So I watched American Idol last night (and I'm watching it tonight too). And it's the bad auditions. Maybe I'm a sap, but I have trouble watching them. The children (even though some are in their 20s) are usually dressed strangely (clothes that don't fit) are almost always fat or have acne, they are pasty white, possibly gay, of indefineable gender (sometimes) they can't dance and they sure as hell can't sing. They seem lost. confused, insane. Some seem embarassed. And some seem blissfully unaware. So do their parents/friends, who often encourage them. Maybe they are lost, confused and insane as well. My favourites are the ones that scream "Fuck Simon and Randy!! Especially Randy...I mean, Simon!!! Paula was okay. I'm so auditioning next year. Cause I can sing... All my friends say I can. I'm gonna be famous. Fuck Paula!!"

That's Breena. The skinny guy before her couldn't sing, couldn't dance and couldn't juggle. He was told so. He bust out of the room, cussing like a sailor. His Mom (possibly) assured him he'd get there, he was only 16. He screamed ''I wanted to start out famous!'' That's Breena's reaction shot, which sums it all up. Unfortunately, she sang like ass too.

So I was watching the Golden Globes. And I saw Brad and Angelina. They looked hot. Hot together and hot seperately. She cupped the back of his head when his film Babel won best picture. I read the Vogue article with her, where she talks about him and the kids. He greets her at the end of the article and grabs her ass when they hug. I want them to marry or adopt me. My name will be Joanna Jolie-Pitt. I can style Maddox's mohawk. I can carry Shiloh in one of those third-world baby slings. I can compare style tips with little Zahara. I'll help Angelina write UN speeches and I'll travel to Cambodia, Pakistan and anywhere else the fam wants to go. And Brad will be kept around for heavy lifting. And the sex. Obviously. Check out my new mom/wife:

The Big Love by Sarah Dunn

Just finished this today. I hate chick lit. Well, not quite. I like stuff that encourages women to read. And if they like chick lit, than yay chick lit! This would be a chick lit book (pink cover, 20-35 year old female protagonist , has opinionated girlfriends, various men in her life). But it's well written, so I forgive it for being chick lit.

The Observations by Jane Harris

Only on the first chapter. Young, Irish woman shows up an English manor and becomes a maid for the young woman who lives there. The mistress is strange and does things like measure the maid for clothes but also measures the distance between her ear and her nose. She's also prone to strange outbursts. Gorgeous cover. Look at the hands.

Sparkle Life by Kara Lindstrom

I began reading this today on the bus. Three 30-plus women, Liv, Joy and Sara, who work in the film industry. Relationships, insecurities and sex. Good fun. Lindstrom has a very straight forward style that isn't as cotton candy as the subject might suggest. Another great cover.

So I finally got to watch this show. And I sort of love it. America as Betty is sweet, smart and cluless about fashion, but not clueless about much else. This episode had a makeover in it, but unlike most tv/movie makeovers, it actually made Betty look worse. And she was the hero in the end! Yay! Plus, the show is full of Latin music. Which I like, especially when it is cold, because it keeps me warm.

Paris and Nicole, Together Again

So they had a big fat fight awhile ago. Paris got engaged and then de-engaged to Paris (not herself but a dude named Paris. Although I wouldn't put being engaged to herself past her), then recorded an album, then got arrested for a DUI and was otherwise useless. And Nicole decided to quit eating.

But look!!!

World Peace is possible!!! And leave it to tiny, emaciated Nicole to make Paris look hugeongous.

I am officially in love with this writer named Curtis Sittenfeld. Earlier in the year, I read Man of my Dreams and I thought it was funny and very truthful, about a woman in her 20s. And now reading Prep (her first novel) has sealed the deal. Prep is about a lower class girl named Lee at a prestigious New England boarding school. Sittenfeld really understands the awkwardness and insecurities of adolescence without ever being condescending or letting her characters wallow in self-indulgence. Lee is so frustrating at times, the way she distances herself from experiences but I really liked her (possibly because there is a lot of me in Lee). This book rings true. Plus, Sittenfeld is freaking hysterical.

For instance, as a junior, Lee is failing math and gets tutored by a rather tiny freshman named Aubrey, who is awkward and quiet. When she graduates a year later, he gives her an envelope and told her to read it later. When she opens it later, the graduation card that said :

"I would like to express that I have very strong feelings of love for you. I do not expect anything to happen and you don't have to write back, but I wanted to say it. Good luck with your life. You are extremely attractive."

Perfection.

"I been tryin' to enjoy all the fruits of my labor

I been cryin' for you boy but truth is my savior"

Lucinda Williams has such a beautiful, sad and sexy voice. And her songs make me think of cowboys, beer in brown bottles, cigarettes and women in jeans. Slowly driving in a pickup truck, in the evening. And road dust.

Baby, sweet baby if it's all the same

Take the glory and day over the fame

I am taking a rather dull HTML course (because this arty-girl needs some real world skills) on Thursdays. So I was unable to catch a show I've been wanting to watch called "Ugly Betty". I have a serious pseudo-gay crush on Salma Hayek, who executive produces it and has a little part in it. Not only is she a total babe, but she is very smart and a fine actor. But I also totally love it's star, America Ferrera. I remember her in a tv movie called Real Women Have Curves, where she plays a young Latina who wants to be a writer. And she was my absolute most favourite part of The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. She plays Carmen, and her chunk of the story involves her visiting her estranged father who is getting re-married and is essentially white-washing his life. She has a scene where she completely call him on his bullshit. And I loved her for it.
And look at that picture. She's cute!

The Painted Kiss by Elizabeth Hickey
-about Gustav Klimt and his relationship with Emilie Floge (that's her portrait). Art in turn-of-last century Vienna. Beautiful book.

The Changeling of Finnistuath by Kate Horsley
-about a girl named Grey raised as a boy in 14th century Ireland. Religion, plague, identity crisis. And sex. Lot's of sex. A strange book, but I read it in a day.

The Last of her Kind by Sigrid Nunez
- haven't really gotten into this one yet. About roommates from different classes in the '60s. I picked it up for the cover art.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld.

-not quite into this one yet either. But I read her last book a month ago and thought it was quite funny, in an ironic way.

Mona Lisa was a Mom.
So apparently the Mona Lisa (or La Jaconde, if you are French or snooty) had just given birth, and that's why she is smiling. In high school, members of my art class decided that I looked like the Mona Lisa, so I have warm feelings for her.

I kind of love Ludacris, mostly because he cracks me up. In the past, most of his tracks have been about women and what he wants to do to them, mostly in a club. I read somewhere that his new album "Release Therapy" tackles more serious topics, like Hurricane Katrina. But so far, the few tracks I've heard are about Luda and his dick (or Lil' Luda, as I've decided to call it). And that's fine, because he cracks me up. And the beats are good. So rock on, Lil' Luda.


"A little sweatin' never hurt nobody"
Beyonce was born exactly eight days before me (her b-day 9/4/81. mine 9/12/81). So for whatever reason, I feel kinda close to her. Maybe it's cause she's another Virgo. In interviews, she seems like a very quiet, Southern girl. But when she performs, she's all growl and hair tossing and shiny legs and glitter. She becomes Hurrican Beyonce. She's a bit scary.

Oh Dr. Phil. How do you deal with these people? I watch Dr. Phil on a fairly regular basis and I really don't know why. Most of the time I change the channel because the people that go on this show are complete and total assholes. But sometimes I can't look away. Sometimes it's Phil who's the asshole, being obtuse and annoying, escorting his smiling wife Robin out of the studio. Today's show features a woman, her husband and her mother-in-law. That seems to be a theme this season. Crazy in -laws. Oh,and religious cults. Previous seasons featured fat people and bad parents. Anyway, this mother in law, apparently pissed off that her daughter in law got a boob job, got into a fight with her. And got her arrested and charged her. This woman is doing her best Blanche Dubois/Scarlett O'Hara :"As God as my witness, I didn't do anything wrong, Dr. Phil!! She just went insane! I think it was the breast augmentation! My word!" And now she is telling Phil a secret about the daughter in law that will "ruin her life". But not to the audience. Sigh.

Being unemployed truly sucks. The lack of money and the embarassment of telling people when they ask you what you do. Having days open to do nothing but read uninspiring job listings, work, then re-work your resume and begin to question the purpose of your life. Going to job interviews and knowing that you could do these jobs with your hand tied behind your back and you still don't get it. Being told that they were intrigued but are going with another candidate or in another direction (meaning not any direction towards you. In fact, in the complete opposite direction. At a run) . Having a degree from a prestigious university and realizing that nobody gives a shit. That having an arts degree makes some employers think you are incapable of answering a phone or typing or using a computer (because clearly I never used those skills in four years of school). Listings for data entry jobs that want 5-7 years experience (who wants to enter data for 5-7 years?) Alternately looking for the perfect career-type position and settling for anything that pays (short of waste disposal plant and employee at an abbatoire). And one of life's biggest cul de sacs: they want you to be experienced to employ you but how do you get experience without employment?

The book I just finished called Pounding the Pavement by Jennifer Van Der Kwast is about all those things, meaning the lows and the lowers of being sans emplois. It's well-written and truthful but I found the characters quite shallow and the main character Sarah a bit annoying. She does somthing really stupid about 2/3 of the way through the book and I really wasn't all that surprised when it blew up in her face. For better or for worse, I saw a lot of myself in Sarah. We both have liberal arts degrees from nice Unis and we are in many ways our own worst enemies. I just hope I'm not that annoying.

So I had a busy day. I had a job interview, I went to the movies and I met a guy in the park. I'm only going to talk about the movie. The Devil Wears Prada looks like a good movie. The trailer was amusing. I have an actor crush on La Streep. Anne Hathaway reminds me of my childhood best friend (who also had giant, doe-like brown eyes and was kinda nerdy in an adorable way). Plus, fashion is fun. I watch Top Model in it's various incarnations (America's, Canada's, Britain's, Australia's. Thanks YouTube). But I know it's not real fashion. I think Project Runway might be the greatest reality tv show ever. Interesting/ crazy contestants that have actual skills and are creative. I want Tim Gunn to re-arrange my life and tell me to "make it work". Heidi "either you are eeen or you are owt" Klum is kinda awesome and keeps having Seal pups. I pray one day I look as radiant as she while pregs.

Anyway, I digress. Miss Nerdy Doe-Eyes plays Andie, a journalism graduate, who takes on the job of 2nd assistant to Miranda Priestly(aka Anna Wintour aka La Streep) who is the editor en chef of Runway Magazine (aka Vogue). The first problem is that Runway is a stupid name for a magazine and a character as unforgiving/awesome as Miranda would never be editor of a magazine with such a stupid name. Anyway, Andy (Aaaaandrea as Miranda calls her) has this granola/grungy boyfriend she lives with played by Adrien Grenier. He's a wannabe chef or something. She has a few other New York friends. There is also Emily, Miranda's first assistant, played by the very lovely Emily Blunt. She is English and sexy and looks great in green eye shadow and all these various fashion things. Stanley Tucci is the only "good" character that didn't annoy me. He plays a photo editor and the only one Miranda doesn't frighten and totally calls Andy on her bullshit. The granola grungy boyfriend keeps giving her speeches about how she needs to be true to herself and how she has lost her integrity or something when she actually starts enjoying her job.

Miranda is pretty much awesome. Yes, she is demanding and ridiculous and frightening. But she is powerful, eccentric and interesting. And apparently, if Andy works as her assistant for a year, a million different jobs in journalism and publishing will be open to her. And then her friends annoyingly start bitching that she is changing and not spending enough time with them. Anyway, I say suck it up, wear the fabulous clothes and dump the whiny friends. Then get a fabulous job. But the movie doesn't believe that, and that makes it kind of suck. Looks great though. Great soundtrack.

So instead of Devil Wears Prada, rent anything with Ms Meryl Streep. Try Adaptation, she's droll in that and it's a weird ride.

Emily Blunt was completely sexy and some kind of wonderful in a small English film called My Summer of Love. Doomed teenage love affairs.

Adrien Grenier was awesome in a film called The Adventures of Sebastien Cole. He plays a young kid in a dead end town, who wants to be a writer. The wisest character in the film is his step father, who is a transsexual about to have a sex change operation.

As for our star, Anne Hathaway, she was in a lot of teen type movies. See The Princess Diaries, even though I haven't. She's also in Brokeback Mountain. Her wigs are awful and she can't yet play middle aged convincingly, but she is rather good. Plus, hot men hot for each other. That's always fun. Plus, more doomed love. And cowboys.

I am joining the multitudes and starting a blog. I don't know what I am going to write about yet, possibly random musings and little stories of my life.