Tonight’s Show

July 17, 2006

This Monday, July 17th
Pete’s Monday Evening Stand-Up
7:30pm @ Pete’s

Free comedy as always. Featuring Brad Aldous, Charles Star, Amanda Pettit, Lucas Held, and Shawn Hollenbach, and hosted by Jenisfamous. Plus FREE CANDY and MAD LIBS.

Click here for a map to Pete’s.

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we miss thee, dear dorothy parker

July 15, 2006

I really enjoyed the name of this book-recommendation list on Amazon:

<a HREF=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display/-/2PM0JR1221P3B/ref=2/103-9400165-8502217
“>So you’d like to… Become the smartest, sexiest, most ideal woman among women: a guide by Alessandra Eakin, default expert through withering experience.

I own at least two of her recommended tomes.

In related news, Alex Kuczynski, about whom I have previously written in a post entitled “class(ism) and the New York Times (again),” has written a book entitled Beauty Junkies.

After (scroll down to post below) having to explain surrogate motherhood to my thirteen-year-old students, I was amused and amazed by Kuczynski’s anecdote about having liposuction…

which her stepson’s eight- or nine-year-old friend recognized immediately on a sunbathing Kuczynski. “Did you have fat cut off your butt?” he asked.

What kind of eight or nine year old even knows that that is an option? An eight or nine year old with a trust fund.

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a day in the life of an SAT instructor

July 15, 2006

I recently explained the word “abstemious” to some SAT students, which required me to explain what sorts of things a person might abstain from.

But that wasn’t as uncomfortable as when I was teaching the Latin root “gen,” meaning “birth, creation; type, kind,” as in generation, gender, genesis, genocide, ingenuous, and ingenue. One student asked about “genital herpes.” I always try to be encouraging, so I went on to say that, why yes, the “genitals” are the parts one uses to make (“generate”) babies.

But that wasn’t as uncomfortable as the time I was teaching a vocabulary class to some thirteen year olds, with a manual that suggested that students could use common expressions and phrases to decipher the meaning of new words — for instance, “abominable” in “Abominable Snowman.” Or … “surrogate” in “surrogate mother.” Except that no one in the class knew what a surrogate mother was. The students were, in fact, quite baffled to learn from their English teacher that “doctors can take a man’s, er … genes … and a woman’s genes and put them together to make a baby and then put the baby in another lady if the first lady can’t do it herself.”

Forget “abstemious” — maybe I should just start teaching sex ed.

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Start Me Up

July 14, 2006

For a recent audition, I was asked to comment on the video for the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up”:

I love you, Mick. But that outfit would make a grown man cry.

It is truly a sign of virility to be able to look butch in a skin-tight lavender v-neck t-shirt tucked into white sweatpants.

My eyes dilate
My lips are green
My hands are greasy
She’s a mean, mean machine…”

Mick, I think that means you need to get tested for syph.

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Times Square fashion watch

July 14, 2006

Dear tourists,

Thank you for visiting. I am writing to congratulate you for no longer doing so in brand-spankin’-new puffy white sneakers. You have now graduated to clunky plastic gardening clogs.


Strangely elderly.


Are you in nursing school?


You have got to be kidding me.
I grant that this is an improvement of at least 30%, in no small part because you are no longer sporting the conspicuous white athletic socks that accompanied your previous matching family set of Reeboks.

We inch towards grace, in baby steps, all our lives. I have faith in you. Keep up your progress towards non-stupid footwear.

Seriously, buy some fucking normal shoes.

Yours,
Jennifer Dziura

p.s. You do not have to wear le Manolos. You could try le Skechers.

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"And seriously, who would buy a hamburger for a computer-distorted voice emanating from a leaden wall?"

July 13, 2006

There has been a debate about my McSweeney’s piece, in which I claim paranormal mind control powers, on the James Randi Educational Foundation forums.

I am amused.

The McSweeney’s link has been sent to James Randi himself by at least two people (including me), but he has not replied. Posts in the comments purporting to be from James Randi are clearly apocryphal (thanks, M.P.).

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miscegenation

July 12, 2006

Apropos to the Wonder Woman blog, my BFF Megan showed up at Monday’s Williamsburg Spelling Bee bearing a three-foot-high gift bag containing a two-foot high stuffed Wonder Woman.

We then proceeded to sit at the corner of Lorimer and Conselyea and chat, with Wonder Woman on my lap, causing cars to slow down (well, indirectly, anyway) and their occupants to grin at us, sometimes staring and grinning continuously for such a length of time as to seem aggressive, as though these drivers and passengers sought a personal acknowledgement that, truly, their love of Wonder Woman is as great as mine, and I should grin back at them in Wonder-recognition.

I brought Wonder Woman home and, due to the mischief of another occupant of my house, the next morning I woke up to see this on the couch (that’s W.C. Fields):

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a very merry unbirthday, to me, to me

July 11, 2006

It’s my McSweeney’s Day!

Click here to read:

AN OPEN LETTER
TO JAMES RANDI
REGARDING HIS “ONE
MILLION DOLLAR
PARANORMAL
CHALLENGE.”

BY JENNIFER DZIURA

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booze and half-naked women in the middle of the day, all in the name of "art"

July 9, 2006

I should like to inform the artistically-minded among you of my lady-friend Molly Crabapple’s cabaret-themed drawing group, coming up this Saturday, nestled comfortably in the bosom of Williamsburgh.

Dr. Sketchy’s
Saturday, July 15th 3pm-6pm
10 dollars (15 for a table)
Lucky Cat Lounge
245 Grand St, btw Driggs and Roebling

Visit the site

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we’re c-o-n-t-a-g-i-o-u-s

July 9, 2006

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee has spread to Seattle!

From the creators and champions of the hit night in Williamsburg, Brooklyn comes Re-bar’s latest monthly series: Seattle Spelling Bee! …

Currently leading the pack of bees [in bars] is the Williamsburg Spelling Bee, in Brooklyn, New York. Pete’s Candy Store, named Best Bar by Zagat’s Survey New York City Nightlife Guide 2002, hosts the bee which takes place every two weeks and is co-hosted by flamenco singer bobbyblue and comedian Jennifer Dziura.

Josh Malamy emerged as the Williamsburg bee’s 2nd Season champion in October 2005. He has relocated to Seattle recently with partner Benjamin Williams. Josh and his relationship with Benjamin were profiled in a tell-all article about Brooklyn’s adult spelling scene in the The New York Times.

New York Times photo by G. Paul Burnett:
Season 2 winner Josh Malamy, Season 3
winner Jonathan Lill, bobbyblue, and me
in my “Kiss My Spelling Bee” t-shirt.

Relatedly, the next Williamsburg Spelling Bee is tomorrow and features some pretty swank prizes.

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keep children away from the crack basin

July 9, 2006

Someone was abusing his Chinese-English dictionary:

click to enlarge
I scanned this off a package I bought in an East Harlem housewares store, where one could also purchase a DVD copy of Lassie in Spanish for $1.

Each time the blue comes out can make the great cleanliness function!

And, “be sure to be affected by hot water and rigidity water.” I mean, most people are already affected by hot water (try splashing some on them!), regardless of the cleanliness of their home toilet bowls. But, most importantly:

KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN,
WITHOUT USING THE CRACK BASIN.
Maybe they should give these toilet bowl cleaner instructions to convicts on their way out of prison. Good advice for living.

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on whether I am an axe murderer

July 8, 2006

I have previously blogged here about the Amazon page for my CD, on which someone was previously selling one of my CDs for $999.99. (When I emailed the seller, I was told it was a clerical error, and then the item disappeared from the site entirely).

I have now noticed that, in the “related products” area of the Amazon page for my CD, this appears:


I have no idea why. None of my track names or CD liner information mentions axe murdering (or Mike Myers), and I think it goes without saying that I am not an axe murderer.*

Of course clicking on the link takes one to a page for the film “So I Married an Axe Murderer,” which features Mike Myers performing some humorous spoken-word poetry, and as such, it’s a rather good match, really. But who is responsible?


And what if instead of “axe murderer,” some unsuspecting band puts out an album and their page inexplicably says “related products: child molestation”?

* If I were interested in entering the murdering profession, I would invest in a more efficient and diverse set of murdering implements in order to attain my murdering profession goals in the most expedient manner possible.

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In the news…

July 5, 2006

China has built a high-speed railroad to Tibet.

Because sometimes you just
have to go oppress someone and
then rush back to Shanghai
for a lunch meeting.

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it’s hardly the great American novel, but…

July 3, 2006

I have had a piece accepted for publication by McSweeney’s, and it is in the queue for publication but not yet published, and I keep checking back to find out when my McSweeney’s Day shall be.

When it is my McSweeney’s Day, please send me congratulatory e-cards featuring obnoxious music and animated animals.

In other notes, I am a contributor to this book, appearing on store shelves near you on September 5th:

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subliminal

July 2, 2006

One of my favorite photographers, Aeric Meredith-Goujon, has started a new website wherein he posts one photo per day. It is lovely, although rather full of nipples and thus not safe for work.

Hmmn, I just remembered I need to call my mother.

Previous posts featuring Aeric’s photos of me:

damn these stockings! damn them to hell!
official endorsement
what happens to a dream deferred?
fashion weirdo

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