Miami, briefly

I'm saving my most potent observations for the yet-to-be-really-named Florida Letter Writing Club, which I am way more excited about than this stupid web log right now. I got here on Monday and I'm staying at my editor's very fancy house on Miami Beach while he is out of town. It's quite nice. I wake up and play piano and lie around on white couches. Sometimes I go outside to sit on the deck where little lizards change color and mangos periodically fall from the sky. I've been going out a bit with acquaintences and new friends, but it's been very lonely. When my dad got stuck in the city for the night en route to Ecuador I almost cried with gratitude I was so happy to have someone to talk to. Finding an apartment has been really hard. Miami is much more of a car-centric city than I thought, and I want to live on the beach to be able to escape my car. It's expensive though, and parking is a hassle, and I have met some VERY weird people in the course of my search. Staunch Republican Zionists, Venezuelan political refugees, French expats who appear to be on a tour of every sun destination in the world... One demographic that is noticeably lacking is any sort of hipster indy rock sorts. "Cool nerd" is thus far not a moniker that I can apply to the population of any particular Miami neighborhood or scene in the way that you can apply such a label freely in New York. And the DIY culture of Little Rock is definitely not something I hope to find here, although I think there are very few places in the world where such a thing exists and most of them are probably small cities in the South. No, there are no thrift-store clad bicycle kids who play in bands and loot dumpsters as far as I can tell. There's no drinking whiskey on porches or going fishing or self-published magazines about local bands. I dropped in a dive bar last night and it was inhabited with the sorts of folks you expect to inhabit dive bars: not good-looking kids but watery-eyed and sodden loners. They did play Ring of Fire on the jukebox though. I've never been so happy to hear mariachi horns. I may be geographically southern, but I've left The South, and I've been pretty down about that.

Now, in Miami's favor: this is the most stylish place I think I've ever been. People are better looking than in New York, better dressed than in Rio or NY, more international than L.A. and in better shape than anywhere I've ever been. People are so gorgeous, and from all over the world, and they ride around South Beach on their glossy beach cruiser bicycles and I fall in love with each and every one of them. As for my friends here, I've been hanging out with Maya and Krishna, with Lily (see!), and with a couple of writers from the New Times. Everybody there, by the way, is at least ten years older than me, but that's OK. Everybody here works in real estate or is getting their real estate license or is thinking about getting it (even the Ashram-raised Krishna!). There seems to be a city-wide obsession with sofa design, such that in the course of a given day one is probably exposed to many thousands of images of boxy looking couches that represent sleek, urban lifestyles. There is also an obsession with lifestyle condominiums with names like Nirvana and Cité-on-the-Bay that all tie back to the real estate thing. I visited one luxury building, which was a terrifying experience. All the amenities, the in-house tailor and the swimming pools and the personal trainer and the valet parking seem to just exist to give the average douchebag a sense of nobility and importance. It's pretty gross, but the way it goes here. In sum, if Rio and L.A. had a baby, I think its name would be Miami.

BTW, the Lazy Fair EP was finished before I left Little Rock, but I don't know how to post it on here and even if I did I'm sort of shy about it. I'll send Mp3s or whatever though, if anybody wants. It turned out pretty good.

Hurrah

Dave on public radio talking about chicken.

overcompensation

I'm back in Arkansas for a few days more. Our friends Leigh and Tony were married in Fayetteville this weekend. It was a pretty amazing time. There were about forty people naked in a swimming pool by the end of the night, and then around midnight one of those crazy summer thunderstorms that only happen in the middle of the country rolled in, and there was a general scrambling of people to find their underwear, and a whipping around of trees, and lightning. The next day the defeated and hungover gathered in the park to play frisbee and bocce and soccer, supplied with about five cases of beer. The sun was hot, the cops didn't come, and it was essentially a perfect day. If I were a painter I would want to do a series of paintings about lawn games. I particularly enjoy the visual spectacle of watching people play bocce, all looking alertly in the same direction with their beers and cigarettes, moving around the field like a small herd of deer. There was always something about summer in Minnesota that I missed a lot on the East Coast that seems to exist here -- a certain shimmery quality to the air, most evident when one is on a soccer field looking at a line of trees against the sky. The heat smells a certain way and feels different somehow, the light has a richer quality to it, particularly at the end of the day. The bugs are loud, and there is Old Style to drink.

What else has happened? The Lazy Fair recorded in a barn in Benton. I should have mp3s by the end of next week. Davey's essay on hot chicken in the Oxford American made Best American Food Writing. I'm writing an article for the Localist on the American Princes that involved visiting the singer's grandmother on her sod farm in Scott yesterday. She made us bloody marys.

If anybody knows anyone in Miami now is the time to let me know. I'm leaving on the 17th, stopping in Atlanta, getting there on the 20th. Whew. It's going to be a sad departure, the end of a very nice chapter in Arkansas.

Okay, so the moving to New York thing was sort of pre-emptive I guess, as circumstances have altered the course of things. I got a writing job at the Miami New Times. I'm in New York until June 1st. In Little Rock from June 1st - June 14th or so. Then I move so far from everything and everybody. Make sure you get your farewells in. It's going to be sad. But also, hopefully, very good. It's so fucking great to finally have a career-ish thing happening.

There was karaoke at the Gaffney Country Club following my cousin's wedding. The bride sang "Strawberry Wine"; the groom sang "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy." Her cousins on the other side of the family knew the words. We danced.

Other highlights of the day included the bridal luncheon hostess remarking that my aunt, who has lived in the South for thirty years, still has "a lot of North in her". I proudly displayed an arsenal of flowry print dresses that were no match for fake tans, pedicures, and maybeline foundation (shade: very tan) but I had fun, tried to add a dipthong or two, swam at the Hampton Inn's pool (with its spectacular vista of I-85) and was pleased to hear that my cousin has joined the local bridge club, preserving an important family tradition.

Yes indeed, it was a time for family. A time for processed foods we normally avoid and pimento cheese, for Coor's Light and my favorite nuptial item, a culinary event that occurs only at weddings and never in society at large: the genius of the stuffed mushroom.

Nobody caught the bouquet. With family friends muttering that it was a bad omen under their breaths it soared, descended, brushed someone's shoulder and fell into a forest of high heeled flip-flops and pedicures. Then someone picked it up. She was blonde and tan. There were only a handful of us anyway, with most of the girls complaining that "this ree-yung means ah shouldn't be in hee-ah." So.

Also (how could I forget?) mid-way through the reception a tiger mascot entered the dance floor pumping fists as the d.j. played the Clemson alma mater, a chorus joined by 300 of the guests, also pumping fists. And we envisioned football, and victory, and men and pigskins and glory, and there was much rejoicing. I'll be in New York City tomorrow, y'all.

ch ch ch changes

I'm coming back to New York. I have a temp job at GQ. I feel a little rotten about the whole thing though; or at least conflicted. But anyway... I start on Monday. If anyone wants to open up their home I could use a couch.

Playing with the Lazy Fair on Tuesday was, by the way, maybe one of the funnest things I've ever done in my life. We silkscreened up a bunch of old t-shirts the day of and handed them all out, so all our friends were there, dancing, wearing our t-shirts, making us feel so nice... Fuck I wish I was in Little Rock now. My cousin's getting married on Saturday in Gaffney, SC so I'm in Atlanta with the family, wishing the suburbs didn't suck so much.

I just read Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson, which lives up to its reputation of near-perfection. Like Jane of Lantern Hill meets Terrence Malick. I mean I always really hated Anne of Green Gables (as soon as I read the words "the lake of shining waters" I decided it was garbage) but as far as L.M. Montgomery goes I always liked Jane. And something in this story reminded me of it. But it's dark and sad and very beautiful.

Last night I stayed out real late hanging and today Kat and Corey took me to the airport and I felt pretty sad about having to go again. Oh well. Except that I really do feel sad.

Debut

The Lazy Fair
Tonight! Whitewater Tavern, following Lightning Bolt.

We went and hiked up Pinnacle Mountain yesterday, and when we got to the top the youth group from The Church of the Nazarene of Searcy, Arkansas was sitting there singing "Our God is an Awesome God."

Since it came up in conversation

Photos of Something For Rockets in my living room (the pea green scenario, with the bullfighting rug on the wall), at Whitewater, and a lifetime's worth of photos of a drunken Davey (as if anyone who knows him doesn't have too many of these already.) Can you see the simulacra of Rock & Roll? Ugh.

NYC and Chicago were good times. Adam, guess who I ran into the night after I saw you? I give you one guess.

Spring gets heavy

On Sunday we drove to Memphis, donned our dancing shoes, saw Out Hud and Hella and drove back to Little Rock. Memphis, only two hours from Little Rock, is so completely different, so ornate and dilapidated. We hung out on a friend's porch and had beers before walking to the bar. My friend Rett said the weather was like being in a pot of soup that was about to be reheated. It's true. Walking around at night these days is perfect; the air is heavy with flowers and all the cars had coats of pollen on them. But there is this thickness, like something is brewing underneath, and I'm starting to take people's warnings about the summer here seriously.

The show was really fun. Watching Hella's drummer was like porn. Like he had muscles in his arms that just don't exist in normal people, and a huge hole in the crotch of his pants. We were all just staring. I can't say much for the rest of the band. Seeing Out Hud was like if Peter Gabriel had just left all his prog rock instruments on the stage (electric cello, etc.) and all these attractive young people sauntered in and started playing dance music. We danced a lot. I sort of wish every band I saw live was a dancing band.

In other news, I will be in Chicago for about fifteen hours, from Saturday night to Sunday morning, and New York for a little longer, from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday morning. I expect birthday celebrations at each stop. (I turn 24 on Friday...)

I'm applying for newspaper jobs and I actually get calls back now. It's weird. Would I actually want to live in Roanoke, Virginia? I don't know. It's pretty...

The weather was gorgeous this weekend. We had a huge party on Saturday. I have no idea how many people were there, but they filled our enormous backyard and consumed two kegs. We made dinner beforehand in honor of my roommate's birthday and ate out in the back under the trees, which were all decorated with christmas lights. We had a big bonfire and our friends d.j.ed in the living room until the wee hours and nobody called the cops. Kat said it was the most fun she had in 2005 so far, and I feel the same way.

Of course yesterday involved lots of mopping and trash bags—and I had to get up in the morning and work which was super shitty. But we still had the hi-fi set up, so we could play music really loud with the doors open. And then last night, like the party's dessert, our friends came over and we listened to records and sat on our porch real late.

Springtime in Little Rock, before the bugs come out and it gets hot, is a swell event. Today is rainy though, and I am vowing to live a clean life for the next five days.

Long time no

I haven't written in a long time. There isn't much to say, just more bars and smokey clothes. I drove to New Orleans last weekend, setting foot in Mississippi and Louisiana for the first time in my life. The drive was much less tedious than I would have thought, some seven hours, and much of it on old two-lane highways that pass through weird little towns. By Mississippi the leaves were out; it was green and sunny and gorgeous, and in New Orleans even more so. We ate beignets and coffee with chicory and crawfish etoufee, rode on the street car, smoked hookahs, drank... Jess and I rented bikes and took Esplanade with its curly oak trees all the way to city park, where there are ponds and swans and mossy tennis courts. The New Orleans aquarium has the most beautiful sea horse I have ever seen, the Leafy Sea Dragon, which was like a rotor-propelled piece of algae with eyes, and we watched that IMAX movie about sharks.

What else? We visited above-ground cemetaries, the oldest confederate museum, and the newly inaugurated Museum of Southern Art, which had an exhibit on Walter Anderson and a few very nice photos by Eudora Welty. We had dinner at Jacques Imo's, which I'm told is well-regarded. I ate a rabbit, and the waitress, for no apparent reason but an inspirational generosity, gave us two free bottles of wine, dessert and a round of medicinal-tasting shots for free. (Oh yeah, I started eating sweets again.)

The weather was gorgeous. I went swimming in our hotel's rooftop pool every morning. Arthur and his friends went out to Lake Pontchartran to fish for catfish (to catfish? can that be a verb?), leaving me with a trunkful of Schlitz and a new fishing rod. We went to a stripclub on Bourbon Street, which was gross, and drank a round of evil-tasting hand grenades, since for somebody, somewhere, it was spring break.

That's about it: lots of rich food, lots of drinking, lots of walking around. I think I could live in New Orleans, but it would suck being a waitress there. Also I found myself missing the smallness of Little Rock, the dankness of Pizza D's, where I know everyone and the drinks are cheap. We listened to David Sedaris on my i-pod on the way back. It was a nice homecoming; I went to sleep immediately.

Tuesday a bunch of us drove up to Fayetteville to see the Mountain Goats. I didn't watch much of the show though. It was crowded and I was in a chatty mood so I paid $8 for a concert I barely watched. There's something really cool about that town; I'm not sure what. Something about the Ozarks and the architecture, there's a Fay Jones sort of aura around it. Most of my closest friends in Little Rock lived in Fayetteville until about a year ago, so we go up there kind of a lot to visit. Going to Fayetteville generally means heavier drinking than usual at JR's Lightbulb club, seeing music of some sort, sleeping on somebody's futon and having a very hungover brunch the next day. I generally return feeling both renewed and like I'm about to die. I love it though.

Today the plan is to go see this gigantic field of daffodils somewhere. I'm not sure where. It seems like it might be a little bit late in the season though. It's been warm here.

In other news, the best books of the past few weeks have been Edisto and Edisto Revisited, by Padgett Powell. I'm in the middle of The Magus, by John Fowles, Tropic of Cancer, and a re-reading of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. The Magus has sort of taken over my life.

I also can't stop listening to Kings of Leon. I don't know what's wrong with me. We might go see Iron & Wine in Kansas, if it coincides with my trip to Chicago to return my cousin's car. EEp! car-less. But I put wheels on this Schwinn that was rusting in the backyard. It's a one-speed, which can be painful, but it's my new baby.

Can someone explain?

A consumption tax? Isn't that sort of regressive? What the fuck is wrong with these people?

Funny

My brother sent me the link to this comic. My favorite is "The Mercy of Admiral Shlork." I wanted to get Paradise Lost and Kicking and Screaming from Netflix, only to discover niether is out on DvD. I hate that. I'm driving down to New Orleans Easter weekend. It seems like lots of folks are going to converge there. It will be fun... (Stephen? Joon? Wanna come?)

Jason sent me this link to Strindberg and Helium. I've watched it a few times, and I'm sort of in love with the last one in particular (Sulfur and Iron), even if F is not the symbol for Iron (Fe). I also like how Strindberg's pupils are all quavery. It makes me want to write a new play, and have someone animate it. Do I know anyone who does animation? I don't think so.

Jess and Corey and I decided to take a tour of the State Capitol this afternoon. We were sort of thrown in with a group of Catholic school kids. It was funny stuff. At one point one of them told Jess to shush.

Life Continues

Really everything is boring right now. No exciting news. My friendster profile continues to get more hits than my web log, which only means that I should advertise this on Friendster, except that since I don't post so much anymore there isn't much point. I've been reading quite a bit. In the last few weeks:

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers. She published this at the ripe old age of 23, but it's good but not great, so don't feel bad. I read this for the girl book club I'm in. Last time I was the only person who finished the book (Delta Wedding, by Eudora Welty). We meet again tonight.

Pnin, by Nabokov. Charming and succinct, the main character, except for the dentures, sounds like a Russian deadringer for Dr. Justin Frank (there are lots of descriptions about his very tan, bald, head.)

Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson. Sometimes you just need sci-fi, and this sci-fi was pretty good. I got a little lost on the Sumerian shit, but I liked all the stuff about the privatization of the planet, The Raft (a floating community of third world refugees) was a pretty cool concept, as were the burbclaves (The Mews at Windsor Heights I found particularly amusing.) The Metaverse/samurai shit made me feel—as did the dot-com stuff in Cryptonomicon—like a huge nerd. That's fine I guess.

Some book about Cuba by a woman named Isadora Tattlin. I forget what it's called. It's basically this woman's diary from when she was living as a housewife in Cuba where her European husband was transferred. It makes me never want to get married and/or have children. This woman's whole life is her cocksure husband and kids, and he is super annoying at times and she's an idiot and worries a lot about stuff like what she is going to bag the kids' snack food in. It was annoying.

I just started Band of Angels by Robert Penn Warren but I don't think I'm going to finish it.

The band decided on The Lazy Fair, no "e." The other was deemed "too brainy." Go figure. How about them Oscars? I hadn't seen any of the movies. I don't go to the movies anymore, which is sad. In New York it was all I did, which was sad in another way, because I'd always go alone. Part of a recently burdgeoning problem in Little Rock is that I go out every night, and I drink heavily every night, and this week I think I'm going to put a stop to it.

Weird saudades

While listening to NPR this morning, the words "snow-covered city on the Rhine" provoked the strangest bout of nostalgia/longing for Minneapolis in midwinter, when everything is dead and ice-covered. I guess since it has been very warm here in the past few days, and all the flowers are blooming, and I've been taking lots of long walks around Little Rock with friends, swinging a cut switch and talking to dogs. Today it is pouring, which is just as well. We have finally named our band, although the spelling is still unresolved: it's either going to be The Lazy Fair or The Lazy Faire. I kind of like the last one. Any thoughts on that one? We have three songs now.

Oh the weather's been gorgeous, until today that is. Still sort of warm, but the sun is back into hiding. Hey, did everybody know I live in an earthquake-prone zone? The New Madrid Fault maybe? Apocalypse. I waitress now, serving pao de queijo to the masses. The masas. There is nothing else to say.

I have quit my job and I am now trying to make it on my own, located in study carrel #235 of the Little Rock library, where I waited with all the homeless folks at 9:01 this morning to be let in. Sigh. I don't know what I'm doing.

In other news

On Friday, my last day of work, we all went out and had some country cooking (fried catfish, greens and mashed potatoes at Trudi's), came back to the office and had some cake, went out after work and drank for many consecutive hours and I made some final farewells. On Monday I came back to work at 9 a.m. to "finish some things," as I have Tuesday, Wednesday and today. It's worth it, I think, or at least I think the OA Southern Food Issue is going to be really really good. I'm ready for my new life as an underemployed bohemian though.

Today should be my last day, but given that I am writing on this and not Quarking it up such predictions are dubious. I was asleep when Lawrence came to pick me up this morning. One of those days. We had band practice last night, where we put finishing touches on our first single, which looks like is going to be called Party Fowl, and is a pop tune about the chickens having a party before they go to slaughter the next morning. You get to think about this a lot when you commute to work on the interstate, like I do every morning, and you see truckloads of Arkansas-based Tyson chickens plump against the bars, their small feathers festooning the surrounding traffic. It's poignant, the chickens seem so fat and nice, and boneless, skinless chicken breasts seem sort of repugnant and dry anyway. Chicken has never been my favorite food, as I sometimes feel like I'm eating a fleshy insect or reptile.

I just finished The Outlaw Sea by William Langewische. The book was pretty good, but the last chapter was really much better than the other three put together. It's about the scrapping of ships, and it captures that nebulous place where first world waste and third world want form a dismal industrial economy.

The boys are having a party this weekend. They haven't had a big one since I moved here. I'm excited. After New Year's and Art Amiss in Fayetteville, January was a recurring stream of slow weekends. February, I think, will be fun.

The Fort

Last night my friend Jessica and I took a trip up to Fort Smith, which is two hours from Little Rock on the border with Oklahoma, kind of near Fayetteville. It's Arkansas' second-largest city, and both my roommates are from there, so I was curious. Jessica prepped me on the way, saying it wasn't going to be like Little Rock, or like Fayetteville. Back in Louisiana purchase days, Fort Smith was the last outpost before Indian Territory, and it was where all the fugitive outlaws would gather trying to get out of the country. As a result, hangings were frequent -- the gallows are still there -- and there were something like 200 saloons on the main strip downtown.

Today the downtown is strange and sort of deserted. She described it as a working-class city, but I would have just said tough. It actually reminded me a bit of Allentown, where I was born. I think it's one of the tougher places I've ever been. Like punk is definitely not dead, or at least it wasn't at the bar we went to. We got out of my car and watched as a truck in a nearby lot spun its wheels until all was burnt rubber and smoke. Within five minutes of entering the bar there was a fight, and a mosh pit was definitely in full swing, and this was at a charity event for a girl who had gotten in a car accident and needed to raise money to learn how to walk again. She was there in a wheelchair, along with her mom and other older-women caretaker sorts. The crowd was a diverse mix of age groups, predominantly young. In genre the folks ranged from a Davey Crockett-type (he had a beard, ponytail and leather fringe jacket), to gutter punk sorts and people in country-western shirts with roses embroidered on them. We stayed on someone's couch, in a big old pioneer-looking house that was surrounded by vacant lots. We tried to have breakfast at a locally famous Vietnamese deli, but it was closed, so we went to a greasy spoon, thick with cigarette smoke and hash browns. The fry cook wore the stars and bars on his hat and a large hickey on his neck. I think I understand my roommates better now, or at least why one opted to drop out of high school.

But Fort Smith has bars that stay open until five and lots of pool tables. Oklahoma is only a river away, and you can visit both the old gallows and the fort that started the whole thing. You see a lot of license plates from the Cherokee Nation, and some funny bumper stickers, like "Work is the curse of the drinking class." I liked it. Or at least it was a change from the usual weekend drinking routine.

How To

This from Lindsey, who says, "From the Mexican government’s web site. Awesome how they so accurately showed that big-haired-and-tittied women in purple jumpsuits and gold bracelets will always be at hand for immigrants when trying to fill out complicated forms." The drawing in question is on page 18, "Tus Derechos." Guía del Migrante Mexicano. At least they're approaching the subject with candor.

When she's walking through the field of hearts, it's cool

When I was little kid, I used to say I wanted to marry my cat, who was real nice. I didn't mean it though. Bjork actually did it though. The new video, by Spike Jonze (via stereogum) is so amazing. At the end, when the cat becomes life-sized. What?

Even before this there was something Godard-ian

Louis has an op-ed in The International Herald Tribune about his experience in the Congo. I think this is a first for any of my friends (An article, in a major paper, that's not in the Style section?) May it be the first of many.

The gumby videos especially

My new favorite thing in the world. I hadn't looked at this site for a while (it's all Providence kids). We were watching it at work today for a minute, and it made the morning better for sure.

On to grander things

I finish my job at the OA in two weeks, a voluntary termination date to focus more on my own writing. This will involve discipline. Lots of it. And a part-time job. Thus far I have applied to the Brazilian restaurant all my friends work at and at the "living history" department of the Historic Arkansas Museum. The latter could potentially involve churning butter and wearing bonnets. My friendster profile gets more hits than my web log does. I just read Delta Wedding, by Eudora Welty, for a book club I'm in. Very nice, like a Southern Virginia Woolfe. I'm also halfway through I Am Charlotte Simmons which was tolerable at first but in the last hundred pages has started to get tedious, odious, and actually totally vile. In fact, I hate it, but unless I'm too late I was going to review it for the Localist. Supposedly we now have a drummer for our band. I haven't met him yet. Before we were using a drum machine and a synthesizer that when you press certain keys actually hollers at you. It's like, "Whoop!"

Recent endeavors

Lawrence and I have started a band. I play keyboards and he plays guitar. Our friend Dustin plays bass. I've never been in a band before, but was surprised to find that if you're playing keyboards with people who are good at the other things, you only have to know your chords. Our second rehearsal is tonight. We are as yet unnamed, although sometimes go casually by the name Exchange Student.

A good day

I got a letter today at the magazine from a woman in Beebe, AR saying my elephant story was "so touching." She wrote all about the Thai elephants who helped clear debris after the tsunami and sensed the danger long before it came. I was so touched. I sort of teared up.

Sad things

My mom's best friend, from whom I receive my middle name of Elizabeth, has a son who is a Marine stationed in Iraq. On New Years Day he was shot and has since had his arm amputated. He gets to return home to his wife and 4 year-old son alive though, and as he is a mechanical engineer he is apparently already designing his own prosthesis. His pop was a Marine in Vietnam, his Grandfather in the CIA... It was interesting though, as I was reading his company's web log about the incident, I learned that Joe Sacco happened to be the journalist imbedded with them. Apparently his experience will be in Guardian sometime forthcoming.

New Year's Resolution

During my recent trip back to New York, a couple people actually expressed annoyance that I don't write so much anymore. It's quite a problematic arrangement: first, this has been an embarrassing endeavor from the beginning, started when I was working as a copywriter at a shit advertising agency in Manhattan, where the quantity of work was vastly inferior to the quantity of workday. And, lets all be very frank with ourselves, it had a little to do with forming alternative communicative arrangements, since the metaphorical river had been dammed. Either way, it's such a fucking nerdjob arrangement, I'm embarassed of the poor quality of writing on here, and I can't seem to call it quits.

But people want to know more about Arkansas, I will attempt to do a better job at conveying Arkansas to them. As I've mentioned before, Arkansas is difficult to explain, and even more difficult to explain is myself in the context of Arkansas, and the two are rather inseparable. Particularly when we consider what I now feel fairly sure of, based on my last trip back, that living in Providence and New York made a crazy person out of me, as most of my readers (and dearest friends) have a fairly nuanced awareness of. See, the realization that I thought had been made by going to Chile in high school was that cultural geography matters very little and own's own attitude towards things matters very greatly but what has confused me a little about Arkansas is that it appears that where one is, and not just where one's mind is, does actually make a large difference.

Arkansas has proven to me two very important things: 1)The whole depression thing was not necessarily ontological, but potentially conditional. This makes me bitter and I feel like I got cheated, although in the end one only has oneself to blame. 2) In the Ivy league success stories are narrowly defined. Leslie Thornton told me, before graduation, that if I moved to New York I would wake up one morning and be thirty and, she said dismissively, "working on my screenplay." I think that she meant "working on my screenplay" as euphemism for "being a loser." So. She was my favorite professor. Some of you probably knew that already, that New York City is not necessarily the best place to get artistic things done, but I've always been a bit slow to the punch. I continue to be a little pissed at anyone who might make the whole smaller pond bigger fish analogy. It's not like that. That's what's hardest to explain to people, that it's not like you move somewhere smaller and the world's standards are lower. Absolutely not. Unfortunately, living in New York does not make one smarter, a better writer, musician or anything else. It's pretty fucking stupid to think that might be the case. Realization (2) might seem an oxymoron to realization (1) but really mediocrity is rampant in metropolises both large and small. And this is the Marshall Frady quote I kept spouting to people last week, if you were curious:

I've never been too sure that it is benign for a writer to spend any great length of time in the company of New York's estate of appraisers from afar and traffickers in reactions and responses. Because maybe you start after awhile writing from those secondary vibrations, instead of from the primary pulses and shocks you can't afford to lose. Perhaps writers ought to be scattered out over the land...that way you're writing out of what you're living in, there can be that energy and immediacy and very flash of life in your work. All the while, covertly, you're actually a kind of undercover agent, stranded out in the cold and sending dispatches from those far brawlings of life to Dickens, Twain, Gogol, Balzac, Cervantes, telling them what's going on now -- Let me tell you what these people did. Let me tell you what this character is like and what he did and what happened to him...

Why don't any of you whiners ever post comments?

I'm on day five in the Northeast. Still no luggage (I had a bit of a trial getting up here), and although I had an awesome christmas in Philly and it's lovely to see all my friends, I sort of want to go home. Philly was great, but I don't belong in New York somehow, and it's not just that my clothes have started to smell. Supposedly I'm up to collect $125 and counting for my smelliness. The best things from the past couple of days have been a graphic novel called Unlikely, the ipod my brother gave me for christmas (even though it is not yet in my posession) and how much I love the friends and family that all came over for christmas dinner and aftermath in Philly. It's great to see people. I wish there was some way to reconcile how much I love the city of New York with how bad it is capable of making me feel.

Festivities.

Photos from Rebecca's visit to Arkansas. I admit I'm a little embarassed about my sweatsuit ensemble. We were hiking, OK? Also: Emily Brochin's first big ass article in the Philadelphia Weekly. She's brilliant, although the newspaper could stand to hire a proofreader. What else... I'm going to be in New York and Philadelphia next week kiddos, if anyone still reads this (according to official counts, approximately three people a day do.)

All The King's Men is being re-made with the following cast:
Sean Penn as Willie Stark (or Willie Talos, depending on which edition of the book you read.)
Jude Law as Jack Burden (I have to say I think this is an excellent choice.)
Patricia Clarkson as Sadie Burke (I really hope they make sure her hair is black and crazy.)
Anthony Hopkins as Judge Irwin (who I envisioned as tall and rather craggy, more like the guy that plays the farmer in Babe.)
Kate Winslet as Anne Stanton.

James Carville is listed as Executive Producer, so at least there's one other Southerner in the credits. It's directed by Steven Zaillian, who is not Southern, and who directed Searching for Bobby Fisher. I predict that Sean Penn's Southern accent is going to be horrific. The movie better be good though.

These days I'm sort of against animal spectatorship, particularly of elephants, which I think should not be bred in captivity and used for performative purposes because they are too smart and interesting, and can communicate with one another by sensing vibrations through their feet from up to twenty miles away. I also am tired of people like Karl Lagerfield, and wish he could take his world and move it several miles into space, and I am annoyed that he is dressing this elephant in a Chanel suit, as if she were some botoxed vampire stalking a chintz-filled living room in the Upper 80s.

I turned on to the off-ramp of I-30 today and I think it was only sort of a mistake. I meant to link this days ago, when Emily B. called at 8 a.m. to inform me that Stephen Levin was wearing a blazer in the NY Times. This recent spate of appearances by Brown kids in the Times has left me sort of dumbfounded. Rebecca tried to set me up with Manu once. Good people, these boys.

Thank god for ponchos

Nov. 21, 2004  |  SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- President Bush tried to mend relations in Latin America with fresh promises of immigration reform Sunday while a new security spat surfaced with Chile after an embarrassing fracas in which Bush intervened.

What was supposed to have been an elaborate state dinner with 200 people Sunday was downgraded to an official working dinner, reportedly because Chilean President Ricardo Lagos balked at Secret Service demands for guests to walk through metal detectors. The guest list for the working dinner was pared down to the leaders, their wives and top aides.

On Saturday night, Bush waded into a scuffle that erupted when Chilean authorities blocked the president's Secret Service agents from accompanying him into a dinner. As tempers flared and a shoving match ensued, Bush pushed into the commotion, grabbed his lead agent, Nick Trotta, and pulled him inside.

The incident, shown repeatedly on television worldwide, was an unlikely episode in an otherwise staid gathering of 21 Pacific Rim leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. In a moment of levity, the leaders posed in colorful, hand-woven ponchos -- following the summit tradition of wearing native garb of the host country.



I've needed to e-mail my host family for awhile, but now I'm sort of ashamed to.

Eureka

Thanks to the impeccable e-mail archives of Ted and Solon, the depressing ODB article was found. It was in Blender, not The Source. It's still depressing. Read it.

Some might call my my mother a pessimist.

The Life and Times of Big Baby Jesus

Today, on Russell "Rusty" Jones's birthday, we must sadly mourn his sudden and unexpected death last week from what appears to be heart failure. Rather than focus on his myriad gunshots/arrests/gonorrheaoutbreaks/paroles/incarcarations/baby'smommas/bulletproofvests, etc. I think the thing that stands out most in my mind was that amazing article in The Source about him in prison, which I can't find anywhere on the internet. I'm guessing it ran in 2002, before The Trials & Tribulations of Russell Jones came out, a sad commentary on a sadder man, where the writer described Ol' Dirty in a state of physical and mental decay, on suicide watch, toothless and muttering, not even knowing what material would be on The Trials & Tribulations (which was universally panned.) But I can't find it, so this, my second favorite news item, will have to do:

Ol' Dirty Bastard Saves Child

Ol' Dirty's second most noble deed came shortly after that one, at the 1998 Grammys, where he interrupted Shawn Colvin's speech to bum rush the stage and give his opinion on the fact that Puffy had just won album of the year. His speech echoed the sentiments of many:

"Please calm down. I went and bought me an outfit today that cost me a lot of money, because I figured that Wu-Tang was gonna win. I don't know how you all see it, but when it comes to the children, Wu-Tang is for the children. We teach the children. Puffy is good, but Wu-Tang is the best. I want you all to know that this is ODB, and I love you all, peace."

Sorry if you already read this on Arkansas Rockers. I can't imagine there's much overlap in readership. Two people max. is my estimate. I've been wanting to write an extensive summary of life in Little Rock, which I feel like I've barely posted about at all, but it gets muddled in my head and, like any outsider perspective, could potentially be seen by natives as a massive display of ignorance, a tourist's view. I'm a bit sensitive about that. I was thinking I could make a link to the 4-page thread on ArkansasRockers.com's message board about The Localist/Vinos conspiracy, and provide an appendix with necessary vocab words and personalities like "The Localist," "The Mansion," "T.J. Deeter," "Vinos," "Davey, " etc. but I can't imagine anybody up in the Northeast would actually go through the trouble. If one were so inclined to undertake such an anthropological study, out of sheer voyeuristic obsession with what we can all agree upon is my thrilling existence, where even such mundane facts as where one might eat pizza in Little Rock, Arkansas are small cultural gems of higher knowledge, than they should just call me and we'll work something out.

It doesn't get any scarier than this...

Congratulatory letter to President George W. Bush from Dr. Bob Jones III:

November 3, 2004

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

The media tells us that you have received the largest number of popular votes of any president in America's history. Congratulations!

In your re-election, God has graciously granted America—though she doesn't deserve it—a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly.

Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you.

More of the same.

Today

The morning was punctuated by three events ocurring between stepping out of my car and arriving at my building:

1. Domestic dispute, where the following was overheard: "Wull Hunny, thar's a reason yew bin married three times."

2. This misplaced campaign of righteousness on a bumper sticker: "No to Mike, yes to Roy: Save Disney."

3. A dead blackbird.

Rue the day

First Avenue closed. Sad times in Minneapolis. More.

I saw The Motorcycle Diaries the other day and liked it quite a bit. It made me rather nostalgic—while in Chile they pass through Temuco, Valparaíso (where I was an exchange student for a year), the Atacama and Chuquicamata, all places I have rather intense emotional memories of.

In other news, I just realized our cat has a Friendster page. She has six testimonials. It's weird to Friendster your cat.

Obligatory Thoughts on the Re-election of GWB

"Having restored decency to the White House, President Bush now has a mandate to affect policy that will promote a more decent society, through both politics and law. His supporters want that, and have given him a mandate in their popular and electoral votes to see to it. Now is the time to begin our long, national cultural renewal ('The Great Relearning,' as novelist Tom Wolfe calls it) — no less in legislation than in federal court appointments. It is, after all, the main reason George W. Bush was reelected."

Thus writes Bill Bennett his doughy face alight in flabby celebration, presiding over a tea party of assholes at The National Review.

Here in Arkansas it was a morning of rain and hangovers, and as Kerry conceded the vote, the final death knell for pluralism in Washington D.C. for a good while, I happened to be fact checking an article on John C. Calhoun. Generally credited with spawning the Civil War, he was advocate number one for secession, putting forth nullification as a Constitutionally-granted State right. I had to wonder what would happen, for a minute, if the entire block of the North seceded this morning. Ideologically, on the Internet at least, it does not seem implausible.

"Despite living here all my life," laments Nathalie, "I'm not familiar with America." Wonkette offers us Harper's guide to expatriation. Over and over we hear of this great cultural divide between the South/Midwest and the Northeast. I feel the need, in the middle of all this, to reflect on the part of the country I just moved to. Since my parents left Minneapolis for Georgia two and a half years ago, I no longer have a home town. I have voted in four different districts since the last presidential election and I have completely lost touch with the people I grew up with. But after four years in Rhode Island it never felt like any sort of home. I love New York but I spent the majority of time there in total solitude and although anti-depressants made this experience much more pleasant than the same experience in Rhode Island, it was still never home.

So culturally, even though it's only been two months, Arkansas is my home. With the exception of Atlanta, where my parents live, I love the little I have seen of the South, I love the people here. Speaking in generalities I relate to them more than I do Northeasterners and life has just come a little bit easier since I moved here. But it makes me really fucking upset that 75% of the voters in Arkansas wanted to ban gay marriage and I may not celebrate Christmas this year in order to protest religious fundamentalist fascist ideologue assholes, even if they are in the vast majority.

HOWEVER, Kerry only lost by some 11 percentage points. We re-elected a Democratic Senator and Congressman. Maybe if a few people in the more liberal states would lose their snooty opinion, because it is snooty my friends, and maybe if they realized how much money they could save by living in, say, Oxford, Mississippi, than in New York, New York and how, particularly if you are a writer, artist-type, you can get a lot more work done and feel much better about yourself than you would surrounded by all the other douchebags trying to do the same thing in Williamsburg, maybe then we could make a political difference.

My friends. We have lost the election. We cannot lose again. The next democratic candidate will be John Edwards, and he'll be a Southerner. Will you let this dumpling of the Carolinas down again? Would you suffer his twinkly smile to falter? In the next four years we need to alter the landscape of the country:

Don't secede, don't expatriate... CARPETBAG IN 2008!

Big Time

Little Rock has now joined the likes of Memphis and Providence with the completion of its own novelty trolley. The trolley goes to North Little Rock! And the Clinton library! (Which looks, incidentally, like a large traileron stilts.) It is so heartening to see municipalities around the country taking genuine steps toward better public transportation.

I mean, at least when Minneapolis decided to build a train they made it a Light Rail that goes to useful places, like the airport, and the Mall of America.

The Robot Hall of Fame "recognizes excellence in robotics technology worldwide and honors the fictional and real robots that have inspired and made breakthrough accomplishments in robotics."

From the NYT:

Scientists Find Skeletons of Miniature People
"Once upon a time, but not so long ago, in a tropical island midway between Asia and Australia, there lived a race of little people, whose adults stood just three and a half feet high. Despite their stature, they were mighty hunters. They made stone tools with which they speared giant rats, clubbed sleeping dragons, and hunted the packs of pygmy elephants that roamed their lost world.

The island of Flores is very isolated and, before modern times, was inhabited only by a select group of animals that managed to reach it. These then became subject to unusual evolutionary forces that propelled some toward giantism and downsized others.

The carnivorous lizards that reached Flores, perhaps on natural rafts, became giant-sized and still survive, though now confined mostly to the nearby island of Komodo; they are called Komodo dragons. Elephants are excellent swimmers; those that reached Flores evolved to a dwarf form the size of an ox."

Emily B. always mails me the best articles. I would l like to live on a magical island with large lizards rafting into the sunset and mini-elephants populating its forests. I have also, since moving to the South, become very adept at spearing giant rats.
More.

Hurrah for the Red Sox.

Memorial event

For Joanne. Monday, October 25, 5 pm, at the new MCM building (135 Thayer St.) in Providence.

Gorrillas in the Mist

Louis is in Rwanda and he finally has a a blog of his own. One step closer to becoming a khaki-wearing, gunshot-scarred, Graham Greene-reading mercenary of a dispatching expat. DO IT!

Moving up in the world

Last Sunday's New York Times was scattered around the house and I was going through the morning cereal ritual when I see the Sunday Styles section on the floor with a picture of Evan Rock. Or at least it looks like Evan Rock. And then I notice the caption, and it is indeed Evan Rock. Not only that, the story is by Elana Berkowitz, and she quotes Jordan Carlos too. Isn't everyone so young and fabulous? The story.

For meanings differ and defer

Perhaps in my last posting I quickly hopped over Derrida's death to complain about my undergraduate institution, but in all fairness today I feel compelled to praise one of my favorite academic personalities, who I learned about, of course, in the same room I denigrated in my last posting.

It is raining today. I wore sweatpants in solidarity with the weather, which was banging "stay in bed!" against the windowpane this morning. Unfortunately, the sweatpants have gone to my head, leaving me in a sort of sweatpants-like mindset that demanded I read every obituary about Derrida I could find on the internet instead of writing a challenging article about elephants that I assume will never be published.

As a person who writes, I know it is possible to execute a moderately successful article about a subject you don't attempt to understand by describing the controversy around it. This was the case in the majority of Derrida articles and obituaries that have been printed in the past few days, most of which devoted much more ink to the academic squabbling surrounding his various theories than the theories themselves. A number of publications brought up a New York Times interview where Derrida had refused to provide a definition to the concept of deconstruction, responding instead with the question, "Why don't you ask a physicist or a mathematician about difficulty?"

Without a small statuette in one's hand, it sounds silly to thank one person for the influence they have had on one's work, but I and many other people I know owe a debt to Derrida for teaching us about language. Rare is the day that I do not think about the concept of différance, not directly perhaps, but through the ability to articulate what exactly is wrong (or perhaps right) with the linguistic process behind a phrase like "the war on terror." It's what I wrote my first one-act play about, and he said it, there is nothing outside of text.

Having gone through a fair amount of obituaries, this one, appearing in the Guardian, was the most comprehensive:

"He argued that understanding something requires a grasp of the ways in which it relates to other things, and a capacity to recognise it on other occasions and in different contexts - which can never be exhaustively predicted. He coined the term "differance" ( différance in French, combining the meanings of difference and deferral) to characterise these aspects of understanding, and proposed that differance is the ur-phenomenon lying at the heart of language and thought, at work in all meaningful activities in a necessarily elusive and provisional way...

Derrida moved easily among French, English and German writers, and his favourites included James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Celan. Although his name is often coupled with the term "postmodernism" (sometimes with a suggestion of moral relativism), his allegiance was much more to the strenuous aesthetic experiments of the modernist writers. For him, the fact that moral values cannot be expressed as simple rules of conduct increased, rather than decreased, the importance of our ethical responsibilities."

Which internet did you hear that on?

I'm in Memphis with the Oxford American for a literary conference of sorts. I watched the debates last night in a little broken bar with a pool table and christmas lights just one block from where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. Passing by the Hotel Lorraine on our way to dinner (decision to eat determined via gut check) made me sad. Downtown Memphis is old ornate buildings interspersed with late 1970s monoliths, it feels rather dead but ornamentally so. Like every city suffering a renaissance for its blighted downtown, there is a novelty trolley. Somehow urban wastelands looked for redemption and were presented with apparitions of novelty trolleys that have since been worshiped as false idols. We had ribs from Rendezvous, and I really wanted to Fed Ex someone a package of ribs. It's a pretty penny though.

So Jacques Derrida has died. I imagine there have been various candlelight vigils and memorial panels at Brown. Ugh. Sometimes I daydream about going to an MCM class and sitting on that big wooden table at the Malcolm S. Forbes Center and vomiting on the best-dressed student in the discussion section.

Today I also fell in love with James Ellroy. He asked me what my name was. I said Emily. He looked me in the eye and said, "Emily, history rages." Then took my copy of American Tabloid and signed it, "To Emily. History Rages! J.E." He did this for no-one else that I saw. I was pleased.

He's pretty crazy. He said something along the lines of "I always tell writers not to write from their own lives," and yet at the same time he talked at length about growing up in L.A., about how his mother was murdered in 1958 when he was ten, "an unsolved body dump sex crime," and how all his best friends are cops. This is a person whose life and experiences are totally inseprable from his fiction, to an uncanny extent. He's also a total populist, all his favorite books were released as trade paperbacks and he was very up front about only writing film scripts (none of which have ever been made, excluding adaptations of his own work) for money. He think films are a lesser art than literature. He hopes to die without any money, except enough to build an auditorium at his old junior high in L.A. (where he says he spent a few happy years). And in the James Ellroy Auditorium he would erect a statue of himself with the words "Read motherfuckers!" inscribed at the base.

He "dreams of a new language for popular American fiction.''

It's been a day surrounded by the middle-aged however, and the maroon and forest green motifs of my hotel room in the "Sleep Inn" are beginning to swim before my eyes. I must go take the novelty trolley to trays of canapes and small tarts and Edward P. Jones accepting an award.

Pleather: the body wrap of teensploitation.

Merriam Webster announces new words for 2004.

Man of the year

Crispin Glover is clearly one of the better people on the planet. I watched Charlies Angels II the other day, and was inspired, even by this shitty movie, to look further into the various manifestations of Crispin Glover on screen, in song and in writing. He uses his middle name, Hellion, when he works on his own projects because, as he told Stuff Magazine “As an interpreter of work, you’re not really the whole artist when you’re acting. So when I publish my books or my records or films, I use Hellion.” And it doesn't stop there. His father was in Diamonds Are Forever, his birthday is two days before mine (which makes him an Aries not a Taurus but still!), he collects antique gynecological equipment, he sued Steven Spielberg and won...

The projects of Crispin Hellion Glover are rather difficult to find, it seems, but all his work can be found on sale here. This includes:

His books:
Rat Catching: A study in the art of catching rats.
Oak Mot: "a tale of epic proportions involving pride and prejudice."
What it is, and how it is done: "A man's life in reverse as told in first second and third persons."

His musical debut:
The Big Problem does not equal the solution. The Solution equals Let It Be.

And, this is the most interesting, his short film:
What is it?: With a cast of actors with down syndrome and a snail, whose voice is played by Fairuza Balk.

It will be awhile before I will be able to purchase or read any of the above, given my present financial situation, but I certainly hope somebody does and that he or she reports back to us with a review. The expectations of someone with an IMDB photo like Crispin's are high. I hope he does not disappoint.

More fun facts.

More from the interview in Stuff.

STUFF: Who’s more difficult to work with: Oliver Stone or Down’s syndrome actors?
CRISPIN: Neither. Oliver Stone I liked working with very much. I played Andy Warhol [in The Doors], and it was a part that I sought out. I met Andy Warhol at Sean Penn and Madonna’s wedding. And I stood back and watched him and the way he moved, and I thought, This fellow really is an interesting person. [Stone’s] technique was almost an intimidation element of, like, “Look, a lot of people are going to see this—you’d better be good.”

Any ground rules for handling actors afflicted with Down’s syndrome?
No. All of the people with Down’s syndrome were more enthusiastic than anybody I’ve worked with. I really had zero problems working with people with Down’s syndrome.

Do you have a Hollywood nemesis?
I don’t want to call anybody in the industry my nemesis, because it’s just bad business. If something is egregiously wrong, then one must go to the legal system. But if something is minor, then it’s better just to let it go.

I don't have the internet in my house and therefore will post much more infrequently, as I feel guilty about doing so from work like I just did.

This article made me pretty sad. Lesley Thornton is a wonderful person.

Best nerd

The 2004 Ignatz Award nominees!

In the category of best online comic:

Outstanding Online Comic

American Elf, James Kochalka, americanelf.com

Apocamon, Patrick Farley, e-sheep.com

Desert Rocks, J.J. Naas, dr.ungroup.net

The Pain … When Will it End?, Timothy Kreider, thepaincomics.com

Tailipoe, Craig Boldman, craigboldman.com

Austin

Some people complained about the heat. It was so sweaty. But we all got nice suntans...

Number of stars in my eyes during their performances:
Pixies:****************************************************
Wilco:************************************************
Modest Mouse:****************************
My Morning Jacket: *****************
Cat Power:***************
Spoon:*********
Old 97s:******
Elvis Costello:****
Centro-Matic:***
Josh Rouse:**
Dashboard Confessional:--

Texas is numerically expressed by number of goatees divided by fake boobies plus cowboy hats times Whataburgers squared. The pho was delicious though.

We were trying to think up names for this, but the one chosen beats out the others indeed. Nathalie's newest blog is for Media Bistro: Galley Cat, all about books and their publishers.

And so on...

I just read Art Spiegelman's new book, In the Shadow of no Towers. I love the man, and his work, but found that he exercised a lack of restraint on this one. Naturally he was covering a difficult subject, one that caused an explosion of various emotions in everyone. But that's what this work is really, an explosion of emotion, a reflection back to us of our many reactions to September 11th. I wanted something smarter than that, a point of view that hadn't yet been taken. I don't think it is his fault, I just think that it is difficult to analyze something when you are caught in the middle of it, which he was.

Sorry I haven't been writing. I just started my new job here. It's been busy busy. I'm going to Texas for the first time in my life tonight, to go to Austin City Limits. I'm going to see the Pixies! rah rah rah

More fantasy books written for children

I bought the second Harry Potter at the grocery store and now I'm listening to the third one when I drive (it's way better on tape I think, the guy who reads it is fantastic.) I was talking to some kids here about it and they all got really excited amongst themselves, and one ran into his room and came back with three books that are another Harry Potter-like series (but better written), His Dark Materials, by Phillip Pullman. The kids in Little Rock are obsessed with them, they told me I wouldn't be able to stop reading until I'd finished all three.

They're based on Paradise Lost and the plot is essentially Kids vs. God. It's pretty dark. People die. I'm halfway through The Golden Compass, which is the first one in the series, and I can't say I'm that impressed yet, but it's full of nice animals like marmosets and basilisks who comprise people's familiars... The first one takes place in a fantasy world, the second in the real world, and the third somewhere between the two, according to the intro page. They're making a movie out of it, directed by the guy who did About a Boy.

Tarnation

Jonathan Caouette. I guess this is old news, but I just heard about this guy and his $218 movie. Dreamy.

"I think Jonathan Caouette's TARNATION is the shit," notes Van Sant. "I think I have always been waiting to see someone make something as moving as Jonathan's film with as little as he has had to make it. I knew something like this would appear, and I am glad that it finally has." This week, Gus called Jonathan about using iMovie for a possible project of his own.

Knoxious

I am in a motel room in Knoxville, Tennessee, one of a cluster of motels surrounding an exit called "Strawberry Plains" (nothing of the sort in sight). They form a bleak bouquet of square streetlights and neon signs, interlocking driveways and chain link fences, set to the ever-present soundtrack of interstate US-40.

It poured rain all day, and if I shut my eyes I can still see puddly mack trucks out of my peripheral vision spraying my windshield. Somewhere in the mountains of Virginia I saw a pick-up truck, not too far in front of me, spin out onto the grassy highway median, losing various pieces along the way. I wasn't sure whether to try and slow down and help the guy, who I don't think would have gotten injured. I didn't though, I just kept driving. There was no way I could have safely slowed down in time, but I thought I should call someone, although I was unsure what there was to say. "Hello 911? I saw a man's near-death experience and didn't slow down. What's that? Where was it? Um... there was a mountain on my right..." If I had left my last gas stop thirty seconds sooner, he would have spun out into my car at 80 mph, but I didn't and he didn't so there was nothing to do but just pass him, his car beached lopsided in the grass, hunched over his seat, doubtless breathing heavily and incredulous, as I was, that he wasn't a mangled corpse.

You start to feel like the only person in the world, even though it's only a 24-hour period between homes, but there are just things - I haven't received an e-mail for three days, I got here and I was the only person paddling around in the motel's creepy swimming pool, falling asleep in a bed that's big enough to lie horizontally or vertically in... It makes me almost want to be some sort of business-type whose life is a series of first-class cabins and hotel lobbies because the solitude is such a particular type, one that makes you think the world doesn't exist. I was tempted to book a room at a "Christianed-themed lodge" just for the experience, but it was earlier than I wanted to stop and I had visions of falling asleep under the scrutinizing gaze of a bloody icon that scared me.

I watched this movie last night, The Happiness of the Kakaturis, the weirdest movie ever and maybe not so good. It's like a Japanese claymation/musical/horror flick about these people who own a hotel that everyone keeps dying in. It has now taken on sinister (rather than totally ridiculous) undertones.

I listened to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on tape today and part of the Metaphysical Club. I gave up on the latter early in the morning, both me in the car and the progressing Civil War in the book reaching Gettysburg, PA at the same moment, I decided it was time to succumb to Harry Potter. It's no Tolkein, or even C.S. Lewis, but it was nice.

There is a spider in the shower. But no Woody Allen to call.

When I opened the paper this morning and read about a Joanne Levy who committed suicide I thought was that it was someone else, because the description said she had red hair and was 5'8. Except that obviously every other descriptive matched up: 23, second year film student, resident of Greenwich Village... Knowing Joanne to be impulsive and rather erratic, her intensity was always translated into her amazing films and this is so very tragic.

Joanne Levy was the very first person I met at Brown. I had just gotten to school and my dad dropped me off at the employment office so I could get an on-campus job (he had priorities). She was sitting at the job computer with Lili and we started up a conversation. I was always sort of bummed that they were in another unit, because I only met a couple other people I felt like I related to as much over the course of the next year. I hung out with them a lot during orientation week. I was absolutely miserable with Brown and thought I had made a huge mistake, but them, and Mike, Meghan, Albert and Lisa, who were all good friends immediately, made me think differently.

Last summer, Joanne and Lili came to the brownstone I was house-sitting in Brooklyn Heights and they stayed over a couple nights, post-juvenile slumber party style. Joanne had just gotten the list of films she had to watch over the summer before starting film school, and we watched Band of Outsiders, which is now one of my favorite movies, and something else I can't remember. She was always something of an intense presence -- on that day she had just returned from Providence, where she had accidentally set fire to her apartment and her cat had died of smoke inhalation. She had to go home early because she wasn't feeling well. (She had diabetes and didn't always take the best care of herself it seemed).

My friend Brandon, who was good friends with her and made a movie with her in intro to video (the one with the button for those who saw it) said it was always hard to know how she was actually feeling about things because she only let you get so close, and I feel the same way. Not that I was her best friend or anything (I haven't seen her since that time last summer), but I had no idea she was in such a situation. I got the sense that she was very close with her family, even if the press says she was in an argument with her father immediately before her death.

It's very sad, she was very talented, extremely hardworking and a total character, which are the three characteristics of a person I am generally drawn to. She was someone of greater potential than most, and if her death serves a purpose it should be to remind each of us of her focus, her drive and her talent, because she was someone who truly lived for her art. I was genuinely looking forward, even if our Brown-based friendship had lapsed, to see her succeed as a filmmaker.

beep beep beep beep beep

My radar is failing me. I can't distinguish the trash in my room from my clothing. The girls I may live with in Arkansas were just described to me as "Sex in the city of the Ozarks." I can't leave soon enough. Friday to Allentown, land of my birth, then my respects to Emily in Philadelphia then back to NY then away away away...

I saw Hero last night and I was a little disappointed, but also motivated to ask what could be done in a movie with such pretty colors that had a compelling story instead of what felt like various levels of streetfighter compiled into a piece of despotic propaganda. But really so pretty, and the guards in their black cloaks that scurried en masse reminded me of one of my favorite parts of Princess Mononoke, when the soldiers scurry around disguised as boars. There is something about masses of people engaged in the act of scurrying that I quite enjoy.

I feel like I haven't slept in years. It has only been days.

Fire Breathing Dragons and All

Walking past Madison Square Garden this afternoon with hundreds of thousands of protesters was like walking past a grave -- the day was full of people happily displaying their joviality and eccentricity, and then there they were: polo shirts, khakis, bulging stomachs and laminated necklaces. And the sense was not so much of hatred, even thought there were a few older people around me that just began yelling until their faces were red and their eyes were watering, like a baby screaming, but one of mourning, because even if there is a chance to put a halt to it, what is done is done. The moment after a joke told at a memorial service maybe, that makes everyone laugh and then in the silence that follows a much deeper sadness seeps in, that was the sadness in front of Madison Square Garden.

We turned the corner and waited for a friend under the Old Navy marquee on 34th Street. While waiting behind the barrier on the sidewalk, a scuffle appeared to break out to our left, people began running and the police cleared 34th Street completely and halted the march. It was strange, there was a bizarre smell, and then we saw a bunch of smoke wafting by from around the corner (in front of Madison Square Garden). There was no way to see what was happening, but all of a sudden the FOX News jumbotron across the street cut from some talking head to what was less than a block from us, the large paper mache dragon on fire. How strange that we were learning about what was going on around the corner at the same time some potato in Ohio was. Very strange, all this television business.

Later on the walk back downtown, there was some discussion from the marchers about what had happened. "I heard that a wagon was on fire," said one of the curious. "No," we said, "It was a dragon."

Indeed, the dragon we had passed only a short time before, its wings the breadth of the street, led by a fleshy product of post-punk wearing the tapestries of a sultan from the rococco and twirling a baton. Somewhere from beneath its wings London Calling was emanating. My friend Sara said that hearing the song gave her the chills - perhaps the icy hands of death were merely brushing by on their way to an inescapable grip around the neck of the monster.

It was a wonderful day, probably the only day of my life in which five strangers will ask to take my picture. And, that night, at the Downtown for Democracy event, the first person I saw upon opening the door to a bar was a sad and aged-looking Telly, from Kids. He looked so old, it was strange. Like all of that fuss, this movie depicting these delinquents and there he is, alive and well, with thinning hair. What was supposed to be so scary about that movie, if this is how we all end up anyway? Innocuous, and pale, quite ready to admit that an argyle sweater vest would complete the look - and probably make us so very happy besides.

Waiting for the subway on the way home a man came and played us a song on a trombone made entirely out of PVC piping. It was utterly charming, and the fog of drunken exhaustion and the creeping malaise that anticipates arriving home with a sigh cleared for one moment and everything was good.

He has a backbone

New jaw grown on patient's back! wow.

In case you weren't there

"And it’s not that I have a particular animus against self-help philosophy. I think it works; it’s even worked for me on a short-term basis. But no matter how much it’s spun as philanthropic, how it’s really about spreading the good vibes to everyone, self-help is a self-ish philosophy: The source of happiness or unhappiness, of health and disease, is always within, your fault rather than the product of political or cultural, forces, the flawed nature of human nature and the societies it gives rise to. Or the fault of the moral order (or lack of one) of the cosmos."

This essay, by the delightful Ron Rosenbaum, who brought us Manhattan Passions (that essential element to any well-rounded collection of 1980s literature), has now very nicely summarized a certain aspect of my play. Not so much in the quote above, but certainly in Mr. Rosenbaum's questioning the validity of an optimistic mandate. It's something that has found itself into much of my writing of late.

The following passage in particular -- I think this is perhaps a rite of passage for many of us:

"Pessimism is impermissible because it challenges the American orthodoxy that there’s always an answer, always a solution to every problem. And if there’s an answer, a solution, there’s no need to despair, because eventually we’ll find the answer and act accordingly. As if "acting accordingly" was a given. I know I grew up thinking, in a very American way, this was true. That eventually reason would prevail and all parties in any dispute, however grave, would come together on a compromise. No matter what the dispute, it could be resolved, with patience and good will. Some have called this, after a school of optimistic British historians, "Whig history," history as inexorable progress.

I don’t believe in it any more. My answer to Rodney King: Sorry, my friend, on the evidence, in fact, we can’t all get along. We’re too twisted by the irresistible push and pull of bad impulses and bad ideas. If history teaches us anything, it teaches us that. History is the nightmare we can’t escape from."

The rest of the story: Errol Morris Has A Very Blue Line: Curse Darkness

By the way, if anyone would like to *read* the play I will happily provide.

Star Crossed

I just saw Fassbinder's IN A YEAR OF THIRTEEN MOONS. Now, the introduction to the movie is the following explanation:

"Every seventh year is a lunar year. Those people whose lives are essentially dominated by their emotions suffer particularly strongly from depressions in these lunar years. The same is also true of years with thirteen new moons, although not quite so strongly. And if a lunar year also happens to be a year with thirteen new moons, the result is often a personal catastrophe."

The year 1978, when Meier (Fassbinder's lover) killed himself and Fassbinder made this film, was one of thirteen new moons that was also a "lunar" year. Supposedly. I wanted to verify. First of all, what is a lunar year? Typically it is defined as the normal, calendar year. Second, the moon does not seem to follow any sort of seven-year cycle whatsoever. 1971, moon-wise at least, does not bear much striking resemblance at all to 1978. I was trying to find some small characteristic indicative of a seven year feature and couldn't see any. 1978 was, however, a year that had 13 new moons, but that is something that happens not so infrequently, approximately once every 2.5 years.

1971 was a year of thirteen full moons.
1978 was a year of thirteen new moons.
1985 full moons.
1992 new moons.

But 2004 is a year of thirteen full moons too, although it isn't part of the alleged seven year lunar cycle. And most years will have either thirteen new or thirteen full moons (not so 2002, which had thirteen 3rd quarter moons). Anyway, I was looking for answers, and found none. I thought maybe the idea was that these years had BOTH 13 full moons and 13 new moons but that is impossible.

Silly. I liked the movie anyway, even though I thought it was Thursday instead of Wednesday and thought I was going to see Scorpio Rising and Vinyl instead of Fassbinder. It was rather Hedwig-ish, with some very poignant moments. For the past few days I've been feeling twitchy and sweaty and dizzy in a very uncomfortable way, like I am able to feel my fingernails growing and it is unpleasant. I had a hard time sitting still is what I mean. Now that I'm thinking a bit deeper about the movie though there are parts that I deeply loved.

The scene where they butcher the cows is amazing. I couldn't really read the subtitles because watching the cows get strung up and have their throats cut was such a visual spectacle. They're so nice the cows are. Pretty eyes. If anyone is in Minnesota right now make sure to catch the State Fair while the guernseys are on display because they're the prettiest. I also usually scheduled my visits around the rabbit contests, because I believe there are very few places on the planet that amass such a large collection of bizarre and extroardinary rabbits. Same goes for chickens.

People who grow up in the megalopolis are never afforded the opportunity to watch farm boys from 4-H have their projects judged. It makes you feel like life is worth living to see a smartly dressed Minnesotan child demonstrating the skills of their well-behaved sheep to a panel of judges in a small arena of green sawdust.

Anyway, if you would like to know the exact dates of every blue moon since 1700, the US Navy is only too happy to provide, right HERE.

I interviewed the director of Open Water today and was too shamefaced to admit that I hadn't seen it because it looks sort of scary. And sort of bad maybe.

I like #11

Naturist One-Act Playwrighting Competition
Suggested storylines:

Following are some suggestions for a story line. These are offered merely to help get your creative juices flowing. They should, in no way, limit or restrict your creativity. A play built from one of these ideas has no advantage over any other plot you may conceive.

1. A first experience.

2. A Naturist man or woman who introduces a reluctant spouse or girlfriend to Naturism.

3. Historical – When did we begin wearing clothes; When did we start wearing swim suits; When did it become mandatory to wear a swim suit?

4. Religious – Prophets used to strip and preach naked. What would happen if a modern prophet were to preach that way?

5.Contemporary society.

6. Hippies.

7. Being raised as a Naturist and then learning how different you are from the other kids.

8. What happens when Westerners come into contact with cultures less compulsive about dress.

9. An office staff discovers one of their co-workers is a Naturist.

10. A family accidently comes across a clothing-optional beach while on vacation.

11. SciFi – A space traveler (or time traveler) discovers another (or future) civilization which is highly advanced. Everyone there is naked.

Nota bene: I did not write this. Someone thought I did, but no, look at the website. Also look at the "Photos" section, for a pleasing visual poetry arrangement. ed.

Man in Tutu Interrupts Diving
Security has been tightened at the Athens Games after a man in a tutu jumped into the pool from the diving board during the men's synchronized springboard event.

Harumph.

Misc.

I was wondering about this. Every time I got on a subway as school was getting out it was like a teenage boy mumu-fest.

The little slide show on this is so sad. Its organs were crushed by its own weight? My head feels like that right now.

Two-armed robot top candidate for saving Hubble. More.

The most literate U.S. cities:
1. Minneapolis, Minnesota
2. Seattle, Washington
3. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
4. Madison, Wisconsin
5. Cincinnati, Ohio
6. Washington, D.C.
7. Denver, Colorado
8. Boston, Massachusetts
9. Portland, Oregon
10. San Francisco, California

Hmmmm... More.

The top 10 stingiest cities:
1. Hartford, Connecticut: 4.7 percent
2. Providence-Fall River-Warwick, Rhode Island: 5.1 percent
3. Boston-Worcester-Lawrence, Massachusetts: 5.2 percent
4. Buffalo-Niagara Falls, New York: 5.8 percent
5. (tie) New Orleans, Louisiana: 5.9 percent
5. (tie) Las Vegas, Nevada: 5.9 percent
7. Austin-San Marcos, Texas: 6.0 percent
8. (tie) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: 6.1 percent
8. (tie) Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Florida: 6.1 percent
8. (tie) Philadelphia-Wilmington, Delaware-Atlantic City, New Jersey: 6.1 percent

If I had to guess the top three I definitely would have said New England. Explains why it's such a shithole.

The top 10 most generous cities:
1. Salt Lake City-Ogden, Utah: 14.9 percent
2. Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland, Michigan: 10 percent
3. (tie) Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota: 8.5 percent
3. (tie) Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, North Carolina: 8.5 percent
5. (tie) Memphis, Tennessee: 8.4 percent
5. (tie) Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas: 8.4 percent
7. Nashville, Tennessee: 8.3 percent
8. (tie) San Antonio, Texas: 8.1 percent
8. (tie) Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, Texas: 8.1 percent
10. (tie) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: 8 percent
10. (tie) Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News, Virginia: 8 percent

More.

Takako is the very best.

So I think the woman that cut my hair the last time it was cut is the coolest ever, like even if she can't speak English really and calls it Engrish, she has the best sneakers in NYC and tonight I saw her at a sushi restaurant in Brooklyn. How crazy! She is in Brooklyn? I thought she lived some Japanese ex-pat high life. I wanted to say hi but I didn't think she would remember me. I want to be like Takako. She gives excellent hair cuts and her own hair looks like it was run through some destructive machine, all split ends and roots, and she doesn't give a fuck. Best of all, she doesn't put your hair up in sections in those stupid clippy-things, she does it all freestyle, yet it's even and perfect. And she eats at the sushi place on Flatbush, where my waitress tonight tried very hard to remember the word "quiche" to describe what Tofu Tamago was.

Maria cheia de graca, venha me soccorer. Maria cheia de graca, eu tambem quero viver. Eu quero ser malandro, para ver como e que e...

Pois malandro pra ser malandro tem que ter fe, tem que usar a cabeca e o pe, tira gimbo de quem tem, e da gimbo de quem nao tem. How fucking good is Jorge Ben? I saw Maria Full of Grace yesterday, and this song is in my head ever since, just because of the name. It was a really stressful movie. Thinking about inhaling a drug that was carried around in someone's large intestine certainly does make one rather repulsed, particularly if it had to be cut out of a cadaver. Four hundred people died en route in thirty years said that article in the Times: The director, Joshua Marston, lives in Williamsburg apparently and did his research in Queens and at JFK. I suppose that depriving America's noses would also deprive Columbia some 5% of its GDP, although recent estimates put it more at 2.3%, since the fall of Pablo and friends and the rise of Mexican cartels. And as the movie shows, if it's not cocaine, than it's flowers, which Colombia exports more of than any other country except Holland. So nothing is really resolved as to what is the problem and what is the solution, or maybe I should say reduced. In the end what it becomes is the moving story of a malcontent in a really amazing performance I thought.

Fitzgerald grew up in St. Paul Anyway

I have been unable to read anything about college lately. Who knows why This Side of Paradise makes me unbearably sad, even though it was written eighty years ago, and F.'s chum-filled experience at Princeton is so cheerfully composed? The description of Minneapolis actually, of bobbing parties on Nicollet Ave. Even though I have no idea what a bobbing party actually is. A recent traveller told me the thing about the Minnesota is that the clouds are just puffier. I always found it to be rather hypercolored in comparison to New York's sepia, but only in the summer. Like when you land at the airport the first thing you see is so much grass, and everyone looks so pretty and well-fed. Gosh I'm homesick. I wish I could go back.

The description of "The Slicker" from TSoP:
1. Clever. Sense of social values.
2. Dresses well. Pretends that dress is superficial - but knows it isn't.
3. Goes into such activites as he can shine in.
4. Gets to college and is, in a worldly way, successful.
5. Hair slicked.

"The slickers of that year had adopted tortoise-shell spectacles as badges of their slickerhood, and this made them so easy to recognize that Amory and Rahill never missed one... Amory's secret ideal had all the slicker qualifications, but, in addition, courage and tremendous brains and talents - also Amory conceded him a bizarre streak that was quite irreconcilable to the slicker proper."

How did F. Scott know his hipsters so well? All this in opposition to
"The Big Man":
1. Inclined to stupidity and unconscious of social values.
2. Thinks dress is superficial and is inclined to be careless about it.
3. Goes out for everything from a sense of duty.
4. Gets to college and has a problematical future. Feels lost without his circle and always says that school days were happiest after all.
5. Hair not slicked.

Fellow Robot Goes to War

Friend and neighbor Frank Lesser's much anticipated Danny Bot is now available online. What I gather from the song's lyrics is that robot war is like Alien vs. Predator: whoever wins, we lose. An interesting factoid is that I just wrote a profile of the site's designer, Stefan Lawrence, for The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and had no idea we had Frank Lesser in common. Imagine. How very charming everything is. Watch the saga of a fellow robot, it is both mournful and poignant. I however, am a sight to be pitied and scorned, so its probably best to get out of here as fast as you can. Danny Bot

Oh my boat is empty, oh my head is empty

It was a beautiful weekend, beautiful people, beautiful weather, but I have a preoccupied head and therefore was already occupied while the beauty raged. For the past couple of weeks I was working on the play and then working out a post-play malaise, that hasn't exactly subsided but one must keep a stiff upper lip. As the title of this post indicates, I got a new Caetano Veloso album, which has made the week, musically at least, so much nicer. That and Mr. Softee. There is more than this isn't there? I saw The Manchurian Candidate, which lacked my favorite part of the old one, replacing the hydrangea convention for lots of bloody tubes and vaguely ethnic bedouin-type women with facial tattoos warbling. I actually love Denzel Washington so much though. I don't know what it is, his face I suppose, his glasses, his inability to smile, that makes looking at him interesting even if the movie is not so much. Maybe it is just Tak Fujimoto, who was DP on Badlands as well, and everyone knows how I feel about Badlands. I have a special bond with Terrence Malick, if you hadn't heard, which is why Jim Caveziel's character in The Thin Red Line is named Witt. Like me. And then Jim Caveziel went and played Jesus. Didn't he understand what a step down that was?

Hostage Situation

I am on Solon's couch. This post is against my will, only provoked by Solon's heroin induced craze from just watching trainspotting. He sneered, said "choose life" and then put a popsicle to my head. Please send help.

Post country weekend malaise

I went to New Hampshire over the weekend, where I finally learned how to spot polaris if I find myself someday lost in the woods. I also kicked ass at Scrabble. I also lost horribly at it, but I am much better at badminton than tennis I realized. I am reading a book by PJ O'Rourke, "Holidays in Hell," which has basically written up all the things I felt about Cuba, except in the context of 1980s Lebanon or Communist Poland. It is simultaneously witty and upsetting, like most things, but more on the subject on another day when I don't have to wake up in five hours. The end of Cryptonomicon was the biggest fucking disappointment on the planet. The last hundred pages were first miserable, and then absurd, but fortunately it is now done. Unfortunately, my mother happened to be reading the sequel in what is a planned trilogy, and now that I know it exists I am a quitter, 900 crappy pages notwithstanding, if I don't read Quicksilver when it comes out in paperback. Apparently it takes place in the 1600s, following the narrative of these families throughout the milennia like they were Black Adder or something. Bah.

It's Horrible, I Can't Put it Down

Now on page 623 of the nerd tome I described in an earlier posting, I am getting increasingly perplexed by the paradox of genuinely detesting some of the writing and certain plot lines while at the same time being unable to stop reading it. I realized today, reporting on a religious parade in Williamsburg, that it has even infiltrated my writing, resulting in inane commentary on the miter worn by the Bishop of Brooklyn in an otherwise sound piece of reporting.

The book has also gotten very funny at points, with the theme of paranoia extending to car alarms in the form of Range Rovers that talk, descriptions of Gen. Macarthur in a pink sateen bathrobe and aviator sunglasses and something called the Ejaculation Control Conspiracy (ECC). A poor man's Pynchon I guess, and therefore infinitely more accessible, but of lesser quality, like fake Louis Vuitton.

There is also an imaginary country called Qwghlm, which I thought at first was some special way of referring to Wales (the word "Japanese" is never used, only the much more globalized and somehow Internet-y "Nipponese"). Then I realized it was sort of a Nabokovian hoax, (I didn't get it immediately in Ada or Ardor either), and Qwghlm, much like the Sultanate of Kinuktuka, (site of the "data haven") doesn't exist. And then (after thinking I probably ate a lot of lead paint chips at some point) I start to get a little paranoid myself, that given the skewed account of history, the long and mystifying passages that graph things like one protagonist's mental productivity in relation to self-imposed versus aided ejaculation as a differential equation are all bullshit as well.

If an author is going to be a smarty-pants and put in math equations that show off how much more clever he is than the mathematically challenged, I expect the work to be flawless. My mathematically inclined sibling, who naturally was the nerd who I noticed reading this book in the first place, claims that Infinite Jest, for one, contained mathematical errors. I bought him DFW's book about infinity for Christmas, only to see him throw it against the wall in annoyance well before the New Year. It was disheartening, although it serves as a lesson for those of us who quietly defer to writers who tell us they can do math, taking their word for it. Not that it matters particularly in this case. Not that I would understand how it was wrong even if it were. But I appreciate a soundness of facts, if I think someone is smart I want to be able to trust them as such, otherwise their intelligence is nothing more than my ignorance. I'm sorry I keep writing about this book. Nothing much is going on around here.

I am a grown-up

I quit my job at the restaurant last week, for no reason that made any logical or financial sense. I hated it though. I'm glad I'm not the only hostess who took the job because she had proven herself incapable at any position requiring enthusiasm, commitment, mental presence and punctuality. And as stupid as it seems I also related to the part about how much time it takes to get ready for work. I'm not a slob, but any outfit that cannot be worn with sneakers makes me very tired, and takes a great expenditure of time and energy to devise. I take it back though, because my boss did call me a slob once, hence the stress.

However, I have become an adult. Due to a death in someone's family (not mine), I had my pick of an apartmentful of furniture, and I am pleased to announce that after a year of ascetic squalor I now own a bed, a couch, bookshelves, chairs, a lamp, pots and pans, a full set of dishware and a vacuum cleaner. The bed is the important one though, it had been almost a year on the floor.

I thought I had to leave New York, but now I think I can stay. I just have trouble commiting to objects that might offer comfort, security and a home-like atmosphere although it is actually just about being really poor and having trouble determining what the essentials are. It seems sometimes like trying to make a homey-type place for yourself is impossible if you are doing it alone, it's something of an oxymoron. I was not willing to accept solitude as the outcome of entropy, that as every reinvention in a lifetime inevitably degrades to disorder it is to this point that one arrives. Some people are very okay with that, but it feels unnatural to me. I wouldn't resort to channels of Internet voyeurism if I was happy knowing that nobody gives a fuck.

Not that it isn't self-imposed most of the time but it wasn't a maneira de ser I wanted to establish, one might say, by buying heavy domestic objects like beds and sofas. Now it is established, through furniture I seem to have chosen something I really didn't want. But it just is. Going to college and becoming really insecure just happened. I thought that it was just the nature of a stifling environment, that leaving would bring me back to a place where I used to be, where friends as good as family came easy and often. Maybe if I went back to the Midwest. But as of Saturday, in making the decision to domesticate instead of remaining uncomfortably feral, the status quo was elected and confirmed. It is no longer a happenstance that I am entitled to complain about.

Whatever. Have you bought tickets to my play yet? www.smarttix.com, in The American Living Room Festival: The Nostalgic Recollections of Raymond Boggs. I went to a rehearsal today. The actors are good, as well as good-looking.

What persistence!

I was surprised when I walked by Nathan's in Coney Island and saw that the hot dog eating contest has been won by Japanese people for six out of the past seven years. But look at this man:



He is a champion! He has one four contests in a row! He is Japanese, and broke his own world record! 53.5 hot dogs in twelve minutes? Nobody has ever eaten that many hot dogs in so little time, ever. Takeru Kobayashi I think I'm in love with you.

I am reading the nerdiest book ever written. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson, contains the following nerd elements:
Fantasy gaming
Math geniuses
Code breaking
Lots of greek letters
Internet start-up companies
Introverted socially awkward men with beards
The inter-library loan office as a central locale for characters meeting each other
Classification as a "cyber-thriller"
"The Society for Creative Anachronism"
The appendix
The author photo on the back
Etc.

It has three intertwined narratives, two of which are rather compelling, set in WWII, and one which is horrible, set in the nineties, people trying to set up a "data haven". I don't know what that means. But it's okay, and in spite of being 900 pages long it moves quickly and actually is sort of dull, brainless reading, the sort you can do in a loud room as long as you're skipping the drawn out mathematical descriptions that happen every once in a while.

John Edwards as VP made me inexplicably happy this morning. I'm such a sucker for southern dumplings.

I saw Saved last night. I like Jena Malone and (obviously) McCauly, but the funny part of the movie was the first ten minutes and then it just got strange, there were blatant displays of horrible acting and it couldn't really make up it's mind. Was it a lark? Was it social criticism? What was going on? Spider Man 2 is fucking great though.

Via Cup of Chicha. This is ridiculous.