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Book Talk: Bright Shiny Morning, Mississippi Sissy, and Later, At The Bar, Plus More Manchattan

A few years ago, when James Frey's A Million Little Pieces came out and started generating considerable buzz, I put the book on my wish list and fully intended on reading it. Then the Smoking Gun piece came out, exposing parts of the book as fabrications, and then Oprah put on her very special attack weave and cleaved Frey apart on national television after first defending him on Larry King only days before. (Remember how O's hair veritably quivered as she delivered her proclamations and accusations? Faced with that hair I would have crumbled and shut down, too, much as Frey seemed to do. I mean, who could have withstood that hair and withering stare?)

Like many Americans, I think, I thought, "He lied to Oprah! He lied to all of us!" and quietly took A Million Little Pieces off the ol' wish list and didn't expect to hear much, if anything, from him again.

But then this year something changed. Vanity Fair wrote a fascinating profile of Frey, opening up the question if perhaps Frey got treated a little unfairly (um, because who again was irreparably harmed by Frey's exaggerations?) at the same time that some very positive reviews popped up for his third book, and his first novel, Bright Shiny Morning.

I was intrigued after reading the Vanity Fair piece and a few different rave reviews for his new book, so I took a chance and got my hands on a copy of his book. And I'm very, very glad that I did.

Bright Shiny Morning is an epic warts-and-all exploration (plenty of warts, rest assured) of the city of Los Angeles and it's denizens told through an ensemble cast of characters (and other characters who merely make appearances and then disappear), wound around occasional background historical information about Los Angeles. What emerges, however, is a fine and rich fabric of storytelling, interestingly hewn from characters who could largely be seen as stereotypes (a Mexican maid, two teenagers fresh from Ohio, a closeted Hollywood star, a homeless guy, etc.), but whose treatment of the characters is full-bodied and fulfilling, and left me feeling invested in their lives immediately.

A few things to note: Frey doesn't indent paragraphs, he doesn't put dialog in quotations, and he uses commas when he pleases (and quite often it does not please him to do so). But somehow, all things considered, the book totally worked for me. I finished the 500-page tome in a matter of days, unable to put it down, always wondering what would happen next and wanting to return to James Frey's Los Angeles (albeit from a safe distance).

A smattering of negative reviews have surfaced now, and like many people seem to feel about the man James Frey people also seem to feel about this book -- there is love or there is hate, and there doesn't seem to be much in between. The Los Angeles Times was particularly cruel, perhaps unnecessarily so, but then again the book wasn't entirely kind to the city of Los Angeles, so maybe all is fair at the end of the day.

Bottom Line: Bright Shiny Morning is one of the best books I've read this year. Definitely consider checking it out.

I picked up the New York Times Notable Book Later, At The Bar on the recommendation of a friend, and I'm glad I did. Later is a novel comprised of short stories that unfold in small town New York, following the lives of the patrons of a local bar. Author Rebecca Barry perfectly captures the locals as they drink, make merry (or at least try to be merry, with varying degrees of success), love and long for love. Barry turns up the humanity of her characters as the book comes to a close in the kind of subtle-yet-clear way that makes you realize why The New York Times took notice in the first place.

Congratulations to author Kevin Sessums who took home a Lambda Literary Award this year for his memoir Mississippi Sissy. (Check out our interview with Kevin here.) We look forward to reading the follow-up.

If you just can't get enough Joshness, click over to the wonderfully irreverent podcast Manchattan where I recently took a turn as a guest host (and perhaps said too much--oops!).

--Josh H.

Josh & Josh Interview: Christopher Rice Discusses Blind Fall, His Latest Bestselling Novel

Last week Josh and I sat down with author Christopher Rice (yes, the son of iconic horror writer Anne Rice) and talked with him about his latest New York Times-bestselling thriller, Blind Fall, and about the death threats he's since received due to some of the book's content.

Kind of fun, right? Josh and I love our new gig hosting Towleroad TV. We're workin' away on our next interview and can't wait to bring it to you.

More soon!

J&J

Floating Alone in the Orchid Boat

Last night I went to see my impossibly talented and handsome friend Noah Michelson read a few of his brilliantly sadistic poems at a reading for The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to Present, just released this month by Scribner. Totally the best Valentine's Day ever.

A few things I learned: 1) Not all poetry is boring. 2) Sex is inherently funny. 3) "Floating alone in the orchid boat" is a bygone Chinese euphemism for clitoral self-simulation.

Here is one of my favorite poems from last night:

On Reading Poorly Transcribed Erotica
by Jill Alexander Essbaum

She stood before him wearing only pantries
and he groped for her Volvo under the gauze.
She had saved her public hair, and his cook
went hard as a fist.  They fell to the bad.
He shoveled his duck into her posse
and all her worm juices spilled out.
Still, his enormous election raged on.
Her beasts heaved as he sacked them,
and his own nibbles went stuff as well.
She put her tong in his rear and talked ditty.
Oh, it was all that he could do not to comb.

Amazing.

//Josh K.

Vanity Fair Does Emoticons; Plus, Amy Winehouse, Adele, Beth Hart, and What We're Reading Now

I love Vanity Fair. I devour it every month when it arrives in the mail.

The February cover features Shia LeBeouf and Harrison Ford, promoting their summer flick Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, from director Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

(No better time than the present to start promoting summer blockbusters, hmmm? This is also the second Vanity Fair cover in less than a year for Shia LeBeouf, who is set to rack up back-to-back summer hits after last year's enormously successful Transformers.)

One thing that caught my eye about the article, however (besides the hot shot of Cate Blanchett in costume for the film), was Vanity Fair's decision to use -- gasp! -- an emoticon in the Indiana Jones story.

Emoticons seem somewhat innocuous, but their adoption into the popular lexicon has been hotly debated everywhere from the New York Times to various style and usage guides, weighing in on the appropriateness and the hows and whens of using the little smiley faces and their variations.

VF jumped on the emoticon bandwagon, for what I believe to be the first time ever, with this passage:

"What Lucas says--and he won't say more--seems to support earlier Internet speculation that the scenes filmed in New Mexico may be set at Area 51 . . . No one outside of the filmmakers will know for sure until May 22, but it would be pretty cool if it turns out that Emperor Palpatine had dropped a crystal skull on Earth. Or maybe one was left behind by the skinny dudes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Or maybe it's, like, E.T.'s cell phone. :)"

--Vanity Fair, February 2008, p. 169

I think it's kind of fun, but I'm guessing there will be some folks who're pissed and think this is the beginning of the end.

Emoticons: Love 'em, hate 'em, or live with 'em? Do tell.

Music: Now Listening

Embattled singer Amy Winehouse and her hot mess of a life are currently on display everywhere from the gossip blogs to the covers of British tabs (in which she's shown allegedly smoking crack on surveillance video). Her record label, perhaps noting that Amy may not be able to get back into the studio soon, recently released Back to Black: The B-Sides, an accompaniment to last year's multi-Grammy-nominated Back to Black. Since our discovery of B-Sides, the track "To Know Him Is To Love Him" has been playing nonstop on our iTunes. Check it out.

Another singer from the United Kingdom has recently quietly made her way to the music forefront, and she's garnering comparisons to Amy Winehouse (among others), minus the drama. Adele and her song "Hometown Glory" are racking up hits on YouTube, and a record deal is sure to be announced soon. Josh and I will be hitting download when her album finally drops. Check out "Hometown Glory" below.

For some reason this week Beth Hart's "L.A. Song" bit us in the ass and we had to listen to it multiple times. The live version (as seen below) is now available for download on iTunes, too, and rest assured we've been rocking that one as well. The song is a few years old, but somehow we think it's ready for a little revisiting. (Note if you're at work: Brief explicit language in the middle of the song.)

Now Reading

Josh H. is reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

Josh K. is reading The Terror by Dan Simmons.

Newly On Our Bookshelves

Dog Years by Mark Doty and The Known World by Edward P. Jones.

Josh & Josh: The Best Books We Read in 2007

Josh and I love books and are avid readers. We read almost 40 books this year and want to share with you a selection of the dozen best books we read in 2007.

Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen

What Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage--tracing the intricacies (not to mention the economics) of 19th-century British mating rituals with a sure hand and an unblinking eye. As usual, Austen trains her sights on a country village and a few families--in this case, the Bennets, the Philips, and the Lucases. Into their midst comes Mr. Bingley, a single man of good fortune, and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who is even richer. Mrs. Bennet, who married above her station, sees their arrival as an opportunity to marry off at least one of her five daughters. Jane Austen considered her character Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay | Michael Chabon

Like the comic books that animate and inspire it, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is both larger than life and yet of it, too. Complete with golems and magic and miraculous escapes and evil nemeses and even hand-to-hand Antarctic battle, it pursues the most important questions of love and war, dreams and art, across pages brimming with longing and hope. Samuel Klayman--self-described little man, city boy, and Jew--first meets Josef Kavalier when his mother shoves him aside in his own bed, telling him to make room for their cousin, a refugee from Nazi-occupied Prague. It's the beginning, however unlikely, of a beautiful friendship. The whole enterprise seems animated by love: for Chabon's alternately deluded, damaged, and painfully sincere characters; for the quirks and curious innocence of tough-talking wartime New York; and, above all, for comics themselves. Far from negating such pleasures, the Holocaust's presence in the novel only makes them more pressing. (With a surprise gay plotline for one character.)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell | Susanna Clarke

It's 1808 and that Corsican upstart Napoleon is battering the English army and navy. Enter Mr. Norrell, a fusty but ambitious scholar from the Yorkshire countryside and the first practical magician in hundreds of years. What better way to demonstrate his revival of British magic than to change the course of the Napoleonic wars? Susanna Clarke's ingenious first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, has the cleverness and lightness of touch of the Harry Potter series, but is less a fairy tale of good versus evil than a fantastic comedy of manners, complete with elaborate false footnotes, occasional period spellings, and a dense, lively mythology teeming beneath the narrative.

Middlesex | Jeffrey Eugenides

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." And so begins Middlesex, the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the "roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time." The odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and haunting 1993 debut, The Virgin Suicides, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory. Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history, from a fateful union in a small town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story to modern-day Berlin. When you get to the end of this splendorous book, you may resist finishing it just so that this wondrous, magical novel might never end.

Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini

In his debut novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini accomplishes what very few contemporary novelists are able to do. He manages to provide an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political turmoil -- in this case, Afghanistan -- while also developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional triumphs resonate with readers long after the last page has been turned over. The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever. Hosseini has created characters that seem so real that one almost forgets that The Kite Runner is a novel and not a memoir. Hosseini offers an honest, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, but always heartfelt view of a fascinating land.

The Devil In The White City | Erik Larson

Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such drama that readers may find themselves checking the book's categorization to be sure that The Devil in the White City is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. In a short period of time, Burnham was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book seems like an odd choice, but it works. The magical appeal and dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's writing.

Atonement | Ian McEwan

We meet 13-year-old Briony Tallis in the summer of 1935, as she attempts to stage a production of her new drama "The Trials of Arabella" to welcome home her older, idolized brother, Leon. But she soon discovers that her cousins aren't up to the task, and directorial ambitions are abandoned as more interesting prospects of preoccupation come onto the scene. The charlady's son, Robbie Turner, appears to be forcing Briony's sister Cecilia to strip in the fountain and sends her obscene letters; Leon has brought home a dim chocolate magnate keen for a war to promote a new chocolate bar; and upstairs, Briony's migraine-stricken mother keeps tabs on the house from her bed. Soon, secrets emerge that change the lives of everyone present. At its heart, Atonement is about the pleasures, pains, and dangers of writing, and perhaps even more, about the challenge of controlling what readers make of your writing. McEwan shouldn't have any doubts about readers of Atonement: this is a thoughtful, provocative, and at times moving book that will have readers applauding.

The Emperor's Children | Claire Messud

Marina Thwaite, Danielle Minkoff and Julian Clarke were buddies at Brown, certain that they would soon do something important in the world. But as all near 30, Danielle is struggling as a TV documentary maker, and Julius is barely surviving financially as a freelance critic. Marina, the startlingly beautiful daughter of celebrated journalist and hob-nobber Murray Thwaite, is living with her parents on the Upper West Side, unable to finish her book titled The Emperor's Children Have No Clothes (on how changing fashions in children's clothes mirror changes in society). Two arrivals upset the group stasis: Ludovic, a fiercely ambitious Aussie who woos Marina, and Murray's nephew, Frederick "Bootie" Tubb, an idealistic college dropout who is determined to live the life of a New York intellectual. Messud is wickedly observant of pretensions "intellectual, sexual, class and gender." Her writing is so fluid, and her plot so cleverly constructed, that events seem inevitable, yet the narrative is ultimately surprising and masterful as a contemporary comedy of manners.

Little Children | Tom Perrotta

The characters in this intelligent, absorbing tale of suburban angst are constrained and defined by their relationship to children. There's Sarah, an erstwhile bisexual feminist who finds herself an unhappy mother and wife. There's Todd, a handsome ex-jock and stay-at-home dad known to neighborhood housewives as the Prom King, who finds in house-husbandry and reveries about his teenage glory days a comforting alternative to his wife's demands that he pass the bar and get on with a law career. There's Mary Ann, an uptight supermom who schedules sex with her husband every Tuesday at nine and already has her well-drilled four-year-old on the inside track to Harvard. And there's Ronnie, a pedophile whose return from prison throws the school district into an uproar, and his mother, May, who still harbors hopes that her son will turn out well after all. Perrotta proves himself an expert at exploring the roiling psychological depths beneath the placid surface of suburbia.

The Subtle Knife | Philip Pullman

With The Golden Compass Philip Pullman garnered every accolade under the sun. Could the second installment of his trilogy keep up this pitch? The Subtle Knife offers everything we could have wished for, and more. For a start, there's a young hero--from our world--who is a match for Lyra and whose destiny is every bit as shattering. As the novel opens, Will's enemies will do anything for information about his missing father. Now Will must get his mother into safe seclusion and make his way toward Oxford, which may hold the key to John Parry's disappearance. Throughout, Pullman is in absolute control of his several worlds, his plot and pace equal to his inspiration. Any number of astonishing scenes -- small- and large-scale -- will have readers on edge, and many are cause for tears. It is Philip Pullman's gift to turn what quotidian minds would term the impossible into a reality that is both heartbreaking and beautiful.

Our #1 Book Picks for 2007:

Josh H: Call Me By Your Name | Andre Aciman

Seventeen-year-old Elio faces yet another lazy summer at his parents' home on the Italian coast. As in years past, his family will host a young scholar for six weeks, someone to help Elio's father with his research. Oliver, the handsome American visitor, charms everyone he meets with his cavalier manner. Elio's narrative dwells on the minutiae of his meandering thoughts and growing desire for Oliver. What begins as a casual friendship develops into a passionate yet clandestine affair. Elio recalls the events of that summer and the years that follow in a voice that is by turns impatient and tender. He expresses his feelings with utter candor, sharing with readers his most private hopes, urges, and insecurities. The intimacy Elio experiences with Oliver is unparalleled and awakens in the protagonist an intensity that dances on the brink of obsession. His longing creates a tension that is present from the first sentence to the last.

Josh K: Fun Home | Alison Bechdel

This autobiography by the author of the long-running strip, Dykes to Watch Out For, deals with her childhood with a closeted gay father, who was an English teacher and proprietor of the local funeral parlor (the former allowed him access to teen boys). Fun Home refers both to the funeral parlor, where he put makeup on the corpses and arranged the flowers, and the family's meticulously restored gothic revival house, filled with gilt and lace, where he liked to imagine himself a 19th-century aristocrat. The art has depth and sophistication; Bechdel's talent for intimacy and banter gains gravitas when used to describe a family in which a man's secrets make his wife a tired husk and overshadow his daughter's burgeoning womanhood and homosexuality. Bechdel presents her childhood as a "still life with children" that her father created, and meditates on how prolonged untruth can become its own reality. She's made a story that's quiet, dignified and not easy to put down.

Summaries excerpted from Amazon.com.

Josh & Josh Talk Lions for Lambs, The Best of Primetime TV, Off-Broadway's Die Mommie Die!, New Music, and What We're Reading Now

A couple weeks ago Josh and I saw a screening of Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs. (One of the lovely Manchattan boys set us up with tickets.) We went mostly because we wanted to see Meryl Streep do her thing, which indeed ended up being the one true reason to see the film. The movie is another in a string of somewhat preachy, cloying war movies (see Rendition, Redacted, The Kingdom, et al), and indeed yet another co-starring the venerable Ms. Streep (who played a government torture supporter in Rendition, the latest war film box office stinker).

In Lions, however, we get to see Streep pull out quite a few stops as journalist Janine Roth, a veteran newswoman interviewing a conservative senator, Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise--ugh), about a "new plan" to "win the war" in Afghanistan. Watching the cat-and-mouse interview between the two is a treat, and Streep's precision timing is sharp as ever. Later, after the interview, she has an even more riveting scene as she decides what to do with the information she's been given during her tense talk with Senator Irving.

Things get a little muddled when more stories are mixed in, including Robert Redford as a professor lecturing a college student during office hours on why it's important to "get involved," and another following two soldiers fighting a losing battle in Afghanistan. And--surprise, surprise--all the stories later tie together.

The Bottom Line Lions for Lambs (opening this Friday) is okay--preachy, but interesting enough to get you through--but Meryl Streep certainly makes it worth seeing, even if you do wait to see it on DVD.

The Television Roundup

Heroes | What's with the sophomore slump, NBC? This show showed so much promise when it debuted last season, but now things are getting scattered, slow, and uninteresting. I flipped through a magazine during the last episode, whereas I used to watch with rapt attention. Maybe we should stop with 800 story lines, characters we don't care about, and principals we don't see often enough? If not careful, we could have another Lost on our hands. The show's creator, Tim Kring, swears that things get better during episodes seven through eleven, and we pray he's right. It's gonna require a few heroic moves to save our Heroes.

Grey's Anatomy | YAY! Our baby is off life support! The last two episodes of season four have brought the show back from the dead. After the debacles otherwise known as the deer in the parking lot and Lexie Grey, the addition of the brilliantly bitchy and bitchily brilliant Dr. Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith) to the cast has added true hope to the menu at Seattle Grace. Also, the last few minutes of this week's episode, with George and Izzy in bed ("Izzy, did you shave just one leg?") made us simultaneously laugh and also care about the George-Izzy romance for the first time, rekindling our romance with the entire show.

Ugly Betty | The season two premiere had us at hello. The following episodes have been just fine, with a few great moments. We love the new romance between Mark and Cliff and we're looking forward to Posh's guest appearance on next week's episode. The over-the-top camp show still has enough laughs and  heart to keep us tuning in and loving (almost) every minute.

DVD Talk

ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway | If you bear any love in your heart for Broadway or musical theater, it's time to snatch up this fantastic new documentary. ShowBusiness follows the 2003-2004 Broadway season when Wicked, Taboo, Caroline, Or Change, and Avenue Q first opened. The cameras go behind the scenes and into rehearsal rooms, recording studios, critics' dinners (and private conversations featuring hilariously wrong prognostications), and business meetings, as the season that brings two major hits, and two soon-to-be-canceled critical darlings, to the Broadway boards. Featuring Kristen Chenowith, Tony Kushner, Idina Menzel, Tonya Pinkins, John Tartaglia, and many more, this is a theater lover's must-see, must-own.

Project Runway: Season Three | The best thing about the Project Runway DVDs is that all of the season's episodes are extended with scenes (i.e. tantrums and bitchery) that never aired on television. It's also the best way to get ready for the debut of season four on November 14th. Josh and I huddled up watching back-to-back episodes (love you, Laura!) and triple-checked our season pass sign-up for the next edition. Either you're in or you're out, and this one is definitely in.

Broadway, Baby!

A couple weeks ago, as part of Josh K's birthday week, we saw Charles Busch's Die Mommie Die, now playing Off-Broadway at the New World Stages. The show is garnering great reviews (Ben Brantley from The New York Times basically wrote the show a love letter) and it's easy to see why. After seeing the movie a few years ago, Josh and I fell in love with the high-camp comedy thriller, written by and starring Charles Busch. (Sexy Emmy-nominated actor Van Hansis, who plays gay teen Luke Snyder on As The World Turns, co-stars as Charles Busch's sexually confused son. He's great eye candy between and during the jokes.) Check it out before the curtain goes down in February.

On The iPod

A confession: We were never really that into The Beatles. We respect them, we get the love and craziness, but the music just wasn't necessarily for us. This week, however, we started listening to the Across The Universe soundtrack and found ourselves enjoying some of the new takes on Beatles classics, including Jim Sturgess's "All My Loving" and "Across the Universe." (On a related Beatles cover note, we also love the Fiona Apple and Rufus Wainwright renditions of "Across the Universe" and Sarah McLachlan's "Black Bird," also available on iTunes.)

In other soundtrack news, not only did Josh and I see Lars and the Real Girl and thoroughly enjoy it, but we also enjoyed the music by David Torn. It's mostly instrumental, but it's fresh, quirky, and upbeat. Check out tracks "Bowling With Margo," "End Credit Suite" and "Lars and Margo" to see what we mean. It was definitely worth the download.

And lastly, our most reticent admission of all: We've been listening to Britney's new album, and we kind of love it. (It pained us a little bit to write that.) Perhaps we should be lauding Brit's producers since they're the ones who put together the songs while Brit showed up between blackouts (pun intended) to moan and mumble over the great beats and hooks the producers and writers cooked up. Besides the naughty fun of "Gimme More" (and the giggles inspired by remembering the VMA performance), the songs "Piece of Me" and "Radar" have turned into favorites. It's sad to say that the girl has done her best work (and we use "work" lightly) when her life is at it's "hot mess" heights.

J&J Books

Josh K. just finished Headlong by Michael Frayn.

Josh H. just finished I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb.

Josh K. is now reading The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman.

Josh H. is now reading The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory.

Wondering where the Joshes have been lately? The answer: Busy, busy, busy. Lots of changes, lots of stuff happening. We're doing well, though, and we promise to be good little bloggers and post more regularly again. More details on us soon.

Josh & Josh Talk Trash TV (Fat March and Fashionista Diaries), Opera for All, Internet Stars of Tomorrow, and Books

Hey everybody! We hope you had a good Labor Day holiday. Josh K. spent his break out in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with his boyfriend, while Dylan and I stayed closer to home. Dylan and I visited his family out of state and then spent the remainder of the time in the city, which was pretty much a ghost town, going for walks and watching movies and TV shows on the couch. It was pretty decadent in its lazy quotient.

Sad, but true: Dylan and I watched the first four episodes of ABC's summer reality series Fat March this weekend and we're totally hooked. (All the episodes are available free online.) The show follows twelve obese Americans, weighing 225-500 pounds, as they walk 575 miles from Boston to Washington, D.C to try and chuck as much weight as possible and go for a $1.2 million prize.

Part of the fascination for me is about how much weight these people are losing just by walking and eating 2,000 calories a day. It's also kind of nice to be watching the kind of reality show where, for once, the drama isn't about Tammy stealing Amber's boyfriend who's secretly in love with Candy, who also stole Tammy's hairbrush.

The Fat March contestants are wrestling with food addiction, struggling to walk a half-marathon or more a day, and dropping 15 pounds a week while walking across nine states. Who will make it the whole way? Who will drop out or be forced out? Who's going to lose the most weight and look the best in the "after" pictures? My next fix is on Monday night and I can't wait.

Another tragic trash TV addiction: Josh and I are hooked on SoapNET's The Fashionista Diaries. (Again, you can get all the episodes free online.) The show follows six twenty-somethings who have come to New York to work in magazines and PR as interns. We're endlessly amused by the dumb-but-gorgeous Andrew and bitchy climber socialite-wannabe Bridget. And what's the deal with Nicole, the Queens girl who just can't hack it? We must admit that we kind of love Rachel, the tomboy we'd most want to be friends with, or even Tina, who channels her inner soccer mom in every episode.

The show is often a little unrealistic (um, what national magazine intern goes to editorial meetings and pitches stories to the editor in chief?), but as twenty-somethings ourselves who've moved to New York to work as creatives, it's must-see fodder. It's also a hot topic of conversation among the interns and assistants at the magazine where I work. Fluffy trash it may be, but inquiring eyes are definitely tuning in.

This week the New York City Opera is hosting Opera For All, which means that for three nights (September 6, 7, 8) tickets to shows like La Boheme and Don Giovani are only $25 for all seats. Josh and I snapped up tickets stat and can't wait for our first outing to the NYC Opera. Get 'em while they last.

From The "Aw, Shucks" Department

This week the LOGO blog After Elton named Josh and me "Internet Stars of Tomorrow" and posted an interview with us. Our thanks to Adam Lutbitow for the write-up and our gratitude to After Elton for the nod of recognition.

What The Joshes Are Reading Now

Josh H. is reading Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Josh K. is reading Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.

Josh & Josh Talk Curtains and Grease on Broadway, DVDs Disturbia and Out of Sight, Plus Books

Tonight Dylan and I ventured out to see Curtains at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. Written by Kander and Ebb (Chicago and Cabaret, anyone?) and starring David Hyde Pierce, who won a Tony this year for his performance as Lieutenant Cioffi, Curtains was as good as, if not better, than the good press it has earned.

David Hyde Pierce, as Lt. Cioffi, is a homicide detective sent in to investigate the murder of a struggling musical's leading lady, who is missed by no one ("She had no voice / She had no wits" someone sings of her, to which the producer bawdily adds, "She had no brains / She just had tits"). Indeed, what unfolds from there is a murder mystery musical comedy thriller romance. And what's more, it works.

David has the comic timing, charm, and believability to carry the show, and supported by the formidable Deborah Monk as the show-within-a-show's producer (remember her as George's mom on Grey's Anatomy?), buttressed by the one-liner slinging show-within-a-show's director (think Stewie from The Family Guy directing a Broadway musical), and accompanied by Cioffi's surprisingly believable love interest, Jill Paice as Niki Harris, everything comes together well.

Beyond the three-jokes-a-page show, the Hirshfeld is one of the more beautiful theaters I've been to in New York. The golden proscenium and the rich, red velvet curtain speak of true old Broadway glamour. It is also, however, the coldest theater I've been to in New York. Bring an extra sweater for grandma.

Curtains isn't going to be curtains anytime soon, but I'd certainly recommend you see it before the not-to-be-missed David Hyde Pierce bows out of the show.

In March, when the winners of the NBC reality show Grease: You're The One That I Want were announced, the results of which decided who would play Danny and Sandy in a new Broadway production of Grease, I got an e-mail from my mom the next morning. "Did you know that Laura Osnes, the girl who's going to play Sandy, is from the suburbs of Minneapolis?" Indeed, it turned out Osnes grew up twenty minutes away from me, and that I had seen Osnes years ago when she starred in the Minneapolis Children's Theater production of The Wizard of Oz.

Five months after winning their roles by America's phoned-in vote, 21-year-olds Laura Osnes and her Danny, Max Crumm, are starring on Broadway. Josh and I saw the show this weekend when it opened, and the idea of using a reality show to select the leads and generate publicity, ticket sales, and audience allegiance apparently worked. The performance was sold out, and reportedly Grease has tickets sold well through spring. When Laura and Max stepped on stage as Sandy and Danny there was uproarious applause from the crowd, the kind usually reserved for multiple Tony-winning legends. Ah, the powers of reality television.

One of the standout performances in the show came from Kirsten Wyatt, who played Frenchie, and had comic timing that would make Didi Conn, who played Frenchie in the 1978 film version, proud.

After more than 3,000 performances in the 1970s and another 1,500 in a star-laden 1990s revival, Grease is back on Broadway.

Now on DVD: Disturbia

Shia LaBoeuf, you've done it again, my friend. First you racked up serious acting credibility in the indie pic A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints, then you proved your box office mojo here and in this summer's Transformers (read the Josh & Josh review), and now you're set to star in Spielberg's upcoming Indiana Jones movie, opposite Harrison Ford. Disturbia, now on DVD, is a great little addition to the Shia LaBoeuf film library. Loosely based on Hitchcock's Rear Window (which is a film lover's must-see), Shia stars as Kale, a trouble teenager on house arrest for the summer who begins spying on his neighbors and sees more than he should see. Disturbia is a taut little thriller, a well-designed summer movie ride that will have you clutching at your couch pillows. Rent and enjoy.

From the Josh & Josh DVD Archives: Out of Sight

Jennifer Lopez may be starring in the new biopic El Cantante, but with the film's hot-and-cold reviews maybe it's safer to just rent Out of Sight instead. Starring Jennifer Lopez just after her critically-acclaimed performance in Selena, and before her string of drippy romantic comedies (and Gigli, for the love of God), Lopez and George Clooney sizzle and snap with chemistry opposite each other in director Steven Soderbergh's 1998 film. (Out of Sight is the first pairing of Soderbergh and Clooney, who have since made six films together. Indeed, watch this film and trace the genesis of some of the storytelling tricks the duo employ together in the coming decade.) Clooney plays a bank robber with impeccable charm and Lopez plays a federal marshal in charge of hunting him down. Mix and sizzle. Do want you want with El Cantante, but do check out Out of Sight.

Josh & Josh Books

Josh H. just finished Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See.

Josh K. just finished More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin.

Josh K. is now reading The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud.

Josh H. is now reading Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman.

Returning To Work After the Explosion, Harry Potter, Sienna Miller in Interview, and E-mail from Jay Brannan

Today I returned to my office for the first time since last Wednesday's explosion near my building in Midtown. Our building, among dozens of others, ended up closed not only on Thursday, Friday, and the weekend, but also Monday and Tuesday of this week. Everyone in our area ended up with a surprise six-day weekend.

It's been a little spooky for some people returning to our building. Though I left about twenty minutes before the explosion, I overheard the story of co-workers who heard and felt the explosion while sitting at their desks, saw the rising plume of smoke and debris, and after reaching the ground floor by stairs saw only the explosion site, fearing the entire surrounding area had suffered the same fate.

Another co-worker reported being on the street when the explosion occurred and witnessed a man start losing it on the street, screaming "They're blowing up the subways! They're blowing up the subways!"

There are still stretches of streets and avenues shut down, blockaded and guarded by police. A gaping crater remains where the pipe exploded and ripped open the street. Buildings in the vicinity of the crater have windows blown out or covered in mud and debris.

Most of the people I talked with were glad to be back to work after the extended break, especially with deadlines coming down the line, disaster or not. It seems that, for many here, returning to our office's regular rhythms and routines is something of a relief.

(No Harry Potter spoilers here, so read on without fear.)

Harry Potter fever struck New York City this weekend. At Saturday brunch in Hell's Kitchen I saw the orange cover peeking out from under quite a few arms and nestled on more than a few tables beside piles of pancakes and half-finished mimosas. This morning on the way to work I also saw the book poking out from more than one bag.

Many Potter fans finished their copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this weekend. I was reluctant to finish the book in one burst, however, purposely dragging it out. This being the last Harry Potter book, I didn't want it to be all over only hours after I got the book in my hands.

I'm about two-thirds of the way through the book (page 502 of 759). Things spice up half way through the book, and since reaching that point, I'm definitely having a harder time putting it down.

This weekend I'm going on a camping and canoeing trip in the Adirondacks with Dylan and our friends Addison and Evan, and I plan to finish the book while on the five-hour drive. That is, of course, assuming that I can put the book down between ogling the scenery, talking with the boys, and stuffing myself silly with copious amounts of road trip snackage. (Did anyone say mini powdered donuts?)

On Sunday afternoon, after reading several good reviews, I decided to see the Sienna Miller and Steve Buscemi film Interview, and I have to say that I'm a little disappointed.

Sienna Miller plays Katya, a popular film starlet almost known more for her off-screen antics than her acting (feel free to insert the name of any number of young, blonde actresses here), and Steve Buscemi, who also directs, plays a political reporter who has been assigned to interview Katya. What transpires is a cat and mouse duel to the death in the form of a celebrity interview between the spoiled, coke-snorting actress and ego-driven, ethics-averse reporter.

Sienna Miller delivers a livewire performance (as she did in Factory Girl, which was just released on DVD last week and is definitely worth seeing for her gritty and stunning portrayal of Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick), but her performance alone isn't enough to propel Interview to the realm of true greatness. Steve Buscemi is enjoyable, too (remember how great he was in Fargo, too?), but the film seems to stay too long, and the characters threaten to leave too many times without doing so, leaving the audience feeling like both characters are eventually crying wolf.

That said, the movie isn't a disappointment altogether. There are moments that crackle and snap, and the ending provides a little whoop of satisfaction. The biggest reason to see it, however, still lies with Sienna Miller, who's becoming an actress to keep your eye on now that her performances are being seen outside her native England.

Today Josh and I got a very sweet e-mail from actor and singer/songwriter Jay Brannan. We're trying to arrange an interview with him, and hopefully we'll be able to bring that to you guys soon. Cross your fingers!

In the meantime, check out some of his songs here.

Harry Potter Weekend (Plus Upcoming Movies To See)

At 9:22 a.m. the front door phone in the apartment started ringing. I lifted my head off the pillow, squinting in the direction of the beeping. Dylan leaped out of bed to answer it.

Why would the front desk be calling us this early on a Saturday morning? What the hell could--

And then I remembered: It's Harry Potter Saturday.

Minutes later the delivery was in my hands.

Originally Josh K. and I were signed up to go to the midnight book release party at Lincoln Center, but then he had to bail because of a flight back to Minneapolis. I enlisted another friend to attend the Union Square book party, but at the last minute she wasn't able to go, either. Thus on Tuesday morning I logged onto Amazon and ordered my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I can't believe that overnight delivery was included in the already half-off price. Don't you just love Amazon sometimes? (I ordered another six books to show my gratitude. Not that I need a 12-step meeting for book buyers or anything.)

I couldn't wait to get the book in my hands. Dylan smiled obligingly from across the room as he tugged on a robe and began reading the morning news. I tore apart the package.

Ta da!

You know what I'll be doing today.

I wonder how many people will be sheepishly rescheduling plans today so they can have uninterrupted Harry Potter reading time.

The First Paragraph

"The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few years apart in the narrow, moonlit lane. For a second they stood quite still, wands directed at each other's chests; then, recognizing each other, they stowed their wands beneath their cloaks and started walking briskly in the same direction."

On Monday night, only moments after returning from a three-day weekend in Provincetown, I headed up to Lincoln Square with Josh to see the fifth Harry Potter movie. It was, unsurprisingly, a sold out showing. (In its first ten days the film made $368 million worldwide.)

Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione (Emma Watson) have all been struck by puberty and are looking pretty grown up. There's a brief flashback to earlier Potter movies, and it's jarring to see how young they were in the first films.

Screenwriter Michael Goldenberg (Peter Pan, Contact) and director David Yates took the longest Potter novel and turned it into the shortest and tightest Potter movie. All the extraneous stuff is gone; only the best is left on screen.

Order of the Phoenix is darker than previous Potter films. Voldemort has returned, but Minister Fudge and his coterie refuse to believe it, casting Harry as a liar and possible lunatic. Delores Umbridge, a Fudge crony, is sent to take over the school with her vaguely sadomasochistic take on things, wrapped in pink outfits and strained smiles. (Imelda Staunton turns Umbridge into the series' best villain--other than Voldy himself, of course.)

It's tightly plotted, wonderfully shot (including an action movie-style opening sequence, complete with shaking camera), and the young actors (supported by an A-list of adult British actors) just keep getting better. The tone of the movie is a perfect parallel for our current times and style of governance, something which I'm surprised more reviews haven't addressed.

Can't wait for six and seven.

Movie Talk

Last night Dylan and I saw Live Free or Die Hard, the fourth and final installment in the Bruce Willis series. I have to say that I'm surprised that it got better reviews than Transformers. The truth is that Transformers is the better movie, if only because it's truly funny, charming, and has three times as many awe-inspiring special effects. You saw all the good special effects in the Die Hard trailer; Transformers just keeps doling them out as the movie goes on. (Read the Josh & Josh review of Transformers)

Upcoming Movies

There are quite a few movies coming out that Josh and I can't want to see. There will be a few that we'll make a point to skip, too.

* We can't wait to see Bourne Ultimatum. Matt Damon brings the sexy back to New York City, and (the fantastic) Joan Allen as Pamela Landy looks unnerved. (She should be.) Opens August 3.

* The new Get Smart, starring Steve Carell, looks hilarious. Opens next summer.

* This movie's campaign is brilliant. We don't know what the movie is, but we know that we kinda want to see it. Opens January 18, 2008.

* What's Nicole Kidman doing in this movie? (Nicole's a busy girl. This year she's also in Margot at the Wedding, from the director of the fantastic The Squid and the Whale, and also in the fantasy film The Golden Compass.)

* What's Lindsay Lohan doing to her career?

* Badass Jodie Foster is back, and she's taking names. Opens September 14.

* Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise, all in one movie. Can't stand Cruise, but we'll definitely see it for Streep. Opens November 9.

Josh and Josh Talk Hairspray, Anderson Cooper's Dispatches From The Edge, and Jay Brannan's Unmastered

John Travolta (Edna Turnblad) and Nikki Blonsky (Tracy Turnblad) in Hairspray.

Last week Josh and I went to a preview screening of Hairspray, the film version of the Broadway musical based on John Waters's classic film. (Not many movies have a genesis like that, right? Divine to Harvey Fierstein to John Travolta in a fat suit in a big summer movie? But I digress.)

The film mostly follows the Broadway plot: we follow a chubby-yet-spunky teenage girl in 1960s Baltimore who wants to dance on an unsegregated TV show. (The movie takes a few liberties with the Broadway plot, including a major change to the Broadway ending; I won't spoil it here, but perhaps after the movie debuts we'll revisit the plot changes.)

Nikki Blonsky, plucked from obscurity to play Tracy Turnblad, the film's hero, does her job well. She maneuvers the opening number smoothly, which takes some adjusting to for those who have seen the Broadway production. Tracy's mother, Edna, played by John Travola, is more of a stumbling block. Travolta takes on a faux-Baltimore accent that comes and goes and is never convincing. Travolta wears his fat suit but forgets to bring the sass and strength that made other Edna Turnblads so much fun in the original film and on stage.

There are plenty of stars in this Hairspray. James Marsden, perhaps best known for his role as Cyclops in the X-Men films, plays Corny Collins, the host of the TV show Tracy longs to infiltrate. James dances, sings, and shows his pearly whites with abandon and is one of the surprise treats of the movie. Michelle Pfeiffer plays a racist diva, but we're reminded that, as we learned in Grease 2, the poor thing can't sing. (Also, we hereby vote "Miss Baltimore Crabs" the song most in need of cutting from the Hairspray oeuvre, but maybe that's just us.)

Amanda Bynes is fun, if a bit underused, as Tracy's best friend, Penny. Christopher Walken plays Tracy's father, and hams it up in his big romantic number with Travolta ("You're Timeless To Me") in full blubber suit regalia. Queen Latifa is again a dependable movie musical star (with her post-Chicago breast reduction on display here) as Motormouth Maybelle, turning in a wholly respectable performance.

Allison Janney has what amounts to a cameo role as Amanda Bynes's ultra-conservative mom, Mrs. Pingleton. She gets the biggest laugh of the movie, though, when she grounds her daughter for unladylike behavior and splashes holy water at her daughter saying, "Devil child, devil child!" It's the kind of comedic turn we haven't seen her do since the cult classic Drop Dead Gorgeous.

The bottom line is that Hairspray, despite a few foibles, is a lot of fun. It's got great energy, and the music and choreography are in great form here.

Last week, while on a brief vacation to visit my family in Minneapolis, I read Anderson Cooper's book Dispatches From The Edge. I had first read an excerpt of the book in Vanity Fair more than a year ago when Anderson did double duty as cover boy.

After reading the Vanity Fair excerpt I thought the book would explore more of Anderson's personal life, but instead it focuses much more on his years covering wars in Iraq and Bosnia, the tsunami in Sri Lanka, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and civil war and starvation in Niger and greater Africa.

Anderson's past is woven throughout the book in a flashback format that works fairly well. Amidst the stories from his travels and reporting we hear about Anderson's privileged upbringing in New York City as a descendant of the Vanderbilt family, about his father's death at an early age, his brother's suicide, and his early years as a reporter gunning to go wherever the story is, danger be damned.

Anderson's background as a TV reporter works well here as his story unfolds in easy to digest segments, as if they were a part of one of his television shows. (Anderson is also a regular contributor to Details, and his prose style is much the same here: emotive and direct.) Though the language can at times be a little over the top, as is frequent with television reporters, it's easy to move beyond that and invest in the story.

It would have been easy to make this a dry, boring read, but the book turns out to be a page-turner, informative yet interesting. Another great boon is getting to hear honest opinions from Anderson on the stories he's covering, telling us what he's thinking while he's reporting from around the globe. (He has no kind words, for example, for some members of Congress and for the president during Hurricane Katrina.)

Notably absent here, of course, is any mention of romantic interests or intrigues. It's widely speculated that Anderson is gay and unwilling or uninterested in coming out. However, gay or not, Anderson seems to show us a reporter's life thrust forward from grief: after his father's early death and brother's suicide, Anderson is something of a workaholic who feels he has nothing to lose when signing up for dangerous assignments. It would have been interesting to hear about how Anderson's life as a globe-trotting reporter has affected his romantic relationships, assuming that he has had them, but it seems we'll have to wait for another book for that.

In the meantime, Anderson has written a book worth picking up, providing perspective on his reports from abroad and even a bit on himself.

Josh and I have been Jay Brannan fans since we saw the movie Shortbus (and met a few of its stars) and fell for the film's song "Soda Shop", performed by Jay. (The video of Jay singing the song has since been seen more than a million times on YouTube.)

Now Jay has released an L.P. on iTunes called "Unmastered" and two of its tracks ("Half-Boyfriend" and "Body's a Temple") have been burning it up on my iPod for the last couple weeks.

Below check out Jay performing "Half-Boyfriend." (The song starts two minutes in.)

If you need a little more Jay Brannan, check out the video for "Body's A Temple."

ABC's Brothers & Sisters, Curtis Sittenfeld's "The Man of My Dreams," and The Weekend in Review

The networks are just getting mean. Why must they make us wait weeks for new episodes of Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty, 30 Rock, and Heroes? Why the waiting, people? Why? (I know, I know: such high-minded questions. Forgive me.)

During this little television drought I began exploring the free online players that ABC and NBC offer on their websites, letting you watch their shows for free in a streaming online format, and I discovered a little gem: ABC's Brothers & Sisters.

I was a bit skeptical at first. Why would Oscar-winner Sally Field do television? Was Calista Flockhart's return to television going to be just Ally McBeal warmed over? Could Six Feet Under's Rachel Griffiths really step out of the shadow of Brenda Chenowith? I have to say, after watching a few episodes, I was not only hooked, but my fears were quickly allayed.

The show follows the Walker family, living in the suburbs of Los Angeles, featuring five adult children and a father who dies in the first episode, leaving the matriarch of the family, Nora (Sally Field), to put the pieces of her family back together. What ensues is a funny, and fun, Sunday night drama. (It's right after Desperate Housewives, y'all, if folks are still watching that.)

Sally, Calista, and Rachel are great. Matthew Rhys, as Kevin Walker, the gay sibling, is a lot of fun, too. So is the fact that his trysts and loves are thrown in with the rest of the stories utterly nonchalantly, and we see Kevin kiss his boyfriends, and fall into bed with them as well, steering away from other network dramas and comedies that only gloss over most gay characters' love lives.

Also not to be missed are the several episodes (starting with episode twelve) in which Jason Lewis (remember him from the sixth season of Sex and the City as Samantha's Absolut Hunk lover, Smith Jerrod?) plays Kevin's boyfriend. There's nothing quite like seeing Jason Lewis making out with another guy. I'm just sayin'.

Is it soapy sometimes, and maybe even occasionally a little too touchy-feely? Sure, maybe. Sometimes. But the rest of it is good enough that you can forgive a few transgressions. If you're intrigued, check it out the season's episodes for free on ABC's website.

Last year I read Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld's debut novel, which was named one of the  Top 10 Books of 2005 by The New York Times (and later optioned by Paramount Pictures), and loved it. Her second book (yep, Curtis is a woman), The Man of My Dreams, has a chick-lit title for a book that really isn't chick lit, and which I thought was as good as (but different than) her first book.

I snatched up The Man of My Dreams at Hudson News, the omnipresent bookstore at JFK airport that gets my fingers itching for a new book every time I hit the terminal, while on my way home for Easter in Minneapolis (just before my adventures in appendicitis began).

The story follows Hannah Gavener, an outsider (like her protagonist in Prep), who casts a detailed, critical eye on her boyfriends and her family. Opening when Hannah is fourteen, and finishing when she's twenty-eight, the book hop-scotches through sections of her life, almost like well-hewn individual short stories that come together to make a greater whole.

What's so fantastic here is Curtis's extreme knack for detail and specificity, truly breathing life into her fiction, and the smart-but-not-pretentious dialog and stream of thought. The language is clean and spare, with nothing wasted. How is it possible, I kept wondering, to say so much with so few words? Also, Curtis's unwavering eye, and her willingness to say things that people often think, but wouldn't be caught dead admitting, makes for compelling reading.

I've heard it said that some didn't find Hannah sympathetic enough, and that we don't see enough change in Hannah by the end of the book. It's true that Hannah isn't always sympathetic, but really, who among us is always sympathetic? It's part of what makes Hannah feel like a living, breathing person. And any questions about Hannah not changing enough in the book can be laid to rest, I think, with the final chapter of the book. It's not the Disney makeover at the end, but it's just enough, and that's what keeps it feeling real.

If you're taking a long road trip this summer, or flying somewhere far away, this is the perfect book (easy to pick up and put down, yet interesting when it's in your hands). Maybe get Prep, too, and have yourself a double dose of Curtis Sittenfeld. You won't be sorry you did.

The Weekend in Review

On Friday night Josh, Dylan, and I met our friend Eric for dinner in Hell's Kitchen at Yum Yum, a Thai place on Ninth Avenue. It was my first official social outing since all of the surgery fun, and it was great to be back out among the living. Afterward, Josh, Eric and I headed to Vlada, on 51st Street in Hell's Kitchen, and met up with Tony for drinks (non-alcoholic for me, what with the fun medications proscribed). Tony's hilarious, sweet friends Anthony and Matt joined us, and there are enough rowdy photos of the evening to serve as evidence that a good ol' time was had by all. I left at eleven to crawl back into bed, but Josh stayed out until after two. (Go, JK, go!)

On Saturday Josh K. spent time with a friend in the Village and bumped into J&J amigo Kevin Sessums. (Hi Kevin!) Afterward he went to a friend's birthday party on the Lower East Side, which ended in kitschy karaoke madness in Midtown. Meanwhile, on Saturday morning Dylan made scrambled eggs and then we took a walk up to and through Central Park. We saw a matinee of the Molly Shannon/Peter Sarsgaard movie Year of the Dog (it was okay), and had dinner at Sushi A-Go-Go near Lincoln Center. Afterward we curled in at the apartment and watched Pedro Almodovar's fantastic Volver. If you haven't seen it, you must rent it, even if it's just to watch the luminous (yes, I said "luminous"--apologies) Penelope Cruz work her thing. I really wanted her to win the Oscar this year. She deserved it.

Today Josh K. chilled in Washington Heights, now in his last week sharing my apartment before he moves to his new one in Hell's Kitchen, and he took a long walk in the 'hood. Further downtown, Dylan and I took a walk to the West Village where he got his hair cut and I finished reading my Curtis Sittenfeld novel at 'sNice, one of my favorite cafes. We hit up Biography Bookshop (where Dylan and I saw each other for the very first time, more than ten months ago now) and ate a Magnolia cupcake afterward. Per usual, I couldn't help leaving the store without a few books. We walked up to Chelsea for lunch at a burger place, and then came back to the apartment for a nap. Sunday, sweet Sunday.

It was a good weekend, y'all. I hope yours was even better. Have a kick-ass week, and stay tuned for some big news on Tuesday or Wednesday. (Muahahaha!)

Our Favorite Music Video: "First Day of My Life" by Bright Eyes (Directed by John Cameron Mitchell); Kevin Sessums and Mississippi Sissy

In honor of today's DVD release of John Cameron Mitchell's fantastic film Shortbus, Josh and I thought we'd feature our favorite music video, "First Day of My Life" by Bright Eyes, which also just happens to have been directed by John Cameron Mitchell.

It's the sweetest music video either of us have ever seen. Check it out.

Any fairy godmothers out there? Joshie K. is hitting that joyful part in his apartment search wherein he'd be eternally grateful for anybody's tip on a fabulous apartment share in Manhattan. (He's looking for a bedroom with a door, $900 or less a month, six to twelve months, and isn't particularly excited about Harlem or Morningside Heights.) Any magic apartment elves or fairies out there?

Tonight Josh, Andy, and I hit up the Chelsea Barnes & Noble to catch writer Kevin Sessums reading from his new book, Mississippi Sissy. The place was so packed that the three of us did the whole "standing room only" thing, which turned out to be well worth it. Mississippi Sissy is Kevin's memoir of growing up gay in racist 1960s Mississippi, the son of parents who died before his eighth birthday, and who found escape as a child in his obsession with Hollywood.

Josh and I have been to quite a few readings since we've lived in New York, and I have to say that Kevin's may be the best one we've been to yet. He was obviously comfortable reading from his book, taking on the voices of Southern women, both black and white, and his adolescent self.

The excerpt Kevin read, about the year that he convinced his grandmother to let him go as a (female) witch for Halloween, horrifying the rest of his small town, was both funny and poignant. (The critics have given Kevin and Mississippi Sissy enough gold-star reviews to catapult this book onto the best-seller lists.) This book is definitely on my reading list.

We went up to meet Kevin after the reading and were totally blown away when he told us that he reads our blog (!) and also links to our site on his blog (!!!).

(Hi Kevin! Much love from The Joshes.)

In another random note, Josh and I also met Robert Harling tonight, the writer of Steel Magnolias, Soapdish, The First Wives Club, and the upcoming feature film version of Dallas. Josh and I were floored. I'm embarrassed to admit that the first thing I thought when I met him was, "Drink your juice, Shelby." Really, the man is a legend.