following up

So that Zombie Symposium I went to last weekend was pretty awesome! I snapped a few pictures with my phone's camera (which you can follow the adventures of at Twitpic/grammarmonkey):






The intrepid panel: Stan Woodard, Diane Diakite, Andrea Wood, and Laszlo Xalieri.




Stan was the panel leader. Diane's discussion was about Haitian and West African religious beliefs about and social purposes for zombification (fascinating stuff, I really hope she publishes a book about this). Andrea covered the American pop culturization of these zombie traditions through a mixing of sensationalized Caribbean travel brochures and Western stories of the undead in Hollywood, and Laszlo talked about natural occurrences of zombification in insects, network technology, business, and etc. (if you buy him coffee or beer, he'll be glad to expound on these further). I missed the films & boozin' legs of the day 'cause I had some serious sitting around on my butt to do that evening.

consumerism wow: collaboration

I recently discovered that fellow Awesomancer Adam P. Knave also has a deep love of coveting t-shirts, so we made a t-shirt post happen together! I gave him a whole big list of shirts I like (guys this is a list that approaches infinity shirts), he wrote about why HE THINKS I like 9 of those shirts, and then I wrote about whether he was right or going-to-the-special-hell wrong. The full entry is over on his blog, Stop Motion Verbosity, but here's a 2-shirt preview:

SHIRT #1

Adam: You want this shirt because the little guy not only looks like a spinning top but his furless bottom intrigues you in a special way that makes me kinda uncomfortable.

Lauren: Hey, I want nothing to do with furless bottoms! ....Wait. No. Um. Okay, I like furless bottoms. I don't particularly want THIS creature's furless bottom for any kind of nefarious purposes. I just empathize with him. Because I too unravel my pants sometimes. ....Wait. No. I JUST LIKE ANDREW BELL OKAY.

SHIRT #5

Adam: Do pigeons scare you, Lauren? Did you single out this shirt just to come clean and admit to me this outrageous fear you have? When you were a kid did you go out with bread crumbs in hand and learn the hard way to never stand still and throw bread at pigeons because they will swarm like an unholy fuckrake of Hitchcockian proportions? Is that what happened?

Lauren: I’m actually one of the few people I know who doesn't have some kind of dark, pigeon-related back-story in their past. I think I just really like the phrase "oh no", and had never thought to follow it with "pigeons". But it feels so right!


There are seven other shirty exchanges awaiting you on Adam's blog! Hie thee to the t-shirts!

Girl Talk Any Day I Please: halloween costumes

Aside from a couple years in high school when I was clearly way too cool to dress up for Halloween (I was on the yearbook staff so I'm not sure how I came to that conclusion), I've always kinda reveled in Halloween costumes. And costume-party costumes. And Rock-Band-party costumes. And hay-we're-bored-let's-play-dressup costumes. I have way more costume pieces than shame, folks.

Freshman year of college I did I fairly half-assed Trinity costume for Halloween -- happily, no photographs survive. (I won Sexiest Costume at my dorm's party, but had already left to go dick around online, so they gave it to the runner up. Did I mention not-cool-at-all?) Sophomore year I did Death, from Sandman:


(I was baking cookies for Kate-the-probable-photographer & Gabe's Silent Hill-themed party.)

Junior year I didn't dress up 'cause I went to signing Bruce Campbell was doing for his autobiography, If Chins Could Kill, in Orlando. He stayed until everyone got through the line, which took longer than they'd suspected 'cause he was being awesome and chatty and taking pictures with people:


(That's Steve [dressed as Arthur Dent], Bruce, Gabe, and me. I guess I'm dressed as a crazy fangirl?)

A few of us went to visit friends at FSU my senior year, and I reprised my Trinity costume with my still-not-quite-short-enough haircut:


(A Matrix tableau: Steve [as Nightcrawler] impersonating Neo, schoolgirl!Aaron impersonating an Agent, and me impersonating, y'know, Trinity.)

In '05 I had quiet, noncostumed hangouts with my family nouveau, and in '06 I was a goth fairy, which I can't find any photos of. In '07 I went as Becky, from Sin City, but again photo evidence is scarce. This is the best I can find:


(I'm on the couch, not the nice blond lady. Perhaps obviously?)

Following the theme of costumes for which I don't have to wear wigs, I was Daria Morgendorffer in '07. And can't find any photos! But there's lots from last year, when a few friends and I did Dark Knight-style (less cartoony, more scary & realistic) DC comics villains. I was Harley Quinn:


(With Phil as the Joker... photo by Matt, I think.)

And I have no idea what I'm gonna do this year! I've always wanted to do an Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors, or Elvira, ooor lots of stuff that I can't think of right now. Anyone have any suggestions?


Hey, I wrote this entry for the new, shiny Girl Talk Thursday, even though it is totally not Thursday anymore! Come join the conversation:

events: Atlanta Zombie Symposium

Just a quick notice: My friend Laszlo is speaking tomorrow (erm, later today, I guess... Saturday, kids) at the Atlanta Zombie Symposium.

Yes.

The discussion isn't ticketed but seating is limited, so unless you're planning on some kind of undead apocalypse keeping the crowds away, you should show up at Georgia Tech before it kicks off at 1:00.

Or, if that's early for you for a Saturday and/or you think talking is boring, join in for the flesh-noming double feature at The Plaza (the rockinest theater in town, located in Midtown/Poncey Highlands) at 5:00! OR if really, drinking is more your thing, Graveyard Tavern (an excellent if slightly booze-pricey place for both beer and food in East Atlanta Village) is hosting a Dance of the Undead starting at 10:00.

The discussion is free but the films & Dance cost monies. Check the website for more details! And whatever you do, don't put on all your best zombie makeup and ratty clothes and show up and moan loudly instead of applauding. That would be terrible. The worst thing ever. No one would take any pictures of you.

consumerism wow: $9 threadless edition

I felt morally obligated to inform you that Threadless is having a particularly rockin' sale in honor of a meaningless occurrence of numerals in our arbitrary calendar system 9/9/09: all of their t-shirts are only $9 today. Yes, all the shirts in all the sizes, including the fancy Select series.

Perhaps you, like many of your generation, are looking for something to put on your body (besides soap or jellybeans). This would be a good opportunity to stock up on nonedible cotton-based machine-washable torso-coverings. I would personally recommend one of their classic, old-school designs for maximum street cred:


Though of course, it is quite trendy to be new, original, and slightly more rare. Like a 100-panel wordless minicomic on a shirt, not like a delicious steak with kiwi-mustard sauce. This is not a shirt I think I would personally wear because I don't need to give everyone this much of an excuse to stare this closely at my chest, but not everyone has my problems or my modesty, and the design is rad regardless.


I'd possibly prefer to wear a shirt with a design that doesn't feel the need to confine itself to my chest. A shirt that says, "Guys, seriously, I am more than just my incredible rack. I also happen to like astronauts & spaceships & tentacles." Actually, Threadless has a lot of shirts about astronauts & ______. Here's another one... it's about astronauts & surfing, neither of which I do but both of which I'm interested in.


Being a Website on the Internet, Threadless also has its share of esoterically mopey shirts. And its share of shirts that are the exact antonym of esoterically mopey. If you can find a better antonym for esoterically mopey than a circus-themed t-rex, you should email me (I'd be willing to concede that cuuuute things are equally good antonyms, but not better).


And then they've got stuff that's just weird. But you like weird, right? We're all mad here. Remember, today only, Threadless's entire stock is selling for $9. They ship via your choice of USPS or UPS, and you can search their stock by handy things like in-stock shirt size and color, and you should go now while their servers aren't quite dead yet.

recipe: silver (pink) gin fizz

Darrell Autrey, Concentrics Intoxicologist and Magician-at-Large,* likes making people drunk happy. Okay, happy and probably a little bit drunk. Especially if you're a friend of his, which I am, which is both terrific and terrible, gastronomically speaking. The former because he teaches his friends how to make delicious, classic cocktails, and the latter because we then drink delicious, classic cocktails all the time and get all drank & chubby.

My current cocktail obsessions all involve gin -- Bee's Knees, Aviations, French 75s, and, perhaps the most kitschy and shiny, Silver Gin Fizzes. A Silver Gin Fizz is a slightly sweet gin + citrus + soda cocktail that boasts a slight creaminess and a gorgeous foam head thanks to the inclusion of a raw egg white in the cocktail shaker -- aaaand I'm sure I just lost some of you. But it's not gross, or slimy, or egg-flavored, and I haven't caught salmonella from one yet. (Though I'm pretty sure that the first time I saw a drink made with an egg white, the part of my brain that's still stuck in college with my roommate Juliana screamed "WATCH OUT, THE DRINK HAS CHICKEN".) See, look how pretty they are:

(Photo by Jeremy of dreamthrum.com!)

This particular Silver Gin Fizz got its pretty-in-pink color from the blackberry-infused gin that our crafty & wondermous friend Melissa made with a bottle of mild, lovely New Amsterdam gin, about half as many/much fresh blackberries by volume, and a week or so of patience. She didn't add any sugar so the gin is tart and berrylike, which plays well with the lemon in the Fizz -- but plain ol' gin would absolutely work just as well.

Silver (Pink) Gin Fizz

INGREDIENTS

1.5 oz. gin
1 oz. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 oz. simple syrup
1 egg white
Club soda to fill
Bit of lemon peel (for the zest, and for a garnish if you're fancy)

METHOD

1) Prepare a champagne flute (or other tall, skinny glass) by rubbing a piece of lemon peel, yellow side down, across the rim.

2) Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Measure out your gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, and egg white into the shaker. Cover the shaker, and do a little dance using the shaker as a stand-in for your handheld percussive instrument of choice. Strain the contents into the prepared glass, and gently top the mixture off with club soda. Should you happen to have fancy knife skills, garnish the foam with a curl of lemon peel.

3) Get drank in style!



*Due to irreconcilable differences with their Midtown landlord, Concentrics has temporarily closed Trois (Darrell's most recent bartending ground) pending the discovery of a new location. If you're visiting a different Concentrics location in the meanwhile and find a bartender in a bow tie, ask him for something fabulous and tip him just as fabulously!

supermonkey

Over Labor Day weekend, I got turned into a superhero! No, not at Dragon*Con, at Burrito Blade! Click through to the comic to see the full-sized image.



(Dragon*Con was rad, though. It's the best people watching ever, and you should go next year.)

Stays Crunchy on Amazon!

So guys, I edited this book. You may have been told about it six billion times heard of it? It's called Stays Crunchy in Milk and it's about searching for lurved ones and friendship and mostly yourself, and it's officially an official, real book. I know this because Amazon.com knows this, and the link above proves it.

In honor of the book's premiere, the author, Adam P. Knave, interviewed me about being an editor -- why I do what I do, and how I got into the business. Click through to his blog to get all the edity dirt!