never anything to do in this town
basics:
_name, age, location
Elizabeth, 20, Glencoe, IL/Princeton, NJ
_ethnicity
British Isles cocktail
_picture
Arty pictures can suck it. And yes, that is a mullet you see.
the cliche questions:
_favorite bands and/or artists
brainiac, pavement, big black, rapeman, melt-banana, enon, bikini kill, lightning bolt, fischerspooner, venetian snares, piebald, dntel, huggy bear, daedelus, the avalanches, belle & sebastian, le tigre, piebald, gravy train!!!, joy division, yeah yeah yeahs, liars, new order, portishead, velvet underground, polyphonic spree, aphex twin
guilty pleasures: xtina, j. timberlake
_favorite movies, why? Christ, Donnnie Darko blows.
Dr. Strangelove: The first truly awesome movie I watched with my parents. Also, Peter Sellers is fantastic, and the ending is priceless.
The Philadelphia Story: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart in a movie even cynics can love.
Kikujiro: It's wacky and touching and sincere and odd.
Best in Show: It's hilarious.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space: When I first saw this at age 10 I was so scared I almost pissed my pants. 10 years later, it's campy and hilarious.
Office Space: Ron Livingston will never shed this role. It's the only time I've ever tolerated Jennifer Aniston's presence onscreen.
Mallrats: It really makes you think that Ben Affleck has a gigantic head.
_favorite books+author, why? I hate all "coming of age" novels.
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon: It takes forever to read but worms its way into the fabric of your being.
Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov: Yes, he wrote books besides Lolita. Which was a great book, but Pale Fire is transcendent. It's an infinitely involuted puzzle in the form of poem and commentary.
The Crying of lot 49, Thomas Pynchon: Oedipa Maas is the protagonist, hence the username, which has little to do with Oedipus. This book is hilarious and probably Pynchon's most accessible work. Still, a conspiracy theorists' delight.
Ada, or Ardor, V. Nabokov: It's a beastly beast of a book. A beautiful beastly beast of a book.
Vile Bodies, Evelyn Waugh: Brings new meaning to the word "sardonic."
American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis: Anyone who dismisses Ellis as a "popular" novelist is just plain fucking wrong.
Money, Martin Amis: Amis is a well-known Nabokov scholar, and it's easy to see Nabokov's influence (as well as his father's) but Amis makes this work his own, and it has the most unbelievable mind-fuck of an ending.
This could go on forever, honestly.
dedicated follower of fashion?
_favorite clothing store
Chicago area: Viva Vintage, Land of the Lost, Hollywood Mirror (though usually the sizes are too big)
Chain stores: Club Monaco, Forever 21
New Jersey: Red White and Blue, Label (NYC)
_new or used,why I prefer used clothing because it's unique and cheap, and I don't feel bad if I screw up when cutting stuff up.
_your style? It's all over the map, but I do have a tendency to wear the same dress every day.
whatev..:
_what is your favorite season & why? autumn, because it is beautiful and, although it is short in Chicago, it is not bitter cold or stifling hot.
_what is your favorite part of the opposite (or same) sex & why? hipbones, because I have a thing for skinny guys.
_list your 3 favorite pieces of art (this can be anything you think is art) and why?
1) "Tourism; Suitcase Studies," Diller+Scofidio (architects). This installation, and the larger retrospective at the Whitney, really changed my mind about the pair. I thought they were just media whores when it turns out that their work, while thoughtful and exquisitely detailed, also has a sense of humor.
2) "Micromegas," Daniel Liebskind. Sure, he's sold out on the WTC commission, and I have little respect for his work nowadays, but these drawings he did when he was just out of school are absolutely mindblowing.
3) "Les Grands Ensembles," Pierre Huyghe. I went to see the much-ballyhooed Matthew Barney exhibit at the Guggenheim, which I found atrocious. Off to the side, in a little dark room, I found an oasis from all that bloated solipsism in this fantastic video installation. It's a model of two 1970s style buildings from a French housing project, and is just flickering lights and the turning of the seasons, but Christ, it's beautiful.
_do you believe in god, jesus, or mary? No, I've successfully shaken off 18 years of Episcopalian indoctrination. Luckily, Episcopalians are pretty weak indoctrinators.
_what would you like your future profession to be? Well, I am studying to be an architect.
_what are your 5 favorite objects?
1) Baby Big Bird, for purely sentimental reasons
2) My Sony MDR-V600 headphones
3) The Game Boy Advance SP
4) A clown wig and sword that I stole from a party
5) My piano
_what is your most intense memory or secret? Fuck off, that's not your business.
_what are 5 things you hate about yourself?
1) I'm too judgemental: I hate everyone before I get to know them, but I'm surprisingly nice in person. It just makes me angry a lot.
2) Some people think i'm a hipster, until i kick their collective ass.
3) I have a bad back.
4) I waste too much time playing video games.
5) I have high self-esteem, so fuck you if you don't.
_where did you hear of this community? the cool club.
_which member do you think we should ban and why? You should ban whoever has the most arty ugly camwhore picture of him/herself as his/her icon.
now you try to impress us with a whole paragraph about anything: why you deserve to be here, your favorite band, your favorite show you went to..whatever. we will judge you based on the subject matter and we WILL be grammar nazi's (ooh, burn. It should technically be "grammar nazis," sans apostrophe. Plural and possessive, people. That's embarrassing).
On Jamal Johnson, 32, a resident of west Baltimore who makes $20,000 a year, and wants to buy a home:
The absolute minimum down payment on a home is usually 5% of the price of the home assuming that Jamal receives no federal assistance. 5% of $70,000 is $3,500. If Jamal saves $608.62 every year, then he can pay that in about 6 years if he spends his savings on nothing else and uses them all for the down payment. It’s really not so simple, however, since it’ll be difficult for Jamal to get a loan without an established credit record, a relationship with a bank, or access to resources that allow him to search for loans in his price range. Various governmental organizations offer many types of very low down-payment buying plans for homes, but these are not immediately accessible. It’s relatively easy to find a fair amount of these on the Internet, but there’s little chance that Jamal will be able to afford a computer, much less access to the Internet. He could go to a public library and use a computer, but he might not know where to start. Finding a bank that will give you a loan is tricky, too. Jamal doesn’t have much in the way of collateral, though he does have a relatively steady income. Still, that income isn’t much, and most banks would think twice about giving him a loan. Banks also look at whether or not a customer has done business with them in the past. For example, let’s say that you had a student account at a bank. It’d be easier to get a loan at that same bank when you want to buy a house 10 years later because you have established a “relationship” with that institution. Also, Jamal might not have a credit rating if he has never taken out a loan before, or doesn’t have a credit card. He might have a bad credit rating, which can preclude access to loans. And there are still plenty of real estate brokers who will prey on those not armed with accurate information. Having grown up in an environment where these unwritten rules are never taught, Jamal doesn’t have much of a chance of understanding them and negotiating them on his own. Unfortunately, Jamal’s prospects look bleak.