n-judah love song

Anger Is The Swiss Army Knife Of Friendship

Ginevra, when we were still friends
Originally uploaded by Mike Monteiro

Best t-shirt yet. Buy your own here!

up, down, sideways

On Vox: bryson's dictionary for writers.

If you're a word-nerd like me, this isn't so much a dictionary as it is a reference manual for words. To illustrate: the entries go something like this.

• hindrance (not hinderance.)
• compatriot for a fellow countryman. Not to be confused, in meaning or spelling, with expatriate.
• British Honduras. Former name of Belize.

Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors

Bill Bryson

Originally posted on ginevra.vox.com

in 140 characters or less.

I've been thinking a lot lately about all the myriad ways that we use to communicate online. There's Facebook, and Twitter, and blogs, and IM, and email, and oh my god how does anyone EVER get anything done, seriously, the end. I do a lot of writing in both short and long form for both my job and for fun, and here's a few insights that I've gleaned.

Long form writing is sometimes inhibited by short-form writing, but not always. I believe firmly in the adage "never use two words where one will do", and Twitter has made my writing more concise.

Here's the thing: I LOVE a good one-liner. Facebook updates/Twitter are one-liners you can think of in advance, edit, and get just perfect. The flip comment that you delivered a bit wrong, the insult you think of that night in the shower. Flickr sort of falls under here for me, too. I love a comment like a good comment whore does.

Medium-form writing is what I use here, trying to say something that simply can't be communicated in 140 characters.

Long-form...well, you'll just have to wait to see my novel.

Do you think Twitter is the end of better, longer blogging? Is longer better? (...heh.) Is blogging the end of traditional media? Or can we all just get along?

Chillaxed

Talking about a new, mutual aquaintance:

She: "So and so is kind of..."
Me: "intense? Uptight?"
She: "yeah. Whatever the opposite of you is."

(testing iPhone app. Hawt!)

lullaby of clubland

"Razor wire and cinder blocks -- it was a look, and it is perhaps irreplaceable."

They're razing the remaining DC nightclubs on Half Street, and the story of how the "jocks finally won" surprised me at how touching it was. That strip of clubs were the first places I ever went out to go dance. A drag queen taught me how to put on eyeliner in the bathroom of Tracks, I walked into Wet to see Soul Slinger and walked out with a whole new understanding of the male persona, and the DJ booth at Capitol Ballroom was propped up on cinder blocks, but still banged out the best music I had ever heard.

To add insult to injury, 5 more NYC clubs, 3 of which were gay clubs, have been closed by the cops in where else but Chelsea, including Avalon (which once upon a time was the Limelight) and The View Bar.

Lady Bunny quips "the real shocker is that there was ever anyone actually present in The View."

SF has been loft-ifying SoMA for 10 years now.

To summarize completely mangle Andrew Sullivan's post on the topic - the excess and ridiclousness of the club scene are only part of what makes up gay culture and a slice of American culture. And yet, it'simportant, it was a pioneering way to declare that You Are Just Who You Are. I learned that sassy self-confidence from the dancefloor. Can't be all bad, can it?

It's kind've like how I felt when Times Square changed up. I'm not saying we need more strip clubs and crackheads. Change is welcome, necessary and good. On the other hand, do we really need to Disney-fy and sanitize everything that makes a city A CITY? Really?

pantalones!

a girls only post.

Mighty Goods points me to some ill shit, but nothing has been so fabulous as the underwear I've gotten from Fife. You sign up, give 'em your paypal address, and abracadabra, two pair of panties in the mail each month. I get them at work and it's like a secret. I showed them to Mena the other day in quick girlie sidebar in the hopes she would get them as well.

I don't know how to explain it except that I want to do my laundry more often so that I can wear these every ding dang day. I consider myself a bit of a shopaholic, but once I find a brand of underwear I'm their undying slave. See: the express string bikini phase of 1999-2004. I had a brief flirtation (ha) with H&M boy shorts for oh...a year or so.

Fife's made of Modal, which is a resilient textile from beech trees. Yeah whatevs, they are SO COZY and never ride up at the wrong time. They do have the Ecko-ish label on the back but I just don't care. For those who have read this far (hi girls!) they also prevent the label in the back of your jeans from rubbing on the wrong spot.

<3.

links for 2005-11-14

• "Esquire" Lays the Smackdown on Creationism
  thanks to Lane for pointing out this awesome rant.
  (tags: blog politics evolution)
• This is My Body, This is My Blood: Relative Stranger
  a sweet perspective on communication with TypePad.
  (tags: typepad blog)

c'etait un rendezvous

Updated links: I thought this was pretty nifty. If that link doesn't work, try here.

"On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive him at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. [...] Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until a DVD release a few years ago."

if you love dancing, you gonna wow!

Matty's interview with Charo in SFist is a hoot.

"It would not be accurate to say that we "caught up" with Charo, as so many celebrity interviewers do; a more apt description would be that we were tied to a post like a tetherball and verbally slapped senseless until we were completely tangled in rope at the top of a very high pole."