Nifty Thrifty

Am I back?

2012-01-11T07:36:00.000-08:00

I came back here to find a writing sample for a job I am applying for and I was perusing my posts (intentional alliteration despite it's lack of popularity these days) and I feel bad for having abandoned this once oft-visited (by me at least) blog. It's funny now to read all that I had to say about the economy 4 years ago.

Now that all seems old hat.

I thought maybe I should find something fresh to say. Everyone is sick of hearing about how to save. So, I have decided to make this into a blog about luxury. I will do an iPhone app about how to spend all your money. Something like Gwynnie's app Goop--as hilariously summarized here on UPROXX. And big ups to The Cajun Boy for helping me to give a name to what I would like to become here at Nifty Thrifty. That's right, I now aspire to be a "possible white affluence performance artist" just like gp!

I mean, you gotta keep ahead in the world. With the "Occupy this and that" movement going on, what better way to rise above the crowd then to buck the trend and ignore all this talk of pay equality and health care. Keep that for yourself! I want luxury!

JK.

See you again soon.

Mabes.

Tut tut tut

2010-01-07T10:09:00.001-08:00

I had to just post this piece from Huff Post about H&M and Walmart destroying clothing that doesn't sell. Right away. This is really shameful and not at all Thrifty. Don't act like this.

I think I will wear all the clothes I found in the garbage (or at least at the thrift store) today.

More thoughts later....

Blue Mountain's Got Me Seeing Red

2010-01-06T11:58:00.000-08:00

So, I have been an angry young lady lately and I blame it on Blue Mountain State.

Lately some ads have been popping up on the subway platform for Spike TV's new show and they look like this:

Now, I don't have a T.V., so I don't know, I thought maybe I was just hypersensitive to the sexism that is rampant all over television and print media, but it turns out I am not the only one who is upset. Bowery Boogie points out that one of these posters on the LES was vandalized with the statement "This is what rape culture looks like."

I was struggling to find the words to say how this poster makes me feel, and that pretty much sums it up. Thanks, stranger with the Sharpie™.

What Bowery Boogie also tells us is that Spike TV got in touch to say that their poster was paying homage to the movie poster for M*A*S*H, the 1970 film about the Korean War.

Alright. M*A*S*H is pretty sexist, but let's linger for a moment on the differences:

M*A*S*H was made in the 1970s and it is about a war that took place in the 1950s. People were mad sexist in the 50s.

(case in point <--) That's right, years before Mad Men, and you see how mad sexist those guys are.

Blue Mountain State, on the other hand, is not a retrospective. And supposedly, we are less sexist than the 50s, or even, say, the 70s.

M*A*S*H is a Robert Altman film. Blue Mountain State is a Spike T.V. show. 'Nough said there.

The guys on M*A*S*H were surgeons who could get away with all those hijinx because they were saving soldiers injured fighting for the U.S.A., and no one else could do what they did.

Um, the guys on Blue Mountain State are college football players. Now, I love football (Steeler Nation, wooty woot), and I know sometimes it can feel like a game saves your life, but, well, you catch my drift.

Just sayin'.

Anyways, I said to myself, let me give this Blue Mountain thing a look-see, maybe it is not that bad.

You can watch the preview yourself, but if you don't have the stomach for it, let me point out some of the highlights:

Where do you come from? YOUR FATHER'S BALLS!!
What will you do with the other team? Crush them and use their VAGISIL AS LIP BALM
What will you do? GO DEEP!
Why is that girl giving you a blow job? Because she hates her father!
What is the worst thing you can be called? GAY!

Where do we draw the line? I'm not sure exactly, but it is hard to see the line when it is yards behind you. Ahem, Spike, you are like at the wrong end zone.

So, this Blue Mountain State business had me so annoyed that I started talking with my husband--my self-identified "feminist" and "queer, but straight" husband with whom I can usually carry on a great conversation about such things. I was unable, however, to talk about it without wanting to repeatedly stab the chicken I was preparing. And no, I don't have my period. ha ha.

We took a breather from the conversation. I had to kick him out of the kitchen so I could cook dinner.

I know, right? How can I solve the world's problems, and look hot, and cook dinner, all while carrying on an intellectually stimulating and important conversation with my husband and preparing my womb for babies?

Well, that, folks, is what we are here to find out.

Lucky for me, when I went to check on the oven temperature for cooking the chicken, I also found guidance on dealing with my plumpy bod and my saggy, saggy eyes.

I am so glad that the internet consolidates these things.

Guys.

2009-11-19T11:35:00.000-08:00

Okay guys, Listen up. I have been busy trying to make money. Yes, trying to make money. Don't worry, I still hate T.V. and advertising, but I am running outta bills and a girl's gotta eat...her Kentucky Fried Chicken. I don't know why, but the other day (in the future) I was (will be) driving through Chicago and I (will, hypothetically) drove (drive) over this very expertly repaired pothole and I (will) got (get) hungry for some KFC.

Oh, maybe this is why!

Where did I hear this little tidbit? Well, Brian Lehrer had Naomi Klein, author of NO LOGO on today. Good show. Worth a listen or two.

So, now I am going to shamelessly plug myself--but isn't that in conflict with your criticism of society Nifty? you say. No, guys, it's not. I don't like the massive brainwashing that is orchestrated by large powerful firms with access to psychological tools they can use to make you want things you really don't need. The SHAMPOO you've always been waiting for. The LOTION that will change your experience of life. The CAR that give you a euphoric happy feeling--you'll want to jump in the air! Nope, sorry, my pet portraits can't do that, but they can hang on your wall and look pretty and they can help me feed my dog (I prefer Catholic Guilt to mass marketing).

I have a recession special running now. Check it.

Oh the irony

2009-05-07T09:09:00.001-07:00

Just a quick one folks.

In an effort to respond to a question from one of my professors about The Great Gatsby, I wanted to find out some of the history on women's suffrage.

I ended up on about.com on a timeline of Woman' s Suffrage (link coming in a sec, hold on). So Here is what I looked at.

You might see, on the right, a small picture of two girls in bikinis.

Interesting image to see next to Sojourner Truth's name isn't it?

Well, you can look for yourself at the page here, and you can watch that video of the ladies here.

My response is Ba-huh? Pasty white chicks need a chance to get a tan. Oh boy, we've come a long way baby.

Or not.

Shout-out to 'The Takeaway'

2009-05-06T05:23:00.001-07:00

So, I got a call yesterday from The Takeaway, and they proposed a citizen "stress test" in which they would have listeners (me being one) talk about their financial situations with a financial advisor. Needless to say, I was really psyched about the opportunity, mostly because I love The Takeaway, and talking with them would be like talking with my friends with whom I spend every morning. (In fact, John Hockenberry, if you are looking for a co-host, I'm totally available.)

I had a great chat with a producer from the show. It did not work out for me alas, but I was happy to chat with some folks who produce a show that I really, really like. They did the segment with a couple other folks and it is worth a listen.

They talk with Gary Belsky, author and expert in Behavioral Economics, which is my favorite branch of the field, combining psychology and economics to get a bigger picture of economics (more on this later from Brian Lehrer too, check here. Oh, NPR, you are endlessly interesting and helpful). The Takeaway clip is quite short, but Mr. Belsky is reasonable and level-headed, so I'm intrigued. I'll bet it's worth it to check out his book with Thomas Gilovich Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes And How To Correct Them: Lessons From The New Science Of Behavioral Economics.

If you haven't listened to The Takeaway, I highly recommend it for your morning radio show. It's like getting the news from your friends. For me, The Takeaway does the best job I have seen yet, of using our technology to foster community in a big picture way.

Also, I directed my friends at The Takeaway here to the Nifty Thrifty, and I like to think it is not coincidence that they have also used Fantastic Voyage as a reference in another segment (in their case to swine flu, rather than traumatic sexual awakenings).

Next up I would like to do an episode of the Nifty Thrifty on how to budget time, but I suppose, in the interest of getting things done, I will write that later.

xoxo

The Nifty

P.S. In honor of The Takeaway, here's a Fantastic Remix

Fantastic Voyage

2009-04-23T19:27:00.000-07:00

I don’t remember a lot of TV from when we lived in Ohio. We didn’t watch much. Sometimes at lunch when I ate and my mother folded laundry we would watch All My Children and on Tuesday nights the whole family would watch The Muppet Show. Otherwise most of my childhood memories are sitting in the living room, the fancy room without the TV, in the sun spot on the floor, listening to records, drawing or looking at books, while my mother sewed a dress or a curtain or whatever domestic art she had jotted down in her project book that week. Back then, in Ohio, I got my mother to myself for a bit. Jessica was in school in the afternoons and David took a nap. I wasn’t about to leave my spot by her feet to watch television.

Even if I did want to watch television, there were serious limitations. The Dukes of Hazard was a no-no because Daisy Duke was a bad role model for young women, Fraggle Rock was out because my mother believed it was about drug use somehow, and Emergency was too upsetting to my hypersensitive, over-imaginative mind. My mother saw very early in my life that images stayed with me, and I think she wanted to control them as long as she could. She gave me a very refined aesthetic this way, shielding me from what she called the “garbage,” that would broadcast over what she called “the boob tube.”

It was when we had a babysitter or even better when went to other people’s houses that the real television watching happened. Because I was so infrequently exposed to what could go on on a television, I remember the disturbing things to vividly. Fantastic Voyage gave me one of these psychic bruises.

I was five years old, and my parents had left us, my brother and my sister and me, with some friends of theirs while they travelled to New Jersey to find us a new house. To give you an idea of how spotty my memory is from this time, I have no idea who these people were. I know they were a man and a woman. I think they lived by a major thoroughfare in Troy Ohio, and I remember the sunny laundry room where there was a phone that I would use to talk to my parents every day that they called. I felt very alone there. Television seemed like a nice escape for an anxiety ridden five year old, waiting for the return of her parents, getting ready to do what they called “moving.”

But that afternoon, the movie that they were watching was not at all what I was used to seeing. Everyone was wearing tight suits with zippers, and the lady’s was particularly tight. They were on a ship. They were in outer space, I thought, but then it turned out not to be outer space, but inside a body. Then the girl got attacked by white blood cells and she was silently writhing and they were trying to tear them off of her. My eyes would not move away from the screen, even as my fingers inched to cover my face.

When my father called that day, I remember being particularly happy to hear from him. He sounded far away on the line, but I heard a tone in his voice I hadn’t heard before. I think it was excitement. Pleasure.

“We found a house,” he said, “There’s a big hole in the back yard.”

“Oh,” I said, “Will you have to fix it?”

“No, the big hole has water in it.”

I didn’t understand and in my child’s mind I saw a muddy ditch, brown water.

“Oh,” I said again, really unsure about this whole hole thing, “Well, that’s okay, I guess.”

I didn’t care so much, I was really more interested in us all being in the same house. I was really more interested in this “visit” to these family friends being over.

“It’s a pool!” he said.

I sat silently on the line. My mother was with my father on the phone, and when I didn’t say anything, when I didn’t shout “Yes!” she knew something was wrong.

“What’s the matter honey?” she asked, trying to sooth me and my father, who was likely disappointed not to have pleased me.

“Do I really have all those things inside of me?” I said.

“What things, honey?”

“The white blobs. Are they going to hurt me like they hurt the lady in the movie?”

“What movie honey?”

I didn’t know the name of the movie, I think I called it the Fancy Verge.

My father’s belly laugh, the one that normally brought a giggle up from my belly too, echoed over the phone.

“The Fantastic Voyage?” he asked me.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, that garbage. Raquel Welch?” she sighed heavily and I was relieved immediately. I knew that as soon as we got to our new house, my mother would reinstate all the television rules, and I would never have to watch something that awful again.

But still, to this day that image of Raquel Welch covered in white blood cells, silenced by a scuba suit helmet, eyes wide in terror, writhing on the ground, lingers. Recently, to determine how close my memory is to that movie, I looked it up online. What I found was even more disturbing. I found the offending scene. It was indeed scary, or could at least be considered so by a five year old. She did indeed get covered with white blood cells. Her wetsuit was indeed tight. And then when the men saved her, they threw her on the ground, all knelt above her and groped at her body trying to get the monsters off of her. In the process I think I saw her boobs get grabbed at least twice. The scene is so thick with innuendo that it’s not a surprise to me that I once found it so frightening. I really didn’t know what was going on in that movie at all, and not just because I didn’t understand the inner workings of the human body, but because of the great mystery that it would take me another twenty years to even begin to understand. I guess in that way Fantastic Voyage was all it said it would be.

“Four men and a beautiful girl launch a journey you can never erase from your memory,” he 1966 trailer proclaimed, “When you come out you may never look at yourself in the same way again.”

Indeed.

That's What She Said, in the news

2009-02-06T08:16:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Warren:
Are you putting it in and getting back assets that are worth equivalent value?

Henry Paulson:
That's what she said.

Just kidding, he didn't really say that, but she did, and mightn't he have answered her that way? Isn't he playing that big of a joke on us?

The real punchline:

Warren again: He told us yes; our independent investigation said no.

Full story here...

...and here:

Watch CBS Videos Online

Paul Krugman and The Paradox of Thrift

2008-12-23T08:46:00.000-08:00

For a long time I resisted reading any economists for this very reason. Why do I want to read books by guys who tell me I am ruining the economy. Well, since I started writing The Nifty Thrifty, I began to wonder what all the things I was saying meant, and if I didn’t have a better intuitive grasp intuitively on the economy that I thought. Turns out, Paul Krugman addresses my very question in his 1997 essay Vulgar Keynesians. Krugman addresses, among other things, the "paradox of thrift"; an element of econo-god John Maynard Keynes' teachings which states in simple terms that if everyone saves we all lose. Krugman points out though, that this virtue turned vice relationship is not such a straightforward one, especially since we now have a Federal Reserve bank that can raise and lower interest rates to offset the vicious cycle of recession.

But Krugman wrote Vulgar Keynesians in 1997. Who was in recession then? Not us, yet. So now, here we are in 2008, nearly 2009, and we get to see what happens. Krugman's most recent op-ed on the topic, he states that major policy changes and a stimulus package that doesn't put the onus on the already over-committed consumer is what we need. I think the truth is, no one knows what we need, but I think Krugman is moving in the right direction. That was just a little Freshman Economics for you so that you don't have to feel bad if you can't spend money. In fact you will feel bad if you can't spend money and you do.

More on the topic:

Consumers Don't Cause Recessions by Robert P. Murphy. I have commented on this blog post for clarification, as Prof. Murphy seems to state that Krugman erroneously perpetuates the Paradox of Thrift. We await his response.

xoxo

Christine

Bee Thrifty: Bartering and Handmade...

2008-12-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

Well, folks, it looks like thrift is in fashion these days and I am happy to bring you more news about cheap stuff. I heard a story on NPR last weekend about bartering.

It features a company called Barter Business Unlimited, which exchanges goods and services for credit. I think it’s interesting to see our economy start to move toward basics. I know that for years folks like me and my sprawling Irish Catholic family have been in the minority in their spending habits, and for years I have heard economists tell me that if I spend money I am good for the economy, if I encourage others to be cheap like me, to buy second hand, to save their funds, well then I am free market enemy #1 (*see more on the paradox of thrift here).

Well, folks, this is a very creative time for our economy and I think us thrifties should lead the way. Here are a couple of suggestion as to how....

Looking for a New Year's Resolution?

Suggestion #1:

Why don't you buy handmade as often as you can? And if you want you can even sign the nifty pledge. I wish I had gotten this on to you before the holiday shopping rush, but alas, I did not. Nevertheless, anytime is a good time to buy handmade.

Buy Handmade Video from Etsy on Vimeo.

Also check out their resources for handmade products, and much information on why it is good for the world!

Suggestion #2:

Why not pledge not just to BUY handmade, but to MAKE handmade? My mother sewed all my dresses for every formal I went to in high school (except one, which was a polyester forest green number that I got at the Salvo), and she stands at the ready to make my wedding dress. So, I am lucky, I grew up with a crafty woman, and this helps take the fear out of crafting things. I have to tell you though, crafts are always easier than you think!

Check out ReadyMade.com, and while you're at it get yourself a subscription to the mag. It comes out six times a year, and it is the perfect addition to the craft room I know you are going to build in 2009!

Also good for instructions on almost anything is Instructables. Want to make a Flintstone car, or a mini light saber? They've got it.

Finally, I am sure you are all thinking what the heck should I do for New Year's Eve? I'll leave the big parties to our nightlife specialist Nick McGlynn , and I will tell you to chill out. It's just another day. Do take the time and think about what you did, what you didn't, and how you want another year to go by. But, don't stress yourselves much. 2009 promises to be a good year. But every year promises that on New Year's Eve. Can you tell me this though? Will they be there in the morning? That's up to you. Treat your life right and it will get you back.
REPOST FROM NEIGHBORBEEBLOG.COM

Next time, I promise to get back into the cheap events, for now enjoy the cozy family time, and don't spend too much on your cousin, she won't wear that sweater anyway.

xoxo

Christine

Shameless Self...

2008-12-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

Promotion here. I read some of my fiction at Freddy's backroom last week. Paul Handler, famous assistant to Brooklyn-based artist Mara Sprafkin, came with Mara, and the event made his blog. Awesomeness.

I'll let you know when the next reading is, in the meantime, if you need to spend money for Christmas, might I recommend buying books, because the publishing industry needs you.

The New Rules of Marketing, the Air Force, and Dropout/Postgrad gets an A+

2008-12-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

My most recent subway read is The New Rules of Marketing by David Meerman Scott.

Being that I have been so critical of the media lately, I thought I would read some behind the scenes stuff and see what tactic marketing will take next. I think Mr Scott has a lot of good points and of course he tells the story from the point of view of the consumer as well as the marketing exec.

(Important note: this book was recommended to me by Dropout/Postgrad, who is a genius, and just dropped an A+ in his marketing class at Columbia University. 'Sup Dropout /Postgrad!)

What he is talking about is how the internet and in particular, the blogosphere, is changing the marketing game. I am so glad to hear this, as I think that the normal tactic of marketing is getting so lame. It's too lame even for words. I could write a post a day about the stupid commercials I see. The old ways just aren't working anymore. I am happy to say that while sometimes it seems like we are getting stupider, I think we may actually be getting smarter. The consumer review system is where it's at. The educated consumer has always subscribed to Consumer Reports, but lately these reviews are more accessible than ever. Interested in that new device that lets you forgo the phone bill and make calls through your internet connection (it's called the Ooma, and I am looking at buying one, stay tuned for a review....). Well, just do a google search and find out what other customers think. Obsessables seems like a pretty good place for this, but as always, Consumer Reports is your go to gal.

What's the catch? Marketing has picked up on this trend, as they often do with trends, and frankly should if they want to sell stuff to their new customers. What the consumer would hope this would achieve is a focus on quality, so that a product stands up to the consumer review system, and largely this is the case. However, if you check back with my last post, I mentioned Wyeth and the load of trouble they are in by hiring ghostwriters to write journal articles that paint their products in a favorable light, you'll get an idea of the direction this can lead consumers. My fear is that we will have fake bloggers all over the internet. In fact, I think we already do. In my search for part time work to make money while I work on my MFA, I have come across unlimited opportunities to write for a blog that highlights a particular product. That's right. You can get paid to fake the consumer review. Not to mention that some blog sites are hiring bloggers to write about widely searched material in order to increase their searchability (their googleability if you will), thus increasing their hits, thus increasing their advertising income, or their sales. What this means for the internet surfer is you have to wade your way through a bunch of crap articles to get to the good ones. I actually read a post on how to get freelance writing gigs that takes you through a step by step guide to searching on craigslist (step 1. go to craigslist.org, step 2. pick your city, step 3. click on jobs, step 3...). Now certainly, this post might be helpful to someone who has never used the internet before, but are they likely to be on the internet at all if this is the case, and if they do get on will they even know how to go to google to get this post? And further if they do learn how to use craigslist, isn't it likely to be from their grandchildren?

Now, I have resisted these opportunities, because I am morally opposed to such fakery, and I get more and more annoyed by the tripe you have to wade through to get to the good stuff, but be on the look out for this. Tim Berry, founder of Palo Alto Software and a member of the blogosphere, posted this piece on recognizing the not-so-authentic consumer review.

David Meerman Scott also has some interesting posts on his blog, largely directed towards businesses who are learning the new ropes of marketing, but interesting nonetheless, especially if you want to know how the internet is being used. Particularly disturbing to me is his post on the Air Force using the internet for recruiting and PR.

Now, I want to be clear: I highly respect the Armed Forces and the risks they take for the protection of our country, and there is no doubt that marketing and PR have always been part of the game for the military, but I think the public should be aware of how corporations and institutions are using the internet. Knowing is half the battle.

Meantime, Check out their flowchart.

I guess, in the end, in the spirit of the rest of this blog, I want you to know what marketing is all about. There are companies out there who use the internet for good, and some who use it for bad. You have a say in this market and you should use it. Keep it real, keep it informed, and stay strong.

Next on my reading list. Paul Krugman. He's a baller.

Peace,

Christine

Who knew?

2008-12-18T10:05:00.000-08:00

Did you know there was an Office of Thrift Supervision in our United States government? Did you know that they are behind the new rule to end unfair credit practices? That's great news, but what I want to know is...

Where the f*&^k have these guys been?

Maybe I should send them my resume.

Also, why the heck is it going to take a year to implement a regulation that should have happened 10 years ago?

In other news, have you heard about Wyeth getting busted for Ghostwriting their medical journal entries. As my lawyer roommate states, this seriously violates the "peer review system." Just further proof that we have very little unbiased information available, and that even when we think we are reading "news" or "journalism" we are often reading an advert.

For more about the pharmaceutical industries and how they perpetuate this, check out The Truth About the Drug Companies.

Also, check out Selling Sickness which details how the pharma industry doesn't really sell drugs to its audience; it sells disease.

Disturbing stuff.

A little bit of old news, but a still un-debunked myth in the majority of the world, if you ask me.

Off for now.

xoxo

Christine

Bee Thrifty: It's getting serious

2008-12-10T09:26:00.000-08:00

REPOST FROM Neighborbeeblog.com

Hi Folks,

I have a few things to tell you about this week. First off, let me just say for all my snarkiness about Black Friday, I was absolutely horrified to see the news that day and find out about Jdimytai Damour being trampled to death at the pre-dawn opening of a Long Island Walmart. I am not going to vilify Walmart, or the people who did the trampling. That is not my job, but I do want to clarify that being thrifty is an attitude, a lifestyle that values the beautiful and not the expensive. One of the basic tenets of being thrifty is tossing away the idea of keeping up with the Joneses. You live with what you need and if you can get some pretty things and enjoy nourishing food while being good to the world, well that is the best deal in town. Being thrifty is the absolute opposite of stampeding at Walmart.

I love a good deal, but I have been horrified for some time by the society we have created. Don't let anyone tell you that we simply ARE monsters and that we act out of instinct in some sort of survival of the fittest nightmare. We are smart enough to understand what it is we are doing, and we were smart enough to intentionally create the system that is currently breaking our backs, and we should be smart enough to stop our own creation.

I am ALL about the free market, lest anyone mistake me for a commie, but I do want to point you in the direction of a post I wrote almost a year ago which points to a few other smartie pants who inspired me to say hey, what's going on? Why do I want that cashmere sweater so baaaad. And why doesn't that cashmere sweater make me happy once I have it?

Well, I won't rehash all the details here, but suffice to say that marketing was created by Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays, and Edward knew that the libidinal drives that Freud pointed out in all those books he wrote were, for all intensive purposes, unfulfillable, and could drive people to buy, buy buy. Bernays not only used Freud's theories, but also crowd psychology and Pavlovian theories. So, I won't stay on the soapbox long, but are we surprised when we act like animals for things? No. Should we be shocked and ashamed? Yes. But now you know why you want things so bad, and knowing is half the battle.

Two more things before I get off my soapbox.

Verizon Wireless aired a commercial the weekend after Black Friday in which two women discussed going to get a Verizon phone. One woman says to the other "So, if there is only one phone left, which one of us gets it?" The other woman says, "Me," to which the first woman replies, "Wrong answer," and shoots her in the neck with a poison dart. So, we are surprised that even when we are bombarded with this kind advertising we can't respect life more than products. Are we surprised? Not exactly. Are we shocked and ashamed? We should be.

Next, is this beautiful speech given by Louis CK on Conan:

So, folks, let's get it together

Or we could get it together,

Or if you prefer we could get it togethe r. One, Two Oh My God.

OK, off the soapbox, here's the thrifty news for the week.

Give a coat, get some gloves!

NY Cares Coat Drive: Giving coats to coat drives can be a lucrative ordeal. I mean, you should give your coat just because you are not wearing it and someone is cold, but New York Cares is giving back to its donors. Check it out here. The best of the bunch? Paragon sports will give you a free Marmot hat and gloves. Nice. There are lots of other deals too, but only until SUNDAY!!!! Check it out

A beer and a shot (in the ear), please

Also, I'd like to call your attention to Earshot's Holiday Fiesta which is taking place THIS FRIDAY in Williamsburg. Now, this reading series is not free, which, I know, makes you think, why are you recommending this one? Well, A) it's good, and B) your $5 admission fee gets you a free drink! Voila! Thrifty!!!

EARSHOT READING SERIES at Rose Live Music

December 12 // 8 PM
$5 + one free drink
345 Grand Street (b/w Havemeyer & Marcy)
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 599-0069

Nearby Train Stops: L (Lorimer/Bedford), G (Metropolitan/Grand), J/M/Z (Marcy Ave)

Featuring:

The One O'clock Poets (This Full Green Hour)
Guillermo Castro, Amy Lemmon, Katrinka Moore, Joan Lauri Poole, Elizabeth Poreba, and Sarah Stern
Tennessee Jones (Hunter College)
Michelle Brule (Brooklyn College)
Marina Kaganova (Columbia University)

You Feelin' Lucky?

Finally, I have a brainchild I'd like to share with you. When I was uptown at a deli near Columbia University, a casting director approached me and asked me if I would like to appear in Lucky Magazine's "My Foolproof Outfit." I, of course, was really flattered. Wearing my $5 skirt, my $10 sweater and my $25 boots, I thought, yeah, a magazine that wants to feature a girl with style and the smarts not to pay big bucks for it. Boy was I wrong. The people at Lucky were fantastic and fun and helped me find all kinds of pretty clothes from their rack to wear in the mag, they put makeup on me, they cut my bangs for free, and they fed me all day. Fun fun fun. However, it wasn't until the magazine printed that I knew how much every thing cost. AWWWOOOGA! I couldn't afford any of the stuff that they had me wearing! Apparently, I am not alone in this experience. Good news is, Glossed Over says Lucky Mag is lowering its standards.

I loved the look that Lucky Mag gave me though, and I am pretty sure I could create it for less. So as part of my dedication to thrift, I am accepting challenges from my audience for (Nearly)FreeStylin'. What does that mean? It means you send me an outfit you like, say from Vogue or Elle, or some other magazine and I will try and recreate it for you at bargain basement prices. If you'd like to participate, send me an email at NearlyFreeStylin@gmail.com with a picture of the outfit. I reserve the right to refuse outfits on the basis of taste.

In the meantime, please try and ignore the message from the media that you are not good enough until you have their stuff. I'm not saying don't buy the stuff, I'm saying don't buy the hype. But, Christine, you ask, how do I know whether I am buying the stuff or the hype? I ask myself a question every time I buy: How is this going to affect the direction of the life I am leading? Is this a direction I want my life to take?

It's a very personal question. Next week, I will touch on the worthy things I like to spend my money on (food, wine, art, clothes, gifts, etc.) and why it's important to think before you buy.

Abundance is possible. Excess should be avoided. Know the difference.

Your friend in thrift,

Christine

Stampedes and shoot outs

2008-11-30T17:06:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone,

You will have noticed that I have just posted a bunch of entries that I have been doing for a little blog called Neighbor Bee. Being brought up in an Irish Catholic family, I have always been passionate about thrift. It was a principle my parents taught me that was originally about simply saving a dollar. Recently for me it has been a kind of lifestyle, a throw back to the aesthetics, Christ even. Throwing off the temptations of the material world has
always been a stylish counter culture, and recently, it has become a necessity, and since I have been living under the radar for very little, and constantly scoffing at TV commercials and the brainwashing that we call life here in America. I will be doing some more posting on the history of commerce (as it relates to human psychology, as I started here

I will also let you in on the secrets of my thrifty life. Well, they aren't secrets, really. As anyone who knows me will attest, if you compliment me on an outfit, I will quickly tell you how cheap it was, and where I got it.

So, on the heals of a very black Black Friday, I have decided to stop keeping my opinions (or my shopping secrets) to myself.

I should make it clear that I like to live ethically and inexpensively, I have a fine taste. I like rich wine, the best food, good style, and fine entertainment. This will not actually be a poor man's life. It will be made of the finest luxuries, with a higher consciousness.

So, as I said, this Black Friday was black indeed. I made cheeky jokes about consumerism in the US in my last post, but I didn't think there would be actual deaths involved. I didn't think that a part-time security guard would get trampled in a stampede in a Long Island Walmart, or that there would be an actual shoot out in Toys R Us in Palm Desert, CA.

I can't even begin to tell you how disturbing and yet how utterly unsurprising these events were. I don't even really feel like I can write about it and draw comparisons about low prices with high costs or something of that nature. In fact, the L A Times treatment of it is somewhat ridiculous. The mention of the man pulling his gun from his baggy pants, the interview with the three-year-old child, and the graphic are all such caricatures of news that I found myself thinking of The Wire's Scott Templeton.

From The Wire website:

The self-promoting Templeton is hungry and willing to go to great lengths for a plum assignment. His prose reflects his ambition: overwrought with a tendency towards exaggeration.

Templeton goes to great lengths to break the great story. First inventing handicap children, then fabricating details of a Vet's story, and finally entangling himself in a fake murder investigation, by faking a phone call from a nonexistent serial killer. If you haven't seen The Wire, please go out now and buy it or rent it. Every season is fantastic, and a fine critique of police, schools, government, journalism, and society in general.

Now, being a writer, my beef is not with the writer of the article in the LA Times. Who can blame her, him, excuse me THEM for this. I'm sure that they didn't choose to make the media this way, but this insistence on sensationalism forces a narrative that is just not necessary. The story itself is the narrative, and I don't think it needs any embellishments. I just can't help but think that a writer on a story like this is pressured in to getting an angle that someone else doesn't have. Thus the poor three-year-old is thrown in there:

Outside Pizza Hut, where witnesses were being interviewed, 3-year-old Landon Stitt sat on the grass munching on his pizza. He spoke matter-of-factly, almost as if he was describing a video game.

"I saw it," he said. "They were fighting. They were shooting." He shaped his fingers into a gun, then fired into the air.

How is the phrase "almost as if describing a video game" relevant? What is that supposed to mean? I get it that we are dealing with the potential desensitization of an entire generation, but doesn't the shoot out itself give us this information? Isn't the witnessing Jingle All the Way meets Grand Theft Auto enough?

I can just hear the response. It's important to "find the the human angle" in every story. But why bother when the story sadly enough is so utterly human?

And don't even get me started on this map.

Oh, thanks, LA Times. If you hadn't drawn that nifty graphic, I would not have know that the shooting took place in Toys R Us, on a highway, next to some roads. That's a very informative map.

Finally, the article couldn't end without throwing in that Toys R Us would not like it if we associated this with Black Friday:

"Our understanding is that this act seems to have been the result of a personal dispute between the individuals involved. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to associate the events of today with Black Friday," the statement said.

Wow, yeah, sure, maybe it didn't have anything to do with Black Friday, but come on really? Must we be so sanctimonious about Black Friday? It is a stupid day that makes people do stupid things. I don't blame Black Friday either, but I also don't feel the need to refute the symbolism inherent in the events of Friday November 28th.

I haven't even touched the more tragic of the two stories. That of the man who was stampeded in the Walmart. Toys R Us may be right about their shoot out, maybe it didn't have anything to do with Black Friday. Walmart's stampede however, had so much to do with Black Friday and the insanity it can breed. Although blame is being thrown left and right, this is a larger problem then some lawyers and a trial can sort out. It's us, everyone. It's us unless we resist.

I will just end by telling you that after the man who died and the pregnant woman who was injured were carted away...people continued to SHOP.

The Impending National...Holiday!

2008-11-25T13:15:00.000-08:00

Hello friends. It is a rainy Tuesday before Thanksgiving and we are probably all thinking about how many outfits we need to bring to our parents, and whether it is better to wear the red sweater to dinner or the blue one. Well, at least that is what I am thinking about.

So, is everyone getting ready for Capitalism's biggest holiday? Black Friday?

All the newscasters can talk about is what will happen on Black Friday? Will the fate of the American economy be determined Friday? Will the shopper see his shadow or will we have six more months of recession? Wait, oh, that's a different holiday.

I propose we change our national flag to the following:

This is a screenshot from BlackFriday.info, a website created to track all the hot deals you can get on Black Friday. It's creator also has a website called KeepCash.com with all kinds of hot deals. A tandem bike for $230! Matrix sunglasses for $43!

I remember Black Friday from my retail days, and it is busy. The irony is, of course, that Black Friday is the busiest day in terms of shoppers, but it ranks only fifth to tenth for all over sales (according to Wikipedia). So, why bother when you can shop on Cyber Monday?

What is Cyber Monday, you ask? Well Cyber Monday is the Monday following Black Friday, which marks the beginning of the online Christmas Shopping season. Oh boy, can you blame the Christians for trying to remind us of the reason for the season?

I would urge you to research the companies you are getting these hot deals from. How are their employees treated? Do they support politics that you disagree with? I tend to check in with a quick google search about a company before I buy. The Ethical Shopper is a good place to research the stuff you want to buy. Being Thrifty is a mindset. It's not just about saving money. It's about not participating in the hamster wheel of life. The grave cycle of violence.

My family--and it is a huge family--has done away with the gift exchange, and instead we will be giving donations in each others names to our favorite charities. Hopefully we can get beyond politics this year, and give to causes we can all get behind. If you have lots of cousins, and not loads of cash, give it a shot.

And if you are looking for some ethical shopping to do this weekend, have I got the lead for you (special thanks to Serena for giving me the hint on this one):

Housing Works is hosting what they are calling a White Saturday on Saturday November 29th. They will serve free cookies and hot chocolate, and they promise no jingles. They have saved up some goodies for this shopping day and they promise unbelievable finds. Does this mean I can shop and not hear Mariah Carey sing "All I Want for Christmas is You"? Does this mean I can spend money and still give to a good cause (Housing Works profits go to helping the homeless who are living with HIV and AIDS)? It's a day in heaven for this thrifty socially conscious gal. Hope it is for you, too! I'll be stopping by their Brooklyn Heights location, but there are many options.

While you're on their website, check out the cafe events. Cheap to free they have a killer line up coming up. Special note: Jeffrey Renard and Mary Gaitskill will read on December 2. That should be an excellent time.

Also December 1st is World AIDS Day, and Brooklyn Industries and Housing Works have teamed up to release a T-shirt on that day. You can get the t-shirt at any Housing Works or Brooklyn Industries store, and the proceeds will help the homeless living with AIDS/HIV.

Please note: if you buy the t-shirt from Housing Works, 100% of the profits go to Housing Works. If you buy it from Brooklyn Industries, 10% goes to Housing Works. Just think about it. I love Brooklyn Industries. Shop there, please. Just maybe buy this t-shirt from Housing Works, then go to Brooklyn Industries and get yourself a rad sweatshirt with some camo patches to reward yourself. You've done a good thing.

On a final note, I signed up for a free Bumble and Bumble haircut. They will get back to me to let me know if I qualify. Keep your fingers crossed for me. There will be before and after pictures...

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know there are some sad, sad stories about this holiday, and people are still suffering all over the world. But, enjoy the turkey or the tofurkey, and please thank god for the roof over your head, the food on the table and the promise of yet another day to try and get it right.

And hopefully, your thanksgiving won't look like this:

(Warning: a little foul--not fowl--language is involved. Don't watch this in front of babies.)

Home For the Holidays

xoxo
Christine

Even when the rest of the world seems to suck with $$

2008-11-11T13:18:00.000-08:00

My new favorite radio show is the The Takeaway. I love the snappy back and forth between John Hockenberry and Adaora Udoji (best name ever!). Sometimes it is the beginning of this show that wakes me up. Sometimes the news sounds like a dream (President-elect Obama). Sometimes it sounds like a nightmare (economy, economy, economy).

So this morning, when I heard John say that the U.S. Treasury Department and The Fed bailed out AIG, I thought I had traveled through time.

And then I heard the word hanging on to the end of that statement. “Again.”

I woke up immediately.

Again? This can’t be good.

Even worse, my friends on the Takeaway, invited Stephen Dubner to talk about the additional funds for AIG, and this is what Dubner had to say:

John Hockenberry: Who are we bailing out here at AIG?

Stephen Dubner: I have no idea.

Oy. We’re screwed.

I like the way my friend Jay Smooth at illdoctrine.com puts it...check it:

Economics and Annoying Smart Guys.

Hopefully, as Jay suggested, we voted for the smartest guys and the new administration has some more qualified Economy Doctors.

Needless to say, it seems like being thrifty ain’t going out of style anytime soon. So stick with me kids, I’ll lead the way.

Last night at Brooklyn College, I had the pleasure of attending a reading by Rick Moody. He was funny, charming, warm and moving. All of us writers left feeling warm and fuzzy, ready to get back to our poor abandoned stories. Unfortunately, many of these free events are part of a college program and you need to be on the mailing list or have an ID to get in, so if you want to go to the really intimate readings, you should enroll in an MFA program.

What is that you say? Oh, yeah, MFAs are not very thrifty it's true. Well, if you can’t afford an MFA program, you can get a pretty well-rounded education by attending the right readings and events. I recommend the following curriculum:

LITERARY FUNDAMENTALS 101

Bowery Poetry Club, Book in Hand Reading group. They get together every Tuesday from 5:30-7:00 to discuss a tome of literature. The group is currently working on Homer’s Odyssey. Soon they will move on to the Poetry of Wallace Stevens and then on to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. All are welcome.

TAKING RISKS IN WRITING (and life) 101

The Happy Ending Music and Reading Series: "Where even the stories climax." Writers are required to take a public risk and musicians are required to play one cover, for which they are to encourage sing-along. Held the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of every month. Hurry and catch this while it is still at Happy Ending Bar (302 Broome Street at Forsythe 212-334-9676) because in January of 2009 they will move to Joe's Pub. I think that might mean no longer free.

DRINKING AND LISTENING 101

KGB Bar has it all, a lit mag and a well rounded group of reading series: Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction. Also if you want to hear what students in MFA programs are writing, KGB features students from NYU, Columbia and Hunter, so you can see what you would be writing if you were paying for an MFA.

DOWN BY THE SCHOOL YARD 101

It only took him 44 years, but Paul Simon has written a book. His new book Lyrics 1964-2008 is a collection of --you guessed it--his lyrics from 1964 to 2008. Lyrics, published by Simon and Schuster, was released today and on Thursday, Paul himself will be at the Barnes and Noble at Union Square.

Don't like the classes I've picked for you? This is one of those crazy hippy liberal schools: no grades, no requirements. You can make up your own schedule using New York Magazine's nifty literary event finder.

Speaking of New York Magazine, these guys are good to the miserly lately. I have to point out that the November 10th issue has taken a page out of my book (they must be reading Bee Thrifty). They go for broke with this thrifty edition.

I love it that thrift is so en vogue now.

Pick one up. Or, if you want to be really thrifty, in a day or so your local newsstand will throw it in the one dollar crate and you can snatch it up. Or you can read it here. The rag is worth a look, but as is typical of New York magazines, the assumption is that $400 shoes for $100 is a steal. I don't even have $100 for shoes. And there is more than a third of a page dedicated to how much money you can save if you brew your own coffee.

Well, duh.

My fellow thrifties, my hope is that I will never insult you that way. We know that buying Starbucks is a waste of your money, and sometimes we like to do it. We know the difference between a luxury and a necessity. Suze Orman has been telling us this for years.

Oh man Suze. Sorry. We shoulda listened.

Well, at least we can have a laugh together.

Suze on SNL

Until next time. Spend Wisely.

The (Staying) Home Issue

2008-10-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up and in what I thought was a dream state, heard Soterios Johnson say that the winds could be up to 40 miles per hour today. Whatever it is you do, no matter how much money you make, may you stay inside today. Forty miles an hour. That is some WTF news.

So, in light of that news, I don’t plan on going out today, except perhaps for my daily walk. In fact I haven’t been going out much lately, which makes Episode Two of Bee Thrifty less exciting.

Less exciting, it’s true, though abundantly more thrifty.

I think we can all learn from it. So, let us begin.

[L-R: Untitled Painting #11, Blake Rayne, Miguel Abreu Gallery at Art Basel; Untitled, Kerstin Brätsch, Salon 94; Doctor Atomic at the Metropolitan Opera]

Apartment Searching: Lesson one begins with the trials and travails of New York apartment living. I have had a thrifty dream here in Brooklyn, a four bedroom duplex with two bathrooms, a washer and a dryer, a BIG, beautiful kitchen and 4 roommates (one of whom is my boyfriend). I won't go into the details, but the building was bought by a landlord who doesn't fix things, two of the roommates (not my boyfriend and I) slept together (or didn't depending on who you ask), and one of the two in question moved out without notice. Suffice it to say, the Utopia is falling apart and I am in the lovely position of looking for real estate in NYC. What's the market like these days, you ask?

Well, I don't know what the economic downturn is doing to the rental market, but I will tell you this much: if you want to get a good apartment for a good price, move in December or January. Nobody wants to spend time with prospective renters right before Thanksgiving and Christmas, and nobody else is looking. They just wanna get that crap rented and not think about it while they curl up in front of a fire with a hot cocoa.

So, go ahead, if you've been thinking about moving. MOVE! Though, not everybody at once.

That would ruin my plan.

Eating: Lesson two for being thrifty is do not develop some random allergy to something that is in everything you eat/drink/consume. It is a pain in the butt, and expensive to boot. If you do however, happen to develop an intolerance for say, wheat gluten (yes, that is right, wheat gluten is in everything), then it is true that your frugal standard ramen noodles are off the menu. However, I have some great news for you--TRADER JOE'S!!!!

Actually, even if you aren't gluten-free, I highly recommend trekking yourself and a friend (to help you carry the goods) to either location (Union Square or Court Street, Brooklyn), especially if you are having a gathering. The lines in the store can be ridiculous, but if you can go during the week, in the morning or mid-afternoon, its not so bad. And the prices are ridiculous. For the past two weeks, I have spent less than $30 on food that has lasted me a week! Go now, make haste. Its worth the wait. (Special note: Frozen mini tacos. Yum.)

Library Shopping: Finally, I want to tell you something your library is good for besides borrowing. Buying! Yes, it's true, most libraries must sell their books at some point, and when they do, you can buy their books, and feel good about your hard earned cash going to a good cause. I just stocked up on a load of 18th century poetry from the Brooklyn College Library. One bag=five bucks. Call your local library branch and see what they've got going on in the coming months. Christmas shopping anyone?

So, last week's mission of getting student tickets to Dr. Atomic fell through, as I will be out of town for the weekend showings and I have class for the weeknight showings. However, if you are interested you don't have to be a student to get cheap tickets, thanks to a gift from Met Board member Agnes Varis and her husband, Karl Leichtman. You can get reduced tickets for any opera the day of the performance, but there is a special schedule for the remaining Dr. Atomic shows. Go here for details.

So, for the next installment, I hope to get out and do a little reporting again for you. Monday November 3rd, I will attend a Saloon (Not a Salon) at Georgia Sagri's studio in Queens, which will feature artists Blake Rayne and Kerstin Brätsch in a high noon stare down.

Saloon (Blake Rayne, Kerstin Brätsch)
Monday November 3rd 9:00 p.m.
37-06 36th Street, Third Floor, #9,
Long Island City, NY.
For more information please email saloon.saloon@gmail.com

And Tuesday November 4th, I will VOTE! I implore you to do so as well. It's the thriftiest thing you can do!

Until next time. Spend wisely!

[Scene from Doctor Atomic at The Met]

Nifty Thrifty Begins

2008-10-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! My name is Christine Rath and I am new to the Neighborbee hood. My mission: To find you the good life on the cheap. I am a grad student and I pride myself on thrift. In these tough times, who couldn’t use a little cheap fun? Sans risk of VD, of course. I said cheap, not seedy!

This past Friday I wandered into Chelsea for the opening of 'Monitor' an exhibition by artist Noah Fischer at Claire Oliver. Fischer’s lo-tech sculptures made of oh-so-familiar machines may have you scratching your head, but hopefully it's because you're receiving his transmission regarding “calling into question the ultimate function of our entertainment- based culture” as the press release for 'Monitor' suggests. This is a good event for the poor in the wallet and for those who have joined the revolution against consumerism for moral reasons, as Fischer’s refashioning of the icons of our new gods, can help us feel like being poor isn’t a curse, but a virtue. I almost threw my iPhone in the Hudson on my way home.

Oh, and it's also good if you're poor because, hey, free wine.

'Monitor' is on view until November 15th at Claire Oliver, 513 West 26th Street (off of 10th Ave).

Another part of my cheap weekend, was a movie with a fellow thrifty hero. We went to see Happy Go Lucky—a film by indie icon Mike Leigh. If you are looking for the right attitude about life during the economic down turn, Leigh's protagonist Poppy holds the key. Don’t worry, the movie is not about the economic downturn—but it is about unflinching optimism in a mad mad world. See it, but go to the matinee if you can and skip the popcorn and soda. Sneak snacks in grandma-style and save save save. Also, since the distribution on this film is limited, there are only a few theatres that have it. Check it out at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas at 1886 Broadway near 62nd Street.

Uh, one quick side note...I've given you the US link for Happy because I assume you will see it here in the states, but the American Marketing Machine has made the US website look like a tampon commercial. (Sorry hard-working marketing people!)

Check out the UK site, even the trailer is better.

After the movie, I was hungry, so we wandered into the East Village to find a noodle shop. What we found was even better. Umi No le! Say it again folks: Umi No le! What are we shouting? Well, I don’t know what it means, but it is the name of my new favorite restaurant. Specializing in Japanese home cooking, Umi No le is located at 86 East 3rd Street (sorry, no website). I had a bowl of rice soup with salmon. Yum. And for $6! Double yum. We also split a bottle of sake for $18. Oh, and the best part? Sitting on the floor, shoes off (though you don’t have to if you don’t want to or if you are worried because your socks don’t match, like mine).

All in all, a couple of good arty events, and all with the right attitude for a thrifty life.

Next week’s missions:

Free Karaoke in Brooklyn

Debate Party (throw one, my friends!)

PS1 Opening Celebration (Sunday October 19th 12:00-6:00 p.m. FREE

…OR…

Queen’s Museum Opening of “Erasing Borders” 3:00-6:00 p.m. also, FREE

Long Term goals:

Hunt down student Tickets for Dr. Atomic at the Metropolitan Opera

Find y'all a knock-your-socks off literary reading

Do It Yourself: Life

2008-10-08T12:52:00.001-07:00

My friends, it has been a while since I have posted here and a lot has happened to me. I lost my job. Well, sort of. I was fired.

Sort of.

I got laid off from Columbia University, the details of which are so boring that I don't feel like going into them here. The big news is that I have entered the MFA program at Brooklyn College, and I am a bona fide writing student. I quit smoking, and I haven't quite figured out how to spend a day. For example--today.

It is 4:00 p.m. and I have been sitting in the same chair for 7 hours. I have written four pages of a story that is totally unrelated to the one I have due on Sunday, and I have only written 2 pages of the story that is actually due. I have had 3 cups of coffee, some chili, 2 glasses of water, and a ricola. I have surfed around through facebook and found some people I know from high school. I have spent at least an hour perusing subliminal advertisement examples. I got to those because I had to google "coke cock"(research for the story that is not due on Sunday). And coke cock, not only lead me to the urban dictionary definition of a flaccid penis due to cocaine consumption, it also lead me to the image of a woman giving head that is hidden in the ice cubes on a coke poster -- coke cock.

Now, this is all endlessly diverting, and didn't I leave that job behind so that I could follow my creative whimsy wherever it lead me? But, coke cock? Really? It's only a step away from youporn. And yes, I know what youporn is.

The endless array of things I could do to fill my day are completely overwhelming and I am sure that according to one quiz or another I have ADD or ADHD, or something that keeps me from committing to doing the laundry, or going to Target, or ordering postcards for my pet portrait business, or watching Oprah, or WHATEVER, and instead has me making various lists that get lost in piles, that I will one day recover only to chide myself for not having done that! AAAAAHHH!!!! How in the hell did I organize an entire program of writers before this?

So, my friends, forget the how to's on designing your own stencils, or installing wall sconces--both terrifying projects in their own right especially to one who doesn't even know which Trader Joe's trail mix to buy--chocolate chunks, or dried mango, chocolate chunks or dried mango. Once again, AAAAHHHHHH! Forget these DIY manuals, I would like to write the DIY manual on how to pay your bills, maintain your friendships, go grocery shopping, and spend your day.

Would anyone buy that? Do you have anything to say to this? I welcome your comments.

On a lighter note, I did not watch the show "A Haunting" today, so I am less fearful that my house is haunted.

The Car is a Man: On the Gender of Automobiles

2008-01-07T20:23:00.000-08:00

This is actually a comment I did some months back (with some edits), on this post http://thisisby.us/index.php/content/man__love, but I think it is an interesting question. Do we instinctively apply gender to the industry around us, and what does that gender application mean to us, especially women? Is it a man's world? How long can one survive in machine city? And how important have our machines become that they have taken on the life of a human, or at least an animal ("my car died" "she's having trouble with her engine" "Gotta get her oil changed") and why are we always calling cars shes?

I have a drawing of mine on my wall of a red car. Next to the red car, in childish script, are the words "the car is a man." My parents came to visit my NY apartment some months ago, and my father looked at it and said, "the car is a man?" in way of looking for an explanation. I looked at my father and shrugged.

The truth is the thought came to me as if a message from god on a walk home to my apartment in Manhattan one summer night. I was crossing at a red light, thinking about how much faith I had in the driver who was stopped there, how one could choose to step on the gas and I would be at their mercy. True, if I survived I could sue them and make a pretty penny, but I was overwhelmed in that moment by the trust I was placing in this driver--HE wasn't going to do that to me. I couldn't see him as I passed in front of his car and it wasn't until I was stepping safely onto the other curb that I glanced back to look at him. HE was a SHE, and at that moment I thought, yeah, sure, the driver is a woman, but the car is a man. I have never figured out whether that statement--the car is a man--was global, or specific to this incident, but I think about it a lot. There are a lot of cars here in Manhattan, and some trucks too, and I don't know the gender of most of them. It takes an intimacy (placing your life in a car's hands by driving it, riding in it, walking in front of it) to know a car like that.

In New York, the car is a stranger; an ever-present, loud stranger, of indiscriminate gender. The people here a much the same.

Stuff, can't live with it, can't throw it out

2008-01-06T12:50:00.000-08:00

Two years ago at a dinner party, some friends and I were having an impassioned conversation on what we could do to improve conditions in our country. I stated at that dinner party, to the great dismay of my friends, that the most patriotic thing one could do at this moment in time, is to buy second hand. I have made a life of, and often considered making a career of, thrift. My friend Amy and I toyed with the idea of a TV show on how you can create the latest looks, not at Macy's or Bloomingdale's, or Nordstroms, and not even at Filene's, but at your local thrift stores. Imagine my shock, when I was chosen to pose for a piece in Lucky magazine. That day I was wearing many of my thrift store finds, so I thought they liked my look. I went to the shoot, though, only to find that they wanted nothing to do with my thriftiness, and instead dressed me to the nines in clothes I could never afford--wait, I thought they wanted me for my innovative style? Nope, turns out I was just a dummy, a placeholder for REALLY expensive things.

And I knew that other gals like me, who get paid decently, but not well enough to afford all the things they put me in, will read that magazine, and maybe even feel a little behind because, hey, that girl can afford those clothes, why can't I? Trust me gals, better to be wanting than to be a dress up doll for overrated advertising (a.k.a., fashion magazines).

But, I digress, verily. Let's forget for a moment the feeling of inadequacy that modern advertising, and now ALL the media rely on, and get back to buying second hand. Two years after my statement, a friend of mine directed me to this video called The Story of Stuff.

It is a shocking tour through the journey of the stuff we buy. The little cartoon images of people working around the clock to buy the things they are working around the clock to make, gives you a keen insight into the hamster wheel we are all on. But who is going to stop this hamster wheel? What, pray tell, can we do about it? Because, if we join the Reverend Billy, and The Church of Stop Shopping, won't we take bread from the hands of our fellow down-and-outers? People will be quick to blame you for taking the jobs of the little man, because we all know that when profits are down, the CEO's salary is not.

Well, I don't have an answer yet, but I can tell you this much. We need to stop living in denial of the slavery of stuff. Which leads me to my utter annoyance with the media and the mind control game that has been played on us for many years now. If you think this is just the way human kind is, think again. This mentality, though easy to create, has nevertheless, been created. Let me give you two examples of people who have directed our economy this way:

1. Victor Lebow: He was a retail analyst in the 1950s. I am not sure, but I imagine that Victor Lebow was one of the first retail analysts, because there was a time when marketing a product meant marketing the product. Our current marketing aim, is to market the need, not the product. Let's take for example, an advertisement for an antidepressant. I don't know about you, but every time I see one of these, I think, "Oh, maybe I DO need that. Life is hard, and I can't always seem to keep upbeat. Perhaps that little blob of a guy with the cloud over his head is right. I am depressed." Well, our friend Victor Lebow said it pretty succinctly, when he put it like this:

"Our enormously productive economy ... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption.... we need things consumed, burned up, replaced, and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate."

In other other words, we need to make sure that the consumers can keep up with the manufacturing. We must keep this hamster wheel spinning. It is very important that we, the people, believe we need all the things these guys have us spinning our wheels to make, in order to make more money, in order to buy more stuff. Hamster wheel. Need I say more?

No, but I will.

2. Interesting marketing guy #2, the invention of mind control. If you haven't seen this, make sure you watch it. This is the tale of Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, who is considered the father of marketing as we know it. Check this video out. Suffice it to say that almost all the work Freud was doing to CURE human misery, was later used by his nephew to CONTROL human misery, and direct the consumer to the store, or the ballet, or the whatever it was they called Edward Bernays to sell.

Watch this BBC documentary The Century of the Self for a quick lesson on Freud's id, uh, I mean nephew.

Point is, we need to wake up a bit. Perhaps not shopping seems harsh or drastic. Perhaps it may seem to some like these uppity folks are trying to take away their one joy in life. But, I am telling you that you were made to believe that consuming things was your only shot at joy. This was and is the intention of marketers. Stop watching T.V. for one week (episodes of The Wire excluded, as it is art not T.V.), stop reading newspapers and magazines (listen to NPR and read trusted blogs for the news, watch YouTube for presidential debates), and just experiment, just see how you feel about yourself when one week is through. I hope that after the anxiety about what to do with your time passes, you will feel like you are enough, like you are complete without these shoes or that purse, without this gadget or that. Like you are okay as you are, and the medicine, vacation, gym equipment, or subscription will not fix everything. Like some of it is nice, and some of it is important, but not all of it.

Try it, see what happens...

Peaches

2008-01-04T08:54:00.000-08:00

So, I don't just write blogs, I write stories, too. Most of them are in process, or waiting to be published elsewhere, so they remain, unsharable. Here, though, is a bit for you to bite into.

****

When I watched him eat a peach I felt disgusted. He ate the peach as if it did not want to be eaten, as if he ate it against its will. As if he were raping it. And the juices of the fruit reflected off his broad chin as they dripped onto the white linen button down that he would now expect me to wash for him. I don't know when I became his housewife. I don't know when he became this peach rapist. I don't know when we became this couple.

We had met five years ago. We were young artist types. I say artist types because neither of us is an artist. I would be if I could, but, well, I ain't so talented in that arena. When we were married we were that couple, you know the progressive arty couple. I didn't really care if he cheated on me. I just wanted that image, the image of us as a unit, of him on my arm. I wanted to have a baby.

Now staring at him I know my mother was right. I was too young. He was too irresponsible. In fact I couldn't even stand to look at him. Especially not while he ate that peach.

"I want a divorce"

The statement just exited my mouth. It wasn't even as if I had moved my lips and tongue to create the pieces of the sound. It was as if the statement, with a volition of its own, merely pushed the door of my mouth open and walked into the fresh air. My hand rose to my mouth as if I had burped. It was an expulsion of air.

"Really?" he looked kind of excited, ducked his head and put his hand under it as he lost a piece of peach. He slurped to try and catch it.

As the juice dripped down his beard, I knew I had made the right decision. I think I was smiling. I was smiling at never having to kiss that mouth again, never having to smell that musty beard, never having to wash those clothes, never having to watch him eat fruit again.

Am I too late?

2007-11-10T12:29:00.000-08:00

I fear I am running late. Not for an appointment, not for a date, or a movie, or for work. This is a much bigger late than I have ever been before...

I don't have my PhD in Neuroscience yet. I haven't read any of the philosophy I am supposed to have read. I am not married. I have no children. I don't have a "career" and I have yet to publish my novel (in fact I haven't written it--shit).

Who else feels this way? We all do. Cue french accordian music. Okay, Radiohead will do, thanks Saurin Park.

It's no wonder saving mice makes me feel better than anything else, it's no wonder I don't feel satisfied with life. I don't know what satisfaction looks like. Have you ever heard of the approach/approach phenomenon? Here I am, your average run of the mill lab rat. To my left down a tunnel lies a scrumptious morsel of swiss cheese, to my right down a tunnel lies a scrumptious morsel of swiss cheese. Which way do I go? Which way do I go?

It doesn't matter, right? Wrong. If I were really a laboratory rat, I would run back and forth down the little tunnel, never arriving at either yummy destination. I see this as a metaphor for my life. I can't run down the tunnel, because there might be something at the other end that would be fun, at which I could be good, that would have been my calling. I have so many callings that I am without purpose. I don't fail. Worse, I flounder.

Time to say goodbye to one scrumptious morsel and devour the other before something gets moldy.

Here I go again on my own...

2007-09-17T11:48:00.000-07:00

There is a song for everything that happens in my life, and for some reason today it is Whitesnakes rock ballad of the moment we all face, walking the road of life without mommy or daddy to lean on. As I ponder the bills in my mail, the ones on the way, and the ones on the way to being on the way, I wonder how it will all get paid, how it will all get done.

I am sick today. Not so sick that I can't move, but so sick I can't really hack another day of the less than rewarding job that I have discovered through various calculations, I am paid less than $20/hour to do. So, it is some web surfing, some reading and some napping for me. It's lucky for me that I have such a job really. I promote gratitude at all times, but sometimes it takes a bit of work. Here is how I did it today.

1. I went to work,and upon arriving decided that my impulse to call in sick was a good one, and by 9:30 I marched myself our the door.

2. I saved a mouse. I am with the general public on the disgustingness of having mouse poop on the kitchen counter. I am not however, into the glue trap. And as I walked home, feeling woozy and vaguely sorry for myself, I spotted a little grey furry guy stuck awkwardly to one such trap--the side of his faceplastered to it, his legs awkwardly crushed beneath him as if he had tripped and found himself stuck to it. He was wiggling frantically, and I weighed all the things I had to do in my apartment upstairs--eat, go to the bathroom, email the office, call my boyfriend and sister--when it suddenly occurred to me--What am I doing thinking about the mundane when death is on the line? How would I feel if I was trying to wiggle myself free, facing starvation or cardiac arrest from my panic and a passerby said, "Hmmm, I could save you, but you know I really need to call in to the office"?

So, I made a plan, mentally tallied the inventory I would need to successfully proceed with the rescue mission. I didn't want to touch the mouse--ew, germs! I would need a pair of rubber gloves, some kind of oil (olive or baby) to neutralize the adhesive, and maybe some alcohol to douse my hands after removing the rubber gloves.

I did stop to go to the bathroom, as I wanted to devote my full attention to the rescue mission. I left the apartment, all rescue apparatus in a tote bag, and scurried up the street to the spot I had last seen the mouse. But, alas, it was gone and for a moment my shoulders fell in lost hope as the thought occurred to me that I was too late to make a difference in the poor rodent's life. Then I deducted that if I were the callous person that put out a sticky trap in the first place (please my friends if you want to kill mice, poison them, use the evil traps that sometimes get your fingers) would I be kind enough to kill the mouse (by method of drowning or crushing) before disposing of him? No, I think if I were that person, I would just throw the mouse away.

Sure enough, on the corner by the apartment building of the first sighting of the awkwardly squirming mouse, in the garbage can, beneath some brush, was the trap and mouse still struggling pathethically to let himself free.

As I reached into the garbage can with my rubber gloves, I looked up and down the street to see if anyone would spot me. What was I afraid of? 1) seeing someone I knew and having to wave at them with my other hand in the garbage can--how would I explain that? and/or 2) being spotted by someone anti-rodent who knew that I was on a rescue mission, who would lecture me on the filthiness of rodents and how I did the neighborhood a disservice by setting this one free. But there was no one I knew and generally speaking people don't care what you do as long as you a) have clothes on, b) are quiet, and c) don't have a gun.

So, mouse in hand, I walked up the street with him half hidden behind my leg. I ran as quickly as I could without causing alarm, and brought him (or maybe it was a her) to the edge of the pond in the park near where I live. I held the trap out with two fingers as far from my body as I could get and pulled a bottle of baby oil from my bag with my other hand. I doused the poor guy in the stuff and watch him nearly sigh with relief, as the wiggling began to make a difference and his leg began to pull free.

As he lay panting in the grass, free from the trap, I caught a glimpse of his eyes in his oil drenched head. He was clearly in shock, and in fact his eyes seemed frozen over by cataracts and bulging like a looney toon. I gave him an unnecessary pet to soothe him and wondered if he would survive. Or would he cower in his shock until starvation overtook him? Or might he die of baby oil poisoning? I deducted that either way, my sitting there rubbing his tiny head with my rubber-gloved finger probably would not prevent either fate. So I left him, telling myself that I would come back and check for his tiny carcus, bury him if necessary.

It was a small deed, but it made me feel better than 40 hours of work slaving to keep an overpriced MFA program afloat. I love the students I work for. They are a gracious, lovely lot, but to continue to work in a place where my impact pales in comparison to the mere rescuing of a mouse seems like rolling a big rock up a hill. I am not cut out for this work. I believe in art and in creativity and its power to save. I just don't know if the MFA is saving anyone. It is a moral dilema for me.

So, you ask, where does Whitesnake come in? Well, the Ivy League Art School has been my home. Sure, in my proverbial family, my father beats me, my mother commits verbal violence, and my siblings get a lot more attention and love than me, but still it is home, and if I leave maybe I will just end up married to some alcoholic who sleeps around. Maybe it is not even better out there. But I think I will have to find out. I have graduated and it is time to leave the nest.

FADE UP: ME MAKING DUST IN MY TRANS AM, A BUXOM BLONDE IN ACID WASHED JEANS WAVES WISTFULLY AS I DRIVE INTO THE SUNSET.

CUE MUSIC: WHITESNAKE'S HERE I GO AGAIN...

Here I go again on my own,
going down the only road I've ever known.
Like a twister I was born to walk alone,
but I've made up my mind.
I ain't wastin' no more time.
Here I go again....

FADE OUT

THE END

Not a sell out, but a warm up

2007-09-09T09:23:00.001-07:00

I have a recent phone message from a friend who has (I assume lovingly) called me a sell-out for starting a blog. This one’s for you S:

I am sitting in a café in upper Manhattan. There is jazz on their stereo, but I only hear it on the breaks from my Pandora “Shout out Louds” station. I am writing a blog. I am picking at an egg and cheese on a bagel, thinking about how I would like another cigarette, and another, and another. The music I am listening to is poppy and thick, summoning nostalgia from deep within my belly (most of my feelings come from my belly—the curse of an empath: belly aches). My boyfriend lives in Brooklyn, he is the co-owner of a T-shirt company whose hope is to inform youth culture about important political figures. We are working on a proposal for teaching underprivileged children art. We work at an art school. We, and all our friends, struggle daily with our vaguely hipster-like identities. Am I a sell out? I am not sure, I think I am just a member of a generation that yearns to make a difference in the world and also wants all the privilege that comes with living in the most liberal city in the most “free” nation. And most importantly, we don’t want to sell out. We want to get money for just being ourselves. And we hope that when someone starts paying up, we will still be ourselves and not relinquish on our promise like our hippy-cum-yuppy parents.

My brother is a rock musician. He lives in western Pennsylvania, but Brooklyn is waiting for him. The hipsters worship an absent figurehead, who is busy stocking groceries on Mill and Blair. He may be on a smoke break now, but he may have quit. He may be working on his novel, or he may be playing video games, but he remains unaware of the throngs of plaid shirted, tight-jeaned, just slightly tattooed, purposefully grubby-looking, messenger-bag-carrying, lost boys looking for their Peter Pan.

But, these are only images and then there is the reality. I digress. I am a digression, this is where I am my digressive self. Is that selling out? Perhaps, but then, when does the selling begin. Where’s my money?

Am I like everyone else? God, I hope so. I am so tired of the throngs trying to assert their difference. The rush to discover the band before they are a free iTunes song. The rush to find the white boots you wore in sixth grade before they are on the cover of Elle magazine…or Marie Claire, or whatever the fashion magazine that isn’t so fashionable.

And along comes another digression--I was in Lucky magazine. Yes its true.

Was I a sell out for that? I would love to say absolutely, but again, I didn’t receive any of that coveted cash. They dressed me up in clothes that didn’t really fit (big metal clips held them in the back), plucked my eyebrows, cut my hair and painted my face. Then they interviewed me about my life as a full-time administrator at a university art school, a part-time student, and a sometime painter and writer. The article was printed. I was misquoted and reduced to a corporate-like employee without all the dimensions of me that I love (no artist, no student, just a single, 30 year old career girl, fade-up Mary Tyler Moore theme music). All my digressions were left out, including the fact that I couldn’t even afford the clothes they put me in--the bag I carried would have cost me 8 months rent. And I didn’t get to keep one thing. Nada.

I did get a free haircut, 5 copies of Lucky magazine, endless embarrassment, a proud mother, and loads of giggles. But they made me look a lot richer. People who don’t know me think I am faking my thrift store chique look. Students in the school where I work now think their tuition is paying for my $5000 bag. What I want to know is when did selling out become such an unprofitable business?

Why should I begrudge those lawyers and hedge fund managers I know? They are only conforming like the rest of us, it just happens to not be as fashionable among that lot to wallow in what is wrong with the world, to feel the drive to make a difference—again, these are images and erroneous ones at that, as I know a slew of bleeding heart corporates, and just too many jaded trust-fund hipsters to count. Regardless of the wardrobes of the company you keep, disenchantment comes with a price, not a salary. And yet, I am hopeful that I’ll get mine. That someday I can really sell something, and people will buy my paintings and buy my stories. And what will be the price? They will have to listen to me about what is wrong with the world, and what is really important.

So, S, there it is, my warm up. Now, I close down the blog to work on one of my short stories. If you would like to read one I will gladly sell out. Just send me $15.95 and an SASE. With love from the sea.

The Joy of....

2007-08-22T21:14:00.001-07:00

Sex? Cooking? How about both? The Joy of Cooking in my family, is a book that gets purchased for you (that is if you are a woman, in this sprawling family of women) when you have married (read: when you have grown up enough to take on the responsibility of cooking for a family, or at least a man). The Joy of Sex in my family, is a book that never gets purchased for you. You should not really have it at all (sex or the book), but if you do you should really be married. Anyways, in my family, you should really be married. What's wrong with you anyway?

Well, the news is: I have recently obtained both The Joy of Cooking and The Joy of Sex. Actually the latter is More Joy of Sex, as I have been having the improper joy of sex for over 10 years--eek! No wonder I'm so good in bed! The improper joy of cooking, on the other hand, I have not had. Luckily, now I own the joy, with a capital J, of both...I got the joy joy joy down in my...where? down in my...where?

...and the secret is (lean in close for this one): I'm not married!

And if the devil doesn't like it he can sit on a tack, ouch! Sit on a tack, ouch! Sit on a tack! OUCH!

So, moving on from elementary school church songs, you might be asking me, if you were here, how in the hell did I get the Joys (proper) of cooking and sex without solemn vows or surpassing the only occasion on which I might wear a garter? Well, there is a spot in the lobby of my building, where everyone leaves the things they do not want. A rummage sale, without the sale; dumpster diving without the dumpster. I love it. It is my favorite part of living here. At Christmastime, the Christmas tree is placed in the same corner as the things that are being left for scavenge. It is the most beautiful array of gifts one could hope to see--piles of well loved objects looking for more. Velveteen rabbits abound. In fact, when I moved into the building, it was December, and I didn't know that this corner was always the give away spot, I thought it was Christmas generosity (or humbug) that compelled people to share the wealth (or dump their shit), under the tree.

So, last Saturday, I came home to find two large--and I mean LARGE--boxes of books. Books! Books! Oh boy books! I won't make a list for you of the booty I collected, but I will tell you it was a veritable feast of literary sustenance--Eco, Borroughs, Beckett, Irving, Woolf, McEwan, Franzen...are you getting the picture? I passed up the biographical sketches of Star Trek characters, as well as some books on make-up techniques used in Star Wars, and some chess essays (chess essays!? damn, come to think of it, I should have grabbed that). Anyways, I had a pile up to my chin, but if I lifted it just a bit, I could fit one last (mind you thin) book under there and possibly navigate the stairs without wiping out. So, there it was: More Joy of Sex. Small enough to fit under my chin, big enough to have nice pictures to look at. I guess whoever had owned it had had enough joy of sex.

The next night I walked into the lobby and all the remaining books (the, like, three I didn't take) had been cleared away or claimed, but above the spot where our unwanteds are deposited was a sign: "Just married sale....combining households, so some stuff must go." After wiping the look of disgust off my face at the saccharine sweet tone of the note and the cheesy graphics, I scratched my chin and wondered if the book boxes I dove into the night before had been a cleaning out of the new married couples' book shelf. The books had had a decidedly complete spectrum of male to female, with moments of absolute polarity (i.e., Virginia Woolf/Boss Tweed biography). It seemed to make sense. And then it dawned on me--one of the things that "had to go" was the joy of sex! Oh, honey, you won't be needing that anymore. And I scratched my chin more and wondered further, had her mother bought her The Joy of Cooking for her wedding shower!? Was this how it worked in all families?

So, I decided that if the rule was not having The Joy of Cooking before you were married, and not having the Joy of Sex after you were married (and all these years I thought it was premarital sex that was the problem!), well, then I would have to break one of those rules. If I am ever going to get married (it could happen), and I want to be sure to keep the joy of sex (proper or improper), I best have The Joy of Cooking before I get married. (I know it seems a bit fuzzy, but trust me, I am the expert at breaking the small rules for the greater good, and I did really well in Symbolic Logic. I could write you a proof for this.) Thus, tonight, after a long therapy session about food and my mother, I bought The Joy of Cooking.

I am going to try it tomorrow--cooking I mean. The joy of sex? Well, my boyfriend has apparently gone into a cave, so not much chance of that tonight. I better go out and get Our Bodies, Ourselves while I am at it...