The Snark Ascending

Game if You Are

2011-12-11T03:23:00.001-08:00

My digital childhood, in a picture.

Scarcely a day goes by you don't see one of those doomsday articles about children and computer games. You know the articles I mean - they're the ones that appear in USA Today in the same section where they publish their latest hard-hitting exposé on celebrity buttock trends for fall. The headlines look something like this:

STUDY: COMPUTER GAMES MAKE CHILDREN THE ANTICHRIST AND ALSO FAT

As a young modern hip hep "with it" texting tweeting Facebooking Skyping youth of the Digital Age, I take offense. I say, computer games have enormous civic and creative value that is in no way compromised by the fact that they make you the Antichrist and also fat. So there.

Know how I know? I was a child who used computer games, and besides the fact that I can count on one hand the number of times I was the Antichrist, I learned many valuable skills, such as how to give a supermodel open face sores on Cosmopolitan Virtual Makeover. This is the sort of thing that good old-fashioned playing outside will frankly NEVER teach you.

Of course, like any good academic, I must back up my findings with evidence from sources. Otherwise, Columbia University - which is sitting behind me as I speak drumming its warty, icy cold fingers on my shoulder and breathing threatening words* into my ear - will rescind my diploma. Of course this would not be any great shame, because - little known fact ahead - the Columbia "diploma" is actually just an elaborate recipe for stuffed peppers, translated into Latin. Since I don't want to break any hearts here, I'm not even going to get into the translation of "summa cum laude."**

So, for a Primary Source, I chose my sister, whose expertise on the subject of The Computer Games of Our Youth stems from the fact that she grew up in the same house as I did and occasionally got into great snarling fights with me over the accusation that I had looked at her artwork when in fact I had only moved my eyeballs over it a little.*** But despite this unhinged world view of hers, I still solicited her opinions on computer games.

For example, I was trying to remember a game called "Hello Kitty Big Fun Piano," which gets its name from the fact that it is about the Oregon Trail. I can remember nearly nothing about Big Fun Piano, which we played when we were about 7 and 3. I did, however, manage to find this picture on Amazon:

Which gives the impression that the program was designed as a tool for musical formation. At first I had my doubts about what kind of effect this would have on your piano technique, but then again I've since learned that Franz Lizst used one of these.

My sister recalls that you could write a song, then manipulate it to make it sound as if it was being barked by dogs or meowed by cats. Frankly, I think it is nothing sort of a tragedy that Liszt did not incorporate this into his own works - who knows what untapped greatness he might have realized.

I also have many fond memories of ...

... "Kid Works 2," which gets its name from the fact that it is neither Kid Works 1 nor 3 and also has to do with the Oregon Trail. Among the many sterling features of this program was a digital drawing pen that, all the while you used it, would play a loud and unpleasant 3-second tune that continued on infinite loop into the next ice age, cheerfully destroying the brain tissue of all within a 10-mile radius.

But far and away the best feature of "Kid Works 2" was: the Story Writer. This was a part where you could (SPOILER) write a story. But this isn't the good part yet, oh no. The good part was that there was ... this voice. This voice that read your story aloud. I believe the voice was named Ralph. He sounded like Marvin the Paranoid Android on steroids. Furthermore - and this was simply the best thing ever**** - Ralph pronounced virtually nothing correctly. For example, "Go to bed with your bear," which I remember because it is a sentence we actually typed,***** became "GO-TO-BED-WITH-YOW-WER-BEER," which at the time caused us to shriek with laughter for approximately six weeks nonstop. If I am not mistaken, this was the occasion on which my young bladder was inadvertently voided on my dad's then-computer chair. I assume I am now forgiven, although I have not expressly checked.

Another entertaining feature of Ralph was his extreme literalness. For example, say you typed a row of the letter i. Ralph would respond by reading, and I quote (and for best effect, you have to imagine this is the funniest thing you have EVER HEARD IN YOUR WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE OH MY GOD EEEEEEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA CAN'T BREATHE):

Ready?

I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I

So instead of sounding like Marvin the Paranoid Android on steroids, Ralph now sounded like Marvin on steroids having a grand mal epileptic seizure. Needless to say, we felt compelled to replay this sound 10,258,520,692 times per day, which needless to say went over big with certain unnamed cartoonists and musicians trying to work in the house:

(Quiet in the house. Sound of youthful typing.

Giggling.

Brief silence.)

RALPH: I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I

ME AND MY SISTER: SHRIEEEEEEEEEK HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA

MY FATHER: TURN THAT OFF!!!

ME AND MY SISTER: OKAY!

(Giggling.

Brief silence.)

RALPH: I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I

ME AND MY SISTER: SHRIEEEEEEEEEK HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA

MY FATHER: TURN THAT OFF!!!

ME AND MY SISTER: OKAY!

(Giggling.

Brief silence.

Repeat as desired)

I have to admit, I miss those days.

But of course even the combined powers of Big Fun Piano and Kid Works 2 do not add up to a well-rounded classical education. No, if you really want to go all out, you will also need:

I speak of old school Rosetta Stone, that is to say before it became a multi-skajillion-dollar industry with kiosks in every airport and Westfield Shoppingtown megacenter, manned by snazzy young men with names like Dustin. I don't know what nouveau Rosetta Stone is like, but back in the day, it was a "must-have" for one extremely crucial educational language-learning reason: it made funny sounds when you got the answer wrong.

For example: say you were learning Italian,****** and you got shown two pictures, a little girl and a car. If the Pleasant Voice said, "una bambina," you were supposed to click on the girl, whereupon you would get a sunny yellow check mark, accompanied by a happy jingle of congratulations. Whereas if you clicked on the car, you would get ... THE DREADED RED X, accompanied by the following sound, which I reproduce faithfully:

weeeeeee-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

So needless to say upon learning of this feature, we never clicked on the right answer again, ever since which discovery we have lived in happy ignorance of "other" languages. The sole exception is my second language, French, which I speak with such fluid precision that the other day someone took me to be from Poland.

For a really really really complete education, I'd say you need only one item more. This item was part of the "Best of Entertainment" mega-pack of games that came with our Windows 95 computer, nicknamed "the Diplodocus." The game was SkiFree, a program of utterly no point whatsoever, which my sister succinctly and accurately sums up as follows:

"In this game, you control a guy who skis down a hill randomly for awhile until a monster comes out of nowhere and eats him."

Yes, computer games teach us Vital Life Lessons, and not only about how to prepare for life in Corporate America. They also teach us how to run away from asteroids. I am thinking here of a time in 1999, when my sister was about 7 and we went to visit my dad's sister and her family. I hung out with the grown-ups while my sister and our cousin Steve, age 8, ensconced themselves down the hall with a game called "Space Rocks." The point of the game, as far as I could tell, was to pilot a spaceship and try not to get hit by asteroids. But those two always got hit, as evidenced by the fact that every 15 minutes or so, they would come careening down the hall screaming, "ABANDON SHIP!!!!!"

It doesn't matter if it's language-learning or asteroid-dodging. I say this is a perfect example of the most pivotal truth computer games have to teach us: it is WAY more fun to lose.

I can hear you Concerned Childhood Educator-types out there now. "But Nicola," you are saying, "don't you realize that by spending so much time playing computer games, you missed out on a REAL CHILDHOOD? WHAT ABOUT GOOD OLD-FASHIONED PLAYING OUTSIDE FOR GOSHSAKES???!!" To which I say, well, yes. Frankly, I did miss out on good old-fashioned playing outside. But it wasn't because of computer games. It was because my childhood occurred in southern Florida, where playing outside was not exactly, let us say, wreathed in fun. For example, I seem to recall that when I took my Sun Colors Pocahontas doll outside one summer, she promptly burst into a ball of flame.

But rest assured, my sister and I had completely enriching and stimulating childhoods despite it all. When we weren't shrieking helplessly at the vocal stylings of Ralph or running away from asteroids, we were engaged in other merry childhood pastimes, such as riding the Tilt-a-Whirl at the county fair while singing, at the top of our lungs - this is true - the songs of Gilbert and Sullivan. I swear we really used to do this. Perhaps this is why we remain friendless.

* "Hey, MEAL PLAN BUTT. Wanna come BACK???"

** "Add salt to taste."

*** Okay, who am I kidding: this still happens.

**** So you had to be there.

***** This sentence may not be reproduced in any form or else I am gonna HUNT YOU DOWN.

****** Italian is funny.

How to Perform for Children

2011-12-08T10:48:00.001-08:00

Some actors think performing for children must be less difficult than performing for adults, but in fact, this is false. On the contrary, performance for children is fraught with great peril, such as the very real chance that one of your public will bite you on the leg.

This really did happen to me the other morning. I had just finished a puppet show and was standing there before my spectator, age 2, when suddenly, totally without warning, there came CHOMPPPP the sensation of approximately 3,527 baby fangs sinking into my right thigh.

The mother apologized profusely, impounding her giggling child in his stroller. "I'm so sorry," she said. "If it makes it any better, it means he likes you."

This was of course a revelation, accompanied in that moment by the confirmation of something I have long suspected: virtually no one has ever really liked me.

But rest assured there is more to performing for children than fending off thigh bites. No; you should also become versed in the use of a tranquilizer gun. I present as explanation the following authentic transcript of one of my puppet shows this past summer in Boston. The text was Rudyard Kipling's The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo, a story with beautiful words that needless to say nobody got to hear:

ME: Not always was the Kangaroo as now we do behold him, but...
SMALL CHILD IN AUDIENCE: blablabla
SMALL CHILD'S MOTHER (at 8,600 decibels*): TYRONE!!!
ME: ... uh ... so he ... he uhh ...

But of course this is all part of the exciting, "by the seat of your pants" aspect of performing, an expression which derives from the fact that, at some point during your performance, you will almost certainly wet the seat of your pants. Nevertheless, as a Seasoned Theatrical Professional,** I always keep going:

ME: ... uh, so he was a different animal, with four short legs. He was grey and...
SMALL CHILD: blablabla
MOTHER: TYRONE!!!
ME: ... and he was ...
SMALL CHILD: blablabla
MOTHER: TYRONE!!! THE LADY'S TRYING TO TALK!!!!
ME: ... and he was woolly and ...
MOTHER: TYRONE!!! AM I GONNA HAVE TO COME OVER THERE AND WHUP YA???!!!

Frankly, I think she was on the right track with the whupping idea, save for the tragic fact that no one volunteered to whup her. I would have courageously volunteered, only I had puppets on my hands, which somewhat hampers your whupping abilities. ("Madam, don't make me come over there, or I shall whup the living doody out of you with this cuddly kangaroo.")

This is why I propose - to you and to the MacArthur Fellowship jury alike - the invention of the Whup-o-Matic, a giant automatic whupping apparatus that you could keep on hand during performances and other special occasions. You could operate it secretly from a tiny remote control concealed somewhere on your person. Say someone started talking during your show; all you'd have to do is oh-so-quietly press one tiny button and (WHUPPAWHUPPAWHUPPAWHUPPAWHUPPA) (SCREAMMMMM) (SUDDEN BEAUTIFUL SILENCE) order would be restored. This would surely be the best news for the theatrical profession since Disney's Beauty and the Beast closed on Broadway, although granted it will be playing in theatres with names like the West Uvula Regional Players until the Nuclear Holocaust.***

But I digress. My point, for all you actors out there who perform for children, is this: despite the immaturity of your public, it's all worth it in the end, when - as you finish the last triumphant flourish of your performance - they squirm around on the floor and cry about random non-issues. This is incredibly prevalent at puppet shows. In fact, I have a pet theory**** of childhood that goes, the amount of anguish a child experiences at an event increases in direct proportion to the event's "fun" quotient. And if you don't believe me, consider THIS made-up statistic: for fiscal year 2010, elementary-school birthday parties were responsible for a solid 92% of world anguish. What's more, when you factor in trips to Chuck E. Cheese, this figure flat-out doubles.*****

Therefore, in order to combat this harrowing state of affairs, here are my

FIVE TIPS FOR PERFORMING FOR CHILDREN:

1. Wear protective thigh gear.

2. Never talk down to the kids - it's the parents who are total morons. Only kidding, parents! Ha ha! Or am I?

3. Therefore, if the kids talk during your performance, just understand that this happens.

4. On the other hand, if the parents talk, you are legally within your rights to impose the death penalty.

5. I don't know what 5 is because Tyrone's mom yelled over it.

Quite frankly, I think you have a beautiful future in children's theatre if you just follow these simple directives and take enough narcotics to maintain your smile. So I highly recommend that you enter the profession, and if it turns out not to suit you, and you find you need someone to commiserate with, I urge you strongly - from the bottom of my heart - don't choose me. Besides, I'm out of commission until these danged thigh wounds heal.

* Although this show occurred in the U.S., I have since moved back to France, thus all figures are in Celsius.
** With headshots, a variety of dialects, AEA eligibility and also measurements. Please contact my agent for further information. I have great hair. I once read most of a play.
*** When cockroaches are the only form of life left on Earth, you can be sure that among their number will be a small but dynamic group belting out "Be Our Guest." Needless to say, these individuals also have headshots.
**** It has a little theory collar and eats Purina Theory Chow.
***** And if you don't believe me, tough.

Home is Where the Crud Is

2011-11-13T02:51:00.001-08:00

DISCLAIMER: I did not draw this drawing, although it is reminiscent of my work.

What, exactly, is “home”? Such a question must beaddressed from a philosophical standpoint. For example, if we turn to the greatphilosophical work Beauty and the Beast,the Disney Broadway musical, we learn that home is where the heart is. This isreally pretty disconcerting when you consider that the heart is located (not tobrag, but I personally underwent several grueling seconds of research duringwhich I looked this up on Wikipedia) “anterior to the vertebral column andposterior to the sternum.” Frankly, this seems like a pretty lousy location for home, although Godknows a good realtor would work with it (“Posterior to the sternum! Convenientto shopping!”).

Let us also consider an alternative definitionproffered by another font of philosophical wisdom: Cool Whip commercials. Irecall many a childhood afternoon spent edifying myself in front of the GameShow Network*, during which time I learned the useful lesson that home, asdefined by the Cool Whip Co., is where you and your carefully interracialfamily boogie around, grinning maniacally, while eating a CRAP TON of CoolWhip. These commercials aredesigned to evoke a simpler time when people were stupid.

For my part, I should like to propose my own,alternative definition of home. Home, to me, is – and forgive mysentimentality, but I mean this from the bottom of my heart – the place whereyou are most comfortable living in your own filth. Example A is my personalhome, the floor of which consistently features such a prodigious volume of shedskin cells, hair, dust, etc. – basically every variety of what the scientificcommunity calls “personal crud” – that I could not possibly have produced it all myself. To wit: at any given moment, you couldtake the skin cells on my floor and (if you were so disposed) create three life-size replicas of me, MadameTussaud’s-style.

I can hear you now. “But Nicola,” you are saying,probably mispronouncing my name, “the answer is simple. You need to clean your home.” Well. Now excuse me while Ilaugh so hard I cough up my uvula. Because in fact, I clean my home every day. Such measly actions are nomatch for the Dark Forces behind Home Crud, an essence which does as itpleases. Every day, I sweep in the morning and then leave, whereupon my floor –cackling softly to itself – goes ahead and spawns itself a fresh new supply ofcrud, which greets me in the evening. Such is the daily routine around here,although granted sometimes there are variations, such as when the floor crudgets bored during the day and decides to arrange itself, for my return, in aperfect 1/1000^th-scale replica of the Grand Tetons, or theParthenon, or Eleanor Roosevelt. Ishould start charging admission.

So, why? Why any of this? What is it about home thatkeeps it eternally crud-laden? My answer: a real home renders its dweller so completely, lethargically unmotivated thatany sort of home maintenance becomes scientifically impossible – on a par withimmortality, or time travel, or ever making contact with the Next AvailableRepresentative of my cellular phone company. It’s not that you, the home-dweller, don’t care; it’s thateventually, you will give up. (Write this down, children.) No matter how the hell neat you innately are, the Dark Forces of HomeCrud will swiftly render you unable to do anything more active than look atFacebook while scratching yourself, except on those occasions when this seemslike too much woooork. This, myfriends, is the difference between a house and a home. In philosophy circles it is known asthe Theory of Blahhhhh.**

The Theory of Blahhhh explains everything. Itexplains why you leave your crap in Atlas Van Lines boxes sixteen years aftermoving into your home, even though you told yourself again and again, “I’m unpackingthis stuff TOMORROW.” Possibly you kept this up for as long as a week (theTheory of Blahhhh gets its hooks in fast). But let us not forget: according to the Theory, the extentto which you neglect your home is directly proportional to the contentment youfeel living there. So this is a goodthing! See? Or the alternative possibility is that you are a lazy bastard. Or it could even be a combination ofthe two.

This is why, when house-hunting, I’ve never reallyunderstood why people try to pretty up their houses so you’ll buy them. I mean,sure, it looks nice, but if we go by the Theory of Blahhhh, the true house-hunter – the one who seeks not a house but ahome – will go for the crud-ridden house, every time. (TIP FOR SELLERS: For maximum “homey” effect, leave yourstuff in the house even after the buyer moves in, and for good measure, leave unnecessary familymembers there too. Talk about your “win-win.”)

Of course home is more than just crud. There aresecondary elements, too, such as family. Some people actually go so far as to equate home with family, which I find troubling, in that itsupposes you like yourfamily.*** I mean, I don’t knowyour family, but they could be hideous, right? The ultimate home, for you,might be located in a place very farfrom the bosom of your family, such as Alpha Centauri. And speaking of such things: what doesthat even MEAN, the “bosom” of your family? Is it just me, or is theresomething about that expression that would test the gag reflex of even theicky-cutest Cabbage Patch Kid? No; quintessential family moments, for me, arebosom-free. On the contrary, I believe such moments consist of having loud andpassionate dinner-table arguments about issues such as television series,sometimes to the point that you are just about to kill each other with forks,but – and here goes my sentimental side kicking in again – never to the pointthat you actually do. And nary abosom in sight.

One final aspect of what makes a home (and, onceagain, call me a softie, but this is the one I feel the most deeply): home iswhere you’re comfortable reading on the toilet. Sadly, I myself have never managed to get comfortable with this one, because, Imean, what if you have a heart attack and die on the toilet? Do you want your Eternal Legacy to bethat you were found with your pants around your ankles reading Cosmo? (“But why,” you are asking me, “would your pants bereading Cosmo around yourankles?” Good point. I tried toask them the same, but they were lost in an article about How to Make HimMoan.)

But above all, home isthe place where you're most comfortable being yourself. So, read issues of Cosmoon the toilet. So, embrace the ever-mounting crud formations on your floor, evenwhen they invade your fridge and steal your Chinese take-out (do NOT try tostop them; you will never prevail). So, enjoy a good heartyfork-brandishing argument session in the bosom of your family, which, as you’llrecall if you’ve been listening at all,is located posterior to the sternum of your family. You might want to write this down. Also, while you’reat it, you could come over and clean my place for me, because I'm just sodarned unmotivated.

* As a result of which, my dramatic rendition of the“Match Game” theme song is unparalleled.

** Translated from the German : cf. Nietszche’sTheory of ßlahhhhh.

*** Or that you hate your home.

A Spurt in the Dark

2011-10-10T01:40:00.001-07:00

I don't know about you, but I think it's high time we stopped beating around the bush and finally discussed the sensitive topic of:

HOT SQUID SEX.

Why not? The New York Times already has (evidently because it was a slow news day in New York, in which no major city legislators got booked for trying to mate with a gyro or anything).

I refer to an article which appeared in the September 20 edition of the Times, entitled "Amorous Squid Seeks Partner: Any Sex Will Do." In this article, writer James Gorman alerts us to the fact that a science person named Dr. Hendrik J. T. Hoving is deeply into the study of squid nooky. A recent study by Dr. Hoving concerned the fact that (I am quoting here) "A five-and-a-half-inch deep-sea squid that lives a solitary life up to half a mile down in the dark waters of the Pacific Ocean is the latest addition to the hundreds of species that are known to engage in same-sex sex."

Now let's don't be too condemning here. I'm certain that you and I both, if we were five-and-a-half-inch squids* down in the dark waters of the Pacific Ocean, with nothing to fulfill our biological needs save manual tentacle stimulation** and deep-sea porno,*** would be pleased to deep-sea bonk the first being that floated within range, be it male, female, seaweed, university trustee, etc. So I see no major revelations in this study. But to the scientific community, this is apparently SUPER exciting scientific news. Like, if you were the scientific community, this sort of scientific news would propel you to instant multiple scientific climax. You would need a change of scientific underpants.

YOU would never understand; you're not the scientific community.

So let's read on: aha. It turns out we are talking in particular about the male squid. This squid**** in particular will take any old chance it can get. Fair enough. Says Gorman: "Male squid .... pay no attention to the sex of other squid. They live alone in the dark, males and females are hard to tell apart, and only occasionally do squids pass in the night. Far better to risk wasting a few million sperm than to miss out on a chance to reproduce." This is accompanied by a photo of a shamed-looking squid covered with white dots, which the caption explains are due to an attack of - and I want to stress that this is the finest journalism quote in the history of the world - "rocket sperm."

They don't happen to interview the pictured squid, but you just know there is no way anyone could ever claim this was consensual.

Of course, this is not the first known instance of same-sex sexual behavior in animals. Allow me to advance two examples by way of illustration. Example A is a quote from the article: "Among mammals, bottlenose dolphins and bonobos engage in lots of different kinds of sex." No offense to any dolphins reading this column, but you just know a dolphin is not "getting any" when it will go off and make it with bonobos.

Example B is a real-life experience I had (in real life) at Riverside Park, where I went to jog when I lived in New York. I would always stop for a brief pause at the dog park, where I would have meaningful conversations with German shepherds over the fence ("Did you read the Times today?" "Oh, I know! About the squid?").

However, on this occasion, my attention was drawn to two miniature, hairy-rodent-style dogs, both of whom were exceedingly male, and one of whom was - I am dead serious about this - giving the other the world's first dog blowjob. Here is the thing: I had no camera, and there were no other witnesses, even though the dogs' owners were both there. They were standing a few yards away, backs turned, shooting the breeze - probably griping about the subway - and meanwhile there were their two little furry friends, perched daintily on their hind legs, Dog 1 nipping contentedly away at Dog 2's personal organ, which Dog 2 did not seem to mind in the least. Meanwhile the owners went on chatting and, tragically, science could not be recorded. I do not mind telling you that, in stark contrast to the squid exposé, this was an issue of extreme scientific importance. I myself was in a state of scientific conniption. This was far more edifying than anything I ever learned at Columbia, unless of course you are a former professor of mine, in which case, ha ha, just kidding, you enriched me.

But back to the squid article, and those little white dots: "It seems that the male ejaculates a packet of sperm at the mating partner ... essentially shooting the sperm ... into the flesh of the partner, where they stay embedded until the female (if the shooter has been lucky) is ready to fertilize its eggs. If males are the recipient of these rocket sperm, they are just stuck with them. It is the kind of mating that would make a good video game." This is an excellent idea, if you ask me now. I'm thinking of a sort of Pac-Man motif (I can see it now: introducing Sperm Man and his feminist equivalent, Ms. Sperm Man).*****

It goes without saying that our fearless squid-love researcher, Dr. Hoving - who, at publication time, "was leaving for research at sea himself"****** - goes on the record as asserting that there are not gay squid (a statement which, needless to say, raised the ire of gay-rights activists everywhere, especially those as happen to be squid). Says the Times : "He fended off that notion, reiterating that the squid has no discernibly sexual orientation, and that a tentacled invertebrate that shoots sperm into its mate's flesh really has nothing to do with human behavior," at least not outside of reality television.

And so the burning biological question remains: are the squid just plain being stupid? Another scientist, Marlene Zuk, debunks this notion. The squid is not being stupid, at least not for a squid, or a member of Congress. "The animal is not making a mistake," she is quoted as saying. "It's not mistaken to deposit sperm with another male." Otherwise, according to Ms. Zuk, natural selection would have eradicated the behavior of the squid. And, as she adds, "We still have squid." We still have Congress, too, so I am not convinced of anything.

Needless to say, this all raises a number of troubling questions:

* Just what kind of "research" was Dr. Hoving going to do "at sea"?
* Do you think gay squid have squid community theatre?
* Is there a squid puppet out there?

This last question is of course the most scientifically important. And it turns out that the answer is yes. Not only is there a squid puppet out there, it's a honking squid puppet, traversing the streets of Portland, Oregon with multiple handlers. They call it the Singing Squid Procession. Here's a link to pictures of the thing, which does not look in the slightest like any other thing, especially in the final photo on this page, so let's just dispense with that idea right now: http://hungryeyeball.com/2011/03/singing-squid-procession/

But let's be very clear about one thing. I know that Dr. Hoving, who is a respectable and experienced scientist out there gallivanting about with squid at sea, says that squid do not have a sexual orientation. But just in case he is wrong, and he is silencing the voices of gay squid who should otherwise be heard, I wish you gay squid out there to know that it is okay to be who you are. Be out and loud and proud of your squiddy gay self. Know that there is always a listening ear over here and come over anyt.... hey, what are all these little white spots on my ear?

* Of course this does not apply to most of us, with the exception of Richard Simmons.
** DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR ACADEMICS: How would this even work? Do you think you would like having tentacles? Explain.
*** MANTA RAY ECSTASY: HOT SUPER STINGERS OF LUST III (now available in Blu-Ray)
**** Which, understandably enough, does not give its name, although I imagine it's "Milton."
***** I foresee a Christmas rush.
****** Let's just meditate on this for a moment.

Children's Corner

2011-09-20T03:14:00.000-07:00

Don't look now, but academic research is biting society in its collective societal ass again. And when I say "society," I mean, needless to say, "SpongeBob SquarePants":

http://news.yahoo.com/spongebob-too-much-young-minds-181207501.html

I am slightly late on the uptake of this article, which appeared last week in HealthDay News. An excerpt:

Fast-paced TV shows like "SpongeBob SquarePants" seem to negatively affect children's concentration levels shortly after watching them, while slower-paced shows don't, a new study suggests.

"We found that young children who had just watched 'SpongeBob SquarePants' were handicapped in what you could say is their readiness for learning," said lead researcher Angeline S. Lillard, a University of Virginia psychologist.

"This included their ability to think and concentrate," she said.

Well. I don't know about you, but I take STRONG exception to this. As an American, I like my TV shows fast, furious, and potentially harmful to what you could say is my readiness for learning. So I hereby blow the Great Horn of Bullshit. Stand back:

AA-OOOOO-GA

Thank you.

Furthermore, I've got a bone to pick with you, lead researcher Angeline "S." Lillard (supposing that IS your name), if you think you can pronounce on my ability to think and concentrate. Obviously one's personal capacity for concentration is an individual phenomenon that cannot be evaluated by any objective measOOOOH! LOOK! I CAN MAKE A ROOSTER PUPPET WITH MY HANDS! WHEE HEE HEEEE!*

Another researcher, Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis,** argues that the young mind really can't deal with events at the speed they occur on such programs as SpongeBob. (An interesting supposition, considering that left unattended for 2.5 seconds, the Young Mind will flood the bathroom, injure himself gravely, smear paint as far away as Sweden, barf copiously on the most expensive piece of furniture around, and traumatize the cat for life, all at the speed of sound.)

"Everything our brains evolved to deal with takes place in real time," Christakis said. "It's not that we can't process these shows, we do, but it may come at a cost [...] potentially a long-term cost as you condition the brain to expect that high level of input, which makes the real pace of the world seem boring and that leads to attentional problems later in life."

So I don't know about you, but here is my scientific rebuttal: compared to SpongeBob, the real world pretty much just plain SUCKS. The world of SpongeBob SquarePants is WAY more interesting, plus, might I submit for scientific consideration that it involves FAR fewer:

insurance companies
gynecologists
Teaching Assistants
scientific researchers

Therefore, it would be excellent, from MY particular scientific vantage-point, if we could all just quit whining our little whiny-pants heads off about it. Let's just ask ourselves: is there really any value in seeing the harmful and unacceptable in the innocent and goofy? Believe it or not, there might actually be more profitable ways to spend our time. Picking at ourselves on the couch, for one.

Exhibit B is the ongoing intellectual discussion about - No Kidding Alert ahead - Guignol and his baton. For those of you who don't know, Guignol is a famous French puppet, an absolute rockstar here in France, far more popular than the president,*** and he (Guignol) goes around with a baton, performing the ancient traditional French art of hitting other puppets.

So, it turns out that certain academic researcher types - who, a casual observer might opine, do not have an AWFUL lot to occupy their days - believe strongly that this baton represents the, er, male organ. Really. Now my personal**** feeling about this is: as if the male organ needs any help representing itself. (Although I like the idea of its having impersonators, like Elvis.) My own belief is that the academic researchers who hold this belief are frankly not getting enough baton, if you get my drift.

Now here's a totally radical out-there revolutionary innovative idea: why don't we all just agree to leave well enough alone? Why don't we all just decide to look at things that are clearly innocent, and that children like, and take them for things that are innocent and that children like? Can we do that?

Thought not.

The exception to this rule, of course, is: children. I know this because I am currently a baby-sitter for two small children, ages 5 and 2. These two keep me honest about what children like, which, for the record, is: random goofy stuff. The other night, the three of us improvised a puppet show that, not to brag, was frankly cutting-edge theatre. It was entitled: "Oh No! There's A Shark in the Washing Machine." Granted, this was in French, but same idea. Here is the script, of which I invite you to fund a major lavish production, if you simply must:

MOOSE PUPPET: Hum-de-dum-de-dum. I think I will do some laundry today. La-la la-la laaa!
(Opens the washing machine)
Oh, no! There's a shark in the washing machine!

SHARK PUPPET (lunging forth): RAAAAWWWWWRRRRR!!!

CHILDREN: SHRIEEEEEEEEK HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

(Ten-minute pause to calm down)

PARROT PUPPET: Hum-de-dum-de-dum. I think I will do some laundry today. La-la la-la laaa!
(Opens the washing machine)
Oh, no! There's a shark in the washing machine!

SHARK PUPPET (lunging forth): RAAAAWWWWWRRRRR!!!

CHILDREN: SHRIEEEEEEEEK HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

(Repeat as desired until next Ice Age)

Don't try to tell ME that's not entertainment of lasting value. And say what you will about SpongeBob SquarePants, I believe the same of that program. Of course I believe we're all entitled to our own opinions, but that doesn't mean I can't believe that some of us hold only - prepare for scholarly language now - weenie-butt opinions.

But seriously? Feel free to express them as you wish. I mean, it's not as though I can stop you anyway. For one thing, I'm WAY too preoccupied with this shark game. So opine away, everyone. That's what makes the world go round, n'est-ce pas?

And if you are truly just too annoying to live, you might do us all a favor and go spend some quiet time with your baton.

* Of course really. I learned it from watching Shari Lewis on TV as a child. See?

** Yes, both of these researchers have middle initials. Do NOT think this is a coincidence.
*** Oh, you know, that guy.
**** Ha ha! Personal! Get it?

Ice Ice Baby

2011-09-09T02:49:00.000-07:00

Call me a wild and crazy world-traveler if you want, but recently I decided - prepare to be awed - to change planes at Reykjavik International Airport.

As the seasoned geographers among you will know, Reykjavik is located in Iceland, a major world nation which celebrates itself with the proud national motto, "Oh, you know, that little place up there somewhere near Greenland."

"I'VE never heard that motto," you are saying, with narrowed eyes. To which I say: well, naturally. It is translated from the Icelandic. During my flight on Icelandair, I became an expert on Icelandic language and culture via my in-flight magazine and fun facts on my napkins. This is how I learned that the Icelandic language* is spoken by only 12 people worldwide. To put that figure in perspective, this is fewer people than watched the wacky in-flight movie featuring Ashton Kutcher.

And I think I understand. Because, frankly, Icelandic has "problem language" written all over it. I don't care who you are - you could be an Icelandic baby born in Iceland to Icelandic-speaking parents - assimilating this language is going to give you hernias. When you're at Reykjavik International Airport, you can't believe how lucky we Anglophones have it, because everywhere you go you see signs like this:

Kjörfnnenbjoörrflokinnennkrönninenflöokinjörginnen - Arrivals

Bjïnninenflöokincöokinsnöokinhjardinenflörpöôöøøø - Departures

No child should have to be born to this.

On the other hand, Iceland** boasts one feature that absolutely no other nation - and I include Poland in this statement *** - can claim. I speak, as you have no doubt guessed, of impeccable toilets. My theory is a good third of the national budget is spent on having large, intimidating crews of strapping Icelandic toilet specialists come in**** every 10 minutes to clean every national toilet until it sparkles.

I didn't stay around long enough to see this magical event happen, of course, but there is no doubt in my mind. You can tell they take their toilets SERIOUSLY in Iceland. Not like SOME countries (not to name names, but these countries rhyme with "Prance" and "the Punited Ptates of Pamerica"). Any other major world power, bar none,***** would be proud to feature such excellence.

The Reykjavik airport itself (which, contrary to legend, consists of more than just toilets) is all at once the most beautiful and most eerily quiet, lifeless airport in existence. I have made fun in the past of the Portland, Maine airport for being too sedate, but compared to Reykjavik, Portland is the Lady Gaga of airports. Granted, I was jet-lagged and exhausted in Reykjavik, but I honestly don't think anyone ever announced a flight. I don't know how you were supposed to know when your flight was boarding. I actually ended up briefly following a herd of passengers toward a Stuttgart flight before an airport employee tipped me off. Had this not happened, I suppose I would still be at the airport, or in Stuttgart, or possibly the suburbs of Alpha Centauri given my comprehension of what was going on at any given moment.

Yes, an Icelandic adventure such as mine will leave you thoroughly unnerved and permanently twitchy, but if you don't take my word for it yet, then let's talk for a moment about currency.

So: currency. It is worth noting that, in Iceland, you are paying for things, such as badly needed food, in a currency that no one, including Icelandic people, has ever heard of. That means you have no idea what things cost, so let's say you toddle, hunger-crazed, into an airport dining establishment at four in the morning. (Of course, YOU have no idea what time it is; it might as well be one or six or even thirty-seven in the morning.) You are pretty much going to be grabbing your dinner items at random. One of them might turn out to be Pepsodent.******

Then comes the bad part, when at checkout you are told by the pleasant Icelandic person on duty - and this here is a direct quote - "That will be two thousand, one hundred ninety." For a time I was pretty sure I bought sushi, yogurt, and popcorn for a mortgage payment. But - and here's the thing - in such a state, you hand over your credit card anyway. You don't care. I, for example, could feel the blank expression on my face - a mix of mild terror with strong apathy and even stronger snack attack - as I handed over the card. There was no turning back.

Of course, everything turned out okay in the end. I got back to Paris, which was all I had ever wanted to do in the first place, and I retain, as a proud souvenir of my travel adventure, a snazzy paper bag that reads "Flugnesti: flight take away." I have no idea how "Flugnesti" is pronounced, and I am afraid to even try saying it, given that I fear the Icelandic feds (they have my info: I bought their sushi) might have wiretapped me. And you never know how much of a surcharge they might slap me with for each bad pronunciation. Several "thousand" an hour, is my guess. How else do you think Iceland keeps running?

* Namely, Icelandic.
** Which as we have discussed consists of the Reykjavik International Airport.
*** Seeing as I have never been there.
**** I imagine them riding in on Icelandic ponies, because, well, why not.
***** What does this expression even mean? Seriously.
****** Or, in Icelandic: "Tjëflohjörnkkenkväakkinnenfjøøpseudöfnoop"

Regarde!

2011-09-05T07:39:00.000-07:00

In just a couple of days, I will be returning to Paris, France, where I spent half my junior year of college, experiencing the kind of satisfaction and contentment that can only come from not being at college. I estimate that a good 96% of these happy feelings were brought on by the following stimulus:

Yes, that is breakfast cereal, and no, I am not joking. I do NOT joke about breakfast cereal. Nor do I joke about yogurt. It is against the Snark Code.

Of course, I don't mean to suggest that cereal and yogurt are all there is to Parisian culture. Far from it. On the contrary, Parisian culture also consists of the following components:

American television

This served as one of my main entry points into Paris life, thanks to my host family's eight-year-old daughter. It was she who introduced me to French culture by means of inviting me to watch her favorite TV show, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, starring notoriously non-French actors Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain. She was unabashedly in love with Dean Cain, who I understand has since had the nerve to be 45 years old without telling her. At any rate, she used this great passion as a jumping-off point to explain to me the finer points of French culture.

For example: "Ahhhh, Clark. Il est très beau." (Ahhhh, Clark. He is very handsome.)

Or sometimes: "Il est très beau, Clark, n'est-ce pas?"

I, being not immune to the finer points of French culture myself, can thoroughly appreciate such a cultural nuance when one is pointed out to me. So I went on letting my little instructor instruct me, and Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain went on nattering away at each other in badly dubbed French, and all was right with the world.

Other times, we would watch Pokémon, which was equally edifying if not more so. Speaking as one who spent many a youthful morning watching episodes of this program in English, I can honestly say that you have not grasped French culture until you have assimilated the following cultural difference:

English:

WHO'S - THAT - POKÉMON?? (bit of music) (go to commercial break)

(back from commercial break) IT'S - PIKACHU!!! (Pikachuuu!) (bit of music)

French:

QUI EST - CE - POKÉMON? (bit of music) (go to commercial break)

(back from commercial break) C'EST - PIKACHU!!! (Pikachuuu!) (bit of music)

But here's what you don't see on French TV: French TV. Okay, I admit I'm exaggerating. There are numerous French networks featuring plenty of domestic programming, for example Les Guignols de l'Info, a show featuring puppets who host the evening news. (This strikes me as a considerable trade-up from, say, Dan Rather.)

But American programs do seem to predominate - dubbed, closed-captioned, or otherwise. The same is true of movies. I would guess that, at a conservative estimate, 113% of the movie posters I saw over my time in Paris were for films featuring one of two Jennifers, Aniston or Lopez. The last time I checked, "Jennifer" was not even a word in French. This would appear to be highly suspicious.

When I mentioned this to my sister, she theorized, "Maybe you have to go to the U.S. to see French TV." This seems at least plausible. In many places in the U.S, you can get the channel TV5 Monde, which shows multiple genres of French TV and films round the clock. For example, there is the Movie With Sex Scenes That, In Accordance With French Law, Are Not Sexy But Really Just Kind of Grunty and Unappetizing; the Filmed Stage Play Where People Talk At Inhuman Speed; and of course, most importantly, The Really Boring Navel-Gazing Talk Show Where They Navel-Gaze and Talk About Nothing in Particular. (However, I do not think this channel has ever featured anyone named Jennifer.)

Often enough, the U.S. even has French television on its own channels. For instance: French in Action, a television series originally designed to teach people French, aired on PBS and was rerun for years afterward, often shown in all-night marathons. This series was insanely popular with all kinds of people, including people who did not want to learn French at all. My intellectual theory is that this was because the series starred Mireille, a French girl featuring large gazombas unencumbered by foundation wear. The series was filmed in 1987, which means Mireille has now inspired a generation of male viewers to develop a wild urge to conjugate the subjunctive, if you get my drift.

From this state of affairs I can only come to the obvious conclusion: France and the U.S. have switched entertainment industries. Really. Think of the implications. This could very well mean that Audrey Tautou is actually from Omaha, while, say, John Wayne was secretly born and raised outside Marseille. This is troubling, I suppose, but assuming it's true, I ask only two things. First, a major role in the next Astérix film; and second, that if ever we have to trade industries back, we in the U.S. won't have to give back MythBusters.

Animal Instinct

2011-09-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

I used to want to be a veterinarian when I was a kid, and for a simple reason: I had never considered what they actually do. This is why I ended up becoming a puppeteer. Puppets are far less likely, statistically speaking, to pee on you, and they rarely have to be euthanized.*

But I still get to thinking about animals sometimes. One of those times was yesterday afternoon, when an L.L. Bean Hunting catalogue came in the mail, a strapping buck** on its cover. This would have bothered me a lot when I was a kid. I would have worried that they felled the deer immediately after taking the photo. Now, as an adult, I am far more rational, and accordingly, I opt for the far more rational expedient of immediately letting my mind wander back to sex.

No, seriously, what I do (besides immediately letting my mind wander back to sex) is make up a story for myself, wherein the deer turns out actually to be a top client of the Gersh agency, where he wanders immediately after the photo shoot, barges into his agent's office, kicks back in a chair, sips a martini, and drawls, "OK, look here, sweetiecakes: I demand ten thousand clams for my next photo shoot for that trashy L.L. Bean, or these antlers go straight through that darling little pot belly of yours. Capisce? Also, get me another martini." And the agent would be so daunted that he would immediately propel the deer to international stardom. The deer would become untouchable, a global entertainment icon, a mainstay on the Maxim Hot 100 list.***

Of course, some animals inspire more imaginative trains of thought than others. For example, it is easy to ascribe a highly complex inner life to a Siberian husky, whereas you cannot imagine a Yorkshire terrier wanting to do much more than lick its crotch. This is of course an unfair bias; in real life, neither dog wants to do much more than lick its crotch. It is part of the Dog Code, along with humping your leg, which let us face it is famous for being infertile. (Yes, that's right. I'm talking to you dog readers out there. You are fighting a losing battle. But oh nooo, you will never learn.)

Here's another example of a totally uninspiring creature which nevertheless manages to maintain rockstar popularity among pet owners: parakeets. We had parakeets for years, despite the fact that they never did anything interesting except poop in their living quarters and screw like bunnies. At least they differed from college students in that occasionally they would molt. We had one guy parakeet named Angelo who generally looked normal until one day, every year, when without warning he would suddenly transform into a beaked rat with mange. It didn't matter to him, of course; as far as he was concerned, he was Fabio. His self-image was helped along by his groupies, namely all the other parakeets in the cage, who had all turned out to be female.

So of course Angelo was also a sex maniac. We humans, in an eternal but hopeless quest to find other males for the cage, instead just kept populating the cage with young hens, feeding Angelo's habit to a degree that Hef himself could only dream of. Personally, I imagined him not as Hef but as Quagmire from "Family Guy," going around gleefully chuckling, "Aaaall-riiiiight."

I fully believe that Angelo and the hens could have gone on to be major reality television stars, especially in today's sucktastic entertainment climate where the average TV program is something like like Obese Teen Bachelor Stage Moms Dance with the Stars and Eat Their Children for Money, then Cover Neil Sedaka Hits.**** Unfortunately, the parakeets never got a chance at this kind of stardom, because when my family moved from Florida to Maine, we gave them to a friend on a farm who had a gigantic aviary full of parakeets. This new group consisted largely of - you guessed it - very young hens.

I don't think Angelo could possibly still be with us, but there is no question in my mind that he went happy. I like to think he departed this life smoking seven or eight little birdie cigarettes at once.

* Unless they get uppity.
** This is an objective description, you realize. I mean, he wasn't my type or anything. Really.
*** Yes, I realize this was a buck. Just seriously, don't hassle me.
**** Who do you guys think will get voted off next week?

And speaking of the puppets...

2011-08-30T13:53:00.001-07:00

Like us on Facebook! (Shaking fist) Like .... us!!!

Puppdate!

2011-08-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

The Mighty Tatterdemalions website has finally gotten a much-needed, all-around update. Not in looks, but in info. Take a look!

Also, is it just me, or is this whale pretty much the honkingest puppet ever? Ye gads. I never thought about it in performance. Although I did notice that, every time I finally got to take him off my arm after 10-15 minutes on, it was pretty much the second-best sensory experience on Earth. The first will remain nameless,* since I don't wish to be crass.

* Pad Thai.

Les Guys de Versailles: Adventures in Selective Memory

2011-08-28T20:38:00.000-07:00

Dave Barry, one of my heroes (alongside Jim Henson, the Moomins, and Colin Mochrie), once wrote a column in which he stated that the average person of his generation would be unable to name any Supreme Court justices, but would remember in perfect detail the theme song to the TV show Robin Hood.

My sister, reading this column aloud, had scarcely gotten to the next sentence when our father (who is of Dave Barry's generation) exclaimed: "Hey! I watched that show!" With no further prompting, he launched right into a jolly rendition of the theme-song, complete with rolled r's and delivery straight from Sadler's Wells. Word-perfect, naturally.

When he was finished, my sister remarked: "Yes, that's right." She had been following the lyrics as Dave Barry had typed them on the page (I assume he did this without having to go back to check anything).

This fits with something I've observed about human memory myself. It's not just our formative years that stay with us the most strongly. It's what we watched on TV in our formative years. And, if you ask me, it's what we watched on Saturday mornings in particular. Has anybody else noticed this? We remember our morning cartoons in extraordinarily vivid detail. I do not have the faintest memory of what the trichotomy axiom is,* but I can remember, with photographic precision, any number of individual mornings in 1999, getting up in the wee dark hours with my sister to watch episodes of Pokémon and Sailor Moon.**

And so I say to those of you in MY generation - excepting those of you who spent the year 1999 being Amish - that if you do not remember this, you are lying:

My sister is younger, so thanks to her this was my second go at the whole morning cartoon experience. As it happens, I myself already had my own stash of useless but incredibly vivid TV-memories from when I was a wee Snark. The problem is, when you carry these memories around long enough, you start to doubt their accuracy. Case in point: I went around for years convinced I had fabricated a commercial I "saw" as a toddler. The commercial, for Dreft detergent, featured a female narrator speaking in the softest yet most reptilian voice imaginable about DREFFFFFT: FOR A CLEEEEAN YOU CAN TOUCCCCHHHHH. This commercial dominated my brain for literally years, replacing recollections of things like upcoming doctor's appointments, drowning out most of college,*** until finally I ran across a video of it last year. It did exist! See?

Okay, so that lady's voice isn't QUITE as creeptastic as I remember. I mean, I honestly recalled her speaking Parseltongue. But whatever! I didn't make it up! Score!****

Obviously, stuff like this takes up critical brain space. But the question remains: what is it replacing? At least, what is it replacing of use? Because I know that, even without the palliative of morning cartoons, I wasn't about to go around thinking of the trichotomy axiom, and neither were you, stupid. So morning-cartoon memory syndrome might have an evolutionary function, but it's not to block out math. Something else would have stepped in to serve that purpose.

So it's not math, and it isn't history, either. Yes, yes, I know: every day we see another article bemoaning how today's youth do not know basic U.S. history. This is an incomplete statement. I personally have completed an extremely rigorous course of higher education, so I can tell you, from personal experience, that today's youth do not know foreign history, either.

Why is this? Simple: we block it all out with things we prefer to think about. I am thinking here of a semester I spent in France, where I took a course in foreign history.***** For one class, we went to Versailles, which features the Palace of Versailles,****** the former home of Louis XIV (son of Rick and Kimberly XIV). From there we went to the Salle du Jeu de paume, which is historically significant because during the French Revolution, several hundred members of the Third Estate, angered because they had been excluded from a meeting of the Estates-General, went in there to do battle with Sailor Moon.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't it exactly, but to tell you the truth, my mind wandered. The professor was telling our group about the history of the place, and actually it was very interesting, but as it happened, my friend and I had found something far more interesting: marble busts of historical guys lining the sides of the room. Each of these guys had their name carved on their front (you can be sure this was not the case in real life; or possibly they all died of bloodloss). This was how we discovered that one of them was named "Target."

I should explain, for the benefit of those not In the Know, that Target is an American low-cost department store, which Americans often jocularly refer to with French pronunciation, as "Tar-zhay." So my friend and I had a conversation like this:

ME: "Tar-zhay."
MY FRIEND: Heh heh! (Beat.) How do you think you'd explain that to French people?
ME: Huh. I dunno.
(Beat.)
MY FRIEND: "Tar-zhay."
ME: Heh heh!

Another girl in the class had also broken off from the group and had undertaken the academic pursuit of determining which historical marble guy was hottest. As a scholar, I thoroughly respected this endeavor.

The moral of this story is, history is JUST NOT INTERESTING, unlike (a) things we watched when we were little, and (b) the question of which Versailles guy is hotter than all the rest (answer: that one guy, whose name and role in history currently escape me). And it's not just history; the same goes for sociology, philosophy, science, the sociology of philosophical science, and anything else they teach at a college.

So - and call me a bold and inspiring visionary if you like - I'm unveiling my idea for the College of the Future. At this college, you would be able to major in only one of two subjects: either Saturday Morning Cartoons or Ranking Dead Historical Figures by Hotness. Just think of the commitment students would demonstrate to their education! 100% of graduates would go into jobs in their chosen fields. Granted, their chosen fields would be Cartoon-Watching Expert and Hotness Specialist, but would this really be such a bad state of affairs? Would it really be so much worse than the universities' current practice of annually turning out an estimated 16,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 investment bankers?

Anyway, I don't know about you, but I'm sure sold on my idea. And as a prospective master's degree candidate at the College of the Future, I humbly suggest that students also be allowed to minor in Coffee. I even promise to listen to the lectures, sometimes.

* Answer: it was something in my math book.

** Fighting ee-evil by moon-LIGHT!
Winning lo-ove by day-LIGHT!
Never running from a REAL FIGHT!
She is the ONE NAMED SAILOR MOON!
She will never, yada yada yada, etc.

*** I wish.

**** I didn't mean right now. Come back and read this blog.

***** Of course THEY will try to tell you it's domestic history.

****** And don't try to tell me this is a coincidence.

DEAR GOD!!! CANNIBALISM!!!!

2011-08-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

I ... uh ... I may be sick. I'm just a little close to all this.

Edible Puppets

Tooth Be Told

2011-08-21T07:51:00.000-07:00

TODAY'S HARD-HITTING TOPIC IS: Puppets with teeth.

I don't know about you, but I have particularly strong feelings about teeth. Perhaps this is due to having just had my wisdom teeth out. This is a procedure wherein a godless person - whom we shall refer to only as "Dr. Destructo"* - rips out pieces of your head. That's right, we are talking about your same head which you have had with you since you were a baby, not harming Dr. Destructo or anyone else, just to clarify. How many wisdom teeth you will need to have removed depends on the situation. For example, if Dr. Destructo just had a windfall from his latest "Money Ball Bingo" scratch-off ticket (New York Lottery, $2),** you might need only one tooth removed, whereas if he is trying to make boat payments, you might need as many as six of your wisdom teeth removed.

Or I might feel sensitive about teeth because I have a chip in my right front tooth. NATURALLY it would be a tooth that is always on display, like the Kardashian sisters but with more talent. And, you want to know how I chipped it?*** Watching TV. Really. I was flopped down in front of the TV and reached up idly to touch my tooth and CRKKK**** that tooth was no longer flat-bottomed. I have always been extremely annoyed at this turn of events, not enough to have the tooth fixed but DEFINITELY enough to whine about it in writing. Of course, there's also the fact that the tooth chip is not really so noticeable. I know this deep down, or else I would have had it fixed a long time ago, but I tend to inflate my physical flaws in my mind's eye, so that, if you actually look like this:

(I actually do look like this) (but not shown actual size)

You instead see, basically, this:

Anyway, I don't know if it's for these reasons or what, but I've recently become very interested in the teeth in my field, puppetry. For example, take this Folkmanis-brand Great White Shark puppet, which has multiple rows of what turn out to be extremely hard rubber teeth:

What this picture doesn't show is that this puppet is the approximate size of a Mini-Cooper, which means that in addition to having 696 menacing choppers it could easily devour Elmo, Zoe, and the little pink fairy Muppet all in one gulp, not that we are suggesting anything. Speaking of which, we have another idea too involving the friendly human adults on Sesame Street, although it is pretty impractical.

Anyway, wouldn't this be a FANTASTIC puppet for story time? (As my father eloquently put it: "Hi, kids! Let's read some stories!" "EEEEEYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH" [wildebeest-style stampede out of library] [SLAM] "Hey, was the floor all wet earlier?")

TIP FOR PROFESSIONALS: This works even better if you have Elmo's disembodied little legs hanging limply out the shark puppet's maw. It's fun for the kids!

Speaking of the Muppets and teeth: did you know that Cookie Monster used to have hideously awesome teeth? They just did a feature on it in Mental Floss magazine.***** If you're not familiar with Mental Floss ("Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix"), I recommend you check it out, especially the "Amazing Fact Generator," which, as its name might suggest, amazingly generates facts. Like this one:

About one in every 4 million lobsters is born with a rare genetic defect that turns it blue. One in every 30 million is yellow.

Like most Mental Floss factoids, this is interesting, if not particularly illuminating.****** Now if they had said that about one in every 4 million lobsters is born with a rare genetic defect that turns it into (CHOOSE ONE) a college Career Center Advisor; a T-Mobile representative; the daughter on Gilmore Girls, this would not only be interesting, but the world would finally make some damn sense.

But no matter. My point is, here are the images Mental Floss posted of Cookie Monster in his salad days:

Is this not a VAST improvement over the current incarnation? Also, I want to point out that in that second picture, according to Mental Floss, he's eating a computer. That takes me back to the first computer I had as a kid. It was a Windows 95, which meant it looked slightly sleeker than the above pictured item, but had less functionality.

Anyway, I really don't know what's caused this particular train of thought today; all I know is I've got teeth on the brain, and now so do you so you're stuck with them nyah nyah nyah. Come to think of it, you might want to see your local Dr. Destructo about that. I understand he is looking to buy a second place in the Adirondacks.

* Real name is Dr. Deface-o.
** They also have one called "Porker Night."
*** Well, I'm going to tell you anyway.
**** Actually I like to think it was more like "PWINGGG."
***** Slow news day.
****** Although "The Yellow Lobster of Texas" would make an excellent song.

Because I could not make this name up if I tried

2011-08-21T05:51:00.000-07:00

I signed into Yahoo mail and got the following friend request.

Never heard of the person, but consigned him/her to screenshot eternity, for obvious reasons:

And on the off chance that Moist.Bootie, alias Lucid Truffle, is someone I actually know and I should realize this, then (a) sorry, (b) I didn't mean it* and (c) I hope we can still be friends.

* Just kidding. I did.

Shout-out for fundraising friends

2011-08-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

My first-ever puppet role, Intern

Tonight's post goes out to my friends at The Media Show, the TV show I used to write for when it was in its formative stages at Teachers College in New York. The team behind this program is responsible not only for giving me my first ever puppet role (Intern, the sock who always refers to herself in the third person) but also for breathing life into my musical, Aisle Six, when it had its showcases at the Players Club.

These days they're looking for funding to spread awareness of media and technology throughout schools. Below is an excerpt from a post by my friend Gus, producer of the program, in which she explains her goal. They're currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds they need. Click the link or read Gus' post below to learn more.

So if you're interested in supporting a program that uses comically irreverent puppets to promote media literacy, read on. Personally, I find this cause to be a far more compelling one than, say, Greenpeace.

At the moment, they have four days remaining on their Kickstarter campaign. Well? What are you waiting for?

Excerpt (by Gus Andrews):

{...} Critical thinking about the media — often known as “media literacy” — has been edged out of school curricula. High-stakes tests pressure teachers to stick to rote memorization, reading, and math. Internet access is spotty or locked down at many schools, limiting what teachers can teach about online safety. Students may graduate without ever learning how advertisements provide the funding for most of their favorite shows, magazines, or websites.

The Media Show makes short online videos to take up the slack. We believe that when youth learn how the media and technology around them are made, they are empowered to think critically about the media messages they are immersed in.

Since 2008 we’ve used irreverent humor to explain copyright law, advertising tactics, email etiquette, and more on YouTube, the world’s most popular video site. In 2010, we won a Media That Matters award for our episode on photo manipulation throughout history — from Hitler airbrushing his enemies out of photos, through advertisers lightening pop star Beyonce’s skin color.

How can you help? The Media Show is currently seeking donors to fund not only production of upcoming episodes on search engines, online ads, and hacking, but also to support us as we take our shows to classrooms, libraries, and afterschool programs.

We need just ten more donors at the $550 level to reach our goal of $9000, to produce more episodes and bring workshops on media awareness to more youth. Would you help us? Participating Sponsors at this level fund workshops in major US cities, as well as helping us reach young viewers online with brand new episodes.

Four more donors at the $1500 level would help us reach our goal, and do workshops in areas of the United States which are farther from centers of media production — places where youth are even less likely to be exposed to the workings of media and technology industries.

Time is running out on our campaign. We need to raise $9000 by Tuesday, August 23rd in order to receive our funding. Will you help us teach more young people to think critically about media systems?

To read the full text of Gus' message go to The Media Show official website.

Trop cool!

2011-08-18T07:02:00.000-07:00

I got interviewed for France-Amérique! Read it here (it's in French).

For those of you whom I haven't yet badgered incessantly about it (and, note to self: get on that), my friend Manisha Snoyer - Francophone actress teacher extraordinaire, and director of Into This City International Acting School - has most kindly invited me back to NYC to co-teach a puppetry workshop with her. I just realized this marks the first time since 2006 that I won't be there en tant qu'étudiante (as a student). Yay for that!

And yay goes double for our puppetry workshop, which - here goes ...

YOU SHOULD COME TO YOU SHOULD COME TO YOU SHOULD COME TO YOU SHOULD COME TO. DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT!!!!

Ahem. Anyway, for those non-Francophones, the article linked above basically talks about my feelings about puppetry in France and the U.S. (this is one of the few Major World Issues that I have strong feelings about, the other two being men's figure skating and caffeinated beverages). And it reminds you to come make puppets with us on Saturday, August 27.

A big thank-you goes out to Guénola Pellen of France-Amérique, who interviewed me and then, being an excellent journalist, managed to cobble my occasionally comical, French as a Second Language ramblings into something cogent and lovely. Here's an example snippet from our conversation, with translation in parentheses:

GUÉNOLA: Alors, qu'est-ce que l'art de la marionnette représente pour vous?
(What does puppetry represent for you?)

ME: Ah bon bah ... j'ai pas exactement ... comment dirais-je? Hehhheh c'est difficile hehheh, heh. Eh bien, moi je trouve que c'est une très bonne façon de s'exprimer, à travers la marionnette, buhh, c'est-à-dire que buhhh ça révèle plein de choses, euhhhh, même chez les personnes qui sont en générale très, euhhh, buh, est-ce qu'on dit "inhibitées"?* Est-ce que c'est un mot, ça?
(Ah bon bah ... I'm not sure exactly ... how do I put it? Hehhheh it's difficult, hehheh, heh. Well, I find it's a very good way to express yourself, puppetry; buhh, I mean, buhh, it reveals a lot of things, euhhh, even in people who are normally very, euhhhh, buh, can one say "inhibitées"? Is that a word?)

GUÉNOLA: Uh.... (Uh....)

ME: Buh, je veux dire, buh ..... attendez je cherche sur Google .... (Buh, what I mean is, buh, hold on, I'll look on Google.)

GUÉNOLA: Ah, vous voulez dire "coincées" peut-être? (Oh, I think you mean "uptight," perhaps?)

ME (puffed up with the pride that can only come from having lit on the "mot juste"): Oui, c'est ça. (Yes, that's it.)

Thankfully, in print I'm eloquent (merci madame), which is great, because now you'll never have to know how I sounded on the phone.

Also, Princess Marcheline looks quite fetching in her close-up, n'est-ce pas? Although I notice they cut off our headshot right above her ample pom-pom bosoms, which is just not very français of France-Amérique at all. On the other hand, there is Amérique in the title, which is probably where the decency comes from. In the U.S., one doesn't just go around exposing our children to brazenly bared pom-poms.

I mean, it probably won't bother me if and when I'm a parent, but then, I'm a puppeteer. I like to think our house will be known among my children's little friends as "the house where sometimes you get to see pom-poms."

* Inhibited = inhibé, in fact. I was close but not close enough. I've goofed this one at least twice now which means, only six more times before I get a free coffee.

How the Puppet Got His Mouth

2011-08-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

Here we are ("we" being me and the fluffy guys, aka The Mighty Tatterdemalions), performing two of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories a couple weeks ago in Portland, Maine:

This is the beginning of the Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo, which was always my favorite Just So Story as a little kid, because it featured (a) a kangaroo (b) a dingo and (c) little, medium-sized, and big gods respectively named Nqa, Nquing and Nqong. (These are only their stage names, of course. Their real names are Bqa, Bquing and Bqong.) Here is Kangaroo, possibly my favorite puppet ever, deep in conversation with the little god Nqa.

Kangaroo is extremely shocked here, and as visible puppeteer I'm supposed to be matching his expression. However, I'd begun smiling because my audience (who consisted of 25 or 30 adorable and riveted four-year-olds who I swear were direct from Central Casting) had begun roaring with laughter when I didn't expect it at all. They caught me off guard. Couldn't help myself.

Here are the Whale and the Small 'Stute Fish from How the Whale Got His Throat, which, as its title suggests, tells the story of Old Man Kangaroo. No, only kidding, it tells the story of how the whale learned not to eat people. We can agree this has been a great boon to humanity except in the case of the cast of Teen Mom. Anyway, guiding the whale on the way is this little fish, who, yes, is wearing glasses, though I am informed this is not zoologically accurate.

At the risk of destroying the mystique of my co-star here, I will reveal that his insides are made of poly-fill fluff, bits of foam, and bits of other discarded puppets, which actually I guess makes him a cannibal in a sense after all. Oh, well.

Nerds of a Feather

2011-07-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

I've been remiss in not posting this year about the San Diego Comic-Con International (motto: "Now With 33% More Obese Superheroes"). So let's take care of that. First, a look back over five reasons why this year's Con was the best ever:

1. Sock networking
I brought Marcheline, my princess puppet best known for her work in The Golden Stoat (see photo below). This was an excellent career move (for both of us) in the sense that she has great mass appeal, by which I mean "mega-honkin' pom-pom bosoms." This sort of thing is extremely de rigueur* at the Comic-Con, where there are more x-treme bosoms than you can shake a stick at, although we're not sure why you would want to. At any rate, Marcheline fit right in, and we even had chance encounters with several other itinerant puppeteers, who were also strolling with their puppets. Our puppets had loud conversations, during which people came by and took pictures of the occasion. That's right. Comic-Con photographers took time out to photograph puppets chatting. I like to think that, while this was going on, streams of major celebrities were passing by behind the photographers.

2. We sold all the Pibgorn books
That's right. If you want any of the five titles sold by the esteemed Pib Press, you are going to have to order them online at http://pibpress.blogspot.com. We sold every single copy we brought with us, sometimes - this was my favorite part - to people who had never even heard of the strip. These were generally guys, whose rationale for purchasing was something like:

* They were keen to discover a heretofore unfamiliar artistic oeuvre featuring hot babe fairy demon succubi.
* Also, I, the salesperson, had smiled at them a lot.

One eager dude was so charmed by my sales prowess he actually went so far as having me sign the book (alongside my dad's signature), even though I warned him this could devalue it.

3. The Doofenshmirtz Blimp

Regrettably, this picture sucks, but I hope it at least gives you an idea of the glory that was the Phineas and Ferb booth. It also featured a large vehicle shaped like a platypus and called "Perry the Platy-bus."

4. The Screaming Booth
This is a real thing, and I observed it for an extended period of time. It's one of those things from which you can't turn away, like a bloody gory car wreck, or American Idol. Here is how the Screaming Booth works: it's a booth, and you get in and scream. You try to scream as loudly as you possibly can, so as to beat the score of the last person who screamed. As long as I watched, I don't think anybody ever got past 8.79 ("Nuclear Test"), but the scale went all the way up to 11 ("Gilbert Gottfried").

I would have been extremely wary to participate, for fear of busting a vocal cord, but here is the thing: there were HORDES of people lined up to scream in the booth.** There was a perky female Scream Booth Spokesperson with a microphone, and she would call out "Who's next?" and hands would wave wildly, as if these people were competing for a vacation to beautiful Puerto Vallarta on The Price is Right, instead of a chance to scream real loud. Then microphone girl would choose someone, and ask them, "So, Mark,*** tell me something that makes you really mad," and Mark would go, "Um, my brother," and he'd get in the booth and close the door and YAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH the little sensor on the Scream-o-Tron would crawl up maybe to 8.5, causing the crowd to give hearty cheers of encouragement ("Yeeeaaaa") and maybe get some more popcorn. And perky microphone girl would note that the score to beat was still 8.79, but, "Good try!"

As a college graduate who has been rigorously trained to "wind up" by finding the subtext in a topic, I feel compelled to say this taught us about humanity, because, what the heck.

(Actually, as I understand it, this booth was intended as a tie-in with some movie about rage, but seriously, who even cared? My life was full as I watched, any way you look at it.)

5. The Flarp (and the Cake)

I cannot be exaggerating when I say that this item is the second-most seminal creation in the history of mankind, ranking right up there with fire, gravity, the wheel, the transmission, the power seats and that half-pretzel half-cracker thingie I once inhaled a boxful of on the way home from Shaw's supermarket.

Here is what the Flarp does: it makes flarping noises. Several of them, in fact. Designated by a series of cheerfully colored buttons, they are called "Ripper," "Power," "Uptight," "Juicy," "Nervous," and of course "Classic." These sounds must be heard to be believed, although I'm sure you can go something of the distance in imagining them. Go on, try.

I found this unparalleled item precisely where you'd expect, namely the clearance rack at Ralph's, an extremely enchanting grocery store that does not exist on the East coast. Hence I had to discover it in CA, where suffice it to say I immediately developed a deep and obsessive infatuation with it. My father says I am the only person he knows who has uttered the phrase "Bow-chicka-wow-wowww" about a supermarket. I say there have to be others.

You'll understand after seeing this image, courtesy of Ralph's bakery:

This almost totally made up for the fact that I did not see my favorite Mythbuster, Grant Imahara, anywhere at the Comic-Con this time around (although his co-star Kari Byron and I did pass each other outside the convention center. Maybe I am fated to sight just one Mythbuster a year).

Actually, my brush with the famous this year came when actor Anthony Head, formerly of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, came by the National Cartoonists Society booth (where I was stationed to dispense Pib Press merch and smiles as needed). I had a nice chat with Head and his publicist, who were buying T-shirts, although shamefully I didn't place who the former was until, like, 2 minutes into the conversation, even though he was wearing a name tag (my excuse is I never watched enough Buffy episodes). There's just no way to go, all of a sudden like that, "Ah, yes! Now I know who you are! I dimly recall your work!" Awwwwkward. He seemed like a very nice guy.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience, and I certainly hope to return before too long. If you don't see me at the Comic Con (hint: look for the puppet), you'll be able to hear me over the din of the crowd. "What's that sound?" you'll muse. That, my friend, is the call of the Flarp.

* French; literally, "mega-honkin'"
** 1 horde = 2.56 scads = 18.723 scabs = .05 euro
*** Even if the person's name was Caitlin.

The Musée Gadagne in Lyon, France

2011-06-24T21:55:00.000-07:00

Back in the spring of 2010, when I was living in Paris as Columbia University's premier and only puppet researcher, I got a hundred euros from the university for the express purpose of traveling to Lyon and looking at puppets for a day. Seriously! I was so touched and thrilled at this stunning departure from their normal stingy-butt universityness* that I will generously refrain from mentioning that they did not pay for me to stay there overnight - nor, might I add, did they pay for my brioche. Although perhaps there was a good reason for this. Perhaps there is a clause in the Official University Stingy-Butt Charter that goes something like this:

Ye Olde Universitye Stingy-Butte Chartere

of Columbia University in the City of New York

established 1764

interred 1825

no Discover cards

"Ad hoc furcifer pestis sternum" (= "Superrific Dry Cleaning While-U-Wait")**

ARTICLE XVXVIIIIFFVLLLMX***: Thou shalt not pay for a student's brioche, because the student might enjoy it, duh. This is not a chance thou canst afford to take.

But I got to go to Lyon, anyway, and I got to see the Musée Gadagne, which consists of two parts. As an academic researcher, I am thoroughly versed in scholarly analysis; thus, I am able to break down these two parts of the museum as follows:

the Puppet Part
the Boring Part That Has To Do With Other Stuff

No, in all seriousness, both parts are pretty interesting. The latter part is actually devoted to the history of Lyon. Because of my limited time there, I didn't get much of a chance to see the Lyon part, but I know all about the history of France anyway, thanks to a wonderful history professor who, come to think about it, mostly just chatted with me about Tintin books. So the history of France as I understand it involved some seafaring, an encounter with the Abominable Snowman, and a missing emerald, and it was all drawn by a Belgian. (Write this down, children.)

At any rate, the puppet part of the museum was fabulous. Lyon is the birthplace of Guignol, an iconic little puppet guy who embodies the rich French cultural tradition of bashing people over the head with a stick. Oh, sure, they TRY to keep quiet about their beloved national pastime, but seriously, you wouldn't believe the carnage that goes on every day behind closed doors at the Élysée Palace.

Up and down the streets of Lyon you see scads**** of stores selling Guignol T-shirts, mugs, toothbrushes, toenail clippers, catheters, etc. Obviously Guignol is something of a local superstar, a bit like Justin Bieber, only more virile.

Here is a portrait which hangs in the Musée Gadagne, depicting Frédéric Josserand, a founding father of Guignol. In all seriousness, I have to say this is probably my favorite portrait in the world. I can't tell you how happy it made me:

Next up is a cellist unlike any other. I mean, can you imagine the looks he must get in the conservatory cafeteria?

And here is L'Enfant from Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortileges, a piece that, if you haven't heard it, you must. (Dead serious. Hear it right now. It is 42 minutes inexpressibly well spent.)

A poster from one of the shows of Jacques Chesnais, a well-known puppeteer from Paris who performed in the early 20th century. I'll blog more on Chesnais and his work another time.

Other assorted friends of mine whose acquaintance I made that day at the Musée ...

And, finally, the pièce de résistance (meaning "piece of resistance") of my photographic collection: these wacky and fun-loving Dutch marionnettes. Suffice it to say it's always a party with these folks around:

So if you're in Lyon, or you're planning a trip there, I highly recommend a visit to the Musée. It's small, but full of fascinating things, and I only wish I'd had the chance to explore it longer. Therefore, when you go on your own trip, I urge you, as a devoted academic researcher of the puppet arts - I urge you, from the very bottom of my heart - to have Columbia pay for it. If you can possibly figure out a crafty way, add a brioche or two to their tab.

* I have graduated, so now I can say this. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.
** This is what it says on my diploma. No, you are not allowed to see. Get your own.
*** Forty-twelve.

**** Scads is a metric unit. 1 scad = 5.4 humdingers.

We're the Tatterdema-li-ONS!

2011-06-20T06:02:00.000-07:00

That is to say, think of it to the tune of this lovely number.

Now that I've graduated, I've formed a one-woman puppet company, THE MIGHTY TATTERDEMALIONS (the plural designates me and the puppets), for performances around New England. Check us out at http://themightytatterdemalions.weebly.com.

aisle six, finally finally

2011-05-24T08:38:00.000-07:00

So, it happened. My musical, AISLE SIX, about a cursed supermarket (and alternatively known as "your one-stop supermusical" - get it? get it?) finally got its long-delayed outing at the Players Club of NYC. And what an outing it was.

I really can't say enough good about my costars, who were endlessly enthusiastic, committed, and professional. Nor can I say enough good about the audience members, who were wonderfully receptive, vocal, entertained and ready for anything. So God knows this makes for a pretty boring post.

On that note: Photos! (credit goes to Christin, photographer extraordinaire)

Rob and Hondo, ever in sync

Shawn with a bucket of fake food, which the script called for him to strew about the floor - and which he did with abandon, I might add ...

... as evidenced here

While the others rehearsed their numbers I amused myself by drawing helpful diagrams, such as this one of what Hondo would look like with one eyeball hanging out on a puppet optic nerve (which, indeed, the script calls for, even though you see Hondo in his sprightly youthful form in the pic above)

Music rehearsal

This .... oh, this pretty much only makes sense in context. You had to be there. Imagine it! You'll laugh.

This is as close as I ever get to an action sequence.

And now the heart of the bit! This is the poster my dad designed for the show - on display at New York's one and only historic Players Club of New York, the night of the show. Check it out. How many puppet-with-optic-nerve-damage posters do you think New York's one and only historic Players Club of New York displays on an ordinary night? ZERO. THAT'S how many. Yuhhh-huh.

Voilà:

From far away

and closer up!

Some of my cast members rehearsing in our performance space just before the reading.

The cast (please note extremely professional prop at the bottom right corner)

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. Now I just want to get the scripts out of people's hands! No more staged readings for this baby. It wants to operate without a net. But this was a heck of a trial run. Beautifully received, performed with great enthusiasm by all. Onward and upward!

Puppets!

2011-05-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

I've gone into business! As STOAT & CO. - Custom Puppets ! !

That's right. Want a puppet? Custom-made, at a low low price? Sure you do. Click on the tab above. Go on. Cliiiiiick ... iiiiiiit ! ! !

Or else: BANJO MUSIC! BWA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA ! ! !

I'm sorry I had to do that. It's for your own good, honestly.

Since you asked, I can be reached at thesnarkascending@gmail.com.

o snarker, where art thou?

2011-05-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

I've been AWOL. I'm sorry. There's no excuse.

Well, except that I joined a French theatre troupe, my musical finally received its honest-to-goodness test outing at the Players Club of NYC, I wrote and directed and performed in and made the puppets for two original puppet shows, and ... hmmm, there was one other thing. What was it? . . .

. . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . .

Oh, yeah! I graduated from college!

Those of you who have followed this blog (or lack of) over the past four years will recall that, at times* I have been dismissive, derogatory, sneering, snide, even a little ambivalent toward the university system. But now, here at the "other end" of things, as I look back through the past four years with the kind of reflective stance that can only come of standing reflectively, I must admit, in all honesty, that college is still really pretty stupid.

Naww, but seriously, I have to say the last semester was no slouch. Here we are, the French/Francophone theatre troupe "L'Atelier entre deux murs" (The Workshop Between Two Walls), performing Ionesco's Le Roi se meurt back in February. This is the play that gets translated as Exit the King in English, basically because if they translated it literally as The King Dies Himself, the French would all be considered Loony McLoonybutts, except of course for the aristocracy, who would be considered Loony de McLoonybutts.

What with being the only American/non-native Francophone in the company, the onus was on me** to not sound like a total raving dipwad, a feat I am reasonably sure I accomplished with aplomb.*** But either way, you're never going to find out, since these photos can't talk nyah nyah nyah.

In all seriousness, it was a blast, and I only wish we'd gotten to perform the play more times. We were originally scheduled for an extra performance at the Lycée Français de New York, only to be mysteriously cancelled days before. I never really got to say goodbye to my character Queen Marguerite and I'm sorry for that. But I'm glad we got the one go.

As you may note, I played the role in a relatively ill-fitting garment, expressly designed for an individual with more bodice-filling aptitude (this being one of the things they test you on when you take the SAT). However, it turns out this is an excellent way to keep your energy (alternatively known as "terror") level nice and high during a performance. Which, in fact, I already knew from prior experience; I've been in shows where (a) I actually had a dress come OFF and (b) a baseball fell smack down onto the middle of my head. So this was no biggy. You learn how to roll with things. Or, as we say in French, "on apprend à roller with things."

Next up: Aisle Six, the glorious premiere at the Players Club last month. Stay tuned!

* Specifically, all times.
** As in, "AHHH! THERE'S AN ONUS ON ME! GET IT OFF!!!"
*** As in, "Gee, Bob, you washed those windows with aplomb." "Naw, I'm pretty sure I used a squeegee."****
**** There will be no more stupid word jokes for the remainder of this post. Probably.

les aventures du marionnettiste

2011-03-24T17:14:00.000-07:00

So, as many of you know, I'm doing this puppet show, The Golden Stoat. In which, the puppets have breakfast. Which necessitated a tea set. So I went to the toy store:

SALESLADY: Can I help you?
ME: Yes, I'm, ah, looking for something in a tea set. Do you have one?
SALESLADY: (beat) Yes. (longer beat) For ... children.

Don't judge, lady. I gots puppets. And they hold grudges.

Stop and Smell the Roses (it'll look good on your college application)

2011-03-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

Normally, I don't like to get too deep, but today's topic is: life. This is a pretty universal topic, because chances are most of you reading this are alive, or at least university trustees, so it probably applies to you. And let's not beat around it; life is hard! Just think of all the problems we encounter in a single day: war, recession, prejudice, inadequate Netflix selection, the gumball not coming all the way out of the machine EVEN THOUGH WE PUT IN A QUARTER JUST LIKE IT SAID.

Yes, in these troubled times of ours (3:40 and 3:41 P.M., Daylight Savings) it's all too easy too get caught up in the "small picture" and ignore the "big picture." The reason for this is all too simple: your television has "picture-in-picture," and you have set the small picture to porn while the big picture is on C-SPAN. Your best bet would be to switch them.

So, how exactly do we learn to "stop and smell the roses?" Ideally by following the words of the great writer Henry "James" Joyce, who said, "Stop and smell the roses." Of course, moments after Henry stopped to sniff the nearest rose, sixteen killer bees crawled up his nose and pretty much exploded his whole head, but we appreciate the sentiment just the same.

Of course, maybe you don't want to be like Henry, who after all had to go around for the rest of his authorial life with an exploded head, which led to some pretty comical dust-jacket photos. But you also don't want to be like the other extreme, as represented by the Manhattan mother who recently sued her 4-year-old daughter's pre-school for $19,000, claiming the school damaged the daughter's chances of one day getting into the Ivy League.

Now this is what we would call an example of "small-picture thinking." Can you imagine claiming that a child's college admission chances could get damaged at age 4? The very idea! No, parents, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but in fact your child's college chances are "made or broken" while he or she is still an unfertilized egg. Everything rests on the ovary environment. Is it nutritive* or not? What are those other eggs doing in there? Are they reading The Economist and listening to Bach? Or ... are they reading the National Enquirer and listening to Aaron Copland?** Your child will come out accordingly, parents. And no amount of elite pre-schooling can make a damned bit of difference, except as measured in ear infections.***

Besides, no offense, but here's the thing: what were you like when you were four? Because, with all due respect to your little super-spawn,**** four-year-old children have approximately the same academic capacity as Q-Tips, only much shorter attention spans. Naturally, though, this improves with age, as goes without ... LOOK! A PENNY!

Ha ha, only kidding. (It was a quarter.) Now of course I don't claim to know what you were like when you were four; maybe you already had big Harvard dreams. I myself had but three Life Aspirations:

1. Go to McDonald's.
2. Acquire Happy Meal toy (the girl one, not the boy one). (Then, before exiting restaurant, promptly lose Happy Meal Toy somewhere in the vicinity of a black hole, leading to extremely loud grief and rage, leading perhaps to acquisition of a replacement Happy Meal toy.)
3. Try to ride the dog.

So naturally my life experience leads me to be a bit skeptical of pre-schoolers' abilities to be on the Ivy League track in the first place, although, admittedly, I could be wrong. Also the Indian Ocean could be made of "Berry Blue Typhoon"-flavor Hawaiian Punch and the next Nobel laureate could be a Labrador retriever named "Boomer."*****

Which is all to say, take time each day to remember - in the words of somebody who was probably not Henry "James" Joyce, because by this time his head had already exploded - "don't sweat the small stuff; there is no big stuff." This means, if you absolutely HAVE to sweat, take care only to sweat a little bit and not a lot, because otherwise you will stink and nobody will want to date you.

Also, I personally got into an Ivy League college after having been home-schooled for 12 years, which I mention in order to (a) buoy you hopeful parents out there and (b) say nyah nyah.

But what do you care anyway? You're not listening to me. You're still watching that picture-in-picture.

* Get it? Eggs. Nutritive. HAH!
** Stop that crying. Now.
*** But at least they will be elite ear infections.
**** Unless he or she has a name like "Brantleigh" in which case I take back the respect thing and replace it with snickering. Brantleigh! Hee!
***** I'm going to come back to eat my words on that one, aren't I. I've doomed myself.

Puppets! (and an excuse to say "stoat" a lot)

2011-03-14T13:23:00.000-07:00

A number of you have asked me about The Golden Stoat, the puppet show I'm directing. It'll be taking place April 17 (afternoon) and 19 (evening), at Columbia University, for those who are in the NYC area and want to come. I highly recommend it. It's not often you get a chance to see such a crack ensemble of puppets, puppeteers, musicians and of course one luminous golden stoat.*

Here - I'll let the synopsis I wrote for our promotional posters speak for itself:

Welcome to Groin, France (pronounced “Groin” – it’s French), in the year fourteen hundred eleventy-two – or, as they say in French, mille quatre cent eleventy-two. Trouble is brewing in the royal family! King Drut wants his daughter, Princess Marcheline, to marry her cousin the Marquis de la Confiture – but Marcheline loves Alban Turtulutu, a poor mouseherd. When King Drut sentences Alban to death, Alban comes clean to Marcheline about his mysterious past, even revealing the top-secret story of his father’s forbidden love with a stoat – but not just any stoat! The GOLDEN STOAT – the most beautiful stoat in all the land. It is this tale, and this stoat, that will guide Marcheline on her quest to save her beloved … if she can.

Admission is free. Lavish donations are of course accepted.

To tide you over in the time being, here's me and her royal highness, whom I made on my sewing machine:

I'm hoping to do a "making of the Golden Stoat" post sometime soon. Stay tuned.

* Side note: I believe I've mentioned before in this space that "stoat" is one of the three funniest words in the world. The others are "gerund" and the whole entire Italian language, which I'm counting as one word.

Doctors with borders

2011-03-05T07:51:00.000-08:00

So, I don't usually think of myself as a rebel renegade rule-breaking law-flouting system-spitting-at type, but this morning I attempted - yes, I freely admit it - to make a medical appointment. At the university health center.

(Music: "Night on Bald Mountain")

As you have no doubt guessed by the music, this is problematic on several counts. First of all, I had a medical need, which quite frankly does not thrill your modern university medical practice. Your modern university medical practice has no particular desire to see students. They essentially see us as great festering pestilent wads of social disease with the rational capacities of phlegm. Needless to say, I heartily object to this characterization of college students, on grounds I have currently forgotten.

But anyway, my point is that the health professionals prefer to keep as great a distance from us as possible, preferring to administer medical care in a more "hands-off" kind of way, like through catchy Health Initiatives, as seen on fun posters in the student union:

SYPHILIS SHEEP SAYS: STDs ARE BAAAAAAAAAAD

Therefore, if you should try God forbid to make an appointment through the health services website (turnbackNOWpunk.college.edu), you will get the following notices:

Do you need a same-day visit? --> No --> There are no appointments available in the next two weeks.

Do you need a same-day visit? --> Yes --> Is it life-threatening? --> No --> There are no appointments available in the next two weeks, asshole.

However, if by some ungodly happenstance you should actually manage to make an appointment, you can rest assured that this will probably not make things any better at all. In fact, it will probably make things worse. I remind you we are talking about college health services here, which means that the medical professionals, bless their hearts, may be affected by certain "environmental schemas" about just what might be wrong with you:

University medical professional: What seems to be the problem?

Me: I have a sore throat.

University medical professional: Do you think you might be pregnant?

Me: No, I said I have a sore throat.

University medical professional (with gentle, soothing caring): It's going to be okay.

I seem to get this a lot, but in fact, I have a suspicion it doesn't really matter who you are:

Patient: I think I shattered my ribs.

Doctor: What makes you think that?

Patient: Well, I fell 20 floors, and they're like all shattered, and every time I try to move, I'm in unbearable agony, plus this bone here is sticking out and inexplicably playing songs from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast," the Broadway smash hit musical.

Doctor: Do you think you might be pregnant?

Patient: No, sir. Um, I'm a virgin. And, um, male.

Doctor: What is your estimate of the date of conception?

In other words, college students, you can never win, and it is best, if you have a modicum of common sense, to forget medical care and tough out your medical problem. The alternative will benefit no one. You would do better to go to the student union, and get a bubble tea, and space out on posters featuring Syphilis Sheep. Or, if you absolutely must go to the university health center, at least take advantage of the free condoms on the receptionist's desk, which are useful, among other things, for making fun balloon animals while you wait.

In a Fix

2011-02-09T17:28:00.000-08:00

Good news, fellow New Yorkers. Your own Metropolitan Transit Authority (motto: "Train Skipping Your Station") is getting a makeover! Maybe you've seen the ad. It's on all the subways, just to the left of the redolent yelling gentleman with the twenty-six garbage bags. It goes like this:

"If it's broke, fix it."

Instead of waiting to fix everything in a station at once,

we're fixing critical parts as soon as they need fixing.

This is accompanied by a reassuring picture in which a hard-working actor pretending to be an MTA workman performs the vital workman task of getting photographed. Now, I don't know about you, but golly, I think this is just an amazing revolutionary progressive breakthrough business method. Just think! Fixing things that are not only broken but could possibly maim or kill you! One can hardly guess what kind of cushy amenities they will dream up next. Perhaps they'll institute a "valued rider" program that, for a fee, guarantees you the comfort of knowing the conductor won't slice your fingers off in the doors, at least not on purpose, unless perhaps he is having a bad day.

If you ask me - and I hope I do not sound hyper-patriotic here, but gosh darn it, I just can't contain myself - this is precisely the sort of "new-frontier" business vision that makes America great. I give you Exhibit B: my shower. Now you may recall I live at college, which means a shared bathroom, which in turn means such features as seething, raging, tentacled bacteria the size of standard Angus bulls. You get used to them after awhile, but it's a little disconcerting at first when you walk in only to have them come lurching forth from the toilet to say things like, "HA HA HA. PREPARE TO DIE, (YOUR NAME HERE)."*

But it's all worth it when you get to take a nice hot shower, except if you ignore the little bitty minor infinitesimal small detail that the shower is actually ice cold. So it was that, with a heavy heart and the theme from "Jaws" beginning spontaneously to play in the background, I put in a maintenance request to: University Facilities Management. I explained that when you turned on the shower, hot water runs for 45 seconds, after which it goes cold. Their response was to wait a few days, then send me back a status update, as follows:

Problem: No hot water in shower
Actions taken: Turned on shower. Ran hot water fine.
Status: Fixed

Yes, I'm proud that, as a nation, we're committed to taking this kind of "go-getter" initiative. It just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside as you go through your daily routine, eat breakfast, go to the gym, take a shower ... YAAAAAHHHHH! THIS THING IS LIKE ICE!!!! WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA????

Ahem. It's all right; naturally, there are always kinks to work out of any system. We consumers understand the concept of "work in progress." And it's not just the subway and my shower. There's also the Space Shuttle Program (motto: "No Catastrophic Losses of Life Since [Tuesday]"). Now to their credit, the folks at NASA tried to get this one right. They really did. However, this is obviously hard. To begin to understand the sort of complexity involved in such an undertaking, let's look at just a few of the rejected designs for the Space Shuttle over the years:

But practice makes perfect, which is why, next year, after the Space Shuttle is retired, NASA plans to replace it with the ultimate vehicle:

Of course, there are sure to be certain snags in this plan as well, such as when the fleet loses one of its headlight eyeballs. But still I have enormous hope for the future, and I'm sure you do too, especially if you are talking about the future on Planet Zwumf. But it's okay; works in progress are part of life. We know that; the people at NASA know it. And we're all in this together.

However, NASA, if you're listening, I hope you'll permit me a small suggestion. If things don't work out with the Magic School Bus, I say it's high time you "take the plunge" and replace your fleet with the ultimate vehicle: the New York City subway (motto: "Train Skipping Your Planet").

* They don't actually say your name, you see; they literally say, "(YOUR NAME HERE)".

Meet the Puppets!

2011-02-04T20:08:00.000-08:00

Looky looky!

This is Marie-Claude, the Golden Stoat. And, yes, as you have no doubt astutely observed, she's a very foxy stoat. (Get it? Woodland creature pun! Hah!)

Anyway, she's a puppet I made. (Formerly a bath towel. Fun fact.) Which is all to say, I haven't been idle in my absence. I've been putting together a good dozen of these guys, of all different styles and species, for a puppet show called - yes - the Golden Stoat.

Here's one of her co-stars, Her Royal Highness Marcheline, Princess of Groin (pronounced Groin - it's French). Marcheline has a lovely blonde mane and tiara now, but obviously this was taken in her pre-hair days:

Ain't she purty? Well, except that back before her Rogaine moment, she vaguely resembled Patrick Stewart. Or perhaps Zwibble Dibble (pictured below):

Speaking of which, another fun fact: my sister happens to own such a Zwibble, which we got in maybe 1992. We recently found that they go for upwards of $75-$100 on eBay, which led her to muse that perhaps hers would go for that much had she not spent much of her toddlerhood sucking on its tail. Now let's face it, you have to wonder about the sort of individual who would shell out that many doubloons for a dinosaur wearing a diaper. I mean, EVERYONE knows this is historically inaccurate, right? (In real life they wore Hanes.)

The Golden Stoat will be performed in late April, in Manhattan, for those NY-ers who are suitably interested and/or deranged. (It will be the week after Aisle Six.) Stay tuned for updates on both.....

A dire warning

2011-01-03T15:17:00.000-08:00

Not to be pessimistic or anything, but life basically consists of us making a big honkin' bonerrific heapin' heap of mistakes. Take mine this morning. I woke up with a bad headache, and decided - call it the folly of youth - to take headache medicine.

Now I had actually had this headache the night before, too, which meant I had already taken two pills in the last 24 hours. Turns out that more than two aspirin tablets in a 24-hour period equals SERIOUSLY BAD JUJU, as evidenced by the following verbatim warning on the bottle:

"WARNING WARNING WARNING!!! Take more than 2 tablets in 24-hours and PERISH OF LIVER FAILURE OF THE LIVER, YOU FESTERING LITTLE WAD OF CAT-BOX DEPOSIT! Oh, wait, BWA HA HA, TOOOO LATE, because you ALREADY TOOK THE EXTRA PILLS!!!! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!! Ask a doctor if side effects occur."

Yes, well, I certainly learned MY lesson for the day, didn't I? Meanwhile, I'm spreading the word, so that those of you who can still be saved will know the dangers of ingesting medicine in order to feel better. To think that this kind of thing can happen in America.

For those of you who work visually, here's a handy-dandy ...

Cautionary Guide to the UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS THAT WILL APPEAR ON YOUR LIVER

... if you take more than 2 aspirin tablets in 24 hours, you fool:

After 3 pills:

4 pills:

5 pills:

6 pills:

Just my little public service announcement for the day. I consider it giving back to the community. Happy new year.

Addendum: plush carnage, continued

2010-12-27T10:46:00.000-08:00

Regarding the previous post:

My sister alerted me to the following heartwarming description Build-a-Bear provides of the "Stingray Snacks Set":

"Teddy bear size plush stingray snacks include a plush crab, squid and shrimp. The perfect meal for your stuffed stingray!"

(My sister: "What is WRONG with these people?!")

Cue theme from "Jaws":

If You Don't Have This, You're Not Cool: Special Season's Belated Greetings! edition

2010-12-27T09:38:00.000-08:00

Merry belated Christmas, everyone!

(Hey, check out that hairy stub of arm underneath, huh? Don't bother thinking of that puppy while you're eating.)

Yes, there's always a certain feeling of letdown once the big day has come and gone. Fortunately, we're left with the tender afterglow of the holiday spirit, also defined as "continued readiness to vivisect the Chipmunks personally, if asked."

Note to PETA-types: We at The Snark Ascending do not in any way endorse cruelty to animals, except maybe for that one time the hermit crab we got for our friend's birthday party pinched the living shit out of our eight-year-old hand, whereupon we fantasized for YEARS afterwards about consigning the little monster to a Cuisinart. However, we are sure the rage will abate once we regain feeling in our hand.

Now, do NOT click on this. We're WARNING you. We said, DON'T CLICK. ... BWA HA HA!!! TOO LATE, SUCKER!!! The URGE TO CLICK is BORING a BIG HOLE into your BRAIN. ENJOY THE VOCAL STYLINGS OF THE LITTLE BASTARDS, YOU FOOL!!!!!!

Disclaimer: We're sorry we had to do that.

Meanwhile, in the interest of stimulating the economy* via after-Christmas sales, I'd** like to direct your attention to the following funky little items, which really exist and are brought to you by the Build-a-Bear Workshop. They were brought to my attention by my resourceful sister, who sent me an email entitled "Exceptionally bad taste." I quote:

"They've [Build-a-Bear] been manufacturing a stingray doll, and the other day I was just minding my own business when I found an accessory for it, which... well, I think I'll just show you the page, rather than describe it."

Behold: The STINGRAY SNACKS SET (3 pc.)

"Howdy doody!" say these cute crustaceans, which must be the most adorable invertebrates not currently employed by the Department of Comparative Literature.*** "Please devour us whole! We'll smile while you do it!"

I believe my sister spoke for millions of current and former children when she said: "All I can say is that this definitely would have bugged me when I was little." That's why I'm making your next-year's gift-giving just that much easier by suggesting, here and now, -- and feel free to thank me monetarily any time you like -- that you buy up a set of Stingray Snacks, if not several, and save them up for that special child you hate. Preferably one who sounds like the Chipmunks.

And if you're into vegetarianism, might I suggest this little martyr from my friends at Urban Outfitters (motto: "we also sell keychains shaped like anthropomorphized bodily functions!")

I'd go on, but I'm pretty sure I've ruined enough future meals already. Happy holidays! And tune in next time for our special feature on seemingly innocent items that could probably kill you, okay?

* Excerpt from the forthcoming novel Tangible Assets of Passion: "Brant gazed at Camilla, his macroeconomic policy positively throbbing with horizontal equity, and moaned as she began, with pure unadulterated compound interest, to stimulate his economy."

** Because we are now in the singular, on those occasions when I feel like it.

*** This is a department in which you compare literature to things, as in: "This literature reminds me of a snowblower." (YOUR PROFESSOR: "Yes, go on. Unpack that for me in terms of its dialectical functionality.")

Vive la marionnette

2010-12-07T18:45:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm preparing for finals and all that, but I break for important news. By which I mean, "puppet smut."

On which note, this just in, from a company selling puppets. I want to stress that (a) this is a professional enterprise and (b) I reprint this verbatim.

"Choose From:

Dual Entry Full/Half Body Puppets: Enter in through the bottom of the torso for behind the stage use, or through the back for vent-style use. Great for audiences of 250 or less.

Single Entry Removable Legs Puppets: [...] May be a little harder to operate for small puppeteers. Entry only through the bottom makes it a bit harder to use when not behind the stage."

It so happens that they're selling these for ministry purposes, but obviously I wouldn't be unwise enough to mention that.

I'd rather be snarking

2010-12-05T18:54:00.000-08:00

Mes chers, I'm swamped beyond belief with finals prep. Please forgive the cyber dust balls piling up here. Meanwhile, my brain bulges outward comically, Warner Brothers-style, with suppressed Snarks. I'll dispense them as soon as I get out of here for winter break. Like around Christmas. Again, my apologies.

If You Don't Have This, You're Not Cool Either: Special Double-Header Barbie Toilet Edition

2010-11-10T19:32:00.000-08:00

In all my excitement over the shaveable baby (see the post below at your own risk), I totally forgot about the Barbie toilet. You know how that can happen.

I've actually been saving this one up for a good day. Because -- well, I don't usually like to get too introspective, but I'll be honest with you: I have very strong feelings about Barbie toilets. This is notable, because I don't have very strong feelings about very many topics. Here is an exhaustive list of the other exceptions to the rule:

bubble tea
comical names
the arts
coconut bubble tea

Just try to imagine the transports of joy my soul knew when I saw THIS baby (on the upper right). Go on. Imagine them!

I remember the moment so clearly. It was at Toys 'R' Us, in Times Square. I considered this one of those occasions that necessitates a call home:

ME (delirious with glee): eeeeeeee oogyoogyoogyoogyBARBIETOILEToogyoogyoogy eeee eeee eeeeee!
MY MOTHER: Who is this?

And let that be a lesson to all you parents who complain that your college-age kids never call to tell you about their Defining Life Events.

Naturally, this raises a number of troubling questions that we must ask ourselves, as academics and as advocates of the Barbie toilet:

Can Barbie actually pee? Out of where exactly, given that her loiny parts consist of underpants that are ACTUALLY PART OF HER BODY?
Does Ken ever leave the seat up? Does she get mad and throw Barbie shoes at him?
Did you ever get "experimental" as a kid and switch Barbie and Ken's heads?

Anyway, I actually ended up forgetting all about the Barbie toilet -- at least until the other day when my friend Paige and I were riding the subway home, whereupon we saw someone taking home Barbie's Dream House:

You can't really see it too well in this picture -- and I couldn't find a really good one -- but there's a little white toilet in the upper left room, behind the tub. It's advertised on the box as going "WHOOSH."

Now I can't say I'm as wholehearted a fan of this little number (I'm into sparkly pink) but Dream Commode here does have one extreme advantage, namely, that of going "WHOOSH." Scoff if you must, but can YOUR toilet do that? Oh. Right. Well, I suppose you think that makes you SPECIAL or something.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR INTELLECTUALS:

1. Do you suppose the WHOOSH mean it actually flushes, or is this one of those sorry cases of "talking the talk" without "walking the walk"? Could you flush a Barbie shoe down it? How about a Ken head? Explain.

2. Do you suppose Barbie ever used the Dream Commode for the purpose of giving her little sister, Skipper, a "swirlie" in a moment of rage?

3. Give the poor woman a break. She has underpants for loins.

Shave the day

2010-11-10T05:24:00.000-08:00

There's no sense denying it. All of us, at some point or another, have woken up and said to ourselves : "Gosh darn it. All my life, I've suffered from the gnawing pain of the soul that can only result from the lack of a good baby to shave."

None of us should have to suffer any longer. The Chinese toy industry understands that. They have heard our cries, and responded:

I was alerted to this revolutionary item by reader Steve, to whom I am much indebted. It's not every day you find a shaveable baby of this caliber. Thank goodness Asia saw fit to provide us one. In the West, you just TRY finding such a quality item outside of your hoity-toity high-end snottypants shaveable baby retailer such as Bergdorf Goodman or Harrods.

I'm glad I could relieve your pain.

Back East: The Snark Hits the Asia Society

2010-10-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

As an art critic, we are confronted, every time we see contemporary art, with a burning question. “Where the heck is the restroom?” we ask ourselves. Then, once we have dispensed with that matter, we can concentrate on having profound reactions to the contemporary art. “Huh,” are our exact words. And we sincerely mean them.

Because … okay. Pssst. Over here. We’re going to level with you. Now, don’t tell anybody, but, critic though we are, we frankly just don’t quite “get” contemporary art. It’s kind of like the way we just don’t quite “get” golf, except for the cool kind where you get to putt through dragons and stuff and at the end you might win a free game.

Come to think of it, Nobody’s Fool - the current exhibit at the Asia Society on Park Avenue and 77th Street, featuring the work of Yoshitomo Nara - is not too far from mini-golf art, if you will. Take these dogs (I rather like these dogs). Can’t you imagine thwacking a ball between them to win that free game? I can:

The Asia Society describes Nara as “one of the leading artists of Japan’s influential Neo Pop art,” which – follow us closely here – is pop art that is neo. (This is the sort of thing you know when you are an art critic.) Here is a quote from their website: “Nara’s cute, though often menacing, children and animals are so readily associated with popular culture, particularly manga comics and animation, that viewers may neglect to contemplate his evocative imagery in depth. His popular appeal masks the serious social and personal dimensions of his work—feelings of helplessness and rage, and a sense of isolation in a hyper-networked society."

Well. All righty then. Now allow us to editorialize for a moment.

FNUH FNUH FNUH MEH MEH MEH MEH BLADDY BLADDY BLAHHH

Whoops. Let us get back into our plural Critic Voice. What we mean to say is: God forbid we should ever interpret art on our own. Here is our theory: all such copy, at museums worldwide, is written by the superhero Captain Obvious. Those of you who were once a 13-year-old theatre weenie (we ourselves were once a 13-year-old theatre weenie) who memorized every episode of Whose Line is it Anyway will recall that Captain Obvious was a superhero played by (our hero) Colin Mochrie, who began the sketch by standing in the middle of the stage and remarking, quote, "I'm standing." This same Captain Obvious is clearly the individual responsible for all art commentary in museums everywhere, as evidenced by the following caption to Nara's painting "White Riot."

Here is the painting:

Now you’d think this baby speaks for itself, right? "Hello. I am a kind of ... cat dog ... Pokémon thingy, or whatever, and I am REALLY pissed off": that is clearly the Deeper Meaning here. Right?

Well, no offense, but: WROOOOOONG, loser-face. Clearly YOU have never been an art person. Here is Captain Obvious, speaking on behalf of the Asia Society, to refine your mind. We quote:

“Characters that are ½ child and ½ animal recur frequently in Nara’s work … He is much indebted to children’s book illustrations, which capture the most significant narrative moments in succinct and selective compositions, in contrast to the multitude of sequential images in comic books. Here, this creature’s expression suggests a decisive moment of confrontation.”

Actually, we personally were thinking constipation before Captain Obvious set us straight. But enough about us.

On the other hand, some of Nara's work is graciously allowed to speak for itself. For example, the painting “Remember Me” features the enormous head of a little girl staring at you with bulging, sparkly eyes so hideous you could not forget her if you had a lobotomy for that express purpose.

Now, WARNING WARNING!! DON'T LOOK!!!

... TOO LATE!!!! BWA HA HA:

But this is not the most memorable item in the exhibition. No, that honor goes to the framed pieces of notebook paper with Nara's scribbles on them. That's right. Nara made notes - just like you do every day, only you don’t get an exhibit – which have framed on the wall for your delectation. The Asia Society has labeled these items as – remember, we are quoting here – “ballpoint pen on notebook paper.” Just in case your layman's eye couldn't pick out the artist's media. We can only be thankful in such cases that the industrious curators neglect to include, say, an artist's finest nose-blowings ("Snot on Kleenex, 2005")
.

Another highlight was the “Doors” exhibit consisting of a group of interconnected playhouse-style fixtures. There was a TV on inside one of the houses, featuring images of Nara's work to music. We noticed a young woman happily watching the TV ; she looked to have been camped out there for some time. What's more, she looked very peaceful, very happy. Our theory, as a critic – not to get too lofty here, but we feel we must share it – is that she had found the secret remote control to change the channel to porn.

Our final port of call was the gift shop, which we mention not because of anything related to art, but because of something far, far deeper: we found this oeuvre.

My First Book of Sushi is a strangely poetic little composition which features the following meditation:

"Why, why, why, my little shu mai, why do I love you so?"*

Call me a sentimentalist if you will, but I believe those are words we all - critics and noncritics alike - can stand to remember in these troubled times. Anyway, should you happen to be in the city any time soon, you owe it to yourself to stop by the Asia Society and take in Nobody's Fool. We highly recommend this exhibit. We especially highly recommend the secret remote control.

Meanwhile, till next time; we hope you have enjoyed this column, written in #2 "The Princeton Review" pencil on "Hewlett Packard" printer paper. We cordially invite the Asia Society to offer us a lavish exhibit. (We trust they will be forward-thinking enough to overlook the, you know, Caucasian thing.)

* Another good one, which we also quote verbatim: "Ikura, squishy salmon roe / Like dabby dots of jelly, / Salty on my lips / And yummy in my belly.” (©460 B.C., Herodotus)

©2010 Nicola McEldowney

Story Hour: A Critic's Take

2010-10-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

THEATER REVIEW: Story Hour (11:30-12:30), Barnes & Noble at 86^th St. and Lexington Ave., with special guest John Tartaglia. Reviewed September 19.

As a critic of the arts in New York, we have come to take for granted the sort of cultural experiences that allow us to enrich our artistic appreciation, to build upon our creative understanding, to deftly refer to ourselves in the plural. This particular performance was no exception; indeed, it is always the most “New Wave” theatre that illuminates the art form anew for us by throwing convention to the wind. We are then confronted, as critics and as plural humans, by the question: what exactly does it mean to be “confronted” by a question? Wouldn’t you think it was weird if a question bumped up against you in the road and went “HEY! YOU!” What if a question walked in on you while you were in the bathroom? What then?

But we digress. We are here to talk about the performance, which as we have mentioned simply embodied the avant-garde. For one thing, it took place at 11 a.m., which served the dual purposes of (a) placing it firmly on the “cutting edge” of new theatre and (b) steering clear of the spectators’ naptimes, although tragically, in at least one case they did not clear Potty Time. (We do not wish to toot our own horn, but we should note that among the spectators, we personally held the distinction of being pretty much the only one who did not, at some point, spit up or cry.) The spectators were accompanied almost universally by sippy cups, as well as by large haggard escorts who looked as though they would really have been just as happy to go home and collapse into bed.

Compounding the occasion’s avant-garde ambience, many spectators chose to seat themselves on the floor. They also demonstrated a totally revolutionary new mode of audience appreciation that consists basically of squirming around on the floor and pretty much ignoring the performance. At such junctures, Mommy and Daddy would try to redirect the spectators’ attention, although we thought them frankly ineffectual.

Fortunately for the performer, renowned puppeteer John Tartaglia, there was a core group of about eight or ten delighted wiggly patrons who wiggled right up there onstage with him and his puppet and stayed there, rapt. You just don’t get this sort of atmosphere at Lincoln Center, where when you wiggle up onstage nobody takes it as a compliment. (Should you become known as a repeat wiggler, Lincoln Center will resort to severe measures, namely, naming a building after you.)*

While Mr. Tartaglia was the supposed star of the show, it is our opinion that he was quite frankly upstaged by his hand puppet co-star, a young up-and-coming fish named “Dorsal”** who did not give his last name. (As a person who is theatrically In the Know, we can only assume this is the result of an attempt on the part of his management to “brand” him for mass appeal, the way they did with “Lady Gaga” and “Galileo.”) He was also accompanied by page-turner Julio, whom we felt turned pages with great élan.

The book Mr. Tartaglia read was I’m The Biggest Thing in the Ocean, which tells the story of individualistic young architect Howard Roark, who refuses to compromise his artistic vision even when the world threatens to destroy him. No, wait, that’s Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. Actually, The Biggest Thing in the Ocean is the story of a happy blue squid who is the biggest thing in the ocean – bigger than the shrimp, the octopus, SpongeBob SquarePants, etc. – when suddenly (and we personally did NOT see this coming) he is swallowed by a whale, whereupon he remarks, ever cheery, “I’m the biggest thing in this whale.” Personally, we felt that what this plot lacked in substance, it made up in promoting the theme of remaining annoying in death.

Mr. Tartaglia, however, had a different take on this oeuvre (French for “squid”) when we spoke with him after the show.

“I feel bad,” he said. “I didn’t realize a character, um, DIES at the end.”

Hadn’t he read the material before arriving? He explained sheepishly that he had literally just gotten off his plane. As a Frequent Flyer ourselves, we’re inclined to give him a break. Planes are NOT conducive to reading, which is the only possible explanation for SkyMall, the magazine that can actually convince your pathetic plane-addled brain that you desperately need, say, a rectal alarm clock.

At any rate, we left the performance happy and fulfilled, and we look forward to its talented stars’ next venture, whatever that may be. Not that anyone asked us, but if Mr. Tartaglia’s management will be pleased to accept our suggestion, we would like to put in our vote for a stage Fountainhead, starring “Dorsal” as Howard Roark.

* This is no joke. Lincoln Center is obsessed with this practice. You New York theatregoers know what I'm talking about. They’ll take any excuse. Everything there is named after somebody, as in, “The Norbert V. and Edna M. Thrombosis Automatic Paper Towel Dispenser (Wave Hands in Front of Flashing Light).” Seriously now, these people can’t all be somebody.

** Appearing through the courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association.

Brevity is the soul of twit

2010-10-04T04:06:00.000-07:00

I have a Twitter. Can't say I'm totally 100% sure why, but, what the heck. Call it instinct.* If nothing else, it allows me to voice my feelings on today's Hot-Button Issues, such as Dylan's Candy Bar.

So, yes. Suivez-moi! (Follow me!)

*You know, the universal human instinct to make purple sparkly webpages with strawberry icons.

Vive l'histoire!

2010-10-03T04:39:00.000-07:00

Lately, I’ve been negligent about blogging. This is all college’s fault. It’s very hard, although I should clarify that this is not what people usually mean when they say college is hard. What they mean is this. (Excuse me while I get into character. Preparation is crucial to an actor.)

LIKE, COLLEGE IS SOOOOO HAAAAAARD! LIKE SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO, LIKE, LEARN STUFF, AND STUFF. OMIGOD IT TOTALLY SUUUUUUCKS.

Whereas what I think is hard is not having the time to write stuff that actually matters to you, defined as “stuff that does not have the words ‘neo-teological bifurcated gender dichotomy’ in the title.” Because what college really is, if you ask me, is basically just a big fat old time-sucker, with the only pay-offs being (a) eventual social status (so I’m told) and (b) occasionally the vending machines give you two bags of animal crackers instead of one (this will appear on your next bill).

So it’s time to multitask. Today, I’m going to allow academia to seep into blogging (as in, “Ewww! This blogging has academia all over it!”), which means today, we’re going to review for midterms. Thus, without further ado, I give you:

THE HISTORY OF FRANCE

40,000 B.C. – Cro-Magnon.

30,000 B.C. – Sno-Magnon. (These were Magnons who sold sno-cones on street corners. Recently, fossils were found at the corner of 79^th and Broadway.)

12,000 B.C. – Rise of the Gauls, whom historical artifacts suggest to have been a comical race of tiny little yellow-bearded men with big fat sidekicks.

55 B.C. – Beginning of the colonisation of Gaul by the Romans. Having conquered it, they commence building FNACs. Of course, nobody knows what the “F” stands for.

45 B.C. – Gérard Depardieu stars in first film.

50 B.C. – The Romans slap their foreheads as they realize B.C. numbers actually go backward. While the Romans are preoccupied slapping their foreheads, barbarians invade.

500 A.D. – Barbarians slap their foreheads, realizing their invasion actually wasn’t supposed to occur till now.

500 A.D., later in the afternoon – Barbarians get bored and flee, leaving their trash behind. Everyone else is left picking up White Castle wrappers for days.

800 A.D. – Charlemagne becomes emperor in a special ceremony at Charles de Gaulle airport.

987 A.D. – Domination of the feudal lords by the monarchy, who merge to become Feudal Lords-The Monarchy Amalgmated Enterprises, LLC, now Time Warner Cable.

987 A.D. – 14^th and 15^th centuries – Nothing happens during this time. Everybody gets frankly pretty bored sitting around waiting for the 14^th and 15^th centuries. “Where the heck are the 14^th and 15^th centuries?” are their exact words. They are confounded, and with good reason: they did not know they spoke English.

14^th and 15^th centuries: Finally we get back to business with the toe-tapping Guerre de cent ans contre les Anglais (literally, “the Time Warner Cable Guerre de cent ans contre les Anglais”). The English respond by putting them in English hotels. France surrenders instantly. No one blames them. Also during this time, the exploits of Jeanne d’Arc, played by Gérard Depardieu.

The Middle Ages, Absolutism, and the Enlightenment – These all happened in the same day (“vendredi”), which as you can imagine meant schlepping all over creation.

15^th-16^th centuries: Introduction of the Renaissance in France, a beautiful and enriching era of endless discovery and creation, during which the finest artistic figures in the history of Western civilization – Shakespeare, da Vinci, Lady Gaga, Pikachu, etc. – all go bowling.

16^th century, a little later on that evening – The French decide to appropriate the word “bowling” and pronounce it comically, as in, “Elle fait du bouh-linggg.” Americans, who do not exist yet, snicker secretly.

1515 – King Francis I takes the throne. Cards featuring beloved comic character Bécassine are sent out for the occasion.

1562-1589 Wars of religion between the Catholics and the Protestants. In a stunning upset, they are both defeated by the Knicks.

1589 Henri IV crowned king of France, followed soon by his sequel, Henri V Strikes Back.

1804-15: The First Empire, so called because it is – pay close attention here – the first empire. People decide that if THIS kind of thinking is the end product of the so-called “Enlightenment,” they want their money back. Customer Service is invented for the express purpose of denying this request, in a historic ceremony featuring Broadway songs.

1848: The Second Republic, so called because there weren’t any republics before it.

1870: The Third Republic, which causes people everywhere to mumble, “What, another one?” in French. (“Quoi, another un?”)

1936-8: Le Front Populaire of Léon Blum, followed by the Side Unpopulaire of Léon Blum, then finally the Back, which is so unpopular it goes straight to DVD.

1946-58: The Fourth Republic happens, but by this time no one is even paying attention.
Independence of many of the French colonies, which show their discontent by burning their bras.

1981 – Francois Mitterrand “cohabitates” with Jacques Chirac, which raises eyebrows, especially when they get matching towel sets.

1991 – Election of the first female prime minister, Edith Cresson, played by Gérard Depardieu.

1992-present – France continues to pronounce “bowling” funny.

Thanks for helping me study. You guys are great. You’ll let me know if there are mistakes, right?

The latest from the Super Duper Store

2010-10-01T17:59:00.000-07:00

Mes chers,

With apologies for my scarceness this month, I direct your attention to the page I've created for Aisle Six. The next production is in the works! In the meantime, here's this, for those of who've wanted to know more about it.

And for those who haven't wanted to know more about it, your mother is ugly.

A-heh ... I mean ... "to each his own." "To each his own," that is what I meant. It came out wrong. That happens.

Love,
The Snark

Meet Aubrey!

2010-09-12T21:01:00.000-07:00

A colleague of mine. She and I have a post up at webegirls.com. Go see!

And yipes! What with the hecticicitude of the new school year starting and and all that, I didn't even realize it went up till now! So take a look for it in the archives. It ran around September 5, I think.

9 Chickweed Lane on Entertainment Weekly's blog Pop Watch

2010-09-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

Back at school with plenty to snark - I'm reading Plato's Republic, for cripe's sake - but, haven't really had the time to sit down and do it yet. Don't worry. It's coming, oh-ho, boy is it coming.

In the meantime: check this out! My dad and Chickweed are the subject of a post on Entertainment Weekly's blog. C'est cool, n'est-ce pas?

Random neural firing

2010-08-27T17:11:00.000-07:00

So this is bugging me. It always has. I'm throwing it over to you guys.

What, exactly, does it mean when someone says "Give back to your community"? As in, what did we take from our community in the first place?

A twenty?
An egg?
Its iPod touch?
Its screenplay idea?

If anyone knows, feel free to enlighten me. Not only will I know what I took, I'll know if I actually want to give it back.

Memory Lane

2010-08-27T10:40:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another installment in our acclaimed series, “Creepy-Ass Topics in Psychology.” Today’s topic is: confabulation. This is a common phenomenon, especially during early adolescence; some youngsters will confabulate as many as four times a day, as in, “BRANDON! QUIT CONFABULATING ALREADY! I NEED IN THE BATHROOM!”

No, no, wait. We are confusing our phenomena here. Confabulation actually refers to false memory -- in other words, belief in an event that never actually took place. For example, you might believe you once belched the most voluptuous, earth-rocking belch ever to erupt from any human being who was not either a Metropolitan Opera company member or the late Queen Mother. However, you would be wrong, because that particular belch was actually belched by my cousin in 2006. There, your memory is false. See how it works? In fact, if you believe anything at all, that’s probably just you confabulating away again.

Here's something else confabulation explains: nostalgia. Exhibit A is the wealth of websites out there eulogizing novelty food products that no longer exist, such as “Shake-A-Pudd’n." I found this product at an astounding website called In the ‘80s, where people gather to remember the products of the era. For instance: if you want to see an example of true and violent human passion, click at your own risk on the entry for Franco-American Macaroni and Cheese, a discontinued product. For those who prefer just a small sampling, here are a few unretouched comments from visitors to the mac-and-cheese lament page:

“The Chef Boyardee version is NOTHING like this icon. It was a sad day when this went off the market.”
“PLEASE OH PLEASE BRING BACK FA MAC AND CHEESE1 I GREW UP ON IT AND ITS MY NUMBER ONE COMFORT FOOD WHY DID YOU STOP MAKING IT? EVERYONE LOVED IT PLEASE PUT IT BACK IN STORE PLEASE?”
“I remember this in the 1980's. I can close my eyes and remember the unique cheese flavor.”
“I'm 65 years old and had been eating F.A. mac and cheese, I think, since it first came out. It was that good. I really miss it and hope it comes back on the market in my lifetime.”
“BRING IT BACK - PLEASE....”

Clearly, people believe they experienced some sort of spiritual orgasm from eating these products, whereas in fact they probably just shook a pudd’n and dumped it in the trash. (Psssst, Franco-American Macaroni and Cheese fans: I am not referring to you guys, okay? I’m sure that particular product yielded nothing short of a mac-n-cheesy religious experience! Please don’t come near my home! Thank you!) Anyway, you see what I’m saying? Our friend confabulation at work again.

Exhibit B is an op-ed piece, by writer Joan Wickersham, which appeared earlier this month in the Boston Globe (“Boston’s Only Newspaper Named After A Globe”). Entitled “My first summer job,” the piece is a gentle ode to our first employments, as teenagers, when we spent most of our time at work screwing up. Yet – as we did not realize at the time, but would realize later – we were learning Valuable Life Skills that would set us on the Path to Adulthood. The idea here is that these jobs, however pointless or boring we may find them at the time, are teaching us Who We Will Become. One day, we will realize how much we owe to those initial shy, clumsy experiences – our first summer jobs.

Now, obviously, Ms. Wickersham speaks (a) from her own personal experience and (b) for a whole lot of people, but let’s face it, there are only two possible explanations here. One, we are looking at a classic case of mass confabulation. Two – and I mean no disrespect here – her article refers to summer jobs on the Planet Gwuhhhhhhhhh. Because summer job nostalgia is unmerited on this planet. Seriously, why would anybody want to remember summer jobs? I advocate electroshock therapy to avoid remembering summer jobs. I recommend self-induced concussions, if necessary.

The piece states: “Summer jobs are a rite of passage […] It’s where we fall down and get up again. It’s the place where we make mistakes — not because we’re stupid or lazy, but because we don’t yet know any better. We scoop ice cream, we bag groceries, we find out what happens when we show up late to walk the dog. It’s where we start to learn.”

Somehow this compelled me to look back at the very first essay I ever wrote for this blog – “How I Spent My Summer Vexation” – from which I present my OWN statement on the same topic:

“Being a summer gig, mine has lasted only 2 1/2 months, but bear in mind this is equal to 387 Customer Service years. … [In] Customer Service (motto: “Smilingly Refunding Your Befouled Froot Loops Since 1805″), I have had the opportunity to perform numerous vital functions, such as: (1) Taking back fetid seafood, (2) Taking back REALLY fetid seafood, (3) Announcing over the speaker to various managerial beings with names like ‘Stan’ that they have a call on ‘405,’ (4) Directing customers to the restrooms, and (5) If restrooms are full, directing customers to the Fresh Maine Lobster tank … Thus, needless to say, my mental state has been such of late as to render me unable to create anything nutritive (or non-phlegm-based)."

Not that I am bitter that I didn’t get asked to be in the “Boston Globe.” If that IS its name.

So if you ask me, there’s no question that people confabulate their summer-job memories. I think the real question here is: Why? Not, “Why would we want to have had good experiences?” but “Supposing they were actually bad, why would we want to remember them as good?” In other words, isn’t there something to be said for remembering things the way they WERE, especially if they were painful and comical? Sure, those experiences are no fun at the time, but there’s endless material to be derived from them. Not to mention, painful experiences can actually produce joy, pleasure, laughter! Especially they happen to someone else! If you ask me, the best kind of nostalgia comes from remembering other people’s pain. Call me sentimental if you must.

I do want to stress that my aim is not to pass judgment on people who remember their summer jobs as positive experiences. It’s not mine to say whether those people are confabulating their memories or not.* But, if you are remembering something falsely, there’s something to be said for exploring that memory and seeing if you can’t come to remember things the way they actually were. Your life will be richer for it. I know mine has been, ever since I won the Preakness back in ’77, under the name of Seattle Slew.

Good times.

* They are, duh.

Lit for Brains #1: Selling Hope and Big Nate: In A Class By Himself

2010-08-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

One of the perks of my summer bookstore gig is occasionally I get to pick some books to review from whatever happens to be lying on the Advance Reader Copy table. I'm partial to the kids' books. I'm a bit overdue with these two - I read them on the flight to the Comic Con.

Selling Hope - Kristin O'Donnell Tubb
It's hard to separate this book's promise from its execution. On first reading the back cover blurb, I thought it was a neat story idea, and still do. In 1910 Chicago, with Halley's comet approaching, a 13-year-old on tour with a vaudeville troupe (she plays assistant to her father, a magician) gets the idea to raise some money by hawking fake "anti-comet pills" to terrified townspeople. However, she hasn't anticipated the emotional consequences that ensue - both for the customers (who cling to the belief that they now have "hope") and for our young entrepreneur (not-so-coincidentally also named "Hope") herself. Along the way, she grapples with her feelings about her mother's death, navigates her relationship with her dad, and forms a bond with a fellow troupe member, who just happens to be a 15-year-old Buster Keaton.

It's a mixed bag. The substance and Ms. Tubb's imaginative resources are commendable. The narrative, on the other hand, is awkward. Narrator Hope's voice, while distinctive, is labored, making her come across as self-conscious in the way she describes things. (Furthermore, as an incidental point, I find it hard to buy that Buster Keaton could have been such a bland, vanilla-milkshake presence -- but I admit I wasn't there.) Despite the problems, it's worth a read: every plot point is tied up, no character is left undeveloped, and whenever Ms. Tubb describes Hope's reactions to Buster, her writing really shines. Her investment in her characters, story, and research is obvious; the excesses should be taken along with the positives, not automatically allowed to overshadow them. Decide for yourself.

SNARK-O-METER RATING: 1.5 snarks ("You Might Just Watch The Playhouse Instead")

Big Nate: In A Class By Himself - Lincoln Peirce
Having grown up with 11-year-old comic strip antihero Big Nate (although I didn't specifically attend P.S. 38), I'm happy to see the kid get a book of his own. Although the inevitable comparison will be to Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid and its sequels, I was actually reminded of Marissa Moss' Amelia's Notebook series; Amelia, like Nate, draws her "own" cartoons to accompany the story, and the tone of the humor is not dissimilar. Both characters have engaging, first-person voices that engage the reader as a friend.

The story is told with ease, humor and style. Readers may well figure out the ending ahead of time, but it's still entertaining and the story never insults the reader's intelligence. Personally, I only wished Nate's character had had more of a chance to develop in this book; given that this was a story told outside of the constraints of a daily comic strip, I felt that the character could have had a lot more room to grow. There's plenty to him; this is, after all, the same kid who created the comic strip hero "Dr. Cesspool." So naturally he's a sentimental favorite of mine. Here's hoping we see sequels.

SNARK-O-METER RATING: Bag of Cheez Doodles (because I know Nate would prefer that to bubble tea)

If You Don't Have This, You're Not Cool, #2: Bowling Edition

2010-08-21T04:27:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you've heard the saying, "No one will ever love you until you love yourself." Here at the Department of Stuff You Don't Have, we prefer the saying, "No one will ever love you until you buy a ton of really screamingly kick-ass bowling gear." We know we personally wouldn't waste our time on someone without, for example, these Hello Kitty bowling balls:

"OK, sure," you are saying, practically-minded individual that you are. "But what purpose does that serve, other than fulfilling mankind's universal desire to hurl Hello Kitty great lengths?"

Well. Aren't we picky. Perhaps you would prefer to becoming cool by acquiring a product that serves a more obviously utilitarian sort of purpose, such as this bowling ball jockstrap:

Technically, this is the See Saw Towel, available from Storm Products, Inc., a catalogue of seriously intense bowling accoutrements (French, meaning "shit"). We are talking about gear designed exclusively for guys whose right arms are themselves bigger than Fitness Celebrity John Basedow, although needless to say these arms have flabbier abs.

However, Storm also caters to the more sensitive individual, whom we advise to become cool by purchasing the Scented Grip Bag, available in Vanilla:

This is a terrific concept ("Here's something that smells nice! Granted, the bowling alley you bring it into will feature the federally mandated Bowling Alley Odor of necrosis mixed with Marlboro swirled with fetid armpit with just a hint of pizza, thus eclipsing all other smells within a five-mile radius! But in your heart you'll still know you're carrying the Scented Grip Bag!"). Lamentably, the Bag comes in just the one scent, but we are holding out for the day they introduce other varieties, such as Musk. It is our fervent hope that this would result in widespread instances of sudden, violent bowling league orgiastic behavior in bowling alleys everywhere, and if you do not wish the same for our nation, you have no soul.

We come at least to the true supremo of bowling products you will never be cool without. We speak of the one, the only ... (Cue annoying "THX Sound" music)

... THE GLADIATOR

This is the currently featured homepage product of a company called (we swear - and this pretty much makes us happier than anything, ever) Visionary Bowling Products. As you may have noticed from the picture, this is a Limited Edition ball; in other words WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, STUPID???? THEY ONLY MADE 1,000 OF THEM!!!!! BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY!!!!!!!!

Ahem. Sorry about that. Perhaps I should let the people of Visionary Bowling Products speak for themselves:

"The Gladiator LE uses the Panoptic coverstock (a blend of several reactive coverstocks) along with the Mohawk core, to create a ball with easier length than either the Gladiator Pearl or Solid, and provides a smooth transition on the backends [...] This allows for a quicker revving ball that begins to roll in the midlane while keeping a controllable continuous arc reaction on the backend. The 'MOHAWK' on the core creates a mild mass bias for fine tuning the ball's reaction."

That is how Visionary Bowling describes the Gladiator LE.* What's more, just for you they've taken the care to picture the ball, on their homepage, with a real live gladiator, so that you can be sure of its quality. That means you don't have to take my word for it or theirs. Here's the gladiator, who has come here all the way from Visionary Bowling's homepage, to tell you himself:

GLADIATOR: Hi, I'm a gladiator, and I heartily endorse this product.

Of course this is sure to raise the wrath of the Internet "nitpickers" who will start their annoying cyberwhining that this picture is not "historically accurate"; needless to say, these people are unaware of the little-known but strangely majestic lion-versus-bowling-ball battles of ancient Rome, in which the plucky gladiator only won, in the end, by snapping the lion in the eye with his See Saw Towel. Stupid lion! You can bet it never saw that coming.

The gladiator pictured, of course, is not one of the ones who actually participated in those fights. They would never have those guys on the site, and with good reason: they were ugly. This is a gladiator with a small but promising side career as an actor; he has stylishly askew, bicep-showing headshots; an agent named Manny; a Twitter account for "networking" and getting invited to the right parties, etc. But wouldn't you know, the money is in snapping lions in the eye with towels. This gladiator sighs a lot; no one cares for his art. But he is "on his way up" nonetheless; last we heard, he was in talks for a role in Little Shop of Horrors in a small but critically-acclaimed dinner theatre in Billings, Montana.

But enough about his personal life. This is about you, after all, and your tireless quest to become cool. We at the Department of Stuff You Don't Have applaud your efforts. We wish you only the best. May you have luck, may you have success; may you have easier length than either the Gladiator Pearl or Solid. Because we at the Department have every faith in you to provide a smooth transition on the backends.

If you're good, we might even let you show us your mild mass bias.

* Important note: the Visionary Bowling catalogue also features a ball called the "Ogre Solid."

It Takes Balls

2010-08-20T03:47:00.000-07:00

As a renowned expert on bowling, I get asked questions a lot. For example: "Are you aware you're not actually a renowned expert on bowling?" At which point my usual practice is to point the other way, shout "LOOK!," give the person a Death Wedgie while he or she is turned around, and then run like hell. So far it has worked out pretty good.

So what is it that makes this sport the undisputed Sport of Kings, at least assuming we are referring to King Brent the Slightly Pockmarked of Hullaballoo, who was known mostly for running around naked, except for a toy stethoscope worn backwards over his head, and impersonating a superhero named Captain Blammo? (This king was a pretty good bowler, you see.)

I will answer that question for you, based on my fairly reliable recollection (without actually having to look back) that there was one. Bowling is the greatest sport because it is the only sport - and I except neither fencing nor "Skee-Ball" from this claim - that you can play in constant proximity to bowling alley chicken fingers ("Made from Parts"), and nobody ever bats an eye.* Whereas if these chicken fingers showed up in other prominent sports - well, I mean, can you imagine? Suppose they showed up in a swimming pool during the Summer Olympics! The international swimming federation would have a fit! The chicken fingers would immediately be made to submit to a urine test. All hell would break loose, and that is not even counting the incriminating photos that would later surface of the chicken fingers engaged in illicit activities with Michael Phelps.

I do not mean to suggest, of course, that chicken fingers are all bowling alleys provide. On the contrary, any respectable bowling alley - any alley worth its weight in those ugly-ass shoes - will also feature: large quantities of crud.

"Harrumph," you are saying. "What about Bowlmor, the bowling alley of the rich and famous, as advertised on the Manhattan subway, with locations in New York's Union Square, as well as Bethesda, Cupertino, Long Island, Miami, and Orange County?"

Good point. You can be sure there is no bacteria in a place where both Paris Hilton and the Olsen twins have courageously lent their names to the bowling cause. I have never personally been to this bowling alley, although I have seen its subway ads many times, usually in between the ads for Minimally Invasive girly-parts surgery and the ads for the grim-faced actors playing lawyers who once fictionally got a $5 quintillion settlement for a Queens man whose face got eaten by squirrels, or whatever. I like the bowling ads best of the three, because they list all the celebrities who have ever bowled there, like this:

MATT DAMON * JULIA ROBERTS * BEYONCÉ * WHATS-HIS-FACE FROM THAT ONE SEASON OF AMERICAN IDOL * THE DALAI LAMA * GALILEO

"You're just bitter," you're saying, "because you suck at bowling. Maybe you should stick to things you're better at, such as picking at your teeth." I admit there may be some truth to this, though my suckage at bowling is through no fault of my own. The blame lies squarely with genetics, as I discovered yesterday upon bowling with my family. To give you an idea of our prowess: collectively, the four of us, bowling two games apiece, could not amass the kind of score your high-octane bowler such as Galileo could amass in one frame.

The blame also lies with the diabolical system known as "candlepin bowling," which is what they have at the local alley here. Now, at every other alley I have ever visited, people bowled with large bowling balls that could - call it a crazy game-enhancing tactic - hit pins. The candlepin system, on the other hand, is designed to ensure you never make the slightest contact with a pin. This is done by (a) making the ball so light and ineffective you could fire it out of a cannon and still not gather enough force to knock down the pins, not to mention that (b) even if you DID somehow gather enough force, the ball is expertly designed to sail BETWEEN even the most central of pins, missing contact with them by mere molecules. It would be considered an astonishing feat of precision if you were to do a throw like this on purpose. (DATING TIP: If you are trying to impress a date, just say you ARE doing it on purpose.) (ANOTHER DATING TIP: If your date is actually impressed by this, you should probably get another date.)

How could the candlepin system be permitted to exist, you ask? Here's my theory: candlepin bowling is the brainchild of crazed, diabolical tiny people (I am looking here at people of the Fisher-Price variety, and those troll dolls, and Regis Philbin) who invented the sport in the interests of watching people of standard dimensions fail miserably. If you ask me, these people hide out in the ball-return machine and scream with laughter every time you miss a shot. (They think they're muffling this laughter. But they're NOT.)

Of course, needless to say, just because you fail at bowling doesn't make you a worthless person. You could be a worthless person for all sorts of other reasons. For example, you could fail at the bowling alley arcade games. I am thinking here of air hockey. Especially if you play it the way I did the last time, namely against my particular opponent, a perfectly docile-looking girl who preceded our match with the statement, "I should warn you: I'm pretty aggressive."

Now in those days, I tended not to pay much attention when people tossed around words like "aggressive." I was not as old as I later became (immediately following that air hockey game). I have little memory of the game itself, except that my opponent played with such astounding, bladder-voiding violence as to make me truly fear for my life. As I recall, it was roughly around the time she sent the hockey puck flying clear through the opposite wall of the bowling alley that I chose to "throw in the towel," mostly because it would have been pretty hard to play in a fetal position. However, I am no weenie; I will have you know I got up from that fetal position roughly last Thursday, which is pretty impressive when you consider that that game occurred in only 2008. My joints are stiff.

When I got up, I'm pretty sure I heard badly muffled laughter from inside the ball-return machine.

And speaking of bowling!

TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR: Bowling products you don't have. Because you're not cool.

* Speaking of which, I've always wondered: how do you bat an eye, anyway? Wouldn't the owner of the eye complain?

Hearing things

2010-08-16T14:25:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when you're not paying 100% attention.

Overheard on the news today, while at work:

" ... and in Florida, Star Wars fans show off their enormous asses."

This could not have been what the perky news anchor REALLY said. Um ... right?

Anybody who was watching the Portland, Maine NBC affiliate news today, feel free to back me up.

At any rate, I thank God, just in case, that I had my back turned to the TV at the time.

For those of you who follow world news: Bwa ha ha ha

2010-08-11T15:54:00.000-07:00

...ha ha ha ha ha haaaa (hack) (cough) haaa

oh em gee: doofus mistake disclaimer

2010-08-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

Oopsy daisies.

If anybody caught the below post RIGHT when it came up:

I just noticed that I accidentally typed that it was leading PSYCHOLOGISTS, not leading ARCHAEOLOGISTS, who discovered the fossils. Anyway it's fixed now.

God knows why my brain did this. I should have a session with an archaeologist.

- N.

If You Don't Have This, You're Not Cool

2010-08-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

Those of you who believe that technology in its current state produces nothing but inanity and frivolity, prepare to see shaken the very foundation on which you stand. Get ready now:

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRWHOMPAWHOMPAWHOMPAWHOMPA

Wheeeee! Ha ha ha! Boy, that was sure invigorating! I hope it was as good for you as it was for me. Anyway, Mr. or Ms. Negative Nancy or Nate as the case may be, a fat lot of good you know, because here, courtesy of the New York Times, is the ultimate beacon of technological Hope for Tomorrow:

(photo from the N.Y. Times Personal Tech blog)

She is the Barbie Video Girl Doll, of whom the Times' Warren Buckleitner writes: "[She] looks just like a regular Barbie, but a closer look reveals a camera in her pendant, and a postage-sized color screen on her back, peeking through her blouse." Which - and I do not claim to be any sort of tech expert here, but correct me if I'm wrong - essentially means you get to see the whole world from Barbie's cleavage.

I believe I may say without fear of exaggeration that this product is the key to the evolution of the human race not only technologically but also philosophically. For it provokes us to ask ourselves the seminal human question: What's it like to be Barbie's cleavage? This is a question we human types have been asking ourselves throughout the ages of civilisation. For example, leading archaeologists have found definitive fossil evidence of australopithecines playing with Australopithecine Camera Barbie, who took two AAA batteries and also made girlish grunting sounds.

But enough history for today. My point here, as I have discovered over the last two brain-racking seconds of realizing I need a point, is: you're not cool enough. Yeah. I'm really sorry* to break it to you this way, but ... well, I mean, think about it. Not only do you probably not have this Barbie; what's more, you probably don't even have the Box of Laughter, not that I am judging you, you worthless dweeb.

Perhaps I should back up here and explain a bit to those as yet unenlightened about the Box of Laughter (formally known, in verbatim capital letters, as the "EXCLUSIVE BOX OF APPLAUSE AND BOX OF LAUGHTER"). This honey is the product of (who else?) SkyMall, which I heartily believe - and you cannot convince me otherwise - to be the finest publication ever to routinely abut a barf bag. Here's how the Box is described in SkyMall Land:

"Craving a little recognition? Someone who gets your jokes? Open the Box of Applause and be greeted with the sounds of cheering and clapping from a very enthusiastic crowd. Or open the Box of Laughter to hear uproarious guffaws. Close your eyes and imagine yourself accepting that Oscar(R), Nobel, or Best Comedy Emmy(R)."

Rrrr ... gffff ... fuhhh ... okay, frankly, I don't even know how to be funny about this, so bear with me a second while I write the following business letter to the brains at SkyMall. What say, in true Hammurabian fashion, I even write it in BIG ANNOYING AND SOMETIMES EVEN ITALICIZED CAPITAL LETTERS, HUH?

Here goes:

DEAR SKYMALL PEOPLE,

RRRR ... GFFFF ... FUHHHH ...
THIS PRODUCT IS NOT COOL. OKAY? IN FACT, IT IS FRANKLY THE SADDEST AND MOST PATHETIC THING I HAVE EVER SEEN. BAR NONE. IT MAKES ME FEEL BAD JUST LOOKING AT IT. YOU FORCE ME TO RESTORE MY MOOD BY LOOKING AT PHOTOGRAPHS OF VERY ATTRACTIVE MEN. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY. I KNOW I AM.

LOVE,
NICOLA

So, what was I saying? Hmm. Whatever. Anyhoo, I'm feeling very positive about the Technology of Tomorrow, not to mention the Technology of Thursday and of Friday. No one can say exactly what kind of changes it will bring, but this I know for sure: it will give me something better to do than what I would have done otherwise, namely sit around and imagine winning the "Nobel" for "Best Comedy," which probably already went to somebody like Kathy Griffin anyway.

At any rate, like it or hate it, technology marches on, like the Energizer Bunny except not nearly as pink and furry. It's our responsibility to embrace it. We are, after all, the people of The Future, with the exception being surviving hosts of vintage game-shows, all of whom are unaware that they actually died in 1978. (Speaking of which, sorry to break it to you guys this way. Nothing personal, Monty Hall.) What's more, none of this is anything new. Technology has been going-and-going-and-going like this for ages! But you don't have to take my word for it**; consider this quote from the Barbie article:

"This is not the first time engineers have been given the challenge of packing Barbie's figure with technology. Michelle Chidoni, a spokeswoman for Mattel, said Barbie has been accessorized with speakers, motors, fiber optic clothing and an impeller-pump designed to push glitterized fluid through special wings."

Let this be a lesson to you, people: although at times you feel blue, disheartened, down in the dumps, and other synonyms, you must never, ever, in your moments of greatest darkness, choose to "end it all" and open the Box of Laughter. Instead, take pride in knowing that you live in a world so great, so fantastically advanced and forward-thinking, that some courageous science pioneer, somewhere,*** has already invented an impeller-pump designed to push glitterized fluid through special wings. I defy anyone to tell me, or Louis Armstrong, that this is not a wonderful world.

In the end, whatever your personal stance on technology's evolutionary path, the most important thing is simply to keep an open mind, to maintain your ability to see things - at any given moment - from another angle, from a different vantage point.

Namely, that of Barbie's cleavage.

*Okay, not really.
** And I speak for both myself and LeVar Burton on Reading Rainbow when I say this.
*** Over there.

©2010 Nicola McEldowney

San Diego Revisited, Part 3: The Puppet Theatre

2010-08-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Here is the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theater, in San Diego (official tourism slogan: "28 Days Without a Commercial Airliner Landing on Someone's Head"). Specifically, the theatre is located in the heart of Balboa Park, which is near the spleen of Balboa Park, which is just around the corner from the pancreas of Balboa Park, which is where they keep the Spreckels organ.* The theatre has an interesting story behind it, which I almost never found out because I almost never went in. This was a direct result of the music playing outside, a perky canned rendition of "Sing a Song of Sixpence," sung with such ooey-gooey jollity as to make Barney the Dinosaur look like Darth Vader.

Now don't mistake me (SEGUE XING); technically, I'm all for children's entertainment. It and I go way back, in fact: I have fond memories of taking a car trip, at age two, from Nebraska to Connecticut, while listening to an audiocassette of the cheery vocal stylings of Disney singer Larry Groce, as aided by the Disneyland Children's Chorus, delivering such numbers as "It's A Small World After All."** This is all very well and good,*** until you consider that when you are two years old, your natural tendency is to listen to such tapes over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER AND OVER AND OVER, until the others in the car (because, you see, there are others in the car) are moved to turn to Satan-worship. Chances are everything will turn out okay, though, and eventually everyone will remember that car trip fondly, due to having finally been able to purge the songs from their psyches somewhere around your sophomore year of college.

But there comes a point (your sophomore year of college) when you begin to put aside such juvenile affinities and acknowledge, with affection yet maturity, that they cause you to barf. So that's why (END OF SEGUE XING) I almost didn't go into the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theatre, but I'm so glad I ultimately did. First of all, I noticed there were puppets for sale. This was extremely dangerous for me because I would go into pretty much anywhere there were puppets for sale, including places with names like Uncle Nick's House of Unanesthetized Open-Heart Surgery and Deep-Dish Pizza.

While I was geeking out over puppets I struck up a conversation with a nice guy who turned out to be one of the theatre puppeteers, preparing for that afternoon's show. Although unfortunately I now can't recall his name, we chatted for quite some time - he was eager to introduce adult puppet theatre to the company repertoire, which I admired - and he showed me around the theatre. I had explained that I was a scholar of the puppet arts, having written a research project in France entitled L'art de la marionnette dans les années 1930 et regards sur aujourd'hui (literally, "DUDE!! There are PUPPETS FOR SALE here!!!")

The Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theatre, I learned, is the oldest continuously operating puppet theatre in the United States (they put the emphasis on "continuously"; some of the other puppet theatres have occasionally gotten up to go to the bathroom). I was shown photographs of Marie Hitchcock, who must have been a memorable figure given that she was six-foot-five ("You can tell because all her string puppets have incredibly long strings," noted the puppeteer). She died in 1994, aged in her 90s, but not before bringing the California condor back from extinction using a condor puppet. I am dead serious (no, sorry, I mean back-from-extinction serious) about this. In the 1940s, the California condor was at the brink of extinction. The condor chicks needed to be fed but couldn't be fed by a human hand, lest they become habituated to it -- at which point they couldn't be introduced to the wild. That was where Marie Hitchcock came in. She built a condor puppet with which she not only fed the chicks, but, ultimately, brought the species' numbers back up to somewhere in the two-hundreds today (which means they're off the endangered list).

The whole thing was astounding to me -- there's a beautiful photo in the theatre hallway of the puppet feeding little baby condors. The only thing that could have made this story better, as far as I'm concerned, would have been if we could have seen the Big Scary Raptors of Tomorrow being fed by:

Which brings me to another point: you never see celebrity puppets doing this sort of thing, now, do you? When was the last time Miss Piggy brought a species back to life? Meanwhile, the true puppet heroes of our society, like the condor, remain totally unsung. It's like how, at a conservative estimate, 103% of American magazine covers feature Entertainment Personalities with names like "Kortnee" who are famous for nothing except rubbing key regions of themselves on yet other Entertainment Personalities. This means that all 103% of these magazine covers feature headlines like "KORTNEE'S BABY JOY!" while, in the meantime, the people of real distinction remain ignored. You never see, for example, Bill Nye the Science Guy on these kinds of covers. This calls for a serious and thorough examination on our part of our deplorable national celebrity culture, which, as a scholar of the arts, I am totally willing to leave to somebody else.

*Ha ha! Organ! See what I did there? Never mind.

** In later years, I would invent a Forbidden Version of this song, but that is to be dwelt on another time.

*** Not really.

Minisnark: girl stuff alert

2010-08-05T16:13:00.000-07:00

With apologies for the lapse in posting (there's still San Diego Part 3 to come! The one where I talk about puppets!), we interrupt this interruption to say: go check out weBEgirls (www.webegirls.com), where a new column of mine is up as of this afternoon. Today's hard-hitting subject matter: girly skills. Profitez-en!

San Diego Revisited, Part 2: Hero Worship at the Museum

2010-07-29T11:07:00.000-07:00

Last week, we visited the San Diego Museum of Art (motto: "See Below for Our Motto in Mexican"), where they have an exhibit on the heroes of Greek mythology. My favorite part was the interactive bit, the bulletin board just outside the main exhibit, which asks the following question:

As you can see, there were many contributions. Here are some I liked in particular:

And, apparently from the opposing camp:

(though I am sorry to say Team Rocket got no love)

And, last but not least, my very favorite contribution of all, submitted by a young person who obviously took the Greek-hero theme to heart:

San Diego Revisited, Part 1: The ComicCon!

2010-07-28T13:24:00.001-07:00

I've now returned from the ComicCon, where, defying predictions, I never did contact the dreaded Pony Rot. So I guess I can call it a success. And that's not the only reason: those of you who remember last year's GREAT LOOMING PIKACHU ASS OF DEATH will be pleased to know I found a worthy - if not quite equal - successor in the Great Lego Buzz and Woody:

Let me tell you, these guys were popular. More Con attendees were interested in getting their pictures taken with old B. and W. here than with, say, Angelina Jolie. Side note: curiously, despite being an American and therefore exposed daily to more Angelina Jolie images than air molecules, I would probably never recognize her in person, whereas it took me approximately .05 seconds to recognize MythBusters' Grant Imahara in the crowd outside the convention center, an anecdote I related with great enthusiasm to my sister, a loyal fan of the series:

MY SISTER: Like you even care about the show.
(Beat.)
ME (Cleverly): Shut up.

My other Celebrity Sighting occurred while my dad was doing signings, when some guy from some TV show walked by the booth. I have no idea what TV show or who the guy was, but I am assured it was awesome. So I just wanted to share the experience with you. Thank you.

Here is my father (on the left) at his signing, alongside author Alan Dean Foster:

I will of course refrain from mentioning those four Pibgorn books on the table, available respectively for $26.99, $16.99, $19.99, and $18.99 from Pib Press, pibpress@gmail.com, and not mentioned in this paragraph.

But you and I have not yet discussed the most pivotal, the most fundamental - yes, the most meaningful - part of the ComicCon: namely, finding a lot of perfectly useless products you absolutely totally desperately need NOW NOW NOW. I refer specifically to the following journal, distributed by Chronicle Books, which has cute little anthropomorphized internal organs on the cover. Every home should have one:

I don't know for a fact, but I like to think they have names, like Sally Spleen and Patrick Pancreas. (DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: If you were an anthropomorphized spleen, how would you feel? Do you think it would be difficult to be a girl spleen? Explain.) Either way, Chronicle Books has become hands down my favorite publishing company, easily eclipsing all the other publishers I pretty much never had any opinions about anyway. Not just for the internal organ diary, but for the following notecards, suitable for familial communications:

Thus it is with a heavy heart that I return to "the grind" back east, with an entire ComicCon-devoid year stretching before me, a year of no parasitic bloodsucking supervillains whatsoever, at least not unless I feel like going over to the university Career Counseling Center. So I'm a little melancholy right now, but it'll pass. After all, there's always next year. I'll be back at the ComicCon before I know it.

Who knows: I may even be moved to send you a notecard.

Notes from the Land of Geek Bling

2010-07-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

Edit: Footnotes fixed. Whoops.

I'm at the San Diego ComicCon, where, each July, thousands upon thousands of eager comics fans descend on this city* with a hearty WHUMP, splattering face paint everywhere and causing seismic activity as far away as Phoenix. Yes-sir-ree, they are a “breed apart,” these hordes of Popular Arts enthusiasts. They are “wacky,” they are “kooky,” they are “off the wall.” And now, they’re here once again, to show the world just how wacky and kooky and off-the-wall they are by means of basically all dressing up as the same licensed mass-market characters as everybody else.

(Interesting side note: a little while ago, my father observed a guy in intense sci-fi getup – highly elaborate alien costume, menacing props, bodily makeup worth more than the gross national product of Luxembourg,** etc. – pick up his cell phone and say, with a perfectly hangdog expression and no hint of self-awareness, “Yeh? … Naw, naw, I can’t do that, ‘cause I gotta go to … ” as his advanced weaponry clanked forgotten by his side. It was an odd juxtaposition, the kind that brings you right back “down to earth,” or would if you didn’t already notice the scads and scads of nametags, eyeglasses, Hasbro collectibles, paunches, etc.)

And speaking of collectibles: say what you will of the ComicCon, but it is here I have learned of the dangers of Pony Rot. I am dead serious here. I visited a collectibles counter run by a lady dealer who takes her collectibles-selling very, very, very seriously. Seriously enough that we had the following exchange:

ME: So do you actually get this much for your My Little Ponies? I mean, I sell them on eBay, but I only get about half this much.

HER: Oh, yes. See, in a place like this, people can touch them, and that’s what makes the difference. (Pause.) It’s very sexual, you know? Very sexual.

I smiled at her in what I hope was a nonchalant manner, but she might not have noticed on account of I had suddenly relocated across town. However, we did eventually continue talking, and that was when she filled me in on Pony Rot. I swear. She said – in the same tone of voice she might have used to introduce to her teenage daughter the notion of Personal Freshness – “Have you had to deal with Pony Rot?” I said I couldn’t say I had. She explained: it’s a condition the old My Little Pony dolls get wherein they develop rings around their various little pony parts, causing all the other collectibles to ostracize them, not breathe in near them, spread whispered rumors that they sleep around with the Care Bears, etc. I asked what you do about Pony Rot, but – and you have no doubt guessed this already – there is no cure. Thus it is very, very important that you be aware of its dangers before you ever get to this stage. If I have helped one person today, I sincerely hope that person and I shall never meet.

Other notable sights seen at the Con:
- Jewelry for sale called “Geek Bling”

- A guy loping through the crowd holding up a sign reading, quote, “I NEED TO PEE” (this sign was shaped like a yellow blotch)

- Another guy with a T-shirt that said: GONE TO HAPPY PLACE – BACK SOON.

- A genuine handcrafted statue of Marilyn Monroe with – this is true – Mickey Mouse boobs. Of course you can be sure this was highly historically inaccurate; in real life, her boobs looked like Goofy.

- At this same booth, a statue of Barney the Dinosaur with a skull in his mouth. This is just a little disconcerting, because when you were little, weren’t you just a little afraid that sometimes Barney, while taping a show alongside his cute little human co-stars, got hungry, and, you know, ATE one of his cute little human co-stars, like maybe Min the little Filipino girl? Well, obviously, I never thought about this.

- The people hanging around outside the Con informing us that the CIA is evil.

And with that, I’m off to another day of merrymaking at the Con. If you’re there, you should definitely stop by and say hi.*** Have fun, be safe, watch out for light sabers anywhere near your personal eyeballs, and – whatever you do – do it with protection, and don’t, don’t, DON’T contract Pony Rot. Know the dangers now, for yourself and for future generations.

* Los Angeles.
** Estimated at 13 euros, a button and half a chicken sandwich. But still.
*** Try and find me.

(c) 2010 Nicola McEldowney

Stay tuned!

2010-07-22T08:24:00.001-07:00

I'm at the Comic Con, where I've already had a load of rollicking good entertainment in the form of wonko batshit crazies, er, excuse me, popular arts enthusiasts. More on that to come soon.

In the meantime, check out the webegirls (.com) blog where a new column of mine went up this morning.

Scenes from home

2010-07-16T09:18:00.000-07:00

SAMMY (the Siamese cat, who bleats rather than meows): Maaaaaa
ME: Maaaaaa
SAMMY: Maaaaaa
ME: Maaaaaa
SAMMY: Maaaaaa
(Etc.)
ME: She keeps responding. I wonder what she thinks I'm saying.
MY SISTER: She's probably correcting your pronunciation.

In other language-related matters, my mother observed earlier today that the term cul de sac means, roughly translated from French, "ass bag".*

I am deeply proud of my genes.

*Of course, it is literally "ass of bag," but I suppose I will have to let that little detail slide.

A quickie

2010-07-14T11:28:00.000-07:00

With apologies for not being better these days about blogging from work ...

1. My next piece, "Culture Schlock," is up at www.webegirls.com. Scrolling required: I'm a little late on the announcement, which means it's a few pieces down from the top. It's the one with a picture of a Starbucks logo next to it.

2. I'll once again be accompanying my father to the San Diego ComicCon next week, which means I'll do my best to blog about my fantastic adventures such as discovering that Hello Kitty toilet paper last year.

3. These four guys may be old news to some of you, but I myself only discovered them the other day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAMRTGv82Zo

Job satisfaction

2010-06-26T18:45:00.000-07:00

I picked back up my old summer job, the one at the candy place. This causes me to cast my mind back to my once-upon-a-time job at the supermarket, my first-ever in an endless succession of mindless Jobz 2 Pay 4 Kolij. That one stands alone, though, in that it inspired my supermarket musical, Aisle Six -- the one that's perpetually Between Readings in the city. (This has something to do with my personally having not been in the city much lately. But I digress.) There was just something, something unique, about the way you'd walk into the store in the morning only to be FWOOOOOM instantly engulfed in a steaming toxic cloud of employee hate fumes, mixed with just a hint of whatever the bakery had whipped up that morning. Of course, as you would gradually realize over the course of the work day, your co-workers weren't just embittered crazed foam-mouthed paranoid loons bent on the destruction of all those around them. They were also - and I say this from the bottom of my heart - generally homely.

All of this just totally screamed musical theatre at me.

Anymore, I think only of the musical itself. The experience that inspired it was so unimportant in the first place that generally I forget it even happened. But the candy store brings it all back. Not because it's similar -- quite the opposite, in fact. I've found it to be an unfailingly lovely, non-aggravating place to work. If I were to write a musical about it, all the scenes would consist of me leaning over an ice cream counter idly thumbing through whatever book I had brought with me. Sometimes - in a true Show-Stopping Number - a customer would come in and buy something. The heart-pounding climax would consist of me washing the store utensils for the night, during which I once cut my finger.

Bummer. You don't want to think that experiences like the former only happen once. Or ... wait, yes, you do.

Job satisfaction: talk about your muse-killer!

It's up!

2010-06-23T12:18:00.000-07:00

"You and Me is Quits (That's Command-Q): A Contemporary Primer on Dating -- Minus the Dating" is now up at weBEgirls, where it's the featured post of the day.

More to come!

2010-06-20T07:33:00.000-07:00

Mes chers amis,

My apologies for another long absence. What have I been up to? Reverse culture shock, mainly, and making puppets. As evidence of the latter, I present you: Insecurity Blanket.

(He's the one on the right.)

I've been pondering whether to continue this over the summer as a photo retrospective of stuff from France, or as a sort of what-have-you chronicle of the present, as I've done before. Or both. Any preferences?

In the meantime, they put a couple more of my theatre reviews up (in French) at Allées et Venues. They're a few posts down.

Also, come next week, I'll be contributing to the blog weBEgirls as an occasional columnist, about twice a month. Check back around Wednesday for my first feature, a primer on online relationships.

À bientôt (really).

Nicola

The Snarkly Three: Special Nostalgia and Dumpsters Edition

2010-05-14T02:27:00.000-07:00

1. At words poetic, I'm so pathetic
Someone asked me the other day to describe the "bouquinistes" I mentioned here recently. The best I could come up with is they look like Dumpsters by the Seine. But that seems inadequate, non? Sure enough, as this picture proves, they're so much more than that: they're more like Dumpsters by the Seine with racks of postcards in between. And you can find everything at them from London travel guides (©1978, sunbleached beyond recognition) to Tintin porn. Lest you think them frivolous.

2. Nothing like nostalgia for remembering the past sentimentally
Lately, I've noticed a real surge in blogs celebrating kiddie culture of the '80s and '90s -- advertising, toys, books.* I tend to dig these blogs myself, but what astounds me is that most people seem to enjoy them on a level beyond euphoria ("OHMYGOD!!!! My sister and I TOTALLY had that My Little Pony / box of cereal / (insert thing here)**!!!!") What is it about these sort of reminiscences that gets to us so much? If I had to guess, I'd say -- call me a softy, but this is how I really feel -- our brains are fried from having spent those decades looking at one too many Lisa Frank products.

This is somebody else's photo, but I once had that dolphin notebook myself. At age 12, I used it to write a story called Four Days in Heck, which I still think showed promise despite its lack of small details like making sense.

3. And speaking of....
I realized this morning, following a memory trigger not worth relating, that I still remember all the lyrics to Pocahontas, a film which I have not thought about consciously since about 1996. Yet there they are, all salted away for the day when the only thing standing between me and starvation will be my remembering the words to "Colors of the Wind." Why?? WHY???? Not as in "WHY DO I REMEMBER THEM????" but as in, "WHY ARE THEY SOOOO BAAAAD?????"

Continuing on this here nostalgia theme: I had a Pocahontas doll, whose dress was supposed to do magical sparkly things when you took her out in the sun. The manufacturers didn't count on the fact that, for certain consumers, this would translate to the FLORIDA sun, which would instead cause the doll to burst into magical flames.*** Although I guess this counts as a sparkly thing.

* Seriously, how many kinds of girl-groups could there BE?
** Ha ha
*** Okay, okay, technically this never happened, but she did become sunbleached to the point of resembling Casper the Friendly If No Longer Ethnically Diverse Disney Princess.

The Snarkly Three: Special Good Bad Worse Edition

2010-05-10T14:19:00.000-07:00

Il faut que je make this one quick. Sorry. Fortunately, my Facebook news feed provided me with today's motif:

GOOD

David Hyde Pierce on Broadway. I saw him in Accent on Youth the year before last. He's a force. I'll watch whatever he does.

BAD

Courtesy of Figure Skaters Online: "What to look for in Lysacek's cha cha and waltz." This article would make me believe that he has a cha cha and a waltz.

* I would prefer not to know about them.

* I would DEFINITELY prefer not to look in them.

WORSE

I can't find the link now, but they're casting in California for "Love's Labour's Lost: The Musical," a funky mix-n-match of Shakespeare and the television show Lost.

Because LandaGOshen! THAT'S what that play needed!

I have very strong feelings about very few things, but when I am ruler of Earth, no one may touch Love's Labour's Lost. Also, no one may talk to anyone about ANYONE'S cha cha and/or waltz. That is all. G'night.

Study Abroad Advice

2010-05-06T01:29:00.001-07:00

Today's words of wisdom go out to all you fresh-faced underclasspersons who wish to follow in the Snark's fashionable Parisian boot-steps and study over here (where I'm sitting). I expect you have a great many questions about Study Abroad, which I will be all too happy to answer for you as soon as I finish partaking of the local culture by watching these attractive men play rugby at the Esplanade des Invalides. Uh, that is, "going to the Louvre." Yes, "going to the Louvre," that is what I meant to say. Hahahaha! Whoops! I am always making that little typographical slipup. Too easy. Mmmmmm ... Louvre.

Anyway, this installment was inspired by the department of study abroad at my home university, which recently sent me the following questionnaire. Their questions are italicized. My answers are bold.*

* Have you gotten involved in your host culture? It is not too late to find activities that will get you out there and mixing more with the people of the country. Are you getting everything you can out of your living experience?

I am lucky enough to be living with some of the finest people I have ever met. Endlessly kind, hospitable and sociable (please note the omission of second comma, per French university regulations), they have assisted me in all those little “foreigner-abroad” matters such as how best to travel around Europe and how best not to blow up their house by using their gas stove incorrectly. Living with them has allowed me to attain more fluency and comfort with French than I ever dreamed possible. For example, many people told me that no matter how comfortable I got in French, when it came to counting, I would still count in English. Whereas now I find that when I count, it is certainly not in English. It is not in French, either; in fact, it is not in ANY known language, but by gum, it is something. Instead, I find I only revert to English for cursing out drivers. On the other hand, on those occasions when I find the family dog has messed around with my garbage, I am heartened to find that I am now increasingly able to erupt in vile French words without a second thought. That was when I knew I had truly “gotten involved.”

* Reflect on the regional course you took in preparation for the semester abroad. How has it shaped your experience? Can you define one or two themes from your regional course that you see “in action” while you have been abroad? Are there other courses you’ve taken that have helped shape your experience?

My “regional course” was the formidable (for-mee-dable: that’s French) French Cultural Workshop, and while this was one of the two best courses I have ever taken in college,** I must say that while our professor imparted volumes on the political, social, and cultural climates of this country*** - on governmental figures, on ethnic unrest, on artistic predilections and educational methods and familial relationships – I do not believe he mentioned on any occasion that the dog would try to eat my trash. So I suppose I will have to chalk this up to an oversight. Next question.

* What are the main differences you see in the educational system abroad? Do the differences in teaching or learning styles tell you anything about the culture as a whole? Who are your classmates? Do they represent a certain socioeconomic segment of society or does education in your host country cut across these boundaries?

I’m glad you asked. This particular Cultural Disparity was perhaps best “driven home” for me by my literature course at Paris IV, for which I had to write a “dissertation.” This is a French word meaning “academic document you have to write for literature courses at Paris IV, pronounced ‘dis-ser-tah-tion.’” Since I’ve been meaning to get this off my chest anyway, je vous hereby présente the Official National Structure of a university dissertation:

INTRODUCTION
• Introductory Statement
o Say what you are about to say.
o Say the thing you just said you were about to say.
o Confirm that you have just finished saying the thing which you have just finished saying.
o Now, lay out the following parts of your document as follows: Here is what I will say in Part I. Here is what I will say in Section I of Part I. Here is what I will say in Section II of Part I. Here is what I will say in Section III of Part I.
o Here is what I have just finished saying about Part I.
o Now do the same for Parts II and III.
• Part I
o Here again is what I have just finished saying I will say in Sections I, II, and III of Part I.
o Here again (but just by itself this time) is what I will say in Section I.
o Section I (omitted for reasons of length constraints)
o Here is what I have just finished saying in Section I.

I omit Parts II, III, and the Conclusion because no known student has ever gotten to them, for reasons of death. Depending on length, it can take as long as 87 years to write a single dissertation. So you can understand why I don’t elaborate on who my classmates are: I’d ask them, but they are too busy writing their dissertations. So far they have been in the library since February, betraying no signs of life except for the occasional twitch, which I think I might have been imagining anyway.

Obviously this is very different from the American style of learning, in which we just “compare-n-contrast” everything, including calculus, with 20th-century feminist theory and have done with it already.

Thank you. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me. On which note I close by saying to you, study-abroad hopefuls, from the very bottom of my heart: leave me alone. I am trying to enjoy the Louvre here.

* And dynamic, yet with a touch of girlish charm.
** The other being a psychology class in which I learned the scientific foundations of why people act like Whonko McNutasses.
*** France.

©2010 Nicola McEldowney