Site or Gossip? Review of Through a Glass, Darkly coming soon...
Alright, you wanted proof, here you go:
If you were as awesome as the Beck and me, you too would get to gaze at this Knight Rider-esque display as you drove willy-nilly over the land of Mass. Here are some shots that more or less demonstrate that so much depends upon a blue civic, sitting in our driveway, beside the pink house:
Please note that the car / speedometer size ratio is not to scale.
So thar she blows, hope you dig. IPMM and IPJ saw the blue ghost in person this weekend - they were in town for a wedding, so we met them and Greg and Meghan Saturday night in Coolidge Corner for some good Japanese / Korean food. Fun times, and a bevy of references to Beck's wedding were made. On other dinner-related news, Beck and I went out with Ali & Ben to Canyon Cafe where we learned that sometimes Pomegranate margaritas are not really all that pomegranatey, and sometimes burritos have abnormally large chunks of garlic in them. Everyone involved survived. We also cemented the following joke in the pantheon:
Q: How do you get an elephant into a Safeway?
A: You take the 's' out of 'Safe' and the 'f' out of 'way.'
Genius! In other joke-related news, I tried to play Ultimate again this weekend - HA! Buh-dum-ching. No, seriously, I headed out to the BUDA summer club tourney to give it a whirl, and made it through 2 games just fine - played pretty well actually, hucked it like crazy - but then the third game rolled along and I couldn't run any more due to the heel. Argh. On the plus side, we won those first two games and added a third win in the last game of the day, matching our season win total. So we are not quite as hopeless as people may have thought, which is cool. On the definite downside, Cork hurt his knee Saturday in a manner that looked very ACL-ish. Gigantic bummer.
And that's about it - other than some mundane stuff about the adventures of Nyet and his inability to change guitar strings without breaking them, which is not a happy story. Argh - but it's fixed now. One more week of summer, and it's back to daily Nutdom. Can't wait. Beck started small animal surgery today and is on call tonight, so I may or may not get to see her.
Oh, and in other joke-related news... ladies and gents, your 2006 Boston Red Sox!!!!
That's about it. More stuff to come.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Friday, August 18, 2006
review for this week
hmm,, huamm,, maafkan saya,, blognya baru bisa ke update lagi, soalnya minggu lalu lumayan seminggu gak ngampus and it means kagak main ke studio. dimana lagi bisa main internet gratis? hehehehehe, minggu kemarin juga masih merupakan minggu tahap pengembalian metabolisme tubuh saya. setelah semua kegilaan yang dilakukan bulan lalu -siaran 4 jam diwaktu malam, tidur jam 1 atau jam 2, bangun jam 5 subuh, naikkan pemancar, siaran morning lecture, pulang, tidur sebentar, ke bibli buat kerja buku, ke studio lagi buat siaran malam-, akhirnya sang tubuh meminta haknya untuk beristirahat. jadinya minggu lalu temanya adalah : minggu berleha-leha. kekeke, hanya makan, tidur, denger radio, nyewa komik banyak-banyak, dan so-so lah. untung juga bukunya sisapi udah kelar, jadi kayaknya istirahatnya bakalan terus dilanjutkan sampe sebelom masuk kuliah nanti.
minggu lalu juga merupakan minggu buat new song di mp3 player ku, lumayan banyak lah lagu yang berhasil di download, dan tentu saja sebagai pencari musik, saya membutuhkan banyak-dan lebih banyak lagi lagu untuk dijadikan soundtrack kehidupan saya. dan buat minggu lalu ternyata ada beberapa lagu yang berhasil bertahta dalam pikiran saya (kalau jamannya dulu di radio yang "itu" pasti udah bilang reza banget!!!), hehehehehe, diantaranya yang bisa dijadiin alternatif yaitu :
1. dirtie blondie, sounds so bitchy group isn't? kayaknya ini band baru (atau mungkin saya yang baru mendengarnya) karena di situs kebanggaan saya bwat nyari lirik pun belon masuk di databasenya. lagu yang saya dengar tentu saja walk over me. lagu ini mnurut ekspektasi saya about someone spesial, yang gak jelas gitu deh. yang pertamanya diharapkan bisa ngerti kita, tapi akhirnya dia menjadi no one for us, apalagi pas lirik
You proved me wrong again
But I'm not certain
So can we fill the space
With this awkward silence
ckckckck, dahsyat! apalagi beat ni lagu enak banget, cocok dijadiin teman seperjalanan.
2. I wish I could fly, I know I can save us somehow.
You thought you were safe and sound but you need a hero now.
You gotta believe even with broken wings,
I've come to your rescue and you can't rescue me.
American Hi Fi - The rescue
gak tau napa refrain lagu ini bisa sangat kena sama saya. mungkin karena skarang dalam taraf menunggu kali yah? ketika seseorang yang bisa menjadi belahan sayap yang lain sudah ada di depan mata, tinggal nunggu doang. bagaimana sih rasanya mempunyai seseorang yang bisa "menyelamatkan" semua perasaan dan bisa ngerti kita. damn!!!
3. sebenarnya lagu yang ini--celine dion with all the love we need-- sudah lama skali ada dalam database yang di studio, cuman kok pertamanya males banget yah dengernya? tapi lama kelamaan, begh,, ternyata enak juga! apakah benar ni lagu jadi soundtrack di superman returns, entahlah, karena di filenya sendiri sebelum saya rename, superman returns soundtrack aja, tanpa judul. barulah setelah me-link di om google, barulah bisa dapet judulnya, dan lirik yang lengkap. best partt from this song for me :
I guess we've underestimated love,
well why would we hurt each other.
Don't you find that, ironical ?
When Love Is All We Need oh yeah
huhuhuhhu, lagi yang teteup masalah cinta, tapi emang sih...
4. can't let go - landon pigg
inilah lagu ke empat yang menjadi pemenang minggu lalu, karena terbukti sudah seminggu masih bertahan belum kedelete juga dari mp3 ku--biasanya satu lagu hanya mampu bertahan paling lama 3 hari sebelum diganti dengan lagu yang lain-- dan terang aja, bagaimana sih rasanya ketika kita tidak bisa melepaskan seseorang yang sangat berarti buat kita,, buat lebih jelasnya, lihat yang ini,,
Well youre the closest thing I have
To bring up in a conversation
About a love that didnt last
But I could never call you mine
Cause I could never call myself yours
And if we were really meant to be
Well then we justify destiny
Its not that our love died
Just never really bloomed
ini nih namanya landon pigg
entahlah siapa yang mesti disalahkan kalau sudah seperti ini...
5. dan lagu terakhir yang bener-bener jadi raja, yaitu kolaborasi yang sangat awesome dari dem frenachise boys denga korn. yup! hip hop blink-blink versus rock! pertamanya kirain cuma hip hop biasa doang, ini sampling lagu dari franchise boys yang "jiggle it" trus dihantam pake lagunya korn yang come undone with it. bravo!!! kayaknya linkin - jay z kmaren lewat!! hehehehehehe,, ini aja dulu review dari saya,, tapi bwat minggu depan,, pasti beda dong! ok folks enjoy de music!!!
balada ketupat nanggung,,,
hm,,, sebenarnya ni cerita udah beberapa waktu kemaren, cuman karena emang rada-rada jayus,, dan kalo ngeliat warung coto itu pasti keinget lagi. yah,, waktu masih jaman-jamannya pulang pagi abis siaran morning, jadi mikir sendiri, mo langsung pulang, ato mo langsung singgah di biblioholic saja. soalnya gini, sama ajadengan ongkos transport yang mesti dikeluarkan kalo misalnya mo balik ke rumah dulu, trus ke bibli lagi.mending duit transportnya kita pake buat makan, dan bisa seharian tidur di bibli.
ya udah deh. jadi planning pagi itu, jalan dari FK, ke pintu 1 bwat nyari tempat makan coto. tersangkutlah mata saya pada sebuah warung yang kayaknya masih baru. kenapa di jam setengah sembilan pagi sudah ada warung coto yang buka? jawabannya adalah karena warung ini ternyata buka 24 jam. hmm, kuat juga yah, soalnya pintu 1 tuh emang aktivitasnya gak pernah mati--dan dikemudian hari baru saya ketahui bahwa ternyata ni warung merupakan link dari warung yang didkat stimik. ada yang minat menjadikannya usaha waralaba?--.
masuklah saya kemudian ke warung tersebut,
" mo pesan apa ?"
(masih mikir-mikir, enaknya pesan apa yah?)
"hati, limpa, babat saja"
(kalo dokter denger ini, pasti sudah di vonis : bahaya buat jantung!)
percakapan saya dengan sang penjual hanya itu saja, emang mo ngobrol apa lagi coba? dan tak kurang dari 1 x 5 menit, tersedialah di hadapan saya semangkuk coto yang masih hangat, dengan uap yang masih mengepul, harumnya kacang yang menggugah selera, dan teraciklah ditanganku, bumbu untuk melengkapi sang coto ini. beberapa tetes kecap, seiris jeruk nipis, secuil lombok tumis, dan wah,,, surga dunia!!!
nah ini dia nih biang keladinya, di depan tadi tuh, harganya coto 3500 rupiah, sedangkan sang ketupat itu 500 per biji nya. sementara menikmati sang coto, pikiran terus jalan. mo makan berapa ketupat yah? mo makan 3, kebanyakan, makan 2 biji rasanya nanggung dan yang saya pikirkan bahwa ini masih pagi. mungkin ni warung belum punya kembalian 500 rupiah. tapi 500 rupiah ini memang saya pikirkan, soalnya buat nambah ongkos transpor potex-potex 2500 rupiah. tapi kenyataan berkata lain. perut mengatakan 2 ketupat sudah cukup. jadi setelah puas makan, beranjaklah saya ke kasirnya,, dan mengeluarkan duit 5000 an terakhir saya,, dan ternyata...
apa yang saya khwatirkan terjadi! tu warung belum mempunyai kembalian 500 dan alternatif yang diberikan yaitu permenn! damn!!! yang ini nih yang paling saya benci. dimana logikanya coba. saya kan bayar pake duit. masa' dikembalikan dengan permen? dan untuk duit pulang saya apa? apalagi tu penjualnya pasang muka tak bersalah lagi? ya sudahlah, apa mau dikata... kalo tau gak ada duit kembaliannya, mending skalian makan 3 ketupat tadi! nanggung! tapi sebagai pembalasan dendam buat sang penjual yang tidak memiliki recehan, maka sebagai pengganti permen, saya mengambil : ketupat! dan tuh ketupat saya jadikan cemilan di depannya. mau gila, mau ketawa, muka heran, muka bingung, itulah yang tergambar di wajahnya.
ugh,,, mesti nyari pinjaman dimana nih? walopun 500 rupiah, itu sangat berharga. daripada disambit obeng sama supir, mending ga usah deh. untungnya pagi itu masih banyak manusia yang mengasihani dirikuw dan turut mengutuk tu penjualcoto di bibli, dan memberikan saya duit seratusan 5 biji! akhirnya saya bisa pulang. mengenaskan yah...
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Yaaaaaawn.
Site or Gossip?
On the Waterfront
Bonnie & Clyde
Wild Strawberries
Fear & Trembling
Addendum:
View From the Top (this is the meta-view piece I refer to later in this blog entry)
Okay folks, wipe that sleep dirt, those eye boogers away, we can all wake up and take in the deep breath of a Nyet Jones update. On a vital side note, I never intended this to be "here's the daily dealings" type blog, and I'm sorry if it became that. Will try to avoid such idiocy in the future. So fear not, if I should go, say, two weeks without updating the bloggity news, you might want to poke your head around the reviews to see if anything's new there, but trust that I haven't walked face-first into lion-infested waters or anything; I probably just haven't been up to much. All the same, here's the requisite shout-out to IPMM and the Pater for asking for news. And heeeeeere we go:
"The Civic has been bought," passively was said by him. We bought it, a 2006 Honda Civic Sedan. That's not actually it, above, but given that this is a consumer culture, dominated by Fordism and mass production, i bet even Andy Warhol would consider it a reasonable facsimile. It is even the same color, a deep navy blue, so you don't have to stretch your chromatic imagination. Anyways, the car itself is not here yet, but should be in good ol' South Grafton within the next day or so. Real pictures including smiling Becks and Nyets and dogs and pink houses will be forthcoming. I see you shudder with anitici... anyways, I'll need to pick up in the tutoring, sell some blood and generally stop eating "food" to make the monthly payments, but given that it's a reliable car that will last us well into the 22nd century, I figured that was a good balance. I'm kidding of course; I can't donate blood. I'm type "faints with dehydration," so I don't do that kind of thing. Seriously.
As for the car, Beck keeps rather insultingly calling it a "toy car" and "so cute" when I'm relatively convinced she means "manly Godzilla Cruiser" instead. Okay, admittedly it's a non-flashy, economical, pragmatic vehicle that just really isn't that large. But I don't choose to view it that way. I tend to view it as an ego-booster; when I wrap my pinky around the emergency brake and put the car into reverse by flicking the shift stick, when I steer with my knuckles - I mean, it makes me feel HUGE! I am a colossal beast! I am the lord of all that I survey! I am the master of my domain! Or... something. But the effect also makes me feel fat, given that my belly can't help but press against the steering column as it rests wedged between my knees. Which means I probably need to diet, which is convenient given that I can no longer afford to eat food.
Just kidding - the car is actually comfortable, I can comfortably afford to eat for at least the next six weeks. I do need to lose some weight though - a summer of not playing Ultimate and hobbling around on my gimpy foot has not served the waistline well. So it's all about cereal and Lean Pockets for the time being til I can make myself look a little more reasonable. Oh, and yeah, I guess it's implied by the above, but my foot is still bungled - I haven't tried any Ultimate since the last brutally failed experiment. Our end of summer tournament is this weekend, so i'm tempted to cleat up on the one hand but I value being able to walk on the other. These are the nerve-wrecking decisions that plague my time. I'm so depressed I could eat. Quickly, an homage to my insane, Jered-from-Subway-esque diet plan:
So other people seem more psyched about the car I am - not that I'm not psyched, just that I'm not bursting with fruit flavor. It reminds me of an episode of Lost where Jack, the de facto leader of the "tribe" or what have you, is having the crisis of the unwilling hero, the process of having leadership thrust upon him but not necessarily wanting it. Not to belittle the ordeal, it is indeed difficult to take on the leadership of the stranded masses (though in his case, it's actually pretend to take on the leadership of other pretenders who are pretending to be stranded), but I can't help but think that he would have a little more awareness of the metanarrative going on - meaning that he should be able to recognize the "hey, i'm struggling as the reluctant hero" nature of his dilemma. Not that he shouldn't struggle with it, just to say that maybe he could take some comfort in the idea that he was fulfilling a role, not encountering a set of events completely foreign to man. His role is scripted - he struggles, he debates whether he has what it takes, wants to run away, but ultimately fulfills his duty out of necessity and lack of other options (or at least options he could live with). So, in the episode, it just struck me as absurd that a person at least moderately educated in the concepts of tragic and/or reluctant hero would not instantly recognize his situation and at least have the thought, the "Wow, I'm playing the role now!"
Which brings it back to the car, that I feel like I'm at the "Hey, the Beck and I are buying our first car together" moment of our collective existence. Like the script notes say "His eyes jump, his heartbeat elevates as he handles the Honda keys for the first time." Um, yo scriptwriter, no they didn't. They just said "hmmm, you appear to be making a pragmatic purchase. Congratulations on your relatively mindless problem-solving skills." Then again, my eyes and heart-rate talk too much.
So yeah, that's something I've been contemplating a lot lately, the whole world-viewed from a meta-perspective and how this renders things unenjoyable. I've been reading a lot from the various Existentialists lately (see the review on Captain Fun & Games, Kierkegaard), a group that, well, isn't much of a group, but they do share a value of the subjective experience over the Objective, some even going so far as to saying the Objective is an illusion or a myth. This all stabs at living a life led by passions rather than stone-cold rationality. This entire topic, I think, deserves a musing. So I will muse on this later today.
Maybe another thing that deserves a musing - a shout-out to the non-bassist -for-Phish Mike Gordon! I got an e-mail from Robyn's Passionate Kisser recently, and he gave me this musing on the collected ramblings of Nyet:
You crack my ass up. Half the time I think you’re playing Devil’s Advocate either with yourself or with what you presume popular opinion to be. Intellectual shock value for the bored. The other half of the time, I wonder when you crossed over from questioning to cynical. And, Yogi Berra-like, the other half the time I completely agree with you, laugh out loud, and think, “Damn, I really wish we lived in the same city so we could have a weekly intellectual argument over an arbitrary bunch of caramels.”
So, just to very superficially clear some things up:
I generally don't play Devil's Advocate, unless I say something like "Damn, Nyet, you're SWEET, and by the way vote for Lucifer."
Let's say, for instance, that popular opinion is generally idiotic.
If my writings shock you, perhaps you should stop asking boring questions.
It was some time during Texas History, when they were talking about that line in the sand that Colonel Travis drew, and I was just like, yo, that's preposterous, that's just mythical crap, that never would have happened, and besides, wouldn't they have all recognized the meta-narrative cliché and jokingly thought "how ridiculous, I'm actually crossing a line in the sand! What an apt physical representation of my metaphorical moral stand!" !?!?!?!?!?!"
Mmmmmmm... camels.
Alrighty then, back to some events of the bloggily missed interim - Beck has been on Anesthesia for the past two weeks so she has been on-call a lot and spending late days at the hospital. We took care of her friend Kathy's dog Ingrid, who strongly resembles a black furry football with legs and weighs approximately that amount, too. I've had a bevy of rather uneventful Walnut happenings, including getting to spend the night in a dorm there, which was not awesome. School starts back up in a week and a half, so I am psyched, pumped and amped all at once. I've been reading a lot, actually a lot of postmodern discussion stuff on the web, which is neither here nor there, and trying to pay attention to the impending WW III in Israel. I've also been re-listening to the Existentialism series to make sure I have a good grasp of things before I go on to some other texts. I'm also up to "Martha My Dear" on the White Album, which is difficult because it's actually a piano tune. So either I can learn how to play a complicated piano song, or I can just fake it with chords on the guitar and dub it "my interpretation." That's more or less what I did with "O-Bla-Di, O-Bla-Da," so the precedent has been set. My writing has gotten nowhere since that flurry of activity two weeks ago, but I've got a new direction in mind that could work. Nice. What else... IPMM and IPJ are visiting this weekend; hopefully we will chance to see them.
It's very difficult to recollect the day-to-day. Let's just pin this down as another empty-promise to be more regular about entries. And I'm going to bite off and chew that attempt at the passionate life. May work, may not. Shall see.
Oh, and before I trek off into another 2 week black hole - regarding that terrorist plot "thing:"
Does it make me a psycho pinkie liberal bastard to think, after hearing what a great job the British and American intelligence agencies did for the 490th time, that this seems like a suspiciously large amount of self-congratulating, as in "feel at ease, free countries, big brother is watching... over you?" I mean, I'll grant that they caught the guys and there was an actual terrorist plot, I'm not quite that conspiracy theory crazy, but all of this back-slapping smells a little of "Team America, F@#$ Yeah!" And don't worry, I am glad that there are people who are sacrificing their lives for our freedom, I am thankful, it's just that the repeated "yay us" messages that dominated the airwaves all week were weird.
Also - another sign of insanity, that *after* a terrorist plot is uncovered, the powers that be collectively slap their foreheads and say, "oh, they could have used liquids! Let's make liquids illegal!" The logical conclusion being that a terrorist would indeed have to board a plane in order to blow it up, so from now on, no more boarding planes. Of course, we'll have to wait for that ban until after the fact, too.
One of the radio reports I heard pointed out that the "War on Terror" (or whatever the news station graphics are calling it these days) has now lasted longer (from Sept.11 to now) than America's involvement in WWII. And someone else referred to it as the "100 Years War-to-be." These are truly the greatest of all possible times. And ya, tell me, over and over and over again my friend...
One of my Existentialism lectures pointed out that the idea of "freedom and progress" has been used by almost every power in history as justification for their actions. The American conservative version of "freedom" appears to be winning these days. Again, don't eat that as more absurd liberal cynical hogwash, just think about it - there's gotta be some reasons on both sides, right? Oh, I'm sorry, that's right, we're battling ALIEN MONSTERS!!!! Who, despite the technology to invade planet America, do not have rational principles.
Do you think there's a word for "terrorist" in Arabic that is lexically related to a word that means "crazy ass knight with a big cross on his chest came streaking into the holy lands in the middle ages?"
Friend Ben recently read that the likelihood of an American dying in a terrorist event is roughly equivalent to that of an American being struck by lightning - though something tells me those two groups, the Manhattanites and the Telephone Poll Shimmiers Association of Alabama, are not all that overlapping. Ben then furthered that he was going to head to Washington and request billions of dollars in funding for the Homeland Lightning Safety Act. Ben's funny.
Finally, beck and I had the give-up-on-humanity, vomit into a cold glass and make it warm pleasure of hearing Monica Crowley on 96.9 on Saturday afternoon - she launched into an anecdote in favor of racial profiling which essentially amounted to the fact that she and other airline passengers felt "very relieved" at the sight of some Arab Americans being strip-searched, interrogated, humiliated, really just violated and having their property destroyed in front of a plane full of people as they boarded a transcontinental flight. She then went on to read the names of those arrested with a "wink-wink, nudge nudge, what do they all have in common" air, going on to say that we have to profile people with Arabic names because they are the ones doing these things. That's right, it turns out she's one of those aliens without rational principles. In related news, all black people have committed urban murders and all white people have committed white collar crimes. Oh, and no one's allowed to drive anywhere any more. Or talk.
If only that last rule had been in place Saturday afternoon...
later sk8ers
On the Waterfront
Bonnie & Clyde
Wild Strawberries
Fear & Trembling
Addendum:
View From the Top (this is the meta-view piece I refer to later in this blog entry)
Okay folks, wipe that sleep dirt, those eye boogers away, we can all wake up and take in the deep breath of a Nyet Jones update. On a vital side note, I never intended this to be "here's the daily dealings" type blog, and I'm sorry if it became that. Will try to avoid such idiocy in the future. So fear not, if I should go, say, two weeks without updating the bloggity news, you might want to poke your head around the reviews to see if anything's new there, but trust that I haven't walked face-first into lion-infested waters or anything; I probably just haven't been up to much. All the same, here's the requisite shout-out to IPMM and the Pater for asking for news. And heeeeeere we go:
"The Civic has been bought," passively was said by him. We bought it, a 2006 Honda Civic Sedan. That's not actually it, above, but given that this is a consumer culture, dominated by Fordism and mass production, i bet even Andy Warhol would consider it a reasonable facsimile. It is even the same color, a deep navy blue, so you don't have to stretch your chromatic imagination. Anyways, the car itself is not here yet, but should be in good ol' South Grafton within the next day or so. Real pictures including smiling Becks and Nyets and dogs and pink houses will be forthcoming. I see you shudder with anitici... anyways, I'll need to pick up in the tutoring, sell some blood and generally stop eating "food" to make the monthly payments, but given that it's a reliable car that will last us well into the 22nd century, I figured that was a good balance. I'm kidding of course; I can't donate blood. I'm type "faints with dehydration," so I don't do that kind of thing. Seriously.
As for the car, Beck keeps rather insultingly calling it a "toy car" and "so cute" when I'm relatively convinced she means "manly Godzilla Cruiser" instead. Okay, admittedly it's a non-flashy, economical, pragmatic vehicle that just really isn't that large. But I don't choose to view it that way. I tend to view it as an ego-booster; when I wrap my pinky around the emergency brake and put the car into reverse by flicking the shift stick, when I steer with my knuckles - I mean, it makes me feel HUGE! I am a colossal beast! I am the lord of all that I survey! I am the master of my domain! Or... something. But the effect also makes me feel fat, given that my belly can't help but press against the steering column as it rests wedged between my knees. Which means I probably need to diet, which is convenient given that I can no longer afford to eat food.
Just kidding - the car is actually comfortable, I can comfortably afford to eat for at least the next six weeks. I do need to lose some weight though - a summer of not playing Ultimate and hobbling around on my gimpy foot has not served the waistline well. So it's all about cereal and Lean Pockets for the time being til I can make myself look a little more reasonable. Oh, and yeah, I guess it's implied by the above, but my foot is still bungled - I haven't tried any Ultimate since the last brutally failed experiment. Our end of summer tournament is this weekend, so i'm tempted to cleat up on the one hand but I value being able to walk on the other. These are the nerve-wrecking decisions that plague my time. I'm so depressed I could eat. Quickly, an homage to my insane, Jered-from-Subway-esque diet plan:
So other people seem more psyched about the car I am - not that I'm not psyched, just that I'm not bursting with fruit flavor. It reminds me of an episode of Lost where Jack, the de facto leader of the "tribe" or what have you, is having the crisis of the unwilling hero, the process of having leadership thrust upon him but not necessarily wanting it. Not to belittle the ordeal, it is indeed difficult to take on the leadership of the stranded masses (though in his case, it's actually pretend to take on the leadership of other pretenders who are pretending to be stranded), but I can't help but think that he would have a little more awareness of the metanarrative going on - meaning that he should be able to recognize the "hey, i'm struggling as the reluctant hero" nature of his dilemma. Not that he shouldn't struggle with it, just to say that maybe he could take some comfort in the idea that he was fulfilling a role, not encountering a set of events completely foreign to man. His role is scripted - he struggles, he debates whether he has what it takes, wants to run away, but ultimately fulfills his duty out of necessity and lack of other options (or at least options he could live with). So, in the episode, it just struck me as absurd that a person at least moderately educated in the concepts of tragic and/or reluctant hero would not instantly recognize his situation and at least have the thought, the "Wow, I'm playing the role now!"
Which brings it back to the car, that I feel like I'm at the "Hey, the Beck and I are buying our first car together" moment of our collective existence. Like the script notes say "His eyes jump, his heartbeat elevates as he handles the Honda keys for the first time." Um, yo scriptwriter, no they didn't. They just said "hmmm, you appear to be making a pragmatic purchase. Congratulations on your relatively mindless problem-solving skills." Then again, my eyes and heart-rate talk too much.
So yeah, that's something I've been contemplating a lot lately, the whole world-viewed from a meta-perspective and how this renders things unenjoyable. I've been reading a lot from the various Existentialists lately (see the review on Captain Fun & Games, Kierkegaard), a group that, well, isn't much of a group, but they do share a value of the subjective experience over the Objective, some even going so far as to saying the Objective is an illusion or a myth. This all stabs at living a life led by passions rather than stone-cold rationality. This entire topic, I think, deserves a musing. So I will muse on this later today.
Maybe another thing that deserves a musing - a shout-out to the non-bassist -for-Phish Mike Gordon! I got an e-mail from Robyn's Passionate Kisser recently, and he gave me this musing on the collected ramblings of Nyet:
You crack my ass up. Half the time I think you’re playing Devil’s Advocate either with yourself or with what you presume popular opinion to be. Intellectual shock value for the bored. The other half of the time, I wonder when you crossed over from questioning to cynical. And, Yogi Berra-like, the other half the time I completely agree with you, laugh out loud, and think, “Damn, I really wish we lived in the same city so we could have a weekly intellectual argument over an arbitrary bunch of caramels.”
So, just to very superficially clear some things up:
I generally don't play Devil's Advocate, unless I say something like "Damn, Nyet, you're SWEET, and by the way vote for Lucifer."
Let's say, for instance, that popular opinion is generally idiotic.
If my writings shock you, perhaps you should stop asking boring questions.
It was some time during Texas History, when they were talking about that line in the sand that Colonel Travis drew, and I was just like, yo, that's preposterous, that's just mythical crap, that never would have happened, and besides, wouldn't they have all recognized the meta-narrative cliché and jokingly thought "how ridiculous, I'm actually crossing a line in the sand! What an apt physical representation of my metaphorical moral stand!" !?!?!?!?!?!"
Mmmmmmm... camels.
Alrighty then, back to some events of the bloggily missed interim - Beck has been on Anesthesia for the past two weeks so she has been on-call a lot and spending late days at the hospital. We took care of her friend Kathy's dog Ingrid, who strongly resembles a black furry football with legs and weighs approximately that amount, too. I've had a bevy of rather uneventful Walnut happenings, including getting to spend the night in a dorm there, which was not awesome. School starts back up in a week and a half, so I am psyched, pumped and amped all at once. I've been reading a lot, actually a lot of postmodern discussion stuff on the web, which is neither here nor there, and trying to pay attention to the impending WW III in Israel. I've also been re-listening to the Existentialism series to make sure I have a good grasp of things before I go on to some other texts. I'm also up to "Martha My Dear" on the White Album, which is difficult because it's actually a piano tune. So either I can learn how to play a complicated piano song, or I can just fake it with chords on the guitar and dub it "my interpretation." That's more or less what I did with "O-Bla-Di, O-Bla-Da," so the precedent has been set. My writing has gotten nowhere since that flurry of activity two weeks ago, but I've got a new direction in mind that could work. Nice. What else... IPMM and IPJ are visiting this weekend; hopefully we will chance to see them.
It's very difficult to recollect the day-to-day. Let's just pin this down as another empty-promise to be more regular about entries. And I'm going to bite off and chew that attempt at the passionate life. May work, may not. Shall see.
Oh, and before I trek off into another 2 week black hole - regarding that terrorist plot "thing:"
Does it make me a psycho pinkie liberal bastard to think, after hearing what a great job the British and American intelligence agencies did for the 490th time, that this seems like a suspiciously large amount of self-congratulating, as in "feel at ease, free countries, big brother is watching... over you?" I mean, I'll grant that they caught the guys and there was an actual terrorist plot, I'm not quite that conspiracy theory crazy, but all of this back-slapping smells a little of "Team America, F@#$ Yeah!" And don't worry, I am glad that there are people who are sacrificing their lives for our freedom, I am thankful, it's just that the repeated "yay us" messages that dominated the airwaves all week were weird.
Also - another sign of insanity, that *after* a terrorist plot is uncovered, the powers that be collectively slap their foreheads and say, "oh, they could have used liquids! Let's make liquids illegal!" The logical conclusion being that a terrorist would indeed have to board a plane in order to blow it up, so from now on, no more boarding planes. Of course, we'll have to wait for that ban until after the fact, too.
One of the radio reports I heard pointed out that the "War on Terror" (or whatever the news station graphics are calling it these days) has now lasted longer (from Sept.11 to now) than America's involvement in WWII. And someone else referred to it as the "100 Years War-to-be." These are truly the greatest of all possible times. And ya, tell me, over and over and over again my friend...
One of my Existentialism lectures pointed out that the idea of "freedom and progress" has been used by almost every power in history as justification for their actions. The American conservative version of "freedom" appears to be winning these days. Again, don't eat that as more absurd liberal cynical hogwash, just think about it - there's gotta be some reasons on both sides, right? Oh, I'm sorry, that's right, we're battling ALIEN MONSTERS!!!! Who, despite the technology to invade planet America, do not have rational principles.
Do you think there's a word for "terrorist" in Arabic that is lexically related to a word that means "crazy ass knight with a big cross on his chest came streaking into the holy lands in the middle ages?"
Friend Ben recently read that the likelihood of an American dying in a terrorist event is roughly equivalent to that of an American being struck by lightning - though something tells me those two groups, the Manhattanites and the Telephone Poll Shimmiers Association of Alabama, are not all that overlapping. Ben then furthered that he was going to head to Washington and request billions of dollars in funding for the Homeland Lightning Safety Act. Ben's funny.
Finally, beck and I had the give-up-on-humanity, vomit into a cold glass and make it warm pleasure of hearing Monica Crowley on 96.9 on Saturday afternoon - she launched into an anecdote in favor of racial profiling which essentially amounted to the fact that she and other airline passengers felt "very relieved" at the sight of some Arab Americans being strip-searched, interrogated, humiliated, really just violated and having their property destroyed in front of a plane full of people as they boarded a transcontinental flight. She then went on to read the names of those arrested with a "wink-wink, nudge nudge, what do they all have in common" air, going on to say that we have to profile people with Arabic names because they are the ones doing these things. That's right, it turns out she's one of those aliens without rational principles. In related news, all black people have committed urban murders and all white people have committed white collar crimes. Oh, and no one's allowed to drive anywhere any more. Or talk.
If only that last rule had been in place Saturday afternoon...
later sk8ers
Monday, August 7, 2006
And please tell me why…
And please tell me why…
... KAMI CEMBURU DENGAN TEMAN PRIANYA
Betul. Ada teori yang mengatakan, pria seharusnya dapat menghadapi kenyataan bahwa istri memiliki teman-teman pria. Tapi perlu pula disadari, kamilah yang telah menaklukan hati kalian, dan mereka tidak.
... KAMI ENGGAN MEMBICARAKAN APA YANG KAMI RASAKAN
Salah. Pasangan mengira sifat Kami dingin. Jangan lupa, kami menikahi Anda untuk satu alasan. Bila kami ingin membicarakan mengenai perasaan kami, pastilah istri yang kami cari. Bersabarlah, terutama bila topiknya sangat menyentuh, pasti kami akan memberitahukan, bagaimana menderitanya kami
hmm, itu cuman salah satu bahan siaran saya pagi ini, dan kenapa saya masih sempat-sempatnya ngetik yah sementara morning lecture masih berjalan. tapi biarlah soalnya saya ingin bercerita lagi kepada kalian. dunno why last week, is the ... week for me. saya juga agak-agak ga ngerti kok perasaan itu datang lagi yah?
perasaan muak melihat orang lain, yang seakan-akan mempermasalahkan gaya saya (atau itu cuma persepsi saya) entahlah, karena waktu ngampus lagi minggu kmaren, buat urus krs, kok males banget liat gayanya anak-anak?? hmm,,, shit!!! ini nih yang bahaya, ketika perasaan ini ga ilang-ilang juga sampe nanti masuk kuliah. bisa berabe!!! trus temen saya yg namanya wuri juga bilang, "makanya, rajing ngampus and just talk with the other", nah disini juga letak permasalahannya. karena sering siaran malam, jadi pagi tuh baru balik ke rumah, just for some sleep, and siangnya baru langsung ke bibli, buat ngedit buku yang udah deadline,, jadi asli 2 minggu kemarin hilang dari peredaran!!! sedih banget sih,, soalnya untuk memulai pembicaraan saja kok rasanya aneh? padahal kita udah berteman lebih dari 2 tahun, udah tau busuknya masing-masing, tapi kok bisa muncul lagi perasaan kayak gini yah?
entahlah kalau minggu ini tu buku udah rampung, supaya minggu depan udah bisa ngampus en bersosialisasi dengan anak-anak yang lain,,,
karena terang aja, sebenarnya banyak skali yang ingin saya utarakan mengenai apa yang saya pikirkan, apa yang saya lihat, dan begitulah,, saya kemudian baru tersadar,, ups, u have no one!!
It seems, emang beneran harus ngampus lebih sering lagi nih!!! Udah banyak skali bahan yang mesti dipersiapkan, mo nyambut maba, ngomongin proker,, hopelly I’ll get better soon,,,
…
Nasionalisme Bangsa Indonesia Menurun
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Peneliti Politik dari Pusat Penelitian Politik LIPI, Tri Nuke Pujiastuti MA, menilai nasionalisme bangsa Indonesia semakin menurun dengan tingginya euforia kedaerahan, kelompok dan keagamaan yang semakin tinggi.
Well, ga tau bener apa tidak, tapi itulah bahan siaran saya yang terakhir pagi ini, I must end the show, end this morning, and goodbye all!!!
Friday, August 4, 2006
Hampa!!!
Hampa!!!
Pukul 7. 50 pagi, matahari masih berusaha untuk menerobos masuk ke ruangan kecil ini. Namun apa daya, kekuatan sang gorden biru masih lebih besar lagi. Cuma sedikit saja cahaya yang lolos. Menandakan pagi sudah lama pergi untuk hari ini. Nelly furtado masih asyik bernyayi bersama Juanes. Tes Busque. Entahlah apa artinya, aku juga tidak berusaha untuk mencari artinya. Cukuplah mereka menemaniku pagi ini. Sebelum saya beranjak untuk mencari kebutuhan biologis saya yang lain.
Entahlah, aku juga bingung. Sebenarnya apa yang kurasakan saat ini sebenarnya? Sebegitu kompleks kah perasaan ku? Kemarin saya sempat chat dengan sesorang yang gak jelas dan gak penting asal usulnya. Cuma satu hal yang saya ingat dari percakapan kami. Jangan sampai larut dalam perasaan. Jangan terlalu mengikutinya. Toh nantinya kamu yang akan capek sendiri. Apakah ini? Sebuah statement apatis dari sesorang yang sedang terluka? Ataukah sebuah bentuk untuk tidak memaknai lagi yang namanya sebuah perasaan? Saya tidak setuju dengan hal itu, bagaimana mungkin kita bias hidup kalau tidak mengikuti apa yang kita rasakan. Dan inilah yang menghimpit pikiranku sekarang. Capek!!! Capek dengan mengikuti semua huru-hara (entah mengapa aku menyebut huru-hara untuk complicatednya perasaanku), capek dengan segala mobilitas. Capek melihat orang-orang yang tidak seide denganku. Capek dengan tugasku untuk membahagiakan orang lain, sedangkan diri saya sendiri tidak bahagia
Sebuah statement lagi kluar dikepalaku. Kita tidak diciptakan untuk membahagiakan semua orang. Tapi mengapa? Mengapa? Kata Weda, itulah yang membuat saya spesial, membuat saya istimewa. Karena saya bisa mengkondisikan diri saya untuk bisa masuk ke semua lini pertemanan. Dengan menjaga semua tatanan pertemanan yang normal. Yang tidak membuat orang lain tersinggung, marah ataupun yang lainnya. Biarlah saya yang mengalah, biarlah saya yang sakit. Karena merupakan tugas saya untuk mengerti mereka semua. Bodoh? Mungkin begitu. Tapi dari segi penglihatan saya, saya sudah cukup dewasa untuk tidak memaksakan semua hal saya setujui dengan pola pemahaman mereka. Cukuplah saya yang mengerti. Weda juga bilang saya bodoh. Bodoh karena terlalu menekan perasaan saya, tetapi tidak memikirkan apa yang saya inginkan. Dan inilah ketakutanku sekarang. Selama 3 bulan lebih bergaul di bibli. Disinilah saya bisa menemukan diri saya yang hilang itu. Dimana semua perasaan saya bisa tertuang dan tergambar dengan jelas. Saya mau marah, ya marah. Tidak ada yang keberatan. Karena semua perbedaan dihargai. Disanalah saya diajarkan bahwa memang perbedaan itu ada. Apakah salah? Tidak, yang salah adalah orang yang tidak mengerti perbedaan itu. Apakah nanti ketika saya menjalani kehidupan normal saya (kuliah or ketemu dengan orang-orang lain) apakah saya bisa menjaga agar pola piker saya masih tetap seperti ini? Entahlah,, capek!!! Cuma ini yang ingin kuteriakkan,, sudahlah,, jangan diteruskan lagi perkataan ini. Nantilah dilihat apa yang akan terjadi. All Good things come to the end. Nelly furtado sudah bernyanyi lagu lain lagi. Benarkah semua hal baik toh nantinya akan dating juga? Semoga…
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
It's hot; I'm not.
So the grand Ultimate experiment, busted foot and all, did not go off greatly on Tuesday. 97 degrees, for one thing, which meant my shirt was completely drenched before warmups had really even gotten going. On the plus side, that meant everything got stretched out pretty quickly, I felt nice and limber; on the minus side, missing my running schedule for the entire summer and the heat combined for a severely out-of-shape experience. So I played, and my foot held up for about 8 or 9 points, then started hurting a little, then a lot, probably maxing out at 6 on the trad 1-10 scale. This put me hobbling around the field while out of shape and overweight - I'd give myself max of about 65 percent of my normal spry self. Which meant that I just wasn't getting to discs as quickly as I'm accustomed, and on a couple of occasions guys took off deep on me and my heel would not allow for a quick fireoff - so I got burned badly. My throws were reasonable; actually, a few excellently placed hucks to Jay and Quan and a couple to Lisa which she unfortunately could not catch up to. As you can imagine, the whole thing was hella frustrating.
But that really wasn't the half of it - during the hour plus ride home, my foot stiffened up more or less to its maximum possible stiffness, so that even just lifting it slightly off the floor of the car put the strain of gravity on it, causing a very slight plantarflexion that more or less ripped the attachment out of the bone. Or that's what it felt like, anyways, gunshot stop pain that makes you stop everything on a dime. Not that I've ever been shot, but - yeah, it was that post ACL-surgery waking up as the pain meds are wearing off kinda pain, pretty high. I try not to be wussish, but I had just run around on the thing through that pain, so yeah - this was worse. Thoughts of retirement worse. It eventually chilled out once I got home and moving around, and actually was not terrible the next day - but, hmmm, that seems to be where things stand right now. SO, apparently I can play craptastic Ultimate where I can't guard anyone and then drive home in borderline screaming pain. Huzzah!
(This is the part where you all cry for me and send flowers).
(Seriously, 1-800-GET WELL. You should 1-800 get on that).
To pull us back into the realm of good perspective, remind myself that this is just Ultimate and not, you know, my source of livelihood, read about the Caucasian Wide Receivers Association of America. Ricky Proehl, especially you're Tecmo Super Bowl version, you are still my dog.
As long as I'm throwing links up into the mix to distract myself from the pain, check out the transcendent ridiculousness that is a music video by Muse. I mean, really check it, that's some pretty dope stuff, yah yah.
So, getting back to it - where does this Ultimate thing stand? It may be time to hang 'em up, at least for this season that never was. It's extraordinarily disappointing, but the crappy level at which I'm able to play is not worth the pain, long drives and gas prices. I may throw myself out there one more time, but focusing on getting the heel in reasonable repair may be the way to go at this point.
Pulling this into less of a self-pitying session and more of a this is what's up - it remains good having the Beck back. She's in anesthesia these days with The Wolf, so they are working hard an occasionally staying up all night for their troubles. So that's cool.
I spent the bulk of the week trying not to melt - record temperatures the past few, highlighted by heat index factors of 118 or so on Wednesday which, it turns out, the greater Boston are can not handle in the slightest. The dogs and I took refuge in the study with fans or the bedroom with a window AC unit. We all survived; they passed the time with frosty paws, and I passed it... drumroll...
Writing! Yeah, started a novel this week. It is so mind bogglingly terrible it defies explanation. The whole experience has been disheartening; I think I just find myself geared to short stories and bloggy type attention spans, so I write these scenes that are supposed to lay down characters and intentions and some of the big bang things in a novel, I look up and they're 3 pages long in Word in 12 point font. Damn. So, it's gonna be a long process, as I need to reorient my brain around the thing. Once I get something that I'm reasonably happy about I'll post it for general perusal, but it's been four days and nothing that I would call good has come of it, so don't hold your breath.
That's about it - Nut-trafficking this weekend, all day Sunday and into Monday, so I'll be sure to not report that monstrous pile of boredom. Until not then...
But that really wasn't the half of it - during the hour plus ride home, my foot stiffened up more or less to its maximum possible stiffness, so that even just lifting it slightly off the floor of the car put the strain of gravity on it, causing a very slight plantarflexion that more or less ripped the attachment out of the bone. Or that's what it felt like, anyways, gunshot stop pain that makes you stop everything on a dime. Not that I've ever been shot, but - yeah, it was that post ACL-surgery waking up as the pain meds are wearing off kinda pain, pretty high. I try not to be wussish, but I had just run around on the thing through that pain, so yeah - this was worse. Thoughts of retirement worse. It eventually chilled out once I got home and moving around, and actually was not terrible the next day - but, hmmm, that seems to be where things stand right now. SO, apparently I can play craptastic Ultimate where I can't guard anyone and then drive home in borderline screaming pain. Huzzah!
(This is the part where you all cry for me and send flowers).
(Seriously, 1-800-GET WELL. You should 1-800 get on that).
To pull us back into the realm of good perspective, remind myself that this is just Ultimate and not, you know, my source of livelihood, read about the Caucasian Wide Receivers Association of America. Ricky Proehl, especially you're Tecmo Super Bowl version, you are still my dog.
As long as I'm throwing links up into the mix to distract myself from the pain, check out the transcendent ridiculousness that is a music video by Muse. I mean, really check it, that's some pretty dope stuff, yah yah.
So, getting back to it - where does this Ultimate thing stand? It may be time to hang 'em up, at least for this season that never was. It's extraordinarily disappointing, but the crappy level at which I'm able to play is not worth the pain, long drives and gas prices. I may throw myself out there one more time, but focusing on getting the heel in reasonable repair may be the way to go at this point.
Pulling this into less of a self-pitying session and more of a this is what's up - it remains good having the Beck back. She's in anesthesia these days with The Wolf, so they are working hard an occasionally staying up all night for their troubles. So that's cool.
I spent the bulk of the week trying not to melt - record temperatures the past few, highlighted by heat index factors of 118 or so on Wednesday which, it turns out, the greater Boston are can not handle in the slightest. The dogs and I took refuge in the study with fans or the bedroom with a window AC unit. We all survived; they passed the time with frosty paws, and I passed it... drumroll...
Writing! Yeah, started a novel this week. It is so mind bogglingly terrible it defies explanation. The whole experience has been disheartening; I think I just find myself geared to short stories and bloggy type attention spans, so I write these scenes that are supposed to lay down characters and intentions and some of the big bang things in a novel, I look up and they're 3 pages long in Word in 12 point font. Damn. So, it's gonna be a long process, as I need to reorient my brain around the thing. Once I get something that I'm reasonably happy about I'll post it for general perusal, but it's been four days and nothing that I would call good has come of it, so don't hold your breath.
That's about it - Nut-trafficking this weekend, all day Sunday and into Monday, so I'll be sure to not report that monstrous pile of boredom. Until not then...
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