March, 2008

  1. I am working to uncover a conspiracy.

    March 29, 2008 by admin

    Friends, there is a dark, evil plot afoot.

    I do not know if this trend has made it to the rest of world, or if it is simply a California thing (although I do suspect that, yes, the world is going straight to Hades and this phenomenon is everywhere), but what the fuck is up with people wearing leggings instead of pants?

    Ladies, no. It is one thing if you are wearing a long top, like, something that extends at least to mid thigh. Then maybe. Maybe it is ok for you to wear leggings with your shirt. But if you are not wearing a long shirt over your leggings, everyone in the world can see every detail of your crotchal area and it is not flattering on anybody, even those with Peter Pan-like physiques. (A slightly related argument that I shall leave to another time concerns the wearing of very short dresses, that are probably actually shirts, without pants or tights or anything. My philosophy is: If you have to ask yourself “is this a dress or is this a shirt,” it’s a shirt.) And really, this is all just because I love everybody. And I want everybody to look lovely and charming. That’s all.

    Anyhow. I can’t understand what would possess people to wear leggings as pants. These are the kinds of questions that I worry about on a regular basis. So I have come up with a theory.

    There is a conspiracy. As part of an evil world-domination plot, the legging industry has enlisted certain celebrity spokespersons to hawk their wares and convince all women that legging-as-pant is a good idea, and in return are getting huge subsidies from the makers of Monistat. Seriously.

    What can you do to help stop the advance of such evil? Maybe try buying some pants. Or, if you really must insist on leggings, reject the Monistat hegemony and try some garlic instead.

    (Also, the newspaper article linked to above is really fucking hilarious and refers to yeast infections as “a hidden encroachment on college campuses.”)


  2. Some vintage musical sexism for your Thursday night:

    March 27, 2008 by admin

    “J.C. Haddon once more discusses the question of women composers. He declares that the reason why women cannot compose great music is because they have been and are even yet are not allowed to devote hours the study of music, the time that is indispensable. But this is nonsense. Clara Schumann, Augusta Holmes, Chaminade and other women have had all possible opportunities, but their work has remained mediocre. The real reason why women cannot compose is because they are women. That’s why. Men are intended to be the creative sex, women the beautiful sex. Mr. Haddon himself accepts beauty as a woman’s sphere when he says that it is not easy for one to imagine a woman struggling with a bassoon, or the ophicleide or the saxophone, adding: ‘A woman must look very charming indeed to look nice when she is throwing the whole strength of her lungs into a wind instrument.’ When a man blows no one cares how he looks as long as he plays well. String instruments are all right for women, as they are not incompatible with grace and beauty.”

    Courtesy of The Salt Lake Herald, July 12, 1903. I personally find it difficult to imagine anyone, regardless of gender identification, struggling with an ophicleide (unless maybe experiencing the time before the tuba is important to you, in which case, that’s your prerogative).

    Other fun things, totally unrelated to my actual topic of inquiry, that I have found while digging through old newspapers include ad after ad for a certain vaginal syringe with whirling spray action that every woman should know about; ads for Talk-o-Phones, featuring a rather charming parrot; and intriguing claims regarding the medicinal properties of malt whiskey.

    In sum, this paper is never going to get finished.


  3. Wheeee.

    March 27, 2008 by admin

    Oh, man.

    Ok, so I went to the park. It was pretty great. Pictures are up. That’s all I have to say because I also went for Fancy End of Holiday Dinner at Citizen Cake and had some ridiculous $10 cocktail called a French 75 which was WORTH EVERY PENNY because I was at least one or two sheets to the wind after drinking only half of it, which is saying something because if there is one thing I am pretty good at doing, it is holding my liquor (my signature drink being, after all, the gin and…gin).

    So, in sum, I am ready for bed.

    OH. Also, today I got a felt elephant pencil topper. Seemed necessary.


  4. Yum?

    March 26, 2008 by admin

    The vending machine in the hotel sells little packets of cheese-flavoured crackers that come pre-spread with peanut butter. This sounds like a disgusting idea. However, as I type I am suddenly having a flashback to that summer when I was 18 and living in Quebec city and how this one day for lunch, having failed to go to the grocery store that week, I ate a cheese whiz and peanut butter sandwich for lunch and found it surprisingly good. So…I have now lost all of my authority on passing judgment on what is or isn’t fit for human consumption.

    Anyhow! Today I went to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and saw a kind of not-terribly-interesting exhibit on modern dance (of course, the exhibit that I would really LOVE to see doesn’t start until after I leave SF), and then I went to the Cartoon Art Museum, which was WONDERFUL and the Mary Blair exhibit was still up and was amazing, and there was a (tiny) Joey Sayers exhibit and it was so great. And then I walked around Chinatown and had Chinese food for lunch and then I finally went to the Beat Museum. And, well, the Sputnik exhibit wasn’t very inspiring . It was a bunch of pictures of the man in this article and the letter he got from the air force and no actual pieces of Sputnik. (Also, look at those hilarious hippies holding that fake Sputnik at the beginning of the article. The one in the black hat was working the day I went.) But there was that fake Sputnik. And two explanations of how the word beatnik came from the word Sputnik. So…the results of this report are inconclusive. Also, the Beat Museum is kind of a hilarious place. It’s like, What if the Wilfrid Laurier English Club Made a Museum? Exactly. A bunch of funny objects, and some posterboards. In a falling apart building.

    And then I had two Irish coffees at Tosca Cafe, which is famous for its Irish coffees, and floated home on a caffeine/booze buzz.


  5. On holiday, trala.

    March 25, 2008 by admin

    Vintage shopping in Haight-Ashbury has proven to be a wonderful way to spend a day and a lot of money. I managed to acquire a super-cute-polka-dotted-1950s-party-dress, a chartreuse slip, some amazingamazingamazing vintage deadstock brown seamed fishnets (amazing!) and some red peeptoe sandals, which the salesgirl informed I must wear out dancing. Also! I went to the anarchist bookstore. And then I ate enchiladas.

    And for dinner I had cake at a bakery in the Castro. Specifically, vanilla cake, with custard and raspberry jam in the middle, covered in a layer of marzipan, and with rum involved somehow. Because when I am on holiday, I like to eat dessert instead of regular meals. And at the bakery, I overheard the following exchange between the guy who was working and his very very skinny friend:

    Skinny: I’m on a really low-calorie diet. Like, 600 calories a day. And, like, 7 grams of protein.

    Bakery Guy: Do you eat fish for protein?

    Skinny: Sometimes, but I prefer to get my calories from plant sources. There’s less fat that way.

    Alexandra’s mind: I prefer to get my calories from cake sources. Preferably cake that is full of custard, rum and jam and is covered in marzipan. There’s less misery that way.


  6. I did so many things today!

    March 24, 2008 by admin

    I went to the waterfront and I went to North Beach and I climbed hills and I went book shopping and I ate dessert twice and I watched movies of naked ladies on antique zoetropes, and I saw those famous parrots and I ate some really good Italian and I went to chocolate shops and accidentally ended up at a pants museum and I walked a million miles and now I’m going to bed. I love holidays.

    Um, also the Beatnik museum was closed so the investigative report re: beatnik/sputnik/wtf will have to wait until I possibly go back on Wednesday.


  7. Two things!

    March 23, 2008 by admin

    1. The other day, I was riding the number 4 bus on Santa Monica Boulevard, headed to my favourite communist restaurant, when we had to make an extra special stop in front of the L.A. County Sheriff’s station in West Hollywood so that the Sheriff’s deputy could inform the drunk homeless man that he would have to get off the bus because it is against the rules to wear roller blades on said bus. Sample dialogue:

    Drunk man: Why do I have to get off the bus?
    Sheriff’s deputy: Because I am a sheriff’s deputy.

    2. I am in San Francisco for spring break! I will try to update flickr nightly. (“Try” being the operative word because the hotel’s wireless is very very slow.) Tomorrow I am going to the Beatnik Museum, largely because their current exhibition is called “Have the Beatniks Found Sputnik?” Which seems…improbable. But somehow…irresistible, possibly because this museum exhibit might do what others have only dreamed of doing – that being, establishing a connection between funny little berets and outer space. A full investigative report will follow.


  8. Two facts:

    March 21, 2008 by admin

    1. Sometimes even fashionable young ladies make poor life choices.

    2. But everything will be ok, because tomorrow night, this fashionable young lady is going out for communist Chinese food with a game show champion!

    Bonus fact!

    Today’s Toothpaste for Dinner comic makes this fashionable young lady very happy!


  9. In this post I have set a personal record for the Greatest Number of Links to Wikipedia Articles About Pretentious Theorists.

    March 16, 2008 by admin

    Today I was cleaning up my desk and I found this list, which, as I recall, I wrote about a month and a half ago, on my birthday:

    I present it here today as an important cultural artifact and because I think it is a hilarious example of how neurotic I occasionally can be. I would also like to take this moment to check in and see how I am doing on each of these items:

    1. No sleeping with unsuitable men.
    Well, I have not slept with anyone, suitable or unsuitable, since the writing of this list. I have thought about unsuitable men, though. I have thought about them a lot.

    2. No sleeping with unsuitable men on first dates.
    See above. I have, however, gone on some dates! Which is good. Dates are good. Even if they don’t go anywhere, dates are good. (Making out would be better, but, what can you do?)

    3. Volunteer with worthy cause.
    Done! I am co-chairing a conference with my friend Lindsay for the journal that we both volunteer for, and also next weekend I have an orientation session so that I can start volunteering with the American Cinematheque.

    4. Be better at writing back/phoning friends at home (esp. Jess!)
    Um, I’m doing pretty good, I guess. I mean, I answer emails and I had phone dates with, like, a lot of people a couple of weeks ago. I should probably do that again. And…I should probably email Jess.

    5. Seduce philosopher?
    Working on it, sort of. I have decided to have a crush on the philosopher in question because having crushes, I’ve decided, is fun (so long as one does not allow the crush to evolve to “wicked mad” status, because that is horrible) and gives me something to do. Also, I enjoy thinking of hair-brained seduction schemes that I will probably never actually put into action. My current hair-brained scheme is something I like to call the “hey, wanna hang out and talk about Levinas?” scheme, which I will not put into action because because with my luck we would end up actually talking about Levinas which would be horrible because I have approximately nothing to say about Levinas.

    6. Less time in bathtub.
    Well, I am finally running out of bath bombs, so things are looking up in this department.

    7. Read Kristeva finally.
    Sure. Fine. Whatever. (No Kristeva has been read.)

    8. Find roommate for next year.
    I am almost positive that I have secured the best possible roommate and the best possible apartment but I do not want to say much lest I jinx the situation!

    9. Less sugar.
    Look, it’s not my fault that I eat too many cookies. The department is doing a faculty search right now, so I get to go to all these receptions after job talks and inevitably, there are delicious cookies. And they are free. And what is the best kind of food? Free food.

    And I would like to add one more thing to this list:

    10. Write shorter sentences.
    I’ve been reviewing some of my work for the past term as part of an assignment, and holy fuck, I write some long-ass sentences. They are all well-crafted sentences, to be sure, and follow all of the appropriate grammatical rules, however, they are long. And they do not need to be, because long sentences need to be re-read several times before they make any sense, and god knows I don’t ever want to be one of those writers.


  10. Overheard at Cinefile, Los Angeles’ most pretentiously good video store:

    March 14, 2008 by admin

    Pretentious video store guy #1: “What are we watching?”
    Pretentious video store guy #2: “Sydney White.”
    PVSG #1: “Um…Ok..?”
    PVSG #2: “It’s like a modern day Snow White. With Amanda Bynes.”
    PVSG #1: “They should make a modern day Titus Andronicus. With Amanda Bynes. That’s something I’d want to watch.”