Sunday Top Ten: Automatic Fundamentals/Look At You, You're Growing Old So Young

I was thinking about a Sunday Top Ten and ten hours later I was knee-deep in the cyber-quicksand created by switching topics every five minutes, trying to escape via creating a New Topic that'd encompass All Failed Topics. A-ha!: 'TOP TEN THINGS I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT." I asked myself "is that the best you can do?" Then, myself said: "Yes, it is."

[Yes, it is: a conversation between me and memememememe.] [It was maybe two years ago or thereabouts when she drew me a diagram on scrap paper to explain to me the "me" and "not me" -- the stack-sullivan psychoanalytic theory of selective inattention. good me, bad me, not me. she was explaining to me how, exactly, I'd managed to rationalize talking my way out of accepting responsibility for being an asshole.]

So I'm just gonna ramble. Ramblerambleramble.

Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme Morons

I saw Gimme Sugar. It's a new show about lesbians. The topic is: "Lesbians are pretty!" The sub-topic: "Much like straight people on scripted reality teeevee shoes, lesbians can also drink too much and talk about nothing." The girl who narrates sounds just like Jackie Warner. It's the "scripted reality voice-over voice."

I'd like to corral the writers of Gimme Sugar and the creators of Tila Tequila into a dark cave with The Iliad, The Bible, Mediated and "All Aboard!".

The thing is ... Gimme Sugar isn't even terrible/awesome. It's just terrible. After-Ellen thinks so too. I'm not sure why I care so much about the portrayal of women -- and queer women in particular -- in the media, but I do. I care deeply. AE says, and I agree, that basically if you're already into [other, hetero-based] shows that involve "seeing young people doing nothing and clubbing and coming up with bad business ideas" then you'll like this show.

Speaking of sugar, this weekend the woman brought us breakfast and announced the contents of the tray in great detail: "splenda, sweet & low, equal," etc. Everyone in Atlantic City says: "good luck!" 'cause they're counting on the gamble. We didn't know how to gamble [at games], we just thought the city itself seemed like a funny place to go. But we got lucky, and had good luck.

My first love [of all trump cards: "first"? of all first things: love] wore those jeans with "Lucky You" on the fly. In case we got there, and I forgot.

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Taking Back the Internet: Last Week's Topic of Cyber-Talk

I don't know. We're/it's young, we're cyber-tadpoles -- still lightyears away from universal broadband access or a "worldwide" network that can provide all people worldwide w/high-speed uncensored content. There's problems with overexposure and conspicuous anonymity, the tipping balance between emotional withdrawal and frightening investment. Our backs hurt, our eyes burn, our wrists hurt. But everything has pros and cons. [Howevs, it'd be a 100% tragedy for interwebs users to inadvertently lose deep reading skills.] We live in a world where too much ice cream makes you fat. Just think about that.

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"What the future might bring, Heaven only knew.
Change was incessant, and change perhaps would never cease.
High battlements of thought; habits that had seemed durable as stone went down like shadows at the touch of another mind and left a naked sky and fresh stars twinkling in it."
-Virginia Woolf, Orlando
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I think we're still figuring it out. It's like when the cavemen first discovered fire. And Caveman #1 was like; "wtf why is my toe burning off?" and Caveman #2 was like; "OOOO all warmed up for the winter season!" Now, a bajillion years later, we know how to use fire responsibly, more or less. See what I mean? We're still figuring out how to keep warm without burning ourselves.

I like Emily and Keith and Tracie. I don't like Perez or TMZ or their collective insistence on permeating relevant spaces frequented by those of us who don't care.

Also, I like that the internet has enabled strong global grassroots networks like Students for a Free Tibet, smart pop culture commentary like fourfour and helpful gadgets & resources like MapQuest and Bartleby. I like when I read articles worth recommending. And poems.

I think, w/r/t Gimme Sugar and The Internet, that we've got to do our best to keep our fictions scripted. Also, we'll keep our realities improvised, and work with wherever we naturally attract reflection/attention, rather than attention for attention's sake.

In the future, we may find that the internet was invented in response to the hefty portion of the population who are simply more comfortable/eloquent when communicating via written words rather than spoken ones.

I think you can divide people into two categories: people who're content to live within anything that'll fit within (even just barely) the status quo, and people who'd like to change it. The first category also includes people who've chosen instead to live in the past, or recreate it in fear.

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The Long and Winding Road

I've traveled a lot this year. I was asked: "Do you guys think it's possible you're running away from something, maybe?" and I answered, "Obviously." I'd like a short & happy life, like Francis Macomber's, or a Short & Wondrous one like Our Friend Oscar, running could be involved. But really it's that we prefer fun to not-fun. We try to have fun. Okay, okay, it's Tinkerbell. She's a diva.

Don't get confused, I'm still only somewhat employed and owe Visa a baby or two. The rest is semantics or logistics --

Speaking of numbers, I missed Four -- me, Caitlin, Alex, Haviland -- and now my friend is back on this side of the country. Briefly, but here. Shortly, happily, wondrously.

So many things can go wrong when you're traveling, like our unexpected pullover en route to the airport to fly to The House of the Mouse -- we barely made it to the flight.

But this weekend we went to Atlantic City and we weren't surprised when they said our hotel was overbooked, since ridic snafus are our collective travel-fukù and we were prepared to pop a cot and then take a morning swim w/asbestos at the Seaside Motel [later this experience could become a rich source of anecdotes, in-jokes and makes-life-worth-it-style laughter] --- but the desk-woman tells us how the problem's been solved: we're being moved to a better hotel ... for free.

Again, that assumption about gambling. Really, we're just amused by anything that's heavily thematic -- lit up by bells & whistles & glitter & graffics and big laminated promises in disguise as the Queen of Hearts/Spades.

Then Caitlin totally WON big-time at the slot machines -- waiting for me and Alex she just stuck a nickel in and gave it a go, like to kill time and -- Magic! Later that day, an escalade took an illegal left in front of us, like that shit that happens all the time in the city and you almost die and then somehow you get a ticket for someone else's mistake 'cause you've got expired plates ... and he got pulled over!

Also, we saw Melissa Etheridge. They surprised me with it and got away with it 'cause Caitlin pointed out that she never asked for anything, so asking me to put some pep in my step for an 8 PM fireworks show wasn't much to ask-- even though I insisted it was still totally light out and we can't miss the fireworks, they're in the sky.

Anyhow, the ploy worked and we were on time for The Eth. The lesbos sang our little hearts out for every window we've ever screamed at, bare and wide-open. We listened to the gauzy-voiced acoustic assurance that sometimes love means following someone around until you've lost all your fellow travelers. Pretense-free, open-air I feel my feelings. She carved out her heart in the 90's, left it on the doorstep of a recording studio and then ran -- a prank played in the game of falling apart -- and we got to see her hold that heart in front of her face and then sing through it. Amazing.

Happy independence day!

"When I first heard "Like the Way I Do" in 1988, I had no idea that Melissa Etheridge was gay, and I thought she gave voice to us obsessive, neurotic women who long to be this direct and obvious about the neediness we feel for the men in our lives ... perhaps the joyfulness that I feel seething, overbrimming from so much lesbian music, even when it is at its most heartbreaking, has to do with the simple fact that just to have the courage to find a voice to sing with in the context of societally censored desires means that anything you say, no matter how depressing the thought, will never come across as completely dispirited."
-Elizabeth Wurtzel, "The [Fe]male Gaze."
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dear good me & bad me & not me & also me & mememe, sincerely anonymous
or "the babies were only water balloons."

What if from now on I made my blog into a retroactive game of self-indulgence. I provide excerpts from my past diaries for the present date in different years. You match the lines to the years and if you're right, you win the next book club book.

July 7th Throughout the Years, Compiled on Monday July 7th, 2008:
[Options: 1986 (age 4) , 1991 (age 9) , 1996 (age 14), 1997 (age 15), 1999 (age 17), 2000 (age 18), 2002 (age 20), 2003 (age 21), 2006 (age 24), 2007 (age 25)]
[Names have been abbreviated when appropriate]

1/Michigan: "I feel like we'll never truly connect 'cause Chris's 100% un-interested in what art has to offer him as a human being. He likes things cut and dry. He wouldn't like my writing, because he never reads, he's detached completely from literature. His scope is narrow. I'm afraid he'll try to compare his career goal to be a vet to my writing. It's not just my Top Interest, it's How I Think."

2/Boston-->Michigan: "Today we drove for five hours and we finally came home. I saw Anna first, but we had nothing to say. My room had hebrew posters all over the walls and all my animal posters except for three were gone! My drawers were broken, and there was mold in the teapot, yuck! The people who lived in our house weren't very neat! The toddler scribbled in Lewis's books. We had homemade pizza for din-din."
3/New York: "When E has the nerve to go off at me, I say-- 'It doesn't matter, I'm leaving!' E says -- 'You're not leaving soon enough.' So now -- I am. Now. I'm in the airport, going. I feel like Marc's going-away party was mine, too, not 'cause the people cared/knew about me leaving, but 'cause it's the end of something. An era. But M said, 'You're the guest of honor's special guest.'"

4/Australia:" "It was hilarious to bring these grungy surfer boys into a nice restaurant. Clinton insisted we go back to the hotel so he could experience the sauna and they'd left their bags and surfboards there. They went swimming. We took pics, they listened to our music, we talked. Jeremy made fun of our accents a lot. They go to raves at night. Clinton is 17, he dropped out of school to work in a Toyota Factory. Jeremy's 15. We have their addresses, thank god."

5/Michigan: "We made our certificates and then we decorated the knight in armour. Then we rescued the baby from the dragon. And after that we played a kind of hide and seek and some people pretended they were he dragons and some pretended they were persons who catch the dragons. The babies were only water balloons. our mommies or our daddies came and we had cake and ice cream after we had cake and ice cream we went home the end."

6/New York: "I don't know what to do, if there's anything that I even can do. It's terror. I feel powerless."

7/Michigan: "no cherry bombs, no sparklers, black cats, etc this 4th. u know, explosions -- go america. Scot took my car to canada and left me a love note. life has been up and down. absolutely unbearable, sometimes absolutely pleasant. i present the "every other day theory": one day he's delightful, the next day he balances it out by being a dick."

8/At Sea: "It's difficult to open myself up to another strong connection w/a friend this year, I feel so exhausted by last year's. I don't know if she really communicates honestly with me about when or if I bother her. She seems both set in her ways and not argumentative. Is it because we click so well, or is it 'cause she doesn't ever want to talk about what's really going on?"

9/Michigan: "Yesterday went to a whack party, talked to AG 4eva. It was weird, like a punk rock show, I don't dig that scene. At the start it made me depressed to be there. It was fresh as hell that I got to drive home though. Well, not home. To L's. Today MR and I watched Altman's Nashville, saw Casablanca at the top of the park, Amanda came just to see me! Wowsers ... I had a freaked out dream about Interlochen."
10/Michigan: "Tonight, Mr. D told me he thought I looked about 10 pounds less than I did when he last saw me. He asked me if I was okay. The doctor told me I was too skinny and asked if I'd been losing weight. All these comments make me happy. I wish none of this had ever started. I wonder why my Mom is letting me go sometimes. I wonder if I'd let my 17 year old daughter move to the same city that Son of Sam is about."

---

11.
Today I wrote this, and went to bed, and thought, holy shit, I talk a lot of whack hands down totes crazy. Will I ever learn to speak the grammar?
Stay tuned!
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[all photos by julia fullerton-baten]
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So, guess: match the number with the correct year, win a prize! The Dear Diary Award, very special.

Happy Independence Day!

Hey Kids! Guess what, it's the Fourth of July! Light a cracker on fire! I'm in the Dirty Jerz this weekend and won't be blogging 'til Monday, BUT -- I will definitely be commenting on July 3rd's "Auto-Win Book Club #1a: The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (page 165)" and I am really loving hearing what everyone thinks about it too, it's really awesome.

FYI, here in the United States, The Land of Freedom, we commemorate the anniversary of the day the Brits decided to leave us to deal with our own drama.

Last night I couldn't sleep, insomnia stronger than sleep aids! Too many thoughts, too many ideas, and my brain far too tired from aforementioned thoughts/ideas to accomplish anything of substance, e.g., packing.

So I read Orlando for a little while and read The Warhol Diaries for a little while and then Tinkerbell made a movie. It's silly and not good, but Haviland & Carly & Alex & Tinkerbell & Matthew are in it, and they'd like you to see it. Also there's flying lesbians, like celebrity circus!



happy fourth and keep talking about Wao, I know I will!
xoxo

Auto-Win Book Club #1a: The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (page 165)

Git yer ass off the couch, slackers, it's time for literature, I made a graphic. I hope you're at page 165. I've come up with some "discussion questions" both from my own little baby mind and from the great Book Clubs of the Internets (thanks Cait!). If you've already read past 165 (like mememeeme!) then you can't give any spoilers away, just remember what it was like when you were younger like during the Beatles, when you were at page 165 -- which, btw, ends with Beli at sixteen, getting on a plane for New York City.

Did you know that Google is allowed to break youtube's 10 minute time limit? ['cause google owns youtube now] They've got a 49 minute "Authors @Google: Junot Dìaz" on youtube. It's actually incredibly awesome. He swears a lot.

Also, y'all should read this. Compelling on about 300 levels. I'm semi-awestruck by my as-of-late appreciation of all Gessen's online statements (beginning with "money" in n+1). [The Eggers Advocate interview example he cites in the post -- I relate to that, like ... 'who am i talking to?].

Other lit-related things to read today, besides this discussion: I cannot wait for MagHound, it sounds delightful (@folio @bookslut), remember the reader (@washington post), alison bechdel's entertainment weekly strip (@bookslut), janice erlbaum's book trailer (@mediabistro), betraying the novel (@the reading experience), "I love blogging. I LOVE IT": novelist celebrates her one thousanth post. (@Justine Larbalestier), have I linked to this before? Probably. I'm doing it again: writer's rooms. (@the guardian uk books), Is this really the golden age of the biography? (@gub), What is poetry's place in the 21st century? (um ... everywhere?) (@the chronicle of higher ed).

A lot of the "big picture" questions I'm saving for our book-has-been-completed discussion -- but I already have some! So these questions are focussed squarely on the hypothetical situation of being at page 165, with no idea what will unfold on 166 or 167, or any pages following those pages. When's that gonna be, you ask? The 18th? I'll be on a ship. But I'll try. [Also, we have an advice column coming soon, hope nothing was too urgent]

JULY 18TH - AND ... SCENE. FINITO.

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OK. Discuss on the comments. I'll discuss too, we'll all discuss! Yeah? YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS. Just talk about what you want, these are just ideas.

I realize I sound like an English teacher, so any suggestions on how to not sound like an English teacher, please advise. Thank You, Sincerely Anonymous, Love, Tinkerbell. [I feel like these questions generally focus too much on the Dominican-ness, I think I'm just trying to think of things we can talk about that won't give anything away, so sorry if it seems too um, libroethnocentric.]:

Pre-Question: Did you take the jacket off to read the book? If so, why and if not, why not? Just for the record, I did. Cait did. LK and Alex -- not coincidentally, they're both graphic designers -- did not. I feel like the jacket just makes it so bulky and hard to read.

1. Wao doesn't mess around with obtuse foreshadowing but goes straight for the "this is what's gonna happen." The title predicts that Oscar's gonna have a short (but wondrous) life. Page 36: "Later she'd want to put [Mister] on his gravestone, but no one would let her, even me." Pg. 164: Beli doesn't know that "the man next to her would end up being her husband and the father of her two children, that after two years together he would leave her, her third and final heartbreak, and she would never love again." How does this affect your reading? I feel like it might be like the fukù itself -- your fate is destiny already, but you stick around for the story just the same?

2. If you do know Spanish, did you feel like you understood the text on another level than people who don't know Spanish? And if you don't know Spanish, did you look everything up, try to gloss it from context or just keep going, and then how do you feel that affected your reading experience?

3. What would be your fantasy ending? If you could have it your way, what would happen next?

4. What character do you find you relate to the most?

5. Did you know about Trujillio before you read this book? If not, did you feel like an ignorant asshole for not knowing? I did.

6. Raise your hand if you have a crush on Lola.

7. One thing I've noticed in a lot of award-winning critically acclaimed novels is:

a) Sometimes the author forces you through 5-50 pages of slow-moving prose in order to get to the good stuff (e.g., Franzen's The Corrections), like they're testing you to see if you can make it all the way through, like if you're really in it to win it and will stick around through the hard stuff.
b) Most of the Pulitzer-Prize winning novels I've read have involved massive chunks of family/town history as well as an individual, "present tense" narrative -- Jeffery Eugenides's Middlesex, Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Richard Russo's Empire Falls (which I loathed, p.s.), etc.

Have you noticed that too? What do you think it does for the narrative -- and does anyone else feel that the backstory is often the most boring part of the book to get through, but also feels -- when you've finished -- to be 100% absolutely necessary to tell the story and to give it the grand import it needs to become a great and timeless masterpiece?

Does timelessness simply mean that the circumstances are so well detailed that the mysterious Readers of the Future won't have to do the research on their own? Is it an author's ability to make that part pleasurable that enables their success?

Unlike his prize-worthy predecessors, Diaz's book takes off from the first page -- there's no hard-to-get being played. It does do that "but first, a history lesson" thing -- he just does it so well. I don't know if I really have a question here. Why don't all authors just do this, is it 'cause they don't WANT a National Book Award? Um. Um: DISCUSS.

8. Did certain parts of the book make you uncomfortable? If so, why did you feel that way?

9. This is the question that those of you who didn't do the reading can raise your hand and talk about so the teacher won't know you didn't do the reading --

"And there's something really cool about, you know, a Dominican kid, a writer of color, a writer of African descent, immigrant kid from a nowhere place in New Jersey, spent 11 years writing a book, and anybody who wanted to read it, and that anybody wanted to give it an award, it's -- I'm like, a, that's great personally, but it's also kind of hopeful for other people.

I mean, there's a lot of young writers and artists of color and a lot of young writers, period, from the sort of backgrounds that people don't expect much from. And I'm like, "Let me tell you something: If I can do this, they certainly can do it."

So I'm wondering this --- I know I'm addressing an international readership, but that's about all I know. So, if you're a part of the "majority" race/ethnicity/culture of your town/city/state/country, do you feel you gravitate towards books written by authors with a similar background? And if you're in the "minority," do you find that the opposite is true, and furthermore, do you think you have more difficulty getting into the "cannon" of dead white males traditionally forced upon us by schoolteachers than your nearly-dead white male classmates?

I'm very intrigued by a lot of what comes out w/r/t readership statistics, but something that always really baffles me is that statistically, men just do not read books written by women. They just don't do it. But women are perfectly willing to read books by men, even "lad lit" like Nick Hornby or Chuck Palhlinuk. So I wonder if there are any interesting issues like that w/r/t race.

10. There's a lot of emphasis in the book on what's expected of Oscar specifically as a Dominican male -- he's not "one of those Dominican cats everybody's always going on about" 'cause "he wasn't no home-run hitter" with "a million hots on his jock." How do you feel your family's history plays a role in your own perception of your achievements and priorities?

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Interview in "Other Voices" - old, but interesting how much it says about Wao before Wao was finished. From talking about the years that passed between "Drown" and his novel --

"That moment when people were waiting, when there was a sense of held breath, that’s since dissipated. I feel much better this way. Now I can just do it. In a way I hate to say this because it sounds so disingenuous, but after this many years you just don’t give a fuck ... I don’t care. And I’m writing a book that in its structure reflects the I-don’t-careness ... when you’re trying to cultivate or preserve the same audience that had been giving you all this attention, you write in certain ways. You tend to extend some of the things you’ve been doing ... It’s natural to want to extend or preserve the kind of attention you got, which leads to certain limitations in your artistic production. On the other hand, if you decide to really challenge this “audience that you’ve built,” or to shatter it, and try to create a new audience with new kinds of work, that’s really good, that’s just really interesting. It keeps you fresh."

"And I was really fascinated by that idea, that like, you know, this is a book about this idea that you can wake up, you can be born inheriting a story that you had nothing to do with, in some ways, and, even more crazy, you have no interest in it." (source )

Your Daily Junot Dìaz Photograph:

Junot says: "Talk about whatever you want!"

auto fun. (!!!) seven-two-two thousand and eight.

Remember that one time that contest ended a day early, right when I was just about to have a last-minute comeback? I wouldn't wanna do that to y'all. To be fair, you've got 'til midnight on July 2nd to get to page 165 of Oscar Wao. I finished it last week, obvs, 'cause Diaz's prose has serious velocity and I had no choice but to ride it to the finish line. Okay, really ... I'm still ironing out my discussion questions/finding out what a book club is and then at 12:01 on July 3rd (give or take 12 hours), I'm gonna start attacking you with spoilers so BE READY. Read, grasshoppers, READ!

Speaking of attacks, tonight our Urban Professionals Basketball Team, The Rockford Peaches, took on "The Stars." Guess what kind of stars? I'll give you a hint: I accidentally foreshadowed this in the post about our last game.

Luckily, the Peaches had already exchanged emails about our relative skills (mine included typing and trash-talk), which really helped today -- like we all learned that one of our players is secretly a Nike all-star. And this time we DID NOT get crushed! It was super-close, we were close, it was a tight game! We scored a lot of points! (Not me. I'm defo not an asset, but I did get a little skinned knee! BATTLE WOUND!) We scored the first basket!

Our skills were possibly on par with the other team, but how do you beat seven girls who've probs been in Yeshiva together since 1985 [& their gigantic blonde friend who I believe was imported from the Swedish hinterlands to offer some height and some thigh-reveal]? You can't. We did good. Dayenu.

Obviously if I knew more about basketball, which I actually thought I did until I tried to play it again, I'd talk more about the game and less about the cultural background and outfits of the opposing team. I'd have better "game plans" than "throw a bunch of meat and milk out there -- TOGETHER!" You wouldn't think a girl in a below-the-knee skirt and below-the-elbows shirt would have such a killer shot, but that particular girl was particularly good. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that the only way to win a basketball game is to be good at basketball. I'm Jewish too, but Hashem was not listening to my prayers, although I believe G-d heard me when a girl threw a basketball at Carly's face and I yelled "YOU GUYS ARE REALLY MEAN!"

As you can see in that photo of our pre-pre-pre game huddle, I was already over it.

We had lots of fans though! E.g., Haviland! and Brooklyn Boy! [see Lozo, if you don't come and coach us, someone else will. Ha - HA!]

GO (kosher) PEACHES!

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quote: "Come back to me sometimes. I wander now too, / am a shadow with you here in this other life." (from "Keepsake" by Phillip White)

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links:
1. The Most Anticipated Books of 2008. (@the millions)
2. How an Independent Bookstore Can Survive. (@the guardian uk books)
3. Minister Explores the Spiritual Side of Bruce Springsteen. (@la times via truthdig)
4. The Secret, Pro-Life Message of The Secret Life of the American Teenager (@jezebel)
5. NPR is actually expanding its book coverage! Go Bobos! (@publisher's weekly)
6. Proof of what I've been saying all along: flip-flops are bad for you. (@live science)
7. Liz Phair on "Guyville" (@culture vulture)
8. Apparently, it's time for facebook addicts to "face the music." (@the times online)
9. You Can't Take it With You: Rauschenberg's fascination with the objects of the world (@the smart set)
10. Where Has all the Passion Gone? (what happened to campus radicalism?) (@the times higher ed)

Sunday [Monday] Top Ten: A Queer, Sultry Summer

So, air conditioner emissions worsen global warming, but the warmer the globe gets, the more we air condition. Right? That's not gonna work out long-term. Good thing I plan to die at 33, like Jesus. JK. I'll resurrect myself, obvs. Maybe on wordpress. Anyhow, when summer hits I get very cranky: "I hate summer," etc. But let's look on the bright side of life, at least it's summer 2008 and not summer 1808. I had this thought last summer while pondering "what did Emily Dickinson do without air conditioning"? I have the same thoughts over and over, like how we have the same seasons over and over. Like how there was summer last year, and there's also summer this year. That's called "bringing it back around"/"phoning it in." I'll keep going like this for the remainder of the post.

I don't want to take up too much of your time, 'cause as you know, we're only two days away from July 2nd, when you'll be at page 160 of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Furthermore, you're probs going to VOTE tonight to see Haviland sing and be cute.

SUNDAY TOP TEN:
REASONS WHY SUMMER IS SLIGHTLY MORE BEARABLE NOW THAN IT WAS IN THE OLDEN DAYS OF THE PRAIRIE

10. Air Conditioning:

[I made this graphic last year to announce the installation of my air conditioner.
So many things have changed since then, I can't believe that's the same room I'm in right now.]

I rush into my room, I stand next to the boxy white A.C., I put my forehead as close to it as I can without catching dysentery. You can snatch a blast from a store if it's got its doors open, or maybe a surprise gust from a heavy office door shutting. When the subway pulls in during rush hour and one car is strangely sparsely occupied, don't fall for it; that's the hot car. You've been waiting all this time in the sweltering black musty gasoline air of the station, anticipating the magic cool of the train, you just can't settle for this sauna. I don't.
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9. Edy's Frozen Fruit Bars: I like to stick things in Alex's mouth that she wouldn't put there willingly, like drugs and Tinkerbell. Howevs, I force-fed her an Edy's Frozen Fruit Bar 'cause it's delicious, not 'cause I wanted to corrupt or annoy her. Unfortunately I forgot that Alex can't eat cold food 'cause of her special teeth. You'd think after visiting the dentist 400 times in a month, she would've had that fixed. In the old days, there were no popsicles, you had to go to the cellar.

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8. The Microwave:

Back in my formative summers, my Mom often denied me requested meals on the grounds that it was "too hot to turn the oven on" (we didn't have air conditioning). Basically what I'm telling you is I grew up in the suburban equivalent of the Nigerian desert. We made our own popsicles out of apple juice and slept in the basement, it was like having a slumber party with your family, which is every pre-adolescent's number one dream. *
7. R-Family Vacations
In the olden days, people only traveled by sea when they wanted to move from England to America on the Mayflower or if they were pirates. (Or "o-pirates" as supr might say.) Now, we hit the ocean in order to spend as much time as possible around other homosexuals and their adopted children and to visit the exotic beaches of Massachusetts. I've gone on "the cruise" the last two summers and this year will be all-a-boarding it once more with Haviland, Caitlin, Alexandra, Tinkerbell, et al -- and hopefully I'll have lots of fun stories to share and a nice tan. I wrote about it in Curve (Page One, Page Two) maybe this year OurChart will hire me to live-blog from the ship. I hope they can sense my wanting telepathically.

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6.Tank Tops

Before feminism, women were supposed to stay covered up all the time, unless they were dirty whores. In fact, even if you were a dirty whore and/or hooker, you would've worn a lot of clothing in the old days -- and "hooker" and "gay" meant the same thing. Look:

I just want to state for the record that I use the word "hookers" as a non-judgmental word, like when I say "slut." I know & love many sex workers, just like I know & love many lesbians but still call them "lesbos" or "homos" 'cause I like the way those words sound. I also love the word "hooker." It's right up there with "cock" and "fuck."

Anyhow, but it's not just hookers who've stripped down -- all women have. Myself included. We wear tank-tops and cut offs ...

... though I despise shorts and all leg-revealing things. Jeans with holes in them: "Instant air conditioning," said Matty as I debated what to wear to work that day. Then we descended my staircase and out onto 115th. He'd walk me to the bus and then go visit his friends at the Taco shop, or go get his big red jeep vehicle and drive to the beach. Or we'd get in the car together and he'd take me to the train station and for a second with the top down atop the monster wheels it was like we'd traveled through time to this strange sweaty street, it was wind like wind itself. The air beneath us conditioned our calves, our whole bodies. Then underground and to the office. Whoosh!

*
5. Hot Summer Jams

So obvs the olden days feature many of history's finest musicians, e.g., Bach, Beethoven, etc. Howevs, the villagers didn't always have an orchestra handy to really lay into Beethoven's 5th. Now, thanks to technological advances, you can listen to summer jams on your earphones, e.g., [admit it you want to get back into] Exile in Guyville [so bad it hurts, right? You should, you really should, I am, and it feels so good!], Rhianna "S.O.S." and "Umbrella," Beyonce "Irreplaceable," etc. Although I feel like last year's summer jam was ... THE CON!

Oh also I forgot that people could gather around one person on an instrument, like a piano or a banjo, but that still isn't as good as a Cure song on your ipod.

*
4. Girls in Shorts

Standing outside the Border's Bookstore at the Arborland Strip Mall, waiting for my boyfriend to swing around in the purple Kia ("blue!" he said), I told his friend I felt like my boyfriend was mad at me. His friend said, "Well, it is is break up season. Every summer, I want to break up with my girlfriend."

He looked like a sage at the expanse of the parking lot. High school girls in Abercrombie shorts -- half-teenage and half gazelle -- grazed their way across the pavement: "But I don't," he concluded.

"Why is the summer break-up season?" I asked.

"Girls in shorts," he responded. "It's all the girls in shorts," and his eyes traced the legs of all the girls in shorts who suddenly seemed to be everywhere. All the limbs. I was scared, I was not in shorts, would I be left for a girl in shorts? Would I be left for Lolita? Should I wear shorts? Do I need a tan? Heterosexuality was so exhausting. Maybe if the rules had been more innate and less societally prescribed, it would've been less stressful.

Also, there were so many high schoolers in Michigan. They're hidden here, in apartments or schools, or on the Upper East Side. It's better that way, less jealousy of youth's untarnished parts.

*
3. The Fourth of July

Prior to the year 1776, there was no "Fourth of July," cause the 4th is a holiday that celebrates the United States winning independence and blowing things up in the air on July 4th 1776. Although you still can't purchase fireworks in Michigan, you must drive to Ohio. After 1776, we started inventing more mini-explosions, intended to look like war-explosions but not the mean or deadly kind (hopefully). As you know I'm not a fan of Fourth of July 'cause of being outside during the hot-times, but this year I'll be in Atlantic City, kissing people's dice so that they'll win big money and we can Damn the Man, Save the Empire!

*

2. The Possibility of Sudden Turnaround

Most of global warming's effects are negative, but I do like the possibility that things could suddenly turn around at any moment. We've had an unbearable heat wave every summer since I've gotten here, and each wave is followed by surprisingly temperate conditions. I mean, it could snow tomorrow. It probably won't -- but it COULD. In Orlando, the narrator says that Elizabethian England, things were so different than now: "Of our crepuscular half-lights and lingering twilights they knew nothing. The rain fell violently, or not at all. The sun blazed or there was darkness." It's not like that anymore.

*
1. Pinkberry
I want pinkberry right now!

Making Something out of Nothing, the Need to Express, to Communicate, to Going Against the Grain, Going Insane

i. Shootin' Some B -Ball Outside of the School
The Rockford Peaches have nowhere to go from here but up, up, UP and away. As Carly pointed out, we scored twice as many points in the second half (8) than in the first (4), which's a two hundred percent improvement. At this rate, we'll be up to fighting numbers by the season's end.

Personally, I don't know exactly how to "shoot a basketball," and one of those bitches punched Alex in the face within 30 seconds of the game's commencement and made Alex bleed. Luckily for everyone, Alex isn't carrying any contagious diseases ... yet.

Why'd they punch Alex in the face? I don't know, but maybe 'cause Alex yelled: "I can't tell who I have, they all look the same!" after running onto the court. (JK, they didn't hear her say that. They hit her in the face 'cause other people suck.)

Also, what we need is just one REALLY GOOD PLAYER. Like a sort of female Michael Jordan or even a female Chris Webber, or I mean seriously we'd take a female Larry Bird too. So if you fit that description and live in the NY area, we need you to come in, and do all the work while we trot behind you like disciples. Also Cait and Carly know how to play.

We need Sheryl Swoopes.

ii. Book Club Links
1. Junot on The Colbert Report:

2. Penguin's Feature with Junot Díaz
3. The Great American Pause: "When it comes to the novel, Americans are still willing to take it slow, or at least reward the writers who do ... Edward P Jones, Junot Díaz and Jeffrey Eugenides all took 11 years to write their Pulitzer prize-winning novels -a blink, really, when compared to Shirley Hazzard and Marilynne Robinson's 23-year gaps preceding The Great Fire and Gilead respectively." (@the guardian uk)
4. Novelist Junot Díaz Weaves Cultures and Languages (@PBS NewsHour)
5. Wao wins The Tournament of Books (@the morning news)
6. Into It : on what he's reading, listening to, and watching. (@cs monitor)
7. Chasing the Whale: A Profile of Junot Díaz (@poets & writers)
8. The National Book Critics Circle reviews Wao, (as a finalist in fiction). (@critical mass)
9 .Seven of Oh Seven: best book covers of 2008. Babypop, you win. (@fwis)
10. Slice's spotlight author - Junot Díaz. (@slice magazine)
11. An Interview with Junot Díaz @bookslut)

*
iii. quote me quote me quote meI was writing about The New Fuck You last night so I started re-reading a lot of it. It's too precious to destroy with underlines. This is one thing I would underline though:

I agree to go. I don't have anything planned. I don't have anyone I have to see. At the very least, I guess, it won't be boring.

That’s why we do things, Julia and I. I like her about half the time.

We live together, so I have to see her. It’s easy that way. We’ve just discovered that our house is infested with mice, and it’s bringing us closer together.

(from "What She Gives Up," by Anne Reid)

*
iv. Amanda Palmer with the Boston Pops

Achtung, Baby! is one of my favorite places on the interwebs. Today, it introduced me to Amanda Palmer's (of The Dresden Dolls) solo career. I'm obsessed now. Here Palmer does What a Wonderful World with Boston Pops, Creep at Edinbergh, and In a Manner of Speaking.

*
v. Me Against the Electronic Music

You know what's weird? I feel like when I use the internet, I'm fighting with it. It wants to eat me alive & suck me up & make me dumb. I want to use it as cleanly and efficiently as possible. I don't want it to ruin my ability to deep read (per the Atlantic article) or waste hours on pointless pursuits.

But sometimes ... it does. The other day, Alex linked me to a video of the Tonys performance of In the Heights -- amazing. (Also I think I've envisioned the narrator of Wao to look like Lin-Manuel Miranda) The "related to" column encouraged me to view prior Tony performances, like Spring Awakening and Cabaret and this year's RENT and as I sat in my gym clothes with work piled up all around me I somehow found myself twenty minutes deep into this videos-of-musicals downward spiral.

I think rock bottom hit when I was voluntarily re-watching a clip from "The View" in which Rosie brings on an 11-year-old girl who's got Cystic Fibrosis and loves musicals and then surprises her by bringing on the Broadway cast of RENT to sing "Seasons of Love" with her. What can I say, I totes heart rock bottom. Am I listening to "No Day But Today" right now? Maybe.

Auto-Fun of the Day :: 6-27-2008

quote: "So you close your eyes and your fingers are pushing down and you're thinking of Helen Keller and how when you were little you wanted to be her except more nun-ish and then suddenly without warning you do feel something. A knot just beneath her skin, tight and secretive as a plot. And at that moment, for reasons you will never quite understand, you are overcome by the feeling, the premonition, that something in your life is about to change. You become light-headed and you can feel a throbbing in your blood, a beat, a rhythm, a drum. Bright lights zoom through you like photon torpedos, like comets. You don't know how or why you know this thing but that you know it can not be doubted. It is exhilarating." (Junot Diaz, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao)

---

links: 1) On books that made people angry and politically charged that now seem totally worthless: "Burning is too good for them."(@times online uk)
2) Poem: "Expecting Honey" by Bridget Talone. Dear Dad. Come back. / And bring everything back with you." (@tin house)
3) They should put a comment card in the back in case people want to yell at her about their own personal problems in disguise as literary critique: So, Emily Gould is writing a book!(@mediabistro)
4) I thought I'd just discovered a solution to all my working problems, turns out I should probs move to Brooklyn ; "A Shared Office is a Great Escape from working at Home." (@nytimes)
5) The Virginia Quarterly Review: Lit Mag Love (@the magazineer)
6) I do this too! Elizabeth Kiem has been placing the fiction she reads in the rooms she knows. (@the morning news)
7) She's worse than you even expected, what with all the context: Up All Night With Amy Winehouse. (@rolling stone)
8) Punk Like Them: "Chasing a scene that no longer exists, they've created one of their own. A night out with the East Village's summer street kids." (@nymag)
9) A Genetic Theory of Male Homosexuality That Makes Sense (@slate)
10) The 11 1/2 Biggest Ideas of the Year (@the atlantic)
11) She's talking about butt-sex: "Final Fantasy: There's One Thing that I've never done in bed, and I'm saving that for my future husband." (@nerve)
12) Unequal America: Causes and consequences of the wide -- and growing -- gap between rich and poor." (@harvard magazine)
13) I knew it was a good idea to read A Clockwork Orange at 12: Children know which books they're old enough for. (@the guardian uk books)
14) Watch this now: A great week for homophobia. (@fourfour)

We Will We Will VLOG You

So much footage and so little time! Speaking of time: time has a way of ticking on, 'cause of clocks, and before long it'll be Thursday night and The Rockford Peaches (a prestigious team including all-stars like me, Carly, Caitlin and Alex) will be playing their second basketball game in reportedly ugly shirts. I missed the first game, which was probs best for everyone. In this vlog, we discuss our impending athletic doom (facilitated by Carly, who roped us into a NYC Professionals Basketball League even though I'm defo not a professional. I actually thought it was a lesbian league, which'd mean all the players are bonded by sexuality and therefore not implying particular athletic prowess by participating. This is not the case. Mostly, we're hoping it'll provide fodder to make fun of each other afterwards).

Also, Haviland's here, we snatched her up at the airport on Monday night at about two hours past my [aimed-for, but never achieved] bedtime. The whole place smelled like B.O., but we waited, which is true love/friendship, clearly.

Riese: "I'm gonna sweat so much at the basketball game, it's gonna look like I just took a shower in all my clothes within 20 seconds of the first quarter. I'm gonna be like the Swamp Thing."
Caitlin: "Everyone will be sweating."
Riese: "No one will be sweating as much as me."
Haviland: "Riese, you published an article in MARIE CLAIRE about how much you sweat. You won a sweating award. I think everyone's fully aware that you have hyperhidrosis and will be sweating."
Riese: "They'll probs just think I'm a cokehead."
Caitlin: [does the groan she does that means the same thing as Haviland's "Really Riese? Really?"]

As I've mentioned probs 500 times this week, I haven't played basketball since my 5th-8th grade tenure on The Emerson Eagles, which concluded just before puberty (I was a late bloomer). We played spring ball in a Rec league & fall ball in a special private school league, and managed to lose every single game except one. Emerson performed a lot better in Mathletes, Quiz Bowl and Magic the Gathering than it did in girls' b-ball.

So. Today I have this pebble for you. A vlog of some quality featuring Carlytron & Matthew as well as never-before-seen footage starring Haviland and Alex. This is what's in it:

1. Discussion about Incest.
2. Haviland's reading of Supr's supreme drunken comment from autowin.
3. Our basketball team.
4. A preview of our basketball game.

And also, so much more.

Auto-Fun of the Day:: 6-24-2008

quote:"To explode with flesh, without collapse. / To feel sick in my skeleton / in all the serious confetti / of my cells, and know why." (from "Me in Paradise," by Brenda Shaughnessy.)

---

links:
1. I was going to link to this before I even realized who wrote it!: Obama's Impossible Speech, by Sam Anderson. (@nymag)
2. "Deep Holes": short story by Alice Munro. (@the new yorker)
3. Critics Choose Their Most Loathed Books (@the times online uk)
4. No Clear Winner Emerges In Keith Gessen’s Party To Take Back the Internet: "Gessen had spent the last two weeks on the Internet! he shouted over the din of the crowd. And during that time, he learned that the Internet was a place where people expressed their pain! (“Isn’t that what literature is?” somebody shouted back.) He would continue to express his pain via the Internet, he declared! Eventually, he got off the table." (@gawker)
5. Vote for Muffin!: Haviland stars in a staged reading of VOTE! The Musical in NYC on June 30th, check out THE VOTE! SHOW! "Your Next Prez" featuring Hav in a cheerleader skirt!. (@youtube)
6. Furthermore: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (@the atlantic.)
7. Also, The World of the Used Book. (@popmatters)
8. Oh! AND! One day I'm gonna have a nice website that'll use this technique: Hand-Drawing Style In Modern Web Design - Volume 2 (@smashing magazine)
9. So, She's Got the Look = ANTM (@fourfour)
10. And also. also. also. Thanks, But No Thanks by Will Doig; Same sex-marriage is wonderful progress, but I'd prefer a civil union. (@nerve)

Sunday Top Topping and New York City Pride Week

Although NYC Pride embraces many of my least favorite things -- sweltering summer heat & drip-dropping human sweat, street parades, mid-afternoon beer consumption, live play-outs of OurChart cosmology -- and although Flag Day puts up a good fight -- Pride remains hands-down totes my favorite holiday. My personal Pride memories range from fantastic & surprising to harrowing & cataclysmal, but I remain a stalwart believer in Pride's potential for excellence. If nothing else, it offers Dani Campbell a chance to host yet another event, probs event #345 on her illustrious promotional resume, which's been building steadily since she failed to win a shot at love with Tila Tequila. Also, I officially loathe Tila Tequila now, I can't even joke about it anymore. She's just really a gross excuse for a human being. She has a great opportunity as a Vietnamese woman and "a bisexual" to make changes w/r/t visibility and understanding, and instead she's running around in a bikini and announcing on a television awards show that she "still doesn't know if she likes boys or girls!" I thought that bisexuality meant liking boys and girls ... you fall in love with a person, not a gender, you don't have to 'choose' ... whatever.

Anyhow! Pride! Despite my aforementioned affections, if it's 140 degrees outside during the parade, I'm gonna whine and bitch until someone transports me to a walk-in freezer and feeds me Creamsicles (NOT sugar-free, please, I prefer to my cancer in the form of a stunning golden tan, not sugar substitutes). Also, since transitioning to the lifestyle, I've yet to actually make it to the parade 'cause usually I go out the night before and then sleep all morning. I know, crazy, Pride makes me into a different person. A person surprisingly tolerant of crowds and polo shirts.

A selection of New York City Pride 2008 Events:
Friday, June 27th:
Girl Nation Downtown @ Stonewall - 10 pm
Showstopper @ Blvd - 199 Bowery (@Rivington) - 10 pm
Shescape - Mannhatta (310 Bowery between Prince & Spring) - 10pm
Remix Fridays at Club Remix (24 Murray Street, between Church & Bway) - 10pm

Saturday, June 28th:
Dyke March - 5:00 PM - finish - W.42nd street and 6th Avenue (Bryant Park)
Lovergirl NYC @ Cache (West 46th between 7th and 8th) and
Lovergirl NC Pride Extravanganza @ Pacha - 618 West 46th, between 11th & 12th.
GirlNation @ Nation (West 45th street, between 6th and 5th)
Under the Sea @ Cattyshack (249 4th Avenue, Brooklyn)
Heritage of Pride's Rapture on the River @ Pier 54 6pm - 11pm (must buy tickets in advance online)

Sunday, June 29, 2008:
Pride March: Noon -End

• Moment of Silence : 2 PM
• Dykes on Bikes: 11 am
• 5th Avenue & 52nd street to Christopher & Greenwich.
• Grand Marshalled by Candis Cayne, who you may remember from our New Now Next video.

Pridefest - Annual LGBT Street Fair -- 11am - 7pm (Hudson Street, Abingdon & W. 14th) Starlette Sunday @ Angels and Kings (500 E. 11th, between Avenue A &B)

In honour of pride, this week's Sunday Top 10 is actually a Gay-Themed Top 20 ... and is actually hosted on Auto-Straddle -- so go there and see it! -- 'cause clearly Autowin is a very intellectual and highly cultivated space for intellectual discussions about Virginia Woolf, The Allegory of the Cave, Boy-briefs vs. thongs and sophisticated feminist theory. Auto-Straddle is where I do other things, like talk about my top 20 most favorite fictional lesbians from (relatively) mainstream pop culture. I like how I make the category all specific for myself. I think eventually I'll develop Multiple Personality Disorder, which according to a recent episode of Law & Order starring (lesbian!) Cynthia Nixon (bringing it back around!), doesn't actually exist. Howevs, if it does, I hope that my personalities are named "Desmond" and Molly, from the Beatles song Ob-li-di-ob-la-da.

I Wanted To Paint Nothing. I Was Looking For Something That Was the Essence of Nothing, and the Soup Can Was It.

[Attempting to construct a frivolous Sunday Top 10 with disproportionate self-consciousness, I figured I'd just write down my feelings -- mostly carry-overs from a few weeks ago -- and move on from there. Here they are. Yay! Sunday Top 10 is finished, will come tomorrow (it's finished, so that's a real promise)].

An Open Letter to All Interweb Haters and Self-Righteous Anti-Blogging Journalists:

[Not Good Autowin Readers, I love y'all. You're the best! This is directed at interweb haters, which sometimes includes people I know, but 95% of the time, doesn't.]

You Chorus of Cuntish Commenters [not my commenters, obvs], your twatiliciousness skyrockets. You under-sharers! You private, nasty people with little boxes of secrets in your stomachs! You're still riding the self-righteous tails of That Emily Gould Thing, a "kids these days" nose-snubbing/squabbling, or you're fired up by a number of additional fuels: NY Mag's recent "microfame" dissection, Keith Gessen's me/"the me you hate" breakdown, Julia Allison's continued Julia Allison-ness (although even she called it quits once).

The problem is: I let public & private negative discourse pervade my headspace. I get beautiful, supportive emails & comments from Autowin/straddle readers and yet a few negative voices overwhelm them. It's precisely the grateful notes that stop me from giving up -- it's not about ego-stroking, or wanting attention, it's about feeling that it matters though Old Media says it don't.

Why is sharing inherently bad -- and NOT sharing consequently "good"? There's plenty of bad oversharing out there, of course ... and I don't read it. Furthermore, I understand we must withhold most things, in fact, our hearts & guts tell us precisely what to hold back, just as it tells us it's time for lunch.

I like the internet! I LIKE IT! I'm sick of apologizing. I'm tired of reading over & over that the cultural pulse is beating inside an indulgent body and that this body is sitting & judging while we bloggers croon on like washed-up lounge singers. Watch me, watch me, I'm a lock-free Dear Diary, my Hooker Name is Elizabeth Wurtzel and my special trick involves opening my whole mouth and letting you touch my wisdom teeth. My Pandora's Box was opened against my wishes, but I haven't figured out how to close it and besides, everything happens for a reason.

In fact, this here blog has lead to many fabulous beautiful intangibles and I think it's better karma to keep going than to stop. I refuse to believe the internet isn't a little magic, look at this video from Kelka Pride. It's easy to scowl protectively at everyone, but it's more fun to play with them. Next year, p.s., we're all going to Kelka Pride.

(I read: "On the Internet, a person can enjoy all the downsides of fame without actually being famous. You can inflate your ego, betray your friends, alienate your family and earn the contempt of strangers without earning a penny in extra income" here and wonder -- am I about to make a ridiculous, flagrantly wrong point? But then I think -- I'm a young earnest writer, isn't it only natural that I'd write a blog, explore the medium? I wouldn't be the first "artist" to forge on so foolishly, w/o it being my "job"?)

[self portrait with sunglasses, andy warhol]

Watch me! Stick a tip or a word in the g-string of my informational striptease. I'm human. I've got a concrete heart & walls like pink floyd ... but humans, even loners like me, need some connection to the rest of the world, even if they hate the rest of the world. Even better, I like feeling that I've done what can to change it just by being me. And that live person-to-person thing -- that petrifies me, and I'm getting too old to keep drinking every time I'm forced to cross the gulf to strange strangers. But I'm safe here, and I like it here.

[Ten Portraits of Jews of the 20th Century Portfolio: Sarah Bernhardt
by Andy Warhol]

Example of Magic: Women's voices. Queer voices. Are everywhere. There's still a million differences between how they're received vs. the traditional voices but to simply exist is a big step in the right direction.

And here's what really I don't get -- and didn't get, re: the emily gould debacle, or any situation in which the writer isn't actively attempting to incite/provoke argument/debate, expressing hateful or bigoted ideas, or auto-playing an annoying song on launch ... if you don't like it ... don't read it. I don't like video games, but I'm not writing Nintendo to critique their latest version of Death Killer Raider Game #456 and, while I'm at it ... "p.s. Nintendo is fat & ugly!"

But -- commenhaters, you do read it! You eat it, devour it, lick the plate click-by-click and then smack your lips and vomit on the cook's face: "That was terrible."
The cook will ask: "Why'd you eat it?"

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.”
- Eckhart Tolle

Writers (and musicians) have been oversharing forevs, it's just more searchable now. We're not savages. But we're vulnerable, 'cause we've taken off our armor and are now sitting behind it, naked & waiting. And there you hatoraiders are with your daggers & shimmering shields. You see our weapons and our best defenses, but decide instead to plan attack based on your feelings about our underwear (and women's underthings: far better to criticize). I didn't ask you to undress, so you don't have to, but you don't have to watch my undressing, either.

[Andy Warhol -Burkley Reinhold]

What can bloggers say in return to anyone who isn't "out there" like we are? I don't even know, 'cause I don't sit around thinking about why I hate people and where I can yell about it. I have complete respect for cyber-"anonymity" (in fact! Not only do I respect it, but I think it's a good thing that the blogosphere seems to be getting less crowded -- those meant to endure, have, and those who haven't, haven't, for whatever reason. Also 'cause if I add one more blog to my Google Reader, I'll have a heart attack), what annoys me is self-righteousness about cyber-anonymity ... the chip on the shoulder of many cyber-anonymous/non-bloggers ("learn your lesson from Emily," they say); loyal only to native art.

In fact -- bloggers can get fired (or -- just to avoid risking a blogger will blog about work when there's plenty of applying talent w/o blogs -- never hired in the first place) simply for having a blog, w/o first amendment protection. Your online-self is so damaging that companies exist now simply to erase it (for a fee). Blog-to-book sales have disappointed. Blogger-to-paid-blogger tales are increasingly less frequent. Oversharing's the Eighth Sin.

Sometimes "I'm not an internet participant, just an observer," is the new "We don't have a television, it's in the closet." (P.S. My teeve's in the living room, though I don't turn it on. I'm so cool, aren't I? For not watching teevee at home? I'm so much better than you. Don't worry, I'm also just like you at your worst and ugliest. Wanna hear about it? Listen: I watch TV at the gym, or with friends I'll stare blankly at its cheap stories and flat people w/expressive eyes and let it fill me like so much styrafoam.) Don't get me wrong -- I don't want you cyber-anonymous, or anyone who doesn't want to, TO participate. But if you do observe, and consequently choose so participate, I'd hope your contribution would be productive rather than just bitching at the content creators.

"The price of being known has gotten really low. I mean not the price, the reward.
Or whatnot. Andy Warhol could more accurately have said in the future everyone will be famous for $15."
-Emily Gould, Emily Magazine
*

[Screen Test: Edie Sedgewick. By Andy Warhol.]

So here's the kicker: the thing about microfame is that it doesn't necessarily bring any profits whatsofuckingever. It can even be a liability. This can be tough, I imagine -- dealing with the cons of fame (being recognized, criticized, insulted, gossiped about, dumped or attacked by a friend/partner) without the pros that make the cons bearable (this is how I make a living and feed myself and my family, so the sacrifices are worth it). I say "I imagine" because I'm not famous enough to deal with those cons, not because I have dooce.com-ish economic "pros." I don't know if the financial rewards for blogging will change, or if that's even the point -- though in a capitalist society, it sure seems like it is.

Saying you're a "blogger" once meant you were part of a forward-thinking generation of new-media enthusiasts, dreaming of an age that marries art, community and self-expression and births an international and ideally merit-based medium. Now, it kinda means you're a sucker, unless "for Deadspin" or "for Jezebel" are the next two words rolling off your tongue. Hell, it's gotten so bad that even Gawker seems to be pretty nice these days. Everyone's been snarked at, it's boring now.

The only thing left to do is be earnest, I think.

[In the Bottom of My Garden, by Andy Warhol]

What I like about Andy Warhol is his playfulness -- this can be fun. It can be entertaining or poetic, but bloggers can't have a deep thought or pull off perfect similie every day. Personally, I've lately tried to save those moments for the Sysiphean task of my novel. (Not a memoir anymore. I just ... can't.) Also, personally: my commenters don't yell or hate and are usually encouraging, and I like the challenge of increasing the user-friendliness and overall derth of fulfillment and format I can do with a receptive audience ... and at its very best most thrilling moments, it's like being an editor of my own little magazine, which has always been my dream job. I like dreams and the beach!

I've got faith that this medium's ultimately good for humanity, and also -- this medium's one of the only things I believe in that I can elect to take part in w/o spending money or leaving my apartment. There's frivolity, but there's also stuff I'm passionate about: group therapy, internet performance art, literature, book club, making people feel a little less alone.

The journey is all. We'll see.

*

The magic of the internet, again!: I just went online to track down some referenced posts, and found this at Slut Machine/Jezebel, expressing similar resolve. When I went to Gessen's blog to grab a link for my earlier graf, I found he'd posted this, which says what I just said, but better & briefer, and includes this exchange, which reminded me of conversations I've had:

Hampton: Rich people don’t blog. Happy people don’t blog. Successful people don’t blog.
Gessen: I’m not any of those things.
Hampton: But you’re those things enough, man. You wrote your book out of pain, and that’s why your book doesn’t suck. I don’t care what these people say. Whereas this blog is just the result of pique and wounded vanity.

[ Details of Renaissance Paintings (Paolo Uccello, St. George the Dragon), by Andy Warhol]

So, all ye haters, just shut your mouth. If I've learned anything of substance from blogging, it's that human beings are, by and large, better than we expect -- or could be. I think we will make this matter. We enjoy the first bite so we'll take it, and when we're all certain it's not poisoned, I'll pass it on to your grandchildren. I could do doomsday too, dressed in black for you, skip to my deepest blue. But this is much more fun.

Because I'll never be happy, therefore I must try whenever possible to feel happy, otherwise I'll die like a SIM, plunging red, time for bed, the hitch is dead.
I can't prove you're wrong about this medium ("the medium is the message"), but you can't prove I'm wrong about it either.

I've been obsessed with Andy Warhol lately, following the recent Interview Magazine issue dedicated to remembering him, which Alex brought me one evening and which enthralled me. I bought The Warhol Diaries and we need to finish Factory Girl. We wanna re-create The Factory, yes! we are such posers! Even my desire is a clichè, and I don't care! into something we call "The Warehouse." Like many things, it may not happen. Also though; it may. There was dry lightning for thirty minutes before the rain, and then the heat returned, following thunder. And then we went to bed, and then we woke up.

Brigid Berlin: He'd sit behind me reading The Post. He'd say; "Well isn't this a great story. Why can't Pat make a script out of this?" I'd say, "What are you talking about?" I didn't have the Post in front of me. "Well, this is a great murder, why can't we do this?"
Vincent Fremont: Or, "they're so peculiar."
Brigid Berlin: "All these young kids, they're doing such great things, and we're doing nothing."
Vincent Fremont: "He liked youth and he liked the news. I think that Andy would have been with the kids at 80. He would have appreciated anybody creative who was young, and helped them go forward. ..
*
Vincent Fremont: It's hard to project what Andy would be like today because he was so unpredictable. People always ask me what Andy would have painted. I think, with all the scandal that's gone down over the years, Andy would have been fascinated. And all that world of technology -- we would have stayed with it. Andy was very curious and he always wanted to know what was going on, and that keeps you young. I'm still trying to emulate him in that sense. Can you imagine how many young artists would have been coming to visit him?
*

Weekend Auto-Fun :: 6-21-08

quotes: "My work has been about making a record of my life that no one can revise. I photograph myself in times of trouble or change in order to find the ground to stand on in the change. You get displaced, and then taking self-portraits becomes a way of hanging on to yourself." (Nan Goldin)

"To me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. It connects me with an enterprise that is over 2,000 years old. What do we have from the past? Art and thought. That’s what lasts. That’s what continues to feed people and given them an idea of something better. A better state of one’s feelings or simply the idea of a silence in one’s self that allows one to think or to feel. Which to me is the same." (Susan Sontag)

photo (left): Photos by Nan Goldin, words by Susan Sontag.

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links:
1. "Glamorous lesbians -- no that is not an oxymoron -- have always been here, but were invisible to mainstream culture until relatively recent": The Triumph of the Lipstick Lesbians. (@the village voice)
2. Irvine Welsh on why he wrote Trainspotting (@the guardian uk books)
3. Compared to these guys, I defo owe Visa only one of my limbs, not two: Bankrupt! 65 Famous People Who Lost it All (@popcrunch)
4. I hope everyone stopped multitasking after that Atlantic Monthly article I directed you to last year, 'cause multitasking is ruining the whole wide world: "The Myth of Multitasking" (@the new atlantis)
5. I've really got into Jezebel lately, especially "Fine Lines," which dotes on old-school YA novels. From the archives, one of my favorite childhood reads about my number one fantasy (getting trapped overnight in the Metropolitan Museum of Art): "From the Mixed-Up Files of Ms. Basil E. Frankweiler." (@jezebel):

"I miss New York. Not the New York somewhere over to my left. A New York before The Squid & The Whale brought divorce to the Museum of Natural History. A New York before nannies got groped; a New York before private-school girls intertwangled lustily on beds in some benighted plan to rule the school. It was a New York that had room for a notepad-toting minor to spy unaccompanied on people through dumbwaiters; a boy to wander Chinatown having adventures with a cricket; teenagers to contend with a genie in a mystery at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Not a world where children playact adult dramas, or unhappily contend with the chaos adults leave in their wake. It's a New York that keeps adults perpetually at shoulder-level, briefcases and purses jostling, while the children, front-and-center in the frame, get up to whatever children get up to."

6. Two poems by Sara Messer: "It’s true I slept with Abe Lincoln. / I now know everything there is to know about this country. /Believe me, I carry a tapeworm for you the size of Kentucky." (@ guernica)
7. Shel Silverstein's unusual route to becoming a children's author. (@poetry foundation)
8. Mourning America's Lost Amusement Park Icons: Out of Service -- includes Back to the Future, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Autworld! In Flint!, Captain EO, and some amusement park in New Jersey where people kept dying 'cause the workers were always drunk. (@RADAR)
9. I knew a fraternity that hazed its brothers by locking them in an attic overnight listening to "Fly Away" by Enya on repeat. The U.S. Army uses the same tactic: "How US interrogators use music as torture." (@the guardian uk)
10. The 80's are back for men's fashion, check it out, lesbos: "Recalling the 80's? Try Selective Memory." (@the ny times)
11. Much ado about semicolons. (@slate)
12. Could you go w/o email for a week?NPR investigates (@lifehacker)
13. Bumper Stickers = Road Rage. (@newsweek)
14. I know deep down inside that Tinkerbell isn't real, but she's geting a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Go Tinkernell! (@people)