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You guys.

Bad Gurlz 4 Lyfe

One of my favorite things about movies in the summer is that they never demand much of you in the way of thinking. The September Issue may be the most done up and classy-lookin' of this year's summer releases, but it creates no less of a fantasy world than Transformers and District 9. And let's face it, Megatron has nothing on Nuclear Wintour.

Hot Dog

BOOK THIS CLOWN

She's Controlling the Jet

Pillow and Able have been witness to my joy that Disney XD is, for some reason, re-airing the all too-short lived X-Men Evolution cartoon from a few years ago. As a child I spent the majority of my Saturday mornings watching the cartoon lineup from 6AM until around noon when Momma Pet would wake up and take me to the mall or something. By the time Evolution began I had been sleeping in on weekends instead but the premise of teenaged mutants (encouraged probably by the success of teen mutants in the feature films) learning how to harness their powers while navigating the challenges of attending high school in upstate New York had me awake and transfixed like I was 8 all over again.

Evolution aired for 4 short seasons in total, the first two were mediocre and childish. Fun, but stupid. The show gets good, and, like, canonically good, after the teens are exposed to the world as mutants in the Season 2 finale. X-Men, in all of its forms, has always gone with the apartheid bent but Evolution features a post-milennial mentality about racism and social engineering that's quite apt. Everyone in their world (like ours) accepts that humanity can turn on a dime and genocide is not so much a shocking abhorration as something that reoccurs cyclically in spite of history.

Anyway, despite the shows on-point catologue knowledge of nerd-dom, the style leaves a lot to be desired. Compared to the bright colors and big hair of the 90's cartoon the X-Men in Evolution are dressed like aliens for combat (miserably, they never actually get to combat aliens like in other incarnations) and are also weirdly cautious about using their powers, presumably because Xavier, featured in Evolution as an overbearing and stangely boring headmaster, encourages them not to.

William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
Act V, Scene II

CLEOPATRA:
Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
Immortal longings in me: now no more
The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip:
Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear
Antony call; I see him rouse himself
To praise my noble act; I hear him mock
The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
To excuse their after wrath: husband, I come:
Now to that name my courage prove my title!
I am fire and air; my other elements
I give to baser life. So; have you done?
Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.
Farewell, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewell.

Kisses them. Iras falls and dies

Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?
If thou and nature can so gently part,
The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,
Which hurts, and is desired. Dost thou lie still?
If thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world
It is not worth leave-taking.

CHARMIAN:
Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain; that I may say,
The gods themselves do weep!

CLEOPATRA:
This proves me base:
If she first meet the curled Antony,
He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss
Which is my heaven to have. Come, thou
mortal wretch,

To an asp, which she applies to her breast

With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool
Be angry, and dispatch. O, couldst thou speak,
That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass
Unpolicied!

CHARMIAN:
O eastern star!

CLEOPATRA:
Peace, peace!
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the nurse asleep?

CHARMIAN:
O, break! O, break!

CLEOPATRA:
As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle,--
O Antony!--Nay, I will take thee too.
Applying another asp to her arm

What should I stay--

Dies

CHARMIAN:
In this vile world? So, fare thee well.
Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies
A lass unparallel'd. Downy windows, close;
And golden Phoebus never be beheld
Of eyes again so royal! Your crown's awry;
I'll mend it, and then play.

Enter the Guard, rushing in

FIRST GUARD:
Where is the queen?

CHARMIAN:
Speak softly, wake her not.

Don't Take it Personal

In a week full of dead murderers and rapists, let's take a second and show some respect for a true innocent on the 8th anniversary of her horrific plane crash death. Of course, there's a rapist in her story too, God we let celebrities get away with ANYTHING in this country.

Happy Birthday Tom Ford

Hi Hater

Aren't we all feeling a little tired and terse? It's the end of Summer '09 (Labor Day a wink away).
A doozy. A DEATH doozy. Ted Kennedy and Dominick Dunne not so shocking as Michael and Mays and all of those damn plane crashes. But my.

News of Ted hit me rather hard, and my beautiful roommates Pillow and Petrova had to put up with a little maudlin, 1/2Irish, unfounded political espousing last night (love y'all). What else was I to do. I was verklempt and defensive and thinking about my Grandpa and forgiveness and non-forgiveness and war crimes and the lack of national health care and fast trains and regulated banks and why Elliot Spitzer and Jim McGreevey aren't governors anymore.

I've gone into the red twice this month. And it's really sinking in, that (economist please) this 'reception' isn't over. It'll drag on for hours. We need some effective coping mechanisms (the old [expensive] ones just won't do).

The other night at Britney, toward the very end of the show, through which we danced and sang and drank screwdrivers (cute), the ornery chick sitting next to me tried to step. I could hardly hear her. She said something about her boyfriend (who had been eye-&?%*!*$ us for over an hour) and how I should "calm down" (the NUMERO UNO COSA you do not say to me). And I got upset, irrationally upset, because I had been drinking vodka and juice and because I just don't know why some people have the urge to shame total strangers. Pillow and Pet and our girl A. Marx, in the way of comfort, told me about something really important that night : the phrase and song, "Hi Hater (You See Me)."

Brooklyn rapper Maino is responsible. I really dig the track, and its flashy remix (sort of...not really), and the resulting tall-tee phenomenon, declarative shirts printed with the title or some variation of it. I've been getting into affirmations (thanks sis and Miss and Castlemates), remembering how potent a few oft-repeated words can be. "Thank you" is my go to; so is "Many blessings," language leftover from summer mushroom trips. And now, something a bit less humble (who needs humble): "Hi hater. You see me." It is a call for unashamedness. It is a declaration of one's presence, one's weight in the world, one's fearlessness in the face of underminers and babydrinkers and the present and the future. It's a provocation. And to say it and think it and hear it costs no money and no lives and not very much time.

At a certain point in the third verse, Maino states, "When they hate on you then you know you doin' somethin'." And isn't this ego-boosting sentiment, this choice to convert "slings and arrows" into a funny foundation for personal strength, the very meat of popular artmaking? One must, at least for a little while, believe in one's efforts in spite of the storied hundreds of detractors and closed doors. One must be a bit delusional, certain one is famous without yet being famous, full to the brim with bravado--HI HATER. YOU SEE ME. I see you too. And I'm unfazed. In fact, I'm peachy.

Nostalgia

I should be wearing this outfit (or some version of it) most days, because it makes me feel like I'm 10 years old listening to the radio in July.

I'll See You at 8 o'clock

1981