I shall pet you now

The Perfect Christmas

Christmas might be all about the big, family-focused celebration on the 25th, but if you slack off during the crucial Christmas Spirit Prep Phase you might as well not even show up at Mom's doorstep on Christmas Eve.

I will be taking the following steps in the coming weeks to guarantee that 2008 is remembered as "The Year Josh had the Perfect Christmas."

1. Wear Holiday Flannel - as Vince Vaughan movies will attest, any asshole can wear a Santa hat; true Christmas fashion is a more subtle thing. I will be wearing my new green and red flannel for a few hours most (if not every) day between now and December 25th to establish a solid power base of Christmas Spirit. Its festive grid of overlapping green and red squares will be spreading subliminal seasonal cheer to store clerks, bank tellers, and bartenders all over the Seacoast Region.

2. Pound Christmas Tree Cakes - Christmas Tree Cakes are the most disgusting, over-sugared, confectionery poison in the Little Debbie line-up of snack cakes. No matter how pure your Christmas Spirit, it is impossible to eat an entire cake without feeling just a little ill. Nevertheless, I will manfully commit to eating at least one entire box of these snack-sized delights before Christmas Eve.

3. Get Serious About Your Soundtrack - I've chosen A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector as this year's Official Christmas Soundtrack - all your Christmas favorites belted in full Wall of Sound, high-octave, Girl Group force. I'm giving this the edge over other Christmas albums based on the inclusion of The Greatest Christmas Song Ever, Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)."



4. Pound Holiday Brews - I can't really stomach eggnog (at least in concept; I've never actually tried it) and so will be turning to seasonal beers to get my Christmas buzz going. This year's chosen brew: Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale.

5. Start but Don't Stop at Home - As the Christmas Spirit I generate at home begins to snowball and gain momentum, I plan to let it avalanche into my 9-5 life. Maybe a Christmas tie? Maybe a miniature Christmas tree in the cubicle? Definitely candy canes in all my pockets.



If all goes according to plan, one day I will leave my desk, pluck a candy cane from my tree, drive home with the Ronettes belting out "Sleigh Ride" (traffic be damned, I'll listen to it twice), return home, don my Holiday Flannel, and kick back with a Christmas Tree Cake and a Celebration Ale and watch Home Alone. And in that perfect moment when the shards of broken ornaments pierce Marv's bare feet and my lips taste of candy cane/beer/pastry, I will look down to brush the green and red sugar crystals from my green and red checked chest, and The Perfect Christmas will be mine.

Catching up on the debates

I read an article in the NY Times this morning, which was comparing the Obama campaign to the (Bill) Clinton campaign. There was criticism on the way Obama held back in the town hall forum, and didn't reach out to the people like Clinton did in the 1992 debates. As I was only 7 or so at the time of the Clinton vs. Bush vs. Perot debates, I had to look into Clinton's ability to give a "psychic hug" to a struggling American people:



While I was youtubing this, of course, I stumbled across these debate gems:

Damien Hirst has created a pickled unicorn

First off, I kind of wish I could afford to buy something at this auction, specifically the unicorn.
Secondly, I definitely recommend seeing Hirst's preserved tiger shark (titled "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living")the next time you're in the MET.

Blondie has kickin' beats

Truth.

If Blondie is a New Wave band then Blondie has the kickinest New Wave beats.

If Clem Burke is Blondie's drummer then Clem Burke is the kickinest New Wave drummer.


If Blondie isn't a New Wave band then Clem Burke is still the kickinest drummer in whatever kind of band Blondie is.

See "Dreaming" for support:



Clem Burke swings from the shoulder.

Cat Fight

Two fat 'n spoiled cats locked in an epic battle for the LazyBoy.

Zoo Babies

Occasionally, boston.com updates their photo gallery of zoo babies; it always makes me smile.

Are you afraid of the dark?

Recently, I watched the History Channel's "The Unexplained: Hauntings," an A&E program that interviews three families who have lived in purportedly haunted houses as well as interviews with ghost experts and ghost skeptics. For me, it was the second family that reported the most fascinating haunted house tale. They claimed they saw a lit cigarrette hover by them in the air one night while they were eating dinner. They also had a psychic channel the angry ghost during a seyonce and the ghost, in a very threatening voice growled, "This is my property. Get out," as well as saying his name and what year he bought the property (all, the family found out via town records, were true). However, the icing on the cake was when the family would find crosses and the words "GO DEAD" scribbled on the interior walls of the house and on random scraps of paper. Absolutely horrifying. I think the one thing that the family didn't experience was having the piano played in an illogical manner in the dead of night. (This idea of a piano playing by ghost hands is one of the top most frightening things I can think of.) If they had a piano, though, I wouldn't have put it past this ghost to have gone wild with it.

My mom is always asking why I watch such shows when they scare me so much. My answer is always, I don't know. I have just always been fascinated by the magical and the surreal. I clearly remember stumbling upon "unicorn" hoofprints in the dust of the path that wound through a blueberry thicket in the back of my childhood log home. (Of course, I now know they were most likely deer hoofprints, but just maybe they were the genuine article?...) This powerful imagination of mine coupled with the fact that I was exposed to horror movies at a very young age (i.e. 3 years old) has instilled a deep, unshakeable, and oftentimes very illogical belief in the supernatural and all of its ghosts, hauntings, Sasquatch, little Nessie, etc. So of course, I'm easy to convince if you say you've seen a ghost.

But I really think I've seen a ghost. Or rather, I've seen strange things that I can't explain.

In 1998, when my family moved into our sprawling yellow farmhouse built in 1787, we all thought it was a creepy place. We loved how large it was, how everyone got their own bedroom (a first for me), the beautiful view of the Ossipees, and the woods and pond in our backyard, and yet there was a strange feeling that seemed trapped in the old place. It didn't help that most of the interior walls were painted barn red, brown, mustard yellow and army green, making the place even darker, heavier and more ominous. Places in the house that seemed especially off-putting were the old front hall (the large door leading to the old front hall shown above), the piano room, the dining room, the basement, and above all, the master bedroom. Friends who have visited tend to agree with this assessment.

We soon came to find out that the place had a substantial history: it was once part of the Underground Railroad, was the home of Governor Bean and fam way back when, and that old man Leighton who lived across the street sat down on the front porch sometime in the middle of the last century and drew his last breath. We found Indian shutters tucked inside the wood frames of the downstairs windows in the piano room (to pull in front of the windows if any Indians decided to attack you with arrows), and two long, musty sectioned-off places in the basement that were used primarily to store coal for the house and secretly for hiding runaway slaves. There was also an "unfinished" room in the basement that had a lone, naked bulb dangling by the doorway (by unfinished, I mean, a room that ran the length of the main house, was filled with sand, and was accessible through a rickety screen door). My family ended up using this sand to sprinkle on our icy driveway in the wintertime, but it was never a pleasant experience to lurk about in the basement alone, scooping shovelfuls of sand into a wheelbarrow that then had to be hauled up the basement stairs to the backyard. Even after living there for a decade, the unfinished room is nowhere near being cleared of sand. Finally, the house contained a secret passageway that wound from the smaller closet in the master bedroom (where you lifted up four attached, very inconspicuously cut boards to begin your descent), wound around the chimney down to the little closet (whose door was, oddly enough flush with the wall -- they were big on this feature in the old days) located in the old front hallway. Yes, a few of the siblings did try to successfully use the passage, but it was too sooty and very narrow for us to fully complete the journey. You would have to really want to hide to go in there.

We found turn-of-the-century binoculars, shoes, old cow bones, glass bottles for things like Lady Pinkham's, ink bottles still containing wet ink, loose goldleaf, schoolbooks circa the 1880s, newspapers dating 1906, an old horse harness, farm tools and broken china in the property's grounds, walls and ceilings. Among the more ominous discoveries, a ball-and-socket joint extracted from the basement walls by my brothers and a heavy, rough, square-shaped granite doorstop that when turned over was found to be half of a gravestone. I discovered this one day when, talking on the phone downstairs, I happened to look up at the ceiling (where we had used the doorstop to cover a temporary, coffee can-sized hole in the bathroom) only to see the inscription of dates and a last name carved elaborately into the stone.
In the decade my family lived there, the place was oftentimes a goldmine of history. Especially in those early days of living there, anywhere you looked, a once forgotten relic was staring you in the face. It was all very thrilling in the good sense of the word, except for the strange things that a few of us saw and all of us felt.

Historically, I have never slept soundly in the old farmhouse, be it nightmares or sleeplessness. The old farmhouse was (and still is, in my mind) a place that didn't seem to sleep. I hated waking up in the middle of the night, not knowing why I was suddenly so awake and too scared to open my eyes or get out of bed to turn on the light. I was scared mostly because I have always felt that you're never alone in the farmhouse, that you're always being watched. Naturally, my ability to overindulge in my imagination (as noted above) did not alleviate me of these feelings. But it was when I wasn't the only one with these convictions, that my fears seemed justifiable.

It started with the doorknobs. In the master bedroom, my parents started reporting that the doorknobs would turn back and forth for a few seconds and then the door would lazily open. I myself saw this one late night when we were all watching TV. I heard the sound of the doorknob turning back and forth, turned my head to see it doing just that and then the door slowly opening. I was dumbstruck. I asked my mom and my stepdad what the hell was that about, and they said it had been happening here and there but not to worry about it. My mom said she had holy water next to her bed, so she wasn't too scared. But I was sincerely shaken. And I didn't have Pope blessed holy water. After the doorknobs, my mom and stepdad said they began seeing strange balls of light moving about very independently in their bedroom, the upstairs bathroom, and the upstairs hallway. They were unexplainable primarily because there would be no lights on in the house save the soft green or red glow of the alarm clock numbers.

Finally, one late November afternoon, about a month after we had moved in I had my own little encounter. I was seated at the computer desk, which was at that time located in the master bedroom, a large window looking out on the backyard to my right and the door to the good-sized walk-in closet to my left. Unlike the other doors in the room (four, to be exact), this door had a latch instead of a doorknob, and while I was playing the Sims, I heard the sound of a latch going up and down very quickly. I turned my head only to see that what I had heard was exactly happening: the latch was indeed going up and down vigorously. This carried on for about 10-15 seconds more before, as with the doorknobs, the closet door slowly opened. It took me all about a second to realize that what I had seen was utterly unexplainable, and without further ado, dashed pell-mell from the room. Unfortunately, this was not a prank played by a devious little brother on his gullible, older sister as I was the only one home that afternoon.

Since that first year, the sightings have all but gone away. Other than that terrible, eery feeling I get in the previously noted rooms, the ghosts (if they're still there, or as some might say, if they were ever there) seem to like us now and so there are no more door knobs moving or unexplained lights drifting about the night.

However, this early spring, my mother did say she spotted a man walk briskly by the kitchen window heading for the ice house (a small outbuilding on the edge of the pond that once stored large blocks of ice that were kept cold with abundant amounts of sawdust). She assumed it was my stepdad, and the next day asked him what he was going to the ice house for at 10PM at night. He said he'd been in the house at that time. My brothers, too, claim it wasn't them. So maybe it was a figment of my mom's imagination? Maybe she only thought she saw a man walking outside? (our ice house pictured at right)

An interesting argument presented by a few of the the non-believers in the History Channel "Hauntings" video: We want ghosts, so we make ghosts or unexplainable things happen. They assert that our brain is powerful enough to create these things. I can understand them to a certain extent; after all, I am quick to believe, regrettably gullible, and genuinely love the idea of the supernatural, be it "Lord of the Rings" mythology or horror movies. However, when more than one or two people see the same thing at the same time, I'm reluctant to call it simple fiction.

So, what's your take on the whole ghost/supernatural thing? because I'd love to hear some stories.

*Note: If you have Netflix, you can instantly watch the above mentioned "Hauntings" movie. I definitely recommend it, if only for that second story which I didn't even tell the half of.

Happiness

If I could go back in time - or anywhere in time - I would want to go to a place where I could feel like one of the children at this puppet show: unselfconsciously wonderful.

From Les Quatre Cents Coups by Francois Truffaut


This clip never fails to make me smile, then feel a little sad.

What the end could look like -

Moose + Sprinklers = Glorious Awkward Mammal Fun!

Oodles of sprinkler fun:

10 Things I Do Every Day by Ted Berrigan

wake up
smoke pot
see the cat
love my wife
think of Frank

eat lunch
make noises
sing songs
go out
dig the streets

go home for dinner
read the Post
make pee-pee
two kids
grin

read books
see my friends
get pissed-off
have a Pepsi
disappear

Red Shift by Ted Berrigan

Here I am at 8:08 p.m. indefinable ample rhythmic frame
The air is biting, February, fierce arabesques
on the way to tree in winter streetscape
I drink some American poison liquid air which bubbles
and smoke to have character and to lean
In. The streets look for Allen, Frank, or me, Allen
is a movie, Frank disappearing in the air, it's
Heavy with that lightness, heavy on me, I heave
through it, them, as
The Calvados is being sipped on Long island now
twenty years almost ago, and the man smoking
Is looking at the smilingly attentive woman, & telling.
Who would have thought that I'd be here, nothing
wrapped up, nothing buried, everything
Love, children, hundreds of them, money, marriage-
ethics, a politics of grace,
Up in the air, swirling, burning even or still, now
more than ever before?
Not that practically a boy, serious in corduroy car coat
eyes penetrating the winter twilight at 6th
& Bowery in 1961. Not that pretty girl, nineteen, who was
going to have to go, careening into middle-age so,
To burn, & to burn more fiercely than even she could imagine
so to go. Not that painter who from very first meeting
I would never & never will leave alone until we both vanish
into the thin air we signed up for & so demanded
To breathe & who will never leave me, not for sex, nor politics
nor even for stupid permanent estrangement which is
Only our human lot & means nothing. No, not him.
There's a song, "California Dreaming", but no, I won't do that
I am 43. When will I die? I will never die, I will live
To be 110, & I will never go away, & you will never escape from me
who am always & only a ghost, despite this frame, Spirit
Who lives only to nag.
I'm only pronouns, & I am all of them, & I didn't ask for this
You did
I came into your life to change it & it did so & now nothing
will ever change
That, and that's that.
Alone & crowded, unhappy fate, nevertheless
I slip softly into the air
The world's furious song flows through my costume.

Choreography Not Included

Holy gallic amateur dance party.


Sylvie Vartan - Garde moi dans ta poche 1965

the Coney Island Annual Mermaid Parade

We came. We went. We saw. There were boobs and tassles and tails and fins and sequins and floats and wigs and body paint and heat and sweat and cool cars and starfish over nipples. A large hallelujah for the likes of glorious Coney Island.

That time Jess tried to get a free cat from Sunnyside, Queens

For about three weeks now, I've been maybe a little obsessed with the free pets you can get off craigslist. Up until last week, I was only emailing people who placed an ad on craigslist to get more information or photos of the pet up for adoption. Then I found this way cute, almost all-white, 8-month old kitten that was FREE and came with a litterbox, cat litter, cat food, 2 cat carriers, and toys. This cat was situated up in Sunnyside, Queens, and was up for adoption because the landlord found out this kid had a cat when he wasn't supposed to. I emailed the owner to tell him I was interested and when could I meet this kitty. The owner, one Akiva Rabinowitz, emails me back saying he's going to be out of town for a week at a wedding, so we agree to meet up the following week.

A few days later, I get a voicemail from an obnoxiously, wheedling male voice, and initially, I think someone's playing a prank on me. But then this voice says "Ya, ummm this is Akiva and ummm something bad happened to the cat." He goes on to say the cat's really messed up, he thinks a neighbor let the cat fall out of a window, he's really upset, doesn't know if she's going to make it, etc. I immediately email him back, asking about the cat's status, and yesterday he leaves another voicemail saying the cat doesn't look too good. I email him again asking for details, and Akiva answers me with this email:

"Hey Jessica, I would tell you what happened but it is a really sad and disturbing story. I would not feel that it would be acceptable for me to tell you what happened without your consent or foreknowledge that it is an upsetting story. - Akiva"

Now I just HAVE to know what the hell is going on. I give him my firm consent, and recieve yet another voicemail this afternoon saying nothing about the details but that there is some kind of "a happy ending" for the cat. "Akiva! You're such a tease!" I think to myself as I write him yet another email asking for details, updates, theories, pictures, maps, ANYTHING. And FINALLY, I get what I've been waiting for: the dirty details and the sorta happy ending.

Everyone, here is the story of poor Nadia the cat, a feline I never met, and her owner, Akiva, a person I can't really picture myself befriending because we seem to be on opposite sides of a spectrum, and yet we were all (kind of) together in this epic cat-drama:

(in a WHEEDLING VOICE)

So the story of what happened is pretty horrific, but has a relatively happy ending I guess. As we discussed, I went away for the weekend for my brother's wedding in Michigan. My one and only roommate, who is also away in Florida, made copies of our apartment keys and gave them to our mutual friend, Ben, a film student at the New School. The day after I got to Michigan, right before my brother's bachelor party, I get a call from Ben saying "I found Nadia in the basement and she is dragging her hind legs and stuff is leaking out of her anus." I have always known Ben to be the practical joker type, so I hung up on him and plugged my phone into charge. The guys and I then left the hotel for the bachelor party and when I came back at 2:30AM, I had text messages from ben saying "Fuck you" and "In case you care Nadia fell out of one of the windows" and "I had to pay 50 dollars to take her to the Veterinarian asshole and they wanted 300 dollars to do xrays so I just took her to my house." Meanwhile, Ben has owed me over 100 dollars for the past six months and not made a single attempt to pay me back. I stayed up all night feeling horrified and at 7AM I told Ben to take Nadia to an animal hospital and not just a Vet and that I would give the hospital my credit card information so she could get proper care.

About 4 hours later, a Doctor called me and told me that Nadia had broken her back on the 7th vertebrae and would likely need surgery. My brother's wedding was that night so I just asked the doctor to keep her comfortable (administer pain and sedation medication) for the day. I changed my flight to come back on the 16th rather than the 18th so I could address the situation. The vet called when I got home and told me that I had several options: I could take Nadia home, but would have to keep her confined in a cage and clean her daily because it was too painful for Nadia to clean herself. Additionally, the vet said I would have to learn how to squeeze her intestines to expel her poop and that she would always just pee in
place because there was no way she could get herself into the litter box. Well, since I am a full-time student, that option was really out of the question, as the doctor said Nadia needed someone home with her at least 8 hours daily to care for her. The second option the vet offered was to take an MRI to get more specific idea of the nerve damage so that they could operate and repair the nerve and the vertebrae. The vet said this option would not guarantee that Nadia's condition would improve and that the MRI plus the Operation would cost $6,000 (Ohhh, New York City). Being a poor college student, that option was out of the question. Finally, the only option left was euthanasia. I told the doctor to keep her comfortable and cared for for one more night and that I would come in the animal hospital the following day with a decision.

So, after I woke up on tuesday, I made my way to 55th St between 9th and 10th Ave and was placed in a room without an examination table with several boxes of Kleenex tissues. A young, male veterinarian comes in and advises that I agree to euthanize her, given my inability to constantly care for her and lack of financial means to pay for a surgery that had the potential to worsen Nadia's condition. So, bawling my eyes out he handed over an authorization form to euthanize Nadia which I signed without even looking at. Naturally the last thing this vet said to me was that "you have a balance on your account." Still bawling my eyes out, I gave the lady at the front desk my credit card and as she proceeded to print an itemized invoice of all the care they had administered I asked her nicely to just give me my credit card receipt and throw away the invoice. I bawled on the entire taxi ride back to Queens. I spent yesterday calling family members and telling them, but every time I tried to speak I would just cry.

Then, today, at about 11:00 in the morning I got a call from the hospital. My stomached turned thinking that they were calling to tell me that the euthanasia was completed and to please pick up her cremated remains. However, instead the same doctor who recommended I euthanize her says "We have not euthanized Nadia yet. Over the course of her stay at the hospital, several staff members and a doctor had become quite fond of Nadia." He asked me if I would rescind the euthanasia authorization and instead adopt Nadia over to the hospital and that they would care for her. It was quite literally the happiest moment of my life in years. They faxed me a form and I filled out all the information and faxed it back. Overall, her treatment cost $1,860, but the fact that she was accepted by the most loving and caring environment possible made the cost immaterial. The only sad part is I no longer have the right to see her or get information about her condition. Luckily, she is in the best place she could possibly be and thank god it is not "kitty heaven."

Akiva Rabinowitz.

Dolly, Goddamn.

Before she was the darling of the country music scene, Ms. Parton made some experimental forays into pop music with stellar results.


Don't Drop Out (1966).

I think end of semester congratulations are in order for anyone still in school.

"Teenage angst has paid off well - now I'm bored and old"

Considering recent discussions on the condition of one's twenties, I think we can all agree at least that teenage problems are so passe. While I can certainly drum up some nostalgic enthusiasm for the angsty anthems I used to load on mix tapes, mix cds, and finally mp3 playlists, the apprehension and anxiety of adulthood affords the opportunity for even moodier introspection.

Consider if you will Toni Basil. Best known for her 1982 bubblegum smash "Hey Mickie!" Ms. Basil was charting songs all the way back to the sixties and before she was a 40 year old cheerleader she was faking her age in the opposite direction on "I'm 28," a deliciously dark and moody pop B-side about the pathos of being single, alone, and dreading the fact that your best years might already have passed you by.

Give it a listen here: "I'm 28" mp3 from Bubble-gum Machine

Parrot-Speak

I've taken a fancy to talking parrots as of late. Here are a few of my favorite talking parrot clips:

#1.


#2:


#3. (not quite talking, but definitely rocking)

Great Women in History: Ellie Greenwich

Ellie Greenwich began writing songs as a teenager and by the time this How to Write a Hit Song article appeared in Disco Scene magazine in 1968 she had penned some of the most enduring pop songs of the '60s. Greenwich got her start at New York's Brill Building in 1962 and immediately began producing memorable tunes. Working with husband Jeff Barry, as well as other notable collaborators like Phil Spector and Shadow Morton, Ellie was responsible for "Leader of the Pack," "Chapel of Love," "Be My Baby," River Deep, Mountain High," and a plethora of stellar B-sides and demos.

Examples of some of her finest songs:

He's Got the Power: The Exciters


Be My Baby: The Ronettes


Ellie's music also appears in numerous films and has been used to great effect by Martin Scorsese, who has chosen her songs as the soundtrack to some of his most memorable shots, such as the Goodfellas tracking shot and the opening credits of Mean Streets

After the mid-sixties girl group boom, Ellie Greenwich remained in the music business, working as a composer and arranger and even reluctantly trying her hand as a solo artist. She is still involved in music and I recommend the following articles to learn more about her impressive career and refreshingly honest perspective on one of the most exciting periods in music history:

Cha Cha Charming Magazine

Spectro-Pop