Silver linings?

I know the post below is super-negative, so I just wanted to add that something that definitely does NOT need to shut up is Honey Almond Flax Kashi GoLean Crunch. That's an awful lot of words for a cereal, but kinda worth it. Feel free to call me a dirty hippie. It's only half true.

STFU

Seriously. Sometimes people just need to be told to shut up. You can play along at home!

We'll get things started with one from the blogmistress, related to something you may have seen below: "Jonathan Franzen. No one cares about your stupid life and your stupid whiny friends. Shut up, Franzen." (It's almost poetry!)

Theodor Adorno! Shut up, Teddy. Just because you have time to sit around contemplating the dissonances in Beethoven and how they reflect the unresolvable conflicts of life doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't be able to enjoy going to the movies. God, shut UP.

(yam again) Also, Claude Levi-Strauss, shut up! You're charming and brilliant, but enough is enough!

Shut your stupid mouth, Jim McGreevey. I feel no sympathy. Do not appear on Oprah, do not collect $200, McGreevey. Just go live with your hot aussie boyfriend in your multi-million dollar house, and stop trying to get me to buy your book. Nah gah happen. And stop making me pick who I hate more, you or Elisabeth "STFU" Hasselbeck.

Amy and I collaborated on this one: SHUT UP, JEFFREY FROM PROJECT RUNWAY! You are an ASSHOLE. Also, shut up, Jeffrey's neck tattoo! I hate Detroit.

You know who else needs to really take a time out? The people who live upstairs from me. I nicknamed them the Stompersons the first week I lived here, and since then, I have never needed an alarm clock, because each morning at 8.30 I am awakened to what some would call the "pitter patter of little feet."
I see it more like this: SHUT UP Stompersons! I know you have a small child, but do you really have to make me think the effing ceiling is going to fall in for approximately 8 hours of every day? Buy a rug!

And seriously, Dawson Leery (and by the mystic properties of transference, JvdB). You've needed to shut up since 1997! That's almost 10 years of being an unrepentant douchebag. I'm almost thankful I don't have cable, so I don't have to deal with you in syndication. Get off the TV and shut up! And stop telling me how much you love having sex with your wife! Did that work for Jim McGreevey?

Finally, no post on shutting your fucking hole would be complete without this: Shut up, George Bush. Just turn around and face the corner, and stop comparing Democrats to NAZIS and pissing all over the UN. WTFF?!

So, who else needs to put a sock in it?

From the department of Meta-Affairs

New York, New York.
In an extraordinary display of self-oneupmanship, NBC announced today that it will begin production on "90 Below," a comedy about the making of comedy about comedy. The success of ex-SNL Tina Fey's "30 Rock," along with the buzz surrounding tonight's premiere of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" has prompted the network to conclude that the more meta the show, the more faithful the audience.

NBC's phenomenally successful sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, which has been on the air with a revolving cast since 1975, seemed no longer to be enough. With falling ratings and waning enthusiasm, NBC decided to dig up some attention by airing a comedy about the making of such a show. Fey's "30 Rock" has been successful, and now, with the comedy about comedy soaring, NBC is launching "Studio 60", a drama on the same topic. Its success is anticipated, so the logical next step, of course, was to make a show about the making of such a show. As for the title, an executive who has been granted anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the project said "I thought we were just adding 30 to everything. Isn't that what happened?"

The new show will begin production this winter, and should air its first episode in the spring.

So I'm chillin, looking at my calendar, thinking, this is kinda filling up. It's about pleasantly full right now, what with impending houseguests, meetings, parties, classes, trips, yoga, etc. Not time to think too much... just enough time to get lots done and have a good time.

Then I get this email from my parents. Now, if you're a faithful blog reader, you will remember that they were here in July.
They want to come back the first week in October. For like, TEN DAYS.

Okay.

Don't get me wrong. This will certainly be fun -- they're very good at entertaining themselves, they stay in a hotel, and they take me places and buy me things. But seriously.
I'm not sure they're all that interested in me, come to think of it. They just really dug Tucson. Haha.

So it will be fun -- perhaps I'll end up with more fun Tucson-related anecdotes!

Memo

To: Sorority girls on cell phones
From: Amy

GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE BIKE PATH. Or at least watch where you're going. Or at least look both ways before you step out into said bike path. It's got a double yellow line. That should be a clue.

Dear Doctor Adamson, the linguistics professor. Well, he's not all the dear.
In explaining the difference between allophones and phonemes, he used this analogy:

If we're talking about cars, we can talk about Fords, and Chevrolets. Then, within Chevrolet, there are Corvettes and Cavaliers, but that doesn't make a difference. I only care if it's a Ford or a Chevy.

Come again? It makes no difference if it's a Corvette or a Cavalier? Have you ever driven a Cavalier? If you promised me a Corvette and showed up with a Cavalier, you'd better believe it'd make one hell of a difference. You'd be hearing about it. I'm sure that nice, educated little brain of yours can come up with a new metaphor.

Last week, I was in the grocery store, stocking up on all kinds of good stuff, when I saw it:
the SAM ADAMS OCTOBERFEST. Could it be time already? So we bought some. And brought it home. And drank it.
And when I went back this week, it was on SALE! a 12-pack for TEN DOLLARS.
Maybe there actually is a God.

Vindicated!

I have long held that Jonathan Franzen is an asshole.
I read The Corrections when it came out. (I'd like to take a moment to note, here, that as of this posting, one could buy a used hardcover from Amazon marketplace for $0.01.)
I've read a lot of his stuff in the New Yorker. I'm not going to argue that he knows how to write.

My point, rather, is that he is an ASSHOLE. This impression comes both from his public antics (ahem, Oprah) and from the occasions when I've been lucky enough to meet him and to listen to the way he answers questions from audience members. It's bad form to get up on stage when you're being paid several thousand dollars to talk for half an hour and mumble, "I wrote this on the train on the way up here." It's silly to cultivate the two-day stubble in all your publicity photos and public appearances. And it's just not nice to interrupt people when they're speaking.

People tend to argue with me. "What did he do to you?" they might ask.
But now, finally, someone agrees with me. I might have to read this book.