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Margaret Cho and St. Francis of Assisi.

Monday, October 6th, 2008

Big weekend, folks. BIG. Lots of stuff. On Saturday night I went to see Margaret Cho live. She’s a standup comedian/author/performance artist/mainly standup comedian who was coming through Radio City Music Hall on her “Beautiful” tour. (She has a wonderfully designed logo for it, BTW.)

I haven’t ever seen her live because by the time I got into her work, she had gone all performance-artsy and I wasn’t terribly into that. But “Beautiful” was lauded as her return to her standup ways, so I thought, “Jolly good, I will go to that.” And it was terrific. Margaret has been doing standup since she was sixteen, and at 39 she’s a professional. If you’re wondering why I’m not quoting any of my favorite parts, I took a vow not to use foul language on this website, and Margaret’s raw. I quote her regularly in my daily life, but not here, oh no. However, I will link to some YouTube clips of her previous shows and if you would like to see those, you are welcome.

Margaret Cho 1

Margaret Cho 2

Margaret Cho 3

She has a great deal of body issues and weight fluctuation, which you can see in this selection of clips. Also, she does a phenomenal impression of her mother which has become a staple in her act. But “Beautiful” was excellent and her opening act was Liam Sullivan, a young man who has become famous amongst a portion of the population for making very funny internet videos where he plays multiple characters. The most famous is where he plays Kelly and sings the song “Shoes”.

Shoes

That song will get stuck in your head and remain there, dormant, until you pass a store that sells shoes. And then you will sing it and curse me and Liam Sullivan, and then I will laugh the laugh that evil characters laugh when they’re being evil. MWA HA HA.

Summary of “Beautiful” show: Excellent. Go see it if it comes to your town. Or watch it when it (hopefully) comes out on DVD.

On Sunday, I got up early and when to St. John the Divine for my annual church visit for St. Francis of Assisi Day. I love St. Francis of Assisi Day. You show up to church at 9:00 and they open the doors at 11:00 for services. People bring their pets to be blessed. You primarily see dogs, but you also see cats, birds, lizards, tortoises, hermit crabs, etc. It’s quite a menagerie. And even though St. John the Divine is an episcopalian church and strict about many things, they have the most crunchy granola service ever. There’s dancers in the aisles and songs for Brother Sun and Sister Moon. Snorth noticed this in the program:

Communion will given at the front of the church.
Gluten-free wafers are available for those who request them.

Gluten-free wafers? CRUNCHY. Will Birkenstocks and hemp grocery bags also be available? How about Dr. Bronner’s soap? ‘Cuz I’m running low on that.

Near the end of the service they have the Procession of the Animals. They bring a variety of creatures into the church and they are blessed and then are led out. It’s the piece de resistance of the service. I took pictures of the whole service, but they ask you not to use flash photography because it startles the dogs and other animals, so all my pictures are at best blurry and at worst modern art a la Rothko. I will attempt to show the better pictures and point out the finer details.

First, walking to the church, I was disturbed by this appalling use of quotes.

Scramble “eggs”? Umm, what precisely are you scrambling back there in the kitchen? I’m not sure I want to eat your “eggs” for my breakfast, thank you very much. Gonna pass on that.

This is what the whole church looked like. Owners and their beasties. Beasties getting into fracii (plural of fracas) with other beasties. The service was peppered with barking.

In this picture there are people dancing while one woman holds a punchbowl with a goldfish in it and two men have long poles with streamers swirling around them and the 200-person chorus sings along to whale sounds. I am not making this up. When I say crunchy granola, I MEAN it, dammit.

Now, we begin with the procession. It is always led by a big spectacular bird of prey, usually a golden eagle. Here is a picture of the man carrying the golden eagle.

Followed by a dromedary with a festive wreath on its hump. All the animals had a festive garland or wreath or buttoniere on them in some way. More about that later.

Here is a reindeer. He was grumpy and didn’t want to be there and gave his volunteer handler a hard time, dragging her this way and that, tossing his head with that delightfully impaling-able set of antlers. Naughty naughty reindeer.

The browny-black blur you see there is Marvin the Sheep pulling a wagon. The wagon had an extremely old tortoise on it. They put the tortoise on the wagon and then decorated around him with all manner of greenery and flowers, but it made him look like a Thanksgiving turkey surrounded by potatoes and carrots.

The internet, bless its heart, has a picture from last year with two smootchy beasties that were here this year as well, Marvin the Sheep and Thumper the Bunny.

Awww. I loves me some Marvin and Thumper.

Now, normally they don’t get too exotic. It’s basically farm animals with some honeybees in a glass case and maybe a boa snake and an iguana for good measure. This year there was no cow or horse, but they went way more edgy. See that thing in that woman’s arms? That’s a kangaroo joey.

And the kicker for me? A fennec and a gibbon. And not just any gibbon. A BABY gibbon. OMG.

Because they’re royally hard to see in my pics, here are some references to why I grabbed Snorth’s arm and started muttering in tongues. Tongues of CUTENESS.

Here’s my pic. Aargh.

Note the sawdust on the floor to absorb weewee. Very conscientious. Maybe if I zoom in a bit…

Better? No? Okay.

Afterwards there’s a fair outside with adoption areas and food and activities, it’s very nice. There’s a raptor booth and since I am such an owl fan, I always stand in front of it with my mouth open like I was just hit by a pan in the face. Mainly because of the Malaysian Eagle Owl with big orange eyes directly in front of me.

My favorite owl of all time is the screech owl, a wee owl that screams when upset and looks like a rotting bit of tree. There was one in that flowery container up at the top. I asked to see him and they graciously took the box down and brought him close to me. And, unfortunately for him, he was directly in the sun.

ISN’T HE ADORABLE? He has tufty fake ears and a tiny beak and tiny feet for killing even tinier things, oh, I love him so much.

I intend to go again next year, so if anyone has a better camera that takes good pictures in the gloomy dimness of a church with objects moving around, I would greatly appreciate borrowing it for that day so I can actually get some decent pictures of the procession of animals. Thanks ever so muchly.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, New York | 2 Comments »

Apartment and two things I saw walking around New York.

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

This is what my apartment looked liken when I moved in. Boxy. Very very boxy.

Well, now I’m down to three boxes. Three boxes, people! The finish line approacheth! Soon I will have pictures of the niceness with the wall hangings and whatnot.

I walk past a deli on my way to work that has a poster on the door. I noticed it the other day. Look.

I realize that it’s supposed to be that the soup is so good, the design of angels on the bowl cannot resist and one of the angels is partaking via a straw. What I was convinced I saw the first six or so times I walked past it was that the angel was vomiting into the soup, and since the soup was made with angel vomit, it was heavenly, sort of. I’m not making this up. I swear that is what I thought. “Tomato Basil, now with transcendental emesis!” So not right.

I see this every day on my way into my building. I’ll keep this short: I hate it. I hate it a LOT.

The pointy teeth in many rows, the red shiny gums, the psycho expression, the water running off him that looks like sweat… this is the makings of nightmares.

See what I mean? Thankfully it’s Shark Week right now, so hopefully the sign will be replaced soon. Really soon. Like tomorrow, that would be nice.

Addendum: July 30th – This morning they had replaced the Shark Week poster with a Mythbusters poster! Now, the Mythbusters poster has Jaime and Adam’s decapitated heads in jars like specimens, but it’s still a big improvement over Toothy McRedGums. I am happy.

Posted in Advertising, Apartment, New York, The Telly | No Comments »

NPR and Jonathan Coulton.

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

I was going to write this past week about my travels to Israel, but I got slammed with a project that ate my head and digested it from Monday to Friday until I was a crispy frayed exoskeleton of myself. I was so busy I didn’t even get a chance to check my emails all week. Brutal, I tell you. But the project got done and went nicely and all is hunky-dory, so now I can return to the world of the living and tell you about my recent activities. And I’m editing my Israel photos to share with you as well, so there will be a plethora of posting in the next few days. Rejoice, three readers, rejoice!

I drove my parents to the airport on Saturday so they could fly out to California, and on the way back I listened to their radio. My dad has two stations in his presents: WQXR, the classical music station, and NPR, the… NPR station. On Saturday WQXR plays opera all afternoon, which I really don’t care for at all, so I listened to NPR. I realized something that I’ve been fighting for a long time. I don’t like NPR. I want to like NPR, I really do, it’s just they’re just such drowse-inducing intellectuals, I crave to listen to all of Eminem’s albums back to back afterwards. Traffic was backed up so I got to listen for two and a half hours. Because Albert Hofmann had just died (the inventor of LSD), they played an hour of psychedelic music, all of which I could name in the first two beats (yay me!) The songs were: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Magic Carpet Ride, Purple Haze, White Rabbit, and White Room. The DJ talked about his magic mushroom trip where he discovered the meaning of life in his vomit, and that was all fine. Then came on All Things Considered. Here’s where NPR proved themselves (once again) to be the most grating thing on earth. Andrea Seabrook did a ten-minute piece on the tomato salmonella outbreak where she interviewed… her mother. And they chatted about tomatoes being a pivotal part of their lives. For ten minutes. In those voices that they speak in. These voices. I wanted to shoot myself. Patton Oswalt (my most favorite comedian in the whole wide world) does a thing about NPR on his DVD, Feelin’ Kinda Patton, that is just BRILLIANT. Rent the DVD if you can. It’s about fifteen minutes in. He sums up my response far better than I can.

Addendum: I found a clip of the Patton Oswalt NPR thing on the YouTubes! Hurray!

On Saturday evening I went into the city to see Jonathan Coulton with B. and his wife D. and their son K. It was in the Highline Ballroom in the Meatpacking District, which is one of my least visited parts of Manhattan for three reasons: One, even though they hose down the sidewalks, you can still smell the rotting blood faintly in the air; Two, it’s become very trendy so everyone is young and hip and thin and I feel like a troll doll with fluffy orange hair whose ass is impaled on a fifth-grader’s pencil, and; Three, there are cobblestones all over. I am super-clumsy and I fall down on plain old asphalt, so I suppose on cobblestones I fall down, shatter and then burst into flames or something. But I like Jonathan Coulton very much, so I braved the hipsters and meat-funk and cobbles and somehow made it to our dinner destination, and I’m glad I did, because it was phenomenal. Really. It’s called Highline, and it’s a Thai fusion restaurant. The decor was lovely, the food was delicious and plentiful and not expensive, the iced tea with lychees was nummy, the waitresses were nice and friendly, it was just great. I also recommend that if you go there, go early, because we went at 5:00 and by the time we left, it was half-full. One can only imagine how packed it gets at 8:00. It’s on Washington Street between 13th Street and Little 12th.
Then we went to the concert. I don’t much care for live music (uncomfortable chairs, loud, etc.) but this had to be one of the best concerts ever. Really. Everyone had a good time: the audience, the performers, everybody was just thrilled to be there. The opening act (Paul and Storm) performed for about an hour and were amazing and funny, and then Jonathan performed for a hour and a bit and was terrific as well. He had eight people performing behind him playing ukeleles (the Kristen Shirts Ukelele Army, I believe they were called) and at one point they also played kazoos. And you could sit at tables and have dessert items and no one stood and blocked your view, a fantabulous time was had by all.
If you are a geek, especially a computer programmer/video game player geek, you must discover Jonathan Coulton. Here are some of his finest works:

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/primer/listen/

I recommend “Code Monkey”, “I Crush Everything” (I found out at the concert it is a song about a squid who hates himself, which might be the greatest idea for a song in history), and “Mandlebrot Set”. They don’t have my favorite song there, “I Feel Fantastic”, but you can buy his music on his website, you don’t even have to brush your hair or interact with other humans. Bonus!

Major shout out to one of my newest readers, J. George, who is on bed rest for the next bunch of weeks due to ultra-uber-pregnant with twins. Good luck J. and enjoy this nice quiet time to yourself.

Posted in New York, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

Bamboo flooring. And photos of GCT.

Monday, May 5th, 2008

The flooring is made of strips of ‘boo, and you can see the hinges or links or whatever you call it when the ‘boo does that thing it does with the stopping and starting. Sooo pretty.

The only problem is that my new flooring is much lower than the original flooring. The doors are all an inch and a half too short on the bottom. It looks stupid. It’s one of those things that I will fix if I get around to it, but I don’t really care. The flooring looks so spiffy I don’t care about much of anything. Central VA Flooring does flooring Lynchburg, VA. In addition, if you want to add comfort and softness to your flooring, consider getting a wool carpet. Invest in professional carpet stretching to have your carpet look good as new. You can also browse for more flooring options at Floors2Day – Flooring Store.

I chose three pictures for my bathroom. They’re not necessarily the most beautiful angles or the most interesting subjects but to me they have meaning and significance and all that junk, so whatever, it’s my bathroom and these are the pictures.

This is a shot I took at about 9:15 in the morning from under the overhang of GCT. The Chrysler Building is one of my favorites in all of Mannyhanny, and the clouds looked really cool that day. You can see the atmospheric haze. I see this everyday on the way to work and it makes me happy. I always think that the Chrysler Building is a giant hypodermic needle poking the fleshy clouds. Why that should make me happy I don’t know, but it does. Perhaps I have a secret affinity for diabetics and heroin addicts. Moving on.

This is a swirly architectural detail near Posman Books. I pass this all the time as well and I love that this could have been a boring old bracket and the architect decided to make it into a charming bit of design. And it’s about a foot above my head, so I can really see it, as opposed to many of the other neat-o things in GCT that are too far away to appreciate (the famous astrology ceiling, the chandeliers, etc.)

This is right under the boards for the New Haven line. I like three-sided things and I like light fixtures, ergo I LOVE this lamp. And there are so many textures and shapes in this picture. I’ve actually never seen these windows open, only the ticket windows on the other side of Vanderbilt Hall. They should really switch over to this side soon, the floor is starting to wear down on the other side. Anyway, I lived in Rye for most of my life and I took the New Haven line, so it has a great deal of significance to me. Now I’m going to live in White Plains and I’ll be taking the Harlem line, but the New Haven line will always have a place in my heart.

Posted in Apartment, My Art/Design/Business, New York | No Comments »

Check out my NY subway-style bathroom!

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

I got my master bathroom done with large marble tiles and hexagonal floor tile and I chose a dirt-colored grout which accentuates the white tile and makes my bathroom look grotty like the Victorian-era New York subway. I LOVE IT. I took photos of some of my favorite elements of Grand Central Station yesterday and I’m going to hang three of those pictures in my bathroom. I might even install speakers and pipe in the sounds fire trucks and homeless people yelling to complete the tableau of greatness. An air freshener scented faintly like sewage and the look will be PERFECT. No, really, It’s exactly what I wanted and I’m thrilled to bits. Let me take you on a journey of my bathroom.

I’m standing in the shower to take this picture. You can see the hexagonal floor tile and the lovely wall tile. Precision Tile Inc is a tile contractor Lynchburg. I’m having the painter paint over the grout smudges all over the walls that you can see there.

And this is a photo of the inside of the shower. My contractor (who is a genius) used leftover marble floor tile from the other bathroom for the seat in here. It feels like a sauna on the Lower East Side. I want to sit in there and sweat and then have a large Russian woman throw cold water on me.

Now the floor man is laying down bamboo flooring throughout the apartment and then the painter comes and paints and we’re DONE. FINALLY. And then I can move in.

Posted in Apartment, New York | No Comments »

A humbling moment. I have lots of them.

Monday, April 28th, 2008

I’m a big fan of hand-painted signage. It’s a dying art, but it’s still out there. You see it sometimes on trucks, but where you see it the most are the rip-off electronics places scattered all over midtown Manhattan. They always have flat-screen TVs playing Britney Spears videos. All the stores of this ilk that I pass are playing one Britney video or another. I wonder if they had a meeting and decided that Britney was the artist to go with. Did you know between the perfumes and the clothes and the investments and attaching her name to stuff, Britney pulls in $700,000 a month? But I digress.
So I pass about three or four on my way to work, and all their hand-painted signage is very nice, but then there’s this one store. Their lettering is PERFECT. I could never paint so flawlessly. I always stop and gawk when I pass by. I made a collage of pictures I took of the signage in the window. Even if you have excellent handwriting, you can feel the humility wash over you.

Posted in Advertising, New York, Random Art Bloggery | No Comments »

This is the end of the owl posts for a while.

Friday, April 18th, 2008

Across the street from where I work is the park with the owl monument, the one where the owl’s eyes blink green at night (SO AWESOME). Well, I took the time to walk over there and the whole park is covered in owls. Apparently the park is dedicated to Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, so owls aplenty. There are two who greet you as you walk in.

This is one. “Welcome to my park. I’m very serious and I glare at visitors. Don’t litter!” (smacks you with ruler across your hand)

And on top of this bell there is a wee owl, bringing the total to five owls in the park.

Anyway, the reason I walked over there was that it smelled really flowery and springy for blocks all around. When I got there, I saw that they were planting a gazilion and one plants. And it was very photogenic, so here are some pics to wish you happy spring.

Posted in Nature, New York | No Comments »

My apartment Part 637. Plus some pretty cool news.

Friday, April 11th, 2008

First, my interesting news. I got a job. I didn’t plan to, I was perfectly happy working in my underpants at home all day. But I was offered a terrific deal so I took it. Now I work at Publicis in Herald Square in Manhattan across from Macy’s. No one really knows my title, so I am going to say I am the Grand Poobah Designer of the Communications and New Business Departments. That’ll look nice on business cards.

Now, my apartment! Progress! I’m so happy!

A sink! A toilet! A floor! It’s so great! Really, it looks fantastic. I’m thrilled with how this came out. People should feel honored to tinkle here.

A view of the tub with the sink next to it. They still have to put in the hook that holds the showerhead up so right now it’s draped into the sink. Everyone remember that the walls are going to be painted white, so the tiles will “pop” more than they are now against that aqua sheetrock.

Since I’ve bought this apartment, I’ve been hemming and hawing about the other bathroom. I planned to redo it someday, but later on when I have more money. My mom called me the other day and said the workmen were there already, the hell with it, redo the other bathroom already. So I’m gonna. Money be damned! Here’s a pic of the bathroom as it is now:

I replaced the sink and the cabinet and I ripped out the formica countertop and full-wall mirror and that’s where I planned to stop. Now we’re going to tile the walls (halfway up, like wainscotting) and the floor, get a new toilet in there (this one is tiny and grey, new toilet will be bigger and white) and replace the tiles and fixtures in the shower. Here, look at the shower:

There’s three handles in there. And the tile is chipped and you know, bleagh. So I’m going to the tile place this weekend and I shall peruse the stock and pick wall tiles that fill me with mirth and delight. I spend my weekends looking for tile for the bathroom! I’m old now!

Posted in Apartment, New York | No Comments »

My Saturday in Manhattan.

Monday, March 31st, 2008

I went into the city on Saturday to meet my friend B. and go to the bead show at the Metropolitan Pavilion (where I went for the chocolate show last year). I got to walk down my favorite block while I was there, 18th Street between 5th and 6th. I went into the used bookstore and as soon as that familiar smell of slightly moldy books hit my nose, I was right at home. The bookstore, should you want to drop in and check them out, is Skyline Books:

They have a shop cat. If you were on the fence about visiting them, this should push you over the edge.

Right next door is Utowa, a flower shop for the trendy and tasteful. I went in and looked at the vases and their ridiculously gorgeous flower arrangements. And they had one of the orchids I was talking about, my favorite orchid, I mentioned it in the Macy’s Flower Show post. I tried to take a picture of the orchid, it came out a little blurry, but you can still appreciate the evil goodness.

Across the street is a used CD store, where I just wandered in to kill time and then proceeded to buy a whole stack of CDs. They were between $3.99 and $6.99, and some of them were new, still in the wrapping. So super-terrific, really. The CD shop, called Academy Records, has a phenomenal collection of classical CDs, as well as rock, pop, jazz, spoken word, etc. They also have a big pile of videos and DVDs too. And I assume they have records too, because it’s in their name.

I eventually made it over to the bead show and met up with B. and I promised myself I wouldn’t buy beads unless there was something really really mind-blowing. And I was doing really well too, pottering around behind B. watching him buy bits of this and that and telling myself how good I was being until. There’s always an until. There was this guy selling ammonites. Here’s a bit of info on ammonites:

http://www.stonesbones.com/amm.htm

And I was fine until I saw them, all sitting there. See, I’m a die-hard fossil nut. I loves me some ULTRA-DEAD things. And I’m redoing my kitchen backsplash and countertop (there’s a point here). I’m redoing it with big tiles (because I cannot afford granite, butcher-block, stainless steel, zinc, copper, cement, etc.) and I’m going to incorporate some geode slices and (point tie-in here) ammonites into the backsplash and countertop. And there they were, taunting me with their sparkly not-alive-ness. And they were small and only $6.50 each. So I bought a few. Like, twenty. Hey, you’re not my mother, shoosh you! All my pride in my restraint went right out the window. But who cares, I got ammonites! Whoo hoo!

After B. and I had decided we had lightened our pockets enough, we decided to go out to dinner (it was 4:30). I had been to Soba-Ya once and I remembered it being fantastic, so I recommended we go there. It was right on the other side of town, but the weather was peachy, so we headed over. They lived right up to my memories. We had three appetizers, our bowls of noodles, and three desserts. The appetizer that I’m still dreaming of was the pork belly with a poached egg in sweet soy sauce. I don’t normally eat meat, but I would eat this everyday for the rest of my life. Ohhh, it was melt-in-your-mouth good. The dessert that I thought was the best was the honey wasabi ice cream. The honey and the creamy ice cream nicely balanced the ping! the wasabi put in your mouth. Oh, and we showed up as they opened the door for dinner. Halfway through the appetizers the place was full and by the time we left there was a long line. So if you ever go there, get there early. Like, when they open.

I would like to thank B. for putting up with my constant prodding during the bead show and when we were walking around the city. He has a nice quiet child, so I can’t imagine he is accustomed to someone going, “Oooh! Oooh! Lookit!” every three seconds. Bless his patient soul. I bet he went home and bought stock in Ritalin. Or joined a monastery that has a vow of silence so people weren’t JABBERING AT HIM ALL DAY. But anyway, thanks B. Next time I’ll bring my muzzle.

Posted in Nature, New York, Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious | No Comments »

I must be in Hawaii, ‘cuz look at all this spam! (Hey, they can’t all be winners.)

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

I love watching the evolution of spam, as you three readers well know. Now the spammers are clearly just looking through dictionaries to try to find random words and they are picking just the BEST fake names. Here, allow me to give you a sampling:

Maury Hardy
octavian apastron caribbee gadzooks sidenote crannog apocryphalness monotheist

Dixie Mendez
outmantle drukpa thinginess multirotation gyracanthus disguisal els osteophytic

Kermit Chaney
paxillary neurilemmal sublime horned duchess moltenly underprivileged prestimulus

Sterling Sargent
thermoelectricity chairmaker typometry semishirker barbarical chilitis benefactor myoid

It reminds me of those make-yer-own-poetry magnets that were so popular in the 90s. I’m particularly partial to the “sublime horned duchess” who is “moltenly underprivileged”. That must suck for her.

I’ve been working freelance in the city lately, and I must admit it isn’t the greatest commute from the ‘burbs (an hour and a half, door to door). But as I’m approaching the office, I am greeted by this sculpture everyday and it makes me so happy:

An owl! It’s like they knew I would be working here and they put that there just for me! New York is so thoughtful sometimes.

Addition: I left work late the other night, and get this: the owl’s eyes have green lights in them and at night they blink on and off! Green lights! Demonic owl sculpture! I… I don’t even have words for my joy.

Posted in New York, Stuff, Teh Intarwebz | 1 Comment »

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