"...but i feel like this."

Whenever i have a cold, i feel like a walking cliché. My nose is shiny & red, my eyes watery... I sneeze constantly. My problem with illness, i think, is that i don't believe in it... My process of "getting sick," which generally happens over the course of two or three days, starts with an odd tickle that i assume is the result of a middling night of drinking or too little sleep and instead of maybe getting a better nights sleep, resting up for a day or getting juiced on vitamin C, i challenge the cold to take me down... I take some Nyquil & drink more, wear fewer sweaters on chilly days and sleep as little as possible. I don't ever really believe i'm getting sick until i'm deep in... And to top it all off, i'm really lousy at actually being sick... Because i'm a whiny little bitch...

Anyway, after a long Friday of academic conferencing (starring Judith Butler & crazy cool Jazz poetry) & moderate drinking followed by a chilly (& rainy) Saturday afternoon of soccer* (followed by another evening of beer & wine at the kids' place {thanks guys--good times}) i am fully under the spell of a miserable malaise. And that sucks. So, i'll sign off groggily & grouchily...

*My 'good goalkeeper' hoax was revealed Saturday, when i let 3 goals by in the first half... Although i kept them scoreless in the second half, my poor performance (which included 1 goal hitting my hands and trickling on past into the goal) cost our team the victory. We tied 3-3 & while a tie isn't a loss, it is a tie.

Afternoons & Coffeespoons

So, i just got my picture taken by some guy who said he was from the 'publicity department'. (Don't worry, they were very tasteful.)

I was seated in an on-campus coffee shop, reading Shelley's "Defense of Poetry" for class today (off a computer screen) & he asked to snap a few photos... My worry is that i'm going to be like one of those tools that pop up on the luther site now... Or i'll be on, like, the front of the catalog or something ridiculous - but, as an aspiring photographer myself, i understand how awkward it is to ask someone to snap their picture in the first place... then even moreso when they say "no, get the hell out of here, pervert."

I did feel kind of bad that i wasn't really doing anything... except staring, gape-mouthed at a computer screen... At one point, i even pretended to 'have a thought' and frantically typed some fake reading notes (seriously, i did this)... (he said not to pose, just do 'whatever i was doing') I sipped coffee a couple times, but every time i did i couldn't help grinning because i had an image of some 80s Maxwell House commercial running through my head...

Sadly, as i've previously mentioned, I am unable to produce images & post them on this blog, and i've found, in going through my pictures on my hard drive, i never seem to take pictures of anybody drinking coffee... It seems coffee-drinking is not as conducive to photography as, say, alcohol is... So, just check out this horse...

I find myself spending a lot of time in coffee shops thse days... And i wonder if i will be able to readjust to real, non-coffee based life after i finish here. On any given day, i might wander from 2-3 different coffee shops, buy a cup of coffee or tea & sit & read & write, or just eavesdrop... It is a good life, but i fear it may not be a real life...
Hm. Well, i guess i'll enjoy it however long it lasts...

A Digression on the Academy

All Apologies for the &c. that is this Blog; the Author has just finished, tho’ not entirely Swallowed (it was taken too swift) that most *deathly of Books, pleasant in its Taling from one Digression to Another: that Work endeavors to present an Allegory of Divisions by Nothing & as is always the Case concludes irrationally thereby; as the Reader plainly sees, this Author is utterly moved♂ by these ambitious Undertakings and acts as paultry Scribbler, providing a second Movement of an already not incomplete Work.

BUT, if not this, then what can be added; a Corpse can take in Nothing new (unless, of course, it be a zombified Corpse, in which Case it take in plenty, but then only of what already was thought) and produces only Rot or Naught, but not a lot of either: and so the Author can only add what was already there to be found: against (read Veederly) which this Work aims its Critique, but lest the **Morticians chirp up after me look to embalm & paint my Face anew (I knew they’d try it) I misdirect my Aim, scantily hitting on my true Object clad in obtuse Truth (read otherly, Inside out the Reader plainly sees the true Object of the Academy).

* That is to say an industrious Item, Undertaking more than it could chew.
♂ For some Reason, I could really go for a Cheeseburger right about now.
** The Author, of course, intends by this to mean Criticks.

Not Zappa

I just got back from seeing Project Object at Martyr's Bar... Damn good show, but one of those shows i go to where it just makes me feel guilty. The band plays Frank Zappa music (mostly from the Joe's Garage era) & is fronted by Ike Willis, who was one of the primary vocalists for several of Zappa's albums.

Every time i hear a Zappa song i've never heard before, i love it - literally, every time - & this happened several times tonight, but that's the problem... There's so much i don't know. Not unlike a few weeks ago, when Andy dragged me to the Ray Davies show at the Vic... I knew a few of the songs, but wished i'd known more, and felt bad not knowing more.

So, i set now a goal for myself, to get more into Zappa... not crazy into Zappa like some of the folk at this show, who seemed to notice every time a guitar soloist changed a single note from original LP recordings... but i really must listen more often to the rock legend & music visionary that was Frank Zappa.

Who's Keeper?

I am pleased to tell you all that Sparkle Motion, MAPH's IM Soccer team, is now 2-0 after a big win today... For a second week in a row, i was put in as Keeper because nobody else wanted to do it. The Keeper is a position i do not enjoy, but, unfortunately for me, i seem to be pretty good at it (allowing 1 goal in 3 halves of play thus far this season). Unfortunately, the better my performance, the more likely it is i am to remain in goal, and the more my teammates will begin to think of me as 'the keeper'. To keep things interesting, i find myself 'accidentally' kicking the ball straight to opposing team members while i'm out of goal or admiring particularly well-placed shots, instead of actually trying to stop them, only to have them glance off the post. I have no actual skill at keeping, but my luck has kept me in goal, and looks like it will for the remainder of the season...

& Now for something Completely Different...

Last night (i know a two-topic blog entry... very confusing) I went to a screening of some short films by avant-garde filmmaker Jennifer Reeves. Particularly of interest were two of her hand-painted films, very much in the tradition of Stan Brakhage & then she showed 2 Brakhage films that she had accrued in a trade (trading 2 of her films for 4 of Brakhages, frankly, i think she got the better deal)... Neither of the films are on the By Brakahge DVD, so they were both entirely new to me... "Coupling" was particularly amazing, consisting, mainly, of two fleshy-colored squiggles moving about & seeming to shake the frame... Hmm... good stuff.

Malynne & the Zombies

I have a problem (see left, & read on)... my thesis advisor seems to think i'm a genius. Either that, or she is constantly blowing smoke up my ass telling me i'm a genius - neither of which is very conducive to much hard work at revising my paper. The thing is, when i actually talk to her in person, she's very convincing. I hear her 'wow! amazing! great work!'s in an email & i'm thinking she's simply not reading anything i send her, but when we have a meeting, she really convinces me that she believes i know what the hell i'm doing...I go in to meet with her today & she says:

"It's really good. I don't think you should change a thing."

This about the draft i've just handed in that, at one point, cuts off mid-sentence and has a piece of my outline pasted in... Thankfully, she next says "of course i don't mean that," but basically then tells me i need to take out my self-deprecating parenthetical remarks & maybe change that outline bit...

No, i mean, really, i get great feedback from her, but i also worry that somehow i've just managed to fool her into believing i know quite a bit more than i do (which i don't). Let's just hope it lasts until she writes me a recommendation letter...

One-Armed Blogger

As i venture out more and more into the world of the blogger, i realize that i lack one of the primary tools of the blog (at least the personal blog {Dan, if you've got some helpful blog terminology, it'd be much appreciated}), the digital camera.

There's nothing that brings a moderately well told personal anecdote to life like a hastily snapped photograph. My lack of a camera is, i realize, the first hiccup in my young blog, because any time i'm telling a story from my daily life, i will have to find semi-related photos, stock photos (see below), or google image-search photos to supplement my story. I feel like i'm working with one hand tied behind my back... A blogger without a digital camera is like a gopher without a hole, a cheese sandwich without a grill(ing process), a Jägermeister Coke without a cube of raw potato...

(for example, whenever i tell any stories about Edgar Allen Poe, i'll have to use this stock photo every single time rather than being able to snap a new photo for each new occasion... so disappointing)
But, for now i'll just have to make due & work doubly hard at relating my stories to the random images i happen to come across...


postScript,
today, my professor was wearing a Sesame Street t-shirt. v.cool

Wiki-Wiki-Wa-Wa

I am a wiki-maniac.

*** Update 29 October 2009 ***

Really, i'm quite not a wiki-maniac, but I think it's important to lay claim to your "accomplishments" no matter how insignificant or fleeting, but these are mine. I think what makes wikipedia such an interesting project is its sort of "egoistic" center... It only works if people get to feel important by "adding to" "human knowledge" (think CNN's iReports).

Anyway, I'm busy in the future now, so go there for more thoughts...

Favorite ?

Whenever i am asked to produce for someone my favorite movie, song, singer or book i find myself at a loss... Generally i make something up, and i have my 'standard' answers like Say Anything, "Rain King", Darius Rucker, and House of Leaves, i never really mean these answers... Alternately, i tell people that my favorite book (song, movie) is whatever i'm reading right now... which is true & not true, simultaneously.

In High Fidelity (the film, sadly i've not yet gotten around to the book), Rob Gordon (John Cusack, also my favorite... except for Johnny Depp) is posed the question, "What's your favorite song?" and he doesn't even try to anwer, he instead points out that a favorite is a momentary thing, that a favorite depends on your mood, setting or intentions (Say Anything was especially my favorite in high school when i was heading over to some girls house to watch a movie... "Oh really, you've never seen it?" I'd say. "It's my favorite." (grins seductively)).

Gordon's solution to this dependent favorite is the Top Five lists. And so, i introduce to my nascent blog a variant on these lists, the Last Five, an arbitrary list of media i'm currently consuming, books that i just finished, movies i watched, or songs/albums that i really listened to as opposed to had on...

I hope it provides a small window into my daily existence & points you in interesting directions... Keep in mind, the list in no way advocates for these pieces, they may be terrible, but i've always been of the firm belief that there is as much, if not more, to be glearned (that's right, glearned) from bad moviesbooksmusic as there is from the good ones...

So read on, party people...

z is for

It is with great pleasure that i begin this new phase of my life... From this day forward - i blog. Wow, i never thought i'd say those words *snief snief* but today i do.

You may be wondering what the guy to the right (see picture) is doing here. Well, today is a very special day. At least a kind of special day. This evening, at 5:34 pm, CST, i submitted the rough draft of my MAPH thesis. The thesis is all about zombies. That's right, i'm spending ungodly amounts of money attending the University of Chicago & when i am released, i will have an M.A. and a 25 page paper about zombies to show for it. Man i'm such an idiot.

Anyway, i'm happy to be a part of the blogging community. I'm excited to enter my random rantings on a semi-regular basis and imagine anyone caring. I hope to do my small part to add to the inefficiency of the system by taking up small parts of your workday with these posts.

In the immortal words of Bartles (or James) 'Thanks for your support'.