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‘Adventure’ Category

Walk walk walk walk walk

November 8, 2009 by ms. xandra

We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled dress blogging next week, I promise. I’m planning one post that will riff on the Gossip concert I went to, what, two weeks ago now? and another on my new favorite girl group song (a song that involves either what is either a reference to organized crime or a somewhat unfortunate metaphor).

Anyhow, today was wonderful and amazing because my friend Pauline and I walked to the beach from downtown, following Pico for about 15 miles. I love going for long, ridiculous walks like this because it is fun and exhilarating, and they remind me of how much beauty there is to find in a city has an undeserved reputation for being an endless sea of concrete.

Google maps very optimistically estimated that the walk would take about five hours, which is, of course, madness, because this figure doesn’t take into account important side trips that need to be made for important things like Ethiopian food and educational trips to pinata shops.

I am happy to report that there are no blisters to speak of: special thanks go out to Nexcare Flexible Clear First-Aid Tape, truly a godsend to anyone with feet, for preventing blisters that would otherwise have been inevitable.

I took lots of pictures, and I’ll post them to flickr or wherever when I’m less tired. But in the meantime, a few highlights!

The best place to go for a jet black bouffant.

Pinatas, all in a row!

Two wonderful things about this scene: the sign that could possibly say "Pico Disco," the large banner underneath it that reads "Going out for business."

Jingle Bell Furniture, for when furniture stores that make sense simply won't do.

Sadly, I do not have any pictures of the fabulous jukeboxes inside Jukebox Wurlitzer repair, because the nasty man came outside and yelled at us for taking pictures. (My mother said I should have played the Canadian card. "But I'm from Canada! We don't have Wurlitzers there!")

It's hard to see from the crappy angle, but the sign for this meat market features a pig being chased by a lady WITH A SWORD. Yeah!

Celebrity mural on a liquor store

Street art

I want to eat here someday. I'm sure the food will be terrible, but the decor is clearly to die for.

Apple Pan, my love, my all, shining like a beacon.

Rae's! Elton John shot some cover art here, I've eaten waffles with bacon baked into them here. Clearly an auspicious place.

The Santa Monica pier lit up at night

Dear Los Angeles: I heart you.

Category Adventure, Los Angeles | Tags: | 3 Comments
Things that happened at the giant dominoes at Bloor and Spadina:

September 2, 2009 by ms. xandra

We ate toasted marshmallow ice cream and talked about boys,

I unexpectedly ran into one of my favorite spinster ladyfriends, who I didn’t even know was in town,

We shook our fists at the Dance Cave, apparently closed on Thursdays,

We said goodbye, filled with ounces and ounces of beer and nachos,

We almost didn’t find each other, because Dominoes is also a pizza chain, so “let’s meet at the dominoes” is easily misinterpreted to hilarious effect,

I met an old, dear friend, and we held hands in the dark, and he told me I was lovely and I wished I didn’t live so far, far away.

(But I promise I’ll be back soon, because I love all of you!)

Category Adventure | Tags: | No Comments
“The only romantic thing left in life is a hat”

August 31, 2009 by ms. xandra

I would love to get a set of luggage like these to replace my current falling-apart set of luggage, but, alas, have had to opt instead for something practical with wheels bestowed upon me by my parents. At least I always manage to look totally fabulous while traveling through the strategically fashionable use of large scarves.

I have more to say, but it is so totally the middle of the night. I was in Toronto last week and it was super. I didn’t have a very long visit because I felt like I should spend more time with my family this year but now I wish I’d spent a few more days, at least to facilitate some dancing because apparently the Dance Cave decided to be closed on Thursdays, a travesty that resulted in Tanya and I drunkenly ambling around the grocery store in the middle of the night instead of, you know, dancing.

Anyhow. More to come. I will detail in full my adventures, and the complicity of the Bloor/Spadina giant dominoes therein. In the meanwhilst, I got you this clip (or, well, I stole it from Advanced Style – and you are reading Advanced Style, right? It’s a street fashion blog that only features senior citizens and it is so totally the best fashion blog ever and it is really an enabler when it comes to my tendency to dress like a crazy old woman) of Mimi Wedell, a 95-year-old fashion model, smoking with a big ol’ cigarette holder and talking about the importance of hats:

Category Adventure, Fashion! | Tags: | 2 Comments
Don’t you wanna know how we keep starting fires?

August 3, 2009 by ms. xandra

My current summer project (to do an intense, scrupulous study of Helen Gurley Brown‘s Sex and the Single Girl whilst drinking on the porch) is proving to be completely hilarious. This book is so silly, which of course means that it’s wonderful. Mid-Century advice literature is really a genre that deserves more scholarly attention, I am telling you.

Anyhow, here is what Ms. Brown suggests as a good way to lose a quick six pounds over the course of two days:

“If you’d like to crash away six pounds in two days, here is a diet men like. Invite one to join you. Follow this plan only two days; then back to sanity!

Breakfast: 1 egg any style, no butter, one glass white wine

Lunch: 2 eggs any style, two glasses white wine

Dinner: 1 steak, finish the bottle of white wine.

I’d suggest a weekend for the crash. Sufficient nutrition is here, but you get fuzzy.”

Seriously! That is the most hilarious thing I have ever read. American in 1962 was clearly a foreign country. Obviously, though, I do totally agree with the part of this advice that involves drinking.

And speaking of my close relationship with wine, today the police came to our door, because apparently someone had reported yelling and screaming and animal sounds (yes, ANIMAL SOUNDS) coming from one of the adjacent apartments, and I was, of course, holding a glass of wine in my hand when I opened the door because if there is one thing I am really good at, it is making a stunning first impression. Also it is worth noting that at the precise moment that they came to the door, the apartment was full of smoke because there we had only just burned dinner. Anyhow, they asked if I’d heard anything (I hadn’t) and asked for my name, and hopefully they won’t come back and deport me for being an alcoholic pyromaniac or something.

Category Adventure | Tags: | 6 Comments
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
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
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
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
CHASED BY DANGER!

April 25, 2009 by ms. xandra

Unrelated: The next comment on this blog will by my 2000th comment! THAT IS A LOT. Maybe I will give Commenter #2000 a prize! (Probably the prize will be: I will make you a badge out of construction paper and paste with a crayon portrait of Fox Mulder on it. It will say “YEAR 2000″ only “YEAR” will be crossed out and “COMMENTER” will be written over top.)

Related: VV and I had another adventure, this time to Cole’s, the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Los Angeles for SANDWICHES SANDWICHES SANDWICHES (and also garlic fries and mac and cheese) and then to DONUT KING II! (I believe that is pronounced “Donut King the Second.” I tried to find out where Donut King the First would be, but it turns out that Donut King is a popular name for donut shops, for some reason.)

Anyhow, Cole’s is fun and neat. Like Phillipe’s, it claims to be the inventor of the French Dip. Unlike, Phillipe’s it seems to be very invested in its image. Actually, as I read that I want to take it back – Phillipe’s is also invested in its image, but it’s image is of not being invested in its image. Cole’s, on the other hand, is very “WELCOME TO A DARK RESTAURANT IN 1908.” Having tasted both French Dips, I’m still on the fence – but Cole’s gives you jus for dipping, and Phillipe’s doesn’t, and Cole’s has better side dishes, but Phillipe’s is cheaper, and Phillipe’s has a neat counter where you order directly from the carvers, and I think Phillipe’s sandwich was kind of tastier. I guess it really all comes down to ambiance. Apparently, Cole’s used to be the Cole’s Pacific Electric Buffet (because it is in the basement of the Pacific Electric building) until, like, a year ago, when it was taken over by some fancy restauranteur who gave it a bit of a makeover to be more 1908-y, so, arguably, Phillipe’s is more “authentic,” if you go in for that kind of argument (I don’t), but both made pretty good sandwiches, which ultimately is the point.

Anyhow anyhow, on the menu at Cole’s was a list of things that were filmed there. And on that list was X-FILES! So, naturally, when we got home, we tried to figure out which episode was shot at Cole’s and the internet turned up NOTHING. Absolutely nothing whatsoever. It is like I have finally found the aporia in the internet’s knowledge. And it’s really distressing, too, because I obviously was going to immediately watch the episode in question. Instead, it appears that I will have to watch every episode from Season 6 (which was when filming moved to LA) on, in order to find the Cole’s episode. Alas, what a hardship. (Actually, given the dark years of Seasons 8-9, it might be a bit of a hardship.)

In the absence of the Cole’s episode, however, we watched 3, the Mulder-has-sex-with-a-vampire-and-it’s-awkward episode from Season 2. I knew it was set in LA, but I couldn’t remember if it was filmed in LA. I obviously hadn’t watched it since before I moved here, because, dude, you only have to spend one day in this city to realize that 3 is set in Vancouver pretending to be LA, and it is SO FUNNY. And also, we made up a new game, called Look Up The Addresses That Mulder and Scully are Supposed To Be At in Google Maps and See What’s Actually There. So, what we found out is that “Club Tepes,” the bar that’s like Club Abstract but is worse, where Mulder totally hits on Gross Vampire Lady, is approximately located where the Alexander McQueen store is on Melrose, and the mansion in Malibu where they eventually end up is actually located in a tunnel, which really is kind of remarkable given how few tunnels there are here in Los Land of Earthquakes.

Anyhow, sorry. I will stop X-Filesing for now.

DONUTS! Donut King II donuts were, you know, donuts. The real revolution came the next morning, when I decided to heat up a plain ol’ glazed donut that had gotten slightly stale in a frying pan – the glaze carmelized and it got all crispy and amazing. BETTER BREAKFAST THROUGH SCIENCE! I am telling you.

Anyhow, at some point in the course of Wednesday Night Adventuring, it was decided that I would start a new blog feature, called Word of the Week, in which I define a word. This week’s word is MIRACLE. Here is the definition of miracle: A miracle is when you think you’re all out of gin, but then you realize you have an entire other bottle in the cupboard. MIRACLE.

Here is a picture of me, chillaxing at Donut King II with a Vanilla Dip:

And here is a picture of the giant donut, in which I tried to capture it’s awe-inspringness:

And also, we returned to Mr. T’s Meat Market, and here it is in non-blurry glory:

And here is a drive in liquor store, which seems, you know, very sensible:

And here is the sign welcoming you with a pip, pip, cheerio to Canterbury Knolls, Los Angeles’ least likely named neighbourhood (ie: there are no knolls, and also, it is in the shitty part of Los Angeles, not England):

And Sunday we might go to La Puente. Which is somewhere. I don’t actually know where. But what I do know, is that it is home to this majestic work of architechtural genius:

Category Adventure, Awesome, Food, Los Angeles, Rhetoric, X-Files | Tags: | 6 Comments
A night in the life

March 20, 2009 by ms. xandra

Violet Vixen and I went to go see my newbestfriend Charles Phoenix‘s show last night in fashionable Pasadena, and my, did we have a time. I think Charles is maybe starting to recognize me as Weird Girl Who Dresses Like It’s 1957 and Comes to All His Shows because he patted me on the shoulder when he walked past me after the show and said “Now, did ya like that?” ANYHOW, thus inspired,we (ie: VV and I, not Charles Phoenix and I, although he is certainly invited) are planning a Grande Toure of all of Los Angeles’ greatest kitsch – the working list of locales is here, and if you have any contributions, please advise. (I just now remembered Pie ‘n Burger,which I would like to add to the list. WHAT IS OLLALLIEBERRY PIE??? We must go there and solve the mystery!)

And then after the show we tried to find a giant donut.

“We could find the one on Normandie! It’s . . . somewhere . . . on Normandie. In South Central. We could just drive down Normandie until we see the donut.”

“Drive down Normandie until we see the giant donut. Into South Central. At 11:00 at night.”

“Ok, nevermind.”

So we tried to find the one by the airpor t. But it was literally NOWHERE. So probably it is like Brigadoon, in that it only appears once every 100 years, only instead of “once every 100 years” it appears “only when you are driving home from LAX.” (And speaking of LAX, we should add dinner at the Theme Building to the adventure list.) So we decided to go for pie instead, and then on the way to pie, at the corner of La Brea and Washington, some dudes rode past us on some horses, because that’s, like, totally normal.

And the pie was green and delicious, and I learned what a pot of postum is, and, quite frankly, I could probably have done without ever finding out about postum because it sounds needlessly awful.

Category Adventure, Los Angeles | Tags: | 3 Comments

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