Yep, that about sums it up.
Archive for the ‘Conspiracy Theories’ Category
The 21st Century Can Kiss My Ass
January 23, 2015Amen
January 22, 2015“But Bruchy knew, as anyone with any sense did, that this was certainly not a book for boys. Boys were to keep their minds pure and spend their days with Torah study. Girls were not required to study Torah. He who teaches his daughter Torah, the sages said, teaches her foolishness. Girls, we were told, didn’t have the urges and temptations that boys did. Girls were allowed to gaze at boys, but boys were not allowed to gaze back. Some said that women possessed loftier souls than men and therefore didn’t need to study Torah, weren’t obligated with as many commandments, were allowed to study English literature and history and even a little art and science, too, because their souls were so lofty that those subjects couldn’t hurt them, or not nearly as much as they could boys.”
~All Who Go Do Not Return, by Shulem Deen
Other things best left to women:
Politics (all of ’em)
Managing large amounts of money/running corporations
Determining how much space each individual ass deserves on subway benches
Did This Week Suck?
January 9, 2015I think it did. But I’ll tell you what doesn’t suck: Sia’s music video for “Elastic Heart.” I know this one has gotten more than its share of attention, albeit mostly from those who consider it either pedophilia or pointless absurdity or both. But that’s some mishegoss, because while it is absurd, it is certainly not pointless or pedophilic. I thought about writing about it in depth, but Erin Keane at Salon said everything I was going to say already. I almost joined Twitter solely for the purpose of messaging her, “Erin: you are SO RIGHT. But can you tell me now how I can stop myself from watching the video for the 700th time in a row?”
I’ve heard people say that it’s about Sia’s relationship with her father, and Sia herself said it was about “two warring ‘sia’ self states.” I like the latter explanation better. A folie a deux occurring inside a single person. I keep coming back to the idea of Ziegler as a kind of dancing id, something feral and composed entirely of instinct. Who is Shia, then? Unclear. But $20 they met in AA.
If you’re doubting me on the Freudian thing, check out the video for “Chandelier,” and then get back to me. So if we’re being teleological here––and why WOULDN’T we be––that makes LaBeouf the ego or the superego. Something is swirling around in here (the video, and my brain, which are kind of one and the same thing at this point) about the perils of doing things because society TELLS you to, like pose for publicity shots. Who knows this better than a former Disney slave? Oh SIA YOU CLEVER SONGBIRD YOU. I’m seriously looking for someone to recreate this dance with me (I call Ziegler’s role.) Oh, and Maddie, if you’re reading this: you’re a true artist. Don’t let reality TV destroy you.
Hotels
January 5, 2015More on hotels: apparently the Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai ranks #28 on CondeNast Traveler’s Best 100 Resorts 2014 list, but frankly, I think it looks TERRIFYING. It’s like Kubrick does political interior design. Also, I could make soooo many jokes based on this little review, but I’ll spare you.
Hormones
December 31, 2014KM: I’m really emotional
KM: I must be getting my period
KM: When I was watching SNL the other night, there were so many poinsettias on the stage, and it just looked so pretty that I started sobbing
KM: actually sobbing.
Dear CIA/Department of Homeland Security
December 21, 2014Hey guys,
I’m working on a research project––totally legitimate, connected to a big macher in academia––that is requiring me to watch a lot of Anwar al-Alwaki videos and read Tumblrs of teenagers who’ve fled to join ISIS. I am not, repeat NOT, of this persuasion, like at all. Just wanted to let you know.
xxx,
ID
PS Would a wannabe jihadist really be using a yiddishism? Doubtful!
Cultural Terrorism
December 21, 2014Upon reading a review of John Lahr’s Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, I came across this infuriating little piece of information:
“Even after he died in 1983, alone in a sour, pill-strewn Manhattan hotel room, he was mocked. In his will he had stipulated that he wanted to be buried at sea, his body thrown into the water at exactly the point in the Gulf of Mexico where the poet Hart Crane, his hero, had jumped off a ship and drowned. Instead, his brother had him buried in his hated hometown, St. Louis, and tried to make a tourist attraction of the grave.”
According to my most favorite website ever, Williams is buried in section 15A of the Calvary Cemetery and Mausoleum in Saint Louis. I propose we go over there, dig up his body, drive it down to the Gulf and fulfill his last wish. Who’s with me? I’m particularly looking for people with strong arms, poor senses of smell, and grave robbing experience.
Advice Column
December 18, 2014MB: random question… do you think its odd to bring my therapist cookies?
Who Said It?
December 15, 2014“I value money literally for its own sake. I like the feeling of dollars and quarters rubbing softly together in my hand. Always it reminds me of those lovely chestfuls of gold that Captain Kidd buried––no one seems to know just where. Usually I keep some fairly-clean dollars and quarters to handle. ‘Money is so nice!’ I say to myself.
A. Sylvia Plath
B. Mary MacLane
C. Eloise
What Not to Do
November 21, 2014I mean, I actually did find Rebecca Mead’s book One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding fascinating and not at all damaging to my enthusiasm, but still, I wouldn’t exactly RECOMMEND that a person read it while engaged.
“What are the forces that are contributing to this increase in wedding pressure, not just among so-called Bridezillas, but among all American brides and grooms? And what is the significance––beyond the impact on the purses and personalities of marrying couples, their friends, and their families––of the escalation of the American wedding? What, in other words, does the American wedding tell us about the rest of American life? It was questions such as these that propelled the writing of this book, as well as a hunch that some answers might be found not by looking at the grotesque behavior of a handful of individuals, from whose excesses an amusing but ultimately trivial tale might be wrought, but by looking at the larger context––at the wedding culture in which those individuals are immersed.”
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