Best of

Some of the better nuggets from the paper over the last few weeks, i.e. the things I keep laughing about, but know everyone will get really annoyed if I interrupt them again with these:

A Florida filmmaker on the phone with me, telling me why we should do a story on his film project that obviously was so inspired:
"I was fasting for 30 days in the jungle. … I'm very obsessive. … When I do something, it's on a grand scale. I was seeking a grand story, and I found this."

It gets better. This was the ad he eventually placed:
"Husband and wife are actors, writers, directors, and also compose all musical score. The film is 2 people, one sailboat, 2 person production crew. We have a complete marketing plan and promotional strategy for this very controversial film with experienced filmmaking background. This is not a vanity project we have devoted our lives to creating a film that will transform the soul and spirit of mankind."

A related testimonial from a restaurant ad:
'We felt transported to Thailand and India ... the sounds, the sights, the smells, the tastes. The food was heavenly, the waiters divine. And we were uplifted, sensually and spiritually."
-a customer from San Francisco, claro.

First there was a workshop on masculinity. Then, there was one on the "Empowerment of Our Sensual Feminity." Then, we got this:
Workshop ACERCÀNDONOS AL CUERPO con esencias florales
Or, a workshop on approaching/familiarizing ourselves with the body with floral essences, emphasis theirs.

There was also a quarter-page color ad ($400) placed this week advertising under the banner of "Arriving September 12!" a self-professed handsome middle age guy who's just looking for some nice marriage-minded lady. I would've called, but you know, I've never been one for long walks on the beach.

One sports bar boasts every week in their ad of their "Pool and Foolball Table," and once for their "Foolsball" table.
And every week I, sadly, have to correct them.

So do the gastronomic security Luddites exist, too?
"With this initiative, Costa Rica puts itself with the avant-garde in Latin America in efforts toward food safety in the gastronomic industry," states a press release.

The humans are included! From a classified real estate ad:
Includes caretakers' cottage with caretaker couple.

Just because it's Liechtenstein
The cooperative hopes to receive funding for the $250,000 project through loans from partners in Liechtenstein.

Be SO THANKFUL FOR COPYEDITORS who are there to put in that critical comma in sentences like this one:
Frank, a Costa Rican visitor for 30 years, built the church, which he then dedicated to his late wife Mary, who passed away four years ago in honor of their mutual love for this country.

Other good lines from various articles:
“He’s delightful and impressive,” Jill says. “He has deep, deep values. You don’t often see that in a good capitalist.”

"A golf course is a sin. No matter what it is, it doesn't make sense. It's not sustainable development," Amit said.

The company said it was the work of the zealous, anti-pineapple protestors.

Piropéame, porfa.

What would Latin America be if you couldn't get catcalls every 100 yards? Not Latin America, that's for sure.


I knew one girl who did a research project on catcalls, or piropos, in Cuba, and the women there told her that they were disappointed on days they didn't get catcalls and usually resolved to put more effort into their public presentation the next time they went out. It's a shame catcalls have mostly negative connotations in the states, because it's a cute game for the most part. Not anything to put a lot of stake in, but some good fun all the same.

Pretty much any gringa gets attention here simply because the fair skin is the rarer foreign trait, and I smile thinking how Norwegian qualities are thus turned into something exotic. That being said, I felt the most uncomfortable in La Paz when it was clear they were hitting on me because I was white, the whiteness being the desirable beauty trait, especially in a country so painfully aware of its skin colors and races and the vestigal colonial value of white over dark. To get a lecherous, even if ultimately benign, sucking-in of a hiss calling attention to your skin's lack of pigment every afternoon on the street was not flattering.

Thankfully, the skin color gradient is more varied here in Costa Rica, so I don't stand out as much, and even less so if I keep my sunglasses on. Whereas I honestly can't think of a memorable line I got in La Paz (or at least memorable in the good way) – although the Cochabamba buses did have these funny loud catcall whistle-replicating horn they would frequently let wail – it's a much more amusing game here.

By far, the most common pickup lines you get are lots of awkward Spanglish sayings, "Hi, beautiful lady. Goodbye." Sometimes they directly translate favorite Tico terms, and you get a "Hello, my queen." But others have stood out, for the simple fact that these are the ones that got me to turn around:

Least Sleazy, Somehow
One afternoon, I had a lanky middle-aged guy with one of those perpetually concave torsos in a button-down shirt, grin, cock his hand in pistol fashion to point at me, then pull it up to his ear in a telephone gesture, and follow with a wink.

Most Confusing
One morning as I was walking downtown on the main pedestrian thoroughfare, as I passed this one guy, he leaned in ever-so-slightly, and gave this completely asexual "meow," as if he were really trying to accurately imitate a feline.

Most Terrifying
It was the same type of lean-in move as above, except this time there were two guys walking together, and right when they were a couple feet in front of me, they suddenly split to either side of me, leaned in and gave low, throaty "ojos" in unison.

Most Unnecessary Double Standard
OK, so this wasn't a piropo, per se, but one time when I was wearing one of my better sundresses, I passed an elderly lady who had a very concerned look as she surveyed my legs. Once we passed each other and I guessed we were about five yards apart, I turned around and found her still looking at my lower half as she walked away with a HUGE SCOWL ACROSS HER FACE, one that involved all her eyebrow, forehead, and mouth muscles. And I just thought, really, amid all the other flesh that's shoved and smashed into tops four sizes too small, you're going to bother to judge me? At least my dress fits ...

Best Attention to an Editorial Assistant's Sensibilities
On my way to work, a guy resting up against a car hood a few meters away says, in stilted English, "I really enjoy looking at you this morning," and the only thing I could think was, "Wow, I just got hit on in a complete sentence!"

Can You Come Down With Us?

The Albums That Hardly Employ A Guitar Appreciation Month:

High Places, 03/07-09/07
The pared-down electronic simplicity much in the same vein of Au Revoir Simone, but bolder. And bold is good. Very good. Probably what I'll nominate for Character Trait of the Year.

M.I.A., Arular
She is not a simple lyrics-set-to-a-tune artist: She's a full-on surround-sight/sound experience that infuses the entire nervous system with this writhing artistry. As Joshua Klein put it in describing another album, "such wonderfully weird and inventive craft that reveling in [the artist's] ingenuity and tapping your toes become inextricably linked activities, making the disc the perfect mind/body split: blowing the former while moving the latter." Except listening to this album involves a little more than tapping your toes.

Panda Bear, Person Pitch
Arena indie rock. There's a type of soaring, euphoric quality to this album that makes me think that if I ever went on a hot air balloon ride, this is what I'd listen to.

Wax Tailor
This was a concert, actually. (Hooray for seeing French electronica in Central America!) The performers included Wax on keyboards, a cellist, a flautist, and a visual artist whose electronic scribbled flourishings were projected on the large screen directly above the stage. There was also a small projector to the left that played random clips of WWII-era films and commercials. Good times!

Plus heaps of yummy India.Arie and Dar Williams, courtesy of the equally yummy Lily.

*

The Olivia Tremor Control, Dusk at Cubist Castle
Because there was no way the E6 month would have been complete without this album, but I couldn't fit all 10 green typewriters and the other 17 tracks into my monthly allotment of downloads last time. For all the active bands out there who are dying to have "the White Album" breathed in their reviews, Olivia Tremor is the most successful of any other I've heard. Not that they're trying to specifically emulate the White Album, but the best moments of Dusk harken back to it.

It's important to know that I have this section to promote albums popularly, not pretentiously. One reason I so loath absurdist band and album titles is because it strikes as an elitist move, some artist thinking they're coming off as "deeper" by making themselves more inaccessible (when they usually just end up seeming more convoluted). I would hate for someone to avoid buying, or even sampling, this album because the name – which, now that I think of it, just add a 'b' to the front and it pretty well describes Evo's job – threw someone off or thought that album couldn't be for them. This album is infinitely accessible.

Plucked Her Eyebrows Along the Way

a preface

"one thing was evident, she thought, hollywood had not spoiled holly's goodness, she was so unaffected and friendly, and her words were not just idle ones, spoken for the sake of it. she meant them."
-sbgr, 90

"in 'how a resurrection really feels,' one of finn's recurring characters, a lost soul named holly, crashes into a church on easter sunday – 'limping left on broken heels' – to declare to the congregation that while druggy parties might have killed her, visions and saints have resurrected her. it's a strange tale."
-nym on ths, 7/21

"holly had achieved nothing, and this was entirely due to the unexpected unfriendliness of the efrafan rabbits."
-wd, 256

Que Viva la Vista de Mi Ventana

My living room is famous.

What can I say? I've got a knack for first suffering through one miserable living situation in which I inevitably get gypped before landing myself in apartments with killer views from the living room, along with pairs of chairs where you can sit and read or maybe just watch it all for hours on end.

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

My life is now divided into the Before Solla and In the Year of Our Solla eras.

"Solla Solla Enna Perumai"

Key moments: 1:59 and 2:51

(This, more than anything else, makes me want pick up Hindi again, if only to be able to open up the final dimension of this video, which would be the lyrics and therein the reason for All the Awesomeness.

And you guys are all in trouble now that I've figured out how to embed YouTube videos, or, I should say, now that I've realized that embedding requires nothing more mentally intensive than copying and pasting.)