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Alex Carnevale (e-mail)
Editor-in-Chief            
                                
Molly Lambert (e-mail)         
Managing Editor          
                                  
Will Hubbard            
Executive Editor

Durga Chew-Bose (e-mail)    
Senior Editor

This Recording

is dedicated to the enjoyment of audio and visual stimuli. Please visit our archives where we have uncovered the true importance of nearly everything. Should you want to reach us, e-mail alex dot carnevale at gmail dot com, but don't tell the spam robots. Consider contacting us if you wish to use This Recording in your classroom or club setting. We have given several talks at local Rotarys that we feel went really well.

The Kenny Powers Mix to rule them all

The consumption of J.D. Salinger

Ernest Hemingway's sex life

Molly Lambert dresses down the new masculinity

The most appealing men Disney has to offer

Elizabeth Gumport's Escape to New York

Jamie Beck's tribute to Billie Holiday

A list of important turn-offs

Elizabeth Gumport on Dawn Powell's New York

Go away with the Pixies

The wealthy children of Metropolitan

Spend your youth with Frank O'Hara

Molly is the star of her own Late Shift

This Recording Reviews Mad Men

Warren Beatty and L.A. movies

Colin Dickey's skull recordings

Alex Carnevale's 'In the Aughts'

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    Entries in yvonne georgina puig (12)

    Tuesday
    May182010

    In Which We View The Flaws In The Mortar Below

    The Other Side of Your Wall

    by YVONNE GEORGINA PUIG

    You never forget your childhood next door neighbors. I have a strange metaphor for mine: the buns of my family sandwich. There they were, always on either side, listening to us or ignoring us, bringing over tins of Christmas popcorn or never bringing over anything, waving at me and my sister Vanessa, or writing complaint letters to our parents. The Jennings and the Spellmans were our unessential constants.

    Mr. and Mrs. Jennings were an older couple whose children had grown and gone. Mrs. Jennings was quiet and wore large thick-rimmed glasses and took evening walks. Mr. Jennings is an unforgettable, almost magnificent figure in my mind. He had a balding round-as-a-pumpkin head and stood probably six feet tall on the skinniest legs I’d seen on a man, legs which hung loose and marionette-like from his extraordinarily narrow pot belly. Mr. Jennings was from the front a slim man who wore plaid shirts and who cinched his polyester pants far below his belly button. From the side, Mr. Jennings was a man who cinched his pants far below his belly button because his middle protruded three feet from his body. He smoked Virginia Slims and often stood at the end of his driveway with his skinny cigarette and taking in the scene.

    Mr. Jennings was a grump who delighted in being grumpy, and to his surprise I imagine, was most benevolent at his grumpiest. He caught me and Vanessa writing our initials in a square of wet sidewalk and made us smooth it out, but a few days later brought each of us a handmade wet stepping stone, which we imprinted with our hands and the paws of our cats. He enjoyed when our cat Muffy slept on his sprinkler heads, because then he could turn the water on and scare the hell out of her. This was upsetting to our mother.

    The Jennings’ front door was mossy green. Their living room was beige and thickly carpeted. They only drove Buicks. It was on Mr. Jennings' sedan that I discovered the keyhole to the trunk of a Buick is hidden beneath the logo. Our relations with the Jennings were mostly cordial, even friendly, except when Mr. Jennings tired of our rooster. He threatened to report our backyard menagerie to the community police, and so we took Sam White to live on a farm.

    The Spellmans were a more complex case. The problems began when Vanessa and I were little girls, and decided, with our friend Margaret who lived on the other side of the Spellmans, to have a tea party on the flat rock in their front yard. I don’t remember the day, but the story goes that Mrs. Spellman bitterly cast us away, despite our being harmless and most likely adorable. The Spellmans then forbade us from even crossing their yard to get to Margaret’s house, which meant we had to walk on the street and this worried our mother. No one liked the Spellmans.

    I have little physical memory of them, because in my memory they never left their house. Even now, I’m not sure how many Spellmans there were. When we threw our frisbee into their backyard and called to retrieve it, Mrs. Spellman was cold and cryptic: What. Goes. In. Our. Yard. Stays. In. Our. Yard., she said, and hung up. There would be no sneaking around because the Spellmans had a pet hyena that snarled and snapped at even an eyeball pressed to the fence boards, thus we never saw the frisbee again.

    As the years went on we convinced ourselves that the Spellmans had an underground dungeon beneath their house where they stored bodies and worshipped the devil. I found this more fascinating than scary, and spent many hours hiding in the pittosporum bushes across the street from the Spellman’s house, deciphering messages out of the mortar in their bricks. I was certain, for example, that the flaws in the mortar below their front window spelled Satan. I’m not sure if I actually saw this, I only know that I very badly wanted it to be true.

    All our young mysteries were attributed to the Spellmans. When our Fisher-Price cassette player broke down we stomped fearlessly to their house. I was probably 7, Vanessa 9. Grandma Spellman opened the door — just a crack — and Vanessa ruffled her feathers and announced herself. “Excuse me,” she said, deftly presenting the evidence like the lawyer she became, “but do you know anything about this?” She pressed the play button, and the Fisher-Price cassette player proceeded to sputter the low, warped song of Michael Jackson, and my memory stops there. I can’t imagine how outrageous we must have looked to Grandma Spellman, righteous little princesses that we were, standing on her doorstep, accusing her of sabotaging our beloved plastic tape player.

    Our parents prohibited all interaction with the Spellmans when we were in junior high, after we threw pinecones at their windows in an attempt to goad them into revealing their evilness once and for all. They called the police, we got in trouble, Mrs. Spellman sent my parents a scolding, lawyerly letter, and we didn’t bother them after that. We did, however, bury a quarter in their front yard. According to some legend I’d heard at a slumber party, doing this would make objectionable neighbors move away within a year. The Spellmans didn’t move away until many years later, and we never knew what became of them.

    Who were your childhood next door neighbors?

    Yvonne Georgina Puig is the senior contributor to This Recording. She tumbls here. You can find more of her work in these pages here.

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    "Kids Get Caught" - 8-bit Revival (mp3)

    "Tunable Ghosts" - 8-bit Revival (mp3)

    "Wake Up" - 8-bit Revival (mp3)

    "This Hex" - 8-bit Revival (mp3)

    Tuesday
    Apr202010

    In Which We See Ourselves In Absolutely Everything

    They Get Older, I Stay The Same Age

    by YVONNE GEORGINA PUIG

    August 2001. I am nineteen, ordering an ice cream cone from a vendor in Washington Square Park. A woman approaches me and tells me that she's with Getty Images. They're shooting stock photos in the park today, would I be willing to pose? Then she hands me a fifty dollar bill. I haven't been to New York since I was 8 years old and wore a lip bumper, so this is extremely exciting for me and akin to being "discovered." Discovered for what I wasn't sure, but that wasn't the point. I was in New York and a credible looking person wanted to take my picture.

    So I stood in front of the white backdrop and a bearded photographer shined two soft lights on me and I smiled. A snap later it was done. Then I signed a piece of paper saying I wouldn't appear in any compromising advertisements. This, they explained, meant that I would not be featured in any ads saying "I Have AIDS" or "I love Meat." And I went on my way. I never imagined I'd see this photo anywhere but two years later it appeared. Then it appeared again. And again. Some highlights:

    This one was found in Barcelona by my nemesis while she was studying abroad. I'm sure it pleased her greatly to see my face in a store window thousands of miles away. It certainly pleased me. Our mutual friend took these pictures while she was visiting. Who knew I'd appeal to Spainards.

    Here I am skydiving with my dear friend Pablo. We were happy together. That was a long time ago.

    This ad makes best use of my features and beaded necklace
    Two years later, my sister's best friend found this one in her box of raspberry women's tea. As you can see I have not aged at all or changed my outfit. I think I fit much better as a tea lover than as a Spainard. In any case, I'm humbled to possess such range. Good thing Yogi tea doesn't know how annoyed I am by people who say "Namaste" and/or place even the slightest significance on crystals.

    My next spotting occurred a few months later, on a banner ad for Match.com. I found this one but unfortunately was not able to save it. You can imagine my surprise when I was checking my hotmail account and saw MYSELF in the margins. But not me. Janet, aged 28 from New Jersey, looking for love. I'm not even 28 now. This all came up again because a few days ago the photo reared its head once again. It's been years.

    I blame the timelessness of my hairdo. It's the same hairdo I've had since elementary school , which I suppose makes it timeless. So here I am giving financial advice for Quicken. Rather, here I am offering myself up as someone willing to receive financial advice from Quicken. Incidentally this is appropriate because I've been thinking that as soon as I have finances I plan to get a handle on them.

    This photograph is my ticket to eternal youth. Please keep your eyes out for it. Thanks.

    Yvonne Georgina Puig is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She tumbls here.

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    The Best of Yvonne Georgina Puig on This Recording

    The burning pain of Francis Bacon

    The claustrophobia of Ruben's elevator

    Taking names and killing cockroaches

    13 thoughts on New York City

    High and low 'Art' on stage

    The vast thrills of cake-decorating

    The pleasure of everything was not enough

    Carson McCullers and Yvonne

    Yvonne on Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors

    Her immortal chronicle of the Texas drought

    On the boycraziest blogger of them all

    Some time has passed since then

    "Everlasting Light" - The Black Keys (mp3)

    "These Days" - The Black Keys (mp3)

    "Sinister Kid" - The Black Keys (mp3)

    "Howlin' for You" - The Black Keys (mp3)

     

    Thursday
    Nov052009

    In Which Some Time Goes By

    It Is Still Dark Outside

    by YVONNE GEORGINA PUIG

    Day in life: I wake up around seven. It's steaming hot outside. I am seventeen. My sister, Vanessa, is nineteen and studying at Oxford for the summer. I am at home in Houston, helping my grandmother take care of my ailing grandfather. He has heart disease, and is very slowly, and somewhat painlessly, dying.

    This day I wake early, as I need to pick up my grandfather, Poppa, and take him to see Gramma, who broke her arm a few days ago in a car accident, at the hospital. This is difficult as Poppa is feeble, and unaccustomed to Gramma's absence.

    When I arrive he is awake and sitting at the kitchen table. The light is gray and cold, despite the heat outside. I help him with his cane and we drive down Gessner to Memorial Hermann Hospital. He looks strange walking down the hallways, very thin, like a patient. I am thinking about my boyfriend, and vaguely, about applying for college in the fall.

    Though I'd rather be with my boyfriend or sleeping, I understand there is some significance, some meaning, in spending this time with my grandparents. Gramma is upbeat. She tells us about the doctors and the medicines and the big operation on her arm. She looks like Lucy, but with gray hair. And Poppa is like Desi. When Gramma irritates him, he grinds his teeth and mumbles in Spanish. Gramma makes a joke about not needing to stick around while the nurse helps her use the restroom, and Poppa and I go to mass at St. Cecilia. I went to school here in eighth grade and I wonder if I'll see anyone I know, and hope that I don't.

    During the service I can smell Poppa's breath. An old smell, a from-deep-inside kind of smell. I wonder if Poppa believes any of the Jesus talk, because I don't, and decide that he probably doesn't either. It's just a part of his and Gramma's history, and now it is part of mine.

    I wait in the pew while he takes communion. It was a point of contention between my parents and Gramma and Poppa that my sister and I weren't baptised, but I'm not sure it made a difference to Poppa. Father Risotto has an unbearable lisp. We sit on the far right of the church, and Poppa spends most of the service looking around at the parishioners. After mass, we walk through the church parking lot and a car pulls in front of us, too fast. Poppa stumbles and shakes his fist and grumbles something in Spanish. I take him home and he watches some football and smokes a cigarette even though he shouldn't be smoking. Tomorrow I will come again and we will go back to the hospital.

    A few weeks later, the phone rings at 5 a.m. I hear my mom saying, "Evelyn? You mean George, not Evelyn. Evelyn?" She comes into my room. "Yvonne, wake up, Gramma died." Gramma? Gramma was not dying, Poppa was dying. I climb out of bed like a robot and drive to their house. It it still dark outside. I can't stop my hands from shaking.

    I walk in and Poppa is in his hospital bed, beside the big bed where they slept together before Poppa got sick. Gramma is in the bed on her back, eyes closed. "She's gone, sweetie," Poppa says and I hug him. There's a flurry of paramedic activity and I'm told to sit outside. Some time goes by in which I sit on the couch and stare off and wait, various people show up, and then Poppa is wheeled into the living room. He leans over in the wheelchair and begins to cry into the crux of his elbow. I get up to hug him, but someone signals me to let him be. A few of us sit and watch him cry. He's just said goodbye to her. I hear someone say they were married almost sixty years. Another person tells me they are taking her away now, do I want to say goodbye?

    She is on the floor, pale, when I enter the room. I am still shaking. I sit on my knees and kiss her forehead. It's slightly cold, which doesn't surprise me, but the stickiness does. Goodbye Gramma, I say. And then I leave. The afternoon is busy. Kay shows up and she hugs me and I cry when no one is looking. I sit with Poppa for a few minutes before I go home at the end of the day. He is watching football and not saying much. I ask him if he needs anything and says no. My dad comes in and asks about arrangements. I give Poppa a hug and tell him that I'll see him tomorrow.

    A few hours later, Poppa dies. My dad and sister were there; his mouth began opening strangely and Martha, an unpleasant distant cousin, kept saying Come to Jesus, George, Come to Jesus. He died in the same room as Gramma, twelve hours later.

    Yvonne Georgina Puig is the contributing editor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She tumbls here.

    "Crack the Shutters" - Snow Patrol (mp3)

    "Set Fire to The Third Bar" - Snow Patrol ft. Martha Wainwright (mp3)

    "Crazy In Love" - Snow Patrol (mp3)