everythinggoodisgone.com

19.12.02

The Intellectual Origins of America-Bashing.
& the not-so-intellectual-origins of america-bashing.

and people wonder, do they? my god.



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ok so i've been negligent, so much so that a friend through which i got a lot of pageviews has taken me off his blog page. i guess that means i'm on the outs?

i still feel as though the personal & political & professional have merged & melted so much as to make my life a little un-writeable right now, at least in this context. not to mention that in general, there really isn't that much going on. i'm broke, tired, exhausted from spending large quantities of my limited energy stores on projects like appearing happy & relatively balanced to my peers, co-workers, family & friends.

yeah, i guess i'm depressed.

this is an interesting city & time to be depressed - it's the holidays, beautiful, amazing, it's been clear & cold & crisp for the last few days...& there are so many around me who are less fortunate than i. i mean, i may not have a job, but at least i have food & a place to sleep. i may not have a boyfriend or a lover, but at least i don't find myself in some sort of incredibly emotionally or physically abusive relationship. i feel as though i am actually beginning to have a relatively healthy exchange w/ my family, something that i believed for years would be pretty impossible, if only because of my own fucked-up perspective from inside my own ass.

*sigh*

i find that one of my deepest darkest fears is that of rejection / failure. though hardly unique, i am certain that we all have our own brands of paranoia & avoidance which manifest themselves when facing this particular circumstance...for me, i would rather _not_ confront something. that is - let it ride for as long as possible, so that the final experience of "so, hey, what's going on here" can usually be avoided in the face of more direct methods - like someone else telling me instead of me having to ask.

it also means that you don't have to worry about getting your courage up to confront/ask/do and being rejected, b/c the subsequent rejection/acceptance is pretty much expected at that point.

so, i hate it when i put myself out there & even though i'm expecting it, i get shat on anyway - b/c of course even if you know better, you nurture the possibility of being wrong & getting what you want against all odds.

VOMIR.



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google search of the day:
www.google.com/search?q=escapism dressing up&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=20&sa=N

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i've been taking a bit of a break from writing on here recently.

it has a lot to do with the inherent confusion of public/private space that happens with something like this...that is - i write here. someone reads it, maybe. what happens if that someone is in fact mentioned [no matter how vaguely] in one of my posts, & i say something not so nice, flattering, or even just mildly critical? or even something which i think is a compliment but isn't? or they're a co-worker & just shouldn't know that about my life. or a former lover who shouldn't know about the other things. or a relative, say a cousin or aunt or something.

then again, it is so cathartic & most of the time no one reads it. so it's like a diary, with a public audience who doesn't know me. so in reality i should feel comfortable spilling my guts about all my insecurities, awkwardnesses & weird interactions, b/c the actual probability of someone i know reading this shit is fairly low.

but what if?

i suppose i could just not tell the people who shouldn't know about this about it. but if i do that, then they won't know at all. & every once in a while i write something vaguely interesting, right?

so instead of focusing on my nebulous & confused personal rants & raves, i've instead been forced by this "outlet" to write somewhat less personal, yet personal, pieces.

i can say things about my "friends" & what we do, but i don't want to mention names or locations out of paranoia. i can say things about who i work with & how i function in that environment, but not really rail or critique any of it [or me] for fear of a co-worker [or future employer] reading it.

i can say things about how i feel. but god forbid i use this as some sort of freudian "writing cure." that'd be dreadful. & probably not all that much fun to read.

& so i find myself thinking of other more vague [& somehow more specific] ways to express how & why i'm feeling the way i am. & in a way it means i'm expressing anger & frustration about & at things that either aren't really the cause or the effect of that anger/frustration/sadness/lonliness/&C.

hmmmm. it's a forced barrier between myself & the kind of expression i originally thought it would be. how fascinating...at least for me. which is of course the other issue of this kind of thing. do you pay attention to the mythical "reader," to their desires as an audience, or just ignore the whole concept?

which of course is the issue. is this for me, or you?

& it can hypothetically be for both of us. but only in a weird voyeuristic way, which isn't really voyeuristic at all because i know you're out there, or at least are supposed to be, & you know that i know. so that eliminates any bad faith weirdness which could result from this hypothetical private/public relationship whereby i write things, you read them, & that's pretty much it.

but it still makes me feel a little funny inside to really talk about myself here. & i think it's better that way...for now.





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what an interesting week.

been reading lots of david foster wallace. i envy his fluency & general ability to oscillate wildly between theoretical pseudo-speak & vernacular...it's the hardest part about writing informed, somewhat intelligent-sounding pieces on media & culture: the balance between (1)the vocabulary you've been given by years of esoteric study, which suits this sort of specific & slightly ridiculous analysis perfectly and (2) the vocabulary you know other people outside a very small circle of academia use & understand. this is not intended as any sort of elitist or condescending comment - it's simply reality - like writing articles about astrophysics for the new york times...an author has an expertise, otherwise they [hopefully] wouldn't be writing that kind of article - & with expertise comes a somewhat exclusive vocabulary with which you become familiar through study & basic repetition [banging the books against your head can sometimes help too].

anyway. he has this totally great way of oscillating back & forth between these two planes in an entirely effortless sentence structure that i, well, envy.

have otherwise been riding the subways a lot,, trying to think & breathe before i speak [that's totally hard] & focus on the good with the bad, so i'm not entirely miserable [which is surprisingly easy].

learning more every day about myself, about other people, about this bizarre city...

had a job interview today. it went well. isn't that nice for me?! heh.

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google search of the day:
www.google.com/search?q=definition of televisuality&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N


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in regards to my post on "independent" film - an article from this weeks' LA Weekly.

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my closest friend is 3,000 miles away & living with my parents. that's so weird. i've been going through a totally blarghy weird period, & he's been really really helpful - telling me all the things i don't want [but need] to hear... & i keep calling home [b/c his cell phone was on the fritz] & talking to him & hearing my parents in the background, which is just disjointed & odd.

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have been very busy at work recently & suddenly things are sorta calm... we're releasing a movie this week, Interview with the Assassin. It's a good weird documentary-style feature about a possible second gunman. There have been lots of good reviews in the New York Press, as well as The Onion & some other "alternative" press sources.

It's weird when you start to see a new side to an industry that is not only itself media, but constantly portrayed on & through other forms of media. working for a film distributor [perhaps the least glamourous / most un-glamorous section of the film industry], i have learned a lot about the cogs / wheels that keep movies moving onwards & outwards into theaters across the country, the world - & i like these background people, the ones who rarely get the kudos or the respect for the work they do, the world they create... without them, there would be no movies to see. goodness. what an interesting concept.

we had a premiere on tuesday for the film - it was the most un-glamorous premiere _ever_, no big celebs or stars, just a screening & a wicked good party. but we all had fun. & now with the film coming out on friday, everyone has sorta done what they can to see it do as well as possible at the box office, at least for now. so all we can really do is wait & see what happens on monday when i call & get box office grosses.

there are so many little parts to this monster called the film business. so many little [& not so little] people keeping the whole thing afloat - as i suppose there are in _every_ industry. but for film, which has become the focus of not only films themselves but of television shows like Entertainment Tonight, sitcoms, or whatever, the "little people" don't get talked about very much... yet there really are some big little figures. & it's not just bloody harvey weinstein & the miramax posse... there are whole slews of "independent" distributors who are doing their damnest to keep a sort of anti-hollywood establishment, well, established. recently people have been writing lots of articles about how independent film is dead...

i disagree. wholeheartedly. it's different. things go through cycles of development, growth, & change. especially when they're "independent" - to maintain that fierce spirit, something has to break every once in a while...

anyway. not thinking all that clearly because there are so many other things on my mind, like being broke, tired, sick, & having to all of a sudden remember that the holidays are coming up & i better get my plane tickets if i plan on getting home.


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Almost 60% of women would prefer to own a HDTV set than a 1-karat diamond ring, says a survey by the Consumer Electronics Association.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56245,00.html


why? to watch football? which women? the ones who watch soaps & other daytime television? because as much as the additional texture / detail does wonderful things for certain shows or broadcasts, it has a dreadful side-effect which it makes makeup artists seem like heavy-handed house painters - the pancake _shows_ in the most unpleasant way...i can't imagine that the bold & the beautiful would actually look all that good in HD..........

then again - perhaps the added [un]reality of the makeup & other details which look even _more_ false in HD is some sort of effective reality filter for people - the obviousness of its "televisuality" emphasizes the fact that televisual reality is nothing even close to the "real" thing. i would think that would piss people off, making tv obviously non-real. then again...who knows? maybe in a post-post modern world where viewers always already know that [a large quantity of] television is "fake," the crispness & emphasis on the false presented by the possibility of HDTV is reassuring in its assertion of the assumed.

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i am a function not only of my addictions, but my routines. without a fairly strict pattern to my days, i am scattered, frustrated, & confused regarding just about everything. the patterns of my weeks, my days, even my hours is critical to my mental health. without a "regular" coffee house, a "regular" breakfast joint / muffin shop / bagel store, my mornings are disjointed and focused primarily on trying to find that "regular" place as soon as possible.

my paths through cities vary only in which side of the street i choose to walk down - & that is always the most efficient for the moment.

having this structure allows me to avoid having to think about the "details" of transportation, food, social interaction, &c. it allows me to focus instead on _other things_. what those are changes pretty regularly, but involves a lot of reading & rambling thoughts inside my head. & it allows me the luxury of avoiding the everyday while at the same time making it ubiquitous, present in every action & reaction, an obsessively constructed domino thingy, pushed down in the same place every morning & painstakingly reconstructed every evening.

the big problem is that i have an absolutely a-okay lovely time if i don't think about all the overhanging bullshit in my life right now. as soon as i allow myself [or force myself, for that matter] to ponder my function - what i am doing, & why - i enter dangerous territory.

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testing.

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well, being that the GOP now has control of the house, senate, & presidency, the stock market keeps heading towards some hypothetical bottom which we just haven't reached yet, americans are being lambasted for their poor international policy, the environment is pretty well fucked, & the world in general is a bit bizarro, why should it come as any sort of shock that there are two documented cases of bubonic plague in new mexico?


i remember growing up in colorado the risk of the hanta virus - a similar disease carried by rodents - was cause to wear dust masks & use bleach when cleaning up mouse poop...but the bubonic plague? according to the above article, there are roughly 10 cases diagnosed each year, most in new mexico & the four-corners area [new mexico, colorado, arizona, utah]. would make sense then that it is often mistaken for the more common "four-corners disease" or hanta.


anyway. good thing we've got plenty of celebrities getting offed or caught shoplifting, so we can focus on the more important things in life - if we as american citizens stopped & thought about what else was going on, we might actually find cause for disturbance, depression, or even action.

speaking of action...i do find the present lack of vibrant &/or effective political protest to be slightly unnerving. i wonder if people are in fact concerned about being arrested or otherwise singled-out in this slightly hysterical moment in history? or if we're just lazy...




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prema is: [according to googlism [thanks david]
prema is comfortable with desai
prema is a gift for industry
prema is very much comfortable working with desai
prema is not a transient state of mind or a temporary phenomenon
prema is his supreme divine commandant and prema is our supreme divine and proud heritage
prema is the very goal of human birth
prema is discernible as the sarvaantharyaami; therefore
prema is equal
prema is also pushing what some would call an aging process in a trailing
prema is to remind me not to get angry
prema is hero material these days
prema is more than just a name; it's a standard of quality
prema is a registered trademark of creative computer innovations
prema is a sister organisation to the arts centre
prema is the goal
prema is the effulgence of shanthi
prema is a more appropriate word than love
prema is an integrated concept for the promotion of environmental management designed for micro
prema is in a new avatar
prema is the heart and soul of sakhi
prema is exemplified in the mother’s love for her child
prema is one of the most innovative enterprises developing new technology and new fabrication concepts
prema is located in the industrial area of mainz
prema is what the individual and the nation must cultivate now for progress
prema is working with the bhabha atomic research centre's food technology division to give longer shelf
prema is currently taking the stage at traveller’s on fri and sat as well as doubling as traveller’s consultant director of environment and entertainment
prema is a full
prema is intense
prema is of the nature of nectar
prema is always complimented as a talented film star
prema is acting opposite sa
prema is the chief characteristic of the soul
prema is his only artha
prema is one of the laboratories in the school of mechanical & aerospace engineering
prema is a universal spiritual virtue that must be present on any spiritual path
prema is the very essence of our beloved
prema is het wezen zelf van onze geliefde gurudeva swami premananda
prema is a world renown classical indian temple dancer and teacher of tibetan buddhist practices who was inspired and given permission by lama tensen to dance
prema is very interesting and a bit weird
prema is now headquarterered in benin
prema is the back layer
prema is an interior designer and social worker
prema is working on a project entitled
prema is a two
prema is owner of trademark rights to the character pokey
prema is a cool girl who lives in topanga canyon
prema is a remake of kannada movie 'chandra mukhi
prema is a program developed about 15 years ago by iccrom
prema is the only means
prema is not something to brandish about and show off as the sahajiyas pretend to do
prema is very rare on this planet
prema is pure
prema is a small
prema is the primary attribute of a genuine vaisnava guru
prema is a frequent contributor of literary essays
prema is an international teacher and performer of sacred dance
prema is formidable
prema is a magazine published quarterly in england and distributed to gaudiya vaisnava devotees and aspirants to this path worldwide
prema is ultimately srimati radharani's maha
prema is a high fiber quality acala cultivar grown in california
prema is regarded as the fruition or culmination
prema is impressive
prema is a new methodological approach developed
prema is greater that his
prema is well suited for cleaning and grading seed and granulates
prema is he maha vadanyaya
prema is the ultimate goal of life
prema is a runtime system designed to minimize maintenance costs for very large
prema is love and premaswarupa is the embodiment of love
prema is unselfish love
prema is most unfortunate
prema is not at all common
prema is my swaroopa
prema is a unique
prema is the step to the spiritual goal
prema is the first two
prema is completely different from mundane desire
prema is that it will excite us more and more for service
prema is after a site called "pokey
prema is the dean of the school of education
prema is again offering a rebate program for box butte county irrigation consumers to help hold down costs of operating irrigation wells
prema is awakened
prema is his religion
prema is studying agricultural science
prema is the pure
prema is a senegal
prema is a swedish company within the hvac industry


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ps:

sorry to keep you, my hypothetical readers, waiting for new & exciting updates from the wonderful world inside my head. been thinking a lot recently, which sometimes paralyses me and keeps me from producing anything. i used to call this "post-structural paralysis" when i diagnosed it in my friends at college - now i think it's just a sort of unhappy blend of indecisiveness, confusion, & lack of direction based on an astounding lack of self-knowledge & self-confidence... i think the definition still fits - i'm just less prone these days to using big words to describe simple experiences.

halloween was actually quite fun. i think it boils down to the idea that no matter what you're dressed as, you get the opportunity to go out on the streets & act like a fool - &/or watch everyone else go out on the streets & act like a fool - which is awfully fun, and only happens twice a year - halloween & new years' eve.

otherwise i've just been thinking. dangerous. trouble. i think i need to spend less time doing that, & more time seeing movies, reading books, & otherwise engaging in some effective thought-avoidance.



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got my first official "correction" this morning, regarding my post of 30 october discussing the freedom of press listing from Reporters w/o borders:

"It's actually not true that theirs is the first index of press freedom...Freedom House has been publishing a far more comprehensive press freedom survey for years.  While RSF (Reportiers Sans Frontieres) only ranks countries numerically, we have a ranking scale that allows us to compare countries more accurately, as well as exposition on why countries received the ratings they did and what specifically has been going on there.  It's available online..."


danke amy.


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halloween when you're young is all about getting dressed up and getting buzzed on sugar. at some magical point it becomes about getting dressed up in some sexy outfit & going out & getting buzzed on alchohol instead, which is the same as sugar, only fermented, right? anyhoo. somewhere along there i lost interest in dressing up. i mean, not dressing up as in dressing well, and not dressing up as in dressing like any number of stylistic choices one makes on a given day. i mean specifically a "costume," although that word is tricky too because that's what they used to call outfits.

getting "dressed up" every day as a fully-functional, somewhat average member of society is exhausting enough, much less dressing up as something else entirely.


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Jason Mizel, aka jam master jay, the dj for everyone's favorite addidas admirers, run dmc, was shot & killed by a .52 caliber bullet @ approximately 7:30pm this evening in the waiting room of a recording studio in Jamaica, Queens.

bummer.

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*sigh* sometimes the best thing for a nasty bout of too much thinking is a healthy dinner, a glass of red wine w/ a high alchohol content, & some t.v.

i wonder if it makes me a less intelligent or thoughtful person to take part in the supreme pleasure of escapism? hope not. whether television, a fine book or a good movie, it's a lovely antidote.

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two best searches of the day that resulted in someone visiting right here where your very eyes are crawling across the screen:
search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=fear of differance

search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22embraced it and made it my own%22


yeah, baby. "fear of differance?!!!!?" that's awesome. now every time someone needs to beat their head against a wall because derrida is squirming around in there like a bad worm eating at their brain & they search for kindred spirits online, perhaps they will find me. how lovely. [not that i'm afraid of derrida or anything. in fact i kinda have a crush on him & i'm pissed that i missed the opportunity to meet him @ the film forum recently when they screened a documentary about him, called simply enough, "Derrida."]


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"Reporters Without Borders is publishing for the first time a worldwide index of countries according to their respect for press freedom. It also shows that such freedom is under threat everywhere, with the 20 bottom-ranked countries drawn from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe. The situation in especially bad in Asia, which contains the five worst offenders - North Korea, China, Burma, Turkmenistan and Bhutan.



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google search of the day that gets you here:
www.google.com/search?q=specific diffuse space advertising&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=40&sa=N

specific diffuse space advertising, huh? go figure.


there's no diffuse space in my head right now - it's completely occupied by nastiness....ugh.

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***the story you are about to read is true. the names have been changed to protect the innocent. then again, you'll know who you are so what-fucking-ever.***

i have just created a new game with myself. i post things to the blog, realize they're silly, and take them down again. but in the process get to check via my counter whether or not anyone was fast enough or stumbled along @ the right time to just sorta read my embarassing missive. ah......how cathartic & totally un-implicating. :)



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i've been thinking a lot about the michael moore film, "bowling for columbine." he posits the concept of a "culture of fear" [introduced by a professor from UCLA wandering with him in south-central LA] as the basis for why americans kill each other more than any other country, despite the fact that there are others that have just as many guns... a friend of mine wrote in his blog the other day about being afraid to run over the brooklyn bridge due to paranoia regarding bombings, terrorist plots &c, and i immediately thought of the film...nice that he saw this as a function of the "culture of fear" as well [after seeing the film].



moore spends most of the film examining gun laws, racial tensions, & the presentation of "news" as cultivating this "fear..." but i've been thinking about it in a broader spectrum as well. that is... last saturday the new york times ran this article discussing how the political advertisement in South Dakota is so overbearing, in a race with few swing voters, that voters wonder incessantly _why_ the ads continue.


recently in new york, i find myself facing the same kind of problem - tom golisano, the independent candidate for governor, runs ads against his two candidates, Pataki & McCall. they in turn run ads against each other, & half the prime-time advertising spots are golisano v. pataki v. mccall v. pataki v. golisano. it's ridiculous, & the only issue that seems at this point to separate them is that of medical marijuana - and golisano is the only one to say "i'm for it."


at the same time, i'm watching buffy the vampire slayer on tv, where these political ads [which hold the most costly positions at the beginning of the commercial breaks] are back-to-back with Fisher Price spots & this one Mitsubishi ad which i think i liked for the music originally but saw a minimum of 10 times last night...


and i'm wondering to myself - what makes the south dakotans so different from any other battered television viewer? whether in a political race where moderate candidates [their "friends," regional & national parties not to be exempted] spend millions on ads saying what they did or didn't do in comparison to what their moderate competition did or didn't do, where automobiles are advertised by their fluency to move through various stages of life [all with a sexy techno underbeat] &/or save lives [new volvo commercial] while being "cool" & fun, [but still having side-impact protection airbags just in case you get drunk & stupid from watching too many coors light commercials], with news-updates regarding snipers & beatings & rapings & murders [oh my!] pushed in-between ever-shortening segments of hyper-real sit-coms & dramas, WHY WOULDN'T YOU BE AFRAID?! afraid of deamons or monsters, or their "real" incarnations, of shootings & muggings, why wouldn't my friend worry about getting blown up on the brooklyn bridge? why wouldn't i walk more quickly down a darkened street?


some people say "better safe than sorry." i agree wholeheartedly. but living your life like this is akin to what we used to say growing up about the risk of getting hurt doing some sort of stupid skiing or snowboarding or biking or sledding stunt - "yeah. and you could get hit by a meteor walking across the street." & i guess this whole little rant is more about how _angry_ i am that I AM AFRAID. that i have been subjected to this hyperactive fear, have embraced it and made it my own... but more than anything, it's about how the fear is EVERYWHERE. it's not just about watching the news, or watching television, or reading the paper, or reading a book, or seeing a movie. it's about recognizing that american culture is one of fear. and that has not just "appeared" but has been exacerbated by the events of 9/11 and what has happened since...in the same way that McCarthyism was based in fear, that the Japanese internment camps during WWII were based in fear, fuck it even killing the native americans...all fear. and the cultural imperialism that is america's global m.o. is about the fear of _difference_ [i could get all derridian and say "differance" but i'll refrain] & eliding that difference - here, there, and everywhere.


no wonder political campaigns are so boring & moderate & negative. no wonder advertising is so crisp & clean [& still focused on the fear of not fitting in, not taking the risk, having a pimple, or not having the right toy for your child to grow up smart & strong & afraid]. no fucking wonder.



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everyone in the office today is listening to bizarre female vocal-driven ambient stuff. it sets a very strange tone to the space, somewhat alien & diffuse. perhaps good for mondays. perhaps bad for mondays, when everything feels a little alien & diffuse anyway.

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there's something really lovely about the weekend. not just for being able to go out & get blotto & then sleep all day, although that is quite nice - it's the way that the "weekend" is an enforced period of rest - there is a psychological imperative to DO NOTHING, or as little as possible, with the knowledge that once Monday arrives, you'll be waking up and going to work & doing _stuff_ non-stop for another five days. the time to clean your apartment [& wash windows that are covered in probably years of grime], to sleep in, have tea & toast for breakfast in front of the PBR Bull-riding championship on CBS, to know there is nothing that i simply _must_ do today. goodness, that's a relief. it's an elimination of pressure...as long as i stay in my house, i spend no money. and there is just so much to do here, but with no necessity - i can clean, or not. i can read, or not. i can write, or not. i can drink tea and stare off into space while listening to weirdo "technoclash" music in direct response to the hispanic samba or whatever it is that has been blaring incessantly from my neighbors' stereo all weekend. i can look out my window [through the protective grate] at the spectacular light shining on the northside.


when you're doing nothing because there is nothing to do, it is boring, frustrating, & generally irritating. when instead you are doing nothing because you feel like doing nothing, it is instead some sort of *sigh* and relaxing wonderful experience. this is similar to that "alone v. lonely" feeling, or the "anxiety v. excitement" one. rather - circumstance & one's own frame of mind do in fact affect so greatly how you feel about your life &/or what's happening in it, as well as how much control you feel over those things... yes i know preaching the obvious to the converted masses. but nonetheless, we forget these little things until we're sitting at home genuinely "relaxed" on a sunday afternoon, when we have the time & the space to reflect thoughtfully on our lives in general, and the last week in particular - & then again the thoughts appear, & you say to yourself: "yes that is in fact a truism, though it may not be very profound." and isn't it nice to remember that the most truthful things are, more often than not, the least profound & hence the most - like some sort of attempt at buddhist simplicity - sitting in a forest can be frightening, but if you begin to think of what it is you are afraid, suddenly it has instead become a place of peaceful reflection.

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what a totally bizarre two days. i am finally beginning to feel as though i have a _life_ here in new york. & it's not just about going out, getting stupid w/ people - it's about feeling as though i live in this strange little town, doing my strange little thing...finding my space & place in this environment. & i feel more at home here than i have felt in a long time, anywhere - whether living in the town in which i grew up [which has categorically made me feel alienated & weird], in the city where my family lives [which has bad mojo oozing from the cracks in the sidewalk], or just being transient... it's also about feeling as though not only do i live here, but i _want_ to live here, to be here, amongst the drunks & the bums & the confused bizarro characters whom i encounter on a daily basis. it's about going to "work" every day & feeling like i'm _doing something_, despite the fact that i'm not getting paid. it's about taking a deep breath & knowing that i might actually be happier than i've been in a long time. not because everything is perfect - it's far from that - but because i know this place will challenge me in ways i never expected, make me feel comfortable in ways that i couldn't have guessed [it's done so already] - so that i will always be on my toes, but always certain that in a very specific way, i belong here. i may live to rue the day i wrote these words - but for tonight, this crisp fall evening in october 2002, i am happy i moved to new york. happy i took the risk of saying fuck all & bought a plane ticket, that i left what i thought i knew to come to what i know i love. *sigh*

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check out this strangely useless website. it's a good day for strangely useless websites, for sitting inside while the weather does its thing outside, for watching movies & curling up on the couch, for snuggles & warm cognac while wrapped in a cashmere afghan. too bad i'm not doing any of those things right now.

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blah. bored today...doing work & being busy, doing my thing, & feeling, well, bored. i have no idea what i'm going to do with myself where i will be engaged all the time... yikes. a difficult task indeed. i'm not sure if i'm being noble or stupid here... still wish there was someone who could just tell me what to do.



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my sister found this neat thing called nyc bloggers. it's a blog directory for new york organized by subway stop. cool.

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a friend of mine received the following from an anonymous email address. it really does exceed the oddness of traditional spam, & i'm not sure how i feel about it beyond that it freaked him out...perhaps because he identifies with it...


They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when you
stop going along with the crowd and start realizing
that there are a lot of things about yourself that you
didn't know and may not like. You start feeling
insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or
two, but then get scared because you barely know where
you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that,
maybe, those friends that you thought you were so
close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have
ever met and the people you have lost touch with are
some of the most important ones. What you do not
realize is that they are realizing that too and are
not really cold or catty or mean or insincere, but
that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job. It is not even close to what you
thought you would be doing or maybe you are looking
for one and realizing that you are going to have to
start at the bottom and are scared. You miss the
comforts of college, of groups, of socializing with
the same people on a constant basis. But then you
realize that maybe they weren't so great after all.

You are beginning to understand yourself and what you
want and do not want.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what
others are doing and find yourself judging a bit more
than usual because suddenly you realize that you have
certain boundaries in your life and add things to your
list of what is acceptable and what is not. You are
insecure and then secure.

You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your
life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly
change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the
past with dear life but soon realize that the past is
drifting further and further away and there is nothing
to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You feel like you are still young, but at the same
time panic at the thought of getting old, the thought
of approaching the big 30, but strangely look forward
to your contradicting thoughts. Because you know in
another 30 years, you will be able to retire.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you
loved could do such damage to you or you lay in bed
and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough to
get to know better. You love someone but maybe love
someone else too and cannot figure out why you are
doing this because you are not a bad person. One night
stands and random hook ups start to look cheap and
getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to
look pathetic.

You go through the same emotions and questions over
and over and talk with your friends about the same
topics because you cannot seem to make a decision.

You worry about loans and money and the future and
making a life for yourself and while winning the race
would be great, right now you'd just like to be a
contender! What you may not realize is that everyone
reading this relates to it.

We are in our best of times and our worst of times.



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i realized after finishing another book yesterday that i've been reading a lot of novels about new york. a lot of people i know here read a lot of novels about new york. i wonder if this is because they find their lives in new york to be less interesting than the novels about the streets they wander, the characters on every corner... or if it is because it gives them insight into these things? i think i've found it an interesting way to navigate the city. it has introduced me to this place in a very odd way, by somehow occluding the difference between fiction & reality in a way that appeals to me, as a bit of a book worm. it's kinda like how i find myself thinking in the cadence of good writing after i've put it away. also somehow similar to the disjointed clarity one feels after drinking just enough to have a light buzz after lunch... you walk the streets and notice things you otherwise wouldn't. the light seems more cinematic, somehow... perhaps it's just that i enjoy the notion that i am a character here too - that my life, my stories, my wanderings are themselves a kind of narrative...


i read a great text while a senior in college – it was benjamin’s “Arcades Project” – a compendium of thoughts, observations, and quotations about Parisian arcades at the turn of the century…[the 19th]


Benjamin talked a lot about the flanéur – a man whose only purpose was to wander the streets and create stories about the people he witnessed – these were not stories he shared, necessarily – but it was a unique perspective that was distinctly modern, discretely linked to the very time & place in which it existed. people have at times mentioned more current flanéurs, among their favorites the Beastie Boys.

i think that in a way, my desire to watch and learn from the interactions and expressions of passersby is somewhat like this flanéur. though i would hardly flatter myself with the moniker.


i thought after the first time i read the arcades project that it was like the first hypertext fiction. Benjamin’s constant self- & cross-referencing of quotations and thoughts between sections on prostitution, death, flowers, the flanéur, &c, were david foster-wallace-esque… post-modern before the modern itself had even begun to unfold. in a sense, the concept of web-surfing itself is a bit like the flanéur – you pop in & out of peoples lives [especially when it comes to blogs or more personal sites], experiencing this or that little nugget and then moving on either by a link they themselves have created, or another search result, or perhaps the fact that this thing is kind of boring so it’s time to go visit another old favorite.


i saw today a piece of hypertext fiction that i enjoyed. this is a rarity for me – a lot like watching avant guarde cinema and instead of being confused or frustrated or irritated by the experience, you actually feel as though you may have learned something or seen something valuable in one way or another… anyway. it came after surfing a bit from a link off a mailing list i’m on, though i can’t seem to re-trace my steps and find exactly what led me there.


it is this inability to go backwards which i find most intriguing today.


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i'm going to be in a hyundai commercial. this strikes me as rather odd. sorta like these kittens. have you ever been to rathergood.com? it is, well, rather good. also their friends @ b3ta, which i like. they are funny in a way that is so un-p.c. and bizarre, somehow it's only allowed in britain. yes, i'm a recovering anglophile. every once in a while it comes out in strange little bursts. especially when the weather is a bit grey, chilly, and funky out.

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did you know that pickles contain no fat and no cholesterol? my goodness. no wonder they have that "pickled things" diet, where all you can eat is pickles & pickled veggies & i guess saurkraut.




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after spending a lot of today wrestling with my inadequacies as an emotional support system and general inability to "be there" when needed because somehow my crises always concur with those i am trying to avoid on the part of others about whom i care a great deal, i needed a bit of a break. so, knowing that i had planned to go to an "uproariously funny" comedy show made me feel better... at least until i got there.

i picked up my ticket and headed downstairs to the "auditorium," only to find that the show had already started. but wait - isn't it supposed to start at 7:30 and it's only 7:16? but hey - in i go, past a darkened curtain, to find a one-woman show in progress... i didn't really think that anything weird was going on until the one-woman started to cry. and we're not talking hysterical "actress tears" here either - we're talking genuine, heart-wrenching, sobs. and even then... i kept thinking to myself... "maybe all this going on and on about yelling & so on is a build-up for the second half of the show, when we hear about how she found empowerment through lesbianism or something and became a "better person" so that now she can talk about this onstage. but no. it kept going. and getting worse - the description of this relationship with an abusive man, who somehow as a law student and later as a lawyer was just plain icky… until about 1 hour in…when i swear i was just sitting there waiting for it to end so i could ask my friend “what the fuck did you invite me to, and good thing none of my friends who i invited to a fucking comedy show came,” the lady gets to the part about how the “last straw” happens and she tries to kill herself. and of course this is accompanied by the rolling up of the long-sleeved shirt so we can all see the bandages around her wrists. at which point i get up and walk out of the fucking theater. because well…

when you’ve spent as much time as i have around fucked up and ill people, you don’t just go watching theater about abusive relationships and self-mutilation, unless of course its “Secretary” in which case it’s so damn good and it’s on a fucking screen, so you can’t literally see the woman wiping the tears off her face and turning around to collect herself and obviously doing some sort of cathartic “if i can talk about this in front of an audience perhaps i am finally coming to terms with the horrendous experience i just survived” kind of thing, it really is alright.

so i walked out of the theatre and up these stairs into the entrance of the gallery-cum-performance space [which had neat ambiance and an assortment of techno-art-shit that was actually kinda fun], and asked the man behind the counter what exactly was going on.

he proceeded to tell me that i was in the wrong theater, that the “comedy” was actually in another room, and “oh my god i can’t believe no one told you or noticed the ticket times were different” as well as my personal favorite “so wait you didn’t pay for that?” [are you fucking kidding me?!! comedy is free but that emotional horror costs you MONEY?!!!!! what do people think is fucking “art” these days anyway?!]

so he showed me where the “comedy” was and i saw the last few minutes, which made me chuckle but feel awfully weird – because when it comes down to it, if something or someone is really good at what they do, they take you with them on their emotional journey – whether or not it’s pleasant. and this woman was fucking amazing. even if it wasn’t the comedy i was expecting… which made it all the more disturbing that i was sitting there watching it feeling uncomfortable. and yes i could empathize, and “feel for her,” and deeply know what she was talking about, so that made me uncomfortable, instead of feeling empathetic or desireous of a happy ending or any of those things…

because all i really wanted, and needed, tonight, was a comedy show. and instead… i went down, out, around, laughed a little, and feel at this point that my concerns are so fucking inane if and only if because i was confronted with genuine tears, genuine laughter, and genuine confusion all within an hour tonight. and now all i want is a stiff drink and sleep, neither of which are in my near future…

*sigh*


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yikes. i was blotto yesterday. i even did that maintaining thing for HOURS and HOURS. wow. hence, feeling a little rough around the edges today... all i really wanted for breakfast was a mcdonalds sausage egg & cheese and i got there FOUR MINUTES LATE so instead i had a bagel from somewhere else, which was vaguely dissatisfying.


today i discovered that the T-mobile wireless networks in star*&$#@ all over the city require money for access. i don't know why, but for some reason i thought they'd do promotional free access for at least a while, instead of charging from the get-go... so all you can see is this terrible coffee-coloured website w/ catherine zeta-jones and ridiculous rates for wireless...it redirects you every time you try to go somewhere else. vomir. every once in a while, pure capitalism disgusts me. specifically when i'm trying to get something for free and can't. heh.

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a friend and i went out and got drunk in the middle of the afternoon [well, five p.m. but close enough] for margaritas and i got sloshy. being drunk in the "middle of the day" lends itself to certain fantasies. life is good. the internship people may actually be offering me _money_ to stay there so i don't have to subject myself to a ridiculous job with no posibility for advancement. "friend" and i went and auditioned for a commercial today.... gotta go to dinner w/ friends. yay! yes, life is good.

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sadness! despair! i got this message courtesy of media bistro's daily media news feed:

ARTS & LETTERS DAILY WEBSITE GOES UNDER
The last remnant of former Lingua Franca publisher University Business LLC has ceased publication.
http://www.aldaily.com/

which i suppose means i now have to take the link off? wow. i've spent the last five years watching everything i like dissapear off the web slowly but surely... whether suck, the standard's media grok, feed magazine, or countless other things that were kinda cool and i appreciated reading, somehow they've all bloody dissapeared. wasn't this supposed to be some free forum for discussion, speechifying, and good shit? where has all the good shit gone? and why does it keep dissapearing?!!!!! blargh.



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home alone on a saturday night... once upon a time this would have bothered me - and though i think i would rather be doing something else, i'm actually fairly hapy about having a quiet night alone. the last week has been a bit of a turn in a different direction. having been forced to actually thing about my long-term career plans, i'm not sure if it's worth the sacrifice of a more noble path simply to make money _now_ in a corporate environment in a job with absolutely no possibility for advancement and a basic day-to-day which might drive me to madness. but what noble path? i told the guy who interviewed me that i want to be a producer. hah! i don't know what exactly i want to be.


if i knew that i probably wouldn't be sitting at home drinking red wine getting steadily drunk by myself.

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a friend of mine is studying for his series 7 exam [to qualify to be a stock broker]. this involves memorizing so many rules & regulations that studying for the AP us history exam seems like chocolate cake. at the same time, you need to memorize many different vocabulary words as well as a shitload of weird metaphorical crap that makes no sense at all unless you create little stories about it. we were talking on sunday & he brought up one concept in particular that is my new favorite metaphor for my life: the zero minus tick. the zero minus tick is when a stock is going down, and then instead of moving, it stays at the same number for more than one ticker cycle. it is the only time when a broker is _not_ allowed to short sell the stock, even though you would assume that the stock will continue to go down...


my personal stock is stuck at a zero minus tick. neither going up nor down, just sideways... a holding pattern based upon my continually dwindling bank account, my frustrations at trying to find a "real job," my emotional confusion resulting from the possibility that joshua may move to new york, that i want to be supportive to my sister who is going through her own difficulties but am having a hard time pulling my head out of my own ass, &c &c &c....

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i spent more time sober this weekend than i have in a long time... at least over a "weekend." it was healthy, but not particularly interesting. i guess i'm trying to figure out exactly what it is i want out of this city. though going out and getting blotto is certainly amusing, it tends to get old after a while... and there's got to be other things to do in this place than just bar hop. then again... i did once tell myself that if i was going to be young & stupid, i might as well move to new york & do it with a whole mess of other young & stupid people.

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after spending the evening with my sister and some photographers, i feel even weirder than i did before. not because they’re bad people, or because they made me feel awkward – perhaps because i made myself feel awkward…one of them has a dog, & is adorable, of course [the dog, i mean]. a totally squeezable giant Doberman who likes to play & knows the difference b/t holding my arm & eating it… who likes to snuggle & drools a little but mostly is just asking for love & attention.


maybe i should just date a dog. in fact, there’s a shelter near me that offers the enticing possibility of signing up to walk a dog every once in a while – you simply sign a waiver, and there you are signing out “fred,” taking him for a walk along the waterfront or playing or whatever for a couple of hours – after which you take him back to the shelter & go home to think about why the fuck you don’t just bring him with you. ideal, really… take him out and if you hate him, worst thing that happens is he goes home, gets a chew toy & a nice kibble, and forgets about you. wow.


i dunno. at times i wish i was 20 lbs. lighter. then i get over it… because once upon a time i was, and i swear it didn’t make me a better or a happier person.


so then i wait for the fucking L train [there’s a wonderful Mike Doughty song called “thank you for sending me the F train” but i think it should be called “thank you for sending me the L train”], and i’m riding home like a sardine @ 11:59pm [at least the new trains make it easy to see how long it’s taking you to get under the east river] when i see a lanky kid in a sport jacket reading roland barthes. and not just any barthes, but “the world of wrestling” from Mythologies. now, i was forced to read this when i was a sophomore. it marks a significant moment in my life when i began to think about things in a very difference way. but to read it on the L – that’s taking it to a whole other level… barthes was basically waxing poetic regarding the very concept of spectacle – and i’m looking at this guy…who’s trying so hard to look like he’s not trying at all [like most of the young bougie kids who live in Brooklyn], and i’m thinking to myself:


- what is he trying to prove? the only time i read intellectual bullshit on the train i was thinking people would read over my shoulder & be impressed that i was reading fucking Chomsky.


- has he never read this before? not that it makes me special or anything but i swear, post-structuralism is hardly “new.”


- how could anyone focus enough to read anything in this weird environment, standing up, unless it was John Grisham? the barthes requires attention. otherwise it’s nothing other than an account of a wrestling match. not WWF, either. we’re talking men in weird singlets sliding around on a floor as amateurs in france… then being escorted out by their wives. [_this_ is what i remember after four years. jesus.]


- is this all my education has amounted to…being able to identify obscure literary & otherwise texts over the shoulders of scrawny boys who need haircuts? oye vey.


- perhaps this is in and of itself a form of spectacle.


so i’m getting all excited about all of the above when we get to my stop & i think, “gee i hope he gets off so i can have an interesting conversation or at least an exchange,” but then he stands there like a fucking ROCK while i push past to get off & walk home in the rain. ca va… at least i had something funny to write about. or, rather, at least it was funny to me - & who the fuck cares about all you nonexistent readers to begin with? mwahahahahahahahah.

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sitting in my sisters' fabulous studio in the west village, drinking red wine and thinking about my day. this is an important thing to do, i think - to muse regarding the passage of time, what you have [& haven't] accomplished in the last few hours... especially on a rainy day like today when leaving any space is just, well, not high on the list of priorities.

first day went well. i like that i get along easily with people as long as i don't try too hard - it becomes a study in dorkiness & it's general amiability... i spent many many years trying desperately to "fit in" and be "cool" in the classic sense, which of course people generally saw as the act it was & derided me accordingly... now that i live in a neighborhood where everyone is a study in hipness, in a city where things are decidely interesting and calculatedly "cutting-edge," i am determined to do nothing beyond embracing my own ridiculousness. rather than caring about what people think when i leave my house in the morning, i know there is no way in hell i can compete with these people so i just don't give a shit.

so - tangent over - i had a good time & went over well with all three other people in the office - yay. first impressions are critical for building long-term & lasting relationships, no matter how many second chances you get.

time to go eat sushi. god bless new york and the proximity of restaurants of 10 different ethnicities to any location...

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day 1 of bogus unpaid internship. well, not bogus. but unpaid. excitement last night has faded to anxiety which means, well, i didn't sleep so well, and then the silly backhoe was out there again clanging at rocks at 6:45am so i didn't really get to sleep late. instead i had lots of really vivid dreams involving being affectionate with various people from my past in vague yet public circumstances. i've been having a lot of intense & non-narrative dreams recently - perhaps because i'm drinking less... but it means that i don't feel exactly "rested" when i wake up in the morning, having somehow done all this brain "work" without really meaning it. even when i took a sleeping pill the other night i found myself in a very strange and circular environment of images drawn almost exclusively from the last four years of my life...


i used to joke about how i don't remember my childhood - but it's weird in the context of dreams... i would expect that the years from 3-13 might pop in every once in a while, say hello don't you remember this tragic event, and leave it at that. instead, it's exclusively from 13-23 that i have feelings, experiences, and images which play a role in my nocturnal meanderings...

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also having an interview that could perhaps lead to something or other. the necessary nebulosity of it actually appeals to me, because as little as i know what exactly i want to do, having someone tell me they can use me in one capacity or the other means that i don't have to decide. hooray.

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feeling good today. went to a screening of a friends' film at the New York Independent Film & Video Festival which would have been fun if the festival hadn't fucked it up. I wonder about this, because my old job involved avoiding these kinds of snafus, and there is someone responsible for the whole damn technical ball of wax who should be checking the tapes before the screening, rather than during it. saves them the embarrasment of having to refund money to film-goers after the box office is closed... and saves them the embarassment of having to pass the buck [no matter how ineffectively] to some poor office schmuck who just didn't get it right in front of the filmmaker, who just so happens to be in from London for his screening. *sigh* good thing there's decent bars around there so you can go get drunk to forget about how they muffed up your film. or something.

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definitely more anxious now that “boy” is gone... when we lived together & he was my best friend & lover, he took very good care of me, both practically [by reminding me to pay my phone bill which i have now been carrying around in my bag for two days because i keep forgetting to put it in a mailbox] & seductively [telling me i’m beautiful & sexy no matter what i look like at any given moment because of who i am – an essentially good person who sometimes lets her priorities, goals, & methodologies get a bit marred by frustration, confusion & an utter lack of focus .]


for this & many other reasons, it was interesting to have him here & involved a bit in my “new” life. to share my escapades, apartment, favorite bars & restaurants with one whom i find such a simple comfort. i forgot how nice it is to go to bed with someone & know their body, their idiosyncrasies. he is one of the few people with whom i have found it easy to be naked. thusly, having him here was a bit retroactive, a bit reductive, a bit frustrating at times…but never bad.


now i have to re-focus myself on the daily quest. find a job, find a purpose, find something fun to do tonight that won’t cost me a shitload of money. find friends & lovers who challenge me without driving me insane. stop dating boys who already have girlfriends. spend more time reading, less time drinking, more time writing. it’s all so [in]tangible.


without painting myself as an incredible naïf, i really did think i’d find a job fairly quickly in New York. i’ve got a suitable amount of experience, i’m intelligent & interesting, & i have an ivy league degree. instead i’ve found myself being treated like some sort of grade-A beef, shuffled from temp agency to temp agency & pumped full of false promises about my qualifications, which result in my losing almost all hope of being qualified to do anything but get shuffled around from agency to agency. i’ve begun to wonder how long one has to spend at a particular coffee shop to be considered a “regular.” i’m anticipating my favorite season with a sort of dread, knowing that by most accounts if i don’t have a job by mid-October i’ll have to wait until the post-holiday hirings, & i just don’t think my savings will hold out that long.


i don’t like being a “downer,” boring & depressed. i like having other things to talk about aside from my finances & my general state of being… & i suppose again this is a thing about Joshua that is, well, good. because he made me laugh, out loud, at myself, at the world, at the ridiculousness of it all, all the time. without that laughter, i would have self-destructed a long time ago - & with it i can keep my head on my shoulders – separate the wheat from the chaff of my own self-conscious crap & maintain the confidence necessary to say fuck the bullshit and get it all done - & thus part of the re-focus is a bit of a shift – as is to be expected, you get so comfortable with someone & then you have to let them go, learn to do the things yourself they used to do with you & for you – so as much as he needs to learn to make himself dinner, i need to learn to take care of myself – to pay my bills, get myself off, feel good about who & what i am no matter what, & for all accounts let myself laugh on a regular basis, for fucks sake.


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after spending hours trying to find/modify to create the perfect template, i am officially using one i've seen before & enjoyed reading from. does that make me boring or un-unique? god forbid.

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just beginning... life in new york means that somehow, vomiting on the subway platform is alright as long as you do it discretely... after stumbling up avenue b not even trying to walk in a straight line, i made it to the train and a lovely girl sitting next to me gave me a bottle of water. there are, in fact, good people in new york. really.

i've spent the last week going to fashion shows in which my sister is modeling. its a strange thing, really. because somehow we always knew she would be a model. It wasn’t just the “discovery” at some New York restaurant when she was 15. I think it may have been that time when someone asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up, to which she responded, “I want to divorce well.” Then again having two photographers for parents, we all reacted in our own way. I still hate having my picture taken, because I felt like without a pose, it wasn’t going to look right. Our older sister managed to find her “angle” and without fail holds her head that way absolutely every time anyone points a camera in her direction. And the little one…who is now the tallest of the bunch…was always playing. There was a communication there, between her and the lens. A rapor that I envy still, but appreciate as some sort of skill much like my ability to write a four sentence paragraph or use editing symbols.

There are few things about modeling as an industry that make “sense” in a traditional way. The continual emphasis on “image” is something of which we as a post-post modern society are painfully aware. In that lovely double-bind kind of way, we are just as wrapped up in the presentation of those images as we are indebted to, and enraptured with, them.

But in spite of my desire to deconstruct every photograph she’s in, my younger sister is beautiful and I like seeing her successful and happy…even if it’s doing something the value of which I find dubious at best. Because for her…it is “work.” And it is, truly, “good work,” and “hard work.” For which I respect her sense of self, which is the cornerstone of any accomplished person. She wants it so bad she can taste it, drives herself hard by being satisfied by nothing less than excellence. It is these things, that more than anything else makes me proud when I say, “my sister is a model.”


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