March 2012
0 posts
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"adulthood"
I’ve latched onto a complex idea but cannot properly organize its components! This is probably because it is Leap Day. Around the world, adults are turning five, six, seven and eight years old.
The brain isn’t working so well lately. I must spring clean it soon. There is an upcoming opportunity to buy a spring wardrobe and I have no idea what I want to look like once it gets warm...
February 2012
8 posts
swans and lakes
Sometimes I wish that instead of talking, people would just sort of grandly gesture at each other, the way they do in the plot-advancing part of ballets. It wouldn’t save time, but the number of headaches in the world would decrease.
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i put the "adios" in radios
Couple o’ buds of mine are doing a grand ol’ radio show called LIT RADIO. They read short stories and nonfiction. It’s like story time, only not in preschool. Stream it live every Monday at 1pm HERE. And oh yeah, they’re on tumblr.
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“Not About Love” — Fiona Apple
...
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a disturbing pattern
Recently, at a certain bar in the town where I go to school, I have fallen victim to a conversational scam. Here it is: a man under the age of thirty approaches me at the bar for some light chit-chat.
“Nice scarf.” ”Cold out.” ”I like your glasses.” “Whiskey on the rocks! Ho, ho, ho, that’s a drink!”
Inevitably the man asks me if I am in...
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"some tracks just like to party. they came to get...
Right now David Choe is a big deal because he’s making $200M for painting a mural in the original Facebook office, but back in 2005 he was a big deal to me because he had the best playlist in Thurston Moore’s book about mixtapes.
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vittles
The Paris Review Daily has recently displayed much ardor for retro gormandizing. Both Robin Bellinger’s experiments with “invalid cookery” and Sadie Stein’s fascination with a cookbook from 1917 called A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband make for wonderful essays. I can see why one would be intrigued by “boubons with tomato sauce” or “chilly cubes of...
January 2012
11 posts
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I reviewed Lana Del Rey's album for The Gallant. →
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“There is also another small curious bird, concerning which there are...”
– Adrien van der Donck, a Dutch colonist, couldn’t decide whether a hummingbird was a bird or a bee. For some reason this strikes me as wonderfully innocent. I imagine there was a lot of tense observation: “Wait! I see it! There! Yes, that’s definitely a bird! Wait! It’s...
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hey word nerds!
This website will be your new best friend. It has a pretty extensive list of “adjectives of relation,” all of which are perfect for David Foster Wallace-style sentences. Use these and send your readers straight to the dictionary.
aurantiaceous: of, like or pertaining to oranges or orange trees
hypnopompic: of, like or pertaining to the period between sleep and wakefulness
...
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snippet with father in front of television
Dad (after watching a commercial for GoutInfo.com): “The World Wide Web is a wonderful place! Before the Internet, people with gout had to suffer in SILENCE! Now they have a WEB SITE!”
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hello, this is a hamburger recommendation
Kuma’s Corner* in Chicago. All of the burgers are named after metal bands. Metal plays in the background all the time at a volume that makes the rumbling guitars and bass sound vaguely digestive. Metal music is the perfect eating music. Speed metal is the best because you can eat to the beat.
I ordered the Mastodon: BBQ sauce, cheddar, bacon and frizzled onions. The pretzel bun...
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gallantry
I just started writing for this groovy website called The Gallant; it’s all about fashion/music/tech for men/guys/dudes. I’m not a dude but sometimes I enjoy trying to think like one. I’ll be penning the posts about stuff/things/gadgets/doodads. Check it out!
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good things to read
Chuck Klosterman on Mountain Dew: “You know what I never get? I never get food poisoning. Ever. I don’t get food poisoning when I eat poison.”
Thornton Wilder’s effervescent telegrams: “IF YOU ARE ECONOMIZING ENERGY DISREGARD THIS WIRE EXCEPT ITS LAST WORDS VIZ THAT I SIMMER IN HAPPY ANTICIPATION”
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the black sheep of the house
(Discussing Lorelai’s house in Gilmore Girls, specifically how it looks tiny in interior shots and mysteriously larger in exterior shots)
Giao: “Maybe there’s a guest bedroom that no one talks about.”
December 2011
12 posts
8 tags
2011
BEER OF THE YEAR: IJwit, Brouwerij t’IJ, Amsterdam
ALBUM OF THE YEAR: Tennis, Cape Dory
MODE OF TRANSPORTATION OF THE YEAR: train
SONG OF THE YEAR: Battles, “Futura”; Beyoncé, “Love on Top” (tie)
WEIRD FICTION OF THE YEAR: Marie Calloway, ”Adrien Brody”
BREAKFAST OF THE YEAR: eggs Benedict, Saratoga Springs/Brooklyn/Burlington
PANTS OF THE YEAR:...
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the kids are kind of alright
Today it was 22 degrees Fahrenheit. I saw three teenage girls sporting hooded sweatshirts in Easter egg hues. On their heads were the flat-brim fitted baseball caps typical of teenage boys — tokens from their boyfriends, probably. Any time you see a high schooler dressed inappropriately for the weather, somewhere there’s a corresponding parent, shaking their head in defeat.
Later I...
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more lady mag criticism
Reading Glamour or Vogue or InStyle around the holidays is surreal; decoding the editorial choices of certain lady magazines reveals a stunning difference between the imagined average reader between January and November and that same woman in December. January-November Woman is a balancing act, a careerist who might want or already have children, who wants to be single and have great sex...
wow!
“Bake cake” is bake kake in Norwegian.
best names
Horst P. Horst
Robbie Robertson
William Carlos Williams
EDIT! Ford Madox Ford
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this thrilling but disconcerting time
This essay, which is all about our inability to make any kind of cultural advancement in the past twenty years, has me in a tizzy. While the argument is legitimate — Kurt Andersen correctly writes, “You can…see that the characteristic surfaces and sounds of each historical moment are absolutely distinct from those of 20 years earlier or later” — some of the examples...
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“Above all things a first novel should be (1) lascivious, (2) impossible, and (3)...”
– Alex Carnevale, “The 100 Greatest Novels”
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agreeable abs, impeccable pecs
Anyone who has ever watched MTV for long periods of time has seen at least one of those BOD fragrance-for-men commercials. (They usually air in pairs or trios.) Terrible techno music throbs suggestively, perfect male specimens cavort shirtless on a sports field, and a breathy female voice intones, “I want your bod.” In good moods these ads are merely hilarious; in testy moods, they...
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uggs
Feet look unintelligent in Ugg boots. It’s the blunting, stunted effect of the round, mushy toes. Those who choose to wear Uggs would be wise to sport a pair of truly stellar spectacles as well — the smart-looking noggin will balance the dumb feet.
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a story about red velvet pancake puppies
A couple of weeks ago I was home for Thanksgiving for a few days, and one night I went out to the Burlington bars with my home-friends. We ended up at a club that embodies the word ‘sketchy’ to the fullest degree. The walls there were covered with mirrors. The only way to resolve anything was to dance: not on the main dance floor whose DJ was playing various Rihanna remixes and...
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recent fascinating wikipedia articles
List of people who have claimed to be Jesus
Alien abduction insurance
November 2011
10 posts
5 tags
bacon bits
There’s not much to report as of late, except that Pat and Gina have been making some especially good-looking dishes on Down Home With the Neelys, including a scrumptious stovetop mac & cheese. Watching Gina stir the cheese sauce reminded me of the time last summer when I was shopping for mac & cheese ingredients and accidentally bought a five oz. block of Gruyère that cost eleven...
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visa problems
Saw Like Crazy last night. Visually and sonically it has Sophia Coppola written all over it, with lots of pastels and beautiful, minimal interior decoration. Something about the film set and Dustin O’Halloran’s piano score has the power to induce intense sadness. Did The Virgin Suicides condition me to feel upset at the first sight of flowy white skirts and pale blue nail polish?
...
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yankee magazine
This morning in the office I was instructed to make paper-chain garlands out of old magazines. Here are a few things I learned from completing this task.
Yankee Magazine uses a lovely muted color palette for fall. Lots of browns and dark greens and different shades of cranberry.
They also often accentuate still-life photo editorials with maple leaves.
Sweet potato pie looks time-consuming to...
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"We're, frankly, amazed that word has leaked out... →
Thank you, Awl, for relaying this story — and on my birthday, too! That quote is solid gold.
hello internet!
I’m on the fourth floor of the library, applying Chap Stick to my lips with preventative fervor. Two waves of library-goers have come and gone and I’m still here. My coffee is cold. What news? The new Atlas Sound is really great. I am murdering my to-do list. I came in when the sun was up, and now the sun is down; leaving the library will give me that just-left-the-movie-theater...
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ask me about my plans
Yesterday was so nice because I went to a quiet place and drank some powerful coffee and did things on my computer. I futzed with one of my short stories, I copyedited essays for the catalog of an art show, I wrote a music review and a short essay.
The writing and the editing and the music-reviewing are the things I would like to do for money in the future. When people ask me about my...
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diff'rent strokes
Nick and I were watching television. A Victoria’s Secret commercial came on, the kind that combines militaristic stomping with giant Big Bird wings and lip gloss that looks like it tastes good. ”Wow,” I said, “look at those bouncing boobs”; simultaneously, Nick exclaimed, “Hey, that’s the new M83 song!”
October 2011
10 posts
8 am tip
Pour yourself a cup of coffee, then pour yourself a cup of water. Set them next to each other. You are your own waitress!
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“I Don’t Like Mondays” —...
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syracuse university
At the football game there was a blonde baton twirler in a sparkly outfit. She barely did any twirling until the halftime performance, and her inactivity prompted my sister to wonder if the twirler had a stomachache or some other ailment. The guy three rows in front of us wore a homemade t-shirt and drank approximately fifteen beers. The announcer said something positive about wide receiver...
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some lady-magazine criticism
Normally the quality and substance of the writing in Elle magazine beats most other glossy monthlies of its kind: it’s less bourgeois than the articles in Vogue, and even the frilly stuff like the advice column and the beauty editors’ Botox ventures are made more palatable by its wit. But the October issue is a bit disappointing. One article is Irina Aleksander’s paean to the...
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whiting tennis...
…has a show at the Tang and gave a talk last night with Ian Berry, the man who curated his show. Art talks at the Tang are worthwhile for the free coffee and snacks and the chance of seeing someone with an alternative haircut*. But the best part of Whiting Tennis’ talk was his tiny smile when Berry announced it was his first solo museum show. Plus, Whiting Tennis has a great assumed...
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art :: life
That scene in Bring It On when the girls try to catch the Spirit Stick falling in slow motion:: that scene in Superbad when Evan tries to catch the airborne bottle of Goldschlager on the bus :: this morning in the shower when I tried to catch the bottle of shampoo that had slipped out of my hands.
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spinadoodles
Got my copy of The Burning in the mail today. It’s awesome. Anyone who enjoys non-superhero James Kochalka-style comics would do well to visit Sam Spina’s blog. Also, anyone who likes cats, or diaries, or nostalgia.
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abominaccino
“They still had the doughnuts but I recognised none of the staff. I ordered a cappuccino. When it was prepared I looked in horror: it was like a Knickerbocker Glory with foam piled high like cream in a tall glass.
“What on earth is that?” I demanded.
“A cappuccino,” the waitress said proudly.
“Well that’s where you’re wrong,” I said....