Stifled

I crave the creative juices that used to nourish me.
Replaced by purplish varicose veins, mocking what I used to do!
And to think we are always in homeostasis.

Oh the Bagginses

Who knew! The Hobbit - in my opinion, the best of J.R.R. Tolkien. But an entire feature-length film based primarily on hairy feet, grassy hills, and Bilbo Baggins? Send Jackson some good vibes.

My new friend Mao

Travelling across China for seven days - Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Beijing - left with me a tactful inclination towards many things.

1. Sipping tea with every meal
2. Chugging beer with every meal
3. Spitting watermelon seeds into tea cups with every meal
4. Gaining thunder thighs with hole-in-the ground toilets
5. Gaining thunder thighs climbing the Great Wall
6. Haggling to less than 1/2 beginning price skills
7. Meditating with monks
8. Eating stinky tofu
9. Befriending Mao

I am now ready to take on the world!

Tactfully,
T.J.

Me love you long time.

If you think L.A. has a vibrant night life, you clearly haven’t been to Saigon -- also known as Ho Chi Minh City to the Che-revering fans out there. (I actually met an old man on my flight wearing the generic Che tee, to which I commented, “Sir, I enjoy your choice in T-shirts” and to which he kindly responded, “Thank you.”)

The hustle and bustle of the endless stream of motorcycles here is unmatched by the endless stream of party break-ups and drunken yelling you’d find in LA on any common night. Most of the racket I attribute to the absence of traffic regulations in Saigon, causing the need for a million and one honks of the horn per person on a scooter. I’ve seen up to 3 people per vehicle, which correlates to 3 million and 3 honks in one night per one scooter. Actually, I was one of those 3 and needless to say, received a front row seat with unbeatable acoustics.

Now, you might be asking yourself, why am I stuck behind a monitor typing away to the pacifying sounds of squealing brakes and almost-crashes instead of immersing myself in the amazing culture that is Vietnam? Well, for one, it’s about 10 pm here (13 hours ahead of the Pacific time zone) and unless you’ve got a young friend or cousin to take you to a club, you’re likely to find yourself 1) out for an after-dinner snack/drink excursion with your parents, which I would love, but alas, they are sleeping and I’d rather not go alone, for I am female and we of course by law are vulnerable, helpless things, or 2) you could find yourself clubbing with your parents. But, alas. My parents are sleeping.

So why am I not sleeping and re-energizing myself for the morrow? Well, thanks to the time difference, I just woke up.

But, thankfully, my first day in Vietnam did not just consist of arriving and sleeping. I visited my relatives I haven’t seen for so long and ate great food! (with not so great after effects, but I go to Taco Bell all the time so I’m pretty much used to it).

Photos below:

1. Barely any traffic rules. Or if there are any, very poorly enforced. There were motorcycles flying at us left and right.
2. Vịt (duck)
3. Bún (noodes), bánh mì (bread). A classic soup dish, eaten with chả (pork), bò viên (beef meatballs), and garnished with green onions to balance the meat.
4. Thanh long (dragon fruit or pitaya), măng cụt (mangosteen). Dragon fruit, with a mushy white interior and black seeds, is the product of a cactus cultivated in Southeast Asia and Mexico/South America. Mangosteen is a slightly sour white fruit divided into 4 or 5 parts and surrounded by a hard dark purple shell. It's endemic to Southeast Asia, but is only in season from May to August. Just made it!
5. Bánh canh cua (crab soup). Never had this before, but I'm eating it as a midnight snack because I did not wake up in time to go out for dinner. Dầu cháo quẩy (the pastry pieces you see inside) are common to eat with hot soups.











Tactfully,
T.J.

The War of 2010

Smoky ghosts escape from the rusty depths of hell
to be dissipated in oxygen and nitrogen.
It's a trade-off of convenience and death feigned as an unnecessary necessity.
Crests and troughs of land as far as the mind can see,
replaced by the rigid silhouette of a corporate state.
Your army infiltrates existence in every crook and nanny.
The fear of spiritual genocide hovers
or the fear that it has already happened.

Fermented fish sauce

Sometimes external thingymajigs can really bog you down. I'm happy about this month-long trip to Vietnam. Gives me time to do things I've been neglecting, think about things I've forgotten to think about. Follow me on what I deem will be a rather interesting cultural explosion. I'm about ready to experience life in the slow lane, just for the time being.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Rule of Happy

Perspective. That's all you need.

A gummy bear a day

Currently listening to Seventeen Years by Ratatat.

Do you know the sensation of falling as the world stands steady. Or maybe the world caving in as you stand steady. It starts to pour colors like the spots behind shut eyelids, or a really bad electro music video. There is that distant, constant muffling of reverberating bass that you can't quite make out, I think it sounds like Terry Crew flexing his tits. It smells fishy, like fish sauce. And a little sweet, like the smell of 6 egg custard tarts drifting from the oven. It's pleasant. Then you wake up, and realize you've taken an unwanted 3 hour snooze while writing a very important lab paper. Shiezy!

Dear friend,

Would you travel the world with me? To the mountains of Peru, to the ruins of the Berlin Wall, to the butterfly gardens of Thailand, to the moon and back? Would you eat anything and everything edible from every country with me and taste all the whiskeys and Tecates of the world? Would you play the guitar for me while I fall asleep? Would you salsa with me at professional salsa parties and on the roofs of elementary schools after midnight? Would you drive with me through the city at night and stop by janky hicktown shops to buy overpriced English chocolate bars? Would you cook exotic and experimental meals and bake delicious mint chocolate raspberry cakes with me? Would you take me to sand dunes overlooking the ocean, the stars overlooking us? Would you escape with me on spastic journeys for absolutely no reason?

Would you?

Could you?

A message not intertwined in an esoteric tale concocted to confuse you

Contrived self-pitying may give you the emotional foundation you necessitate to achieve the stance of "bona fide artist", but it will also grant you the worst of perspectives. It'll consume you when you least expect it. A self-administered drug of sorts.

Concert Caveats: Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes

May 20. 8:00 p.m. Royce Hall.

Meet Jade.

She was convinced that Alex Ebert was a musical messiah sent down to Earth to purge humankind of all that was sinister and blasphemous in the world and remind them of all that was good and beautiful. Prancing barefoot in a wrinkled white suit, a loose red scarf, and a personifiable shaggy mane, Ebert created no hierarchy within the 10-member folk-rock band Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes. All was one and one was all with this hippie god. And the sentiment of collectivism was not exclusive to the stage: the audience, the staff, the ushers all fell under the unifying spell of musical madness.

She suspected Edward Sharpe appealed to the average college student because in both music and conduct, he exuded the ambiance of sixties counterculture rebellion, which, living in LA, she all knew too well. But who could blame them? They were all dependent children, on the verge of leaving the cuckoo's nest, and what better way to be individuals than by a means of "revolution"? She found this attempt at revolution ironically cyclic. In trying to break away from conventions of their parents, they ended up being thrown into the world of adulthood all the more quickly while all the more ill-equiped. Demonstrating their unsolicited valiance in raunchy and illegal doings were great fun at the moment, but it was short-lived. In the end, the consequences they faced for their endeavors at being unorthodox would become the catalysts to their adulthood and maturity.

In their safe beds and purely rhetorical classroom debates, they said they wanted revolution and change, yet when the time came, who but a few would rush to the front of the line eager to defend their cause? Who but a few would be strong enough to speak out from the safety of their numerous and nameless mob companions? Who, among the mass of college students, regurgitating what they heard on TV and preaching obsolete ideals from history no longer relevant, would be a martyr for egalitarian principles? Not one. The liberal front had become somewhat of a fad. And those who followed wore faux-vintage dresses and tees from Urban Outfitters and bought every single book about journal-keeping or peace on its shelves.

She was reluctant to say more. She loved Edward Sharpe nonetheless. He was the kind of man that made her jump out of her seat to dance while everyone else sat. He was the kind of man that could make every body in the audience of a 1,833-capacity theatre silent with a single request. She hated the idea behind him, but Ebert himself, she could not stop loving.

Hypocrisy is both a vice and a virtue.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Quail eggs and smelt eggs

Currently listening to Allison Weiss' MGMT cover of Kids. God, I revere the musically talented.

You know when people say, "You just know"? I really hate that. I think it's because I'm deathly afraid that I'll never have that just knowing epiphany. Is it purely emotional? Or is it more holistic than that? ...just knowing is a godforsakenly dangerous concept. It doesn't help that almost knowing or a contrived knowing can be easily mistaken as just knowing, especially since it's so sought-after and romanticized these days. I guess for me, just knowing comes when you aren't looking for it in particular, and when it does happen, it isn't as sensational as you might've imagined...when it's spontaneous, you could say. It's not the moment that matters, it's what happens after that moment that defines it and gives it any significance. The effect, the consequences, the aftermath. Because really, I could give a fuck that Obama was elected president. It's what he accomplishes or screws up after that fateful moment that will give his election any real value.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Concert Caveats: Henry Lim and his String Quartet

May 8. 8:00 p.m. Powell Library Rotunda. Henry Lim and his String Quartet's composition and performance last night: contrived irony.

It was good, to say the least. Henry Lim and the Camarade Quartet performed every song, in the right order, on the Beatle's White Album. A dashing "venue", warmly lit, with high, decorative ceilings (suitable for acoustics) made me forget I was in the library usually representative of my academic masochism and instead teleported me into a slightly surreal world of sounds. I call this performance as one of "sounds" rather than "music" because in all honesty, it was just that. The string section was beautifully celestial, but the addition of Henry Lim's vocals brought...helter skelter?

With four muse-like girls all dressed in an ethereal white, I expected a serene night of violin and cello playing. The first section that was played I couldn't recognize as a Beatles song, only to realize Henry Lim had composed a short introductory fanfare for himself: he appeared from behind the dark hallway, a stocky bearded Asian man, sporting, get this, all black and a gaudy cowboy hat. Against the angelic ambiance of the pre-Henry Lim appearance, he was kind of a dirty spot on fresh linen -- for lack of a more profound analogy. Aka, a contrived irony. His raw and raspy voice did not hit many of the intended notes, but needless to say, I enjoyed all of the songs (genius of the Beatles: no one can ruin their songs). The string section, including Mr. Lim's own guitar playing, hands down trumped his vocals, although his spastic yelps and occasional jokes during and between songs were a delightful surprise. The audience was ecclectic, filled with both old and young. One thing I always notice during Beatles-revering concerts is that I fall in love with the people who attend. A spiritual unity exists as we all bob our heads and tap our feet just enough to move to the music but not interrupt the informally formal atmosphere of the performance. What can I say? Good music is an invisible black hole that indiscriminately sucks us all in.

All in all, despite Henry Lim's god-like treatment for himself, I applaud his compositions and the string quartet. He was definitely able to vocally pull off some songs, like Dear Prudence and Julia, and the toned-down version of Revolution 9, which I did not expect to be performed at all, was a sweet cherry on top.

Me asustan cosas buenas

Por qué?
1) Alguien me dijo que todas cosas buenas siempre terminan.
2) Buenas cosas pueden hacerse cosas increíbles. Y yo no merezco cosas increíbles.

5 Shots of Smirnoff

Corrientemente escuchando a Weird Fishes/Arpeggi por Radiohead.

Que tonto! No voy a hacerlo otra vez...supe que me gusta hablar sobre la historia de América cuando tomo alcohol. Tonta, tonta, tonta!

Oligarchic democracy: democracy ruled by the elite; implemented 1880s-1920s in Latin America, at the same time economic liberalism thrived. Dictatorships also existed, but ruled according to the elite; essentially the upper class under the figure of one despot. Goal: centralized power in order to prove to foreign investors that Latin America was worth investing in. COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE. IMPORT-EXPORT ECONOMY.

Populism and co-optative democracy: burgeoned at the time of import-substitution industrialization (1930-1970's). NATIONALISM AND ECLA.

Socialism (1950-1980's): US SCREWS Latin America! Anti-communist, domino effect fear. Cold War. MIERDA. Calm down. US, tu eres 100x mas poderoso que Cuba.

Neoliberalism (1980-now): Back to economic liberalism, under the Washington Consensus. IMF Austere Plan.

PERSPECTIVE. The most important thing to have in life. No drama. No trivialities.

I wanted to buy a Sarte book but I couldn't find it.
So instead, I bought a book about perennial philosophy.
About Western esotericism.
About knowing the unknown.
But how ironic is it
to believe in something
and striving to discover something
that is impossible to understand?
Is it useless?
Is it foolish?
It's the journey that matters
the path
the expedition
not the culmination
To create is to create
To paint is to paint
To live is to live
Not to die

Tell me, is entropy a rule of nature?
Is humanity a Fidel Castro against Batista?
We work for structure, for organization
but disorder is natural
so why not go with the flow?
Why not?
Because we are HUMAN
and we are FLAWED
the best thing to do
is accept
and work to correct these flaws
but ultimately
there is no denial.

Hoja nueva

Corrientemente escuchando a "Déjalo ser" por los Beatles.

Cuando me encuentro en tiempos difíciles
Madre María viene a mí
Hablando palabras de sabiduría, deja que sea.
Y en mi hora de las tinieblas
Ella está parada justo delante de mí
Hablando palabras de sabiduría, deja que sea.
Déjalo ser, déjalo ser.
Susurra palabras de sabiduría, deja que sea.

Y cuando la gente con el corazón destrozado
Viviendo en el mundo de acuerdo,
Habrá una respuesta, déjalo ser.
Porque aunque ellos puedan ser separados hay
Aún una posibilidad de que vean
Habrá una respuesta, déjalo ser.
Déjalo ser, déjalo ser. sí
Habrá una respuesta, déjalo ser.

Y cuando la noche está nublada,
Todavía hay una luz que brilla sobre mí,
Brilla hasta mañana, déjalo ser.
Me despierto con el sonido de la música
Madre María viene a mí
Hablando palabras de sabiduría, deja que sea.
Déjalo ser, déjalo ser.
Habrá una respuesta, déjalo ser.
Déjalo estar, déjalo estar,
Susurra palabras de sabiduría, deja que sea.

Por lo menos una buen cosa ha venido de la dictadura de Anastasio Somoza. Gracias para destruyendo el país de Nicaragua, déspota, porque si no, no te conocería. Y esto sería una lástima.

Creo que voy a escribir todos los asientos en español, para practicar. Lo siento para ésos que no entienden la lengua. Está bien, mi gramática es probablemente mala de todos modos.

Dicotomia

Decimos que no somos materialistas. Decimos que la alma es mas importante que el rostro. Decimos esto. Y en realidad? Nadie acepta consejos, pero todo el mundo admite dinero. Es la dicotomia de vida. Los dos ciclos de vida.

Concert Caveats: Jon Brion

April 23. 8:30 p.m. Largo at the Coronet. The dim yellow lighting of an intimate, hole-in-the-wall venue is reminiscent of an old coffee shop run by Yoda and inhabited by flowery, philosophical inquirers. Past performers, Fiona Apple, Elliott Smith, etc., plaster the plain beige walls as they sit at the piano, or hold a microphone, or gaze at the camera, living in a perpetual state of performance. The room is modest, but the audience pretentious. The stage adorned with royal red curtains, straddled by Christmas lights twinkling like little stars.

Jon Brion, famous for his quirky soundtracks for many a wisely elected films, Punch Drunk Love, I Heart Huckabees, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and of course, some of Kanye West's stuff, is delightfully sarcastic and sufficiently satirical. With a messy brown mane and a tan suit, he sports a slight European accent. Even without words, his mannerism is, quite funny. After a brilliant opening by guitarist Alain Johannes, Jon Brion blows me away. He first plays some of his own creations, prancing from piano to drums to bass to, my personal favorite, harmonica. Accompanied by strange background visuals (for ambiance, I'm assuming), he asks for song suggestions, proving his musical improvisational adeptness, and moves on to "jigsaw puzzling", where he loops segments of different instruments, first a drum beat, then piano and guitar tunes. He finalizes with vocals and culminates the entirely experimental song in a QUASI-MUSICAL ORGY.

So, if you're horny for worthwhile music, Jon Brion plays every month at the Largo. And let me tell you, the man is talented with his instruments.

An unfortunate observation

Currently listening to A Song for Our Fathers by Explosions in the Sky. Introduced to me by an amazing human being.

I figure morality is rarely a self-endowed characteristic.

Morality is an external entity formed by those surrounding us - society, religion, family. The only form of ownership we possess over morality is who we choose to listen to. And it seems the dominant moral force for humanity has always been a God. A God and the justice system It and Its disciples create. But what is the foundation of this justice system, other than a way to tame society of its belligerents? This system, this society of the orthodox, is reduced to a mere branching of natural selection. Oust the socially inferior, purge the world of the retards, ostracize the hormonally-imbalanced ill-behaved. Who owns the rights to this line? Despite so-claimed atheism, the very ethics of religion have largely influenced the society we live in as to encroach upon our inherent moral spheres. If I did not grow up in a Catholic household, if America was not predominantly Jesus-loving, if there were no "wrong", how then would I perceive good and bad? Genetic inheritance of inauspicious traits or criminality-inducing living conditions is not something we can all avoid. So, for those who have the misfortune of succeeding biological blasphemy or growing up in ill-fated environments, the concept of absolute morality is a pretty big "fuck you" in the face.

Strangeness

The world was never speckled with so many stars
dancing so brightly as they did last night.
Dangling above an abysmal sea of mystery,
like puppets of a parallel universe,
or perhaps,
like fishing lines cast by lonely boys and girls,
trying, trying
to catch a star, a prayer, a whim.

Do or do not.
There is no try.

Mesa de Conversacion

Currently listening to At the Chime of a City Clock by Nick Drake. Excuse the Drake inundation, he's beautiful. Music, food, and my mother are my fool-proof remedies.

The ecclectic group of students congregated at the Mesa de Conversacion. The Jesuses, the Judases, the Marys and the Peters, present, ready to drink the blood of culture and eat the bread of mazapan.

The first boy was a Global Studies Major. With hazel brown hair neatly slicked back (clearly he had put on too much gel that morning), a rosy porcelain face, and a sufficiently firm handshake, he introduced himself in a manner reminiscent of the uberconservative Republicans he had been conditioned to idolize all his life. "Hi, my name is Josh." He flashed a smile, a mouth full of straight white Orbit teeth.

The second boy was a Spanish major, Public Policy minor. Small-statured and dark-skinned, he looked like a true Mexican Boy. "Hola, me llamo Diego," he slurred in a low, sultry voice. He was taciturn, but when he did speak, we all laughed.

The next was a girl, a big girl from Chile. She had long, silky light brown hair, wrapped over her broad shoulders and down to her hips, covering the flabs of fat protruding from her shirt. A Psychology major, she hoped to probe the minds of others before they hers. She was insecure. Well. We all were.

Then there were the History Majors, the Music Majors, the Film Studies Majors, and of course,

the Science Major.

A Judas among saints. Patronized, looked down upon as a betrayer of the Arts, the Feelies, the oh-so-pragmatic actors and tears. The Science Major did not make any sense to the disciples of...Culture. The spilt salt proved it. "El Campo Sur?" Diego growled and gave a thumbs down.

"I like nonsensical lyrics and plastic hamburger phones," the future doctor stated flatly. "I like red berets and thick-rimmed unprescribed glasses. I like plaid jackets and pale skin. I like to go to stupid museums and bike when I'm high. I like ironic tees from overpriced faux-vintage stores and I go to improv shows recreationally."

Suddenly, the others nodded in approval. "The Science Major is a progenitor of culture," they whispered amongst themselves. They appointed the Science Major the seat next to the prick elephant.

A progenitor of culture, indeed.

Managua, Nicaragua

Warm winds
and cool nights,
taco dinners, served on a
drooling man's cranium,
songs sung in Spanish,
next to a lone guitar.
Yesterday, yesterday,
a cheapass margarita
a Tano or two,
¿para ochenta cordobas?
Si, why not? because we are Americans.

Because we are Americans in Nicaragua
we will drink,
we will drink una cerveza
even though it tastes like shit
and we won't get drunk from it anyway
It doesn't matter, we will drink it, in a casino,
at eleven thirty before noon
because we are Americans.

We will pay $1500
to stay in a beautiful hotel
a hotel with marble floors,
and apple-spearing murals
and a majestic pool, with majestic
bronze pool boys.

Because we are Americans,
we will be suspicious of the natives,
that they will steal
from our spoiled, sassy mouths,
we will point to the graffiti on the walls,
the ones that say "chinga" o "puta"
and we will laugh, too busy to see the ones that say
"FSLN, viva la juventud"

We will speak in broken Spanish
to the meseros and tienda owners,
trying to learn culture,
proud that we can regurgitate a few words
that we happen to remember
from high school.

We will get stares from the brown boys,
on the streets selling fruit,
weaving between moving traffic.
We will play doctor and patient,
we will give the sick medicine,
we will tell the ones with tumors
that they have pink eye,
we will give the children ibuprofen
when they have bad dreams
and no one will care,
because we are Americans,
and we have no liability
in this beautiful sad country
with its beautiful sad people.

They will tell us they love us,
because we are rich,
because we are beautiful,
because we are tan,
because we are Americans.
When we ask them,
do you like Americans?
they will laugh politely
and say,
"Si, me gustan americanos."
And we will believe them,
si, we will believe them,
because we are Americans.

Monster in my shoes

Currently listening to The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One by Neutral Milk Hotel. Hearing simple but addicting guitar chords makes me want to play.

Tonight I am in Covel, being zero-productive because all I can think about is how much I cannot think. There are overdressed Koreans everywhere and I'm writing delusional things like alleles being activated by acetyl-CoA...guat? Tomorrow night I'm going to chop off my hair and roam the streets with my roommate at night. I like reactions.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Monster in my nose

Currently listening to Oxford Comma by Vampire Weekend. Yes, Wes Anderson influences all!

Tonight I am in Powell, being half-productive because all I can think about is how unbelievably sick I am of school right now. I accidentally got some Monster up my nose and now I feel like some dummy on Jackass. Jeez, I am so ready to go to Nicaragua. Hurry Father Time! I grow impatient.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Part I

Currently listening to Nick Drake's Pink Moon. The perfect song to accompany a moonlit-midnight cruise in a Volkswagen Cabriolet? Marketable.

Ajlouny sat Indian-style at his desk, his lanky knees dangling uncomfortably over the edge of his arm-less chair. He clutched his open book, its pages illuminated a marigold-orange by the emollient glow of the setting summer sun. Outside his window, he heard the gleeful yells of boys and girls frolicking. He guessed they were playing something dumb like freeze tag, or Red Rover, or even worse, Seven Minutes of Heaven. He hated that game. He knew somebody made it just because they thought putting the words seven and heaven together was the most clever thing in the world. He hated that, when people put the name before the game. Without a second's thought, he drew his curtains (which unfortunately were much too short for the length of his window) and sat in darkness, only a lonely strip of sunset light left to guide his reading. Still, he preferred this to the paintings, the Dorian Grays his window never ceased to illustrate. He hated his window. It was the only thing that connected him to the outside world.

Life

Currently listening to the silence called Powell.

Life, I guess,
is the agonizing torture
of vomiting
nomenclature, scaffolds,
and unethical values.
Fluorescent beams that blind,
through the reflection
of death on paper,
gobbling innovation
with every sigma, every pi, every
negative little spherical...spheres,
screaming in your ears,
(deaf by unwarranted silence)
MASOCHIST!
Linus Pauling,
you masochist,
you masochist cascade creater!

You and me,
we are masochists,
we are geniuses,
at best.

Sophomore slump

Currently listening to God Only Knows by the Beach Boys. The musical manifestation of what so many people have told me about love.

God is a concept, by which we can measure our pain,
I'll say it again,
God is a concept,
by which we can measure
our pain,
I don't believe in Henry Ford,
I don't believe in catechism,
I don't believe in miracles,
I don't believe in Jolie,
I don't believe in politicians,
I don't believe in La Llorona,
I don't believe in capitalism,
I don't believe in fellowships,
I don't believe in utopias,
I don't believe in balance,
I certainly
don't fucking believe in Nelson.
Please go and pump
your breast milk elsewhere.

Wild berry jam

Currently listening to Bigmouth Strikes Again by The Smiths. Classic.

I have cosmic plans for myself when I get old. Plans that don't entail me wasting away by a window, lusting for youth like the youth lust for age. If I am an old fart, then I will be a self-sufficient old fart.

I have cosmic plans for myself when I get old.

I will build my own house atop un arbol and si, I will live in it. Cuando los brazos del hombre Sol alcanzan para mi, yo alcanzare para el tambien. I will wake up to los ruidos de vida en la naturaleza, and through a naked window, I will feel the warm embrace of the sun and the cool shadow of the leaves, wavering back and forth upon my face as an easy breezy Japanesey wind dances an exquisite ballet around them. I will make wild berry jams and dill pickles and preserve them in jars with caps as red as the heart of a flame, o quizas, como la llama de mi propio corazon. The wooden oak planks below my feet will creak with adventure as I slowly dance across the room, imagining myself braving the plank of Never Never Land, about to plunge into the enigmatic depths of another dimension. When I am bored, children will come visit me after school. I will teach them the ways of colors and words and notes and they will teach me the ways of life. We will explore the forest below, rolling off hills like funny-looking tumbleweeds and venturing across babbling streams, their waters honing our spirits like they hone the stones and the pebbles. When el Sol becomes weary of us and night approaches, we will race back to the treehouse to catch the last glimpse of orange and gold sparkle and flit across the top of the tallest trees. La Luna dira a mis hijos, "Ninos, regresen a sus casas" and they will listen and go home. Todos menos una. Una nina cuya cara nunca me olvidare. She will remain with me into the darkness of la noche. We will take our blankets and lie on the porch of my treehouse. And we won't be able to sleep because the moon will shine brightly on our faces like an abnormally large flashlight. But that's okay with me. Si, that's quite all right with me. Because if I close mis ojos, even for one small second, I suspect she might leave me for good.

Deja Vu

The blue man hugs the red
man
in an Indonesian embrace
Jealous teeth stare intently
chattering without a trace
From the ceiling hangs the king's crown
a double shadow duet
Microwave reads 0:00
The cabinet lies erect
Footprints pace the walls
A vagabond is restless
Finding fish in the freezer
and guitars that sound fretless
Something's in the pears tonight
I see hallucinations
I look down at my paper,
"Um,
phosphorylation?"

I think...I think too much

Currently listening to WHY?'s By Torpedo or Crohn's. I love Yoni Wolf and the Alopecia album, it's like...articulate rap. By the way, I looked up 'alopecia' and it means baldness.

Am I a rationalist? Yes.
Am I a romantic? Trapped in a rationalist's body.
Am I a hypocrite? I prefer the euphemism

walking contradiction.

Tactfully,
T.J.

Master of Subtlety

Currently listening to "Japanese Song" by Lisa Ono. It's Brazilliant jazz. That's as witty as this post'll get.

She walked into the empty white room, bare and chilling, chilling and bare. There at the desk, surrounded by a stack of neurobiology papers and Erlenmeyer flasks, sat a woman, singing: "I'd rather be a hammer than a nail, yes I would, if I only could." She soon realized, she forgot what it felt like to question. Her inquisitive nature suppressed by the heels of a fast-moving Big Brother. What did it mean to Explore, to Express, to Ask? She reassured herself that forgetting was not the same as losing. Forgetting was only a temporary lapse in time. Perhaps her neurotrophins were dysfunctional. Maybe their receptors were getting lazy. Nonetheless, the auspicious prospects that lay ahead of her kept her going. She awaited the days when,

exotic spices and fresh guava,
and overused pencils and paintbrushes,
and poetic starry nights,
and cool tiles against her hot feet,
and the soft strumming of a guitar,
and the murmurs of a foreign and exciting place,
would be all she knew. She had perspective. And she had family. And she had good friends that meant the world to her. She wasn't unhappy, but she wasn't all that happy either. She missed the feeling. She was nostalgic for passionate emotion; sad, ecstatic, desire, anything. For the time being, she needed some kind of spark to ignite the fire dwindling inside of her.

Tactfully,
T.J. --Master of Subtlety

Muscular Dystrophy

I sit here and stare
at a pedigree tree
If the two parents of the couple
were brother and sister,
what is the probablitiy
that the couple's first child
will be an affected boy?
I think and I think
I write and erase
I daddle and doodle
and I finally realize,
who the fuck
is sick enough
to mate
consanguineously

Van Gogh

Last night we witnessed Van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhone. We sat atop a cold crooked cement cylinder that only a giant could climb. We're not very big people, but our spirits must have been that night. Dangling for life, we overlooked the pier, and the pier overlooked the black ocean, and the black ocean overlooked us. In place of the moon, there was a green light, blinking sporadically like the DSL signal of our modem. But unlike our modem, we never lost connection.

Musical Musings

CHARACTERS

go limabeans: girl in LA
shinokuu: friend of go limabeans

ACT I

go limabeans (3:25:19 AM): Paulina trusts Fernando
shinokuu (3:25:28 AM): hahhahah
shinokuu (3:25:34 AM): man thats funny
go limabeans (3:26:03 AM): I know, makes me laugh every time I see it written in my notebook
shinokuu (3:26:21 AM): if you ever lose that notebook
shinokuu (3:26:28 AM): that would suck
go limabeans (3:28:46 AM): Yea it would
go limabeans (3:29:00 AM): All my thoughts
go limabeans (3:29:06 AM): It's really interesting to look back
go limabeans (3:29:09 AM): on stuff you write
go limabeans (3:29:10 AM): years later
shinokuu (3:29:30 AM): for me, i like to forget the past
go limabeans (3:30:06 AM): Why is that?
shinokuu (3:33:22 AM): i dont know
shinokuu (3:33:33 AM): i just never really think about my past
shinokuu (3:33:39 AM): probably because you cant do much
go limabeans (3:34:13 AM): you can't do much, but you can learn a lot

ACT II

shinokuu (3:56:52 AM): when im thinking, i usually listen to music
shinokuu (3:57:05 AM): i think thats my way of "writing"
go limabeans (3:58:25 AM): Do you have any songs that come up frequently?
shinokuu (3:58:58 AM): there is one song
shinokuu (3:59:01 AM): that ive been listening to
shinokuu (3:59:17 AM): all good things come to an end - nelly furtado
shinokuu (3:59:20 AM): sad song
shinokuu (4:00:20 AM): it's not what i normally listen to, but it just stood out
shinokuu (4:00:53 AM): whenever i listen to it
shinokuu (4:00:56 AM): i just think
shinokuu (4:01:03 AM): all the things that happened to me
shinokuu (4:01:05 AM): past, present
shinokuu (4:01:11 AM): good things do come to end
shinokuu (4:01:13 AM): they never last
shinokuu (4:01:34 AM): you try to make the best of it

ACT III

shinokuu (4:08:05 AM): is there a song that you listen to a lot
go limabeans (4:08:34 AM): Yea lots
shinokuu (4:08:47 AM): is there that one particular
shinokuu (4:08:52 AM): that you cant get your mind off of
go limabeans (4:09:18 AM): Eleanor Rigby
shinokuu (4:09:28 AM): ah beatles
shinokuu (4:10:35 AM): what comes out of your mind?
go limabeans (4:11:27 AM): A mumbo jumbo of stuff
go limabeans (4:11:30 AM): like
go limabeans (4:11:50 AM): how many people are lonely in the world
go limabeans (4:12:11 AM): and no one really notices
go limabeans (4:15:27 AM): we are so adept at putting on disguises
go limabeans (4:15:45 AM): that no one knows how we're truly feeling
go limabeans (4:15:56 AM): and on our deathbeds we realize we are alone in that manner
go limabeans (4:18:36 AM): I listen to Lola often too
go limabeans (4:19:10 AM): it kind of scares me that i listen to it so often
go limabeans (4:19:29 AM): esp since it's about a tranny
shinokuu (4:19:39 AM): oh really?
go limabeans (4:19:56 AM): Yea haha

ACT IV

shinokuu (4:31:03 AM): i think music are like people
shinokuu (4:31:14 AM): whenever we have a problem or a roller coaster of emotions
shinokuu (4:31:19 AM): we generally listen to music
shinokuu (4:31:23 AM): because we can relate
shinokuu (4:31:43 AM): we listen to music when we don't have anybody to talk to or rant to
shinokuu (4:32:14 AM): you feel better because somebody is going through the same thing
go limabeans (4:33:35 AM): yep
go limabeans (4:34:51 AM): Music is the universal language

Dec. 28, 2008

I like even years

I like the world when I'm half-awake, half-asleep, and ten-percent-logical.

Tactfully,
T.J.