It’s Quiet for Now
June 16th, 2010
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Add the blog to your Google Reader and we’ll be back soon.
Media Consumption Update
November 12th, 2009Blogging! It’s so 2007! But this site needs an overhaul. I know it, you know it, it’s getting obvious even to those who have been in deep denial about it. Until then, because I know you’re dying to know what you should be reading, listening to, watching, &c.
What’s Consuming Melissa/What Melissa Has Consumed Lately:
Books:
Commencement, by J. Courtney Sullivan
My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor
Netherland, by Joseph O’Neill
This Is Where I Leave You, by Jonathan Tropper
The Heart of the the Buddha’s Teaching, by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery
Seeking the Heart of Wisdom, by Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield
A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore
Music:
Laura Marling
Florence + the Machine
Gossip (Music for Men)
TV:
Friday Night Lights
Peep Show, Series 6
Mad Men
Glee (”You know what Sue Sylvester’s never done? Paid income tax.”)
Project Runway & Top Chef (even though I can feel the inanity brittling my bones)
Movies
Slim pickings lately. I’m excited about a screening I’m attending today, but it’s a surprise for a friend so maybe I can post about it later. Also anticipating The Fantastic Mr. Fox eagerly.
I’ve become one of those people who makes a lot of smoothies since Lynn gave me a Vita-Mix and it changed my life forever.
I’m going to be blogging occasionally on The Interdependence Project blog at Beliefnet. I’ll try to update here when I do. I meant to blog about A-Rod’s Sudden Buddhism, but, Q.E.D., I’m not the most consistent blogger. Still, it’s a good blog to add to your feed if you’re feeling like you don’t have enough to consume already.
Whoa.
July 15th, 2009
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‘Girl’s Guide’ worthwhile gift for soon-to-be grads
May 19th, 2009A swell review from On the Shelf:
They pop up like dandelions every spring: guidebooks for the graduate.
Whether junior is saying goodbye to her high school pals, facing the job market with a philosophy major or simply moving to first grade, publishers purport to have a product for everyone.
Most of the books feature a compelling cover, fit easily into a gift bag and aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. “The Girl’s Guide to Absolutely Everything” is the exception, and a perfect present for this year’s crop of co-ed grads.
Reviving the Lit Fest Where Ray Met Tess
April 25th, 2009 |
L to R: Melissa Kirsch, Michael Narducci, April Wilder, student moderator Josh Duke
“It’s what occupies the space of a literary life outside of New York,” wrote a wistful Richard Ford in the New Yorker in 1998, remembering neither Yaddo nor Shakespeare & Co., but the 1977 Southern Methodist University Literary Festival in Dallas. This was the glittering annual colloquium where Ford first met Raymond Carver—and where Carver first met his second wife, Tess Gallagher—where Cheever, Styron and Bellow headlined readings and their liquor-soaked afterparties. Alas, due to lack of funds and other bureaucratic hurdles, the Fest has lain dormant for over a decade.
Calling all Literati in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area
April 13th, 2009I’ll be “appearing” (like a vision from heaven) at the SMU Literary Festival April 16-17. It’s going to be pretty fantastic, and it’s no secret how much I love Texas.
Here’s the schedule. You might consider getting a cheap flight to the Big D even if you’re not in town, because my brilliant comrade April Wilder will also be there and she’s nothing less than a rollicking good time.
Here’s the schedule:
Thursday, April 16th
2:00 pm: Student luncheon with the Writers (Dallas Hall Reading Room)
4:30 pm: Informal Panel Discussion with Melissa Kirsch, Michael Narducci, and April Wilder, Stanley Marcus Reading Room, DeGolyer Library
Friday, April 17th
5:00 pm: Reception, Texana Room, DeGolyer Library
6:00 pm: Tracy Winn reading, Stanley Marcus Reading Room, DeGolyer Library
7:00 pm: Intermission, Texana Room, DeGolyer Library
7:30 pm: Scott Blackwood reading, Stanley Marcus Reading Room, DeGolyer Library
I’ll be the one having a rib-eye for breakfast.
Eggs! Get Their Due With James Beard Award Nomination
March 24th, 2009Yay! The Breakfast Manifesto, New York magazine’s breakfast extravaganza to which I contributed the piece on eggs has been nominated for a James Beard Award.
I love eggs. I love that the whole cholesterol/fat stigma they used to bear has been proven inaccurate. I love a hard-boiled egg more than maybe any other food. I love a farm-fresh egg and yes there is a difference between the supermarket eggs and the greenmarket ones, in taste and nutrition. If I had anything approaching a green thumb, I’d move to upstate New York and be and be a farmer and raise chickens. Maybe.
The Bumbershoot Manifesto
December 22nd, 2008The entire country beset by storms, umbrellas — an at once brilliant (a little roof you carry with you) and unwieldy (given bags and winds and the inevitable presence of other umbrella-carriers) necessity — explode across the urban landscape. In aerial view, any city in a storm
is a riot of color, but on the ground, it’s an ugly fight for survival. Herein, some pointers to ensure no one loses an eye, no one buys a super-expensive novelty umbrella, and no one ends up soaking wet.
I. Sidewalk Umbrelliquette
In which the great ungoverned territory of stormy urban sidewalks are given some shreds of decency.
Moving Violations: Common sense even on sunny days, but when umbrellas are out, it should really be illegal for pedestrians not to stay to the right. There’s nothing more jarring or rude when navigating the sidewalk during a hailstorm than to veer into the oncoming traffic. Stay in your lane.
Too-Close Encounters: In the event of umbrella collision, both parties are to adjust trajectories outward and not, as is so tempting, barrel forth, undeterred, causing a small waterfall or hailfall to beset the other person.
Neighborliness: It is good manners to shelter unfortunate fellow pedestrians, covering their heads with a flimsy sheet of newspaper in vain attempt to ward off a spot of “wintry mix.” If the umbrella-less pedestrian tells you thank you but no, it is intrusive to continue to try offer your umbrella or to insist on sheltering him/her to the nearest bus shelter. Let it go.
Your Own Big Top: Golf umbrellas are for golf courses, large expanses of green where there are three people to every thousand acres. They are not for crowded city sidewalks. Yes, they keep you dry. They also take down every collapsible Totes-carrying umbrellist in your midst. Come on. Get a single-serving-sized umbrella like everyone else.
Indignant Disposal: Should your umbrella turn inside-out in rough winds, rip off its spokes and be rendered useless, it’s not acceptable to throw it on the sidewalk in a fit of pique. The Breakdown of an Umbrella is indeed maddening, especially after you’ve wrestled with it for ten minutes and are already late and wet. But it’s no excuse for littering.
Height Disparity: Taller people must raise their umbrellas over those of shorter people.
II. The Umrellical Universal Law of Return
In which the author puts forth some slightly controversial but ultimately correct maxims regarding umbrellas.
1. Never buy an umbrella unless you absolutely have to (e.g. you are caught unwittingly in a downpour). Umbrellas are like currency (or like currency used to be before we started wildly printing money on demand): there is a certain number of umbrellas in the world, they just circulate amongst us.
2. If you must buy an umbrella, never buy a fancy umbrella. Especially not that gorgeous museum gift-shop one that’s black on the outside and has a sunny sky printed on the inside and costs the same as fifty normal umbrellas. They are so easily and commonly lost, stolen and left behind that it never, ever pays to have an umbrella that you can’t bear to lose. Reconsider giving people expensive umbrellas as gifts, as it’s kind of like giving them a non-paying job (the job of keeping track of a fancy umbrella).
3. Never get upset about losing an umbrella. If you leave an umbrella in a restaurant, it is not worth it to weather a monsoon to go back and fetch it. Another umbrella will present itself to you in timely fashion. Let it go.
4. This is the most morally corrupt part of the Law, but in order for everything to fall into place, we need to move towards accepting this controversial rule: Never feel bad about taking an umbrella. If you find an umbrella on the floor of the movies, or you get one from the lost and found at the office, you can feel okay about taking it. All umbrellas belong to all of us. If someone leaves an umbrella at your house, since they will hopefully be observing #3 above, it becomes your umbrella. Caveat: If you find that obviously precious museum store umbrella or its equal, try not to steal it, even though it’s tempting.
Adjustments and addenda welcome.
Find it here on the Huffington Post.
Holiday Parties in a Simpler Time
December 17th, 2008Two years ago I published this list of things to discuss at holiday parties. How things have changed! What a difference two years makes! Of course you’re going to discuss politics! The mere mention of Aspen will cause your interlocutors to go pale with disgust at your conspicuous consumption. Not to mention Izzy! I mean, no one even cares that T.R. Knight is leaving. Or do they?! And it is so not apocalyptically warm. It is apocalyptically cold from where I’m sitting. O, 2006, when things were so much less complicated! O, 2006! When people actually had holiday parties! Herein, a quaint relic.
Reprinted here with permission from the author, “Good Conversation Topics for This Week’s Holiday Parties,” 18 December 2006.
You’re so busy! I know! This time of year! You can’t zip your jeans but you’ve stopped caring! Egg nog! You’ll never finish your shopping! Carols ’round the spinnet! Egg! Nog!
I know it can sometimes be difficult to come up with stuff to talk about with drunk strangers at the office party, the other office party, the cocktails in Hoboken, the holiday just-because drink with your college roommate, the New Year’s bash full of not strangers, just friends you have yet to meet, if only you had an entree! You know the old chestnut: Steer clear of politics, money or religion. Okay, but what do you talk about? Herein, a list of good topics for breaking the ice, and select topics to avoid.
YES!
That actress who plays Izzy on Grey’s Anatomy. Everyone loves her. They find Meredith annoying and Ally McBeal-ish, but they love Izzy! She earned that Golden Globe nod. Did you see the Season 2 finale?NO!
Dead pets.
YES!
Last year, in Aspen. You can’t go wrong with a raucous tale that involves snow, a bearskin rug and celebrities.NO!
How your jeans don’t fit. No one cares. Theirs don’t either. Pass the cloved ham.
YES!
How great people look. Don’t overdo it, because then they’ll get suspicious and think they were fat before, but I find hearing how great I look a good way to get me to warm up to you. “I haven’t seen you since last year’s tree-trimming! You look great!” NB: If talking to a co-worker, appear unthreatening, and do not follow with “baby” or a wink, because this can be construed as harrassment.NO!
Don’t lead with the controversial party game “Good for the Jews/Bad for the Jews?”. This can be a good time (”Britney Spears: Good for the Jews or Bad for the Jews?”) and get people thinking, but some may take offense or not get it. Try “Alive or Dead?” if you want to be piquant. Like “Mickey Rooney: Alive or Dead?”. No one knows, but everyone cares!
YES!
Sledding.NO!
Itemized deductions.
YES!
What happened the last time you went on eBay. This is always amusing. Everyone loves an eBay story, especially if it involves Depression glass, old comic books, last-second bids, or how much you got for a pair of beat-up cowboy boots.NO!
February. It’s going to happen. We don’t want to think about it.
YES!
iPod playlists. Very neutral, potentially hilarious.NO!
X-Box. Limited appeal, never funny, always slightly lonely.YES!
Your Top Ten Anything of 2006. People love Top Ten lists. Movies, Songs, Shags, Stomach Flus. Everything is interesting when listed. Try Top Three to really up the tension! It forces people to be really discerning! Who can choose their Top Three Naps? Top Three Physician Visits? Top Three Arguments with Grampa About Obama’s 2008 Aspirations? That’s hard!NO!
The weather. Come on. It’s apocalyptically warm. No, no one can believe it. Dead end.
YES!
Emerging Adult ADD. Everyone thinks they have it.NO!
Anti-fungals.
Stop Everything
December 5th, 2008I am now officially on Twitter. It’s experimental. My name is “melissakirsch”. Surprising, I know.
Please “follow” me as my posts promise to get ever more mundane. That’s not true. They’re going to get kind of amazing. It’s all part of narrowing our focus for the future. I would like to voice that the Twitter interface is so crapped up it’s impossible to find anyone if they’re not a Yahoo(!) mail contact, which I find absurd. But you can find me. For the time being. Any Twitter tips or insider trading hints welcome.
