Alizah Salario

I really want the leopard print jumpsuit. No, I’m not being ironic.

Animal print: it's not just for grandmas in Boca anymore

Whenever I check my site stats on Google Analytics (which is embarrassingly often) I notice that my search engine traffic stems from one particular search: Jersey Shore. Sometimes it’s “Jersey Shore Analysis” or “Jersey Shore Critique.” I wrote one post on the subject way back when, and though I’ve written about important, highbrow junk too — Malick and Herzog, Foster Wallace and Whitman — this one little ‘Shore post continues to be my jackpot. So. I’ll write it again. Jersey Shore Analysis. The Situation. Juiceheads. GTL. Abs. Beer, pouf, pickles, Snooki. J-Woww. Snooki, Snooki, Snooki.

I hope someone out there finds this useful.

Hey. Whatever works.

I decided that in order to enjoy my trip, I needed to embrace being a tourist. Rather than try to walk the road less traveled, this time I was going to go exactly where the guidebook directed to try and understand the appeal of doing exactly the same things as everyone else.

I also wanted to flirt and play around with the “real” America. I’ve lived in three of the largest cities in the U.S., so though I can say I know the Midwest and both coasts, I honestly don’t know much between. Where was this other America, the one that Sarah Palin talks so highly about, the one where people wave flags year round and feel proud of their country? I wasn’t exactly sure where to find it, but it came my way in the form of corporate culture. What’s more American that Coke?

[...]

My Kindle should arrive today. I finally broke down and bought one as a 30th birthday present to myself (and because I’d finally accumulated enough credit card points to buy an Amazon gift card for the equivalent amount.)

I’m approaching my new device with both excitement and trepidation. I have a serious book consumption habit that often costs me way more money than I afford, so at the very least, I see this as a practical, money-saving choice. Though I’m no Luddite, I certainly felt the pangs of nostalgia when I realized buying books would become far less frequent.

[...]

The Guardian has comprised a list of the 100 greatest nonfiction books, and though many of the usual subjects (Didion,  Kapuściński) are included, many are not.

The list is broken down into subject categories, some of which read like they came straight from my senior year great books course or gender studies 101 syllabus: Freidan’s The Feminist Mystique, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, The Prince and The Communist Manifesto. As with any best of list, the collection includes works that reflect a range of eras, movements and schools of thought — a nonfiction buffet more interested in variety than quality.

These lists inevitably remind me that no matter how well read I may fancy myself, there’s a long, long way to go. Also, if you haven’t covered certain books at university, it’s difficult to go back. It seems rather hard to squeeze in, say, Thus Spake Zarathustra when I’ve just enjoyed Tina Fey’s Bossypants and am finally working my way through Revolutionary Road, which seems lighthearted in comparison to Nietzsche. It’s at this point when I lament the fact my brain is deteriorating and think about how much I wish I could go back to college.

The New York Review of Books recently published a new interview with David Foster Wallace (it was originally published in Russian; this is its first appearance in translation). As always, DFW is lucid, precise and insightful. He just gets it, especially when talking about his wife, purity, and art as a gift:

“So she is for me—I’ve only been married two years—watching her work and then going into the garage where I work, and trying to do my work and trying not to think about, “Oh, what does this reviewer from The New York Times say,” to find myself preoccupied and distracted by all kinds of what are really petty and immature and vain distractions is very educational. It may be that the only way in America to produce pure art would be to remove oneself from the public sphere and produce that art only as gifts, where there’s no money involved and no attempt at publicity or publication involved. The problem is that if everyone does that, then there is no public arts here. So it all becomes really a paradox that I’ve spent a lot of the last years thinking about, and I don’t have an answer.”

Who wants to sit around with their nose in a book (or a Kindle) now that the warm weather has finally arrived? The question is, who doesn’t? Every year my reading prowess goes into overdrive during the warm months. Blame on more plane rides and car trips, or just call it what it is: procrastination.

Read books by women that men should read – my picks are Atwood, Munro, and Dillard

Listen to Rachel Aviv discuss mystical powers, mental illness, and forced treatment in the New Yorker

Enjoy Courtney Love in Istanbul in xojane.com: “It’s kind of like a coffee commitment at an AA meeting, though. If you don’t show up, you get really embarrassed.” I have to give her credit for prancing around in a bikini like that. Maybe that’s what I need. Bikini pics and another global adventure. Or not. Which brings me to my next point on how infidelity affects the kids. Thankfully my parents never cheated on one another (they were only married three years) but somehow I have the same trust issues I write about here. Yes, here’s the part of this post where I shamelessly self-promote. Now back to the regularly scheduled program.

Oh, I know everyone is Tweeting and liking the pants off of this one, but Franzen just nails it. And yes, I do have unrequited iPhone love.

xojane.com has garnered quite a bit of buzz since its launch earlier this week, and it’s no wonder. Editor-in-chief Jane Pratt (of now-defunct Jane and Sassy fame) has long been known for pushing the envelope, and her latest incarnation of slightly smutty but highly self-aware snark is no exception.  The site mixes a little pop culture (Pepto Bismo facial, anyone?) with subversive and shocking content to be “the place women go when they want to be selfish” or something. Um, hasn’t the Internet got the selfish thing down? (See Twitter and/or your (read: my) own self-titled blog).

[...]

I’m wearing flip-flops for the first time in a long time today, and I’m not going to waste open toes on a computer screen.

In brief, here’s what I’m reading – and you should too:

Tony Kusnher’s letter to the CUNY Board of Trustees who rejected his honorary degree due to his thoughts on Israel.

A provocative essay on the myth of the 9/11 generation by Abigail Deutsch.

The conversation on reporting while female continues.

A Bookslut interview with my literary crush, Adam Levin, about his epic novel The Instructions. His next book is titled Hot Pink. I really think we’re perfect for each other.

http://jezebel.com/5794811

My latest in The Rumpus.