But not every journey has to be a sprint. Sometimes smaller steps go further in the end. So, maybe doing the program in Minnesota instead of a humongoutropolis like New York or Chicago or LA makes sense for now. Eventually, she'll still probably wind up designing the interiors of brownstones across Manhattan, clustered around a Metropolitan Museum of Quirk curated by Vivienne.
But, over all, in response to the questions I vaguely remember being on a blog somewhere on one of those many sites, here're my thoughts, Angela.
Should you do an Interior Design program? Yes.
Do you drink too much? I don't know, but if you're asking the question, you probably already think you know the answer. At the end of the day, if you drink enough to worry about if you drink too much, you should probably drink less regardless of the biochemiphysiological whatnot. Unless you're in a bathtub with me, in which case, you should probably take another sip before it wears off. No, don't dilute that rum with coke. And, for God's sake, Viv, don't bring the tabby to the tub. (Hmm, if S reads this, is he going to freak out? Oh my God, Viv has an S and I just snogged an M. So today's blog is tinged with S & M. No wonder I have a fetish today.)
Are you physically attractive? Probably, but you should put more bosom pix in your blog just to make sure. Judging from what little I've seen of your face and your bosom, you appear to be appropriately curved, but still slender, which bodes well for your squeeze on Dave Attell. Because, you know, Dave has to stick to slender women. Because, as a stand-up comedian, there's no way he wouldn't accidentally blurt out "Oh my God, if you marry me, you'll be, like, Attell-a-tubbie!" which would pretty much cause him to suffer an immediate, painful death. And that's really a Catch-22, because, as you'll recall from my earlier post, beautiful slender women are really dangerous.
Should you visit NYC? Of course. (Actually, gentle readers, if any of y'all're living in NY right now and wouldn't, like, attempt to have your way with Angela at first sight, feel free to offer her a beer or a Yonah Schimmel knish or a place to crash or something for me. I don't live in New York anymore myself. Which means I can't offer Angela much of anything really. And that I miss pizza. I really miss pizza. Like, I'd give my left -- well, no -- but I'd gladly give a gorgeous straight guy's left nut for a slice of pizza from Patsy's. The real Patsy's. The one they call "Grimaldi's" now.)
And then there are the questions that aren't asked out loud. Are you worthy (of acceptance/affection/adulation/Attell-ation or just plain amiable notice)? Sure. Will you be cooler/hipper/happier/successfuller tomorrow than you are today? I expect so, although successfuller might not be a word unless Dubya gets "re"-elected.
So, go design something, build something, be something quirky and clever and real.
Oh, but stay off cat.
And, in the meantime, gentle readers, blog on. And eat your vitamins. And go see Kissing Jessica Stein and Amelie.
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Comments: Read 7 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, January 25th, 2004
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As I write today's Shiny Blog review, I find myself wondering: When did Margaret Cho get so cool? I guess it was over a decade ago when I first noticed her, and she was funny enough at the time as a young stand-up comedian. But I never really thought of her as particularly cool. If anything, she was imposed-cool, like MTV or some other arbiter of mandatory cool had demanded that I like her, especially because she was Asian American. You could almost hear the consultants saying “kim chic.” And I really hate cabbage. Makes me gassy.
So I didn't really pay much attention when Margaret got a sitcom. I vaguely remember watching the first episode and not really caring about it, let alone for it, and I vaguely remember it getting canceled. But I do remember with a bit more clarity that ABC or NBC or whoever it was (ok, maybe I don't remember) actually forced Margaret to lose so much weight to do the show that she suffered kidney failure and almost died. And you'll remember, if your memory's better than mine, that I had a little digression about that in my blog about Vivienne, where I pointed out that it will not really be safe to approach beautiful women in the wild until society's vision of beauty changes. Like, "when TV executives ask Margaret Cho to gain weight so she can play herself in a sitcom about her own life. Or when a guy can watch The L Word and go 'Man, I had no idea John Goodman was a lesbian. I mean, I know there was all that controversy when he kissed Roseanne but -- oh, wait, that's Mia Kirshner?'"
In a freakish twist of fate, there was a Margaret Cho stand-up thing on TV that night, and I thought "Hey, what a freakish twist of fate." So I watched it. It was her "Notorious C.H.O." concert, and then her "I'm the One That I Want" concert was on right after. Which is odd, considering that I'm the One That I Want was filmed a year before Notorious C.H.O. But sometimes television, like blogs, works in reverse chronological fashion.
Anyway, when I tuned in she was in the middle of talking about her adventures at a sex club, and she was saying that if she was going to be with a lesbian, she'd want the lesbian to be like John Goodman, not Sharon Stone. And at that, I really perked up. And I never really perk up at the thought of John Goodman, if you know what I mean. I mean, he was fantastic in The West Wing this season, but he's just not my cup of lesbian. I'm much more of a Sharon Stone lesbian kind of guy, preferably with milk, two sugars, and a Beyonce on the side.
But anyway, perked up, above the waist anyway (I mean, really, John Goodman?), I listened. And it was spectacular. As if Margaret was the love child of Lenny Bruce, Ian McKellen, and (because you know I have to work her into my blog somehow) Jillian Ann Durgin. Which I for one wasn't expecting, because Lenny's dead, Jillian Ann's celibate (not to be confused with Celebrate (good times, come on!)), and, even if she weren't, Sir Ian is gay. By the way, just a quick pause to note the quirky fact that Jillian Ann writes about masturbation and lesbian temptation but gives us a video about celibacy. How could this perverse inversion of medium selection have come to pass? My guess is, somewhere in America some not-so-many years ago, some second grade teacher at some tiny school in some small town was rushing to class too fast to notice that some papers she had grabbed off some copier were somewhat out of order, and so, before she had a moment to correct the error, she blurted out "Tell and Show" to her class instead of "Show and Tell," forever altering the minds of her fragile wards, and leaving us, my fellow future readers of today, bereft of what would have been a tasteful essay on celibacy and a really good bit of not-so-celibate video. And who knows what kind of porn-inspired innovations that video might have heralded? This, America, is why we need more teachers, better funded schools, and faster copier machines.
Anyway, back to Margaret Cho, who is neither celibate nor, on video at least, a machine. What she is is a tour de force. Like the late but ever timely Lenny Bruce, Cho likes a cuss or two or twenty, and she's definitely not afraid to shock. But there's also a skillful artistry to her performances, as she moves back and forth between the shocking and the mundane, lulling us into familiarity with narratives about her family and impersonations of her mother, and then pushing into brave new worlds of candor about her experiences with sex or drugs or eating disorders, and then weaving back to a now more liberated sort of normalcy, as she impersonates her mother reacting to her experiences. Over the course of her routine, she pulls us in, pushes us to new edges, and pulls us in again, gradually educating the audience and, hopefully, building up a new level of understanding and tolerance as she goes. And in that respect, she reminds me a bit of Jillian Ann, because she's taking some extraordinarily unpleasant experiences and turning them into a mission, an art form, a statement to everybody else to keep their chin up, their heads high, and their minds open.
So I was quite pleased to notice, as the credits rolled at the end of the show, that Margaret has a website. And, looking at the website, it has a blog! So I set about reading. And a few things struck me immediately.
First, Margaret has a great bob-and-weave writing style, seizing on words and dancing about on tangents and just having fun with language and debates on language (especially "foul" language). Really. she could be a professional or something. ;)
Second, like me, Margaret has umlaut issues. She's been having the same problem with getting an umlaut on top of "Fuhrer" and "Bjork" (not to be confused with bork, bork, bork) that I was having with "gemutlichkeit" in my post about Vivienne. Well, not quite the same issue, I suppose. Umlauts are probably afraid of Fuhrers, and the Bjork umlaut was going to wind up in a blog entry about Michael Jackson, and, you know, it might not have been comfortable getting caught up in the debate over MJ just yet. In contrast, any umlaut would want to perch atop my "gemutlichkeit", because it's just such a comfy word to sit on, you know? In fact, I've found it difficult to keep umlauts up there because they get so cozy they just drift off to sleep and then topple off, like tipsy kittens off a kitchen counter when the catnip's a bit too strong. And that's really a danger to passersby in the posts below. If the U.S. ends it war on drugs, I might replace the cozily inebriated German "gemutlichkeit" with the happily stoned Dutch "gezellig" for public safety reasons. In the meantime, though, font engineers sporting "Fight Terror, Grow Your Own" shirts are working on installing a safety net at the base of the "u".
The third thing that struck me, other than the hail of falling tipsy umlauts, is that Margaret has a McKellenesque approach to celebrity. I've mentioned before that I love the way Sir Ian writes about other people with this mix of ease and awe. Like, on the one hand, he's amazed to meet Sir Edmund Hillary and he's star-struck by Olivier, while, on the other hand, he's clearly comfortable engaging in hijinx with his fellow Lord of the Rings stars. And Cho has a similar quality, writing online fan mail to Michael Moore and Richard Pryer, while casually tossing out mentions of moments with Jimmy Eat World or Jerry Seinfeld. And let's not forget that she dated Quentin Tarantino back in the day.
The fourth thing that struck me, and this is the most important, is that Cho blogs about real issues. About the war on drugs and immigration and gay rights or hypocrisy after hypocrisy after hypocrisy. She even has a blog about whether she's a hypocrite for fighting for gay rights even though she's in a heterosexual marriage.
That last one's particularly timely this week. Unless you were too busy partying in that hole with Saddam to notice, you've probably heard that a few days ago -- just a night after night fell on Martin Luther King's birthday -- Bush called for a constitutional amendment to "defend the sanctity of marriage" against "arbitrary judges" who insist that homosexuals be given the same rights as married heterosexuals. I almost expected him to call gays Weapons of Marital Destruction, but if he did, we'd probably never be able to find any, and that'd pretty much put an end to Bravo's ratings, hurting NBC and its parent GE and thereby tanking GE's corporate earnings and projected dividends and the financial world as Dubya sort of vaguely knows it.
There will come a time in the next thirty years when we look back at this debate with the same embarrassed confusion we feel when we look back at McCarthy. Or Hanson. When we ask ourselves how recognizing gay marriages in Massachusetts made Britney marry and divorce in Nevada over the course of 55 hours. How the prospect of lesbian partners getting health benefits hurt the personal marital bliss of Bushes George and Laura. But instead, the day after Bush's State of the Union assault on civil unions, Ohio tightened its bible belt and banned gay marriage.
I can't really preach about this issue. I'm embarassed to admit this but, truth be told, I used to be really concerned about what would happen to American society if we legalized gay marriage. Like many heterosexual males I was terrified by the thought that, if lesbians were allowed to marry, and freely make love in the privacy of their own homes, with the doors closed and the curtains drawn, we might never manage to catch them having sex on tape again. And then Howard Stern's ratings would collapse and, worse yet, the internet would run out of porn, causing a spike in workplace productivity that would, in turn, make it easier for employers to work with fewer workers, thereby wreaking more havoc on American employment figures than an unelected President.
But this fear is, of course, ridiculous. In the age of Ashcroft, the Great Eye is ever watchful, no matter how blind or scaly or Scalia the Justice, so, as long as the Federal Bedroom Investigators get a live feed going for the masses, we will always have porn. (I find it a tad disingenuous, by the way, that the seller of that Sauron/Ashcroft 2004 shirt also touts a Nazguls for Bush one. For that matter, he's also got a Nazghuls for Bush going on, so he may be as confused about the spelling as he is about the preferred candidate for the Revilpublican Party. Actually, I could've sworn there was supposed to be a circumflex above the U, but maybe our shirty friend was having accent-fonting difficulties, much as Margaret and I have been suffering from umlaut issues. The circumflex, if you're wondering, is the upside-down-v-shaped pointy hat of an accent that often sits atop a U in French words. I think it has less to do with pronunciation than giving the U something to exercise with so it can stay all buff and sleek and not get pudgy like an O. Of course, in French, a language of luscious vowels from a land where even the Rive Gauche has style and only the Paris Hilton is gauche, even an O or an E might be found circumflexing in a word or two on the way to the cafe. Which is why French words sound so sexy, I think.)
So, clearly, there's no justification for a ban on gay marriage.
There should, however, be a ban on homophobic legislation. Right now, that ban is called "The Constitution," but Bush wants to amend it. Margaret does a much better job of writing about this issue than I can, and she does a great job of exposing the real problem with homophobia: it's bigotry. Institutionalized bigotry. It is separate seating, a back of the bus, a segregationist fountain of irrational hate, spewn from the mouths of hypocritical commentators who have popped too many pills. It is wrong. And it is no less wrong to hate on the basis of love than on the basis of color or creed or where a person's parents were born. Margaret has a truly fantastic blog on racism and homophobia, a blog which is starkly unfunny and startlingly powerful, and you should go read it and link to it and share it with your friends. It's over here.
I mentioned a few paragraphs ago that Margaret was accused of hypocrisy for speaking out on gay rights while marrying a heterosexual. That's just absurd to me. If anything, it's us heteros who need to speak the loudest. Otherwise, the lesbians will be too busy to make porn, and the economy will collapse, as explained above. So it falls to us, the men who love lesbians and the women who love men who can't dance, to stand up and stop mad cowboy disease.
Actually, if I may get up on my serious soap box for a moment -- which I have to do from time to time because I'm really not much taller than Dennis Kucinich -- here's my one cent. (It used to be two cents, but, you know, Bush happens, so the economy makes less cents than it used to.) I had a digression in my last post about Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, an incendiary Russian masterpiece that challenged censorship with the phrase, "Manuscripts don't burn." There was another line in the novel that I didn't mention, but which was just as striking when it was finally published: "Cowardice is the most terrible of vices." Bulgakov was probably writing in part about his own choice to write a favorable play about Stalin, a desperate attempt to curry favor with the censors. But he could just have easily been talking about our politicians today, cravenly caving to the politics of fear instead of raising their voices against censors in conservatives' clothing.
In the wake of Ohio's ban and Bush's call for a constitutional amendment, most prominent Democrats have been silent on the gay marriage issue. No matter how loudly Daschle and Pelosi and Kerry (oh my!) may decry Bush's foreign and economic policies, I've only really heard Al Sharpton attack the State of the Union assault on civil unions. From the rest of the pack, it's either Dean's pathetic "I agree with Dick Cheney" stand for civil unions or just plain silence.
Looking back, the Dems have really given us worse than mere silence, because the "Defense Of Marriage Act" praised by Bush was enacted under Clinton, a right-to-hate law signed by the man from "a place called Hope." And it won the votes of many a democrat. Even Joe Lieberman, who marched with King, voted against queens. And that's just shameful, really. Because in the end, a government is nothing more than an avatar of the will of its citizens, a structure through which we strive to support and protect and promote and maybe even enlighten one another as a people. When it is less than that, when it becomes an instrument for banning books or repressing ideas or persecuting beliefs and behaviors solely because they are unpopular or uncomfortable, then we cease to be a people and devolve into a mob, and our government is at best a golem, and at worst a despot.
So thank God -- even if you're not straight enough to be allowed to pray -- for Margaret Cho. At a time when senators are silent and leaders just follow the mob, this woman, once just a little All American Girl literally starved for attention, has grown the guts to speak out. And it doesn't matter if the left calls her a hypocrite for heterosexualling out or the right calls her a great many things that are shockingly worse. Because at the end of the day, she's got her own kind of cool, her own brand of courage. She's, like, cho-rageous.
So, go check out her blog, and if you bump into her on the street, compliment her on her nice new feet and her socio-comedic feats. And then maybe give her a nice, big, John-Goodman-lesbian hug for me.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, January 18th, 2004
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As you may have realized, I'm somewhat new to blogspace. It's not just that I've only just started this journal; I've also really only just started exploring other people's journals. And in these initial explorations, I've been struck by one thing: there are a lot of beautiful women writing well-written blogs.
And I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. Ordinarily, like most men, I'm deathly afraid of beautiful women. Out in the wild, of course, it's relatively easy to avoid beautiful women. Just stick to well lit bowling alleys and stay out of dodgy salad bars. Jillian Ann, who, as you'll recall, is a beautiful woman, has a list of New York eateries full of salads and other vegetarian fare, and I'll bet they're full of beautiful women, too. You should avoid these places at all costs. Even Green's on Montague Street, which isn't half bad for a vegetarian place. And shoe stores. Definitely stay out of shoe stores. And if you absolutely must exercise in a big public park, and you see the Inevitable Beautiful Jogging Woman, don't jog up alongside her and try to start up a conversation. Run the other way. Stay out of Crunch, too. Stick to gyms like Gold's, where sweaty men with enormous arms and enormously hairy backs can defend you if a beautiful woman sneaks in.
Somebody, probably a beautiful woman, planted a dangerous myth in popular culture a while back, claiming that men are afraid to approach beautiful women because they're afraid of rejection. And that's just ridiculous. It's like they're trying to goad men into approaching them. Like you're just a wimpy l'il fraidy-cat if you don't talk to the first beautiful girl you see. And you know, if you're dumb enough to fall for that propaganda, then you deserve what you're going to get.
Men aren't afraid of rejection. We're afraid of being eaten. That's right, eaten. Because that's what beautiful women do. They eat men. If you don't believe me, just ask yourself, have you ever seen a beautiful woman eat anything else? They might also eat other women, too, which is why non-beautiful women sometimes seem not to like beautiful ones.
Now, I'm not saying that all beautiful women always eat anybody who crosses their path. I mean, after all, they have to preserve their figures, right? But that's really the risk. In the post-Twiggy age, a modeling Moss gathers no fat. And it's just a matter of time before, somewhere between the alfalfa sprouts and the celery sticks, one of them snaps. You'll be walking along, minding your own business, when you pass a pack of models grazing at the local salad bar. And one of them will sniff you as you pass the window. And then another will notice the sniffing and say "What is it?", and the sniffer, like a superhot Uruk-hai, will go "Man flesh." And they'll leap right through the window at you, and you'll be so paralyzed by the sight of their rippling midriffs and low-cutting cleavage that you won't even be able to move. And then, right as you're about to compliment one of them on her nice mithril buttocks, they'll eat you. It'll be like that possessed-by-hyenas episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and you'll be Principal Flutie.
So, just to be safe, I recommend avoiding beautiful women until the modern definition of "beauty" changes. You'll know it's safe when critics see Monster and say "Finally, somebody let Charlize Theron eat something. See how much better you can act on a full stomach?" or when Neve Campbell begins to look more like she did in the first season of Party of Five. You know, when she was the pretty girl next door instead of the gorgeous-but-hungry dancer who might chomp on you like a pirouette if you open the door. Or when TV executives ask Margaret Cho to gain weight so she can play herself in a sitcom about her own life. Or when a guy can watch The L Word and go "Man, I had no idea John Goodman was a lesbian. I mean, I know there was all that controversy when he kissed Roseanne but -- oh, wait, that's Mia Kirshner?" Or when, instead of declaring war on the jelly donut, Joe Lieberman takes a more diplomatic Kennedy-style approach to sweets and tells the world "Ich bin ein Berliner."
Until then, if you absolutely can't avoid being around beautiful women, you should probably keep a pocket full of chocolates or beef jerky or something, just in case you need to distract them and run for it. Or try to be more like Carrot Top or Pauly Shore or Rob Schneider, as nobody, alas, will ever eat them. Not even if they were wearing a kosher t-shirt to an Israeli supermodel convention.
Anyway, in contrast to the wild, the virtual pastures of cyberspace have, up until now, been a space where beautiful women have been relatively safe to gawk at. Even someone like me, salty and high in fat, can interact with beautiful women in relative safety, without worrying about being mistaken for a tasty potato chip instead of a hapless couch potato. Worst case scenario, a beautiful woman's webcam might eat your credit card, but, really, how tasty could plastic be? Plus, beautiful women's webcam sites always have cookies. (I don't usually like taking sweets from strangers, but I always feel comfortable accepting cookies from a beautiful woman's website, because I know it'll be low in calories.)
But the beautiful blogging woman is perhaps a more dangerous beast. Siren-like, her words entice you, until you feel almost like you actually know her, as if, if you actually met her on the street, it would be safe to just walk up and say hello. And then, silly snackman, she would eat you. Or would she? Is, say, Jillian Ann just weaving a virtual net to snare manly snacks? On the one hand, she's very thin, and she's celibate so there's not much reason for her to keep a tasty man around, and she's a vegan so she could snap at any minute. Her site even asks people to "feed the artist", so she might be very hungry. And she lives in New York, where it's often deemed socially appropriate to invite someone to bite you, so, you know, maybe she thinks gnawing on someone would be acceptable. But, on the other hand, as far as I can tell, there are still five fingers. She hasn't snacked on any of the photographers she's worked with. Yet.
Anyway, this is the sort of safety issue I think about when selecting a blog to blog about for shinyblogs. From time to time, I'm bound to come across a really good blog written by a really beautiful woman, and it's possible that she's hungry, and that her blog is only as good as it is because she's trying to lure some food over. It's like Lair of the White Worm or The Lost Boys or the opening scene of Buffy, but for blogs. So, really, read at your own peril, and keep a bag of chocolates handy. And if you don't see a new entry from me for more than a couple weeks, weep for me, for I have probably been digested by a supermodel. Hopefully Mmmilla Jovovich.
So, that important safety tip out of the way, it's time to talk about somebody's blog. And, surprise, it belongs to a beautiful woman. So read on at your own risk.
Now, so far, I've written about the blogs/journals/sites/whatnots of two people, Jillian Ann Durgin and Sir Ian McKellen, who are, by the way, both vegetarians who might snap and eat you in a moment of hunger. But they're also both well known in certain circles. Sir Ian is, obviously, well known in most circles now that his performance as Gandalf has lofted him to movie screens around the globe. Jillian Ann is a lesser star but still shines brightly in a constellation of model devotees, and, if you surf about a bit, you can find discussions of her in English, Italian and French, and probably a few other languages as well.
So I thought it'd be nice to find someone a bit less known. A bit less ripe. Someone who's just about to blossom. And, surfing about, I found someone eating a blossom:
Now, I know what you're thinking: "She's really cute. Is she safe, or will she eat me?" I thought it too. Well, intrepid reader, we must accept certain risks when reading blogs, but I think the risks here are worth it. For one thing, she's eating a rose, and that makes her a bit safer than other PEBP's (plant-eating beautiful people). As we all know, roses go straight to your hips, which is why most flower-laden salads use nasturtiums instead. So, perhaps she's less concerned about maintaining a Twiggy figure than the average PCVM (potentially cannibalistic vegetarian model). Also, she's not a vegetarian; she likes sushi. Also, she apparently has at least contemplated bathing in some form of strawberry pudding, so, if she really needs to up her caloric intake, she can just spend some quality feeding time with her rubber duckie. (Actually, I'm not sure if she has a rubber duckie, or if the strawberry gunk is edible, so remain cautious.) Lastly, she apparently lives with a fellow named "S", and hasn't eaten him yet. Of course, it's always possible that "S" stands for "sandwich" or "snack", but, you know, all in all, as long as he pops up on the page from time to time, I think we can assume she hasn't eaten him and, therefore, won't eat us either.
By the way, for all you kids out there, you should know that I had to surf all over her blog to find that sort of information, before I could know that it was safe. And that's risky stuff that you shouldn't try at home. Like those stunts you see on TV. So, if you stumble across a beautiful woman's blog, don't just explore it on your own to see if it's safe. Send the link to me and I'll explore it for you, and I'll get back to you if it's safe.
Anyway, back to Vivienne's blog. Oh, right, her name is Vivienne. If you already knew that because you've started surfing about her site, shame on you. That was very reckless.
Anyway, I stumbled across her site a little over a week ago, and meant to write about it, but wound up writing about Sir Ian's blog instead. And then I had work. And then I felt like eating. And then there were things I felt like watching on TV. And, well, you get the point. But I'm writing about it now, so stop your badgering.
The first thing that struck me about Vivienne's blog was the image of Vivienne herself. She seemed sort of like a red-haired version of Janel Moloney--Donnatella "Donna" Moss on The West Wing--but with deeper eyes. I'm a big fan of Donna Moss, as, even though I suspect she'll someday eat somebody, she's just a wonderfully warm and adorably quirky character, with great dialogue and--since she's brought to us by Janel Moloney--great delivery. So, naturally, finding the blog of someone who vaguely resembled Janel, I promptly set about reviewing the blog to see if there was any skin to be seen. Oops, I mean, to see if the site was safe for edible readers like myself. And, I also wondered if I'd find a warm quirkiness like that of Donnatella Moss.
And the answers are no, yes (as long as S doesn't stand for "supper"), and emphatically yes.
What really strikes me about Vivienne's blog is its warmth. I mentioned a few posts back that Jillian Ann's site is sort of like a late-night conversation you'd have at a youth hostel, when you're sleepy and unfiltered and a little grungy from a long day's walkabout, and talk about everything from what you've seen to who you've been to who you want to be down the road. It's about high points and low points and all the poetry in between. Sir Ian's journals and other writings are more like a cross between postcards to friends and memoirs, with the occasional editorial essay in between.
Vivienne's blog is a different experience entirely. Some of it is about her life, but most of it is just about cool things she's finding. It has some of the fellow-traveller feeling of Jillian Ann's video clips, but it's more of an "Isn't this the neatest thing ever?" than a "This is what I did today, feel free to take a look." From time to time I like to throw gatherings where everybody brings a bottle of wine or some cheese and we all just kick off our shoes, lounge about and chat while we get tipsy, without the usual see-and-be-seen, wanna-hook-up, or here's-my-business-card bullshit that tends to bog down other kinds of parties. Because, you know, even though they're often French, brie and chevre taste better without pretension. (They also taste better without shoes, because good brie smells like my socks but you'd rather not have to believe that that smell is coming from the cheese while you're eating it. But I digress.)
Anyway, Vivienne's blog is a one-girl virtual version of that. She wanders about visiting websites and books and various whatnots, and brings them all home to her blog, where she discusses them with a sense of sharing instead of pretension. And her site, generally, is like a really well hosted party, where everything is cozy and comfortable and upbeat (although she did have a pretty unhappy entry about the flu recently--Vivienne, if you're reading this, I hope you're feeling better). Overall, her blog conveys a sort of virtual gemutlichkeit.
"Gemutlichkeit", if you're wondering, is German for "a comfy coziness or cozy comfyness, like the way you feel when you're sitting around the fire with a bunch of close friends drinking warm alcoholic beverages and eating apple pie with vanilla ice cream while it snows outside, the kind of comfort that can only be truly understood in a language of the Old World." There's a similar word in Dutch, "gezellig," but you'd have to add "smoking a well rolled blunt and" between "friends" and "drinking" and, you know, that's not legal in the United States yet. There's actually an umlaut in "gemutlichkeit," two dots perched atop the U like happy feet on a leather ottoman, but I don't know how to add an umlaut in HTML.
Anyway, Vivienne's blog is so nice and lovely that part of me wonders whether she keeps a separate blog for when she's not being nice and lovely, like a secret Blog of Dorien Gray, a blog where she lays waste to our democratic institutions and advocates destroying the ozone layer. But I haven't found it yet. I'll keep looking, though, just in case there's nudity there.
But for now, I'm content to enjoy the intellectual contentment of the Vivienne blog we know about. And there's a remarkable breadth of intellectual contentment there. In her most recent post, at the time of this writing, Vivienne ranges from surrealist art from Dominic Rouse, the recent cold snap in New York, her addiction to vegetarian burritos, her flu, an upcoming modeling shoot (Yeah, yeah, so I'm writing about a model/musician/artist again. Bite me, unless you're a model, musician, or artist.), and deep-fried cow brain sandwiches. Vivienne's blog is often a great place to find really cool things, like books on "How to be a Villain: Evil Laughs, Secret Lairs, Master Plans, and More!!!" or a pop-up book on cookies that has nothing to do with your web browser, or pencil sketches or paintings or lots and lots of photographs, or deep-sea critters exhibited in New York museums, or Polish delicacies (Vivienne, if you're reading this, go check out Teresa's on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights), or KGB spy gadgets, or freakish Q-tip accidents, or tasty teas, or opera, or film, or jelly baths, or astronomy websites, or brain-hemisphere-usage diagnostics, or slideshows of New York "cupcake porn", or retro tampon cases, or The Master and Margarita or, well, just go read it. It's a wonderful collection of wonderful things, and you just have to giggle at the thought that there's a girl out there who says "I started reading Master and Margarita the other night and it is everything and nothing I was expecting from Bulgakov."
Well, ok, you don't have to giggle, but I did. The Master and Margarita is a masterpiece of 20th century Russian literature written by Mikhail Bulgakov, a seriously talented satirist generally unknown to us capitalist pigs. During his life, Bulgakov was best known as a playwright but his works were banned by Stalin's oppressive regime. Ironically, he attempted to regain favor by writing a favorable treatment of Stalin's youth, but Stalin banned it. Bulgakov started writing The Master and Margarita in 1928, uniquely blending a critique of Soviet repression into interwoven re-tellings of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate. In fear and despair, he burned his manuscript in 1930, but returned to it by 1933, working in secret and ultimately dictating revisions to his wife until a few weeks before his early death, in 1940, from a kidney ailment. The manuscript remained hidden until late 1966, when the first half slipped through a momentary lapse in literary repression and spilled across the pages of Moskva, a monthly magazine. Within hours, 150,000 copies had sold out and it was, as Vivienne has now echoed almost 40 years later, nothing anybody was expecting from Bulgakov. (Don't you just want to giggle now? Go ahead, let it out.) For one thing, it was a full-blown novel, a masterpiece really, and not some leftover snippet of a play. For another, it burst out just a year or two after the trials of Joseph Brodsky, Andrei Sinyavsky, and Yuli Daniel, giving an ironically timely satire of censorship and proclaiming (self-referentially) that "Manuscripts don't burn." It's a wonderful, funny, touching, complicated read, and you can find it in Russian or a couple versions of English at this Russian site or buy a nice paperback translation at Amazon (which is probably a more copyright-friendly way of going about it). The chair of Middlebury College's Russian department has an online multimedia reading companion for the book, which you might as well check out.
Anyway, back to Vivienne's blog. While you're waiting for your order of The Master and Margarita to arrive, you should go click about there. I'm pretty sure she won't eat you. I should warn you, however, that her blog may not be safe for practitioners of woohoodoh.
Woohoodoh, if you're not familiar with the term, is not a martial art. It's the series of Simpsonic sounds that erupt from people who make the mistake of falling for people they read about online or in the papers or on TV, but probably won't ever meet in person. Woohoodorks go "woohoo!" when they discover that the target of their online affection is single, and "d'oh!" when they discover that they're not. There's also an occasional "ooh" or "mrow" when the male woohoodork discovers that the female target of his online affection is or has ever been a member of the lesbian party, and a "dammit!" if she gets engaged to another man. I saw this one blog a couple days ago that would have resulted in something like "woohoo! d'oh! woohoo! d'oh! woohoo! d'oh! dammit! woohoo! d'oh! d'oh! mrow! d'oh!" in the space of 15 or so entries. Just thinking about woohoodoh gave me almost as much emotional whiplash as that poor blogger must have. (I suspect she needs a good hug and a protective posse of gay male friends. Beautiful women are surprisingly fragile when they're not eating people, you know. Especially when they haven't figured out they're beautiful yet and are looking at other people's opinions instead of a mirror.)
Anyway, boys, I'm sorry to report that Vivienne is firmly set on "d'oh!". It's very clear that she'll be with "S" either forever or until she eats him. And S appears to be both a conscientious boyfriend and a good-looking guy based on what little we see of him in the blog and--and this is just a brilliant defense mechanism--he has long hair, so Vivienne probably won't eat his head. And it's not like you really need all your toes when you're with a beautiful woman who bathes in strawberry jelly and likes Russian novels. So, all in all, S will likely last a long, long time with Vivienne, which makes S the luckiest letter around. Dammit. ;)
Oh, yeah, that was either a preemptive "dammit" or a non-woohoodork one, as far as I know.
That warning for the woohoodorks having been given, let's get back to the blossoming part. One of the interesting things about reading blogs is that they're arranged in reverse chronological order, so, by default, you wind up reading about who somebody is before learning who they were before. Sort of like Memento, but without all the tattoos. (Well, usually without all the tattoos.) And so I discovered Vivienne, and then read back to the beginning of her blog, and, by the time I finished, a new entry had appeared giving a bit more detail, for the first time really, about where she had come from and where she thought she might go. Turns out she was a musician (which I had already learned) who had gotten into Juilliard (which I hadn't learned) but wound up at the Fashion Institute of Technology and then Queens College instead, dabbling in all sorts of artistic things while basically creating herself on her own for lack of parental support. Pretty impressive. But now she's thinking about going back and getting a masters in museum studies.
And I just think that's awesome. Because this is just so obviously somebody with a great eye for great things and a marvelous capacity for sharing them. Her blog, itself, is like a Metropolitan Museum of Quirk, so I can't even imagine what she'd do with a physical museum.
Which is a bit annoying, actually. One of the bothersome things about blogs is that they're generally either realtime or retroactive. But it's possible, in calendar mode on livejournal at least, to glimpse future dates. So, I kept hitting "next day" until around 2005, looking for news.
But heaven forbid Vivienne could tell us how her masters program's going to be going. No, dear readers, it's just suspense for us.
I began to suspect that, one night around July of 2004, she's going to get hungry and, lacking the energy to go out and buy cupcakes, is going to just roll over and eat S, leaving a terrible gap in the alphabet of her life. And then, after a period of generally unsatisfactory experimentation with assorted Seussian letters of the post-Z variety, and possibly a mrow or two, she'll give up on letters altogether, leaving us entirely without written words, unhappily blogless and unjournaled.
But hopefully I'm wrong, and Vivienne's just being a conservative, traditional girl blogging about what is and has been, instead of what is to be. In which case, my guess is, some day we'll read about her work as a conservator of really interesting tidbits and then, in the early 20-teens, we'll read about some cute little Metropolitan Gallery of Quirk she's opened and stocked with cupcakes. Then, at some point in 2035 or so, you'll bump into her on her first day as the curator of one of the world's better museums.
And, on that day, do me a favor and ask her if she's eaten S. Inquiring woohoodorks will probably want to know.
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Comments: Read 8 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, January 11th, 2004
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Today's Shiny Blog review is devoted to Ian McKellen's blog. Sir Ian McKellen's blog, I should say. You know, Gandalf. (And, ironically, he played Hitler in 1989, so it's fair to say the man has range.)
You might be wondering how it is that I managed to go from my thoughts about Jillian Ann's site (and, of course, bosom) to a foraging for McKellen journals, and, to be honest, so am I. As best I can tell, I moved from Jillian Ann to Sir Ian in three ways (actually, five now that I pause to note the nomenclative similarity between "Jillian" or "Ann" and "Ian". (<--pause to note and note, and now move on).
First, I had a Kate and Leopold reference in my post about jillianann.com, and, as you ought to know, the "Leopold" of Kate and Leopold was played by the great Hugh Jackman, who is, if you ask me, just as great as Wolverine in X-Men and X2, in which movies Sir Ian provides a captivating Magneto. (Actually, the Magneto is Rogue-ishly captivating in the first, and himself captive in the second, but the performance is captivating in both.)
Second, ironically, I was referring to Leopold's stirring defense of rich, creamery butter--which the slender Jillian Ann could clearly get away with ingesting--in response to Jillian Ann's veganism, which denies her such pleasures. Oddly enough, Sir Ian, though not a vegan, has a short essay on his website about his recent conversion to vegetarianism. (Vegetarianism, like veganism, still strikes me as a form of culinary Paganism, but with less goat, but I suspect my meatatarian God-made-cows-out-of-steak-for-a-reason philosophy is best left to a t-shirt instead of this blog).
But third, and longest of wind, was a rumination about what this journal is to become. I joked in my last entry that, with its initial focus on a musician/model and its subsequent elation at minor scraps of exchange with her, this blog might be little more than "a blog written by a fellow who sits around webgawking at hot women who he'd be too timid to approach in bars, and then tries to figure out ways to chat them up online." A trajectory which, were I to follow it, would make me on my best days a bit like the Lester Bangs of model/musician weblogs (at least as played by Philip Seymour Hoffman), a fellow dazzled by the virtual minglings of the "cool", but not quite cool enough (in his own eyes, anyway) to participate as an equal. And I'd rather be more like Patrick Fugit's William Miller--catching these moments of inspiration at a point of personal awakening (for all moments are fraught with personal awakening if we weigh them properly)--or perhaps like Kate Hudson's Penny Lane, inventing a "blog aid" to promote the sites that are, or should be, "almost famous." These last references, by the way, have been to the film, Almost Famous, and if you haven't seen it, you should rush out right now to rent or buy it, watch it, and then come back. We'll wait for you at the upper left-hand corner of the next paragraph.
Ah, there you are. Now, thinking about Almost Famous and the nature of "meta-blogging" made me think about Ian McKellan in a couple of ways. First, Almost Famous features the lovely Anna Paquin, who also plays Rogue opposite Sir Ian's Magneto in the X-Men movies. In the first film, Magneto abducts poor Rogue and transfers to her his powers of magnetism. It struck me that there was something obviously silly about that, as Ms. Paquin had already become rather attractive in her own right, albeit in a different way. But it dawned on me that, in real life, Sir Ian has had a knack for surrounding himself with attractive people lately. In the X-Men and LotR films alone he's managed to surround himself with Hugh Jackman and Viggo Mortenson, as well as Orlando Bloom for you youngsters, and, for those who prefer the fairer sex, Ms. Paquin, Halle Berry, Fammmke Jannsen, Rebecca Rommmijn-Stammmos, and Mmmiranda Otto. (I really must fix, by which I mean neuter, that "m" key if I'm to get any typing done.) He's even managed to work with a rather handsome horse, if you swing that way, but I'll leave that sort of discussion to others, because, well, ewww (not to be confused with a sheep, you pervert).
And, like Magneto to Rogue, Sir Ian seems to have imparted to his co-stars a bit of his power. Consider, for example, Brendan Fraser's performance in Gods and Monsters, which seems far richer, to me, than his earlier work. Consider the nuance of Sean Astin taking Elijah Wood's hand in Fellowship, a detail I believe Sir Ian discusses in the extended DVD commentaries.
And so, my mind having formed these connections after musing away from my last blog review, Sir Ian's blog seemed like a logical enough progression from Jillian Ann's website. It's also possible, I suppose, that repeated viewings of Return of the King have, as Cartman might say, "warped my fragile little mind." Perhaps, were my hair longer, I would braid it to give fair notice to the world that there's a bit of twisting in the mind beneath. But it isn't, so I won't.
Instead, I'll discuss Sir Ian's blog.
Except that I can't find it.
And that's a source of some sore disappointment. I could have sworn I read something somewhere saying that Sir Ian McKellen kept a blog. But, if he does, its location is a mystery to me. So, instead, I have simply sworn a bit.
But Sir Ian does have a very likable site fettered with journals and other entries about his various projects, sort of tossed about the site like books in Bilbo's Bag End home, for you to stumble across. It's really a rather fascinating site from an architectural standpoint, because you could navigate it in more ways than one, if you stumble upon it the right way. (The site, by the way, is designed by Keith Stern of CompuWeb, who also designed sites for Sean Astin, Andy Serkis, Brendan Fraser, Lynn Redgrave and Spinal Tap. The Spinal Tap page, alas, is down. Perhaps it's being upgraded to go to eleven.)
The closest approach to a "bloggystyle" experience, as it were, would be to pop over to The Grey Book, which chronicles Sir Ian's experiences filming (and later promoting) Gandalf the Grey for The Fellowship of the Rings. This is, I suspect, what people talk about when they say Sir Ian keeps a blog. It's a journal, arranged in chronological order, and you can click helpful arrows at the bottom of each entry to move back and forth from post to post. The journal continues into "The White Book", a less easily navigable journal (for lack of helpful arrows) of Sir Ian's experience as Gandalf the White.
However navigated, the books of Gandalf make for a wonderful read. You would expect a bit of warmth and wit from the man who plays Gandalf the Grey, and Sir Ian does not disappoint. But what I find most compelling about Sir Ian's writings is his attention to the little things, and I mean this not in the sense that Sir Ian frets over details but rather that he takes the time to notice little things and pay them respect -- a fitting trait indeed for a Gandalf. This is a man who writes not only about his human co-stars but also pauses between the blue screen stages and the mountain tops of New Zealand to tell us about
horses and ponies, and even to ponder the character arc of a tennis ball. There's an extraordinary humanity and humility in Sir Ian's writing, a sense of wonder at the people he meets (from ordinary locals to Sir Edmund Hillary and his wife June) and of self-deprecating humor at his own moments of Hobbit-induced recklessness (like sliding down a fireman's pole with Billy Boyd or dancing to hip-hop spun by Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan). Interwoven with the texts are personal photos and images borrowed from others, and it's all quite fun to see. These journals have probably already gotten an enthusiastic reading from the hardest of hard-core hobbit fans, but they would also appeal to anyone interested in the craft of acting, the beauty of New Zealand, or just the musings in general of somebody thoughtful. Of course, in reading them, I couldn't help but wish that Sir Ian had narrated them aloud, in the voice of Gandalf, as livejournal or blogger would now permit him to do. (And, with a livejournal blog, we'd get to see Sir Ian's "friends" lists, which would be quite fascinating and likely quite large.) For that matter, I wouldn't mind hearing Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan read them out loud, irreverent though they would no doubt be, for, like tears, not all irreverence is an evil.
Speaking of live readings, as speculation mounts over whether The Hobbit will ever be filmed, I can't help but wonder whether Sir Ian, Ian Holm, and Andy Serkis could read some passages of the book. I suspect the world would be a better place if the Ians graced it with a reading of An Unexpected Party, or if Messrs. Holm and Serkis read Riddles in the Dark. Maybe with Christopher Lee as narrator. Or Jim Dale (whose reading of the Harry Potter books is astonishing, if you ask me, which I note you have not). Or John Rhys-Davies, but not in his Treebeard voice. ("In a . . . hole . . . in the . . . . burrarrum . . . ground . . . there lived a . . . hmm hom . . . hobbit -– sounds like orc mischief to me.") Honestly, what were the four hobbits on the set thinking? Had I been a member of the Lord of the Rings cast, I would have single-handedly made the film suck, which is really saying something. But I'd've convinced the Ians to read The Hobbit together, if only over lunch. Perhaps some day, someone in London will have the sense to invite both Ians to a dinner party and "accidentally" leave a copy of the book lying about. I'll cook, if it helps.
But let us not pigeon-hole ourselves in hobbitry, for, enjoyable though it may be, there is more to Sir Ian, his career, and his website. Sadly, once we leave the Grey and White Books it's a bit harder to find all of his writings in one spot. There is, thankfully, a page called "Writings" which links to a good many good things Sir Ian has written, though, amusingly enough, not to the journals we've just discussed. I actually find that a bit endearing, by the way. To find the "writings" page, you have to find the link within the text of the home page, rather than simply rely on obvious links at the top of every page. It hearkens back to an older style of surfing and design, when details were for those who bothered to find them, and content could simply develop on its own, without concern over whether it would fit into this category or that. No Amazon-style trees at the top showing the branches of category to subcategory to microcategory. And that's fitting for writings about life, about details, about the nooks and crannies of experience. This is a personal site, not a commercial one. On the other hand, it means I haven't managed to read everything yet, let alone find it. But what I have read, I commend to you. Sir Ian's tributes to other actors like Sirs Nigel Hawthorne, Alec Guinness, and John Gielgud are memorable, I think, and it's interesting to see him weave issues of sexuality and acceptance into his reminiscences, which will perhaps ease the passage of younger men from their respective closets. (Sir Ian, if you didn't know, is both gay and refreshingly open about it. It is, by the way, fantastic to me that, in the months after September 11, one of history's starkest examples of hatred, one of the most cathartic acts of love came from Ian McKellen's Gandalf, an unconditional twinkling-eyed hug of a performance from a man who, himself, has been exposed to the unreasoning hatred of homophobia.)
Other writings are also quite enjoyable. In particular, I commend to you his musings on tobacco and on the turn of the millenium. I haven't had a chance to do more than glance at the screenplay of Richard IIIyet (which Sir Ian himself adapted from the Shakespeare play), but it was a promising glance, so you'd best give it some attention (as should I).
Other briefer bits of writing sprinkle the site, often interspersed with images of playbills or other mementos. A substantial "e-post" collection gathers responses to fans' questions on a variety of issues over the last few years, and well, there's just a darn big lot of stuff on the site to read. Go surf about. But bookmark as you go, just to be sure you can find Sir Ian's treasures again.
It is a tad frustrating to not have the time to fully indulge in roving Sir Ian's site, let alone review it, but that is often the way of things. For now, I'll leave you with Sir Ian's own response to a gripe about leaving things out when working with literary Marvels (as it were):Q: How come [insert favorite X-Men character here] is not going to be in the movie? He/She has to be.
A. If everyone's favourite character were to be in the movie, it would have to be as long as the comic. Are you prepared to sit through a 35-year-long film?
Well, usually not. But if it had intermissions for snacks, a lot of you in it, and a supporting ensemble cast like you tend to attract, then yes, Sir Ian, I'd love a 35-year-long film. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to blog about it during filming?
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Friday, January 9th, 2004
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It dawns on me that, given my "I just want to know her" opening entry, and my focus on Jillian Ann's bosom pics and on models in general thus far, that you might be thinking that this is just going to be a blog written by a fellow who sits around webgawking at hot women who he'd be too timid to approach in bars, and then tries to figure out ways to chat them up online.
And nothing could be closer to the truth. But that's not the image I feel like projecting here, so my next entry will be a bit different. But before getting to that, I should point out that there's nothing wrong in chatting up hot women. Or in women hotting up chat men. Oops, chatting up hot men. Hmm, paging Mr. Freud. But, seriously, when a beauty's eyes meet ours with acceptance, then aren't our spirits elevated, along the curves of that beautiful face, into a straighter trajectory toward who we hope to be? Ok, so that sentence truly sucked, but the sentiment's real even if the craftmanship falls short. There's a reason why The Muse was played by Sharon Stone, and why Venus de Milo's tummy doesn't look like mine.
But there is also danger, of course, in judging solely based on the physical. For one thing, you'd be silly if you thought Sharon Stone's performance was only skin deep, and, for another, it's often unfair to expect inner beauty to match outer beauty (or lack of it). And I could write a good deal about that, but I don't particularly feel like it. Of course, if the stranger who blogged about me is actually Sharon Stone, and she digs me, I could probably be convinced to improve on that beauty-curves-trajectory sentence.
But for now, I want to write about another excellent blog. And I have found one, sort of, and as soon as I can manage to tear myself away from reading it, I'm going to eat something. But eventually, after reading and feeding and fielding the occasional phone call, I'll tell you about it.
In the meantime, for an interesting gloss on the effect of beauty, check out Pumpkin, a remarkably flawed, but still remarkable indie pic by Christina Ricci who looks remarkably good in it. <---See, I just remarked about it.
Also, just for the record, despite my blogistic difficulty separating my attention span from Jillian Ann's bosom, my favorite picture of her (inasmuch as I've been able to surf about her portfolio without feeling like a big pervypants) is actually not one of the sheer-topped ones. I like the fourth from the bottom in this group, because it's a neat melange of frailty (the perilously slender delicacy of her waist) and strength (her face), and because the architecture of her hips shifts the bikini into a mix of concealment and, for lack of a better word, accessability. It's a really interesting shot, I think. Oh, and it's kinda hot, too.
;)
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Thursday, January 8th, 2004
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So, just a quick update to let you know, dear reader, that I am a virtual muffin of stud. I just noticed that Jillian Ann, the model/musician I posted the last blog about, added me to her friends list. That's right world. Professional model/musicians dig me.
Also, some random person I don't think I know added me to his or her friends list, too. Here's hoping that damia90e is a hot, single supermodel rockstar. Like, maybe it's Milla Jovovich. Mmmilla Jovovich. I wonder if Milla Jovovich is single. The Divine Comedy was a great album. And The Fifth Element was a fun movie. And The Messenger, well, actually The Messenger sucked. Still, that last film notwithstanding, it'd be fine by me if Milla Jovovich dug me.
But, in the meantime, at least one confirmed model/musician digs me, plus one total stranger who might be Milla Jovovich.
So I'm pretty much the lord of all things studly.
I'm so hip my belly has to be extra big just to get noticed. Not since Opus has a shape like mine belonged to such a stud.
Hmm, actually, Opus was sort of nerdy.
Shit.
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So, the night before last, at about 3 am, I stumbled across JillianAnn.com during a random bout of insomniacal surfing. And the first thing that I noticed was that Jillian Ann was cute. I mean really, look at this:
Turns out, she's actually a professional model.
So, given this discovery, I promptly did what most male surfers do when they come across a cute female model's website. I clicked about searching for nudity.
Finding none, I was forced to read.
But I didn't really feel like reading, so I mostly just clicked about in random fashion.
And I discovered a link to a page full of videos of Jillian Ann. And I figured that'd be a promising place to find nudity, so I clicked around. And didn't find nudity. Not even in the video in which Jillian Ann reviews books while bath-tubbing. There is a little bit of butt cheek in a post-Parisian-fetish-party catwalk clip, but it's not Jillian Ann's. (By the way, if you watch that clip, and you're thinking that they're talking about a feminine hygiene product, go ask somebody who speaks French to help you understand what's going on. It's clean. Cleanly, even.)
So I didn't find any nudity to speak of.
But I did find good humor. Not just in the "Ah, that's funny" sense, but also in the cozy warmth of the online persona Jillian Ann projects. See, I'm the sort of person who likes good youth hostels. I like the vibe you get when you put a bunch of twentysomethings in a foreign land, wander them about all day through museums and landscapes and cobblestone alleys, and then gather them up at night in a grungy communal living space, where stories are shared and makeup is shed. People are themselves when they travel. Or they're who they'd wish themselves to be. And they drink too much and stay up too late and wake up too early because the hostel makes them (but usually too late for breakfast) and the world becomes this slightly groggy series of explorations and revelations and conversations with complete strangers who feel like they've always been friends. That's the way I travel, anyway.
And that's the way Jillian Ann's videos felt to me, at 3am the night before last. Like she stayed up too late, woke up too early, had a bunch of experiences and conversations -- some cool, some ordinary, some both or neither -- and she invited us to watch. And if she was cool or funny, that's just because that's the way she is, even when (especially when?) she's groggy or engrogged and she's not wearing any makeup.
So, last night, at about 1am, I took another peak at her website and realized that it had both a Flash and an HTML version. That's the sort of thing you tend to miss at 3am, so all you youngsters out there should stay in school, eat your vegetables, stay off the smack, and surf early. Anyway, if you click to see the Flash version, there's actually a millisecond or two where you see a teaser pic of Jillian Ann wearing a sheer green top. And the same pic (or at least the same top) occasionally flashes on the main Flash site, and I think that's just brilliant. I mean, the Flash version of the site flashed me! It kind of makes you want to just reach out and hug her, except that, if she's only wearing a transparent green top, she might not really feel that comfortable if you suddenly reached out at her from a computer screen. A bit too "A Nightmare on Elm Street" meets Ahnold.
Anyway, you can also find static sheer green top pics here and there about the flash version of the site. So, yeah, bosoms.
Well, "so, yeah, bosoms" might not do it justice. At 1am, my view of the view was more like "Yay! Sweet bosoms!" But, you know, "so, yeah, bosoms" sounds similar enough without being as, well, pathetic-webgawker-seeming.
Anyway, my quest for nudity having been at least partially rewarded, I thought I'd celebrate by reading more of Jillian Ann's stuff instead of just gawking at it. But first I gawked a bit, just to be safe. Like Heinlein said, "gawk first, grok later." Actually, I doubt he said that. I just came up with it, though, and think it was worth typing, carpal tunnel be damned, because you know it's how we really are. (Actually, no we're not. It's really just you, you pathetic webgawker.)
So, back to the reading bit. By which I mean my description of my reading. You haven't stopped reading, silly. Keep up.
Jillian Ann's text is as naked and as sheerly courageous as those bosom pics. It's pretty clear that this is a girl who's been through some not so very lovely things, the sort of things that would (and do) make a lot of other people pretty bitter instead of pretty. Eating disorders. Sexual assault. The nasty things that people with power do to people without. And instead of cowering in a closet and becoming a covered, broken shard of her former self, she writes about it. Sharing her experiences so that others can help get through their own. She links to an awful lot of resources, and I get the sense that she may have built some of them herself. And that's just awesome. And she doesn't just have resources for victims. She also has links for aspiring models, musicians and vegans (as she is, herself, a model, musician, and vegan). And that's just so cool.
Well, maybe not the vegan part. I mean, I'm not advocating the slaughter of little fuzzy critters or anything. 'cept Ewoks. But I'm firmly on the Kate & Leopold side of rich, creamery butter. Life is composed of tastes, and life is less tasty if you can't add milk or eggs to your chocolate. Do treat your heifers and hens with respect, though.
Anyway, back to Jillian Ann. I like her site, and you should check it out. And buy her cd or something if you're into the way she sings. (Not quite my style, though I respect what she's doing.)
And Jillian Ann, if you happen to read this, then this bit of meta-blog's for you. You inspired it all by yourself, so I guess that means you've graduated from artist to muse. Go celebrate!
I suggest more nudity. ;)
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| Subject: | "I just want to know her." |
| Time: | 1:35 pm. |
| Mood: |  contemplative. |
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Back when I was a wee grad student, a company I interned for sent a bigwig to campus to interview folks for the following summer. Well, not so much a bigwig -- her hair was all her own, and normal sized -- but a person of some clout. Her name was Gloria, and she was one of those people who's just charming in a way that leaves an impression. From time to time you'll meet them, the folks who fill a space with their presence but make you feel like you're the important one in the room. Clinton's probably like that.
Anyway, a girl I knew interviewed with Gloria, and then, wandering out of the tiny interview room full of big thoughts, she turned to me and said "I just want to know her."
From time to time, I come across a blog like that. You know, one of those online spaces inhabited by someone who, at least virtually, is just awesome. And you wish you could just reach out and hug them, and then spend several hours chatting with them over drinks and tasty things.
So this blog's about them. The people I just want to know, and who I'm just thrilled to bits to glimpse bits of when they let me.
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frustrated.
accomplished.
horny.
thankful.
giggly.