Early class today. 9AM, Privalov, Proteins. Wasn't registered, only considering--it was between that and Probability and Statistics for Biological Sciences and Engineering, and I had to leave half an hour before the end of Privalov's class to get to ProbStats. Thought it was going to be a big lecture where I could slip out unnoticed at any point, but I turned out to be one of only six people present. Privalov stared at me as I almost ran out the door around 10. I haven't been that embarrassed in a while. Think I'm going to take ProbStats; it could be an interesting lead into computation, if I ever decide to do that. Regardless, even, of the fact that I've now had two embarrassing run-ins with Peter Privalov, he of the Russian accent and long, ancient pauses between statements in lecture, inventor of x-ray crystallography (or something important like that, can't remember precisely), whose lab I almost joined but let the chance slip through my fingers. (A little bit arrogant youth, a little bit new-school.)
Ten minutes before the end of Biological Physics (Reich, it's going to kick ass), the door to our classroom opened, and in walked a blonde ponytailed girl with a black-and-white striped, tight sweater with sleeves that came down to cover her palms. I thought to myself, "who's this cute girl who's 40 minutes late?" before the professor introduced her as our TA.
It is confirmed, then. The borderline between physics and biology will forever be populated by older girls who will always be painfully attractive and painfully out of my league. I suppose these things happen.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Viõrar Vel Til Loftárasa
First snow. First snow. Goddamn heart of January. That, and Ágætis Byrjun. It's been done before, of course. Who listens to Sigur Rós on snowy days? Who doesn't? Who shouldn't?
Enveloping cold, be one final ward against the alien warmth of machinery. Snow clings. Not like waste heat. Snow promises cold and sticks to you to reassure you of that promise.
Or something. I know that the air seems more tangible when it's snowing. A little easier to grasp.
I remember sledding down the hill behind my house when I was little. Seemed like a sheer drop then--but probably even smaller than the slope behind Bloomberg. I remember walking through the trails and fields behind Lawrenceville when it was shut down (imagine the amount of snow you'd need to shut down a boarding school), lying down in snow that was too deep to make angels in--and this was an entire cornfield, not just a drift. I remember walks along the ravine two years ago, and swingsets with frozen chains that numbed my palms.
Many good memories of snow. I don't think I actually have any bad memories associated with snow, at all.
Good weather for an airstrike. Good weather for things to change. Will they? It would make me happy.
School starts tomorrow. Think I'm dropping Cell Bio. Conflicts with X-ray Crystallography, damn Lattman had to switch the schedule around on me. Nobody else is trying to take Crystallography and Cell Bio at the same time? Just my luck, I suppose. I'm probably going to get a B in Cell Bio when I eventually take it, anyway, which will probably be next year.
Running out of excuses to leave the apartment. Internet's fucked, stealing someone else's. Thank providence for an apartment building full of students who have wireless routers. God damn if I'm going to be stuck in a room surrounded by self-destructing machines.
Out and into the snow now. Old friend of mine, ain't seen for a year. Time for some familiar embraces. I take what I can get.
Always waiting for communications from Paris, London, Denmark, wherever. Wishing I were European. And female. Check.
Enveloping cold, be one final ward against the alien warmth of machinery. Snow clings. Not like waste heat. Snow promises cold and sticks to you to reassure you of that promise.
Or something. I know that the air seems more tangible when it's snowing. A little easier to grasp.
I remember sledding down the hill behind my house when I was little. Seemed like a sheer drop then--but probably even smaller than the slope behind Bloomberg. I remember walking through the trails and fields behind Lawrenceville when it was shut down (imagine the amount of snow you'd need to shut down a boarding school), lying down in snow that was too deep to make angels in--and this was an entire cornfield, not just a drift. I remember walks along the ravine two years ago, and swingsets with frozen chains that numbed my palms.
Many good memories of snow. I don't think I actually have any bad memories associated with snow, at all.
Good weather for an airstrike. Good weather for things to change. Will they? It would make me happy.
School starts tomorrow. Think I'm dropping Cell Bio. Conflicts with X-ray Crystallography, damn Lattman had to switch the schedule around on me. Nobody else is trying to take Crystallography and Cell Bio at the same time? Just my luck, I suppose. I'm probably going to get a B in Cell Bio when I eventually take it, anyway, which will probably be next year.
Running out of excuses to leave the apartment. Internet's fucked, stealing someone else's. Thank providence for an apartment building full of students who have wireless routers. God damn if I'm going to be stuck in a room surrounded by self-destructing machines.
Out and into the snow now. Old friend of mine, ain't seen for a year. Time for some familiar embraces. I take what I can get.
Always waiting for communications from Paris, London, Denmark, wherever. Wishing I were European. And female. Check.
Monday, January 15, 2007
The Fire Swept Through
Must've passed up two opportunities for poetry on Friday. First one was when I was wandering through campus in the daytime, listening to some Pinback with the air fit to break into rain at a moment's notice. I'd gone out to find a professor in the Writing Seminars department, but no one was there. While walking aimlessly through the winding brick pathways between the library and Mattin, I saw a cat. A little tabby thing, rather clean-looking, sitting in the middle of the path outside of the Merrick Barn. I stopped to look at it. It kept meowing at me, as we both held still, facing each other in a staring contest.
I considered moving closer to it, or petting it, but my mind kept coming up with reasons why I shouldn't: what if it clawed me or something? Eventually I walked away, and over to the steps going down to Maryland, but then I stopped and leaned against the railing, watching the cat from across the grass. Several people paused to point at it; eventually a girl in boots and a long black coat stooped--couldn't hear but I think she talked to it--and tried to pet it, whereupon the cat began to mosey away down the path, the girl following a step behind. I thought it was quite an entertaining sight.
The second occasion was coming out of Sonar after the Ed Rush & Optical dance party: an old man with wild eyes, white hair and a grey sweater, hopelessly out of place on Saratoga in the shadow of the rust-amber bridge across from the prison, amongst studded belts, tight black pants, sweat-streaked mascara, bleached hair, with an armful of roses in pastel pinks, whites and yellows, an Eastern European accent chanting, "roses, roses. Roses, roses," as if that were the only word he knew. I don't know how he got plucked out of a children's folk tale and dumped outside a club in downtown Baltimore on a Friday night, but damn, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted one of those flowers. I didn't even know what I would do with it--certainly there was nobody around I could've possibly given one to--but I wanted to get one, if only because I knew none of the walking zeitgeist, hipper-than-thou kids coming out the door would ever have given him the time of day. But John and Sterling, obviously seeing no worth in such endeavors, dragged me away. "It'll just make you depressed later," John said. Little did he know...
I should count up all the things like that that ever happened. Make a little list of things I could've done, and probably should've done, which might've changed my day, my week, my life. But I won't. That would be depressing.
The party itself was quite a blast, though. I quite like dancing for its own sake, and the 180bpm grooves definitely upped the intensity from average dance parties; by the end of the night my neck and shoulders ached. During the opening act, there was still enough space to flail about, maybe do a little perfectly-timed (bassist rhythm sense) jump-tuck when the break came back in after a droning synth bridge; when Ed Rush & Optical came on, though, the room became so packed I couldn't move five inches without bumping into someone. All sorts there: some of those people I could see at a drum 'n' bass dance, some hip hop looking locals, but then there were the metal- or "punk"-looking kids who kind of confused me. I suppose the industrial connection might've brought them. And then there were the few people who walked in wearing North Face fleeces, looking like they'd come straight from some college bar. One of them brought a girlfriend, who looked so stiff leaning against him I thought she must've been passed out, or whacked out, or both. It was a funny sight. The urban electronic "scene" is a pretty fascinating thing to observe, even if it's not something I particularly want to get completely wrapped up in. Viscerality can be pretty undiscriminatory.
I danced by myself, as I usually do. Drum 'n' bass really isn't the best music for dancing with others, I don't think. I probably elbowed quite a few ribs and stomped on quite a few feet. Couple guys came up and expressed their appreciation for my enthusiasm (what?). Weird things like that happen sometimes.
Later, on the cab ride home, John told Sterling and I about the UMBC girl (always fucking with Hopkins guys' heads, them, apparently) he met in the Taxlo room, who sent her friend to get his phone number because she was dancing with her boyfriend. I leaned my head against the window and blanked out, too deafened to hear anything I wasn't actively listening to. Every time I come back from going out it's "situation ignored, or just missed?" All I know is, I don't get caught up in scenes I know I don't like.
Sometimes it feels like my friends don't add a whole lot. Sometimes it feels like I'm being written into a script where the only free space left is in the footnotes. Most often I react by rejecting that and becoming a jumble of words floating in a void.
"I appreciate your nobility...sometimes I think you might help yourself by watering it down." That's what John told me today. Call it what you will, but sometimes it feels a bit immovable. I get wrapped up in identity I can't shed, and then I wonder if I want to. Sometimes being in my body feels like sitting on a train charging straight for the edge of a cliff and being unable to do anything about it. Sometimes watching myself feels like watching any other person; being outside myself, critical but detached from the inevitable course of action.
Which brings me to another issue: I feel as though I've been watching, and still right now, how the consequence of two people simply striving to come into themselves can tear everything apart for those two people, despite their best efforts to the contrary. Sometimes compromise seems so impossible to achieve. Breach consumes everything standing in its way until its emptiness is complete. If contact can only be maintained through concealment, and honesty cascades into disconnection--what's the solution? Honesty's the only reaction I know. Won't hide, can't hide, no good at it.
I don't know what to do. I feel like I've done what I could. I don't blame anyone for what they do. What they become. The logical sequence of events never seems to lead where we want: we are less in control of our disasters than we think.
Sometimes I just can't win.
I considered moving closer to it, or petting it, but my mind kept coming up with reasons why I shouldn't: what if it clawed me or something? Eventually I walked away, and over to the steps going down to Maryland, but then I stopped and leaned against the railing, watching the cat from across the grass. Several people paused to point at it; eventually a girl in boots and a long black coat stooped--couldn't hear but I think she talked to it--and tried to pet it, whereupon the cat began to mosey away down the path, the girl following a step behind. I thought it was quite an entertaining sight.
The second occasion was coming out of Sonar after the Ed Rush & Optical dance party: an old man with wild eyes, white hair and a grey sweater, hopelessly out of place on Saratoga in the shadow of the rust-amber bridge across from the prison, amongst studded belts, tight black pants, sweat-streaked mascara, bleached hair, with an armful of roses in pastel pinks, whites and yellows, an Eastern European accent chanting, "roses, roses. Roses, roses," as if that were the only word he knew. I don't know how he got plucked out of a children's folk tale and dumped outside a club in downtown Baltimore on a Friday night, but damn, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted one of those flowers. I didn't even know what I would do with it--certainly there was nobody around I could've possibly given one to--but I wanted to get one, if only because I knew none of the walking zeitgeist, hipper-than-thou kids coming out the door would ever have given him the time of day. But John and Sterling, obviously seeing no worth in such endeavors, dragged me away. "It'll just make you depressed later," John said. Little did he know...
I should count up all the things like that that ever happened. Make a little list of things I could've done, and probably should've done, which might've changed my day, my week, my life. But I won't. That would be depressing.
The party itself was quite a blast, though. I quite like dancing for its own sake, and the 180bpm grooves definitely upped the intensity from average dance parties; by the end of the night my neck and shoulders ached. During the opening act, there was still enough space to flail about, maybe do a little perfectly-timed (bassist rhythm sense) jump-tuck when the break came back in after a droning synth bridge; when Ed Rush & Optical came on, though, the room became so packed I couldn't move five inches without bumping into someone. All sorts there: some of those people I could see at a drum 'n' bass dance, some hip hop looking locals, but then there were the metal- or "punk"-looking kids who kind of confused me. I suppose the industrial connection might've brought them. And then there were the few people who walked in wearing North Face fleeces, looking like they'd come straight from some college bar. One of them brought a girlfriend, who looked so stiff leaning against him I thought she must've been passed out, or whacked out, or both. It was a funny sight. The urban electronic "scene" is a pretty fascinating thing to observe, even if it's not something I particularly want to get completely wrapped up in. Viscerality can be pretty undiscriminatory.
I danced by myself, as I usually do. Drum 'n' bass really isn't the best music for dancing with others, I don't think. I probably elbowed quite a few ribs and stomped on quite a few feet. Couple guys came up and expressed their appreciation for my enthusiasm (what?). Weird things like that happen sometimes.
Later, on the cab ride home, John told Sterling and I about the UMBC girl (always fucking with Hopkins guys' heads, them, apparently) he met in the Taxlo room, who sent her friend to get his phone number because she was dancing with her boyfriend. I leaned my head against the window and blanked out, too deafened to hear anything I wasn't actively listening to. Every time I come back from going out it's "situation ignored, or just missed?" All I know is, I don't get caught up in scenes I know I don't like.
Sometimes it feels like my friends don't add a whole lot. Sometimes it feels like I'm being written into a script where the only free space left is in the footnotes. Most often I react by rejecting that and becoming a jumble of words floating in a void.
"I appreciate your nobility...sometimes I think you might help yourself by watering it down." That's what John told me today. Call it what you will, but sometimes it feels a bit immovable. I get wrapped up in identity I can't shed, and then I wonder if I want to. Sometimes being in my body feels like sitting on a train charging straight for the edge of a cliff and being unable to do anything about it. Sometimes watching myself feels like watching any other person; being outside myself, critical but detached from the inevitable course of action.
Which brings me to another issue: I feel as though I've been watching, and still right now, how the consequence of two people simply striving to come into themselves can tear everything apart for those two people, despite their best efforts to the contrary. Sometimes compromise seems so impossible to achieve. Breach consumes everything standing in its way until its emptiness is complete. If contact can only be maintained through concealment, and honesty cascades into disconnection--what's the solution? Honesty's the only reaction I know. Won't hide, can't hide, no good at it.
I don't know what to do. I feel like I've done what I could. I don't blame anyone for what they do. What they become. The logical sequence of events never seems to lead where we want: we are less in control of our disasters than we think.
Sometimes I just can't win.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Is It Something So Good?
Drove down to Bill's Music House today with Miguel. Saw on their website they had a black, maple fingerboard Music Man Sterling bass; thought I'd go pick it up with my combined savings/windfall money. It didn't exist. Guy told me they could custom order it for me, 5-6 months' wait, no return policy. Fuck that. Walked away with a set of DR Hi-Beam .045-.105s for when I finally do get one. Which will be soon. Probably. Going to order one. Now I have to decide, for the hundredth time, whether to get a maple fretboard or a rosewood; I've been playing maple on my Jazz copy, and it sounds snappy for slap, but the more I think about it, the more I suspect it's almost too crisp for a lot of fingerstyle or picking, especially with the ultra-aggressive Music Man base tone...and whether to get that neck single coil...like this black, rosewood, HS one on--um, this website (you can't take it from me!)--oh, fuck, oh, shit.
Still, shows what I know about music store websites.
Mike Skinner was so eloquent: "Today I have achieved absolutely nought." Actually, not altogether true: started to get my next research project on the launchpad, finally. Goddamn department (my department! Surely you can make concessions for your own undergrads?) won't allow me access to their x-ray crystallography machine. Shame, that; it would've been fantastic bragging rights to put crystallography experience on my grad school application. Instead I'm going to do the supported membrane project. The proteins I'll be using were made by a professor from Tulane; he's coming to give a talk next Monday. Hopefully I'll be able to talk to him at that time and figure out what I'm dealing with. Not that I'll have any clue anyway.
If something doesn't happen soon, I'm going to flip. I get pissed that nobody I know is back. Then I realize I don't really know anybody. Then I realize the people I do know usually don't do things involving me anyway. Then I get really pissed. Serves me right for being so goddamn distant, I suppose. Then again, I'm not really sure how much I want to take up hobbies I don't like and hang out with people I don't find that interesting just to feel not alone. Talk about perspective. Do I really want to take up playing video games and watching Battlestar Galactica with Esteban and that crew just to have something to do and someone to be with? A long time ago I made the resolution to not do things I didn't want to do to begin with, just to get out and be with people; part of my grand plan, back in the day, to break my perceived dependence on people who didn't necessarily make me happier when I spent time with them. A year later, I still can't decide whether it was worth it.
Stopped by the library today and picked up Chris Adrian's Children's Hospital on Maria's recommendation. I remember back in the day when she ordered House of Leaves from Amazon just because I wouldn't stop raving about it (Lord, I owe that girl a lot); three years later, it's time to return the favor. Fitting, I suppose, that she would describe Adrian as "a more comprehensible and likeable Danielewski." Just as she's always been more comprehensible and likeable than me, I suppose. I keep insisting that we are the same in many ways; she keeps denying. All I know is, being friends with her feels a lot like being friends with myself, something which doesn't actually happen all that often in reality.
Follow-up to last night: so--the ex-girl has begun to move on. I must say, I was somewhat holding my breath. Well, not quite. Thought a couple times it might even be nice if she would get together with someone else, just to put a definitive conclusion to this.
But now I have to wonder what it was she learned--if indeed I did make a difference. Quite possible that she's right and, in fact, I did not. Who am I to say? As far as I can tell, only an angel could love her, someone who could give and not ask for anything in return--I used to think I was something like that, but then I realized I was wrong. I wonder if she thinks being with someone else--if that's what she chooses to do--can be different from how it was to be with me. I wonder if she thinks there won't come a point when something has to be given up, some preexisting principle or belief from either side, when ways of life must change, and some sense of identity must be sacrificed.
It's doable, certainly. Some people work that way. I'm not one of them and that doesn't mean anything to me. But if that's how she decides to live--she can do whatever she wants, obviously, but I reject that particular M.O., and if she chooses it, it will likely only deepen my belief in the collective commitment-phobia of my generation. Not that it will be her fault, of course.
On a side note, some days death seems to follow closer than others. I am still right here. The Johnny Cash version, you bastards.
Still, shows what I know about music store websites.
Mike Skinner was so eloquent: "Today I have achieved absolutely nought." Actually, not altogether true: started to get my next research project on the launchpad, finally. Goddamn department (my department! Surely you can make concessions for your own undergrads?) won't allow me access to their x-ray crystallography machine. Shame, that; it would've been fantastic bragging rights to put crystallography experience on my grad school application. Instead I'm going to do the supported membrane project. The proteins I'll be using were made by a professor from Tulane; he's coming to give a talk next Monday. Hopefully I'll be able to talk to him at that time and figure out what I'm dealing with. Not that I'll have any clue anyway.
If something doesn't happen soon, I'm going to flip. I get pissed that nobody I know is back. Then I realize I don't really know anybody. Then I realize the people I do know usually don't do things involving me anyway. Then I get really pissed. Serves me right for being so goddamn distant, I suppose. Then again, I'm not really sure how much I want to take up hobbies I don't like and hang out with people I don't find that interesting just to feel not alone. Talk about perspective. Do I really want to take up playing video games and watching Battlestar Galactica with Esteban and that crew just to have something to do and someone to be with? A long time ago I made the resolution to not do things I didn't want to do to begin with, just to get out and be with people; part of my grand plan, back in the day, to break my perceived dependence on people who didn't necessarily make me happier when I spent time with them. A year later, I still can't decide whether it was worth it.
Stopped by the library today and picked up Chris Adrian's Children's Hospital on Maria's recommendation. I remember back in the day when she ordered House of Leaves from Amazon just because I wouldn't stop raving about it (Lord, I owe that girl a lot); three years later, it's time to return the favor. Fitting, I suppose, that she would describe Adrian as "a more comprehensible and likeable Danielewski." Just as she's always been more comprehensible and likeable than me, I suppose. I keep insisting that we are the same in many ways; she keeps denying. All I know is, being friends with her feels a lot like being friends with myself, something which doesn't actually happen all that often in reality.
Follow-up to last night: so--the ex-girl has begun to move on. I must say, I was somewhat holding my breath. Well, not quite. Thought a couple times it might even be nice if she would get together with someone else, just to put a definitive conclusion to this.
But now I have to wonder what it was she learned--if indeed I did make a difference. Quite possible that she's right and, in fact, I did not. Who am I to say? As far as I can tell, only an angel could love her, someone who could give and not ask for anything in return--I used to think I was something like that, but then I realized I was wrong. I wonder if she thinks being with someone else--if that's what she chooses to do--can be different from how it was to be with me. I wonder if she thinks there won't come a point when something has to be given up, some preexisting principle or belief from either side, when ways of life must change, and some sense of identity must be sacrificed.
It's doable, certainly. Some people work that way. I'm not one of them and that doesn't mean anything to me. But if that's how she decides to live--she can do whatever she wants, obviously, but I reject that particular M.O., and if she chooses it, it will likely only deepen my belief in the collective commitment-phobia of my generation. Not that it will be her fault, of course.
On a side note, some days death seems to follow closer than others. I am still right here. The Johnny Cash version, you bastards.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Not Nearly as Disturbing as #2
You scored as Friedrich Nietzsche. Well you're an egotistical maniac, and you are so very iconoclastic that you probably are currently lost in a post-modern Jupiter, I mean jungle of self-definition. Don't let it get you down though, someday, through a willful onslaught of reinterpretation of dated forms and ideas, you will strike on something that passes as remotely new, and people WILL be into it on the basis of how hip it is alone. Also, the average espresso drinker looks up to you.
Friedrich Nietzsche | 83% | ||
Adolf Hitler | 58% | ||
C.G. Jung | 58% | ||
Stephen Hawking | 50% | ||
Dante Alighieri | 50% | ||
Steven Morrissey | 42% | ||
Mother Teresa | 25% | ||
Jesus Christ | 17% | ||
Miyamoto Musashi | 17% | ||
Sigmund Freud | 17% | ||
O.J. Simpson | 8% | ||
Charles Manson | 8% | ||
Hugh Hefner | 0% | ||
Elvis Presley | 0% |
What Pseudo Historical Figure Best Suits You?
created with QuizFarm.com
Non-Photo Blue
Oof. That old feeling again: like every single nerve softly seizing up, at the same exact time that a floor drops away in your chest and all your blood decides to stop and run in the opposite direction.
Or maybe that's just the rush of everyone drifting past me as I tread water in a swiftly flowing river with no shores in sight.
"She's posting all the time, but the boards are down, it's a burned-out building. He's spending all his time on his back, staring at the ceiling."
I'm with that. I'm with them. You're not. You are, alive, damnit.
Or maybe that's just the rush of everyone drifting past me as I tread water in a swiftly flowing river with no shores in sight.
"She's posting all the time, but the boards are down, it's a burned-out building. He's spending all his time on his back, staring at the ceiling."
I'm with that. I'm with them. You're not. You are, alive, damnit.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Marble Composition
Woke up at 11AM, made myself some plum tea and a grilled ham-and-provolone sandwich for brunch, and was just going over my daily routine of checking requisite websites--CNN + NYT + BBC News on Google, Pitchfork (always a gas), the whatnot, spending maybe 30 seconds on each of them--and coincidentally Fennesz's "Got to Move On" (was inspired to revisit Endless Summer after reading the Pitchfork review of its reissue) started playing as I was reading a certain person's new LJ entry. Made me think, just perhaps, but nothing really came of it. The further back in time certain events slip, the harder it is to get anything out of them.
I confess to being guilty of trying to salvage the memory of a past event--significant though it may be--for the other party involved, but partly out of a desire to validate my own version of how it happened. Selfish again, I know. But you have to concede, it doesn't feel too good when you spend seven months with someone, and in the wake of it all that person tells you the her that you held to be everything during those months was an aberration and a deviation from what she really is. I guess all I wanted was to find some confirmation that what I remember those months as being wasn't just something I made up in my mind--again. But maybe I'm partly to blame for this, having been reduced to a sickly bundle of good intentions afterwards; maybe by insisting on doing the right thing I unconsciously refused to do it. If that's the case, will I be forgiven?
It's been nearly two years since the before. It's been over a year since the after. I don't suppose this guesswork will ever stop, if it hasn't stopped already. Old Christian F. had the answer. The simple ones are harder to swallow.
Though I suppose it is true we were all lied to with half-truths. Poets and musicians, they never told what was at stake, they never told what you lose. Everyone talks about what they had during the having, and what they lost during the losing, but nobody talks about what they lost during the having. I suppose that's why everyone's always so surprised when they finally realize. Can't say I was exempt from that particular gamut of trials and tribulations. A few times in the time between then and now I'd tried to tell myself that I wouldn't do it again, that it wasn't worth it, especially for someone who wasn't willing to reciprocate; but, at last, it seems I'll never convince myself of any of that, and that when the time comes again I'll choose to lose. It's what I believe in.
Finally saw Miguel yesterday for the first time since I got back. Brought the bass rig over to his house and improvised some downbeat Krautrock grooves along with his usual clean riffing, sounded good, had potential. But of course we're going to bring Steffi in one day and it's all going to get blown away to Muse-land. Damn it all.
The band hasn't done anything since Miguel and Steffi broke up, and I really have no idea what's going to happen; I suppose we'll find out within the week. Talked with Miguel about his future a little bit. He'd quit his job at the med school, and was going to start a post-bac program at MICA as well as working as a sort of designer for the Maryland Science Center. He said he was "sort of" seeing some girl who was applying to a nursing program at Columbia, and that he might, in a year, try to apply to a similar program up there, and maybe work in some media studies. He said Baltimore was getting on his nerves.
I began to wonder if the myth we'd been living was finally drawing to a close; was this where I envisioned us two years ago? One year ago? Not at all. But maybe this is all we could've done with all we'd had in us to give. The band will continue, and we have a few shows lined up for the next couple of months or so, but it no longer seems to have all the potential we saw in it even a year ago; one by one we've started taking back the hopes and devotion we've put into this thing, re-investing, re-commiting. What's left will probably be enough to keep us going until one of us leaves this city, and perhaps even allow us a little freedom by lifting the gravity off our shoulders--been talk of experimenting with different singers, etc.
Read somewhere that growing up meant looking up one day and finally seeing the ceiling over your head. That might be true. I don't suppose it would be altogether a bad thing, though; I've spent a lot of time in my life giving, and maybe it's good time I started learning how to stop and how to take.
I confess to being guilty of trying to salvage the memory of a past event--significant though it may be--for the other party involved, but partly out of a desire to validate my own version of how it happened. Selfish again, I know. But you have to concede, it doesn't feel too good when you spend seven months with someone, and in the wake of it all that person tells you the her that you held to be everything during those months was an aberration and a deviation from what she really is. I guess all I wanted was to find some confirmation that what I remember those months as being wasn't just something I made up in my mind--again. But maybe I'm partly to blame for this, having been reduced to a sickly bundle of good intentions afterwards; maybe by insisting on doing the right thing I unconsciously refused to do it. If that's the case, will I be forgiven?
It's been nearly two years since the before. It's been over a year since the after. I don't suppose this guesswork will ever stop, if it hasn't stopped already. Old Christian F. had the answer. The simple ones are harder to swallow.
Though I suppose it is true we were all lied to with half-truths. Poets and musicians, they never told what was at stake, they never told what you lose. Everyone talks about what they had during the having, and what they lost during the losing, but nobody talks about what they lost during the having. I suppose that's why everyone's always so surprised when they finally realize. Can't say I was exempt from that particular gamut of trials and tribulations. A few times in the time between then and now I'd tried to tell myself that I wouldn't do it again, that it wasn't worth it, especially for someone who wasn't willing to reciprocate; but, at last, it seems I'll never convince myself of any of that, and that when the time comes again I'll choose to lose. It's what I believe in.
Finally saw Miguel yesterday for the first time since I got back. Brought the bass rig over to his house and improvised some downbeat Krautrock grooves along with his usual clean riffing, sounded good, had potential. But of course we're going to bring Steffi in one day and it's all going to get blown away to Muse-land. Damn it all.
The band hasn't done anything since Miguel and Steffi broke up, and I really have no idea what's going to happen; I suppose we'll find out within the week. Talked with Miguel about his future a little bit. He'd quit his job at the med school, and was going to start a post-bac program at MICA as well as working as a sort of designer for the Maryland Science Center. He said he was "sort of" seeing some girl who was applying to a nursing program at Columbia, and that he might, in a year, try to apply to a similar program up there, and maybe work in some media studies. He said Baltimore was getting on his nerves.
I began to wonder if the myth we'd been living was finally drawing to a close; was this where I envisioned us two years ago? One year ago? Not at all. But maybe this is all we could've done with all we'd had in us to give. The band will continue, and we have a few shows lined up for the next couple of months or so, but it no longer seems to have all the potential we saw in it even a year ago; one by one we've started taking back the hopes and devotion we've put into this thing, re-investing, re-commiting. What's left will probably be enough to keep us going until one of us leaves this city, and perhaps even allow us a little freedom by lifting the gravity off our shoulders--been talk of experimenting with different singers, etc.
Read somewhere that growing up meant looking up one day and finally seeing the ceiling over your head. That might be true. I don't suppose it would be altogether a bad thing, though; I've spent a lot of time in my life giving, and maybe it's good time I started learning how to stop and how to take.
Monday, January 8, 2007
Winterlude
Yesterday, hit up a couple record shops in Fells Point, down by the harbor, with Johnny L. Despite some of my friends having trouble dealing with him (and vice versa), I still find him easy enough to interact with. We took a cab down after meeting up at the Barnes & Noble. First stop was Own Guru, quite literally a tiny house ("shack" might be more appropriate) in a little courtyard at the end of an alley that wound through a crack between two buildings on the avenue; it was virtually undetectable from the street, save for a chalkboard sign pointing to the alley's entrance. This alley was fronted by a black metal door; we had to ring a doorbell and wait for someone inside to come out and open the door before we could get in.
The interior was about the size of my living room, walls covered in posters and record sleeves, vinyl packed from wall to wall, a lone classy-looking turntable and amp system set up for sample listening. I don't own a record player, so I headed for the lone revolving shelf of CDs. The owner of the place was a rather fat older guy with thick glasses, whitening goatee, and a beret, and he cursed loudly at the computer (massive futuristic-looking iMac, looking quite out of place amongst all the vintage vinyl) when he was out-sniped on eBay for some old record or another. Standing in that store, I felt like I was rappelling down the rabbit hole into High Fidelity wonderland, dangling from a fishing line, or something. But I didn't get anything there. Wrote down a doom metal and a Japanese experimental band to check out later, though.
Next we hit up Soundgarden; this is the really massive store that everyone in this city knows about. Big storefront, lots of customers. I rifled through just about all of the used CDs in that place. Came across the second Hell is for Heroes album; was reminded of a time and a place I used to like that band, and of the little emo-listening, stuck-in-high-school part of me that still does. Didn't end up buying it, though. Left with three CDs: the second Exhaust album (post-apocalyptic drums-bass-tape-clarinet Mile Enders on Constellation), some sort of ambient/glitch thing, and the kicker--a Kronos Quartet album called Howl, U.S.A. featuring the quartet playing against recordings of J. Edgar Hoover, readings of "hitchhiker's inscriptions from a highway railing at Barstow, California," and a reading of "Howl" by the late Ginsberg himself. That made me happy.
Later last night I stopped by the Deli for dinner and ran into Vijay, and a girl named Lauren I met for the first time. She said she'd "heard" about me; I said I didn't like the sound of that. They were drinking a Dog's Head Tavern beer called, I kid you not, "Raison d'Etre"; I knew that there would come a day when they'd bottle the meaning of life and sell it six-pack, but I had no idea it would come so soon. It was pretty good, though. Brewed from green raisins. Character.
Ended up talking to them about an hour and a half. Nonsense, mostly: Jenna Jameson's cousin, strippers, the Midwest, and so on. Things that have very little to do with what people in our position might consider real life. Then again, maybe that's just me. Wrapped it all up with a rapid-fire debate about the necessity of absorbing avant-garde music (shouldn't one immerse oneself in the times even if one does not like them?) and called it an evening.
Was going to hang out with Sterling and John a couple nights ago. Sterling had gone out to dinner with "a friend" and was supposed to call us after he was done. John and I had a brie and fruit plate at Xando while we waited. And waited. We went back to John's place. We waited some more. I called. I called again. We waited some more.
Later Sterling would tell us he "fell asleep" after coming back from dinner and claim that none of my two or three calls had registered on his cell phone. Fuck knows just as well as I do what really happened, but one obvious hypothesis presents itself. I've never been one to jump to conclusions. Heard from John something happened with Sterling and a girl who's probably stuck around too long over New Year's that I wasn't around for. On the one hand, I suppose if it's true, then he got what he's wanted for a long time, but on the other hand, rather anticlimactic (no pun intended, brusque diction to blame) considering the duration of drama invested: is that it? Further proof that none of the obsessions that keep us scraping at the air over our heads is really as revolutionary as we'd like to think. Or are they? I don't know. Leave it I guess. Last I heard, John himself got dumped four times in as many days. I see plenty.
Sometimes it seems that, as much as I like the people I give my time to, I can't help but notice that spending time with them never seems to change anything. Hang around someone enough, and you notice patterns in your interaction that cycle back upon themselves leaving you where you started at the end of every day. Rituals and monuments that mean everything, encapsulate entire histories and spirits to a select few, but little to the rest of the world; references that, though obscure, have the ineffable power of making someone feel not alone. But take a step back from that whole scene, or fall out of step with that flow for just a minute, and I always realize how absurd and meaningless these shared moments are from a removed perspective. I don't know what excerpts of my life deserve to be flushed into this category, but I suspect if purged all my fetishized memories of their significance, my entire existence up to this point would end up looking terrifyingly hollow.
I just finished listening to the Howl album. It amazes me that Ginsberg, and the beatniks in general, had so much belief in the legend that they themselves were creating by the simple act of living that they were able to conjure these earth-moving works of literature from their collective mythos; Howl, On the Road, all those works, all of them revolving around the zealous faith of their creators that what they were doing, what they were being, was singular, massive, and vastly significant. The faith that slideshow, slipstream anecdotes spinning out of their own lives were somehow glimpses into a greater meaning that revealed itself in boxcars and shivering young men who had no money and entirely too much to drink.
I think I used to be like that, in my high school days; I remember writing about Virginian bonfires and rum on the beach at dawn like they were revolutionary acts, like we were tearing down walls and raising flags. But at the very end of that era, I think, I lost my momentum, I lost my will to keep up with the stories we were creating, and so, for me, the meaning crumbled and fell away, and I couldn't help but think that we were all just being a bunch of post-adolescent assholes chasing tail and chasing our own tails (pun intended). It also came out of the standoff with Pham, I think, because I had the chance to observe a group of kids just like mine, off in their own separate world, indulging in their rituals and eccentricities, and the more absurd that seemed to me, the more absurd my own seemed to me.
It's not as though my present life is completely free of symbols of fabricated significance (tangerine skies come to mind), but for a large part, I feel rather blinded and desperate for something to blow me away with incontrovertible significance that will stick in my mind despite all my attempts to dismiss or disperse it. Things would probably be easier if I had any clue how to change my life and my immediate world; but after years of banging my head against the issue, I still haven't gotten any closer to figuring it out.
I've been back for a week and have felt zero motivation to meet up with the band and play something. I wonder if that's a bad sign. Back in high school I was all gung-ho about making "meaningful" music, but that sort of faded out with Paper Jet Fighter. The impulse has come back as a twitch reflex a few times since then, but I can't really sustain it as a drive anymore. Ironically, as of right now, school and my so-called "career" seem to be the things that put up the best fight, because it seems pretty self-delusional to say something I'll likely devote the rest of my life to doesn't matter. But if that actually turns out to be all there is, some heads are going to get punched.
Maria says I ask for a lot. That's absolutely correct. Maybe it means I'll never get all the answers that I want. Maybe that's the way.
The interior was about the size of my living room, walls covered in posters and record sleeves, vinyl packed from wall to wall, a lone classy-looking turntable and amp system set up for sample listening. I don't own a record player, so I headed for the lone revolving shelf of CDs. The owner of the place was a rather fat older guy with thick glasses, whitening goatee, and a beret, and he cursed loudly at the computer (massive futuristic-looking iMac, looking quite out of place amongst all the vintage vinyl) when he was out-sniped on eBay for some old record or another. Standing in that store, I felt like I was rappelling down the rabbit hole into High Fidelity wonderland, dangling from a fishing line, or something. But I didn't get anything there. Wrote down a doom metal and a Japanese experimental band to check out later, though.
Next we hit up Soundgarden; this is the really massive store that everyone in this city knows about. Big storefront, lots of customers. I rifled through just about all of the used CDs in that place. Came across the second Hell is for Heroes album; was reminded of a time and a place I used to like that band, and of the little emo-listening, stuck-in-high-school part of me that still does. Didn't end up buying it, though. Left with three CDs: the second Exhaust album (post-apocalyptic drums-bass-tape-clarinet Mile Enders on Constellation), some sort of ambient/glitch thing, and the kicker--a Kronos Quartet album called Howl, U.S.A. featuring the quartet playing against recordings of J. Edgar Hoover, readings of "hitchhiker's inscriptions from a highway railing at Barstow, California," and a reading of "Howl" by the late Ginsberg himself. That made me happy.
Later last night I stopped by the Deli for dinner and ran into Vijay, and a girl named Lauren I met for the first time. She said she'd "heard" about me; I said I didn't like the sound of that. They were drinking a Dog's Head Tavern beer called, I kid you not, "Raison d'Etre"; I knew that there would come a day when they'd bottle the meaning of life and sell it six-pack, but I had no idea it would come so soon. It was pretty good, though. Brewed from green raisins. Character.
Ended up talking to them about an hour and a half. Nonsense, mostly: Jenna Jameson's cousin, strippers, the Midwest, and so on. Things that have very little to do with what people in our position might consider real life. Then again, maybe that's just me. Wrapped it all up with a rapid-fire debate about the necessity of absorbing avant-garde music (shouldn't one immerse oneself in the times even if one does not like them?) and called it an evening.
Was going to hang out with Sterling and John a couple nights ago. Sterling had gone out to dinner with "a friend" and was supposed to call us after he was done. John and I had a brie and fruit plate at Xando while we waited. And waited. We went back to John's place. We waited some more. I called. I called again. We waited some more.
Later Sterling would tell us he "fell asleep" after coming back from dinner and claim that none of my two or three calls had registered on his cell phone. Fuck knows just as well as I do what really happened, but one obvious hypothesis presents itself. I've never been one to jump to conclusions. Heard from John something happened with Sterling and a girl who's probably stuck around too long over New Year's that I wasn't around for. On the one hand, I suppose if it's true, then he got what he's wanted for a long time, but on the other hand, rather anticlimactic (no pun intended, brusque diction to blame) considering the duration of drama invested: is that it? Further proof that none of the obsessions that keep us scraping at the air over our heads is really as revolutionary as we'd like to think. Or are they? I don't know. Leave it I guess. Last I heard, John himself got dumped four times in as many days. I see plenty.
Sometimes it seems that, as much as I like the people I give my time to, I can't help but notice that spending time with them never seems to change anything. Hang around someone enough, and you notice patterns in your interaction that cycle back upon themselves leaving you where you started at the end of every day. Rituals and monuments that mean everything, encapsulate entire histories and spirits to a select few, but little to the rest of the world; references that, though obscure, have the ineffable power of making someone feel not alone. But take a step back from that whole scene, or fall out of step with that flow for just a minute, and I always realize how absurd and meaningless these shared moments are from a removed perspective. I don't know what excerpts of my life deserve to be flushed into this category, but I suspect if purged all my fetishized memories of their significance, my entire existence up to this point would end up looking terrifyingly hollow.
I just finished listening to the Howl album. It amazes me that Ginsberg, and the beatniks in general, had so much belief in the legend that they themselves were creating by the simple act of living that they were able to conjure these earth-moving works of literature from their collective mythos; Howl, On the Road, all those works, all of them revolving around the zealous faith of their creators that what they were doing, what they were being, was singular, massive, and vastly significant. The faith that slideshow, slipstream anecdotes spinning out of their own lives were somehow glimpses into a greater meaning that revealed itself in boxcars and shivering young men who had no money and entirely too much to drink.
I think I used to be like that, in my high school days; I remember writing about Virginian bonfires and rum on the beach at dawn like they were revolutionary acts, like we were tearing down walls and raising flags. But at the very end of that era, I think, I lost my momentum, I lost my will to keep up with the stories we were creating, and so, for me, the meaning crumbled and fell away, and I couldn't help but think that we were all just being a bunch of post-adolescent assholes chasing tail and chasing our own tails (pun intended). It also came out of the standoff with Pham, I think, because I had the chance to observe a group of kids just like mine, off in their own separate world, indulging in their rituals and eccentricities, and the more absurd that seemed to me, the more absurd my own seemed to me.
It's not as though my present life is completely free of symbols of fabricated significance (tangerine skies come to mind), but for a large part, I feel rather blinded and desperate for something to blow me away with incontrovertible significance that will stick in my mind despite all my attempts to dismiss or disperse it. Things would probably be easier if I had any clue how to change my life and my immediate world; but after years of banging my head against the issue, I still haven't gotten any closer to figuring it out.
I've been back for a week and have felt zero motivation to meet up with the band and play something. I wonder if that's a bad sign. Back in high school I was all gung-ho about making "meaningful" music, but that sort of faded out with Paper Jet Fighter. The impulse has come back as a twitch reflex a few times since then, but I can't really sustain it as a drive anymore. Ironically, as of right now, school and my so-called "career" seem to be the things that put up the best fight, because it seems pretty self-delusional to say something I'll likely devote the rest of my life to doesn't matter. But if that actually turns out to be all there is, some heads are going to get punched.
Maria says I ask for a lot. That's absolutely correct. Maybe it means I'll never get all the answers that I want. Maybe that's the way.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Pineapple
Slow night tonight. Some nights, like this one, when I'm feeling a bit gentler and warmer than usual, I stay in because I've nobody to share it with. That's alright. A warm and humid day, which is usually not my favorite combination; the fog came out again at night, though. Good old Baltimore fog that I've missed; it never got this foggy in Taiwan, for some reason. It's warmer here than in Taiwan, too. That isn't right.
Been back in Baltimore for a few, mostly comatose, days. GRE review classes started. Total shit. Teacher doesn't know what he's talking about half of the time. Spend a lot of time doing "the math," when "the math" is really the last thing I'm worried about. What the heck, better than nothing. I hope.
Saw John and Sterling tonight. Made Sterling fix my Gallien-Krueger; guy's always fixing shit that I break for some reason. I'm just lucky to know electrical engineers. Later on we met up with John at the Deli, where they had food. John bought a six of Sparks. He offered me one. I stared at the can and thought of my uncles and my dad. I declined. It helped that I can't stand the stuff. I had two sips later for absolute lack of other things to do, and it was as terrible as I remembered it, but left it at that. I'm not sure if this is going to turn into a long-term moratorium on alcohol--I don't think so, but we'll see.
A few days before I left Taiwan, I met up with two more of my friends from boarding school. Musee and Ali were their names. Born in Taiwan, raised at TAS (Taipei American School), sent away to New Jersey to become disciples of the Big Red. We went to this coffee boutique my mother recommended; supposedly it sold the best coffee in Taipei. The place was called "Lee's Abode" (or something to that translation), and that's what it looked like: a living room, but decked out with more antiques, statues, paintings, ornaments, and decorations than we could pay attention to. The centerpiece of the room, right inside the front door, in front of an old couch, was a huge inner-lit globe. Ali ordered herbal tea, and Musee and I ordered straight coffee. Mr. Lee asked if we wanted a milder coffee or something with character. Musee and I both went for the character. He brought the coffee to our table as he was grinding it, letting us smell how the aroma changed as it heated up. When it finally came to us, in liquid form, at $14 a cup, it was the absolute best coffee I'd ever drank. The aftertaste was incredible, and lingered on for almost an hour after I was done drinking it. Not hyperbole. Truth.
We talked about things, obviously, as old schoolmates are wont to do; I didn't tell them I called them mostly because they were the only people I knew in the city. We hit upon an interesting topic; although they've both been away from Taipei as long as I have, they both still consider it "home," while for me it had long ago lost that certain comforting aspect. Maybe it's because they have more friends there? Maybe it's because they're better adjusted to the culture? They decided it was because they liked the food there, and food was important for them, while it wasn't for me.
Later on, though, when we went to Musee's house for dinner, her mother came up with another theory: I no longer considered Taiwan home, because I was already breaking away from my ties to "home" and searching for a home of my own. That's probably an accurate description, although I'm not sure I would call any of the other places I've lived in "home." Home implies a certainty, an invulnerability, that I've yet to sense from any location. I guess that's why I don't take trips too well; when I leave, I don't have the assurance that there will be a home for me to come back to.
That whole deal about remaining "in a state of constant departure while always arriving"? Bullshit. That's for tourists. That's for people who want to swoop into somewhere, skim its surface for the sweet bits, then fly away back to where they came from, remain who they were. That's for people who want novelty and adventure but are afraid to be changed by those things.
I think I do better living in a place than visiting it; I'm always uncomfortable and disoriented the first time I arrive somewhere, but after a period of time, I try to pick up on the place's rhythm and rationale. I think that's why I like Baltimore. It's not a tourist locale, except for the Inner Harbor, and it doesn't easily cough up rewards to those who blow through town, stealing from it its sights and sounds like looters. People who sightsee through life hate Baltimore. They think it hard to get around, dilapidated, and boring. I tend to scoff at those people. On the other hand, I believe this city does reward those who take it on its own terms, realize cities aren't just breadbaskets one sticks one's hand in and out of, and try to dig through the unseeming surface to the weirdness underneath. And there's a lot of that weirdness. I've been to shows where they played instruments that didn't have names; danced in warehouse apartments where they cranked funk and served wine and the fire escape was good to chill your head on when it got too sweaty inside; played a show in a basement with no stage or instrument mics after the owner of the venue, which was also an art gallery, made us and another band pasta. I can't say I'm a conoisseur of Baltimore, like I'm sure a lot of the "artists" or MICA students are, but try to have some sort of relationship with this city, on a personal level.
Intense, mutually intimate relationships; I tend to either have those, or none at all. With places as with people, I suppose. Or is it the other way around?
Been back in Baltimore for a few, mostly comatose, days. GRE review classes started. Total shit. Teacher doesn't know what he's talking about half of the time. Spend a lot of time doing "the math," when "the math" is really the last thing I'm worried about. What the heck, better than nothing. I hope.
Saw John and Sterling tonight. Made Sterling fix my Gallien-Krueger; guy's always fixing shit that I break for some reason. I'm just lucky to know electrical engineers. Later on we met up with John at the Deli, where they had food. John bought a six of Sparks. He offered me one. I stared at the can and thought of my uncles and my dad. I declined. It helped that I can't stand the stuff. I had two sips later for absolute lack of other things to do, and it was as terrible as I remembered it, but left it at that. I'm not sure if this is going to turn into a long-term moratorium on alcohol--I don't think so, but we'll see.
A few days before I left Taiwan, I met up with two more of my friends from boarding school. Musee and Ali were their names. Born in Taiwan, raised at TAS (Taipei American School), sent away to New Jersey to become disciples of the Big Red. We went to this coffee boutique my mother recommended; supposedly it sold the best coffee in Taipei. The place was called "Lee's Abode" (or something to that translation), and that's what it looked like: a living room, but decked out with more antiques, statues, paintings, ornaments, and decorations than we could pay attention to. The centerpiece of the room, right inside the front door, in front of an old couch, was a huge inner-lit globe. Ali ordered herbal tea, and Musee and I ordered straight coffee. Mr. Lee asked if we wanted a milder coffee or something with character. Musee and I both went for the character. He brought the coffee to our table as he was grinding it, letting us smell how the aroma changed as it heated up. When it finally came to us, in liquid form, at $14 a cup, it was the absolute best coffee I'd ever drank. The aftertaste was incredible, and lingered on for almost an hour after I was done drinking it. Not hyperbole. Truth.
We talked about things, obviously, as old schoolmates are wont to do; I didn't tell them I called them mostly because they were the only people I knew in the city. We hit upon an interesting topic; although they've both been away from Taipei as long as I have, they both still consider it "home," while for me it had long ago lost that certain comforting aspect. Maybe it's because they have more friends there? Maybe it's because they're better adjusted to the culture? They decided it was because they liked the food there, and food was important for them, while it wasn't for me.
Later on, though, when we went to Musee's house for dinner, her mother came up with another theory: I no longer considered Taiwan home, because I was already breaking away from my ties to "home" and searching for a home of my own. That's probably an accurate description, although I'm not sure I would call any of the other places I've lived in "home." Home implies a certainty, an invulnerability, that I've yet to sense from any location. I guess that's why I don't take trips too well; when I leave, I don't have the assurance that there will be a home for me to come back to.
That whole deal about remaining "in a state of constant departure while always arriving"? Bullshit. That's for tourists. That's for people who want to swoop into somewhere, skim its surface for the sweet bits, then fly away back to where they came from, remain who they were. That's for people who want novelty and adventure but are afraid to be changed by those things.
I think I do better living in a place than visiting it; I'm always uncomfortable and disoriented the first time I arrive somewhere, but after a period of time, I try to pick up on the place's rhythm and rationale. I think that's why I like Baltimore. It's not a tourist locale, except for the Inner Harbor, and it doesn't easily cough up rewards to those who blow through town, stealing from it its sights and sounds like looters. People who sightsee through life hate Baltimore. They think it hard to get around, dilapidated, and boring. I tend to scoff at those people. On the other hand, I believe this city does reward those who take it on its own terms, realize cities aren't just breadbaskets one sticks one's hand in and out of, and try to dig through the unseeming surface to the weirdness underneath. And there's a lot of that weirdness. I've been to shows where they played instruments that didn't have names; danced in warehouse apartments where they cranked funk and served wine and the fire escape was good to chill your head on when it got too sweaty inside; played a show in a basement with no stage or instrument mics after the owner of the venue, which was also an art gallery, made us and another band pasta. I can't say I'm a conoisseur of Baltimore, like I'm sure a lot of the "artists" or MICA students are, but try to have some sort of relationship with this city, on a personal level.
Intense, mutually intimate relationships; I tend to either have those, or none at all. With places as with people, I suppose. Or is it the other way around?
Thursday, January 4, 2007
I Confess that, in 2006...
From Dealio by way of Pham. Maybe with the synthesis of enough different prefabricated perspectives, one can finally get an idea of what the hell happened. Oh, wait, that never works out.
x means yes. It's like opposite day!
(x) stayed single for the whole year [Technically. Mental detachment slow in coming.]
( ) got your first kiss
( ) kissed someone new [Assuming lips-only.]
( ) made-out in/on a car
( ) kissed in the snow
( ) celebrated Halloween
( ) kissed in the rain
( ) fell in love [Close call, though.]
( ) had your heart broken [A bit of an overstatement.]
(x) broke someone else's heart [Probably. It didn't feel too good.]
( ) had a stalker
( ) mooned someone
( ) went over the minutes on your cell phone
( ) had/have a good relationship with someone [Ouch.]
( ) suffered through teenage heartbreak [I'm 20. Nothing teenage about it.]
( ) someone questioned your sexual orientation
( ) came out of the closet
( ) almost or did get pregnant [Unlike Pham, the voodoo of male pregnancy is not in me.]
( ) almost or did get someone else pregnant
( ) gotten married
( ) had a divorce
( ) dating/dated someone you'll never forget [Ouch again.]
( ) done something you've regretted [Regret, much like hate, is for chumps.]
( ) lost your "true" love
( ) lost faith in love [My faith in love sort of makes up for the everything else I don't have faith in.]
( ) kissed under mistletoe
WORK/SCHOOL
( ) got a promotion
(x) got a pay raise [Woot!]
(x) changed jobs
(x) waited until one day before to begin a project [Don't we all...]
( ) lost your job
(x) quit your job [For another.]
( ) dated a co-worker or classmate
( ) dated your boss
( ) dated your boss' daughter/son
( ) got fired from your job
(x) took an honors/advanced class [A few 300 levels.]
( ) broke the dress code [I didn't realize there was such a thing.]
( ) got straight A's [Ouch!]
(x) met one teacher you really like [Maybe even a few.]
( ) met one/a few teacher you really hated
( ) failed a class
(x) cut class [It happens...]
( ) kicked someone in the testicles [Why the hell is this under Work/School?]
( ) got into a fight with a classmate
(x) did something you were proud of [Ish.]
(x) discovered a new talent [Probably, couldn't tell you what, though.]
(x) gave the teachers a reason to teach [Reason: I don't know shit.]
( ) proved yourself an idiot
( ) embarrassed yourself in front of the class
( ) fell in love with a teacher
( ) intentionally tripped someone in school
( ) got lead in the school play
( ) made a varsity team
(x) were involved in something you'll never forget [Rally in DC to end Darfur genocide; questionable effectiveness, but memorable, unless I get Alzheimer's.]
OTHER
( ) painted a picture
(x) wrote a poem [I wrote, what, 20?]
( ) ran a mile
(x) seen a live concert ["A" live concert?]
( ) shopped at Hollister or Abercrombie and Fitch
(x) posted a blog on MySpace [Linking to this blog.]
( ) listened to music you couldn't stand [Sure heard it, though.]
( ) skinny-dipped
(x) went to a sleepover [I did sleep at other people's places, intentionally or not.]
( ) went camping
( ) threw a surprise party
( ) laughed till you cried [Can't cry, not even when I laugh.]
( ) laughed till you peed your pants
(x) flirted [Sort of.]
(x) visited a foreign country [I'm doing that right now!]
( ) volunteered to help out others [Not formally, anyway.]
( ) visted a new state
(x) told someone you were busy when you weren't [Probably.]
( ) partied to celebrate the new year
( ) cooked a disastrous meal [If I could eat it, it wasn't a disaster.]
( ) driven the car drunk
(x) lost something important to you [Mm.]
( ) smoked a cigarette
(x) lied about how old you were [Used a fake ID once.]
( ) got a gift you adore
( ) got arrested
(x) prank called someone [Prank texted someone.]
( ) saw a college football game in person
( ) involved in a car accident
( ) still in love [Sigh.]
( ) wished you died
(x) stole anything [Took a free power cable from work, but we had about 50 of them anyway.]
( ) did something to prove you could do it
Conclusion? I'm lame, I suppose.
x means yes. It's like opposite day!
(x) stayed single for the whole year [Technically. Mental detachment slow in coming.]
( ) got your first kiss
( ) kissed someone new [Assuming lips-only.]
( ) made-out in/on a car
( ) kissed in the snow
( ) celebrated Halloween
( ) kissed in the rain
( ) fell in love [Close call, though.]
( ) had your heart broken [A bit of an overstatement.]
(x) broke someone else's heart [Probably. It didn't feel too good.]
( ) had a stalker
( ) mooned someone
( ) went over the minutes on your cell phone
( ) had/have a good relationship with someone [Ouch.]
( ) suffered through teenage heartbreak [I'm 20. Nothing teenage about it.]
( ) someone questioned your sexual orientation
( ) came out of the closet
( ) almost or did get pregnant [Unlike Pham, the voodoo of male pregnancy is not in me.]
( ) almost or did get someone else pregnant
( ) gotten married
( ) had a divorce
( ) dating/dated someone you'll never forget [Ouch again.]
( ) done something you've regretted [Regret, much like hate, is for chumps.]
( ) lost your "true" love
( ) lost faith in love [My faith in love sort of makes up for the everything else I don't have faith in.]
( ) kissed under mistletoe
WORK/SCHOOL
( ) got a promotion
(x) got a pay raise [Woot!]
(x) changed jobs
(x) waited until one day before to begin a project [Don't we all...]
( ) lost your job
(x) quit your job [For another.]
( ) dated a co-worker or classmate
( ) dated your boss
( ) dated your boss' daughter/son
( ) got fired from your job
(x) took an honors/advanced class [A few 300 levels.]
( ) broke the dress code [I didn't realize there was such a thing.]
( ) got straight A's [Ouch!]
(x) met one teacher you really like [Maybe even a few.]
( ) met one/a few teacher you really hated
( ) failed a class
(x) cut class [It happens...]
( ) kicked someone in the testicles [Why the hell is this under Work/School?]
( ) got into a fight with a classmate
(x) did something you were proud of [Ish.]
(x) discovered a new talent [Probably, couldn't tell you what, though.]
(x) gave the teachers a reason to teach [Reason: I don't know shit.]
( ) proved yourself an idiot
( ) embarrassed yourself in front of the class
( ) fell in love with a teacher
( ) intentionally tripped someone in school
( ) got lead in the school play
( ) made a varsity team
(x) were involved in something you'll never forget [Rally in DC to end Darfur genocide; questionable effectiveness, but memorable, unless I get Alzheimer's.]
OTHER
( ) painted a picture
(x) wrote a poem [I wrote, what, 20?]
( ) ran a mile
(x) seen a live concert ["A" live concert?]
( ) shopped at Hollister or Abercrombie and Fitch
(x) posted a blog on MySpace [Linking to this blog.]
( ) listened to music you couldn't stand [Sure heard it, though.]
( ) skinny-dipped
(x) went to a sleepover [I did sleep at other people's places, intentionally or not.]
( ) went camping
( ) threw a surprise party
( ) laughed till you cried [Can't cry, not even when I laugh.]
( ) laughed till you peed your pants
(x) flirted [Sort of.]
(x) visited a foreign country [I'm doing that right now!]
( ) volunteered to help out others [Not formally, anyway.]
( ) visted a new state
(x) told someone you were busy when you weren't [Probably.]
( ) partied to celebrate the new year
( ) cooked a disastrous meal [If I could eat it, it wasn't a disaster.]
( ) driven the car drunk
(x) lost something important to you [Mm.]
( ) smoked a cigarette
(x) lied about how old you were [Used a fake ID once.]
( ) got a gift you adore
( ) got arrested
(x) prank called someone [Prank texted someone.]
( ) saw a college football game in person
( ) involved in a car accident
( ) still in love [Sigh.]
( ) wished you died
(x) stole anything [Took a free power cable from work, but we had about 50 of them anyway.]
( ) did something to prove you could do it
Conclusion? I'm lame, I suppose.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
EWR Revisited
I don’t see how it’s excusable to lack courses that teach cutting-edge, concurrently relevant philosophical theory; I don’t even know what thinkers who are still alive are brewing up for our collective future right now, and that worries me. I have heard plenty about Richard Dawkins and the evangelical atheists, but they seem to be biased towards the (anti)theological, and I’m personally more interested in more sociologically relevant concepts; to me, the most disturbing phenomenon is that the age of revolutionary philosophy seems to be decades behind us, dead and buried with the last of the Marxists. I suppose our university is just too conservative. Probably should’ve gone to Brown or something. One reserves the right to what-if.
Here’s to hoping Jessica comes back and starts a
I’ve been thinking about the necessity of critics. There’s always going to be the argument that intelligent people should be doing things instead of complaining. On the other hand, too much doing and not enough complaining gets people into trouble. Suppose an actor, in his dressing room, had all the makeup he needed, but no mirror; what kind of idiot would he look like when he finally came to the stage? Sure, it’s the soldier, as they say, who dies to allow the protestor to burn his flags; but without the protestors, without the critics, who’ll stop the administration when it tries to send the soldiers into increasingly absurd and unreasonable situations? Adorno and Horkheimer were right, I think, in saying that a non-self-reflective society ends lives.
One of the few things I disliked about Dr. Gold’s, thanks for the A-, critical theory class was, as I related to Jessica, that we (and he) always seemed to stick too dogmatically to the assigned texts; possible tangents and extrapolations were always killed before they could grow by inquiries of, “do you have a passage that relates to that?” The closest we ever got was during the Dialectic of Enlightenment discussions when we jumped the good professor using the present-day energy crisis as an example of a moment when the advancement of technology conflicted with the maintenance of the status quo, and was therefore held in stasis as a regressive move.
All the same, that class warped my life in certain ways, as this journal repeatedly testifies; for example, I was watching Accepted on the flight from Taipei (I watch shitty movies on airplanes so I don’t have to at any other time), and instead of thinking, “it would be nice if things were like this,” or even, “there’s a reason things aren’t like this,” I started thinking, “things should be like this, so why the hell aren’t they?”
Note to self: avoid romantic comedies, lest I spontaneously erupt into rants about the reconciliation of collectively-determined loneliness in public and inappropriate occasions.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Ready for the House
Newark, New Jersey. One of my more favorite airports. Sitting in the lobby of the local Best Western where I'd spent the night. 10hr connections are a bitch.
Checked out this morning after a breakfast of above-average instant coffee and Reese's Pieces. Cafeteria downstairs wasn't open yet. Not much sleep last night, nor on the plane flights before. Feeling good right now, though. Most of the time I need a home, but once in a while I'll find myself ready for the road. Ready for the house? Maybe after a few more years' asceticism.
6 degrees Celsius in Baltimore right now, according to Google weather. Whoever tries to deny the existence of global warming is living with their head up someone's rectum. They should probably watch Thank You For Smoking as well. Rhetoric kills.
Should be back at Uni West by noon. Hope to catch some sleep after that. Report back on final days in Taiwan thereafter. Out.
Checked out this morning after a breakfast of above-average instant coffee and Reese's Pieces. Cafeteria downstairs wasn't open yet. Not much sleep last night, nor on the plane flights before. Feeling good right now, though. Most of the time I need a home, but once in a while I'll find myself ready for the road. Ready for the house? Maybe after a few more years' asceticism.
6 degrees Celsius in Baltimore right now, according to Google weather. Whoever tries to deny the existence of global warming is living with their head up someone's rectum. They should probably watch Thank You For Smoking as well. Rhetoric kills.
Should be back at Uni West by noon. Hope to catch some sleep after that. Report back on final days in Taiwan thereafter. Out.
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