Is Living Nude the Best Revenge?

Well, I thought so, but no one else agreed.

http://www.vanityfair.com/style/features/2009/12/seymour-200912

Don't Call It a...

So...Nightly Viewings Now? Wonders Emerz...

My father has a rule that he lives by: The radiator stays off until Thanksgiving. Emerz and I have one rule that we live by: No Love, Actually until November 1st (unless there’s, you know, company over). This year, I almost didn’t make it. If it hadn’t been for Daylight Savings, that wrinkle in time, and Halloween, that wrinkle in reality, that exercise in banality, that combination of New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day, I would have had to find a new rule. I don’t even know where I would begin to look for one of those these days.

What a film: A post-9/11 elegy that begins and ends in an airport (did you know that that is real footage of people hugging and kissing and crying recorded by a hidden camera at Heathrow airport over the course of one week?). An orgy of twisting love stories that never compete (competition, in my experience, is a mood killer at orgies). A Hugh Grant romantic comedy that is not a Hugh Gant romantic comedy. A modern day examination of everyday emotions and relationships and human interactions that manages to present a conflict without resorting to the classic, chronically-dissatisfied bourgeois ladies (chefs, florists, magazine editors, cookbook writers, all) faking a meek smile while their bumbling male counterparts grin on, sweetly stupid and headed for disaster. A tearjerker that never feels exploitative. A rejection of cynicism that never feels forced or ignorant. Claudia Schiffer. Mr. Bean. Music, music, music. Christmas. This thing fires with both barrels. This thing eats Sandra Bullock for breakfast. This is the Dream Team.

This film defines love for me and Emerz in a way that very few other pieces of art manage to do (Umbrella, Travis Barker remix being another lofty example). What I realized this 11/1, and what astounds and frightens me, is that I do not know what I base these feelings on. I literally have no emotional grounds on which to judge the film’s accuracy. My analysis of the human beings and their actions, reactions, decisions, etc., in Love, Actually is based on my previous viewings of Love, Actually, not any sort of past personal experience. Things could be worse. Eight is a lot of legs, David.

Lunch w/ Emerz

Cavallari's Weekend: Better Than Yours?

Kristin Cavallari Ended up seeing The Proposal, then came over and rented The Haunting in Connecticut and the movie about the homeless guy that plays the violin and cello. yeahhhh;; all we're good.

-via Facebook update

(grammatical errors Cavallari's)

The Love Continues to Grow

Booty Call for Emerz

Emerz' eyes are bleary and his phone is running on empty. We're squeezing grapefruits and the shrill tones of his ring call out and he trudges to the charger, asks to call her back on the land line. Land lines are appropriate: homey and wintry, a solid footing for a time of transitions. Kim needs Emerz now more than ever. She didn't like New Orleans. She couldn't stand the smell of the astroturf, the winking cheerleaders with pneumatic everythings, the low-lying skyline, the above-ground tombs, the carnies, the trannies, the Sandusky gentlemen. The mini-lobsters ("crawfish," mouths Emerz), the costume jewelery, the Sarajevo hangovers, inevitably waking to see the city bombed-out and splattered, neon lights cackling in the wet heat of midday. There was no ocean, only an earth-toned gurgling brook that hummed like radio static.

And Reggie would always leave the TV on in his cream-colored condo so she would wake at 5 am to a blaring repetition, the DVD Menu of Blue Streak or The Players Club or Booty Call and once, bizarrely, she thought, The Woodsman. She watched part of that, she loved Footloose growing up, but all she got were jittery nightmares, strangers lurking in shadows in seasonally inappropriate overcoats whispering things through tall chainlink fences.

And she missed home, that set where they all live, where Brody has a key, he's probably making a sandwich right now, his head deep in the fridge, a towel wrapped like a snake around his neck, water dripping from the hems of his trunks.

It wasn't all bad, says Emerz. Reggie had the hands of a baker, kneading and kneading until the ripples ran smooth. But New Orleans was too pleased with its imperfections, Kim told him. Where are their values? Where are their eyebrow threaders? And they can't throw a funeral worth a goddamn. What can she say? There was a carousel, but all the horses ran away.