Crossword My Heart

Steady yourself. I'm serious.

For as long as either can remember they have had a passion for words. And through words they discovered a passion for each other.

For as long as I can remember, I've had a passion for hating shit like that. And through this passion for hating shit like that, I've learned that my eyelid twitches with rage when I read shit like that. And at the moment it's going fucking NUTS. Since when did the person who writes movie previews for crap like "The Lake House" start drafting Vows columns? I'd rather suffer through another Lois Smith Brady simile-cide than read this sort of cutesy, clumsily constructed chiasmus that serves less as a clever intro and more as the verbal equivalent of ipecac syrup. And I already brushed my teeth tonight. Shit.

And what's even worse, this was the opening band:

Ask Jessica Switzer and Gregory Pliska to find a synonym for love, and chances are they could come up with a dictionary's worth.

This immediately preceded the above passion/words-words/passion bullshit, mind you. I could come up with a dictionary's worth of words to describe how intros like that make me feel. Here's a sneak peek at a few of the words: violently misanthropic.

Despite the suspect factual delivery, the couple really did meet through words and dictionaries and other such nerdities. Crossword puzzles, to be specific. While I just described crossword ingredients as the tools of the nerdery, crossword players are a hard group to stereotype. For every overweight basement-dweller there's a hot crossword playing girl at the coffeeshop who makes you want to fake-play a puzzle yourself and sit with better posture. I've never really been that into puzzles, but this may have something to do with the fact that I'm bored easily. I have no desire to complete them once I start them. You may see parallels in the frequency of posting to this blog (sorry).

Though they had both attended the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, Conn., for years, they did not meet until March 2005, when Mr. Pliska's gaze fell upon Ms. Switzer, who was seated nearby in the room full of fast thinkers and human dictionaries.

Once again, the New York Times fails at presenting the complete story. They meant to say "fast thinkers, human dictionaries...human IT technicians, avid masturbators, and participants in ongoing failed relationships."

During a break he struck up a conversation with her. Soon he had convinced her to stay for dinner and after-competition activities, which included a cutthroat game of Boggle.

"After-competition activities" sounds kinky. Getting tipsy on a little too much "cross sauce." Filling boxes with your mind-seed. Watching her boobies shake while readying the Boggle tray. It's positively erotic.

It shouldn't be surprising that they met at a crossword competition. I can't think of a better place for scoring some like-minded tail. I suppose if the spelling bee took place at a college level it'd be like fucking Caligula's Rome. As it stands, crossword tournaments, and Scrabble, as we've seen in these pages, are like a Nerd Club Med. Will Shortz could walk into one of those events and immediately be showered in Hanes Her Way.

So let's meet Jessica and Gregory.


9 letter word, starting with "p", "what he'll do to her tonight"

Adorable. They look very happy together. But, wait, who's that in the background? The girl with the terrifying gaze? This one:


".ssenippah ruoy dne lliw I"

Wow. I'd keep an eye on her. 6 letter "p" word, "perkins and vaughn".

"You meet somebody you're drawn to, and you're feeling around for obstacles," said Mr. Pliska, who was divorced. "I just was not hitting any of those."

Is this to say despite "feeling around" he wasn't "hitting that"? Hmmm? Hmmmmmm? I think this might explain...

Where another man might have begun wooing her with love letters, he fell back on what he knew best: he lovingly constructed crossword puzzles for Ms. Switzer and sent them to her.

You know, that's cute and all, but isn't it a little obvious? I mean, she must have expected that this would be his wooing mechanism, right? I hope those were really good puzzles, because the whole thing seems a little contrived, Gregory. The saddest part is that you know he was friggin' PUMPED to turn those puzzles out, thinking they were absolutely the most romantic box-based courtship ever. She must have disagreed:

But over time, Mr. Pliska, 44, discovered that his love couldn't be fitted into a puzzle's grid, and he began composing music for her.

She wasn't going to go easy, like a Monday puzzle. This intrigues me. Two reasons: a) he is a music composer and a crossword player, so he was playing to his strengths with painful predictability and b) she must have talked shit about the crossword flirting. Maybe they almost became...starcross'd-word lovers? Hmm? Hmmmmm? Hmmmmmmmmmm? Did she just say "listen, this is cute and all, but it's not doing it for me, we're adults"? Or maybe she just filled out one of his crosswords with calculated error? Something like this:


Obvious joke

Somehow the music did the trick, and they ran with it. I guess despite the shared interests they weren't as destined to be together as it would seem. FOr instance:

They did have differences, of course: Ms. Switzer does her crossword puzzles in pencil, while Mr. Pliska uses ink.

Psssh. Fuckin amateur hour. A true pro fills out his crosswords in blood. Every true box-jockey knows this.

I have to go to bed now. To wrap up their story:

One day, 10 months after that meeting, Ms. Switzer found a series of crosswords awaiting her when she got home. The solution to the final one spelled out in its four corners the words "will," "you," "marry" and "me." And in its center, a space for the answer.

Who didn't see that coming? What I want to know is, did he leave three boxes for her answer? Would that be presumptuous? What if she filled it in "nay" or "WTF"?

The bridegroom's father, Edward W. Pliska of Belmont, Calif., a retired municipal court judge, helped lead the ceremony, at which Cantor Dan Rous officiated. Near its end, Mr. Rous set off a wave of grinning and groaning as he sent the newly married couple off with the wish "that never a cross word will pass between you."

I had titled this post "Cross Words" before I read the entire thing, and I just got to the end of it and saw this. Fuckers. Now I feel just as guilty of the obvious as crossword-suitor Gregory. Lame.

Detritus

There were no announcements this week that really begged dissection, so instead I'll just pick a few points from several announcements and present them as a scornucopia (or "scorn o' plenty").

I've got a third Whipple

I have to start with this. This year's (so far) prize for "(most) Ludicrously Aristocratic Name Ever" (L.A.N.E.) could only go to...

Whipple Spaulding Newell III

It's not a question of whether this name will blow your mind, but how much you want your mind blown. As for me, I'll take "to the back of the stadium." You see, it all depends on when you stop reading. Most people would be content with Whipple, saying to themselves "Well that's a fucking ridiculous name. I think I'll stop reading here and go back to watching Carlos Mencia." Psssh, not Veiled Conceit readers. We're not content until we see some fuckin numbers appended. I should clarify that I'm not making fun of Whipple in the least: I'm celebrating him. His name's players (Whipple, Spaulding, Newell, and III) are tireless and dedicated, with no drag-ass freeloaders hitching their wagon to a franchise player like "Whipple" and hoping to win a LANE award. Every member of this name's team came to play. I hate to draw racial lines when it comes to names, but this one starts white, then slowly bleaches itself to the point of transparency by the end.

It should be noted that Whipple (Whip? Whippy?) married a woman named Keelin Isabelle Nelson, which isn't felonious, but works well with Whipple Spaulding Newell III.

It should also be noted that, from what we learn in the announcement, Whips' blue-blood doesn't even run skin deep (that imagery/metaphor makes no sense, but it sounds good if you just blow by it, so please continue reading without any critical interpretation). He and his family seem pretty harmless and normal, actually.

Before we go, let's breathe in Whipple's visual splendor. I hope he has yacht hair...


Yes. Yes he does.

Runner-up for a L.A.N.E., and not even close, is William Francis Abely II, a name that is antiquated, but not preposterous like Whipple's. It helps that William Francis looks (like a decent guy but also) like he is actually in 1920, ready to ascend to the boston brahmincy:


Cheers.


A Dump in the Dining Room
The Vows column this week was interesting, but I couldn't seem to muster "a fuck" in these people. They worked together, then refused to date when everyone (including the batshit insane Cowboy's wide-receiver Michael Irvin) thought they should, then finally hooked up while on a just-friends vacation together(?!). He proposed, then she got pregnant (with a comfy window of time for those of you on shotgun patrol) and they got married at the restaurant City Hall. Interesting, yes, but overall probably more normal than a lot of us would like to think.

You know that saying "don't shit where you eat"? Ostensibly it's a cautionary adage to warn against sleeping with your co-workers, but I've never really understood it. Clearly, shit is unappetizing (to most people, german/japanese fetishists on teh intarwebs notwithstanding). But I think the maxim stops short of where it needs to go, which is "don't shit where you eat, then continue to eat there after shitting." You can shit all over the place as long as you have fresh places to eat. And who's to say that hooking up with a co-worker is necessarily akin to dropping trou' on the dining room table and pinching out "strike two"? Unless one of you is psychotic or an asshole it shouldn't result in anything more than an awkward and knowing glance. And if you're in a marketable profession you've got plenty of places to eat, and can shit all over your apartment/house. So there are holes in the saying (is all I'm saying).


Let's hope they didn't shit here.

Here's a timeless disconnect of affection:

Ms. Bennett and her roommate, Margaret Grossi, needed to fill the third bedroom in a Bahamas cottage for a week's vacation, and they asked Mr. Dolin to join them. When work kept her roommate from going and no one was available to replace her, Ms. Bennett expressed her nervousness to Ms. Grossi.

Mr. Dolin was ecstatic. By then he was constantly discussing his infatuation with Ms. Bennett with his older brother, Chris, and his best friends.

"What if he tries to bang me?! That'd be awful!" "I'm totally gonna bang her! That'd be awesome!"

Intermezzo

Here are a few very tan, gay men. Very tan, at least. I'm not sure they're "very gay", or even what that would mean.


Mr. Wendell (left) won the goatee coin toss. Congratulations.

PWNED!

It's horribly wrong of me to find this funny, but I can't stop laughing as I paste this scene:

"We bought a blowup sled on Atlantic Avenue," Ms. Schoeffel recalled. So as to gain momentum, Mr. Murphy suggested that he get a running start and that Ms. Schoeffel jump on his back.

He ran. She jumped. And they both went tumbling. Mr. Murphy plunged headfirst into the snow. "And my head went into his," Ms. Schoeffel said.

The blow knocked her out.

Mr. Murphy said, "I took snow and cleaned the blood off her nose and mouth." Seeing his date bruised and bloodied had a strong impact on him. "I got this overwhelming need to protect and care for her," he said.

Ms. Schoeffel regained consciousness, and they went to a hospital emergency room, where the doctor said her nose was broken.

That entire scene just DESTROYS me with comedy, and I feel horrible for saying that. I, of course, hope she made a full recovery and that it wasn't too, too painful, but come on. Please at least humor me and picture the two of them jumping through the frame of a Norman Rockwell painting and stumbling awkwardly but purposefully through the knee-deep snow with their sled, scarves trailing behind them and dancing in the wake of their laughter, then briefly outlining a plan for maximum sleddage and possible feel-copping, running, laughing, getting up speed (isn't this fun!) ...only for her face to smash into the back of his head in an explosion of blood and horror. That's the definition of black comedy isn't it? It must have hurt like hell for her, but I guarantee that at one point while she was still bloodied they shared a chuckle at the impossibly tragic turn of events.

The scene they describe in which Mr. Murphy sees his date all banged up and felt an intense urge to "protect and care for her" seems kind of obvious, doesn't it? Is this love or our most basic humanity. I suppose he could have felt aroused or disinterested, but I think most people would think "hey, that girl just destroyed her face on the back of my head, maybe I should get her a paper towel." Or maybe I'm being idealistic and should be thankful that he actually was caring. Kudos, Mr. Murphy.

[Sad side note: I was going to post a photo of the scene in Meet the Parents where the woman (Nicole DeHuff) gets her nose shattered by a volleyball hit by Ben "I'm Ben Stiller" Stiller, but in searching for it learned that she died of pneumonia. She was only 31. Wow.]

Sorry about that, but it threw me and thought it was shocking enough to mention. Moving on...

Quaker Mates

I've never seen this sort of thing before in the Times. Maybe in some Pennsylvanian papers, but not our Times.

Two daughters of Martha Hamilton Morris and I. Wistar Morris III of Villanova, Pa., were married yesterday in a Quaker double ceremony at the Haverford Friends Meeting in Haverford, Pa. Melissa Hamilton Morris became the bride of Miguel Ángel Pérez Pérez, and Lydia Pew Morris married Michael Austin Flood.

Whoa! It's not that weird, but it's still kinda...weird. Yes, the parents can dump a little less money in the event, and all the family friends can make only one trip and get all the presents for the Morris Girls bought at once, and neither sister has to feel like a failure until she gets married, and, more importantly, each sister's respective beau doesn't have to suffer through the pressure of having to propose after the other sister married (though we can't know if one of these was rushed). Actually, that's a pretty damned good argument for joint family weddings. Let's get more of these in the pipeline, okay?

Although, the first reason of saving the bridal parents money may be inapplicable here. The announcement says nothing of what the bridal parents do for a living, but a google of patriarch I. Wistar Morris III proves him to be a very wealthy man indeed. Lots of 13D "I own a bunch of this company" SEC filings, half-million dollar endowments, large art collection gifts, and general richdudesmanship make it seem like this may have been just another one of his wise business decisions. Well played, I. Wistar. Also, after a quick review of the ultra-factual Wikipedia entry on Quakers I have to say that they seem like a pretty decent group of people. Someone tell me I'm wrong.

Enter Sandman

This might be my favorite wedding announcement yet this year. I'm going to dance around copyright laws and post a big chunk of this merely because their tale of love makes me want to do bold things:

Ms. Shapiro mentioned to Mr. Goldes on their second date that she was a wrestling aficionado, who had watched competitions on television with her grandmother.

"I thought, wow, I never met a girl who was a wrestling fan," he said. At the time his interest in wrestling had waned, but "She got me back into it, and going to matches became a special part of our relationship."

So what more logical place for him to give her a ring than in a wrestling ring?

"But I didn't want to do it in front of 18,000 screaming fans in Madison Square Garden, who might throw things," he said.

Instead, he arranged to propose between the second and third bouts at a New York State Wrestling Federation match at the E. J. Murray Skating Center in Yonkers.

"The proposal happened after a wrestler known as the Sandman clobbered another wrestler with a wooden Singapore cane," he said. "When I popped the question, the ring announcer reminded Debbie that the Sandman was still in the building if her answer weren't yes."

A full-nelson of the heart. That's love.

The Wrath of Kahn

Let me begin with a trip to the confession room: I've never really followed MTV's "The Real World." It's not that I'm "above" it, or that my tastes are too sophisticated (clearly not the case), but I just find the entire experience to be painful and demoralizing. From what I've seen of the show, any redemptive element of humanity among the "castmembers" is contrived, and the balance of the show is a foul stew of calculated histrionics, laughable selfishness, desperate promiscuity, and destructive self-righteousness. Some people enjoy this, like watching a car wreck, but one that leaves its victims with much longer and more painful psychological damage. I don't think poorly of people who enjoy this sort of shit, it's just not for me. I suppose I don't need to further criticize the show because I'm sure that's all been done elsewhere in a more thorough and informed way. All I'm saying is: I'm a stranger in a strange land with this stuff, so forgive any misconceptions.

Why am I telling you all this? Because Cara Nussbaum (or Cara Kahn, depending on who's asking) was the bride in this week's Vows column. She was a member of the Real World Chicago and, apparently, while on the show she whored around a bit. I know this because I just wasted the last hour of my life Googling her and reading the MTV Episode Guides. From what I understand, Cara spent every single second of her screentime hooking up with boys and/or crying (not always at the same time). At least that's all anyone talks about.

After flushing away my night reading these guides, one turd of confusion is left floating: Who the fuck is Jared?


Was it my fat ass that slipped Cara a six-inch sub?

In the Vows column, we learn that Cara met the groom, Scott, "several weeks" before filming of the show began. The column gives the impression that they got pretty serious during this time, dating, and having to "part" when she left. She shot the show, then returned, and they "picked up where they left off" before he saw her whorin' on screen and used his frequent crier miles to buy her a ticket to Dumpsville. They somehow got back together yet again, and then dated for a few years and then got married. Fine.

BUT, on the show, one of the storylines with Cara was that she was still in love with her ex-boyfriend. An ex-boyfriend named Jared (some dude) not Scott (our groom). In Episode 18, Cara goes through all sorts of shit about how she isn't over Jared and has to see him again and blah blah blah. Where was Scott in all this? Does this mean that for the "several weeks" that her and Scott dated she was still in love with Jared the entire time? Am I missing something here? That's got to be quite a blow for Scott, and would probably piss me off a lot more than watching her hook up with rockstar "Big Head Todd" (which she apparently did) or any of the other 7 or so guys that bedded her.

If this is the case...ouch, Scott. Fucking ouch. I knew it must have sucked, but that must have REALLY sucked. He is more of a man than I am.


"Awww, you're such a cute boy...what's your name again?

From most of what I read, her role in the show was based around her sexual hyperactivity. But something tells me that MTV decides fairly early on what role a certain member will fill ("The Selfish One", "The Alcoholic One", "The Black One", etc.) and do their damndest to edit everything to that end. Or not. I have no idea how it works, really. I'm merely saying what I think is obvious to everyone, but is worth iterating: it's unlikely that the person seen on the Real World is an accurate reflection of their true selves. Her MTV Bio says "Cara has spent most of her teen and young adult life in relationships. With this move to Chicago, she's starting a new phase in her life as a single young woman." Whether that came from her or MTV I don't know, but it seems her sluttiness was inevitable. I think her brother put it well when he commented in an interview about how Cara's Real World thing made his career slightly more shitty: "I think people recognize that if you put a camera on yourself 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and give someone else sole editorial control, you'd be lucky to come out looking as good as Cara does."

But, regardless of any distortion wrought by post-production, there are certain shortcomings that can't be blamed on MTV. Like agreeing to be on the show in the first place. That's just stupid, but I think she realized that shortly after her and her family's lives started being shittier because of it. So why would she agree to do it? To further her acting career? To just "be liked"? Is that why she gives awful interviews like this? She adopted the stage name "Cara Kahn" shortly after the show's conclusion (I believe Kahn was her middle name), but her acting career has unfortunately followed the path of Barbaro at the Preakness.


"Next on the Main Stage...put your hands together for Cara Kaaahhhn."

I'll try and wrap up the Real World-based critique now by saying that, more than anything, I feel pity for her. The Episode Guides bust her chops a lot for being a "pushover" and wanting to "avoid conflict." I get the sense that it wasn't as much weak capitulation as it was just being a good person who was reluctant to subscribe to the whole "we've got to be in constant fabricated conflict" Real World thing. She never really seemed to do anything "mean" like the other castmembers, and most of her mistakes were merely from being short-sighted. I mean, the MTV website itself says "Newly single Cara is lonely and on a mission…the Boy Hunt is on...[s]he feels lonely when she's not with someone and needs physical affection to feel good about herself." Nobody wants to read that about themselves, true or not. For me to ridicule that would just be kicking her while she's down. So I'll move on to the meat of the Vows column.

In describing her first impression of Scott (ogling him at a Starbucks), Cara says

"He was the cutest boy I'd ever seen," recalled Ms. Nussbaum, 26..."He had such an I-just-walked-off-a-sailboat look."

Huh? You mean he had scurvy? Or he was covered in syphilis scars? Or he looked like this?


Arrrrrrr ye wantin' to go on a date with me?

or like these guys?


I just don't get it. She seems totally uninterested in me, despite my smothering obsessiveness.

(A friend advises that it's "too soon" to do an Amistad-based joke, so I'll stop there).

Here's a sentence that has no fucking business polluting my New York Times Wedding Announcements:

As summer approached, Ms. Nussbaum planned to go to New York to chill, hoping MTV would call.

No. Get the fuck out. You're not welcome, with your "chill" and your "MTV." I want to hear about summer estates and trust funds, not this crap. I'm serious. Go.

Cara was cast in the show, somehow mischaracterized this as an opportunity, and put it to Doctor Scott. He reacted, reasonably, with an OMG WTF.

Her good fortune was offset by Dr. Fudemberg's discomfort with the cameras that would chronicle her every move. They agreed to part.

"It was a case of difficult timing," said Dr. Fudemberg, now 29.

"Difficult timing"? Um...yeah. I'll let you have that, since you've fucking earned the right to say whatever you want and classify things however you see fit.

After the show wrapped that November, Ms. Nussbaum and Dr. Fudemberg "picked up where we left off," she said. "It was like, who cares that we dated other people."

But when "The Real World" started showing in January 2002, Ms. Nussbaum's dating prowess became a central story line. One episode in particular, involving a tryst caught by a night-vision camera, led to an anguished call between Dr. Fudemberg and Ms. Nussbaum, who was auditioning in Los Angeles. He told her "he wanted out," she recalled.

I've already talked about this. I think the tryst they mention involves her and some douchebag named "Djordje".

"Everyone has a past," Dr. Fudemberg said. "But that's not something you necessarily want to review with them on national television."

Sage words from the good doctor. I'd be terrified to just watch footage of myself making out ("Did I really run my hand through her hair? God I look like a douche."). I can't imagine watching someone you love hook up on national television. Especially with someone named Djordje, or an ex-boyfriend who she says she's still in love with, or the lead singer of a second-rate rock band. Painful, broseph. Doctor Scott promptly dumped her (after getting some VD lab work run on himself at the hospital, I'd assume).

Channeling her disappointment over the break-up, Ms. Nussbaum, who in the past had suffered from depression, stayed on in Los Angeles and became a spokeswoman for a depression-awareness campaign.

No mention in the Times article about the fact that this depression-awareness campaign was sponsored by Wyeth Pharmeceuticals, makers of anti-depressant Effexor, which Cara was on at the time. Reports on this suspect alliance state that they didn't openly push the drug at these campaign stops (at colleges and universities), but it still seems like a horribly questionable way to spread the word.

Cara and Scott eventually reconciled, and somehow made things work (I think it's safe to say that he's got a stockpile of "I.O.U."s).

This made me laugh out loud.

"They move in unison," said Jeff Nussbaum, the bride's brother, who was a speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore.

What? When have they EVER moved in unison, based off this wedding announcement and what we've seen on the Real World? Every decision was self-interested, forcing the other party to make accomodations. "Moved in unison"? What the hell does that mean, anyway? As Al Gore's speechwriter is he forbidden from making any sense, and doomed to forever communicate through meaningless platitudes?



The column concludes with an earth-shattering feat of stupidity.

Kyle Brandt, who appeared on "The Real World" with the bride and who now plays Philip Kiriakis on "Days of Our Lives"...said: "Others in Cara's position would have abandoned their relationships just as quickly as they abandoned their educations or career ambitions to revel in the spoils of pseudo-fame. Cara chose wisely to remain who she was, to resume her pursuit of what was most valuable to her, and ultimately, most rewarding — and Scott was there to hold her hand."

WHAT THE GOD-LOVING FUCK. That makes no sense. No fucking sense whatsoever. First of all, yes, she did abandon her relationship for her career, or at least saw to it that Scott abandon it for her. Somehow it worked out, so I can't say she turned her back on it completely, but it's definitely not something I'd single out as a salient quality. And as for her not "[reveling] in the spoils of pseudo-fame" and "[resuming] the pursuit of what was most valuable to her", we're told earlier in the column that "she now works as a saleswoman at Serendipity, a clothing boutique in Fairway, Kan., and is still auditioning for acting roles." She was a performing arts major. She's been going down this road all along. She never stopped following her performance prerogative. Is he saying that working in a clothing boutique is what's most valuable to her? And for him to say that she "chose wisely" is ludicrous. I don't think she'd even say that she's been making "wise" decisions lately (though something must have been done right to end up with Scott). The funniest thing about Kyle's statement is that you know he spent quite a bit of time preparing it, and thought it was fucking perfect, and was totally stoked to get to say it and see it in print.

And I can't hear the phrase "chose wisely" without thinking of this scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I just can't.


He chose...poorly, but at least he didn't sleep with a guy named Djordje.

Douchamptons

The heralds of Spring are the least bashful of all the seasons'. Blooms burst. Birds shout. Women preternaturally hear and obey the call to shed their wool and Burberry chrysalises and, within the space of a few hours from what I can gather, grow exponentially hotter. Men attendantly, become more desperate and stupid and creepy for taking notice. And, more importantly for our purposes, the wedding announcements are shot forth with loathesome words and phrases such as these:

"Hamptons"
"society glossy"
"furrier"
"parents' weekend house in Westhampton Beach"
"Ivanka Trump"
"Bungalo 8"

Like so many troops of inexorable roadside daffodils, the aristocracy regain their rightful, seasonal place in the wedding announcements with brazen authority. Welcome back, douchebags.

You see, nobody of wealth or standing gets married in the winter. That's when they deign to allow the less-worthy proles to crowd their choice wedding venues with slushy feet and crumpled jackets. Nobody wants to get married during peak season in St. Barths or Cabo. So the wedding announcements are, firstly, far less populated, and, second-of-ly, mostly teachers and philanthropists. Hard to call them assholes.

Then couples like Laurie and Austin come along and make everything better.

A week after Laurie Nehmen's first date with Austin Stark in June 2001 — at Bungalo 8, a bar in Manhattan — she was visiting friends in the Hamptons and came upon a copy of a society glossy.

His handsome face jumped out at her from a party layout. The headline atop the page proclaimed "Austin Stark's High School Graduation Party."

To complete the thought, it turns out that it was, in fact, his college graduation party. Somehow this sets her at ease, but only emphasizes what should have been her salient horror in the first place: his college/high school graduation party was featured in a "society glossy." If my college graduation party were featured it would have seemed like a bizarre American Apparel ad, but without any women, without a hint of sexiness, and covered in broken glass and vomit. And that was just the family party (rimshot).

Despite the dynamite first date at Bungalo 8, Austin's post-grad soul-finding trip to Europe and Laurie's high standards kept them apart for a while. Then, oh, but then...

once Mr. Stark returned [from Europe] to his parents' weekend house in Westhampton Beach and resumed the calls, she agreed to meet him. Soon Ms. Nehmen was spending all of her time in the Hamptons

Well played, Laurie. As we'll soon see, Laurie's family is far from broke, but it still probably didn't hurt that Austin had a place in Westhampton. You'll notice a pretty distinct change in her opinion when she went from "don't answer his calls" to "crash in Westhampton all summer". It would be naive of me to say that it's impossible for them to have fallen in love after spending more time together, and then immediately taking it to the Next Level. It's possible. But, as we all know deep in our hearts, love can't grow in the Hamptons. The prerogative of status-perpetuation/protection is too strong, and smothers any genuine sentiment in tidal waves of judgment and pretentiousness.

And what of Austin and Laurie's status? I'd say "strong" to "very strong". To say nothing of their families' success, they have the numerous appearances on the David Patrick Columbia's grotesquely mesmerizing "New York Social Diary", which is the final arbiter of modern aristocracy as far as I'm concerned. Visuals!:


Austin's family, Austin, and Laurie have never been denied sex. Never.

Wow, Laurie's pretty cute. And I must admit, Austin's no Mickey Dolenz himself. There you have it: I complimented them. Just to show my objectivity. As you can tell, they're all wealthy. Her family owns the Tanger Factory Outlet Centers chain of factory-direct malls. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they don't share that much with their clientele. If Laurie wore acid wash jeans, they'd be ironic (I distinctly remember getting an awesome pair of acid wash Bugle Boys at the West Kentucky Factory Outlet in Eddyville, KY. I was hot shit for about a year. That didn't last, obviously.). Austin's family has a substantial interest in Stark Carpet, an upscale "Architectural Digest" carpet making group that does very well for themselves. Maybe it's just the springtime in the air, but the term "Stark Carpet" is hilarious to me in it's implication of a neatly trimmed vagina. Moving on...

"We fell totally in love that summer," she remembered. "We were just a couple of kids who had no jobs and spent the day hanging out at the beach."

Fuck you. Fuck you "just a couple of kids." Fuck you "no jobs." Fuck you, you were in Westhampton. There's no "just" to that.

The column's author then moves from this jarring lack of self-awareness to a jarring recitation of the couple's education.

She had moved to New York shortly after graduating from Duke University. He is a Georgetown graduate.

I only mention this because if you follow the link you'll see that Duke gets a hyperlink to the Times' coverage of the school, while Georgetown lies linkless. Linkless like a bitch-ass second-rate school. Or at least that's what Duke grads will think.

The announcement then charts their lackluster relationship of convenience by explaining that they dated on and off because of "timing" issues. She moved to LA. Then he visited there and proposed to her spontaneously. It's all rather boring.

Just when you thought the announcement was getting boring, they drop this gem on you:

The furrier Dennis Basso, a friend of the bride's family, said his designer's eye saw a future for Ms. Nehmen and Mr. Stark. "You know when you see a couple and visually they just fit?" he said. "Well, they fit."

What the fuck? A furrier? Really? I like that he's friends with the bride's family, since it would be counter-intuitive for a furrier to associate with the shaven Stark Carpet clan. A furrier. Wow. I don't know why that's so weird to me, but I picture a french-canadian trapper decked out like Davy Crockett. I also think it's funny that a man who makes his living ripping skin from the flesh of dead animals used his "designer's eye" to approve their beautiful-people fucking beautiful-people relationship. It makes no sense.

Fate or weak-willed resignation brought them back together in New York, where Laurie now works as "a public relations associate for Stark Carpet." That's one of the better applications of nepotism I've seen. Upscale carpet companies can't have enough public relations associates. It's vital to their direct-to-designers business that the public be well informed.

Finally we arrive at their wedding, a swank affair in the University Club, and attended by not one, but TWO Trumps (Ivanka and Vanessa Haydon Trump).


Let the fucking begin.

Note the best man on the right in the above photo. In the caption he's named as Jeffrey Karp. Also, in the awesomely not-awesome New York Social Diary shot he's with Austin and identified as Jeffrey Karp:


These dicks aren't gonna suck themselves, ladies.

Clearly they are Those Guys In The Bar. But the best man suddenly becomes "Andy Karp" for this paragraph on his cliche wedding toast:

In a wedding toast the best man, Andy Karp, remarked on the bride's maturing influence on the easygoing bridegroom. "I'm so happy she was able to whip Austin into shape," he said with a wink, "to succeed where all the shrinks had failed."

OMG Austin must be totally messed up!!!1!1! I'd like to hear a wedding toast one day where the best man talks about how fucked up the bride made the groom. None of that "before you came into his life he was just a slobby goon!" business. Bah.

[T]he bridegroom [was] in a tuxedo [with a] makeshift bandage over a cut on his hand (sustained in nervous preparations with his rambunctious groomsmen)

...sustained in nervous preparations with his rambunctious groomsmen...

I'm not sayin'...I'm just sayin'...

Afterward, the bridegroom, seated with a guitar, sang a song he wrote for his bride, "Never Counted on Crazy."

I asked Ivanka what the song sounded like, but she couldn't remember, so I took the liberty of re-creating the lyrics.

"Never Counted On Crazy"

I never counted on crazy
I never counted on you
I never thought you'd be so sexually freaky
Who could have guessed what you'd be willing to do?

I never counted on welfare
My family's loaded as hell
Stark Carpet sounds kinda like "no vagina hair"
I like my chicks to have stark carpets as well

I never counted on teardrops
Falling down from the sky
I want to shout "Equality!" from the rooftops
And then get blown because I'm such a deep guy

I never counted on my toes
My adding skills can't be beat
And every one of my frat bros (w'sup, Karpy!)
Can attest I always wear lacrosse cleats

Bungalo 8 is bungalo great
I often reminisce about our bungalo kiss
Why all these people gotta bungalo hate?
It makes me want to beat them with my bungalo fists.

I never counted on crazy
I'm saying I think you're insane.
And not the cutesy kind like Gnarls Barkley
The fucked up kind like my ol' Baby Jane.

I never counted on crazy
I never counted on you
I never thought we'd get married
In the presence of a Trump, maybe two

WASP's Nest

This blog's "WASP's Nest" feature and I had a falling out a while ago. You may not have read about it in US or People or their loathsome celebfetish brethren because I took great pains to keep it private. Why, you ask? Well, I guess I didn't want to discuss it in public because it was painful and embarrassing and we both said things we shouldn't have. Just kind of a sore, emotional time.

I'm happy to say that after a few months of distance, many days spent deep in ponderous ponderings and (finally/inevitably) a few drunken hookups we have found a common ground of nervous and bitter tolerance. Not ideal, but I'll take it. What? No, I'm sorry. I don't want to discuss the drunken hookups in public either. Because they were painful and embarrassing and we both penetrated things we shouldn't have, that's why. Let's just leave it at that. It was a sore, sore reconciliation. So...sore...

In case you've forgotten her, WASP's Nest is where I join the be-portrait'd couples from the wedding announcements for brunch in an effort to better know them. I record this conversation, carefully fabricate every bit of it (including, notably, the fact that the meeting even occurred) and publish it here for you, the reader, to enjoy and re-enact in your home with your friends and loved ones or, alternatively, to be indifferent toward and re-enact unwittingly with your friends and loved ones because of your unhealthy relationships and bitter resentment for one another.

This Sunday our merry band of smiling charmers met at the charming "Friend of a Farmer" in charming Gramercy Park. The Mahl couple was the only duo courteous enough to show up in color portraiture, for which I was appreciative, though this didn't excuse them from their share of the check, despite their incessant pleadings.

Let us begin:

[Jacqueline]: My, isn't this place charming! Look at all this carefully weathered wood! The rustic charm is just oozing from the bric-a-brac antiques and charming charms scattered about, to and, yes, fro!

[Jill]: OMG, I know! I'm totally going to have a charmgasm!

[Max]: Wait, did you just say the letters O-M-G? For "Oh My God?" Like, verbally, you just said that?

[Fritz]: I think I'm more bothered by the "charmgasm" neologism.

[Seth]: I'm more bothered by the fact that we just waited 2 hours for a seat and still haven't been served.

[Harry]: Oh, relax honey. Eat this sugar packet. [hands Seth a sugar packet; addresses rest of group] He always gets like this when he doesn't eat.

[Josh, with the smug look of self-confidence someone get's when they're sure that they're about to deliver a zinger]: Uh-oh, watch out! Looks like we got some "Brokeback Brunching" going on here! Hahahaha--

[Fritz, painfully angry]: Shut up. Just shut the fuck up you stupid, stupid man.

[Max]: Seriously, listen to Fritz, man. If I hear one more fucking Brokeback Mountain joke I'm really going to lose it. Like, violently lose my shit. On strangers, family, co-workers, I don't care. I can't take another fucking Brokeback Mountain joke. It's like if anything even remotely involves two men in any level of interaction some asshole has to pipe in with Brokeback Insert-Activity/Location.

[Seth]: You think you've got it bad? Imagine being gay during all this Brokeback-joke-making nonsense. And the gay community is the worst about abusing this obvious, tired joke. Nobody's safe. It's like a clichéte-crime.

[Fritz]: Let's talk about something else. I'm going to vomit if I hear Brokeback discussed any more, even if it's about the qualities of the movie. I'm going to vomit in my wife's hair if that word is said again.

[Jacqueline, a bit confused]: Wait, what?

[Waitress, obvs]: Hey gang! What kinna getcha?

[Seth, not missing a beat]: Bring us nine eggs benedict.

[Kristine]: Wait, I kinda wanted to get--

[Seth]: No. You'll eat eggs benedict and you'll like it. I'm starving. And I'm not--[eats another sugar packet, wrapper and all]--going to wait for any picky indecision.

[Kristine]: O...kay...

[Jill, addressing Kristine and Max]: Hey, did you guys meet online?

[Kristine]: As a matter of fact we did. Why do you ask?

[Jill]: Oh, um, it's just that you guys...definitely look like you met online.

[Max]: What does that mean? I don't follow.

[Jill]: I dunno. Just that you look like you didn't see each other in a bar and fall for each other. Like you guys are the posterchildren for adult online dating.

[Awkward pause.]

[Harry]: Cough.

[Continued awkward pause, punctuated with that awkward cough]

[Fritz]: So how about that escalating violence in Chad? Looks like some sort of armed conflict is imminent.

[Josh, picking at the table with his knife]: That's far away and, therefore, boring to me. The NY Times has barely instructed me on how to react to that. New topic.

[Harry]: Ummm, anyone seen any good movies lately? I just bought...

[Jacqueline, nervously, pulling her beautiful hair behind her]: Hey, ah, let's not go there. Oh, great, here's our food!

[Waitress, obvs]: Here we go, gang! I'll get some more water and coffee brought round in a sec, kay?

[The group eagerly lays into the food before them, like asian teens presented with standardized tests, and the eggs benedict quickly fill the awkward conversation void, as they so often do. God bless eggs benedict. Josh continues to pick at the table with his knife.]

[Fritz]: I believe these have orange zest in the hollandaise.

[Harry]: Really? You can tell that?

[Fritz]: Tell them, honey.

[Jacqueline, somewhat reluctantly]: Fritz has a really good palate.

[Fritz]: Ach-ahem!

[Jacqueline]: I'm sorry, Fritz has an extraordinary palate.

[Fritz]: I really do. Everyone agrees.

[This, of course, leads to another awkward pause in the parade of awkward pauses.]

[Kristine, addressing Seth and Harry]: You guys look kinda like Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

[Seth, a fan of BBC's "The Office", but not too self-aware]: Really? I never thought about that.

[The awkward pause returns with a fierceness.]

[Jill, after finishing her first lobe of bene-deliciousness, addressing her husband, still carving]: Honey, what are you doing?

[Josh, covering up his carving]: Nothin'.

[Kristine]: No, I saw you carving something too. Show us.

[Josh]: I don't, I don' wanna...

[Josh's hands are pulled from the table to reveal a crude inscription of his rendering, reading, simply: "POOPIE BUTT."]

[Fritz]: That's...wow.

[Seth]: My God.

[Kristine]: It's beautiful. Sublime.

[Josh]: It's just...an expression of what I'm feeling.

[Jacqueline]: No, it really is beautiful. Its simplicity. Its directness. Its profound deconstruction of the human struggle. Breathtaking.

[They all meet in a moment of quiet reflection. The waitress violates this contemplative peace by dropping off the check.]

[Waitress, obvs]: Thanks, guys! Come again! Enjoy your inevitable stroll around Union Square!

[The group all avoid the check like a discussion of African cultural and political turmoil.]

[Jill]: Um, we don't want to seem rude or anything, but we went out our way to get color portraits made, and I, I dunno, I think that's worth something as far as our share of the bill goes...

Double Word Scoring

I may have been a little ambitious last week when I promised an exciting new era of “two-post weeks” and "being awesome and funny" and "cold fusion". I didn’t anticipate a week of unremarkable wedding announcements, double shifts, and God-spawned, blog-hating warm weather. I forgot how much God hates blogs. Verily.

Those craven excuses aside, the Vows column this week involved two news goons (Campbell Brown and Dan Senor) of whom I could give approximately two shits, and this blog has a strict "four shits" standard for publication. Unfortunately, I don't care about televised news. If it's on television and it doesn't involve Robin Byrd I don't want to know about it (tip: don't Google Robin Byrd at work). There were a few obvious jokes ("What do they call Mr. Senor when he's in Spanish speaking countries? Does he get confused with this band?", Beaver Creek-themed puns, and a wedding vow worthy of a beauty pageant to "repair one small piece of the broken world."). Most interesting in the column was the fact that Frank Bruni, NY Times restaurant critic and "Venetian count in a huge ruffled collar", contributed reporting to it. None of his trademark, overwrought, histrionic flourishes were present in the column, so I assume he just called Ms. Smith-Brady to report that the wedding's guests were "as quisling, tepid, and flaccid as the vichyssoise."

Otherwise I didn't care for the Vows column. So I will cordially and politely say "fuck it."

We did get a new video this week. The video feature is great, and hilarious, but problematic for me as a lazy blogger. I can't find a way to get screen stills of the videos, and I've never been much of a stenographer. The only way I could effectively be funny with the videos is to invite each and every one of you into my house to watch my interruptive and annoying commentary. Unfortunately, this will never be, as the space constraints of my mom's basement are prohibitive. So I'll just take poor digital photos and use those. Like this one:


Awkward.

This week's video featured Vara Lauder and Adam Bye. In the video, Vara comes across as a charming woman, with a bit of a creepy edge that makes her intriguing. You can tell that she was an impossibly awkward youth, and, as everyone knows, awkward youths tend to make the most interesting (or, rarely, homicidal) adults. As for Adam, he's so British that he would confound even the most finely tuned "gaydar" (sorry for using such a Bushnellian word). I mean...wow. One semester of group showers in his childhood and...I don't think Vara would be in this video. It also mentions that he is "a son of Georgina Bye and Martin P. Bye of Limassol, Cyprus, where his father retired as the commander of a fire crew on the British military base at Dhekelia." Ha! Dhekelia? They were the laughing stock of all the British military base fire crews. At least they were in my day.

Adam works for the British Mission to the UN. Don't believe me? Check out this exclusive (or not) file footage:


Still from Tiger Beat's "Boys of the UN" DVD.

In the video we learn that they met while crashing a reception at the Serbia and Montenegro Mission to the United Nations, a party known in diplomatic circles as being a veritable Club Med of sexual debauchery. Free jello shots from 9-10, and free Sparks all night, with DJ Spinny Gillespie rockin the wax until sunrise, and Cobrasnake as party photographer. Of course, they exchanged digits.

They finally arranged a date. Adam was obviously stoked. Vara was very wary. So she bailed. Adam wasn't having that, so he put together what could easily be a terrifying email with a photographic journal of the night she missed out on. He included photos of his guitar, which would likely be used to play some James Blunt...


The Balladmaker 2000

He also had a shot of his closet (I'll avoid the obvious joke) and his way-hot new suits...


Suited straight

He also included photos of the meal he (still?) prepared, some sheet music he would have played, and the sunset they never saw. Needless to say, he had some time on his hands that night. I find it hard to believe that a shot of his genitals didn't find its way into the email. Desperate times...

Somehow this worked on her, and she finally mustered the nerve to enter his imperial lair. While there, doing the mandatory shelf-browse along with all the attendant superficial-judgment, she was captivated by his fine taste in...board games. Scrabble, to be precise, the cazique (27 points) of all board games. So they played hot games of Scrabble all...night...long.

She then skedaddled for San Diego, and Adam sent her another photo, this time of a Scrabble board. He could have gone in two directions with this gesture, the first threatening ("I am going to cut you like a pig"), the second affectionate. He chose the latter, with a message stating "Until we meet again, sweet woman"* Check it:


Triple Hole Score

He had originally sent her a Boggle-themed message expressing the same sentiment, hoping to impress her with his diverse tastes in board games:



...but she could only decipher something involving a "meat stain" and wasn't impressed. So he made a more vulgar photo montage using Operation, then an incredibly anatomically correct depiction in Pictionary, and finally a indecipherable abstract message using Mousetrap. All fell flat. Back to the Scrabble board.

This won her heart. How could it not? Scrabble is like rophynol to smart girls. Having her deep within his pocket, he bought her a titanic aquamarine ring from a toy store (that scamp) and they were married soon thereafter. The end.



*Fucking hell. I knew I shouldn't trust the accuracy of anything printed in the Times. I watched the video again after finishing this post, and noticed that on his Scrabble missive he, in fact, said "Until next time we meet, sweet woman" not "Until we meet again, sweet woman" as published. But I already made the little Boggle thing, so I'm not making it again because it's late and I'm at least loyal to the written word. Video evidence is suspect anyway. But still...shit. I demand that the Times publish a correction, an personal apology to me as a blogger, and send me a gift certificate to Amazon as an expression of their deep contrition. Humph.

Love Me Tender

From the wedding of Taffy and Claude. Taffy? Yes Taffy.

There are many ways for a man to prove his commitment to his fiancée: diamond rings, love poetry, the occasional tattoo. One of the most sincere, and certainly the most painful, is going through a religious conversion involving circumcision. But when Claude Brodesser, the son of Roman Catholic immigrants from Germany, proposed to Taffy Akner, an Orthodox Jew, he had no doubt about what he had to do.

Whoa. I suppose they are dreadfully accurate in describing his conversion as "sincere" and, certainly, "painful". There are no fraudulent, spiritually bankrupt conversions when you're sending Hairie Mantoinette to the guillotine. When the premarital discourse turns from talk of carats and florists and drifts into genital mutilation and he sticks--that's love. But if he's in it just to get his dick wet for a while, playing the Circumcision Card has gotta be the most accurate commitment litmus test. That's a ring you don't ask to be returned when you break up. And it sure as hell ain't just a trip to Vegas. Unless you're going to Vegas to have part of your dick cut off either by BDSM choice or in settlement of a bet.

So, yes, the sincerity is admirable. But...the pain. I can't help dwelling on the pain. It's like something out of a sexually deviant theatre troupe's production of The Gift of the Magi. If he were only obligated to wear a mock turtleneck for the rest of his life it wouldn't be quite as big of a deal (although that's still an awful thought), but he's getting his dick cut. With a knife. Ow. Ow, ow, ow.

"There's no way she wasn't going to marry a Jew," Mr. Brodesser said of the conversion he made last year.

One would imagine that, prior to meeting Taffy, Claude lived by a similar bright-line rule. Something along the lines of "I'm never going to cut off a non-cancerous part of my dick." Maybe he didn't linger on the rule, or argue about its merits at parties, but it was probably pretty clear in the back of his head. Which makes me learn one thing about Taffy: the girl must be persuasive.

How do you prepare for the bris? Brismas Eve must be psychologically agonizing. You better believe she was on her best behavior for the weeks preceding. I gotta admit, I envy his courage. Striding into the bris on Yom Clippur, all headstrong and cocksure, only to walk out the exact, exact opposite. How many balls does it take to have the nerve to do something like that? 3? Maybe 5? Enough speculation. I must know about his visit to the mohel who did the circumcision. Take it Vows...

And what of his visit to the mohel who did the circumcision? "It didn't tickle," he said. Ms. Akner, 30, recalled, "He was drugged, but the amount of Xanax I was on rivaled it."

I don't care that he was drugged. Unless he was completely unconscious for the weeks of recovery, that's gotta smart. He must have had a few misgivings the moment before the drugs kicked in, as he gazed into the face of his bride-to-be, her eyes empty but ablaze in a Xanax-fueled stupor. The way she insinuated her personal grief in there when it was clearly his time to shine makes me pity him.


"No, you'd be surprised, actually - there's still a lot of sensitivity where the tip meets the shaft."

So now that he's all taut-cock'd, what's he getting in return? I guess she can never again rationally refuse him sex (once it heals, of course). "Oh, you've got a headache? I'm so sorry, I had no idea. How bad does it hurt? About as much as having a chunk of flesh sliced off your penis? Just, like, in the ballpark, maybe?" Maybe this adult circumcision thing is the final word in equalizing that whole "childbirth" pain-disparity.

I won't get into the religious foundation for the procedure. Especially with a Lubavitch. Maybe their adherence to the kashrut is so strong that having smegma is a gross violation of the "meat with cheese" prescript. Maybe not. I actually feel a little gross after making that joke.

I can't believe I just dedicated that much space to another man's penis.


We hardly knew ya.

Moving on.

Mr. Brodesser, 33, was an only child, the son of a father who was conscripted into the German Army at 14, near the end of World War II. The son was sent to parochial schools. At the same time, Ms. Akner, whose grandfather survived the concentration camp at Dachau, was studying at a yeshiva.

Hey, that's pretty wacky! That being said, I wouldn't touch the issues in that paragraph with a barge pole.

Kudos to her for her candorous Xanax admission, by the way. Maybe she's kicked it since then. Let's see...


Yes, this is the most unflattering photo I could find.

...I'll let you decide.

The couple met while doing business over the phone. She worked for Mediabistro, and follows Laurel Touby's footsteps by meeting a guy through the job, marrying him, getting in the Vows column, and allowing me one more chance to secure my disinvitation to a Mediabistro party by talking shit about her. Taffy and Claude finally met in LA, where he apparently drank in her intoxicating scent. "I was struck immediately by how good she smelled", sez he. Sez they:

At the end of the night he kissed her. She promptly told him she could never see him again.

So in addition to learning that Claude is brave, easily persuaded, a hair-sniffer, possibly masochistic, and definitely four-testicled, we learn that he also uses too much tongue on the first kiss.

And yet, within days of her return to New York, she found herself back on the phone with him. Five months later she was planning to move to Los Angeles, and he was taking steps to convert to Judaism.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that they tuck the news about circumcision at the ass-end of those steps. "Well, that about does it! I've learned Hebrew, I've gone before the Bet Din, just gotta do the immersion and I'm all set. What? There's a 6th step? I've got to what?!" OMG! I totally bet that's what he thought, LOL!!11!

So he agreed to convert for her. I bet that assuaged the reservations of her mother.

This still didn't assuage the reservations of her mother, Daniella Shalmoni of Brooklyn.

Or not. Wait, has Mama Taffy seen the video? She hasn't? Yeah, yeah, the video. You gotta show her the video. To the mausoleum!

She called her daughter's Los Angeles visits "monkey business trips," Ms. Akner recalled, [That's awesome. -Ed.] and made a pilgrimage to the granite mausoleum of the Lubavitch grand rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson [Mausoleum door left unlocked, of course. -Ed.] to pray that her daughter would find someone Jewish by birth to marry. Instead, at a Lubavitch center near the entrance to the cemetery she saw a video in which the rabbi advocated conversions, and she had a change of heart.

See? All those years of heartbreak and frustration you suffered through could have been avoided had she just watched the video! Isn't the video the best thing ever? Hooray video! It must have been the Special Edition DVD with the 'rabbi commentary' track (kinda like the Talmud). (I'm only joking about the Times' rather simplistic portrayal of the 'awakening', since I'm sure her mom had a much more thoughtful and difficult time with it than was so easily cured by "the video." No offense meant.)

With that small impediment cleared, and with Claude's slightly-larger-than-average-sized impediment healed, it was off to the Loews Beverly Hills Hotel to get married.


"Hotel, Mohel, Holiday Innnnn!"

The wedding ceremony was strictly Orthodox, except that the bride and bridegroom entered to the music from "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

No offense, Claude. We'll make a few exceptions, but that foreskin just had to go.

The bridegroom covered his tuxedo in a white robe, and the bride, whose beaming pink face was concealed by a veil, valiantly tried drinking the ritual cup of wine without spilling it on her borrowed beaded white dress. A second rabbi, Chaim Tureff, who wore a pink and black zoot suit, provided the final link between tradition and irreverence.

In other words, while her face was a radiating Xanax furnace, she was drinking wine faster than she could swallow it, and "The Wacky Rabbi" (or, Zoot Suit Chayot) made everyone around him feel awkward. Is a second rabbi really the right guy to be providing "irreverance"? Wouldn't not-showing-up accomplish the same thing?

I'll leave you with a quote from the column that I believe the author stole from some second-rate erotic fiction paperback:

"It's the first time we've experienced this," said Mr. Brodesser's father, Hans, as his wife, Sigrid, was coaxed toward the center of the dancing women.

...and the beating of the native drums made their hearts race with forbidden passion.

Lazaressurection

Holy shit, what have I done? I'm very sorry about this. Old habits die with surprising ease. I promise a new post by the end of the week. Then new posts after that on a regular weekly basis. If I don't make this promise now then I'll just keep putting it off like I've done for quite some time now.

I missed some good weddings while I was away. But I can't let something like this slip by:

"There's no way she wasn't going to marry a Jew," Mr. Brodesser said of the conversion he made last year. And what of his visit to the mohel who did the circumcision? "It didn't tickle," he said. Ms. Akner, 30, recalled, "He was drugged, but the amount of Xanax I was on rivaled it."

Mr. Brodesser's foreskin dowry is about 99 skins short, but it's a good start.

Videodrome

How many times have you been reading the Vows column and thought to yourself "This would be a lot better if it were composed of moving pictures instead of words with one or two static pictures" or "I would rather watch TV" or "I'm hungry"? Well thought-to-yourself no more, because your first two prayers have been answered in the form of a full multimedia Video Vows experience! (turn down those speakers if you're at work, unless it's your job to dick around on the internet all day)

I may have missed an earlier grand premier during my court-ordered time away, but it appears the Vows Column has finally been given the D-luxxe treatment of The New York Times Video, Light, and Magic team. It's the Times' way of saying "Welcome to 2006, motherfuckers. This ain't yo daddy's Vows column anymore."

This is the best moving picture related news I've heard since I learned Samuel L. Jackson was starring in a movie called "Snakes on a Plane." The very existence of each work will immediately strike you as either entirely perfect or horribly wrong, and this visceral reaction will pretty much be a direct indicator of how cool you are (of course both concepts are perfect).

For those without the technological or professional opportunity to indulge themselves in the glory of the video, I'll try and give a brief description. Overall, the program tastes strongly of PBS, both in its clearly bare production value and its inability to hold my attention (just kidding PBS, you know I love you, you old bitch). No credits are given, but the editor (if there was a human editor and this was not, in fact, edited by God) should be applauded for their transitions, which often take the form of the inimitable "wipe". While, sadly, no star wipes were used, all of the effects used were taught in a middle school-level video editing class. Or that's what you'd assume if you were ever forced to watch a middle school student-produced abomination in middle school. The "leap frog" transition around the 1:57 mark is easily the best in the video (although 2:30 is also a worthy contestant).

The feature opens with the couple performing a little chamber music in a tastefully appointed loft (I think) apartment. They are musicians, with him being something called a "celloer" and her some sort of "flutographer" and you can tell that neither of them are comfortable with this (likely) Sunday Stylez Crew-urged performance. We first meet the groom's pointy sideburns about :27 seconds in, and will be jabbed by their exxtreme and, frankly, rude pointiness for the rest of the video. This opening shot is the last time we see the couple together, which is a little odd and makes me suspect that they may be the same (apparently very musically talented) person. The director then chooses to interview each of them individually, and has them sit on the other side of the couch as if the other were STILL THERE. A small houseplant seperates the two halves, somewhat redolent of the bridge in "Le Notti Bianche," physically dividing the couple while at the same time serving as a rather heavy handed symbol of their growing disgust for one another. It should be noted that I'm just assuming they've got growing disgust for one another. So note that.

At times, the bride looks a lot like "A Different World" co-star Jasmine Guy. Oddly enough, she also, at times, looks like Lisa Bonet. Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem "Big in the Netherlands" Hardison) goes unrepresented in the video. Here's a Jasmine comparison:


Fun fact: Jasmine Guy is still alive and working.

Despite her resemblence to Jasmine Guy, both the bride and the groom seem like perfectly reasonable, nice, and normal people. This being said, his pointy sideburns are relentless and jarring, almost taunting you as they cling to his head like the talons of some prehistoric "carefully tousled hair" bird. At some point since the wedding she changed out of her gown and he out of his tux, both slummin' and loungin' in their "kickin' it around the crib" clothes. I wouldn't be surprised if they had very little warning that this was being shot when it was. Stealth is a wedding announcer's greatest weapon, and no video feature will rob them of this.

What could have inspired the Vows Column to spontaneously manifest itself in video form? As I mentioned early, such a dramatic leap of sophistication and elegance (like the birth of life on Earth or "Snakes on a Plane") must have been guided by some divine hand. So we'll just say God. Or an editorial team at the Times. Same thing.

Whoever chose this path, it was a wise one. Certain things don't look quite right when written, but when spoken you can judge from the cadence and context that it isn't as bad as it seems. For instance, in discussing the moment of his proposal, the groom says:

"...and her smartass comment is 'No!' y'know, uh, 'I won't answer that unless you give me a ring! Where's the ring?!' And then I pulled out the ring and it just shut her up instantly."

Seems normal to hear him say it. But if you read it as if Ike Turner is saying it, it doesn't sound so pleasant.

A quick search informs me that this is the first time the term "smartass" has ever been used in an NY Times Wedding Announcement. This information might be completely wrong.

I'd go through and give a blow-by-blow on the entire video feature, but it's really fucking boring. Basically he annoyed her at first, then he grew on her with the tenacity of pointy sideburns, and at some point he was really stoked about this loft apartment that he was getting and decided to propose there and let her crash with him. That's it. If you're wondering why this had to be told in video form I can't help you, but the fact that it's so unnecessary is what makes it so wonderful. As boring as it is, it looks like it was produced by Jerry Fucking Bruckheimer compared to the Christmas tree buying guide that follows it.




Note: I've turned on the "moderate comments" feature. My comments are getting spammed like nobody's business, and Blogger's completely useless "re-write this little code" thing is, as I've recently said, completely useless. So go ahead and comment if you want to and I'll try and approve it as soon as possible. I check the notification email address fairly often.

Totally High Infidelity

I'm a little late to the party on this one, but good fucking god this week's Vows column was a duh-huh-hoooozy.

It begins with a hint at the sleaziness to come:

AFTER meeting Sarah Scott in July 2004, Scott Farber called her boyfriend in Los Angeles, a good friend of his from Harvard.

"She's a keeper!" he told his friend - but he did not mean for himself.

Or did he? Sarah was working for that one short guy from Entourage at the time (a show interesting for about 2 episodes, and with the least engaging star playing The Star) and visiting New York for a premiere. Her naive boyfriend gave her some contacts in NY with whom she could score some blo- er, meet up with, and she put out the call.

Ms. Scott worked down the list, but the only one who called her back - at 3 a.m. on the Saturday before her return to California - was Mr. Farber. She accepted his invitation to drop by his apartment, where he, she and some of his friends chatted until dawn.

At this point I must defer to the intrepid researchers at Confessions of a Casting Director and Gawker for guidance. It seems Scott's Friendster profile included this bit:

Affiliations: the midtown manhattan downhill ski team
Who I want to meet: people who stay out all night

I wasn't able to get to the Friendster page before he shut it down, so I can only presume this is true. If so, all this anecdotal information adds up to imply one thing: that they like to "party." Party like Kate Moss, Tony Montana, and Cokehead Jones that is.

BUT, this is just one possible interpretation. The mention of a downhill manhattan ski team might just be Scott's clever joke on the rather un-alpine nature of midtown. And they may have just been drinking diet coke, er, mountain dew (extreme!) and coffee until dawn. I mean, to draw such a wildly defamatory conclusion based on such little evidence would just invite a lawsuit. And I wouldn't do that. It's just my guess. All I'm saying is that you don't use ski jargon in describing late night activities unless you actually want to 'rip some rails' off your coffee table. But I could be wrong. I mean, they don't look like the type to get dusted, right?



Oh. Um...yeah. He looks...respectable.

Normally I would have a clever caption below the above photo, but there were too many directions to go with this one. So I'll just print them all:

Scott's Expression = Long Island's Finest.

Scott finally drops the "Blue I'm-Gonna-Fuck-Your-Girlfriend Magnum" look on the fashion world.

No matter how tough you try to look, you're still standing in front of Tiffany's, asshole.

"And I said what about Breakfast at Tiffany's/ She said I think I/...could stay up until breakfast, just cut me out another line, man, come on, man, just fuckin' do it."

Scott "Strong Island" Farber punks out a mop handle held lantern. Reprazent.

At least the bride and the hot lamp post look happy...

Growing Up Next Door To Gotti.

Back to the story of their courtship, they maintain that everything was legit with their loyalty to their mutual friend:

Ms. Scott, now 28, recalled being struck by Mr. Farber's engaging nature, but he triggered in her no thoughts of romance, she said. And while the unattached Mr. Farber said he "realized she was perfect right then," he regarded Ms. Scott to be both morally off limits and geographically out of range.

Um, the fact that they even had to supplement the huge moral caveat with this geographic argument means that there was something more to it. Don't blow smoke up our asses. You were gettin' friggy. Admit it.

Once back in Los Angeles, however, Ms. Scott realized that she missed New York and that her relationship was at a crossroad. "I was really falling in love with the city in a way that he didn't understand, and we were growing apart," she said.

So that fall Ms. Scott decamped to New York and began mourning the relationship she had left behind. Mr. Farber quickly became her unofficial guide and close friend. But to avoid even the appearance that he was moving in on his friend's ex, Mr. Farber...took pains to ensure that when he and Ms. Scott got together, they did so in public.

So he's clearly in love. I don't think you go through this much trouble unless you really feel something, and despite the other shit I'm giving him, I'll grant that there must, there MUST, be a connection between them. They end up getting engaged in late October, just months after she left LA, so anything she says about not going behind LA Guy's back must be revisionist or a lie.

I'm not going to belabor the entire story they give, since I think it's fabricated to avoid hurting LA Guy and alienating their other friends. They met while she was dating a mutual friend, they fell in love, and this was probably wrong, but it seems like they've had to deal with enough of the consequences and drama (see below). But this paragraph is stranger than hell:

Mr. Farber was less successful at suppressing his feelings, but he was torn, fearing the reaction of their friends to a romance with Ms. Scott. Because he could not talk to them, he confided in his teenage test-prep students, who urged him to tell Ms. Scott how he felt.

It sounds like the type of story only R. Kelly could write. At this point you must pity Cate Doty, the author of this Vows column. What do you want to bet that when she started writing this piece she wrote out these ledes as a joke, then quickly erased them?:

"Scott Farber asks his test-prep students whether he should fuck his friend's girlfriend. In their wisdom, they encourage this idea. I give it 2 years."

"Scott Farber fucked his best friend's girlfriend, then they got married. They might do coke, but we don't really know. Also, they're shallow and materialistic. I'm going to bed."

"Sometimes you find love in the strangest places. Sometimes you find it standing next to your best friend on the cover of the christmas card you got from them."

"I'm not paid enough money to make this couple look even moderately decent. So I won't.

As the announcement foreshadows, they catch major hell from their friends:

Many of their friends, they knew, would remain loyal to Ms. Scott's ex-boyfriend.

"I had two choices," Mr. Farber said. "One, I could lie to myself and to Sarah and pretend like we didn't have these feelings, or two, I could lie to everyone else."
...
As they had feared, some of their friends did not approve.
...
Their union was still upsetting to some of their friends, who chose not to attend the ceremony.

This evidences something distasteful in their history that we aren't privy to. I think people are generally forgiving and understanding in these situations. For their friends to be this angry there must have been a more sinister element to their courtship. What that is, we'll never know. But that shit was divisive. Rather than giving a speech, it says the bride offers a "plea of understanding." How romantic. And how about this:

Their friend Christine Vallee, a supporter, said, "Sarah brings a lot of the romance and the organic feel to the relationship, and Scott really grounds them."

When your Standard Third Party Quote Person has to be defined as a "supporter," you know you're in trouble. And I can't begin to understand what "an organic feel" could possibly mean.

And what of their decision to be married on the nasty-ass sidewalk in front of a jewelry store?

One weekend in late October, just weeks after their first kiss, the pair wandered the city on foot and ended up at Tiffany's. Surrounded by platinum and diamonds - "We're both kind of like kids in a candy store when it comes to shiny objects," Ms. Scott said - they decided then and there to get married.

I'll let you have one guess at what my opinion is of this move, and I'll give you the hint that it rhymes with "bisgusting." To fetishize a brand name to this extent only emphasizes how amok our advertising industry has run. But I can't completely blame the brand-ers, since people like Scott and Sarah are so willingly brand-ees. It's a fucking store. Is this how they define themselves? I'd be willing to bet that Sarah owns three things from Tiffany's: 1) That awful, omnipresent bracelet with the dangling heart thingy that was given out with a Burberry scarf to every girl in every major city sometime in 2001, 2) an engagement ring, I would hope, and 3) a pair of earrings given to her by her now ex-boyfriend. What's more sad is the fact that they couldn't even have the wedding in the store. That's just pathetic. I'm sure Tiffany's had security concerns, and didn't want their sterling brand name tarnished by two goons like this. They probably have grounds for a misappropriation lawsuit.

I can see the body paragraphs of the complaint now: "Tiffany's has worked hard and dedicated significant resources developing a proprietary brand association of faux-sophisticated douchiness. Mr. Farber's trashy brand of douchebaginess dilutes and misappropriates the distinctive alpha-asshole qualities that Tiffany's has worked so hard to maintain. Through relentless marketing and extreme overpricing, Tiffany's has for decades moistened the normally harsh and unforgiving vaginas of shallow, conforming, upper middle class drone girls. From Murray Hill to Orange County, girls with mild eating disorders have religiously coveted our jewelry, and seeing your douchebag mug in front of our store would compromise their belief that anything in a blue box is worth having. Tiffany's prays for relief in the form of having a blanket party on Mr. Farber's head."

And can you believe this line?

Surrounded by platinum and diamonds - "We're both kind of like kids in a candy store when it comes to shiny objects," Ms. Scott said.

Of all the embarrassing things in this announcement, this one takes the cake. You're all man, Scott. Keep mugging.


Can't resist the sparkly! I must have the sparkly! In princess cut, and at least 2 carats!