Thursday, February 28, 2008

The Times wrote an article about In Treatment, my new tv show obsession. unfortunately i don't get hbo, so i've been forced to scavenge for free episodes on the internet. anyway its a great show, though it takes a lot of focus to watch these one-on-one convos in any kind of marathon form. but it is pretty fascinating to watch the characters play off each other, in this battle of wits where the patients try to hide their secrets, and Gabe Byrne struggles to uncover them. Also, he lives in my neighborhood. Also, i think it is striking a particular chord with me right now as i have just (re)started therapy. but real therapy is not very much like in treatment at all. i think in treatment is a lot more like if someone were to make a tv show based on a psych textbook. which is maybe what they did. but it is very interesting.

Monday, February 25, 2008

so, the bookstore is closed. it's funny, when i first heard about it, i was mostly just glad that i would be able to end my employment naturally, and not have to quit and leave them in the lurch. and as the final day approached, i looked forward to having my weekends free (working saturday and sunday nights was really starting to get old.) and i got pretty callused to having 30-40 people a day tell me how sad they were that the store was closing. after a while, i didn't have the energy for a heartfelt "yeah." but it is sad. it really didn't hit me until the last day when we had locked our door and were boxing the books. i saw how sad jim, one of the owners, looked as he looked around the store. as robert, one of my coworkers, said, "you don't open a store thinking that it will close in 4 years." that's the reason that entrepreneurship has always scared me; it's so awful to have to admit that something you poured your heart into has turned out a failure. luckily the other branch still seems to be doing okay, so it's more like downsizing than truly going bust. but i really care about the people involved in the store, and i hate to see how hurt they have been by the whole thing. so pour a little beer for park slope books, and then go buy some books from the heights store. support small businesses!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

so i've recently had a big revelation in my life. i mean i think i've known for a while really, but i feel like i've got to be honest with you, my dear readers. i have to come out of the closet about something. i'm in love... with canada.
i remember back in the days when i used to make fun of our northern neighbor, even going to far as to scoffingly ask my us history teacher, "what could canadians possibly study in their history class?" but even back in high school, i think i was starting to realize my true feelings. my first clue was when i met malcolm gladwell, and heard the dulcet tones of the canadian accent in all their glory for the first time. i remember trying to practice speaking like him, to capture the subtlety of "about." seriously, cuz they don't really say it like "aboot", its this nice curving of the "out" sound over the tongue.
anyway, since then, i guess its just been a slow development, as i've increasingly learned that actors and musicians i liked were from canada. degrassi. ellen page. tegan and sara. oh, and then there that was spring break in college. my friends and i went to montreal, my first time over the border, and i just thought it was the nicest city, very urban-feeling but laid back and pretty at the same time (and i saw my first crack deal and subsequent crack smoking from the window of our cheap hotel.) and then when i went traveling in asia this fall, honestly i could totally guess if a person was canadian or american. and that is because if someone seemed really, deeply nice, they were always canadian.
so i was feeling all of these feelings, but recently i had a culminating moment where i knew for sure. i was working at the bookstore, and this very nice family was buying a book for their son. when they paid, they gave me these bizarre looking coins. so i said, "this isn't money." and they said, "oh, sorry! it's canadian money. that's where we're from, and we got confused." and i almost jumped over the counter and hugged them. i wanted to shout, "i love canadians!" but i couldn't think of a socially normal way to communicate the warm feeling in my heart. so i just smiled, and wished them a good evening.
so yes, i love canada. i almost want to move there, except i don't know anyone in canada and new york is the love of my life. but like, i wish new york was in canada. i feel like we mesh better with them than with the shitty rest of our country. they are so awesomely liberal, and not completely blocked out of reality by massive advertising. and they've got this cool alterna-style. and i could get married there.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

hey dear readers, as you may or may not know, the used book store where i am currently employed, Park Slope Books, will be closing its doors at the end of this month. And by the end of this month, I mean around the 21st. As with all things related to this beloved bookstore, the plans are vague and it has been very difficult to pin down an exact date. anyway, my point is... i wanted to let my dear, dear readers and friends let them know how much i appreciate them by saying- if you come visit me during one of my last three days at work (friday 10-6, saturday 6-11, sunday 5-10), i will totally make it worth your while. with an erotic, literature-related dance. noo. but i will totes hook you up with a super discount, and this is on top of the already half off cuz of our closing sale. so basically, crazy cheap. this is of course, a bribe to get some love at my last weekend of work. i'm very gregarious. 7th ave betw 2nd and 3rd st.
on a side note, the other day someone quoted my blog back to me without knowing it. that was a beautiful moment in a blogger's life.

Monday, February 11, 2008


This article is so not about what i thought it was going to be about. oh nytimes, you tease!

Friday, February 08, 2008

i was surprised at the choices for this film festival, Clowning Glories and Screwball Women, Mabel Normand and Marion Davies. I mean, okay, yes, those were women who were in early comedies. And I guess I don't know that much about the early period when Mabel Normand was in films, I just know her life story in the musical form of Mack and Mabel, and that she is Bernadette Peters. But come on, if you're going to do justice to the screwball heroines, there are such fabulous choices. Carole Lombard? Barbara Stanwyck? Claudette Colbert? Katherine Hepburn? These were some very funny, very smart women. This is an issue that is near and dear to my heart, because I was quite obsessed with screwball comedies for a period in high school. They can be really awesome and funny, and challenge the common representation of submissive females in the 30s and 40s, substituting them with independent and strong-willed women who give their male counterparts a run for their money (often literally). It feels like Normand and Davies were selected offhandedly, without any honest effort to celebrate the shining stars of early female comedy. also, i love how often cary grant was the foil for the comediennes in screwball comedies. what a 'mo. and a wonderful dude.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

"Oooooh... the old "I'm a lesbian" no thanks... all you had to do was say a regular no thanks without getting all creative."
haha.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

love it, live it.

Monday, February 04, 2008

so i went to see atonement today, which was so bad that i did this to myself.



jk, but if i would have if it hadn't already been done. i've never seen a more boring and pointless movie, and i had to stop myself from shouting mean things at the screen the whole time. ugh. i'm going to have to watch like a hundred episodes of It's Always Sunny to erase the awful memory.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

i've had a couple of entries rolling around my head lately, and i've been meaning to get down to actually typing them up. i feel like my life has been a little more out of control than normal. or this week anyway, culminating in me falling on my face, giving myself a big black eye and a swollen lip. it does look pretty cool and hardcore now that the swelling's gone down a bit, but when i first got a good look at it, i almost passed out (i'm also really bad with blood). anyway i've vowed to calm things down, at least until my face heals.
soooo... oh yeah i remember, i was going to write about getting into gay culture stuff, ie books, movies, music. i try to stagger my gay entries for the benefit of my remaining breeder readers, but whatever. it's my space. not myspace. so yeah. because, for instance, i'm really into tegan and sara right now. and musically, i don't think they're so much better than other bands that are out there right now. i mean, they're pretty much on par with the other good hipsterish bands. but, like harvey fierstein had this great quote in "the celluloid closet," which i totally dvred from logo, where he talks about how when you watch straight movies, you have to do this kind of translation in your mind, to apply the way the characters feel to the way you feel. and he said with his work, straight people would say to him, oh, but your work is universal, everyone can relate to it. and he said, fuck you, i've been having to do this translation thing my whole life. my work is gay. and there really is this very different relationship you have with artists and works that are queer, because you know that no translation is necessary. you're feeling the exact same thing that they feel. also, i take it back, tegan and sara are amazing.