Skip to content

Va-va-va-bloom!

My cubicle at work is decked out with 8×10 framed pictures of flowers. Given the exceptionally sterile nature of my office, the photos are a genuine hit. But it’s been two years and the initial mania about Meredith’s flower photographs has long subsided. Luckily, a timely trip to Longwood Gardens over Easter yielded dozens of choice floral pics with which to replace them.

The one pictured below I really like, but I nixed the idea of hanging it in my cubicle. I’m hoping people can immediately see why, because otherwise I feel slightly silly for saying that this is a downright lewd photograph of a flower.

It’s botanic cheesecake, pollen porn, floral T & A. This is one carnal posy.

Lewd Flower

Posted in The 9 to 5.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on Va-va-va-bloom!

By Meredith – April 28, 2007

Projectiles in the News

MIT students celebrated the end of classes by throwing a piano off a roof. Anarchist youth in Athens, Greece threw petrol bombs outside a police station. A minor Mass. state official threw a curling iron at a clerk who wouldn’t accept her check – “Don’t you know who I am?”. Hugh Grant has been arrested for throwing a pot of baked beans on a reporter. Vaulted periodical Us Weekly threw a party to celebrate “Hot Hollywood” – for only the hotties like, um, J. Lo and David Arquette. A Spanish judge threw the book at 3 US soldiers for the 2003 death of a Spanish journalist, charging them with homicide and indiscriminate attack against civilians during war for firing a tank at a hotel. And me, well, I just about threw up after reading about the naked, spread-eagle Paris Hilton sculpture with removable innards that aims to warn teens about the health effects of drinking.

Posted in In the News.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on Projectiles in the News

By Meredith – April 27, 2007

That’s So Raven

Dinner conversation progressed from discussion of a New York Times article about the quest for humanely-produced foie gras to what makes certain meats a culinary taboo in a given society (brief segue over the startling revelation that Thursday night in the Pinault household was, in fact, horse night), to how animal intelligence can be measured (a subject that always invites my crusading rant about the underestimated wisdom of swine), to an article in Spiegel about research on the extraordinary cunningness of ravens.

Ravens survive by scavenging food from larger predators, an unpredictable enterprise that requires the most successful ravens to be audacious, deceitful, and clever. Unlike “dumb” birds, ravens didn’t evolve with “the luxury of just doing the right thing automatically.” They are excellent problem solvers. According to ravenlogists, they are cognitively equal to young human children.

All this raven dinner talk prompted me to Google-up a copy of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” which I then attempted to read aloud rapidly. My lord that’s a musical assemblage of words! By the time I got to “And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,” the household was covering its ears and screaming “Nevermore!”

Posted in Existence.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on That’s So Raven

By Meredith – April 26, 2007

Where is My Mind?

#1

Slide card into slot. Enter ATM vestibule. Slide card into slot. Type PIN. Touch screen, touch screen, touch screen. Take cash. Take card. Take receipt. Toss cash in trash. Tuck receipt in wallet. Exit ATM vestibule. Walk a block to Cosi. Stop. Open wallet. Run back to ATM vestibule. Retrieve cash from trash. Smile at gawking man-filled suit.

#2

“Some of the spam I’ve been getting lately is just disgusting,” small talks a co-worker.

“Yeah, me too. I think something’s wrong with the sperm filter,” I say.

“What?” co-worker says.

“Something’s wrong with the spam filter,” I sweat.

#3

Sitting in a never-ending meeting that mostly involved the dissection of Java code, I had the most inexplicable craving: Cinnamon Life cereal. Despite not having masticated Cinnamon Life in over 20 years, my taste buds could summon the exact piquant taste: Sugary, savory, and spicy, all at once, with each individual basket retaining the perfect amount of milk within its bower. It seems like just yesterday when I’d empty a sizable portion of Cinnamon Life cereal into a mixing bowl, plop down in front of Saturday morning cartoons, and dawdle over my breakfast until it was a nourishing brown mush of pedicel. That was the life!

Posted in Existence.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on Where is My Mind?

By Meredith – April 25, 2007

Artichokes

…A leaf for everyone, a meal for no one…

There are lists of the most popular search engines queries, and it’s fascinating to know how hot Pokemon is, but I love these little glimpses into people’s individual curiosities. What would most of us do without the Internet as an information source? What did we used to do? Speculate wildly about Anna Nicole Smith’s lipstick, and then chalk it up to one of life’s little mysteries?

I haven’t posted these in several months so that I’d have more crude queries to distill into a powerful jolt of the really freaky stuff.

INTERROGATIVE

what is the green shine in roast beef lunch meat

what brand lipstick did anna nicole smith uses

what happens behind the doors of juvenile detention centers

what brand of coat is crispin glover willard

what is in asparagus that gives you foul smelling urine

what country has the largest percentage of obese population

what is the average amount of sick days a company gives

where can you find the game with baseball bashing with the kkk

which school kicked fabian basabe out

who was the first man to be pictured without a woman on the cover of ladies’ home journal magazine

who is the world record holder for hiccuping the longest

did burt munro have any serious injuries on his journeys, and at utah

do hyenas migrate

i saw a show on maury about troubled teens and they sent them to a boot camp. can you tell me where they went

is is okay to eat seafood when a person has graves disease

why red sox wearing green shirts on april 20

how to save my frostbitten houseplants

how many calories are in a double chocolate chip frappucino

how many men died on the beaches of normandy

how to become a jagerette

how many riots have occurred at umass

how many men have you had sex with in your lifetime

how to make fanned diaper cakes

SMUT

sexy armenians website

nude photos of old woman

need matured gays above 50 age for sex in dubai

sirloin showdown porn pictures

tentacles clamped my penis

free home video getting undressed in public

army ass

explain why is it important to respect women

chubby lesbian chaser

ava dawn admire stripper in texas

underwater erotic action

adult photo of girls wearing diapers pictures

QUOTATION

“sweat lodge” “south bronx”

“mitt romney” and “my twinn”

“woman kills puppy”

vivid “sex and violins”

rodent hair “peanut butter” legend

“i want to cheat on my boyfriend”

“dave navarro’s mother”

“living cast members” “it’s a wonderful life”

“losing control” and “with the devil” and dance and lyrics

“homemade compost toilet”

“god has a hard on” lyrics

“dunkin donuts cup” “starbucks cup”

“doug meehan” gay

“walking on the charles river”

PERQUISITE

color coca cola bad luck southeast asia

hooters key lime pie nutrition

letter bomb green day film clip inclined swearing

things and munich

typical teenagers in the world or fahrenheit 451 amuse themselves by

movie about runners crossing the finish line holding hands

dunkin heinz cookies

nasty cookies

push the green button meatwad

marriage to an unattractive person

lack of snow effects new england ski resorts prophets

green eyes shes done some modeling and some acting lyrics

mcdonalds emotions

rudy guliani prostate

leland palmer carrot

a picture of tom brady sneezing

david beckham poeming

myths about aquarians and pieces being homosexual

dunkaccino and cumin

greed green irish tween

sausage dogs

Posted in Miscellany.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on Artichokes

By Meredith – April 24, 2007

Boris with Democracy

It’s all too easy to buffer Boris Yelstin’s obituary with tales of corruption, leadership failure, and drunken debauchery, but in the grand scheme of Russian history, the ‘Yelstin years’ will be remembered as a downright magical era.

Yeltsin resigned in disgrace a few hours before the year 2000, saying that he believed Russia needed a fresh start for the new century. And, boy, what a century it was: Lenin and the Bolsheviks, two devastating World Wars, Stalin and the Gulag, an idiot named Khruschev, and the Cold War. But to Russia, the threat of nuclear annihilation was just another cataclysmal chapter in a history wrought with profound psychological fear and uncertainty. A co-worker who was born in Russia told me “One of the biggest differences between the US and Russia is scale. The Boston Massacre killed five people. Our massacres involve millions.”

And suddenly, in the 1990s, Russia was independent and democratic, and it had this elected President named Boris who called communism “a pie in the sky” and was moved to open economic markets after visiting a Texas supermarket. Who cares if he was a corrupt drunk who committed numerous errors in rule? Who cares if he narrowly survived multiple impeachment attempts and his approval rating was a reported 2 percent by the time he left? Under Boris Yelstin, Russia underwent pendulous political, social, and economic change without millions of people disappearing. And when it was obvious he was a failure, he willingly left, without allowing his country to descend to revolution or coup. And that’s an achievement that history will appreciate.

Posted in In the News.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on Boris with Democracy

By Meredith – April 23, 2007

Vive la Republique… et le fromage!

The first round of the French Presidential election is over, and conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and socialist Segolene Royal, with 29% and 26% of the vote respectively, are advancing to the second round. Voter turnout was a record-breaking 85%, indicating the importance of this election to a pessimistic French nation. They want a candidate who will swiftly steer France away from the brink of decline by instituting lasting but painless social and economic reforms. Essentially, they want a political plastic surgeon.

Yesterday Mr. Pinault and I journeyed to Cambridge so that he could vote at the International School along with French ex-pats from all over New England. Looking around the school gymnasium at all the chic female voters, I suddenly understood the explosion of mass-market paperbacks that seek to teach American women to be more French. I was a wildebeest in a herd of gazelle.

Feeling threatened by so much raw sophistication, I quelled the urge to cause a scene by impromptu campaigning for right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen, a perennial candidate with an anti-immigration platform that brought him one step away from the French Presidency in 2002. “Vote Le Pen! Protect the Motherland from the invading swinish multitudes!” I dreamed about shouting so it would echo shockingly throughout the gymnasium. But instead, I sat quietly in the back, cursing my proclivity for sneakers.

Afterwards, we drove across Cambridge to Formaggio Kitchen, a specialty grocer that stocks an excellent selection of French cheese. The cheese counter was packed with Americans demanding brie, so we got in line behind a family who we had just seen voting at the International School. They recognized us, and the husband said to his wife “See, it’s normal to buy cheese after voting!” Yes, but only if it’s a French election. He then attempted to order comte cheese in centimeters rather than inches or pounds.

Tomme

We got a mild Tomme from Savoy and a sheep-milk cheese I never had before called Brebis Ossau, which almost made me cry because it was so good. I could taste the wildflowers and fresh grass that the sheep grazed on in the Pyrenees, yet it had a nutty flavor to temper the sweetness. Vive la Republique! A country capable of making such divine cheese is worth saving!

Posted in In the News.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on Vive la Republique… et le fromage!

By Meredith – April 22, 2007

It’s Not Over Until Someone Else Starts Clapping

Symphony-going is fraught with little rules of decorum, most of which can be and are ignored. The only undisputed rule is literally written on the wall, projected on the stage partition before the music begins: “Please turn off all electronic devices.” A friendly reminder, under penalty of public mortification.

But a ringing cell phone isn’t the only thing capable of evoking the ire of 2000 little old ladies. At last night’s performance featuring violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and her ex-husband, conductor and composer Andre Previn, an enthusiastic attendee somewhere in the back of the first balcony twice reminded me of the most fundamental rule of watching a classical music performance:

Do not clap until someone else claps!

The problem last night had to do with the derelict’s lack of understanding about movements, that just because the orchestra stops playing, doesn’t mean it’s safe to break out in pronounced clapping. The first time, people murmured. The second time, people were outraged. I’ve never seen such a fine class of people come so close to collectively snarling. Let me repeat:

Do not clap until someone else claps!

Yes, logically this rule doesn’t pan out, because if everyone follows it, then the entire audience is left constipated with gratitude, and the orchestra is just sitting there in incredulous silence, and then the cello section starts bawling, the violists are abhorred, and the percussionists are retaliating. But rest assured, the audience is filled with classical music aficionados who are eager to demonstrate familiarity with a particular piece by getting off the first clap, and it will ring out and quickly be followed by a rousing applause, upon which one can safely begin to strike palms in appreciation.

Posted in Culture.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on It’s Not Over Until Someone Else Starts Clapping

By Meredith – April 20, 2007

All that Twitters Is Not Gold

Twitter is the latest cool internet Web 2.0 thing. Everyone’s a-twitter for Twitter, “a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?” Using Twitter is reportedly as addicting as sugar-infused crack cocaine laced with nicotine. A general rule: When something is this addicting, it is stupid.

I do see potential value in technology that enables public messaging on multiple interfaces (the Web, IM, and mobile phones), and I think Twitter-like services will evolve into something functionally useful in wider society. But as it is used now, Twitter does not impress me. In fact, since I’m an old codger, I find a bulk of the banal chatter that Twitter emits to be morally repugnant and symptomatic of an ideologically-diseased world.

Twitter nurtures three increasing tendencies of today’s technocrats: exhibitionism, voyeurism, and the proclivity to express oneself in easily-digestible factoids of 140 characters or less. A vast majority of Twitters revolve around everyday minutiae. People who Twitter can’t complete a single life task without sending a broadcast to the world about it: Eating eggs and toast! Getting ready for spinning! Sitting on the train! Working at the office! Thinking about buying a new pair of sneakers! Blogging! I can’t imagine strangers caring about this, let alone my friends. Will they want to read Twitters about how I’m writing posts for this web site when most of them can’t even be bothered to read it?

Twitter is a tribute to our infinite vanity, our wanting to believe that the sands in our hourglass sparkle brighter, that they are not insignificant, that they will not be blown away and forgotten.

Posted in In the News.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on All that Twitters Is Not Gold

By Meredith – April 19, 2007

The March Lion is Still Roaring

I walk to the train station, wearing the same coat that I’ve been wearing since November. I’ve grown to hate it. It taunts me if I reach for another in the closet: Yeah right, you’re going to wear a jean jacket? You think that will keep you warm and dry? Who are you kidding, girlie. You need my thick down padding and weather-resistant shell.

Though it’s drizzling, I don’t carry an umbrella – partly out of irrational defiance, but mostly because they all suffer from mangled stretchers, broken ribs and torn canopies. My poor umbrellas – Nautica black, New Orleans Zoo tan and black, Brookstone super mini black. Thank you for your valiant service in the line of duty. I’m sorry you have become martyrs to a hopeless cause: Keeping me dry in howling sheets of rain. I will miss you. Until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand. Maybe you’ll work better for God than you worked for me, eh?

The birds are chirping. What are they saying, do you think? Come mate with me! or Why is it so freaking cold! or All this rain is drowning the worms!

Posted in Massachusetts.

Tagged with .

Comments Off on The March Lion is Still Roaring

By Meredith – April 18, 2007