“I do think you have to scare yourself. That’s where your creativity or your growth comes from. Scaring yourself, challenging yourself, taking those risks, and not caring about what anyone thinks.”
-Rita Wilson on the second episode of The Conversation, which is just as good as the first!
I have a very intense love of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson’s relationship, by the way. I think that if they ever split up, I would actually be really depressed. They’re America’s Mom and Dad.
My desire to do things & know what’s out there has always been greater than my fear. I was more scared of staying home than of leaving it. – Dolly Parton, who has a Twitter. Of course she does, and of course it’s great.
Fun fact: I think of this R. Kelly song whenever I hear/say/read the word “weekend.” Unrelated: here are some pictures of Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch to inspire you.
Amy Poehler’s look in that last picture is basically how I look from November-April, except less pretty and less talented.
Pictures from this Rachel Dratch tumblr, which is worth a look. Rachel Dratch! We love her, right? Have fun, check back tomorrow for the link to my HelloGiggles post, and enjoy your freakin’ weekend (as R. Kelly would want).
Self Esteem: Jenny Slate from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.
This video is the perfect mix of funny and sad.
I finally have a subscription to Bust! My wonderful mother bought it for me as a Christmas gift. It showed up this week, a little worse for the wear, in my tiny-envelope-sized mailbox. Ta-da!
Welcome to Ladyville favorite JULIE KLAUSNER wrote the cover story on Maya Rudolph! How could it get better? The answer is that it could not. Maya talks about lots of things, like breast pumping and her favorite Sirius station (First Wave! Also my favorite!). Here is my favorite quote, about my crush Chris Parnell:
“Years ago, when I was young and vibrant, I flashed him my boobs on my birthday. It was right before I started on SNL, and I was drinking so much tequila that I flashed him my boobs at a party at my house. The next day he called me, and he left me this message: ‘Hello, Maya, this is Chris Parnell. I want to say thank you very much for showing me your boobs last night. I appreciate it.’ It’s probably my favorite message I’ve ever received.”
My friend (our friend!) Lauren wrote a wonderful article about the lovely Emily St. John Mandel for Overflow magazine. Lauren is the best writer/editor (double threat) I know, and Emily St. John Mandel wrote a book I absolutely loved called Last Night In Montreal. Nancy Pearl loved it, and you will too.
Emily St. John Mandel is kind of impossibly beautiful, right?
Right. Check out the article!
Maybe you don’t have time to read this whole article about Carrie Brownstein. I didn’t think I did, either, but then Lauren posted it on my wall and I was at my parents’ house, and, well…it’s a good read, you guys. I learned lots of things. In case you don’t get around to it, here are the best lines.
-”Brownstein and Armisen began building a friendship, but, given that they were living on opposite coasts, they decided that they’d have to work on something together. As she put it, when you’re not dating somebody, “it begins to seem kind of weird if you’re flying around the country to see him.””
-”Armisen and Brownstein text each other every night before bed. Brownstein says of their friendship, “Sometimes I think it’s the most successful love affair either of us will ever have.” Both claim that it wouldn’t work if they were romantically involved. “It would be colder, because we’ve both treated our romantic relationships in a cold way,” Armisen says. “Carrie and I are more romantic than any other romantic relationship I’ve ever had—that sense of anticipation about seeing the other person, the secret bond. But things don’t become obligatory. I’m not thinking, I’m doing this because you’re my girlfriend; I’m just thinking, I love Carrie.””
-”Bill Oakley, a former head writer for “The Simpsons” who had moved to Portland, has helped out on the show. He says, “I’ve spent a lot of time in writers’ rooms. They’re pressure cookers. In most cases, they’re heavily male. You work long hours and many of the people in them have a really negative view about themselves and life.” The “Portlandia” writers’ room, however, is collaborative and laid-back. Some meetings have been held in the loft of the director Gus Van Sant, who has become friendly with Brownstein. “Gus’s dog was wandering in and out,” Oakley says.”
-”In one sketch, Toni, played by Brownstein, reproves a woman who has written an appreciative account of her boyfriend’s sexual technique for the store’s “journaling class.” “I feel like it was a brag journal,” Toni says. “And what a journal should be is a document of misery.””
-”In the bathroom were posters seeking roommates for group houses, including this one: “We are into open and honest communication, dumpstering, crafts, music, raw/living foods, biking, natural building, permaculture, living in shacks and trailers and all kinds of fun stuff like that. We are a vegan house, except that some of us do dumpster dairy.” (When I mentioned this to Brownstein, she said, “If I were into dumpster diving, dairy is the last thing I’d dive for.”)”
-”When Miranda July tried to explain why she and Brownstein had stayed friends since their riot-grrrl days, she began to say the word “ambition,” but hesitated. Instead, she said that they shared “a steady focus on what we are going to do next. We’re always asking each other, ‘What’s the next project?’ And, that being the throughline in our lives, more than relationships, that becomes pretty meaningful, at a certain point.”"
-”It had taken a while, she said, for her to shed the sense that it was unseemly to “take credit for something you did. So Fred is so nice, because he never came from that scene. And it’s not about being self-aggrandizing. It’s just about taking a moment to be proud of yourself, that you worked hard and feel good about it.” Maybe, she mused, it helped that he was a guy.”
-”Brownstein mentioned how hard it was “to stay sharp on tour,” and said that she did a lot of reading. She had James Baldwin’s “The Devil Finds Work” and Hawthorne’s “The Marble Faun” tucked into her travel bag in the van.”
-”But Fred is someone whom I deeply trust, he’s already an extension of what I’d call family…We drove home late and I dropped him off at his hotel. Sometimes I get confused and think, Are we supposed to kiss goodnight? But, the truth is, I don’t want us to kiss, I want us to teach each other how good it can be to stick around.”
Okay, you’re welcome, now go read the whole article!
“Quirky is what a guy would call a girl he doesn’t understand.” – Kat Dennings in GQ
As a child I trained myself to dance in very high heels. At 13, in Destiny’s Child, we were told to wear heels, but at first we couldn’t walk in them. We couldn’t keep our knees straight. But we learned, and that became the image of Destiny’s Child: so young and so glamorous. Now I have a rule that my dancers have to wear their heels when I’m wearing my heels. They say, ‘Please take your shoes off, Beyoncé.’ At home, I’m always barefoot. And I have a heavy walk without heels. When they hear me thumping through the house, they say, ‘Oh, Beyonce’s up!’ – Beyonce in W Magazine
I consider myself a lady, but I can’t walk in heels. Just can’t. Dorothy Michaels looked better in heels than I do. Maybe all I needed was a Svengali-like father-manager to force me to wear uncomfortable shoes when I was a child.
Also, how much do you like to think of Beyonce’s “heavy walk”? I can’t stop thinking about Bey stomping around the house and it’s making me so happy.
Think of all the women you know who will not allow themselves to be seen without makeup. I often wonder how they feel about themselves at night when they are climbing into bed with intimate partners. Are they overwhelmed with secret shame that someone sees them as they really are? Or do they sleep with rage that who they really are can be celebrated or cared for only in secret? – bell hooks
While I find this thought interesting, I definitely don’t agree with it. I wear a lot of makeup every single day, and I’ve never felt that it is a way of hiding who I am. On the contrary: makeup makes me feel more authentically me. For me, it’s the same with dressing up, even when I’m just staying home. It’s a way of saying, “Yes, this moment is worth celebrating. This life is worth putting effort into.”
Also my eyelashes are very short and if $5 and 20 seconds every day can change that, then what a fool I would be to not take that opportunity.
I don’t know. Maybe someday I’ll wake up and think, “Oh, God, did I really waste all that time smiling at myself in the mirror so I could apply stage-appropriate levels of blush to the apples of my cheeks?” But I doubt it.
