Tay-LOR! Tay-LOR!

BTW- this is picture was something I doctored for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately its not that pleasurable to look at. But if you try really hard, you can read a great argument for why Taylor Swift's music is great.

Girls are allowed now!

Huzzah! So I guess with this post, I hope to balance out what appears to be a copious amount of boobies on this blog... In the eloquent words of Khoa, mandatory initiation is to write about "who wood u do"... my answer to that is:

Look at how cute he is (without the ridiculous stache) ! I don't know him very well (er, at all) so I can't really comment on important personality traits such as general intelligence or kindness... for all I know he could be a real douchebag. But he was hilarious in Freaks and Geeks (the greatest show ever, aside from Arrested), Pineapple Express, and in this. We'll all ignore the General Hospital nonsense and call it creative artistic expression.

This is irrelevant, but for the record, if the question was, "Who would you want to be your best friend forever" I would answer with this kid... who doesn't love him?

Alternate Histories Far Superior to Your "Reality"

There's something to be said about revisionist history. Or alternate history. Okay, okay, sometimes it's just about as dull as it comes, but what about all those times you find your mind unexpectedly blown like a balloon coated in plastic explosives?

I give unto you an alternate history that fits neatly in the middle. Isn't that nice? I mean, who wouldn't mind a world where the Beatles got back together? And it was great? And it was because Ringo dabbled in time travel? Sounds good to me.

You might as well chase the above article with a few of the tracks of this fictional Beatles album. It's not perfect, but a few of the track are just close enough to great that you can feel the dimensions bending.

Free strips of paper!

FYI

Just in case you're wondering--this is Everyday Italian!

This little number was captured by the guys behind this odd gem:

Giada'sCleavage.com

Every episode is punctuated with stunning visuals, a dinner menu from the episode, and a haiku like this one:

The colander rests
Filled with Spring pasta
- Is she lactating?

Bizzare but true! Go on, Click It, you know you want to. 

this needs to be seen...

Indiscreet Lessons in Indirect Discourse: 1

So, say I was in a position to read a manuscript about a certain iconic circus ringleader, the genesis of the entertainment industry, and the death of natural philosophy.

Hellz yeah, you say? Well, yeah, it probably would be pretty tight, if I were doing that.

But.

Let's also say the writer is a graduate of a certain MFA program that likes things that involve indirect discourse applied to previously marginalized members of society (OK, that's every MFA program). This is always intensely readable, and sometimes, hella cheap.

(Note: The writer may not, in fact, be good enough to subtly switch to this mode, and instead may confuse my tired eyes by simply starting the first chapter focusing on said marginalized society-member in good old first person, in which case this critique is, like, total overkill. But since this situation is totally hypothetical, let's roll with it.)

Now people who have taken a modern lit class get to eat a sandwich while I give a history lesson to the other .2 of you:

Indirect discourse is this highly useful narration technique where you have the power of the omniscient narrator to say whatever, but can interweave the thoughts of the characters without attribution. Basically, it's the authorial persona speaking, filtered through the voice, vocabulary, and viewpoint of the main character of the moment. You get the unique worldview of first-person, with an infinite number of possible layers of distance from that view.

Exercise!

Blogger: The Independent Film

[John wakes up, looks at his feet, closes his eyes.]

Blogger: A Memoir

Morning crashed through the window again. I opened my eyes, saw some feet, saw there were only two of them, got sad, closed my eyes again.

Blogger: A Pulitzer-hopeful Novel

At 8:07 a.m., six eyes on 101 W Carraway shot open, six feet twitched---two of these were in the corner room of Apt B. A blink and a throb. Three times, three times shot down. John closed his eyes. The nails would be all be trimmed in twenty minutes.

It's the "three times" that makes this indirect discourse, and therefore important writing of the modern era. But when did this become the No. 1 marker of literature?

(That is a question I am totally unqualified to answer. At some point we swung from fully-formed narrative personas, often with their own introductions to the story, to this.

In my unsupported view, this was a way to bring in the dramatic monologue of the theater (recognizably high art) to the novel (with its middle-class distaste for anything as artificial as a monologue). By Mrs. Dalloway, we were following twelve different characters' voices at once, frequencies jiggered on the omniscient narrator's radio.

Because it is easier to say whatever you want about opaque writing, lit crit couldn't be more pleased about this.)

To bring this back, finally, contemporary readers take indirect discourse as simply the way a story is told.

Any writing set in "the past" likes to exploit this by engaging the reader with this modern, comforting narrative voice, but then employing distance (third person narration without intrusion into character's voices or thoughts) when the author doesn't want you to identify with the characters, and it feels all alien and not our time period and stuff.

Indirect discourse is then used to bring to the emotional spotlight the marginalized, often women. But I think this can backfire, reinforcing people's notions about gender roles in the past: Men do things; women feel things.

So when I read about a 19th century aristocratic taxidermist upholding the patriarchy for 10 chapters with no development, and then am thrust into the deeply nuanced thoughts of an nine-foot-tall woman, I feel cheated.

But in this thought experiment I am reading this manuscript with the world (or about 12,000 of you) in mind. So the question is, do you?

Yeah....it's like that

via @SamRotter

Make this

Okay, I'm proposing a series where we make food, say something about it and take pictures of it. I would start, but I just ate my food. But you can recreate it, like so:

Ham. Pumpkin seed bread. Brie. In a Pan. Greens on top.

Unhappy Hipsters

It was unclear how her life had become so riddled with obvious metaphors.

Ha, the one from April/May 2004 was taken from a nook in the MoMA.

Yo! Mini Daddy!

Bets on dominant cable news angles?

I vote for: WHAT IS MICHELLE'S SMOLDERING SECRET???

Delete dem...

Trickling in, Trickling in!

Drag City just posted the new song off Joanna Newsom's new album "Have One On Me"

"81"

Now onto things I can't pronounce....

Efterklang

I heard about them a few months ago but I never bothered to listen to their music. UNTIL, our dear friend Henny sent me a list of band's she's currently into. Turns out she went to school with these danish fellows as well. Orchestral, poppy, and never harsh and interesting rhythmns. I'm happy to know a Dane.

And the winner isn't

I'll admit, this whole sleeping with a celebrity has me flummoxed. I'll also admit that I only wrote the previous sentence to transmit to all of you the universal joy of pronouncing the word "flummoxed" in your pop-culture addled brains (yes, a universal pleasure-screw your cultural relativism).

Honestly, though, there is only one celebrity I've ever had a crush on deep emotional connection to. It carried me through puberty, and he's still the only celebrity I want to critique architecture and parking ramp placement with (yeah I'm gay). Unfortunately though, I hope to be entering into a business relationship with this, my one true celebrity, in the not too distant future. I'd hate for explicit sexual details to stated on this blog to make their way to his desk and sour the deal.

This love, which is best described thusly: close your eyes. Pick up the cheeseburger. Enjoy its warmth, the weight in your hand. Oops, that bit of stout sauce and onion on your hand. Move it closer to your mouth. Feel the saliva flood your mouth, the aroma assault your nostrils. Take a bite. WHAM. Punch in the face. Yep, someone just full on punched you. Right in the face. That's love, and that joy right there is mine alone, ladies and gentleman.

But, after much deliberation, there are a number of obvious and largely uninspired (but extremely attractive) celebrities I would certainly have meaningful one-night stands or 3-day-weekends with. Just to be clear, we'd warm up with some gay pornography and press banter, follow with blow jobs (which I definitely did not learn how to perform by reading a dictionary) and proceed to the main course. These lucky men are: Leonardo DiCaprio, for his panache and ability to pull off facial hair no one else can; Clive Owen, for the his inhuman ability to wear a suit; Daniel Craig, for his panache and Chris Pine, because he is the hottest white man I've ever seen.

Enough. Get me a glass of scotchka.

Also, photo copyright Jana Voigt

Celebrity Obsession

I'll admit, everyone's choices are uniquely adorable and I can see how one could develop affection for any of them (perhaps aside from Lady Gaga and especially in the case of President Lincoln). However, when I analyze my own choice, I realize that I don't achieve the same visceral welling of desire or the same complexity of emotion that I do towards the ever beguiling, voluptuous Patricia Arquette.

While beginning to write this post, I discovered that I had two (or three, but we'll get to that later) competing aspects of Patricia Arquette I am enamored by: her charming, naive exuding of sexuality and her powerful, devious exuding of sexuality. Not to form any dualism or whatever, but these two components of what Patricia Arquette represents have solidified in my heart based on two of her acting roles: that of her in Lost Highway and True Romance. I realize that these are roles in films and not actually parts of her personality, but my perception of her acting in her roles in inextricably linked to my attraction to her.


To be honest, however, if I had only True Romance and her interviews through which to admire her, Patricia Arquette would not have nearly as deep an emotional impact on me that she does. It's not to say that she still isn't infinitely adorable and endearing. Her character in True Romance was nothing if not that, supremely naive in her concept of love (as well as the world) and almost sickeningly pure in her sexuality. In her talk-show appearances (especially now, as she has gotten older) she seems remarkably secure and her demeanor now betrays a marked self-confidence and a conceited effort to disparage pomp and ceremony (a rare quality in a celebrity). Also look how cute she is on Sesame Street:



But its Patricia Arquette's performance in Lost Highway by which she constantly comes to mind as the most seductive and alluring celebrity I can think of. Lost Highway is by no means an optimistic movie, not for the protagonist(s) or anyone, and in my mind, this all stems from Patrica Arquette's character, the epitome of the Lynchian femme-fatale. She exudes sex in this film, and has captured the minds and libidos of literally every male character she comes across. But the facet of this character that places her as the ultimate female in my mind is that while she seems submissive and postures herself in away that makes the men in her life need to own her, and think that they do, she is never powerless.


Her sexuality is her power, and she uses it without abandon. She is somehow able to make every man she comes across feel constantly emasculated up until the point at which she utterly annihilates them and their preconceptions of the world from the inside-out. At the core, it is the dark side to her sexuality that most intrigues me and most makes me want her. It is in part the danger, in part the fact that she goes as both a blond and a brunette in the film, but it is mostly the idea that she possess the ability to inflict such force on a man's existence that draws me to her above all else.

Oh right. I had a third thing. It is merely this: she is slammin'. She's cute and has a rockin' bod. Also check these out:


With all that said, this succinctly sums up my feelings on the matter:

who wood u du?

who would u du? i guess the initiation into this blog is to tell the entire world who ud wanna sexxx up...well who would i sexxx up?

after much ponderin and careful selection, i chooz...

y did i chooz such a character? in all honesty...i believe that lady gaga is more or less the gurrrl equivalent of daft punk...

and i would prefer not to sexxx up robots...especially when they really look like this...



until next time...

Greetings and Salutations and Unfulfilled Desires

There are a lot of hot celebrities. Tons of them. Endless masses, really, if the progression of time and the regular realities of breeding and plastic surgery are anything to set your watch to. So who is it amongst these beauteous hordes that I would take as my own?

Though I don't think I can match his visual panache, I'd like to borrow McFadden's lovely concept of "famous girlfriend," because I don't think I could go on living if Amanda Palmer and I were only allowed a one night stand.

I'm going to tell you something very strange: it was she who seduced me. As leading lady of The Dresden Dolls, Ms. Palmer's been singing siren songs to me for years now. If you can give me the name of anyone writing music as brutal and emotionally honest as her, I'll eat my hat (I have several).

And of course, dare I forget her loveliness? The delicate arabesques or hasty scrawls of her inconstant eyebrows? Or more importantly, the guts and grin she shows on every album? Especially her new solo material, Who Killed Amanda Palmer? a double punch to my heart- musical and referential. There's more to her than I can possible name in this brief post, and to condense further would only be insulting.

Amanda! I'm free on Thursdays!

New Songs for a Real Hero

New band found from band I currently like:
James Husband

Makes music that my Pandora associates with Kurt Vile. But actually more akin to a Beatles melodies played solo.
His story according to the internet:

• (According to Wikipedia) Instrumentalist from Of Montreal
• (James Husband Blog)
• (Of Montreal Blog) Headed out for a short tour with Of Montreal. I think we call that synergy.

Good stuff though, although still not as clear, and idiosyncratic as Kurt's of course.

Blog Band of the Future (Shelf Life>1 year, critical mass in 8 months, conditional on 3 songs found on band myspace)
GIVERS



Pop-Top heavy pop sensibilities, that diverge from the recent resurgence of the heavier more bombastic pop-songs. Think, if you must, a country influence indie-pop band from DeKalb, IL (any of them will do). So far, they sound too precious to go the distance. But I've been able to do stochastic (and this post) with them in the background, so the near future seems bright for them!

(Grandfathered in Blog Post) that I-would-have-posted-about-a-year-ago-if-I-had-a-blog.
College



So far the Valerie collective have succeeded in producing gems that haven't seemed to catch in the States.

Think the 80s. Or at least what people born during the 80's think of the 80's.
With the release of the album Secret Diary and the EP Teenage Color; lovers of moogs, roland beats, and the coldness of inclement economic activity (80's had a big recession, never thought of that did you? Just kidding, the two recessions are totally different.)

New Release: A Real Hero--find it on the internet (if you're here, you probably can)
Why I love it? Because of tautological statements like: A Real Human Being/And A Real Hero

But here's a a new video:

COLLEGE - "She never came back" from Frantz Lasorne on Vimeo.

The Question at Hand

So, you have the chance to spend the night with any celebrity, any celebrity in the world. Who do you choose? It's not a simple question.

It seems wholly cruel and strange to belittle my love for the lovely and talented Aubrey Plaza into some kind of sexual escapade, likely unfulfilling for the both of us, followed by those days of awkward glances and stumbling conversations in which it becomes nearly impossible to regain the ground that you somehow managed to capture in that one dark night. And that's not the sort of relationship anybody would want.

I am in love with Aubrey Plaza and the world in which she lives, and being with her would be living out one of my biggest dreams of living on the inside of the stand-up comedy community. I want to meet the people and see what they're like offstage. I want to be made fun of in front of a hundred people on the road. She can refer to me as her fat bisexual comic book geek boyfriend and I will smile to myself as she slowly starts referencing obscure comic book characters in her acts without realizing it. I would hang out with Nick Offerman and his moustache on the set of Parks and Recreation, and tell Chris Pratt that Everwood was totally underrated and that his character had the best emotional arc of the series. I would help her read scripts and try to get her to do movies with the best people out there, and we would watch weird old horror movies late into the night.

She is incredibly beautiful and I would love her dearly, and yes, there would be intimate moments, but you cannot be a part of them. They are between the two of us.

Zooey Deschanel

My Famous Girlfriend

Zooey Deschanel is probably the cutest girl in the world. That is why I elect her to the title of "Famous Girlfriend"--others may know this crown as the famous-person-I-would-have-sex-with, honor. But to bestow that particular title on Zooey would ruin her appeal.

In fact, I'd like to think of her as a cloud.

True to her nature, she remains elusive. Currently she is married to the musicalist Ben Gibbard. His musical CV is quite impressive. He is the only person that has the fortitude to pull the at the sky and touch the clouds that hover above our heads.

To, Zooey Deschanel--you're my top pick, may you continue in your ravishing success. And embellish the world, and by extension, our lives a little bit with your glory.

*Rejoice*

We welcome you to Scrabblegories with sex and celebrity and answers to a personal question regarding those two things

Who? Who would you do?

...

You knew there would be a catch, didn't you? Well, I won't disappoint.

On copping-out, I mean.

Honestly, it has to be Abe.

...

OK, look. There were no rules against dead people, and if this is creepier than macking on people who probably pay interns (think of the interns!) to Google themselves every three seconds for defamation but also dream of running away from their wives and E-meters to sex all their fans, I stand alone but proud in the crypt.

Obviously, the only serious answer to this question is Cary Grant. But while I'd like to think Ceege would never leave me, come on.

Abe, on the other hand: miserable, body-dysmorphic (why else would he hide in all that hair?), kind of racist and not-so-good on the civil liberties precedents, but generally wanted to make people happy. Also, by all accounts he desperately wanted a man, and his wife probably concurred. How could he say no?

The point is, Cary Grant only said witty things other people wrote. Abe wrote, said, did.

Abe Lincoln: the celebrity for the rest of us.