Sex and the Movie

OMG, this is just like my life! My life is an aspirational photo shoot! I'm going to sprint downtown in my $525 shoes and buy $1400 more!

I think that straight dudes are scared Sex and the City will turn women into consumeristic gossipy slutbags who will not only love 'em and leave 'em, but also talk loudly about their embarrassingly low-hanging balls or whatever (season 2 episode 1) before running out to happily replace men with footwear. I think (most) of them hear Sex and the City and picture this:


Yes? Mostly?

But last night's midnight showing crowd (93% ladies and gays; 7% sulking boyfriends) was a little more like:


I did have some issues with the movie, which all kicked in around 2 am when I couldn't help but wonder how, with 20 minutes of the movie to go, I was going to beat the 4000 other attendees for a cab.

But I don't care. I loved it. I'd see it again. I'm not sure a new viewer would love it (in the New Yorker review, Anthony Lane wonders why Charlotte loves Harry so much. HELLO, Harry is the ideal bald man who loves Charlotte unstintingly and is all smart and sweet and great in bed and transformed her divorce settlement from a stamp collection to a six-room apartment on Park Avenue. When they got engaged in season six after a terrible breakup I cried and cried. But I'm not sure you'd know that from his four lines in the film). I truly hope that it will make hundreds of millions of dollars and all the ladies out there who would like more than one uplifting movie a year with a likable female lead will vote with their dollars and be like, HOLLYWOOD: YOU CAN MARKET TO ME, I MIGHT NOT SEE TRANSFORMERS EIGHT TIMES BUT I STILL HAVE MONEY TO SPEND. Even Jennifer Hudson was pretty great; for a brief period I forgot about American Idol.

So, there it is. Don't worry. I'm not going to wear, like, spangled cardigans with an oversized, decorative belt and day-glo underwear, which I may or may not done last night.



But I might start using the word "fabulous" for a little while. Just a tiny bit. I think I'm allowed.

Tagged!

Banksy is an ephemeral street artist, who works all over the world creating charming graffiti that City Councils even occasionally sanction. A few weeks ago, he graced the Burg with his tag:



Ignore my shoddy Photoshopping--it's really cool. I knew it was only a matter of time before something happened to this clever hipster image. And as I was walking home today, I saw. A small yellow square stuck over the dude's bowler, reading "Brooklyn Scum." Awesome! This couldn't stand; I crept across the street and scratched it off.

Banksy & Bowler: they live another day.

Vegetarians Officially Weird

In an effort to combat the growing Office Ass, I decided to take a week and try different methods of cooking; like, using more beans and vegetables, parboiling and steaming things rather than sauteing in cooking fat, and just getting more creative in keeping things light.

So I made a lasagna last night with whole wheat noodles and squash and kale and silken tofu along with a wee bit of ricotta, all things I enjoy individually, anticipating an Everyday Italian-esque creamy-n-crunchy delight without having to limit myself to I'm-Giada-and-I-use-tiny-European-plates portions.


I packed some for lunch today. I heated it up. I tried it.

I'm going to Chipotle.

Summer, It Is Here

Summer is here. How can I tell? Is it the weather, which is finally sunny? The ivy-covered building next to my window is suddenly green again? My intense desire to eat ice cream and drink copious amounts of white wine that I don't really try to suppress?

No. I can tell because now, on Fridays, I get out of work at 1 PM.

What am I going to do with myself???

LUCILLE BLUTH????

Yeah... forget that this "trailer" doesn't even include Kelly Taylor yet expects me to accept a character named "Silver." Lucille. Bluth. Oh. Dear. Me.

I Want To Believe... And I Do

Today Dan and I went to the Guggenheim to catch the tail end of the Cai Guo-Qiang show, "I Want to Believe." I learned about Cai twoish years ago when I worked at Christie's, and fell in love with one of his works that was up for auction. I liked it even more after a little research--his drawings are done with gunpowder. It's a cultural thing, because gunpowder is among the most important inventions of the Chinese (or anyone, really), and it's also a way to create art that is just as much about the creation as it is the finished product, except unlike the usual conceptual art where it's about the experience of creating it, his end product doesn't blow chunks.


See? Cool.

Also, we ran into ck at the show, which was an unexpected treat. I don't have any of my own pictures, because the Goog Guards are pretty good about making you keep your cameras in your bag, but these (kind of) give you the idea. The show was insanely cool. When you walk in, you're greeted by a sculpture of exploding cars six stories high, and then run into a pack of wolves that mercifully spare you. Also there was an interactive boat ride. I'm not making this up.

These were the exploding cars as seen at Mass MoCA:


Imagine this vertically and animated in a rotunda and you get the idea.

My favorite, though, was "Head On." Not the Vincent Chase movie--this "Head On" is about wolves trying to break through a Plexiglass Berlin Wall in a large pack that is symbolic of both their power and their demise, and also you could walk through them:


Looked cooler in person--the wolves curved around the walkways. The constant walking in circles is really disorienting, and the lighting is oddly dim at the Guggenheim, which makes it very well suited to this kind of installation-heavy show; when I'm there I tend to feel as though I'm in some experimental arty netherworld... not a totally bad thing, but not always good either.

Soooooooo, if you're in town for the next ten days, you should check this out. Find a corporate member friend to help you skip the line (substantial) and the fee (like $20 or something?) but even if you can't, go anyway. It was kind of mindblowing. I think Cai agrees.

Oh, Sarah Jessica...

Sarah Jessica, Sarah Jessica, Sarah Jessica:


I love you. I am going to see your movie. Probably more then once. I go into conniptions whenever I see a preview. However borderline-insufferable Carrie and her puns and bad decisions and rampant self-absorption got by the series's end, I will always forgive you.

The thing is, I know it's been a while since the first half of season six, but... it hasn't been that long. I have a feeling you remember the episode when Carrie wore that hideous hatlet and got super offended when Berger broke our suspension of disbelief by pointing it out. Which begs the question... did you actually think it was "fabulous"? And thought you'd pay homage to that (frankly, kind of weak) episode at the London premiere?

I think you might have. And although you are a powerhouse in so many ways... I think you are mistaken.

In-sure-ance

Bob Herbert had an interesting op-ed today (even though I'm not sure I support the term "Millenials." Actually, I'm sure I don't).

The American Progress study found that Millennials are more likely to support universal health coverage than any other age group over the past 30 years. By huge percentages, they want improvements in health coverage and support for education, even if it means increases in taxes [and] ...are not much interested in hearing that the government to which they pay taxes can do little or nothing to help them.

My mom and I butt heads over universal health coverage, because she's (correctly) pointed out that universal health care generally means universal mediocre health care, whereas I don't see the point of having awesome health care if it's inaccessible; there has to be a compromise. I think it's weird that now that I have a stable job that pays decently I get health insurance and can go to the doctor for ten bucks, whereas when I had an unstable job that paid horribly it would've cost at least a hundred. And I think a lot of younger people see this more, as companies increasingly find creative ways to be cheap.

Also, on an unrelated note, could they do a reverse Beauty and the Geek, with hunky, vacant guys forced to learn from dorky girls? Oh wait, no one would watch it.

A Wedding, Y'all!

So Jenna Bush got married this weekend. And even though I hate each and every member of the Bush family, right down to their stupid, stupid faces, I have to admit that Jenna chose a pretty fantastic dress.


They look so happy! Even the Reverend Kirbyjon Caldwell of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston, who has endorsed Barack Obama, is like, finally, a Bush Decision I can get behind. Am I thinking something nice about the Bush family? Seriously? Oh God. I sense a mysterious pain in my side.


Laura, however, looks like she wandered in from a Yohji Yamamoto showroom, and Babs II seems to have sweet-talked her way into borrowing a "Klingon princess" costume from the Star Trek storage facility in Pasadena (either that, or she had an unfortunate run-in with a left-leaning manager at Forever 21).

Pain subsiding.

All Riiiiiight

So, the economic stimulus thing is stupid, almost as stupid as the gas-tax holiday*, but I got $600 extra dollars today and that puts me in a pretty good mood, not going to lie.





*gas gets cheaper for three months = you buy more gas = you deplete the supply and simultaneously get used to using more gas = at the end of the holiday, demand has increased, supply has decreased, and the prices are higher than ever. It's kind of a like the low "teaser rate" for your sub-prime mortgage, because that's worked out so well.

Stuff

"Skyr" is awesome. It's an Icelandic nonfat yogurt and now you can get it at Whole Foods!


I like it even better than the Fage's Greek-style yogurt, which is also thick and creamy despite having no fattitude. Isn't that interesting? I bet you're congratulating yourself for logging onto the Blotto Blog today.

Ummmmmm what else. K. is back in the country, and I'll get to see her next week, so that'll be excellent. Last weekend my mom organized a team for Race for the Cure, and I ran the whole thing without stopping!

Oh! Whoever came up with the new Coldstone TV campaign should get a raise, because whenever it comes on I get really excited and then angry that my neighborhood has no Coldstone, and then I get home and start eating the chocolate ice cream with chopped-up Thin Mints that I made last week. So also, that person should get me a trainer.

Also, how is Tina Turner SIXTY-EIGHT YEARS OLD?


Okay, I think she might've been 67 at the Grammys. But still.

Also, Beyonce claims to be my age but I don't think that can be right.


I do have interesting things going on, I swear. Everything's like, good, so I'm not sure what else to tell you. I got my hair re-blonded... I have some thoughts on the strong return of comedies vs. the relatively weak return of dramas to post-strike television... oh. Anna, who went to college with me, has been living in Yangon and has been way busier lately, due to the cyclone.


She's fine, thankfully, but says the situation is insanely bleak and the government (a military junta) is tremendously out of touch. They've just started allowing UN aid, so if you want to donate, you should. I'm glad that she and her husband are more or less unscathed, but am mostly glad that they're able to leave. It wouldn't be the same situation if they had to stick around... people are measuring their water supplies in terms of days.

Well... this post took an unexpected turn.