sarah vowell should marry me,

nobody at work has heard of this american life. this scares me a little. where am i? everything is so comfortable here that it's almost uncomfortable. you'd think i'd be used to alienation by now...

harvey fierstein sums things up pretty well in this interview on his last night of Hairspray at the Luxor:

"It's an interesting place you got here," he says in the most distinctive voice since Jimmy Durante. "I have not been mentally bored in Las Vegas. I may be culturally dying ...," he says, dissolving into his seismic laugh.

You're thinking, "Oh, those snooty New York-types." But Fierstein's sojourn included a visit to the Clark County Museum, so if you live here and he beat you there, don't rush to snap judgments.

Anyway, Fierstein likes the table made from dice in the museum's 1930s house, and he is taking some kitschy dice artwork home with him. He is otherwise disappointed with his antique-hunting here after visiting "every junk shop in this town."

Living in Henderson during his "Hairspray" run, he found "certainly a separation of money here" compared to New York, and a "homogenization of neighborhoods here that is a little strange but not unlike what I see in L.A."

He found it odd that no one talks politics. "Our thieving president was here (last Monday) and nobody that I know talked about it at all."

overheard

Scarlett's family members like to die a lot. When we were fifteen and she was living at Shelly's house (right before she was legally emancipated) the only contact she'd have with her mother took the form of a weekly death notification.
Post-it notes: Uncle so-and-so dead. Cousin Whatsit's head found in barn- police think cult involved. (This is true).

Last week two of her aunts died. This is sad on many levels. They were both actually really nice people (ironically, most of Scarlett's family is very nice and/or not certifiable, the few exceptions being her immediate kin). Scarlett has a cousin Patty who is retarded. She doesn't have downs syndrome or anything, she's just slow and unable to live on her own. I'm not clear on the exact details-- normal-sized families confuse me, mine being so small-- but I think the two ladies who died were Patty's mother and her sister. Long story short, Patty is now without someone to care for her.

Last night I overheard Scarlett on the phone with Blair."They're putting Cousin Patty in the Retard Clink," she said, her voice softened by genuine sadness.