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Feast on figs and halal chickens! Buy detective novels in Urdu!

September 30, 2004

Here’s a new picture by Gary Winter. I’ve put up three new photo galleries recently, and more will be up when I get the time. But, really, this is a nice picture, but please just scroll down and send some money to the lady in Pakistan.

You know, speaking of the lady in Pakistan, the journalist said something about wanting to assure people who donate money that the funds will go to the school that she started. And I’m thinking, oh please, I don’t care.

In fact, I would really like it if she would take my money and get herself the Muslim equivalent of a latte and a nice manicure. Buy a gilt-inlaid Quran! A silk-lined burqua! I don’t care. Jesus. (Well, not Jesus, actually). Take the money.

you must be using oil of olay!

September 30, 2004

On a similiar inappropriate t-shirt note, the other day I saw a Hispanic woman, about 30 years old, walking through East Harlem in a bright red t-shirt that said:

son of a beach

and still in the swim

at 70!

Maybe she’s a thrift store shopper who just didn’t care what the shirt said … or else she actually just can’t read that much English, and figured she’d take the risk anyway.

Or, she’s got one bitchin’ sense of humor.

remember that Lionel Ritchie song "Hello… is it me you’re looking for?"

September 30, 2004

In the West Village today, I saw a fat little blind girl walking down the street with a white cane, being led by an older woman. The little girl was wearing a t-shirt that had a picture of a license plate and said:

state of
PERFECTION
4ever

What kind of cruel joker dresses this kid?

p.s. – Lionel, you really don’t want to end sentences with prepositions, or use an “it” with no antecedent. The line really should be “Hello, am I the one for whom you are looking?”

my writing class is, itself, fiction

September 30, 2004

Today I booked it downtown to get to the first session of my writing class on time. It was supposed to be 11-2, and when I found the address, it turned out to be an elementary school. No problem there; Gotham Writers Workshop often rents space from schools and other facilities. However, 11am on Thursday is the middle of the schoolday; there was no writing class.

I left, puzzled. On my way back to the train, I saw a Gotham box on the street: brilliant! I picked up a catalog and discovered:

- the class is Tuesday, not Thursday

- it’s at another location entirely

- it doesn’t start until next week

I have no idea how I could have made so many errors simultaneously. I’m looking for my confirmation letter so I can try to disclaim responsibility for at least one of those errors.

jesus fucking h. fucking christ. please donate money.

September 30, 2004

The Op-Ed Sentenced to Be Raped appeared in the NYTimes yesterday (requires free registration to read). Here is an excerpt below. Holy fucking shit.

—

Usually we journalists write about rogues, but Mukhtaran Bibi could not be more altruistic or brave, as the men who gang-raped her discovered….

In June 2002, the police say, members of a high-status tribe sexually abused one of Ms. Mukhtaran’s brothers and then covered up their crime by falsely accusing him of having an affair with a high-status woman. The village’s tribal council determined that the suitable punishment for the supposed affair was for high-status men to rape one of the boy’s sisters, so the council sentenced Ms. Mukhtaran to be gang-raped.

As members of the high-status tribe danced in joy, four men stripped her naked and took turns raping her. Then they forced her to walk home naked in front of 300 villagers.

In Pakistan’s conservative Muslim society, Ms. Mukhtaran’s duty was now clear: she was supposed to commit suicide…. But instead of killing herself, Ms. Mukhtaran testified against her attackers and propounded the shocking idea that the shame lies in raping, rather than in being raped. The rapists are now on death row, and President Pervez Musharraf presented Ms. Mukhtaran with the equivalent of $8,300 and ordered round-the-clock police protection for her.

Ms. Mukhtaran, who had never gone to school herself, used the money to build one school in the village for girls and another for boys – because, she said, education is the best way to achieve social change. The girls’ school is named for her, and she is now studying in its fourth-grade class….

She has had to buy food for the police who protect her, as well as pay some school expenses. So, she said, “I’ve run out of money.” Unless the schools can raise new funds, they may have to close.

Meanwhile, villagers say that relatives of the rapists are waiting for the police to leave and then will put Ms. Mukhtaran in her place by slaughtering her and her entire family.

—

So, I found a place in the Forums on the Times where the journalist tells how you can donate money. He writes:

I don’t have great faith in the Pakistani postal system. So I’m arranging another route to get reader checks to Mukhtaran Bibi –I’m going to DHL them to an interpreter in the provincial city two hours away, Multan, and he’ll hand-carry them to Mukhtaran. I’ll cover the costs, so the donations will go 100 percent to Mukhtaran and her schools…. You can make the checks out to Mukhtaran Bibi (DON”T MAKE THE CHECKS OUT TO ME!) and mail them to me, and I’ll get them to her. My address is:

Nicholas Kristof

The New York Times, op-ed, 10th floor

229 West 43rd Street

New York, NY 10036

So, please do that. I mean, I’ve been giving money to mariachi bands on the subway. I’m sure a few bucks goes a long way in Pakistan.

on one episode of Star Trek: TNG, some aliens wanted to clone Riker and he replied "That would diminish me in ways you cannot even imagine"

September 30, 2004

My cell phone died today — it won’t take a charge no matter how long it’s plugged in or to what outlet. I went to Best Buy, where I have a maintenance plan, and they tried to look me up in the computer. They couldn’t find me by phone number, so I asked if they could just look me up by name.

“The database is for the whole country,” said the customer service lady, “so we get like 300 results.”

“I have a really unusual last name,” I said.

So she typed it in and I expected what usually happens when someone types in D-Z-I-U-R-A — they look back up and say “Jennifer?”

Instead, she reads out an address that totally isn’t mine. And then another. And another. There were FOUR Jennifer Dziuras in their database. I mean, there are usually NO other Dziuras in the phone book, much less Jennifer Dziuras. Now, there not only exist FOUR Jennifer Dziuras, but FOUR Jennifer Dziuras who bought cell phones at Best Buy.

I find it easier to believe that I have multiple personalities and have been squatting, Fight-Club style, in abandoned buildings around the city and opening multiple cell phone accounts with those addresses, than to believe in the existence of so many other Jennifer Dziuras.

The first rule of Jenisfamous is you don’t talk about Jenisfamous.

does anyone want any stickers?

September 30, 2004

If you want to stick jenisfamous.com stickers on stuff (without getting me in trouble via acts of pernicious vandalism), send me an email and I’ll mail you some stickers.

Good places to stick stickers are in bars where there are already stickers for bands everywhere, and on old posters for the Republican Convention.

the human stain of the MTA

September 29, 2004

I. A few days ago, I was crocheting on the subway, and the older lady near me asked what I was making, and I said it was a scarf, and that I only know how to make scarves. And she insisted that I get a crocheting book and follow the patterns and it’s not that hard, and she went on to tell me she had learned some patterns from a book and had made eight of “these things … on tables … with pineapples on them.”

“Placemats?” I said.

Yes, she agreed. She was depressed because she had broken up with her boyfriend, so she just kept making placemats.

II. Today on the platform at 125th St, an older man approached me and politely said “Excuse me.” He looked reasonably well-kempt, and I thought he was going to ask about where the train went. Instead, he said “You’re so beautiful. Such a beautiful lady.” I thanked him and looked away, and shifted my body position to indicate that the conversation was over. “Excuse me,” he said. Oh, I’m thinking — that was just a prelude to asking directions. I turn back. “You’re such a beautiful lady” he says again. And then about five more times. And then he grabs my hand and asks for some change.

On the train, a passenger standing in front of me held something out at eye-level — an open bottle of hand sanitizer. She told me that man was crazy, and I shouldn’t be so trusting.

I cupped my hands and she squirted sanitizer into them.

III. I always want to do pullups on that bar that runs down the middle of the train. One late night, I was in a car populated only by me and several MTA employees in jumpsuits. I was staring at the bar so intently that one of the workers asked if I saw something funny, and I explained about the pullups, and he suggested I go ahead. So, with everyone watching, I got up, did a pullup — and promptly hit my head on the top of the car.

In order to save face, I did a couple more pullups, sat down, and privately lamented my new headache.

Drawing group in DUMBO – see me there on Oct 27

September 29, 2004

I will be modeling for Fred Harper’s drawing group in DUMBO on October 27, 7-10pm. The cost for artists is $10. The group is every Wed. night, including tomorrow (but cancelled Oct. 6).

To get on the mailing list, and for directions, questions, etc., email fred@fredharper.com

I’m so little and sticky (for real this time!)

September 28, 2004

I got my stickers in the mail today! I can say that stickerguy.com is both slow and cheap, or both cheap and slow. It is, however, an entirely acceptable tradeoff for being able to buy small quantities of stickers for amounts as low as $20.

I must say, I think I pixellate rather well.

site updates!

September 28, 2004

The Modeling section has new pics!

Vintage lingerie photos are in!

September 28, 2004

I’ve received the first installment of photos from the vintage lingerie fashion show and am working on putting them up on the site. Here’s a tiny sneak preview!

Go see my roommate’s play! It has a warning about "Nudity and Coarse Language"!

September 28, 2004

Eternity: Time Without End

a play by Duncan Pflaster

When eleven diverse people come separately to a secluded beach looking for a rumored fountain of youth, they find more than they bargained for. Duncan Pflaster’s entertaining and provocative new play explores issues of community, homosexuality, childhood, innocence, and sacrifice.

“…Most of Duncan Pflaster’s work has a Thornton Wilderesque quality to it. (…) This author is truly among the current undiscovered great off-off Broadway writers.”

- G.S. Bowen, “Hi-Drama” (Manhattan Cable Show)

Playing Oct 7-19. Times/info/tickets at Cross-Eyed Bear Productions

Plaster: Stickiness without End

September 28, 2004

I have a roommate named Duncan Pflaster who is a playwright whose play I will post about in a minute.

About ten minutes ago, however, someone buzzed my door. Our buzzer doesn’t work, so I looked out the window and saw a delivery man with a package. Thinking that this might be something I had ordered, I threw on some decent clothes and ran down four flights of stairs to catch the delivery man before he went away.

On the way down, I swooshed around the corner — where a workman was re-plastering the hallway after the building was torn up during a spate of electrical rewiring — and put my hand in wet plaster. It was gross.

I got the package and it turned out to be for Duncan. I brought the package upstairs and decided that now, the official party line is “Eww, now I’m covered in Pflaster!”

my mom deserves her own Yahoo fan group

September 27, 2004

“You can visit any time you want. Dad is off EVERY Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Actually, your dad is a little off all the time.”

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