lethargarians

elliejc @ 2004-02-18T02:20:00

2004-02-18T07:08:52Z

New Site...

Hopefully continually updated. yadda yadda.

http://www.escapingwords.com

Word.

plus de snobbisme

2003-12-20T19:40:49Z

i rather like making up french words like snobbisme. it's fun to say. as is laughing nasally and then proclaiming "le franch!"
hee

anyhoo, peoples are starting to trickle in back home, not quite defeated from their finals battles but actually rather victoriant (ok i'm just gonna make up words all the time) and ready to part-ay.

so i got an email from the english department saying " *sniff* why don't you love me. you need 3 more classes" and then i hit reply and said "but i do love you. but circumstances prevent our being together. we must settle for the compromise" and then i proceeded to tear my hair and beat my heart.

yeah the troubles of a true english major at heart, hidden under the guise of a bright-eyed, incisive political science nitwit.

my parting gift today, an article from the new yorker about the connection of tolkien and his lord of the rings to howard shore's wagnerian film score and wagner's ring cycle. (and yay for renee fleming singing in elvish in the return of the king. she's my favorite sopranoooo) it's really quite interesting especially for music nerds comme moi and now i feel sorta dumb for missing how clearly the two artists' "Ring" sagas seem to have stuff in common. hey, a viggo mortenson aragorn or orlando bloom legolas at the Met??! don't i wish!! *girlish sigh*

she made the house smell like pine

2003-12-16T21:44:29Z

i got my first live christmas tree ever! yay for live trees that will... uh... eventually die..a slow. death. kept in limbo with some.. water. anyways, it's still exciting and i try not to let any joy-killers (ie my mom) ruin my dew-y eyed excitement. it smells lovely and i tried to go for a red and gold kind of theme but mostly lots of lights to cover my small ornament collection. keyur helped me get the tree. a big shout outz to himz. hahahahahahaz. except for the lack of fireplace and multiple family members, the real-christmas-tree experience made me feel so... american. if i had a digital camera, i'd take a picture to show you! maybe next year! hee. and momma party pooper has given in and now insists we buy a nice star for the top.

i've been listening to lots of regina spektor which is clearly cause for double-booking mentions of her here and in my no-such-thing-as-archives music section. first saw regina spektor (skeptor to the drunk or dyslexically type-challenged) at a strokes concert in atlanta. i wasn't smitten but really just sort of curiousity piqued. the voice i was smitten. i love her voice. raindrops on roses and warm woolen smittens. anyhoo, now two cds later, i'm wholly smitten. she makes me happy and heartwrenched in that good way and in line to buy her latest cd soviet kitsch . you can listen to clips and such here and at her site she can do jazziness and rockiness and all in between. brings you into these funny little stories or character sketches, all with a lightness, or an edge, or a helpless tear or two.

i've also been really really trying to get down to writing a review for droner.net but am having really amazing writer's block. the kindly droner crew is telling me to just go with my instincts but alls i can come up with is some crap and then: i liked the album. maybe i should work on another album instead. there's a whole line of those too.

ruby slippers

2003-12-15T05:18:09Z

edison just keeps clawing to fame like an insane beauty queen. first we're officially part of the new york/newark metro area and now this. oak tree road. you mean it's not common knowledge already? puh-lease! get with it! the nytimes on the latest "exciting new fiction!" by "South Asian diaspora". read the praise-y review of Suburban Sahibs , nonfiction about "India-in-Middlesex".

"That Oak Tree Road is the Indian commercial strip in Edison and Iselin is explained a couple of times too often."

hee. one time in my postcolonial lit class, i mentioned i was from edison and there was some joke was made about oak tree road and my very politically correct professor was all like politically correctly fully disturbed. apparently i've tried to hit the "clear writing" button and failed. maybe tomatoes will come out instead.

but hey! i'm home! my last semester at duke is over! i've survived finals! just barely. (like that foundation claims but girl, it's just too cakey with that lighting. here's a tissue.)

yeah. i barely finished my last finals on time. what with crazy hours at the cafe and then burrowing into final papers and exam mode, i didn't have time to make an official, accompanied by heart-wrenching soundtrack, tour of the campus or say bye to the three people i know. well i did get to say good bye to my dear rhythm & blue-bies. heehee bluebies. spent lots of saturday flying (i had to connect in atlanta. met roger for lunch. we had sandwiches. we discussed the fulfillingness of sandwiches. roger is currently in some tropical paradise and hopefully enjoying himself to a sinful extent b/c he deserves it after a crazy semester)

got home. i definitely fell asleep watching 'a charlie brown christmas'. mom woke me up and i stumbled up to bed for a nice sleep of almost 13 hours. *big goofy smile*.
now i'm geared up for this breakful of parties, cleaning, deciding my future, making stuff, going places, and lots of general descriptive things like that. yay home!

flakes of mashed potatoes

2003-12-10T06:22:49Z

some central park in the snow pictures from bluejake

and ella singing winter wonderland for some wintry holiday cheer.

am amidst finals grossness.

elliejc @ 2003-12-08T00:58:00

2003-12-08T05:54:38Z

interesting article on art as an effective vehicle for a movement and the necessary "implication for/look into the future" conclusion paragraph When Political Art Mattered

three for one dollah

2003-12-07T07:25:12Z

three entries in one sitting? what the hell is going on? it's as if it were snowing outside. wait. no, it's not.

it's cold enough though.
so today i worked at the cafe for a straight 10 hours. cuz you know how they say money buys you happiness. it was never uber-busy but a nice steady stream of traffic that prevented one from sitting down. my personal favorite is the 'student appreciation week' which wins you, the appreciated student, free small coffee! free small soda! and me, a lifetime of happiness of trying to figure out that lovely basic economics lesson of supply and demand. you see, supply couldn't equal demand. all the kids who think they need caffeine to study during reading period but dont normally like coffee like to come out of the cracks and get a free cup. i dont blame em cuz hey, it's free. but i couldn't keep up with the ensuring of 6 full coffee thingies of holiday blend (who knows?), cinnamon toast (isn't that a cereal?), pumpkin spice (pumpkin coffee??), cafe del something spanish sounding, sumatra decaf, and french roast. people clamored for the 'normal' coffee. i liked how we ran out of filters and then i had to hunt some down. it was fun. like a treasure hunt. except instead of gold and jewels, filters the size of lampshades.

man i'm really sounding more bitter in general than i really feel. i think i'm just tired. 10 hours does a number on your feet. i wanted to go see american analog set tonight but i hadn't previously requested a lending of car and by the end of my epic shift, i just wanted to go to my room and watch tv and eat some kind of unhealthy meal. (chili and chips) (i just typed chipi..)

oh! but craziness! i earned $5 in tips. this is absolutely unheard of. i've gone the past semester maybe earning a total of 50 cents in tips. 1 or 2 of the dollars in the tip jar was from this girl who works at starbucks. she's definitely in my 'cool' book. don't waste time wondering if you're in my 'cool' book. i mean, have you tipped me lately?

i also called my favorite people at dell tech support cuz the fan on my laptop has started to make this crazy sound that you can hear in south carolina. they basically tell me that i have to get it fixed. (uhhh yeah. thanks) the lady who answered the phone, while being very nice, had some trouble with the commands on the weird menus that they make you go to cuz, as she informed me, there aren't that many of my model computers left out there anymore that are working. thanks. that bodes well. thanks for the gift that keeps on giving. i know technology improves by leaps and bounds of amazing wonder. but my laptop is the equivalent of a disease-ridden 103 year old grumpy man. and sounds like a food processor.

endearing.

almost lame duck

2003-12-07T07:05:55Z

rhythm & blue had their 2nd to last performance of the semester yesterday. it kinda sucked unfortunately. afterwards i got to go with jeremy to pick out a real christmas tree, get some lights and stuff for it, and set it up all in half an hour before r&b reconvened for musical director election stuff and secret santa. the running around was fun and christmas trees smell so good.

the electioning went pretty smoothly. i personally loved the verbalization of discontent bubbling to the surface so i could think about the past semester with fond memories of never hearing specific personal communication of disgruntlement of matters despite my knowing full well of an overall aura of disappointment. i'm gonna run out of synonyms starting out with dis- soon. ok so that came out a bit more bitter than i intended. i just wish people had come forward with concerns beforehand. it could have been useful. i kinda dont understand this habit of talking about stuff between people but not specifically bringing it up. i'd love to mind-read too but i got a little behind on that while i was writing papers or something.

i know we could have been better. i definitely know rehearsal could have been run better. but honestly i didn't know how to do it. (Hey, potential employees! look! proof of lack of leadership skills!! what are you doing here reading this anyway? this is a 'blog'. how unprofessional.) actually i didn't have it in me i think. to really go ballistic on people and often that's what was needed. really, i got to the point where i was like, well if this is how they're gonna be, then i'm just gonna let them be.

this entry wouldn't be complete without an excuse either. i like to do that. fail to take responsibility for things. it runs in the family. (no really. it does. so does an artistic streak. more strong on my mom's side though. lots of artists in the family. isn't that interesting?) anyways, i kinda feel that on some basic level (although really this is also just i-love-misery-put-on-some-depressing-music-janet speaking) something's really not right with life, with who i am and just a general feeling of gah! i dont know, not-rightness? not necessarily wrongness. but not rightness. i love words. i love how PERFECTLY they express what i want them to feel. fuckers. anyways, i should have not let that 'i'm not in a good-place' interfere as much as i let it did, especially as a responsibility to the group. it's fine if i'm interfering with myself.

also, inertia.

this one was probably kind of hard to understand if you're non-rhythm & blue.

i got some seriously awesome oatmeal raisin and peanut butter cookies and beer (?) from my secret santa. he's a fratboy who has some mean cooking skills. yay breaking stereotypes! my secret santa recipient got a curious george mug. cuz he likes monkeys. and then i just had a lot of rum.

paper trails .. of pain

2003-12-07T06:40:59Z

look how fitting my 'mood' is.

well. sort of emerging out of finishing 37 page paper shell. i'm only saying that to impress. really i only wrote 6 more pages and did some slight editing to the previous pages and added a table of contents just cuz. i also have a feeling i did the last part all wrong. like writing about the sky when you're supposed to write about glue. and then teacher, bewildered, asks "but how can one go so wrong?" and then you respond politely, "it was instinct."

(so quantity doesn't equal quality. janet wholeheartedly agrees. but it just sucks so much more when you get a bad grade for that amount of product) so my longest papers ever have been a 20-pager for my acoustics class freshman year. i wrote about the voice and techniques and stuff. actually kinda interesting. got to use all that handy choral background. and you only thought that you learned all the latin words to catholic masses. chuh! another 20-pager for an international law class last year which i was pretty horrible at. it was about the treatment of rape in internationl law, looking at what happened in rwanda. basically the TA who graded my paper told me to go home and learn how to write or something like that. but my latest effort of 37 was on the clinton administration's response to the genocide in rwanda. depressing and shameful much?

mm did you like all that yummy nonessential information? well, not that any of my information is essential like .. oils. bah. my brain has basically flipped the switch from off to more-off. did quite awhile ago. but the poor exam and 2 papers that i have left really have no chance. they got their legs beat up before the starting gate. i was trying to think of some powerfully clever hit-em pow! analogy and all that sprang to mind was nancy kerrigan and tonya harding. although they really dont have starting gates in figure skating do they? do you see my radiant glow? it's called aura-de-failure.

nice knowin ya

2003-12-03T22:07:19Z

well that's that. just had my last class ever on duke's campus. i'm ready to say byebye, wave prettily to the unlooking people, and make my sleepy way up back to jersey and nyc.

and now the fierce battle with papers.

too bad it isn't paper mache. i hear that stuff is pretty weak.

numbers

2003-12-02T05:52:33Z

there's a note on the messageboard of the girls who live across the hall. it says: "I'm MAD at you. I'm not ever talking to you again. *sad face* p.s. i am kidding" signed blahblah. i dunno, mr. blahblah. go read some words. go look up the meaning of sarcasm or interesting messageboard etiquette. you dont give the game away by drawing little faces and saying sweetly "i am kidding" actually i dunno why it irks me so. i'm tempted to erase it.

clearly i have nothing fun to write about. that's cuz december is such a happy month! happi with an 'i' i mean! happi happi! ready for the countdown? 3 more days of class. (Yes! that's right! three. because i start earlier than any of youuuuuu. except roger. and people in the 'real world'. real world goes in quotation marks because...?) 28 more pages to write. 40 pages to revise. 1 exam. 13 more days of duke.

no transition. mark points off. thanksgiving was a pale but relaxing affair. cousins came over. we had turkey and the works. my mom goes all out american for this meal. she even makes that green bean casserole with the oniony stuff on top. i mean, can you get any more american than that? she said a 2 second grace equivalent of thanks for the grub, let's eat because the choi family and maternal cousin families are not thankful for anything or this would require something like communication or something, and my family likes to keep up the tradition of lacking in that area. break was not enough time to see everybody blahblah.

oh yeah, i was at my cousin's house on sunday and i was looking at her portfolio (she goes to parson and studies design stuff) and exclaimed, hey this looks superfun. designing brochures, posters, bags, cards, and stuff like that. and my mom goes "well it's not too late for that..." what does that even mean??? it's acceptable to her that i go to art school or something? what happened to go-to- business-or-law-school-or-i-will-cut-you-mom? i'm still a little boggled by that and will not attempt to address her comment until later in the month.

oh my god this is the most boring entry ever. *yawn*

dusk

2003-11-24T21:46:23Z

mm i think i'm meant to be european. or anywhere where you get to take many naps. especially around 4 or 5 o'clock. also christmas lights are the best ever. and candles. that twinkly relaxed atmosphere. i almost caused a small fire yesterday. whew. all the drama in my life. it really is tough to keep track!!! *giggles* twinkle twinkle.

so thanksgiving is fast approaching. much faster than expected actually. maybe cuz november's been pretty busy and crazy and gross. ahhhh thanksgiving. the great korean-american traditional dinner. meaning rice with turkey i guess. i was just thinking (gasp) the other day that my family doesn't really have any traditions. what a boring book my family would make. it would consist of mom going "study. practice piano. find a job. make money" and watching korean videos and dad somewhere in korea california or china and me being sleepy. none of this quirky, dynamic 'my big fat greek wedding' business. i wish i had siblings. give me yours. only if they're cool though.

i keep on catching the same thanksgiving show on food network. that tyler whatshisface. roger thinks he's too smarmy and hates him. i've grown to like him cuz he's always on whenever i watch. on the other hand, i hate emeril. he's too explosively irritating. roger begs to differ, if i recall correctly. where's good ol' jamie oliver when you need his britsy charm?

looking forward to break and seeing family and friends. i want to do something out-of-the-ordinary to break our dunkin donuts/driving routine like play a game of ultimate or go apple picking (too late?). actually, i take that back. sometimes i really like just sitting in the car with mes amis just driving and listening to music and making fun of wan or whatever. we're reading this book wittgenstein's nephew by thomas bernhard in my modernist lit class. i really like his supersarcastic deadpan humor. but there's this passage where he's like:

"The truth is that I am happy only when I am sitting in the car, between the place I have just left and the place I am driving to. I am happy only when I am traveling; when I arrive, no matter where, I am suddenly the unhappiest person imaginable. Basically I am one of those people who cannot bear to be anywhere and are happy only between places."

content-ness in transition. i dunno. i say 'werd' except for airplanes. i hate airplanes. mmmmmm rambling is yummy. anyways, i mean, what else is there to do? this exploration of things to do. it's overrated sometimes. we can learn how to knit. i dunno how cool everybody would be with that. maybe cook something fabulous. yes, fabulous. you heard me.

it's totally time for a nap. i'm losing track of what words are supposed to do...

commerical

2003-11-20T19:41:41Z

some dude asked me for directions to the parking garage.

i was wearing my broken social scene shirt. sometimes it makes me feel confident to face the day, as if wearing the shirt is the same as playing their music. like poprocknroll is emanating from the letters and then i get to roar and say 'take that wachaa!'. or, it marks my passive musically elitist snobbery. but i still get to say wachaa.

the guy looked hipster. he had a vaguely unplaceable european accent but said 'cheers' in response to my wonderful directions to the parking garage. he held a little steely suitcase. the suitcase held .. camera stuff? techy equipment? money & drugs? (meeting someone at a parking garage? serve it with a side of shady) he recognized the band name. "wow, that is a great album"

that's all. just the first time i've witnessed somebody on campus recognize broken social scene.. though clearly he wasn't from duke. refer to need for directions. so i guess there's no point to that at all.

take a listen to the you forgot it in people album.

acappella update. no fallon or fey.

2003-11-20T08:41:51Z

let's stay away from the topic of general failure at life aspect yeah?

just got back from a recording session for rhythm & blue for the next cd (release date 2005? whatever two years is from now. but 'academic years' always plays tricks in the chronology game) favored suggested title of next album: 'copyright infringement" ha-ha.

all in all, recording is always an experience. the sound/producer/techy guy was different from who we've had in the past and that might've been a downside. it's funny, in the position of musical director or something like that, you feel a certain responsibility for ALL the voice parts, not just your own. and it's hard cuz you really can't make everybody do all that you have in mind (well, also the fact that i'm not the best leader and translater of thoughts into words plays a big part in that) anyways, it was a bit frustrating tonight cuz i know how good rhythm & blue can sound at this point. and recording just didn't reflect it this session. we definitely got some good takes though. i think maybe i was overoptimistic.

makes me kinda wonder about the recording sessions of bands that i like. how do they work? how many takes do they do? the whole process is so not like a live show -- almost sterile in that studio setting with the mikes and the equipment -- is it really possible to translate that organic energy of a live show or even a good rehearsal where we get in the groove? (i know that's what bothers me about the walkmen album everybody who pretended to like me is gone -- their live show is soooo much better and exciting) is it possible to be truly satisfied? i mean, i guess if you don't have the money to do as many takes as you want, it's really tough. like bad chicken.

i think rhythm & blue is the only thing i'll miss when i'm not here. in nyc and in general. is that sad? probably. but i'm too slightly-tipsy to care right now. (went out after recording session. twas fun but i have to wake up in like 2 hours to do work. and you know how good i'm at at that. but i got to have fried ice cream for the first time. but it tasted like paint. bah.)

i'm really anxious about the future and self and degree self-absorption.

georgia on my non-existent mind

2003-11-10T23:18:37Z

just got back from atlanta. to explain why this weekend mini-break was good timing will take too much effort from me right now. maybe later. let's just say the past week was just mentally, emotionally whatever really bad. i'm not even sure i can explain fully why anyways. whatever. i claimed throughout the weekend that i left my brain in durham, but in truth, my brain is really, well, nowhere to be found. i'll just recap my weekend yeah?

so flew into atlanta saturday noonish. rooger the booger picked me up from the airport and we headed to tech. then we went to emory to pick up kedar of the pink and purple nails and had pizza. there was a lot of pizza during this weekend. it made the majority of the food eaten. i'm not complaining. it's just funny in that pizza kind of way.

then we walked around some place. the highlands? or little five points? i can't remember which was which. one was an area a bit upscale i suppose where we had coffee and yummy gelato. saw some cool dogs. ate them. hahaah just kidding. there were some cool shops, knick-knacks and quirky things and the like. kinda like ninth street here but just more of stuff and less sketchiness.

then we almost went to the mall. but that was averted. we went to to another area of atlanta (i really dont get atlanta as a city) which was like hippie/hipster-land or something. lots of record, used book, and thrift shops and stuff. roger and kedar had breathing problems from incense wafting. there were gypsies. we are scared of gypsies. kidddding. maybe they were cool gypsies. who knows.

stopped by whole foods. roger picked up pumpkin pie stuff. kedar picked up cheese. whole foods is so gruppy. i mean great. and yuppie. yuppie and great. i gotta stop using that 'grood' thing from teen girl squad. then we saw this not-so-great play. lysistrata by aristophanes. it's about how the women of greece end wars by refusing to have sex so that the men go sign peace treaties. that aristophanes! wink wink. yeah not the greatest production. oh well.

hmm then what. oh yeah. we played foosball. foozball. i have no idea how that's spelled. i played air hockey with roger and he hurt my precious piano fingers with viciousness. but i won. ha-ha. dont chop off my fingers. then trivial pursuit where i pursued a grilled cheese sandwich. yeah so i didn't win. i never do. i dont have much endurance.

sleep sleep sleep. wake up. went to roger's acap rehearsal which was interesting cuz i've never been to another group's rehearsal. always interesting to see how things are done. it was pretty cool to finally hear symp vibes live since roger had been sending me random recordings ever since in the group. they were pretty good and solid despite what roger always complains.

then the strokes concert. wooooo. wooooo strokes. yeah so we weren't exactly first in line. roger decided not to go cuz he had to work on his lab :( kedar brought his friend maven from alabama who is very cool and i hope i didn't freak her out or anything. i might've been tired-mode-brain-less the whole sunday. so yeah read more about the concert in the music section. lessee then we got a nighttime emory tour. it's a nice campus. lots of marble. marbles. haha imagine if your campus was made out of marbles. there was a long discussion about how the task of turning this one fountain into jello/gelatin would be done. believe me, it's very complicated.

what's a holiday without a crossword puzzle i ask you? hehe. we finished a tuesday nytimes collectively despite some random norwegian names. and then back to rog's place to sleep while he labbed on. and now i'm back here, after skipping one class and falling asleep through another one.

but all in all, it was a relaxing and fun too-short weekend and got to see m'friends. and i didn't think about problems and mental breakdowns or well, anything, pretty much the whole time so i would stamp SUCCESS on the weekend's forehead if it had one. so hopefully i'm refreshed and ready to tackle life anew with vigor and mad roars of triumph.

out of control

2003-11-05T05:51:30Z

hellooooo i'm baaaack. it's not gonna be one of those month-long hiatuses. hiatii? stupid words...

man! i LOVE this autumn weather! the crisp ... uh.. the nasty murky humid air. the eighty-plus degree sun beating down among the strange insects that have re-emerged amidst the nastiest brown of leaves. "i want REAL autumn!" said the weather pinocchio. sigh. one of my favorite seasons, never quite a successful production here in durham, nc. that apple and pumpkin pie blazing rage of sunset-colors in trees sharp kick-y hey you're alive air kinda weather sorely missing. sorely, i tell you! ow!

i've been having some trouble with reality. all problems arising from that weird state of sleep i like to live in. like today, i totally either imagined or dreamed that i wasn't meeting with somebody today cuz they supposedly sent an email saying they were tired. no such email. other piddling little things.

just generally, been having trouble convincing myself that all of Mental Me is here, present, and accounted for. in fact, i know that all of me is not around. part of me has gone somewhere. where? i'm not sure. vacation maybe? hibernation in metaphorical cave? or metaphorical tropical island partying and having a drink with an umbrella? mmm umbrellas... wait, so i'm not cool with this independent decision that part of me has made to just wander off without consulting, well, uh... myself. for these times, i need full mental capacity and brains. i dunno it's a strange feeling of perpetual zoned outness while trying to get stuff done. needless to say, nothing is working well, progress equals shambles, and i'm not even failing spectacularly at life. i'm failing rather tediously and boringly if you ask me. but me is not all here. there is no quorum.

all this talk of failure has made me hungry. that was a blatant lie. i just felt like saying it. so i want to give two people hugs. these people are strangers. thus, i will not give them hugs. but i will send them hugsworthy thoughts. if i were a carebear, i'd shoot hugs-y waves from my stomach with a beautiful rainbow. (isn't that what they did? am i making shit up again?) #1 most recent is Guy at Library. today i received this innocuous-looking email that was like, hey thanks for ignoring all previous emails about this book that you must have lost while thinking that you could read it because leisure reading at school? ok mental patient, well now you owe $125 so have a nice day. so after this day of Running Around Campus for Unworthy but Necessary Things (that's like #2 or 3 on my Bane of Existence List), i went over to the library to return this "lost book" and the guy was like -smile- "no fine" ***HUGS RAINBOW SHOOOOOOOOO ****(that's the noise. shooooo)

#2 was a bright point among few during craptacular weekend. he's some wrek dj (that's georgia tech. shout outz to my homeboy milkpan. gooo bees! hahahahaha what's your mascot again? you have something to do with bees) and i managed to be the twelfth caller and win strokes tickets!! ******* SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ******
yeah. superpsyched about weekend in atlanta. twill be fun and very needed break from temporary personal hell on earth. SHOOOOOOOOOOOOO

i love how update has devolved into imaginary sounds of hug-power that shoots from stomach. at least it's a positive note. otherwise i would've been all crabby. like lucy from peanuts. all mean and shit to charlie brown. poor charlie brown.

a new friend!

2003-10-29T05:33:12Z

yay stumbled upon a cool site. well it wasn't so much stumbling as .. i dunno. it was something more graceful, i like to think. anyhoo, i'm a somewhat regular checker of gothamist.com which is like a nyc-ish newsy interesting tidbits site and this guy 'publishes' the site. (my smrt-web-savvy mind only has ghosts of understanding what that means).

aaaaaanyhow, this guy has lots cool pictures on his personal site which is chock full of goodies...here's 2 of his nyc pics (yay brooklyn heights!).. he is also part of this week's a day in the life which is a site that posts a new photo every day. the photographers who participate come from all over the world and they each get a week to show their stuff. the site has archives and everything.

yay for new friends. friends that i uh.. dont talk to .. or ever meet.

(p.s. mr bluejake - i took your pictures only to link to you. on the insane chance that you mind sorry! hey free publicity! and yes i know you're really not my friend. really!)

party up the friday

2003-10-25T04:18:20Z

mmm, don't want to miss that friday night excitement of laundry and cosby show and comfy butterfly chairs. don't even try to compete with me to have an underwhelming weekend. that is exactly what i have planned. in fact, on calendar, october 24-26: underwhelm. i was gonna put an exclamation point but that would've been paradoxical or some word like that.

well it's also parents weekend. in the theme of underwhelming... it's really funny to see the we-are-excellent-institution higher-ups order their troops out to scrub the walls and throw something fancy and edible in the food. like shrimp perhaps. real eggs? nice try. the smart parents see through the facade. i love that word, facade. it's great.

actually went to my forensic anthro class. laughed at parents who decided they wanted to sit in. stared in unabashed amazement as girl sitting next to me text-messaged with amazing dexterity. like i struggle to put people's names (all five of them!) correctly into my phone but damn she could type out a senior thesis on her cellphone.

again, the topics for updation are lined up in my mind, just waiting for their big moment! will it be my turn next?? some ask themselves with hopeful, bright eyes peeking out at the words already on the screen. the older, wiser ones know that it'll be awhile, if at all. those read magazines.. play cards.. paint their topicky nails neon green.. thirst for a drink... ohhhhh, here comes a paragraph break -- what will it be? .....

so rhythm & blue's latest cd is finally here!! (the topics settle back grumbling. this one wasn't even actually in the line) it's called adios, kansas , a lyric from one of the rufus wainwright songs on it. it's a pretty cool cd and c'mon it has thriller on it. you can't go wrong with thriller. plus it's only ten dollars! if anyone's interested, lemme know and i'll send you one.

pigs a tend to wiggle when they walk. i'm going to sleep now to get my requisite 30 hours cuz i'm inordinately tired after re-starting my 'fall of fitness' act.

throwaway

2003-10-23T06:02:48Z

well, at least i've emerged from the heart of darkness paper-writing hermit-hole alive. a little cough-y sick but more or less alive.

see, now i think i'm updating for the sake of updating. is that a condition? how come shampoo and conditioner never run out at the same time? seriously though, there are a number of topics i've been meaning to update on, but they somehow slip away when the time comes. not that what gets put in here is "important" but sometimes i'll store little tidbits away in my faulty brain and then they lose their lustre or whatever. that way birds can't steal words from me to make their nests. i've been having some really weird dreams lately. one of them involved putting earrings in teeth. doesn't make sense does it? you sorta had to be there...

woo maybe i shouldn't have started writing this. some other time then eh? mmmmmm thyme..

that new york attitude

2003-10-22T04:55:17Z

i was gonna update but my nyquil is definitely kicking in and wooozzzzysleepy. but this picture is funny so i'll put it up. xander took it during r&b fall tour... eh, i am easily amused. later yo.

i can smell fear

2003-10-17T05:37:10Z

so clumsy me spills tea on her laptop, causing no explosion (yay?) but the absence of the letters c,d,e, and the #3, (all of which will NEVER sponsor any of my updates. although c is for cookie. gee i'm mad for italics today) like the following plea entitled "hlp":

hi any prson hav an x-trnal kyboar that thy'r not using? i spill stuff on
> my laptop & som lttrs got mss up. an i ordr nw 1 but it's gonna tak lik 2
> wks to gt to moi.
> i hop u kan translat

... to which i got one reply that said something like "that was the most pitiful email i've ever gotten" and whilst IM-ing people would ask me if i was drunk or lazy and indeed, without these letters, i felt kinda dumb. i also sort of underwent a mini-breakdown b/c it triggered a weird sort of panic attack about Life-In-General, but i don't really want to get into that right now... aaaanyhoo, thanks to wonderful andrew, i have a temporary keyboard whilst i wait for the one i ordered.

5th class officially dropped! yay free time to do ... uh.. more nothing... yeeeah.

i really should have gotten some stuff done today. i have 2 papers due on monday and tuesday. eeeee. can you hear my fear? it sounds just like that. eeeeee. eh i think i'll update something more substantial tomorrow. like about my fears for Life-In-General. those sound worse. like capitalized. EEEEEEEEEE!

TWOOOOOOO!! or tour

2003-10-15T04:22:27Z

day one: richmond, va
drive drive. they're filming some kind of movie at the university of richmond. get a little lost. find peoples. get food. warm-up. sing an okay concert. applause applause. party afterwards with host group in some hostees apartment. sleep.

here are aditi and jeremy at said apartment. all pics for today's show are from julian rnb's palmpilot techy thingy. so i played with photoshop but my monitor's all funky so what? dont fight with me. aditi was funny that night cuz she was offering me some chips and poured some alcho-malty drink all over the place and my socks, totally not realizing that by doing so, bottle was turned horizontal and not vertical.

day two: princeton, nj
shower yay! drive drive drive. drive drive drive. drive. princeton! still looks like a prettier, clean, smarter duke. no inferiority complex here! commence talk about what schools we'd been accepted to etc etc. have a super-great concert. randomly run into erica, my best friend from nursery school and kinda-friend in highschool. she is chipper. my indie-rocker friends say yay though they liked last year's less pop-tastic set better. we are still friends anyway. i went home with those rocker friends to where else but dunkin donuts and got tired like a pansy and went home to sleep

day three: columbia, ny
watched kill bill with mankad brothers, vivek - mihir's gw friend, keyur, and mr p who made brief appearance. movie very gory but in absurdist way. thumbs up for the movie long as they dont get chopped off. would actually like to see it again. must watch lost in translation or will die from deprivation of goodness, according to friends. train into nyc. subway to columbia. soundcheck because big concert. lot of other groups there from and uva, cornell, nyu. slice of pizza. concert went pretty well. other groups very entertaining and swell. applause. train back to nj. say hi to mom who says why do you just come home to hang out with indie-rocker friends so what's the point. so proceeded into already guilt-ridden house... didn't go out and went to sleep pondering existence of independence.

day four: edison, nj
plan is to stay in edison til i get the call from part of rNb who is going shopping in nyc in the morn. said ciao to farah (who by the way ROCKED her mcats !! ***** stars!) brunch with wan and kedar and mihir at edison family. i had magic pumpkin pancakes. yes. magic ! then to vintage vinyl where wan bought cd and i just looked longingly. then to target. target is so great. then home. met up with simon rnb's car at rest station but i was super late due to let's-not-ever-move traffic at turnpike exit. some spazziness in simon's car. i say something about feeding trolls ham. miss lindsey has frostie-tourrettes. yeah you dont even know what that means. oh well. that acappella lingo. this is such a bad update. apologies. here's a picture! with lindsey in middle, simon on left, and kristin on right! i dunno where they are. some toy place. go toys!

drive drive drive drive. 4ish am on tuesday back to duke-land. sleep sleep sleep. bum bum bum around. still bumming around. lalala. so that was tour. this is why i shouldn't ever recap things. i'm just not a recapper.

and here's a picture of jenna and jeremy and kristin plus prickly tree from our mall gig. photoshop fun!

doomed!!!

2003-10-08T22:04:14Z

i forgot to mention that starting next week, there will be a certain channel called food network offered on my (well my roommate's) tele of vision.

if i thought my schoolwork and productive life-in-general was doomed before, i just didn't have any sort of imagination!!

rainy days

2003-10-08T21:40:40Z

ah. is there anything better than pj pants? not much. maybe a million dollars. but i would just buy more pj pants.

i'm sitting here, having dropped (not officially) my 5th class, with a major paper and exam out of the way with just a couple more classes and meetings before fall break when rhythm&blue will be going on tour to richmond, princeton, and columbia and i will get to see my dear friends and family and new jersey.

okay. so i'm still sitting. have the american analog set and kid A going on, sort of in the cloudy dark, sipping some good french roast, hearing the rain fall outside, reading some articles online, and don't forget the pj pants. i am, for the moment if i dont worry about things like tomorrow or california, content.

now for the links. you will never escape the links...
this past sunday's nytimes magazine was all new york artsy-oriented.
of course i'm interested in the fate of lincoln center as i traipsed around its high-culture white marbles for six years of juilliard precollege saturdays... this is an essay called "Lincoln Center's Culture Gap" and talks about the role of lincoln center, its neighborhood, the kinds of programming it puts on, and its fate, as well as classical music's fate, in this modern age. I think the article makes a good point in that:

"Sure,we all want to ascend, but most of us no longer believe that classical music offers the only route. In the past generation, American pop culture, while littered with acres upon acres of junk, has also risen to impressive artistic heights, so much so that a television show like Matt Groening's ''Simpsons'' can fairly be described as more creative and formally complex than half of the paintings on view today in the galleries of Chelsea. And anyone who categorically claims that all of TV is bad, or that all of rap is bad, is less interested in understanding those forms than in the art of taking positions."

So it turns out that the merger between the NY Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall has failed so the orchestra will be staying at Lincoln Center. While some could have seen this coming due to a sort of clash of the cultural titans struggle, this also means that Lincoln Center will not have the room to put on more inventive, modern works. It's actually pretty amazing, if you think about it, that classical music as a genre, has lasted so long but with lack of innovation in presentation and exploration, it will die out in an expensive cloud of elitism and snobby intellectualism.

Also in that issue of the magazine:
the "quintessential New York avenue," the Bowery and
"On the Edge of the Neo-70's" some people take issue with the comparison but it's an interesting article nonetheless. I like --> "One of the most treasured and durable self-images of New York is of a city of artists, defined not as a profession, or even an activity, but as the disposition to put your hands on some available object -- a basketball, a turntable, a camera, a spray can -- and make something new. And it is this attitude -- sometimes destructive, often misunderstood -- that helped keep the city going in its darkest hours, that kept it beautiful through ugly times and that ultimately transformed it."

also the village voice has some funny (and yet informative!) best-of-ny 2003 going entertainingly beyond simple categories like best hot dog or best thrift store...highlights amongst the characters, leisure, food, drinks, music, shopping, etc. areas include:
best conan impersonator (clonan)
best yeah yeah yeah (nick zinner)
best museum you've never been to (ny historical society)
best espresso (burektorja dukagjini) - darn it's in the bronx! ... there's like every kind of food on the food list.
one of my faves: best way to destroy a sunday with .....feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt (trying to get through the nytimes)

ok enough linking for now. hope something there interests ya...

blink blink

2003-10-01T21:24:28Z

so the society and culture of contemporary korea seems to be changing amidst its funny mottos on stationery and busy-bee hives of cell phones and other such small and advanced technology - world's highest divorce rate! here's an article about the first well-known figure, a tv actor, in korea to come out only just three years ago. i found the end of the article just horribly tragic but tremendously laugh-out loud humorous:

"...the most trying experience was dealing with his parents' reaction.

'"We talked all night," Mr. Hong said. "My mother kept saying, `Why you? Why you?' I said, 'Mom, I'm gay. I'm your son.' Then my mother said, 'Let's take poison together.' " '

on that note, another article by one of my favorite morningnew.org writers, sarah hepola, on margaret cho.