Best of: “Call Me Maybe” Covers

If you haven’t heard Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”, you’re probably not reading this blog because you probably don’t exist.

And if you haven’t contributed to a “Call Me Maybe” cover, well, welcome to an emerging minority group. With covers cropping up left and right, we decided to highlight some of the ones that really stand out.

For those who haven’t seen the original music video or its surprise ending, here’s the gist: CJP sings and flirts and faints around this hunky guy, only to see at the end of the video that he hands his number to an equally adorable guy. Because, psych! He’s gay! And this is the fourth most downloaded song on iTunes. So tell me, CJP fans among the 48% of Americans who oppose gay marriage according to a May 2012 Gallup poll, why you’re obsessed with an ode to a gay dude but still insistent on depriving him of the rights you enjoy. Anyway, on to our list:

Most Pleasing Cover: Barack Obama - By baraksdubs, the impressive entity that rearranges micro-clips of presidential speeches to dub pop songs. Who doesn’t find his voice at once authoritative and soothing?

Most Prominent Xylophone Usage: Jimmy Fallen and Carly Rae Jepsen

Most Repetitive Dance Moves: Harvard Baseball Team

Lowest Effort / Highest Production Value: Miley Cyrus and Unnamed Peer - Despite featuring about fifty wardrobe changes in four minutes and spanning multiple sets, this video still makes no sense.

Most Unsettling : Cookie Monster: “Share It Maybe” - I don’t know who’s providing the voice here, but it’s definitely not the original guy from such classics as “C is for Cookie.” It might be the actor who played the clown in Stephen King’s It.

Other nominations?

Sister Wives: The Book (And Why I Actually Liked It)

When I watched Sister Wives on TLC, the reality show that follows a Mormon polygamist family, I saw four women (the wives) brainwashed into an oppressive system, and a man trying to make some easy money to support his large family.

But if I still felt that way, there wouldn’t be a very interesting arc to this post.

Now that I’ve read their book, Becoming Sister Wives, written in the form of alternating essays by Kody Brown and his wives, Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn, I see their family very differently. I wouldn’t choose to live this way — and I’d be pretty concerned if a friend or relative chose to, based on what I think they’d be giving up. But I don’t think that families like the Browns should be illegal or discriminated against.

While I still think Kody is an arrogant jerk*, I don’t think those four women are being oppressed or exploited, and I think their kids are actually growing up in a healthy family. Sure, maybe if the parents had been raised in a different culture, their beliefs and choices now would be different. But the same can be said for any of us. The Browns aren’t hurting themselves or their children any more than other conservative religious parents might “hurt” their children by teaching that most kinds of sex (the most fun ones) are sinful. In an interview, Janelle even impressively predicted that, statistically, at least one of their sixteen kids is gay. 

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Album Review: Justin Bieber’s Believe

Justin Bieber’s new album, Believe, came out last Tuesday. As someone who admittedly doesn’t know much about music beyond what sounds good to her ignorant ear, I have to say that I kind of like Justin Bieber. I think he’s got a good voice stuck in a nasal, pubescent phase, and he’s likeable. But for now, this album confirms that, yes, Justin is still cringingly lodged between being a kid and being a sexy musician.

Let’s back up a few months and consider what preceded Believe. In his 2011 duet with Mariah Carey, “All I Want for Christmas is You”, 17-year-old Justin commenced an uncomfortable transition into adulthood. While this song is ostensibly about holiday cheer and how much we all love to shop at Macy’s, it also features 41-year-old mother of two Mariah Carey catching Justin Bieber’s eye by grinding on a brick wall in an inch-long Santa outfit and stiletto boots.

She goes:

He stops his cart to stare, with an expression that a pubescent boy might reasonably make upon encountering a half-naked, bedroom-eyed lady in a department store:

   

But before anyone has a chance to feel weird about the May/December subtext, they both wind up snuggling with a puppy in a crowd of adoring fans — the ultimate platonic activity, if there ever was one.

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Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Anonymous.

or, The Time I Flew Across the Country to Meet People from the Internet

This budding apartment blog got me thinking about the differences between online communities, like blogs, and offline communities, like roommates. I like to think of my friends as friends wherever they are, whether they’re across the couch watching David Tutera or at a computer a hundred miles away. But the truth is hairier than that. How does an online friendship stack up against an offline one? Are our real-life relationships more meaningful, or are online relationships just different?

You may be shocked to learn that this is not my first time using the internet for social purposes. During my freshman year of college, I devoted hours each day blogging about my various struggles and triumphs, at first tentatively. Through my blog, I met a community of other people dealing with similar issues, and we commented on each others’ blogs religiously. I tried to maintain appropriate boundaries, but — like everyone else who has used the internet, ever — I found that I could be honest online in a way that I couldn’t in my real-time, in-person life. As a result, I wound up feeling extraordinarily close to a few people hundreds of miles away, whom I had never met in person, over the course of a few months.

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Why are success and likeability negatively correlated for women, but not for men?

We don’t know, but Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, has a problem with it.

Hear her talk about the status of women in the workforce — and what she wants working women to do about it — here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18uDutylDa4

- Rosalind

We Tried It So You Don’t Have To: Women’s Magazine Sex Advice

If you read a popular women’s magazine whose name rhymes with Zosmo, you might understandably assume that the more unexpected and whacky your sex moves, the better.* While sometimes this is true, we think that it’s easy to take this concept a little too far.

Besides, we all know what assuming things does to U and ME. So in this post, we’ll test some sex tips and chronicle the results for the edification of our readership.

Tip #1. Before you go down on your man, put some Jello in your mouth. This way, your mouth will feel more like a cafeteria dessert — and it’s realistic ‘cause there’s pubes in it. 

Our Verdict: Not recommended. Jello stains everything, including human skin, which, if you’re a man, makes for awkward glances at the urinal in the office, and if you’re a woman, makes you look like you’ve just given a blowjob with a mouth full of Jello. Also, if you’re using grape or cherry, it resembles afterbirth. 

Tip #2. Lean out of an open window while your man gets busy from behind. Passers-by will think …

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The Most Depressing Dog in the World

I work at an animal hospital on weekends, so I’m used to caring for sick and injured animals. There’s this one dog, though, whom I dread caring for there, because he depresses the hell out of me.

Let’s call this sad, sad dog Leo.

I believe that all living beings deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. However, the fact that Leo is a living thing is just about all he has going for him. There’s nothing else endearing about this poor dog. He’s about three hundred years old, incontinent, and basically immobile. Under his thinning fluff, this dog consists of fleshy pink growths and protruding bones. When he’s boarding at the animal hospital, he spends his time lying on his side, emitting ear-splitting whines. If I felt as bad as he looks, I’d do the same thing. But I don’t, so I’m entitled to resent him. That’s how it works, right?

After a day of trying to coax Leo to pee standing up and to eat something, the hospital phone rang. Leo’s owner was on the line.

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Meet Rosalind

Hi, tumblrers. I’ve chosen the pseudonym Rosalind, both as homage to Betty White’s character Rose from The Golden Girls and as a tip of the bonnet to Rosalind, the ballsy and feminist protagonist of As You Like It.

Why is my skin so radiant? It’s because I enjoy a steady but not uncritical diet of xojane, Savage Love, Scott Mills, Jezebel, Bike Snob, and now, Secondhand Furniture Chronicles.