Your unemployed friend: A handy guide

Your right to party: It does not technically exist

Your shoes, this spring: If you're a dude

Your favorite canceled shows: Ranked by heartbreak

Your fancy downtown film festival: Notes from Tribeca

Your acquaintance who has cancer: Things not to say

Your great outdoors: If you're into that sort of thing

Photo by pheanixphotos, from Flickr.

Are you a literary harlot? You are not alone.

Even Vladimir Nabokov had an eye for self-marketing, subtly suggesting to photo editors that they feature him as a lepidopterist prancing about the forests in cap, shorts and long socks. (“Some fascinating photos might be also taken of me, a burly but agile man, stalking a rarity or sweeping it into my net from a flowerhead,” he enthused.) Across the pond, the Bloomsbury set regularly posed for fashion shoots in British Vogue in the 1920s. The frumpy Virginia Woolf even went on a “Pretty Woman”-style shopping expedition at French couture houses in London with the magazine’s fashion editor in 1925.

"Charlie Jandusay Fabella Jr., a teacher, and Bill Yosses, the executive pastry chef at the White House, were married Tuesday." Now, Obama's dessert-maker may be violating the sanctity of marriage, but lest we forget, he was hired by Laura Bush. And those were the good old days! Then Michelle Obama came in and basically made him stop making desserts and start tending bees and taking care of the garden. What kind of monster do you have to be to have a private pastry chef and you assign them to take care of vegetables?

"It started out with a leggy, bikini-clad avatar. She said she was a missile expert—the '1st Lady of Missiles,' in fact—but sometimes suggested she worked with the CIA. With multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts, she earned a following of social media-crazed security wonks. Then came the accusations of using sex appeal for espionage."
—Awl pal Spencer Ackerman writes in Wired about the fascinating story of accused social networking spy Shawna Gorman, a.k.a. "PrimorisEra." That first sentence is very reminiscent of L.L. Cool J's "Going Back to Cali."

111. Frankenstein's Monster (Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus)
110. Uriah Heep (David Copperfield)
109. Casaubon (Middlemarch)
108. Bradley Headstone (Our Mutual Friend)
107. Samuel Pickwick (Pickwick Papers)
106. Gussie Fink-Nottle (Right Ho, Jeeves)
105. Keith Talent (London Fields)
104. Jerry Cruncher (Tale of Two Cities)
103. Hercule Poirot (The Mysterious Affair at Styles)
102. Ham Peggotty (David Copperfield)
101. Thorin Oakenshield (The Hobbit)
100. Tracy Tupman (Pickwick Papers)
99. Julian Malory (Excellent Women)
98. C.J. Stryver (A Tale of Two Cities)
97. Charles Arrowby (The Sea, the Sea)
96. Dr. Watson ("A Study In Scarlet") READ MORE

The last time gas prices spiked over $4 per gallon, the Tea Party exploded with rage against the sitting president, hanging the totality of the blame on his administration. Of course, by "exploded with rage," I mean "didn't exist."

This time around, the Tea Party is taking action to draw attention to the fact that Barack Obama is gouging Americans by making sure gas prices are high by causing war in Libya, not opening Alaska to drilling and saving our national energy reserves to power Chinese tanks after China's inevitable invasion of the U.S. We spoke with Chris Lotto, Arizona activist and co-creator of the "The 'Hope and Change' Sticky Note Campaign," a movement that places anti-Obama sticky notes on gas pumps.

Yes, America, like a couple on the verge of divorce, can only communicate with Post-Its®. READ MORE

In the catalogs of Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips de Pury's upcoming Contemporary & Post-War auctions (May 11-13) are pieces by a number of artists whose work has previously graced the album covers of Sonic Youth. Meaning that the ardent fan can fill out his or her Sonic Youth rarities collection for a little less than $11 million. Follow the links to register for your paddle.

Mike Kelley (Cover artist for Dirty)



Ahh… Youth
Cibachrome prints mounted on aluminum; 8 pieces; 24 x 16 inches each; 4 in edition of 10
Christie's; Sale 2440/Lot 3
Estimate: $400,000 to $600,000 READ MORE

"I just needed some peace of mind. Thank God it turned out how it did. When we got to be No. 1 in 1983, we were competing with 'Thriller,' we were competing with 'Synchronicity'—all great albums of that era. That was quite an honor. It was more than just selling records. It was what it meant to achieve that in the company of artists like Michael Jackson and Sting."
—Legendary heavy metal bass player Rudy Sarzo talks to New Jersey's Star Ledger about how he quit Ozzy Osbourne's band and rejoined Quiet Riot after guitarist Randy Rhoads died when the small plane he was in crashed into the tour bus.

Strangely, Titus Andronicus's new video about the popular topic of rest stops on the New Jersey Turnpike doesn't include any of the 200,000 solar panels the state's Public Service Electric Gas Company is putting up on telephone poles everywhere. (It must have been very challenging, since, as the Times reported yesterday, "If they were laid out in a solar farm, the 5-by-2.5-foot panels would blanket 170 acres.")

Being from New Jersey myself, I have some feelings about this. 1) This song is good, and with its refrain of "You will always be a loser," and its final, soothing sentiment of, "but that's okay," it makes for a fine new state anthem. 2) If the singer Patrick Stickles shaved his beard, he would look just like actor Michael Shannon. 3) People who live in places where the solar panels are going up and are bothered by them should just pretend that all the telephone poles are wearing giant wraparound Revo sunglasses. Surely no one in New Jersey would mind that. Just put a backwards pastel Nike visor on the other side, and you're set.

"You’d meet, say, a cook at a Times Square restaurant standing on the shower line behind the Port Authority bus terminal. He’d emerge combed and shaven in his white uniform and rush uptown to work. You’d bump into a Cooper Union-trained fine artist at the Goodwill Back to Work center in the Bronx. You’d hear from decorated war heroes who could back up their stories with news clippings and medals. You’d bunk down with day traders from out of town who carried two expensive smart phones and an internet tablet, monitoring the market for their way back in. You’d joke around with friendly Africans and Chinese who were just here to build a new life with maximum economy."
—New York City's stealth homeless.

The Vineyard Gazette, of Edgardton, MA, covered the elections this week over in Tisbury, (also known as Vineyard Haven). And the people have spoken, nuking ballot measures that would increase taxes.

Tisbury voters also decided two ballot questions which would have increased town property taxes, decisively rejecting both of them.

The first will be particularly problematic for town officials; it sought $85,000 to fund collective bargaining and contract settlements with employees.

The other questions sought $100,000 to begin putting aside for Tisbury’s currently-unfunded liabilities for post-employment benefits — mainly health insurance costs, for town workers.

14) Cherry

13) Bean

12) Mince

11) Apple

10) Banana Cream READ MORE