So there were a few things I wanted to talk about of dubious importance. Like it turns out that the title of that Shining album is a reference to The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, a book that's not very good. And I learned what the Matmos title "...And Silver Light Popped In His Eyes" was a reference to, but then forgot it, which annoys me. And Speed Levitch, from Waking Life and Live From Shiva's Dancefloor, is the voice of Hoop on that new Adult Swim show. I watched it to the credits because the voice seemed familar, but yeah, that's really odd.
Also: I found a copy of the paperback Daniel Clowes Llloyd Llewllyn collection, and it's piss-poor. My new least favorite Clowes thing, replacing the not-too-enjoyable Ghost World. Luckily it ran me like... seven bucks or something inordinately cheap.
That is all. I hope this finds you well.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
So here's the latest on the job front, which serves as a prelude to an e-mail I sent to my mom stating the VERY latest on the job front.
I got a job. Actually, I got two jobs. The first was working at Quizno's. I went in for an interview two weeks ago, and then I got hired, and was told to come back next Wednesday to be put on the schedule, as the schedule for the next week had already been made up.
Last Wednesday, I got a call from Evergreen Housing, about an application I had put in months ago. They asked if I was still interested. And I was, because it's best to keep your options open. But I explained that I was going in for something today and would have to get back to them.
I go to Quizno's, in neighboring Lacey, and see the schedule I have been placed on. I would get six hours, the week following, which would be two weeks after my initial hire. I would be paid every two weeks, and I would be paid minimum wage.
This offer basically sucks. So I call Housing, and I talk to them. They say I can get forty hours, but I can't work another job at the same time. I say that I was put on the schedule, and would maybe be screwing over Quizno's if I didn't come in, so maybe I would just work those three days and then come in on the following Monday. They say my time would just be training, and so Quizno's probably wouldn't want to bother anyway. I tell Housing I'll get back to them after I talk to Quizno's.
So I talk to Quizno's. They tell me not to come in. So I didn't have to pay to take a test to get a food handler's permit. And I got started yesterday, and for that day, I got paid more at that first day than I would've my theoretical first week at Quizno's.
Today, what would've been my first day at Quizno's, I got fired from Evergreen housing..
Do I want to give details? No, not really. I will.
I was cleaning a bedroom on the sixth floor of A-dorm, where I used to live. Not the room I was cleaning, but the floor. I was talking to a friend of mine, who started working today, about books we were reading currently and had read in the recent past.
A woman, Heidi, comes in and says she has to have a conversation with me. Heidi is the woman that called me after reviewing my application, and who I talked to about the Quizno's situation and the whole thing. She works in the housing office, she's not someone I work with. I don't even know her last name.
I follow her down the stairs. We don't go into her office, rather, we go outside. She sits, and says I can sit. I sit.
I don't remember her exact words at this point, but the gist of it was that some complaints were had about my language and threats.
I had no real idea what she was talking about. The language thing seemed plausible, although I would justify my language by the fact that I wasn't working with the public- I was working pretty solely with their abandoned toilets. I imagined almost all of my coworkers were current Evergreen students. I don't really remember saying anything that bad.
She told me. The situation in question happened that morning. By threats, read "non sequitur" as that was the joke of what I said.
We're all in an elevator. There's like eight of us. I think I yelled something like "Elevator, elevator!" Something inoffensive, at any rate. It might've been someone's name. I don't quite recall.
This guy, whose name I thought was Scott although my memory was foggy, says "You're going to have to stop yelling, this is a crowded space."
I reply, blithely, "Well, if I can't yell... I'm going to have to grab your balls." I proceed to not do anything of the sort.
He says "You better not, because if you do, I'll kick your ass."
Upon going through this little flashback in my mind, I say to Heidi "Wait! I made a joke, it wasn't really a threat. He threatened me in response."
She says "I'm aware of that."
I say "Is he going to be fired?" Although I didn't really think he should be fired, you understand. I made a joke, and his reply seemed like a joke made by someone kind of humorless.
She says she can't tell me.
I say I don't think he should be, I believe I say this numerous times, but I'm aware that if I'm getting fired, I can't be expected to be able to decide such policy. We go back and forth and there's some exposition. Basically, Evergreen takes a zero-tolerance approach to matters of threats and sexual harassment (And yes I realize that if it was anything, that's what it would be, as "balls" isn't really that inappropriate by my reckoning and it wasn't really a threat. I find calling it harassment harsh but if someone wanted to say "hey that's inappropriate," I would concede the point. I certainly wouldn't have made a joke about grabbing a woman's genitals, as doing so would be charged with all kinds of implications and overtones I wouldn't want to deal with). So I was being fired, no second chances, and the fact that I had to quit a job to take this one meant nothing. The way Heidi viewed it, she had to jump through hoops to give me the job. So I don't know if the implication of her saying this was that I made her look bad, but I don't know her and so this should not be the case.
Anyway.
The moral of this story is that I live in a world where people aren't big on common decency.
The ending of this story is that I'm out of a job. Which, in a world where there's not a lot of common decency, is hard to find.
I got a job. Actually, I got two jobs. The first was working at Quizno's. I went in for an interview two weeks ago, and then I got hired, and was told to come back next Wednesday to be put on the schedule, as the schedule for the next week had already been made up.
Last Wednesday, I got a call from Evergreen Housing, about an application I had put in months ago. They asked if I was still interested. And I was, because it's best to keep your options open. But I explained that I was going in for something today and would have to get back to them.
I go to Quizno's, in neighboring Lacey, and see the schedule I have been placed on. I would get six hours, the week following, which would be two weeks after my initial hire. I would be paid every two weeks, and I would be paid minimum wage.
This offer basically sucks. So I call Housing, and I talk to them. They say I can get forty hours, but I can't work another job at the same time. I say that I was put on the schedule, and would maybe be screwing over Quizno's if I didn't come in, so maybe I would just work those three days and then come in on the following Monday. They say my time would just be training, and so Quizno's probably wouldn't want to bother anyway. I tell Housing I'll get back to them after I talk to Quizno's.
So I talk to Quizno's. They tell me not to come in. So I didn't have to pay to take a test to get a food handler's permit. And I got started yesterday, and for that day, I got paid more at that first day than I would've my theoretical first week at Quizno's.
Today, what would've been my first day at Quizno's, I got fired from Evergreen housing..
Do I want to give details? No, not really. I will.
I was cleaning a bedroom on the sixth floor of A-dorm, where I used to live. Not the room I was cleaning, but the floor. I was talking to a friend of mine, who started working today, about books we were reading currently and had read in the recent past.
A woman, Heidi, comes in and says she has to have a conversation with me. Heidi is the woman that called me after reviewing my application, and who I talked to about the Quizno's situation and the whole thing. She works in the housing office, she's not someone I work with. I don't even know her last name.
I follow her down the stairs. We don't go into her office, rather, we go outside. She sits, and says I can sit. I sit.
I don't remember her exact words at this point, but the gist of it was that some complaints were had about my language and threats.
I had no real idea what she was talking about. The language thing seemed plausible, although I would justify my language by the fact that I wasn't working with the public- I was working pretty solely with their abandoned toilets. I imagined almost all of my coworkers were current Evergreen students. I don't really remember saying anything that bad.
She told me. The situation in question happened that morning. By threats, read "non sequitur" as that was the joke of what I said.
We're all in an elevator. There's like eight of us. I think I yelled something like "Elevator, elevator!" Something inoffensive, at any rate. It might've been someone's name. I don't quite recall.
This guy, whose name I thought was Scott although my memory was foggy, says "You're going to have to stop yelling, this is a crowded space."
I reply, blithely, "Well, if I can't yell... I'm going to have to grab your balls." I proceed to not do anything of the sort.
He says "You better not, because if you do, I'll kick your ass."
Upon going through this little flashback in my mind, I say to Heidi "Wait! I made a joke, it wasn't really a threat. He threatened me in response."
She says "I'm aware of that."
I say "Is he going to be fired?" Although I didn't really think he should be fired, you understand. I made a joke, and his reply seemed like a joke made by someone kind of humorless.
She says she can't tell me.
I say I don't think he should be, I believe I say this numerous times, but I'm aware that if I'm getting fired, I can't be expected to be able to decide such policy. We go back and forth and there's some exposition. Basically, Evergreen takes a zero-tolerance approach to matters of threats and sexual harassment (And yes I realize that if it was anything, that's what it would be, as "balls" isn't really that inappropriate by my reckoning and it wasn't really a threat. I find calling it harassment harsh but if someone wanted to say "hey that's inappropriate," I would concede the point. I certainly wouldn't have made a joke about grabbing a woman's genitals, as doing so would be charged with all kinds of implications and overtones I wouldn't want to deal with). So I was being fired, no second chances, and the fact that I had to quit a job to take this one meant nothing. The way Heidi viewed it, she had to jump through hoops to give me the job. So I don't know if the implication of her saying this was that I made her look bad, but I don't know her and so this should not be the case.
Anyway.
The moral of this story is that I live in a world where people aren't big on common decency.
The ending of this story is that I'm out of a job. Which, in a world where there's not a lot of common decency, is hard to find.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Where the fuck were you all last night, as I sat in my living room watching the video for R. Kelly's Trapped In The Closet Chapter One? I wished in my mind that pretty much all my friends would show up, the funny ones, at least one of them, and none of you magically teleported in. It sucked.
I haven't written in this thing for ages, and there are some people reading it who have no idea what I've been up to. I stayed with friends for much longer than I expected, moving out on July 2nd, to across the street. I got screwed out of a roommate and am paying a lot of rent until September, when Alex'll show up and reduce the cost by half. I got a job, but it was a horrible scam, selling Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door. I didn't get paid, my coworkers were horrible, and then I quit. Now I look for work.
I just got cable installed on Monday. I don't have internet access at my house, and probably won't until shortly before Alex arrives, because of the expense. I go to the school library for computer access every day. Before there was cable, I read a lot. I still do, I don't watch a lot of TV, but there was a lot of reading. I bought some books when I had a job I thought would pay me: Borges' Collected Fictions, and Franz Kafka's The Complete Stories. I had a friend who said I could buy stuff at one book store using his credit while he was gone for the summer: This is how I got Steve Erickson's Days Between Stations and Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman. Also I steal books from Barnes And Noble, which I'd been doing for awhile, then stopped, but started again and got copies of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying Of Lot 49 and James Joyce's Ulysses, as well as a copy of Daniel Clowes' Ice Haven. Plus there were the last two issues of McSweeney's, as well as a backlog of stuff- I've now read The Sound & The Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress Of Solitude. I'll limit my opinions to saying that The Crying Of Lot 49 was much better and easier to read than Gravity's Rainbow, and that the Collected Fictions translation of Borges by Andrew Hurley is much better than that of Anthony Kerrigan found in the copy of Ficciones I bought and read last summer.
Without internet access, I don't hear as much new music. There's a lot of things leaking that I'd like to hear, but might just have to wait until they're released, when hopefully I'll have money. This is stuff like the new Silver Jews, Deerhoof, Animal Collective records. Also Wolf Parade. There's lot of stuff. I have two Clap Your Hands Say Yeah songs off an mp3 blog that I really like.
There's shows and parties and the feeling of getting ever closer to a scene which just confirms my suspicions more and more: That these are people who don't actually like music. It makes me uncomfortable, although the girls are pretty, which is to be expected. Sometimes I find myself at random parties which suck completely, or are good but the decent people have terrible friends. I saw a Mount Eerie show that was awesome: Electric guitars and backing rhythm section. I bought No Flashlight. The other new music I've heard was the Prefuse 73 Reads The Books EP, paid for by trading in CDs that mostly I forgot I owned, like a Mogwai EP.
The movies I've seen have been limited- Went to the Capitol Theater for free because someone didn't show up so I did their job and saw Kontroll and Steamboy, neither of which were particularly good. And I saw Batman Begins, and wished the same wish I had during the R. Kelly video, although for completely different reasons- Well, not completely different, I was there early and ended up seeing all twenty minutes of The Twenty, and wished for friends and sarcasm.
Oh I wanted to talk about Sports Night. I like that show, which is something of a joke out here in Olympia with all the people who heard that one mostly-accurate joke on Family Guy but have never watched the show, or at least not at length. My point was that not only do I like Sports Night, I like it enough to be happy when I see those people in other things- the one dude with the Six Feet Under success, Felicity Huffman was in Magnolia, and just last night I saw the other anchor dude making an appearance on an episode of Stella- The first I'd seen due to my lack of cable. Speaking of which, in my absence from the world of TV I missed that Comedy Central's hired a new racist working-man type, only this one's Spanish. I also missed Jon Stewart taking some asshole to school on The Daily Show, which saddens me for different reasons.
Most things are lame. I think a good deal about the apocalypse, and how the possibility that enlightenment would happen on December 22nd 2012 that it seems that most people familar with that date are hoping for could very well just mean the end of all life on earth, since everything's just going to get worse and worse up to that point.
Also I do some writing, short stories and a novel and a screenplay for a comedy. All slow-going. I really need a job. I got hired technically by this temp agency but that only kind of counts. On the fifth there's this job fair for this big movie theater opening in Lacey. That's the job I'm hoping for.
My family's been keeping me alive by sending me checks and stuff. I have mixed feelings towards this, but mostly it just tempts me to give up. I signed up for a class in the fall mostly so I can get financial aid and credit. I'll try to make films on my own on the school's dime, using their equipment. Speaking of the school's dime: I saw a website listing professor's salaries. Almost all of them are overpaid. Or in reality, all of them are overpaid, but I don't resent all of them for this.
I haven't written in this thing for ages, and there are some people reading it who have no idea what I've been up to. I stayed with friends for much longer than I expected, moving out on July 2nd, to across the street. I got screwed out of a roommate and am paying a lot of rent until September, when Alex'll show up and reduce the cost by half. I got a job, but it was a horrible scam, selling Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door. I didn't get paid, my coworkers were horrible, and then I quit. Now I look for work.
I just got cable installed on Monday. I don't have internet access at my house, and probably won't until shortly before Alex arrives, because of the expense. I go to the school library for computer access every day. Before there was cable, I read a lot. I still do, I don't watch a lot of TV, but there was a lot of reading. I bought some books when I had a job I thought would pay me: Borges' Collected Fictions, and Franz Kafka's The Complete Stories. I had a friend who said I could buy stuff at one book store using his credit while he was gone for the summer: This is how I got Steve Erickson's Days Between Stations and Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman. Also I steal books from Barnes And Noble, which I'd been doing for awhile, then stopped, but started again and got copies of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying Of Lot 49 and James Joyce's Ulysses, as well as a copy of Daniel Clowes' Ice Haven. Plus there were the last two issues of McSweeney's, as well as a backlog of stuff- I've now read The Sound & The Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress Of Solitude. I'll limit my opinions to saying that The Crying Of Lot 49 was much better and easier to read than Gravity's Rainbow, and that the Collected Fictions translation of Borges by Andrew Hurley is much better than that of Anthony Kerrigan found in the copy of Ficciones I bought and read last summer.
Without internet access, I don't hear as much new music. There's a lot of things leaking that I'd like to hear, but might just have to wait until they're released, when hopefully I'll have money. This is stuff like the new Silver Jews, Deerhoof, Animal Collective records. Also Wolf Parade. There's lot of stuff. I have two Clap Your Hands Say Yeah songs off an mp3 blog that I really like.
There's shows and parties and the feeling of getting ever closer to a scene which just confirms my suspicions more and more: That these are people who don't actually like music. It makes me uncomfortable, although the girls are pretty, which is to be expected. Sometimes I find myself at random parties which suck completely, or are good but the decent people have terrible friends. I saw a Mount Eerie show that was awesome: Electric guitars and backing rhythm section. I bought No Flashlight. The other new music I've heard was the Prefuse 73 Reads The Books EP, paid for by trading in CDs that mostly I forgot I owned, like a Mogwai EP.
The movies I've seen have been limited- Went to the Capitol Theater for free because someone didn't show up so I did their job and saw Kontroll and Steamboy, neither of which were particularly good. And I saw Batman Begins, and wished the same wish I had during the R. Kelly video, although for completely different reasons- Well, not completely different, I was there early and ended up seeing all twenty minutes of The Twenty, and wished for friends and sarcasm.
Oh I wanted to talk about Sports Night. I like that show, which is something of a joke out here in Olympia with all the people who heard that one mostly-accurate joke on Family Guy but have never watched the show, or at least not at length. My point was that not only do I like Sports Night, I like it enough to be happy when I see those people in other things- the one dude with the Six Feet Under success, Felicity Huffman was in Magnolia, and just last night I saw the other anchor dude making an appearance on an episode of Stella- The first I'd seen due to my lack of cable. Speaking of which, in my absence from the world of TV I missed that Comedy Central's hired a new racist working-man type, only this one's Spanish. I also missed Jon Stewart taking some asshole to school on The Daily Show, which saddens me for different reasons.
Most things are lame. I think a good deal about the apocalypse, and how the possibility that enlightenment would happen on December 22nd 2012 that it seems that most people familar with that date are hoping for could very well just mean the end of all life on earth, since everything's just going to get worse and worse up to that point.
Also I do some writing, short stories and a novel and a screenplay for a comedy. All slow-going. I really need a job. I got hired technically by this temp agency but that only kind of counts. On the fifth there's this job fair for this big movie theater opening in Lacey. That's the job I'm hoping for.
My family's been keeping me alive by sending me checks and stuff. I have mixed feelings towards this, but mostly it just tempts me to give up. I signed up for a class in the fall mostly so I can get financial aid and credit. I'll try to make films on my own on the school's dime, using their equipment. Speaking of the school's dime: I saw a website listing professor's salaries. Almost all of them are overpaid. Or in reality, all of them are overpaid, but I don't resent all of them for this.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
I've been thinking about writing but not doing any writing. As I waited for the bus, I was thinking I would just write a blog entry as a prelude to doing some actual writing, the kind I want to do and have to put thought into, but I waited for the bus longer than usual, and now there is just exhaustion. But briefly, my day:
My day was exhausting. I didn't go to sleep. I watched The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse instead. Today is day one of the moving days. Two more roommates are gone now, moved out. The one roommate still here may or may not do a ton of work and pull it all together within the next twenty-three hours. I've got most of my stuff in storage. It weighs a good deal.
Tomorrow I'm gone, and the phone number you all have will no longer be of use. It's a phone number I've given to prospective employers. Now, I can only assume that I didn't get the job at Brewery City, nor did I get the job at the assisted living facility. Even if they were willing to give it to me, they won't be able to tell me.
The job prospects currently: I have an interview at Goodwill on Tuesday at 10:30. That might not lead anywhere. I have been given a job selling satellite dishes on commission. It seems sketchy, and the more I mull over the details, the sketchier it seems. The office is upstairs from a Papa Murphy's Take and Bake Pizza. If I'm actually able to sell people on the superiority of satellite dishes over cable, then there's some money to be made. Otherwise I am fucked. The head of the sales team is a mustachioed man. The company may or may not have phones yet installed in the office. Once that happens, the job will segue into telemarketing. There's the possibility I should continue to pound the pavement, let's say.
But then there's the house search. Moving out tomorrow. Staying somewhere for a few days, but don't want to rely on that. There's a sublet available, and I talked to the woman subletting, and it would be fine, regardless of the lead-based paint and whatnot, but I might not get it. More people still to talk to. I'm stopping by there Tuesday evening.
I've got a new mailbox downtown for the time being.
We should have more food in the house than we do, at least some milk for the cereal, or something, but no, because I'm gone tomorrow. I imagine my diet's going to be odd for the next few days, which makes for a bad combination with the physically exhausting moving activity.
God. I don't know. The loss of interaction with friends who play to my best/worst/most instinctive instincts will be tough. Especially if I'm doing sales work. Hopefully I'll be able to make good money and have a place and just coop myself up and do writing, if the dayjob isn't too exhausting. I guess I'll have to force myself. I kind of want to force myself now but I don't know if I got any REM sleep this morning, and I doubt I got any in my many nods off on the bus.
I've got some ambitions though, believe you me.
Also, I'm afraid this computer's going to overheat soon so I'm going to post now and then be done with it.
My day was exhausting. I didn't go to sleep. I watched The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse instead. Today is day one of the moving days. Two more roommates are gone now, moved out. The one roommate still here may or may not do a ton of work and pull it all together within the next twenty-three hours. I've got most of my stuff in storage. It weighs a good deal.
Tomorrow I'm gone, and the phone number you all have will no longer be of use. It's a phone number I've given to prospective employers. Now, I can only assume that I didn't get the job at Brewery City, nor did I get the job at the assisted living facility. Even if they were willing to give it to me, they won't be able to tell me.
The job prospects currently: I have an interview at Goodwill on Tuesday at 10:30. That might not lead anywhere. I have been given a job selling satellite dishes on commission. It seems sketchy, and the more I mull over the details, the sketchier it seems. The office is upstairs from a Papa Murphy's Take and Bake Pizza. If I'm actually able to sell people on the superiority of satellite dishes over cable, then there's some money to be made. Otherwise I am fucked. The head of the sales team is a mustachioed man. The company may or may not have phones yet installed in the office. Once that happens, the job will segue into telemarketing. There's the possibility I should continue to pound the pavement, let's say.
But then there's the house search. Moving out tomorrow. Staying somewhere for a few days, but don't want to rely on that. There's a sublet available, and I talked to the woman subletting, and it would be fine, regardless of the lead-based paint and whatnot, but I might not get it. More people still to talk to. I'm stopping by there Tuesday evening.
I've got a new mailbox downtown for the time being.
We should have more food in the house than we do, at least some milk for the cereal, or something, but no, because I'm gone tomorrow. I imagine my diet's going to be odd for the next few days, which makes for a bad combination with the physically exhausting moving activity.
God. I don't know. The loss of interaction with friends who play to my best/worst/most instinctive instincts will be tough. Especially if I'm doing sales work. Hopefully I'll be able to make good money and have a place and just coop myself up and do writing, if the dayjob isn't too exhausting. I guess I'll have to force myself. I kind of want to force myself now but I don't know if I got any REM sleep this morning, and I doubt I got any in my many nods off on the bus.
I've got some ambitions though, believe you me.
Also, I'm afraid this computer's going to overheat soon so I'm going to post now and then be done with it.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
job search house search forever with the nervousness i am behind future uncertain ah! ah! ah!
It's all interviews and job applications and no calls back ever. I dress in button-down shirts and black pants and feel awkward for it.
The only thing that gives me confidence was my saying with certainty that no, I am not returning to Philadelphia for the summer. It's the only option to my future I chose to seal off, a fallback plan I'd rather not have, an awkward scenario I won't have to live. Saturday I move out. I don't know to where. My things will be in storage if nowhere else.
Today I had an interview for a job selling vacuums, and I thought it went okay. There were some awkward moments that might've been what resulted in my not getting the job- I couldn't remember the phone numbers or the addresses of either previous employers or personal references for the paperwork, as I usually take applications home- but the interview said it was mostly down to the one-on-one interview, and maybe that didn't come off so hot. I thought it went alright. There were no returned phone calls.
There've been other jobs to seem like sure things that have fallen apart for my lack of a car.
Tomorrow I hand in an application to Goodwill, which will probably not pay as well as a job selling vacuum cleaners. Tomorrow I will look once more to the Classifieds ads.
I almost wrote a post a few days ago about my mom. I realized she didn't share a last name with me, and as such could be a personal reference if she was willing to just vouch for me and lie up an anecdote where she was not my mom. I think this kind of thing is completely acceptable: You'll lie to a kid, why not lie for them? But my mom's all about that kind of morality which goes against most people's ideas of decency, and as such she refused. I don't want to be the kind of kid who hates their mom, the kind where it's all they talk about and they're not particularly well-adjusted. But my mom's personality just grows more irritating with every day. I can only hope that she is starting to realize that the way she raised me did not lead to me having the same morals as she. Hopefully she realized this eons ago, with her getting all up in arms in regards to obscenity and offensiveness and all the other things I hold dear. She's funny: She realizes and probably assumes that I'm drinking booze and smoking drugs, but probably thinks I don't watch South Park and things she finds offensive, which I totally watched anyway when I lived with her. I really wonder what things she think stuck. Maybe the Christianity, but my conception of God is completely different from hers.
It's all interviews and job applications and no calls back ever. I dress in button-down shirts and black pants and feel awkward for it.
The only thing that gives me confidence was my saying with certainty that no, I am not returning to Philadelphia for the summer. It's the only option to my future I chose to seal off, a fallback plan I'd rather not have, an awkward scenario I won't have to live. Saturday I move out. I don't know to where. My things will be in storage if nowhere else.
Today I had an interview for a job selling vacuums, and I thought it went okay. There were some awkward moments that might've been what resulted in my not getting the job- I couldn't remember the phone numbers or the addresses of either previous employers or personal references for the paperwork, as I usually take applications home- but the interview said it was mostly down to the one-on-one interview, and maybe that didn't come off so hot. I thought it went alright. There were no returned phone calls.
There've been other jobs to seem like sure things that have fallen apart for my lack of a car.
Tomorrow I hand in an application to Goodwill, which will probably not pay as well as a job selling vacuum cleaners. Tomorrow I will look once more to the Classifieds ads.
I almost wrote a post a few days ago about my mom. I realized she didn't share a last name with me, and as such could be a personal reference if she was willing to just vouch for me and lie up an anecdote where she was not my mom. I think this kind of thing is completely acceptable: You'll lie to a kid, why not lie for them? But my mom's all about that kind of morality which goes against most people's ideas of decency, and as such she refused. I don't want to be the kind of kid who hates their mom, the kind where it's all they talk about and they're not particularly well-adjusted. But my mom's personality just grows more irritating with every day. I can only hope that she is starting to realize that the way she raised me did not lead to me having the same morals as she. Hopefully she realized this eons ago, with her getting all up in arms in regards to obscenity and offensiveness and all the other things I hold dear. She's funny: She realizes and probably assumes that I'm drinking booze and smoking drugs, but probably thinks I don't watch South Park and things she finds offensive, which I totally watched anyway when I lived with her. I really wonder what things she think stuck. Maybe the Christianity, but my conception of God is completely different from hers.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
I submitted a short story for publication awhile back, and today I learned that I should've included a SASE with that submission. I'd resubmit it tomorrow if I had an address I'd be living in two months from now. These are hectic times, and the hits just keep on coming, but like a sack full of oranges, they leave no bruises behind.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Friday, May 20, 2005
So, tomorrow morning, I'm headed off to Seattle for a week. This means that, unless I am attacked by thoughts and cannot sleep, this will be my last update for a week. When I come back, expect a thing about the film festival, which will hopefully translate to a list of films to look out for, and not a general statement of disgust about the state of filmmaking in the world. I'm blaming a lot on the tyranny of old white women in regards to the art-house set. This has more to do with my teachers' taste than anything. I really disagree with them about pretty much everything.
But you know what is good? Music. Holy crap. The upcoming Sufjan Stevens record, Illinois, is very strong for what it is, but the thing to most fill me with excitement is the new Deerhoof EP, Green Cosmos. Most of the lyrics are in Japanese. It sounds like Deerhoof, but the sound palette is expanded to include samples and synths and all kinds of good things. I love it.
What I've heard from the Need New Body record is really good as well. Right now, it's in weird territory, but mostly, it's just such a feel-good record. Just this joyous summertime hoo-hah. It's not a transcendent Neutral Milk Hotel kind of joy, it's a summertime parties on the roof of Philadelphia, eating BBQ and drinking and smoking weed, sun is shining, everybody's funny and enjoyable and all about being awesome. It's happiness more than joy, I suppose, but it's a cartwheel kind of record. So's the Deerhoof EP. I can't do cartwheels. But these records make me want to do them, to express my feelings of happiness. And I mean: there's elements of weirdness to both, because that's the kind of person I am. But there's an emphasis on rhythm and good times. So I vote yes.
Oh, and that Sleater-Kinney record's about to come out, and that's pretty good too. It's a good year for music. But I mean, it's springtime and school's out and sure there's a lot of vibes to any given time, but if you have the vibes conducive to listening to a lot of Need New Body and Deerhoof, it's going to be a good summer.
But you know what is good? Music. Holy crap. The upcoming Sufjan Stevens record, Illinois, is very strong for what it is, but the thing to most fill me with excitement is the new Deerhoof EP, Green Cosmos. Most of the lyrics are in Japanese. It sounds like Deerhoof, but the sound palette is expanded to include samples and synths and all kinds of good things. I love it.
What I've heard from the Need New Body record is really good as well. Right now, it's in weird territory, but mostly, it's just such a feel-good record. Just this joyous summertime hoo-hah. It's not a transcendent Neutral Milk Hotel kind of joy, it's a summertime parties on the roof of Philadelphia, eating BBQ and drinking and smoking weed, sun is shining, everybody's funny and enjoyable and all about being awesome. It's happiness more than joy, I suppose, but it's a cartwheel kind of record. So's the Deerhoof EP. I can't do cartwheels. But these records make me want to do them, to express my feelings of happiness. And I mean: there's elements of weirdness to both, because that's the kind of person I am. But there's an emphasis on rhythm and good times. So I vote yes.
Oh, and that Sleater-Kinney record's about to come out, and that's pretty good too. It's a good year for music. But I mean, it's springtime and school's out and sure there's a lot of vibes to any given time, but if you have the vibes conducive to listening to a lot of Need New Body and Deerhoof, it's going to be a good summer.
Monday, May 16, 2005
And once again we are left with no future at all.
The one class I wanted to get into for next year, the only one that held any appeal, that I could take and not feel like I was regressing, the only class where I could learn about things that I didn't know about but wanted to did not accept me. Where I'm at right now, taking classes on writing or literature is dead and wasted to me. I want to learn film-editing techniques, to be able to create film, to produce work. There's one class that teaches these skills. And as such, it's a popular class at Evergreen. So of course, it's harder to get into, requiring an application process. Some of the blame for not getting the class falls on me, but maybe not all of it.
So yeah, I'm completely fucked. There's no reason for me to attend Evergreen in the fall. Honestly, for me to do such a thing would actually be regrettable. And if I don't go here in the fall, than I do not know what I will be doing in the fall. Will I be in Philadelphia, working a shit job? I don't know. I'd like to be in Olympia, working, writing, maybe filming on the side. Which would probably require me to get a job right now.
And I've got this film festival, which defers that, and I need for full credit. Another thing I need for full credit is to complete this group project by Wednesday, and I can't get in contact with the people in my group.
I am fuckedFUCKEDFUCKED.
The one class I wanted to get into for next year, the only one that held any appeal, that I could take and not feel like I was regressing, the only class where I could learn about things that I didn't know about but wanted to did not accept me. Where I'm at right now, taking classes on writing or literature is dead and wasted to me. I want to learn film-editing techniques, to be able to create film, to produce work. There's one class that teaches these skills. And as such, it's a popular class at Evergreen. So of course, it's harder to get into, requiring an application process. Some of the blame for not getting the class falls on me, but maybe not all of it.
So yeah, I'm completely fucked. There's no reason for me to attend Evergreen in the fall. Honestly, for me to do such a thing would actually be regrettable. And if I don't go here in the fall, than I do not know what I will be doing in the fall. Will I be in Philadelphia, working a shit job? I don't know. I'd like to be in Olympia, working, writing, maybe filming on the side. Which would probably require me to get a job right now.
And I've got this film festival, which defers that, and I need for full credit. Another thing I need for full credit is to complete this group project by Wednesday, and I can't get in contact with the people in my group.
I am fuckedFUCKEDFUCKED.
Furthering the McSweeney's nerding: Issue 17 sounds awesome awesome awesome and you know maybe a renewal of subscription would be in order, although obviously not immediately, but sometime before the issue ships. Also, the book by Salvador Plascencia, The People Of Paper, looks like it will be very good indeed. There's also a book of photography of bicycles locked to poles, which is the kind of thing I would get someone for a gift and watch them be befuddled, and then maybe come around to thinking is pretty awesome.
I've got this group project for class that is due on wednesday, and hasn't been done, because of the nature of group projects. Hopefully, we will end up pounding it out powered by desperation and panic.
I've got this group project for class that is due on wednesday, and hasn't been done, because of the nature of group projects. Hopefully, we will end up pounding it out powered by desperation and panic.
So, I'm deleting music off my hard drive, as it is approaching fullness. Here's what band folders I've ditched so far:
The Fiery Furnaces
The Advantage
Dungen
Thunderbirds Are Now!
Twilight Singers
More updates to come as they happen. Comets On Fire, Dead Meadow, Death From Above 1979, The Clientele, and Nervous Cop all seem likely. Some things should get more close listens, some are deleted by the fact that I'm never interested enough to do such a thing. I gave that Thunderbirds Are Now! the most listens to see if it did anything interesting ever, and no, not really.
The Fiery Furnaces
The Advantage
Dungen
Thunderbirds Are Now!
Twilight Singers
More updates to come as they happen. Comets On Fire, Dead Meadow, Death From Above 1979, The Clientele, and Nervous Cop all seem likely. Some things should get more close listens, some are deleted by the fact that I'm never interested enough to do such a thing. I gave that Thunderbirds Are Now! the most listens to see if it did anything interesting ever, and no, not really.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
I spent the day working on my Amazon wishlist, which is admittedly a pretty disgusting way to spend a day. There will be no link to said list, as I don't expect anyone to buy me anything. I will, however, mention one thing on the list: Michael Kupperman's Snake And Bacon's Cartoon Cabaret, which is less than three dollars when bought from the used and new section. I first heard of this when McSweeney's offered free copies to everyone who ordered more than thirty dollars worth of product from their store one week, and guaranteed enjoyment. Then I did some investigation, where people with tastes seemingly similar to mine called it the funniest comic they've ever read. I also heard Kupperman wrote some bits for the TV Funhouse show, the stuff that was funny and weird and different from the rest of the show. I found out that he also drew one-page comics for The Believer sometimes, and then I read one of those comics, "The life of Pablo Picasso, as narrated by a hamburger." So, yes, if anyone wants to buy this for me, it might run around five bucks after shipping's included. I'd buy it for myself, had I not decided not to buy anything until I had a job. Who knows how I'll feel after I have a job, though? I'm sure it's good, but enthusiasm is a slippery sort of fish.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
In my film class, there are small groups of five that we break up into to watch a third movie every week. In my group, there's this guy who cheers pretty much every time a woman gets hit, or shot, by a man. This is odd at best and disturbing at worst. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and think he's just responding to something that doesn't happen too frequently in movies due to decorum, but actually: It happens all the time in movies. It happens rather frequently. It happens in pretty much every noir ever. In most instances where a movie creates a scenario to get the viewer on the side opposed to the woman, that woman will get her comeuppance, and usually at the hand of a man.
In other news: I want to start reading something again, a novel, and The Sound In The Fury is unread, but I just don't have the energy yet for something that starts off difficult. Also: I'm not exactly going through a Faulkner phase. There's nothing to get me excited about that book besides it's classic status, which never really gets me excited for anything. I've got more modern stuff (Jonathan Lethem) that I'm excited to read, but I don't want to do that when I have a classic of American literature sitting on a bookshelf. Honestly: I need to read The Sound And The Fury, and I'm putting off reading other things until I do it, but all that's really doing is stopping me from doing anything.
In other news: I want to start reading something again, a novel, and The Sound In The Fury is unread, but I just don't have the energy yet for something that starts off difficult. Also: I'm not exactly going through a Faulkner phase. There's nothing to get me excited about that book besides it's classic status, which never really gets me excited for anything. I've got more modern stuff (Jonathan Lethem) that I'm excited to read, but I don't want to do that when I have a classic of American literature sitting on a bookshelf. Honestly: I need to read The Sound And The Fury, and I'm putting off reading other things until I do it, but all that's really doing is stopping me from doing anything.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
AND AND AND
Complete Calvin And Hobbes, dudes! Eep!
I've got all the paperbacks, but they've been damaged over a lifetime. Some are probably in great shape, the others I kind of want to pick up over the future from remainder tables where they are frequently found.
It's a slipcase with three hardcovers. It doesn't say anything about the bonus material, the full-color stuff from the treasury editions. All of those really should be in there.
But the main thing is that the image on Amazon showing this thing for sale is Calvin and Hobbes, and they're just hugging, and there's no background to speak of, just white negative space.
Seriously: If you don't like Calvin And Hobbes, I don't even want to know you. I say that for a lot of things, but the other things in question aren't nearly as popular. (I've said it about The Triplets Of Belleville, to name but one example.) If you never had one of the collections in your youth which you've spent bored evenings and the holidays you received them poring over, I recommend going and buying one post-haste. It's amazing how much I've read these and how often I can find a joke that still makes me laugh when I look back over them. Really, you should all have all the material to your name already.
The stuff in the Snow Goons book (abbreviated solely because I can't remember the full title) never got the good treatment. The first six books that were in the squat square format had treasury editions, but the Snow Goons book existed after those were stopped being made, but before the conversion to the ideal format, of two strips per elongated page. Those later books also printed them at the biggest size. I really hope that's the format for these hardcovers.
How much great art is friendly to both children and the elderly? There's a handful of comic strips which are great art: Notably Krazy Kat and The Far Side, but both of those are frequently kind of inpenetrable. Honestly, Calvin And Hobbes is one of the best things ever, and it really bums me out that my books are in New Jersey, and not here, in my dorm, where I live. And I mean, sure, my one roommate has all the books. But hoo, but for my own. Honestly, it some ways, that comic strip is like a stuffed animal that comes to life in your mind and talks to you. That's not even a stretch to say. The books themselves, as a physical prescence, are the stuffed animal, and I'm pretty sure I have the days spent in bed to prove it, whereas the comics and the content and all the jokes and ideas and all of that forms a dialogue with the reader. The same could be said of any book or any piece of art with intense connections to one's personal history, but very few things from my childhood hold up as well, and so it wins. Over and over again, it wins.
Complete Calvin And Hobbes, dudes! Eep!
I've got all the paperbacks, but they've been damaged over a lifetime. Some are probably in great shape, the others I kind of want to pick up over the future from remainder tables where they are frequently found.
It's a slipcase with three hardcovers. It doesn't say anything about the bonus material, the full-color stuff from the treasury editions. All of those really should be in there.
But the main thing is that the image on Amazon showing this thing for sale is Calvin and Hobbes, and they're just hugging, and there's no background to speak of, just white negative space.
Seriously: If you don't like Calvin And Hobbes, I don't even want to know you. I say that for a lot of things, but the other things in question aren't nearly as popular. (I've said it about The Triplets Of Belleville, to name but one example.) If you never had one of the collections in your youth which you've spent bored evenings and the holidays you received them poring over, I recommend going and buying one post-haste. It's amazing how much I've read these and how often I can find a joke that still makes me laugh when I look back over them. Really, you should all have all the material to your name already.
The stuff in the Snow Goons book (abbreviated solely because I can't remember the full title) never got the good treatment. The first six books that were in the squat square format had treasury editions, but the Snow Goons book existed after those were stopped being made, but before the conversion to the ideal format, of two strips per elongated page. Those later books also printed them at the biggest size. I really hope that's the format for these hardcovers.
How much great art is friendly to both children and the elderly? There's a handful of comic strips which are great art: Notably Krazy Kat and The Far Side, but both of those are frequently kind of inpenetrable. Honestly, Calvin And Hobbes is one of the best things ever, and it really bums me out that my books are in New Jersey, and not here, in my dorm, where I live. And I mean, sure, my one roommate has all the books. But hoo, but for my own. Honestly, it some ways, that comic strip is like a stuffed animal that comes to life in your mind and talks to you. That's not even a stretch to say. The books themselves, as a physical prescence, are the stuffed animal, and I'm pretty sure I have the days spent in bed to prove it, whereas the comics and the content and all the jokes and ideas and all of that forms a dialogue with the reader. The same could be said of any book or any piece of art with intense connections to one's personal history, but very few things from my childhood hold up as well, and so it wins. Over and over again, it wins.
Good God, but film class is lame. Today we watched Rio Bravo, a Howard Hawks piece of shit featuring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, and stereotypical Mexicans. The idea was to understand the genre of the western.
Before I went to class, I watched Ingmar Bergman's Persona, which was amazing. It's the kind of film that could be examined shot for shot for meaning, not just for its excellent expressive photography.
Another film with excellent photography was Orson Welles' The Trial, adapted from the Kafka novel, which I just finished watching. It might be better than Citizen Kane. If not, it's still better than Touch Of Evil and The Magnificent Ambersons. It's a fucking masterpiece.
This weekend I also saw Luis Bunuel's That Obscure Object Of Desire. It was great. All of these are great films, and they're film nerd films, movies to be studied. It's really sad how much greater the syllabus I assign myself is then what I'm assigned. I bet when I go to that film festival, and am watching at least three movies a day (Which I did today, in case you weren't paying close attention) I will still not see as many fucking great, best movies ever that entire week than I would were I to stay home with a carefully chosen Netflix queue.
The thing is, of course, is I have to write a paper about Rio Bravo. Kind of a pain in the ass, as it's a film about which I have nothing to say. I'm just writing down the greatness of the other films here, but honestly, I mean it when I say I could go through Persona shot for shot.
There's more movies for me to watch before the week is done. I've got a paper to write about Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, a western I picked to view for class- it's not on the syllabus, my seminar leader hasn't even seen it because she avoids violent films- and I should watch it again, as my viewing group got bored halfway through and then watched it at at least double speed with subtitles on. There's 2046 and Dazed And Confused, the last entries in my queue. Sullivan's Travels waits on Alex's computer to be burned. Then there's Lost In La Mancha, and there's still more movies arriving on Friday, although that's mostly discs of the first season of The Wire, but I Fidantzi is in there as well.
If I didn't have class at ten, I'd be watching Dazed And Confused right now. The class at ten won't even feature either of my teachers, but a woman from the film festival, along with someone from the program I'm trying to get into for next year. I need to write three essays for that application, all on vague criteria. I will do this tomorrow, in between movies and sleep.
Also: My seminar leader hasn't seen anything directed by Michel Gondry. This feels like some kind of cardinal sin to me. I don't expect her to be familar with The White Stripes Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground video, but that when taken in conjunction with not having seen Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind just makes my neurons pop. And not in the way that, say, the aforementioned Gondry films made my neurons pop. No, this makes my neurons pop with rage.
Before I went to class, I watched Ingmar Bergman's Persona, which was amazing. It's the kind of film that could be examined shot for shot for meaning, not just for its excellent expressive photography.
Another film with excellent photography was Orson Welles' The Trial, adapted from the Kafka novel, which I just finished watching. It might be better than Citizen Kane. If not, it's still better than Touch Of Evil and The Magnificent Ambersons. It's a fucking masterpiece.
This weekend I also saw Luis Bunuel's That Obscure Object Of Desire. It was great. All of these are great films, and they're film nerd films, movies to be studied. It's really sad how much greater the syllabus I assign myself is then what I'm assigned. I bet when I go to that film festival, and am watching at least three movies a day (Which I did today, in case you weren't paying close attention) I will still not see as many fucking great, best movies ever that entire week than I would were I to stay home with a carefully chosen Netflix queue.
The thing is, of course, is I have to write a paper about Rio Bravo. Kind of a pain in the ass, as it's a film about which I have nothing to say. I'm just writing down the greatness of the other films here, but honestly, I mean it when I say I could go through Persona shot for shot.
There's more movies for me to watch before the week is done. I've got a paper to write about Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, a western I picked to view for class- it's not on the syllabus, my seminar leader hasn't even seen it because she avoids violent films- and I should watch it again, as my viewing group got bored halfway through and then watched it at at least double speed with subtitles on. There's 2046 and Dazed And Confused, the last entries in my queue. Sullivan's Travels waits on Alex's computer to be burned. Then there's Lost In La Mancha, and there's still more movies arriving on Friday, although that's mostly discs of the first season of The Wire, but I Fidantzi is in there as well.
If I didn't have class at ten, I'd be watching Dazed And Confused right now. The class at ten won't even feature either of my teachers, but a woman from the film festival, along with someone from the program I'm trying to get into for next year. I need to write three essays for that application, all on vague criteria. I will do this tomorrow, in between movies and sleep.
Also: My seminar leader hasn't seen anything directed by Michel Gondry. This feels like some kind of cardinal sin to me. I don't expect her to be familar with The White Stripes Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground video, but that when taken in conjunction with not having seen Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind just makes my neurons pop. And not in the way that, say, the aforementioned Gondry films made my neurons pop. No, this makes my neurons pop with rage.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Thursday, April 28, 2005
I just watched David Lynch's Lost Highway. Some people might try to tell you this is David Lynch's best movie. These people are, to put it plainly, retarded. They are the ones who don't understand that David Lynch is working with themes, and has a point. Lost Highway is a great David Lynch movie if all you see is weirdness, if you thought that Mulholland Drive was unintelligible but you say you enjoyed it anyway because it was just so Ca-Razy! No, all his movies make sense- I'm including Eraserhead when I say this, along with Mulholland Drive, and everything Twin Peaks associated. (Sidenote: Fire Walk With Me is fucking awesome, although it requires a knowledge of both seasons of the series. The series is pretty great, possibly the best show ever on TV, and the David Lynch directed episodes were the best of the series. I take it as part of the larger body of work, and it's one of the high points, despite the lack of some of what made the show great.) Lost Highway, not so much- I've read some stuff that seems to imply that even Lynch didn't know what he was doing. This isn't to say it's a terrible movie, it has some interesting moments, it's compelling and creepy. I can see why people would like it. But the people who like it more than any other Lynch film are not to be trusted. The narrative is largely nonsense, and the themes of identity are discussed far better in Mulholland Drive. Also, the soundtrack is shit- there's Rammstein on it, where there should be Angelo Badalamenti. Granted, I saw it on a piss-poor DVD- bad print, full-screen. It just looks ugly, which might not actually be the case. Still, in terms of narrative, it's not that strong. If anyone's written any analysis/explanation, I'd be interested in reading such a thing. Really, next time you talk to someone who says it's their favorite, ask them to explain it. They will probably get really offended by the idea, but I can explain what Mulholland Drive was about, and I can explain what happens in Eraserhead. They might think I'm lying or being pretentious when I say this, but no. David Lynch usually makes sense, and people who disagree with this thesis are assholes.
Before Lost Highway came out, David Foster Wallace wrote a great essay on David Lynch that's published in his book A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. I recommend reading it next time you're in a book store. It should be located right next to the new Sarah Vowell book, Assassination Vacation, which looks awesome.
Before Lost Highway came out, David Foster Wallace wrote a great essay on David Lynch that's published in his book A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. I recommend reading it next time you're in a book store. It should be located right next to the new Sarah Vowell book, Assassination Vacation, which looks awesome.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
I haven't written in this for awhile, which isn't a sin on its own, but not doing so essentially means that I'm blowing off a large number of my friends. Still, I have my excuses.
Mostly my life is a really boring thing. The new thing, though, is that I'm very much running out of money, and employment opportunities aren't exactly presenting themself. I want to stay in Olympia over the Summer, but that would require jobs to exist in this town.
The other thing is that as an outlet for writing, I find the authorial voice used for these things to be not particularly interesting. This isn't to say I've been doing a lot of fiction writing, but writing about elements of my life for the informing of a handful of friends isn't the most exciting thing to do. Especially since it feels like all I ever write about is music and books and whatnot, and there are message boards for things like that, that have more immediate feedback, and are more specialized and likely to be interested in the subject matter I'm discussing. Also, Blogger won't allow me to cut and paste, meaning I can't edit, which further reduces the quality of my posts.
In addition to that, there's the film class writing, which is not particularly rewarding, hung up on both really boring subject matter (most of the films suck, with the notable exception of Fritz Lang's M) and a really boring approach to it. (They want analysis in terms of things like lighting and mise-en-scene, not criticism- they just want to get into how things work, and in the most basic sense, EVERYTHING WORKS.)
There's a film festival in Seattle I might have to attend, but I really don't have the money to spend for such a thing, and even though my mom's said she'll send me the money, the money would probably be better spent on just about anything I regularly spend money on. (i.e. food, paying off student loans, saving)
Did I mention that I've seen every episode of Twin Peaks, and Fire Walk With Me, and its largely fucking amazing, with the exception of a several episode stretch in the middle of the second season? I also saw Wild At Heart, and that's pretty good too. Two Netflix accounts going at once here in J208. We watch more than David Lynch, but there's too much I haven't written about to write about here, especially in the cursory recommendation mode which is not particularly satisfying.
I've been stealing books from Barnes And Noble, but I'm not very good at it, as I'm too much of a pussy to take more than one book at once. I'm going to stop for awhile.
Awhile back, on this blog, I wrote at thing about how I had a plan to stop reading comics, but decided it was a dumb plan. As it turns out, it would've been a smart plan, because most new comics output right now sucks ass. Best thing I've read recently is Daniel Clowes' Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron, which is several years old, and I stole from Barnes And Noble. A certain amount of my enjoyment could also stem from the fact that I got it for free, so that lowers the standard considerably. Stray Bullets is now being reprinted in the ideal format, and I picked up a copy of The Innocence Of Nihilism in softcover, but it read better the first time, with surprises intact. It's good though, you should read it if you haven't already. Oh, and after my first trip to Barnes And Noble, they stopped shelving things like Daniel Clowes and anything else I'd be interested in entirely. Fuck you comics. I get my music for free, (which I frequently feel bad about- there's some stuff that I should own) I get my movies for cheap, (which is less bothersome, because I very rarely watch movies over and over again) but you remain overpriced and underambitious, and take up large amounts of physical space.
As soon as I get a job, the new steady cashflow will go towards buying amazing records in genres unrecognized by my music collection, namely, the kind made by black people. I might buy these on vinyl, so it seems less shameful. I don't have a record player, but my roommates do, and I'm sure I will have one at some point before I die, especially if I buy things on vinyl.
Mostly my life is a really boring thing. The new thing, though, is that I'm very much running out of money, and employment opportunities aren't exactly presenting themself. I want to stay in Olympia over the Summer, but that would require jobs to exist in this town.
The other thing is that as an outlet for writing, I find the authorial voice used for these things to be not particularly interesting. This isn't to say I've been doing a lot of fiction writing, but writing about elements of my life for the informing of a handful of friends isn't the most exciting thing to do. Especially since it feels like all I ever write about is music and books and whatnot, and there are message boards for things like that, that have more immediate feedback, and are more specialized and likely to be interested in the subject matter I'm discussing. Also, Blogger won't allow me to cut and paste, meaning I can't edit, which further reduces the quality of my posts.
In addition to that, there's the film class writing, which is not particularly rewarding, hung up on both really boring subject matter (most of the films suck, with the notable exception of Fritz Lang's M) and a really boring approach to it. (They want analysis in terms of things like lighting and mise-en-scene, not criticism- they just want to get into how things work, and in the most basic sense, EVERYTHING WORKS.)
There's a film festival in Seattle I might have to attend, but I really don't have the money to spend for such a thing, and even though my mom's said she'll send me the money, the money would probably be better spent on just about anything I regularly spend money on. (i.e. food, paying off student loans, saving)
Did I mention that I've seen every episode of Twin Peaks, and Fire Walk With Me, and its largely fucking amazing, with the exception of a several episode stretch in the middle of the second season? I also saw Wild At Heart, and that's pretty good too. Two Netflix accounts going at once here in J208. We watch more than David Lynch, but there's too much I haven't written about to write about here, especially in the cursory recommendation mode which is not particularly satisfying.
I've been stealing books from Barnes And Noble, but I'm not very good at it, as I'm too much of a pussy to take more than one book at once. I'm going to stop for awhile.
Awhile back, on this blog, I wrote at thing about how I had a plan to stop reading comics, but decided it was a dumb plan. As it turns out, it would've been a smart plan, because most new comics output right now sucks ass. Best thing I've read recently is Daniel Clowes' Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron, which is several years old, and I stole from Barnes And Noble. A certain amount of my enjoyment could also stem from the fact that I got it for free, so that lowers the standard considerably. Stray Bullets is now being reprinted in the ideal format, and I picked up a copy of The Innocence Of Nihilism in softcover, but it read better the first time, with surprises intact. It's good though, you should read it if you haven't already. Oh, and after my first trip to Barnes And Noble, they stopped shelving things like Daniel Clowes and anything else I'd be interested in entirely. Fuck you comics. I get my music for free, (which I frequently feel bad about- there's some stuff that I should own) I get my movies for cheap, (which is less bothersome, because I very rarely watch movies over and over again) but you remain overpriced and underambitious, and take up large amounts of physical space.
As soon as I get a job, the new steady cashflow will go towards buying amazing records in genres unrecognized by my music collection, namely, the kind made by black people. I might buy these on vinyl, so it seems less shameful. I don't have a record player, but my roommates do, and I'm sure I will have one at some point before I die, especially if I buy things on vinyl.
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