Oh, so my friend J’s boyfriend is the rockabilly boy from my dorm, and he happens to be a friend of the infamous Mr. Unequal Ex, who doesn’t show. Hello, girl from J's party, oh dear, you have a story similar to mine and UE’s, and it’s about you… and my best friend’s roommate? Heavens. Going to have to talk to my friend about that. Speaking of my best friend, he’s not here, but a good friend of his ex-girlfriend’s is, as is the person who was RA the year before him in that house. Speaking of that house, I run into someone who lived there with my ex-boyfriend, and I agree with his use of the phrase “and it took 16 federal agents to finally restrain him” when it comes to describing his future. Oh, and hello, odd fellow, hope you didn’t mind my allusion to my good friend’s ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, but I just happened to find out about that after you got mildly famous locally. Then I point out the boy I made out with once when he was a prospie to my friend J, and lo and behold, she informs me that they made out once also, and he’s gay now. Isn't that always the way? Say, young fellow with four names, hitting on me quite severely, inviting me to frisbee parties, weren’t you just making out on the dance floor with the girl from above who shares a story with me? Combine this with the fact that J and I both wore my pink bobbed wig last night, causing someone to cry that it was like he'd just met four people instead of two, and it was a very odd night at the Hideout.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Idiocy.
After describing the new iPod shuffle as "Smaller than a pack of gum and much more fun," does Apple's website really need to put a note at the bottom saying "Do not eat iPod shuffle."?
Friday, December 24, 2004
24 hours of improv
Upon a very old recommendation from Jan’s lj, and because I adore both Jeff Tweedy and the Second City, I took a day off work and stayed mostly awake for Letters to Santa , the 24-hour improv endurance test at the e.t.c. theater that ran on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Not to make it even more difficult to get tickets next year, but everyone should go to this next year. It’s a benefit for an organization (run by Heather Whinna, who made a very nice Christian-rock documentary earlier this year) that picks out letters kids have written to Santa and sent through Chicago post offices. Good cause, good music, good comedy, good time.
Due to my sleep schedule still being completely fucked up from this event, my memories are a bit scattered. This is roughly what I remember:
7:30 pm, Tuesday: I show up an hour before it’s supposed to start; this is a foolishly late time to be showing up for any event featuring Jeff Tweedy. For my folly, I’m relegated to the back of the room for the first few hours. Most of the VC’ers (VC=viachicago.org, the Wilco message board I frequent) are up front, but Rosie and the rest of the B family end up toward the back, also.
8:50 pm: I remember that I once decided T.J. Jagodowski, a really great performer who was a mainstage SC performer for most of my college career, is a cross between an angry leprechaun and my father. This still holds true. Joe Canale, another performer, looks like my uncle, which may explain why I cheered so loudly for the several groin injuries he sustained through the night.
10:00ish pm: Tweedy plays. It’s the first time I’ve seen him solo, and it’s very quiet, very lovely, and very different from the current configuration of Wilco. Much to my delight, he brings up both Sally Timms and Jon Langford for guest spots. At the end of the set, a few Jeff-related items are auctioned off, including a personal concert for 20. A fairly large collection of VC folks (including fellow ironwomen Brianne and Gina) manage to put up a winning bid of $9,000, and then most of them rush off to find ATMs. They’re followed by a good portion of the rest of the crowd. Rosie and I rush up to the front, and we’re rejoined by Gina and Brianne after they finish liquidating their life savings.
1:00ish am, Wednesday: I get pulled up onstage to portray Tony’s “fucking whore sister” from Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding. I don’t really do much on stage, as I am the only person in the Chicagoland area who’s never seen the show. The performers get me off stage with merciful speed. I heart Sally Timms and Jon Langford.
1:00ish am: Things start getting blue. I cover 17-year-old Rosie’s ears a good deal for the next several hours. Kelly Hogan can belt like none other.
3:00ish am: Rosie and I are both fading. To stay awake, we decide to pick a pretend improv boyfriend. She immediately picks a fetching performer who looks like Jake Gyllenhaal but had already left. I reserve my decision until later in the day.
3:30ish am: Pretend boyfriends can only keep a girl awake so long, and I start doing the “fall asleep, head falls forward, feel like I’m falling, head snaps up, repeat” motion. We are made to do various activities through the night, including “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” and a jog through the backstage area. The number of stayers eventually drops to 12 or 15.
Jesus Christ it’s latish am: Andy Cobb, another of the performers, corrects himself on a mispronunciation of my name. He jumps ahead in the pretend improv boyfriend race.
What the hell was I smoking when I decided to do this am: Animatronic dog humps dead guy's face. Man with animatronic dog looks like Mr. Void. Everything seems unreal, and I can't figure out if it should be that way or not. We get to the point where the performers aren't just improvising, they're pretending to be other performers improvising. It's interesting, and pretty entertaining at some points, but there's only so much "I'm going to pretend to be Mick Napier pretending to be a pirate" that I can take before I start chanting "don't take the brown acid" to myself.
7:00ish am: A respite--BABY IMPROV! Joe Canale’s daughter Sofia shows up and does some scenes. This is most amazing because she can’t be more than 3. I believe it is during her time onstage the groin injuries begin.
8:00 am: Rosie’s dad Lou drops by to see how we’re faring before going in to work. I run down to a Starbucks that’s in the same building and come to the horrifying realization that it’s light outside.
9:00ish am: A scene is staged where the terms “Brown University” and “academic rigor” are used in the same sentence. Gina (also a UChicagoan) and I both bust out laughing very loudly, not realizing that we’re the only two people to find this to be one of the funniest jokes of the night.
10:00ish am: Steve Albini shows up to get interviewed and harassed mildly by Heather Whinna, who is also his gf. I have my only snack of the day, a handful of Rosie’s trail mix. I move beyond hunger, I move beyond sleepiness, I move beyond any concept of the passage of time, and I move to a place where I’m that annoying girl at the show who shouts out the only slightly workable suggestions for scenes. Why nobody threw a shoe at me or begged for my silence, I don’t know.
3:00 pm: Billy Corgan does depressing, slowed-down, minor-key renditions of Frosty the Snowman, Silver Bells, and Jingle Bells. He then cuts out without saying much. It is the best Billy Corgan show ever.
5:15ish pm: Rosie gets pulled up on stage to do a scene. At some point, she is supposed to use another of the performers, Pete Grosz, as her life raft. She never really climbs on him, probably because her dad is directly in front of her. As cool and calm as Lou B is, I really wish he’d yelled “Get away from my daughter, you old pervert” and rushed the stage.
5:30ish pm: Kid rock! But in a good way. The Blisters play. Heather comes up and talks about the charity. She starts crying a little bit, and it’s very touching. Andy Cobb gets her a tissue, and earns extra bonus points in the pretend improv boyfriend race.
7:00 pm: Robbie Fulks! A brilliant set by him, including the old holiday chestnut “God Isn’t Real”, as requested by my angry leprechaun father. He does a rap about the dead people from 2004. There’s a Derrida joke. I crack up. Andy Cobb cracks up. I declare to Rosie that Andy Cobb is my fake improv boyfriend for the day, but note that Robbie Fulks is the overall winner of the fake boyfriend contest.
8:30 pm: Done! I really can’t remember this. Rosie, Gina, Brianne, and I all managed to make it, and we get invited up on stage, where I hide in the back. Lou B is kind enough to cart my deranged carcass home. I pass out in bed with my shoes on. Make mental note to see more bloody improv since I live blocks from IO and the Playground.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Holiday fun.
I sang Christmas songs adapted with details about the pension firm I work for, in front of almost the entire pension firm, this Friday at the Christmas luncheon. (I keep trying to call it the holiday luncheon, but since I work for Christian organization, it's really all about baby Jesus.) I ended up sitting next to the person who is functionally our CEO, though under a different name. Then I went boozing with some of the folks (Methodist organization, so no alcohol at the party), and discovered that, among the people I work with, almost everyone I can stand is in the 40-55 range. Huh. At least they can afford to treat me to Belvedere on the rocks.
I also finished voice lessons at the Old Town School this week. I want to start guitar soon, but I think I'll wait until the second session of next year so I can (a) volunteer enough to get the class for free, and (b) take Spanish lessons so that I can do that entire graduating from college thing.
Now on to the holiday shopping spectacular; I tried this year to buy as much as I could from local stores, and to avoid downtown shopping like the damned plague. I didn't quite succeed, but I got close...
I'm keeping it to family here, because apart from Collin, I don't buy much. I need to get something for my trainer, and maybe little things for folks like Tyler or Emmie (to whom I owe a backlog of several years of Xmas and Bday gifts, rather daunting), but the major gifts are familial. So, to the rundown of how much I supported big chains this holiday season...
1. Mom. She's getting a big healthy-eating basket o'fun in my ongoing attempt, post-bypass surgery, to get her to eat some fucking vegetables. Thus, I got her a vegetable grilling basket from Bloodbath & Beyond, since she still grills like mad. In addition, I went to The Spice House (feautured on Good Eats!) and got her two salt-free seasoning gift backs, the American Regional and the International. Hope she likes lemon pepper, because she's got three different kinds now. I also headed north to the Southport Grocery and Cafe to get her fancy olive oil and balsamic vinegar, grapeseed and canola oil-based grilling and saute sauces, another veggie rub, and a Vosages chocolate bar, because she needs a little indulgence.
2. Grandma. Independent bath and body crap tends to be EXPENSIVE, so I crapped out and got her an Origins Lavendar and Vanilla gift set, along with some saffron from The Spice House.
3. Drew, brother, 21. He said he wanted posters, booze, or music, so I got him three posters from Beyond the Wall (Boondock Saints, his favorite movie; Trainspotting, the movie I think should be his favorite movie; and some wildly inappropriate beer, weed, and sex poster, because he'll love it). Then I got him The Streets' latest album at Reckless, because really, it's better than Insane Clown Posse, which is what he listens to these days. I decided not to get him booze, but I may hit the Crate and Barrel and get him some roly shot glasses, because he will also love that.
4. Christian, nerdy cousin, 14. Got him what I've been wanting for ages, a neighborhood map of Chicago, from 57th Street Books, and a book on great philosophers from Seminary. I plan on wrapping one of these gifts in a piece of wrapping paper that has the London mass transit map on it, which he'll take as a bonus gift.
5. Annie, cooler cousin, 12. She loves lip gloss. I've gotten her lip gloss for the last two years. I can get cooler lip gloss than she can in Oklahoma. So... lip gloss globes from Sephora it is. I tried to branch out with comics, so she's getting a copy of Persepolis from 57th Street Books, and the first trade paperback of Hopeless Savages (thanks, Dan) that I picked up in Evanston at Comix Revolution.
6. Jonah, youngest cousin, 5 1/2. I'm glad Mom told me he likes dinosaurs, because all his parents had to tell me is that he liked Batman and Spiderman, and... ick. So I ran over to Unabridged Books (you can see the gay porn mags from the childrens' section; I love it) and got the Eyewitness series book on dinosaurs. I also got him Neil Gaiman's The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish. I hope I didn't just get it for him becuase Neil Gaiman is cool. Guess we'll see if he starts crying on Christmas when he reads it...
So ho-frickin-ho-ho-ho, now all I have to do is get this stuff wrapped. Now I can go to the gym and clean this week... unless I decide to just sleep and watch Gilmore Girl repeats, which is a distinct possibility.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Democracy inaction.
So... I just snapped at an election judge. An African-American old-old-lady election judge. Here's the scenario:
I arrive to vote at 6:00 am. I'm 20th or so in line. They don't open the doors until 6:20. The first person (also an old lady, so there may have been old lady communication problems) gets her ballot at 6:30. Things get marginally quicker as time passes, but as we get closer, everyone around me notices the judge in charge of looking people up in the big book o'registration doesn't have the world's firmest grasp on alphabetical order. As in, she's looking for McCall, gets to McGreevey, and keeps heading back through the book until Ms. McCall sticks her finger in the book and says "M-c-*C*".
Here comes me:
Me: Williams.
OL: [flips to "T", looks confusedly at the book]
Me: Williams. W.
OL: [flips to "S", starts conversation with other election judge]
Me: (loudly) WILLIAMS. WITH A W.
OL: [flips to V, tries to answer question asked to election judge a table away from us]
Person behind me: HER NAME IS WILLIAMS. [begins commenting to head election official, right next to old lady, that someone else needs to maybe be in charge of the book]
OL: [flips to blank forms behind the alphabet, keeps flipping through them.]
Me: Ma'am, those are blank. You've gone past Z. Williams. With a W.
OL: I didn't even know there were blank ones back here! [Gets to w-a, starts flipping forward]
Me: WILLIAMS WITH A W-I-L.
Person behind me: [ever louder complaining that somebody else seriously needs to be in charge of the book]
OL: It's going slow because we're short one election judge.
Me: I don't see how another election judge will help you grasp the concept of alphabetical order.
So, yeah. I'm a bad, bad voter. I ended up not voting until 6:50, though, and it's gonna be a HUGE problem as the day wears on if she doesn't speed it up. Four of the eight booths were empty because the pace was so slow.
Anyhoo, on a more positive note--Go out and vote! Vote early, mainly because the lines are gonna be FIVE MILES LONG after work! You, too, can snap at elderly election officials!
Monday, August 09, 2004
I've got stories.
But I don't have time to post about them. They're long. You may already know them. If not, feel free to ask me about any of the following, broken down by day:
Synopsis:
Monday-Wilco in Milwaukee
Tuesday-News; Flight to OKC
Wednesday-Mom's Surgery
Tuesday-Slow Recovery
Friday-But we didn't put you in rehab, Mom
Saturday-Burning stuff with high school friends
Sunday-Goodbye; What do you mean the OKC airport lost power?
Oh god. It's been quite the week.
Saturday, July 10, 2004
The dangers of Eugene O'Neill
I've decided to start volunteering at the Old Town School of Folk Music, and today I had a high-flying time (in reverse order) picking up trash, monitoring the ice bins, and serving beer.
I was quite popular at the beer tent, despite not knowing how to pour at first (pull the tap all the way--if you go part way, it'll be all foam). By the end though, I was serving up lovely little plastic cups of Bass, Rolling Rock, and some wheat beer of some sort. The only major faux pas--when you're working at a beer tent with a man whose name tag says "Ice Man", do not, I repeat, DO NOT make a quip involving the term "cometh" unless you wish to get a response along the lines of "it depends on the girl".
After that, I was left to monitor the ice bins, which entailed absolutely no ice, but a lovely conversation about teen pregnancy with a family practice doctor who was hanging out with her defibrillator. After that, the other team members and I hung out and talked for a little while; most of my conversations were with Katie, a dramaturg who lives just north of the Old Town School. Fun fact: Meredith isn't alone, everyone in the world thinks the guy who opened for the Mag Fields (Andrew Bird) is hot. The volunteer coordinator, when she bought a CD from him, even wrote "you're dreamy" in the memo section. I also had fun talking to a little 4 year old who REALLY likes blue, and found out her dad is a fellow escaped Oklahoman.
Then came trash pickup, where Katie and I talked more, and I found out our boss Shana, is not only working again tomorrow, but is also waking up at 7 to run 17 miles. Compared to this, waking up at 9 to get fruishi seems quite paltry.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
I've never before seen as many people in banana suits as I saw this morning on my way to and from the gym. They've just opened a new Jamba Juice at the Hancock Tower, and there was a trolley going up and down Lake Shore and Michigan, filled with people in banana suits. Beyond this, as my bus passed Hancock, there were about 20 more banana-people milling about outside. By the time I was going back to my apartment, there were only seven or so left, and they looked rather cold and disenchanted with the entire banana-suit-wearing-business.
Speaking of the gym, I have a visible muscle! In my arm! This has never happened before. Sure, it's only on the right side and not the left, but I have high hopes for haivng more visible muscles sometime in the distant future.
I spent about 30 minutes this afternoon talking with an fortyish man in a coffee shop about how much he loves Barbra Streisand. He's part of a group of older guys that hangs out in the coffeeshop in the middle of the day and shoots the breeze for hours on end. I think every coffeeshop is required to have a group of these. The best all-day-talking-middle-age-to-oldish-guys-in-coffee-shop groups, however, are professors in college areas. UChicago is sadly lacking a high-quality coffeeshop in which they can hang out (DivSchool is too hot, Classics is too expensive, Bookstore is too corporate, RC and Uncle Joe's are too... studenty), but Cafe Paradiso in Urbana and Unicorn in Evanston were absolute old professor meccas. Unicorn even got old Russian professors, because they put out preserves for their tea. Old Russian professors? The best.
Friday, November 21, 2003
Move!
I'm back up to Chicago today. I've got a nice little place by the lake, just north of Belmont. I don't have a bed, or a couch, or dishes, or much of anything other than CDs, books, and clothes, but I'll be getting these other things soon enough. I'm still in the process of applying for re-entry to Chicago, but I think they basically want to hear me say "I've grown as a person" and (more importantly) "I can pay for it" to let me back in.
Anyhoo, I will likely be disappearing from the internet as I so often do (no net access planned for the apartment for a little while at least), but people in Chicago, let me know if you want to do anything, or even just want to know how to contact me.
A brief moving playlist:
New Pornographers-Letter from an Occupant (repeat many times over)
GBV-My Valuable Hunting Knife
Belle and Sebastian-Lazy Line Painter Jane
Calexico-The Ride, Pt 2
Neutral Milk Hotel-King of Carrot Flowers Part 1
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
More music, but shorter
Recently, any time I go to Parasol, I come home with a handful of CDs. Thank god I'm moving away before I spend all my money.
Anyhoo, here are some shorty reviews of some stuff I picked up (and an older one that's completely worthwhile).
!!!, Me and Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard
I think this is what I what I wanted The Rapture album to be. That is, two songs long. (Rimshot.) !!! sound a little like Pigbag (well, the one Pigbag song I've heard), but they sound a lot more original than The Rapture, and take themselves a lot less seriously (a good thing for a dance-punk group). And they tell both Rudy and Bloomberg to get down. Put this on, fill the room with foam and let the UChicago kids get down for a study break, I say!
Calexico, Alone Again Or EP
I love this song. I could listen to the original version of this song (by Love, if you don't know, and if you don't, find Forever Changes or the nifty Rhino best of comp as soon as you can) all day long, several weeks in a row. The barking dogs who do Jingle Bells could cover this song and I'd still like it. I like Calexico a lot more than I like the Jingle Bells dogs. I like this version a lot. The other songs are good, too.
Sufjan Stevens, Michigan
Pitchfork has managed to redeem itself from The Rapture debacle by recommending this album of gorgeous, lush acoustic music. The title (fully Greetings From Michigan the Great Lakes State) does not lie: the song titles alone mention Flint, Ypsilanti, Michigan, the Upper Peninsula, Tahquamenon Falls, Holland, Detroit, Alanson, and Sault Saint Marie, and there's a lovely map of the state in the liner notes. Stevens, now living in Brooklyn, is a Detroit native, and this entire album seems like a tribute to the winters of his home state. I declare it morally imperative that all of my Michigan friends get a copy of this. Between this and reading Middlesex, I'm having a very Michigan-y time these days.
Richard Swift, The Novelist
Oh my goodness. This is a completely obscure record, recommended to me by Roy from Parasol, who has friends who are also on this label. I'm not even sure if there are copies still available (though you can try at the label's website. Unless something spectacular comes out in the next couple of months, I'm going to consider this the best new music I've heard all year. The Novelist is something of a concept album, about a Great Depression-era New York writer, and it's recorded to sound as though it's from that era. It's certainly not rock, but it's incredibly powerful. Swift's voice is lovely--reminiscent of Fred Astaire, with a slight touch of the menace of Tom Waits. The album is only about 20 minutes long (4 of the songs are more soundscapes, with 4 proper tunes), but there is not a bit of wasted time on this album. Everything is brilliant. I swear, buy this album, and you'll find yourself wandering around humming "I am New York/Tired and weak/Try to write a book each time I speak." (According to a friend-of-a-friend-of-an-acquaintance-who-knows-somebody-who-knows-somebody-at-some-label, Swift may have recently signed to V2, possibly under Jack White's Third Man label, so if you can't get the record now, it might come out again later. But if you do get it now, you can talk about how you knew Richard Swift was great way back when!)
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Moving and music
Moving happens in a week. I'm freaked out both by the amount of stuff I have to move and by the lack of all the stuff it seems like I need (beds, dish drainers, olive oil, shampoo). I'm trying to ignore the lack of stuff and focus on packing (not that I've done that yet).
Instead of packing, I've been buying lots and lots of music. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my discount at the label will last as long as the label does... once you're Parasol, you're always Parasol, it seems. This didn't deter me from buying up lots and lots of CDs last week, though. You want half-assed reviews, you say? Well here they are:
I don't quite get all these claims that Julian Casablancas is as surly and distant as ever on Room on Fire. The lad was talking about not caring and being out that door a few years ago, but now he's asking his girl to skip the party and drink a nice forty with him. To accompany this new romantic mood, the band has decided to jump forward a decade; instead of the old dirty-ugly fuzzy early-70s sound from Is This It, they've moved solidly into Ric Ocasek territory. It serves the mood well--after all, Debbie Harry proved that one can be pretty as can be and still exude new wave misery.
General complaints--there are some great songs, but the back end of the album is a long, smoke-filled haze of very similar songs. As much as I love Albert Hammond (he just gets scuzzier every time I see him--I really do hope he turns into the Strokes' Keith Richards), the one song where he collaborates on the lyrics, "Between Love & Hate", was the weakest song on the album. Do you really need two people to write lyrics this boring? And do we really need to see Julian's (seemingly waxed) chest on the lyrics page? (I will ignore Ms. Alaska's howls here.)
I must admit, the only GBV I'd owned previously were cassettes of Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes from way back when. I really liked them, but I lost them before I graduated from high school, and didn't pay much mind to it... until I went crazy and bought the Hardcore UFOs box set last week. (This is what you do when you have a discount!) I haven't gone through all the CDs yet, but that's because I can stop listening to the greatest hits CD, Human Amusements at Hourly Rates. It's been said before, but I'll say it again--Robert Pollard might do a little better with some editing, and this edition proves it. Even the strong GBV albums always have at least a couple tracks that are random and bad rather than random and sublime, and this disc is a testament to the fact that Robert Pollard can do a little self-editing when he wants. (Though he does still mix things up a little--the box-set edition of this disc is chronological, while RP shuffles things in the independent-release version, and also chooses some alternate versions of tracks that are found elsewhere on the box set.) But enough with the negatives--this is just a fabulous disc. It spans from 1987 up to Earthquake Glue, and really brings out strong tracks from later albums, which have apparently been a little less killer and a little more filler. I must admit I'm not totally familiar with the newer stuff--I'm still dealing with "I Am a Tree" being DAMN NEAR FIVE MINUTES LONG, which makes it their "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands". Fun stats! Songs of length:
0:00-0:59: 1
1:00-1:59: 9
2:00-2:59: 15
3:00-3:59: 6
4:00-4:59: 1
average song length: 2:15
So, um, The Rapture really, really, really like the Cure, a lot. And, um, they like to count (they use counting as lyrics in 3 of the 11 songs on this album, including the chestnut "1234567, I'm floating in constant heaven." Apart from counting, their biggest hit has three lines, two of which are only used twice. They have some incredibly stupid package art, unless you consider several differently-tinted copies of B&W pictures of the band looking very sincere and intense as they play laid out next to each other to be something other than incredibly stupid. Also, they really, really like the Cure. They also use the term "conversating".
That being said, the album is not completely without redeeming features. It's just not very redeemable as an album. There are two really great dance-punk numbers--"Olio" and "House of Jealous Lovers". Yes, this song only has three lines other than counting--"house of jealous lovers" (though I think "jealous lovers' house" might be brought up, I'm not counting it), "shakedown", and "one hand ties the other"--and I don't even understand how that last line works--but it will get your booty shaking. Boys, release a single, not an album. And listen to some music other than the Cure. Maybe you can trade Interpol for their Joy Division albums! You'll like them, I swear! They're moody and British, too! And their lead singer killed himself instead of getting old and flabby. Look into it!
Another short note--everyone who's ever purchased a Matador album should sprint out and buy the re-release of the New Pornographers' debut, Mass Romantic, if only to hear Neko Case's amazing vocals on "Letter from an Occupant." I bought a copy of Blacklisted recently, too, but I haven't had time to really listen to it that well yet. Maybe later I'll talk about that, as well as the five bajillion freebie CDs I have strewn about.
Monday, October 20, 2003
Finally, a sexy costume for me.
So I was hanging out in the sexy costumes area, chanting "Limit three costumes try-on during the visit, one costume in the dressing room at a time, no try-ons on vinyl" to the fraternity girlfriends who were talking about how much their non-existent asses were hanging out of Sexy Tinkerbell when I noticed we had maroon fishnet thigh-highs in stock.
Then it struck me.
Maroon fishnets.
Short grey wool skirt.
A copy of some part of Foucault's History of Sexuality (I'm thinking The Use of Pleasure would be the appropriate one).
One of the tight little UChicago tshirts they sell at the bookstore.
And I would be... SEXY UCHICAGO STUDENT!!!
Unfortunately, I'll be working on Halloween, and nobody I'd see then would get it.
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Shameless promotion of personal matters.
Just as a warning: yes, yes, I work for Parasol and they released this album. Shush. I really am recommending this because I’ve been listening to songs from it almost every day for the last week.
So, talking about the Replacements earlier reminded me of the Vertebrats, a band I’d like to recommend to all my Mats loving friends. They were a Champaign-Urbana band in the very very early 80s, and they created some really fabulous, straight-ahead garage rock. Actually, they were so good at it that the Replacements took to playing one of their best songs, Left in the Dark, in concert. (I believe it’s on Shit Hits the Fans, miscredited as Left Here in the Dark.) It’s a great heartbreak song in the fine tradition of Train in Vain, and Uncle Tupelo also covered it--see the bonus tracks from the new reissue of No Depression if you’re interested. What’s more, apparently Courtney Love is slapping it on her solo album, so you all better run out and get the original before she makes everyone hate it.
Anyhoo, if you’re interested, and you should be, A Thousand Day Dream, a compilation of 22 of their songs, has been released by Reaction, one of the Parasol labels. There’s plenty more than just Left in Dark—my faves include Johnny Avante, which mocks art students (and really, they need to be mocked), Jackie’s Gone, which I could almost see Bruce Springsteen singing, Oklahoma (for obvious reasons), and This Before, which is fun and sexy in a really wary and nervous way. You should all, all, all run over to Parasol and buy copies for yourself and your loved ones. And buy other stuff too—the prices are so low! You get bonus points if you wish Angie a happy belated birthday or tell Roy you’re sure his new pullover looks fine in the special instructions section of the order form.
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
I really thought my intense fear of map water was weird enough, that I had filled up my odd phobia quota. Unfortunately, I've recently developed a slight fear of large block letters (we're talking 2 feet tall or so), particularly in a red and white color scheme. I think this was caused by the opening credits from the first two series of Red Dwarf. Oh well.
Also, I've seen the beauty of tenure. I was hanging out in HEP's office on Sunday, flipping through his copy of The Metaphysical Club while he checked his email, and his professor dropped by. Said professor, most certainly tenured, was walking about barefoot, with completely unbrushed hair. The only matching thing about his shirt and shorts was how wrinkled they were; there was also a rather vast stain on the shorts (I can only hope that it was a recent coffee stain, but it didn't look that wet). He looked a little surprised to see a non-physics person around, talked physics with HEP for about 10 minutes, then just said "Anyhow..." and wandered off, barefoot, into the physics jungle. I want tenure in something!
Monday, August 25, 2003
Items from the last 6 weeks
-A check is in the mail. For real now. Should be in the next week or two (or maybe three). I’m obviously excited, but it’s hard as hell to practice fiscal responsibility when I know I will be getting a fair bit of money pretty damned soon. On that note, if you can think of any CDs I should most certainly own (especially classic or indie pop, a la Big Star, Raspberries, Velvet Crush), do comment me about it. CD buying bender soon, baby!
-I am not living in a bus station! I got a nice place in Urbana, close to some of my favorite things (the best local coffeeshop, my indie rock label/store, the hippie grocery store and deli). I’m living in the basement, so it’s a little musty, but it’s got a nice front yard, a lovely porch in the back, and… a PUPPY! Well, the puppy belongs to one of my four roommates, but I do enjoy having a dog around, especially since I’m not the person primarily responsible for it… all of the fun, none of the cleaning up messes. Score! Also, toothpaste is more fun when it’s German.
-I spent another fine weekend in the HP. I went to my first MLB game on Friday (Sox-Rangers, 7-1 Sox baby! Go Valentin!), which was quite fun… especially since it was Elvis night. Why Elvis night? Why not! All I know is that there were Parachuting Elvises, and I enjoyed them even though they didn’t get caught on the foul poles. In news that probably doesn’t surprise anybody who knew me in high school, I got into a situation where someone threatened to toss my bra off the upper balcony of the stadium. The crisis was averted.
Saturday was pretty low-key, though I did introduce HEP to a few of the joys of Evanston, namely Dave’s Italian Kitchen (and its apparently killer wine list) and running around on beaches that are probably private property. Just a note—my Evanstonian friends really need to come out and eat cheap and get drizzunk with us at DIK sometime. (Jan, Flax, I’m looking at you, kids.)
On Sunday, I saw Come Feel Me Tremble, a documentary about Paul Westerberg. I hate to say anything bad about him, but I must admit, he is perhaps, maybe, just the slightest bit self-indulgent these days. He talked about how he tried touring with a band, but that the songs just sounded better with him on guitar. Thing is, they really don’t. Really. I also was amused by the complete lack of Replacements songs for the first hour or so of the documentary, followed by an ending comprised of four or so Mats songs in a row. Also, if Paul Westerberg is sober these days, I am really, actually Princess Leia, lightsaber and all. Ain’t no way. I mean, I always knew he was a self-indulgent, drunken prick, but now all of his songs are about him having ADD and smoking cigars. I had to go back and listen to Tim and Let It Be and Pleased to Meet Me to reassure myself that he was, at one point, really, truly amazing.
Friday, July 11, 2003
Sudden activity
So, last time I talked to my lawyer about The Saga of My Leg (and if you don't know SoMY, I cannot be bothered to go into it right now), he was talking about the trial being moved back to fall. I figured this meant he'd call me sometime soon and tell me it was in August or September.
So imagine my surprise when Jackie, Lawyer Paul's paralegal, called me up today and said "You do realize your trial starts on Monday, right?"
I did not, in fact, realize anything of the sort.
She then said "Do you have a copy of your deposition from 2001? You really need to know everything about that, they're gonna try to mess you up on the stand."
I do not, in fact, have a copy of that deposition.
So anyhow, I'm leaving on Monday evening (Monday is for motions, which means I don't have to be there), and will return... later in the week, I guess. I'm running around trying to find a place to stay. Well, places, actually, as four solid days of me, me, me might drive Altman a little crazy. Diversification is a good thing.
I will be getting a copy of my deposition in the mail tomorrow, and I'm gonna read it several times. I don't remember what I said in it, but I figure that it won't be too difficult to absorb, as 1. I was the one talking, and 2. I told the truth, so I just have to remember it. Still, four years since The Saga began, and I have to remember the tiniest details. Eeep.
I also hate my ISP; my net connection has been down for a week. Thank god I have lenient bosses who are never here; they're okay with my sudden week-long vacation, and they aren't terribly aware of my activities throughout the day.
Monday, June 02, 2003
Eek.
You know, I may give the impression that the costuming world is all fun and games, buying sexy bumblebee costumes and cutting cakes with machetes and whatnot. This is not always the case, however. Some days, you get a very disturbed trannie who comes in and talks to your coworkers about his/her prosthetic vagina and asks about makeup to "make it blend in better", and then shows said thing to your coworkers after taking it off in the bathroom. Sure, the manager then throws that person out, but it sort of throws a kink in one's day to have to deal with such things.
(In case you are wondering--no, I am not making this up. How could I make this up?)
On a happier note, at least for Alice, I recently found a sexy Statue of Liberty costume. God bless America (though there is no word on Studly Uncle Sam)!
Friday, May 30, 2003
wigs 'n' things
So, through the fabulous program at work where I can write up something as an employee billing and not have to worry about paying for it , I "bought" myself a pink chin-length wig with blonde streaks through it.
I suppose this purchase makes more sense if you know that I went to a show put on by an Osaka-based girl punk band called Mummy the Peepshow. I had a pretty good time, although the venue was WAY, WAY, WAY too small, and seriously drunk people (such as "Dimestore Julian Casablancas wannabe motherfucker dipshit," who almost knocked over my friend) were annoying, and I got to see the heads of the band and was luckier than most. Note to my fellow music-goers: "We want to go up front! They're cute and foreign!" is not an excuse to shove ahead of me with your overly full beers.
But I had fun and got lots of attention between the wig and the sequined tube top. It looks like I might get an internship at a local record label; everybody should cross their fingers for me next week, and send me all the knowledge they have about the Champaign rock scene.
Thursday, May 29, 2003
I wrote a big old long post yesterday, and my computer crashed before I could put it up. Let's try this again.
I ran up to Chicago for about 48 hours last weekend for various reasons. After having what will probably be my last pitchers of Sam Adams with Joshie Nacho at Jimmy's on Thursday night, I ran all around downtown Chicago on Friday. I got to see John and Laurie Stirratt play at a noontime show at the cultural center, which was a wonderful performance. For those of you not in the know, John Stirratt is the bassist for Wilco; Laurie Stirratt is his twin sister, and was in The Hilltops with John, and later in the band Blue Mountain. The originals were all great, and they also covered a great McGarrigle Sisters song. If you like gorgeous harmonies and pretty folk music, you should go see them sometime (and for my Chicago friends, they'll be with Kathleen Edwards at Park West in the next week, hint hint).
Later that night, Miguelito and I went out for Ethiopian and then saw Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks at Metro. They had the worst opening band EVER. Seriously. This band had its van and all of its equipment stolen recently, and by the end of their set, most of the audience wanted to steal the instruments they had managed to get ahold of and beat the band to death with them.
SM and the Jicks did make up for this, though (and Miguelito and I distracted ourselves before their set with a fun game of "what's the gender of the guitar tech?" We still don't know, since the person's name was Gail). Mr. Malkmus was as foxy and bouncy as ever, and it was nice to see him with a better rhythm section than he had in Pavement (and a much foxier one, too... ask me about the drummer, Miguelito about the hot girl bassist). Never will I forget the drummer's re-enactment of Stephen Malkmus's first sexual experience. They played Jenny and the Ess-Dog during the encore, and for the final song, Hot Drummer and Stephen switched places for a country cover (and if anyone could tell me what song that was, I would love them forever).
I almost missed my bus back to Champaign, but managed to get there. The Yank and I hung out, eating fudge or in front of coffeeshops, for the rest of the weekend. Among other things, The Yank discovered there is no such word as "barristo".
Patch Adams came into the store yesterday. The real Patch Adams. He was... interesting. My bosses were so excited they made out after he left. Also... interesting.
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
More costume shop fun
So one of my co-workers, Timmy (her real name is Amanda, but she goes by Timmy at work for some reason I haven't really ever discovered) worked her last day today, since she's graduating, so we decided to get her an ice cream cake. Even though we let it thaw for about a half an hour, we still couldn't cut it with our plastic knives, and we had no regular knives. After a brief debate about whether our ninja swords would work, we remembered that we had a 18" or so long machete for sale, too. After washing it off with some antibacterial soap, our Assistant Manager, Mike, went to town with the cake roll. It really worked quite nicely. I hope they remembered to rinse it off after...
