Camera Guy: It’s pretty late. Why don’t you just have cereal or something?
(Tom opens the oven and puts the mac and cheese in there.)
Tom Oatmeal: I’m just going to lie down for a minute while that cooks…
Camera guy: Uhh, I don’t know if that’s a good idea…
Tom Oatmeal: It’s fine. I’ll keep my eyes open.
(4 hours later…)
Homeowner:
(On the phone with police) My wife and I heard the smoke alarm and he
was sleeping on our couch. Nothing is missing, but I think he tried to
cook something.
Now and again, after The Gurgling Cod has posted something that it thought was boldly iconoclastic, and insouciant in its argument, there is that deflating moment when the only comment comes from Fr33 C!ali$. Times like that, The Cod has been known to assert to nearest and dearests that he will put up a post with the title "Julia Child is an Uncle Tom"* just to see what would happen. In devoting an entire post describing the boundless extent of his indifference to the Momofuku food cart rumors, Ozersky may be up to the same thing. Unfortunately, the genre of an entire short essay devoted to the author's lack of interest in the topic is exactly the kind of thing people hoped to escape when they stopped reading newspapers. (I will bet you a dollar that Dan Shaughnessy has mailed in at least one column on his indifference to MMA, for instance.) On the other hand, as anyone who has seen The Pajama Game can tell you, fervent declarations of indifference toward a given individual, ironically, are frequently interpreted by witnesses as evidence of deep feelings for the very individual for whom indifference has been professed.** Has late July malaise caught up w/ The Feedbag or is it something else?***
*The inspiration was an SNL Hardball parody, where Tracy Morgan, as Harry Belafonte, asserts that "Osama Bin Laden is an Uncle Tom."
**This is the Doris Day version. Sadly, one cannot embed Doris Day. When did they stop making broads like this? Chenoweth me no Chenoweths.
***A belated perusal of the comments indicates that Ozersky has been excommunicated from the Church of Chang, which may or may not explain this solemn declaration of indifference.
Is there even a name for the gratification derived from eating peanut butter crackers that have been pulverized by their sojourn in the back pocket of a tight pair of jeans? I mean, in English. In a different valence, it's hard to believe that the guy in the bicycle race missed out on this cross-promotion opportunity. By then, he passed on my idea to saw truck nutz in half and paint them yellow, too.
EMD has the DL from Judith Jones on what Julia herself had to say about Powell. The sentence to clip and save: "Julia didn’t like what she called ‘the flimsies.’ She didn’t suffer fools, if you know what I mean.” EMD also displays more collateral damage from the J/J film -- a tiein band on Mastering The Art of French Cooking. Using a classic cookbook as a promotional vehicle for a movie about a book about a blog featuring two criminally miscast actresses* is vandalism. *Amy Adams = too pretty. Meryl Streep = too short. In a perfect world, they would have gone for bust, made Powell's character animated, w/ art from Roz Chast, and gotten Ackroydback on the coke back in shape to play Child.
The Cod feels exactly about The Foie Gras Jelly Donut the way that he feels about Lady GaGa: 78% incredulous horror, 19% incredulous fascination, 3% wanting to write a check to the madrassa that will destroy our decadent society the quickest. (I would welcome a report from anyavailablePDX operative.)
We do, however, have Ms. GaGa partly to thank for this new musical composition, which I anticipate will be quite popular:
As a general rule, cheating on your spouse is tacky. An actual "affair" is tackier, in that it is a systematic betrayal, rather than an error in judgement. Tackier still would be to make this affair a central element in the followup to your much-anticipated, but ultimately urewarding first book. Tackiest of all, perhaps, is to delay publication of your second book, describing as it does her "marriage challenged by an insane, irresistible love affair," on the grounds that a book about cheating on the spouse who supports you through your cooking project that became the basis for your blog, which was the basis for your first book, which is the basis for a newly released film,* might make the character seem less appealing to filmgoers. *Is a film based on two jiveass books better than a film based on one? We'll have to see.
Too much madness up in here, I agree. But when Erin Andrews is humiliated for being naked in her own hotel room, and Skip Gates is arrested in his own damn house,* there is something soothing about the consistent, bewildering inventiveness of the folks at W-S. Via TFS, the meatball griller. As TFS points out, "why would you want to grill meatballs?" At the same time, I don't think I am alone when I say the image of said meatball griller proked a twinge of anxiety. Indeed, I suspect W-S may have gotten the idea for this image when Chuck Williams stumbled into the annual S.C.U.M. cookout by accident. *Please, if you are an ignorant, racist redneck motherfucker who reads Boston.com, please stay in the basement and masturbate to pictures of Louise Day Hicks, or whatever and DON'T put ignorant shit in the comments. It just makes New Yorkers smug when Bostonians say ignorant shit about race.
I try as much as possible to support local and brick and mortar music and book shops. However, I've been increasingly frustrated w/ stores that beat the buy local, Independents do it w/o chains drum, etc, and then when you ask for a specific title, they say they don't have it, but are happy to order it for you. I recognize that inventory is expensive, and demand for some items is limited, but having wasted one trip in an effort to purchase a tangible piece of media from a real-estate-occupying entity, to be asked to stand there while your retailer orders it from the internet, and then to make another trip to same retail entity when the book/cd comes in has limited appeal. Indeed, this business model is like charging for handjobs, in that the service the business is providing can be obtained more conveniently at home, and at a competitive price.
I do not have an answer, and the beauty of a good record or book store lies in the browse, and the serendipity that can provide (here, the Amazon suggestion bot is like having Xzibit jab you in the shoulder: "Yo dawg, I heard you like rap music and books about meat -- check out 'Make Merguez at home with Sadat X"!) but something has to happen to make actual book and record stores more than glorified and inconvenient Amazon kiosks. But some live VH as a peace offering to indicate my heart is still with the indies:
A decade or so back, ReadyMade Magazine was a breath of fresh air -- Popular Mechanics + the poor man's Dwell was a good idea. It didn't take long for them to realize that the consumer ethos is more compelling to advertisers than the original DIY ethos, and readers have been writing in to complain ever since.* (Our trial sub expired years ago, but it just keeps showing up, like Wayne's girlfriend.) However, things look, grim, about as grim as if ReadyMade had pulled a graveside nutty at Vibe's funeral, and was all like "it should have been me!" Witness this gem from a picnic makeover article from Jul/August -- a "Vietnamese Sandwich": 4 baguettes or sandwich rolls (!) Marinated tofu or chicken Marinated carrots Butter Sliced jalapeno (optional) Sliced red onion (optional) Cilantro The marinade for the carrots? White vinegar, sugar, and salt. The chicken/tofu marinade at least includes fish sauce, but overall, it's a receipt that shows a degree of indifference to what actually goes into an actual Bahn Mi that bespeaks a very deep depression. At best, it's an echo of the faux ethnic receipts of the 1950s, where a slug of soy sauce rendered meatloaf magically Chinese. (For the record, 2-3 different Viet cold cuts, a livery pate, mayo, shredded carrots, onion, cilantro, hot peppers, sirracha, in various proportions, not much meat for the classic Bahn Mi -- there are variations.) But the essence of the Bahn Mi is confronting sandwich meats that you would not eat solo on a dare, which in this combo, become delicious. See John Thorne's Bahn Mi & me, for the definitive essay to date on the US career of these relics of French imperialism. *It's as if people still turned up for Jonathan Richman shows to tell him to knock of that "I'm a little airplane"shit, and play "Roadrunner." (Oh, wait, that's me.) Play them off, Modern Lovers:
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