Author: nell-boeschenstein

O.K., ladies, who out there wants to marry Jon Stewart? And ladies, who out there has had a wine-induced bitchfest with your girlfriends about the fact that the Jon in question done gone and got married to some lady vet without having ever even met you? I would pretty much bet cash money that about 99 percent of C-VILLE’s female readership just raised their hands, and that the remaining 1 percent thought to themselves, “I prefer that sexy mofo Stephen Colbert. It’s the glasses. Wire-rims. Rrrrarrrgh!” For what it’s worth, I align myself with the masses. In fact, I used to keep a small, homemade Jon Stewart (circa the William & Mary soccer team) puppet on my desk at work. Occasionally, I would have the puppet act out a “he shoots, he scores” scenario. Is that weird?

What I’m trying to say is that Jon Stewart is the Brad Pitt of the Bush-bashing set: Women want him and men want to be him. But the closest any of us will probably ever get to him is Row AA of the John Paul Jones Arena, and leave it at that. There are, however, those among us who take our adoration above and beyond $67 per ticket. And those people are the people who traffic fan sites. I’ve always been uncomfortable with the word “fan” because it denotes a degree of fanaticism that in turn denotes a modicum of delusion, but I guess that is what separates me from the people who frequent the Jon Stewart Intelligence Agency. It’s here that people gush at length over Stewart sightings and various artistic interpretations of Stewart’s handsome mug. Perusing the site, I feel slightly voyeuristic—like I’m not on the team, but rather the affable friend who came to watch the game, but didn’t dress appropriately…or something.

Don’t get me wrong: Jon Stewart is hot and I could easily pass 10 minutes perusing his glamour shots. In fact, I just did. So could someone just answer me this: If I’m not the type of person who can frequent a Jon Stewart site, who is? I ask not out of a superiority complex, but out of a true curiosity.

My concentration in college was poetry, a concentration that shelters its students from the real world perhaps more than most college concentrations. When I graduated and found myself suddenly out in the cold reality of this “real world,” I was hit pretty hard. One of my coping mechanisms was to distance myself from that thing I had devoted four years of my life to studying. I didn’t read it much. Didn’t talk about it much. Tried to forget about it a little, I guess.

Now, after nearly five years of bravely facing this real world, I’ve begun rediscovering that familiar urge to read a poem every now and again, be it while sitting at my desk fact checking the price tag of a designer dress or sitting at home in Aspen chopping garlic. All of a sudden something will remind me of a line I once read and I’ll say to myself, “How does the rest of that poem go? I used to love that poem.” It’s then that I’ll turn on my computer (having moved around so much, I’ve had to leave my personal library stashed away in my parents’ attic), and Google the poem in question. It’s a wonderful feeling to have the lines I’ve been looking for pop up on the screen and satisfy the part of me that so suddenly realized the void not having these lines in my life has left.

Plagiarist.com is an old standby when I’m having one of those moments—those moments when I need my poetry fix like a drug addict needs whatever it is he needs. The site is hardly comprehensive, but it’s got a laudable selection of poetry’s biggest bangs. I either go straight to the line that’s on my mind, or scroll through the list of poets from Anna Akhmatova to Adam Zagajewski and window shop for what I’m in the mood for.

Lately, lines from Elizabeth Bishop’s classic “One Art” have been scrolling along the ticker tape at the bottom of my brain. You know, the one that starts, “The art of losing isn’t hard to master….” I think this is because I’m a bit homesick. Some real worlds are better than others, and I love Charlottesville. I really do.

Back before “Seinfeld” made it a house-hold name, I was a total sucker for the J. Peterman catalogue. I would read those pages like I would read a book, imagining trips to Tangiers, Australian cowboys, Hemingway’s cufflinks, that kind of thing. I was in seventh grade then.

Now, I think back on that catalogue and I think about the people that slaved away in their cubicles writing it. Probably people exactly like me: writers just untalented or unmotivated or unlucky enough not to break out of a day job comprised of corporate shilling. Our breed is ubiquitous.

My fascination with—and compassion for—the monkeys behind Imaginary Adventures of One, Mr. J. Peterman, reminds me of the fascination with which today I pore over the product descriptions by the writer for the American Science and Surplus catalog. His days are filled writing 100-word blurbs for things like little pill bottles, extra-leverage pliers, 1,000 pens, batteries, and belt drive motors. And he’s good at it. So good, in fact, that his 100-word blubs make for the ultimate in toilet reading (in the catalog’s hard copy version, of course).
This man takes the product description and elevates it to the level of…personality. For example, this small masterpiece:

“Flat Glass Bottles: Well, not flat flat, or they wouldn’t hold anything at all, right? These are flattened: 4-1/8” tall x 1-3/8” thick x 3-1/2” wide clear glass bottles with double lips and 7/16” ID mouths. They’ll take a #4 cork or #00 rubber stopper. We suspect they might have started life in a parfumery, but they’d make equally nice cruets. Or hold very, very small tall ships.”

I imagine him in a huge warehouse, toiling away at an Army-green office desk, the only desk in the building. A single fluorescent desk lamp shines on his computer. He has bad posture and possible issues with nose hair. The keyboard makes sounds that echo, I think.

I am pretty much convinced that I have one of the worst periods known to womankind. Cramps, headaches, joint aches, mood swings—the whole she-bang (pun intended, of course). I dread my time of the month the way other people might dread nuclear war, and when it comes, nobody better mess with me (although it’s hard to do since I spend those two hellashish days cocooned beneath my comforter popping Aleve and telling my liver to just grin and bear it). Thus, I would be hard-pressed to find anything remotely amusing about anything related to periods—mine or anyone else’s. I’d just rather not talk about them or paraphernalia related to them, O period K period?

Or that’s at least what I thought until I came across Tampon Crafts. Who knew that little piece of cotton which is a universal symbol of the suffering of womankind could be so decorative! So full of holiday spirit! I sure didn’t. I just thought the damn things were there to plug the dam. But, as usual, I’ve been proven wrong (and I don’t have a problem with that, I promise, nope, no problem at all) by some strangers out there in the big, bad world who are more creative than myself…when it comes to tampons. Because apparently, you can take a tampon—or many tampons—and make an Easter bunny (silly wabbit!), or Viagra cufflinks, or a toupee, or a blowgun, or any number of other things.

The best part is that this site is totally how-to. They don’t just share the products of thinking outside the Tampax box, they show how to think outside the Tampax box. For example, in the case of the tampon menorah, one is required to “Cut styrofoam to form base and paint blue. Cut a small block of styrofoam, paint and glue in center of base to elevate the center candle. Unwrap tampons (saving wrappers), remove tampons from applicators and spray paint applicators silver.”

Now if only someone could figure out how to make a bank account out of tampons…

When I was graduating from college and moving back home for a bit, I did a fair amount of research into the various Charlottesville outlets to which I might be able to offer my meager services (read: skills) and thus keep my mind sharp and my creativity alive. It was during this initial exploration of the real world that I came across Archipelago and Archipelago’s editor, Katherine McNamara. Sitting at my computer in New Hampshire, I could hardly believe that this website, which boasted the work of everyone from war photographer Peter Turnley to Senator Russell Feingold to novelist Ann Beattie, could be based out of a small home office off Park Street.

Plans changed and I didn’t end up coming home and settling for another year, which is when I first began working at C-VILLE. Having kept up with the website during my post-grad travels (i.e., my detour on the way to Charlottesville), one of the first stories I pitched as a lowly intern was on Archipelago and Katherine McNamara. As I sat in her living room, conducting the interview which consisted of talking to Katherine about poetry, politics, the importance of bringing the art of the literary magazine to the Internet and the meaning of the word “archipelago,” I thought to myself, “If this is what journalism is, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.” From that conversation, Katherine became something of a mentor to me for a time, which I truly cherished.

This latest issue of Archipelago—its 10th anniversary edition—will be the last. And like all the issues that came before it, this one is a powerhouse: poems and a poetry manifesto by Kevin McFadden, fiction from Frank McGuinness, Jeffery Matsuura on Thomas Jefferson and Intellectual Property Law.  Good stuff…great stuff, all of it. The Archipelago archives and Katherine’s e-mail address will remain in business, so if you haven’t visited them yet, do so. Your world will expand.

I’ve always been the person in my family accused of being the most in touch with my feelings. This is not a good thing in many cases, given that the phrase is usually offered as an excuse for some unwarranted emotional outburst I’ve just let fly. However, it’s hardly an insightful remark to say that these days feelings are the new black (blogs, therapists, memoirs, fake memoirs, etc.), which I guess makes me très emotionally fashionable. Seems that feelings have, in fact, become so fashionable that a couple of tech geeks have taken the word “feel” and turned it into a science project. Or an art project. Or somewhere in between. I can’t decide.

Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar, the duo behind “We Feel Fine: An Exploration of Human Emotion, in Six Movements,” scour the Internet for the phrase “I feel” and “I am feeling,” then post the different incarnations of sentences with the “feel” backbone on their site. Each feeling is assigned a color, and a list of the top 200 feelings gives one small idea of the feelings we understand enough to name. Good, bad, guilty, sick, alone, happy, depressed, fine, terrible, accomplished, wanted, awkward. It’s amazing to me the limited vocabulary we have for our myriad human emotions.

You can also search the site for emotion by age. For example, you can search for people in their 20s that feel “lost.” Or people in their 80s that feel “abandoned.”

I did a search for women ages 20-29 in the United States who feel fat. There are thousands of us. Who knew? It’s almost like with “We Feel Fine,” you’re never alone. Almost, but not quite.

I am a lucky girl. Not because my mother looks 10 years younger than she is or because I was blessed with reasonably straight teeth. Rather, because for the past week I have been making my way through events at the HBO Comedy Festival and thus have had the privilege of sharing the company of an absurdly large number of cute funny-boys. True, like all white funny-boys, the members of this funny-boy invasion pretty much all look the same—emo glasses, dark hair, New Balance sneakers, hoodies, you know the type—but that doesn’t make them any less hottttt. Plus, they make poop jokes! And masturbation jokes! Thus, I basically sat around all week drooling. I don’t think I’m their type anyway, so I had nothing to lose except fluids.

Anyway, I have a point here. And that point is that among the hottest of these said hotties-in-hottie-uniform were the brothers (not “brothas,” but actual brothers) from the comedy site JibJab. If you go to JibJab you may not be privy to the hotness itself, per se, but you can at least rest assured that you are at least patronizing hotness. (As an aside, I think that “patron of hotness” should be the latter day equivalent of “patron of the arts.” Such a distinction would give the folks that need it—like, say, film director Brett Ratner—so much more legitimacy!) Of course, aside from the self-congratulatory knowledge that you are a patron of hotness, you are also patronizing two very funny dudes with a very funny website. You might recall, for example, the smash hit of the 2004 election, “This Land,” in which animated versions of John Kerry and George Bush serenade the electorate? In addition to such JibJab originals, there are Internet classics like the immortal video of cows failing to have sex on ice and old William Hung (ohhhhh, William Hung).

Unfortunately for me, the brothers JibJab are both maweed. Thus, whether I’m your type or not, Michael Showalter, you’re my second choice, so here I come: You. Are. Hot. But you probably-definitely already know that, so nevermind….probably. Definitely.

Ask any one of my close friends or family members to name my biggest neurosis, and they will undoubtedly come up with one of two answers: airplanes or diseases. I can’t get on an airplane without major sedation, and about once a month I am convinced I’m dying of a tragic illness. For example, once I had a bump on the back of my head. Convinced I had a brain tumor, I made an appointment with a specialist at the UVA Hospital who took one look at my bump and pronounced it a spider bite. Another time—Christmas of 2001, to be exact—I felt a tingling sensation at the back of my neck. This time I was convinced I was slipping into paralysis and insisted that my poor father take me to the emergency room. Turns out I was just having a run-of-the-mill panic attack. Such drama is my life’s blood, I guess. Should I be telling you all this? I doubt it, but keeping my mouth shut has never been my forte.

Anyway, since I don’t feel like ushering you through my thoughts when it comes to the FAA website, let’s talk diseases, shall we? Specifically, let’s talk about the website for the National Organization for Rare Disorders. Endless material here for a hypochondriac (or even your garden variety health freak). If you didn’t think you had a disease before perusing the site’s “Index of Rare Diseases,” chances are you’ll find plentiful reasons to label yourself a victim or an invalid if you spend enough time researching the various symptoms that spell tragedy.

Ever heard of Sarcoidosis? Well, it ain’t good: Symptoms include fatigue, fever,  muscle aches, difficulty breathing (dyspnea), joint pain, swollen glands, skin eruptions, eye irregularities and/or other symptoms. I am definitely tired a lot, I get hot sometimes, I have been know to be achey and I have a lazy eye. This is clearly one more thing for me to worry about. And don’t even get me started on the possibilities of having Kawasaki Disease or Paget’s Disease. As the Magic 8 Ball might say, “Signs point to yes.”

It’s not that I don’t enjoy my current full-time job at a hoity-toity glossy, but occasionally, I feel like I’m not making good on that promise I made to myself—and all those with high hopes for me—to make the world a better place. I know I’m getting all Miss Rumphius (“go to faraway places, live by the sea, do something to make the world more beautiful,” blah, blah, blah) on you, dear readers, but being the product of a guilt-ridden liberal upbringing and the daughter of an urban planner with a distinctly do-gooder conscience, this doubt is seated deep within me.

Thus, when I came across the website for a new quarterly called The Next American City via an old college friend who is doing some work for it, I immediately melted down into an existential crisis: Must quit fashion magazine right now and invest all nonexistent savings in real magazine that will contribute something worthwhile to cultural dialogue. Alas, that moment passed, and here I am alleviating my guilt by plugging the site—www.americancity.org. Go there. Learn something. Start rethinking this whole American landscape. In the right ways, ya’ll.

Dubbed “a subtle plan to change the world” by The New York Times, the Next American City looks at the state of the American metropolis and asks, “Where do we go from here?” In this rapidly changing landscape, how can businesses and developers thrive? How can cities and suburbs expand their economies? And how can our society successfully address social and environmental challenges?”

If you want the full treatment, then you’ll have to subscribe, but if you want a test drive before buying the hybrid, then the website does the trick with a plethora of articles online tackling the big issues from “Gambling on Philadelphia’s Future: Can Casinos Fit into a Big City Downtown” to “Reviving South Minneapolis: Showdown at South Central Farm.”

Houston, yes, it seems we do indeed have a problem. But it’s not a problem we can’t solve if we start now.

I know I’m not the only person who runs errands on Saturday mornings. I know I’m also not the only person who, while running said errands, enjoys a spirited contest against, well, myself and the various contestants of “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me…”. I’m a competitive person: HATE TO LOSE or be less than I can be. I’m also a news junkie, so you can just imagine the dialogue I have with myself and the radio. This also means, however, that I have been on a mission to find the keys to “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me…” and I am proud to announce in this column that I have done so: Fark, baby. Fark dot com.

A conglomeration of headlines from all over, submitted by people from all over, even more so than Drudge or CNN.com, Fark has the most random, useless and obscure collection of headlines and news stories on the Internet. And that is a good thing. The beauty of news like this is that you don’t “need” to know any of it like you need to know that “Outside Pressures Broke Korean Deadlock” (take your best guess as to where that head came from…), but you want to know this stuff. No one needs to know about the man who is facing a $25,000 fine for the heinous crime of shooting himself in the foot or about the San Antonio women who found out the hard way why you shouldn’t barbecue indoors, but your life is richer for knowing these things, trust me. Plus, you’ll kick Peter Sagal’s ass.

It’s strange, trying to describe the feeling that compels me to neurotically peruse headlines and news stories. In the end, I think I want to know about the Korean deadlock, Jennifer Aniston’s nose job, and about the U.K. hospital trying to save on the electricity bill by removing all the light bulbs for the same reason: Each headline gives me insight into these times and place. Headlines are, in many ways, my religion. They are what help me try to understand the wonder, chance and hilarity of the world. Or maybe that’s just my justification for not doing my real job.