some birds are funny when they talk
corner



Fellows:

Aijung
Alyssa
Angela
Bobby
Carla
Dave
Ester
Jesse
Jonah
Josie
Kate
Lillie
Nori
Rabi
Rebecca

Mincetapes

e-mince

Photos!

Nice

Archives:

Stuck in my Head
"Kiss Me Harder" by Bertine Zetlitz
"Hot" by Avril
"Brain Problem Situation" by They Might Be Giants


Now Reading
Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro

Recently Finished
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Mad Tony and Me by Carl Hoffman
Sweet Soul Music by Peter Guaralnick
This Must Be The Place: Adventures of Talking Heads in the 20th Century by David Bowman
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Movies Lately
Sicko
4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days
Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts
Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour
2 Days in Paris
United 93
The Savages
The Bourne Ultimatum
Sweeney Todd
The Departed
Juno
Enchanted
What Would Jesus Buy?
Ghost World
Superbad
I'm Not There
She's The Man
Superbad
Lars and the Real Girl
Romance and Cigarettes
No Country for Old Men
Into the Wild
Gattaca
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
Across the Universe

Shows Lately
Damo Suzuki/Stinking Lizaveta @ Mill Creek
Death and the Maiden @ Curio
Devon Sproule/Carsie Blanton/Devin Greenwood/John Francis @ Tin Angel
Assassins @ The Arden
Oakley Hall and the Teeth @ Johnny Brendas
Isabella and Flamingo/Winnebago and Map Me and Gatz and Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven and Sonic Dances and Strawberry Farm and The Emperor Jones and No Dice and Hearts of Man and Principles of Uncertainty and Isabella and BATCH and Addicted to Bad Ideas: Peter Lorre's 20th Century and Car and Sports Trilogy and Explanatorium and Wandering Alice and Must Don't Whip Um and Festival of Lies and A Room of Ones Own and Recitatif @ the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe
Martha Graham Cracker and Eliot Levin and Kilo etc. @ the Fringe Cabaret
Lullatone and Teletextile @ Boulder Coffee [Rochester]
TV Sound @ the M Room
Aretha Franklin @ East Dell, Fairmount Pk.
Romeo + Juliet in Clark Park
Daft Punk @ Red Rocks
Spoon @ Rockefeller Park
Ponytail at Pony Pants' House
Mirah/Benjy Ferree @ the 1UC
Tortoise @ World Cafe Live
Hall & Oates...ish
"Nuclear Dreams" - Mascher Dance Group, x2
The Four of Us @ 1812
Machines Machines Machines Machines Machines Machines Machines by Rainpan whatever
Mascher Dance Group/Nathaniel Bartlett
Cornelius @ TLA
Sloan @ World Cafe
In Fluxxxx
Slavic Soul Party!/Red Heart the Ticker @ I-House
the Fantasticks @ Mum
Peter Bjork + Jorn/Fujiya + Miyagi @ fkaTLA
John Vanderslice @ Johnny Brendas
The Books & Todd Reynolds @ 1UC
Into the Woods @ LPAC
The Fishbowl @ the Frear
Caroline, or, Change @ the Arden
Low & Loney, Dear. @ 1UC




Tuesday, October 30

Prolly anything with water is really good. Yesterday was a bit stressful, in the way that I was observing stress in others and in myself without really being too emotionally involved in it. As I told a few people, I had been worrying about things I care about all weekend, and it was time to worry about things I don't care about for a while. Lots of people worried about their grades, especially in Murder, where we got our papers back (after an uncharacteristically dull lecture about manhood). Everyone I've talked to has been unsatisfied with his response to their papers; they all say that he criticized their omission of this or that possible line of discussion, rather than the content of the paper per se, which just suggests that the fault really lies in the assignment: there's simply too much he wanted us to discuss for a 6-8 page paper (as he kept saying, "that's the challenge with this assignment." It would be one thing for him to present this challenge but to be more receptive to multiple approaches to the paper, but it seems he had something very specific in mind. I would be extremely curious to see a paper that he did approve of. It's especially frustrating since he has taught this course many times before: either he has some secret purpose such as to give us an incentive to rewrite the paper (we have to rewrite one of two for our final assignment) or else he's just stubborn and doesn't want to change the assignment despite the problems it causes. He didn't seem to take too much issue with my paper in particular ("Good Effort," he says, and slaps me a B), but the comments he put on were annoying.

Anyway. I'm more concerned about French (although I've been doing more of the work; I did the last set of Labo exercises) and Syntax (hopefully this paper will be more pleasing to the graders.) But really I'm not concerned. I'm doing all right. Something about this semester makes me feel more alive, more part of the real world. It has to do with this kind of stuff: falling behind in classes, having an affair, etc. It feels good. Elena said something about a lack of wholesomeness, but I disagree. I feel really wholesome. It was a wholesome affair.

The events of the day? Oh, blah. I did French work before French. Being in the class actually made me feel better about having done less of the work. I came home to find a collusion of do-goody girls around our kitchen table, calculators in hands. and Respect, vol. 1. Then I made a messy cheese and tomato sandwhich, which I took to class with a banana and the copy of Modern Love that I had been carrying around in my pocket. That class is really a shame; it just doesn't work as a three hour long tooth-pulling session. If it met two or three times a week, people would do more of the reading and the discussions would be so much better. As it was, it's still a great poem, especially sonnets XVII and XXXVI. After all that, I came home, called my parents, got mad at the internet, and made myself another big quesadilla. Ester was quite distraught, I think mostly spurred on by Bruce's response to her paper. African was tiresome but got more exciting towards the end. I didn't come back here until late, instead going to McCabe to catch up on French, then the SAC meeting, then Paces. Morgan asked me to play Monday nights, but how could I spend that time on stage and not in the kitchen? Elena and I conducted a wonderfully fragmented conversation, under a continuous barrage of interruptions from waiters and loafers, in the manner of a sitcom or perhaps a piece of absurd theatre. About the stuff you talk about; relationships, rationalization, movement rules. I worked on my Ling paper from then (11:45), finished it, hit print, just as McCabe was about to shut down. The print command didn't go through in time; the computer shut off with the lights. Thank goodness for Claudia Sell, who took me back inside and asked the mean man to turn the lights back on for a second. She and Perry and I stood in front of the printer as a string of at least six documents came slowly out (mostly e-reserve readings), but my paper never got its turn. Luckily I was able to e-mail most of it to myself, and use Joel's printer (mine still isn't working, despite a new ink cartridge. Now it's not responding at all.) I wrote some of this stuff and went to bed.

when you finally finish pretending
to read that chapter