100 words

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100 Words

August 15, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

I haven’t done a Review in 100 Words or Fewer While on the Clock in ages. So I probably don’t even remember what I’ve been reading. Here are a few random ones anyway:

We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates in 100 Words or Fewer While on the Clock:
JCO reminds me of Tori Amos in an I-got-raped-once-and-I’m-not-about-to-let-you-forget-it way, though far, far less annoyingly so. Anyway, Mulvaneys: meh, decent. Totally an Oprah Book Club book, though, and you can tell.

Haunted by JCO in 100 Words or Fewer While on the Clock:
A far better book. Still lots of rape. Here’s a JCO Mad Lib: Susan is a [poweful profession]. She is [doing something enviable]. She meets [man or men or boy]. [man or men or boy] [does something wildly unexpected to violate her]. Susan [does something wheren she breaks down very visibly]. [She gets revenge] or [someone else does for her] or [she simply becomes broken, making for a very akward feminist moral].

That was probably more than 100 words.

JCO, I kid because I love. You’re still my dog.

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk in 100 Words or Fewer While on the Clock:
Man, you know I love you. You KNOW I loved that first story. That story was freakin’ suh-weet. My only thing is that I wish you had saved that one for last, because I kept waiting for something to top it, and nothing did. On the other hand, though, it was a brilliant opener. Reality-TV-moral: unnecessary. But maybe I just misunderstood the moral. Maybe it was more of a human-nature thing. Still unnecessary, though. MAN, I loved that first story.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James in 100 Words or Fewer While on the Clock:
That’s right, bitch. I read Henry James. What-what? Every once in a while I get randomly into this sort of gothic-romantic-victorian crap. Mostly, though, it’s super boring. Anyway, this one was one of the non-boring ones. Sexy in that repressed way. JCO has a short story based on it in Haunted. So that’s nice.

Ash Wednesday by Etan Hawk in 100 Words or Fewer While on the Clock:
AAAAAAH ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. …What? That wasn’t a joke? Oh. Ahem. I mean, no, no, it was good. It was real good. Also, good idea cheating on Uma Thurman. Both of these things: good ideas.

Magical Thinking by Augustin Burroughs (though that might be misspelled) in 100 Words or Fewer While on the Clock:
Ugggggggggggggggggggg. You are SO not David Sedaris. I don’t know who told you you were, but…uggggg. Like, here’s the thing: pretty much most people don’t need more than one memoir. Like, Nabokov? He could have written more than one (though I suppose his was an autobiography, not a memoir, the difference being that autobiographies aren’t for fags). Augustin Burroughs? No. You only get one, and I’m being awfully generous at that.

Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis in 100 Words or Fewer While on the Clock:
Most likely fantastic. We’ll know this Wednesday. Yay!

Oh, hey – so you know how in Starbucks they’re selling CDs now? One of the CDs they have is of Sly and the Family Stone. Turns out the dude in the awesome hat on that CD looks EXACTLY like Giesel! There are two pictures specifically where they look alike: the one in the awesome white hat and also one where his tongue is sort of sticking out over his teeth. Back me up on this one, eh? Totally.

Ian’s in California. I miss him. I bought him a mango-seed-remover. Which…is necessary. He’ll…aprreciate it. Don’t tell him, though. It’s a surprise.

Hilarious Black Men

April 29, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

I got totally yelled at the other day. Or not even yelled at, but, like, venemously berated. At the time it was annoying, then funny, then annoying, and the more I think back on it the more it makes me feel both angry and somehow guilty, though he was just a crazy guy I guess and I shouldn’t be so offended, but knowing that I’m needlessly offended just makes me feel worse.

Sigh.

So Ian and I are going up the subway stairs (not up to the outside, just up from a lower level to a higher one) and it’s very busy and very crowded, and there’s a stream of people coming down and a stream of people going up, and halfway up, on the right side, there’s some dude standing there, sort of making a big blockage that everybody who is going up has to move around. So I, too, move around him. Apparently I hit him with my purse, though it couldn’t have been very violently, because I didn’t feel my purse hitting against anything at all. He says to me as I’m continuing up the stairs, very angrily, something like, “Oh, so you’re just going to smack into me with your fucking purse, then, huh?” Like I said, I didn’t even realize I’d hit anybody, so I don’t even really realize that he was talking to me until I’m basically at the top of the steps.

At this point I turn to Ian and I kind of whisper, “Was that guy talking to me?” and Ian shrugs, and I giggle a little, mostly out of surprise as how angry this guy got about it. What I didn’t realize was that the guy had apparently decided to stop blocking the stairs and come on up, and was walking basically right next to Ian.

So the guy says, “What, so it’s funny to see a black man get angry? Is that it? An angry black man is funny to you?” and continues mumbling along in this vein as he walks, only slightly faster than Ian and I, so passing by us uncomfortably slowly. I rolled my eyes (it was a reflex – I wouldn’t have done it if I could have stopped myself), but other than that I totally just ignored the guy: looked straight ahead, didn’t do or say anything, and Ian did the same. (Though there was another black guy walking just ahead of us who turned around and gave him an amused and dirty look, so I guess he thought that angry black men were funny, indeed.)

So anyway, eventually this guy passes us and Ian and I continue walking relatively slowly to increase the distance between us, and that was that. And I know I shouldn’t worry about it because he was probably crazy (like, literally crazy, not just, you know, “hey, that guy’s crazy”). But even crazy people shouldn’t be allowed to be so rude. First he blocks the way and then he’s all mean about it when I accidentally bump into him. And it was the kind of mean that you probably shouldn’t be sassy to, you know? “Oh, so it’s funny when a black man gets angry?” “No, but it’s funny when a man who is blocking my way gets so angry because I accidentally–” *Man pulls out gun and shoots me.*

So anyway, no Politeness Policeman’s Ball tickets for THAT guy.

Other than that, I saw my very first opera at the Met the other night. It was pretty but silly. (Turandot in 100 Words or Fewer, While on the Clock: Wait wait wait – she KILLS herself? Man, that’s gay. Why doncha go SING about it, you pansies?) I might be buying my first shopping center ever. That’s exciting. Don’t tell my mom – telling her was what jinxed the last one I almost bought, I think. I finished my story. That’s very exciting. Someone’s moving into our empty office space. That’s way lame. And now I’m going to go urinate.

Etc

April 20, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

Hey, Chris? Remember back when I very first started secretary-ing and told you that it was 7 hours alone in an office reading books and The Onion, and you asked if our future-new-office-mate needed a secretary, too? Anyway, some dude that we do a bunch of work with (the one that I said might be my boss’s luv-verrrrr) is losing his secretary in a while, maybe. So if you were serious…or if you still are…then there’s that. Though I assume his office is more normal. You’ll likely have to, you know, actually do stuff.

A few Hundred-Words-or-Fewers:

Fruit, by Brian Frances: Cute enough, I suppose, but awfully fucking long for one goddamn metaphor.

Tearjerker, by Daniel Hayes: I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for the interesting part to come. I wish I remembered where/how this book was recommended to me, so I could think of it scornfully.

House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski: MAN! That is one pretentious-ass novel! God, and the LAYERS of pretentious just keep piling up! Pretentiouser and pretentiouser. Every once in a while this poor monstrosity edges up to the border of “good horror novel,” but then it drops right back down into “just plain loathesome.” Too bad.

Myra Breckenridge, by Gore Vidal: Is it Vih-DALL, or Vee-DAHL? I just couldn’t concentrate on the damn book. It’s one of those books that I guess I’m supposed to like, but…VEE-doll?

Hey, Chris! Remember when we were in the movie theatre, and you said something like, “Did you see the news story about the Darth Tater?” and I slapped you and said, “Chrisssssssssss!!!!!?” Turns out if I hadn’t done that, Ian probably wouldn’t have guessed that that was the thing I ordered for him. Sorry about all that.

Hey, Chris! I got a new shirt yesterday. It’s plain and white. Ian made fun of me, because I wanted to go shopping and buy things, but all I bought was a plain white shirt. He’s stupid, huh, Chris?

So.

Furthur

March 8, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

I Am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolfe, in 100 Words or Fewer, While On the Clock:

Well, first of all, you’re not. What you are is Bonfire of the Vanities, except with creepier sex scenes and more jarring slang and dialogue and a far less sensible racial tension. But you know what? I didn’t hate it. I don’t suppose I’ll be writing quotes from it on my notebooks and on the insides of middle school toilet stalls like I did with The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Something-Or-Other when I was thirteen and easily impressed by shit like that. But I totally will probably attempt to read the last third of it at some point, maybe.

100 Words or Fewer

January 31, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

Blonde, by Joyce Carol Oates (historical fiction about Marilyn Monroe), in 100 words or fewer, on the clock.

Okay, okay, she’s sad, I get it. No one really understood her, right.

Plus, for the entire 50-page segment where she’s pregnant and happy, you’re just sitting there thinking, “Right, but when is the miscarriage?” And Oates keeps teasing you: “Gosh, Marilyn’s not here. I wonder where she is?” asks Arthur Miller. “Marilyn? Marilyn? Oh…here you are, reading a book in the kitchen.” And: “I guess I’ll just run quickly down these stairs in high heels now and – oops! – I fell! Don’t worry, I’m fine, though.” And: “Marilyn, what’s that horrible red stain all over your white shorts?” “Raspberries, silly.”

And then she has a miscarriage.

One Hundred Words or Fewer

January 11, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

Tepper Isn’t Going Out: A Novel by Calvin Trillin: A Review, in 100 words or fewer, written on the clock.

Ahem.

I love books that take place in my neighborhood. Plus it made me want to eat lox, though not from Russ & Daughters, where a pound can cost up to $45. It’s fucking salmon, not a blowjob, jesus. Anyway, a terribly nice book. And a good lead-in to the next book I read. Tepper was about a sweet old Jewish man who likes to park his car, the next book was about a 17 year-old drug dealer and his many vacuous friends who all end up getting shot in the last few pages (oops! spoilers!).

I was originally going to say, “salmon, not caviar,” but I thought the blowjob thing would be funnier. I guess it wasn’t.

I have no idea how many words that was.