karen o was flinging beer off the balcony at the liars show last night. i liked the show even though i think they played ALL new stuff; they still rocked, if perhaps in a weirder, less catchy manner than i'm used to. photo by andy, who makes me a lazy photographer.

happy halloween! also happy birthday bob pollard. oh my god i just had a brain flash. instead of going as mrs. mia wallace, i should go as bob pollard! all i need to do is dress schlubby, drink a lot of budweiser, carry a microphone to swing around, ramble incoherently, sing gbv songs, and do lots of high kicks. wooh!

defense secretary unsure if he's "lost his mojo."

raise your hand if you're excited for average joe, premiering monday on nbc. (i am so raising my hand over here.)

last night was "pumpkins and OC" night at the rivington homestead. i was down for the former, decidedly less so for the latter. instigator tamar showed up with FAKE PUMPKINS, if you can believe that shit. crafty michelle f. (aka "white michelle" in the less-PC circles) and i were seriously bummed but we made do, and were the ONLY people to decorate pumpkins. actually no. fifteen vodkas later, kurt mutilated his polyfoam pumpkin with a giant K. that's him up there with my surrealistic collaged pumpkin. the OC sucked, and i don't mean it sucked so bad it was good, though that was the argument made. it sucked so bad i couldn't understand why we were actually watching it. and these kids claim to not like joe millionaire!

methinks 24 will jump the shark this season, if it hasn't already, what with the cougar last season and all. however, kiefer sutherland is still very, very hot.

pictures of street graffiti, with shoes.

really cool series of night photos from around the city up at bluejake.

could jonathan safran foer be "the oracle" behind an l.a. story-esque electric sign in brooklyn? [via the morning news]

great piece on diddy. [via gothamist]

programming language inventor or serial killer?

i cannot deal with this david foster wallace interview about math, and i was smart back in the day. like, i took AP calculus and shit. let's get back to the stories, please.

dammit, fresh direct started delivering to the LES--my zip code, but NOT my building. wtf. how am i supposed to curb my carby appetite? ("carby": new favorite word, brought to you by kurt.)

monosyllabic is blogging again. this is wooooh.

weird list of america's best 40 bands, from the guardian. personal beefs include: kings of leon better than wilco? red hot chili peppers at #14? j. timberlake and beyonce in the top ten?? and what's with producers counting as bands? [via coolfer]

jack black soundboard. for your inner 12-year-old.

pitchfork gives "room on fire" an 8.0.

did you read this elliott smith interview from this summer? it was billed as him talking candidly about his substance abuse problems, but he doesn't really do that other than to acknowledge them. the thing that struck me the most about it was his excitement over the album he was working on. how sad that he couldn't hang on for that passion. looking around the web at people's reactions, i liked what slatch had to say. and fimoculous and ted leo had stories of their own.

info on the film adaptation of AHWOSG. (you still know what that acronym stands for, right?)

very cool photoblog #1. includes some shots from the hold steady show at mighty robot last spring.

very cool photoblog #2. [via hifiny]

"i have been laid in this shirt 146 times!" also i love exclamation points! [thank you stu for this quality link]

drink-o-meter: uh, this is really dumb. [via fimoculous]

hey all you snivelling indie kids...HOLD STEADY. yeah, the hold steady almost killed me. i was having heart palpitations before they started, no joke. the anticipation was...big. i felt a little bit crazy. i was happy that andy seemed unfazed by my insanity. (tamar and jami have seen it before.) happier still when they rocked my face off. the scientist said something about them being "college rock," which i forgave because he was appropriately impressed. but oh my god, the hold steady just make me want to scream "hold steady!" which i of course did, several times. this was concert nirvana, people. why rock is my religion, my, um, sex. just so you know. les savy fav even sorta paled in comparison, though who can resist tim harrington's rubbable belly, tendency to get half-naked, and interactive antics? not me. (tamar has details.) they still rocked the party, though. anyway, that was the cmj show to beat, kids.

on a related, creepy note: check out the lyrics to this song.

oh and my faith in humanity was again restored when a grouchy cab driver returned my cell phone to me after i apparently lost it last night. i pressed a ten-spot into his palm and ran off before he could sneer at me. thank you cab number 5J76!

you can stream the new shins album. i don't know how they got so popular either, but they're pretty good, at least on record.

whitney has suggestions for cheap halloween costumes.

neighbor lockhart steele gets interviewed by new york mag on the occasion of the publication of a book about the age 30 (site contains a blog, of course).

wow. fimoculous tells me you can now shop online at ikea.

uh, suspected penis snatcher beaten to death. [via disposable brain]

another ridiculous weekend: friday night our party of ten kicked it eastern-european style at mehanata 416 b.c., aka the bulgarian nightclub on lower broadway. it was weird in there, and crowded, but totally fun. i even broke a sweat dancing to the euro-disco music! saturday i went to the littlecakes sale in the cutest little pastel apartment ever and bought a cute shirt. i mean, there was nothing not cute in there. then i bought further cute stuff (wallet, candy-colored handbag, fingerless gloves) at exit 9. i really did need more cute stuff.

finally the hour of the big going-away party for beijing-bound betsy and mike arrived. we installed ourselves at the great-jukebox-havin' magician, where there was hilarity with a stolen grocery-store pricing gun, people's parents, and the inevitable late-night photo shoot. we closed out both nights at iggy's (the hot new joint was unbearably packed; apparently the secret is out). can someone tell me why i still *can* party like i used to? um.... sunday i met up with jami and maura for art day dumbo. seeing art always makes me feel good, and what a beautiful day. that night i was doing a little research for my probable halloween costume (mrs. mia wallace) before the smoke started coming in the windows. tamar and i went out to gawk and found a terrible fire tearing up the building with the furniture store that has the "mortz beds" as she put it. so much smoke. so sad. i thought i heard some form of the word "blog" while we were out there and it turns out i was right.

so did y'all notice the bizarro fuckup with the pita today? seems like pitas.com is having some growing pains. yeah yeah, i know it's time to get my own domain, but really, i'm too much of an idiot to figure that out. for your patience during the tragic pitas weirdout of 2003, reader, i am rewarding you with further images of the weekend debauchery/hilarity, if you want 'em.

who wants to go stand in the treehouse with me?

5-second rule validated by science. [via the morning news]

i love this characterization of gbv in christgau's review of gbv's "bee thousand": "pop for perverts--pomo smarty-pants too prudish and/or alienated to take their pleasure without a touch of pain to remind them that they're still alive." [via traveler's diagram]

saw interpol at hammerstein last night with the illustrious werde. damn, they're good. they didn't sound too different from the album, maybe a bit more intense. love that goth-y george mcfly bassist with the shoulder gun holster. dude's got moves. werde's importance allowed us to view the show from the box, protected from the hoi polloi. very nice to be able to actually see the band at such a huge venue. anyway, STELLA! they just rule. for those of you (leigh ann) who have said recently, "i don't know if i like interpol," please, get your shit together. they rock.

as for the openers, elefant, can someone explain why lead singer diego rivera sings with a pronounced english accent? isn't he spanish? they were okay, kind of a poppier, less-good interpol, actually. they did provide the most hilarious moment of the show: "we're gonna change the vibe up in here," diego announced. hmmm, we wondered. instead of a really earnest, new-wavey song about love, would we get a moderately earnest, new-wavey song about love? the band then launched into some song we were supposed to "dance" to, "like we're in love." they then turned blinding white lights onto the audience for most of the song. how pleasant! bleeding out of my eyeballs really makes me feel like falling in love. and dancing. oh yeah. anyway, all around, a really fun show.

hilarious complaints against new york toll-booth attendants. [via the morning news]

usa network is working on a sequel to "16 candles" that would take place on samantha's 32nd birthday. how can anyone not love that movie? you've got anthony michael hall doing the hilarious geek thing (panties scene: genius), molly ringwald moping around for most of it, and molly ringwald finally getting to kiss the cute boy on a glass table at the end. you've got to wonder what will have become of the hunk at the age of 32 though. he's got to be waaaaay less desirable. probably a banker or some shit. and isn't matt dillon pretty much a senior citizen at this point? and now i have talked way too much about this. UPDATE: thank you to the eighty people who wrote in outraged that i could mistake one michael shoeffling for matt dillon. you have to admit that dude looks exactly like matt dillon though. (not a peep, randi.)

um, not that i care that much about baseball, but why is everyone in new york rooting for the red sox? i almost hugged the little kid in the hood who stopped to peek at the tv in the taco place and scream, "go yankees!" the other night. seriously, it seems like every bar i'm in erupts when the sox do something good. this is weird.

what should i be for halloween? ideas please. default is a variation on tamar's pregnant cheerleader from last year (which she plans to reprise): pregnant field hockey player! i'll have to find a pleated navy skirt, but i can use my old jersey, no. 29. i could even wear boxers underneath the skirt. and oh my god. my varsity jacket. and i could HIT people in the shins with my stick just like the old days, too! what fun. but send ideas anyway. UPDATE: i have just been informed of the ironic quotient of this idea. my boss says that "every field hockey player i've ever known has been a lesbian." she will be the first person i hit with my stick.

great, smart music blog: coolfer. today he /she/it handicaps the cmj fest, getting some good, dear-to-my-heart digs in on overhyped bands but, alas, failing to mention the frenchkiss showcase at knitting factory that i keep talking about. i wouldn't mind seeing the gossip and the thermals, too.

bill werde will be on npr's talk of the nation bullshitting (ahem: contributing to the national media conversation) about "superproducers" (did you read that article?) today at 3. the audio will be available at 6.

americans are fat because farmers produce way too much corn. and it's all nixon's fault.

fyi: the new strokes has achieved total discman domination. i knew i loved it when i refused to hand over my copy to tricia, desperate for a stash of new music before heading off to china. i could not imagine being without it for a day, let alone 13 (it's out october 28). it's not immediately mind-blowing or anything, but it works its way in there. there are some really nice hooks. i do, however, call bullshit on this fucking k-rock bowery ballroom show that you have to win tickets to get into. i'd love to see them at bowery, but i sure as fuck am not going to start listening to k-rock to do so. whatever, they kind of suck live anyway.

that's tricia c. up there, kissing new york goodbye for a while. she's the first of my friends moving to china in the next few days. she's vowed to be back before summer, leaving her poor husband to sweat it out. the second will be in town this weekend for a going-away party on the LES. we'll laugh, we'll cry, we'll demand high-quality knockoff bags.

emogame 2. still featuring, um, bad things happening to cartoon characters that you might not wish to happen on your work computer screen. it is pretty hilarious though. even if you just watch the intro. very very good for killing time, and you know, you can close those windows when people walk by.

for those of you wondering about my punk-rock nails (featuring the names of punk bands, you see), they are still on. everywhere i go people are all, "let me see those!" i love it. i trimmed them to a practical length so i can do stuff like get money out of my wallet and type. i've lost a total of about five, but they give you about 30 in the pack so i just keep gluing on replacements. the nails underneath are fine. they are by dashing diva, but don't go looking for the punk rock ones on the site. for some reason, they're not there, and there's nothing else as cool. i'll keep a watchful eye.

i am slightly embarrassed to admit that i will watch the american idol christmas special and i actually even sort of want the cd (in stores now!).

weekend was fun...and exhausting. on friday i got to hear eileen's punching-the-yankee-fan story over expensive-ass drinks at guastavino's before riding the sky tram to roosevelt island for the hell of it. on saturday tamar and i got shut out of the cat show and the river-runs-through-it art gallery but did get to view the high line from above and purchase cute shirts at find outlet. later that night, i think i made a pact with a couple of boys to sneak onto the high line like so many others have done. saturday night was spent running around williamsburg like a maniac: the neal pollack invasion show at luxx, a quick trip to some bar with a geeky horn band, the afterparty at someone's house, the subway bar, the after-afterparty at jami's place. a frightening number of webfolk were in attendance, including lindsay, who did nothing noteworthy (ha!) but is extremely cute and nice and has great hair, so there you go. and then yesterday, on five hours sleep, i puked up muddy european coffee in a garbage can on delancey (how convenient!) before checking out the grand lodge of masons and the high bridge water tower. and then i slept.

jami, by the way, is reading at lolita tomorrow at 7:30. i will be there. you come, too.

miss modernage calls it quits? but how will i know what's in the NME? (i kid because i love.)

werde on heeb magazine in the times. he also provides us with an excerpt from an interview with tony kushner that appears in the current issue.

hit the premiere party for the singing detective last night. skipped the movie due to advance warning of its suckitude and my continuing hatred for all musicals except for grease. the party was held at capitale, an old beautiful bank on the bowery. such a pretty space. i didn't get to charm the pants off of adrien brody as i had hoped; in fact i didn't even glimpse his giant honkable schnoz. the horror. he was reportedly milling around, too, instead of ensconcing himself in one of the four fancy white corner booths like katie holmes (surprisingly tall and very pretty) and chris klein (so boringly bland) and robert downey (kept slumping over but still very cute). noncelebrity michelle taylor ate rose petals, which kind of made my night. i danced a little, even though the music had changed from 50s fun to predictable standard-issue party fare, prince and the like, but when it deteriorated to j. timberlake and his ex, i made my escape and met up with andy at the lcd soundsystem show. total hipster disco party in there. dance fevah! it was pretty fun. that "losing my edge" song is great. james murphy is awesome. and hot, too. andy (note: wearing a scarf with his t-shirt) kept introducing me to people with the notation, "she has a famous weblog." he has got to stop doing that. at least until i relieve miss modernage of her scenester crown.

speaking of hot dance/punk hybrids, you can now stream the rapture album. uh, i think.

oh my god i don't even know this kid and it's too hilarious for words. am i drunk? this cute twenty-something blonde boy french-kissed a 67-year-old weird black lady. oh my god there's a movie of it. i cannot deal.

tamar is aching to see the cat show this weekend, but i think i'll join eileen and company in checking out some of the buildings that are going to be opened to the public for open house new york. plus it's kind of enough to just look at pictures of these gorgeous, freaky, alien creatures. (by the way tamar has a hilarious email from her dad up on her blog. check it out. and if you read further down, know that i eventually worked it out with that guy and it ended up with him offering to buy me a drink at the whiskey ward. i'm a nice girl. i swear.)

um, the tard blog.

new york changing: photographs of spots around the city then (the 30s) and now (turn of the century). different and the same. fascinating. [via fuzzy sweater]

you want margie. coolest hairdresser ever.

today i finally got over the serious design issues and read lindsayism. worth the click for the "highdea" feature alone.

a good night's sleep can help you remember shit better (from researcher kim fenn!).

pitas was down yesterday (for like the first time ever), so belated internet birthday wishes to my fabulous, funny, caring, loyal, worldly, intelligent, queer-eye-hating, camus-loving roommate, kurt. he is big 25 now! a man, even! last night our party of 16 dined at red lobster in celebration, downing "lobsteritas" and "icy cold bud lights" and enormous amounts of food. after the delicious stuffed mushrooms, fondue bowl, nachos, cheese-infused biscuits, assorted other appetizers, and salad, i could only manage to consume about four of my two dozen (the minimum) shrimp scampis. i could not even bring myself to bring the rest home; the thought of these cold, limp little pieces of meat congealed in a gelatinous buttery mass was just too much to bear. red lobster itself? well. it lacked the worn carpet and nautical shit on the walls i remember from my youth, but i would still make my dad take me there for lunch next time he's in the city.

and then good times at bill and heather's dinner party the other night, featuring a fantastic meal of pork chops, broccoli rabe with sausage, sweet potato mash, homemade applesauce, and warm pecan pie a la mode for dessert. mr. bill knows how to cook. and friends i hadn't seen in years! there was lots of gossiping about old review folk, a little phil shozda talk, a lot of uterus jokes and ah-nold voices. it's just so fun to do the ah-nold voice. (yesterday morning i walked into kurt's room and said, "i am your guv-nah. happy bufday." you try it, too!) werde has promised he will be "breakinig photojournalistic news" of the event. i am still waiting. (i guess he is too busy doing "real" journalism like this piece on superproducers for wired.) UPDATE: pics are there now. including a mind-blowing one of michael "lewisauce" lewis (well, mind-blowing for those who know who he is).

the village voice's best of 2003 is out, thrilling all who encounter it i'm sure. items of note: flirty sal from rosario's gets props as best four-foot-tall mac daddy who serves pizza, swoon is best user of paper and scissors, and hells yeah the hold steady is best new spinoff band. also laura got, um, best scenester.

that reminds me. it is officially rocktober. dates of worship:

10/22 Les Savy Fav, Ex-Models, S-Prcss, The Hold Steady @ Knitting Factory

10/25 The Gossip, Pretty Girls Make Graves, a million other bands @ Knitting Factory

10/26,27 Death Cab For Cutie @ Bowery Ballroom

10/30 Liars, Young People @ Bowery Ballroom

11/1 The Walkmen @ Knitting Factory (3 shows)

11/6 Le Tigre, Out Hud, Measles Mumps Rubella @ Irving Plaza

wow. jami totallly calls out megnut on her ridiculous, offensive nyc jeans police idea. i agree wholeheartedly. yeah, just what we need is a bunch of assholes going around and making women feel bad about the way they look. and guess what? i actually look quite hot in my low-rise jeans, and i ain't no skinny minny.

in case you have not been privy to the cultural wonder that is the nick and jessica show on mtv: the wisdom of jessica simpson. [via gothamist]

hilarious correction in the philly inquirer. [via fimoculous]

oh my god show rabbits. like the dog-show dogs but, it it's possible, even more alien. [thanks randi]

pitchfork says ehhhh on that d-plan remix album.

are people freaking out about baseball where you are, too? the other morning i received the following email from eileen:

Soooo, the Red Sox won. I had a nervous breakdown and had to lie facedown on the kitchen floor in the dark during the 9th inning. Then I pulled all of my sweaters off the closet shelf and was refolding them while screaming and running in circles.

i even decided not to go to the game tonight in favor of a movie party. i'm a bad yankee fan.

our party saturday night, aka "balls to the wall fall ball featuring kurt and marisa's birthdays," did not produce a single good picture, sadly. and some things happened that i would prefer not happen at future parties. exhibit a: the cops came and made everyone get off the roof and were kind of dicks about it. exhibit b: i went outside at 4:30 a.m. to get some air and immediately received a summons for public drinking. i waited a few minutes to burst into tears (i am so not gangster). and exhibit c: the cigarette burn hole in my clint eastwood dress. but. we rocked the party nonetheless. and i looked hot in my dress and my fake punk-rock nails, kurt looked hot in his skinny leather tie and CHiPs aviators, and tamar...well, tamar was wearing a long-sleeved orange polyester jumpsuit with tigers on it and a wide 70s colllar, sort of carol-brady-gone-crazy. you decide. party MVP awards are going out to betsy, despite her questionable DJ skills, and stuart a. willson, despite his bizarre decision to unplug the rooftop boombox right in the middle of "y control" because he thought it would be "funny." dudes, your trophies are in the mail.

the next day, after three hours of sleep, we dragged weary ass to the flugtag event. it was incredibly funny, though there were thousands of heads there, making it hard to see. all the teams did retarded little dances and then flung themselves on so-called flying machines off a platform into the hudson so we could all laugh. none that we saw flew far at all. it was like they just pretty much jumped off the edge. it reminded me of that old video game lemmings. we laughed each and every time. the giant paper airplane was my favorite. when this dude got to the water he was standing on this huge white wing. standing on the water! it was great. i also loved the guys who dressed up like amadeus and played that bombastic "amadeus" song from when i was like 10. yay for weird art/science events.

oh and i saw r.e.m. friday night! they were good. they didn't play a predictable set of hits at all. michael stipe can dance, did you know that? wooh. he's still hot, at least as far as i could tell from the jumbotron (we were way up there). also i felt the need to scream my appreciation for stipe's solo acoustic encore performance of interpol's "NYC" (starting with the "subway she is a porno" part) because it was clear that approximately no one in the audience knew it.

"A lot of those what you see the story, is not true." yeah, um, okay arnie.

i and my new year's posse are thinking about flying to chicago to see the flaming lips and the white stripes. and oh my god i MUST hear that lips remix of "tubthumping"!! love it.

i am full of love today. tonight i get to go with a work friend to the R.E.M. concert for free (!!!!). tomorrow miss betsy AND holly norton arrive in town, and there's the fall ball at my house. and then sunday is more (maybe?) cool shit. let the weekend begin!

i take back anything mean i ever said about stellastarr*. thanks to a fabulous new york rockblogger, i have learned that they're kind of great. *no more snotty asterisk comments.

whooooo baby, i got the new strokes album! no, you can't have a copy. mine, all mine!

also on the jubilant tip: yeeeah beeyotch, catchdubs is back! i would like to use the word "jawn" in celebration but i can't quite work it out. i went to public school in dirty jersey, too, but somehow i just can't make it happen. perhaps it's the englishness yet again. then again, hanging out with british people has its linguistic perks, too. last night james taught me "pikey" (cheap, bad, rubbish) and helen taught me "bollocking" (a telling-off). so maybe i'm not doing so bad.