There is a season - turn, turn, turn ...

I'm starting to understand the need for escapism. Maybe it's due to developing maturity or becoming a parent or general brain mushiness setting in, but instead of the old ultraviolence à la Clockwork Orange or just any old documentary about Darfur or child soldiers in Africa or whatever, I really just would rather curl up in bed reading Julia Child's "My Life in France." And as the world does its thing, I think about making Boeuf Bourguignon. But I will not watch a romantic comedy. I guess it's just a mild case so far.

"ultraviolence" = referring to excessive and/or unjustified violence, according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange

Semaine Terrible

No, no, no, I will not make jokes about Haiti. I spent 20 minutes crying in my car after doing a shot of wheat grass this morning, listening to Amy Goodman interview survivors. And this, after I had carefully applied a smudged eye in preparation for the international male model who, for some inexplicable reason, wanted to interview for an editorial internship. And then I talked to my Dad who had discovered my blog. Truly, a terrible week.

Death, but why, Ms. Dickinson?

Blogging about trivial gripes like the way people park at Starbucks is positively blasphemous while people in Haiti are dying. And yet the world turns. I shop at Trader Joe's. I watch the season premiere of 24. I worry about Milan's fever and my stomach flu and losing a friend. And I covet a necklace I saw on Daily Candy. Nothing to do with the universal suffering, but I'm entering a gothic face: taxidermied ravens, bird bones, crystal balls and medieval illustrations of bugs. Maybe it's dissociation.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

Go ahead. Make yourself feel better. Take a look at: http://www.lisasoltis.com

Duped by the Dairy Industry

Someone forwarded me a thing called the Nutrition & Fitness Challenge, and in my despair to finally create that svelte self, I signed up. Turns out the feckin thing is sponsored by the friendly Dairy Council! No wonder its so-called blog extols the benefits of upping your calcium intake (via dairy, of course), so the whole thing is really a sham to get people to eat drink more crap-infested milk and hormone-riddled cheese. Nice.

The dupers: http://www.mealsmatter.org

Do You Live Under a Rock?

The editors (if you can call them that) of Yelp.com are jealous dweebs. Their latest newsletter starts with "Unless you've been hiding under a rock (or in Eagle Rock), you've probably heard the buzz that..." I don't live in Eagle Rock but pretty close to it, and while it has a certain mainstream blandness, it's still better than the fascist hell hole Silver Lake has become and the hipper-than-thou Echo Park, with its million dollars home, large homeless population and nouveau riche hipsters. The editors of Yelp.com probably live in Silver Lake, get their coffee at Intelligentsia and read Perez. Or worse, they live in Hollywood and watch "The Hills." As everyone knows, Mt. Washington is where the new and old artist elite and true intelligentsia are residing. There, or in Highland Park. Both are pretty close to Eagle Rock.

Men Are From Harvard

J. really thinks that women are not interested in seeing other women naked. I told him that women are even more interested than men in seeing women naked, being the critical judges of womanhood and everything they are. Then J. said, yes, but they aren't interested in watching women make out with other women on late-night TV, are they? As if that somehow proved his point. I cannot convince him otherwise. He also thinks that that chick on "Weeds" is naked only for guys watching. Puhleeze! And he thinks a woman would not be interested in the new Taschen book about Kubrick. Double puhleeze. And this, this from a Harvard graduate!

Just Say STOP

Stop that thing with the owls
Stop reading random blogs
Stop analyzing handwriting online and worrying over results such as "you are not following your heart; maybe you want to be an artist but are working as an accountant?"
Stop throwing away Vogues without reading them
Stop reading about events on Flavorpill you cannot attend
Stop worrying about a whole new generation of writers brain dead from growing up with the Internet
Stop hating the word Tweet
Stop hating people who write "So, I was thinking about nuts" and "I was thinking it was kind of cold?
Stop obsessing over other people's lives
Stop hating hipsters in American Apparel gold lamé leggings
Stop despising (i.e. being jealous) of Tao Lin