Revenge of the Quotidian.

Holy shit, serendipity rules! Sometimes I wonder if there actually is a guiding force in the universe, but I'm always proven to be an idiot for having doubts. For instance, this morning The Life Vicarious and I had a more or less civilized discussion about quotation marks in blogs (which I maintain are no more or less correct than italics as long as the choice is consistent throughout the text), which made me think of Jessica's and my favorite billboard on 41 when I still lived with her on 35th street next door to the firehouse playground/crack dealership. It was a pro-recycling ad by the city insisting that 'Together we "can" keep Sarasota beautiful.' (The Trash Dude pictured at right is the campaign's mascot, and may or may not want you to talk to him). Clearly this was the result of some junior copywriter's murky comprehension of the mechanics of punning, but we couldn't help but read it sarcastically. Then tonight I discover there's an entire blog devoted to this sort of thing! Like Engrish, Spoonerisms, and Yogi Berraisms (not to mention the entire sub-genre of humor that's sprouted up around George W. Bush's public speaking career), Unnecessary Quotes might only be funny to grammar dorks. All I can say is that I was laughing so hard my roommate had to come see if I was all right, and yeah, I said I was "fine," but I'm pretty sure I was being sincere.

"Dennis surfed. I couldn't surf. I never learned how."

All right, it's been a while. I haven't felt inclined to write much, but am updating if for no other reason than to assure Katie that I haven't died of stabbing or hairspray inhalation.

Everyone who knows me well knows that when I get bummed out I hide, which I've found to my horror is easier to do in New York City than basically anywhere else I've ever been. Supposing you can face the world long enough to leave your apartment for half an hour, anything you could want from Indian food to "designer" sunglasses is within walking distance - even in Washington Heights, an area described by a friend as filled with so much testosterone that I feel like if someone looks at me too long I'll get knocked up. (This is actually a pretty accurate assessment of my neighborhood).

But if you really want to coddle your inner hermit and hole up in the most antisocial way possible for a few days, all you need are a laptop, working wireless, and (maybe) a cell phone. There are any number of groceries, restaurants, and drug stores that deliver, of course, and most of them allow you to place your order online (for when speaking to another human being is just too much to handle). Did you know, though, that you can have DVDs delivered to you? And cupcakes? And Jacques Torres chocolate? And wine and/or liquor from the Artisan Wine Company? In under an hour? Really. I'm convinced that the exorbitant cost of living is the only reason New York isn't inhabited by several million post-SMiLE Brian Wilsons, all peering through their curtains for the delivery cars and courier bikes that have become the city's only street traffic. But that's a thought I'll have to finish later; right now I have leftover Papa John's in the fridge.

Like, sitting at the kids' table on Thanksgiving.

It's raining. Torrentially, downpouringly, sweetly, like an answer to somebody's prayers. Since I got the rest of my books back I've been re-re-re-reading my copy of James G. Frazer's The Golden Bough, which is a source of enormous sentimental as well as inspirational value since it's the first thing I bought during my first day of orientation at New College four years ago. The purchase took place at the now-defunct Pelican Man Thrift Store on N. Tamiami during a search for something appropriate to wear to a 70's retro rollerskating party and I spent the whole time talking about Joseph Campbell to impress a guy who later that night hooked up with my neighbor Frank. So the book is dear to me for a lot of reasons, in particular as a symbol of the weird, irrational, ridiculous things people (I) do (did) when they just don't have a clue what's going on.

The rain-making section has been my favorite for years. Frazer notes that there are as many different rituals for bringing rain as there are magical cultures: Macedonian Greeks would sing songs while drenching a flower-bedecked virgin who leads a parade, while in New Caledonia the custom was to exhume a dead body and shower the bones with water. In a tribe from New South Wales, Frazer observed a ritual that involved a sorcerer breaking off a piece of quartz and spitting it at the sky. And this is possibly one of my favorite passages in any written work anywhere: "In Zululand women sometimes bury their children up to the neck in the ground, and then retiring to a distance keep up a dismal howl for a long time. The sky is supposed to melt with pity at the sight."

In my neighborhood the ritual is opening the fire hydrants. Basically every kid on my block was out in a bathing suit during the recent heat wave, and since the forecast for the next few days is rain in amounts of one inch or more, it seems to have worked out all right. Coming down from a margarita-drinking contest at the Times Square Dave and Buster's, I listened to the rain and supinely watched CW11's 10 o' clock broadcast and coincidentally got really, really nostalgic.

Oh, Florida, I love you so much. A guy in Deland (where else?) tried to rob a store with a palm frond! Tampa developers are, um, dangling a nude pool in front of reluctant condo buyers to beat the dismal market! Florida, the FDA even thinks you might have poisoned the rest of the nation! Not only that, but today alligators were found in a Tennessee drain pipe, a family pool in LaGrange, NY, and the fucking Chicago River. Please, please, please keep this up, Florida. I may have my ups and downs adjusting here, but it does me much good to know you'll always be the United States' retarded cousin.

The beer and ice cream cure.

To treat homesickness, flu, and lady problems all at once:
1. Do it up Sarasota-style. There's no Shell station, but there are tons of corner stores and most of them are open late.
2. Breyer's All-Natural Strawberry Ice Cream.
3. Grolsch Premium Lager.
4. TV on DVD.
5. Soft blanket.
6. Two warm cats.

Works like a charm.

Where nobody knows you and nobody gives a damn.

There's a new Wolf Parade release and it's fucking awesome. Listen to it here. And watch more awesome below.

"Yo, dude, like... I think we're the band!"

Maybe I compromised my health with too much thinking about "Sex and the City." I hear it happens. But this is New York. It could have been anything: bad hot dog, inhaling too much smoke at the Big Apple BBQ Block Party last week, or inhaling too much, uh, baseball at Yankee Stadium. It could have been the suspense of waiting for UPS to show up with the rest of my shit (it came today! Now I have, among other things, an iron, the complete first season of "The Wire", and two big boxes full of packing peanuts.) But to tell the truth, the walk from Smith St. and 9th to Ikea Plaza in Red Hook last night during a wind/rain/dust storm is probably what did me in. Everything's a tradeoff, so I shouldn't be surprised that my free blue and yellow umbrella came with a terrible, terrible cold. Fucking Swedes.

Whatever, I'm happy to suffer a little for a good deed, especially since I hear no one is allowed to leave for more than ten minutes and the bathroom situation is pretty grim. Though for all the coverage this campout has been getting, I'm actually amazed the blogger in question hasn't made this connection. Maybe the Beastie Boys don't look Swedish enough?

Anyway, over here it's been a day in, watching old Simpsons episodes and waiting for the box-man. Meanwhile, I've been perfecting my summer mixtape, which, thanks to Jillian, has given me even more amusement than seeing two sherpas drag Homer up the Murderhorn. In case you're stuck inside too, whether in your house or a blue and yellow tent, here's the mix and my response.

A SONG...

1. for the last day of school Jackson 5 - "ABC"
2. by a teenager Bright Eyes - "Oh You Are The Roots That Sleep Beneath My Feet And Hold The Earth In Place"
3. for a summer fling Iggy Pop - "Fall In Love With Me"
4. to air guitar to The Kinks - "You've Really Got Me"
5. ROAD TRIP! Mirah - "Million Miles"
6. that says "fuck you! i'm fucking awesome" Dar Williams - "As Cool As I Am"
7. that feels like summer of 5th grade The Mountain Goats - "California Song"
8. like a saturday morning cartoon intro George Gershwin - "Novelette In Fourths"
9. to build sand castles to Josh Ritter - "To The Dogs Or Whoever"
10. for the silly Atom & His Package - "Upside Down From Here"
11. exactly 2 minutes, 1 second long Beat Happening - "Drive Car Girl"
12. about or mentions flowers Janis Joplin - "Flower In The Sun"
13. to lose your virginity to Nina Simone - "I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl"
14. that would play during the end of summer kiss Modest Mouse - "Polar Opposites"
15. with an alliterative title Neko Case & The Virginians - "Honky Tonk Hiccups"
16. for kool-aid on the porch/stoop Scout Niblett - "So Much Love To Do"
17. that top charted summer of the early 90's Ace Of Base - "The Sign"
18. to accompany an ice cold beer Tom Waits - "In The Neighborhood"
19. for day tripping... Wilco - "What Light"
20. YEAH! SUMMER! Mates Of State - "Ha Ha"

Files to be posted when the NyQuil wears off.

Sexism in the City? Sort of.

Actually, I've been writing this in my head for a few days, but Caitlin made me promise to write it on the internet. This one's for you, Caitlin. And yesterday was Father's Day, an appropriate occasion to write about patriarchy (yes, I called my dad, and no, he did not oppress me). Plus I got rained out of seeing Vampire Weekend for free in Central Park Saturday afternoon and had ample opportunity, on the soggy, Tokyo-esque rush hour subway ride home, to study Anthony Lane's review in the New Yorker. After all, once I was on the train I couldn't move my arms enough to hold the magazine any further than two inches from my face. And if there's a better distraction from wondering how much Aquanet you can breathe without dying or who keeps jabbing you in the kidneys and why, I haven't found one yet.

First things first. Anthony Lane, who broke up with you? When did it happen? Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it? I can tell you're upset, but comparing Sarah Jessica Parker to Audrey Hepburn isn't going to make anybody feel feel better. A lot of people have been calling you out on writing a sexist review, and they aren't wrong (even if they are dumb, but I'm getting to that part). The misogyny is blatant enough that even journalists with only the most rudimentary understanding of feminism are able to write whole articles on it - but like I said, I'm getting to that part. Aside from the much-quoted "hormonal hobbits" quip and the cringeworthy discussions of Kim Cattrall's unattractiveness on the big screen (deftly deconstructed at Jezebel), there are a thousand tiny things about the piece to demonstrate contempt, not only for these four fictional women but an entire idea of womanhood in the 21st century. Anthony Lane, you could probably even have gotten away with calling them hobbits if you hadn't addressed the actors in absentia as if you were speaking to a waitress who had brought you an overcooked steak:

“When Samantha couldn’t get off, she got things,” Carrie says. Look at the beam in your own eye, sister. ... When the wedding hits a bump (look out for Kristin Davis screaming “No! No!” at Chris Noth like a ninth grader auditioning for “The Crucible”), and the bridegroom veers away, our heroine’s reaction to the split is typical: “How am I going to get my clothes?” What, honey, even the puffball skirt that you wear to the catwalk show—the one that makes you look like a giant inverted mushroom?

Even then, it still might have been o.k.! Like I mentioned earlier, these women aren't real, and they are, to be fair, thoroughly annoying. But the worst parts of the review happen when the sneers are directed away from the screen, toward the women in the audience: an area that I've always assumed to be outside the film critic's jurisdiction. It's one thing to put down Carrie Bradshaw and her enormous shoe closet, but quite something else to slam the women who like that closet, even if it is bothersome that they're having fun while you're miserable:

The creepiest aspect of this sequence was the sound that rose from the audience as he displayed the finished closet: gasps, fluttering moans, and, beside me, two women applauding. The tactic here is basically pornographic—arouse the viewer with image upon image of what lies just beyond her reach—and the film makes feeble attempts to rein it in.

Decidedly uncool, Anthony Lane. As Ramin Setoodeh points out, the New Yorker review is one of many, many, many more vitriolic responses to the movie, and it does indicate something ugly about how we perceive women, and I am glad he spoke up! I just wish he were smarter. Telling every man who reads Newsweek and didn't like "SATC" that he only hates the movie because he's threatened by women about matches Lane's condescension to his female fellow viewers. And, if we truly can "all imagine" a lunch between Hillary Clinton and Carrie, then I think I know why she lost. But what's most troubling about Setoodeh's rebuttal is his fashioning of the franchise into a haven of sisterhood and female empowerment, a place where "women can love each other, and need each other, more than they do men" (this from Newsweek's print version) - placed side by side with Senator Clinton's campaign and the apparent unfairness with which she's been treated.

Lane overreacted, but I think I know what he was responding to, even if it was hard for him to articulate. It's the Third Wave's conflation of empowerment with entitlement, its insistence that women be heard, not because they have anything to say but because they are women. And that should be enough. If it isn't? Cry sexism, something Third Wavers like Setoodeh have done so often over so much banal bullshit that the word has lost all meaning. This is a feminism in dire need of radical rethinking. For one thing, it's created embarrassing, false, and by now mostly indelible (thanks Candace Bushnell) associations between femininity and consumerism, femininity and the barely clothed embodied, femininity and unreason. It's utterly depressing to think of Alice Paul going to prison so women could be free to get all teary-eyed over Sarah Jessica Parker getting teary-eyed over shoes. Also, people should be aware that this is a specifically privileged feminism, one for white middle-to-upper class Western women, who still haven't achieved wage equity but are unlikely to suffer from patriarchy by, say, receiving involuntary clitoridectomies.

But beyond that, it's this entanglement of frivolous victimhood with our consciousness of patriarchy. No, sexism isn't fair, and neither are a lot of things people are saying about both Senator Clinton and Carrie & co. Sadly, yelling foul isn't the way to win elections or anyone's respect - especially not when you bill a movie about weddings as emblematic of female empowerment. Not to get all Anthony Lane or whatever, but think this through, ladies. Otherwise we're headed some pretty stupid places. Here's some help:

I just get so flustered when he starts in on U.S. foreign policy!

How to show up ridiculously late for two really good poetry readings in the West Village:

Wednesday. Be introduced to Time Out New York by a concerned roommate who has noticed that you divide most of your energy between talking to your cats and that scarf you're knitting. Take her advice to heart when she tells you, with the politesse New Yorkers have made famous, to "get your ass out there." Decide on a free reading by Zachary Schomburg, at the New York City public library on 6th Ave. Take the B train to West 4th, but avoid getting off there through negligence and absorption in the latest Newsweek! (To be addressed in a later post.) Instead, ride the train to Brooklyn. Look up from Fareed Zakaria, notice you're crossing a bridge, and realize that something is wrong.

Thursday. Go to Brooklyn on purpose this time, for Peter Gizzi, Cathy Park Hong, and others at the A Public Space poetry reading in the magazine's Dean St. office. Change your mind at the last minute because details about APS are sketchy and there's a reading at the Cornelia Street Cafe, where the names aren't as big but there is alcohol. Take the B train, but throw yourself a nice little curveball by taking it in the wrong direction. Get off at Prospect Park and practice your cursing.

So I arrived at both readings with basically enough time to see them end, which was all right regardless. Seeing Ron Singer on Thursday night was more casual - bar atmosphere, a room full of poets who know each other. His work is humane and articulate, gently comical and full of enthusiasms (who knew that his reading would feature a brief lesson on how to say "Batman" in Spanish? It's Hombre Chiropteran.) But Zachary Schomburg the night before completely blew me away. His book, The Man Suit, features a blurb calling him "one of the sincerest surrealists around," and that's pretty much dead-on. It's rare to find an author who can, say, make you care about a love story between a lung and a haircut, or pull off a trick like introducing two islands to each other at the north pole. Dead Presidents, victims of repeated stabbing, animals in people clothes, lumberjacks and opera singers all coexist here in a delicately balanced symbiosis. Plus, he is extremely nice and still autographed my copy even though I came in late! Some of the book is amateurish; a few endings are too pat, a few reaches too obvious. But that shouldn't alter your enjoyment of it a single bit, and I'm going to prove it to you right now.

The Things That Surround Us

The entire world was there. The magnetic north pole was there. Prince Patrick Island was introduced to Prince of Wales Island and these were not the only islands being introduced to other islands. One room was completely filled with the space around all the islands.

When you asked me if I was an island, I told you that I was not. When you asked me to join you in the drawing room, I told you that I could not, that I was in fact an island and I couldn't join anyone anywhere.

Saddened, you revealed to me that you were not the two things that just outward into the sea as I had assumed, but the little bit of gray sea between them.

Then I told you that I was the entire Arctic Ocean sometimes.

Some 'splaining. Some splashing.

And some tips if you are considering moving to New York City from Sarasota, Florida.

1. Do not attempt to rent a minivan from Budget's SRQ branch. Two bald men, one tall, one short, will deny you your van on the day you had planned to leave. You'll be hung-over, exhausted, and almost crying, but they will not care. Walk 50 feet toward bag check and see Jessie at Alamo-National. Jessie understands you.
2. Tell everyone you meet that you're moving across the country to get a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry writing. This will get you more free drinks than you can imagine.
3. If you're trying to find Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding House in Savannah's Historic District, be advised that there are two West Jones Streets, one of which will take you to the Savannah College of Art and Design - a place which, despite having dated an alum, you have no desire to go.
4. Do break into the pool after hours at the Gateway Boulevard La Quinta. Do not have the fish and chips at the Ashland T.G.I. Friday's.
5. Guided By Voices' "Bee Thousand" will get you through Baltimore, but Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" will only scare the shit out of you as you search for your exit off I-95 outside Richmond in the dark and the rain. Pack something sunnier for moments like this one.
6. There's no way in hell you'll find a parking space on your street when you arrive after seven. Park the rental illegally, double park it to unload, and park it illegally again overnight.
7. New York City cultivates an unsettling indifference to the scent of human urine. Are you the only one who notices? Seriously, it's everywhere. Especially your building's elevator.
8. Tell everyone you meet that you just moved across the country to get a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry writing. This will get you more free drinks than you can imagine.
9. Avoid the food court, but spend as much time as possible at the American Museum of Natural History. Spend especially large amounts of time here.
10. Never buy milk from the Rite-Aid on 170th and Broadway.

So, okay. I'd be lying to you if I said this was my first blog; I've had a LiveJournal for years and I had an OpenDiary before El-Jay revolutionized our understanding of Sylvia Plath's effect on the modern American adolescent. There are definite elements of theatre and egocentrism that I enjoyed a lot when I was seventeen and make me cringe a little now. But seriously, if you're reading this that's awesome, because you probably know me and I probably miss you and it's about everything I do of which I wish you were a part. Please keep reading.

I nabbed the title from Yuri Olesha's Envy, and I like it because I think it sums up what I'm going through pretty well. I have numerous discussions with numerous people about feeling really provincial here, not just a country mouse but a water rat, someone for whom cutoff shorts are a fashion staple and Miller High Life really is the champagne of beers. No sense denying it: if you're a runner, run. If you're a bell, ring. It's not a new story - Southern kid tries to make good in the Big City while staying true to roots - but I guess it's mine now and no, I'm not prepared to comment yet on the much-analyzed City/Country dichotomy.

We'll just have to see how things develop.

Instead, for the moment I'm going to yield the floor, as I have on so many other important occasions in my life, to Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis: