So I broke my leg rather badly rather recently. An acquaintance sent a "get will" missive, accompanied by an explicit assumption that "there's a great story there ( Read more... )

My ears are full of The National lately. I heard Terrible Love on the radio and was struck hard enough to stagger into the rest of their discography. For what it's worth, "Terrible Love" sounds nothing like anything else they've done (with rare exception); I'm pretty sure Fleet Foxes commandeered the studio for that track and then peeled out of ( Read more... )

Yuppy grows a tomato. Is shocked to learn that "buying the stuff that dreadlock-guy at the co-op suggested" is not actually sufficient to transform her suburban astroturf into the allegorically fecund soil of proto-Narnia circa The Magician's Nephew. Closes article by saying: "The moral: Money-saving exercises often aren't money-saving at all ( Read more... )

So, no time to cook. I'll just nuke some steam-in-bag broccoli. Of course, that won't be very filling. Might as well melt some cheddar on top. Except that's just thick and greasy. Would it really kill me to make a simple cheese sauce? Okay, got the butter melting for the roux, let's open the fridge and-- hey, I forgot about the half container ( Read more... )

I'm going to commit a bit of geek heresy now: Joss Whedon is not a hero of feminism. True, he challenges the dominant portrayal of women as weak and insipid caricatures who exist only to be dragged from one sexually-themed plot/characterization point to the next. But he does so with a portrayal of women as strong and aggressive caricatures who ( Read more... )

When first I came to Minneapolis from my tiny little town, I would wander the streets and wonder. Ofttimes I'd board a random bus and just ride until it stopped, before walking my way home. I'd stare half-focused out the window, lost in contemplation of the movement and the marvels that passed by, the press of unprecedented crowds that somehow ( Read more... )

Am I the only one whose reaction upon seeing Pushing Tin was: "Huh. Amadeus with airplanes."?

The stupidest smart thing I ever did, I did alone and never told.
( Lots of words, little focus )

As I know you all take my off-hand references to books as weighty and profound endorsements, I feel a sense of responsibility to disclaim my earlier enthusiasm for Fred Vargas. The characterization was indeed a series of marvels in miniature. But the author managed something I didn't know was possible: I felt that I really knew the characters, ( Read more... )

Over the years, this blog has served many purposes: political rants, angsty diary entries, random essays, trouser fixations, media reviewing, meme-sheeping, link-spamming, inexplicable sharing of minutia, and so on. But I've never talked about my cats or my lunch. Today I'm going to break one of those "nevers". I would've broken both at once, ( Read more... )