the tribeca film festival is showing the american ruling class, which is somehow billed as an energetic combo of fiction and documentary satire without ever being called a mockumentary. heard it wasn't that great, but i must say i'm curious. lapham wrote the screenplay, in which two yale grads (fake) are taken around by mentor lewis lapham (real) to meet major cultural figures like vonnegut, cronkite, and robert altman, as well as targets like larry summers (all real). if they're using real cultural elites, why use fake ivy elites?
the ny times noted with (understated) amusement that the afterparty for the film's premiere was held on the floor of the new york mercantile exchange (see 'bashing the rich, then celebrating at a hub of commerce', april 18, if it's still up).
i'll have to see if i can catch the last screening tomorrow. may be in the throes of moving, though. whenever we get internet in the new place, i'll post pics for y'all. before and after, for sure. we'll be painting before we leave for july, getting a cat after we return. i keep asking ed what color he wants to paint the cat, but no decisions have been made.
4.29.2005
4.27.2005
pergo slope
so ed and i got a place today. and it's actually in park slope. i'd resigned myself to the idea of living somewhere on the slope perimeter, or even in some parkless section of brooklyn, but then this listing (below market value and rent stabilized) just popped up on craigslist and here we are.
it has a big bedroom on one end and then a railroad configuration of two doorless rooms and then the kitchen. fake wood floors, fake marble in the kitchen. the fake wood makes me feel slightly unsettled, which unsettles me further. why should i feel attached to the authenticity of walking on a real dead waxed tree instead of a fake one?
the bedroom has two windows that look into trees. not big ones but trees!! i suppose i'd rather look at living trees than walk on dead ones. i look forward to one day living in a place where trees are not a luxury. that just feels so wrongheaded.
it has a big bedroom on one end and then a railroad configuration of two doorless rooms and then the kitchen. fake wood floors, fake marble in the kitchen. the fake wood makes me feel slightly unsettled, which unsettles me further. why should i feel attached to the authenticity of walking on a real dead waxed tree instead of a fake one?
the bedroom has two windows that look into trees. not big ones but trees!! i suppose i'd rather look at living trees than walk on dead ones. i look forward to one day living in a place where trees are not a luxury. that just feels so wrongheaded.
4.22.2005
the cover of this week's ny press is a cartoon by david rees called get your friedman on. it is awesome. please go look at it. the article's ok too because it makes fun of thomas friedman, albeit nongraphically.
i suppose his other option would've been 'my new flattening technique is unstoppable,' as long as by unstoppable you mean entirely stoppable.
i suppose his other option would've been 'my new flattening technique is unstoppable,' as long as by unstoppable you mean entirely stoppable.
4.19.2005
craigslife - $900 obo (park slope)
my new pastime is looking for the many elements of my new life on craigslist. now that i may be closing in on an apartment, i'm starting to hunt for trashcans and shelves and pyrex cookware (no aluminum and no teflon, intones worried mother) on CL. damn, a lot of people sure have ugly stuff. sort of the humbling underbelly (humderbelly?) of the shiny new death-deferring no-interest-till-christmas-2013, as-seen-on-tv offerings of our daily existence.
i think i will shell out for a new mattress, tho, because of that scary new yorker talk of the town piece on bedbugs. those things suck!!
i think i will shell out for a new mattress, tho, because of that scary new yorker talk of the town piece on bedbugs. those things suck!!
4.11.2005
suburban oasis just 25 minutes from midtown
ed and i checked out astoria saturday night, and we were impressed. it is truly diverse, as they say. unlike most ny neighborhoods, which are predominantly one race or another, astoria is one big 'rainbow' of a party that would make any college admissions counselor cry. i submitted that it's something of a yankee berkeley (without the posturing), except i've never even been to california, so that's probably not accurate. i've noticed that descriptions of queens tend to follow that rubric—"something of a ____, but without the posturing."
there's A LOT of stuff at the last stop on the N, ditmars. we thought we were going to some dissipated, end-of-the-line area, and it was truly hopping. we ate at this italian place that new york mag made out to be an out-of-the-way find, but was actually a warehouse-sized suburban-style restaurant with valet (if you've ever eaten out in charlotte, it was like that), waterfalls, sucky murals of vineyards, and a lounge singer who performs his own stuff. it was really hard to get a table, but i had to do it because the whole thing was just so weird, so strip mall, so not new york. all the natives of suburban brooklyn and queens flock there in their cars and use the valet and eat giant plates of pasta and meat and order ex-presso. we overheard a lot of conversations about baby formula, mortgages, and the way-out-there neighborhoods (middle village, mesbeth?) i've always wondered about on the subway map, all in accents you don't hear so much in soho.
they took us into the wine bar to wait for a table. turns out the wine bar is not a bar at all but a whole separate creepy room with little tables and more murals. this is where the lounge singer puts on his 'show.' we were so weirded out by the time we got a table, and so full of the pretzels, cheese, and bread that you get before you even order, that we barely finished half of our entrees. ed's lasagna was rather disappointing, but my gnocchi with tomato sauce was pretty good. everything was real—no shortcuts or substitutions. when the assistant manager came by and saw that we were not eating and actually wanted to leave, he was dismayed and forced complimentary tea on non-tea-drinking ed and coffee on a sheepish me. the macchiato was great, i have to say, even if it contained enough milk to be a cappuccino. they tried so very hard to make sure we would come back (also a new experience in this city), but that's just never gonna happen. for a while i thought it would be a fun joke to play on my roommies when they come visit ("hey, i know this great restaurant—it's new york's best-kept secret"), but ed pointed out that anyone who lives outside of new york drives by these places all the time, and it would not be funny.
there's A LOT of stuff at the last stop on the N, ditmars. we thought we were going to some dissipated, end-of-the-line area, and it was truly hopping. we ate at this italian place that new york mag made out to be an out-of-the-way find, but was actually a warehouse-sized suburban-style restaurant with valet (if you've ever eaten out in charlotte, it was like that), waterfalls, sucky murals of vineyards, and a lounge singer who performs his own stuff. it was really hard to get a table, but i had to do it because the whole thing was just so weird, so strip mall, so not new york. all the natives of suburban brooklyn and queens flock there in their cars and use the valet and eat giant plates of pasta and meat and order ex-presso. we overheard a lot of conversations about baby formula, mortgages, and the way-out-there neighborhoods (middle village, mesbeth?) i've always wondered about on the subway map, all in accents you don't hear so much in soho.
they took us into the wine bar to wait for a table. turns out the wine bar is not a bar at all but a whole separate creepy room with little tables and more murals. this is where the lounge singer puts on his 'show.' we were so weirded out by the time we got a table, and so full of the pretzels, cheese, and bread that you get before you even order, that we barely finished half of our entrees. ed's lasagna was rather disappointing, but my gnocchi with tomato sauce was pretty good. everything was real—no shortcuts or substitutions. when the assistant manager came by and saw that we were not eating and actually wanted to leave, he was dismayed and forced complimentary tea on non-tea-drinking ed and coffee on a sheepish me. the macchiato was great, i have to say, even if it contained enough milk to be a cappuccino. they tried so very hard to make sure we would come back (also a new experience in this city), but that's just never gonna happen. for a while i thought it would be a fun joke to play on my roommies when they come visit ("hey, i know this great restaurant—it's new york's best-kept secret"), but ed pointed out that anyone who lives outside of new york drives by these places all the time, and it would not be funny.
4.07.2005
at last, word arrives
i got into nyu's cultural journalism program!!!! (i maintain that cult jism is a better term. maybe i can get them to change it once i enroll.)
found out over email—it was so weird. i've been checking my mailbox compulsively, fearfully, unreasonably, since mid-march, and it never occured to me to be afraid every time i open my email. good thing, too, considering how often i check it. i'd be an emotional wreck. oh wait...
found out over email—it was so weird. i've been checking my mailbox compulsively, fearfully, unreasonably, since mid-march, and it never occured to me to be afraid every time i open my email. good thing, too, considering how often i check it. i'd be an emotional wreck. oh wait...
4.01.2005
if we were cooking roommate dinner in jam304...
i would be ranting about armpit hair and its shades of meaning. for example, right now, i have armpit hair. quite a bit of it. haven't thought of shaving in a while. not that important. it's cold out.
now, i would like for the follicular status of my underarms to have nothing to do with my identity, to not signify as a meaning-laden political choice. yes, i'm a feminist, and i happen to know my share of ani songs thanks to a rather limited cd rotation in college, but that has nothing to do with the trifling matter of shorn b.o. factories.
but no. i live in a world where R&D for razors, which resemble luxury automobiles* more with each passing day, expends more of the nation's creative energy than your average hairy folksinger can muster. of course it has to mean something when i don't use the damn things.
instead of having an apartment full of lovely lady lushes on this friday eve, i have a blog. damnit. and i have to move out of my actual apartment. screw the world!
* men's = exterior, women's = interior
now, i would like for the follicular status of my underarms to have nothing to do with my identity, to not signify as a meaning-laden political choice. yes, i'm a feminist, and i happen to know my share of ani songs thanks to a rather limited cd rotation in college, but that has nothing to do with the trifling matter of shorn b.o. factories.
but no. i live in a world where R&D for razors, which resemble luxury automobiles* more with each passing day, expends more of the nation's creative energy than your average hairy folksinger can muster. of course it has to mean something when i don't use the damn things.
instead of having an apartment full of lovely lady lushes on this friday eve, i have a blog. damnit. and i have to move out of my actual apartment. screw the world!
* men's = exterior, women's = interior
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