From the monthly archives: December 2009

Integrity

By On December 15, 2009 · In Cremains

No Package
I respect the honesty of this sign. No monkey business! (Click through to see it writ large.)

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I leave you my collection of moths

By On December 14, 2009 · In Adipocere

Given the recent uptick in traffic, I thought I’d avail myself of the opportunity to promote shit that I like. It will help you understand. Because I’m concerned that I’m inadvertently giving you the impression that I a) have more than the slightest awareness of pop culture, b) consort with folks outside of my LARP circle, and c) talk to people at parties. This was like an albino hunchback riding a unicorn.*

Anyhow. Two bands I love, one book recommendation, and an unassailable holiday gift idea.

Tiger! Shit! Tiger! Tiger!, this incredible Italian post-punk band:

T!S!T!T!, Oh Look, a Grenade!

Binary Sunrise, from Dallas, TX, who sound like so many things, all of them wonderful:

Binary Sunrise, Five Minutes

Everyone else I’m listening to, as per usual, is dead and gone and I don’t want you to know about them anyhow.

Book recommendation: Two Dollar Radio‘s Some Things That Meant the World to Me, by Joshua Mohr. I read it during my St. Louis adventure. It’s a simultaneously creepy and poignant story about a drunk haunted by his past, and I enjoyed it immensely and not just because it’s like my life story (minus San Francisco, which might be the only town I hate more than Atlanta or Chicago)(Yeah you heard me).

Finally, hey, are you looking for a Christmas gift to amuse/alienate your loved ones? I can’t think of a better gift than Love Is a Four-Letter Word, which is available at finer bookstores everywhere and the bookshelf at the National Review. You can even read an excerpt here, and that’s the only time I’m givin’ it away for free.

*Did you know that “unicorn” is a term for a single woman at a swinger’s club? I learned that recently.
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Add this to the canonical list of banjo jokes

By On December 14, 2009 · In Cremains

I really can’t offer much of a preamble to this Ask Metafilter question beyond “Wait…what?”

Is it a grand gesture to anonymously give a woman I think is beautiful a banjo?

At the beginning of this semester, I briefly was in a relationship with a woman who I cared a great deal about. It didn’t end well, and really, it couldn’t have ended well. We have nothing in common. But as it is, I still think she is beautiful, and I’d like to do something truly grand, both to make this world a better (albeit stranger) place, and to give myself some closure.

…I can think of nothing in this world more beautiful than this girl playing the banjo. I mean, Christ, just that mental image of her sitting under a tree in spring sunshine, picking a banjo. That is something I would keep until the worms picked it from my rotting brain.

I can think of nothing in this world more…totally batshit insane.

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…and the toothpaste flowed out

By On December 14, 2009 · In As I Am Now

There are few flaws I abhor more in myself, and in others, than carelessness. Carelessness includes actions such as the following:

  • Accidentally smashing glasses in the dish drain because we keep canned goods directly above the dish drain and now that we’re penniless, we have 15 cans of chickpeas up in there
  • Leaving umbrellas behind on the subway
  • Drooling toothpaste-backwash all over my sweater and leaving for work anyhow knowing goddamn full well that I didn’t get the toothpaste stain out because NOTHING removes toothpaste stains (except peanut butter, I think…or is it chewing gum?), like I did today
  • Eating spaghetti and meatballs with my hands while riding a unicycle and wearing my white silk chantung pantsuit

Another thing that could be considered careless, and something of which I’m frequently guilty, is blurting things out in conversation that could be construed as “lacking in politesse.”

Some background: Every business guru book in the world has a chapter on EQ, which, in shorthand, is what allows idiots to rise to upper echelons of management simply by remembering coworkers’ names and frequently commenting on how interesting their ideas are. I do not possess even a smidgen of EQ, which is why I will always have jobs where I have to ask permission to go to lunch. For awhile, I thought that maybe I had Aspergers, which afflicts EVERYONE on the Internet. But no, I can’t have Aspergers, because I’m not obsessed with WWII biplanes or Turing machines.

Anyway, this weekend, N and I were at a Christmas party, talking to this young woman about what we do for a living (what else — it’s NY).

Me: You’re a writer?
Her: Yeah, I have a book coming out this summer.
N: Are you going to tell us what it’s about?
Her: No.
Me: Is it called I Fucked Tiger Woods? Because I hear that’s a really hot subject right now.
Her: [blinks]

Come to find out* she’s the daughter of a rather prominent Republican politician. Ultimately, I won her over once we discovered a shared love of guns (I didn’t mention my plans to Smash The State) but let’s just say I won’t be trotting that joke out at the Junior League anytime soon.

*About four hours later
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