[kenichi hoshine]+
insomnia poem #6
still listen to uh huh her like they're a a real band
do the leisha dance like it's
a real dance
the easiest dance i've
ever done.
And so it's done, it does, we do
I don't know what to make of you.
Lately I've been compelled to rhyme
maybe I just need structure.
Or thyme/time
which we lost when the power went out again
for an hour
I lay on the bed in heat
imagining what my corpse would look like
and I moved my arms this way
draped fingertips on forearm
my head an inconsequential volley
an accesory
like a hat on a eulogy
here she lied: she was wet with said and sweat
she meant what she said and she has one question:
"did you think the photo of the monkey waving was funny? 'cause I stll do."
tell me what to do and maybe i can fix it
say so
quote: ""Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry." (J.D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye)
links:
1. A former Harvard teacher makes another compelling case against his former students: -- "the sedulous banality of the rich degrades teaching into a service-class preoccupation whose chief duty is preparing clients for monied careers": All the Privileged Must Have Prizes (@times higher education uk)
2. Rachel Shukert, who I love ... also HATES SUMMER! This essay is hilarious, I'm resisting the urge to quote it on the hope that you'll read it. (@salon.com)
3. Someone please read this and tell me if you didn't feel there was something really mediocre happening with the writer -- like structurally, grammatically, something? I mean, I wanted to read this great article about The New Yorker and then I got ... befuddled. Am I retarded? Lunch with David Remnick (@the financial times)
4. Submit questions for Haruki Marakami (author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (great book!) and Norweigan Wood. (@time)
5. Wouldn't it be funny if the character they're using for the spinoff was someone who'd totally irritate everyone? Like Kit or Max? They should put Haviland in it that will save the show. The L Word Will Continue Online and in a Possible Spin-off (@afterellen)
6. It's The Atlantic's Fiction Issue! (@usa today) (jk, at the atlantic obvs)
7. Sometimes I can't help but love the fuck out of Jezebel: Recession Drives Women To Leave Their Jobs, Examine The Dopeness And Wackness Of Life (@jezebel)
8. Poetry: Summer Evening by the Window with Psalms: "How my soul yearns within me like those souls / in the nineteenth century before the great wars, like curtains that want to pull free / of the open window and fly." (@thenewyorker)
9. It is SO not UMBRELLA: "If Katy Petty's 'I Kissed a Girl' Is the Song of the Summer, Vulture Will Move to Canada" (@nymag.com)
10. "The president has used 'awesome' to describe everything from dead soldiers to the pope. How did a slang word trickle up to the highest office in the land?": George W.Bush: AWESOME! (@salon.com)
31 comments:
Whatsherface played I Kissed a Girl on SYTYCD a week or two ago (sup. yeah I watch it. what?). I was very confused. I heard the music, and the lyrics (with the exception of the cherry chapstick...dub tee eff), and I expected Courtney Love's voice to come out and for her to swagger at the microphone.
Instead she pranced and sounded like a 12-year-old who doesn't shop at Hot Topic because it's 'too goth'; in short: a suburban twat.
But srsly...how good would that song be if someone with a spine and a sneer was doing it, yeah?
I agree with Adam. (I also love that he watches So You Think You Can Dance - my fave show ever.)
The public's general opinion of music never fails to make my head explode. I hate that song for real, probs cause its just so cheap/fake.
Umm your L Word afterellen link isn't working? Please fix, and bake me a pie too.
Also, I'd like to request some auto-fun/daily commandments from Susan Powter. I miss her.
Well, now I don't feel like a complete weirdo. You're not missing out. It was back in March sometime, I think, and generally amounted to a lot of, "I'm new here, this blog is amazing. It is helping me cope with [insert an annoying amount of life history/current quarter-life crises details here]," with a lot of rambling along the way. I think I sent it to the gmail account? Don't even remember now, and knowing me, probs got the address wrong, and now some other MLB knows some choice tidbits about me. It was really one of those things where after I sent it I thought, "I'm going to look back at this e-mail someday and think it was the lamest thing ever," ...and someday turned into about 0.2 seconds.
So, it took me a minute (a minute after I wrote the e-mail to you) to get the lay of the land/general way things work in the blogosphere. Prior to that realization, I completely fell victim to thinking, "wow- she's writing directly to memememe" (which is the sign of some type of mental illness, when you think people on the radio or tv or the interwebs are speaking directly to YOU, right? Schizophrenia, maybe?). Well, not really, and not that I'm making light of mental illness (trust me), just trying to convey that it took me a sec to realize that you probs receive a lot of mail similar to the one that I sent (or didn't, or sent incorrectly- I believe you bc I'm a spaz).
Clearly, you don't have to be a writer, or 26, or a female, or a gay, to identify with a lot of what is written here (even though I score a 3/4 there). That being said, not being a writer or artist myself, yet generally drawn to people who are, I thought about why I was compelled to send you an e-mail (upshot: I like to tell people when they've made an impact in my life. I think it is just, well, a nice thing to do). I also came to a lot of the conclusions that were brought up in comments yesterday re: writers/readers/commenters/the RW vs. virtual world. In short- still here, still commenting. (I also think I've reached my comment length quota for a while, and will try to reign it in for the time being).
But- SYTYCD is the only reality tv show (sure, I'm a snob) that I've ever watched and I'm so addicted.
This is dumb, but since the drama got me back into my auto-win habits, I can't keep quiet any longer about this.
You're the only blog I read who has links on their page direct in the same window, instead of opening a new one. That means that three times already today, I have clicked a fun of the day link, gone and read one of your daily jewels, then closed the window, only to curse because I have to open a NEW window and reload your page. Gah. It also means I sometimes get distracted (you know, with, like, doing my job instead of surfing around the interwebs), and forget to come back to the rest of the linky goodness!
So yeah...just a thought you might want to consider to keep people on youyouyouyou longer and with greater commitment: make the links open in a new window!
I still love you, though.
first of all, allie, i agree with you...but i think maybe the way she has it set up is to do with traffic? just a thought, but one i have had often...
ALSO, re: l word spinoff, everyone on team hps is working on it, don't you worry. but also feel free to drop some love my way on the fan boards. viral, baby birds, viral. :)
For a minute, I thought I was a crazy, because I just came back from lunch for more fun of the automatic variety, and POOF! It opened in a new window. I wondered if I had totally dreamt up the accidental window closing fiasco of the last two years, but now I see in your Twitter that you just love mememememe. You are the best, Riese!
Allie,
Hold down the Ctrl button before you click on a link and it'll open it up in a new tab and everyone (auto)wins.
-Mindy
That Rachel Shukert article made me LOL. I can't remember ever sincerely enjoying summer. It's hot and sticky and I get sweaty and I do not enjoy being sweaty. Plus, when I was younger my mom would always lock me out of the house during the day. I guess because I was a growing girl and needed fresh air or whatevs. I would always threaten to call the police and report her for child abuse.
Also, I tried reading the FT article, and I just got completely lost. I couldn't make it all the way through because I couldn't understand what the guy was trying to say, and so my eyes kept skipping around in an attempt to possibly piece it together, but I just ended up being...confused.
w/r/t the L Word spin-off, I'd take Max or Kit over Dawn Denbo. She seems like the one all the fans are rooting for. Can you explain this to me? Because all I can think is, "uh...why?" I mean, there's nothing to her, except the fact that she's a cuntwhore. And normally I'd enjoy that in a character, but with her it's just not appealing to me...at all. I'm rooting for Shane.
Katy Perry bothers me. She seems like kind of a dumbass, based on her lyrics. I was kind of distraught when I first heard "I Kissed A Girl," because upon reading the title I thought it would be a more poppy, sultry version of Jill Sobule's classic. Obvs I was sincerely disappointed.
Miss Marie... tomorrow morning at 11am, I will be landing at La Guardia airport for a 5day/4night stay in the lovely Manhattan area. This will be my first time in NYC... I'm so excited!
i just wanted to know if you wanted to hang out tomorrow night. i am going to be in town for one night only. i know how you feel about leaving your apartment though. let me know.
"Why not?" was the theme of Pennies Open Mike last night. I performed "A Form Letter" after getting annoyed by ex-es trying to keep in contact and deciding "why not" write a standard response to these unwanted inquiries.
omg Hav should so be on it. I would so watch. But at the same time I think you would have to join the writing team and then pull a Tina Fey and join the cast... it probs would be the best new show on TV. After Conan last night I feel Eva Ammurri would be a nice addition to the cast.
My favorite thing about "I Kissed a Girl" is that basically any name will fit into it its like so much fun.
Also, whenever I see people crying in public it freaks me OUT! Like, it is usually on sat morning early and it always makes me wonder what happened. Then the crier gives you that glare like "WHAT?!?!" and it's like sorry I'm not the one crying.
I think I am doing a single called "I kissed a boy and it scared me..."
vashti: Why'd you delete your comment, it was first, you auto-win! I hope you got some sleep.!
adam: I hear Katy's got a background in Christian Rock (so does Avril Lavigne, natch), which is fitting. I bet her Mom buys her clothes for her, overpriced versions of hot topic at Bloomingdale's with Juicy Coutrue labels.
spine & sneer = jill sobule, "I kissed a girl."
though I'll watch courtney love do just about anything. she's sassy.
a;ex: If it wasn't for you I wouldn't have even been able to figure out that acronym (SYTYCD). I've fixed the link and made you a strawberry rhubarb pie. I'd put ice cream on top but I know how you feel about cold foods. PULL IN YOUR SPINE! SNEER! DON'T ASK QUESTIONS OF THE WHITE MAN, THE WHITE MAN WILL NOT TELL YOU THE TRUTH!
jd: Yes quite a few people send me emails like that. I really do love that, and love that people feel comfortable with me enough to do that, and I try to write back, though if it hits me at a busy time sometimes it'll slip into page 2 or 4 of the inbox and I'll never get to it, which makes me feel bad as my no.1 gig is making sure i'm the number one weirdo.
[Schizophrenia, yes -- that's the voices. The sense of importance/delusions of grandeur is also a part of manic episodes ... etc. Schizoaffective maybe. don't know why i'm talking about this, anyhow]
If I'm able to make a bunch of readers all think I'm speaking write to themthemthem, then that's truly magical though!
And I used to write fan letters all the time as a kid to my favorite authors and obviously never heard back except a form letter or postcard, but I'm still glad I did it. It's not comparable, 'cause they'd actually published books and I just have my bloggity blog and therefore I am not really an author/writer, but I agree, that telling people they've had an impact on your life is extremely important -- and sometimes they'll even write you back like when Sam Anderson emailed me! WHEEE!!!
Honestly if I had all the time in the world, I'd be email friends with everyone who's ever emailed me forevs and evs. I need a time freeze gun.
allie: I think I stopped doing the out-click links when I observed that a few web-savvy people I knew preferred the same-window click. I like outclicks, that's why I always do the "hold down left part of the trackpad click open in new window" thingie. But regardless! FIXED!
haviland: Oh man I never even thought of that, re: traffic. What if all my traffic is actually people backtracking from outclicks? I guess we'll find out. hmmm. TLW-Online bought the lwordspinoff url and wants us to make videos, p.s. Though I clearly suck at viral marketing, I'm prepared to start telling everyone you'll be playing Helena's doppleganger/lover.
allie: No, YOU are!
mindy: Yup that's what I do, holller! I have a lot of open windows, it makes people crazy when they see my screen. Tabs are the best though.
mel-uh-nee: My Mom always wanted me to get fresh air too but I wanted to be in the basement with my books and paper dolls, pretending that I had a different life and wanting school to start so that it'd stop being so hot. Also I sweat more than anyone else I've ever seen in my life.
Glad the FT article also confused you, hurrah!
Dawn Denbo? Really? She has no personality, and I hate her. I hate her and she's not even interested. She's just straight-up insane, like narcissistic personality disorder or something, which isn't as complicated as her having some kind of revelatory background. I hope they realize this and give her backstory if they go with her.
Perry always stresses in interviews that the song is NOT about kissing a girl for real, but kissing a girl for fun, which makes me want to spit ice in her mouth.
Jenna: Okay at first I thought you were kidding, and then I was like, omg it's Jenna from Livejournal. Your first time in Manhattan? That is excitant! You should NOT go to serendipity, would be my advice, we took crystal there and my food tasted like old people.
caitlin: how's brunch?!
[I LOL'ed on the street when i read this comment]
the brooklyn boy: Here's my form letter:
dear exes,
remember when i made you cry/remember when you made me cry?
what a bad memory! let's not think about it again!
love anyways,
marie
eric mathew: I'd settle for any prior SNL actors joining the cast. Horatio Sanz could be a transman, really, just anyone who can breathe some fresh comedic life into this interesting project.
I wanted to hug her or ask her if she was okay, but then I thought that if I were her, I'd want everyone to ignore me, and then I just didn't know what to do, and then we got off at the same spot and she started crying even more. She reminded me of one of my best friends from middle school who used to cry a lot too. So did I, I guess.
seems like everyone that reads this knows you and everything about you. maybe it is dumb for me to comment, but why not. ok so umm your post yesterday was interesting. would you call yourself socially retarded? and i find that everytime i hear that katy perry song i have this overwhelming urge to rip my ears off. it was ok at first, but now it is over played and everyone i know loves it. it makes me sick.
bah! you caught me. embarrassing. back in my days of forum posting we had a smiley for this sort of situation. it was pink and blushing. i've yet to find an emoticon that has the same impact.
anyways. i deleted because i felt intimidated by (1) being the first to comment and (2) having the first comment be so lame.
oh, the virtual emotions of a lurker.
the only thing redeeming about the stupid katy perry song is that it came on the radio literally minutes after i came out to my dad while driving a uhaul from atlanta to houston. we were talking about it and all, and that song came on. i rolled my eyes at the awkwardness, changed the channel, and we both laughed a little.
with them bringing papi back from the vortex, i could easily see them trying to do a spin off w/ her. shane would be nice - but it seems like moennig's been over the shitty writing (and lack of character development) for some time. i imagine she's looking forward to her freedom.
i love the quote at the end of the L word article: "It's always important to have role models on TV … because then you feel like you're living in the real world. So it was a really incredibly important show." omg it IS the way that we live!
ps. i hope someone does spit ice in katy perry's mouth so she can write a song called "i had a girl spit ice in my mouth and i liked it"
autumn: Everyone here doesn't know that much about me, at least I hope not. They just FEEL like they do. JK. I mean, I don't know what I'm talking about anymore but i heart new commenters and whenever katy perry's song comes on I want to stick a banana in her ear.
vashti: I don't know much about emoticons but yes indeed i totally caught you. ha-HA! Your first comment wasn't lame. Every time I see your name I think about Purim.
asher: Yeah I can't place bets on Shane 'cause I feel like Kate and Leisha have been the most vocal about thinking the show kinda sucks for a while, and I feel like her career has enough potential that she'd leave the show. I'm kinda secretly hoping it'll be Jenny, 'cause she's the most complex character they've got ... besides Bette, who'd be a compelling spinoff choice but I'd be sooooo surprised if J-Beals went for it.
I vote for Dana, it'll be like the Ghost Whisperer which I've never seen, but I think would be neat.
You shoulda been like "but dad, fyi, i am NOT LIKE THIS GIRL," when the song came on.
basia: but obvs she'd only like it in a playful way, like ice is cold and girls are cute, but obvs still she loves boys and jesus.
the ass-kissing taking place in all the quotes in that article made my hair hurt. i feel like they were all saying; "the economy is bad, can we have a job?"
I am "following" you on Twitter now, but I won't be offended if you don't follow me too, 'cause mostly I'm boring and forget I have twitter for weeks at a time.
But I guess then when I remember twitter, I'll actually have updates to catch up on. So that's fun! Auto-fun?
I'm gonna be honest here and say that I don't know what Purim is. BUT after a quick look at the wikipedia article, i at least know that i played a minor role in the events leading up to it.
this is my embarrassed smiley.. in case anyone was actually curious.
It seems as if it's always poseurs singing along to that song and they're always pigs...that's pigs in the dishrag sense.
Anyone bringing up the window-dressing grading system issue- which goes on at any private school- will be hard-pressed to come off as anything but bitter. The guy had a front row seat to capitalism on display. You'd think he'd have figured out how to work it to his benefit.
But, I now feel better about my 3.2 public school GPA on about 25% attendance (soccer in the quad, horse racing track, bar and, even, work). Walking throught college, kids, is a regret.
stephanie: yay! according to twitter, no-one is following me, not even alexandra or caitlin. I think I'm going to wait 'til they fix it to follow more people. Also I think I just ruined my own life by signing up for julia alison's feed out of morbid curiostiy.
vashti: OMG, I can't believe you've been walking around with that name all this time w/o knowing the story of Purim! Vashti was a super-vixen. I care about the smiley, and I looked.
bokolis: I guess if a non-poseur sang it everyone would be like, "Oh neat, big surprise Melissa Etheridge, you kissed a WHA?!!" and everyone at her concerts would be like "okay, what next? give us something else to sign along to." maybe. y'know? I like to think they're all budding lesbians, thoguh I susepct they're actually all budding straight-girls-who-break-lesbian-hearts.
Eh, I liked the piece and thought he sounded right -- bitter, sure, but also right. But I was also thinking of this other similar piece I'd linked to a few weeks ago:
The Disadvantages of an Elite Education
If they were budding straight-girls-who-break-lesbian-hearts it'd at least be interesting. As is you've got frat-tarts-whom-lesbians-mercilessly-mock, and really, what's in that for me?
well i suppose i knew the beginning part? i mean.. i know why my mother chose the name for me [queen vashti wouldn't let her hubby expose her goodies to e'erbody.. even though it led to her "removal" AKA she's a strong/awesome person] but that's really all i've ever known. see, despite living in the city with the most churches per capita, i haven't gone since i was five. any religious knowledge i have is severely limited.
i love that it's-- caitlin and alex are no longer following me on twitter, therefore there must be an error. wouldn't it have been hilarious we had a team meeting and decided we didn't want to read your twitters anymore? anyways, umm that's all. carry on.
If we allow ourselves to disregard that the non-poseur wouldn't sing such a ditty, yes, Melissa Etheridge would have to up the ante accordingly.
Summers was definitely right but, if he's going to "expose" a badly-kept secret, he could have offered some insight, perspective or direction (granted, it might be unfair of me to expect this, but I hold him to a higher standard because he is being published). I had the sense that he hadn't yet reconciled his rage...or capable of perspective. Far from a bad read, though.
Deresiewicz' piece (thanks for the second chance) didn't tell me all that much that I didn't already know and I don't agree with certain "whiny" aspects, but there is a lot to be said for his ability to organize all that into a hell of a read...because it made mememememe more confident that my education, experience and rough-and-tumble upbringing prepared me for a life on the clock in a way that Yale doesn't..and can't. I got these muthaxxxs now.
Given your very recent heart-pouring, my takeaway will be his "tyranny of the normal" reference and related comments.
adam: Good point, 'cause if one of those straight girls wented to break a lesbian heart (preferably the heart of Melissa Etheridge, Melissa Ferrick, Chris Pureka, etc.) we'd all get a fine lesbian wailing rock song out of it.
Vashti: Oh I learned all that in Hebrew School, I didn't even know they told the story in church. I imagine the church might put a twist on it like "Vashti made a virginity pledge and would not expose her flesh to the sinners!" whereas the jews are like "that woman was like, fuck you dude, i will not undress for The Man."
caitlin: Sometimes you have team meetings where I end up going to Philadelphia, but that kind of team meeting sounds dangerous! But for real, there was a massive twitter failure last night or something that they claim to be fixing, violet blue lost 400 followers! I read it on her twitter!
bookolis: Agreed. He did sort of just state the case and run away, and I wonder if that's 'cause it was in a British paper ("man, the u.s. is fucked up. good thing we don't live there!") that he was able to get away with that, or if the same strategy would've been applied if he'd just been published stateside. I guess it should come around to some conclusion about ending grade inflation, but he also suggested bitterly that it would never happen.
Anyhow I agree with the point that a far better and more useful education can be begotten in a less monied institution. The best essay on this topic I think is the student's pespective offered in Walter Kirn's Lost in the Meritocracy from the Atlantic a few years ago.
haha, well from what people have told me, the church puts a bad spin on it. they turn queen vashti into a disobedient wife who didn't serve well as queen and esther comes in and saves the day. oh well. i like who i was named after. i'm just not a big fan of the name. it made me dread the first day of school every year because not one teacher was ever able to pronounce correctly on the first go [if they even bothered attempting]. introducing myself is not much better..
me:"hi my name's vashti. [short a]"
person:"vash-i? [long a]"
me:"vash-ti."
person:"vash-dee?"
me:"vash-ti."
person:"vash-ti? [long a]"
me:"... yeah, sure."
i've long since given up correcting people. if they can say something that even remotely sounds like my name i'm fine.
[please forgive my overshare.]
I second the love for Lost in the Meritocracy. Parts of it were eerily familiar. I learned a lot from my Ivy time, but very little of it had to do with books.
In the same vein, but from a different angle:
http://www.nplusonemag.com/kickstart-my-heart
God help me, I just linked n+1. I feel that sharp pain in the chest that signals my soul leaving my body. I'm almost certain I got that link from R to start with though, so at least I'm not introducing new ick.
Despite our incident in the previous post, I still would like to see you naked and soak your naked body with my tongue. Ba ba booey!
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