By emily

GRADE: A+

We went to Savannah, GA over the weekend! Bonus capsule review: Savannah is beautiful, with lots of very impressive architecture and lore and spooky old Spanish moss-covered cemeteries, but it loses a couple of points for being home to flying cockroaches and the bad kind of southern people so A-. Anyway, while we were in line to tour Jim Williams (from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil)’s house, a fat, gorgon-faced lady waddled over to her daughter, who was unsuccessfully trying to pique the interest of one of Savannah’s many giant black cats. “What’s wrong, sweetie?” she drawled.
“The cat doesn’t like me,” her pudgy spawn whimpered.
“Well, you know what, honey? Every dog in this town loves you. Some people are dog people and some people are cat people. You’re a dog person and that’s better anyway.”

Being a nonjudgmental Libra, I am very understanding about differences of opinion. Generally, it doesn’t offend me too much when someone professes a dislike for a thing that I find eminently likeable. Chocolate, the Universal Review, democracy, my outfit: I’m willing to concede that there are valid points of view on both sides of all of these issues. But the one thing I will not budge on is cats. HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU NOT LIKE CATS? Not only are they fucking adorable, they’re entertaining and clever, too. At the risk at coming off like a lady in a puffy-painted sweatshirt whose prize-winning Maine Coon has a ghettofabulous name like Princess Trixibelle Regina Regalness, I have to say that I love cats so, so, so much. I’m sorry if you had a bad experience with a cat when you were a little kid. I’m sorry if the first cat you knew was bitchy and mean. That doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of cats are awesome and if you don’t get to know one eventually you are only cheating yourself. Good cats aren’t hostile or standoffish or food-mercenary. They’re loving and much more rewarding to be around than most dogs (or people). So learn to love cats already, because CATS TOTALLY RULE.

PS: I like dogs just fine, and people. But cats are so much cuter. Especially giant fat ones.

By Emily
GRADE:D

“I just did a rail of, like, the purest snow, man. It’s like, the best shit I’ve ever had, and, like, now I’m just flying, man.”

“I’ve been in therapy since I was five. Five.” (holds up fingers)

“Next semester I’m leaving NYU and I’m just going to work and get therapy. That’s all I’m going to do. And I’m going to be a model because I love fashion. And because I don’t eat, well I mean I eat every few days because I start to feel really weak and sick and then I know I have to eat, but I’m like, really skinny, and I don’t feel hungry anymore like, ever and I’m on this medication that makes me really hyperactive and that kind of energy, well, going to the gym is like the perfect release for it, so like I’m getting some really good definition.”

It would be nice if I was making these quotes up but you know what I’m talking about. They're out there. They are a variation on the people who like to talk about how they got sooo wasted last night, except dumber and more annoying. Yes, I am talking about the people who corner you at a party and then feel the need to brag to you about how many psychiatric issues and drug addictions and pathological behaviors they have. Then they proceed to remorselessly act soooo crazy. Well, speaking for all the people who try desperately hard to conceal their neuroses, I really object. It's rude to completely ignore other people's conversational preferences in order to jabber at them about your particular level of crazitude. You will notice that the real crazy people never do this, only the upper-middle-class learning-disorder-addled kids. Guys, I am speaking to you right now. NEWSFLASH: Nobody gives a fuck. Shut up, and then ask people questions about themselves. Be polite. And please, please, do not talk about ‘snow.’

By Emily
Grade: D-

Every few months, a (giant corporation that I work for) hiring specialist makes a special trip to the Big State Hospital for the Feeble-Minded, Crippled, Creepy and Chronically Incompetent. There, they seek out the hospital’s most challenged patients: non-English speaking hunchbacks with bad attitudes and deep-seated needs for attention are their ideal recruits. Then they put all these people in a bus and drive them back to the (corporation again) building, suit them up in uniforms, and have them start delivering mail.

Lucky is the least annoying of the horrible mailmen. He’s very ancient and weathered, kind of Ansel Adams –looking. His real name is Lucky, like a dog or a Mafioso. He is neither – we think he used to be a Greaser in the ‘50s. He still smokes a lot of cigarettes (possibly Lucky Strikes). He is the best mailman because he hardly ever asks what box to put something in. The only downside of Lucky is that he is sort of starved for social contact, so if you start talking to him about anything other than mail you can expect to spend the next fifteen minutes listening to him spout nonsensical folksy adages (‘People feel bad for me, deliverin’ all this mail, and I tell them that if it weren’t for all this mail I’d be out of a job’) while you nod politely and pray for him to go away.

By way of contrast, the worst mailman is Sex Offender. He has close-set, squinty eyes made owl-like by his round little glasses, and there’s an ingratiating syrupy fakeness/ Hannibal Lecterishness to his tone of voice when he says, “Hello, Miss Gould.” He stands too close when he makes me sign for packages and the smell of his cologne lingers long after he’s made his rounds. Sometimes he makes me sign for things that it’s not my job to sign for BECAUSE HE KNOWS THAT THIS PISSES ME OFF. Whenever I give him the slightest bit of ‘tude in return, he affects an incredibly fake polite tone and pretends not to understand what I’ve just said. I hate him so much, but he’s never done anything wrong enough for me to complain about him, and anyway that would be kind of admitting that he has the power to affect me, which is just playing into his hands. I know that I am coming off as the crazy one in this situation, but believe me, HE IS THE CRAZY ONE.

Somewhere in between is Crippled Mailman. “Ok,” you are thinking, “how can you not feel some amount of sympathy towards someone who perseveres at his difficult task despite his physical handicap? Emily, you are a monster. This is worse than when you hated on pregnant ladies.” Well, I may be a monster for being annoyed by the incompetence of the crippled mailman, but you know what? I kind of think that if someone is physically incapable of doing their job, MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE A DIFFERENT JOB. The crippled mailman has a bad back, for which he wears one of those wide leather back-support belts. He is always making me sign for the big heavy packages of people in different departments who sit nowhere near me, which I then deliver to them. Thus in effect he is actually forcing me to do his job for him. If this goes on any longer, maybe our roles will be reversed and he will be the full-time bitter assistant and I will be the full-time Crippled Mailman.

By Emily
GRADE: C-

I am sorry to have to give pregnant ladies such a low grade, but there it is. It’s not really anything they do that upsets me (other than the occasional eye-contact guilt trip for not giving up my hard-won subway seat), it’s just that, frankly, they creep me out. I mean, they are walking around while slowly growing a little being inside their bodies. There are two ways of looking at this: way one is, awww, the precious miracle of life, how beautiful and mysterious. Way two is like in the Alien movies. Aieeee!

The ickiest part of procreation is that it has become a fad. All the weekly gossip magazines are currently focusing way too much of their coverage on baby joy, which comes in three flavors: 1. speculative (“Is Britney/Whitney Houston/some Reality star you’ve never heard of/ Jennifer Aniston Pregnant?”) 2. illustrative (“Liv Tyler’s Bump Takes Fashion Week By Storm!”) and 3.recuperative (“Debra Messing Finally Loses The Baby Weight”) I know I speak for everyone when I say that I doooooooon’t caaaaaaaaare. I mean, I care if someone is ruining their life by getting pregnant (like, if Paris Hilton was pregnant, that would be sort of awesome, but I think that she probably just lays eggs owing to the fact that she is a praying mantis). Or if it’s Cathy Zeta-Jones and she’s pregnant, smoking, topless, on a yacht. But if it’s just some random celebrity’s distended tummy on display, count me out. Looking at these magazines is now more than ever a big fat reminder that human civilization has not really progressed since fertility-idol-worshipping days.

Even creepier than pregnant ladies, however, are the ladies who are totally obsessed with trying to get pregnant. I feel sympathy for these ladies because I am not oblivious to the fact that I might eventually be one of them. But even if I am, chances are that I will not have a blog about it.

I don’t even want to think about what this review has done to my reproductive karma. On the bright side, maybe it will save me some $ on condoms?

By Emily
Grade F

If you are going to be homeless, smelly, old, and drunk all the time, why hide your light under a bushel? Obviously the correct thing to do is get together with a pack of like-minded smelly alcoholics, find a likely spot of concrete with as much pedestrian traffic as possible, and set up a perpetual party there. You should also make sure to get into shouted, slurred arguments with fellow members of your bum-pack as often as possible, especially ones that involve staggering around the sidewalk while spouting incomprehensible gibberish and occasionally crying. And when your bloated liver has finally managed to transport some of your booze-only diet into your bladder, there’s no point in walking all the way to the McDonald’s across the street in order to use the facilities. In fact, don’t even bother facing away from the Sunday afternoon crowd of moms and babies and churchgoing old ladies. Just whip out your mottled, chicken-sausage looking weenie and let it rip wherever you happen to be standing.

It’s also probably a good idea to add new members to your bum party family when you can, just to keep the passerby from getting bored. It’s like when a flailing sitcom gets a new cute kid character: that new bum lady with the scary bruised face who likes to hang out in the deli and beg for juice is totally your Raven-Symone!

Okay, I know it’s kind of mean and wrong to, uh, mock the homeless. But these people aren’t your ordinary quietly miserable types who make cardboard posters and ask for change and seem legitimately disappointed in the hand they’ve been dealt. The Greenpoint Ave. Bums seem to really enjoy being homeless. Sometimes on my way to work I see them, already (or, more probably, still) stumbling and swigging from bags, as if they are in some sort of Broadway musical about being homeless, and I am seized with a pang of – oh god, is it jealousy? Wow, I must really hate my life.

By emily

GRADE: D-

Mister, I am sorry if I’m shattering your dreams of rockstardom here, but you fucking suck. Even if you had some modicum of talent, being forced to listen to your loud singing and strumming before 9 am would still be very annoying, especially to those of us whose Mommies and Daddies haven’t gotten around to buying us an ipod. But you don’t have any talent. In fact, you always sing off-key. You can't even remember the words to the songs, even though you sing the same songs every day! And speaking of which, why must you sing the same songs every day? My life feels Groundhog-Dayish enough without having to listen to your shitty rendition of ‘Creep’ at the same time every morning. You also do a lousy ‘Losing My Religion’ on a regular basis, and then you close out your set with a craptastic “There is A Light That Never Goes Out” that never fails to make me wish that a double-decker bus would just go ahead and crash into you. And today you were singing – I hesitate to call it that, since you were basically just reciting the lyrics in an atonal drone because you couldn’t hit the high notes -- ‘In Your Eyes.’ Your version of the chorus was like “All my instincts . . . they return . . . the ground feels hard . . . Sassoon will burn . . .” Why not attempt something an easier song, something that would be a better fit with your skill set. Maybe something by John Cage, hahahaha. I would totally flip you a quarter for that.

By B
Grade: A

You may be wondering why the NBC network has been playing the terrifying fantasy film of WILLOW so constantly for the past few days. Well you have been confused. I know it is easy to get mixed up, but the springy little creatures you have been seeing on your television screen have nothing to do with Willow at all! Pay attention to details, readers. They are the Women's Olympic Gymnastics Team! With a little observation, you would have been tipped off by the generous amounts of sparkle eyeshadow and sparkle hair gel that the little gnomes wear. In my memory, Willow did not wear any sparkles at all. For this year’s American Lady Gymnast team, on the other hand, the glitter on the competitors’ faces is almost as blinding as the spangles on their tacky leotards. (Although in the Olympics of gaudy lavendar dazzle, no one can compete with the Eastern Europeans!)

You can’t blame our gals for slathering on the glitter products. Um, maybe it is like war paint or something to frighten the enemy? It certainly makes me frightened… and fascinated. Maybe, as James has suggested, this year’s twirlers are just trying to make up for the fact that they don’t have the magical more-than-skin-deep sparkle of DOMINIQUE DAWES, LITTLE KERRY STRUG, and the rest of the 1996 MAG SEVEN.

In the end, though, I think that the real reason for the glitter is that we are dealing with teenage girls here. I mean, I guess they are teenagers. They are, right? But are they twelve? Or are they nineteen? Who knows! They all look like unholy crosses between toddlers and old ladies, but with glitter! That is where the real fascination with gymnastics lies. Yes, the cartwheels and pirouettes are pretty awesome, but what I really enjoy about the spectacle is the opportunity to watch some of the world’s most freakish people trot around like show ponies. They are funny little Peter Pan-ettes and that is great. Their life seems so cozy. Don’t you kind of wish you were one of them? How nice it would be, after you fell off the parallel bars onto your head, to hear seven little chipmunk voices cheering you on despite your humiliating failure! GOOD JOB COURTNEY M! YOU GAVE IT YOUR BEST! And then everyone would go back to the dorm and have a pajama party and apply more glitter and do handsprings. It sounds better than my life, that’s for sure. (The only thing is I bet that when they mess up on the balance beam et cetera, their mothers won’t let them eat for a week. And if you are a Chinese gymnast you get sent to Chinese prison and are never heard from again.)

In conclusion: Gymnasts get an A for being weird, for doing it on TV, and for doing it for the personal entertainment of regular folks like you and me. Also because I can’t resist shiny things. I am like a magpie.

By B

Grade: Various

I have been remiss in my reviewing duties recently. Emily has been alternately cajoling, nagging, and bribing me to get it together. Anyway, here is the verdict on all the crap I’ve been consuming. I promise I’ll get back to the real meaty stuff soon.

Harry Potter #3
Grade: B+
Don’t go to see a midnight showing of this movie. It is really long and you will be about to pass out by the end, no matter how much you like Harry Potter. Even though it is sick, I think that Harry has gotten kind of sexy.

Stephanie Zacharek, Film Reviewer For Salon.com
Grade: F
I know this is an obscure thing to be reviewing, and that no one cares except me, which is why I am limiting myself to a capsule review only. I could write pages and pages, because Ms. Zacharek is my pet peeve. All of her bad reviews—and she mostly writes bad reviews—go something like this: “Although I enjoyed every aspect of this film, it was ultimately not enjoyable at all.”

All the movies that she really likes are pretentious, obscure and mediocre. Or they star Queen Latifah. She LOVES Queen Latifah. Sometimes I think she must have been in one of my Film History classes at Sarah Lawrence. Also I bet she has a really annoying friendster profile.

Napoleon Dynamite
Grade: B-
Laird says that this movie is getting all kinds of hype. Mostly undeserved, I’d say. It was funny, but not as funny as Welcome to the Dollhouse. And there was no story to speak of. I did, however, enjoy the silver screen rebirth of Tina Majorino. Remember when she was in Waterworld? Also there was a movie with a seal, or a sea lion, or something of that nature. And maybe a film with Whoopi. I might be imagining that last one. Anyway, now she is the new Heather Matarazzo. Bravo, Tina.

The Tonys
Grade: C
I did not watch the Tony Awards.

The Sopranos Finale
Grade: B
I didn’t watch this either, but I bet it was pretty boring unless Adriana returned to life. I will on-demand it next time I am home, unless Judge Joe Brown is on. In which case I’ll watch that instead.

Nancy Reagan
Grade: C+
Sorry, but unlike “Hip Conservative” Dorian Davis-- who, P.S., has removed comments from his odious blog because he obviously couldn’t take the heat-- you will not find me crying over the death of Ronnie. Still, I have to say that Nancy has gotten a little easier to stomach in the last ten years or so. You have to feel at least a little sympathy.

(My prediction for the celebrity deaths that will complete the trifecta: The Pope and Phyllis Schlafly.)

McDonald’s Premium Salads
Grade:C+
I got the (Crispy) Chicken and Bacon Ranch flavor. Don’t ask why; it was a total last resort. I can’t believe that these salads have revitalized the Mickey D’s brand. It is just a piece of rubbery McDonald’s chicken on a bed of iceberg lettuce, with dressing in a packet. Duh. Also, why are they allowed to call this variety of chicken CRISPY? It is actually quite soggy.

People at the Gym
Grade:D
Taking a nice, relaxing nap on the weight machines while people are waiting to use them is not going to help you lose weight. Grunting loudly while doing your nude calisthenics in the steam room might, but it is just gross.

Roll Roasters on 11th and 3rd
Grade: D
They really need to perfect the system here. Somebody stole my food before I could snag it. He got a stern talking to from the manager, and his ill-gotten burger was thrown in the trash, but I still blame the restaurant for being so lax in their ticket-checking. Thieves just hover around the counter waiting to take your food if you aren’t quick enough. I’m not joking. And when I finally did get my burger, it was undercooked.

addendum: i'm now obsessed with roll roasters and go every day. duh, you obviously get the ROAST BEEF here, not the burger. i don't know what my problem was. you still have to guard your food vigilantly but it is so worth it. certain people have a bone to pick with the ugly awning, however.

much, much later addendum: Roll N Roaster on 11th and 3rd is now closed. While my first experience with this restaurant was not good, its closing has been a real tragedy in my life. I only hope that my negative review so many years ago did not contribute to the failure of this business.

Low Budget Gay Romantic Comedies
Grade:D
Boring, way too long, and only occasionally funny.

Lesbian Comedo-Thrillers
Grade: F
Boring, way too long, and only funny to the people who are in them.

By B

Grade: F for Fucktard

Man, what an asshole. What is the reason for the people who sit in the booth in the subway station? WHAT IS THE REASON? I guess the primary reason for them is to watch out for terrorism. But the other reason is to help you out when everything is fucked up. At least it should be. Unfortunately, too many of these people seem to think that their main and most important job is to remind you that you are a foolish, terrible person who does not deserve to ride the subway in the first place. The man in the booth at Bedford Avenue is the worst culprit of all. I am not going to describe him in detail, but God damn him. Or G-d damn him, as I would say if I were a real authentic Williamsburger.

I was going to call his supervisor. I got his badge number and everything. (He refused to give me his name. "Oh no," he cackled. "Oh no! I’m not telling you my name!") Then I realized that there is no point in calling anyone’s supervisor because the whole thing about supervisors is that they are just bigger asshole versions of the people whom they supervise. This is a lesson I learned from my years of working in retail. In general, it seems unworth it to bother with the MTA at all, because, aside from when they are illegally hiding money in order to raise fares, they seem to spend most of their time working at making my commute as miserable as possible. If I called to complain about this very discourteous man in the booth, I'm sure they would give him a commendation for Outstanding Fuckiness. Maybe they would promote him to supervisor!

So apparently my Metrocard is broken. It is damaged. It’s sort of ironic that it be damaged now, because for the longest time, with old ones, I would just shove them in my pocket, leave them on my floor, use them to pick my teeth, et cetera, and I never had any problem other than the fact that I was constantly losing them. However, about five months ago, I started making some changes in my life. The main one was that I began dutifully placing my card in my wallet after using it. This, I guess, is how it got to be broken. (Henry says it is from rubbing against the wallet every time I put it in and take it out.) But I didn’t know it was broken the other day when I tried to get on the train at Bedford Avenue. In fact, I had just used it to take the bus, and it had worked perfectly fine. Still, in the station, I swiped it and swiped it, and the turnstile just said "Please swipe card again. Swipe again at this turnstile." And like that.

So I went crawling to the man in the booth. I donned my best shit-eating, I’m sorry I’m such an idiot grin, because I have seen the way these exchanges go down and it is never pretty. The man in the booth glanced at my card in a cursory fashion and then tossed it back out at me, with a scowl. "It is damaged," he told me. "You have been using it inappropriately."

"Oh," I said, doing my best to be contrite, even though I knew that I had been using it very appropriately indeed. "Well, what can I do about that?"
Of course, my question remained unanswered. I love people who respond to an innocent, sensible question with a scornful demand.
"Can you see that it is damaged?" he snapped at me.
I looked at the card. I squinted at the magnetic strip. I was really taking it seriously. I wanted to understand! Unfortunately, it looked perfectly normal to me. No big gashes or chips. It looked like a magnetic strip. "Not really," I finally said. I wasn’t going to lie!

Continue reading "Bedford Ave Token Booth Man" »

By B
Grade: A for Effort

This is a very untimely review because the new Liz Phair album, along with the new Liz Phair the person, came out a whole year ago. You have probably heard her first single, Complicated, about a trillion times by now, especially if you go to see a lot of movies starring Mandy Moore or the Olsen Twins. Also if you spend a lot of time perusing the aisles at Duane Reade, where it seems to be the only song on the shopping soundtrack.

Anyway, timely or not, I am going to review the new Liz Phair now because I saw her in real life last night, at the kickoff party for the Maybelline Cosmetics CHICKS WITH ATTITUDE TOUR. (The name gives you a basic idea of exactly what kind of a party this was.) Of course, I was late to the affair, so I missed Liz’s actual performance, which must have consisted of about two songs. Despite the over-ness of the show, she was still milling around on the stage when I arrived and I got to see her outfit, which is all I really cared about anyway.

Here is one nice thing I can say about the New Liz Phair. She is hot. Especially considering that she is a woman of a certain age. And she has taken to dressing like a total hooker, which I can completely respect. If I were a lady I would always dress like that, no matter how busted I was—and LP is definitely the total opposite of busted. I feel bad for her child, though, because between his mother’s so-short-she-needs-two-haircuts leather skirts and her song lyrics, ("I’m looking great and I’m feeling nice! Baby you’re the best magazine advice! Give me your hot white cum! Give me your hot white cum!") he will probably have mommy issues for his entire life.

Continue reading "The New Liz Phair" »

By Emily
Grade: A

Sweeping pronouncements about specific ethnic groups are of course Bad, but when they’re praiseful it’s okay, right? I mean, no one would get offended if I said “Those Czechs sure are industrious,” or something. Actually a lot of people I went to college with would. Thank god(dess) they’re far away from us now in some Peace Corps encampment in Guatemala, where with any luck they will be eaten by capybaras. Anyway, it’s not racist to say that Japanese girls are pretty much the zenith of human evolution. Apologies in advance to anyone who is primed to complain that I am “exoticizing” these women in the manner of Kill Bill Volume 1 or the song “China Girl” or the guy who wrote a letter to Adrian Tomine calling Hilary Chan a “hottie tottie with a naughty karate body.” I am not like any of those things. I just want to give credit where credit is due.

I used to work at a bar (Kyle: the famous, intensely glamorous "Continental," duh) near the corner of Third Avenue and 9th street. That block of 9th street, excluding the NYU dorm, is the Japanesest place in the East Village and possibly in New York, with a fancy hair salon, a coffeeshop, an omelet counter, a sushi restaurant, and a Japanese grocery store all catering to and staffed by the most adorable girls on the planet. They would always be walking by, laughing, with some sort of mysterious bubble-tea beverage in their hands, wearing a billion crazy layers that couldn’t put an ounce onto their perfectly skinny frames. I would always be envying them and trying to think of ways to be more like them. After I realized that there is no plastic surgeon in the world corrupt enough to make someone into a Japanese lady (refraining from obvious Michael Jackson joke here), I began to seek out nonsurgical ways to emulate my new role models. For your convenience I have composed a handy list of guidelines to turning Japanese in a tasteful, respectful way:

1. LOSE AS MUCH WEIGHT AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN! It’s important to make it so that your hips are the exact same width as your shoulders, and also to ensure that there is a gap between your upper thighs. Otherwise crazy thrift-store garments will just make you look like a dumpy old lady.
2. YOUR HAIR SHOULD BE PERFECTLY STRAIGHT AND ALL ONE COLOR. However, you should probably refrain from actually attempting to have haircuts you’ve seen on Japanese ladies. The reason these women’s haircuts look so cool and awesome is because these women are naturally gorgeous and cool-looking. If you, the non-Japanese girl, try to have a long, straggly mullet, you will look like an LPGA caddie. Trust me on this one.
3. SPEND A LOT OF MONEY TO LOOK LIKE YOU SHOP EXCLUSIVELY IN THE SALVO BARGAIN BIN.
One of the secrets of phenomenal Japanese-girl style is that these ladies, from what I hear, live a totally carefree existence and are funded by their rich parents. Instead of frittering away their whopping allowances on booze, drugs, and stupid clothes like American rich kids do, they buy the weirdest clothes available from obscure yet fancy designers, like Imitation of Imitation of Imitation of Christ and Heatherette. Perhaps you should follow suit, but don’t go overboard. Unless you fulfill requirements 1 and 2, you may end up looking scary.
4. REALIZE THAT WHAT LOOKS CUTE AND FLIRTATIOUS ON THEM WILL MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A TRUCK STOP WHORE.
This is pretty much the same thing as 3. I just wanted to be extra clear. Legwarmers over heels specifically.

Anyway these rules and many more tips are going to be elaborated by my new reality makeover show, KAWAII EYE. Don’t you think this is a good idea? Would you like to host it? Cute name (“Hushi” or “Midori”) a plus.

By normandy

GRADE: D

Model scouts scour the country looking in bus stations and Starbucks’ and playgrounds for our nation’s most svelte and be-cheekboned young ladies. After purchasing crops of ingénues from their parents said model scouts herd them on to busses bound for the big city. These busses travel from far and wide, sometimes days without stopping, to a quaint little block off of Tompkins square park. The ladies are deposited in front of 190 East 7th Street, their new home. (AND PRISON?)

Upon arrival the models are quickly ushered into their new rooms to protect them from the rival model scouts and also the poor. In the good old tradition of the lower east side they are packed in 8 people to an apartment. For protection from street toughs they must travel around the East Village in gaggles all hoop earringed and slouch booted. The models meet the fabulously wealthy Europeans and NYU students who also call 190 East 7th street home and romantic subplots ensue. The new neighbors tell the models “We live here because it looks exactly like an NYU dorm for grown ups, complete with elevator, private patio and art gallery. Even the furniture in the lobby is identical to furniture that graces the lobbies of NYU buildings such as the Health Center and the Business School.”

Since the lobby is lit 24 hours per day, art lovers and vagrants often press their noses against the windows at any hour of the day or night to look at the grainy photographs and color field paintings. When this happens, the Europeans show the models how to call the security guard. The NYU students, not to be outdone, invite the models over to barbeques on their spacious terraces. They all become friends and look forward to night after
night of stumbling home hijinx and hilarious sidewalk puking.

Those people who live near 190 East 7th street should go take a final look at its lobby, because mere months from now it will be the setting for a reality TV show called “Models, Europeans, and NYU Students Drinking and then Having Sex with Each Other” that will be broadcast to millions. The early morning exasperated looks from racoon eyed girls in their juicy couture (as they groggily move their birthday SUV's to the opposite side of the street for the sweepers) will lose their charm once thay are shared with the nation. Also, you will no longer be able to walk past because the street will be privately owned. And you will have gotten kicked out of your tiny apartment, so you won’t be in the neighborhood very much anyway.

By Emily

Grade: A+

Sometimes, when it’s about love, prose just won’t suffice. Neither will traditional poetic conventions such as meter. Hence, this ode to my favorite fictional person.

You smoke Newports in bed
You wear a full face of stripper makeup, even at the gym
When you pronounce your fiance’s name ‘Christofuhhh’
My head starts to swim

You came into my life
Like a teal snakeskin jumpsuited comet
Shooting heroin like you’re popping an Advil
Spraying federal agents with chunky taupe vomit

Life’s been rough for you lately
Those feds aren’t through with you yet
You can’t have a baby cause of a botched abortion
And Christopher sat on and killed your dog Cosette

I’ll never possess you
Unless I somehow switch bodies with a guido, get cast on the Sopranos, and get made
Still, you’ll forever be
In my heart, my darling Ade.