It's official...I've given up hope that my iPod will ever return to me. The last time I saw it, it was swimming in a drawer full of pens and markers. Earbuds are rare creatures in this universe: they carry a special, viral kind of entropy, enabling them to become entangled like christmas tree lights into even the most pristine, uncomplicated environment. The last time I saw them and all my DK bootleg tracks, they were nestled in the back of a dusty drawer. One I thought I could pillage at my leisure.
My poor neighbors. Every day is Dias de los Muertos Kennedys when you have a treadmill and desk speakers.
And happy hour is now enforced by law.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
White Girl's Blues
Portishead's live DVD, watching Lynch films over and over, and re-reading "The Stranger" have provided a scratchy, newsreely kind of backdrop for the past couple of weeks.
This, plus many cups of Earl Grey tea with Irish whiskey, gives me the weekend, Chelsea Hotel taste of a rough patch in life that I'm just getting over. A receding wave and the relieved feeling that marries me to it: no matter how bad things get, I'll never know what it's like to be ordinary. It makes ordinary people look a lot smaller...like the insects they always were, temporarily made bigger by the light they were blocking.
Finally, the end of a year of trying to see my reflection in the dusty carapace of an annoying insect (or a series of them). When faced with the silent glare at the end of that kind of buzzing futility, I tend to seek comfort in the things I forgot to love.
Twin Peaks
Portishead (Click the link at the beginning of this post for a glimpse)
The Stranger (Matthew Ward's translation)
This, plus many cups of Earl Grey tea with Irish whiskey, gives me the weekend, Chelsea Hotel taste of a rough patch in life that I'm just getting over. A receding wave and the relieved feeling that marries me to it: no matter how bad things get, I'll never know what it's like to be ordinary. It makes ordinary people look a lot smaller...like the insects they always were, temporarily made bigger by the light they were blocking.
Finally, the end of a year of trying to see my reflection in the dusty carapace of an annoying insect (or a series of them). When faced with the silent glare at the end of that kind of buzzing futility, I tend to seek comfort in the things I forgot to love.
Twin Peaks
Portishead (Click the link at the beginning of this post for a glimpse)
The Stranger (Matthew Ward's translation)
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
GodotNuts
Lately, I have a bad week, and then I hear great news that doesn’t seem to have much to do with me personally but helps to restore my faith in humanity. Having even a tiny ray of hope keeps me going most of the time. So I start feeling better and come back to the conclusion (I've been here many times before) that it’s always personal. We try to tell ourselves it isn’t but that’s just cultural and religious wheel spinning. Blow people up, make them into saints and movie stars, it’s all just a big, futile attempt at trying to disconnect from one another and getting pissed off because we can't.
I read a story today about 826 National, a group of tutors (non-profit) who are helping children develop strong writing skills. Any kid (from 6-18) can walk in, grab a tutor, and begin learning English. Those who've already met English can get to know it better. When I tutored writing in college, I learned that people are often either very good at writing or are very good and just don’t read enough to know it yet. Honestly, it’s just like algebra. It’s all variables and brackets and noise. Suddenly, one day, something clicks. You can spout poetry. Either in numbers or in words, the sentences just spill out of you like wedding tears.
This is a lovely thing to do for others. In a time when people are all about martyred entitlement, sighing loudly when asked to push “1” for English, it’s spectacular.
I thought a lot about being connected last month, right around a time when I felt profoundly disconnected, though not by choice. A friend invited me to attend a lecture at Northern Kentucky University (my Alma mater). At first, I felt completely nervous and freaked out, since being in public makes me feel…nervous and freaked out. But then I was aware of the moment, in a weird way, within it, listening to the speaker (Dr. V. Mohini Giri) talk about the millions widows in India, who lose what passed for human rights for the years when their husbands were alive. They are fucked in ways I can’t imagine. I’ve had a hard life. Those women make me look like Veruca fucking Salt.
Dr. Giri literally saved the lives of millions of women in India and continues to work for the rights of widows there. That's what she does. She has been working for over 40 years, teaching the widows not to put up with anyone’s bullshit (though in a much nicer, Nobel Peace Prize kind of way). Her parents taught her that she is as essential a part of the world as water. It was completely out of the question to expect people to succumb to foolish cultural standards simply because they're widows. When they tried to force those standards upon her, she refused. Despite being ridiculed and threatened, she kept her Bindi when they tried to take it away from her, refused to keep her eyes on the ground, and continued to kick ass. Ripley, Sarah Connor kind of ass.
I was very fortunate in that my friends got me into the “after party” or whatever fancy people call it when you get to hang out with people who lecture at the UN. When I saw Dr. Giri sitting by herself, I went to talk to her. I expected her to be like one of those Tibetan monks that you meet now and again at book stores. They’re all about Tibet and their divine right to be the reincarnation of some other guy (never a woman, of course). Admittedly, all I've managed to reincarnate (that I know of) is the same conclusion. I might feel inadequate if I didn't think that essentially, they’re just damned good at marketing the East to ex-Catholics and stoners. They're the cute guy who listens to your bullshit and gives you that "first five minutes of a good beer buzz" kind of confident euphoria. Pretty soon, the cat gets out of the bag. One of you is annoying, forcing the other one to wander off. I kind of expected something along those lines.
I was completely surprised by the woman who sat beside me and talked to me as though I'd known her my entire life. She almost reminded me of a beauty parlor lady from Kentucky. The kind of horn-rimmed, sweet lady with loads of common sense and resolve. She was attaching a string of beads to my glasses (so I wouldn't lose them) and explaining to me that it's all very logical. I am her sister, her daughter, her granddaughter. She told me, without irony or cheese, that she sees the entire world as her family. Obviously, I live in America. I am as jaded as the day is long but despite my efforts to spin this experience in some way that would make it easier for me to hate the world, she was the most genuinely kind, sane person I've ever met. I was (and actually still feel like) part of her family. As far as she is concerned, we all are. I've met people who think I'm not worth their time simply because I haven't finished a graduate degree. People who get angry when they have to push an extra button at an ATM machine. And here is this woman that I simply have no words to describe, telling me that I'm her sister and fixing my glasses for me.
She knows she’s essential in a way that I think many of us find difficult to grasp. We (Americans, I mean) like to think we’re essential because of who we’ve become or what we’ve made of our lives. I think that's why it's so easy for us to buy into Tibetan monks. They've made something of at least ten lives. This woman knows that we're essential because we simply are. You exist, you're in the club. End of story.
Long ago, I gave up on the belief that there were good people left in the world, so getting it back was a damned moving experience. Jesus monkeyfucking christ. It was transcendent.
So there I was, in the throes of a dismal, nihilistic torpor, thinking I can't walk another foggy mile in this Year of the Tea Party, oddly manic depressive zeitgeist, when a shining outpost of humanity sprouts out of a sand dune and I have to admit that hope is my second-favorite four-letter word.
(Fuck is my first favorite. You got that. Right?)
I read a story today about 826 National, a group of tutors (non-profit) who are helping children develop strong writing skills. Any kid (from 6-18) can walk in, grab a tutor, and begin learning English. Those who've already met English can get to know it better. When I tutored writing in college, I learned that people are often either very good at writing or are very good and just don’t read enough to know it yet. Honestly, it’s just like algebra. It’s all variables and brackets and noise. Suddenly, one day, something clicks. You can spout poetry. Either in numbers or in words, the sentences just spill out of you like wedding tears.
This is a lovely thing to do for others. In a time when people are all about martyred entitlement, sighing loudly when asked to push “1” for English, it’s spectacular.
I thought a lot about being connected last month, right around a time when I felt profoundly disconnected, though not by choice. A friend invited me to attend a lecture at Northern Kentucky University (my Alma mater). At first, I felt completely nervous and freaked out, since being in public makes me feel…nervous and freaked out. But then I was aware of the moment, in a weird way, within it, listening to the speaker (Dr. V. Mohini Giri) talk about the millions widows in India, who lose what passed for human rights for the years when their husbands were alive. They are fucked in ways I can’t imagine. I’ve had a hard life. Those women make me look like Veruca fucking Salt.
Dr. Giri literally saved the lives of millions of women in India and continues to work for the rights of widows there. That's what she does. She has been working for over 40 years, teaching the widows not to put up with anyone’s bullshit (though in a much nicer, Nobel Peace Prize kind of way). Her parents taught her that she is as essential a part of the world as water. It was completely out of the question to expect people to succumb to foolish cultural standards simply because they're widows. When they tried to force those standards upon her, she refused. Despite being ridiculed and threatened, she kept her Bindi when they tried to take it away from her, refused to keep her eyes on the ground, and continued to kick ass. Ripley, Sarah Connor kind of ass.
I was very fortunate in that my friends got me into the “after party” or whatever fancy people call it when you get to hang out with people who lecture at the UN. When I saw Dr. Giri sitting by herself, I went to talk to her. I expected her to be like one of those Tibetan monks that you meet now and again at book stores. They’re all about Tibet and their divine right to be the reincarnation of some other guy (never a woman, of course). Admittedly, all I've managed to reincarnate (that I know of) is the same conclusion. I might feel inadequate if I didn't think that essentially, they’re just damned good at marketing the East to ex-Catholics and stoners. They're the cute guy who listens to your bullshit and gives you that "first five minutes of a good beer buzz" kind of confident euphoria. Pretty soon, the cat gets out of the bag. One of you is annoying, forcing the other one to wander off. I kind of expected something along those lines.
I was completely surprised by the woman who sat beside me and talked to me as though I'd known her my entire life. She almost reminded me of a beauty parlor lady from Kentucky. The kind of horn-rimmed, sweet lady with loads of common sense and resolve. She was attaching a string of beads to my glasses (so I wouldn't lose them) and explaining to me that it's all very logical. I am her sister, her daughter, her granddaughter. She told me, without irony or cheese, that she sees the entire world as her family. Obviously, I live in America. I am as jaded as the day is long but despite my efforts to spin this experience in some way that would make it easier for me to hate the world, she was the most genuinely kind, sane person I've ever met. I was (and actually still feel like) part of her family. As far as she is concerned, we all are. I've met people who think I'm not worth their time simply because I haven't finished a graduate degree. People who get angry when they have to push an extra button at an ATM machine. And here is this woman that I simply have no words to describe, telling me that I'm her sister and fixing my glasses for me.
She knows she’s essential in a way that I think many of us find difficult to grasp. We (Americans, I mean) like to think we’re essential because of who we’ve become or what we’ve made of our lives. I think that's why it's so easy for us to buy into Tibetan monks. They've made something of at least ten lives. This woman knows that we're essential because we simply are. You exist, you're in the club. End of story.
Long ago, I gave up on the belief that there were good people left in the world, so getting it back was a damned moving experience. Jesus monkeyfucking christ. It was transcendent.
So there I was, in the throes of a dismal, nihilistic torpor, thinking I can't walk another foggy mile in this Year of the Tea Party, oddly manic depressive zeitgeist, when a shining outpost of humanity sprouts out of a sand dune and I have to admit that hope is my second-favorite four-letter word.
(Fuck is my first favorite. You got that. Right?)
Friday, November 05, 2010
La Vie en Rose
I've watched La Vie en Rose about 4x this week. I'm not sure this is entirely healthy.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Redshifting
The world around me, people, their bullshit, their coolness, and how it all zips up together is endlessly fascinating and entertaining to me and I'm pretty sure I've said that a thousand different ways.
But during the 2004 election, when John Kerry stood like a shivering puppy while George W. Bush wiped the floor with him, the air started hissing out of my balloon. And then, like an exclamation point at the end of a very depressing sentence, Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide at the age of 67. 17 Years Past 50. His suicide note said that was 17 years more than he needed or wanted. Relax. This won't hurt a bit.
He only meant that last line for himself.
For me, that day meant that the age of the easy answer is over. All we have now is the choice to confront that like we have some kind of backbone (which is kind of what used to rock about being American) or become shadow effects littering our own dusty sidewalks.
Some days I'm sure the backbone guy will win. Then, on other, much more realistic days, I just see a windmill.
But during the 2004 election, when John Kerry stood like a shivering puppy while George W. Bush wiped the floor with him, the air started hissing out of my balloon. And then, like an exclamation point at the end of a very depressing sentence, Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide at the age of 67. 17 Years Past 50. His suicide note said that was 17 years more than he needed or wanted. Relax. This won't hurt a bit.
He only meant that last line for himself.
For me, that day meant that the age of the easy answer is over. All we have now is the choice to confront that like we have some kind of backbone (which is kind of what used to rock about being American) or become shadow effects littering our own dusty sidewalks.
Some days I'm sure the backbone guy will win. Then, on other, much more realistic days, I just see a windmill.
Monday, September 13, 2010
They Get What They Want
Last year (or something?) I lamented the fuck out of the fact that Indie chicks were boring and stupid, citing the soundtrack of Juno and it's boring, stupid singer Kimya Dawson's pseudo little girl voice as a shining example of what not to be.
I saw the latest Diablo Cody movie "Jennifer's Body" tonight. Yes, it's teenage angst but it's also (in typical Cody style--watch the United States of Tara for a cervical look at that action) witty, relevant, and spot on target with regard to toxic chick relationships. The kicker? The movie ends with one of my favorite Hole songs.
Diablo, I want to make dirty love to you.
Enjoy, bitches. I do.
I saw the latest Diablo Cody movie "Jennifer's Body" tonight. Yes, it's teenage angst but it's also (in typical Cody style--watch the United States of Tara for a cervical look at that action) witty, relevant, and spot on target with regard to toxic chick relationships. The kicker? The movie ends with one of my favorite Hole songs.
Diablo, I want to make dirty love to you.
Enjoy, bitches. I do.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Stupid Fucking White Man
Browsing the intertubes today, I noted that a reporter said that the South Carolina killer is thought to have been, ahem, "shot dead".
Why the fuck do reporters say "shot dead"? It's just dumb and annoying. There are two ways in which I automatically interpret this stupid turn of phrase (completely against my will) and neither of them traffic in the kind of creepy that we really want in a situation like this.
First, it's like the dude was already dead when they shot him. Shot dead. Wouldn’t it have been smarter to shoot him when he was still alive, thus being the actual cause of his death? Wouldn’t that have guaranteed their bragging rights? Why wait ‘till he’s dead? Isn’t that just showing off?!
Or better yet, “shot dead” sounds like it’s coming from the yellow-beard encrusted tobacco stained lips of an old man in a tumbleweed town where they have shutters for doors and their names are Dusty, Smokey, or something else that guarantees that its bearer’s skin flaps off his mandibles like a desiccated tire in the lonely Nevada wind. Fuckin' corncob pipes and cataracts.
It’s so fucking annoying when we could be genuinely nudged out of our real-life, bill paying, wine-on-Friday torpor where the bad guy gets his....and then some dipshit goes and blows it with a line like, “shot dead”.
It's like the end of Episode III (Nooooooo!!!) all over again.
Why the fuck do reporters say "shot dead"? It's just dumb and annoying. There are two ways in which I automatically interpret this stupid turn of phrase (completely against my will) and neither of them traffic in the kind of creepy that we really want in a situation like this.
First, it's like the dude was already dead when they shot him. Shot dead. Wouldn’t it have been smarter to shoot him when he was still alive, thus being the actual cause of his death? Wouldn’t that have guaranteed their bragging rights? Why wait ‘till he’s dead? Isn’t that just showing off?!
Or better yet, “shot dead” sounds like it’s coming from the yellow-beard encrusted tobacco stained lips of an old man in a tumbleweed town where they have shutters for doors and their names are Dusty, Smokey, or something else that guarantees that its bearer’s skin flaps off his mandibles like a desiccated tire in the lonely Nevada wind. Fuckin' corncob pipes and cataracts.
It’s so fucking annoying when we could be genuinely nudged out of our real-life, bill paying, wine-on-Friday torpor where the bad guy gets his....and then some dipshit goes and blows it with a line like, “shot dead”.
It's like the end of Episode III (Nooooooo!!!) all over again.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Projecting
The lady who lives next door is bitter because she had to take out her own garbage. Three days a week that damned cleaning lady has off. Why does she need an extra day just because her grandchild has the chickenpox? My neighbor tosses her head in anger and tells me that her home (at least this week) is like living in a slum. The projects of Mariemont, she says. I want to bitch slap that stupid fucking scrooged up, purse-lipped, dry grey curl framed face. Bite me, Old Lady Next Door. You've never seen a housing project in your life. I have. I'll bet your cleaning lady has, too.
She's what I've always feared becoming. This is why event-inflamed anger is more of a tool for me than a way of life. If it isn't gone within a month of the actual anger-provoking event, I realize that something is terribly wrong. Not that I don't have oceans of anger. I'm pretty sure everyone does. But bitter...is an oil slick. It prevents the oceans from evaporating into clouds like they should. There is no homeostasis when your life is a patchwork quilt of haphazard oil slicks. Anger should be a catalyst. It makes storms. Bitterness keeps our poles shifty and our periods of calm more unusual than our hurricanes. Where's the fucking fun in that?!
My friend Jason and I used to joke that you slum it in Mariemont until you inherit your parent's house in Indian Hill. Now, here I am, listening to Coltrane's "Village Blues" on my fucking iPod, leaving crumbs of sketch paper on the too-shiny tabletops of the Starbucks across the street from my apartment. Howling in Mariemont. I can hardly stand that the only Afro-American faces I see are sprouting from the necklines of service-job uniforms. It is difficult to swallow how happy I am, despite that. Life sucked balls there for a while. Now, it's a day-long happygasm from the moment I wake up. Sometimes, I can't stop grinning long enough to sleep.
People like that fool next door always remind me that other people are the fucking least of my worries and the reason it's good to NOT be them. Perspective, in this case, is as glorious as the autumn sunset that shines in my face as I write this. It's the math degree I'm getting after a lifetime of my drunken mother spitting her own failure into my face. It's the abusive ex-boyfriend who'll be having sub-standard sex for the rest of his life after me. It is the irony of knowing that winning anything is an illusion but that those people will die thinking that they lost. That irony, my friends, is as bitter as a rancid birthday cake but exactly the kind of sweet exsanguination that keeps me smiling.
There is no such thing as failure. There's only dust that you either brush off or leave to turn into mud when it rains.
She's what I've always feared becoming. This is why event-inflamed anger is more of a tool for me than a way of life. If it isn't gone within a month of the actual anger-provoking event, I realize that something is terribly wrong. Not that I don't have oceans of anger. I'm pretty sure everyone does. But bitter...is an oil slick. It prevents the oceans from evaporating into clouds like they should. There is no homeostasis when your life is a patchwork quilt of haphazard oil slicks. Anger should be a catalyst. It makes storms. Bitterness keeps our poles shifty and our periods of calm more unusual than our hurricanes. Where's the fucking fun in that?!
My friend Jason and I used to joke that you slum it in Mariemont until you inherit your parent's house in Indian Hill. Now, here I am, listening to Coltrane's "Village Blues" on my fucking iPod, leaving crumbs of sketch paper on the too-shiny tabletops of the Starbucks across the street from my apartment. Howling in Mariemont. I can hardly stand that the only Afro-American faces I see are sprouting from the necklines of service-job uniforms. It is difficult to swallow how happy I am, despite that. Life sucked balls there for a while. Now, it's a day-long happygasm from the moment I wake up. Sometimes, I can't stop grinning long enough to sleep.
People like that fool next door always remind me that other people are the fucking least of my worries and the reason it's good to NOT be them. Perspective, in this case, is as glorious as the autumn sunset that shines in my face as I write this. It's the math degree I'm getting after a lifetime of my drunken mother spitting her own failure into my face. It's the abusive ex-boyfriend who'll be having sub-standard sex for the rest of his life after me. It is the irony of knowing that winning anything is an illusion but that those people will die thinking that they lost. That irony, my friends, is as bitter as a rancid birthday cake but exactly the kind of sweet exsanguination that keeps me smiling.
There is no such thing as failure. There's only dust that you either brush off or leave to turn into mud when it rains.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Old Lady-Crazy
I just devoured "Notes on a Scandal" in less than 24 hours. This is the most deliciously obsessive catalog of beautifully rendered rationalization and predation I've ever read. If you haven't read the book and you're into observing weirdos, I highly suggest you pick this one up. Compared to the book (a stew that is thick and warm enough to waft from the page and into your nostrils), the film is like hard plastic.
On the outside, this book is about a couple of teachers, one of whom begins an affair with a student. The other acts as a narrator for the story. After a few pages, it is obviously about the slimy eel-dance between predator and prey and the points at which we allow ourselves to become either one of them.
I loved reading about this old woman combing her existence for traces of other people's lint. I'm on the other side of that coin in that I obsessively try to comb other people's lint out of my experience. For the most part, I enjoy what I've learned from people more than I've ever enjoyed their company. Yep, that is an asshole way of looking at things and I might spend some quality time trying to fix that if this book (bless its little heart) didn't make it perfectly clear that the only thing that keeps us from lingering in guilt is self-mockery. The only thing that makes self-mockery possible is knowing that, without a doubt, there is always someone out there who is way worse than we are.
It must also be noted that mirrors like this come in handy when I allow myself to be comforted by the Sesame Street "my experience is terribly unique" ethos. The truth is, we're all just apes looking to bump uglies and pick off a few bugs until something turns our eye. Therefore, our "selves" are reflections of the things we covet and that, my dear friends, negates any stupid ideas we have of "individuality".
On the outside, this book is about a couple of teachers, one of whom begins an affair with a student. The other acts as a narrator for the story. After a few pages, it is obviously about the slimy eel-dance between predator and prey and the points at which we allow ourselves to become either one of them.
I loved reading about this old woman combing her existence for traces of other people's lint. I'm on the other side of that coin in that I obsessively try to comb other people's lint out of my experience. For the most part, I enjoy what I've learned from people more than I've ever enjoyed their company. Yep, that is an asshole way of looking at things and I might spend some quality time trying to fix that if this book (bless its little heart) didn't make it perfectly clear that the only thing that keeps us from lingering in guilt is self-mockery. The only thing that makes self-mockery possible is knowing that, without a doubt, there is always someone out there who is way worse than we are.
It must also be noted that mirrors like this come in handy when I allow myself to be comforted by the Sesame Street "my experience is terribly unique" ethos. The truth is, we're all just apes looking to bump uglies and pick off a few bugs until something turns our eye. Therefore, our "selves" are reflections of the things we covet and that, my dear friends, negates any stupid ideas we have of "individuality".
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
It Only Takes a Camera to Change Her Mind
I saw Kraftwerk on Sunday! While seeing one of my favorite bands live is a grand experience, when that band is as old as the hills and rarely plays the U.S., it's pretty fucking spectacularly surreal. I'm still hugging my pillow and smiling.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
