Some girls are bigger than others

This is the picture promoting Rachel Ray's new show. Saw it on the subway. Mwah-hahahaha. It makes no sense, but it is hilarious.

Though "Ring the Alarm" is kind of just the girl version of "99 Problems," this video is pretty balls out. And just gets better and better. She totally practiced the twitchy eye moves in front of the mirror. Awesome.

Saw an add for Justin Timberlake's new album that was inexplicably voiced by someone doing a dead-on impersonation of Chris Rock impersonating a white guy. Say "Future Sexy/Love Sounds" like that. Holy shit that's not cool.

Wet

Rainy rainy rain has rendered my flip-flops smelly. I should stop wearing them. The rain has also made them gritty with swirling, smushed, bacteria infested, city dirt. But I'm not ready to give in to socks, and autumn, just yet. Though the fall is looming pretty unstoppably today. I had to attend an orientation this morning, thankfully, not for myself. Orientations are like alligators-- you get stressed out just being near one. All the students skitter around like rabbits, hacking out the same introduction over and over, like parrots. Orientation, apparently, is a menagerie. Always better to visit the zoo than be the zoo.
Willa Ford is going to be on the next Dancing With The Stars. This really bums me out. I worry, clearly irrationally, that if she ever becomes deeply famous, people will start saying to me, after I've introduced myself, "Like Willa Ford?" And I'll be compelled, by the talk center in my brain that Can Not Be Stopped, to say, "Her real name is Amanda Willet." Just to convey that my name has not truly been degraded by being shared with some trashy, hussy who used to date a Backstreet Boy.

Three shots in the same direction

Mash-up, in which I fail to create a coherent thought blanket on the subject of aesthetic point of view using the following materials, Aaron Sorkin, Nicole Krauss, Jonathan Safran Foer, Project Runway, and Diane “I’ve worn some” Von “pants in my day” Furstenberg.

1) Defending Uli
I was talking to some friends about Project Runway and verbalized my love for Uli. One of my friends, with a “bitch, please” glint in her eye, crushed it, saying, Uli always does the same thing, patterns and deep V-necks, that shit is tired. (Excluding the recycling dress, the charge is true). This complaint reminded me of a recent recap on TwoP. Jeffrey complained that Laura was making yet another high-wasted dress, and the recapper came to her defense, snarking, “It’s called a point of view Jeffrey.”
Yeah. What he said. Too bad Laura’s point of view is boring (damn you Jeffrey. Stop shaving your eyebrows). All her clothes are clean and well put together, but she doesn’t play with colors, she doesn’t play with silhouettes. Laura doesn’t need to put together a runway show for you to know what it will look like. I’d be happy to have one of her outfits in my closet—always need something for a job interview—but week after week she doesn’t do anything surprising.
Whereas with Uli… Firstly, the patterns do make a difference. They make her clothes fun to look at. More importantly, starting from a certain set position, a cinched waist, an open neck, she changes the silhouette up pretty significantly, as this last challenge (dressing moms) demonstrated. Her clothes are versatile—she can put it on a heavy old lady, slap some long sleeves on it, and it looks dope. There’s nothing wrong with doing something that’s awesome really, really well. People have made careers off of wrap dresses for fuck’s sake. Bang that drum so long as it sounds good.

2) The relative merits of The History of Love and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, also inspired by friendly conversation.
Some people think History of Love is an amazing, amazing, beautifully written, thought provoking, tadah! etcetera etcetera book and I immediately cop to the fact that I am not one of those people. I liked it. It did not rock my world. I will also admit that, though there’s all kind of shit wrong with Extremely Loud—that kid is so damn cloying—it still made me cry buckets. History of Love may be the “better written” of the two, but in a celebrity death match between them, Extremely Loud wins because it has way more imagination.
Proof:
1) Extremely Loud is stylistically similar to it’s older brother Everything is Illuminated. They share a sense of humor, multiple narratives, and, above all, an animating energy. They aren’t the same book, but you can tell the same dude wrote them.
2) Nicole Krauss’ first book, Man Walks Into A Room, shares few if any similarities to The History of Love. Man Walks into a Room is an MFA book—there’s a plot, but it’s all about subtext, burbling depression, symbols, and how hard it is to know yourself and anything else. The same author may have written these two books, but there’s no way to tell.
3) Everything is Illuminated and The History of Love are very similar— in terms of structure and plot, multiple narratives, children hunting for parents, old people and a certain chaotic, tumbling, dense energy. (And if you keep insisting that they’re really not similar, just stop it. You’re being stubborn).
Therefore: We have four books, one of which is not like the others. Based only on their first novels, you’d be more likely to think JSF wrote The History of Love than Krauss did. History of Love may be better as a one off than any of the other books, but it has undoubtedly been influenced by JSF. It’s in his orbit. Extremely Loud has not noticeably been influenced by Krauss. JSF’s imagination dominates—her book may be better, but his energy and ideas are the source material. That takes something away from The History of Love, for me at least.
Conclusion: Sometimes doing different shizz all the time makes it seem like you don’t know your own damn mind. When you get it right, is it just because someone else got through to you? (Angela, Vincent I’m talking to you too).

3) What’s that you’re saying? The only difference between working at The White House and Saturday Night Live is that if you have a drug problem the punishment is more severe at SNL?
I really loved The West Wing. I really enjoyed making fun of its dialogue.
(Extra: Is there a men’s room around here?
CJ: A what?
Extra: A men’s room?
CJ: A room for men?
Extra: Yes?
CJ: No. We don’t have any men around here. Not today anyway.
Extra: Oh. I though I saw one in the hallway.
CJ: A man?
Extra: No, a men’s room.
Pause
CJ: Around the corner.
Extra: Is a man?
CJ: No, a men’s room.
Extra walks to the left
CJ: The other corner.)
Therefore, I’m fairly certain I’ll enjoy Studio 60. It’s pretty much the same thing, same actors, same banter, even a similar self-righteous liberal morality. Christians get it harder in Studio 60 than they did The West Wing—Jeb was devout after all. But putting my enjoyment aside for just a minute… Yes, the people who work at SNL and the people who work at the White House (all jokes about this administration aside) are probably all very, very smart. But do they really have exactly the same style? Same delivery? Same gravitas? Is there no difference, in real life, between a deputy chief of staff and the head writer on a sketch comedy show? Maybe there’s nothing fundamentally different about wanting to be famous and wanting to have access to nuclear launch codes. Or maybe Aaron Sorkin is just asking for more credit than he’s due.