Crisp, buttery, compulsively irresistible bacon and milk chocolate combination has long been a favorite of mine. I started playing with this combination at the tender age of six while eating chocolate chip pancakes drenched in maple syrup. Beside my chocolate-laden cakes laid three strips of fried bacon, just barely touching a sweet pool of maple syrup. Just a bite of the bacon was too salty and yearned for the sweet kiss of chocolate syrup. In retrospect, perhaps this was a turning point, for on that plate something magical happened: the beginnings of a comb...ination so ethereal and delicious that it would haunt my thoughts until I found the medium to express it--chocolate.
--Katrina, inventor of the bacon candy bar
"I guess what I have to say to that is.....that bitch is probably fat"
-Mike McGee in response to bacon candy bar inventor

Am I Crazy...

Or do the heads of phonograph needles look just like Princess Leia in disguise as Boushh?

it's things like this that make me love the internet.

Top 5 Things That Make Me Go "Aww, NO!"

This is a response to a post on my friend Joel's blog, one in an impressive series of Top 5 lists. Believe it or not - believe it - I've given this subject a great deal of thought, and have been waiting for just the right pulpit to come along so that I could seize it and condemn all of these stupid effing things from high atop it. And now I have a blog! So watch out, pet peeves, because you are about to get called out bigtime.

Number 5: Waiting on Very Elderly Women

I recognize that, as a society, we greatly undervalue the wisdom and the link to the past that our senior citizens represent, and I'm personally acquainted with a bunch of really badass old ladies (for instance, the great robinowski, den mother and world traveler extraordinaire, and my grandma, poet, adventurer, and mother of seven), but that doesn't mean I want to wait on their friends from book club. From the minute a gaggle of these these stink-eyed mamas shuffle gingerly into my section I know I'm in for a world of hurt. It takes them a solid 5 minutes to get settled in a table that they select for themselves, breezing past the 'please wait to be seated' sign on a cloud of some perfume they've been buying from the Macy's counter since 1964. I know before I even go over there that they will all demand, in a chorus of wavering crone voices, a freshly brewed pot of decaf coffee and glasses of water with no ice. Which is no big deal, I'm not the one who has to wash the lipstick smears off the rim of their mugs, and I'm also cuckoo for fish sandwiches, so I can totally understand why that is such a hot item with this demographic. The cole slaw isn't so much my thing, but I'm sure I'll get the hype eventually. It's all cool.
What really makes me say 'awww, @%$& no' when I see this gripe armada staggering towards one of my tables is that I know that for the next 45 minutes my every action will be the object of the most unyielding surveillance, everywhere I go, a concentrated beam of four unison grimaces will follow me, waiting for me to slip up. Sometimes I'll go to the kitchen and forget that they're out there, but when I reemerge their stony, impenetrable frowns hit me like a brick wall. It's like being held in a panopticon, but instead of driving you crazy with uncertainty, they drive you crazy with a total awareness of the ceaselessness with which you're being monitored.
Also, it's not cool to leave tips in quarters, and ten percent hasn't been the standard since like, the New Deal. Get with the times.

Number 4: Guys who tell you "I actually prefer it when women don't wear any makeup."

Is this supposed to make you seem like some kind of really elevated feminist ally? Am I supposed to be grateful that you're encouraging me to lay down the shackles of the patriarchy and thank you for creating this safe space for me to let my tits hang loose and my goddess self spread her wings? Should I be impressed with your ability to see beyond convention and glimpse the unique, radiant beauty that all women naturally possess? Do you even know what most women would look like if they never wore any makeup at all? All you - you, a man - are doing when you say that is creating another male-defined paradigm of what constitutes beauty that actually is impossible to embody, because 98% of women don't look like this when they're not wearing makeup. And you voicing that paradigm doesn't override everything we've been hearing from men about our beauty for all of our lives, it just provides a competing message that isn't necessarily positive. What it seems like you mean when you say that is really "I like women who are naturally flawless." Well, I like men who are over six feet tall with huge dicks and perfect musculature, but that's just not the way the world works all the time. "Confidence is sexy" is probably closer to what you mean, which is totally positive and true, and we try to take that message away when you tell us that women are more beautiful without makeup. But most of the time, it just gives us another reason to feel crappy that we don't look like Penelope Cruz.

Number 3: Insufficient Ketchup
Tragedy Strikes

As Joel points out in this post's sister post, Dane Cook is pretty wack. However, he says some things that are really "true, hence, funny" - that's another funny thing Dane Cook said. He does this bit about how when you're at a fast food restaurant and you don't have enough ketchup, your whole world ends, and you become this snivelling, single-minded Gollum until you have the requisite ketchup to pair with your french fries. Also, when you run out of ketchup, rules of society cease to bind you; you'll cut in line, interrupt conversations, steal, anything to get your angry fix.
I fucking love ketchup. I love it so much. I am so grateful that I was born in a country in which ketchup is a dietary staple. Normally I hate it when people approach me at work to ask me for things, but when they come seeking ketchup, I understand that their need is grave. Some people, however, don't understand the urgency of a no-ketchup situation. My least favorite thing in like, the world is when you're on a long car trip and you go to the drive-thru to get yourself a little snack to munch on while you sing along to Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits, especially the really emotional ones like "Man in the Mirror," and you don't realize until you're back on the highway that there isn't a single fucking ketchup packet in the bottom of your bag. Nothing makes me shakes my fists at an unjust God and cry NOOOO!! like Dr. Orpheus like being faced with the possibility of having to choke down some C-Nugs dry.

Number 2: Talking Animal Movies (Babe excluded) and other Trash:

In an ENVS class at college, my teacher once asked us what aspects of our childhood we remembered shaping our relationship with nature, and like 5 of us mentioned the movie Fern Gully. Kids are so impressionable, and filmmakers have such a cool opportunity to shape the future by making movies for them, and yet the movies they make are often so a) stupid and boring and not funny and b) laden with dangerous stereotypes. I know that no one's going to take the millions of dollars they would have spent on Beverly Hills Chiuaua and give it to PBS to start making awesome Sesame Street movies again, but don't our kids deserve better than this?

Number 1: BONO

I fuckin hate this smarmy asshole. But elaborating any more will make me sound like a bad person because he loves African babies and is trying to save them from AIDS. So just look at this picture and tell me you don't kind of want to punch this guy.

Happy Early Birthday, Erykah Badu!

Friday is Erykah Badu's birthday, and she's only getting better with age. Check out the AMAZING video she posted on her website: http://www.erykahbadu.com/, featuring Lil' Wayne. That's right, you aren't mistaken, that says Lil' Wayne. If this track is any indication of what we can expect from New Amerykah Part II, I'm super excited.

Garrison Keillor, Poet Laureate of the Midwest

As the weather begins to soften down here, I'm given more and more to reminisces of milder temperatures and the peace of mind they afford. Last year around this time, I remember how much the coming of spring salved the severity of my anxiety about graduation, and how easy it was to convince myself that I could live forever in the lazy hour or so between TGIF and dinner, and that the pink magnolia blossoms would linger all year, and that everything I needed I could find for myself. To fully immerse myself in a perfumed fantasy world, I turned to master storyteller Garrison Keillor, and my extensive News from Lake Wobegon podcast archive, to see what he had to say on the subject of the promise of spring. This episode, from May 9, 2009, is so beautiful, and I couldn't find a recording of it anywhere on the internet. Thinking that it totally belonged out there for the non-podcast-subscribing public's consumption, I just transcribed it (I knew this internship-specific skill would come in handy some day!). If you listen to Garrison Keillor speak, you know that it wasn't easy to translate his stories using conventional punctuation. Sorry that there's no visual aid in this post, but one of things that's so great about Lake Wobegon is that it exists in the collective imagination of the Midwestern people, and so I couldn't define it for you, even with the help of google images. Even putting a picture of Garrison up kind of ruins the magic. Ok well I encourage you to read this piece, because it's really quite beautiful.

"... The wildflowers are out in the woods - if you walk out in the woods, which many older people, people my age do not do because we grew up hearing the story of the man with black teeth who was out there in the woods. He was a man who you would see lying in the weeds along a path, and you would stop, as a good person should, and ask him if he was all right. And he wouldn't say anything. So you would kneel down by him, and ask him if he needed help. And he would look up and grin at you with his little blackened teeth, and he would snatch you, and take you away, and you would never be seen ever again. We used to go around at Halloween with blackened teeth and scare the bejabbers out of each other. And we never stopped to think it through, that if people were snatched by the black-tooth man and never seen again, then how did we know about him? We just didn't go into the woods, that's all. We just stayed, stayed out of the woods.

But you need to go into the woods, because the Morell mushrooms are there, and the beautiful flowers are there. You find Morells by looking for a dead elm tree. You may find it by following the hummingbirds, the ruby-throated hummingbirds. Green and white, they move very fast, and they make a humming sound. And this humming sound excites you and it quickens your senses so that you're able to find a tree that's gone down. And around it are these beautiful morsels.
It's a form of courtship in Lake Wobegon; you go with someone you love out into the woods where you can be alone, and you can talk to each other without other people watching you from a distance and wondering how you're doing. You go off into the woods so that you can look each other in the eye, and say what you think, and feel... some of what you think and feel. And you look for a fallen tree. Other people have found their own fallen trees, but you can find yours. And around it you will find these delicate morsels, this great prize which sells in grocery stores for $60 a pound, you'll find for free and bring them home. All you can eat! And you'll cook them up lightly in butter, and salt and pepper, and it'll be beautiful. A great many marriages have begun in just that way, when you're able to find something beautiful and delicate on your own.

Out there in the dimness, out beyond where we can see, there is a young couple walking around. And he is skinny, and he wears a black jacket and skinny black jeans, and his hair is combed straight back on the sides, and he has what appears to be a tattoo on the side of his neck. This skinny young man in black, and this heavy young woman. She just got back from the city - Cheryl Krepsbauch, Margie and Carl Krepsbacuch's youngest daughter - she went down there to get into the theater, and it didn't work out for her. And she worked at the cosmetics counter at Wal-Mart for a year and she gained a lot of weight just through sheer disappointment. And she came back, and she found him. We don't know who he is, he's from Millet, he's not one of us. He came in from outside.
And here they are. And when they think no one is watching, they hold hands. These two children who have been made fun of by other children since they were small. And this has drawn them to each other; they would never make fun of each other, or think less of each other. They walk, they walk around in town, careful who might be looking at them. And if you watch them, surreptitiously as I do, you can see the delicacy of holding hands, and what a beautiful thing this action is, taking another person's hand in yours. There's so many different ways to do it - hundreds of variations. And you can read the other person through their hand; you can tell who is reluctant to hold your hand, and who wants to, and who wants to do more than hold your hand. You can read all of this without ever having to say a word.
And there they are. They have not been touched by other people - except he, held in a headlock by an older brother, and thrown down on the ground and fallen upon. But nobody's held him since he was small, nor she. And here they are, and their touch is so delicate, and so delicious to each other. They savor every time they reach out and touch each other.

The story of the black-tooth man is that he was a boy who was held back in the grades. He stayed in the sixth grade in a little country schoolhouse, where the schoolteacher slept in a back bedroom so that she could light the fire in the wintertime. He was held back until he was the biggest boy in the sixth grade, and he terrorized this teacher. And one day, as he was walking across the fields, sheep chased him into the woods.
And there he is today - so we older people believe - ready to snatch anybody who walks out there. And so we, who grew up with this story, have not seen so many of these beautiful wild flowers, the trilliums out there, and the swamp marigolds. We've not seen them ever. We've been afraid and stayed on the well-lighted paths in town. But we did our children the great favor of not telling them the story of the black-toothed man, and so our children go out there. This young couple goes out there on the weekend of the corn-planting moon. They walk through the streets of town after the sun has gone down. People busy, people cutting their grass, people planting flowers, people digging in their gardens, people cleaning their garages. People working for the simple purpose of being out in the open where other people can see them and come and interrupt them. And so we can stand around in warm weather and we can converse with the smell of flowers in our nostrils, and not notice this skinny young man and this heavy young woman as they head out around the lake, out into the deep woods, where there is no black tooth man. He's not out there. That was a story somebody made up. He doesn't exist. Don't live your life as if he did.

That's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

Sex Bomb

I'm not kidding, the ten seconds you spend watching the portion of this video between 2:44 and 2:54 will be the best ten seconds of your day.

Another One Bites the Dust

I haven't posted in a long time, I know I know, so if anyone is still checking for updates I applaud your conviction and hope you enjoy these couple of posts that have been stewing in the old noggin for a week or so.

Ever since Clare and I moved to Clifton/Corryville, my route home has taken me past this enormous, regal-looking but vacant-seeming hotel on the corner of Oak and Burnet.

My neighborhood, as seen from the 7th floor of the Vernon Manor Hotel

This area is dotted with architectural anachronisms, sweet old buildings erected back when the hills in Cincinnati were a destination for bourg-flight from the riff-raff-populated flood plain, so I wasn't surprised to see a giant hotel in what's now a relatively poor area. What I always wondered was why that building hadn't been repurposed, like the Talcott look-alike building across the street on Oak that's now a AA meeting center. Who would stay in this pricy (up to $185 a night?) behemoth other than the families of patients at University Hospital when the only other points of interest within walking distance are a German restaurant from the 1800's, a coffee shop for weirdos, and the Corryville Rec Center? Fuck, why would you even come to Cincinnati on vacation in the first place? Well, apparently I'm not the only who noted the flaw in this business plan, because the Vernon Manor Hotel, built in 1924, has closed its doors forever.

"I guess I just wasn't made for these times." - The Vernon Manor

Which is a bummer, because apparently it was kind of a big deal. The Beatles stayed there when they came through Cincy on their 1966 tour, Rosa Parks and JFK stayed there too, according to CNN.com's Larry Shaughnessy (I call bullshit), and the Manor is the hotel where Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman stay while they're fighting the man and learning the meaning of compassion in Rain Man.

Sad though it is that yet another thing that was formerly impressive about Cincinnati is no longer relevant/profitable, Vernon Manor's closing meant that they had to get rid of an entire hotel's worth of stuff - quick. Which means liquidation sale wooo!!! (and my transformation into my mother is now complete), which means today I got to wander around an abandoned hotel and take home anything I saw that I might want - for a super low price.

This was an interesting experience on a couple of levels. First of all, it was one of those weird social environments where there's really no precedent for how you should interact with the people around you, and no one knows what's supposed to happen next, so everyone cracks jokes and tries to be helpful to offset the awkwardness of uncertainty. Like when the power goes out, or you're snowed in at work, or your plane is delayed. Imagine a giant Easter egg hunt with participants of all different, ages, classes, and races, but with such a tremendous abundance of eggs that no one had to be competitive or aggressive. That's what a liquidation sale at a hotel is like. The other thing is that it would have been pretty easy for people to steal, but since everything was sooo inexpensive it would have been cowardly to try. In a way it felt like we were all taking home a part of history, and that we would all be connected to each other by the items we selected and the story behind them. To steal would have reduced the whole event to looting, and taken all the dignity out of it.
The other thing that's crazy to think about is that there is at least one company out there whose sole purpose is to liquidate the property of hotels that close down. Whenever I hear about jobs that perform such a random but specific function, I think 'how in the world did that person come to do this for a living?' Then to see that person perform that ultra-specialized task with total mastery is kind of inspiring. Like, this could have been a big sad clusterfuck, but you, Mr. National Content Liquidators Ringleader Man, made it into a super-organized bargain party that the whole city was invited to. It makes you wonder what kind of previously unconsidered things you're capable of.

Finally, there's something about being able to just walk into a hotel and go into any room you want that appeals to anyone's inner child's impulse to explore. Part of the romance of staying in a hotel is that your room is designed to represent a completely neutral environment, a space that would be satisfactory to anyone, but to you it means so much, to you it's the one constant thing in an unfamiliar place. Even more enchanting is that you know that in the 100+ identical neutral rooms around you, about 175+ people are experiencing the exact same feeling of being thrilled by their new temporary habitat. Also, there's a little part of you that kind of wants to do this:


So being able to just walk around and feel over and over again that first little rush of excitement you get from exploring your hotel room is exhilarating.

Anyway, if you ever get the chance, going to a hotel liquidation sale is way fun, and you can get some really great stuff. Case in point, this dope loveseat Clare got:

K, I'll post again soon, I promise!

so this is what everybody's been talking about

I thought people were just being really possessive and confrontational about hypothetical Doritos all of a sudden.

Gorgeous Drawing by Hyuro

Happy Birthday J Dilla!

Today, February 7th, would have been J Dilla's 36th birthday, and we can only imagine how much richer the world of music might be if he were still with us. Luckily, his beats live on, and his memory inspires a lot of innovative tributes this time of year. Ok momentary nerd alert: if you can find a pair of nice headphones and non-youtubed versions of these songs, you will enjoy this post like a thousand times more. Anyway, here are some of my favorite Dilla tributes, as well as some of my favorite Dilla-produced songs.


This is arranged medley-style for the first couple of minutes, which I don't really like, but it is definitely a great recording and I wish I could live inside the groove that starts at 2:05.

http://www.swift.fm/questlove/song/18682/
If there were some way to embed this, I so would, but in some ways I think it's best that you visit the website, because questlove has posted a ton of outrageously sick roots/dilla songs, all of which are worth listening to-repeatedly. "Wicked Ways" is also superb. He's trying to publicize this Dilla benefit concert he's hosting in Williamsburg; god damn, can you even imagine living in a city where you could attend events like this for FIVE DOLLARS?? I can't even believe that that is reality for some people.


Two of my most dearly cherished, 'hell-yeah' eliciting things in all of hip-hop: Dilla beats and Ghostface rapping about fly women. Swoon.
"She pulled out a cigarette, hon here's a lighter
Her voice was a slow jam, full length white mink
Hella fine with a beauty mark on her right cheek
When she spoke her smoke floated when it left her throat
Spelled honey when she blew it out it turned to water word
I was infatuated
She put the perfume to her neck and sprayed it
Plus the bottle was nickel plated
It make a young girl steez yo feel outdated"


Speaking of fly women, here's a song by bad bitch extraordinaire Erykah Badu produced by J Dilla. The Soulquarians should have taken over the world, and this song is just one example of how all of the artists in the group grew as a result of having worked together.


This song uses a beat that originally appeared on Donuts, which is super catchy and way imaginative. It's mixed in a really cool way, so try listening to it on headphones for the full effect. I can't make it, but if anyone reading this can make it to Chicago next weekend, MFDoom and Mos Def are having a show at the Congress theater that should be AMAZING.


Not to be redundant, because anyone who's been in my car, house, or presence in the last like, year and a half has had to listen to this song countless times, but it's still one of my all-time faves. Produced by Dilla and Madlib, this song wins for most ingenious use of sample.

There's so much great music out there that owes itself in one way or another to J Dilla. I'd love to hear some of your favorite Dilla music, feel free to post some links!

Word Up, RuPaul

this is my new mantra. watch out, bitches of earth.

Next Chapter?

I got interview for a job with the two coolest radio stations in Cincinnati, one which is broadcast out of a retirement home! When I'm the next Terry Gross and they're presenting me with an award for reinventing the field of journalism and famous authors and musicians be all like "Amelia, interview us please, i didn't even know who i was as an artist before I talked to you!!" I'll look back on this first moment that I could foresee a future in which my job had nothing at all to do with ranch dressing. Sweet.

Check out WNKU, which is seriously the best music station in the city, and has just recently dropped basically all of its non-music programming. You can stream it on Itunes here. This radio station rocks. Check out the website for one of my favorite shows... this guy's a trip.

And here is WMKV, which is the first - maybe only - public radio station broadcast out of a retirement community. It's so silly and cute. Some shows broadcast from WMKV include "Trivia Tuesday," "Grandparenting Today," and "Keep Antiquing," and they play old-timey radio plays, sweet big band music, and great jazz. You can listen here if you have Windows Media Player. If you don't, then you'll have to tune in to 89.3... and be in Cincinnati.

I've got a good feeling about this one, but send me some good vibes nonetheless!

Rod Stewart: Formerly Awesome. Who Knew?

How does a person go from tight pants, sweat drenched guitar straps, don't give a fuck gritty london accents, opening riffs that awaken the warrior in the white man's soul and sustain that makes his warrior bride's toes curl, and a howl that makes the stale coffee boil at panty creamers anonymous meetings...


and end up here, emcee of rosie o'donnell's WARM98 sing-a-long, looking like a high school theater teacher singing kareoke on a thursday night, accompanied by the studio guitarist from the 'Tarzan' soundtrack. I guarantee you that robert plant never told anyone to 'stay away from my backdoor.' At 1:04, he actually pantomimes sitting down as he sings 'sit right down.' that is so wack.

note to self: never get old.

Notice to the Tiny Women of the World

This shit has got to stop. Go be with your own kind.

nothing personal,
-glamazons everywhere

A Brief Wondrous Post about Junot Diaz

I just finished reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz a week or so ago, and holy crap is it awesome (next stop: this. my brain is going to om nom that puppy up on my next long car trip).

This book is amazing for dozens of reasons, but the one I'd like to start off with is that this is Junot Diaz's first novel. He published a short story collection, Drown, in 1997, and a few short stories in literary magazines in the late 90's, and it wasn't until eleven years later that he came out with Oscar Wao. Diaz describes his eleven year absence from the literary world as "a perfect storm of insecurity and madness and pressure and you name it." I can't imagine how profoundly an 11-year long creative drought would shake my confidence, and yet though this novel is massive in scope it never once falters. His style is SO unique, he's always negotiating these major dualities in his characters, at times the book is laugh-out-loud funny, and he pulls it all off so effortlessly that you forget how sophisticated and complex the themes you're receiving are, and it would never occur to you that this is his first effort as a novelist. Maybe if his style had been whetted against public opinion for those 11 years, Oscar Wao wouldn't be so unique.

One of the reasons I decided to read this book was the endorsement of my friend Joel and his recollections of a talk given by Diaz at my dearly missed alma mater, Oberlin. After I read the book, I was really curious to hear him discuss his work, and I found this interview with Junot Diaz on "Fresh Air" with Terri Gross. Joel, if you're reading, you definitely didn't undersell this guy; dude is a freaking genius. Because the interview is about half an hour long and I don't expect anyone to listen to the whole thing - though I seriously would recommend letting it play while you're doing the dishes or making dinner, you won't be disappointed - I wanted to highlight a few really though-provoking points that he makes in the interview that bear repeating.

At one point, Terri asks him to comment on the role of language in his upbringing, and he notes that he was fluent in at least 4 different forms of communication (like a 21st century immigrant C-3PO) - the formal Dominican Spanish he spoke with his parents at home, the more Americanized, urban, Puerto-Rican Spanish he spoke with other kids in his neighborhood, the English he used in everyday conversations around New Jersey, and the academic English he spoke when he was bused to a more affluent school district. He also points out that even groups of friends develop their own unique forms of communication that distinguish themselves from their peers and the larger community - anyone who's been on the inside of a really close group of friends, or even co-workers, can understand what a delight it can be to become fluent in what is in some ways a codex of your own creation. He explains that he tried to express all these multiple fluencies at once in order to craft a more complete portrait of how layered an immigrant identity can be. He says that not only is it difficult to communicate the breadth of your real experience to others, but also that "it's hard to pull together a self when you have all these disparate threads running through your life when you're expected to choose a voice."

Another interesting point he makes about the role of language in the novel comes after Terri comments that many of the Spanish phrases in the book, as well as most of the comic book references, go right over her head. Junot replies that it was essential for the narrator to use phrases and references that the reader may or may not understand in order to convey an immigrant's authentic experience, not because it keeps a pulse of multiculturalism alive in all his characters, but because - get this, this is such a cool insight - immigrants rarely have the luxury of understanding 100% of the things that are said to or around them. As an immigrant, you grow up with a level of uncertainty that in some ways provokes you to always be adapting and learning, and in other ways brings you to accept that "we live in a world where not everything is intelligible to us," and that ambiguity is sometimes a part of life.

He also says that ultimately, this is a book for people who love to read, because a reader thinks of a book differently than a critic does. He says that a true reader loves the opportunity to learn and explore anything that books offer, and that a devoted reader's bookshelf will have a crazy variety of books because they love to geek out. He wanted to have his book resemble an avid reader's bookshelf, to have something in it for everyone. He definitely succeeded, this book is packed with history, humor, mad pop culture and music references - Lola wears Tribe Called Quest t-shirts while Oscar joneses after a Joy Division honey - and I've got to say, when he described one of Trujillo's generals as "the Witch King of Angmar," I got chills. If you want to get an idea of what I'm talking about, check out this annotated guide - the author of which is clearly not down with Diaz's point about being at peace with the unknown, but it's still interesting to look at.

Another thing I really like in this novel that isn't touched on in the Fresh Air interview that I would love to hear him discuss is that, even though Oscar is the titular character and the book's story arc follows his life, the real driving force of the novel is, in some ways, his sister Lola. Though the most frequent narrator is her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Yunior, I think that that is mostly a choice guided by the fact that Yunior can be an omniscient third-person narrator with a fair amount of authority when Diaz wants him to be, and a fully realized character when that suits his purposes. Diaz might feel more comfortable in the voice of a young Dominican man at Rutgers, but you're always aware that most of what he knows must have been told to him by Lola. Which makes her the real pilot of this narrative. Also, she's the only character other than the narrator to use the first person voice, so she's the only person to tell her own story. This is a huge stylistic choice to make, and I definitely think it says something. Also, a key part of most immigrant/diaspora literature is the failure of parents and their second generation children to communicate, and Junot does the whole back-to-back daughter narrative followed by mother vignette so well Amy Tan is sitting somewhere going "well hush my mouth." A lot of the dynamism and dimension of this family's story is articulated through the eyes of the women in the de Leon family, and that is really cool.

If anyone can find a transcript of the Junot Diaz talk at Oberlin, I would really love to read it. I found one kind of posted on facebook, but it cut off right before the answer to the question "why should we read literature?" If anyone can remember what he said, tell me! I so wish I'd been there. Kindly-looking googleimages Junot wishes you a good night, thanks for reading!

Word Up Sweden

Truly a gem in the crown of Scandinavia, the Kingdom of Sweden has been pumping out some truly delightful exports that I've been crazy digging on. Reading about this country makes it sound like the dopest of paradises - number one in the EU in terms of gender equality, global leader of the sexual revolution in the 1960's, major allocation of resources to promote the currency of idigenous (Sami) language and culture, including daily television and radio programming in Sami language - can you imagine if we had the news at 4:30 in Shawnee? According to Wikipedia, though the etymology of the word 'Swedes' is contested, it's believed to "derive from proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning "one's own." This sense of ownsmanship is present in each of these truly inventive glimpses of Swedish art and design.

The first little helping of Sweden, as I'm sure you've all guessed by now, is IKEA.
Going to an IKEA superstore is like taking a tour of what you hope your adult life will be like: organized, uncomplicated, affordable, but full of comfort and imagination. Some furniture stores make you feel like all unrefined and out of place because it had never occurred to you that you would need breakfast trays or little lights to illuminate your framed photographs, but IKEA is soo not about that. It's laid out on one long, windy path through the warehouse marked by arrows on the floor, so it feels like a journey by end of which you will have become a better person. There is something so empowering about being able to afford to create the environment you are going to inhabit, and IKEA makes it so easy. Ok that is like the definition of materialism, but seriously, if you're getting your first apartment and you have no furniture, IKEA is going to change your life. Like look at my room^
Basically, if you don't recognize it from my college dorm rooms I either made it, found it, or bought it from IKEA. So word up, IKEA, I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of each other.


Sweden apparently has a long tradition of excellence in cinema, a big fat artistic iceberg of which Ingmar Bergman was only the tip. Let the Right One In, a touching film that defies classification, came out almost two years ago now, and it's an unforgettable work whose complexity and poignancy compound with each viewing. Here's the trailer, which, admittedly, must have been really hard to craft.

This movie has so much going on that it's hard to know how to frame it in a minute and a half, so they mostly focus on the vampire-thriller elements. Which is kind of a shame, because though this film addresses the murderous, bloodthirsty impulses people have, it's really a film about wanting to share your life with someone, and the sweetness of finding someone to love. The basic plot synopsis goes like this: Oskar, a painfully stereotypically Swedish-looking boy, is picked on and isolated in school, and as an adolescent, feels little connection with his divorced parents. He develops a kind of delicate, uncertain friendship with a new neighbor, Eli, whom he only ever sees in the frigid apartment complex courtyard at night. It soon becomes apparent that she is a vampire, and the man who lives with her is her caretaker, killing townspeople whenever he gets the opportunity in order to feed Eli. As the relationship between Eli and Oskar begins to unfold with heartbreaking sweetness, Oskar has to deal with the savage reality of Eli's condition, as well as the lust for revenge against his tormentors that he recognizes in himself. I don't want to spoil the ending, but man it is a doozy. It leaves you feeling warm and cold at the same time, and the whole film is equally full of meaningful contradictions. The literal darkness
of the film serves a narrative purpose: Eli can only come out at night because she's a vampire. But the fact that the look and feel of scenes featuring only Oskar and Eli is so dim and intimate while scenes of Oskar at school or elsewhere are so starkly bright also creates this fantasy world that only the two of them inhabit, which is really kind of what it feels like to be a kid and fall in love. One reviewer noted that most night scenes are illuminated from only a single point of light, creating an unspoken but definitely present 'light in the darkness of loneliness' theme. This movie is the bomb, everyone should see it. If you have Netflix, queue it up, and if you don't - like me - here's the whole thing broken up into ten minute segments on youtube. You know you've done it before.

The last dose of dopeness from the north is brought to you by Fever Ray, aka Karin Dreijer Andersson, former lead singer of the Knife and WTF? style mentor to Oberlin's Kalan the Dirty Hippie and Lady Gaga. Here's one of her videos, which are often really eerie and haunting. This one is especially Kalan-y.

Make no mistake, this bitch is CRAZY. She always performs and appears in masks or giant theatrical costumes, or a combination of the two, and her songs lyrics are often non-linear amalgams of stories and images that create a theme but not through narrative. Which I think is mad cool. And her videos are honey bunches of NUTS, but beautiful in a way that only the truly crazy can create. It makes me think how much another Norwegian Sea cray-cray got the world accustomed to the idea of opening their minds to really inventive but definitely weird art forms, and that cray-cray is Bjork. Can you imagine a strictly electronic female artist putting this kind of work out and doing shit like this in the 1990's? People would have actually thought she was insane:

Without Bjork to push the envelope of what popular musicians could be and make, Fever Ray surely could not exist. So word up Fever Ray, keep on doing your thing, keep on pushing us to appreciate new ways of expressing ourselves and forcing art to evolve.


That's all for now, thanks for reading, and here's to you, Sweden!

deee-lish

ok a little more inspiration before bed. i am seriously loving this flute and keyboard combo. I know it's long, but stick around at least until 7 minutes through, it's really worth it.




Did you know that Baduizm, the album this song is from, was Erykah Badu's first album, and they got the Roots to help produce it and her studio bassist was Ron Carter, who has played with everyone from Miles Davis to Tribe Called Quest? What an exciting creative process that must have been, and what a great album it turned out to be. Also, I just realized that Erykah's birthday is the day before mine; more good company on team Pisces.

strange, as if never charted, stares my fortune untold

Ok tonight's inspiration comes from Rainer Maria Rilke.

I read this quote by him:

"...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

Rilke's work is really hitting the spot right now. This poem's title led me to anticipate some cheese, but I really connected with it by the third stanza in a way I hadn't expected to.
Girl in Love

That's my window. This minute
So gently did I alight
From sleep--was still floating on it.
Where has my life its limit
And where begins the night?

I could fancy all things around me
Were nothing but I as yet;
Like a crystal's depth, profoundly
mute, translucent, unlit.

I have space to spare inside me
For the stars, too: so full of room
Feels my heart; so lightly
Would it let go of him, whom

For all I know I have started
To love, it may be to hold.
Strange, as if never charted,
Stares my fortune untold.

Why is it I am bedded
Beneath this infinitude,
Fragrant like a meadow
Hither and thither moved,

Calling out, yet fearing
Someone might hear the cry
Destined to disappearing
Within another I.

I'm sure we'll be hearing more from Herr Rilke in the near future. Night!

-Amelia

Stevie Wonder is Amazing.

Check out this badass video of Stevie Wonder playing a drum solo. Bitch can't SEE. He has so little frame of reference for understanding how most of the world communicates, he could never even know how many things are different about their life from his, and he still makes music that is meaningful to so many people. And he can play, like, every instrument. It can be someone's life's work to learn how to be so skilled at playing a single instrument that they can use it as a tool of real self-expression, Stevie Wonder plays like TEN instruments. He is a freaking genius and I hope he is actually going to be playing at Oberlin, because it would be so dope to see him.