French & Saunders

Something more interesting out of something that was only mildly interesting

Everybody has seen those Rosie O'Donnell spots about her new show, right, and we all agree that she has had an aggressive facelift, yes? Well, Abby and I were especially freaked out by it because we think that now she bears a strong resemblance to Dawn French, who is awesome, and how this makes Rosie's stock rise a little bit simply because now we can pretend she's Dawn. So I was looking for a facelifted image of Rosie to do a side-by-side comparison and couldn't find one.

Instead, I found this website: http://www.thecelebrityperfumery.com/. It is hilarious. It tells you what stars (probably) smell like. For instance Anjelica Huston smells like beef bouillon, brass door knob, and black grapes, among other things. Michael Phelps like anti-fungal foot cream, dill pickles, sticky poker chips, and much more!

I wish I smelled like oranges, grape koolaid, grass, gasoline, and almond extract.

i'm pretty sure the devil is manufacturing diet coke

i want diet coke all the time, even when my stomach feels like a bomb. do you guys ever read my blog? i never see you on my activemeter. grading papers is not enjoyable. i want to make quilts. i want a book about the quilts of gee's bend. i will probably order it after lunch. i will probably eat a bagel at dunkin' donuts for lunch and a diet coke. this is because there is a dunkin donuts right next to this building. this building is roosevelt university. i might not get classes again. ew, papers. i wish i would go outside and see hundreds of balloons in the air.

I am pretty sure the devil is manufacturing Quorn

It's been a while since I ate chicken, so if someone (or a company that manufactures fake chicken, for example) tells me that something tastes like chicken I'm likely to believe that person or company.

But damn. Seriously. I just had a Quorn "chicken" cutlet and it not only looked and tasted like chicken, it also shared chicken's weird striated, fibrous texture. This is not a commercial for Quorn. This is freaking me out.

I do not understand how they are doing it. There are eggs in it, but unless eggs is a euphemism for chicken that shouldn't make any difference. Are they test tube chickens? And why can't they do this with steak?

I heard a rumor that it was made of mysterious fungus that no one really knew the long-term effects of eating, but that turned out to be a lie (probably propagated by Tyson). I keep feeling like there must be something wrong with it. It's because I cannot let myself be happy.

Overheard on the way to the union

"Yeah sorry I've been so sleepy the last few times we've talked. I've been sleeping between all of my classes because I wasn't eating anything so I was really sleepy. And then I got really dehydrated and stayed up till 5:30 in the morning."

Ah, those were the days, when you just sort of experimented with your body to see how it would react to extremes. Also, is dehydration like caffeine, or speed?

Yesterday I watched a baboon eat a baby gazelle

It was on television. I almost died. I had to cover my eyes and make la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la noises so I couldn't hear the pretty little bones crunching.

I am learning a Haydn sonata for piano for the first time in 15 years. I am suddenly very interested in finger placement. It makes sense to me in a way it did not 15 years ago.

I have to find a picture of a baby gazelle on a piano now to connect these two thoughts.

The Dog-Cat-Rat Man

Abby's famous

You guys, Abby and I were out to dinner the other night, and this woman came up to us and said, "Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt, but weren't you in that extremely depressing play?" And Abby got all skittery and shy--but gracious!--and said, "Um, yeah." And then the lady started gushing about how wonderful she was. It was really weird. I feel like Felicity's handyman husband who looks like her twin brother or Julia Robert's cameraman husband or the dude from Lost's wife who wants to open a salon.

I can't wait till she appeals to all of middle America and then I can live in a hammock on a beach somewhere off the spoils of her labor. Actually we could probably do that now, if only she would recognize her calling as a seaside bartender. She could search for doubloons with a metal detector in her spare time to keep me in mai-tais.

Holograms are Awesome

The best part of the election coverage last night, other than Barack's speech, was definitely the hologram-people on CNN.

I don't know what to say about the hologram-people, except that it was hilarious to watch Anderson Cooper holding conversations with people who weren't really there.

I think I like the holograms mostly because they were completely pointless, counterproductive, and absurd--why would you prefer to talk to a transported, pretend Jessica Yellen in the newsroom when she was in the center of the excitement in Chicago? Well anyway I love it. There should be more hologram-people in the world. I hope this is at the top of Obama's list.

I have to vote at 6 a.m. tomorrow

You know how when you vote in Chicago, you go to the church gym, and there's like 20 ancient people there, and they shuffle you through the line in a surprisingly efficient fashion, and then you vote, like, immediately?


Apparently, that is not the case here. People keep knocking on my door and telling me that if I early-vote it will only take 45 minutes. Which means that it's projected to take much longer than that on Nov. 4. Which means that I am getting there as soon as the polls open because if I wait more than 45 minutes in line and then I don't get to go on a rollercoaster, I am going to be angry.



My goal is to be the foggiest, most disheveled person at my polling place. I bet I will say "wait, what?" a lot. I hope the ballots are clear.

My favorite vampire movie

"Vampire's Kiss" starring Nicholas Cage. A friend of mine once said this movie is to Nicholas Cage what "River's Edge" is to Crispin Glover--a chance to really let all their weirdnesses loose.

He kills someone using plastic vampire teeth. Jennifer Beals is in it. He eats a cockroach. He only thinks he's a vampire, when he is not really. It's the best.

Also, you know how Leonardo diCaprio is suffering from Tom Hanks Disease (serious widening of the face with age)? Nicholas Cage is suffering from Chevy Chase Disease (suddenly looking like a silent movie actor).

Today in Starbucks in Target

There was this woman who was standing in front of me talking to her friend, and she said, "And Kate has lung cancer," and then she opened her eyes really wide and nodded like she-totally-deserves-it, and her companion tightened her lips, and I was all whoa, is this indicative of the stoic and hardy and judgmental nature of natives? but then she went on to talk about Sami, and I figured out she was re-capping the plot of a soap opera. Then she started talking about one or the other of the presidential candidates and objecting to the fact that he didn't say "under god" in some speech or something, and I was like, no wait, this is indicative of the nature of the natives. And then I felt ashamed for judging the natives.

Then I debated with myself about whether it was worth four dollars to figure out what a salted caramel hot chocolate would taste like. I decided not.

Great Books that look and sound terrible

The Dwarf by Par Lagerkvist (translated by Alexandra Dick) is one of my favorite books, even though it has the ugliest cover art I've ever seen and even though some people claim it is an historical novel. I cannot stand historical novels or books which stand for anything. You do not need to know anything about history, dwarves or symbolism to enjoy this book.

* The cover art is so ugly that it cannot be represented here. This is a Velazquez painting of a dwarf.

* The Dwarf is narrated by an homicidal dwarf named Piccoline.

I know I already murmured about this

But I'm still thinking about the similiarities between John Carpenter's Vampires and Harry Potter.

Both Harry's and James Woods' parents died at the hands of a creature that they must now destroy or else the world will fall to evil. In both stories, both sides are searching for a soul embedded in an object. Both Harry and James were present for the ritualistic soul-return thing in rather cinematically similar settings. Both of them are fighting the evil in a trio, which is two boys and one girl. In both of them, the sidekick boy gets the girl. The sidekick boy in both is a member of a huge family of boys (think Ron Weasley, think Daniel Baldwin). Also, the evil, evil villain's name begins with a V in both.




J.K. Rowling, you love John Carpenter. You, like, totally want to marry him.

Yip yip yip!

I'm so excited to come back to Chi-town that I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to communicate in sentences or even words as the day progresses. I'll probably just yip.

election fashion

Sarah Palin's wardrobe = 150K. Our soon-to-be first lady shops at H&M.

Best lesson plan ever

This one actor girlfriend of mine (you might know her) had to walk down the hallway at 1% speed for an hour to...I was going to say concentrate on how her body moves, but I'm not sure if the same thing could be accomplished at 5% or even 10% speed. However, there are a lot of things I don't understand about acting.

Anyway, the point is that this is brilliant. Just think of the practical applications! If there's a better way to make your students focus on word choice and sentence structure, I don't know what it is.

Plus, it frees up all kinds of time for you, as an instructor. Your students concentrate wholly on a tiny thing for a really long time; you do what you want. Also, I totally already planned this lesson for you, so you don't have to work this weekend.

If my high school history teacher had known about this technique, then I feel certain that we all would have been pretending to be crusading children at 1% speed for a whole year instead of watching movies about the lives of the saints.

Don't worry: It was stuffed.

On Sunday I visited a log jail. On the second floor, there was a two-headed calf.

Illness plus lack-of-good-cable=boredness

I have a very low threshold for the flu bug. This is what I've learned about old sitcoms while ill:

Cheers totally holds up. It is still funny. So is Frasier. I think I might have a celebrity crush on Kelsey Grammer. Or is it Grammar? Not funny anymore, or perhaps ever: Coach, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, Two and a Half Men, The Honeymooners, Seventh Heaven.

Also not funny ever: Political ads. Living in a battleground state blows. All of the candidates' voices are like cheesegraters on my face.

I have a favorite HSN lady. She has enormous eyebrows and jokes inappropriately with the "real-looking" models. I don't know what her name is, though. I had a dream about her last night. I was swimming the 100 meter IM against her and the helmet-haired local news anchor with the permanently surprised expression. I totally won. I could even do the butterfly.

Upsetting things

1. I finally got my tax returns for the last two years, and it turns out I'll be getting back way less than I thought. I have concluded that my tax dude is wrong. I am getting a second opinion.

2. Ollie effing loves sleeping on my beautiful white loveseat, which is now my beautiful gray loveseat. I must vacuum it every day.

3. It is going to get cold tomorrow.

4. I'm pretty sure Tyra had a nosejob. Not me, the real one.

5. All of my new local news anchors are unattractive in serious and frightening ways.

6. I have not been paid for any freelance work in the last three months. Not for lack of doing it.

7. I just ran out of books to read.

early voting has started in Chicago

We need some balance

Because Anthony Bourdain is such an alpha-male character, what with his well-placed meaty femur, here is my super-female celebrity crush: Joan Holloway from Mad Men.

we also need more anthony bourdain

I have a new celebrity crush, and it's another chef: Anthony Bourdain. I realized this after recently becoming obsessed with "No Reservations," his Travel Channel show where he just travels around to other countries, eats lots of food, smokes cigarettes, drinks, and assaults people with his sarcasm while having hangovers. He has all the qualities I have admired in previous celebrity crushes all rolled into one, plus he supplies elements that other of my celeb crushes have never brought to the table.

1. Foreign last name/heritage. (See former crushes: DiCaprio, DiSpirito, etc.) I'm pretty sure I heard that Anthony grew up in the French countryside. That is so adorable.

2. Rebellious nature, evident in black leather jacket, boozing, and chain-smoking. (See: James Dean, Luke Perry)

3. World traveler to the point of basically being an expatriot--(See: Gertrude Stein, Henry Miller, other artist ex-pats) Anthony far trumps Jon (known to those with less intimate relations as Dr. Manhattan) in this regard--abandoning one's entire planet out of a sense of alienation is just not that attractive; it's pretty wussy, but traveling the globe in order to eat food and get wasted is totally hot. Being in the US as little as possible is always totally hot.

4. Hedonist--perhaps my most important crush quality. (Why Jon failed after 4 hours as a crush) I want to roast meat over an open fire in bed with Mr. Bourdain. Then eat it in bed with our hands. There will be gigantic winejugs alongside the bed, and some Playboy bunny types, only French and more natural-looking, bringing us pile after pile after pile of meat.

5. Gigantic ego--a must for anyone I am ever attracted to, including myself.

5. Hot body--(See: Daniel Craig, Holly Madison, etc.) This one reflects my often-extreme vanity: I had great concern about what Anthony would look like naked, since he drinks and smokes so much. I was counting on him having "old man body" underneath the leather jacket, so that while his sarcastic charm could probably woo me for a couple of years into our marriage, after that I would develop a wandering eye. I was pleasantly surprised to find this here naked picture, in which he has a totally hot body for being an addict.

I'm pretty sure Anthony Bourdain is the total package. I'm pretty sure he's my Renaissance Celebrity Crush. Despite my fantasy, however, I am rather disturbed by the presence of that enormous meat in the picture. I am scared of it.

we need more videos

I wish I were crafty

I think I am too impatient to be crafty. Like today, for instance, I got the regular dishwashing soap out of the cupboard instead of the dishwasher dishwashing soap, and I seriously considered just using that, rather than putting it away and getting the right soap out. To save time. Really.

Today I went to the Fine Arts Library, and I saw lots of familiar artists' books and lots of other ones I'd never seen before, and I remembered that old feeling of wanting to make artists' books, too, but I just can't do it. Because I do not want to go out and get a ruler. Or other tools. I can't do things that require a lot of instruments. Or steps.

One of the familiar books I saw, High Tension by Philip Zimmerman, is all about symptoms and supposed remedies for extreme stress. The weird thing is that the last time I saw it (in grad school), I thought it was funny. But I had almost all of the symptoms last year, which, today, made me feel stupid.

Also, I am bad at being consistent, so knitting is out of the question.

Canadian androids are cooler

robot girl

Well, the debates were boring, but at least we don't live in Japan! A company in Japan is about to begin mass-producing a creepy robot girl, to assist "disabled" people. That's right folks. The world's most sophisticated robot is a 5-year-old Japanese girl who speaks in baby voice. I would've seen this coming if I hadn't been so stoned during Spirited Away.

new book

I have not had time to buy any new books in weeks. I keep re-reading Robert Lopez's Part of the World, but mostly, I just absorb every single newspaper, magazine, blog and video site that might have Sarah Palin saying something ridiculous. Someone suggest a book please! Anything banned from the Wasilla library will do!

Your star sign is dry-hoppy

Like you, I have spent many sleepless nights wondering how to unlock my potential. I instantly fell asleep after reading this, so at peace was I. My new excuse: It isn’t me; it is my beer that hasn’t been ambitious enough.

Find out how the stars say you should drink.

This Proves My Existence, Yes?

I am feeling nonexistent lately. It's because I haven't blogged in so long. If you don't exist on the internets, you don't exist at all. Also if I don't exist within the Literati, I don't exist at all.

Right now I exist in various ugly classrooms with carpet like steel wool and no windows. It would be good for me to go ahead and move in; then I could save my rent money for a Jamaican holiday, or for when I have to permanently evacuate the country because John McCain accidently gets elected.

I sort of like feeling nonexistent. All I do is read and think about things. I have that "college-feeling" that I haven't had in so long, where your mind sort of expands. It is just because I am unhealthily living vicariously through my students. This does, however, make me feel smarter.

On the other hand, sometimes Garrison and Gato yell for me when really I'm in the same room with them. I've suddenly become invisible without realizing it, and when I say, duh, you idiots I'm right here, they don't hear me. That is kind of depressing.