tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24349817324787822672024-03-13T23:29:45.933-07:00We Mix Our Own MythologiesJenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-33797238801275863682013-04-10T11:25:00.000-07:002013-04-10T11:25:46.560-07:00who cares if it's satire?I had to ask myself why, in retrospect, I had been so excited to see Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers. I guess because it combined the Korine sensibility (which I know mainly from 1995's compelling Kids) with themes of pop culture, debauchery, and the lives of young women. I guess I hoped it would be like a self-aware version of "Jersey Shore." But I must've looked at my watch 50 times during theJenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-82086608148874303032013-02-20T16:43:00.000-08:002013-02-20T16:43:03.276-08:00HipsturbedReading Alex Williams' "Hipsturbia" article on the front of the Styles section of the Sunday Times, I winced unbearably. Not least because I have been doing the Hipsturbia dance longer and harder than just about anyone I've met, and it has slowed down in recent years, because I've realized its futility and fatuousness, and because I've become less interested, and because it's become less Jenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-18342039641499850132013-01-08T04:58:00.000-08:002013-01-08T05:04:59.127-08:00I made the opposite choices from Elizabeth Wurtzel--and I still understand what she's getting atAs insufferable as Elizabeth Wurtzel is, and she is, just the same way she's always been--I see what she's saying in this article, "Elizabeth Wurtzel Confronts Her One-Night-Stand of a Life."The article is about being 44 and having essentially the same unmoored life she had at 24 and instead of feeling energized by it all, she's sad and tired and even scared. It's about how she was successful Jenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-64390531074944554652012-11-13T13:19:00.000-08:002012-11-13T13:19:15.980-08:00Don't just find Waldo. Look at the rest of the picture.In last week's election, I voted Democrat all the way down the line, as I have done in most elections ever since I was old enough to vote (1991). I'm not entirely in agreement with everything the Left does, but I like the Left a whole hell of a lot more than I like the Right. Furthermore, there are broad ideas of what the left and right are all about, and I relate to the ones on the left and feelJenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-78170230252102615892012-06-05T09:58:00.001-07:002012-06-05T09:58:21.129-07:00Think about what being you entails. Really think about it.I don't think most of us properly appreciate how incredibly intense an experience selfhood is.
I mean, you're you 24 hours a day. You can't get away from yourself. You know what you're thinking ALL THE TIME. You can read your own mind, and you can't turn it off. You know about all of your most embarrassing moments and all your secrets, and you have to deal with them even if no one else knows Jenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-30762637092582074352012-04-17T09:14:00.004-07:002012-04-17T09:25:59.884-07:00My problem with Lena Dunham’s “Girls,” and all the criticism of itLet’s get one thing out of the way quickly: I do NOT believe that Lena Dunham’s “Girls” has an obligation to “diversity.” I am of the mind, which I’ve seen written about elsewhere, that if “Bored to Death” didn’t have that obligation, then “Girls” doesn’t have it either. What is that, anyway? That a show about Women is defined as “other,” and therefore it has to represent every population that isJenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-9259978022909217412011-02-16T05:00:00.001-08:002011-02-16T05:03:47.539-08:00why 1996 REALLY IS the sweet spot of women-fronted rock music and not just because I'm a compulsive maniacOne of my less compelling qualities is that I'm obsessed with 1996. This is partly because some of the biggest and most positive changes in my entire 37 years on earth happened during that year. If you don't already know about these changes, I'm not going to tell you about them here, because this blog is a public place, but when we get home, or maybe in the car, I'll fill you in.But really I Jenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-56541537576375322842010-04-04T10:25:00.000-07:002010-04-04T11:18:29.493-07:00"lovemaking on the go"This girl is complaining in the New York Times about how gross it is that she has to constantly watch people making out in public in New York City. More than anything, I'm surprised.I'm surprised because I personally have noticed a great decline in the amount of PDA I see. Before about 2001, yeah, it was all over the place. But nowadays when I see a couple making out in public, it makes me feel Jenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-82125134267841792982010-03-22T14:23:00.001-07:002010-03-22T15:01:49.191-07:00a modest proposalCan we please just de-stigmatize the word "hipster"? It's so pointless how it has to be an insult. I hate it that there's no other word to describe (in a neutral fashion) any of the zillions of decent, non-offensive people who nonetheless are culturally oriented that way. You know: who like things that are "indie" and "organic," who are oriented toward "design" and living/hanging out in thoooose Jenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-54264370215960759062010-01-20T09:53:00.001-08:002010-01-20T12:51:10.455-08:00artificial flavorsI went to Starbucks on the way home from work the other night and got a piece of coffee cake as a snack. But I felt like it didn't taste that good. I had a feeling that a homemade piece of cake would taste better, and that the Starbucks version was a consolation prize because I didn't have time to bake one at home.But I'm not sure these feelings are authentic. I'm not sure whether the cake reallyJenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-7243491135723672792009-12-08T14:52:00.001-08:002009-12-27T03:04:55.675-08:00all anthropologie apologies: what else should I be?I've been alerted to a TV show called "Man Shops Globe" about the guy whose job it is to travel the world in search of wares to duplicate and sell at Anthropologie. Racked, Jezebel, Salon, the Washington Post, the New York Observer, and Effortless Anthropologie have all written amusingly about it, and about the kind of person who admires Anthro stuff (wants to be Zooey Deschanel; would name her Jenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-86870891079964647642009-12-01T13:29:00.001-08:002009-12-01T13:36:23.271-08:00the Facebook disconnectA couple of years ago, I participated in the Cringe Reading Series, an event where you get up and read your diary from when you were 14 years old to a bar full of strangers. It was great fun and I have happy memories of it; the only reason I stopped doing it was that I ran out of material. I have a handful of screamingly funny diary entries from my adolescence and hundreds more that are just Jenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-63911572889466165752009-10-24T12:56:00.001-07:002009-10-31T17:28:49.917-07:00musical taste and the pleasures of shamelessnessIn high school I was quite a crusader against the whole phenomenon where people say they like something because it's just their personal taste, but it's totally obvious they only like it because a certain group of people likes it and they want to be seen as part of that group. Even more obnoxious, I felt, was when people talked about how much they hated something as if it were just a random Jenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2434981732478782267.post-87531481997028818012009-08-18T14:00:00.001-07:002009-09-05T08:47:45.182-07:00friday night video fights:I Love You, Beth Cooper vs. (500) Days of SummerOne of the most pernicious ideas out there about women is the Billy Joel "She's Always a Woman" ideal. Did you know that thinness is actually NOT the #1 quality that The Culture touts as essential for feminine appeal? No, thinness is a mere #2. The absolute sexiest quality is coldness. (Perhaps hard bodies and hard hearts are linked in the cultural imagination.) Attractive woman = utterly opaque Jenny E.M.http://www.blogger.com/profile/07800688750609322105noreply@blogger.com2