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Boo! Today, I'm finally "Kafkaesque" (hey, every writer gets a chance at being called this, no?). To celebrate, I will be dressed accordingly and handing out heavyhanded metaphors about the evil machine we call our world to neighborhood children. And you think your McCain outfit's gonna scare people?
Inspired by SNL's historic Bag 'O Glass and Bag O'Nails as well as the luxury gift guides with which we have regularly been associated, Shallot brings you a new gift to get through the tough times: the Mortgage Thwartation Bag ($9.99).
Contents include:
1) Enough Cardboard (see below)
in order for you to ride out the down-market in this (included are blueprints readable by anyone who has a master's in architecture):
2) A lot of tape and glue and other adhesive material
3) This swank new cellphone (to stay in touch, and make new deals from the field!)
and,
4) A new "Postmodern" Parka (you know, just in case it rains actual water as opposed to fear!)
Now, go out there, Shalloteers, and survive this Recession!
Meet today's McCain Voter du Jour (and yes we know that's redundant!), Perry Highweather, Ph.D.
Dr. Highweather, a pseudonym, is a famously liberal professor of gender studies, renowned for her academic papers on feminism, and the only daughter of a famous army general. She was excited to chat with Shallot recently from her Austin, Texas office, where she often holds impromptu discussions among the U of T student body concerning the inequality among the sexes and why a thinking young woman should vote for Obama. "I have to say that I see Sarah Palin as an egregious impediment to this progress," she admits. "But I still can't personally vote for Obama. So I'm doing my part by holding my classes. I mean, I know my girls will have much less of a chance to live in a world where Roe v. Wade continues to thrive, but I just don't think I can personally live with a president who hasn't served in the military. Now, if a woman who had served in the military were running, that would be another story!" When questioned why Dr. Highweather cares so much about putting a military man in the White House, she couldn't contain herself. "Well, I'm a little embarrassed to say it, but since it's just between us: They're hot! Especially when they've sustained injuries from torture. I don't know, that's sort of my thing. You're not going to use my name in this article are you? I only agreed to this interview under conditions of anonymity. Anyway, I'm spinning most of my disciples towards Obama, so what does it matter what I do?" Don't worry, Dr. Highwether, your secrets are safe with us. As ever, we appreciate you taking the time to share some of your personal
details with Shallot readers and hope you're pleased with the election
results.
Note: Glass Shallot Composite Profiles are fictional works composed
of unusually creative fact-assemblage. In other words, they're more
real than reality TV but less real than sit-com dialogue.
You can't do this in journalism, but you can do it on a blog!
Meet today's McCain Voter Du Jour, Brandon McGill.
Mr. McGill, 67, has been working New York and Long Island commuter trains as a conductor for as long as he can remember. "Sometimes I think I seen the railroad as a means of transportation from its earliest days," he told Shallot over a few non-alcoholic beers the other night in a little seaside town called Sayville. Living in New York has been hard for Mr. McGill: "It's what they call a "Blue State," he says. "I wear blue. The sky is blue. But all my buddies and me have never gone for that commie crap like universal health insurance and taxing everyone for everything under the sun. You want insurance? Get a job. You want a place in this country? Come in legally. You want to sneak your way onto the 5:27 express to Penn Station the day after your monthly pass expired? Good fuckin' luck, Cap'n." Mr. McGill is proud to divulge his railroad salary: He makes over $100,000. "And I earn it," he says. "You should see some of the slime that takes the train today. I'm not talkin' about the businessmen. I mean those kids with babies goin' from one town to another. Where you goin', I ask? To work, they say. To work? You got a job? Get a car!" When Shallot then asked Mr. McGill how he would benefit from the McCain tax policy if he makes under $250,000, he said, "Well, I just might not. But maybe I'll get a raise soon. You never know. It's principle, stupid." Indeed, Mr. McGill. Thanks again for chattin' with Shallot, and we hope you're pleased with the election results!
Note: Glass Shallot Composite Profiles are fictional works composed of unusually creative fact-assemblage. In other words, they're more real than reality TV but less real than sit-com dialogue. You can't do this in journalism, but you can do it on a blog!
Meet today's McCain Voter Du Jour, Benjamin Babel.
Mr. Babel, frequently seen in stylish pinstripe suits and more than just a little stubble, makes his home in Sherman Oaks, California, where he owns with his wife Joanie a four-bedroom house on the "valley" side of the Hollywood Hills. Mr. Babel uses "Just for Men" and works in entertainment, where he's often consumed with telling a cadre of lower-salaried network employees why certain programing is best fit for the "Webisode treatment." Mr. Babel, who boasts that he doesn't like to read anything but "the good" biographies, admits that he recently sat idle as a member of his temple told his Indian daughter-in-law that she "doesn't count" at a recent Jewish prayer service ("something the girl clearly couldn't understand, I can't fault her"); he can also frequently be found waxing the BMW 7-series he bought at an August Van Nuys auction. Mr. Babel tips low at nearby sushi restaurants ("get that bluefin todayyyy, and maybe I'll give more than 8%"), buys McDonald's gourmet coffee three times a day ("tastes better than that pricey fair-trade crap"), and is proudly beating erectile dysfunction ("Viaga advertises during 'Mad Men,' there's nothing to be embarrassed about"). Mr. Babel also never exactly graduated college but scored an MBA at USC (note: this does not concern the fact that his doctor father built that university's hospital neurology wing, although how impressive is that?). Lastly, Mr. Babel also frequently cranks Tears for Fears and his favorite song "Freebird" on his office iPod dock and enjoys hunting small animals ("the big, rare ones don't deserve to die"). The quote he most wanted Glass Shallot to post on his McCain voter profile, however, is: "Self-reliance begins with seeing the world as an every man for himself sort of struggle." Touché, Mr. Babel! We appreciate you taking the time to share some of your personal details with Shallot readers and hope you're pleased with the election results.
Note: Glass Shallot Composite Profiles are fictional works composed of unusually creative fact-assemblage. In other words, they're more real than reality TV but less real than sit-com dialogue. You can't do this in journalism, but you can do it on a blog!
We know you have many choices for your shallot needs, and we thank your return business.
"Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency. The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."--The Associated Press
Dear Al-Qaida,
First of all, let me say that I thought you spelled the name of your organization differently. Is it me, or has the spelling changed? I rather liked it when there was an "e" in your name. Gave you spunk! Made it fun when the Texans said: Al Kigh-ay-ee-da! I also didn't know your Web site was so securely password protected. I've never tried to visit your Web site, but hey, that doesn't seem fair. Don't you want more members? I hardly think being exclusionary is the right way for you guys to go right now. But I'm getting off the topic. Sorry.
See, I'm writing you with a request. I know I haven't exactly done you any favors on this here blog, but I read about you in the papers this week (see the above report about your new and exciting plans), and I have to say that while I don't want you to ever do anything bad to our country or anyone who lives in it or flies above it -- or surfs or swims near it, because that's something a lot of my friends tend to do; I know they sound pretty cool, right? -- I do need to address this McCain victory attack thing.
Makes sense that you'd want to attack us better than you ever have if the Maverick wins. I'll be upset, but I don't think I'll personally be able to do much more than sleep a lot and overeat. Maybe I'll bug my friends more than usual. Maybe I'll piss off my editors. But that's probably it. Yeah, just the sleeping, eating, bugging my friends, and pissing off my editors. But here's the question: If you do go all batshit again -- and I don't mean to insult you and imply that your organization hasn't always been impressively batshit... But if the Maverick happens to pull up his bootstraps and beat Obama, proving what a fucked up country this really is...Well, if that happens, and if you have to do "your attack stuff" by bringing onto a plane little (innocuous) containers that say "saline solution" but will really kill everyone in range of one city's subway system or something, I just want to ask you if you can consider Shallot Central. And by consider, I mean bomb.
I'm not asking to be put out to pasture for no reason. But c'mon, would you want to sleep all day and overeat, seeing your once-active, everyday life in a lovely city like Los Angeles go down the tubes as you stuff your face with storebought Nathan's hotdogs and too much pappardelle because retarded aliens are running your country into the ground? No, you wouldn't. So think about Glass Shallot. Put us on your list. We don't want McCain to win, unlike you, so we'll be real sad and most likely gradually self-destructive during the whole four years to come. I don't know, though, maybe we'll be better off meeting the fate you so aptly discuss in your videos? We here at Shallot have always wanted to be the ones to try innovative stuff first.
I'm just asking you to consider it. Someone will need to put us out of our misery. Why not you? I promise it will be fun. We get scared just looking at knives and cutting boards.
Thank you,
Shallot staffers
[Glass Shallot approves this message]
Will you buy these for me, Sarah? Puhleeese?
I know it's not as luxurious and roomy as Palin's, but Joe Klein, you're always welcome on the Shallot Express.
If this initiative fails, I have no other logical thing or person to blame but Jackie Mason. Because aren't all elderly Jewish people in Florida wasting their days away on YouTube? (As for the National Review writer who says that "Jews as a demographic traditionally vote overwhelmingly Democratic anyway," well, he's not wrong, of course. But that doesn't change the fact there are more than a few thousand insight-challenged people in the Tribe who keep that number a lot lower than it should be.)
Alex Ross has done yet another amazing thing (simply writing the first chapter of "The Rest Is Noise" humbled Shallots everywhere), and no one was more deserving of a MacArthur this year (although, I guess that friendly geomorphologist is a stone-cold rockstar). At any rate, Ross has now expanded the online audio guide to his book, now in paperback, which is sort of like creating a multimedia museum as a simple compendium. You know it's unusually meaningful when it can teach people (via sound) how to better understand The White Album as well as The Rite of Spring. Now, if only we could Google sounds. I know someone's gotta be working on that, but hurry up!
Except he's far from useless. That is, Jonathan Kiefer, Shallot compatriot and S.F. film critic, I speak of. To wit, the intro to Jonk's recent review of "Nick and Nora":
First, it must be understood that the Nick and Norah whose infinite playlist this is are of no discernible relation to Nick and Nora Charles from Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Thin Man, which became a series of six boozily banter-intensive movies starring William Powell and Myrna Loy in the ’30s and ’40s.
This has to be explained up front because movie critics like to feel important, and to act crotchety, which means making you wait for the information you came here for by spouting off about how pretty much nobody in Nick & Norah’s target demographic even will have heard of the Thin Man movies anyway, damn kids, with their broadband porn and tattoos and Twitter-frazzled attention spans. ...
Twitter be damned along with those infants. I, very maturely, subscribe to the Useless Jonk RSS feed.
