if you like it then you should've put it on youtube

So I know the Single Ladies dance is SO last year (and SO played out), but please check out the undergrads at my academic institution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjnpIeBXuy8

(Oh, that place they are? That's Emerson's permanent Castle campus in Well, Netherlands.)

News Relevant to My Life

As reported on the front page of The Onion this week,

Everything Taking Too Long

People across the country were forced to put up with this maddeningly slow bullshit all week.

WASHINGTON—An overwhelming sense of restlessness and impatience engulfed the U.S. this week when citizens determined that everything—the morning commute, phone conversations, getting a table at Chili's, making coffee, commercial breaks, everything—was taking entirely too long.

...

"This is ridiculous," said Boston resident Joe Sosnoff, waiting for a subway train running behind schedule. "I don't have time for this. I seriously do not have time for this.

"Between eye rolls, sighs, and repeated glances at wall clocks, a majority of Americans are reporting that the nation badly needs to pick up the pace. In some cases, including those where things are taking so long that it's not even funny, citizens urged all present to hurry the hell up.

According to the latest time estimates, if everything continues to move along at this intolerable pace, Americans will be left with no other choice but to scream.

Sick Truth.

From One of the Most Beloved Books of My Childhood...

Inside every one of us, there is a wild thing.



And I'm stoked that the monsters aren't CGI nonsense.

Pictures of Chicago as I've never seen her

This brand new photoblog is rockin' my socks this morning.

Check out The Windy Pixel.

Photo by Mike Boehmer 

Even if you're doing something else.

Photo by Justin Kern

Cassette Tape Art

Found this on Geekologie today.

These artists use old cassette tapes as media.

Bitchin'.

Ghost in the Machine: gallery here

Brian Dettmer: article here

This is what I'll be using my tax refund for

Ceci

et

cela

Merci beaucoup, Nonc Sam!

let's make a pact

It's Monday. It's not too late.

Tragedy strikes

Nicholas Hughes, Sylvia Plath’s son commits suicide

full Times article here

The son of the poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath has taken his own life, 46 years after his mother gassed herself while he slept.

Nicholas Hughes hanged himself at his home in Alaska after battling against depression for some time, his sister Frieda said yesterday.

...

Plath’s friend, the poet and critic Al Alvarez, once said: “I would love to think that the culture’s fascination is because Plath is a great and major poet, which she is. But it wouldn’t be true. It is because people are wildly interested in scandal and gossip.”

...

A family friend said last night: “Nick wasn’t just the baby son of Plath and Hughes and it would be wrong to think of him as some kind of inevitably tragic figure. He was a man who reached his mid-forties, an adventurous marine biologist with a distinguished academic career behind him and a host of friends and achievements in his own right. That is the man who is mourned by those who knew him.”

It's utterly sad, yes.

But I must admit I'm one of those people who's fascinated by the cult of this family.

This one's for Lauren...

It's like Easy Cheese, only it's organic...and pancakes! Go here to watch a demo video and read customer testimonials.

Today is an Ike Turner day

It's gorgeous and sunny and warm(ish) outside, and I know yesterday I was wearing my down coat and everything, but 

YOU DON'T KNOW CHICACO LIKE I DO!

I LOVE HIM!!

(kudos to IL Airship)

best news ever

From the Sun-Times...

We've heard rumblings about Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel splitting before, but not for a long time. Despite the usual pooh-poohing denials from the stars' official camps, two friends of the ''J's'' (as a longtime Biel buddy calls them) insist there are problems in paradise.

While the duo are still living together, Biel's friend reports, ''Things are not going as smoothly as [Biel and Timberlake] would want people to think they are.''

YOU GUYS! YES! I'M IN! FINALLY. AFTER 10 YEARS. HE WILL BE MIIIIIIIIINNNNEEEE!! 

(shakes fist to the gods, David Sedaris style). 

Biel can suck it.

Futursex and Lovesounds-

Smashes

Who Didn't See THIS Coming?

That bitch always was lean, mean, and loony-tunes.

And now Kenley from PR5  

is behind bars!!

She, um, threw a cat at her ex-fiancé.

Uncles Tom and Lorenzo laid it all out for us on Project Rungay today, via TMZ.

Flippin' Fantastic!

I'm sure she's going to blame this on growing up on a tugboat.

Do you know how BIG A BUS IS?

This is the best thing that's ever happened to buses, storage, television, and drunks.

Ever.

In the history of history.

And I also like that we are all his friends from the get-go.

Peep more awesomeness at the website he so lovingly directs us to.

The first sentences of the website's welcome page are:

"Tobias R. Jones, "Toby", [sic] grew up idolizing his favorite hood rapper Pokey Da Hot Spitta.  He followed his idol's life and gained employment as a Street Pharmaceutical Sales Rep [ed's note: drug dealer] in 2003.  Toby held on to that job for a year before he saw his Distribution Manager [ed's note: oh, sure] get shot.  Toby realized that the street life was not for him."

Good call, Toby.

You can't make this shit up.

Credit for finding this gem goes to my friend GD Kimble in NYC.  

(And PS, sadly, this guy is a Chicago-area comic who doesn't actually store anything anywheres.)

Wants It :: Lit Alert

I read about Craig Taylor in this month's INTERVIEW.

He's only 32 and looks like a cute accountant.

I want his book.

Big time.

As seen in the Guardian, these short, evocative works based on overheard conversations in cities and towns across the country, Craig Taylor captures the state we’re in with humour and pathos and perfect timing.

A lonely pensioner desperately tries to communicate with a young immigrant; a funeral director’s love of Manchester United proves unhelpful when negotiating with the bereaved; two overly-vigilant mothers wrestle with their paranoia in the queue for Santa’s Grotto; a widow recounts her disastrous return to the world of dating and a father realises his son is growing away from him as he helps him tie his football boots.

Sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, these tiny plays in which every one of us could have a starring role are windows into other people’s lives that reveal the triumphs, disasters, prejudices, horrors and joys of twenty-first-century life in Britain.

(review is here)

Here's one tiny play in a bookshop.

Here's one tiny play starring bankers. 

They make excellent studies in dialogue construction and are by turns hilarious and poignant.  

Gimme!

Nuff Said.

It's bigger (read: better) here.

Well Phrased, You

I don't know who wrote this.

I found it after I clicked through a handful of blogs, linking blogroll-to-blogroll, Choose Your Own Adventure!-style.

Fauxhawk and I are going to his cousin's wedding in a few weeks, and I'd like to say, for the record, that it is extremely inconsiderate of his relatives to plan a wedding during the Uglies. For those of you who live in California, Florida or any of the warm countries, the Uglies consist of the second half of December, all of January, February, and March and most of April, when office workers from the Northeastern United States transform into pale, disgruntled, elephantine creatures...So you see, if Fauxhawk's family had chosen to celebrate their nuptials in July, or even September, I might have had a fighting chance. I might have had something cute to wear. Instead, I will have to fashion some sort of tarp around my naked form and be vigilant about revealing back fat. 

And I like the featured jewelry.

Read the whole post here.

Anyway, it's amazingly well-put.

True-ché, Persephone. True-ché.

HEY! CUT THAT OUT!

First off, this movie looks HORRENDOUS,

and second off, it most DEF did not come out last summer.

http://www.georgianicolson.com/latest.html

Ugh.

Some more of our sacred, sacred young adult fiction massacred and maimed.

Erlack!

geeky cool

If you wanted to know what that guy from Evil Squirrel looks like in his home environment, here's the only chance you'll likely ever have to see it.

I wonder who they'll profile next.

Wired.com's new "Secret Lives" series looks at individuals you encounter every day and reveals a side of them you normally wouldn't see.

What better profession to begin with than the comic store employee? And what better time to start than now, as the WonderCon comic convention invades San Francisco this weekend?

From the sassy princess of underground comics to the pajama-wearing ex-convict, your local pulp-pushers are anything but ordinary. We've profiled nine comic crusaders, five from New York and four from the San Francisco Bay Area, photographing them in their shops and at home. We asked each employee roughly the same questions, and their responses are published alongside their photos.

The pictures almost make me want to work in a comic book store.

Almost.

It's just that they make it look like the new Empire Records.

"Sinead O'Rebellion!  Shock me, shock me, shock me with that deviant behavior."

Ashley and I are ankles-deep in "My So-Called Life" on DVD

"Excuse me, but people throwing themselves at people is, like, THE basis of civilization." 

--Rayanne Graff.

You know what I would really like?  To be put out of my misery." 

-- Angela Chase

(there is nothing all THAT wrong with her life at the above moment)

Gallagher vs. Cobain

This struck me as funny.

And...kinda true.

Noel Gallagher of Oasis, while a fan of Nirvana, wrote music that refuted the pessimistic nature of grunge. Gallagher noted in 2006 that the 1994 Oasis single "Live Forever":

 "was written in the middle of grunge and all that, and I remember Nirvana had a tune called 'I Hate Myself and I Want to Die,' and I was like . . . 'Well, I'm not fucking having that.' As much as I fucking like him [Cobain] and all that shit, I'm not having that. I can't have people like that coming over here, on smack, fucking saying that they hate themselves and they wanna die. That's fucking rubbish."

(from the Wikipedia entry for "Grunge Music")

I don't like mopey people, either, though I do like Nirvana.

Just, you know, keep shit in perspective.

This cake is counter-productive, I feel.

As it makes me want to eat crawfish, not cake.

And I think my taste buds would be in for a rude awakening upon the first bite.

Also, if the inside doesn't have a bunch of little crawfish and corn and potatoes in it, then I want nothing to do with this.

This is, of course, a groom's cake from Southwest Louisiana.

My dad emailed it to me.

Everyone remember THIS GUY??

SCARY JESUS FROM SACRED HEART?!?!

Man, this painting scared the be-himself out of me every time I went in that place.  It was like he could see into my soul and Scary Jesus WAS NOT HAPPY with its contents.

I just Google stalked him to see if I could find a picture on the internets, and there he was in some woman's Flickr set about her son's first communion.

SCARY JESUS IS WATCHING YOU, TIMMY.

BEST YOU LEARN THAT NOW.

deeper into the curry coma i fall

Dear Anthony (Tony, as I like to call you) Bourdain-

I love you so much. Like you're my bad ass uncle that I can drink with and stay up until 3am hearing all your crazy stories about travel and your crazy drug use in NYC in the 70s. I love night like those, Uncle Tony. What I really like, is when we rip on other culinary TV shows and the personalities on them together. Sigh. Good times Uncle T. Good times.
There is none that irks me more than Sandra Lee from Semi-Homemade. There is something, nay, EVERYTHING, about this show and this woman that makes me shudder and turn the channel before my eyes bleed. Uncle T, you get it. Here's what you think:

(omg you guys! the stepford wife stole my soul.)

Culinary Picks and Pans
"Semi-Homemade Cooking With Sandra Lee" (Food Network)

It's safe to say that former infomercial queen Sandra Lee is not held in high regard by the culinary establishment. After all, Lee's "semi-homemade" cooking concept -- which calls for the use of store-bought, ready-made food... more -- runs counter to many of the beliefs espoused by serious chefs and food lovers, who believe that all Americans can and should prepare their own meals with fresh ingredients. Nevertheless, Sandra Lee's approach to cooking, in addition to her good looks and middle America appeal, has made her a popular TV host and successful cookbook author. Just don't expect her to appear as a guest on "Martha" any time soon.

Anthony Bourdain: She makes her audience feel good about themselves. You watch her on that show and you think, "I can do that. That's not intimidating." All you have to do is waddle into the kitchen, open a can of crap and spread it on some other crap that you bought at the supermarket. And then you've done something really special. The most terrifying thing I've seen is her making a Kwanzaa cake. Watch that clip and tell me your eyeballs don't burst into flames. It's a war crime on television. You'll scream.

Bourdain. I heart thee. Call me. We'll drink until we can't feel feelings. I promise.

Hugs, Beer, Cigarettes and Pork Meat-

Miss Wint

in my curry coma

a classic tale from gofug

KARL LAGERFELD: Lens-monkeys! Snap me here standing with Wax Claudia.

CLAUDIA SCHIFFER: No, Karl, it's really me.

KARL: FLESH Claudia? Can it BE? My shock is written like the Kama Sutra on the page of my face. BOOKMARK IT. There will be an essay question. BRING CHEESE.

CLAUDIA: How are you, Karl? Are you enjoying yourself?

KARL: You look like a frail wedding cake sneezed on by an eagle, and this dildo bores me. TANGO.

CLAUDIA: Um, not right now. That's not a... that's an award, Karl. It's a trophy.

KARL: Pish. To be literal is to die. DREAM. BE the sex toy.

CLAUDIA: Maybe let's just get off-stage.

KARL: You are a vision of rigid ice. If I saw you in a harness I would say, "Hark! Send that woman a ham and some ointment."

CLAUDIA: This is getting awkward.

KARL: Embarrassment is the birthplace of lust, darling, and you are crowning. PUSH.

yes. just what i need this afternoon. yes yes yes.

When Blago met Mamet

This article from Salon.com is about three months old, but I was just told about it this past weekend.

Glengarry Rod Blagojevich

If David Mamet didn't write the profane, wiretapped dialogue for the Illinois governor's attempt to sell Obama's Senate seat, he should have. A play in one act.

It's probably funniest if you're a theatre person who lives in Illinois, which I am, but I think it transcends even those parameters.   If nothing else, you can marvel at how the residents of my adopted state could have elected a public official who has the mouth of a pirate.

Also, this brings up a Sophie's choice for me, in that if both Blago and Mamet were on fire on the side of the road, I'd have a hard time deciding which to pee on.  I'm not a big fan of either.

Hence, I lurve this article.

Go-Bama!

I'm so pumped about this, even if that Valerie Jarrett has a bit of crazy-face.

Obama Creates White House Women's Council

President Obama will sign an executive order tomorrow to establish a White House Council on Women and Girls, according to an administration official familiar with the move... "The mission of the Council will be to provide a coordinated federal response to the challenges confronted by women and girls to ensure that all Cabinet and Cabinet-level agencies consider how their policies and programs impact women and families," reads a memo describing the move and obtained by The Fix.

That's change I can believe in.

I'm also pretty appalled that this hasn't existed in some incarnation UNTIL the year 2009.

To Infinity, and Beyond!

I dare you not to have fun with this.

It's some kind of fractal.

Just go.

Gerard Ferrandez’s Click Bored is a Web toy that doubles as a time machine: Click once, and ten minutes of your life disappears.

Play.

It's special.

(from today's Very Short List)

Ha! Oh, Joni Mitchell Humor!

This IL Airship Tumblr from a few days ago really cracked me up.

And, knowing our shared affinity for Joni

--she taught your cold English wife how to feel!--

I thought I'd share.

"I was in Walgreens picking up a prescription when Big Yellow Taxi came on over the store radio and I almost collapsed from the irony. Was it you guys? You got an awful big parking lot."

Funny.

I have the saaaadest liiiife.

Oh, how I've been waiting for this Grey Gardens movie.

Waiting to judge it.

Will I love it?  

I adore the source material.

Will I hate it?  

I despise Drew Barrymore.  She is a movie-ruiner.

It's anyone's game at this point, but what's for sure and certain is that a shitton of gay men and I have been waiting for this event for a long time, and we're giddy with anticipation.

This man is clearly crazy, so I'd like to find and marry him.

Seriously, this Derek Erdman guy's art is fanatical and his descriptions of it are even better.

And it's so affordable!

Example: this $50 painting of Paul McCartney eating a banana:

Description

Here's a 18"x18" painting of Paul McCartney eating a banana. Paul McCartney is wild about non-meat food items. He also divorced a one-legged woman. With a love like that you know you should be glad. I can't wait for lunch! If you live in the Chicago area you are welcome to visit my studio to pick this item up after you buy it. I'll make tea and scones, NO JOKE. If you have questions, just ask. Also, I have an internet website: www.derekerdman.com. You can look at it for free.

I want to buy it, just so I can meet him and tell stories about it always.

And because I am also crazy about non-meat food items.

ahhhh. the walk of shame

Ladies! The Walk of Shame Kit!

The Walk of Shame kit is a novelty gift that has fun with the fact that we have allmade our way home the next morning in the heels and party dress we had on the night before. We just try to help out with the bed head hair and smudged make up,and all of the other essentials a woman may need for the unexpected (or expected) sleepover.The kit includes a clutch bag that can be either your overnight bag or a purse, sunglasses, mirror, lace 'boy short' panties, a walk of shame condom, toothbrush, hair tie, face towel, hairbrush, and a pen to leave your number (or someone else's).

hahahahahahaha. awesome.

Lovely

I am prepared for amazing things to happen.

I can handle it.

(photo from wisebread.com)

(quote from Me and You and Everyone We Know)

Our Work is Never Over

(credit for this find goes to my little sister)

I'm only sad I didn't think of this first.

Because you KNOW that I would ABSOLUTELY spend the time working this out and practicing it, just to get a one-off video out of it.  That's how I roll.

It takes about a minute to get going, but it's worth it, so be patient.

Plus, now I know all the words to this song.

NOOOOOO! I DIE!

Do you know how I ran across 

this article in The Cut

telling me I can't get that Rachel Zoe shirt I wanted?

I had finally decided to buy one!

Boooooooooooooo and thrice boo.

You may recall this brilliant, Rachel Zoe–inspired "Bananas" shirt designed by artist Christopher Sauvé. If you haven't gotten yours yet, it doesn't look like you're going to. Sauvé just received a cease-and-desist letter from Zoe's lawyer. It turns out "I die" and "Bananas" are trademarked. Oh, excuse us — that would be I DIE™ and BANANAS™. We don't want to get sued. That would be BANANAS™. WeI DIE™.

Sauvé had only made 25 shirts and was planning to sell them in very limited distribution online and at Seven boutique. "As a huge fan of Rachel Zoe I feel very sad that I couldn't express myself artistically with BANANAS™ and my fascination with reality television," Sauvé told us. I DIE™..."She uses celebrities every day to promote herself, and then she won't let a poor artist in the city do it in a huge recession with all these layoffs?"

*Le Groan.*

Let me at this business!

iCream Cafe

(from today's Thrillist)

Hatched as a class project by two UofC b-schoolers, iCream's futuristically fatty idea was to let customers direct a customized process involving ice cream made from scratch, on-the-spot, using blasts of liquid nitrogen; after a 2-day August opening, their equipment blew a gasket, forcing them to re-up with $80K in shiny, 2nd Gen gear. How it works: select one of six liquid bases (ice cream, low-fat yogurt, shake, etc) for the dessert-jockey to pour into a beaker, plus up to three of the 30+ flavors (burnt sugar, peanut butter, ginger snap, pomegranate...), which're dispensed precisely from syringes, ; then choose sweetener (liquid sugar cane, honey) and, optionally and oddly, dropper-dispensed, food-safe, non-flavored coloring -- so no matter the flavor, it'll match the shirt you plan to drip it on. The concoction's then poured into an industrial mixer, and a computerized system directs an overhead “phase separator tank” to drop -320degree liquid nitrogen through vacuumed-jacketed tubing into the liquid, turning it into smooth, creamy goodness in 35-55 seconds.  To pretty up your creation,opt for any of 25+ toppings & mixings, from Heath Bar to Nutella to gum balls -- resulting in an exhilarating minefield of desserts you should and shouldn't eat. 

This is in Wicker Park.

Check out the menu here.

Bananas.  I die.

from the gofug gals...

HOW DID THEY KNOW THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I PLAYED BARBIES?!

HOLY CRAP!

"When I was a little girl, my grandmother had these pillows in her bedroom that I was OBSESSED with. They were peach, and they were covered in lace, with lace trim. They were VERY feminine and therefore made perfect staging areas on which my Barbies could try and strangle each other -- my Barbies led very dramatic, soap-operatic lives, which is to be expected when there are twenty women fighting over two men, one of whom was ostensibly married ... And so this peachy, lacy dress of Claire Danes brings me back to a happy time in my life. A time when I spent hours throwing dolls off the edge of my bed, getting them addicted to pain killers, and dreaming up complex love quandrangles for them (my mother used to let me watch All My Children with her during the summer and apparently, I was paying attention). But while I got great joy out of my Barbie funerals, and the shenanigans that led to them, just so you know, I would never actually want to DRESS LIKE ONE."

So, when I was a wee lil' Ashley, my nap time was after Young and the Restless (even though I would try to catch the first few minutes of Bold and the Beautiful) and I woke up and came downstairs just as the General Hospital theme song played. (GH would continue to be one of fave soaps for years to come.) When my Grandma babysat me, I would also get a dose of Days of our Lives.
Also, whenever I sat down to play Barbies, I would begin with, "Last time I played Barbies..." and would do a quick re-cap of the events of last playtime in order to progress the storyline.
I'm sure this explains a lot about my psyche.