Things to look forward to (eating)

Sometimes when we're feeling aspirational we visit West Hartford Center. On a recent outing, we were excited to note this new joint:

And while we mourn the passing of lovely Lemongrass, we're comforted to see that a new Thai restaurant will be moving in to the same location.


Hope it's going to be delicious! And if possible, less pricey than our fav-o Thai (and more) spot East West Grill, which is super awesome, but keeps getting more and more expensive. WTF, quit charging us for rice!

Bell Biv Devoe: For Reals!

Saturday, Sept. 4: Bell Biv Devoe @ The Wolf Den, Mohegan Sun

We're just tickled to see that BBD are back in the saddle again. How many times a week do you find an excuse to reference hot lyrics from "Poison" or "Do Me"? Smack it up flip it rub it down - OH NOOOOO! (Never not funny by the way.)

What's Hot at the Lot: Back to School Edition

Ugh, totally dreading starting up classes tomorrow. Mortified that "back to school shopping" is still a part of my life. Oh well, the student commuter life calls for certain snacks and supplies. So today at The Lot I stocked up on Polar seltzers and soda ($5.50 per 24 case):


I know I'm going to be doing a lot of stress eating between (and during!) certain classes:


These cookies are sophisticated because they come from Europe. Real Americans hate European things, so they end up at the discount store. Where Real Americans shop. Confusing!

Why pay more when you can pay less for generic items like paper and pens and binders? Available in a comforting rainbow of colors. Looks like pride!


The tag on these capri sweats says "campus wear for women." Well, after binging on all that soda and cookies and crap, elastic waistbands are gonna be the only way to go.


Just kill me now.

We Read the Courant, So You Don't Have To (2nd ed.)

It's that time again. We thought we would check in with the Courant and see what's happening in "journalism" today. We'll make this as quick and painless as possible. If you want it the sexier way, by all means, read the actual Courant.

1. This guy...

...paid his 8-year-old son $1 to swear and use racial slurs on a video for YouTube. He titled it "Swearing Kid." The man was charged with "Impairing the morals of a child". His hair was charged with "having a party in the back AND the front." His beard was charged with "harboring fugitives."

2. This lady...

...admitted to stabbing her diasbled son 35 times. (Her hair was let off with a warning.)

3. A man in a wheelchair escaped from a group home in WeHa and rolled down a nearby hill to his death. (We'll let you decide if this is sad, hilarious, or both.)

4. Friend-of-the-blog John Mertens is taking a little vacay from campaigning for Senator to go to Burning Man. The Courant didn't really know what to make of this.

5. Two women were arrested for forging truck driver's licenses. Their fake company, Affordable CDL, claims to be the "cheapest and best commercial driver's license school in Connecticut." Cheapest? Best? Sign me up.

That, apparently, is all the news that's fit to print. Sigh.

(Musical) Friends of the Blog Week

Remember that great band Sidewalk Dave from our fabulous party? Your new favorite band? They have two New Haven gigs this week. Wednesday night they play at BAR and Thursday night they'll be at Cafe Nine. We're psyched about rock shows at BAR. We've seen some great acts there over the years, like Adam Franklin and Magnolia Electric Company, and they have some of the coolest looking bathrooms in the state! (Which you know we'll document for you if we make it down.)


How about that superfun punk band from our party? The Midnightmares? You can see them this Saturday in East Hartford at 125 Riverside Drive. It's part of the Advocate's Grand Band Slam, which the paper seems to have neglected to create a page for on their great website.


And those Brooklyn hotties Katie Scenic liked so much the other night? They'll be playing in Stamford on Friday at someplace called Rack n Roll (not really our neck of the woods, unfortunately) with CT gal Daria Musk, who seems very nice, if not exactly our type. They are also playing in Hartford on Saturday at Up or On the Rocks, and we can't think of another - er, a better - reason to go there. Aw, we kid. They've booked some other "friends-of-the-blog" lately, so they must be alright. Looking forward to this gig for sure!

The Human Centipede Experience

Back in September of last year I was first alerted to the existence of The Human Centipede by this blog post and immediately sent an email to DH with the link and the message "let's definitely not ever see this movie. in fact don't even click this link." But with all the hype and amusing novelty t-shirts and necklaces and supposed comedy (very tedious) that ensued, Team Scenic somehow ended up hosting the premiere of the film at Real Art Ways and attempting to coerce viewers into posing as human centipedes themselves.

In spite of a pretty good turnout - especially for a film that has already been available in various capacities for months, we had few participants willing to actually pose (check out the few, the proud on our FB galleries). Even for the opportunity to win this one-of-a-kind jewelry item by crafty bitch and BFF-of-the-blog SuperLula (though surely you can commission her to make more).


Still, we had a good time playing with our (impressively realistic!) medical props and costumes and feeding people fake drugs with fun explanations about muscle relaxants and immune suppressants and vitamin supplements and stool softeners. And of course latex gloves are never not fun. (Actually, these are vinyl.)


As for the movie itself, I would encourage you to take the remaining opportunity to see it on the big screen this weekend at RAW. The concept is so much more disgusting in its contemplation than in its on-screen execution. It was actually a lot of laughs (thanks to a combination of terrible acting, overacting and inept scriptwriting by director Tom Six), and I didn't notice any walkouts at our screening.

Hype about this film has included a tagline "100% medically accurate," which of course is completely absurd. But true in the sense that (**SPOILERY**) this film's rendering of an ATM human centipede would stand no chance at survival. Actually, I can imagine a much more horrifying film based on the same concept only with better medical accuracy. In the existing film, the surgical fusion is fast and glossed over. In reality, to attempt such a fusion with any hopes for a lengthy survival of the fused victims would take multiple operations and recoveries from a series of body modifications and treatments. This would be truly horrible to behold (consider The Fly, a much more affecting biological nightmare) and prolong the fear and anticipation for the both characters and the viewers. As it is, you get an unbelievable quickie surgery on characters who have been so hastily or unflatteringly portrayed to begin with that you barely sympathize with them anyway. There's oodles more "wrong" with The Human Centipede from a critical perspective, but to analyze is to miss the point here. We had a shit-ton of fun watching it, and even more fun anticipating it and developing an arsenal of centipede themed jokes and puns. Bring friends and think of it as participating in the culture.

Northampton: By Day

We admit that part of Connecticut's charm is being able to leave. People love to talk about how close we are to those "real cities", Boston and NYC, but who has the resources to actually go on any regular basis? I rarely leave my bed, let alone cross state lines. Although it can be rewarding to hunt down fun activities in Hartford, sometimes we don't want to have to work for it. Fun should come to US! Luckily, we live in the center of everything (middle of nowhere?), and can drive in pretty much any direction to find someplace worthy of our "travel" tag.

When gay culture was still new and fascinating (and hadn't completely taken over our lives yet), we would oft stroll around Northamption center and admire the rainbow flags, lesbian street performers and gift shops full of useless novelty items. We returned recently to reaquaint ourselves with the area, and see if record stores still exist.

They do, but are definitely on the endangered species list. Noho's Turn It Up! Records is still hoppin'. They are still in their cozy basement locale on Pleasant Street. The place is packed with have bins of new and used vinyl, CDs and DVDs, which I am mostly too lazy to look through these days, but it's nice to see people are still into that. Sadly, Dynamite Records was DOA. All that remains is a skeleton of their most recent location on Main Street, evidence that there was a time when two records stores could coexist peacefully.

I'm not sure why the mark of a vibrant cultural community is an abundance of stores that sell old used crap, but we all know it is. Raven Used Books has been a beloved Noho landmark for 17 years. The large college population helps keep this place afloat, but anyone could spend an entire day in there. I found an adorable book of Andy Warhol's cat prints, and a posthumously published Jack Kerouac/William Burroughs collaboration that was on a clearance rack. (Clearance racks being the only place I can afford to shop).

Since it was the middle of the day, we decided to indulge in ice cream rather than booze. At Herrell's I tried a vegan caramel ice cream made from Mimiccreme. It was possibly the best thing I've ever eaten.

After hitting up all our old favorites, we needed some guidance on binoculars. Luckily, "Backyard Birds: A Birdwatcher's Store" was nearby! It's run by a really nice older couple that explained binoculors to us and let us wander the streets of Noho trying out various pairs.

Connecticut, you know I love you, but sometimes I gotta go see my MA mistress to keep things interesting.

Third Week Scene

It's an effort but here's a not entirely us-centric post...

Cuz it's "third week" and you know what that means:

Thursday, August 19: Creative Cocktail Hour @ Real Art Ways, Hartford
Our favorite party will feature something called Bhangra music and dance. What is that anyway?!

Friday, August 20: Open House Tour & Tasting @ Hooker Brewery, Bloomfield
We totally went there. You can too. But obvs you should actually be coming to see us and The Human Centipede that night.

Saturday, August 21: Redlight Burlesque and Variety Show @ Jokers Wild, New Haven
This show is fun! Surf theme this month. Burlesque dancing and live music by The Clams.

Fourth week used to suck, but now we have Guerilla Queer Bar (location: TBA) on fourth Thursdays and Final Fridays with New England Brewing (beer & bands) to look forward to.

ATM @ RAW: Show us your centipedes!

Friday, August 20: Human Centipede Pre-Op w/ CT Scenic @ Real Art Ways, Hartford


OK, so we basically only blog about ourselves now. Last week we issued a challenge of sorts to Real Art Ways, suggesting that a great way to kick off gross-out torture porn medical nightmare horror flick The Human Centipede's run at the theater would be to get patrons to pose for pictures as human centipedes. Well, they wisely recognized that this is a genius fun idea and asked CT Scenic to host the shenanigans, which will take place before the movie's Hartford debut, Friday Aug. 20.

In his review, Roger Ebert famously refused to assign any stars to The Human Centipede, deeming "the star rating system unsuited to this film," and warns viewers that "no horror film I've seen inflicts more terrible things on its victims than The Human Centipede." He also said "you don't want to be part of the Human Centipede at all, but you most certainly don't want to be in the middle."



Wait, yes you do. Come to Real Art Ways Friday, bring friends, and show us your centipedes. The Scenics will be there with special treats (probably donuts, duh) and pre-meds to facilitate your fusion. Real Art Ways will be selling beer and wine (as always). Hopefully your "heads" will be considerate and drink for three. Antics will be fully clothed/non-pornographic, so if your friend groups are as slutty as ours, we reckon you've already done much, much worse together, hygienically speaking. We already 'peded up (at our amazing party). And not because we were drunk, but because we said we would do it in a previous post. And look - these ambitious cosplayers took it to the next level. Really, it's no biggie.



The Human Centipede will play at Real Art Ways Aug. 20, 21, 27 & 28, 9:30 p.m. We've been saving ourselves to see it in the theater so watch it for the first time with us!

Cheap Eats, of the fishy variety

What: Sake Cafe

Where: 774 Park Ave., Bloomfield, CT

When: lunch- 11:30am-3:00pm daily

happy hour- 3-5:30pm Mon-Thurs

By now you've seen the giant bus advertisements and received coupons in the mail in those weird Valupak things, and probably thought about how fucking ridiculous the slogan "More sake, more happy!" is. Well, you'd be right. But you'd be wrong to avoid The Sake Cafe on bizarre marketing alone. Not only do they have grrrrrreat specials, but the food is excellent, and hey, there's usually no one in there!

(I still have no camera, here's a picture of some generic sushi)

I've now been twice, once for the lunch special and once for the happy hour There are various nicely priced lunch options; my lunch companion and I both went for the Lunch Roll Combo: $9.95 for miso soup, house salad and 2 rolls. I had an avocado roll and a spicy tuna roll, both delish. As we were the only people in there, the chef sent us an amazing shrimp tempura thing on the house. I usually don't order anything fancy, so I was pleasantly surprised by this ornate, multi-ingredient sushi delight. Happy hour went similarly, they have single pieces of (nigiri?) sushi for 99-cents or rolls (maki?) for $3. This time I had a tempura sweet potato roll and a salmon roll, and tried a piece of my LC's tuna. (That's what she said.) We also tried some deliciously fruity $4 martinis. I am obviously no food writer, but I can tell you that this place is awesome, the food is good, the service is kinda awkward but endearing, and the price is right. I can only hope this place is totally hoppin' on a Friday night, because its a ghost town during the weekdays (go figure). Some Yelpers had good things to say about their Hibachi action too, but that's a little out of my recession budget. Maybe someday...