Traitor! I wish upon you, Alopecia!

The Caveman breaks Miss Stacia's heart.

The Inevitable Comparison?

The Bonz throws in her two cents in an office email:


"Look! It's stacey on experimental fashion friday!"

Experimental Fashion Friday

My office has a corporate casual dress code that aggravates my pinstripe allergy and fuels my aversion to garments requiring ironing and dry cleaning. Perhaps it’s because I’m a temp, perhaps it’s because I never want to be mistaken for your typical office drone, perhaps its because the rules of workplace dress are, in my opinion, kind of ridiculous and passé, but the implicit stiffness of corporate attire provokes my fashion rebelliousness.

Since the company I work for hasn’t even adopted “Casual Friday” as a reprieve from the inanity of A-line skirts and cable-knit sweaters, I’ve implemented my own weekly fashion recess. Deeming the last workday of the week “Experimental Fashion Friday,” I have begun to integrate funky items that have no conventional role in the corporate uniform into my Friday ensembles with the hope of creating looks that are both adventurous and felicitous to cubicle servitude. About 5 or 6 experimental ensembles have been pulled together (usually on Friday morning with about ten minutes to catch the crosstown bus) with mixed results. Truth be told, there have been a few more hideous, clashy misses than visionary, trendsetting moments, including “The Purple Outfit,” an eyesore-inspiring combination of a hyperpatterned green and purple lycra dress, a purple velvet blazer and mahogany (purple enough to matchy-match) knee-high boots. The Eggplant Overkill was the first official outfit in the EFF repertoire and even in my most hung over future EFF moments, it will be difficult to top.

I am going to try and document future Experimental Fashion Friday ensembles here on Collections are Dangerous. Feel free to let me know what you think. Success or miserable failure? Either way, be sure I’m having a hell of a lot more fun in whatever freakish combo I’m sporting than I would be in a fucking button-down:

Gawgeous!

I also just realized that I unintentionally got dressed for temple this morning:



You know you’ve been infected with Modern Jew Pride when you mistake synagogue chic for corporate casual.

Face it Miss Stacia, you’re a Jewey Jew.

First, there’s the headline. Then there’s the focus of this article on a charity event produced by JEWCY, the Semeticentric fashion and lifestyle company for which I used to do PR. Add in the commentary by Jackie Hoffman (I worked on a benefit show earlier this year in which she was featured) and the requisite quotes from Melville’s very own Rabbi Gellman, whose breath at my bat mitzvah service rivaled the onions in the cocktail hour herring, and you get one too many high-profile-Jew links for comfort in this game of Six Degrees of Stacia Jonesberg.

Today's Corrections:

In yesterday's Corporate Eats column entitled "Never As Good As The First Time," regarding her sampling of a sub-par second-day cupcake from the Buttercup Bakeshop Miss Stacia Jones wrote, "In spite of my complaints, for the love of the cupcake, I'd do it again tomorrow."

Upon surveying today's day-three cupcake stash, Ms. Jones has retracted this statement. She reportedly peeked in the Buttercup box around 9:15 this morning and immediately recoiled in disgust proclaiming, "Not for a million dollars. These things could kill someone."

Ms. Jones is, however, accepting donations of fresh baked goods, from Buttercup or elsewhere, for blissful consumption and future review in her column.

Corporate Eats: The Holiday Cupcake

Never As Good As The First Time

Isn't it the curse of corporate-sponsored food flow that the workplace is blessed with an overabundance of treats one day and left to wither in snacktime drought the next?

Anxiously awaiting rumored Popcorn Factory deliveries, the gourmet spreads of yesterday but a crumbly memory, I was forced to curb today's mid-afternoon sweets craving with a questionable second-day Buttercup cupcake. Admittedly unimpressed with the bakery's freshest offerings, I was not surprised to find that by 2:30 this afternoon, yesterday's dense chocolate cake had taken on a texture mildly akin to sawdust. The icing, congealed and crusty from overnight exposure to Citi air, retained the harsh, acidic flavor of tarnished metal, presumably the biproduct of the freakishly unnatural (as in, "Should I really be eating that?") Christmas food coloring. The hardened sugar did seem to have less tooth-staining power on the second day, a major plus considering my desire to conceal the scarfing of a cupcake significantly compromised in quality.

The sad reality: In spite of my complaints, for the love of the cupcake, I'd do it again tomorrow.

Hit that spot.

Start reading Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs while listening to Amadou & Mariam's Dimanche à Bamako the next time you board the crosstown bus.

Miss Stacia’s Hanukkah Wish List: The Christian Edition

For some reason I think Mama and Papa Jones will have trouble throwing down for:

The Metal Bible: I’ve been saying for years that it would be beneficial for me to give the Bible a once-over and you can’t beat an edition that lends you teen-punk credibility while transforming God’s word into a handy tool for striking down sinners on the subway platform.

The Jesus Dashboard Dazzler: You would think this item would be totally useless for a car less, Jewish city-dweller, but the thought of sticking this sucker to my work computer and monitoring the resulting confusion and unease makes me think it would be worth the $7.95.

A Chastity Ring: I know it’s a little late for this, but I’m willing to go Born-Again-V for the privilege of donning a sweet wedding “placeholder” and throwing a promise ring ceremony complete with laser light show. Even Mitzvahpalooza didn’t have one of those.

N.B. Read the article on the growing popularity of chastity rings in today's Times. You won't be sorry.

All Hail King Howard

I’ve always felt an allegiance to Howard Stern, “king of all media,” champion of strippers and "retards" alike. Although many refuse to accept or acknowledge his talents, Howard is one of the most successful entertainers in history. He is one of the few in the business who speaks from brutal honesty and truly does what he wants, sometimes to be funny, sometimes for the sake of making a finer point, sometimes just to be contradictory for the fuck of it – it really doesn’t matter. The man sticks to his instincts – perhaps all you can rely on in the business of causing controversy – and rides them for dear life through a sea of midgets, crackwhores and 40-year-old virgins. The Robert Crumb of talk radio, Howard has an eye for the freakish, the perverted and the intriguingly disturbing. He’s simply trying to bring his circus together and will finally get to do so, under a bigger tent with no FCC restrictions, this coming January. I have been waiting for this since the days of my crap-ass Long Island commute and I’m not the only member of the infamously warped Jones family who has been counting down the days.

The media blitz that inevitably trumpets upcoming celebrity projects irritates me, even if the attention is lavished on someone I adore (last month’s suffocating coverage of Sarah Silverman spoiled just about every good joke in Jesus is Magic), but I will probably end up reading every last article on Howard and his Sirius debut. You should start with this week’s excellent profile in New York Magazine while I ex today off the calendar and attempt to rationalize a $300 purchase in anticipation of the triumphant return of “Anal Ring Toss.”

See What Dazrazzle Sees

This past Thursday, the sublime Dazrazzle and I attended one of the last performances of See What I Want to See, a two-act play based on the stories of Ryunosuke Akutagawa, at the East Village’s Public Theater. The production starred, among others, Idina Menzel, who won a Tony as the Wicked Witch of the West in Wicked and played Maureen in both the Broadway and recent film productions of RENT. Although it made perfect sense, Daz and I were quite startled to have an A-grade celebrity sighting at the show and as a shameless media/gossip junkie I began to compose a mental checklist immediately upon recognition for my very first Gawker Stalker entry. Friday morning I sat down at my desk at 8:30 on the nose and drafted a succinct summary of the encounter:

I was standing outside the Public Theater last night around 7:45 talking to a friend about RENT, the movie, waiting to see one of the final performances of See What I Want to See featuring Idina Menzel (Maureen from RENT) when Rosario Dawson walked past us and into the theater to support her co-star. My friend had just finished dispensing her opinion that "Rosario was obviously the weakest voice in the cast." Smooth timing on that. The big-screen Mimi was simply dressed in jeans and knee-high shearling boots and has an absolutely beautiful face. She was also sporting funky black hipster frames à la Colin Meloy and a chic, short haircut. She was very laid back and friendly and seemed to know a lot of people working at the theater.

I left out the part about Daz’s constant hyperventilating (“Stacey, I’m still a bridge-and-tunneler. I’m not used to this!”) and our hushed bathroom gossiping about the absence of Jason Lewis (only to find Miss Dawson at the end of the bathroom line - again, the timing...). Those tidbits I planned on reserving for the elite members of my blog readership circle. Turns out that my Gawker posting may be viewed only by the eyes of Miss Stacia fans as well because Gawker’s server keeps rejecting my damn email. So much for my Gawker Stalking dreams.

A few words about the show: Daz and I bought tickets the day of (for only $25! God bless the undated student ID…) and ended up with partial-view seats that were actually pretty amazing. The theater is a high, open space with a rectangular stage, flanked by the audience on three sides. Daz and I sat stage right, second row and our view was blocked only by a slim and fairly navigable support pole. Until the start of the second act that is.

The two acts opened with Idina and her lover in traditional Japanese robes seductively singing, purring and groping through numbers called “Kesa” and “Morito” (referring to the lovers’ names). Each song opened with the title character fondly describing to the audience the night on which he/she “kissed my lover for the last time,” and built to a striking climax in which passion and life peak and die in the same instant. These happened to be my favorite numbers of the show, partially because of the bewitching melody and flawless vocal performance of the actors, partially because of the passionately executed, sexual choreography (Side note to Idina: I’ve never seen anyone perform on his/her back with such impressive range. Bravo.). While singing, Kesa and Morito entangled their bodies on top of two deep rouge curtains that hung from the back corner of one side of the ceiling and draped forward diagonally across the stage, underneath the actors' twisted bodies. The effect of the fabric was quite dramatic, suggestive of bold, simplistic Eastern aesthetics when hung, and fluid as a bloodstained river when yanked down at the end of each act’s opening song. Too bad Daz and I were caught behind the curtain at the beginning of the second act. Hence the true nature of the partial-view classification:




The blockage only lasted a couple minutes and was probably even preferable to the raunchiness of Kesa and Morito’s forbidden liaison for the Daz who, unlike her crude companion, tends to get a bit squirmy around such displays. But most of the partial-view crew was less than thrilled by the crimson partition, however temporary. As the curtains were hoisted to the ceiling in front of us during intermission Daz’s flamboyant and overly social neighbor cracked a groan-worthy, “Instead of See What I Want To See, they should call this play, Can't See What I Want To See.” Har har har.

The rest of the night was chock full of the usual amusements including a barrage of quips from Daz about her heritage (“I feel ashamed. What Jew hasn’t seen Fiddler?”), her out-of-control Law and Order addiction (“I think I recognize that guy from Law and Order! Oh my god it says here the other guy was on Law and Order too! I’ve totally seen that episode!”), and her uncontrollable disgust at one actor’s inability to control his body’s various secretions (“He spits on EVERY syllable Stacey.”).

To be fair: The spitting actor – who also starred in both Mighty Ducks sequel blockbusters, D2 and D3 – could not get a sound out without projectile spitting all over his audience and co-stars. Not to mention the disturbingly sweaty (as in dripping onto his partner’s bare chest) sex scene. Poor wet, slimy Idina.

That's pretty fucking big.

Once upon a time I teased the existence of photos comparing the world's largest banana to Sally, the office Barbie doll. After months of twiddling my thumbs in ignorance, I finally figured out how to free these glorious images from the undeserved isolation of my cellphone memory bank for your viewing pleasure. I recommend you take a step or two back from the computer, take a moment to really get a handle on the size of your average Barbie doll, and revel in how a simple girl ever wielded a fruit this large.