Monday, February 27, 2012

How I dearly wish I was not here

I'm listening, heavily, to both the Smiths and Morrissey today. He's hitting all the correct spots, the big round black ones that have settled at the base of my brain, my stomach, my chest. I like how sardonic he is about being depressed; he makes it ok to feel depressed but also make fun of being depressed for whole sets of non-problems. Vats full of non-problems. So many non-problems that they don't exist. I'm not depressed but I like the comfort of knowing that were I, I could be and then laugh about it.

Why do you come here when you know it makes things hard for me,
When you knooooohhhhh why do you come?
Why do you telephone? And whyhihihihi send me silly notes?


In other news, the library this weekend was a veritable hot bed of hot messes, beginning with a patron calling me an ass because he showed up too late to use the computer to do whatever he wanted to do that was "vitally important". He used those words. "Miss, I need to get on the computer to print something VITALLY IMPORTANT out." I told him that he would have to return the next day to do it. He called me an ass. Then he showed up the next afternoon to take care of his vital business. Do you want to know what it was? He printed a coupon. He had to print a coupon. And the weekend was topped off with a regular patron coming in to ask me to look for "chop-em-ups" on DVD. I lucked out though because he seems to have moved on from requesting debonair vampire films and he seemed to not want to follow up on his request last week that I find a list of indoor pools that are not "gender or age restricted.". I wish I was making any of that up.


Stop requesting me, sir.




I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
but heaven knows I'm miserable nooooooow.

I'm almost through the 18 consecutive working day stretch. Last night as I watched the Oscars with Marianne and Rob, I had a bit of a laughing fit at something Jennifer Lopez said when asked about what she loved the most about the Oscars. She said something about how it is "recognition" for "all the hard work" they do "making movies". At long last, recognition for your toil and trouble. I found the entire ceremony rather laughable, which is pretty much how I always find it but even more so this year was especially odious. (Adam Sandler giving his opinion on films. The man who is responsible for Jack and Jill telling us all what he loves about movies.) Normally I just like looking at the fashion but even that seemed underwhelming this year. The whole red carpet palaver elicited a series of groans, which is never a good thing. Eventually I will fully accept that each year the drawn out, over the top-ness of an increasingly irrelevant cultural event is going to get worse and worse until, like everything in popular culture, it becomes a meta, cringing, whining fraction of what it used to be and irony will creep all over it until there is nothing left to ridicule. There shouldn't be competition in film. I think it feeds into the collective neurotic tendency of creative people to get validation for everything they do. Or maybe I'm just talking about myself when I say that. Please validate me by commenting on this blog post. Hold on, I'll get my Prada gown on first....
Last year I adored Midnight in Paris and Beginners including a whole slew of performances within both of those films that did not even register a blip on the radar of the Oscars (Owen Wilson, Corey Stoll, Marion Cotillard, Ewan McGregor, Melanie Laurent) and I'm glad those performances exist. Even if they made neither that utterly random montage of movies they kept showing throughout last night's ceremony nor Reese Witherspoon's list of favorite films.

In my life why do I smile 
at people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?


And lastly, I just noticed that due to the unrelenting sunshine this weekend, I have received my first sun allergic reaction. It is on my left collarbone, a spot exposed on Saturday morning as I drove to work. Apparently I am going to have to leave the house this summer adorned in a burqa style coverall if I have any hope of not charring my skin to blackened pile of ash.

Whoa, I need to listen to other music now.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

A short post involving only references to other things.

Whooo. My head is all full of ee cummings poetry. you know. stuff like this:

 it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed

with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;

....and all the rest of it. And I sort of feel like I've had just a smidgen too much port wine. Even though I haven't had any, it being a Tuesday afternoon and me being at work. But damn it all if my glass isn't half full, or rose colored or other positive metaphors involving glass.

Oh don't get me wrong; I'm still waiting to drop my toast, buttered side down, absorbing the detritus of actual real life and all the other things we individuals collect and bring to offer another person. "Nice to meet you, here's my dirty buttered toast."

Okay then. I'm going to take Shirley Maclaine's advice at the very end of this clip. Only because I'm more C.C. Baxter than Fran Kubelik.


Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Spladow! It happens.

Every time I accidentally read an article from the likes of Glamour magazine or US magazine I feel the need to regenerate the resulting dead brain cells by doing a crossword or reading a poem or having a conversation. I realize people read these things for escapism but how can anyone pay for that privilege and then let whatever is in the article take up valuable space in the brain? I just read a headline attributed to Glamour: What he thinks about when you are naked. Yes, Glamour, please tell me the TRUTH at last about what one arbitrary person is thinking during naked intimacy. There is also an old issue of US magazine floating around my job's break room and it is the CELEBRITIES WITHOUT MAKEUP issue. I am so disgusted every time I see that crap. Who the fuck cares! I know these are hardly new or original observations but I had to get that out. Thanks.

In other news, Spotify continues to amaze me with the available music on there. I just had a burning need to hear "Bleecker Street" by Simon and Garfunkel (something about my strong desire to travel back to a time when $30 pays your rent on Bleeeeeeeeeeecker Streeeeet no doubt.) And there it was for the listening. I remember having to wait for so much music to become available to me. Wait for the radio to play it and wait for the video to come on and be ready and pay attention b/c you wouldn't hear it again until it came back up in the next hour's rotation. Maybe I'm slow on the uptake in this modern world but I am still surprised when I want something to happen for my entertainment and then spladow! It happens. I sincerely feel like I should be using words like "photostat" and "rouge" and "information superhighway" when these thoughts occur because I swear I feel so old sometimes.

Also, here's a random yet semi related memory alert. My sister Lorraine and I once spent an entire afternoon laughing at the photo on this album cover:


I do not have even the slightest recollection of what we found soooo hilarious about it. But I vividly recall just laughing until our stomachs hurt and then when my mother asked us what was so funny, we felt the need to hide the album cover underneath the couch. I wonder if that's why I've always loved that album. It reminds me of laughing for no reason.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Sturm und Drang and Angst and Spatzle

The internet continues to invent new and shiny ways in which I can waste my time. Pinterest is going on in my life right now. When I'm on that site I feel all jumbled, discombobulated and yet I can't stop. Thank you internet, for being the distracting drug in my life and work.

Speaking of things that make me feel all jumbled and discombobulated, I'm about five parts into Berlin Alexanderplatz and part five thus far has been my favorite. And by "favorite" I mean it hasn't left me feeling slightly lightheaded, angsty and mesmerized. Instead there seemed to be some plot points I could follow along, strange as they were. I've seen two of Fassbinder's films before (Ali, Fear Eats the Soul and The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, respectively) both of which did funny things to my brain and in the case of the former, my heart. It isn't until now, however, experiencing this epic, massive work that I'm starting to see the genius. Also, I'm transfixed by the Bieberkopf and his violence and sadness and his bigness and his Sturm und Drang.

 
This coffee blows

In addition to all THAT, I finished up "The Fault in Our Stars" and wept as I expected to and I also sincerely hope that the book is never, ever made into a film. As a novel it is beautiful, as a film I can totally see it becoming schmaltzy. I really hate when that happens.

The coming few weeks hold nothing in store for me (that I am obviously aware of) except working. I'm embarking on an 18 day stretch of consecutive working days with one day off sandwiched in the middle. Of the things I'd kill for, some good and happy excitement has taken its place on my list, probably above a havarti and spicy pickle sandwich and just under a sidecar with simple syrup like they make here. That list of mine is apparently full of food. I guess I'd kill for food. Or I'm hungry as I type this. Either way, let's get on with getting all this consecutive working over and done with. And to the universe, I asked you a favor before. If you could get back to me on that tout de suite, I'd sure appreciate it.






Saturday, February 11, 2012

Two insights

Insight 1: If grasping at straws were a profession, I'd be CEO of the world's top firm.

Insight 2: If things seem to be serendipitous, it's usually a lie. The term generally refers to a "film" starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinboobs. Serendipity is also an ice cream shop on NY's upper east side that has been closed numerous times for health code violations.

Also, note to self: get bread. You need bread.

Monday, February 6, 2012

You should read "The Fault in Our Stars"

An adjective to describe me physically at the moment is sneezy. Or nasally dripping.

But that's not why I'm posting. I'm posting because I need to keep current with this blog, else it will fall the way of my last blog and though posterity would not weep or even really take note, I'd be disappointed. Rather than regale this blog with the details of more drunkeness in addition to the fact that I'm distracted by my sneezing I'll just share a line in the book I'm reading that made me go all kinds of whoa after I read it. It is from this book:

which, incidentally, I'm not done with yet but I can already tell is going to end with me curled up in my bedroom like the heroine of an avant garde French film in my slip, questioning why life is so fleeting. (Alternately, I'll be holed up in my darkened apartment, weeping.) The protagonist is a teenage girl with cancer and she meets this guy, with a capital G who befriends and likes her despite her attempts to help not like her that way. (She describes her illness as making her "a grenade", which as a metaphor for being sick with cancer is probably the most striking and apt one I've ever heard.) In this part of the book he has come over to cheer her up and starts to read to her aloud from her favorite novel. There is just so much about even the skeleton of the plot and characters that just kills me but anyway, here's the line that gave me pause:

As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep:  slowly, and then all at once.

Yeah I think it is pretty much one of those books.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Corn poppy, or the way of my infatuated brain.

I'm pretty much doing any and everything I can think of to distract myself today. I'm thankful that I work two jobs on days like today when I just know I'd be otherwise engaged sitting at home, pining.

It does nothing to discourage my optimistic yet preoccupied state of mind when, on February 1st, it feels like O sweet spontaneous up in this piece. I don't want to be discouraged from my revelry. But I do. No, I don't. But I kind of do.

I love this painting:

The Corn Poppy, Kees Van Dongen, 1919



I have a small postcard sized print framed on the wall opposite my bed. She reminds me of a place I've never been. I realize that makes little to no sense but I'm positive you have a piece of art or a song or a film that has fallen  into your life that makes you feel the same. I love her flying saucer eyes and how they look beyond you at something to your left, compelling you to turn your head. I've toyed with the idea of recreating the painting as a photograph, you know for giggles but where oh where on earth would I get a hat like that? Where oh where would I get eyes like that, would I get between wars like that? The sweater, well I'm sure I got the sweater.

A small but important section of my family is flying to Florida on Saturday. My car is now leaking anti-freeze right in the middle of this thaw that was never frozen, really. Tomorrow I have errands to run. Saturday I have a reunion. Sunday I have a party. These are all distractions. But I need to return them because they are all malfunctioning. All I keep thinking of is...well, nevermind that.

Let me go see if I can find out when the curling iron was invented. It came up in conversation yesterday, I swear!