Adjectival

This is a nice Modern Love column.

Nice adjectives in that second-to-last paragraph. I am a sucker for adjectives.

Gah.

A while ago I realized that Paris Hilton really does represent a lot of things about modern America. Disturbing yet true, the celebrities we choose to embrace say something about us (as does the fact that we embrace celebrities at all, but that's not a particularly American thing, at least it's not only an American thing). Paris Hilton's publicist agrees:

When asked about his improbable journey from Lennon to Hilton, Mr. Mintz explained that in his eyes he once represented an artist who stood for the dreams and values of a generation. And now he represents an heiress who, well, stands for the dreams and values of a generation.

“Young people don’t believe in politicians,” he said. “They don’t believe in their leaders. They look to celebrities to represent them.”

The funny thing is that it's the media he hates, not the people who let themselves be represented by a woman who cried when her own rip-off of Blondie played on the radio. Or, say, not himself, the person who helps promote said woman.

When Sex Goes to School

I kind of really want to read this book (even if it does come to an "unsatisfying" conclusion).

I shit you not.

I just finished reading In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders. It's really good. He's very Vonnegutesque. Kind of sad and sarcastic at the same time. For a little sample, read this. It's kind of reminiscent of good ol' Kim Jong Il.

(On a side note, Blogger is being very slow today. Like molasses. I'm impatient.)

I'm a Trend Pimp.

(Note: the title of this entry is, yes, from the brilliant film Josie and the Pussycats. My cultural relevance and good taste astound you, I know.)

Funny thing about trend pieces from Gawker. How many of these things do you remember reading? I remember at least half - this is the kind of thing that stays on the NYTimes most e-mailed list for weeks (that and that freaking annoying article about "How Shamu saved my marriage"). Anyway just thought it was funny. The man-date article? How funny was that?

I think Gawker should do a list of style articles in the Times which talk about subjects that are so old they are not anywhere close to being news - like the article about kids buying preppy clothes from A&F instead of goth shit from Hot Topic, or the one about how in California everyone wears flip flops. You would like to think I'm kidding but I'm not.

Pablo sends me the best links

Pluto

MFEO

Sorry, how could I have missed this?

People (er, Gawker) are mocking the idea of the MySpace magazine, but the best part is that it might be a collaborative project with Nylon! How much a match in heaven is THAT shit! Imagine the hairstyles, and the unreadable fashion features!

(Side note: I actually do like Nylon, but can you imagine!?!)

Edit: Also, Nylon has a digitial edition. Verrry interesting.

Thoughts on the universe

SCANDAL in the VAST world of PROFESSIONAL ASTONOMERS!

Pluto, sadly, is no longer a planet, just a "dwarf planet," and people are pissed.

You know when you are really angry about something for like a week, and everyone around you is really angry, and you start coming up with elaborate explanations and schemes for why you should be angry and how you're going to fix it, and you talk about nothing else for days? Like in old FroSoCo a sample of this would be the chatlist/politics list/spam list conflicts. Or like my senior year of high school when we were all furious about they way my school calculated eligibility for valedictorianship. Or sophomore year when Clinton bombed Iraq (for a total of, I just realized with the help of Wikipedia, 4 days) and Diane and I (mostly Diane) diagrammed the way the world would end for what seemed like hours in Ms. Kieta's class. You know how, when you are angry or scared about something, it becomes your entire world in a way that excludes everything else. It always lasts for like a week and then by the time it's resolved you aren't paying any attention anymore. (Another example is when the Stanford class of 2006 got super pissed about having to graduate at Frost Amphitheater and I didn't really realize how much they cared, but then like 2 weeks later the Daily revealed that graduation was actually going to be on the football practice field and the story was on like the third page.)

That's kind of how it must feel to be an astronomer right now. You are raging.

Word.

Hilar.

I have not used the phrase "totes," that is Laurel and Cristina's word. But I have to say I have used the phrase "inapprops."

Slacker, quote

Yes! I am a slacker!

I have been pretty busy, that's why. I have an excuse.

Anyway to make up for it, I have a quote from Nora Ephron's Heartburn, which I have been hanging onto for so long (like 2 weeks) that I forgot why I tagged it, but I still kind of like it even though I only half agree (a disastrous attempt at making pad thai last Friday makes me a little uncertain about cooking at the moment).

Anyway, to the point...

To say that cooking is creative not only misses the point of creativity--which is that it is painful and difficult and quite unrelated to whether it is possible to come up wtih yet another way to cook a pork chop--but also misses the whole point of cooking, which is that it is totally mindless. What I love about cooking is that after a hard day, there is something comfroting about the fact that is you melt butter and add flour and then hot stock, it will get thick! It's a sure thing! It's a sure thing in a world where nothing is sure; it has a mathematical certainty in a world where those of us who long for some kind of certainty are forced to settle for crossword puzzles.

I think I really liked the line about the crossword puzzles since I have once again become hooked on them. Anyway that is my lame post for today and I will post more tomorrow.

(The real reason I have slacked off here is that I usually blog during work and haven't had the time at work in the last week. So my slacking is a result of my dedication. That should get me somewhere.)

Nesting

On the subject of disturbing trends, or at least odd ones...

I'm finding that with each passing day I feel more and more like a homebody. Not exactly in the sense that I sit around my house doing nothing instead of going out on the town (although I do kind of do that, sometimes), but more in that I am starting to have these very strong nesting instincts, coupled with a sensation that I'm becoming more and more like my mom.

Cases in point:

-Less than a week after hearing my mom talk about how she always rents movies (the quintessential example of this kind of movie is Dr. Zhivago) and then tries to get us (meaning me or my sister) to watch them, and we never do, but then when we do we like them, I rented Bonnie and Clyde from Netflix and upon receiving it, shouted (literally) to my roommates and those assembled, "Does anyone want to watch Bonnie and Clyde with me?!" The manic tone in my voice kind of freaked me out, and then I realized that not only did I sound like a total wackjob, but also I was doing exactly what Mom does, and I saw nothing wrong with it. Incidentally, I did watch Bonnie and Clyde last night, and while most resisted at first, all (but Kelly) eventually succumbed. Even Ethan, who was complaining about the weird accents (Faye Dunaway as a West Dallas farm girl? Yeah, right), looked up the real B&C on Wikipedia halfway through the movie and read us interesting details. I win.

-I also rented and watched The Shop Around the Corner, which is one of the exact movies Mom has rented and we have not watched with her, and stupid me, because I actually liked it, like I always do.

-The greatest event of the past few days is the news that we are getting a BRAND NEW refrigerator, washer AND dryer in our apartment, as Kelly has finally bullied Jerry into replacing our stone-age appliances. We're also getting the lights in our kitchen fixed so we can cook in the 21st century as opposed to the kitchen of the Ingalls family during the Long Winter (just bear with me on this metaphor), and apparently power outlets that we thought were broken are actually functional, for the most part. But the most important thing is NEW FRIDGE!!! I could die. And the very fact that this is an undrafted sentence expressing my excitement over the new fridge proves my whole theory about the nesting instinct. Just the thought of getting a produce crisper and being able to put bottles of Hershey's syrup and caesar salad dressing in the door without them falling out every 2 seconds gives me chills.

-I subscribed to RealSimple. 'Nuff said.

-Actually, not 'nuff said. I also read Domino and am obsessed with all kinds of cooking magazines like Cooks Illustrated and want to have a tea party and kind of want to get Blueprint (because of the cool tip for decorating with blown-up prints of playing cards) and kind of want to get Martha Stewart Living and for my birthday I really want good knives and a food processor.

See? I told you.

Thoughts

I'm going to try to keep this a little more... tactile. Like a real way of keeping track of what I'm thinking about or paying attention to. Right now, for example, I'm obsessed with Coconut and Lime. We (by we I mean, collectively, Kelly, Sean and I in various permutations) have made three of the recipes. I made spicy cheddar crackers, Sean and I made mini cheesecakes, and Kelly and I made egg creams (they taste better than they sound).

Besides that, I'm reading Heartburn by Nora Ephron. I picked up when I was in the exact right mood for it and I can tell I'll love it forever as a result. Funnily enough, I only got it because Sara Nelson, the editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly, wrote about it in her book and lauded it as a book belonging to a "moment" in her life. Never mind that many of my favorite authors (Rushie, Kundera) are explicitly disliked by Sara Nelson (who spoke to us at the Columbia Publishing Course and who I'm obsessed with as a result), Heartburn is now part of a moment in my life too - yesterday. When I went to the library, got it out, read 20 pages sitting in front of my computer, walked to Starbucks, bought an iced tea and finished the whole first half sitting out in the sun with El Camino traffic rushing by. Not glamorous, but reading usually isn't (at least not as much as I would like).

I'm waiting anxiously for my box of books & mags to come from New York... It was supposed to be here last Friday, but it still isn't here. I'm getting worried... that's a shitload of books I spent money on, plus $20 in shipping, plus all my magazines from the month of August that I really want back (like RealSimple! InStyle Weddings! Saveur! Gourmet! I am a freak for home magazines and sparkly pictures of wedding rings!). Cross your fingers for me...

Does anyone have any good suggestions for cheap and fun things to do in the Bay Area that I would like?

The Hills are alive with morons

Really, Lauren?

A summer with JASON instead of a summer in Paris?

Ok, so maybe I am a leetle envious of your sweet, multi-million dollar pad overlooking the Malibu beach, with a wall of windows and a boyfriend who, despite having no job, career or talent to speak of (er, I mean, at all), wants to buy everything, like a grill and maybe another Chanel bag like that one you got for Christmas. But ARE YOU FDJKSFLDSJFKLDSING KIDDING ME?

I love this stuff

One thing I learned at CPC was that I love the whole discussion about "new media" and the changing face of the publishing/journalism industry. Blogs, print on demand, e-books, Google, what have you - I don't understand it all, but I like talking about it, mostly because I have something to say about it. Yes, I like blogs. No, I don't like reading books on a screen. Yes, I like magazines but I think that reading US Weekly is pointless now because of celebrity blogs. Anyone can weigh in on the new media discussion. Anyway, here's a quick interview with Adriana Huffington about blogging. It's actually quite good.

For me what matters is having that voice; how it gets there is less significant.

For me, I think you have to cover a story until something happens. And it may not be in your lifetime, but you need to keep covering it. Part of it is that the best bloggers write about their passions, they don't write about everything. And there are many important things that happen that I don't write about, not because I don't think they're important, but because they're not where my own passion is.

So my best writing is about my passions, and I think that goes with every blogger. And often reporters go where the assignment desk sends them.

There are many great reporters. I don't in any way minimize the significance of what is done by the mainstream media. But I think we're all still deeply affected by how they misreported the lead up to the war. It's not something, given what's happening now, that we can easily forget.

Priorities

Thanks to Pablo for this one:

Facebook - which lets users upload a personal profile including a real name, photograph and interests - was ranked in a survey last month as the third most important thing to students in the US - behind beer and iPods, but above sex.

God bless America.

Geeked out.

I'm such a nerd now because of the Columbia Publishing Course that I find articles like this really interesting.