June 2012
80 posts
May 2012
42 posts
“He felt no surprise. Time, the spaces of light and dark, had long since lost orderliness. It would be either one now, seemingly at in instant, between two movements of the eyelids, without warning. He could never know when he would pass from one to the other, when he would find that he had been asleep without remembering having laid down, or find himself walking without remembering having waked. Sometimes it would seem to him that a night of sleep, in hay, in a ditch, beneath an abandoned roof, would be followed immediately by another night without interval of day, without light between to see to flee by; that a day would be followed by another day filled with fleeing and urgency, without any night between or any interval for rest, as if the sun had not set but instead had turned in the sky before reaching the horizon and retraced its way. When he went to sleep walking or even kneeling in the act of drinking from a spring he could never know if his eyes would open next upon sunlight or upon stars.”
—William Faulkner, Light in August
“Once Hebrew was God’s slang
in these streets,
now I use it for
holy desire.” —Yehuda Amichai, “The Tourist”
in these streets,
now I use it for
holy desire.” —Yehuda Amichai, “The Tourist”
“Sex had everything to do with violence, that was true, and marriage was at once a container for the madness between men and women and a fragile hedge against it, as religion was to death, and the laws of physics to the immense quantity of utter emptiness of which the universe was made. But there was nothing sage about marriage. It was a doubtful enterprise, a voyage in an untested craft, across a hostile ocean, with a map that was a forgery and with no particular destination but the grave.”
—Michael Chabon, “House Hunting”
“As upon another life he looked back upon that first hard and manlike surrender, that surrender terrific and hard, like the breaking down of a spiritual skeleton the very sound of whose snapping fibers could be heard almost by the physical ear, so that the act of capitulation was anticlimax, as when a defeated general on the day after the last battle, shaved overnight and with his boots cleaned of the mud of combat, surrenders his sword to a committee.”
—William Faulkner, Light in August
“I met the Puerto Rican woman right after Papi had gotten the van. He was taking me on short trips, trying to cure me of my vomiting. It wasn’t really working but I looked forward to our trips, even though at the end of each one I’d be sick. These were the only times me and Papi did anything together. When we were alone he treated me much better, like maybe I was his son or something.”
—Junot Diaz, “Fiesta, 1980”
“I had always felt sorry for Ant-Man, a superhero whose powers condemned him to the disappointing comradeship of bugs.”
—Michael Chabon, ”Werewolves in Their Youth”
“Knowing not grieving remembers a thousand savage and lonely streets.”
—William Faulkner, Light in August
"A Pity. We Were Such a Good Invention" - Yehuda Amichai
They amputated
your thighs off my hips.
As far as I’m concerned
they are all surgeons. All of them.
They dismantled us
each from the other.
As far as I’m concerned
they are all engineers. All of them.
A pity. We were such a good
and loving invention.
An airplane made from man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.
We even flew a little.
Nude
Don’t get any big ideas
They’re not gonna happen
You paint yourself white
And fill up with noise
But there’ll be something missing
Now that you’ve found it, it’s gone
Now that you feel it, you don’t
You’ve gone off the rails
So don’t get any big ideas
They’re not gonna happen
You’ll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking-Radiohead
First Lines: Bernard Malamud - The Fixer
From the small crossed window of his room above the stable in the brickyard, Yakov Bok saw people in their long overcoats running somewhere early that morning, everybody in the same direction.
You seem like an amazing guy, are you single?
I’m very humbled by this compliment; thank you :) Do you know this from experience? And yes, I am at the moment - have been for quite a while. Why do you ask?
Numbers
10 Favorite Bands:
Radiohead
U2
The Smiths
Vampire Weekend
Death Cab for Cutie
Arcade Fire
The Decemberists
Blind Melon
The Doors
Coldplay
The Last 9 Movies I Saw:
The Avengers
Bridesmaids
Horrible Bosses
The Town
Shame
The Grapes of Wrath
City Lights
Blue Valentine
The Tree of Life
8 Universities I’ll Be Applying to in the Fall for Graduate School:
Yale (see: Yehuda Amichai’s manuscript archives)
Princeton
Harvard
UCLA Berkeley
Vanderbilt
Columbia
U of Pennsylvania
UT Austin
7 Television Shows that I Love:
Mad Men
LOST
Batman: The Animated Series
Seinfeld
Arrested Development
The Office
Curb Your Enthusiasm
The 6 Books I Hope to Read this Summer:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Michael Chabon)
American Pastoral (Philip Roth)
The Human Stain (P. Roth)
Humboldt’s Gift (Saul Bellow)
Mr. Sammler’s Planet (S. Bellow)
Henderson the Rain King (S. Bellow)
5 of My Most Beloved Poems:
“Howl” (A. Ginsberg)
“Jacob and the Angel” (Y. Amichai)
“The Emperor of Ice Cream” (W. Stevens)
“Danse Russe” (W. C. Williams)
“Body of a Woman” (P. Neruda)
4 Places that I’d Like to Live (Other than NYC, My Home):
Boston, MA
Stockholm, Sweden
Athens, Greece
Rome, Italy
3 Things I Need Before the Summer Ends:
A job
An apartment
A car
The Only 2 Physical Traits that Matter to Me (For Women):
A beautiful, genuine smile
Beautiful, trusting eyes
1 Person (Non-Familial, a.k.a. not My Father) who Has Severely Changed Me:
Ingmar Bergman
Mad Men Review ("Lady Lazarus" May 6, 2012)
After watching Mad Men last night, I felt compelled to listen to Revolver this morning. If the shown had to pick one Beatles album to use, I’m glad they chose Revolver (By far my favorite; I refuse to listen to anything before Rubber Soul) to show how easily it is for the coolest of Cool, Don Draper, to lose touch with the new generation. If anything, that should show just *how* fast everything really is changing. It’s 1966, and everything you thought was static in the show is turning out to be just as sporadic as a Hendrix riff. Megan Draper is slowly becoming the bearer of the feminist movement in a way that no other woman has; pursuing a career in acting when Don has just gotten comfortable with the idea of having her chemistry to rely on in the office. Like the episode’s title, Megan is a “Lady Lazarus,” rebirthing into a purer form, coming back to the life she always should have pursued - but since this title comes from a Sylvia Plath poem, there’s no way this can end well. And I find it hard to believe that Draper did not fire Peggy on the spot for telling him off the way she did after she botched their pitch. She needs to be fired - there’s nothing that she contributes that no one else can. Her case of penis envy has ruined my tolerance for her character, and every time I look at her, to quote the lovable Michael Ginsberg, it’s “stabbing me in the fucking heart.” Possibly the most interesting development of the episode comes from Peter’s brief hook up with the wife of his commuter-friend, whom is also cheating on his wife. Though Peter seems to be turning into the Don Draper that we knew from the show’s inception, something he wanted, he’s not doing so career-wise, but emotionally, morally. Peter Campbell is on a downward spiral, and the key to his demise just might be the thing that Don knew never to do: he’s gotten emotionally attached to the extramarital affairs he’s pursued. Following Peter’s downfall is something that will prove to be a highlight of the season, it already has, and I cannot help but connect to him in a way that I never did before - not on such a deep level. For this reviewer, what is just as saddening is that the show has failed to mention Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, 1966’s most important album - Dylan went electric - when it has been out for months. Dylan’s been mentioned since long before the Beatles were.
"And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars"
I think she likes me…I really think she likes me.
