coupla things

The asshole upstairs just woke me up (again) with his obnoxiously unskilled and repetitive and did I mention obnoxious guitar playing. Figured I'd post.

So after writing my paper about mystery poetry, that little genre I invented, I've been using Poe's "Philosophy of Composition" to compare nearly everything to "The Raven." I think Gnarls Barkley's song "Crazy" is a lot like "The Raven" for reasons I may explain in a more thought out piece of writing. I also think the pulpy noir novel I'm reading now, The Black Dahlia, is a lot like "The Raven," because Edgar Allan Poe thinks the epitome of poeticness is the death of a beautiful woman, and the novel is about LA and some of its denizens being obsessed with just that. I should write a book about how all art just boils down to being "The Raven," so really you should just read that poem and be done with art. It's rhymey.

Other thing: I was standing on the street near a nail salon yesterday, one that had a sandwich board advertising $20 mani-pedis, and this was the conversation I heard from two men passing. I'll call them Old Guy and Really Old Guy.

Old Guy: They'd take one look at your feet and say "No way. $150."
Really Old Guy: Huh?
Old Guy: Your feet. They're disgusting.
Really Old Guy: I don't have black toes anymore. Have you seen my toes lately?

At which point they fell out of ear shot. Praytell, how does one remedy the scourge of black toes?