Easter.

I like to think of Easter as the resurrection of FUN, because it's finally warm (most years, anyway...this year, we are all about being unseasonable here in Charlotte).

Anyway, now that I'm done being sacrilegious, my imaginary best friend Michael K, of DListed, posted about this fine lady on his website yesterday:

Fefita

Her name is Fefita La Grande (Fefita The Large One, gringo), and she is OBVIOUSLY Dominican. Sparkly leopard print pants, wigs, and accordions go together like bread, butter, and jam. She makes me so happy, and I'm not even being ironic. She's totally on Spotify, too. I asked my dad if he'd heard of her and he was like "Yeah, she plays in Las Terrenas sometimes." Fefita, we have a date.

Two Josephine Tey Mysteries

A little while ago, I read a few Josephine Tey mysteries, one after the other after the other. Tey is pretty original, even now; sixty odd years after they were written, these little novels still seem fresh. As you probably know by now, I have never met a mystery I didn't like, but I have to admit that I usually know going in what I can expect.

Daughter of timeFirst I read "The Daughter of Time" (the title is part of a Francis Bacon aphorism: truth is the daughter of time, not of authority). It's about a bedridden Scotland Yard detective who sets out to solve the centuries-old mystery of who killed the two sons (the heir and the spare) of Edward the IV. The prime suspect has always been their uncle, Richard the III, the last of the Plantagenets and the man who became king in their stead. Listen, do you like those old-school documentaries that they used to have on the History Channel? Where they were like "Who killed King Tut?" or "What was this Atlantis place everyone* goes on about, really?" If you do, then you'll like this book. It's a fascinating period in history, and if the stakes seem low in summary, they never do when you're reading the book. It was a page-turner for me. It reminded me a little of Rear Window in its set-up. It sounds sort of boring and constrained in concept, but in both cases, the characters' limitations (on the one hand, and inability to leave one's apartment, on the other, an extreme distance from the crime) are exploited to great effect.

 

 

BratBrat Farrar was actually the most traditional of Tey's mysteries that I read, and also the most melancholy. I get the sense that Tey sort of regrets that someone has to die (even a fictional someone) in order for us to have our entertainment. This is an odd story: there's a family by the name of Ashby, owners of an important English estate. The family was once composed of Aunt Bee and the five children of her late brother and his (also late) wife. After their parents' death, the oldest child, Patrick, committed suicide, leaving his brother Simon the heir to the estate.  The story opens on the eve of Simon's coming of age, when a young man appears claiming to be Patrick, thereby challenging Simon's claim to estate. Patrick is of course Brat Farrar, and the meat of the story is concerned with what happens next. This was probably my least favorite of the mysteries; it was very "Rebecca." By Daphne Du Maurier? The story is haunted by Patrick's violent and inexplicable death, and there's an encroaching darkness about the whole thing. It's the only one of Tey's mysteries that really has about it a sense of menace.

***

In unrelated news, I have been listening to this during workouts at the gym:

 

I just really feel like it encompasses all the feelings I feel at the gym: euphoria, frustration, boredom, and the one where I'm about to die of a heart-attack.

***

Also, do you remember how good that first Coldplay album was? I mean, I was fifteen, so who knows, but remember how we felt? The second was not as good, but I heard this today, and oh, memories.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEoHFzEmld0?fs=1&feature=oembed] 

This was also the first video where I didn't think Chris Martin looked like an attractive alien life form. (The unattractive alien lifeforms all look like Jabba the Hutt and the things you find in tap water when you look through a microscope.)

 

*The conclusion is always that Plato is one of these

Review: Mindy Kaling's "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?" and music, because why not?

Everyone-hanging-out-lg

I loved the pants off this book. It made me so happy.

It's a memoir, albeit written by an accomplished young woman who has mostly had nice things happen in her life and who makes her living writing comedy. Also, she's a little silly, pretty ambitious, and very awkward (I knew there HAD to be a term for what she calls an Irish Exit). So, that's what's on the page. It's refreshing and just...nice to read a nonfiction book about a woman that isn't tragic, but also isn't fluffy nonsense about the three outfits that will change my life. And she even loves her job! It was inspiring, as a writer, and also as a woman (omg, feminist tear). 

There were so many little bits of this book that I read five times over just to feel the satisfaction of someone agreeing with me about things that I'm sort of embarrassed to think. For example, she goes into how those zeitgeisty articles about relationships always make her cry ('train your boyfriend like a dog!', 'a key party saved my marriage!') because "this wretched little magazine article has helped convinced more open-minded liberal arts graduates that the nuclear family doesn't exist without some hideous twist, like the dad is allowed to go to an S&M dungeon once a week or something. It makes me cry because it means fewer and fewer people are believing it's cool to want what I want, which is to be married and have kids and love each other in a monogamous, long-lasting relationship." It was also nice to hear someone else say that it's really tiresome the way some married people always talk about how much work relationships are, as if they just invented marriage. Is 'work' really that bad? "We seem to get so gloomily worked up about [marriage] these days," she says. We expect so much of our romantic relationships. All Mindy wants is a pal. All I want is to shake her hand.

I don't know that we would be friends in real life, though. There's a whole section about Mindy's rules for best friendom, like that friends should share clothing and that if on vacation the bed is large enough, sleeping together is superior insofar as it provides the opportunity to talk till you fall asleep. She's so cute, but also really weird to me. Like some rules I was down with 100%, and others I was like "hell no, bitch." Maybe it's because I'm foreign? If I had rules for good friendship, they would be like:

1-Under no circumstance should you ever invite yourself over to someone's home or party. If someone hasn't invited you to their get-together it isn't for a really mundane reason like that they forgot to because you're not the center of their universe. It's because they actively do no want you there.

2-Never lend anyone anything if you can avoid it. Not pens in class and for the love of God not clothing. People never return anything, and if they do, you will catch a fungus and die. Don't ask to borrow things. The exception to this is books, which are public property, obviously.

3-Only ask for favors in life and death situations. Even then, you should always try throwing money at the problem. Ex: You are bleeding to death because you lost a foot (don't ask me why, I'm not the irresponsible one who lost a foot). You would like to ask a friend to use their shirt as a tourniquet. First, ask to pay for their shirt. Then, pass out from blood loss as you try to tie said shirt onto your own stump, Stumpy. Finally, accept help.

A subsection of this rule is that you must bring everything everywhere, because God forbid you have to ask someone for a kleenex or an umbrella or a snack. If you're ever hungry, you will always have a Lorna Doone airplane brownie that's been sitting in your purse for three months. Mmmm, chocolate flavored dust.

None of these rules apply to people you're related to, even if you consider them your friends. By the way, Dad, can I borrow a plane ticket home?

You're probably expecting me to say that these rules seem unreasonable and curmudgeonly now that I've written them down. 

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...

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Anyway, Mindy Kaling is hilarious, and I'm so happy she wrote a book to supplement her twitter feed, which I am always reading, even though I'm not on twitter, because ew. Gross.

And now for music! I recently listened to Andrew Bird's new album..."Lazy Projector" is my favorite song from it (it's like halfway down this page...no, I can't embed it...what do I look like, some kind of witch? oh, now we're in a fight). Did you know it was written for the Muppets movie?

Andrew_bird_1330603820_crop_550x525


Gonna drop like a stone.

Can we talk about how obsessed I am with the Talking Heads song "Sax and Violins" lately?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FJ8x6wnZy8?fs=1&feature=oembed] 

Because I am totally obsessed. It's so deliciously...New Wave-y. I think? It's about more than the song; it's about the Wim Wenders film it came from ("Until the End of the World"; a movie that is probably better in my memory than in reality and that I always felt would've made a really good book...why don't people ever do this?) (Did you know that Peter Carey co-wrote the screenplay?).

You know what I need to read? A really good, tragic romance. Of the non-cheesy variety. "Oscar and Lucinda"? 

We are criminals that never broke no laws. And all we needed was a net to break our fall, you know? No? Yes--

OH MY GOD, get back to work, Ana, your thesis is due in like four days.

Looking at the Lyrics: "Hot Toddy"

You guys, I have been having a really hard time figuring out what the lyrics to that newish Jay-Z/Usher song are. Because as I was listening in my car for about the 44th time today, I thought, “Surely—SURELY—these men are not singing an ode to the traditional Scottish cold-remedy.” But they were. Except it’s a euphemism for sex. Of course it is. I cannot wait for the day that I am sick and when I try to google a cold remedy, I get a bunch of results like “Baby dancing to hot toddy” and “Dog drinking whiskey HOT TODDY!!1!!!” and “Hot Toddeez EXPOSED vol. 17”, which is a porn (you don’t say!). In the spirit of helping artists stay away from my colds, I have come up with a list of other things that are not currently metaphors for sex, but could be:

Typing her keys.

Taking the snooze off the alarm.

Lunchbox full of goodies.

Making a deposit in the piggybank. (Piggybanking it).

These are just the things I have come up with looking around my room for 15 seconds. Are they all winners? Absolutely.

To recap, if anyone writes a catchy song about vaporub or Kleenex and it is a euphemism for sex, I will be extremely disappointed in all of you.

Also, for those of you who are nerds like me, the chorus from “Hot Toddy”:

I’m like oh Kimosabe
Your body is my hobby
We’re freakin’
This ain’t cheatin’ as long as we tell nobody
Tell your girls you’re leaving
I’ll meet you in the lobby
I’m so cold, yeah I need that hot toddy
Hot toddy (hot toddy)
Hot toddy (thought I’d never fall in love, thought I’d never fall in love)