things that go splatt.

The Writer and the Worms

2011-01-28T07:49:00.005-07:00

My mother gets ruffled when I post pictures like this to my Twitter, which I took of a note that was on our kitchen counter when I was home for Christmas:

It reads: "I went to get some worms. L, G"

It's a note from my step dad, Greg, who, at any given time, is involved in and/or embarking on a handful of household projects and repairs.* So, when I read this note I couldn't help but snicker at how funny it was because it was so matter of fact; like, there was no explanation needed. Mom walks into the kitchen, picks up the note: "Oh, Greg went to get some worms. Ok. I'm going to make a sandwich." In the microcosm of my parent's house going to get some worms is entirely normal.

Of course to them it was normal because it was within their context. As I said, I laughed at it and Tweeted it, which then posted to my Facebook where my mom saw it. She was all "They were for my compost! You didn't say they were for my compost! Greg doesn't just buy worms. They were for my compost!" Ok, mother, I now know they are for your compost. I guess she was worried that my friends were going to see the post and make some sort of judgment as to why we Arkansans might need worms. The assumption, I assume, would be for fishing, which, while relatively southern and possibly backwood to some people, seems harmless and even charming, no?

But, I see where the worry might come from. And if I'm being honest, I was counting on some raised eyebrows and maybe a few chuckles laced with the subtext of "Yeah, that's kind of weird." It wasn't to lambaste my family, though. I explained to my mother that, as a writer (one who especially fancies David Sedaris, though who doesn't?), your family has to understand that they are at your disposal. Their quirks, idiosyncrasies, and vulnerabilities are at your whim, but not in any sort of vindictive way. It's just that, for me, I come from a big, crazy, loud, emotional and totally awesome family. And there are so many tales worth telling from the 27 years I've been a part of it I can't even begin to try and chronicle all of it.* So, when I post a picture of a note from my step dad alerting my mother that he went to get worms, I take a small amount of creative liberty to illuminate a small and, yes, decontextualized example of the kinds of endearing crotchets you'll come across if you somehow get thrown into Plattner pandemonium. It could be worms; it could be a rousing and intense game of Scrabble; it could be an epic screaming match; it could be an impromptu dance party in the living room.

Nevertheless, because I love my mother and because she doesn't need any more distress in her life than she already has, I commented on my own picture noting that the worms were, in fact, for a compost pile. It seemed to diminish the luster of mystery surrounding Greg's Oligochaetal hunt, but then I started thinking about the fact that it was for a compost pile. A compost pile? Mom composts now? What's that all about? Who knows, but maybe I'll write about it one day.

Seth

*As my brothers and I were reared in such a DYI environment we were invariably tasked, much to our adolescent chagrin, with helping Greg with whatever whimsical chore he had on his ever growing list of things to do—picking up rocks, clearing brush, chopping limbs, repairing a birdhouse, planting flowers, picking up rocks, stacking wood, weed whacking, staining furniture, picking up rocks...building a deck. And while at the time it totally cramped our Fort-Smith-Arkansas cool, I'm grateful Greg staved off our attitude, because it's actually kind of prideful, especially as a gay man, to know that if I needed to build, say, a small shed in which to store, uh, tools (which I know how to use) I could totally do it.

*Though one day I will, and it's going to make an amazing book or short story collection or script or whatever.

Oscars! Reactions! Kunis!

2011-01-25T15:01:00.004-07:00

I remember I had a blog today and decided to return to it. For what? The Oscars, naturally.

I obsess over the Oscars every year and, in true fan girl fashion, do my best to see at least every nominated movie, and also every nominated performance. I've done pretty well this year pre-nominations, with only 127 Hours and Winter's Bone left on my list. Thus, how eager I was to hear the nominations this morning.

For some reason I woke up with Mila Kunis in my head. Like, all I wanted to do was get to the office and see the nominations just to confirm whether she had or had not been nominated. It was startling, my care for Kunis, especially given the fact that all I've done throughout awards season is bemoan how much attention she's been getting for her supporting role in Black Swan. I mean, look, she's fine in the movie, but I just didn't see what all the hype was about. She basically played Mila Kunis—aloof, funny, sarcastic—albeit a version of herself who dances ballet, likes trashy back tattoos, and noms on ladies.

She didn't get nominated, and initially I felt victorious in her snub ("See, the academy agrees with me!") But then I felt sort of sad for The Kunis. Not generally regarded as a reputable dramatic thespian, she probably felt artistically vindicated, even though no one's slighted her comedy career thus far. Still, she was on That 70's Show. She voiced Meg on Family Guy. She was, er, ya know in other stuff. Then all of a sudden she has dramatic cred and just when she thinks she's got the last star, that gold star, on her progress chart she comes up short. She's probably still happy with how it's all played out, and God knows how many scripts have already come her way with juicy parts, but it probably stung a bit. Stung just enough.

As for the rest, there weren't too many surprises, though I would have liked to have seen Mark Wahlberg finally get nominated. Poor guy just seems to aaaaalmost get there, and then, in the year when he had a legitimate shot, he gets beat out by a Spanish Lothario and scrawny kid. I haven't seen Biutiful, so I guess I can't be too hard on Javier Bardem, but he just get's more annoying, for whatever reason. Maybe it's his connection to Julia Roberts, who never seems to shut up about him. And, GOD, her. Just, her. Stop smiling and laughing and thinking you are so hilaaaarious and just go away. (Leave Notting Hill, though. Thanks.)

As for Jesse Eisenberg, I won't shortchange him reining in a performance written by Aaron Sorkin and then directed by David Fincher, but he's a freshman in Hollywood and lacks pedigree. He might me smug too. I can't tell.

The winners won't be shocking: The Social Network, Firth, Portman, Bale and Leo. All of whom quite deserving but when are we going to get another Adrien Brody moment? If I were ever going to win an Oscar that's how I would want it to happen. I've dreamed about it. I even have the speech written already. Maybe one day you'll hear it.

Toods.

Seth

back in the habit

2010-08-11T09:35:00.003-06:00

rededicating myself to the blog. stay tuned for, uh, stuff.

Great Paragraphs

2010-05-11T12:17:00.003-06:00

My favorite moment in a book is when it starts to make sense to you. When you reach that point that something the speaker says or does or experiences unexpectedly moves you because, in that moment, it make sense in your life. I cherish such instances because even when that sense, that correlation, changes when your life changes, it will be forever tied to that moment in the story, and when you reread that book—which you should do if it meant something to you in some way—you'll always remember why, how, and what you felt, even if it may have sucked. From chapter 16 of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Even though it was Sunday and Phoebe wouldn't be there with her class or anything, and even though it was so damp and lousy out, I walked all the way through the park over to the Museum of Natural History. I knew that was the museum the kid with the skate key meant. I knew that whole museum routine like a book. Phoebe went to the same school I went to when I was a kid, and we used to go there all the time. We had this teacher, Miss Aigletinger, that took us there damn near every Saturday. Sometimes we looked at the animals and sometimes we looked at the stuff the Indians had made in ancient times. Pottery and straw baskets and all stuff like that. I get very happy when I think about it. Even now. I remember after we looked at all the Indian stuff, usually we went to see some movie in this big auditorium. Columbus. They were always showing
Columbus discovering America, having one helluva time getting old Ferdinand and Isabella to lend him the dough to buy ships with, and then the sailors mutinying on him and all. Nobody gave too much of a damn about old Columbus, but you always had a lot of candy and gum and stuff with you, and the inside of that auditorium had such a nice smell. It always smelled like it was raining outside, even if it wasn't, and you were in the only nice, dry, cosy place in the world. I loved that damn museum. I remember you had to go through the Indian Room to get to the auditorium. It was a long, long room, and you were only supposed to whisper. The teacher would go first, then the class. You'd be two rows of kids, and you'd have a partner. Most of the time my partner was this girl named Gertrude Levine. She always wanted to hold your hand, and her hand was always sticky or sweaty or something. The floor was all stone, and if you had some marbles in your hand and you dropped them, they bounced like madmen all over the floor and made a helluva racket, and the teacher would hold up the class and go back and see what the hell was going on. She never got sore, though, Miss Aigletinger. Then you'd pass by this long, long Indian war canoe, about as long as three goddam Cadillacs in a row, with about twenty Indians in it, some of them paddling, some of them just standing around looking tough, and they all had war paint all over their faces. There was one very spooky guy in the back of the canoe, with a mask on. He was the witch doctor. He gave me the creeps, but I liked him anyway. Another thing, if you touched one of the paddles or anything while you were passing, one of the guards would say to you, "Don't touch anything, children," but he always said it in a nice voice, not like a goddam cop or anything. Then you'd pass by this big glass case, with Indians inside it rubbing sticks together to make a fire, and a squaw weaving a blanket. The squaw that was weaving the blanket was sort of bending over, and you could see her bosom and all. We all used to sneak a good look at it, even the girls, because they were only little kids and they didn't have any more bosom than we did. Then, just before you went inside the auditorium, right near the doors, you passed this Eskimo. He was sitting over a hole in this icy lake, and he was fishing through it. He had about two fish right next to the hole, that he'd already caught. Boy, that museum was full of glass cases. There were even more upstairs, with deer inside them drinking at water holes, and birds flying south for the winter. The birds nearest you were all stuffed and hung up on wires, and the ones in back were just painted on the wall, but they all looked like they were really flying south, and if you bent your head down and sort of looked at them upside down, they looked in an even bigger hurry to fly south. The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way--I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it.

get on the train!

2010-04-30T14:53:00.002-06:00

A friend made a comment that he was interested in doing a movie double feature with, first, this:

And secondly, this:

And that seems appropriate, no? First, The Human Centipede involves people actually being sewn together, anus to mouth, in a line that forces them to share a digestive tract so, beyond victim number one, the only way to feed is to—excuse me while I gag—ingest the incoming, uh, load. (sorry).

So that's all literal and shit—with literal, ya know, shit—but, venture into the metaphorical with me in considering Sex and the City 2 as a story not far off from that of The Human Centipeded: Carrie leads the linked pack of flighty females who pretty much construct their own nightmares with their ridiculous antics and uninformed, emotionally-driven decisions, all the while ingesting that which she excretes—mostly-horrid fashion, bad relationship examples, and oh-my-God-shut-the-fuck-up-with-all-those-puns puns—only to have it pass through their own systems of pollution to become even more gunked up with nonsense and poor judgment to finally reach at the end, oh I don't know, Samantha, where it's crapped out on the floor in a pile of dumb fucking shit. So who's the evil doctor in the SATC 2 scenario? Sadly, peeps, we are.

Seth

eat. me. want. now.

2010-04-29T12:11:00.002-06:00

via BuzzFeed

sad

2010-04-15T09:38:00.008-06:00

One of these days I'm going to write a book about all the pets we've had in the Plattner family. It totals somewhere at 15 cats and 11 dogs, all of them having contributed to lifetime moments of laughter, tears, frustration, and, above all else, unconditional love. But a book like that will take time and reflection in order to do them all justice. So, for this post, I just want to emote.

Last night, the second in a pair of my hometown Schnauzers, Pepper (bottom), The Wee Pep, passed away. Last summer, her brother, Jack (top), or Hungry Jack (yes, like the pancake mix, because, not a moment after he was born, the first thing he did was eat) fell into my pool, most likely as a result of a seizure, and drowned. I know that's very morbid and tragic and sad, but I'd like not to focus on their deaths (to start at least). I was, of course, devastated after Jack's accident, and I'm pretty bummed out now after losing Pepper. But, she was an old girl -- her 13th birthday was on the 22nd -- and she fell victim to pancreatitis and kidney failure, which Schnauzers are apparently the poster child for. But, beyond the sadness, I'm just kind of reflective.

Before Jack and Pepper, we had another Schnauzer, Benny, who I loved just as much as any dog I've ever had. He was the fifth brother to four others: me, my triplet brothers and older brother. The day the triplets were brought home from the hospital Benny began a vigil, posting up underneath our cribs every night, ears perking every time one of us cooed or rolled or cried. As we went from crib to highchair to blanket on the floor, Benny was always there, ya know, just checking things out, making sure it was all OK like an older brother does. 12 years later in 1997, old age just caught up with Benny out of nowhere, as it seems prone to do with Schnauzers, who stay sprightly and competent to the end. He died on a vet’s table with his head in my mother’s hand, and he was buried under the big oak tree in Mulberry, AR with the rest of the Plattner pets wrapped in his favorite sheepskin rug.

We grieved for Benny for a while, not sure when anyone would be ready to get another dog. But, time passed and it came to that point where we were ready, and so rather than one dog, mom thought two would be better so they'd grow up companions. We kidded ourselves for a while thinking we get another breed, but I think we all knew in the end we'd just get Schnauzers, because we're Schanuzer people. They are, at any given time, protective, incredibly affectionate, temperamental, almost apathetically relaxed, and, like Hungry Jack especially, ornery. With all of that, they just fit in with my family.

So they were born, Jack and Pepper, the biggest and smallest of their litter, and thus we had two new kids in the house. And they were like new babies, younger siblings to myself, because they were sort of terrors. We loved them, but they tore up everything. Relentlessly teethed on everything from kitchen chairs, table feet, plunger handles and even the walls themselves, which they'd managed to dig a 3 inch hole in. But, despite all of that, I don't remember the anger or irritation. And maybe it was just because of who I was then. We got Jack and Pepper when I was 12 years old, on the brink of adolescence, which, it goes without saying, is inherently tumultuous. Compound that with being gay and frustrated and confused, and, well, yeah...not ideal.

So these dogs grew and matured as I did, changed when I did, lived and experienced as I did. We're talking about different levels here, obviously, but as I sit here now, contemplating their passing, they'll be forever linked to that period in my life when every day was about learning something new about yourself or the world or people or your friends or your family. And sometimes that was hard and really fucking shitty. And you hated yourself and you hated your friends and you hated your family because no one understood you, or you didn't understand them, and all you wanted to was to be settled. Settled like your dogs, who just played outside and ate their food and drank their water and wagged their tails when you walked in the door. And you could just sit down with them, they'd get in your lap, lick your face, and you would get a good solid ten minutes of love. No questions asked. And sometimes it was exactly what you needed in that moment. Just love.

But sometimes, most times, things were great. I had friends. Good friends. Great friends. And we'd always hang out at my house. Play video games. Make stupid movies that we still laugh at today. Form a band and record the dumbest songs you've ever heard. Watch movies and eat tons of food. My older brother would have parties and I'd get to be there, kicking it with all these college people, thinking I was so cool, even though I know I wasn't. But I'd just sit there on the kitchen floor with Nancy, my older brother's then girlfriend and now wife, with Jack or Pepper in my lap and me lapping up the experience, just like the dogs were.

Then all of a sudden we were all seniors, about to go to college, to part ways physically but not emotionally. And I was saying bye to my family and my friends and, of course, the dogs, my mom always joking she was going to send Pepper to New York with me so I'd have a friend from the start. And then nothing was the same, there were no constants. Without those constants the variables changed and thus so did the equation of my life, as least when I was in New York. That was until I would come home and there they'd be -- my friends, my family, Jack and Pepper. The constants were back, if only briefly, and all it took was Jack wrapping his front legs around my neck to give me a hug, or Pepper curling up in my lap begging me to rub her tummy and I was back, relieved, momentarily engulfed in the bubble of home that hadn't, thankfully, changed.

Now, at 26, I'm getting older, farther away from all of that, which is lamentable, but it's also life. Those constants that you rely on vanish, mostly for good, and you can do nothing but adapt. So the next time I go home, Jack will be gone, Pepper will be gone, and I'll have to struggle with the fact that the world that made me keeps losing its pieces and I'm not there to watch them go, to grieve the process, and then reconcile. I'm only left with memories. Really good memories. But that's a consequence of my choices, and, so, perhaps then I have my own process I have to begin to reconcile, that of watching my past fossilize while I begin to build a separate and very different future. Arkansas will always be home, or at least one home. And I'll never, absolutely never, absolve myself from the life and the people I have there. I guess it's just that...shit changes. People change. Dogs die and so does the past when that which made up that past is gone in the present. Or -- foregoing again morbidity -- let's just say the past changes. And, frankly, I hate change.

RIP my sweet little Pepper. At least your back with your Jack.

Seth

"I took a bite...and then I saw God."

2010-04-14T09:12:00.017-06:00

I'm ganking this from my Facebook because a) something as monumental as The KFC Double Down needs all the overkill documentation it can get and b) the captions are really funny. I mean, like, so funny. Go ahead -- read them. See all the funny.

On April 12th, 2010, KFC released upon the world that which it needed most: a sandwich made entirely of meat. Cheesy bacon between two fried pieces of chicken, or, as Nojan described it, "modern America in a sandwich." Behold what happened when five intrigued, ravenous, bewildered and ultimately kind of sad individuals tried this feat of human determination for the first time.

The tomb.

The shroud.

And, behold, The Messiah.

Let he without shame take the first bite.

...and immediately regret it (but not really).

Wonder Hairtwin powers: activate!

Form of...

Rachel Rosenblit!

Things may seem relatively calm here, but two seconds later Rachel ate the chicken straight out of his jugular.

Note the Guy Fieri Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives “hunch” in this photo. Well done, Julie!

Like any good abused lover, I always go back for more when I know I shouldn't.

One bite left. Who should be so lucky to receive it?

Johanna. Always Johanna.

Who wants lunch?!

Great Paragraphs

2010-04-14T08:53:00.002-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted a great paragraph, but, man, this one got me good. Better than just a paragraph, though, it's actually a singular sentence. And you know what a sucker I am for a good sentence. From One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcìa Marquez.

Aureliano Segundo was not aware of the singsong until the following day after breakfast when he felt himself being bothered by a buzzing that was by then more fluid and louder than the sound of the rain, and it was Fernanda, who was walking throughout the house complaining that they had raised her to be a queen only to have her end up as a servant in a madhouse, with a lazy, idolatrous, libertine husband who lay on his back waiting for bread to rain down from heaven while she was straining her kidneys trying to keep afloat a home held together with pins where there was so much to do, so much to bear up under and repair from the time God gave his morning sunlight until it was time to go to bed that when she got there her eyes were full of ground glass, and yet no one ever said to her, “Good morning, Fernanda, did you sleep well?,” nor had they asked her, even out of courtesy, why she was so pale or why she awoke with purple rings under her eyes in spite of the fact that she expected it, of course, from a family that had always considered her a nuisance, an old rag, a booby painted on the wall, and who were always going around saying things against her behind her back, calling her churchmouse, calling her Pharisee, calling her crafty, and even Amaranta, may she rest in peace, had said aloud that she was one of those people who could not tell their rectums from their ashes, God have mercy, such words, and she had tolerated everything with resignation because of the Holy Father, but she had not been able to tolerate it any more when that evil José Arcadio Segundo said that the damnation of the family had come when it opened its doors to a stuck-up highlander, just imagine, a bossy highlander, Lord save us, a highland daughter of evil spit of the same stripe as the highlanders the government sent to kill workers, you tell me, and he was referring to no one but her, the godchild of the Duke of Alba, a lady of such lineage that she made the liver or presidents’ wives quiver, a noble dame of fine blood like her, who had the right to sign eleven peninsular names and who was the only mortal creature in that town full of bastards who did not feel all confused at the sight of sixteen pieces of silverware, so that her adulterous husband could die of laughter afterward and say that so many knives and forks and spoons were not meant for a human being but for a centipede, and the only one who could tell with her eyes closed when the white wine was served and on what side and in which glass and when the red wine and on what side and in which glass and not like that peasant of an Amaranta, may she rest in peace, who thought that white wine was served in the daytime and red wine at night, and the only one on the whole coast who could take pride in the fact that she took care of her bodily needs only in golden chamberpots, so that Colonel Aureliano Buendía, may he rest in peace, could have the effrontery to ask her with his Masonic ill humor where she had received that privilege and whether she did not shit shit but shat sweet basil, just imagine, with those very words, and so that Renata, her own daughter, who through an oversight had seen her stool in the bedroom, had answered that even if the pot was all gold and with a coat of arms, what was inside was pure shit, physical shit, and worse even than any other kind because it was stuck-up highland shit, just imagine, her own daughter, so that she never had any illusions about the rest of the family, but in any case she had the right to expect a little more consideration from her husband because, for better or for worse, he was her consecrated spouse, her helpmate, her legal despoiler, who took upon himself of his own free and sovereign will the grave responsibility of taking her away from her paternal home, where she never wanted for or suffered from anything, where she wove funeral wreaths as a pastime, since her godfather had sent a letter with his signature and the stamp of his ring on the sealing wax simply to say that the hands of his goddaughter were not meant for tasks of this world except to play the clavichord, and, nevertheless, her insane husband had taken her from her home with all manner of admonitions and warnings and had brought her to that frying pan of hell where a person could not breathe because of the heat, and before she had completed her Pentecostal fast he had gone off with his wandering trunks and his wastrel’s accordion to loaf in adultery with a wretch of whom it was only enough to see her behind, well, that’s been said, to see her wiggle her mare’s behind in order to guess that she was a, that she was a, just the opposite of her, who was a lady in a palace or a pigsty, at the table or in bed, a lady of breeding, God-fearing, obeying His laws and submissive to His wishes, and with whom he could not perform, naturally, the acrobatics and trampish antics that he did with the other one, who, of course, was ready for anything, like the French matrons, and even worse, if one considers well, because they at least had the honesty to put a red light at their door, swinishness like that, just imagine, and that was all that was needed by the only and beloved daughter of Doña Renata Argote and Don Fernando del Carpio, and especially the latter, an upright man, a fine Christian, a Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher, those who receive direct from God the privilege of remaining intact in their graves with their skin smooth like the cheeks of a bride and their eyes alive and clear like emeralds.

pump pump pump

2010-02-14T11:08:00.003-07:00

No ranting. No raving.

No denying. No crying.

No waxing. No waning.

No defaulting. No assaulting.

No hating. No harping.

No sadness. No madness.

Just acceptance. Just accession.

Just repose. Just (hopefully) one rose?

Just friends. Just fun.

Just love.

Just love.

i'm a father

2010-02-08T10:01:00.000-07:00

Meet the kids. Icarus (black and white) and Penelope (calico).

parents only kinda sort understand

2010-02-03T16:52:00.006-07:00

I mentioned a few posts ago how I'd been following this kid Mikey on his blog, agayhockeykidslife. Turns out he's, like, super popular and his shit has blown up into a full website.

Anywho, bravo to him for that, but he had this post the other day talking about his relationship with his father. Closeted gay context removed, Mikey is a 17 year-old guy who plays varsity hockey for his high school team but can't seem to win the respect of his father no matter what he does or how well he plays (which, it should be noted, is seemingly quite well). His younger brother, Jake, however, is consistently lauded by his father, who makes special effort to go to Jake's hockey games but rarely makes an appearance or even acknowledges Mikey's efforts. From what Mikey has said about their relationship, it seems as though his dad holds a degree of deep-seeded resentment towards Mikey for having chosen hockey over baseball -- a sport he equally excelled at -- because Mikey's dad had a promising future as a baseballer in his younger years.

What I find so intriguing about this is is how undeniably cliche it is. And I certainly don't mean that in any sort of dismissive way (honestly, Mikey, I don't). I liken to how I found out in college that people I met actually went to high schools where the head cheerleader was blond and dated the quarterback and made fun of the band kids and all that shit. Like, Mean Girls actually existed. Because in my high school that just wasn't the case. Of course there were social groups that were segregated, but it wasn't based on any notions of superiority or archetypal caste systems. I didn't regularly hang out with someone in band because, hey, I wasn't in band. But if they showed up at parties or sat with us one or two days at lunch, that was fine. By conventional definition I was a "popular kid," but I was also deeply engrossed in the drama department. And I had friends who's high school experiences were just as juxtaposed.

I digress. Back to my point, which I realize may come across as obviously rooted in inexperience because, "Hey, Seth, you didn't grow up with a dad in the house," so I'll concede the good point. Still, I'm now ruminating on parent/child relationships as they develop in tandem with the development of the child. We all get that our parents, for better or sometimes worse, live vicariously through their children. And why shouldn't they? We are invariably reflections of our parents, of their ability to raise us, to influence us, to make sure that we experience everything we need to experience in order to be ready for the world. That's a lot of pressure. Put yourself in the position with your own child and tell me you wouldn't sit there and think "Damn I hope this kid does amazing things." Where it gets sticky is when a parent tries to force their kid to be someone they're not, or, as in Mikey's case, something they the parents were never able to be. All they and we (because, yes, we are that old now) can do is make sure the experiences are available to them, and then do our best and hope they don't make the wrong decisions. **Though select cases apply: I still say that my mother should have forced me to play piano when I was a youngin' despite my protest, because I deeply regret that I don't play an instrument, specifically that one.

So back to Mikey and his dad. I sympathize with the kid because he's affected by the situation, and why wouldn't he be? He can't, by any means, gain acceptance by the one person in his life who should be there to support him no matter what. Beyond cliche, it's also just so foreign to me. Now, I'm not saying I grew up in a household without pressure to do well. My mom, who is the most influential and amazing person in my life, was very much on me about keeping my grades up and doing well in, well, whatever I was doing. But, she never rejected me because I didn't do something I didn't want to do. So when I refused to take piano for whatever juvenilely conceived reason, she said "Okay." If I can find any semblance of what Mikey is going through, if anything, it's my mom's persistence is asking me when I'm complaining about my job or New York or boys or whatever to just say "why don't you just go?" And by that, she means go off and travel and see the world and sort of say "fuck it" for a while and relive a life she did when she was my age. I'd be lying if I don't think about it at least once every day...

So, all in all, I guess I'm lucky. Still though, Mikey's situation is sort of the beginnings of a pivotal and sometimes heartbreaking point in adolescence. I think one of the most confusing processes any kid can go through is the deconstruction or implosion of the fallacy of their parents. That is to say, our parents are imperfect human beings just like everyone else. Remember being, like, five and thinking that your parents really did know everything? They really were the smartest people in the entire world? Unable to make any mistakes. Immune to jealousy, resentment, insecurity? But then that day comes when it just hits you like a bag of sand that, shit, my parents are sometimes just as fucked up as I am, only they've had a longer period of time to learn how to manage being fucked up. And, as budding adults, we have to take that into account when dealing with them. So, in a case like Mikey's, while it may seem like absolute bullshit that his dad treats him the way he does, Mikey has to sort of acknowledge an insurmountable immaturity in his father. Mikey then becomes the bigger man, which feels inherently and uncomfortably backwards because the entire dynamic of parent/child changes in that moment. It's a loss of innocence and an apprehensive gain in responsibility. I remember a friend of mine once told me about the day she, only 17 at the time, realized she was smarter than her mother. And I thought...that kind of sucks. Personally, while I argue enough with my mom about, er, enough, she'll always know more than me. And I like it that way. Everyone needs a sage in their life. But, I know when she's wrong and I'm not afraid to butt heads and tell her so. I'll leave it at that, though. Any and all Seth-and-his-mom ruminations will better be left for my memoirs.

That was a hell of a ramble, but my fingers were itching to write, and that's what blogs are for, right?

Seth

"we just need some time"

2010-02-02T09:39:00.003-07:00

I don't usually take to my blog for activism, but with Don't Ask, Don't Tell in debate and most likely on the verge of "repeal," I just wanted to examine the language of the heavily assumed terms as explained by The Washington Post:

"President Obama's top defense officials will tell the Senate on Tuesday that the military will no longer aggressively pursue disciplinary action against gay service members whose orientation is revealed against their will by third parties, sources say. ...But Gates and Mullen are also expected to tell senators that it could take years to integrate gay men and lesbians fully into the military, defense officials said. Two appointees will be named to oversee a group that will draw up plans for integrating the armed forces, according to sources familiar with the Pentagon's deliberations on the subject. The planning effort is expected to take up to a year."

So, basically it could be January 2011 before even the "planning effort" is finished.

First off, I love that all of this requires a "planning effort" and secondly -- and most frustratingly -- letting gays serve openly in the military is described and considered an "integration." It's like we're an alien species that has to be steadily introduced into an order so as not to frighten or disrupt the natural way of life in the ecosystem that is the military. Seriously? How about if a gay man or woman wants to take a fucking gun, do what the government tells them to do, and risk their lives to serve this country in a way that they feel is just and appropriate, you just let them fucking do it without continuing to label them as something "other." A uniform is called a uniform for a reason. When you put it on, you are part of a group, a coalition, a collective whole, despite whatever the hell you do in the bedroom.

Integration my ass. I am, we are integrated. Why? Because I'm living and breathing right now. Won't it be great when one day we can all live without any fine print?

Seth

reference via Towleroad

I LOVE JAPAN

2010-01-29T13:05:00.000-07:00

currently with Seth Plattnet

2010-01-29T12:07:00.001-07:00

Song of the moment: "Ain't No Way" Aretha Franklin

Phrase I'm Using Too Much: "I want to go to there"

Over it: hah. duh.

Girl Crush: Leslie Knope

Obsession: NCAA basketball (seriously!)

Reading: Nine Stories

color me bad

2010-01-08T12:16:00.003-07:00

via ELLE.com

In another life, I could have been an amazing artist (or: a concert pianist, a gymnast, a downhill skier, a dancer, or zoologist), but a chronic lack of interest in practice and technique in favor of pleasurable free-handing led me to be one who just “dabbles.” Still, I owe any and all interest in drawing and painting to the very basic exercise of coloring. As in, a coloring book, a box of crayons, and my adherence—or lack there of—to the palette of the world. I still remember my older brother sitting me down at age 4 and teaching me how to color, instructing me to outline the object first, then color it in so I could better stay in the lines. That tiny bit of know-how was instrumental in the many accolades and awards I received for my coloring skills in the early years of elementary school.

Twenty-years later, RxArt is allowing me to indulge, once again, that small, almost Zen-like luxury of simply coloring, albeit on a more adult level. Now in its second volume, Between the Line: A Coloring Book of Drawings by Contemporary Artists is available to those adults who have since forgotten how joyous filling in a colorless image can be. With drawings by forty-eight artists including Takashi Murakami, Adam McEwen, Aurel Schmidt, and fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, there’s a picture and a style for any artistic taste—there’s even a few pages of stickers to play around with. I took the first picture in the book by McEwan and had a go on my lunch break. She’s got blue skin and green hair, but so what? I stayed in the lines, didn’t I? My older brother would be proud.

Both volumes of the contemporary artist coloring books are available online, or in the RxArt store at 208 Forsyth Street, New York, NY 10002 (212.260.8797).

—Seth Platter, Assistant Editor

if only typewriters cured my hangovers as well

2009-12-30T08:52:00.002-07:00

my year, in song

2009-12-29T09:38:00.003-07:00

This mash-up of all the hits from the past year has been floating around the internet today and I'm kind of obsessed with it. I listened to it this morning and it got me to thinking about how integral music is to my life in that I tie so much memory to certain songs -- where I was, what I was doing, who I was with, when, in that singular moment, it imprinted on my brain and will forever remind me of a time and place (good or bad).

So I decided to sort of dissect the mash-up and illuminate the memories that come with some of the sampled songs. In doing so it was kind of a great way to time stamp the last year, which obviously had a lot of ups and downs. I'm going to go the way of the optimist and say that it was all for the best.

The Black Eyed Peas - BOOM BOOM POW
-- Logan Slaughter's twinky sidekick busting out Fergie's "people in the place..." bridge at Barracuda, sending the whole place into a riot of laughter and dance.

Lady Gaga - POKER FACE
-- Andy Dodds. Period.

Lady Gaga Featuring Colby O'Donis - JUST DANCE
-- more from 2008, but dancing at Splash on Thursdays with Ryan and Michael and anyone else who decided to be as delightfully tragic as we were each week.

The Black Eyed Peas - I GOTTA FEELING
-- cruising to the beach in San Diego with Aja, Charlotte, and Caitlin."Mozel tov??!!"

Taylor Swift - LOVE STORY
-- runs along The East River.

Flo Rida - RIGHT ROUND
-- general skankiness throughout the year

Jason Mraz - I'M YOURS
-- singing to myself alone in my room...sometimes way too loudly.

Beyonce - SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT)
-- Lauren Murphy busting out the dance, full stop, at any opportunity available, sometimes with her sister as backup

Kanye West - HEARTLESS
-- lamenting our love lives with Christine

Taylor Swift - YOU BELONG WITH ME
-- T. Swift jam sessions at ELLE

The Fray - YOU FOUND ME
-- watching So You Think You Can Dance with my ladies of Hotel 194

Kings Of Leon - USE SOMEBODY
-- moments like this

Jamie Foxx Featuring T-Pain - BLAME IT
-- giving my number, yelling at someone, or eating something when I shouldn't have

Pitbull - I KNOW YOU WANT ME (CALLE OCHO)
-- the top 16 group dance of SYTYCD season 5. BEYOND.

T.I. Featuring Rihanna - LIVE YOUR LIFE
-- Ringing in the New Year at our kick-ass party NYE party

Jay Sean Featuring Lil Wayne - DOWN
-- getting low at Elena's wedding

Miley Cyrus - THE CLIMB
-- camping out on Lauren and Blythe's floor, watching Hannah Montana: The Movie, and noming on Mexican food before saying goodbye to my chica as she leaves New York.

Kelly Clarkson - MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU
-- all my friends who kept my chin up through 2009 and who, truly, without my life would so suck.

Beyonce - HALO
-- weekend ski trip to Vermont with my harem of women: Aja, Charlotte, Caitlin and Lauren.

Katy Perry - HOT N COLD
-- jumping around like fools at Hiro with Patrick (aka Tragitwin) and Mary at the Paper+H&M party/Katy Perry concert

are you there, Santa? it's me, Seth

2009-12-12T09:22:00.002-07:00

I went to a Christmas party/variety show of sorts last night and we played a game that involved reading quotes from notable Christmas movies and then trying to guess what film they were gleaned from. I got this gem:

The worst thing that ever happened to me was on Christmas. Oh, God. It was so horrible. It was Christmas Eve. I was 9 years old. Me and Mom were decorating the tree, waiting for Dad to come home from work. A couple hours went by. Dad wasn't home. So Mom called the office. No answer. Christmas Day came and went, and still nothing. So the police began a search. Four or five days went by. Neither one of us could eat or sleep. Everything was falling apart. It was snowing outside. The house was freezing, so I went to try to light up the fire. That's when I noticed the smell. The firemen came and broke through the chimney top. And me and Mom were expecting them to pull out a dead cat or a bird. And instead they pulled out my father. He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit. He'd been climbing down the chimney... his arms loaded with presents. He was gonna surprise us. He slipped and broke his neck. He died instantly. And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus.

Poor Kate. I guess a story like that puts the whole gremlins-are-trying-to-claw-my-face-off situation into perspective....

Think dad dead in the chimney trumps your older brother telling you Santa isn't real when you're only four years old? It's debatable, me thinks.

Seth

currently with Seth Plattner

2009-12-11T11:38:00.000-07:00

Song of the moment: "Alejandro" Lady GaGa

Phrase I'm Using Too Much: "deal breaker!"

Over it: Serena's philandering

Girl Crush: Cate Blanchett

obsession: athletes

shout out

2009-12-10T14:08:00.005-07:00

to Mikey at a gay hockey kids life

Because I remember what you're going through.

Hang in there.

It gets better.

It gets easier.

Do what you have to do right now.

You'll know when it's time.

Seth

step and repeat

2009-11-24T12:39:00.003-07:00

Ya know those times when you walk out of your apartment on a cold-ish type day, where the sun is just starting to shine through a gray morning, just enough that you put on your sunglasses not to look cool but maybe to just to protect yourself, and you have a converse feeling of solitude before you become enveloped by the city and all you want is something other than your own self-awareness, your own self-analysis to do all the work for you, to be like "hey, this is how you're feeling right now and if it's not how you're feeling I'm going to make you feel this way because you sometimes don't have a fucking clue what to feel" and what that something is is a song that comes on in a moment of kismet timing so you just go with it and it feels good, really good, to just get lost in something, even if it's just on the walk to the subway station and even if it kind of hurts at least you know if it hurts something is working and everything isn't covered in scars where only phantoms get the last laugh?

these are those songs:

allow me ruminate, dammit.

2009-11-23T13:45:00.004-07:00

How hot is this poster?!

I originally had no plans to take to my blog to talk about New Moon, because -- while I'm finally OK with admitting I'm a Twihard -- I didn't want to contribute to the collective Twitteratti that is making everyone else want to put a gun in their mouths.

Nevertheless, this is my blog, and I need to realize that it's perfectly fine to indulge my obsessions so long as they don't become destructive and/or all consuming (thanks for go-ahead, Dr. Kelly!). That being said, I'm simply going to expound on Twilight v. New Moon. This isn't review so much as observation; so observe me observing.

Given I saw New Moon two times in 24 hours, I can't say I didn't like the movie. I obviously did. I know how to walk into a movie like this and reduce my critical eye to that of an untreated, nearly blind syphilitic (STD reference is intentional and appropriate), able to enjoy spoonful after spoonful of schmultz because, look, there's pleasure in the lowbrow if you just get over your ego for a couple of hours. And so I "eee!"-d a bit when the title came across the screen; I clapped when Edward did his first slow-motion walk across the school parking towards Bella; I gaped and then cried when Jacob took off his shirt; I snapped my fingers and said "Yeah, bitch!" when Dakota Fanning was all "Pain." You watch for moments like these that speak do your immature whims, not Oscars and accolades.

Still, if I have to be comparatively critical, I liked Twilight better, and here's where I'm going to get all first-year-film-major on you. There are moments when New Moon certainly exceeds Twilight. The overall scope of the story is more easily managed by Chris Weitz. That is to say he's able to take the remarkability of vampires and wolves and capture it with more technical savoir faire. It just felt like a bigger, meatier movie with him at the helm. However (and this is a big however), I really really missed Hardwicke's direction when it came to the emotion of the story. One of the reasons I was unable to stop watching Twilight over and over again was due to her ability to take the complexities of teenage emotion and attraction and desire and channel them through Bella's experience. Across the board, any emotion a teenager has is going to be affected by some type of angst, and no one does adolescent angst better than Hardwicke. Watch 20 minutes of Hardwicke's raw masterpiece, Thirteen, and you'll understand that. So when I saw New Moon, I just couldn't help but wonder what she would have done with Bella's gyre of despair post-Edward walk-out. And even Bella's recovery at the hands of Jacob would have been more treated, more palpably wearisome and painful. Hardwicke noted in the commentary of Twilight that she inserted a lot of Thirteen-type shots and scene set-ups that were, for me, really effective in conveying the story. And while she got a few knocks for having a directorial style that was too narrowed and sometimes careless, I actually felt it worked in the movie. The fact that she would approach certain scenes with a "let's-just-film-and-see-where-it-goes" mentality made for a movie who's instabilities only enhanced the themes of the books and the nature of teenage main characters. I'll cite the first time Bella comes to The Cullens in Twilight, when we get the whole dancing in Edward's room/climbing through pine trees/Edward playing the piano to example how she can seriously set a mood and capture sensibility.

It's a pity Hardwicke never got her shot at New Moon, but given her lack of experience with CGI, it could have been an embarrassing disaster. When it's all said and done she got to introduce the world to what will -- lamentably, perhaps -- become one of the greatest love stories ever told. Weitz did an OK job with his turn, but I'm glad there will be some new blood in Eclipse with David Slade, who directed 30 Days of Night, where vampires looked like this:

So if anyone is going to bring a darker, more mature element to this franchise, it's going to be Slade. Let's hope for an epic werewolves + The Cullens v. new vampire army battle.

Seth

The Big Pink is My New Therapy

2009-11-10T12:35:00.003-07:00

Why I thought a Sunday night would be appropriate for a viewing of the mind-liquifyingly horrifying House of the Devil, I have no idea, especially considering I hate scary movies. Alas, I found myself hunkered down in the Angelika Theater mentally preparing for what was sure to be almost two hours of sheer terror. And it was, OK? I cowered. I covered my eyes. I jumped. I shrieked. I nearly wept. But I don’t want to talk about it, alright? Because if I talk about it I...look, I’M NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT!

But, what I am going to talk about is The Big Pink. What I love about the Angelika Theater is their dedication not only to little-engine-that-could movies, but also indie music that deserves to be heard. Before previews start they’re always running those fun trivia/factoid reels with featured music playing on top. On Sunday night, one of those featured bands was The Big Pink. The playlist had to loop through a couple of times before I started to take notice of their single, “Dominoes,” that was playing amid other tracks. I jotted down their name in my moleskin and, later that night, looking for something—anything—to ease my mind after what I’d just watched, I downloaded their debut album, A Brief History of Love, which dropped back in September. I owe my post-House of the Devil-sanity in part to British duo Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell for creating so cohesive an album and sound that I was able to fully get lost in it, momentarily forgetting that not half an hour prior I’d seen a deformed satanic old lady bleeding from her eyes.

Beyond the unstoppably catchy “Dominoes” is a collection of songs that reminds me of Animal Collective—distorted noise, synthetic riffs, doctored voices—only better, more focused with the right kind of intention of heavy beats, consistent tempos, and hooks I can actually get behind. “Crystal Visions” starts things off beautifully and “Velvet” kicks in mid-album just when you need it. Two days later and I’ve still got ABHOL on repeat, definitely for the sound…but also just to maybe get me back to that place before I’d seen House of the Devil.

—Seth Plattner, Assistant Editor

via ELLE.com

currently with Seth Plattner

2009-11-09T12:59:00.001-07:00

Reading: Lolita

Song of the moment: "Dominoes" The Big Pink

Albums on repeat: A Brief History of Love, Lost Channels, Glee, The Music: Volume 1

Phrase I'm Using Too Much: "of the what?"

Over it: regret

Girl Crush: Carrey Mulligan

obsession: Frosted Flakes!

Wicked + the gays = yeah. and?

2009-10-29T13:19:00.001-06:00

While famed NYC gay hot spot Splash Bar can get just a wee bit seedy on most evenings (especially when those college guys get rowdy on Thursdays!), Monday night found the dance floor occupied by a decidedly mixed crowd all there to enjoy the weekly Broadway sing-along night deemed Musical Mondays. Though any Monday night is a good excuse to gather your gaggle, down a few drinks, and belt your lungs out to video-taped recordings of some of the Great White Way’s most famous performances, this particular evening held the especially high occasion of celebrating the six-year anniversary of the opening of Wicked. In honor of the show’s almost 2,500 performance run (and certainly counting) a handful of Wicked cast members took their night off from the Gershwin Theater to lend their voices to some memorable performances for a gathering of their most adoring fans.

Dee Roscioli (pictured), who plays Elphaba on Broadway, ripped through “The Wizard and I” as if the cold she was reportedly nursing didn’t even exist. Chelsea Krombach, currently the Elfaba understudy, blew our ears off with “Defying Gravity,” and Heather Spore, a Galinda understudy, did the dutiful role of bewitching the crowd with Wicked fan favorite, “Popular.” After a performance by the Wicked dancers and a crowed giveaway, night took a, uh, charmingly desperate (?) turn when Craig Jessup, the make-up artist responsible for greenifying Elfaba every night, sang an original number, “Date With Myself.” Naturally, almost everyone in the room identified. At least we’ll always have our musicals.

—Seth Plattner, Assistant Editor

from ELLE.com

forgot to import this

2009-10-22T16:58:00.003-06:00

but I'm (still) reading it, so (still) apropos.

When faced with the decision of what book to read next, I’m always torn between whether to go light or heavy. I generally try to keep it even, indulging in something mindless yet entertaining (think the Twilight saga) and then making my brain sweat a little with, oh, say Goethe? But at my last literary crossroad, I found myself wanting both. A tough request some might say, but not impossible thanks to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith and, of course, Jane Austen. The book made the press rounds a couple of months ago at its release, and I finally decided to grab a copy knowing that hilariously desecrated high literature would be exactly what I’d been looking for. Elizabeth Bennet is everyone’s favorite classical tough girl, even more so when Grahame-Smith gives her action lines like this:

“Elizabeth lifted her skirt, disregarding modesty, and delivered a swift kick to the creature’s head.”

Chortle. I know there are P&P purists out there, but I for one think the zombie injection makes it a much more engaging read. Except I’ve never actually read the original text…which is making it kind of hard to know what’s from Austen and what’s from Grahame-Smith. Oh well. England and brains and death and innuendo and stuff!

—Seth Plattner, Assistant Editor

via ELLE.com

hm.

2009-10-22T16:52:00.002-06:00

Had to repost to my blog because I am so intrigued, saddened, frightened, weirded out, excited about this movie:

Currently with Seth Plattner

2009-10-22T16:51:00.000-06:00

Song of the moment: "Space Jam"

Phrase I'm Using Too Much: "You got cheesy blasters!"

Over it: "Run This town"

Girl Crush: Jean Thompson

Current obsession: Celtx

this made me smile this morning

2009-10-06T08:05:00.001-06:00

Y3

2009-09-25T14:19:00.008-06:00

an import from ELLE.com:

It always makes me chuckle when certain bands take the stage at Radio City Music Hall. I mean, it works for things like the Tonys or an orchestra or Rufus Wainwright (not a dig, Rufus. You know I love you.) but when I hear that groups such as Metallica or, as was the case last night, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, are performing, the kind of glitzy, kind of schmaltzy venue just doesn’t fit. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to miss Karen O, Nick Zinner, and Brian Chase do their best to turn the Rockettes' home into an indie-rock dance party complete with fog, loads of confetti, and huge inflatable eye balls. And let’s not forget Miss O’s wild stage outfits of headdresses, vinyl bodices, some tentacles (I think), and capes.

While the main concert itself was rip-roaring with an alternated set of numbers form It’s Blitz, Fever to Tell and Show Your Bones, the real punch came at the end in YYY’s encore. We didn’t really get a word from Karen all night, but when they re-took the stage she open-heartedly dedicated the final set to not only their opener, ESG, but also the bandmates' parents. It was a tender moment that was made even moreso when, in an ode to their home city and crowd, she cathartically sang through tears and a choked up voice their first hit “Maps,” referring to it as “a New York love song.” It hit me hard as an almost-seven-year New Yorker always longing for something or someone. And though, yes, I’m typically inclined to indulge in that sappy side of, well, everything, I was pleased they ended the concert on a rager note with “Y Control” and “Date With the Night,” even smashing guitars and slinging microphones before exiting the stage. That was probably cathartic, too.

—Seth Plattner, Assistant Editor

Photo: Getty Images

this is why i love you

2009-09-25T13:11:00.002-06:00

Bam. Stam.

more love.

Currently with Seth Plattner

2009-09-24T17:03:00.004-06:00

Song of the moment: "Skeleton" Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And I guess "Bulletproof" by La Roux given the pertinence.

Phrase I'm Using Too Much: "You've got Braditude"

Over it: the Hachette email system

Girl Crush: Karen O

Current obsession: fried pickles

imma rollin

2009-09-21T21:08:00.002-06:00

rollin rollin rollin

HEY

2009-09-20T17:21:00.000-06:00

take your bow, bitch.

00:48

2009-09-05T12:02:00.000-06:00

collective hysteria

2009-09-01T14:59:00.008-06:00

Currently with Seth Plattner...

2009-08-29T09:57:00.003-06:00

I have this currently running in the "About Me" section of my Facebook profile, but seeing as how not everybody reads it, I'm going to make it a regular post here on my blog. Maybe I'll enlighten somebody after all...

Song of the moment: tie -- "Please Don't Go" and "Come Back When You Can," Barcelona

Phrase I'm Using Too Much: "Alas"

Over it: summer

Girl Crush: Mélanie Laurent

Obsession: Brave New World

talk on the phone. finish your homework. watch tv. die.

2009-08-26T14:43:00.005-06:00

best tagline ever.

and the trailer in all its classic horror film glory:

this is what happiness looks like

2009-08-21T10:40:00.001-06:00

so...

2009-08-20T10:58:00.001-06:00

when do I get to do this?

without you

2009-08-19T15:46:00.004-06:00

I had a plan today for something a little more grandiose, more tributary, more encompassing of how it feels now that my girl, my Lauren, has left New York.

I thought about a poem, but I'm not a poet.

I thought about a short story, but she knows I don't have that kind of time.

I thought about maybe just pictures chronicling the long, remarkable, sometimes sordid but undeniably genuine history that has been Lauren and Seth. But 3x5's couldn't begin to do it any sort of justice.

So, for now, just let it be that I am sad.

There have been a lot of come-and-go, ebb-and-flow moments for me and Lauren -- me going to college, she going to college, me moving to Denver, she moving to London -- so you think I might be used to her ins and her outs in my life. But it's never easy to say goodbye to her; to the person who is, without a doubt, my soul mate.

It feels wrong that she's gone. The city feels wrong without her. In fact I think the city only felt right when she got here, just a short year ago, and only now that she is gone do I realize what exactly my New York life was missing all these years.

I could pontificate for hours, lament for days. But I'll do that privately.

For now, I just want to dedicate our laughter, our crying, my sanity, her gas, our boy issues, our cookies, our love of food, our German accents, our New York accents, our runs on the weekends, our brunches, our naps, our singing, our complaining, our every whimsical notion and romantic indulgence to you, Lauren. It all matters more because it's with you.

You'll be back. We'll be back. Ruling this world we've made for ourselves.

With more love than you'll ever know,
Seth

Great Paragraphs

2009-08-19T11:42:00.002-06:00

Though this obviously differs from my normal formatting for great paragraphs posts, I just figured I'd lift the text from a post I recently submitted to ELLE.com and you bitches can deal with it.

Some time ago the BBC released a list of 100 books, classic and otherwise, and along with it a claim that most people have read only six of them. A former English major, I tallied up my own number, expecting that I had at least half of them on my bookshelf. To my literary dismay, I'd only knocked down 36 of the 100. Feeling demoralized and humbled, I recently printed out the list, determined to conquer them all. But, before I could get to any number of the novels I hadn't read, I had to revisit one I had: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. So much was lost on me when i first read it way back in high school, probably because a) it was an abridged version and b) I was an antsy teenager. Thus I recently picked up a new copy, ready to try and finally appreciate and contextualize Huxley's satiric vision of a "utopian" future where humans are genetically bred and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively serve a ruling order. It only took the first page for me to realize what I'd missed before. The second paragraph, describing the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, had me gasping in awe:

The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north. Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory. Wintriness responded to wintriness. The overalls of the workers were white, their hands gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber. The light was frozen, dead, a ghost. Only from the yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain rich and living substance, lying along the polished tubes like butter, streak after luscious streak in long recession down the work tables.

"Wintriness responded to wintriness." Chills! It feels like I'm reading the book for the first time, and, though it's not getting my number up, I'm ok with that.

Extra! Extra!

2009-08-13T08:17:00.002-06:00

The New York Times makes another earth-shattering revelation that men are adopting retro hair styles from the 60s, 70s and 80s. HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!

related: behind the times

please don't go

2009-07-23T14:58:00.002-06:00

or -- ya know what -- do.

(thanks Jaber)

point taken

2009-07-23T12:52:00.001-06:00

At least someone was on the right track.

2009-07-18T18:38:00.000-06:00

Testing. Testing. One deux tres. Blogging on the go? Dangerous.

a/s/l? pic?

2009-07-15T14:09:00.006-06:00

In the latest issue of GQ Michael Joseph Gross examines the gay sex scandal that rocked New Berlin, Wisconsin's Eisenhower high school in 2008, shocking parents nerves to their very synapses over not just the audacity of a lonely, horny 18-year old boy, but also the presumed yet destroyed innocence of their own teenage sons and daughters.

The story revolves around Tony Stancl, an involved, but forgotten kid on account of certain eccentricities that may have been inherent, but were probably cultivated from the barrage of derision that is high school. In any case, Tony, hormones raging (and inhibitions lowered), would, first, go online posed as a girl who attended his high school in an attempt to convince other hormonally revved guys to send him naked pictures of themselves and, then, use those pictures as blackmail to force his victims to engage is sexual acts with him -- oral and other. After a long string of incidents in the school he was eventually made and subsequently charged with numerous accounts of sexual assault and possession of child pornography. There was, obviously, a public outcry from parents and other officials, leading to heightened security in the school and stricter measures of vigilance towards monitoring kids' internet usage. As of yet Tony's case hasn't gone to trial. The matter might even be settled out of court. Gross says that most of the kids either don't care about the scandal or most have just gone back to normal. A few of the victims are in therapy but seem to be coping just fine. And Tony...well what exactly is going on with Tony?

Here in lies my main beef with Gross' piece. He does a nice job of reporting the incident, touching on how the wave of effect rippled out from the kids to the parents to the community, noting how the reactions of the parents, while understandably upset at the exploitation of their children, is more of a reaction to a sexual liberation they have lost control of. I get that. I respect that. But while Tony serves as ground zero, Gross seems to overlook him right there in the eye of the storm. Gross reports on his background, his nature, the way he was viewed and picked on at school. How things got particularly bad for him when rumors were spread throughout his peers that he was gay (and he was, but not out), leading the reader to assume that, as a result, this probably led to some sort of dysfunction, sexual and beyond. But any sort of investigation or even marginal defense for Tony stops there. It just sort of reads like "Tony did this to these guys and this is how people reacted to it and now something's been done to prevent sexual predation again." That being the linear focus of the essay, I was just left pondering the deeper issues that led Tony, and even his "victims," to do what they did.

I can only approach my argument here from a degree of experience in a similar environment as Tony's. Now, no, I never deceived my high school friends into thinking I was a hot, horny girl that they should send pictures to in hopes of gaining leverage to get them to suck me off. But, I know all to well what it is like to be a sexually repressed yet hormonally charged teenager who is in the closet and surrounded by a peer group with the same impulses who have a far broader arena for satiating those desires. Having to watch everyone else get what you want from those they want it from, while you're stuck on the sidelines, ready to literally burst, can lead to some pretty poor decision making. You go where you can to get it, and sometimes -- most of the time -- it's not a pretty place.

In Tony's case, his impulses got the better of him. They inspired him to deceive, manipulate, abuse and embarrass. But, what more could be said about the abuse he himself received from his classmates? Those that teased him and made fun of him for being gay when he didn't openly admit to it? We know enough about the malleable teenage psyche to understand it had some negative effect on him and his actions. But given that Gross never does a deeper probe into Tony himself -- what he was thinking, feeling, urging, longing for -- we can't tell if he was acting sexually, psychotically, or a mixture of the two. Was blackmailing these boys a way to not only get vengeance but do so while getting his rocks off? Was there something satisfying and even attractive in engaging in sex knowing that it was being done in a terribly reviling way? How much of it can be attributed to hormones and their ability to almost make you have an out-of-body experience, forcing you to watch yourself initiate a conversation, a flirtation, a sleazy rendezvous you know deep down is so wrong but, God, in that moment nothing else feels more right? Tony, as portrayed in Gross' piece, simply comes off as the criminal, who, for one reason or another, did what he did, admitted to it and is now going to face consequences. Yet, he represents such a multi-faceted and confused (and all too common) sexual being who, as a lemming in a conservative and sometimes fear-mongering society, can only base his own exploration and experimentation on what is available in pornos and stereotypes. It's not that I want to exonerate Tony from what he did, because it is perverse. But I firmly believe there is more to him and his persona and his decisions and his influences and his conscious and subconscious that is left at the door of Gross' investigation. It's more than just calling him, as Gross does, an opportunist, for there's too much accountability in such a label.

And, to conclude with one more bit of rhetoric and a point that I don't think Gross entirely stepped over, but nevertheless warrants more, if not risky address, is the topic of the boys he seduced. The story goes that of all the boys he went after online, he "winnowed a group of thirty-one, threatening roughly half of them with public exposure if they did not have sex with him. Of the boys Tony threatened, at least seven of them agreed to his demands." So of these boys that agreed to his demands, obviously the most victimized, the most scrutinized, the most "traumatized" their parents surely attested, you have to simply wonder how much they objected to what was happening. Hypothetically, they sent pictures to this girl, she said if they didn't hook up with their friend Tony she would expose the nude pictures and their lives would surely be ruined. If they told anyone else what happened, the pictures would, of course, be made public. And that, really, was the big deal? A naked picture? You're so worried about your dick being seen by some immature teens that you're willing to let a guy give you a blowjob or even submit to anal sex? The either/or here seems a tad uneven. And that, I think, played into the mob mentality of the public response. Were these distraught parents so upset that their kids had been exploited? Or exploited into being gay? A label that could, God forbid, have some validity that was only corroborated by Tony's manipulation. There, perhaps, could be the real crime.

Call this devil's advocacy. Just making a point to make a point. Raise a question. Entertain an idea. Hell, ruffle a few feathers. Just know that when you're a mere 15 years old and heading off to hotel rooms in the middle of the night, you're not alone with yourself.

school's in

2009-07-15T13:30:00.003-06:00

this looks absolutely marvelous.

can I borrow your dog to help me trick that goat?

2009-07-10T12:41:00.002-06:00

screaming goats. hilarity.

from Russia, with love

2009-07-10T08:55:00.001-06:00

ignorance ain't bliss

2009-07-08T13:16:00.005-06:00

There is an advertisement all over the city on billboards and bus stops and, frankly, it pisses me off. Not because I'm a pessimist and not because I hate these ridiculous motivational posters, but mostly because it is pretty much, well, wrong.

While Norman Rockwell gained an inescapable notoriety as "the guy who painted the Saturday Evening Post," what most people tend not to know is that he was an actual artist, one with convictions and a point of view and a real understanding of the sometimes shitty and fucked up world we live in. So when I see something like this:

I am irksome because, look people, he didn't really see the best in all of us. At best, Rockwell saw the best in some or, hell, even just a few of us. His Saturday Evening Post covers were idyllic images, ones that many used as a sort of benchmark on which they could base their own lives and families. And while, yes, the 40s and 50s were a bit easier, a bit nicer, a bit more relaxed and innocent, most people didn't have it so nice. But that's not to say they didn't want to think they they did. And that's sort of the point of magazines and advertising, right? There's always some fudging going on, an uptick of the truth, a slight exaggeration that Rockwell was no doubt aware of and paid to depict.

I know it sounds like I am undercutting Rockwell and perhaps projecting my own despondency onto him as a person and an individual, but the advertisement just strikes me as propagandist based on a collective ignorance. Because when you see Rockwell paintings like this:

And this:

or even this (note the heartbreaking loss of innocence, the insecurity freshly realized on her face):

I wouldn't quite say that Rockwell saw the best in us, so much as the truth in us. And that truth is sometimes kind of ugly.

SP

those were the days

2009-07-08T13:11:00.004-06:00

A simpler time, a simpler fashion advertisement.

that to this to that

2009-07-06T13:42:00.003-06:00

before:

right now:

after:

Farewell, Keith Haring.

behind The Times

2009-07-02T07:32:00.004-06:00

Once again, the New York Times exerts its authority as the go-to news source for groundbreaking journalism and unheard of claims on what is gripping society and why (note the sarcasm) with their piece on the allure of vampires. Really? NO! Vampires are popular these days? Good God who the hell would have known that?! Well, just in case you didn't, Ruth la Ferla -- after some arm-twisting from an editor, no doubt -- theorizes:

"Rarely have monsters looked so sultry — or so camera-ready. No small part of this latest vampire mania seems to stem from the ethereal cool and youthful sexiness with which the demons are portrayed. Bela Lugosi they are not."

or how about this gem:

"Given all that baggage, what keeps vampires so alluring? One might point to their combination of deathless good looks and decadent sexuality."

I mean, really? This is what the Style section of the New York Times has to report on? Something that I and even my yet-to-be-conceived child are aware of? I only point this out because it happens ALL THE EFFING TIME in the New York Times these days, particularly The Style section. For a publication of which we are reminded daily in the back of a taxi "the best journalists in the world work at the Times, and there's no denying that," I think I can, without remorse, fucking deny that.

Ok ok, yes they cover all those things that actually, like, matter with the kind of journalistic integrity we've come to know and respect, but maybe that's why instances like these, and when they tell us two fashion seasons too late that shorts are, in fact, in for men, or -- gasp! -- food carts are popular in New York City (weren't we hunting these down last summer?), it just makes me shake my head in disappointment that they are so lagged in reporting any sort of trend. And I get that blogs are raping and leaving for dead the print media, but if the NYT wants to continue to be the NYT they're going to have to up their game in the digital age, because, while I love the daily crossword as if I bore it from my womb, I can't get behind wonky reporting.

SP

p.s. same goes for you, Wall Street Journal!

oh, alex....

2009-06-30T14:55:00.003-06:00

Alexander McQueen went by way of many designers this menswear season and opted out of showing a full collection on the runway. Instead, the designer chose to present his S/S 2010 collection in a kind of eerie video directed by David Sims. Dazed Digital says the video "represents a journey as artistic ideas metamorphose into their physical manifestations, and as the artist himself submits to the painstaking process of invention." What that translates to on film is a guy rolling around in paint playing with what look like Lincoln Logs, a guy in underwear running down a hallway, and another guy sitting in a chair drawing all over himself with a marker. As far as the clothes go, looks like you'll have to keep waiting.

via Dazed Digital

because it make me laugh so good

2009-06-26T08:30:00.002-06:00

I want to see a battle between ENDCAT:

And Bacchus:

Bets on who prevails?

can't nobody hold me down

2009-06-26T08:24:00.002-06:00

I get fickle with my blog, so look for a few changes re: posts. I do a lot of blogging and writing for my perspective jobs (ELLE/Out.com) but not all of it makes it into the mag or onto the web (editors -- who needs em?). So I've decided to start posting my unpublished musings on fashion and pop culture here, at things that go splatt.

i mean i can't my head is going to explode

2009-05-22T08:38:00.004-06:00

and then I'm going to cry and barf rainbows.

These two were rescued from the Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara and immediately started snorgling. It's like the Fox and the Hound but real and so much fucking cuter!

via, who else, Cute Overload

Michael Scott is my tragic hero

2009-05-18T11:41:00.002-06:00

I finally got around to watching the season finale of The Office last night, and Michael's speech about his relationship with Holly was arguably one of the most poignant moments the show -- and Steve Carell -- has ever delivered:

I didn't find the perfect moment [to tell Holly we belong together]. Because I think that today was about just having today. And I think that we are one of those couples with a long story when people ask how we found each other. I will see her, every now and then, and, maybe, one year she'll be with somebody and the next year I'll be with somebody. And it's going to take a long time... and then it's perfect. I'm in no rush.

Me neither.

Dude...

2009-05-12T16:41:00.001-06:00

Hah, he's drowning!

2009-04-29T14:23:00.001-06:00

At first I thought this video was all relaxing and stuff...until I realized it was about a rescue mission...

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Give it to me, I want it now

2009-04-24T07:54:00.003-06:00

Thank you, Korean scientists, for making a puppy that GLOWS IN THE FUCKING DARK.

lights on:

lights off:

Happy Anniversary

2009-04-23T10:34:00.001-06:00

2 years at E L L E. Christ.

Clinton Street Bakery, before and after

2009-04-17T12:57:00.003-06:00

Bravo.

this commercial made me a runner

2009-04-15T21:30:00.000-06:00

May have got a paycut today...

2009-04-14T13:04:00.002-06:00

But this cheers me up:

Shouldawouldacoulda

2009-04-14T09:59:00.003-06:00

Last night in my screen writing class we were asked, if you could have written any already written screenplay what would it have been? Here are a few:

1. Leaving Las Vegas

2. Anchorman

3. Brokeback Mountain (this goes for the short story, too)

4. Gladiator

5. Can't Hardly Wait

6. Memento

7. Léon

8. Kill Bill

9. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

10. Jerry McGuire

A blog after my own heart

2009-04-13T10:38:00.004-06:00

I'm thinking about asking to contribute to this blog, Fuck Yeah Cilantro. A few excerpts:

Today's best status update

2009-04-10T17:05:00.000-06:00

Tina Fey, via twitter:

It's so nice out. It almost makes me want to go for a walk. Almost.

ya know what makes me happy?

2009-04-10T17:00:00.000-06:00

fat ladies with big round faces:

Margins

2009-04-10T16:47:00.000-06:00

are borders.
are lines.
are edges.
are limits.

are seashores.
are page breaks.
are sunrises.
are sunsets.

are breakups.
are makeups.
are exes.
are boyfriends.

are lonely.
are pain.
are longing.
are regret.

are thresholds. are where you end and I begin.

i eat a lot.

2009-04-10T14:06:00.000-06:00

and sometimes i hate myself.

Please, make it stop

2009-04-09T15:19:00.002-06:00

I'm on bended knee...

Today's best status update

2009-04-09T14:53:00.001-06:00

ann h. lee via Facebook:

is ann.lee@nyu.edu.. not to be confused w/ annlee@nyu.edu, who has an amex card, does volunteer work, went to harvard, and is a professor... i wonder if she wants to trade identities..

Happy Easter

2009-04-09T12:47:00.001-06:00

From my mom to me:

The Easter bunny just left you $100.00 that has been placed in your account—spend it wisely (not on shots).

Wise words, dear mother.

Amen, brotha

2009-04-09T09:18:00.002-06:00

Today's best status update

2009-04-08T14:03:00.000-06:00

Trista McVey, via Facebook:

Trista McVey can do anything with the right accessories.

amen, sister.

Awkwardboners.com

2009-04-07T12:04:00.003-06:00

I mean...

vai, what else, awkwardboners.com

Today's best status report

2009-04-07T09:39:00.001-06:00

Aubrey Sitterson, via Facebook:

"I want to have an upper body that says "I mean business," and a stomach that says "I still like to have a good time"

Great Paragraphs

2009-04-03T14:40:00.002-06:00

From "Henry Miller on Writing"

When I think of the titanic efforts I made to canalize the hot lava which was bubbling inside me, the efforts I repeated thousands of times to bring the funnel into place and capture a word, a phrase, I think inevitably of the men of the old stone age. A hundred thousand, two hundred thousand years, three hundred thousand years to arrive at the idea of the paleolith. A phantom struggle, because they weren't dreaming of such a thing as the paleolith. It came without effort, born of a second, a miracle you might say, except that everything which happens is miraculous. Things happen or they don't happen, that's all. Nothing is accomplished by sweat and struggle. Nearly everything which we call life is just insomnia, and agony because we've lost the habit of falling asleep. We don't know how to let go. We're like a Jack-in-the-box perched on top of a spring and the more we struggle the harder it is to get back in the box.

I think if I had been crazy I couldn't have hit upon a better scheme to consolidate my anchorage than to install this Neanderthal object in the middle of the parlor. With my feet on the desk, picking up the current, and my spinal column snugly socketed in a thick leather cushion, I was in an ideal relation to the flotsam and jetsam which was whirling about me, and which, because they were crazy and part of the flux, my friends were trying to convince me was life. I remember vividly the first contact with reality that I got through my feet, so to speak. The million words or so which I had written previously, which were intelligible words, mind you, well ordered, well connected, were as nothing to me -- crude ciphers from the old stone age -- because the contact was through the head and the head is a useless appendage unless you're anchored in the mid-channel deep in the mud. Everything I had written before was museum stuff, and most writing is still museum stuff and that's why it doesn't catch fire, doesn't inflame the world. I was only a mouth-piece for the ancestral race which was talking through me; even my dreams were not authentic, not bona fide Henry Miller dreams. To sit still and think one thought which would come up out of me, out of the life-buoy, was a Herculean task. I didn't lack thoughts nor words nor the power of expression -- I lacked something much more important: the lever which would shut off the juice. The bloody machine wouldn't stop, that was the difficulty. I was not only in the middle of the current but the current was running through me and I had no control over it whatsoever.

I remember the day I brought the machine to a dead stop and how the other mechanism, the one that was signed with my own initials and which I had made with my own hands and my own blood slowly began to function. I had gone to the theatre nearby to see a vaudeville show; it was the matinée and I had a ticket for the balcony. Standing on line in the lobby, I already experienced a strange feeling of inconsistency. It was as though I were coagulating, becoming a recognizable consistent mass of jelly. It was like the ultimate stage in the healing of a wound. I was at the height of normality, which is a very abnormal condition. Cholera might come and blow its foul breath in my mouth -- it wouldn't matter. I might bend over and kiss the ulcers of a leprous hand, and no harm could possible come to me. There was not just a balance in this constant warfare between health and disease, which is all that most of us may hope for, but there was a plus integer in the blood which meant that, for a few moments at least, disease was completely routed. If one had the wisdom to take root in such a moment, one would never again be ill or unhappy or even die. But to leap to this conclusion is to make a jump which would take one back farther than the old stone age. At that moment I wasn't even dreaming of taking root; I was experiencing for the first time in my life the meaning of the miraculous. I was so amazed when I heard my own cogs meshing that I was willing to die then and there for the privilege of the experience.

i used to have a girlfriend known as Elsie...

2009-03-18T21:51:00.003-06:00

Natasha Richardson in Cabaret, 1998

Thank you for helping to ignite my love of musical theater. Rest surely in peace.

I have a crush on Richard from Gawker

2009-03-17T15:01:00.002-06:00

because of this, because it speaks to my ongoing battle with New York:

Goodbye! The city said. She wandered off, so did he. And the camera hovered. Somewhere in the East Village a girl sat while her laundry rolled around and around and around in a washer. She thought about Oregon, about Danny, about her mom. She missed all of them. On the Lower East Side an old man stood waiting for the light to change. How the neighborhood had changed, he thought. How everything has changed. The walk signal came on, and he pressed on. In Gramercy a husband rolled over in bed and pulled his wife close to him and began falling in love with her all over again. In Hell's Kitchen a boy looked across the bar at another boy and they both felt that something dangerous was about to happen. In Times Square a tourist stood lost and bewildered and amazed. In Harlem a man waiting for the bus watched skeptically as a stream of new arrivals came spilling out of the subway. Kids. College kids. In the barrio there was a party for Danielle, who got the job. In the Boogie Down a dad saw his kid sleeping in the car seat next to him and things made sense again, for a moment. Over there in Astoria they opened a second bottle of wine. They yelled in Jackson Heights because he was gone and was never coming back. In Greenpoint they spoke Polish on the phone, they told jokes that couldn't be translated. In Red Hook they finished moving the last of the furniture out of a TV show loft. In Park Slope a writer said goodnight to an otherwise empty apartment. In Midwood, the wait was worth it. The pizza was delicious. In Brighton Beach they watched the waves. Spring was almost here. In Tottenville a mother walked the quiet house and thought about summer camps, beach vacations, the spit-spit-spit of the sprinkler she'd need to get out of the garage.

And there was Whitney still, wandering lost and utterly unaware through this place. This wonderful place. These blocks like bones, these buildings like skin, these trees like hair. This mystery. This love. This sad stony expanse. This bright gleaming embrace. This hope, this fear. This silly, marvelous home. This City.

sampled from Richard's review of the final episode of MTV's The City.

A brief service announcement from Rachel

2009-03-15T15:06:00.002-06:00

"Hey Brutus...what the fuck?"

Beware the Ides of March, all.

A brief service announcement from Rachel

2009-03-11T16:17:00.003-06:00

On the Fancy Food Show due in New York on June 28-30th, 2009:

"Why do we have to wait? Why do we have to wait so long? Why can't it be now? Why can't it be every day? Oh God -- I have a problem. I have Fancy Food Showitis!"

New York, I'm Yours

2009-03-10T09:58:00.004-06:00

I was listening to The Decemberists on the way to work this morning -- "Los Angeles, I'm Yours" specifically -- and it made me wonder: why do I stay in New York? Reworking some already well written lyrics, here's why:

There is a city in the sea
A restless company
I don’t suppose you want to
And as it yells its angry tale
In sadist detail
Its affinity will haunt you
Its streets and avenues
Manics and ministers it hears
A destructive harmony
Shattering symphony
Hope and hopeless on the shore,
New York, I’m yours

Oh fellows, cocksure with allure
Empty of the pure
You can see my fear
And all the boys you drag about
A weeded crescent fount
From Saturdays to Saturday
You up and downtown crowd
Eyes hanging at your lips
We hope for the realest thing
As ancient choirs sing
One anxious cherub wheels above
New York, my love

Fuck, what a surge of pained brio
Seething on senses
Salient and surrogate
But oh, the smell of destiny
The heartache and vanity
It only makes me stoned
Oh great catastrophe,
Ditch of iniquity and tears
How I abhor this place
Its sweet and bitter taste
Has left me wretched, retching on all fours
New York, I’m yours

never have I loved since then.

2009-02-14T07:05:00.002-07:00

Because nothing has really changed and everything has really changed, today I default to last year.

Thank God I have The Tents to get lost in. Saved by Fashion Week. Who'd of thought?

to love.

I double fist.

2009-02-10T14:44:00.002-07:00

With my blogging that is.

I'll be contributing regularly to Gastrononymous (my friend's, Lauren Murphy, food blog) with recipes, restaurant finds and anything else that relates to my epicurean endeavors in New York and beyond. Yummy.

a great way to start the day.

2009-02-03T09:07:00.005-07:00

This is one of those things you discover that makes you smile...and then makes you hate yourself for not being so simplistically creative. Alas.

via I LEGO N.Y.

I, Seth Plattner

2009-01-29T15:23:00.004-07:00

hereby claim that I would like to donate my DNA for the purpose of cloning so as to prove, disprove or simply elucidate the genetic link between hetero- and homosexuality. In order that such an experiment be rightfully and scientifically accurate, I suggest, but do not claim with any authority due to my lack of scientific accreditation, that multiple samples of my DNA be acquired, cultured and subsequently cloned in a multitude of controlled and non-controlled environments to determine if, when and how homosexuality becomes realized from conception to fetus to birth and so forth. I, an open and obvious homosexual, will serve as the control, while my clones, the variables. Please feel free to contact me at any time, day or night, for recruitment. I only require a small fee for my services and worldwide acknowledgment. Thank you.

Disclaimer: I, however, take no responsibility for whatever ethical or moral questions, concerns, riots, murders or gene manipulations by right-wing or religious groups may occur. Again, thank you.

the magazine industry is a vicious, vicious world

2009-01-28T10:30:00.003-07:00

friend: oh wow. guess who just folded?
me: yeah. i heard.
friend: i just saw them all in their conference room. yikes. how did you hear before i did? i share a floor with them.
me: an editor here told me.
friend: i'm gonna steal a good chair from them.

Great Paragraphs

2009-01-27T16:11:00.002-07:00

From The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen.

He turned to the doorway where she'd appeared. He began a sentence: "I am--" but when he was taken by surprise, every sentence became an adventure in the woods; as soon as he could no longer see the light of the clearing from which he'd entered, he would realize that the crumbs he'd dropped for bearings had been eaten by birds, silent deft darting things which he couldn't quite see in the darkness but which were so numerous and swarming in their hunger that it seemed as if they were the darkness, as if the darkness weren't uniform, weren't an absence of light but a teeming and corpuscular thing, and indeed when as a studious teenager he'd encountered the world "crepuscular" in McKay's Treasury of English Verse, the corpuscles of biology had bled into his understanding of the word, so that for his entire adult life he'd seen in twilight a corpuscularity, as of the graininess of the high-speed film necessary for photography under conditions of low ambient light, as of a kind of sinister decay; and hence the panic of a man betrayed deep in the woods whose darkness was the darkness of starlings blotting out the sunset or black ants storming a dead opossum, a darkness that didn't just exist but actively consumed the bearings that he'd sensibly established for himself, lest he be lost; but in the instant of realizing he was lost, time became marvelously slow and he discovered hitherto unguessed eternities in the space between one word and the next, or rather he became trapped in that space between words and could only stand and watch as time sped on without him, the thoughtless boyish part of him crashing on out of sight blindly through the woods while he, trapped, the grownup Al, watched in oddly impersonal suspense to see if the panic-stricken little boy might, despite no longer knowing where he was or at what point he'd entered the woods of this sentence, still manage to blunder into the clearing where Enid was waiting for him, unaware of any woods -- "packing my suitcase," he heard himself say. This sounded right. Verb, possessive, noun. Here was a suitcase in front of him, an important confirmation. He'd betrayed nothing.

in remembrance.

2009-01-23T20:48:00.001-07:00

bye, my jack. <3

A brief service announcement from Rachel

2009-01-23T15:01:00.007-07:00

"You acted like the guy in the after school special who takes steroids and beats up his sister."

-- RR after I wouldn't let her half-eat one of my protein bars.

and now it's at my door

2009-01-22T16:04:00.003-07:00

and we'll just go quietly into the night.

Guess what.

2009-01-20T15:44:00.003-07:00

i'm going to be an aunt -- er, uncle. Hooray (that's two o's, thank you).

today my pessimism got the best of me.

2009-01-20T15:31:00.003-07:00

but that doesn't mean I'm holding on to nothing.

hope isn't that easy to let go of.

for better or worse.

From The Department of Healthy Living

2009-01-16T13:33:00.002-07:00

the course

2009-01-05T22:04:00.005-07:00

3 years since I fell in love with you at first sight.

2 years since I moved here for you.

1 year since I kissed you and said goodbye.

6 months since I came back to you.

3 months since I left you for the last time.

1 month since I regretted never having you.

2 weeks since I hoped for my chance.

1 week since I found out about him.

4 days since I stopped crying.

2 days since I heard that song.

1 day since I saw that picture.

12 hours since I smelled that smell.

6 hours since I tasted that taste.

3 hours since I felt nothing.

1 hour since I hated you.

30 minutes since I loved you.

15 minutes since I hated you.

10 minutes since I loved you.

5 minutes since I hated you.

2 minutes since I loved you.

1 minute since I hated you.

30 seconds since I last thought about you.

15 seconds since I last thought about you.

10 seconds since I last thought about you.

5 seconds since I last thought about you.

2 seconds since I last thought about you.

1 second since I last thought about you.

Great Paragraphs

2009-01-02T16:14:00.002-07:00

From A History of Love, by Nicole Krauss

My heart is weak and unreliable. When I go it will be my heart. I try to burden it as little as possible. If something is going to have an impact, I direct it elsewhere. My gut for example, or my lungs, which might seize up for a moment but have never yet failed to take another breath. When I pass a mirror and catch a glimpse of myself, or I'm at the bus stop and some kids come up behind me and say, Who smells shit?--small daily humiliations--these I take, generally speaking, in my liver. Other damages I take in other places. The pancreas I reserve for being struck by all that's been lost. It's true that there's so much, and the organ is so small. But. You would be surprised how much it can take, all I feel is a quick sharp pain and then it's over. Sometimes I imagine my own autopsy. Disappointment in myself: right kidney. Disappointment of others in me: left kidney. Personal failures: kishkes. I don't mean to make it sound like I've made a science of it. It's not that well thought out. I take it where it comes. It's just that I notice certain patterns. When the clocks are turned back and the dark falls before I'm ready, this, for reasons I can't explain, I feel in my wrists. And when I wake up and my fingers are stiff, almost certainly I was dreaming of my childhood. The field where we used to play, the field in which everything was discovered and everything was possible. (We ran so hard we thought we would spit blood: to me that is the sound of childhood, heavy breathing and shoes scraping the hard earth.) Stiffness of the fingers is the dream of childhood as it's bee returned to me at the end of my life. I have to run them under the hot water, steam clouding the mirror, outside the rustle of pigeons. Yesterday I saw a man kicking a dog and I felt it behind my eyes. I don't know what to call this, a place before tears. The pain of forgetting: spine. The pain of remembering: spine. All the times I have suddenly realized that my parents are dead, even now, it still surprises me, to exist in the world while that which made me has ceased to exist: my knees, it takes half a tube of Ben-Gay and a big productions just to bend them. To everything a season, to every time I've woken only to make the mistake of believing for a moment that someone was sleeping beside me: a hemorrhoid. Loneliness: there is no organ that can take it all.