|
|
|
thursday, november 30, 2000 but the funniest thing i've seen all day has got to be this, one seemingly otherwise normal guy's gallery of pictures of himself wearing women's clothes. in public. [via jejune] it seems ridiculous to say that this election thing is getting surreal, but today they were showing aerial pictures of a speeding rental truck carrying ballots from west palm beach to tallahassee. mr. vice president, o.j. simpson; it's all the same. the venerable new york times even included this passage: No one wanted to speculate on what would happen if the truck were involved in a fender-bender, and the rear door flew open, and some of the metal boxes fell out, and thousands of ballots blew into ditches and high grass and orange groves. you should check out these crazy photographs by a 30-year-old man-child. that's him in all of them. workin', workin', workin'.... i'll try to come up with some links in the next couple of hours but in the meantime, don't you want to know what i'm doing tonight? i'm kind of excited: it's a bar called welcome to the johnsons, done in the style of a 70s suburban rec room. citysearch suggests a cocktail of jack and root beer (on tap). and then vanessa is dragging me to see they might be giants, which i agreed to even though i secretly have kind of an antipathy toward them (kind of like my ninth-grade latin teacher told me he had toward me). vanessa is so good about agreeing to come see all my crazy-named favorite bands that i had to say yes. i'm building a little birdhouse in my soul special for tonight.
wednesday, november 29, 2000 sorry for the lack of updateage, people, but miss holly asked me to build her a web page so she could store her online clips, despite the fact that she works for a a website and could probably learn something from the endeavor. (she is "too busy" to do it herself.) so i've been doing that for much of the day. like i'm a damn designer. don't worry, it's not slave labor. she's taking me to dinner. someplace *expensive* i'm sure. heh.
tuesday, november 28, 2000 wheee! rhett miller is coming back to new york for two shows at fez, december 11 and 12. if you want to go, email me immediately so i can make reservations. so i joined hundreds of others in times square at lunch to take a look at david blaine, the hot magician currently encased in a 6-ton block of ice. it's kind of a crock, though: first of all, when he started out, he was wearing only a hat and pants. now he has a sweater on. how did he get that sweater on? plus, i remember him saying that if he had an itch he could not scratch it. i watched him scratch his shoulder, shift on his feet, etc. he has plenty of room in there, because the ice has to be melting around him because of his body heat and the warm air they're pumping in so he can breathe. but who doesn't love a spectacle? you can catch the ABC special tomorrow at 10. after finding my way back up through the maze of police barriers, i nipped in to the evil virgin megastore. i decided i had better try out my new mastercard debit card (welcome to the modern world, citibank!) in case it didn't work, purchasing the following (who doesn't love a list?): grandaddy, under the western freeway. purchased because i remember someone comparing this album to weezer. i need the hooks.
monday, november 27, 2000 betsy drops the news that there is a best american magazine writing. how cool! maybe it will allow me to dispose of my stacks of magazines, many of which are being saved because they have articles that should be read. so, just what i need right? more to read. hmmmm.... but one thing that really bugs me about amazon: why don't they, when they surely could, include a table of contents for anthologies and the like? it would be so incredibly useful, and make me more likely to buy it from them, rather than from a real live bookstore where i would be able to see what's actually in the book. salon breaks down the numbers to show how the florida votes, had they all been counted properly and on time, could have stacked up in his favor. sometimes, even in its election coverage, the new york times is good for a laugh. check out this picture of a bug-eyed election worker examining a ballot. at once hilarious and frightening. a terrible shame about robert downey, huh? i hope he can beat the charges somehow. it would be even more terrible if this affected his romance with ally. they're so cute together! a sharp reader wrote in to tell me that I was mistaken on the matter of the plural of chad. according to webster's, the definition of chad is "small pieces of paper or cardboard produced in punching paper tape or data cards; also: a piece of chad." I stand corrected. but it still bothers me. i don't really appreciate the preachy-toned advice at the end of this quiz that rates your risk of being murdered, but it's good to know that even in new york city, i'm pretty safe. [via jejune] spin cops out, proclaiming that the album of the year is the computer hard drive. it may be true that napster had more influence on the music industry than any one piece of music, but shouldn't spin be focused on the art, rather than the commerce? it's a good gimmick, i guess. but albums are not obsolete, napster will never make them so, and spin should fucking pick one. album of the year should be an album. duh. last night's x-files was surprisingly, stunningly good. I was literally on the edge of my seat, my stomach twisting around at the grossness of it all. and that is a good thing. maybe this season can be good after all? if you're like me, you want (or wanted) to see unbreakable. I hate to say this, because I got very mad when a little chinese woman repeatedly told me at the ticket window that "it's not a good movie," but she was right: it was severely disappointing. yes, it had the artful quality of "the sixth sense," cool camera angles, good bruce willis, engrossing story (if a little slow, which I have a high tolerance for) -- right up until the truly awful ending. the buildup was great, until you realized with the so-called twist (which, I hate to be smug, but I predicted halfway in) that the payoff was utterly inconsequential. instead of casting the whole movie in a different light, as in "the sixth sense," it rendered it pointless. you're waiting waiting waiting for the big something to happen, because the whole movie is building toward it, and when it does, you're like "so? and?" a huge letdown. after seeing it, my brother and father and I snuck in to see charlie's angels, which was low on laughs and high on lip gloss, but fun enough in a brain-dead kind of way. just like a summer blockbuster (in november) should be.
wednesday, november 22, 2000 bush, gore, and south park. not really work-appropriate. [via fark.com] if you have a macintosh, let it snow on your desktop! not much has been said about disenfranchised black voters, but it's becoming painfully clear that the florida vote was/is hopelessly fucked up in a lot of ways. also in this column: did you know tom delay, the house majority leader, is prepared to block any move to elect gore in congress when it meets to accept the results of the electoral college? the joy of bombing: all about graffiti culture. some of the reporters covering the unelection are getting very, very bored. funny stuff from a nytimes scribe. and a follow-up to that from a newsday reporter. i still don't really understand the whole "pool" thing though. update: angela weighs in with a definition of the press pool: the definition of a press pool is basically that, in order to prevent every reporter in tarnation from going to the same place, the print, tv, and radio media pick a select few to go to a destination to report on something, then these reporters share their notes with the other print, tv, and radio folks who were not "lucky" enough to be part of the press pool. i am the sole representative of the copy department here at work today and will likely have absolutely nothing to do all day. feel free to send me email or even prank calls (if you know my phone number, that is -- i don't think i'm going to be posting that here).
tuesday, november 21, 2000 leanne burned her new wool coat. the picture made me laugh. guffaw, really. i had suggested she put some funky patches on the coat, but somehow i don't think that's gonna do it. well, i'm not sure i believe it, but reportedly drew and tom really were supposed to get married on "Saturday Night Live," but drew got cold feet. [via betsy] argh.... i had totally forgotten that today is the day i have to go sit through a seminar on sexual harassment in the workplace, even though i work with about 85 percent women. at least my boss is in the same group though, so we won't be alone as we check out the scene at the hip hudson hotel. supposedly even the lobby is happening at night.
monday, november 20, 2000 mmmm, that was nice. had lunch out, for a change, with holly at mercury bar. fish 'n' chips 'n' OJ. the OJ cause i'm sick, offensively enough. (i never get sick. in fact i consider my immune system so strong that i have not taken advantage of the free flu shot i can get from my employer, figuring what's the point? maybe i should rethink that one.) anyone else find it disturbing that a lot (say, disproportionate) number of commentators seem to believe that the plural of "chad" is "chad"? is it not common sense that the plural of "chad" be "chads"? why are they complicating matters? it just sounds ridiculous. but i suppose nothing can be easy in this election.... salon starts a weblog. *yawn* potentially cool new magazine alert: living room, for the young and poor who want their apartments to look good. [via hip clicks] today is linnea's birthday. happy birthday, linnea! scenes from a magazine, #2. because the copy and research departments are located a floor below the rest of editorial, i have to do a lot of running up and down when we're closing an issue. often when the elevator doors open (because we're not allowed to use the stairs, or i would), i am confronted with models lounging on the sleek black leather furniture. sometimes there are people presenting their stuff to junior editors, i assume since space is tight. the other day i stepped out and almost tripped over the train of a woman in a poofy wedding dress -- with wings. i think i even stopped to stare for a moment (a rare occurrence). wings? wtf? i took my look and continued on my way. when i returned, this woman, a blonde, in a wedding dress with wings, was on bended knee, offering something or other on a pillow to the beauty assistant, who had clearly been relegated this ridiculous meeting because the beauty editor (who nonetheless takes meetings with people who are described as the eyebrow queen of los angeles) was above such things. i later learned that the scene was even more surreal: the winged bride was actually supposed to be the tooth fairy, and kept asking the receptionist for her teeth. the tooth fairy. at a fashion magazine. i mean, like i said, wtf??
sunday, november 19, 2000 cheech & chong's greatest hit. i've never seen a single cheech & chong movie, so i'm kind of psyched to check out the whole deal. what i bought at academy records on thursday: sleighed: the other side of christmas. i'd actually been sort of looking for this, there in the holiday section! songs by beck and sonic youth. and now, i'm going to get back to gravity's rainbow.
friday, november 17, 2000 and there was much fist-pumping in the land of gore. 100 greatest pop songs as chosen by rolling stone and mtv. many of these are really very good songs, but many of them are not really pop songs. things i cannot leave this entry without saying: billy joel's "just the way you are" is a horrible song and just does not belong.... prince's should've been "delirious" even though I guess it's basically the same song as "little red corvette".... OPP! yes! all the homies!.... in the final analysis, i just cannot get down with this list. i mean, no "scenario"?!? [via betsy, who if i didn't say it yesterday is off to a smashing start with her pita] seventeen magazine interviews death cab for cutie, who really are deserving of attention of the teens who read it but probably will make about two of them go out and buy one of their records, and remain a footnote in the minds of those who get past the boy bands and such. i know because even now, when i hear "nation of ulysses" i think "sassiest boy in america," and the trash can sinatras are forever filed under "cute band alert." [via us against them]
thursday, november 16, 2000 i guess i forgot to link to it, but the new yorker published an article about weblogs called "you've got blog" in a recent issue. well somebody didn't like it very much, all that attention to the web celebs who shall go unnamed here, mainly because i agree with the author that they are hugely overrated. that somebody has written a screed called "deconstructing 'you've got blog'" that everybody who is nobody is linking to. once bitten twice shy. but should i try again, and enter this new tivo giveaway contest, where you have to write a "revel in rivlary" essay? grrrr. have you taken the spark IQ test? apparently i am partially retarded. betsy goes and gets a pita! i predict randi will be next. my influence is unstoppable!! (yes, now that you ask, it *is* Link Your Friends Day.) some spectacular photos of the brooklyn bridge taken by amy. includes shots of holly, ange, and amy. the big turkey day is coming up, and while i am looking forward to gorging myself on probably two dinners (children of divorce have got it rough, i tell you) and watching the traditional x-files marathon, holly is actually hosting her thanksgiving. she'll be cooking for 14 people and wigging out every day from now on in her countdown diary to the big event. i'm sure it will be a raging success, but holly is a bit insane. i mean, placecards? and she has never once said "gosh darn it." i think this thing is getting to her. holly is an editor at lifetimetv.com, but she has also written many helpful stories, including loving someone with herpes, dealing with a long-distance dad, what to do when you're the new kid at the office, and debt got you down? all with easy-to-digest chunks. ah, chunks.
wednesday, november 15, 2000 13 myths about the election hoo-hah. I read this a couple of days ago and decided not to post it because it seemed redundant to me, but maybe you haven't been reading 42 news stories a day, like I have. enjoy. have beck and winona gone their separate skinny ways? one can only hope!
tuesday, november 14, 2000 "If at the end of the recounts and absentee ballots, George Bush turns out to have been elected because a couple of thousand elderly Democrats in Florida couldn't figure out how to vote correctly, it will be surreal, it will be Ionesco-like, it will be agonizing for Gore supporters. But it will only be unfair in a metaphysical sense, and metaphysical unfairness and 60 cents will buy you a candy bar." a funny new york story for you, from holly "i make halloween plans in august" pevzner: HPevzner: I was sitting down in the train last night...
monday, november 13, 2000 scenes from a magazine, #1. so i'm sitting here in my office copyediting a first-person story about a 24-hour beauty marathon, in which the author flits in and out of spas and salons and doctor's offices getting free treatments, and the tedium is broken by a bassline that starts running through my head. what's it from? I look up to listen for a moment and the answer comes. "they want to socialize you...." how creepy is that? creepy and yet cool, because it means that at least i have the comfort of knowing that in opposition to the evil beauty-myth mongerers, there are the forces of good, like sleater-kinney, reminding me what's what, chiming in exactly when I don't even know I need it. if it is election links you desire, you may find them at the news page of bushwatch.com.
saturday, november 11, 2000 this piece is a *tad* idealistic, but gave me chills: it says that the candidate who _wins_ the recount should call for a revote, and would then win in a landslide. did you know that the bush camp has claimed, ridiculously, that the high numbers for pat buchanan were because palm beach county (a heavily jewish liberal area) is a "buchanan stronghold"? even buchanan says that's nonsense. wow. hillary clinton has called for an end to the electoral college. what kind of weirdos are these that would pay $100 for copies of the "BUSH WINS" new york post on ebay? [via media news it's possible that legal maneuvers could prevent florida from sending its electors to vote. i guess not likely, though, if al gore, who would win the majority of electoral votes in such a scenario, wants to get anything at all done with the republican congress. and in no way do I hope that happens. that would truly be an embarrassment. what should happen is there should be a revote in palm beach county. this explanation of florida's election laws says a 1998 case made clear that courts have the power to invalidate an election when "reasonable doubt exists as to whether a certain election expressed the will of the voters." and I would say that there is definitely reasonable doubt. and that's "even in the absence of fraud or intentional wrongdoing." however it also makes clear that courts are reluctant to intervene, even more so in bigger elections. and this is BIG.
thursday, november 9, 2000 actual non-election link: steve is bidding on this pacman. isn't he cute? we used to have a whole Animal Kingdom where we would have, like, elections and stuff.... okay now it's 341 can you believe this people??? 403!!! okay so 700 shot up to 941 by the time i woke up, and now it's back in the high 700s. 787 to be exact at this point in time. i have so many numbers in my head it's ridiculous. i'm trying not to bombard you with news here -- i know you guys can follow it on your own -- but it's hard. and so....a few more links. this one came from randi: could faithless electors end up deciding this whole mess? pure speculation, but fun. the idea is that some republican electors could be overcome by conscience that they cast their vote in december to recognize the will of the people. the way the system is set up, there's nothing to prevent them from doing so except in a couple of states i think. a better story about how gore said "nevermind", from (of course) the new york times. includes bitchy little conversation between al and dubya. as of midnight: allan lichtman, presidential scholar and msnbc pontificator, has a really bad toupee. and bush's lead has narrowed to 700 votes. is there hope???? the hottest political action is on metafilter, you know. a sampling of some things i found there tonight (there's even more good stuff there that i'm restraining myself from posting, too): some numbers about that buchanan fuck-up: Buchanan received 16,962 votes statewide in Tuesday's election, but 3,407 of that -- about one-fifth -- came from Palm Beach County alone. By comparison, Buchanan received 561 votes in Miami-Dade and 789 in Broward County. if anyone can explain to me what the shoz is going on with that "balance of power" chart on the front page of cnn i'd really appreciate it. i mean, what is that "nov. 7"?? that is just not good chart-making. jon stewart is the only person doing a good job in these trying times.
wednesday, november 8, 2000 sorry if you don't like my harping on this, but really, is there anything else to talk about? this morning my elevator was bubbling over with "don't trust those republicans in florida" and "how long's this recount gonna take?" and "i wish it was decided already, even if bush won." anyway, cnn has a blow-by-blow account of gore's concession and retraction. of course this account came directly from the gore camp so it's not like there's any color, but it's still interesting. interesting roundup of the media frenzy last night, via angela. i must admit to a little puzzlement at a comment by paul begala, that the campaigns must be "as nervous as a porcupine in a balloon factory." uh, now why would that porcupine be nervous? seems like it might be even kind of fun for him. leanne, no! definitely the best part of the network coverage last night was tim russert with his dry-erase board, gleefully circling and crossing out states, adding up the numbers and trying to figure out every possible permutation. nevermind those fancy graphics, it's a lo-fi world! ya gotta love tim russert. salon reports the frustrating news that hundreds of florida voters accidentally voted for buchanan due to fucked-up paper ballots. also in this story: the infuriating news that nader got 95,000 votes there, and at one point this morning the candidates were separated by a mere 1000 votes. so how 'bout this election? you have to wonder how al gore is feeling right now. i would venture that he can't be particularly optimistic. and neither am i, to be honest, although i did keep waking up last night and going into the living room to check the cable-news channels. then again, bush leads by 1400 votes in the only state that now matters, and there are several thousand more to count. and recount. i wonder if they're each preparing two speeches. that would be absolutely insane. anyway, i heard that the state of florida's website is supposed to be the most up-to-date place to find out about recount/absentee ballot news, but i kinda doubt it. in any case, it looks like we're not going to know for sure until tomorrow evening at the earliest. agh!
tuesday, november 7, 2000 a new low, not that new lows are that unusual these days: who wants to date a hooters girl? [via usr/bin/girl] bill werde on the madonna "party" at roseland. holly, a lifelong madonna fan, had this to say in an email to me after i explained, in an email to her, why i was not "jealous" that she got to go (update:it should be noted that i was casting aspersion on the prospect of a concert where madonna would sing only four songs, and expressing personal disdain for the idea of spending an evening in the cattle-packed roseland with 3000 radio-contest winners, which holly perceived as being shat upon): you stink. wow, i didn't think that would work. it actually DID magically fix itself! what a great little PC! i love you, PC! i'm going to take this as a good omen. voting was fast and easy, and some nice old people were very helpful. i did have a last-minute urge to vote nader but squelched it. a little story on the subway as reading room, and how some people cover up the titles of their books. I am always looking to see what other people are reading. I was strangely self-conscious about reading "franny and zooey" by j.d. salinger the other day. Somehow it felt kind of juvenile. Then again I still see people reading harry potter books, so. oh my GOD i'm in the "then" column!!! no!!!! (and for the record, i'm sure nanette's been a presence on the web a lot longer than I have...)update: james wisdom has written to assure me i am not a has-been. i'm so relieved.
monday, november 6, 2000 i don't know who is going to read all the articles linked at nadersucks.org, but maybe someone will. it might interest that someone to know that the site was paid for by libertarians, which doesn't really mean anything to me, but like i said, someone. via memepool, which also links to goregals.com (semi-amusing). T-minus one day. i've settled down a bit about the election. still, i'm afraid the links will keep coming. to wit: the nasty side of nader. eye-opening. i'm thinking now that to vote my conscience means i cannot vote for him. i constantly find myself arguing against him even though i agree with many of his positions (but not, understand, the central one, the one he's running on, that there is no difference between the two major candidates). and his remarks on abortion (that it's "gonadal politics"; so what if roe v. wade is overturned, the issue will "just" revert to the states) make me very mad. i'm still kind of intrigued by the vote-swapping idea though. any disaffected young white males out there in a battleground state wanna trade? my officemate, after two blissfully quiet weeks, is back. this morning she commented that the new research editor has a "super-affected" way of talking. pot, meet kettle.
friday, november 3, 2000 this weblog called tawdry has gloria steinem's 10 reasons not to vote for nader. (i wish i could find it directly, sorry. just scroll down a bit to find it.) via us against them. how handy: a zipcode finder! not enough politics in your entertainment? how about a musical based on the life of jesse ventura? via whitney's hip clicks. feed drops knowledge about the effectiveness of third parties and the electoral college. go forth and learn.
thursday, november 2, 2000 nader or gore? prominent liberals tell who they're voting for and why. lots of opinions in there. via metafilter. i will be so very glad when this election is over so i don't have to think about nader anymore. i'm even sick of that name. nader nader nader. blech. depending on which polls you look at, there are anywhere from four to fifteen swing states. abc news has a good roundup of the tossup states, with more than just numbers. yesterday bush said "our priorities is our faith." did you also know he didn't watch the state of the union in january? if you're wracked with nervousness like i am about this whole damn election, read this. it's funny and will ease your mind, if only for a moment. via linnea. leanne is having knee surgery *right now*. everybody pray. or go look at the battle of crazy knee.
wednesday, november 1, 2000 did i ever talk about that "choose or lose" special where some kid gave al gore a mos def cd and asked that he listen to it and email him with his thoughts? well, it's not entirely clear whether gore actually listened to it, but he did email the kid. you can even read the full text. speaking of mtv, bill werde thinks maybe roni size could hit it big and cross over to the hip-hop masses. check out his review of 'in the mode', a "darker drum 'n' bass vision" featuring a bunch of high-profile guest stars. i forgot to mention another thing i discovered in boston, thanks to the hospitality of teabag: pocky. as in no pocky for kitty? it's really quite a tasty treat. |
try these, too |
