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the latest
waddle: good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03 elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01 building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19 ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09 my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04
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TEN THOUSAND APOLOGIES FOR THIS EMOTIONAL AND PAINFULLY PSEUDO-INTELLECTUAL ENTRY Today I am reprising my Kraftwerk/go-go beatnik look with black tights, a short black skirt, red man's shirt w/black tie, and groovy heeled boots. Plus, of course, the German new-wave slicked-back ponytail, black-framed glasses, and over-serious expression. No one at work seems to have picked up yet on my Man Machine reference. Philistines. I was thinking today about breakups, and how many people almost cherish the memory of their worst breakups. I'm talking about the kind where you can't sleep, can't eat, and sometimes literally have to punch yourself in the head to stop thinking about him/her. Why do we have any nostalgia for those kinds of feelings? I think it's easy to romanticize and say, "I miss the way I used to feel things so intensely." But in my own case, and I don't think I am alone here, that tooth-grinding anguish over the end of a relationship was a kind of mask to cover up the fact that you have no idea who you are. You used to be the Person Who Was With That Other Person; without that, who are you? Of course all the usual other emotions also apply: the rejection, the loss, the simple fact that you had someone who was nice to be around and now they are not around. But another reason that kind of dramatic breakup tends to disappear when you get older is because intense is exchanged for profound, and now you really understand the (sometimes sad, sometimes comforting) fact that life is very complicated, and that other people have their own selfhood and own motivations, and that you are both actor and acted-upon all at the same time. Rapture, by Susan Minot, is not very good (it all takes place, with flashbacks aplenty, during a presumably very tedious blowjob), but it has a few moments that feel like little exclamation points, like this one: So much of the world didn't add up. So much of it was a disaster area. And so much of that had to do with being earthbound and made of flesh. That she was able to transcend the world through that very flesh---to find relief as she did now in sex---was one of the many paradoxes in life. It was little twists like that, when the problem could also be the solution, which made her almost believe in God. THINGS TO REMEMBER
The look on the face of the woman in Whole Foods when, after singing the first verse of that Cars song silently in my head, I busted out with "I GUESS YOU'RE JUST WHAT I NEEDED!" I was really hoping she would jump in with the backup vocals ("justwhatIneeded!") at the appropriate place but no, she just looked vaguely horrified. (Cleanup in Aisle 4! Some girl is singing out loud in public!) I tried to keep walking and play it cool but then at the end of the aisle I dropped the things I was holding (dried apricots, organic burrito, bottle of water, echinacea) all over the place because, apparently, I was too cool and rock-and-roll to be practical and get a shopping basket. Sigh. On the way back to work the weather turns supershitty, and I am hoofing along with my hood up, getting kind of damp and feeling kind of cranky, and I get the green light to cross Grand at State and this blue car is trying to make a right turn and is not looking, and ACUTALLY HITS ME somewhat with his bumper. I swear, you take your life in your hands as a pedestrian in downtown Chicago, even if you follow the traffic signals to the letter. I kicked this guy's bumper and shrieked something along the lines of WATCH WHERE YOU ARE GOING YOU FUCKING FUCKHEAD, which I know was a bit of an overreaction but I don't take kindly to nearly being run over. The cop waiting at the light rolled down his window and clapped, and yelled, "Yeah sister! You tell him!" and just generally had a lot of appreciation for my little freak-out. Here's a very useful review of Wolfram's New Kind of Science book. I feel a bit less urgency to read this book now, which is good because it's really long. Hooray for comprehensive book reviews, and hooray for secondary knowledge, and hooray for intellectual laziness like the kind I am displaying here. My efforts to research more about Arseny Avraamov's 1922 (?) "Hooter Symphony," in which the composer orchestrated a gigantic cacophony of choir, factory sirens, artillery, and foghorns, proved useless. Either my mad Google skillz are deteriorating or this guy was even more obscure than I thought (and remember that I am going on sketchy half-remembered information from music theory class here). However, I did uncover this neat little piece about Luigi Russolo and his invented instruments. The enharmonic violin bow is my favorite. THREE THINGS THAT MAYBE WERE EXCITING AND FRESH AT ONE POINT BUT WHICH NOW MAKE ME MAD BECAUSE THEY ARE, AT BEST, GROTESQUE BLOATED CARIACATURES OF THEMSELVES 1. Bauhaus architecture. Gropius and Van Der Rohe were undoubtedly fantastic and set up a sort of new ideal and a vision of the future (and at a time when no one else had one), but all their imitators make me mad. Revolutionary minimalism is fine, but if you are just lazily pouring concrete and ignoring details and craftsmanship, that is plain tiresome. 2. Lou Reed. I love Velvet Underground. I like a few of Lou's early solo albums (up through Transformer). I very much dislike Mr. Reed believing his big ego hype and thinking he is some kind of amazing poet of our time, and I also very much dislike the fact that he has made dreadfully boring music for the last eight years or so. 3. Spoken word/poetry slams etc. Reading things aloud is lots of fun. However, if your method of getting attention is not fascinating word combinations or arresting images but rather a lot of shouting, foul language, or awful affected delivery in a pretentious Poetry Voice, then you need a kick in the pants and I'm just the small crabby person to do it. I went to college with a lot of these people and I have henceforth declared a Worldwide Moratorium on any poem that relies heavily upon train whistles at night, being drunk on wine, or semen running down someone's (invariably) milk-white thighs. Bleccccch. DISAPPOINTMENT Your search - "naked knife fight" - did not match any documents. Damn. REDEMPTION THROUGH ENTERTAINMENT 1. Mr. Jesse Thomas of Fiesel fame made me a CD of homemade music recently that has entertained me for much of the day.
2. This morning's entertainment came courtesy of my junk mail filter and my Diaryland referrals. The former offered me the chance to win forty pounds of lobster (and then what?), while the latter featured an internet philosopher asking Google, "Should friends grab ass?" and finding my site at number twenty. Should friends grab ass? Dude. Everyone should grab ass. Grab ass while ye may, carpe gluteus maximus, etc. ---mimi smartypants is slam-dancing in a satin skirt. back/forward |
