raisinets, regrets

adieu.

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in & im

disingenuous [dis-in-jen-yoo-uh s] adjective

lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere:

inadmissible [in-uh d-mis-uh-buh l] adjective

not admissible; not allowable:

immemorial [im-uh-mawr-ee-uh l] adjective

extending back beyond memory, record, or knowledge:

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Mr. Smith posted this today and I like it.

The Farmer, Speaking of Monuments

Always, on their generation's breaking wave, men think to be immortal in the world, as though to leap from water and stand in air were simple for a man. But the farmer knows no work or act of his can keep him here. He remains in what he serves by vanishing in it, becoming what he never was. He will not be immortal in words. All his sentences serve an art of the commonplace, to open the body of a women or a field to take him in. His words turn to leaves, answering the sun with mute quick reflections. Leaving their seed his hands have a million graves, from which wonders rose, bearing him no likeness. At summers height he is surrounded by green, his doing, standing for him, awake and orderly. In autumn all his monuments fall.

-- Wendell Berry

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this morning

things i have read/about on the internet

- health benefits of oatmeal; health benefits of eggs (my breakfast routine is always in flux)

- Semiotext(e), Chris Kraus, Sylvere Lotringer

- Kathy Acker, the three waves of feminism

- Why Shakespeare is still great (http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/recreation/reviews/450-years-this-month-why-shakespeare-lives-on.html)

- Cal Arts writing program (eh.)

- Luke, bks. 19-24 (fin)

movie things i have thought about

- wes anderson (bottle rocket, rushmoore, fox)

- kirsten dunst (drop dead gorgeous, dick)

- Obscure Object of Desire. What's the plot again?

- Belle du Jour. What's the plot again?

- El angel inhibidor. What's the plot again? (A rainy day for Bunuel.)

things going on around me at work

- Diana, Danielle, and I discuss - denounce - the opulence of American weddings.

- I express nostalgia for ethnic weddings I have seen portrayed in movies.

- Diana says that Turkish weddings have been Americanized now, too. She wants her wedding on a boat. I say I'll have mine - should that ever come to pass - on a beach.

- Rick comes over and gives me feedback on a recent draft. I don't think it will be too hard to incorporate the changes. I lend him Alison Bechdel's Fun Home and Philip G's children's opera, Witches of Venice, so he walks away arms full.

UPDATE:

- read about Stendahl syndrome (which is very beautiful) 

- delved a bit into Postmodern feminism

- DIana went out to lunch, said her brother-in-law is going to give her a cronut, which she is going to share with me and Danielle. A first for all of us.

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Jamais Vu

I sit in the drawing room. He plays piano. How many square feet surround me? I've been here before, have seen the bamboo-legged tables and the royal carpet and the Asian art on the walls, the gold-tinted panels, the family photographs on the tables. I've never looked at them. Everything here is artifact but I am alive and I can't process my own presence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamais_vu

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Cities that have Made It

"CITIES: The following U.S. cities may be referred to in copy without being followed by the state name: Anchorage, Atlanta, Atlantic City, Baltimore, Boise, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Dallas, Denver, Des Moines, Detroit, El Paso, Fort Worth, Hollywood, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Iowa City, Jersey City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, Miami Beach, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, New York City (use New York City in text for the first mention. City may be dropped thereafter if it is clear that the reference is to the city, not to the state), Oklahoma City, Omaha, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, St. Louis, St. Paul, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tucson, Virginia Beach (note that Kansas City should always be followed by state—either Kansas or Missouri) See The New York Times Manual of Style for list of foreign cities that may be referred to in copy without being followed by country name."

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snippets

A form which reflects her inner reality. -MAKE, a documentary

"Don't have her throw that thing out the window. That bowling ball. Huh, Vincent? Okay?" -JD Salinger, The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls

"But it takes five weekdays to make a weekend." -JD Salinger, Paula

[s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s]

Sisyphus!

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Nude descending staircase doesn't realize it is clinging to the lowest level.

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i guess 'luxuriate' is my word of the day

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Deluxe

For most humans, luxury unsettles. Even the rich are frugal, indeed, they are the most frugal, as Montaigne and the others have pointed out in their writings (research assistant, fetch me a corroborating quote!). They too set budgets and concede particular tastes, from which it makes them uncomfortable to stray very far. To sit inside a sunken-stone bathtub in some exotic location, overlooking the ocean: who but new money could enjoy it? The rented suite soon turns you out, and they rent it to another, some anonymous and equally transient being. In luxury the same 24 hours pass, as in normal quotidian life—though perhaps even more quickly. I’ll say this for luxury: it’s memorable, more so than the commonplace quotidian. But I could say the same of squalor: it is memorable, more so than quotidian pleasantries. Nota bene, these terms are relative and universally applicable: the rich, the middle class (though perhaps not the very poor, for whom even temporary mobility is impossible) all have their own “quotidian,” and one man’s squalor may be another’s quotidian, while some women’s quotidian could be luxury to yet others. To stray in either direction would be equally “memorable,” which does not in itself mean “good.” Therefore set all money-matters aside, and welcome only these two states of mind: the abruptness of new money, which alone allows you to luxuriate, and contentedness in the quotidian, which eliminates the need altogether. The latter is more easily sustained, though either state of mind shall help you inherit the earth.

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restive

this morning i am on deadline, or past deadline, or failing at life; yet not freaking out, am on my second cup of office coffee and want only to luxuriate en route to a new york beach, a train ride on a summer's day: carrying a backpack and a paperback, wearing a bright yellow t-shirt, feeling stupid so far out in brooklyn because your fellow straphangers are peevish, and seem to be looking at you, judging you; and your whole life is legible. suddenly you are not you, but a man who does not use a briefcase, nor plastic bag, nor even a backpack to carry your things. you are white-man womanish with a tote bag, drop your crazy-person clipboard in, down beside your notebook and toothbrush. guilty as charged, that is, if your fellow straphangers even bother to charge you: as with all the worst things in this life, and the best, it's in your head. besides, it's hot, and your passengers have troubles of their own: strollers full of children, babies to feed, oreos or vienna fingers with which to feed them. they are not en route: they are going home. your soul breathes when the subway doors open:

the air felt good.

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if someone said this to me

I'd be like: Whaaaa?

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today

- i read fun home

- i read the penelope chapter in ulysses

- i sauteed dandelion roots and ate them. maybe i'm just a bad chef but they were too bitter to finish

Edit: to supplement my dinner, i finished off a bag of spicy sweet chili doritos.

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"Sunday Morning" by Wallace Stevens

She makes the willow shiver in the sun  For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze  Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. 

http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/wallace-stevens/sunday-morning/

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Why, aside from "Days of Wine and Roses," I'm going sober in 2014

In Midtown the beer is cheap and terrible. No one notices. Where's our bartender?

The couples watch commercials on the sports TV. Miley in the background. The governmental gridlock. A new family arrives, who cares? Everyone and no one.

Wars wage on; the gays downtown will win by force of intellect. The ACLU has written letters; their campaigns are gonna change things.

No one is gonna save you here.

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Days of Wine and Roses

VITAE SUMMA BREVIS SPEM NOS VETAT INCOHARE LONGHAM (The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long - Horace)

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, Love and desire and hate: I think they have no portion in us after We pass the gate. They are not long, the days of wine and roses: Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream. Ernest Dowson

http://poemsandprose.blog.co.uk/2009/05/13/days-of-wine-and-roses-6106803/

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"inspirational" quotes by Maria Sharapova

"It's easy to impress me. I don't need a fancy party to be happy. Just good friends, good food, and good laughs. I'm happy. I'm satisfied. I'm content."

Happy, satisfied, and content: doth the lady protest a tad too much?

"If you're able to help some people and make them smile and make them realize that life is good, then that's worth so much more than buying a pair of shoes."

It's ok, Maria. Go buy that pair of shoes.

"I hit a ball for a living, but I have that passion to keep learning."

Love the function of the "but" in that sentence. What are you saying about pro tennis players?

"I still love things that you don't even need to pay for. Going to the beach and being around five of your friends and having a good time means so much more than going out and spending hundreds of dollars."

But Maria, what would be more fun than spending hundreds of dollars?

"I've been very competitive by nature from a young age, whether it was eating a bowl of pasta faster than somebody else, or always wanting to be the first one in line."

Let's skip the beach and race through bowls of pasta instead.

"I love to eat, and if I could, I'd eat every second of my life."

Ok that's a bit extreme. Actually nah, totally agreed.

"Without my dad, I wouldn't be here."

Hm. Good. Fucking. Point.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/maria_sharapova.html

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driving home from college

Freshman year: the room, in Rubin, was empty; I was the last to leave it. I had packed my things into stolen USPS letter bins, the off-white plastic kind. But also in addition to my own things I salvaged some things for Joe: a white coffee maker. A red-fringed cloth with an elephant, from Kenya. All week I had been listening to Animal Collective - Tam lent me good headphones - now I was going home to? Read Proust in the backyard.

Sophomore year: I must have rushed out; I hardly remember saying goodbye. I remember in that room, in Carlyle, I had a mannequin; a TV; a cello. I don't remember what I was reading.

Junior year: When school ended I lingered in the apartment. Read Raymond Carver stories and Ordinary People, a novel it had bothered me I'd never read ever since I'd heard about in a sophomore-year high-school essay-writing exercise. I should've read it in high school. The day I finished it Sooz had stayed over in Amanda's empty room, sleeping on the mattress pads, sans sheets; perusing her leftover feminism books. Eventually we packed all that, that entire life, into our cars--our old Expedition, Amanda's van. Athony helped: disassembled the white bookshelf into pieces of wood we left behind on Norfolk Street.

Senior year: Read David Foster Wallace, drank coffee, stayed up late in the single room (the Singularity) in Stuy Town. The truth is that I never "drove home from college" that year, wait that's not true: after yankee stadium, saw Mario and Amanda and Lisa (who met my mom for the first time) and no one else, and that felt appropriate; slipped into the Expedition, only after my mother classily peed on the floor of the parking garage, which was after Lisa met her; then drove, through traffic, to Morristown, for steak. Later I ate leftover steak on my old futon bed and thought, what am I going to do next? But I didn't think, "life." I thought, "this summer." I believe 'tis documented with a picture on this very tumblr.