Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Auto-Fun of the Daytones :: 7-8-2008

automatic semantic fundamental auto-mechanics
in july
+++
quotes:
"Oh save me from knowing myself
if inside I only melt."
(Eileen Myles, from "Milk")
++

[from the sorted books project by Nina Katchadourian.]

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
enough
to truly consecrate the hour.

I am much too small in this world, yet not small
enough

to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.

I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

[Rilke, I am Too Much Alone in this World, Yet Not Enough]

[collage by jessica burko]

I am in Washington D.C.
eating nerds from a box.
There are two flavors: grape, strawberry.
The strawberry is more delicious.
When I was a kid,
I was a nerd, but cute enough
for loftier social circles.
It was a darned dance:
undercover nerd, cape-less, hapless,
i can read your mind, leap buildings
bound buildings in my singular binding
and then
fly fly away.

I wish I'd known
that I could've been a strawberry.
That would've been so delicious.
So sweet, and so cold.

-Marie Lyn Bernard, 1:35 AM on July 8th, 2008

links:
1. Junot Dìaz says "Grand Theft Auto IV is brilliant, but despite what virtually all the reviews claim, it ain't the revolution." (@wall street journal)
2. Also, children of the future, we r worried that u r dumb. P.S., we r also dumb. We're The Dumbest Generation. :"The problem is that instead of using the Web to learn about the wide world, young people instead mostly use it to gossip about each other and follow pop culture, relentlessly keeping up with the ever-shifting lingua franca of being cool in school." (@the la-la-land times)
3. Clay didn't, as the magazine claims on its homepage, invent New York City. But he did build New York Magazine, and that, to me, is enough. The piece was even worth enduring Tom Wolfe.A City Built of Clay (@nymag)
4. "I survive the degradation that has become America—a land that exalts itself as a bastion of freedom and liberty while it tortures human beings, stripped of their rights, in offshore penal colonies, a land that wages wars defined under international law as criminal wars of aggression, a land that turns its back on its poor, its weak, its mentally ill, in a relentless drive to embrace totalitarian capitalism—because I read books. I have 5,000 of them. They line every wall of my house. And I do not own a television.": Surviving the Fourth of July (@truthdig)
5. OMG, a teevee show is starting fashion trends, it's a revolution: Forget Gossip, Girl; the Buzz Is About the Clothes (@the ny times)
6. Jezebel's Tracie & Moe on "Thinking and Drinking." Did not go too well. Slut Machine's take is: here. (@huffpo & @one d at a time)
7. "Juicy Campus" is helping kids who were assholes in high school to become douchebags in college: "Uncensored, racist and shockingly nasty, online gossip forum Juicy Campus has students trembling." (@radar online)
8. "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.": The Urge to End it All. (@nytimes)
9. "Sex is interesting, even when it's bad. Sex memoirs, on the other hand ..." (@the smart set)
10. Why writers can't go it alone. (@the guardian uk blogs)
11. Poem #3: Prose Poetry Chain/Julianna Spahllholz/Neighborhood (@in posse review)

13 comments:

asher said...

so, i actually didn't finish reading the first book club post (because i'm entertaining the thought that i just might go out tomorrow, buy the book, and start) so i didn't want to read the spoilers.

the only reason for sharing this, is to say that I also take the jacket off of hardcovers when reading. I even throw the jacket away sometimes (cos usually the barebones of the book is prettier than the jacket). And I'm a graphic designer.

I didn't used to do this. I used to utilize the left flap as a bookmark. But it does get in the way.

I'm not particularly proud of this fact. Especially the trashing of the cover. But the only two i can recall doing that with were 'no one belongs here more than you' and margaret cho's 'i have chosen to stay and fight'. both unremarkably works of design. {sigh} conscience cleared.

The Spaz said...

I like your poem. I was that way in high school, definitely should have been stuck with the nerds but I jumped about from group to group; not cause I was so good looking as much as because I would make people laugh.

---

I'm up suffering with the worst sunburn I've had in a dozen years, the product of a four day weekend. Sounds bad but I only tan once I get a good foundation of burn to build on so I'm like totally right on schedule.

Anonymous said...

My old adviser has a literary spam list, and she sent out item number two on your link list. I flipped shit. While I know she doesn't believe in what the article says, I keep hearing it all the time elsewhere. The problem, though, when you flip your shit to a writer/writing professor is that they challenge you to respond with actual writing. So I guess I have a forthcoming argument against that article.

Anonymous said...

all i'm gonna say in a video game half-way endorsed by both junot diaz and haviland stillwell, probs is worth playing. nice poem weirdo. wake up so we can sit in the lawn chairs.

Anonymous said...

omg Junot shares my feelings about GTA3, this is amazing. I really feel like I wanna hang out with that guy for real. I might have an author crush... what is happening?!

Also, that NYTimes suicide article was something special. I don't know, maybe its because I really don't(/didn't) understand suicide, so it totally intrigued me in terms of those statistics and survivor stories. The last paragraph says it all.

riese said...

asher: OK, not only are you a graphic designer but I feel like you said you wanted to be a book cover designer specifically, so if you're removing the cover then I feel like that's a good sign that I am right per always. I took off the miranda july cover too actually. The only one I've always kept on was Mary Gaitksill's "Veronica," and thats 'cause somehow the paper was like way more solidified with the book's binding. I don't know why that is. It was like glossier and doesn't pop out when you open it, even though it's clearly a hardcover binding like any other. I wonder if I can think of other books like this. Hm, I never get hardcovers.

the spaz: Yeah I wasn't actually cute, mostly I could just make people laugh and was skinny, which made the other girls envy me. I was actually very very not cute for most of adolescence. I think I found environments where the bar was set low. I say weird things at 1 am. You're going to have a good tan really soon. I plan to burn off my skin next week on the cruise.

burning steady: I think that the article about why google is making you stupid (from the atlantic last week) actually has a few good arguments in it for why we're not getting dumb. Also I remember linking to something in the autofun once about how kids are actually reading more than ever now that they have the internet and so it's not a totally bad thing. I feel like maybe it was on Slate? What's a "literary spam list"?

caitlin: Tinkerbell is in the lawn chair and she's modeling through it big time right now. Also I'm still not playing any video games.

a;ex: I think you are drawn to him because he reminds you of your native peoples with his espanol. I think you also had an author crush on Aqua the drag queen too ... hm ... maybe you like the men who can really get inside the head of a woman. Yeah?
It freaked me out to think about all the people changing their mind mid-air. Like the opposite of when you went skydiving and had a panic attack.

Anonymous said...

i became mildly addicted to GTA4 last month, but i think it was mostly bc i missed NY and the game is so ridiculously accurate that i even drove to my old office in the game and tried to blow it up.

i heart nerds. esp. the kind where its one flavor on the inside and then dipped in another flavor. have you ever had the chewy nerds? they are kinda weird. like jelly beans with a nerd jacket.

Katyn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Literary spam is kind of like auto-fun in e-mail form.

Also, to a way earlier question, Tank Top Tuesday is a feature on http://dorothysurrenders.blogspot.com

Lovely, except when you're at work. Then it's a scroll-fest.

riese said...

nep: is there an olive garden in GT4? I think that's the closest thing I have to an old office I could blow up but if so, i would totally do it. I love the double dipped nerds where they have the banana-strawberry kind.

katyn: Ooo like one I put up on the website, or the autowin soundtrack that I gave out with the auto-gear? Okay, also, why are you going on the cruise with your ex? That is really serious. obvs we will be there but my ex will not be there. I hope you guys have a street fight and then haviland can sing "gangsta's paradise." YAY NOVA SCOTIA!

burningsteady: Oh, dorothy, she totally beat me at the lesbian blogger contest and some of my fans got a little rowdy about it but she was super sweet, I wonder if she won 'cause she has tank top tuesdays. I'm wearing a tank top right now, does that count as something? I don't have a job really, so I can have all kinds of literary spam scroll-fests and so forth.

Katyn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

hahaa they have a pretty accurate times square so you probably could blow up the OG if you wanted. arson, arson!!

Anonymous said...

Opel