me to record-store clerk, after dancing my way through the store to some seriously groovy heavy riffage while wired on five cups on coffee: "who is this?" clerk: "white zombie." (!!)

ha: jack white, man-hater.

Things That Were Said, Done, and Sung at the Beautiful, Incredibly Fun, and Life-Affirming Wedding of Linnea and Mike Up in the Berkshires This Weekend, a Weekend That Included Much Gloriously Great Music Because Mike Especially is a Huge Musichead:

-Linnea to guests at rehearsal dinner, thanking us for coming: "I am marrying the man of my dreams."

-Mike to same: "A moment of silence for Chemical Ali." Also: "Corn today, corn tomorrow."

-Linnea's mom, describing the tree on the grassy knoll where the ceremony was to take place: "It's real gnarly."

-Sarah to me, on the ride back to the property Saturday, after happily getting lost on the winding mountain roads, with their perfect ponds and hidden houses and apple festivals and mind-blowing number of trampolines: "I love us!"

-Linnea, getting ready before the ceremony: "He just better not make any jokes. I do not want to hear any Uday or Qusay." Also, describing her hairstyle: "Jessica Simpson was the inspiration."

-Holly, concerned about the presence of the photographer during the getting-ready: "Are we supposed to real get ready or faux get ready?"

-Mike to crowd just before ceremony, about five minutes before the sun broke through the crowds to herald the arrival of the flower girl: "Look everybody, it's a rainbow!"

-Mike just before the first dance, recommending that we all listen carefully to the lyrics: "Linnea and I are going to go ahead and sway for about three or four minutes here."

-Sarah to me, after she and Holly and I had caught the crying bug that was going around during the first dance: "I want that."

-Cheap Trick: "Oh, didn't I, didn't I, didn't I see you cryin'?"

so. the wedding was beautiful, and i cried a lot. linnea and mike are just the coolest people. pictures from my group's little pre-wedding afternoon trip into town will appear tomorrow eve. (pita experiencing the weird end-of-month technical difficulties, so it's evening updates till wednesday or so...)

smartypants milway tells me that i can stream the rufus album over at rufuswainwright.com. well now. isn't that just...special.

uh, well, the pita may be flailing, but miss modernage is on fire! today i read three hilarious things over there. 1) hilarious critique of rolling stone's ridiculous review of a white stripes show. 2) that really annoying thing people do where they step on your shoe. and finally, 3) the dmb concert the other night.

that's it for me till monday. tomorrow i head for the hills, and linnea and mike's wedding. i've got my waterproof mascara and my clint eastwood dress (yep that's right, i am wearing clint to the rehearsal dinner!) and i am ready.

cheeseburger and fries, wrapped up in one. vomitous.

oooh, must-see show: le tigre, out hud, and measles mumps rubella at irving plaza, thursday, nov. 6. who is with me and who is against me?

today i am doing things like listening to all the mp3s i've recently amassed on the desktop and finally reading the latest oneida tour reports (so great) so that i can avoid doing some weird little writeups betsy has assigned me. don't get me wrong, i love this gig. i definitely enjoy writing about yo la tengo, or, you know, rainer maria. it's a little harder with, like, berlin. not that i'm complaining, of course. i just want to do good work. but. procrastination. help me.

rufus wainwright talks about a drug-induced hell world, his fucked-up relationship with his father, and his new album in this interview. i must get "want one" very soon. i didn't know there was going to be "want two"!! oh how i adore rufus.

must get that new centro-matic, too. do you think my friends will let me listen to this stuff on the ride up to the berkshires for the big wedding this weekend? maybe rufus, right?

john goodman is on the west wing now! do i have to start watching again?

rock stars next door.

fifth graders draw scary pictures while listening to radiohead.

there are still crazy people on the internet.

nerve's unsexy list. [via fimoculous]

tom junod in esquire on the falling man. warning: tissues may be necessary. [via travelers diagram]

do you know about guide ponies? they wear shoes on the subway! hilarious!

today is international talk like a pirate day. arrrrr.

random confession: i like it when the grill guy calls me "babe."

well, i thought he was kidding, but it's true: michiko kaku-whatsis totally uses the word "limn" (her favorite, remember?) in this review of the fortress of solitude, the new jonathan lethem novel, which i am reading now (on a total lethem bender: it's a little slow, but i'm only about 50 pages in, and i think it has a lot more coming.)

lockhart steele reports the absolutely horbz news that barramundi is not long for this world. same goes for collective unconscious. booooooo to boring new-wave luxury apartment buildings.

ugh 1: new terror laws used against common crimiinals. related: a guide to the patriot act, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

ugh 2: anna wintour kisses isaac mizrahi's ass in this interview. that target shit is straight-up ugs. [via gawker]

two songs that justify the existence of the "repeat 1" button on your discman: "hey julie" by the fountains of wayne (i wish someone would write a perfect pop song with *my* name in it) and "mahgeetah" by my morning jacket (kind of disappointed to learn after looking at the liner notes that jim james IS actually singing in english). actually i lie. only the former took me all the way from rivington to williamsburg (i can sing it perfectly now), but the latter is still a damn fine song.

saturday night we said goodbye to the single linnea, with the time-honored bachelorette party. we had a lovely dinner at cowgirl hall of fame, though let it be known: tex-mex is not the greatest preamble to a night of dancing. i think those enchiladas are actually still in my stomach. so holly brilliantly decreed that we should go to culture club, conveniently located in spitting distance of the holland tunnel. it was all 80s in there, with a boy george dj, 80s movies on the tvs, and a large mural of the cast of the breakfast club.

aw yeah. ask and ye shall receive: round one of kid millions' oneida european tour reports are up. yay!

i've had to explain my gossip shirt three times today. you would think these people had never seen a t-shirt before.

behind the lyrics . i love the "money for nothing" one. [via travelers diagram]

and now for the long-awaited...

...hipster makeover!
so, while living in new york this summer, eileen decided she wanted to become more hipster. now, i claim no special knowledge of hipster culture, but hell, i've seen the handbook, i live in hipster central, etc., and i wanted to support eileen in her quest to not be so much the poster girl for j. crew. so i decided i would take her shopping in the second-most hipster-riffic area of town: the LES, of course. there are a ton of tiny, fashiony boutiques in a four-square-block area, so i figured we could find something she would like. i don't have pictures of everything because i'm lazy and i was hung over that day. sorry.

here is the before picture. i think you can see what the problem is:

we started across the street from my house at edith and daha, a veritable vintage emporium. i would say there are about 800 pairs of old shoes in there. i made eileen try on a bunch of short pleated skirts, but she just looked like a hooker in them. we were informed the high waist is back. we groaned. this was our first success, however: a lover of reef flip-flops to the exclusion of virtually all other footwear, eileen bought a fabulous pair of 40s-ish peep-toe pumps in black with a high stacked heel. she looked phenomenal in them. score!

next up: miks, where eileen bought an awesome black-and-white polka-dotted, ribbon-waisted dress. hardly hipster, but it was a sweet dress.

we then checked out the very pink shop. there's a lot of expensive stuff in there. (duh, right?) but i found these excellent cropped pants, ending at the bottom of the knee with a banded-collar sort of dealie, with brownie patches and stuff on them. they looked hot on eileen. they were only like sixty bucks. she steadfastly refused to buy them. "you can't do this in boston," she said. i tried to convince her, but to no avail. i shook my head sadly. you can lead a preppy to water, but...

i decided a price break might provide some incentive for risk-taking. so we hit that thrift shop on orchard, rejoice. ah yes. here we found a dark denim skirt by DKNY with a bleached-out design on the front. i assured eileen we could chop it to make it shorter and hotter. it was only twelve dollah. she bought it: yes! she did not buy either of these hats, however:

we then happened in on apollo braun, where i bought my kick-ass clint eastwood dress. this store has some wacky stuff. eileen tried on a half shirt with lots of things hanging off it that the salesgirl said looked really good on her. i had to stifle a chuckle.

time was running short, since we had about a half hour before we were supposed to be picked up to go to p.s. 1 for their summer dj series. (see, we're already hip as fuck.) so we hustled to -- yes, i admit it is kind of cheating, but so what? -- urban outfitters. we ran around like maniacs and finally got everything you see here except for the shirt (which was picked up and deconstructed later, in cape cod):

a vast improvement, no? the only thing she was unsure about was the belt, but she has grown to see that the belt absolutely makes this and many other outfits. i checked in today with eileen to see if she wore this ensemble as promised to the grad-school social night she founded, "Preservation Thursday." she said she wore the skirt and the shoes and felt "very hip for boston." she also said that once clad in hipster gear, she noticed more hipsters around. and she has worn the shirt on its own twice, once eliciting a "what's up with the shirt?" from a clueless boy who shall remain nameless. heh. that's when you know you're doing something right. so there is hope yet that eileen will give up her love of fleece. (although one suspects that she and i both will be partaking of the new "hipster" collection at american eagle.) finally, the money shot:

dude mailed himself.

congrats to alli, who illustrated this new book called the catholic girl's guide to sex.

i refuse to buy r.e.m. tickets for exorbitant prices at horrible stadiums. so who wants to check them out at 7 a.m. at rockefeller center on october 3? that's right, r.e.m. is playing the today show.

korean women are getting pubic-hair transplants. ahem. my englishosity does not allow me to comment further. [via TMFTML]

pixies to reunite? not sure what to think about that....

this live fugazi set soothes my kid-frayed nerves. [thanks slatch]

so vanessa and staci tied the knot on saturday, in a jewish/irish/pagan/hippie lesbian extravaganza. it was a very eclectic, personal, cool ceremony, held in a park by the water in nyack. they tied their hands together with a bunch of different ribbons, stomped on the glass as per jewish tradition, and spoke their own vows, all under a handmade huppah. it was a gorgeous day, too. some highlights:

€ i presented the bride and bride with a pineapple during the wreath ceremony. hey, it was on the list. so i made up my own meaning for it (humor and fun). i'd been pretty worried about the riskiness of this admittedly odd choice, so i was relieved when i dramatically produced the pineapple and everyone laughed. i was thereafter referred to as pineapple girl, and received two ovations and many props at the reception.

€ i wore a dress with a black-and-white image of clint eastwood brandishing a gun. a surprising number of people did not comment on this.

€ holly norton asked one of the many lesbians in attendance at the reception if she would be taking the "lesbian bus" back to the hotel. holly norton later did the worm back at the hotel, revealing her choice of underwear to those in attendance.

€ when rachel busted out her acoustic guitar for a few songs, fracisco called out, "play 'constant craving'!"

€ i chose beck's "loser" to karaoke. a perfect wedding song, no? during the end-of-evening dance party (the dj was great), i performed many bob pollard-style high kicks.

earlier in the weekend, i bussed to philly to visit scott goss and see gbv for a second night in a row. scott was a totally gracious host, making me dinner and breakfast and encouraging me in my pineapple-bearing ideas. he also ran over a toilet that was sitting on the sidewalk. no one was hurt, but there was one very angry big black lady. over at the troc, scott wasn't quite sure what to make of the intense devotion of the gbv fans. cormi pussied out way early in the evening. petey b. was disappointed in the show. i was suffering from a bit of gbv burnout. but there were a lot of high kicks and microphone twirls, so that was fun. now if they can just cut like ninety percent of the new stuff out of the setlist....

i don't know what to say about GBV 2003 Night One other than that it rocked. and i met a boy even gb-freakier than me. though of course, gbv boys are way more hardcore than gbv girls, as a general rule. or maybe it's just that you get practically drenched in testosterone at any gbv show. luckily i had a careful protector in the pit. bob was in fine form, ranting and raving about everything and anything, but mostly about the no-smoking law, which he briefly flouted a bunch of times. he also ragged on the guitar-playing abilities of joan jett and both radiohead guitarists, all name-checked in rolling stone's "greatest guitarists" issue. they also played a somewhat ridiculous number of side-project songs: lifeguards, circus devils, and the fucking phantom toolbooth thing. is it wrong to hope tonight's show in philly will lean way heavier on the hits?

schwarzenegger hit by egg.

great news for music consumers: universal is going to slash its cd prices to $12.98! let's hope others follow suit, though warner says it won't.

shitty news for music consumers (ahhh, that's more like it): ticketmaster to start selling tickets by AUCTION. evil evil evil. [via catchdubs]

terrifying richard simmons dolls. they're supposed to remind you to do things like call your friends.

so tonight was the "hottest lesbian bachelorette party ever." it did not *exactly* turn out that way, unsurprisingly. we had dinner at mexican radio, then emily produced a copy of "erotic new york," which directed us to some tribeca strip joint that featured seven-dollar budweiser bottles but no cover. bubble lounge or something. the girls were nice to us as we approached, enthusing over my cleavage and fussing over vanessa, the guest of honor due to her impending marriage on saturday. there was no one in there when we arrived, and after a while one of them (cinnamon?), in between her comedy bits, pretty much scolded me for not having enough of a good time. i felt bad for not being more whoop-tastic, but my heart wasn't quite in it. i liked seeing vanessa receive her lap dances and whatnot, and i liked talking to the girls outside about their five-inch heels and stuff, but really? i tip these girls a couple bucks? yeah? and that's cool? i don't know. it was weird. maybe i'm just too english, but here were were, five straight girls and two lesbians (one of whom is kind of questionable, even), most of us gingerly stepping up to the dancers and being all, "excuse me? i don't mean to disturb you, but i would like to stick these bills in your underwear? thanks." heh. okay, it was actually kind of hilarious. at this weekend's wedding, i will publicly pontificate on the meaning of the herb larkspur. stay tuned.

been a long time, reader! i'm sorry i didn't update yesterday. i lost my netscape and IE gives me horrible problems updating the pita. did you miss me desperately? i bet you did. today's pics represent not only the cape vacation but also the weekend before, which included a trip to the met's rooftop sculpture garden on a hazy day, a hold steady show in which the band members shotgunned beers in celebration of craig's birthday, and a convertible ride to p.s. 1 in queens for their outdoor dance party. good times. and then there was the cape, featuring a fabulous white party (just like puffy's!) that made me feel like i was in the great gatsby; a trippy movie at the drive-in (followed by a horrible one); not one but two visits to the 'comber (love those mudslides); beautiful ocean (pronounced: "OCEAN!"); a trip to nantucket (quaint but eh); and wonderful host eileen's ruptured eardrum (watch where you put that q-tip, kids). bye-bye, summer!

in horrendous news, gbv has apparently fired their bass player, tim tobias. i weep.