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we have a hard time accepting that our business is seasonal

October 31, 2006

Just in time … Thanksgiving costumes!

I’ve got cranberries! Who brought the smallpox?

FYI

October 31, 2006

Halloween is gauche as fuck.

"uncovered meat"

October 30, 2006

From the Times, the top Muslim cleric in Australia “said sexual assaults might not happen if women wore a hijab and stayed at home”:

“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it,” he said, according to the translation, “whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.”

There are just so many problems with this analogy. For instance, women in Western street clothes are not the first thing that comes to mind when I think “uncovered meat.”

Secondly, men are now cats in this analogy? Like, Michelle Pfeiffer in the second Batman movie?

Thirdly, the problem with uncovered meat is not necessarily so much its enticingness as its propensity to spoil. Does a hijab serve a Saran-Wrap-like function, preventing spoilage? If so, Upper East Side women would probably start wearing it every day, to prevent aging. Hrm, isn’t it funny that the few people who would actually gain some health benefits from shrouding themselves entirely in fabric — that is, very pale people living in very sunny regions* — are rarely the people who do?

* Fun reminder of our own mortality: white people in Hawaii are the most likely of any people on Earth to get skin cancer.

a predominate number of Enterprise people

October 30, 2006

According to this highly inaccurate website…

Specifically, there are 1,397,854 people named “Jennifer,” and 0 named “Dziura.”

Hear that, Jen 2.0? (Actually, I have no idea what that means for Jen 2.0, A.K.A. my brother’s fiancee Jennifer, who is changing her name to “Jennifer Dziura.” It might mean that I don’t exist, and therefore the name is perfectly available for her use, which would make her quite confused indeed when she receives this How to Legally Change Your Name Kit as a wedding gift).

I’m going to end this post with a selection from the teleplay of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Up the Long Ladder”:

     RIKER   You want to clone us?

     GRANGER   Yes.

     RIKER   No way. Not me.

     GRANGER   How can you possibly be harmed?

     RIKER   It's not a question of harm. A   single William Riker is unique,   maybe even special. Hundreds or   thousands of them diminish me in   a way I can't explain.

     GRANGER   You would be preserving yourself.

     RIKER   Human beings have another way of   doing that. We have children.

 Granger looks to Pulaski. She shakes her head, refusing. To Picard who also shakes his head.

     PICARD   I think you will find this to be   the attitude of a predominate   number of Enterprise people.

but I DO have jokes about Voltaire

October 26, 2006

Friday’s Ivy League comedy show is in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

(Mom, you’ll have to get your own copy).

she was asking for that unintended pregnancy by the way she was dressed

October 24, 2006

CNN reports that women wear sexier clothing when they are ovulating.

I wonder if sexier clothing would help sell some eggs?

This time around, I have a (straight) couple on the East Coast who wants my eggs, but wants to wait til ‘07 to get started.

God, I can’t wait to knock up a surrogate again.

on the topic of extraterrestrial life

October 24, 2006

Apropos to tonight’s debate for Vice Magazine (I will be debating UFO proponent Stanton Friedman about, well … UFOs), please enjoy this newspaper column I wrote in high school about life on Mars:

“Let’s get ready for visitors from outer space,”
The Virginian Pilot, 1995

The Shows: New York and Philadelphia

October 23, 2006

Tonight!
Pete’s Candy Store, 7:30pm
FREE

Monday Evening Stand-Up at Pete’s. Free candy, smartypants comedy. Tonight’s headliner: Matt McCarthy!

Tomorrow!

I am debating a nuclear physicist for Vice Magazine.

Click to enlarge

Thursday!

Click to enlarge your mom’s penis

Friday in Philadelphia!

IVY LEAGUE COMEDY SHOWCASE
World Cafe Live
3025 Walnut Street, Philadelphia
9 PM
$23 admission. For tickets please visit World Cafe Live

Ivy League Comedy, a showcase of clever, smart and talented stand-up comics, stars national headliner and Penn alumnus Dan Naturman, W’91, of “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” “Last Comic Standing” and “Comedy Central Presents”. Featuring Jennifer Dziura (Dartmouth) and Jeff Kreisler (Princeton), and hosted by Shaun Eli, Wharton ‘83, who writes jokes for Jay Leno. For more information, visit www.IvyLeagueComedy.com

Sunday!

Jen reads fiction at…
Writers Working
A Series of Works in Progress by contemporary writers
7pm (watch out for Daylight Savings!)
Drama Book Shop
250 West 40th Street (b.t. 7th and 8th)
For reservations, call (212) 944-0595, ext. 417
To reserve online, email info@dramabookshop.com

Featuring Jen Dziura, Celia Bressack, Stephanie Sellars, David Silverman, and Jen Nails.

$5 suggested donation. Free Spooky Muffins.

And coming up in February: Jen and Molly take on Philly, DC, Virginia, and Durham, NC!

a glimpse into my personal email box

October 23, 2006

Jen: Why do gay people want to get married anyway? Why not campaign for something more fun, like free puppies?

GirlyNYC: Sorry, I never wanted to get married, but I’m also not into dogs, because I don’t think it’s ladylike to pick up dogshit.

Jen: I have always thought the same thing! I clean up the catbox IN MY APARTMENT. No one gets to WATCH. But at least gays (well, the boys) tend to have smaller dogs, and thus pick up less dogshit (well, less in volume, but it’s probably the same number of public dogshit-picking-up incidents).

(Editor’s Note: I know why gay people actually want the legal right to get married. I was being facetious. No polemics needed. Also, I was honored to hear that Girly wore a Peeps shirt on a Jetblue flight, much to the delight of the male flight attendant. My cousin who does shark research in Florida also has one, which she perhaps wears to the delight of, you know … sharks).

on the use of the word "retarded"

October 19, 2006

What do you think about using the word “retarded” to describe people and things that are kind of dumb?

I have known several people to be quite offended by this. All of these people have had retarded brothers or sisters. One gentleman made the (meritorious, I think) argument that “retarded” means “delayed in developing,” and that’s not what people mean when they say “Ann Coulter/the lyrics to Beyonce’s ‘Upgrade U’/your outfit is/are retarded.”

Others have argued that it is inappropriate to refer to retarded people at all when describing other things; similarly, some feminists argue that it is inappropriate to use the word “rape” metaphorically, because it lessens the experience of actual rape victims.

However, I think anyone with a sensitivity for language would have to agree that the environmental movement really hit on something with “the rape of the Earth.” Sometimes, that’s exactly what you mean, in which case the argument becomes one to restrict the deployment of the word to thoughtful and considered uses only.

So, according to this line of reasoning, you shouldn’t use “retarded” to describe any old thing you don’t like; you should only use it when it adds specific rhetorical power. For instance, the lyrics to Beyonce’s “Upgrade U” do not, in fact, sound like they were written by an actual retarded person. They’re just a bit silly, is all. Does Ann Coulter actually sound like a retarded person, or like someone who is delayed in developing? Not exactly. The word would be more appropriate for incidents in which, for instance, the President completely fails to replace a noun with an appropriate pronoun (Laura and I’s spirits are uplifted any time we go to a school that’s working).

(While my experience is somewhat limited to watching Life Goes On, I’d say that most retarded people are somewhat more likely to misconjugate a verb than to write a book-length invective accusing abortion doctors of prompting the World Trade Center attacks).

However, if you actually meant something like, “That outfit looks like something Rosie O’Donnell wore in Riding the Bus with my Sister,” then “retarded” would be just the right adjective.

Discuss!

p.s. How you gon’ upgrade me –
What’s higher than number 1?
you know I used to beat that block.
Now I be’s the block.

Dress-Like-a-Whore Day

October 19, 2006

From the New York Times:

“Why have so many girls grown up to trade in Wonder Woman costumes for little more than Wonderbras?”

I’m pretty sure that’s the money quote that prompted a journalist-friend to send me the article. Another choice excerpt:

Many women’s costumes, with their frilly baby-doll dresses and high-heeled Mary Janes, also evoke male Lolita fantasies and reinforce the larger cultural message that younger is hotter.

“It’s not a good long-term strategy for women,” Dr. Tolman said.

Really? Fuck.

This year, I’m going as Camille Paglia.

p.s. – The first photo in this post appears on a page entitled Plus Size Wonder Woman Costume. If that’s the plus size, I’d hate to see the regular one slicing Nicole Richie across the gut.

lip gloss from a one-armed woman

October 17, 2006

While on tour, I found myself in Claire’s, in a Memphis shopping mall, buying plastic jewelry for my cousins, who are eight and eleven, or some other ages that also mean I can’t talk to them about, say, war in Iraq.

I was all stocked up on baubles when I saw something that made me laugh hysterically and totally inappropriately:

Bethany Hamilton lip gloss
I failed to photograph the actual lip gloss packaging, but this
was the photo used to hawk preteen cosmetics at Claire’s
Bethany Hamilton is, of course, the teen surfer who got her arm bitten off by a shark, and is still surfing, and uses her magic stump to tell us about the word of Jesus — and that lip gloss makes her “Stoked!”

(That’s the brand name, “Stoked by Bethany Hamilton.” The actual lip gloss, which was gifted to my BFF Megan, had a little surfboard charm on it. When applied to actual lips, such as those belonging to Megan, it in no way replicated the bluish or otherwise moribund lip colors associated with death from maritime blood loss).

Bethany also appears in these inspirational ads:

Which turned out nicer than they could have:

But I’m still not sure about the message. Never quit? Never? Is persistence always a virtue? I tried drunk driving once and it didn’t work out — never quit! If at first you have a bad reaction to heroin — try, try again!

Madness is doing the same thing and expecting a shark not to eat your other fucking arm.

a firm and toned rebuttal

October 12, 2006

After participating last week in the Jinx Society debate about celebs’ right to privacy (I argued, against blogger Jill Friedman, that celebs have no right to privacy, that status quo property rights and laws against trespass provide sufficient protection to everyone, and that providing additional protection to celebs would violate the equal protection clause), I have developed something of a new debating career.

Tuesday, October 24th: save the date!

A hint:

how appropriate!

October 12, 2006

CBGB’s is closing this month.

Mom, me, and Dad at CBGB’s, in front of my favorite piece of art.

the aliens are coming!

October 6, 2006

This photo by Daniel Garcia, of many of me, is appearing in a German magazine called Das Gap.

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