catherine's pita

friday, september 29, 2000
I'm sure many of you are sick of hearing about the jury duty. Believe me, I am sick of being on the jury. Right now it's 10 to 2, and it's going to be hard to convince the holdouts. Eventually we got the brilliant idea of asking to have testimony read back to us, testimony of three witnesses, which happens to be three-quarters of the testimony. Since it would take the court reporter hours to transcribe it, and the judge and others had to be home by sundown for Rosh Hashanah, we adjourned for the day at 3 p.m., after deliberating for something like four hours, to return on Monday. It never got ugly, thank god, but man was it loud. There's really no way to stop people with strongly held opinions from expressing them at the same time in this situation. I think i might rent Twelve Angry Men tonight.

Remember a few weeks ago when i wanted to bring you the websites of all the ex-Real Worlders? Well someone did it for me. Check out Life After MTV. [via fresh hell]

Weezer are going back into the studio. I must say that of my recent purchases, Pinkerton is one of the most-played. So so so catchy! [via us against them

thursday, september 28, 2000
if you're interested in the ironminds saga at all, read this.

i can't say i've ever used a book as a litmus test for a relationship, but a person's tastes do affect (usually positively) my feelings toward them. If you're a delillo or pynchon or wallace fan, you've got a leg up. if you liked a confederacy of dunces, i don't necessarily hate you. the article is right; just being a reader at all is the most important thing. [via angela]

Well things got a bit more interesting today, with the defendant getting up on the stand. Closing arguments, not exactly fiery but just provocative enough. The judge asked us if we would prefer to continue tomorrow, and most of us did. I'm curious to see how the deliberations will play out.

wednesday, september 27, 2000
A reprieve today, thanks to juror #5, who had a family emergency and could not make it to court. Without her, we could not go on, and so we were dismissed at 10 a.m. Not really sure what to do though: Should I go into work, though it is an extremely nice day, so I can catch up on work and update the pita? Or should I enjoy the lovely day and ask Leanne to post my update since my home computer won't let me? Methinks the latter. [Leanne: feel free to add an editor's note here. *deep breath, as Leanne grabs the mike* yeeHAW! catherine's pita ROCKS my small world. ahem.] All righty, then. I found a couple of links this morning while waiting for my landlord to come and attend to an uncertain toilet. (Folks, there is nothing scarier than a slowly swirling toilet. Last night I had to squelch an impending...movement for fear of the commode. Not a good thing.) Here they are, and if Leanne has completed the huge favor I asked of her (thanks el-dee!), Sunday's update is now below also (scroll down):

Cool craft idea: vinyl flower pots! Of course, then it would be even more upsetting when I kill the plants. [via pearls]

interesting, if a bit overly serious, history of the weblog, via scrubbles.

tuesday, september 26, 2000
More "court cribbings" (thanks to angela for the cute name): Day two. It's almost 12, almost time to go back in for opening statements. They picked the rest of the jury this morning. During the break, which was quite long, I read two more of the Ethan Coen stories (yes, that Ethan Coen) I brought with me. Now there's only one left and I think I'm going to save it. I might also have to nip across the street and see if there are any newsstands around the Citicorp building, which is the only skyscraper in Queens, a huge, turquoise anomaly in Long Island City. I think there's a gourmet sort of supermarket over there where I might get lunch eventually.

Right now the 14 of us have been herded into a small conference room. Everyone is quiet. I just went and called Nate to discuss plans for the Sleater-Kinney show tonight. Nate is in love with Carrie Brownstein. For some reason I think she's more loved than Corin; I get a lot of search requests for her name. And ha, I guess I'll get even more now! Anyway, when they call us back we'll be herded into P-4 for the opening statements. From what the defense attorney was saying during the voir dire, he might not present much of a case. Which I found strange, because although the burden of proof is on the prosecution, doesn't he have an obligation to provide a _vigorous defense_ for his client? [Ed. note: I'm resisting the urge to tell an anecdote about what happened later that day. Does anybody think what I've said here is "discussing the case"?]

I decided the young cop is kind of cute. He's way more dressed down today, in a blue sweater vest over white t-shirt with jeans and very clean work boots. [Ed. note: I've since decided he's not so cute. But one of the bailiffs, though he has a shaved-head-cause-I'm-balding, has very nice, amused blue eyes and an attractive conspiratorial manner with his fellow lazy-ass.]

Okay, it's after lunch, but there's still another half-hour of waiting. Back in the Central Jury Room, where the rule is apparently that only the most inane television programs be screened. Right now it's some horrible talk show. Everybody on it is yelling and every other second there is a bleep. Sometimes it is a very long bleep, extending for several seconds. Relief comes only in the form of a commercial.

I lost my umbrella somewhere over the lunch break in the CitiComplex. I ate a meatball sandwich, then picked up a copy of Vanity Fair, browsed through Estee Lauder's Company Store, then hit the library, where I checked out a Howard Kurtz book called Spin Cycle: How the White House and the Media Manipulate the News. The extra reading material will, I think, turn out to be unnecessary as I was mistaken about there being only one more Coen story. There are actually about four more, which I didn't realize because there are two pages of contents. Most of the stories are pretty funny, laugh-out-loud funny even. Not very weighty, but definitely with that Coen brothers feel. Recommended.

monday, september 25, 2000
dear readers, i am writing this entry from Brooks Restaurant, a green-wallpapered, yellow-ceilinged establishment in Court Square, Long Island City. The tap beer is all tapped out. I wish i had a laptop so i could update the pita for real. I wish i had a cell phone. Instead i have a Heineken and my notebook. It's lunch break, and there is another potential juror across the restaurant. He is drinking a coke and staring at his bread. I have no bread. The only time i really drink Heineken is when i'm at irving plaza and somehow it tastes better there. And my food is already here. That was ridiculously quick. I wanted a decent beer but i guess it's all right. My mushroom swiss burger is pretty good at least.

So if i get picked for the jury, this week will probably consist of entries like this, written in my notebook and then retyped later. It will be kind of like how tom claims blue lines once was (stuff he wrote on the "blue lines" of the london tube). Except mine will be writting during jury duty. And mine will not have a cute name b/c i can't think of one right now. ideas?

i haven't been officially selected yet. [ed. note: yes i have. i am juror #8.] after a couple of hours cooling our heels in the Central Jury Room, they herded us into Part 4 (why courtrooms are called parts? i don't know), the domain of Judge Joel F. Blumenfeld. they selected names at random, and i was the twelfth one called. up in the jury box, we had to answer the same basic questions from the judge -- where were you born, how long have you lived in queens, how much schooling have you had, have you or a close friend or relative ever been a victim of, witness to, or convicted of a crime (which i liked to since everyone else had to be, too; i mean, i have friends who've been raped and had their cars stolen and i've seen my share of illicit drug use and jaywalking, not to mention noise violations, but these hardly seem relevant, and the point is to find out if you have any biases as a result of these experiences, which i don't, so i have a pretty clear conscience). i was apparently deemed acceptable. i am definitely the cutest person in the jury box, which is really not that great of a distinction. there are no cute boys anywhere, which was of course the first thing i looked for upon setting foot in the Central Jury Room. there is an extremely wrinkled, over-70 woman [ed note: she was excused, i suspect for potential bias against police officers because they did not find the three bikes that were stolen from her unlocked home, and probably also for extreme stupidity]; a subway conductor who witnessed a murder; a jamaican woman who called the cops on her child-molesting husband [ed. note: agh!]; a young police officer who seems like a very stand-up guy, the best-dressed in the place; a dirty russian with bad breath who sits next to me [ed. note: excused, thank god, due, i bet, to admitted, then rescinded bias towards all police officers on account of an incorrect report they made in some car accident he was involved in -- a clear, and successful, attempt to wriggle out of his civic duty]; and various other longtime queensians. i was the only one born in ohio.

we still have to be questioned by the prosector and the defense attorney. did i say it's probably going to be boring? the charges all center around a stolen car. ho hum. i wish it was something like that murder case i reported on back in delaware. that was way more interesting. the judge hopes to have the case to us by thursday. i think that means the evidence would all be presented by then. so four days, at least, of getting up extra early and crushing onto the 7. wonderful. and no cute boys. and eating in shit restaurants. i do believe in civic duty, though, and it might, it has a tiny chance of being an interesting look into the workings of the criminal justice system. i used to be really into that shit.

okay now it's me in real time again. the defense attorney asked me some dumb question about what if the prosecution proved some of the elements of the case but not all of them, what would i do, or some shit, that was so ridiculously vague i had to call him on it. i think his point was to convey that it is necessary for us to listen to the judge's instructions as far as the law is concerned. i also spouted some crap about reasonable doubt which meant that i knew what it was, which probably made me seem like a genius and thus desirable. maybe? anyway, like i said, i'm juror #8.

what does this mean for you, the faithful pita reader? i had some links i tried to post yesterday, from home, but aol was acting very contrary and kept trying to blame it on my modem. i will try to post them tonight when i get home. (i got out of jury duty at 3:30 and came to work because i won't be here for a few days.) so: scroll down later on for yesterday's entry, if you don't see it below. i will most likely be posting daily notebook jottings; although the judge instructed us not to talk about the case, he said nothing about whether or not you're allowed to write on your personal weblog about it. ha.

sunday, september 24, 2000
blogging from home on a sunday because a) it's cold and gray outside and i'm afraid of the television after that movie i told you about, b) it's a good thing to be doing while listening to new music, and c) i will very likely not be at work tomorrow, due to the fact that i will be doing my civic duty down at the queens county courthouse. oh yes, register to vote and a few months later, jury duty. unfortunately i didn't find out in time to tell my boss in person. it's a very weird system. i got my "summons" in the mail over a month ago, and it said not to show up, but to "begin calling" on august 25. so, with no deadline, there really was no incentive for me to call. i finally did out of boredom on friday around 6, and it told me i had to be there at 9 a.m. on monday. oops! good thing i called, huh? anyway i hope it's either fast or interesting. both would be great. i don't usually leave my house until around 9:30, so this is annoying. i really don't want to have to get up early several days in a row.

i did something unprecedented this weekend and went to both shows of a band's two-night stand. i'm glad i did, too: first of all because modest mouse is such a kickass band that one should take every opportunity to see them, but also because the shows were different enough that it wasn't redundant. i think i had more fun the first night, because they played more jump-around-and-go-crazy dance songs, like "doin' the cockroach" and "cowboy dan" and "tiny cities made of ashes" (though everyone does not seem to feel this song quite as much as i) and "all nite diner" and oh my god, "trucker's atlas" (love that song). plus the wonderful "talking shit about a pretty sunset." isaac did the thing where he screams into his guitar pickups, which is always fun. the second night he seemed a bit more insane, the energy was higher, and we got more pretty songs, like "grey ice water" and "trailer trash," plus "neverending math equation" and "out of gas." and lots of songs from the new album that i don't necessarily know the names of. i left tired and happy both nights, and even bought a t-shirt and a limited-edition (numbered, even) polaroid poster somehow affiliated with this website, which appears to be down at the moment.

a somewhat mean-spirited discussion of dubya's dyslexia. of course, it hasn't been proved that he has it, or even if that's to blame for his utter cluelessness, but a good, scary read nonetheless. [via the web today]

although he was a bit weird when asked about it at the screening, word is that darren aronofsky will be making the next "batman" movie. which would of course be awesome.

friday, september 22, 2000
last night i went to an advance screening of darren aronofsky's requiem for a dream. i don't know how well i can talk about it without giving away the ending, because in a sense it is all ending. once you see it you'll know what i mean. and you should see it. but be warned: this movie will clean you out. i have probably never felt so utterly destroyed by a movie. remember how you felt after "leaving las vegas"? it's close to that. there was a post-screening Q&A with darren, but all i could think of to ask was an anguished "why???" (which he actually alluded to -- apparently he gets that a lot). linnea had to leave, which i understood, but i couldn't really even move. it's that powerful. see, it draws you in right from the beginning, as if aronofsky is massaging your temples or something, but about halfway through it's more like he still has you by the head but he's whizzing you around in circles and by the end he's smashing you repeatedly into the ground. thank god there are a handful of tension-releasing laughs or it would be extremely hard to take. it's also a really stylish film, with tons of cool shots and effects and a fantastic score (performed by the kronos quartet; i might even get the soundtrack), all of which helps distract from the constantly increasing horror. and all of the actors are amazing: jared leto as a brooklyn boy who becomes a junkie; jennifer connelly as his would-be designer girlfriend; marlon wayons (who knew he could act?) as his best friend; and ellen burstyn in an oscar-worthy performance as his mom, whose own addictions (to tv and diet pills) are just as, if not more harrowing than the drug problems of the kids. to sum up: stylish, captivating, eviscerating. see it.

and now for some relevant links: one two three interviews with aronofsky, circa his last movie, pi. check out the director's diary during the making of it, too. for "requiem," which opens october 6, there's a review, and another (which wrongly says that it is based on the hubert selby, jr. book "last exit to brooklyn," when it's actually based on selby's "requiem for a dream"). that seems to be all for the moment.

this is disgusting, even more reprehensible than marketing violent movies to kids. it's the idea of getting all excited about marketing _anything_ to two-year-olds. i'm talking about children's books that are pure advertisement, for things like m&m's, fruit loops, and the like. besides the sheer ridiculousness of having to put snacks actually inside the books to get kids to read, which is gross enough, just look at that picture! you can almost see that tiny toddler being trained as a good consumer. ugh.

thursday, september 21, 2000
i'm certainly a sucker for the silly emode tests. if you're bored, might as well find out what flavor you are. like fresh, i'm mocha: intense, rich and a little complex. which is interesting, sort of, because i LOVE mocha. in fact i just had a frozen mocha blast from au bon pain not too long ago. if you buy 4 you get the fifth free. i'm just hoping i get to #5 before the "season" is over, cause you know, it's "seasonal." today was probably the last day i had for what had become an enjoyable summer lunching experience: eating a thai chicken sandwich and frozen mocha blast while listening to my discman in the sunny plaza with the blue-water fountain next to the ziegfeld. today it was windy and just a bit too chilly, because the only sun comes from a reflection off the building across the street. you could actually see the sun in the glass, could probably even go blind, because it looks just as intense. intense...mocha...i have no point.

you know, i don't really care one way or the other whether a guy holds a door open for me, but boy do i love it when they stick their arm in the closing elevator doors.

lou barlow dumps on everything he's ever released. i can understand the self-loathing, but c'mon lou. worrying about your musical legacy is lame. tons of kids love your music, isn't that enough?

fun wilco news: jeff tweedy is scoring, and wilco will appear in, ethan hawke's directorial debut. and can i just say that i saw them tuesday night, and they were fabulous. they're the kind of band whose live show is so amazing that when you go home and listen to the cd again you're kind of disappointed.

take a face. stretch it a bit, add or subtract features, make it ugly, hideous, alienlike, anything you wish! this is the fun of the face generator. [via wisdom]

wednesday, september 20, 2000
amusing stick-figure parodies of scenes from "fight club." [via pith]

for people who really love the high-heeled shoe: the shoe chair.

tuesday, september 19, 2000
thanks to a kind boss, i'm off early this rainy afternoon to see nurse betty. sorry for the tiny update.

the crazies at women.com just launched a comic strip. hey, fun, right? well, actually, kind of insulting: the character's name is lacey brazeer. need i say more?

monday, september 18, 2000
ironminds is publishing again, leading off with an editor's letter that explains very little about their actual situation except that these kids think they're, like, fighting the good fight or something. i guess they could be, but if so, tell us what's really going on, huh? i don't need a rehash of your "executive summary."

gore's official campaign song is by some '80s group called the call.

my weekend was fine, thanks. i bought a whole bunch of junk at a flea market in englishtown, new jersey. everything was five bucks or less: a blue golf umbrella of dubious quality, some not-socks, an old r.e.m. t-shirt, and the find of the day (and reason for the post, really), a keychain laser pointer. i've been wanting one of these for quite some time now, and the hilarity that ensued when my cat caught sight of it did not disappoint. little xena skittered from one end of the apartment to the other in pursuit of the little red dot, with a level of enthusiasm that no toy has ever provoked. i felt kind of bad whenever i would turn it off, because she would continue to look for it for a long time. i hope it doesn't mess with her head too much. it's going to be great for exercise though. (apparently someone has patented that idea.)

other bargain finds: arise therefore by will oldham/palace music, not that you'd know it from the packaging, and a great ep from jurassic 5. both for $5.99, at the wall of all places.

friday, september 15, 2000
so bush has finally agreed to the debates. should be pretty entertaining. i just wish they would lower the 15 percent standard so nader could get in on it and possibly force the candidates to speak in more specific terms, and on issues that might otherwise not even be discussed. you can monitor how the candidates are doing in the polls here.

opinions on kid a: for avowed, vehement un-fans, both tom and fred like it a lot, though they can't quite bring themselves to say it's good; kempa slams it; pitchfork gives it a perfect 10 in a very annoying manner.

do i really need internet access in a cab? the answer is no, i do not. i sit in front of this thing all day. if i don't know where i'm going when i hail the taxi or what the weather is like, the palm is not going to help me. i obviously have bigger problems.

thursday, september 14, 2000
whitney talks about her experiences as an intern at this very magazine where i toil, now, still, at 10:42 p.m. on a thursday night. actually i'm just waiting for the car home (perks, see, are key). i would say it's a little different as a paid employee than as an intern: as a matter of fact it's true that they're treated like shit. i don't even know their names, partly because i'm out of the loop and partly because no editor ever refers to them by their names. it's always "ask an intern" or "my intern will do it." it's terrible. and when you're full-time, you don't care that much if you don't wear the pointy stilettos. for instance tonight i didn't go to a fancy party precisely because there would be lots of people in pointy stilettos -- the very definition of not-my-scene. where the fuck is that car??

spin's top 100 sleaziest moments in rock. i would tell you which one is my "favorite" but honestly, a lot of them gross me out. and i feel like i should read the rest of them in the magazine. i skimmed through it upon receiving my copy in the mail -- another publication i don't really read. my boss and i were just talking about the difficulty of finding the time to read all the magazines, read a book, do your job, etc. it's just too much STUFF!

i am managing to keep up a fairly good clip on the book front, though. lolita was fantastic; i'd probably put it high up on my list of best-ever if i bothered about such things. paul auster's timbuktu was sweet but uncomplicated. and now i'm on don delillo's libra, which is an interesting novelization of the kennedy assassination. so far so good.

oh my god, karenna gore can rap. and yet...her results on the gen-x test are poor.

this northwest-centric story talks about the low-budget life of many modest-selling bands, the benefits of being on an indie label versus a major, etc. thanks sam!

interview with modest mouse, who are coming to new york next weekend, which you probably already know if you're a fan...so maybe i'll be helpful and supply the tour dates.

wednesday, september 13, 2000
humorous photo of the clintons' dog attacking bill's crotch, via malapropism.

my prayers have been answered! rhett miller from the old 97s is coming back to nyc for two shows at fez! he seems to have an unusual affinity for this city for a texan. he'll probably be playing new songs at these solo shows, sept 30 and october 11 -- randi, or anyone else, are you down?

did anybody see letterman last night? in case you missed it, and i don't think many news shows would have played the clip, g.w. bush said the word "subliminable" four times. four! the man is just mind-bogglingly dumb.

i suppose tom's moral defense of his downloading the radiohead album is reasonable: he considers himself a reviewer, not a fan; he's not sharing it on napster; and he wouldn't have paid for it anyway. but i'm pretty sure that a lot of the fans out there who are getting it for free aren't going to then pay for it. an example from my own experience: i taped a copy of a friend's advance cd of beck's last album. did i buy it in stores when it came out? no, because i already had the music. why bother? anyway, what inside.com is not connected enough to know i got from tom: a bunch of dutch hackers cracked the supposedly impregnable device that is referred to in the article referenced yesterday. i suppose this just means that even the most careful security measures are always going to be breachable. it's up to the consumer to have the conscience. and as a fan, i'm just irritated by the loss of fun and anticipation i get when someone tells me, yeah, it's great, i'm listening to it right now.

tuesday, september 12, 2000
ooh, kelly and susan from "survivor" are going to duke it out on tonight's politically incorrect.

interesting story about advance leaks of entire albums on napster. word is that radiohead has thus far avoided the problem with a combination of low- and high-tech restrictions, so how is it that fred already has a review of the album (out oct. 3) on his site? if these are live versions of the tracks listened to in order, rather than the real thing, doesn't he owe it to readers to say so? (just my full-disclosure brill's-content sensibilities...) update: kempa reveals that it's online here, which is just wrong, in my opinion.

wow. the bush campaign is running an ad that has the word RATS as a subliminal message in it. there is no way that's accidental.

the washington post says george magazine is good now. think i'll pick up a copy at lunchtime. it'll probably remain 75 percent unread like most of the magazines i buy, though. the deathtown, u.s.a. story praised by the writer as extraordinary is actually online, i learned on medianews. there's also a feature on how little marshall mathers became a badass, and, good lord, it looks like dang near the whole magazine!

speaking of mags i don't really bother with anymore, i will not be buying a copy of brill's content, in protest of their newly stingy online practices. while they used to offer whole features on their site, now they throw up just one measly paragraph of this cover story on dubya's media strategy.

monday, september 11, 2000
hi! i think the only link i'm going to be able to manage today is going to be pilfered from linnea. then we might have a little quiz. we'll see. if you're good. anyway, give these folks some info and they'll sketch your face! fun!

friday, september 8, 2000
here's a great roundup of the mtv video awards. i actually enjoyed it because it was so bad: "how awful is this britney spears version of 'satisfaction'? are the wayans brothers the lamest awards show hosts ever?" etc.

interesting, though incompetently edited, story about a court decision that impacts the legality of linking.

attention lovers of hard music: god forbid, who just finished laying down four tracks for their next album, have an exclusive mp3 available for download, for all you mp3 lovers. i'm sure it's bone-shakingly good.

i wonder if god forbid has ever played any of these tour games.

thursday, september 7, 2000
prize for ironic statement of the day goes to the people who will be protesting against eminem outside the mtv video music awards tonight (though it's not a direct quote, it's the writer talking, so who knows): "The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the National Organization For Women don't believe Eminem (born Marshall Mathers), whose multi-platinum "The Marshall Mathers LP" contains what many perceive to be anti-homosexual rhymes and features a fantasy about the rapper murdering his wife, deserves the media attention."

a little story about that radiohead listening party i was unlucky enough to not get into. and another. and, lions and tigers and bears, another!

uh, did i mention i like freaks and geeks? in case you need another testimonial, feed weighs in. the episode it talks about was shocking in its depiction of kim's body-wracking rage. and absolutely hilarious.

also from feed, an ode to the endangered species of the phone booth. i have to say that i don't think i've actually stepped inside an actual booth in a long time. it would be stretching it to say ever, but i'm tempted. you just don't see them anymore, and yes, it's sad. boo-hoo, etc.

some people love "the real world" a lot. enough, even, to create fan pages for their favorite cast member. i present: the danny fan page. and then you have the professionally designed but still somewhat strange official danny site. i was going to do a search for more real worlder web sites, but i'm sure there's something more constructive i should/could be doing. [via eskimo]

wow. kempa has gone and created a page dedicated entirely to edward scissorhands minutiae. nothing less than enlightening.

wednesday, september 6, 2000
interview with quentin tarantino by dennis hopper, circa '94. from the overflowing archives of a mag called grand street, via metascene.

via whitney, whose quip-filled chat i look forward to every wednesday, we have moviepooper.com, for those occasions when you just have to know what happened at the end. strangely, i could not bring myself to look at the ending for "bring it on."

interview with cameron crowe. didja know he's married to nancy wilson from 80s band heart?

i didn't get in. but at least i got a button...? standing on line for almost two hours, with no hint from the organizers about what was going on, + stepping in a mixture (i hope) of mud and horse poo while walking back to the subway along central park south = shitty evening. at least i got home in time to catch a really funny episode of "freaks and geeks," one i hadn't seen before, on fox family channel, which is running two episodes every tuesday night.

robert altman, whose next movie comes out in october, says he will move to france if bush wins. we should all be so lucky....

tuesday, september 5, 2000
hoping to get in to a listening party tonight for the upcoming radiohead album. i'd let you know where and when, but then my chances would be that much slimmer, wouldn't they? (the first 200 fans lined up will make it in.) instead you'll just have to content yourself with this little sneak preview, which calls Kid A "noisy, ambient, self-indulgent, polyrhythmic, liberating, unnatural and, ultimately, defiant." now you don't even need to hear it, right?

friday, september 1, 2000
r.i.p. ironminds.

some chuckles in this "b. werde" piece (don't let 'em track ya down, bill) about drug use in new york colleges. starting with the amusingly alliterative subhed.