Mark Weaver: Out Of This World! (groan)

I have to agree with Kanye on this one: Mark Weaver is a badass. I was lucky enough to work with Mark for a while when he was at Metaleap (the design team that makes Paste look so damn nice) and my brain is pretty much blown to bits daily by the stuff he's been working on lately. His General Lynx print will be one of the first things I hang up in my new apartment, and I'm probably not strong enough to resist the pull of the Dodo much longer, either. I totally make an exception to my trying-to-not-spend-money-ever thing for art by super-talented former co-workers. Maybe you should, too—or at least hie thee to Flickr.

my heart just whines

This song is totally my jam to the greatest extent that a song by a Scottish twee pop band can be anyone's jam. Love it.

animal cruelty

This is a case full of butterflies that my great-great aunt's husband either collected or traded other butterflies for, which my mom kinda-inherited after my great-great aunt (her great aunt) died a few years ago. My great-great aunt was hilarious and kind of a badass—I never met her husband but I imagine he was, too. But damn them both, because I had never been tempted to steal from my parents until this thing came into our home.

For a quite while it just sat around in a spare room, sitting on the floor propped up against the wall, until right around when I was moving into my current apartment, at which time I tried to finagle it into my possession, but my mom (suddenly) (conveniently) had other plans for it. Namely, hanging it up on the one wall of the screened porch my parents added to the house around that time. (My dad got her those plates to match at one of those great Ace Hardware stores that sells random great homeware stuff in addition to cement planters, rat poison, etc. The best kind.) I tried to convince her that it was a HORRIBLE IDEA, that the WIND WOULD BLOW IT OFF THE WALL, that it would get DAMP and MOLD and be RUINED—much unlike the life it would live in my apartment, all stable and dry and, well, in my apartment. She said nah, it'd be fine. And it has been—so far. I still seriously yearn for it, but I'm biding my time.

One day, my pretties. One day.

WARNING—SHOOTS INCOHERENT SPORTS ANALOGIES.

On Saturday night, at a cookout at the house of some of my parents' friends, the menfolk shot off fireworks and the women and children watched from lawn chairs set out at a safe distance. (This gender divide strikes me as both odd and totally logical and also completely satisfactory, because I have no desire to ever have the responsibility of lighting explosive shit on fire hoisted upon me, and I am content that my womanliness will forever preclude as much from happening.) Most of what they shot off had great names: The Tower of Terror, Midnight Delight. One was called either "Twitter Glitter" or "Twitter Slitter," we weren't sure. But the best was a pair my dad bought that were named after the first and third Presidents of the United States. Yes, one was called George Washington, the other Thomas Jefferson, and each sported the official portrait of the respective President against a field of magnificently exploding, 20th-century fireworks. And right below those majestic torsos was the cautionary label: WARNING—SHOOTS FLAMING BALLS. Major points for historical accuracy.

There was one we didn't know the name of, though. It was incredibly shrill and long-winded, and just blasted out these golden, high-pitched sparks one after another. My ears have never felt so close to bleeding in all my life. Every time we thought it was done, it would throw out a few more, leaving us cowering and cringing and waiting for the silence to finally hold. It was officially the worst firework I have ever experienced. "What is this?" someone asked. We'd already shot of Washington and Jefferson, so they couldn't take the blame, so we dubbed it The Sarah Palin.

The night before, on Friday, I was in the car riding with my parents and sister on the way to eat dinner downtown when we had this totally old-school news-media moment. All Things Considered was on the radio and when the words "Sarah Palin resigns" floated through the car I said, "Wait, wait, shh!" and we all got quiet and my dad turned up the volume and we listened to the report. It was totally silent in the car except for me basically squealing and wheezing under my breath with befuddled glee. Not seeing her give the address, just hearing it, was bizarre but ideal—it was pure, unadorned crazy.

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, some bizarre allegation or charge coming out against her in the coming days—which I'm sure I'll hear about online, like old times—because I honestly cannot believe that she thinks this is the best way to further her political career. Moreover, I honestly don't want to believe that anyone would still have her as a politician, a representative for any party or cause, after the sublime nuttiness of the year we've known her. Still, this Huffington Post piece gave me chills because I'm not sure what I fear more—that Sarah Palin knows exactly what she's doing, or that she has absolutely no clue but is going to prattle and klutz her way into power (maybe immense power) despite everything.

My one consolation last fall was that it meant Tina Fey was back on Saturday Night Live for a little bit. Maybe next time we'll get official fireworks. If we're lucky.

made for you & me

A bit early for July 4th celebrations, but here's one of the best songs about America, Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," performed by the folks assembled for the Dark Was the Night tribute in New York a few months back (which totally ranks just under The Last Waltz in terms of concerts I deeply, intensely, painfully regret not being present for myself, except I was actually alive for this one, which almost makes it worse). I would totally vote for Sharon Jones if she ran for President. Not that I'm not still cool with Obama, y'all. Happy Birthday, America, and congrats on not being a total piece of crap this year! I'm heading up to Tennessee for a few days to celebrate, and hopefully the weekend will involve recreating Leon's cucumber cooler with my Mom and sister, and Joe's family and a boat, and possibly some blown-up shit.

and yes, I suppose this does mean that I haven't seen two of the greatest movies of all time

I'm just ripe with confessions of cinematic ignorance today, I know, but Karl Malden died this afternoon and I was surprised to learn he had a career beyond Pollyanna. He was in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront and so many other movies, but I've only ever known him as Reverend Ford in the second-favorite Hayley Mills film of my childhood-slash-life (The Parent Trap being number one, obviously-- do you want to fight me on this?).

As Reverend Ford, Malden struck terror into my child-self, pure sweaty Protestant terror unlike anything I ever experienced in the mild Episcopal churches of my youth. But I watched the movie again recently (thanks, Kristen, for putting up with that) and was so struck by the transformation of his character. It was sparked by the unflaggingly cheery Pollyanna herself, of course, as are the film's legion of other sugary-sweet grump-conversions, but his is just so tortured and so radical. It's one thing to nudge a crochety old woman into donating quilts for the town bazaar. It's another to shake the core of the local brimstone monger so severely that he pledges to preach the gospel of gladness well into the unforseeable future. It's Disney at it's finest, of course-- and it takes place over the course of two scenes, which you can see below-- but Malden carries it off with a palpable anguish that makes me certain he was a real treasure in films not funded by the mouse.

He was also married to the same lady for 70 years. That's pretty great, too.

and I'm pretty sure her neck is fine, actually

Halfway through Ariel Levy's profile of Nora Ephron in this week's New Yorker, my Nora Ephron knowledge has already expanded by approximately 800%. Until last night, I just knew her as some woman who felt bad about her neck, and then I wasn't even sure about the specifics. Somehow I'd managed to miss the fact that she's done a lot of neat and really kind of important stuff for women in the entertainment industry over her career (like, being successful? Groundbreaking!), including directing When Harry Met Sally and You've Got Mail, which I always figured just kind of came out of nowhere, like Meg Ryan's new face.

I'm definitely in the minority in that I couldn't care less about either of those movies, and also in that I really enjoyed Michael. Levy calls that one "tough to get through" but I do not agree, or at least I didn't that one afternoon in that it was on TBS when I was in 7th grade, despite the presence of Andie McDowell, whom I've pretty much always categorically detested. It's entirely possible that I don't care about most of the movies Ephron has directed (except Julie & Julia, her new one, looks kind of great) but I still feel grateful that she exists.

She also loves food. The full piece isn't online yet, and I'm not even done with it, but the this is my favorite bit so far. It's pretty much how I feel when faced with a giant spread of free food, too. I really appreciate that sort of enthusiastic intentionality about eating.

The theme of the evening was Women in Food, and the dominant color was pink.

"Isn't this great?" Ephron asked as she made her way to a tasting table where tiny cups of a broth made from coral were being distributed, along with little sea-urchin sandwiches. "I'm going to eat a lot."

That just seems like the best way to approach life, right? I can't always manage it, but it's nearly always my goal.