Author Archive

JILLIAN LOVEJOY LOWERY I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I’m not a naturally pretty girl.

MOLLY SCHOEMANN: Makeup has long been a mystery to me. How can some women end up wearing it every day, and others don’t know what most of it is? Falling into the latter category, I am both jealous and suspicious of women who wear make up all the time and who are good at applying it. How did they learn? Why do they do it? Should I be doing it? Should they stop?

ZOË RICE: For a while, back in 2004-2007, I was one of the internet’s go-to people for cosmetics and skin care reviews. I called myself “Real Girl,” because like you (perhaps) I was no expert, just a gal who happened to research product ingredients, experiment with application processes, and report back on every single product and article of makeup I tested.

MOLLY SCHOEMANN: If you took the “Oooh Oooh” from California Gurls and played it right after the “Ooh Ooh Ooh” from Tik Tok, and the “Ooh OOh OOh ooh” from Miley Cyrus’ Party in the USA….I think it’s almost the same noise. I would love it if someone put them all together, for the sake of furthering my cynicism and bitterness.

JESSICA BADER: I believe all three songs are from the same producer.

AKIE BERMISS: Privacy is not dead! Not by any means — to say so is to cry fire in a crowded theater. You see, the trouble is privacy COULD be dead at any moment. It takes only a few ideal conditions to be met and few of the wrong kinds of people to be at the helm when they do and suddenly: there’s no such thing as privacy. These days its not that privacy is dead, not even that its really become so much of a privilege either (for those who would argue that the wealthy and powerful are the only ones who can afford to maintain privacy) — but rather its become a responsibility. And for us here in America, that’s a new thing.

MOLLY SCHOEMANN: May I request that the BBC screen their news articles, so that I don’t have to read a headline like this:

“The mating habits of deep-sea squid have been revealed for the first time, after the discovery of a male squid with a huge elongated and erect penis.”

…before 9am?

Please, BBC. Please, no.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8792000/8792008.stm

AKIE BERMISS: they use their huge penis to shoot out packages of sperm

well that’s pretty much my morning.

AKIE BERMISS: I’m a first-time pet-owner. I’ve had my two cats for just about 4 years now and I can not conceive of a situation in which I would give them up — for anything. I mean it would have to be a very grave situation one where either I can’t take care of them any longer or they need to go somewhere else for health or quality-of-life issues. I didn’t ever have pets growing up. I think my sister had a pet for a while, but otherwise there were no animals in the house. I had three siblings so we didn’t really need more bodies running around the house. In adulthood, though, I decided it was a good idea to have a pet (or two) and to make a life with them. And that’s what it is: a (pet’s) lifetime of commitment.

MOLLY SCHOEMANN: While I have loved dogs since I could focus my eyes, I grew up in an apartment, so I had goldfish. It was not until several years ago when I began dating a dog owner that I became regularly exposed to an actual dog. I realize now that I was not technically a real ‘dog person’ before that point, because while I loved dogs, I had little idea of what having a dog actually entailed.

ZOË RICE For thirteen years now, I have been a fiercely devoted pet owner. I love my current one, Dash, with absolute devotion. He knows it; I make sure of that. But life is not a set of absolutes. Contexts change, situations change, and whom one spends one’s life with changes. And in rare cases, I can imagine how even a beloved pet might have to find a new home.

EMILY SAIDEL: For partnerships to survive does there need to be a shared food culture? Molly and Akie have graciously shared their own experiences with food and love.

MOLLY SCHOEMANN: I definitely think that being in sync with food experiences is very helpful in a relationship. Food bonds you together. Also, in a serious relationship, you both end up spending a good deal of time preparing or ordering and eating food together.

AKIE BERMISS: I am funny eater. I don’t like the things that people say are good… and I love certain dishes that are considered pedestrian. To know me, is to know a man who loves his hamburgers and his bacon and his peanut butter (not all at once, of course). I hate cheese, seafood, and dairy products (I’ve still got friend who won’t cook for me because I don’t like butter). And when I am dating someone, I can be a real pain in the ass. Still, there is always give and take, I think. And that’s probably the healthiest ingredient to any relationship.

MOLLY SCHOEMANN: So, seriously, I don’t understand why Rolling Stone deleted my comment on their fatuous blurb about Katy Perry’s hit single ‘California Gurls’.

MOLLY SCHOEMANN: Guys, there is an Elevator World magazine. http://www.elevator-world.com/

They call it the ‘building transportation industry’.

DAVE TOMAR: I’m not sure what it is about boyhood and fire. Perhaps it’s the promethean impulse toward creation. Perhaps it’s the sentiment of occasion and celebration first inspired by a birthday candle, a fireworks display or a citronella torch on Labor Day. Perhaps it’s the joy of holding a force of such sheer, unimaginable destruction in the palm of one’s hands. For me, it was that very special episode of Webster when he burnt his parents’ house down while playing with safety matches.

AKIE BERMISS: My trouble with fire is that I am practically always playing with it. Cigars — I love ‘em. I smoke ‘em. And there is no better solace after a long night’s gigging that drinking some stale gas-station coffee and smoking my cigar on the drives back to Brooklyn. Some of the drives, you see, are pretty late and pretty long and its rare that there’s anyone to talk to. I used to hook up my blue-tooth and just call anyone I thought might be awake and get them talking, but these days its not as cute as it used to be. People hang up. So its just me. And the road and the darkness. Usually, I light up and I turn on NPR (if I can get it) and I hit the road. But see the thing about cigars is: they’re big. A cigarette is easy to light. You almost don’t need a flame as a really strong spark will probably do the trick. Cigars, on the other hand, they take some real fire to get started. Really its just a barely-controlled micro-blaze.

And its alarming close to one’s mouth.

MATTHEW DAVID BROZIK: Does anyone else find comments on Web posts to be, without exception, much more interesting to read than the posts themselves?

HOWARD MEGDAL: No. Almost always, comments remind me why I try not to leave the house.