November, 2008

  1. Burning question!

    November 30, 2008 by ms. xandra

    In honour of I AM GOING TO HAWAII IN JANUARY TO PRESENT PAPERS AND SEDUCE CABANA BOYS and also I AM GETTING PAID THIS WEEK, I have decided to finally get an Esther Williams swimsuit.  Esther Williams swimsuits have been the object of much covetousness on my part for some time.

    But should I get purple or brown?  The brown is very chocolatey and delicious and would look good with my hair.  The purple is very vibrant and delicious and would also look good with my hair.  My first instinct was CHERRY PRINT!  GET THE CHERRY PRINT!  but I have curbed that instinct because the goal is to look like a classy 1950s beach vixen (from space), not a late-1990s-rockabilly-loving teenager who spends their allowance at Hot Topic.  Um, leopard print is also open for consideration at this point as well.  Polka dots are out because they are kind of played out these days.

    And also, Dear Esther Williams, please will you redesign your website so that you look like you are running a reputable business, and not an identity theft ring?  I’m not worried, because I know you actually do sell swimsuits because I know of people who have bought them (and write excellent fashion blogs), but, honestly.  It looks like someone made your website out of paste.  The kind in a jar, with a stick, commonly found in kindergarten classrooms.

    Category Fashion!, Internet, Space, Summer | Tags: | 9 Comments

  2. Pretty good.

    November 26, 2008 by ms. xandra

    Things are pretty good.  I mean, yesterday I touched my favorite human being in all of history (ie:  David Lynch), today I am drinking Mexican mochas (most delicious coffee incarnation yet) and am productively writing a paper about Beth Ditto (fuck yeah), there is only one more week left of classes this quarter and then it is time for holidays, after the holidays I am going to Hawaii where I will give a paper and then sit around in a hammock wearing an Esther Williams swimsuit and drinking mai tais, then next quarter I am taking a pop music seminar in which I plan to finally do some Very Serious Scholarly Work on the B-52s (it’s about time) and an independent study in which I plan to . . . probably read a lot of French theory and curse a lot (but I asked for it and am pretty excited about it), and IT IS RAINING.  Mostly I am just very happy about the rain.  The rain has made all of my angst and woes disappear.  Did you know that constant sunshine can really get oppressive?

    I am thinking of going away for spring break to some place really dreary.  Maybe Seattle?  I hear it rains all the time in Seattle.  And I could take that train that goes from LA to Seattle along the coast and takes, like 36 hours.  I think I would like that.  I like traveling on buses and trains because it is an excuse to not do anything, because what can you possibly do?  I also enjoy doing those kinds of things alone.  I like spending days without talking to anyone because it lets me get really weirdly self-indulgent and introspective and decadently melancholic and I don’t have to care about what anybody else thinks.  (Unfortunately, this tendency probably means that eventually I am going to die alone and be found days later, half-eaten by my pet ocelot, but what can you do?)  I want to go on holiday and I want for there to be no sunshine for days.  I want to be able to wear boots and my raincoat that makes me look like a Russian spy.  With a cardigan underneath.

    Oh, and I am so excited right now because the radio in the cafe where I am working is playing The Shirelles!  I love it when The Shirelles happen.

    Ok, I should go home because I have been here for four hours.

    Category Academe, Awesome, Coffee, Los Angeles, School | Tags: | 1 Comment

  3. TODAY I SHOOK THE HAND OF DAVID LYNCH.

    November 25, 2008 by ms. xandra

    AND IT WAS SUCH AN IMPORTANT EVENT THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ALL IN CAPS.

    Category Awesome | Tags: | 5 Comments

  4. Please can I spend the rest of the quarter sitting around, drinking tea, and listening to the Marvelettes?

    November 23, 2008 by ms. xandra

    I feel like I have nothing good to say, but since it’s been a long time since I posted because everything has been so busy, I feel like I should say things anyhow.

    Hey, guess what!  I finally got to see Cute With Chris Live after all these years of trying to get tickets.  And it was great.  There were only seven people in the audience including myself, which was sad, but kind of good because it meant that afterwards I got to shake the hand of The Man Himself and tell him that I liked his little internet show.  But he seemed really bummed that nobody came and apologized for it being so lame and I was all like, it totally wasn’t lame, Chris Leavins, I mean, you introduced me to this clip of a contestant in the Miss Arizona pageant playing the Star Wars theme on a trumpet (badly) and also you were really funny and awesome and I like your white suit.  And the show was really thoughtful and sweet, and a really interesting meditation on the internet as mass media and as a vehicle that connects people, and I just liked it quite a bit.  If any LA friends feel like checking it out, I’d probably go see it again, because, as former Fringe Festival Co-Maven, I like to support good performance art when I can find it.

    And after Cute With Chris I got a Guiness Milkshake!  And a giant cheeseburger.

    Last night I had a horrible dream wherein I was making out with that sociopath I dated last year, and as a result I have been thinking depressed thoughts about the past all day, BUT THEN!  I saw this, which Carly posted, and it made me SO HAPPY because it is pretty wonderful:

    And I shall close with a tip to all of you budding undergraduate plagiarists out there:  if you are going to cut and paste stuff from a website into your paper, at least change the typeface so that everything matches, ok?  It is also a good idea to remove links to other Wikipedia articles.

    Category Angst, Awesome, Food, Los Angeles | Tags: | 6 Comments

  5. Example of how grad school enables one to become completely disconnected from reality.

    November 15, 2008 by ms. xandra

    The other day, in a restaurant, I saw a news item appear on the TV screen with the  headline “DEATH OF AN AUTHOR,” and I thought to myself, “How interesting!  CNN is doing some kind of piece on Foucault, or perhaps Barthes!”

    Of course this was not true.  CNN was doing a piece on Micheal Crichton, who is an author who is dead for real, not theoretically.

    Category Academe, Books, Culture, School | Tags: | 2 Comments

  6. Just you wait until I am a rich society wife (from space).

    November 14, 2008 by ms. xandra

    John Fluevog!  How dare you invent a purple boot from space and price it such that it is so out of my league as to be but a dream!  Now I can only console myself by pretending it is the unicorn (ie:  amazing, magical, existence challenged) of boots!

    On the bright side, the other day I got a copy of Yma Sumac‘s Legend of the Sun Virgin for five bucks.  It’s almost as fabulous as those boots.  TOO BAD I CANNOT WEAR IT ON MY FEET AND LOOK LIKE A SPACE VIXEN, JOHN FLUEVOG.  I guess that for now I will just have to settle for boring old earth vixen.  FOR NOW.

    In unrelated news, if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like if all those weekend Goths at good ol’ Club Abstract got together and made a rock opera starring Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer I can tell you:  it would be horrible.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 3 Comments

  7. Sometimes roommates are completely unhelpful.

    November 7, 2008 by ms. xandra

    “I think I have a date on Monday.  What on earth should I wear?”

    “A life preserver and a big smile.”

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 1 Comment

  8. November 5, 2008 by ms. xandra

    This morning:

    Tonight:

    Tomorrow:  Protest in front of the Mormon Temple at Santa Monica and Westwood, 2:oo PM.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  9. FYI: Unicorns are the most important voter demographic because each unicorn vote is worth approx. 27 human votes because unicorns are magical

    November 4, 2008 by ms. xandra

    Oh my god, I think that today I met the perfect man.  He had a beard (an A+ exemplar beard amongst beards, the perfect beard that all beards should aspire to), he appears to be a politically engaged in a non-smacktivist way, and most importantly, when he saw the button I was wearing, we had this exchange:

    “Your Unicorns for Obama button almost made me cry.  Where did you get it?”

    “Oh, you know, the internet.”

    “Oh, man.  The internet is, like, my best friend.”

    Sources report that he has a girlfriend.  And thus I have decided that this gentleman merely appeared to me in an illusory form.  He is like the unicorn, that is to say, he is a creature from mythology, and thus somewhat  “existence challenged,” if you will.  He was real, but only in the realm of my wildest imaginations.  (Unless he breaks up with that girl.)

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 5 Comments

  10. Dear Californians: I am concerned.

    November 3, 2008 by ms. xandra

    I am very, very worried about Proposition 4.  I’m very worried because at the rally I was at tonight, they told us that it is super close – like, if we win, it will be by 1%.  They tried to spin it positively, but it’s very scary.  I’m also very worried because nobody’s been talking about Prop 4, and it makes me angry.  It makes me angry because the people who will be most affected if Prop 4 passes are among the most vulnerable – teenage girls who are already in high-risk situations and who probably come from abusive homes, probably poor homes.  It’s nice to know that those are people who apparently don’t matter.

    Prop 4 sounds like an ok idea at the outset – let’s make minors let their parents know if they’re going to have an abortion.  Ok, great, but – not every girl comes from a supportive family.  Some girls come from abusive families.  Some girls may have been impregnated by family members.  Some girls could face being kicked out of their homes if they choose to have an abortion.  And girls who are in these high-risk situations might take drastic measures to end an unwanted pregnancy (why, hello, back alley abortions!).  And Prop 4 makes no allowances for pre-natal care for the girls it prevents from having abortions.  And let’s not forget the plain and simple truth that everybody, regardless of age or gender, deserves the right to basic privacy over what is going on with their own body.  I was making decisions about my health on my own when I was 18, and I was not telling my parents, because, no offense to my parents or anything, but it wasn’t actually their business.

    The people pushing Prop 4 are doing so under the auspices of protecting young women from abusive predators who might force them to have abortions, but their very language demonstrates that they don’t care about girls at all.  They’ve nicknamed Prop 4 “Sarah’s Law,” supposedly after an underage girl who died after a botched abortion.  Well, guess what – there was no Sarah.  Her real name was Jammie Garcia Yanez-Villegas, and while she was underage, she was also married, and she was already a mother, so not only would Prop 4 not have even played a part in her situation (Prop 4 only applies to unemancipated minors), nor could it prevented her death, but the pro-4 team is dehumanizing her and cruelly turning her into a campaign tool, trivializing her death.  I think it’s also pretty sinister that they’ve nicknamed her Sarah – it seems to me to be an obvious attempt to whitewash her obviously Latina name, in an attempt to garner more sympathy to the cause.  Cause, you know, good white girls don’t deserve to die tragic deaths, but who cares about women of color, right?

    Proposition 4 is completely useless.  Stats indicate that around 60% of teenage girls who are pregnant already go to their parents.  Prop 4 won’t help create communication in unhappy families – the way parents will be notified is via a form letter.  While the initiative allows for exceptions in cases of abuse, obtaining an exception involves going to court, which just delays access to abortion, which will just increase the rate of late-term abotions, which seems pretty stupid, because I thought anti-choice groups didn’t really like those very much.  It’s a completely illogical, unnecessary proposition.  Its proponents have no interest in protecting young women, only in pushing a very conservative agenda that will make safe, legal abortions harder to obtain.  These kinds of initiatives are the kind of small changes that are gradually chipping away at Roe V. Wade, and at the control that women are able to have over their bodies.  This is also the third time this initiative has been on the California ballot – by forcing pro-choice organizations to mobilize against this initiative every four years, anti-choice groups are weakening the ability of organizations like Planned Parenthood to actually perform their primary mission – which is providing sex education and inexpensive, vitally important health services to women who need them.

    I don’t really even need to say this, but if we want to prevent abortions, we don’t need ass-backwards legislation that will make safe ones harder to come by.  We need comprehensive sex ed.  We need easy access to contraception.

    So, dear Californian friends, please, please, please, when you are voting FUCK YES! for Obama and FUCK NO!  for Proposition 8 (which is a whole other kettle of awful, disgusting, stinky fish – but really, it’s not that different from Prop 4 when it comes right down to it.  They’re both part of this twisted, conservative illogic, that on one hand advocates for limited governement, but on the other hand wants to control everything that people are doing with their own bodies), please, please, please also vote no on Prop 4 because it is very, very, very important.

    Category Politics | Tags: | No Comments

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