Snog Blog: Sympathique:

Je suis d'accord. Lyrics to Pink Martini.


"Je ne veux pas travailler
Je ne veux pas dejeuner
Je veux seulement l'oublier
Et puis je fume"

Oui, il est arrive!


10 Fascinating Facts About Beaujolais Nouveau:


"Beaujolais Nouveau owes its easy drinkability to a winemaking process called carbonic maceration-also called whole berry fermentation. This technique preserves the fresh, fruity quality of the wine, without extracting bitter tannins from the grape skins. "

There’s fire in my belly today only it’s last night’s seafood laksa rather than any gutsy resolve. Still I am wearing Ebay purchased Prada shoes today which rock and completely make up for any intestinal discomfort.

Ellis Wood has a new piece at Dance Theater Workshop which is certainly an amuse nez since it ends with dancers chucking loads of flowers in the air and rolling around in them. It looked exhausting and the poor lovelies were shaking when they came on after the performance for the discussion. Ahhah I am forever in love with dancers. Their fabulous bodies and their nervous post performance euphoria – it just cries out “Love me!” And I can’t resist. I just wished I could have liked the choreography more. I have a personal scale for dance appreciation – a 1 though 10 for how much ET would hate it or not. This was definitely an 8 for her hating it. This usually means that I would rank it an 8, although this was not the case last night. I would have given it a 6 and that was mainly for the music which was composed by Daniel Bernard Roumain and who performed some of it live. His work is amazing and is apparently collaborating with Philip Glass in April which didn’t surprise me at all – I checked the program to see if the music was Philip Glass at first. He’s the composer in residence at the Bowery Poetry Club also. You should go and check him out. He’s dead sweet as well and was wearing some cool threads last night.

Come Again? - A history of the orgasm completely misses the point. By Thomas W.Laqueur:

So there I am dutifully ploughing through a book review when all of a sudden I read this:

"But then Margolis tells us about the modern day Mangaian boys of the South Pacific - untouched, it seems, by all the restraints of civilization - who go through elaborate training in cunnilingus and breast sucking and are 'taught always to bring their partner to orgasm several times' before having one of their own. So much for just letting nature take her course. "

And all I can think is where the fuck can I get me one of those. So I google a bit and then I find this article and then that's basically me finished for the day. All that work I had on my desk that had to get done urgently just caught a JetBlue flight to Miami.

Meanwhile, I'm looking for flights to the Cook Islands.

See ya. It's been not that bad at all.

Damn Jose. I can't make it tonight.

Can I come another time and be talked through the exhibit?

That noise? Oh it's my ovaries gleefully shutting up shop.

Sitting at the station this morning, huddled into my scarf, I pulled out the Atlantic and, whilst turning the pages for the next article, I could feel the woman next to me check my left hand for evidence of a marriage or an engagement. I do this as well, I can’t help it, so I can’t blame her. And then, on finding nothing, I felt her stare at my profile and in her boredom through lack of anything else with which to occupy herself, she examined me and let her curiosity and imagination run.

I am undoubtedly of an age where in this country and even in New York one is rather expected to be wed. Or have wed and to show some marked agony of its loss. Being single, and even in New York where the most fabulous sparkly path is that of the single lady, anyone who is not a single lady likes to speculate as to the circumstances of one who is. Are you a lesbian, a psycho, physically damaged or just tragically unlucky? Married women may eye you with suspicion – you are, after all, obviously interested in their husbands.

My narcissism appreciates the interest and longs to flash off some fabulosity of my existence. Mornings like this morning: when I had woken with enough time for 30 minutes of yoga and some breakfast; when I had taken fabulous shoes out of their box and put them on for work and left my apartment clean and organized and with the correct amounts of expensive moisturizer that will not only banish fine lines but also repel free radicals, I thought mmmmm single life, just me, no fuss. How perfect. The selfishness of it all is such a comfort. There’s no rush to get kids to school and no panic about their illnesses, only mine. On a morning where I listed to stories on NPR of mothers in the Pacific North West forgoing medical insurance for themselves so that their kids might benefit, I admired their stoic sacrifices and thanked humanity that such issues are not for me. I don’t have to concern myself with school fees and the other financial costs that come with dependants, it’s all just me and yes, thank you, I will buy those shoes. Kids are wonderful. Yes I know this, I have nieces and they are dandy. But something those of you who do have them may not have realized is that those of us who don’t aren’t necessarily permanently haunted by their absence in our lives. This can also roughly be translated as “You can shove that babysitting idea right back up the arse from which you pulled it.”

I don’t need a big house, or any house for that matter, full of things I hate, like furniture, a ridiculous agglomeration of stuff, objects that clutter lives: property is, after all, an aberration. I need only a small apartment. An apartment for myself and perhaps some books with enough money for exotic travel, trips to the theater or dance. And a massive duvet. There’s no one else demanding of my time so that if I damn well feel like it I can stay in bed all day and not answer the phone. Go away world, who needs you anyway when it’s this cold.

So you see, the single life is good. Family can be exhausting so why take on that of another? Friends are better since you can at least choose them. My piano teacher once told me she didn’t need people because she had her cigarettes. It’s a little extremist but I see her point.

And so on days like this, when it is cold and promises only colder weather to come and when I have recently witnessed the making of a baby shower bonnet, I revel in spinsterhood and its comforts. Who needs to disfigure their genitalia when happiness is early retirement to a small apartment near to a sea warm enough for year round shallow bathing.

Required Friday viewing

In which I am hipster hotsterness personified. Well almost.

So like yeah I went to see Interpol last night. I drank enough to be able to shuffle around nonchalantly and nod my head. I was careful not to look like I was enjoying myself too much. But I trashed my hotsterness outfit of dark muted tones that looked like they needed a damn good wash with the application of Lancome Juicy Tubes lipgloss. I knew it was wrong but I couldn’t resist. I think this is why I am the only person at Hammerstein Ballroom last night that didn’t get missed connection this morning. I know this because I have been refreshing the page every ten minutes looking for me.

Ahahahhah just one, please. Is that so wrong? Is that so much to ask?

I am just saying no to the poncho because, quite frankly, they are ridiculous and they keep appearing on the bodies of the ladies with whom I work. One of these ladies has more than one. I hate them. They have no sense of irony. They are a fashion wtf. Not that I have any idea about fashion or trends. Items I have said no to in the past have gone on to become fashion phenoms - like rara skirts in the 80s and peddle pushers. This results always in me crumbling, just before the "over" and buying said item only to see it heavily discounted the next day. I just feel that with the poncho Manolo would say no. Anyway, I am holding out on this one. I can do it, I know.

What I want for Christmas

Oh, I dunno, I just liked it.

Oh! Johnny! Take your fucking hand off it!

The New Yorker: The Critics: A Critic At Large:

"It used to be said that airports were our new cathedrals, the spires replaced by ascending and descending planes. But they have become workaday and shabby, cluttered with the machinery of heightened security and menaced by airline bankruptcy, bus terminals on the brink, more like refuse-littered marketplaces than like places of worship. The art museums, once haunted by a few experts, students, and idlers, have become the temples of the Ideal, of the Other, of the something else that, if only for a peaceful moment, redeems our daily getting and spending. Here resides something beyond our frantic animal existence. Leonardo spoke scornfully of those men who do nothing in their time on earth but produce excrement. Art, in its traditional forms of painting, drawing, and sculpture, is a human by-product whose collection, in homes, galleries, and museums, lightens the load, as it were, of life. By its glow we bask in the promise of a brighter, more lasting realm reached by a favored few St. Vermeer, St. Pollock, St. Leonardo. In Paris and Florence, tourists from Japan come by the busful, pose giggling for a photograph in front of the Mona Lisa or The Birth of Venus, and hurry on their way, blessed."

Actually, I shouldn't bitch. This article, and this paragraph in particular, made me laugh on a day which had hitherto been spent deep in the downer caused by my chemical upper from the weekend. So, cheers John.

Actually the photo in the mag this week looks amazing and now has me set to go and check the new MoMA out, despite the new prohibitive entrance fee. I just want to walk around and sigh "Febulous, febulous" endlessly into my mink stole. Because you see, I have nothing but scorn for those who do nothing in their time on earth than produce excrement. Actually, that's me on a good day.

Contemporary Art Shows Its Strength in a $93 Million Sale

Ahaha one of my fave paintings ever just got sold. Timmy, I want it wrapped for Christmas, sweets, OK?

A 1964 de Kooning, "Clam Diggers,'' also brought Mr. Geffen a strong price. Tim Taylor, a London dealer, bought the painting depicting two women for $3.9 million, above the $3.5 million low estimate.

eBay item 5532700708 (Ends Nov-11-04 03:38:58 PST) - Chateau d'Yquem 1983:

"Here's your chance to own a bottle of the world's most famous (and expensive) desert wine.
I'm afraid I've drunk most of it - and what is left will certainly be oxidised, but it has to be the ultimate swank item to leave around the house.
Impress your friends and your boss!
Note: I will carefully remove the label and post at reduced rates for collectors of clasic wine labels."

Ha. Hilairous.

"Faith: a firm belief for which there is no evidence." - Bertrand Russell

BAM has some great things on this week. Tuesday I went to see A Passage to India, Martin Sherman's adaptation of E M Forster’s novel. Wonderful. UK/India. US/Iraq. Will we ever learn? Also if you have any interest in dance whatsoever, go and see Ballet Preljocaj. It is truly wonderful. How can you resist anyone who sellotapes wine glasses onto dancers' bodies?

Oh dear Daniel

Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra you may have been but you chose badly for your performance at Carnegie Hall last night. Since I had missed Maurizio Pollini as part of my subscription series when I was in South Africa, I was especially looking forward to last night. Espcially also because it meant I got to gawk at my name in the Carnegie Hall Playbill Brochure. I am a Patron! Ha! I’m used to seeing only the names of those who have made awkward passes at me before so seeing myself mentioned made me feel somehow guilty. Anyway, Mr Barenboim managed to bore us shitless with Bach’s The Well Tempered Klavier Book1 – 1 through 12 up to the intermission and then 13 through 24 afterwards, apparently.

I had high hopes after the riveting performance by Helene Grimaud with the St Pertersburg Philharmonic last Tuesday. I was 4 rows back and all I could do was sweat as I watched her play Schumann’s Piano Concerto, I could see the tension in her neck and upper shoulders and hear her groan and hyperventilate. I know that look I thought. That’s my fuckface. Anyway, she’s gorgeous. Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. And the best pianist I have ever heard. Mainly because she’s gorgeous. I’m not sure I would trust her giving me root canal, mind. The audience went nuts. Nuts like they did with Joaquin Cortez if you can believe that which is not bad going seeing as most of them there looked like they needed a zimmer frame. It would be nice to be surrounded by people under 80 for once: all this culture leaves me pining for my peers. Ms Grimaud came back for a beautiful encore of RACHMANINOFF Etude-tableau in C Major, Op. 33, No. 2.

Anyway back to you Mr B, it’s the night before the election in New York. We needed to be transported far away, to be held in rapture and to transend the current shit. I am not interested that the Well Temepered Klavier brings back memories for you of Nadia Boulanger and how she would rap your knuckles. I wanted to close my eyes and cry. All I could think about was how much laundry I had to do. Plus you are not hot, no matter what you may think about the ludicrous photographs you have loaded onto your site. Your technical mastery left me cold and wishing that after every two minute piece that as you reached to turn over the page of music that this would be the last time before the intermission and I could leave. I was not alone – I would say a good twenty percent also walked.

And it was just as well I did. I came home to be surprised by the delivery of an ugly wine cabinet I ordered on the internet whilst drunk which needed to be badly assembled. And when I say badly assembled, I mean things going in the wrong way and discovered only after I had reached the ever uninformative diagram 3 steps further along the line. Did I go back to rectify it? Did I fuck. I just banged it around some with a hammer. Hammers are wonderful tools, you know. They can ease my every frustration with the exception of those of a sexual nature.

Mmmmmmmmmmm weddings are for getting really drunk and making a tit out of yourself, right? I bleeding hope so or I just did all this last weekend wrong. Teetering around slapping hands on arses is all good clean fun when you are that close to the equator.

Ah Curacao. No such thing as sexual harassment on the island residents lovingly refer to as the Twilight Zone. It’s 3 and a half years since I left and the cute boys I hired can still recount with glee the many tales of my inappropriate behaviour towards them. [For the record, EVERYTHING is ALWAYS in the bottom drawer].

“Maccers!” they shouted when I arrived, for indeed it was they who named me, “Remember when you told me you’d fire me if I ever wore another short sleeved shirt with a tie?”

“Ay pet.” I replied. “I do that. See, sometimes I helped. I wasn’t always jiggling around in your pockets for “change”.”

Ah Curacao. Where the Dutch will regale you with their stories of deep fat frying. It’s not for the faint-hearted. Or for those who can’t drink and drive.

calendarioromano.co.uk

Thanks to the above link from the Fabulous Lady D, I can't stop thinking about these guys putting a little bit more than the body of christ into my mouth.

Ah well.