A Serious ManI can't find anything wrong with it.It's been a particularly good decade for the Coens (if you forget and forgive Burn After Reading). Everyone is slapping the "mature" label on this latest effort, which though deserved, is like saying No Country For Old Men is a "western," and stopping there. Yes, but?A Serious Man is also really funny. It's like you're watching emotional slapstick. And this thing I adore about the Coens - they cast these Norman Rockwell type faces who you instantly fall for.As for maturity, it raises some interesting (sincere) questions about faith and doubt, and respects its audience enough not to hit it over the head with obvious answers...

The IT CrowdLove is the word. Unsettling is another word. Purkinje is another word; it doesn't have anything to do with this post, but nevertheless, it is a word, and quite a weird one at that.I describe this show to people as the next British anti-sitcom.Jared describes it as "Live-action Simpsons."Whatever we're calling this spade, I think it's the best thing on since the BBC Office. I watched all 3 seasons in a couple weeks. Be warned: you might want to turn it off at first. Subtle it is not. It's almost jarringly over the top. The first few episodes are a bit clunky. I recommend skipping episode 1 altogether and starting at 2. I also recommend forming a crush on that...

anthropologie ripped me off!

remember that one experiment of mine? (You know, the one I haven't touched for a year). That's not the point.The point IS, that fancy-scrappy francophile sister of urban outfitters ripped me off.VSshock and horror.you know, i too fell in love with anthropologie in 2002, like the whole rest of the female world. but for the past 3 or 4 years every time i enter those gilded doors, i have a look at the clothes and more often than not think, i could make that.and Re: your "about that time" earrings, i did make that.i would demand in-kind compensation, but honestly, i'd rather get wardrobed from jcrew. i'm starting to think anthropologie is past its prim...

experiment: turkey-carving

I'm actually not a huge fan of turkey. I just like the ceremony. Of the whole day, I guess.I like waking up late to maple nut wedges (which are missing their gooey centers, thanks to Alexis). I like going through all my high school formal dresses and trying them on to see if they still fit (they all do - even if they are too horribly outdated and too taffeta to ever wear again). I like playing SEGA in the cool basement for a few hours. Sonic the Hedgehog, Aladdin, NBA Jam. I like filching a crescent roll or two before they're formally offered. I even like the exhausting dinners themselves. Fighting and not fighting with family. I like rolls. I like dark meat. I like mashed...

Experiment: Planning Your Own Wedding

I am so excited for my harajuku wedding!I will wear this L.A.M.B original, and be accompanied by my bridesmaids: Love (Corinne), Angel (Adrienne), Music (Casey), Baby (Lindsey/Kendra).This [cake] is banana! B-A-N-A-N-A!This [sake] is non-alcoholic. N-O-N-A-L-C-H-Y!What I have learned:If the price-gouging and ugly dresses and vendor pressure and fighting over your guestlist and overall absurdities of wedding planning are too much for you, consider a Harajuku wedding, like me! It's made me so much happier and relieved so much stress!I just hired a Japanese exchange student, Akiko, who has been an angel (not Angel, as we've established that is Adrienne C). She's taken care...

experiment: the vast unknown

What I have learned:Nothing, yet. But this will probably be the most challenging experiment by far. And also the most fu...

experiment: tapas

I have no idea why it took me so long to come around to tapas. It was probably my holier-than-thou, Sex and The City trend-bucking, the same philos steering me clear of Magnolia Bakery (which I eventually broke down and visited after a year of NYC residency. Nothing but a pile of mediocre frosting. Billy’s is much better, though Yummy’s in LA takes the cupcake-cake).I just have a harder time trusting trendy foods, esp. anything immortalized by SatC or Hitch (Rice to Riches, I’m talking to you). Yet, in my quest to become the ultimate foodie it’s often necessary to experiment with all sorts of foods, even trendy/novelty items. Sometimes those experiments prove fruitful, and...

experiment: editing a novel

There was a wild and brief point in my life when I thought I wanted to be a book editor. Nothing sounded fabber than sitting in a NYC publishing office all day reading novels. Clearly, I didn't pursue this past my high school lit-mag days. And good thing. I'm convinced copywriting is much more challenging and fun, and brings home much more bacon. Yes, literal bacon. What can I say, I love breakfast for dinner.I still enjoy the occasional editing gig, though. I've edited (uh, rewritten?) all sorts of scribble (grad papers, applications, short stories, love letters . . . break-up letters) but the prospect of editing a novel, for a good chunk of money, for someone I don't know...

Hypothesis: The Tappet Brothers Decrease Stress

...

Hypothesis: I am dating Alex P. Keaton

(The Keaton Theory has disproved the Bueller Theory, popularly accepted by the scientific community since September 2005...

experiment: kumquat

[TO BE READ IN DAVID ALAN GRIER'S "MAYA ANGELOU"*]what a curious citric creature is the kumquat!the shape, the swell and weightof the skin.the undulatory sweets and stings as it's juicedover tongue.sourer than the grapefruit.sweeter than the lemon.tearing at the enamel, straining to beswallowed. brisk. taste well made for a marmelade.sized like an old-fashioned bulletin your hand, just begging to rainover the heads of your siblings.ah, kumquat! tart mercies unpeeled,pulps ill concealed in the crook of yourtwo front teeth.what i have learned:- they are pretty fantastic.- there's a lime/kumquat hybrid called the limequat! i paid decent attention in hs bio but i don't remember...

experiment: skort

I tried one on today at Savers.what I have learned:I'm no Blossom, but I think I looked pretty ho...

experiment: guns

I shot some guns last week, during what is now in the running for Most Disturbing Ward Activity*. (Hey everybody, let's eat Costco cakemuffins and rub up against each other while we "learn" how to shoot semi-automatic weapons with almost zero instruction or safety precaution! You should come! Especially if you freelance and don't have health insurance! It'll be a "blast!")You're here? I didn't peg you a gun personwas kind of the consensus as I made the rounds, surveying the 5 or so "shooting stations" (card tables and overturned coolers topped with guns of all shapes and sizes, laid to rest over both personal (yikes) and beach towels).Yet they were right. I wasn't really...

experiment: hypertext narration

PROLOGUE Though I’ve been following the inevitable turn toward electronic publishing for quite some time now, I have particular interest in this concept of interactive fiction. What you're about to read (if in fact, you do commit yourself to this 30-minute long caprice of mine) is a stab at that.This started about a month ago as nothing more than a short story, though in ideation/early draft phase the thought occurred to me to find additional ways to leverage it, repurpose it, experiment with various distribution channels and audiences. (Also, at the time I was leafing through "Electronic Literature," by N. Katherine Hayles, sort of the preeminent scholar on digital publishing...

experiment: shilling

Adrienne here, slicing the ham n cheese extra thick. Now listen up, you.I joke that Jared is cheating on me with one of his latest projects, Jer3miah, but the truth is it's making me seriously reconsider an open relationship. It's that cool. Here's the trailer.The Book of Jer3miah - Trailer from The Book of Jer3miah on Vimeo.It's a webseries he and his students are creating that also has interactive elements. Sort of a mystery/conspiracy/thriller show in the vein of Lost or Da Vinci Code. You can watch short webisodes online. And then there’s also an alternate reality aspect to it, like an online, interactive scavenger hunt. And real-life clue hunting in Utah. The characters...

experiment: emotionality

It was on Valentine's Day that Jared told me my blog has no "heart."Was I offended? No, not particularly. I write about experiments, so naturally I adopt the cold, strictly observant front of a scientist and intentionally keep a lot of personal details and feelings out of it and off the internet. We all very deliberately craft our online personas, and what do you want, this is mine; striving for objective truth (and hilarity!), and not wanting to cloud things with actual feelings or divulge any private information. After all, I'm an INTP. I know many consider these Jungian assignments as quackish as zodiac signs in terms of correctly identifying personality types, but to...

experiment: going on a blind date

he bucked into the house half an hour early, forgetting the knock. a sweaty triangle of forehead limned by two licks of matte brown. frightful eyes, opening and closing with the regularity of a pulse. solid arms, encased in grey sleeves, starched, solid. the usual wireframed westernwear. for all i knew he was skeletal underneath.he spotted me exiting the kitchen and let the door free behind him. he jumped a bit to hear the heavy crack as it clasped the frame. He said hello and his name."We," (oh hell, are we a We?) "are going to do something fun. Ya'll never think to guess it.""Stomping divots?"He swept to the side suddenly, like he'd stepped on a snake whose acquaintance...