Vampire killing kits

Here's a gallery of vintage vampire killing kits... scaring!

On Travel

Since I was young, I have always loved to travel. Whether it was a long eight hour drive down to Florida to see my Grandpa, or a quick weekend to D.C. or Philly, or even just a jaunt to a small town in the middle of nowhere in Georgia, I love to travel. Traveling reminds me of when I was young, when I was a student and I had no serious cares in the world, aside from your usual teenage dramas and first heartbreaks. Honestly, while I love living in New York and I love my people here, I'm still trying to figure out what kind of career I need to pay the bills and to keep me sustained and fulfilled in an emotional sense. It's really difficult. If I had my way, I would write full-time. Traveling, even if it's a brief getaway, makes me feel like I'm seventeen again, with my journal and my books, settling in for a long train ride, ready for newness, ready for anything.

When I was eighteen, my mom and I tagged along on a University of Alabama study abroad program called "In the Footsteps of Virginia Woolf," the best trip I've ever taken in my life thusfar. We traveled all over England, to London, to Kent, to Sussex and finally to Cornwall, and when I stood on our hotel balcony I could see the pulsing light of Woolf's lighthouse. I got to watch my mom's face light up with joy while we walked through Vita Sackville West's garden at Sissinghurst. I saw Woolf's original manuscript of Orlando, handwritten in purple ink, that she gave to Vita, installed at Knole.

I've visited Andalusia, Flannery O'Connor's home in Milledgeville, Georgia, where she lived her entire life and wrote there - I saw her typewriter and her crutches.

I've held Sylvia Plath's childhood valentines to her mother in my hands. I've also held two feet of her hair, braided, in my bare hands at the Lilly Library in Bloomington, Indiana.

I've walked through ancient cemeteries in the UK, kissed the Blarney stone (after some intense anti-bacterial wiping) and taken down epitaphs from decrepit tombstones in Massachusetts. I've danced with Frenchmen and Spaniards in Madrid, even though I barely speak French and speak absolutely no Spanish. I lit a candle for my Grandmother in Notre Dame. I walked through the house where Nathaniel Hawthorne was born, and the house on which he based The House of Seven Gables. I dropped my favorite childhood necklace into the bay in Sausilito.

While standing in the Monk's House garden, where Virginia and Leonard Woolf's ashes are buried next to each other, I watched a big black cat cross through in the blinding sunlight.

For me, traveling is about forging a physical connection with places and people, particularly of the literary and historic persuasion. There's nothing I love more than the idea of a trip to Sleepy Hollow, or a visit to Amherst, to see Emily Dickinson's house. Being there situates you closer to the work, to the writer. I think literary excursions are the most romantic excursions.

And while there are still so many places to go and so many things to see, as I recount these past travels I feel a bit better about sitting inside being stuck at a desk on a gorgeous spring day. You know, I feel lucky.

In Which Cooking is an Analogy to Life Itself

I've just finished reading Cathy Erway's The Art of Eating In - you may recognize Cathy not from the name of her book but rather the name of her blog "Not Eating Out in New York." Cathy made a promise to herself and her readers that she would not eat in restaurants in New York, cooking all her meals at home, for two years. The book is a recounts her culinary struggles and triumphs. Gimmicky yes. Inspiring, also yes. For instance: last night I was out until 11pm, and I hadn't eaten dinner. Normally I would've rushed into some restaurant, totally ravenous, spent about $40 on booze and food, and gone home feeling guilty for my overindulgence. Thanks to Cathy's influence, I went straight home and looked at what I had in the cupboards. Some whole wheat pasta, parmesan cheese. Quickly, I whipped up some delicious cheese and pepper pasta and was totally satisfied, without spending a cent, without overeating.

Until this past year, I looked at cooking with disdain and apprehension. Cooking was for people with too much time on their hands, for housewives, or naturally talented chefs. But after doing some experimentation, I quickly learned that cooking at home can be healthier in that you control the ingredients, and certainly it's cheaper. In Erway's book she calculates she spends $20 on groceries one week (this is obscenely off - I spend about $60, but then, I'm cooking for two) for eating in. In a week where she eats-out every meal, she spends $221!

I do a fair amount of cooking at home now that I live with my boyfriend. Before cohabitation, as a single gal cooking for myself was a bit of a downer. Combine the social aspect with a kitchen in Park Slope that looked like something out of Taxi Driver, and there wasn't much of an incentive. I ate a lot of veggie burgers, cheerios and tater tots. Most of my meals I spent eating out, spending time with friends, or on dates. I was always jealous of my roommate and her boyfriend, who made intensely delicious dinners (usually on Sundays). The smell from the kitchen was devastating. And sadly, they never really offered to share. Understandable - groceries cost money. But I would have gladly chipped in.

This year, I hosted a Thanksgiving dinner at my house and 12 people attended. Everyone brought a dish (or even two) so thank goodness for that. But I was in charge of the turkey, and I was absolutely terrified. If you haven't ever cooked a large bird, I recommend doing so. It will teach you a great deal about yourself. Slaving over a turkey for six hours was agonizing: constantly basting, ensuring that the bird won't be overdone, and giving yourself a facial every ten minutes from the heat wave of the oven. Watching my friend Sue, who is a culinary master, carve the thing once it was done was like watching someone slaughter my first born child. At one point, I had to leave the room. To make matters worse, herding 12 people into sitting down at the table is near to impossible. And the bird was getting cold. All my work for naught! As Madeline Kahn says in Clue, "Flames, at the side of my face. Flames."


I lost all politeness and composure, barking orders for people to sit the fuck down, shut up, and eat. My boyfriend was embarrassed and ashamed of my behavior. But how could he understand? He had been helpful, yes, cleaning the apartment and going out to buy snacks from Chinatown. But these sort of errands in no way equal the massive amount of pressure combined from cooking the main dish and hostessing. I don't think he will ever fully forgive me for "losing it" at Thanksgiving. I tried to apologize to my guests, citing frustration and fatigue. Who knows if they even heard me over the clinking of silverware.

What Thanksgiving (and subsequent dinners) have taught me is that no matter how upset you get, for whatever reason: whether it's culinary, professional, or personal, you cannot allow your emotions to get the best of you. You must keep a stiff upper lip in public, and if you want to explode or rampage in private, go right ahead. (The gym, too, can be a wonderful safe haven for working out stress and anger issues). But the dinner table, in the company of guests (even if it's just your partner) is never the place to engage in combat with yourself. If you're type A, like I am, you must approach life in the same way: always striving for perfection. Well, it's more about the process, isn't it, than the end product? We should all just enjoy the "doing." Who cares if your place-mats don't match?

Tell 'em how you feel girls

My apologies for the delay on the blog - I headed home to Georgia to wish my mom a Happy Birthday in person and to see my brother who's home from Tokyo on his winter break. I'm back in New York now, back at work, getting adjusting to the full-time job schedule and writing my book in my spare time.

I've been thinking a lot about women lately - specifically women's bodies. Christina Hendricks (Joan on Mad Men) has been in the news lately after Cathy Horyn from the New York Times called her "not pretty" and a "big girl." Later the Times also admitted to stretching their photo of Hendricks arriving at the Golden Globes. Pretty despicable behavior from a reputable news source. Christina is the cover girl for New York magazine's fashion issue - and in it she says she's tired of all the talk about her weight.

The "infamous" Golden Globes dress
fuck you Cathy Horyn I'd like to see you pull this off

Supermodel Lara Stone (one of my personal favorites) recently told the press "People tell me I'm fat, but when I look in the mirror, that's not what I see." No shit! Lara's maybe one of the most gorgeous women on the planet, a throw-back to Bardot, a size four (!!!!) with one of the tightest, hottest bods and the most beautiful boobs in the fashion industry. But because of the pressure on her to lose weight, she developed an addiction to pills and alcohol. Now, thankfully, she's healthy and sober.

If this is fat, I fucking give up

I, too, have struggled with my weight, just like every woman does. I gained quite a bit in college because I had really unhealthy eating habits (a pint of ice cream practically every night - and I never thought twice about eating fried food and Taco Bell) I never exercised and I was depressed because I was in a toxic relationship. Now, I try to stay away from fast food, I've sworn off soda completely and I avoid fried foods (but I still eat french fries - a girl has to live man). Aside from the obvious goal of just being healthy, I want to feel good in my own body. I want to feel comfortable no matter what I'm wearing. I love clothes and I love fashion and I need for my clothes to fit properly. I try to get to the gym as much as I can, but by no means am I a compulsive exerciser. It's hard to find the time. But I'll be the first to admit living in New York has put much more pressure on me to lose weight and to be thin.

Lady Gaga has a song on her new album called "Dancer in the Dark," about a girl who feels good about herself until her boyfriend tells her she's a "mess"

Some girls won’t dance to the beat of the track
She won’t walk away
But she won’t look back
She looks good
But her boyfriend says
she’s a mess She’s a mess She’s a mess
Now the girl is stressed
She’s a mess . . .

Baby loves to dance in the dark
‘Cuz when he’s lookin’ She falls apart
Baby loves to dance in the dark (Tellem’, girls) . . .

Marilyn
Judy
Sylvia
Tellem’ how you feel girls!

Work your blonde (Jean) Benet Ramsey
We’ll haunt like liberace
Find your freedom in the music
Find your jesus
Find your kubrick
You will never fall apart Diana, you’re still in our hearts
Never let you fall apart
Together we’ll dance in the dark

Now, okay. Just reading these lyrics you may think "huh?" Has Jessica lost her mind? But, seriously. I want to say, thank you, Gaga, for writing an electro dance song that's about body image. I think this is an incredible feat - and on top of it, she's managed to reference (the female icons) and encourage a sense of female community - "together we'll dance in the dark." On top of it all, Dance in the Dark is a genius pop song, appropriate for dancing.

Gaga wants you to love yourself

Gaga knows what's it's like to be insulted for her looks - a google search will turn up "Gaga . . . Butterface . . . Hermaphrodite." Her entire gig is about individuality and wearing / doing whatever makes you happy - not to attract a man, but rather to push the envelope of what's considered sexual - isn't confidence and happiness the most attractive thing after all?

Christina Hendricks isn't the first gorgeous woman with big, beautiful breasts and hips. Not only that, Hendricks has the most beautiful complexion I've ever seen - and green eyes and red hair to top it all off. Sure, she's a different shape than the female starts we're used to seeing - and I think that's great. People come in all different sizes. Some are healthy, some aren't. The emphasis on weight, the pressure that women undergo every day to be thin whether they're in the spotlight or not, continues to be a lethal issue. It is literally a battle of life and death. So I'd like to encourage everyone, especially women, to stand behind each other, to defend each other, love your bodies and take good care of them. They belong to you. The minute you let someone else tell you what to do with your body, you're in the danger zone.

Ghost Ship(s)

Could the icicle Godzilla monster be the cause of the Titanic wreck?

I have always been fascinated by shipwrecks, and various other secrets of the deep. In middle school, I was so obsessed with Titanic that I actually memorized the entire timeline of the wreck, and the number of people killed (fyi: 1,571). So fascinated am I, that I've even seen Ghost Ship, quite possibly the worst scary movie ever made, starring the lovely Julianna Margulies of ER fame. (Warning: clip below contains graphic content).

The movie, of course, is a spin-off on a much classier myth of "The Flying Dutchman," basically a bad-ass pirate who's doomed (in death) to roam the seas until he can find some poor lady to love him. Check out Wagner's opera version, it's pretty awesome. There's another little movie that's pretty much stolen the Dutchman's thunder, too. You may have seen it.


So I was pretty jazzed when I opened my issue of New York to discover an article called "Secrets of the Deep," about all the goodies lying in New York harbor.

• Apparently there are over 300 wrecks in the lower Hudson, most of which remain a secret as they are archeological sites.
• There's a freight train near Peekskill! It fell off the drawbridge in 1865!
• Suicides. "When homicides and suicides end up in the river during winter, they often stay underwater until April, when decomposition speeds up, bloating them with gases . . . The worst I ever saw," says an NYPD scuba diver, "was half in the mud, half out. The skin was peeling back, the critters were eating it."
• Lots and lots of cars.
• A piano and a giraffe. "Another time, they found the corpse of a giraffe that had fled a circus." :(
• 404 ice cream trucks. (Good Humor dumped them to build an artificial reef).
  
• Dreamland: One of coney island's first theme parks. It burned down in 1911.

SO COOL.

There's also a rumor that Lake Lanier, the man-make lake in Georgia houses an entire town under the water, including a race-track and movie theater. I once heard tell that a scuba-diver was even able to swim into the movie theater and sit in one of the seats. The Army denies that there's anything under the lake, but last year, when Georgia suffered a severe drought, a steeple from a church popped up and the speedway was exposed.

I love the idea that there's an entire world underneath the ocean. Like, what?!

The Indian Holi Festival (Festival of Colors)

When Misogynist Books Surprise Me

Last night I finally started reading a book I can stand. It's sadly a bit cliche, as the movie's out, but it's Revolutionary Road, and I have to say it's fantastic. I had lumped its author, Richard Yates, into the category of unforgivable, disturbingly overrated misogynist writers like Philip Roth and John Updike (also, a big hello to Grandpoppy Ernest Hemingway), but I think perhaps there may actually be something in this novel that relates to human nature (gasp!) and not just the oh-so complex workings of the male member.

That said, since Updike died two weeks ago, and I'd been feeling a bit, well, bitchy, about being so against his writing. I tried to read the Rabbit novels over two summers ago, and found them to be the most boring novels I never finished. I gave him yet another shot with The Centaur, and again with Pigeon Feathers. Nothing stuck. However, The New Yorker dedicated practically an entire issue to their fallen colleague, and in reading some of the bits and pieces of his work that they compiled, I thought to myself, well Jessica, maybe you'll have to give him another go. Are there any Updike fans out there? Is there a novel, or a collection of short fiction you'd recommend that won't make me puke from its total and complete neglect of the fairer sex, or fall asleep from sheer boredom?

(Sorry, Roth, you don't get another chance).

*

Anyway, you're probably wondering who this dude is in the photo up top. His name is Michael Shannon. He's an actor that was most recently seen in the aforementioned movie version of Revolutionary Road. David Edelstein (the film critic over at NY Mag) recently wrote a profile of him, and I highly recommend reading the whole thing (it's not that long, you have no excuse). Shannon plays John Givings, the mentally ill and violent son of Kate and Leo's neighbors. Apparently his performance is the film's best. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I plan to when I finish the book in the next few days.

I'm so tired of non-actors who just play around with this Hollywood shit. Shannon strikes me as an angry young man, who, like so many fantastic actors, finally figured out that he could work through his shit in a healthy way and be creative by being an actor. The result, of course, is that he's actually an actor.

Over lunch in Carroll Gardens, near his Red Hook apartment, Shannon recalls how badly he’d wanted the part. In his audition, he explains, he pulled out every stop when it was time to tell his controlling mother (played onscreen by Kathy Bates and in the audition room by the casting director) to shut up. When it was over, she told him that in all her years in the business, she’d never felt so personally wounded by an actor’s reading.

He thinks a moment. “I guess for years and years, I’ve been wanting to tell my mother to shut up, and I finally got an opportunity to do it. One of the great things about acting is you can do things that in real life would get you in trouble. I think that’s something I figured out pretty early on. ’Cause I had some issues … ”

Does anyone else find this totally refreshing?

*

That was a side-track, really. It doesn't connect at all to my point about misogyny. So far, in the book, Frank Wheeler gets all the face time. And he's pretty pathetic. I haven't gotten to know April, his wife, nearly as well, and I find this a bit problematic. We'll see. But there's an underlying disgust and suffocation in the tone of this book that has nothing at all to do with gender. It reminds me of The Bell Jar. And for someone like Richard Yates, I can't think of a greater compliment.

Book / movie review coming soon!

The Hokey-Pokey of Civil Rights

As a straight woman with several close gay friends, I have always been a fervent supporter of gay rights. In high school, I stood by them at the gay pride parade in Atlanta and I've been a member of the Human Rights Campaign since I was seventeen years old. But the struggle for gay rights is more than a personal issue: it is an issue of life and death for many Americans. The right to live their lives in the open.

Gus van Sant has made a loving biopic for Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the United States. After a decade long attempt to be elected, Milk finally won the post of San Francisco Supervisor in 1977. In 1978, he was murdered in cold blood while at work by his colleague, Dan White.

This film is absolutely chock-full of outstanding performances by Sean Penn, perhaps one of America's most-talented, seasoned actors, and some very exciting newcomers. Penn never ceases to amaze me with courage in playing stretch-characters: a mentally-handicapped man in I Am Sam, a grief-crazed father in Mystic River, a crazy-dude in The Assassination of Richard Nixon. Mr. Penn has a reputation in his personal life as a hot-head and a bad boy, but I like to think his complex career choices as of late might be a form of therapy for working through some of his demons. His portrayal of Harvey Milk is warm, brave, and brimming with life.

You may remember uber-cutie Emile Hirsch from Into the Wild, but he's altogether unrecognizable in this film as a young man named Cleve Jones who joins Milk's campaign. Jones would go on to found the AIDS quilt and Hirsch does a fantastic job of communicating his boundless energy and mirth, although I couldn't help but think that Dov Charney must have based American Apparel's hoodies and big hipster glasses on the fashion stylings of Mr. Cleve Jones. And then there's Alison Pill, broadway superstar, as the lesbian campaign manager who has to prove her skills when she takes over midway through Harvey's run for supervisor. The part's too small to showcase Pill's talents, but her grief over Milk's death at the end of the film tugged at my heartstrings.

While James Franco does an admirable job of looking pissed off and tired as Milk's longtime boyfriend Scott Smith, his performance is rather forgettable, and his pretty face makes any sort of serious brooding a bit impossible. It's not his fault, but I'm not sure what he's doing in this film.

Milk is perhaps van Sant's most sentimental, most Hollywood-venture to date. The dialogue feels forced and there are moments of indulgence where I wished there had been restraint. But that said, Milk is still an important film. While in office, Harvey Milk campaigned in California for the demise of Proposition 6, or the Briggs Initiative, a law that would have banned gays and lesbians (and anyone who supported them) from teaching in public schools. Prop 6, thanks to the efforts of Harvey Milk and his team, was defeated on November 7, 1978. In the film, it is a moment of pure triumph. It reminded me of the mood on November 4, 2008.

November 4th was an incredible day in American history. I will never forget the endless celebration and relief upon learning that Barack Obama had been elected President. In that moment, so much felt possible, as if the pursuit of happiness and freedom had finally been realized since the past eight years of emotional and literal terrorism, hatred, and ignorance of the Bush administration. But I was deeply saddened, as were many of my Californian friends, to learn that Proposition 8 had passed, denying gay couples the right to marry and invalidating those marriages that had been legal in the state until then.

While I understand the argument that many gay couples make that marriage is a heterosexual institution that they don't necessarily want, I believe it should be an option. It should be an option for any longterm committed couple to make their partnership legal and known to the state, that their partnership should afford them the same rights that mine would if I chose to marry. And to say that they are married. That they are husband and husband, wife and wife. If straight couples have the right to be legally married in this country, every couple should have that right. It is a human, undeniable right.

In many ways we have come a long way from the time of Harvey Milk. But just as Harvey's victory of Prop 6 was blighted by his assassination, I can't help but feel as if they election of Obama was blighted by the victory of Prop 8. I can only hope that with the new year, come January 20th, America will have entered into a new period of diplomacy and the pursuit of civil rights for every single citizen: which means healthcare, employment, and yes, happiness. It's really the only way.

Commitment for Sale

Oh my goodness.

Olivia Judson, in this piece on the NYTimes' "The Wild Side" blog, discusses the discovery of the arginine vasopressin receptor 1a gene, which has recently been found to support and encourage the maintenance of committed relationships in humans and other mammals. While the gene is present in both sexes, it's more important to males, as it corresponds to other behaviors such as "aggressive posturing, scent marking of territories, courtship and sex."

Too much of the gene, however, can be a bad thing. In a recent Swedish study, men who had two copies of the gene, a variant known as RS3 334 "were less likely to be married, and more likely to report difficulties in their relationships, than other men. Their partners were also more likely to report relationship difficulties."

When introduced into lab rats (a species that Judson notes is NOT, by any means, a monogamous species), the male rat became interested in cuddling with a partner, and when a new female was introduced into his environment, he "prefer[ed] to consort with the old partner." The question here is: if we were to insert this gene into human males who have a proven aversion to commitment, would we achieve the same result?

Of course, as Judson mentions, this isn't exactly an ethical move. And I, for one, am not a huge fan of altering human behavior through gene therapy.

So, ladies: seeing a guy that won't commit? Time to throw in the towel.

Shit is biological.

David Foster Wallace

I have never read Infinite Jest, but the novel means a lot to a dear friend of mine, so I've been meaning to read it for some time. I'm sure many others will be motivated to do the same now that the man behind it is dead . . . for understandable reasons suicide creates a shroud of mystery around the artist's work which gives it another level of permanence.

I have, however, read several of David Foster Wallace's essays, and found them quite intelligent and entertaining. There's also a sense of pain and raw emotion present in his writing that my favorite book reviewer, Sam Anderson, pegged as almost a feeling of "self-help" in his memorial on New York Magazine. In it, he mentions Wallace's commencement address to the 2005 Kenyon graduates. Here are a few lines that really spoke to me:

"If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-type hell situation not only as meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the starts: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

Not that the mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it."

Things can be bad. I, for one, know that I make them worse when I let my anxieties and insecurities get the best of me. I know what's quoted above seems flouncy and Buddhist, and perhaps it is, but I can't hear advice like this often enough. So much of my reality is often colored by my negative perception. If I could learn, as DFW suggests, to seek the positive, even in times of stress, I think the world would seem less fruitless and that people would seem more kind.

I only wish his own advice had been able to sway him from giving up. My thoughts are with his family and friends. His words survive.

The Missing

Every anniversary I read Susan Sontag's brave piece from The New Yorker, which was published on September 24th, 2001. You can read other writers' and thinkers' reactions from that day here. Sontag received (of course) a great deal of criticism for her agressive stance, but I find her points to still ring true after SEVEN years . . . which unfortunately says more about the ignorant, impotent administration than the American people (I hope). So, once again, Susan.

"The disconnect between last Tuesday's monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public. Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq? And if the word "cowardly" is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards.

Our leaders are bent on convincing us that everything is O.K. America is not afraid. Our spirit is unbroken, although this was a day that will live in infamy and America is now at war. But everything is not O.K. And this was not Pearl Harbor. We have a robotic President who assures us that America still stands tall. A wide spectrum of public figures, in and out of office, who are strongly opposed to the policies being pursued abroad by this Administration apparently feel free to say nothing more than that they stand united behind President Bush. A lot of thinking needs to be done, and perhaps is being done in Washington and elsewhere, about the ineptitude of American intelligence and counter-intelligence, about options available to American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, and about what constitutes a smart program of military defense. But the public is not being asked to bear much of the burden of reality. The unanimously applauded, self-congratulatory bromides of a Soviet Party Congress seemed contemptible. The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy.

Those in public office have let us know that they consider their task to be a manipulative one: confidence-building and grief management. Politics, the politics of a democracy—which entails disagreement, which promotes candor—has been replaced by psychotherapy. Let's by all means grieve together. But let's not be stupid together. A few shreds of historical awareness might help us understand what has just happened, and what may continue to happen. "Our country is strong," we are told again and again. I for one don't find this entirely consoling. Who doubts that America is strong? But that's not all America has to be."

—Susan Sontag

[emphasis mine]

* * *

God knows how many people never came home on September 11th, 2001.

Dr. Sneha Anne Philip's case has been perhaps the most publicized and the most mysterious. But I can't help but think what else is missing from this country: an awareness that the right-wing, isolationist stance that George W. Bush and his ilk take is flat out wrong, racist, ignorant, and the only thing it does is gets us (not to mention other people) killed. I still can't fathom how we were struck dumb enough to elect this man for a second time. Anger, Revenge and Blood-lust are inevitably part of being human. But I believe that our leaders should, with the help of a well-informed administration, be able to rise above our initial impulse to seek and destroy.

And while many Americans feel down-trodden, disgusted, and helpless when it comes to our election process, I must urge everyone to vote for the missing. For those people who never came home on 9/11, and for the compassion, intellect, and capable leadership that has been missing from this country for nearly eight years.

* * *

To my friends and family, I love you. Take care of yourselves and others.

And to New York, no matter how much you test me, you are still the most vibrant, resilient city: let's hope the rest of the country catches on.

Norma Jean Nostalgia

Vanity Fair has acquired incredible access to the letters, mementos, clothes and various other personal items of Marilyn Monroe's that were recently discovered in two filing cabinets originally sold at auction.

After clicking through most of the scans, I think the most touching are her letters to her step-children and father-in-law, with whom she kept in close contact with even after her divorce from Arthur Miller. Her letters to Miller's father are all addressed, "Dear Dad."

This one is written to her step-son, Bobby, in the voice of Hugo, his basset hound. [click photo for larger view]



Or this cheeky little note regarding some off-color remarks Tony Curtis had made:



You can browse through the entire archive here.

I've always been a huge Marilyn Monroe fan, my reasons ranging from the conspiracy theories that surround her death to her astounding beauty. I do think had she survived she would have gone on to be respected as a serious actress. And her life-long dream of becoming a mother, never-realized, is absolutely heart-breaking. But, obviously, more than anything she's a reflection of the decade that defined her success and made her an icon.

How I Learned to Love the Olympics

Yeah, yeah. I'm one of those "I don't understand the point of all this fuss" people when it comes to the Olympics. First of all, I'm not an athlete and I pretty much hate exercise. If I were a naturally thin rake I'd probably never go to the gym and I'd eat whatever I want. Of course I have more energy when I do go to the gym, but while I'm on that treadmill all I can think about is how great it's going to be when I step off it, so I can go home and eat a taco.

The bubbling nationalism and fascism of pitting athletes against each other based on their country sort of terrifies me. Yes, does raise a patriotic crocodile tear to my eye when America's national anthem is played if one of "ours" wins the Gold, but at the same time I wonder: did they really win that medal for the U.S.A.? I can't help but see athleticism as perhaps the most individualistic, selfish endeavor: and to make it your whole life, your absolute being and reason for breathing strikes me as the pinnacle of narcissism.



Yes, I understand that it's about pushing limits and it's also about entertainment. And I do find some sports entertaining: namely basketball, tennis, and gymnastics. Swimming has suddenly become something to watch because of Michael Phelps, but other than that, I could really care less.

That is, until NBC revealed the incredible feature that is THE MOM CAM.

Some genius finally picked up on the fact that watching someone win is a lot more entertaining if one can see his or her Mom's reaction. So when Michael Phelps broke like, ten million world records and won his eighth gold medal on Saturday night, not only did we get to see his body rippling in some sort of hyper-adrenaline craze, we also got to see his mother collapse out of pride and shock at her son's acheivement.

Jezebel's got this covered to the max. Check out their video of Phelps and his mama here. Really, check it out. It makes me cry. ME, the ultimate skeptic.

The one that really got me, though, was Shalane Flanagan's win for the silver medal in women's 10,000 meter race, making her the second American woman to medal in that event. Her mom, Cheryl, is a women's marathon record holder, and her reaction to her daughter's win just brings tears to my eyes. I really feel as though this one video makes the entire Olympic games worth it. So watch it. NOW.

My Mom has always supported me in everything I was ever interested in, from guitar lessons to acting to singing to writing to moving to New York, and just generally fostering who I am and encouraging me to "go for the gold." She told me a story once about my performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" at the age of (what was it Mom?) six? at my elementary school's talent show, and how she was so nervous for me that her hands as she held the video camera shook so much that the picture is all wobbly and jumpy. Now, that is love.



I think I didn't quite understand the drive and the amount of work it takes to become an Olympic athlete until I saw these Moms practically pass out from joy when their kids pass the finish line. Presumably, this moment is something they have been working and waiting for for quite some time, i.e. pretty much since their children were born and able to swim / run / jump / catapult / etc.



So thanks, Mom. I may not be able to swim like my hands are made of dolphins, but you've always been there cheering me on in the stands, no matter what. And that is hell of a lot more important than some stupid gold medal.