Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk

When I was young I became obsessed with Rikki Tikki Tavi. The story of how this small, furry, cute-looking pet had fought and killed dangerous cobras was miraculous to me. Years later when I re-discovered that story and learned that this was accurate mongoose behavior, I sought the grown-up reasoning behind the fairy tale. Why did that tiny, elongated mouse challenge this scaled representation of the devil himself? I had become convinced that there was something in the mongoose mindset which lent itself to why I had always taken an opposing and unnatural path toward almost anything. But all that I poured over, read, and surmised from evolutionary and behavioral biologists never provided that connection I had hoped for. Until one day, randomly, I came across a quote from a completely unneducated mongoose afficianado; "Because fuck cobras, that's why." And then it all made a complete and primal sort of sense.

A Real Writer's Imagined Reaction To Her Well-Reviewed Collection Of Stories

All the magazines of importance love it. You can see that in their bites under the flap of the front cover, and on the back, and the face of the first page. They all mention my sentences. My tightness. My brevity.

The sentences are short, because Hemingway's were. The stories don't go anywhere, but that's ok, because they're short, too. By the time you realize you haven't been brought to any emotional depth, they're over.

Another writer of short fiction, himself the owner of praise, has written my forward; he also likes my sentences.

Look at the picture of me on the cover; I'm standing on the beach. I'm pretty, but not too made-up. And here is my dog; he is pretty, too. The wind is blowing our hair, and I'm wearing a denim shirt, because I may live in a New York City high-rise, but my soul is earthy.

Anyway, the dog isn't really mine. My building wouldn't allow that.

Look At All The Lonely People..

The Truth Shall Set You Free

A facebook message I received today from a gent with a dissenting opinion: 


"the sarcasm is not funny,retard.im right,you're wrong,those are facts.you're as much of a dumbass fag as that other fag.(besides you will never understand,you're just a basement dwelling,virgin nerd that will never get laid,thats a fact.)" 


While his harsh truths were difficult to hear, I now have no excuse to not take a good, long, self-evaluating look at myself. Thank you, kind sir!

I Know Where the Aussie Rednecks Roam -OR- Thora Birch and the Outback of Ignorance

Let me start this off with a couple of disclaimers:
What will most likely be the first question is, "Is this really Thora Birch's Facebook page?". To the extent of my knowledge, and various other sources, -including a previous piece on the VICE site- (www.viceland.com) it is.
Next, you'll notice part-way through this conversation, that the subjects of this piece (barring Ms. Birch) are Australian. Now, this is in no way an attack/commentary on/political statement about- the Aussie peoples.
Any Australians I've known, either personally or through just being a fan, have seemed like good-natured, hard-drinking people. In all honesty, until I checked further, I just assumed the illiterate rednecks herein were American.

With that out of the way, let me give a brief background into what transpired.
Several months ago I became Facebook "friends" with one Ms. Thora Birch, of "American Beauty" and "Ghost World" fame. I've since visited her profile less-than rarely.
  The other night a post from her page happened to pop into my feed. In it I saw a horrible trainwreck of the English language. Blocks of letters without vowels, plus symbols and odd spaces, trying to form what I can only assume were words. The culprit was a gentlemen we will henceforth refer to as "Dipshit #1".
  Now curious, I scrolled down the page and saw that "Dipshit#1" had been leaving quite a few of these internet chicken-scratch comments. Once determining they were not, in fact, some sophisticated form of code, I decided to post a reply to his latest one.
  What began as me exercising my rakish charm, evolved into the outing of a group of mouth-breathing, illiterate, Australian racist-rednecks, who had formed some sort of coven on Thora Birch's page. I felt it my duty to intervene, as they were obviously evolving a sinister plan. A plan to use Ms. Birch to lure her fans to their lair, where they could roast and eat them. Below is the complete comment thread of what followed (I have blocked the names and images of participants who are not myself. Which is really a shame, as you are missing Dipshit#1's sweet shades) I should also mention I have dubbed one of our protagonists "Racist Ogre Dipshit" because of her keen resemblance to Shrek. :

 And we come to the end. As of my last checking, the individuals continue to post, Ms. Birch continues to be indifferent, and I continue to be pissed off. It has been pointed out that my original comments may have come across as a bit... snarky, and be that as it may, it quickly became beside the point. The point is something possibly worse than the roasting and eating of Thora's fans; the xenophobia and ignorance that went completely unchallenged by anyone else. Somehow, through 1)my initial snarkyness, and 2)my sincere outrage at the intolerance on display, I became the bad guy. Me! And there were (alleged) flesh-eating racist Aussie ogres involved! And I don't think I'm over-reacting.
You can say it's only Facebook, and it is her private page. So, in essence, Ms. Birch has no responsibility to behave in any particular way.  Yet to me it's still quite telling, and I suppose I'll have a bit of a bad taste in my mouth should I ever see "Ghost World" again.
But I'm not too worried about the three "Dipshits". Sooner or later, all ogres get turned to stone by passing Hobbits, anyway.

(Update- Soon after this, Thora Birch posted saying she wasn't sure how much longer she might have her facebook page. See? I was right in the first place!)

REVIEW: Paranormal Activity

Wow. "Paranormal Activity" may have been one of the most insipid, lamebrained things I have ever seen. And I have seen some horrible shit. The fact that it set records in the box office speaks volumes about our culture's capacity for stupid.

A Quick Guide to World Cinema:

British films are about people with bad table manners; 


French films are about paranoid gallery-owners who wear turtlenecks; 


Italian films are about Monica Bellucci's cleavage and scooters; 


Japanese films are about girls in schoolgirl outfits fighting tentacle monsters;


Chinese films all star Bruce Lee, someone who was related to Bruce Lee, someone who looks like Bruce Lee, or Jackie Chan; 


Russian films are about tattoos, vodka, clothes made of burlap, and bread; 

American films are about either confused twenty-somethings in knitwear, or someone trying to blow up the biggest thing they can before someone else stops them, in ninety-minutes or less. And boobs. 

A Guide To Recognizing Your Abacus

Pubes Have Never Been So Exciting!

Upon checking my email today I saw that Barnes and Noble is very excited to be introducing "Pubit!" Now, what Barnes and Noble intends to accomplish in the exciting world of digital pubic hair is something I can only speculate about, but I'm sure this is going to be the most exciting time in history to be going through puberty! Oh, to be young again!

The Dirty Durty Diary

An excellent new fashion and culture magazine has just been launched in NYC. The Dirty Durty Diary features articles, essays, art and photography, Larry Clark, Tiffany Limos, Michael Pitt, Jamie Bochert, Eli Roth, Matthew Barney and many more, including a Beatles piece by your's truly. Check it out at
http://www.dirtydurty.com/ as well as @DDDMagazine on Twitter, and The Dirty Durty Diary (The DDD) on Facebook.

Guest Review: Hot Tub Time Machine

"hot tub time machine = disappointment"

   -Yan 

Thanks, Yan!

Go Review Yourself: A review for a game I found on the interwebbings

After reading this excellent description and revue, I knew I must obtain this game, for it was obviously the greatest RPG ever:


"Is a RPG game where must kill all demons and deads from the graves . You have a map to find the doors and secret entrances.Kill with the sword all monsters. After they are die, some of them let money or objects. Take them in inventory.In inventory can change weapons ,scout and armor . Take the best of them because the enemies are strong!"


Editor's review:
"Search the graves and defeat all deads who are alive now . Choose where to put the points earned. Put strength,dexterity,mana and others.Take the best weapons.When there are a lot of enemies is hard if you are not equiped very good .
Can be played multiplayer mode.Installation is simple. Graphics is good and music very good .Level by level, you grow and you will have more experience. With money earned from the battle go and by poitions with life and mana ."


World of Warcraft; eat your heart out.

REVIEW: Triangle

"Triangle" is one of those movies I am surprised more people haven't seen, yet one I am hesitant to say too much about. And therein lies the problem that faces not only this film, but any filmmakers who are unwilling to fall into the modern, show-it-all-in-the-trailer form of film promotion. It's hard to keep your plot mostly under wraps and still entice today's incurious, attention span-less audiences to see your film. 
To look at the cover and description of "Triangle" on Netflix gives the impression that this movie is going to be some stupid, haunted-boat horror flick. Like Ghost Ship without the cool everyone-gets-cut-in-half opening scene. But "Triangle" isn't a horror movie. Really. It's not really a thriller, either. When I think thriller I think of (best case) "North by North West" or (worst case) "Phonebooth". I don't think "Triangle". Despite the best efforts of the film's marketing department to make you think the opposite, "Triangle" is actually cerebral. You'll find yourself actually thinking during the movie. I know! Can you believe it?! 
Of course, you can choose not to think at all during the film, if thinking, ya know, isn't your thing. You won't enjoy the plot, because you won't catch on to it, and you'll just see an attractive woman running around in shorts and you will become one of those people who writes a bad one-star review on Netflix using language that is an insult to anyone with even a limited grasp on grammar. And that's fine. However, if you are willing to think (and you most likely wouldn't have read past the first sentence here if you weren't) then "Triangle" provides a rewarding experience.
Being a lifelong comic book fan, I can be somewhat of a stickler for continuity. Contradictory situations, overlapping plot points, and characters appearing and disappearing out of nowhere without explanation (remember Tori on the final season of Saved By the Bell?) have the potential to annoy the fuck out of me. So, finding no real infractions in "Triangle", a film which relies somewhat heavily on the promise that everything happens in a way that never ends up contradicting itself (you'll understand when you watch it) was somewhat of a refreshing and very pleasant surprise.
Triangle's cast of mostly-unknowns means less of a required effort to suspend disbelief, and all the actors do a more than adequate job playing out their plot lines. Melissa George is great in the lead, giving you a perspective on the action who's competency is questionable until far into the film.
Give this movie a try, it's on streaming Netflix and it's worth your time. If you're one of the eight people who still doesn't have Netflix, then go to Blockbuster or wherever the fuck it is that cavemen get their DVDs these days.

REVIEW: Toy Story 3

The third Best Picture-worthy Pixar film in a row, (and probably only the third serious animated Best Picture contender ever) Toy Story 3 could have easily been the phoned-in installment of this franchise and still would have made buckets of money. Instead, what the film does is open with fun, imagination, lightheartedness and humor, and then begins to set up what will be the proverbial rug being yanked from under you. Once again Pixar uses non-human characters to further show us things about our own humanity. In Toy Story 3's case, these lessons are about loyalty, love, loss, and the true meaning of friendship, be it human or toy, child or adult. While it may not have the full-on weep-inducing sequences of Up!, I did find myself getting teary in a couple spots, but left smiling bigger than I have in a long time. *Side note; The opening short, Day & Night, may be one of the most brilliant pieces of short film I've ever seen, animated or otherwise. Bravo to Pixar once again.

REVIEW TRAIN!!