"Glee" does not fill me with glee

I'm really trying to like you, Glee, seriously I am. But something isn't quite right. Which is odd, considering I'm pretty much the target audience: a hip twentysomething with an a cappella past.

Watching Glee for me is like going on a date with a guy whom you think is going to be your soulmate. And then halfway through the salad course, you realize he's not as interesting as you thought. Everything looks right, but for some reason, there's no chemistry.

Glee is very slick -- Fox obviously put a lot of money into it and releasing the premiere at the end of last season was a genius move. I was convinced I loved the show before I'd ever seen it. The cast is good and some of the writing is clever. But there's something smug about the whole presentation -- the show thinks it's a hit but it hasn't really earned it yet, in my opinion. The episodes I've seen have all been just ok. Which is fine -- it usually takes a show about half a season to really find its rhythm. I just think it's annoying that Fox is pretending like it's perfect already and the BEST SHOW EVER.

I detect a bit of an identity crisis: Glee can't quite decide how over-the-top/campy/surreal it wants to be. Some of the characters seem real and some are complete caricatures. And I don't see yet how they are going to keep the premise going for more than one season. Clearly, this season is all about Glee Club getting to, and presumably winning, the oft-mentioned regional championships. But what about next season? And the focus is so split between the adult characters and the high schoolers that I'm not sure whom I'm supposed to be rooting for, other than not arch villain Sue Sylvester, played by the admittedly hilarious Jane Lynch.


I'm not giving up on Glee yet...but I do want it to start living up to its hype. Also, I'd really like it if they would stop making all the songs sound so produced and professional. I know we're not supposed to be in the world of realism, but since all of the actors are doing their own singing, it would be nice to be able to hear what they would sound like, were they actually in a vocal group together (as opposed to a recording studio).

As a little bonus, I'm including a video here of the kind of show choir that possibly inspired the creators of Glee. Behold the crazy intensity of Attaché, from Clinton, MS. These kids are in it to win it! If you enjoy this video, I highly recommend you check out some of the others posted on YouTube. The "Dream On/I Dreamed A Dream" medley is particularly inspiring.

Super modern house as dollhouse?

I'd love this real house to be modeled after a dollhouse. Love the shiny red wall, the bright white exterior and the glass walls!!!



Spectacular design, and location in the hills in Brasilia. The design of the house veers the owners and guests to enjoy the hills and its surroundings.



Now, only I wish that I knew a dollhouse maker!

Via Greatfa.com

Update: Thanks to Eloiza, I have been told this house is located in the hills of Nova Lima, Minas Gerais State, Brazil and not Brasilia. Thanks Eloiza!

A little Sunday playlist

It's Sunday and I should be devoting my day to my mountains of homework, but instead I'm blogging. Go fig.

I'm a big fan of covers, on my bed and in music. A good cover, in my opinion, is one that improves upon the original song or at least brings something new to it. It is my dream to one day form a cover band that performs covers of famous covers. This band will be called Duvet. Some of my favorite covers include:

1. When You Were Mine, as covered by Tegan and Sara
2. Beautiful, as covered by Clem Snide
3. Umbrella, as covered by Scott Simons
4. Hurt, as covered by Johnny Cash
5. You Know I'm No Good, as covered by Arctic Monkeys
6. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, as covered by Amy Winehouse
7. Melt With You, as covered by Nouvelle Vague
8. Que Sera Sera, as covered by Pink Martini
9. Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps, as covered by Cake
10. Careless Whisper, as covered by Rufus Wainwright and Ben Folds

If you also are avoiding your homework, I encourage you to, as Buckwheat would say, take a wisten!

Fall cold

Ladies and gentlemen, it's true: I have been felled by the fall cold that strikes many a weak-immuned person.


As thoroughly documented on this blog, my immune system is a total asshole. I have the Bernie Madoff of immune systems. And given the erratic temperatures in Boston lately, it should come as no surprise that I woke up this morning with the telltale scratchy throat and achy sinuses. I look like hell and I feel like crap. Or wait, maybe I look like crap and I feel like hell?

Beyond the obvious culprits (weather, white blood cells that don't do their frickin' jobs), someone or something else must be to blame. In between sneezes, I compiled this list of suspects:

1) Sneezing chick who sat next to me on the T last week (you know who you are)

2) Any of my undergrad students at the Emerson writing center, because let's face it, dorms are cesspools of disease

3) The Republican party

4) My cat, Maude

Ok, so some of these are more likely than others, but still, it's smart to cast the net wide in any initial scapegoat search. When I find out whose responsible for my nasty cold, THEY WILL PAY.

Not only does this woman have a cold, she is also suffering from severe 80s hair

Green, white and black office

I just discovered photographer Jessica Claire's blog and her new office makeover. It's so sharp and dramatic and calls to me like a mad siren!!



I love the crispy white walls ... and glossy black ceiling wide trim.





And I love the attention to detail to this wall. It's individual black trim into some cool art-deco style pattern. Some major precise, incredibly particular work.





I love it.

Oedipus, with vegetables

The semester just started and I'm already overwhelmed and sleep-deprived. In my playwriting workshop, we read Sophocles' s incest classic Oedipus the King this week and while I hopefully made some smart-sounding comments in class, all I can cobble together right now is:

1. Iocasta (Oed's mom/wife) was a cougar

2. This is funny



Once again, I struggle to remember what life was like before YouTube.

Yellow and white floors

When we moved in, we enjoyed the clean off-white high-end wool carpet. It stayed clean for about 3 weeks. The often-used spots are now a horrid gray-brown. Vacuuming is now of no help other than picking up bits.

I'd love to rip up the floors, lay wide-plank floorboards... Might still be able to do it!!!!

And in the study, I'd love to do as Lori did, as per Design*Sponge:



I'd die to have these floors!

Instructions on Lori's makeover are here. I wonder what are the equivalent of "foam core" boards in Australia!

Check out the 'before's:

Deschanel sisters

Yes this is a home and decor blog... but let me star-gaze yet another time...

I love the shots of these gorgeous sisters. I would die to be able to shoot like that... And to coordinate clothes.



Also, I LOVE the gorgeous clothes!!





Doesn't she have the most beautiful eyes?

I think she looks better with long wavy hair.

Paint dripping

Two very cool items simulating paint dripping...

A bookmark


A hook


Not sure if I'd have them in my own place, but it's a nice take on coat racks!

From Design For Use

Dollhouses for storage

I don't know if you have noticed, but I LOVE dollhouses. (not the Victorian types, but the ultra modern, more the mid century style ones)...

And I've collected two pictures of dollhouses used as storage... I've been looking for similar dollhouses with character and costing $2 ;)

Look, ma, I'm a published poet!

A month or so ago, I blogged about beginning to send out my poems to literary journals and magazines and I have a happy update. While I have, as expected, received rejections, I've also gotten a number of acceptances, much to my surprise and delight.

A trestina (mini sestina), "Sisters," is in issue #9 of nibble
Twin sonnets, "Wunderkind," will appear in The Raintown Review
An ode, "Ode to Virtues," will appear in nthWORD
A sonnet, "Ineffable," and villanelle, "The Bridegroom," will appear in The Road Not Taken

Just wanted to share the good news....according to Duotrope's Digest, a site which allows you to track submissions and responses, my acceptance rate is 14.29 %. Yee-haw!

So You Think You Don't Like Poetry

Yes, it's that time again -- time for you to fall in love with a new poem. This one is exquisite.

Machines
by Michael Donaghy

Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsicord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell's chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante's heaven, and melt into the air.

If it doesn't, of course, I've fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsicordists prove

Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.

Pretty storage for a pretty boudoir

Images scanned from an old Brocade Home catalogue

I would love to have a pretty ensuite please? Complete with shelves like above... filled with the most gorgeous shades of nail polish... please? :)

Images scanned from an old Brocade Home catalogue

Or even white shelves with same collection of nail polish against a gorgeous wallpaper? Mmmmmm

How divine. Imagine a collection of perfume bottles, if getting or owning 50 bottles of varnish would be overkill! (For me, it would!) Or vintage lipstick holders...

Or vintage enamelled compacts :)

Images scanned from an old Vintage Lux

Or a vintage set of dressing items in pink guilloche.

Images scanned from an old Antique Clocks

"Do you practice aggressive belly button hygiene?"

That's a question I never expected to be asked. And yet last night, in the Tufts Medical Center ER, I found myself answering it.

"Um, I mean, I try to keep it clean and rinse it in the shower, is that what you mean?"

"Do you ever....stick anything down it? Like a paperclip? To try to dig out lint?"

"Uh....NO."

But let me back up. I guess I should first explain that people in my family take weird trips to the emergency room all the time. Two summers ago, my 23-year-old brother somehow got pericarditis (an infection of the tissue lining the heart, less serious than it sounds) in Paris (hey, that has a catchy sound to it..."pericarditis in Paris"). This past week, my mom's cat scratched her in the face and she had to go to the hospital to get stitches. And of course, who could forget my adventures with Frances the kidney stone.

So I was not that surprised that after a quick visit to my doctor due to some unexplained upper abdominal discomfort in my navel region, she told me I should go get it checked out ASAP at the hospital, where she predicted I would get an CT scan to rule out appendicitis.

The first doctor of many to examine me last night, after asking if I'd ever pierced my belly button, concluded that she'd "never seen anything like it before." I will spare you the details, because they're gross, but I will say that there was pus and it was freaky. Really, is there anything more horrible than pus?

So she went and got doctor #2, who asked the unusual question about belly button hygiene. Apparently, pus oozing out of your navel is a common side effect to shoving random objects down there. Who'd have thought?

After I convinced him that I had not, in fact, been prodding myself with any office supplies, he said I had to get a CT to see how far the infection had spread. Luckily, it turns out, my infection is "superficial." Not as in vapid, but as in just beneath the surface of my skin and easy to treat with antibiotics. Whew.

But strange, right? Have you ever heard of a belly button infection?

The ER on a Friday night was quite a lively place. My visit lasted just over nine hours and I saw three different doctors and a handful of nurses. I felt grateful, though -- the guy next to me had to get a spinal tap. And I had to listen to it. On the way out, around 2:00 a.m., they brought in a belligerent drunk guy who loudly told everyone in the hospital waiting room to line up and suck his you-know-what.

The worst part? Not the CT scan itself, but the disgusting "smoothie" I had to drink beforehand to make my insides more photogenic. It was just your basic creamy vanilla/barium sulfate blend. Jamba Juice should really take note.

A new collection brewing... Leest artwork

I am so in love with the intricate papercut work of Emma Van Leest, Melbourne's own. Featured in Inside Out, i'd love to have some of her pieces on my walls.

kode box : PG03
ukuran : pj : 15cm, lbr : 10cm, tgg : 6cm
harga : @Rp. 6000,-
(harga pemesanan diluar ukuran tersebut disesuaikan dengan ukuran yang dipesan)
untuk pemesanan : apiq.kreasiapiq@gmail.com
CP : 0819 319 58053

kode box 2 : PK01
Fungsi : tempat accesories, tempat pena, tempat jam, sapu tangan, boneka2 mini, dan sebagainya....
ukuran : Pj: 15cm, lbr : 6cm, tgg : 5 cm
harga : @ Rp. 4.000,-
(untuk pemesanan diluar ukuran harga menyesuaikan ukuran)
order : apiq.kreasiapiq@gmail.com

KOleksi Box serbaguna dari kreasi apiq...
dengan ukuran pj : 15cm, lbr : 9cm , tgg : 4cm
harga : @Rp. 4.800,- (belum termasuk ongkos kirim)
untuk pesan sesuai ukuran bisa email ke : apiq.kreasiapiq@gmail.com atau 0819 319 58053
NB : harga disesuaikan dengan ukuran

My summer, in pictures

Labor Day has passed, which means in my mind, summer's officially over. I left New York today like I always leave it -- broke and in need of a haircut. I'm back in Beantown, trying to get back into an academic mindset.

Before that happens, though, I thought it would be fun to recap my summer photographically -- it resembled a traditional summer vacation in that I didn't work full-time, traveled a bunch (to exotic locales like Colorado and New Jersey), and, despite all the rain, even made it to the beach a few times. So long, summer 2009! Thanks for all the memories.

small town 4th of July parade in Orleans, MA

my first Jewish wedding


hiking in Telluride, CO


winning a game of Scrabble against a very good player


free ticket to see Britney motherfucking Spears


weekend on Fire Island, in the company of writers I admire (not pictured, obviously)


seeing West Side Story on Broadway

trip to the Bronx Zoo

Tessa Evelegh's House Beautiful: Storage Workshop

I have been going to the library to borrow books I can't afford (or books I don't want to buy before seeing if it's worth buying!) so I thought I'd share with you some of my favourites.. and the favourites within the favourites.

Now. I'm a storage whore. I LOVE storage... boxes, folders, tins, bottles, armoires, bureaus, secretaires, cupboards...

So there were LOADS of storage candy in Tessa Evelegh's House Beautiful: Storage Workshop book: (yes yes I know it's an old book)

Here's one way to hide the messy, uncoordinated books and bits in the lounge room: get a pretty bookcase with interesting doors, not just glass fronts, but chicken wire... hidden but not really!



What a way to fill an otherwise empty corner of the house, a secretaire filled with similarly monochromatic books and bits. It's all in the details, and shows that the owner has truly paid this otherwise neglected corner some attention and thought. I love it. Perfect corner to write thank you cards and letters or pay bills.



What about this gigantic dresser in the dining room? A darkwood dresser displaying a stunning array of white cook and tableware. The pieces jump out... while the dark wood adds some stability and solidness.



[I'm not sure about exposing all them pieces... in Australia there would be a layer of dust in a few days!]

But what about displaying your whites in an almost-all-white room?



Now... glass. Glass is good. I love glass :)

We just saw dark dresser holding white china. Now... what about white room holding darker pieces? I love the collection of antique wooden turned candlesticks against the creamy white walls. The colour of the warm wood is reflected in almost everything else, even the pet dog! And all against white walls and floorboards.



But I think if it were me, I'd go for something like this... white walls, white interest in white dresser, holding brilliant cabbage chinaware:



And if you had a humongous walk in closet (where money was no issue), displaying one's work shirts like this would be cool (also please hire a maid to do all that folding cos I ain't doing that).



Now, have a guess... what room is this? A sauna? A spa? A theatre?



No! It's a kitchen! Apparently fully spec-ed out too! Dunno if it's my style, but it's a stunner nevertheless.

And lastly, I did find this particularly pleasing to the eye:



I might do this... painting my closet a different colour than off-white. Really lends a touch of special to the place you store all your clothes.

Hope you enjoyed my favourites from Tessa Evelegh's House Beautiful: Storage Workshop.