Fool's Gold Coast

All That Glitters 71: Best of 2008 Edition

A look at how I diverted myself in 2008.

Books
BEST BOOKS I READ (OR REREAD) IN 2008, NONE OF WHICH ACTUALLY CAME OUT IN 2008 [listed in the order in which I completed them]:
King Richard II by William Shakespeare
Child of God by Cormac McCarthy
King Henry IV, Part 1 by William Shakespeare
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Let Me Finish by Roger Angell
Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
The Bacchae by Euripides, trans. by William Arrowsmith
Disgrace by JM Coetzee
A Touch of the Poet by Eugene O'Neill

Plays
FAVORITE PRODUCTIONS OF 2008:
Caroline, or Change (Court Theatre)
Porgy and Bess (Lyric Opera)

Movies
FAVORITE NEW FILMS:
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
My Winnipeg
FAVORITE REVIVALS:
Shadows (Cassavetes)
Modern Times (Chaplin)
Make Way for Tomorrow (McCarey)
Gaslight (Cukor)

Fool's Four
MY FAVORITE BLOGS OF 2008:
1. The Comics Curmudgeon.
2. News Bites.
3. Lucy Knisley's ArtJournal.
4. Videogum.

Glitter
And finally, here's Rose!

Happy New Year!

Resolved

Last January, I made an insanely ambitious new year's resolution to prepare my own dinner at least four times a week. I then promptly forgot about it until a few minutes ago when I found the post in the Fool's Gold Coast archives. Honestly, what possessed me to resolve such a thing? I doubt I prepared my own dinner four times in the whole year, much less every bloody week.

This year, I'm setting my sights quite a bit lower.

I resolve to cut Diet Coke from my diet.

Surely I can keep this one. Happy 2009, everybody!

Against Hash Browns

Let's face it: I don't like hash browns. I have been reluctant to admit this to myself because I want to believe that potato-based side dishes are uniformly delicious, but it simply isn't the case. Hash browns are gross. They always seem at once overdone and undercooked--black and crunchy on top, cold and slimy underneath. Plus, when you try to take a bite, they either fall apart completely (especially if you try to dip them in ketchup) or adhere stubbornly so that you end up with the whole thing on your fork.

Give me breakfast potatoes any day.

Flight Attendant, Please Prepare the Cabin for Rage

I would now like to do an impression of the flight attendant on my Christmas Eve flight from O'Hare to Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. Please imagine the following monologue delivered across the airplane's PA system in a voice similar to that of fey character actor Leslie Jordan.

I believe in enjoying what you do can you tell I enjoy what I do I bet you can't, huh? Before I was a flight attendant I was a cruise director, uh-huh, that's the person on the ship in charge of all the fun stuff: shows, activities, uh-huh, but all that changed on 9/11, the day everything changed, didn't it, tourism in south Florida took a nosedive overnight the cruise line offered me a 60% pay cut, uh-huh, but because of the state of the tourism industry in south Florida, I couldn't even get a job waiting tables, finally my mother and daddy said, 'Come home,' and I'm here to tell you the Lord works in mysterious ways because I was soon diagnosed with a brain tumor and I never would've gotten it seen to if my mother hadn't made me go to the doctor sometimes mothers know best, don't they . . .

And on and on and on--all of this delivered, I feel compelled to repeat, into that microphone that sane flight attendants use to announce gate changes and give safety instructions. Honestly, I've never seen or heard the like.

List of Links 22

Hi, everybody. I'll be in Arkansas the rest of the week celebrating the birth of Our Lord with my family. I'll resume posting new entries after I return to Chicago. Here are some things to keep you occupied in the meantime.

OH, KAYE: Danny Kaye conducts the New York Philharmonic.

BAD SANTA: St. Nick brings emphysema for Christmas.
And bears a striking resemblance to the Prince of Darkness.

FUNNY PAGES: Cat and Girl spend Christmas together.
And This Week in Milford cracks my shit up.

OBAMAS IN CLOTHES AND OUT: Eight fashion designers imagine inaugural gowns for Michelle Obama.
And Gawker hosts a shirtless president holiday pool party.

LIGHTMARES: Slate readers submit photos of crazy holiday displays.

AND FINALLY: The New Yorker presents a slideshow of some of the magazine's most popular cartoons of 2008. They're mildly funny!

Christmas Wish List 2008

I want:

--a new camera (I lost mine on Halloween)
--a new cell phone (mine appears to be haunted)
--a winter coat (my current one: threadbare)
--better weather
--an in-unit washer-dryer (the renter's holy grail)
--like, $5000 (just to have as a base)
--a savior for the newspaper industry
--better luck with electronics
--better dental insurance
--a healthy, happy, halfway decent 2009

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Seek and Ye Shall Find 40

Addressing your recent search engine queries.

didion gay icon
Who, Joan? Sorry, no.

what are things people are thankful for
Well, on XTube, people seem awfully fond of their Fleshlights . . .

why are puerto ricans so jealous
I asked my boyfriend for you. He's an actual Puerto Rican. I had to wake him from a nap, though, so all I could get out of him was something mumbled about "passionate Latinos," but I have to tell you, his semi-conscious state rather belied any claims to passion.

“Dear CHARLES, My Muse, asleep or dead.”
Dear CHARLES, My Muse, asleep or dead,
Offers this doggerel instead
To carry from the frozen North
Warm greetings for the twenty-fourth
Of lucky August, best of months
For us, as for that Roman once--
For you're a Leo, same as me
(Isn't it comforting to be
So lordly, selfish, vital, strong?
Or do you think they've got it wrong?),
And may its golden hours portend
As many years for you to spend.

One of the sadder things, I think,
Is how our birthdays slowly sink:
Presents and parties disappear,
The cards grow fewer year by year,
Till, when one reaches sixty-five,
How many care we're still alive?
Ah, CHARLES, be reassured! For you
Make lasting friends with all you do,
And all you write; your truth and sense
We count on as a sure defence
Against the trendy and the mad,
The feeble and the downright bad.
I hope you have a splendid day,
Acclaimed by wheeling gulls at play
And barking seals, sea-lithe and lazy
(My view of Cornwall's rather hazy),
And humans who don't think it sinful
To mark your birthday with a skinful.

Although I'm trying very hard
To sound unlike a birthday card,
That's all this is: so you may find it
Full of all that lies behind it--
Admiration; friendship too;
And hope that in the future you
Reap ever richer revenue.
--Philip Larkin

Thanks for stopping by!

The Gold Mine 82: December 22, 2004

Stuff I've dug up.

Here's an excerpt from a diary entry I wrote on today's date four years ago. I was 25.

Wednesday. 12.22.04. 2.26 PM. Work.
Christmas Wish List 2004
I want:
--a bigger, better bed
--all of Dolly Parton's recordings
--a green thumb
--new glasses frames
--a dog
--recordings of all Rodgers and Hart shows
--more shelf space for books
--an encyclopedia
--my own pinball machine
--a rug for the living room
--Cary Grant-like charm
--a new battery for my telephone (the current one runs out of juice so fast that I can't have any conversations longer than 10 minutes)
--a new computer
--the usual: a boyfriend, eternal youth, delirious happiness, muscles, Jude Law, peace on earth.

Holiday Cheer for the Ear

Kito and I had a few people over last night to celebrate the holidays. When we were planning the evening last week, I volunteered to provide the music, and you should have seen the look of terror on Kito's face. I think he expected me to put Barbra Streisand's version of "Jingle Bells" on repeat and call it a day (my mother, by the way, finds that particular interpretation of the song so annoying that she has banned me from playing it in her hearing more than once a year; the same rule applies to Bing Crosby's "Mele Kalikimaka").

So I went easy on him. My playlist featured a fairly innocuous mix of holiday songs, top 40 hits, and party favorites, all chosen for their demonstrated capacity not to offend. Full track list follows!

1. "All I Want for Christmas Is You," Mariah Carey
2. "I'm Yours," Jason Mraz
3. "Fluorescent Adolescent," Arctic Monkeys
4. "Santa Comin' Caroline," Caroline, or Change (original Broadway cast recording)
5. "Love Lockdown," Kanye West
6. "Tears Dry on Their Own," Amy Winehouse
7. "We Need a Little Christmas," Mame (original Broadway cast recording)
8. "Whatever You Like," TI
9. "Come on Over (All I Want Is You)," Christina Aguilera
10. "Mary Cristo," Tribalistas
11. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)," Beyoncé
12. "Little Red Corvette," Prince
13. "Christmas Bells," Rent (original Broadway cast recording)
14. "Just Dance," Lady GaGa and Colby O'Donis
15. "Massive Nights," The Hold Steady
16. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," Judy Garland

Decrease Your Word Power

Last week a co-worker phoned me to ascertain something or other, except that she pronounced it assertin', which confused me and then made me sad.

She redeemed herself, though, at the office holiday party on Friday. The karaoke machine had been set up, and she suggested--loudly and in front of the whole world--that I perform "It's Raining Men."

So points to her for both ascertaining (assertin'in'?) and assertin' that I'm gay. Good show.