bits and pieces


-i wish i had an eyebrow tweezer at work. it is one of my biggest pet peeves when i touch my eyebrow and can feel the errant hairs there. then i can't stop touching my eyebrow for the REST OF THE DAY.

-the two knockoff bags i bough in HK have broken at their most essential parts, the decorative parts that distinguish them as "designer (knockoff)." i was able to fix one that had lost a screw by shoving a toothpick in there, but with the other one, i must resort to using an eyeglasses screwdriver, which is hidden somewhere in the morass of my room.

the most annoying thing about the whole situation is that when each of the bags has broken - or rather, when the essential piece of each bag has fallen off and clanged to the sidewalk - steve has been there, never failing to say in that bitch-ass passive-aggro way that only steve can do: "how much did you pay for that?" >:O

-launch @ yahoo can read my mind. it's the only thing i can listen to at work since the only program i can use is windows media player. so i've been listening for a few weeks now and started rating the songs, and it stores that info in your account to assemble your personalized station with songs you like and songs they think you'll like based on your rated songs. i listened to it today, and i realized how spot on they are to my musical tastes when "stay" by lisa loeb came on. if anyone wants to check it out, my station is this url without the .blogspot.com. i listen to the "cool as folk" station in the morning (recommended by steve last year) and "indie rock" in the afternoon.

-my parking lot must have the most annoying car decorations on earth. a sample: license plates: santa clara university, stanford class of '03, dartmouth, "i'd rather be shopping at nordstrom," "daddy's girl."

-last thing: man, do i have a beef with the adrian tomine perry ellis ad campaign. yes, please further the pipedream that men like this exist in the world (and dress this well) because we really don't have enough unrealistic expectations about men to deal with! the move makes me especially nauseated.

ok, fine. i'm hating because I LOVE.

at the last bar we went to, a korean dive bar on bush street, an asian man told scott how he killed a man in the 70s and buried him on the site where embarcadero three was built. the matronly korean barkeeps flirted with steve, sat on the laps of large white men in baseball caps at the bar and fed us styrofoam plates of hot meatballs doused in barbeque sauce and topped with siricha, which we ate off of toothpicks until we felt sick. we struggled with our jack and cokes, and the room became an increasingly darker shade of red. mike, who had a number of chemicals in his system, whined for us to help him with his drink, and then closed his eyes, crossed his arms, tilted his head down and mouthed the words to "michelle" by the beatles as it played on the jukebox. we leaned our elbows on the bar, which was padded and covered in a plastic red duct tape. i knocked the two red straws out of my drink and plucked another one out of a cup of straws. they reminded me of pick-up sticks i used to play with when i was a kid at my grandmother's house, but those were pointy at both ends, like little spears...

Kimberley: so you think i'm "not ugly" too?!?

---
me: losers
crystal: christians.
crystal: god... have some pre-marital sex for god's sake

--
QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND
me: "this guy had a shirt that said 'asian american men do it better'..."
biff: "do what? math?"

intellectual casual


classy

so stick with me, this is a little complicated:

tuesday after work, i came home and found a for sale sign post in front of my house stuck into the little plot of dirt near the gate. no sign - just a plain, white, wooden, 6 foot tall, inverted-L sign post with one of those "take one" boxes on it. this was confusing. my first thought was that it was a prank, that some high schooler had put it there. but then i wondered why our house and not the house next door or any other house nearby. so then i thought it was an act of a nemesis, like TPing or egging someone's house. but then i remembered i don't have any enemies. hair flip!

my mom was as stumped as i was, but her conjecture was that someone had simply put it in front of the wrong house. she fished out from the recycle bin those annoying flyers from real estate agents that we get daily in the mail and started calling them one by one and leaving messages. "hi, i'm calling from dartmouth street, and there is a for sale sign post in front of our house, but we are not selling our house, so we were wondering if perhaps you made a mistake, but we don't know if it is from your company because there is no sign on it, so maybe you can check your records and see if you are selling a house maybe on colby [the adjacent street], and call me back..."

this seemed to me to be a supremely inefficient way to go about things. but she would not be deterred. i started brainstorming other people we could call to take care of it - the police, 311 (except it doesn't exist in sf yet), my sister's exboyfriend who is now a real estate agent. the thought of it spending a night in front of the house freaked me out a little bit, mainly because my paranoid mind was imagining my nemesis coming back at night and torching the thing, and movies like fried green tomatoes or eyes on the prize or whatever. my mom taped a sign to the front post saying "WRONG HOUSE - we are not selling our house. maybe it would be a good idea to have the owner present next time."

we survived the night. but alas it was still there yesterday when we got home from work. so after last night's reading (thanks to everyone who came out! it meant a lot to me), as steve dropped me off, alex jumped out of the car and, lo, pulled it out as easy as paul bunyan pulling a tree out of the ground. then he hoisted it on his shoulder and said in a booming voice, "you will no longer live in fear, villagers." i looked at him, and then i noticed he stood in front of the moon, and it created a halo of moonshine (heh) around his head. i watched in awe as he(with steve helping like simon) lumbered with it up my hill and two blocks around the corner, where they threw it into an industrial trash bin.

and again all was quiet on dartmouth street.

Alex: I'm gonna make it a music video
Alex: it's called "Alex walks"

--

christine: aw, yeah wisconsin
i thought she said "sysadmin"

test your googling skillz.

Melanie: do southcity girls count as native to sampencisco in your view?
these are important questions...
...definitely worth google's time
me: hahaha
no south city no
Melanie: biach
me: oh are you south city?
HAHAHAH
Melanie: the INDUSTRIAL CITY, YO!

this is the BS you miss when you don't read the times in print.

Op-Ed Columnist
The Model Students
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Why are Asian-Americans so good at school? Or, to put it another way, why is Xuan-Trang Ho so perfect?

Trang came to the United States in 1994 as an 11-year-old Vietnamese girl who spoke no English. Her parents, neither having more than a high school education, settled in Nebraska and found jobs as manual laborers.

The youngest of eight children, Trang learned English well enough that when she graduated from high school, she was valedictorian. Now she is a senior at Nebraska Wesleyan with a 3.99 average, a member of the USA Today All-USA College Academic Team and a new Rhodes Scholar.

Increasingly in America, stellar academic achievement has an Asian face. In 2005, Asian-Americans averaged a combined math-verbal SAT of 1091, compared with 1068 for whites, 982 for American Indians, 922 for Hispanics and 864 for blacks. Forty-four percent of Asian-American students take calculus in high school, compared with 28 percent of all students.

Among whites, 2 percent score 750 or better in either the math or verbal SAT. Among Asian-Americans, 3 percent beat 750 in verbal, and 8 percent in math. Frankly, you sometimes feel at an intellectual disadvantage if your great-grandparents weren't peasants in an Asian village.

So I asked Trang why Asian-Americans do so well in school.

"I can't speak for all Asian-Americans," Trang told me, "but for me and my friends, it was because of the sacrifices that our parents made. ... It's so difficult to see my parents get up at 5 each morning to go to factories to earn $6.30 an hour. I see that there is so much that I can do in America that my parents couldn't."

Of course, not all Asian-Americans are so painfully perfect — Filipinos are among the largest groups of Asian-Americans and they do very well without being stellar. Success goes particularly to those whose ancestors came from the Confucian belt from Japan through Korea and China to Vietnam.

It's not just the immigrant mentality, for Japanese-American students are mostly fourth- and fifth-generation now, and they're still excelling. Nor is it just about family background, for Chinese-Americans who trace their origins to peasant villages also graduate summa.

One theory percolating among some geneticists is that in societies that were among the first with occupations that depended on brains, genetic selection may have raised I.Q.'s slightly — a theory suggesting that maybe Asians are just smarter. But I'm skeptical, partly because so much depends on context.

In the U.S., for example, ethnic Koreans are academic stars. But in Japan, ethnic Koreans languish in an underclass, often doing poorly in schools and becoming involved in the yakuza mafia. One lesson may be that if you discriminate against a minority and repeatedly shove its members off the social escalator, then you create pathologies of self-doubt that can become self-sustaining.

So then why do Asian-Americans really succeed in school? Aside from immigrant optimism, I see two and a half reasons:

First, as Trang suggests, is the filial piety nurtured by Confucianism for 2,500 years. Teenagers rebel all over the world, but somehow Asian-American kids often manage both to exasperate and to finish their homework. And Asian-American families may not always be warm and fuzzy, but they tend to be intact and focused on their children's getting ahead.

Second, Confucianism encourages a reverence for education. In Chinese villages, you still sometimes see a monument to a young man who centuries ago passed the jinshi exam — the Ming dynasty equivalent of getting a perfect SAT. In a Confucian culture, it is intuitive that the way to achieve glory and success is by working hard and getting A's.

Then there's the half-reason: American kids typically say in polls that the students who succeed in school are the "brains." Asian kids typically say that the A students are those who work hard. That means no Asian-American ever has an excuse for not becoming valedictorian.

"Anybody can be smart, can do great on standardized tests," Trang explains. "But unless you work hard, you're not going to do well."

If I'm right, the success of Asian-Americans is mostly about culture, and there's no way to transplant a culture. But there are lessons we can absorb, and maybe the easiest is that respect for education pays dividends. That can come, for example, in the form of higher teacher salaries, or greater public efforts to honor star students. While there are no magic bullets, we would be fools not to try to learn some Asian lessons.

some of these are true, but some are not. i don't have time to tell you what is what. but the slurring the words together is definitely true, as is the sannazay and the twenny fourth and mission thing (NOT mission and 24th). the high schools thing is definitely not true anymore, BUT my dad went to poly, so maybe it's just the older generation.

Talking Like A Native
By CARL NOLTE

If you have spent any time in bookstores lately, you must have noticed that there are books on San Francisco's past, present and future; books that tell you where to eat, where to drink, where to drive, where to take a bus, where to stay, what to look at and even how to cook in the San Francisco style, whatever that is. But no book tells you how to act like a native San Franciscan, because it is widely assumed that the breed, if it ever existed, is extinct. One book, "San Francisco Free and Easy," subtitled "The native's Guide Book," says on the first page, "San Franciscans are notorious newcomers. You'll find few people here with the sort of roots common to East Coast cities."

Another, written by a carpetbagger named John K. Bailey, is called "The San Francisco Insider's Guide." It begins, "On my first visit to San Francisco, 15 years ago..." Fifteen years ago? I know a cat who's Lived here longer than that!

A terrible thing has happened to native San Franciscans. They have become strangers in their own city. Their whole culture is in danger of being swallowed up by foreigners from New York, Ohio, New Hampshire, Denver, and other places Back East. These newcomers all assume everyone else is a newcomer.

The first thing to go is the language. Despite everything you've ever heard, there is a distinctive San Francisco way of talking and it is important to make note of it, for the record, before it becomes as dead as Latin. Here's how to talk like a San Franciscan.

The first lesson - learned at birth - is never to call it Frisco or San FRANcisco. Most resident tourists have settled on something that sounds like an Anglicized version of the Spanish San Francisco, but natives run the two words together and add a couple of extra sounds, and it comes out "Sampencisco." It may also be called "Thecity", which is one word. It is never called The City, which is two words and tacky.

One way to tell native San Franciscans is the way they run words together. Another way is that all native San Franciscans know something about other native San Franciscans. This cannot be faked. The first test comes when a native San Franciscan is introduced to someone he does not know at a party. Sooner or later, one will ask the other where he or she is from. The correct dialogue goes like this:

Q: Whereya from?
A: Here.
Q: Oh yeah? Whereja go to school?
A: Poly.
Q: Oh yeah? Doya know (fill in name of acquaintance)?

At once, the two people realize they are both natives and doubtless have friends, experiences, and a whole subculture in common. There are several keys to this small bit of conversation.

First, the true native runs all the words together. He never says, "Where are you from?" because that is the way they talk Back East. When he asks where you went to school, he means high school - not college, not Trade school, and certainly not P.S. 178.

The correct answer is one of several San Francisco high schools. "Poly," of course, means Polytechnic High School, which not only reveals your high school but what district of the city you came from, and other details. If, for example, the answer is "S.I." you know the man went to St. Ignatius High and was probably raised a Catholic and is from an upper-middle-class family. "S.H." people were from North Beach and the Mission, better known as Sacred Heart.

If the person says "Mission" or "Bal" (for Balboa High) you know he is from the Mission District, and his father was probably a member of the working class, called "a workin' man" in the San Francisco dialect.

If he went to Lowell, he may well be Jewish; if he went to Galileo, he is probably a North Beach Italian, and not a Mission District Italian.

One has to be careful, though. Some women, asked where they went to school, will respond that they "went to the madams." A tourist will immediately leap to the conclusion that the poor woman was raised in a whorehouse, but natives understand immediately what this woman means: She attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, conducted by a ritzy order of nuns, and is doubtless from a wealthy family. She is not necessarily a Catholic, however. Diane Feinstein went to the madams.

The next thing to note about this conversation is that the proper response to a remark is "Yeah?" not "You don't say so?" or "Is that right?" San Franciscans say "yeah" a lot, but it doesn't always mean yes.

Now you are ready for your geography lesson. Oakland, Berkeley, and all those other places are "across the Bay." The largest city in Santa Clara County is "Sannazay," not "San Jose." Sannazay is near Sannacruise. To get there, you have to go Down the Peninsula, past South City, Sammateo, Rewoodcity and a whole buncha other towns.

"The River" is the Russian River, and no other, but "the Lake" is Lake Tahoe only if your family was wealthy; otherwise, "the lake" is Clear Lake. "The Mountain" is Tamalpais; Mount Diablo is "Dyeaablo," and it has no first name.

The town on the river is called "Gurneyville", even though the correct pronunciation is Guerenville. San Franciscans know the correct pronunciation but choose not to use it. If corrected on this, a native will likely say, "If those guys up there are so smart, what'er they doin' livin' there? People who live in Gurneyville all year are a buncha Okies anyway." It should be noted that being called an Okie - as in persons from Oklahoma or anywhere south is among the worst insults a San Franciscan can offer; it means a person lacks taste or sophistication.

Natives are often asked for directions, sometimes by tourists and often by pseudo-natives. A San Franciscan of course, has no idea where anything across the Bay is, but he knows all about San Francisco.

To start with, unless a street is tiny, like Saturn Street or Macrondray Lane, it is never called by its full name. You never say "Taraval Street," for example, only "Taraval." When you direct someone to go "out Geary," by which is meant you go west. You know, toward the beach. One never goes "in Mission," or "in Geary." To head in the general direction of downtown, one goes "down Mission" or "down Geary."

It is "the beach," too, not the seashore or the coast. The coast is Down the Peninsula, near Sharp Park. There are no beaches on the Bay, despite evidence to the contrary - only on the ocean.

San Franciscans know there are 30 numbered streets and 48 avenues; they know Arguello is First Avenue and Funston is 13th Avenue. They know that First Street is not the first street, and that Main is not the main street.

The Richmond district is always called "The Richmond," and the Sunset District is always called "The Sunset," but Noe Valley has no article in front of its name; neither does downtown or North Beach. No one knows why.

Natives do know it is always 24th (pronounced twenny fourth) and Mission, not Mission and 24th. It's Second and Clement, not Clement and Second. The Street is not pronounced "CLEment" but "CleMent."

There is no need to make a distinction between Second Street and Second Avenue in this case, since San Franciscans know that Second Street and Clement do not intersect. They know several other things, too: that Alcatraz is not called The Rock, that Yerba Buena Island is called "Goat Island" or "YBI", that French bread is not called sourdough bread and never was. The name sourdough" for honest bread was invented by advertising guys from Chicago or someplace.

They know that Italians do not eat pizza. They eat spaghetti, tagliarini, or some other stuff, mostly in North Beach, but sometimes in small places in the Mission or Daly City. Daly City is near the county line. San Francisco has no city limit.

San Franciscans call the movie theater "the show," as in "I went to the show last week, and jeez, the guy behind me was coffin all through the pitcher. I couln'n' hardly stant it." "The theater" (pronounced "thee-ater") refers to the legitimate stage.

There are San Francisco threats, too. One of the worst is to act so irresponsibly that you will be put away, as is "if you keep actin' like that, you'll end up in Napa," which, of course, is the local mental hospital. This threat has lost some of its power lately, since these days half the people at Powell & Market appear to be deranged.

Another threat is the danger of being forsaken by your family and friends in your old age and sent to Laguna Honda, the city's old folks' home.

When San Franciscans read papers, they read the Ex (the Examiner) or The Chronicle (never called the Chron). Old guys usta read the Call (as the Call-Bulletin was called) or the Noos (The San Francisco News, which Very old residents called the Dailynoos). San Franciscans never, ever read the San Francisco Magazine, which is written, edited, and produced for tourists.

Television is pretty much a wasteland of standard spoken English, though there are a few bright spots. Joe DiMaggio, a native of Martinez who was raised in North Beach, sometimes appears on behalf of a product he Calls "Mista CAWfee," and it is possible to watch the news on KPIX, because anchorman Dave McElhatton is suspected of being a native, or, on KGO, where Van Amburg holds forth. He went to State, ya know.

With any luck, you might catch Russ Coughlin, also on KGO-TV. He is a graduate of Mission High, and has the last pure San Francisco accent on the local airwaves.

As for the rest, it's pretty hard to hear all these radio and TV types mispronounce the names we all grew up with ("I'm standing here at the Persiddio" or "at Mare Island, up by Valley-jo." Or, as I heard last week, "He was buried on Colima."

Most of us grew up under the delusion that everybody was a native San Franciscan. It was the largest small town in the world, and we thought it the only city that counted. Occasional tourists complimented us on the city, but we never dreamed they'd move here and take over. Everywhere else was far away, and the jet plane hadn't been invented.

I went to high school with a guy who was a direct descendant of Francisco De Haro, the first alcalde of Yerba Buena, and I have a friend whose great-great-grandfather walked to California from Rabbit Hash, Ky., in 1844. No big deal.

Once, after a woman bought a house in the Richmond, one of her new neighbors asked her where she was from. "I moved out here six months ago," she said. "Oh, from the East or Midwest?" the neighbor asked. "No," She said, "from California and Buchanan."

Perhaps you are now thinking of fooling your friends by pretending to be a native. Don't try. There is only one way to be a native San Franciscan. You gotta be born here.

"Anybody," my grandfather used to say, "can be born in Oakland, or Back East. It's an honor to be born in Sampencisco."

Minnie: ok yeah NERDS

in other news, i just wasted 20 minutes of my life fruitlessly looking on friendster for a grace kim from san jose. thanks, kimi. thank you.

weekend of tan

friday we saw the dodgers beat the giants. 1 bratwurst, 1 garlic fries, 2 beers. then we surprised tan with a bonfire at ocean beach followed by a house party at steve's old place in daly city. the great thing about house parties is the huge amt. alcohol, and being able to really relax, settle down and drink. there is something about vodka and redbull that makes me want to create drama for jamie, or as she says, "sow my seeds of destruction." HAHA. here's a pic of us from bliss bar on saturday:




man today was like 80 degrees in the city, and it was a gorgeous one.

perhaps the most important news story of our generation (link via salon)

---
why have i not learned that sake bombing = hangover?!?!?!?

rabbits with pastries on their heads

stolen from rtfm's flickr

summer is officially here. the weather has been gorgeous the past few weeks, and as a result there is a robust layer of dust on my car from the lack of rain. it's filthy, and i like it that way. i folded up four blankets that were usually on my bed, leaving only one thin one behind. i just took down my heavy weight curtains so the sun will beam through the room each morning, just the way i love to wake up (except for the first month steve and i were dating when he had to use a piece of cardboard to block out the berkeley sun so i wouldn't complain). i have to wake up five minutes earlier to factor in shaving time. and i've been packing my sunglasses in my bag.

it's been a year since i left new york, and i am really trying hard not to take inventory of what happened to my life in the interim. i haven't been back to the east coast in a year, or even anywhere east of las vegas, but it has remained a constant struggle not to let myself be sucked into san francisco life, the default life of a native. i haven't really gotten comfortable here since i came back, and i still have a healthy distaste for it. almost every weekend i think to myself, in the words of miss peggy lee - is that all there is to a fire?

i was listening to this thing on happiness on npr, and the guy says that people are happy when their income increases by a large amount, say, oh the exact amount that my income has increased by. but beyond that, more money doesn't make you more happy. so i'm happy in that respect. but not as happy as i thought it would be - another point he makes in the piece. what's the takehome message? i forgot what steve said it was last night, but this is what the sunday book review said:

What gets us through life, evidently, is just the right amount of delusion — enough to fool us into feeling relatively good about ourselves ... but not so much as to exceed our own credulity.

Imagination (or projecting ourselves into the future) ought to be the key to predicting what will make us happy, but we're incapable of imagining accurately.

---

in other news, steve-o is blogging, and it's really freaking me out.

you so gangsta, minnay

sexile in guyville


from dianne's pics

the weekend, summed up in two quotes:
saturday, belligerent white guy with bike and facial tattoos (in our direction): "fuck you, you fucking hipster fucks!"

today, steve to me: "stop galloping! how old are you?"

hands down, best email in months
from d, progenitor of the never-realized "girls of hardboiled" backpage spread

Hello friends§ warm sticky greetings from tangiers, morroco: to begin some logistical orientation.
1. this keyboard is primarily in arabic. typing has become a challenge: § will mean exclamation pt. sometimes q will mean a. other times z will mean w:
2. you must write to me and tell me if you wish not to be accosted zith my tales; no offense will be taken; much email clutter will be spared;

spain
in sevilla, there is very good coffee, tapas, and people who kill bulls while wearing sequins at 400 600 and 800 pm showings.

algericas is a southern porttown of andalucia, where there is a ferry from Christiandom to the Arab World every half hour: The city is full of docks, cranes and disgruntled longshoreman in neon. It is indistinguable from Oakland and Harbor City, but much better looking than Cleveland.

the ferry
the ferry travels west through the strait of gibralter. from the deck, one can awe at the Great Rock of Gibralter, one of the Pillars of Hercules, now encrusted with british resort housing.
Conclusions: if the strait was quite a bit narrower, one could conceivably carry out this activity: look, i am in africa. now i am in europe. now i am in africa again, etc.

tangiers
zephyr and i decide to take the overnight train to marakech. we arrive in early afternoon. the train station has no lockers for our packs. we cannot conceive how to walk the 2+ miles to the medina, then lumber about with our alleywide luggage. zephyr brightly suggests i wander off, have a good time and she will stay at the station and teach herself arabic. She assures me if i do not return by sunset she will duly avenge my death. i brightly agree with her.

This is of course a terrible terrible idea.

I confidently strode towards the tallest minaret in the horizon. The view there of was quickly engulfed in a series of high rises. after meandering and avoiding stares and catcalls, i asked a woman about my age for directions. that is, i pointed to my map and flailed my arms; she smiled politely and pointed in a direction. this quickly led me to what appeared to be the most elaborate and extensive car repair strip in all of north africa.

luckily i found this internet cafe. right next to the welders, with a jovial mix of spanish and arabic pop music that plays in 13 min loops.

now that im lost forever in the seething port city of my dreams, im going to get a fanta. and cry. unless they have ribena.

i hope you are all well

--

Minnie: once i had this composition notebook and i decorated teh cover with pictures and clippings from newspapers and stuff and used it for my women studies notebook

Minnie: i guess i left it on the wellesley shuttle and the bus rider found it, kept it, read the contents. i had a friend who became friends with the bus driver during summer break (she was taking summer classes) and he showed her the notebook and said who ever wrote in this notebook was deeply disturbed
and he wanted to help me.
and all it had were the notes from my women studies course
HAHAH

week of girl rock!

last saturday:

yeah yeah yeahs (link)

yesterday:


sleater-kinney

tomorrow:

cat power!

Writers, quit whining

Spare us the self-involved moaning over the agonies of your art. Writing is no harder than anything else, and the complainers should can it.

By Garrison Keillor

May. 03, 2006 | OK, let me say this once and get it off my chest and never mention it again. I have had it with writers who talk about how painful and harrowing and exhausting and almost impossible it is for them to put words on paper and how they pace a hole in the carpet, anguish writ large on their marshmallow faces, and feel lucky to have written an entire sentence or two by the end of the day.

It's the purest form of arrogance: Lest you don't notice what a brilliant artist I am, let me tell you how I agonize over my work. To which I say: Get a job. Try teaching eighth-grade English, five classes a day, 35 kids in a class, from September to June, and then tell us about suffering.

The fact of the matter is that the people who struggle most with writing are drunks. They get hammered at night and in the morning their heads are full of pain and adverbs. Writing is hard for them, but so would golf be, or planting alfalfa, or assembling parts in a factory.

The biggest whiners are the writers who get prizes and fellowships for writing stuff that's painful to read, and so they accumulate long résumés and few readers and wind up teaching in universities where they inflict their gloomy pretensions on the young. Writers who write for a living don't complain about the difficulty of it. It does nothing for the reader to know you went through 14 drafts of a book, so why mention it?

The truth, young people, is that writing is no more difficult than building a house, and the only good reason to complain is to discourage younger and more talented writers from climbing on the gravy train and pushing you off.

Young people are pessimistic enough these days without their elders complaining about things. Shut up. Life is pretty good when you grow up. You own your own car, you go where you like, and you sing along with the radio or talk to yourself or chat on your cellphone. You pull into the drive-up window and order the Oreo Blizzard. What's not to like?

One day you get lucky and find someone who's willing to pay you to do something you do well or can fake, and on this you can build a life. You marry someone loving and sensible who makes you laugh, and you beget children, and go through the poop and puke and snot years, and somewhere around the age of 5 or 6, your kids start to fascinate you. There is nobody like them, except perhaps you. You would run into a burning building for them, and at the same time they're the cause of exquisite worry and consternation. At the age of 12, they look at you as if to say, Your replacement has arrived.

Meanwhile, you march forward and sample the pleasures of life. You read history and learn to grill fish in beer batter and find comfortable shoes. You go to Rome. You go to Montana. You come to love baseball and old jazz and the art of conversation. You admit to yourself that you don't care for Walt Whitman or Proust or Henry James, and you forgive yourself for that and pick up Elmore Leonard and J.F. Powers. You discover the pleasure of discarding stuff. You find a hairstyle that suits you. You go back to Montana.

Eventually you cross the line into your 40s, the mortgage years. And the 50s, when you stand weeping at graduations and weddings, and then, in the blink of an eye, come your 60s, and now you're on Easy Street. People who used to ignore you now treat you with reverence. There is great silence when you natter and pontificate, and people ask the secret of your success. You have become eminent. Inside you feel mischievous and jokey, but other people see you as a laureate, so you learn to harrumph.

Clarity is hard. Honesty can be hard. Comedy is always chancy, but then so is profundity. Sometimes one winds up as the other. Illness is, of course, to be avoided, and also megamalls and meetings involving vice presidents. But writing is not painful, no more so than a round of golf. Nobody was harmed in the course of writing this column. That is all I have to say at this time. Thank you.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Wild Speculation
a fiction reading and chapbook release
with Neelanjana Banerjee's workshop


Date: Sunday, May 17, 2006

Time: 7-9PM

Location: Space180, 180 Capp St, San Francisco

Cost: $5

Join Kearny Street Workshop for a reading of new works of fiction and the release of a new chapbook from KSW Press, Wild Speculation. Featured readers for the program are Lisa Wong Macabasco, Ravi Chandra, Corrie Bowe, Jimmy Cho, Viet-Ly Nguyen, Nina Fallenbaum, and Susanna Kwan.

Edited by Neelanjana Banerjee and KSW, with cover design and layout by Thien Pham and illustration by Susanna Kwan, the chapbook is the second in KSW Press' new chapbook series.

Reception to follow reading.

which person from asian american history would you most want to date?


Alex: I'd say "George Takei ... I've always wanted to be his Uhuru"
Alex: "and that voice!"

the last third is usually backwash
stephen colbert at the white house correspondents' dinner

yes, this happened today. gimme a break, it's friday.

crys: fave JADE one liner - "i'm a soldja sista, betta reckanize."

--

dear person in oakland who is googling marg0t and reading my blog - you are a stalker!!! eat it.

my awesome writing teacher posted this on hyphen's blog about the whole How Opal Mehta Got Kissed... fiasco:

Go ahead, call me a snob. I’ll accept this label. But I am more interested in reading and supporting new Asian American authors who are pushing past the model minority stereotypes and writing about class struggle, passion and politics in a way that doesn’t have to include discussions of brand-names and, in this case, super-elitist academic institutions. I think my critique of Viswanathan goes beyond her chick-lit genre, because this critique applies to authors like Jumpha Lahiri as well, and is more about my frustration with the lack of fiction out there about the working class South Asian community. Can we only write about first generation immigration experiences, living in the suburbs or the homeland? I don’t mean to favor subject-matter over writing quality but I think if South Asian writers continue to write about the same subjects and place their stories in the same settings, we are just limiting ourselves.

while no one can call me a great fan of ishle or any type of objective critic of jhumpa lahiri (sob!), i agree with her questioning of these categories of fiction that all asian am. writers have to fall into in order to get published. if i see one more food-related asian am. woman narrative, i may eat placenta. anyways, scroll down and see how the wolves reacted to the post. jesus.

---
in other news - m-dub is back!! but sake bombing makes my head hurt in the morning. ouch.

i used to think this was my favorite all-time photo of minnie.

but this definitely takes the...cake.



---
the almost may playlist
"gatekeeper," feist (link)
"crazy," gnarls barkley
"the police and the private," metric
"this is hardcore," pulp
"love's lost guarantee," rogue wave
"lightness," "what sarah said," "someday you will be loved," pretty much anything by death cab
"i want to be buried in your backyard," nightmare of you
"love," keyshia cole

awesome version of "crazy" from TOTP (link from goldfid):

still got it!

ali w.'s birthday party @ 111 minna - drink count:
-gin and tonic
-jaeger bomb (jager bombed into red bull)
-lemon drop martini
-shot of patron (!!!)
-kamikaze shot
-vanilla stoli and ginger ale

then, nizario's and the cross fade.

in other news, steve threw up after our $100/person dinner on friday. yes, he threw up the foie gras.

thembi's aids diary: a really touching audio diary from a girl in south africa living with aids. almost made me cry on the shuttle ride this morning...

APOCALYPSE IS NEAR

me: are you at home?
steve: No I have a sidekick now

next, you'll want wet tee shirt swimming, too.

jesus mc-crimpy

---

and by popular demand - papabasco!


dad watering his garden


the PI is the texting capital of the world - my dad can totally text in tagalog on his cell now.


minnie said: "look at his little hat!"

photo time


with our tricycle


around 6 am in pakil


rice fields and haze




the town where papabasco is from


everyone in the town has our last name, as seen here on this jeepney


CARIBOU!!


we climbed up this huge mountain at 6 am. it was as steep as the hill of my house in sf THE ENTIRE WAY. my knees were killing me.




my cute little cousin, gwenn


river "resort"


in uncle nito's (short for juanito) tricycle




just trying to fit in there


it's called turumba, and they parade a virgin mary statue around the town square


it's quite hectic.


my filipino daughter, rachel, with pancake in one hand and chocolate eggs in another


for those who have seen my baby photos in my room - isn't this me??


we made rachel pee on herself because we gave her four glasses of tang in about 20 minutes. i said to laurie, "umm, are you sure it's ok to give her this much?" and she said "yeah, why not?" rachel doesn't speak english, so laurie didn't understand what she was saying, and she ran onto the porch and peed on herself.


plaza in pakil


palm blessing on palm sunday




with gramabasco


in HK

Four jobs I've had
1. Coat check girl for private parties
2. Admin asst. at an environmental nonprofit
3. Summer day camp counselor
4. Nordstrom, Point of View dept.

Four movies I can watch over and over
1. Four Weddings and a Funeral
2. Manhattan
3. Annie Hall
4. High Fidelity

Four places I've lived
1. Manhattan
2. DC
3. Berkeley
4. Birmingham UK

Four TV shows I watch
1. The Office (UK)
2. Blow Out
3. America's Next Top Model
4. Flava of Love

Four places I've vacationed
1. Prague
2. Hong Kong
3. Paris
4. Barcelona

Four foods I love
1. brussel sprouts
2. tj's palak paneer
3. soup dumplings
4. sausage

Four sites I visit daily
1. goldenfiddle.com
2. wwtdd.com
3. weather.com
4. style.com

Four places I'd rather be
1. havana
2. berlin
3. moscow
4. reykjavik

Four random items in my bag
1. marlboro ultra lights, hk edition
2. three types of lip balm
3. foundation
4. i heart NY lighter

Four things most people don't know about me
1. I hate answering my cell phone
2. I read the new york times in print every day
3. I think being supported entirely by my partner would not be that bad
4. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a model

Four people I tag
1. itzjustjai
2. grooverobber
3. wildthangyang
4. allypoo

hilarious

Biff: she's turning all "Waiting to Exhale" and shit

emily won sf cherry blossom queen!

email from alex:

Does anyone want to have a celebration for April 20th, 2006?

Emily, will you be our ganja blossom queen?

minnie: ps love how jesus had crimped hair at palm sunday

damn, i thought i kicked the jetlag in one day, but here i am at 5:30 am, and i have been awake since 4 am. i am drinking water and contemplating eating toast.

today ali hu had a bbq, and i was probably the only one there who had not realized it was her birthday bbq until today. i always forget what sf native style is, but so many people were wearing north face jackets, hooded sweatshirts, knit caps, and timberland boots that i asked ali, "did you guys all just get back from snowboarding or something?"

i took the surrogate mister, sexy alexi (according to his dixie cup, courtesy of ali - a high school joke), who said "since when are there djs at backyard bbqs?" oh yeah, there were djs in the garage. and we were sitting right next to the speakers which were way too loud for just 20 people, so of course alex was chatting with his booming voice, and each time there was a break in the music, whatever alex was saying would echo through the entire garage. hilarious. i giggled over my fruit and salad (can't eat anything larger than that yet, still on my asia diet).

ok i made toast. with mascarpone cheese. try it. delicious.

i've got some pics from the PI and som thoughts from hk, to come tomorrow.

le tigre covers the pointer sisters' "i'm so excited"

---

the new republic takes on my only reason to wake up on thursday mornings, the thursday styles:

But it's one thing for a bunch of glorified ad vehicles--or even the rampantly capitalist Wall Street Journal--to be hawking designer duffel bags and skin cream priced higher than Jack Abramoff's legal team. After all, these publications unabashedly promote--and generally cater to readers who share--a Trump-esque mine-is-bigger-than-yours attitude toward wealth and consumption. It's quite another matter, however, for the venerable Times to lend its imprimatur to a genre so awkwardly at odds with its own high-minded liberal sensibility and intellectual pretensions. This, after all, is the same paper that, last year, ran an eleven-part series on class in America, in which it described economic mobility as "the promise that lies at the heart of the American dream" and exhaustively pondered its apparent decline. Social consciousness for The Wall Street Journal may mean crushing the welfare state, but, for the Times, it means earnest editorials packed with noblesse oblige. (Classic snippet from last Thanksgiving: "There is no shame in the poverty Americans suffer today. The shame adheres to those who do nothing to change it.") Wretched consumer excess may be the American way, but is it really the paper of record's business to lend it respectability?

i don't entirely agree with this seeming calling out of thustyles, but i do agree that i am probably one of those ambivalent bobos who feels "a twinge of shame about their aggressive acquisitiveness."

"Thursday Styles," by contrast, is seeking new converts, reassuring its more skeptical readers that there's really nothing wrong with showing off their good fortune. This is delicate work considering that even many ultra-affluent Times readers belong to the ambivalently wealthy ranks of the "Bourgeois Bohemians" profiled so piquantly in now-Timesman David Brooks's 2000 classic, Bobos in Paradise. A new breed of elites deeply conflicted about their material success, Bobos are morally appalled by any gaudy display that could make them look like "the vulgar Yuppies they despise." Writes Brooks: "Maybe off in Vegas there are still some rich peasants trying to conspicuously consume, buying big limousines, powerboats, and sports franchises and piling up possessions to demonstrate their net worth. But the Bobo renounces accumulation and embraces cultivation. He must show, in the way he spends his money, that he is conscientious and not crass." Unlike the typical in-your-face luxury porn, "Thursday Styles" grasps the conflicted code of the Bobo.

and i see myself here, too:

Similarly, complaining about the drive out to a mall well north of the city, she once quipped, "On my deathbed, I would like to be able to say I read Pushkin in the original Russian, not that I spent 12,458 hours in the pursuit of shopping." It's fine to spend absurd amounts of time and money acquiring absurd stuff, Kuczynski is assuring us, so long as you recognize the absurdity. Because the real vulgarity isn't greed, but rather a lack of self-awareness.

i actually enjoy reading the critical shopper, and i feel like she understands the conflicted nature of conspicuous consumption that more and more people are now able to participate in. i like her self-conscious asides at the shock of price tags and the reality checks. i too would like to say on my deathbed that i read pushkin in original russian (or anything in original russian), but i'm not going to be ashamed about being gold-collar either.

insomnia
while my body is still on hong kong time, there are lots of things rattling around the attic at 2 am. i liked what rj wrote recently:

i've been in california for about 8 months now. i haven't really danced since i left michigan. sometimes i worry whether or not i am still capable of doing everything i used to do, all those things i was known for. the thing with personas is that they aren't fictional representations, false identities that one might play on television, then shed like dead skin when the cameras stopped rolling. they're more like different sides of the same die, numbers that turn up when the conditions are just right; they are the shards of our ideal selves, made real and public if only for a moment. when they are gone, it is as if a portion of our soul has disappeared beneath the currents of time, leaving us with the bittersweet taste of nostalgia on our tongues. not even the wine of california's napa valley can mask its flavor.

potent images from new york, dc, london, berkeley ebbing and flowing in my dramamine addled head. it all seemed so long ago, a totally different world. i have been blessed and cursed with a bad memory that i have worked hard to achieve over the years with drugs and more alcohol than i would like to admit and a little bit of will. i stumbled in five inch heels three weeks ago in an empty dive bar with a pool table in the back off polk street. i got drenched in rain on bush near the stockton tunnel and had fernet and soggy cigarettes at a dark round table. i shivered in shorts in a windswept smoking area in front of circolo and passed along parliaments and gossip.

but how does that compare to hennessy goldschlager 151 tequila captain kamikaze shots on the ground floor of dream, dancing and smoking next to minnie and margot, buying lin a liquid cocaine and not teling him what it was, watching alice puke behind a couch at a club on H street, seeing that couple go upstairs into rj's room, telling the twins i really don't want to do another shot, not being sure if you are sweating alcohol or sweat, getting jaime some water, hey your friend is cute, hitting a foil pipe that margot made, buying from my SGM hairdresser, was my skirt this short when i left the house?, doesn't clarence look exactly like arthur?, i think he likes you, the power of suggestion, let's call him while he's on his date, she's not even that cute!, not the beer bong again, not those annoying guys again, oh my god let's do a shot. but isn't margot in the shower? she doesn't mind doing shots by herself. what is she doing in the shower at 11 pm while there is a party downstairs?

or later, stumbling through chinatown in head to toe crushing marc jacobs, thinking only of soup dumplings, and how many excrutiating steps it will take to get there, having a few drinks in the lower east side and zipping home across the bridge in a taxi in ten minutes, eating my first deviled egg and hearing minnie drunkenly scream at a bitchy looking asian girl for saying shit about wellesley, hearing a white guy do a perfect karaoke of shaggy's "angel", feeling like alice in wonderland at the dove bar, laughing in rite aid with minnie and bot about a random guy saying that caramel candy was not so good, seeing bear heads in the snow in philly.

dear lord, it's 3 am.

CONVERSATIONS I'VE HAD
DURING A NORMAL DAY
IN LOS ANGELES,
MODIFIED TO
INCLUDE THE SHOCKING
DEPICTION OF RACISM
FOUND IN PAUL HAGGIS'S
2005 FILM CRASH.

alex: man you must be a pain in the ass to fight against
alex: in WSG
alex: with all your dynamite
alex: and shit like that
me: what?
alex: HAHA
alex: OMG wrong window

asian american film lives!

so, i think most of you know how big a hater i am on asian american film. saving face? snooze. the debut? eh. charlotte sometimes? right. i just don't think i should have to lower my standards just because they're asian american films. i hold them to the same standards as any film. to me, there is no affirmative action program for asian american film, or music for that matter.

i always go into these heavily hyped films (see examples above) with high expectations - this WILL be the film that redeems my faith in asian americans' ability to make good films, to have interesting stories, and good acting. after being so disappointed so many times, i pretty much avoid all asian american film unless it's GUARANTEED to be good. which is impossible to guarantee, i know. but that is kind of the way i approach all movies i see - i want them to be in the 98th percentile of films. or have really hot guys in them.

which is why this year when 500 people asked me if i was going to the film festival, i said "(hell) no(!)" i guess it's a tribute to how popular the festival has become that so many people are asking me about it. but i was still so wary of the quality of the films. and after hearing from various folks who had seen movies at the fest. this year, i was ever more skeptical.

so i almost didn't go see the short film collection mystery arcade last night. but alex bought tickets, and i figured it would be good to do something asian american scenester-y because i haven't done much of that since the bot went british.

the first few films were total conceptual films that were trying way too hard to be art house. people, narrative is your friend. hiro was cute and interesting. steve brought up a good point during the films - what makes a film "asian american." some of these films felt more "asian" than "american" especially with all the english subtitles. which is fine, but i wonder what the criteria is. one film was made by an asian american, but featured no asian actors or plot elements. is brokeback mountain an asian american film?

but the best one by far was a canadian short called astronaut. it's a mockumentary that's not immediately apparent it's not a documentary. think of it in the same vein as the office. which is amazing in and of itself - an asian american office. crazy!! it's about three "typical" asian american young men who manage to come off as both pathetic and sympathetic at the same time (like david brent). you want to cringe but then you also want to laugh. the acting is so perfect, you almost can't believe the characters aren't real. the film is also throughly asian american (whatever that means), dealing with issues of alienation from family, acclimation to the united states, disillusionment with the american dream.

this is what asian american film should be doing - exploring new territories, really pushing the envelope to see what can be done, not merely retreading the same things that have been done before in hollywood 10,000 times. true, mockumentaries are no new thing (christopher guest). but it was so refreshing to see asian america(n males) portrayed in all their uh....glory. that was a cheap shot at all the apa dudes who play video games for weeks in a row (have fun while you can, right?), but i meant in all their complexity. apa males always have complexes about their media portrayals and masculinity, so they feel they are practically entitled to positive portrayals that boost their egos or show how lovable they are. BARF. what's should be happening is a push for more accurate portrayals of apa males (and apas in general) - that means the good (their struggles to make ends meet, to find companionship, to make human connections) and the bad (their need to control women, to be the hero, the inability to see women as more than objects that have to be taken care of and given material things). this movie showed men as they are - you want them to succeed and be happy, but then at times they're just so ridiculous.

why republicans are better in the bedroom...why liberals are (written by my co-intern at MJ!)

from the GQ one:

10. NIGHTSTAND READING
You will never hear a Republican say, “Let’s just cuddle and read The New Yorker tonight.” They understand you do not want reading materials in bed. You want a man.

Yesterday:
APPETIZER: Japanese Pork Gyoza with Chili Soy Sauce
SALAD: Red Miso Chicken Salad (Red miso marinated chicken breast tossed with spring mix)
ENTREE: Unagi Donbori (Eel, with rice and micro beans with teriyaki sauce)
SIDES: Assorted Tempura Vegetables

smoked salmon bento box:
-Ohlone smoked salmon on sushi rice
-soy-glazed fingerling potato
-blanched asparagus with sesame dressing
-pickled napa cabage

lunch menu:
seared yellowfin tuna, spaghetti in olive oil and garlic, pesto penne, artichoke bowties

new job. yes, it's true.

i'm going to start to blog what i eat for lunch. just to gloat. and, yes, it's all free!

yesterday: halibut, salad, asparagus, brussel sprouts, chickpea pattie (what?)

today: crab and spicy ahi tuna poke inari (delish!), mango and pineapple smoothie

new asianweek piece:

Woman Miscarries Twins After Attempts to Deport Her in Philadelphia

---

FINALLY



GAWKER STALKER MAPS

---

Alex: ask Steve about "mas­turb­at­ing to the Marshall Plan"

IT'S TRUE....steve.
HAHAHA.

itinerary:

this weekend: l.a. for la's future-in-laws' engagement party
march 24-26: buffalo for FIND conference
april 1-14: hong kong and the philippines family vaycay
may 19-21 (and longer): england for all tomorrow's parties
may 26 weekend: cabo for bachelorette party

jetsetter yeaaaaaaah! BUT i haven't been on a vacation in two years. so there.

Alex: and on his way out he said "you bitches are hella mediocre."

Another piece up on the MJ front page (as of today):

The Train of Death

minnie won this freakin awesome project barbie contest. check it out. when she told me about it, i said, perhaps a little too excitedly, "is cyndi lauper really going to be there?"

---
it's a motherfuckin' forehead-off

good call, goldenfiddle:



---
things you didn't learn in journalism school, part 1

[In Touch writer] Baer said she resorts to novel methods in her attempts to subvert the humiliating celebrity-journalist dynamic. "When I do phone interviews from the comfort of my own home, sometimes I put porn on in the background on mute for my own enjoyment, especially when artistes like Julianne Moore prattle on and on about their craft."

---
i'm going to be doing a session at the FIND conference on march 24-26 in buffalo. anyone care to join? PLEASE? OH COME ON!!!!!!!

---
unemployment = dvd time
this past week i saw infernal affairs (decent) and oldboy (sick). asian movie week continues with tae guk gi and ocean's 12 (what?). recommendations welcome, as long as they are old enough to be checked out from the library.

---

sheeps get their grooves on

what the fuck you doin' emmett?

TimesTalks with Death Cab and Larry David.

subject: memories
from: RJ

it was totally the american history museum. the whole thing was a lecture series focusing on korean adoptees. i think we got there a little late. to
the best of my memory, it was me, lisa, margot, and ting -- that huge (she was like "my giant") vna intern that no one really knew. there were probably more of us, but whatever.

first, it was that woman who shot that documentary about the adoption center she rolled in until she was adopted by an american family. i remember that she would have been kinda hot, except she had this crazy mole on her upper lip. she was saying some pretty heartwrenching and inspiring stuff, but the only two things that were going through my mind the whole time were, damn, her mole is fucking huge; and, boy, am i an asshole.

then it was that illustrator guy. he was funny because he didn't really talk about adoption at all. he just sort of talked about how he drew his pictures. in fact, none of his lecture actually stayed with me. i don't remember anything, other than the part when he admitted that the 10 year old boy in the picture was actually his wife, ying. his appeal came primarily from his speaking mannerisms. it was like he was telling a long, neverending joke, with each sentence on the verge of being the actual punchline.

after that, i think we all went home then met up at that place in georgetown, to drink really thick, strong coffee and smoke hookahs. my favorite part of the night was trying to get lin to make a move on candice, and lisa throwing up in the bathroom.

at least that's how i remember it.

two new articles up on motherjones.com:

1) Oceans and the Media
2) Toxic Fish and Poor Communities

also, check out the big feature on the state of oceans. i checked every inch of that sucker.

pink-ass SF sky, from my bedroom

a late valentine for all of you

the new pop 77 mix

jesus! one of the interns i worked with last summer just wrote this in last week's ny times magazine. damn.

is anyone else watching #1 single? how disgusting was it when her horridly anti-feminist sister (e.g. tells lisa to let the man do/pay/think everything!!!) folds the huge rice crispy treat square into a big fat BRICK of rice crispiness and then gnaws on it for like 20 minutes? the best part? "i need a diet coke to go with this."

rock out with your red rocket out!...more on the makers.

two more years

happy anniversary



BARF!

ziggy got married?

terry gross v. david bowie

the famous salmon scramble!!

i had to write this for a friend, and thought i might share with you all.

it's so so simple to make. the trick is that you HAVE TO HAVE sticky rice (calrose or whatever, it has to be short grain).

you need to make the salmon ahead of time - i budget about 1/3 of 1/2 a salmon steak (or 1/6 per salmon steak) per person. maybe more. anyways - you can grill or bake the salmon, any way you like - you can just do a simple salt and pepper seasoning or marinate it in some soy sauce and garlic, whatever you like to do. cook the salmon pretty much all the way through. then shred the salmon into little bits - after it's cooked it's easy to just use a knife and scrape off the salmon into little bits into a bowl. doesn't have to be tiny tiny bits, just like diced size.

also, chop up a few stalks of green onions to 1 cm wide bits - not too many to overwhelm the mixture, though, but enough for taste.

i use about 2 eggs per person, more for big eaters, less for small eaters. beat the eggs together for 30 seconds to loosen, then use a little bit of milk to lighten it up. add the salmon to the eggs and then the green onion too. add some salt and pepper.

put some butter on a pan over medium flame; when the butter gets foamy, dump all the eggs in at once, let them sit for 15 to 20 seconds, then whisk them to get a good loose soft consistency. whisk them for only until they are just cooked, then take them off the stove and top over the rice. YUMMY YUMMY.

open apple, option, escape

this was sent to me twice today, which means that you've probably already seen it.

rolling stone did a story about larry wachowski a few weeks ago - a good read. this paragraph was interesting:

And some experts believe that men who want to be women also tend to be what Larry Wachowski appears to be: a guy with a jones for technology. In 1974, Donald Laub, a plastic surgeon, and Norman Fisk, a psychiatrist, conducted a study at the Stanford University School of Medicine of 769 patients considering sex reassignment. Of the male patients, Laub and Fisk discovered an interesting predisposition: "Observation of the male-to-female group showed them . . . to be interested in mathematics and computer sciences."

i never thought i'd say this, but - my friend is on fleshbot! d is the one on the far left.

marg0t, this one's for you

---

i swear, people who romanticize riding muni ride the white people muni buses. in related news, i watched an old chinese man fall asleep on the bus today. he had the roundest head i'd ever seen on a chinese man.



---

story of the day: i have a small obsession with all these fake writers. maybe it's because dot dot dot

---

el sueter! mire!

amazing.

---

creepy.

google stereotypes

a store called "forever 21"

" When do the designers eat? We never see them eat!" they queried. "They have dinner breaks," he calmly replied.

"But does that time get taken out of the time that they have for the challenges," they specified. "No it does not - they can eat at their stations if they like," he calmy replied.

"Yes but WHAT do they eat and do they go out to eat?" they attacked! "The food is always brought in for them and it is different every meal," he calmly replied.

"Yes but WE DON'T SEE THEM EAT!!!! The show needs to be 2 hours! We want to see them eat!" the wolves cried.

...

Liza called this morning with a confession. "I DID dress for Tim last night. I was praying he'd say something about my shirt. I got it at a store called "forever 21" because I wanted to be hip and cool. I took a risk, which the judges seem to respond to. When I first saw him he put his hand up to his chin, paused, and I thought he was going to say 'I don't know about this - I'm concerned' but he said nothing, thank God. I was actually relieved. I am absolutely in love with him. I don't want him to ever be upset or anything to happen to him. If I heard from you that he was ever in a bad mood or if I ever see Santino give him grief, I swear - I'll start crying."

---

from an mj interview with burt bacharach:

MJ: Just one more question I have to ask. Everyone is wondering, did Dre fall off?

BB: Did Dr. Dre what?

MJ: Well, years after his success, in the early 90s, with NWA and his massive solo album The Chronic, Dre wrote a track, "Forgot About Dre,"about how people were saying he'd lost his touch—that he'd fallen off.

BB: Why would he write that? Dre never went anywhere. Never been gone. The guy is so present. He's one of the great record producers of all time.

---

FINALLY.

i got to go to skywa1ker ranch today for a job interview. even if i wasn't interested in the job (which i am), i would not have passed up the opportunity to see our generation's xanadu.

the interview was for a very-well paying fct-chcking (fruit-fucking?) gig at lucas' magazine. i can do the work from nyc, luckily, and it's not that many hours of work each month. but i know you'd rather hear more about the digs, so this is my reportback:

it's about a full hour drive from the city, and then about 15 minutes of driving along this curvy road through the countryside. when you get to the ranch, it's gorgeous. lots of green pastures and rolling hills. there were even two beautiful horses in the stable area. i got a glimpse of the map, and there is also an organic garden (apparently the staff cafeteria gets ingredients from there). all the buildings look like 1) english manors 2) ski lodges 3) wasp-ish connecticut homesteads.

no, no yoda. in fact, i saw nothing star wars-related. if i knew more about that movie, i would make more jokes here - but sam did say that maybe i will get a holodeck.

i'm moving back to new york to live with minnie in brooklyn next month!

source: just jared

my hipster lover, according to minnay

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kitten war: dos and don'ts

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how to write about africa

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new girl crush: nina garcia!

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minnay: "you are filled with racism today. good job."

"so let's talk about that oreo, when you put that oreo in the deep fat
- tell me how that works and what it tastes like..."

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from l.a. weekly's political highlights of 2005 (all worth a read):

2. Are Women Necessary?
Not in Hollywood, it seems. Once again, prize givers are struggling to come up with standout female performances — Carla Gugino flaunting her rack in Sin City? Judi Dench playing Judi Dench, yet again? But the problem isn’t the studios’ alone. When Warners brought out North Country, a stolidly worthy film about sexual harassment, reviewers clobbered it for being just like like Norma Rae — as if the problem with Hollywood is its insistence on churning out feminist dramas. (The same thing happened to Mona Lisa Smile.) When Fox released In Her Shoes — a touching, beautifully made film with wonderful performances — it got written off as just another “chick flick,” a fate that never seems to befall “guy flicks,” even when (like Sin City) they wallow in the most sophomoric and masturbatory male clichés. Which isn’t to say that the media don’t like so-called women’s pictures — Brokeback Mountain left reviewers weeping. They just don’t want them to be about women.

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also from l.a. weekly:

Annual Anagrams

America + Iraq = CIA REAM IRAQ

Rumsfeld = DR. FLUMES

Rumsfeld + Iraq = ALFRED SQUIRM

Bush + Rumsfeld = BLUSHED SMURF

Bush + Rice = U.S. BE RICH

Katrina = ANTI ARK

Gov. Arnold = VALOR DONG

Antonio Villaraigosa = A VAGINA SALON OIL RIOT

Mayor Antonio = AMATORY ONION

Tom LaBonge = A BONG MOTEL

Brad + Angelina = BAGEL AND RAIN

Tom Cruise = MR. SO CUTIE

Katie Holmes = LAME HOSE KIT

Tom Cruise = I, SO RECTUM

Katie Holmes = TOES LIKE HAM

Heath Ledger = THE LARGE HED

Kanye West = SWEET YANK

Conor Oberst = BORN TO SCORE

Arcade Fire = A DIRE FARCE

Sufjan Stevens = JESUS FAN VENTS

Fiona Apple = A POP FINALE

White Stripes = HE WRITES SPIT

= HER PIES TWIST

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some new tunes, courtesy of here:

"you are what you love," jenny lewis and the watson twins
"love's lost guarantee," rogue wave
"i love a man in uniform (yeah yeah yeahs remix)," gang of four
"breathe me (four tet mix)," sia
"la patte," saian supa crew