I'm sitting on the fence with this one. I think it's so short, and the shortest of all Pynchon novels that I can read it again. I don't know how much I like stories that don't tell you what the protagonist is after right away. I mean I understand, that you have to see how it is for her to be on the search for something she isn't sure about either, but it also doesn't help that Pynchon writes so descriptively that he's telling you what was on the TV in the same room the conversation is going. If what is on TV is significant to the story? I probably just missed it. I did like how post-modern it was, all the secret society snooping, and that the setting is in the Bay Area (up Telegraph, over the Bay Bridge, off of Howard, etc.) I don't get stories with coded meanings...

okay I'll get back to my homework now....

google quote of the day

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.

-Christopher Morley's last words (whoever the hell you are).

I've been so distracted and all over the place lately. I think I realize that I have a big problem growing up.

So I don't know how I feel about this guy yet. Am I really going to try to explain what this thing is about? A mildly fantasy/ dream scape novel that switches back and forth between the main characters' parallel universes. The first half is that he's a part of some research/ experiment of the mind gone wrong. The second half sounds more like a dream of his where he is separated from his shadow and ponders being one with it again. It's confusing because you can't determine which is reality versus which is just a world in his conscious. I did like the pop culture references...["Bob Dylan sounds like a child singing to the rain"], the search to learn about unicorns, and lastly how the main character spends the last of his days. There is always something interesting about someone who knows that their world is going to end soon, and does what he wants to make it worthwhile. I also think that Murakami is a bit of a chauvinist, cause of all his random sex spiels with his character's librarian lover and spurts of having to talk about the character's being so well read (I read Balzac and Turgenev..'you don't read anything modern?' I've read Razor's Edge 3 times) uh yea. More or less a good read, and I just might be on of those who read everything by this guy. Okay probably not. The getting slit in the stomach was a bit much for me to handle.

The Politics of Happiness

lovely, originally uploaded by ter -ri -fic!.

One common measure of how clean a mountain stream is to look for trout. If you find the trout, the habitat is healthy. It's the same way with children in the city. Children are a kind of indicator. If we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people.

All this pedestrian infrastructure shows respect for human dignity. We're telling people, "You are important -- not because you're rich or because you have a Ph.D., but because you are human." If people are treated as special, as sacred even, they behave that way. This creates a different kind of society.

-Penalosa's thoughts via Bicycle Diaries

So I'm cheating and I'm blogging about this right before I finish the last 30 pages. I actually didn't expect that much and that is when things tend to turn out better. (I guess that's the way I see things in general anyway.) So the whole biking thing is pretty minimal compared to David Byrne's opinionated rants with everything that he comes across in his travels. He has a fold up bike that he packs with him almost everywhere and does include a tips and what to wear guide at the end. What really pulled me towards this book is that he writes about the places that I have been i.e. London, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Manila, San Francisco-duh, and New York. Even though his biking insights were nominal, I really began to appreciate his perspective about things... his anti corporate, advocacy, music and art spiel (does insanity really make a good artist).. he's more down to earth and had some legitimate insight. He also really knew his history about Manila and the Marcos' and martial law.

"Language is primarily a useful tool born out of a need for control... What may have begun as an instrument of social and economic control has now been internalized by us as a mark of being civilized..." One of his ideas about why tribes in the Philippine had to begin to adopt a formal language.

It's good for a bit of personal philosophy (that at least I can say I agree with some of his pov) rather than a book about travels, biking, and music reference... It really is his stinking diary written for the masses. one thumb up.

Pavel: Are you going to blog about this?

Okay yea I'll blog about it. My thighs and calves are girthier and the ride was beautiful, until we got to Palo Alto. People are always nice and you can tell when you've reached city lines when the road is cracked and rocky. The cities in the "ghetto", 3rd st and East Palo Alto always have to the most character and look like they have the best places to eat. Santa Clara and anything around San Thomas, Central expressway are horrid and make you travel the most indirect way.

The hardest part was overcoming boredom on expressways, then tired arms, numb toes from the cold, and burning eyes and thighs. I am still soooooo thrilled about it, and it was the best way to spend my last Saturday of Spring break. Oh yea... all with a psi of 80. ouch.


P.S. - I love boathouses.

wierdo 1am

wierdo 1am, originally uploaded by ter -ri -fic!.

the average American will eat 21,000 entire animals in his lifetime

Yeesh. I believe when I first decided to cut meat from my diet I was 19 going on 20. I thought of it to be unethical, cruel, contradicting, and it made me lose a good 10 lbs over the course. I ate seafood, then gradually cut out the fish, then milk, and eggs. I did this for about 4 more years (even in the PI)... and then I sometimes ate chicken wings <3, then I ate all seafood, then I had steak in Argentina..so on and so forth. I am still a conflicted person, but I did read this over dinner of a hot link, and after buying from the store hummus, soy bacon, drumsticks and a pack of salami. I do like wings and love sushi, but it's true that being free of meat gives you a clear mind. All of a sudden you're no longer conflicted with your ideals.. but the trade off is you get all the annoying 'why don't you eat meat' fuss dealing with everyone and anyone else in every meal you don't eat by yourself.

We have been disconnected with how our food is made, and have a disregard for animals because of the way we perceive their role in our social and cultural existence. A lot of what Foer describes in here is similar to Schlosser, Cook, and Pollan in their pov of the food industry. It's even the same sentiments that Sinclair expressed in Jungle, which is that factory farming is as unethical as life gets and what is in the meat we eat is really making us sick. Foer dug deep in his research, and he mostly proves points on how animals, even fish are intelligent and have the receptors for pain and emotion. Not too much of a influencing point (animals communicate and have feelings too?), but it is true that most of us can't eat a porkchop, after seeing a pig get his snout cut off and skinned while conscious. Or even how our Thanksgiving meals are nothing like what the Pilgrims had...and chickens get dipped in 11% chemicals (apparently it says on the label) and the water used to clean contaminated birds (feces soup). Are we really that ignorant? I know I am...

..how about if not eating meat is not such a big deal. and the USDA sucks.

I'll try it again...

I really enjoy Bolano. .. okay. Well I have ditched a couple...
So it's a half half deal. Really. The plot was interesting, a doctor (Monsieur Pain), who goes to treat this woman's husband who's dying of hiccups, but two spies are on his tail and bribe him leave the husband be... then some weird shit happens and then he's in a movie theater, then things don't make much sense... I'm kind of tired of trying to find some deeper/ hidden meaning amongst all this. Everyone was raving about this book... but I say mehhh. I'll do a reread and get back to you...

its' ez

I have a terrible habit of getting distracted and reading halfway through a book, then abandoning it for something else (Okay with the intention of returning to it.. abandon is such a harsh word). It's not that whatever I am reading is such a boring book, but I am an impulsive person. I am! I go with what I feel with a lot of things in my life, which leads to a lot unfinished business, but a lot of nice surprises. One would think that I also have regret from being impulsive, but I've learned that I become more embarrassed than regretful, and that's okay.. and maybe explains why I am an awkward being...



So I'm single damnit and being a late twenty something, I started/am becoming anxious about it. I'm in a new city and friends aren't around as often. I am used to being with someone and having attention... I'm narcissistic ... I am not trying to justify reading this book in the span of a night alone in the creepy neighborhood bar over well whisky sodas, then over my cataloging lecture in the morning. I loved it.. it's exactly what I needed and it makes me realize I'm not a f-ing lunatic girl with unrationalized emotions.

I like her cause she's gutless, honest, and even though I'm not promiscuous...it's good to hear that the guys she's been with have sucked like the ones I have dated (well Pavel was okay), and she reveals a lot of truth to the situation. I also appreciated her late twenty going onto thirty spiel at the end. The twenties do suck.... and when you're thirty you can just say "NO".

Poetry Chain (just started) and made my Monday...

From a long time friend...

"here is an adam sandler-ish email:

i really miss eating pie with my old friend, sarah
because she now lives in oakland, being a ballah

it was nice chatting with you once again
hopefully, an email tag chain we can begin

we can talk about anything, including philosophy and art
or the big and little things we bought from wal-mart

i'm glad we got in touch
so much it made me want to rhyme as such

so here's to a good beginning with this email chain
during sunny days and also when there is rain

i'll be waiting for your reply
if it is in rhyme, that would would be pretty fly"

A terrible response -

"How did you find any time to write a rhyme?

I'm falling asleep on the job
and this is the only thing that's keeping me from being a slob.

I miss the pie and the nachos at midnight,
those days felt like my youth without the hindsight.

But the emails are fine,
they remind me of when I first met you in 1999!

Let's talk life, art, music, and the rest
the only thing I wouldn't speak about is Tara Patrick's .....

(Oh wait.. yes I would!)

Let me continue...
how does the world spin for you?

Mine has become blurry and my memory is faltering
I am hoping that I will finally land a job that is life altering

Books keep me calm and keep me busy,
and they never question my morals like Friedrich Nietzsche.

I hope next time this will make more sense,
But I don't have the caffeine in me to form my next sentence."

I really liked his set of short stories, and I thought that this would be just as interesting (see below). Maybe my comprehension is out of whack, but I wish I spent the time reading this on Crime & Punishment instead, which is far more engrossing read than this was...also considering I have 300 more pages to read vs. this 160 page booger. It's a book is a narration of a bunch of imagined different cities by Marco Polo. I did like the city without walls and roofs, and only water pipes to define it, as well as the city and death segments, which is more of what I was hoping to see with Calvino. But maybe I just don't get it... or I like things more literal. Life: a User's Manual by Perec (another book I have 100 more pages left and never returned to...yet) is by far more interesting and structured if you want to talk in terms of space and buildings and people and things.

It's difficult to define this guy. As a collection of more than 30 or so stories, some ranging from a couple pages to ten, he doesn't have one focus or perspective, but 20. Some stories reminded me of Arenas and Borges, others sounded like text from a Stephen Hawking book. What I liked the most that they all had a tinge or more of social commentary and I also enjoy stories that reveal a bit of truth about us or humanity. Some things I didn't enjoy too much were the streams of consciousness that consisted of too many details and things I didn't care about, even though some times after explaining a drip of water that traveled through a long maze of pipes to hang at the tip of a faucet, he somehow was able to incorporate a sentence or two about why it matters... Okay I don't think it all matters... I even tended to skip over the dialogues, which are terribly irksome to read for me. But I enjoyed his mysticism, insightfulness, and the element of surprise that many of these short stories throw at you in the end.

This was the story he ended with, but this part reminded of my friend Justin and the conversation he carried on the 22 hour train to Berlin.

"Today, after time has churned its way through billions of minutes, billions of years, and the universe in unrecognizable from what is was in those first instants, since space suddenly became transparent so that the galaxies wrap the night in their blazing spirals, and along the orbits of the solar systems millions of worlds bring forth their Himalayas and their oceans according to the cosmic seasons, and the continents throng with masses whether jubilant or suffering or slaughtering each other, turn and turn about with meticulous obstinacy, and empires rise and fall in their marble, porphyry and concrete capitals, and the markets overflow with quartered cattle and frozen peas and displays of brocade and tulle and nylon, and transistors and computers and every kind of gadget pulsate, and everybody in every galaxy is busy observing and measuring everything, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large, there's a secret that only Nugkta and I know:
that everything space and time contains is no more than that little that was generated from nothingness, the little that and that might very well not be, or be even smaller, even more meager and perishable. And if we prefer not to speak of it, whether for good or for ill, it is because the only thing we could say is this: poor, frail universe, born of nothing, all we are and do resembles you." Washington Post, 3 June 1985

cathedral v.2 - feathers

cathedral v.2 - feathers, originally uploaded by ter -ri -fic!.

I think I'm starting to slightly peeve about collections that have stories that I already have read... well at least this had a handful of new ones. I always will adore you...

Berkeley rant

throwback

I haven't been able to finish any books lately. I've been on the short story kick -
John Fante's Wine of Youth & the Essential Checkov. heart.



edit:Okay Fante's short stories was mostly a memoir of his days in catholic school and nutty Italian parents. I got a lot of kicks from it... the last two stories are even more of a kick cause they each are about Filipino guys that migrated to the U.S. and are trying to find their American girls. HAhahahha... okay I'm done.



My flickr account is expiring tomorrow. Should I really throw another 24.95 at something that essentially won't change my life?

, originally uploaded by ter -ri -fic!.

ChrisT Apt 9 circa 2007

"A man does not exist until he is drunk." -Ernest Hemingway

Taoism rules school

Super cute and insightful all at the same time. I like how simple this was and how much it made me reflect on how I live my life. Taoism (DAOism) prospers in living in the nature of things, wisdom not knowledge, etc etc etc.

The Bisy Backson has to be the personality that is the most saddening because it seems like its in everyone and its killing.... wtf is a Bisy Backson? He is "a creature who is perpetually doing things and always running around frantically trying to finish things"... he has a goal in mind, but doesn't know exactly what... to attain a new ______ (insert material thing here). but then what? he has to accomplish another goal. when can he exactly live?

Perfect for a warm, sunny afternoon.

Jesus' Son: Stories

I tried my best not to get through these too fast, and I feel like I need to go back and do a reread. Each one is different, but have a layer of a good for nothingness, runaways, on the run, mildy perverted, meth head personalities. But each story is like picking the most sordid looking guy that no one wants to take a second glance at in a run down town and peering into a scenario of their everyday existence. In some stories the things that happen are insane to the 'tame folk', but johnson makes a conversation with a guy who has a scar on both cheeks from having a bullet blasted through his face a fish in water - solemn occurrence.

Edit: I should add that I took a second over to listen to this book, and it was still a scuzzy and wicked time. It still feels like walking in a desolate town in a winter's day in South Dakota, jumping into the only bar then sleeping with the town's only whore. haha like I know what any of that feels like.

silly

silly, originally uploaded by ter -ri -fic!.