October 2011
133 posts
“It totally disables the microwave’s whole clock function.”
—The most important thing Becky and I have in common is that we both hate it when people forget to cancel out their unused time on the microwave.
- Mom: You named our wireless network Pig's Eye. When you get Internet at your new place, will you call your network Pig's Eye Minneapolis?
- Me: The whole point of naming your network Pig's Eye is that you're in St. Paul, and Pig's Eye was the original name of St. Paul.
- Mom: I know.
- Me: So naming a network Pig's Eye Minneapolis would just be absurd.
- Mom: What, like you're never absurd?
“Some serious shit (a $200 fee) could happen if we don’t follow the rules, one of which includes not leaving the site of the ending place within 10 minutes. Whoa!”
—This pedal pub plan is getting heavy.
“
Uggs boots are shut to sensible a risky the passion component in the US and Canada, and pro high-minded reason. Ugg boots are wonderful Australian footwear that is making their self-possession felt in the worldwide method footwear arena.
On the other influence in the unchanged amaze the limitations of the boot are recognised and the proprietress of a mate of Uggs learns to conjure up some discernment championing the dispassionate just when they are cool on joined’s feet, a time of Uggs whim matrix extraction well.
Ugs can be the most trouble-free boot you control next to any conceivability wear. The a restricted characteristic of of a big-hearted qualities of the sheepskin backing that they stick-to-it-iveness assist for your feet stirring in self-possessed the coldest of face, but that if you intelligible them in summer they principle not overheat your foot. The sheepskin breathes outrageously admirably and the eminence spaces formed next to your put flourishing stop to the looseness of the wool means that your demean aid with a make over and foot will be relaxing in the boot the unvarying in mettlesome weather.
” —There’s something strangely majestic about this deleted spam comment from the Daily Planet. The sheepskin breathes outrageously admirably!
“But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.”
—Whatever you say, Milan Kundera.
Be True To Your School (Live 1964)
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys, “Be True to Your School” (Live, 1964)
Mike Love is such a douche. My dad says a Beach Boys concert he attended around this time was the craziest concert he ever saw. Of course the music sounds purely perfunctory—it was. No wonder the Beatles retired from live performance; I would guess dealing with all those tens of thousands of screaming jailbait groupies would get old.
Emily Books: Twin Cities Meet-Up
I’ve become interested in Emily Books, a new e-bookstore created by Emily Gould and Ruth Curry. Each month, Emily Books puts up for sale one and only one e-book, selected by Gould and Curry; books can be purchased a la carte or by annual subscription. It’s kind of like the Book-of-the-Month club, but curated by much cooler people. I interviewed Emily about the project; read the interview on The Tangential for more information about the project, and also check out the FAQ on the Emily Books website.
The October selection was No More Nice Girls, a book of essays by Ellen Willis. The November selection will be unveiled on Tuesday, November 1. Emily and Ruth are hosting meet-ups in New York to discuss the books, and when I saw that they were looking for volunteers to start meet-ups in other cities, I raised my hand. I’ve tentatively scheduled a first Twin Cities meet-up for Wednesday, November 30—but we’ll see who’s interested and we can move it if need be. Once we have the ball rolling, we can do things like create a Facebook group to coordinate monthly meetups and talk about the books as we’re reading them.
For now, if you’re even potentially interested in meeting up with other Emily Books readers in the Twin Cities, RSVP yes or maybe to the November event. If you have any questions, feel free to drop me an e-mail.
Block that metaphor!
“‘A feat, boys, of modern engineeering,’ Dad would whisper before lifting one of us from the floor, whoever’s turn it happened to be, to the height of the biggest button of all, the one numbered 8. With a clunk and a whir the levers and ropes would gradually fall into place and our ascent would begin. It was fast enough to feel that we were moving but slow enough so as to never know how far we had left to travel. The slightest movement would rock it from side to side and we’d shuffle our weight across it to test the patience of the machine. I worried that those ropes might give way. I imagined the heavy box they carried slipping from their grasp as easily as one might grip a dead pheasant by its foot and tig the cartilage out from the skin that encased its leg.”
- David Whitehouse, Bed
Dad asks the tough questions
- Dad: They're about to sing the National Anthem.
- Me: Oh, Zooey Deschanel! Turn it up.
- Dad: Why? Who's she?
- Me: She's a singer, and an actress, and she has a blog. Wish I could see what people are saying about this on Twitter.
- Dad: Why would they be talking about it?
- Me: She's just famous.
- Dad: But why on the Internet?
- Me: She has a blog. You know. And she acts and whatever. She's just famous.
- Dad: But why?
- Me: She just is, Dad.
- Dad: Oh.
At 7:27 on a Monday morning a lot of 36-year-olds are probably licking their thumbs and wiping their kids’ faces. I just did it with my laptop screen. Feeling okay about my life choices.
(Plus, I always hated it when adults did that. Gross.)
Play
Play
My new top ten wanna-see bands
Beirut have just approved our request to cover their December show for the Daily Planet, so that will knock them off my top ten wanna-see band list, as determined by the artists with most plays on my Last.fm account who I’ve never seen live.
1. Tom Waits
2. Talking Heads
3. Tilly and the Wall
4. Teenage Fanclub
5. The Replacements
6. The New Pornographers
7. Daniel Lanois
8. Arcade Fire
9. Peter Gabriel
10. The Eames Era
I guess it speaks well to my concert-going frequency that there aren’t a lot of low-hanging fruit left on this list. Numbers 2, 5, and 10 could theoretically happen, but almost certainly won’t. Numbers 1, 3, 7, and 9 haven’t been touring much lately. So really, I’m just shooting for numbers 4, 6, and 8—all of whom I’ve missed playing in the Twin Cities within the past couple of years. D’oh!
- Me: The party was pretty fun. They played Nicki Minaj twice.
- Dana: So? I did that yesterday in my car.
I might have written about this already but my friend is on a flight from L.A. headed back to Chicago for our high school reunion (I’m going too e_________e) and this dude on the plane admired her shoes and told her she had “real cute feet.” Which reminded me of the time I was in a bar with two GFs and this man came up to me and whispered in my ear, “You have the most beautiful neck I have ever seen.”
Roto-Rooter Has Never Lost a Kitten
Recently, Roto-Rooter sent the Daily Planet a press kit (because why the hell not?) containing a copy of their self-published book Chilling Tales from the Porcelain Seat. On p. 31, there’s a grainy black-and-white photo of a very sad (in fact, I presumed, dead) kitten clogging a toilet pipe. The following Twitter exchange ensued.
