Liz's Masonic Lodge Blog

The 24 Hour Zine Challenge

2012-02-18T00:25:00.000-06:00

I made a zine for the Quimby's 24 Hour Zine Challenge, based on pictures of things my dad has pulled out of animals in his years as a veterinarian. Click here to order it if you want it! It's a quarter-page size zine (roughly 4.25"x5.5"), 28p and b&w. It's called Prizes: Things My Dad Has Had to Take Out of Animals.

The 24 Hour Zine Challenge was silly and fun. Some store regulars and zinesters stayed overnight at Quimby's, and made zines or new issues of their zines. We ate snacks (lots of Pocky), drank coffee and laughed a lot. One of my co-workers brought crazy snacks from the food stampesque apocalyptic religious snackarium near his place in Pilsen. He stayed on the clock all night, scanning covers of old Punk Planets for the store website. My other co-worker worked on his comics and then curled up in his sleeping bag and somehow slept. Lots of people visited us to show support and hang out, and once particularly awesome store regular (Carrie) brought snacks for us, which I thought was adorable.

I had all these big ideas about taking pictures of the snacks throughout the night as it had been depleted, and I was going to put pieces of paper out with the time, but I only did it once, at about 7:29pm. A few hours later someone saw it and said, "What's the story with this? Why do you need to have this random time right here? Also, it's definitely NOT 7:29 any more. " So then I decided just to scrap the time-next-to-the-food project. I have this reoccuring theme in my life about how I have this tendency to get so caught up in documenting an event that it overshadows me just experiencing the event. "This is a real slice of life! We're making history!"

When the owner came in the morning, he took one look at me and said, "This was all just an excuse for you to wear your pajamas at work, isn't it?"

I still have the pictures from the event on my camera! But I can't get to my camera now to post them now because I'm on the couch with the cat all snuggeled up next to me, and hell no am I moving when something this cute is happening. Also, it's plugged in in the bedroom, and Joe is sleeping and I don't want to wake him up.

Anyway, on an un-related note: Here's a link on my website for a free download of my most recent Dance Dance Party Party mix tape as one continuous track. I DJed as MC Escher on 1/25/12.

Caboose #8: reDraft Picks

2012-01-27T00:35:00.001-06:00

So I finished Caboose #8: reDraft Picks. It's $1.00. You can get it at Quimby's. I'm pasting in the nice review my co-worker, the talented artist and writer Edie Fake wrote of it on The Quimby's Bookstore website, quimbys.com:

Yes, yes, yes! Liz put the staples in Caboose #8 just SIX HOURS before the bell tolled on 2011 (official year of the Revenge of Print, fyi)...so this is may win the superlative title for- "Last Zine of the Revenge of Print" -and it should win a lot of other things too. Reworking thee creme de la creme of her Masonic Blog, Redraft Picks maximalizes the laughs in what I think we can call Liz's "signature mashup" of celebrity culture, pop mayhem and life lessons. Wanna learn about what happens at a Britney Spears release event minus Britney Spears? An expert and even semi-scientific system of measuring the entertainment value of a Hollywood biography? How Quimby's got all that vintage porn? Caboose has got answers, baby. -EF

Click here to read a sample of part of it.
Click here to get this issue.

Audio From My "Uncalled For" Reading

2011-11-18T09:13:00.000-06:00

"Underground: Reading and Performances" was guest curated by Uncalled for Readings in conjunction with the "Underground" exhibition of zines and other self-published works, which was on view at Woman Made Gallery from July 8 to August 14, 2011. The event featured readings and performances by artists and writers who self-publish, and was in August 2011. You can listen to my performance, at my website, and there is also a link there to the WBEZ website where you can hear the entire program. Thanks to the talented and fun Dalice for mixing down each of our individual parts.

Britney S(p)ears Femme Fatale concert DVD Release Event, On the Second Floor of Sears, Near the Mens Department and the Dental Department

2011-11-15T00:37:00.000-06:00

So I went with my friends to the Portage Theater for a viewing release preview thing where they were going to show Britney Spears' Femme Fatale live concert DVD on screen. They were even billing it like it was live like for real-for real, like as if it was happening in live time, because they billed it as "Britney Spears Femme Fatale Live Concert On the Big Screen." How do I know this? Because they put it on TICKETS YOU HAD TO PRINT OUT in advance, that said "General Admission Seating While Seats Available." The ticket was even all janky, like weird fonts mixed of varying pixelated issues, etc. I love that it says, :General Admission Seating While Still Available" like it was going to be jampacked. This was at the same theater that I went months ago when the Femme Fatale album came out, where they had a midnight release "party" for it with an audience total of about 10 people. I wrote about that here and then also more here. If you don't feel like reading those posts or just need a quick refresher, suffice it to say that my live Twitter feed included comments like, "I bought my raffle ticket. Maybe ill win a big bent piece of cardboard with Britney on it" and "An obese man got on stage to talk about his internet radio station." You get the idea. My friends Stefanie and Sarah, who accompanied me for that event months ago, agreed to accompany me again for this. This time I also roped my husband Joe in, who did not accompany me last time to the album release party due to being out of town.

Joe and I got there too early, so before even stopping in at the theater, we went across the street to Fantasy Headquarters, THE BEST COSTUME STORE in the world and where I bought many wigs when I lost my hair when I was sick (I'm fine now thank you). While I was looking at a kinda gangstery hat that Britney kind of wears in the the Me Against the Music video with Madonna, my phone rang and it was Sarah. She said, "Do you know what the story is with this? Do you know about the changes?" No, I did not. She alerted me to the fact that the event had been moved across the street to Sears. The second floor. "Oh my god that's awesome. I will see you there."

We walked across the street to Sears and tried to figure out where to go, where the escalater was, where on the second floor, etc. We joked that if we asked any Sears employee working, we were confident that they would have no idea what we were talking about. We got upstairs and walked around, and saw a sad little runway in the corner, near a sad white screen, in the dental section. I swear I am not making this up.

The event was scheduled to start at 4:30 and it was 4:29 and there wasn't much set up. Just the runway with a sad raggely carpet and eight chairs.

Sad Raggedy Carpet Tongue On the End of the Runway

There was a poster that was un rolled that then some guy came out and started rolling it up. There was some sound and video equipment still on a rolling cart. They had moved some of the boxers and pajama bottom merchandise racks off to the side.

I called Stefanie and Sarah, and they said they were downstairs trying on shoes. When we got down there (this event was obviously not going to start on time), Sarah hobbled over wearing one of her own gym shoes and a leopard-print mega hookery high heel shoe. She wanted to know what we thought. I told her, "You should wear those two together, like it's some sort of sassy rogue-style thing."

We went back upstairs and they were beginning to set up what looked like an obstacle course. The screen extended over the entrance to the dental department, but they were sectioning it off with pieces of wood on chairs so that people who had dental appointments wouldn't accidentally run into it and know it was off limits. A group of about 4 or 5 other people came in who were all obviously together came and sat down. I announced that we should put on some of the Joe Boxer pajamas and walk around on the runway.

While we were waiting, I pulled out my phone and reminded them of what the Facebook invite said, that the concert was supposed to be on a 45 foot screen. Also, it said this:

Before the concert we will also show Britney's music videos from her Femme Fatale album and will premiere the music video "Watch Out" from ANDREA EVE which was filmed on The Portage Theater stage at the Six Corners BBQ Fest a few months ago! We will also give you a sneek peek at a new up and coming artist "Ashtar".

We sat down on the folding chairs when the concert DVD started but there wasn't any of the other video has mentioned in the Facebook invite.

I pulled out the popcorn and soda.

Joe's comment when he posted a photo of me Facebook:

"Liz didn't want the oily popcorn from the theater, so she snuck in some that was air popped at home.

The theater didn't happen. So she's eating popcorn in the men's department in Sears."

Joe started taking pictures too. Later, when he posted them on Facebook, he prefaced the set with these words, which summarized this event perfectly:

So there was this Britney Spears live DVD prerelease event that was scheduled for the Portage Theater in Chicago. We didn't get the details, but the event was moved. To Sears. Second floor. Men's department. In front of the dental department. I wish I could make these details up.

I was filling everyone in on details they needed to know: the guy rapping, that's Will.I.Am. He produced some of these songs. That other woman rapping, that's Nicki Minaj. That other woman rapping, that's Sabi. She rapped on Drop Dead (Beautiful). And so on. Also, see that routine? That's the dance from the video. And that one too. See that set? They used a variation of that when she was on this one TV show. And so on. I fielded questions from my friends and offered trivia and discussion. I ate most of the popcorn I brought for everybody.

Sarah kept us entertained with dressing up in ridiculous outfits, occassionally getting on the runway and workin' it with Vanilla Ice-style hats and shirts, pajama bottoms with One Fish Two Fish, there was even a green sweater with a tie to pose with the green mannequin. Stefanie said, "Any time we're shopping, if you mention 'fashion show,' where Sarah can dress up in clothes and have someone take pictures, she loooooves that and is always game." I loved this idea and thought that was fabulous.

About 3/4 of the way into watching the concert some 12 year old-ish kid shoppin with his parents came in and asked what was going on. When we told him, he said, "Oh. Is she going to be here?" We thought it would be really awesome if she burst through the screen and announced that she just had a dental appointment.

At some point they brought out headless male mannequins! A blue one and a green one. Was one a Blue Man Group thing and te other one an Incredible Hulk thing?. They were all naked surrounding the screen at first. Then salespeople started to play with what clothes to put on them. They put jeans on them but left the top all unzipped and sex open. We laughed hysterically. We were the worst heckling peanut gallery ever, but I suppose that gave them very exact feedback on their marketing endeavors. So they zipped up the pants and put ties on them.

Joe's comment: Bare chest, tie, unbuttoned jeans. Very trendy. Very euro.

Sarah Models With a Green Headless Mannequin and Britney Spears In the Dental Department of Sears
(Absolutely Every Word of This Is True)
Alternate Title For This Photo:
What They Make You Do Before You Have a Dental Appointment at Sears
Also, Joe's comment about this photo was that Sarah is modeling the green and tie look that's big right now.

Then some pretty lady came in who was in sort of business attire and sat down on a table off to the side. Was that the woman who filmed her thing during the Six Corners BBQ Fest? Was it Ashtar? And why did she have one of those black portfolios? Did she think she was like an art school fair? In the Mens department near the dental department at Sears? She was doing something on a computer?

Joe's comment: "Hot Britney dental runway action!

Joe's comment: "Life has its moments of perfection."
There's some sort of social commentary ripe for discussion about this photo.

Joe's comment: "

Brit and her bodyguards, at Sears"

So much ado about these mannequins.
Joe's comment: "We figured that the Sears manager must have said, 'Set up a couple of dummies.
Maybe we can hustle some slacks and ties while we've got this event going on."

After the whole thing was over, some guy who smelled like cigarettes told us to come back whent hey screen this for real at the theater. We would get a copy of the DVD if we asked for some guy named Mark. Sarah asked what with the deal was with the change of venue. We asked why there was this event was moved and the guy who smelled like cigarettes said it was because they thought not a lot of people would show up for the event. He said that the free showing they did of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" at the theater earlier in the day was poorly attended. We discussed this later and thought it was humorous that they thought they'd get a big turnout for this even though the thing for the turnout for the album release was so poor. Also, the guy who smelled like cigerettes said there was going to be a fashion show at 7. It was 6:45. We went across the street to Marshall's where I bought a winter coat.

I may remember of the details of this tomorrow to add. Lucky you!

I'm Reading at Two Cookie Minimum

2011-11-14T12:31:00.001-06:00

Come out, come out wherever you are! I'll be reading Tuesday the 15th at the Hungry Brain for the Two Cookie Minimum reading series. Event starts at 9pm. See you there?

The Celebrity Tell-All Rubric

2011-11-07T23:38:00.001-06:00

I stumbeled upon my copy of Vanna Speaks by Vanna White (Warner Books) the other day. I think it came from a Salvation Army.

I have the hard cover 1987 version with a foreward by Pat Sajak.

The basic gist of this book is "Sure, I make it LOOK easy, but really..."

I did learn a few interesting points, I suppose. Merv Griffin hired her because she turned the letters better than everyone else. What were the other folks who auditioned like? Like maybe they were really bad at turning the letters. Like they did it too fast. Or got some goo on them or something. Also, Vanna White did hand modeling. Her poor hands got tired holding a pop can. Also! Yes, if you win prizes that are $600 or over you have to pay taxes on it.

Also, parting gifts may include tuna, shampoo, Rice-a-Roni, hardware, motor oil or hair products.

Here are some preposterous quotes I enjoyed from this book:

"I know wearing clothes sounds like a pretty simple task, but there's more to it than that." (p. 10)

"I believe that success -- in anything -- depends on who, not what, you are. More than that, it involves hard work and having a dream." (p. 18) (My reaction: ...And your dream is to pose in clothes for pictures and turn toy hangman letters? I mean, wearing clothes is so hard.)

"I smoked some pot with the two wilder girls and came home with such an intense case of the munchies that I ate an entire meatloaf." (p. 60)

This kind of Meatloaf?

"Informal surveys reveal that lots of people tune in to see what I'll wear" (p. 128)

Interesting other note: she dated a Chippendales dancer. Then he died. Also, when she was young and needed the money in LA before making it big she posed for a sexy lingerie ad. Later the pictures reappeared in Playboy. Also, she tanned in the nude and a peeping tom took photos, and those resurfaced later too. DUH! You are famous and you're tanning in the nude?! That's like when celebrities make sex videos. Why?! First of all, why are you videotaping yourself having sex? Are you going to watch it later? Also, you would think that enough celebs have had their sex tapes leaked that you would think that famous people would know not to make them any more. I know, I know, celebs and politicians think they're never going to get busted for doing something dumb, but -- I mean, why are you videotaping yourself having sex? That's the real issue, if you ask me.

As I was pawing my way through and making laughy snort sounds, I came up with this idea of a Celebrity Autobiography rubric that would calculate each book from awesome to not awesome via a point system.

Sure, there are different types of celeb autobios, but I particularly like the ones with extreme self-aggrandisement and salaciousness. And the more extreme the book is regarding specific categories, the higher the probability is that I would enjoy it.

The more certain themes/motifs play out in celeb memoirs, the higher the score they would get. The themes could include things like drug use, sense of personal importance, relationships with others, personal (mis)conceptions about reality, mental and physical health, etc.

This is the way the system could be set:

1=none 2=very little 3=average 4=fairly high amount 5=extreme amount

I'm not talking about rating the celebrity. I'm talking about rating the book. If I was merely rating the celebrity, that's a different story; if I was just rating the celeb, there is plenty material to choose from, but that's not my point. I'm talking about the celeb autobio as a genre. (Sidenote: If I was talking about just the celeb and their public behaivor, there's plenty to go with -- David Hasselhoff crying while eating a hamburger in a video on Youtube, Britney attacking with an umbrella, Toby McGuire bringing his own food to the craps table, etc.) But no! I'm talking about just the book.

Any of the tell-all books by members of Mötley Crüe like The Dirt, The Heroin Diaries, Tommyland etc. get high points in all categories that would be on the rubric, so as you can guess, they're fun to read. So I don't need to include them below -- They're kinda holy grail-y in regards to the celeb autobio genre. Just go read them and enjoy, even if you're not a Crüe fan.

Here are just two examples of how certain things would rate in this rubric that I can think of off the top of my head:

Sense of Personal Importance:
In Call Me Crazy: A Memoir by Anne Heche, she describes developing an alter ego, Celestia, who was the daughter of God, come to save mankind. That would rate the book a 5 for the category of Personal Perception. Also a 5 goes to David Hasselhoff in Don't Hassel the Hoff: The Autobiography (Thomas Dunne Books) 2007 for his insistance that he was integral to the capitulation of the Berlin Wall. Definitely a 5 for his book in this category.

Drug Use:
Gene Simmons said in Kiss and Make Up that he has never tried alcohol or pot and that he never will. That would be a 1 in this category.
Drew Barrymore was in and out of rehab twice by the time she was 14, as described in her book Little Girl Lost. Although you would think that I would assign her a 5 in this category, I actually went with giving her book a 4 because it seems like she was scared straight due to past public shame of herself in regards to the drugs.
In Memoirs of a Superfreak, Rick James talks about his habitual use of all types of drugs and his multiple rehab trips. He pretty much died because of drugs, and there is much ado about his drug endeavors in the book. I honor his drug use in the book with a 5 for this category.

Anyway, you get the idea...

Books that I haven't read but I am sure I would enjoy rating on this system would be ones by Valerie Bertinelli, Tatum O'Neal, Mackenzie Phillips -- It's just that I have a billion books on deck right now -- no, I haven't gotten to those -- yet...

One day I would love to sit some of the ghost writers down, get them rip-roaringly drunk and get the scoop behind the scoop.

I should also mention that there are some celeb memoirs that are totally outside the realm of this rubric -- like books that don't have that type of extreme preposterousness that I enjoy in a celeb memoir. Maybe, they actually learned something from their experience in the industry and have some legitimate wisdom to share, like in Pat Benatar's Between a Heart and a Rock Place, where she shares the love story of how she met her husband who is also the guitarist for her band, and then also some good stuff about the difference between corporate and indie record label business models and so on. I enjoy books like that too, yes, but they are a different type of celeb autobio. Rue McClanahan's My First Five Husband's...And the Ones Who Got Away is another fun autobio but doesn't have the preposterousness I usually enjoy like in the above categories, but it does have salacious info about her fellow Golden Girls, like who was nicer than who and who needed to read cue cards. Also, Growing Pains by Billie Piper is good too in a "I've learned so much through my pain" kind of a way, but with some typos that seem weirdly cozy.

Anyway, I've got some other memoirs that I would like to get to soon already in the Liz Mason Midwest Celebrity Autobiography Collection (read: my bathroom) that I haven't really cracked open yet I look forward to getting to them eventually, like a book by the original drummer for Oasis and Adam Ant's memoir. What celeb memoirs do you know about that I should read?

Describing Halloween Sounds Like Hilarious High School Poetry

2011-11-01T01:07:00.000-05:00

I love Halloween. Especially in the city. And when I describe it, it totally sounds like some ridiculous poetry, which is hilarious and awesome to me. Halloween is poetry. With candy.

A member of Run DMC walks over Wabansia in broad daylight on the way to the bank to transfer funds from savings to checking account. A matador walks down the street giving directions on his cell phone. In the dark, I walk by an apartment with a party in progress: a moose is dancing drunkenly in the corner, antlers accidentally hitting the ceiling. A group of unlikely friends flag for a cab: a sexy eskimo (sexkimo), a nun, and a pirate. Left in my bike basket: a wrapper for a "HIP HOP BLING NECKLACE." A bus rolls and raves down the street with a flame twirler and a DJ spinning techno atop.

YES.

Here's this year's Halloween costume. Guess I never got around to putting together a Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner costume. Well, maybe next year. So this year's was pretty low maintenance.

I sang Womanizer at karaoke and was going to take the pink wig off while singing to reveal my pink hair underneath but then I forgot. Bah! I got the idea from Emo Phillips taking off his Michael Jackson jacket to reveal another one of the same underneath. Woops.

Problems We Should Be Proud to Have

2011-10-31T01:07:00.001-05:00

I was standing out in the rain waiting for a bus being not thrilled but then also thinking, I'm lucky to even have a coat to wear. It's kind of amazing that I have a coat to wear. As a human species, there were evolutionary ancestors of mine that didn't have a coat to wear in weather like this.

And then I thought, This year, I am going to really get my shit together and spend real money on a real winter coat. One with a real functioning zipper where I don't have to rely on other people to help me with the god damn zipper that makes me feel like I'm seven and have to have someone help me in my winter coat.

And then I thought, We didn't, as a species, always have zippers.

In fact, I think someone told me once that zippers are still outlawed (unaccepted? unused?) by some folks, like maybe certain sects of the Amish. (However, this is based on not only what someone else told me, and then also based on my own memory, which is not known for its exactitude.) So then I thought, I'm lucky to even be living in a time, space and society that accepts and utilizes zipper technology (when you have a not shitty coat) that makes life that much easier.

There's certain problems we should be glad to have. I have clothes that fit me! I have insulation from the elements! The fact that I have problems with my zipper means that my species has evolved to the point where if I'm having problems with technology that shows that my species has evolved to even HAVE that technology. That's pretty far along.

I feel like this doesn't make sense me saying that, so I will explore this more completely with another example.

How do people get through e-mails so quickly? So much comes to my inbox I have to go through: All the alerts that come that I need to look at on all the social media sites I do stuff on, the least of which is Facebook, where somebody has sent me info about an event somebody has created of something they'e performing in that I need to add to my calendar, all the e-mails of business I have to take care of ("So we're meeting at this spot at 5pm, can you pick up so and so?"), questions ("Hey what was the name of that podcast you were talking about?"), "Hey, here's this grant you should totally apply for"...I feel like it takes me 27 hours to respond to each e-mail. What compounds the problem is that I have this habit of signing up for lots of daily e-mails from websites like Gizmodo, or those feeds where every time somebody does another post I get the e-mail alert -- and then the "So and so commented on your thing here" that I then feel like I need to respond to (or at least check out)...Then I spend all my time weeding through the e-mails and deciding which ones I'll pay attention to or not, deciding what to read or listen to...Do I really need to listen to the NPR Song of the Day every damn day? Do I really need to look at the Steampunk Home e-mail about the picture of something they added to their blog that day? It's all stuff I like, but I have a limited amount of time.

Ulch.

Technology is amazing but information overload is not. I always feel panic that I am missing out on something I need to hear about or read about. I have the world at my fingertips while simultaneously extricating myself from the actual outside world. And I know I am not the only one who thinks this; I've heard New York Times journalists complaining about media production versus media processing and my friends on Facebook pontificating about the debilitating overload of media consumption. Clearly I am not the first to articulate about this issue.

But on some level, the "problem" of information overload seems a preposterous issue to be worried about. Shouldn't I be happy that I have access to amazing media at all times? Shouldn't I be inspired by all of it? There's such a mass of material to massage my soul with -- podcast, blog, radio piece, music, info...

But then! I think I often feel panic that I can't get to all that media I want to get to. Funny too, that I would use the word "massage" in regards to nourishing my soul. That's kind of McLuhanish. As in "The media is the massage." Or was it the medium is the massage? A medium massage? Whatever. I need a massage. My brain and soul need a massage. (And probably some actual fresh air.)

I'm trying to be optimistically inspired by this modern dilemma. Poor baby can't listen to ALL OF THIS AMAZING MUSIC and LISTEN TO ALL OF THESE AMAZING PODCASTS. I can't read ALL OF THIS AMAZING STUFF.

Oh the humanity. Poor baby.

P.S. Here's a picture of me in the shitty winter jacket looking miserable. You're welcome!

A Cat Wearing Sunglasses: A Coping Strategy

2011-10-17T17:07:00.003-05:00

Next time you're at your lowest point, rocking back and forth, muttering intelligible prayers for divine guidance and gnawing off your cuticles, perhaps you might consider experimenting with a variety of illicit substances to help cope with mental anguish? However, if you can't afford a narcotics habit, there is also another option, one that entails what you can physically do to help redirect your attention elsewhere.

Once, when I was so disgusted with myself for making a bad judgement call about something, the only thing that stopped me from jumping in front of a bus was a few drinks. Well, and imagining I was surrounded by a huge large soft mushy cat.

Seriously, whatever works.

I got the cat idea from the anime version of "Please Save My Earth." There's this gigantic cat, like the size of a couch named Kyaa (named that because when people see him they go, "KYAA!") It's actually an alien. It gobbles up/absorbs someone's sadness and anger in a healing kind of a way. Did I mention it's huge? ...And um, when you first meet it, he's wearing sunglasses.

I can totally see where this idea came from. Not the sunglasses. The idea of a cat absorbing energy. Sometimes I'll sit down where one of the cats was just laying and then it's all warm and kitty-y, which I love, love, love. Sometimes one of the cats will have been laying on my sweater and then I'll put on the sweater and it makes me all happy because it's all warm and cat-feeling. One of my friends, the one who made me watch "Please Save My Earth," said that my cats are probably sitting on my sweaters because they sense my energy on it and then the cats and I are just recycling love vibes back and forth.

Warm and fuzzy. Literally.

Did I mention that the cat in the anime was a really big cat? Because it was. Like the kid would kinda spoon with this really big cat. Well, maybe not totally spoon, but curl up in the cats belly while the cat lies on it's side.

Also, did I mention the cat had sunglasses for a few scenes? My friend who showed me this movie said that she showed it to me because she knew I would love the idea of this cat, and especially that it was wearing sunglasses, and that this really long dramatic movie was really just the build up until I would see the cat with sunglasses. Because this cat is cooooool.

But really, I mean, I liked the idea of the trauma absorbing cat. I SO want one of those. Craig's List ad maybe?

Anyway, my point is that something helpful when you're sick of being in your own head is to engage in some type of sensory activity that feels good, even if it's pretending that you're surrounded by a ENORMOUS CAT. (With or without sunglasses.)

If you want to watch the scene about Kyaa from "Please Save My Earth," you can watch it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHFnARnOA8k

Decorate. Decorate. Decorate. The TARGIS.

2011-09-26T23:30:00.000-05:00

I thought to myself, if you bought a time machine at Target, it would be this:

The TARGIS

I downloaded a Dalek font, the one they use for Daleks in the Doctor Who comics. I was going to have the Dalek saying "Decorate." But the font didn't work so well with any Adobe programs, only MS Word. On one of the sites I came across sound clips of DW stuff, and I downloaded a TARDIS taking off sound which I made a loop of and then put it on my phone. If you want it I can send it to you, if you want it for your phone.

This week's Doctor Who (well, technicaly last week I suppose) was satisfying, with the "fish out of water" sequences I always enjoy in things, like Look! The Doctor is being sort of a nanny! Look! The Doctor is working in a toy store! Look! The Doctor is petting a toy dog robot and making comments like it's K-9 etc. It was very exciting that we configured my I-Pod to plug into the TV so we can ferment on the couch watching stuff on a big TV instead of sitting in front of a computer in lame-o office chairs.

Secretly in the middle of the night I've been watching the first season of "Heroes" streaming off Netflix. There are episodes of "Heroes" with former DW star Christopher Eccleston which I think will be in the next season that I'll hit soon, so maybe I'll watch the series to there. It's a pretty cheesy show but I can't stop. I would be interested in just a full series devoted to the Hiro Nakamura character, the Asian comic book geek, who can transport through time and space. His character has a charming boyish nerdiness that I enjoy, and he is definitely supposed to be the comic relief, which at the same time makes me uncomfortable in a "Is he the comic relief because he's Asian?" kind of a way. Anyway, the Heroes thing started because I watched the first DVD of Osamu Tezuka's The Phoenix, and since the next DVDs in the series aren't here yet and I was still in a science fictiony mood, and because Netflix didn't have live streaming for the following discs of The Phoenix, I decided to watch Heroes, especially also because Netflix would let me stream it (and because I'd heard a lot about it). I think one of the reasons I like science fiction so much is it has events that are so much more interesting than my daily life. There's not much I can do to make tasks that annoy me any more magical or spiritual.

All this science fiction got me thinking: so much of the tasks we have to do in the world need enrichment of something more interesting than the mundane. Time machines do indeed need to be at the big box store! Universal timeless proverbs of sentient intelligence should coming out from the computer screen, there should be haunted hexes on things, there need to be spiritual life forces at the tollbooths...Is what I'm really looking for is religion? I would be happy to accept it if something convinced me that there were spiritual forces outside of what I understand reality to be. But so far I haven't encountered anything. I'm open! Hello?! Hello?! Hello?!

OK, so my antennaes are up. In the mean time, I present you...

*****************

The Terrifying, Shocking Tale of the Haunted Tire Replacement

by Liz "Mummified Monster" Mason

(This story is best enjoyed read aloud in a scary voice)

Lightning flashed! Thunder roared! The sky went dark! Booooooooo!

My caaaar neeeeded new front tiiiiires and there was a eery sqeeeeeeak coming when I hit the breaaaaaaks.

I went to the haunted Midas on Fuuuuulllertooon, three blocks east of the post office. They told me that they could patch up my tires or put on new ones. I said that I wanted 2 new ones. They said it would beeeeeee $119.99 with $19.99 to instaaaaaaall for EACH TIIIIRE. They were having a saaaaaaale, and that I could get Bridgestone Primewall tiiiiiiiires. I found this accetpable. They also told me that it cooooooomes with a 30,000 mile warrentyyyyyy. But then! They talked me into paying another $79.95 for tire alignment otherwise I'd have to come back in a few months to fix the tires from being worn down due to misalignment. Then I also had to pay $3.95 for a new valve stem, another $3.95 for a tire tax, and then a tire disposal fee for $2.50.

They asked me if I had anything else on the car to look at. I howled ghoulishly, "Perhaps the braaaaaakes, because they squeeeeeeak sometiiiiiiimes." They asked me, "Does that happen all the time? Or just when it's wet out?"

I shuddered. I said, "Usually when it's wet out but then also sometimes other times too. I think there might be something hauuuuuuuuuunted in our car. I think there must be a spirit in there!" Then I waited a paniced moment while they assessed the brakes.

A few HAIR-RAISING minutes later, they showed me that my rooters make the squeaking sound when they're wet because they are rinsing off the rust, which many cars do, but the squeaking was happening in normal weather because of heat spots created by constant use, which create marks that cause extra friction. The mechanic suggested slicing off part of the rooooooooooter (essentially exfoliating the surface), but if we did that, we would also need to get new break pads. It would cost like $250 EXTRA DOLLARS! I let out a BLOOD-CURDLING SCREAM! I CAN'T AFFORD THAT!

I said, "I'll pass on rooter work for now but that perhaps I will do it another time."

Then the receptionist had me sign some GRUESOME paperwork. Since it would take two TERRIFYING hours to install the new tires, I went to the SPINE-CHILLING doughnut shop across the street to wait fearfully. A NIGHTMARISH chill went down my spine! THEY DIDN'T HAVE WI-FI! An unspeakable tragedy must have happened in that very spot 75 years ago! I COULD NOT CHECK MY E-MAIL!! But the GLAAAAAAAAAZED DOUGHNUT was DELICIOUS!

Then when my car was ready, they called my cell phone. The total was $364.97. I went back and paid with a supernatural card-like item that had a magical spectral stripe on it that allowed me to exchange it for goods and services when it was slid through an unearthly device.

"Thank yooooooooou," I said.

The lady said, "Why are you talking like that?"

And I said, "Because I took some muscle relaaaaaaxants."

THE END

*****************

Unrelated note: one last note before I go. I would just like it to be known that strangely, Netflix sent me bonus discs of a movie before sending the actual movie. So I watched the 2 bonus discs for "Grindhouse" before actually watching "Grindhouse." So now I know all about the CGI effects, stunt doubles and casting adventures. Is it me, or is Q. Tarantino sort of cheesy? Just thinking aloud.

Next Podcast Episode Uploaded and Reflections On It

2011-09-21T22:49:00.000-05:00

So I uploaded the next episode of the Quimby's Bookstore podcast. This episode I interviewed Jon Kristiansen and Tara G. Warrior talking about their book Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries (Bazillion Points Publishers). Jon started Slayer Mag in Norway in 1985 and put out 20 issues over the span of 25 years. The zine covered a variety of extreme metal bands, including Emperor, Slayer, Kreator, Nihilist, Celtic Frost, Bathory, Cathedral, Entombed, Morbid, Napalm Death, and more. The Onion AV Club called founder Jon Kristiansen “one of the best primary sources for facts and stories about Mayhem, Varg, and what really happened back in the day." The Chicago Reader called this book "a chronicle of death and black metal at their births but also a personal coming-of-age story." It's an awesome 744 page hardcover with tons of pictures and reproduction pages from every issue, and there's even material from the precursor Live Wire zine. It's also part memoir. Co-editor Tara interviewed Jon all about his experiences with the zine, and then together they decided what to include.

When it came time for editing, it took me a lot of playing around with the volume since there were 3 people talking, and each of us had different volume. That was very time consuming. I also added some music in it, which I think helps, if you need some help understanding examples of the music. I also edited out anything that was redundant, like if we got interuptted and then had to start again, if one of us, if there was a long pause, and so on. And oh! Another reason I think it was important to include music snippets is because I have this feeling about reading about music without hearing the music -- it doesn't help m much if I don't hear the music. When I read music reviews, no matter how many adjectives you use and in what combination, nothing replaces actually hearing the music. Sure, you can give me an idea like "Sounds like this band" and so on. But even that isn't the same. It doesn't help that I neglected to say who the bands are. Well, I included songs by Bathory and one by Watain.

Also, I know that all the church burning and murder stuff had been covered in a variety of places, so although the conversation touched on some of that briefly, I tried to approach the interview from the angle of independent zine publishing. We talked for a nice long time, and I felt like we had a good vibe going.

I would have liked to record the actual event afterwards in order for putting that up on the podcast but I don't have a very good mic -- in fact, I just use the mic on my Macbook. That would never capture the people speaking at an event.

Something that was really refreshing was that occassionally the conversation would take these unexpectedly hilarious turns, things that were decideldy NOT metal, which I enjoyed, because that was sort of surreal but then also very normal, as if to remind the listener that we're really just three geeks in a basement at Quimby's. I had read that one of the reasons that Jon and Tara became such good friends is because of all the people that would write letters to Jon, she was the only person who brought up the Everely Brothers or something like that.

It’s available for your listening pleasure, in a variety of formats and places for you to stream or download, including a link to I-Tunes where you can subscribe to the podcast so you can hear every episode when they come out, and they're free.

Podcast: quimbys.podbean.com

Book available: quimbys.com

Celebrity Gossip Column of the Apocalypse

2011-09-11T02:02:00.001-05:00

So a few weeks ago I was asked to read at this reading series based on the theme of dystopia and apocalypse, called The Liquid Burning of Apocalyptic Bard Letters. It's at the at the Black Rock Bar. So this is what I wrote for it.

Apocalypse Weekly Gossip Column

As Featured In the Grocery Store Tabloid Magazine All Access Rapture Confidential

by The Whore of Hollywood Babylon Prophet of Judgment

KEEP IT TOGETHER, GIRL! Snowpocalypse in the midwest, Hurracaines on the east coast, earthquakes in the south. All in time for celebrating the 10th anniversary of 911. Don't miss this starstudded red carpet commemorative celebrity event, featuring someone playing kettle drums, a couple accountants and maybe Gary Busey.

It's the Britney Spears Military Complex, Bitch! The Princess of Pop's "Till The World Ends" Mayan 2012 remix is available on I-Tunes! Co-written by Ke$ha, produced by Max Martin and Dr. Luke, you can also order the Premium Fan Edition that comes with a handjob. No official word has been released yet from BritBrit's record label Sony/Zomba/Jive/JPMorgan-USPS-UPS-fedex-Burger-King-McDonalds regarding the potential end of life as we know it and how that may affect sales.

Have you heard the FIVE SIX about the September issue of Astrophysics Tramp Stamp Tattoo Society? Allegations have come forward of a scandalous section devoted to Albert Einstein tattoos. Infamous Gossip Queen of tinsel town Perez Jinx Falkenburg Walter Winchell of the popular web site X127W.348.ministryoftruth.com vicious-alicously pronounced of the Page Six tell-all expose that wipes the ink gun clean:

"Tattoos of Einstein are the Spensor's Gifts of tattoo images," Perez says. "What the end-of-the-world needs now IS NOT tattoos of an aging Jewish man with crazy hair that says 'E=MC squared! Imagination is more important than knowledge.' BORING. If you're so into physics, why not use the picture of a graph depicting gravity as the curvature of space and time? WhatEVER! Besides, if people who get these tattoos were so into astrophysics they would know that the discussion of gravity and space time has started to incorporate theories regarding elements of spin."

THE TEA HAS BEEN SPILLED! A new demographic study performed by the Center For Public Boredom claims that the best way to bore people to tears so that they eagerly await the termination of existence instead of confronting the heartbreaking absurdity of existential nausea as described by the work of John-Paul Sartre is to conduct self-administered mail in surveys that focus on close-ended questions vs. open ended questions, and that all questionaires should avoid vague qualifiers or abstract terms, as well as being careful to avoid charming jargon or quirky slang that humanizes the respondents and inspires a soul-enriching, life-affirming experience of their humanity. The categories to questions 2, 3, 10, 11 and 12 in Figure 3.1 and Quesitons 1, 2, and 4 in Figure 3.2 are mutually exclusive, although respondents should be able to provide multiple single word answers if relevant. When the questionnaire makes provisions for respondents to give multiple choice answers, the surveyors must also make provisions for the multiple answers to be efficiently and completely coded into the data for analysis.

OMG!! In the "Nothing to see here people move it along!" Dept.! The entity United-States-of-Wall-Mart-Target-Viacom-MTV-VH1-Hewlitt-Packard-of-The-America-Coporation has ordered a video featuring alleged enlightened beings from another planet warning humans of their potential path to environmental, nuclear and otherwise ruinous destruction, to be removed from popular free video website invitroyoutube.com. In a tell all interview where no topic is left untouched, Doublethink Corporation Inc. employee Citizen #1,237 comes forward to discuss the decision to post, unpost, delete, assimilate, exterminate and then repost a replacement video that features Harry 'Haywire' McClintock's hobo classic Big Rock Candy Mountain accompanied by innocuous animation of houses built out of sweet cakes and candy, created and posted by critically acclaimed Swedish production team jorsky7iimbaa7296everythingisdoubleplusgood, known for such argumentative innuendo that most likely no aliens have ever landed on our planet and never will and seriously, look at this device and don't blink OK there were no aliens in this spot ever, you have unaccounted for time because you just fell asleep at the wheel and no, you were never taken aboard any vessel and probed by any aliens ever, really, just you know, everything is all good, hey look there's a cute doggie!

FASHION NO-NO! Lizard-consciousness out-of-body experiences, ayahuasca, Neanderthal Enigma consciousness, that is SO twentieth century. Currently in: neuro-linguistic programming, storing your genes on a boat and eschatology that views the end times as perfection.

HOT! HOT! HOT! A source has given me the tip off that there will be a technological singularity in the 21st century that would profoundly and unpredictably change the course of human history, and result in Homo sapiens no longer being the dominant life form on earth. This will be correlated with the life cycle of the sun! Another announcement proclaimed that extensive destructive events will destroy the population of the world, which will then restart all of creation with divine beings that will begin a Golden Age.

Anton take me away! What's your feel good factor? A spokesperson for the followers of Anton "Battle Hymn of the Apocalypse" Lavey suggested that in case the world really does end, you should live it up, indulging your impulses instead of abstaining. Go on! Celebrate your own birthday. Don't you deserve it? It may be your last chance.

Word has leaked out! Chronos "Father of Time" took a "time out" from his busy schedule of growing his long, grey beard to announce that it's not worth putting anything else in your Netflix queue if you already have more than 276 films in it, because the world might end in the --

Bleaching My Hair and Listening to Podcasts: Try Not To Make Any Noise

2011-08-14T23:06:00.002-05:00

I bleached my hair. It's like I'm 17! Well, that's not too surprising considering that's about where my fashion sense progressed to. I mean, you're talking to someone who is not above shopping at Hot Topic. (And I will have you know the only one anywhere close to me is at the Harlem and Irving Plaza -- or "HIP" as it is known, which I think is hilarious.) I've always been open to fun hair colors and haircuts and putting ridiculous things in it like twigs, string and plastic animals. And when I was sick and had to shave my head before I lost my hair, well I guess in retrospect it made me kind whatever about my hair. There are also days where I expect so little from my personal appearance, that I simply say to myself Just as long as I don't look like a TOTAL ASSHOLE and that is what it takes to get me out the door without being too OCD.

Anyway, I was very lazy about the way I put the bleach on my hair. Well, actually, I was pretty lazy even in the process of going about getting the supplies for my hair. In fact, I walked in to Sally's Beauty Supply and when the woman asked me if I needed any help, I just announced, "I want to bleach my hair. I am very lazy." So she showed me powder I needed, a hair net that you pull hair through, gloves, a hair dye painting brush, gloves and some conditioner. What she did not tell me was that I had to buy this lotiony substance that you put with the powder. So I had to go back and get it a few days later. When it came time to do the process, the hair net lasted about 5 minutes before I ditched it and just started painting the bleach powder-lotion stuff on where I felt like it. So I wasn't particularly methodical about it. I was actually paying more attention to the podcast I was listening to at that moment, which was Comedy Bang-Bang podcast. I was trying to not make any sound so I could hear what they were saying, which means I had to work sort of slowly and not too far away from the computer so I could still hear it, which is ridiculous of course, I mean, why didn't I just turn the computer up louder? I have no good answer for this.

Sidenote: Sometimes with podcasts I just have to remind myself that it's OK to miss part of it if I have to make some sort of noise like turn the water on to rinse out my mouth after brushing my teeth. The thing is, if I'm really engaged in listening I don't want to have to relisten to part of it again if I missed something, but I listen to so many podcasts that I sometimes have to give myself permission to miss part of it; after all, having it on to listen to and just hearing some of it is better than not hearing any at all, so according to that logic I should be happy to hear any of it, which is better than no hearing it at all. So I shouldn't care if I miss a few words. However, there is one podcast that I usually listen to during activities like walking to and from work, where I know I won't miss a word, and that's the Pod F. Tompkast which I always enjoy. That I listen to on my I-pod. But everything else, I can listen to it in a variety of other places: either of my computers, on I-Tunes at work, etc.

When I was done with the bleach job I decided to trim the back of my hair so it wasn't so thick at the bottom of my neck. But then I cut my neck on the scissors, because it was at a weird angle. Then I decided to even out the nape of my hairline on my neck, but I wanted it shorter than I knew how I'd be able to get with scissors, so I decided a razor would be the way to go with it, but all I had was a disposable razor. It was all dorm-room-tastic except that I'm 37. The whole thing with the bleach and the cutting and the shaving is quite preposterous but I actually kind of like the way it looks now.

I feel soooooo glamerous. I may put some dye in it when this starts to bore me.

Events I'm in this month!

2011-08-03T00:19:00.092-05:00

I'm in three events! Come see me!

Homeroom Presents: Britney Spears 101

Featuring Me, Chris Smit and Judy Hoffman

at The Hungry Brain 8/9

So this is a Homeroom event, and I also am thinking of it as a release event for Caboose #7: Britney Spears 101. I wasn't totally happy with the print job for the first edition, but I've fixed them with this edition, and also added 24 pages. And I got fancy book blurbs from writers I enjoy and a grant from the city of Chicago to reprint it.

Also these fine folks will be joining me:

Christopher Smit, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Media Studies at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His newest book is The Exile of Britney Spears: A Tale of 21st Century Consumption. His work on disability, aesthetics, culture, and popular music can be found in a variety of texts and journals. He is also an award-winning singer-songwriter and musician who currently fronts the band The New Midwest. For more info: smitwork.com/blog

Judy Hoffman is an award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer, as well as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies and Department of Visual Arts. Hoffman has worked on films about such topics as Howard Zinn, Studs Terkel,the Dalai Lama and Chicago politics, just to name a few. She is also the director of Stages: 3 Days In Mexico, about Britney Spears’ 2002 concerts in Mexico City. For more info: kartemquin.com/about/judy-hoffman

Tuesday, August 9th

The Hungry Brain, 2319 W Belmont, Chicago, IL 60618

Doors at 8pm, show at 9pm 21+, donations appreciated

Homeroom is a not-for-profit organization promoting new creative content, featuring some of Chicago’s best new art, film, music and literary readings. For more info: homeroomchicago.org/

The August installment of
UNCALLED-FOR READINGS CHICAGO

at Woman Made Gallery 8/14

This event is in conjunction with Woman Made Gallery's Underground show, curated by Ruby Thorkelson in collaboration with the Chicago Underground Library and Spudnik Press. The show features a slew of underground and self-published artwork and publications produced by women, queer, trans, genderqueer and gender-nonconforming writers and artists. 'm reading as one of six writers who have been involved in underground writing and publishing, as well as music, in various capacities: MAIREAD CASE (editor of ACM), CURIOUSER JANE (a.k.a. DALICE MALICE), MARIE HUNT, ROBIN HUSTLE (Mirror Tricks, Curdled Milk, The Skeleton News) & JAMI SAILOR Your Secretary, No Better Voice, Archiving the Underground).

Sunday, August 14th, 2pm

Woman Made Gallery, 685 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL  60642

August Logan Square Literary Review Reading

at Comfort Station

Wed, Aug 17th, 8pm

Comfort Station Logan Square, 2579 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60647

Who Is #1? Britney Spears and The Prisoner

2011-07-08T12:37:00.000-05:00

So I got to thinking: if you're super young and you have a #1 album, and then you have a bunch of #1 albums, if you then put out an album that does not make it to #1, then are you like, "What the fuck? Why didn't that one make it to #1?" Like, do you get blasé about it? I asked Joe (my husband) this, and he said it reminded him of an Adam Ant lyric that's something like "There's nowhere to fall at #1 except down." (Of course I can't remember the name of the song or the exact lyrics, even with some deductive Google-ing, so I guess you'll have to take my word for it.) So then what happens as you get older, if you peak really early on, do you have nothing to look forward to? That is, if your goal early on is to be a super famous pop star? Maybe the best scenario for someone who that is their main goal is to spend many years having #2 albums, and then sometime when they're much lode, maybe right before they retire, they have a #1 album...? And then they can go out on top.

Of course, not everybody who goes into music has their main goal as being a #1 album. Not all success is measured in sales and money and Billboard charts of course too.I guess I am specifically referring to your typical pop stars.

Joe reminded me that Pat Benatar was a good case and point (case in point? I don't think I have ever mastered the use of that expression or even the actual wording of the expression) of someone who has their priorities straight. (We both very much enjoyed her memoir, Between a Heart and A Rock Place.) She had some big hits years and years ago and then spends most of her time with her family throughout the year and then tours in the summer to support the family. She just has fun with it and is happy. Incidentally, she has a house in Hawaii! OK, OK, whatever whatever, my point it that she just does it to enjoy it. Well, and I guess to live and have money, but ANYWAY, she makes more money now with her indie label then she did when she was on corporate record labels.

I don't think me thinking about "Where do I go from here now that I'm #1" originated from my own sense of wonderment. I think probably it was planted by Britney: Inside the Dream by Steve Dennis. He theorized that maybe Britney felt pressure to always have a #1 album each time, and if she didn't get it to be #1 that she might be unhappy, or at the least, surprised. Or maybe at some point blasé.

Speaking of Britney, I just read the comic FAME - Britney Spears: One Life No Apologies (Bluewater Comics). Oh shit oh shit oh shit. So there's this one page where they draw her sitting alone in an arena hugging her shoulders, sitting on one of those circus stools that they put the dancing bears on or whatever (circus, arena, geddit?), and she's surround by 6 big faces, her face actually. And she's questioning all these things, feeling trapped. The speech bubbles are actually boxes, different ones on different faces (boxes, 'cause she's boxed in, geddit?). And they capture all the ways she's trapped, things that I've often speculated that she might feel. I scanned it so you could see, but the picture is kind of small.

I thought that was a nice move, referencing the British TV show The Prisoner with the quotes: "I'm not a prisoner. I'm a free (wo)man, who is number one?" In the dystopian British TV show with Patrick McGoohan, he's caught in The Village and he spends the whole time trying to escape and also find out who #1 is, and they try to get him to tell him why he resigned. For Britney this works on a variety of levels. First, if you google Britney Spears "the prisoner", you full on pull up links that say things like "Britney Spears says she feels like a prisoner." What with the conservatorship and all that, bla, bla, bla. And she's trapped by the record company, and trapped by the stylings of fame and can't leave the house without being hassled, etc.

And the whole thing about #1, always wanting to figure out who #1 is -- and then the thing about Britney always wanting to be #1, #1 hits, #1 albums, #1 sales, #1 perfume sales...It really is an effective analogy.

So I got inspired and Photoshopped this, which is weird that nobody did this already (unless they did and I didn't Google far and wide enough):

Who Is #1?

There does seem to be a lot of discussion about Britney's blaséness lately, barely dancing in her performances, her soulless eyes, etc. etc. On freebritney.tumblr.com (devoted to articles about her father's conservatorship over her affairs) there's this quote that seems to sum up a lot of what I've been encountering about her lately:

Britney Spears used to be called Godney. Unfortunately the name Zombney would be more fitting if you see her nowadays.

Meow! Someone on that site also responded that maybe the conservatorship will end after her tour because it was legally requirted for her to tour, and that maybe Femme Fatale will be her last album on JIVE Records, who she has been with from the beginning. I think I even heard on a fairly recent episode of the podcast Gay Pimpin' with Jonny McGovern that her performance on Good Morning America I think they were talking about, that her eyes looked dead. I thought the whateverness of the performance had more to do with the fact that it was in the early stages of planning because she was still rehearsing for the Femme Fatale tour (in Chicago tonight! But so is the Slayer Mag book event at Quimby's -- sorry Britney, maybe another time), and this was like a slimmed down version of that. But I'll tell you what, I recently Youtubed dance tutorials for her routines in songs like Slave 4 U, and compared to what she's doing in newer videos, it's true, the dance moves are a little easier in Till the World Ends. (I did also find a dance tutorial for that one and it involves boring things like marching. BORING. Although I liked the 16-18 chest pulses...You're welcome.) Just offering that for what it's worth.

Well, if you're at the United Center tonight at 7pm, tell Britney I'm sorry I couldn't make it because I was at an event about Norwegian death metal.

The True Story of the Storage Facility Full of Free Erotica from Mr. Anderson

2011-06-29T22:27:00.000-05:00

So here's a true story that whenever I tell people this, they tell me it is very interesting. So now I will share it with you!

I work at this crazy bookstore that sells weirdo reading material, like books about wrapping Roy Orbison in clingfilm. We sell some kind of sexy stuff to, like arty erotica and sometimes vintage pin-up stuff, and then some stuff that's a little kinky (horse play!) or just like sex positive sex guides and culture books, etc. One day we get an e-mail from some guy who just went under the name John Anderson, which I am convinced is not his real name. He says that he has a storage facility full of sexy reading material that he would like to donate to the store. And he doesn't want money for it. But the catch is that we need to go pick it up,and we'll need a cargo van. So we get the cargo van and we show up and he's just this nice guy, maybe in his later 40's or so and this storage facility is out in the boonies, probably about an hour and half drive outside of Chicago.

We ride an elevator up to his second floor storage room and the place is practically lined with books and magazines and video tapes that we have no idea what's on them. He loads a rolling cart up with books, magazines and video tapes. My co-worker and I roll into the elevator while the guy stays in the storage locker, and the minute the elevator door closes we dig into the stuff, and we see that ther's varying levels of naughtiness. There's vintage cheesecake stuff, fetish magazines, She-Male books, envelopes with sexy trading cards, a bunch of old Eric Stanton-style Bizarre mags, XXX comics and graphic novels, pin-uppy Bunny Yeager-Bettie Page stuff, fetish-y hardcover photo books of latex bondage stuff -- just a whole bunch of stuff. I think some of the stuff he might even have bought from the store where I work. All in all, we pretty much filled up the cargo van. And it wasn't a small van. Just to give you an idea of the size, let it be known that my co-worker had traveled with his band in it on tour, and they had actually converted it for like 5 people to sleep while also housing all their gear.

John Anderson wouldn't tell us why he was getting rid of all this stuff but we had theories. Maybe he had this secret stash of stuff and he also had a wife who he was hiding it from, but she found out and is making him get rid of it. Or he's getting rid of it before she finds out. Another theory is that maybe he was being investigated for something, and he didn't want it known he had this stuff. Not that he had anything in the stash that was illegal. But there were a few books of photography featuring the work of Jock Sturges. Some of the subjects in Jock Sturges' work are kind of young, if you know what I'm saying. (It's a controversial situation with his work.) Anyway, all we had were theories to work with why Mr. Anderson was just giving us this stuff for free. He wouldn't take any money either, as if he wanted it to be as clean of a break with the stuff as possible. But what's even crazier, and what makes me discount all of those theories is that there was stuff he wouldn't let us have, that he kept in the storage facility. I still wonder what THAT stuff was.

I remember getting all of the stuff back to the store and when I had more of a chance to look thourgh it all, I wrote him an e-mail to thank him, and I asked him if we could at least give him store credit. He never wrote back.

For what it's worth, it's not like a lot of the material was that shocking to me. (Just as an example, at the store when we received another photo book of women urinating in public, I said real blase-like, "Oh yeah, volume 2. Whatever.") But it was shocking to be given this material freely and in such bounty without any exchange of money. When we got it back to the store I found a number of things in it that made me exclaim every time, "Oh my god! This cover would be awesome in an ad!" It took me months to archive everything and do all the research finding how much everything was worth. Even to this day we still have some of the stuff. I think this all happened around 2004 or maybe 2005 or so.

Even now, whenever somebody buys something from this weirdo stash of erotica and porny stuff, we refer to it as the stash from Mr. Anderson, and we always say it like the guys in The Matrix, when they go "MIST-er An-der-son."

The Sound of No Hands Clapping

2011-06-28T22:13:00.000-05:00

...Also! I hate it when I'm at any sort of live musical performance and they're like "Now audience participation! Clap your hands! Ladies in the house! Clap your hands! Now the men! Now clap your hands!" Clap your hands?! That's bullshit. I will decide when I clap my own fucking hands. In fact, unless I'm doing that sort of standard before and after audience thing you do before and after a performance, I DON'T DO HAND CLAPPING. That's lame. Hand clapping! Who do people think they are with preposterous imperative commands like that? Fucking motivational speakers?! BOOOOO.

Podcast Adventures and the Importance of Cultural Documentation

2011-06-27T00:12:00.003-05:00

I just finished the second episode of the Quimby's podcast! I really enjoyed doing all the work on it, from the interviewing the guests, to the digital editing, as well as kinda monologe-y stuff in the introduction and conclusion that was silly and fun, then splicing everything together. I even enjoyed some of the problem solving about the uploading. For the stuff I need a little help with, I have a date with an Apple one-to-one support rep tomorrow to help me, specifically with some questions that have been popping up about configuring the data upload process, mostly in reference to getting the podcast on I-Tunes. (Apple One-to-One, the best $99 I've ever spent ever, ever, ever). I did get the first episode approved/uploaded successfully to I-Tunes already, but I'm intentionally not drawing as much attention to the podcast on I-Tunes until I get all the details the way I want them there. Right now you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to it at quimbys.podbean.com for streaming live or downloading individual episodes. You can play it on your I-pod or computer. (The first episode is there to, where I interviewed Margaret Hicks, who wrote a book called Chicago Comedy: A Fairly Serious History.)

So for this second episode, I interviewed the authors of The Beat Cop’s Guide to Chicago Eats (Lake Claremont Press), Sgt. David J. Haynes of the Chicago Police Department and his partner-in-crime, blogger Christopher Garlington. They were fabulously entertaining and did an event for their book at Quimby's about 2 weeks ago. The book has outrageous stories from working cops, Chicago cop lore, recipes and a bunch of other fun stuff. The idea is that all the meals have to be under like $10.00 (or was it 5? I don't remember.) The book talks about all the regions of Chicago and suggests where to go and even comes with coupons. It's a lot of fun.

I was just ruminating about how ever since I can remember, as a kid up through now, I have enjoyed documenting things in written, audio and/or visual form. It might be a transcript of things that happened, it might be a set of photos from an event, or it might be a recording of something. What immediately springs to mind is how when I was a kid, I used to love, love, love recording sill things with my friends on a tape recorder then loving the playback too, mesmorized (and also tickled) by how we could create entertainment just by hitting record; as an adult I would say that hasn't changed much, except that instead of calling it "entertainment," I would upgrade "entertainment" to "art." But for the most part, I feel the same way about recording now: Turn on the record button! The performance and the documentation of it has started! This recording is a document of the moment! Of the event! Of the culture! Of the society! Of a moment in history! A summarization of all of history! Of humanity! At a place in time! As a summization of ALL time until now! A document of what we have evolved to! And as something universal about the human spirit and predicament! And so on! ...I think of when they flash the title of the movie American Movie right after Mark Borchardt says that he funds his movie by maxed out credit cards. The way Americans fund art! Debt! Art! Poverty is the existence of the artist! And so on! The point being, perhaps that what documentation is, at its best, is in some way an encapsulation of something in cultural history. P.S. Am I remembering the opening sequence of American Movie correctly?

In grade school I once recruited fellow classmates to read a transcript I made of a field trip we had taken. The teachers let me and my actors and actresses out of fourth period for a week! Then we performed it for all the other classes. In high school I remember forcing my friends to go out with me and pretend we were aliens documenting our findings (OK, that is pretty nerdy -- especially when I share this fact: I had just read all the Hitchhiker's Guide series). 20 years later, the third issue of my zine Caboose was mostly a transcription of a round table discussion with friends about the sociological intricacies of karaoke, our favorite pastime. And then a few years ago, I took photos of notable things my dad, a veterinarian, has had to surgically remove from animals. In Caboose #7: Britney Spears 101, I reproduced selections from my journal when I was sick. The idea wasto use it as a filter from which to view paralells in popular culture -- since when I was sick, Britney Spears was also making her way through a series of public meltdowns. In fact, just a few days ago I made a video specifically devoted to one evening's activity of Punk Rock Karaoke, which consisted of both video and photos, because I felt like somebody needed to do that before the awesomeness of the evening was swept away to the past. (A recording company that some of their karaoke versions they record and make them into actual karaoke files with graphics and they make their own videos?!! How much more awesome can that be?!!!)

I think it is both enjoyable and important to creatively process things I've watched, heard, read and otherwise consumed.

Isn't that what good journalists do? Just thinking aloud on that one.

Just recently, I had this idea for a recording series: So the Poet Laureat from 1997-2000 was Robert Pinsky. He founded The Favorite Poem Project, which recorded Americans reciting their favorite poems, but the catch was that it had to be a favorite poem you memorized. It couldn't just be someone reading it aloud -- you actually have to have it memorized. And it wasn't necessarily famous people doing it -- it was sort everyday people doing it, like insurance salesman who loves an Ashbery poem, to, among other things, show that Americans were fully capable of enjoying art. And they created this big database of it.

Well, I had an idea that's kind of a take on that. And it's this (stay with me here): I keep ending up in these social situations where I'm talking to someone about something and for whatever reason, they have some spiel that they've memorized from necessary repetitive recitation or just hearing something a lot. Everybody I know has at least one of these types of things they've memorized, probably you too! Usually it's something you've memorized from some sort of blue collar job you've had -- for me, it's the consignment spiel I go into at work -- "So the 2 things I always tell people when they consign stuff is: 1.) Don't let more than 6 months go by without checking in on your zine or we may assume ownership and 2.) If any of your contact information changes, let us know so we can keep our records updated." I also have spiels I still remember from past jobs, like knife selling: "highly engineered thermo-resin material and made out of 4-40A grade steel!" You get the idea. For some people, whatever it is that they've memorized might not necessarily be work-related, it's just something they hear a lot, and they can deliver it in a super awesome impression which is always awesome. Last night, for example, we had a party and a guest did a hilarious (and spot on) impression of the voice on the intercom at the Village Thrift in her neighborhood. So my idea is to record people doing whatever their memorized spiel is. Everybody's got one. It's a cross between The Favorite Poem Project and Studs Terkel. What would I call it? Thoughts? Anyone? Anyone? Also, do you have something you've memorized and want to be included?

Or perhaps you want to take on this project? I'm pretty overcommitted as it is. I'd be happy record you recording someone else and present it back to you as some sort of statement about our humanity.

Delving Into the Space-Time Continuum Makes Everything Else Seem LAME LAME LAME

2011-06-24T01:14:00.000-05:00

So I just finished watching "Altered States" and everything seems anti-climactic after that. Even writing feels anti-climactic (anti-climatc? That's anti-climate? Whatever). So it seems everybody has seen this movie except for me, But in case you haven't, this movie is about about a professor who uses things like sensory deprivation tanks and drugs to investigate the "primal self" and what happens when one regresses to that state. I can't remember why I put this one in the Netflix queue but I think it probably had to do with the fact that numerous people at numerous different times in my life have told me to watch this movie. William Hurt plays an eccentric dude who uses himself as a guinea pig in the experiments and he through the MAGIC of brainwavey-sciencey-electrodes-and-hallucinagenic-blady-bla triggers a method of regressive space-time continuum travel and so on. A little pseudo-science-y but hey, that's why it's science FICTION. If a movie is entertaining enough it will butter up my critical abilities and more than willing to suspend my disbelief. The minute I hear terms like "space-time continuum" or "primordial self" and "hallucinogenic" my outer-limits radar goes up and I'm pulled in.

But then, the movie ended. And it seemed awfully quiet in here.

What it makes me think of is how some type of movie or book or art or piece of music will inspire me while I'm enjoying it but then when it's over, after the credits roll, after the song is over, when there's quiet, everything seems dismal and well, less inspiring.

And then when I force myself to sit down and write about something or work on something, it reminds me how much of a non-flowy style of writing I do -- that is, since I bleed through the things I write (as opposed to sprinting through), editing while I do it and well, not letting it really flow out -- that I am reminded of how much work goes into something that an audience sees, unaware (at least on an immediately conscious level) of all the work that went into the final product.

When I hear that piece of music that inspires me, when I see a comedian that gets me jazzed, I'm not usually thinking about how much work they put into it at the time, but I do think about it later, after the fact, especially when I'm feeling guilty for not making time to work on my own creative projects. I remember hearing some comedian talk about his process of writing and he said something to the effect that the process of sitting down to do the writing is sort of tedious. Who said this? Was it Paul F. Tompkins? It might have been. I have been enjoying his podcast and material and his many appearances on other peoples podcasts and shows.

When we're inspired by some type of performance or recording or art thingy, what we're really seeing is the final product all packaged up. It might look sort of effortless, but we all know somewhere in the back of our heads that it's all practiced and timed and all that, but the best performances LOOK effortless. Or is effortless really the right word? Maybe not -- when you see some people sing they look so impassioned with their heart into it, emoting, that it certainly does not look effortLESS. Perhaps "effortless" is the wrong word. Perhaps "skilled" is a better word? Instead of a performance looking effortless, perhaps it looks "skilled." Whatever.

Different trades and types of performances have different versions of what skilled looks like. It's like how I make no bones about the fact that my typical MO for performing and writing is pretty much that I try really hard to make it seem "nonchalant" (which I suppose is a version of "effortless"). I was talking to someone who wrote a book about Chicago comedy and we agreed that one of the hardest things that standup comedians have to do is make their performance sound nonchalant, which I personally think is a lot harder than someone acting abut something passionately.

The idea of that final presented last draft being the initial thing that an audience encounters reminds me of how when you meet someone, you're encountering that person at that moment in their life, after they've gone through their whole life up to that point, growing, maturing, learning, developing as a person. You don't see all their fuckupness up until that point. I love this idea. I also love the idea that you can meet someone at a particular time in your life and you really get along well, but if you met them earlier than you might not have gotten along as well. I like to think of it as a sorted fated ripeness type of thing, as if to say "I wasn't ready for you yet." That's such a delicious concept to me.

Anyway, people only see the part of you that's matured over many years to that point. So when we read the book, enjoy the movie, meet the person, drink the aging wine, we haven't seen the mistakes, first drafts, bitter youth, hard work that went into the maturation.

Another problem I'm having, and this is a problem that this experience with "Altered States" seems like a good example of, and that is that I enjoy watching movies, reading literature about, and having discussions that lean towards things that are philosophical and meaning of life-y. That makes the things that are not related to lofty and spacey topics such as that totally dismal. It makes me not want to do things like run errands and work out and do laundry and interact with people who are not into those things. I can see why science-fiction geeky types are totally uninterested in personal hygiene or getting a job. I mean, I'm pretty good about both personal hygiene and having a job, but my point is that once you get your head into the stars it's hard to want to come down into reality about the non-numinous things like flossing and paying bills.

I remember in college I took a class about jewish mysticism. (Sidetone: the class was taught at the campus hillel. The teacher wanted everybody to call him Mickey.) One of the things the professor kept stressing was that one of the things that Jewish mysticism embraces is this notion that the everyday activities like cooking could be mystical. I never understood this. How? If someone could explain to me how to make paying bills and cleaning the kitty litter and configuring the monthly budget mystical I would do a lot more of that. That's the thing: reading spiritually and philosophically engaging material and seeing movies about that kind of stuff makes the rest of life sort of suck. Because everything else seems unimportant. It's like coming in from 40 days of talking to god in the desert and having to go be an office administrative assistant; everything else seems pointless.

The minute a movie I've enjoyed ends and I've exhausted the bonus features on the disc, the house is quiet. It's like I had a big fun party and now all the guests went home, and I have to clean up the mess and it's all quiet. I tend to stay up until the late hours watching all the bonus features because I don't want the movie to end, and watching bonus features is the closest thing to the movie not being over.

Want to come over? Maybe if you're here talking to me about Terrence McKenna and the formation of human consciousness it would make cleaning out the bottom of the toaster a lot more tolerable. 10am? See you then.

Customer Service Admissions

2011-06-13T23:43:00.000-05:00

So I just had the best experience with Netflix, which I was not expecting. I had returned The Butterfly Effect probably like a month ago and it never showed up as being returned in our queue, so we didn't get the next movie we were supposed to be getting. And I keep putting off contacting them because I was second guessing myself, thinking that maybe I really didn't return it, and that it was in some DVD case somewhere. I thought maybe it was in the DVD case for The Rockafire Explosion Documentary DVD about the animoanatronic (what the fuck? what is the word I'm looking for here? animatronic?) band that was at Showbiz Pizza -- and well, OK, we actually have 2 DVD copies of that movie because one is scratched and then the other one is the replacement but that one was supposed to be a gift, and then -- oh, just forget it. I know I sent the disc. I remember walking to the mailbox and dropping it in.

The point is I decided to contact Netflix and tell them the disc was mailed. I did this thing where I call customer service on my phone and then put it on the speaker function, so I don't have to cradle my phone on my shoulder (which is impossible to do with a cell phone pretty much -- although I suppose I could put on the hands free device but that means I have to go find that somewhere). So anyway, I put the phone down and let it run with me on speakerphone while on hold and meanwhile, I navigated around on the website trying to find what I'm supposed to find to report the problem. I figure, if I can figure out how to report the problem before they answer than I can just hang up. This seems very smart to me. I am patting myself on my back AS WE SPEAK.

Just as I was getting to the page where you go to report a problem like this, a customer service person came on. I talked to him about the problem and he said he would mark the movie as being lost in the mail. He said that he'll send me the next thing in the mail and that the movie is "Perfume." He asked me if I've ever read the book of it and I said, "No. Why have you? Is it awesome?"

And he said, "Yeah, it's really good. Both the book and the movie."

"Really? I'm super excited about it. But the other ones I have at home I haven't watched yet, and I've had them for a while. They're sort of holding up the queue. I just need to get over it and send them back."

Then he said, "I know what you mean. I actually have the type of account that you can have 8 at once. So does everybody else here. None of us get all the way through all the movies we have."

I thought this was interesting. First of all, you would think people who work for Netflix would get it free. Secondly, you would think that they just get to bring the DVDs home and not have to have them sent through the mail. Well, maybe they're outsourced at a location that doesn't have the discs on hand. Or something. I guess I just imagined it's like if you work at a library and can hack into your own account and make it so that you don't own any overdue book fines, and you get first dibs on books when they come in and so on.

I love the idea of having somewhat personal conversations in a somewhat impersonal setting, like having an intimate conversation with a customer service representative. I always find that amusing when they do that in movies.

Sometimes I have weird interactions with customer service representatives, like this guy at a magazine distributor that I used to have to call to deal with account stuff regarding the bookstore where I work. The guy would ask me how I was and then I'd reciprocate the question out of typical good manners. But the weird thing was that each time, he's be super earnest and be like, "Thank you so much. Nobody ever asks me how I am." I found this weird. Nobody ever asks him back how he is? I find this hard to believe. I mean, I pretty much work a customer service job and people ask me how I am all the time. Even to the detriment of he conversation. I'll answer the phone at work and the first thing a lot of people say when they call the bookstore is "How are you?" Or sometimes they're strangely casual, and they'll say, "How's it goin'?" This annoys the fuck out of me. I'm not answering the phone for idle chit chat. I have shit to do. So I cut to the chase by not even reciprocating. I just say, "Fine. How can I help you?" Want to know where I learned to do that? Please don't shoot me when I tell you this. For a brief while in my twenties I listened to Dr. Laura. I know, I know, she's crazy. Kind of Republican-y but then also someone who converted into Judaism so she has that sort of devotion that only people who convert INTO something get, all crazy. Is there even a file card in the space-time continuum card catalog for someone with both of those characteristics? I guess I just think "Republican" when really she's conservative, and that doesn't necessarily mean you're necessarily both. But in my world, they're kind of the same.

OK, I have to go check her out on the internet now, because I have no idea what has become of her in the intervening years of me listening to her and now. BRB.

I'm back. Looks like she's on Sirius radio. Isn't that the same network or whatever that Howard Stern is on? Also, it says her show is uncensored. Is she into swearing now? Like maybe she gets mad at people for shacking up and having kids out of wedlock and then swears loudly at them? I did notice she posted a picture of herself on a motorcycle. So maybe there's some swearing. Maybe some spitting too.

Anyway, for a while I got really into listening to her, because she was so aggressive and mean, and I was fascinated with how she would just make fools of people on the phone. It's kind of like eating food that you know is really bad for you but you can't stop, even though you also know it's also sort of disgusting. Like Funyons with Cheese Wiz or peanut butter on a spoon right of the jar or eating 17 Kit Kat bars at once or something. I just had to listen. It's like listening to people argue when when they're in public. I'm all ears. Pretty much anybody emoting or being super mean in public, it's like I have dog ears for that. Anyway, Dr. Laura would interrupt someone who she felt wasn't getting to the point fast enough and just go, "What would you like to talk to me about today?" Or maybe sometimes she might say, "What did you want to ask me today?" It's kind of condescending and not particularly nurturing but that's the way she is. So that's pretty much what I learned in my twenties: how to use Microsoft Excel and how to cut an otherwise friendly conversation short.

Not the best way to make friends.

The truth is that I actually hate talking on the phone.

But the Netflix guy was nice, and for once I felt quite magnanimous. I was so ecstatic that I actually got what I wanted. And endorphin levels were running high. I was all ready to express my gratitude with joking around with the Netflix guy. Lucky him.

But this nice customer service interaction is not bound to happen with any amount of frequency any time soon. After all, by the time whatever my situation is that results in me calling customer service, there's probably a reason why I didn't call them until now -- now I have something I need to talk to somebody about, so of course I tend to go into stuff all annoyed and confrontational. Just thinking about having to call any customer service for anything is making me all fidgety right at this moment.

So "Perfume" will be here any day. Now I better finish watching the other movies that have been here for 27,000 years: "Word Wars" and "Little Miss Sunshine." Joe even already watched "Little Miss Sunshine" and said I would probably like it, so maybe I really will get around to watching it, now that it has the Mason stamp of approval.

And oh! We saw the "X-Men: First Class" movie. It was good. Oh, origin stories! You rock my world!

But the popcorn at the other theater is better.

Me Doing Monologue Stuff

2011-06-12T11:20:00.000-05:00

I'm performing a monologue and improv players are using it to inspire sketches.

A friend of mine, the amazingly talented and hilarious Chrysteena Lairamore is in an improv troop is in an improv troop that's doing a show thats' style is similar to the Armando. And she asked me to participate.

Armadillo, what? Huh? What? So Armando is long form improv format that starts with a storytelling-style monologue. After the monologue, players play improvised scenes inspired by it. And I've been asked to do the monologue.

Well, in Chicago, Armadillo -- I mean Armando -- has mostly been done either co-ed or just by guys. And you know what? It's time for some ladies to take the reins. And have you looked at the Just For Laughs Fest here in Chicago June 14th-19th? Out of 100 comedians on the bill, I can count the amount of females particiapting on MAYBE one hand. So if you're going to any of the events during the fest, balance it out with this alternative, with some talented female players plus me doing monologue.

Here's the info:

What: All-female spin-off of the Reader Recommended 'Tibia Ballerina' Show"

When: Wed, June 15th, show starts at 8pm

Where: Chemically Imbalanced Theater, 1422 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago, IL 60613

The closest public transportation is the Sheridan stop on the CTA Red Line and Irving Park stop on the CTA Brown Line. www.cicomedy.com/

Ticket info, I will have Chrysteena jump in here: "People trying to buy tickets in advance should just call and ask about the 8pm Wed Show. Since it's a sort of unofficial show, it's probably not going to be put up on the website." The box office number is 800-838-3006.

Other Helpful details: All shows are BYOB. Also, all shows are BYOLOFCATWPBFL. That's Bring Your Own Lots of Flowers, Candy and Things With Pretty Bows For Liz. Oh, did I say that out loud?

Who else is involved?: Chrysteena Lairamore, Angela McMahon, Leslie Nesbit and Natalie Kossar

Need to see it on Facebook? Click THIS VERY SENTENCE.

Incidentally, if you go to Chemically Imbalanced Theater website, you will see that there's a show called The Book of Liz. That's not me. That's a totally un-related play by David and Amy Sedaris. How nice of them to name their play after me!

See you then!

Metropolis, No Bones About It

2011-06-02T00:47:00.004-05:00

OK, so this magazine Meatpaper my husband and I have subscribed to in the past, is asking for submissions about bones. My husband suggested I write a piece about my weird aversion to bones in meat, but I realized that I don't actually have that much to say about them, other than the fact that they sort of gross me out. But then next, as I started to write out it, I realized that it sort of goes deeper -- which actually, is no surprise because, honestly, the human mind is pretty amazing; as one goes further into thoughts about pretty much any topic, the reasons that back up any opinion are pretty, well, detailed.

BUT -- the way that I write about things doesn't tend to really lend itself to typical publications, I think. I don't really do narratives in any sort of traditional sense that lend itself to fiction, and I don't really quite do things that are sort of thesis-y either.

My style is really more, well, kind of stream-of-consciousnessy-journal-day-by-day style, which after a while plus retrospect, turn into something ovewviewy and thesis-y, but not in a coherent typical essay style. And not even in a hip "creative nonfiction" way either. However, this particular assessment on my own personal writing style is also, as of this moment, based on what I've been thinking about naturally plus what I've been thinking about after having multiple beverages at the Charleston, a few blocks away from my house, after a particularly trying 10 hour work day that included one (1) irate consigner, one (1) hour at the Apple store getting help with my backup drive, two (2) hours spent sorting the credit card number of the store where I work and unauthorized charges traced to a website in New Jersey, and finally, two (2) hours of monthly e-mail update composition involving other people's too-late-in-the-game event info for the store's subscriber base. Also, a package arrived with overdue postage for $6.25. So I'm just saying that my opinions overviewing my own personal writing style are not exactly, well, um, awesomely articulated I guess, especially after a day that I've just had combined with my efforts to elevate my mood with the aid of deliciously high calorie designer microbeverages. By this I mean that when I got home, my husband Joe accompanied me to the bar down the street, where after 1 Belgian ale + 1 exorbitantly-priced hearty cider, I was announcing things like: "That thing looks like a reel-to-reel on the wall. And also, it looks like a face with a headgear!"

So perhaps this is not the best moment to accurately describe my writing style.

But what I will say is that I don't actually plan on sending piece to Meatpaper; I don't think they'd really be all into it in the way I imagine they're looking for. However, this IS nonetheless, what I think about when I think about my weirdo aversion to bones in meat when I'm eating. I find this last sentence I just wrote particularly funny, because it sounds like I'm trying to do some Raymond Carver thing, like This Is What We Talk About When We Talk About Me And My Aversion to Bones In Meat When I'm Eating and How It Totally Kind of Grosses Me Out or whatever.

So here's what Meatpaper sent out as their call for submissions:

We are collecting short, personal essays for our “Meat Up” Section. The next theme is “bones!”

Do you have a particular predilection for or aversion to bones? Do bones play a significant role in the cuisine of your family or culture? Have you had a compelling encounter with a bone that has made its way into your personal lore? We’d love to hear from you. E-mail your very short essay — 300 words or less — to stories [at] meatpaper [dot] com by July 8, 2011.

Here is what I wrote. I do not think I will send it to them:

I was vegetarian until the day that I met my husband. You know how you always go out to eat a lot when you meet someone new? Well we’d always go out to eat and he would order a hamburger or something like that that was meat-centered. He’d ask me if I wanted a bite and I’d always say no, and I’d ask him if he wanted a bite out of my food and he'd say no. But one day I said yes. And it was on his hamburger. And from then it was a slippery slope. In fact to this day, when given the chance, he’ll order meat and I’ll often order the vegetarian option.

But, I feel like I’m a vegetarian at heart. And that is because the only meat that I’ll eat is when it’s so far off the bone and totally processed that it looks like fake meat. If it is too close to its animal form then it grosses me out. If it still has skin on it or it’s encasing a bone I mostly can’t go near it. If it’s chicken breast I can’t touch it unless it’s super-processed with chemicals and machines and then made into the shape of a tiny chicken breadstick, but without bones. In fact, the more cartoony the meat is, the higher the liklihood is that I’ll be willing to consume it. The closer real bacon looks to the cartoony Ren and Stimpy-looking vegetarian bacon you get from Morning Star, then the more likely I am to eat it. I can’t stand animal fat, so most bacon is out. The closer something is to being carcinogenic, like charred beef the consistency of a rock instead of medium-rare, the higher the probability is that I'd consider eating that as well.

Where did this come from? Even when I was a kid, before the days of diving into vegetarianism, I was adverse to food made from animals that had bones in it. My mom would make steaks for everybody and I would have to have a hamburger. And as I write this, my cat laying on my lap, and I feel sort of guilty for going back to eating animals. That was years ago. I’ve been with this man who turned me into a carnivore for over a decade.

Maybe I’m scared of death and how gruesome it is, and that’s why I have problems with eating meat that reminds me that it used to be an animal. Bones, blood, skin, guts – is my aversion to that stuff unless it’s in some processed form, does that mean I’m only able to handle my food if it’s been preprocessed and prepared in advance in some way that makes me feel less guilty for eating it?

Do I need something in my life to pre-process things and sugar coat them for me in order for me to consume them? Does that hold true for things besides food? Are there examples of things that I can think of that I need someone to prechew before I can consume them? Or pre-process?

And anyway, it's more than 300 words, so there. And it's sort of cheesy anyway. Meh, those grapes were SO SOUR anyway.

Also! I'm almost done watching the second season of "Dead Like Me." Did anybody in the world watch this show besides me? I wouldn't say that I am obsessed with it because I have not spent time researching anything about it on the interwebs, but I will say this: there is a British guy (character?) on it who looks like a poor man's David Tennant, and I wonder if that was intentional...? One thing that totally interests me is that the main characters meet twice a day practically at their favorite waffle house. I love that. I wish I had a group of friends like that, but I've never been part of a gang like that. Also, I've never been recruited to be a grim reaper, so you know. And also! That's TV! Not real life! HELLO. What I will say though is that I am comforted by the idea of a place being a central spot to be at -- an adult version of Denny's when we were in high school, the place to go and be seen. An Algonquin Table type of group place scene to be part of. But I'm not a regular drinker. And I don't have a bar I frequent to be the where-everbody-knows-your-name type of destination. And also, I've never really had a real group of people that I belong to. I desire all of those things. I will never have it. I have come to terms with that. Well, whatever. There are certain things I will never have. One is an ability to do quick math for tips. Another is an enjoyment in preparing food. And the final one is a group of friends where everybody loves each other and we all go to some bar and hang out and ruffle each others hair and inspire each other with creative endeavors. I have come to terms with all of these things and realize that no life is perfect.

But! I was just thinking about how lucky I am in certain ways, in spite of my sort of my trying day. Joe and I were walking home after our Charleston sojourn which is a few minutes walk from our place. I saw a few bicyclists making their way home. I heard a noisy crowd at another bar that was on our walk home. I saw a few people walking dogs. I saw my next door neighbor's porch light click off, which means that she was going inside, and I had just missed her, even at that sort-of-but-not-really late hour of 11:30pm on a random Wednesday night. That means she was just outside smoking with her glass of wine. I often see her outside, and we'll chit chat as I sit on my stoop and she stands down on her front porch. Sometimes I join her on her porch for a glass of wine, or sometimes we carry on incredibly intimate conversations from that far away from each other, like probably a good 20 feet away from each other as I'm at my place on my front porch atop the stairs and she's at hers in front of her ground floor apartment. We're pretty much shouting. And even though the only things we have in common are some family-related characteristics (mental illnesses that run in both of our families), we still have these strangely long conversations where we sort of shout across the way, which I kind of like. Also, as I was settling down on the couch about midnight to write this, my roommate came in at his usually hour and gave me a rundown of his adventures for the evening which usually entail people or bands with weird nicknames that I enjoy. He's usually out so late that when he has to get up super early for work the next day it's difficult, so he shaves off time by not showering in the AM and instead showering after work at night, because he's in such a rush in the morning. All of these things remind me that this type of place I live in is a metropolis like Chicago. The houses are close together enough that I can shout to my neighbor to have a conversation, and I see people riding their bikes home from parties and bars and late night grocery errands. It reminds me of what I loved about college, of all things, that people are doing stuff into the PM, reminding me that there's probably someone awake no matter where I'm doing, no matter what the time, and they're doing their thing and I'm doing mine -- the world doesn't just shut down just because the sun goes down. I love, love, love that. Even when I have a shitty day, the city still moves and people still do things, even if they're only separated by one building or one block. Always so much going on. I will never see it all but I am glad it's there. It comforts me.

The Public Imagination of Vanilla

2011-05-26T22:04:00.002-05:00

We were just watching an episode of "The Office" and some of the characters were arguing about what type of ice cream to get. Then another character suggested that they get vanilla, because it's not very controversial, and it's something that pretty much everyone could agree on. Well I thought it was rather interesting that at the same time, Britney Spears' Pop Up Shop is selling a candle they're calling Vanilla Flame candle that, as of the time of this writing, is available for about another 72 hours. Of course what makes it an interesting choice is that the stereotype of vanilla is that it is a plain, boring flavor. And in fact, we even use "vanilla" as an adjective to explain sex devoid of kink. Well, considering Britney Spears' history, I find this an interesting choice. You may notice that it's Britney's favorite. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Her tastes run pretty "meh." I once watched a video of her being hassled in her car, and they lean over to talk to her, and you can hear her stereo playing that Michael Jackson song "Want To Be Starting Somethin'" or whatever it's called, and you hear one of the papparazzi guys say, just barely audible: "She's listening to Michael Jackson." And once, I saw (on DVD) a stylist ask her what she's into and she named a bunch of boring mall stores like The Gap and Abercrombie etc. But then, I mean, that interview was from when she was 16. But! Also! This was coming from a girl who grew up in a tiny rural town in the south, and her family didn't have a lot of money (the lore of the Britney myth is that when she started bringing home the big bucks she then paid off her parents' debts). So I guess I can't really fault her for being into those stores. It must sort of suck to be famous when you're super young because then any time anybody wants to make an argument like "Oh her tastes are so vanilla" and then the example they use is some random quote from like 15 years previous. Anyway, maybe Britney's management was trying to do some sort of subliminal thing about trying to make the public think she's vanilla. Or make some sort of association with what people think of the smell of vanilla...? Or that it's straight up a money-making thing, like since vanilla is one of the most popular flavors, so they know they'll make a lot of sales...? I like the former reason better for sort of dystopian attempt to control the population by way of public opinion about the bla bla bla Chomsky ideological hegemony whatever whatever, but the fact is, I think it is more likely that the real reason is the most simple reason, and that is, money.

And probably because Britney Spears probably does have pretty boring tastes, really.

The color of the spectrum that's often associated with the vanilla is often thought of being a white. And then of course, all the typical mainstream, modern, western imagination associates the color of white with white skin color, blue eyes -- there was a period where I saw pictures of Britney wearing blue contacts (she has naturally born brown eyes) -- And of course the stereotype in the modern imagination's eye thinks that the best possible combination of hair and skin is blue eyes and blonde hair. Naturally speaking, Britney has neither blue eyes nor blonde hair. But she did refer to herself as "lilly white" once in a tweet. (I'm totally taking this out of context. It was a tweet in reference to someone doing her wrong and she said something to the effect that they can "kiss my lilly white ass.") Also, she once told a journalist something to the effect that the media should give her a break and harass some other "over-exposed blonde" for a while. Blonde hair, blue eyes, vanilla skin, vanilla scent. I'm sure this all seems like pretty elementary point to make that the most mainstream person in the world has the most mainstream tastes. But you would think of all the people she has working for her that they would get her in touch with some more interesting stuff. Madonna does. She's known for her legendary scouting of musical genres, new trends in dance, new stuff in theater and music, and then she uses it in her work. Sure, it's not stuff that's super, super underground, but it is stuff that's not necessarily in the mainstream yet -- like William Orbit for her Ray of Light era, etc. I mean, it's not William Orbit was the most underground person at that era, but certainly he wasn't so, well, vanilla. (Random thought: But didn't Madonna date or sleep with Vanilla Ice? So apparently her tastes do run a little Vanilla -- ha ha ha.)

And yet, I was almost tempted to buy Britney Spears' candle. Because actually, vanilla does smell pretty good.

Finally, about vanilla (suddenly I feel like I'm Diane Ackerman writing some natural history book, like this is a book called The Natural History of Vanilla. Maybe after the book they'll turn it into a PBS mini series!): Once in a reality show they took a woman who was having problems identifying herself as something apart from her twin sister, and a life coach took her into a perfumery and said something like, "You need to figure out who you are. Now is the time for you to start formulating opinions about things. Pick a scent that you like." And guess what? She picked vanilla. Humph.

The Notion of Credit, Names for Networks and Cats, As Well As a 38 Special Song.

2011-05-24T02:12:00.004-05:00

Something I've been thinking about is this idea of credit. Credit can mean money, but it can also mean getting recognition and/or approval, and those elements are really tied together. So while driving to see a movie I put the car radio on scan, so it played about 10 seconds of each station. If you want to stop it on the station you press the button. We ended up on some channel that was playing that 38 Special song Whatever Whatever On a Feeling, I forget the name of it, but I know it well enough to sing along (perhaps you might as well), even with the instrumental parts. I know, I know -- whatever, I mean, I grew up with that on the radio as a kid. While I was singing along to the guitar part (The fact that I would say "I was singing along to a 38 Special song" -- this is making me laugh that I said that so nonchalantly, which cracks me up in some meta-kinda way) I realized that it had the same guitar line as Smells Like Teen Spirit, which I found very amusing. I simultaneously thought about how someone should do a mashup of both songs in some way (even though it is pretty boring to sample/cover/reference Smells...Spirit at this point, I agree) and then also I thought that I would like someone else to do it and if it turned out good I thought it would be hilarious to demand some type of credit for it. (As if cleverness was the important thing to demand credit for, not the origin of the musical samples.) Wouldn't it be hilarious if we lived in some type of dystopian society where there was some sort of cyberplace where you would get some type of money credited to some account somewhere if somebody used a phrase you originated, just like in every day speech with someone else? Like I always joke when someone says something clever, I go "I'm totally going to use that. But I will give you credit. Actual royalties." This reminds me of this book I'm reading right now called Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart. (The book is sort of dystopian but also leaves room for some very human interaction with sense of humor.) What really resonated with me was that there's this character who basically everything he says is a podcast, and occasionally he'll say something about a sponsor, just thrown into conversation, so even if he's having an interaction with somebody, just a regular conversation, it's like a reality show, but a podcast. All the time. Like The Truman Show but even the star of the show knows. So if his friends have something they want to say in private, they can't do it when he's around. Anyway, I feel like that kind of sums up the mentality these days, of a certain perspective, one that's all about branding oneself, as if everything one does should be considered entertainment -- I'm going to have to work on that idea little bit, but I feel like there's a little nugget of something there. Something about making each experience less authentic -- or something. I feel like it is somehow tied up with this feeling I complain about that sometimes when I spend a lot of time experiencing something behind the lens of my camera or feeling like I need to tweet about it or document it in some way, it can sometimes detract from the enjoyment of an experience. But that isn't always true. I enjoy documenting. I enjoy photographing. I enjoy uploading stuff to Flickr and writing about the experience. In fact, I remember in college when I took film classes, and I remember hearing other students say that taking film classes made them enjoy watching movies less because they felt like they were deconstructing the film instead of enjoying it. My response when people would say that was like Really? Are you an asshole? My response was disbelief. Because I think talking about something, studying it, elaborating on it, discussing the nuances, these are all things that enhance my experience of any kind of movie or book or TV show (or anything, really). These are all things that help build an appreciation for something. Mmmm...There must be medium between the joy of documentation and the enjoyment of the moment...

This evening I went to the Dil Pickle Club reboot -- Chicago Dil Pickle Club 2.0 I guess. It was at the Billy Goat Tavern and the theme was black and white. It's really nice how many literary events there are going on in Chicago these days, more than I remember there always being, and it seems that there are ones that I actually want to go to -- clever things with themes and hooks and what have you. In fact there were 2 I even thought about going to tonight (The Encyclopedia Show and/or something at Moe's tavern) but the fact of the matter is that it was so nice out that I couldn't bear to be indoors. Anyway, the Dil Pickle event was really wonderful -- a resurgence of the old timey Chicago Dil Pickle stuff. The theme was "black and white" and my favorite was a zoologist who trains black bears and had all these amazing animal stories. Anyway, so last night after the event at the Billy Goat I had to navigate around in the rain to get to some public transportation that was actually running. I had forgotten to bring my Super phone with the CTA app to see what was running and where in relation to where I was, so I only had my I-Touch, that is basically an I-phone without a phone or a camera. So every few blocks I would escape from the downpour and then pull out my I-pod to see if I could log onto someone's wifi to see if there were any password-less areas. I secretly sort of enjoyed that. I felt like I was some hacker on the run etc etc. And in the rain. So dramatic! I loved how every few blocks I would pull up a bunch of random networks on my I-pod to see which were available and which didn't need passwords, and I loved to see what they were called, how they changed block to block, what I could figure out about each person just by looking at what their wifi connections were called. Thinking about the name of what you're going to call your wifi connection is like thinking about what you're going to be for Halloween. Or what you want to name your pet. Fun things to think about.

Which reminds me! The post-it is full. Maybe you know what that means. It means that since the post-it on the fridge is full of the names I've been using to address the cats lately ("address the cats," as if this is a court room "The Honorable Judge Kitty!") it is time to write it up on the blog and then start a new one. So you'll see that some of them are for one cat, some for both etc.

Meowzabub

Snifflepuss

Shagulpuss

Humpty Dumpty Plumpty

Crocket and Tubbs

Gigglepuss

Jigglepuss

Fickle Pickle

Meow & Meow Incorporated

Suitcase Handle

The last one makes sense if you think about the shape of the cat. They're like walking suitcase handles!!!

Why did I need to put exclamation points on there?

And finally, I had a bounty of enjoyable eating experiences this weekend, one of which was dim sum. I did not know that dim sum was the food ride style. That is, I didn't know they do that thing where they keep coming around to your table with carts and offering you food. All the times I've ever been to dim sum it's been in a situation where we've ordered off the menu. I thought it was basically like Asian tapas. I was wrong. It's actually closer to an Argentenian steakhouse situation, except at an Argentenian steak house they rely on you to swerve the ping-pong paddle on your table up on green if you want more, or whatever it was. I can't remember if Fogo De Ciao (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) was a paddle with a red and a green side, or if it was some other piece of equipment, perhaps something that involves lamination. I don't know. Anyway, at dim sum you don't have any actual piece of equipment you put out to let them know you want more. You just look forlorn and expectant and hope they'll come by and offer you something amazing. Some things were amazing. Other things had prongs sticking out. What I liked best are the ben pao I think they're called. My husband and I have always called them Old Man Buns, and we've been doing that for so long I don't remember why we do that. I'm sure it's a joke rooted in something. The buns at The Phoneix in Chinatown tasted like a tiny portion of a sloppy joe encased inside an albino puff puff thingy. I remember getting those at a convenient mart in Kyoto and wishing that they were in convenient marts near my home in Chicago. I would say the experience was more like the Paul Bunyon Food Ride in the Wisconsin Dells (that's what Joe calls it -- "The Food Ride") where they just sail around the room with food and ask you if you want some. More of this? More of that? Well don't mind if I do!! At The Phoenix where we had the dim sum they write down every time you accept a food and at the end they add it all up, like when you go to the sushi places with the conveyer belts and they add up the dishes when you're done. Like you really want to hear about my food experiences! Like we don't all eat 27 times a day?! Oh dear diary, does anybody read you?

What I Find Funny. Also: I Kind of Have Rachel Maddow Hair Now (Sort of, Not Intentionally)

2011-05-20T03:35:00.000-05:00

This has been quite an event-laden week for me. Tonight I went to the Creative Lounge for Words That Kill poetry and comedy slam because Quimby's was one of the sponsors and I felt like I should probably make an appearance. I didn't go to perform, just to watch. The open mic was fine, but what I really enjoyed were the comedianes who performed, one of which I'd actually seen 2 nights ago at the Beat Kitchen for the Chicago Underground Comedy night, and I was actually impressed that he had different material (mostly) for both nights. (But the Chicago comedy scene needs more women! I know of like one or two. And I'm talking standup. I could give a fuck about improv.) And then last night we went to hillbilly bingo at the Horseshoe (the bar, not a casino, duh!), where I won a Sailor Jerry print. I announced loudly, "The reason I know this is a full rig ship? Sugar packets!" Did anybody understand what I was talking about? If you've ever used the sugar packets at restaurants and cafes that have the different types of ships on them then yes, you would know what I was talking about. (I mean that was a million years ago, but whatever. Do they even make those sugar packets with that on them anymore?) And then tomorrow night we're going to the midnight showing of The Room at The Music Box which I am very excited about, having recently been turned on to this Worst Movie of All Time And Therefore The Best Movie of All Time phenomena that is The Room. I won't go into it in case you already know about it, but in case you don't, here's some info at it's Wikipedia site. What this makes me think of is how there are certain things that each of us, no matter how expansive our experience of culture is, we all experience life in such a way that there are certain things that get caught in our web of experience and certain things that don't, all because we experience life in such a way that sometimes certain things won't get caught into our net of experience. For example, certain things never really crossed into my path that I have missed out on that element of culture. So The Room, in spite of the fact that it seemed like a shoe-in for something I would totally be into, I never encountered it until a few months ago, even though the movie came out in 2003. And once I looked into it, I realized that lots of people have made parodies, and comedians I like have made references to it -- and it was awesome, and I was like "Another thing to be into!" Which is always fun of course. Indeed, it is "The Citizen Kane of bad movies" as Entertainment Weekly called it. In fact, that very article was about the cult of that movie. The friends that got me into this movie told me that when people go see the movie live, it's like Rocky Horror, but only in as far as people interacting with the movie. They throw spoons (there's a lot of spoon art in the movie) and so on. I am very excited because lines of this movie have kept Facebook threads on for days with my friends. My favorite though is when Joe and I are walking down the street we'll be imitating Tommy Wiseau (the main character, who funded the movie by selling leather jackets to Korea -- yes, I know this is fucked up -- and on the cover of the DVD he looks like a fucked up Christopher Walken with a super fucked up lazy eye, I know I know, this is crazy) -- anyway, Joe and I will imitate him with this weird wimpy European chamomiled-out "Oh, hai [fill in the blank name of person or thing]" and then snort and chuckle all the way home at how hilarious we think we are. I can't wait! I was afraid that I would get there late because of the insanity that was supposed to be a signing at Quimby's for Eddie Trunk's Essential Hard Rock and Heavy Metal book. However, the Eddie Trunk event is now cancelled because he had some family-related thing that popped up. I tried to get the word out as much as possible about the cancellation, to avoid the mob that was going to show up (at least, according to the publisher who made us order 150 BOOKS -- I am not making that up).

Also! Just today I remembered that it wasn't until I was in junior high that I pretty much couldn't stay awake for movies. My co-worker and I were talking about The Dark Crystal. He was saying that he had this theory that if you saw the movie when you were a kid for the first time, you probably loved it but if you saw it as an adult for the first time, you probably hated it -- the age you were the first time you saw it has a lot to do with how much you liked it. Well, I remember it always playing in the background at slumber parties but I could never stay awake for a full movie, so I never really saw the whole thing, or at least, not in order, and not enough to really remember it. So, I will need to move it up in the Netflix queue so that I can watch it and see how I like it. We agreed that I would be an interesting anomalous test case.

However, I have been watching Dead Like Me in the middle of the night, episodes on the watch now function on Netflix. Did I talk about this in my blog? I can't remember. Anyway, it's a coming-of-age story TV show that was on for like maybe one or two seasons, with mixed reviews. I remember there being a lot of buzz about it when it was on though -- on the radio and stuff, interviews etc. (I do remember though that someone on Fresh Air said that Mandy Patinkin talked like he was a beat poet and it sounded unnatural. Interesting. He didn't sound too beat poet-y to me. Whatever.) The catch is that even though it's about an apathetic girl who gets killed in an accident at 18, it is still a coming of age story. In death, she is appointed the role of one of multiple grim reapers, who escort people into the next phase of the (after)life. I like that a main thing about the show is that what it's really about is that even though she's dead, we see her sort of go through the process of becoming a person. (When I was in high school I remember hearing someone say, "We never really stop becoming a person." That has really stuck with me.) This idea of the taking over the "office" of death is interesting. Of course, it is nothing new, and I know plenty of movies and books have touched on this. But specifically, the way they do it in the show reminds me of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, where people take on these offices of things like Time, Fate, Death, etc. And since they're formally humans, when they take over the job after the previous person who held the position leaves, there's a learning curve where they have to figure out what they're doing. And that affects things. So the woman who takes over the office of Fate, she accidentally cuts her strings wrong and Death comes and pounds on her door and gets mad at her. He says that a bunch of people senselessly died, WTF did she do? And so on. Very compelling. I am a sucker for the whole idea of taking something mystical or philosophically big and turning it into something banal and humorous. Why can't I think of any good examples right now? Grrrr. For some reason, what comes to my mind is Woody Allen's Love and Death. You know, Swedish art film/Russian literature made silly and ridiculous.

I guess some of my favorite stuff is really about juxtaposition. I feel like that's the theme that I keep coming back to in things that I find compelling and things that really make me laugh too: robbing a bank and getting caught up in paperwork (wasn't that in a different W. Allen film? Whatever.) -- Heavy metal with ballerinas. Hippos in tutus.

In un-related other news, I walked into Big Hair and demanded a haircut. When I came into work the next day, a customer at Quimby's said that I look like Rachel Maddow:

Rachel Maddow

One last thought: If Saturday the 21st is judgment day, it might happen while I'm at the Chicago Pug Party! Will the pugs get to stay with us heretics? Please?! Please?! Today someone brought in their cutie French Bulldog to the store and it was a little white and pink bunny piggy with a pink leash and I almost cried with how cute it was.

It is 3:34am. Good night/morning.

Nutella and Time Travel

2011-05-16T16:08:00.000-05:00

So last night I stayed up to watch The Butterfly Effect. Um yes, the movie with Ashton Kucher. It's about this kid that has black out periods growing up , where he can't remember what happened. He keeps a journal growing up. When he gets older he finds that when he looks back at the journal, he can magically transport himself back to those moments when he was a kid and see what really happened for himself, and then change something about it. He then gets transported back to the place in time he was previously in, but then everything had changed. The same person that could be a crack whore in one reality then becomes a frat girl in another, etc.

After I watch movies I'm always super interested in reading the bonus features. I don't really care about the special effects ones (though I do watch them) but really what I want is the stuff where they talk to the writers and the directors. They talked to people who were into chaos and string theory, psychologists who write about time travel, scholars who study time travel in literature, etc. And of course they talked about the TARDIS, they talked about Bill and Ted in their own little tiny TARDIS (trending now: Bill & Ted's 3?!!! I can't fucking wait.), variations of movie versions of The Time Machine (one was directed by Wells' grandson I think!), etc. They talked to the directors of the movie, 2 guys, and everybody on set agreed that the two guys were totally in sync with each other, although one of them was the liaison between the actors and the crew, where as the other director was the one who dealt with technical things. And no, it wasn't the Warchoski brothers (or however they spell their name -- the guys who did The Matrix movies). Anyway, after I watched all that, I was in a time travel-y science-fiction mode and decided that as long as I had the computer on my lap (um, I was watching the disc on our TV but then the TV pretty much shorted out and I had to watch the rest of it on my computer). So I followed the recommendations that popped up and that led me to Sliders, that cheesy TV show from when I was in college, with John Rhys-Davies as a professor accompanying a physics grad student and his friends on trips through wormholes that lead them to different dimensions, yet all these realities are all on earth. At least, for the first episodes I watched. I watched a few episodes and the next thing I knew it was three in the morning.

Sidenote: Oh shit. I am drinking an amazing latte right now, a Nutello. For reals: Milk, espresso, Nutella. Oh shit. It's at Cafe Neo in Lincoln Square, Chicago. Fuck this is sooooooooo good. I also noticed that they can also make you a crepe with Nutella and bananas. When I was in France in high school, my host sister was the only person in the country who didn't like Nutella. A tragedy!

When I realized how late it was I started thinking about how I read somewhere or heard an interview with a writer once, where someone said something like, "We live in a time machine. Time itself passing is a time machine. That's kind of amazing. We should consider even that as amazing." And then I remember someone else (or perhaps the same person in the same interview?) said something like "If I could find one thing out ever, what I really want to know is, What is time? Not just how we define it, but what actually is it?" This is a good question. Because without knowing it, I think I have thought that question many times. What is time composed of? And is it just what some people say, that really, it's a human-imposed categorization imposed on reality? But then, if gravity is the curvature of time and space, then time really is something, something that's part of an equation? After all, time is used in all sorts of equations in things like speed and velocity. Or is it that time is something else entirely, but that we call it time, but really it's something else that we're not able to comprehend? Maybe time is something that if we were to learn more about it, it would be beyond our initial ability to comprehend until we figured it out.

Which brings me to another point, which is this: so we saw the Thor movie last weekend, and Natalie Portman's character pulled out the "Magic is just unexplained science" quote. Who actually said that initially? Was it Arthur C. Clark as Natalie Portman's character claims in the movie? I thought it was PK Dick. Is that what And I'm also pretty sure that Skully said something like that on the X-Files once. So just out of curiosity, I Google-researched to see if I could get a line on where that quote actually came from. I got 644 results in .22 seconds. Here's just a snippet, none of which answers my question of the origin of this quote, but shows merely that the trope of magic being unexplained science is a common assessment:

So in my head both the TV show and the movie kind of fused. I love it when that happens. I once had a poetry instructor in college who turned me onto enjoying when that happens. That is, to enjoy when multiple things you're reading fuse to make a bigger narrative. Or at least, overlap in some meaningful way. It never even occurred to me to think that, but now I realize that that's how good teachers might come up with syllabuses. You read something and think of how it overlaps with something else, and from those things you might build a curriculum. If I were teaching a literature class, I might help my students write about what they're reading if I said something like, "So the text you read, what does it make you think of? What mythology or TV show or movie or piece of history does it remind you of? Why does it make you think of that?" There's lessons to be learned, thesis statements to be made. Or at least tweets to be Tweeted.

Fuck! I finished this Nutello latte. Would I be a pig if I got another one? This is especially distressing because I just came from someone's house who fed me and we had delicious banana pudding for dessert. Also, I only have about 45 minutes left on the parking meter. I feel like there's a poetry in thinking about time left on the meter while I'm writing about time travel.

But so back to The Butterfly Effect. Yes it was cheesy, in case you're wondering (and if you haven't seen it, or if you want to know what I thought about it's overall quality of entertainment value. I was riveted but I still thought it was cheesy. In fact, I started watching it earlier in the day and had to turn it off to go out, and I was interested in getting back to watch it. Anyway, I wasn't really thinking of it as time travel really, because we think of time travel as being something that you need a machine for it. But he didn't really have a machine. And in fact, I didn't consider it to be time travel until I was watching the bonus features and they were talking about time travel. What is interesting about Sliders was that they made it clear early on that they weren't so much moving in time but in dimensions. The way it was set up on the show, time runs in the same way no matter what dimension you go into. So as far as I can tell, that eliminates the problem I get caught up in thinking about when reading/watching time-travel genre stuff, which is that if you're traveling in time, and you're gone for a long time, you go back to where you left and you're suddenly very old because you've been traveling for years and years. In the Sliders universe (uni-multiverse) you leave one dimension but time carries on there. (This is sort of addressed in The Time Traveler's Wife, I guess. And maybe I could think of other things too, if I thought about it.)

Also, something else I've been thinking about lately is that Stephen Hawking quote (or something) where he was debunking time travel and said something like, "We would have been visited by now if there was time travel." But! Maybe we figure out time travel and can only go forward?

Maybe I should go out and put on a fake mustache and come back into the cafe and order another Nutello. Do you think they'd notice?

Kambodian Karaoke Disc Viewing pt II: My Questionably Offensive Blow By Blow Reportage In Real-Time Viewing of Cambodian Karaoke DIsc Videos That My Friend Sends Me, In Successive E-mail Bursts Collecting Commentary Made By Me and My Husband Joe, All of Which Sound Like Little Poems

2011-05-15T16:31:00.000-05:00

Hi AEM,

We are sucking on your barley mints you gave me for my birthday and enjoying the karaoke discs. They are delicious.

The mints, I mean.

Although the discs are delicious as well.

Was I not supposed to eat them?

Liz

---------

This video features a tomboy who both falls for and is rescued by her best friend's boyfriend. The boyfriend drives a Lexus mini van. She's from the wrong side of the tracks, and as the video continues the narrative progresses as a montage of her becoming girlier.

When they smash a bottle on the male love interest's head, it makes a loud crash, which is weird for a song. Also weird: the girl is wearing a baseball hat that merely says "80s."

Such a tragic ending.

Cambodia is not particularly big on the happily ever after videos.

Liz

-----------

Joe claims that the "Oh! My Friend" song/video we just watched was really about one of them trying to get train fare from the other.

In this song, we can definitely hear an electric accordion, or maybe it's a keyboard made to sound like an accordion. Unfortunately there is no accordion in this video, just a lady singing in a sack dress missing one shoulder. The dress is missing a shoulder, not the lady, although that would be much more interesting if the lady was missing a shoulder. And she's standing between 2 trees. Not a lot of plotline.

I should mention that each video ends with some text. We speculate that instead of being the credits typically seen at the end of karaoke videos that they're proverbs of some sort, like, "Always stand by your friends if they have their hair combed forword."

This next video shows a lady in different outfits, sometimes in a t-shirt with a skull on it. And sometimes she's in front of some mystical stone structure that has crazy clouds moving in fast forward above her, like an 80s video. Her mouth is slightly slanted to the right and we speculated that maybe she had a stroke or has Bells palsey.

On the box to this DVD there's a picture of a chicken and it says "Master Grill." Was this disc purchased at a Cambodian fried chicken restaurant? Also, in the video presently on, the woman singing is in front of what looks like a rocking band, but then there's also a keyboard that is clearly not in the music playing. This song sounds like "Masterplan" by Oasis. Do they sell Oasis discs at a Cambodian fried chicken fast food chain?

Also, this woman's jeans are only stonewashed in the front, as if they are chaps. Who wears stonewashed chaps?!

Joe speculated that the maxim at the end of the last video was "We are available for parties and bar mitzvahs."

In the current video, a man walks through a city. Literally, like he's taller than the buidlings.

In another scene he is singing in front of drums, but nobody is actually playing the drums. Maybe he's a one man band and he can only do one thing at a time?

Joe just went upstairs for a second to put on pajamas. I said, "Do you want me to pause it?"

He answered definitively and loudly, "NO!"

Liz

----------

A buddy song! 2 guys! One with a blonde mohawk, and one with a darker mohawk. Sort of Ebony and Sort of Ivory. This song has an English subtitle and chorus refrain, "Oh! My Friend." And a saxophone. An obvious WHAM influence.

And that saxaphone is heavy on flourishes.

A key change elevates the emphasis of the song's sentiment. When will they have sex?

Liz

----------

You'll be happy to hear the video about the tomboy girl ditched by the rich boyfriend who abandoned her after being beat up by his friends, well, there is a sequel.

The sequel features the same female protagonist/narrator sitting on a window sill, pensively considering her time with the male love interest. She is older, wiser, and has honed her skills with makeup.

She reminisces on her time with the male love interest and how they would go to playgrounds and drink slurpies.

Also, she now lives in some sort of villa with a quad.

But oh! That was a reconciliation video, where he visits her and they hug.

He kind of looks like MC Lars.

If MC Lars were Asian and had feathered hair combed forward.

Liz

---

The guy with a wispy mustache and overly pushed forward hair guy is barging in with a knife.

That video ended abruptly.

But not before someone got stabbed and died and blood gushed out.

Karaoke Horror! Like Ryu Murakami's Karaoke Terror: The Complete Japanese Showa Songbook.

Liz

----

Joe and I are wondering: Is this disc all sad ballads?

Lots of piano.

Why is this man standing by the side of the highway? It's a grey day and nothing is going on in the background. The cinematography is not that good.

Also, sometimes the guy singing is standing in front of a bunch of drawings of buildings, which we think might be Wesley Willis drawings. Is he big in Cambodia? Well, he was big everywhere; he was a very large man. Now he is big nowhere because he is dead.

OH MY GOD! This video started with someone stabbed and dead and people crying!

And there's all these kids drinking. What is the drinking age in Cambodia?!!?!

Liz

---

This song features a guy with peroxided hair in a shoe store with pin fixtures. He looks like he's 12. Both of us agree that he has very nice skin, although his eyebrows are infinitely darker then his hair.

There's a very prominent sitar in this song that is very attractive to our ears. Both Joe and I are in strong agreement of this point.

Parts of this video feature the singer in front of a carnival ride.

Now the love interest is breaking up with him and leaving him stranded with his balloons and roses. As the video ends, Joe reassures me, "That's OK. He's really gay."

Pfew.

Liz

Oh my god! Someone got run over by a Chrysler La Baron!

Oh, it was just a dream.

Pfew.

Why is there only one drunk woman in a restaurant being carried out by her boyfriend?

He's putting a wet rag on her forehead to help nurse her hangover.

Also, they are the only people in a movie theater.

And now the guy is drinking a bottle of champagne and throwing it over the bridge.

Is this song about a destructive relationship that focuses on the destructiveness of alcohol?

Liz

---

OH MY GOD!!! They have a blooper reel.

What you don't know if that they used a green screen for parts of the videos.

Liz

Did you eat at the Master Grill? Because their logo is on the DVD we just watched from you (see attached).

Joe pointed out that they deliver. How late do you think they'll go? I'm starving. And I need some karaoke. I know just the place.

Also, we are excited by the prospect of the company that made the disc (M Production) we just watched can provide treasure hunts: http://mproduction168.com/services

Also, they stated on their website that they are looking for the "Newface in whole world" Does that come with the chicken do you think?

Also, I very much like their operating philosophy as stated on their web site:

Individuals will enjoy a gradually increasing amount of discretionary time, both on and off the job. This is an irony, as most will perceive that they have less time to do the things they want.

Could I have said it better?

No, I think not.

Liz

A Fish Out of Water, A Book Yet to Be Read, A Tattoo Yet to Be Done

2011-05-11T02:03:00.000-05:00

So I saw "Thor" this evening, and it was actually pretty good. I expected 2 things: boringness and heavy father-son drama, as one would expect from movies that involve Kenneth Branagh (he directed it). Well, no it was not boring. And yes, there was father-son drama.

However, me being me, the parts I liked best were the fish-out-of-water sequences, that on first description sound like the premise for jokes:

Thor the Thunder God walks into a pet store. He demands a horse!
Thor the Thunder God enjoys coffee. He demands more by throwing the cup on the floor!
Thor the Thunder God --

well, you get the idea.

And as overdone as fish-out-of-water sequences usually are, I still find them funny every time. Almost. Somebody should make me a video where they combine fish-out-of-water sequences from movies, and I could sit back and laugh.

I guess. Sort of.

It's just that if you take the fish-out-of-water premise too far, then it just ends up dehumanizing characters, and it can start to sort of migrate into territory that makes me uncomfortable. Look, an American in another country! Look at those crazy foreigners in the foreign land! Look, a person of non-white or American origin in America, look they're totally out of their element! And so on.

I guess you just have to be careful with the fish-out-of-water premise. If it's take too far then it just comes off as intolerant. Or racist. Or something. I don't know. I feel uncomfortable even bringing it up. It is also difficult to not watch "Outsourced" if it's on. I am not altogether comfortable with admitting that.

And then one other thing I found interesting in "Thor." Some blog entries back, I wrote about how in my mind, superhero films, at least the first ones in the series, which are usually origin films, are pretty much coming-of-age films. (Nothing wrong with that. I didn't mean it in a dismissive kind of a way.) But what was different about Thor (after all, this Thor was the Marvel Thor, which yes, is based on the mythology, but it is primarily the comic book Thor) is that Thor already had the power and the hammer and all that. He just needed to mature, learn some anger management, gain wisdom through experience, etc. So unlike other comic book movies, this movie was less of an origin story (he didn't get bitten by a radioactive spider or fall in a vat of toxic waste etc.). But it did have that coming-of-age slant. And by the way, one slant is not necessarily better than the other. It's just interesting, is all I'm saying. And I guess the same way that Thor had a power through birth right, Superman did too, I guess, so that's actually another example of a coming-of-age comic book super hero movie that was less about origin and more about coming into one's own.

By a strange coincidence, today at work I received an ARC (advance reader copy) of the new Grant Morrison book Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human. What a perfectly timed arrival, in light of tonight's movie. I'm sure it will be very enlightening and entertaining. Grant Morrison can take any conventional thing and make it trippy and weird and awesome. I think while I read this book I will picture him reading it aloud to me with his thick Scottish accent. For some reason what comes to my mind is him announcing to the 2000 Disinfo Con that he had just taken drugs before he got up to speak. Here is a transcript, if that's helpful in describing what I'm talking about here:

"WOOOOOOOOOW! Here we are! Right! Fuck man, I tell you when I was a kid I read Robert Anton Wilson and all this shit and here we are, we're standing here, talking about this shit and it's real! OK, I'm pissed (Holds up red beaker) and in half an hour I'm gonna come up on drugs, so watch for it!"

You get the idea.

Meanwhile, I spent a great deal of time after work today researching images I plan to use for my next tattoo. I'm getting it on Sunday! It's going to be on my right wrist. It's going to be a karaoke tattoo. Here are some of the images I'm working into it!

So this first picture, I like the Sailor Jerry-esque sparrows and flowers. Instead of "Accounting" it would say "Karaoke." And the stars might be different. I'm thinking about making it more atomic age, like the stars below under this picture.

It would be the black ones, not the outlined ones. Or maybe these stars, which come to think of it, may be a little closer to what I'm looking for:

Another option would be a variation of something like this:

The layout would be an anchor but it would say something about karaoke, and then instead of the bottle and the lady it would have pictures of a microphone and a song list.

Or maybe I should just do a skull and crossbones but the crossbones are microphones.

No! That's stupid.

My original thought was to do a microphone, a song list, and a TV monitor over a heart with some stars and a scroll that says "Karaoke Forever" or something like that. The problem is that I can't seem to find a good picture of a monitor that I like. Here is what I've come up with so far:

This one pretty much typifies the karaoke TV set up. Except I should mention I went into this karaoke place next to my dentist's office to look at buying new monitors, and the new ones are all flat screen light weight ones. Karaoke of the future! So I have to be careful about not getting pictures of technology that will become outdated too fast. Is there a way of getting a TV picture that's kind of timeless?

OK, so this next one, ditch the stuff on the right. Just the TV and the stand it's on, and the microphones. Except one of the micas has to go. I don't do duets!

I have found some kind of good microphones though:

There's also this:

What I really like about this are the stars and littler star-dot pixie dust around the scroll.

Mmmmm....

It doesn't help that I have kind of small wrists, so there's not a lot of room to work with there.

I wish I was into cupcakes. There are a lot of good cupcake tattoos on the internet. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love cupcakes. But not enough to get a tattoo of one.

Tomorrow night big events! The comics artist Chester Brown is doing an event for his new book Paying For It, about being a John, at 7pm at Quimby's. And then later tomorrow night is also Hillbilly Bingo at The Horseshoe at 4115 N. Lincoln, 9pm.

Steam Erotica and Other Things I've Been Reading For Work

2011-05-09T21:52:00.000-05:00

If you're a steampunk enthusiast, maybe you've jokingly looked at clothes someone else is wearing and you hyperbolically announce, "I am drooling over that accessory." You want to own it and wear it, which to some degree means you want to consume it. Maybe if you're being silly you might even say "Oh my god, I totally want to have sex with those clothes." You're not serious about wanting to actually literally have intercourse with the items. But in "lusting" after some garment or accessory, there is a desire to in some way own and therefore use the item for one's own liking, whether to wear or to decorate. Steampunk lends itself to playful genre-specific fetishization. People get really into the clothes, the accessories, the gadgets, the gears. So it makes sense that within the steampunk fiction genre there's erotica. Bionics, opticals, a heart made of a time piece, machine arms in place of real arms -- all of these things are various levels of robotics or cyborg-like devices that in costume or real-life, create a steampunk-identified identity which is created by consuming of fetishizing.

On a symbolic level, in customizing the accessories and machine parts to one's costume, it's as if devoted steampunk enthusiasts want to "consume" the gear, the clothes, all that - in a way, to "customize" the old to create something new. The term for the process food undergoes after you consume it, when it becomes part of your body, is called assimilation. This seems like a symbolically effective term to label what happens when you customize something steampunk-esque to work into your own appearance. Maybe there's a welded piece of jewelry. Maybe there's multiple jewelers lenses screwed onto frames. Maybe there's multiple broken timepieces dangling. These are all modified objects that are customized, consumed, assimilated. These are all activities that can to some degree also describe "consumption" in ways that are sexual. Think about the word "consume" in any way you want. And also consider that when one reads something, they can also "devour."

And so that brings us to this anthology of short, sexy steampunk stories.

In Carnal Machines: Steampunk Erotica, a woman visits a doctor about sexually based ailment. There is a Doctor Watson. There might have been at least one monocle. There are varieties of sexual preferences. Some stories in Carnal Machines are more compelling then others. "Human Powered" by Teresa Noelle Roberts is the most compelling in terms of narrative, which is probably why the anthology starts with this story about male and a female scientists working on a lust powered machine, which brings together two scientists, one being a widow who needs some tender loving (and also, sex). Some of the stories subvert cultural traditions, such as "Mutiny On the Danika Blue" by Poe Von Page. In this story, a woman on deck of the ship has no rights. But in the bedroom quarters below, she is the captain, a bossy domm who demands the ship's captain call her "sir."

There are a few moments where some of the stories feel like McDonald's Drive Through Steampunk Porn. That is to say, some of the pieces have a tang of erotica with steampunk machines and images name-checked in it. Make a list of steampunk things: goggles, a dirigible, gears, experiments, British accents and so on. Now open this book to any random page. You will probably find something on that list mentioned. So on one hand, genre pieces belong to that genre because they each share certain characteristics. On the other hand, if a story is merely name-checking conventions or motifs of the genre, they become less compelling. How do you write something genre-specific without sounding like you're using a genre cookie cutter?

Let's say that you wished to perform improvisational sex steampunk comedy (you know, in the unlikely event that you happen to be in that very specific situation with those exact details). In some ways you could use this book; open to any page and you will probably find images that are totally steampunk genre-specific. For example (and for laughs), I just opened to page 170 and my finger landed on this:

"Of course, the amount of electricity harvested depended on each boy's stamina and level of sexual voracity. Some subjects produced almost twice the amount of electrical energy as others."

I kind of want to take these random quotes and act them for an audience. Has anybody done steampunk comedy yet? I have seen elements of humor incorporated into steampunk genre stuff like music, literature, music videos etc. Would that type of performance get old quickly though? Do you run out of references? Is it a one trick pony that's better in making reference to than watching a full show of? Does it have to be backed up by good writing? Should genre-specific stuff regarding certain details of physical objects and conventions of literature be incidental? Should the story exist first or the conventions of the genre exist first? Do the references to goggles and dirigibles get tired fast? Is that why some of these stories feel like someone wrote a sexy story but then their work was solicited by the editors who were like "Here's what steampunk is! Now go write one of your sexy stories with steampunk as being part of it!"?

When I was done with the book, I noticed in the back of the book is a an ad for a book coming out called Steamlust, but that it's not coming out until October. The subtitle on it was "Erotic Romance," whereas Carnal Machines is "Steampunk Erotica." Is there a difference? Or was it just that there's a lot of steampunky material out there and not all of it would fit in one book? I noticed the books each have different editors. I'm curious to know, how did both books come to be? Or maybe both of the editors were both really knowledgeable and know lots of people who write these types of stories and the publisher (Cleis) was like, "We cannot fit all this in one book?! Let not all of this go to waste! Let's just do more than one book!" Or perhaps Cleis was like, "Steampunk is super big right now! And sex is always big! Sex and machines! Like a David Cronenberg movie but without shitty special effects and way more optical devices! And with much better behaved characters who also happen to be better dressed!" Perhaps I should interview the editors of both books?

But most importantly, my priority above all else, was doing a Google search to see if somebody got to the clever before I did. That is, had anybody coined steampunk porny stuff as being "SPUNK?" Because really, all anybody really wants is to get credit for making up a clever turn of phrase, myself included. So I found some stuff. Sort of. There was one reference to "steamspunk" but it wasn't quite regarding sex, on regretsy.com on their "This is NOT steampunk" section, but what was particularly funny is that they found all this hilarious stuff where the crafters mistyped it (I assume) because sometimes they label stuff as "streampunk" or "stempunk" and so on, which I found hilarious. Streampunk? (Like it's fish! Is that like steamed fish? To eat?). Also there was at least one spelling "staempunk." In case you're curious, it was a vender selling a "Staempunk (sic) accessory Greek Sheild Tassle" which I thought was hilarious. Anyway, there are a lot of sexy steampunk toys that come up when you google "Steampunk sex SPUNK." My sexy computer is getting a virus as we speak. Also what comes up with a google search of that nature are all manner of steampunk sex toys like a death ray vibrator or a "steamvibe" (which, I noticed when looking at the picture of it, an ad solicited me for a "Spyware Remover Download," which I thought was humorously poetic on a variety of levels.) But! So! Considering that the google search for "Steampunk sex SPUNK" pulled up 160,000 hits and I don't want to spend a whole day looking to see if someone was more clever than me, I abandoned the investigation. If someone hasn't used the term "spunk" in reference to porny steampunk then they can use it now. I found lots of hits that were just people calling steampunk "spunk" but not any in my immediate search that used "spunk" as being sexy steampunk.

Also, I just finished reading Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books by Francesca Lia Block (Harper Collins). It's not necessarily something I would normally read but my next door neighbor lent it to me one day when we were suggesting books for each other. I gave her my copy of Drew Barrymore's autobiography and she gave me this book. It's actually an anthology of five different books in a series. And they're young adult novels, which I'd heard about when I was taking a class about teaching young adult novels when I was getting my teaching certificate. (I didn't read it because we got to read whatever we wanted and present it to the class.) That class was one of my faves when I was in school, because the books were so much fun. And it turned me on to Orson Scott Card's Enders Game books which are pretty awesome (and lately it has been made into comics. I bet a movie is probably in the works). So the Weetzie books are about kids who are kind of hippie-ish, sometimes arty, bla bla. It's kind of magic realism-y. And they're about falling in and out of love and has a very "life is beautiful carpe diem"-ish run-on sentence feel, with lots of fireflies and drum circles. Some of it bordered on the edge of cheesy. It was a quick entertaining read, even though I think drum circles are sort of intolerable. Images that stick out in my mind from it: A Jayne Mansfield Appreciation Club, crafting angel wings (I know, I know, don't even start), tearing photographs, dressing up in goat pants. For some reason that last one about the goat pants makes me think of the Red Hot Chili Peppers because didn't Flea wear pants with stuffed animals on them? That's ridiculous that THAT's the first thing I think of and not something mythologically huge like Pan the Goat God. What is that saying about me? Nothing really, because I don't really like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Anyway, I'm not sure that I'd say the Weetzie anthology was actually good, but I will say that I had a hard time putting it down. Maybe that does mean it was good. Maybe "compelling" and "good" have more overlap than I think? Does it even matter? After all, my retention rate is so low these days that I could reread this book again tomorrow and it's almost like it's a new book. Maybe I'm consuming too much media in general and not thinking about what I've consumed enough. If I see too many movies in too close of a proximity of time, my retention rate in all of them drops. In fact, I did see 2 movies yesterday. The new version of Jane Eyre that I saw at The Century and then later, I watched a Netflixed disc "The Second Coming," written by Russell T. Davies, and starring Christopher Eccleston. The former movie because I enjoy movie versions of Jane Eyre (as far as I can tell, I think I've seen 3 now), and also, I love a good movie cry. I picked up a slab of napkins at the concession stand before the movie and had them ready to go before the lights were even dimmed. I used all of them. Yay! And then I watched the second movie because of the Doctor Who connection of Davies and Eccleston. It was super good and I can see why they cast Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. Anyway, in "The Second Coming" he plays a guy that finds out he is the son of god, and everybody believes him. Periodically he downloads messages from God in his head. (Should John Denver be in that with George Burns?) Strangely, minutes before I watched that last movie I actually ran across an "interview with god" piece in an issue of Vice that Bob Odenkirk wrote. I know, Vice is a sorta douche-y mag, but I still read it.

Also, I am trying to make my way through the winter 2011 Lapham's Quarterly the theme being Celebrity, which is slow going. It's very juicy with quotes and short blurbs and full on articles about the topic, from stuff going back to Cicero in 54 BC Rome type of stuff. Some of it is good I guess…I thought I would really like it. I want to like it. I want to say I'm the type of person who reads Lapham's Quarterly and Harper's and Monocle. Am I? I am a fairweather reader that skips a lot of it but finds little gems in it. Sometimes. Sort of. It's rare that I ever actually buy magazines because my reading list is always very long. Plus, I get the previous issues free when the new ones come in, so I am perpetually an issue behind. (Like that really matters.) And because I didn't invest any money in buying them I don't feel like I have to read anything in it I don't want to read. Furthermore, it would do me some good in not guilting myself about not wanting to read certain things. But I should read more. I should set a specific minimum or average for how many hours of reading I should get in during a week but I don't live the type of luxury where there isn't something immediately pressing that I have to do a lot of the time. Sadly, reading seems like a luxury compared to my To Do list, especially ironic because I work in a bookstore. And I also feel like I need to have some time to process all the media I've consumed. There should be a minimum of time per week that I spend processing all that media I've consumed. "Processing" can mean any number of things: maybe it's writing about it, maybe it's talking about it, maybe it's journaling about it,-- but I feel it's important to do something. Otherwise I am a mindless consumer. Even if it's consumption of high quality media. And I do feel that it's OK to consume lowbrow culture media too. But the trick is that I have to process it in some way so that I'm not just reading/eating/consuming trash without chewing on it. It's OK to watch a million hours of TV a day, as long as you spend time processing it. It's OK to read Star and US Weekly and People, if you're creatively processing it in some way. But what is the right way? ANd the right ratio of consumption to processing?

I'll have to chew on that.

The Ouroboros of Inspiration and Hard Work

2011-04-19T17:54:00.000-05:00

People often talk about how they do their best writing or art when they're in the dumps. I think that might actually be bullshit. To be an articulate individual or artist you sort of have to be in the right space to get those articulate words out.

I went to a poetry slam Sunday night and someone did a piece about how what motivates them are all these stormy things, none of which I can actually remember, but possibly they might have been emotional devastation. And maybe rain. Or maybe I'm just saying rain and that wasn't actually the example. But definitely, the main source was some type of emotional tribulation that was devastating and whatever other adjectives that sort of go with that. Well, I don't buy it. My hunch is that a lot of creative people do their bet work when they're working stuff out, maybe journaling the bullshit out when they're upset, fine, but the best quality work is when they're able to think coherently. That whole thing about the moody artist is fine, of course, I mean art/writing/creative arts/fine art, a lot of people who do those things have artistic temperaments of course, but if you actually talk to them, the ones who do higher quality work, they will tell you that they don't do very good work when they're manic and crazy and out of their minds and out of control and emotionally devastated -- they do the best work when they're going back down of the extremes and getting down to business. That whole bit about the artist inspired by Bronte-ian rain and gloom and all that -- I don't buy it. I know this from experience. I feel like I have a [retty artistic temperament but my work is shitty when I'm not myself. And the catch 22 is that you might feel like if you're creating whatever it is that you need to be creating to feel fulfilled, if you get out of practice, you're unhappy. But then if you're not stretching the work/creative Work muscle than actually, you become out of shape, and it's hard to get back into it again. Just like exercising. I heard Janeane Garofalo say on a Citizen Radio podcast that just like you exercise the rest of your body, your brain is a muscle that needs to be exercised. And the suggestion that she suggested was yes, do keep that copy of Mother Jones in your car so that when you're waiting in line in your car for a car wash you do have that something to read, so that if you don't have time to exercise your brain with stuff than at least you have that. Actually, I'm not 100% sure she actually gave the exact example with Mother Jones and the car wash, but she gave some example that was kind of like that. (Once again, my ridiculous undocumented source of "I heard somewhere" is at work again, which a prof friend of mine said that was kind of funny and interesting, like that seemed very indicative of our Google-era version of source documentation.) Anyway, I do actually have a copy of Mother Jones in the trunk of the car and I did once read it while waiting in line in the car for either an EPA inspection or a car wash, so maybe that was why I ace the example I gave, but whatever. The point is that Janeane Garofalo is right; we do need to keep the brain muscle fit. And it's the same thing with writing I think: your best work is probably done when you're really working your brain at it's top level peak of performance, not when you're down in the dumps and feeling uninspired. I mean sure, that's what journaling is for, and some of the best pieces of literature can be inspired by trauma of course, but I think the best writing is done when someone is really working that shit out, trying hard, thinking it through, then if they do it often enough, it gains some momentum, then you get inspired more, then you do better work, steamrolling. But I suppose the opposite of steamrolling is "Ulch, hard to get moving, I feel uninspired, I don't want to work on this, this sucks boring I want to go out and play" etc. etc. etc., just substituting your brain for body or vice versa, both are true.

Look, I'm not saying that you should wait to work on stuff when you're feeling good. Writing stuff or working on whatever your art is, that stuff can help make you feel good. But the stuff you start with is going to suck, especially when you're trying to dig yourself out of a hole of misery. My first draft of anything sucks even if I'm not digging myself out of a hole of misery, often because I'm just trying to barf it all down at once since my brain moves faster than my body and frontal lobe can, so I am at a constant loss to get it all out and articulate it before I lose it; in fact, I lose about 95% of the ideas I have for points I want to make, but I can't move that fast. My moments of inspiration are when I'm nowhere near where I can get it down and I have so many of those moments. My blog entries are starting points for stuff I write for zines and journals and websites for people -- they're not the greatest gems but they do help me get some ideas down to germinate, marinate etc. I do it all for you, all 8 people reading this! I have heard comedians say that they use blogs for that purpose -- they try out material there. (I think I might have hear both Patton Oswalt and Paul F. Tompkins say that. I think.)

I'm just saying, don't believe the shit about the tortured artist doing their best work at their lows. I read some diary or something by Hemingway or Arthur Miller or someone like that (white American contemporary male writer? I don't know who exactly or where I read it.) Anyway, they admitted that this was true. Is it only true for white American male writers? Probably not. Anton LaVey or maybe Aleister Crowley said something about magic: "The first step to opening the door to psychic magic is actually opening the door." The thing is, I don't really remember the whole quote or which of those guys it is, so in my mind it's like "The first step to opening the door magically with your mind is to open the door. Like get up and actually open the door. With your actual hands. Hello? Is anybody actually in there? I really have to pee. Hello? Are you OK? God daminit I have to pee so fucking bad, what the fuck are you doing in there? Also! I am not 100% sure if I should spell magic with a c or a K or both!"

Also, I would like to add that it's not like emotional devastation doesn't make for good art or writing or whatever. Of course it does. Full on novels and movies and wars are inspired by tragedy and love and devastation and gloom and doom. (Love creates war, that is, if the Liz taylor version of Cleopatra is correct, anyway. I saw this recently.) I remember reading that one of the producers of This American Life (not Ira Glass, someone else) said in some interview somewhere something to the effect that they look for stories to do on air stuff that has some sort of narrative where the protagonist learns something, and that essentially what every story ever really is, is a coming-of-age story. The more I thought about this the more I agreed with this; whenever you learn something about yourself or the world, you grow a little. And then I thought about comic book super hero origin stories. They are pretty much always coming of age stories: Spider-Man, and the white web jizz and the learning about power and responsibility, Rogue with the touching stuff, bla bla bla -- although I see these ideas about puberty-onset super powers are NOT original thoughts on my part I see.

I like this idea that pretty much any narrative is a coming-of-age story, because we never stop coming of age. We become people as life goes on. Growing never really stops, unless something SUPER fucked happens like you get hit by a bus and become comatose and come out of it brian damaged, but even in that attempt to get better you keep growing, just in a different way. Well, or I suppose there's the damage done by fuckedupness and evil, or maybe you fell in a toxic vat of whatever. (Sidenote: I just looked up The Top 10 Super Villains Of All Time and here was the ad at the bottom of the screen, which, if you're into comics I think you will appreciate:

Besides the obvious X-Men wheelchair reference I also enjoyed that the other related searches were "World Domination" and "World Destruction." Also "World Eater."

OK but so anyway, I did once hear Ira Glass say that we are hardwired to expect narratives, and I think this is true. Not that the sort of creative endeavors I do are necessarily narrative-oriented, but I do agree that possibly, narratives are what compels us to make art from our devastation. But the point is not that you should wait to get inspired by some grand force of compulsion struck down from the gods or wait to get inspired at all. Good art, writing etc. -- that stuff comes from hard work, multiple drafts, editing, etc. -- and it's hard to do that stuff when you're in grief and panic mode. That stuff can get you started but it won't carry you through redrafting of the work and all that stuff you need to do to make it compelling for anybody else except yourself. I'm not saying you should make art for people that you yourself don't like -- you should be your own audience and for people that are of your mold, but I am saying that if you're doing art that you want anybody else to like, it has to be more compellingly universal than masturbatory, and you don't create high quality writing or art when you're in the worst possible space to be in.

(Sidenote: While looking through a tattoo artist's portfolio a few days ago, I saw that the artist had done a tattoo on somebody that was Ira Glass' face, glasses and everything, in front of an American flag. That's hilarious. I wonder if it he got it himself? Ha ha ha ha.)

OK,s o here's what I'm asking people to take away from this:
1. Don't Bullshit What Your Real Inspiration Is
2. Don't Wait to Get Inspired.
3. Get to Work to Get Yourself Inspired.

Should I tweet that? Should I get bumper stickers made? Is there a reason why random things are in capital letters?

Doctor Who Scarves and Suze Orman

2011-04-19T01:33:00.000-05:00

So tonight I went to this really great Doctor Who 101 thing sponsored by the Chicago Nerd Social Club downtown at Tech Nexus. Before I got to the event I thought, "Mmmm, if you're a fan then you don't really need a DW 101. But probably the only people that know about this event are people that are fans." And it turns out that somebody made some snarky comments to that effect on the Facebook event invite. It was a free event that I had to register in advance for to get clearance to get in because of there being high security for the building it was in, which was strangely appropriate in a "Torchwood" kind of a way (a DW spin-off show). It was in a building across from the Sears Tower. Oh excuse me. The Willis Tower. (I prefer to think of it as the Wesley Willis Tower. And by the way, I am THAT gullible that when someone was circulating a Facebook thing about petitioning that it should be the Wesley Willis Tower I was like "Really? They're really considering that? I will TOTALLY sign that.")

Anyway, this blogger guy did a Power Point presentation about it. Doctor Who, not Wesley Willis. I was thinking to myself that I was sort of a target audience because I wasn't a super huge mega fan, but I do like the series from 2005 and on when they relaunched it. My husband, Joe, has been a fan for like 30 years because he grew up on it. I think he might have been the person that had been a fan for longer than everybody there except the blogger guy who was leading the thing (and shucks! I left his card upstairs -- Joe is sleeping and I don't want to wake him up and go get the card). There were about 12 or 15 people there, and of them, there were 3 women (myself included). One thing he talked about how a lot of the people who ended up working on the show as writers or actors tend to be folks that grew up watching the show, except for the most recent Doctor, Matt Smith, because he's that young. Interesting. He is so cute and baby-faced and adorable but David Tennant is my fave. And the guy doing the talk said that the American DW sensibility tends to be, "Oh Tom Baker, he's that guy on PBS. David Tennant, he's the Doctor." Interesting.

--Wait-- before I go any further I have to tell you that my roommate just walked in and said, "There are some really excellent walrus fights I've been watching. Really excellent. You need to watch them now." This is not unusual for our roommate (named The Nurse, since he is an actual nurse). He walks in and makes pronouncements like this all the time. And I am always willing to listen for elaboration, which as of late seems to result in some bizarre YouTube viewing. So tonight's YouTube viewing with The Nurse was "walrus fight." Walruses get in to some pretty vicious battles with each other and stab each other with tusks! WTF?! That's awful! Bloody walruses? They fight over the ice who gets to stay on it and get some sun! That made me sad. BUT! Walruses are strangely cute. Just you know, not BLOODY WALRUSES.

ANYWAY the guy was talking about the sort of mythology of each of the Doctors on the series, and since most of the people there had been fans longer than I was, they were there just to sort of meet people who geek out about what they're into, which I love (no matter what it's about -- people are at their best when they're talking about stuff they love). I was actually there because I felt like I needed some more info. See, I have a working knowledge of the show because Joe has sort of schooled me and I've seen canonical stuff and he's filled me in on the sort of mythology of the show etc., but it was helpful to get filled in on stuff. For example, sometimes the actors would work with the writers once the writers kind of figured out what the actors' strengths were. Characters were written in such a way to capatalize on that. For example, Tom Baker had actually trained (studied? whatever) to be a monk. So they worked with that to make him more monk-like. (Monkey? Ha.) Also, I had heard that Douglas Adams did some writing for the show but I didn't know what era and for how long. Well it was one year. But I already forgot what era. Bah! Well, I can see into the future of space and time and I see an internet search in my future. Also! Apparently Christopher Eccleston (the ninth Doctor) and DW writer Russell T. Davies had worked together before Doctor Who! (OMG! An exclamation point about that fact! It's because Russell T. Davies is truly a gifted writer, I think, anyway.) When the two of them worked together, they did a TV mini series called "The Second Coming" (which as of eleven minutes ago is at the top of the Netflix queue instead of me having to wait 3 million years to get it because my queue is so long). Aha! So it makes sense that Eccleston would end up being the Doctor.

So there were a few guys there who I wondered where they might fall on the Asperger Syndrome-Nerd spectrum (I know, this is a highly debated issue as discussed in at least 2 different non-fiction books we sell at work with the word Nerd in the title, go Google that if you need more info, people have written so much about nerds and how they tie into Asperger Syndrome these days there's no need for me to rehash it here.) I kind of thought it was adorable. There was a hilarious moment where two guys had Tom Baker scarf replicas and they unrolled them to see who had the longer scarf, and the minute they whipped those out I hit record on my camera. I feel like this is a comedy sketch that writes itself if you just think to yourself "Size does matter":

And then it was on. One guy had a tiny Dalek he brought and kept pressing the speech button for everybody to hear what it was saying and it was all tinny sounding and we couldn't tell what it was saying, and he just kept pressing it. Then people started whipping out their I-phones and showing each other their DW-related applications: a Sonic Screwdriver sound, a Dalek speak app, a TARDIS sound. I think maybe Joe's Dalek tattoo and David Tennant coat might have topped everybody though. I was ready to whip out my I-pod with the really awesome Parry Gripp Doctor Who song but it was tucked away in my coat so I nixed the idea. Anyway, the show and tell scarf thing killed me. I neglected to announce that Joe used to have one but it got lent out for a friend's movie and never made it back, so I got him a replacement for Xmas. But I couldn't pass up the opportunity to document with more photos here:

And then it was time to go. While waiting for the bus I noticed that the way Joe was standing in the bus stop terminal, he was standing in front of an ad with Suze Orman that gave him a um Suze Orman-ish glow, which was killing me, so I took pictures and laughed so hard I thought I was going to throw up, especially because Joe looked like he was Suze Orman in a Doctor Who coat, and it just started to get more and more preposterous by the second:

And then I thought to myself, "If Suze Orman married Bob Rohrman, she'd be Suze Orman Rohrman," and then at that point I actually lost my shit and had to sit down because my stomach was in pain from how hard I was laughing. "I wish I had a megaphone to announce this to the world!" Joe said, "It's a good thing you don't have a megaphone." And then I shouted, "But I do have megaphone! It's called TWITTER!" So of course, I had to immediately tweet that. Then Joe and I decided that if Suze Orman became a doorman, she'd be Suze Orman Rohrman Doorman -- I mean, this shit just went on and on. Threr was some guy on his phone with a hands free device just talking and talking the whole time which we weren't really paying attnetion to but then another guy came over and it wasn't until he shouted, "I see you've got the Air Jordans but where is the Air Jordan?" that we realized that he wasn't some guy on a phone -- he was just a crazy person. And Joe and I agreed that indeed, it has now become somewhat impossible at times to differentiate from a a person talking on their phone from a crazy person. I have always thought that inevitably those 2 things were bound to meet in some poetic way and now they have.

Then on the bus we took off our gloves and I challenged Joe to a duel. I flapped my gloves at him and said, "I challenge you to a duel! But with gloves. Just you with your gloves and me with my gloves, flapping them at each other." We decided that if we were going to have duel, it would have to be at a mutually convenient time. I said, "10:30 tomorrow? Oh no, I have a meeting. How about high noon?" Then when we pulled the string to request the next stop for the bus, I said, "What if the request for a bus stop was like you couldn't really be sure they would stop where you wanted them to? Like it was actually just a request, like when you call up a radio station and request a song and they go, "OK, we'll try to get to your request"?" By the time I got home I was ready to collapse from the whole ordeal but instead ate a Hostess chocolate pie that some houseguests left there.

1:31am! Thank god I am off tomorrow!

Celebrity Autobio vs. Celebrity Bio

2011-04-15T02:15:00.000-05:00

So I read Growing Pains by Billie Piper (Hodder), 2006. Billie Piper is know for, among other things, her role on “Doctor Who.” But in the nineties she was British top 40 teenage pop starlet with an eating disorder, whose songs kind of sounded like the Spice Girls. She was sort of marketed as a kind of a British Britney Spears. I enjoyed her on “Doctor Who,” but I do very little to follow her now. I loved her so much on “Doctor Who” and cried my eyes out with all of her heartbreaking adventures with the tenth doctor, David Tennant. Sidenote: I do enjoy David Tennant. I made my husband Joe get a suit like his on the show and it always tickles me when he wears it. I get swoony. Not like teenagery but more like I’m like a housewife throwing her underwear at Tom Jones. One year for the holidays Joe gave me a stack of gifts and saved the best for last, which was a wrapped box that included a signed postcard from David Tennant himself! And it said, “To Liz”! Joe said that he wrote David and asked for it and said something like, “I have been a life-long "Doctor Who" fan, and I approve of my wife’s celebrity crush.” Upon receiving this gift I squealed with delight, which was a squeal paralleled only by the receiving of a personally autographed postcard from Corey Hart when I was twelve.

To me!

I was amazed by Billie Pipers’s revelations: Janet Jackson is shy, seven laxatives at a time cause you to be perpetually constipated, a method of filling your stomach if you’re trying to lose weight is eating kleenex. This last one is especially interesting to me because I once read an interview with this guy who claimed to be a “karaoke coach” and he said that you should swallow kleenex to help warm up your voice. I tried it and gagged. Then I dry heaved. I can tell by your reaction that you are shocked and amazed by this information.

I did also recently read a book someone else gave me as a gift called Billie Piper: The Rollercoaster Life of Britian's Hottest Star by Chris Stevens (Michael O'Mara Books) 2006. It was all about her ups and downs of course: her precocious rise to fame as a fifteen year old pop star in spite of her real first love (acting), her having to grow up too fast in the spotlight, her relationship with Ritchie Neville of the boy band Five (sometimes called rive), her fall from public grace for having the nerve to date a boy in a boy band (why would anyone care? Is there something I'm missing here? Maybe people thought that type of pairing is too precious or something? Why do people even have an opinion on something like that?), her much public collapses in public from exhaustion (and there was some public speculation about drinking/drugs), her rocky romance with her first husband, her entry into acting and then her reboot as a critically acclaimed adult actress in things like "Doctor Who."

Interestingly, I stumbled across a picture of Billie Piper and Madonna hanging out and it totally made sense to me. I mean, I don't know exactly when it was from, but I could see how they would totally know each other. For one, Madonna was married to Guy Ritchie, so there was the British connection. Also, they both were female pop stars. The age between them has to be probably at least 15 or 20 years, and Madonna was older than 15 when she got famous, but still, I could see the bonding. Here's something I find interesting. In Madonna's brother's book (Christopher Ciccone), he said that the first time Madonna went to England, when she was beginning to get famous around the time of her first album, that actually she got booed of stages and they were really horrible to her there. Just a sidetone. Maybe there's something that Billie and Madonna could talk about: having British people hate you at some point or another, whether it's earlier or later. I wonder also though, if they get on the topic if they talk about acting? The thing is that Billie has gotten lots of praise about her acting but Madonna hasn't. In fact, Madonna has been ridiculed for her acting. I don't think she's as bad as everybody says she is. I saw Guy Ritchie's remake of Swept Away and it wasn't as bad as everybody says it is -- I mean, it's cheesy etc. but it's not like the worst movie ever, and Madonna wasn't the worst actress ever in it. People are so mean about her. I heard someone say about Madonna kind of recently (and I don't remember who said this) "It must really suck to be Madonna aging in out culture." I think in one of her songs, maybe one on the "Confessions On a Dance Floor," something like "Whenever people talk about me/they're never very nice." Shit, what song was that? Anyway! Who cares? Not me! The point is, well, poor Madonna, pretty much. However, I kind of feel like Billie has more in common with Britney than she does with Madonna, mostly because of her age she got famous at, since Britney got famous super young too. Madonna seems edgier and smarter and with it at a younger age than pop stars like Britney or Billie.

Interestingly I saw some British television show where they have actors and pop stars and whoever else other celebrities on, and they drive some car around a track and it's some kind of reasonably priced sort of thing (not a sports car-- and that's sort of the gag, that it's some economy car like Ford Escort or something like that I think). And they time each person how long it takes for them to get around some track so many times. And they had David Tennant on (and also Christopher Eccleston on, the previous incarnation of the Doctor on "Doctor Who" before David Tennant. And oh! It was hilarious. They edited it in such a way that the car makes a TARDIS noise when he's starting it). So David Tennant said something about filming with Billie was fun because she was s charming and has the type of charisma that she could ask you to do anything and you just sort of do whatever she wants because you're powerless against her charm. Also this: She jokingly called him "David Ten Inch." Why do I remember that type of silliness? I can't help it.

Anyway, of course David Tennant is my fave Doctor but as much as I enjoyed Rose and Billie Piper, the truth is that my favorite companion for the Doctor was Catherine Tate's Donna Noble. She was hilarious and charming in a totally different way. Am I interested in reading a book about her? Well, if it fell in my lap, yes, but actually I'm reading so many other things right now that even if I wanted to there's so much on deck.

I wish I had something intelligent to say about the way Billie's autobio differs from the bio written by someone else. Sure, there are differences, but nothing particularly salacious. As an avid read of celebrity autobios I am more interested in approaching celebrity autobios in a way that I've been toying with. Hear me out here: so I took this class in college about Charlotte Bronte. We read some of her books sure, but we also read a biography by Elizabeth Gaskell about Charlotte Bronte. The teacher told us to try to forget the book was a true biography and just look at it like it was a book of fiction, and that we should consider thinking about and writing about and talking about it that way. I found that a difficult thing to do at the time but now I can see how that would be very easy as I look back now. So if you approach the idea of taking any genre and fleshing out the conventions, you can see what is some sort of universal commonality in the books of the genre. So as I think back on that, I can see how that would play out in the world of thinking of celebrity autobios as a genre. I feel like there would be a lot of similarities between the conventions of celeb autobios and the idea of the pop star "rise and fall" movies that all pop stars eventually make -- the sort of thinly veiled "here's my story" celebrity origin story, as if it was a comic book super hero origin story (which is pretty much a coming of age narrative); I did a post about this when "Burlesque" came out, if you want to back track to that one -- about the conventions of the inevitable movies pop stars make. Anyway

The idea is to think of celebrity autobiographies in that way, as a sort genre with certain perameters. What are those parameters? Well, there's certain things that a lot of celeb autobios have in common: the rise and fall, potential rags to riches, the elaboration of how one practices their craft, the hubris that leads to delusion and then losing of some sort of sanity (whether through drugs or exhaustion or emotional turmoil or tragedy or pueblo disgrace or failed relationships etc.), the comeback, the aging, the giving back to the community, etc. I think I may need to marinate on this idea of what those sort of rules are, as if there's a template for considering the study of writing about celeb autobios in some sort of meaningful way.

The new season of Doctor Who starts on the 23rd but the fact is, we don't have cable, and I hate watching stuff on my computer. So that means I either have to wait it out for the DVD or find somewhere to watch it that's not a computer and has comfortable seating. And snacks. I gotta have my snacks.

Britney as Muse vs. Britney as Machine Vehicle Thing

2011-04-07T08:31:00.000-05:00

So Britney Spears will be in Chicago July 8th. Perhaps I will have my first actual expereince seeing her in concert. It's not like I haven't actually seen footage of her live shows on every single tour. The intenet is an amazing place; people post entire shows on their cell phones, from every angle. But what I'm talking about is less about seeing her live and more about me actually being able to film people in the parking lot to do a Britney Spears Parking Lot. Or maybe nobody cares about her anymore. OK, all eight people following this blog! Anybody wants to come with me, here's the info!:

Britney Spears Announces North American Summer Tour - BRITNEY SPEARS: "July 8 Chicago, IL United Center"

Does she ever take any time off? In a recent book I read about her the author was talking about how maybe the reason she seems to be touring so much on the last couple albums is because peraps she's under a tough love contract with her record label. Or maybe she's making up for lost time for not touring during the Blackout period,. I love that it's the name of the album is Blackout because then one can say "the Blackout Period" which is totally fitting for that era of her career, her meltdowny era.

Is Britney perhaps not relevant anymore? I read a review of her new album in the Onion and they were saying something to the efect like the review I was talking about in my last blog entry, that it's an entity that is the name of Britney Spears recording under that name -- although in the Onion they were slightly more complimentary (I guess) and said that she was more of a muse for other song writers to write for, and she's more of a catalyst-vehicle thing for new songwriters to get their work out there -- it's like she's one big commercial for other people, which totally makes sense if you watch any of her videos for the last album or two or three where a lot of the videos have tons of sponsorship deals. I think in either the NY Popcast review or the Onion review they were talking about how in an era of Lady Gaga, Kei$ha and Katy Perry (women songwrites writing for other people or recording their own self-written songs) perhaps Britney is not part of that group of female song writers -- making her in some way less relevant. Is relevant really the right word?

Anyway, last night I watched Brit's new video for Till the World Ends. Joe peeked in while I was watching it. I said that it reminded me of the Slave 4 U video, all sweaty and people dancing in a sort of moody gritty scenario. Joe said that it reminded him of the second Matrix movie, which I agreed.

Also! I saw Britney's 25 Things You Should Know About Me or whatever in Star or US or one of those magazines, and the most important thing that stood out for me was that she crashed her mom's Lexus in high school.

Her mom drove a Lexus when Britney was growing up? I am surprised because I know growing up they were pretty poor. For some reason I picture it like Nutbush City Limits by Tina Turner. Preposterous of me, I know.

Also, the fact that I have even thought about this is pretty preposterous. What can I say? I'm a walking Twitter feed. Or something.

Is there such a thing as hooking up soemthing to just record your thoughts without you having to actually articulate them? Because that's what I need. Like a mental articulation intern. A thought voice mail. Single celled one degree no-work recording. Bee boop robot. Smart phone.

And hey! One of my favoritest high weirdness distributors Last Gasp (in San Francisco) was selling my zine And now they're sold out, as I see from their website. My contact there told me that there was a lot of chaos when Britney doing a TV appearance there and my zine apparently captured a zeitgeistyness of the moment. They ordered more but by that point I was down to only a few. Aw shucks.

I sent some zines to Australia because Luke at Sticky had contributed to my indiegogo campaign to print Caboose #7 and to send 20 copies of it cost me $75! What the hell, United States Postal Service?! I should just take a damn vacation there myself. Maybe take some digiridoo lessons. And learn how to spell digireedoo. On a dirgible. Or whatever.

More I Remembered About the Britney Spears Femme Fatale Release Party

2011-04-05T10:27:00.000-05:00

Britney Impersonator

So when I finished my last post about the release party for Britney Spears' Femme Fatale album I was beat and didn't finish all about it. And I strategically left out some super hilarious shit that was super mean and catty of me and my friends to point out about the goings on of people involved in putting goon the event or performing in it and I'm feeling like it would be mean of me to write about that stuff on the internet where everybody can read it. So I'm leaving out things that I feel like would create some drama.

In my last post I was talking about how I posed on the "red carpet" in front of the "press junket" picture taking thing with my popcorn and soda. Yeah, it was kind of dinky. But I still thought it was hilarious. I feel like they could be companion pictures to the pictures of me dressed up in clothes designed by Britney Spears. My friends Stefanie and Sarah took some pictures with my camera for me and indulged my preposterous stage directions for how to do it.

I'm ready for my close-up.

I had decided to Tweet about the experience in live time, and in the intervening time between my arrival and everybody elses, I downloaded a new Tweeter ap for my Android since the shitty free one I had didn't work so well. I posted on Facebook (yes I had that much time to kill I got there that early. I am a dork.) that I was doing this.

But about halfway through the festivities my phone started to lose juice in such a way that I could tell I would need to be more sparse with my tweets if I wanted the thing to last. It really drove the point home about how the nature of Twitter combined (on a device with a low battery no less) is such that you have have a precise economy of language. That situation lends it itself to sound-bite-ish smart ass-y punchlines, so I had to be very deliberate what I decided to tweet. (It makes me think about what I heard Patton Oswalt say about Twitter, which is something to the effect of how it's a fabulous way to work out material because it forces you to be very deliberate and precise with your writing. I agree.) Anyway, I reassembled my Tweets in the order of how I did them for you here:

* I'm @ portage theater 4 britney spears album release party. I was the 1st one here. The popcorn is delicious.

* They have talent bios of brtney imprsnators. One is named JAX. Yes, all caps and 1 syllable.

* http://plixi.com/p/87710740. Me @ recrd release party.

* I bought my raffle ticket. Maybe ill win a big bent piece of cardboard with britney on it.

* Watchg a cover band doing the gogos and tring 2 get us to clap along. I hate audience participation. A cardinal sin.

* What cover band needs 2 lead singers?

* Who puts a flute to dance music? The brit spears military complex.

* An obese man got on stage to talk about his internet radio station.

* Was at world's saddest BSpears new album event. Lazy impersonator, screensaver videos, unsynced Toxic karaoke. And I didn't win the raffle.

*****
Anyway, if you go to see the picture I posted with my phone that my friends took of me, you will notice there is a picture on cardboard near me that says Andrea Eve. She was one of the models that got up and talked about being in a film or her perfume or maybe both. Perhaps she might even have been the one that introduced some of the songs on Britney's album. One of the songs she said was a sequel to another Britney song called "Touch of My Hand." I forget what song she was referring to. I failed to see the connection although everybody knows that "Touch of My Hand" is about masturbation. What else am I leaving out? Oh! The karaoke! So at the end they invited the audience to get on stage and sing a long to a karaoke version of "Toxic." And the karaoke version had the graphics for the words but then also had a video of Britney in the background dressed in the kinda naked-y glittery outfit she wore for part of the "Toxic" video (which I'm imaging might be the outtake or something from when they made the video -- and I remember in one of Brit's making of videos they said it was a closed set because of what she was not wearing for the shooting part of that video.

You may notice there aren't that man people on stage. The annoying DJ guy has his back to the audience and there's the camera guy. And then including me there were 5 or so other people on stage. Excluding staff of the event and other performers there were maybe 10 people there to attend it. 2 of the people standing on stage I bonded with because they were wearing these scarves that have Britney lyrics all over them which I have seen on Britney's website. They were a guy and a girl, and the guy was wearing the same shirt I thought about wearing to the event that I was given as a gift, a huge black tshirt with huge white letters that says "It's Britney, Bitch." It was hilarious. I said to him, "Did you order that off the website?" which is preposterous of course.

I had big plans for the event. I got there early because I was ready to do a Jeff Krulikian "Britney Spears Parking Lot" except that Britney wasn't actually attending the event. Some guy who invited me and my friends to check out his computer shop across from the theater told me that this was (one of?) the only Sony-sanctioned record release events for Britney which was weird. How would he know that? There are so many weird things about that that I don't know where to start on that, but I'll leave it alone for you to think about. He said that one of the guys who organized the event had done graphic design for Britney which also I didn't know what to make of. Were they also the design firm in charge of the screen savers on a loop that were up while we listened to the album? I should also mention that in-between the screen savers this little traffic cone would come up, like it was coming from this person's computer and it had cycled through all the screen savers, and it needed to be clicked on or something.

I can't believe I didn't think to do that when she actually did come in concert during the Circus Tour. (Which I did not go to because tickets were insanely expensive and also because I pretty much saw the whole show on the internet anyway because everybody posts their footage they took with their phones.) But when she does come, I am so there. I am more interested in the fans, ephemera and mythology of Britney Spears/The Britney Spears Machine then Britney herself as of late. Just this morning I heard Jon Caramanica on the New York Times Popcast talking about Britney's new album and referring to her musical output as being something that is released by Britney in name only: "There is an album that has been released by the name of Britney Spears."

I agree.

I am still deciding my thoughts on the new album. The idea of a "release party" was in interesting to me because the whole thing was released in mainstream media sites out in the open before it was official out. You could actually listen to the whole thing on AOL track by track before it was out.

And oh! Here are all the photos from the event I took, and some that Stefanie and Sarah took at my site on Flickr.

The World's Saddest Britney Spears Album Release Listening Event in the Whole Wide World

2011-03-29T01:51:00.000-05:00

So I just got home from the world's saddest Britney Spears Femme Fatale listening party at a local movie theater. Was this put together at the last minute? Some ads said it started at 6pm, some said 8pm. I got there at 5:40. I even parked far away so I wouldn't have to pay street parking. I walked in and they told me to come back at 6. I think I actually got there before some of the people who were working the thing. So I went to Fantasy Headquarters and looked at halloween costumes. I went to an ATM at a Walgreen's and took out some cash. I went to the dollar store (meant to buy toothpaste, forgot by the time I left). At 6pm when I came back and I walked in and some guy ran up to me and goes, "Can I help you?" And I said, "Um, I'm here for the thing that's going on tonight." He said, "Oh, we're opening in about 10 minutes, you can go wait over there." So I went and waited over there. "Over there" was in a corner with a table and a copy of the Illinois Entertainer. I thought, "Hmm, maybe I can see what U2 cover bands are playing out in the suburbs." Or "Perhaps I can see if Huey Lewis will be playing at the Horseshoe Casino soon." A young guy with a fancy video camera was walking around so I asked him what he was filming for. He told me he was hired by the people running the event to film it, having answered a Craig's List ad from the day before. We talked about Britney a little, and he wasn't really into her the way I was -- he was there because it was a filming gig. Then I noticed some people sitting at a table with microphones in the lobby, one being an obese gentleman, and he was surrounded by a couple other nondescript people, and one other person who kind of looked like they were maybe high school age or a little older with a Manic Panicy orangey fuscia-y mohawk thing which I thought was adorable and cute and totally precious, and I have no idea if that was a boy or girl or somewhere in-between. I have no idea what they were talking about. I wandered up to the table where there were some Britney-related things, namely some of her scents. They weren't for sale (I already owned some of them anyway). They were on display as part of the raffle. I talked to the young girl sitting at the table. Her mom worked at the concession stand so apparently she got suckered into working this event. We talked about what she planned to do for her spring break, which was soon, and she seemed to think sleeping was a good way to spend it, which sounded good to me. At some point I just kind of maneuvered away form "over there" into the concession area and ordered popcorn and soda and told the lady there that her daughter seemed very nice. The popcorn was delicious. I decided to Tweet that the popcorn at the Britney Spears Femme Fatale Release Event was delicious. In fact, I decided that I was going to do a live Twitter feed of my experience at the event, which seemed like a good idea until my friends Stefanie and Sarah got there, who I am sure did not appreciate my constant face up all in my smart phone, but I couldn't resist. They had a little red carpet-y area up in the concession stand foyer that had that advertisingy background you always see behind the celebs at press junkets with logos, and this background thing had a bunch of logos of Sony and Zomba/Jive (Britney's record people) and whatever else. I demanded my friends take pictures of me in front of it with my popcorn bag and soda looking as frumpy as possible, and the more disgusting I tried to myself look the funnier the picture was. When I get the pictures off my camera, the next time I load them in, I should probably post one of those pictures because it was pretty preposterous.

As we were waiting the Cougars played, and the leathery Cougar ladies played covers of songs from Cheap Trick, the Ramones, Joan Jett and the like. It was cheesy, but we were entranced in watching the audience, all 23 people (in a theater that hold about a 1000, as I overheard someone say earlier when I was waiting "over there.") One lady in the band looked a little bit like Seven Tyler and one lady looked a little bit like Richard Simmons but considerably shorter and kind of trannyish. I couldn't figure out why they were performing at a Britney Spears release event because they didn't play any actual Britney songs and they are not, on the surface anyway, everything Britney Spears is not: middle-aged women, rocking out, playing their own instruments. A huge Britney poster hung to the stage right, a photo obviously from the Femme Fatale album cover photo shoot. The stationary Britney poster -- there's something poetic here, but I'm not sure exactly what it is. Aging women next to a poster of Britney -- but a lot of the songs the Cougars covered were written by men, just as many of the songs Britney does are written/produced by men -- as if to say that women "rocking out" are still being pulled by strings of men -- or something. I don't know. I decided to settle the issue once and for all by heading back out to the concession stand for Swedish Fish. I also went to the bathroom and saw that above the hand dryer was an ad for the Britney album.

After the Cougars, some local radio announcer got up on the stage and tried to get the audience to say "Britney Britney Britney" over and over which got really tiresome, especially since there were so few people in the theater. Then he tried to get the audience to call and response the spelling of her name but he spelled it wrong with 2 T's. It's not fucking Brittney. It's Britney, bitch. And! The audience participation thing gets old really quick. I HATE IT. That shit should be outlawed. I will not be told when to clap and shout stupid shit or sing along. I and I alone will decide when to clap and shout stupid shit or sing along. Then he wanted to work with the impersonator on some moves and asked for some music and they put on Sometimes, which is a cheesy almost sort of ballad thing, not the easiest thing to dance to, and he tried doing that Russian slavic dance where you squat down and kick your legs out, and it was so awkward, and everybody felt really embarrassed for him too.

Then they had some model come out and they showed a preview of a cheesy horror movie she's in and play some dance song she recorded, while we watched a screen saver on the movie screen. Then they had a Britney impersonator come and do a montage of Britney songs, which was OK except that the moves seemed a little languid and like s(h)e didn't have very much actual choreographed moves. I did recognize some of the moves as being from certain videos and live Britney performances. The lip syncing wasn't great but whatever. Then the performer was hanging around and I neglected to get my picture taken with them but oh well. That's what Photoshop is for.

Then the DJ guy came back and tried to get the Britney call and response thing started back up again and he was awful. Like it was someone's dorky dad.

Then another model actress person came out and talked about her fragrance she's launching. And then the obese man came up and talked about his internet radio station.

Well I'm beat so I will have to leave you on a cliff hanger about what happened next because i have to go to bed. I'm sure you're devastated by that news.

BORING BORING BORING!!!!!!!

2011-03-05T03:36:00.000-06:00

So since a new song from Britney's new Femme Fatale is available I went to go check it out and it was luke warmy. It's "Till The World Ends" (which I listened to on iTunes) -- co-written by Ke$ha, produced by Max Martin and Dr. Luke. They always do all this convoluted marketing so you end up funding the Britney Babydoll Robot Machine (or the Britney Spears Military Complex) with all this mumbo jumbo about preordering and incentives if you order on-line, but then your credit card getting charged at a later date for the rest of the album and bla bla bla. And then I bet if you buy a non-download real CD there's probably stuff on there that you can't get from I-Tunes, etc. And then you get different stuff if you order from one of her zillion websites, you can get a Premium Fan Edition that I think might come with a handjob or something. Bah! I have not been that impressed by Britney's Hold It Against Me, although the video was intriguing and reminded me of the paint-splatter J. Geils Band/Whip My Hair trend I wrote about a number of months ago. I was kind of luke warmy about that song too. I hear she's going to tour for this album again. This time I definitely plan to do a Britney Spears Parking Lot Jeff Krulik thing. Early summer tour! I'm listening to her appearance on Ryan Seacrest right now, and they have the volume of her voice turned down really low and being that it's almost 3am, I'm afraid I'm going to wake everybody in my house up if I have it up too loud. Her voice is all quiet but then when Ryan Seacrest talks he's super loud. Keep it down, Ryan Seacrest, you're going to wake everybody up! Anyway, March 29th I will have a good new workout album, so thank you, Britney!

Last night I finished reading Graham Hancock's Entangled, and I was so bored that by the last 50 pages I was skimming. It's science fiction about 2 women in different places in time, and lots of stuff about out-of-body experiences, ayahuasca, Neanderthal Enigma consciousness -- by all rights things I find intriguing but somehow this book seemed cheesy and boring. Why am I so blase? Plus there was lots of violent fight scenes and graphic stuff which also sort of bores me.

Also, since we got a new mag shipment in at work I get to take home the previous issues of things so I flipped through a previous issue of Tattoo Society (#25). Entire sections devoted to tattoos about Einstein! And Star Wars. BORING. BORING BORING. The Einstein thing? Hilarious that there are that many. That people would want to get an old Jewish man with crazy hair on themselves is silly to me. I mean, if you're really into physics or relativity, why not get something that's less cheesy and more creative? If gravity is a curvature in space and time, why not get the graph they always show when they talk about that? Also, if these people were so into science they would know that sciencey people have been suggesting that the the discussion of gravity and space time has started to think about including elements of spin. Science poseurs. Not that I consider myself any sort of scientist, but I know people being lame when I see it. Also, there's a section devoted to tattoos about Star Wars. BORING. Can we be done with the lame Star Wars "I'm a nerd from the 80s!" posture now? Sure, I enjoy reading the Think Geek catalog as much as anybody, but enough is enough.

I went to bed before 9pm last night because I was so bored and disgusted by my non-inspiredness, I decided to call it a day and press "do over" for tomorrow. I just crawled under the covers with a book written by a guy who works for SETI that is making a compelling argument that most likely no aliens have ever landed on our planet, which he (and me) are disappointed but realistic about. But, he was talking about the movie Communion, based on this guy's memoir from 1985, which I think I remember seeing some of when I was a kid, so I went to add it to my Netflix queue just now (OK, movie! I will see you in 3 years!).

Me Doing Things, Wanna Come?

2011-02-28T11:13:00.000-06:00

Hey! Two things I'll be performing in this week, one day after another. Wanna come? It's like a Liz Fest. Well, I mean, for me it is Liz Fest every day. But you can have your own personal mini fest of me, if you are so inclined, which I can't imagine why you wouldn't be.

Wed, March 2nd, 7:30pm

The Encyclopedia Show Presents Series 3, Volume 7: VIDEO GAMES

With quirky music, spoken word performance and what have you.

I will be doing a performance based on Penn and Teller's game Desert Bus.

The Vittum Theater, 1012 N Noble Street, Chicago, $8.00

Click here for more info about The Encyclopedia Show.

Or here.

Thurs, March 3 at 9:00pm

Chicago Zine Fest Fundraiser at Cole's Bar

2238 N. Milwaukee, Chicago, IL

Is there a fee to get in since this is a fundrasier? I don't know. What I do know is that I hope to dazzle you with a performance inspired by the new issue of my zine, Caboose #7: Britney Spears 101, which is really about me and cancer while being obsessed with Britney.

And FYI, more info about the Encyclopedia Show and the Chicago Zine Fest:

Desert Bus

2011-02-26T01:19:00.000-06:00

So I'm performing March 2nd at The Encyclopedia Show here in Chicago (The Vittum Theater at 1012 N Noble Street, 7:30pm $8 and $5 for students). Given that the theme of this month's show is Video Games, the topic I was given was Desert Bus. It's a lo-fi video game for Sega that Penn and Teller made, but it was never actually released. It did get leaked out on the web, so lots of game nerds know about it. It was supposed to be a mini-game that was part of a bigger collection called Smoke and Mirrors. In the 90's, Janet Reno was really against violent video games. So Penn and Teller made this video game and dedicated it to her. Penn said that he thought it was probably the only politically correct video game. Penn explained in a podcast that the idea of the game is that it "would appeal to people who didn't like unrealistic games or violence in their games, that it was just like real loving life."

So in the game of Desert Bus you drive a bus across the straight Nevada desert for eight hours in real-time. Then you drive it home. The bus slightly veers to the right, so you can't just leave leave something propped on the controller. You actually have to be steering it the whole time. So you drive a bus from Tucson to Vegas, and you can't go over 45 mph and the trip takes 8 full hours. Occasionally the air freshener hanging from your rearview mirror flaps a little. In the 8 hours there's really just desert going by. Maybe there's a bug splat on the window periodically. You could stop the bus and open the door but nobody gets on. When you get to Vegas, the game score counter of five zeroes goes to 1. You get 1 point for 8 hours of driving. Then a voice asks you if you want to pull a double shift and if so, you can drive back to Tucson for another point that you get when you arrive.

They even did a demo of it with some guy just sitting in a booth driving a bus, playing the video game. Also, P and T were going to have a contest for whoever could get the highest score (you can just keep doing the eight hour drive, back and forth), and the idea was that the winner gest a lavish prize of a ride on a fancy real bus to Vegas and they're treated to shows, money and Vegasness. But then the company that made the game went out of business and so the game never really got officially released. But people have made mockups of it on the internet and there's even a Desert Bus marathon that raises money for charity.

So snarky sarcastic comments I've been mulling over about this topic:

"It's about time someone made a video game that reflects the drama and violence of real life."

"It's about time someone made a video game that reflects a wholesome incentive for our youth instead of teaching them how to be desensitized to violence."

And finally, I don't want to give away too much about my performance inspired by Desert Bus, but perhaps I might entice you to come by telling you that my piece involves music. Also, you may want to come after you read what I have pasted in below, which is part of an e-mail regrading my tech and prop needs for the show with the show producers:

...During the instrumental I'll be eating junk food. Might I request a table and chair? And you supply the junk food. Just kidding. I will supply the junk food. I will allow you to have one (1) potato chip. Also, can I crash on your couch? Will that be cool? OK, thx bye! No, just kidding. I don't need to crash on your couch. But you can crash on mine if you need to.

Chairs (I request one),

Liz 666 Mason

Running Commentary

2011-02-24T00:15:00.000-06:00

I just finished watching the movie Zodiac, the movie about about a serial killer in the 60s and 70s in the bay area of California. What annoyed me was that at the end of it they put up notes about what happened to all the real people that were portrayed in the movie, and the font was so small I couldn't read it. WTF?!!

Also, I got about 3/4 the way into the movie and decided that movies are no fun without snacks, so of course I needed (air-popped) popcorn. But popcorn is no fun unless you have a lot of it. And then also popcorn needs all the salt and (fake 0 calorie) butter. And then also I needed a pint of Arctic Zero (150 cals per pint). It's amazing that food technology has come such a long way that I can actually eat that much food and that it's not actually that many cals, carbs or fat. Actually, I think everything I just ate was fat free. How is that possible? I sound like a commercial. I went to their website and apparently a lot of celebrities eat it. But why should you care what I eat when I watch movies? I don't know why I find this information very important.

So then I decided to go to the website of the movie and they have all these shorts you can watch that weren't on the Netflixian DVD that arrived at my house, since apparently the Netflix dvd was before the director's cut DVD came out with all the extras. Also, I thought maybe on the Zodiac the movie website they might have a reprint of the WAY TOO SMALL font that I couldn't read at the end of the movie. But the internet moves really slow on the couch where I sit with my Macbook (the router is in the bedroom but Joe is asleep in the bedroom so I don't want to work in there). So during the moments where the streaming is er, unsuccessfully streaming, I thought I would blogify in those moments, as if it was a running commentary. This is not unlike the commentary I was e-mailing my friend who brought me a bunch of karaoke discs back from Cambodia. Joe and I were watching them (Cambodian karaoke discs come with awesome videos) at those moments I was providing the running commentary via e-mail to my friend, which I will reproduce the correspondence here.

On Feb 8, 2011, at 7:18 PM, Liz Mason wrote:

We are watching the karaoke discs you gave us. One has a monkey!

On Feb 8, 2011, at 7:22 PM, Liz Mason wrote:

One guy has facial hair and looks like Gary Oldman in the Batman movies. Also, why is he a hip hop guy wearing bifocals? Joe suggests that is because he has bad eye sight but that it isn't totally debilitating. Is that a new hip hop thing? Bifocals?

On Feb 8, 2011, at 7:27 PM, Liz Mason wrote:

One guy was playing some kind of instrument that looks like a harmonica but sounds like an accordion. I do not understand that type of technology. Can you explain?

Joe suggested that the music sounds like 70's era Lawrence Welk but that the guy on a scooter contrasts with the sound of the music. My thoughts on the matter relate to the narrator's eyebrows. I think he dyed them.

Response from my friend:

To: "Liz Mason" <caboosezine@yahoo.com>

Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2011, 9:47 PM

O my god please tell me these emails only stopped because you stopped watching the disks. this is my best karaoke experience ever.

Actually, the reason we stopped is because we had to leave to go somewhere. I look forward to watching the rest of them and providing a written commentary as we watch them.

--
Oh, screw it, the movement on the web on the Zodiac site is so damn slow that I'm going to give up on it. So much for a running commentary not that one.

I started listening to the Pod F. Tomcast, the podcast of comic Paul F. Tompkins, which is very amusing. He interviewed the woman who was in one of the Drunk History shorts on FunnyOrDie.com, and apparently, that particular short won an award at Sundance. That blew my mind, that that won some kind of award at Sundance, Not that the short isn't awesome (it IS totally awesome), but a Sundance award is not something I would imagine would be awarded to a short like this. anyway, the podcast is super funny, and he conducts it like he's in space or something and there's robots and nice piano music with occasional electronic sounding tweak noises. I like it! Like he's orbiting in space, speaking to the masses, in a Big Brother-y kind of way. He is a super funny comediane. I remember one of my favorite sketches on Mr. Show he was in, and it was the one about the shoe salesman who passes all the ridiculous lie detecter questions, and Paul F. Tompkins was one of the people who already work at the store. Also, sometimes I hear him on WFMU's The Best Show and I always enjoy him then.

I just got a major edition to my tattoo on Sunday night, a sleeve of vines that travel up from the knuckle of my pointy finger and travel up to my elbow. I have to go lotionify it, which you're supposed to do a lot in the beginning. I love the wait looks, a vine with shades of green mostly, and it matches the vine I have on the other arm between my elbow and shoulder. Anyway, it feels kind of warm and itchy, both of those because it is trying to heal. That makes it sound pretty nasty! Well, in a way I suppose it is. But I love the way it looks and I look forward to when it's a bit warmer to wear clothes that I can actually show it off.

Lucky me! I'm actually getting sleepy. I took that sleepig pill over 2 hours ago, and I drank less coffee than usual today. That move must have really riled me up.

Well, practice makes perfect, so I'll go to sleep.

2011-02-23T00:44:00.000-06:00

Because I work in a bookstore people often ask what I'm reading. So I told them I would write a blogpost about it to direct them to, with a snapshot of what I have read recently or am reading now. I always tell people that I don't always finish books or I just skim them to get an idea so I can write a synopsis about it or talk about it to customers. In any case, here are a few things I've been dipping into or fully immersing myself in, many of which are strewn all over the house, so depending on where I am at that moment, it sort of dictates what I read.

So I tried to read the most recent Thomas Pynchon novel Against the Day. By all rights it should be something I like: funny, stuff about the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, witty dialogue, etc. But it was boring. I held out, I did. But after 50 pages I decided I had other things I wanted to read more. I am not shy about putting a book down if I can't get into it. Life is not that long and there are many things I want to read. I am OCD about many things but reading is not one of them. If something sucks I will not finish it. If If I taste food that sucks I'm not going to continue eating it. If I hear a song that I dislike I'm not going to go buy the album. And so on. Plus, it was a free copy so it's not like I paid for it. If I spent money on it would I try to fool myself and keep reading it? Or am I not trying very hard because it was free? But that's the thing -- I shouldn't have to try to enjoy something. The only thing I am willing to work on to try to enjoy is interpersonal relationships. And even my effort in that area needs some help.

Also free is a book that someone consigned at the store, and the item has no official name to it, except that the consignor just calls it MANIFESTO. So far I am about 10 pages in, and I didn't see a title anywhere. I just know it's called that because we sell it. It's a white paperback, and so far it's about the narrator's life, essentially being a free spirit bored by the school system until heading off to college. At the rate I'm going with the reading of it, it will probably go quickly. I mean, I'm a slow reader but I read 10 pages standing in a grocery line. It was that kinda dumpster dive-y CrimthInc feel to it but it's actually published by the International Artist Collectives. The weird thing about this book is that that one was also free because someone left a used copy of it in the doorway, like outside the door, before we were open. The had obviously bought it there (in the computer it had been sold only a day or two before, I saw on the sales record). The weird thing is that I go into work every day a few hours before the store opens to get paperwork type of stuff done, and there wasn't anything in the doorway. But then as I sat at the computer doing stuff there were people yanking at the door, which happens sometimes; people see me in there, and even without all the lights on, they think we're open (we don't typically open until noon or 11am on Saturdays). Then when the door doesn't open or they notice I'm not responding, they step back and puzzled, look at the hours. Then they see we don't open for a while. But they are confused. Why is there this lady sitting in there if they're not open? Then they start yanking on the door again. Sometimes I'll get up and move somewhere else in the store so they get the message. Anyway, so this was happening, someone yanking on the door and me doing my AM passive-agressive "I'm ignoring you" thing, and when I went to go turn over the open sign and unlock the door, I noticed someone had left this book. And I had always been very interested in reading it, because we sell a lot of them, sometimes I even talk to the consignor on the phone when they call to check up on its consignment status. Sometimes it even makes the Weekly Top 10, although if the truth be known, it often does not take much to be on the top 10. All you really need to sell is sometimes 2 or 3 copies of an item. On the other hand, the bookstore where I work sells thousands of things, so for us to sell more than one of something in the same week can actually be very rare. Sure, there are certain things that always sell well when they're new (certain popular zines or books by certain artists or writers), but then there are other things that no matter how old they are, they can sometimes make an appearance in those weekly bestsellers. This book is one of them. What's nice about it is a)it's free so I don't have to worry about getting it all mussed up and b)it is small and fits in my purse. I like to bring something to read in my bag at all times so that if I'm at the frocery or whatever, if I ever end up in some line somewhere, I try to have some reading material on me at all times.

Also, I've been reading short stories, a couple a night, from a wonderful anthology called Darwin's Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow, which was also free. I think we got it from the publisher as a sample copy at work. So it's science fiction-ish stories about evolution, sort of little parables about society, what could happen (or could have happened) if we keep on going the way we're going, or perhaps how society could have evolved if certain things had happened. Lots of different authors have work in it. I really liked the one about how in the future being a celebrity will actually become outlawed. Another one is a love story about pneumatic tubes. Another story is about how those inclined toward the liberal arts becoming homeless. And another, one by William Gibson, is about people that become separated from their bodies (not actually dead -- and in fact, the body goes off and does something else, like become an accountant), and some people can see them, some can't, but that that's really what ghosts are -- people who aren't actually dead, and not actually having an out-of-body experience in the way we think of that sort of thing, and also that the way these disassociated people get high are sucking on the waves created by old television sets with the old tubes. I got to thinking a great idea for a short story would be this: the only things left from our society after the apocalypse are celebrity memoirs. What would beings from other planet draw based on what they read in those books?

Do zines count? Sure. The kitchen table is where I do most of my reading of zines or comics, I guess because they're less expensive so I'm not as worried about getting food on them. I just got a new tattoo so I've been reading Herbal Healing for Piercings and Tattoos: Organic Aftercare for Everyone
by Anastasia Weedsmith. My most recent tattoo is a left arm sleeve that starts on my index finger and travels up to my elbow, a coiled vine. The outline is done and half the coloring is done. A month from now, after it heals a bit, I will go back to the artist and get the rest of the color. It's mostly shades of green.

Also, I read a lot of magazines at the kitchen table that are previous issues of glossier magazines I get free because they are the previous issue that we've sent the covers back to the distributor for credit when the new issues come in. Certain mags I always take home are Bizarre (not Harper's Bizarre, but as in Bizarre), Fortean Times, Bust, Ready Made, Bitch and a few others. Let me just say if you come in to the store and you buy a grab bag for $2.50, it's possible that some of these items might be in there, and it's a sweet deal.

I've been getting kind of down on myself for not reading enough. But I need to cut myself some slack. It's not like I have a lot of spare moments. I feel like in almost everything I do, I need more time, and I tend to overestimate the amount of things I can get done in a span of time. I shared this with a co-worker and he suggested something that he's started doing, which is pick an average amount of hours per week that you think you can reasonably do, and then instead of actually scheduling it, just make sure that you get that average a week. So let's say you want to spend at least 4 hours a week reading. Maybe in one week, you'll do all of it on Sunday. Maybe the next week you'll do half an hour on Sunday and then 2 hours on Tuesday, and 1 hour on Wednesday, and maybe 2 hours on Saturday -- but then the next week you only get 3 hours in somehow -- and so on, and you'll see that you're averaging about 4 a week, sometimes less, sometimes more, and not all at the same time every day or week. This sounds reasonable to me. Does anybody else have any good ideas on how to get more reading in?

Dying of a Broken Heart

2011-02-12T02:49:00.000-06:00

So I just watched the movie "Karaoke Terror (a.k.a. The Complete Showa Era Song Book)" based on the novel by Ryu Murakami that I read recently. If it has karaoke in the title, no doubt I will be interested. What I want to know is, since when are women in their thirties middle-aged? Because there's this whole kids vs. middle aged-ladies thing in it, and the women make reference to being in their early thirties, which is only about 10 or maybe 12 years older than the guys in the movie. I'm at least 5 years older than the women in the movie, and I don't think of myself as being middle-aged. In Japanese culture, these divorced middle-aged women are called "obasans." One of the quotes in the movie is "It's not the cockroaches that will be left after the apocalypse; it'll be the obasans!"

I think of myself as youngish and with sort of some time in my life left, but with increasing frequency in the past year or so, I am more pensive and sad about death. What I think about is this: no matter how great your life is, you end up at the end of it sick and unhappy and in pain and then dying, most likely alone and scared and sick. I saw it with my mom. I saw it with my husband's mom. I saw it in various stages of progression in the cancer ward when I was sick.

And no matter what anyone says about it, the 2 things that are always the same in any death situation is that it's ghoulish and it's surreal. The body is bloated. The legs turn purple first. Death moves it's way up from the legs up to the head. And the body makes weird noises and weird smells as it shuts down. The surreal thing -- I've seen this a few times now -- within a few minutes of the pronoucement of death everybody standing around the person, everybody switches into "OK, let's make the plans, you're in charge of calling those people, you're in charge of those, what day shall we pick out the coffin or the urn or this or that" and suddenly, it's like you go into event planning mode. I'm not making any judgement. It's just the way it is.

When I look at people I love, I feel like I see them aging by the second and what it will be like when they're gone. What am I going to do when my loved ones die? It will have been like they've never been there.

I was listening to a podcast of All Songs Considered and they had Tom Jones on and they had him talk about songs he liked that had to do with Valentine's Day and he played "He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones. It's a song about how this guy loved this woman until his last dying breath, and then he dies, and that's how he stops loving her. I was standing in the closet picking out a shirt and then I'm all tears and lump in my throat. I thought about what it will be like for either me or my husband, whichever one is left after the other one dies. I thought about how Johnny Cash died just 4 months after June Carter died, no doubt of a broken heart. And then I started thinking about that episode of "Doctor Who" with Madame de Pompadour who waited for the Doctor to come back and he never came back and then the next thing you know they're wheeling her coffin away (wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff) and someone says, "Some say she died of a broken heart."

So a chapter of your life closes and then it's like, boom, you put the photos in the album and close the book and that chapter of your life is over, like it never happened, like all the stuff that's in that photo album is just some past life that is no longer relevant.

So can you die of a broken heart? For real?

I googled "Die of a broken heart" to see what the web had to say about this, and I found a very interesting New York Times article called "Health and the Broken Heart" and what was really interesting was well, YES it is possible to die of a broken fucking heart. Some older women, who developed classic heart attack symptoms after suffering severe emotional stress had consistently elevated blood levels of the stress hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine, which can cause a significant weakening of the heart muscle. Elevated stress hormones interfere with normal blood flow, causing the heart damage. Or it may be that the hormones bind to the heart muscle, causing changes to the heart cells. No wonder they call it heart break. And do you ever get over your early heartbreaks? Do they leave you with scars? Do they do you more harm than good? Does what doesn't kill REALLY make you stronger? Or weaker and more defeated?

Happy fucking Valentine's Day. From an obasan.

Ye Mustaches and So On and So Forth

2011-02-10T10:08:00.000-06:00

So a couple nights ago we went to a new "pub" (I use quotes because I feel stupid saying "pub" casually, like I'm Madonna using the word "gobsmacked" to sound British) in Chicago's stylish Wrigley-Lakeview-whatever-whatever neighborhood. The place is called Blokes and Birds, which is why we had to try it, and of course I thought I was extemely witty in the cab ride over discussing the name in reference to the Streets' lyric "We call them birds/not bitches" even though I kind of find the Streets sort of boring, but whatever.

Anyway, it was delicious and had lots of whiskey and beer and fun cocktails with names like "Cobbles and Stones," "Mind the Bollocks" and so on. And oh! They do craft cocktails that have adjectives like "infused," "puree," "tarragon syrup" and so forth, which I am immediately suckered into (the more adjectives a cocktail has that makes it sound like something from an apothecary[1], the higher the probability is that I will be excited to try it). They had a note on the menu that said they requested customers not freak out if it takes a while to get the cocktail because they take a while to make (which is fine with me -- I'm a cheap drunk). But it wasn't too crowded in there so I didn't have to wait too long, which was a nice surprise.

Part of the logo was a mustache, which, all things mustache-y are very in right now, which means that my dad must be super famous. No, my dad is not Salvador Dali. Nor is he John Waters. But his handlebar mustache IS legendary. I'm sure you've noticed the popularity of the mustache thing right now, what with the "growth" of -- ha, ha-- "grow-a-mustache" charity a-thons and Accoutements' hipster mustache product -- I suppose an indication of the zeitgeisty-ness of mustaches -- and then you can buy mustaches to joke-ily wear and then also, you can buy mustache stick-ons to put on your mirror, and even at work we have this mustache wax that comes in 3 old timey flavors designed by the inimitable art of BT Livermore.

Anyway, in keeping with the British theme -- so they were playing Monty Python's Holy Grail and playing music like The Sex Pistols and the Clash and so on -- kind of Epcot Centery in its choice of British music in that regard, if Epcot Center was a little bit un-Disney-fied, but you know, that's cool. This is fine with me -- I mean, you're talking to someone who would get a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tattoo if there was a good graphic of it that I could get into, and not "Don't Panic." No text on my body. That's where I um, "draw the line," ha ha ha. (And I will not do any of the cheesy graphics from the book covers. I have also thought about getting some of the Guide's graphics as realized in the BBC mini-series, like at the parts where the Guide is talking and it has all this hilarious animation. A co-worker suggested I find an artist who does artwork I like and have them draw something from the book, which got my mind going. So if you do awesome art and want to draw something from the book then let me know. Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster? Babble Fish? Sperm whales? Petunias? Improbability Drive? Dolphins leaving the sea? [I actually heard someone in the audience at the theater at the opening night of the semi-recent movie version, when the dolphins leave the sea, at the end of the opening theme, go "Oh shit!" And the audience laughed, which was great, like a bunch of people in the audience bonding over geeky common interest, which warms my cockles, like on opening night of the first X-Files movie and just as Mulder and Scully were about to almost kiss, the audience started screaming. I live for these type of audience bonding moments. New age-y mob mentality, just my style. I've always wanted a group of friends that big.])

Anyway, back to ye mustache pub with all you can eat fish and chips and shepherd's pie etc. Sometimes they would sneak in non-British music. I would be Ok with this except that it was Talking Heads. I can't get into them. Their songs are long and boring. And ulch! David Byrne and his scary Robert Blake face driving down the road.

My husband Joe pointed out that the Talking Heads were sort of new wave-y, and he could kind of see how that music might get incorporated into the music they were playing at the bar with the other stuff they were playing. My reponse was: "The theme of the place is British. Not new wave."

He alerted me to the fact that David Byrne was Scottish born, so technically he was a British citizen.

I said David Byrne should be "expedited."

Joe pointed out that the word I wanted was "extradited."

My response was, "Fine! Expedite the extradapolation, whatever. David Byrne, all New Yorky with his bicycle and his McSweeney's book[2]."

Joe's response was, "Yes. OK" to let me win an argument he preferred we not have.

My response was, "No wait! Continue! We're having a conversation!" and so on.

Joe's response was (as counseled by me at a lighter moment that really, all I really want in almost any preposterous conversation such as this is someone to say this to me to push my "shut up" button): "You're hilarious!"

And curtain.

Ye End

[1] Or if we’re being British I suppose I might say “chemist.”

[2] Technically now this publisher is located in California.

2011-01-30T05:20:00.000-06:00

Good lord it's 4:18 am and I've been up for a good hour or so. I drank a cup of coffee too late in the evening and even with my sleepy pill I take I think it's disrupted things. Now I'm huddled over my computer with all the lights off. I figured the less lights on the better if I actually want to get some shut eye. It doesn't help that I'm huddled over a screen of light. I never get tired when I'm sitting in front of a computer shining light pretty much directly into my eyes. I think the first key would be to not get on the computer if I'm thinking about trying to sleep -- I definitely won't get tired now. I have noticed that I tend to get a detached experience of myself when I'm on a computer -- I might not even notice I have to go to the bathroom or that my legs are numb or something when I'm sitting in front of a computer. That can't be good.

Anyway, I don't have other lights on so I can't see the keyboard all that well, and one of the cats is sitting next to me and I can see its eyes. And I can hear his cute little tubby breathing, my little pigglesnort! Sidenote: lately I've been enjoying when I go to pet a cat they do this things where right before your hand touches them they squint a little a move their ears down, getting ready for you to pet them, sort of like it's preparing itself for getting some love. Anticipation of cuteness! The other one just jumped up and now I'm surrounded by cats! La! I never grow tired of them and I never ever ever take it for granted how amazing it is that there are such things as animals living with us. Like I can look at the cats and be like, "Oh my god! We have real animals here!" and kind of imagine our kitties as pumas -- I can see that non-domesticatedness in them, if that makes sense. It amazes me and I love it. I would like to get some other pets too, but that's a whole lot of extra work that I don't have the time for right now. But I would love to have a dog. Well, when the kitties move on to their next realm, Joe and I will get a pug. I will mourn the loss of the kitties, so I think I would have to wait a little.

Finally I'm getting to some of the e-mails that seem to pile up super quick, and the internet is slow and sluggish lately, so it takes forever for anything to load. I hear that that seems to be true for a lot of internet processing lately because apparently Netflix is responsible for a lot of the slow down because of all the live streaming. Like I heard (read?) that that's responsible for like 85% of internet traffic or some crazy statistic like that. People! You do NOT need to be watching "Babe 2 In the City" or whatever at 4am. That'll do, pig! So now I have to find something to do while each page takes 27 million hours to load. So that means continually coming back to writing on the blog. That probably slows my computer down.

In other news, I am signed up for I-Tunes alerts when certain recording artists have new things on I-Tunes but the alert reminders are sending me things I have no interest in. This time around the alert is for Olivia Newton-John's "A Celebration In Song" and "You Can't Touch This - Single" by DJ Party. That second one kind of makes sense because being an enjoyer of karaoke I think that one is a karaoke version, and I do remember signing up to get certain types of karaoke alerts, so I guess that sort of makes sense. But why Olivia?

Yesterday at work I was going through a frontlist catalog (as in the catalogs for the next season's releases which I preorder to sell at the store) for the comics/graphic novel publisher Fantagraphics. I saw a solicitation to preorder Tardi's The Arctic Marauder that was described as being an "icepunk adventure." I had to investigate because I assumed that was in some way related to steampunk, which indeed, it looks so. What I really wanted to see was a picture of Vanilla Ice wearing brass goggles but the only thing that Google pulled up when I put in "Vanilla Icepunk" were mashups that fused the aforementioned Mr. Ice with Daft Punk. So much for that.

Bah! It's 5:16am. I can't believe I'm still at this. In 7 hours I go for an art consultation with the tattoo artist who is doing my next tattoo! I am very excited. He's Patrick at Speakeasy Tattoo, and he's doing some botanical illustration stuff on me. He's so popular that I had to book him like a year in advance!

Ah! Joe's awake! Someone to keep me and the cats company.

Karaoke and Serial Murder

2011-01-26T22:28:00.000-06:00

I finished reading Ryu Murakami's Popular Hits of the Showa Era. It was published in the mid 90s, like around 1994, but now it is finally being released with an English translation in the states. So it's about these two groups seeking revenge on each other. One is a group of young men who get together to hang out and experience existential angst and start laughing for no reason, and then also sometimes they do karaoke together. One night one of the young men murders a woman who is kind of like a Japanese version of an "old maid" -- not really old, but unmarried and in her 30s, too young to be a "cougar" but too old to be considered appetizing in a traditional lame businessman-looking-for-a-wife, although sometimes they can be divorced and have joint custody of a kid. Bla bla bla. So the woman has this group of friends that avenge her death, and then the 2 groups become these waring factions. All of this sounds to me like "Meh. BUT, here's the part that pulled me in, and that is there's this whole karaoke connection. So both factions are really in to karaoke. Unfortunately, although I have done karaoke in Japan, I didn't know any of the songs they were really talking about. But I think the title of the book is taken from the Showa songs that the women do in the book -- showa being a genre of music that's kind of like a Japanese equivalent to what Americans think of as "oldies" (for the sake of simplicity). So of course, I had to read it. Any time I find any sort of reference to karaoke somewhere, my karaoke radar immediately goes off, and I have to go suss it out. In fact, I am really obnoxious about it. The only way I can explain my karaoke fetish is such that my husband's mom was wasting away in a private room in a nursing home and they made an announcement that they were doing karaoke in the main TV room and my husband had to virtually hold me down to stay in the room. There are 3 things that are like crack to me: pugs, Britney Spears and karaoke. If you had a pug wearing a pink wig and a shirt that says "I heart karaoke" my world would pretty much explode.

Anyway, I noticed that they have a movie that was made of the book. It is called Karaoke Terror, and there seems to be a general consensus that it blows. But I moved it to the top of my Netflix queue anyway. That will fit in just fine with the serial killer movie/documentary phase I'm going through right now. Well, to be more accurate, I was going through a true crime/serial killer reading phase a few years ago when I put it all in my queue, but since the queue is so long it took that long to get here. The other night I watched American Psycho and by and large it was pretty preposterous, like so over the top. I mean, I know it was supposed to be, but even that sort of tongue in cheek-ness was over the top. I enjoyed the monologues he did while he was preparing the grisly murders he would do (which reminded me very much of Dexter, which I have seen a few seasons of and read the first book -- although I want the whole show just to be Dexter's sister). Anyway, Christian Bale's character would talk about the critical aspects of the later work of Huey Lewis, or the merits of Whitney Houston's version of "Greatest Love of All," or even something equally ridiculous about Phil Collins. Those were like little nuggets of hilarity (or something) to me, that I think would be awesome to memorize. I could take or leave the rest of the movie or any of the grisly murder stuff, but those little nuggets of monologueyness about top 40, those were the parts I liked. If they could just distill it down to those moments, that would have been enough for me. For example, I will paste in some of the more preposterous things I enjoyed that Christian Bale's character said (I don't know if his character says them in the Brett Easton Ellis book since I never read it but I have to imagine they probably are there):

*"But I also think Phil Collins works best within the confines of the group, than as a solo artist, and I stress the word artist," I almost want to sample that. like if I was into making sound art collages or something."
*"When Sports came out in '83, I think they [Huey Lewis and the News] really came into their own, commercially and artistically."
*"It's hard to choose a favorite among so many great tracks, but "The Greatest Love of All" is one of the best, most powerful songs ever written about self-preservation, dignity. Its universal message crosses all boundaries and instills one with the hope that it's not too late to better ourselves."

I like the idea of doing "The Greatest Love of All" at karaoke and saying that at the beginning of the performance because I'm sure it would sound ridiculous -- and I'm sure it was supposed to sound ludicrous in the movie. Also! Sidenote: in the DVD extras there was discussion about how the movie studio originally wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to play the serial killer character! And it was right after Titanic came out! And Gloria Steinem told him not to do it. Interesting!

ANYWAY, so the Showa Era book -- perhaps I will check in about my thoughts after I see the movie. And then, if I am so inclined, I may go check out the movie they made based on another book by the same author, Audition. I think that might actually already be in my Netflix queue. In a strange twist of fate, I received Deepak Chopra: Seven Spiritual Laws (staring Olivia Newton John -- I swear to you now -- and there was part where she was supposed to be sort of illuminated from behind and it reminded me of her in Xanadu, where her and her fellow muse sisters are magically illuminated from a mural and then born into being in real life, all by the power of ELO magic) -- anyway, I received that DVD at the same time as some documentary about the cultural look at the archetype of the devil and how it manifests in different cultures. I guess I have a lot of interests or something. Also coming this week: Bollyrobics: Dance Workout. So you know, like I said, lots of interests.

Maybe the world needs more fiction books about karaoke. Are there any? I know there are stories about being getting lynched for doing "My Way." But I'm talking fiction. Which is funny, that the "My Way" thing is real and that it's happened in multiple countries! That is insanity.