Popover and kefir sales are down...

Last night Whole Foods celebrated Earth Hour by turning off "non-essential" lights in the store. I was there on the scene at the Union Square Whole Foods, where the Earth Hour Promise was translated as killing the lights in the bagel/scone case, the refrigerated dairy case, the leafy green vegetable wall. Not dimmed were the lights in the frozen food case, over the salad bar, and... everywhere else.

In other "green news," the new issue of Metropolitan Home is about eco-friendly construction and renovation. The highlights for me: lots of cedar-slat screens, a modernist organic community garden in Napa, cargotecture (container architecture) and some meatball recipes.

In me news, you might already know that I just got back from Morocco, but you might not know that I am addicted to the paddle ball game that came with my phone. I started playing it on the airplane home, and now, I play it on the subway to avoid thinking about the messed up train schedules and annoying commuters.

Your mission (or, ARG)

From: xxxxx

Date: February 24, 2009 2:35:39 PM EST

To: Zoe

Subject: Documentary Film Project Opportunity

Emmy Award Winning Creator of Word World on PBS Kids Seeks Documentary Team to Record the Creation of a New, Innovative, Tween Property:

The creator and CEO of Emmy Award winning Preschool series Word World, which airs on PBS Kids, is ramping up to launch a new, technology-based tween entertainment property. It's partially funded by the Department of Education, and teaches literacy through an entirely new genre: experiential fiction, or "x-fi": an interactive story format that offers new, more meaningful ways for fans to interact with media. The property simultaneously features animated TV storytelling, webisodes, mobile applications, gaming and content, graphic novels, online gaming experiences which influence the outcome of the overall "mission", collector cards, a peer-to-peer social network that includes blogging, emails, and texting, and offline components including real world challenges, meetings and prizes to be sent directly to kid participants.

The development team of this property is comprised of best in class creators: an Emmy award winning TV producer, an MIT expert in gaming, an urban fashion and lifestyle mogul,a creator of Spawn and Batman, and an inventor of the Alternate Reality Game (or ARG) movement -- the creator of the first well known ARG called "The Beast".

We are looking for a student or group of students with a strong interest and some background in documentary. If interested, please contact xxxxx at xxxxx@blablabla.com with a resume, a brief essay explaining why you would like to be involved in the project, and preferred method of contact. If you meet the qualifications, you will be contacted for an interview.

No Fat, No Sugar, No T.I.

The organic pastry flour was sold out at Whole Foods, so instead of baking I made a mix !

I'm Not Your Neighbor (Questionable and Cutesy Mix '09)
Barstool Blues - Neil Young
Sugar on My Tongue - Talking Heads
Tourist in Your Town - The Pink Mountaintops
Just Us - Cam'ron
Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window - Bob Dylan
Wig Wam Bam - The Sweet
The World's a Mess, it's in My Kiss - X
Lover Lover Lover - Leonard Cohen
Steal Away - Mary J. Blige
Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes - Paul Simon
Shake Some Action - The Flamin' Groovies
Is it Really So Strange - The Smiths
Hounds of Love - Kate Bush
Oh Yoko - John Lennon
Papa Was a Rodeo - The Magnetic Fields
Here Comes the Sun - Nina Simone
4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) - Bruce Springsteen


Happy Valentines Day to you!

I'm at the airport and I just went to the saddest Jamba Juice ever: that song 'Heartbeats' by the Knife was playing... Over and over. At first I was psyched, but then the reality of the situation became clear. Now I never want to hear that song again.

I'm going to Mexico, p.s.

There are lots of children, foreigners, and old people on this flight, and one of the stewardesses is very high strung. But who cares, because in 6 hours I'll be eating mangoes and sitting in a palapa wearing a sun dress.

Omg, I think possibly all the children on this plane are one family.

Anyways, so long, suckas!

What excites the French?

I have so many questions about this, but I don't know where to start.

Do you remember how you felt when you learned how the eyeball works, visited the Sagrada Familia, got to the end of "Planet of the Apes," or found out how much people care about purses? You know, like, "I thought I understood this world, but now, looking at this unfinished cathedral that's still being built, I realize that it is vast and mysterious, and I will never really understand it." That's how I feel when I watch this video.

Where's Jill Zarin?

"In our Western tradition, the exemplary case of a traumatic Real is the Jewish Law. In the Jewish tradition, the divine Mosaic Law is experienced as something externally imposed, contingent, and traumatic--in short, as an impossible/real Thing that "makes the law." What is arguably the ultimate scene of religious-ideological interpellation--the pronouncement of the Decalogue on Mount Sinai--is the very opposite of something that emerges "organically" as the outcome of the path of self-knowing and self-realization. The Judeo-Christian tradition is thus to be strictly opposed to the New Age gnostic problematic of self-realization or self-fulfillment: when the Old Testament enjoins you to love and respect your neighbor, this does not refer to your imaginary semblable/double, but to the neighbor qua traumatic Thing."
-Slavoj Zizek




Highlight for me: the Lubavichers chanting "What do we want? Moshiach!" and then realizing it would be totally controversial to say "When do we want it? Now!"

From Alternet.

Your cultural liaison

Watching "Notorious" was kind of like watching the new 90210: the whole thing is awesome, but the most exciting parts are when someone I know is mentioned by name (David Silver, Clive Davis) or shows up on-screen, wearing a nametag (Kimberly Jones!) from their job in a department store.

Okay, maybe the new 90210 isn't "awesome." But aren't you a little worried about Adrianna?

I was annoyed when I got home because my downstairs neighbors were having a party, and I am so sleepy that I even thought about going downstairs in my pajamas and asking them to keep it down, even though I'm opposed to that on principle. But they totally killed it themselves about 10 minutes ago with some acoustic guitar harmonies. Wait, now someone is on their balcony talking about Marc Ruffalo. God bless America!