You could be so broke you’re considering answering those foot fetish party ads on Craigslist.
Wait…
You could be so broke you’re considering answering those foot fetish party ads on Craigslist.
Wait…
Shortly to be sent to PR people at all major, fancy Miami hotels.
To Whom It May Concern:
Greetings! We are the Well Dressed Refugees, a tribe of breathtakingly beautiful youths with biting wits, fantastic hair-dos and fierce spirits who act as a collective art cooperative devoted to upstaging the simulated “real” with the real real . We had our debut late this past year at Miami’s Art Basel, during which our highly acclaimed piece “Untitled #76” was in the Convention Center. Since then, we have exhibited at the Palace Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, ____ in Los Angeles, and Gallerie de Osgood in Miami, published a small ‘zine and begun plans for massive theater pieces that will span numerous countries, socio-economic milieus and spheres of consciousness.
As a hotel employee or manager, you may or may not be aware of the contemporary meta-art world and its focus, which is imbuing everything with a joyous abandon and sense of deep yet whimsical spiritual purpose. This announcement is made completely devoid of condescension; in fact, we thought that considering you yourself are an artist, creating constantly and prolifically, it might be beneficial for you to be made aware of the glory of your own accomplishments, as well as those of your colleagues (everyone.) As a group, the WDR has met with unparalleled success in spreading exhilaration and orgasmic confusion wherever we go, and therefore we would like to offer our services as Meta-Artists-in-Residence to you.
The marketing concept of the pretty, mischievous hotel dweller(s) is not a new one. What would the venerable Plaza Hotel be without plucky little Eloise? (We have an exact doppelganger, F to the YI.) Or the Algonquin without the drunkards at the Round Table? (Repeat last parenthetical.) The Chelsea without Andy Warhol’s meth head starlets? (You get the picture.) BORING, that’s what they’d be. There is a long tradition of the libertine-in-residence, and with us, you can get five for the price of one! We can pour drinks, drink drinks, and play bongos. Plus we can guarantee you some really fantastic and entertaining activities, including but not limited to spontaneous meditation sessions, organizing hotel guests for giant games of Manhunt, and, if you have a pool, synchronized swimming routines complete with flowered caps and old lady nose plugs. We can also assure a guest appearance by none other than actor-turned-pretentious-performance-art-champion James Franco, a dear friend, and Mickey Rourke, who always bring the ladeez. No assembly required.
A small anecdote, by way of parting: during the weekend of our grand premiere, we saw a pretty though dull-looking girl lapping in the pool at a hotel to remain nameless. She removed half her bathing suit, exposed her breasts unenthusiastically and sat beneath a small fountain of water looking rather listless and unhappy. Later on, she confessed to one of us that the hotel “sometimes paid” her to swim around. Our collective response is: come on, guys, you can do better than that! Treat your guests like intelligent, post modern beings; bait them with Baudrillard, not boobs! Not that we’re against a titty flash now and then, but we just want to be upfront about the fact that we set the bar high, and will inevitably attract people just like us: glamorous, immortal, highly cultured and, as our title indicates, blindingly fashionable.
To discuss rates, references and programs in production, please contact ID at itinerantdaughterandson@gmail.com.
Wishing you filthy dreams and a million cupcakes,
The WDR
So I have no money left, have applied for a million jobs in the past month with no responses, and am saddled with a non-paying assignment to review the work of a very established and prolific poet whose work I’ve never really read before and I fear is over my head. FML! White Girl Problems! All other funny blogs! And now I’m watching Jesus Camp, so I must be a glutton for punishment. Here’s one person who can always make me giggle:
A stroke of genius. I decide to be Degas for a day. Edgar Degas. Why Degas? says a pesky at the back of my head. Well, why not Degas? Pourquoi pas Degas? Maybe the prismatic bars of color on my ceiling have inspired me. Maybe the creamy white light spreading on my walls has moved me. Maybe it’s all this cheap French wine I been drinking. Anyway I don’t have to explain myself. Yes! Today, I will be Edgar Degas! –– Is it Edgar or Edouard? Okay, so I don’t know much about Degas. Let’s see. Dead, French, impressionist painter of, what, jockeys, ballerinas, flowers, that kinda thing. And okay granted, I’m not French, dead or a painter of any kind. Not a lotta ground. And yet, and yet –– are Degas and I not united by our shared humanity? By our common need for love, coffee, and deodorant? … (We hear the sound of a shower.) In the shower, it feels strange, lathering an immortal. What’s even stranger, the immortal is lathering back. How did I become such a genius? I, who flunked wood shop in high school! Was it my traumatic childhood? There was Uncle Stosh’s unfortunate party trick with the parakeet. Ouch. Well something must’ve happened. Because now I’m great. I’m brilliant. My name will live forever! (He considers this for a second.) Whoo. Wow. This is too big for even me to contemplate. I go out into the world with dry cleaning.
~ from “Degas, C’est Moi” by David Ives
Tomorrow I will be Joan Didion!
“I used to ask people ‘Where’s the local glitter factory?’ and no one could ever tell me because, in
fact, very few people knew where glitter comes from. Subsequently I found out it was invented on
a cattle farm in New Jersey in 1934 where you can still buy it today. At one point I found out that
glitter, kilo for kilo, is a drug-like commodity. You can go to Vienna, buy two kilos of glitter for the
same price as a tiny vial in Stockholm. It has a very under-exploited commodity status. Part of
this is to do with the fact that very few people could ever tell me if glitter was made by Chinese
children or was a by-product of the arms trade. Maybe it was an innocent material made by well-
paid artisans. To this day, I’ve still never been to a glitter factory. I can’t tell you if people are
happy in glitter factories, whether glitter factories are organised collectively or a “Glitter Board”
regulates them.”
Artist Liam Gillick on one of his favorite materials
WHY IS THIS SHIT FORMATTED SO STRANGE?
Something about this whole thing smells fishy to me…
Ew.
JF: hey how’s it going?
2:46 PM on A Friday
I live in Brooklyn.
I am twenty-six and unemployed.
Here is what I’ve had to eat today:
one iced coffee, a granola bar, most of an avocado, one spoonful of peanut butter from the jar, and a 16 oz. Budweiser.
Dear Welfare Department,
Please give me some money because it is a downright shame that I have had to live my life up until now without these, and to ask me to continue to lead this empty, Star Wars pancake mold-less life is a crime against humanity.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a Jedi Kitchen Master created an epic breakfast to unleash the power of his Jedi Padawan. Using the Force™, he created three nonstick steel pancake molds in honor of his favorite galactic heroes and villains: Yoda™, Darth Vader™ and a stormtrooper™. Our Star Wars molds couldn’t be easier to use. Just place them with their handles up on a preheated griddle then pour in your batter. After the first side has set, remove the molds and flip the pancakes. Serve a stack drenched in your favorite syrup – and let the adventures begin. Hand-wash. 4 1/2″ to 7 3/4” wide. Fold-down handles. Set of three.
© 2010 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All rights reserved.

I may also need a pancake pen.
Love,
ID
I’m reading this story in the New York Times right now about a member of the Carnegie family who lives on a tiny, isolated, most likely wind-swept island up in Maine and wrote a book about her family’s history of mental illness. Her daughter, pseudonym Sandra, now 55, first diagnosed with schizophrenia and then with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) also lives on the island. Excerpt:
[The author of the book] discovered Jungian analysis and Transcendental Meditation and stopped speaking to her own father, though he lived, until his death, in a house within view of hers. He was, she has come to believe, as ill in his own way as Lucy, who was as ill as Sandra. In time, Sandra married, had two children and then divorced. Now 55, she has a house on Crescent Island, and the company of a companion hired by her parents.
The person I’m MOST interested in, based upon this excerpt, is the paid companion. What is that like? Do they just hang out, or is her BPD so bad Sandra needs to be taken care of? What kind of melancholy does she (I’m assuming it’s a female) face on those chilly New England island nights?
“Despedida”
Enter mi amor y yo han de levantarse
trescientas noches como trescientas paredes
y el mar sera una magia entre nosotros.
No habra sino recuerdos.
Oh tardes merecidas por la pena,
noches esperanzadas de mirarte,
campos de mi camino, firmamento
que estoy viendo y perdiendo…
Definitiva como un marmol
entristecera tu ausencia otras tardes.
~Jorge Luis Borges