The Weird Part of the Internet: Post-Wisdom Teeth Removal Videos

By now, most people with internet access have heard of David After Dentist. Something about little David under the influence of drugs after oral surgery just makes for the lols. On the other hand, kids do say the darnedest things. Don't get me wrong, David After Dentist is hilarious but 7 year-olds don't always make a lot of sense. Nonsensical little kids are cute but I much rather see someone who has since recovered from elementary school humiliation making a fool of themselves. Getting your wisdom teeth removed is common for the high school to college aged crowd and might produce the funniest results. For this week's The Weird Part of the Internet aka TWPOTI, I wanted to take a look at post-wisdom teeth removal videos on Youtube. Why someone would actually submit themselves to this public embarrassment is beyond me but I definitely appreciate their contribution to my hysterical laughter.

Maybe it's because I feel slightly less mortified at my own reaction to getting my wisdom teeth out when I watch these videos, although I can totally relate to them. Apparently I woke up biting and kicking. Don't remember this at all and I usually like to think of myself as a pretty docile person. Then I remember being escorted into another room where I was greeted by my parents. I remember my face being really numb and my arm hurting because it took the dentist way too many tries to get the IV in (Tiny Vein Club). Apparently I had a conversation with my mother that went like this:

Mom: Don't touch the gauze.

Me: My face is sooooooo numb.

Mom: That's okay.

Me: No it feels like I have a beard.

Mom: A beard?

Me: Mommmm I think I have a beard. *starts crying*

Mom: It's okay. You don't have a beard.

Me: I want to see a mirror.

Mom: Okay. *hands me her compact*

Me: Ohhhhhh hahahahaha

Mom: ???

Dad: ???

Me: lolololol

Mom: Don't touch the gauze.

I know this nurse is just doing her job but how could she be so disgruntled and not lol at this obviously loopy dude?!

"I don't know how I'm doing, I'm just crying and watching soccer." I feel you bro, I feel you.

It's kind of irritating how you can tell the mom is just dying to film her kids.

This girl is my spirit animal.

GAWZ. Best accent ever.

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Museum Mile Festival

On Tuesday I went to the Museum Mile Festival with my friend I hadn't seen in 2 years (we took dance classes together for years throughout school and have collectively worn approximately 22,000 sequins). From 6-9pm various museums had free entry and sponsored activities both inside the museums and outside of Central Park. Unfortunately the weather on Tuesday was pretty stormy but this didn't stop swarms of people from lining up to get into the participating museums. The line to get into the Guggenheim Museum was about 2 city blocks long which wouldn't have been so bad but some dude kept repeatedly hitting me in the head with his umbrella. Clearly I love festivals that involve waiting in line for long amounts of time with unpleasant people (i.e. The Great Googa Mooga Festival where I waited ~1 hour for a drink, 45 min for a chicken sandwich, and an indefinite amount of time to regain my sanity).

“Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction and the Guggenheim, 1949-1960” 

The highlight of my Museum Mile Festival experience was visiting the Guggenheim Museum. I do have to admit that I'm more than a little biased, having interned there not once but two times (because in addition to my clear passion for waiting in long lines, I also just love being a perpetual intern). I'm definitely really into the contrast of awesome architecture + well curated art exhibitions. Also I totally got yelled at for taking some of the pictures above. What I lack in delinquency and lawlessness IRL, I apparently make up for as soon as I enter a museum. My brazen art student snobbishness immediately sets in and to the dismay of the museum guards I can be found justifying my behavior by loudly declaring "What Would Alexander Brener Do?!"

Kehinde Wiley, Kalkidan Mashasha (The World Stage: Israel), 2011, oil and gold enamel on canvas. Private Collection. © Kehinde Wiley. Courtesy Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, California.

Hands down, my favorite works of art that I saw at the Museum Mile Festival were Kehinde Wiley's paintings at the Jewish Museum. I'm just a Kehinde Wiley superfan. Ever since seeing his work at the Brooklyn Museum I can't stop loving him. Everything is just so elaborate and decorative and AWESOME. His paintings are large and in charge and it's great to be able to get up close to appreciate the crazy detail of his backgrounds and the realism of his models. I want to kiss his paintings. If I was an objectum sexualist, we'd be Facebook official.

Other notable parts of the Museum Mile Festival: Lots of adorable old people, "Women's Work" at the National Academy Museum, getting shut out of the Neue Galerie at 7:55pm (What else should I expect from baby haters? JK but not really...), live music at the National Academy and outside the Guggenheim, big crowds making me feel claustrophobic, coming down with museum fatigue, and of course, getting to see art at world-renowned museums for free.

The Weird Part of the Internet: Gender Cakes

You know you should probably just go to sleep when you've reached the bizarre depths of cyberspace and have gotten to the weird part of the internet aka TWPOTI. 

Does that usually stop me? No. Do I typically fall further into a trance-like state where I become completely consumed by the wacky and strange train wreck that I have deemed internet-gold? Absolutely. 

For this week's TWPOTI I would like to focus on a spectacular kind of YouTube video that seems to have become quite a phenomenon amongst expecting mothers: gender cake videos. What is a gender cake you might ask? A gender cake or a gender reveal as some call it, is a cake baked with a blue or pink inside to indicate whether the expecting parents are having a girl or a boy. How it all goes down - typically the parents to be give a copy of their ultrasound to a baker (not seen in the video) and then mommy and daddy dramatically cut into the cake in front of their entire family to reveal that they're having a little Jane or Johnny. Then I would guess that they eat the cake but usually there's too much shrieking and crying for the family to film that part. Aside from the obvious blunder/confusion about gender vs. sex, I am fascinated by the pure creepiness of using a cake, a dessert item that you eat, to deliver information about your future child's genitals. Not that I expect much in the "tone down the smugness" or "lack of cliches" department (see this lovely tune by Garfunkel and Oates), but what ever happened to good old email or telephone to deliver the news? So without further ado, I present the best of gender cake videos:

Despite the sheer number of gender reveal videos, most people still haven't figured out to cut a corner of the cake so it's easier to see...

The kid in the Spongebob shirt is pretty much going to be a superstar, I can tell.

This family is so excited about their cake reveal they forget their screaming will scare the baby, you know, the one that's actually born.

Wedding/cake reveal double whammy.

This week's TWPOTI wouldn't be complete without an epic cake fail.

Basically my feelings on gender cakes can be summed up in one picture from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life:

"Phyllida Barlow: siege" at The New Museum

The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City via Guardian.


Going to museums is one of those things most New Yorkers say they wish they'd do more often. And the first thing you should know is that I am not exempt from most New Yorkers. Yesterday I actually remembered that the New Museum has its free hours from 6-9pm on Thursdays. Actually that's a complete lie, the New Museum's Twitter reminded me because I am entirely dependent on social media to know where I should be and when. 

“Phyllida Barlow: siege,” 2012. Exhibition view: New Museum. Photo: Benoit Pailley.


The "Phyllida Barlow: siege" exhibit on the fourth floor was probably my favorite of what was on view. The sculptures right when you get out of the elevator looked like magnets (yes, I made an ICP joke at the museum and we can't be friends if you don't know what joke I'm talking about). They were pretty jarring because of their size. If art could puff up its chest and come at you bro, these guys would.

"Phyllida Barlow: siege," 2012. exhibition view: New Museum. Photo: Benoit Pailley.

There was also a hanging sculpture or death trap as I lovingly called it that was very disconcerting. I walked under it with no worries because I'm still in that "nothing can hurt me because I am invincible" phase of life. Typically what I look for at a New Museum exhibit is artwork that looks like a rainbow threw up on itself or work that makes me fear for my life. The New Museum usually succeeds at both. Pretty consistently so, in fact. Take Carsten Höller's slide at his solo exhibit that closed last January. I had to suit up in a helmet and burlap sack to drop down 3 stories through museum concrete. I haven't worn a helmet in years, not because I don't practice bicycle safety but because I can't really actually ride a bike (more on this later). And Lynda Benglis's show at the New Museum last year. You can't tell me this does not look like one of those memory candles you made for your best friend at her sweet sixteen. All it's missing is glitter (don't worry Lynda Benglis likes to get her glitter on too) and the letters "BFF," a stray maraschino cherry stem, and a picture of Leo DiCaprio cut out from a magazine.

Carsten Höller's slide at the New Museum.

Lynda Benglis at the New Museum.