December 2010
21 posts
3 tags
proposed alternative definition for 'nerd'
googling “Isaac Babel” at 11:09 at night.
Dec 31st
2 tags
“At some point you have to set aside snobbery and what you think is culture and...”
– The Anthologist, Nicholson Baker (for the “yes indeed of course yes”)
Dec 30th
4 tags
“The addicts of crossword puzzles are also distracting themselves. They also...”
– The Anthologist, Nicholson Baker. (found a new hardbound edition for $6 the other day!)
Dec 29th
My Horoscope 12/21/2010
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Take your time. Don’t react to pressure from friends or loved ones. You know where you are going. Sometimes it is best not to explain everything, even if someone demands just that. A little mystery proves to be etremely alluring. Tonight: No one can find you because… ————- Sometimes I love checking horoscopes because they’re vague...
Dec 21st
you know how magazine articles are always about how this or that public figure is so much more down-to-earth than they seem and not at all caught up in themselves, etc, etc. I’d love to see an article that says: this person is exactly everything you think they are.
Dec 19th
when traveling to the Pac NW:
it’s best to make it clear in the most direct way possible that you know the Pacific Northwest because you grew up there, so this isn’t a vacation, it’s a flight home. so, you know, flannel and wool socks. bonus points if you wander around looking lost in Newark.
Dec 19th
10 tags
I need to learn how to prioritize. you know: packing instead of writing this. also, I have 10 books in my ‘to pack’ pile. although two of them are presents, that still leaves 8 books I somehow expect myself to read in 17 days. also, 5 of those are 400+ pages. but the ones I KNOW I’m bringing are The Whale (I’m about halfway through and am very much in love. part of me is...
Dec 18th
6 tags
“As much as MOBY-DICK was a product of Melville’s adventures at sea, it was also...”
– Philip Hoare’s The Whale
Dec 16th
Santa! I had this crazy dream that I ate your... →
Dec 16th
5 tags
on whales and thawing toes
this morning I got sent on an errand that took me first to Harlem, 13 blocks above my own apartment, and then down into Brooklyn, somewhere halfway between Coney Island and Manhattan. I had to walk some, but mostly I sat and began and continued Philip Hoare’s The Whale. I checked it out from the library a million years ago and have been waiting for the end of the semester to finally dip into...
Dec 15th
today's favorites
writers at work (tolstoy!) and my favorite comic’s special NY edition (reminds me of something…)
Dec 15th
6 tags
a list
currently reading: Moby-Dick Spell – Dan Beachy-Quick (from the publisher’s site: “This multi-layered poetic work engages with [Moby-Dick] as well as with myth and with the ideas of spiritual quest, the role of the writer, and the nature of language.”) Journey to the End of the Night - Céline Bacacay – Gombrowicz Snow Country - Kawabata Reading Rilke – William Gass checked...
Dec 11th
this morning I received a text message from an unknown 360 number, which is weird because 360 is an endangered species nowadays and so I figure there’s no acquaintance I know with a 360 that isn’t already in my phone. on top of that, this mysterious text seemed to be a few lines from a poem. I googled the poem (which rhymed unassuming with fuming and beneath with teeth) and...
Dec 11th
3 tags
from the downtown A train conductor: “Have a beautiful morning and a very cozy weekend.” what my phone tried to write for me (because I normally just throw my thumbs around and hope it spells something): “Have a beautiful meningitis.” I shouldn’t find that funny. it’s too cold outside.
Dec 10th
just found four old abandoned New Yorkers with fiction from Sana Krasikov (April 2008), Julian Barnes (May 2008), and Tobias Wolff (August 2008). also a Woody Allen essay, a piece on Iceland’s deep freeze, a look at the tv show “The Hills,” and a Bob Hicok poem. oh and a Jonathan Franzen essay: “Letter from the Yangtze Delta: the Way of the Puffin.” highlight sentence...
Dec 7th
5 tags
I started Zadie Smith’s Changing My Mind today. In her first essay, “Their Eyes Were Watching God: What Does Soulful Mean?” she writes: “White readers often believe they are colorblind.” and footnotes this with: Until they read books featuring nonwhite characters. I once overheard a young white man at a book festival say to his friend, “Have you read the new...
Dec 5th
1 note
Dec 4th
all day spent stuffing envelopes leads to much needed catch up with This American Life. among a couple others, I listened to Toxie and This Party Sucks. yup. real feel good episodes. no papercuts. many hangnails.
Dec 4th
Me: I think I'm going to spend my evening diagramming sentences.
Mom: What?
Me: Diagramming sentences. I'm not kidding.
Mom: You're weird, Kels.
Dec 3rd
5 tags
Catch!
Started Reading Rilke by William Gass this morning. I’ve had it out from the library for about a month now—have kept renewing and renewing because I want to read it but school, etc, get in the way. Finally got to it on the train this morning, only 30 pages in and there are already tons of passages I want to underline but can’t. Among them, a visit he and his lover Lou Salomé...
Dec 2nd
the internet’s weird. but fun, too. and I had a whim today. (this is a placemark until whim #2)
Dec 2nd