The Message is the Medium

My Mom won't be in videos 'cause she doesn't like her voice. Therefore, as a kid I was provisioned only an 8mm film camera that by definition didn't pick up sound and required outsourced processing and I could only ride my bike so far and so I had to wait for my Mom to drop off the film, get it processed, pick it up, and then I had to wait for my Dad to set up the film projector and the screen [requiring lots of furniture-moving] and all of this just to avoid my Mom's voice being on camera for ten seconds.

Howevs, as camcorders became commonplace, I grew increasingly suspect of my Mom's insistence that this antique 1970's-purchased camera was acceptable gear for a budding young video artist who desperately needed to record her Lego Pirates & Firemen advancing down a self-made felt road through Lincoln Logville as Boyz II Men wailed "End of the Road" on her portable cassette player. So obvs Dad took me out when I was 13 and bought me a real camcorder.

I'd always try to film Mom anyhow -- sneak attack style -- but there was never any variety. Always just be a quick shot of her giving me Stealth Glare Version #8b and, then, for no discernible reason -- but with great consistency -- she'd snap her fingers and point, firmly, at the floor. I think she meant "why don't you film the floor?" but what was on the floor, nothing, obvs, who wants to see a picture of the floor. If there had been something on the floor, who would've been told to pick it up, me. Then where would my movie be? The ceiling or something, sans Kriss-Kross or the Cher wig.

Basically right now what Warner Music Group is doing is interrupting a very successful video remix of my brother & I playing soccer to the tune of "roll the bones," snapping its fingers, pointing at the floor and asking me to film the floor as if ANYTHING EVER HAPPENS THERE. It's shutting off the music and reminding me the silent film camera is still in the upstairs closet. It's crunching my brand-new camera with its fat greedy mouth, grounding me for ten days from doing anything fun, and then, while I'm grounded in the cellar; they're giving away all my toys that I built myself out of wood from a tree that I grew myself.

YouTube you are not my mother but you are acting like my mother.

YouTube, you're an asshole! You can't just change the rules of the game you've built your empire upon. If you haven't heard -- YouTube is slowly & systematically muting all videos that contain copyrighted music -- absolutely everything from self-recorded covers to remixed soundtracks to unintentional background music. I hope you got the rights on the music at your wedding 'cause that shit is going down. They've got sophisticated robots now, it don't matter how big or small you are.

Jan 14th: "YouTube has started muting videos that use unauthorized copyrighted music (and that pretty much means all user-created videos.) ... If YouTube starts being thorough about this, you can expect to see a significant percentage of all YouTube videos muted. The implications are a bit different than with removing copyrighted professionally produced content, like an official music video; we’re talking about tens of thousands of fan made videos, funny spoofs, remixes and the like being pretty much destroyed, and I’m guessing users will be less than thrilled about it. " (Mashable )

So far I've had one video muted (Riese & Hav & Alexi Vlog #32 -- in its memory, I've replaced its star spot on the channel with a video of my dad, brother and i making funny faces which'll never get muted and Vlog #32 is now on vimeo) and one removed altogether (Lozo Vlog #20) if this continues it's likely they'll all be down soon. If another goes down I'll add it on my new vimeo channel as well.

In December, ads were added to one of my vids 'cause 30 secs of background music had been identified as Warner-owned. That was fine, seemed fair, and, consequently , because i knew of these repurcussions this I went on making videos with music believing the rules weren't about to change. Previously YouTube hadn't cracked down on videos like mine citing Section 512(c) of the DMCA. The artists themselves disagree with Warner's choice -- all these background clips are just free publicity for them, that's obvious.

• 5 Stupid Implications of YouTube's Video Muting - mashable
• Warner Music Group and Others Muted on YouTube - wired. com
• YouTube Users Lash Out at Warner Music (and Google) with protest videos - techcrunch
• YouTube Users Caught in Warner Music Spat (tech-chuck)

I never expected to return to video editing and initially Hav & I were both uneasy about being "out there" -- almost for opposite reasons (I'm uneasy about my moving/speaking image out there, she's comfortable with it, it's her livelihood. She's more careful with words, I'm comfortable saying anything) and I certainly never thought we'd make more than two or three.

But now we're proud of what we did, and I'm happy with what I've learned as an editor and pleased we've built a solid number of subscribers, attracted readers and garnered connections and even better gigs. I'm depressed that soon enough the hundreds of hours I've spent editing videos will be silent as my mom's floor -- the vlogs have value because they're on this youtube channel, they don't have a value separate from its medium or independent of the internet's reaction to & expectation of them.

YouTube's visibility enables this and other sites just don't -- at least for now. (And some have rules like this one from day one.) So I'm figuring out what to do from here, hoping there'll be a revolt and this sitch'll get fixed or ... people think vimeo is pretty and it is pretty ... I dunno. Switching platforms is depressing 'cause endless hours of unpaid work reaps different less tangible rewards like my subscribers and their/your views, honors, anticipation, links, conversations, gigs, etc. -- this is what fulfills us and enables us to gauge how we're doing. I don't want to loose my old videos on youtube as they are right now -- my portfolio, basically, legitimized as good by subscribers -- not to mention Haviland! This really gets my goat!

The platform itself is the thing, and I like[d] it. That was my mistake! Taking it for granted. I totally understand taking down entire musical tracks or any copyrighted video shows or if we were making a profit -- I get that. But I don't get eliminating small clips as background music -- un-rippable songs, so to speak. Warner doesn't necessarily have a case for that, this is just the part where logic dissolves and it just becomes a fight betweeen two giant dickweed organizations.

---

But you know, who needs lovely music when you can enjoy some of the writing available on youtube. For example, I've selected some choice comments from my first episode of Lezberado. Don't worry -- these are totally okay things to say, this is what YouTube is 100% okay with.

Just don't play Prince in the background when you type them:

Commenter #1: I want fuck her in a mouth
Commenter #2: FUCK YEAH
Commenter #3: Why? She has horrible teeth!

"ur pathetic for posting a sexy pic to get views u suck shit u fucking scab on society, i hope osmebody inur fmaily dies soon u fucking spawnof satan nothing u say is relivent to the human race u are a fucking intoxicated ametuer lame piece of shit and u deserve nothing except sexual advancement against ur will."

"would you shut the fuck up an go suck a dick thats all you can do and who says your hoe mom is gay i fucker last night."

"this bitch will suck the devils cock."

"vagina's are built to house dicks."

"As is was in the days of Noah and Lot, so will it be in the days of the coming of the Son of man. The world is going to be like it was when 2 men, Noah and Lot lived on this earth. What was different about their time then any other time in history? Immorality, heavy sexual immorality, and specifically homosexuality."

"how do you tell a lesbian from a real woman??? well just look at her freaky ugly haircut!!!"

"Why would the Bin Laden family just happen to be in New York on the eve of 9/11? 9/11 was a red flag op."

That stuff -- that'll never get muted. Thank G-d!

YouTube, I have one thing to say: fuck you, you carwash cunt. BAM! ROASTED.

November Rain & Auto-Fun of the Thank-full Weekend, 11.29/30.2008

Have you seen Haviland & Riese on Alexi's Closet on AfterEllen yet? 'Cause all the cool kids are doing it. Did you have a fun Thanksgiving? Ingest some hot succulent turkey? Read our South of Nowhere Recaps for Episodes 13&14?

Haviland & I had T'giving with a bunch of crazies, including a member of the Coast Guard who just started smoking a month ago, at the age of 26 -- and can't stop chain smoking now -- and when asked why, answered that he went as Hunter S. Thompson for Halloween and just hasn't given it up since. He actually reminded me of the kind of boy I would've made out with in college. I think I once often played the "who do I want to make out with in this room and how can I make that happen?" game whenever I felt, you know, potentially bored, like at 95% of the gatherings of people I'm not related to. It's not that I have more fun with relatives, but obviously I'm not going to make out with any of them, I don't want to get whatever Sarah Palin's kids have. This whole paragraph has been kinda weird. I guess you change your mind about what feels personal and what seems like silly dust in the wind. Funny dust. Auto-funny dust. Anyhow I wasn't bored, so that whole thing was just a waste of words.

Afterwards Hav said, "He was insane but cute, he seemed like the kind of guy you would have hooked up with in college and then not wanted to talk to again." Sometimes Haviland & I actually agree about things, strange things, and I think we've finished a period where we were focused more on uncovering the differences than relishing the similarities -- you know how you do that, the relishing, when you first meet someone? Like our mutual love of Christmas Specials and dislike for public discussions of bodily functions.

I've spent the last two Thanksgivings with Haviland actually, I just realized. Last year at my place w/my roommates and her friends. There were board games and obtuse text messages. At night we made a vlog, and life was strange and silent and dead or almost-dead or heartbreaking or devastating or exploding with promise. It was a lot of things, this time last year.

Two years ago, my brother brought macaroni & cheese from New Orleans. Stephanie was visiting her family, but Haviland & Mina & Janet came over to my apartment, and eventually my roommate Maggie too. Hav had to leave for her show ... then we went to the movies, the new Christopher Guest thing. It was pouring rain and Mina dashed into the rain like a waterproof tiger to get us a yellow car. Each year I've said I'm thankful for my friends and that I'm not homeless or dead. Last year I think I jinxed myself. I've spent a lot of time the past few years in other people's versions of reality. I can't say which I ultimately liked better. Probably the fantasy.

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quote: "Insofar as you are able, I would ask you, then, to be wary of the distractions of fame and the blandishments of commerce. I would ask you to be tireless and devoted in the courtship of your own imagination. I would ask you to nurture your friendships, your alligence with other human beings. If you feel grief or rage or love, give it a shape so that we as readers will know what you mean, and be able to better understand, better cope with the landscapes of our own grief and rage and love." (Barry Lopez, address to 2008 Whiting Award Winners)

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links:
1. Lulled by the celebritariat - the end of the meritocratic ideal? [by Toby Young of "how to lose friends and alienate people," son of the author of "The Rise of the Meritocracy"] (@prospect uk)
2. Britney Returns. (@rolling stone)
3. I don't even know how I got to this page or what it is -- the linking page has receeded into the history -- but it's just really good so you should read it. (@johnny i hardly knew you)
4. The era that defined Wall Street is finally, officially over. It's not like that movie anymore. (@portfolio)
5. Forty-somethings on Facebook (@forbes)
6. Authors like Elizabeth Gilbert, Nick Hornby, Geraldine Brooks, Melissa Bank tell what they want, what they're giving for the holidays: What to Give & What To Get (@penguin)
7. Chuck and Blair Going To The Movies (@emilymagazine)
8. Greatest Moments of George Bush's Speeches (@achtung baby)
9. The Perfect Workplace: "Jealous of your friend who gets massage at work? Yeah, we are too. Turns out that was just the beginning. As the business world races to merge the lost luxaries of the dotcom boom with the responsibility era, we construct the ideal workplace - Perfect, Inc. (@good magazine)
10. I have a lot of questions about this article, mostly that it seems almost like an encyclopedia entry than a trend piece: Making Artistic Careers Lucrative (@nytimes)
11. Sparkly, Sticky and Creative Art Supplies - the gift finder 2008 (@nymag)
12. Five ways Obama Has Already Changed Washington (@the daily beast.)

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[This week's insomnia poem has been assembled from random lines pulled from my Diaryland entries, spanning August to October of 2000.]

Diaryland Insomnia Magnetic Poetry 2K
Love is How It's Lost, Not How it's Found

Tomorrow,
I am not going to monkey class.

My Mom says my intense fear of the phone,
sweating, etc, is all related to "generalized anxiety."
Is anxiety generally ruling my life?

I mean, I want to have sex, but I don't want to get laid.

This whole campus is horny and drunk, or playing on their computers.
I wonder about all these people.
They confuse and bewilder me.

I had yoga this afternoon.
I already knew the downward dog though,
always two feet ahead.

Apparently, last night, someone peed on Sarah.
And this kid with too many earrings threw up a lot.
And two more people had sex.
I, on the other hand, was rushing.
IT'S ALL RICH WHITE GIRLS.
I quit. Boring, shallow.

I missed the Death Cab for Cutie show on monday
'cause I couldn't think of a single soul that would wanna go with me
except maybe Samara,
but I couldn't call her, 'cause I'm afraid of the phone.

I DON'T FIT IN
and this doesn't embarrass me anymore.

I have friends that don't make any sense,
and a couple who do.

Billy Blanks told me I could do anything if I reached into my soul
and grabbed the piece of me with power.
Even if I'm tired, I can still do it, he said, and I am tired,
so I slept all day.

I'll never get over tea or lights.

I think Al Gore is cute, but if I ever liked him,
a pretty girl would steal him from me.
She wouldn't even know that I liked him.

For the past two nights I've seen Sandra Bullock romantic comedies.
I sit on my bed and it's right at the foot of my bed and
for some reason, I really like that.

That year, Anna dressed as a frog with two little styrofoam eyeballs
on her forehead. I thought that was so cool.
I wanted eyeballs like that too.

The best Halloween was when we did Peter Pan.
I think my Dad was Captain Hook, and Lewis was Peter Pan.
I was Tinkerbell.

I cannot surrender to a moment.

I think some things are just extinct.
++

we hold these truths to be self evident i cannot stop thinking about our next president

I can't seem to talk or think about anything besides Election 2008. If you've recently dared to speak at length to me about anything besides the election, I was probs jonesing for a little talk about health care the whole time.

You: "I had a bad day at work."

Me: "OMG! Mr. Palin wants Alaska to secede from the union! Can you believe it?"

You: "I feel like my boss never listens to me."

Me: "SECEDE!! From the United States! Sarah Palin's HUSBAND!"

How can you think of anything else besides. Election. 2008. at this pivotal! moment. in our country's history! I've prepared a graph for you of some of the things I've ever obsessively thought about over the years. I didn't include "myself" 'cause obvs I think about myself all the time, that's a given.

i.
"The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village."
(Marshall McLuhan)

Maybe it's 'cause I've been living in Haviland's apartment, where it seems only natural for MSNBC to be on all the time. 'Cause my roomie's out of town so I've got the place to myself. I sit in the living room facing the television, eyes peeled open like the potatoes I'd like to throw at Sarah Palin's hair.

Or maybe it's just 'cause this is a pivotal TIME! IN ! OUR! NATION'S HISTORY!

Maybe it's 'cause I'm doing customer service work for a political advocacy group that sells/distributes campaign buttons and there's been a massive issue with a post office in the midwest who hasn't been shipping stuff on time -- and just today three people have threatened to vote McCain if they don't get their buttons STAT.

I prefer the slighted button-orderers who present conspiracy theories: Our first black candidate and things aren't going through the mail. COINCIDENCE? I think not.

I'm like, Hey, I think you're onto something there.
++
ii.
"In fact it was a better time then [when President Kennedy got shot], and people knew what they were supposed to do and how to make the world better. Now nobody knows anything. We know who's popular, or that social studies is boring."
(Angela Chase, My So-Called Life, 1994)

This is the kind of political obsession that I always imagined people had in other countries. You know -- countries with problems. Like they were starving or being bombed all the time.

But I passed through adolescence -- that crucial period where the heroes of Greek mythology often experience a loss of innocence -- during the Clinton years. Furthermore -- born in '81, I'd been raised to believe Republicans were evil and Regan was ruining everything, and I campaigned for Dukakis until my second grade teacher told me buttons weren't allowed in public school.

2000 was a huge blow to how I thought the world worked. I passed through denial to outrage to complete self-centrism, which is more productive.

Honestly -- I wasn't this worried in '04 'cause I didn't believe there was any possible way Bush could win -- polls be damned, I just didn't think such a thing was possible. He was really bad at that job, I've been fired for much less. I've been fired for giving out tequilla shots, but he can be responsible for the deaths of actual Mexicans and keep his job.

Now, it all feels so real. THIS IS A PIVOTAL! time! in our nation's. HISTORY!.

++
iii.
"you can keep the pentagon. keep the propaganda
keep each and every teevee that's been trying to convince me
to participate / in some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution."
-ani difranco

Have you read the Rolling Stone article about the duplicitous lying not-even-a-war-hero John McCain? If you haven't read that article I can't talk to you.

And meanwhile, let's say they "prove" that Obama and Ayers are friends -- then what? What's the point? It's like an essay that "explores" a topic without a thesis. Certainly their thesis can't be "Obama is a terrorist," 'cause that's absurd. But then again, so is the concept that any grown man would actually take action to ensure kindergartners learn to put condoms on those bananas before they eat them. I mean REALLY MCCAIN REALLY? No wonder you graduated second-to-last in your class.

But man it's hard to keep up on all this 'cause although Sarah Palin claims to be reading "all the magazines" -- I actually AM READING ALL OF THE MAGAZINES.

The New Yorker, The Nation, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The L.A. Times, the blogs and the blogs and Vanity Fair and Esquire and Good and the other fine monthlies of this fine country but it's the weeklies that really have the juicy stuff! Like current, but thorough.

When Palin said that, I thought firstly: "Man, she's never even read Ranger Rick."

Then: "Wait. But I AM reading all those magazines! All those newspapers! I mean I really am! And I barely have time to sleep and work, let alone vice-govern the country!"

During the debtates there's liveblogs on cnn, wonkette, jezebel and gawker all at the same time. I mean, that takes a LOT of time right there.

I keep up on these things in the 24/7 news cycle and here's how. Let's pie chart:

++
iv.
"it's nice that you listen / it'd be nicer if you joined in
as long as you play their game girl / you're never going to win."
(ani difranco)

I've been trying to put together something about Obama's campaign for this blog -- a top ten covering the issues -- that I made Krista and Natalie and Haviland help me write -- a "form letter" for you to send to your Republican or Undecided friends & family to try to change their minds. I've written half of it in rhyme, half of it in plain non-partisan speak and another random percentage of it in quotes & links. It is not done. Will it ever be done?

Haviland and I have completed several Palin vlogs, I twittered every possible minute of every debate on my twitter feed and using the Election 2008 twitter feed.

It's about right and wrong and the betterment of the world. But it's also for the first time, totally about memememe. And I'm not even talking about gay marriage.

Here's the thing: I'll lose my health insurance, and I'll lose the hope of getting any should I ever earn out of what I've got now, which I hope I will eventually. So if I lose my health insurance then I'll have to move to the Yukon, and I'll stop writing this blog, and then you'll have to talk to each other's faces, except you better be careful, 'cause no one would have health insurance, so you would all have cooties, and you'd all get colds, and be at home in your bed sneezing and then, then, who's a Maverick? Hey-o!

v.
"We must be the change we wish to see."
-Gandhi

Sarah Palin is not smart, not ready, not prepared. She doesn't realize feminism still has a fight, she's a religious extremist who doesn't believe in the separation of church and state. Just health care and state, education and state, and social services and state.

John McCain is a duplicitous liar who can't handle the idea that he can't just get this, like how he crashed planes and blew out the electricity in a country 'cause of bad flying and picked his outpost based on what kinds of strippers he could pick up there. His heroic act was not even heroic, you should read the Rolling Stone article. Besides even if it was I don't get what it has to do with anything.

Obama is a revolution.

I thought Biden ROCKED the debate. Not just in comparison to Palin, I think he got good policy points across, especially the Maverick monologue at the end.

So anyhow anyone who's worked for a corporate restaurant chain can tell you that no matter how regulated and constricted the position, a new manager will bring some kind of change. Of course John McCain will bring some new policies and strategies to the white house. But his intent is the same as Bush's, and intent is a significant portion of the law. He's not straight talk, unless you're the one in the room writing the check.

++
vi.
"Night-life. Letters, journals, bourbon
sloshed in the glass. Poems crucified on the wall,
dissected, their bird-wings severed
like trophies. No one lives in this room
without living through some kind of crisis."
-Adrienne Rich

ihate sarahpalin
ihhateaeaosdisarahpalin
i hate ann coulter
i hate elisabeth hassleback
and everyone
but mostly cindymccain evil eye
waawaa witchcraft.
AAA!

Hey, p.s.:

-The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system.

-In one of the wealthiest districts on New York's Long Island, the per pupil spending amounts to $11,265 annually. Meanwhile, impoverished sectors of New York City see only $5,590 per student--approximately half the amount funneled into the rich school districts.

-A recent study cited 80% of inmates in an Oakland jail could be linked back to the same three high schools -- all underfunded, low-performing schools in bad neighborhoods. Prison is far more expensive than even implying that their education matters to the country they live in by giving them books and fixing the walls.

-Our nation has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with everyone dashing before their turn to pay comes up. I don't know.

I could go on and so I won't. I wanted to give you my mind, but in writing. Maybe you feel similarly.

These attack ads -- it's like that thing they do at the end of a basketball game where they start fouling to get foul shots and then maybe the rebound? but that never works.

I just wanted to share my feelings with you because
I love America!

self evident
++

Sunday Top Ten: I Was 27 I Was Sure I Was Growing Pains Like Lead in my Feet

Firstly, doesn't my brother look just like Michael Cera? I saw this article about Cera in the times today and it reminded me of this important thought, one of many important thoughts I have in my head every single day:

Anyhow, onto the Sunday Top Ten on the topic of aging. During my oft-discussed tenure at the Olive Garden Times Square I dated an older man. I was 18 -- a young spry maiden in the fresh poppy fields of her youth -- and he was 27; a freshly divorced law student. I've never been so acutely aware of what it meant to be my age as I was then -- "18" was imposed upon me like a personality trait, and it was the focal point of many relationship discussions with Mr. 27. Consequently 27 has become, in my mind, the age at which one becomes "older." 27 is the age at which I arbitrarily decided people became old enough to have their shit together.

18 was a good age to be. Ripe and on the cusp of something grown-up and fabulous but still charming. Now I'm 27, when youth loses its charm and becomes an old old song in need of a DJ Carlytron Mega-mix. Have I gotten my shit together? Obvs no, I was closer to having my shit together in 2003. But today I spent four hours in high heels, fishnets, gold-hot pants, a corset, and a giant blonde wig and insane drag queen makeup for a sex blogger calendar shoot. I mean who would've guessed? That's way better than a mortgage [which I just had to look up as I don't know how to spell it], which I hear aren't good investments these days anyhow. I'm gonna be whatever month Hedwig and the Angry Inch copulated with Celene Dion and birthed a spry shimmery Mousekeeter named autowin. So that's something.

See I progressed at a highly abnormal rate most of my life. Reading before kindergarten, writing novels before the invention of computers as I was born in the land before time. I started researching colleges and taking myself seriously as a professional something before I even went through puberty. I tried to get into college a year early but my Mom was like "No way, Josè." Basically I was on a fast-track and was convinced that if I didn't go straight to Manhattan at 18 and make it STAT, I'd let the best years of my life pass me by. I slowed down a little bit after that.

++
Sunday Top Ten: When I'm 27


[stephen nibbot ]

10. Married!

I figured, at 18, that I had about 10 years of effortless sveltehood and charm left. My high school sweetheart had praised me for making him feel "like a boy again," and my 27-year-old paramour said I was "immature" and "SO 18." I wanted to keep that up.

See -- obvs I intended to spend my Cialis years in a perpetual never-never land of processed snack foods, vodka, carrot cake, anachronistic footwear and My So-Called Life marathons, so I knew I'd have to get married before I began that phase of my life so that I'd be settled in with my fried chicken babies and therefore rendered unleave-able at the precise moment I'd become unbearable and plump. I'd sit on the couch with my nuggets of children, reading great literature out loud like everything was a fairy tale and my husband would be like "I'd divorce that bitch, but she won't get off the couch," and then I'd be like, "go eat a apple pie!"

Instead I just went gay.¹ Marriage is illegal and "letting yourself go" is de rigeour, so I'm good to go.

++
9. Live in an unbearably cute apartment on a cute tree-lined block.

I think I've been over this a few times already.

++
8. Be a fabulously successful writer, associate editor at New York Magazine, the next new thing prize-winning young novelist, news journalist a la Lois Lane or have started my own magazine, which is still my number one dream, although it's now starting my own online magazine, obvs.

Reality: 2nd Place in the Hot Blogger Calendar Contest, 2nd place in the Lesbian Blog of the Year, 2nd place in the 50-yard dash 1990.

++

7. Have a savings account with actual money in it

I think I'm going to start one before I turn 28.

++
6. Enter a fabulous job market, flash my diploma all the way to the top.

When I was applying for schools in '98-'99, the future wasn't just bright, it was blinding. Kids like me -- smart, well-read, completely pretentious asshats from academically inclined families -- believed the world was totally our Oyster 2.0 and we were gonna grab it by the horns and make sweet love to it, call it performance art, and collect our big fat checks. Within two years of matriculation, the world became a very different place. Also there's just a lot of us now. Like, by the numbers? A lot of kids in the city who want the same things.

My best friends were entering schools to study the following trades: acting, art history, directing theater, piano, set design, poetry, filmmaking, violin, modern dance, women's studies, etc.

When I transferred to University of Michigan to get a B.A. in English Literature, I thought I was being really fucking responsible, 'cause I'd left Sarah Lawrence where I'd planned to shell out $160,000 to get a degree in "Liberal Arts." In retrospect I should've learned a trade I could stick my hands in like they had in the Olden Days before the economy was invented, like basket-weaving or glassblowing.

++
5. Some version, however abstract, of the [Artist]'s American Dream. Warhol-ish. Obama-ish

And maybe that's what I like about Obama. That he seems to believe in the dream we were sold -- the dream of a meritocracy. But our government for the past 8 years hasn't been a meritocracy, it's been some bizarre combination of theocracy and aristocracy. Bush wasn't even elected, but his arm weilded its power and the people fell in line.

++
4. Have massive amounts of ass-kicking fun/adventures!

You know what I just fully wholly 100% realized just now is that in the mess of things that so many things have become over the years, there's also the other things, as in, all the things I never ever thought I'd have the chance to do in a million trillion years that I've done in the time between then and now, like some of the purest funnest fucking fun I've ever had like ever. So much fun, seriously, so much fun. Crazy fun. A dream world for everyone involved so much of the time, but maybe that's what makes it feel like so much magic, laughable magic ... that so many times, if you closed your eyes and tapped your shoes it could be a dream world that beat the hell out of any other dream worlds I've known. Years of memories of adventures burning way too bright to last the night, but believing every time that it would was half the fun.

++

3. Watch Amèlie

I bought Ameliè in like 2002 I think, 'cause I thought I would watch it on my laptop on our way home from Ohio one Thanksgiving. Unfortunately my boyfriend was being an asshole and said it would be rude for me to do that when I could just be awake listening to him annoy me with assholery. Now I'll never watch it, 'cause it has subtitles and that means I'll be doing two things at once, which makes it hard to do yet another thing, like write my blog or clean my room , while I "watch" the movie.

++
2. Get a six-pack

I think I want more apple strudel.

++
1. Have health insurance

SCORE! Howevs, if I ever accomplish any of the other things on my list, I'll stop qualifying for my health insurance. You win some, you auto-lose some. Vote Obama! Then we'll all get health insurance!

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¹ I still identify as bisexual but often play with facts for the purpose of a good sentence. Even for a mediocre sentence. The point is that we're all queers, labels are for pineapples that have labels on them. Cans of pineapple.

autophobia is "the fear of being alone." fun! today is 8-5-08

[sarah wilmner]
you should check out her website for real, it's kinda magical work she does

---

quote: "Perhaps her mother had never shown Abby affection, not really, but she had given her a knack for solitude, with its terrible lurches outward, and its smooth glide back to peace. Abby would toast her for that. It was really the world that was one's brutal mother, the one that nursed and neglected you, and your own mother was your only sibling in that world." [from ""Which is More I Can Say About Some People." by Lorrie Moore]

---

links:
1. FLIRT! is up! I made it! Watch it now! Starring Haviland of course, and featuring Daphne Rubin-Vega, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Rosie and Kelli O'Donnell, Anne Van Cleave, Andrea McArdle, Lillias White, Christine Ebersole, Seth Rudetsky, Tressa and many more! (@broadway world)
2. Clara. By Roberto Bolaño. Please read. It's short, I promise. (@the new yorker)
3. The Battery's Down! w/Havi-land and smokin' hot Cortney!: Episode 6: Ro, Ro Ro Your Boat (@battery's down)
4. 35 Beautiful Music Album Covers (p.s. I heart that pixies album, and the michael jackson brings me back to the 90's) (@smashing magazine)
5. Sam Anderson! How James Wood's 'How Fiction Works' Works: and why it sometimes doesn't. (@ny magazine)
6. 50 Sexiest Music Videos of all Time (highlights include Rilo Kiley,and the video for God-des & She's "Lick It" which's actually awesome and redeems its inclusion in The L Word. (@nerve.com)
7. I am really really confused about this: Irvine Welsh calls 'A Bright Shiny Morning' "an uncompromising affirmation of our humanity."? (@the guardian uk books)
8. In art and politics, 'elitism' gets unfair rap.: "Elitism" also is being sullied in the political arena, where Democratic candidate Barack Obama has been accused of thinking he's smarter than the average guy. To me, this is an astonishing attack strategy. Do we not want the president of the country to be smart? (@the review journal)
9. American Film is Obsessed with Teens but Try as one might to carefully slot teenagers, and adolescence, into designated cubbyholes, some part of the whole is too messy, too real, to fit. (@boston globe)
10. Thank you, finally, someone for agreeing with me: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: In Online Musical Serial, the Mad Doctor Is In (@ny times)

---

insomnia poetry #7

open letter to our parents:
we know you meant well &
wanted all best things for us
but wtf re: college?
no, not the college itself, not the learning?
but the certificate at the end, the receipt.
meet, greet, we've got the whole world under our fat feet
it's like clay, like a curtain.
I've got so much paper I should burn 'em.
I just want to be a hiro, kick past august three - zero

I'm starting a 'zine called "the yellow wallpaper."
I've always wanted to use the word "xerox" in a poem.
The word xerox / is in a poem.

Just so you know I think Haviland reported the earthquake first
to me on bbm. not that other girl on twitter.
She said something about it
I was saying something else
like a ship and an earthquake,
passing in a storm.
If you were xeroxing the earthquake
it would be smaller and darker, with little dots
are those people, or rocks?

---

So I was thinking earlier about Julia Allison. If you're not familiar with J.A., check out this month's WIRED cover story "How to Get Internet Famous (Even if You're Nobody)" on Julia Allison. I get her Twitter feed now. I don't know, I can't help it. It just keeps coming and I let it spiral out of control. Here's the thing: she has the platform to offer something compelling to the world. What is that going to be?

Like Julia, Emily Gould also writes, primarily, about herself, but she does so with an inventive and curious tone. Her navel-gazing aims for insight, hopes for a breakthrough. I believe Gould has a mission with her work, even if she's still figuring out what that mission is ... it's got something to do with what most of the best personal bloggers are looking at: the impact of pop culture, art, economics, feminism and sociology upon personal identity.

Like Julia, Paris Hilton is also famous for doing nothing, but she has a product to sell -- herself as an actress, herself as a clothing designer and so on. She's got heaps of money, which's a unique trait, and a sort of sassy attitude that can be interesting.

But Julia Allison has no mission. It's not even like she wants to make people feel less alone or sell her handbags to save the whales. She just wants to ... get more people around who want to talk about her? Her new website NonSociety has this mission statement: "Your window into our crazy lives. See what we're up to and what we have to say. Take it or leave it. We hope we inspire you to live differently." This is followed, of course, by a site map of self-indulgent conformist nonsense. It's the same way I feel about "The Hills" or "Gimme Sugar" : you appear to be the people I avoid in real life, why would I pursue you on the internet?

When asked why she does what she does, her answer is both telling and desperately un-interesting: "I'm a writer!" If I asked a Gap salesman why he sold khaki pants, I bet he'd at least try to talk to me about style 'cause "because I'm a retail salesperson!" is not gonna seal any kind of deal.

I always give female bloggers who blog about themselves, especially ones who are often already hated on by gawker and the like, the benefit of the doubt. But I don't dislike her for any of the reasons that gawker doesn't like her. I don't care that she talks about herself or wants attention or makes bad decisions in public. Those things can be pulled off quite eloquently (see: Emily Gould, Tracie/Slutmachine).

I don't judge her for putting herself out there -- but I'm intrigued that she doesn't have a point and she is in and of herself all there is to her. I wish she could get more weird and Elle Woodsy so she could be made fun of in a new/interesting way. My question for Julia Alison is "what's the point?" and the answer cannot be "Julia Allison." I think she could be so much more than she is. I'd like her to be the editor-at-large of The Yellow Wallpaper, my new 'zine. Since I'm much better at telling other people what to do than I am at getting my own life in order.

Anyhow. FLIRT BETTER BE UP TODAY OR I'M CRACKING SKULLS.

pre.boat. ... 7-13-2008 ... autographed fun of the day

It wouldn't be a fun-filled stress-free vacation without a few Nth hour Catastrophes -- I write to you in a state of arrested attention which'll ideally be dissolved in 24 hours when I'm floating towards the allegedly breathtaking landscapes of New England and Canada as a bunch o' gays in shorts and matching t-shirts perform highly conceptual parodies of showtunes while dancing in relative unison. I will also, clearly, be blogging, and also -- vlogging. The fact that those verbs have become a real part of my vernacular is either awesome or embarrassing, I can't decide. UPDATE: I have decided -- embarrassing/AWESOME. On the up-side, though I've eaten all the groceries I purchased two weeks ago, I have NOT drunk the wine I purchased two weeks ago. Obviously, I'm taking care of that right now, lest good food/drink go to waste. I've put a photo of my sponsor child above my desk to remind myself how ridiculous I am and that I need to be doing more to save peoples of the world. It's totally working, actually. Also if you haven't watched our advice column vlog yet, you're pretty much gonna be getting fourtunes like "Let's Go: Non Fat Whole Wheat Green Tea" for all your many years of future time in grasshoperworld.

First of all, big news re; The 'Nards:
1. My Mom pretty much won the diary contest. She mixed up '06 and '07, but that was clearly a typo (I've fact-checked this w/Mom) 'cause I know she knows which diary entry was from '07, obvs. That's how cool I am you guys, my Mom won the contest. Also, my Mom entered the contest! My Mom is kinda magical.
2. Also my brother Lewnard has started his own blog! He likes to write complaint letters to corporations that let him down, an activity he's been pursuing since the age of 7 or 8, and now he's taking it to the streets with "Memo to the Man." We learned this anti-corporate spirit from our parents, Actual Hippies who eventually saw Lew & us employ their Vietnam Protest chants against their insistence we go to the furniture store (1-2-3-4-We don't want your fucking war = 1-2-3-4 we don't want your furniture store) to watch cardboard televisions while they stared at couches.
3. Next thing you know, Tinkerbell's gonna be getting her own myspace page or hanging out with Barack Obama and Brangelina.
4. OMG!

*

"Yes we can!"
-Tinkerbell

Madamme Tussuad Loves Tinkerbell

Tinkerbell = Also Having Twins

---

[Contents of a Dream of Genie, Carla Ganis ]
*
Quote:

"I went into a glass maze called the Palace of Mirrors.
I wonder where the dreams I don't remember go.
I do not know what to do with my hands when there is nothing for them to do.
Even though it is never for me,
I always turn around when someone whistles in the street."
-Edouard Levè, from "Autoportrait"
*

[Defining Madness, by Mary Jo Rosania ]

"Sometimes, if I talked for too long, I'd be yanked beneath, into cold and weedy water.
Down there, I could not see or breathe; I was dragged backward and it wasn't even the submersion that was the worst part, it was that I had to come up again.
My present world was always, in in its mildness, a little disappointing.
I've never since Ault been in a place where everyone wants the same things; minus a universal currency, it's not always clear to me what I myself want. And anyway, no one's watching to see whether or not you get what you're after -- if at Ault I'd felt mostly unnoticed, I'd also, at certain moments, feel scrutinized.
After Ault, I was unaccounted for ... I've never paid close attention to my life or anyone else's as I did then.
How was I able to pay such attention?
I remember myself as often unhappy at Ault, and yet my unhappiness was alert and expectant;
really, it was, in its energy,
not that different
from happiness."
-from "Prep," by Curtis Sittenfeld

Ethan and His Blue Things - -SeeWoo and Her Pink Things
[JeongMee Yoon]
*
Auto-Fun for the Time Being:

1. An intelligent summary of the last few weeks of automated phun (like "fun" married "phat" and had a ferret) ending with a BANG w/an excerpt from one of my favorite David Foster Wallace essays ever: The Internet and its Enemies (@The National)
2. Really all I can do w/r/t this shared item is quote stef's google reader note on it: "I don't even know what's going ON anymore.": In Which We Recommend You Become a Better Person (@this recording)
3. Biexual Species: Unorthodox Sex in the Animal Kingdom (@scientific american)
4. The life of an artist -- a writer, in fact -- is, just as I suspected, a lot like being a psychiatrist. It's proven here. (@the guardian uk books)
5. Death by Gonzo: Hunter S. Thompson had fear & loathing for, also, himself (@ny mag)
6. Number one feeling: dancing. Number two feeling:is it sexist to be sexy while dancing? (@dance magazine)
7. I think this could also serve as an answer to question 7 in the Junot Dìaz discussion: "How do you win a booker prize?" (Take readers to a faraway place, fyi) (@bbc news entertainment)
8. It almost makes me LOL, how predictable the major news-outlet Web 2.0 stories are ... everyone announcement; last month you wrote about self-indulgent writers, this months you write about asshole commenters ... ooo! Time! You're rarely good at this, so you get to go first. Go!: "Post Apocalypse" (@time)
9. Obama on reading Harry Potter (@motherreader)
10. A woman is dedicating her life to doing everything Oprah recommends for a year. I hope that includes Gayle, just saying. (@chicago tribune)

---

[carla gannis ]

Insomnia Poem #4: Ode to a Grecian Sutter Home

I used to think pink wine was trashy
I haven't changed my mind
about pink wine
but I've changed my mind
about trashy.

Wine - oh. Wino. Oh!

I'd like to be the wife of bath
leave bubbles in my path
clear like glass, empty and fast
before I sleep
I try to go deep
not sheep
but
as far away from real as me
so the body gets some sleep

you want to know
why I'm such a parody
it's 'cause people bring out the worst in me
like boyz ii men i'm on bended knee
i can't trust 'cause i see just what i see
like roger rabbit i jump with glee
like jessica rabbit it's not a cartoon, it's me
i mean
you who've drawn mememememe.
your pencil pops bubbles friendships
you prodded, i burst
i mean the general "you."

When I turn off the lights
it gets so dark in here
I was joking about the cave
but not about the emo
I've never seen finding nemo
And I don't want to.

P.S. Also I don't want to see Wall-E. Sorry-e.
P.P.S. I'm listening to Tori Amos.
I don't know why
but I don't care 'cause sometimes I said sometimes
I year your voice and it's been years years

This is a Happy Phantom

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)

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)

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)

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.

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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. ..
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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?
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