.... thats insane!!!!!!......

.... is what i exclaimed when i found this.... but i think its cuz i was boppin' away to MJ singing 'Rock With You' in his gol;den king of pop years while i perused it..... the perfect tune for polishing my pearly whites!!!!!

...musical interlude...

...so, i know it seems strange, as I was in a choir for...oh, perhaps a cumulative decade.... with many kiwanis, Maytime Melodies, concerts at Massey Hall and other Recital-type performances.... but there have only been two, count 'em... one... two... times that I have felt good singing in public.

The first one I was on a huge gorgeous deck, late at night, with all my friends... and my friends all happen to be musically inclined. The range of guitarists, bassists, drummers and singers is astonishing.... as is their collected talent.... and we were rocking out after a few too many.... and I had, we'll say, some 'inspiration'.... but i have to say, in that moment, my voice really melded with everyone elses... the harmonies were amazing and we created a symphonic cacophony that I can recall with crystal clarity to this day....

...The second, I am not gonna lie, I was loaded.... I was 20 and waiting in line at LeSwimming, a bar that I have been mourning the closing of for a year now. The thing about the line at Swimming was that, since the bar was on the third floor there was this long narrow stairwell and a hallway out into the street for people to stand in, outside of the frigid Montreal winter.... well, at the bottom of the stairwell, I was swaying in place, keeping my head out of the spins by listening to the resident homeless guitarist do his thang.... playing all the classics by bon jovi, acdc, aerosmith et al.... and when he turned to me (chuckling at two decades of drunken giggles poured into heels) and asked me what I wanted to hear I was overcome by my request.... and I not only asked for, but sang along to "Black Water' by the Doobie Brothers.... I have no illusions about this one... I must have been AWFUL.... karaoke without the benefit of crackling speakers and echoing backup music.... just me, hobo and his guitar... But it was AWESOME!!!! I was so into it, and the line got into it too, and by the end I had all the Montreal hipsters rockin' out southern style..... that kicked ass.....

I thought about that as I had to fight with myself not to sing along to Black Water this morning on the streetcar, when it cam on my ipod..... Somehow I thought..... the 8am work crowd just wouldn't get riled up the same way....

..... My musical failures.... that's fodder for ten other posts. I recal several bad renditions of Bacch's minuet in G on the piano.... and an echoing 'CHAW" yelled for emphasis at the wrong moment, into total silence, during a high school choir performance... and that's just off the top of my head.

... a picture worth millions and millions of words.....

.... Everyone.... stop reading this entry RIGHT NOW and go to Chris Jordan's website.... look at the Running the Numbers: American Self Portrait series... come back to me once you have seen it.....

....Was your mind blown.....?

Those of you who didn't fo when I first told you to, here is your second chance to not be a huge dumb ass...... go see the coolest thing i have encountered in a LOOOOOONG while...

If you still haven't done it there is nothing I can do for you.... It's such an amazing idea.... to create images from exactly the thing you are criticizing, or even simply contemplating on, without judgement....

although, anyone that can look at these and not think of the States as a place of hyberbolic caricature boggles my mind.... almost as much as the waste.....

... i am using you....

.... just in case you were wondering... i am only friends with people i think are AWESOME... and this is because they lead me to more awesome people....

....this process has been sped up exponentially by the advent of facebook (and I am not commenting on it as a social phenomenon, i leave that to EVERYONE else.... like they weren't expecting it, after myspace, youtube, google... shocker people like the internet to find things... bigger shock, we like to find ourselves on it)

.... anyway I found this guy on this guys's page....

His name is Izik Levy and he is an amazing glass artist.... I love glass art...

seriously this will be a topic for a future post... but lets just say. Glass speaks to me... and Izik Levy's is saying "I AM SOOOOO COOL"...

....then i went to his website... it kicks ASS!...

...go there... immediately... or else

.... a matter of brine....

.... the politics of food can lead to many a debate.... sharing, ordering, preparing, savouring..... all these can lead to many hours-long discussions (i have had more than one turn into shouting matches).... People are serious about food, and when it comes to matters of taste nothing can be taken lightly.....

.... that said..... one should know the deep-seated (or is it deep-seeded) love I have for pickles.... it's nearly fanatical.... The following is a quote from a fellow pickle enthusiast, which I found on a page dedicated to such discussions. It is highly informative, intelligent and logical....

(and for those of you who don't speak hebrew, or it's english transliteration, tzedakah means charity):


"At a deli, the venerable pickle is cut length-wise either into quarters or eighths. That notwithstanding, the entire pickle should be served as a matter of good graces. The reason for it is known to any proper yiddishkite proprietor- when sitting at a table with other, the pickle is necessarily public property and parts of said pickle shall be eaten by all and sundry. By providing the full pickle, you allow the person who ordered the pickle to perform tzedakah by giving some away while keeping some for his own consumption." -Matt Consky

..... a great link.....

.... for all my designer friends and enthusiasts out there.....

(meaning... I love this website... and am actually a little obsessed with it)

...big fuckin' word of the day...

...... superfluous......

....goy... if you don't know, you are one....

Lenny Bruce (1925-1966) is something of a patron saint--make that rebbe-- a hero and martyr to the cause. Born Leonard Alfred Schneider, he was imprisoned on obscenity charges, but refused to censor his act. He died at 40 of a drug overdose. In the following piece, he takes humorous aim at the Jewish propensity to see the world as starkly divided, often absurdly, between things that are "Jewish" and those that are not--for the latter, self-consciously using the term goyish, considered today a slur, though it's still used by some to describe such culturally foreign things as bologna on white bread with mayonnaise.



Dig:

I'm Jewish. Count Basie's Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. Eddie Cantor's goyish.

B'nai Brith is goyish; Hadassah, Jewish.
Marine corps--heavy goyim, dangerous.


Kool-Aid is goyish. All Drake's cakes are goyish.
Pumpernickel is Jewish,
and,
as you know, white bread is very goyish.
Instant potatoes...
...goyish.

Black cherry soda's...
...very Jewish.

Macaroons are very Jewish...very Jewish cake.
Fruit salad is Jewish.
Lime jello is goyish...

...Lime soda is very goyish.

Trailer parks are so goyish that Jews won't go near them.
Jack Paar Show is very goyish.

Underwear is definitely goyish. Balls are goyish.
Titties are Jewish. Mouths are Jewish.

All Italians are Jewish..


...Greeks are goyish... bad sauce.