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I read an anecdote from someone whose African Grey didn’t particularly get along with her Amazon parrot, Paco. One night she was preparing cornish hens for dinner, while the grey hung out with her in the kitchen. He got a closer look at one of the hens, looked his mama dead in the eyes and asked, “Paco?” Then he laughed.
that is one sadistic bird
I am slightly afraid now.
I love birds?
African Grey Parrots are one of the smartest birds, and seems they can be known to play “jokes” or “pranks” on their owners or any visitors.
I was visiting a friend of the family one time and I was just casually watching tv when I thought I heard the water running. I go into the kitchen but everything’s fine. the parrot looks at me and says “gotcha”.
Parrots are awesome.
I have an African Grey named Loki and he lives up to his name.
He likes to scream and mimic the sounds of things falling off the shelf and when we run into the room to see what’s happening he says “The cat did it! Bad Sammy!” and laughs.
Whenever he gets mad at me he flies away from me, but since he can’t fly very well, he always crash lands. And the first thing he says when I go to pick him up, without fail, is always “You need to vacuum,” in a very bitter grumble.
Loki likes to call our cat to him. He’ll sit there for minutes saying “here kitty kitty kitty.” The cat will come, walk up to the bird, get bit and then Loki will laugh as the cat screams and runs away. This goes on for hours.
If it’s late at night and he’s tired, but I’m still up with the lights on, he’ll say “Loki go night night.” It’s starts of in a normal tone and then gets louder and louder until he’s screaming “LOKI GO NIGHT NIGHT!“
If he sees my dad fall asleep, he screams like a little girl to scare my dad awake. And then laughs. He’s kind of perfected that evil laugh.
But the best one was when I brought home the man who has since become my ex for the first time, Loki looked him dead in the eyes and said “I’m going to bite you.“ My parrot was the first one to see what a bad person my ex. He was smarter than us all.
DID U GUYS KNOW THERE WAS A BAND CALLED HATEBEAK THAT HAD AN AFRICAN GREY PARROT AS ITS VOCALIST
There's something you should know about me. In many circles, I am known as the "Catpappy." That's because I'm the person my friends call when they need a cat sitter—I have a natural rapport with the little buggers, and I can draw out even the most aloof kitty cat and have it sprawled out in front of me, purring softly and making the tenderest of biscuits in 40 seconds flat. This is a power I was born with, and I wield it with the discipline of a Shaolin monk.
I perhaps mistakenly believed this was a nickname that would be celebrated by the public. So I had it put on my license plate by going to the California DMV's website, filling out the requisite forms and paying the requisite fee, and requested a custom license plate emblazoned with "CATPAPI"—a compromise made due to character limits.
I believed this to be perfectly reasonable, but unfortunately, the California State Transportation Agency and Department of Motor Vehicles did not. I received the following terse response approximately six weeks after my request:
Now, any self-respecting Catpappy wouldn't take this sort of abuse lying down, so I wrote the CA DMV in hopes I could talk some sense into a government finding cause for obscenity where there clearly was none:
By laying my intentions bare, the state of California surely could no longer reject my plea. After sending off this letter, I began to wait patiently for my newly minted "CATPAPI" tags to arrive.
Sadly, it was not to be, as I received another correspondence from the evil headquarters of the California DMV:
I was bowled over by their obstinate rejection of reason and sanity. What's more, to have an official California government department state clearly that the word "cat" means "vagina" establishes an abhorrent precedent. Not to mention blatant hypocrisy, which I stumbled upon the very next day:
This fight is long from over. I will take it to the highest court of law, or to the lowest depths of good taste. You can't keep a good pappy down.
Less than a month after announcing she was dropping out of her movie projects, Chloë Grace Moretz is back in the movie-making game. Back in September, Moretz told TheHollywood Reporter, "I pulled the plug on all my movies because I want to reassess who I am and find myself within my roles again." But now Moretz, formerly of Carrie and Let Me In, knows exactly the right part for finding herself, and that role is as a murdering or murdered ballerina. Variety reports Moretz has been cast in the Suspiria remake. Based on the Dario Argento–directed 1977 Italian horror classic, the movie takes place in a ballet academy where the students have to worry about more than perfecting their pirouettes — mainly maggots and reanimated corpses. The remake, which is set to come out in 2017 to mark the original's 40th anniversary, also stars Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton.
Anne Rice (75)
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Kimmie Meisner (27)
Lil Mama (27)
Rich Homie Quan (27)
Melissa Benoist (28)
Lena Katina, formerly of t.A.T.u. (32)
Rachael Leigh Cook (37)
Alicia Silverstone (40)
Liev Schreiber (49)
John Melendez (51)
Micky Ward (51)
Jon Secada (54)
Chris Lowe (57)
Ned Luke (58)
Bill Fagerbakke (59)
Russell Simmons (59)
Christoph Waltz (60)
Tcheky Karyo (63)
Armand Assante (67)
Stephen Gyllenhaal (67)
Brynn Thayer (67)
Linda McMahon (68)
Susan Sarandon (70)
Jackie Collins (1937-2015)
Jennifer Lawrence attends the Christian Dior Spring 2017 fashion show during Paris Fashion Week in Paris, France.
Imagine you get an invitation to an honest-to-God Dior fashion show in Paris. No, really. Close your eyes and imagine it, especially the part about what you’d wear if you were living this fantasy. Revel in the daydream, darlings. And when you’re done, open your eyes, scroll down…
… and let us know if this looks anything like your fantasy Paris Fashion Week ensemble.
Look, girlfriend can wear whatever she wants (except for when it’s contractually obligated), and this all clearly came from the house, but if you can’t be assed to get dressed up for a Dior show, why bother going to one?
[Photo Credit: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images, Best Images/FAMEFLYNET PICTURES]
I kind of liked this — it’s groovy! — until I took a closer look: And saw a DEMONIC CAT — its nefarious heart glowing with potential evil – out to possess my very soul, sprawled across the front of it. And now that’s all I can see. It’s somewhat unnerving. On the other hand, sometimes that’s Read More ...
Over the past few years, expensive and elaborate promposals have grown in popularity — and so it was only a matter of time before teens would find a way to incorporate homecoming into that trend. But one Ohio senior, Joe LaRue, managed to go viral with just a...More »
This month’s theme is Infinity, about what cannot be articulated; the infinite feelings, colors, sounds, experiences that we do not have words for. We’re publishing a few entries from Tavi’s diary that show how, for her, “it’s gotten shockingly effortless to live in Infinity, and trust that I’ll retain what I need to later, and if not, accept the price of a life fully lived.” This is part five in the series; read the first installment here, the second here, the third here, and the fourth here.
5/20/15
A diary entry from very early November, a lapse in the break from writing:
The day of Halloween I had a shoot for Vogue. Grace Coddington chose one musician, one film actress, one model, et cetera, to shoot separately, and I was the stage actress. We’d had a fitting earlier in the week where she said she remembered when I came up to her on the street when I was 13 and asked for a photo. I remember she had said to me, “Oh, I hear you’re the competition!” She was so nice, so enthusiastic in her quiet, thoughtful way. She said she wanted my input on what I would be wearing but I was too shy to offer any. I liked the Miu Miu she’d selected: pink coat like a thin mattress pad, flowery cropped blouse, red pencil skirt, tartan wool belt, high tan and white pumps, and my nameplate necklace which she asked that I keep on.
Now I took the car to Newark Penn Station and was a pinball machine of nerves while eating the catering over making conversation with Grace, who sat down next to me, and receiving texts from Man for the first time since our first date, which I was sure had gone terribly. I talked to the models while we waited around, met one who has a head of frizzy red hair like a mini-Grace and is my age and was very kind and easy to talk to. After all the waiting around, everything began to happen all at once, and I was rushed to a corner by a train entrance where I stood perfectly still and gave variations on a smile and everyone paid very close attention. Then it was over.
Back home, I got my costume together with Anna (Madonna) and Petra (Regina George). Because I’d procrastinated, I just decided to wear one of my sequin tube tops and be Chloë Sevigny’s character in The Last Days of Disco. I had the right hair for it. Petra bought me some cheap black pajama pants that actually worked very well, as did her leopard coat and my gold strappy platforms. I was texting with Man throughout about possibly meeting up later. I went to work where knowing I was about to possibly meet up with him made the first scene very real. When I came back, Augusta came over, and everyone else went out to some place that required IDs, and Petra was only just now telling us as if I could suddenly acquire a fake at, like, the deli. So Augusta and I hung back and listened to my live Talking Heads record while I did my hair and makeup. It was so great to talk to her about acting and directing, like to have a nerdy conversation that I normally can’t have because I think it bores most people or sounds pretentious. She told me about her thesis where she plans to draw an analogy between the world in a film with the Other spaces as defined by Foucault (a mirror is an Other space; you know that it is real as a fake space), and I shared that acting in the play is not about convincing myself that I am another person or that I’m not on a stage, but knowing that this Other space and the months of rehearsal and all the muscle memory are constructed to allow for emotionally honest behavior. It’s easy for me to accept that Jessica is real and that Warren is real, even if they exist as Other, because of my many years Fangirling over fictional characters as vital to my existence as friends and family. I remembered when Petra and Anna and I screened Manhattan on our rooftop, and its shots of the city completed a 360-degrees panorama of our own downtown view. I’d been struggling with Jessica’s stakes seeming high enough—who cares, really, about this young girl’s date with this weenie guy—but saw that Mariel Hemingway made us care about everything that happened to Tracy by just being so believable as a real human. That is my problem right now–I get all of Jessica’s circumstances, I know who she is, but I’m still struggling to just exist, like a person, onstage.
Augusta and I went out onto the street and spent too long trying to find the deli that is two blocks away. Then we had to find another one that sold beer. We split a liter while sitting at the counter at the pizza place, going deep and making each other laugh in equal measure. I love drunk Augusta! I’m always worried that when I’m drunk and socially anxious I’ll start talking about something really dark but with the disposition of like, Christine Baranski. But with Augusta I always feel so safe! We took a cab to the club where Petra & co. had ended up and went straight for the bathroom before getting drinks and then we put our stuff down on the couch in the middle of the room and danced. I wanted to request disco, per my costume, but they never go back once they’ve started playing new music. I tried to let it go. I am trying to do that more. Then it became fun. We merged with the rest of the group. Why’s Augusta so great to dance with? I checked my phone and had a missed call from Man and a text that they weren’t letting any more people in, so I went outside to find him, and was stopped right at the entrance by a girl with really elaborate face paint and fake teeth and horns and a pink, Mad Hatter sort of suit. She said “Hey!!!” with all the familiarity of a locker buddy. I was baffled.
“It’s Chloë. You’ve interviewed me before.”
“Oh my god, hi!! I didn’t recognize you! Um, what are you dressed as?”
“I dunno! Just like, a frumpy devil?! I wanted to do something really weird and intense!”
“It’s working! I didn’t know it was you!”
“What are you??”
“I’m, um, I’m you! In Last Days of Disco!”
She turned to her friends. “You guys! She’s me in Last Days of Disco!”
I was relieved she wasn’t totally weirded out but maybe when I walked away she was like WHAT ON EARTH. Oh well. I saw Man on the other side of the rope and went out and hugged him hello and met his friend and asked if I could bring them in and the doorman said no, that they were 15 minutes from closing, so I ran in to get my stuff and say goodbyes, but then Man got in, I saw him at the other end of the room, but then we walked back out. Augusta gave me one of her googly eyes (she had stuck a bunch on her face and said she was a fly) and we saw her into a cab. Man’s friend drove Man and me to Man’s place in his fancy car with a photo of a smiling David Lynch taking up the whole big dashboard robot screen; my Halloween guardian angel.
Man and I talked and watched early Britney videos and passed out. In the morning we talked and cuddled and found the googly eye and had sex and this time I was not thinking about my arms or legs or anything, just letting myself feel it, and talking was so much easier than it had been on that first date, I wasn’t concerned with the value or intrigue of what I was saying, and kissing each other mid-conversation started to come so naturally and I wasn’t occupying my brain with concerns about keeping feelings in check or what my body looked like and I remember thinking mid-a kiss that was very overthought on my part to just let it happen to me before realizing that “let it happen to you” had been one of the notes I’d gotten about being present in the show. I was able to plainly exist in this space of sheets and contact. I found myself becoming familiar with his smell and wanting to hug it, and actually looking at his smile instead of being smiled at. I remembered that this stuff does not have to be a source of anxiety or oppression. Or that when it’s this easy, you are not thinking about what it means or will become. I wasn’t overanalyzing what was done or said while we were having sex or hung up that he didn’t say things like before. It was like when you follow a really strong show and the audience isn’t responding really but there’s nothing to even have to come to terms with because you just know on every level that it’s not like your fault or something bad or anything. You trust that the audience is with you in their own way and in that way they stop being an audience you are performing for; they are going through it with you, with the characters. A boy stops being someone you perform for or are gazed upon by; you’re just there with another person. You’re not thinking about what you are revealing or presenting. And if things are revealed or presented by you, they are surprises to you, too.
Now this makes me think of when I saw Jenny earlier this year and she said she hates acting games “because they just make me feel like I’m bad at acting,” but that the one where you have to make each other laugh just by laughing actually resembles the cadence of sex when both people stop hating their bodies or worrying what the other person thinks beyond what would make them feel good. At that same dinner, Ari told us about watching her ex move out, carrying his crates of records to the car, and her gaining momentary access to “an aerial view, like I was already telling my grandchildren about him.” The kind of perspective you save for endings. I try on that reflective calm now, post-breakup, as it seems like the sign of an evolved person. But then I remember something he did or said, or I run into someone else who knows him and assures me I’m not crazy, and I don’t have any journals from that time to parse like a detective for foreshadowing of his callousness, and I feel like I can’t fall asleep until I know if he’s Good or Bad.
It’s not that I consciously made excuses for him, but I was quick to swallow the onset of nausea when my therapist asked who in my life I admire for the ways in which they move through the world and I could not say that he was one of them. I just really loved to watch him. It was very captivating. I hung on every word. Not because I believed he held some secret to living, but because he held the secrets to who he was, and I thought that uncovering them would qualify me, too, as beautiful.
5/29/15
Today I got a haircut and color to more closely resemble Berlin-era Bowie and met Durga at a pizza place in Brooklyn Heights and we talked about Man and Man’s Friend for two hours and I kept topping myself with every fucked up thing he ever did and then once we got to the bar that the birthday was at I started to feel doomed and lonely and realized I had done thing called “splitting” where you shit talk someone you once loved so much that you become dissociated from yourself because who you are is not a person who hates them. Whenever this happens I have to retrace all my steps and figure out how I got from high school to New York, from who I was then to who I am now, connecting the dots across articles of clothing (none of which I can wear anymore), songs (none of which I can listen to anymore), and other such details of art direction.
I told Durga I wasn’t feeling well so we left very early.
DURGA: I think it’s good that you’re so comfortable leaving a party. There’s too little time to spend any not feeling good.
ME: I agree. I just get really impatient in those settings. It’s just like…I think about death all the time! You know? Like, every day.
DURGA: How can you not? When people ask me, like, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”, I’ve just started saying that I don’t know that I’ll make it!
ME: 10 years seems very optimistic!
DURGA: Yeah!
ME: Maybe it’s because I watched Six Feet Under in high school? Or read Tuesdays With Morrie in fourth grade when I thought that was precociousness?
DURGA: But everyone I know who’s like this about death is also a writer. In “On Keeping a Notebook,” Didion characterizes notebook-keepers as “afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.”
ME: Ow. Ow. I mean, I broke up with my high school boyfriend months before I was actually moving to New York because I just couldn’t hang out with him without anticipating the end. And I remember trying to “stay present” and convince myself it was the same as living life to the fullest even though you know you’ll die, or BECAUSE you know you’ll die, but like, I won’t have to mourn my own life once it’s over. Why “stay present” with someone who’s just gonna leave your life?
DURGA: Yes. Relationships are horrible because you survive them.
Autumnal blooms for @oasisfashion A/W16 campaign using @opi_products @opinailsuk
💐🍃🌼🌹🍂🍁🌷🌺
Nails by Sophie Harris-Greenslade #TheIllustratedNail @emmadaviesagent
“What’s the last thing you bought online that you’re obsessed with?” is a so-mundane-it’s-actually-interesting question. Which is why we’ve been repeatedly posing it to notable people we’ve encountered. This week we learned the beauty product Pamela Anderson slathers herself with and the boots Glenda Bailey can’t wait to...More »
In 1999, did you ever fantasize about a world in which you could just go to one place and see stars like Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and the Backstreet Boys perform their hits until you passed out from happiness? If so, Las Vegas in 2017 is that place. The Axis theater at Planet Hollywood, which already hosts shows for Spears and Lopez, will now welcome BSB into its '90s-loving arms for an 18-date “trial residency” beginning in March of next year. Because the gods are just, the show will be called Larger Than Life, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and Kevin Richardson says the Boys are “taking that theme and we’re going to run with it." What exactly does that mean, you ask? Brian Littrell has answers: “If you’ve ever been to a Backstreet Boys show ... it’s going to be that on steroids.” The spectacle may not start until the spring, but if you’re feeling down, you can start buying up tickets for them to make it right on October 1.
For the next three weeks, Vulture is holding our annual pop-culture bracket. In 2015, we battled it out for the best high-school TV show; this year, we're determining the greatest couple on television in the past 30 years. Each day, a different writer will be charged with picking the winner of a round of the bracket, until New York Magazine TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz judges the finals on October 14. Today's play-in round will decide which Buffy the Vampire Slayer couple will make it into the bracket. After you read, be sure to visit Vulture's Facebook page to vote on which show you think should advance.
Sometimes finding love is more difficult than preventing the next apocalypse. No show has made this clearer than Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Think of how many times Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) saved the world throughout the show’s seven seasons, and think about how many times her romantic relationships have gone horribly, horribly wrong. The members of her Scooby Gang have also felt the pain of a broken heart, have loved and lost even as they fought (and sometimes fucked) demons. Still, when things are going right, love can feel like the sweetest spell, the most benevolent kind of sorcery.
In this play-in match of the TV Couple Scuffle, we look at three of the strongest, most earth-shattering relationships from the series. Sorry, Anya and Xander, you had wonderful chemistry and a gift for musical comedy, but it wasn’t meant to be. Sorry, Riley Finn, you were always a garbage suitor for Buffy, with the charisma of a loaf of bread. Sorry, most of all, to Rupert Giles and Joyce Summers — we caught only a mere glimpse of what Buffy’s Watcher and her mom could have been, but it was enough to know that Rupert had sex “like a stevedore.” You are what fanfiction is made for. May you live and love and thrive in some wonderful parallel world.
Here, we’ll be considering Buffy and Angel, Buffy and Spike, and Tara and Willow — the winner of this round will go on to compete against The Office’s Pam and Jim.
Buffy and Angel The fundamental problem with vampires as romantic leads in high-school TV series is that no teenager should ever date a man who’s centuries older than she is, no matter how hot or how brooding he is. And there’s no denying that Angel (David Boreanaz) is hot, hot enough to warrant his own spinoff show. He represents the teenage ideal of what a boyfriend should be: He’s strong and protective and tender, yet mysterious and a little dangerous. Tall? Check. Dark? Check. Handsome? Check. But just think about it: If he weren’t enormously attractive, he’d mostly just be a big old stalkery creep who had no business hanging around with teenagers. In other words, if your age is in the triple digits, you probably shouldn’t be slow dancing at any senior proms.
If the first couple of seasons of Buffy tended to be heavy on metaphor, then maybe the most in-your-face petty high-school trope is the one where Angel turned into a monster right after Buffy slept with him for the first time. You can play it like one moment of pure happiness was enough to ruin Angel and turn him back into the serial killer that he’d once been, or you can consider what Angel did to Buffy the most intense form of ghosting.
Eventually, Buffy sends Angel to hell in order to save the world, which is kind of like the extreme version of deleting your ex’s number from your phone and blocking him on social media. But then, even more insultingly, he returns, but only occasionally, so there’s no chance for a clean break. Angel keeps hanging on just enough to stay in the picture, but with the constant reminder that he and Buffy can never sleep together again. Ladies, here’s some common sense: If you have to remain celibate with the love of your life, it’s time to find another love of your life. The end.
Buffy and Spike Spike (James Marsters), at least, owns his creepiness — he doesn’t run from it; he enjoys it. His unabashed nastiness is fun and enticing. In fact, my favorite couple on Buffy might just be season-two-era Spike and Drusilla simply because they had so much fun being bad together. The romance of the Sid and Nancy of vampires was never meant to endure, but they sure did look chic while it lasted.
Buffy and Spike have an errant kiss or two that certainly helped build up the tension, but when they consummated their relationship in season six, the show became sexier and racier than ever before. Their visceral love-hate chemistry reached Sam-and-Diane levels, but it was more dangerous (they were quite literally trying to kill each other before they first had earth-shattering sex) and therefore way kinkier. I don’t want to make broad assumptions, but I imagine that most sex that takes place in a crypt is kinky. After so much heartache and so much metaphor, both Buffy and the viewers are finally rewarded with some good, naughty intrigue.
But season six doesn’t end there. Let’s reward Buffy-Spike extra points for adding eroticism to the show, but not ignore the fact that later in the season Spike attempts to rape Buffy. This is one of those places where I can’t remember how I felt when I first saw it. Was I shocked? Perversely titillated, even? Maybe. But looking back on the episode within the context of today’s headlines, it seems more and more unforgivable. Loving one’s rapist is an old soap-opera trope (and Game of Thrones plot device) that doesn’t hold up today. Buffy deserved better.
Tara and Willow While sex got too real with Spike and Buffy, Tara (Amber Benson) and Willow’s (Alyson Hannigan) relationship is oppressively chaste onscreen. The WB was too prudish to even show a lesbian kiss on television in the early days of their courtship in season four. Thank goodness for fanfiction and comic books for allowing us to imagine Tara and Willow’s most intimate moments off-camera.
But even with network restrictions, Tara and Willow’s chemistry is palpable. When they hold hands to cast a spell, there is magic in the air that has nothing to do with witchcraft. They’re compatible. They have their challenges (Willow’s penchant for going too deep into dark arts is a sometimes-too-glaring metaphor for substance addiction), but overall they make each other happy. They also have the benefit of the doubt because we never get to see Tara and Willow fall out of love — their romance will always have a “What if?” quality. The fatal shooting of Tara in season six is one of the most tragic moments on television both because Tara had just started to really feel like one of the Scooby Gang, and also because her future with Willow seemed so bright.
Revisiting the show, I feel sad for my younger self, who was taught to believe that Buffy’s romances were what love is — that you have to literally and figuratively fight for a person’s soul before they can truly love you, that love is a constant struggle between darkness and light. Angel and Spike both work well for fantasies, but Tara and Willow had something real. Even though portraying lesbian romance on network television was difficult in the year 2000 — and it’s still not easy — Tara and Willow’s personal relationship was easy. It turns out that their life together was doomed, but it didn’t have to be. Minus the pesky murder, Tara and Willow are worthy of #RelationshipGoals. We are left with the promise that their love would have continued to flourish. Witch love forever.
The October issue of Women’s Running magazine features Rahaf Khatib, a six-time marathoner and creator of the Instagram account @runlikeahijabi.
Women’s Running says she’s the first Hijabi woman to appear on the cover of a health or fitness magazine in the United States. The Michigan mom...More »
I kind of liked this — it’s groovy! — until I took a closer look: And saw a DEMONIC CAT — its nefarious heart glowing with potential evil – out to possess my very soul, sprawled across the front of it. And now that’s all I can see. It’s somewhat unnerving. On the other hand, sometimes that’s Read More ...
