Meg and Jen want you to win Boozes of the World

My co-host Meg and me at Wednesday's Geography Bee. As always, more extensive coverage at ChelseaMindGames.com.

Video from Pete's Candy Store, May 19th

Featuring Jen Dziura coming out against leggings, Becky Yamamoto appearing as the character "Fuktard," and sets from Alex Grubard, Mark Normand, and Giulia Rozzi.

on Manhattan Avenue

Thanks to Mikey for the pic!

I have a small role in a short film

Here are some lovely screenshots from "Cesar Salad":



None of my actual lines made it into the final product. But I do look nice as "Brunette Ziegfeld Girl." Go here to watch.

Today's Poll

A few astute readers noticed that my last poll was missing some important options. This has been corrected.

 This blog needs more:

• Pandas
• Legwarmers
• Gerunds
• Cat Photos
• Sarcasm

view results
Free vote poll

what professional spelling bee hosts wear to work

Yes, those are bee-striped legwarmers. Worn with a velvet cocktail dress and Steve Madden peep-toe pumps.


Here is the provenance of the bee-striped legwarmers.

I'm second from the right oh and also I'm a girl

Comedian Cody Hess did my show a few weeks ago, so when he asked if I would debate in his "Destroyer Society for Literary Debate and Pre-Game" this past Friday, I said yes. Upon arriving, I was informed that I would need to wear a mustache. Here is a photo of me among this esteemed group. We debated "Dogs versus Cats."

Making the world "safe" for children makes it autocratic, facile, and cultureless for adults

Ha! The cops in my hometown of Virginia Beach have confiscated Abercrombie and Fitch ads from the mall and charged the store manager with obscenity! (Thanks to Kenny for the link).

Here is a (rather unflattering, but I daresay this fiasco is rather more unflattering for the ass-backwards evangelical mini-theocracy of Virginia Beach that the twin miracles of education and hard work allowed me to escape at the age of seventeen) picture of me in front of one of that very same mall's "no swearing" signs:

Please Take the Jenisfamous Poll

A new Jenisfamous.com is coming in June! (This current site was made by me in 2004, using my mad web skillz from 1998). And thus, I am taking a poll, asking what you would like to see on the new and improved Jenisfamous.com....

 What would you like to see more of on Jenisfamous.com?

• Written humor pieces
• Standup comedy videos
• Videos in which Jen talks to the camera
• Posts about social and political issues
• Posts about grammar and other nerdiness
• Posts about Jen's life and adventures about town
• Photos of Jen
• Beauty tips and other how-to articles
• Links to funny stuff on other sites

view results
Free vote poll

Jen access from work

Are you reading my blog at home because you work for The Man, and The Man, much like the nation of Qatar, has blocked my site for "objectionable content"?

Here's the secret blog address that will allow you to read my blog from work:

http://209.68.2.45/users/nmhq/jen/blog.html

(You'll have to write this on a post-it and smuggle it in to your day job).

I am all over the effing internet

I won an honorable mention in a make-up-your-own-racist-stereotype (I picked on the Poles, because "Dziura" is, you know, Polish) blog contest run by someone I used to go out with. You'd think I could've done better, you know?

I just discovered a nice review of my blog in a blog directory. I shall now blush. This review is also a little blushworthy, in a slightly NSFW way.

Several readers have brought to my attention that I am currently appearing in a campaign advertising bagels, and that this campaign has made its way to Bedford Avenue. This is true.

Monday Evening Stand-Up at Pete's: May 5th video

Starring Sean Donnelly, Cody Hess, Taylor Williamson, Scout Durwood, and Duncan Wilder Johnson.



p.s. - Don't forget the Chelsea Market Vocabulary Tournament tomorrow! Featuring the musical virtuosity of Adira Amram.

Obamarama: lefties on the left

I just noticed, in this rather poignant photo of Barack Obama autographing his book for an old woman who is holding his other hand, that Obama appears to be left-handed. So I googled, and discovered that Obama and McCain are both left-handed, and that people are making a way bigger deal about Obama's left-handedness than seems needed.

"Lefties For Obama" has informed me that James Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton were all left-handed.

As a high school student too young to vote, I once campaigned for Bill Clinton (by standing on a street corner with the rest of the Cox High School Young Democrats waving signs to all the passing cars), and thought it hilarious when our club president suggested that, as liberals, we all treat the cars to a "left-hand wave."

This Week's Shows: Come One, Come All

MONDAY

Pete's Monday Evening Stand-Up
Monday, May 19th

Pete's Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St. in Williamsburg
7:30pm
Free show, free candy

Starring Mark Normand, Lucas Held, Giulia Rozzi, Alex Grubard, and Becky Yamamoto. Hosted by Jennifer Dziura. As appears on Brooklyn Cable Access TV!

---

WEDNESDAY

Chelsea Mind Games: Vocabulary Tournament
Wednesday, May 21st

• Musical Guest Adira Amram 6:30
  
• Vocabulary Tournament (open to first 20 signups) 7:30
  
• Dorothy Von Irony's Hour of Comic Literature and Literary Comedy 9pm

The Chelsea Market, 75 9th Ave bet. 15th/16th
(in the main area, about halfway back - just walk in the front door and keep going til you hit it)

See photos and videos of previous Chelsea Mind Games.

---

SATURDAY

Our first-ever spelling bee in MANHATTAN!

The New York City Spelling Bee
Saturday, May 24th 8pm

Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, 126 Crosby St in Soho
$10 admission (to compete or to watch)
Free popcorn, cash bar
nycbee.com

---

If anyone comes to all three shows, I will give you a prize. Seriously, I should make up punch cards, like at the coffee shop. Seriously, anyone who comes to all three shows gets a signed copy of The Idiot's Guide to Jokes. And also gets to meet the small crowd of smart single people who tend to congregate around vocabulary and spelling events.

new Jenisfamous coming soon

Due to the ministrations of my web designer, working nights in Buenos Aires...

New Manhattan Spelling Bee in The Villager

Look, we're in The Villager!

Co-hosts bobbyblue and Jennifer Dziura have now brought the logophilia to the great isle of Manhattan, where the Bee occurs the third Saturday of each month.

bloomers are a "gateway garment"

I very much enjoyed this article on the role of the bicycle in the women's rights movement of the Victorian era.

Spelling Bee on Vanity Fair's blog

The spelling bee is on Vanity Fair's blog! Thanks to Amy Boyle for the delightfully smart reporting.

try your hand at trivia from last night's Chelsea Mind Games

Stuff You Haven't Thought About Since High School

What is the name of the actress who played “Blossom” on the early 1990s sitcom of the same name?

In Revenge of the Nerds, the Nerds are only able to gain standing on Adams College’s Greek Council by joining a national fraternity. They are accepted with provisional status by the only national to which they did not send a group photo. What is the name of the all-black fraternity that accepts them?

Political Scandals

In the 1840 presidential campaign, whom did Martin Van malign as "a man who wore corsets, put cologne on his whiskers, slept on French beds, rode in a British coach, and ate with golden spoons from silver plates."

The 1986 case “Nicaragua v. United States”, heard by the International Court of Justice, ruled in favor of Nicaragua, making America the only nation to ever be convicted of what charge?

What former politically scandalous figure graduated in 2006 with a master's degree in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics, having written a dissertation entitled “In Search of the Impartial Juror: An exploration of the third person effect and pre-trial publicity.”

Food

How many quarts of whole milk does it take to make one pound of butter?

What popular soft drink originally contained the drug lithium when it was introduced in 1929?

What do the Danish call a Danish pastry?

Teenagers These Days

Lindsay Lohan is launching her own fashion line, which will specialize in what item?

Which two singers named “Ashley” (various spellings) have obviously undergone, and acknowledged in the press, having had the same plastic surgery? Name both singers’ last names and the name of the surgery.

Lyrics

Teen rap sensation Lil Mama has a popular song titled after what item of cosmetics?

In the Beatles song “Taxman,” what does the taxman threaten to tax should you take a walk?

In the Black Eyed Peas song “My Humps,” what is the answer to the question “What you gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside your trunk?”

MICHAEL MALICE AND JEN DZIURA ARE JUDGING YOU!
Answers:

Mayim Bialik, Lambda Lambda Lambda

William Henry Harrison, sponsoring terrorism, Monica Lewinsky

Almost 10 or 9.86 exactly, 7-Up -- originally called "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda", Vienna bread or weinerbrod

leggings, Ashlee Simpson and Ashley Tisdale and rhinoplasty/nose job

Lip Gloss, your feet, and "I'ma get, get, get, get, you drunk, Get you love drunk off my hump" or reasonable equivalent.

More Mind Games at ChelseaMindGames.com

Today! Bring smart friends or make some there...

take it all off for spelling

Last night a very nice reporter from Vanity Fair's blog came to the spelling bee. I'd like to announce that both bobby and I, in the name of spelling, would be happy to shoot some Miley Cyrus-style photos. We are both older than fifteen, so perhaps Puritanical America can get over seeing some highly-stylized back flesh. When I was fifteen, I would have given a whole point off my GPA to be in a sexy Anne Leibovitz photo shoot.

I also learned that the pilot I shot in LA recently has just come out of the editing process and is being delivered to the network, so hopefully I'll have news soon!

New Yorkers: What do you do when your change jar gets really full? I sometimes take change to the Coinstar machine in the Food Emporium on Union Square, but I really don't want to take a 20-lb coffee can full of change on the subway. A friend told me that "back home," banks will take jars of unrolled change, but I told him I didn't think that was true in New York.

One more non sequitur...

Barbara Ehrenreich, in an article on HuffPo about Hillary Clinton, writes this charming paragraph:

There's a reason why it's been so easy for men to overlook women's capacity for aggression. As every student of Women's Studies 101 knows, what's called aggression in men is usually trivialized as "bitchiness" in women: Men get angry; women suffer from bouts of inexplicable, hormonally-driven, hostility. So give Clinton credit for defying the belittling stereotype: She's been visibly angry for months, if not decades, and it can't all have been PMS.

JEN SO ANGRY! I want to "obliterate" Iran at least five days out of every month.

Pete's Candy Store, as seen on BCAT!

The April 21st show, as seen on Brooklyn Cable Access TV, and in person by a twenty-odd people with good taste.

Part I: Jen Dziura, Ray DeVito, (TONY Joke of the Year winner!) Claudia Cogan, Shawn Pearlman, and Raquel D'Apice.



Part II: Reggie Watts and Adira Amram ... performance art supreme. This is the surrealist portion of the show.

Jewel said "I'm sensitive, and I'd like to stay that way." I could kick her ass.

A few New York observations:

People often comment that "when you give money to the homeless, they just use it for alcohol and drugs." No one ever thinks "when you give money to the homeless, they just put it into the 25-cent-per-minute peep shows in Times Square."

I thought this yesterday as the Intrepid Young Journalist and I were walking into the west side 40th St. and 8th Ave. entrance to the A/C/E, where there is a porn store with an entrance from inside the subway station, making it sort of look as though the store is sponsored and endorsed by the MTA. That subway entrance is both porn-gross and smelly-gross, and I said something like, "Oh, what a nice corner; it reminds me of masturbation and the homeless at the same time!" The IYJ said my peep-show observation was "probably spot-on." (Not that there's anything wrong with the homeless having sexual needs, even if I don't care to think about it in the subway on my way to the newest Harmony Korine film at IFC Center. I'm just pointing out that there are many ways people with ample free time can spend a little change).

Related to the MTA and its serious, serious problems:

Could the 1 train become any less frequent? Are you exercising your great sense of irony that the most sporadic, crowded train ever is the one on which every fresh-scrubbed kid ever is carrying a cello? Could you please stop cutting out local stops on the 6 (only above 96, lest you piss off wealthy white people) on the weekends? Could you stop closing all the Times Square subway entrances at 40th St., but leaving the gates open, so that a constant influx of tourists (and forgetful locals) wanders down there and wonders why people are coming out of the gates, but no one can get in, regardless of the balance on his or her Metrocard?

And speaking of Metrocards -- why do I seem to be the only one on the planet who thinks the MTA should just DOUBLE the price of the subway, provide fare breaks for people on public assistance, and fix all these fucking problems?

Seriously, if you live in the 'burbs, how much per month do you spend on your car? When I lived in Virginia, I spent something like $450 per month for a car payment, insurance, gas, and repairs, and I'm pretty sure gas is way more expensive now. If the price of an unlimited Metrocard were doubled, it would still be under $175. You can always find somebody to give tear-jerker quotes to the NY Post, as has happened every time subway fares have gone up, but the mere fact that somebody, somewhere can't afford something doesn't mean that the price is unjust. Make a box of Cheerios fifty cents, and I can find you someone who will cry to the NY Post about not having fifty cents for Cheerios. $175 a month to go wherever you want, 24 hours a day, would not be unreasonable, provided no one ever got to the L platform and saw the fancy new electronic sign say "Next L Train: 31 Minutes."

And finally, I was just reminded of something that disappointed me long ago, when I had just moved to New York:

For those tempted to try a Jamaican beef pattie (recognizable throughout suburban America as a "hot pocket," except spicy and not made in a microwave, and furthermore inserted into "coco bread," despite the fact that the pattie already comes encased in its own crust), "coco bread" contains neither cocoa nor coconuts. It's just a damn hamburger bun, deriving its name from the fact that it is split like a coconut in order to insert the beef pattie, which is both spicy-hot and temperature-hot. Thus, you are actually eating sloppy, fatty meat filling contained in a DOUBLE LAYER of empty carbs, at least one of which is made with additional beef fat. Don't go there.

I am grumpy today, aren't I? I shall now lighten up this post with a picture of a "Peep Show":

Finally, a spelling bee in MANHATTAN

We're on Facebook, and on a pretty new website.

S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G   I-N   S-O-H-O!

bench press and tweeze

Whoa. Cosmo UK runs "naked male centerfolds" (no protuberances visible, may or may not be safe for work). I want naked male centerfolds! I specifically want to feel like the men in them have painstakingly worked out, tanned, shaved, and lived on all-protein diets for months in order to garner my approval. I want this cute, muscley fellow to feel pressured by my rigorous body image standards for men.

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375

On Wednesday, I held the first-ever Math Bee at Chelsea Mind Games. Thanks to contestant Rich Zwelling for this link to Hard & Phirm's Pi Song:



I once had the pleasure of performing with Hard & Phirm at a show in LA, although they did not bring their, um, pi robot.

And now, for your mathematical pleasure, here are some of the questions I wrote for this week's Math Bee!

You are going to have two babies, one at a time, and you have a high incidence of hermaphroditism in your family. If each baby you have has an equal chance of being a boy, a girl, or a hermaphrodite, what are your chances of having two girls in a row?

1/9
1/4
2/3

If you have three pairs of leather pants, five mesh shirts, and two ball-gag-and-bridle combos, how many different outfits do you have to wear to the fetish club?

10
30
60

If, during a dry spell, you drive 50 mph for 300 miles to have sex with your ex from high school, and then you drive back via the same route but at 60 mph, what is your average speed for the trip?

54.5 mph
55 mph
56.5 mph

If there is a 1 in 10 chance you’ll be fatally run over by the A train, and a one in 5 chance you’ll be fatally stabbed in front of your local bodega, what are the chances that you will EITHER be fatally hit by the A train OR be stabbed to death?

1 in 15
2 in 15
3 in 10

Avis wants to charge you $450 for a car rental. Your Mensa membership will get you 10% off but cannot be combined with any other discounts. A coupon you found in Cat Fancy magazine will get you $30 off, and can be combined with your mother’s 5% AARP discount, since you and she conveniently share the same name. Or, you can go to Hertz, and pay only $412. Which is the best deal?

10% off from Mensa
$30 off plus 5% AARP
$412 at Hertz

If you have slept with three people who have crabs, and you have a one in two chance of getting it from each one, what are the chances you have crabs?

1/8
1/2
7/8

You are trying to cut down on your spending, so you only buy new high heels on days of the month that are prime numbers (and only one pair per day). How many pairs of high heels will you buy in June?

10
11
12

The dildo store is having a sale – however many inches long the dildo is, you get that percent off the price! If a five-inch dildo is originally $20 and a 10-inch dildo is originally $40, how much do you pay when you splurge on both?

$45
$54
$55

You have slept with 19 people. You told your mother you have slept with only 3. You told some people in a bar you have slept with 35. When you went in for an AIDS test, you decided only to count things that have happened since your last AIDS test, so you put down the number as 16. By how much is the average of your lies off from the truth?

1
3
11

You pay $1100 a month for your apartment. Someone offers you a spot in a loft in Brooklyn 50 blocks from any train, for just $900/month. You will have to walk to or from the train twice per day. For every 1000 blocks you walk, you will have to buy a new pair of shoes. The shoes cost $50. Figuring in the cost of the new shoes you will need to buy, is the new apartment a good deal?

Yes, I will save $50 per month
Yes, I will save $150 per month
No, I will lose money or the quantities will be the same

everyone looks smarter in glasses

Carolyn Castiglia came over to my place awhile ago and took these photos of my collection of eyeglasses. I own so many eyeglasses because 1) they are fabulous and coordinate with my collection of high heels, and 2) you can buy complete prescription eyeglasses for as low as $8 at ZenniOptical.com.

Photos by Carolyn, who is the bomb.

Quick, we've only got three days to run away!

I just saw an old episode of The Simpsons in which Homer, wanting to taste the forbidden wedding cake before the wedding has even begun, inserts a straw into the cake and begins to suck. Then, he's had his fill, covers the small hole with an icing rosette, and walks away -- and then the cake collapses in on itself.

Apparently, the nation's SUVs have performed this function on a small Texas town. It took me a couple seconds to process that this was a literal, not a metaphorical sinkhole (sorry, Texas):

Regulators Monitor Massive Sinkhole in Southeast Texas Town


Beware the evil sinkhole, swallowing up homes, plows that have fallen out of favor, and very slow-moving people who have no faster-moving people who care about them.

and now I run a math bee

Ha! On the day of the first-ever Math Bee, my mom reminded me of a question she used to quiz me with in those halcyon pre-kindgergarten years:

If I gave you 2 apples and then Dad ate 1.
Then Brian gave you a banana.
Dad gave you 2 oranges and ate the banana.
How many apples do you have?

Thanks, Mom! Now I am really good at the SAT. And I've only been preparing since 1982!

Welcome to Wednesday

I am glad Hillary is dead in the water after the NC and Indiana primaries, although yesterday I was pissed at this guy walking towards me on the street wearing a t-shirt picturing Obama's and Hillary's heads, with the phrase Bros Before Hoes, which is the sort of thing that, should you see it on the TShirtHell website, might make you giggle that someone came up with it, but you should certainly not buy it, because of course someone who declaims "bros before hoes" as a reason for casting his vote is no better than the George Wallace holdover in Alabama who declaims, in a less clever and rhyming fashion, something about refusing to vote for black people.

In other gendered news, the Sex and the City opening on the 30th is actually written in my calendar in pen, and I have mixed feelings about Barbara Walters and Oprah's claim that, if you sleep with a married man, you are not a "mistress" if he's not paying your bills. "Oh, please!" says Oprah. "No man's ever taken care of me."

Oh, and I'm still slowly going deaf, for anyone who's keeping track of my mysterious auditory ailment.

Tonight is the math bee (see below)!

Monday is Comedy; Wednesday is a Math Bee!

Much like your favorite local coffee shop, I am going to start handing out punch cards -- when you come to 12 shows, you get one free or something. (I'll have to figure out the details).


Monday, May 5th

Monday Evening Stand-Up
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer in Williamsburg (L train to Lorimer)
7:30pm
Free

Jen hosts a comedy night starring Cody Hess, Taylor Williamson, Tim Warner, Boston-based heavy metal spoken word performer Duncan Wilder Johnson, and lesbian Miss American contestant-turned-comedian Scout Durwood. Free candy! (This time it's Fun Dip).

As seen on Brooklyn Cable Access Television.



Wednesday, May 7th

At Chelsea Market in Manhattan...


Check out rap violinist Katie Pawluk here, and visit Chelsea Mind Games for sample questions, photos, and details.

black women's magazines are smarter than white women's magazines

I purchased this magazine because I loved the photo, above, and because I wanted to know how Vivica "secretly makes millions in the movie biz." And also because all the Cosmos and Glamours and Elles around me were advertising "How to get smoky bedroom eyes" and "His secret sex desires" and "Flat belly by summer!"

I was not disappointed! Sister 2 Sister ran a full-on eight-page interview in which Vivica Fox explained how residuals work, and the financial benefits of producing in addition to acting. An excerpt:

Jamie: So does that mean that those are intellectual properties that, should they play again, you get residuals from them?

Vivica: That's right!

Jamie: Okay. So people don't understand that. I'm always teaching in my magazine....

Vivica: So basically when I say "produce," that means I'm getting two checks.

Can you even imagine seeing that in a magazine for white chicks? Either it's a fashion and beauty mag telling you how to self-tan while losing weight, or it's a feminist magazine that's against capitalism and will tell you how to knit your own tampon cozy, but is afraid to talk about making money in any real way.

The guy I bought the magazine from at the subway newsstand was, however, a bit miffed.

The History of Western Philosophy, at Dartmouth

a brief video from my one-woman show, "What Philosophy Majors Do After College"

PhilosophyShow.com

eyeliner and melons

Actual melons, not figurative melons, you dirty-minded people.

I wore green eyeliner to the spelling bee and it looked really cool, so I tried to take a picture, but they all ended up looking creepy.

NU WAVE JEN IS WATCHING YOU

I took this photo in East Harlem.


Those are, for any still unsure, "honeydews."