XMAS

Filipino Christmas at the Dela Paz / Virays etc. went from 10 PM to 5:30 AM including poker, karaoke, Wii, PS3, and Guitar Hero 3 (for my first time.)

I wish I had pics but I don't have a camera. If you feel bad for me, then send cash / check to my house, and if you don't feel bad for me, send cash / check to my house.

In any case, here is a list of gifts I received:

cards
some odd amounts of cash
a D & B Wrist Bag
Gulag Orkestrar
A jumper
Fabric
A custom GOLD leafed sewing kit
Sew U: How to make your own Clothes
A hair clip
a brooch
a gold bracelet
a v-neck preppy sweater
4 champagne flutes
Little Miss Sunshine
Best Buy Gift Card
Cashmere Socks
Rip It Up and Start Again (Book about Post Punk)
Lace

Eclectic, no?

Inland Empire

Well, David Lynch is back at it again. This movie is what my friend Jacob Silver describes as one of DL's "LA" movies. My favorite character, Freddie, played by this guy may look familiar to you because according to imdb, has acted in 162 television shows and/or movies! What do you expect with a guy like that: Harry Dean Stanton.

In any case, the part of the movie I most enjoyed (besides the similarity between some of DL's scene and my early plays) was actually not part of the movie. It was David Lynch talking. I could listen to him talk about pretty much anything. He is one of those funny geniuses who always ends up making more sense than anything that's not funny.

The STATE is on iTunes. I'm going to watch it right nOW.
X

Big Whiny Baby

You know the ladies who sell churros in the L platform at Union Square, and the L train lady who tries to sell batteries. Is it rude to give them a dollar and not want "baterias" or "churros?" Guys? Please? This almost makes me cry seeing everyone rushing past them and ignoring them.

HOW TO RECHARGE YOUR HUMAN BATTERY

Yesterday I slept from 1 AM to 5:30 PM with a few "water breaks" to rest in between sleeping. I thought this meant I either had:

mono (aka, the kissing disease and glandular fever)

Depression (sometimes a product of mono)

Anxiety-Induced Depression

A Sinus Infection

Seasonal Affective Disorder

But no! It was none of these. I was..... TIRED! And I went out for a drink at night and ate some pretend nachos and woke up feeling spendiforous freedom joy.

So today, I am slowly remembering that while I am frustrated putting together my life's work, I need to remember to have fun in the meantime, and I am going to see For Your Consideration (See past entries) today at noon by myself before I go to work at Phoebe's at three.

ALSO: Yesterday, Jessica and I meant to see this movie:

The Good Sheperd

But we underestimated the number of CIA related Matt Damon new releases out, and accidentally saw the new Scorsese: which was sort of a mixture of blood bath and mockumentary, losely based on the reality TV series "Mole" or whatever the hell that's called.

In the end, I'm ten minutes away from finishing my laundry, I already put air in my bike tires and went to the bank, and I hope this work and fun-reward system will do my happiness and work ethic some good.

It's nice to relax.
Or to work on relaxing.

What do you do when you get stressed?

The Devil and Daniel Johnston



So now that my 1 year-old (computer) keeps shutting itself down whenever the spirit moves her, I'm going to have to keep it brief.

This movie is important. Long ago I asked a few people to catch it with me at the Sunshine and none of us found the time (some of us didn't really want to.)

Daniel Johnston is the hero in the modern day real-life tragic sense, and if you don't like his music, you'll love his drawings. If you don't like those, you'll love his story. If you don't like them, you'll love his parents or watching Gibby Hanes getting his teeth cleaned or Lee Renaldo searching for Daniel J in New Jersey. (BTW, the Butthole Surfers used to be called the Ashtray Babyheads.)

I felt compelled to draw or make a piano out of paper clips after watching this moving. It has Jesus. It has institutionalization. It has the power to compel you to stop being too lazy to record your very short life, and to remember all of the people who have taken care of you, and that everyone needs to be taken care of sometimes.

NJ Transit

I like it. I really do. You have to ride on the right side of the train so you don't see acela passing you with money in everyone's pockets, but instead, Fall happening behind your back, ducks posing for fashion photographers (who have yet to arrive), and that shit is so cheap. I like it I really do.

Ride with me to Trenton and then back one day before 2PM and I'll buy you Auntie Anne's while we pretend we're at the mall.

Kool-Aid




I was wondering how the people behind this staple beverage were so smart as to spell it with a K. Here's what I found out.

Highlights if you DON'T feel like reading it:

The predecessor to Kool-Aid was "Fruit Smack."
The government changed Ade to Aid after deciding Ade had to contain real fruit juice.
The Kool-Aid Man has a nickname: "The Big Man."
Kool-Aid was dubbed Nebraska's original soft drink.
There is an annual Kool-Aid festival in Hastings.
There were two completely different Kool-Aid video games on Atari and Mattel systems.

Wiki P's List: Flavors sold in the U.S.
Apple
Bedrock Orange
Berry Blue
Black Cherry
Blastin' Berry Cherry
Blue Moon Berry
Blue Raspberry
Bunch Berry
Candy Apple
Changin' Cherry
Cherry
Cherry Cracker
Cherry-Lime
Cherry Subway
Clove
Cola
Eerie Orange
Golden Nectar
Grape
Grape Berry Splash
Grape-Blackberry
Great Bluedini
Ice Blue Island Twist
Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade
Incrediberry
Jamaica
Kickin' Kiwi-Lime
Kiwi Strawberry
Lemon
Lemonade
Lemonade Tea
Lemon-Grape
Lemon Ice
Lemon-Lime
Mandarina-Tangerine
Mango
Man-O-Mango-Berry
Mountain Berry Punch
Mountain Spring
Oh-Yeah Orange-Pineapple
Orange
Piña-Pineapple
Pineapple-Grapefruit
Pink Lemonade
Pink Swimmingo
Punch
Purplesaurus Rex
Rainbow Punch
Raspberry
Red Fruit
Root Beer
Raspberry Reaction
Rockadile Red
Scary Black Cherry
Scary Blackberry
Sharkleberry Fin
Slammin' Strawberry Kiwi
Soarin' Strawberry-Lemonade
Solar Strawberry Star Fruit
Strawberry
Strawberry Falls Punch
Strawberry Split Punch
Strawberry Tea
Sunshine Punch
Surfin' Berry Punch
Swirlin' Strawberry Starfruit
Tamarindo
Tangerine
Tropical Punch
Watermelon Kiwi
Watermelon-Cherry
Wildberry Tea
Yabba Dabba Doo Berry

Other countries sell "Guarana" flavor. Shit...

What's your flavor?

Old Hat?

Perhaps you are familiar with my school: The Gallatin School of Individualized Study. This school lets people come to what some might call a really reputable university to pursue a a curriculum of their own design, for example, a curriculum I am continuing to design in "Interdisciplinary Creative Writing." (I would have to say that Yeats, Keats, Pater, T.S. Eliot, and all of the Modernists would probably call me an idiot under their breaths if they found out.. or just say "Old Hat, Xeen."

Some majors others pursued or at least have claimed to pursue:

Rock N' Roll (Not sure of the choice of phonetics for that person, but I went with N')

Computer Science and Philosophy (Too bad the teacher wasn't the creator of Sim City, who is currently working on a simulation that takes you from the existence of an atom with particular characteristics, to form a specific being and create your own universe.. that would have legitimized Everything.)

Some majors I wish I had pursued:

Labelmaking, Pirating, and Hacking

Psycadellics and Children's Book Writing

Steven Spielberg and C.S. Lewis

Harry Potter and English Culture and Homeless People

Cooking and the Internet

Netflix and Library Science

In any case, lately I have been synthesizing a few of the things I am reading, and it's all become incredibly structural ever since I read this book: The Artist and the Mathematician, , which disguises itself as a historical or biographical mystery as a marketing scheme, but is actually a mathematician's understanding of the interconectedness of anthropology, linguistics, psychology, fine arts, and literature through the lens of history.

For a person like me who feels as if I cannot concentrate on a specific academic framework without losing the essence of the interconnectedness of it all, but at the same time, as if i cannot possibly be so lazy as to not attempt to understand at least one complicated and intricate structure (i.e. scientific, historical, mathematical) to have a framework in which to organize everything I am interested in, this book is the God-sent bible.

Amir D. Aczel might either be an "old hat" or at least a cheap one for those of us who can translate and digest and absorb books while we are eating spaghetti or sleeping (don't worry I actually have an example of such a person coming...) because people who write popular essays write in colloquial terms... ON PURPOSE! Fine with me... I can't read Kant on the subway, I just Kant.

In any case, this guy will talk to you about Descarte's connection to Mysticism, the Kabbalah and Fermat, or in this case, maybe "New Math" and Dada. If this guy went to Gallatin, the dean would be tempted to say "Old Hat." And then Dr. Aczel might say, "Bullshit Hippie School Dean is an old hat, too."

This book make me understand myself, my interest in a diverse array of subjects, and the fact that I have only been narrow-minded enough to call myself "unable to make decisions" since pursuing a ray of subjects hoping to find an intersection or at least a transversal that runs through many parallel structures is a choice.

Maybe I should stop drinking Red Bull. So Far, I don't think so.

Anyway, I also started reading "The History of the Modern World." Which is a text book from my AP European History Class, (which points out the narrowminded misnomer of the book, but also shows how teacher's buy books with dumb misleading ethnocentric names to keep us dumb.)

Rereading your history books and the intertwining of events really helps you understand that "Nation" and the formation of our ideas of different cultures is truly lacking, or at least is far too compartmentalized into seemingly unrelated things. Well let me tell you what brothers and sisters, we're all related:

Things you probably forgot about history:

Europe's neolithic age:

when a culture starts to settle, make tools, "weave cloth, and build living quarters", happened 2000 motherfuckin years AFTER that of the "Near East" (Egypt, the Euphrates and Tigris Valley.)

In the 1300s the idea of CHIVALRY basically died when the English showed the "noble knight" french people that Long Bows beat romanticism any old day. So stop trying to pay for everything and open the doors, okay? Because I have a long bow. (FYI boys, some chicks like that old shitvalry... I hear them complain about its medieval death all the time.)

The Greeks stole the homeland of the "Cretans."

The Romans stole the homeland of the "Greeks" (though didn't do much besides organize in this genius, but authoritarian Mussolini way.

"At the same time (400 AD or so) the idea that no ruler, no government, and no institution is too mighty to rise above moral criticism opened the way to a dynamic and progressive way of living in the West." Uhh.. Duh die-hard Democrats or Republicans who call criticizing anything "un-american." I know it's a duh for you guys, but THINK about how many people buy into that pseudo-democracy propaganda.. My Ass.

The people's of Asia who first populated what was later to become Europe brough languages that link modern-day tongues in Iran and India with all romance languages.

When the Roman civilization collapsed, there were three parts left: The Muslim World had Baghdad. Their palaces kicked ass.

The Byzantine or Greek cultural group had kickass writing, navigation, law, and the best city.

The third place was the leftover area that the Byzantines couldn't hold and the Arabs couldn't conquer: Latin Christendom: France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, and Britain. Here is how they discribe this ish: "But the presence of the invaders (germanic/ Celtic) armed and fierce amid peasants and city dwellers reduced to passivity by Roman rule, together with the disintigration of Roman institutions that had gone on even before the invasions, left this region in chaos." Yeah, this section of people was still deciding who was guilty by seeing if they floated (which meant they were guilty, and if you were innocent, you were dead... never understood that.)

PEOPLE: The point is, we are leftovers. We shouldn't treat the third world like this. We shouldn't be greedy hogs, although this one is particularly cute! We'll get ours someday, but by then we'll all be dead because of some natural disaster.

Googling Postmodernism, etc.

Which leads me to the next things I have been reading:


1. An essay by Peter Barry on postmodernism that describes how nowadays every symbol or image we see is not real, based on the idea that back in the old God-fearing, pre-War, faith and reason are great days, one thing had an underlying meaning, i.e. an image of a woman portrayed as a delicate woman, meant that it showed something innate and real. This is all Baudrillards theory, which can be broken down as this:

"...the loss of the real ... the view that in contemporary life, the pervasive influence of images from film, TV and advertising has led to a loss of the distinction between a real and imagined, realty and illusion, surface and depth. The result is a culture of hyperreality..."

Here is how Meaning is Gradually Decreased until we have our current state of Meaninglessness and Hyperreality or what we college kids call "postmodernism" while rolling around on the ground rabid with hemmoraging mushroom brains:

Firstly, the sign represents a basic reality, i.e. a painting of mid-century life for people in an impoverished people showing repetitiveness and monotony; As signs then... a basic reality is depicted.

Secondly, the sign can misrepresent or distort the image behind it. Take a painting of the same impoverished people romanticized to make it seem better than it was.

Thirdly, The sign disguises the fact that there IS no corresponding reality underneath.

Fourth, the last stage, the sign bears no resemblance to reality at all.

That's all from Baudrillard vis Peter Barry.

Okay, so understand that the THIRD step, for example saying that "Disneyworld" is a sign of "America" makes us think that everything in Disneyworld is fantastical or just a "symbol" and the "real" Fantastic america that it represents is lurking out there: Here's the thing: It's All disneyworld. There's no america. They just paint a fake border between real and fake to make you think that what's happening now is real.

Fucking Crazy, right?

SO: after this I read this Book called Super Minds, which is a young adult book I found a year ago, about people with different abilities, i.e. a guy who can see into people's bodies and access any person's unconcious mind, even if he is nowhere with them to find the cure for any sickness. Think of it as having ultimate google brain.

Other people had the ability to sense matter, i.e. oil in a field, just by looking at a map, or go through "shaman' like reincarnations where they were a rabbit, then a dog, then a baby, and saw time fold into itself. Other people could tell people who they were reincarnations of and hook them up to their old friends who were also reincarnations.

Which links with the history: because we keep making the same historical, greedy mistakes. Because maybe Hitler's still out there. Maybe Abe is still out there. Maybe JC came back as Martin Luther King. Right. What's with the continuing need of tyrrany alternating with martyrdom, huh?


Black Holes



SO last but not least, was the NOVA special on BLACK HOLES. There is a hole in the milky way three million times the density of the sun and the galaxy closest to us is spinning towards us, which is worrisome, because galaxies exhibit cannabalistic behaviors: they eat one another.

Which means that TIMESPACE does get warped sometimes. Maybe these people with special powers are born on certain days and feel the pull of strange things happening far far away.

COMMENTS. I DESERVE SOME. That was hard work.

Don't Run With Scissors: Today is Ben Dietz's Birthday!

We took a trip down to the Bucks County Neshaminy Mall AMC Theater to see Running With Scissors. After paying our fare and getting a small drink and a small popcorn, the total was at 26 big ones.

It's hard nowadays to see a movie in the theatre with netflix allowing us to save movies that are presently out in the theatres to our queue. A lot of competition. By the way, try spelling queue aloud.

As far as psychologically interesting characters and a storyline that at least keeps you guessing, this movie has adequate resources.

The thing that makes the movie worth watching (on DVD!) is the set and costume design.
Everything in Deirdre Burroughs's house was that decadent but ugly seventies retro hip, yet housewife motif. I now want to hang marigold everywhere, and glaze things in marigold, too. I want to wear gypsy scarves around my head and set up a faux microphone to prepare myself for the reading I make after I get accepted into the New York, and any other fantasies that apply to RWS.

Yesterday I dressed up like a pirate in tribute to Running with Scissors. That was one way the movie affected me.
It also affected me because it was that "I want to be a writer and I'm way cool and experimental, but unhealthily self-obsessed and weird in a way that makes people uncomfortable" narrative, told both through the son and the mother.

Pete's grandmother has the book and he will likely read it and say, "What?" All in all, this movie deserves three bananas.

For Your Consideration

In any case, the good news is that Christopher Guest is finally coming out with another movie, that I realized embodies not only the Postmodern conundrum: a movie that signifies other movies that signify nothing, etc., but also the solution: which is to participate in making fun of ourselves in a way that makes us think AND makes us laugh and tricks Hollywood into paying a shitload of money to make fun of themselves. It stars all of the usual suspects, and is written by Eugene Levy, a man who can play opposite Samuel Jackson as a Dentist is a terrible movie The Man, which I couldn't even bear watching ON DEMAND with Tara.

Anyway, the movie is due out November 17th, 2006. Come with me!

Etc. and Netflix Reviews

Let me tell you. I love the Netflix Friend Feature. You look at some movie, for example, the recommendation of the movie Primer, based on my liking to the Life Aquatic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (I almost typed The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Shirt), and then it says something like "Ben Dietz HATED it."

It's kind of like in Mortal Combat when Dan would come from the corner of the screen and yell Toasty! all of a sudden. If it were expected it would just be boring. But instead, it's a surprise "Hated IT!"

So apparently I am very slow to watch movies I receive. Here are my research findings thus far:

Aguirre: The Wrath of God

Okay, so this one was recommended to me by JR Randolph, a person I worked with for about one month at a coffee shop. He went to film school (something I wish I had done so as to come away with SOMEthing from my education), and wrote a list of movies on a guestcheck. I watched only one before losing it in my paperphiliac bedroom.

This movie would technically fall into the category of German New Wave. But Who Gives A ?

The point of this movie is to watch German people playing Spanish people searching for F'ing El Dorado and being dumb greedy idiots. The Scenery is beautiful, but maybe I had been watching too many action movies at the time, because I found the beautiful imagery to be slow as balls and sleep-inducing. Then, again, so are most things.

In any case, if you want to see the best ending of your life and perhaps turn it into a Play for Theatre, or somehow be Aguirre for Halloween, be my guest. This is also playing at the Film Forum on 10.30 and 10.31. Oh Werner Herzog, You Grizzly Man.

In the end, I rate this movie: 2 bananas.

Moving on....

Sherman's March

This movie was recommended to me a few years ago by Gallatin Adjunct Professor of a Class called "Self Fashioning in Film, Movies, and Literature" or something like that. His name was and still is Christopher Packard. I believe he writes books and is also at the New School University.

Well, this one is a serious must-watch. This is likely old news for many of you, but for those of you who would like to see why mockumentarys are so effective, watch this DOCumentary and see the lines of fiction and reality blur into one big crazy pot of human stew.

PLUS: you get to see people's refuge forts for the Apocalypse they are awaiting. You can copy off of them. OR be an Apocalyptic Nuclear War Shelter for Halloween based on the movie. Moving on...

In the end, I rate this movie: Four Bananas.

The Brothers Quay Collection

This movie was something I got into after reading one of my favorite novels published in recent years: The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. It's in the front of St. Mark's Bookshop by the register if you want to pick it up. And you SHOULD, because the amount of money you spend on beer and food should at LEAST rival what you spend on movies, books, and any other thing that encourages people to continue to be useful geniuses. Subjectively speaking.

Anyway, I wanted to see The Street of Crocodiles, one of the short animated films done by this pair of Genius Brothers. But I had the same problem that I had with the WHerzog film. I was BORED to tears despite how beautiful and inventive this animation was. Also I was in the Poconos with a bunch of people who had been drinking way too much beer. Not the right time. So I read the book instead. My favorite part of the book was the introduction about the author, Bruno Shulz, who is an example of a buried genius who was killed and discovered by what could be called arbitrary luck or fate, words I find often to be interchangeable since I'm not God.

Overall, I rate this film: Five Bananas if you're not Drunk, No Bananas if you Are.
Overall, I says, (not a typo), read the book too!

Please be my netflix friend if you have Netflix. I think it's radical.


In the next blog:

Rear Window
Rashomon
Barton Fink
Teen Witch
Strangers on a Train
North by Northwest
The Gleaners and I
and... Delicatessen

Or at least two of them.. you know how I am.

By the way: I really really really like comments. Like... a lot.

American Culture$

New York has Baby Phat and Heatherette. Europe has Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen and Balenciaga.

Why is it that we lose real fashion, a la Boudicca, to Europe? It's because to be in Parisian or London Fashion Week requires that you be invited by an elitist council before you are permitted to show something you will call "fashion."

It is exactly what the difference between American and French Snobbery is. In the US: If you have lots of money, you can bypass manners, etiquette, cultural knowledge, and to some extent: talent, style, and intelligence. In Europe it seems at least the rich are eating with the right forks when they are making snotty comments over dinner.

Personally, I prefer the historical snobbery of corsets and sixteen utensils. Because at least its culturally grounded in aristocracy over the ages. Here you can drive an H2 and spit out the window while smoking Newports, so long as you make sure everyone knows you are wealthy, your ass will get nice and kissed.

American culture in the 20's up until the 80's had some character. As technology increases and monopolies slowly and silently build up in the media and mass production arena, the person who can be the greediest is allowed to dictate the fashion of our day.

That's why at New York Fashion Week, it's either pure bore market friendly or Spectacle that transcends any perhaps misses any fashion market functionality, (which is neccessary for a designer to truly change anything.)

It's like we can be the local times or Star magazine with little that does not try to be some sort of conveniently digestible entertaining knowledge with spectacle in between, a la The Post's Article about both the weather and Mariah Carey's outfit, entitled "Mariah doesn't care if her knees freeze."

Come on America, we get it! You know how to make a lot of money by catering to traditional and boring people. We get it. You are capable of surprising people with your raucous, lewd, and spectacled, psuedo-punk cocaine and alcohol infested party people. But what are our cultural values aside from what is market-friendly, and what rises with its sole purpose to fight against captitalism? Who is creating their own space here and surviving in the mess? Wayne Coyne? Charlie Kauffman? The New Yorker?

You tell me.

FLYING CHAUCERS

I am currently tutoring the best friend of the girl Tara is tutoring: meaning, I am now reading Chaucer, which I know fondly and have memories of it I cannot erase from none other than Natalie Vanessa Hall, who used to recite to me in Middle English (different than Old English) - "Whan that Aprille... something something soda, sote, something something."

Well, the best part of the poem (written in 1380) is the footnotes. For example, that Greensleeves and the idea of "getting green" references the celebration of the coming of May and men and women going out to enjoy the spring, coming back covered in green leaves from laying down "to make love." (Not my words, I promise.)

Also, it's funny to think of fighting to the death and castles and conquering in order to take someone as your wife. Well maybe not funny, but more like hyperdramatic and extreme in chivalry.

But in either case, I would recommend Chaucer if you loved the good old Odyssey and the Aeneid, though all of you nerdy friends of mine probably don't need to read this.

I went to visit my grandmother's today and pick up my sister from White Plains where she goes to Accounting Seminars that are a little bit like camp, except with a hotel and right next to the "Krasdale Corporate Headquarters." Needless to say, she gets discounts from some phone service companies as well as a salary with benefits. Who knew?

Today was the first time I saw them dump huge scoops of butter or lard into the deep fryer to make French Fries. I ate them anyway and they tasted delicious and crispy.

Then I played with my three year-old goddaughter who is a bilingual genius marvel. When my grandmother couldn't hear me properly, my goddaughter crawled onto her bed and took my grandmother's chin into her hands and physically turn her toward me. Then I ate a million fried chickens... Yummmmmmm....

We had a cookie party when Arianna (goddaughter) brought me a bag of chocolate Graham Crackers.

I have been busy making tons and tons of reviews with Dan Stein for: ZOOZOOM Magazine Check it out because this took a huge portion of my life and I hope to someday go to Icelandic and Singapore Fashion Week.

Also: I am weening myself off of caffeine and it's really really really hard. AND: I realized that when I am a ghostly spirit I will understand human beings a little bit better than I do now, which is a little silly because you think when you are human you will understand humans... Maybe you understand them better as memories.

The Science of Sleep

Michel Gondry is rumoured to be a pain in the ass to work for. Maybe it is because he is one of the few people who can wrangle big budget movies and movie stars into doing things in non-budget friendly experimental ways. The music is soft coffee-drinking music

I believe the US release date is September 22, though I have also seen the date of the 18th thrown around. (This may pertain specifically to the soundtrack.) You can buy me the soundtrack if you want.

Reading:

I was in St. Mark's books and saw two interesting books:

The Rise and Fall of the Self and Soul
The Artist and the Mathematician

They were hardcover and expensive, so I clicked on the "I guess I'll buy this later with imaginary money and put them in my imaginary cart" button.

I saw Litte Miss Sunshine with Nameer. Everyone should see that movie. I wasn't expecting too much, so maybe that allowed me to avoid disappointment (something my mom says is usually a huge problem for me), but the writing, acting, and direction were well done and I recommend it to anyone who is seeking original reasons for laughing.

Also, if anyone wants to lend me some Bill Evans or Bartok, or knows how to install a belt on a turn table, then as Bob Hope says "Come on down."

Syd Barrett passed away.

STORYBOARD FOR A MOVIE

the plot is at the end

Our heroine finds out that Johnson & Johnson has stolen her %more advertising strategy. She knows she is the marketing genius.

The executives can't believe they've been found out.

She spends her time in disguise, as windex

Jennifer does not like this at all.

Xenia doesn't like that Jennifer doesn't like this at all. She thinks: YOU eat shit and YOU die dick.

She learns the secret of absolute power from her friend: Joe. The secret is that there is only one 'a' in 'Megadeth'. See... just like that.

When she first spells it right she goes to heaven... Just like that.

Tara finds Xenia in the clouds through the trees, and she says... aww, Xeen, eat shit and die, you dick.

Xenia eats shit. But she doesn't die. She just lays there underneath the Filipino flag.

And never learns to resize images.

People are really into building really fancy pools and then saying things like "I don't like swimming," .... "You get wet." I can't tell: do I WANT to visit LA and feel like everyone is a bunch of weird aliens or do I NOT WANT to visit LA and feel like everyone is a bunch of weird aliens... and I don't care that "PAPER" Magazine really really really likes L.A. No, I don't care at all.

I found this particular line from the article about "pools" to be like a poem:

Las Vegas-style amusements:
remote-controlled flames, sound-activated
dancing lights
and the illusion of endless water

more pictures of pools that people don't swim in

A little gift from me to you:



The above pictures showed up when i google-imaged a word. All of these imgs showed up on page three. What word do you think it was? COMMENTS PLEASE!

EVERYTHING AND ENDINGS

At times I think I've had a rough year. I quit a job that I loved because I was forced to be self interested. My love left me for other cities and state funded educations. My best friends stopped talking to me. The oil light in my car turned on. I could not concentrate hard enough to do yoga. All of my art fell lazy and unmotivated: to an audience of no one.

So I slept [10] - [12] hours every night... until I added it up and wrote this paragraph:


We used to talk about stamps and automobiles. He left me in the first quarter of the game while I was adding up all the hours I had slept and converting that into days. It was raining outside when I found out I was sad. I missed my grandmother. Although she was alive, she was waiting to die. For several months up until this moment, I had slept almost ten hours a night and the darkened sky made me lonely. I gave up drinking after I couldn’t forgive myself for all the sadness I had caused.

Here's the math:

2 extra hours of sleep a day x 7 days a week = 14 hours a week = an entire waking day of my life gone

considering all the healthy food, teas, coffee, reading, work, and exercise I tried with all of my heart and conscience to relieve this purposeful forfeit of a days worth of time.... it came down to only one thing: I was scared of people.

I could hide in Sherman's March and Bruno Shulz's the Street of Crocodiles. I could think about Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation and read Nicole Krauss's THE HISTORY OF LOVE or write quiet paragraphs and pray to the glowing saint while rearranging my bedroom with graph paper quotations of Dostoevevsky's Brothers Karamazov (that was called Brothers K by 3 people in one day.)

Or I could realize that reading about loving people isn't the same as loving people, and that loving people's work isn't the same as loving people...

Falcons vs. Redskins

Years ago, I made a shabby, like really shabby, newsletter about Friendster vs. Myspace vs. something else, which I can't remember but might have been called "So LA" or whatever.

I decided back then that Myspace would grow to dominate the world of Self-Fashioning on the internet, and I stick to that conclusion, even though people in college think Facebook is like really cool and shit. Oh my god thats so college.

But the thing I'm happiest about in all of this is being able to read my cousins' correspondence with one another, especially when they talk about how the "Falcons" are better than the "Redskins." Oh, btw, that refers to high school teams.

The question becomes, would a Redskin sans tomahawk (I know I know.. I'm like so racist right now) beat a falcon in a cage match? Talons people. Talons.

MY COUSIN MICHELLE

So speaking of cousins, my cousin Michelle is really talented. Look at that cool ass jewelry she designed up there. You can check it out here. I want her to sell it at this thing. Though I've honestly never been, the couple who runs it seems to kickass that I really want to start hanging out there on the weekends when I'm not working. My sister bought all my cousins jewelry and she makes bags too and they are also kickass.

cool ass. kickass. whatever.

My cousin michelle also writes things like this:

Sweet.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today i was mistaken for a high school student.

Again.

That's why I like her so much.

ALEX FELD
Moving on...

Alex takes good pictures and not just of me. Duh.

Visit me at work assholes.

People are really into building really fancy pools and then saying things like "I don't like swimming," .... "You get wet." I can't tell: do I WANT to visit LA and feel like everyone is a bunch of weird aliens or do I NOT WANT to visit LA and feel like everyone is a bunch of weird aliens... and I don't care that "PAPER" Magazine really really really likes L.A. No, I don't care at all.

I found this particular line from the article about "pools" to be like a poem:

Las Vegas-style amusements:
remote-controlled flames, sound-activated
dancing lights
and the illusion of endless water

more pictures of pools that people don't swim in

A little gift from me to you:



The above pictures showed up when i google-imaged a word. All of these imgs showed up on page three. What word do you think it was? COMMENTS PLEASE!

"Ridiculous"

People call other people's actions, worries, likes, behavioral tendencies, clothing and word usage "ridiculous" a lot in the circle of people I manage to interact with on a daily level.

From etymonline.com:

1550, from L. ridiculosus "laughable," from ridiculus "that which excites laughter," from ridere "to laugh." In modern senses, ridicule

For example, some people think that the following are ridiculous:
, , , , and so on.

However, is it funny in my example of what I am talking about if:
Someone really likes cashmere socks and freaks out if someone accidentally loses on of that person's socks, or if someone really likes doing yoga at four a.m. every morning in the middle of his sleep cycle or if someone talks a lot really loudly or wears spandex under EVERYTHING? i.e.

Maybe not. They say an idea starts seriously/sacredly, turns into profanity, enters laughability and can finally then be seen with any clarity of imagination at all. Those things which we take very seriously are not allowed to be funny and we aren't allowed to get a range of ideas or creative solutions to the uncomfortable feelings these subjects provoke in us: i.e. the holocaust, War, people's moms.

I personally find dead babies not to be so controversial...

I google img'ed dead baby, but I'm pretty sure I want to spare you on that one.

SELF DEFENSE


I took a self defense class with a young redhead sassy high school gym teacher, because in my high school you got to choose your classes. I, however, was busy chasing a friend of mine who was crying b/c she got a B in gym. While I was in the locker room saying, "It's fine, just bring your gym clothes next time," the other classes got filled up. I only remember one move. There were fourteen people in our class and about 45 in all the other classes, like, "soccer" or "volleyball." Half of the people in my class were pure delinquents. I loved them.

I have a new self defense technique. Always carry a really hot beverage:
or

And throw it in someone's face if they try to rob you. And when they look like this they will think twice about robbing you.