Sunday, November 29, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
False Script
The Male Gaze
I can't speak to what it's like for men. Because they seem to know how to navigate these situations. They don't just navigate them, they create them. They are particularly skilled in groups. In a group of women, they turn themselves into a prize. And in a group of men, there is a kind of majesty in the power of their collective maleness.
And when you're young, you simply don't know what to do with this. Except feel slightly afraid. And slightly unhinged.
Paradox
We also get off on being misunderstood. We're kind of used to it, and even though we complain about it and talk ceaselessly about how desperate we are for meaningful connection, the truth is, when we actually do feel truly understood, maybe even worldlessly, we kind of don't know what to do with that feeling, we're so terribly unaccustomed to it. It makes us uncomfortable, like someone has invaded our personal psychic space. Something about it feels inauthentic; we want to be left alone again. More like, we want to make a run for it. We feel engulfed and terrified because what we desperately crave feels like a violation of the most personal parts of who we are.
Monday, November 23, 2009
8th and Alameda

Sunday: Mexican candy shopping. Mexican candy is like Indian candy, all sour and spicy enough to make your jaw hurt. I am especially addicted to tamarind in its various candy-incarnations and that sour powder made of citric acid called Acirrico! I could eat this stuff as a meal, just licking it off my fingers. It's so gross and tart and makes your whole face pucker up. I love it.
I also love Mexican food stores. Bins of chilies and lentils and pickled carrots, rows and rows of inconsistently-packaged spices. Families speaking a mixture of Spanish and English. Vendors making pupusas and tamales on the sidewalk. Men holding hands with their children and carrying around Snow White pinatas. There's something happy and festive about the entire thing. I could do without the crying babies, the crowds, the pushing and shoving, but I have to admit it, ethnic shopping centers feel like home.
I love Olvera Street too. Even though it's kind of become a Mexican Disneyland. I had befriended the candy vendor here, who for months sold me a super-powered citric-sour blend until one day, I returned for more and he informed me that it had been pulled from the shelves because of a lead contamination.
"I guess that's what made it so good," I told him.
"There is always a price to pay, Miss," he offered.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
IM. Today
Me: What?
T: What do you have against hardworking Spence students or hardworking celebrities?
Me: I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were a staunch defender of either of these entities.
T: Well, considering I am a Spence alum who is now a celebrity, I have strong opinions of both.
Me: Oh my God. I can't believe you were Gwyneth Paltrow all this time and you never told me. Or wait, you could also be Kerry Washington. They both went to Spence.
T: Why do you know this stuff? You've been in LA too long. I agree with you about Natalie though. She should stay home. I can't stand her. Also I can't tell her apart from Keira Knightley.
Me: EXACTLY! I say that all the time.
T: Please get the snark out of your system. I understand that the blog is your outlet for daily expression, But please leave poor Justin long alone. What has he ever done to you?
Me: Destroyed my Apple-related world.
T: if you want free products from them, you'll just have to find a way to do it yourself instead of scapegoating those who already benefit from a relationship with them
Me: No, you're right. There's no need for resentment towards Justin Long. He looks like such a vampire though. Ick.
T: There's no need for resentment towards anyone. People are allowed to eat wherever they want, Aditi. Even Chloe Sevigny. Even Adrian Grenier.
Me: Fine. You're right. Thanks for the perspective. I feel humbled.
T: That's what I'm here for.
I Love this Man
I'll admit it: I have a ginormous crush on Michael Pollan. I want a domestic partnership with him in which he grows vegetables for me and makes me dinner and answers all my questions about sustainability. In fact, this morning, I had a question about Monsanto and I was mildly devastated that there isn't some sort of Michael Pollan hotline that I can call anytime I have questions about planting my own tomatoes or what kinds of tulips to buy for the dining table. Seriously, watch The Botany of Desire. It's sort of brilliant.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Jumping the Shark
Last Wednesday, Natalie Portman at Edendale. Really Natalie? Can't you get a drink at like, Hungry Cat or something?
Friday night, 8:30 PM, Alegria: Chloe Sevigny and entourage appear wearing androgynous outfits documented by NYT less than a week ago. This was the final straw.
Dear celebrities,
No offense or anything, but when you start eating at my small neighborhood dining joints (By small I mean the kinds of places that only have like eight tables to begin with), they get overhyped and descend promptly into the shitter. I'm not saying you should stop eating or anything. And I know your dining options are limited as you have to keep your daily caloric intake under 800. Especially you, Justin. You are scarily skinny. Truthfully, I just hate you because you have the best gig on Earth and get free Apple products anytime you want them. And what have you even done to deserve that gig? Nothing! I won't get into your talent here, because that would just be mean.
But to the rest of you: I've heard there's great dining west of La Cienega. Or do as Adrian Grenier does, and park your Prius at the Silverlake Trader Joe's, buy a bunch of frozen vegan stuff and then go home and have your chef or your friends or Johnny Drama microwave it (This goes especially for you, Natalie. I know all about your dietary restrictions. I saw that episode of Top Chef).
This way, we can all be happy. You won't have to deal with people ogling you through your dinner and I can still get decent service at the places I love. It's a win-win for everybody!
Thanks!
me
Thursday, November 19, 2009
pulled from friend of friend of friend's blog
From synecdoche on Flickr, an art project in Houston:
Using 13 billboards along the city´s downtown freeways, Olivier will replace the usual advertisements with images of the urban landscape that would be visible if the billboard did not exist - the sky, trees, and buildings obstructed by the ads will now be “revealed.”
Having been to the southern US, I can certainly recognise the pattern synecdoche describes in the description of another photo of a billboard from the project:
Houston is a city of billboards and big signs, sprouting everywhere above the highways in gleaming, glaring, blinking, clashing profusion. A billboardless vista is rare; in traffic-dense commuter areas there are so many that they cancel each other out, becoming visual background noise. Even on a relatively deserted stretch of highway there will be at least one or two every half-mile or so.
Young New York is so Post -Everything
New York Times correspondents are running out of things to write about
Hi, our names are Chloe and Tara and Skyye and after we get off school from Spence at 2:30, we take off our uniforms and like, dress androgynously and take like, the 6 to Soho and then just like, stand like this outside the Thompson Hotel. Sometimes, though, Skyye's driver drives us there.
Then Chloe has therapy so we part ways before meeting up at Milk & Honey at 11. We love Sasha and his cocktails. Tara and Skyye usually share the blood orange mojito because it has sooo many calories! And also, it's tacky to be hung over in class the next morning.
Anyway, we have to go now. This conversation bores us. And we don't know why you asked why we dress this way. We don't know why, what kind of a question is that anyway? Ugh, we guess it's because we live in a post-post modern, post-post gender world. And it is sooo boring.
I miss you, Sukhy
Once, when I lived in Atlanta, I flew home for Christmas, stayed an extra day, and drove two hours to Providence to see Sukhy. This should speak to my loyalty when I feel like I've met the right person and also my general commitment to eyebrow grooming. But more than this, it should speak to my love of Sukhy and her art. Anyway, her shop was closed and I almost cried. So to make myself feel better, I got a banana nutella crepe at the Creperie. And a falafel at East Side Pockets. And one of those extra large cookies at Meeting Street Cafe for the ride home. And went home with ungroomed eyebrows. It was a sad day.
Mad Libs
"Blanks are heavy to carry," I say.
"Balls," he mumbles, "farts."
He is actually playing the right way.
"Illusions," I say.
He nods, "Yeah, those too."
On Beauty
My mother insisted I join, and it made sense. I was 13 and girls were beginning to wear makeup to school and I was resentful of my mother because she hadn't taught me how to wear mascara and eye shadow. So the sad woman did our makeup. She probably had experience doing Church plays because she pancaked stuff on and gave my mother lavender eyeshadow. Mine was green. Fuschia lipstick. Orangey rouge. After she was done, my mother purchased a handful of products we would never use. They are still sitting on her dressing table to this day. The woman left and we both walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, horrified. We looked like transvestite hookers in an Almodovar film. Then we laughed and washed off the makeup. I understand now why my mother doesn't wear makeup. I still don't.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
IM. Today.
Me: thanks. I'm ok.
T: i also wasn't sure if it was a made-up story or like real. but i assumed it was real because you're a little accident prone.
Me: i know.
T: ans i was there when you did that weird interpretive dance thing in the snow i think you were doing a george w. bush impression and you slipped on ice and dislocated your knee.
Me: OMG! You remember that! that was years ago! it was even before he came into office. i was demonstrating what a retard he was.
T: I know. and then you were like a retard in a cast.
Me: i had to take the cripple shuttle to class for weeks.
T: i know. it came to the dorm. and it was hard for you to get on. even with crutches. i felt bad for you. it was in the middle of winter.
Me: you have such a good memory.
Me: can you do me a favor and forget that incident?
Me: Please?
T: no. i cherish my memories.
Me: fine.
does this ever happen to you?
no? okay. just thought i'd ask.
Should I read The Original of Laura?

Nabokov’s style – his love-affair with words, both Russian and English – always teetered on the edge of mannered preciosity. In his best novels, his wit, his ingenuity, his gift for parody and his incomparable eye for human absurdity withheld him from the precipice.
-Jonathan Bate, Telegraph, UK
The rest of this review is so terrible and disparaging that it makes me want to stab Jonathan Bate. But the above line, I agree with.
Clarification

I don't deny that Beck is insanely talented. It's just that I have serious issues with pretentious poser boy-types. I feel the same way about Darren Aronofsky. It's like, okay, we get it, we know that you're clever and different and occupy a separate reality. You can take off that...tie thing now. And then they go and make something really beautiful and raw like Record Club or The Wrestler. And you realize that pretentious poser boys are just sort of sensitive and insecure and that there's often a definitive trajectory from insecure poser to really sensitive poet, it's just that it takes a while to unearth sometimes. And then you like them even more. Reluctantly, though.
Note to Self
Death
And they all seem to remember everything that ever happened. All of it. Including the moments where I was petty or jealous or uncaring. But mostly, I think I was kind. Or at least tried to be. And mostly, I tried to help. And mostly, I cared. Often vehemently.
So I woke up relatively okay with myself. Because really, when you strip things down to the essentials, this is what really matters, isn't it?
Monday, November 16, 2009
-Pedro AlmodĂłvar

I'm not just looking for pretty flowers to paint. There is a certain flower of decadence that inspires me. And when I drive into some sort of industrial wasteland in America, with the themeparks and warehouses, there's something saying something to me. It's a mixture of those things that gives me some sense of reality and moves me along as an artist.
-Edward Ruscha, 1988 text from Esquire, titled "The Witness,"
My Love Affair With Zadie Smith Continues...
What would I do without Zadie Smith? Or NPR, for that matter.
If something inside you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don’t worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act - truth is always subversive.
-Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird
Friday, November 13, 2009
The Road=Uck
Thursday, November 12, 2009

Dear Benicio del Toro,
Not all men can pull off the I-haven't-slept-in-nine-days-and-I-have-massive-dark-circles-under-my-eyes-also-I-haven't-shaved-and-also-by-the-way-I-forgot-to-mention-that-I'm severely-damaged look, but you can. It's so hot it's kind of ridiculous. Still, I need to build up an immunity to this look. Because it's caused me a lot of troubles in life.
i know this is really cheesy, okay?
ever since i saw the 60 minutes piece on pirating movies, i've basically thought of steven soderbergh as a serious whiney bitch-douchebag. which is unfortunate, because i really love this movie. and this song. which has nothing to do with steven soderbergh.
cheap reading

Do you ever do this? Go through an entire narrative in your head or like, an imaginary conversation with someone, or some fantasy that you wouldn't share in public, and then frown at yourself and say, "no, no, no, it's not going to be that kind of story."
Because that kind of story is the one you've already experienced before, in a bad made-for-TV movie or in a novel you picked up from the 99 cent bin at the airport. It might even be from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, but it's still pretty predictable.
Because the vast majority of narrative trajectories are predictable and therefore, lame.
And maybe it's unfair for you (by you, I mean me) to build your own/my own stories around other people and their lives. And maybe it's unfair for other people to cast you as a character in their imaginary narrative. Because that's not life. That's a mixture of projection and hyper-creativity. And I'd like to think that life is better than a 99 cent bin novel, even though sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's kind of worse than a 99 cent bin novel.
Spoiler Alert

Wednesday, November 11, 2009
IM. Today.
Me: I know. it wasn't intentional. Jo and I were talking about dressing dogs in halloween costumes and whether it's cruel or cute. I vote cute.
T: it was startling. don't do that again.
Me: what, post pictures of dogs in costumes?
T: no, it's not the dog in a costume, it's the curation. keep complex thoughts and dogs in costumes in separate places.
Me: I have trouble compartmentalizing.
T: God, don't we all know it.
Thoughts
People were more apt to roam bra-less in the 80s. And in the 90s. And in Robert Altman films.
Have you negotiated your various competing identities today? I haven't.
A woman stopped me this morning and asked where I got my necklace.
"From my mother," I said.
"Where did she get it?" she asked, relentless.
"From my grandmother," I said.
"I hate you," she offered. She was one of those overly verbal/overly opinionated/overly loud types. The types I can never decide whether I like or not.
"I always look at your jewelry in the elevator," she said.
This made me feel strange. Like she was telling me that she stares at my breasts in the elevator.
In an English class once, there was a girl with perfect breasts. Not big, but perfectly proportioned. Everyone looked at them. Even just to pass time, while we were bored with the lecture.
I often feel strange, at the things people say or write. Or say. Or say in writing.
But I do nothing, just smile.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
When I was younger
it was plain to me
I must make something of myself.
Older now
I walk back streets
admiring the houses
of the very poor:
roof out of line with sides
the yards cluttered
with old chicken wire, ashes,
furniture gone wrong;
the fences and outhouses
built of barrel staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green
that properly weathered
pleases me best of all colors.
No one
will believe this
of vast import to the nation.
-William Carlos Williams
Dream
The ice cream place that I like is minimalist and has a row of different flavors, spread out on a white table. The owner is tall and severe-looking, with glasses. He insists that I do a blind taste test of all flavors before I choose one.
"Blueberry with corn flakes," I say after a taste of the first flavor.
"No, it's turkey fat with blue yarn," he tells me "but you got the blue part right."
I am wrong about every flavor so he won't let me buy the dark chocolate lemon flavor I want.
He also tells me that lemon chocolate is Alice Waters' favorite flavor so he won't sell it.
"Why not?" I ask.
"Because of that bad experience Alice and I had in Spain, at La Barca."
I remember La Barca. It is a bar where my housemates and I used to go and get margaritas and nachos before there was a shooting there and we decided to drink wine at home instead. I didn't realize it was in Spain.
"And I also can't sell ice cream because we're closing now. The heater is broken and the film crew fixing it doesn't know what they're doing. I should have listened to Robert Altman," he says, "He told me they're useless at heating and plumbing and I didn't listen."
I nod solemnly, as though I understand. There is a thumping sound underfoot, perhaps the film crew fixing the heater. A gaggle of women in bikinis sit in a hot tub off in a corner. I immediately want to leave. I think about T, how I lied to her and said I didn't want ice cream, even though I really did. Just not at the place she suggested. I also lied because I wanted to be alone and felt smothered by the presence of another. And then I did what I wanted. So maybe I'm not as empathetic and generous as I thought I was.
But now I can validate my bad feelings about myself. And now I don't have to pretend that my character isn't questionable. Because I know it is. And it feels good to be right.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Coexisting Realities
When the hubcap fell off and I had to go to the Prius dealership and pay $80 for a new one, I thought about wheels. Ashoka's wheel outside the Ashoka Hotel in Delhi where my mother and my sister and I get pastries and cold coffee and sit in jute chairs and chat after a day of shopping. The wheel of life, cycles, repetition. Knocking on doors that refuse to open. The cycle of life and death, death. Endings. Beginnings.
Cycling through guilt, reliving experiences. Does something persistently torment you, haunt you? Is this because you need it to or because like a ghost, or an apparition, it refuses to leave, it has made a home in your home?
Last week there was a ghost in my home. The fire alarm kept going off on its own. No smoke, no fire. Five times it was reset. Then an old halogen lamp, broken for weeks sitting in a corner decided to turn itself on. How? I asked it. It was plugged in but it hadn't worked for weeks. Then in the middle of the night, the dryer turned on by itself. It wasn't scary, it just was.
What is it that I need to be told/reminded of? I asked this strange force. This electrical malfunction/strange energy in my house. I have tried to seal off the things that haunt me, but they persist, in perfect concentric cycles through my life. The cycles of the seasons, fall. What is it I need to harvest? What do I need to bury now?
And I worried because my dreams are no longer as vivid as they once were, telling me things that I couldn't have known on my own. Is this how all powers are lost? Is there kryptonite hidden somewhere in the shelves, in the bar, behind the bookshelf? When will I be me again? I asked, and by this, I meant, when will I be strong, or maybe even powerful? When will I be able to look at life really in the eye?
Sometimes I think we are all so old. So much older than we think we are, than we seem to be. Shouldn't we know better?
If you drive in circles in your own city, you notice strange things: a Diesel Mercedes rolls into an intersection, hits a wall, rolls back. There is no driver; it was left on a hill. Without the parking brake on. No one is hurt. A dog so tiny it can fit into the palm of your hand. a friend, running down Sunset, the comfort of familiarity.
I am flexible enough that I can bend and temporarily hold on to tiny realities. The deeper truths are too heavy to carry, at least at all times. I carry them a few feet, then take a break. Many breaks. There is some sort of equation to this, isn't there? Strength=Time+Practice/The Flexing of Certain Muscles. I am willful but not strong. There is a difference. This difference cleaves into the softer part of my flesh, maybe the underside of my arm, and sticks there. I feel the pain of this in cycles.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
thoughts that float and never quite take root
On the way to work, a Mexican grocery store called "El Lechero."
At a wedding someone said this: "Do you know that the name Gavin is just vagina rearranged without an A?" Vagina rearranged without an A. Vagina rearranged without an A, I think over and over again.
Sometimes men will say something gross or crass and you'll ask where that came from.
"You've never heard that before? It's very 7th grade," they'll say, and it'll make you wonder what else you were shielded from your entire life.
My grandfather used to give me homeopathic placebo pills whenever he took his medicine. A capful of tiny sugar capsules. Now whenever I take homeopathic medication, I think I am taking a placebo. What other things in my life are upsidedown likethis? What other false assumptions/strange behaviors are guiding me from one place to another, one choice to another?
Maybe everyone thinks of themselves as a person of principle.
I miss home I miss home I miss home.
Monday, November 2, 2009
-Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Halloween
"We close at 2:00 AM," they tell us.
"Come, on, it's daylight savings," we tell them. And this nice couple just got married today. And the mariachi band didn't show up. Just for a drink?" We are relentless. No dice.
"You guys are douchebags," says the groom. "We're never coming back to Piano, Piano," I tell them.
"It was my cape," says the pink-haired vampire. "It was just the way they looked at it."
"They're capists," says the pirate.
We take the elevator back to a fourth floor suite at the Doubletree. There is some discussion about the transmission of oral herpes and the deftness with which the DJ incorporated Halloween songs, 80s songs, hip hop, Michael Jackson, the Zombies, Kinks, Depeche Mode.
"Michael Jackson, will his deadness ever die?" ponders the pirate.
In the suite we pass out. People smoke hash on the balcony. Pizzas are delivered. Women sit in their boyfriends' laps and negotiate the draft coming from the balcony.
We wake up the next morning in a place that reminds me of the east coast. We drive around the campus, stop and get coffee. College campuses, particularly the kinds with rolling green, they have a way of inspiring an intense desire for personal normalcy.
Brunch at Gjelina in Venice: a castmember from The Hills at the table next to us, in leopard print and large pink sunglasses. I am mesmerized with her ability to roll her gaping mouth around an abundance of words that all mean nothing. People speak of real-estate, shopping, shoes. What to do with places that offer their inhabitants no reason for complaint? A town of people who are beautiful, well-coiffed, well-dressed, they even have beautiful homes and beautiful weather. And they all look so jaded and tired with life. They reach for the next shiny thing, the way one reaches for a breadstick before dinner: thoughtlessly.
"Did you like the food?" he asks.
It wasn't the food, I think. It was the recognition that certain places are their own exposed-brick and reclaimed hardwood solipsism, almost as though even the wrought iron urban chandeliers, with different-sized light bulbs sigh in a bored and yet self-congratulatory way.
"We're here," they say. "What to do now?"