$disanpoter

so sweet and so cold

i took myself to mcnally robinson again today - this time for a reading by the authors of A Book of Beginnings and Endings and The Memory Palace of Isabella Stewart Gardner. I'd been more intrigued by the former, because i have always been interested in the idea of publishing a collection of endings. I bought both books; i think they will be thought provoking, though the first author's reading was annoying. she was clearly responding to the cultural expectations of poetic prose emerging out of the slam poetry movement, for she employed the same softened speech, sing-song intonations and arbitrary word stresses you find in bad slam poetry, the kind that mimics the style to compensate for a lack of substance or genuine motive. it's a shame, too, because what i read of the work beforehand was fairly good and got completely lost in the delivery. both authors had a refreshing balance of theoretical and critical knowledge of narrative without getting mired down in over-intellectualizations either in the work or the discussion.
during the question and answer, betsy called. i hopped out and agreed to come meet up with her and the D of infamy up at chat n chew. that made for some interesting interactions, not least of which was an evolving friend:not friend motif. more on that can possibly be found here, either in the presence of words or by way of their absence. after we went to decibel to digest the situation and dispense of any lingering misgivings by way of innebreation and a bit of willful absurdism: we played drunken haiku. it was, as it should be, amusing and a poor literary showing (on my part at least...betsy's were better). hers are at the link above; mine to follow (bold words are the ones we had to incorporate):

what the world needs now

next valentine's day, share a little love with your colleagues using these office work-place themed cards:

#1
envelope: dear ___
cover: cupid with a femur as a cross bow
inside: i want to jump your bones.

#2
envelope: from your secret admirer...
cover: binoculars embedded in a cubicle wall
inside: only clear partitions could make my life sweeter

#3
envelope: dear CO worker
cover: person in suit horizontal and out cold
inside: your presence leaves me breathless/ depletes my oxygen intake

#4
envelope: from your pal at the water-cooler
cover: face behind/inside the water cooler
inside: if you'd be mine, i'd never come up for air

_______________________

oddly enough, this is what one random thought can result in.

as you like it

just a few random things:

on the way over to LR's house - who is a newish neighborhood friend who does professional editing - this young child ran into me on the way to running by me. it was a slight at most an early 7 year old, young person and i thought to myself 'oh to be five again and completely oblivious of other people and their own personal issues.' sigh.

then i got to the big blue house, and needing to use the bathroom, had the opportunity to  see  a cute sign in french. That is said 'please leave the bathroom in a state you would want to encounter it in' is not as relevant as the fact that i read this automatically and without difficulty, which just reminds me that i need to read more in french, because i like french, and i like knowing other languages, and i don't want to lose either. sigh.

in other news, the personal statement is coming along

letter from a concerned member

Dear leftist organization,

Your behavior bewilders me. After all, I gave you a working email address, when I give all those commercial, money-grubbing, people-stomping companies a fake one that goes straight into the vacuous abyss  we know as the internet. Why do you not use my email address. You keep sending me papers, but when i click on the underlined words in these, nothing happens. I don't understand. I want to help, but do you really expect me to be able to remember and retype these things. Also, think of the trees. It's one thing for those CMGPSCs to waste paper, but you're supposed to be one of the good guys. Think of all the woodland creatures squashed under the tractors sent to harvest the papers for you thick and hefty info packets. Surely you were aware that all you really needed to provide was a few links to wikipedia!? other leftist organizations do this. others send me emails all the time. i've already sent at least 20 letters to congress just by clicking these links and have been assured this clicking helped enormously.

well, I went to school in the '90s, so i dont actually know how to close a letter, so i'll just say thank you and assume you get what i'm saying.

thank you,
one laptop activist

Das granolischer hip

i remember i once called someone 'colorado hip' with the effect of offending them, which was unfortnuate, because i happened to find this person quite attractive  being, as he was, a quick and scrappy casual kind of guy. if only our activities had overlapped more, i might even remember his name. anyway, i'm feeling fairly granola-hip today with my new tanned leather flip-flops on. Chancey advised my of the fashionlessness of my current ensemble - dark grey socks and sandals, beneath my corduroys and a linen button down shirt - all of which, amazingly, having vertical stripes - but i happen to think the dark grey and warm medium brown go well together. They have a pleasant 'rustic' feel and they very nearly achieve an appearance of a smaller narrow foot for me. what's not to like?

i'm off to the rhc, where i will proceed to flop my person on the couch, slip off the flip-flops, and fold my footsies on under the toasty warmth of my own fairly ample fanny.

n to the ewness

hey feed readers - you're missing out! cuz there are awesomely new things on my blog. you can chat with eachother now. if you're on at the same time. plus you can search my library account and request books straight from my blog. oh the rocked newness of it all.

further plans are in the works. like who's reading what community splendor. and random quotes. and possibly, if my prayers are answered, quality content mixed in with all this :D.

also. there's a new category called 'feedback requested' for complement the not so new but not yet old category 'who wants' in my quest for non-lindsay-to-lindsay conversation.

haiku, she mentioned, / are fashionable memes plunked / between char(13)s

fantasy futures

first off and a bit tangentially, google is taking over desktop applications in an absolutely brilliant way, by provided tools that free file creation from the local file system. server-side apps may just warp to lightspeed marketshare in the next few years. anyway - i could say more but that's really just to remind myself of what i was talking about when i come back later.

in other news, i got my printer last night. it boasts an imbedded wireless print server, double-sided color printing, and can take in longer sheets of paper and this weekend i'm going to be setting it up and seeing how well it prints an fancy shmancy kate's paperie paper. then i'm going to draw up my plans for the side business i hope will at least pay for the printer and the scanner, and then for some book cases and then for some new clothes and then who knows. but first i have to launch into that dangerous zone of infrastructure development - a ghostly, swampish graveyard that has claimed too many valued and ingenious ideas.

oh and i've got to convincingly deliver a talk on methods to encourage critical thinking on sunday - because i've been so very successful at encouraging the people in my life to adopt them.

oh - and i've got to build the mindsmatter website too. jeepers. yeah, i've been procrastinating on that one...it scares me. i'm afraid i may discover i'm incompetent...

what genie came to me to grant these things?

The world is growing markedly close to my childhood answer to the 3 wishes question: to speak every language; to know everything (but only when I wanted to) and something which varied from having a room made out of sweets to being able to fly. Granted, we're not so far from the last one either, but those first to seem awfully close with this internet thingamajig and the advent of translation software.

Then again, it's not so close. I'm still in the dark as to why my toilet starts making noise every so often and does so for a while and then stops, and Twains Jumping From would be translated as deplorably through babel fish today as by the french journalist of yesteryear...but still, it just makes you excited about what's down the line.

while my macaroni gently boils

Update: i've established a writing only blog. hopefully it will garner some followers among people who don't know me. that would be rad. then i could have some unbiased feedback and perhaps get to be a better writer...

Now all i have to do is get all of the stuff i've already written up there (and create some warning categories [reject pile, rough ...] that pretty much covers it.)