Wednesday, September 30, 2009 | by nathan

We’re That House

It’s important that you know that sitting in the crisper drawer in my refigerator right now is a small, fist-sized black lump that is either a moon rock, or a lime. I figure the chances of it being either one of those things are about fifty-fifty, you see, because I remember neither the last time I went to the moon, nor the last time I bought limes. But there it is, and I’m afraid to touch it. Trash day was yesterday; it’ll have to wait another week, because I can’t have my neighbors smelling rotting moon rock or diseased lime coming from my trash bins. Not when we managed to be the VERY FIRST HOUSE on the block to get our Halloween lights up. No! We are THAT HOUSE, that fucking house on your street that starts celebrating the second it stops being in poor taste, and maybe even a few days before. We’ve spent the last two weekends at Target and Pier 1 looking at holiday decorations, and hauling all our seasonal stuff out of the attic and garage. WE ARE THAT HOUSE, and that house doesn’t keep rotting limes around long after they’ve gone black, and they certainly don’t keep small pieces of astronomical bodies in their refrigerator, no sir.

Wait – it’s possible it’s a tomato.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009 | by nathan

Sheep Parking Available

When’s the last time you were inside Shepherd Mall in Oklahoma City? For all you Nokies, the answer is probably never; OKC denizens my age might remember coming here as children to buy Christmas gifts or school clothes. Now it’s basically an office park, housing several government offices including the Social Security Administration, a Farmers Insurance call center and a few little dinky restaurants. It’s really nothing special – one of Oklahoma’s first enclosed shopping malls now almost entirely devoid of retail. On the days that I walk to work I pass through it, and every time I can’t help but think what this place could be. If I had a whole chunk of money I was looking to invest I’d buy it up (it recently came up for sale after its California-based ownership company went bankrupt), and I’d transform its entire presence, changing it from eyesore-ish office park to something along the lines of Mockingbird Station in Dallas or Kansas City Live. Its location on NW 23rd between I-235 and I-44 and very near OCU would make it, I think, a prime location for retail and nightlife spots as well as higher-end loft apartments, a really great place for some urban renewal to happen. Until I get those hundreds of millions of necessary dollars, however, I’m just glad the place looks okay from the outside, and it looks as if some development is happening in the awful, torn-up parking lot. So at least something is happening.

Monday, September 28, 2009 | by nathan

Deep Fried

Well, the State Fair is in boxes for another 50 weeks. I’m a little bummed we only got to go once, but relieved that the rusted-down old Monorail wasn’t running, because that thing scares the bejeebus out of me, just like the rides do. Still, I got to do my usual minor culinary excursion around the Fairgrounds. Some people plan entire weeks’ worth of calories and Weight Watcher points around a trip to the Fair. They have the Indian Taco, Steak Sandwich, and everything on a stick they can possibly find. The grand finale, of course, is usually a funnel cake:

Those don’t excite me so much anymore. Perhaps it was my gateway drug – like marijuana or whippits, funnel cakes were only the first few skips down a Yellow Brick Road of fatty and fried goodness. And I do love them – I mean, you could tell me right now that a funnel cake is nothing more than the deep-fried and heavily-sugared intestine of a New York City sewer rat, and I’d probably still order one at the next country fair I visit. They’re delicious. But like with any gateway drug, eventually the high you get from them is not enough. Hence my graduation, in the middle of this decade, to the Fried Snicker:

I would say that the breakdown of human beings – or at least middle-American, fairgoing human beings – breaks down something like this: people who have tried a Fried Snicker, and people who, when you try to describe one to them, look at you like you’re describing sex with a rosebush. Here’s the deal – there’s not much to it, okay? It’s a Snicker. Deep-fried. On a stick. All melty chocolate and nougat and peanuts inside something like the shell of a corn dog, only sweeter. And liberally rolled in powdered sugar and topped with chocolate syrup. OKAY WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE HERE?

This same stand sells Fried Twinkies and Fried Oreos. This year Brian tried the Oreos, and let me sample a bite. It was good, but not Snicker good. Usually somewhere in the vicinity of this Mecca Of Fat and Happiness is the stand that also sells the miniature milk jugs full of root beer. This libation is especially helpful in eating a Fried Snicker, because not only does the extra sweetness ensure that your dentist’s kids will get to go to a great college (the root beer is made with a whole lot less carbonated water and a whole lot more syrup than the 2-liter jugs of A&W available at your local grocery store), but also because the Snicker will dry out your mouth and leave you crawling for any oasis. And we can’t have a repeat of the time we were caught drinking from the fountain, can we?

Like any good, responsible adult I started with dessert. But before you can try any of this sweet stuff, you’ve got to go get some Wisconsin Fried Cheese. We are healthy, well-maintained people, after all, adults who have done well, paid most of their bills on time, and built careers. Therefore we can have appetizer, then dessert, or vice versa if you’re kinky.

Wisconsin Fried Cheese happens here:

Brian really enjoys their fried vegetables (usually broccoli, mushrooms and cauliflower) with spicy German mustard. It’s delicious, but I can never resist the deep-fried (again) Jalapeno cheese with jalapeno ranch:

You’re going to need a beer with this. Go buy a beer from The Boob Lady and plop yourself down somewhere to enjoy.

Now, look. If you think you can handle all this fatty goodness and still ride rides, then by all means power to you and be prepared to get on the evening news for horking all over a crowd of teenaged bystanders. (Also, be prepared for me to take you to the fair next year and pay for EVERYTHING because I’d love to see a repeat of that). Some of the food defies even my explanation; for example, the Curly Fry Loaf:

…which I thought was the name of an early 20th-century Blues musician. A friend tells me that the Curly Fry Loaf is exactly what it sounds like – phonetically. It’s basically a bunch of curly fries so big and smashed together so tightly that it resembles something like a loaf of bread. Sounds like a lot of carbs. Me, I’m-a stick with my EXTREMELY HEALTHY fried cheese, fried Snicker and root beer.

But no rides. I’m fine if I only have to taste this *particular* meal once a year, to say nothing of tasting it once a night.

Why didn’t I do this post while the fair was still going on, you may ask. Here’s the thing – I have a YEAR, every year, to prepare my body to ingest this delicious-yet-slowly-killing-me-from-the-inside goodness. I figured it was only fair I give you just as much time. Just bookmark the post, and I’ll see you out with the other freaks in just 350 short days. In the meantime may I suggest you get a good colonic or two.

Monday, September 28, 2009 | by nathan

Av

I’ve been having a blast for the last few months experimenting with the aperture setting on my camera. The world seems to light up in the autumn – from the State Fair and Oktoberfest to festive house decorations that go up before Halloween and Christmas (there’s a KILLING to be made – an ABSOLUTE FORTUNE TO BE MADE - in creating and marketing house lights and decorations for Thanksgiving, I’m telling you a FORTUNE). It all makes for some really neat, if wonderfully abstract, photography. I really dig this one.

Monday, September 28, 2009 | by nathan

Weekly Reader – 28 September 2009

Atlas Obscura
I’m now going to check this site before I go ANYWHERE.
"The Atlas Obscura is a collaborative project with the goal of cataloging all of the singular, eccentric, bizarre, fantastical, and strange out-of-the-way places that get left out of traditional travel guidebooks and are ignored by the average tourist. If you’re looking for miniature cities, glass flowers, books bound in human skin, gigantic flaming holes in the ground, phallological museums, bone churches, balancing pagodas, or homes built entirely out of paper, the Atlas Obscura is where you’ll find them."

Post-Rapture Pet Care
"An atheist in New Hampshire is hiring out pet care services to Christians who believe that there will be a rapture and they will leave behind their pets. He won’t tell Mainstreet whether the business is very successful—he says his clients number "more than one and less than 175," but it’s certainly an interesting way to bring two traditionally opposing groups together under a common (profit-making) cause."

America’s Douchiest Colleges
How much did it please me that Duke was ranked #2 on this list and that the University of Texas was #24? A LOT IT PLEASED ME A LOT.

Masterpiece Comics
The classics of Western literature re-worked as comic books and comic strips. My favorite, of course, is seeing Mary Worth as Lady Macbeth.

Saturday, September 26, 2009 | by nathan

Rediscovering The Beatles

So we were in Target last weekend looking at Halloween decorations and buying deodorant – just a normal Saturday errand – when we strolled the music aisle and I saw the collection of newly-remastered and re-released Beatles albums sitting on an endcap.

I grew up listening mostly to country music and 80s Top 40 hits. My mom, when she was growing up in the 60s, loved the Beatles and has several of their albums on vinyl. When I was growing up she bought a cassette tape of Rubber Soul and we listened to it incessantly for awhile, but other than knowing the huge Beatles hits that everyone knows, I never really gave them a listen.

What I did know were Beatles covers, and for awhile if you asked me I would tell you that I like Beatles covers more than the Beatles themselves. For instance, I still love to listen to Ike and Tina Turner’s cover of "Come Together," or Dionne Farris’ version of "Blackbird."

But this year I’ve spent a lot more time around musicians than usual – our 20 or so hours at the Kerrville Music Festival is a standout moment of the summer. Our friends David and K.C. are rabid Beatles fans. There have been entire conversations about the Beatles. Rock Band, which is a part of the whole "Guitar Hero" genre of video games I can’t stand (why not just learn to play the actual guitar? I can’t help but think), released a Beatles edition. The Fab Four were EVERYWHERE. And I felt as if I knew nothing of their work.

So, standing there in Target, I conceived of a plan. "I’m going to buy one of these CDs a week and really give them a hard listen," I told Brian.

So I bought "Please Please Me" last weekend, took it home and ripped it into Apple Lossless, because my audiophile husband and our shared background in theatrical sound and live music have turned me into a little, tiny bit of a sound snob. And we laid on the floor of our den and listened to it on the stereo.

God, it’s great, huh? I knew that all along; I knew the Beatles were transformative. But I also know that Nirvana was transformative, in their way, and I find their music insufferable (ooohhhh, I’m going to get in TROUBLE for that).

The problem with rediscovering the Beatles at age 30, and over 40 years after the release of their original studio albums, is that I have the filter of those intervening decades of popular music, and all my experiences of listening to hundreds of bands who wished they were the Beatles, who were inspired by and who, on occasion, straight-up ripped off this sound.

Still, despite that filter, which is sometimes like listening through a fog, these albums captivate me. I’m sitting here giving "With The Beatles" its first spin of the week (the first of MANY) and thinking, "Even 40 years later it sounds like nothing else. No one ever did this; no one ever will." 

I’ll write more about the Beatles collection as I work my way through it, but sitting here listening to Album #2 in the project, coming up on 50 years after its initial release, all I can think is how these two albums sound at once so unmistakably, quintessentially 1960s and at once fascinating, almost current, like nothing I’ve really heard before. This will be an interesting few months as I work my way through these records. I’m stoked to be doing it.

Thursday, September 24, 2009 | by nathan

Coulrophobia

If you’re a child of the 80s like me, it’s entirely possible that you are deeply, deeply afraid of clowns. Do you want to know why? Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. Seriously. Behold the scene that turned me, and a generation of kids, into gigantic coulrophobics:

By the way, there is no mistaking that that movie was Tim Burton’s directorial debut, huh?

Thursday, September 24, 2009 | by nathan

Lil’ Pardner Kiddie Kingdom

This might be my favorite photo that I’ve ever taken at the fair. I’m crazy about it. Of course, I had to get it on the fly, really, really quickly, because seriously – a couple of gay guys wandering around the kiddie part of the fair with a digital camera attached to a giant zoom lens? Let’s just say it’s a short road from there to prison rape. And anyway, my luck Sally Kern or somebody would be there and see me taking pictures of The Children (as if I would), and she’d go into some kind of moron fantasia. And when you’re that full of fried Snickers, fried Wisconsin cheese and root beer, well, running ain’t an option.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 | by nathan

Now Embarrassing Myself INTERNATIONALLY

I wrote about this page once before; it’s a page from the journal I kept while I was in the tenth grade, and DEAR LORD, every time I read it it makes me physically curl up into a ball. Just looking at the dazzling array of stamped markers alongside the cows named "Madonna" and "Moesha," all while wondering whether or not I could probably be a homosexual, but probably not, and anyway, it’ll all sort itself out within a few days – well, it all kinda speaks for itself as to the kind of unself-conscious teenager I was, but I think it bears repeating that I had exactly NO ONE in my high school fooled, with the exception of myself.

So I read this entry at last year’s Tulsa "Cringe" reading, arranged by the amazing Sarah Brown, who turned the series, which she started at a bar in Brooklyn in 2005, into a book that was released last year. I fumbled around forever for something to submit to the book, ignoring this particular journal because I honest to God thought there wasn’t anything in it except boring lists of what I’d done that day. Seriously – I thought this was the boring one of my journals, and I skipped it entirely.

Then the book came out, and I gave it another read. I came across this entry and knew I had to take it to Tulsa for the reading.

Not to toot my own horn here, but it killed.

So then Sarah got a deal to do a version of the Cringe book for the U.K., and once again submissions were open. This time, I was ready, and wouldn’tcha know? I’m in the book not once, but twice. If you’re a UK dweller, or you’re a USian who’s willing to pay a little extra for postage, you absolutely should order a copy.

Okay, so here’s the thing. I admit it’s hugely embarrassing to put my teenage self out there like this, but I like to think he’d think it was fucking cool that 29-year-old him got in a book in the U.K. At any rate, I think it’s cool and he has no say in the matter. And frankly, this is what he gets for being such a little weirdo. As it is, I’m pretty proud of myself for this. As Sarah is fond of saying about the Cringe series, it’s better than therapy.

So the book is profiled in today’s edition of the Times; the article is available at the Times website. My friend Alma is sending me paper copies, which is super sweet of her.

The whole thing is pretty surreal, but very cool. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it to the book launch in London, but I’ll be there in spirit.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 | by nathan

Starship 2000

Now, look. I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, growing up in the 80s, I sorta thought that perhaps by 2009 that public transportation would be a little bit more like a ride at the Fair, all spinning lights and a vague feeling of unpleasantness, but more or less instantaneous and OMG SO AWESOME. I thought for sure we’d have a moon base by now. I thought that cities really would be built on rock and roll, underlying architectural problems notwithstanding. Things have not turned out this way, and I, for one, am disappointed. And I’m not alone.

At any rate, this photo was a lot of fun to take – I leaned on Brian and set the shutter speed to about 6/10ths of a second. I’m really happy with the way it came out; it’s actually the basis for next month’s site banner.