May 2010
43 posts
SlipperySlope
On the advent of our deadline, the OSPL office on St. Aldates road would become a flurry of anticipation and doom. As Dep Editor on the ISIS team—a sometimes quarterly, other times bi-annual magazine in Oxford—my duties were never entirely clear though that never struck me as strange because not once did I feel bored, unchallenged, or undermined. That said, as our 48 hour layout...
For the records:
Planting its flag in the ground, summer arrived yesterday with one very distinct sensation: the relief of cold air as I entered my bank to deposit a check. As if hermetically sealed, the bank’s vestibule so to speak—that sectioned off bit with three machines, stray receipts, a restrained silence—marks a very specific token of the season. The static mix of cold, compressed air, a...
ORNAMENT OF MY MIGHT: A MODEST PROPOSAL →
That I could drink as much liquid as I wanted without ever having to pee
That a personal aggregator would supply me with a steady stream of writing by girl geniuses
That a sneaky photographer would follow me everywhere I go, take only flattering pictures of me doing impressive things, and…
Contingent on my plans, that a mapping service knowingly provides and calculates added time (and...
Fluke!
The same way one YouTube link will lead to another (no matter how cheesy the montage OR no matter how disjointed the jump), when leapfrogging from hyperlink to hyperlink on Wikipedia, chances are I’ll end up rambling through page after page of serial killers. This has happened more than twice (standard for pattern?) and therefore, though I’d like to think these little Manson...
QUICK! A trinity of sensual summer interludes!
Quiet curiosity about a new neighbor
Tan lines at night
Hélène Lagonelle’s body
The satisfaction of resting your hands inside the...
I can pin the moment I first felt envy for on-screen kids. (On-screen families is harder to know for sure, largely because the line drawn between fictional families and those belonging to my friends, blurs, and I often confuse a Steve Martin memory as my very own, or re-imagine a neighbor’s pantry growing up—one with sugar cereals and various flavors of square-shaped...
The Blob:
Rumor has it that our bathtub was once used to make contraband. Of what kind? I can’t be certain, but the well established dark amorphous residual patch of black and navy on its floor—think Rorschach inkblot—only furthers my hypothesis that something was once burned, cooked or melted in it. Though it’s entirely harmless, and has been there since long before I moved in a...
Drawing zero conclusions:
The criterion of blockbusters that run adjacent to and often bridge with my most formative memories is cataloged in such a way that sometimes my wires cross and my recall becomes a hybrid of the Harvard bar speech in Good Will Hunting mixed with the image of me in my high school uniform, swinging back and forth between the kitchen island and sink counter.
Because a film can really come at you,...
Not the Kramer that makes french toast:
Because they find it prettier, Sage and Frey choose rosemary leaves over ground rosemary and then hurry home to their father—grocery bags dragging on each stair as they climb. Inside, Lenny has packed up the entire apartment. With a fridge on his back—their toys inside—and boxes in his hand, they climb aboard the Roosevelt Island Tramway.
Memory! Paper Tornadoes! Dads! Safdie...
AT PRESENT:
“Weeks later, she said: “The guy was about middle-aged. All his things right there in his yard. No lie. We got real pissed and danced. In the driveway. Oh, my God. Don’t laugh. He played us these records. Look at this record-player. The old guy gave it to us. And all these crappy records. Will you look at this shit?”
She kept talking. She told everyone. There was more to...
aka Go Get Some Rosemary:
Last night at the screening, Benny Safdie tried to articulate that sensation of profoundly relating to a film even if the content is entirely foreign. Like having a stranger know your secrets, and instead of violation, you might feel quiet vindication. He related this to our childhood and how despite memory’s delusions, both corrupted and wistful, our inexplicable closeness to something...
“Valentino spends a lot of time in the sun. His skin, the color of melted...”
– Michael Specter, “The Kingdom,” Sept. 25, 2005, The New Yorker (via thessaly)
Diderot
The Cougar Life dating ad that screened during the game last night had all the lo-fi kitsch of a local appliance store/mom and pop mattress shop ad. All that was missing was the breaking of the fourth wall, where a Bob Hope-type turns and tells YOU about a 12 month payment plan for your new Tempur-Pedic®.
2 tags
LabRat
Still testing new ways to fight that Might Take A Nap In The Film Installation Room At The MoMA feeling.
i.e. Ways to counter those sudden, inexplicable bouts of sleepiness brought on by subway lights dimming, and other similar scenarios.
Thinking this might require fewer physical aids, (i.e. drinks, pills, string, loud sounds, tape). Instead, I should curb my attention towards collecting a list...
1993VideoKilla
The portrayal of early 90s loft living in Janet Jackson’s video, That’s The Way Love Goes:
Chilling/hair petting/grinding with friends
Intermittent ADRed casual laugh tracks
Oversized speakers
Then-unknown Jennifer Lopez
Really feeeeeeling the music
Abs
Mouthing the words at your friends
Shoulder bouncing
Beaded chokers and hoop earrings
Singing while leaning against exposed...
StockOptions
Time to cash in your duck lips for Zoe Kazan cheeks.
Deirdre Barlow
Energy and irritation aside, my low blood sugar goggles are far more exciting than my drunk goggles. In both cases I am far more likely to jaywalk and eat 99 cent pizza, but when I’m feeling the onset of LBS, my instincts are unwaveringly more self satisfying and intrepid, (and therefore more fun!) Added bonus, LBS occurs in the day, which yields a secret yet accepted kind of shakiness.
...
HaloEffect:
It is entirely nonsensical for me to associate this list with the deluge of characters in La Comédie humaine.
And yet I do.
The combination seems unwarranted but like most things that guild together in my mind, I expect some use for it soon.
WaitingForTheMovieToStart GAME:
Warren Beatty Celebrity Couple Portmanteaus w/:
Isabelle Adjani
Madonna
Julie Christie
Natalie Wood
Leslie Caron
Diane Keaton
Annette Bening
Aaaaand Go! (It get’s tricky!)
ModestQuestion:
I’m looking for the word that describes clothing cleavage; similar to décolletage, yet sans skin, and created usually by accident. This cleft in your shirt will often occur while posing for a photograph; the result glaring and unwitting.
At the Speakeasy:
Mapped three different star polygon variations connecting the bar to the pool table to the bouncer, to the bathroom to the DJ booth to the owner’s office.
An older woman, whose legs kicked out from the bottom of her round body as she danced alone, but whose center always remained strong, moved steadily from point to point of my polygon.
In high school, I used to keep my compass with me at...
A PERFECT DAY FOR REBLOGGING HAWTHORNE →
Our first youth is of no value; for we are never conscious of it, until after it is gone. But sometimes — always, I suspect, unless one is exceedingly unfortunate — there comes a sense of second youth… This bemoaning of one’s self (as you know) over the first, careless, shallow gaiety of youth departed, and this profound happiness at youth regained — so much deeper and richer than that we lost —...
Grayson Pours Champagne:
“She gave me the best birthday present one year, when we were really little. It was a tape she made. One side was her singing the entire Annie soundtrack. The other side was a work out routine for the Barbie she also gave me. It was the first and only Barbie I ever owned. She had dozens, and the gift was her attempt to kick off my own collection. The fact that I never acquired any others was...
Adaptability:
Laptop/phone skins the color and texture of ACE™ bandages.
SUPERB SABBATICALS
Running out the door/Needed a bookmark/Grabbed a loose paper of notes/Contents of which appear themed:
NYRB Rentals and Real Estate listings: large acreage, fruit and walnut trees, trophy trout fishing, screened porch, 18th century stone farmhouse
girl named Nan
Breton stripes
Alsace-Lorraine
1 tag
Pas de Deux
I easily mistake the echo chamber at the start of ‘Johnny Angel,’ as Bollywood playback singers. Half expecting a Hindi narrative of unrequited love to follow, I am always surprised the moment Shelley Fabares chimes in.
Lycra
Spotting two hair wraps on two separate and unrelated heads during lunch might make for 1/4 of a 90s mirage.
*Far more effective: a Ford Taurus, an Irvine Welsh hardcover, or the name President Suharto broadcast by the BBC.
Minor-League Anagnorisis
Still feels like recognition when I’m stopped in the middle of the street, mistaken by a stranger as someone else.
Wurd
“Since I moved out of my parents’ house, all I really do is eat different permutations of french fries.”
-Jesse Klein
Bail Out
My steadily growing to-do list, blending big goals (ambitions & missions!) with tinier housekeeping targets, is picking up speed, and though I expect a two-week recovery time, I am hoping for a moment of pause and repreive, similar to when I’d discovered—last-minute—a book somewhere on Amazon or in the library, whose thesis was similar enough to mine to parent a brief moment...
Post-Positive Adjective:
Putting off Sunday anxieties with yogurt malt balls and a recap-reading of last night’s WHCD; special attention given to pieces that offer zingers on Hollywood-White House relationship reduxes, and extra points for those that footnote Aaron Sorkin.
The day will get more serious momentarily.
