reading is not as important as being pretty

last night i went to sephora on 5th ave for a universal/motown records event. when i was a kid the building was scribner's bookstore, so super cinematic inside... filled with books and spiral staircases. now it's filled with cosmetics.

jojo, mya and perez hilton were in the house.

mostly i hung out with Awesome Record Label Lady™ - we tried blushes, eye shadows and glosses as the photographers snapped pictures of the stars. ARLL™ was looking for a greenish eye shadow that was shimmery but not glittery. that sounded good to me, except i like purple (eye shadow). we both got urban decay; she got graffiti and i got fishnet. i might go back and get the hot pink one, called sting. do you think this look is appropriate for the workplace?

hidey hidey hidey hi

one of the things i liked about the outkast movie was the dancing. i stopped taking swing, and i realize now that i miss it. we were just getting into the lindy-hop stuff, and it's so energetic/frenetic/athletic.

czech out this video from hellzapoppin. one of the dancers is frankie manning, and he teaches at the center where i took swing.


(click the little arrow in the lower left corner so you don't navigate away from this page!)



also: here's a song from outkast's idlewild: the mighty o

i'm not a player i just crush a lot

after dinner on friday i found myself back at the karaoke spot. maybe it's possible to karaoke too soon? too often? i was feeling less than inspired. when i walked out of the karaoke cave and onto st marks place there was a guy on a pedicab chilling by the sidewalk and i asked him how much it would be to go a few blocks to visit nnadi @ kush. he said five bucks and i hopped in.

i wish i could always travel by pedicab. seriously. it's breezy, there are no toxic emissions, the drivers are always cute and friendly.

kush was packed but i managed to meet up with a few people and nnadi was slinging drinks our way.

saturday? a lovely dinner in brooklyn hosted by hrh.
first course: heirloom tomatoes with soft goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette
second course: monkfish poached in vermouth, corn and onions, cucumber salad
dessert: raisin bread pudding, watermelon slices
beverages: watermelon negronis, chardonnay, champagne, pink champagne, pino noir

king tee and friend joined us for after dinner drinks, and then we headed to a party on the edge of chinatown, very close to where my dentist lives. i called him on the off chance he was around, and he finished up dinner in the east village and joined us.

i started talking to a cutie 8 years younger than i am, and saw the king watching me from across the room. i discretely sent him a text message that simply said : ) and he texted back i knew it ; -? i wrote that smile was for you not for him and he wrote i know. u just crush a lot so for the rest of the night i had big pun in my head.

whatever happened, happened. i got home at 4:30 or so. nnadi had an audition sunday morning and called me at 11 {even though everyone knows that i don't answer the phone before noon on the weekends} so i met him at schiller's for a little hair of the dog and some brunch. after brunch i went back to bed. the beauty of being a single girl, living alone. no one can stop you from being terribly indulgent.

80s ISUZU GEMINI TV ad

TV ad of ISUZU Gemini. No computer graphics, cars were really 'flying' in the air! i don't know if this is the original music, but let this be a lesson to you: everything GEMINI rules. i want to be a synchronized driver when i grow up down.

putting the wild in idlewild

last night i went to a screening of idlewild.

i saw big boi on TV saying how it was more purple rain than singing in the rain, meaning that most of the songs are in the context of the nightclub stage, instead of people just bursting into song... which is only sort of true. but it's really very entertaining. silly, colorful, vibrant, fast-paced. some may find it lurid and noisy. but it was action-packed and fun without taking itself too seriously, and managed to have a plot, with characters in danger and lessons to be learned, instead of just being an extended music video.

but something happened to me during the screening of idlewild that hasn't happened in a long time in my new york movie-going experience: during the climax of the film, when there was a brawl in the nightclub on the screen, there was a brawl in the movie theater.

punches were being thrown on screen and off. and when i heard gunshots, i wasn't sure if they were in the film or in front of me. seriously.

it turned out to be a weapon-free scuffle over seat kicking... but sort of ruined the most dramatic part of the film for me.

in any case, i think bryan barber has vision and a clear point of view, and did a great job of creating a world.

come up and see my etchings

if you know me, or read this blog regularly, there are two things i really love: tattoos and jewelry.

so obviously i'm gonna love tattooed jewelry from tattooed steel.

{via coolhunting}

party like it's 1954

so yeah, did i mention that i went to the company picnic last week?

something about the words "company picnic" just brings to mind salesmen in grey suits changing into polo shirts and grilling hotdogs by the lake. i don't know where i am getting this image from. but doesn't the "company picnic" just seem retro?

anywho, it is a great excuse to see adults act like children. myself included.

if you can, go outside.

seriously.

how to have a good tuesday night

how to have a good tuesday night in girlhattan:

1. go directly from work to barrio chino
2. have friends waiting at the bar, smiling
3. be seated, immediately order fresh lime margarita
4. order: tacos arrechera, sincronizada especial ("what's cuitlacoche?""a fungus." "it's delicious!"), enchiladas de mole, and "the sampler"
4. discuss: banana bungalows in hollywood, the death of the maori queen, all you really know about immigration issues
5. have another drink
6. "after my foot surgery, they gave me vicodin..."
"vicodin is *really* good for pain."
"vicodin is really good for everything."
7. have another drink
8. walk across the street to babycakes, gaze at the delicious, "healthy" low-sugar and vegan desserts.
9. walk out of babycakes, around the corner, down the street and to the right until you reach sugar sweet sunshine, where the cupcakes are full of butter and sugar as god intended
10. eat a cupcake
11. run into tommy while on sugar high
12. go home and IM crush something saucy ("but i've had two margaritas and a cupcake, so i'm just talking crazy.")
13. gossip on the phone til 1am
14. go to sleep

regret.

so yesterday there was a moth in my car on the A train.

it was flying around, beating its wings furiously against the windows, the lights, the ads that read FOOT PAIN? and LEARN ENGLISH.

it kept coming back to the white light of a plastic advertsing case with no ad inside. maybe it thought the light was a window. or the moon. or just the way out. the moth was throwing itself at the glowing white plastic.

some people were afraid of it. it was gorgeous, huge and shades of brown, but people were afraid of it.

the moth is interesting. complicated. it's not pretty, like a butterfly, with spring dresses and wrapping paper dedicated to it. it's a creature of the night, an often suicidal thing (moth to the flame). but it's not outright menacing, like a bee, or filthy, like a fly. the A train riders did not really know how to react, so they avoided it. and those who didn't avoid just ignored it.

i was staring at it.

you don't belong here.
you need to be rescued.
you need to get out.

but i wasn't doing anything about it.
and my inaction was depressing and frustrating me.

i'm not afraid of moths. or spiders, or bees for that matter. in fact, i grew up sort of obsessed with insects. crickets, ladybugs and june bugs were my favorites. i liked scarab beetles, and roly-poly bugs.

but i was reluctant to interfere. more than that. i was frozen.

it was trapped, trapped, trapped.

after a while it calmed down and sat on a windowsill.

i pictured myself cupping it in my hands, getting off the train, going up the stairs and releasing it into the wilds of washington heights.

could i make it? quickly enough? would it try to escape? would i harm it? their wings are so delicate and already they'd been through so much.

all i could do was stare. the train screeched into my stop, and i got off.

and now i'm sitting here at work.
trapped where i don't belong.

i'm sorry.

screen dream

last night i went to see half nelson.

verdict? critic recommended; girlhattan approved.

well-acted, well-crafted, well-directed. superb cast, intricate, nuanced storytelling. nothing is black and white, everything is billions of shades of grey.

wanna see the trailer? click here.

i'm not even going to wax poetic on the beauty of the gosling, because it's about his ACTING. it really is. but just knowing he's out there somewhere kissing his adorable girlfriend and wearing a darfur t-shirt warms the microscopic cockles of my tiny heart, le sigh.

no west for the ricked...

so last night, on the pretense of being able to meet ludacris, we arrived at the hammerstein ballroom at 7:30pm. on arrival, we were informed that the doors opened at 8pm. it was raining, so hard and so loud that it was tough to think. we watched a girl try to jump over a gutter river from street to sidewalk, and lose a flip flop. the flip flop floated down the roaring rapids, under a car and almost to the corner before the girl could catch it.

so we ran through the pouring rain to chipotle, across the street, and ate burritos while listening to talvin singh. then back across the street where now the word was "doors open at 9pm."

9pm. more waiting, division of crowd into castes: gen ad, vip and guestlist.

9:15pm. more waiting. entry into club where the smoke machine made the steps hard to see. hi, my name is lawsuit, how are you?

overly tan girls in white earmuffs, white bras, white mini skirts and white furry boots were dancing. a girl in a white unitard was inside of a plexiglass box, writhing. my wristband entitled me to 3 free coors lights. i decided to have one.

10pm. more waiting. spotted jean claude the funky pirate. watched guys taking cell phone photos of the grinding girl in the box.

10:30. drank my second beer. vowed never to drink coors light ever, ever again.

11:00. my feet hurt. my adidas snakeskin fleetwoods, while stylish, lack proper arch support.

11:45pm. publicist materializes out of nowhere. we (and a guy from rolling stone) are hustled through the crowd, past the bar, past the dancing girl in the box, past the photo op set up where sway is being photographed, behind a big black curtain, through a door, down a ramp, past a trash dumpster, around a corner, up the stairs, to the right, up more stairs, into a dressing room where luda stands, surrounded by entourage, in chanel sunglasses, white track jacket, white track pants, newly cropped hair. he looks different without his signature braids. younger? softer? somehow? we gaze into the opaque tint of his black black shades as he smiles and shakes our hand. he makes a joke with the guy from rolling stone. and then that's it.

11:48pm. back down the stairs around the corner up the ramp, to rejoin the riff raff.

12 midnight. luda puts on a great show. what's your fantasy, throw them bows, area codes, pimpin' all over the world, get out the way, etc. luda has a giant diamond pendant in the shape of the continent of africa. it swings, catches the light, and i get hypnotized. bobby v comes out to help - actually sings. chamillionaire - lumbers on to the stage in a hoodie and dark glasses, shakes some hands, hangs out and then disappears.

1:30am. i get home and pass out.

today. i got just my luck on dvd via work and i think that's what i'm going to do tonight - it looks sucktastic and brain numbing, which is just what i need.

seer, sucker!

last night i had lovely outdoor cocktails in the yard at the soho grand.

an older dude in a seersucker suit was playing records and speaking into the microphone.

"donald sutherland is in the house!" he said. and later, "kate moss is in the house!"

um, huh? what? i did see fred schneider and david hershkovits. as i was leaving i stopped at the door and asked the young skinny black guy in a skinny black v neck and skinny black jeans, "is kate moss here?"

skinny black guy laughed, "no, that guy is a joker."

i made it home in time to watch project runway.

oh! but before drinks, i had a mostly delicious salad at lucky strike, and i was prompted to write the following letter:

dear endive,

i don't like your attitude. take your bitterness somewhere else.


love,
me

link of the day:
when you're a prep, you're a prep all the way.

that was then this is now

saturday was about lying in the meadow, burning off any impurities accumulated during the week.

having my sister in town has been fantastic. the meadow is our old stomping grounds. there was a summer in the 90s that we spent every single day in the meadow. we knew the topography - frisbee players over there, burnout hippie kids here, serious tanners to the left. we were friends with all the meadow characters: the one-eyed beer man, cyko, johnjohn. we were there the day shoshonna came over and said she'd met jerry seinfeld over at the food hut. eric nies, the rudolph stoner kids, the guy with the dog named freedom.

that was then, this is now.

soaking up the sun i saw a meadow first - a threesome of twentysomethings quietly and disceetly doing coke.

hi, it's 89° and you're in broad daylight, i wanted to say. but i didn't.

after we'd had all the sun we could take we split up to reconvene at
temple bar for classy gin and tonics and complimentary popcorn. then it was QUICK! SKEDADDLE! to the liquor store before it closed - and we got there as the gates were coming down. "owen nearly rolled underneath indiana jones-style" my sister proclaimed. owen's thing is to pay for things with $2 bills, don't ask.

so we picked up gin, champagne and beer and headed over to hang with shane and his gf. lots of goodies in the apt, including an animatronic chimp whom my sister promptly fell in love with. you can take the girl out of vet school but you can't take the vet school out of the girl.

the situation at shane's deteriorated until we drunkly invaded mcdonald's at about 2am. what happened after that i don't know. but i woke up sunday with only a little time to get ready and bike to a bbq in the west village.

i tried not to drink for the first hour or so, and then decided hair of the dog is where it's at. drank cold-ass budweiser out of the can like what.

bbq convo turned to words that don't really exist but should.

par example:

booze poos (noun) the loose, nasty kind of crap you have after a night of drinking. (contributed by my sister)

marinoia (noun) the irrational suspicion/paranoia brought on by smoking copious amounts of pot. (contributed by owen)

cockstar (noun) a guy who is scorching hot in bed. (contributed in absentia by my girl james)

(for previous girlhattan bon mots, click here)


eventually, the sun was going down and we walked down charles lane past nicole kidman's apartment to the river. there was a salsa class happening, the river was shimmering, and we were quietly happy. owen handed me his iPod and he'd cued up some sweeping beethoven written after the composer'd gone deaf. emotional, epic, dramatic and the perfect fit. goosebumps!

i biked home after dark, budweiser seeping out through my pores. another gorgeous weekend in girlhattan.

and last night, the positive, amazing energy of manu chao in prospect park. hundreds of bodies dripping with sweat jumping up and down to the rockreggae vibes, singing in spanish, english and french - flags from colombia, cuba, morocco... pure happiness and love. about 12 encores. because the no one wanted it to end.

my gift to you:

manu chao - desaparecido

manu chao - clandestino

on and on til the break of dawn

pictures first, words later. i went to see manu chao in brooklyn last night and my energy level (after going out wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday and sunday) is perilously close to E.

bear with me.