February 2008
81 posts
It's unfortunate that Lee's most impressive trick...
Calling all talented dogs! CBS is looking for the most extraordinary teams of dogs and owners across the nation to compete for the title of “America’s Top Dog” (working title). From purebreds to mutts, show dogs to stunt dogs, Pugs to Great Danes and agility dogs to dogs who dance the Tango – we want all types of talented canines. The winning team will walk away with bragging rights and a...
January 2008
204 posts
Danger zone
I just found out that City Bakery sells their hot chocolate in espresso cup-sized portions.
Fashion week is just a fancy NASCAR race
Alexis makes a good point about fashion week lingo. It’s all very… automobilian.
Scattergories
So Leon says that “twee pop” has been around for at least 20 years. I agree, in the sense of the music being around for that long, but has it always been called “twee pop”?
Categories
I just got this email: Dear Amazon.com Customer, We’ve noticed that customers who have purchased or rated Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie or other music in the Indie & Lo-Fi > Twee Pop category have also purchased Fractured Life by Air Traffic.“Twee Pop” is now an official musical category?!
“Nell and Wallace Crain, a couple who were featured in an Express-News Page 1A...”
– MySA.com: Help - Corrections This is hilarious, but also, it’s ridiculous to hold a story in a DAILY NEWSPAPER for, what, six months? [via Romenesko]
Anatomy of a crisis
I love when TMZ goes on all-hands-on-deck, flashing-siren full alert, like it did last night/this morning with Britney Spears’s most recent journey to the psychiatric ward. The coverage started at 2:59 a.m. (EST) with a post entitled “Cops Back at Britney’s House.” Then there were posts at 3:36 (“Britney About to be Temporarily Committed”), 4:02 (“Britney...
Rockism, defined
Maura swats down David Carr’s attempt at using rockism in a sentence. (I think what he was actually going for was what we like to call “snobbery.”)
“The Bagger has regard for the people who were “Juno” haters to begin with and...”
– Juno Laid Low by Success - Carpetbagger - Movies - Oscars - Awards - David Carr - New York Times Blog
I haven't seen a phone book since the early aughts
From this week’s Observer, re: the News Corp. building at 1211 Sixth Ave.: The basement of 1211 is a place where you play frogger to get past the orange-skinned pundits and nicotine-addled gumshoes of Mr. Murdoch’s empire. And the 10th floor, home of The New York Post? “It’s a disaster,” said one veteran Post reporter. On a quick survey of the newsroom, this reporter saw piled-up telephone...
(Paul Westerberg, “Dyslexic Heart”) I...
“In the end, Mr. Giuliani and his advisers treated supporters as if they were so...”
– For Giuliani, a Dizzying Free-Fall - New York Times Serried!
The only room missing was the vomitorium
Some of the things I ate tonight at the Gourmet.com launch party at Bar Boulud: Pate with pork and foie gras Rabbit pate Beef pate Beets with horseradish Marinated roasted mushrooms Mini smoked salmon on black bread Smoked salmon with various condiments (capers, etc) Shrimp cocktail Mushroom risotto balls Roasted salmon on some sort of puree Lamb stew Cheese on raisin bread Dried apricots Croque...
Where LAX is not an airport
Tom Scocca argues that the Baltimore Sun died the day its editors assumed that people in Maryland might not know what lacrosse was.
Oh yeah. THAT'S why people hate Penn
From the Daily Pennsylvanian:“It was really high energy, everyone was really excited to welcome the new class,” said College junior and president of Delta Delta Delta Rebecca Feldman. “Each girl had a sister waiting with a poster with her name on it.” Each group of girls represented one of the eight sorority houses. Some houses stomped and chanted, while others displayed...
Oh, this isn't the Underminer column?
If you don’t want to spend a fortune, it can be so hard to find pretty jewelry to wear to formal events. Most of the time, costume jewelry looks exaggerated and cheap. There’s vintage costume pieces but they can be expensive too, unless you go to a flea market, but I don’t have time for that. I found these costume earrings from Lee Angel at Bergdorf Goodman and I love them because they are so...
Fishy Fort Greene
So Greene Grape Provisions opened recently on Fulton and South Portland in Fort Greene—it’s a small gourmet grocery owned by the people who own the Greene Grape wine store a few doors down. Anyway, when I stopped by the other week all they had was fresh bread, coffee, and some overpriced pasta and stuff, but now they’ve started selling meat and fish. Except the fish is from Wild...
Gillian wrote:Last week I was watching “Slapstick,” the 9th episode in the third season of The Wire. Barksdale’s people shoot up Omar on a Sunday morning while he’s escorting his grandmother to church service. The knuckleheads miss, but Omar’s grammie is left a bit bruised and she loses her church hat. Later, Avon chides Stringer for giving the green light on the shooting on a Sunday morning. “The...
Because tefillin on the field would probably get...
From the Washington Post: Alan Veingrad spent seven seasons in the NFL as an offensive lineman, playing for the Green Bay Packers (1986-90) and then the Dallas Cowboys (1991-92) where he won a Super Bowl ring. Veingrad played nearly every position on the line, blocking for Emmitt Smith and protecting Troy Aikman. Smith presented Veingrad with a Rolex watch after the running back won the NFL...
The Wire, now a little more exciting
Okay, so maybe I spoke too soon last week about The Wire being boring; tonight’s episode was pretty non-boring. (I wish Tumblr posts had jumps so I could discuss the really huge thing that happened but I guess that would be unfair. Meh. UPDATE: There are spoilers in the comments.) However! The newspaper storyline is still, I think, pretty boring, possibly because the sausage-making of a...
When an invisibility cloak could come in handy
There was a guy asking for money on the subway, and he said he hadn’t eaten all day, and since I very blatantly had two bags from Whole Foods at my feet, I decided to offer him one of the organic cranberry nut bars I had gotten because, I dunno, it looked like he might need some protein. He took it and then handed it back to me and said, “Thank you, but I have no teeth!” And then...
But then again, too few to mention.
Sometimes I wish I hadn’t given up on a tumblr solely based on making fun of Doree so easily. — alexbalk It’s never too late; new material is always forthcoming!
Caturday
At yoga this morning I could feel myself getting more flexible—there was one pose I used to need to use the block for, and now I can get my hand flat on the mat. My problem, such as it is, is that I tend to go in cycles with working out (and, actually, most other things)… for awhile I was super into spinning. Now I’m obsessed with yoga. So I wonder if I’m actually helping myself...
“Exeter now has nearly $1 million in endowment assets for each of its students....”
– At Elite Prep Schools, College-Size Endowments - New York Times Gag.
eBay is lame!
So the other day my mom gets an email telling her that her Half.com/eBay account had been suspended, and that she could never return to eBay under any circumstances, ever. So she emails them and asks, basically, “WTF? Why was I suspended?” They said that she was trying to secretly sell teacher’s editions of books on Half.com because she had described them as “tchr’s...
Adam Moss does rule the world
I took a look at the entire list of 1,000 magazines Wal-Mart isn’t going to carry anymore (thanks, Keith Kelly!), and in addition to the ones that’ve already been reported I found these: Radar Trump World YM (didn’t YM die, like, 5 years ago?) Mass Appeal Paste Cat Fancy Robb Report Time Out New York Kids Philadelphia magazine Child (again, didn’t this magazine already...
“Do you want to read ten tragic pages about the life of mixed-up cop-slugging...”
– Anger Woman: The Alycia Lane Story That’s totally true. (Oh also, the “fucking dyke” thing is something that Lane allegedly said to the cop, if you’re just tuning in.)
Endorsements
The Times has endorsed Hillary Clinton. Part of the editorial reads: We opposed President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and we disagree with Mrs. Clinton’s vote for the resolution on the use of force. That’s not the issue now; it is how the war will be ended. Mrs. Clinton seems not only more aware than Mr. Obama of the consequences of withdrawal, but is already thinking through the diplomatic and...
And in other masseuse news...
From AP: A teenage girl filed a $50 million lawsuit against a New York billionaire on Thursday, saying he sexually abused her when she was 14. Jeffrey Epstein’s attorney, Gerald Lefcourt, said the allegations are false. The girl, now 17 and identified only as Jane Doe, claims Epstein invited her to his Palm Beach mansion in 2005 to perform a massage for $300. She claims he demanded she...
Depends on what your definition of mutual is
Lindsay thinks that the masseuse’s claim that she, Heath and MK had a “mutual relationship” means that MK was paying the masseuse to give Heath happy endings. My response: ew. But maybe she did do some sort of kinky couples’ massage thing. (Sort of relatedly: Also weird that Heath had a massage table in the closet. Or, I mean, maybe it’s not that weird. I dunno. On...
balk: You know what is amusing me?
balk: You're masseuse obsession.
doree: haahahahaha
doree: i am slightly obsessed with the masseuse.
doree: it's such a law and order detail.
balk: I can tell. I love when you grab on to something like that. So OCD.
doree: hahaahahaha
doree: good thing i have this outlet
doree: otherwise i would just be going over it in my head endlessly
doree: obsessing about the masseuse. WHO IS SHE.
doree: i was thinking about it on the train this morning actually
doree: i was like, "i really hope a post reporter gets to the bottom of this MASSEUSE story"
balk: hahahahah
doree: and i was thinking how i'm not the type of reporter who would get to the bottomo of it, but i will happily comment on it once someone else does the legwork
doree: maybe this is TMI.
doree: then again, you did say i was a geek.
balk: And there you go proving it for me.
doree: yup!
balk: are you tumbling this or am i?
doree: maybe we both should.
balk: hahahahah
Question!
How do I stop “following” someone on Tumblr?
I guess I'll take this as a compliment
Today, I would hazard (I’ve always wanted to hazard), the track marks of Barthelme’s suave, subversive cunning are to be found less in postmod fiction—although David Foster Wallace’s dense foliage of footnotes suggests a Barthelmean undergrowth and George Saunders’s arcade surrealism has a runaway-nephew quality—than in the conscientiously oddball, studiedly offhand, hiply recherché,...
Do they have a license for that kind of masseuse?
The police said they could not immediately say if Ms. Wolozin was a licensed masseuse. There is no Diana Wolozin listed in the state database of licensed massage therapists. It is a felony to practice massage without a license in New York.
Secret night riders
The New York Taxi & Limousine Commission is starting an undercover sting operation called “Operation: Secret Ride” (creative!) to catch cabbies talking on their cell phones and not allowing customers to use credit cards. Off the top of my head I can think of maybe two cab rides in the past couple of years where the driver wasn’t yakking away on his cell phone, and I’ve...
Okay! So they found the masseuse
And her name is Diana Wolozin or Diana Lee Wolozin. The only things about her on Google are about Heath Ledger and some running race she did on Martha’s Vineyard a couple years ago. Curious! People are already freaking out on the Times website that she called Mary-Kate Olsen and started setting up her massage table before calling 911, but really, do you think she expected him to be DEAD? She...
On a lighter note...
I also went to a ridiculous dinner with the secretive but not so secret NY Bite Club, which Balk has thoughtfully already pointed out has provided me with yet one more opportunity to mention my dog.
"It was the most shaming experience of my life,...
Remember that interview I was nervous about over the weekend? It was with the New Yorker writer George Packer, who has a new play, Betrayed, based on an article of the same title he wrote last year about Iraqis who work for Americans in Iraq and how shittily they’ve been treated. I thought I had Iraq fatigue but reading all this stuff made me realize just how truly fucked things are over...
Lingering questions
Who’s the masseuse who’s friends with Mary-Kate and Ashley’s bodyguard?? I’m picturing, like, Brenda from Six Feet Under.
Tuna tuna tuna
Eek! Tuna samples from the Manhattan restaurants Nobu Next Door, Sushi Seki, Sushi of Gari and Blue Ribbon Sushi and the food store Gourmet Garage all had mercury above one part per million, the “action level” at which the F.D.A. can take food off the market. (The F.D.A. has rarely, if ever, taken any tuna off the market.) The highest mercury concentration, 1.4 parts per million, was found in tuna...
“Things were very dark,” the source says. “His one joy was...”
– Usmagazine.com | EXCLUSIVE: Heath Ledger’s Friend: “We Saw It Coming” Ugh. This is really sad.
Then again, an ass feeder might prove useful
koblin: i was reading my ass feeder
koblin: and i'm deciding which IM boxes to close down
koblin: who makes the cut, who doesn't
koblin: six of you survived
koblin: three just got cut
doree: your ass feeder?
koblin: rss i meant