Zugenia's Procrastination Salon

1. Atlas Sound - Walkabout
2. Cream - Anyone for Tennis
3. The Cats and the Fiddle - Killin' Jive
4. Wire - Champs
5. Psapp - Dad's Breakdown
6. The Beach Boys - I Just Wasn't Made for These Times
7. Palace Brothers - I Am a Cinematographer
8. Doris Troy - Just One Look
9. Beck - Today Has Been a Fucked Up Day
10. Altered Images - I Could Be Happy
11. The Moldy Peaches - Who's Got the Crack
12. Powder - Snap, Crackle, Pop
13. The Three O'Clock - Fall to the Ground
14. Yonlu - Katie Don't Be Depressed
15. The Walkmen - Lost in Boston
16. Sam Roberts - The Canadian Dream
17. Lady & Bird - Suicide Is Painless
18. Elliott Smith - Wouldn't Mama Be Proud
19. Louis Jordan - Junco Partner
20. Charlie Rich - The Most Beautiful Girl
21. Sufjan Stevens - We Won't Need Legs to Stand
22. Bo Diddly - I'm High Again
23. The Smiths - That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
24. Doris Duke - Let Love Touch Us Now
25. Bob Dylan - Talking World War III Blues

Download INFINITE JEST: THE MIXTAPE

See also Love in XXXess and Swann in Love

The latest installment of the Literature As Mixtape series is inspired by Eliza Haywood's steamy 1719–20 serial Love in Excess, which you should read if you have not. But first, listen.


Track list:
1. Scout Niblett -- Too Much Love To Do
2. Bananarama -- Move in My Direction
3. Otis Rush -- Violent Love
4. Barbara Lynn -- I Don't Want a Playboy
5. Stevie Wonder -- Part-Time Lover
6. Buddy & Julie Miller -- You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast
7. Ann Peebles -- (I Feel Like) Breaking Up Someone's Home
8. The Toppers -- (I Love to Play Your Piano) Let Me Bang Your Box
9. The Donnas -- Get Rid of that Girl
10. Björk -- Big Time Sensuality
11. Al Green -- One Nite Stand
12. Richard Hell & The Voidoids -- Love Comes in Spurts
13. Prince -- Peach
14. All Girl Summer Fun Band -- Oh No
15. The Boswell Sisters -- Was That the Human Thing to Do
16. Percy Sledge -- You Really Got a Hold on Me
17. The Blow -- Long List of Girls
18. Blondie -- Heart of Glass
19. Little Eva -- The Trouble With Boys
20. Larry Williams -- Make a Little Love
21. Suzi Quatro -- Four Letter Words
22. Saint Etienne -- Only Love Can Break Your Heart
23. David Bowie -- Fill Your Heart

Download LOVE IN XXXESS: THE MIXTAPE


See also Swann in Love

At some point in the past few days, I realized that the review I'd planned to write of Swann's Way had gone from marinating to disintegrating. I'm not saying that I'll never write it, but I'm in the middle of writing a chapter and I can't take the time right now to do it justice. So I did what any self-respecting literary scholar would do instead, and made Swann a mixtape.






Download SWANN IN LOVE: THE MIXTAPE

Have you seen the ASL cover of "If U Seek Amy"?



SO MUCH BETTER than that Sia video.

Good news for those of you in the Northwest Arkansas area: this Sunday night, D will be hosting a Mystery Train night at Fayetteville's new whiskey bar, Smoke & Barrel. See video promo:


Mystery Train: Live @ the Smoke & Barrel Tavern from Derek Jenkins on Vimeo.

See you Sunday.

Thanks for all the sympathy and virtual hugs and cocktails. My last post actually worried my parents a little bit, so I want to assure everyone that my good humor remains essentially intact. Last night I went home from work and cleaned the bathrooms and the bedroom and today I feel much better.

For all my griping about the Catholic marriage-prep weekend, I did benefit from it in some ways. My favorite lesson was on making "life-giving" choices in marriage rather than "life-draining" ones. Surprisingly, this was not the lesson on Natural Family Planning. It was, rather, about becoming aware of how your choices and actions affect other people, and striving to be a positive rather than negative force in other people's lives. As part of this ongoing process, I have begun to categorize everything in my life as either "life-giving" or "life-draining." A clean bathroom is life-giving; a filthy bathroom is life-draining. Having to navigate Bikes, Blues, and BBQ on your way to work is life-draining, but getting to tell your students funny stories about your runs-in with bikers at the beginning of class is life-giving. Waking up to find that your puppy has pooped on the floor is a little life-draining, but puppy kisses first thing in the morning are very life-giving, so the puppy is overall a life-giving element. You get the idea.

Well, while missing Jenny Lewis's set at the end of a very long and trying day and having to settle for the likes of Conor Oberst is life-draining, Jenny Lewis remains quintessentially life-giving, and so I urge you to follow the link below to watch this beautiful video by Autumn Wilde for Rilo Kiley's track "Silver Lining":


Watch video for "Silver Lining"

This week on The Pop Tart: You ain't No Big Thing to Holly Golightly; Brigitte Bardot gets ready for Bikes, Blues, and BBQ; Lady Z professes her love for Jenny Lewis; Bob Wilson and his Varsity Rhythm Boys confirm that Yes, We Have No Bananas!—and, as always, much, much more.

Download THE POP TART 9/22/08

Lady Z: I have the new Death Cab for Cutie...

D: Great. Are you driving your own car?

Lady Z: ...and Okkerville River...

D: So it's just all emo, all the time today, huh?

Lady Z: ...ooh! And the new Frightened Rabbit.

D: Awesome. How about Sad Kitten? Despondent Moppet?

Lady Z: Never mind.

Despite the fact that several of his freelance employers are behind in paying him, so that we are lately eking out a living by not spending superfluous cash or, more frequently, feeling guilty when we do, D's quiet infiltration of mainstream culture continues apace. See this piece in the Arkansas Times, which tracks the buzz on his article in last summer's Oxford American on singer Teddy Grace: it received a shout-out from Ben Greenman at the New Yorker website, and may be the source and inspiration of a track on Elvis Costello's new album.

Also, tomorrow we hit the road so D can interview Judge Reinhold at the Little Rock Film Festival. I sense that an episode of Lady Z Gets Drunk with Judge Reinhold and Asks Him Too Many Questions About Fast Times at Ridgemont High is likely, if not inevitable.

It will make excellent material for my future testimonials on "D: The E! True Hollywood Story."

What else? The other night we went to see "Iron Man," and I agree with everything o_jenny said. It was way fun, everything that "Transformers" should have been and was not. Much of that had to do with the presence of one Mr. Robert Downey, Jr. He is at the top of my list of Celebrities I Am Allowed to Go Home With If Ever Given the Opportunity. (Incidentally, I believe the existence of such lists is entirely necessary to a healthy long-term relationship. Some time ago, however, I heard from a friend who experienced a crisis of sorts when the opportunity to go home with a member of her list actually materialized, and she wasn't sure if the list—or, more precisely, its permissions—were "real" or not. I suggest ironing out such details preemptively with one's partner.) The ONLY thing that might have made the movie better is if it had been the movie D and I fantasized about on our way to the movie theater, in which Robert Downey, Jr. actually plays himself hitting rock-bottom in the Hollywood spiral of leisurely self-destruction, checks himself into rehab, and there, fashions himself a flying robot suit and emerges a shiny superhero.

What else? Our house is infested with tiny ants. It is extremely annoying. They are also in my car.

What else? Pretty much all puppy, all the time. See dog blog for further accounts of cuteness and destruction. Life with puppy, today, means waking up at noon on the couch with a wet, snorfling nose in my face—not knowing how long I've been lying here or whether I managed in my early morning somnambulism to feed her, but certain that the moment I sit up I will find evidence of Bad Behavior.

What else? My office iMac completely self-destructed last week, and, armed with only my new MacBook, a firewire cable, and my Googling skills, I managed to diagnose the problem (a "kernel panic" of sorts) and, after three days of strife, to fix it (by doing some fancy footwork with the system folder). It seems my years of procrastinating on Macs have turned me into a semicompetent computer technician. Does that count as a marketable skill?

On the last PopCast before Lady Z's summer hiatus: Chicks on Speed don't play guitars, Camera Obscura are ready to be heartbroken, and Patti Page wonders about that doggie in the window. Then Lady Z makes like The Breeders and gets Fortunately Gone until the fall semester.

Download The Pop Tart 4/30/08

Linda Scott tells every little star, Daniel Rossen covers Jo Jo, and Jens Lekman sings a farewell song to Rocky Dennis. Tous les garcons et les filles agree: listen to this week's show!

Download THE POP TART 4/16/08

This week on THE POP TART: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs get the Diplo treatment, Sergio Mendes meets some Black Eyed Peas, Weezer channel Buddy Holly, Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans revive a (racist?) Disney classic, and Usher sings in the rain!

Download THE POP TART 4/9/08

This week: learn the Peanut Duck and the Popeye Waddle! From Darlene Love to Debbie Harry, it's Monkey Time, as usual.

Also, I Love Egg.

Download The Pop Tart 4/2/08

On last week's installment of THE POP TART, The Velvelettes pave the way for Bananarama, Julie Brown has more fun, Peggy Lee might be racist, and Annie answers the perennial question, "Chocolate or chewing gum?"

Download THE POP TART 3/26/08

Or subscribe to the PopCast!

Just watch, as an unlikely heroine appropriates Mariah Carey to unite the Bulgarian people.

Part I:



Part II:

I know it's time for 2007 to be over because last night I almost cried watching "The E! True Hollywood Story: Britney Spears: Fall From Grace." Oh, it's been a sad year for the Brit. But chin up, girl; if Leslie Hall is any indication, the future looks bright. I'm goin' to a big-ass party at the Old Post Office tonight and kickin' it like this:



This is how we go out, indeed. Happy new year, everyone.

So, as you may or may not have discovered a couple weeks ago, my last scheduled Pop Tart show was unfortunately displaced by a Lady Razorbacks basketball game. The following week, I was in New York for Thanksgiving. I've got a playlist burning a hole through my computer, and I just discovered that there's another basketball game tonight. It will probably be over in time for me to play for a little while, but that's just not enough, especially since I have to haul my butt up off the couch and back to campus to do this thing. So no Pop Tart again tonight.

Instead, I give you the video of one of the centerpieces of tonight's would-be show, "Je Veux Te Voir" by French pop sensation Yelle. I don't care that Derek thinks this is a mere M.I.A. rip-off. While no one will replace M.I.A. in my heart of hearts, I've got a supercrush on this little pop-teuse...

Leave it to D to find a website that is not only fascinating enough to keep me occupied for an entire afternoon, but also arguably related to my actual work:

The Musical Cliché Figure Signifying The Far East: Whence, Wherefore, Whither?

Compiled by a mysterious Mr. Martin Nilsson, a man on a curious mission, this site tracks the evolution of that little tune we Westerners use to signify the Orient. (You know what I'm talking about—that "do-do-do-do/do do/do do/dooo" tune.)¹ He writes of his project:

What is the point of gathering this information? Why is it interesting?

Well, to begin with some people might find it fascinating simply to regard the manifold of instances of the cliché, with a collector's mind, and admire the variety: "hardly two instances are alike."

And the project provides for a bit of a challenge since computerized search methods for musical material aren't quite as developed as those for text.

But more to the point it feels from some perspective curiously peculiar that a certain very short, concentrated musical figure (that might not be directly in opposition to the way actual Chinese music sounds, but which in any case I wouldn't think is especially typical of traditional Chinese music) can become representative of something to such a degree that everybody will think or feel "Chinese" as soon as it's played. Especially since there doesn't seem to be a clear famous earliest instance which establishes the association and which all subsequent instances are citing; rather the process seems very gradual and evolutionary.

For those of you who wonder what I do when I'm not procrastinating, I pose similar questions about material chinoiserie, or "Chinesey" things, in eighteenth-century British culture. But I've always been curious about the little Kung Fu Fighting melody, and Nilsson's research is very interesting indeed. So procrastinate away, folks—you won't even notice that you're learning something!

---

¹ Those of you lucky enough to meet D in person some day can ask him about his million-dollar idea, the "Pocket Ethnomusicologist," which puts such little ditties to work transforming everyday cultural encounters into full-blown exotic fantasies! Is it racist? Shouldn't you be asking, is it brilliant?

...you should be reading the new issue of the Oxford American, their 2007 Music Issue. Derek has a fantastic piece in there about Teddy Grace, a blues singer who fell off the map after losing her voice singing for soldiers in World War II, and it comes with an awesome CD.

I'm filling up my iPod for the long, uphill walk to today's tailgating extravaganza. Today the Hogs are playing North Texas, whose mascot is apparently an eagle of some kind, and I've been promised that a turkey will be fried in their dishonor. Obviously, they had me at "fried." Sooie!

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means. I'm pretty excited about tonight's show; I've got some wacky stuff lined up, plus I'll be debuting a mid-show segment called "Is It Racist?"—a fun new game for the whole family! Some more news:

Those of you on Facebook can join my new Facebook group.

You can now email requests and comments directly to poptartgirl [at] mac [dot] com.

I'm working on a podcast.

And as always (well, most of the time), you can listen live online tonight and every Wednesday from 8-10 pm (central).

This morning, as I refilled my coffee cup at Common Grounds, I overhead this breakfasting middle-aged good ol' boy say to his wife, "The thing about the Yankees is that they simply have no sense of history," and I had no idea whether he was talking about my team or my people.

My apologies to those of you unable to tune into The Pop Tart last night—our internet stream was all messed up for some reason. I'll look into it and try my best to have it fixed ASAP. By the way, as long as you've got your KXUA feed set up in your computer, you should tune in Mondays from 6-8 (Central Standard Time) for Derek's show, Mystery Train, which features Blues, R&B, Rockabilly, & Doo Wop, and describes itself on the station website thus: "The Mystery Train came 'round the bend long about 1953, pulling behind it sixteen coaches of raunchy decadence and earthy heartache. Blind Derek Jenkins unpacks the musical load that gave birth to Rock & Roll every Monday night." Filthy boy!

I taught Swift's Tale of a Tub today—a feat which involved performative digressions on Britney's VMA debacle, the mere fact of Perez Hilton's career, my own sick penchant for E! news and catty celebrity-watch blogging, and the time I inadvertently dismantled a friend and colleague's newly hatched professional persona with an admirably Swiftian email—and I'm exhausted. Tonight Derek's giving a talk on the camp legacy of Irma Vep for TheatreSquared's production of "The Mystery of Irma Vep." I feel like I need a coffee just to get me through his schedule.

At the risk of reducing the Procrastination Salon a mere vehicle of repetitive self-promotion, I must admit that the only thing I have to say right now is that you should listen to The Pop Tart on KXUA tonight from 8-10pm (central time), because the playlist is the only thing I accomplished today besides heating up and downing a can of soup. Because I've been so lame about blogging lately, I shall now try to distract you from said lameness with the definitively unlame video to M.I.A.'s "Jimmy."

Well, people, my original radio show concept (which I'd decided to call Kamikaze Girls, and which was going to kick ass) didn't work out, due to the fact that some other girl got in there with her girl-rock show first. But I have rallied with what might be an even awesomer show:

THE POP TART with Lady Z
sweet sounds from way back and way out!

Every Wednesday night from 8-10pm, starting TONIGHT, I'll be spinning the heart-breakin'est, booty-shakin'est pop tunes from the '40s to the present, and you'll be dropping those books and hitting the dance floor, because, as Blind Derek Jenkins once said, "Why be a pedant when you can be a pop tart?"

If you're in Fayetteville, you can tune your radio to KXUA 88.3 FM; if not, you can listen online.

'kay, friends, I need your help once again. It seems your salonstress may have the opportunity to host her very own radio show on our own college station, and, as you may or may not know, I have dreamt of being a radio DJ ever since I became addicted to late-night WBER ("the only station that matters") as a surly-yet-hopeful adolescent stuck in Rochester, NY.

Despite Derek's brilliant suggestion that I host a karaoke show, where people call in and request songs for me to perform on the air, I think I'm going with an all girl-band concept—girl groups from the Supremes to the Runaways to FannyPack. Thing is, I need a killer show name. This morning I woke up thinking "Boys, Booze, and Bikinis," but I need something a bit more pithy so I don't trip over my own show name every time I say it. Here's where you come in, dear readers. Get out those old Donnas CDs and bring the pith!

Has there ever been anything, in the whole history of the interwebs, half as fantastic as the design of MIA's website?

The answer is no.

Also, if you can watch the video for "Boyz" fewer than fifty times in a row, you have more willpower than I do.

It's to see the SPICE GIRLS REUNION TOUR.



I believe a karaoke celebration is in order.

I can't tell you how good it is to live in a major city again. No offense to the smaller towns where I've hung my hat—not that I have a hat—of late, but I'm finding it rejuvenating to wake up every day and walk into streets full of people, to carve out a routine in a culture thick with routines. I love the anonymity of city life, and how people park themselves at tables on the sidewalk with a book and a coffee and that's what they're doing for the day, and how, at the end of the day, when you think, What should I do now?, there are all these things to do.

Here's what I've done in the past week, besides read 17th-century travelogues at the Newberry:

• Saw Andrew Bird play a free show at his alma mater, Northwestern. One of the most gorgeous live performances I've ever seen. He's a classically trained violinist and a one-man troubadour who tours with a violin, a guitar, a looping device, and an immaculately dressed sock monkey. He speaks quietly, seriously, like he's turning ideas into lullabies; he sings like he's thinking aloud in musical phrases. I've been listening to his latest album all week, thinking about how he makes words mean what they sound like. Frankly, I'm a little in love with him.



• Karaoke at Friar Tuck's, where the bartender knows everyone's name and I saw a guy turn 21 and drink an obligatory shot out of the ass of an inflatable sheep.



• Saw the live show screening of Guy Maddin's recent creation, Brand Upon the Brain!, performed at the historic Music Box Theater with (in the words of the promotional material) "an 11-piece LIVE orchestra, a 5-piece LIVE Foley (sound effects) team a LIVE celebrity narrator [Crispin Glover], and Castrato supplementing the filmic image to comprise a one-of-a-kind cinematic spectacle." Freakin' amazing!



• Drinks at our local lesbian bar, The Closet, with Chris's friend Igor, a charming novelist who apparently won the equivalent of the "Croatian Pulitzer" for his first book, and who was slightly disappointed by the relatively low lesbian turnout at the bar that night. "I like it," he said, "you know—a little bit gayer."



• All-you-can-eat fish & chips at The Duke of Perth with esteemed colleagues David & Gwynne, who graciously picked up the check despite the fact that I misjudged the time of our date by over an hour. I also joined them the next day to see a film at my neighborhood Landmark Cinema.

In the coming weeks, Chris and I have tickets to see The Rosebuds and The National, and my sister's flying out next week for a Cubs game (did I mention I live blocks from Wrigley Field?), and tonight I'm going to see Kelly Link, Nick Mamatas, Ron Currie, Jr., and Lance Olsen read their stuff, because it turns out I'm living in the city where the Bookslut Reading Series happens.

I'm like a fish that's been tossed back into the lake.

Blame it on the rain?

Apparently, there's a Milli Vanilli biopic in the works.

Oh, it hurts. The laughing; the anticipation.

[wipes tear]

When can I buy tickets?

The latest in the "Sinister or Satire?" file: bloggers can't figure out if LoveGodsWay.org founder Donnie Davies is a brilliant comedian or a bonafide nutjob. Neither can I. Either way, he has helpfully provided a comprehensive list of bands that will make you gay if you listen to them. If he's right, I myself am gay about a million times over. Huzzah!

(These bands, on the other hand, will not make you gay. Donnie does not specify whether these non-gay-makers have any kind of antidotal effect on the gay-making music—whether, for example, one can counteract the gay effects of Elton John, The Polyphonic Spree, or Kansas with a heavy dosage of Falling Up, Jars of Clay, or (perplexingly) Cyndi Lauper. If anyone out there would care to take one for the team and let us know if these bands actually make one less gay, we'll send you some Le Tigre, Queen, and Judas Priest (???) stat and get you gayed back up in no time.)

I thought, when I first approached the computer, that I was going to share all kinds of details about the past week of my life, including how I've been frequenting an establishment called the Electric Cowboy and I'm a little in love with this handsome young cowboy who line dances like nobody's business; and how I hate Bank of America right now with a visceral passion that blurs my vision when I think about it; and how I made my first midnight trip to Sonic last night, officially kicking off my acculturation to southern living; and how it's game day in Razorback country, which is something of which I've never seen the likes, and I'm not kidding about this because yesterday evening as I was having a drink on Dickson Street, a truck drove by carrying a troupe of cheerleaders doing pig calls from the roof of a pen containing an actual boar, who, I later learned, is not really a razorback but a 425-pound male Russian boar named Tusk who resembles a razorback closely enough to serve as our official mascot, and I swear I've been halfway around the world and back and I've never seen anything like that truck driving down Dickson Street, and how I plan to devote the entire day to tailgating and after-parties, which is the one part of football I understand.

But then Z sent me this, and I thought, not even an Arkansas cheerleader calling an actual hog can compare with APACHE:

o_jenny's wish is my command, so here's the debrief on tonight's show. The evening really began when, over a burrito dinner and a margarita at a joint across the street from the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, I realized that I was wearing my bright pink Go-Go's "Our Lips Are Sealed" t-shirt (thank you, Target). I said to Z, "I can't wear this t-shirt to a Willie Nelson show. People will think I'm lost." But I didn't have much choice, so I decided I would just roll with it and shout requests for such hits as "Vacation" and "Head Over Heels."¹

You can't make up someone like Willie Nelson. After the unfortunate opening act (more on that below, maybe), as we sat around waiting for the real show to begin, a rotund man in shorts came onstage to deliver a lecture on Mr. Nelson's myriad accomplishments.² He informed us, for example, that Willie has "six new albums out," each of which has received some sort of rave review from "the Rolling Stones Magazine," one of which is a reggae album, and the sixth of which is actually three old albums, so I guess he actually has eight new albums out, except they aren't all new. In his spare time, Willie has authored three books, including The Tao of Willie, which I imagine is what The Tao of Pooh would be if Pooh smoked a lot of weed.

This tour, I should point out, is technically the Willie Nelson & Family tour, because Willie has personally sired about half of his band. Most of them play superfluous percussion instruments, but one plucky young chap named Lukas (who is to blame, I believe, for the opening act, a feeble roots-lite jam band from Hawaii who call themselves, in total earnestness, Harmonic Tribe) plays electric guitar and sings back-up vocals. At one point he wowed the crowd with what Z aptly described as a "very Oedipal guitar solo." I found Lukas a little high school Battle of the Bands for my taste, but I admit it was cute when he and Willie played duelling guitars at the end.

Willie himself rocks. He sings like a jazz vocalist, making strange melodies sound beguilingly easy. He kicks a whole world of ass on a beat-up acoustic guitar. I spent the first third of the show wishing everyone except Willie and his little sister Bobbie (on piano) would shut up and go away so I could focus on the actual music. Eventually the band came together and I could stop cursing the Nelson spawn and just listen. It was a gorgeous set, a medley of standards and classics and covers and gospel and blessedly free of any trace of the recent reggae experiment.³

Z, I should mention, is a good date for a show like this. He is very good at explaining things like why Willie Nelson's "perverse approach to melody" makes him such a surprisingly awesome guitar soloist, and at observing things like how "each new song [performed by Harmonic Tribe] achieves a new level of suck." Plus he bought the tickets. I'd go out with him again.

---

¹I did not actually do this.

²I am not convinced this man was actually affiliated with the show in any official capacity.

³This is not to say, however, that I have entirely given up the reggae album for lost. Part of me thinks it may be oddly brilliant. I'll give it a listen soon and report back.

As some of you know, I kind of totally love Journey. This morning I saw the video for their epic anthem of lost love, "Separate Ways," for the first time.

It is, shot for shot, all 4 minutes and 31 seconds of it, the funniest thing I have ever seen. For the love of the rock gods, click the image above.

Oh, those lost days of primitive music video.

I have been so remiss in my blogging duties. I believe this has been the longest lapse in between posts since I started keeping this LJ, and I have no good excuse, except that I've been moving and I hate moving so my mind and body shut down and enter a state of deep hibernation, waiting, waiting for it all to be over.

It is not over.

I've vacated the Main Line and am back in Rhode Island. Last weekend, Z and I sojourned to sunny Fayetteville and found an apartment. Nothing glamorous, but it does have a dishwasher—an appliance about which I have been fantasizing for the last 8 years, I am not ashamed to say—and a washer and dryer, and central air, and a swimming pool. So that's that. I'm not homeless. Hurrah.

The best evidence I can offer of the trauma inflicted on me by the moving experience is the fact that I am retreating deep into the post-Glitter world, not for solace, obviously, which is the last thing to be found in the PGW, but just out of a psychopathic compulsion to take my abjection to the outer limits. Sunday night, nkb_vp_ltl and I, knowing full well that it was a Bad Idea of the Highest Order, purchased several cans of a product called Diet Rockstar, which promised that the consumer would "Party Like a Rockstar." Indeed, as we used the Diet Rockstar to help wash down every last trace of hard alcohol in my apartment (the only part of packing I have enjoyed so far), we did party like one big-ass rockstar.

After imbibing Diet Rockstar, NKB and Lady Z partied more like Snoop Dogg than like Rod Stewart, obviously.

Tonight NKB and I are hosting a little get-together during which we will inflict Mariah Carey's cinematic house of postmodern horrors on an audience of Glitter virgins. NKB's brilliant Glitter Drinking Game shall be our vehicle into unknown circles of hell. I cordially invite you all to play along.

Once fully descended into the PGW, we'll be heading over to Murray's for karaoke. If I live to see another day, I'll offer a report either here or over at isawglitter.blogspot.com.

Glitter and out.

( Trashy But Lady (a mix for NKB): the track list )

ATTENTION: Karen O. of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs has lost her growl. It was last seen cavorting with her grunt, her screech, and her squeal nowhere near the new album Show Your Bones. If you find it, for the love of punk, please return it to her immediately.

Thank you.

I'm in the office and I really, really, really have to finish writing an article manuscript by the end of the day ... but I can't stop playing the song "Nerdy Boys" by Candypants and singing along.

You can download it by clicking that link, but I will not be held responsible for the screeching halt to which your work life will come when you do.

Which Rock Chick Are You?

They better be talkin' the old-school, Ask For It, Live Through This, messed-up-lipstick-torn-babydoll-dresses-and-a-whole-lotta-mad-girl-kick-ass Courtney Love that hooked Kurt Cobain, and not the plastic monstrosity she's recently become.

Overheard at the Society Hill Hotel bar last evening:

Man: Well, it looks like we've done it all: lunch, breakfast, and now dinner.
Woman: Yes.
Man: What's next? Should we get married?
Woman: No.

In other news, I made a noteworthy integrated false pun sighting yesterday. In Philly's Suburban East Station, there exists a smoothie shop named ... (wait for it) ... The Enerjuicer.

In more encouraging news, my Sing that iTune! widget appears to know all the words to Public Enemy's "Cold Lampin' With Flavor." So that's something.

Well, the disappointing news is that the link I provided to Mothers Against Noise in a recent post is defunct because, apparently, fraudulent.

The consoling news is that it was a satire of an actual Mothers Against Noise organization, the reality of which is almost as funny as the parody. [See note below.]

Thank Gods Order (as M.A.N. would say) for small consolations on this evening, when I learned that I came this close to landing my dream job against the odds, but not quite close enough.

Edited to add: Thank you, irascignavojo, for further info on the M.A.D. marketing conspiracy. Yes, it turns out when it comes to an actual, cyber-registered clan of God-fearing, noise-hating mothers, there is in fact no there there. It is all a simulacrum of paranoia designed to delight bored and jaded internet junkies such as your Lady hostess and rally interest in a handful of relatively unknown bands. That said, the merchandise is still quite entertaining, and now I can actually buy some without supporting some crazy fringe of culture nazis (though I would be pouring more money into the music industry). Also, some of the featured bands are really quite good, if you're into "a systematic distorition [sic] away from everything that is good and towards our destruction as a people," which, as you know, I am.

I should add that Z, who first alerted me to the M.A.D. phenomenon, very cunningly observed from the start that no group of Mad Mommies would know about half the bands on their list of targets. Several of them are on the same label as Z's own noisy outfit.

Apparently some twisted tardbag stole a baby penguin from an English zoo.

Baby penguin to tardbag: "Who you callin' jackass, jackass?"

Police said Thursday they feared the worst for a baby penguin whose plight has prompted headlines around the world after he was stolen from a British zoo five days ago.

Toga, a three-month-old Jackass penguin, was snatched on Saturday night from the Amazon World zoo on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England.

Zoo managers think he might have been stolen as a Christmas present by thieves inspired by the hit documentary film "March of the Penguins."

But they warned that unless the brown and white colored Toga was swiftly returned, he would die.

This is so sad I can't even bring myself to joke about the stunning fact that there is such a thing as a "Jackass penguin."

In less depressing news, I made a quick run back to Philly yesterday to pick up some things from my apartment (student papers, books, several pairs of Potential Interview Shoes) and found a flurry of lovely Christmas (and other holiday) cards in my mailbox. Thank you, card-senders from around the world! And a big thank you to all my LJ friends for being an essential part of this enormous, eventful past year. I never imagined, when I started a LiveJournal last January, that I was embarking on a series of important friendships.

Okay, here's why I shouldn't get sentimental while typing and eating lunch at the same time: I just spilled couscous all over my computer. Fuck.

Final note: Today's soundtrack thoughtfully provided by the magnificent madame_urushiol, who sent me a CD of pirate shanties by singing outfit The Jolly Rogers. Cutlass, Cannon and Curves gives "bootylicious" a whole new meaning.

If you think this picture is funny, you should go here to read the caption.

It'd be hilarious if only he weren't actually our President.

According to the accompanying Washington Post article, Bush has explained his apparent lack of interest in actually visiting any of the places around the world to which his job sends him by stating that he "lives in a bubble." I wish he did. I wish someone had considered such a containment strategy years ago. Unfortunately, the "bubble" to which the man refers is simply an imprecise metaphor for the complexity of Presidential security detail.

The story behind the photo:

After some back and forth about Iraq and China, Ken Herman of Cox News Service asked why in the earlier session with Hu the president had "seemed a little off your game."

"Have you ever heard of jet lag?" Bush asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, good. That answers your question."

Herman had another. But Bush had had enough and headed for the exit.

Except that the double doors he picked to leave through were locked.

Sheepishly, Bush turned back to the press. "I was trying to escape," he said. "It didn't work."

The Post also reports that senior White House officials along for the ride, when the dinner bell rang in South Korea, headed straight for the local Outback Steakhouse.

Is there anything these people do that is not embarrassing?

Spent yesterday not grading papers and instead making mix CDs. I'm waking up to this one, despite the unpromising title:

( Beer Drinkin' Music )

Counting down the hours till I meet Z in South Bend for Thanksgiving. Just over 35 to go.