new york city! the city that never gives back!!
some things i've been listening to lately:
-the mamas & the papas
-the new joan jett album (she is soo gay in it!)
-lionel ritchie - easy like sunday morning
-odetta - saro jane
-nina hagen - prima nina in ekstasy, gods of aquarius
-mirah live at college park - body below (VERY different than album version)
i can talk about any of these at length, but i cant figure a way to format that that i like.
ok one sentence apiece:
-mamas & the papas seriously don't get the props they deserve.
-kathleen hanna co-wrote and sings on half the songs.
-we saw him perform this at the art museum on tuesday!
-i dont really get this song and i dont get odetta and that's why i like it so much
-nina hagen is a fucking weirdo and i'm indebted to her existence
-this version could make me cry and the album version could never
oh man the cats are fucking freaking out! when jesse goes away i don't think i talk to them or cuddle with them enough, so they go a little stir crazy. i even gave them some catnip to mellow them out but they only rolled around in it for a couple of minutes before going nuts again. i am clearly not the only one who can not wait for jesse to come home...
it seems like a number of people i know are getting fed up with new york and leaving it. or thinking about leaving it. i never lived in the city proper, but leaving the area was indeed sort of liberating in a way. and mournful in other ways. i failed at many important friendships. i want to reconnect with friends, but there is some cloudy, substantial feeling of nausea that makes me want to stay away from the area. don't know what it is. has nothing to do with the people there, it's just like there is some kind of extra weight there that is not felt in other places. i don't know. it's weird. god i cant believe how lame this sounds, but i guess that extra weight is history. ugh slap me in the face for that one next time you see me. it's weird, but the first thing i think about when i think about "new york" is my sister and all that shit that happened years ago. not a good start. philadelphia feels very fresh and very removed from all of that. almost all the people i've met and hung out with since i got here are at least 5 years older than me too, and i havent figured out how that figures in with all these feelings but it does. also, jesse has had about 11 people come and visit her, and i have only had 2, one being my sister, the other being her girlfriend.
i've only been out of college for two months and already my grammar is deteriorating into something really bad. i need structure! i need loosely guided group discussion! reading books is not enough to keep me sharp!
in related news, some books i've read recently:
white noise by don delillo
a confederacy of dunces by john kennedy toole
hunger by knut hamsun
hunger was by far my favourite of those. by far. it's so fucked up. and it doesn't at all read like it was written in 1890. the narrator's inner monologues and streams of consciousness are SO familiar. i've said some of the same things to myself, practically verbatim, many times before. which is kind of scary, because the narrator is socially insane throughout much of the book. anyway. i'd suggest this read to anybody reading this now.
i am now reading a novel written by my writing professor. it is extremely hard to seperate the professor and the class from the book. i keep thinking about how this book would be discussed in our class if it were written by a student. a writing workshop, in a way, is designed to focus on the negative. so, reading this book, that's kind of what i'm doing and i hate that. his novel is really really good. and i'm not saying pulitzer material or anything, but this experience has made me realize that any group of people can pick apart any given thing and make it appear like absolute crap if that is what they are told to do. if we'd been handed "master and man" without being told it was tolstoy, i'm sure the criticism would be more intense than if we knew it was regarded as a masterpiece. i don't know i'm kind of talking in circles without a clear statement or question. it's just interesting, is all, to read a published, nice-looking hardcover novel written by a teacher who taught you everything you know about writing.
ok i'm gonna go now. i want to finish reading this book. i don't know which to start next. possibilities include but are not limited to:
rabbit, run by john updike
the meaning of everything by simon winchester
naked by david sedaris
mr. vertigo by paul auster
rubyfruit jungle by rita mae brown
any thoughts?
p.s. i dont know if anna vogelzang reads this, but i didn't call her back yesterday because one thing led to another and one minute i was listening to her message and feeding the cats and the next i was at the theater not getting tickets to pirates of the caribbean II with matt and maria and alice. we went to the silver dollar diner instead and then got Pop's water ice. and today i worked for 8 hours and almost had a panic attack on the job. and then tonight i watched A History of Violence. it was not really what i expected. i misunderstood what it was supposed to be about, and i misunderstood the title to carry a broad social subtext when it didn't. it was good, i guess, but i was pretty disappointed with it. it has more holes than swiss cheese. anyway i began this paragraph because i ultimately wanted to say that anna, if you arereading this, i am gonna call you tomorrow morning, i hope we can hang out.
p.p.s. did you know that the creator of the comic Wonder Woman was a harvard-educated psychiatrist who was one of the inventors of the lie detector test? and the reason wwII era comic books are so valuable is because during the war there were serious paper rations and the first paper products the parents reached for in the recycling frenzy were their kids' comic books, so there are very few still around? it's all true.
-the mamas & the papas
-the new joan jett album (she is soo gay in it!)
-lionel ritchie - easy like sunday morning
-odetta - saro jane
-nina hagen - prima nina in ekstasy, gods of aquarius
-mirah live at college park - body below (VERY different than album version)
i can talk about any of these at length, but i cant figure a way to format that that i like.
ok one sentence apiece:
-mamas & the papas seriously don't get the props they deserve.
-kathleen hanna co-wrote and sings on half the songs.
-we saw him perform this at the art museum on tuesday!
-i dont really get this song and i dont get odetta and that's why i like it so much
-nina hagen is a fucking weirdo and i'm indebted to her existence
-this version could make me cry and the album version could never
oh man the cats are fucking freaking out! when jesse goes away i don't think i talk to them or cuddle with them enough, so they go a little stir crazy. i even gave them some catnip to mellow them out but they only rolled around in it for a couple of minutes before going nuts again. i am clearly not the only one who can not wait for jesse to come home...
it seems like a number of people i know are getting fed up with new york and leaving it. or thinking about leaving it. i never lived in the city proper, but leaving the area was indeed sort of liberating in a way. and mournful in other ways. i failed at many important friendships. i want to reconnect with friends, but there is some cloudy, substantial feeling of nausea that makes me want to stay away from the area. don't know what it is. has nothing to do with the people there, it's just like there is some kind of extra weight there that is not felt in other places. i don't know. it's weird. god i cant believe how lame this sounds, but i guess that extra weight is history. ugh slap me in the face for that one next time you see me. it's weird, but the first thing i think about when i think about "new york" is my sister and all that shit that happened years ago. not a good start. philadelphia feels very fresh and very removed from all of that. almost all the people i've met and hung out with since i got here are at least 5 years older than me too, and i havent figured out how that figures in with all these feelings but it does. also, jesse has had about 11 people come and visit her, and i have only had 2, one being my sister, the other being her girlfriend.
i've only been out of college for two months and already my grammar is deteriorating into something really bad. i need structure! i need loosely guided group discussion! reading books is not enough to keep me sharp!
in related news, some books i've read recently:
white noise by don delillo
a confederacy of dunces by john kennedy toole
hunger by knut hamsun
hunger was by far my favourite of those. by far. it's so fucked up. and it doesn't at all read like it was written in 1890. the narrator's inner monologues and streams of consciousness are SO familiar. i've said some of the same things to myself, practically verbatim, many times before. which is kind of scary, because the narrator is socially insane throughout much of the book. anyway. i'd suggest this read to anybody reading this now.
i am now reading a novel written by my writing professor. it is extremely hard to seperate the professor and the class from the book. i keep thinking about how this book would be discussed in our class if it were written by a student. a writing workshop, in a way, is designed to focus on the negative. so, reading this book, that's kind of what i'm doing and i hate that. his novel is really really good. and i'm not saying pulitzer material or anything, but this experience has made me realize that any group of people can pick apart any given thing and make it appear like absolute crap if that is what they are told to do. if we'd been handed "master and man" without being told it was tolstoy, i'm sure the criticism would be more intense than if we knew it was regarded as a masterpiece. i don't know i'm kind of talking in circles without a clear statement or question. it's just interesting, is all, to read a published, nice-looking hardcover novel written by a teacher who taught you everything you know about writing.
ok i'm gonna go now. i want to finish reading this book. i don't know which to start next. possibilities include but are not limited to:
rabbit, run by john updike
the meaning of everything by simon winchester
naked by david sedaris
mr. vertigo by paul auster
rubyfruit jungle by rita mae brown
any thoughts?
p.s. i dont know if anna vogelzang reads this, but i didn't call her back yesterday because one thing led to another and one minute i was listening to her message and feeding the cats and the next i was at the theater not getting tickets to pirates of the caribbean II with matt and maria and alice. we went to the silver dollar diner instead and then got Pop's water ice. and today i worked for 8 hours and almost had a panic attack on the job. and then tonight i watched A History of Violence. it was not really what i expected. i misunderstood what it was supposed to be about, and i misunderstood the title to carry a broad social subtext when it didn't. it was good, i guess, but i was pretty disappointed with it. it has more holes than swiss cheese. anyway i began this paragraph because i ultimately wanted to say that anna, if you arereading this, i am gonna call you tomorrow morning, i hope we can hang out.
p.p.s. did you know that the creator of the comic Wonder Woman was a harvard-educated psychiatrist who was one of the inventors of the lie detector test? and the reason wwII era comic books are so valuable is because during the war there were serious paper rations and the first paper products the parents reached for in the recycling frenzy were their kids' comic books, so there are very few still around? it's all true.