Friday, January 23, 2004

I’d Hire This Guy

Today I spent some time at maisonneuve.org, the online organ of the Montreal magazine with the same name. I was very impressed with the content, and the website itself is a model of sleekness. There were a number of solid think pieces, but I was most impressed with Mark Toft, who offered a pitch-perfect resume. Some would say it reeks of McSweeney’s, but that is incorrect. It is very funny, and very clever, but so are the early essays of Woody Allen, and guess what? Allen wrote his essays in a pre-McSweeney’s era. Difficult to believe, but true. Here’s one entry from the Toft piece:

Legal Assistant
U.S. Justice Department
January 1994 - January 1995
- Reached level two of Soul Blade. Found that I preferred Voldos bladed finger spin-and-lift maneuver to Rocks war-axe lunge.
- Discovered that as ambition shrinks, time available for reading expands.
- Gladly let the bastards keep me down


In other news, here is a hammer for blue collar hipsters (a.k.a. bipsters). I also learned there is a word for my dietary philosophy: flexitarian, "a nondogmatic vegetarian, one who eats tenderloin at your house and tofu at home." (Boston Globe, Jan. 18 / 04). For those feeling left out, don’t worry. You might be a freegan: "someone who eats only (or mostly) free food, living off the land behind the local supermarket."

Oh, and I learned this week that filmmaker Vincent Gallo is a Republican. And I thought it was impossible for him to be any more of an asshole. Wrong again, Bigge.