June 2009
45 posts
Women 'happiest at 28' →
I saw this headline and thought, ‘YAY’, as tomorrow I will attain this age of sheer joy, but then I read further and realise that this was a conclusion drawn by a brand of hair colour which kindly assures me and my cohort that “Reaching and surpassing your twenties no longer triggers the downward spiral of your looks and self-confidence.”
I guess it happens when you turn...
“Every person of fairly good education and of restless mind writes a book. As a...”
– “The March 25, 1893 Newark Daily Advocate ran predictions of what the world of 1993 would look like.” (via Paleo-Future.) (via somethingchanged)
Actually, more books are printed these days, but otherwise, how prescient!
1 tag
On an unpleasant man I met at a party
“No offence,” said the man at the party who’d just asked how long I’d lived in London, “but if I were you, I’d get a new accent. No one likes American accents.”
“No, that is quite offensive,” I said.
“I’m not anti-American,” he said, “but you really should learn to speak differently.”
“Um, no,” I...
“Like Orpheus, Jackson was destroyed by his fans, whose adulation and adoration...”
– ‘Like Orpheus, Michael Jackson was destroyed by his fans’ | Music | The Guardian
1 tag
Things I have done so you don't have to (1)
A high ropes obstacle course after sleeping only between the hours of 5 and 7 am. The feeling that I had at the moment of impact after my body was flung across the forest on the end of a cable into a knotted-rope net was unique, and not recommended.
On the King of Pop
I can’t get on board with the hysteria; I mean, it’s sad that he died, but I have always felt quite indifferent about him. Why? I blame my parents: when all the cool families were rocking out to Thriller, favourite Edelstein family albums of 1985 included the King Singers and flautist James Galway and a bit of Marian Anderson. (Oh, and the soundtrack to Tubby the Tuba, which always...
“And then toast your friends and dance a bit foolishly and wear a silly hat, but...”
– Himglish and Femalese: Single at a wedding? Whatever.
On unwanted beauty treatments
First, the creepy pedicure. Killing time on Monday afternoon at the hotel where I was staying, awaiting my return home, I decided I would get my nails done.
‘Take your clothes off and change into this sarong,’ said the beauty therapist.
‘Excuse me?’ I said, because I have never had a pedicure that did not involve me sitting fully clothed (except my socks) in a hilarious...
“There’s no way crabs should stand in your way to romance. Wait, that...”
– Sebastian, in reaction to me recounting how some promising frisson with a handsome chap in Portgual was quashed when I accidentally ingested some crab at dinner that was stealthily hidden in a salad - this caused me to have a nasty allergic reaction, complete with unflattering swelling and facial...
Howlingly...
Check out my sister’s excellent linguistics blog, iloveadverbs:
A friend sent me an etymological question last week.
‘I was wondering today. If you blend hoot with owl, you have howl. This almost seems like a blend to me, except that non-owl animals also howl, like wolves. What do you make of this phenomena?’
In linguistics, the term blend refers to a word that is formed from...
Jean: Look! There's an article about me in the Jewish News!
Ben: What for?
Jean: My book. Obviously.
Ben: Oh...
Jean: They don't just write an article about everyone who is Jewish.
Ben: Well, how should I know?!
On The Ivy
I went there tonight for the first time, and the most striking thing of all was the way that all of the diners glared at each other (myself and my companion included). ‘Are you famous?’ we were all thinking, and yet none of us were.
JHE Solves Your Relationship Problems: Saying No
himglishandfemalese:
Now, imagine you asked him on a date and he said something like, ‘Hi, of course it would be fun to meet up but at risk of being presumptuous, I’m really not looking for anything romantic right now’. You would think, ‘oh, that’s kind of humiliating, and rejection is never nice, but at least I am being humiliated/rejected directly on my phone rather than passive-aggressively...
Why You Should Help Sell Your Book →
So true: finishing the manuscript is only the beginning of your job as an author. (On that note, wouldn’t you like to buy a book?)
iainbroome:
Every time I post anything about building a platform, blogging, or creating an online presence, I inevitably get a few grumbles and complaints about why this is necessary. Some people want proof that all these activities can actually sell books. I...
“When holidaymakers were asked to sit at the back of the plane to balance heavy...”
– Terrified tourists boycott Thomas Cook flight home after being told to sit at back ‘to help balance the jet’ | Mail Online
Oh, how my nice ex-boyf used to chortle (not unkindly) when I compulsively leaned in the opposite direction whenever planes we were flying in banked, because I...
Jean: I've noticed that when I wear my fluorescent cycling vest I get far fewer catcalls from builders. I think it because they see it and think, 'ah, she's one of us'.
Brie: Keep thinking that if it makes you feel better, Jean.
“It is true, I think, that some women find it harder to write about sex than...”
– Can women write about Sex? Guardian Books blog, 19th June 2009
Himglish and Femalese: now in Canada! →
Hurrah! H&F is now out in all good bookshops in the home and native land of my undergrad degree.
On expenses
Combing through MPs’ expenses is at once fascinating and disturbing, and not just because they’re squandering my taxes; examining what people spend their money on (or, er, our money) is so telling, but also invasive and intimate. During one of the thousand of temp jobs I had in my formative years, I was asked to sort the receipts of a manager who’d been shipped overseas from his base...
“I always say that I am like Carrie Bradshaw in cheap shoes!”
– Quite.
http://www.totallyjewish.com/entertainment/features_and_reviews/?content_id=11966
“Many young people see drinking alcohol as a rite of passage and an ordinary part...”
– Girls now as bad as boys for underage drinking | Society | guardian.co.uk
My fascination with the particular British attitude toward underage drinking endures, with this article citing the fact that girls are now drinking as much as their male counterparts before the age of eighteen. The quote...
JHE Solves Your Relationship Problems: Is She...
himglishandfemalese:
If you’re honest, you know that you pretty much know when someone likes you, and you are also probably quite aware that if you have to ask Jean Hannah Edelstein, relationship expert, if someone is flirting with you, than you know that she isn’t.
“I can’t WAIT to meet Mr Jean Hannah Edelstein - he is going to be such a...”
– Jude is enthusiastic about my putative husband, though I have yet to meet him either.
Random House Australia - Book Details - HIMGLISH... →
Brilliant - H&F is coming to AUS.
“…if you are considering inviting someone to the Saddest Lunch in the...”
– Himglish and Femalese
(yes, quoting myself, but, you know, traffic-driving)
On the family reading my book
Mumelstein: I'm on page 153!
Jean: Oh. Do you still love me?
Mumelstein: What kind of a question is that?
Jean: Well, you know, people get disowned over these things.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
Actually exists, I’ve just learned. I imagine that it involves a bunch of people sitting around in crowns and fluorescent hi-visibility cloaks that are trimmed with reflective tape and ermine fur.
(I am very specifically not going to do any further research into the subject in order to keep my fantasy intact.)
On safety
Of the many ways that my older brother ruined my life when I was growing up (and I say that with love because life-ruining is within the older brother remit) one that remains most memorable is his unofficial tenure as Safety Boy. When he was about twelve and I was nine, our school district installed seatbelts on the giant yellow school busses that ferried us about town. The drivers then informed...
My debut as a bicycle commuter this morning...
…reminded me of two things:
1. High school gym class, when we had to run in endless loops around the track and the soccer field and the fast kids would shout at me to get out of their way.
2. Mad Max, as re-intepreted by Guardian readers. One angry jerk on a fixed gear bike disparaged me and my lovely Sebastina for our lack of speed. I replied in kind with the only weapon in my arsenal: a...
“Hi. My name is Jean, and I’m a bookaholic.”
– Should we be promoting bookaholism? | Books | guardian.co.uk
Despite all odds, kindness abounds
noraleah:
Caught without an umbrella on the streets of NYC? There’s hope…
From the NYT’s Metropolitan Diary:
Dear Diary:
My husband, who is the ultimate recycler, collects the sad, misshapen and rejected umbrellas that are often found lying in the trash bins around our West Village neighborhood.
Knowing of my aversion to collections of clutter, he hustles them past me to his study and...
I spoke too soon
The pre-strike Tube was pretty unpleasant, and for one dejected moment I considered the merits of a rhinoplasty, but only because a smaller nose would have meant that I was slightly less squashed.
On advertising, on the Underground
It is, we observed tonight, often for things like infertility clinics and plastic surgeons.
‘It must be,’ I remarked, ‘because on the whole people are miserable on the Tube. And when people are miserable they think the worst about themselves, and I guess that means that they think about being ugly. Or infertile. Or ugly and infertile.’
I felt sad, thinking about all the...
“What you need is a man to smack you around and then make passionate love to you.”
– From my book-in-progress*, Unsolicited Misogynist Relationship Advice Given to Me by London Cab Drivers.
I mean, seriously, you expect me to pay you now?
*not really, though I have more than enough content.
“Even a few years ago the word “blog” inspired that peculiar mix of derision and...”
– David Sarno on Twitter, Los Angeles Times (via somethingchanged) (via fluffynotes)
When I was doing my master’s degree in 2003/04 I wrote a paper about how blogging was the surest manifestation of the public sphere…which was damned with faint praise by my blog-sceptic professors. I...
On love, and writers
Oh, and how we are up in arms here in England (by ‘we’ I am naturally referring to ‘the very small group of people worried about the hijinks of literary people in their 1970s heyday’) over Julie Kavanagh’s piece in Intelligent Life about her love affair with Martin Amis. It’s a deeply satisfying article, but not satisfying because of the gossip, and not even...
“Basically, I’m going to write a novel just for the power chords.”
– Anon, on the peculiar and particular soundtrack heralding (two years in a row, now) the recipient of the Orange Prize.
“Don’t turn it off, I’m playing my theremin!”
– Ben objects to someone changing the track, whilst air-thermining. I love that dinner parties are justifiable on hot Monday nights in June.
“Es que, pese a los años que llevan comunicándose hombres y mujeres y al...”
– por Macarena Peña y Lillo Cómo internet enreda la relación entre los sexos
I don’t speak Spanish, but I am totally delighted that my book’s getting press in Chile.
“I’ve come to appreciate the artistry of The Great Defacer. I don’t...”
– A Spoonful O’ ISMS
Ah, urban living.