The Invention of Lying starts out amusingly–not side-splittingly funny, mind you, but amusing enough. An ordinary man bumbling about his ordinary town, Mark Bellison (played by Ricky Gervais, who also wrote and directed, together with Matthew Robinson), is, by his own estimation, a bit of a loser, and intriguing only in that he inhabits a thought-provoking (and laugh-inducing) alternate reality.

His is a world in which human beings outright cannot lie. In this completely truthful world, there’s a lot of brutal honesty coming at him–all pretty entertaining and, for the purposes of comedy, quite harmless. On a date, Anna (Jennifer Garner) tells him, point-blank, that she finds him startlingly unattractive. His secretary Shelley (Tina Fey) tells him outright that his boss has promised to fire him by the next day–as early as today if he can muster up the courage.

But then something happens: Mark, jobless and alone, walks up to a bank teller and tells her there’s more money in his bank account than there really is–and she believes him. He alone has discovered the ability to lie.

The story from there is enjoyable enough until about half an hour in when Mark, eager to ease his frightened mother’s dying hours, tells a big lie: that after you die, you spend a happy eternity in a place called heaven. And hence we’re set up for what is, from that point on, one of the most unfunny funny movies ever made: a comedy about religion, and how we’re all just kidding ourselves.

Equally unsettling is that the world presented as “truthful” is one in which everyone is both supremely shallow and, frequently, unfeelingly mean. A world where women only care about having cute babies, and men only care about one-upping one another and touching women’s breasts. Is it meant to be heartening that luckily, thanks to the invention lying, we can all pretend to have a little more depth?

Add to all of this the film’s weird fixation on Mark’s weight and his “snub nose,” and you start to get movie that’s difficult to decipher. The premise seems to be that Mark’s looks are the only thing preventing Anna from marrying him; in all other respects she thinks he’s great and even admits to loving him.

Mark, for his part, doesn’t seem to mind Anna’s infuriating superficiality; neither does he mind that it wasn’t until a bit of money and power came his way that she even gave him the time of day. Not helping matters is their complete lack of chemistry and history–aside from a hasty line in an early scene about how he has loved her for ages, the film never bothers to even explain how they met.

None of which is to say The Invention of Lying is a waste of time. You won’t regret seeing it, and it’ll certainly make you think. But though this film may bill itself as comedy, don’t be fooled–after all, ours is a world that knows how to tell a good lie.

Filed under: Lifestyle by Kate Doyle
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What are bush’s politics?

Yours,

Politically Confused

Joe: I have a dream that all bushes are created equal. In the bush-topia of my fantasies, any manicuring (or lack thereof) would be perfectly seductive to everybody. But unfortunately, PC, we live in a fiercely judgmental world. When navigating our partner’s “private” places, things can get a little hairy.

For me, bush politics centers on two factors: your own comfort and your partner’s desires. While your lover may be dreaming of freshly powdered Brazilians, waxing might be too painful, too expensive, or simply too unpleasant for your tastes. Conversely, even if you’re eager to shave, your partner might prefer a more organic bush. As the wholly mediocre actor Colin Farrell put it in a Playboy interview (I read it for the articles!), it’s all “just different flavors of the same lollipop.”

For this Hardy, avoiding gender specific language isn’t just some “postmodern” bullshit. Many men wax, shave, or trim their pubes; some even rock the bald eagle. While our patron saint Dan Savage attributes this to the gay male overlords of our culture, I’m not so sure. One close friend shaves his sack because his girlfriend won’t play with it otherwise. Another Hardy associate shaves bare to compensate for what he perceives as disappointing size (the theory being that the mountain appears taller without the foliage).

Although I tend to avoid such heavy manscaping (previous experiences with accidental, overzealous trimming have left me feeling like a shaved poodle), there is at least one uncontestable reason to keep things neat and clean: fellatio and cunilingus. Nobody—least of all Brunonians—enjoys pulling hairs from their mouth after a bout of oral sex. It reminds them of eating at the Ratty.

Finally, Frank and I had one of our more heated debates about whether pubes are political. He sided with Slavoj Žižek, who writes in “Fantasy as a Political Category,” that “Even the most intimate attitude towards one’s body is used to make an ideological statement.” But fuck ideology. And fuck you too, Frank! The only statement your partner is making if they accommodate your desires by shaping their pubic hair for you is that they care about you. And that, readers, should be enough.

FRANK: Well, then, Joe—I didn’t realize we were making this into a thing. Without straying too far from the bush or indulging our less savory brotherly quibbles, I should say that as far as I understand Marx and his critics (which is not very well), telling your partner you care through your pubes is a condition subject to Ideology because it is a culturally conditioned behavior and signifier (isn’t that right all of our political-theory leaning readers?).

But that’s not really important. The important thing about bush—and by bush you did mean pubic hair, didn’t you, PC, or did you just direct your question to the wrong columnists?—is that each one is special and unique, like a snowflake. While the hegemonic cultural forces of the 2000s (Ideology, again, Joe!) have conspired to naturalize the image of hairless bodies, especially for women, you don’t need to look far to discover that this a bourgeois myth straight out of Barthes’ Mythologies.

That is to say while different bush styles work better on some people than others, rest assured that however you wear yours, someone else is doing it too. Don’t worry about the expectations of first-time partners—they may have a preference, but if they knock your style, they’re not even worth your embarrassment. Ditch ‘em.

I’d like to close by way of a short anecdote. In Julie Delpy’s hilarious film 2 Days in Paris (see it), her character’s boyfriend is confronted by a Parisian man at a “kick back” who explains why he hates what we in America refer to as the “landing strip,” an extremely popular bush.

“We call it Hitler’s mustache,” he explains. “It—how you say it—makes my cock back away. Is this right?” he asks, regarding his English. So you see, when it comes to your bush, it’s impossible to wear it in a way that pleases everyone (I guess the French are particularly idiosyncratic in this regard).

Take a page from Saturday Night Fever. Do what looks good to you, and just maybe “don’t touch the hair.”

—xo xo The Hardy Brothers

P.S. Sorry we dropped so much theory this week. Even we’re annoyed. We promise next week there will be no theory, only good old-fashioned sex! Stay tuned.

Filed under: Lifestyle by The Hardy Brothers
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“I wish I could say something classy and inspirational, but that just wouldn’t be our style…pain heals, chicks dig scars, and glory lasts forever.” – Shane Falco

When in the course of culinary events it becomes necessary for one ingredient to supplant another in a recipe, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that those responsible make a wise and judicious selection.

Or something like that.

Decency does, however, dictate that when something goes awry or missing, a self-respecting chef must call upon his adaptive abilities (and his pantry) to make right the wrong that has befallen his endeavor. This, in turn, requires preparation and creativity. These, then, are your tools:

Soy Milk: Recent experimentation in our test kitchen has revealed that the proper ratio of soy milk and hoisin can successfully approximate coconut milk, rescuing (in dramatic vegan fashion) a putative satay sauce or curry.

Brown Sugar: Huge.  Perfect as an extender/thickener/sweetener (for other extender/thickener/sweeteners, check your spam folder) in just about any cuisine.  If you screw up a salad dressing, a heaping tablespoon of brown sugar will castrate any excess acidity.  Similarly, a too-salty tomato sauce can be muted with a sprinkling of the dark stuff.

Charisma:  Great substitute for contraceptives.

Canola/Olive Oil: Reasonable substitutes for butter, which opens up a world of baking possibilities (and subsequent eating-your-feelings possibilities).  Also makes great lube, but it’s a terrible exfoliant.

Large Sunglasses: Effective, if deceptive and unfair, replacement for an attractive face.

Gin:  Freely substitute for vermouth in martinis, or for water at lunch.

Seltzer: Perfect substitute for any other beverage, except for gin (see above).

Nuts: Generally interchangeable.  Toasted hazelnuts or walnuts in place of pine make for an earthy, if douchey, pesto.

Vermouth: Fantastic substitute for other cooking alcohols. Elevated an impromptu apple compote from bullshit to stellar.  We’ve used it in all manners of cuisine, including Asian (!)

Vaguely Foreign Accent:  Substitute for having something interesting to say.

Shallots: Halfway between onions and garlic and better than both.  Don’t feel confined to French dishes, just as you should not feel confined to loudly broadcasting the French language in Blue State.

The Four-in-Hand: Excellent substitute for the half-Windsor.  Quicker, easier, more idiosyncratic and, frankly, more versatile.

Sriracha: Substitute for any other flavor.  Squirt some on plain rice and you’ve got a dish.  Blast over potatoes, stir into sauce, centrifuge into tuna.  Also makes a great lube.

Scotch: Great substitute for feeling.

Grapefruit Juice:  Substitute for other citruses, and have a glass while you’re at it.

Herbs:  If, when executing a recipe, one should find oneself lacking requisite basil, cilantro, mint, or rosemary, try substituting with any of the others in the group.  Who knows, like the original inventor of the nipple clip, you might discover something great and unexpected.

Goat cheese:  Great replacement for ecstasy or cocaine.

Pessimism: Great substitute for optimism.

Reading This Column: Great substitute for something worthwhile to do with your time.

Filed under: Lifestyle by Ted Lamm
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With festivities kicking off tonight at The Annual Halloween Fishco, the (very) long Halloween weekend of 2009 begins.  As students finish up pinning tails and ears to their hooded onesies, or running out to buy red pants suits and “Tina Fey Glasses,” they can take refuge in knowing that making a playlist for their Halloween party is as easy as a few (mostly free) clicks of the mouse.  Mash-ups have become the go to medium to sonically wallpaper Brown dorm rooms, and a form of Adderall used to treat musical ADD.

So here it is: the Post-blog’s Halloween guide to (monster) Mash-ups.

Girl Talk

Download link- Feed the Animals

E-603

Download Link- Torn Up/Something for Everyone

Super Mash Bros.

Download Link- All About The Scrilions/Fuck Bitches Get Euros

Milkman

Download Link- Discography

DJ Quickie Mart

Download Link- Brain Salad Surgery

Enjoy!

Filed under: Uncategorized by Matt Klimerman
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Filed under: Uncategorized by Matt Klimerman
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