Right now I have six books on my bed. In order of their arrival here, they are:
1) Euripides III
2) Expert Legal Writing
3) "I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, & the Last Ride of Jimmy Hoffa"
4) The Handmaid's Tale
5) Children's Writer's Word Book
6) Writing Picture Books
Variety! The Handmaid's Tale counts towards the Classics reading goal, and the two children's writing books clearly have to do with translating this into a fully-fledged story. (Hint: it involves hitchhiking! No, really, it's okay though. Probably.)
The Greek dramas (supplemented by a volume of Aristophanes comedies in my purse) are light research for supplemental brain learnin'. Yeah I dunno. I just felt inspired to take out some ancient culture from the library. It may or may not have something to do with my percolating idea for NaNoWriMo this year. We'll see.
I checked out "I Heard You Paint Houses", et al from the library today on a whim, pure and simple. I did that thing on Wikipedia where you just keep clicking the intratextual links in the articles until you end up really far away from your starting point... I went from The Golden Girls to Jimmy Hoffa, only, it only took one click. Sofia apparently once claimed to know what happened to him. So clearly that meant I should check out the first book I found at the library about him, right? Right.
And finally, I bought the legal writing book to sort of start preparing myself for law school. When I started college, I was a little behind most of my peers academically because I graduated 14th in my high school class... in Florida. Brightest crayon in the 16-pack of classic colors, but the 64-pack of college includes those damn neons and metallics and, well. Metaphor beat to death, but you get it. So I googled around a little and found that the columns collected in this book assisted practicing lawyers in writing their briefs. One day, I hope to be a brief-writing, practicing lawyer, ergo I should read the book. Maybe I'll get luck and it will teach me how to make that paragraph more interesting?
Click for more!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
"Dynamism of a Soccer Player"
Umberto Boccioni, 1913
"The Reservoir at Villa Falconieri"
Maxfield Parrish, 1903
"Water Lillies", Art Institute of Chicago
Claude Monet, 1906
"Water Lillies", St. Louis Art Museum
Claude Monet, c. 1916
"Gray Line with Black, Blue, and Yellow"
Georgia O'Keefe, c. 1923
"Schloss Kammer at Lake Atter III"
Gustav Klimt, 1910
"Still Life on a Green Sideboard"
Henri Matisse, 1928
"The Sleeping Gypsy"
Henri Rousseau, 1897
"Map"
Jasper Johns, 1961
"Afternoon of the Faun", sketch for the ballet
Leon Bakst, 1912
"Interior with Blue Deck Chair"
Pablo Picasso, 1958
"Le Moulin de la Gallete"
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876
EXTRA CREDIT!
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, union organizer and early feminist. Funny story with this one: I bought it at the same time as all the above, at the Mandala closing sale, thinking it would be excellent to supplement my art cards with some historical educational material. Three weeks later, I was cleaning my room and found an old postcard book in a dresser drawer that my grandmother gave to me when I was probably 12 or so: Women Who Dared. Oops. Thanks, Grandma!
Click for more!
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Agenda
Now that I'm on a blogroll, I should probably make some sort of indication that I'm still alive before I make my next real post. Not only alive, but accomplishing things left and right! Or at least up and down the east coast.
So things to post about:
1) Taking the LSAT and Why I Consider this Goal Fulfilled
2) Postcards out the wazoo. Like seriously, tomorrow I hope to scan the 20ish postcards I've been sitting on for a while. UPDATE 7/30: All on photobucket... just sorta waiting for time to narrate a proper post.
3) Special exhibits descriptions - just came back from a NY trip, and went to the Met and MOMA and saw probably eight different specials? But only two or three significant ones, so those are the only ones I'll be counting.
4) Cathedrals! Visited two more on my trip, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside and Grace Church in Union Square. Gorgeous, plenty of pictures to crop and upload... eventually.
5) Swingsets! Swung on two more swingsets as well in New York... I have one really bad picture of the one in Central Park to post, and Chelsea should sometime soon be getting her film developed of the second, which was in Riverside Park on the UWS.
6) Books. Like whoa.
7) General update on the state of my craftiness
8) Goal revisions, due upon the one-year mark (August 28th)
Having an agenda is great. It's structure; I thrive on structure. Now it's OUT THERE. Now I have to get those postcards scanned tomorrow, and I have to actually lay out which goals are being changed out for which other things.
And finally, Angels in America tickets go on sale in twelve days. Time to start planning another trip north...
Click for more!
So things to post about:
1) Taking the LSAT and Why I Consider this Goal Fulfilled
2) Postcards out the wazoo. Like seriously, tomorrow I hope to scan the 20ish postcards I've been sitting on for a while. UPDATE 7/30: All on photobucket... just sorta waiting for time to narrate a proper post.
3) Special exhibits descriptions - just came back from a NY trip, and went to the Met and MOMA and saw probably eight different specials? But only two or three significant ones, so those are the only ones I'll be counting.
4) Cathedrals! Visited two more on my trip, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside and Grace Church in Union Square. Gorgeous, plenty of pictures to crop and upload... eventually.
5) Swingsets! Swung on two more swingsets as well in New York... I have one really bad picture of the one in Central Park to post, and Chelsea should sometime soon be getting her film developed of the second, which was in Riverside Park on the UWS.
6) Books. Like whoa.
7) General update on the state of my craftiness
8) Goal revisions, due upon the one-year mark (August 28th)
Having an agenda is great. It's structure; I thrive on structure. Now it's OUT THERE. Now I have to get those postcards scanned tomorrow, and I have to actually lay out which goals are being changed out for which other things.
And finally, Angels in America tickets go on sale in twelve days. Time to start planning another trip north...
Click for more!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Responserbillery.
I'm all grown up now and as such, I'm taking, like, active control of the direction of my life and junk. Parts of it, anyway.
Goal number 89 was to keep detailed accounting data for one month. I've done better - at the beginning of February, I created a budget file in Excel, with two pages. One sheet functions as a checkbook for my debit card, savings account, and credit card, complete with formulas so that I don't screw up the math and a banner at the top that shows all my current balances. The primary sheet, though, I am especially proud of - it aggregates all my purchases into categories, on a week-by-week (and month-by-month) basis, and includes the rough estimates for my budget... because technically, a budget is a PLAN for your money, not just keeping track of where it goes after the fact. I made a category column in the checkbook sheet, so at the end of each week, I go through and add up all the "E"s and "S"s and so forth to track my expenses.
I set fairly liberal spending allowances when I established the budget in February, when I was going out a lot more. I underestimated my income (not by a lot, but about $100 a month at least) and overestimated food and entertainment expenses by a lot, so I could wean myself slowly down to a more savings-oriented fiscal plan (and thus move myself more expediently towards a responsible move to NYC). Here's what the original budget figures were:
As you can see, I also allocated $70 per month for health-related expenses, which would basically encompass everything I would buy at CVS or Walgreens - razor blades are exorbitantly expensive these days. But I also wanted to set it that high in case I needed to go to the doctor and buy medicine in case I got sick, so that I'd know the money would be there without throwing the whole rest of the budget off. Getting my throat swabbed for strep does NOT count as Entertainment, you know? The last column, Leftovers, is additional de facto Savings. The Savings column itself encompasses my Keep the Change transfers, and a monthly $25 scheduled transfer from checking to savings that I set up to avoid monthly fees. SOOO all that money I'm not really spending on health gets saved up, along with all the other money I keep by underspending on food and entertainment. To the right of each month's leftovers, I set up a running "Total Savings" formula, which adds together that month's savings and leftovers and adds it to the previous month's total savings.
It turns out that increasing that single number has been the best motivational tool for me to 1) continue using this sometimes annoying system - Bank of America reformatted their website last month and it's an enormous hassle to do side-by-side windows to input the checkbook data - and 2) cut back my spending, the whole point of setting this goal. I didn't think to add that until mid-April or so, for a solely practical reason: I had too much data for one page and didn't want to have to be scrolling all the time; there is a huge corresponding jump in the amount of Leftovers between March and April, which becomes even more extraordinary when you factor in that I was in NEW YORK CITY at the beginning of April and I ate very well. Anyways! Budget working, ergo, budget goal OFFICIALLY COMPLETE.
Now, a completely different mechanism for getting my adulthood together: I took the LSAT on June 7th. (Goal number... TWO, for those keeping score at home. Yeah, that important.) I could pretend that the five weeks of grueling prep tests I did were the reason I didn't post so much in May, but we all know the real reason is that I'm tremendously lazy. Except for the part where I established a rigorous schedule for practicing, stuck to it, and saw real improvement in my (practice test) scores because of it. I don't get the real score back until the 28th, and I absolutely do not want to jinx it, but I feel safe at least saying that my goal of 167 was definitely reasonably within my reach. I think I qualified that enough to evade the wrath of the jinx demons. I hope.
Well, this is getting long, and I started it at work this afternoon and it is now approaching one in the morning, so, yeah, over and out. OH WAIT no, before I forget, I have another swingset - Colin Park, beachside in Daytona. Squeaky chains, really quite awful as swings go, but it was a clear night and the stars were delightful, making up for it a bit. A daytime picture will be taken sometime in the next three months. Deal. So, what is it, number 8 now?
Click for more!
Goal number 89 was to keep detailed accounting data for one month. I've done better - at the beginning of February, I created a budget file in Excel, with two pages. One sheet functions as a checkbook for my debit card, savings account, and credit card, complete with formulas so that I don't screw up the math and a banner at the top that shows all my current balances. The primary sheet, though, I am especially proud of - it aggregates all my purchases into categories, on a week-by-week (and month-by-month) basis, and includes the rough estimates for my budget... because technically, a budget is a PLAN for your money, not just keeping track of where it goes after the fact. I made a category column in the checkbook sheet, so at the end of each week, I go through and add up all the "E"s and "S"s and so forth to track my expenses.
I set fairly liberal spending allowances when I established the budget in February, when I was going out a lot more. I underestimated my income (not by a lot, but about $100 a month at least) and overestimated food and entertainment expenses by a lot, so I could wean myself slowly down to a more savings-oriented fiscal plan (and thus move myself more expediently towards a responsible move to NYC). Here's what the original budget figures were:
As you can see, I also allocated $70 per month for health-related expenses, which would basically encompass everything I would buy at CVS or Walgreens - razor blades are exorbitantly expensive these days. But I also wanted to set it that high in case I needed to go to the doctor and buy medicine in case I got sick, so that I'd know the money would be there without throwing the whole rest of the budget off. Getting my throat swabbed for strep does NOT count as Entertainment, you know? The last column, Leftovers, is additional de facto Savings. The Savings column itself encompasses my Keep the Change transfers, and a monthly $25 scheduled transfer from checking to savings that I set up to avoid monthly fees. SOOO all that money I'm not really spending on health gets saved up, along with all the other money I keep by underspending on food and entertainment. To the right of each month's leftovers, I set up a running "Total Savings" formula, which adds together that month's savings and leftovers and adds it to the previous month's total savings.
It turns out that increasing that single number has been the best motivational tool for me to 1) continue using this sometimes annoying system - Bank of America reformatted their website last month and it's an enormous hassle to do side-by-side windows to input the checkbook data - and 2) cut back my spending, the whole point of setting this goal. I didn't think to add that until mid-April or so, for a solely practical reason: I had too much data for one page and didn't want to have to be scrolling all the time; there is a huge corresponding jump in the amount of Leftovers between March and April, which becomes even more extraordinary when you factor in that I was in NEW YORK CITY at the beginning of April and I ate very well. Anyways! Budget working, ergo, budget goal OFFICIALLY COMPLETE.
Now, a completely different mechanism for getting my adulthood together: I took the LSAT on June 7th. (Goal number... TWO, for those keeping score at home. Yeah, that important.) I could pretend that the five weeks of grueling prep tests I did were the reason I didn't post so much in May, but we all know the real reason is that I'm tremendously lazy. Except for the part where I established a rigorous schedule for practicing, stuck to it, and saw real improvement in my (practice test) scores because of it. I don't get the real score back until the 28th, and I absolutely do not want to jinx it, but I feel safe at least saying that my goal of 167 was definitely reasonably within my reach. I think I qualified that enough to evade the wrath of the jinx demons. I hope.
Well, this is getting long, and I started it at work this afternoon and it is now approaching one in the morning, so, yeah, over and out. OH WAIT no, before I forget, I have another swingset - Colin Park, beachside in Daytona. Squeaky chains, really quite awful as swings go, but it was a clear night and the stars were delightful, making up for it a bit. A daytime picture will be taken sometime in the next three months. Deal. So, what is it, number 8 now?
Click for more!
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't be Stupid
Dear Congressman Mica/Senator Nelson/Senator LeMieux:
I am writing to you to let you know that I support the Veteran's Lobby Day that occurred yesterday, May 11th, in support of repealing the discriminatory and dehumanizing Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy of the United States military.
In addition to being hurtful to the gay men and lesbian women who choose to serve our nation in the armed forces, DADT has the opposite of its intended effect: instead of increasing unit cohesion, DADT damages the esprit de corps by forcing these patriots to lie to the other members of their unit about who they are from the first day of basic training.
This explicitly privileges heterosexual service members, particularly men, who feel they have the tacit approval of the entire institution when they commit acts of verbal or physical abuse against those they suspect of being homosexual. Women can be called into separation hearings on no basis more reliable than the word of a single male accuser - a man the woman has simply turned down for a date, in many cases. These hearings are a tremendous waste of everyone's time and money, and the loss of the skills and training of each of the more than 1,200 people who have been discharged since 1993 are an even greater travesty.
Gays and lesbians are willing to give their lives in service to this country. Why won't America give them the dignity they deserve in return? Please vote to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell as soon as possible and allow these true patriots to serve openly.
Sincerely,
Caroline Leonard
(DA, DT, DBS was the working title of a massive paper I wrote on the subject a year ago. Don't be stupid - it don't work.)
(Also an update summing up the last month is shortly forthcoming, I swears. I've completed another goal!)
Click for more!
I am writing to you to let you know that I support the Veteran's Lobby Day that occurred yesterday, May 11th, in support of repealing the discriminatory and dehumanizing Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy of the United States military.
In addition to being hurtful to the gay men and lesbian women who choose to serve our nation in the armed forces, DADT has the opposite of its intended effect: instead of increasing unit cohesion, DADT damages the esprit de corps by forcing these patriots to lie to the other members of their unit about who they are from the first day of basic training.
This explicitly privileges heterosexual service members, particularly men, who feel they have the tacit approval of the entire institution when they commit acts of verbal or physical abuse against those they suspect of being homosexual. Women can be called into separation hearings on no basis more reliable than the word of a single male accuser - a man the woman has simply turned down for a date, in many cases. These hearings are a tremendous waste of everyone's time and money, and the loss of the skills and training of each of the more than 1,200 people who have been discharged since 1993 are an even greater travesty.
Gays and lesbians are willing to give their lives in service to this country. Why won't America give them the dignity they deserve in return? Please vote to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell as soon as possible and allow these true patriots to serve openly.
Sincerely,
Caroline Leonard
(DA, DT, DBS was the working title of a massive paper I wrote on the subject a year ago. Don't be stupid - it don't work.)
(Also an update summing up the last month is shortly forthcoming, I swears. I've completed another goal!)
Click for more!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Hahahahahha
Ooops. Got of schedule again... so I'm going to do a really quick summary of things to get back on track.
1) Finished reading The Enchantress of Florence last week. It was delightful to read solely in terms of language, but I take issue with some significant anti-feminist elements of the story... I intend to write a short essay on this sometime very soon. But we all know how well I actually do the things I intend to do, so... we'll see.
2) Started reading Atlas Shrugged; I'm now 125 pages in and... wow, I thought Rushdie was antifeminist. Otherwise, I'm still really confused about the book's philosophy. I've read about objectivism and I feel like I know what Ayn Rand thinks, but... to me it doesn't really seem to be advocating any particular viewpoint at all - except that indifference is plaguing the modern world and, like, destroying EVERYTHING. More forthcoming on this as well.
3) In order to better facilitate drabble-writing, I started a scraps file in notepad so that I'm not looking at a blank page every time I try to write anything. Writer's block has not wholly been defeated, but it is slightly mitigated. It's something. I'm stuck on this one image and I'm trying to figure out how to make a whole decent story out of it. I'll get there.
4) This has absolutely nothing at all to do with knitting, but it is creativity and therefore is marginally pertinent: I've sewn my first throw pillow with piping! I put in for 15 yards of saree fabric (in three patterns of five yards each) on ebay, and I won, and I paid, and according to the seller in India, they've shipped... and it's been ten days. Four more and I'm filing a complaint. This is getting absurd... I'm trying to start an Etsy shop here! No, really, apparently there's a large market for throw pillow covers, and I like sewing and I spend a lot of time watching TV - I figure I can at least try and capitalize on that a little bit. My camera battery's low so it's taking really crap pictures indoors right now, all grainy and stuff, so I'm not going to post one of the pillow just this second - but it's beautiful and you have to look really closely to see where I messed up, and I'm really proud of it. So take my word for it. You have to. It's my blog.
5) Speaking of pictures, I'm putting up four SPTs to cover from... I guess February 16th was the last time I posted? Oh well. See below the cut. I'll take one tomorrow for this week. (Hint: most of the SPTs are actually taken on the weekend.)
6) Music rerating is going well. I took a cue from my dad and decided to play my whole library in reverse alphabetical order, from $$$$ to A.O.K. This helps songs stand out a bit more since I'm ripping them out of the context of their albums, but has the major drawback in that I sometimes hear up to four versions of the same song in a row. (I'm lookin' at you, 405.) The one thing I can tell you I've discovered is that I really don't care at all about 98% of the Smashing Pumpkins' discography. Don't ask why I have it, I won't for very much longer.
7) Speaking of music, I have a couple new artists that I like that I plan on reviewing shortly. Preview: Yeasayer; Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros; and MGMT. Yeah, I know I'm late to the party on that last one, but I was purposefully avoiding them because of all the hype and I feel it's now sufficiently passed that it's once again uncool (and therefore legitimate) to listen and be into them.
8) Speaking of MGMT, I updated my resume this week to start preparing for a northward move. This has nothing to do whatsoever with my goal list, but moving to New York has been my number one goal since before graduation, so it merits an update.
9) Daily Show! April 5th, 2010 - Chelsea and I were the first to show up at 1:15, but the third, fourth, and fifth people arrived within the next twenty minutes - so I feel it was completely justified. Um, yeah... they start don't even set up the lines until 2:30, and they don't open the doors till after 4, seat you till after 5, or start filming until 6. But SO WORTH IT. Picture proof below the cut.
10) Ten is a lot. I'm done for tonight. To the pictures!
March 11, 2010 - Absolutely nothing remarkable about this. It is already well-documented that I'm infatuated with my Christmas lights and amateurishly adjusting the aperture settings on my camera.
March 18, 2010 - Yeah, nothing exciting here, either. I... I bought this shirt while Ali was visiting that week? ...Woo.
April 1, 2010 - On the first night of my trip, my friend Katy happened to be in town as well from Chicago, and our friend Mollie was about to be going out of town on Spring Break, so we threw a party. This picture was probably taken shortly after midnight... because I had woken up at 5:30 that morning to catch my flight. Yeah, I was in New York by lunch time. I RULE. Things I missed while passed out: chat roulette, Mollie's ever-entertaining rendition of Soulja Boy, and a 1:30am run to Best Buy. Yeah. That tired.
April 8 - So, basically, the Kate Spade store down in Soho was doing this window display with pinwheels, and since many of them were within reach of street level, and the pinwheels were on the exterior of the windows instead of the interior, people had swiped them - which was probably what they were supposed to do anyway. So Chelsea wanted one, and I wanted to steal one, so I climbed up on the ledge and tried to push it up out of its holder inconspicuously. Surprisingly, they didn't just pop out, they literally had to be lifted up and out, and in this shot, you can sort of see that I've got the green one up to the very bottom of the stick... I couldn't reach any higher while sitting. Clearly, this was hilarious, and Chelsea took my picture. Shortly thereafter, I just stood up and pulled it out, and we lived happily ever after with our lime green pinwheel yay.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...
FIRST IN LINE!
Click for more!
1) Finished reading The Enchantress of Florence last week. It was delightful to read solely in terms of language, but I take issue with some significant anti-feminist elements of the story... I intend to write a short essay on this sometime very soon. But we all know how well I actually do the things I intend to do, so... we'll see.
2) Started reading Atlas Shrugged; I'm now 125 pages in and... wow, I thought Rushdie was antifeminist. Otherwise, I'm still really confused about the book's philosophy. I've read about objectivism and I feel like I know what Ayn Rand thinks, but... to me it doesn't really seem to be advocating any particular viewpoint at all - except that indifference is plaguing the modern world and, like, destroying EVERYTHING. More forthcoming on this as well.
3) In order to better facilitate drabble-writing, I started a scraps file in notepad so that I'm not looking at a blank page every time I try to write anything. Writer's block has not wholly been defeated, but it is slightly mitigated. It's something. I'm stuck on this one image and I'm trying to figure out how to make a whole decent story out of it. I'll get there.
4) This has absolutely nothing at all to do with knitting, but it is creativity and therefore is marginally pertinent: I've sewn my first throw pillow with piping! I put in for 15 yards of saree fabric (in three patterns of five yards each) on ebay, and I won, and I paid, and according to the seller in India, they've shipped... and it's been ten days. Four more and I'm filing a complaint. This is getting absurd... I'm trying to start an Etsy shop here! No, really, apparently there's a large market for throw pillow covers, and I like sewing and I spend a lot of time watching TV - I figure I can at least try and capitalize on that a little bit. My camera battery's low so it's taking really crap pictures indoors right now, all grainy and stuff, so I'm not going to post one of the pillow just this second - but it's beautiful and you have to look really closely to see where I messed up, and I'm really proud of it. So take my word for it. You have to. It's my blog.
5) Speaking of pictures, I'm putting up four SPTs to cover from... I guess February 16th was the last time I posted? Oh well. See below the cut. I'll take one tomorrow for this week. (Hint: most of the SPTs are actually taken on the weekend.)
6) Music rerating is going well. I took a cue from my dad and decided to play my whole library in reverse alphabetical order, from $$$$ to A.O.K. This helps songs stand out a bit more since I'm ripping them out of the context of their albums, but has the major drawback in that I sometimes hear up to four versions of the same song in a row. (I'm lookin' at you, 405.) The one thing I can tell you I've discovered is that I really don't care at all about 98% of the Smashing Pumpkins' discography. Don't ask why I have it, I won't for very much longer.
7) Speaking of music, I have a couple new artists that I like that I plan on reviewing shortly. Preview: Yeasayer; Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros; and MGMT. Yeah, I know I'm late to the party on that last one, but I was purposefully avoiding them because of all the hype and I feel it's now sufficiently passed that it's once again uncool (and therefore legitimate) to listen and be into them.
8) Speaking of MGMT, I updated my resume this week to start preparing for a northward move. This has nothing to do whatsoever with my goal list, but moving to New York has been my number one goal since before graduation, so it merits an update.
9) Daily Show! April 5th, 2010 - Chelsea and I were the first to show up at 1:15, but the third, fourth, and fifth people arrived within the next twenty minutes - so I feel it was completely justified. Um, yeah... they start don't even set up the lines until 2:30, and they don't open the doors till after 4, seat you till after 5, or start filming until 6. But SO WORTH IT. Picture proof below the cut.
10) Ten is a lot. I'm done for tonight. To the pictures!
March 11, 2010 - Absolutely nothing remarkable about this. It is already well-documented that I'm infatuated with my Christmas lights and amateurishly adjusting the aperture settings on my camera.
March 18, 2010 - Yeah, nothing exciting here, either. I... I bought this shirt while Ali was visiting that week? ...Woo.
April 1, 2010 - On the first night of my trip, my friend Katy happened to be in town as well from Chicago, and our friend Mollie was about to be going out of town on Spring Break, so we threw a party. This picture was probably taken shortly after midnight... because I had woken up at 5:30 that morning to catch my flight. Yeah, I was in New York by lunch time. I RULE. Things I missed while passed out: chat roulette, Mollie's ever-entertaining rendition of Soulja Boy, and a 1:30am run to Best Buy. Yeah. That tired.
April 8 - So, basically, the Kate Spade store down in Soho was doing this window display with pinwheels, and since many of them were within reach of street level, and the pinwheels were on the exterior of the windows instead of the interior, people had swiped them - which was probably what they were supposed to do anyway. So Chelsea wanted one, and I wanted to steal one, so I climbed up on the ledge and tried to push it up out of its holder inconspicuously. Surprisingly, they didn't just pop out, they literally had to be lifted up and out, and in this shot, you can sort of see that I've got the green one up to the very bottom of the stick... I couldn't reach any higher while sitting. Clearly, this was hilarious, and Chelsea took my picture. Shortly thereafter, I just stood up and pulled it out, and we lived happily ever after with our lime green pinwheel yay.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...
FIRST IN LINE!
Click for more!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
! 25%!
With the uploading of these postcards, I am officially one-quarter of the way done with goal 78! A few weekends ago, I went to visit Katelyn in Tampa and we trekked down to the Dali Museum in St Pete. There was some sort of special event going on that night and they were closing early to set up for it, so we only had about two hours to wander around. Luckily(?), the building is way too small for the museum's collection, and we were able to see just about everything without feel terribly rushed. And, of course, they weren't about to kick us out of the giftshop! I bought two postcards, one real card, and a poster - because it was two dollars cheaper than an 8x10 print of the same painting. So! Clicky clicky for the pretty!
Tres Picos - 1955
I think my favorite part of this sketch is something it might take a few seconds to notice... so take it all in for a second. I don't want to spoil anything. Go ahead, I'll wait.
...Yeah, that orchid is definitely blooming out of his crotch. It's a delightfully feminine representation of the phallus. Coming in a distant second is the leaf-hat-morphing-into-caterpillar. I just love Dali's playfulness, how he blends realities and unrealities and creates a game out of masking the lines.
The Lion Sketch - 1956
ZOMG LIONFACE. This one was not on display this time around, but when I saw it on the wall amidst all the other postcards, I knew I had to have it. He's probably the most adorable ferocious lion of all time, and I love him. These simple pencil drawings, that must have taken a quarter teaspoon of Dali's creative talents, make me intensely jealous of people who have both imaginative vision and the ability to execute that vision in a seemingly effortless manner. Intensely jealous. On Monday I'm going to draw another snail.
Girl with Curl - 1926
According to legend, Dali grew up fantasizing about a Russian peasant girl... three years after completing this painting, he met Gala, a Russian bourgeois girl (close enough) who left her husband to become Dali's muse, wife, object of candaulistic pleasure (fitting for a visual artist). Some say that makes this painting "prophetic" and read a lot into the odd perspective that cuts out the middle ground between the girl and the background landscape. I just like the sensuous curves, the sliver of a crescent moon mimicking the drapery over her backside, and the hints of myfavoritecolorblue in the upper reaches of the sky.
Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at 20 Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln - 1976
Painted for the bicentennial of America, a nation he only lived in for eight years decades before, this 448-pixel-wide version doesn't really capture the true power of this painting. Proportionally, I think you have to be about seven inches from the screen the first time you see it for the Gala part to be more powerful than the Lincoln part - the actual painting is one of those jumbo, wall-sized things, fifteen feet tall at least. I love how it's sorta pixely (before pixels were really a thing), and the little squares on the bottom that separate Gala and Lincoln into separate pieces. I especially love the bloodorange in the sky, textured like water, and how it reminds me of flying down the east coast at sunset.
In sum: Dali = awesome, and far more than the Persistence of Memory (iconic and awesome work though it is), and after they open the new space next January, I want to go back and see the whole collection.
Click for more!
Tres Picos - 1955
I think my favorite part of this sketch is something it might take a few seconds to notice... so take it all in for a second. I don't want to spoil anything. Go ahead, I'll wait.
...Yeah, that orchid is definitely blooming out of his crotch. It's a delightfully feminine representation of the phallus. Coming in a distant second is the leaf-hat-morphing-into-caterpillar. I just love Dali's playfulness, how he blends realities and unrealities and creates a game out of masking the lines.
The Lion Sketch - 1956
ZOMG LIONFACE. This one was not on display this time around, but when I saw it on the wall amidst all the other postcards, I knew I had to have it. He's probably the most adorable ferocious lion of all time, and I love him. These simple pencil drawings, that must have taken a quarter teaspoon of Dali's creative talents, make me intensely jealous of people who have both imaginative vision and the ability to execute that vision in a seemingly effortless manner. Intensely jealous. On Monday I'm going to draw another snail.
Girl with Curl - 1926
According to legend, Dali grew up fantasizing about a Russian peasant girl... three years after completing this painting, he met Gala, a Russian bourgeois girl (close enough) who left her husband to become Dali's muse, wife, object of candaulistic pleasure (fitting for a visual artist). Some say that makes this painting "prophetic" and read a lot into the odd perspective that cuts out the middle ground between the girl and the background landscape. I just like the sensuous curves, the sliver of a crescent moon mimicking the drapery over her backside, and the hints of myfavoritecolorblue in the upper reaches of the sky.
Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at 20 Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln - 1976
Painted for the bicentennial of America, a nation he only lived in for eight years decades before, this 448-pixel-wide version doesn't really capture the true power of this painting. Proportionally, I think you have to be about seven inches from the screen the first time you see it for the Gala part to be more powerful than the Lincoln part - the actual painting is one of those jumbo, wall-sized things, fifteen feet tall at least. I love how it's sorta pixely (before pixels were really a thing), and the little squares on the bottom that separate Gala and Lincoln into separate pieces. I especially love the bloodorange in the sky, textured like water, and how it reminds me of flying down the east coast at sunset.
In sum: Dali = awesome, and far more than the Persistence of Memory (iconic and awesome work though it is), and after they open the new space next January, I want to go back and see the whole collection.
Click for more!
Friday, March 19, 2010
True Patriotism
I feel like such an awesome liberal today! I did my taxes AND wrote a VERY angry letter to Congressman John Mica about how he's going to vote on Sunday. VERY angry.
----
Dear Congressman Mica,
This morning, I awoke to the most disturbing sound my clock radio has ever produced: you and a conservative radio host lambasting the pending health care bill as something that would create too much "bureaucracy" and "ration" Medicare for seniors, and repeating over and over again - without offering any specific alternatives of your own - "there is a better way to do this."
As you can imagine, this was not the way I had hoped to begin my day.
You may be unaware that the average American, whether or not she or he is insured, already experiences an overly bureaucratic health care system that rations care, and, moreover, is in favor of the better way set forth in the Democrats' bill, once informed of the specific provisions it contains. I understand that you, as a member of Congress, are furnished with a very good insurance plan as a matter of course, being an Important Government Figure, and generally have aides and assistants who navigate the paperwork for you. I also understand that as a member of the Republican party, you may be under the impression that the things Mitch McConnell and other prominent opponents to the bill say about it, such as, "Americans don’t want this bill. They’re telling us to start over. The only people who don’t seem to be getting the message are Democrat leaders in Washington," are true. But for you to claim all these positions and then on top of it all, not even offer a reform plan of your own, is ludicrous hypocrisy.
You, sir, are the one out of touch if you truly believe that legislation regulating the criminally negligent behavior of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies is anything less than urgently necessary for the future of our nation. Let's set aside the fact that this bill does not propose an actual government-run health care system (and that you and I both know it). A government system will ration care in an effort to cut costs? A government program will create too much bureaucracy to be efficient? Today's insurance giants deny care to millions of INSURED customers on the slimmest of bases, let alone all those they refuse to cover. Insurance companies, like ALL companies in a free market, are interested first and foremost in maximizing their profits. Please, for the love of democracy, explain to me how a company like Blue Cross or MetLife has less interest in cutting costs (and raising prices) than the United States government. Please explain to me why you believe that delivering platinum care to a few thousand Americans is more important than declaring that ALL our citizens are entitled to a gold standard that is within reach?
You and I agree on one point. There is a better way to reform health care than this. The manner of that reform is where we diverge, in more ways than one: I know what my picture of reform looks like. Congressman Mica, I plead you to recognize the true state of American health care today - see beyond your own friends, family, and campaign supporters to the other Americans who are hurting, physically and fiscally, because affordable health insurance is simply out of reach. You and I both know that each time Congress starts over on health care, Americans suffer - some even perish for lack of treatment. A for-profit health care system is no health care system at all - it is simply another self-interested, for-profit business, one that has no placed in a civilized nation that claims all its citizens are created equal.
The time is now. Please vote in favor of the health care bill on Sunday, for your conscience, for your constituents, and for your country.
Sincerely,
Caroline Leonard
Click for more!
----
Dear Congressman Mica,
This morning, I awoke to the most disturbing sound my clock radio has ever produced: you and a conservative radio host lambasting the pending health care bill as something that would create too much "bureaucracy" and "ration" Medicare for seniors, and repeating over and over again - without offering any specific alternatives of your own - "there is a better way to do this."
As you can imagine, this was not the way I had hoped to begin my day.
You may be unaware that the average American, whether or not she or he is insured, already experiences an overly bureaucratic health care system that rations care, and, moreover, is in favor of the better way set forth in the Democrats' bill, once informed of the specific provisions it contains. I understand that you, as a member of Congress, are furnished with a very good insurance plan as a matter of course, being an Important Government Figure, and generally have aides and assistants who navigate the paperwork for you. I also understand that as a member of the Republican party, you may be under the impression that the things Mitch McConnell and other prominent opponents to the bill say about it, such as, "Americans don’t want this bill. They’re telling us to start over. The only people who don’t seem to be getting the message are Democrat leaders in Washington," are true. But for you to claim all these positions and then on top of it all, not even offer a reform plan of your own, is ludicrous hypocrisy.
You, sir, are the one out of touch if you truly believe that legislation regulating the criminally negligent behavior of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies is anything less than urgently necessary for the future of our nation. Let's set aside the fact that this bill does not propose an actual government-run health care system (and that you and I both know it). A government system will ration care in an effort to cut costs? A government program will create too much bureaucracy to be efficient? Today's insurance giants deny care to millions of INSURED customers on the slimmest of bases, let alone all those they refuse to cover. Insurance companies, like ALL companies in a free market, are interested first and foremost in maximizing their profits. Please, for the love of democracy, explain to me how a company like Blue Cross or MetLife has less interest in cutting costs (and raising prices) than the United States government. Please explain to me why you believe that delivering platinum care to a few thousand Americans is more important than declaring that ALL our citizens are entitled to a gold standard that is within reach?
You and I agree on one point. There is a better way to reform health care than this. The manner of that reform is where we diverge, in more ways than one: I know what my picture of reform looks like. Congressman Mica, I plead you to recognize the true state of American health care today - see beyond your own friends, family, and campaign supporters to the other Americans who are hurting, physically and fiscally, because affordable health insurance is simply out of reach. You and I both know that each time Congress starts over on health care, Americans suffer - some even perish for lack of treatment. A for-profit health care system is no health care system at all - it is simply another self-interested, for-profit business, one that has no placed in a civilized nation that claims all its citizens are created equal.
The time is now. Please vote in favor of the health care bill on Sunday, for your conscience, for your constituents, and for your country.
Sincerely,
Caroline Leonard
Click for more!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
And you may ask yourself, how did I get here?
Dear Senator Nelson,
My letter today serves as a reminder that there are, in fact, people in our great state who urgently desire health care reform at the national level. I am sure you have received thousands of calls and letters in the last year on this issue, and I imagine a majority of them may have expressed concerns (to put it politely) about the bills proposed by both chambers of Congress and that laid out by the President. Please know that, despite being less well-organized than the tea partiers, we are no less passionate about this issue - and almost certainly more well-intentioned. And, most importantly, we are not as outnumbered as the ratio of letters and calls might suggest. Therefore, I plead that you not only continue to vote in support of health care reforms, but also aid in whatever ways you can to ensure that your reluctant collegues on both sides of the aisle do the same.
Florida is a state long caught between the divisive rhetoric of the two major parties, and myself and others respect and admire you for persevering in the face of persistent pressure to moderate your positions. With health care especially, any concessions to the Senate Republicans are tenfold concessions to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Too long has the true backbone of this country, the working middle class, been held hostage by false dichotomies spewed forth by industry lobbyists and the Congressional representatives who profit from preserving the entrenched system.
You must ensure that Senators from other closely contested states realize that the political capital that will result from the passage of a strong reform bill will compound in years to come - just as failure to reform the system now will compound against those who vote against it when the iniquities of the current system grow unchecked, as they inevitably will. This opportunity must not be permitted to slip away.
Sincerely,
Caroline Leonard
Click for more!
My letter today serves as a reminder that there are, in fact, people in our great state who urgently desire health care reform at the national level. I am sure you have received thousands of calls and letters in the last year on this issue, and I imagine a majority of them may have expressed concerns (to put it politely) about the bills proposed by both chambers of Congress and that laid out by the President. Please know that, despite being less well-organized than the tea partiers, we are no less passionate about this issue - and almost certainly more well-intentioned. And, most importantly, we are not as outnumbered as the ratio of letters and calls might suggest. Therefore, I plead that you not only continue to vote in support of health care reforms, but also aid in whatever ways you can to ensure that your reluctant collegues on both sides of the aisle do the same.
Florida is a state long caught between the divisive rhetoric of the two major parties, and myself and others respect and admire you for persevering in the face of persistent pressure to moderate your positions. With health care especially, any concessions to the Senate Republicans are tenfold concessions to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Too long has the true backbone of this country, the working middle class, been held hostage by false dichotomies spewed forth by industry lobbyists and the Congressional representatives who profit from preserving the entrenched system.
You must ensure that Senators from other closely contested states realize that the political capital that will result from the passage of a strong reform bill will compound in years to come - just as failure to reform the system now will compound against those who vote against it when the iniquities of the current system grow unchecked, as they inevitably will. This opportunity must not be permitted to slip away.
Sincerely,
Caroline Leonard
Click for more!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Artful things
Last night, I was cleaning out my dropbox and realized I never posted the two Jesus postcards I bought two years ago at St Paul's in London, two of the founding members of my collection. For shame!
Also below the cut - an ad for an exhibition on now at the Met. It's about time I kick off goal number 84, and I absolutely adore simple sketch drawings like this. Something about them seems more... personal, more individual... closer to the artist, and therefore more remarkable that they have survived through the centuries. I suppose they're the visual arts equivalent of acoustic songs. Anyway, I'm going to be in New York in less than a month for Spring Break (Daily Show should be completed then, too!) and I am really excited about loading up my ipod with quiet music and going to go absorb the pretty :)
These are apparently part of a larger series called "The Way: The Truth: The Life," by Sergei Chepik, and were completed in 2005. They are the second and third pieces, "The Public Ministry" and "The Crucifixion," respectively. I love how forlorn they are, especially when compared with the rest of the St Paul's decor, which is much brighter and more traditionally "wondrous." (For reference, see #6 and #8 on this post.) It's good to be reminded by these darker works that St Paul's is one of the largest public mausoleums in the world, in addition to a place of worship.
And! Here's the exhibition's ad:
Click for more!
Also below the cut - an ad for an exhibition on now at the Met. It's about time I kick off goal number 84, and I absolutely adore simple sketch drawings like this. Something about them seems more... personal, more individual... closer to the artist, and therefore more remarkable that they have survived through the centuries. I suppose they're the visual arts equivalent of acoustic songs. Anyway, I'm going to be in New York in less than a month for Spring Break (Daily Show should be completed then, too!) and I am really excited about loading up my ipod with quiet music and going to go absorb the pretty :)
These are apparently part of a larger series called "The Way: The Truth: The Life," by Sergei Chepik, and were completed in 2005. They are the second and third pieces, "The Public Ministry" and "The Crucifixion," respectively. I love how forlorn they are, especially when compared with the rest of the St Paul's decor, which is much brighter and more traditionally "wondrous." (For reference, see #6 and #8 on this post.) It's good to be reminded by these darker works that St Paul's is one of the largest public mausoleums in the world, in addition to a place of worship.
And! Here's the exhibition's ad:
Click for more!
Friday, February 26, 2010
But trust me, on the sunscreen.
It occurs to me that I have another goal in progress that I have not yet addressed explicitly. One of the most enduring favorite things in my life is "Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen)," the Baz Luhrmann "graduation song," and, as such, it is the basis for goal 77. The true intention behind this goal is to "try ten different ways to be a Good Human Being." This goes above and beyond simply being nice or pleasant to be around or ambiguously believing that there are Serious Global Problems that Someone Somewhere Should Address - this song tells you how to live, how to be humble and embrace your flaws without getting mired in them. Anyway. Here goes:
1) I'm wearing sunscreen. Really. My moisturizer is SPF 15, and I'm about to put a bottle of sunblock in my car as the serious beaching is about to commence. No lines and wrinkles and skin cancer for me, thanks.
2) Dance - even if you have nowhere else to do than in your own living room. Aside from dance recitals in my youth, I tried very very hard to avoid dancing in public all my life. Despite years of training, I'm moderately ungraceful and - perhaps because of those years of training - I really don't know how to dance, like, at all, without choreography and a few weeks of practice. Luckily, the world contains this magical substance, "al-co-hol," which enables those such as myself to set aside all feelings of shame and uncoordinatedness and get down with our bad selves. I have therefore now danced TWICE in front of other human beings, and, let me tell you, it is very liberating. I greatly desire to try it again very very soon.
3) Don't be reckless with other people's hearts; don't put up with people who are reckless with yours. I'm... trying. And generally succeeding. Take my word for it. These are goals in progress, right? Right.
4) Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few, you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, for as the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young. Enough said.
So that's four bits in progress. Arguably, I am also doing well with another, Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're forty, it will look eighty-five. It's hard for me to judge... I mean, I feel like I abuse the crap out of it, but the reality is that I only dye it every two or three months, my straightener is still wrapped up in its cord from moving this summer, and I don't even own a blowdryer. We'll see in twenty years, I guess. Also, technically, I am also following a sixth piece of advice, but... I never read Cosmo in the first place and even when I do glance at the ladies' mags, they certainly don't make me feel ugly. Like, maybe I could lose three pounds and tone my upper arms, but. Definitely by no means ugly. Gosh. Anyway. Progress.
Side note: Angels in America is coming to New York's Signature Theatre for the 2010-2011 season, along with a whole mess of other Tony Kushner plays, and I am so so so excited about it. I swore I posted about it already, because I found out about it at least two months ago, but... apparently not, according to the search I just ran. The Signature says it will be the first large-scale revival of both parts EVER in New York City - I have full faith that it will be the most magical experience of my life.
Click for more!
1) I'm wearing sunscreen. Really. My moisturizer is SPF 15, and I'm about to put a bottle of sunblock in my car as the serious beaching is about to commence. No lines and wrinkles and skin cancer for me, thanks.
2) Dance - even if you have nowhere else to do than in your own living room. Aside from dance recitals in my youth, I tried very very hard to avoid dancing in public all my life. Despite years of training, I'm moderately ungraceful and - perhaps because of those years of training - I really don't know how to dance, like, at all, without choreography and a few weeks of practice. Luckily, the world contains this magical substance, "al-co-hol," which enables those such as myself to set aside all feelings of shame and uncoordinatedness and get down with our bad selves. I have therefore now danced TWICE in front of other human beings, and, let me tell you, it is very liberating. I greatly desire to try it again very very soon.
3) Don't be reckless with other people's hearts; don't put up with people who are reckless with yours. I'm... trying. And generally succeeding. Take my word for it. These are goals in progress, right? Right.
4) Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few, you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, for as the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young. Enough said.
So that's four bits in progress. Arguably, I am also doing well with another, Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're forty, it will look eighty-five. It's hard for me to judge... I mean, I feel like I abuse the crap out of it, but the reality is that I only dye it every two or three months, my straightener is still wrapped up in its cord from moving this summer, and I don't even own a blowdryer. We'll see in twenty years, I guess. Also, technically, I am also following a sixth piece of advice, but... I never read Cosmo in the first place and even when I do glance at the ladies' mags, they certainly don't make me feel ugly. Like, maybe I could lose three pounds and tone my upper arms, but. Definitely by no means ugly. Gosh. Anyway. Progress.
Side note: Angels in America is coming to New York's Signature Theatre for the 2010-2011 season, along with a whole mess of other Tony Kushner plays, and I am so so so excited about it. I swore I posted about it already, because I found out about it at least two months ago, but... apparently not, according to the search I just ran. The Signature says it will be the first large-scale revival of both parts EVER in New York City - I have full faith that it will be the most magical experience of my life.
Click for more!
Monday, February 22, 2010
Finally....
Here's "The Iceman"! Check it out, for reallll. The philosophical and ethical implications are boundless and I want to discuss them with all of you!
On a semi-related-but-not-really note, I finished reading two books in the last two days, one of which qualifies under the "recommended to me" goal, and one which I just picked up, started reading, and promptly stole from my friend because it is thoroughly awesome.
How I Became Stupid is a delightful reexamination of the age-old plague of ennui that befalls all the youthful intellectuals of the world from time to time. Although it doesn't provide any realistic* "solutions" to the deeply painful experience of being too aware of the world, it playfully deconstructs all the normal alternatives: alcoholism, suicide, and Prozac. Moral of the story: moderation is the key to a (functional) intellectual life. It's not groundbreaking or exceedingly innovative in any way, it's just a legitimately pleasurable reading experience.
The second novel, Identity, seems like a reasonably standard story plot (middle-aged couple begins to question their love because they are really - gasp - questioning their own identities) but is a technical marvel. For instance: it was not until page 150 that I became aware that every few paragraphs or so, the narration switched between past and present tense, normally something that I'm a huge stickler against. But when handled properly, tense change is an incredibly effective way to pace a story. Like most advanced writing techniques, tense changes are best experienced on a subliminal level, to be discerned explicitly upon a second, closer read. Nabokov has the same effect with his use of metaphor: there are certain sentences in Lolita that you need to read over and over again to realize exactly what has just been said. Not because the language is too dense, no - it's more that you've just been lulled into such a sense of bewilderment at the ease and flow of the language that you don't pay attention to the actual words. Since ripping one such example out of context from either book would only negate the effect in question, you just have to take my word for it. And all this is not to say that the philosophical discussions of projecting and mirroring and identity-depending-on-other-people's-perceptions-of-you-as-well-as-your-own aren't valid and equally good parts of the book, just. I wanted to highlight the joyous element of simply reading this text.
Reading these two books at the same time amplified certain themes that have been simmering in my mind lately, and each highlighted certain undertones in the other that... well, I probably would have picked up on them anyway, but the juxtaposition was lovely. Only they both cut pretty heavily into my aim to become a hard-hearted cynic, traversing the world in self-satisfied, misanthropic solitude... stupid need for stupid friends and stupid love and stupid human contact. Blech.
*Re: Realistic solutions.... spoiler alerts. See below.
What the fuck, stupid indie soulmates. That's some fucking bulllllshit. I spent ten years of my life undoing the damage Disney did me as a child, and having my hard won pragmatism battered from all pop culture angles... It isn't enough that Carrie and Big end up together, or Jim and Pam, or Josh and Donna... now the fucking offbeat literature that is supposed to PROMOTE shrugging off all that mass media crap and living your own life has to succumb to the storybook happy ending? Yes, it's very easy to live true love when SOMEONE IS WRITING YOUR SCRIPT FOR YOU.
Click for more!
On a semi-related-but-not-really note, I finished reading two books in the last two days, one of which qualifies under the "recommended to me" goal, and one which I just picked up, started reading, and promptly stole from my friend because it is thoroughly awesome.
How I Became Stupid is a delightful reexamination of the age-old plague of ennui that befalls all the youthful intellectuals of the world from time to time. Although it doesn't provide any realistic* "solutions" to the deeply painful experience of being too aware of the world, it playfully deconstructs all the normal alternatives: alcoholism, suicide, and Prozac. Moral of the story: moderation is the key to a (functional) intellectual life. It's not groundbreaking or exceedingly innovative in any way, it's just a legitimately pleasurable reading experience.
The second novel, Identity, seems like a reasonably standard story plot (middle-aged couple begins to question their love because they are really - gasp - questioning their own identities) but is a technical marvel. For instance: it was not until page 150 that I became aware that every few paragraphs or so, the narration switched between past and present tense, normally something that I'm a huge stickler against. But when handled properly, tense change is an incredibly effective way to pace a story. Like most advanced writing techniques, tense changes are best experienced on a subliminal level, to be discerned explicitly upon a second, closer read. Nabokov has the same effect with his use of metaphor: there are certain sentences in Lolita that you need to read over and over again to realize exactly what has just been said. Not because the language is too dense, no - it's more that you've just been lulled into such a sense of bewilderment at the ease and flow of the language that you don't pay attention to the actual words. Since ripping one such example out of context from either book would only negate the effect in question, you just have to take my word for it. And all this is not to say that the philosophical discussions of projecting and mirroring and identity-depending-on-other-people's-perceptions-of-you-as-well-as-your-own aren't valid and equally good parts of the book, just. I wanted to highlight the joyous element of simply reading this text.
Reading these two books at the same time amplified certain themes that have been simmering in my mind lately, and each highlighted certain undertones in the other that... well, I probably would have picked up on them anyway, but the juxtaposition was lovely. Only they both cut pretty heavily into my aim to become a hard-hearted cynic, traversing the world in self-satisfied, misanthropic solitude... stupid need for stupid friends and stupid love and stupid human contact. Blech.
*Re: Realistic solutions.... spoiler alerts. See below.
What the fuck, stupid indie soulmates. That's some fucking bulllllshit. I spent ten years of my life undoing the damage Disney did me as a child, and having my hard won pragmatism battered from all pop culture angles... It isn't enough that Carrie and Big end up together, or Jim and Pam, or Josh and Donna... now the fucking offbeat literature that is supposed to PROMOTE shrugging off all that mass media crap and living your own life has to succumb to the storybook happy ending? Yes, it's very easy to live true love when SOMEONE IS WRITING YOUR SCRIPT FOR YOU.
Click for more!
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
It's just so much easier to do them in batches...
Below are four (4) SPTs. The first doubles as evidence of my first four hours on a Habitat worksite; the second doubles as evidence that I'm pretending to learn June on the West Coast; the third and fourth together serve to prove that I'm running out of ideas for these when nothing special is going on.
Click for more!
Click for more!
Monday, February 15, 2010
A Nervous Romance
Oy. I forgot to dropbox the Iceman article files, so I'll have to make the pdf tomorrow. In the meantime, an update of a different sort: I watched Annie Hall on Saturday night, the second of the twenty-five greatest movies of all time ever I have viewed since starting this whole shebang. I loved it. The story was adorable without being fuzzy, the script was hilarious, and the little extra bits Woody Allen threw in, like the animated scene and the subtitled "yes we're talking but we should be fucking" scene, just made it an excellent piece of film work. I also loved how it is obviously one of Jerry Seinfeld's favorite movies, or Larry David's, or both.
Oh! On Friday last week, I donated $25 on Donors Choose to a fourth grade class that needs posterboard and markers to make maps of the US and the world. As you may recall, I am a huge fan of coloring maps in order to internalize geography, and there was some special corporate matching thing going on in honor of President's Day... it was timely. I'm now 10% done with the Donors Choose goal!
I like quantifiable progress. I should actually figure out how many stitches are required when knitting a sweater... if I were to estimate, I'd say I'm about 73% done at this point. Progress has ground to a near-halt because I'm at the cap of the right sleeve, and I knit it in the round so I'm not entirely sure how to close it off since it needs to taper up. Ugh. I'll get there.
Click for more!
Oh! On Friday last week, I donated $25 on Donors Choose to a fourth grade class that needs posterboard and markers to make maps of the US and the world. As you may recall, I am a huge fan of coloring maps in order to internalize geography, and there was some special corporate matching thing going on in honor of President's Day... it was timely. I'm now 10% done with the Donors Choose goal!
I like quantifiable progress. I should actually figure out how many stitches are required when knitting a sweater... if I were to estimate, I'd say I'm about 73% done at this point. Progress has ground to a near-halt because I'm at the cap of the right sleeve, and I knit it in the round so I'm not entirely sure how to close it off since it needs to taper up. Ugh. I'll get there.
Click for more!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Four little things
For the past couple days, I've been bouncing back and forth between the bathrooms at the office in order to read two lengthy biographical profiles in two separate issues of the New Yorker - a magazine which now hates me, because I can't even post a link to an article from LAST WEEK'S (dated this week, but that's another beef for another post) issue. See, unlike every other periodical publication on the planet, the New Yorker has seen fit to completely digitize their archive through some sort of flash player... you see the layout exactly as you would if you were holding the paper copy in front of you, with the cartoons interspersed in the articles and everything, but it's a flat image. You can't highlight the text, no copy-pasta... the pages aren't even pdf, half of them are jpgs and half are pngs. Utmost fail. I do, however, have Adobe Acrobat here at the office... I might make my own pdfs and toss them up to mediafire for future safekeeping.
The best I can do for now, though, is tell you a bit about them and post links to the abstracts. First up, "The Iceman." In the far reaches of the frigid north, fittingly, a ninety-one year old man is leading the charge for cryogenic freezing to replace standard burial practices. In Ettinger's ideal vision of the future, everyone on earth takes turns playing Frye - being "reanimated" in a couple hundred years, checking out the sights, and going back to sleep to give someone else a shot/wait another couple centuries to see what else is happening. I have two major questions about this: 1) since you can only be frozen by having your body pumped full of antifreeze after you die, meaning that your brain is off - electricity, dead, synapses, dead. Let's grant that in the distant future, there's a way to reanimate your cells physically - where is the scientific basis for believing that that body would actually be you? I mean presuming you could walk and talk, would you be able to reminisce about your past, or even care that you were alive again, let alone at all? If you didn't have memories, wouldn't it really traumatize you to be a zombie? You probably wouldn't even know what a zombie is, you wouldn't have any language at all - you'd be an infant trapped in an adult body with a fully developed yet completely empty brain. How would that even begin to work?
Second question is, say you even can get over this whole dead synapse thing (and please, if you know anything about neuroscience at all, by all means let me know what the plausible scenarios are here), or work out the cylonesque up- and downloading of consciousness... anyway, say reanimation works, and when you wake up, you are still aware that you are you and this thing has happened and you understand that you are in the future... and so are ten thousand other people that day whose turn it is to live again. If everyone is really truly living in turns, for a few years at a time, say, how does progress continue? By the third or fourth cycle, will anything have even changed? We have the innovations we have today because of the combination of the collective unconscious and the constant injection of new minds into the macro thought process. You build off what's come before... and if you're what came before, and so is everyone else, and if everyone was only in it to see the rocket cars and moon colonies, then it just stops. Right? At the end of the day, I respect the equitable impulse to say that everyone should be able to have their turn at glimpsing FutureEarth, but... how long would that actually be interesting? How long until people would begin to not refreeze? Is it possible to be that petrified of death?
The way the New Yorker piece describes Ettinger's history and psychology, I think perhaps this freezing nonsense is the (pseudo)scientific equivalent of the rapture mania in the far-out evangelical churches of America. As a young boy, Ettinger feverishly read sci-fi stories about conquering death and the consequences thereof; after being shot in the Second World War, he even wrote one of his own. Interestingly, his story has an odd sort of twist that makes cryogenics seem much less appealing than you'd think the founder of alab warehouse for it would want you to think it is. I would describe it to you, but I firmly believe this is an article worth reading, and so on Monday, I will make the pdf and post it. Plus, this is long enough already, and those four little things I was going to post became one big thing so rapidly that, aside from the other article, I can't even remember what the third and fourth things are. Ooopsie. More soon.
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The best I can do for now, though, is tell you a bit about them and post links to the abstracts. First up, "The Iceman." In the far reaches of the frigid north, fittingly, a ninety-one year old man is leading the charge for cryogenic freezing to replace standard burial practices. In Ettinger's ideal vision of the future, everyone on earth takes turns playing Frye - being "reanimated" in a couple hundred years, checking out the sights, and going back to sleep to give someone else a shot/wait another couple centuries to see what else is happening. I have two major questions about this: 1) since you can only be frozen by having your body pumped full of antifreeze after you die, meaning that your brain is off - electricity, dead, synapses, dead. Let's grant that in the distant future, there's a way to reanimate your cells physically - where is the scientific basis for believing that that body would actually be you? I mean presuming you could walk and talk, would you be able to reminisce about your past, or even care that you were alive again, let alone at all? If you didn't have memories, wouldn't it really traumatize you to be a zombie? You probably wouldn't even know what a zombie is, you wouldn't have any language at all - you'd be an infant trapped in an adult body with a fully developed yet completely empty brain. How would that even begin to work?
Second question is, say you even can get over this whole dead synapse thing (and please, if you know anything about neuroscience at all, by all means let me know what the plausible scenarios are here), or work out the cylonesque up- and downloading of consciousness... anyway, say reanimation works, and when you wake up, you are still aware that you are you and this thing has happened and you understand that you are in the future... and so are ten thousand other people that day whose turn it is to live again. If everyone is really truly living in turns, for a few years at a time, say, how does progress continue? By the third or fourth cycle, will anything have even changed? We have the innovations we have today because of the combination of the collective unconscious and the constant injection of new minds into the macro thought process. You build off what's come before... and if you're what came before, and so is everyone else, and if everyone was only in it to see the rocket cars and moon colonies, then it just stops. Right? At the end of the day, I respect the equitable impulse to say that everyone should be able to have their turn at glimpsing FutureEarth, but... how long would that actually be interesting? How long until people would begin to not refreeze? Is it possible to be that petrified of death?
The way the New Yorker piece describes Ettinger's history and psychology, I think perhaps this freezing nonsense is the (pseudo)scientific equivalent of the rapture mania in the far-out evangelical churches of America. As a young boy, Ettinger feverishly read sci-fi stories about conquering death and the consequences thereof; after being shot in the Second World War, he even wrote one of his own. Interestingly, his story has an odd sort of twist that makes cryogenics seem much less appealing than you'd think the founder of a
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Monday, February 8, 2010
I'm gonna do my best swan dive...
The following is untitled and will likely permanently remain unfinished. But it's something I wrote a while ago and I'm trying to be courageous and less of a perfectionist, and that means posting something imperfect and letting it just... be. It's a start.
---
So, anyways, that’s all that’s going on here. Miss you, come home soon, write often, all that.
Really, though.
Love,
Me
Elena dabbed at the drop of water bleeding the “M” in “Miss you” into a fuzzy, inky snowball, salvaging the “iss” and the sentiment of her sentence. Before folding up the sheet, she surveyed the letter and its strange geography of similarly blotted characters and entire words interrupted by a sudden upstroke, like an EKG, or a seismograph, detecting strong beats. She considered that if she were sending this to anyone else, she would have been too ashamed and rewritten the entire thing. Her big sister, though, was the one who had always stayed up with her at night when the thunderstorms rolled onshore, telling her stories to distract her from the sharp cracks that still made her jump. She would understand. Elena giggled, figuring her sister would even appreciate the gesture of sending along the evidence of the storm. She slid the letter into its equally rain-spotted envelope, licked and sealed it shut, and glanced up at the clouds as she scrambled, barefoot, down the porch steps and across the lawn to the mailbox.
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---
So, anyways, that’s all that’s going on here. Miss you, come home soon, write often, all that.
Really, though.
Love,
Me
Elena dabbed at the drop of water bleeding the “M” in “Miss you” into a fuzzy, inky snowball, salvaging the “iss” and the sentiment of her sentence. Before folding up the sheet, she surveyed the letter and its strange geography of similarly blotted characters and entire words interrupted by a sudden upstroke, like an EKG, or a seismograph, detecting strong beats. She considered that if she were sending this to anyone else, she would have been too ashamed and rewritten the entire thing. Her big sister, though, was the one who had always stayed up with her at night when the thunderstorms rolled onshore, telling her stories to distract her from the sharp cracks that still made her jump. She would understand. Elena giggled, figuring her sister would even appreciate the gesture of sending along the evidence of the storm. She slid the letter into its equally rain-spotted envelope, licked and sealed it shut, and glanced up at the clouds as she scrambled, barefoot, down the porch steps and across the lawn to the mailbox.
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Sunday, February 7, 2010
St. Patrick's - January 15, 2010
I visited St. Patrick's three weeks ago with my friend Chelsea, approximately two and a half hours after landing at JFK. It was literally that much of a priority for me. Architecture innervates my soul, and, having escaped the suffocating clutches of Daytona for the weekend, it was a delightfully symbolic way to start the trip.
I'd been there once or twice before, years and years and years ago with my family, and when I was twelve, I read this book, a thriller in which a rogue IRA cell takes the cathedral hostage for no apparent reason. Most notable line: the 50/60 something Irish dude tells the young chickadee who seems to be his sidekick, "Girlie, I've been shot at more times than you've had your period." Most notable image: some dude climbs up on of the spires outside, either to light the building on fire, put that fire out, or set up some sort of signal for the cops. It's good times.
Anyways, Chels and I had an excellent time peering at all the saint shrines, conjecturing about why Catholics light candles for them, sneaking glances at people crossing themselves to find out if it's left-to-right or right-to-left, and, you know, just generally being slightly less respectful of the space than we probably should have been. I took quite a few pictures, most of which did not come out quite as well as I'd have liked because I didn't want to use the flash. I've culled the best and dumped them into a new photobucket. I got bored while I was uploading them so I ran the "old photo" script on my favorite; it is now below the cut and is the link to the full album. If you don't want to flip through all the pictures manually, there's a slideshow before the first one. Technology, woo! I also stuck the SPT from that week below the cut here, since it was taken while I was there and everything. The three subsequent SPTs should be posted before it's time for the next one to be taken. Hopefully.
Click for more!
I'd been there once or twice before, years and years and years ago with my family, and when I was twelve, I read this book, a thriller in which a rogue IRA cell takes the cathedral hostage for no apparent reason. Most notable line: the 50/60 something Irish dude tells the young chickadee who seems to be his sidekick, "Girlie, I've been shot at more times than you've had your period." Most notable image: some dude climbs up on of the spires outside, either to light the building on fire, put that fire out, or set up some sort of signal for the cops. It's good times.
Anyways, Chels and I had an excellent time peering at all the saint shrines, conjecturing about why Catholics light candles for them, sneaking glances at people crossing themselves to find out if it's left-to-right or right-to-left, and, you know, just generally being slightly less respectful of the space than we probably should have been. I took quite a few pictures, most of which did not come out quite as well as I'd have liked because I didn't want to use the flash. I've culled the best and dumped them into a new photobucket. I got bored while I was uploading them so I ran the "old photo" script on my favorite; it is now below the cut and is the link to the full album. If you don't want to flip through all the pictures manually, there's a slideshow before the first one. Technology, woo! I also stuck the SPT from that week below the cut here, since it was taken while I was there and everything. The three subsequent SPTs should be posted before it's time for the next one to be taken. Hopefully.
Click for more!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Historical Documents
Re: active SETI, ie sending messages instead of listening for them:
I give you "Exolanguage: do you speak alien?" It reminds me of that scene in Independence Day when they send up the "welcome wagon" helicopter with all the flashy lights, as though blinding the aliens with high beams (but there's patterns!) isn't going to bug them or anything. The article does raise an interesting theory, that perhaps math is not math to aliens, and that we should not assume that any extraterrestrial civilization advanced enough to hear our broadcasts will understand that 1+1=2. My favorite line is, "Maybe everyone's listening but no one is transmitting. Maybe it takes an audacious young civilisation like ours to do that." Would make sense to send porn out into the universe, then, right? Like some cosmic-scale fart joke? [Aside: holy christ we should from now on send nothing but rickrolls!]
See also: "What's on Earth Tonight?"
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Instead, Shostak suggests that we just gabble. "My conclusion is that you would just send them the Google servers. That's an enormous amount of information, much of it redundant and pictographic. Much of it is pornographic too, but I expect they could handle that." (Although it raises questions like, can Earth handle a trillion orders for Viagra?)
I give you "Exolanguage: do you speak alien?" It reminds me of that scene in Independence Day when they send up the "welcome wagon" helicopter with all the flashy lights, as though blinding the aliens with high beams (but there's patterns!) isn't going to bug them or anything. The article does raise an interesting theory, that perhaps math is not math to aliens, and that we should not assume that any extraterrestrial civilization advanced enough to hear our broadcasts will understand that 1+1=2. My favorite line is, "Maybe everyone's listening but no one is transmitting. Maybe it takes an audacious young civilisation like ours to do that." Would make sense to send porn out into the universe, then, right? Like some cosmic-scale fart joke? [Aside: holy christ we should from now on send nothing but rickrolls!]
See also: "What's on Earth Tonight?"
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010
101 is a lot to remember...
So, oops, I totally forgot that one of my actual goals (#9) was to knit a sweater. For some reason, in my head it got folded into #40, Create an entire outfit by hand. This is actually really beneficial that I just remembered, because it means I am on the verge of completing another goal just as one got shot down. Yep, that's right, it's the end of January, and you know what that means, folks - the Foreign Service finally emailed and of course it was a no, because I just graduated and I really don't know anything about anything yet and.
It's still disappointing. It's the only thing that I very clearly know that I want to do as a career, that I can see myself doing for the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. Insofar as I can see myself doing any one thing for approximately the same amount of time I've been a self-aware human being, anyway.
But anyway so as I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm looking at grad school options, and my top two choices are this program at Columbia, a Masters in International Affairs with a concentration in Social Policy, and this program at NYU, which gives an MA in International Relations and Journalism. I have yet to discern the distinct merits of being a "Master of Field X" versus being a "Master of Arts of Field X," so that is my next task. It looks like they both start accepting applications in August - which for some reason reminds me that I need to sign up IMMEDIATELY for the GRE. Okay, that is my real next task. Stream of consciousness what?
tl;dr: Foreign Service = not this year. Grad school = life plan for 2011. Goal #9 = remembered, almost completed.
Next up: StPaul's Patrick's, Habitat, SPT x2.
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It's still disappointing. It's the only thing that I very clearly know that I want to do as a career, that I can see myself doing for the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. Insofar as I can see myself doing any one thing for approximately the same amount of time I've been a self-aware human being, anyway.
But anyway so as I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm looking at grad school options, and my top two choices are this program at Columbia, a Masters in International Affairs with a concentration in Social Policy, and this program at NYU, which gives an MA in International Relations and Journalism. I have yet to discern the distinct merits of being a "Master of Field X" versus being a "Master of Arts of Field X," so that is my next task. It looks like they both start accepting applications in August - which for some reason reminds me that I need to sign up IMMEDIATELY for the GRE. Okay, that is my real next task. Stream of consciousness what?
tl;dr: Foreign Service = not this year. Grad school = life plan for 2011. Goal #9 = remembered, almost completed.
Next up: St
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010
The exact opposite of a picture dump.
Today, instead of figuring out a way to post my St. Paul's pictures all big and pretty, I looked at MA programs in International Relations at Columbia and NYU. I had a very long talk last night with my grandmother about Purpose and Life and what in the world I am going to do since I obviously will not be furnishing her with some great-grandbabies to play with in her twilight years.
That got me thinking (again) about how I've been home for five months, and how this has been going for five months, and what have I really done, both for myself, for my career goals, and to simply get out of here again. I really don't want to get into a huge personal introspection because this isn't the blog for that, but I do want to say that although I haven't been posting quite as much as the first couple months, I am still very much committed to this list and achieving as much of it as I can in the next 2.25 years. Although I've only completed two small goals so far - dancing in the rain and picnicking with a friend + wine - it seems to me like I've done a lot more. And in a way, I think that is objectively true, because I ended up setting a LOT of goals that either have weekly components (most notably the SPT and the articles), or that are more loosely multi-stage ones on which I've already begun progress. Scrolling down the master list, there is a good amount of terra cotta, and I'm pleased about that.
Before I began, one of my brothers pointed out that the list might seem a bit less daunting if I laid out a plan to complete five or six goals each month. While I think I might have a few too many huge goals (read the complete works of Salmon Rushdie, for instance) for that to be 100% feasible, I pretty much have a regular enough schedule that I am going to start setting aside blocks of time to sit down and work on certain projects. One of the major reasons I decided to make this list and put a time line on it was that I didn't want to stagnate while at home and just sit in front of the computer and TV every night, so I find it somewhat ironic that I need to schedule this me time because I'm spending too much time out of the house hanging out with my friends.
So here's the deal. Tonight I'm going to read A LOT, and tomorrow I'm going to open up ye olde google calendar and start blocking off some time for the next two weeks. Agenda: writing time, reading time, sewing time.
/Blogging time.
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That got me thinking (again) about how I've been home for five months, and how this has been going for five months, and what have I really done, both for myself, for my career goals, and to simply get out of here again. I really don't want to get into a huge personal introspection because this isn't the blog for that, but I do want to say that although I haven't been posting quite as much as the first couple months, I am still very much committed to this list and achieving as much of it as I can in the next 2.25 years. Although I've only completed two small goals so far - dancing in the rain and picnicking with a friend + wine - it seems to me like I've done a lot more. And in a way, I think that is objectively true, because I ended up setting a LOT of goals that either have weekly components (most notably the SPT and the articles), or that are more loosely multi-stage ones on which I've already begun progress. Scrolling down the master list, there is a good amount of terra cotta, and I'm pleased about that.
Before I began, one of my brothers pointed out that the list might seem a bit less daunting if I laid out a plan to complete five or six goals each month. While I think I might have a few too many huge goals (read the complete works of Salmon Rushdie, for instance) for that to be 100% feasible, I pretty much have a regular enough schedule that I am going to start setting aside blocks of time to sit down and work on certain projects. One of the major reasons I decided to make this list and put a time line on it was that I didn't want to stagnate while at home and just sit in front of the computer and TV every night, so I find it somewhat ironic that I need to schedule this me time because I'm spending too much time out of the house hanging out with my friends.
So here's the deal. Tonight I'm going to read A LOT, and tomorrow I'm going to open up ye olde google calendar and start blocking off some time for the next two weeks. Agenda: writing time, reading time, sewing time.
/Blogging time.
Click for more!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Picture Dump
Too tired to narrate. Click for pictures. Soon: SPT 19, Cathedral #1, and, for real, drabbles.
Lost SPT - December 4, 2009
Swingset #6 - Boone Park, Jacksonville, FL
SPT - December 31st
SPT - January 7
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Lost SPT - December 4, 2009
Swingset #6 - Boone Park, Jacksonville, FL
SPT - December 31st
SPT - January 7
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Friday, January 1, 2010
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