May, 2009

  1. North Carolina in review

    May 31, 2009 by ms. xandra

    I like it here.  Last night, we went out for to a bar and I had two beers and my two beers cost a magical three dollars, total.  Like, what is this?  Mecca?  And the night before, I had a glass of wine with dinner that cost $2.95.  And it was full.  None of this half-filled glass bullshit, this was a GLASS OF WINE.

    ALSO it is very lovely here.  It reminds me of home, but a bit greener and with really giant magnolia trees.  I thought my mother had a giant magnolia in her backyard, it turns out hers is but middling.

    ALSO ALSO the hushpuppies at Prissy Polly’s are better than the ones at the Gumbo Pot in LA.  Sorry, Gumbo Pot.  But, hey, your sweet potato salad still wins.

    The only problem with North Carolina is that it was hard to find a place to have lunch today, and then it was hard to find a place to have dinner, because it turns out people believe in all that god stuff here, so things are actually closed on Sunday.  I know, weird, right?

    Oh, and the conference.  The conference was so great.  It was really exciting because I was presenting work that deals with issues that are kind of new and different in musicology, and that I was a little apprehensive about it because I wasn’t sure how it would be received, but it was received so warmly, far beyond my expectations.  So that’s awesome.  It turns out that maybe I’m sort of clever after all, even though most days I feel like a babbling idiot.

    And now I should probably go to bed because my plane leaves at 5:00 in the morning because for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to book that particular departure, when actually it was a stupid idea.  That’s what I get for thinking I’m clever.

    Category Academe, Adventure, Politics | Tags: | No Comments

  2. Ode

    May 27, 2009 by ms. xandra

    I love binder clips.  There is nothing about binder clips that I do not love.  Binder clips are the greatest thing.  Nothing makes me happier than clipping a bunch of paper together with a binder clip.  I love holding piles of exams together with binder clips.  And I love holding piles of JSTOR printouts together with binder clips.  Most of all, I love using a binder clip to hold down the loose end of my clipboard so that my papers don’t get all mussed up in my bag.  I love really big binder clips, because they are AWESOME and can hold SO MANY things.  I love tiny little binder clips because they are just that much better than a boring old paperclip, and are totally cute in the way that things that are normally big are when they are small.

    Even the disadvantages of binder clips aren’t really disadvantages.  Yes, sometimes they can be kind of tough to squeeze open.  This is not a problem:  this is excercise for your fingers, a body part that I feel often gets forgotten in conventional fitness regimes.  And yes, sometimes you can get your fingers caught in them and they kind of pinch, but, as my esteemed roommate pointed out, there is something sort of unquantifiably fun about getting your finger stuck in a binder clip.  It’s true.  It’s not annoying.  It’s kind of weirdly amusing.

    I will confess that I accumulate binder clips.  They are like pens:  the sort of thing you don’t really need to buy for yourself because they usually just appear when needed (although I must admit that I usually do buy my own pens, but that’s because of my predilection for writing in purple ink).  So I have a vast collection – they live on my desk, clipped to each other in a glorious chain of binder clippy wonderousness.

    Last night, I announced that binder clips were probably the one thing in the world that I can say that I love, one hundred percent, unconditionally, with no hesitation whatsoever.

    “Why aren’t more people like binder clips?” asked Sam.

    “Because people are jerks.  But binder clips will never let you down.”

    Category Theremins | Tags: | 6 Comments

  3. 99 problems and a master’s exam ain’t one.

    May 25, 2009 by ms. xandra

    I am clawing my way out of the abyss to let you know that:

    1.  I have finished writing my exams!  An entire day early!  Which means that tomorrow is for sleeping in and editing and printing and then having a drink.

    2.  Wednesday I am jet-setting it off to North Carolina for Feminist Theory and Music, where I will be talking about Beth Ditto.

    3.  I invented a drink for Sam tonight.  I said “I am going to have a martini.  What are you going to have?”  He said, “I need a bibliography.”  I said “how about I invent you a drink called a bibliography?”  It goes like this (and kudos to VV, my bartending consultant):

    A splash of Grandma (ie: Grand Marnier)

    A splash of Grandpa (ie:  Old Grandad Bourbon)

    A splash of brandy

    Earl Grey Tea

    Steep, serve piping hot.

    Verdict:  “It was very strong.  It tasted like Grand Marnier.”  I would call that an endorsement.

    Category Academe, Adventure, The drink | Tags: | 4 Comments

  4. Oh My Heavens.

    May 20, 2009 by ms. xandra

    1.  I am writing to you on a new computer, because my old computer died, sort of, or something.  The screen was weirdly flickering the other day.  And then today it weirdly flickered and then went black.  And then I tried the ol’ turn-it-off-and-turn-it-on-again trick, only it wouldn’t turn on again.  It was dead.  So I brought it to the tech support guys, who were useless (helpful quotes:  “You seem to have a problem with your computer,” and also “You could sell it for parts,”) and then I called my dad, and he told me to get a new computer and so I did.  Good thing I suffer from acute paranoia and thus back up my data obsessively.

    2.  A long-overdue story:

    Last Friday, VV and I went on a nautical tour of Koreatown.  Koreatown is kind of impenetrable at the best of times, and when you try to apply a boat theme to it, it just becomes ridiculous.  We began our adventure at Cafe Jack, LA’s one and only Titanic (as in, Titanic, the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio)-themed restaurant, I hope.  And also, it is in a big fake boat.  And they serve tea and coffee and sushi (we had the Jack and Rose Roll) and weird fusion food, compelling presented via a poorly translated menu with no English descriptions.  We ordered the pizza cutlet, because who doesn’t want to know what a pizza cutlet is?  Boring people, that’s who.  It turns out a pizza cutlet is a chicken cutlet . . . fried, breaded, and covered in pizza toppings. (I was disappointed because I was expecting a slice of pizza wrapped in meat.)   We chose not to order the skewer fish cake pod, because there are only two words in that name that are actually edible things, and they are not two things that really should be eaten together.

    From there, we went to the Brown Derby.  The Brown Derby was that famous restaurant shaped like a hat that all the old Hollywood stars went to, only now, the original site of the Derby has been made into a mini mall.  However, in the interests of historical preservation or of madness, the Derby itself was not demolished, but placed atop the mini mall, like a crown, and now it houses a bar called The Red, where I ordered a gin and tonic and was given a gin and club soda.

    And then we went to the HMS Bounty.  A nautical bar full of old people, with signs on wall that say things like “Happy 100th Birthday Doris.”  It was WONDERFUL.

    And then, as part of my research project on boys, we watched The Big Lebowski, which, it turns out, is even less sensical and more impenetrable than Koreatown.  (Like, seriously you guys, can someone explain to me why every straight boy loves this movie?  I even asked my most trusted straight boy colleague and he couldn’t satisfactorily explain it.)

    3.  I have a cold.  It keeps migrating to various parts of my body.  I wish it would leave my chest, and go to, like, my knee, or something.

    4.  Friday I start my MA exams.  I am using them as an excuse to order lots of takeout.

    Category Academe, Adventure, Angst, Awesome, Los Angeles | Tags: | 2 Comments

  5. Cardassian Sunrise

    May 11, 2009 by ms. xandra

    Hey, have you seen that Star Trek movie yet?  You should probably go see that Star Trek movie.  It’s pretty excellent.  Wear sunglasses.  I was warned about the gratuitous use of lens flare, but, Jesus, nothing could have prepared me for how shiny that Starship Enterprise was.  Also Youthful Spock is So Totally Hot, but in a way that worries me because he looks kind of exactly like what you’d get if you crossed my one ex-boyfriend with my other ex-boyfriend and gave the result a bowl cut.  Troubling, that.

    Another thing I want to let you know about:  maxi dresses.  They are in this season, apparently.  I heartily disapprove.  There is just so much fabric.  And it’s usually unforgivingly jersey knit.  Nobody looks good in one of those.  (Unless you are six feet tall and a waif, or maybe if you are, say Iman, or something. But even Iman can only really gets away with it because she is married to David Bowie.)  Also, let us pause and remember the last time maxi dresses were in style.  You know, THE SEVENTIES.  An era that is an affront to the aesthetic sensibilities of all smart-minded individuals.

    So, I had actually bought a maxi dress a few weeks ago, at my favorite vintage store.  I bought it because it was purple and had really cool pleating around the waistline, and I was really distressed at its floor-length-ness, but I bought it anyhow, because of the purple.  And today I got out my fabric shears and chopped two feet off the bottom of it and hemmed it up and now it is Super Cute Length instead of Why Commemorate the Seventies? Length  and I was so gleeful as I snipped away, thinking of how stupid everyone will look this summer, tripping over their hemlines, while I will be totally cute and better than everybody else THE END.

    Expect a forthcoming post about Friday afternoon’s Nautical-themed tour of Koreatown.  I was going to write about it here, but the impenetrability of Cafe Jack deserves a blog post all its own.

    Category Adventure, Fashion!, Space | Tags: | 4 Comments

  6. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh C’thulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn

    May 7, 2009 by ms. xandra

    1.  Oh, god, there is too much to do!  Once upon a time I thought it would be a good idea to write my MA exams, attend a conference in North Carolina, and organize a conference at UCLA all in the same month, and now that month is upon me, and it turns out it was a stupid idea.  OH WELL.  No time to buy groceries; guess I’ll just get scurvy.

    2.  Remember last time I wrote a blog post and I was all like “I’m going to start giving a word of the week every week!”  Well, I actually meant it.  This week’s word is PENGUIN.  Once upon a time a few weeks ago, my friends and I were watching The Terror of Tiny Town, a 1938 film that happens to be the world’s first musical Western with an all-midget cast.  (I know, right?) So, anyhow, there was this one scene where they were at the neighbourhood tonsorial parlour and then all of a sudden the action stopped, there was an inexplicable shot of a penguin, and then the action resumed again.  And we were all like “WHY WAS THERE THAT PENGUIN?”  “I DON’T KNOW.”  Thus, the “penguin” of the movie is the thing that happens in the movie that stops the action for a period of time and does not serve to advance the plot at all.  Sam has correctly identified the Barbara Striesand Walks Down the Stairs in a Fancy Dress and Sings a Song scene as the penguin of Hello, Dolly.  Sam wins this week’s vocabulary quiz, and he didn’t even know he was playing.

    3.  I have some thoughts about Lady Gaga but they are far to complex to reveal right now.  I must let this percolate.  I know you are dying to know what I think of Lady Gaga.

    4.  Los Angeles would be better if everything currently named “Beverly” (Beverly Hills, Beverly Glen, Beverly Blvd., The Beverly Center, Beverly Crusher, etc.) was renamed “CTHULHU.”  Are you worried about zombies?  Stop worrying about zombies.  WORRY ABOUT CTHULHU INSTEAD.

    Category Academe, Angst, CTHULHU, Los Angeles | Tags: | 2 Comments