2003-02-08 - 12:25 p.m.
Getting Ready to Rumble
This poster's by Mike Flugennock, a D.C. artist and former Yippie whose brightly-colored web site features several years' worth of posters, videos, and other forms of protest culture. 
Anyone who has visited our nation's bustling capital with their eyes open has probably spotted Mike's posters wheat-pasted on telephone poles and utility boxes. For some reason, the carnage on this poster does not show clearly on my screen. If you are having similiar problems, then I apologize.
Today's Best Spam Offerings
By subject header:
* Did you know you could legally own a cable* Protect your computer against Harmfu (Note: Is harmfu like tofu?)
* coxmander usale
* Get Paid for sitting in your couch, watching TV that is!
* Women will do anything for money... absolutely anything you want (Wow, that's so true)
* Cesspool Cure
* No Surgery and No Padding
* misqake grop
24-Hour Creative People
My new friend, Ben Brown, is making Frampton come alive once again. Rather, he's helping me see that my old creative interests, such as making a zine and taking over the universe with my magical brand of wunderprose, can actually happen. Like me, he's an energetic person who's interested in collaboration � and unlike many creative types our age (mid/late 20s), he doesn't seem to have a pretentious or super-duper screwy bone in him. This evening, we talked about making readable paper objects, and I think it's really going to happen � in the near future, in fact. It doesn't matter if the universe we conquer with our texty paper products eventually amounts to just a few muddled teenage heads looking for something to read while smoking clove cigarettes in scrappy cafes � we can pretend we're cultural shape-shifters, right?
Admittedly, a small part of me would like to take the world by storm and make it into a different place with no Republicans, jails, or Justin Timberlake, but that sentiment should be gone by my birthday next month. Getting older has its advantages ��greater perspective being one of them. Losing extra idealism is another plus. So much do-gooderism and unrealistic expectation-having can really lead some of us to do-nothingness and defeatism, I'm afraid. Now, let's find us some advertisers ...
Five Possible Band Names
Nipple ThreatThe Porn Loser
Burmese Nerds
Steak Party
Janet Cox & the Take Me Please
Commitment 101
Currently I'm reading "He's Scared, She's Scared," a self-help kind of book about commitment that is mainly focused on romantic relationships, but also includes lessons that apply to life in general. My ex-boyfriend loaned me his copy upon request, commenting that while he typically has little faith in paperback psychology, this book was different. It is: It addresses a topic that many people approach with difficulty, because it is so complex. When you aren't committed, you develop the tendency to live in the past, the future, or both, while totally avoiding the present reality... oh, I'd really like to write more about this book, but it's 3:30am and I just can't analyze right now.Total Fashion Awareness
This is pretty self-explanatory. A Total Information Awareness thong = perfect gift for V-Day.
Colors
From now on I think I'll coordinate my web site background color to reflect the U.S. terror alert level. Enjoy the orange.
New story coming soon.
Instead of posting half-finished items, such as the "Johnny Guilty" pair (someday, oh someday, they will receive a plot), from now on I am going to finish stories before posting them. See, I'm never totally happy with anything I write, so it's very hard for me to let go. Just ask my boss. It drives him nuts when I turn in a feature and then, after it's edited, come up with all of these changes that he patiently � though grumblingly � permits. Sorry, M. (For new or unfamiliar readers: Rumor has it that I'm a reporter by profession.)Just so you know, I often return to old entries to fix and switch around things that make me wince, or to add details to incomplete thoughts. What you've read before is probably not the same. This habit of open-ended editing can be productive at times, because it helps me turn mediocre or awful writing into less mediocre or awful writing, but it would cause disaster if applied to other lines of work � for instance, city planning. If you lived in my city, you would always be angry and frustrated with me, because you would never be sure if your route to work or home was the same. I would surely wake up in the middle of the night and proclaim to the pillows, "no, no! The traffic on that frontage road does not flow! Man the jackhammers, we're going out there to do a little re-routing."
A La Mode
Yesterday was the opening day for my private sweatshop, located in a dark apartment in a residential neighborhood of Austin. (No need to call INS: I got my papers right here.) First item available: Jackets.
Advice
Do you bring out the worst in the best people? Perhaps you should stop.Porn Movie for Lexicographers
"Hard Consonants, Firm Vowels."
A Word About Courtney Love
Why the boob shirts? And where does she buy them? She seems to have a collection of the same shirt design: Not a V-neck, but a low neckline with several inches of space between ... what would you call them? ... breast panels? So that the fabric flirts with the nipples and toys with your imagination.It's funny that in his journal, Kurt Cobain rambled on and on like a frustrated little high school junior about insipid prom queens and football stars, and here he went and married a woman who runs around London without her clothes.Food Minute
Don't waste your time with ordinary bananas. Get the organic ones. So much more flavorful. A little more expensive, but you can definitely tell the difference.On the bus from Madrid to Salamanca, I saw from my windowseat the "Hollywood American Restaurant," which could be a chain. Could someone please tell me what culinary delights Hollywood has given the world? Thank you.
New idea for a combined dessert/exercise franchise: "I Can't Believe It's Not Yoga!"
Seeking Input
Do you do clumsy things that make you say, "Geez, I wish I could stop doing this RIGHT NOW, before I break or ruin this [bone/piece of furniture/appliance]?"
I, for one, can't seem to stop spilling coffee all over the carpet around my work chair. Tonight, I actually spilled a bunch of coffee on the chair, without even being near it or the coffee. I simply entered the room with my bicycle, put the bicycle between the chair and the wall (a space about three feet wide), and walked to the kitchen. While I was in the kitchen Mr. Bike slipped and fell into the table, on which sat a coffee cup full of grounds that flew all over the chair and the carpet � creating very dirty and disgusting-looking brown splotchy patterns all over both. After several of these incidents, the floor resembles a caffeinated Jackson Pollock painting made of shitty-tasting coffee and beige carpet, perpetrated by my foot. It looks like hell, really, but for some reason my feet are just drawn to whatever cup of coffee is resting on the floor. Like my toes have eyes that see cups of liquid and think, "must spill." Every few months, it seems that clumsiness morphs into a new mode of pain-inducing expression. Sometimes it's "hit the elbow on the wood surface." At others, it's "smack the head on the bedpost." There's also been "ride the bike into the low-hanging tree branch," "slam the index finger into the fridge door," and "trip over the dog." One of the longest-running series in Lappleland is "smash the bare toes on the object," with the object ranging from beds to couches to walls. This last routine is truly the worst, not only because of its lengthy duration, but because of the pain factor involved.So, dear reader, do you suffer from any of these unintended habits? Are you wishing to get rid of them? Please share your stories and I'll ... uh ... post them. (The Official Prize Department at this web site remains theoretical. Sorry).
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Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse. � Lily Tomlin |
