it is boring, whatever

2011-06-22T09:02:00.001-07:00

books i've read so far, this summer

South of No North

Anywhere But Here

finished Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

The Beggar Maid

now reading The Painted Bird

Things occupying my life:

internship

work

class

2011-05-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

IMPORTANT LOST INTERNET RELIC!

I've heard part of this song or a cover of this song somewhere, but I can't remember where. It's not any of the covers listed on the Wikipedia page for the song.

I think it's in my itunes library, but it's not called "I Got You" which leads me to believe that it's not a real cover, it just samples/rips off the part that goes "I don't know why sometimes I get frightened/see my eyes, tell me I'm not lying."

PRIZE: $5!!!

I'm pretty sure this doesn't just exist in my head!

also what the fuck is up with this video?

2011-05-09T11:42:00.000-07:00

2011-05-08T21:53:00.000-07:00

No idea where I'm going with this/what i'm doing with this blog.

Restless. Want to sleep. Know that I won't be able to.

Just posting to say I'm still alive.

2011-03-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

"fuck yeah" tumblrs that don't exist yet--snatch them up while you still can!

fuckyeahmoomoos.tumblr.com

fuckyeahhermits.tumblr.com

fuckyeahjustinbrb.tumblr.com

fuckyeahscarycheetoman.tumblr.com

who smells an impending book deal???

2011-02-05T04:14:00.000-08:00

Brief interview with Khaela Maricich, AKA The Blow, in The Stranger.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/if-i-have-ever-driven-drunk-i-was-not-apprehended/Content?oid=6575973

I guess posting a link and just a link is more of a "tumblr/twitter" thing to do, but I just wanted this to be in a more permanent place.

2011-02-04T15:35:00.000-08:00

was about to make this post on tumblr before I got too depressed and stopped:

OKAY so this is my third post today. I know I'm out of control. I know this makes me look sad. Also it's Friday night.

but that hasn't stopped me from posting here! And not only posting, but posting what I was going to post on tumblr, and writing about not posting that post! whooooooo my life is looking goooood

things that seem newsworthy:
- trending topic: bieber cent

- i don't think i got into the shinrigaku course

- there's way too much stuff on the internet about egypt right now, it's overwhelming; i think i'm going to wait a month and then check wikipedia

- i smell vomit but where is it coming from??? SERIOUSLY WHERE IS IT COMING FROM?!?!?!

things i want to accomplish this semester that have nothing to do with experiencing a different culture (in order of increasing ambitiousness):

- write something for Hey Man (music zine)

- write that justin bieber "article" that i've been planning on writing for months

- update my website (which is too embarrassing to link to right now)

- learn how to apply makeup of some sort (on my face); just one "piece" of makeup would be fine; oh this is embarrassing.

- read everything Virginia Woolf has ever written

2011-01-31T05:48:00.000-08:00

aaaah i gotta fess up, blogspot: the reason i haven't been posting here is because i've been cheating on you with my secret (although equally inane) study abroad tumblr.

I spent a lot of time commuting.

Should probably be doing more work than I'm doing. But I still feel vaguely busy.

Waiting with bated breath to hear about the Japan course.

Crazy hungry. Want to leave class to get food, but also don't want to be that dick who leaves class and comes back with food. oh yeah, i'm also in class right now.

things i ate today:

2 pieces of toast w/ butter

hazelnut yogurt

grilled British cheddar with rocket

cranberry and white chocolate cookie from Ben's Cookies

really excited to eat at the My Old Dutch pancake house tonight with a girl from cherubs; i have actually not seen her in almost four years.

2011-01-25T05:35:00.000-08:00

This is really just despicable.

Equine Reproduction

UK & Worldwide chilled and frozen semen distribution, and much more available from a friendly, knowledgeable and experienced team.

2011-01-18T12:51:00.001-08:00

was thinking about this video the other day; don't remember why. is it terrible that i love it so much?

2011-01-16T12:48:00.000-08:00

watched the first two seasons of misfits within four days of moving into the residence hall

thoughts:

Second season is much more episodic, which I don't enjoy as much because I love cliffhangers, and I love binge-watching. Usually if an episode doesn't leave me desperately wanting to find out what happens, I'm less likely to move onto the next episode, and more likely to "save" that episode for later (and therefore maybe stop watching it). Boredom/loneliness usually makes me watch several self-contained episodes back to back.

Jokes are funnier in the second season, though.

"Why is a gorilla wearing a gorilla suit?"

maybe i'll make those other posts i was going to make a while ago

2011-01-11T16:23:00.000-08:00

Watching this, it struck me that I never use the word "caring" as an adjective. I would never describe anyone as caring. Not that I think that people are uncaring-- I think it's the opposite, that "caring" has no value, because everyone is "caring," at least at certain points, about certain things. It'd be unfair to say that someone is more caring than another person. How would you know? Caring as a thing people do seems so internal, almost strictly interior, private.

What does that mean, to be more caring? That they care more about things than other people do? And what things? In general it seems to mean "other people"-- caring people care about other people. Seems like it'd be better to say "thoughtful/considerate" or "generous" or even "selfless." These descriptors seem more external--that is, they presume less about someone's internal life/motives. One can seem thoughtful or generous without necessarily actually caring. Which wouldn't necessarily make them less thoughtful or generous, but which would not make them caring.

At the same time it's probably better to say "caring" than what I do say about everyone, which is "seems nice."

i guess it wasn't necessary to post this video, which i'm not really that interested in. it's just what made me think about this.

2011-01-04T14:44:00.000-08:00

in London.

everything is expensive and I'm always really hungry.

want to get a job, but also daunted by the prospect of having to apply for a job. seems like everyone in britain dresses well; I seem like a bum.

moving into the residence hall tomorrow.

2010-12-31T22:04:00.001-08:00

okay it's time to come clean

TOP FIVE GUILTY PLEASURES OF 2010

5. True Blood

True Blood is not a very good show. I've always known this on some level, but I thought of it as a show that fully embraced melodrama, that revelled in its ridiculousness in a way that wasn't kitschy, but glamorous and fun. It wasn't a case of "so bad it's good;" it was more like "so bad. so good." There are elements of the show that are really, legitimately good. The cast is really strong, the writing is interesting, and it has high production values. But the show is still kind of stupid, especially since the plot is so out of control and the main character, Sookie, is getting more and more irritating. Also-- FAIRIES?!

4. Glee's "Britney/Brittany" episode

Brittany S. Pierce is 50% of the reason to watch Glee (the other 50% being Jane Lynch. Oh, and Kurt). It's not really embarrassing that this is my favorite episode; I think the "guilty" aspect of this pleasure is that I was watching Glee in the first place, given how bad this season was (didn't really watch past episode 4 though)/how bad(/offensive/saccharine) the show is overall.

3. David Guetta -- Sexy Bitch

This is really something I feel guilty about. I mean there's the title of the song, and then "She's nothing like a girl you've ever seen before/nothing you can compare to your neighborhood whore?" Really terrible. Also it's a pretty bad song. I'm having trouble figuring out what I like about it. I like it when he says "damn, girl!" He sounds really surprised. And then he starts dancing. During the chorus it sounds like he could be doing the dance that this guy does at 2:15; seriously though sync it up and see what happens, it's awesome.

2. Ke$ha -- Your Love Is My Drug

I don't really feel that bad about this, now that I think about it. I did at first but I really do think this is a good song. I know that Ke$ha can't sing, that basically all her songs sound the same (I think "Your Love Is My Drug" is an exception, though). Also she has her clothes on in the video! I like the video, I think it's charming and playful and visually interesting. Also I like the guy in it, I like how he seems like a real person (albeit one who lives in the woods and eats things from the dirt) rather than a whorish muscled sociopath-in-disguise.

1. Justin Bieber -- Baby

SHUT UP!!! Listen to his clear high tenor voice! The doo-wop mixed artfully with hip-hop and R&B! Don't look at his little chipmunk face!

2010-12-31T14:58:00.000-08:00

leaving for london tomorrow

packing

when i get a new phone will i still be able to update twitter from my phone?

trying to figure out which book(s?) to bring.

options i'm considering:

Tao Lin's Richard Yates -- it seems like light reading and also it's physically very light. But I'm worried that I'll get bored of it halfway through and not want to read it anymore.

Lorrie Moore's Birds of America -- I'm halfway through it and it's so good, totally cried in public when I was reading Dance in America.

DFW's Brief Interviews of Hideous Men -- I'm 2/3 through it, want to finish, but worried that this means i'll have less available to me to read.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - light, compact, american classic that I probably should have read already.

David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas -- have had this book for like two years; he's british which is cool/relevant; I liked Black Swan Green. Unfortunately I feel like if I get into him now it'll be kind of too late, since everyone was already crazy about him last summer.

Jonathan Franzen's Freedom -- similar problem to David Mitchell, everyone else is already "over" this book. And it's a huge hardcover. But I'm pretty sure it's going to be a really good read. And I've been wanting to start it for a while.

I have eight hours to decide.

2010-12-25T09:02:00.000-08:00

so it's a little late for this, but.

worst christmas songs

1. Dominic the Donkey. If you were previously unaware of the song, GOOD. STAY UNAWARE. THIS NEVER HAPPENED.

2. it's the most wonderful time of the year. it's not. also, look at this dude.

2. it's beginning to look a lot like christmas. tied for #2.

3. greensleeves. BARF.

4. we wish you a merry christmas. sounds like it was invented by drunk people as a joke, but then got out of hand.

5. rudolph the red nosed reindeer/frosty the snowman. sound exactly alike. unless they're actually supposed to be the same song? not sure.

6. little drummer boy.

7. silver bells. just looked at the wikipedia page for the song:

Silver Bells started out as the questionable "Tinkle Bells." Said Evans, "We never thought that tinkle had a double meaning until Jay went home and his [first] wife said, 'Are you out of your mind? Do you know what the word tinkle is?'" The word is child's slang for urination.

9. white christmas. Irving Berlin sounds like an asshole:

One story is that he wrote it in 1940, poolside at the Biltmore hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. He often stayed up all night writing — he told his secretary, "Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I've ever written — heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!"

10. twelve days of christmas. that is too many days of christmas.

also people need to check out the intense, intense debate going down in the comments section of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5ItNxpwChE

highlights:

oh, yeah? well, i play piano and i played 2 songs at my Veteran's Day assembly and ROCKED, according to everyone, and i play saxophone and i am the best player in my school. yep, sure. i know shit about the quality of music playing. mmm-hmm. whatever you say, bitch.
c´mon why are u still answering SpiritMolecule1´s statements, he already proofed that he has not a single clue about good music, hes just here to repeat the words "sloppy played" over and over again, without knowing the meaning, just to make noise. I really love this tune, and in my oppinion pefection is for mashines, i don´t think it is sloppy played, but if its a sign of life to me. U can feel that there is a human beeing playing with heart.

2010-12-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

stressing out about my visa. but if everything works out, i'll be leaving the US in 8 days.

saw black swan; flipped out. so good.

trying to sleep more. hate that i feel too nervous to go to bed, usually.

re-reading A Gate at the Stairs to try to find this one passage that I vaguely remember but want to find the exact wording of. Discovering smaller forgotten gems along the way:

People said the council had packed everything up in a rocket and sent it back to its plane, leaving some strays behind.
The strays I felt were my own friends, who were now like martians to me. They guzzled brandy straight from the bottle, drank TheraFlu recreationally like toddies on weekends (though, truth be told, I still did that myself). [...] Prepositions mystified. Almost everyone said "on" accident instead of "by." [...] And they used tenses like "I'd been gonna." As in, "I'd been gonno to do that but then I never got around toot." It was the hypothetical conditional past, time and intention carved so obliquely and fine that I could only almost comprehend it, until, like Einstein's theory of relativity, which also sometimes flashed cometlike into my view, it whooshed away again, beyond my grasp.

2010-12-19T18:18:00.000-08:00

will a smartphone* make my life easier?

yes

- won't have to call people when i'm lost and ask them to go on google maps for me

- will be able to look things up discreetly** when i'm embarrassed about not knowing something i should know

- everyone will know that i could have responded to their email sooner than I probably did

- will probably hurt myself trying to do something on the phone while i walk-- texting is hard enough

* this just means a phone that can go on the internet, right? somebody help me, i'm too old for this shit

** just discovered that "discrete" and "discreet" are TWO DIFFERENT WORDS rather than, as i'd previously thought, alternate spellings of the same word.

a story in which i endear myself to my future housemates:

Walk into the house, backstreet boys song playing loudly on speakers in the living room, nobody is in the living room. I yell, "WHAT IS THIS CRAP?!?!?!" walk into the kitchen, see k.l. (current housemate) and future housemates 1 and 2. Everyone just kind of looks at me. Future housemate 2 says "sorry." Future housemate 2 proceeds to explain that it's a playlist on her ipod, that not all of the songs are backstreet boys. I respond/recover gracefully, eloquently, smoothly: "Oh. okay. good. whatever."

silence, during which everyone looks uncomfortable. backstreet boys still playing.

for the record: while not all of the songs were backstreet boys, playlist did include sparkling gems of really selective, quality musical taste including "creed" and "lifehouse"

feels like i never really encountered "shitty taste" before hearing playlist of future housemate #2, even "ironically" shitty taste, feels like I didn't even really understand what "shitty" meant meant before hearing playlist of future housemate #2, feels like my life has encountered a new level of "shitty" previously unheard of. used to think current housemate k.l.'s love for country music was irritating, now realize that there are worse things. future seems bleak. thinking about getting speakers/soundproofing my room.

2010-12-14T20:31:00.001-08:00

not doing too much these days. studying for latin final. going to bed at 3AM, waking up at 11AM. trying to figure out how to use tumblr, but it's hard.

things i don't like about tumblr:

- no comments.

- slow

- down all the time

- what happens if you want to include more than one kind of media in a post? THEN WHAT DO YOU DO???

2010-12-12T23:40:00.000-08:00

2010-12-10T19:54:00.000-08:00

fat indie bands: the good and the bad

taken from the page for twitter trending topic #fatindiebands

the good:
MSTRKFTDNNR
meat happening
dinosaur jr. bacon cheeseburger
tv dinner on the radio
chairbreak
dr. hot dog
chkn chkn chkn
fro yo la tengo
guided by vocelli's
soy division
they definitely are giants
ben folds of skin
the XXL
CAKE

the bad:
turkey dinosaurs jr - are "turkey dinosaurs" a thing?
beerhoof - no. a "beer hoof" is not a thing.
black rebel motorcycle turkey club - looks like they just inserted "turkey" into a band name; i get that it's a "turkey club [sandwich]" but since there are many different types of club sandwiches, this seems uncreative.
(variation of milk) hotel - if the band name already includes the name of a food, you need to get more creative. I'm looking at you, 1% milk hotel. really?
beirut beer - what? this isn't even a pun. i get that beirut involves beer, but "beirut beer?" what the fuck is that?
obviously not vegan and sara - uh, cause non-vegans are fat? whatever, asshole.
devendra banheartfailure - why would "ban heart failure" be "fat"? I think this person was just counting on the "heart" syllable and not how the preceding syllable would factor into the pun.
miiike snow ice cream - is "snow ice cream" a thing? it looks like someone just stuck "ice cream" onto the end of a band name, like " Peter Bjorn and John ice cream" or "Ke$ha ice cream." lame.
from autumn to asda - first of all, what the fuck is ASDA?* also since when is from autumn to ashes an indie band?
pickleback - again: since when is nickelback an indie band? come on, people.

* okay so I googled it and apparently it's a British supermarket chain. However, it is also the American Student Dental Association. I guess it works both ways, kind of? But From Autumn to Ashes still doesn't count as an indie band.

2010-12-06T18:23:00.000-08:00

facebook inexplicably thinks that i like horses, chapter 2 (here's chapter 1): this was in my sidebar

Equine-Index

equine-index.com

Interactive social sharing tool for connected horse people.

in the library.

2010-12-06T17:57:00.000-08:00

today on: lost internet relics!

I WILL GIVE A SPECIAL PRIZE TO ANYONE WHO CAN LOCATE THESE RELICS on the internet!

1) GRAND PRIZE (tbd/suggestions welcome)

the relic: picture of dick cheney grinning and holding a shotgun; in the background is a bouncing castle, fallen children lay strewn across the grass.

why it's important: it was just really funny, i want to look at it again

last seen: appeared on (i believe) chewbacca's blog (now defunct) in 2006 shortly after the Dick Cheney hunting incident

2) OTHER PRIZE (tbd/$5)

the relic: video about internet conglomeration, i.e. google's acquisition of everything on the internet; narrated by a woman with a british accent, uses animated text/logos (as opposed to live action), high production values (i.e. looks kind of fancy/legitimate), ends with all the logos of things that google owns in the shape of darth vader's head.

why it's important: planted a fear of Google in me

last seen: Recent-ish (probably within the past year, but older than 3 months); have no idea where I saw this (maybe flavorpill?). Part of the reason I think I've had such a hard time locating this is because I've been trying to do it via google-- CONSPIRACY??? (no seriously, I think that's what's going on)

ETA: #2 FOUND!

2010-12-02T23:11:00.000-08:00

today on ____ predicts the future:

paperback copy of William Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive randomly left in the writing center predicts the future

Q: will i ever marry

A: No. I just know where. Straylight. She's told me all that part, I think all she knows. Doesn't really care about it.

Q: who will win the 2012 election

A: The woman with the sealed silver eyes abandoned the gray sedan in another carpark, and the streetgirl with Angie's face told a confusing story: Cleveland, Florida, someone who'd been her boyfriend or pimp or both...

Q: what will the weather be like tomorrow

A: "Hilton, where's Bobby?"

2010-12-02T23:00:00.000-08:00

ugggh fuck okay i just realized that before today i hadn't posted in almost a week

maybe i should post a lot today to make up for it

things to potentially post about, later:

- what i'm reading: DFW's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

- The Kingdom/Riget, 1994 Danish miniseries by Lars von Trier, the entirety of which i basically watched over the past two days

bad idea: watching Antichrist in the writing center?

pros

- lights are on, i'm in an academic building, maybe i won't be scared

- i'm bored

- if i do get scared, maybe it'll prevent me from wanting to go home and sleep, forcing me to stay in the library and be productive

cons

- will need to walk to the library in the dark

- might have nightmares for the rest of my life

- someone might come into the writing center and think i'm a pervert

- maybe i should be doing work instead of watching a movie

2010-12-02T19:43:00.000-08:00

brady: would you like me more if i were a horse or a woodland nymph?

me: where did that come from?

brady: i don't know, i was just curious.

school drudgery, etc, etc

in class today somebody presented an article about how pixar movies feature "demon children"

2010-11-26T22:49:00.001-08:00

"right now" resolutions

- stop overbooking self/signing up for too much shit

- be more organized/get rid of junk

- watch more movies/tv

- sleep more

- read more

feel suddenly sad that i will have a finite number of experiences

don't want to die; afraid of the time when i'll know i have more years "behind me" than "ahead of me"

2010-11-24T08:47:00.001-08:00

today's word of the day:

heuristic

\ hyoo-RIS-tik \ , adjective;

Serving to indicate or point out; stimulating interest as a means of furthering

investigation.

Encouraging a person to learn, discover, understand, or solve problems

on his or her own, as byexperimenting, evaluating possible answers or

solutions, or by trial and error.

Of, pertaining to, or based on experimentation, evaluation, or trial-and-error

methods.

Denoting a rule of thumb for solving a problem without the exhaustive

application of an algorithm

seriously you don't know how long this word irritated me; heuristic was to me in 2008 what "ontological" is to me now.

glad that dictionary.com has abandoned IPA in favor of something that normal people can actually understand

in ohio, visiting aster, slept on a good mattress, about to eat a bagel; life is good.

2010-11-19T00:37:00.000-08:00

it actually just hit me just now that i'm going to london next semester

HOLY SHIT I'M REALLY EXCITED

getting the fuck out of here so soon!

just need to struggle through these next two papers

in the library right now; feel a sense of camaraderie with the other people in the quiet room, since we are all eating cookies

what I did today:

ohhh noooooo i don't want to get into that, it's embarrassing(ly boring)

actually it's mostly that i don't even remember

no wait now i remember, it's just boring

uhhh i saw colson whitehead read/answer questions; that was cool.

uhhhhh

ummmm

uhhhh

mmmmmm

hmmmmmmmmmmm

that's it.

2010-11-17T22:55:00.000-08:00

i know this is a terrible habit, to post youtube videos in lieu of "actual posts" (whatever those are) but i just-- like-- i can't get over it-- this-- you-- i mean-- just watch it. i know this is old, but uh well

whatever

ughhhh

2010-11-14T01:11:00.000-08:00

is it cheesy that i totally love this

this one wins for being the most pop-punky though, even if it ends up being more irritating

2010-11-13T18:24:00.001-08:00

my 4loko diary

8ish PM start drinking 4loko

840PM have had .5 can of 4loko; feel slightly nauseated.

842PM slight warm/gaseous/burning feeling in chest, switching to water

847PM playing fuck the dealer in the living room

850PM the caffeine has kicked in

855PM mistook thanksgiving break conversation for a winter break conversation

9PM slightly drunk, less wired

904PM not drunk, slightly tired

915PM awake; not quite "wired" though

920PM go to friend's birthday party a couple blocks away, drink a little wine

930ish come back, drink more 4loko

950PM drunk and caffeinated! yay!

230AM no longer drunk, still caffeinated; bake some beer bread

3AM still caffeinated, but tired

330ish sleep

conclusions:

- too much caffeine, not enough alcohol

- overall i enjoyed 4loko; the taste is alright, like an energy drink but with a bitter aftertaste, but the bitter aftertaste goes away after a little while.

- next time, I should have the 4loko with food to reduce the effects of the caffeine, then maybe drink beer/wine the rest of the night? probably not a good idea to do shots after drinking a 4loko.

2010-11-10T20:38:00.001-08:00

thinking of spending my senior year "spring semester" at a canadian school instead of actually entering the job market or whatever. can't figure out how much i actually want to do this; on one hand, more school = ugh. but on the other hand-- canada!

things i know about canada:

- there's a queen of canada

- scott pilgrim

- little mosque on the prairie

- degrassi

- "brown people"

- cheaper stuff

- "aboot"

- there is a canadian thanksgiving

started to write a post several times before this, but each time it was really boring. this one is still boring, but i'm bored enough to post it.

you can expect next week to contain a lot of library posts.

a boring thing-- my schedule tomorrow:

10am-12pm class

12pm-1pm lunch

1pm-4pm class

415pm donate blood

5-6pm radio show

6pm team dinner

8pm go see a play

10pm-12am work at writing center

2010-11-05T13:54:00.000-07:00

successfully tricked myself into doing a paper early by moving the due date on my calendar and then forgetting that it'd originally been later. i can't even believe this worked.

also successfully persuaded my latin teacher to give us daily quizzes; I suspect the rest of my class may have put a bounty on my head.

2010-11-02T00:03:00.000-07:00

missing cmu, really feels like something is "tugging" at my heart, don't think it was the failed croquettes i made earlier. feels like this feeling should be called the "nausea of regret." could also be from smelling oil for like three hours.

2010-11-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

washington state/whitman people who read this:

I. KNOW YOUR SHIT (i.e. what are these fucking initiatives/referendums?)

I was really confused about what some of these initiatives were, but only just now bothered to actually do research. Here are some links for those of you who, like me, are mad lazy.

Ballotpedia: 2010 Washington State Ballot Measures

Also here are The Stranger's endorsements, most of which I agree with (still trying to make up my mind on 1100, though) except for 4220 (voting against it-- I understand why it was proposed and why people would vote for it, but it seems like an endangerment of civil liberties, I can't bring myself to vote for it).

II. People I'm voting for (and why, kind of):

Patty Murray (duh)

Daryl Romeyn (not ideal, but at least he's not "mama grizzly"/"doesn't believe in climate change" Cathy McMorris-Rodgers)

Maureen Walsh

Owner of Onion World! heeeyyy! also has a mullet. At least she's not Brenda High. Looking at her 2004 responses to VoteSmart's political courage test, although she's not ideal either (opposes affirmative action, supports allowing citizens to carry concealed guns, doesn't want to limit PAC or corporate campaign donations, wants to privatize welfare), she's also not the worst (supports recognizing same-sex civil unions, supports decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana, pro choice!).

John Turner (lesser of two evils)

Charlie Wiggins (OBVI).

From the Walla Walla county online voter's guide:

Charlie has worked to protect our courts from ideological special interests by limiting campaign contributions, supporting public financing of judicial elections and judicial ethics rules. The incumbent opposes these reforms.

Look at the ridiculousness of his opponent, incumbent Richard B. Sanders:

Other Professional Experience:
I am an Eagle Scout and once played the French horn in the Rose Bowl.

HAHAHA

also, here's what The Stranger has to say about Sanders: "anti-choice, "not a fan" of Martin Luther King Jr." and

Sanders signed an opinion in 2006 denying marriage rights to gay couples because, according to the opinion, gays are all nonmonogamous sluts whose relationships don't last long and whose households are unsuitable environments for children. Meanwhile, Sanders has been divorced twice (his second marriage ended when his only daughter was 14), and this election season it became clear that he's in open relationships with two women. Uh. (Who's the nonmonogamous slut now, Richard?)

County coroner? It's between Richard Greenwood and Virginia M. Romine. Who the fuck are these people? I'm probably just not going to vote for either of them because I'm too lazy to look them up.

District Court Judge -- Part Time

It's between Kristian E. Hedine and Bridie Monahan Hood. What the fuck, "Bridie"? Huh? Bridie has the Union-Bulletin's endorsement-- not like that actually means anything, though. Going with Bridie because Hedine is the chair of the racist Fort Walla Walla museum.

III. Can I bring myself to vote for the following people who are running unopposed?

Terry R. Nealey? apparently hates labor, loves big farms. Even though he's running unopposed I might just write someone else in, on principle. Or probably I'm just not going to vote.

Rep. Terry R. Nealey supported the interests of theWashington Farm Bureau 91 percent in 2010.

Rep. Terry R. Nealey supported the interests of theWashington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO 0 percent during their legislative career up until 2010.

Rep. Terry R. Nealey supported the interests of theWashington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO 0 percent in 2010.

Jim Johnson

Okay, here he seems okay, but look at his endorsements: Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (UGH), the Seattle Times (which I can NEVER TRUST because they endorse intiative 1053), the Olympian (you'd think they'd be liberal, right? but they didn't endorse initiative 1098, COME ON, or referendum bill 52, COME ON). I don't know. Can I just not vote? I'm just not going to vote for him.

Barbara Madsen

Yeah she seems alright. Former public defender? Against child abuse? Not bad.

Okay I got too lazy and I'm just not going to vote for anyone else. Whatever.

DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!!!

2010-10-31T13:27:00.001-07:00

procrastinating. in the library.

really upsets me that achewood updates so infrequently. what else am I supposed to look forward to? i mean, really.

how do I increase my readership?

not sure if i actually want to, given the embarrassing content of my blog.

2010-10-29T04:08:00.000-07:00

true things/how i feel*:

i hate this school

i am genuinely unhappy here

i feel like i have "ruined my life" by deciding to come here

i am not doing anything worthwhile here

there is no reason why i should be here

it's too late for me to drop out/transfer

need to figure out how to "survive"/stay sane

can't think of anything

kind of want to die

* admittedly influenced by the fact that it is 4AM

2010-10-29T01:33:00.001-07:00

LIBRARY

times are hard

can't let myself eat sandwich until i get hungry; must wait until at least 230AM

just want to sleep

drinking tea but it's not helping

that boy looks like a child; is he actually short??? i can't tell.

misery, feel nauseous.

if i eat this sandwich now i won't have it later

wish i had... drugs.

wish i could take a nap

brain feels like a fart, like it is made of a million farts

i feel embarrassed that i wrote that but i won't delete it

i'm running out of tea

starship troopers is a stupid movie, why is this not stated on the wikipedia page

one day i will fix that; really though somebody has got to say something

oh my god i think i might actually barf

i'm so unhappy right now

i hate this

i hate barf

why

i know if i go home i'll fall asleep and then i'll wake up all panicked; can't ask for an extension because i'm going to play in the rugby game anyway; can't back out of the rugby game because i just can't and also i don't want to.

i should write this paper instead of just complaining about writing this paper

i get to do a rewrite, i should remember that

okay i can do this

fuuuuuuuuck

hey it's that tall person; he is definitely tall, i know this for a fact

all i want in life is not to barf and not to feel like i'm going to barf-- IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK???

who's reading this from mississippi???

2010-10-28T00:34:00.000-07:00

things that are important to me:

1. being right (v. important)
2. knowing "the truth"

3. being practical/reasonable

4. good headphones

5. having hot water

2010-10-26T02:02:00.000-07:00

oh noooo

why did i have to stay up watching carrie

i only needed to watch the opening scene, why did i watch the whole thing

why do i do this to myself whyyyyy

2010-10-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

i wish i knew how i could maybe embed this

twin shadow - tyrant destroyed

so good.

ETA no seriously i've listened to this like thirty times today

2010-10-22T01:35:00.000-07:00

freaking out, hate everything, etc, etc

arrrrrgggggghhhh

2010-10-19T23:55:00.000-07:00

sad times; a look at my life/ "shelf life" ha ha ha:

1.2.

1. my shelf, with items "condensed"

2. everyone else's shelves

3. my shelf, with items arranged so you can see what's on my shelf

items on my shelf (left to right): plastic wrap, wax paper, curry "paste" (it's like a block of hardened paste, it's kind of gross, there's not a lot left), blackberry jam, fake vanilla extract, peanut butter, fish sauce, teriyaki sauce, white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar, sesame oil, olive oil, 2 boxes of kraft macaroni and cheese, sriracha sauce, and a bag of confectioner's sugar in the back

items not pictured:

an orange

2 tbsp of butter

4 packets of "peaches and cream" flavored instant oatmeal

1.25 containers of cooked pasta (one container probably holds four servings of pasta; i'd say i have five servings, then)

1.75 onions

.5 lemon

.5lb(?) frozen broccoli pieces in a bag

two kinds of pesto (diminishing by the day)

slices of "swiss cheese product" (like kraft singles)

weird-tasting deli-sliced ham

mayo

granulated sugar

what can i make???

2010-10-19T00:04:00.000-07:00

THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE

2010-10-18T00:28:00.000-07:00

just folded the (diminished) pile of laundry that's been sitting on my floor for a week (a whole week), just in time to do laundry again.

also i'm really convinced that i have a lazy eye, but i'm also really sure that i didn't have one before. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!?!?! also i can't tell which one it is-- how do I tell which of my eyes is lazy??? HELP.

ETA: okay so i investigated further, and it's my left eye, my GOOD EYE-- how did this happen, seriously? Wouldn't my lazy eye be my bad eye, because it makes my good eye work harder? also i have a weird discoloration on my eyeball, it's like a brown spot-- AM I DYING!?!?! why am i so disgusting???

2010-10-16T22:35:00.000-07:00

just sat down at my computer in the kitchen after making a makeshift burrito; saw that the window was open on google and that typed into the search field were the words "things in a" and google autocomplete was suggesting "box/ first aid kit/ bathroom" and I felt puzzled, thought, "who went on my computer and typed this in?" then realized it was me, then realized i was trying to google "things in a burrito"

2010-10-12T21:06:00.000-07:00

eating out of nervousness rather than actual hunger.

biggest accomplishment today: making pesto

things I wanted to accomplish today: fold laundry, finish boring ancient theatre reading, write essay.

supposed to write that essay tonight; need a thesis. scared to start because i'm afraid it will be "bad". I know this doesn't actually make sense. I don't want to be in school.

2010-10-10T01:18:00.000-07:00

it's the weekend and i'm still stressed out as fuck

so many dishes left to do

rehearsal in the morning

still need to do any homework

room is still messy

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

good news: accepted into study abroad program

only found out about it by checking my spam folder though

excited.

2010-10-02T03:24:00.000-07:00

i think this is so funny right now:

Through the expressionistic play between sound and history, Penis Land: The Musical unpacks the rise of currency and the loss of utopia.

Barf on the Wall deconstructs stereotypical conceptions of Islamofascism through its juxtaposition of poverty and nature.

Barf on the Walla Walla unravels dominant ideological notions of whiteness through its masking of narrative.

http://wonder-tonic.com/filmthesis/

2010-10-02T00:46:00.000-07:00

whenever i'm in the library late at night (past 3AM) i feel an odd kinship with the other people in the library late at night. (same goes for people in the library late at night on a friday)

we should start a club, it should be called the sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad sad people club.

2010-10-01T22:18:00.001-07:00

FUCK

in the library on friday night. paper due in less than twelve hours. haven't started.

FUCK

things i want to eat:

- that meal in a box thing i bought from super1 (some noodle thing. i forget.)

- broccoli with melted cheddar

- sandwich, peanut butter and jelly

- sandwich, american cheese and chicken

- sandwich, grilled cheddar

- sandwich, grilled american cheese

- oatmeal

okay so i have an outline but i haven't done all my "research" FUCK okay so i have energy but i'm hungry. Should I go home? stick it out out until i'm too tired to write and then go home and crash? NO but i can't go to sleep without finishing this paper because it is due at like 930 AM. what do i dooooo?????

stressed.

2010-09-30T00:40:00.002-07:00

why do i keep going back to facebook, there is nothing for me there

opinions i have:

the movie crash (sucks)

modern family (sucks)

jack johnson (sucks)

jonathan safran foer (should from now on be referred to as jojo saffy foer)

jojo saffy foer (sucks)

to be continued...

fuck as much as i want to sleep, i also dread waking up and wanting to die

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuuuckkkkkkkk fuck fuck

2010-09-29T17:39:00.003-07:00

LIBRARY.

being in my old spot is both nostalgic (oh sweet sixth carrel from the south wall, i've missed you so) and traumatic (FUCK do you remember that one time I spent OVER TWELVE HOURS HERE).

OH WELL SUCH IS LIFE.

pros/cons of suicide

pros:

- sleep forever

- no more homework

cons

- no more food (looking forward to eating that maple cream yogurt tomorrow morning)

- have to figure out how to die

2010-09-23T23:30:00.002-07:00

behind on my tv and not happy about it.

i wish i knew the things i wanted, i wish i had a good picture of what i want my life to be like in the future.

i feel like right now i mostly want to want something, so that i can feel like the things i do are bringing me closer to this thing i want, like i'm making progress, like progress is a real thing that exists.

2010-09-20T09:05:00.002-07:00

shiiiiit fell asleep writing my paper

had a dream where the walls of the basement were sweating blood.

shiiiit just said my thesis for my paper out loud in class, got ripped apart

i smell bad and i feel bad about my paper. made soup though which was pretty good, even though i'm not really a "soup person" (it's not food if you can't chew it).

uggghhh

2010-09-19T17:09:00.002-07:00

more pictures

2010-09-19T16:43:00.002-07:00

some pictures from the summer

2010-09-16T23:17:00.003-07:00

why I keep a blog

- maintain an "internet presence"

- self-indulgence

- contributes to (artificial?) feelings of productivity

- bored

Thinking about getting myself to write whole sentences, at least several sentences at a time. Don't know if I can handle it. Don't know what I'd write about. I feel like my "writing skills" are deteriorating, though.

things I like, pt. 1

- toast

- goat cheese

- all cheese

- mac and cheese

- the believer

- david lynch

- yogurt

- tv shows

- MAD MEN!

- the internet

- the twilight movie

- seeing concerts (not usually ones where you sit down)

- seeing plays (not musicals, usually)

- getting invited to things

- when people say hi to me

- reading people's blogs

- strand people, working at the strand

- reading

- achewood

- this american life

oh my god this is making me so depressed

like i'm actually upset right now why is this happening

is this PMS

2010-09-15T09:16:00.004-07:00

really haven't been to the library much yet this semester

still trying to clean my room, it hasn't been clean since before i moved in

"busy" but mostly busy doing bullshit

dream last night:

i had a piece of toast but i put too much butter on it!

2010-09-13T09:02:00.005-07:00

top ten favorite youtube memes; potentially to be revised in the future

i think this list reveals everything you need to know about me/this is what i am doing at 9AM on a monday morning

1. best scenes from the wicker man

2. keyboard cat chinatown

3. do something cat

4. double rainbow

5. i like turtles

6. david after dentist

7. keeping your refrigerator stocked will get you many women

my favorite part is when he says "becky"

8. sue simmons the fuck are you doing (this was on failblog, but i think it was on youtube first?)

9. scare fail (from failblog, not sure if this counts as a youtube meme)

10. actress playing helen keller falls off stage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJtEzAW9WSw

(won't let me embed)

violence/accidents: 4

cats: 2

news "fail": 2

2010-09-10T18:43:00.002-07:00

I don't want to go to class, i just want to sit home and finish watching BLUE VELVET

kind of hating school like I thought i would, also too afraid to withdraw, like i thought i'd be.

really regretting having transferred, so much. if only i'd known!

counting down the days until winter break

2010-09-08T10:32:00.002-07:00

dream last night about trying to choose what kind of yogurt to buy

still reeling from it

WHICH KIND OF YOGURT IS THE BEST YOGURT??? have a feeling this will continue to haunt me for a while.

i think i had the choice between two different brands and three different flavors; i could only get one size though, which was disappointing because i wanted the packs of individual yogurts because i have a problem where once i start eating yogurt i can't stop (also true of cereal*, almost all other foods that come in bulk)

*this is an especially serious problem, one time i ate cereal for two days, it was a "bad time" in my life

2010-09-05T13:26:00.002-07:00

THIS IS THE FIRST LIBRARY POST OF THE SEMESTER!

v. excited

in the library

as much as i totally fucking would love to be doing latin homework right now (not even kidding), i'm really occupied by the following predicament:

WHERE AM I GOING TO WATCH MAD MEN TONIGHT?!?!

if you are reading this today and you have a television with AMC (it's on basic cable) and also live within biking distance, let me know slash let's be friends if we aren't already! (definitely not even kidding)

also need to figure out who has HBO in time for the Boardwalk Empire premiere on Sept 19th-- hard times

things that are important to me:

1) tv

2) my "life trajectory"

3) doing that thing i said i'd do (depends)

4) "state of the world"

5) cheese

6) noodles

2010-09-02T23:40:00.004-07:00

food items i own

- spaghetti (uncooked)

- spaghetti (leftovers)

- 1/2 a lime

- 3 yogurts

- 1/2 a loaf of bread

- peanut butter

- butter

- blackberry jelly

- bean sprouts

- some eggs

- extra sharp cheddar cheese

- coffee beans

- milk

- an onion

- some garlic

i guess it's a lot but it seems like the combinations of those foods are sort of limited

also I feel like my internet connection and the campus bookstore are conspiring to prevent me from getting my goddamn used (cheaper) books on time!!! oh my gaaawwwd i've seriously been trying to buy these books on amazon for an hour!

2010-08-29T23:51:00.004-07:00

packing. i always want to take all my books with me but i can't.

three chapters away (this is not a lot, since the book has many small chapters) from finishing moby dick but since i'm trying not to take it to school i will probably not be able to write a post on it/post the awesome excerpts from the pages i dogeared (which i never do!)

also my flight is in five hours

why i hate facebook (an ongoing list)

- i just posted something stupid on someone's wall, and now EVERYONE CAN SEE IT. soooo embarrassed.

- it thinks i'm really into horses because I "like" a band called equestrian. look at this shit that appeared in my sidebar! how fucking embarrassing and weird is that? "equine massage seminars"??? is this what facebook thinks of me? and also WTF?

Create an Ad

Equine Massage Seminars

Learn the Masterson Method™ of Integrated Equine Performance Bodywork. "Hands-on" Weekend Courses and Certification Courses.

now i'm kind of excited though that someone is going to find my blog by googling "equine massage seminars"

2010-08-27T10:05:00.002-07:00

2010-08-26T17:02:00.004-07:00

today's post in three parts: FREAKING OUT

1. google voice

2. inland empire

2. facebook

1. just called myself using google voice; WOAH, freaking out a tiny bit-- HOW DOES IT KNOW?!?! how can a COMPUTER talk to a PHONE!?!?! whaaaaaaat?!?!

2. okay so i watched only about 1/3 of inland empire the other night before i went to sleep and i was so scared i had to sleep with the light on, true story

watching the rest right now, fucking terrified, jesus christ i haven't been this scared by a movie in so long.

hoooooly fucking shit can i even do this right now? i don't know if i can even do this right now

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH aaaaaaah freaking out so much

so good but i'm so scared

i feel like a baby

i can't imagine watching this in theaters, i would probably actually DIE

argh oh my god i'm like totally losing my shit aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh

3. how the fuck does facebook know where the faces in my pictures are? it's asking me to tag these faces; HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT A FACE IS, FACEBOOK??? I THOUGHT YOU WERE JUST A MACHINE (/program/application/whatever)!!! WTF???? CAN IT SEE ME RIGHT NOW?!?!?!!!??!

also today was my last day of work, i was sad

2010-08-26T00:02:00.005-07:00

have considered no longer uploading photos on facebook because i'm freaked out that they "own" them after I do that

on one hand that's weird, and i want to wean myself off of facebook anyway

on the other hand who cares, whatever

back to school soon, not really excited. i wonder if there will be deluges of library posts in this blog's future.

potential lists to make:

- things i like

- famous books that one might confuse with "the alchemist"

- failed project ideas

- overused words (that i use)

what i ate today:

- went to "burger creations" for lunch, it was good, i liked the bread. i got the burger with cheese(swiss?), onions, peppers, and something else? i forget. it was kind of drippy though; not necessarily a complaint, just a note.

- a thai restaurant, forgot what i got, it was pretty good though

i would be the worst food critic, probably.

2010-08-24T17:19:00.003-07:00

forgot what i was going to google-- AGAIN

waiting in line at a restaurant i saw this couple and had a flash of recognition; thought, I'VE SEEN THEM BEFORE, spent 5 min. trying to figure out where/when i'd seen them, eventually realized that i'd seen them 10 minutes ago in line at the restaurant.

pressing questions of the day:

- DO I SMELL BAD??? seriously can't tell.

- why am i subscribed to the "bioware" newsletter??? seriously. how did this happen?

- should i watch inland empire before i go to sleep, or will it make me too scared to go to sleep? dilemma.

2010-08-20T22:34:00.003-07:00

trying to decide on what to change my desktop wallpaper to

this is really difficult

right now it's scott pilgrim, but i wish there was a scott pilgrim wallpaper with more characters in it.

not really too impressed by any of the mad men wallpapers.

what do i doooooooooooooo

2010-08-16T21:59:00.002-07:00

just went back and read my blog posts about books, feel really embarrassed by not only how unreadable they are but how pretentious they sound; at the time I was writing them I thought i was making sense at least to myself, and i think those posts were mostly for myself, but now that I think people might read them they seem very unacceptable.

dang they are really bad; thinking about deleting them, feel like that would be "cheating."

aarrrgh but i'm so ashamed

it's not like i don't agree with what i said in those posts, i just think i said it poorly, made a lot of grand/vague statements.

need to stop using the words "master" and "masterful"

shit ok not going to go back and change/delete them, i'm going to make myself live with this (at least until i give in to the urge to delete), it'll build character

2010-08-15T21:06:00.002-07:00

stole a "hot in cleveland" poster off the train (by stole i mean found), not sure what to do with it now.

can't believe this is the only thing i have to say

trying to think of something better

it's not happening

2010-08-11T19:48:00.004-07:00

7 worst things you can say to a bride-to-be (and 3 things that are okay to say)
(my helpful alternative to the glamour guide)
WORST THINGS:
7. you're fat!
6. you look ugly!
5. you smell bad, all the time!
4. you look okay but that's just because it's dark in here, is it going to be dark when you are getting married, LET'S HOPE SO
3. you are very irritating and also you have no redeeming qualities
2. FUCK YOU!
1. are you pregnant, is that what happened, you look pregnant (because you're fat)

OKAY THINGS:
1. la la la
2. kittens
3. la la la la la la

2010-08-11T19:32:00.001-07:00

How do you know if you got a weak chin? - Boxing Forum

10 posts - 5 authors - Last post: Feb 21, 2008

It's not so much your actual chin, but more about how you react to being punched.

brought to you by google

2010-08-10T20:39:00.002-07:00

what i was originally going to do for my blog post today was go through every emotion i remember feeling today and what I think caused those emotions. started thinking about it and got too bored to keep thinking about it. i will spare you.

most exciting thing that happened to me today: there was a bunch of fire trucks in the street today, felt nervous about crossing the street because I didn't know if the fire truck wanted to "go" or not, stood on the corner for at least five minutes trying to figure our whether or not to cross, ended up doing an awkward half-jog across the street and spilling some of my coffee. overheard somebody ask someone else "what's going on out there?" re: the fire trucks, made a mental note to ask someone later about it, but then forgot.

2010-08-09T17:55:00.003-07:00

got keys in the mail, sort of excited to go back to school, despite last night's back to school nightmare in which i forgot i was living off campus and accidentally moved into a dorm, then got lost trying to find my house and wandered around in the dark in the rain. had clothes on though, which i guess is a step up from the last back to school nightmare.

2010-08-08T19:30:00.000-07:00

mad men = best show on television right now

2010-08-07T21:59:00.003-07:00

emailed professors asking what the books for my classes are going to be; I think it's criminal that they don't put this information online, which basically forces you to buy the books from the bookstore. maybe that is part of the "plan" though, and maybe the professors are "in on it." emailed 2 profs so far, waiting to see if they call me a cheap bastard before I email the next one.

something i never could slash maybe never will understand about inception: why are the "architect" and the "dreamer" different people? THIS MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL. and why is "inception" such a big deal if that's what happens every time people share dreams, and the architect plants the "idea" of different places/physical details in the dreamer's mind every time?

2010-08-06T21:26:00.004-07:00

was sort of excited (more than usual) to get on the internet for some reason, but now I forget why

I think i was going to look something up that someone was talking about

can't think of it anymore

i checked my email

and went on facebook

tried to look up who the "jessica" in my phone is by typing "jessica" into facebook, did not find any answers

just tried to google jessica's number, just googled the word "jessica" by mistake

okay so apparently this person is from madison, WI

i don't know anyone from madison, WI

what is this

what is happening

all the jessica's I know:

- manager at strand

- j. goldman, but it's not jess goldman because i already have jess goldman's number in my phone

- j. whalen, see above

- a girl from my dorm, but there is no reason i would have her number, since the number of times i've ever talked to her is probably around zero

that's it-- WHO IS THIS PERSON!??!?!

2010-08-03T20:32:00.006-07:00

woes/serious problems I face in my day to day life/english is a hard language even for people whose first language is english

- which prepositions go with which verbs? seriously confusing. phrasal verbs???

- pronouncing things, e.g. "alain robbe-grillet"-- wikipedia tells me that it's "(French pronunciation: [alɛ̃ ʁɔb ɡʁiˈje])"

but i seriously can't fucking understand what that means, those aren't even real letters; where is the little speaker clicky thingy that pronounces it for me? how the fuck do I say this? just a hunch, but i'm thinking it's not the way it looks, i.e. "allan robe grill it." I took french for two years and have been to france, should probably know this.

- tenses and moods??? don't even really know the difference between the two. need to brush up on latin.

also: going to bed/waking up early. hard times.

also: i think that the one person who is "following" this blog isn't even reading this, but I think there are people who are reading this b/c of the link from tao lin's blog, and I think they should comment on this post if they have blogs for me to read, because then we can all be friends!!!!!!! (i'm only 100% serious about this)

2010-08-01T10:38:00.003-07:00

had a going back to school "nightmare" last night in which...

- could not remember where in the building my apartment was (also i was living in an apartment), went to the wrong floor, knocked on the door and people I didn't know answered it, also i was naked

- got in trouble with my manager from work for carrying a mattress up the stairs

- got mattress into the right apartment, the right room, only to find that i already have a mattress. confused.

- trying to figure out which mattress is better, v. difficult

2010-07-30T23:02:00.002-07:00

just started to write this post for the third time, got bored while writing and deleted it. nothing to say but I feel the need to post anyway.

really wondering about what my room in my house is going to look like. excited to "decorate," but also sad that it won't really matter because i'll only be there for three months. at the same time sort of dreading returning to school, relieved that i'll only be in the fucking middle of nowhere for three months.

barfffffffff

wish summer was longer.

2010-07-29T23:52:00.002-07:00

looking at duvet covers

is this my life

worried about my rug; will i ever find a bedspread that matches my weird rug???

feeling obligated to post something, anything. worried i might disappoint my "readership" if i don't, ha ha.

here's the word of the day

busticate

\ BUHS-ti-keyt \ , verb;

To break into pieces.

2010-07-26T17:59:00.000-07:00

stuff from my drafts folder

7/9/10

tantivy

\tan-TIV-ee\ , adjective;
1.
Swift; rapid.
adverb:
1.
At full gallop.
noun:
1.
A rush, a gallop or stampede.
interjection:
1.
(used as a hunting cry when the chase is at full speed.)

not sure what the correct usage of this word is

e.g. the days go by so tantivy in the summer???

the days have been going by so tantivy recently???

6/8/10

watching breaking bad. i don't know if i've ever felt this depressed in my entire life.

5/16/10

almost done with everything

SO CLOSE

TV to watch this summer:

- mad men

- the wire

- deadwood

- the rest of twin peaks!!!

- friday night lights?

- northern exposure?

ideas for next semester's radio show:

1) "Is This An Okay Thing To Do?" An "advice" show in which I give people advice on whether or not something is an okay thing to do. Mostly though I think I would be soliciting advice on whether things like

2) just kidding, that is my only idea

5/15/10

library again. fell asleep at desk.

5/9/10

it will fuck you up

- my dad

- the moon

- textbook buyback

- getting fucked up

5/7/10

the little things in life

- quarks

- atoms

- mitochondria

5/4/10

things i ate today

- that lunch noodle stuff with broccoli and a breadstick

- tortellini from reid

- wrap from reid

- two cheesesticks

quality of life = deteriorating

5/2/10

dear self,

don't freak out. don't freak out.

TO DO

- TV and American Culture essay (find a definition of an epic, address how the show fits that definition, how does the show embody american cultural values? address the different aspects that your'e supposed to be addressing print sources, format bibliography)

- Greek and Roman Epic essay (choose a passage, write about it)

4/29/10

sleep is a fake idea!!!!

i wonder what would happen if i

12/20/09

jobs i would not like to have

- flight attendant
-

2010-07-25T20:21:00.000-07:00

finished Autobiography of Red a while ago, started moby dick.

It's sort of hard for me to think of things to say about Autobiography of Red because it's pretty much a collection of poems and I really can't think of anything to say about poetry.

really interesting the world ann carson creates for this book though, the blend of the mythological and the modern, the fantastic and the commonplace.

something else I think this book "gets away with" because it's made of poetry is how emotional it is; I think the format really works to the advantage of the book, which is good because sometimes when things are risky/experimental/unconventional they hinder rather than facilitate the communication of the intention underneath. But being made of fragments that evoke a larger whole, the book doesn't have to face the problem of trying to capture something large and making it seem small in the process. Also the poetic aspect makes it easier for Carson to blur the line between fantasy and reality by using the images she uses; the imagery is made literal via the fantastic landscape of the book (the volcano, the still white city), as well as certain myth-related details (geryon is red, has wings, can fly). these fantastic elements are emphasized by the modern/ordinary aspects of the story, like the technology that exists (planes, photography) and the way people talk (Okay I'll call as soon as I get to the hotel-- Mom? I have to go now the taxi's / here listen don't smoke too much)

What the format of the novel does for the novel is echoed within the story itself by Geryon's photography, the series of photos that comprise his autobiography; they capture moments that elude to emotions.

an excerpt-- as always, not as good out of context:

He had the camera wrapped
in a sweatshirt. The photograph is titled "If He Sleep He Shall Do Well."
It shows a fly floating in a pail of water--
drowned but with a strange agitation of light around the wings. Geryon used
a fifteen-minute exposure.
When he first opened the shutter the fly seemed to be still alive.

And it also gets pretty meta, since the autobiography is sort of based on a greek myth and a poem by Stesichorus about the myth? hard to explain, maybe you should just pick it up.

Also the language-- so good!

That was also the day
he began his autobiography. In this work Geryon set down all inside things
particularly his own heroism
and early death much to the despair of the community. He coolly omitted
all outside things.

moby dick is actually pretty good so far, i am enjoying it. it's sort of intimidating though, how long it's going to take me to read, starting to wonder if i'm really up for dedicating what might be the rest of my summer to reading this. maybe i just need to power through it, set more time aside for reading. pretty sure I won't be able to do hardly any reading once school starts.

reading a little from some short story collections here and there, concurrently with moby dick. maybe I shouldn't distract myself and just focus on one book. anyway, just some lydia davis, alix ohlin, and flannery o'connor (who, in my head i sometimes refer to as "flo'con." and james joyce is j-jo, lorrie moore is lo-mo; please tell me other people do this too, feeling kind of weird now for sharing this).

2010-07-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

my 1000+ word blog post on Tao Lin

I. I Liked Tao Lin A Lot In High School (Ass Hi Books, Today The Sky Is Blue)

Sometimes I try to remember how I heard about Tao Lin. I remember at the time I was reading a lot of stuff from Word Riot. I also really liked Delphine Lecompte at the time. I think the first thing I ever read by Tao Lin was the obese blue whale or the very retarded giant moth. I was a junior in high school and I thought they were the funniest things in the world. Actually I just clicked on them just now, they're still really good. No idea how I found those things. Bored googling? Stumbleupon? Not sure.

The first "real" thing I ever read by Tao Lin was the short story "Richie." I was sort of blown away. I think I strongly identified with that story.

an excerpt/the beginning of "Richie":

Thursday night they kidnap me, my mom, and my dad. They put garbage bags over our heads and push us outside. Inside the garbage bag I think about my American History teacher. I think about what he said to me. He said, Richie, you better speak up, you better talk in class, be more confident. I think about what I do every day. How I slept the entire Summer vacation. I think about how much more I will sleep in my life. I think how I don’t like anything. How I don’t have anything. I think that something might be happening finally.

I remember this one time I dragged three of my friends to see Tao Lin read at KGB bar. It was a weird time. I don't remember the reading at all. I remember getting my copies of Eeeee Eee Eeee and Bed signed, I remember thinking that Tao Lin probably thought I was weird. I'm not friends with two of those friends anymore. Not because of that reading, though.

On some days when I'm thinking that Tao Lin's actually not a very good writer, I think that my impression of his talent was formed during a time when I was easily impressed. But then I go back to that collection/ebook,"Today The Sky Is Blue..." and my faith in Tao Lin's potential/talent is restored.

II. Problems I Have with Tao Lin (Eeeee Eee Eeee, Bed, SFAA)

But I couldn't finish Eeeee Eee Eeee, I thought it was basically unreadable. I got very bored while reading it. And at work last year I found a copy of Bed and picked out some stories for my coworker to read, to prove that Tao Lin was legitimately pretty good (I was getting crap from someone because of my Tao Lin shirt, yeah maybe you think it's silly that I have a Tao Lin shirt, fuck you), but when I was looking through them I thought that the best stories were okay/good (at best).

I'd picked out, I think, "Three-Day Cruise" and "Nine, Ten." Looking back at them now, they seem messy and a little overdramatic. They seem like the short stories of a "young writer" because they seem indulgent. Some sentences seem unnecessary, or unnecessarily long. Some similes seem like "too much." I remember one time in an essay I wrote down "leaf corpses" instead of "dead leaves" (I know, I know, but give me a break, I was in 8th grade) and the instructor underlined it an wrote "too much." That's what I sometimes think of when I read the stories from Bed. Not that the phrasing is so ridiculous or over-the-top as that, but there are details that seem unnecessary, that seem like "too much."

I think Tao Lin mostly avoids that with Shoplifting From American Apparel, but I miss the similes and complex sentences of Bed. In some ways Shoplifting From American Apparel paints Tao Lin as an ambitious writer because he is not trying to water down or diffuse his minimalism in order to make his writing more "conventionally literary" as it sometimes seems he does in Bed. His writing seems "radical" in its minimalism. It seems very distinctly Tao Lin. But at the same time I think he could be limiting himself by not diversifying his writing, by not breaking up the "purity" of his writing/minimalism, by not writing longer sentences or not using more interesting adjectives. It seems like a gimmick, how he writes like he does, like he's writing the way he does not because it contains any literary/technical advantages, but because it makes him sound different. It's like he's selling out, like he's realized that in order to make a "name for himself" he just needs to be weird, he doesn't need to be good. Because Shoplifting From American Apparel was okay-good, not actually good. The excessiveness/indulgence from Bed is still there, despite the increased minimalism. Because the book is so monotonous it actually feels like most of the book is excessive; instead of having each sentence be just as necessary as the others, each sentence is just as unnecessary as the others. This book might as well not exist at all.

There are some memorable/good parts, but they're very brief, and they don't work together in a way that makes the whole novella memorable/good.

I really feel like there's something about SFAA that I'm missing; maybe I'm just too stupid to "get it." All of the characters seem the same to me. I can't remember who any of the people other than Sam are. Sam himself doesn't even seem very distinct from the people around him. Maybe that's part of the "point." The lack of individuality, the alienation, the internet, consumer culture, etc. It's a "critique" of modern life? I guess it bothers me that there are very few points of entry, opportunities to identify. It's too alienating. There's something almost smug about the way Tao Lin doesn't really seem to bother to care about whether or not the reader can sympathize with anything in the book. It seems almost like laziness.

Writing something that is alienating always seems like such a huge cop-out because it's so easy. Alienation is what we feel by default. Compassion is the thing that's really hard to create.

There is a really good, compassionate moment at the very end of SFAA, but it would mean so much more if the novella up to then had been just as good.

I think a lot of SFAA just doesn't feel particularly honest or sincere, either. Probably just because it's so strange/alienating/monotonous. But it's hard for me to explain the difference between honesty/sincerity and compassion; I'm talking about things that are very similar, but the distinction is there, however slight. Maybe you'll just have to take my word for it.

But "Today the Sky Is Blue" felt very honest/sincere; there's definitely something there that's missing from the things that came after. Maybe the writing is more self-conscious now.

It's just very hard to identify with the characters in SFAA, I think, because they seem like a particular type of person that I am not, that most people are not. Or because it's hard to tell what they are thinking, they seem to be thinking things that robots would think; you never really get deep inside anyone's head.

I said earlier that when I started reading Joy Williams I realized that what I thought Tao Lin did well, Joy Williams did, but better. Or what I thought Tao Lin did uniquely, Joy Williams also did, but better. I remember having this thought, but I wonder what I was thinking of exactly. Maybe because of the surreality/bizarreness of the things that happen in both of their stories? Something about the language though, makes Tao Lin seem like he's echoing Joy Williams. Maybe the way the dialogue goes? Hard to put my finger on it.

III. Tao Lin's "Internet Presence"

Anyway, even though I can't really explain it, reading Joy Williams made me like Tao Lin a little less. Even though I picked Joy Williams up because Tao Lin recommended her on his blog. That's another thing; I think Tao Lin has excellent taste in books. I wish he still blogged about books that he didn't write.

I like some of the gimmicky things he does. I think they're funny and effective. Like this contest, for example. Or when he sent me SFAA flyers for free. I like that he is "entrepreneurial" and "enterprising," I think Muumuu House is great. I also like that he is doing his own thing, especially because he is an example of an asian-american writer who can write about something else other than what it's like being asian-american. Also the way that he self-consciously puts things in quotes is contagious, even though I might be "doing it wrong." Also some of his essays are fucking awesome (eg this one and this one).

I just read this thing that Tao Lin wrote about Bed. I think it makes sense that he reads more Joy Williams than Lorrie Moore now. I think it shows. Maybe I just wish Tao Lin were less "alienating" because Lorrie Moore is my favorite and I want Tao Lin to be more like Lorrie Moore. This is sounding sort of untrue now that I'm writing it out, but I really do love Lorrie Moore.

Tao Lin also seems really smart, I feel kind of like he'll think this blog post is dumb, especially because I don't know any words for anything, and I kind of throw the word "minimalism" around a lot.

I don't think Richard Yates is going to be significantly different from SFAA. I think it will still be written in the same sort of style. I think weirder things will happen. I think it'll probably be more alienating. I don't think I'm going to like it. I'm going to buy it anyway probably, because of how much I liked "Richie" and "Taipei, Taiwan." And I have that fucking shirt.

2010-07-18T17:04:00.001-07:00

post on the corrections and the sound and the fury

The Corrections
Sometimes when a book is so enjoyable and easy to read I feel like I'm being tricked into thinking it's better than it really is, because I think for a book to be "good" it's not enough for it to be "enjoyable," it also needs to be "memorable." And even though I felt very affected by the book while I was reading, I wasn't sure how much of it would stay with me afterwards. now that i've had more time to reflect, i've decided that the corrections is:
1) a perfect "portrait of contemporary life"
2) amazing
3) in my top ten favorite books, maybe top five? i have not actually made this list.
A large part of my infatuation with this book is due to the fact that it is enjoyable to read though, because even though "enjoyability" doesn't necessarily mean quality, the particular kind of enjoyability of the corrections is really masterful because it involves such a high level of immersion and identification with the characters. It's a "domestic drama," and its real strength is getting the reader to view each character through the eyes of the other, so that the reader fully understands and experiences not only what it is like to be inside the head of each character, but to see other people through each character's eyes. And it's written entirely in the third person.

What makes this book such a good novel also makes it hard to excerpt. It works so well as a novel, it's very complete and whole. Each part complements and builds upon the others, each sentence works better in context than it does standing alone. It's not choice phrases that make impressions, but rather a series of small emotional realizations that the reader experiences in reaction to certain things that happen in the world of the story. The book is so good at adopting points of view without using stream of consciousness narration; it's as though you're reading what the character would write about him/herself if he/she were writing in the third person.

an excerpt that doesn't really do the book justice:

On her second day in St. Jude, as on the second day of every visit, she woke up angry. The anger was an autonomous neurochemical event; no stopping it. At breakfast she was tortured by every word her mother said. Browning the ribs and soaking the sauerkraut according to ancestral custom, rather than in the modern style she'd developed at the Generator, made her angry. (So much grease, such sacrifice of texture.) The bradykinetic languor of Enid's electric stove, which hadn't bothered her the day before, made her angry. The hundred-and-one refrigerator magnets, puppy-dog sentimental in their iconography and so feeble in their pull that you could scarcely open the door without sending a snapshot of Jonah or a postcard of Vienna swooping to the floor, filled her with rage.

another inadequate excerpt; the parents are meeting the son's (chip's) girlfriend, a good example of the audience seeing the mother through Chip's eyes:

Alfred and Enid bayed their names at her and extended hands to shake, driving her back into the apartment, where Enid began to pepper her with questions in which Chip, as he followed with the luggage, could hear subtexts and agendas.
"Do you live in the city?" Enid said. (You're not cohabiting with our son, are you?) "And you work in the city, too?" (You are gainfully employed? You're not from an alien, snobbish, moneyed eastern family?) "Did you grow up here?" (Or do you come from a trans-Appalachian state where people are warmhearted and down-to-earth and unlikely to be Jewish?)

Awareness of Franzen as the source of these words vanishes, allowing for a more immersive reading experience. And even though I've said this already when talking about what makes "minimalism" effective at immersion, it also applies to The Corrections, not because Franzen removes signs of any bias from the voice of the text, but because he so completely adopts the thoughts and language of the voice that he's writing in; it becomes all bias, but it's the bias of the character rather than the author.

I think what makes this book a perfect "portrait of contemporary life" is its portrayal of despair and ambition, and how it accentuates the discrepancies between the desired and the actual. each of the characters is hounded by the expectations of others to "succeed;" there's a lot of anxiety all around about success and appearances, and the indicators of success (as well as the ways in which success is supposed to be achieved) are things that seem particularly "contemporary."

The Sound and the Fury

I have a lot less to say about The Sound and the Fury. It was interesting to read two "domestic dramas" back to back. Something I liked about The Sound and the Fury was the two sides of Jason and Mrs. Compson vs. the rest of the family; unfortunately I sided with Jason when I feel like I wasn't supposed to. I felt completely unsympathetic towards Caddy and Miss Quentin, who just seemed like spoiled whores, and mostly unsympathetic towards Quentin, who seemed overly sensitive and self-absorbed. The language is sometimes really beautiful though.

When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather's and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it's rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father's. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

I think I really identify with Jason the most though, even though he is a racist an anti-Semite and a miser and an overall bad person.

I says I reckon you'll think twice before you deprive me of a job that was promised me. I was a kid then. I believed folks when they said they'd do things. I've learned better since.

2010-07-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

themed parties I would like to have:

- crankykaplan (gin, raccoons, a segway?)
- the girl with the dragon tattoo/stieg larsson (i just saw this movie so i just thought i'd put this down, not sure what it'd actually entail, it would probably just turn into a a "sweden" party, which would probably turn into "offensive" pretty quickly)
- deadwood (1870's south dakota, people saying "cocksucker" a lot)
- twilight party (obvi!!!)
- A/C (there will be a/c)
- batman (everyone must dress up like batman; NO EXCEPTIONS)
- pity party (everyone cries)

sometime soon i will post about the corrections/the sound and the fury
right now i am reading the autobiography of red, it's pretty awesome

2010-07-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

me: have you seen the ads for the wedding shows on WE

there are a lot in grand central

Aaron: no

isnt we womens entertainment?

me: yes

11:59 PM there is a "puppy weddings" show

actually wait i think it's a web series

but still

Aaron: the puppies get married?

12:00 AM me: yes

Aaron: what denomination is the priest?

me: "We love weddings AND puppies, so we’ve decided to marry the two!"

Aaron: jesus christ and latter day saint bernards?

harhar

12:01 AM me: haaa

2010-06-27T08:48:00.001-07:00

started watching dexter

all the women on the show are portrayed as stupid
dexter's sister only gets ahead by getting information from dexter, is unwilling to do any work by herself, and when things get tough she asks dexter to do her job for her; she's both inept and lazy.
the lieutenant is portrayed as overconfident without having the skill to back it up
dexter's girlfriend is just really stupid and a huge pushover; very "damsel in distress"

also dexter's "sociopathy" is questionable because it's clear that he has a sense of morality (eg obligation to foster father) that goes beyond what he fakes in order to blend in, so it's bizarre that he doesn't really have "feelings" if he has morality.
also his "urge to kill" doesn't seem like something he has to actually struggle with, it's more about his difficulty with social interactions; it's like the show is about an awkward guy who also happens to be a serial killer, ha ha ha.

i hope dexter gets with this sister, that'd be awesome
also I hope that at some point dexter realizes how vigilante justice undermines the actual criminal justice system, but i guess the show would be over then.
I think I just don't think the part about dexter being a serial killer is very interesting or compelling; the subplots in each episode where he hunts down a victim is just sort of tedious and a distraction from the main plot.

the main plot is pretty good though
AAAAH i love mysteries

2010-06-23T17:14:00.000-07:00

this is my 100th post!

2010-06-22T22:35:00.001-07:00

currently reading Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections

totally fucking love it, I think I like it better than the first time I read it; I think I was in like 8th or 9th grade at the time? (this might be totally wrong, I am really bad at estimating time) I remember liking it a lot, but I don't think I was able to appreciate it fully at that age (whatever age I was when I read it); I remember that it felt a little slow towards the middle though, so maybe I just haven't run into that yet.

I was kind of afraid I wouldn't really like it slash it wouldn't really be worth it, and it's a little too "poetic"/dramatic in the beginning ("an alarm bell was ringing. it was the alarm bell of anxiety" -- that was paraphrased, but still, "alarm bell of anxiety" is a direct quote), but it doesn't last long and even then it's only a little.

also at work I think I realized that i'm scared of old people. I know I've said old people were gross before, but the other day I looked at one and felt an equal combination of disgust and fear. aaaaaaah I just kind of looked at this one lady whose skin was all white and her face was all made up and big and I thought "i am looking at the face of death"

also today I went to b&n to see Bret Easton Ellis read, there was a huge crowd and only saw the top of his head for a little bit while he was reading, but I saw him come out of the elevator so I got a good 3-second head to toe view of him, so when he started the reading and I realized I wasn't going to be able to see anything, I went to buy a burrito because I was hungry. and then after I ate I came back to listen to the Q and A but I got distracted and instead read Blankets (which I thought was good, but sort of unfocused sometimes)

2010-06-20T12:58:00.000-07:00

finished The Sun Also Rises

it's hard to talk about hemingway without saying stuff that's already been said, but anyway

not my favorite hemingway book, mostly because the characters are less likeable in this one.

but still enjoyable to read in the way that hemingway is enjoyable to read; his writing is very immersive. something i particularly like about hemingway is his fluid transitions between/integrations of descriptions of outer states and narrations of inner monologues; he's also a master of capturing those inner monologues.

example of transition between inner/outer:

I heard Brett and Robert Cohn come up the stairs. Cohn said good night outside the door and went on up to his room. I heard Brett go into the room next door. Mike was already in bed. He had come in with me an hour before. He woke as she came in, and they talked together. I heard them laugh. I turned off the light and tried to go to sleep. It was not necessary to read any more. I could shut my eyes without getting the wheeling sensation. But I could not sleep. There is no reason why because it is dark you should look at things differently from when it is light. The hell there isn't!

I figured that all out once, and for six months I never slept with the electric light off. That was another bright idea. To hell with women, anyway. To hell with you, Brett Ashley.

I think that the way Hemingway uses minimalism is immersive because it takes away the reminder of an outside presence. The reason why Hemingway's writing is more immservie than that of other minimalists, like Tao Lin, I think is because Hemingway's writing, while mostly devoid of adjectives and adverbs, more closely mimics the rhythms of conventional speech than Tao Lin's writing, which makes it seem more familiar.

here is a good example of how I think hemingway is good at writing realistic thoughts; the progression is so good and realistic:

I liked to see him hurt Cohn. I wished he would not do it, though, because afterward it made me disgusted at myself. That was morality; things that made you disgusted afterward. No, that must be immorality. That was a large statement. What a lot of bilge I could think of at night. What rot, I could hear Brett say it. What rot! When you were with English you got into the habit of using English expressions in your thinking. The English spoken language--the upper classes, anyway-- must have fewer words than the Eskimo. Of course I didn't know anything about the Eskimo.

Something else Hemingway does and that I can't find the example for (but I do remember reading it and thinking I should write it down, but I was too lazy/forgot) is he connects ideas really well; this is part of the minimalism i guess but I was particularly impressed by the way he uses "and"s and sequences, sort of having progressions that subvert your expectations and create a subtext for the sentence(s). argh the more i try to get this right the more pretentious I sound.

anyway here is just something I liked:

I turned on the light again and read. I read the Turgenieff. I knew that now, reading it in the oversensitized state of my mind after too much brandy, I would remember it somewhere, and afterward it would seem as though it had really happened to me. I would always have it. That was another good thing you paid for and then had.

2010-06-18T07:55:00.001-07:00

hey do you guys hold your breath when you pee

just asking

2010-06-17T21:22:00.000-07:00

tried to google "dust" to go to its wikipedia page to find out what it was made of

instead accidentally googled "wikipedia"

it's like when, have you ever tried to google something and in the search box instead of typing in what you wanted to google, you just type in "google" ?

today at work: guy comes in wearing a hat inside his button-down shirt (i know, weird), i start to say hello but then he shushes me and hands me a bookmark for a border's in farmingdale (or farmington?); "I found this in one of your books," he says. "Get rid of it. It's the competition's. I wanted to alert you."

my igoogle homepage/dashboard thing has a little gadget/widget for the "how to of the day," which displays articles from wikihow that have headlines like "how to build a sawbuck for cutting wood" (i almost typed in "how to build a sawbuck for how to build a sawbuck") or "how to make an origami snail" (attempts to spell origami include "orgmami" and "oragmai"), and other items of potential interest, etc. Today's article, however, was headlined slightly more subtly: "If your dog started choking, would you know how to save its life?"

presumably, if the answer is no, you would click on the link that would take you to the article's page, on which the real title of the article is revealed to be "how to save a choking dog." and then you would learn that you should (i'm saving you time and giving you a summary right here):

- get help

- try to get the obstruction out, either by using tweezers/pliers (if you can see the obstruction), turning the dog upside down and shaking it out, or hitting the dog between the shoulder blades 4-5 times

- if nothing else works, heimlich the dog

- if your dog seems dead, do CPR

i like this subtle approach though, which both brings to light certain real-world scenarios that could potentially necessitate knowing the information in these wikihow articles while also bringing to light your potential ignorance of that information, as well as implying that the consequences of such ignorance are potentially disastrous.

they should apply this method to all of their articles.
"if you needed to cut wood, would you know how to build a sawbuck?"
"what if you were being held hostage by mollusk-loving aliens who wouldn't let you go until you folded one thousand beautiful little origami snails for their biannual Gastropod Gala-- what would you do? WHAT WOULD YOU EVEN DO?!?!?"

2010-06-12T21:40:00.000-07:00

finished Tao Lin's Shoplifting From American Apparel

A lot of Tao Lin's trademark phrases ("serious/bored/neutral facial expression," "___ is/feels/seems fucked") become irritating after a while (probably by virtue of them being "trademark phrases" in the first place) as does his unrelenting simplicity/aloofness ("Sam stared at his computer screen. He lay on his bed. It was November. Sam was in a rural area of Pennsylvania."), and at times it feels like the effect of these techniques is to create a Tao Lin signature style rather than to actually contribute to the telling of the story.

At the same time though the book is never boring (the short sentences probably contribute to the book's readability) and the dialogue is just so fucking perfect. And the Tao Lin signature style really works at times ("They stood on the street drinking beer in the dark while looking at each other. Sam looked at the sky to see if there were a lot of stars. There seemed to be a normal amount of stars.").

final verdict on tao lin's short, detached-seeming sentences: I understand that it's supposed to create feelings of detachment and alienation in the reader, and it's good for setting up the humor that tao lin uses, but because it is so consistent (and so strange, I think, and unlike what most people are used to reading) it feels monotonous after a while; if the novella were much longer (even with the dialogue providing moments of authenticity to break up the heavily stylized narration) I could see it becoming boring.

that being said, i liked this book a lot.

trying to decide what to read next. options:

- This Side of Paradise

- The Sun Also Rises

- Middlesex

- Wise Blood

- The Wapshot Scandal

- Pale Fire

- The Autobiography of Red

2010-06-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

i wish the first google search result for "jonathan safran foer eating animals" would yield jonathansafranfoereatinganimals.com, a fetish site that posted pictures of jonathan safran foer eating various animals.

2010-06-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

finished Joy Williams' The Quick and the Dead

Highly recommended; usually I don't have much patience for surrealism in novels because I find it alienating, but I think this book has the right amount of alienation in that for all of its bizarreness, the characters are portrayed empathetically for the most part. Joy Williams is compared to Don Delillo somewhere-- maybe he reviews her book on the cover or something-- and I can see the resemblance in that Don Delillo (i've only read White Noise) creates these strange scenes that linger and stay with you long after you've finished the book, but unlike Don Delillo (at least, what I think of Delillo based on White Noise) the characters seem like human beings rather than like vessels through which the author can communicate his/her viewpoint. Also Joy Williams is really funny.

an excerpt:

If specific compounds could create little dead islands in the brain, could annihilate the glowing shade-wracked jungle of caring and desire and delight and flatten it all to a sunbaked crust over which not even the most primitive thought crept or left a track, of what possible use was anything that happened to a person in this life? It made the staff wonder, even at $6.50 an hour.

Started Tao Lin's Shoplifting from American Apparel. When I started reading Joy Williams it almost made me like Tao Lin less because I realized that the things I liked best about Tao Lin were things that Joy Williams does, but better. Still though I have a soft spot for Tao Lin, despite his gimmicky-ness; Taipei, Taiwan is so good and really captures how I feel about myself/my life, but so accurately that I find it sort of embarrassing to share with people. I'm sharing this with you right now, but only because I like you (despite your love for JSF-- I mean I haven't even read him, so it's not like I have a legit reason for not liking him, I just think his book covers are annoying; the covers are so bright, it's like he's trying to sell his book to people who might mistake it for candy-- i.e. children). Also I think Tao Lin is a very "generational" writer and that people are going to look back on our generation and point to Tao Lin as an exemplar. I think he's really good at writing about the internet and feeling dead inside, as well as the contrast between inner/outer states, thoughts/feelings vs. behavior.

I think I'm giving up on The Blind Assassin. I'm just not "feeling it."

2010-06-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

some dudes from work:

dude 1: Last night I had a dream that I was in the middle of this race war--

dude 2: dude, don't say that so loud.

dude 1: --and there were all these people trying to kill me, and I was like, "why are you trying to kill me? I didn't do anything to you!" and then these female cops showed up... G punched a cabbie last night, I think that's what started it.

dude (on his friend seeing his new shoes): She's gonna be like, "Oh good you got rid of your stank shoes" but then lo and behold, she'll see these and go, "Is that oyster vomit?"