Youth In Revolt: Review

In which Emily talks Youth In Revolt, comparing the book to the movie.

With Hands!

I'd like to draw your attention back over to the With Hands blog. I've finished my semester and created some products that you can enjoy (for free!) if you surf over thataway.

50 Book Challenge Update

Maybe my reading books intended for teenagers is cheating, ....maybe not. I would have read them anyway.

39. Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd - H. Black & C. Castellucci (eds.)
40. The Nimrod Flipout - Etgar Keret
41. The Small-Mart Revolution - Michael H. Shuman
42. Boy Meets Boy - David Leviathan
43. The Industrial Revolution - R. Conrad Stein
44. 13 Little Blue Envelopes - Maureen Johnson
45. Zeitoun - Dave Eggers
46. The Bermudez Traingle - Maureen Johnson

50 Book Challenge, continuted

35. An Abundance of Katherines - John Green
35 a. (AB) Feed - M. T. Anderson
36. Paper Towns - John Green
37. YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts - Alan Lastufka & Michael W. Dean
38. Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life - Allan Kaprow

Literature Math

(Orwell's 1984 X E. M. Forster's "The Machine Stops") X (Capitalism) = M. T. Anderson's Feed. (I would rename it 2084)


If for some reason that wasn't completely transparent,

I really liked this book. I actually cheated and listened to it. I think I'd recommend that. Listen to it. With headphones if possible. I think that will make for the best experience.

50 Book Challenge

Let's say at the turn of 2009, somebody challenged you to read 50 books before 2010. How would you be doing on that front?

I've compiled my list, including (but excluding from the numbers) the books I listened to during my roadtrip.

1. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things - Michael Braungart
2. Wake Up and Smell the Planet - Grist Magazine
3. Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir - Graham Roumieu
4. Bigfoot: I Not Dead - Graham Roumieu
5. General Ignorance - John Lloyd
6. Che: A Graphic Biography - Spain Rodriguez
7. How We Are Hungry - Dave Eggers
8. You Shall Know Our Velocity! - Dave Eggers
9. Lyrical Life -Casey Jones
10. What is the What - Dave Eggers
11. Mother, Come Home - Paul Hornschemeier (this was really sad and beautiful. I'd recommend it to Graphic Novel Nerdfighters)
12. Urban Homestead - Kelly Coyne
13. City of Glass: The Graphic Novel - Paul Auster, Paul Karasik, David Mazzucchelli
14. My Most Secret Desire - Julie Doucet
15. A Primer of Happenings & Time / Space Art - Al Hansen
16. La Perdida - Jessica Abel
17. Savage Inequalities - Jonathan Kozol
18. Steal This Book - Abbie Hoffman
19. The Complete Handbook of Sewing Machine Repair - Howard Hutchison
20. Things I have learned in my life so far - Stefan Sagmeister
21. Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art - Suzanne Lacy
22. Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works - Erik Spiekermann
23. But Is It Art? - Nina Felshin
24. The Pleasures of Slow Food - Corby Kummer
25. Slow Food Nation - Carlo Petrini
26. Letters to a Young Artist - Shelly Bancroft
27. Made from Scratch - Jenna Woginrich
28. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic - Alison Bechdel
29. Unlikely - Jeffrey Brown
30. Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology - Eric Brende (this is a really good, interesting and easy read)
30 a. (Audio Book) The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
30 b. (AB) Downtown Owl - Chuck Klosterman
30 c. (AB) The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
30 d. (AB) The World Without Us - Alan Weisman
30 e. (AB) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
30 f. (AB) Oil! - Upton Sinclair
31. Reenchantment of Art - Suzi Gablik
32. White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness - Maurice Berger
33. Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? - Beverly Daniel Tatum
34. Looking for Alaska - John Green


I'm pretty sure I can and will read 16 or more books over the next 3.5 months.

What have you read this year?

The best friends I never had.

In the spirit of Ally's synchronicity, I just spent.....maybe.....12? hours watching the video blog communication project of John and Hank Green.


John Green is an author of young adult romance novels, and Hank Green is an enviro-blogger. They live on the other side of the country from one another, and their communication had dwindled to IMing, e-mailing, texting, and the like. To counter this, they challenged themselves to take turns posting videos on YouTube every non-holiday weekday, and not communcating textually for an entire year.

I stumbled on this project, or rather, their YouTube channel whilst watching videos of cute animals (this originated in Sloths and the Slow Loris)

The video I stumbled upon was the following:



If you google the word "adorable," this is one of the first things that shows up.

This video is after the whole "Brotherhood 2.0" project, but I was so amused that I watched a few random videos and then decided to start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) so that I would understand all the lingo.


I feel like I could be (or maybe like I am) good friends with these guys. I also love Hank, but strictly in a celebrity-crush sort of way. This is because 1. He is married (as is John) and 2. from what I gather, our theology differs too greatly for me to have been able to consider him if he even was on the market.

One of my favorite books is The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test which, I realized after I finished reading it, is non-fiction. Sometimes, I want another book. To be able to follow up on the characters...because they're real people is really satisfying.

I have had a similar experience with John and Hank Green. It is almost like if The Office were real, and you could send presents to, and potentially hang out with Jim and Pam. You could send them well wishes, and these might actually be received by them.

After the Brotherhood project was over, John and Hank were not finished vlogging. I sort of want to send them a present, but I want to make sure that no one else has given them this specific present, so I am going to wait to do this until I have caught up with all of their videos. They've vlogged through the entire 2008 year (I think once a week at least, each), and it seems that they've continued through 2009.

Hear an interview with them on NPR.

Also what is cool about John and Hank is their accessibility. Though they have thousands of subscribers, they keep up with the conversations in the comments, and comment on them. Vlogging is dynamic.

So I think that I could just drop in and hang out with these guys...but then I remember that I am one of sooo many. If everyone were to do that, it would probably be terrible.

Soon after the project began, John challenged Hank to write a new song every other week. I've tried to write songs. Have you heard them? That's right, because I have never finished a single song. Anyhow, Hank's love for TMBG is apparent, and his music is entertaining and enjoyable. He has actually released a CD (almost 2?) of his music, when I believe that it was just a hobby prior.

My love for John and Hank is almost directly related to my love for Liam Lynch.

The idea of vlogging used to really make me cringe. This is in large part due to Tila Tequila and her boring lame vlogs. (I was going to give you a link to the vlog that first made me want to shoot myself, but it appears to have been removed from the webs). However, I have had a change of heart about vlogging due to Ally's entertaining self, and the vlogbrothers.

I think I might start vlogging. It is something I'm doing in service of my Road Trip video (which I will probably upload in sections on the internet). The only trouble is my Flip video camera may or may not have died. (After like 3 months WQHTKXF!?)

One last thing! Hank lives in Missoula, MT. It is not a big town, and I totally stopped there on my road trip. If only I had known about his existence!

I suppose I'm creepy.
On an unrelated note, I suppose I'm a total nerdfighter.

I'm So Happy

Sparkle Mag

I got my copy of Sparkle Mag today. It indeed sparkles, and is filled with things both awkward and amazing. What are you waiting for?

Oh, P.S., Did you know I was a contributor?

Steal This Book

Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This seemed like a book that I should have read, just because of its role in history. It began with some radical content, discussing how to survive on very little money, and the theory behind this. I enjoy reading of the schemes and scams he proposes, but I have ethical conflicts with their being carried out. Hoffman provides great resources such as inexpensive simple recipes, and lists of organizations and societies that may or may not be outdated. Some of what he suggests has been nullified by the dawn of the internet, and when he begins to suggest violence and ways to create bombs and weapons, I begin to understand why his book has been banned in many places. At the end he provides a section about several major cities (f*** Chicago, f*** New York, f*** San Francisco) and tells where in these cities to acquire goods and services for little to no money. Much of this, I trust, is outdated, but I really appreciate the spirit of the thing.

Also, maybe what bothers me most is the justification for shoplifting. It is clear that Hoffman is never trying to screw over a brother, as he always suggests leaving generous tips when pulling a dine-and-dash or whatever other scam he has devised. He claims that it is required of one to shoplift, as this "loss" is built into the price of the item.

Indeed, stores do set aside money for loss and damage, but at least in Wal*Mart, where everyone feels most justified shoplifting from, your Free-99 purchase has just taken money out of the pocket of everyone else in the store.

All of the money left over from the Wal*Mart loss pool is divided among the employees as a bonus. You, by stealing from Wal*Mart, are stealing from the people greeters, the cashiers, the old man back in lawn & garden.

But perhaps Abbie Hoffman was never aware of this sort of thing.


View all my reviews.

How do you spell a "u"?

I am currently reading Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities. I suppose I was destined to read this book, as it haunted me for two years while I worked at Ben & Jerry's. Someone had once left a copy and it sat on our shelf waiting to be claimed. For all I know, it could still be there. I don't believe I ever really read more of the book than the author's name and the title, but later when people began to mention the work of Kozol, I had a vague sense of familiarity - 'oh right! Savage Inequalities!' Some time later, in a discussion with my friend Ian about the repercussions about names like Tanajaiqua and Queenasia versus names like Madison and Francis, he recommended (what else), as it deals with inequalities (clearly). I read this to fend off the bourgeois intruder persona that could creep up on a person who grew up in Saratoga and now would like to do community-based work (art projects) in three small cities. The book looks at equity from an education standpoint, seeing this as the seedling to society. As a teacher, this resonates with me.

I substitute teach nearly every day, in districts both urban and suburban. I usually do not consider the race of the students unless the majority is overwhelming (for being practically in Troy, the school in Green Island is awash in white). Kozol talks a lot about how poverty and race lines often break at the same point. He talks about urban schools a short distance from suburban schools, and about what a difference money makes. What a school in disrepair with not enough supplies speaks to children. About using rooms for purposes they were never designed for - such as a classroom in a urinal.

As a sub, I mostly notice the behavior differences within schools. More often than not, the suburban kids are more quick to bow to authority, and kids in the city schools will press this a little more. I never really considered the facilities unless it made my job more difficult; ie, a classroom without walls, in a 'cluster' with two or three other classrooms of this type, or perhaps subbing for the art teacher who did not have a room or even a cart. She was art in a milk crate.

Things like this make my job as a glorified babysitter (some days) a little more difficult. I never really considered the effect on the students.

I began to think. I felt a little weird reading this book in Schenectady High while fighting with students who I shouldn't even bother fighting with. I think - your facilities are beautiful! You have a DANCE STUDIO in your art WING for crying out loud. I shall feel no pity for you.

Then I think back to some schools in Troy. The things Kozol was talking about, I found there.

Some elementary schools have converted bathrooms and locker rooms into offices and remedial reading / math classrooms.

There are not enough supplies for the students. I know that the art teachers depend on the supplies each year, they do not have enough to last from the year before, and it might be October before they begin receiving anything.

For a few years I have done a lot of equating children's success with the involvement of the parents. While I still think this is important, I am beginning to understand what Kozol is talking about. We trap people into self-reproducing societies. We usher our middle class tax payers into the suburbs where their children will go to school in well maintained buildings with well funded programs. Many of the people still living in cities with the money to afford it will send their kids to private schools. The people who understand how to push for better conditions are pushing for those improvements in areas where the current standard is something that many in city schools only dream of.

There are many people who are fans of the notion of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps. How is one to do this when one's old bootstraps have disintegrated and there isn't money for a new pair?

Maybe too many steps ahead

However, that is where I'm at.

Making hardcover books? Great.
Bookcloth? expensive and rare

I don't usually like to share tutorials before I've tried them, but this one seems pretty harmless.

Men I Love

In no particular order...



Liam Lynch

The genius behind Sifl & Olley, My United States of Whatever, The Tenacious D Movie and DVD. Also, have you ever checked out his podcast? Besides being a genius at what he does, Liam is an upright citizen, as per his advice given in his viewer mail / vlog. Also, this renaissance man is super cute.


David Sedaris

Read any of his books. He is wonderful and hilarious.


Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers *is* McSweeney's, and if that isn't enough, and you haven't read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius or What is the What, then surely you must check out Giraffes? Giraffes! and Your Disgusting Head.



Ron Howard

Opie Taylor, Richie Cunningham, Arrested Development? Yes, please.


Dan Savage

He's snarky and sassy, and except for his pro-cheating stance, I think he gives really good advice in Savage Love, his weekly syndicated sex/relationship advice column and podcast.


Rob Kalin

Cute, red-headed...oh yea, and he founded Etsy.


Ira Glass

Listen to This American Life. His way of speaking to the radio public is a soothing change from the quasi-robotic all-business manner of many other public radio DJs. Sorry Ian.


Michael Cera

I think that I love Michael Cera in the way that everyone else loves Michael Cera. It feels like I alone appreciate his dorky charm and adorable-ness, but the reality of the matter is, it isn't hidden from anyone. It is the sort of situation I find myself in a lot. (I once dated a boy who didn't realize that others appreciated his dorky charm and adorable-ness, so I told him and told him until he believed me and consequently left me).

I am excited and terrified to see his rendition of Nick Twisp if they ever come out with Youth In Revolt.


Johnny Depp

Sure, Johnny Depp is hot, but that isn't what puts him on this list. What it is is that he is just such a versatile actor. Every movie I see him in, it could be an entirely different person, and I would believe it. He has done creepy, sexy, scary, and homoerotic excellently.


Dr. Frank N. Furter

I'm not a huge Tim Curry fan, but regardless....

never before has (and perhaps never again will) a man in fishnets and heels been so attractive.


The Fonz

So Henry Winkler was pretty cute in the movie Katherine (with Sissy Spacek - a gem in the wasteland of $1 DVDs by the Wal-Mart checkout), and he was pretty creepy in Arrested Development (ay, he oughta be), but there was no one as cool as the Fonz. (Perhaps it was a little sad or not cool that he was so concerned with being cool, but unlike all the other nerds out there, he pulled it off somehow)