Also, you can keep up with our thrilling adventures in the world of knitwear design at our knitting blog, Yarneteria.
Hurts — Wonderful Life (via Popbitch, naturally)
Oh my goodness! One really can’t complain about nostalgia-mongering synth-laden dance pop when it’s this utterly fantastic. From Manchester, of course. And determined to represent at Eurovision 2010. OK!
xoxo, c. hotpoint
—JONATHAN AMES (via youmightfindyourself:tobia / NYTimes)
Let’s talk about this quote for a moment, shall we? First of all, this piece is from 2002. 2002! This attitude was a little more forgiveable then; we were all still blinky and disoriented after 9/11.
But! It’s almost 2010. When Ames wrote this article, he was 38. Now that would make him well into his mid-40’s now. And he’s gained a modicum of success in the intervening years, leading up to the new HBO show “Bored to Death,” starring Jason Schwartzmann as a stand-in for Ames himself, it seems — a sensitive, tiresome child-man who bumbles through life with no real purpose other than knowing that he has no purpose. Ames, now that he’s firmly staring down middle age, is still condoning enabling the man-child behavior of his generation, and the one after.
I’m paraphrasing Pinkie here (she alerted me to the post I’ve reblogged via a crabby email), but if anyone’s wondering why I’m (or she) is still single — this is it. So many of the men I know are the walking embodiment of Ames’ story — and it just seems to be getting more and more common the older I get.
I want to be an adult, why doesn’t anyone else? Or do they, and they’re just afraid to? Or don’t know how? Or can’t break away from the financial support of their parents? Or can’t figure out what they’re “supposed” to do because they can’t do what their parents did? (Namely, get married in their early 20’s, get a career track job, buy a house in the suburbs and have a 2.5 children and a dog?)
Whatever the reason, it’s a scary prospect, growing up with no viable template to follow. Yes, we all have no savings — yes, still. That’s one of the things from Ames’ 2002 piece that hasn’t changed. Because instead of having to deal with a catastrophic war, or major social upheaval — the only outstanding feature of our lifetimes is a chain of economic disasters. Just when you feel you’ve finally got your feet under you, the rug is pulled out — and there goes your 401k, your minscule nest egg, your hopes for a secure future.
I can’t even begin to think how long it’s going to take many of us to recover from this latest round of monetary bullshit. How many people do you know who took the plunge and tried to do what they were “supposed to” — and bought a house they couldn’t afford and are now dealing with or facing down an adjustable-rate mortgage that is crushing (or will crush) them financially? Or who can’t even begin to pay back all the credit card debt they accrued in the early/mid aughts, thanks to ever-increasing interest rates that won’t be helped by the too-little-too-late Credit Card Act?
Its easy to see why people our age stay locked in a state of perpetual childhood. But we don’t have to settle for that life. We can do better.
I don’t care if it WAS named one of the most “excellent free fonts for professional designers” by some semi-influential online design ‘zine two years ago, the loathsome Scriptina still makes me think of bad, bad, icky, bad LiveJournal fangirl user icons ca. 2005, and so if you use it as the logotype for your high-end online boutique, I will PROBABLY NOT SHOP THERE.
Just sayin’.
xoxo, c. hotpoint, who has see this too many times recently to keep quiet any longer.
Cooking with Christopher Walken! Remind me sometime to tell you about how I’m secretly writing a screenplay in my head that’s specifically for Mr. Walken.
xoxo, c. hotpoint — who is very, very busy at work these days.
Lydia Hearst photographed by Miles Aldredge for the 2010 Lavazza coffee calendar. All the photos in this year’s calendar represent classic Italian songs — Lydia is posed here as “Baciami Piccina.” (via Telegraph)
xoxo, c. hotpoint, who apologizes for being so incognita lately, but she finally got A JOB. Yay!
Several friends have directed me to Alex Ross’ new blog over at The New Yorker site. And now I’m letting you know in case you’ve missed it too. According to Ross, this new blog (he’s keeping his old site intact as an archive)
will consist of short commentaries, addenda to New Yorker pieces, audio excerpts from recommended new CDs, links to novelties and oddities around the Internet, and the like.
There’s only a few posts, currently — looking forward to more.
xoxo, c. hotpoint, who is lazily enjoying her last day of unemployment
If someone—Jamie Oliver, for example—devised an appealing mass-market food product that was better than Taco Bell on the taste/price/convenience dimension but also healthier, well that would be an excellent thing for the world. And maybe someone could do it … Jamie Oliver could do it. Mark Bittman could do it. Michael Pollan could do it. And it would be more likely to succeed than an endless procession of NYT Magazine articles hectoring people about how they should cook more.
Matthew Yglesias, What The World Needs From Its Celebrity Chefs « The Internet Food Association
OH GROW UP and cook your own food already. I really have no other response to this other than: if you’re interested in eating good food, it’s your responsibility, as a member of the human race, to select and prepare that food yourself. It is not the responsibility of the celebrity chef, who, I might add, is already down with the select-and-prepare it yourself philosophy. That’s why they write cookbooks. And have cooking shows.
The celebrity chefs of the world aren’t “hectoring” you. They’re reinforcing the knowledge that the ability to cook food for ourselves is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. I’m not saying that you should never eat out. I’m not saying that you need to prepare every meal at home. But you should be more interested in where your food comes from, and how it’s prepared. And you shouldn’t expect other people — from the corporate chef at Taco Bell to the prepared foods staff at Whole Foods to the thousands and thousands of chefs championing regional cuisine made with local ingredients — to do all the heavy lifting for you.
Take some agency in your life. Make some decisions about what you put in your body. Educate yourself about the way that food production works in America. Don’t have food guilt. Don’t have arbitrary rules surrounding what you can and can’t eat. And for goodness’ sake, cook some of that food yourself.
xoxo, c. hotpoint
Have you seen this site? I’m cleaning out my tabs in the six Firefox windows I currently have open. Anyway, this site is offers a thorough analysis and history of EVERY SINGLE DAVID BOWIE SONG. I’m pretty much a Berlin-and-after Bowie fan (no, I don’t like the Ziggy Stardust period, thank you very much!), so it’s been illuminating to read about the songs I don’t know well.
xoxo, c. hotpoint
Piano Magic — Ovations (via Darla Records)
It’s pretty sad when the sheer volume of useless noise in the new music press is so deafening that I very nearly missed the release of a new Piano Magic record.
It’s gorgeous, naturally. Especially the contributions from Brendan Perry and Peter Ulrich of Dead Can Dance.
One can only hope that the recent Coldwave resurgence will finally give the criminally underrated Piano Magic their due. Have a listen; it’s easily one of the best albums I’ve heard this year: lush, sad and lovely.
xoxo, c. hotpoint
Priscilla Renea — Dollhouse
Produced by Benny Blanco, naturally. Which is why it sounds familiar-ish. But! 19-year-old Priscilla Renea, who, according to her press materials, got her start via viral videos on ye olde internet (of course!), writes her own songs and plays the guitar rather charmingly.
xoxo, c. hotpoint, who is totally obsessed with this song today
