Archive for 2006

TGW family reunion

I can’t believe that in just two short weeks, greatwhatsitters will begin to arrive in Philly in preparation for our first annual summit! Farrell and I have officially moved downstairs to the first floor of our house, the one pictured in my previous demolition posts. I know this must seem inconceivable, and indeed, it does […]

Post haste

Posts I decided not to post in the past four weeks: 1. The Update The Guy didn’t call. And I guess it was pretty stupid to talk so openly about my love life since the only response I got was from The Stalker. Like four times. In like two days. Oy. I guess I knew […]

The Great Whatsit Holiday Special

Friends, it’s time to gather around and enjoy an interactive Whatsit Holiday Spectacular. Take this opportunity to spread a bit of cheer to friends and current (or former) lovers by reaching into your heart (need you be reminded that this is the time of giving?) and telling us: who reminds you most of “Mall Santa”? […]

Another break in the schedule: More short reviews

Because we gotta keep it real, keep it fresh, 100 words or fewer, yo, not counting shorties w/ one or two letters: Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, by Mary Roach (Norton, 2006) Children who have uncanny memories of “past lives.” Ectoplasm photographed spewing out of a psychic’s nose. “Spirit voices” caught on tape at the […]

I want an atheist for Christmas

Do you, dear reader, suffer from the anxiety of being an atheist at Christmas time? Perhaps you have considered going the militant route: taking on a petulant air when you hear “Merry Christmas,” like George W. Bush facing down a British reporter at a press conference. Or giving as gifts copies of The God Delusion […]

Who will buy this wonderful feeling

I have something in common with a Fox News commentator I will call Mr. Bill. It is true we do not share a world view. Mr. Bill would consider me a godless, baby-killing, shrill, morally bankrupt whore-of-Babylon. I consider Mr. Bill a carnival barking troll hurling excrement at the bars of his own twisted freak […]

Tales from the office

Barnaby His name on my schedule surprised me that morning. I figured it must be him, because even in NYC there can’t be that many people with his name and general age. When he showed up my suspicion was confirmed. Barnaby was a friend of mine. Not a close friend, but we had hung out […]

Slapshot

A kiss. All I wanted was a kiss. The moment we first met, it became clear to me that he was a stone-cold fox. So naturally, I was curious as to his bussing abilities. I had no plan, no scheme to get him into the sack or anything. Really, I was open to anything that […]

A discrete search for the bourgeoisie

Being only sporadically and idiosyncratically educated, I’d never read or seen anything by Henrik Ibsen before last week, when I went to see Hedda Gabler at BAM at the invitation of some Internet friends. When I arrived at the theater I discovered that this production was in German. I panicked a little (even though there […]

There’s a light in the wings, hits the system of strings

Sasha Frere-Jones seems at a bit of a loss writing about Joanna Newsom in this week’s New Yorker. “At first,” he writes, in what are, unfortunately, the article’s best lines, “she sounded to me like Lucille Ball reciting Edmund Spenser. She brought to mind a college student I knew who wore suspenders to show that […]