The winter days tumble by, one after another in a stupefying daze of cold and wind. Sometimes the only sure way to be sure that time is passing is to check the break room offerings:
Breakroom Clown Salad
All posts by Rebecca
New Year, New Clown Salad
I like to call this “The Party’s Over.”
Taken on the street outside my house on a 1-degree morning.
The Short Stack: January 10
Every Friday, I share  the pop culture, fashion, lit and random blips that were on my radar during the week. Enjoy!Â
Books
Sometimes  you read a book because you’re looking for answers but you’ll only end up with more questions when you read The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell. I first saw The Room in 2009 and it replaced Deep Blue Sea as my favorite terrible movie –  I got my prized DVD signed by Tommy Wiseau at a midnight screening at the Uptown Theater in Minneapolis. After reading this book I want to know:  what does Tommy think of it? And is he ever going to make that vampire movie? Could he please, please be on The Bachelor?
Look deep into my eyes:
A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 is only the first volume of this new biography and the brick is 1056 pages long. This is my beach read for 2014 since I plan to spend a lot of time working on my tan. I mean a lot of time. If I want a shorter, trashier read I’ll go with Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations.
Just finished Johnny Carson by his lawyer Henry Bushkin. Ultimately a sad portrait of a tormented man but Bushkin is equally as pathetic, giving up his family to trail around after Johnny like a puppy. Lots of boring details about their business dealings, not enough juicy Ed McMahon tidbits. Also question Bushkin’s taste in girlfriends: Joyce DeWitt and Mary Hart (from Entertainment Tonight?). Yick.
Fashion
I first looked at the book (un)fashion a couple of years ago, after I learned that Maira Kalman, one of my favorite illustrators, put it together with her husband. It’s a strange collection of, well, Â unfashion photos from around the world that seem random at first except for the one or two word headings they’re grouped by, like “headgear” and “wedding.” I couldn’t stop thinking about it the book so I checked it out from the library again, trying to decode its message. I think maybe fashion can only be headed this way, into a disjointed but global, ethnic, freestyle vibe. Unfashion is the next, last, thing.
So in 2014 I’ll try to start cultivating my look of plaid pants, shawl, basket hat and mask now so as to be part of the first wave. The look is hard to explain but there’s something to this sweater:
Or this headgear:
On the other hand, can someone bring riding habits back for, like, everyday wear, no horse required?
Crafting Front
I’m trying to figure out if there is some way to make macrame truly cool. In my quest I spent a lot of time on etsy, where I stumbled into a nest of hundreds of macrame owls. Why the owl? Why no other animal?? I want to buy them all and make one gigantic exhibit.
OK, here is one thing you can do with macrame knots that could kick some ass.
If you’re looking for a craft project, ornamental knots (I wish I was “respected internationally” for my knotting skills) offer some potential coolness. Rock an ornamental knot necklace with your cape and rag & bone jeans with your hair tied up in a rag and you got it – unfashion!
Places To Be
On January 29, Jake Rudh’s Transmission at the Varsity Theater is a tribute to Bowie. Start crafting your costume immediately.
Random
Um… who is in this photo and is it really possible for breasts to be this far apart and this perky at the same time?? Doesn’t even look like the blowsy Brit we’ve come to know and love. This looks like some woman named Candy waiting for her curtain call in Vegas Atlantic City Des Moines. But that “Work B**ch?” Very fine tune for running.
It may be 2014 but Homey still don’t play that.
The Short Stack: January 3, 2014
Every Friday, I share  the pop culture, fashion, lit and random blips that were on my radar during the week. Enjoy!Â
Stuff To Do
When I was in Chicago last spring, one of the best things I saw was the Vivian Maier photography exhibit at the Chicago History Museum. Maier was a nanny in the suburbs of Chicago who took photos in her spare time – thousands of them. She was a street photographer who could put many professionals to shame – but no one knew while she was alive. Now Minneapolis is going to have a Maier exhibit of its own when the Minneapolis Photography Center opens Vivian Maier: Out of the Shadows this month. Exhibit preview night ($25)  is Friday, January 17 and features a book signing and talks with author Richard Cahan and Jeffrey Goldstein, owner of the collection. Free opening reception is Friday, January 24. Cool documentary screening is Saturday, January 25.
Articulture in the Seward neighborhood is having a Bad Drawing class for adults. About bloody time. I don’t know about you but I have a lot of bad drawings in me. Starts January 23.
If you’re fancy, you can take a bronze casting class at MCAD through their continuing ed program. How f’ing cool would you be? Starts February 12. Someone please cast a raccoon penis.
Aaaaand, you may as well mark your calendar now with a reminder to leave work early on April 9 in order to snag some seats for An Evening with Novelist David Mitchell at Northrop at the UofM. Cuz it’s free and open to the public and there are a lot of Cloud Atlas fans in these here parts. Although all the cool kids will ask him about Black Swan Green.
Things Floating Through My Mind
Hand of Fatima. Also known as hamsa. Get jiggy with it. Â It’s said that the fingers of the hand can poke or pluck out the evil eye. Don’t we all need that in our lives?
I was at the airport recently and a guy walked by me wearing a Keith Haring t-shirt – black raglan sleeves (you really like clothes if you know what a raglan sleeve is), gray shirt featuring the image of the heart being held up by the Haring-esque people.
You ever have one of those moments when you go from having no desire for something at all, Â because you don’t even know if exits, to wanting it so bad it’s all you think about? Heavy googling led me to the knowledge that the shirt was made by OBEY and that it’s sold out everywhere because it came out in Fall of ’12. Yeah, eBay is my new best friend.
What was Annie Lennox thinking when she did this to her face for the Freddie Mercury tribute concert and why does it look so awesome? And why don’t we talk more about how awesome Annie is in general? This is my new look for the grocery store.
I have decided something about the 1980s. It was a time of outstanding sunglasses. Or, as the French would say, les lunettes fantastiques!
 But then the 80s also gave us L.A. Gear, so go figure.
I’ve never read The Group by Mary McCarthy. Or The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe. I need to get going on my ensemble-cast novels from the 1950s and 60s, people!
Don’t even get me started on Tori Spelling. Ripping my way through her first book even though I made a promise to myself back in 2009 I would never do that. Well, the hell with 2009! I already put her second book on hold at the library. What, did you think I was going to pay for that shit?
Anyway, if you need a good cry going into the new year or just cuz its Friday and the weather sux so bad… spend a minute or two missing Freddie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9ICO-RfjAU
Local News Clown Salad
World’s Biggest Biceps clown salad… As seen on TV.
The 12 Dog Days of Christmas, Part 1
On the first day of Christmas, my human gave to me…
A fat squirrel in a small tree.
On the second day of Christmas, my human gave to me…
Two hunks of cheese
And a fat squirrel in a small tree.
On the third day of Christmas, my human gave to me…
Three cat turds
Two hunks of cheese
And a fat squirrel in a small tree.
On the fourth day of Christmas, my human gave to me…
Four falling pizzas
Three cat turds
Two hunks of cheese
And a fat squirrel in a small tree.
On the fifth day of Christmas, my human gave to me…
FIVE GOL-DEN FRIES!!!
Four falling pizzas
Three cat turds
Two hunks of cheese
And a fat squirrel in a small tree.
On the sixth day of Christmas, my human gave to me…
Six scrambled eggs
FIVE GOL-DEN fries
Four falling pizzas
Three cat turds
Two hunks of cheese
And a fat squirrel in a small tree…
Clown Salad In the Locker Room
A Collection of Atrocities Committed in Men’s Locker Rooms at Gyms in Middle America
[There are no illustrations to accompany this post and soon you will be thanking me for that.]
*As reported by Keith Pille and Matt Waite
Sweaty, paunchy dude walking around the locker room naked, walks past a bin of dirty towels, shrugs, reaches in, grabs one, and starts wiping himself down.
Man blow-drying his balls with the wall-mounted hand dryer.
Old man applying some kind of liniment that smelled like cat piss.
Went to take sweater out of locker while getting dressed after working out only to find a nasty, used Q-tip left inside the locker by some sick fuck stuck to it.
Old man clipping nasty, thick yellow toenails and leaving them on the carpet. Bonus: he clips too close and starts bleeding. Another variation: old, naked man bent over clipping his toenails while pointing the wrong end at you as you walk in the door.
Old naked men watching Fox News – my God, do they watch Fox News in resplendent wrinkly nakedness. Or sports. One guy sat butt nekkid watching Oprah.
The Naked Man Gossip Circle. Talking. Laughing. Naked.
An oldie but goodie from the Bally Total Fitness days: old man taking a shower and using his tighty whiteys as a washcloth.
Old man sleeping naked on locker room couch.
Man shaving in steam room, just tapping the razor onto the bench tiles after each pass so that his hairs are scattered there. Bonus: he leaves the razor in the steam room.
Old naked man eating a bag of potato chips… naked… in the locker room… at the gym. Why, God, why?
Old men spritzing their balls with cologne… Septuagenarians hosing themselves down with Axe Body Spray.
Note: Although I’ve worked out at various gyms and taken many exercise classes throughout the years, I was not able to come up with anything from a women’s locker room that would rival these anecdotes (I did once have a disturbing encounter with a woman who was having some sort of mental break while in an empty studio, stretching, but that’s another story) So, are women just cleaner? More courteous? More inhibited? If you have a woman’s locker room atrocity to share, comment!
2014: Bringing Clown Salad Back
2014 is the Year of Clown Salad
Here’s today’s pic:
So, what’s clown salad? Back in 2011, I described it this way:
- Any time you see one of those plastic teeth flossers lying in a gutter or on the sidewalk, that’s total clown salad.
- A band-aid floating in a pool is clown salad.
- Mel Gibson is clown salad. So is Brett Favre, apparently.
- When you get trapped trying to exit a parking ramp after a big event lets out, that’s total clown salad. As you sit in your car, inching forward, you may say to your companions, “Will you look at this clown salad?”
- Twinkies are not clown salad but those circus peanut candies are.
- The Twilight movies are clown salad. Scott Baio is also clown salad.
To update this list for 2014 I would like to add:
- Most sad, abandoned things you find on the ground (except money) are clown salad.
- Any shoe you see on the side of the highway is clown salad.
- People who write checks in the grocery store check-out lane are clown salad. Double clown salad: they don’t start writing it out until they get their total.
- Pumping gas in below zero temps is clown salad, especially if the sad man in the Buick LaSabre one pump over is sitting in his car scratching lottery cards.
- That duck hunting family of rubes who have a reality show are clown salad.
- Otis Spunkmeyer muffins are clown salad.
- The real name for ham salad or, heaven forbid, beef salad, is clown salad. Seriously, don’t eat that stuff.
Be on the lookout for clown salad and you’ll start to see it everywhere. Think of it as a zen experience – you are merely noting and documenting the clown salad. YOU ARE NOT THE CLOWN SALAD.
Got a photo you want to share? Send to reebs73 at gmail dot com.
Little Xmas Friends
This is the first time I’ve had a Christmas tree in many a year. We went fraser fur, yo. I’m lovin’ that fresh scent! When I was going through my box of ornaments I realized I have a lot of wooden ones from the 1970s. They got their own photo shoot before going up on the tree. 
Bad Art Night
Keith and I had a Bad Art Night. His art… well… it was so bad he didn’t even finish it. But no judgments! I did a painting/collage combo that I call ELLA-NYC.
Ella was my cat. Now she’s immortalized in art!