Jane Austen doesn't qualify

Hey, I won't lie. I love curling up in bed and reading about a city-girl twenty-something who has job issues, weight issues, boy issues, parent issues and frenemy issues just like I do. And the fact that there's always a happy ending complete with a handsome, successful, faithful man who has never heard of financial troubles makes me feel all warm---read: jealous---inside. Below, my six, read-them-over-and-over-again favorites.

Jemima J by Jane Green
Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella
Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
Something Blue by Emily Giffin (but read Something Borrowed first)
Baby Proof by Emily Giffin
Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty (but read Sloppy Firsts first)

A Google search confirmed that Melissa Bank's two novels, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing and The Wonder Spot, are indeed "chick lit." I don't agree. They're more melancholy than, say, Confessions of a Shopaholic, so I refuse to add them to this list, despite the fact that they're two of my favorite novels. And even though it's not on here, Helen Fieldings's Bridget Jones's Diary must be hailed as the founding chick of "chick lit."

And just to clarify: thought the title of this post might suggest otherwise, Jane Austen rules. How can any woman not honor the woman who gave the world Mr. Darcy? Or the possibility of a happy ending shared with a darling---yet often shy---suitor regardless of beauty, class or family trubs? (I'm looking at you, Lydia Bennet.)

Itching to read:

Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin
(Gawd, don't you just love her color scheme?)

Yes.

So I know that the Gossip Girl finale was days ago but I had to share this poster that I must find somewhere in the real world and purchase.

I'm pretty upset that we didn't get a Take Two of Chuck and Blair's limousine adventure in the finale, but I must say that I was fully content with Chuck's (inevitable) return to Sleazetown. I'm Chuck Bass, dammit. I'm also rooting for a Nate/Serena sequel, surprisingly enough.



And the best line of the finale was in reference to Chace Crawford's hairdo. "Whatever happened with you and Man-Bangs?" That's some solid writing, people. Solid.



Source: Wickedwench88.files.wordpress.com, AOL CDN

Coldplay and Apple do it again

Hey, watch this. This + my spine = shivers.

Obama knows a lot about America

Obviously, just a slipup. But I can't tell if he's trying to make a joke out of his mistake or if he just didn't notice that he said that he visited 57 states.

Today is big day for voters.

I haven't watched a single episode all season, but I did tune in to American Idol tonight to watch the Davids sing it out. After some thought---but not much---I called in and voted for David Cook, simply because he is sexier and not seventeen. (Also, he cried after his last song. Which I'm pretty sure made my heart break.)

But I'm not that invested. David Archuleta---the young'un on the right---actually is quite good. I won't be surprised or bummed if he wins. Hell. I'll get a lot out of his first really good music video---let's be honest.

And my girl Hillary won Kentucky today! It doesn't do much of anything, but I just heart her to the fullest, and who knows? Maybe there will be a miracle...

Photo source: EW.com

Dalí inspires Fall Out Boy to pen extra-long titles for works

The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table, (1934)

I visited the Salvador Dalí Museum today in St. Petersburg, Florida. I love Dalí, yet at the same time I just plain think he's weird. But let's talk about the good things, first! For instance, I love the fact that he could be obsessed with the same image---ants crawling out of a palm, anything coming out of eyes, slicing eyes, a woman shaped like a bell, flowers in places of body parts, baguettes sitting on top of the head---for decades, making them reappear in different mediums of artwork. The coolest. Who says you have to come up with an entirely new idea every time? Great. So good to know! Also, I love that he mixed mediums, at times. I learned today that some of his painted works, especially the early ones, would have three-dimensional objects attached to them or sand poured on top of the paint, giving the surface an unexpectedly rough texture. And I certainly didn't know this before today, but Dalí actually made some contributions to the cinema! In the Alfred Hitchcock 1945 film Spellbound, Dalí designed Gregory Peck's extraordinarily abstract, mysterious dream sequences, which are basically huge versions of Dalí's desert-like landscapes haunted with shadows and giant, misshapen appendages.

I don't really get much out of the violence often seen in Dalí works, though. A good example is seen in the 1929 silent film Un Chien Andalou when a woman's eye is slit open---AAAAAAAA---with a knife. So gross. I also find no---forgive me---no purpose in the paintings of objects growing into other objects. I can't tell what he's trying to say to me or if he is referencing something. Paintings like Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano (1934), seen here, leave me totally perplexed. It's the paintings in which I see a human form deformed in a beautiful way, such as having a growth of pink flowers instead of a head, or an extra-long leg to use as a table in my personal favorite above, The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table.


This play between the human form and Dalí's delicate, droll exaggerations of it can be seen in the most delightful way in the short film Destino, a collaboration with Disney. I'm sure that the film in its entirety can be found on YouTube somewhere, but check out the 30-second trailer here. It's a gorgeous fusion of both Dalí's signature absurdity and Disney's classic pre-CGI animation.

Photo credits: Cosmoedu.net, Movie Net

Happy primaries!
Kim

And I am telling you I'm not going

Cute picture of Jennifer Hudson, right? Oh, I am super praying that she doesn't end up jobless after this debut album coming in September. But how can the album be bad? Timbaland worked on it!! (I'm so excited about that part.)

Check out an article about her upcoming single, "Spotlight," on MSNBC.

Photo credit: MSNBC

Katie Holmes Employed

Oh, I approve! It's official: Katie Holmes will be seen on Broadway this fall in Arthur Miller's All My Sons, joining Dianne Wiest, Patrick Wilson (delicious) and a yet-to-be-announced director.

I have faith in Katie Holmes. Actually, it's more than that. I have a secret: I think she rocks, plus I admire her ability to co-create beautiful children. If you don't agree that she's actually pretty awesome, you clearly have not experienced the 1999 Kevin Williamson gem Teaching Mrs. Tingle, in which little Katie Holmes holds her own against Helen Fucking Mirren. SO RAD.

Photo credit: All About the Pretty

The best Sex of my life in only 12 short days

TOP 5 REASONS WHY MAY 30 CAN'T COME FAST ENOUGH
(1) That wedding dress!
-------And the bridesmaid dresses.
(2) More of Jason Lewis. With luck, naked Jason Lewis!
-------Who am I kidding? It'll happen. It's Sex and the City.
(3) The scene at the Astor Place Starbucks!
-------I saw them filming there last fall!
(4) Little Asian Charlotte baby!
-------Show me a little Asian kid and I will stop everything to coo.
(5) Do they actually get married?
-------So, Aidan really can't come back?


Photo credit: EW.com

Savage love

One of the first things I'm doing when I return to New York is seeing Les Liaisons Dangereuses on Broadway. To be honest, I don't even know what the thing is about. Yeah, I watched that movie with Glenn Close in AP Euro. Yeah, I guess Cruel Intentions is kinda based on it? Whatever. All I know is that it's got Linney. Who I gotta see, up close and personal. (I just saw The Savages again, which is why I'm on this Linney high.)

To me, she used to be "that lady from The Truman Show," but now she's one of my greatest acting inspirations. As a theater student---aspiring actor? Just plain "actor"?---I remember what she says about choosing roles and simply working in the big time. It's refreshing to watch her onscreen. She seems to ignore the tabloids and distance herself from worldwide fame and sexy femme fatale roles. Instead, she seems to find depth in the neurotic, the melancholy, the timid---the everyday woman, who she makes so beautiful.

She also respects the work of an actor, no matter how big-budget the film or how popular the performer. In the big time, I think it must be easy to forget that acting is a job, a complex one that requires unlimited patience and thorough examination of the project and the performer herself. She has never allowed the glamour of Hollywood diminish her job as an actor.

We're just actors. We don't make decisions based on career. I guess I sometimes do, if I have to make some money. But most of the time, you try to find the best material possible, no matter what medium it's in or how big or small the budget. You just try to find the best, most challenging and interesting work you can.

--Laura Linney, The Tufts Daily

Photo source: NY Mag

Rihanna, Chris Brown testing my patience

Come on, guys. Just admit it so that we can all start spazzing out about some other Are They Or Aren't They Couple. Hayden and Milo came out with it. Please follow their mature example.

According to this People article, Rihanna was asked by a radio interviewer, "Friends? But there are pictures of you kissy kiss." (This DJ is incredibly well-educated.) And to this Rihanna answered: "We are very good friends."

...

Come on. We heard about how you guys want to "collaborate." We saw you guys in the pool. We saw you at KFC. Just come out with it. Oh, and make a hit single together, while you're at it? I need me a Rihanna/Chris Brown video that isn't the lame "Umbrella/Cinderella Remix" with clips of Chris just randomly edited in there. This video should have little to no clothing.

Until that heavenly day, their "Umbrella" duet four days ago in NYC is totally worth watching.

Respectfully yours,
Kim

Photo credit: Delastars.com

My Top 5 SIX Sitcom Couplings

Yeah, I'm a girl. I keep lists of these types of things. Deal.

In no particular order:

1) Jackie and Hyde (That '70s Show)
2) Ross and Rachel (Friends)
3) Jim and Pam (The Office)
4) Niles and Daphne (Frasier)
5) Carrie and Aidan (Sex and the City
6) George Michael and Maeby (Arrested)

So maybe Arrested Development doesn't qualify as a generic "sitcom"...but whatever. Or maybe Sex and the City doesn't, either.

Long live these fictional Will They Or Won't Theys that have made me AWWWW my heart out.

Take me to your leader

Wow.










Maybe I will see the next Narnia movie.

Photo credit: Bookclub9.com

Sexuality be damned, I am in love with David Hyde Pierce

Gay, schmay. David Hyde Pierce is one of the sexiest people in the world to me. The skinniness. The jawline. The Yale degree. The limited breadth of his chest. OHMEOHMY.

Click here to see my favorite DHP/Niles clip, "A Valentine For Niles," from Frasier, only the best show (ever). These six minutes never get old. It's so good that the image above, capped directly from the clip, was one of the first images that appeared when I Google Image searched "Niles David Hyde Pierce"...as I do almost daily.

Here's to cute gays,
Kim

Photo credit: Frasier Online

I love this

Nicole Richie and Joel Madden make a somber appeal, spreading the word about UNICEF and the Myanmar relief fund. Nicole is clearly reading off a card. But still: love them for this.

I'll stand by you, Hil!

Oh, boo.







Poor Hillary. To my heartache, she really stands no chance anymore.

Photo credit: CNN

Alan Rickman good-looking...thirteen years ago

Nice. Alan Rickman and a rather large hat in Sense and Sensibility, which I'm watching right now...and loving. (No big surprise there. What female doesn't tear up in every scene of a Jane Austen story?)

PS: Jane Austen + Emma Thompson + Ang Lee? That's an odd equation.

Hot photo credit: Moldova.org

Yay Rays!

Last night, the Tampa Bay Rays held the Yankees at 1-0 until the 9th inning, when Hideki Matsui hit a home run and frustrated the HELL out of me. (I love me some Rays. I sit in Tampa right now as I write this.) So they battled it out at 1-1 for two more innings---which shocked me, I thought it'd be at least a 15 inning game---and Jonny Gomes, after stealing second base successfully, ended up scoring the winning run on Gabe Gross's line drive to the outfield. WOOOOOO!! This win puts them at the top of the American League!!! WHAT???!!

These Rays are just so much fun to watch. For one reason, they're good now. So the games are actually pretty exciting and fast-paced, not depressing and painful to watch. Also, these players are continually thrilled with their progress and their wins. When Gomes sailed across that home plate last night, there was a bouncing heap of players there ready to welcome him into their yell-fest. Every win to them is like a World Series win. They love it! And I love watching them love it!

Photo credit: MSNBC

W: The Bushes through a sexy lens

This week's Entertainment Weekly

The first movie about the Bush administration is being made as I write this. And by Oliver Stone, no less. How do I feel about this? Sure, why the hell not? Although I must say---um, we can all agree that George W. and Laura Bush are not this sexy in real life, yes? Come on. Elizabeth Banks, Elizabeth Banks? She's looks cute doing anything: pregnancy (Scrubs), shitty Christmas movies (Fred Claus), brown hair (Spider-Man), and even acting beside Isla Fisher and Rachel Weisz, two strong competitors of cute (Definitely, Maybe). And I'm supposed to believe she's Laura Bush? Please. And I don't know too much about Josh Brolin but he looks pretty sexy in that picture there. Plus, Thandie Newton is playing Condoleeza Rice.

Yeah, this is definitely the sexy version. Who's playing the Bush twins? The girls from Sweet Valley High?






Photo credit: Sitcoms Online, EW.com

Tampa Bay Rays cut their name, the crap

This just in: The Rays, formerly the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (I do not approve), are good.

What happened? Only a few short years ago, the scores of these games would be 10-2, 12-0...really, any number over ten to any number below three. Now they're killing the Angels three times in a row, and as I sit here in front of my TV, they're leading the Yankees 6-0 at the top of the 6th? Jeter be damned: the Rays aren't shitty anymore.

Maybe it's new (cute) third baseman Evan Longoria. Maybe it's that the team name now refers to sunbeams rather than cartilaginous fish. (Even though I liked "Devil Rays.") Maybe it's the elimination of green from their athletic wardrobe. (Boo Slytherin.) Maybe it's because now they have an Asian on their team: Akinori Iwamura. Asians add flavor to everything.

I don't know what it is. But I like it. (Tampa is one of the many places that I'm "from.") It makes the games so much more fun and not depressing. Kick ass, Tampa Bay! And great ass, Evan Longoria!

I'ma buy me a jersey, maybe.

And watching any baseball game in HD television is exactly like sleeping with one of the players and nabbing a seat right above the dugout. Watching TV here at my dad's house is definitely an experience. Whatever money he should be spending on haircuts and glasses he spends on electronics. And I get to watch LOST in HD. Best.

As a signoff, a little piece of Evan Longoria for you:

Mmm. Yeah, run those bases. I'm a creep.

Photo credit: China Post (China Post?), Sign On San Diego

Do you know what Roald Dahl looks like?

Earlier today, after Google Imaging Isabella Blow and then Sophie Dahl (because apparently Isabella Blow discovered Sophie Dahl randomly on the sidewalk), I thought about how Sophie Dahl is Roald Dahl's granddaughter and realized that though I have read many of his books and loved them as a kid, I actually have no idea what he looks like.

For the record, this is him:

Yeah. That guy definitely had the crazies to write The Witches.


Photo credit: Ovation TV

Quite a show

Best.

Imagination in Central Park

My previous post reminded me of some pictures of Strawberry Fields that I took about a month ago on a particularly lovely 'hattan day. I'd never seen the Imagine sign before that trip.

Month.

Bob Dylan
and Suze Rotolo
1963

Right now, I'm watching CBS Sunday Morning, a delightfully heartwarming program hosted by the grandfatherly Charles Osgood that I never get to watch because I'm always asleep at this early hour of 10am. They just showed a segment on two ex-rock-stars' girlfriends: Suze Rotolo, Bob Dylan's girlfriend for four years at the very beginning of his break into fame, and May Pang, John Lennon's mistress during his split from Yoko Ono. I was particularly moved by the interview with Suze Rotolo. The pictures of she and Dylan together--smoking cigarettes, holding each other on the sidewalk, lying beside each other in bed--were so darling, and strangely reminiscent of something, something antique and beautiful. She was a gorgeous young woman, as you can see from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album cover, and he was a skinny, smooth-faced boy with normal hair. Looking at the way they grin at one another in these fuzzy black and white photographs makes me wonder about my own friends--who I'm closest to, which of them I truly love--and which I'll go down in history with, if any. Many years from now, I hope to God I get to gaze at some shoebox photographs, point at someone as young as I am writing this and say, He changed my life.

Check out the text of the segment here.

Nostagically yours,
Kim