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if I make the sad-kitty face, will someone give me a sitcom? pretty please? meow?

December 27, 2005

Lest anyone should accuse me of pulling a Paris Hilton and never changing my facial expression, here are some photos from the photoshoot I did for Evilkid, by Aeric Meredith-Goujon.

Related post:

I see London, I see France

Recap: December 14th Jenny Vaudeville Show

December 26, 2005

Please pardon the delay; this recap is now in service.

On December 14th, 2005, on a cold night in Williamsburg, a panoply of talented performers and a plethora of stylish and urbane audience members converged at Pete’s Candy Store for the Jenny Vaudeville Show.

First, I told some jokes, and announced that we would, as always, have contests and prizes, and that one of the prizes would be this vibrator, which has since gone up in price to $1.99, but which had been priced at sixty-nine cents when someone sent me the link, so I ordered ten as a joke, figuring the order wouldn’t go through because of the “pricing error.” A week later, I got a box of ten vibrators ($6.90!) in the mail. I still have nine.

I was not yet wearing my Wonder Woman underpants; I decided I’d shed clothing throughout the show until I was ready to fight crime.

Here is what happened then. Photos by Semyon (see the complete set here).

Erin and Her Cello started off the show with her song “At the Zoo.”
Listen here.

Comic Carolyn Castiglia not only made us all laugh, but she rapped in Dutch. I don’t think there’s a recording of that, exactly, but you can read her show recap here.

Allison, Rachel, and Nichelle competed in Comedy Trivia (2 points for a correct answer, 1 point or an arbitrary fraction thereof for an incorrect but funny answer). Rachel won a DVD, clinching the victory by answering “What happened to Rose of Sharon’s dead baby in The Grapes of Wrath?” with “It died?” for seven-eighths of a point.

Rachel Kramer Bussel, erotica author extraordinaire, read her story “Doing the Dishes.” Doing the dishes now turns all of us on. What are we supposed to do about that?
Here’s her recap.

The Rob and Mark Show regaled us with musical comedy, including “The Blog Song,” which highly amused the bloggers in the audience, including Nichelle, GirlyNYC, and Jessica Cutler.
Listen to the Blog Song here.
Somewhere in here, the “Guess the Author” contest was won by publicist Matt Caldecutt, who was the first to shout out “Ben Franklin!” as I read from an essay about how the speaker, Franklin, maintained his austere lifestyle by eating only porridge for breakfast, without even tea, but then his wife got all fancy on him and got him a silver porridge-bowl — clearly the first step on the path to debauchery and licentiousness.

Monologuist Syd Bernstein performed The Sydney T. Bernstein’s One-Man Show and One-Man Tell Christmas Special.
Read the text here.

Tony, Syd, and Mike competed in the first-ever Jenny Vaudeville “Math-Off,” speed-answering questions like “What’s five-sixths times ten elevenths?” and “If you have five ironic t-shirts, three pairs of dirty jeans, and the option to wear or not wear an ironic hat, how many different outfits could you create?” Syd won the vibrator.
Somewhere around this time, photographer Semyon went home. Brian Van was on hand to capture the next act (and to take the entire set of photos I previously blogged — see them again here).

And, the finale! The Dartmouth Cords, an a capella group on tour during their holiday break from college, rushed into the room, utterly filling the diminutive stage. They even performed a comedy sketch in between songs. Quoth Jessica Cutler: “I felt all ‘Mrs. Robinson’ around those young boys.”
Listen here.
By this point, I was down to my Wonder Woman underpants, but you’ve already seen those photos. I hear the party went on after I left around 1am. I was exhausted, but extraordinarily pleased. I put some pants back on and headed into the cold.

Next show: Wednesday, January 11th, 10pm, Pete’s Candy Store. Featuring Zeroboy (the human sound-effects man!), musical comedy by Rachael Parenta, ventriloquism by Carla Rhodes, special musical guest The Two Man Gentlemen Band, and glass-walking and other circus tricks by the beautiful and deadly Pyrate Sisters.

Related post:

Jenny Vaudeville – Saving the world from Nazis

Prolegomenon to Any Future Blogsterbation

December 26, 2005

I’ve been catching up on various people’s blogs, and perusing some new ones, and it’s a bit melancholic. The vast majority of people I’ve met in the blog scene I like very much individually, but when blogging occurs, generally speaking, there’s all the sniping and cliquishness and damnation by faint praise and even passive-aggressive linking.

There a name I can’t remember for the idea of how space (as in architecture and urban planning and simple geography) affects our behavior; the classic example is that when you put front porches on the houses, people talk to each other more. People in New York buy more iPods than people in LA because we take subways and they have car stereos. Something inherent in the medium of blogging makes people substantially less chill.

I am noticing from bloggers the sort of obsessive dating-type behavior of the sort generally ascribed to girls, usually derogatorily — if you and another blogger attend an event and that blogger is later mentioned and not you, well, that’s easy to interpret; however, if both of you are mentioned but the other blogger gets a link and you don’t, well, maybe that’s a little backhanded, isn’t it?

I was talking to Megan once about how obsessive dating behavior is just that — obsessive — but that doesn’t make it incorrect. It is often quite precise, even if engaging in it changes the nature of the experiment (that is, one’s actions in checking up too much on a budding relationship will change the very thing one is checking up upon¹).

For example: you’re seeing someone, not yet in a relationship. You send an email² and it goes unanswered for 24 hours. No big deal. But while passing the time, you log on to the personals site where the two of you met, and see that the person who has not answered your email for the last 24 hours has logged in to the personals in the last two hours.

Is this behavior obsessive? Completely. One should avoid acting this way. But are you wrong that someone’s just not that into you? No, you’re probably right on the money.

In contrast to this tightly-knit web of overanalysis, I hope to somewhere find a gentleman who is straightforward and relatively immune to others’ evaluations of him, and we can stay in and watch Netflix movies. I could go back to New Hampshire and find a nice lumberjack³ who has lice in his beard⁴ but, when he is unhappy about something, chops wood instead of blogging about it and then getting bummed if the comments don’t go in his favor. Also, it has been a long time since I have owned a wooden birdfeeder. I know men who can make their own sushi, but none who make birdfeeders.

In closing, blogs are mean. The First Annual MySpace Stupid Haircut Awards are both mean and funny.

The end.

1) Can anyone remember the name of the principle in science that states that observing an experiment changes the outcome?

2) A simple one, like “Do you like the Fugees? I do. Hey, let’s get lunch,” such as might receive a brief but prompt reply. Not something like “Where is this going? I’ve been hurt a lot, so I just wanted to ask now” such as might be expected to receive a reply just right after never.

3) My college really had a forestry team. They speed-felled trees in competition, but the Canadians always won.

4) Hyperbole.

December 30th: bring us your poor, your huddled masses, your Dr. Phil books and crocheted tissue-box cozies

December 25, 2005

“The Re-Gifting Comedy Show”
December 30th, 11pm, FREE
Pete’s Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St in Williamsburg

Remember the Seinfeld episode about “re-gifting” — giving as a gift something that was given to you, but you didn’t like enough to keep? Bring an unwanted gift to this show — all gifts will be circulated and redistributed, so you might come home with something better! Comedians will keep you entertained as the bad gifts go ’round.

Featuring Jill Twiss, Aaron Haber, Jenny Rubin, Theron Steiner, Rachael Parenta, Jackson Yung, Elon James White, Brad Aldous, and Michelle Buteau!

Merry Christmas, in art

December 25, 2005

It’s nearly Christmas! I have already received a very warm bathrobe and a tea strainer, both of which are very useful. I hope that you, too, are warm and, um, strained.

Here are some holiday greetings by my artist friends — click each to enlarge.

Molly Crabapple

Jamie B. Wolcott

Aaron Hitchcock

no snow … it’s more like a bamboo forest in here

December 25, 2005

I’m at home in Virginia, where my parents’ office is filled to the brim with my mother’s stuffed panda bears and panda memorabilia. My mother has taken up watching the San Diego Zoo’s PandaCam. Apparently, the baby panda somersaults around while his mother keeps him in check, and the daddy panda spends hours shoveling bamboo into his mouth and then collapses and goes to sleep, face first, on a rock.

The news in Jenville (Jenland? Jenistan? Jenoslovakia?)

December 23, 2005

• There are two new reviews on the Sarcastic Sex Toy Blog. Dirty, dirty, wry, and dirty.

• I took the Metro North to and from work (I was teaching an SAT class near Grand Central), and both times no one checked tickets, so I still have an unpunched $8.50 round trip ticket from Harlem to Grand Central. I can’t imagine when I would ever need to use this.

  When I left for work, there was word of an end to the strike; when I arrived back in East Harlem, I saw people walking in and out of the subway, and it was like the hopeful end to some kind of post-apocalyptic science fiction film, like when everyone escapes from the bubble in Logan’s Run.

• This is tenuous and could fall through, but I have been selected to be an egg donor again! Mom and Dad gave me good genes. We should get a family crest bearing the Latin version of “No alcoholics, suicides, or birth defects!” If it weren’t terribly offensive, I could start an egg donation blog called (wait for it…) “Eujenics.”

new on the Sarcastic Sex Toy Blog: The Vibrating Hairbrush

December 22, 2005

Ten bucks. It also works as a dog whistle, a teacup, and the Cliffs Notes to Wuthering Heights.

I love my tutoring job (and New York)

December 22, 2005

Today I discovered that the mother of one of my tutoring students — the nice, pretty woman who makes tea while I’m teaching geometry — was in the original cast of Cats.

what’s the point of plastic surgery when everyone can see your "before" on TV?

December 22, 2005

I’m not one to go calling out signs of impending Apocalypse — I think that reality shows and rampant Hollywood cheek implants are appalling, yes, but that people used to get disemboweled in the Spanish Inquisition, and that overall, society will be just fine.

Tonight I saw an episode of Dr. 90210, in which porn star Tabitha Stevens got new cheek implants and a large woman received massive liposuction plus a breast lift and augmentation while her seventeen-year-old sister (who looked about twelve) got “full C cup” breast implants to match. (I know that a seventeen year old with enormous knockers sounds kinda hot, but watching her mom pressure her into unnecessary surgery was just creepy).

I have now seen what it looks like when someone’s breast tissue is removed through a nipple-area hole, an implant is shoved under their pectoral muscle, their actual breast tissue is shoved back through the hole, and their nipple is sewn back on. I never thought I would see that. Disembodied breast tissue looks kind of like brains.

I liked how the doctors would never say that something looked good. They were very careful. They would say things like “This will make her look more like she wants to look,” or “This will create an appearance that will improve her perception of herself.” In the case of Tabitha Stevens, freaky ex-porn star (she is currently producing a non-porn film about a porn star who goes on a spiritual journey to leave porn, during which she, Tabitha Stevens, playing herself, is strung up via shark hooks through the skin of her back), the doctor was like “This is what the bitch wants. She thinks it looks good, I’m gonna call this a day.”

It’s 12:50. Do you know where your MTA workers are?

December 20, 2005

The NY Times, Fox 5, the Post, and the NY Daily News are all mum on whether there’s a strike. All are still displaying articles that say things about the city bracing for the possibility of a strike at midnight.

Winning the award for useless journalism is the Daily News, running an AP story that first asked “How can you give a raise to a bus driver who would make three old ladies walk home in the cold?” and then went all-out Dr. Strangelove on us with this closing graf:

Jose Padilla, 34, said he and fellow Coca-Cola employees are meeting at 4 a.m. to come up with a plan to put more workers in trucks to ensure their product gets delivered in the case of a strike. “We have to get the Coke to the people,” Padilla said. “Just because there is a strike, people don’t stop drinking coke.”

Yes, Jose. We have to get the coke to the people. Wars have been fought over less.

praise be to Harlem

December 19, 2005

I’m down to my last pair of two-week disposable contacts, and, somewhat embarrassingly, my mother has been buying my contact lenses for me from the time I started wearing them to, well, age 26. I now have health insurance (and have for nine days!), but I wasn’t sure how to use it or whether I had any kind of vision benefits. I finally just walked into my local barrio optical shop, “Wizard of Eyes,” got an immediate appointment, had a perfectly pleasant eye exam, and will be able to pick up my contacts tomorrow.

Adulthood comes in peculiar little quanta. I ran a company when I was 19 (not fantastically, but I was the only undergrad doing it at Dartmouth, even in the height of the dotcom era), but waited until I was 27 to see an eye doctor by myself.

I can’t wait for prom!

audio: I had a baby with a gay man

December 19, 2005

Here’s another clip from the radio interview I did with “The Stress Factor,” this time discussing my babymama, the baby I’m having with a gay man, and how these things only happen deliberately.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

“I had a baby with a gay man” – from “The Stress Factor”
I have another clip or two to post from this, but my favorite bit is actually right after I got off the phone (I had been talking about “fellatio plus melons”), when the hosts had this discussion:

“Holy moly, is what I have to say.”"We’re gonna all just, we’re gonna all just….”

“I think I need a cigarette.”

(laughing)

“Okay, we’re going to come back and deal with some of your relationship emails and issues.”

“At this point I don’t even care.”

but I am using mine with verve and panache! it’s different, I swear!

December 19, 2005

When I first saw the clever defacement of this Treo ad, I thought, Ha, yuppie wankers, foiled again!

My next impulse was to take a picture … with my Treo.

click to enlarge

they’re called "pants," and it’s not so bad

December 19, 2005

Megan and I saw these winter shorts in the window of Forever 21 on Union Square. We stared at them, not wanting to say the obvious: wouldn’t our legs be cold?

It seems such a silly, unnecessary question, yet there are the winter shorts, in all their tweed and wool and pinstripe.

Megan said: “Great, I guess I’ll go put on my corduroy bikini.”

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