Sweetheart Sundaes — gettin’ in the mood.
I have an urge to confess something. (I will delete this post soon.)
I lost my virginity on Valentine’s Day 1999 — um, in a Frank Lloyd Wright house — and I had sex with M. for the first time on Valentine’s Day 2009. That was no accident. Oh gosh no. I am the kind of crazy sentimentalist who thinks having sex with the last man I would ever do it with ten years to the date after I lost my virginity is beautifully symbolic and should be planned for (yes: one month in and I was thinking This Is It). I am also the kind of crazy sentimentalist WEIRDO who gave the poor dude that I lost my virginity to a glass cherry (cringecringecringecringe).
So. Valentine’s Day. Whatchoo doin’?
On Whitney Houston, Black Middle Class Girls, and the Reagan Years -
Beautiful post by caille.
Forget her voice for a minute. Think about what she looked like.
Rail thin, smooth skin, winning smile, mischevious almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones — she looked like the model she had been. Conventionally and undeniably beautiful. Clive Davis recognized that those physical attributes would make it easier for her to be a cross-over success, as long as her beauty wasn’t sexualized. So he packaged her as if she had been the Fourth Supreme. She wore long, glamourous gowns and furs; her hair was in a perfect French twist. Then she would stand up so straight before the microphone, like a well-behaved child at a recital. Small wonder our parents wanted us to be just like her….
[video]
On today’s Fresh Air, songwriter Bret McKenzie talks about writing the songs for the new Muppet movie: “They take it very seriously, and sometimes in the studio, they kind of ‘Method’ Muppets, where in between takes, they stay in character. So I’m in the studio, we do a take and then we’re like, ‘Can you do it again? Just a little more energy?’ and then they talk back to you as Fozzie the Bear. So it’s like I’m having a conversation with the Muppet in there. Pretty strange, very surreal job.”
In our theater school Method assignment to study and inhabit an actor/character, I chose Marlon Brando (not very Method of me). For the project, I dressed my then-five-year-old sister in a Longshoreman’s shirt and newsboy cap and made her act out the famous “I coulda been contender” scene with me (since I was Marlon and she was my “brudder,” Charlie, she should have been wearing a trench coat and fedora but whatever).
She dutifully learned her lines and piped them out in the cutest little girl’s voice you ever did hear (though in the video, you can clearly see me jabbing her in the ribs when she forgot ‘em).
“I had some bets down on ya. You saw some money.”
Good golly we’ve got to track down that video.
The Geography of Government Benefits - Interactive Map - NYTimes.com -
Oh look. The areas of the country that get the most government benefits are full of Republicans and Tea Partiers. Quelle surprise.
The share of Americans’ income that comes from government benefit programs, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, more than doubled over the last four decades, rising from 8 percent in 1969 to 18 percent in 2009.
(Source: peterwknox)
“That’s not a bad word, hate and war are bad words but fuck isn’t.” —
Judy Blume, Forever via apsies, who says “Happy Birthday to the incomparable Ms. Blume!”
My dad always told me there’s no such thing as bad words, just bad people. (Tell that to the vice-principal who suspended me for yelling “Shit!” at my busted locker.)
Hey guys.
(Source: mayskywalker, via fuckyeahtheboss)
Weird hapa taco: mango pickle-marinated chicken, avocado, pickled onions & crunchy sprouts.
This is how I eat when I’m alone. No rhyme or reason to it, just a hodgepodge of things I like.
Rita Moreno, West Side Story rehearsal, 1961. Photographer: Phil Stern
(via)
Move.
I know this is the very definition of first world problems and no one cares — at all —but I just have to vent for a minute. When I said we missed Next season tickets by a hair I meant it. The way it worked was thousands of people logged in to the site within a minute of it going live. The first fifty were allowed in to the site to make the purchase, and those that were slightly slower than others went on the waiting list, which quickly grew to 6,000+. I was 1,044. There were 950 packages, so I was right on the edge of getting in — considering nearly 10% of credit cards were declined and some people put themselves on the waiting list more than once.
Yesterday afternoon, Next’s Facebook page became a focal point for the anxiety of a bunch of one-percenters as they waited for the email that would allow them in to purchase. It quickly became apparent that a number of people with high numbers — in the 2000s and 3000s — had gotten the email and purchased tickets. What gives?! they shouted. Conspiracy! they screamed
Nick, the guy in charge of this whole circus, explained that by error, they let in about 30 people out of order. I estimate those 30 people purchased about 120 tickets between them.
By the time I was let in to the site, there were just about 20 tickets left, and I was stuck (with 49 other people) on this horrible page where I kept plugging in combinations of days and party sizes, looking for available tickets, and finding none.
So — Next’s tech error literally cost us “our” tickets.
On the bright side: this is like free money!
Where shall we spend it? we asked.
Torrisi tasting menu? Yes, definitely.
Brooklyn Fare? Hmmm — possibly.
Another trip to Stone Barns or Eleven Madison Park? Why not! We don’t even have to buy plane tickets to get there!
Then M. brought up the possibility of donating it to someone who could really use it. Talk about a Debbie Downer.
(And thus concludes the most pointless post in the history of pointless posts. Carry on.)