adoration and adulation

Last week I went to a smallish speaking event with Francine Prose, acclaimed author extraordinaire and woman with perhaps the best writerly name of all time.

Usually at these events, writers will talk about themselves and their myriad accomplishments, etc. Instead, Francine Prose made all of us read the story "murderers" by Leonard Michaels (which you should go read RIGHT NOW if you haven't read it--it truly is remarkable.) Then she talked about craft by having us close-read and pick apart Michaels to figure out how he had made something so brilliant and beautiful. For example, she couldn't get over this sentence:

"We sat on that roof like angels, shot through with light, derealized in brilliance."

What does derealized mean? She asked. It's not even a word! It's made-up! But it's perfect. You know from the sentence exactly what it means.

At one point during Q&A, someone said, okay, you've talked about all the good stuff, what is flawed in this story?

She paused and said, "You know, adoration and adulation are underrated experiences." She kept saying this, too. And refused to critique the piece at all.

I kept repeating this in my head all week, and I kind of love Francine Prose for saying this--esp because in my head she always lived somewhere close to Virginia Woolf in terms of probable approachability.

Try repeating it to yourself in your head. Adoration and adulation are underrated experiences. It's nice applied to art, but also to people. And even, once in a while, to yourself.

Prose's new book is about writing, and according to Livs, has even more about adulation and its positive effects, check it out here

reasons #17 #18 and #19 i love new york

Weird and Awesome stuff. The other night B and I went to dinner, and when we came home this woman was sitting in our lobby, with her bird perched on her laptop. Her baby PEREGRINE FALCON perched on her laptop. Because, that's normal.

With the first chill in the air, B had the brilliant idea of trying another highly-rated hot cho location. The only thing better than thick, pudding-like hot cho is hot-cho with fresh churros. Yum. (This is at Bar Jamon in Gramercy, if you want to check it out. Why would you go to "Pork Bar" for hot chocolate? Good question... I guess that provides the "weird" to this place's "awesome.")

After leaving the restaurant, standing on the corner waiting for the light to change. Rachel Ray and her husband step in front of us on their way out of the Petco and walk with us for a few blocks. Because, that's normal.

you're it

I was "tagged" on lovely Miss Olivia's blog. As did Livs, I tweaked the questions a little, and I left more answers than I was probably supposed to (shocker!). Here are my answers to the important questions that are facing Americans today:

Jobs I've had:
-Professional in the Janitorial Services (twice)
-Copy Chief
-Boy Scout Camp Counselor (post-college)
-Radio reporter
-Corporate Slave

Jobs I'd like to have:
-Person who makes up the names for nail polish
-Cake decorator
-Travel Writer/Writer of stories that have no news hook or celebrity tie-in, but are interesting in and of themselves. It's hard to get these published, as it turns out.
-Professional student (OH WAIT, this is sort of my job)
-Physicist
-Middle-manager in a small to mid-size company

Movies I have Watched Over and Over Again:
-Raising Arizona
-Grease
-So I Married An Axe Murderer
-Wedding Singer
-Rushmore

Some Favorite Books from Last Few Years/Books I Open Over and Over
-The Backslider by Levi Peterson
-Where I Was From by Joan Didion
-A Supposedly Fun Thing By David Foster Wallace
-The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
-Everything is Illuminated by JSF
-Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Favorite Things to Do:
-Bask in the perfect-librariness of Butler Library
-Visit historically significant/nerdy/weird places with B
-Have dumb fun with friends who appreciate dumb fun
-Dance
-Lean out my apt window and look up and down the street to see if anyone else happens to be leaning out their window at the same time.
-Eat delicious food
-Go on travel adventures

Places I have lived:
-Kalamazoo, Michigan
-Salt Lake City, Utah
-Palo Alto, California
-Jerusalem
-NYCeezie

Favorite Things to Eat:
-Chocolate--esp hot chocolate--but any form really, as long as it's dark
-Things that are creamy, sweet, and salty simultaneously
-Cheese
-Things containing large amounts of butter and sugar
-Sauces
-Anything Pam or my grandma makes

Places I'd rather be:
-Rio de Janeiro
-Within proximity of a Sev with a Coke Slurpee
-Sheridan, Wyoming
-Utah in June or September
-In a car with a good stereo on an open road

Words I love the sound of:
-Kalamazoo
-eclectic
-fingerling
-ephemeral
-Florianopolis
-discombobulated

Who I am tagging:
-Robby
-Angie
-Jenny M
-Kara
-Mis Hermanas (yes, all of you)

living dead girl

You Are A Vampire

You have a real thirst for bliss, and you consider yourself a true hedonist. And you're not afraid to walk alone in life, if it means getting what you truly crave. You truly enjoy entrancing people. Not to mention the ensuing pleasures of the flesh. Your tastes have been called decadent and bizarre. You usually give in to your temptations, no matter how primal Your greatest power: Your flawless ability to seduce and charm Your greatest weakness: Human flesh You play well with: Werewolves

What Kind of Monster Are You?

I took this dumb little quiz but I liked the results because I thought the vampire girl was cute. And the hedonist part was pretty right-on. But then I got to the last line. Are you kidding me? It's almost spooky. I LOVE Woolfs. And I'm not much for human flesh, but I love a good cured meat. Mmmm, pastrami...

doing the shuffle

I saw Lacey's little iPod shuffle game on Jamie's blog and thought it was a fun idea: Put your iPod on shuffle and list the first ten songs that come up. The problem, of course, is that I have whored out my iPod so much, I don't even know half of what's on it. If it weren't for Emily, Olivia and Britton, I would probably have like ten songs. Thanks to them, I have so many that my hard drive is about to burst. Ah, this beauteous age of digital pirating. Here's a sample of my friends' excellent (and my not-so-excellent) taste in music:

1. I'm Finding It Harder to be A Gentleman: The White Stripes
I remember several years ago Emily went to see this band none of us had ever heard of (she was always going to see bands). She said, in a couple weeks they'll be a household name. Two weeks later the White Stripes opened on the Video Music Awards and became huge overnight. This same scenario has happened about a hundred times when Emily goes to see "some band we've never heard of." Sometimes we're smart enough to go with her, like the time we got to hang out with the Killers on the sidewalk outside the club because they were some random guys from Vegas who hadn't even released an album yet.

2. Love On the Rocks with No Ice: The Darkness
Many a good car commute has been punctuated with singing to The Darkness at the top of our lungs. Reminded me of my Journey days, too, which Kara and I rocked-out to in our dorm room.

3. Time Can Never Kill the True Heart: Stars
Holy crap, one of the all-time best live shows was when Olivia and I got the last two tickets to the Stars at the Bowery Ballroom. The male half of this band is surprisingly over-aged and melodramatic...I mean, he is REALLY feeling this music when he sings: clutching the mic as though in pain, looking desperately to some un-seen lover in the ceiling, twisted facial expressions, etc. Meanwhile the female half just stands there bored playing her guitar. I don't think she was actually smoking, but she looked like she could've been. I think she might be embarrassed of the dude's histrionics. Anyway, at one point the dude went on this rant about Dick Cheney, who had just beaned someone with his shooting rifle. So the dude started marching and chanting, "just keep drinking and smoking, and drinking and smoking," and then these LASERS came out and started shooting around pew! pew! And he went into this robot voice, "Smoking and drinking! Drinking and smoking! Smoking and drinking! Pew! Pew!" It went on for several painful minutes, and it was amazing and (unintentionally) hilarious. "Drinking and smoking" is still one of our favorite inside jokes. I do love the Stars, though.

4. Still Here with Me: Dolorean
So, this is one of the (myriad) songs I have never heard that lives on my iPod. In fact, right now, on shuffle, is the first time I've ever heard it. It is really lyrical and pretty and has a melancholy piano in the background, and a line about "dirty lemonade." I really like it. You should check it out. Thanks Em, I'm sure this came from your incredible collection.

5. House That Used to Be: The Old 97's
Olivia contribution; one of her favorite bands and they're awesome. Rockin' and countryish. Also reminds me of The Refreshments and the Peacemakers, bands that I like...and Britton REALLY likes. I've had more beer spilled on me at Peacemakers shows than anywhere else, including ball games.

6. White Lines (Don't Do It!): Grand Master Flash
Like a venereal disease, it's hard to say which partner contributed this to my slutty iPod. But this song ROCKS. Remember how you used to rock to this song in junior high and it wasn't until years later you realized it was about cocaine? But that only made it cooler? I think I thought it was White Lies until I was like 22. Not sure how the drug theme missed my notice. Get higher baby, get higher girl, get higher girl, and don't ever come down. Free base!

7. I.C.B.: New Order
I have rediscovered New Order in the last couple years. If you hadn't heard them before, you could easily hear them now and think, this is the most amazing new indie band, they're going to be huge. Their sound was way ahead of their time, and even though I know jack squat about music, I'm venturing lots of "awesome" bands now are imitating them. "Temptation" is one of my all-time favorite songs. If you listen to this song when you're still not over a break-up, it will rip your heart out.

8. Pimp Juice: Nelly
I love dancing, and therefore, I love booty video music. Don't even try to have a dance party without booty video music. It's a joke. Just look at most church-sponsored dances. I don't recommend listening to booty video music when you're not dancing, though, then you'll actually listen to the lyrics which is bad for your intellect and moral conscience. Unless it's Kanye's "Goldigger" which is hilarious. "She went and got lipo with your money, she was supposed to get Tyco with your money, she walking around looking like Michael with your moneyyyyyyy."

9. Loser: Beck
Beck is such a freaking genius. He can parrot ANY, I mean ANY style and make it more interesting for his take on it. Olivia has a brilliant class exercise that I ripped off in which you play a bunch of Beck songs and make the students guess who the artist is for each song. Usually they can't figure out they're all Beck unless there's a fan in the room. Because one is country western, one is bossa nova, one is techno, etc. He's a chameleon. "Lost Cause" from his Sea Change Album is one of my favorite songs and is so sad, I can't even listen to it on gloomy winter days.

10. Solitary Man: Johnny Cash
Believe it or not, I listened to lots of Johnny Cash before his pop-culture resurgence. Not really voluntarily, though. My Dad blasted Johnny, Willie, Cat Stevens and Arlo Guthrie through the house on an old reel-to-reel stereo. Man, I would love to see one of those again. I'm glad this was the last song on the list because, come to think of it, my dad was the first music connoisseur in my life. Unappreciated and persecuted, of course, until I got old enough to know better. Now we sometimes listen to Johnny and Patsy Cline together driving in his car.

ps. Brit just told me about this new film about Joy Divison's Ian Curtis, whose band renamed themselves and became New Order after his 1980 suicide. (I would never know any of this stuff without B, I'm (obviously) pretty music illiterate). It's called Control, check it out here.

Also New Order just broke up last year. Crazy, right?

i love you, but i'm going to spray you in the face with mace right now

**Spoiler Warning** I'm going to give away parts from the movie The Darjeeling Limited, but like most Wes Anderson films, there isn't that much plot to give away, anyway.

I'm interested to see what other people think about The Darjeeling Limited. People often have strong opinions and things to say about Wes Anderson films. B. and I saw this movie this weekend, it was much-anticipated after the (to us) brilliant Tenenbaums and so-so Zissou. The movie stars Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, and Owen Wilson, three sort-of-estranged brothers on a "spiritual journey" train trip through India, planned by Wilson's character as a bonding opportunity after their father's death.

A few things to think about after the initial viewing of Darjeeling:

-Are Wes Anderson's films becoming precious? The last two movies seem obsessed with set and light on writing. The train itself is painstakingly detailed, almost like a dollhouse maintained by a bored and fastidious grandmother. Every scene seems to bear the mark of the same semi-cutesy graphic designer, from the initials on the characters' luggage to the building graphiti in the backgrounds to the airport signs. The same aesthetic pervades, sometimes invades, every scene. The credits reveal that Marc Jacobs for LV designed key props. Somehow the aesthetic seemed more appropriate in Tenenbaums, but now I find the aesthetic distracting, and well, ( I guess I'm answering my own question here) precious.

-The same thing that maybe makes Tenenbaums the best so far--a real confrontation with emotion and tragedy--is the stumbling block of this film. The scene of the drowning boy seems to have real promise as the three characters shed their signature Andersonian quirks, and react to a real situation in a genuinely human way. However, the funeral that follows reads like (yet another!) opportunity for set-dressing. Instead of lending gravitas, the scene capitalizes on exquisitely adorned animals, people, and of course a cool, old-fashiony looking car that only Anderson could locate, draped with garlands of flowers ala a Martha Stewart Weddings spread. And, more super-saturated shots of women and children in super-saturated clothing washing their hair and such.

-Is there significant symbolic meaning for: The fact that one brother loses his shoes, one buys new shoes, and one loses only one shoe; one brother suffers physical pain, one suffers heartbreak, the other suffers emotional distress (actually, they're all sort of grieving); the fact that the central literal vehicle of the film is a train; the fact that people are always missing a train and running to catch up with it; the man-eating tiger?

-Although it's almost like self-parody now, I still like the slow-mo shots of men walking/or running to an awesome soundtrack in WA's movies.

-What's the deal with always exploring relationships between men. Actually, that's another thing I like about WA's movies, and find it an odd juxtaposition as the set/prop aesthetic becomes evermore feminine. Also, it occurs to me that the mothers in these movies are either emotionally absent, absent, or dead. Lots of them are dead.

-I'm still not tired of the ensemble cast--esp Angelica Houston.

-I realized after watching the film that at the end of Tenenbaums, Luke Wilson's character slits his wrists and attempts suicide. After the making of this movie, his brother, Owen Wilson, really did slit his wrists and attempt suicide. That made me sad.

guest-blogging

I'm guest-blogging this week on my friend Angie's blog. Since, let's face it, nobody really wants to hear about me on Angie's blog, I arranged to have her friends write memories and post pictures as a sort of group collage of collective Angie-memories and goodness.

It has been fun because Angie is so well-loved. People have really strong feelings about Angie. She's like the PBS Pride & Prejudice--people form fierce emotional attachments to her (especially girls), go out of their way to spend time with her and feel lucky when they do, find her warm and intelligent but also funny, go to her for comfort and always come away feeling better and inspired and believing in love. The difference is, there's no contingency who's like, But maybe I like the Keira Knightley version better. Everyone agrees they love Angie the best.

Following are some of my favorite impressions of Angie. Check out the others (or add one of your own) at Angie's blog, Cheerios.

Name: Lane Anderson
Has known Angie for: 9 years
Met her: In Provo, Utah

I remember the first thing that struck me about Angie was her long hair, which fell just like the hair in shampoo commercials. She was always warning people not to get their hair "slithered." Apparently, this was a bad cutting technique that had been used at one time on her beautiful hair.

I remember one time while I was breaking up with a boyfriend over the phone, Angie slipped a Reese's peanut butter cup under my door.

I remember Angie does a dance combination that starts with her back to the audience and one knee popped, with some increasingly frenetic jazz-hand moves, culminating in a sudden turn toward the audience into some mean jazz-squares.

I remember "Sales Talk Angela." Angie had a real job, not like the rest of our crap college jobs, and hers required her own phone line and a fax machine (fax machine!) installed in our basement. I remember when she answered that phone she was all business.

I remember after college when "Sales Talk Angela" used her professionalism to get us out of trouble with cops who caught us toilet-papering. This was despite the fact she was driving a 10-passenger van full of people wearing black clothes and various costume wigs.

I remember Angie is competitive but never mean, which makes her fun at games or playing tricks on people.

I remember Angie didn't like the same girl I didn't like once. I remember liking that even though she seemed perfect, she was capable of not liking some people.

I remember when I had nightmares I would go downstairs and sleep in Angie's room on the extra bed. She didn't care, even if I woke her up.

I remember I moved to California and fell in love with it and stayed there, all because one summer Angie insisted I come live with her family.

I remember meeting Angie's mom and picturing her as the sun of wisdom that radiated onto Angie's planet. I remember knowing I would never absorb it myself, their wisdom was the kind of gift that's passed-down or pre-destined, like clairvoyance.

I remember Angie's mom and dad dancing in the living room together after dinner, and hoping desperately that someday I would be in love like that.

I remember Angie often saying, "But how are you doing? How is Lane doing?"; trying to get a real response. She has no use for superficial chatter.

I remember Angie always knows the correct response to a tearful or tender moment. She seems to think not in what she should say, but what she should do--put an arm around, cry with you, laugh with you--her gift is in the small, intimate gestures that allow people to feel.

I remember Angie applying SPF 45 sunblock, laying in the sun, and then asking, "Did I get a tan?" She didn't. We teased her and called her SPF 45 "tan enhancer." I remember the last time I saw Angie her skin still looked as young as it did nine years ago.

I remember Angie is afraid of animals.

I remember staying with Angie in New York when I was thinking about going to grad school there and I was so scared to move. I remember eating peanut butter spread and apples. I remember watching a movie with her while James napped. I remember finding MarieBelle together. I remember I thought I could live in the city if Angie was there.

I remember Angie loved Zora Neale Hurston so much that she resented other people who said they loved her, but didn't really seem to get her.

I remember thinking my children would be better off if Angie raised them, and I don't even have any children.

I remember the first time I felt really, really rip-my hair-out, turn-off-the-lights-and-wait-to-die desperate and confused, the first person I thought to call, after my mom, was Angie.

I remember Angie had a green fabric-covered headband with little googly frog-eyes that stuck out on top of it. It looked like part of a frog costume, but she wore it around the house and while she was getting ready for bed. I made fun of it, but it was really comfortable, and after a while I started wearing it, too. Sometimes I would forget and leave the house wearing it and people at the bank or drive-up or wherever would smile like I was playing a joke on them, and then I would remember the frog eyes.

I remember Angie gave me the frog eyes to keep. They are sitting in my bathroom right now. Just last week I was in a bad mood about something, and my husband put them on to cheer me up. It worked.