year of the dragon // new, new year // cheese salad // funny // pickles

mes amis,

il y a beau coup de temps… mais beau coup! pardon me, but as you know, this website is just for fun. so i demure, even at the swift passage of time, to just post for the sake of posting!

the current year

now then. happy 2012. and happy lunar new year, etc. what’s the fuss about the year of the dragon? i am not sure. but i do recall being a young lass, back in ’88 and making contributing to a dragon mural with a tiny piece of paper to serve as a scale alongside my classmates at a public school in the northeast. perhaps not far from beantown!

puff the magic dragon always manages to make me cry

allora, there are many other things to discuss. for example. what of the starr deli? that fine establishment in the borrough of brooklyn where “hunter stew” can be purchased along with “cheese salad.” over the years, i have received tiny huffs and puffs when i ask for pickles served up with my chicken salad. i do love it when people disapprove of my order!

well then. one day recently when there was no chicken salad, i decided to assay the turkey salad. much to my horror it was totally spoiled!

“it is because of the pickle” the no nonsense proprietress told me. lo!

i said, “no problem, i will just throw it away” and into the trash can the turkey salad and pickles went!

a justin beiber pickle!

the next time i graced the starr deli, it was with some trepidation. would there be curt remarks? awkward hellos? usually the proprietress and i say the following in a kindly and ceremonial manner: me: how are you doing? the proprietress: it’s ok.

as i placed the bottle of water and the salt and vinegar chips on the counter, the proprietress rang me up and said something to her younger helper. (a daughter? a granddaughter? hard to say) a small container was produced. “it is cheese salad,” the proprietress explained. “it is fresh. please. because you threw away the other last time.” i took the cheese salad warily. what could cheese salad consist of? i later found out: cheese. garlic. radishes. it was phenomenal. and it didn’t even have any pickles!

couldn't disagree more

in other news, this is totally junk.

and this is bound to knock your socks off one way or the others. i do believe a certain whippersnapper is playing a 76-year-old vietnam veteran with verve and aplomb. the times, they aren’t a changing!

kippy

hell is other people // festival of lights // the fates

mes amis–

1. hell is other people

as we all know hell is other people. thanks, jean paul sartre for this fine summation of what it is like to live life on earth! allora, i was most reminded of this fine quote the other day when i was on the metro system. (just what metropolis will have to remain a mystery!)

check out the sinage

with pain in my tum, and two tacos awaiting my voracious consumption, i moved to sit down. a snippity lady stood in my way though, taking my spot, and making me move to another post in a row of well bundled new yorkers (oops! gave my locale away).

va bene.

it was the L train if you must know.

the line best known for its strapphangers with asymetrical haircuts and unattractive facial hair

the snippity lady started flipping through pages of a magazine. time out new york, i’ll have you know, whose information is not nearly as dire as say the pages of my beloved new york. oh my! how the pages flipped. more like snapped. i thought she might tear a page off! there were then some huffs and puffs.

meanwhile, the older gentleman next to me took out a tin tub of burt’s bees wax hand cream. he opened up the tin and started greasing up his hands with the stuff. i comiserated silently. yes it is winter. and i too suffer from an unsupple hand but oh! must we wax up in the subway? it was called olive oil hand wax or some such repulsive notion.

snap! went a magazine page.

the man reached back in his bag for more wax. the poor soul!and so it went. snap! sigh. wax on. sigh. wax off. snap!

2. festival of lights

my friends and cohorts–i went to the most impromptu and delightful festival of lights soiree hier soir! oh my! could the etymology of soiree have to do with soir? i must investigate. so much for an early morning soiree! allora, much of the part had already happened so my companion and i provided a bit of fresh blood. though i was full from a gluten free feast, i munched on about 10 latkes (ok maybe just two) and ladled them with sour cream and apple sauce. ooh divinity!

heaven

what’s more, we then played a rowdy came of latke bingo. too many menorahs and dreidels to count! not to mention my favorite image which we called “elegant candles” with you guessed it. ooh and the rainbow menorah was good too. made me reflect fondly on the penguin menorah of my youth.

deja vu? this kippy has used this image before.

i look forward to the continuation of this festival of lights and am pleased it overlaps with the evergreen fur tree holiday. hmph!

i love a cartoon tree

3. the fates

my friends. just yesterday i was organizing and arranging some domestic affairs and unearthed the postcard of  the bill cunningham documentary. what a tender joy it was to rediscover i still had it! naturally i put it on display. then, as fates would have it, i got a late evening text from a dear soul who was watching that very film! enraptured, and with a face wet from tears, i can only imagine his heart, like mine, swelled with love as the film unfolded.

he who seeks beauty will find it!

love,
kippy

 

alienation

my friends and foes–

i will be spending the holi-daze in a nation of aliens. that is, in an alien-nation.

in lieu of gifts you can just make a peace symbol from earth.

kippy

take down your hair

fellow citizens–

reading about the punk concert that was disbanded in indonesia made me so sad. perhaps the authorities should watch glee. i bet they’d then have a better understanding/reminder of how teens like to express themselves. let the young people dance to to the punk music! let them wear their hair long!

the police shaved the poor punks heads!

you know what else this makes me think of? this:

experiementing in art

too bad i have not over come my art experimenting ways. i am far past my salad days!

ciao for now,
kippy

una bibliotecha tanto bella: la bapst at boston college

amici miei–

it was with considerable consternation (and anticipation) that i clicked through flavorwire’s listing of the 25 most beautiful college libraries in the world.

i may poke fun of my alma matter ogni tanto. sure we have living quarters called the mods where good ideas go to perish.

the mods of boston college

they were built in the 50s as temporary housing units and intended to be destroyed. so much for building!

nevertheless, if you know me, you understand i possess a deep rooted, perhaps irrational, hometown pride for my beloved “high school on the hill” as one pundit put it. boston college may have a good deal of coeds interested in cohabitation and beer–but it also boasts a strong student body committed to social justice, free thinking and of course philo-sophia that the love of wisdom, i cherish so dearly.

plato is my brother

imagine my continual irk as i kept clicking and spotted other less lovely libraries in such far flung places as england, portugal, and–the most exotic of all–berkeley california. (the ugliest indeed, in this kippy’s estimation. more like jerk-ley!)

imagine my crestfall computer-lit face as i came to slide 24 and clicked in hopeful anticipation to see my beantown school. and there it was. dear old bapst. i nearly let out a cheer.

dear old bapst a gothic delight

no–i never studied in this place. it was too stodgy, cold, and ill-lit for my tastes. moreover, it was just too pretty a place in which to focus! i preferred the o’neill. a functional locale where i could plop myself and my brain (and my books)  in front of a large second floor window and stare out longingly at the skyline of my beloved home city in the distance. oh youth!

no caption needed! boston speaks for itself

allora. that’s all for today. that and this bizarre statement about how theatre of the absurd is dead. hm! absurd indeed. i disagree entirely.

ciao for now,
kippy

bar of soap

mes amis–

some scattered thoughts on a willy nilly free wheeling wednesday.

i have returned to using a bar of soap to wash my hands in my homestead.
and i am most pleased at this return to simplicity.
does a body–and a mind–good.

i have determined that this might be the catchiest song of all time

there are many other things to think and discuss and ruminate on.
but this kippy’s got a lunch date!
donc: ca suffit for le moment.

kippy

good lawd! where has 2011 gone?

mes amis–

il y a beaucoup de temps that i do not write. i have no good excuse other than that life is for the living! my favorite holiday–thanksgiving–has come and gone. along with a half birthday and world aids day. but fret not. to tide over both friends and foes i have put together a holiday wish list.

“but kippy, kippy winston,” you cry, “what holiday do you celebrate?“

my reply? festivus, of course!

1. a time keeping device for my wrist please. swatch would do but i do quite the offerings from alessi.

alessi watch

2. time! that is, free time. please. spent with you. preferably. look at these students enjoying free time with each other.

people enjoying free time!

3. beauty. that is, art work. below i have put a good option from the fine people at 20×200.

good for gluten free art viewers!

4. an end to all nose bleeds! a start to working with agencies! a start to working with magazine you see in the image above! a moratorium on obligation theatre viewing! a birth of language learning and helping those less fortunate than myself! a splotch-stop on solipsistic thinking!

new harmony utopia

5. pretty much anything from this website and the book i ordered from amazon.com a few weeks ago that has yet to arrive. most irksome!

"toilet time" will flush dec. 12 at 7.30 at dixon place.

also: i would like to know who had been futzing and redesigning the google website. i am sure there was a reason for this at one time or another but as a user of free content i must say: nobody asked me!

a bientot mes amis. i promise to be better behaved when next week meet across the interwebs.
kippy

aw man, funk that

my friends and citizens–

as you know, i generally refrain from political ruminations. that chit chat is best left to pundits, and i’m just a puntwit! but i was awoken last night with news of the OWS raid and was very disheartened.

sure i had found zucotti park kind of sad and more than a little quixotic when i saw it a week ago today… yet it also filled me with a sense of pride and joy that people were able to come together and talk about ideas. how good of the gov’t to let them gather and pitch their tents.

if i were a lower manhattan resident, i’d probably have been mad about the drumming. but it was a public space. and to raid it so late in the night just seems very unfair in a platonic sense of the word. couldn’t they have cleared the park in a kinder way? couldn’t they have donated the 5,000 books to a library?

here is the image that is on the nytimes website right now. the sky is grey and i do believe that is how many of us are feeling at the moment.

an empty zucotti park

and good g-d. the leaves have changed color. how have i missed that? non ci sono piu i mezzi stagioni, there are no longer the middle seasons, and no longer the hope of a little movement of idealistic disgruntled tent people.

kippy

ps note this: “On Nov. 15, 1969, a quarter of a million protesters staged a peaceful demonstration in Washington, D.C., against the Vietnam War.”–nytimes

discretion confession, or an upcoming reading

mes amis–

i usually do not do this, but this is a press release of sorts for the gals and gulls of half straddle to link to. read on w/ discretion.

“The Brooklyn College Department of Theater, in association with Mac Wellman, Erin Courtney and the Graduate Playwriting Department, cordially invites you to a reading of Asleep at the Wheel by MFA candidate Eliza Bent, the second installment in a monthly play-in-progress reading series.

As described by the initmitable Ken Greller:

Marissa and Louis are stuck in a rut. They are underpaid at not-for-profit dead-end jobs, their souls are slowly being sucked away and everyone around them just might be a little bit insane. In a loose confederation of scenes as witnessed by Eliza Bent, Asleep at the Wheel provides cutting edge reportage of the dwindling non-profit and paints a strange, scary and hilarious landscape of what it means to be young, broke and angry in America.

This reading of Asleep at the Wheel is on
Friday, November 18
at 2:30 PM
in the Tanger Auditorium
in the library at Brooklyn College.

Directed by MFA directing alumnus, Stephen Kaliski, curated by Andy Buck, an MA candidate in Theater History, with design consultation by MFA Design candidate, Nikki Cammack.

The cast includes faculty, current students and acting alumni: Tom Bullard, Gary Cowling, Kristi Dana, Amanda Holsten, Layla Khoshnoudi, Jeremiah Maestas, Emma Myers, Antonevia Ocho-Coultes, Jeremy Ping and Skyler Sullivan.

Please join us for our second collaboration with the Playwriting Department, and to support the development of another unique new voice in contemporary American Theater.”

allora, c’est ca!
kippy

cord.u.roy boy oh boy

my friends and fellow earth citizens,

first: a happy veterans day to you. or rather, a somber veterans day to you. let us give thanks and remember the brave men and women who have had to endure the horrors of war so that others have not to.

next: happy corduroy day! boy oh boy. cord. u. roy! today is the widest of whales. i felt a fool when i left my abode this morning in evening wear (fit for the opera tonight i am!) and then realized i am not wearing corduroy on my favorite holiday. curses! i will, however, attend something even more hard to get into than the proper corduroy appreciation party, and that is, of course, venus in furs. i do not see the hour!

i said in my last missive that i would take on joe’s pud and their 10 drink minimum. rather i will just remind you all to be aware of the drink minimums (or maximums as the case may be!) and the 7 dollar cranberry juices that lurk.

at least you won’t get a uti!

kippy