THE RUMORS ARE REAL

Could it be true? IT IS!!!

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Good title.

I'm in Brooklyn Bagel and in the middle of studying the Renaissance, I ran out of index cards. At the brink of Shakespeare, with which I could build a house of index cards/Mirth/Seven Gables/curs-ed Atreus. Despite being overwhelmed by the impossibility of learning all of literary history, I kind of like sinking into this other world. More and more, I am checking out of reality to roll-a-dex my mind. When I was young, (I think certain people empathize with me here, certain friends who took the literary experience too far) I would think in Elizabethan English, and come up with characters I would talk to in my head. For example, here is how I ordered my bagel this morning:

Pray, that I may delight in your bagels,
With poppy seed and cream cheese just a schmear.
Oh clouds and cold, draw me to want of warmth,
Anon, a cup of joe for me provide.

It tastes better in blank verse :)

This is my favorite scene from one of my favorite movies, Shakespeare in Love. The audition scene. If you have time watch through the boat scene. I just used it to get pumped up for what is left of my Elizabethan morning.

I figured out how to embed videos from You Tube into the blog.

I actually got into a fight with MJ last night over Lady Gaga. Yes, a fight because our voices were raised and I counted about 4 or 5 f-words. This was after an hour discussion about her in a bar with Jill, whose brilliant reaction to Lady Gaga's VMA outfit (pictured left) was: "Can't read my, Can't read my, No he can't read my......lacy monster face?" Anyway, the initial fight was over the song Paparazzi; and whether or not it is overly-presumptuous to write about this kind of theme without proper celebrity status, or perhaps the assumption of a lifestyle not yet experienced.


Prince, however, did assume that 1999 would be a party and no one got on his case about it.

The real argument was over pop music, which is a debate that is arguably split into two camps: people who believe it all falls into the same marketing, money-obsessed basket of pop culture, and people who believe some artists have a more-weighted message or carry out their message more successfully. Blame it on the wine and beer from Sweet Afton, but I was confused at times over which side either of us was on. Even the most cynical of music industry critics have something they consider above the fray. "It's all synthetic crap, except Handel's Messiah."

I think I was on the cynical, "its all the same" side?

Music that comments on politics/society. Who has more right? Rage Against the Machine or Lady Gaga? Very different but same end result, they sell records.

Here is my favorite political song:

Here is a better song, with a cute video:

I forgot that this Kevin Devine song is my favorite. It is so cheesy but with great little riff. There is no way to listen to it on You Tube. So here it is on Last FM. His description of the song is priceless.
Just to make a real shout-out to Mr. Devine, here is an amazing some about being an alcoholic.

After our discussion last night I have compiled some Andy Warhol quotes, even though my interlocutor made it abundantly clear he "don't f%&%$^&g care about Andy Warhol."

"Art is what you can get away with."

"Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art. "

"Why do people think artists are special? It's just another job." (This one is my favorite because I think if you substitute 'artists' with 'tennis players', it could be a Federer quote.)






Here is my quote for the day:

"Eat fried pickles and love someone you love to argue with."

On Richard Price's Lush Life

Lush Life would have to be read twice to receive a proper review, like most detective fiction. The first time is too exciting and plot-oriented to appreciate fully how the author leads you to the conclusion of who killed the white kid on the Lower East Side. There were times when I was so caught up I almost missed some of the strikingly beautiful language. Richard Price has an excellent command of poetic prose that fits seamlessly into the dialogue and tone of the book. Sometimes I would read over something so focused on who is guilty that I would miss over a phrase like, "The restaurant...was still a work in progress, all hammer bang and power whine.” Wow.

The book deals with a common theme in LES history: what happens when there is a plethora of desperate people crammed into one bulge with little sufficient transportation. It is written with the energy of all the different voices bouncing around like hot molecules, and the voices of the struggling actor/waiters at the café are perfect. The cops are perfect. The only element that feels different is the voice of the project kids. There is a feeling of distance with them. I can’t tell is this is something Richard Price is doing on purpose or if he hesitates on going in depth with that world because of lack of experience, which would be ridiculous since he grew up in a housing project. He recreates the movement of a restaurant flawlessly, but the PJs are stagnant, there is even a sense of distance when the point of view is on Tristan.

Price provides evidence of awareness of this distance. He describes it himself through Tristan: “What did that cop say the night him and Little Dap ran up here? A billion-dollar view on top of ten-cent people.” Human inequality is a tense presence. I finished the book with complete sympathy of all the characters; even the annoying father from Riverdale, but all I really felt for the immigrants and people living in the projects was an intense frustration because they delayed the ending by not complying. Which is not even true. In actuality it was the mistakes of the cops and the power of lawyers who delayed the connection. I was embarrassed at my own lack of sympathy and my own buy-in into the cycle of racism/classism.

My absolute favorite aspect of the book is the ghostly presence of Jewish culture. One of the Jewish characters calls the LES “our ancestral home,” which seems ridiculous. No matter what side of the Zionist debate a person is on, everyone agrees that the LES is not the Promised Land. Or it is the closest to one in the world because that is how people remember it? Price shows that the Jewish world of the LES has literally and figuratively collapsed. All that is left are the names, Lemlich, Cahan, the old Forward building, even Katz. With the Lemlichs and Cahans being names of the Projects, the comparison of person to place is both fitting and sad. The morals Clara Lemlich and Abraham Cahan stood for have been forgotten. Morality is so central to the characters but at the same time, it is transient. You dedicate your life towards a community, and then get a building named after you only to have kids deal drugs and shoot each other in the building. Everything is corruptible.

The amazing Clara Lemlich, one of my favorite people in history. The reason for the New Deal labor reforms.

Lady Gaga has lost it.

Pay no Attention to the Girls Behind the Curtain

I am leaving for Spain a week from today and I haven't even finished my road trip. Again it is hard to write about things after the fact, all the repeated stories etc. And whats more...I started studying for the GREs, both subject in literature and the general. So all I want to post about is my reaction to vocabulary and the violence of Greek tragedy.

Observations on Texas work great because Texas in itself is so entertaining. New Orleans, is different. I intent to cheat:

I tried on masks and drank coffee in the French Quarter. Watched some music on Frenchmen Street. Took a walk down Bourbon Street.

While passing through I read the latest by Dave Eggars, Zeitoun, which is a true story about a Muslim family who survived Katrina. It is creative non-fiction at its best. It is written in a straightforward style with only a minimal amount of moments where the agenda to question our government's authority (or at least our government under the Bush administration) takes priority over the fullness and strength of the characters. Great book. I highly suggest it.

I leave it to the pros to describe this city that simultaneously exemplifies and does not belong in the United States.

In Greek tragedy, when something is so horrible and gruesome, like when Orestes commits matricide in Sophocles's The Libation Bearers, the audience is protected from the action. It happens behind a curtain or a wall and although the audience knows that is happening, their imagination is left to play it out. In the play Tripea Roadus, the scene in New Orleans is enacted behind a curtain. Like a tragedy, I can assure you, despite the fact I was sober, there was no way to not get involved. There was nobody uninvolved on that street. We were destined, no, FATED to succumb to the curse on the House of New Orleans. Only instead of the Greek gods, we entranced by the Voo-Doo queens of old. This one is Marie Laveau, the most famous of them all.

For every jerk who skipped reading the full Bukowski poem here is the essential part of our experience in New Orleans:

I knew
even through the
nothingness,
it was a
celebration
of something not to
do
but only
know.

Lauren, Jill and I did nothing real in New Orleans, but I learned way more than I wanted to. The education N.O. provides can only be learned be visiting there on a warm Saturday night, or watching a lot of Girls Gone Wild videos. I think I will share the full story, after it all makes sense in my mind. Right now it is just a jumble of images of the marshy swamp, strippers, churches, open containers, loud loud music, hot-dog vendors, wrought-iron balconies, and the 300-pound bachelor I motorboated in the middle of Bourbon Street.

EXPIRED

So close to New Orleans, but so hesitant to share my experiences...


Yesterday I tried to get into the main "union" area of Columbia, but my ID card wouldn't work. I had a feeling this would happen so I took a secretive more private entrance so no one would witness the rejection. Of course standing on the other side of the turnstile was an overweight Indian kid in a Columbia sweatshirt. He gave me such a WTF look that I wanted to send him back to Paterson or Des Moines, or wherever he was from. He probably thought (thank god) I was some freshman who can't figure out her own ID card. But I realized in that moment that I am 10 years, 10 showerless nights, and an oversized overcoat away from being one of those homeless people who hangs around Columbia, hanging around the steps, trying to catch vibes of naive inspiration from the scores of bright, shiny faces around me.

Like Owl Eyes, I will wander the stacks of the library, in blissful stupor that all the books are indeed, real books. I'll buy a drink to the first person to get that reference.

Here is an article about homeless people in libraries. It's not supposed to be funny, but it is.

I feel the frustration of a thousand students bending back the cheap flaps on a thousand coffee cups, none of them able to make it click. I feel sorry for myself despite the fact that I am left out not because I'm pregnant, or a drugged-out drop-out, or rejected because I'm Latina...I just graduated. I should feel better than everyone else, but I still feel the judgment from that sweatshirted Indian kid. Ridiculous institution.

I need distraction and focus at once. I need vocabulary flashcards. I need to argue with people though comments on Facebook or responses to opinionated blogs. I need personal statements. I need to pick a future and stick with it. The Road Not Taken was written after the fact, a decision had already been made. I'm sitting at the fork, thinking about teaching in China, volunteering in Peru, becoming a Bollywood star.

We need a new verb for we research fantasy, alternative tracks of life on the internet. I have a whole bunch of them in my bookmarks:
http://www.workinfrance.com/home.php?idRubrique=27
http://www.volunteersouthamerica.net/
http://www.aupair.com/
http://www.cruiselinesjobs.com/
http://www.rangercareers.com/

I need a new word for this, a good verb that can be nominalized easily. (Woah, I just verb-ized a nominalization. Wild.) Any sugggestions?

Texas in a .22-shell

Observations on Texas:

If the Big Sky of Minnesota and Wisconsin represents God, then the panhandle of Texas represents Satan's putrid and rank morning breath.

Everyone drives a pickup. And a shotgun. And a bumper sticker about their shotgun.

It is impossible to distinguish a Walmart from a church. And they alternate on the side of the road.

There is never not traffic in Dallas/Ft. Worth. They see public transportation as a form of socialism.

They don't talk about the education system, so don't bring it up.

They will however talk about 'dem gays, succession, and most of all the evils of abortion.

Austin is the sweet, multicultural oasis of Texas. Except for the smell of guano that hangs in the Congress Ave. area, due to the 1.5 million bats that for some reason made the university town their home. They must be Longhorn fans. Hook 'em.

2 AM pizza on 6th St. is amazing. Or maybe I was just that drunk.

You don't have to pay for drinks in Austin. This is either the bar special, OR southern hospitality.

I thank you for your patience.

Since I have been home I haven’t been writing. I have Texas, New Orleans, Nashville, Louiseville, and the Long Stretch Home to write about and in the duration of this long stretch I am exhausting all the stories.

Maybe it is because I have been busy since I have been back babysitting, being attached to MJ’s side, trying to catch up with people, watching Glory at 2 AM, etc.

Maybe it is because I am writing from my home instead of a KOA cabin, or a coffee shop in the middle of nowhere, or literally in a moving car and a degree of romance is lost for both me as a writer and for an audience that now pretty much knows where I am. Exact location: I am writing from a warm, comfortable bed. Damnit, I feel like such an elitist and therefore struggle to capture the true spirit of the road. I am tempted to go sit in my stagnant car that has been baking in the sun for the past week and a half and soak in the aroma of road trip, or as Jill described it: the odor of too many butts sitting in one small place for a long time.

Maybe I am having a difficult time processing the trip: what I learned, how it changed me, what did it mean for me, why did I feel the need to drive to California? And by god, why did I feel the need to drive back? Maybe I am taking the time to understand these questions in order to portray it to others, what angle to I go for atristically, etc.

Or maybe I am avoiding telling what went down in New Orleans...

Here is a video for now, Texas is coming. Then when I am done, I can go back to writing about the etymology of entomology and Indian dance. Remind me to write about Canada's newcomer buddy system.

In this video Jill and I are putting on these newscaster voices we used everywhere we went. The altitude has obviously messed with our heads significantly.