This week was weird. I had so much going on that I just didn’t stop working, at all, the last week blending into this one, the days merging together into one marathon opera of sadness. Apart from a short, late-night whiskey-and-bull session with “the guys” on Saturday night, I’ve basically just been reading and writing (with a break for over-exerting exercise) non-stop for six or seven days. I was incredibly frightened this week that I wouldn’t finish everything (and technically, I didn’t) but now that it’s over I feel pretty good. I’m officially a Division II now, so I guess that’s a deal? Okay.
One of my housemates made goddamn soft tacos for dinner tonight, which made me feel pretty inadequate. I continue to cop out and just boil some pasta each time it’s my turn. After all the energy I exert on schoolwork I just can’t cope with the mental calculations it takes to go bigger with the dinner menu. On Sunday I thought I might use our curiously unending supply of bagels and make pizza bagels, but I just didn’t have what it takes.
A little while ago I went over to the nearest vending machine to purchase an orange soda. They were sold out. Let me repeat that for those hard-of-hearing: the machine was sold out of orange soda. I was instantly filled with an eternal melancholy, as if nothing could ever be right again.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Scarce Words
I haven't posted on the blog in a long mo'fuckin' time, due to both business and lack of inspiration.
I was going to do a post about Valentine's Day on Saturday, but I ended up just getting really depressed and aborting it. Plus one of my housemates' relationship vaguely imploded on that day, so I ended up just drinking and consoling him instead of the usual pontificating.
I'll write some more next week, hopefully. Stay strong, all my many fans.
I was going to do a post about Valentine's Day on Saturday, but I ended up just getting really depressed and aborting it. Plus one of my housemates' relationship vaguely imploded on that day, so I ended up just drinking and consoling him instead of the usual pontificating.
I'll write some more next week, hopefully. Stay strong, all my many fans.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Night of a Thousand Tears
I went to the growing-in-repute "Night of a Thousand Beers" for about a half hour tonight, thinking I would have a semi-good time, and mostly just felt like a loser. This is about as big as parties get at Hampshire, and it's one of those things where if you don't know a lot of people you end up sort of wandering around trying to find an anchor point that never comes. Except this is in a room crammed with people in a great exponential excess of the fire code, so you're basically just being propelled around by the crowd, which is fun for like twenty seconds and gets really old after you realize that any human interface apart from inane five-seconds yell-eractions are impossible. (And yet you always see these cool-ass cats just hanging out on the wall, sipping a beer and carrying on a convo like they're at the fucking yacht club. How do they do that? These people should die in jail.)
I like to get drunk in a comfortable environment, and thankfully life at this college provides many instances for such activity. But going to big parties makes me feel like I have no identity. I really am like a social ghost at these things--and in general. I just kind of float around, and float through people, and they can see me, but no connection can be made. I knew a bunch of the people there, but I might as well have been a stranger because I can't seem to get in the same mode of frantic revelry as everyone else.
When I walked in the door I heard "[my name]!" from like three different directions. This happens sometimes, and it is always very exciting, and yet it never seems to amount to anything. I find when people yell my name out it's not necessarily that they're overjoyed to see me but they're rather reaffirming their own involvement in some social spirit that I seem not to be privy to. I don't mean to be such a downer, but it's like, when someone I know says something to me and and I can't hear what the fuck she's saying because there's a hundred people yelling in this room and I'm being pushed up against a wall by a beer-hungry mob, so all I say is "I'm being pushed up against a wall" and I sound like as much of an idiot as you'd expect, what else am I supposed to do next but go home and listen to fucking Nine Inch Nails and write in my sad goddamn blog.
Also my family is poor.
I like to get drunk in a comfortable environment, and thankfully life at this college provides many instances for such activity. But going to big parties makes me feel like I have no identity. I really am like a social ghost at these things--and in general. I just kind of float around, and float through people, and they can see me, but no connection can be made. I knew a bunch of the people there, but I might as well have been a stranger because I can't seem to get in the same mode of frantic revelry as everyone else.
When I walked in the door I heard "[my name]!" from like three different directions. This happens sometimes, and it is always very exciting, and yet it never seems to amount to anything. I find when people yell my name out it's not necessarily that they're overjoyed to see me but they're rather reaffirming their own involvement in some social spirit that I seem not to be privy to. I don't mean to be such a downer, but it's like, when someone I know says something to me and and I can't hear what the fuck she's saying because there's a hundred people yelling in this room and I'm being pushed up against a wall by a beer-hungry mob, so all I say is "I'm being pushed up against a wall" and I sound like as much of an idiot as you'd expect, what else am I supposed to do next but go home and listen to fucking Nine Inch Nails and write in my sad goddamn blog.
Also my family is poor.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Got Tha Fever
I seem to be just now recovering from an illness that has plagued half our residence for the last five days or so. Someone said they had the flu, which seems plausible; I was more or less at 25% earlier in the week. I walked into a CVS on Tuesday and forgot why I was there, so I just dreamily wandered around for 20 minutes or so. On the bargain music rack I saw a copy of the Scorpions Greatest Hits, and I thought maybe that was what I had come to get. But it seemed unlikely. I overheard some old guys talking about who invented electrons. That's silly, I thought. Nobody invented those. Eventually I just decided to buy some CVS brand razors and a toothbrush and be done with it. It was one of my more economical shopping sprees.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Fear and Loathing at Amherst College
I took my first class at Amherst today, and it proved an unsettling experience. That place really scares the shit out of me sometimes. Just being there makes me resentful, all with their brisk New England charm, their buildings and facilities that aren't total eyesores. I'm always worried that one of the students will point at me and let out one of those Body Snatchers screeches, sensing my unkempt constitution and my lack of institutional pride. I saw not one dude wearing a t-shirt. Not. One. (Granted, I wasn't either; I was wearing the one casual button-down shirt I own, which I purchased at a thrift store for about five dollars.)
The class is held in this opulent lecture hall known as the "Red Room." I think of the crowded conference tables and broken window blinds of Hampshire classrooms as I sit down in a sea of padded leather swivel chairs. The professor is this geriatric guy who wears a suit and tie. I had forgotten teachers wear things like that, or lived to be that old. The syllabus claims that the course will conclude with a "Two Hour Exam." I see the words, and I know their individual meanings, but their combination appears before me like hieroglyphs on some ancient scroll.
The class is held in this opulent lecture hall known as the "Red Room." I think of the crowded conference tables and broken window blinds of Hampshire classrooms as I sit down in a sea of padded leather swivel chairs. The professor is this geriatric guy who wears a suit and tie. I had forgotten teachers wear things like that, or lived to be that old. The syllabus claims that the course will conclude with a "Two Hour Exam." I see the words, and I know their individual meanings, but their combination appears before me like hieroglyphs on some ancient scroll.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Stranger Song
In my formative years of media consumption, the Music Television network provided much of the impetus for any interest in mainstream cultural discourse that I might have shared with my peers. In the 90s, MTV’s flash-bang program lineup was fucking irresistible, a flawless amalgam of pop-culture shimmer and glowingly pre-packaged “rock and roll” sass that held infinite appeal for even the most discerning young eyes. I once saw one of their hosts claim off-handedly that MTV programming wasn’t intended to be viewed by children. What a good joke!
Before the screaming idiot-parade of shows like Total Request Live melted the cultural appeal of the network into a lifeless, cynical muck, the flagship of their youth conquest was The Real World, the original model for the reality show—a genre that has, by now, become so prevalent and post-relevant that it’s damn-near folded back on itself. It is a testament to the original calculations of The Real World’s producers that it has largely avoided the black hole of irrelevance that has befallen its offspring. The reason for this, and the beauty of the show’s design, is that it was pointless to begins with—created before the reality show rules were written, The Real World was flying blind, inventing narrative from the loosest strands of petty human interaction. Despite the best efforts of the show’s “writers” to manufacture conflict and change, the whole affair remained thrillingly amoral. I’ve watched almost every episode since the 1999 Hawaii season, and it provided some of the more exciting television moments I witnessed as a young man. The various threesomes and hot-tub-related indiscretions during the Las Vegas season, for example, were understandably compelling viewing for a 13-year-old kid in the suburbs.
MTV has ceased to be exciting on any level. Beyond the obvious complaint that music and comedy have taken a back seat to maximally smutty dating shows and the most monotonous reality bullshit imaginable, the smallest pretense of anti-establishment swagger has been unceremoniously sucked from the network’s soul, and at times it is vaguely indistinguishable from its sickly-sweet cousins Nickelodeon and Disney Channel. But, somehow, against all odds, The Real World remains magically watchable and addictive. It’s not exactly smart or respectable, but the formula of youth and visibility plus alcohol and excess still makes for damn fine television. Meanwhile, its very concept makes it practically immune to criticism. The old and obvious insistence that it doesn’t even resemble our conception of “real” life has never even come close to being relevant: the show’s production style seems to readily admit that its design was always clearly intended as a heightened replica of modern life, a human zoo. And the animals never disappoint.
The new season of the show—its twenty-first—takes place in Brooklyn (seemingly running out of big cities in which to place their cast, the producers recycle New York for the third time, though previous seasons took place in Manhattan) and has a few new gimmicks. Arbitrarily, there are now eight cast members in the house, and for the first time since the mid-90s the roommates won’t be assigned a shared job in the city. Whatever. The more notable addition to the show is that, amongst the usual Abercrombie hardbodies and uber-cute art school pixies in the cast, there is a transwoman, Katelynn. In the premiere episode the others—apart from J.D., the gay roommate with whom she shares a teary declaration of solidarity—fail to seriously raise the subject or, in the case of one amusingly doltish bodybuilder, even realize it, and Katelynn has yet to show signs of becoming an LGBT icon like the famous, HIV-positive Pedro from the San Francisco season. But it will be interesting to see how the show reconciles its experiment in out-there sexual politics with its usual agenda of self-satisfied but passé tolerance.
Apart from their momentary serious aspirations, it seems we’re in for another season of young, beautiful anger and drunken amorousness. But I’m pleasantly reminded at once of how the show’s ambling, directionless pace affords instances of quieter voyeurism. In the premiere, at least, what really makes it for me are the little moments of un-manufacturable, genuine revelation: hipster Mormon Chet’s self-assured dancing around his obvious sexual confusion; fun-loving army vet Ryan’s repressed-trauma-bordering-on-denial; aspiring therapist Sarah’s unconsciously overbearing inquisitiveness. Between the time-warping jump cuts and the pop-up music referrals, The Real World still manages to capture fascinating moments of genuine human inadequacy. In its slow dive into cultural worthlessness, MTV should thank its stars it still has the clout to command something so spontaneously captivating. They couldn’t make this shit up if they tried.
Before the screaming idiot-parade of shows like Total Request Live melted the cultural appeal of the network into a lifeless, cynical muck, the flagship of their youth conquest was The Real World, the original model for the reality show—a genre that has, by now, become so prevalent and post-relevant that it’s damn-near folded back on itself. It is a testament to the original calculations of The Real World’s producers that it has largely avoided the black hole of irrelevance that has befallen its offspring. The reason for this, and the beauty of the show’s design, is that it was pointless to begins with—created before the reality show rules were written, The Real World was flying blind, inventing narrative from the loosest strands of petty human interaction. Despite the best efforts of the show’s “writers” to manufacture conflict and change, the whole affair remained thrillingly amoral. I’ve watched almost every episode since the 1999 Hawaii season, and it provided some of the more exciting television moments I witnessed as a young man. The various threesomes and hot-tub-related indiscretions during the Las Vegas season, for example, were understandably compelling viewing for a 13-year-old kid in the suburbs.
MTV has ceased to be exciting on any level. Beyond the obvious complaint that music and comedy have taken a back seat to maximally smutty dating shows and the most monotonous reality bullshit imaginable, the smallest pretense of anti-establishment swagger has been unceremoniously sucked from the network’s soul, and at times it is vaguely indistinguishable from its sickly-sweet cousins Nickelodeon and Disney Channel. But, somehow, against all odds, The Real World remains magically watchable and addictive. It’s not exactly smart or respectable, but the formula of youth and visibility plus alcohol and excess still makes for damn fine television. Meanwhile, its very concept makes it practically immune to criticism. The old and obvious insistence that it doesn’t even resemble our conception of “real” life has never even come close to being relevant: the show’s production style seems to readily admit that its design was always clearly intended as a heightened replica of modern life, a human zoo. And the animals never disappoint.
The new season of the show—its twenty-first—takes place in Brooklyn (seemingly running out of big cities in which to place their cast, the producers recycle New York for the third time, though previous seasons took place in Manhattan) and has a few new gimmicks. Arbitrarily, there are now eight cast members in the house, and for the first time since the mid-90s the roommates won’t be assigned a shared job in the city. Whatever. The more notable addition to the show is that, amongst the usual Abercrombie hardbodies and uber-cute art school pixies in the cast, there is a transwoman, Katelynn. In the premiere episode the others—apart from J.D., the gay roommate with whom she shares a teary declaration of solidarity—fail to seriously raise the subject or, in the case of one amusingly doltish bodybuilder, even realize it, and Katelynn has yet to show signs of becoming an LGBT icon like the famous, HIV-positive Pedro from the San Francisco season. But it will be interesting to see how the show reconciles its experiment in out-there sexual politics with its usual agenda of self-satisfied but passé tolerance.
Apart from their momentary serious aspirations, it seems we’re in for another season of young, beautiful anger and drunken amorousness. But I’m pleasantly reminded at once of how the show’s ambling, directionless pace affords instances of quieter voyeurism. In the premiere, at least, what really makes it for me are the little moments of un-manufacturable, genuine revelation: hipster Mormon Chet’s self-assured dancing around his obvious sexual confusion; fun-loving army vet Ryan’s repressed-trauma-bordering-on-denial; aspiring therapist Sarah’s unconsciously overbearing inquisitiveness. Between the time-warping jump cuts and the pop-up music referrals, The Real World still manages to capture fascinating moments of genuine human inadequacy. In its slow dive into cultural worthlessness, MTV should thank its stars it still has the clout to command something so spontaneously captivating. They couldn’t make this shit up if they tried.
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