Thursday, November 8, 2007
V is for - shut your mouth!
Posted by Alison Fensterstock on Thu, Nov 8, 2007 at 8:56 PM
We get all kinds of stuff in the mail from publicists – from cool to weird to downright dirty. Last week, the Gambit Weekly mailbox turned up something that was kind of all three (but mostly the latter two): the latest solo effort from Tool’s Maynard James Keenan (see above.)
If it looks like the demonic cartoon flight attendant on the cover is flipping you the bird, U.K.-style, it’s because the distributor placed that parental advisory sticker over the word “vagina.” Yes, the album title is “V Is For Vagina” – and the satanic stewardess isn’t rude, she’s just pro-cooch.
The word is obscured, according to Keenan’s publicist Monica Seide, “because more than half of the retailers refused to carry the cd unless the word Vagina was blocked out. Even with the sticker Target pulled the album at the last minute.” (Oh, Target. Home of hip yet affordable design – why do you have to disappoint me just in time for Isaac Mizrahi sweater dresses?)
Bread with Backbone
Posted by Ian McNulty on Thu, Nov 8, 2007 at 7:42 PM
Once, the president of the wonderful local Leidemheimer Baking Co., producers of my favorite New Orleans-style po-boy loaves, told me he had trouble selling his bread in north Louisiana because would-be customers thought it was stale.
It wasn't stale, of course, but just as New Orleans po-boy bread is supposed to be – crisp-crusted and airy. That's not the case in a lot of other Louisiana communities, where restaurants commonly make "po-boys" on very ordinary rolls, something closer to sandwich bread or hot dog buns than our French bread.
