True Story: Twilight Addict

I’m 24. I’m a Photographer, sales girl, and blogger. I’m an nyc native, fiancee, and Gemini. I’m also a Twihard. I’m not the type to deny things I love.

I come from a household of readers and love good books. The closest I’ve gotten to cheesy best-sellers before was a stint with Steven King in middle school and Nicholas Sparks when I’m feeling sentimental. I’ve steered clear ofAnne Rice.

But below my cynical city girl facade, I’m a sucker for classic forbidden love stories. Like everyone obsessed with something, I turned to the internet. The rumor mill was always on overdrive with Rob Pattinson but when I heard confirmation he was filming Remember Me in the city for two months this summer, I lost my mind. What did I do? Did I find him? Where did I draw the line? My best girlfriends and I went searching after dark.

Finding the movie set was no problem, it was getting a picture with him that was the obstacle. So we did what us city girls do best, we sat on a stoop and brought out the one hitter. 3am Rob Pattinson strolled passed us to his trailer. There were three of us and we all wanted a picture. My heart kicked into overdrive. I could barely look him in the eyes as we spoke. After our picture, the three of us ran to our car.



A vampire shoot and obsession with all things sparkly and cold is the last thing I would expect from myself. Blood and lust were never the game I played and previously held no interest to me. Twilight made me branch into unknown territory. It made me conscious of our quest for beauty and immortality and forced me to look into myself and my darker forms of love. Relax. I’m not here to over-analyze everything. Really, I just want to bone a vampire.










-Photos & Words, Amanda Segur
Make-Up, Alana Hays

Bizz Buzz

As a sucker for feel-good movies and football, I was thrilled to cover last night’s premiere of “The Blind Side” at the Ziegfeld Theatre. The movie stars my favorite actress Sandra Bullock. Plus, it is based on the life of Michael Oher, who plays for my hometown Baltimore Ravens.

The true tale behind the film traces Oher’s path from the Memphis slums to NFL success, thanks to the Tuohey family who rescued him off the street. Originally portrayed in Michael Lewis' bestseller "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game," the story seemed to particularly move star Tim McGraw.“Anytime you can walk away from a movie and want to be a better person, you’re truly lucky,” said the country crooner, with gorgeous wife Faith Hill by his side. “It was just such an awesome story.”



While the real-life Michael Oher was a no-show (he better be resting up for Sunday’s game against Indy, for which I’m making the trek to Baltimore), the up-and-coming actor who plays him was thrilled to chat about the movie’s message. “I think this movie will inspire a lot of people,” said Bronx-born Quinton Aaron. “Not just today’s youth, but adults too.”



According to critics’ buzz, the most inspiring thing about the well-received flick is Sandra Bullock’s performance. She is already garnering Oscar buzz For her spot-on portrayal of the strong southern belle Leigh Anne Tuohey.
“I’ve always been a fan of Sandy,” said director John Lee Hancock. “I feel so blessed to have worked with her, and to have her in almost every scene.”



For costar Lily Collins (yes, daughter of Phil), making her big-screen debut opposite Bullock was both a blessing and a source of nerves. “I thought, oh my gosh, I am going to play Sandra Bullock’s daughter! I really have to deliver!”



Even twelve year-old cutie Jae Head, who plays Bullock’s son in the film, was effusive, “It was awesome!”



When Ms. B herself paused to chat about “The Blind Side”, which opens nationwide on Friday, I found her every bit the girl-next-door charmer I imagined.
“I don’t know how they do it,” she laughed, gesturing to the dapperly-dressed pack of New York Jets stars (including D'Brickashaw Ferguson and Jerricho Cotchery). “To have that physical and mental capability, and maintain your composure? I was seriously amazed.”



I might not agree with Bullock’s draft picks –the Jets are, after all, in my hometown team’s division – but for her performance in “The Blind Side” and adorable real-life persona, she gets my vote for MVP.

-Linley Taber
Entertainment Editor, Lori Bizzoco

Survival Soundtrack 9 - Happy

We're getting closer and closer to the party. Can you feel the happy?



If you can't feel the happy you can find the happy, tomorrow at Littlefield, with us.

-Kastoory

Survival Soundtrack 8 - So Moody

This is a band I would have looooved in high school. I'll settle for playing this on repeat on my iWhatchamacallit.

-Kastoory

Challah Back

Jews have survived a lot--Slavery, Genocide and bad lox. Heeb Magazine's brilliant anthology "Sex, Drugs & Gefilte Fish" (Hachette Book Group) brings together a range of racy personal essays which illustrate true Jewish triumphs. Whether getting masturbating lessons, beating breast cancer with Benzos or going undercover for the Mossad all the authors share a shocking resilience and readiness to confront their pain. I kvelled, I shvitzed, I plotzed. I came to terms with my own Hebrew clan of artists and psychotherapists, who has always believed through confession we can overcome my heroin addicted Rabbi, my insistence I only got Bar MItzvahed for the cash money, my teenage poetry published on an anti-Israel website and the fact I am writing about all of it on a blog.

Heeb Magazine will be having a reading this Thursday featuring fantastic authors from "Sex, Drugs & Gefilte Fish" including the talented OCD Abby Sher, who we have been covering on Pomp. Since we are also throwing our Post Apocalypse Survival Party that night with free Lucid Absinthe and Andrew WK, I can't tell you to attend Heeb. BUT, if you feel like party hopping, these two are an awesome place to start,

-Royal

Nasty Shit To Watch Out For : An Open Letter To Spam Hell, WooMe.com

Dear CEO of WooMe.com,

I fear that this plea will fall on deaf ears, since in creating a website, you have likely already considered the problems I would like to bring to your attention, but just in case you haven't, this all started with a misleading e-mail I got from a friend, indicating that he had sent three videos to me.

I signed up for your website, and entered my e-mail and password information to see if anyone from my address book was a member of your site, and a few were, so I asked the site to add them as woome.com friends.

Well.

You can imagine my surprise when, moments later, e-mails from close friends, professional contacts, and even *clients* were filling my inbox asking me why I had sent them videos and what this woome thing was all about.

It was humiliating, explaining that I had been duped by your website and that I had not, in fact, created any videos for them.

Your company has irrevocably damaged client relationships, and thus cost me money, not to mention my poor mother who was still looking for the videos I had (not) sent her on your site when I got home tonight.

The problems with these e-mail are threefold:

1) I was not, at any time in any clear way, notified that every person in my address book would receive an e-mail from your company. In fact, on the screen in which I entered my e-mail account information, I was explicity told that your company would not e-mail any of my contacts without my permission.

2) The e-mail is designed to appear as though it has come from me. The from: section of the e-mail is not your company, it is my e-mail address, which is misleading and reduces the trustworthiness of my e-mail address in my friend's spam filters. It did not come from me, it came from you, and without my permission. It should, at the very least, say that it is from you, clearly and without exception, in the from: section of the e-mail header.

3) The content of the e-mail is a lie. I did not create any videos for your site, nor did I post any videos on your site, nor did I ask your site at any time to share the imaginary videos with any of my friends. The e-mail was a lie, and appeared to my friends, relatives, and clients as though it came through me.

I hope this was all a simple misunderstanding on your part, and that your enthusiasm for your website and your hopes of making it a profitable business prevented you from considering the impact on your potential users of unsolicited false e-mail spamming.

As a side note, your user experience also needs work regarding extrasite spammers. Upon joining the site, I received four invitations to be friends with women who had joined the site that day, who immediately wanted to chat with me. They all referred to me as "handsome" and urged me to come chat with them over yahoo or msn messenger services.

All this happened within 5 minutes of joining the site.

I closed my account immediately thereafter.

I urge you to reconsider your tactics and strategies. They are hostile to users, and thusly, I believe, hostile to your bottom line.

And seriously, get your spam problem under control. You guys are spammers and your site is flooded with spammers trying to get your users to go elsewhere. You are a quivering, jiggling warehouse of malicious spam.

And you should probably hire me as a consultant to fix it.

Sincerely,

Robert Dobbs

Survival Soundtrack 7 - Honey

I love the random warm weather days, where everyone in New York is walking down the street with a little smile on their face.
This soundtrack pick is inspired by an article in the upcoming issue, about rooftop honey bees, a little piece of nature heaven in the industrial concretesville that is Brooklyn.



- Kastoory