generic containers for pure female electricity

I missed Mary Gaitskill at Skylight a few weeks back and this interview at Nerve makes me regret it even more.

Today, it seems that many young women writers — who are the age you were when you wrote Bad Behavior — are calling for a return to a certain prudishness. For example, in Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy argues that women are copying men's ideas of how women should be sexually brazen and inflicting that on other women.

Yeah. I don't know what I think of that. Actually I do know what I think of that. It's kind of complicated. When people make those kinds of sweeping statements, it's some impulse to adjudicate what Women — with a capital W — should be doing. And it really so much varies. The problem for me with some of the seeming brazenness that was fashionable for a while is that it can be forced also. Because if a person doesn't feel like being brazen or doesn't want to do that, they shouldn't. I think a lot of times women who really display sexually are covering up a lot of fear. A confidently sexual person doesn't have to announce it all that much. But if it's who you are — if you love to get dressed up in the big heels and the tiny skirt and the wig and the whatever, why not? But I don't feel like that should be idealized any more than the modest, demure person. The same woman can feel both ways on different occasions.
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goodnight fine cut

Jimmy Beck turns in a smokin' ode to Clement Hurd on hearing the news that the jacket photo of the Goodnight Moon author will be posthumously altered to remove the cigarette from his hand.

Update: A New York Times op-ed by Karen Karbo asks: why stop at the cigarette?
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tai shan meets the press

I wish I could mainline a drug distilled from the cuteness of baby pandas.

Via Women of Many Nations

lovecraft circus

Via The Onion a.v. club, H.P. Lovecraft meets Family Circus.

if it weren't for the words

I've been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks...The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Told Entirely in Emoticons
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chloroform in print

Sam Jordison's The Joy of Sects: An A-Z of Cults, Cranks, and Religious Eccentrics has been published in time to join my dissertation bibliography. Its English bent might not reach the California shores of my project, but it's an intriguing collection nonetheless. You can get a taste at his Guardian list: "Top 10 Books on Cults and Religious Extremists."

Literature would be considerably poorer without cults and religious extremists. They've inspired some fine novels and riveting eye-witness accounts as well as producing rainforests' worth of mad, bad and thoroughly dangerous books themselves.

While we're on the subject, I'm thankful to LA Brain Terrain for turning me on to the work of Erik Davis and his essay, "The Alchemy of Trash: The West Coast Art of Spiritual Collage."
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absolut corruption

stay free! daily reports on the lawsuit filed by Absolut Vodka against the blogger who created this fake - although not false - ad.

december: the month of no significance

Even though the year has yet to end, Amazon has released its editor picks for the Best CDs of 2005, with Sufjan Stevens leading the list. (Mr. Stevens also tops Information Leafblower's Top 40 Bands in America Today.)

Update: The New York Times disses December as well with its 100 Notable Books of the Year.
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kryptonite to the female resolve

Is he cute or is he British?

When it comes to the attractiveness of British men, American women are simply incapable of rendering a proper judgment. Bad teeth, the unibrow, Guinness bloat, doesn’t matter; hell, we think Tony Blair is hot. Studies have proven that British accents are, in fact, the number one cause of hot women dating nerdy men. (Number two cause? Woody Allen.) There’s nothing wrong with dating men who have British accents; Madonna liked her husband’s so much she got one of her own. But there are scoundrels out there—those who use their cute British accents to lure innocent birds to their flat for a friendly game of hide the blood sausage. Sorry.

The following prompts will help as you try to decipher whether your new bloke is a winner or a wanker. Beware the British accent, ladies, and remember: The country that gave us Shakespeare also gave us Simply Red.
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the inconvenience of his misrepresentation

From the Best of Craigslist, a Men Online Hall of Shame and the corrective A Simple Lesson for Guys Posting Personals (from Another Guy).

Try to tell a little something about yourself without bragging! (You, yea you! Guy who constantly posts a picture of himself leaning against a stupid Ferrari and wearing loafers with no socks – that counts as bragging, buddy!) Just be honest. Do you like the outdoors? Do you have any interesting hobbies that you could share with another person? Maybe you watch a lot of television, and you want someone you can discuss your favorite shows with… Most importantly, just be open and honest! Women dig that shit… Weird, huh?
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all that glitters is not gold

Glam rocker Gary Glitter is wanted in Hanoi for sleeping with underage girls.

Residents of the picturesque tourist town on the mouth of the Saigon River had also complained about his singing, the paper said.
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literary crushes

Slate profiles the books famous people loved in college. Daphne Merkin covers one of mine:

The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy. I read it for a class taught by Catherine Stimpson in my senior year at Barnard, and if I were grateful to her for nothing else, I would be grateful to her for introducing me to that novel. I was immediately riveted by its casual yet urgent style, as though there were a secret message running through the book that you would be able to detect only if you paid careful attention to what appeared to be its many inconclusive scenes and exchanges of throwaway dialogue. It remains for me an unutterably prescient book about so many things: the impact of celebrity on earthlings; the yearning for some kind of transcendental meaning in the midst of a secularly ordained universe; the possibility of romantic love even for the inveterately cynical (Binx); the limitations of romantic love, even for the nuttily hopeful (his cousin Kate); the temptations and arrogance of outsiderism; the pathos of emotional illness (Kate) and physical illness (Lonnie, Binx's half-brother).
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where you lay your head

I slept upstairs from members of New York's new avant-garde for a good six months and was none the wiser.
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as opposed to purely popular

Forbes presents a slide show of literary tastemakers. I don't know if I agree with the choices, but the pictures are nice...

It is common to think the world is becoming increasingly illiterate and inattentive. The many media that compete for our attention are louder, brighter and faster than books. Libraries, bookstores and publishing houses are swallowing budget cuts and layoffs. The National Endowment for the Arts says that literary reading is in dramatic decline. At the same time, truly interesting and original literature continues to be published--and not all of it is languishing in the sale bins at Barnes & Noble.
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get behind me conan o'brien

The White Stripes enlisted Michel Gondry for their latest video, "The Denial Twist."
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