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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Sunday, July 20th, 2008 |
springheel_jack
|
1:33a |
You May Already Be a Winner, or, The Faith Healer of Last Resort "Someone's getting a new spinal cord tonight!" Many wonderful things in this article, including: "Critics circulate a YouTube video from Lakeland of him kneeing a supposed terminal stomach cancer patient in the abdomen, saying God told him to." I bet that hurt. In addition to assaulting the dying in the name of the Holy Ghost, he also claims to have raised the dead, which I thought was a kind of event horizon over which tent-revival faith healers didn't venture, because you can't fill a corpse with hysteria and convince it to walk. What I suspect is that he's convinced some living people that they used to be dead (it's a bit too much like the old shrink's joke about the psychotic who thinks he's a corpse). But my favorite part is that the "mainstream pentacostal revivalists" are all mad at this guy. Apparently he capers around the stage shrieking and kneecapping cripples in not quite the right way. He's not as well-dressed and decorous as the regular lying sacks of shit who ply this misbegotten, grubby trade. Whatever. Current Mood: HOLY SHIT |
| Saturday, July 19th, 2008 |
byzantinespy
|
2:53p |
Roadtrip to Toronto A week ago ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) spoonu and I took a roadtrip. We began on Thursday night after work, driving within 30 miles of Erie, Pennsylvania. We stayed at a motel, and the next morning we had breakfast across the street at a Cracker Barrel. Although the food there tasted great, it was apparently so unhealthy that I felt sick for the next half hour. We kept driving, though, and went through Buffalo to New York's wine region, south of Lake Ontario, where we went to six wineries. Some, like Warm Lake, Freedom's Run, and Arrowhead, took their wines pretty seriously. Eveningside aspired for seriousness but couldn't deliver, while Niagara Landing and Honeymoon Trail specialized in sweeter, more frivolous fare. What they all had in common was that their red wine had a spiciness to it; some took this to their advantage, but with others the wine came out bitter and gross. Overall, the area didn't have a lot to offer, but I'm glad that we visited. We then drove to Niagara Falls and saw it from the New York side. This included going on the Maid of the Mist boat, which takes you near the base of the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side, and the Cave of the Wind, which is a wooden platform that allows you to go right up to the smallest American falls. The following pictures summarize everything we saw.  ( lots more inside ) Current Mood:  relaxedCurrent Music: Martinu: Tre Ricercari |
ethereal_lad
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2:43p |
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springheel_jack
|
10:57a |
Boring
Movies today consist of superhero salad-spinners and teen category romance - or, over at the "art" house, Africans coping with horror and French people having extramarital affairs.
For a people whose national slogan is "we're more blasé about extramarital sex than you," the French apparently can't stop dwelling on extramarital sex. They think about it more than anyone, even people who passionately disapprove of it. The subconscious dynamics of that must be interesting - socially-sanctioned, ordinary practices do not obtain to that level of psychic fixation. The first thing any Frenchman will tell an American is that Mitterand's wife and mistress attended his funeral, and they didn't fight. I've heard that story five hundred times. That's not blasé - that's fascinated, even obsessed. I think the French get married just so they can have extramarital affairs, and they travel to america just so they can tell us about them. |
yamaya
|
8:06a |
B.O. with Garlic Undertones
I was at Standee's last night, enjoying my usual - egg-white veggie omelet, hash browns and dry wheat toast - when another customer walked in and sat at the counter. Truth be told, I didn't really notice anyone had come in, engaged as I was with dumping large quantities of Trappey's hot sauce on my eggs and shoveling them in my mouth to be observing my environment, but my nose soon found it impossible to ignore the patron's powerful BO with garlic undertones. Or maybe it was overtones, since I could taste the garlic BO. The man's odor not only competed with the taste of the food, it stomped it into submission. Fortunately, I was almost done with my food, so I didn't waste much. |
| Friday, July 18th, 2008 |
mrdankelly
|
10:29a |
I Didn't Take It, Eric. I Found It Online.  |
mrdankelly
|
9:42a |
WHERE WHERE WHERE WHERE? Har har! From txtriffidranch.  How realistically must a cartoon character be drawn before it's okay to admit he's/she's kind of hot? Are Betty and Veronica the point where it becomes, you know, weird? |
dobrovolets
|
10:42a |
The Mirror Stage When I got home yesterday evening, [daughter] desperately wanted to be picked up by me. My bladder was full and I desperately needed to piss. Fortunately, being male, I can stand while urinating, so the our conflicting desires are somewhat compatible: Baby in the left arm, excretory organ in the right hand. Unfortunately, [daughter] is a curious person. On occasion, seeing the shiny, golden stream of piss emerging from my crotch, she has attempted to lurch downward to grab either the stream or the nozzle sending it out. So if she does insist on being held by me when I have to pee, I have to distract her. This is made somewhat easier by the presence on our bathroom wall of a large mirror. For as long as she's been capable of holding head up, [spouse] and I have routinely played a game with her whenever her reflection was visible. Pointing first to her reflection, I say, "Who's that baby in the mirror? Who's that baby being held by her dada?" Then pointing to her I say, "It's [daughter]! It's you!" This time, though, as soon as I said, "Who's that baby?", she curved her fingers into a shape like this-- 
(which, according to the website I grabbed it from, means "Whaddya want?" in Napoli)--and started excitedly pointing the tips of her fingers toward her chest and moving her hand about in a circle. Thinking that it could be a coincidental expression of excitement and not an act of self-recognition and indication, I nonetheless attempted to reinforce the latter meaning by responding, with a thrill in my voice, "That's right! It's [daughter]! It's you! You're the baby in the mirror! Very good job!" Then later in the evening she did it again, though with a bit more prompting, and she did it once again this morning. Fortunately, neither of those occasions involved urine. Unfortunately, [spouse] has not yet been able to duplicate the result, but even so, I'm quite convinced that I was present for a significant moment of learning. I'll be damned if I can remember what Jacques Lacan was talking about under the heading of "The Mirror Stage" (my copy of Selected Writings is in a box at my parents' house, along with most of the obscurantist French philosophy I picked up in college), but Lacan aside, it is a brilliant thing to observe. |
mrdankelly
|
8:59a |
Henry Darger Box Set  My birthday is in August. Hint hint. Though the prices Al Libris bookdealers and eBay sellers are asking for for this little tome are absurd. I've seen it selling for as much as $1,000 (no takers as yet). It's a great book, but it's not THAT great. |
ethereal_lad
|
9:34a |
|
apperception
|
9:16a |
City employees trash homeless peoples' property in Fresno Kincaid v. FresnoA U.S. district judge gave preliminary approval June 6 to a $2.35 million class-action settlement between a class of hundreds of homeless Fresno residents and the City of Fresno and the California Department of Transportation. The court had already determined that Fresno’s practice of immediately seizing and destroying the personal possessions of homeless residents was unconstitutional. Funds from the settlement will go to individual plaintiffs whose belongings were destroyed in the illegal sweeps, as well as into an account to provide housing and medical care to the approximately 225 class members. If you follow the link up there, you can watch a video of the city employees destroying the property of the homeless people and sending it to a landfill. |
| Thursday, July 17th, 2008 |
stylishbastard
|
9:54p |
Focussing on the positive
I was in Borders earlier. A bunch of poets were giving readings. It was really really awful. I wonder if anyone ever tells them how awful they are. I don't think they do. I think people are impressed by any words delivered with enough smugness and confidence. It's that combined with the fact that people who attend poetry recitals like to think of themselves as being quite clever and so will applaud anything they don't understand on the basis that, if it is a load of non-metrical, worthless gobbledegook, it must therefore be really outstanding poetry. Reciting poetry in public is very brave but I don't think that alone should have people swooning into their cappuccinos.
It was really awful. |
mrdankelly
|
11:06a |
|
pylduck
|
8:02a |
overcast It's very grey and gloomy here at the moment. At least it's cooler! It's been humid here the past couple of days. Yesterday was especially stifling. The poor dog panted all through the day, even when he was just lying around. I might have to take him to the one cafe I know of in the TC that allows dogs indoors just so he can get some cooling relief. There are supposed to be storms rolling through today. Afterwards, the air should dry out. Look! A weather post! Current Mood:  gloomy |
pylduck
|
7:48a |
unswum Well, it doesn't look feasible for me to get to the pool by 7 am to get my swim in. If I get there after 7, the pool is too busy (it only has five lanes) and is closed for kiddie swim classes from 8:45 to noon. I just can't get up early enough. And even if I roll out of bed by 6:40, it takes at least forty minutes for me to wake up enough to get over to the pool. On the bright side, I am up! Current Mood:  awake |
oycaramba
|
5:31a |
I accidentally woke up in the three o'clock hour (damn you, window a/c unit) and am up charging Blackberries, which would indicate a Yuppie Morning except that I'm not upwardly mobile and I'm not entirely young (and "Yuppie" is such an old term now!). Last night there was an amazing full moon in my part of the world. I stared at it (not in an eyes-glazed, angry way or anything) as I walked to the bus-stop after class. There were fireflies, too!
Bride is all about The Tudors! Bride is all about Jonathan Rhys Meyers! He can do no wrong, this I am to understand. I like the opening credits and the costuming (that's right, I just used the word "costuming"), but that's about it: lots of eye-bulging overacting going on in this Tudor universe. But I've certainly seen (and revered) worse.
Second "A" in a row - I don't want to hex myself but probably have by lording this over everybody on my lj friend list. I'm all about tracking down traces of Buddhism in the Renaissance, but let me tell you it is slim pickin's, brothers and sisters. I'm motivated by hoping to document the missed opportunity: "humanism" is lovely (really) but they got out of the gate hatin on the animals, and if just a sliver of Buddhism had creeped into one of those private libraries, things might have been different in Western culture via a reverence for all sentient beings. I'm not sayin but I'm just sayin. Sorry for the lack of apostrophes, but it looked better without.
All on track with the new house, nothing on track with the house we're trying to sell. The distress is palpable, made worse by our flaky selling agent (I knew it, I knew it! Why didn't I listen to my gut?) who comes in with his parrots on his shoulders and birdshit down his back, sigh. But listen to me not appreciate my sentient selling agent!
Childe is in Rome! I treated her and her childhood friend/traveling partner to two nights in a nice B&B (not overly crazily expensive but a welcome break from their dorm rooms at hostels) in Florence: via text I commanded them and explained that the David may not be missed, the Uffizi may not be missed, the Fra Angelicos at St. Mark's may not be missed. She's seeing so much more than I've seen, I'm so happy. She's a smart, tough, sweet, savvy, resourceful traveler, so much more so than her padre. It's costing a great deal at an inconvenient time, but I regret not a pfennig of the weak dollars I've deposited in her account to help keep the expedition running (her mom is involved and supportive as well, of course). OK, happy Friday (not, darn it). Oh, we're going to see Danielle Howle on Sunday night! It's been years, but I've seen her twice: what a voice. |
| Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 |
springheel_jack
|
3:39p |
unfiltered
anon commenting enabled
ip capturing disabled
open thread |
mrdankelly
|
1:35p |
Things Caucasians Crave: Shoddy Toilet Tank Books You'll all be pleased to know that "Stuff White People Like" site creator Christian Lander—yes, he has a name now, as well as a series of pictures that show him in the traditional garb of the polyhedral dice-throwing libertarian grad student... though he's given up pursuit of his PhD—has released his un-book five months after his site broke big. I held a copy of the book in my hands yesterday. Because I am cheap, I read it in the store instead of buying it, because fuck him and his pretty pony. No need to buy a book I'd donate to the Salvation Army in a month anyway. I'll avoid the usual railing about SWPL's reverse racism because, well, that' s crap. White people have very little to bitch about, and when they try to play the race card, it's just sad (which is not to say that I'm discounting the historical discrimination some white folks—and I don't mean only the Irish—have gone through, because it happened, it was real, and it was wrong. However, you sound like a delusional ass when you cite great great grandpa's inability to find a job in the old country as a reason why you're offended by White Men Can't Jump.). Also, Adam Sternbergh pretty much nailed the reason why SWPL is largely lame as humor goes: appealing to rather than pricking your audience's ego isn't satire. It's coasting. Anyway, I mostly want to address the physical form of the book. Hoo boy. First-off, it is a bad-looking book. I've seen 1970s hippie press, return to the land publications with better production values. I expect flimsy binding, cheap paper, and bad scans from kook literature, not Random House products. Page after page tells the tale of a long weekend of Lander and his best bud or girlfriend dragging and dropping reams of HTML code, clipart, and photos from the SWPL site to QuarkXPress. Skimming, I detect resistance to the hand of an experienced editor. Either that or SWPL's shelf-life—a period of time it shares with opened cartons of eggnog—demanded a quick, light touch. Which is too bad for Lander, because it makes him look like a featherhead. While I hate quibbling over the occasional error, Lander's writing voice is that of the self-satisfied douche, so I'll make an exception. Letting the book fall open, I found a typo in which Lander thanks a friend for his "brillance" in writing about the hilarious phenomenon of straight white men finding Asian women attractive. A quick scan turned up other typos. As an editor—one who makes grammar his occupation, by the by, and not simply because I am white—let me just say, wow. As a happy side note for you SWPL fans, Lander provides updated witticisms, such as his comment on the book's Helvetica type—a favorite white people font! Why they even made a documentary about it. And we know how white people love documentaries, don't we? They like them because they're white. Har. Haw. Hee. The original SWPL site especially rubbed me raw when Lander and friends practiced this sort of purposeless search and destroy method of criticism. As I said before, the expensive sandwiches rant was pretty brilliant (sorry, "brillant"). But when you start talking about yoga, the New York Times, healthcare reform, t-shirts... Why are these particular items "wrong" or even worthy of satire? To criticize a book's typeface reaches new heights of inanity while demonstrating the engine that drives SWPL. I equate it with the old playground trick of telling a kid that he must be retarded because (A) he's wearing a blue shirt, and (B) only retards wear blue— quod erat demonstrandum. Recent interviews reveal that, hey whattyaknow?, Lander is white, Canadian(!), and actually likes the stuff he lampoons. Which reminds me of one of the reasons the Republicans repeatedly won elections these last few decades: liberals kept voluntarily slicing off their own nuts. pomobarney pointed out the site's South Park Republican streak—something I suspect Lander is downplaying now that he wants to sell books. Truthfully, what I always hated was the site's provincialism and anti-intellectualism. Returning to the blue shirt syllogism above, you truly cannot win with SWPL if you have any desire to expand your tastes, exercise your mind, or enjoy anything outside of a list of approved subjects that has yet to turn up at SWPL. It's almost a white version of the black belief that not acting "street" means you're a Ding Dong. It's remarkably fucked up if you think about it. Who knows, maybe it's a Colbertesque play on conservative pundits' tack of pretending to be beer-slugging NASCAR fans even though they eat out every night at Chez Paul and take in the opera now and again. How banal. How counterproductive. Hilariously, and to his chagrin, Lander's site got a shout-out Stormfront. Thank God Kanye West also liked SWPL and ran a link on his page, granting him the African-American approval he instinctively desires as one pale of hue. One wonders how he can bear it, especially as he sprints from (white) independent bookstore to bookstore the next few months, trying to gobble up the bare drops of fame his little masturbatory exercise in self-sustaining satire provides. |
mrdankelly
|
11:42a |
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mrdankelly
|
9:10a |
'Bang!' goes another kanga
On the bonnet of the van. |
ethereal_lad
|
7:04a |
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| Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 |
pylduck
|
9:20p |
must gadget get Has the iPod touch always been wi-fi enabled? I want! Since I'm laptop-less now, it'd be nice to have something to check e-mail while I'm out at coffee shops and whatnot.... Current Mood: hot |
pylduck
|
8:46p |
beware the dairy queen Our afternoon DQ cones seem to have made our tummies unsettled. Both Mr. Frog and I are feeling unwell and have skipped dinner. It's a hot day here today, and we're also melting in the un-air conditioned apartment. It's not much cooler outside even now that the sun has set. Here's hoping it cools off soon.... Current Mood: uncomfortable |
mrdankelly
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4:21p |
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mrdankelly
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3:43p |
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