I start the year with nothing to say. It isn't a beginning as much as an end. I'm standing looking off a precipice with very little bargaining power in terms of content. I thought that writing was a suitcase or ace in the hole I always carried. My obsessions dominate my style and make it difficult to write anything with an emotional storyline. I'm not prepared to give up the hope that there is something to express rather than an empty mouth. Words will eventually fill if I walk around aimlessly enough. More like I'm desperately assembling the impressions I've had of vacations and events this past year. Teenagers called me egocentric randomly on the street. And it's true that I have little concrete to offer than a tornado of self obsessed insecurity. The worker artisans who dig with smiles on their faces are liked and respected for good reason. I'm not sure what interesting I'm bringing ton anyone or anything this year, walking empty handed without charms, easy blandishments, or intelligent discussion, walking around at night like I do, demanding that the rest of the world be interesting. Ho hum.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Monday, December 24, 2012
Amazing (Is a Word We Overused in 2006)
I start the year with nothing to say. After all this time of holding something in my pocket, that maybe there was one thing I could excel at and call my calling, I say the same thing. So no ace in the hole because nothing significant is said. Repeatedly, that I'm shocked at the changes, that I'm trying to stay abreast of them, that I want to define and codify them so that we knew exactly what was happening right now. That I'm not stereotyping. That I want to satirize and encapsulate the emerging DIY spirit, emerging from lame artistic grifterism, that is now commercialized and remarketed by desperate corporate sources in the same way the Manic Pixie Dream Girl was codified by commercial interests in 500 Days of Summer as an unreachable, perfectly quirky jacking post. The new Mobile start up boom is powered by the refusal to compromise one's dreams with the savvy niche marketing and "big ideas lure" of the entrepreneur, as well as the specific creative output of the artisan. Parodied by the Google Chrome ad of the man who created a book of schmaltzy Basquiat/Adventure Time/Daniel Johnston scrawled drawings with a vague, entrepreneurial message of dreaming BIG (which has renewed the lease on life of 40 year old porkpie wearing Baby Bjorn dads... seriously, "Now I can get my mbira band started!!"), the internet Stilton enthusiast friendly word AWESOME, and the social media branding roustabout acclaim of randomly being picked up by a German blog. The TED Talk graduate metaphor couldn't be more perfect. On a diet of TED Talks, working class salumi courses, Times Magazine, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and 3rd Ward classes, who could have produced something better? It's a better highly specific legacy than being famous for temper tantrums and catch phrases on a reality tv show, or avoiding selling out by choosing a vague artistic Caption of Drew Bertram, Artist, Lacey Butler, Photographer, or being photographed splayed out on the floor in a fashionable pool of PBR, American Spirits, and a headdress listlessly mumbling to Steve Aoki on the phone. I'm happy those days are over...Ms. Kennedy.
The Dream of the 1890s is Alive in New York as Portlandia perfectly summarized. Your roustabout 30 year old trust fund artist is a farm to table charcuterie handler, your freelance photographer is NPR's most attractive rooftop kale farmer. Dyna Moe's hipster animals define the niches creative loafers have fought to find for themselves to experience their dream, a fulfilling work life, and business acumen with a grassroots sticker and no fear of selling out. The wave of independent business is sweeping in anyone who can articulate their dream with a selling point and sun filled kickstarter pitch. Want to be a food writer? Start a bed and breakfast for penguin enthusiasts in the Baleares. My stoner high school acquaintance who took up yoga created a line of Eastern Religion friendly confectioneries. (I'm being vague on purpose.) Could he have built his own website with serene, Toms-like assurance if he was merely a yoga teacher? Could the girls who created a one stop shop for haute costume jewelry for gay men and their muses ever been in Forbes AND the Daily Candy if they stayed Financial Analysts and continued to wear a subdued gray palette? No. Their amount of fulfillment would only have correlated with buying the most bioluminescent sneakers and most stylish leggings with reflecting tape for NY Marathon training.
As mainstream regurgitations of "The Small, Quirky Problems of a Dysfunctional/Mismatched Twosome/family in a Flyover State" replayed the docile, twee, sexless indie spirit of 2006 with full laptop dj indietronic apathy. Garden State degenerating into the high paid stars slummin it for a heartfelt "Middle Aged Loser Befriending Pregnant Teenager and Buying New Lease on Life" indie dram..edy. The already attenuated, anodyne idols that my friends pumped in through ipods even on the toilet, even eating, even doinking such as Okkervil River, Animal Collective, The Books, Iron and Wine, the popped up but well written songs of Rilo Kiley, Magnetic Fields, Of Montreal, The New Pornographers, and the insipid, bubble gum rehash of terrible 70s and 80s music that is Girl Talk, Ratatat, and Annie. The playfully weak and childishly whispered anti folk of Coco Rosie, The Moldy Peaches as the least worthy offender (your 6 year old sister asking "Who-oo-oo's got the crack"), Devendra Banhart, Cat Power's voice crawling sensually on its last legs as millions of girls with bangs prostrate themselves in front of it, and the Joanna Newsom and Regina Spektor that wormed its way into my ear that I actually liked. Ultimately the winkingly weak, twee, and self consciously catchy nature of this music was parodied, like 500 Days of Summer, by the commercial sounding Peter Bjorn and John "Young Folks." Smiling "dance" hooks like Phoenix's attempts lending themselves perfectly to car commercials. Degenerating into bands with playfully weak names, The Fiery Furnaces, Bat for Lashes, The Fleet Foxes.
What is the snooty, independent magazine and movie's obsession with the small, quiet problems of the possibly religious people in a Flyover state or otherwise unremarkable city? I'm looking at you, sparsely written New Yorker articles about observant, unfaithful men in tipi motel rooms with a haunting twist, stories written from the point of view of a middle child adolescent escaping from religious band camp, and the recent story of a shy gay-looking guy doing fake weddings for Iraq soldiers with a Jennay Hollywood aspirant in Michigan that he's in love with. People swishing their Riesling or Pinot Grigio in Scarsdale over a roast chicken or educated older people in Madison, Wisconsin have little to do with preteens, Iraq war veterans, flyover religious bible camp extremism, or, on another topic, profiles of underrated behind the scenes geniuses you just haveta know about like Tomas Maier or Ester Dean. New Yorker profiles shine a, granted, more earnestly written, light on the underrated geniuses of the underrated movement you never heard of that snakes its spidery influence through the large cities of America, the uneasy marriage of nations in the UN, connecting its web all the way to your raised ranch in Scarsdale. Ultimately, the message is that you must pay attention to this previously obscured person because their tiny light of genius or influence shines onto all the cities and continents of the current moment, and thus is obscurely pertinent to your previously uninformed light. The finesse and delicacy of the non famous string puller like Ester Dean is outlined in compound sentences and adjectives that prickle against each other, piled into a complex result. I don't understand why the New Yorker stories don't throw their readership's problems back on the page left open and planned to be read near or on the toilet, just like Stephen Sondheim did with Company. Why beguile the reader with enigmatic, somewhat pointless fiction, of the specific problems of a tiny Cooper salesman, his more distant disease stricken wife, or combative, beautiful and runaway logical teenage daughter? Why not write a story about the small problems of a systems engineer in Westport worried about his heart health, his spiralling, boring wife, the autistic son of his old age, and needled vaguely by hints of promiscuity from his pre-teen daughter? Without him traveling to Nebraska by Greyhound. Why not write a profile that unashamedly shines the light of insight on a big ass big wig and not his right wing napkin tester? Mike Bloomberg and not Mike Bloomberg's aide's child wrangler whose hand that rocks the cradle rules his tie choices and the infrastructure of New York? Because the New Yorker dances awkwardly between the political articles of Newsweek/the Economist, the purely literary reviews and personalities of the Atlantic, your poetry teacher's crappy chapbook, and the Sunday Funnies. The thin veneer of snobbery unites all the pieces as "I swear this is high culture" and "Did you hear Bruce McCall's high class parody of toddlers drinking Riesling with crushed Paxil to ease their anxiety of mobile phone apps and April 15th? Roz Chast wrote about neurosis as if New Yorkers were still distinctive, agoraphobic Jewish people with accents!" Indeed, they are your podiatrist in a comically loose fitting suit. They are the chilled aluminum ice phallus in the plastic wine bottle when you should be getting a freakin Brita filter and switching to water with oranges in it. As TED Talks' 20 minutes of specialized learning "I swear we're innovative and big ideas entrepreneurial... Now I know about the ecobiology of bee pollen courtship," the New Yorker's tidbits scream, "take this in in memory of high culture!" Even the right triangle poem that says snow from all sides? The fifth grade sonnet I sent was much better than that offering. I challenge you to create immersive articles that either teach completely or create art earnestly. These tidbits provide the satisfaction of a Pitchfork review, turning noses higher up (Dinosaur Jr.'s pre-first album unreleased cassette mixtape was better!) and educating no one.
I know what you're doing. I hate when you're cloying. I love when you follow your dreams. I love when you create incisive, compelling content. I hate when you use the same formula. I love that you're trying to be serious about your calling. I hate/love that you're secretly an unemployed freelancer with a big idea. I hate when you're snobby, anodyne, and loving of snobby cheeses like Humboldt Fog and space distillers like Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I love when you rage with intensity, when you tear and then create art. I wonder where we're going to go and how we'll continue to make business dreams from penury. I don't fit in, Let me watch. Let's punk out without fully breaking or developing hifalutin non-business ideals.
The Dream of the 1890s is Alive in New York as Portlandia perfectly summarized. Your roustabout 30 year old trust fund artist is a farm to table charcuterie handler, your freelance photographer is NPR's most attractive rooftop kale farmer. Dyna Moe's hipster animals define the niches creative loafers have fought to find for themselves to experience their dream, a fulfilling work life, and business acumen with a grassroots sticker and no fear of selling out. The wave of independent business is sweeping in anyone who can articulate their dream with a selling point and sun filled kickstarter pitch. Want to be a food writer? Start a bed and breakfast for penguin enthusiasts in the Baleares. My stoner high school acquaintance who took up yoga created a line of Eastern Religion friendly confectioneries. (I'm being vague on purpose.) Could he have built his own website with serene, Toms-like assurance if he was merely a yoga teacher? Could the girls who created a one stop shop for haute costume jewelry for gay men and their muses ever been in Forbes AND the Daily Candy if they stayed Financial Analysts and continued to wear a subdued gray palette? No. Their amount of fulfillment would only have correlated with buying the most bioluminescent sneakers and most stylish leggings with reflecting tape for NY Marathon training.
As mainstream regurgitations of "The Small, Quirky Problems of a Dysfunctional/Mismatched Twosome/family in a Flyover State" replayed the docile, twee, sexless indie spirit of 2006 with full laptop dj indietronic apathy. Garden State degenerating into the high paid stars slummin it for a heartfelt "Middle Aged Loser Befriending Pregnant Teenager and Buying New Lease on Life" indie dram..edy. The already attenuated, anodyne idols that my friends pumped in through ipods even on the toilet, even eating, even doinking such as Okkervil River, Animal Collective, The Books, Iron and Wine, the popped up but well written songs of Rilo Kiley, Magnetic Fields, Of Montreal, The New Pornographers, and the insipid, bubble gum rehash of terrible 70s and 80s music that is Girl Talk, Ratatat, and Annie. The playfully weak and childishly whispered anti folk of Coco Rosie, The Moldy Peaches as the least worthy offender (your 6 year old sister asking "Who-oo-oo's got the crack"), Devendra Banhart, Cat Power's voice crawling sensually on its last legs as millions of girls with bangs prostrate themselves in front of it, and the Joanna Newsom and Regina Spektor that wormed its way into my ear that I actually liked. Ultimately the winkingly weak, twee, and self consciously catchy nature of this music was parodied, like 500 Days of Summer, by the commercial sounding Peter Bjorn and John "Young Folks." Smiling "dance" hooks like Phoenix's attempts lending themselves perfectly to car commercials. Degenerating into bands with playfully weak names, The Fiery Furnaces, Bat for Lashes, The Fleet Foxes.
What is the snooty, independent magazine and movie's obsession with the small, quiet problems of the possibly religious people in a Flyover state or otherwise unremarkable city? I'm looking at you, sparsely written New Yorker articles about observant, unfaithful men in tipi motel rooms with a haunting twist, stories written from the point of view of a middle child adolescent escaping from religious band camp, and the recent story of a shy gay-looking guy doing fake weddings for Iraq soldiers with a Jennay Hollywood aspirant in Michigan that he's in love with. People swishing their Riesling or Pinot Grigio in Scarsdale over a roast chicken or educated older people in Madison, Wisconsin have little to do with preteens, Iraq war veterans, flyover religious bible camp extremism, or, on another topic, profiles of underrated behind the scenes geniuses you just haveta know about like Tomas Maier or Ester Dean. New Yorker profiles shine a, granted, more earnestly written, light on the underrated geniuses of the underrated movement you never heard of that snakes its spidery influence through the large cities of America, the uneasy marriage of nations in the UN, connecting its web all the way to your raised ranch in Scarsdale. Ultimately, the message is that you must pay attention to this previously obscured person because their tiny light of genius or influence shines onto all the cities and continents of the current moment, and thus is obscurely pertinent to your previously uninformed light. The finesse and delicacy of the non famous string puller like Ester Dean is outlined in compound sentences and adjectives that prickle against each other, piled into a complex result. I don't understand why the New Yorker stories don't throw their readership's problems back on the page left open and planned to be read near or on the toilet, just like Stephen Sondheim did with Company. Why beguile the reader with enigmatic, somewhat pointless fiction, of the specific problems of a tiny Cooper salesman, his more distant disease stricken wife, or combative, beautiful and runaway logical teenage daughter? Why not write a story about the small problems of a systems engineer in Westport worried about his heart health, his spiralling, boring wife, the autistic son of his old age, and needled vaguely by hints of promiscuity from his pre-teen daughter? Without him traveling to Nebraska by Greyhound. Why not write a profile that unashamedly shines the light of insight on a big ass big wig and not his right wing napkin tester? Mike Bloomberg and not Mike Bloomberg's aide's child wrangler whose hand that rocks the cradle rules his tie choices and the infrastructure of New York? Because the New Yorker dances awkwardly between the political articles of Newsweek/the Economist, the purely literary reviews and personalities of the Atlantic, your poetry teacher's crappy chapbook, and the Sunday Funnies. The thin veneer of snobbery unites all the pieces as "I swear this is high culture" and "Did you hear Bruce McCall's high class parody of toddlers drinking Riesling with crushed Paxil to ease their anxiety of mobile phone apps and April 15th? Roz Chast wrote about neurosis as if New Yorkers were still distinctive, agoraphobic Jewish people with accents!" Indeed, they are your podiatrist in a comically loose fitting suit. They are the chilled aluminum ice phallus in the plastic wine bottle when you should be getting a freakin Brita filter and switching to water with oranges in it. As TED Talks' 20 minutes of specialized learning "I swear we're innovative and big ideas entrepreneurial... Now I know about the ecobiology of bee pollen courtship," the New Yorker's tidbits scream, "take this in in memory of high culture!" Even the right triangle poem that says snow from all sides? The fifth grade sonnet I sent was much better than that offering. I challenge you to create immersive articles that either teach completely or create art earnestly. These tidbits provide the satisfaction of a Pitchfork review, turning noses higher up (Dinosaur Jr.'s pre-first album unreleased cassette mixtape was better!) and educating no one.
I know what you're doing. I hate when you're cloying. I love when you follow your dreams. I love when you create incisive, compelling content. I hate when you use the same formula. I love that you're trying to be serious about your calling. I hate/love that you're secretly an unemployed freelancer with a big idea. I hate when you're snobby, anodyne, and loving of snobby cheeses like Humboldt Fog and space distillers like Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I love when you rage with intensity, when you tear and then create art. I wonder where we're going to go and how we'll continue to make business dreams from penury. I don't fit in, Let me watch. Let's punk out without fully breaking or developing hifalutin non-business ideals.
I have the same thing, the same thing to say. Last night some yelling teenage strangers told me "You're egocentric. Not everything in the world revolves around you." Because they were yelling the n word and showing their stomach and I turned around and said "Are you calling me that?" And the guy was like, "I didn't even notice you. Not everything in the world revolves around you." And I was like "Yup." And then a couple streets later I cried. I'm here with nothing to say.
Friday, December 21, 2012
Whistling
I'm still uncomfortable with the differences between men and women. I think it's important to be truthful, truthful of our differences and our emotional reaction to our differences even if it is one of anger. I don't know how to work through it, but I don't want to ignore it because that would be lying.
Fear and insecurity separates humans from each other and underscores an individuated, separated experience that allows us to distrust one another. Adding faith and lack of fear as well as self acceptance causes one's path, thoughts, and ideas to become clear without a distortion of another choice. Faith indicates seeing the way one is going and the terrain around and accepting it, continuing on without being nervous or resentful of what will happen. Faith is something that makes me resent other people less or set up curtseys and bird dances to get to know them less. Social interactions require a certain amount of necessary prologue, but this isn't something I should resent. My bitterness and resentment comes from comparison with other people, which is ridiculous in the achievement of my individual goals, though less so with my progress in goals related to other people. I do not fit with the devil may care risk taking of the entrepreneur who arranges all to fulfill their impossible dream by monetizing it with a niche market, with the doing what you love and such. There is a great bouquet of people founding specific and gimmicky vegan chocolate bars, pop up yoghurt kitchens, books and toys that our parents made inaccessible to us due to the gender divide, other gleeful TED-baiting ideas meant to quickly expand our consciousness in the space of a Google Chrome commercial. I am too much of a follower, scribe, and detailist to focus on the huge array of syrup bars and girls' spatial reasoning toys I could be making. I don't fit into the second dot com boom as an entrepreneur or evangelist. Nor in the niche DIY rooftop kale farmer, butcher, single batch distiller, or other niche hipster animal that found a specific language to articulate and live their dream and get featured on NYT Magazine or NPR. The dream of the 1890s is alive in hipsterdom today of being an artisan of one's specific wares, whatever they may be, but before joyfully humming away at work, one must carve out one's artisanal specialty, whether a Ukrainian-Korean fruit pickling brand or a raw aperitif bar. Academia only brands itself with the specificity of one's subject. The allure of staking out a new piece of terrain as being an expert of both an arcane and popular new subject. One can take a new lens, but either the author or the focus must be narrowly arcane. God forbid we have another Dickens or Tolstoy guy. Yet, the delivery of the language, the product is not diversified, it is similar critical rhetoric, we don't use dioramas, lists, infographics, or the gimmicks Pitchfork used to keep its reviews sneering and engaging. This perceived stodginess in the medium of academic criticism and essays is probably getting a due revision in the form of the infographics and technological flourishes of the day, but isn't the point not the form, but rather the insight and the enhancement of truth in the discipline and in understanding the past and current time with it.
Fear and insecurity separates humans from each other and underscores an individuated, separated experience that allows us to distrust one another. Adding faith and lack of fear as well as self acceptance causes one's path, thoughts, and ideas to become clear without a distortion of another choice. Faith indicates seeing the way one is going and the terrain around and accepting it, continuing on without being nervous or resentful of what will happen. Faith is something that makes me resent other people less or set up curtseys and bird dances to get to know them less. Social interactions require a certain amount of necessary prologue, but this isn't something I should resent. My bitterness and resentment comes from comparison with other people, which is ridiculous in the achievement of my individual goals, though less so with my progress in goals related to other people. I do not fit with the devil may care risk taking of the entrepreneur who arranges all to fulfill their impossible dream by monetizing it with a niche market, with the doing what you love and such. There is a great bouquet of people founding specific and gimmicky vegan chocolate bars, pop up yoghurt kitchens, books and toys that our parents made inaccessible to us due to the gender divide, other gleeful TED-baiting ideas meant to quickly expand our consciousness in the space of a Google Chrome commercial. I am too much of a follower, scribe, and detailist to focus on the huge array of syrup bars and girls' spatial reasoning toys I could be making. I don't fit into the second dot com boom as an entrepreneur or evangelist. Nor in the niche DIY rooftop kale farmer, butcher, single batch distiller, or other niche hipster animal that found a specific language to articulate and live their dream and get featured on NYT Magazine or NPR. The dream of the 1890s is alive in hipsterdom today of being an artisan of one's specific wares, whatever they may be, but before joyfully humming away at work, one must carve out one's artisanal specialty, whether a Ukrainian-Korean fruit pickling brand or a raw aperitif bar. Academia only brands itself with the specificity of one's subject. The allure of staking out a new piece of terrain as being an expert of both an arcane and popular new subject. One can take a new lens, but either the author or the focus must be narrowly arcane. God forbid we have another Dickens or Tolstoy guy. Yet, the delivery of the language, the product is not diversified, it is similar critical rhetoric, we don't use dioramas, lists, infographics, or the gimmicks Pitchfork used to keep its reviews sneering and engaging. This perceived stodginess in the medium of academic criticism and essays is probably getting a due revision in the form of the infographics and technological flourishes of the day, but isn't the point not the form, but rather the insight and the enhancement of truth in the discipline and in understanding the past and current time with it.
Annoying
I am surprised and ever panting at the rate that my generation devolved from inertia, consumerism, and empty hallmarks of culture to living in interesting times. The result of the baby boom was enough time to raise two generations whose faith in progress made them think they would never go poor or hungry again. The freedom and future centric focus of baby boomers who broke through the ties of both the large family community where younger members have a specific place/owe a debt of gratitude to their elders and the quaint mores of the nuclear family cemented during the Victorian age brought forth in us materialism, individualism, and resultant alienation. Our x-boxes, technological luxuries, independence and isolation as a country are being wrested from us at a non-idealistic level, our purse strings. Americans have bought the freedom to not depend or communicate through distant relatives and community structures through avoiding the landline, moving far away, and building the kind of nuclear family whose reward is perhaps a mother in law not living in the next room and breathing down her son's neck or not living in communal apartments like my family has in the past. Yet, when not distracted by tv, activities, or even a job, the discomfort of our alienation, our roomy suburban houses with two acre zoning or our tendency only call our friends to hang out is being felt. The hurricane forced us to recognize that being trapped in the basement of our house without power for five days or much worse is less painful with the society and support of our neighbors. Even if it means some unpleasant and outmoded social overtures. I don't know if I want the interwoven social niceties of large communal societies or places where filial piety is more important than the freedom to realize one's wishes. If America becomes a less individualistic society, I'm hoping that it will have a modern take on community. I'm hoping that women will still retain some of the freedoms of, say, marrying someone you love rather than being married off as a political and economic decision or being able to take the career of your choice. Better yet, I'm hoping for a re-definition of how the sexes relate to each other that will alleviate the anxiety of the fact that women are slowly breaking the barrier of a society in which they've struggled to have the same opportunities as men.
Men seem to be processing this as "women trying to become men." This is not true, as far as vague social definitions of gender, this means not being barred from doing things because they are only to be defined by weakness and childishness. Mostly this is only to benefit from the same legal and life niceties as men. This means to not to receive lower pay based on sex, to be able to be admitted to the sports of their choice, to not be judged disapprovingly or differently for their choices or bodies, to seek the careers, lives, and relationships they want without barriers because of gender. And to not be defined in relation to other people in the same way men are not. This doesn't mean that some women don't want the door opened for them or to be paid for on the first and second date, or that they don't seek a committed loving relationship because they don't keep the box locked. My idea is that feminism is based on lack of impediment, rather than even equality. Meaning, I don't necessarily want to be punched because a man got punched and we're equal and I can take it, but I don't want to be cheated of a home loan, discriminated against in the workplace or school, or at the doctor's office, not to mention deal with danger at night. While our tendency to be seen as people "acting masculine" or "trying to be a man" is flawed and silly, the fact is that many women do want fulfilling relationships, and the sexual revolution has stacked cards in such a way that women are displaying their plumes to men and the plain grey men take their pick. This is where the problem is. A misinterpreted, simplified version of the feminism that I see as a historical, theoretical, and practical movement with many theories and great complexity is what makes a relationship where each person fulfills a different role or "energy" difficult. As I understand it, in a relationship, each element maintains commonality, but fulfills a different function in working together. This means that both members of the relationship are not going to be able to do the same things. Taking care of one another is important, but each takes care of the other in a different way. What I'm saying is that one thing I've learned from my mother is that the woman, due to being able to register emotional complexities, has to be the "cunning" one in the relationship in order to maintain it. Avoid arguments and such. Or at least one person has to. I know that I want certain things, like to be protected and supported in a concrete, thoughtful, nonverbal way (such things in the past have been coming with me to places, bringing me something or acknowledging when I don't feel well, occasionally just paying for meals rather than the looking at the check like it's on fire song and dance, small things). But, I am also controlling and domineering (when it comes to picking restaurants, music, and other trivial things),verbally overpowering, insecure, negative, and many other things that make it difficult to get the bottom line support that my father gives my mother. This behavior attracts calm, quiet men who really want someone to fill the silence and talk and at the beginning don't care about trivial things like me choosing music or restaurants or foisting internet articles on them until I overshare or overstay or over everything. In other words, there is a strong, rigid element and a flexible element. This does not have to be gendered, but one element complements or supports the other. I just want to be supported and the flexible element bends, but does not break, and therefore is the strongest. There is not much use for a domineering, unsubtle woman, who just really wants to babble about her insecurities and be "completely open" just like a "straightshooting honest" man who delivers unpleasant comments in a random, unasked for way to women will not find a listener that he finds pleasant. My mother changed and I have to change. She became less sarcastic, more pliable and realized that she had to both play a game and pick her battles. Mystery and challenge keeps both genders engaged, so, usually when I am on the chase, the man is challenging and withholding and I hold the losing hand. There are certain feminine hallmarks distasteful to feminists who don't realize that a relationship has to do with complementary roles that I will have to adopt if I want a strong, supportive partner. Like, I have to learn to cook and "keep the hearth" which is legitimate to me, because I want a hearth and either my apartment or my mom has kept it in the past. These are skills and tricks that I took for granted before I learned what being a woman is. Or being more positive and pleasant, which is a natural offshoot of going after my own goals. As someone who loves to remark on things and generalize, I am negative and I imagine that it makes me more truthful. Lemon is beautiful and relatable because she is flawed, vulnerable, and intractable in ways a woman can understand and has personal traits that make us automatically view her as the protagonist whose world we see through. Most of the men I've met in a dating context have asked at some point if I cook (probably because I talk about food so much), if I love my job, like sports, if I want children "at some point," and such things related to being a woman who is both feminine, pleasant, and positive, or someone a man enjoys being around and coming home to. I appreciate the value of home and hearth myself. Good food, a beautiful apartment, and a nice place to live. Who is going to create it if not me? Eh, the man could screw it up anyway. I loved the apartments I had, but they were lacking in furniture and certainly in timely meals. I think I love to go to restaurants and coffee shops because they have a pre-created ambiance with homelike, discriminating taste without me having to do any of the thinking and decorating. This makes them sound like an airplane food version of the home environment, but they are just trendier and I find home decoration really difficult. Most people would find me really annoying and negative, but I'm lucky that my friends can stand me for any length of time. Unfortunately, this requires little effort on my part to become a more engaging person, maybe one who talks less and asks more leading questions, so I can't say that I'm "good" at my friends. I'm just lucky to have the friendship. I've been frustrated that with little reveals or indiscretions, with staying too long, talking too much, showing too much interest, someone who you are trying to form a symbiotic relationship with can write you off. Maybe I don't have the physical attributes that excuse my not winning at life enough (I'm sure sure super attractive unemployed girls get at least a couple of months before they are written off) or talking too much, as a result, the other person is testing me or interviewing me tribunally and I don't have the advantage. At the same time, I've found the reasons for rejection to be painfully simple when people do tell me and painfully indicative of my core flaws, it isn't that they themselves suck, they do see me lucidly and why I'm not good enough for them. The freedom of having a home, job, and life whose course you steer is markedly different and provides a different set of challenges than those of living with and accomodating oneself to another person. In the corporate work environment, one is an instrument toward a purpose and one's daily work must as much as possible be in service of that purpose as well as one's behavior as a "leader." Going home, I have respite from needing to (and not making) calculated movements toward being seen as instrumental and surviving as well as the corporate rhetoric which is really of being a tool toward the bottom line or company goal. I have the freedom to be vulnerable, to party, to eat, and to wander with dreams. I imagine that home with another person again requires scrupulously framing your image as an instrument of preserving companionship, not seeming negative or crestfallen from the work day, re-applying makeup and brushing teeth on waking up. And the worst part, not going to the bathroom because apparently women don't do that freely. Omitting various things that make you shrill or slothful looking in order to have companionship, sex, and such things. For a date, I feel like it's necessary to prepare most of the day before and get into the mode of having to possibly make the omissions, confidence, and concise phrasing that I only use on telephone interviews. On telephone interviews, you are barred from saying anything unconfident or not positive about yourself so the content is incredibly rigid. As a result, when men ask me what I have going for the rest of the day, I know it's over and I'm also livid because a date is something you schedule around much like an interview. Maybe if I'm seeing a friend I have something going for the rest of the day, but no I'm not going to a benefit concert. Loneliness and lack of companionship vs. some constraint and lack of comfort and vulnerability, which is tonic after the working day. The strange thing is that romance fades as constraint, hiding, and playing games fades.
A feminist may take offense to the idea that, depending on the type of partner you want, you may have to exhibit characteristics that are not unpleasant or that complement their personality. Or that you may have to take charge with the "picking battles" and not being shrill portion of the relationship. This is something that I may have to do. I don't see many women, particularly those in relationships, that behave like me so I don't have a good frame of reference, I am at a high scale of vulnerability and unattractive habits. I carry rocks and peppermints in my pockets, I have a problem with my skin, I am bad at wearing make up, and bad at outfits among other things, I am quirky in a way that can be taken to an extreme, but not in my clothing or personal image. I bore myself with my stories and soliloquys, yet have the insatiable urge to talk. I idealize my talking companions ability to satisfy my need for intelligent novelty and entertainment, as well as a quickening of the spirit, which most men can't provide. I take a long time to do things like get up, cook simple things, etc. This is partly because I'm unused to taking care of a partner and I'm not sure if the Ally Sheedy parka is endemic to me. Yet, I don't like Liz Lemon for her finicky and particular habits like shrill insistence on rules:
Cashier: No $100s, Small bills.
Liz: Oh, I knew this was gonna happen.
Cashier: Store policy.
Liz: Yeah, Well, That's an illegal policy. You have to take this.
Cashier: No, I don't
Gray: Yeah sir you do, it says "legal tender for all debts, public and private."
Cashier: Does it say anything about $100 for a bottle of water?
Gray: You can't decide what money you'll accept. That's illegal.
Liz: It's an illegal policy.
Cashier: You're holding up the line!
Liz: (Along with Gray) No, You're holding up the line!
I am surprised by the new habits I might have to learn to adopt because I haven't thought of them before. Of course, attractiveness comes with realizing personal goals and the resultant contentment and busy sheen the body takes on in response to achieving personal goals. Yet, what creative person can dedicate themselves to whatever unfinished, torn art they choose when they are working at every point to bring their persona into fruition? What creative person does not allow themselves to be torn, uncomfortable, slightly broken rather than some sort of burpee-doing vegetarian going after their start up idea? I'm almost worried about working on my intractable habits and sloth because of this. Because I think motivational people who hold their lives up as an example are typically overly self focused and broken, because imperfection and the distance of a dream make it easy to calm oneself by imagining something better. I don't think people who have simply realized their dreams, particularly material ones, are happy, I think they are people who know what is around the bend of a road and no longer excited to find out. The only way I can find to not become a soft feminine cat like Ms Alba is to treat externals independently of what is internally inside me and work on internal goals irrespective of how they might enhance my femininity. Because ultimately doing something will make me more pleasant and less miserable to be around, and doing something that realizes my dreams, moreso. Even though realizing one's dreams brings the possibility of monomania, as one becomes a vessel for the message of healthy eating, or sculpture, art, or worse, a motivational speaker. I think seeking improvement through one's own body rather than creating something external is toxic and makes a life perfectly lived into one's art. When you make your life your art, that's just messed up, man. Although, when you sacrifice an imperfect life with someone you love to the perfection of a goal or art, it can prove just as damaging. Finishing A Hat, but giving up the idea of a perfectly or well lived life is the only avenue toward that type of happiness..
I've never really found my habits intractable before. I didn't even see anything wrong with them. And I think it's that I'm used to myself inexpertly holding up the hearth. Or getting some ethnic food when I can't. Maybe it's that men require things of us that we don't require of ourselves, things we have to learn later in this culture that protects us from learning about relationships, facilitating interdependence, or even the emotional dimensions of sex. These are things we maybe think we don't need to learn. I think the old adage is that in a primal sense, men and women are different and require different things of each other, things we can't automatically imagine. These are shocking because they do not follow the "require of others what you require of yourself" rule. The odd marriage of "companionship" or friendship with a side of sex that men seem to view relationships as, along with the strong emphasis on loyalty, is somewhat puzzling to me. Though the various requirements of women to be supportive, but not excessively, to engage, provide a core of affection, entertain, and mystify are odd to men.
We learn the shallow gloss of nonessentials like the time and place of the Tea Party, but not how to write cover letters, create solutions to problems as they come up, take calculated risks, bring an idea to fruition, and teach ourselves. The baseline critical thinking, problem solving, and analysis required to learn and assimilate new tasks is something we learn when we are forced to make do with the insufficient teaching and lackluster instruction of weeks' training. On the job we frequently digest insufficient information and are not led by the hand in any way. There must be some benefit in not teaching us to exercise the mental tools we have equipped to deal with new information and amorphous problems because no teacher ever taught that to us.
Men seem to be processing this as "women trying to become men." This is not true, as far as vague social definitions of gender, this means not being barred from doing things because they are only to be defined by weakness and childishness. Mostly this is only to benefit from the same legal and life niceties as men. This means to not to receive lower pay based on sex, to be able to be admitted to the sports of their choice, to not be judged disapprovingly or differently for their choices or bodies, to seek the careers, lives, and relationships they want without barriers because of gender. And to not be defined in relation to other people in the same way men are not. This doesn't mean that some women don't want the door opened for them or to be paid for on the first and second date, or that they don't seek a committed loving relationship because they don't keep the box locked. My idea is that feminism is based on lack of impediment, rather than even equality. Meaning, I don't necessarily want to be punched because a man got punched and we're equal and I can take it, but I don't want to be cheated of a home loan, discriminated against in the workplace or school, or at the doctor's office, not to mention deal with danger at night. While our tendency to be seen as people "acting masculine" or "trying to be a man" is flawed and silly, the fact is that many women do want fulfilling relationships, and the sexual revolution has stacked cards in such a way that women are displaying their plumes to men and the plain grey men take their pick. This is where the problem is. A misinterpreted, simplified version of the feminism that I see as a historical, theoretical, and practical movement with many theories and great complexity is what makes a relationship where each person fulfills a different role or "energy" difficult. As I understand it, in a relationship, each element maintains commonality, but fulfills a different function in working together. This means that both members of the relationship are not going to be able to do the same things. Taking care of one another is important, but each takes care of the other in a different way. What I'm saying is that one thing I've learned from my mother is that the woman, due to being able to register emotional complexities, has to be the "cunning" one in the relationship in order to maintain it. Avoid arguments and such. Or at least one person has to. I know that I want certain things, like to be protected and supported in a concrete, thoughtful, nonverbal way (such things in the past have been coming with me to places, bringing me something or acknowledging when I don't feel well, occasionally just paying for meals rather than the looking at the check like it's on fire song and dance, small things). But, I am also controlling and domineering (when it comes to picking restaurants, music, and other trivial things),verbally overpowering, insecure, negative, and many other things that make it difficult to get the bottom line support that my father gives my mother. This behavior attracts calm, quiet men who really want someone to fill the silence and talk and at the beginning don't care about trivial things like me choosing music or restaurants or foisting internet articles on them until I overshare or overstay or over everything. In other words, there is a strong, rigid element and a flexible element. This does not have to be gendered, but one element complements or supports the other. I just want to be supported and the flexible element bends, but does not break, and therefore is the strongest. There is not much use for a domineering, unsubtle woman, who just really wants to babble about her insecurities and be "completely open" just like a "straightshooting honest" man who delivers unpleasant comments in a random, unasked for way to women will not find a listener that he finds pleasant. My mother changed and I have to change. She became less sarcastic, more pliable and realized that she had to both play a game and pick her battles. Mystery and challenge keeps both genders engaged, so, usually when I am on the chase, the man is challenging and withholding and I hold the losing hand. There are certain feminine hallmarks distasteful to feminists who don't realize that a relationship has to do with complementary roles that I will have to adopt if I want a strong, supportive partner. Like, I have to learn to cook and "keep the hearth" which is legitimate to me, because I want a hearth and either my apartment or my mom has kept it in the past. These are skills and tricks that I took for granted before I learned what being a woman is. Or being more positive and pleasant, which is a natural offshoot of going after my own goals. As someone who loves to remark on things and generalize, I am negative and I imagine that it makes me more truthful. Lemon is beautiful and relatable because she is flawed, vulnerable, and intractable in ways a woman can understand and has personal traits that make us automatically view her as the protagonist whose world we see through. Most of the men I've met in a dating context have asked at some point if I cook (probably because I talk about food so much), if I love my job, like sports, if I want children "at some point," and such things related to being a woman who is both feminine, pleasant, and positive, or someone a man enjoys being around and coming home to. I appreciate the value of home and hearth myself. Good food, a beautiful apartment, and a nice place to live. Who is going to create it if not me? Eh, the man could screw it up anyway. I loved the apartments I had, but they were lacking in furniture and certainly in timely meals. I think I love to go to restaurants and coffee shops because they have a pre-created ambiance with homelike, discriminating taste without me having to do any of the thinking and decorating. This makes them sound like an airplane food version of the home environment, but they are just trendier and I find home decoration really difficult. Most people would find me really annoying and negative, but I'm lucky that my friends can stand me for any length of time. Unfortunately, this requires little effort on my part to become a more engaging person, maybe one who talks less and asks more leading questions, so I can't say that I'm "good" at my friends. I'm just lucky to have the friendship. I've been frustrated that with little reveals or indiscretions, with staying too long, talking too much, showing too much interest, someone who you are trying to form a symbiotic relationship with can write you off. Maybe I don't have the physical attributes that excuse my not winning at life enough (I'm sure sure super attractive unemployed girls get at least a couple of months before they are written off) or talking too much, as a result, the other person is testing me or interviewing me tribunally and I don't have the advantage. At the same time, I've found the reasons for rejection to be painfully simple when people do tell me and painfully indicative of my core flaws, it isn't that they themselves suck, they do see me lucidly and why I'm not good enough for them. The freedom of having a home, job, and life whose course you steer is markedly different and provides a different set of challenges than those of living with and accomodating oneself to another person. In the corporate work environment, one is an instrument toward a purpose and one's daily work must as much as possible be in service of that purpose as well as one's behavior as a "leader." Going home, I have respite from needing to (and not making) calculated movements toward being seen as instrumental and surviving as well as the corporate rhetoric which is really of being a tool toward the bottom line or company goal. I have the freedom to be vulnerable, to party, to eat, and to wander with dreams. I imagine that home with another person again requires scrupulously framing your image as an instrument of preserving companionship, not seeming negative or crestfallen from the work day, re-applying makeup and brushing teeth on waking up. And the worst part, not going to the bathroom because apparently women don't do that freely. Omitting various things that make you shrill or slothful looking in order to have companionship, sex, and such things. For a date, I feel like it's necessary to prepare most of the day before and get into the mode of having to possibly make the omissions, confidence, and concise phrasing that I only use on telephone interviews. On telephone interviews, you are barred from saying anything unconfident or not positive about yourself so the content is incredibly rigid. As a result, when men ask me what I have going for the rest of the day, I know it's over and I'm also livid because a date is something you schedule around much like an interview. Maybe if I'm seeing a friend I have something going for the rest of the day, but no I'm not going to a benefit concert. Loneliness and lack of companionship vs. some constraint and lack of comfort and vulnerability, which is tonic after the working day. The strange thing is that romance fades as constraint, hiding, and playing games fades.
A feminist may take offense to the idea that, depending on the type of partner you want, you may have to exhibit characteristics that are not unpleasant or that complement their personality. Or that you may have to take charge with the "picking battles" and not being shrill portion of the relationship. This is something that I may have to do. I don't see many women, particularly those in relationships, that behave like me so I don't have a good frame of reference, I am at a high scale of vulnerability and unattractive habits. I carry rocks and peppermints in my pockets, I have a problem with my skin, I am bad at wearing make up, and bad at outfits among other things, I am quirky in a way that can be taken to an extreme, but not in my clothing or personal image. I bore myself with my stories and soliloquys, yet have the insatiable urge to talk. I idealize my talking companions ability to satisfy my need for intelligent novelty and entertainment, as well as a quickening of the spirit, which most men can't provide. I take a long time to do things like get up, cook simple things, etc. This is partly because I'm unused to taking care of a partner and I'm not sure if the Ally Sheedy parka is endemic to me. Yet, I don't like Liz Lemon for her finicky and particular habits like shrill insistence on rules:
Cashier: No $100s, Small bills.
Liz: Oh, I knew this was gonna happen.
Cashier: Store policy.
Liz: Yeah, Well, That's an illegal policy. You have to take this.
Cashier: No, I don't
Gray: Yeah sir you do, it says "legal tender for all debts, public and private."
Cashier: Does it say anything about $100 for a bottle of water?
Gray: You can't decide what money you'll accept. That's illegal.
Liz: It's an illegal policy.
Cashier: You're holding up the line!
Liz: (Along with Gray) No, You're holding up the line!
I am surprised by the new habits I might have to learn to adopt because I haven't thought of them before. Of course, attractiveness comes with realizing personal goals and the resultant contentment and busy sheen the body takes on in response to achieving personal goals. Yet, what creative person can dedicate themselves to whatever unfinished, torn art they choose when they are working at every point to bring their persona into fruition? What creative person does not allow themselves to be torn, uncomfortable, slightly broken rather than some sort of burpee-doing vegetarian going after their start up idea? I'm almost worried about working on my intractable habits and sloth because of this. Because I think motivational people who hold their lives up as an example are typically overly self focused and broken, because imperfection and the distance of a dream make it easy to calm oneself by imagining something better. I don't think people who have simply realized their dreams, particularly material ones, are happy, I think they are people who know what is around the bend of a road and no longer excited to find out. The only way I can find to not become a soft feminine cat like Ms Alba is to treat externals independently of what is internally inside me and work on internal goals irrespective of how they might enhance my femininity. Because ultimately doing something will make me more pleasant and less miserable to be around, and doing something that realizes my dreams, moreso. Even though realizing one's dreams brings the possibility of monomania, as one becomes a vessel for the message of healthy eating, or sculpture, art, or worse, a motivational speaker. I think seeking improvement through one's own body rather than creating something external is toxic and makes a life perfectly lived into one's art. When you make your life your art, that's just messed up, man. Although, when you sacrifice an imperfect life with someone you love to the perfection of a goal or art, it can prove just as damaging. Finishing A Hat, but giving up the idea of a perfectly or well lived life is the only avenue toward that type of happiness..
I've never really found my habits intractable before. I didn't even see anything wrong with them. And I think it's that I'm used to myself inexpertly holding up the hearth. Or getting some ethnic food when I can't. Maybe it's that men require things of us that we don't require of ourselves, things we have to learn later in this culture that protects us from learning about relationships, facilitating interdependence, or even the emotional dimensions of sex. These are things we maybe think we don't need to learn. I think the old adage is that in a primal sense, men and women are different and require different things of each other, things we can't automatically imagine. These are shocking because they do not follow the "require of others what you require of yourself" rule. The odd marriage of "companionship" or friendship with a side of sex that men seem to view relationships as, along with the strong emphasis on loyalty, is somewhat puzzling to me. Though the various requirements of women to be supportive, but not excessively, to engage, provide a core of affection, entertain, and mystify are odd to men.
We learn the shallow gloss of nonessentials like the time and place of the Tea Party, but not how to write cover letters, create solutions to problems as they come up, take calculated risks, bring an idea to fruition, and teach ourselves. The baseline critical thinking, problem solving, and analysis required to learn and assimilate new tasks is something we learn when we are forced to make do with the insufficient teaching and lackluster instruction of weeks' training. On the job we frequently digest insufficient information and are not led by the hand in any way. There must be some benefit in not teaching us to exercise the mental tools we have equipped to deal with new information and amorphous problems because no teacher ever taught that to us.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Outsider Storyteller
What an outsider storyteller is:
I've been thinking about what an outsider storyteller is. I think that certain concerns of creative writing are more universal than others, because they relate to the formal constraints of writing. For instance, if you're writing fiction, you're writing a story on paper that may or may not be time bound and may or may not feature characters. What makes good writing? When do you write? Do you have a schedule for writing? Etc. Basically, the process includes formal constraints and that means that a lot of writers have the same concerns, regardless if they've been schooled or given any opinion on what writing is.
I think that this concept of fiction and nonfiction writing crystallized with the 19th century novel, a recognizable plot, characters, temporal storylines, etc. Modernism is recognizable as a reaction to that. I think the first kneejerk is, "Who is this story about? What is happening?" Modernism is ensconced in the history of how fiction defined itself in the 19th century and is inextricable from it. Postmodernism is also recognizable as reaction. While picking up a book from the 19th century or what I will call a "conventional" book with a temporal background and recognizable characters today will be understandable for someone who is not studied in literary history, reading a book in the modernism tradition as well as a postmodernist one will not be understandable or enjoyable, nor will the reader be able to pick up insights.
I think that an outsider storyteller is not recognizably tied to either a canonical way of telling the story in fiction (unconsciously "challenged" in the 18th century, cemented in the 19th century, and challenged frmo the mid to late 19th century on) in this reaction to the canonical way of telling fiction. Thus, they have a possibly intuitive or traditional way of telling the story. Perhaps their way of understanding how a story is crafted is more organic because they are not weighed down by the history of where they ought to be from?
I've been thinking about what an outsider storyteller is. I think that certain concerns of creative writing are more universal than others, because they relate to the formal constraints of writing. For instance, if you're writing fiction, you're writing a story on paper that may or may not be time bound and may or may not feature characters. What makes good writing? When do you write? Do you have a schedule for writing? Etc. Basically, the process includes formal constraints and that means that a lot of writers have the same concerns, regardless if they've been schooled or given any opinion on what writing is.
I think that this concept of fiction and nonfiction writing crystallized with the 19th century novel, a recognizable plot, characters, temporal storylines, etc. Modernism is recognizable as a reaction to that. I think the first kneejerk is, "Who is this story about? What is happening?" Modernism is ensconced in the history of how fiction defined itself in the 19th century and is inextricable from it. Postmodernism is also recognizable as reaction. While picking up a book from the 19th century or what I will call a "conventional" book with a temporal background and recognizable characters today will be understandable for someone who is not studied in literary history, reading a book in the modernism tradition as well as a postmodernist one will not be understandable or enjoyable, nor will the reader be able to pick up insights.
I think that an outsider storyteller is not recognizably tied to either a canonical way of telling the story in fiction (unconsciously "challenged" in the 18th century, cemented in the 19th century, and challenged frmo the mid to late 19th century on) in this reaction to the canonical way of telling fiction. Thus, they have a possibly intuitive or traditional way of telling the story. Perhaps their way of understanding how a story is crafted is more organic because they are not weighed down by the history of where they ought to be from?
On Food
The subject of health has been obsessing me lately due to the fact that I'm in this moderation morass until I know specifically where to turn. I know that I disagree with the fanatically calorie counting, next big thing Huffington Post lists of "super" foods, and people who subscribe to a Paleo diet of meat and eggs and such, or the people who supplement their workouts with meat and whey protein. I think. I used to see the sense in Ayurveda, which argues eating a mix of raw and cooked foods and carefully scheduling your life in the interest of balance. Now I see people making gains in their skin, body, and energy level from restrictive diets and it makes me think if perhaps I'm not missing anything. I've been toying a lot with the idea of moving slowly toward raw veganism, and have at least been including more raw foods and token raw vegan foods (chia seeds, flax) in my diet. There is a concept of perfect practice rather than practice makes perfect that makes the eating of a diet that keeps you vital so deliberate. To sloppily jump into raw veganism tends to spell low b12 levels and disaster, to pound lots of water all day because someone told you to can lower the metabolism, to eat well, but at irregular times in the day can also cause a problem, and to include raw food that is not organic or to lightly cook foods incorrectly and not release most of their nutrients is a waste, for instance, apparently carrots release more of their nutrients when (boiled or roasted?) in the skin and then cut up or most of the nutrient content of potatoes, kiwis, and other skinned fruits and vegetables lie just below the skin, which means having to eat the nasty orange pith. I've been obsessing about buying a juicer which also involves the idea of "perfect practice," because while a juicer allows you to up your nutrient and vitamin content, centrifugal juicers slightly heat the fruit and vegetables and produce a lot of waste and masticating juicers are expensive, plus I already got a Breville incoming as a gift. I've also been thinking of buying the Ferrari of blenders if I have a less fancy juicer, to make green smoothies and other healthy smoothie gains. The problem is, when I drink a green juice, I tend to automatically go into headache detox mode because it is so rich in vitamins, just like when I go to Souen and eat macriobiotic food. I have an intuition that juices are not as good in gains for me as smoothies, though, and the fact that my trying keeps not being even close to good just sucks. Like, I bought cayenne pepper, which is a fancy new food, but I bought it at the supermarket. I made myself a turmeric almond milk tea, but I added cayenne instead of black pepper which apparently activates turmeric, used turmeric that I worry is not that good, and Almond Breeze instead of making my own nut milk.. Some people emphasize the eating of beet greens and chards, others claim they are toxic due to oxalic acid and have you boil them. When I sauteed them and forced myself to drink the juice, bet your ass I was disappointed. There is a morass of opinions, on the one hand, there is nothing wrong with adding raw, hopefully organic fruits and vegetables and rotating your greens. On the other hand, others claim it is about metabolism, extol the benefits of potatoes, and cite scientific studies against every fad food lifestyle. Or you eat less inflammatory foods, tell that to my mom who loves nightshades and fish. It is not that simple to eat intelligently and live healthfully. Mainstream types claim the benefits of whole grains and lean meats, while others counter that fatty fish have a higher count of omega3s, oh and I eat sardines, Costco sardines, or even claim it is more about reducing the omega6 ratio, still others like the Wheat Belly guy claim that commercial wheat and even whole grain is chock full of amylopectin and spikes the blood sugar, so good to cut it out all together, this guy is also pro people eating meat. I mostly get annoyed when people tell me to eat more of stuff I hate, beets, yams, and less of stuff I like, beet greens, kale. The truth is that with any theoretical discipline, particularly one with a lot of "forget what you know because the bigwigs have been lying to you" there is a mix of scientific study and knowledge on the back end, academic cross talk, "established scientific knowledge" being levied in a simplified form by magazines and faux medical websites, types who favor you proceed with the intuitive, your own opinion, types who pitch the counter-intuitive or "don't trust yourself or what you've heard, trust me," and the conspiracy theorists who favor a model out of the mainstream, but feel suspect because they don't supply as much concrete scientific evidence. The way the concept of diet for a healthier life applies to the issues dearest to my heart is quite wide. The thing is, in Child Development, what I consider a more crucial and contentious discipline, it's hard to figure out the diet children need. Children are different from adults trying to restructure their lifestyle in a way that has more to do with workaday concepts of exercise or meal because you "have to" rather than play or eating what you want when you're hungry. Yes, adults are different from children. A raw diet or cutting out dairy might not benefit a child the way it does you. Adults lament their lack of imagination, wonder, or tuning naturally into what they might need due to socialization and the formation of logic based on their life. The fact is, some good things do come with adulthood, even with that stuff you hate, like the regimentation of routine in work and the "have tos" of now we run like guinea pigs on a wheel to get our exercise rather than playing with super soakers or rolling down a hill. I think that envying ourselves as we were as kids shortchanges the gains we've made in maturity, learning to compromise, learning to respect our own boundaries with people, learning to work and contribute to others, and learning to give. This does require the development of cumbersome logic, unfortunately, going into the box of work makes it harder to think "outside" it. But, we are on the trajectory of acquiring wisdom and insight. By learning to deal with failure, disappointment, difficulty, and crisis. I stress so much about the concept of a good, simple, sustainable way to eat that enhances health because I think if I find an intelligent solution to this I could serve others. I could serve others. Not necessarily children, but people my age or slightly younger or older. There is a big, disgusting debate on obesity in this country and the trajectory from eating mostly processed foods to intelligent eating that may go against the way your parents ate or fed you is a fraught one and can go through many stages, specifically, overly regimented eating, perhaps an eating disorder, body image issues, obsession with food. I am against too strict eating and I'm worried that forcing the way we live and eat on people who have been eating mostly processed food may be a mistake. I don't think chaining kids who have been accustomed to playing and having fun to a calorie system and causing them to run on an uninspiring treadmill system like we do is the answer. I think that incorporating whole raw food like fruit or vegetable as a valued eating accessory and snack is. Processed foods are specifically calibrated in umami and various other taste balances to be addictive. Middle class America's obsession with diet, regimentation, and deprivation is just as toxic. There is not that easy an answer to what way to eat best supports health and also does not obsess us. And I don't think the pundits who have appointed themselves to regiment our food or recommend processes live a good life free of obsession or food unhealthiness either. I guess I should stick to my own food theories and advice, add organic raw fruit and vegetables, eat at the sameish times during the day, eat greens and beans and colored fruit and vegetables, reduce inflammatory foods, and have plenty-ish of water.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
waah
I joke that I tend to like the things that people like and go through the same reactions people do, the more plebeian the entertainment (shoddy unknown romantic comedy? I like it!), particularly if it's for women, the more I'm going to eventually like it. I watched the Gilmore Girls and loved it, I resisted 30 Rock and liking Liz Lemon/Tina Fey because I didn't like the skits on SNL, but of course I'm entranced by the character and she's probably my favorite female comedian working now. I resisted red mango, but now I love it more than the average lame yoghurt consumer, it is one of the favorite ice creams of someone who REALLY likes ice cream, and I have no doubt that I'll like Mad Men and the Wire, depending how not stupid I am on the day I watch it. Because god knows I like some dumb crap.
I had a merciful 4 years of college to not understand the men are dogs, women are cats stereotypes, the formulaic disappointments of the dating scene, and the various silly failures of consensual relationships that evidently speed us on our way to being bitter cat ladies at some point, or at the very least, tired and bitter and then going back into the field. One thing I don't like that other women do, maybe because men are capitalizing on them, are cats and cat videos, by the way. But, just like everything else, both my desire for a love relationship and my consequent bitterness to the fact that "uhhh, men and women are different, and what if Jack Nicholson was a flabbity bloo" blindsided me like a herring in the face.
I am trying to piece together why, all of the sudden, after my blissful and turbulent friendships with friendly, complicated, and fairly sensitive men in college and the idea that "everyone is different, no two people are the same," has me re-reading the stupid, low brow, but funny Bridget Jones book or trying to discuss my issues with the women I have access to on the internet, either the feminists or the positivity and spiritualism set.
I think it comes down to two things. The men I have access to, men I meet, men who express their opinions on the internet, and last of all, my friends, both perpetuate and negate stereotypes, sometimes in a vaguely dismissive way and in the same breath. I read a comment that says "every man wants to fuck women who are 18 and if they don't they're lying. every one." Or the Psychology Today article on "Ten Politically Incorrect Truths... proven by evolution" or something like that. That hammered again the evolutionary basis for men wanting "young blonde, hourglass figured bombshells" and the fact that humans have practiced mild polygyny, which, status-wise, is apparently better for women. Or a dating expert who gingerly describes men as "sexual hypocrites." Even laying down this truth with sensitivity to us, it hurts. (Because of the liking and investment that naturally comes with a woman who has "succumbed" or agreed to sex, in this paradigm. The desire to create a relationship with this other person and not have them leave due to expectations of what's coming to them because dammit they paid for dinner.) Or a man who is judgmental of a woman who has an equal amount of sexual experience than he does. Just as my male friends might reference "crazy women" or confirm various stereotypes while in the same breath saying, when I point at a poster of Brooklyn Decker "You think men want that? That's a beauty ideal. You really think men want that?" Then, I see corrupt hedge fund managers jockeying for their 22 year old "slam piece." Juxtaposed with the married women I see who tell me that they, rotund and obese, have found someone who loves them and thinks they're sexy and "each ware has its own buyer."
I have ingested and researched so many reactions I find unsavory from men, some that lightly belittle feminism or tell those women to "make them a sandwich," some that describe their ideal wife as Kate Beckinsale and a fine cook who likes to screw, nothing, okay, maybe 10 times a day being too much. And then next to them the pacifying comments that everyone is different and that includes men who don't go to strip clubs or call women a requisite amount of times from a bachelor party (otherwise women are psycho and insecure.)
My male friends who claim to be "nice," I started to notice their taste in girls, specifically, provocative duck faced photographs, long blonde hair, "slim with curves" as an acquaintance who is balding describes the kind of girls he is interested in, the "hot girl at the bar" in thigh high boots and hot pants who Louis CK considers "an angel and what could I ever do to make her like me..." I want her to be stupid and slutty and something else rude. But I am morally opposed to any of my own slut shaming and assuming of my fellow woman, particularly if I am intimidated by her being hot. I know for a fact that many of the hot woman I know are sweet, polite, complicated, and some have very odd taste in men. Like, the Rip Torn sort of face-tattooed male walking problem and turn their face from the Brad Pitt or Chris Pine chasing after them, because it doesn't have many discolorations and scars.
And two, I have low self worth in terms of badly wanting to attract a certain kind of man among other things. In college, I was able to keep that the tendency to measure my self worth on who I can attract, or noticing who responds and who doesn't, at bay with crushes and the knowledge that I was in some kind of cocoon of gregarious fat where everyone was nice to me and accepted me, but someday I would graduate. The desire for a grown up relationship in a desert of just shit smacked me in the face. It was sudden and urgent. And apparently, the desire for a relationship will get you nowhere if you are not distracted, happy in yourself, and fully established in this world. Say the positivity experts. So basically I have to wait out this temporary attack of spleen until whatever weird self worth wound that hid all the while I was perfectly independent and in la la land spontaneously cleans itself.
I equate my particular brand of anger, in this case at men, with "blue balls" not because of sex, but because my anger, in all its ugly, self-hating, politically incorrect flame keeps building and folding in on itself until by the time it is expressed, I will probably be piledriving the smallest dog. Or something. When all along I want to punch and destroy the boss. The numerous quiet defeats in my life, from show downs that didn't happen with domineering colleagues, to wanting to destroy some guy that heckles me on the street and makes me feel small, ugly, and fat... with his undiscriminating attention. And I hate myself for wanting to take that guy down because I assume that he yelled some shit at the Elaine Stritch lookalike in front of me. Because hey, maybe he isn't even staring me down. Who am I to think his attention is directed to me? But if it is, get the fuck away.
Hey, at this point, my tastes seem to be not so far from sad, bathing, fireman calendar and ice cream lady. Maybe, along with the Gilmore Girls, I would enjoy Homeland, Fox News, or the fireman calendar? Lots of America's idiots enjoy these things. And, the vast wall of fusty Penguin classics I put up to differentiate myself from America's tv watching population is something I admitted to myself I didn't enjoy as much as a good meal or party or something.
In college, I used to long to play the field, in the sense that I assumed that a relationship was dull. I wanted to have the attention of lots of men. I also wanted to go to parties. The glimmering, crazy, slightly legal Midnight Cowboy and grimy New York 80s 90s parties that fueled art. New York has "blue balled" me from that since the anodyne mid 2000s and the dawn of the taste hipster and his antifolk, his lack of energy and alienation even in the party setting. The party would begin and people would already be looking in separate directions while The Shins or Ratatat or MGMT or whatever insipid, sometimes lightly dancy big headphone and no dance style generation spawned. The generation that remixed Hall and Oates or insipid 70s smooth rock in a bar so awkwardly positioned that the island space for dancing is no good to sit and talk, let alone dance. It's funny now that a couple of days ago I abandoned a populated improv theater's bar to meet for a date because that was more viable. At least I am learning something. And some time ago, I went to a party that almost shut up my endless whining about the New York scene being dead. Apparently the scene has gone underground, positivity experts, that will cut my negative commentary by 50%. I was with someone and, even with my roving eye, hanging with this awkward, chain wallet wearing Goth byproduct with a moribund job, realized that if I were alone here, I would be sad faced and have a lousy time. And nobody would be interested in me from the golden youth in somewhat hipster inspired, but almost club kid like costumes. Partly because of my extremely bewildered look, partly because any time I see someone I like I automatically slouch and seize up for fear of their reaction or that they don't feel the same.
Some say it is not your business why or whether people will reject you, or that "they didn't deserve you" or "their loss," but I know why I reject people and sometimes the reasons are obvious as the wall in front of you, direct to the point of nasty, or compelling. Like a woman denying that she needs to lose pounds and grow her hair and when she does everyone will treat her differently.
When you serve yourself up to someone in a relationship, you are serving yourself as a snapshot of how you now are. I think people are unfinished products. I certainly am. So I am complaining about this paradigm shift that I have to show the best I have right now to someone, to be the kind of person they want to be with. And all the horrific ways they could string my emotions along if they don't want it or aren't telling the truth as it goes along. The fact is, until now, it has always been my fallible journey and I never thought I had to make my profession, passions, hobbies, ambition, drive, creativity, and all those things they are asking for, look nice and clean for anybody. I have always messily avoided and sometimes pursued my goals. The little I am getting done now, there is an urgent need to have it presentation ready for someone or risk not being their type, or worse, being the type of person who is seeking to be completed by someone else. Which I don't think I completely am, I am not happy alone at this point, but I am often not happy with other people. It is profoundly shocking that I have to do all these things or be all these new ways. In the age of the start up kings and "the dream of the 1890s is alive in Portland," everyone is pursuing their ambition, drive, creativity, and side project with their little altruistic or creative business of curing meats for the social networking of college students in underserved public schools. The men work on their start up and hundred side projects, have their interesting hobbies like house building and installation projects, follow their TED talks and read their obscure scientific non fiction, and eat life whole. And the women are expected to be this way, too, but one up them. I am not in the least entrepreneurial, and have been blindsided by the intellectual being devalued and the ambition, drive, and passion overvalued. If you are not ready to take your Etsy business to a new boutique level and ride your unicycle off into the sunset in your gun toting, suicide girl bikini, you're fucked.
Another thing is, I just saw a post where a man specifically asked the woman to "not be lazy." As a criterion to be his girlfriend for the holidays. And also, for the creative activity he offered for them to do, they could get dressed up in period garb and take cheeky Christmas photos to send to their relatives. Or maybe join his band? Men must be meeting a lot of lazy women if they ask for the qualities of ambition, drive, passionate about something, "challenge me," "have a fire in you" by name. And all the same admit that they are not looking for a relationship or commitment. The fact that they bow out in that while demanding that their woman be an entrepreneur and have it all figured out is what angers me. They demand the moon and stars for a woman they won't claim to be their girlfriend. At an age and time when it is hard to find a job and harder to find one in line with the true calling....
I had a merciful 4 years of college to not understand the men are dogs, women are cats stereotypes, the formulaic disappointments of the dating scene, and the various silly failures of consensual relationships that evidently speed us on our way to being bitter cat ladies at some point, or at the very least, tired and bitter and then going back into the field. One thing I don't like that other women do, maybe because men are capitalizing on them, are cats and cat videos, by the way. But, just like everything else, both my desire for a love relationship and my consequent bitterness to the fact that "uhhh, men and women are different, and what if Jack Nicholson was a flabbity bloo" blindsided me like a herring in the face.
I am trying to piece together why, all of the sudden, after my blissful and turbulent friendships with friendly, complicated, and fairly sensitive men in college and the idea that "everyone is different, no two people are the same," has me re-reading the stupid, low brow, but funny Bridget Jones book or trying to discuss my issues with the women I have access to on the internet, either the feminists or the positivity and spiritualism set.
I think it comes down to two things. The men I have access to, men I meet, men who express their opinions on the internet, and last of all, my friends, both perpetuate and negate stereotypes, sometimes in a vaguely dismissive way and in the same breath. I read a comment that says "every man wants to fuck women who are 18 and if they don't they're lying. every one." Or the Psychology Today article on "Ten Politically Incorrect Truths... proven by evolution" or something like that. That hammered again the evolutionary basis for men wanting "young blonde, hourglass figured bombshells" and the fact that humans have practiced mild polygyny, which, status-wise, is apparently better for women. Or a dating expert who gingerly describes men as "sexual hypocrites." Even laying down this truth with sensitivity to us, it hurts. (Because of the liking and investment that naturally comes with a woman who has "succumbed" or agreed to sex, in this paradigm. The desire to create a relationship with this other person and not have them leave due to expectations of what's coming to them because dammit they paid for dinner.) Or a man who is judgmental of a woman who has an equal amount of sexual experience than he does. Just as my male friends might reference "crazy women" or confirm various stereotypes while in the same breath saying, when I point at a poster of Brooklyn Decker "You think men want that? That's a beauty ideal. You really think men want that?" Then, I see corrupt hedge fund managers jockeying for their 22 year old "slam piece." Juxtaposed with the married women I see who tell me that they, rotund and obese, have found someone who loves them and thinks they're sexy and "each ware has its own buyer."
I have ingested and researched so many reactions I find unsavory from men, some that lightly belittle feminism or tell those women to "make them a sandwich," some that describe their ideal wife as Kate Beckinsale and a fine cook who likes to screw, nothing, okay, maybe 10 times a day being too much. And then next to them the pacifying comments that everyone is different and that includes men who don't go to strip clubs or call women a requisite amount of times from a bachelor party (otherwise women are psycho and insecure.)
My male friends who claim to be "nice," I started to notice their taste in girls, specifically, provocative duck faced photographs, long blonde hair, "slim with curves" as an acquaintance who is balding describes the kind of girls he is interested in, the "hot girl at the bar" in thigh high boots and hot pants who Louis CK considers "an angel and what could I ever do to make her like me..." I want her to be stupid and slutty and something else rude. But I am morally opposed to any of my own slut shaming and assuming of my fellow woman, particularly if I am intimidated by her being hot. I know for a fact that many of the hot woman I know are sweet, polite, complicated, and some have very odd taste in men. Like, the Rip Torn sort of face-tattooed male walking problem and turn their face from the Brad Pitt or Chris Pine chasing after them, because it doesn't have many discolorations and scars.
And two, I have low self worth in terms of badly wanting to attract a certain kind of man among other things. In college, I was able to keep that the tendency to measure my self worth on who I can attract, or noticing who responds and who doesn't, at bay with crushes and the knowledge that I was in some kind of cocoon of gregarious fat where everyone was nice to me and accepted me, but someday I would graduate. The desire for a grown up relationship in a desert of just shit smacked me in the face. It was sudden and urgent. And apparently, the desire for a relationship will get you nowhere if you are not distracted, happy in yourself, and fully established in this world. Say the positivity experts. So basically I have to wait out this temporary attack of spleen until whatever weird self worth wound that hid all the while I was perfectly independent and in la la land spontaneously cleans itself.
I equate my particular brand of anger, in this case at men, with "blue balls" not because of sex, but because my anger, in all its ugly, self-hating, politically incorrect flame keeps building and folding in on itself until by the time it is expressed, I will probably be piledriving the smallest dog. Or something. When all along I want to punch and destroy the boss. The numerous quiet defeats in my life, from show downs that didn't happen with domineering colleagues, to wanting to destroy some guy that heckles me on the street and makes me feel small, ugly, and fat... with his undiscriminating attention. And I hate myself for wanting to take that guy down because I assume that he yelled some shit at the Elaine Stritch lookalike in front of me. Because hey, maybe he isn't even staring me down. Who am I to think his attention is directed to me? But if it is, get the fuck away.
Hey, at this point, my tastes seem to be not so far from sad, bathing, fireman calendar and ice cream lady. Maybe, along with the Gilmore Girls, I would enjoy Homeland, Fox News, or the fireman calendar? Lots of America's idiots enjoy these things. And, the vast wall of fusty Penguin classics I put up to differentiate myself from America's tv watching population is something I admitted to myself I didn't enjoy as much as a good meal or party or something.
In college, I used to long to play the field, in the sense that I assumed that a relationship was dull. I wanted to have the attention of lots of men. I also wanted to go to parties. The glimmering, crazy, slightly legal Midnight Cowboy and grimy New York 80s 90s parties that fueled art. New York has "blue balled" me from that since the anodyne mid 2000s and the dawn of the taste hipster and his antifolk, his lack of energy and alienation even in the party setting. The party would begin and people would already be looking in separate directions while The Shins or Ratatat or MGMT or whatever insipid, sometimes lightly dancy big headphone and no dance style generation spawned. The generation that remixed Hall and Oates or insipid 70s smooth rock in a bar so awkwardly positioned that the island space for dancing is no good to sit and talk, let alone dance. It's funny now that a couple of days ago I abandoned a populated improv theater's bar to meet for a date because that was more viable. At least I am learning something. And some time ago, I went to a party that almost shut up my endless whining about the New York scene being dead. Apparently the scene has gone underground, positivity experts, that will cut my negative commentary by 50%. I was with someone and, even with my roving eye, hanging with this awkward, chain wallet wearing Goth byproduct with a moribund job, realized that if I were alone here, I would be sad faced and have a lousy time. And nobody would be interested in me from the golden youth in somewhat hipster inspired, but almost club kid like costumes. Partly because of my extremely bewildered look, partly because any time I see someone I like I automatically slouch and seize up for fear of their reaction or that they don't feel the same.
Some say it is not your business why or whether people will reject you, or that "they didn't deserve you" or "their loss," but I know why I reject people and sometimes the reasons are obvious as the wall in front of you, direct to the point of nasty, or compelling. Like a woman denying that she needs to lose pounds and grow her hair and when she does everyone will treat her differently.
When you serve yourself up to someone in a relationship, you are serving yourself as a snapshot of how you now are. I think people are unfinished products. I certainly am. So I am complaining about this paradigm shift that I have to show the best I have right now to someone, to be the kind of person they want to be with. And all the horrific ways they could string my emotions along if they don't want it or aren't telling the truth as it goes along. The fact is, until now, it has always been my fallible journey and I never thought I had to make my profession, passions, hobbies, ambition, drive, creativity, and all those things they are asking for, look nice and clean for anybody. I have always messily avoided and sometimes pursued my goals. The little I am getting done now, there is an urgent need to have it presentation ready for someone or risk not being their type, or worse, being the type of person who is seeking to be completed by someone else. Which I don't think I completely am, I am not happy alone at this point, but I am often not happy with other people. It is profoundly shocking that I have to do all these things or be all these new ways. In the age of the start up kings and "the dream of the 1890s is alive in Portland," everyone is pursuing their ambition, drive, creativity, and side project with their little altruistic or creative business of curing meats for the social networking of college students in underserved public schools. The men work on their start up and hundred side projects, have their interesting hobbies like house building and installation projects, follow their TED talks and read their obscure scientific non fiction, and eat life whole. And the women are expected to be this way, too, but one up them. I am not in the least entrepreneurial, and have been blindsided by the intellectual being devalued and the ambition, drive, and passion overvalued. If you are not ready to take your Etsy business to a new boutique level and ride your unicycle off into the sunset in your gun toting, suicide girl bikini, you're fucked.
Another thing is, I just saw a post where a man specifically asked the woman to "not be lazy." As a criterion to be his girlfriend for the holidays. And also, for the creative activity he offered for them to do, they could get dressed up in period garb and take cheeky Christmas photos to send to their relatives. Or maybe join his band? Men must be meeting a lot of lazy women if they ask for the qualities of ambition, drive, passionate about something, "challenge me," "have a fire in you" by name. And all the same admit that they are not looking for a relationship or commitment. The fact that they bow out in that while demanding that their woman be an entrepreneur and have it all figured out is what angers me. They demand the moon and stars for a woman they won't claim to be their girlfriend. At an age and time when it is hard to find a job and harder to find one in line with the true calling....
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
RE: Generation DO
There is this pretentious little article that describes the "entrepreneurial generation," something I have been talking about and seen constellate since about 2009-2010.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-entrepreneurial-generation.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
The thing is, this isn't an old happening. We've only become this way two years ago. I remember being shocked at my class' apathy during the Bush re-election. Valuing more that cache of taste and experience: what you've read, what music you listen to, and where you've been, along with intuitively stepping ahead of the latest past-referring fashions (scarves in the summer, mustard colored tights, the glasses our mothers wore in the late 70s, the glasses our fathers wore in the early 80s, denim versions of the bike shorts we wore in the 90s, etc.) There was no uprising, no unification, no attempt to walk against something unjust that wasn't tugging at our pockets or disturbing us from cataloguing our Penguin collection or occasionally leaving to hack away at buildings in New Orleans or India.
What I've seen in 2009-2010 is my generation finally rising from taste-based apathy into something, to reconciling the pull of monetizing our passions and standing as individuals against a system of government that is putting us to sleep and robbing us of agency in Byzantine ways, and apparently this author wants us to return to our empty writer-photographer (while stamping papers in a corporation or slinging coffee), rather than use a corporate model to give neighbors a chance to grow their own food, realize our dreams of making our own innovative food or bringing accessibility to fundraising.
Twin forces of start up businesses and Occupy Wall Street prove my assertion wrong that my generation would dally abroad until settling at home to become a professor, editor, or corporate hack. No matter if we are just screeching at the corruption we've come to recognize, we are finally moving now that we've been pinched in the money. No more are we wearing an exaggerated neon version of the windbreaker I wore when I was 12 and drinking FourLoko with a breakdancing Jesus (sure as shit we were not people pleasing splayed out on the floor with PBR, being photographed by a hairy man in a wrestling onesie). We are making moves to monetize our dreams.
Facebook and twitter are durable marketing products because they clearly feed the id or tap precisely into consumer "wants," but this is not why our generation is "people pleasing" or works on a "personal brand." Our generation is beginning to use these platforms to take action and also maximize their privacy.
Not three years ago, when the internet was still considered the "final frontier," message boards and blogs under the cloak of anonymity bred all kinds of crap, either trolling arguments or the pointless spouting of feelings. People would spend their time creating a personality on the internet for no reason, proclaiming. With less privacy and jobs, people become more guarded with their "personal brand," which, to the general public means filtering out personal material that could hurt your job search and, to marketing tools that gape at social media and people who are starting their business without support, could mean a witty, targeted campaign worthy of the most talented copywriters. You would sell, too, if you HAD something to sell, or at least withdraw from buying, if your internet usage was as closely monitored as everyone's now is. Essentially, we now navigate and are forced to dust off our jackets with a twinge of fear.
This feeds the dueling potential of the internet, both as a tool for an individual lacking "cronies" and industry contacts to get their message out, and to streamline and market their product. Essentially, the individual rebel without action has the opportunity to either clean up and pitch their idea, which can involve some inevitable "selling out" as they structure their corp for durability, or organize and make some move to effect change.
Blogs have transformed during my time from xanga/livejournal rant fests, to niche, simply and engagingly written, and well arranged gimmicks. Sometimes to the point of being basically captions. This reflects the general public of 2011's short attention span and desire for innovative entertainment. Never have we had such an accurate gauge of what people want. Ad agencies could stand to learn from Stuff White People Like, Shit My Dad Says, etc. Except when they do go corporate, they generally wreck the premise with their fear of the death of the 30 second spot, etc. When blogs get the book deal it generally proves to be hollow entertainment, not exactly on par with the David Foster Wallace ambitions of a liberal arts kid that got a good simple idea. But so what? Ad agencies, if using the blog model, would want the tag line to stick around. If a blog with grand writerly ambitions brings in the wisdom of clean structure and a gimmick, maybe it can stick around and pull in views. A start up business with a creative, well executed campaign that mimics the best internet content can easily withstand the whole "Oh shit, this Stuff White People Like premise ain't Tolstoy" bit because you can hold the Big Gay Ice Cream or kimchi taco in your hand.
Similarly, the best Twitters are trim one-liners that build in quality, rather than just linking to content.
Just last year, the use of facebook has transformed radically. From people proclaiming what they ate for dinner (granted, the instagram picture is new), facebook has become a medium for people bringing news and issues to light, regardless if it is in a pat, simplified image. After all, the most prevalent memes are made of an image and a caption (I almost wrote catption). These are frequently things that Bill Maher, John Stewart, and Ira Glass won't bring you immediately, but if you get it George Takei might.
I am dumbstruck by the amount of men who now define themselves by what they do, and insist on liking what they do, rather than the people who used to obsess about High Fidelity ideas about taste who have by and large missed the plane. The image on the NYT article points to the pretension of personal brand, as the many hollow badges we wear. Yet what I hear when I read something like this is: I own operate my own innovative pizza parlor, I have a new bar and have created my own recipes for it, I am pitching a new conceptual idea that is concrete enough that I am taking it to the people to fund it, I am a fucking BEEKEEPER in this city of ours (I don't care if it's a TREND). In other words, I AM a new school pizzaiolo, I HAVE CREATED new drinks for a bar I own, I ORGANIZED beekeeping.
This is the type of person that CREATES and works to make their conception a concrete and durable business model. Someone that has integrity because they are at least attempting to live their dream rather than talk about it (Cc: Troy from Reality Bites).
My peers have organized community gardens, founded dance troupes, organized a collaborative "house of art," worked for various eminent magazines... and generally used their liberal arts degrees rather than piling up an MFA and chucking it all to be a Computer Programmer.
I wonder, of course, where I fit into this. Whether I have a stop motion web feature somewhere with in me, a hilarious sketchbook or useful idea. Whether I can persevere in something more concrete and something less blatantly low skill than writing, which, to not quote Anthony Bourdain correctly, apparently anyone can do. Or whether I'm just another loser who, in 2006 style, will be suckered into going to a corporate job and only half fulfilling my dreams.... which are apparently of downhill biking across India and motorcycling through the West, building houses with minimal instruction from 3rd Ward, creating a Claymation animated feature and Shaker-inspired furniture, and most importantly, scaling up several start ups. All while listening to random TED talks, devouring nonfiction books, playing experimental music, and reading Richard Feynman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-entrepreneurial-generation.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
The thing is, this isn't an old happening. We've only become this way two years ago. I remember being shocked at my class' apathy during the Bush re-election. Valuing more that cache of taste and experience: what you've read, what music you listen to, and where you've been, along with intuitively stepping ahead of the latest past-referring fashions (scarves in the summer, mustard colored tights, the glasses our mothers wore in the late 70s, the glasses our fathers wore in the early 80s, denim versions of the bike shorts we wore in the 90s, etc.) There was no uprising, no unification, no attempt to walk against something unjust that wasn't tugging at our pockets or disturbing us from cataloguing our Penguin collection or occasionally leaving to hack away at buildings in New Orleans or India.
What I've seen in 2009-2010 is my generation finally rising from taste-based apathy into something, to reconciling the pull of monetizing our passions and standing as individuals against a system of government that is putting us to sleep and robbing us of agency in Byzantine ways, and apparently this author wants us to return to our empty writer-photographer (while stamping papers in a corporation or slinging coffee), rather than use a corporate model to give neighbors a chance to grow their own food, realize our dreams of making our own innovative food or bringing accessibility to fundraising.
Twin forces of start up businesses and Occupy Wall Street prove my assertion wrong that my generation would dally abroad until settling at home to become a professor, editor, or corporate hack. No matter if we are just screeching at the corruption we've come to recognize, we are finally moving now that we've been pinched in the money. No more are we wearing an exaggerated neon version of the windbreaker I wore when I was 12 and drinking FourLoko with a breakdancing Jesus (sure as shit we were not people pleasing splayed out on the floor with PBR, being photographed by a hairy man in a wrestling onesie). We are making moves to monetize our dreams.
Facebook and twitter are durable marketing products because they clearly feed the id or tap precisely into consumer "wants," but this is not why our generation is "people pleasing" or works on a "personal brand." Our generation is beginning to use these platforms to take action and also maximize their privacy.
Not three years ago, when the internet was still considered the "final frontier," message boards and blogs under the cloak of anonymity bred all kinds of crap, either trolling arguments or the pointless spouting of feelings. People would spend their time creating a personality on the internet for no reason, proclaiming. With less privacy and jobs, people become more guarded with their "personal brand," which, to the general public means filtering out personal material that could hurt your job search and, to marketing tools that gape at social media and people who are starting their business without support, could mean a witty, targeted campaign worthy of the most talented copywriters. You would sell, too, if you HAD something to sell, or at least withdraw from buying, if your internet usage was as closely monitored as everyone's now is. Essentially, we now navigate and are forced to dust off our jackets with a twinge of fear.
This feeds the dueling potential of the internet, both as a tool for an individual lacking "cronies" and industry contacts to get their message out, and to streamline and market their product. Essentially, the individual rebel without action has the opportunity to either clean up and pitch their idea, which can involve some inevitable "selling out" as they structure their corp for durability, or organize and make some move to effect change.
Blogs have transformed during my time from xanga/livejournal rant fests, to niche, simply and engagingly written, and well arranged gimmicks. Sometimes to the point of being basically captions. This reflects the general public of 2011's short attention span and desire for innovative entertainment. Never have we had such an accurate gauge of what people want. Ad agencies could stand to learn from Stuff White People Like, Shit My Dad Says, etc. Except when they do go corporate, they generally wreck the premise with their fear of the death of the 30 second spot, etc. When blogs get the book deal it generally proves to be hollow entertainment, not exactly on par with the David Foster Wallace ambitions of a liberal arts kid that got a good simple idea. But so what? Ad agencies, if using the blog model, would want the tag line to stick around. If a blog with grand writerly ambitions brings in the wisdom of clean structure and a gimmick, maybe it can stick around and pull in views. A start up business with a creative, well executed campaign that mimics the best internet content can easily withstand the whole "Oh shit, this Stuff White People Like premise ain't Tolstoy" bit because you can hold the Big Gay Ice Cream or kimchi taco in your hand.
Similarly, the best Twitters are trim one-liners that build in quality, rather than just linking to content.
Just last year, the use of facebook has transformed radically. From people proclaiming what they ate for dinner (granted, the instagram picture is new), facebook has become a medium for people bringing news and issues to light, regardless if it is in a pat, simplified image. After all, the most prevalent memes are made of an image and a caption (I almost wrote catption). These are frequently things that Bill Maher, John Stewart, and Ira Glass won't bring you immediately, but if you get it George Takei might.
I am dumbstruck by the amount of men who now define themselves by what they do, and insist on liking what they do, rather than the people who used to obsess about High Fidelity ideas about taste who have by and large missed the plane. The image on the NYT article points to the pretension of personal brand, as the many hollow badges we wear. Yet what I hear when I read something like this is: I own operate my own innovative pizza parlor, I have a new bar and have created my own recipes for it, I am pitching a new conceptual idea that is concrete enough that I am taking it to the people to fund it, I am a fucking BEEKEEPER in this city of ours (I don't care if it's a TREND). In other words, I AM a new school pizzaiolo, I HAVE CREATED new drinks for a bar I own, I ORGANIZED beekeeping.
This is the type of person that CREATES and works to make their conception a concrete and durable business model. Someone that has integrity because they are at least attempting to live their dream rather than talk about it (Cc: Troy from Reality Bites).
My peers have organized community gardens, founded dance troupes, organized a collaborative "house of art," worked for various eminent magazines... and generally used their liberal arts degrees rather than piling up an MFA and chucking it all to be a Computer Programmer.
I wonder, of course, where I fit into this. Whether I have a stop motion web feature somewhere with in me, a hilarious sketchbook or useful idea. Whether I can persevere in something more concrete and something less blatantly low skill than writing, which, to not quote Anthony Bourdain correctly, apparently anyone can do. Or whether I'm just another loser who, in 2006 style, will be suckered into going to a corporate job and only half fulfilling my dreams.... which are apparently of downhill biking across India and motorcycling through the West, building houses with minimal instruction from 3rd Ward, creating a Claymation animated feature and Shaker-inspired furniture, and most importantly, scaling up several start ups. All while listening to random TED talks, devouring nonfiction books, playing experimental music, and reading Richard Feynman.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
George Carlin
I took notes on George Carlin's It's Bad For Ya when I watched it on HBO mostly because he talked about kids. Funny, his philosophy on children. I want to know more about it. This is what I got:
George Carlin on the self esteem movement which has failed, doesn't help your grades, doesn't reduce violence
there are no losers in games, kids can't play tag and dodgeball, they can only stand around
no one is told the character building words, you're a loser
everyone gets a trophy
the idea that every child is special, they say it over and over as if to convince themselves
clearly every child isn't special, they're incomplete, they're unfinished work, they're funny looking
parents structure their child's play around their life, you have playdates
they can't stay in the yard with a stick
when do you stop being special, does it mean that all adults are special, then everyone is special and it defeats the purpose
you take the kid to fat camp, violin camp, computer camp, you've got to keep the fucker busy
can't have any unstructured play
kids are too busy studying for kindergarten
he says it's important for children to be taught to question what they read, everything they see, and authority figures
there are a lot of things you're expected to believe and accept in america that you should doubt
Proud to be an american, what the fuck does that mean, i can never understand ethnic or national pride
to me, pride should be achieved by something you do on your own, being irish isn't a skill, it's a fucking genetic accident
what the fuck does god bless america mean
George Carlin on the self esteem movement which has failed, doesn't help your grades, doesn't reduce violence
there are no losers in games, kids can't play tag and dodgeball, they can only stand around
no one is told the character building words, you're a loser
everyone gets a trophy
the idea that every child is special, they say it over and over as if to convince themselves
clearly every child isn't special, they're incomplete, they're unfinished work, they're funny looking
parents structure their child's play around their life, you have playdates
they can't stay in the yard with a stick
when do you stop being special, does it mean that all adults are special, then everyone is special and it defeats the purpose
you take the kid to fat camp, violin camp, computer camp, you've got to keep the fucker busy
can't have any unstructured play
kids are too busy studying for kindergarten
he says it's important for children to be taught to question what they read, everything they see, and authority figures
there are a lot of things you're expected to believe and accept in america that you should doubt
Proud to be an american, what the fuck does that mean, i can never understand ethnic or national pride
to me, pride should be achieved by something you do on your own, being irish isn't a skill, it's a fucking genetic accident
what the fuck does god bless america mean
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
taurus in the 3rd house, The Possessed, research papers..
Why am I so plodding? My reasoning plods along when I write, I spend two paragraphs meticulously proving that something isn't the case and withholding details. I usually get stuck writing the introduction over and over again, trying to make the summary shorter or withhold parts and rearrange it and keep coming back to the same thing. I just spent two paragraphs proving that Dostoevsky's The Possessed is not a novel of action where a nihilist plot is planned, perpetrated with a violent denouement. Nor is it a novel that simply maps or allegorizes ideas depriving them of their force. I keep trying to pull this novel apart and it keeps snapping back like toffee! And the funny thing is, I think I'm pulling in the wrong places, but am unwilling to let go something I've been trying to say for a long time. And it's the beginning, the introduction. I haven't even gotten to the meat of the paper yet or used any details from the text because I'm scared to get into it and believe I don't understand it. This novel is really tough, just when I think I've gotten the bigger picture, I'm flummoxed over details. There is much mystification, characters hint at things, but once I think there's hinting throughout the novel, I see a detail and am proved wrong! It's so weird,
here's a picture of a man eating Karamanmaras dondurma. It just makes me happy. Dondurma can be pulled like taffy too. But yeah, here I am, plodding along. And I thought writing research papers was my thing, but the sentences are long and not full of easy, glib insight like those of literary critics. College English teachers forget to tell us that we have to mature beyond the introduction-body theory and be a little more flexible. I'm trying to be flexible like Joe Louis, be able to spar and hustle (I don't speak boxing and I know Joe Louis is a heavyweight). What is the art of criticism? I don't know. Nobody told me. So I'm going to have to teach myself. Just like the art of teaching. God knows. One thing I know, a teacher can't be an idiot. A teacher can't look moony-eyed at such a book like The Possessed, like me. They've got to feel it out with their heart and mind, with truth seeking integrity. How the hell am I going to teach kids to question or ask why? I fetishize history. I've got all kinds of ignorance and fear of what I don't understand or haven't studied. I fear nihilism, I fear deconstruction, I'm beyond reactionary. Plus I feel like I want to influence them and nudge them and push them and talk into them. I want to set my coat over a puddle for them. And give to them. And you can't do that. You can't do that, claim to want to give to someone you don't know, have no connection with yet. My hypothetical students. How am I going to let them float downstream? Students need to be left to think, to breathe, to grow on their own. And there's all these issues, I read on someone's blog, for instance, that "counter-transference" occurs in the teaching setting. So apparently I have to have the techniques of psychotherapy under my belt. It's going to be a long road. I can't picture what its like when my children are invited on a playdate or go play outside. One minute out of my sight and I imagine myself looking out the window, watching them, as George Carlin said, play with a stick. It's selfish to want to give to something whose needs you don't even know yet, whether student or child. Who are you fulfilling? You. And that's not giving. Giving means that I would have to back away when needed, allow the child the gift of self-development and self-reliance. Who the hell knows. I think about this in my spare time, I think about students. And history. I even imagine giving a sex ed talk to young people and what I would say. I want to be good at what I once thought I was good at and what I've now set out to be good at. Writing and setting out to teach.
Suddenly, I'm far from glib. And run off at the mouth like a leaky faucet (complete with awkward English and folk expressions, apparently). Lately, something is happening that I'm both angry and am talking as if it were to save my life (about completely irrelevant things, of course, astrology, myself), sending people links and information that I hope they like and don't know they want because I can't restrain myself. Something to do with Uranus and Mars in Cancer.. I just keep talking and running off at the mouth, telling too much about myself and getting embarrassed. It is as though my mind is out of breath. Simultaneously, expressing myself is no easier. I'm avoiding expressing myself with this paper right now. And I'm afraid the people I'm talking so much at disapprove of me, don't like me, think I'm silly, even though I don't know them (astrology bloggers). What a dork to talk about myself, I can't help it.
But seriously, the mind has to be nimble. And all of my ignorance and stubbornness with regard to learning that I've really been discovering these four years, I've got to break myself of that. It seems the more I learn about astrology in my confused way, the more ignorant, delusional, self-obsessed (Uranus/Jupiter aspects) I appear.
This picture is from an article on Oblomov written by Gary Shteyngart in the New York Times. Oblomov is the Russian slacker novel.
here's a picture of a man eating Karamanmaras dondurma. It just makes me happy. Dondurma can be pulled like taffy too. But yeah, here I am, plodding along. And I thought writing research papers was my thing, but the sentences are long and not full of easy, glib insight like those of literary critics. College English teachers forget to tell us that we have to mature beyond the introduction-body theory and be a little more flexible. I'm trying to be flexible like Joe Louis, be able to spar and hustle (I don't speak boxing and I know Joe Louis is a heavyweight). What is the art of criticism? I don't know. Nobody told me. So I'm going to have to teach myself. Just like the art of teaching. God knows. One thing I know, a teacher can't be an idiot. A teacher can't look moony-eyed at such a book like The Possessed, like me. They've got to feel it out with their heart and mind, with truth seeking integrity. How the hell am I going to teach kids to question or ask why? I fetishize history. I've got all kinds of ignorance and fear of what I don't understand or haven't studied. I fear nihilism, I fear deconstruction, I'm beyond reactionary. Plus I feel like I want to influence them and nudge them and push them and talk into them. I want to set my coat over a puddle for them. And give to them. And you can't do that. You can't do that, claim to want to give to someone you don't know, have no connection with yet. My hypothetical students. How am I going to let them float downstream? Students need to be left to think, to breathe, to grow on their own. And there's all these issues, I read on someone's blog, for instance, that "counter-transference" occurs in the teaching setting. So apparently I have to have the techniques of psychotherapy under my belt. It's going to be a long road. I can't picture what its like when my children are invited on a playdate or go play outside. One minute out of my sight and I imagine myself looking out the window, watching them, as George Carlin said, play with a stick. It's selfish to want to give to something whose needs you don't even know yet, whether student or child. Who are you fulfilling? You. And that's not giving. Giving means that I would have to back away when needed, allow the child the gift of self-development and self-reliance. Who the hell knows. I think about this in my spare time, I think about students. And history. I even imagine giving a sex ed talk to young people and what I would say. I want to be good at what I once thought I was good at and what I've now set out to be good at. Writing and setting out to teach.
Suddenly, I'm far from glib. And run off at the mouth like a leaky faucet (complete with awkward English and folk expressions, apparently). Lately, something is happening that I'm both angry and am talking as if it were to save my life (about completely irrelevant things, of course, astrology, myself), sending people links and information that I hope they like and don't know they want because I can't restrain myself. Something to do with Uranus and Mars in Cancer.. I just keep talking and running off at the mouth, telling too much about myself and getting embarrassed. It is as though my mind is out of breath. Simultaneously, expressing myself is no easier. I'm avoiding expressing myself with this paper right now. And I'm afraid the people I'm talking so much at disapprove of me, don't like me, think I'm silly, even though I don't know them (astrology bloggers). What a dork to talk about myself, I can't help it.
But seriously, the mind has to be nimble. And all of my ignorance and stubbornness with regard to learning that I've really been discovering these four years, I've got to break myself of that. It seems the more I learn about astrology in my confused way, the more ignorant, delusional, self-obsessed (Uranus/Jupiter aspects) I appear.
This picture is from an article on Oblomov written by Gary Shteyngart in the New York Times. Oblomov is the Russian slacker novel.
Friday, March 28, 2008
I'm so tired of being alone
I'm so tired up on my ownwon't you help me girl
just as soon as you can?
Everyone and their French mother
owns these Zara boots or something like it. I'm clearly retardataire.
But then again, my last attempts at cool shoes were gold Nike Vandals. Which I happen to like. I was called the Sneaker Queen earlier in the year, sigh. I should either shop or run myself through a paper shredder and buy a bottle of MD 20/20 to complete the look. Then I could hang out by St. Mark's Church all the time.
But then again, my last attempts at cool shoes were gold Nike Vandals. Which I happen to like. I was called the Sneaker Queen earlier in the year, sigh. I should either shop or run myself through a paper shredder and buy a bottle of MD 20/20 to complete the look. Then I could hang out by St. Mark's Church all the time.
Monday, March 24, 2008
rejoicing in fatshion
I am regressing in my love of fatshion from rejoicing in big butts, to zaftig women, to now just purely fat chicks. I make no excuses, I learned I just think they're beautiful. It's not even about American body image anymore.
"Fat is lipids out of place," Mary Douglas might have said. And this applies to women I consider fat. Basically, fat is the lipid content that changes your shape from a bottle to a football halfback or a potato. Nothing makes me happier than seeing a well dressed fat chick. One that isn't stuffed into a loose fitting sack or an empire waist pregnancy dress. And I've never seen as many well-dressed fat chicks as I have in Sarah Lawrence, fipsters. The secret to dressing well when fat is creating a waist. A lot of women, even with big shoulders, large ribs or a round, Falstaff belly look great with a cardigan, a dress fitted at the waist that flows outward. The cardigan creates the illusion of a smaller torso and the skirt makes the bottom area larger. I've been looking at the Fatshionista flickr pool and sometimes been joyous about the looks created, other times banged my head against the bed or desk (I procrastinate at night) If only she could have used more color contrast, this girl needs to be bolder! And sometimes, what is she thinking, with such a beautiful face, I wish I was there to help her. I have two favorites, a Parisian girl with a beautiful face and a perfect fipster. Observe the cardigan/dress combo:
The white cardigan goes perfectly with the zany green thrift store dress I would kill for and an interesting take on the three button belt that is so hot right now. This girl is a winner at matching bright colors. In this picture, she hits the nail right on the head on how to match clothes to blond hair. The hair is straightened, you can really see the razor layers. Later on she curls it and has black accents which I don't like as much. The girl is also a mean wearer of skirts that do nothing to hide her rectangular shape. The frilly detailing and cardigan on top and the belt achieve the effect of a waist, it's as if she's wearing one of those fitted high waisted skirts I'm so obsessed with.
More marvelous work on part of my favorite fatshionista.
The Parisian girl's style is more understated and, well, Parisian. She can wear an all black ensemble with the perfect belt. The texture and shine of the leather belt and bag is what makes the outfit work and not look monochrome.
As you can see, I love a cocktail length dress with a cinched waist. Here we can see how a jacket or cardigan narrows the frame. This girl's boobs point somewhat outward and her sleeves are also rather large, so she seems a bit top heavy in the shoulder area. Nonetheless, she rocks this. This girl also rocks something I normally would not suggest, a big loose shirt. She wears it with dark skinny jeans that contrast it, big beads that complement it, and a perfect jacket that narrows her torso. The slight color and texture variation just works.
My favorite outfit from her is when she combines the amazing black dress, the perfect belt, the cinching jacket, and a keffiyeh. The result, a pleasing hourglass shape that narrows her shoulders. And the scarf is a perfect accessory.
Of course I have to add this one.
There is a woman who is not particularly attractive, nor does she have a shape that's easy to work with, she comes out with potato sack looking outfits, then I saw this one and it just surprised me. I thought it was slightly edgier, brighter and more H&M inspired when I first saw it, but it makes a wonderful shape.
It's not, I am fat, but lovely. It's I am fat and I am lovely.
"Fat is lipids out of place," Mary Douglas might have said. And this applies to women I consider fat. Basically, fat is the lipid content that changes your shape from a bottle to a football halfback or a potato. Nothing makes me happier than seeing a well dressed fat chick. One that isn't stuffed into a loose fitting sack or an empire waist pregnancy dress. And I've never seen as many well-dressed fat chicks as I have in Sarah Lawrence, fipsters. The secret to dressing well when fat is creating a waist. A lot of women, even with big shoulders, large ribs or a round, Falstaff belly look great with a cardigan, a dress fitted at the waist that flows outward. The cardigan creates the illusion of a smaller torso and the skirt makes the bottom area larger. I've been looking at the Fatshionista flickr pool and sometimes been joyous about the looks created, other times banged my head against the bed or desk (I procrastinate at night) If only she could have used more color contrast, this girl needs to be bolder! And sometimes, what is she thinking, with such a beautiful face, I wish I was there to help her. I have two favorites, a Parisian girl with a beautiful face and a perfect fipster. Observe the cardigan/dress combo:
The white cardigan goes perfectly with the zany green thrift store dress I would kill for and an interesting take on the three button belt that is so hot right now. This girl is a winner at matching bright colors. In this picture, she hits the nail right on the head on how to match clothes to blond hair. The hair is straightened, you can really see the razor layers. Later on she curls it and has black accents which I don't like as much. The girl is also a mean wearer of skirts that do nothing to hide her rectangular shape. The frilly detailing and cardigan on top and the belt achieve the effect of a waist, it's as if she's wearing one of those fitted high waisted skirts I'm so obsessed with.
More marvelous work on part of my favorite fatshionista.
The Parisian girl's style is more understated and, well, Parisian. She can wear an all black ensemble with the perfect belt. The texture and shine of the leather belt and bag is what makes the outfit work and not look monochrome.
As you can see, I love a cocktail length dress with a cinched waist. Here we can see how a jacket or cardigan narrows the frame. This girl's boobs point somewhat outward and her sleeves are also rather large, so she seems a bit top heavy in the shoulder area. Nonetheless, she rocks this. This girl also rocks something I normally would not suggest, a big loose shirt. She wears it with dark skinny jeans that contrast it, big beads that complement it, and a perfect jacket that narrows her torso. The slight color and texture variation just works.
My favorite outfit from her is when she combines the amazing black dress, the perfect belt, the cinching jacket, and a keffiyeh. The result, a pleasing hourglass shape that narrows her shoulders. And the scarf is a perfect accessory.
Of course I have to add this one.
There is a woman who is not particularly attractive, nor does she have a shape that's easy to work with, she comes out with potato sack looking outfits, then I saw this one and it just surprised me. I thought it was slightly edgier, brighter and more H&M inspired when I first saw it, but it makes a wonderful shape.
It's not, I am fat, but lovely. It's I am fat and I am lovely.
Friday, March 21, 2008
pad thai...Christmas trees..friend squabble..
"You need to look into people, not just listen to them."
was something like the platitude on my fortune cookie when I ate pad thai yesterday in one of those Japanese-Chinese restaurants that don't know how to do either but have no entrees under $9 unless it's noodles (which I obviously ordered). They served it in a tiny wok, which was cool though the noodles had little lime flavor and tasted more like a Barilla package than rice. I liked the blue cracked porcelain saucer they brought out with my one kimchi appetizer that kind of looked like this
and one of those clumsy Christmas tree attempts, dried sprigs in a vase with Christmas lights wound in a nest around them, I find those creative alternatives to Christmas trees in Mexican resorts and when I went to Thailand (which is predominantly Theravada Buddhist), tropical countries that try to make tourists feel comfortable in their hotel lobby even when they don't have access to anything like Christmas trees. They usually put up a metal Christmas tree-shaped frame and wind it with Christmas lights and big, unusual ornaments, it kind of looks modern. I couldn't find any good examples.
I couldn't find any of those high, triangular blue ones I've seen, but you can see a good example of how they tack green foliage in the shape of a Christmas tree on buildings. I think that big ornaments, icicle-like Christmas lights, and a lack of emphasis on earthy colors like green and red is the European approach to Christmas decorating. Though there was more use of actual Christmas trees, I've seen similar decorating in Europe. Like these on Dam Plein, Amsterdam. I was in Amsterdam on New Years, the camera phone picture isn't very good.
Anyway, I ate there after a conversation with an Aquarian friend. She and I have undertones in our relationship that frustrate me. I usually tell her she looks good a lot because she typically does to me. Oftentimes I swallow things she says to me that are off mark or irritating and even at times provide white lies. She's short and plump, but has an hourglass figure and significant waist, is very pretty, and a great dresser. Right now she isn't looking as good because she is gaining weight in her waist. In conversation, I told her, "I always tell you that you look good." She said, "Thanks, I don't look good now." I was foolish enough to tell her the truth and said, "You don't look good now, but you will." She struck out at me pretty hard, hung up the phone. I apologized and decided to lie, telling her I said it out of spite because I thought she claimed I was fat (which she didn't overtly). She called me back later and said something along the lines of, "I shouldn't worry, because you belong in a mental institution anyway." Which was a low, spiteful thing to say patterning what I claimed to do. This goes back to various misunderstandings and covert competition in our friendship. She calls me crazy and thinks I have poor social skills. I also think she is out of touch with people she's talking to, what she should say, and has various illusions of being a grand society lady whereas those who talk to her have a very different opinion. While I was angry about her low blow out of left field, I thought about how I shouldn't have said that while it made sense in my mind when I did. It was unnecessary, I didn't need it as a counterpoint to show that I didn't want to lie to her. Her comment didn't allow me to insert the truth, it didn't mean she was any less sensitive. Plus she called me for kicks. And the fortune cookie was very timely, reminding me to try to see it from her perspective right after she told me I belonged in a mental institution. Which I'm still figuring out while grumbling.
was something like the platitude on my fortune cookie when I ate pad thai yesterday in one of those Japanese-Chinese restaurants that don't know how to do either but have no entrees under $9 unless it's noodles (which I obviously ordered). They served it in a tiny wok, which was cool though the noodles had little lime flavor and tasted more like a Barilla package than rice. I liked the blue cracked porcelain saucer they brought out with my one kimchi appetizer that kind of looked like this
and one of those clumsy Christmas tree attempts, dried sprigs in a vase with Christmas lights wound in a nest around them, I find those creative alternatives to Christmas trees in Mexican resorts and when I went to Thailand (which is predominantly Theravada Buddhist), tropical countries that try to make tourists feel comfortable in their hotel lobby even when they don't have access to anything like Christmas trees. They usually put up a metal Christmas tree-shaped frame and wind it with Christmas lights and big, unusual ornaments, it kind of looks modern. I couldn't find any good examples.
I couldn't find any of those high, triangular blue ones I've seen, but you can see a good example of how they tack green foliage in the shape of a Christmas tree on buildings. I think that big ornaments, icicle-like Christmas lights, and a lack of emphasis on earthy colors like green and red is the European approach to Christmas decorating. Though there was more use of actual Christmas trees, I've seen similar decorating in Europe. Like these on Dam Plein, Amsterdam. I was in Amsterdam on New Years, the camera phone picture isn't very good.
Anyway, I ate there after a conversation with an Aquarian friend. She and I have undertones in our relationship that frustrate me. I usually tell her she looks good a lot because she typically does to me. Oftentimes I swallow things she says to me that are off mark or irritating and even at times provide white lies. She's short and plump, but has an hourglass figure and significant waist, is very pretty, and a great dresser. Right now she isn't looking as good because she is gaining weight in her waist. In conversation, I told her, "I always tell you that you look good." She said, "Thanks, I don't look good now." I was foolish enough to tell her the truth and said, "You don't look good now, but you will." She struck out at me pretty hard, hung up the phone. I apologized and decided to lie, telling her I said it out of spite because I thought she claimed I was fat (which she didn't overtly). She called me back later and said something along the lines of, "I shouldn't worry, because you belong in a mental institution anyway." Which was a low, spiteful thing to say patterning what I claimed to do. This goes back to various misunderstandings and covert competition in our friendship. She calls me crazy and thinks I have poor social skills. I also think she is out of touch with people she's talking to, what she should say, and has various illusions of being a grand society lady whereas those who talk to her have a very different opinion. While I was angry about her low blow out of left field, I thought about how I shouldn't have said that while it made sense in my mind when I did. It was unnecessary, I didn't need it as a counterpoint to show that I didn't want to lie to her. Her comment didn't allow me to insert the truth, it didn't mean she was any less sensitive. Plus she called me for kicks. And the fortune cookie was very timely, reminding me to try to see it from her perspective right after she told me I belonged in a mental institution. Which I'm still figuring out while grumbling.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
my friend
A passage from Anna Karenina. You ever have a long/intimate conversation with an acquaintance? Or maybe even a friend? It happens a lot in Sarah Lawrence. On the first days, freshmen would be camped out on the new dorms stairs or in the triangle at 4:00 am talking to each other. I met a lot of people that way, stopping them to have a conversation. As I got to know more about their family and past when the conversation exceeded 3 hours, I would often feel sorry for them. They are limited. I would feel like their lifestyle is somehow inferior to mine, or that they are less fancy free especially if their family somehow limits their options. Can't hang out in the city/pay for college because you live with your grandma? I'm sorry. In these conversations, you dig away at and replace the first impression, creating the illusion that you know somebody rather well. Oh, you have a fucked up family? Well, that completely changes my opinion of you. Part of me gets bored or imagines that I've reached the end of their personality, which I have to fight since it's obviously not true. The same way I get bored of being a woman if I think about women long enough, I get bored with femininity or attempts at masculinity. Having a friend gives me the opportunity to repeatedly peel away at what I think I know of her. While I partially get bored of something/someone when I imagine that I've thought my way to the end of them, I think that I don't know anybody. Especially not this friend. I merely have a stereotype of her personality and am always ready for her to surprise me. I don't even know my mom, least of all. Describing her to other people, I feel like I'm stereotyping her.
Right now I have a friend who annoys me and vice versa. It seems like when we get together, we irritate each other for no reason. She's into race issues, feminism, gay activism. So I get the sense she's annoyed because she thinks I have conservative attitudes, am a misogynist racist pessimist. Which isn't necessarily true. It doesn't hurt that she gets offended really easily. I am a feminist in my own way, ridiculously pissed off by American body issues and astonished by ridiculous attitudes that remain. I think her brand of feminism is pedestrian, while claiming to build up/have a positive attitude about women (which I do as well, by the way), she likes to take men down a peg, humiliate them. It's obvious and it annoys me. Race issues with her are essentially truckling with terms, I feel like I have to wear a padlock on my mouth. And being able to relax with a friend is really important to me. I'm not sanctioning slips or bawdy jokes that might come out of my mouth, they might be casual, but they call up huge complex race issues. Nonetheless, perhaps I can joke about "breeders" or bitch about men because they are the "oppressors" apparently. She thinks I make a lot of negative comments about myself, about other people. I happen to think that it isn't too healthy to repress negative comments or self talk, you're just shutting yourself up. Being catty with a friend is supposed to be fun, especially when I don't mean any harm by it. Being so offended by general identity issues, she's managed to offend me incredibly. I'm sensitive like a middle schooler when it comes to secrets about boys. I get really weird and creepy talking about it, not even corny pseudonyms, but I rely on hand gestures or terms like "my friend." Even though it's fun to talk about who you have a crush on, it's damn ridiculous and I get mortified. I asked her not to say someone's name out loud, made her promise something and she said, "Why should I follow your rules? You think I should be obedient like a dog?" She doesn't like the word "don't." I thought that was the most ridiculous shit I ever heard. I'm not the man, you don't gain anything by sticking it to me. The issue is, if she does this, she will hurt and betray me a lot. My little rituals might be ridiculous and I'm not offended on behalf of all the world's Russian Jews, but it would really hurt me if she rebelled against me in honor of the Age of Aquarius. There's a sense that she wants to prove me wrong or stick it to me like she does to men for the sake of some ideals, particularly in insisting that I'm all gay. Haha, you really don't want to be, but you're all gay you big dyke. Most of these perceived offenses are personal, plus my value system is different from hers. For instance, I was complaining that nobody danced with me even when I got dressed up and she suggested online dating. Which drove me up the wall. She doesn't think there's anything weird or offensive about it, but it seems to me most of the female population would find the suggestion an insult. Like, you, a college girl among boys your age, can't find anybody around you and have to go online. Commensurate to saying I'm ugly. Or that I should lower my standards. Ouch, I know I should frown on behalf of the dozen Russian Jewish girls shuddering with me.
What pisses me off the most is an idea expressed in the Anna Karenina quote above. Each one of us thinks that some part of the other's lifestyle is pitiable or a joke. She learned that my parents call me every day and decided that I'm dependent on them. That they smother me. Her parents happen to be screwed up in ways I won't elaborate, distant and selfish. Selfishness in parents drives me out of my head. She'll tell me something abysmal about her parents and then pity me when my mom calls. Most American people assume my parents are smothering or making me dependent when they learn how much my mother calls. They think I'm limited or unfree. It's a complicated situation, I want to say, it's not necessarily the case. I bet she wants to tell me the same. To some extent, it's a failure of the imagination on both our parts. A failure on mine to think I'm freer than other people. Tolstoy was so right about what happens when you encounter difference in friends.
It's weird how I can be so ridiculously mad at a friend who hasn't even done anything to me, probably. Someone who told me, "I like you," who I'm supposed to like. When she said, "I like you," it jolted me out of how I stereotype our friendship. This rant usually happens in my head when I think about being friends with her. She told me about how I sometimes read her wrong (which she does to me a lot grr), how do I know that she thinks the same thing about it? They often say that one of the best ways of quieting someone who's talking shit about someone else is to say, "well she thinks so well of you." "Really? Well, she's not so bad." Flattery makes the crow drop the cheese. Or else reflect a little like I should be doing. About how I shouldn't have it out for my friend. But I'm still pissed.
Man, yesterday I was angry at another friend for being different from me. People might say, why are you friends with them if they make you so angry? Venus opposition Mars, apparently I love my love/hate relationships. But seriously, friendship always contains some degree of annoyance that is part of the pleasure of being friends. Getting along completely would be absolutely bland. According to Tolstoy, it has to do with the extent to which they are different from you, or rather the extent to which they're not you. And this is an important factor in friendship. I don't know if I'd want to be friends with myself, although I do have a lot to say, and I do choose people similar to me in certain ways. Willing to talk a lot, with stories or conversation topics that would interest me. Someone who talks with urgency, which I notice just now that I do a lot. Willing to be emotionally sympathetic with me, willing to talk about superficial stuff like boys. Someone who doesn't fuck with my head (Sagittarian conspiracy theorists), lie to me for the sake of their own amusement (apparently Geminis are supposed to enjoy lying or debating, I don't), or elevate some conversation topics above others (I can think of some boys who perceive themselves as being philosophers who are guilty of this). With my friend I feel a kind of stagnant annoyance, though.
Wow, I really do talk with considerable urgency. Like I'm trying to get what I think out and don't care what it will sound like or look like on paper. Especially if it's for me. And now when I'm angry and annoyed. What's important is getting the whole story. Not leaving out a part of it or the memory will be lost. That's why I don't understand people who want to withhold things because they are worried what other people think or their reputation (Capricorn). Restraint in storytelling annoys me. I want to know all of it. The tidbit you left out might be a really juicy one.
God, everything that annoys me about people that I know is coming back to me, or not everything. I'm annoyed by excessive liberalism and attempts to break boundaries, this becomes predictable, angry, pathetically serious and urgent. There is a way to be truly rebellious by taking neither an extreme conservative or liberal stance. To hover above it in some way, to be above any "gender stereotypes" in your mind. You can be both (a stereotypical family woman/a gender activist), you can be anything. Both '50's family life and pitiful dick-cutting feminism scare me in their predictability. There is a poetic, a literary stance. I can be a woman, a boy, anything. I can walk Van Gogh's streets, both the muse and the poet himself. Although I tend to get bored with the super-feminine, idiotic muse. The muse is truly the ultimate woman stereotype. The adored woman who in being an end from the man loses the opportunity of being an endless possibility one can contemplate. I love to love the poet, the person contemplating an unending reality. It's like looking down an endless street with a person blocking your view. You don't know what's ahead, so it's limitless.
I imagine American sexual relations. Americans are profoundly grossed out by various body fluids and products, yet in sex, poets tell of smearing their lover's fluids on their face. They talk about musky Latin women (I mean Fermina Daza). Rodin sculpts big flabby butts. Yet there are douche advertisements on television.
A dialogue from Amelie when she calls a porn video store unawares:
"Palace vidéo, roi du porno." (voix)
"Bonjour. J'appelle pour l'annonce." (Amélie)
"Vous êtes majeure?" (voix)
"Oui." (Amélie)
"Vous êtes épilée?" (voix)
"Euh... pardon?" (Amélie)
"Bin j'vous demande si vous êtes épilée parce que le tablier de sapeur aujourd'hui ça rebute le client." (voix) (Amélie raccroche, écoeurée.)
Vous etes epilee means "Are you shaved?" Men waffle about how much they want women to shave. I don't understand American contradictory attitudes toward sex. I feel like food, sex, and excrement don't go together unless as a taboo. I can't imagine how people go on food dates, how they eat with one another. Food seems to put people off from sex. Hunger and sexual craving are two different feelings. Sex is promoted on tv (Calvin Klein ads with Natalia Vodianova). Virgins are teased (American Pie). Yet women are called sluts when they have too much of it. Marital sex is perceived to be vanilla and pitiful, but porn is thought to be deviant and disgusting. The honor of sisters is still defended in some places. A man keeps a mistress, but tells his wife during a drunken episode that he wants to perceive her as a pure, untouchable vestal virgin and do all the dirty things to his mistress. An anorexic girl is told to eat a sandwich, a girl with an ass is told to throw up. How can Amelie be quirky, cute, and romantic in the midst of all this? Is there a dividing line between sex and romance? The sex she has is so pristine and sweet, she isn't extremely and dully feminine like a porn star. There is a quality about her that separates her from a feminine porn star or the hyper feminine ideal. I identify with her.
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