explaining the economy simply and effectively:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Elizabeth Warren Pt. 2 | ||||
| ||||
suck it, i'm talking to space!
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Space Module: Colbert - Sunita Williams | ||||
| ||||
and: 
16 April 2009
A return to silliness
03 April 2009
LQ-Salinger
"Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It's never been anything but your religion."
02 April 2009
Regina's Song - book quote
"Hugging doesn't have anything to do with that," Twink replied. "Every house should have an official hugger- no questions, no comments, just hugs. A few good hugs can take away acres of lonesome. The people with the notepads don't understand that. They talk and talk and talk, and it doesn't do any good at all. What we really need is hugs." She sighed then. "A hug lets us know that it's not really important to you that we're crazy, and that you like us all the same. That's all we want."
Regina's Song, David and Leigh Eddings
Regina's Song, David and Leigh Eddings
01 April 2009
Ways of Seeing, by John Berger
from "Ways Of Seeing" by John Berger
"A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated, in the sense that he pretends to be capable of what he is not. But the pretence is always towards a power which he exercises on others.
By contrast, a woman's presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her. Her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste...indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence. Presence for a woman is so intrinsic to her person that men tend to think of it as an almost physical emanation, a kind of heat or smell or aura.
To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.
And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.
She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance of what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another.
Men survey women before treating them. Consequently how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated. To acquire some control over this process, women must contain it and interiorize it. That part of a woman's self which is the surveyor treats the part which is the surveyed so as to demonstrate to others how her whole self would like to be treated. And this exemplary treatment of herself by herself constitutes her presence. Every woman's presence regulates what is and is not "permissible" within her presence. Every one of her actions-- whatever its direct purpose or motivation-- is also read as an indication of how she would like to be treated. If a woman throws a glass on the floor, this is an example of how she treats her own emotion of anger and so of how she would wish it to be treated by others. If a man does the same, his action is only read as an expression of his anger. If a woman makes a good joke this is an example of how she treats the joker in herself and accordingly of how she as a joker-woman would like to be treated by others. Only a man can make a good joke for its own sake.
One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object-- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight."
"A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated, in the sense that he pretends to be capable of what he is not. But the pretence is always towards a power which he exercises on others.
By contrast, a woman's presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her. Her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste...indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence. Presence for a woman is so intrinsic to her person that men tend to think of it as an almost physical emanation, a kind of heat or smell or aura.
To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.
And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.
She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance of what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another.
Men survey women before treating them. Consequently how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated. To acquire some control over this process, women must contain it and interiorize it. That part of a woman's self which is the surveyor treats the part which is the surveyed so as to demonstrate to others how her whole self would like to be treated. And this exemplary treatment of herself by herself constitutes her presence. Every woman's presence regulates what is and is not "permissible" within her presence. Every one of her actions-- whatever its direct purpose or motivation-- is also read as an indication of how she would like to be treated. If a woman throws a glass on the floor, this is an example of how she treats her own emotion of anger and so of how she would wish it to be treated by others. If a man does the same, his action is only read as an expression of his anger. If a woman makes a good joke this is an example of how she treats the joker in herself and accordingly of how she as a joker-woman would like to be treated by others. Only a man can make a good joke for its own sake.
One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object-- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight."
31 March 2009
Colin Meloy, you lovely man.
Interview with A.V. Club, featuring Colin with mutton chops. Adorable.
You have a devoted fandom that loves you because you write these complicated, lyrically dense things that tap into old myths, but you also have detractors who inevitably think you’re being pretentious. Does that bother you?
"I don’t know. I mean, nobody likes being called names, but I guess it’s a good thing, in that at least we’re raising some people’s hackles. It’s not totally milquetoast stuff."
[re: Morrissey, same kind of issue] "They [his songs] could be serious in this kind of maudlin narcissism, or he was being funny, and poking fun at himself. And either way, you could relate to it: you could either bask in that glow of fatalistic narcissism, or you could think it was funny. I always thought that was an interesting dynamic in his songwriting, and I can only aspire to have that kind of dynamic in my songs."
[twitter] "I guess people, just from what they read, think that I exclusively read Thomas Hardy novels over and over again. I’m a normal person, and I’m not a Luddite. I think there’s a place for emoticons in the world. I’m not really a grammar stickler. I think it’s fun to make fun of grammar sticklers. I think you’ve got 140 characters in a Tweet, and it’s all about e-conomy."
You have a devoted fandom that loves you because you write these complicated, lyrically dense things that tap into old myths, but you also have detractors who inevitably think you’re being pretentious. Does that bother you?
"I don’t know. I mean, nobody likes being called names, but I guess it’s a good thing, in that at least we’re raising some people’s hackles. It’s not totally milquetoast stuff."
[re: Morrissey, same kind of issue] "They [his songs] could be serious in this kind of maudlin narcissism, or he was being funny, and poking fun at himself. And either way, you could relate to it: you could either bask in that glow of fatalistic narcissism, or you could think it was funny. I always thought that was an interesting dynamic in his songwriting, and I can only aspire to have that kind of dynamic in my songs."
[twitter] "I guess people, just from what they read, think that I exclusively read Thomas Hardy novels over and over again. I’m a normal person, and I’m not a Luddite. I think there’s a place for emoticons in the world. I’m not really a grammar stickler. I think it’s fun to make fun of grammar sticklers. I think you’ve got 140 characters in a Tweet, and it’s all about e-conomy."
Colbert & Narcissism.
I am liveblogging about updating my facebook status.
Now my trifecta is complete.
Emily Yoffe: "If our society was made up of entirely narcissistic personalities, we'd have no worshippers."
Now my trifecta is complete.
Emily Yoffe: "If our society was made up of entirely narcissistic personalities, we'd have no worshippers."
12 March 2009
Oh Sylvia
I love people. Everybody. I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection. Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me. My love’s not impersonal yet not wholly subjective either. I would like to be everyone, a cripple, a dying man, a whore, and then come back to write about my thoughts, my emotions, as that person. But I am not omniscient. I have to live my life, and it is the only one I’ll ever have. And you cannot regard your own life with objective curiosity all the time.
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
17 February 2009
If you like it so much, why don't you marry it?
Thanks to more detailed people than myself, it was noticed that Dr. House has returned the Colbert love of posting his picture in the background. And can I just also say, does House believe in God now? And he has a private investigato
r, you don't think he's going to figure out that 13 and Foreman are still dating? Goodness.
r, you don't think he's going to figure out that 13 and Foreman are still dating? Goodness.
08 January 2009
I only ended joining them.
Stay tuned for some actual writing from me, maybe in February.
Me: opening present of Lu CD, give quizzical look to sister.
Sister: "You know, it's like how KevDev sounds, only worship music."
Me: scanning liner notes - "Oh, like the glockenspiel? Yes, please."
Sister: quizzical look.
[And I finally received my package with the rest of my Christmas swag that wouldn't fit on the airplane]
Meanwhile, Happy New Year!
Me: opening present of Lu CD, give quizzical look to sister.
Sister: "You know, it's like how KevDev sounds, only worship music."
Me: scanning liner notes - "Oh, like the glockenspiel? Yes, please."
Sister: quizzical look.
[And I finally received my package with the rest of my Christmas swag that wouldn't fit on the airplane]
Meanwhile, Happy New Year!
06 November 2008
indeed.
I don't want to live in a world where tofu can vote.
I highly recommend you view the following episodes and report back to me when you're done.
Don't eat the Fox News Cookie, Jon!
Andrew Young is the best. Factose Intolerance.
Updation: leave it to the sister to follow my instructions and indeed report back:
I'm sure that President Obama would be willing to sit down with the asteroid without preconditions.
28 August 2008
07 August 2008
19 June 2008
lyrics?
For some reason Colb has had a lot lately about evolution. Which reminded me of this song and caused me to have this interchange with the sister...
Where and when did we learn this song, and why does Google refuse to have info on it?
"I am not descended of monkeys
though you may be fooled at first glance
I'm the work of God my Creator
I am not a product of chance
I did not evolve from a ...?
who got lost and wandered ashore
but by God's hand
His will and plan
I am...nothing more?"
her response...
Um, I'm sorry to say, that I do not know that song. What I do know is this...
"We love DNA, made of nucleotides
Sugar, phosphate, and a base
bonded down one side
Adanine and Thyamine
make a lovely pair
Cytosine without Guanine
would feel very bare!"
Go 9th grade Bio!! (LQTM...)
Where and when did we learn this song, and why does Google refuse to have info on it?
"I am not descended of monkeys
though you may be fooled at first glance
I'm the work of God my Creator
I am not a product of chance
I did not evolve from a ...?
who got lost and wandered ashore
but by God's hand
His will and plan
I am...nothing more?"
her response...
Um, I'm sorry to say, that I do not know that song. What I do know is this...
"We love DNA, made of nucleotides
Sugar, phosphate, and a base
bonded down one side
Adanine and Thyamine
make a lovely pair
Cytosine without Guanine
would feel very bare!"
Go 9th grade Bio!! (LQTM...)
28 May 2008
04 April 2008
col-bear, REM
Autocratic for the People: And I’ll sit down with the band R.E.M. known for hit songs like Losing My Religion. Well, tonight, they’re gettin’ it back whether they like it or not.
R.E.M. are here tonight. Huge fan, especially that song where it’s the End of the World, and they know it. And, they feel fine. I agree, because if it’s the end of the world you just put on your ‘Welcome Jesus!’ T-shirt and you’ll feel fine too.
My guests tonight are a rock band that put college radio on the map - making it easier for corporate radio to find it and kill it.
R.E.M. are here tonight. Huge fan, especially that song where it’s the End of the World, and they know it. And, they feel fine. I agree, because if it’s the end of the world you just put on your ‘Welcome Jesus!’ T-shirt and you’ll feel fine too.
My guests tonight are a rock band that put college radio on the map - making it easier for corporate radio to find it and kill it.
28 March 2008
in which i take a short break to share my bookreading quote journal highlights with you, my dear reader
Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About Mil Millington (British)
(looking for keys) I'm a single degree of enraged frustration away from continuing the search along the only remaining path, which is slashing open the cushion covers, pulling up the floorboards and pickaxing through the plasterboard false wall in the attic.
A tragedy is the tale of a person who holds the seeds of his own destruction within him. This is entirely contrary to my situation -- everyone else holds the seeds of my destruction within them; I just wanted to keep my head down and hope my lottery numbers came up, thanks very much.
Presumably because I spent a previous life beating tiny puppies with thorny sticks, I had been cast into the Library at the University of NorthEast England.
After a few minutes, I noted from my PC screen - "You have 217 new e-mails" - that the server must be up and running again.
I never see [his face] anymore as he has had his face craned over his GameBoy at a permanent 45 degree angle since a little past his 5th birthday.
Jon is emotional and introspective, Peter carefully focused on learning how to kill a man with his thumbs.
Ursula: In what way, may I ask, can two bedrooms feel like three?
Pel: On an emotional level.
It's a nice place and it's eighteen thousand pounds. Eighteen. Thousand. Pounds. There are some houses that are actually on fire that cost more than that.
Ursula: Okay. But I want you to know that if anything goes wrong it'll be your fault. I'm holding you responsible.
Pel: Just so long as you're holding me, my darling.
Ursula: I'm pregnant.
Pel: Phew, thank God. I was beginning to think all of that sex was for nothing.
--a real estate agent tearing hundreds of pounds from our hands for doing next to nothing then laughing brayingly into our upturned faces before striding away to push small children into canals.
I'm not really a thinking ahead kind of person. (Though if you want someone to brood over the past, I'm your man).
Job interviews are unfalteringly horrid, but internal ones emphatically more so. For a start, all the sustaining fabrication that is normally the essence of interview technique is denied you as everyone knows precisely what you're like. You're also wearing a suit but aren't creating any smart impression; everyone knows you normally turn up looking like a week-old lettuce.
(during interview) I made little quotation marks with my fingers, the motion simultaneously waving goodbye to my immortal soul.
Improvement Day was a time set aside for all those Learning Center staff to meet without the pressures of day-to-day work. Everyone despised it with a sulfurous passion. Last year, because the date of it had leaked out in advance, Bernard arrived to find almost everyone had called in sick or reported they had a domestic crisis.
I was sitting in the office preparing some student usage figures that were part of the department's monitoring process (these are rather important for planning purposes, so I was putting quite a bit of effort into inventing convincing numbers).
(grocery store) The woman in front of me took some separators from their special slidey groove and divided her shopping into three eight-item-or-less chunks. I literally stopped breathing. There's a hypnotic quality to insouciant depravity on this level.
Roo shrugged. "It's hardly a great surprise that they (married couple) don't argue. I think you'll find that to have a personality clash people need to have personalities."
(parent-teacher conferences). Pel to Ursula: We're not going to ask to see their teaching qualifications again, it's embarrassing.
Ursula: Did I tell you what Vanessa's been doing at work?
Pel: Not for almost a day. The uncertainty has been playing on my mind.
(sex should not be described as "fun") The one thing guranteed to stop sex dead in its tracks is a laugh. Well, arse to that. Most stuff isn't fun; the world is eighty percent misery, suffering, injustice and gnawing existential bleakness. A further seventeen percent is sheer, suffocating boredom.
(ab-roller) This was still, like all exercise, deeply, deeply boring.
As I understand it, a midlife crisis is when you feel that your life is slipping away from you; you've achieved nothing and Death is starting to tap his foot impatiently. Well, I've felt like that since I was about seven years old. I am immune from a sudden attack of midlife crisis, because I've been having one since before I hit puberty.
mafioso guy: What's your phone number?
Pel: I laughed. No...mobile phones are for wankers.
Ursula: Who's moving in then?[as renters]
Pel: Just some women.
Ursula: Why women?
Pel: Um, their genes, I suppose.
(car chase) Looked like it was going to be a bit of a laugh, obviously, but then slipped imperceptibly into a seemingly ceaseless and harrowing dance with death during which I was only able to keep my sanity by focusing on the struggle to avoid soiling myself.
Love and Other Near-Death Experiences (same author)
"It's easy to be brave when you're suicidal, isn't it?"
Rob: "I mean, you read books. You're 'bookish'. Aren't books and sex pretty much an either-or choice?"
Elizabeth: "A notion that could only possibly have gestated in the low-ceilinged brain of someone who doesn't read enough books. Just think of Emily Bronte, for example: psychotically bookish -- but was there ever a woman screaming out so loudly for a good shagging? I even suspect that's why Wuthering Heights carries on decades too long rather than sensibly drawing the curtains a little after Cathy's death. It was Bronte saying, 'Look, I'm simply going to keep on writing this stuff until someone comes and shags me raw.'"
(looking for keys) I'm a single degree of enraged frustration away from continuing the search along the only remaining path, which is slashing open the cushion covers, pulling up the floorboards and pickaxing through the plasterboard false wall in the attic.
A tragedy is the tale of a person who holds the seeds of his own destruction within him. This is entirely contrary to my situation -- everyone else holds the seeds of my destruction within them; I just wanted to keep my head down and hope my lottery numbers came up, thanks very much.
Presumably because I spent a previous life beating tiny puppies with thorny sticks, I had been cast into the Library at the University of NorthEast England.
After a few minutes, I noted from my PC screen - "You have 217 new e-mails" - that the server must be up and running again.
I never see [his face] anymore as he has had his face craned over his GameBoy at a permanent 45 degree angle since a little past his 5th birthday.
Jon is emotional and introspective, Peter carefully focused on learning how to kill a man with his thumbs.
Ursula: In what way, may I ask, can two bedrooms feel like three?
Pel: On an emotional level.
It's a nice place and it's eighteen thousand pounds. Eighteen. Thousand. Pounds. There are some houses that are actually on fire that cost more than that.
Ursula: Okay. But I want you to know that if anything goes wrong it'll be your fault. I'm holding you responsible.
Pel: Just so long as you're holding me, my darling.
Ursula: I'm pregnant.
Pel: Phew, thank God. I was beginning to think all of that sex was for nothing.
--a real estate agent tearing hundreds of pounds from our hands for doing next to nothing then laughing brayingly into our upturned faces before striding away to push small children into canals.
I'm not really a thinking ahead kind of person. (Though if you want someone to brood over the past, I'm your man).
Job interviews are unfalteringly horrid, but internal ones emphatically more so. For a start, all the sustaining fabrication that is normally the essence of interview technique is denied you as everyone knows precisely what you're like. You're also wearing a suit but aren't creating any smart impression; everyone knows you normally turn up looking like a week-old lettuce.
(during interview) I made little quotation marks with my fingers, the motion simultaneously waving goodbye to my immortal soul.
Improvement Day was a time set aside for all those Learning Center staff to meet without the pressures of day-to-day work. Everyone despised it with a sulfurous passion. Last year, because the date of it had leaked out in advance, Bernard arrived to find almost everyone had called in sick or reported they had a domestic crisis.
I was sitting in the office preparing some student usage figures that were part of the department's monitoring process (these are rather important for planning purposes, so I was putting quite a bit of effort into inventing convincing numbers).
(grocery store) The woman in front of me took some separators from their special slidey groove and divided her shopping into three eight-item-or-less chunks. I literally stopped breathing. There's a hypnotic quality to insouciant depravity on this level.
Roo shrugged. "It's hardly a great surprise that they (married couple) don't argue. I think you'll find that to have a personality clash people need to have personalities."
(parent-teacher conferences). Pel to Ursula: We're not going to ask to see their teaching qualifications again, it's embarrassing.
Ursula: Did I tell you what Vanessa's been doing at work?
Pel: Not for almost a day. The uncertainty has been playing on my mind.
(sex should not be described as "fun") The one thing guranteed to stop sex dead in its tracks is a laugh. Well, arse to that. Most stuff isn't fun; the world is eighty percent misery, suffering, injustice and gnawing existential bleakness. A further seventeen percent is sheer, suffocating boredom.
(ab-roller) This was still, like all exercise, deeply, deeply boring.
As I understand it, a midlife crisis is when you feel that your life is slipping away from you; you've achieved nothing and Death is starting to tap his foot impatiently. Well, I've felt like that since I was about seven years old. I am immune from a sudden attack of midlife crisis, because I've been having one since before I hit puberty.
mafioso guy: What's your phone number?
Pel: I laughed. No...mobile phones are for wankers.
Ursula: Who's moving in then?[as renters]
Pel: Just some women.
Ursula: Why women?
Pel: Um, their genes, I suppose.
(car chase) Looked like it was going to be a bit of a laugh, obviously, but then slipped imperceptibly into a seemingly ceaseless and harrowing dance with death during which I was only able to keep my sanity by focusing on the struggle to avoid soiling myself.
Love and Other Near-Death Experiences (same author)
"It's easy to be brave when you're suicidal, isn't it?"
Rob: "I mean, you read books. You're 'bookish'. Aren't books and sex pretty much an either-or choice?"
Elizabeth: "A notion that could only possibly have gestated in the low-ceilinged brain of someone who doesn't read enough books. Just think of Emily Bronte, for example: psychotically bookish -- but was there ever a woman screaming out so loudly for a good shagging? I even suspect that's why Wuthering Heights carries on decades too long rather than sensibly drawing the curtains a little after Cathy's death. It was Bronte saying, 'Look, I'm simply going to keep on writing this stuff until someone comes and shags me raw.'"
14 March 2008
Jonnie Hungry!!!!
Ahahahah. He showed this after talking about how excited the news media was that they had a new story instead of boring campaign coverage...
05 February 2008
chanting "Our Father" in staccato spurts
KD's new music rocks my world.
I'm praying, I'm chanting. I'm doing what's necessary.
Reading: At Prayer With The Saints; Psalms
I'm praying, I'm chanting. I'm doing what's necessary.
Reading: At Prayer With The Saints; Psalms
11 January 2008
08 January 2008
My lovelies have returned
this is from when comedy central made them return:
"We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence."
-A Daily Show and The Coal-berT Report
more sassy quotes later...busy as a bee.
"We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence."
-A Daily Show and The Coal-berT Report
more sassy quotes later...busy as a bee.
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