Mary Phillips-Sandy lives here. » approved

Bookmarks

Mary — Sat, 22 May 2010 18:40:49 +0000

Train ticket to Cairo, found in a Michael Cunningham novel rescued from a stoop box in Brooklyn. (Verso: “Train No. 916, Car No. 6, Chairs 29/30.”)

Scribbles on Working Assets notepaper, found in an otherwise forgettable book defending New Urbanism. From the Portland library.

Pictoral ode to Newsies, found, marvelously enough, in a volume of Emerson’s journals (also from the library). “Never Fear.”

The best ever

Mary — Sun, 09 May 2010 16:57:54 +0000

Many, many thanks to Kristen Iskandrian (“Going to Georgia”) for letting me (“Going to Maine”) know that this exists: a Google map depicting every place ever mentioned in a Mountain Goats song.

For some breathtaking fact-check work, be sure to click on the comments tab.

Tiny defiances

Mary — Mon, 03 May 2010 01:22:33 +0000

Put your phone on silent. Keep it in your bag or in your pocket until you need to make a phone call. Advanced version: turn off the phone.

Think a blazingly accurate and devastating thought about someone more successful than you. Do not type it on the internet.

Make a cake. Not easily-shared, single-serving cutesy units like cupcakes. An entire cake.

Listen to music that does not have words in it.

Carry a book with you at all times, or as often as is practical. (It is practical more often than you think.)

Leave a generous tip for a terrible server when it’s clear he’s having a bad day.

Provide details about the schedule by writing it on a sheet of paper and handing it to the person with whom you are making plans.

Don’t iron your shirt. Do iron your sheets.

Deactivate 25-75% of your RSS feeds and/or Google alerts, especially the ones that include your own name.

Stop feigning interest in holidays that are stressful, overrated, or some combination thereof. Celebrate whatever holidays you damn well please. Next March 18th I plan to celebrate Grover Cleveland’s 174th birthday by denigrating James G. Blaine and eating a pickled herring, a Swiss cheese, and a chop. I imagine I will not be able to find much company for this, but no matter. Tiny defiances lend themselves to solitude more readily than grand defiances, which require a crowd both for impact and recordkeeping purposes.

Busy busy

Mary — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:20:23 +0000

Roaming and/or preparing to roam the East Coast (here and here and here and here and here).
Remembering to renew my Flickr pro account, and therefore taking more photos.
Occasional not-so-secret food tumblring.
Trying to master this once and for all.
Working working working, here and there and elsewhere.
Hotly anticipating the forthcoming Marie Stella album, which needs to be finished asap so I can stop listening to the lo-fi rehearsal recordings on repeat, and also so Morrissey will write Syd a fan letter about that one song where she sings “I don’t need to be twenty-five/because twenty-five is when I was dead,” which will cause her pass out and hit her head on a table, after which she will come to and write a concept album about Acadian migration patterns, which will end up becoming a Broadway rock musical with Kim Deal conducting the pit orchestra, and I would like this process to begin immediately.
Developing this year’s Halloween costume concept, which — I don’t want to give anything away yet — may even surpass the time I dressed as I-495.
Getting pre-winter outdoors time while I can.
Watching “The City” because, ugh, of course.
Coaxing some fires along. Gathering birchbark, if you will.
Being on the internet less than I have to be anyway, for work.

This one’s for you, Saskatchewan

Mary — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 14:30:43 +0000

When someone you miss is an ocean away, approximately 10,000 kilometres from home, and in the throes of a dissertation defense, and battling a Kafka-esque visa misunderstanding, and (just for good measure!) suffering from the swine flu, your first thought — upon noticing that Birthday Season has rolled around — will involve a credit card and an airplane.

But the credit card is on lockdown, and airplanes are expensive, and frankly, you don’t want to catch the swine flu. So you do the next best thing:

You obtain a candle and make some long-distance wishes on a maple frosted.

Here’s hoping they all come true, eh?

A brief tour of midcoast Maine

Mary — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:00:11 +0000

It’s hard to see at this size, but one of those signs says “grilled chicken.” I can’t muster the energy to get worked up about “illegals,” but I do think that people who order grilled chicken at a place like this should be deported, maybe from the planet.

Hark, a seagull. Or a rat in a seagull costume.

Fun fact: In olden times, banner ads were made out of bricks.

The city of Belfast has strong feelings re: literature, and is not afraid to say so via magnetic poetry on a sidewalk board.

The city of Belfast is also rich in history. Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Watch the Frederick Wiseman documentary, if you are interested in a more recent perspective.

Fun fact: Putting elephants atop cinemas is a festive Maine tradition. We switched from gazelles in the mid-1940s.

Here are some guys in makeshift kilts launching a rowboat. Another festive tradition.

Here is why I turn up my nose, literally and metaphorically, at roses from florists.

Maine is not really all that great. The black flies are terrible. The mosquitoes are worse. We got eight feet of snow last winter. I saw a pothole the size of my car just the other day. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice for a visit, but you don’t want to leave the city and move here.

Also the natives are shifty.

VERY exciting news from the world of the internet

Mary — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:53:05 +0000

Speaking of blogs and blogs about things, this evening I learned that my uncle — who is my role model in just about every respect — has been, for some time, contributing to an anonymous group blog. This is may be more interesting if you know that my uncle is an actor whose work you’ve seen, and that some of the other contributors are actors whose work you’ve seen, but none of them are, say, Brangelina-status (yet). Oh, and the point of this blog is (per the uncle) “to mock each other and to mock each other’s careers.” Which is done very cagily, you understand, with secret nicknames and veiled allusions and everything, but the closeups of the royalty checks are not to be missed.

Here you go.

I have already told him that they need to move this business to Tumblr and get a book deal, stat.

One more reason why I love America

Mary — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:01:34 +0000

Yesterday in the car headed north I flipped the radio to the news talk channel, where a Texan preacher was reciting Patrick Henry’s speech to the Virginia delegates, like really emoting it in a quintessentially Texan-preacher fashion, and when he was done the hennish host clucked “Wow, gosh, I am just SO inspired by that,” and then she cut to a commercial, which was for investing all your savings in gold, because gold is safe, because gold is guaranteed by the United States government, which the hennish host had said previously is overrun with Socialists.

Several things I love about America

Mary — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:27:37 +0000

…identify ‘em all and I’ll buy you a hot dog and a box of sparklers.

The only way I’m getting through this monsoon

Mary — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:13:36 +0000

…more?