until 1:53pm today! After a crazy night of catching up on Gossip Girl, The Hills and Red Eye. Like when I yawn while people are talking to me and say, “It’s not that I’m tired, it’s that my brain needs oxygen,” it’s not that I’m tired right now, it’s my body needs sleep.
Also, I’m having a love affair with my electric blanket. I can’t believe I didn’t have one for so long. Guess it took living in an apartment with questionable heat to make me see what I was missing.
These are the events I’ll be talking about on my usual Saturday morning segment tomorrow morning at the very prudential time of 6:45am on channel 4 here in New York. Is prudential the right word? Let’s find out… well, not quite. But kinda. But anyway:
The Indie and Small Press Book Fair: Stick it to the man and his corporate books at this two day affair, why don’t you? Tama Janowitz, Ian Mackaye and others will be on hand. It’s at the New York Center for Independent Publishing on 44th between 5th and 6th. Free with a suggested one dollar donation! Sat 10-6, Sun 11-5
Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter: performing stand-up at the Fillmore at Irving Plaza which I still call Irving Plaza. I think both of them are hilarious. It’s Saturday night at 8pm. Tickets are $25.
The Salzberg Marionette Theater performs The Sound of Music: Jersey dwellers don’t just have a turnpike, they have this show, at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Here’s what I want to know, and there is a good chance I’m going to pose this very question on TV tomorrow so sorry for the redundancy if you happen to read this and then see the segment tomorrow, but you know that scene in the Sound of Music where they put on a marionette show? Will marionettes be putting on a marionette show? It’s Saturday at 2:30 and 7:30 and Sunday at 2:30 Tickets are $44 to $49 [note: it’s not just limited to the weekend but my segment tomorrow is, hence my just mentioning the weekend times]
Blip Festival: Fans of chiptunes, or music made from old electronics especially video games and the like, should head to the Eyebeam Gallery (21st between 10th and 11th) this weekend for this nerdathon. If my sister were listening to me right now she’d get on my case for using nerd here which she thinks is insulting and she says I’m not allowed to say nerd that way. I think I have nerd clearance. $5-$35 I think.
MOTH storytelling: Grand Slam: Competing storytellers will gather at Comix (14th and 8th) to see who can spin a better yarn about Growing Pains. The theme, not the show, alas. Sunday at 6pm. $15-$150.
1) Sometimes I look at bruises I get (I bruise kind of easily and I’m clumsy) and think they make me look tough. In fact I had this big bruise on my upper arm a couple years ago which I got from walking into a door at Grand Central (it’s actually more complicated than that. There are these narrow doors at Grand Central where you push one side and this brass beam attached to the other side of the door whacks you in the arm, which I did three times in a row) and I would go into the bathroom at work when I was bored and pull up my sleeve and look at it and think that it kind of looked like a tattoo.
2) I’m reading—and enjoying—Gossip Girl. And in my head I imagine what I would say to anyone should they query why a 45 year old woman is reading Gossip Girl (note: I am not really 45), much like when I went through my mixed vegetables in a can phase I’d think of what I’d say to the clerk should he ask me why I’m buying like 8 cans of mixed vegetables and bottle of diet 7-Up, though it never came to that.
If so, please stop making out on the street.
P.S. I’m back and the airplane trip was without incident except ever since I’ve gotten off the plane I’ve felt like I’m on a ship. Everything’s kinda wavy. Am I the only one who gets this? I used to feel this way after pulling an all-nighter in college. At the time, I would describe the next day feeling as “like a hologram.” Not to be cliche, but it makes me think of that old saying: “Out of the airplane, onto the ship, makes you feel like a hologram.”
feel a little mournful before I fly. The whole process seems violent somehow, the rushing and the crowds and the jostling, the carrying heavy bags, the putting your trust in something that’s inherently kind of scary. Maybe that’s what it is for me, deep down being separated from people that care about me and from those I care about makes me feel like I’m pushing my luck. Or maybe I just feel especially mortal right now (except I’ve always felt the mournful feeling before I fly). I remember…. I was about to go off on a really sad tangent but my eyes filled with tears so I think I won’t. See what the pre-flying does to me? I’m always fairly fine once I’m on the plane though. So there’s that.
On a lighter note, Gale Harold and Ken Marino kind of look vaguely similar.
I’m thinking about getting a dog, which I’ve been thinking about for awhile, so I decided to thumb through the ASPCA’s Complete Guide to Dogs, which I’m sad to report doesn’t have enough cute pictures. I came to a page called “The Wrong Reasons to Get a Dog” and it includes such wrongs reasons as “because you are lonely,” “to teach a child how to be responsible,” “because you feel sorry for a dog in pet shop,” “because you think your home needs protection” and “as a surprise gift.” Great list, I tittered to myself, under my breath. It stops just short of being useful! Naturally I leapt into the breach.
More wrong reasons to get a dog:
Because you are hungry
Because your last one died and you want to replace it–with parts from the new one
Because you’re tired of walking around and you have this saddle just collecting dust (only works with big dogs)
Because you’re tired of dating (ditto)
Two legs bad, four legs sexy!
Because you’ve never bedazzled a moving target
You want to enter it into dog shows (just kidding!)
You want to breed a puppy and a guppy (it doesn’t work, btw. water everywhere!)
You found a most curious book called “To Serve Dog”
Those tiny sweaters aren’t just going to wear themselves
First prize for the reader who can identify the factoid I culled from a Red Eye episode (one I watched, not one I was on.) Okay fine, there isn’t any prize. But perhaps you’d care to read and guess anyway? Here’s the interview.
Thanks to everyone for the nice thoughts. I even said to my dad this morning “the people who comment on my blog are so nice!” I really appreciate it. Anyway, here’s my interview with Noah Baumbach.
The thing about death that gets me is the things and the way the things remain unchanged. I’ve written about my relationship to stuff and death in various places, maybe I’ll try to link if I have the energy, but basically it’s walking into the person’s apartment and seeing all their stuff there, specifically the stuff at the end of their life, the medicine bottles, the two pairs of glasses, the box of latex gloves for I don’t know what, the sticker with hospice and a phone number in giant letters stuck on the phone, the magazines that arrived after she died and the chair she used to sit in, that makes me tear up. It’s the more prosaic aspects of death that make it crushingly real.
I don’t mean to make this a blog about death, and I promise I”ll lighten it up soon.
Speaking of, I’m tired of funny people who disavow jokes. I get it, you’re a comedian. You’re deep and you do “bits” and your humor is “observational” and culled from “reality.” Me? I like jokes. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go bum myself out.