Rhymes With "Maria"

graduated

2007-05-15T23:31:00.000-07:00

I turned in my thesis today, after events both kafkaesque and sisyphean. These are the words you can throw out with an MFA. ha. It feels great. I'm also facing the first time in my life I've ever not been in school, since preschool. I went straight from undergrad into my first grad degree and then my second. It's going to be really weird to start thinking in calendar years (or god help me, fiscal years) rather than school years.

It's been a good run, education. I'll probably see you again down the road a bit.

Well hello, video games/free time/leisure reading/24hr fitness. Nice to make your acqaintance...

seriously

2007-04-16T21:23:00.001-07:00

Today I uttered the sentence, "I thought it was a jellyfish, but it was the moon." Totally with seriousness.

blog for choice

2007-01-22T12:12:00.000-08:00

It's Blog for Choice Day. The task is simply to blog about why I'm pro-choice.

I grew up Catholic and pro-life, and many people who know me have heard my story about being in First Friday mass in first grade when Fr. Salmon defined abortion. He hit a tiny plastic baby with a baseball bat, and explained that that is what abortion is. This is the image I lived with throughout my formative years and continue to live with as a gruesome, hyperbolic statement of hatemongering for wicked women. Upon letting go of Catholicism, the associated guilt, and ultimately religion altogether, I came to know what it really means to be a compassionate citizen of this world. It is a much better place when women can decide whether they're equipped to have a child, or to be a mother.

MH2K7

2007-01-16T23:36:00.000-08:00

Happy new year and all that jazz. This past weekend I participated in my first ever Mystery Hunt, so I figured I'd blog a little feedback for the folks I figure may be searching for this kind of thing...

I'm not a super seasoned puzzler, might even say I'm a n00b, so I'll keep my comments brief. I'm certainly glad I did the Hunt this year, and I had a lot of fun. I'm super excited for the winning team, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they have to offer. The puzzles this year were slick and well done, and everything (modulo round 8 perhaps?) was so smooth. Unfortunately I didn't get to work on a ton of puzzles because it seems that there were never a ton of puzzles open to my team at any one time. The ones I had the least amount of fun on were the ones in which I just googled stuff. Not the most satisfying task. The ones I had the most fun on were the ones for which the primary task of the puzzle was actually fun to complete. This, for me, often means word puzzles. Word puzzles!

To the new writing team: I have some advice. What I say is not referring to what I thought of this Hunt, just my general puzzle philosophy as I've been immersing myself more in the worlds of both solving and writing. I think the canonical rule of puzzle writing should be to make delight the priority. Cleverness without delight is just self-indulgence. The object of a puzzle is to have another mind match yours through this particular medium. The object is not to show off how smart you are. The best puzzles are the ones that would be fun to solve even if there were instructions telling how to solve them. There are some puzzles for which the "aha!" moment is so fantastic that the aforementioned rule doesn't really apply, or maybe it applies in that the "aha!" moment is sufficiently delightful to counteract anything else about the puzzle that may be tedious or mundane. So yeah, keep delight in mind as you're writing the puzzles for next year's hunt. I eagerly await them.

ohlone tuba ensemble

2006-12-17T22:09:00.000-08:00

You haven't heard the Barber of Seville until you've heard it played by an ensemble of two dozens tubas. Ditto Water Music.

read on if you're interested in elephant penises.

2006-12-14T22:11:00.000-08:00

Maybe my reproductive-rights-hackles are a little too easily raised these days, but when I saw a promotion for a television special on the National Geographic Channel about animals in the womb, I muttered something about thinly-veiled pro-life rhetoric. But not being one to discount things out of hand, I tuned in (read: someone tivo'd it, or as we like to say in my house, 'badooped it'). Granted, I only watched the beginning of it so far, but the prognosis is good! They talk about blobs of cells as just that, I don't think I ever heard anything about a "miracle." Not to mention they make animal sex acts look exactly as horrifying as they truly must be.

Case in point number one: Elephant penises are terrifyingly gargantuan and don't even enter the female elephants' va-jay-jays. They just spray their 1/2 pint of semen (school lunch-size milk carton? anyone?) on her backside and hope the little buggers can make it the 6.5 feet to meet the egg.

Case in point number two: I'm sure we've all witnessed a little dog humping now and then. What I honestly did not know is that in a successful attempt, the male dog's penis stays inserted for several minutes and as long as an hour. The two dogs just stand there in a "tie," not mounted, but just standing there butt to butt, looking dumb as dogs usually do. Oddly hilarious. And people think we humans can be impersonal about sex.

If I watch the rest of it and find that my original assumption was right, perhaps there will be an update. I still have to learn about dolphin babies.

the start of a murder mystery... (a class assignment)

2006-12-10T20:40:00.000-08:00

Bill Brennan can’t really be that mad at all of us. He was the natural choice for a suspect and he knew it. Sure, maybe there wasn’t an obvious motive, but who besides a pet store owner could have acquired a cone snail to slip into Mrs. Greeley’s tropical fish tank. Who else would have known it was so poisonous. We couldn’t honestly think that Norm over at the bait and tackle could be so crafty. Once the sheriff told us you can get pretty much anything on the internet these days, everyone in town with a computer or with kin who had a computer became a suspect, and that was basically everyone. Bill Brennan was off the hook for now.

As murders go, it was crueler than most. After her husband died, Mrs. Greeley shifted all the love in her body from her husband to her aquarium. The cone snail retrieved from Mrs. Greeley’s house (the “scene,” the sheriff calls it) was so beautiful, brown and densely patterned. She must have seen it in that tank and realized she hadn’t put it there. She probably thought it was an empty shell one of her grandchildren had picked up in a lunchtime swap and dropped in the tank as a sweet gesture. Knowing Mrs. Greeley as we all did, she would have wanted to know the species of mollusk before she let it lie there with the anemones and the sea cucumbers. Who knows how long the damn thing had been lying in wait. It had a little secret harpoon, full of poison, and it killed her. The sheriff shared some information he’d found about the cone snail and said they call one particular species the cigarette snail because you have only enough time for a smoke before you die. Mrs. Greeley had enough time to phone her daughter Luanne and thrash around her house a bit, knocking over the knickknacks and photos. Then the paralysis, and shortly thereafter, the respiratory failure.

one reason why i like my job

2006-11-18T20:35:00.000-08:00

If you go to the Exploratorium, and mosey upstairs to the Listening exhibition, and find the half-car exhibit, and by half-car I mean a formerly whole car that has been literally sawn in half, you can hear my voice in the exhibit! It's a sort of Click and Clack-esque what's making that funny noise kind of thing. Despite my not having owned a car since 2002, evidently my car is making a rapid clanking sound...

it's weird to feel optimistic about government...

2006-11-09T20:26:00.000-08:00

...and sad to think I may never write a poem as beautiful as what you get when you put some line breaks in a Rumsfeld transcript (courtesy of Slate):

Glass Box

You know, it's the old glass box at the—
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's—

And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But—

Some of you are probably too young to remember those—
Those glass boxes,
But—

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

—Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

2 halloween things

2006-10-31T22:11:00.000-08:00

thing one: I walk down the street every year and have this same thought: Are you dressed like a hipster for Halloween or are you actually a hipster?

thing two:

Seen while walking home from class.

A girl in a girl-in-a-very-short-dress-that-maybe-has-a-boa-which-makes-it-a-costume costume chases after a gaggle of Elvii on the corner of 17th and Valencia. She catches up with them and then tries to do the hip-gyrating Elvis thing while yelling "Elvis! Elvis! Let me be! Keep your pelvis far from me!"

She then falls on the ground and sprawls out in a rather indecent manner.

One Elvis says, "I'm seeing one too many pelvises right now."

best thing overheard on the bus yesterday

2006-10-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

The scene, the back of the #45 bus. Our players, a young boy, about 5, and his dad, a dirty hippie type.

Boy: (says something I don't hear)
Dad: Do you want to go to your mom's house?
Boy: No.
Dad: Then don't talk to me that way.

pause

Dad: Do you want Justin to be your dad?
Boy: No.
Dad: Then don't talk to me that way.

photo post

2006-10-05T21:26:00.000-07:00

Gotta post a few from the trip:

Gratuitous I-obviously-took-this-myself shot:

quote of the night

2006-10-05T10:10:00.000-07:00

(This was Saturday, but I'm reporting it now.)

At Scotty's birthday, there was crazy karaoke. Toward the end of the night I sang the awesome and forever-long "I Would Do Anything for Love (but I won't do that)" by Meatloaf. Granted, I can't wholly credit my own performance for the reaction, since the crowd had been duly warmed up by fantastic renditions of Bon Jovi, Journey, Neil Diamond, Michael Jackson, et al, but I will say that only the Meatloaf inspired shirtless ecstatic dancing among several partygoers, one of whom was the birthday boy himself. Awesome. As the bar closed and we were leaving, one guy remarked, "The Meatloaf was the best song of the night." And I said, "Yeah, the shirtlessness made me feel pretty good." Then, one of the guys who had been shirtless and was walking ahead of me turned around and said, in quotable style:

It's the apex of human emotion, to get naked.

i posted a set of these last year

2006-09-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

More Postcards from a Family Roadtrip

Through the American West

T———,

At dusk there is a shift change. The swallows swoop and disappear. The bats a noiseless cyclone as they make their egress. To achieve a good round number, I’m calculating bats per second. They won’t fly in your hair, though the fear is legitimate.

Opting for echolocation,

M———

T———,

In this town the water makes better suds. Tastier too. Creatures evolve to blend with the landscape despite the manganese. Stratified sandstone purples. Behind me someone asks if iron oxide arrived here from the core of the earth.

Following dinosaur tracks,

M———

T———,

The wind can make parabolas of sand. To avoid burial, I try to outgrow the dune with the yucca. Thin and spindly. If a drift, a collapse. Heat and radio waves emanate from literally everything.

Comparing baseball diamonds to satellite dishes,

M———

T———,

Saguaro have more arms than is properly anthropomorphic. A cactus too close to that maidenhair fern. The farmstand melon is ripe but nary a knife for miles. This rock is quite porous; it dripped on me.

Washing just the dirty part of my pants,

M———

T———,

It looks like a wood chip but I promise you it’s a mineral. We could just let the silica seep in, petrify. If a curse imposes, you can send it back with a note of apology. Every waitress asked me red or green.

With better lapidary skills,

M———

T———,

Can this natural bridge be superimposed on a catenary arch? I keep having these feelings I worry are religious, but I still don’t know a butte from a mesa. A plateau of subtle distinction. It’s all earthly from my boat.

At a wakeless speed,

M———

T———,

A narrow passageway will intensify the drama of entering a room. The kind of place without velvet ropes. Standing on the head of a drum, the tour guide was acoustically accurate. Please sit in the origami chair.

Cropping the masonry out of the photograph,

M———

T———,

You could scrape crude geometrics into the skin of this lava, but someone beat you by six hundred years. A deer with a head at both ends. This place where you can touch both walls of the canyon simultaneously.

Rafting a virgin river,

M———

T———,

I hike in order to feel alone. If there were a language with nothing but vowels and glottal stops. Or we could hot air balloon. I’d see everything in late afternoon light if I could.

From the highest point in Texas,

M———

fact:

2006-09-26T22:40:00.000-07:00

It smelled like a gerbil cage on the #28 bus today.

the city of albuquerque is nice

2006-09-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

if for no other reason than they have given me free wifi in the airport! I'm about to fly back to OAK and complete the Third Annual Hajj to the Sacred Scenic Byways of the American West, as I'm going to call it. My little avatar on this blog is made from a photo from last year's Hajj, and I'm hoping that if my photography skillz were mad enough, I'll have a new one. Hopefully from the Rainbow Bridge, which may be the coolest thing I've ever seen. I'm certainly one for list making and superlatives, but it's a hard decision in the category of coolest things I've ever seen. Unfortch my photo won't have water in it as that particular waterway is intermittent and is dry at the mo.

I won't get into crazy details about where I went, but here's a general list in case you're interested: Albuquerque, the Very Large Array, Roswell (detritus from the crash is not on display for "insurance reasons"), Carlsbad Caverns, Guadalupe Mtns (I made it to Texas!), White Sands, Saguaro Nat'l Park, Taliesen West (Frank Lloyd Wright's "Desert Camp"), Zion Nat'l Park, Glen Canyon/Lake Powell/Rainbow Bridge, Painted Desert/Petrified Forest, Petroglyph Nat'l Monument. There may be some more I'm forgetting. It was a lot. I added two new states to the list, NM and TX, so I'm up to 36 out of 50 now. Pretty pretty good, although I can't imagine the circumstances that will bring me to, say, Oklahoma or Arkansas anytime soon.

Been out of the loop for a week now. No crossword puzzles or anything. Looking forward to rejoining civilzation.

overheard

2006-09-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

I overhear a lot of things at work. Two yesterday:

4-ish year old boy walks into the ladies room with his mom and announces, "I am a man. This place is for girls."

Thing two: There's a new exhibit that involves being able to talk on paper cup and string telephones across the musuem. I saw a dad and his 15-ish year old daughter talking on them. You have to kind of yell into them because, gee, sound really doesn't transmit all that well on string, so I heard the dad shouting into the paper cup, "I LOVE YOU TOO. WHAT? I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!" It's funny and touching to hear intimate words shouted into a paper cup.

Will all the planets please step forward?

2006-08-24T16:57:00.000-07:00

Not so fast, Pluto.

apartment living!

2006-08-23T22:10:00.000-07:00

Rawr!

Having to listen to the yappy dog with the separation anxietyin one apt at the same time as the loud sex in another apt makes me want to live on my imaginary country manor, raising sheep. Sheep don't yap or have loud sex, as far as I know.

not even getting up to pee

2006-08-23T17:38:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I figured I'd had just about enough Law & Order for awhile (this whole staying home sick thing is getting so boring). I needed to spend some time reading. I'd started Altered Carbon, a sci-fi noir novel, and it's good, but damn, it's so aggressive. Too much maleyness, as I like to call it. Sci-fi and noir are sort of boys' clubs already, not to mention what happens when the genres cross pollinate. Looking on my shelves, I couldn't find anything suitabily femaley that I hadn't already read (wasn't in a rereading mood) but luckily I saw The Passion by Jeanette Winterson on the shelf in the kitchen. Not having read any of her work, I was still fairly assured the voice was decidedly feminine. Plus it's short and wouldn't distract me from finishing my already started books. So I read it all in one sitting. There aren't many books that I've read in one sitting, frankly. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Invisible Cities, Cat's Cradle, and a few others, I'm sure, but as Poe pointed out (more about Poe in coming weeks, I promise!) work is more powerful when you get to read it all at once. The book was pleasant, its pleasure augmented by absorbing it in one dose, and had this one line I loved: "I go on writing so that I will always have something to read." There's something so strange about that line, it's self-involved and oddly naive and I can't quite figure out how I feel about it.

leave the gun. take the cannolis.

2006-08-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

So I've finally seen The Godfather now. It actually took me three tries, but I watched it all today, in my mucus-headed fog. I enjoyed it, and moreover I can appreciate it, which is what we're supposed to say about such things, right, but I certainly can't say that I loved it. I just don't find organized crime all that fascinating. And the core story, the whole idea of the tragic inescapability of family, has been explored in myriad ways, some of which engage me more. I like that Al Pacino has to change his hairstyle and stop wearing brown once he starts working for the family.

I also saw Snakes on a Muthafucking Plane. And perhaps my only complaint is that while it did "go there" and by "there" I mean "gratuitous places," it could in fact have gone a little farther. I don't think any babies got eaten. But it was like a classic joke: you set up the stereotypes, you knock them right down, you add some 13-letter expletives, and if all else fails, you can throw some rubber snakes around the audience to get the cheap prop gag.

I didn't comment at all on my recent trip to NYC, but it was fantastic. Living so far from so many of my dearest friends is torture indeed. I'm seriously cheesily treasuring all the moments, from the intense morning shower races that have become ritual, to drinking beer at the Gowanus Yacht Club, to my visit to my old building, where the doormen argued over my name, settling on Maria (close enough?) and where Maggie put me to work framing a collage of her hat-designing career that was surprisingly more prestigious (Bergdorf Goodman windows!?) than I had realized. I love San Francisco, but New York still feels like home.

best thing i've overheard lately

2006-08-08T19:47:00.000-07:00

A conversation between two girls. From what I gathered, the situation was that one was "interviewing" the other one as a potential roommate.

Interviewer: I really don't want to live with someone who has frequent, unannounced, overnight guests.
(ed note: Most diplomatic way of saying "I don't want to live with a ho" ever!)
Interviewee: Define "frequent."

fun games to play

2006-08-02T09:09:00.000-07:00

I went to a show at the Independent last night and we invented a game of imagining what the bands were up to in high school and what music they were into. The results:

The Fabulous Entourage

What were they doing in high school? Theatre.
To whom were they listening? Meatloaf, the Ronettes

Bobby Birdman

What was he doing in high school? According to John, hiding in corners and reading Rilke.
To whom was he listening? Equal parts Wu Tang and Frank Sinatra.

Hot Chip

What were they doing in high school? Painting their sneakers, kissing other boys.
To whom were they listening? Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Talking Heads.

The other fun game that has come up recently? Coming up with the list of movies you've "seen" but were actually making out through most of so that you don't remember large plot details or even if you like the movie or not. You have to play this game with other people, of course, and share the lists.

The other game I learned this weekend? The Game. The rules, if I remember them correctly: Once you hear about the game, you're playing it. Whenever you remember you're playing the game, you lose, and you have to say it out loud.

Because I can't resist posting this photo:
Noah and I saw this glass bridge this weekend (this was the view above my head).

fasten your seatbelts...

2006-07-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

but first: a new Snickers word. Peanutopolis. Yeah, I want to live there. Especially if as Patrick suggested, it's an underground society run by benevolent dictator Jimmy Carter.

onto movies: I watched Million Dollar Mermaid over the weekend, as Esther Willliams film with choreography by Busby Berkeley. Basically I lament the loss of the sort of spectacle this film provides: ridiculous water ballet, ultrasymmetry, technicolored flames and jets of water and smoke, sparkly things. We can't even remotely take this shit seriously any more. While I'm loathe to talk about so-called "good old days," I do have to wonder what's happened to escapism and does it really have to be replaced with reality tv. Not that I don't love Project Runway, which is reality tv. Makes me miss my sewing days.

Then I watched All About Eve, which was pretty great. It passes the Mo Movie Measure, which is rare enough for a film let alone one made in 1950. Plus Edith Head did the costumes. And it has the quote that's the title of this post, which is one of those great ones I knew not whence it came until now. Plus great performances, and Bette Davis is a stitch. I need to keep chugging ahead with seeing classic movies. Maybe one of these days I'll actually see the damn Godfather.

since laura asked...

2006-07-19T15:42:00.000-07:00

The text of the nasty (really only nasty-ish. the version i wrote directly after the waking up event had much more vitriol) note I left was approximately the following:

"Dear Upstairs Neighbor,
Please refrain from playing your stereo or guitar before 9am. And please don't ever play "White Wedding" at 4am again. Thanks.

Yours truly,
Your Downstairs Neighbor"

The funny thing is that roomie John was chilling on the back porch last night and upstairs guy was also oot and aboot and somehow ascertained that John too plays the guitar. Then he requested a "jam session," which is hilarious. Then he asked if John was the leaver of the note and John said no. Upstairs guy said he meant to reply to the note with something to the effect of "What time would you prefer I play 'White Wedding?'" which frankly takes him down a notch on the asshole ladder, because that's funny as hell.

word nerdery strikes again

2006-07-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

update on the asshole upstairs: the nasty note I left him seems to have worked! He hasn't woken me up with his guitar or stereo all week! I pray the solution is permanent. And I say huzzah to the efficacy of leaving a nasty note.

Back to word nerdery: I want to recognize the excellence of Snickers' latest ad campaign. At first I just saw it on those little prisms that sit atop cabs, but I saw a full billboard yesterday on Lombard St. All they've done is taken the Snickers logo and filled it in with neologisms--hungerectomy, nougatocity, satisfectellent, substantialicious. I think these are brilliant. I hadn't realized the Snickers logo was so iconic that I'd recognize it instantly without the word "snickers" in it. I do wonder to whom they're marketing--obviously me and my poet friends because we think they're awesome and hilarious--but does the campaign appeal to people who aren't word lovers? Oddly enough the ad campaign actually makes me want to buy a snickers to prove that an ad campaign can be funny and clever and not take itself too seriously and not have to resort to any of the obnoxious (and dare I say sexist? i'm thinking of you, beer commercials) ploys we see so often. Well, I don't actually see them that often since we have tivo at my house and we just badoop through the stuff.

nice day to start again

2006-07-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

I was awoken at exactly 4.10am this morning by my upstairs neighbor serendaing his lady caller with "White Wedding" on the acoustic guitar. I don't know which is more appalling:
a) That he had the nerve to do this
b) That she had sex with him afterward

THUG LIFE

2006-07-06T23:29:00.000-07:00

Many who know me know I am a fan of both fingerless gloves, which I often refer to as my "hobo gloves," and tattoos. In a stroke of sheer genius, a pattern on knitty sprang up today for how to make fingerless gloves that you then embroider to give yourself wooly knuckle tattoos. I'll say it again, sheer genius. Now I just need to come up with the best possible phrase. WORD NERD comes to mind. There's a list of suggestions with the pattern, a few of which a really choice: DYNO MITE, OMG! WTF?, FOOD RENT, S1K1 PSSO (only funny if you read knitting), TINY HAND (so cute!), 1337 $K1Z (I still find 733+ amusing. Like when I tried to play it as a word in boggle and Noah told me "It's not a word, and even if it was, it starts with a 7").

So who's got a good idea for me? And of course, I'm putting this out there, I will knit you your own pair of knucks, as they're called (or anything else for that matter) for the low low price of yarn and a half. I'm more about the process than the product, as it were. Never much for that Machiavelli chap.

happy to report!

2006-07-03T21:56:00.000-07:00

I recently bought a kite at the Exploratorium gift store in a fit of enthusiasm for kites. Shortly thereafter, I took it to the beach (where I've seen many a kite flown) to test it out. And I happened to be at the beach during the one moment in history when it wasn't annoyingly blustery and was in fact the deadest of calm. The doldrums, id you will. If I were a spice trader asea or something, I'd have been really pissed; as it was I was just discouraged. However, I tried it again this evening and it worked! And how! Like gangbusters! So I'm happy to report that I love my kite! Exclamation point! When I said that aloud at the beach, for some reason I was reminded of my favorite line from Heathers: "I love my dead gay son!"

he'll save children but not the british children

2006-07-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

Here's my patriotism for the Fourth of July. On Canada Day, oddly enough.

Youtube is totally my BFF. This is so goddamn funny. It sort of jumps the shark at the end, but that's forgivable given such genius lines "he had a wig for his wig and a brain for his heart, he'll kick you apart, he'll kick you apart, ooh" and "he had a pocket full of horses, fucked the shit out of bears."

Wiki, of course, is my other BFF. Along with google. We're all in a BFF club and we've carved our initials in a tree in the park.

Back to reality. Curious about what exactly the referent is when I say "jump the shark," I turned to wiki, and it turns out I'm referencing Happy Days, when the Fonze literally jumps a shark on waterskis, signaling the apocalyptic lameness about to befall the show. I'd have thought the phrase was older. The article is surprisingly detailed and interesting.

might as well jump

2006-06-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

In all honesty I don't know how I feel about having children. Ambivalent with a capital A. Recently I was really happy to hear someone (who has two children) tell me in a lovely moment of honesty that having kids is an awesome way to live life, and choosing not to have kids is equally awesome, because you lose things and gain things with either choice. It was so refreshing that he hadn't had his brains eaten by the baby zombies who make parents tell everyone how miraculous and life-changing babies are and blah blah blah. Aw, baby zombies. How cute. I'm not sure if I want a baby, but maybe I want a baby zombie.

Anyway, perhaps my unconscious mind is telling me how I really feel. I was just in a coffee shop eating some granola, and I saw this dad dangling what looked like a piece of meat in his baby's face. And the first thought that went through my head was, Should that guy be giving his baby human food?

Or maybe it's my conscious mind telling me how I feel. When I got to work and went to the restroom to find a mother putting her ~8yo daughter in a full-on headlock to either extract something from or insert something into her nose, the first thought that went through my head was, ew.

Sidebar: I was bopping along to Squeeze in the coffee shop this morning, until the music switched to two amazingly incongruous crooner swing jazz covers of "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden and "Jump" by Van Halen. The voice was Sinatraesque though I could tell it was not in fact the Chairman, so I had to look it up. Turns out Paul Anka has an album of swing rock covers, according to wiki. Best quote from that article:

Reportedly, the Michael Jackson song Billie Jean was slated to be on the album in the recording stages, but Paul Anka could not get through a vocal take without bursting into laughter.

coupla things

2006-06-28T08:02:00.000-07:00

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?

put yr weight into it

2006-06-15T17:04:00.000-07:00

Much in the same way that I couldn't have foreseen going to Boca Raton, Florida, for the 2004 election, I don't think that I could have foreseen spending yesterday windsurfing. Just wasn't really on my list of things to learn. Moreover, who knew I'd enjoy it so thoroughly, despite my being really bad at it? In retrospect, it makes sense. I love being on/near water regardless of salinity or temperature. I detest things with motors on water (although there is this intense urge I have to take an Alaskan cruise). I like having to work for my motion on water—canoeing, kayaking, swimming. Windsurfing fits in there awesomely. You have to be attuned to what's going on in the air and the water much more than when you're canoeing across a placid lake (or Lake Placid, as it were). Plus I got to wear a wetsuit and look like an X-man.

coupla things

2006-06-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

Shopping at Walgreens yesterdat for a "goodbye" card for a coworker, I came across some great categories of cards, in among "Graduation," "Father's Day," "Bat Mitzvah," etc. They were "Troubled Relationship" and "When We Said 'I do' We Meant It."

a) Those are hilarious.
b) If you're looking for a greeting card to say what you need to say in either of those situations, alls I gots to say is best of luck to you.

I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark at the Castro last night (the organist played the theme music!). If I were to write a paper about that movie, it'd definitely be about shadows, and I'd probably call on Jung even though I'm so not into him. There's some line by the French guy when he says that Indie is just a shadowy double of him. It got me thinking about where Indie's allegiances are, what his ideology is. There's totally a paper in there.

I also just finished Beloved. Turtle sex aside, what a book. I love how balanced it is between narrative and something like lyric, or fragment, something characteristically feminine. I'm glad I read it now because I feel like I'm in the right place in my reading tastes/trends to appreciate it. Onto Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping! Soon, Bleak House!

this one's for you, geri

2006-06-05T10:03:00.000-07:00

So I wrote recently about how much I like genre fiction for its not taking itself too seriously. Which isn't too say I can't take literature seriously. Case in point, I'm reading Beloved right now, and it's pretty dang serious. But am I to take turtle sex seriously?

"A turtle inched along the edge, turned and climbed to dry ground. Not far behind it was another one, headed in the same direction. Four faced plates under a hovering motionless bowl. Behind her in the grass the other one moving quickly, quickly to mount her. The impregnable strength of him—earthing his feet near her shoulders. The embracing necks—her stretching up toward his bending down, the pat pat pat of their touching heads. No height was beyond her yearning neck, stretched like a finger toward his, risking everything outside the bowl just to touch his face. The gravity of their shields, clashing, countered and mocked the floating heads touching."

This I cannot take seriously. No more than I can imagine Toni Morrison writing this book and thinking, Now would be a good time for some steamy turtle sex. I don't care if it is metaphorical, it's funny.

could you use that in a sentence?

2006-06-01T22:31:00.000-07:00

I was in a spelling bee tonight. I'm in love with the word I lost on: butyraceous. Having the qualities of butter or yielding or containing a substance like butter. That's all I have to say about that.

bad at acronyms

2006-05-29T22:38:00.000-07:00

I saw a person wearing a t-shirt today that had a large "FBI" on the front of it with littler printing underneath. Since the person was a woman, I was thinking it probably wasn't "Female Body Inspector." Though if it had been, I really would have thought about that for a while. What it was was "Full Believer in Christ." WTF, mate? WTF is an acronym that stands for What The Fuck. FBI definitely does not stand for Full Believer in Christ by any acronym rules I've ever heard. If you want the jesus in an acronym (à la WWJD), shouldn't he at least be in the acronym? Just a thought.

the beta version of me

2006-05-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

So last night I got swept up reading the entirety of my old livejournal for some reason. I mean I guess it's part of the reason we keep journals, right? To read them retrospectively? In any case, it was an interesting version of me from 2001 through the move to California. I never blogged about anything with much gravity, not 9/11, not how disheartened I was by all the rejection I got at the end of my senior year, not how truly bizarre a time I had teaching in NY. Mostly I just wrote about silly stuff, and I still find a lot of it quite funny. So I'm going to do a highlight reel, so this is going to be a long post, but it's condensed goodness!

***

b) conversation of the day, yesterday. was with jonathan and t, crossing the street in chinatown.
jon: malia, the light's red.
malia: but there are other people walking.
jon: but we don't want you to die. there'd be an awful lot of paperwork for theresa and me.
theresa: i don't feel the same way. i'd do any amount of paperwork for you, malia.

***

6:00 pm - haha...

So when I was walking into my building just now, there was a Baldwin loitering out front. I looked him dead in the eye. Which Baldwin? No clue.

current mood: baldwinesque
current music: is one of them in a band?

***

Funniest thing I heard a kids say today. One of my students was doing the making out with himself bit, that turning around and wrapping your arms around yourself routine. He was telling the other kids that he does it on the subway sometimes and that the other people start to stare and wonder. And then one of the kids was all, "Wonder about what? Your girlfriend with no legs?"

***

5:11 pm - funniest thing ever

So I have my one student with severe, severe "on the mind, out the mouth syndrome" as my pops calls it. He comes in today, fanatical, screaming about there being a dead person on his train this morning. Evidently someone realized the stank in the car was not redolent of homeless person; that was the stank of death. So the train stopped and the paramedics came and took the dead guy away. The point of all this was that he was late to class on account of the dead person on the train. Best excuse, ever.

***

Best thing I saw yesterday: They have all these signs in subways from the Pork Coalition or somebody, whoever it was that came up with the "Pork, the other white meat" campaign. So the pork poster in the subway station yesterday said:

"Stop and smell the pork roast."

Somebody had written underneath it in that graffiti-style handwriting

"or just run and let the pork catch up with you"

***

So after figure skating today, I moseyed on over to the Space Sciences building to eat lunch, stow away my skates in my personal locker room (my lab), and do a little work. Lo and behold, the computers Nico and Vero deny my attempt to log in. My first thought was dang, I've been fired and they didn't bother telling me... Then I realized they can't fire me because I am a student and don't even get paid. Phew! So after a quick peek into the adjoining lab to see if Dave or Dae-Sik (grad students) have any ideas on how to remedy my situation, I mosey on down to Don's office (Don is the stoner astronomer/ Linux guru/ socialist from the angst part II entry). I tell him that I can't log into the computers, he starts typing frantically, then starts cursing frantically as he realized there has been some sort of computer catastrophe. He tries to fix one of the computers by doing something involving computer jargon I don't understand. He tells me to go back to the lab and wait for him while he gets coffee. I mosey back to my lab. Dae-sik comes over with a deadly serious look on his face.
"He killed my processes," he said in a hushed and controlled voice. This may be the most Dae-sik has ever said to me; our previous interactions have mostly involved me taking his post-it notes or me telling him that his wife is on the phone.
"Oh," I reply.
Short pause.
"One day, I will kill his processes....I will get revenge."

I got the idea he didn't mean so much "processes" as he did "family".

From now on, I'm going to be extra polite when I'm taking his post-it notes.

***

9:58 am - instant karma

Just a few minutes ago, Ryan was sitting on the couch making generally gross snotty noises associated with his consumption.
"Ew," I said.
"Nothing comes out when I do that," he replied.
"Ew," I say again. "It all goes back into the recesses of your giant head?"
Ryan makes an I'm-going-to-cry face.
"Don't worry baby. Your head's so big because it's full of dreams," I replied.
I then tossed my head back as I was laughing and smacked it really hard against the top of the couch.
"Ha!" he said. "The couch smote you!"

***

He said, "Fry up the potatoes."
I reply, "Are you sure you want me to do this?"
He says, "Sure, go ahead."
So I drop a bit of butter on the frying pan which instantly turns to brown sludge. Smoke starts to billow out of the pan, and as calmly as I can, I say to Ryan, "I think the butter is burning." He sees the plumes of smoke emanating from the kitchen and reacts promptly, turning on the stove's fan, opening the outside door, and putting a box fan in on of the living room windows in an attempt to blow all of the smoke outside the apartment. In his haste he lost the bagel he was eating. He took over potato frying duties when the smoke cleared and we could see/breathe again.
Forlornly, I comment, "I think I'm hopeless."
Ryan replies, "Baby, maybe you are."

Ryan later found his lost bagel behind the television.

genre!

2006-05-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

So there's this thing with "genre fiction" right? It's not considered "literary" and is much derided by the whomever, yet the NYT has gotten on board with its relevance in the here and now and are doing the serialized (quel anachronism) genre fiction in the Sunday magazine (along with the humorous 1st person essay and the graphic novel, these three things being some sort of zeitgeist as it were).

I, too, have gotten on board.

Among the five bazillion things my 19th c mystery lit class taught me:
a) Whatever line there is dividing genre fiction and literary fiction is stupid and imaginary.
b) How awesome it is that genre fiction can both have totally relevant commentary on anything at all and be fun to read. How much more I buy into said commentary when the writer obviously isn't taking her/himself waaaay too seriously as seems to be the case with most writers of mystery.
c) Though he may be one of these taking himself too seriously sorts, I can in fact enjoy the Dickens.

I confess my dilettante status in the canon of "genre fiction"--although I'm now quite well read in the 19th-c mystery, I'm not yet caught up to my Raymond Chandlers and my James Ellroys. My sci-fi is dismal at best. Some Ray Bradbury, fast forward to Jonathan Lethem, Ender's Game, and that about spells it out.

I just finished reading Octavia Butler's Kindred, her totally scary novel about time travelling to the antebellum South. And of course I feel crappy and bandwagonriffic for only hearing of her when she died earlier this year. In any case that book is going to haunt me for a while. So mostly I'm just saying read that book.

two posts in one day !?

2006-05-17T16:35:00.000-07:00

Actually, Muskrat Lovely made me want to write something about where I'm from. I set out to write about the Elvis impersonator who read at church with his pompadour and his white shoes. I wanted to write fiction. And I wrote this:

There is a place in Virginia where you can find cruciform crystals on the ground. Fairy Crosses, but who crucifies a fairy. I read about it in Rock & Gem. I wanted to go there more badly than any of the places where the rocks fluoresce or drip or float. Where I lived there was iron in the hills. Natural magnets but I never found one. Had to go to the rock and gem collection at Harvard to see one from my hometown. Our celebrity rock. We found slag instead, leftovers. It was something like obsidian, but more opaque. It cleaved like obsidian and there’d be this glassy bivalve shape, blue like a robin’s egg or that sea green color I was so wild about. It went into the box with the others, the conglomerate from the beach, the gneiss from the hike in the High Peaks. Even the fragment I picked up from the rubble pile when the movie theater collapsed. It was a piece of concrete with a shard of tile mortared to it. The tile was blue and translucent, not at all like pottery. There was something geologic about it, hence into the box. There was also a small square of marble, very dark with almost no veins, from when they were redoing the church. It must have been cut from a slab to make room for molding or a door frame. I must have removed it from a box of scraps, stealthily. That marble could have come from anywhere.

documentary film festival!

2006-05-17T15:46:00.000-07:00

It rages on in San Francisco--here's the info-- and I couldn't be happier. Well I guess I could be happier if I had more time to go to more of the films, but what are you gonna do? So far I've seen two films and they've made me think all sorts of different things.

Cracked not broken--a movie about a crack whore. Made me think about people with addictions and what the breaking point is between being a functional addict and giving in to it to the point at which you'll sell your body and lose everything. The film didn't really address it, which is probably why I'm still thinking about it.

Muskrat Lovely--a movie about a beauty pageant/muskrat skinning competition. This one got me thinking about how I grew up, and what it is to live in a town with a local beauty pageant that means a lot and where hunting/fishing/trapping are huge parts of so many people's lives. How easy it is to laugh at those people. How hard it is to portray them with dignity. I think this movie walked the line between mockery and homage that was interesting--made me think of other "look at this kooky bunch of people!" documentaries that I've seen. Errol Morris does it best (duh).

One of the shorts before Muskrat Lovely was Aluminum Fowl--watch it here. I don't even know what to say about it except watch it.

So what's on the summer reading list? Tempting me is my two volume Eugene Onegin translated and commented on by Nabokov. I'd also like to read some more mystery--Wilkie Collins, Dickens, Doyle. And my summer project is to learn Galois Theory as Emil Artin wrote about it. And to finish some of the knitting projects I've got going. Doable.

rhymeswithmaria: now a blog exclusively about pigeons

2006-05-06T16:30:00.000-07:00

snazzy, right?

So I was washing my hands in the sink half of my bathroom today and i heard little peeping noises. I looked out the window to discover that a pigeon had built a nest out of twigs and shit, but mostly shit, on our windowsill and there were two baby pigeons in it! I was under the impression that the pigeons we see are actually the baby pigeons and they will someday grow into their full 8-12 ft wingspan mature selves and fly off to taunt pirates at sea, but in fact baby pigeons exist! They have black skin and very sparse yellow feathers. They look like dinosaur birds. Doro and I named them Steve McQueen and Maya Angelou and we love them.

it's been like a hundred years since i've posted.

2006-05-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

i exaggerate.

but two things:

my new favorite movie of all time is sherlock, jr., a buster keaton silent film from 1924. he's so genius. that movie is so awesome: it is simultaneously an homage/sendup of sherlock holmes, a metafilm, a jackie chan-esque stunt spectacular, and a laugh a minute. i'm not into freud at all, but watching that film with psychoanalyst goggles on (or even using retroactive psychoanalyst goggles) is spectacular. every window/frame in that movie is a vagina.

my new favorite poem of all time is the rime of the ancient mariner. it makes me wish laudanum would come back in fashion. i don't think i'd personally be into laudanum, but if more people were writing poetry whilst under the influence of it, poetry would be much more exciting.

more pigeon gore!?!

2006-04-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

Not really. Happy Tax Day. And happy Jesus Zombification Day Eve.

The pigeon gore, while it seems to have subsided at the mo, did inspire a poem. Which I will share with y'all.

Before that, though, I want to comment on Tuesday's game night. It was the first time i've ever been involved in what I would say is a serious game of charades. Charades is really fun when you have silly people and ridiculous/offensive clues! I got to act out "semiotics," which was hilarious because after it had been gotten, Matt was all, "Semiotics of what? Just semiotics? That's all?" My favorite things I saw acted out were definitely "antioxidants" and "tranny hooker."

So now the poem:

There is no way we can untangle this string

Your skin, such a thin fabric protecting the rest of the world from your gore. Some warps and wefts are snipped—it's a cut, it's a clew. What's inside, it's lurid and pulpy.

The alimentary canal, a hollow string your body trucks through life. A string that long ago thickened, sprouted fins and limbs. Through years lengthened, curved back on itself. Furlongs of entrails packed in fantastic unknot.

What's outside, all those strings springing from your head. That tweedy jacket. Your fingers, frayed ends. My fingers, frayed ends.

warning: blasphemy and existential crises ahead.

2006-04-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

Jesus rose from the dead. Zombies are the living dead. Ergo, Jesus is a zombie. Also, next Sunday marks Jesus Zombification Day. And to assess the correct way to spell zombification, I set up a googlefight between zombification and zombiefication. You can ascertain the results yourself.

How to celebrate? I want to bake a cake and frost it so say "JESUS DON'T EAT OUR BRAINS." Other ideas?

In continuing pigeon gore news, Geri and walked by a disembodied pigeon leg yesterday in the mission. It was extremely not gory though. I think it may have caused Geri some sort of existential crisis. Disembodied pigeon legs can do that. I think there's a section in Sartre's Being and Nothingness to that effect.

insulted!

2006-04-07T00:15:00.000-07:00

So I was searching on Amazon for the aforementioned book called "The Fishing Rod" and I found out that somehow I totally made that title up and it's actually "Men Are Like Fish." Which is way worse. Like misandrony. If that's a word. Which it is. 'Cause I just typed it. My thoughts on fishing being America's #1 analogy for love still stand.

Thing of today #1: As I was leaving work, there was a totally mutilated pigeon I had to walk through to leave. Feathers and gore everywhere. Don't know how it happened. Then it got me thinking that we're all just made of gore and our skin is this very thin membrane protecting the world from our gore. Ick.

Thing of today #2: Noah and I were talking about the bible, and whether or not dinosaurs were in it. We got to behemoths and leviathans. There's a website that's a searchable bible (I'm too lazy to find the link to so I'll just direct you to www.fuckinggoogleit.com instead) and it defines leviathan as "possibly a crocodile." Possibly a crocodile? Least defined definition ever! Loves it!

bingo is her name-o

2006-04-06T15:22:00.000-07:00

Couple of things from my ever so brief foray back to the East Coast to visit the grandparents.

Binghamton is, like many places in America--including Historic Ticonderoga, my hometown--a town that has Home Depots and Targets and whatnot on the outskirts and a crumbling, derelict, boarded up old-timey downtown district. You can't drive through that part of town without shaking a fist and yelling "Wal*Mart!!!!" Anyway, driving past the giant abandoned shoe factory that used to support the area (along with IBM), my grandmother points at a set of broken windows and says "that was the office I worked in." And it wasn't really wistful or nostalgic or in any way sentimental as far as I can tell, but I have to imagine what that must feel like, how old/mortal it must make you feel to literally see your former workplace decay.

The next day, my parents came to visit and we drove by my mom's elementary school on our way to lunch. She pointed to a classroom and said, "That's where I was when I found out Kennedy was shot." My mother is her mother's daughter.

On a lighter note. Or something. The woman sitting next to me on the plane was reading a book called the Fishing Rod, and I couldn't help but notice (all right, I was being nosy) that the big text on the back said: America's #1 metaphor for love!

OK.

Thing #1: I'm aware of the fishing metaphors there are regarding relationships: more fish in the sea, good catch, etc.

Thing #2: I have nothing against fishing. It was a favorite pastime of mine as a white trash youth and it's a lot less morally reprehensible than fish farming, IMHO. You may think that makes me a hypocritical vegetarian and I'm OK with that. I'm keeping it real.

Those things said: Could there be a worse metaphor for love than fishing? You dupe some unsuspecting, unintelligent creature into thinking you're providing it sustinence, when really you're providing it with something POINTY. Then you mangle it and drag it from its environment, kill it, and eat it. Alternatively you can just torture it for a while, decide it's too small, and return it to its home. WTF? Is this love!?!

I think I need to go to a bookstore and actually look at this book. From what I could gather without being too obnoxious, there's lots of charts and bullet points and stuff.

ugly scene

2006-04-01T22:41:00.000-08:00

You know how when you watch news footage of riots, you see people rocking a car over until it flips? I felt like I was moments away from that this morning, when after more than a half hour had elapsed at the busstop, the third bus to pass without accepting passengers got dangerously close to the mob wanting to get on that bus.

public transit. always an adventure.

Mmmmm, dessert island

2006-03-30T16:09:00.000-08:00

I mean desert island.

So I decided I'd try my hand at doing the twenty desert island albums. So these are, in alphabetical order, the albums that I would take with me if I had to leave right now (I suppose iPods render all this unnecessary, but whatevs, it's hypothetical). I'm going to try to remember to do this again in a year without looking at this list, and see what stays and what goes.

Chet Baker, My Funny Valentine
Beach Boys, Pet Sounds
The Beatles, Revolver
Belle & Sebastian, Tigermilk
Björk, Post
Blur, Parklife
Jeff Buckley, Grace
Depeche Mode, Violator
The Magnetic Fields, 69 Love Songs
Steve Miller Band, Greatest Hits '74-'78
Múm, Finally We Are No One
Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Joanna Newsom, The Milk-Eyed Mender
Pet Shop Boys, Introspective
The Pixies, Doolittle
Pulp, Different Class
Radiohead, OK Computer
REM, Automatic for the People
Simon & Garfunkel, Greatest Hits
Velvet Underground, Velvet Underground

Looking at them after I've typed them out, I realize what I privileged: the eclectic--69 love songs, parklife, revolver, etc., coherently sad albums--pet sounds, automatic for the people, in the aeroplane over the sea, grace, OK computer, etc., and those-albums-I-can't-live-without-for-some-reason-or-another-so-don't-judge-me.

So this was a fun and interesting process, to guess what you'll never get sick of. Considering Introspective has never left rotation since its 1988 release (and yes I was listening to it in 1988[!!!]), Violator since 1990, and Automatic for the People since 1992, those definitely have the staying power they need for those long sunny days under swaying palm trees. I took some risks on some newbies, so we'll see how they fare.

I'd like to see other people's lists, because I somehow think this list gives a little insight to my headspace (I'm so not kidding about the Steve Miller Band, for example). Post them as a reply to my post?

song of the day

2006-03-22T07:43:00.000-08:00

Even though I went to see Belle and Sebastian last night, the song of the day is not one of theirs. It is a song written by one of my students from New York:

Allergies!
You make me sick
and I wanna punch
you in the neck
and if you had a neck
to punch you in I would
knock
you
out.

Those sentiments are ringing true for me today. She had a version in Spanish too, but I didn't learn that one.

But back to Belle and Sebastian! There aren't many bands whom I would more than about twenty bucks to see; moreover there are even fewer bands whom I'd see at the SF design center, a venue much better suited to gun shows than live music. But they worked it. They sang a fabulous mix of oldies and newies, they dance spastically, they sang "Piazza, New York Catcher" (their song about wandering around SF), and in true Bruce Springsteen style, they invited a girl on the stage to dance with them for one song. What an over the top rock star move. I loved it.

random thoughts vaguely scatalogical

2006-03-13T14:02:00.000-08:00

At my job I have to share a bathroom with the museum visitors. This leads to lots of weird observations on how young boys encouter tampon machines, how mothers ask their children if they would like to dry their hands "with paper or with wind," and how mothers implore their children to use the bathroom once they drag 'em in there. Or at least "try." Was there seriously a time in my life when going to the bathroom was a chore? When did the shift happen when I got reasonable/pragmatic about such things? I wonder.

neoformalism!?

2006-03-10T08:07:00.000-08:00

A wise man named Cleary said to me yesterday that the good thing about going to readings it that it makes you want to write, and I had to say ah, yes, this is good and true, because sometimes in the face of the million billion readings I go to, I forget this. And the last reading I went to, which was at the superfantastic Club Waziema, featured a pantoum about a zombie fight by one Jacob Evans. I was quite taken with it, and so I said, hey. I could try my hand at the pantoum. Moreover, I can write it in an excel spreadsheet with formulae to fill in the lines. It was a really neat thing to see the poem getting constrainder and constraineder as I was writing it, and the last stanza writes itself! Which isn't to say I didn't backsolve for the one I wanted...but here's what I came up with. v. 1.0 anyway.

high altitude

the pretty and the pointy, simultaneous.
the slightest effort might sew in your side a stitch--
concentrating on breathing, on the fact that
deep lakes don't freeze.

the slightest effort might sew in your side a stitch
out of wispy air pulled taut.
deep lakes don't freeze;
a vaporous sailboat navigates the bay,

out of wispy air pulled taut--
i'll call it a fjord because of the scandanavian castle.
a vaporous sailboat navigates the bay
past it, sitting derelict on the sandbar.

i'll call it a fjord because of the scandanavian castle,
and you just need to get
past it, sitting derelict on the sandbar.
all the water bottles crushed themselves on the way back down.

and you just need to get
concentrating on breathing, on the fact that
all the water bottles crushed themselves on the way back down.
the pretty and the pointy, simultaneous.

go team go

2006-03-02T23:41:00.000-08:00

So I'm really glad that Malcolm Gladwell's blogging. I have a big brain crush on his New Yorker essays about ketchup and pitbulls and Ron Popeil. I also love his hair and his Canadianness. And after his announcement today that he's been interviewed on espn.com, I also love that he loves sports.

There's something intriguing to me about the intellectual man who also loves sports. I can't quite pinpoint why. There's something downright snobby about people who eschew sports altogether, as if this thing that ties practically all cultures together is somehow lowbrow. And I don't think it has to do with disliking competition--I'm an extremeley noncompetitive person and I still like sports. I think it's maybe also something that people who like sports a lot are also like people who like music and movies a lot--their brains are filled with various awesomely useless top ten lists and sundry trivia. Those are my kind of people. If you make lists and collect trivia about your passion, as long as it's not about bearbating or cockfighting or something, you're probably my kind of person.

I guess it also has to do with the fact that I like sports. Mostly in the abstract. I had some years of serious card collecting and box score reading in the late eighties/early nineties, but now I'm mostly just a general fan of a good game/match of my choice sports, which mainly include but are not limited to baseball and tennis.

So I guess the point of this is read Malcom Gladwell's blog.

probably my favorite thing i learned during my tahoe vacation

2006-02-27T14:56:00.000-08:00

It was a pretty long trip with many highlights, but one of which was definitely the news that one can make a grammatical sentence of infinite length using only the word "buffalo". Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo. Ad infinitum! If you can't parse that yourself, ask me next time you see me. And only one of those buffalo's refers to the town in Western New York (yeah, that's right--it's not "upstate", it's in Western New York. I'm going to give the multitudinous geographical regions of New York the respect they deserve, now that I'm no longer a solipsistic New Yorker. Or maybe I just want it to be known that where I'm from is not called "upstate New York" by anyone but city folk. It's called the North Country, dammit. Maybe spending 5 days in the mountains has taken the city out of me a bit....)

ana grammar

2006-02-17T23:04:00.000-08:00

i think my favorite anagrams of my names are:
mailsack joan
jack no salami

that's all.

fashion and poetry!

2006-02-15T23:33:00.000-08:00

Coco Chanel once said something like "put everything on and then take one thing off," which seems to be quite a good bit of fashion advice.

Does this work for poems as well? I think it might. I see lots of people writing past the ends of their poems.

So I'm saying it now. Write your whole poem, and then take the last thing (stanza, line, etc) off.

i don't think i was getting a big ego, but just in case...

2006-02-13T17:21:00.000-08:00

I was walking by Dog Eared Books today, and I happened to spot that in the dollar bin--the books they keep outside--a lit journal I have a poem in. Humility, thy name is bargain bin.

I had never before thought about this situation, let alone what it would feel like.

My consolation is that an Aimee Bender hardcover was also in the bin. People don't like poetry, but I guess they don't like hardcover books either.

rule number one: tell everyone about PILLOW FIGHT

2006-02-13T08:03:00.000-08:00

Rule number two: Tell everyone you know about PILLOW FIGHT!!!
3) Wait for the Ferry Building clock to strike 6:00pm
4) Don’t hit anyone with out a pillow (unless they want it)
5) Don’t hit anyone with a camera

When: 6pm on Valentine’s Day (February 14th)
Where: San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza (at Market and Embarcadero)

In case of rain, put your pillow in a plastic bag.

Having missed out on participating in a flashmob, I don't want to miss out on this.

shuffleboard

2006-01-31T17:58:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I listen to my iPod on shuffle, to feebly try to recreate the joy that happens when a DJ plays a song I love. It doesn't really work, because the DJ-as-other is really an essential part of that whole deal. Anyway, as I was coming out of BART, Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah" shuffled forth. That song is definitely in my all time top five, although I don't know where it fits. But it's different to listen to something that moves me that much while I'm in transit mode, a mode usually reserved for something groovy and/or mindless or calming. Then I was starting to think about how my experience right then was being painted by the music, and that all of a sudden my life was taking on this filmic quality and I felt detached, and then the next song that got shuffled to me was "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground. Talk about killing the moment. I'm the one who said just grab 'em in the biscuits...

(warning: this is fairly graphic) Oh Jocelyn, where are you?

2006-01-25T14:53:00.000-08:00

"Here are America's girls: on their knees." A rather shocking last line to this longass essay I just read in this month's Atlantic. It's a scattershot sort of piece that's firing at young adult lit, the current state of the Blowjob Nation, Monica Lewinsky, and hip hop, among other things. I don't doubt that there's a bit of hysteria about this "oral sex craze," but I know a few people working in public health, and I was a high school teacher, and I think the stats are there that do show a preponderance of girls casually administering fellatio to boys. It makes me miss Jocelyn Elders. While she was ousted as Surgeon General for her, in my view, extremely wise view that inviting masturbation into public dialogue might be a good thing (no one ever got pregnant/diseased from masturbation!), we instead are all about the abstinence. And subsequent shocking ignorance (Noah told me of a girl who believed she could get pregnant from oral sex because after all, she was swallowing sperm into her stomach where she's been told babies grow). And while oral sex isn't actually getting anyone pregnant and is certainly on the safer side of safer sex, I worry for the girls who are a part of the Blowjob Nation. Caitlin Flanagan, who wrote this article, put it very well: "What's most worrisome about this age of blasé blow jobs isn't what the girls might catch, it's what the girls are almost certainly missing: a healthy emotional connection to their own sexuality and their own desire."

This statement resonates because of a conversation I heard on the bus yesterday. Some kids from Marina Middle School (don't even get me started on their dead white guy edifice I have to look at while waiting for the bus: PLATO! HOMER! NEWTON! DANTE! MILTON! etc....seriously ...PASTEUR?...WAGNER?...) got on the bus and we talking ever so openly about sex, specifically cunnilingus, specifically which boys in their school would perform it. One girl offered up freely, casually in every sense of the word, like seriously she'd have had the same tone if she were reporting the boy loaned her a pen, that she knows firsthand of a boy who does it. The unanimous chorus that followed was startling. Both genders in the group found the boy disgusting for doing such a thing. As did the girl who had allegedly received the cunnilingus. From the girl's tone of voice/facial expressions/gestures (she was sitting facing me), she gave no indication that she knew the act was for her pleasure. I genuinely think she didn't know. Jocelyn Elders wouldn't have stood for that.

counterexample? please?

2006-01-21T14:09:00.001-08:00

So last night was the Colin Meloy solo show at Great American. I have a deep love for the Decemberists, and I was stoked to see what Colin does solo. His rendition of "Grace Cathedral Hill" literally choked me up, and his in between song banter definitely rivals John Darnielle's in awesomeness--Colin's comment about having the dressing room to himself, not having to share anything, and being able to rub salsa all over his body was priceless. Patrick was thinking the Mountain Goats should play with the Decemberisits and the whole thing would be awesome banter. It would be more like "Colin Meloy and John Darnielle, in Conversation" than a show. Colin also sang us part of the "worst song" he's ever written, which was called "Dracula's Daughter." And yes, it was bad. It rhymed "bad" with "dad." But what was worse was this song about him inpregnating his sweetheart. So trite and sentimental, about hwo simultaneously weird and wonderful it is to have a baby. Ugh. He acknowledged that singing a song about a baby is wrong and only Stevie Wonder can do it. So why did he do it? Why did he have to add another line to the tally of people who get stupider after they have a baby? Thankfully there are a few people I know with babies who haven't lost their cool, but I'm worried for you, Colin.

units

2006-01-19T00:24:00.000-08:00

Just finishing up Jacquard's Web, a book about the history of computers (I first typed that as computars. Sounds like something Godzilla would fight. Com-pu-taaaaar!) as they developed from the punch-card programmed weaving loom made by Jacquard. At the end of the book the author talks about how things on modern computers, namely sizes of windows and whatnot, are traceable back to the standards set by punchcards. This reminded me of Ryan telling me about how measurements on the space shuttle are traceable to horse and buggies, which determined the widths of train tracks, and the measurements propagated all the way through to spacecraft. I'm now curious to know what other standards have been set arbitrarily by now obsolete technology. There's something almost adorable about the ways we resist reinventing the wheel.

check, check it out.

2006-01-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

Five epistolary poems of mine (previously posted here) are readable online at sidebrow!

humor.

2006-01-15T21:16:00.000-08:00

you know in poland they make jokes about how dumb americans are?

but i'm also blonde, so i present to you the best blonde joke ever.

International Rubik's Cube Competition

2006-01-14T18:09:00.000-08:00

I was this close to registering. But to have to complete the cube five times in front of an audience who wants to see it beat in 11-25 seconds while I'm holding strong at about the 2-3 minute mark...the embarrassment outweighs the coolness, and I use that word in the loosest possible sense, of being able to say I competed in an international rubik's cube competition.

Anyway, it was awesome. A new world record was set (just a hair over 11 seconds), someone solved the cube blindfolded in about 2:09, there was much intensity, several cubes flew into bits during the speed solve. For all the spasticness of the people involved, when they were really in it, there was a very calm sort of focus that was nice to witness. I have great admiration for people whose brains can process all that stuff. I also have great admiration for people who don't behave like assholes when they compete. It makes me want to learn a new algorithm for solving so I can get a bit faster. But that'd be nerdy...

perpendicular? orthogonal? normal?

2006-01-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

Knitting socks is making me realize just what a strange piece of anatomy the foot is. I'm knitting a pinched-off tube with a right angle in the middle of it. I'm sure if I ever knit gloves I'm sure going sit there baffled as to why our bodies branch like that.

Sexual Perveristy in Chicago was a good play. Which I saw last night. Makes me think you can't understand the opposite gender until you stop stereotying and hating them. My favorite line was "You are trying to understand women and I am confusing you with information!" Plus the dude in the leisure suit, over the top Chicago accent (think "Da Bears!"), and pornstache was a hoot.

2006-01-09T14:35:00.000-08:00

Seems like my blog is turning into something resembling critical responses of what I watch/read/listen to, and the occasional poem. I guess that's better that sordid details of my life (Sordid I tell you!).

So this weekend's view was of Ballets Russes . Combine my nerdity for ballet with my nerdity for documentaries and you can see that the movie made me a happy camper. The movie strikes a great balance between recounting the tumultous history of ballet since the Russian Revolution and recounting the tales of crazy old ballet divas and divos. (When I taught male ballet dancers I really wanted to call them ballerinos. But that seems wrong? If any of them read this [unlikely but not impossible] what do you fellows call yourselves?)

There's something difficult to me about watching dance critically. Human bodies in extremely coordinated motion--be it sports or dance or even musical performance--are so compelling, it sometimes is difficult for me to see the larger scope and view it as a mode of communication and expression. I suspect the pathway in my brain is something like "Hello, reptile brain here....Ooh, pretty human in motion!...potential mate?....Nope?....Okay, we'll transfer this call to the smart part of your brain so you can be all analytical like you seem to enjoy so much." Some time is lost in that transaction.

Sometimes I worry that I'm actually an old lady in twenty five year old woman's body. I like going to bed fairly early. I like ballet. I like the fiber arts. At least I still like spicy food. And the youth of America don't scare me (maybe in an abstract sense?). So maybe I'm all right. Yeah, I'm all right.

fashion fashion fashion

2006-01-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

Project Runway is a great television show. It shows that reality television isn't all depraved. The people who are on that show have real aspirations and real talent. I love fashion. Ever since I grew some self esteem--that was about senior year of college, if you haven't been with me for the ride--I started to understand the joy of expressing one's self through clothing. I'm going to be a knitwear designer at some point in the near-ish future. I'm in my "learning the rules so I know how to break them phase." Can't redesign a sock until I can turn the heel.

In unrelated but exciting news: Med school, in its ridiculous hazing "sink or swim" culture, subscribes to the "see one, do one, teach one" philosophy of procedures. I am going to be the "teach one" part of that algorithm for my roommate. So far I'm learning to do surgical knots ambidextrously and one handedly. Good times. Can't wait to learn how to suture. As long as I can substitute eggplant for pig's foot.

that's some good old fashioned family racism!

2006-01-04T23:48:00.000-08:00

To quote Peter Griffin, approximately. After seeing the original King Kong tonight at the Castro (Movie Theatre of all Movie Theatres. You get an organist before the movie, and this time, a Looney Toon! Could I ask for more?) and also making a recent trip to the Musée Mecanique, I wonder what the appropriate reaction is to blatant old fashioned racism/misogyny. I think the animatronic wonders housed at the MM are precious relics of a bygone era. I also think they're offensive. And I don't just think I'm being overly sensitive/PC. In King Kong, the racism is pretty visible. The Golden Woman is preferable to the natives as an offering to Kong, and of course, Kong is fascinated by her. Peter Jackson toned it down a little, included personalities in with the physicalities. But comparing his portrayal of natives to the original's, he actually wins the offensive award in my book. But what book do I have? I'm practically a Golden Woman myself.

For some reason I'm mentally comparing these experiences to visiting Auschwitz & Birkenau. You see what the past wrought, you're horrified, you realize the gravity, you're sobered. Etc. It's a good thing to do. You watch old King Kong. You see the old Chinese guy peeling potatoes and speaking broken English. You titter. Granted, it's not as horrifying as a room full of human hair (some of which had been woven into fabric), but there's something sinister there--in King Kong, at the Musée Mecanique-- that now has the gloss of irony over it. What to do, what to do. I suppose as long as it opens the dialogue it's a good thing. I heard people walking home from King Kong at the same time as me having a critical discussion about the western beauty ideal. So that's good. Something tells me you won't hear much of that at the Musée Mecanique?

happy new year, if you're into that whole western calendar thing...

2006-01-02T21:21:00.000-08:00

New Year's resolutions are for suckers and communists, but I do like me some year end lists. I also am a fan of the kind that are just whatever the listmaker discovered in the year, not necessarily what was produced that year. in no particular order, and off the top of my head, so surely i'm forgetting things. Now begins the listfulness.

some movies (you can see i spent the year catching up on some things i really ought to have seen by now):
IT
me and you and everyone we know
in the realms of the unreal
some errol morris: gates of heaven, thin blue line, fast cheap and out of control
capote
some wong kar wai: 2046, in the mood for love, chungking express
some hitchcock: vertigo, north by northwest
some oldies but goodies: lawrence of arabia, casablanca, sunset boulevard
grizzly man
pride & prejudice
wallace & gromit
march of the penguins
others i'm sure i'm leaving out. it was a good year for me and film, despite the general state of box office woes.

some books/authors/poets:
elizabeth bishop
theresa hak kyung cha
great gatsby (a reread)
master & margarita
calvino: invisible cities and if on a winter's night a traveler
geraldine kim (!)
sarah gridley
huck finn (a reread)
derek kirk kim
pushkin
le ton bot de marot
aimee bender
deborah meadows
the knot book
pride & prejudice (yes, yes, after the movie)
understanding comics

records/bands/"recording artists"/shows (not a good year for music for me due to tragic harddrive & financial woes. 2k6 is sure to be better.):
magnetic fields (getting more into their old stuff)
sufjan stevens (that song about john waybe gacey is perhaps my song of the year)
joanna newsome
decemberists
final fantasy
fucking ocean (!)
the mall
mountain goats
village green preservation society
shostakovich
dolly parton
fiery furnaces
the lovemakers

some theater (theatre if you wanna play it that way):
the goat
the overcoat
donning cheadle (!)

some magazines/journals:
fourteen hills (duh)
jubilat
five fingers review
new issues of found
knitknit
fiber arts
interweave
new yorker (my own subsciption now!)

some websites i like looking at a lot:
boingboing
spamusement
homestar runner
memepool
fark
slate
salon
onion
straight dope
found magazine online

some addictions:
knitting
crocheting
new york times crossword puzzles
thinking about the most efficient route (it's how i know i'm a new yorker at heart)

thank you, aimee bender.

2005-12-14T23:19:00.000-08:00

So everyone knows I'm obsessed with knitting and crocheting, and have been for a really long time. My skill level is getting such that I can do some good work, and I'm reading some things that are showing me that soon, with enough patience, I'll be able to design as well. Plus I've been thinking more about the fiber arts conceptually and as high art, wishing I could take a textiles course next semester. Moreover I've been reading the Best American Nonrequired Reading, which is rife with stories sadly uninteresting in their "I'm going to write a very predictably structured story but make it a little quirky or put some drugs in it and that'll make it different"-ness plus the really quite embarassingly awful introduction by Beck, who tries to make himself out to have grown up in a developing nation with no books. Beck, I'm pretty sure you're from LA. Seriously. So, despite my slight distaste for this book, and my growing distaste for a certain Mr. Eggers (despite my admiration for what he's done for books-as-objects), I couldn't help but be moved by this passage from an Aimee Bender story included in the collection:

"During the descent, she gave the doily to the man across the aisle, worried about his ailing son, and the needlework was so elegant it made him feel better just holding it. That's the thing with handmade items. They still have the person's mark on them, and when you hold them, you feel less alone. This is why everyone who eats a Whopper leaves a little more depressed than when they came in. Nobody cooked that burger."

And oh, how my heart sailed at how she'd captured what it is I love so much about craft. People may laugh at my proclivity for rescuing handmade things from thrift stores, but they're documents. The crocheted skirts and handmade sweaters that I've managed to find the past few months literally document the movement of a woman's (I presume) hands translated through fiber into fabric. That to me is almost magic. Stacy Doris believes writing is a manual act, and I'm just coming to see just how alike these two things I'm compelled to do are.

the "war on christmas"

2005-12-11T18:56:00.000-08:00

it's actually quite true. and not just among the liberal pinko commie wackos out here on the west cost. between bums asking for money and cracked-out ladies yelling at the bus drivers, it seems nearly everyone's switced to "happy holidays." almost secular. rockin.

write what you know.

2005-12-11T18:54:00.000-08:00

at the fungus fair

mycologists abound, eating potato chips except shiitake. symbiotic relationships they took a lichen to each other. smell of burnt sugar except lactarius. metabolizing insects from the inside out that's bizarre. so many woodchips has the forest been displaced? texture of beefsteak except extremely rare specimen only six per year. this is focus this is zoom. rorschach except spore prints. don't eat the amanita seriously don't do it.

turkey day

2005-11-23T22:17:00.000-08:00

Don't do it.

Instead.

harry potter, of course

2005-11-22T14:12:00.000-08:00

From the New York Times review of the Goblet of Fire, talking about Ralph Fiennes: His Voldemort may be the greatest screen performance ever delivered without the benefit of a nose...

errol morris & kermit the frog, here

2005-11-19T20:03:00.000-08:00

I watched Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control this morning, and I am reconvinced of what a genius Errol Morris is. If you don't know who he is, IMDB him (is IMDB a verb yet? can we speed that process along?) and rent all those movies--although I can make no claims for the thin, blue line or a brief history of time.

Why he's a genius:

A constructivist documentarian! I don't know of any others, really. Or it's not so clear to me. Without voiceover the viewer is forced to construct the theme/argument/message/point of the whole shebang. With such amazing subjects as a lion tamer, topiary gardener, naked mole-rat expert, and roboticist, there's a lot of thinking to be done about theme/argument/message/point.

And, he's got an amazing knack for when he does dissociate audio from video, pairing that audio with subtly relevant imagery.

It's the subtlety really. The subtlety of a constructivist approach, the subtlety of his editing choices. So great.

Another movie I rewatched for the squillionth time this weekend was Labyrinth, which I've previously blogged about in relation to my amazing crush on David Bowie early in life. If you rent/own the DVD of this film, the documentary on the making of the film is so worth watching. You'll gain a whole new love for puppets if you don't love them already. You may miss the craft involved in moviemaking pre-CGI. You also may not be able to get over the fact that when Jim Henson talks, all you'll be able to hear is Kermit.

thinking

2005-11-13T23:22:00.000-08:00

Some reading of late has been Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. It's an interesting book for many reasons, one of which is that it's basically a defense of comics as a legitimate art form. It's clear that people are starting to take the medium seriously as Chris Ware is serialized in the Times now, Art Spiegelman won a Pulitzer (albeit a while ago). It's right up there with humorous first-person essay and genre fiction for things that are either trendy or gaining legitimacy (only time will tell?). His definiton of art intrigues me: what what does that isn't directly related to survival or procreation. To wit, what cavemen did to fill the day when they weren't hunting/gathering/fucking. Add evolution, result is art. Don't know if I agree. Can you call the guy who picks up a guitar to get chicks an artist? What if he makes a great record? What about people who make their living making art? Where does craft fit in? Slippery indeed.

He's also got some stuff about abstracting faces from photorealistic to iconographic and how that shifts the reader's mentality from subjectivity to objectivity. Plus what abstraction of image does, plus where text fits into this pyramid schematic he's drawn.

Moreover, he's developed the stages to complete a comic book, and it's ridiculously easy to generalize them to any other artform. He's developed it so succinctly that it's easy to see where the avant-garde fits in, where the traditionalist fits in, among other entry points into art.

So yeah, really good stuff. I could say lots more.

So Tuesday I'm doing a reading of my very good friend Geraldine's play Iceland. She's really onto something with her playwrighting. Would that I could say I'm onto something these days.

Reasons why I like October

2005-10-16T22:21:00.000-07:00

Number one:

Number two:

Yes, this was my birthday weekend. To those who were around this weekend, a hearty thanks for making me, cheesy as it sounds, feel very special. Last year, not ready to admit that I live here, I bailed on California for my birthday weekend and did the NYC thing. This year, on a scale of good to awesome, was super-great, to quote my jack o'lantern.

H-ween...

2005-10-14T15:10:00.000-07:00

is fast approaching. Perhaps my favorite holiday, because it centers around fun and candy. I've officially decided on my costume for this year. It's both slightly gory (in a cute way) and bizarre, so that makes it a really idea costume. I'ma be:
one of these. But it's gonna be crafty. Like "My L'il Homemade Anatomy Torso". Made of felt and lace and yarn. Mosty because of
this. In any case, I'm on the lookout for someone with bitchin makeup skills. Because I really want the half peeled-off face look. It's really key. Otherwise I may just have to do the "My other costume is a slutty _______." t-shirt.

In January I had a dream that I was Mr. Peanut for Halloween. I entertained that idea for a while, but I realized fairly quickly that it's total bullshit to follow your dreams. Honestly, who does that? Then, after seeing Ghostbusters in 70mm glory, I wanted to be Stay-Puft. But then I realized, yuck, cumbersome. Although with all the frotting that goes on in the Castro during the 'Ween madness, I suppose it couldn't hurt to have a buffer zone.

re: dolly

2005-10-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

Sparkly turquoise dress. Matching guitar. Worst. Sound system. Ever.

At least I heard approximately thirty seconds of "Jolene." And the entirety of "Nine to Five."

And her joke about her family being horny hillbillies. Yes.

My evening: watching the third Harry Potter movie on cable and crocheting a hyperbolic surface. I need an intervention?

I have a date with destiny...

2005-10-02T14:52:00.000-07:00

...and by destiny I mean Dolly Parton. This should be good.

malia "no poker face" jackson

2005-09-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

On my walk hom from work, I ran into one of the younger guys I work with. He was all hidden away on a bench with some girl in his arms, and she was holding a bouquet of flowers. This is the same guy who came to work in the spring with the biggest hickey I have ever seen in my life, which he said he was hiding from his girlfriend because she didn't give him said hickey. So I was happy to see him being all mushy. Then I get stopped by these dudes taking a survey because, according to one "I looked very happy as I was walking towards them." They asked me what I thought life's purpose was, among other idiotic queries. Damn me and my lack of a poker face.

Getting off BART, I ran into that guy. The one who sells his hideous bored in study hall-esque ballpoint pen art and allegedly has a nine year old daughter named Ashley for whom he's begging. I've never seen Ashley, but I've certainly seen his nasty ass begging/skateboarding around the neighborhood at all hours of the day. This dude makes me seriously mad, because in the words of the immortal Holden Caufield, he's a phony. Today he was asking for aspirin or Advil. Honestly I had neither and he got all uppity with me when I told him sorry. As I kept walking, I was still stewing about this dude. Must have had a sour look on my face, because this vaguely crazy dirty oldish guy who was walking towards me starting doing a little shuffly dance on the sidewalk and said to me, "What's up? You all right, baby?" To which I replied "Yup" and kept walking. To which he replied, "All right, my love." Which, for some reason, made me smile again.

ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2005-08-31T23:47:00.000-07:00

Thinking about a couple of conversations I've had in recent and not-so-recent times about at what point in childhood we sort of acknowledge our own sexuality, and how that comes about. The interesting question to ask is what pop culture figures have been formative in that realization. Then the more interesting thing is to extrapolate to how that figure has or hasn't affected our current proclivities. The first person I can really remember being attracted to was David Bowie in his role as Jareth in Labyrinth. Is this why the thought of boys in eyeliner is so appealing to me now?

saddest/best conversation ever...

2005-08-11T18:17:00.000-07:00

...with an 8-ish-year-old boy named Alejandro.

Alejandro: If you could only pick one, what would be your favorite animal?
Malia: Hmmmm...Armadillo.
Alejandro: I have a really hard time picking between monkeys and snakes.
Malia: I think I like monkeys better than snakes.
Alejandro: But snakes. They're so long, and the way they move...
Malia: Do you have a pet snake?
Alejandro: No. I wish you could train a snake.
Malia: Yeah. That'd be pretty cool, if you could have a snake that could do tricks and stuff.
Alejandro: No, that's not what I mean. Like if you loved it, and cared for it...that it could love you back...I don't think a snake could ever love you back...

What can you say to that?

an addendum to previous post

2005-08-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

For those who didn't think Harry Potter was worthy of lit snobbery, I say aha! A lit snob parody! NB: this website is basically a huge spoiler for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. This website.

kid lit + old movies = regressing and becoming a fuddy duddy at the same time...

2005-08-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

So as I suppose many people do, I go through noticeable phases with my culture preferences. Right now it seems I'm on a kick to see old movies and to read kid's books. The kid lit kick is a little easier to suss out: it's Harry Potter what done it. As I think might be the case with many a lit snob, I was introduced to HP as travel reading. While of course the common criticisms are that her universe isn't terribly original and her prose isn't terribly skillfully written, somehow neither of those detracts from the fact the the books are still really good. Engaging, charming, and in the case of the latest installment, moving. Yikes. I attest, however, that I did not attend any midnight gala to procure the most recent book. So I'm officially "not overboard." I am, however, unreasonably excited that they've cast Jarvis Cocker as the lead singer of the Weird Sisters in the next Harry Potter movie that's due in November.Unreasonably excited.

The kid lit kick has branched out a bit. Just finished an old favorite, The Phantom Tollbooth, which I submit is best enjoyed when read aloud with funny voices. The next kid lit pick is Howl's Moving Castle, the novel on which the recent Miyazaki film was based. And of course, having seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory may inspire me to reread some Dahl. It's not so bad, right?

The old movie thing is a bit harder to pin down. Perhaps it's because I've rented most of the documentaries at Faye's. Perhaps (read: Certainly) I'm a person who's drawn in by lists and I feel the need to see some of these Great Movies of the Film Canon. So in the past couple of months I've seen (all for the first time) Casablanca, Sunset Blvd, North by Northwest, Singin' in the Rain, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Lawrence of Arabia, and of course, the silent film IT, which has its place among Most Enjoyable Cinematic Experiences of All Time. Frankly there's a reason these type of films show up on everyone's list. A little trepidatious at the prospect of seeing a 3.5 hour long war movie (Lawrence of Arabia), how surprised was I to find that the main character was both hilarious and totally fey. How genius is that? A little dismayed that the only female parts in the whole film were the completely robed women ululating from the hills, but we'll save a post about film and the patriarchy for another day...

not too shabby

2005-07-26T10:33:00.000-07:00

Looks like I should vary my routes when driving across the country if I ever want to hit those guys in the middle. And seems like I'm doing a pretty good job avoiding Kentucky:

create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

the good life

2005-07-22T23:33:00.000-07:00

yesterday:
white chocolate martini
thursday nyt crossword
looking at a tank chock full o' penguins

simultaneously!

letters from my road trip

2005-07-03T18:41:00.000-07:00

Weeping T———,

There is an entire lot of them. Erstwhile shiny cars, and formerly functional too. Now cinderblocked, rustpocked. And attended by half a dozen llamas blinking stupidly. If rustic poverty is scenic, then yes, it’s scenic.

In a state of arrested decay,
M———

Penitent T———,

When carbonates precipitate out of solution, they can form petrified springs. Perhaps mineralized coils. In the briny lake you’ll float high enough to read my résumé. This is Atlantis in dry dock.

Wishing you’d told me that before we got off the boat,
M———

Stenciled T———,

It happens when the outside cools but the inside still flows hotly. It could turn out ropy or hard on the feet. We can climb the cinder cone; it has more integrity than snow.

Counting the lava flows,
M———

Umbilical T———,

Animals are dichotomized into the ones you can shoot and the ones you can sell. That could be a marmot. The rivers are all running abnormally high, and the moribund horse festoons the town with its grim iconography.

Swatting salmon,
M———

Unshowered T———,

Step into the mirrored machine: a baffle of neon and whistles. Just touch me if you want to double down. The curtains are rotting, but the arches are making progress. You could either calculate or inquire into all the outcomes and elevations.

Crossing the Great Divide,
M———

Fringed T———,

In grizzly country your car is the cage. The glacier’s apotheosis was sadly apocryphal. Cottony blooms hung heavy with rain. An atheist can witness the earth breathe and still be assured it’s purely geologic.

With yesterday’s panties in today’s pocket,
M———

Camouflaged T———,

Roadside turquoise is scarce on a Sunday. The fossil beds are always inaccessible among the brambles and the insects. Intersecting the highway hypotenuse are the wheel ruts of the Oregon Trail. How to dismantle a rattler?

Comparing the swelling to fruit,
M———

Border Town T———,

There’s a dust devil at this intersection. the railroad ties are stacked as high as the hawk’s nest. Bullet holes in the road signs flout gun laws. Right now I want us to be able to walk on snowbanks without falling through.

Driving through Death Valley with the heat on,
M———

who doesn't want to read a blog post about gender? ok, how bout one about mullets?

2005-05-20T23:06:00.000-07:00

In writing my paper about Elizabeth Bishop's uniquely gendered characters in her book North & South (man-mirror and man-moth), I've become aware of gender in a new way. Then I saw the doc film American Mullet, and I have a whole new appreciation for the haircut that is the butt of so many jokes. But it's perhaps the only truly genderless haircut. And it's never been appropriated by the mainstream, and likely never will be, which keeps it vital in the cultures that have embraced it--working class America, Latino Americans, Native Americans, lesbians, etc. There's something admirable in a haircut that both rebuffs and toys with the "professional" aesthetic.

Speaking of said aesthetic, I once had a job interview at a business establishment that had a strict dress code--lists of acceptable fabrics, no more than two earrings per ear, no unnatural haircolors, no visibly distracting tattoos, etc--and surprisingly enough, despite my overage on ear holes and my penchant for corduroy (unacceptable fabric for women), they offered me the job anyway. And I turned it down, because I have principles dammit.

Moral of the story: if you want to grow a mullet (or insert any personal style/aesthetic choice here), rock it.

a man, a plan, a canal: panama

2005-05-07T09:31:00.000-07:00

I went to see the most recent Todd Solondz movie last night, Palindromes. I was prepared to feel intensely uncomfortable for approximately 90 minutes, and I was not disappointed. The film raises a lot of questions about why people have children, what it means to be moral, and what identity even means. And it's really effing funny.

This morning I read some of the reviews for it, and was rather surprised to find that the majority of the reviews were very negative. "Misanthrope" was the term thrown around a lot, a film with no happy moments to hang onto, etc. Do I have some smug sense of superiority (rhetorical question!), or are these people just not getting it? Is there something wrong with creating art that intentionally makes people uneasy? Does creating an uncomfortable reality = bad filmmaking? The nature of film is often to exaggerate reality: exaggerated happiness (see: romantic comedies), exaggerated violence (see: quentin tarantino). Why's exaggerated awkwardness getting the bad rap?

So I wholeheartedly endorse the film. Moreover, I wholeheartedly endorse the Castro Theatre. I saw a total of three films there this week (Palindromes and the double feature of the Kill Bill films). They've got grandeur, they've got an organist, they've got nutritional yeast for the popcorn. Amen.

another fun game

2005-04-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

After reading Laura Walker's Swarm Lure, I thought it might be fun to run a poem of mine through some online translation programs to see what comes out. So here's part one of the Nopar King, having gone from English to Spanish to French to German back to English. All I have to say is that I will never be able to come up with a phrase as beautiful as "careful milkshakes."

The king de Nopar

effectuation completely well feraille on the abysses and swallows switchbacks. The gebirgige number of its larger kingdom of two living whales. Two living whales. The high attempts from fear to grass or perhaps of Ehrerbietung to the king, which can be jumped, but the roots do not have a taste of the taste of air thus from it the fair wind - careful milkshakes. It never opinion. If outside really windy sand mouthwards remolinara and it would take a taste of the dirtyness. Much, in order to make that a body reminds on. Mined they of trepid come out from the pieces of the refuge of the irrigation mouths and the crates. That do not accomplish, is it, as, which is blue the king is queen of without. It compensates. Sigh tiny lachrymose. By combing to its name completely redly on its Dominion.

a fun game

2005-04-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

Who wrote the tercet: Elizabeth Bishop, or the Beastie Boys?

Question number 1:

From the Hudson River out to the Nile
I run the marathon til the very last mile
If you battle me I will revile

Question number 2:

Making sallies
from all the muddy allies
marking out maps like Rand McNally's

the pope died the other day

2005-04-12T21:49:00.000-07:00

Funny how that one worked out. Anywho, the big news of the day is this: this! Having a poem here makes me happy. Here's part two of the Nopar King series. Is it a series? This is part two anyway:

The shadowbox with its Mondrian orthogonals elevated bric-a-brac and ambered test tubes. What too many chemicals will do to transparency. The king steps on his shadow and boxes its ears. Test tubes holding x mL of dusty air remind him of progress. To be progressive. To wax paper your losses and tie a string around them. Wishing to close all the open parentheses in the kingdom. Hanging his crown from all hooks the lowercase alphabet provides.

jesus rose from the dead the other day

2005-03-29T15:27:00.000-08:00

and I think that deserves a new poem:

The Nopar King

hauls any kind junk up the precipices and down the switchbacks. The mountainous numeral of his kingdom, bigger than two
living whales. Two living whales. The tall grass tries to jump out of fear of or maybe reverence to the king, but roots don’t
like the taste of air so it just looks wind-whipped. He never notices. If it were actually windy grit would swirl mouthwards
and he’d catch a taste of dirt. Enough to make a body remember. The trepid minions quarry chunks of refuge from hydrants
and mailboxes. What they don’t realize is how blue the king is sans queen. He compensates. Tiny lachrymose sighs.
Painting his name redly all over his dominion.

I like how the lines broke in my blogger window...
Hoping it breaks that way for you, too.

New tattoo. It's a big one. Don't tell mom.

mountainous numeral

2005-03-17T17:19:00.001-08:00

I love spam subject lines.

In trying to list all the presidents, these are the ones I forgot:

Chester Arthur
Dwight Eisenhower (to my credit, I was all, "Who was the president in the fifties? God! Why can't I think of his name?" F'real.)
William Harding
William Henry Harrison
Benjamin Harrison (really didn't think much of those Harrisons evidently)
Rutherford B. Hayes
John Tyler
Zachary Taylor
James Monroe

I also love the names of the people my spams come from. I really want there to be a President Terminus Geiger.

happy pi day

2005-03-14T11:35:00.000-08:00

(to the tune of holland 1945 by neutral milk hotel)

there is a mystery to me
in every circle that i see
a mystery that can be found
if you just take the distance 'round
and put it over distance 'cross
divide to get the ratio
the answer leaves me at a loss

the number that we see is pi
three point one four one five nine
and even more if i had time
my decimal that never dies

and now we must look through history
people wondered what this pi could be
even the bible guesses three
not close enough for me

archimedes had a guess
twenty-two sevenths was his best
and don't forget ancient chinese
with three five five over one thirteen
these numbers didn't quite align
and now we know with all our might
a fraction never could be right

the number that i love is pi
three point one four one five nine
and even more if i had time
my decimal that never dies

and here is the number pi
three point one four one five nine two six five
three five eight nine seven nine
three two three eight two six four six two three

and i'm so glad to see
the world agree
pi's as irrational as can be
let's sing the praises of my favorite number
pi

I'm more of a "leg dancer" than an "arm dancer"

2005-03-07T15:00:00.000-08:00

This weekend was my initiation to the monthly dance event New Wave City. How I love to dance. How I'll just keep dancing if the music is good. How I did that this weekend. I can't remember the last time I danced with such abandon and stamina. Dang.

I also learned from some kind people at KQED this weekend how to use iMovie to make a short film using just still photos, an audio track extracted from a video recording and iTunes. It's ludicrously easy. A few months back I saw the film Tarnation, which was made entirely in iMovie and I was all dang, what a feat. Now I'm all, if you've got the patience and the periferals, you too can be a filmmaker. Apple is putting really powerful arts tools into the hands of the masses, and by masses I mean those who can afford new computers, but in any case I think it's a good thing. Of course it allows for a glut of crap, but what are you gonna do.

Currently writing a paper about gestalt and Marianne Moore. Mostly I just like to use the word gestalt.

i'm still a sorry saint

2005-02-27T22:37:00.000-08:00

First big news is Malia getting a poem in Shampoo Poetry #23. I'm tickled.

Next big news is the Henry Darger documentary, In the Realms of the Unreal. If you can see it, see it. I am always saying how much I like documentaries that leave me feeling conflicted, and this one did not disappoint. Calls into question what is art, what is mental illness, what is genius, what is creepy. Plus, considering the fact that there are only three photos of the guy and virtually no sources for moving images with which to make a film, the animation that was created from his art was brilliant. Gah. Spectacularly creepy in the best possible way.

The Lovemakers are a really good band because they sound kind of Duran Duran-ish, actually inspire dancing among the hipsters, and the two singers make out onstage during the show and I don't care if it is a shtick it's hot.

This weekend was a bacchanal. I don't know what that was about, but my body seemed surprisingly ok with it.

Dance Dance Revolution: if I had it in my house I'd do nothing else but dance. End of story.

i'll let you be my chaperone at the halfway home

2005-02-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

This week marked the momentous occasion of my first ever reading as a featured reader. I was extremely psyched at the opportunity and honored to read at SFSU's Poetry Center, where countless illustrious poets have thrown down. I read a big chunk of Thomas, which is growing by the day. Er, week. I'm pretty busy.

So for all egoists out there who have already self-googled, there's another fun web activity awaiting you. Look up your birthday on Wikipedia. See all the events and people with whom you are connected in this truly meaningful way. What killed me are the people with whom I share a birthday: Virgil, Nietzsche, P.G. Wodehouse, Mario Puzo, Italo Calvino, Michel Foucault, Lee Iacocca, and Todd Solondz (who was told personally by one of my students in New York that I have a crush on him). Mata Hari, Dutch exotic dancer and spy, died on my birthday. That's quite the arbitrary family I'm in.

Reminds me of that artificial family that was set up in a Kurt Vonnegut novel (Slapstick?) in which you were assigned family randomly with a word and a number as your middle name, but if you didn't like your family you could tell them "Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooon?"

A thought after seeing Interpol this week: Indie rock is becoming the new genre to which teenage girls' ears are bending. They are showing up at concert with posters. WTF?

Some Thomas for you:

*

the eagle’s jerky movements gave rise to suspicion. fishing line is undetectable in the film’s grain. animatronic eagle laden with codes and ciphers. its foamrubber head a palimpsest of secret flesh. unnaturally white. cryptology cryptographer raptor. we will learn all its secrets and then send out faxes. i will sing its wire armature, its delicate and convincing synthetic plumage. so downy at the base and nearly weightless, even a handful. i’ll just tuck one in my pocket for safekeeping and xerox the rest.

*