|
|
|
April 16th, 2008
03:35 pm - Go West young (wo)man!
Yep, I'm outa this Bayou town. I'm moving to San Francisco next month.
I have always wanted to live in New York or San Francisco, and NYC smells bad. I'm supposed to defend my thesis at UH next year, but I'm not ready, so I'm taking a year off and moving to the big city to write and wait tables and probably volunteer teaching creative writing part time to wee kiddos. I'll be back in big H to defend and to take my 2 elective classes in fall 2009.
I'm so psyched. Some expectations, fantasies, and hopes i have for SF
- be surrounded by vegetarians, yoga, and people who love dogs
- everyone i meet will be interested in foreign art films, wear glasses, and work as a graphic designer
- get a job at a hip literary journal or counterculture magazine (reality might be teaching for kaplan -> BARF!)
- be near some of my closest friends from hs and college who will love when I write poems about their idiosyncracies
- live within 50 miles of the googleplex. my buddy works at the googleplex, so I am going to try to weasle my way in to use the gym, eat the occasional free meal and obtain a freaky techy gadgit.
- merge with the glut of alleged poets already living in SF. Go to some writing workshops, reading series, and so on and on. i will be one molecule of water in the great ocean of people with MFA's who are now waiting tables in San Francisco.
- become contaminated with california optimism
- fulfill personal manifest destiny
- prospect for gold/be immigrant labor force for transcontinental railroad
- despise chilly summer fog. enjoy mild winters and scenic views of GG bridge.
- fear earthquates
|
December 14th, 2007
10:52 pm - A Surprising Similarity Between Neko Case and Britney Speares:
Or,
How Poetry Magazine Creates A Commodity in the Gift Economy
Anyone who has waited in the check out at Piggly Wiggly is familiar with the images on the covers of People Magazine or Us Weekly featuring a shoeless Britney Speares, gassing up her behemoth Ranger Rover, throwing back an ice cold Pepsi. When Britney started hocking Pepsi to the masses by dancing in 2001’s Pepsi add campaign, it just seemed so right. Britney likes Pepsi, and so should you, Amen.
Essentially, the November 2007 issue of poetry uses Neko Case in a celebrity add campaign. When I first got my copy of the magazine, which says on the cover “featuring Neko Case,” I thought to myself, “Whoa, I didn’t know she wrote poetry too. As a big fan of her solo music and her band The New Pornographers, I am thrilled.” (Side note: another indie rocker poet, David Berman from the Silver Jews, published the excellent collection of poems Actual Air). I tore open the shrink-wrap and flipped to Neko Case’s contribution, which turns out to be, not original poetry, but a two-page essay about why she, Neko Case, likes poetry.
Hmmm.
The danger is that this essay could turn out little solipsistic, no? Here’s a detailed play by play of her essay:
1. Neko thinks poetry is intimidating because it can be hard to understand.
2. Shakespeare “haunts” her.
3. W.H. Auden is also “haunting.”
3. Lynda Barry and Sherman Alexie both write about Washington state.
4. Poetry that is scary or sad can also be redeeming.
5. Some song lyrics are kind of poetic.
Yeah. It definitely fell RIGHT INTO that ol’ solipsism pothole. I can’t say I learned anything new from reading what she wrote, other than that Neko Case likes poetry.
Then I realized, maybe that’s all I am supposed to learn. Neko Case’s essay, devoid of real substance, is really just an advertisement for poetry. The message: Neko likes poetry. The implied message: Read poems and you’ll become a soulful, Indie-rock heroine, just like her. Just as Britney, who really does enjoy Pepsi, shook her bootay for the cause, Neko Case, who really does like poems, is showing her goods to get us to buy.
And is that so wrong? Neko Case using her celebrity status to make someone pick up a copy of Poetry Magazine—what could be the harm?
In fact, Poetry Magazine is opening up one gnarly can of worms with this whole Neko Case shiznaz. Celebrity sponsorship is a packaging. It’s an advertisement. It transforms a thing into a commodity. As scholars are want to point out, poetry (along with many other forms of art) exists in a gift economy, an economy where the award for giving is intangible. A book of poetry costs money, so, more correctly, there is a hybridization of the gift and commodity economies. But poetry exists primarily in the gift economy because poets consider the most important award for their work to be the gratitude of the recipient and the bond that results between giver and receiver. Money the book earns (a few hundred dollars?) is of secondary and much lesser concern. Advertisement is a thrust away from the gift economy into the commodity economy.
Poetry Magazine wants to bring poetry to the people (or the people to poetry). They’re clear about this goal. Their mission statement on poetry.org reads: “to celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience.” I guess that the stint with Neko Case was meant to be a part of this popularization effort. But celebrity advertising is not just popularization—it’s also commoditization.
There are benefits to commoditization, like the possibility of a larger audience or of more money for poets. A danger of such a shift is that poetry falls under market influences and creativity is severely constricted.
Constricting creativity? That’s like stabbing poetry right in the heart.
- What do you think about the Neko Case essay and celebrity sponsored art?
- Up next week: “Go blurb yourself, asshole!” Alternative title: Jason Brendle blurbs himself on the back of his debut collection Pain Fantasy. Hilarity ensues (with a little help from Josh Bell).
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/pink/happy.gif) happy
|
November 17th, 2007
12:40 am - grahh!!@!JJOIP
i was just not made for the blogosphere!!!
|
November 16th, 2007
11:24 am - im boring
i know im a couple days behind the news on this but apparently hillary clintons campaign planted a question in her audience at a recent q and a. (http://www.slate.com/id/2177886) geez, what is the hullabaloo all about? i dont think hillary was trying to subvert the democratic process. As everyone who goes to these events knows, q and a's are dominated by unkempt, senile old people who RANT into the mic for 5 minutes before being cut off. the hillary campaign managed to slip in a decent question about ozone depletion. no big deal. it's not like they are FIXING THE VOTING MACHINES. Where's the news coverage of this!??! Diebold Inc is evil. Read more here (and it's rice related with an amazing picture of my comp314 professor): http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=9937
well. im going to lunch now with my friend at empire cafe. tomorrow my friend is coming to visit from argentina, hell be here in... 20 hours. the countdown begins!
i am late for lunch
|
October 10th, 2007
01:36 pm - alarming
so, i just posted a rant making fun of the new issue of vqr, and saying things like "suck my balls!". it was quite fun to write, and i assumed it would be read, IF ever, by my two friends who check livejournal every other month.
imagine my shock when i got an almost immediate response from Waldo Jaquith over at VQR pointing out just how very wrong i was.
first of all, thanks to Waldo Jaquith for offering corrections and for having a sense of humor about ball sucking.
second of all, talking about other cultures is really hard to do without being condescending on the one hand or exoticizing on the other, the good people at vqr are a lot more talented and successful than i will ever be, and that's why it is so satisfying to throw little spears at them from the comfort of my measily blog (which, to give you a sense of the level of the intellectual discussion here also features an entry about me getting piss ass drunk in bsas and then being hungover all day. best face forward!)
third, i do feel icky about journals that seem to be trying for inclusivity by running theme issues about certain groups of people. this exchange just makes me realize that i want to write a more well-researched response to the vqr issue.
thanks again to waldo jaquith. peace be with you my friend-
|
September 23rd, 2007
03:21 pm - i need a job!
im looking for a job, internship, or volunteer position in Southern Mexico for either December 2007 or Summer 2008. Does anyone here know somebody who knows somebody who's involved in anything such as this?
April
|
September 22nd, 2007
10:25 am - antonioni
last night i went to the showing of zabriskie point, one of the less celebrated films by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni.
i just emailed a friend about my experience, and here it is again--
so, the film was introduced by an italian film professor at UH who began by apologizing for the bad script, acting, and then suggesting that the audience (mfa crowd all 50+) "go check the drawer in your garage for the sack of pot you forgot back in 1972". the lights go down, the movie starts, and the plot was thus: a white boy attempts to kill a police office during a civil rights march in Los Angelos, but someone else kills the officer first. somehow, the news media get footage of the boy aiming his gun, they are confused, and the chase is on. he does the only natural thing, and steals an airplane, flying out over the desert. meanwhile, a college girl is driving to Phoenix, and on the way she is accosted by a gang of 8 year old boys who ask her to "give up a piece of ass", and then try to rip her clothes off. the two characters collide at zabriskie point, a beautiful barren part of the desert that, as we know from the mineral deposits, is an old lake bed from dinosaur times. what to they do? smoke pot, take off their clothes, and have sex. BUT WAIT, what's good desert sex without hords of goblin people having orgies all around you in the sand? apprently that's the line of thinking antonioni used. there is a 10 minute desert sex montage scene that ends with a long shot revealing miles of dunes covered in naked fucking goblin people.
i dont want to ruin the end of the film for you, so i'll stop here. the last 15 minutes don't have any dialogue, just a long piece by pink floyd that is, admittedly, fucking sweet. the italian film professor who introduced the movie at the beginning told us one of his students at UH wrote a paper praising the original score by the composer "Mr. Floyd". so so UH. so sadly UH.
|
August 24th, 2007
09:02 pm - the new neighbor and male alternative life coach
im sitting in the rather poshy area of buenos aires called recoleta, about 6 hours until i get on a plane and come home. it´s near where diego maradona lives-- the glittering bar of accomplishment against whom all argentines measure themselves...
oh i started that entry a few weeks ago, and it was saved. how odd. im back in houston techas! my parents moved up to amherst last week and are as happy as ive ever heard them. apparently they have a peach tree in their yard and cherries, strawberries, blackberries, etc, so they sit around eating their mounds of fruit and talking to their friendly liberal neighbors. my parents are both from the northern lands, and they are rather architypal liberal jews, so this voyage to new england is like a grand homecoming. their local deli carries a "goodbye to karl rove" sandwich, which they ordered their first day in town (also note that their first order of business was locating a deli). one of their neighbors they met during their peach-eating is named Bob and his profession is "teaching male alternative lifestyles." my parents were too surprised/tactful to inquire further (though apparently he slipped my dad his card). my dad thinks it has something to do with being gay, my mom thinks it has something to do with ending domestic abuse. i think my dad should invite the other math professors over for a little get-to-know-you party and spring Bob on them in a surprise "male alternative lifestyle" workshop.
im going up to amherst in 6 weeks to scope the scene for a long weekend and i am soooo excited. im so happy to hear my parents so happy...
anyway, school has started again. i had to wake up at 4am today in order to plan my teaching, walk the dog, eat, and beat rush hour, and get to school by the start of my 8am class. it was horrible. but the great reward is that teaching my second year is exponentially easier than it was last year. my classes are all great (a refreshing change from the spring semester) and im in a workshop with wonderful poet, teacher, and human mdoty. so life is rather splendid. im going to drive down to htown now and have a beer at the west alabama ice house. that is all.
oh, and me and jessica found a sweeeet pad in montrose, quite near the ice house as a matter of fact. we move in next week. until then the commute is sucking my soul.
|
July 31st, 2007
02:39 pm - dont hate me because im going BRAZIL
yes, that link worked. excited!
|
02:28 pm - going to brazil
im going to brazil on thursday! We´re going to ipanema, a luxy (and supposedly predominantly gay) beach barrio of Rio de Janeiro. here is a picture of ipanema:
did that link work? i am sooo excited.
|
July 30th, 2007
09:12 pm - besides drinking alcohol, i also garden with retarded children
this was a rather calm weekend in buenos aires. i got repromanded by the police while laying on top of niko and impersonating a worm. hmmm. i went to a norweigen (supposedly) restaurant with a norweigen and learned of aquavit, which tastes like rubbing alcohol and is meant to be sipped over a dinner of fatty scandinavian food. this restaurant amazingly gave us a "bagel tower" for an apetizer-- a precariously stacked pile of the ONLY bagels ive been able to find in bsas besides those that alex and taylor tag-teamed over here. i would go back just for the mixed drinks and bagel tower. in spanish class today we read an interview with jessica alba in an entertainment magazine and a lovely article about the bolivian president Evo Morales self-described representative of the cocaleros (yep, people who grow the coca). I don't know what to think about this. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in south america and one of world's largest producers of cocaine. Bolivia also receives conditional US aid based on their crop eradication programs. Yet, many Bolivian farmers who aren't exactly swimming in the benjamins as it is, rely totally on farming coca for money. Evo Morales, once a coca farmer himself, wants to retract some of the current restrictions on growing coca in Bolivia (to the annoyance of the US) and to take advantage of its "medical and commericial" uses. Is this actually a good idea for Bolivia? I do not know. I dont think there is any moral problem with a country making money off the drug trade (and likewise I think ALL drugs should be legalized). But I don't know if Morales's policy, which sounds good to me on the surface, is actually going to benefit the poor farmers or if it is just a way to exploit the nation's labor resources to make a profit for drug lords.
anyway, im gonna go watch a movie. nos vemos pronto.!
|
June 19th, 2007
01:18 pm - argentina week 4
i just got back from the border with brazil where i saw the largest (lengthwise) waterfalls in the world. according to some guys website, Iguazu Falls is the 8th greatest wonder of the world (lodged behind the pyramids at number 1 and the great wall at 2). but he ranked it number 1 for waterfalls, and i am going to agree. it's feels like standing in the garden of eden, and thanks to lax argentine saftey regulations, there metal walkways that take you right along the tops of the falls, so you can stand right above hundreds of feet of water roaring over the side of a cliff. maybe because hte falls are in a subtropic climate, there are so many butterflies in the area, that you have to hold your hands in front of your face to avoid inhaling them, and whenever the sun shines, a handfull of rainbows arching in different directions appear over the falls, then disappear when clouds pass over. we also went on a long hike through the forest, and saw some wild monkeys in the trees and some anteaters. i got back from iguazu on saturday night, and went out to eat at a brazillian restaurant owned by a friend i met at a bar a few days ago. the food was delicious, and because we were en route to a costume party (another one), we got some paper and scissors from the restaurant and constructed masks at the table in this lovely restaurant. the costume party was in my friend's loft and it was rather crazy. it's not that people behave that badly or scandelously, it's just that the dancing never stops. i left at 5am and everyone was like 'why??' because 5am is late and im tired you crazy motherfuckers. but argentines no understand.
i have to take off and go to spanish class, but to conclude, the next day i woke up y tuve resaca (had a hangover. very important spanish) and went to an amazing cheap peruvian restaurant where my hangover was miraculously cured by mountains of rice, beans and vegetables. then i found a local papelera and mulled about touching soft handmade papers for hours.
taylor countdown, approx 4 days.
|
June 12th, 2007
05:29 pm - the gay cowboy, exotic uruguay and the southern cross
im finally settled into life in buenos aires. i have some friends in town, a place to live, a regular school schedule, and a gym membership. im taking 4 hours of spanish class a day, which is great for learning spanish, but tedious sometimes. my spanish teachers are both young and hip. juiliana is an enraged liberal lesbian who complains about argentine apathy about the insane government corruptions. pablo is a all shaggy guy in school studying literary theory, and he knows good places in the city to see at and live music. love them. im taking classes with one other girl, who is french, and insane, and wonderful. she has bright red hair and wears a ton of makeup and tells me that she cant wait to age so she can start injecting herself with botox.
i moved out of the hippie dome because it had no heat, and i moved in with a friend of the owner who lives in the same neighborhood. my roommates now are an insane english girl and this big ol israeli pot head. we live on the 6th floor of an apartment building. our place features, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, heating, couch, 3 bedrooms, and a jewish-adjusted dali print on the wall in the living room. alons friend gave him a big dali print (i think it is called elephant-giraffe) with jesus holding up the cross to defend himeslf from the elephants--, but alon bought white paint and blotted out the crusifix. oh alon.
it was aazing weather here, like 60 degrees, but today it´s cold and rainy. last night there was thick fog and the city looked like a scene out of a1930s gangster film. i went to my first drag show lastnight. it was ivans last night in town and he, myself, andniko went to a bar called searches and saw some amazing drag queens (all in spanish, naturally). then this man came out in a cowboy outfit and hat and stripped (we were al l quite surprised by the gay stripping). i was already losing my shit in drunken amazement at the surprise of the gay spanish stripper dressed up in texan gear, when he lept from the stage, pulled his little gun from his holster and strutted over to our table and wrapped his big muscular arms around my (straight) friends neck and then rubbed his gun up and down his chest and THEN strutted back to the stage, wripped his pants off, and hung his cowboy hat on his dick.
but buenos aires isnt all gay strippers! theres every type of bar or club you could ever dream of, and of course there is the food. since my dad got to town we´ve been going out to eat for lunch and dinner. there are more fashionable delicius restaurants here than you could ever manage to patronize in 1 summer, but im working on it. and a meal that would cost you 30 or 40 dollars in the states is about 10 bucks here. and the wine.
on sunday my dadand i went to a little town in uruguay called colonia. uruguay borders argentina and is only a 1 hour trip from buenos aires. the town we went to is tiny and quite, and after we got our passports stamped and observd the uruguayan scenerey (which looks shockingly like the texan scenery, pretty flat with lots of trees and shrubs), we didnt have much to do, but we were stuck until the boat came back at 8pm. so i hung out in a cafe with my dad all afternoon in uruguay ,and then when we were walking back to the port i realized that it was the first time id been outside of the city at night and therefore could see the southern sky. amazing. i saw the southern cross for the first time and alpha centuri and a lot of other stars i cant identify.
so, this trip has been a lot of fun. my spanish really sucks, but i know a lot more than i did 2 weeks ago. i can communicate with cabies, people in restaurants, washetaries, etc ,and i can express myself very slowly. but my friends here who are americans are all fluent in spanish, so when we go out everyone speaks spanish and i feel confused, and when people tell stories if i can even decifer what they are saying it takes me 5 miutes to mentally tanslate it. id never been particularly motivated in learning a foreign language before, but now i want to become fluent in spanish. but that´s going to take more than 2 more months, so maybe i will go down to mexico for a while next year.
in a few days im going up to the border of brasil to see some cool waterfalls and go hiking. i think me and my friend here are going to try to go to Rio together in a month or so to visit ivan, so i need to look into getting a visa. alex and taylor are coming to visit soon. so much to love.!
|
June 1st, 2007
09:00 pm - buenos aires
quickly!
work for a foundation teaching cute children how to garden in the provincia. love it. coworkers are amazing.
take 4 hours of spanish classes a day. am learning fast but still suck. my teacher teaches me useful phrases such as el esta bueno which is porteño slang for he is a hot piece of ass
found a house in the best location possible in the city. living with 3 cool hippie guys on a quite small street in this neighbhorbood palermo with all the trees. its the hip party of the city with all the bars, restaurants, designer shopping etc. heaven. and im just a short walk from my spanish lessons.
going to the weirdest nightlife in the world. parties began approx 3am here. is early. going to bars and clubs. drinking delicious argentine wine.
only sad thing is that my room which i moved into today is really dodgey. i need to fix it up. my dad is coming here soon. hopefully he will feel good about going on a decoration hunt.
|
April 23rd, 2007
01:56 am
yes the birthday was quite fun! and yes I want to come to austin on may 5th to celebrate! hopefully i will not end up living in the ghetto, or a cow field. And you should really all come visit in Buenos Aires!!
That said, i am writing my term paper for my "modern thought" class. and i cannot wait to be done. uhh.
|
April 12th, 2007
01:29 pm - a place to live
I think i found a place to live in buenos aires?? it's a room in someone's house and it's located right on the botanical gardens. there is a little balcony off the room too. nice. but this is a little bit south west of where i wanted to live. i dunno, im going to ask my friends down there. ai.
|
March 14th, 2007
10:54 am - also!
my roommate is planning on moving in with his girlfriend, so i need a new roommate for next year. i am trying to find someone who would want to move into my house. does anyone know anyone looking for a place?
|
10:00 am
god damnit!!! im having a lot of problems with teaching the little children lately. Basically, yesterday I didn't show up. I thought I was supposed to teach on wed this week, but i was wrong, and i got a miffed voicemail from one of the teachers asking if i was going to 'decided to show up to work'. obviously, i was mortified. i was too terrified to call the woman back (i hate confrontation) so i wrote a long and really nice email, apologizing and thanking her for letting me work in her classroom. I wrote about how much i love the kids, how much i'm learning, and how my not showing up was a total accident and not a malicious sign of disrespect. she emailed me back 'you may return next week'. ack. why does she hate me so much? so i went down to the main office and checked out the writing anthology from the class I'm teaching now, but from last year with a different creative writing teacher. the work in the anthology was mind bogglingly terrible. i realized, suddenly, that i am doing a good job. the kiddies always have a lot of fun, and their work is amazingly good. so now it makes me really angry that my teacher hates me. I am sure she is going to write me a shitty review at the end of the semester-- but i am doing a good job god damnit. im a poet. scheduling is hard for me.
anyway, on the happiness front, i got nominated for a scholarship to the sewanee writers' conference. i still have to apply, but if i get in then i will be going to TN for the last 2 weeks of July (home early from argentina).
|
March 7th, 2007
07:29 am
Next week I'm going to Austin for SXSW. Hellya, this is going to be so much fun. I'm staying with Christian and he promised I can use all of his hair products and bathing supplies. Kate will you be in town??? I would love to see you!!
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/punquinheads/pink/cheerful.gif) chipper
|
February 3rd, 2007
08:54 pm - ahhh!!!
well i found my phone (miracle) and i got copies made of all the keys.
but then my "check engine" light went on. took it to the mechanic and they said i needed a new O2 sensor. the guy im seeing's dad is a mechanic, so for some reason we thought this meant that WE know how to fix a car. we drove around town and got a bunch of parts and then installed them. now my car is even worse than before!! what did we do wrong? we are so sad now.
noble effort over-- i have to take the car to a mechanic tomorrow. ive spent the whole weekend on my car and keys, and so i cant go out tonight to see yonder mountain string band. i have too much school work to do. i hope god is watching me and seeing how amazingly loyal i am to my grad school obligations. i hope there is some sort of reward coming my way because this weekend has kind of blown.
on the plus side, my house is still clean and i learned what a spark plug is.
also, today i found out what they really sell at the 'spy emporium' store (which at first i thought was the 'spymporium' store). they do not actually sell "spy gadgets", as they advertise on the building. now that i think about it, it IS completely rediculous that a store on westheimer would sell "spy gadgets".
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
blixaslilfriend's journal