I was in a bad mood from all of this schoolwork...
And then I found this!!
So. Cute. Speechless. It gave me the ability to write on! 11 pages done, 7 to go...
Monday, November 24, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
本、店、し、クリスマス！
Basically everything at The McSweeney's Store is half off. I got some Christmas shopping done the other day and of course bought some things for myself. This is a problem. Why?
Books I have bought/received as gifts and I haven't yet had the time to read:
Here are a couple of places where I'll be Christmas shopping online and you should too.
*
50 Harley Salute
The black Lincoln
entered the gates
and into those
familiar, smooth, linear
aisle ways. 5mph
for the sake
of hitting whom?
After circling (rectangling) along
the guzzler was awarded
its resting place. I
stepped out onto the
lush, manicured, lively landscape.
Dressed up for whom?
Until I finally made it over
to the deep hole and
whimpered not for him, but
for the spectacle made in
his name. 21? More like
50 Harley salute.
Each one of those bikes was
accompanied with an accessory wearing its
most rebellious uniform. But what can
be more conforming—living by
a label or dying by one?
But of course I looked so plain
and boring by trying to be respectful.
They saw one thing about him and
attributed all those 65 years to
it. A patch on a vest.
Because when he was 21, not 50, he
sat in a lawn chair on the back
porch with my grandpa. Drinking cocktails, smoking packs,
shootin’ the shit. Never once did he wonder
if his funeral would be a fashion show
loud enough to make his life a cliché.
*
Yay bulleted lists!
Books I have bought/received as gifts and I haven't yet had the time to read:
- Michael Chabon - Maps and Legends
- Charles Burns - Black Hole
- The Book of Other People - Zadie Smith
- Dave Eggers - What is the What
- The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith
- The Children's Hospital - Chris Adrian
- The McSweeney's Book of Poets Picking Poets
- Alison Bechdel - Fun Home
Here are a couple of places where I'll be Christmas shopping online and you should too.
- Lush Cosmetics- All natural, vegan, awesome, handmade soaps and such
- Buy Olympia- Mugs made out of corn, paper goods made out of recycled paper, books from independent publishers. $10 T-shirt sale!
- Fred Flare- Store cute! Japanese imports, and lots of cute junk like these!
- And McSweeney's, of course
*
50 Harley Salute
The black Lincoln
entered the gates
and into those
familiar, smooth, linear
aisle ways. 5mph
for the sake
of hitting whom?
After circling (rectangling) along
the guzzler was awarded
its resting place. I
stepped out onto the
lush, manicured, lively landscape.
Dressed up for whom?
Until I finally made it over
to the deep hole and
whimpered not for him, but
for the spectacle made in
his name. 21? More like
50 Harley salute.
Each one of those bikes was
accompanied with an accessory wearing its
most rebellious uniform. But what can
be more conforming—living by
a label or dying by one?
But of course I looked so plain
and boring by trying to be respectful.
They saw one thing about him and
attributed all those 65 years to
it. A patch on a vest.
Because when he was 21, not 50, he
sat in a lawn chair on the back
porch with my grandpa. Drinking cocktails, smoking packs,
shootin’ the shit. Never once did he wonder
if his funeral would be a fashion show
loud enough to make his life a cliché.
*
Yay bulleted lists!
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
PWRFL POWER!
In case you haven't heard of him, I'll give you the info.
A while back I got 2 EP's in at WJCU entitled Electrified Fruits and Extra Ball. Homemade looking things are usually terrible so I wasn't expecting much when I popped the first one in. The first song "It's Okay" came on and I was immediately hooked. Using Google all I could find on Kaz was that he had recently won a contest in Seattle that got him a starring role in an Esurance commercial. Strange. That was it, so I added him on Myspace. Last month I caught him at a CMJ showcase at Crash Mansion along with about 5 other people, and he played a lot of new songs. He was possibly the only person I saw at CMJ that didn't have a computer on stage doing half the work for him. It was kind of refreshing. Oh yeah, plus sometimes he sings in Japanese. But just a little bit.
So, I hope you check Pwrfl Power out. Here's his Myspace, and make sure to check out his top friends. You'll see my face!
Oh, and of course, here's the Esurance commercial:
♪♪♪
A while back I got 2 EP's in at WJCU entitled Electrified Fruits and Extra Ball. Homemade looking things are usually terrible so I wasn't expecting much when I popped the first one in. The first song "It's Okay" came on and I was immediately hooked. Using Google all I could find on Kaz was that he had recently won a contest in Seattle that got him a starring role in an Esurance commercial. Strange. That was it, so I added him on Myspace. Last month I caught him at a CMJ showcase at Crash Mansion along with about 5 other people, and he played a lot of new songs. He was possibly the only person I saw at CMJ that didn't have a computer on stage doing half the work for him. It was kind of refreshing. Oh yeah, plus sometimes he sings in Japanese. But just a little bit.
So, I hope you check Pwrfl Power out. Here's his Myspace, and make sure to check out his top friends. You'll see my face!
Oh, and of course, here's the Esurance commercial:
♪♪♪
Monday, November 17, 2008
NaBloPoMo?
Yes, that's right. It's National Blog Posting Month once again. This will probably be my only post for the whole month, but that's okay right? This is my one evening of effort. But actually, it's not much effort since I'm just going to copy and paste some stuff below. Poetry, that is. So, I guess I should start off with what I've been up to as of late.
I took the GRE last weekend. It was effing terrible. 'Nuff said. I've been working on my graduate school applications off and on. I've got 4 going right now and just have to work out some stuff with my "statement" and such so I can get my recommendations rolling. My goal is before Thanksgiving break. That's next Wednesday. The writing sample I am going to use is a paper due next Monday for my 19th Century American Literature class. It's a 10-12 page/7 sources paper on Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Nathaniel Hawthorne's crazy short story "Wakefield." It's all about how the men in both texts think they're in control of the women, but they're so obsessed them that they're actually the ones being controlled. It's the only thing I've actually cared to work on for a while. Everything else has been pretty awful. My Philosophy of Music and Philosophy & The Holocaust classes have been taking all of the life out of me. They're just plain awful and both ridiculously writing/reading intensive.
A former John Carroll student is doing the JET programme right now (luckyyy) and hooked all of the advanced Japanese students (5 of us) up with high school pen pals. Mine is Manami and she's seventeen and has been taking English for her whole life. She wrote me a few weeks ago and I sent her a letter back last week. She writes in English with a P.S. in Japanese and I write in Japanese with a P.S. in English. It's good that she wrote first because then I knew how much decorating I had to do on mine. A lot.
Since my poetry midterm portfolio I haven't spent any time writing poems. I got a little burned out and because the entire class is absent just about every day and never does anything I just follow suit. But I (finally) got the portfolio back today (a month later?) along with a big A- so I figured I would post a couple of the poems from it. Once again, I'm not a poet. Don't hold this against me.
*
The Seesaw
My great-great Grandfather was a lumberjack
In the hills of West Virginia.
Those were the days of plaid shirts,
Pipes filled to the brim with tobacco,
Moonshine, and two-man saws.
His suspenders kept his pants up,
And his mouth kept on puffing,
But it was his hands and arms that worked
One end of the jagged and curved beast.
Its teeth stuck out for inches
And prided themselves for their sharpness.
Each one placed specifically and designed
To rid the earth of Mother Nature.
The wooden handles left blisters, then calluses
while the man on the other end was so in rhythm
With him that they had the same heartbeat,
As they sang the same song.
But now the saw hangs above my fireplace
Above pictures of me in wooden frames. Made in China.
Not only decoration, or dare I say antique
But the end of America, or what it once was.
Rock and Bite
The day he retired he drove his car
Into the woods and proclaimed, “I will never
Drive again!” He took the rocking chair
Out of the house and onto the porch.
He sat there for years, eating candy bars
And sharing them with my Pops if he was good.
He rocked and talked while looking at the trees,
And breathing in the fresh West Virginia air.
But what did he do for all of those years?
Eat chocolate, rock, and just enjoy the same scenery?
Wood creaking with every rock,
Blood sugar rising with every bite.
Until his stroke, and my grandfather
To follow in his footsteps, and that rocking
Chair rocking slowly in the front if my fireplace
In the wrong neck of the woods.
*
So, before I go- 1 more thing. Or 2. Check out Nomenclature and KateSpace who are actually participating in NaBloPoMo. And also, hello, is there anybody out there?
I took the GRE last weekend. It was effing terrible. 'Nuff said. I've been working on my graduate school applications off and on. I've got 4 going right now and just have to work out some stuff with my "statement" and such so I can get my recommendations rolling. My goal is before Thanksgiving break. That's next Wednesday. The writing sample I am going to use is a paper due next Monday for my 19th Century American Literature class. It's a 10-12 page/7 sources paper on Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Nathaniel Hawthorne's crazy short story "Wakefield." It's all about how the men in both texts think they're in control of the women, but they're so obsessed them that they're actually the ones being controlled. It's the only thing I've actually cared to work on for a while. Everything else has been pretty awful. My Philosophy of Music and Philosophy & The Holocaust classes have been taking all of the life out of me. They're just plain awful and both ridiculously writing/reading intensive.
A former John Carroll student is doing the JET programme right now (luckyyy) and hooked all of the advanced Japanese students (5 of us) up with high school pen pals. Mine is Manami and she's seventeen and has been taking English for her whole life. She wrote me a few weeks ago and I sent her a letter back last week. She writes in English with a P.S. in Japanese and I write in Japanese with a P.S. in English. It's good that she wrote first because then I knew how much decorating I had to do on mine. A lot.
Since my poetry midterm portfolio I haven't spent any time writing poems. I got a little burned out and because the entire class is absent just about every day and never does anything I just follow suit. But I (finally) got the portfolio back today (a month later?) along with a big A- so I figured I would post a couple of the poems from it. Once again, I'm not a poet. Don't hold this against me.
*
The Seesaw
My great-great Grandfather was a lumberjack
In the hills of West Virginia.
Those were the days of plaid shirts,
Pipes filled to the brim with tobacco,
Moonshine, and two-man saws.
His suspenders kept his pants up,
And his mouth kept on puffing,
But it was his hands and arms that worked
One end of the jagged and curved beast.
Its teeth stuck out for inches
And prided themselves for their sharpness.
Each one placed specifically and designed
To rid the earth of Mother Nature.
The wooden handles left blisters, then calluses
while the man on the other end was so in rhythm
With him that they had the same heartbeat,
As they sang the same song.
But now the saw hangs above my fireplace
Above pictures of me in wooden frames. Made in China.
Not only decoration, or dare I say antique
But the end of America, or what it once was.
Rock and Bite
The day he retired he drove his car
Into the woods and proclaimed, “I will never
Drive again!” He took the rocking chair
Out of the house and onto the porch.
He sat there for years, eating candy bars
And sharing them with my Pops if he was good.
He rocked and talked while looking at the trees,
And breathing in the fresh West Virginia air.
But what did he do for all of those years?
Eat chocolate, rock, and just enjoy the same scenery?
Wood creaking with every rock,
Blood sugar rising with every bite.
Until his stroke, and my grandfather
To follow in his footsteps, and that rocking
Chair rocking slowly in the front if my fireplace
In the wrong neck of the woods.
*
So, before I go- 1 more thing. Or 2. Check out Nomenclature and KateSpace who are actually participating in NaBloPoMo. And also, hello, is there anybody out there?
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