I am still at my parents house and their dial-up connection. It's a shame since every thought that comes into my head lately is brilliant and worthy of blogging. Oh well. The cable man is scheduled to arrive this afternoon to add a cable-modem line. High-speed internet companies must do great business on installation when adult children are marooned at the parents house for a period of time.
Edited to add: And now there is high-speed internet. The experience is much like this:
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Two Christmas themes have emerged that I was not expecting:
1. Nancy Sinatra. My brother gave me an LP of Boots. Who would have guessed then that she would make one of the best albums of 2004? Well I certainly didn't (since I wasn't alive). Also received a vaguely disturbing Nancy Sinatra plastic pink coin purse.
2. Fig candles. Brian and my mother gave me fig-scented candles. Its very masculine yet... figgy. Actually I have no idea what a fig smells like since I've never eaten one that is not in a cookie. But I do want to predict BIG THINGS for 2005. My previous predictions of mango and "waspy chic" went over well so this coming year is the year of the FIG.
I am in New Jersey at my parents until the 3rd or so. HappyWill woke up nearly in tears on Xmas morning. His parents had told him to listen hard for Santa's reindeer. Since he had not heard the reindeer he thought Santa had skipped his house. Consequently, my mother asked me if I had heard the reindeer on the roof. I said, 'No', and was chastised for losing my "wonder". I conceded and admitted I had heard the reindeer but they woke me up because the hooves are damned loud on the roof. And they were.
God damn, I survived though I came very close to the edge on a weekly basis (and some might say past the edge on a bi-weekly basis). This morning I slept in until 8 am. and while I was tossing and turning I dreamt I smelled coffee. I thought my mind was programmed to smell coffee in the morning. But no, I had just set the coffee maker timer to 6.30 am as usual.
Questions for Elizabeth Stroud: No Tidings of Comfort or Joy: "I definitely considered becoming an Episcopalian during my first two years as a minister, when being in the closet was making me a little crazy. I would literally come home many nights and just cry.
What kept you from switching?
I had almost decided to do it, but then I received a call.
Another call from God?
No, a call from the First United Methodist Church of Germantown..."
Red Sluts, Blue Sluts: "The first pop phenomenon since the election is that salacious howler of a prime-time soap called Desperate Housewives. At this writing, it's the top-rated show on television, and the media are galvanized by its success at a time when red-state reverence is seeping into everything.
Despite its gleeful attitude toward fornication, this show is popular in Bush country. It even grabs men who never watch such sudsy stuff. One reason is its subject: babes behaving badly. These sexy suburban sisters don't have faggot friends--or careers, like most women in sitcoms today... Yet Housewives also appeals to gay men and feminists: the Sex and the City set. How can the same package attract such a diverse audience? Even more remarkably, how can it succeed in such a chastened cultural climate?
At first glance, Housewives is a pungent rebellion against the ideal of America the Wholesome. Set in the proverbial suburban byway of Wisteria Lane, the show features more unhappy couples than a Doctor Phil special. With a knowing smirk, it showcases infidelity, treachery and outright schadenfreude. If that sounds like a scathing indictment of Bush time, it also plays as a critique of Godless narcissism. This two-edged tenor is what allows the show to cross over from red to blue. Housewives is liberal on the surface but conservative at the core."
MattyMatt and I were discussing this just this week. We are so zeitgeist!
'Death was coming little by little': "An 80-year-old lawyer and fishing enthusiast who clung to a buoy in the chill Atlantic waters for 20 hours until his rescue fought off despair by focusing on the finer points of the law."
I often feel much the same way, except without the literal water.
My natural eating instincts kicked in without Brian to cook. Fortunately, a good sandwich shop is a few blocks away (attached to an equally good small bookstore). I also discovered that the freezer is full of frozen meat. Later I found a packet of tuna in the cupboard that the cats and I fought over. Brian brought me back an orange striped zippy sweater from the city, which is very nice even if it is from a lost and found and may be in a women's size. The city also apparently left an impression, as in a dent, on the car. Poor Subaru.
Although I usually sleep like a log, the radiators woke me up in the night. The landlord "fixed" them so now they sound like a man is in the basement hitting them with a baseball bat when they come on. Not even t-ball--like slugger territory. I dreamt... I was hanging out with Britney Spears and K.Fed. I mentioned to her she wasn't fat and had a dancer's body--she got upset and K.Fed threatened me. And I will never read US Weekly before bed again.
God cut from Dark Materials film: "The director and screenwriter of the film adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials is to remove references to God and the church in the movie. Chris Weitz, director of About a Boy, said the changes were being made after film studio New Line expressed concern. The books tell of a battle against the church and a fight to overthrow God. 'They have expressed worry about the possibility of perceived anti-religiosity,' Weitz told a His Dark Materials fans' website...
The award-winning trilogy - Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass - tell the story of Oxford girl Lyra Belacqua. She is drawn into an epic struggle against the Church, which has been carrying out experiments on children in an attempt to remove original sin."
Call to prosecute over 'gay Jesus': "A group of Christian protesters in Scotland has called on police to prosecute a theater company for blasphemy because it is putting on a play about a gay Jesus... 'Jesus Christ is being portrayed here as a foul-mouthed, drunken, promiscuous homosexual and that is an insult to my faith,' Green told BBC Radio.
But the play's director, Zsuzsi Lyndsay, defended the production: 'He is not portrayed as a drunken foulmouth. He doesn't say one bad word throughout the play.'"
No one mention the new Rufus Wainwright song then.
One exam done and two more to go. None of the questions threw me for a loop, but I can't say for sure that I explained everything I wanted to competently. I did the best I can, and the rest is up to the mercy of the curve. I moped for a half-hour and then went Christmas shopping. Do people work anymore? Target at 1:30 pm on a Thursday was packed. People are supposed to have jobs during the day. At least that was what my employer used to tell me. I always knew they were liars.
Brian went down to the big city for work this morning. I hope I remember to eat while he is away. My main source of nourishment--coffee--should hold out until he returns on Sunday. Other than that, I'll be studying and trying to get the last few gifts from the King of All Cosmos in Katamari Damacy.
LRB | Thomas Jones : Short Cuts: "Angels aren’t what they used to be... the Virgin Mary was at first ‘troubled’ by Gabriel’s visit. No such anxieties seem ever to have afflicted Jacky Newcomb, ‘the Angel Lady’, who... has now written a book, An Angel Treasury: A Celestial Collection of Inspirations, Encounters and Heavenly Lore... There’s a ‘frequently asked questions’ section: ‘What is an angel?’ ‘Can my Grandma be my Angel?’ ‘What is angel music?’ ‘The area in “heaven” that produces the unbelievable angel music,’ Newcomb says, ‘is believed to be over England.’"
Online degrees: "Colby Nolan is probably the first animal to hold this distinction -- an executive MBA from a university."
I, for one, think that the cat should be applauded for working hard and receiving his new degree. Societal pressure against animals in higher education is immense.
Since I have joined the gym, I feel that I should actually go (unlike the previous gym experience). I had forgotten how great running can feel. The treadmill is also much easier than the sidewalk because one doesn't have to avoid small dogs, mud, and traffic. Naturally, I need a running mix:
"This Fffire (Playgroup Remix)" Franz Ferdinand
"Substance (Felix da Housecat remix)" Dot Allison
"The Show" Girls Aloud
"Love Machine" Girls Aloud
"Sound Of The Underground" Girls Aloud
"No Good Advice" Girls Aloud
"On The Radio" Jay-Jay Johanson
"Hole In The Head" Sugababes
"Remind Me (Someone Else's Radio Mix)" Röyksopp
The gym has pizza night on the first Monday of the month. Seems to me counterproductive, or perhaps in the gym's best interest.
United Methodists Move to Defrock Lesbian: "In the second ecclesiastical trial of a gay Methodist minister in less than a year, a jury of 13 clergy members in eastern Pennsylvania convicted a fellow pastor of violating church law by living in a lesbian relationship and ordered her defrocked."
Updated! BTW, I'm not obsessed with the story--I just need some closure.
iPod random is fucking with me by playing "Ceremony" by New Order followed by the cover by Galaxie 500. I guess it thinks that is cute.
Does anyone know anything about the Superimposers? Rough Trade describes them as "an undiscovered 60's golden nuggets a la the left banke, gene clark fronting spiritualised, summer pop that echoes axelrod or the electric prunes and a tripped out surfer movie soundtrack." The interweb is apparently lacking information on the band.
And tomorrow my new old guitar from my brother is arriving. I have missed having an instrumental outlet without my double bass the past few months. There's symphonies in my head!
Lost Capote novel surfaces: "An unpublished first novel by Truman Capote, long thought lost, has been found in a box of photographs and documents abandoned by the author in 1966.
The handwritten manuscript of the novel, Summer Crossing, goes on sale on Friday at Sotheby's in New York, where it carries an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000 (£33,000 to £44,000).
Summer Crossing, the story of a young socialite's summer in New York, was thought to have been abandoned by the then 20-year-old author in 1944, when he started to write the novel that would make his name, Other Voices, Other Rooms...
'It's kind of a pre-Breakfast at Tiffany's,' Sotheby's vice-president for books and manuscripts, Julian Caldwell told the Associated Press."
