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Rock on a Spring

I swear, I nearly wet my pants. It is a damn good thing that Brooke Spangler is finally putting up her own essay site, because she is the best goddamn narrative humor writer I know (and no slouch in other genres, either). (Apologies to my other very funny friends; most of you are in other genres anyway. I mean, Jon does cranky consumer reviews, the folks over at The Weekly Week do surrealist journalism… you know.)

Brooke wins the Thank You For Saving My Ass Award this week. If it wasn’t for her Rock on a Spring bit totally making me lose my shit, I probably would not be making so much headway on the Sesame Street article which has been bedevilling me for weeks. Here’s a tip for those of you who are still baffled by my tendency to self-destruct moments after we make contact: a little levity is always, always, always the best way to greet me. Hey, I think it’s the best way to greet anyone. Asking “how are you?” is more likely to make me dwell on the irritating things of which my life seems to be composed. I am almost always willing to talk to Glyph because he tends to either lead with some compelling new idea he has, or knock me completely clear of my rut with some comically hyperbolic or inappropriate greeting. Jacob had this period where he’d say “HELLEWWWW?” when he answered the phone, which led to soothing, distracting, twenty-some-odd-minute koans of repeating the phrase.

So yes! Be on your toes! All the time! It’s BETTER FOR ME ™ that way. (BETTER FOR ME ™ is a registered trademark of the DSWJ and may not be employed, no matter how appropriately, to describe the self-absorption of any other blogger. We have lawyers, you know.)

Detritus: G is for Growing Weary of PR Flacks, A is for Agar, Y is for Yuppies…

Had a few truly awful moments today in trying to finish my article on Sesame Street. I called a major Muppeteer and more or less had the door slammed in my face… as part of my reciprocation to the party who gave me her number I had to agree not to mention who gave it to me, and make it clear that the Workshop wasn’t responsible either… This made her nervous, which I guess made sense, especially since I was calling her at home. It struck me after I hung up and went to hang out in the rain with my tomato plant, rocking self-nourishingly on the front porch, that had I simply dropped the name of a veteran kids TV writer/producer I know personally, she would probably have been willing to talk to me; that’s worked in the past. I was momentarily irritated by the fact. Personal connections make journalism easier. Somehow the field feels like it ought to be more “scientific,” more clinically detached from one’s own social standing… Just another one of those see-through democracy moments.

* * *

Here are sites I visited while half-researching, half-procrastinating on the Sesame Street piece:

Graphic photos of goat births

Which Sesame Street Muppet’s Dark Secret Are You?, first hit on Google’s second page of results for “sesame street.” So much for the PR department’s attempts to keep the words “Sesame Street” and “bitch” off the same page. Get with the program, PR… you can’t protect your memes forever, no matter how many lawyers you own.

A Salon article on a Snoop Doggy Dogg TV show, in which he sounds like a parody of himself — like Herbert Kornfeld.

* * *

I have a crush on the Chrysler Building. I stare at it for what seems like hours at a time when I get to go to the printer and retrieve my documents. It looks different every time I look at it. I want to take pictures. I think the woman whose office I am looking through would freak out, but I want to. It makes me feel dirty and corporate, but then the rest of the job does too.

Although I should note it’s one of the friendliest and most pleasant offices I have ever worked in, despite the periodic outbursts of base idiocy. People joke and talk all the time, and don’t even pretend they have to get back to work. I wonder how long this will last for them.

* * *

I have wandered into a weird ether of Friendster where I click on a friend of friends of friends and when the page loads I discover that I have ventured too far off of the initial chain of connection and I am actually more closely connected to the same person through a different set of people. I have also found the first person who is connected to me two completely separate ways and one of them does not go through God. Although it still goes through Jessamyn which is about the same because she knows everyone. Anyway I think these phenomena have something to do with Amherst and Brown. The dish of agar we yuppie larva swim in has a very definite hard plastic boundary. It is round.

* * *

In other news, my brain is ON FIRE. I have not eaten enough today and my brain is where I feel it when I don’t eat enough. And nobody comes to feed me because I live in Queens. And appear to be a functioning adult. Where’s my wife? I thought I ordered one last week. Yes, Mom, I ordered one for you too.

(cue minor key music)

Does anyone know what kind of insect this is?! They come crawling down from my ceiling in the summertime, frequently right over my bed. I saw an article in the New Yorker a few years back about some endangered species of centipede which lives on leaf mulch in Central Park and wondered if this was it. Unfortunately, after shooting this particular specimen I knocked it down and subsequently lost track of it. This means it is crawling around my room someplace, untracked.

Right then. If I die of some horrible bite, you all know who to blame. Mr. Legsy O’Terrifying, there. I mean, look at the size of those freaking antennae!!! And what kind of harmless insect has the exact same antennae coming out of its ass?! And black-knuckled leg joints?! Jeebus! I mean, it looks like a centipede, it looks like a daddy long-legs, it hangs out over my bed and doesn’t have a very good grip on the wall — what’s not to love?!!!!

My Birthday

… is July 16th. If you want to give me something, please consider helping me sell my car or find a roommate for September instead. I would rather live with friends I know, but I’m not hearing the moving song from any of you, so I’m not all that hopeful :\ I should clarify that I am being kicked out of my all-too-sweet deal in Sunnyside, so don’t come to me looking for free rent. I’d be happy to move someplace else in Sunnyside, though.

If you are in the New York area or were planning to visit around then, let me know whether the weekend before or the weekend after the 16th would be better for you to partay. A rather astounding array of brilliant people I know are in town nowadays. You really need to meet each other.

One Hundred Unfinished Projects

Finally, the debut of a project that kept me from posting on my blog most of this spring:

This came out of a night when I was trying to get an essay on being bourgeois to work, realizing I wouldn’t be able to, looking back over the path of broken potshards that is my hard disk, and feeling depressed. Also to some extent by Lynda Barry’s encouragement to paint out your own demons in One! Hundred! Demons!. Unfinished projects are definitely my demons. I feel better having purged them. Enjoy.

Today’s Illustrated Delight

I have been to Spike and Mike’s animation festivals for years, with some recent absenteeism, but somehow I did not become an ardent fan of Don Hertzfeldt until introduced to him last night (thank you, Phaedra!) He’s much like Jhonen Vasquez both in eyeball-drawing style and outlook. Alas none of his animation is on the site, but he has some strips which are great. I especially like Election. And this is one of those sites where the commentary (in this case a FAQ) is every bit as funny as the art it goes with, so go read it.

Oh, crap. The man was born a year before I was. Like it’s not bad enough that one of my Hampshire classmates was published in Harper’s this month. What the fuck am I doing with my life? sshjjeeeeeebus…..

System Update

In case any of you have been trying to reach me via my Hampshire mail since the weekend, please be advised that the server was taken offline over the weekend and as a result mail is badly backed up if not outright blocked. Please try my gus at twistedmatrix (It’s Dot Com ™) address instead.

Unfreundlich

I got on Friendster (why does it make me feel so dirty?!) and I discovered I am two degrees of separation away from Martha Stewart.

Dude, I hate Friendster. I don’t want to think about all the people out there I could be dating right now. I don’t want to read about how boring and provincial everyone is, and think about how boring and provincial I am among them.

I’ve met Eric Raymond. I’ve conversed with Eric Raymond.

And contrary to his own opinion, Eric Raymond is no 007.

Poll Time

I don’t have polling software, so please respond in comments. Here’s the question: do I work at a pharmaceuticals advertising co. this summer, or a summer camp?

Pros of pharma co.: Opportunities to learn more about this fascinating (‘hem.) field which will probably feed into and inspire work I do in the fall, officemates I know I can tolerate for three months, supervisors who think I am a genius, more chances to pad my resume as a copy editor, lots of free brainspace for dreaming up writing projects.

Pros of summer camp: Fun work, pretty neighborhood, ostensibly reasonable management, not sitting at a desk all day, get to feel like an important member of a loving community, will feed into and possibly inspire work I do in the fall, will build on prior experience in teamwork especially.

Cons of pharma co: EVIL. May stain the soul or eventually corrode my mood about working there.

Cons of summer camp: The commute is an absolute bitch (Washington Heights from Sunnyside?! An hour and twenty minutes!) and I would be required to be “on” for eight hours a day with a bunch of kids, as the most senior member of a classroom team. Plus my resume already has more than enough of this kind of work on it, and I don’t want to be typecast.

Salaries are pretty much equivalent, and this is only for three months. Please respond by right away, the pharma co. wants me deciding Wednesday.