Bunnies
For Easter Sunday Claudia and I went to mass at the Cathedral in painful heels, and later coordinated our second annual Easter brunch-type event. I say brunch-type because there was no breakfast food and things didn't kick off until 4pm. The guests were mainly NU, Cornell, and AFI alums, and it was a delightful afternoon. Many tasty snacks were made: many deviled eggs, guacamole, a large pasta salad, veggies, artichoke-spinach dip, lots of wine, and a tres leches cake. As my apartment is small, these gatherings are mainly people sitting around the table eating and talking and drinking or standing around outside.
I realized one of the things I most love to do is have people over to my home, play some nice music, eat snacks, talk, and get all goofy in the head. There was one of those bourgeois articles in the NYT some years ago about some couple in London who'd remodeled their home. One of the features, the one I still remember, was this pit of pillows in their foyer. As you walked into their home you could step down into this recessed square sitting-area filled with cushions. That's the kind of piece/thing I'd love to have in my home. Something womb-like you can smoke a hookah in. Like a tiny in-ground pool of pillows.
Anyway, when I moved out to LA I brought with me some random VHS tapes I'd been saving since childhood. When I was young we taped movies off HBO and TV all the time. I would make nice labels and line up the tapes; it was my cheap-o movie collection. In my adolescent mind these VHS tapes were gold; I remember getting so anxious about what was going to be on HBO or Showtime when, and about starting my tapes at the right time and preserving the shows and movies that rarely aired.
Over Xmas break in Chicago my friend Julie and her boyfriend gave me their old VCR. I somehow got this back to LA in one piece, and have since set it up in the living room. As a result, I've been able to enjoy my weird old VHS tapes with a wider audience and I popped in a gem during the Easter gathering.
My selection for the day was "Cartoon Allstars to the Rescue", perhaps you are familiar with it? This was a Saturday morning special starring all your favorite Saturday morning stars in a "Just Say No" shill for Bush I and Grandma Babs. The Muppet Babies, Ninja Turtles, Garfield, and the Chipmunks warn young viewers of the horrors of drugs. As someone at the party pointed out, I had to have had an early sense of irony to save such a tape for over a decade. Maybe that's what it was, even as a young girl I was an asshole.
Some kind soul put "Cartoon Allstars to the Rescue" on YouTube, and I suggest you take a stroll down memory lane and enjoy. You could write a masters thesis on it, unfortunately I don't have the time or energy to delve too deeply into this masterwork. One thing I'd like to point out though is the whole concept of "drugs". Can little kids even name a specific "drug"? "Drugs" is a singular noun. "Drugs" is a pile of pills and syringes and some random bottles with a skull and cross bones hovering in the background in toxic green. "Drugs" is sold by a man in an alley in a trenchcoat, he's usually wearing a hat and his face is hidden in shadow so as not to designate race. "Drugs" makes you crazy and kills you.
Here is the YouTube video although I must say that one of the sad things about it is the lack of vintage commercials (something that makes my tape extra special although there were limited commercials since it was a special), and it's a little grainy.
Also in my personal VHS tape collection, Circus of the Stars circa 1992 with Vanilla Ice driving a motorcycle through a flaming wall of hay.
We also dyed eggs on Easter Sunday. My egg was a French Hooker complete with fishnets and a cigarette holder. She's still sitting in my kitchen and I have yet to detect a stink. I'll see what I can do about a picture, but we all know how that goes. Listen people, I'm trying. I wanted to buy a digital camera a few weeks ago and then a few unexpected expenses came up. Maybe once W sends me my stimulus check we'll get some pictures up in here; it's good to know that while he spends a great deal of time fucking up the country he still has time to think of my needs.
I realized one of the things I most love to do is have people over to my home, play some nice music, eat snacks, talk, and get all goofy in the head. There was one of those bourgeois articles in the NYT some years ago about some couple in London who'd remodeled their home. One of the features, the one I still remember, was this pit of pillows in their foyer. As you walked into their home you could step down into this recessed square sitting-area filled with cushions. That's the kind of piece/thing I'd love to have in my home. Something womb-like you can smoke a hookah in. Like a tiny in-ground pool of pillows.
Anyway, when I moved out to LA I brought with me some random VHS tapes I'd been saving since childhood. When I was young we taped movies off HBO and TV all the time. I would make nice labels and line up the tapes; it was my cheap-o movie collection. In my adolescent mind these VHS tapes were gold; I remember getting so anxious about what was going to be on HBO or Showtime when, and about starting my tapes at the right time and preserving the shows and movies that rarely aired.
Over Xmas break in Chicago my friend Julie and her boyfriend gave me their old VCR. I somehow got this back to LA in one piece, and have since set it up in the living room. As a result, I've been able to enjoy my weird old VHS tapes with a wider audience and I popped in a gem during the Easter gathering.
My selection for the day was "Cartoon Allstars to the Rescue", perhaps you are familiar with it? This was a Saturday morning special starring all your favorite Saturday morning stars in a "Just Say No" shill for Bush I and Grandma Babs. The Muppet Babies, Ninja Turtles, Garfield, and the Chipmunks warn young viewers of the horrors of drugs. As someone at the party pointed out, I had to have had an early sense of irony to save such a tape for over a decade. Maybe that's what it was, even as a young girl I was an asshole.
Some kind soul put "Cartoon Allstars to the Rescue" on YouTube, and I suggest you take a stroll down memory lane and enjoy. You could write a masters thesis on it, unfortunately I don't have the time or energy to delve too deeply into this masterwork. One thing I'd like to point out though is the whole concept of "drugs". Can little kids even name a specific "drug"? "Drugs" is a singular noun. "Drugs" is a pile of pills and syringes and some random bottles with a skull and cross bones hovering in the background in toxic green. "Drugs" is sold by a man in an alley in a trenchcoat, he's usually wearing a hat and his face is hidden in shadow so as not to designate race. "Drugs" makes you crazy and kills you.
Here is the YouTube video although I must say that one of the sad things about it is the lack of vintage commercials (something that makes my tape extra special although there were limited commercials since it was a special), and it's a little grainy.
Also in my personal VHS tape collection, Circus of the Stars circa 1992 with Vanilla Ice driving a motorcycle through a flaming wall of hay.
We also dyed eggs on Easter Sunday. My egg was a French Hooker complete with fishnets and a cigarette holder. She's still sitting in my kitchen and I have yet to detect a stink. I'll see what I can do about a picture, but we all know how that goes. Listen people, I'm trying. I wanted to buy a digital camera a few weeks ago and then a few unexpected expenses came up. Maybe once W sends me my stimulus check we'll get some pictures up in here; it's good to know that while he spends a great deal of time fucking up the country he still has time to think of my needs.
posted by Eileen at 9:11 PM
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