On a Cheerier Note ...

Jo got a dress! A beautiful, beautiful, classic but modern, flattering but subtle, expensively-made BUT SUPA DISCOUNTED (obvs the best part) wedding dress from Vera Wang! (And not just VW Wedding Collection: Vera Wang Atelier!) I am honored to have gotten a tiny baby blister from having zipped and unzipped somewhere around 30 dresses amidst a crazed crowd of similar brides & their retinues. Alas, I did not have the chance to use my Ben Hur hip guards (equipped with a spike to ram sideways into any competing chariots, oops I mean brides, attempting to close in on a dress we wanted), but I *was* awfully rude to a couple of the VW salespeople who were trying to get us to adhere to the 3-dress-per-bride maximum (we had, oh, 6 or 7 on the rack plus one hidden in a crumpled heap on the floor under jo's scarf, I kid you not, we wanted to hold on to that option) ... which is sort of inexcusable and for which I now feel bad. Vera Wang salesladies! I am sorry. I realize you were only doing your job and I was a being a bridesfriendzilla bitch. Please accept my apologies. Anyway I really have nothing more to say except that it was fun! And the dress is gorgeous! And the wedding is going to be the bestest! That is all.

No, Seriously, It’s a F*ckin’ Bloodbath In Media Right Now

So you guys know how I’m always like “yeah it’s been savage in the media world” lately and “omg there are no media jobs” and “publishing is in major trouble”? So yesterday Random House announced a major, major company reorganization which is ousting two legendary publishers. In the book world, this is a BFD. Some other bookworld sh*t went down yesterday, too, prompting Publisher’s Lunch (a daily industry email news roundup) to call it “Black Wednesday." Anyway, prompted by all of this and not feeling particularly inclined to use my lunch hour for company purposes, I decided to pull together a roundup of How Bad Things Have Been in media this year.

See below for something long and scary. And keep in mind that I really, really trimmed it. (Since newspapers have been in a continual state of triage this year, it would take many pages to round up all of their news. I’ve only included big news from earlier this year up to October; after that, we’ll go into a fun close-up.) Also, this blog called Paper Cuts, which is devoted to following the news of paper, well, cuts, has come up with this number for newspaper jobs lost in 2008: 14,447. You can see it in more detail on the site.

Also, keep in mind that many media companies (besides the big conglomerates like Time Inc and Tribune Co) have smaller staffing numbers than you might expect. A mid-level magazine can operate with only 20-30 people total. Book company news is highlighted in red.

January through September:

Jan 10: McGraw-Hill cuts 600 jobs across the board, a 3% company reduction.

Feb 13: Tribune Co. announces 500 job cuts across newspaper divisions. This will eventually include 150 staff members from the LA Times; on top of buyouts offered earlier, the LAT will now have 20% fewer editorial positions than last year.

March 30: Over 100 staffers accept buyouts at Newsweek. Layoffs are to come to make up the difference between this number and what is “needed.”

April 10: Nielsen Business Media (which publishes Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek, Editor & Publisher and the Hollywood Reporter) lays off 40-50 staffers.

Early May: The New York Times completes its months-long cull of 100 reporters and editors. (Ed note: This is their first newsroom layoff--ever.)

July 16: The Wall Street Journal eliminates 50 editorial/newsroom. Atlanta Journal-Constitution announced that it’s cutting almost 200 jobs (8% of its total workforce).

Mid-July: Hearst folds Quick & Simple.

Aug 14: Gannett Co. (largest newspaper company in the US) cuts 1,000 workers, of 3% of workforce.

Sept 30: NY Sun folds.

October:

Oct 10: Hearst folds CosmoGirl.

Also folding in Oct: Radar, Men's Vogue (CondeNast), 02138, Culture + Travel, DNR (CondeNast), Motor Trend, Compact Sports Auto

Oct 15: City Magazines (part of Niche Media) cuts 20-30 jobs.

Oct 16: Playboy cuts 80 jobs.

Oct 22: Time magazine (which famously dribbled out a huge layoff over the course of the entire year), which recently announced that no more cuts will be made, announces that they lied! 200 more staffers will go in the next 2 weeks.

Oct 27: LAT lays off 27 editorial staffers, or about 10% of ed staff (do they even have anyone left over there?). Also, Newark Star-Ledger announces a 40% newsroom staff cut.

Oct 30: CondéNast cuts 5% of staff, and announces 5% budget cuts for all titles; Portfolio loses 20% of its staff. Also, Doubleday (part of Random House) lays off 10% of its staff.

November:

Nov 3: Rodale (a former employer) lays off 111 employees—10% of its workforce. Also, the Seattle Times lays off about 130 workers, also 10% of its staff.

Nov 7: Hearst announces major layoffs across the board, including at Esquire, Redbook, and Good Housekeeping.

Nov 10: People magazine looks for 20 voluntary separations. (this is part of the 600-person Time Inc reduction)

Nov 11: Time Inc international will also be cutting, possibly up to 10% of its staff. CondeNet lays off 60 staffers (part of the 5% reduction announced on Oct 30).

Nov 13: National Geographic announces 5-10% staff cuts across company. (Ed note: Particularly horrible: they laid off their cartographer! Where is he going to find another job?!)

Nov 14: Forbes.com lays off entire staff of ForbesAuto.com. The Street.com closes its SF office.

Nov 17: MTV announces that it is planning 2 layoff rounds, in early Dec and in Jan.

Nov 18: Focus on the Family lays of 149, or 21% of staff.

Nov 20: The AP announces that in 2009 it will “loose” 10% of its staff.

Nov 21: Modern Luxury cuts over half of staff. Magazine may fold into another. Also,Source Overlink (auto publisher) cuts 150 jobs and folds at least 2 magazines.

Nov 25: Harcourt freezes manuscript acquisitions! Kids, this means the trade division of the company is folding. You cannot run a publishing company without acqs.

Thank god, the carnage stops for Thanksgiving. Those of us who survive breathe a little.

This week:

Dec 2: The publisher of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt resigns (with no company line explanation, not even the usual "leaving to spend more time with my family" bs).

Dec 3:

• Simon & Schuster lays off 35. Niche Media folds Atlanta Magazine.
• Random House announces major, major reorganization in which 2 of its 5 flagship imprints will be divided into the 3 other imprints. Publishers for both Doubleday and Bantam are let go. I imagine that layoffs in the spring will follow as a result of the staffing redundancies that are being created during the merging.
• Thomas Nelson announces layoffs of 10%.
• HMH starts layoffs, which are continuing today . Like I said: you can’t have a publishing house if you’re not acquiring. HHM’s parent company, Education Media and Publishing Group, is pretty obviously giving up.

Dec 4, today:

• MTV closes NY off of Rhapsody America; lays off 25.
• Viacom announces layoffs of 850 people—this is just round 1 of the 2 currently planned, remember!—which is 7% of its staff.
• NBC Universal starts a layoff process which is expected to continue into next week, in which 500 jobs are expected to be cut.
• HarperCollins and Pearson (Penguin) both announce 2009 salary freezes, which is totally to be expected. I anticipate that RH and S&S will follow suit. (Although apparently Hachette is giving everyone bonuses equivalent to 1 week's salary. This is probably due entirely to the success of the Twilight series. Grrr.)

And this afternoon, chickadees, I will be attending my third "what this reorganization means" meeting in two days. I am looking forward to it, you'll understand.

Everything About This Deal Clip from PubLunch Makes Me Want to Quit Publishing

"NYT bestselling author Angela Knight's sixth MAGEVERSE novel, in which King Arthur and his immortal vampire Knights of the Round Table try to save modern humanity from self-destruction, to Cindy Hwang at Berkley, in a three-book deal, by Roberta Brown of the Brown Literary Agency." ... I mean, seriously. Ew. And I like vampires. And magic. And Arthurian legend.

The Search Continues ...

The Frye boots were a wash (though I was sad about it--they were made of the most beautiful, buttery-soft leather. However my bank account sure looks better without them). Here's the next two possibilities: Too studded and rocker-y? I liked the plainness of the Frye ones better, and I sort of think that if they didn't quite fit right, this sure-to-be-poorly-made shoe from Aldo isn't going to either ... but hope springs eternal. (Although, come to think of it, I do have one pair of boots from Aldo that I totally heart. But they barely wrap around the lower, normal-sized section of my legs and can only be worn under jeans. These babies look more substantial in the calf.) And then there's these: Yes, I know I was talking about comfy flat boots. And black ones. But. I sort of like the brass studs on these, and I do love the caramel color which women seem to wear with whatever color tights/skirts they want (I'd originally thought, you know, you can't wear dark brown boots with black pants, but people are all over that this year. So caramel has to be better, right?) And the heel is pretty chunky, and they seem like a fairly classic style ... right? These are from a beautiful UK site that does specialty calf-fitting boots, so I know I can order a size that will fit. I've lusted over this site weekly in the past few years, and almost (SHOULD HAVE) bought a pair on mad sale last winter (of course, I was unemployed, so ... that was probably the right choice). Now that the pound sterling is at a multi-year low (seriously--the current exchange rate just about matches what it did when I went to London in high school. Don't even get me started on being there last year, when the exchange rate was basically like opening my bank account and asking them to take what they wanted). The only thing is that returning them if I don't like them is ... expensive. Sigh. What to do. ... what? what's that you say? "With what money"? Why, my child, WITH THE MAGIC OF CREDIT!!! Haven't you seen the trailers for Shopaholic?

How I Feel About This Week

YES.

I'm seriously almost crying, and I wasn't even that big an Obama supporter (I was a Hillary girl in the beginning). But it's like this huge release of tension. And seeing the huge crowds of people screaming and cheering is incredibly moving--did you see the celebration in Kenya? My friend in Morocco told me they had a screaming celebration when Obama took Ohio, and are having a huge one now even though it's like 4 am there. And I'm still a pragmatist and a realist at heart, so I still know and believe that it's going to be a hard road and many of those who see Obama as The Answer are going to be incredibly disappointed in the long run, but, but, but--how can you not look at all this and not feel something akin to hope? There're a lot of things that have become associated with America over the past years that we have not felt good about, but this is something that fills me with pride: the fact that we have a working democracy; that we as a people can look at something in our government, make a decision on it, and if we want, as a people effect change. I loved standing in line with a million other tired, yawning people this morning, stretching in a long snake around the block around some public school, each waiting our turn for our two minutes behind that plastic curtain with the polling machine. I loved being one of the faceless many, being a part of the whole. We didn't know each other, but we were all there for the same reason: to take our turn to say what shape we wanted our country to be, no matter what our opinion on that shape was. I am always so proud to be an American during the Olympics, when I see how racially diverse our athletes are compared to those of other countries. I've loved that our country espouses such a ingrained belief in meritocracy, whether or not it's always been true in the day-to-day practice. I've loved that we have always been a people who have gone into the world with the conviction of the right of individuals to have a determining say in their own futures. And though often these things come off terribly wrong or arrogantly or just plain FUBAR in practice, I'm still so proud that all of these things have come together tonight to show that we practice what we preach in our own nation, that we believe in our own ideals. Of course, it's easy for me to say this now. My candidate won. But just look at him. I defy you to tell me that who he is--his background, his story--doesn't embody some of what is good, much of what is best, about America. My dad called me at 11:03 when CNN called it for Obama, and we both just sort sat there on the phone saying "this is amazing" "this so, so amazing" to each other for awhile. Then he said with this sort of catch in his voice, "You know, I'm a lot older than you and I've seen a lot more. And I didn't grow up in racist country, exactly, though there was a lot of that around, but this ..." And he sort of trailed off, and floundered for the right word, and then he said, "This is something. This is truly something." And by God, it is. **Note. I realize that I only got 3.5 hrs of sleep last night, plus I'm PMSing (or as Grey would say, bleeding from my bajongo), which may explain the somewhat delerious and overly emotional nature of this. BUT. Even though tomorrow I'm sure I'll be embarrasse dby it, I'm still going to leave it up. I tend to be a glass-half-empty kind of girl, but tonight: GLASS HALF FULL.

Should I?

Wait, What?

Or, when Bad Clothes happen to Good People.

Politics

How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics? Yet here's a travelled man that knows What he talks about, And there's a politician That has read and thought, And maybe what they say is true Of war and war's alarms, But O that I were young again And held her in my arms! - W.B. Yeats

A Brief Gchat Between My Brother and I Regarding the Practical Applications of My Twenty-Fifth Birthday Gift

Me: well, i've gotten my first 2 fob matches Jarrett: LOL is it that bad Me: his headline Jarrett: ? Me: "the best vitamin to making friends ... is B1" haha i mean i'm sure he's nice but ... he looks like a little old asian man Jarrett: HAHHAHAHAHAH this is the best gift i ever got you

It's Coming.

I don't know what's happening with my fonts ...

... but it's making me really cranky.* *Edit: So I went into HTML mode and fixed it myself. BOOYAH!!! It's the modern girl's version of opening the car up and fixing whatever's broken under the hood!

Beautiful People

Yeah, so this is basically filler/fluff and there's not enough of it to warrant separate posts. Instead I present to you: two kinds of people/characters I like. 1. Peppery Old Men. And, yes, I do mean like-like, the kind of like that includes braid-pulling on the playground if you're in, say, 3rd grade. Witness: Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. My deep and abiding love, nay, one might even say fangirl-dom for this sexy genius is well-documented. Jon Stewart may well be my perfect man. He's intimidatingly smart and knowledgable about the world, cuttingly sarcastic, and has that fantastic salt-and-pepper hair. Rrrawr. He's quick on his feet on his show, and good at defusing the often-tense political arguments that sometimes arise. True, he's also prone to going all soft and starry-eyed when a politician he admires is on the show (see: Bill Clinton, Tony Blair), but as a fangirl I am able to recategorize this behavior as adorable. Plus if he were sitting across an interviewing table from me I would probably also lob a couple of softball questions at him, gaze into his eyes, and call it a day. Those of you who know me are aware that intellect and sarcasm are to me as catnip is to a kitty cat. Add to the mix that he is adorably married and has darling kids and I can safely say: Jon, call me. I will do anything for you. Anything. Hugh Laurie/Gregory House of House, M.D. I just started watching House pretty recently and he is one hot old dude. Yes, I do recognize that House himself is just a character, but once again you see how biting sarcasm, extreme intellect & competence, and that grizzled beard combine into ... yum. (Also apparently I have a predilection for jerks, which he is, and deep personal scars, which he has.) There are definitely other grizzled old men who I think are hot, but I'm putting them on the back burner for now so that I can present to you ... 2. Biznitches Who Get Sh*t Done. Blair Waldorf of Gossip Girl. She's freaking gorgeous, polished & put together, and she has a plan to take over the world (or at least the UES). I don't actually watch this show on any kind of steady basis, but in addition to having the most amazing costumers ever, every time I pass Gossip Girl on t.v. this chick appears to be sizing up the situation, narrowing her lushly-lashed eyes, and then taking control of it with ruthless efficiency. Also, she has the guy cast as the Devious Male Lead whipped into a bundle of brokenhearted insecurities, which is quite an accomplishment considering he's supposed to so heartless and Machieavellian that he started the show by attempting to rape the Sensitive Male Lead's little sister. And while I know there are people who lo-o-o-o-ve Serena, to me she's just kind of ... blonde and boring. The show tries to intimate that she has this crazy, Ima-cut-a-b*tch past, but I've yet to see a scene where she could convince me that if you put her and Blair in a prison together Blair wouldn't be the one running the show when you opened the gates a month or two later. Joan Holloway of Mad Men. If you don't watch Mad Men ... that will make you one of about a bizillion other people who don't. And, uh, I'm sort of one of them: I haven't seen all of the first season, but what I've seen of Season 2 makes me love Joan. She's the office manager at Sterling Cooper, the advertising firm where the show's main characters work, and she controls the secretarial assignments (this is set in the '60s). She is very curvy and has insane style, and knows how to make her body work for her (the office boys are always going all tongue-tied and stammering in her presence). More than that, she's also extremely savvy; there are a lot of office power plays and politics at Sterling Cooper, and the office staff/secretarial pool is very much a part of that. She lives in a time where her options are limited, but she is in complete control of all of her assets and she knows how to turn situations to the advantage of herself and those she wants to benefit. President Laura Roslin of Battlestar Galactica. Well, look, there are going to be a couple of BSG characters on these lists. Deal with it, OK? (Suggestion: Deal with it by watching it. Become a fan, it'll do you good.) President Laura Roslin is awesome for a number of reasons: 1) she was the Secretary of Education before an attack on her homeworld wiped out the 42 other cabinet members in line for the presidency before her; 2) despite that, she still managed to keep the civilian government/rule of law and the military in balance when humanity got cut down to about 50,000 survivors; and 3), all this while she battles breast cancer. She can be heart-stoppingly cold and ruthless, and almost inhuman at times, but she's smart, ballsy, and unflinching, and she gets the job done. Plus she's nicknamed President "Airlock" Roslin by fans of this show (which is fantastic. You should watch it. No, really), which tells you something. An airlock, for those of you who aren't aware, is chamber with two doors that allows people or objects to pass between environments with different air pressures, temperatures, etc., like from a submarine into water, or a spaceship into vacuum. Roslin has a predilection for threatening to airlock, i.e., jettison out into space, people who she finds threatening to the safety of Galatica or humanity. Watching her get all steely-eyed and tough-jawed and threatening is sort of ridiculously awesome. 3. Tasty Men I was also going to gift you with a pictorial of characters & men I find tasty for various reasons (who ... uh ... didn't fit into the peppery & old category), but I'm tired so it'll have to wait. Sorry. But here are some names to tide you over: Don Draper. Matt Damon (as Jason Bourne). Daniel Craig. Tahmoh Penikett. (RAWR.)

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

                          - Elizabeth Bishop, 1976

These Boots Were Made for Walking ... Through the Fire Swamp, Apparently.

So it's fall in the city again, that gorgeous time of year when the air becomes crisp and the leaves start turning gold. Every day twilight lasts a little longer, and the smell of Nutz 4 Nuts drifting through the air is like heaven in a little waxed-paper bag. It's the time of year when a young woman's thoughts turn to one thing: boots. At least this is true if you're me. No, seriously. I have calves that are the size of some women's thighs, and every fall I go on a massive, city-wide hunt for knee-high boots that will encompass their tree-trunk-like girth without making me look like an elephant. (Actually, I have bought boots that make me look like an elephant in the past simply because I can get the zipper all the way up.) I'm a leather snob and I won't wear stretch, faux leather, or fabric boots, which makes it doubly hard to find something in my size. Strangely, this ongoing obsession has led to me actually owning more boots than most women probably do. I have 3: one basic, pointy-toed sleek black pair (these are my work-appropriate pair, and I love them), one pointy-toed mushroom-colored pair (bought at almost 80% off on a summer sale two years ago! but they are hard to match), and one pair of heavy black leather harness boots that I bought because I wanted something more casual. I started regretting this purchase almost immediately, as the boots are way more Western than I can really pull off, and the heaviness of the sole/heel makes me feel like I'm walking in galoshes when I wear them. I may try to sell them on eBay this year. But anyway! So the kind of boot I am coveting currently is a knee-high, flat-heeled style, like so: Dangit, these images came out much smaller than I expected, and I'm too annoyed to download all the pictures and combine them into one file again. But, from top to bottom and L to R: Frye's Bonnie Tall Riding boots, BCBG Petler boots, Aerosoles [couldn't find name], and Marc by Marc Jacobs [couldn't find name]. The BCBGs are a pretty brown croc print. I heart them possibly the most, although I did see a woman wearing the Aerosoles last year and the little added hardware actually looked really hot. I found all of these when I was window-shopping online yesterday (THERE'S NO HARM IN LOOKING). As you can see, they're all sort of pseudo-equestrian, but slimmer and not as structured. I wouldn't call them pirate or Robin Hood boots exactly--both names have been floating around for the last couple of years, but I think both those styles have fold-over tops and, like, extraneous straps . . . . . . or would you call them that? Because later that night I turned on the TV, and lo and behold, on the screen was the swashbuckling Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, and on Inigo Montoya were ... the boots I want!!! Actually, everybody in this movie has the boots I want. Examine: From L to R: Evil genius Vizzini; reformed drunk and reknowned swordsman Inigo Montoya; and gentle giant Fezzik. Each sporting a pair of suede boots that any fashionista would be proud to own. I believe that Vizzini's leggings have also been seen out and about town, most recently on Lindsay Lohan. The Dread Pirate Roberts has a pair (leggings and boots): So does the Princess Buttercup, in a charming, whimsical red that matches her romantic, fairy-tale frock. (I wouldn't recommend this look for the peasantry, as it might come off as a little too matchy-matchy while strolling through SoHo. Plus that skirt is really too full to work with those sleeves.) Aw, Westley and Buttercup's boots, together at last. (Hmm. Maybe if you lopped 3 feet of fabric off the hem of her dress and made it a tunic, to balance the sleeves? I think I saw something like it at Macy's.) No really. EVERYONE in this movie has a pair. Even the Six-Fingered Man, Count Rugen, and a horde of extras/henchmen: In conclusion, I need to find the costumer for this 1987 classic freaking ASAP, because clearly only she knows how to adequately address the problems that are my C.O.U.S. (Calves of Unusual Size). According to IMDB her name is Phyllis Dalton. Phyllis, if you're reading this, please call me. I have complete faith in you. If you can find boots to fit the calves of Fezzik the Giant, you can find boots to fit me. Srsly. Call me.

It Was the Best of Weekends, It Was the Worst of Weekends ...

Oh, sob. Last week I was in denial of a lot of things, apparently, because all I could force myself to focus on was the fact that it was a Three Day Workweek (any event so momentous deserves title case, my friends). Alas, I did not consider that after my Three Day Workweek, I would: 1. turn 25 2. lose Da-E for one year Yes, I recognize that 25 is actually quite young. But! I am no longer in my early twenties (sob x2) and let's face it, those circles under my eyes aren't getting lighter with age. Plus, after, like, 27, one's stock as a female starts to plunge like ... well, like a stockbroker on Black Tuesday*. And considering the last, oh I don't know, eight years have been pretty much meh ... yeah I gotta get to work on that. However! It was also a supremely wonderful weekend because I spent 99% of it with my true BFFs whom I love with the strength of a thousand suns. I have no pictures as of yet but I will edit them in when I have them ready. First, on Friday Elaine, Jo2, and I helped Jo move into her new apartment. Diana arrived halfway through the day and we immediately put her to work. Grey came up from Philly for the occasion, and thank God he did because moving was more painful and arduous than expected (and I basically expected Hanoi-level torture). However, now the Jos live in the same apartment building (read: it's our new dorm), and it is a beautiful one! All shiny hardwood floors and well-constructed bathrooms and working new appliances and tons and tons of storage space. It's gorgeous. And there is an insanely cheap Chinese bakery across the street with 50-cent cha siu bau and 2-dollar fresh watermelon smoothies, and oh my god I have to move to Brooklyn freaking ASAP. Anyway! So after we moved I went back to Queens to shower and change because I'm stupid and didn't bring a bag. But I'm glad I did, because my friends spent the time making a delicious, delicious surprise feast of all my favorite foods! See pictures, TK below, for scrumptious mac-and-cheese-with-bacon and Jo2's amazing beef-and-potato stout stew. The bacon was such a perfectly salty counterpoint to the melty, oozy, cheese, topped with nicely browned breadcrumbs. Oh my freak. And the the beef chunks basically fell off your fork in tender hunks into a gorgeous, rich dark stout base. No cream, butter, or beer was spared in the making of these foods. Yes this is turning into a foodporn post. And it was as good for me as it sounds. And then, when I went downstairs to Jo1's new apartment to take out my contacts, they turned off the lights and surprised me withthe most delicious homemade chocolate cake with amazing homemade chocolate-buttercream frosting!! (Unfortunately I took my sweet time in the apartment below. I think they waited like 10 minutes with the candles burning.) And THEN they gave me beeeyouteeful presents, such as: Pink Cephalon silicone bakeware! It folds and flops, and doesn't get hot! And you don't need to butter it; the baked cake layers slide right out! I want to use it right now. And the pièce de résistance, this freaking gorgeous Coach bag. I am squeeeing silently to myself right now as I type this. It's even more beautiful than in this picture--the leather next to the hardware is a slightly darker mahogany than the rest of the bag, which is more chestnut, and it's so so so soft and buttery and beautiful. I've talked a lot about butter today, haven't I. Anyway I have the best friends ever. We went to dim sum the next day (Jin Feng = my new chinatown ds place), and then out to Public for dinner and then to Crime Scene and the Park (obvs) that night, and I got supertrashed and don't remember much but it was fun-o. This year I did not become Melancholy Drunk Girl and hang all over Grey (in a platonic, drunken kind of way), although I did apparently become Apologetic Drunk Girl, which frankly is to be expected.** And then on Sunday we got burgers from Big Nick's Burger Joint and took them to the 79th street pier and ate and drank wine while the sun went down. And then played charades next to the river. And we went to Players for soju and squid & nuts, minus the squid because they ran out. Omg. Squeee! Here's all of us at Public except for Andy, who was graciously picture-taking. Actually these are his pix too. Yay Andy! Don't I have the prettiest friends ever? I think so too. They're all gorgeous and mostly single. This is just a drinking picture. Cuz. Drinking is fun. Monday, however, was a day of great and terrible sadness, because we had to say goodbye to Elaine who is leaving for Taiwan. I was going to write more about it, but it's kind of weird to do so because ... well, I mean, she's not dying. She might even be reading this (hi elaine!) and with the wonders of modern technology I can pretend she is in her office on 59th & Lex and soothe my wounded soul. It is, however, definitely the end of a NY era for me. When I first moved to the city, I stayed on Elaine's floor for a whole month while I looked for an apartment. She and her then-boyfriend came out to my mom's car to help me carry my stuff into her room, and I think it was raining although that might be my subconciousness grieving by flavoring the memory. When, after three days at work, I realized that my job was going to bite major a**, she was there to also realize that her job was going to bite. And when, for the first year when we had no other NY friends, we were completely miserable 99% of the time, we would call each other from our respective offices at 9 p.m. on Friday nights have a conversation that went roughly like this: Person 1: Are you still at work? Person 2 : Yes. Person 1 : Me too. How much longer do you have to stay? Person 2: I could seriously stay for another 12 hours. But f*ck this place. I hate it so much. Person 1: Ditto to everything you just said. Let's get out of here and go drink. We are Persons 1 and 2 in this little snippet of dialogue because we were seriously interchangable in our misery. And then we would go to a bar and drink beer and gloomily talk about how awful our bosses were and how working life was terrible, and then we'd cling together in front of the subway stop and say things like "Don't die!" and "OK we can do this!" and part until the next Friday. Alright, enough eulogizing. Da E, Taipei is lucky to have you but come home anytime. *EDIT:Or like a stockbroker on Monday, September 15, 2008. **EDIT 2: Apparently, I did become Melancholy Drunk Girl this year. It was just that "compared to last year, this year you were wayyyy better." Which, like, is not really that much of an improvement. Sorry, Grey!

My Heart Quails ...

"Making an Arguement for Misspelling -- TIME magazine, 8/12/2008" I agree that English spelling rules are convoluted and illogical, as are many of its sentence constructions and grammatical structures. And yet ... and yet ... there's something so terribly disheartening about the idea of just, I don't know, giving up on learning to spell correctly. It's one thing to choose to reject a set of rules because you have undertaken the task of following them and acknowledge that they're broken; it's another to throw up your hands and decide that trying is too hard. An Economist sidebar on this same subject, which advocates "updating" rather than "scrapping" the rules, briefly explains five reasons why written English is so wonky. Which is cool! Cuz while I knew about or of some of these things, and that English is wonky, I'd never put them together before. 1. It's partly Germanic and partly Latin in origin 2. The aural Great Vowel Shift in the 15/16th centuries left written words as they were, but changed the pronunciation. (I learned about the GVS in a linguistics class. I love that this event actually occurred and is referred to in title case.) 3. Early printing presses were staffed by non-English speakers, who muddled things up further 4. There was at some point a move to attempt to align English words with Latin roots, even though the words weren't originally derived from Latin, leading to extraneous "silent" letters 5. There's never been a centralized English "authority" capable of enforcing standardization, unlike (apparently) French and Spanish Sigh. Guess we'll have to rely on Webster's for our central spelling authority ... for as long as that lasts.

Dear New Yorkers & Tourists, Please Learn How to Ride the Subway

Okay, so living in New York, you take the subway everywhere. And I like it, I really do. I like the fact that it runs 24/7 (even though there are always strange, unplanned, and unexplained detours and re-routes on weekends & holidays); I like the fact that I can get 95% of my monthly transportation needs taken care of on $81 a month (and possibly with an occasional freebie!); I like that I don’t have to deal with car insurance or maintenance or parking. I like the fact that living car-free gives me the luxury to say (and believe) sort-of-pompous things like “I think rising gas prices are a good thing since economic inviability of maintaining a gas-power-based economy is the only thing that will ever push us as a nation to seriously invest in alternative energy research,” the first part of which I doubt I would say if I actually had to fill up a tank every week. I really, really love the fact that I'm free to ride home drunk as, say, Diana Barry after several tumblersful of “raspberry cordial” (which happens quite frequently), without fear of killing myself or someone else. But what I Do Not Love is freaking other people. Who don't know how to put the communal property that is the subway to our collective good use. You know who you are. Let me educate you.

How To Ride the Subway In a Manner That Does Not Violate the Social Contract

1. Move to the center.

2. Out-of-towners, don’t let your children sit on the floor during rush hour. A) The floors are gross. B) It is way too crowded for your princesses to lounge at their leisure. C) It is too gd early in the morning for me to think about this. You are annoying.

3. Don’t hook your elbow (or, god forbid, your knee) around the center pole. You’ll inevitably fold your arm close to your body, and thus smush your body to the pole, and the next thing I know you are twined around it like the car is a back room at Gallagher’s 2000 and the strobes and music are about to start. I need something to grab onto, and I can’t if your body is draped over 98% of the pole. Women, this is especially true for you. I will get my hands on part of that pole, and since I’m 5’5” chances are that your boobs are smushed against it somewhere in the vicinity of where my hand needs to be. I am completely capable of standing, stone-faced, through an entire ride where your sideboob brushes against my knuckles if you are not capable of picking up the body-language hint and standing back a bit. You are annoying.

4. Uncross your legs if it’s rush hour to save room. Seriously, I’m glad you scored a seat. Now can I have four inches of floor space to step forward a little bit, or are you really that intent on bringing me and the dude behind me into carnal relations?

5. Do not spit on the floor. Or drop your sunflower seed shells on the floor. Do. Not.

6. Move to the center.

7. Don’t read, Blackberry, PS2, or anything else on your way out of the subway cars or up the stairs. I am a huge proponent of reading. I have been known to go hours without sleep to finish a book. I even gave it up for Lent once as a sacrifice to God, back when I was serious about God, because I love it that much. But nothing you are reading can be that important. Make your way up the stairs at a reasonable pace, exit the station, and resume reading later.

8. Don’t stop at the top of the stairs or directly outside them. I don’t care if it’s raining. Move three feet out and to the side before you start digging around in your giant, ugly Vera Bradley tote bag for your expensive, ugly Burberry umbrella. You can do it.

9. Don’t stop directly in front of the single turnstile to find your Metrocard. You are annoying.

10. Don’t go up the “down” side of the stairs if you are going to go at the speed of molasses in winter. The left side of the stairwell is like the oncoming-traffic lane on a dotted-line, two-lane country road. You’re allowed to shoot into it, rev up to pass a slower motorist, and scoot back into your lane on the right. What you are not allowed to do is wander into it and hang out there til the road runs out. If you do this, a semi is going to come roaring down and you will have a five-passenger pileup and it will not be pretty. You're probably a tourist, so you probably have a car, so you should understand this analogy.

11. Do not try to flirt with me on the morning commute. I’m tired, hot, and touching way too many other people simultaneously. All I want to do is be back in bed (without you). In fact, the entire train is also wishing to be back in bed, and therefore it is veerrry quiet, and therefore everyone can hear every pathetic double entendre and attempted sexual riposte you’re making. It is awkward. You are not sexy. You are annoying.

12. Move. To. The. GD. Center. That about covers it, I think.

Hearts, me

My Perfect Day

This weekend my friends and I started talking about what each of our perfect days would be. (This is assuming you were by yourself, not that your friends were pushed into another room having fun without you somewhere.) My perfect day includes: 1. Lying in my comfy bed, with freshly-laid clean sheets 2. With a pile of unread books that I knew were good, like maybe the end of a series I'd been waiting for or a book from a beloved author who hadn't published in a few years 3. And it would be late fall, and the sunlight would come through leaves and dapple on my covers, and the breeze would come through the open window 4. Maggie would be next to me, just lying furry and sweet against my leg like she used to 5. As would a box of fresh-baked cookies, which she would beg for but I would not give because chocolate contains theobromine which is bad for doggies 6. And it would be the Friday beginning a long weekend, so I would know I have plenty of time. There might be some mugs of coffee in there somewhere, too. And that would be my perfect day.

Ah, What the Hell, A Couple More Awesome Things!

Another word cloud! Of this blog. Woot woot! Click for bigger! I don't know why "one" is showing up so prominently (nor "God," come to think of it) but I think the fact that "like" enjoys the same prominence here as it did in my earlier word cloud ought to say something about my use of the English language. Also, another couple of fantastic poems. These are both by Yeats, who you don't need me to tell you was a master. Despite being from an Anglo-Irish family in the 1860s ... uh okay, quick detour for a history lesson: Ireland was still under British colonial rule in the late 1800s (til 1921, actually), and England, being Protestant, had for several centuries enforced laws barring Roman Catholics from positions of power. Thus most of the ruling/wealthy/upper classes of Irish society were Protestant (and of originally British descent); they were called the Anglo-Irish and were viewed by much of Ireland as the enemy in much of the Home Rule movement (i.e., the movement for a separate Irish republic) troubles to follow. Anyway. So despite being from a wealthy Anglo-Irish family, Yeats was extremely involved in the Irish Literary Revival in the fin de siecle, which was concerned with reclaiming "Irish identity" in the form of the Gaelic tongue and Celtic mythology (of which, by the way, he knew none. He would mispronounce the name of Ireland's greatest mythological hero, Cuchulain, for like 8 years before somebody corrected him). Much of his early work is deeply concerned with Irish identity: the reclamation of Irish legend (any of his Cuchulain or faerie host poems; "The Rose of the World," etc), the terrible events of Irish colonial history (possibly his most famous poem, "Easter 1916," is about the Easter Rising against the English), and his own distraught and distressing relationship with the famous Maude Gonne, an actress and fellow Revivalist (he pined after her for like 30 years, and proposed multiple times to both her ... and her daughter. Ew). A lot of his stuff from this time period is basically impossible to understand without knowing the context of Irish history and myth, and a lot of it is ... well, in very vaulted, perhaps overblown language. The power of some of it is impossible to deny, though, even if you don't quite understand it (like "Easter 1916," "The Song of Wandering Aegnus," "Leda and the Swan," "The Circus Animals' Desertion," and the intense, disturbing "Second Coming," among others). BUT. In his later years, he produced many poems which are shorter and less elaborate, and which speak to what are perhaps more universal human truths: determination and triumph; longing and regret and sorrow; the bitterness of experience and the sweet naivete of youthful hope. Here are two of my favorites. Two Years Later Has no one said those daring Kind eyes should be more learn'd? Or warned you how despairing The moths are when they are burned? I could have warned you; but you are young, So we speak a different tongue. O you will take whatever's offered And dream that all the world's a friend, Suffer as your mother suffered, Be as broken in the end. But I am old and you are young, And I speak a barbarous tongue. To a Friend whose Work has come to Nothing Now all the truth is out Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For how can you compete, Being honor-bred, with one Who, were it known he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbours' eyes? Bred to a harder thing Than Triumph, turn away And like a laughing string Whereon mad fingers play Amid a place of stone, Be secret, and exult: Because of all things known That is most difficult.

Two Awesome Things

Okay, so you know the Harry Potter Ballad contest that Amazon.com was putting on? (No? Basically they asked for 250-words-or-less “ballads,” or pieces of prose, expressing your … love, obsession, joy, whatever, of Harry Potter. The prize was, you got to fly to London and spend a weekend with the precious Tales of Beedle the Bard book. One imagines there was more to it than that, but that’s what I remember). ANYway. So I just read the winning ballad in the 18-and-under age group, and I really liked it because I love Harry Potter, and this sixteen-year-old from Australia wrote it, and I’m PMSing so the love of HP + books + growing up brings tears to my eyes; ergo I am reposting it here:

When I was six, he was eleven
I learnt how to be brave.

When I was seven, he was twelve
I learnt to misbehave.

When I was eight, he was thirteen
He taught me how to cry.

When I was nine, he was fourteen
He showed me how to try.

When I was twelve, and he fifteen
He taught me to forgive.

When we were fourteen and sixteen
I learnt what it was to live.

When we were fifteen and seventeen
He showed me he could bleed.

But growing up with Harry taught me, mostly, how to read.

Isn’t it great! Young people growing up with Harry and learning to love reading! Sigh.

Secondly, and GREATER: I found this really awesome site/application called Wordle. Wordle makes “word clouds” out of text you enter, or URLs, etc, basing the size of the word on the frequency of its appearance in the text, and sifting out articles and other overly-common words. You can customize the font, color, and basic layout. Here’s one, based on an (extremely representative) chain of workday emails between my friends and I. (Click for larger, clearer picture.)

I think the visualization of information is a really interesting topic—for instance, did you know there wasn’t really such a thing as a graph in the Western world until Florence Nightingale? There was this awesome article in the Economist a few issues back about the emergence of visually organized data, and they talked about her apparent comfort with statistics as well as nursing. At the time, people didn’t really correlate hygiene and/or cleanliness with infection and disease. She made this strange, circular graph of the deaths of soldiers in the Crimean war below, "Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East" (click for larger scale), showing the percentage of soldiers who died of wounds, of infectious or “preventable” diseases, and of unquantifiable “other” causes. The round, snail-like visual seems like a strange way to present information to us—we’re used to seeing the horizontal x-axis as a measure of time, and it seems weird & counterintuitive that she loops it around a circle because then she has to jump to another circle to show the next year—but by using different colors and making the slices of the graph proportional to the number of deaths, you can still see without sifting through a billion numbers that deaths by infectious disease far outweigh other types of death, even when the fighting was heavy (you can see this in October & November of 1854 or June of 1855 by how large the red “died of wounds” color block is). This graph was successful in helping her get barrack and hospital conditions improved.

Anyway, I think it’s just an interesting thing. Seeing information visually displayed can be really impactful, in ways that looking at long lists of words or tables of numbers cannot be. Which brings us back to Wordle. Look at the word cloud above and notice the proliferation (and relative weight) of words such as: like, just, and omg (we are obviously very literate people); depressed, sob, dyyyiiiiiiiing, hate, work, torture, freaking, death, etc. And food words: burger, chocolate, hungry. Now you don’t have to read the chain to get the relative importance of things to us. Obviously we need to lighten up. And eat.

Want.

Kay Ryan & Good Poetry

Here's some poetry from Kay Ryan, America's newest poet laureate. I'd never heard of her before she was named laureate (her term starts in the fall), but I like the tautness of her work and the precision of her words. So many of her poems are composed of lines of only two or three words each, each carefully considered so that each word counts and there's no flab, no excess. And she has a way of beginning small and common, and then dropping in a word or phrase--words that aren't even particularly extraordinary or unique--which scythe out that underlying truth she's trying to tell you about. They're so short that they leave you almost startled: you know you read something that meant something, because you feel it some sort of resonance in your chest, but it's like the resonance or ghost of a note hanging in the air after the song has stopped. You have to go back to look at the score to try to parse out what those notes were.

Great Thoughts

Great thoughts do not nourish small thoughts as parents do children. Like the eucalyptus, they make the soil beneath them barren. Standing in a grove of them is hideous.

Full Measure

You will get your full measure. But, as when asking fairies for favors, there is a trick: it comes in a block. And of course one block is not like another. Some respond to water, giving everything wet a little flavor. Some succumb to heat like butter. Others give to steady pressure. Others shatter at a tap. But some resist; nothing in nature softens up their bulk and no personal attack works. People whose gift will not break live by it all their lives; it shadows every empty act they undertake.

Blandeur

If it please God, let less happen. Even out Earth's rondure, flatten Eiger, blanden the Grand Canyon. Make valleys slightly higher, widen fissures to arable land, remand your terrible glaciers and silence their calving, halving or doubling all geographical features toward the mean. Unlean against our hearts. Withdraw your grandeur from these parts.

This Will Be A Boring Post. Seriously.

I was going to give you a list of books I freaking need the authors to write ASAP, plus favorite scenes from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (aka One Of The Best Books Ever) but instead I'm just giving you a mash-up of Random Stuff/Things I Like/Have Been Thinking About Recently. This post will be long and boring. Unfortunately, I think that's just the nature of this blog/me. 1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. This is an amazing, amazing book, and you must read it posthaste if you have not already. It's a (fictional) history of the revival of magic in England in the 1800s, and centers around the friendship and eventual rivalry of the first two practical magicians England has seen since the disappearance of its half-human, half-fey Raven King, John Uskglass, 300 years prior. It's an enormous, sprawling, beautiful work that's written in this awesomely prim, Jane Austen-ian tone (you know that way she had of skewering social niceties and egos with a few pointedly innocuous lines? Like that). Clarke also weaves a fabulously complex and believable backstory of the history of English magic that draws you into the world of JS & MN, complete with footnotes and extracts from letters and secondary sources for verification. Anyway, it's a gorgeous mashup of history (Napoleon & Waterloo), traditionally British & Spenserian mythology (think the Faerie Queen and Tam Lin, Arthurian legend and ... Norse mythology, I guess--"Uskglass" doesn't sound very British to me), Jane Austen and Charles Dickens (society balls and society scandals), and ... pure awesomeness. Also, I love what she does with language. My favorite scenes are probably too long and need too much explanation for posting, but look at this snippet of casual text: "The box was small and oblong and apparently made of silver and porcelain. It was a beautiful shade of blue, but then not exactly like blue, it was more like lilac. But then again, not exactly lilac either, since it had a tinge of grey in it. To be more precise, it was the colour of heartache. But fortunately, neither Miss Greysteel nor Aunt Greysteel had ever been much troubled by heartache and so they did not recognize it." OK. I know that wasn't groundbreaking per se, but I love the fact that this paragraph--which is a throwaway paragraph, buried in an immense book--is so precise in its description. Neither blue, nor lilac, nor grey: the colour of heartache. You know exactly what that box looks like now, don't you? And you know it's something not of this world (it contains, by the way, the severed smallest finger of lady who is under enchantment). And then the next great thing: after giving you something touchy-feely and sensitive like the colour of heartache, she goes on, in quintessentially British fashion, to brush past it with the matter-of-fact But fortunately, neither Miss Greysteel nor Aunt Greysteel had ever been much troubled by heartache and so they did not recognize it. Without so much as a comma, people! .... reading over this post I doubt you will be impressed. I'm not explaining this tiny bit of text well. But it's good. Read it. 2. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog! Joss Whedon (Buffy and Firefly creator, along with this fall's Dollhouse and some other tv shows) currently has a 3-part web-only musical coming out, starring Neil "Doogie Howser" Patrick Harris as supervillain Dr. Horrible. Dr Horrible just wants the chance to talk to Penny, the cute girl at the laundromat (Felicia Day), and to be able to prove his worth to the Evil League of Evil, which he's trying to join. Alas, Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillian, um yum?) is there to save the day and steal the girl. Part I is up now at the link I sent you and it's really hilarious, campy and OTT in the best way. Please watch it. Seriously. He makes a song about a freeze ray into a love ballad. It's amazing. 3. Er ... More Books! Okay so I don't think people understand quite how much I read. In the past three weeks, I have read the following 10 books:

• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (and oh, did I mention this is her fiction debut?! freaking amazing)
• Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card (Card's Ender's Game is one of my all-time favorite books, but I just can't quite wrap my mind around how ... altruistic and optimistic Card's views of humanity tend towards in his other books, this one included.)
• The Wrong Hostage by Elizabeth Lowell (Lowell isn't a bad writer, but this was mass market trash. hey, I was in an airport and the selection was small)
• New Moon and Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer (part of Meyer's hugely popular Twilight Saga ... YA fantasy novels. They're OK, but definitely YA, aka, melodramatic/romantic/sappy. And the heroine is really annoyingly helpless.)
• The Host by Stephanie Meyers (This was supposed to be her foray into adult books and scifi; it is slightly more complex than the Twilight books, but still basically felt like a YA fantasy/romance. All of Meyers' stuff is sort of trashy, addictive fun, but not exactly mentally-straining. Which is why I read 3 of them in the past 3 weeks. Also, I was on a roll.)
• The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle (This was a very beautiful, thoughtful, and sad coming-of-age story about a girl growing up on a fading ranch in Montana. The title refers to a conversation the girl has with her father when they're weaning foals from mares, a painful process involving forcibly separating the animals, who scream out for each other unceasingly for days before giving up. The narrator wants to know who watches over animals and soothes their pain the way humans believe a God does ours, and the book bring into question all the truths of that, and makes you wonder how much difference there is between us and the horses.)
• In the Woods by Tana French (A fantastic book--a literary mystery about a pair of Irish detectives investigating the murder of a little girl on the same spot where two children disappeared twenty years before. Wonderful characterizations and an amazing narration.)
• The Floating Island: The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme by Elizabeth Haydon (YA novel, first in a series. Capitalizing off the Spiderwick etc trend. I bought it b/c it was $4.95; didn't love it.)
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (speaks for itself. Reader, I married him!)

That, my friends, is a total page count of ... 5,324 pages. Of all of these, the top three are Jonathan Strange, The God of Animals, and In the Woods. They're all very different genres and what they have in common is fantastic writing and an internal resonance with the human condition.

I Have A New Blog! (take 2)

Well, I actually tried to do an initial "new blog!" post earlier--like 2 weeks ago--but obviously (in keeping with the theme of this whole endeavor) it was Not A Success since it didn't actually ever show up. Anyway. I've decided that this one will be less existential rambling about life and less excessive use of the f-bomb in relation to my job, and more fun stuff like lists, books, pictures, etc etc.

So! To start with: a few pictures from my recent trip to Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Austin, Texas (the last one being the most foreign, of course). Below is the view from the sidewalk cafe directly outside of our hotel. It was on Ipanema beach (yes, the Ipanema of the famously irritating "Girl From Ipanema" elevator song).


A half-mile away, Rio's other famous boardwalk/beach, Copacabana, at night. Freaking gorgeous. (The famously irritating "Copacabana" Barry Manilow song, which, btw, I have mostly memorized, was not about this beach.)


I hadn't realized quite how beautiful and yet ridiculous the layout of Rio was--the whole port side of the city is divided up by these incredible, abrupt mountains, which means that that part of the city is segmented into little coves of beach, hills, lagoons, and enclaves of buildings. Most amazing is the way the buildings--in the rich areas as well as in the favelas (Brazilian ghettos)--wind their ways up the hills. Despite the incredible grade, buildings are just packed on top of each other all the way up.

This is the famous bonde (tram) up to Santa Theresa, one of Rio's old, bohemian neighborhoods. It's the last working tram in Rio. You can see the kids (and some older people) clinging to the sides. The rule is if that you grab it as it's trundling by (instead of at a stop) and cling to the side for dear life, you can ride it for free. I think that's supposed to be limited to the local kids, but I definitely some rather muscle-bound and mustached "fourteen-year-olds" if they're gonna stick to that story.

Jare and Dad wait for the bonde like good little (?) tourists.

We had some freaking incredible food at a little restaurant perched on the Santa Theresa hillside. Succulent, succulent pork. Even Jarrett's vegetarian meal (mmm fried cheese) was tasty.

We also went up to a smaller town called Petropolis, north of Rio and into the mountains. This is where Rio's royalty used to go in the hotter summers, and also where they scurried away to whenever disease hit the city. Anyway, the point is that we got to this crisp mountain town in Brazil ... where we encountered a German heritage celebration. Yup. Those are Brazilians in full lederhosen. They are twirling each other. There were also a substantial number of flower-bedecked carts, pulled by goats. See exhibits A and B below.

(Exhibit A. See the twirling?)

(Exibit B. You're right. That IS a small dog in a handkerchief and cowboy hat, being pulled by a goat.)

We also hit Corcavado, a high mountaintop where a huge statue of Jesus sticks his arms out benevolently and woodenly (or granite-ly?) over the city. I'm just saying. He doesn't exactly look comfortable.


A few days later, we headed to Buenos Aires in Argentina next. BA was cold--in the 50s. It's winter down there, hence the coats you see on everyone. BA felt surprisingly like a European city to me. It gave off very Parisian-slash-Dublin vibes. Probably all the cranes and the cold, grey weather. But seriously, does the street below have a South or Latin American vibe to you? Me neither.

That's probably just my ignorance though. BA was settled by the Spanish, of course, and a long time before America was even thinking about getting around to statehood. And oh look, here to educate us of that fact is a very Spanish-looking statue of Pedro de Mendoza, who founded what became the current Buenos Aires in 1536 (he wasn't the first Spaniard to get there, but earlier colonies died out under Indian attack, starvation, etc etc. Actually Mendoza's did too, but eventually people came back to the place he'd settled; ergo he gets a statue). And, in a nice nod to veracity, in the background we have an incuse of an indigenous woman throwing up her hands in supplication to the gods, probably to save her from smallpox blankets. Or maybe that was us up in North America.

And in lighter news, here's a picture of me in front of a ginormous steak at a parrilla. I'm not actually a huge steak fan but you can't go to Argentina and not eat it. Unless you're Jarrett, and the waiter definitely had a hard time understanding why he only wanted salad until he whipped out the "soy vegetariano"s.

One of the coolest things in BA was Recoleta, the huge, sprawling cemetery. These people take their mausoleums seriously--everything you see below is a house of the dead for a family or person. You (literally) need a map to navigate through the cemetery, which is laid out on streets. Some of these things were serious pieces of architecture, and even the "smaller" ones were the size of, say, a bedroom in a New York City apartment. Despite the fact that Recoleta wasn't begun until the mid-1800s, it's essentially full now. Many of the mausoleums were quite old and untended, and with the broken glass and crumbling marble you could see coffins stacked on each other, and smaller chests for cremated remains propped on top, when the room ran out.

I like how in this picture, the city of the living is only a foggy presence in the background of the city of the dead. Which has a streetlight, natch.

And here's a picture of Congress. Just for you. Somewhere inside, Cristina Kirchner is stamping on the export rights of farmers. (Actually, there was a lot of "Cristina is Evita Reborn!" graffiti on the monuments nearby. But who knows--that could have been from 6 months ago when she first took office and her ratings were higher.)


And lastly, one of me and Pop in front of Casa Rosada (the "Pink House"), which is the presidential ... uh, building, I guess ... from whose balconies Eva and Juan Peron gave rousing speeches. It's pink because back in the mid-1800s after Argentina had declared independence from Spain, but before the country had really gotten its feet beneath it, the president at the time painted it with the mixed colors of the unionists (white) and the federalists (red) in an attempt to get everybody to stop fighting each other and start fighting the local tribes. I think.

And finally, a few Austin, Texas wedding pictures! Angela, my best friend from high school, got hitched to Andy, this guy who's barely worthy of her. Just kidding. It was a really nice wedding. They had it at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and half of the reception tables were outdoors. There wasn't a lot of fripperies and adornment--they just kept it simple and used the surroundings. It was really pretty, as evidenced below.

Here's me and two of my other HS BFFs--Jenn Cheng and Karen Wang. Jenn is now married and Karen is engaged. SIGH. FINE. I'LL GO BUY MY CATS SOME MORE FANCY FEAST.

Angela looked gorgeous as always, but strangely, all of my pix of Andy were ... terrible, though whose fault that is, I'm not entirely sure. Note the one below in which he is throwing a gang sign while holding a baby. This bodes well for the marriage, I think.

Okay, here's a cute one. This is them handing out candies as the relatives leave. No, but seriously, they're a really good-looking couple and only someone who works as hard as I do at f*cking up pictures could have come out of this wedding with a roll of what amounts to outtakes. No applause necessary. I try hard.


Okie that's it for now! Soon to come: a list of sequels I really want the authors to freaking sit down and write. And maybe some amazing passages from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Sofa king good, that book. Read it now if you haven't yet.