Archive for the ‘Lists’ Category

Personal Ads in The New York Review of Books

June 26, 2012

Exactly as cliched and hilarious as you would imagine.

Personal Services

EROTIC EXPLOSION: Let me blow your mind, your ultimate erogenous zone.  Provocative talk with educated beauty.  No limits.  (xxx) xxx-xxxx

AURAL EROTICA: with a naughty raconteur.  Uninhibited, unhurried kinky fun and fetish friendly.  Elizabeth.  (xxx) xxx-xxxx

GreenSingles.com –– Meet single book lovers who value green living, natural health, personal growth, spirituality.

SACRED EROTIC … The Incredible Lightness of Touch.  Private, safe, tasteful.  Greenwich Village.  (xxx) xxx-xxxx

Personals

LEGGY, LITERATE BRUNETTE seeks bookish sixty-something man with good stories to tell.

FABULOUS FEMALE MANHATTAN ARTIST seeks fit guy from anywhere, who lives in the Big Apple and could share with this happening gal of 80, dinners out, passion for travel, music, film, theater, books and art.

FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT against the fading light, Chicago financier seeks passion, romance, companionship and intelligent conversation to minimize impact of wife’s advanced Alzheimer’s.  He is superbly fit, mentally strong, financially able, socially adept, culturally competent, thoughtful, compassionate, handsome, and clever but these qualities are inadequate while caught in the web of confusion and stress that this illness creates.

TALL, GRACIOUS, slender yet shapely woman with a little Euro-chicness, low-key but top notch, newly empty nester (kids in college), based in NY and DC.  Fishing for sophistication, wit and enthusiasm in one man, age 50-65, with passion for both work and play, is focused but does not take himself too seriously.  Must also be tender, loving and enjoy a healthy lifestyle.

IF CONNECTING WITH A SOMEWHAT QUIRKY 29-year-old Columbia Ph.D. student who is at least reasonably attractive by most standards, and who has a sincere interest in much of the standard cultural fare of a reasonably well-educated urbanite (e.g. opera, theater, live (mostly classical) music, art museums) piques your interest, you might consider contacting me.  By way of greater disclosure, I might add that I have an incorrigibly curious nature, a handful of curmudgeonly views, a streak of friskiness, a touch of melancholy.  I’d like to find a partner, guide, lover, leader, and co-explorer and -idler.  Please be between roughly 40 and 55, at least a tad unconventional, kind (of course), passionate, and, at least in some one way, rather exceptional.  I’ll be happy to provide a photo once contact is established.

A Poet Peddling His Wares

June 19, 2012

On the subway this AM, there was a poet trying to sell books of his (self-published) and he cited two poems, titled:

“Don’t Beat Your Kids Or They Will End Up Like Me”

And, my personal favorite:

“Corner Store in the MIDDLE of the Block”

List of Jobs I Think I Should Have

May 29, 2012

1. Therapist-patient matchmaker

2. Washing oil off of baby animals affected by oil spills a la that Dawn commercial

3. “cool hunter” (coolhunting.com)

4. Babysitting sequestered jurors

5. bibliotherapist

6. Obituary writer (new favorite)

7. “Phenomenologist”

8. Reading letters sent by readers to various magazines/publications and deciding which ones should be printed

9. Driving the Monsey Trails bus

10. Writing those “36 hours in…” pieces for the Times

11. Night watch person at Greenwood Cemetery

12. Watching movies and transcribing the dialog and then selling the bootlegged scripts on the street

13. Seat filler at the Oscars

14. Performance artist who lies in that wooden bed with a crystal pointed downward made by Marina Abramovic

15. Cat tamer at the Hermitage Museum (you’ve probably seen my cover letter already)

Nonfiction/Theory-Based/Guidebooks/Manifestos/Expositional Texts to Make Into Movies

May 22, 2012

… a la What to Expect When You’re Expecting:

DSM-IV

The Anti-Internet Asifa Brochure

Society of the Spectacle

Dianetics

The Elements of Style

Totem and Taboo (almost any work by Freud, really)

The Anarchist’s Cookbook

Mao’s Little Red Book

The Birth of the Clinic

French Women Don’t Get Fat

Words/Phrases That Look SUPER Weird With Hash Tags Next to Them

April 19, 2012

#shtetl

#incest

#NGtube

#catatonicdepression

#euthanasia

#Alopecia

#diagnosticdrift

#AmericanDisabilitiesAct

#Goebbels

#DNR

I think if I really went on with this, the list could be verrrrrrrrrry looooooooooong, but I’m in a shitty mood so y’all can do the work yourselves.

Strange Syndromes and Illnesses I’ve Learned Of From Watching Law and Order: SVU

April 9, 2012

Fatal Familial Insomnia

Capgras Syndrome

Reproductive Abuser

Histrionic Personality Disorder

Staff Mersa

Brief Reactive Psychosis

EXTREME Stockholm Syndrome

Arousal Parasomnia

Canavan Disease

Turner Syndrome

Tay-Sachs

Enuresis paraphilia called Urolangia

Brocha’s Aphasia

Long QT Syndrome

“Killer” HIV

Factitious Disorder

Polycystic Kidney Disease

Placenta Previa

Porphyria

Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy

Postictal Shock

Alport Syndrome

Renal Osteodystrophy

Methylmalonic acidemia

Coprophilia

Quiet Sociopathy

Azoopermia

Cardaginer Syndrome

Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome

Squamous Cell Esophageal Cancer

TRAGEDY

April 5, 2012

You know when you think you have an awesome idea and then it turns out someone else has already done it?  (Everyone will know my Love Boat example.)  Well, for years now, I’ve wanted to write an updated version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel, BUT it seems that bridge has been crossed.  Here are the not-so-chronological and yet still somewhat amusing lyrics by New York Times op-ed columnist Roger Cohen:

 

Bill Clinton, Tina Fey, capitalist China, O.J.,

Asia rising, Facebook, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

 

Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ugg boots, Seinfeld

West Bank, Gaza City, Tupac Amaru Shakur

 

Mohamed Atta, W.M.D., Harry Potter, Reality TV

Tom Cruise, American Beauty, MP3, Oprah Winfrey

 

Schwarzenegger, YouTube, America’s got organic food

Armstrong, blogosphere, Monica Lewinsky

 

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

 

Vlad Putin, Medvedev, Assad, Posh-and-Becks

The West Wing, Y2K, massacre in Falluja

 

Britney Spears, Spike Lee, Kurt Cobain, Sarkozy

Mia Hamm, Heath Ledger, Viagra, Napster

 

Lindsay Lohan, skinny jeans, Boston’s got a winning team

Lehman Brothers, A.I.G., subprime, Ponzi scheme

 

Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, and a billion poor,

Tehran, Hezbollah, trouble with the jihadis

 

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

 

New Orleans, Bolaño, Sarah Palin no-go

TiVo, Hu Jintao, and the vegan-eco crowd

 

Tony Blair, Paris Hilton, Princess Di, Bin Laden

Pyongyang, the renditions gang, Roger Clemens in a cloud

 

ACT UP, Infinite Jest, O.J. Part Two, Johnny Depp

iPhones, Federer, Who Let the Dogs Out?

 

Halle Berry, cloned Dolly, and another Kennedy

Jon Stewart, American Psycho, tsunami, Danger Mouse

 

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

 

Sedaris, Unabomber, Girls Gone Wild, Nasrallah

Jay-Z, Shanghai, shock and awe in Baghdad

 

Amy Winehouse, Imus, gases of the greenhouse

Kelly Ripa, Maureen Dowd, Ted Williams gone mad

 

Outsourcing, Mumbai, so many didn’t have to die

David Blaine, human rights, and Napoleon Dynamite

 

Mandela, Madonna’s ex, abstinence, safe sex

Rabin blown away, what else do I have to say?

 

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

 

BlackBerry, global mall, Hillary Clinton standing tall

Tiger Woods, Barry Bonds, MySpace, The Corrections

 

Rushdie, Starbucks, Channel Tunnel, Spurlock

American Idol, Black Hawk Down, Miracle on the Hudson

 

Sopranos, Cougars, Da Vinci Code, life on Mars

Saddam hung, Mugabe, traumatic stress, mission creep

 

Social networks, match.com, iChat, Amazon,

Terror cells, endless war, I can’t take it anymore

 

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

 

Hawaii, Kenya, Kansas and Jakarta

Harvard, finding God, social work, Axelrod

 

Red state, blue state, unity can no longer wait,

A time to reap, a time to sow, we will close Guantánamo

 

Iowa, Yes We Can, McCain was just an also-ran

I Have a Dream, Bush out, a black man in the White House

 

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire …

 

 

This is actually really poorly written.  Do yourself a favor and listen to the lyrics of the kid who posted his version on YouTube –– but feel free to ignore his voice.  Eesh.

Psychology Studies

April 4, 2012

9 Recent Studies in Psychology That Rendered Horribly Obviously Results (And Two That Are Somewhat Surprising):

“Exercise Makes Us Happy” (Penn State)

“Children Who Get More Exercise Do Better in School” (Vrije Universiteit Free University Medical Center, Amsterdam)

“Online Dating Services Don’t  Work Any Better Than Meeting Someone in a Bar” (Northwestern)

“People Eat Less When They Munch on Snack in Pre-Packaged Segments or Portions” (UPenn and Cornell –– They needed TWO TOP SCHOOLS for this?!)

“People Who Work Too Much Are Twice as Likely to Become Depressed” (Finnish Institute of Occupational Health)

“Men Are at Higher Risk for Memory Loss Than Women” (Mayo Clinic –– #womenarebetterthanmenineveryway)

“Good Friends Can Reduce the Effects of Stress” (Concordia University, Montreal –– operative word being “good”)

“Having an Easy-to-Say Name May Help You Get Promoted” (a team of American and Australian researchers)

“Teens Have Fewer Behavioral Problems When Parents Enforce Rules at Home” (University of Oregon)

The two shockers are:

“Topping off breakfast with a piece of chocolate cake may help dieters lose more weight” (Tel Aviv University): though I think the sentiment, which is “add a little bit of yummy fat to your Weight Watchers’ plan,” is pretty well established

and

“Narcissism may put men’s health at risk” (University of Michigan) –– which basically has become my new go-to comeback

 

(Thanks to Monitor on Psychology magazine for letting me lampoon it, and my former roommate for not forwarding her subscription to her new house.)

Problems

March 27, 2012

My colleague HW sent me this last night and I died laughing.  I can’t tell if it’s serious, but something tells me at least part of it is.

Home > All Categories > Food & Drink > Other – Food & Drink > Resolved Question

Submitted to Yahoo! Answers:

Im really hungry and have no money and no food to eat. What should I do?

— boop83

Submitted 3 years ago

Best Answer – Chosen by Voters

Sell your computer to get money to eat.

Kimberley wrote:

I’m sorry to hear this, no one should go hungry. Do you have a local food bank you could visit? They are really reasonable and help those in need. Otherwise I would visit your local church and see if they can help you. Another place to look into is your local Senior citizens center, they usually have lunches there daily. All that being said, if you live in an area where there are no facilities like I mentioned maybe you should knock on your neighbors door. I know its not the most appealing thing to do, but most people will help out when they can, its human nature. Good luck to you.

Sangeeth K wrote:

If this is really your state…I am very sorry about it. Get a job asap. But if you are asking for the sake of asking a question, you can drink lot of water. It will reduce the hunger. In olden days there were saints who drank only water and lived for years. But you need practice for that.

vee-smalls wrote:

go to a food bank…..or go to a mcdonallds and say that they messed up your food. their policy says that they have to give you what you sey they messed up without having to see a recipt.

Jez N wrote: 

I’m on the same boat as you. thats why im a go chaw from the supermarket. they got loads of money. don’t rob independent shops, they need the cash.

Chelsea V wrote: 

sneak into costco and eat all the samples.

middleEngland wrote:

dust. anybody….no?….dust

Jersey Girl wrote:

Go to a food bank.

No money – who’s paying for your internet connection?

Ally wrote:

wow go find some change on the ground and go to wendys or somthing

 ~M@~me~ wrote:

Call ur Mom, or be a man about it.

Some of these are predictable, and yet some are genius.  I’m totally trying that McDonald’s thing next time I’m hungry and my change doesn’t add up.

Catalog Poetry

March 16, 2012

We received at my office the gorgeous catalog for a publishing company called Sceptre, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary.  Numerous writers wrote little pieces about the number 25.  Below is my favorite:

25 Collective nouns for un/common things.

a reversal of mirrors

a slump of slippers

a forest of rubber gloves

a telescope of toilet rolls

a voodoo of pincushions

a dream of pillowcases

an expression of pumpkins

a bouquet of odd socks

a niggle of crosswords

a crumple of carrier bags

a regime of paperclips

an armament of cutlery

a cloud of used tissues

a duel of toothbrushes

a migration of pens

a convalescence of dressing gowns

a fable of apples

a sob of raindrops

a passage of newspapers

an alarm of clocks

a whirlpool of wooden spoons

a clacker of stilettos

a thud of potatoes

an eviction of bin liners

–– Jess Richards

 

My Attempt

a prayer of annotations

a bottle of triplets

a library of oysters

a backlog of icicles

a continent of mistakes

a garden of scarves

a page of orgasms

a whisper of paintings

a zoo of hearts

a video of persimmons

a meal of schoolchildren

a dance of questions

an orb of horses

a blanket of thimbles

a concert of nail files

a palace of statistics

a harvest of fireworks

an exercise of massacres

an avalanche of emeralds

a funeral of attics

a contest of spirals

an umbrella of kittens

a tea bag of wood chips

a protest of pinkies

a blitzkrieg of hedges