Sunday Top 10: Some Highlights from the Written Quotes of 2006

Is there a definition of the word "quote"? Like, when does a quote become an "excerpt"? I wish I knew. I wish I knew a lot of things, like: where to find some money, how to turn a fictional character on a TV show into my life partner, why it takes so long on the subway to get from the Upper West to the Upper East.

I started trying to assemble various tid-bits of wit and brilliance from 2006 for my promised TOP TEN QUOTES OF 2006: WRITTEN KIND, and then realized this is exactly the kind of project that I choose to embark upon that prevents me from living a normal life, like the kind of life where I sleep and return phone calls. Although actually no one really calls me anymore. I've trained my people really well. Like before the dinner party, I was getting text messages every 5 seconds (you know, "Should I bring red or white wine?" "What are you wearing?") from all the RSVP'ed attendants, and not a single phone call. Lemmings! That just goes to show what happens if you give a moose a muffin.


(not exactly the) TOP TEN THINGS (but still, close enough) WRITTEN BY PEOPLE IN ANY FORM DURING THE YEAR 2006

I hope my friends like being quoted. Personally, I love having my words on the internet for everyone to see. Or at least that's what I tell myself. To keep on keepin' on.


10. Natalie Raaber, e-mail, Feb. 2006:

"Question. Is it OK to Febreeze my hair?"


9. LupeDeVolga, Gawker commenter, Nov. 2006:

(Re: "By Popular Demand: Susan Sontag's Box Lunch," featuring photograph of Susan Sontag, preggers, which is summarily bashed by the commenters as causing "irreparable psychic damage" and "all that ugly")
"Ummm...so what? It's a picture of a hugely pregnant lady. What's the big deal again?

BTW when did the comments section become "Hot or Not" for every single woman in the public eye?

Yeah, that's right, I said it. See you at the execution."


8. E-mail Exchange. August 2006. Re: "Which Dawson's Creek Character Are You?" online quiz, which I plugged in my blog.

Ingrid:
I'm JOEY on the Dawson's Creek quiz. HOLLA!

Krista:
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

i'm dawson.

Ingrid:
Dawson always had better boobs than Joey, anyway, Krista. And he
probably knows more about etymology, Hegel, and important shit like that.

7. Robin Raisfeld & Rob Patronite, New York Magazine Food Reviewers, September 2006:
From: Milking It: Review of "Max Brenner: Chocolate By the Bald Man"
(To date, this is the only food review I've ever read from start to finish, aside from Lewis Jacob Lyn Bernard's food reviews in the Community High School newspaper circa 1998, and it is also--again, aside from the collected works of LJLB--the only food review to make me literally LOL)

"Like ChikaLicious and Room 4 Dessert, Max Brenner strives to be a dessert destination, and the minuscule café tables tend to be taken by groups of ­diet-be-damned girlfriends yapping away like overstimulated mynah birds, gurgling tots, and sheepish young couples on dates."

"You can order this invigorating libation to go at the takeout bar or in the dining room, where it’s delivered to the table in what your server will describe to you as a “hug mug,” a ceramic cup tapered at one end in such a way as to encourage the drinker to grasp it reverently with both hands the way a frostbitten Swede cuddles his goblet of glogg."


6. Scribe Grrrl, March 2006:

From Scribe Grrl's recap of "The L Word" Season Three, Episode 11: "The Last Dance"

"They hike on some more; Max says he can hear the waterfall, so they must be close. Yeah, well, I can hear your voice: does that mean I'm close to a factory where they make those shrieking golden eggs from the Harry Potter movie?

They get to the waterfall. We know this because we can see it, but also because Jenny says "Hey you guys, look at the waterfall."

They get ready to scatter the ashes. Bette says that Dana is in a peaceful place, but Shane says she doesn't buy "that fucking spiritual bullshit." I can't type up any more of the dialogue because it's just too painful — and I'm not talking about the fact that Dana's dead.

The other sign that you need to stop writing is when even your best actors can't rise above your crappy dialogue. Even Alice's tears seem crocodiley.

So they each scatter some ashes. Hey, hear that music? It's Jane Siberry again. What a waste of her talents.

As they leave, Alice looks back and sees some sort of fairy ghosty angelic tinkerbell (but giant) version of Dana in the waterfall. Please make it stop."


5. Rev. Jen Miller, January 2006:

From "I Did it For Science: Sex and the City Marathon, in which Jen Miller watches all five seasons of Sex and the City in a row, in celebration of the release of the complete series on DVD.

" Do people in Nebraska think this is how New Yorkers live? The women on this show work about as much as Mr. Rogers."

Tanya is a well-informed fan of the show.
"How can she afford an Upper East Side apartment on a writer's salary?" I ask.
"It's rent-controlled and costs only $750 a month," Tanya says.
"My apartment is cheaper than that."
"See, you could be living a life of Manolo Blahniks and you didn't even know it."
"You know what's weird? This all happened before internet dating. People still met in bars."
"And yet they manage to be so slutty without the help of internet dating."
"True. It was tough back then."

You should read the whole thing, it's a funny article. Also I was the intern who was supposed to procure an SATC DVD set and I spent like, 30 hours on hold for no reason. And e-mailing and shit. I think Malaina tried too.


4. Rosie O'Donnell, March 2006:
From "A Rosie is a Rosie is a Rosie," in New York Magazine, from way before the whole View thing was announced...

“I’m always like that Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. You know how there are only, like, twelve of them, and it takes a hundred people in order to get them down the street safely for one day? And they have to all be synchronized and know how to move in unison in order not to let this big, big thing not crash into a pole and kill someone? Kelli's like the main tether. She gets me down the street without killing anybody.”


3. Letter from the Editor of GQ.
I quote things from New York Magazine too much. I would quote any number of the other 5,000 magazines I have read this year, but they have more pages and don't have such fantastic online archives. So I thought I'd try to at least quote one other magazine and there's a GQ with Clive Owen on it (HOT) that I can totally reach without leaving my bed. Here we go:

"Let's just get it out there: Fall is the shit. Unlike spring, which is overrated because it takes too long to happen and then never happens, fall delivers what it promises. Fall says it's going to get cold ad empty-feeling, and guess what: It get's cold and empty-feeling. Fall's a doer. (I've always hated 'spring people' and their trumped-up optimism, those chipper guys who, at first whiff of fifty-degree weather, start..whistling. "Looks like spring has sprung, good buddy." No it hasn't. It's going to rain for eighty-three days. Get used to it.) Spring is a liar; fall is as honest as a watch." (GQ, September 2006)


2. The Costumes of the Day, exercpts from various e-mails, Haviland Stillwell:

December:
i think our next costume night should be "ghetto fabulous". we should do this when heather gets back...she has the ridiculous, gawdy/awesome bling that the younguns wear these days. ;)

November:
we are meeting karen at 44&X at 6:30, The costume for the day is TIPPING THE VELVET. Yeah, I am busting out the pinstripe pants and suspenders, baby. Dress accordingly. (This could involve you as Nan, or as Kitty, or whatever...just run with it...) :)

September, Invite to my Birthday Party to my Friends:
The costume theme for the night is the hottest you've ever looked in your life. :) Think "I want Marie Lyn Bernard to find me absolutely irresistible tonight." :) Only the best for my friend.

August, with Forward of Bruce's Cruise Pics:
i love that someone got a pic of me in my 80s costume!!
(it was clearly the best costume for the day..)

August:
They are aparently beaters with pink writing - on the front it says, "Jill and Adam: Sept 8, 2007" and on the back of mine, it says "maid of honor." Which is amazing, and i'll definitely be wearing it out....what a fun costume! we could have like "ridiculous things our friends make us wear" night!! :) your would be, i don't know, lauren's lacey undies? ;)

May:
my friend is getting married in a few weeks, and this is her sort of "going away for a while" party...and i am frankly scared of venturing into astoria alone!!! and also..i mean, its a THEME party, and we can invent revolutionary costumes...

...and i like you in your cowgirl boots. (there's the real reason, ok?)

1. Scenes from the Collective Breakdown:

Krista, February, e-mail:
i totally miss the ghetto.
i even witnessed a fairly violent robbery yesterday and it didn't help.
everything is too predictable.

Matty, E-mail, March:
I have nothing to do but wait around for people to call me, I am going insane! The high light of my day is whe my mother comes home and I have to drive the car to go and get her. I get to listen to the radio play in the car, they usually have a Led Zepplin set playing when I am on my way there. I like that band alot, I head bob all the way there.

Lo, E-Mail, April:
I had this crazy idea to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond. I know its weird and might drain me of all remaining energy but I thought at least getting new towels would make me feel productive?

Haviland, E-mail, May:
your hotel is f-ing us over, preventing the online
banter between us...it's just like Shakespeare!

Natalie, E-mail, July:
i am working on my thesis right now. and am having my 4 month requisite i-have-no-idea-about what-i-am-doing-in-my -life-right-now-and-basically-i suck! and- i- am -leading- a -mundane,-meaningless- existence freak out.

Krista, e-mail, August 26th:
i have been on hold with the following companies in the past two days:

ikea: 76 minutes (need to turn gift certificate into much needed cash)

t-mobile: five thousand hours (broken brand new $200 phone)

u-haul: three separate phone calls 40 odd minutes each (making, re-making, changing and changing again reservation #496500)

new york sports club: thirty some odd minutes while their computers crashed (trying to cancel my very costly membership seeing as i won't be living here anymore. this was yesterday. as of today they claim their computers will still not allow them to cancel my membership.)

the new york times: 20 minutes four days this week (they want money, the delivery guy forgot to deliver, they have the wrong card on file....blah blah blah)

apple: on hold for all of eternity until i burst into tears gave up and hung up (recalled battery five days before graduate school)

duane mother-fucking reade: on hold for the majority of the best, most beautiful years of my life (as they tried to locate my prescription. and they are all retarded. literally. retarded.)

my doctors office: 18,000 eight minute long calls to leave messages on their machine. you have to listen to all six hundered options before the beep. there is no way to skip ahead to the beep. (trying to send immunization reports to school so they'll let me in the gate)

yale health: 18,000 eight minute phone calls with the receptionist (to see if "said files" have been received)

skagen watch central offices in nevada: seriously. i can't even explain.

every, literally every, used and rare bookstore in this time zone: on hold for the length of time it takes some stodgy librarian type to scroll through antiquated computer systems or, rather, shuffle up and down every cat -pee smelling aisle of books in their basement store in jersey looking for an 800 page theatre history text book that has been out of print since the mid-80s but that i'm going to be tested on on september fifth. (because this faculty is evil and i feel like i'm going through some perverse initiation. no one has it. it is not to be found.)

i swear to god ris when i close my eyes i hear elevator music and
canned recordings telling me "your call is important to us"
little pieces of me die with every 'in the order it was received'
message.

Haviland, E-mail, September 2:
From Stephanie on FULL HOUSE: "I guess when you use something too much,
it just shuts down."
(yep, I just quoted Jodi Sweetin)

Ingrid, Birthday Wishes e-mail, September 23rd:
If you were here I would carve "Wingnuts 4-eva!" in my chest with a razor and then rub ink from a Bic pen all over it just like Marky Mark did for Reese Witherspoon in the classic movie Fear.