I came upon a great article yesterday from the NY Times Magazine about the life, work, and upcoming album from Maya Arulpragasam, also known as M.I.A., one of my favorite artists since (yes, I'll admit it) her 2009 hit, "Paper Planes." I planned to dedicate this post to her provocative, bad-ass booty-shaking effects on my life, but as I was searching through a video to post, I found something interesting.
Check out this video for the single, "Boyz", from Kala, which released in 2007.
Now here's the recently released video for Rihanna's "Rude Boy", one of my personal favorites from her 2009 album, Rated R. I like to think of it as her rendition of the above.
Hmm. Let me get my calculator. Graffiti art + Jamacain color scheme + animation + dancing + BOYS = Rihanna kind of ripped off M.I.A. However, Rihanna does have a stuffed lion. With a crown.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Monsieur Bourdain, yes please.
I'm hoping to at least catch a glimpse of the latest love of my (literary) life, Anthony Bourdain at the Union Square Barnes and Noble next week on June 8th at 7:00pm. He'll be promoting his new book, Medium Raw. I just finished A Cook's Tour this week, which was a beautiful and hilarious precursor to, I'm guessing, his split from "evil" Food Network and transition to No Reservations on the Travel Channel. The chapter on Cambodia is not for the weak of heart.Warning: though I am small, I will trample any obstacles, both human and bookshelf, to get close enough to experience the liter-culinary superpowers firsthand. And to probably to help decipher his belligerent mumbling.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Bully trends
So, I'm a little peeved that I'm JUST learning about Etsy, the blissfully addictive online store of independent vendors that sell a (girly) variety of crafts, jewelry, bags, belts, art, apartment knickknacks, and my favorite thing of all: stationary. Ok, just discovered they sell cookies, too. HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS!?
No doubt I pursued the bully search, and I have to say, I haven't seen such an extensive collection of squeal-worthy bull terrier artifacts since Cafe press. The perplexing physique and endearing, pinchable face of the bully is apparently irresistible to artists. My heart melted as my mom and I found dead-on representations of the holy trinity: Snarkie, Odie, and Gracie. Not kidding.
Behold the tranquil, somewhat melancholy Snarkie, enjoying a cup of afternoon tea, contemplating a nap after several hours of reading Pascal. He thinks: "All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling."
Odie is poised for attack, but he's not sure why, or what he's looking for. He thinks wants a treat. He thinks he saw a squirrel. He thinks he heard his name. He pants, waddles around and gives up with a sigh. As usual, his intentions are good, but he just can't get it together.
Finally, the princess has arrived. Gracie is well-aware of her spoiled brat status, and fully satisfied with being the cutest, youngest, and simply the favoritest of the flock. ...I give up, this friggin' painting looks exactly like her and it's totally freaky. She even lies down that way, and puts her ears back like that, especially when she's about to receive some serious petting.
No doubt I pursued the bully search, and I have to say, I haven't seen such an extensive collection of squeal-worthy bull terrier artifacts since Cafe press. The perplexing physique and endearing, pinchable face of the bully is apparently irresistible to artists. My heart melted as my mom and I found dead-on representations of the holy trinity: Snarkie, Odie, and Gracie. Not kidding.
Behold the tranquil, somewhat melancholy Snarkie, enjoying a cup of afternoon tea, contemplating a nap after several hours of reading Pascal. He thinks: "All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling."
Odie is poised for attack, but he's not sure why, or what he's looking for. He thinks wants a treat. He thinks he saw a squirrel. He thinks he heard his name. He pants, waddles around and gives up with a sigh. As usual, his intentions are good, but he just can't get it together.
Finally, the princess has arrived. Gracie is well-aware of her spoiled brat status, and fully satisfied with being the cutest, youngest, and simply the favoritest of the flock. ...I give up, this friggin' painting looks exactly like her and it's totally freaky. She even lies down that way, and puts her ears back like that, especially when she's about to receive some serious petting.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Can't. Eat. Cute Animals.
“I’ve been a vegetarian for twenty years”, John, our tattoo artist, said as he buzzed away at Dan’s ribcage Sunday afternoon. The only thing he won’t eat, he said, was tofurky. I’m pretty sure I’d be happy to avoid that the rest of my life, too.
My brother rolled his eyes as I folded my arms and talked about the frighteningly rapid growth of factory farming in the past two decades, which has not only contributed to global warming and the demise of our planet, but has simultaneously pumped us full of the flesh of unhealthy, antibiotic-treated animals. “Don’t worry, we’re still eating meat,” my brother assured me, making a “stop-that-bullshit” hand gesture in my direction.
I’ve been ready to go meatless for about a year or two, but it’s been necessary to premeditate more than I anticipated. Plus, I love chicken.
A couple of weeks ago, the DVD of Food, Inc. (2009) arrived at our apartment via Netflix, and Dan sighed as he opened the envelope. It won’t be that bad, I told him. A coworker told me it would just make me more “conscious” about what we eat. But I had my motives. We had just finished scarfing beef tacos and steak sandwiches at Blue Moon when we sat down to watch it.
Food, Inc. begins with the fundamental problems with our local grocery stores, where there are no seasons, all items are always available, and at a low price. Grocery stores are completely out of sync with nature, and since we are a part of nature, we’re not meant to eat what they offer. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Penguin Press, 2006) and Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation (Harper Perennial, 2002), walk us through the different subjects of the film, which include the millions of uses for corn (high-fructose, anyone?), genetically modified organisms (GMO) in the soybean industry, and, of course, the terrible reality of factory farming. They charge the rise of McDonalds with the conception of factory farming (rightfully so), which ultimately enabled the creation and growth of other fast-food chains, and the high-demand, fast-food style of eating in the US.
Then came the footage that everyone (especially me) wants to avoid: hundreds of chickens packed into dark houses with no ventilation and bird shit everywhere. The pink, sausage-shaped bodies of pigs pushed up against each other, heads in each other’s asses, squealing like crying children. Cows wading through feet of feces, and eating corn, a food that’s cheap but increases the amount of e-coli in its system.
At this point of the movie, I turned to Dan. “You know this means I’m never buying meat at a grocery store ever again. Like, ever.” We saw one meat company spray conveyor belts of whitish, pasty ground beef with antibiotics, to kill the e-coli. I can’t support a system that treats animals like garbage, and then feeds the garbage to the people, and the people get sick and die. That’s fucking scary.
Last week, my lovely friend Shakira Croce, media coordinator at the NYC headquarters of PETA, held an interview with Dr. Molly Barrow on Progressive Radio Network. Shakira and Dr. Molly Barrow cover the essentials in animal cruelty issues: fur, captive animals (including the incident at SeaWorld), puppy mills, and, of course the problems of meat. Shakira has been a veg since age 12, and after meeting her family, I can tell it was a difficult thing for her to pull off. Once, during a family trip to Italy, her brothers placed cooked rabbit heads on her plate. Years later, sitting with her father over drinks and deciding where to have lunch, he asks me, “Do you eat everything? Good, you’re normal.” I loved her dad, regardless, but I admire her persistence and strength despite the familial taunting.
I moved out of my parents’ house last year, leaving my mother (a devoted burgerista) and my stepfather (likely the highest consumer of meatballs in the US), alone to their carnivorous shenanigans. Meanwhile, my father still relies on the (now mythological) Atkins diet as a effective route to weight loss. It’s a serious challenge to go veg amongst the hungry and obnoxious meat-lovers, especially when you’re related to them. And as for my hotdog-adoring boyfriend? Let’s put it this way: I cook dinner. He’s slowly converting, as long as what I make is filling and tasty.
The health benefits of a good vegetarian lifestyle are plenty. The ADA claims it can reduce your chances of getting those ugly American epidemics like heart disease, diabetes and even cancer.
More importantly, ANIMALS ARE FUCKING CUTE. ALL OF THEM. Skinned animals hanging from hooks cause uncontrollable weeping for days (maybe that’s just me). I’ve been raised to love dogs, probably more than I ought to, but to also love chicken parmesan. The pink meat in the package never made me sad, it made me excited for dinner. This is the problem: our culture has separated the meat from the animal. From the life the meat once had. From what it looked like alive. Seeing the packaged meat, we’re trained to think: Won’t that be tasty! Instead of: I wonder how much that poor thing suffered. If it’s cute, I’m not fucking eating it.
And that’s final.
My brother rolled his eyes as I folded my arms and talked about the frighteningly rapid growth of factory farming in the past two decades, which has not only contributed to global warming and the demise of our planet, but has simultaneously pumped us full of the flesh of unhealthy, antibiotic-treated animals. “Don’t worry, we’re still eating meat,” my brother assured me, making a “stop-that-bullshit” hand gesture in my direction.
I’ve been ready to go meatless for about a year or two, but it’s been necessary to premeditate more than I anticipated. Plus, I love chicken.
A couple of weeks ago, the DVD of Food, Inc. (2009) arrived at our apartment via Netflix, and Dan sighed as he opened the envelope. It won’t be that bad, I told him. A coworker told me it would just make me more “conscious” about what we eat. But I had my motives. We had just finished scarfing beef tacos and steak sandwiches at Blue Moon when we sat down to watch it.
Food, Inc. begins with the fundamental problems with our local grocery stores, where there are no seasons, all items are always available, and at a low price. Grocery stores are completely out of sync with nature, and since we are a part of nature, we’re not meant to eat what they offer. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Penguin Press, 2006) and Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation (Harper Perennial, 2002), walk us through the different subjects of the film, which include the millions of uses for corn (high-fructose, anyone?), genetically modified organisms (GMO) in the soybean industry, and, of course, the terrible reality of factory farming. They charge the rise of McDonalds with the conception of factory farming (rightfully so), which ultimately enabled the creation and growth of other fast-food chains, and the high-demand, fast-food style of eating in the US.
Then came the footage that everyone (especially me) wants to avoid: hundreds of chickens packed into dark houses with no ventilation and bird shit everywhere. The pink, sausage-shaped bodies of pigs pushed up against each other, heads in each other’s asses, squealing like crying children. Cows wading through feet of feces, and eating corn, a food that’s cheap but increases the amount of e-coli in its system.
At this point of the movie, I turned to Dan. “You know this means I’m never buying meat at a grocery store ever again. Like, ever.” We saw one meat company spray conveyor belts of whitish, pasty ground beef with antibiotics, to kill the e-coli. I can’t support a system that treats animals like garbage, and then feeds the garbage to the people, and the people get sick and die. That’s fucking scary.
Last week, my lovely friend Shakira Croce, media coordinator at the NYC headquarters of PETA, held an interview with Dr. Molly Barrow on Progressive Radio Network. Shakira and Dr. Molly Barrow cover the essentials in animal cruelty issues: fur, captive animals (including the incident at SeaWorld), puppy mills, and, of course the problems of meat. Shakira has been a veg since age 12, and after meeting her family, I can tell it was a difficult thing for her to pull off. Once, during a family trip to Italy, her brothers placed cooked rabbit heads on her plate. Years later, sitting with her father over drinks and deciding where to have lunch, he asks me, “Do you eat everything? Good, you’re normal.” I loved her dad, regardless, but I admire her persistence and strength despite the familial taunting.
I moved out of my parents’ house last year, leaving my mother (a devoted burgerista) and my stepfather (likely the highest consumer of meatballs in the US), alone to their carnivorous shenanigans. Meanwhile, my father still relies on the (now mythological) Atkins diet as a effective route to weight loss. It’s a serious challenge to go veg amongst the hungry and obnoxious meat-lovers, especially when you’re related to them. And as for my hotdog-adoring boyfriend? Let’s put it this way: I cook dinner. He’s slowly converting, as long as what I make is filling and tasty.
The health benefits of a good vegetarian lifestyle are plenty. The ADA claims it can reduce your chances of getting those ugly American epidemics like heart disease, diabetes and even cancer.
More importantly, ANIMALS ARE FUCKING CUTE. ALL OF THEM. Skinned animals hanging from hooks cause uncontrollable weeping for days (maybe that’s just me). I’ve been raised to love dogs, probably more than I ought to, but to also love chicken parmesan. The pink meat in the package never made me sad, it made me excited for dinner. This is the problem: our culture has separated the meat from the animal. From the life the meat once had. From what it looked like alive. Seeing the packaged meat, we’re trained to think: Won’t that be tasty! Instead of: I wonder how much that poor thing suffered. If it’s cute, I’m not fucking eating it.
And that’s final.
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