Beating Back Modernity
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Below are the 19 most recent journal entries recorded in the "meurseult" journal:
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07:20 am
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I believe I can fly
Nothing could make my skin crawl like that girl, high on E, busting out with her acapella version of the above, thinking that that was what the room needed at that moment, forcing everyone into 30 or 40 seconds of silence and then a few phrases of mumbled appreciation. Why does everyone think they are so bloody profound when they are belting out a hackneyed ballad of overcoming?
You know when it's been one of those years that feels like ten? And, gentle reader, if you had to compare your year to a human pursuit, would it be buying coldcuts in a Ukranian deli? Believing, in the face of overwhelming odds, that you can fly? Getting pilloried in the popular press for something you mostly didn't do? Getting run out of town by a vindictive ex? Trying to avoid eye contact with an OCD man on a city bus? Running on a treadmill with an apple-colored iPod on your arm? Getting a paper cut and suckling syphilitic turtle balls?
I doubt that turtles can get syphilis.
Current Mood: crackin'
Current Music: the garbeurator
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05:03 pm
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weltschmerz (VELT-shmerts)
Oye oye
I'm feeling fukn tragic.
Ever had one of those lunchtimes where everyone you encountered on the street, in the post office and in a restaurant was rude and miserable?
At a buffet restaurant, a woman elbowed me in the neck while squeezing past me with an abrupt "Excuse me". I spat my half chewed greens back onto my plate and glowered at her, but she was insensible to it. What started off as a smiley encounter at the P.O. descended into a series of remonstrations and recriminations where the clerk berated me for not addressing the envelope correctly in Chinese. I had no excuse to offer, only a plea for understanding.
But then I had a nice encounter with yr coffee lady and her sister's children and it sapped me of my anger, leaving me only with an unaccountable feeling of loss.
I wish I were Saddam at the height of his power and poetry.
I wish I were Kim Jong-Il in his train speeding across Siberia, soaked in whores, champers and caviar.
I wish I were Ferdinand Marcos grooving on his wife's shoe collection and shaking his head gently as if to say 'women'.
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04:05 pm
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Good Friday
Good Friday. Barabas had the naming rights.
A woman I work with (who wears a great hunking cross around her neck like she is lurching down the road to Calvary herself) didn't know who Barabas was. Being Protestant is no excuse. If you're going to be a Jesus lover and believe that his supposed anabiosis is a sign of eternal redemption the least you could do is familiarise yourself with his tale. She is probably one of the twelve percent of Americans who believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.
Wilful cultural ignorance.
Current Mood:  distressed
Current Music: scared weird little guys
Tags: scared weird little guys
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08:47 am
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Randy
Fucking Randy. He must get on the subway at 7:00 to arrive at work when he does. And I know why. It's not to get a jumpstart on the day's work, gentle reader -- if it were, he wouldn't be sleeping on three rollerwheel chairs pulled into a line, a makeshift bed, when I arrive at 8:30.
It's to put on his music. We're two computers in a small area, and we have an unspoken rule that the first one in gets his music for the day (or, more likely, until lunch, when I feel it fair to shut his off and turn mine on). By "his music" I mean KFOG San Francisco. It's all he plays. I know the 50-odd songs of their rotation by heart, commercials, too, which pisses me off enormously, especially when I catch myself singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" with the girls promoting science education for girls.
I'm going to get him excluded from the aforementioned blow-job and sedation services.
Current Mood: bellicose
Current Music: KFOG San Francisco
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11:50 am
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On My Desk
Three manila envelopes; a neon-green Nalgene bottle; two jars of Omega-3 fish oil; a tobacco pipe; a lighter; a Chinese "chop" with my name engraved in the base; a packet of two disposable Gillette razors, still unopened; a half-finished crinkle-pack of finasterade; "On Writing Well," by William Zinsser; a Nokia T29 that doesn't work; some Japanese "wash whip" in a pump bottle; a blue, single-serving bodum, grounds compressed in the bottom; a tin of Ahmad English tea; a Costco-sized box of Twinings Earl Grey tea; Rohto menthol eyedrops; a small bottle of Holiday Inn shampoo; a half-box of business cards; the Chicago Manual of Style; Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary; Roget's International Thesaurus; a 3M lamp; a red Pilot V5 pen; a Tupperware container one-fifth full of coffee beans; "Letters for All Occasions," by Alfred Stuard Myers; a Ralph Lauren Purple Label tie; two magnets; a packet of staplers; a business card from some guy at the gym; the speech I'm working on.
Current Music: Howling Wolf -- Mannish Boy
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03:57 pm
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The boy bands, the cell phones
Told them I had a dentist appointment this morning and slept in. Had that first porridge-thick cup of coffee at 13:00, not 8:30, so I gots my buzz on now, and there's a decent song on iTunes, and only two more hour of labor for today, which is a mild one for late-winter Asia.
How To Improve My Office Productivity
1) Blow-job Teams. I can't believe no one's thought of this. They come around, tap you on the shoulder at your workstation, and ask whether oral attention would, ah, unh, gratify you. That'd be cool, no? Who's doing it? Good question. Not the homo in Division Three, the one who, in your third month, asked you how to translate "erotic" from Chinese. The girl with big eyes from Division Two, for sure; maybe that one from the bank downstairs.
2) Sedation Teams. I can't believe no one's thought of this. They sneak up and plunge a syringe full of seconol into the back of your neck. You turn to object, but as you speak, darkness crowds from the edges of your vision. You slip out of your chair, into the dust and cockroach eggs on the floor beneath your desk. You're woken hours or days later by the blow-job team, who suggest Italian food and a few blow jobs.
Current Mood: torpid
Current Music: King of Spain -- Galaxie 500
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09:31 am
[Link] | I need an honest working definition of "macking." What does it mean?
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09:30 am
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Friends and editing
It's the holidays. Friends don't let friends drive drunk, and friends don't let friend edit other friends' touch-feely statement-of-purpose essays to Montessori schools in India, of all places.
If a huge guy comes up to you in the gym and shows you how a narrower grip on the EZ-curl bar gives you a better burn in your pipes, you listen. If a carpenter tells you that using a smaller router bit will help you build a stronger cabinet joint, you listen. But if an editor tells you that it's more economical to say "they" than "the people that are over there," you get huffy, and your dad who is a schoolteacher gets huffy, and the post-Christmas bonhomie founders, and you wonder why, if they wanted your advice, they are huffily pretending to wash dishes and wishing you to leave.
Next time, corrections in pencil. The rebuke of red ink.
Current Mood:  cold
Current Music: KFOG San Francisco
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10:49 am
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Earwax
My hearing hasn’t been too clear of late. I often mistake a word or a phrase for something else. Yesterday I went to see the doctor. He wanted to listen to my heart so I took off my shirt.
“Big Breasts”, he said with what I took to be a touch of admiration.
I was about to thank him for this strange and unsolicited comment when it occurred to me that:
1. I am a man
2. My pectorals are not that developed, yet.
3. I am not afflicted with man-boobs.
4. That he was placing his stethoscope on my back.
Ah. “Deep breaths”.
Speaking to a fellow-penitent after mass last Sunday he told me of someone he knows who runs a website, “Gayporn.com”. I begged his pardon and once again he said “Gayporn.com”. The organ was rather loud but I’m sure he said it twice. I must have looked befuddled because he asked me what was wrong.
“I’m sorry”, I said, “but did you say ‘“Gayporn.com?”’ He took on a deep red color and looked very offended. He said, “I said ‘“Gamepro.com”’.
We haven’t spoken since. He may have thought that I was hitting on him.
There have been many other incidents similar to this and I’m a little concerned. I think I need a professional ear clean but I’m not so sure how they’d do it. My imagination runs riot at the prospect. Are there gallons of earwax that I have thus far been unable to excavate awaiting removal? Will my head feel lighter afterward?
Current Music: Anything by Fischer-Dieskau
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09:25 pm
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Divulgement and dissimulation = Rant
I think I lack challenge. It occured to me earlier that I defined myself in my own country more by what I was not than what I was. Living in another culture, I am obviously not of any of it. So what am I? A memory of what I was not? I need a refresher course.
I seek refuge in things I can control, my body, my appearance.
I grew a moustache in an effort to shake things up a little, but I shaved it off when two people said I looked like a pedophile. Since when do people equate the look of a '30s matinee idol with pedophilia?
I think more about the development of the 'teardrop' muscle at the base of my quads than I do about international politics, the Kyoto Agreement and its naysayers, or that poor Australian kid that was executed in Singapore earlier today.
The scowl on my face grows and is attempting to wrest control of my demeanour.
Sophie, my love interest, puts up with me, but I'm not sure that I want someone who is prepared to. I wouldn't.
Sitting underneath an a/c vent doesn't improve my temper but the management fail to listen. Has anyone written a good opera about modern life?
Current Mood:  blank
Current Music: The Girl Of Yeye - Joe and the Stormies
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08:43 am
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Funeral Songs
Everyone should know the three songs they want played at their funeral. I don't know why it has to be three, but it does. The idea adheres to the same metaphysical rule as jokes.
What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call a person who speaks one language? American.
I asked a couple of friends about their selections. Dave the American says his three are Eric Clapton's "You Look Wonderful Tonight," Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All," and Lynard Skynard's "Sweet Home Alabama." Dave and I don't hang out much.
Nathan the Englishman says he wants the Rolling Stones' "Cocksucker Blues" played three times.
I've shaken up my lineup in the last few days.
My Old Death Set
1) Howling Wolf -- "Going Down Slow": a trifle obvious, but jangly and loose, with the correct irreverence for the final perishing.
2) Leonard Cohen -- "Anthem": anthemic and hopeful ("...there's a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in..."), plus all my aunts will wail when they hear Cohen's bassy honking.
3) Aphex Twin -- "Xtal": obscure ambient tune to re-establish the cred I may have blown in the first two songs.
Aye, the winds of change are blowing, though. Don't have a new set yet, but I'm taking suggestions.
Current Mood: decadent
Current Music: The Breeders -- Cannonball
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11:32 pm
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A Fleet, A Flotilla of Women
I was nursing my mug of coffee this morning in SB's when a lizard (a gecko, to be precise) fell from the ceiling. It narrowly avoided a scalded death in the open vat of my hot steaming coffee. It lay on the table without moving a muscle. I thought it might be dead. Could its abrupt plunge be taken as a portent of some incipient and calamitous event? After some three minutes the lizard gave a flicker of its tongue, scuttled off over the edge of the table and disappeared.
I took a deep breath and looked out the window. A woman passing by suddenly fell off her high heels with a neat twist of her ankle. A passerby caught her by the elbow. She muttered her thanks and then she too disappeared, red faced into the subway.
Will there come a day when high heels are considered just another form of subjugation? Will it be seen as a 20th Century quirk, much as foot binding was a product of Imperial China?
When will women be free to be fleet of foot???
Current Mood: listless
Current Music: Time Is My Everything -- Ian Brown
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01:54 pm
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Knock-knock
I know a great knock-knock joke. You start it off.
Current Mood:  chipper
Current Music: Summer Kisses, Winter Tears - The Blackeyed Susans
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11:02 am
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"Hike up your skirt a little more, and show your world to me..."
Ten points if you can guess the singer of that lyric. A hint: college girls of middling means were all in love with him six years ago, when he sang catchy, banal things about sex and love. You could scarcely go to a BBQ without some chick putting on the CD and mooning over him, making you wish you hadn't wasted the twelve bucks in vodka coolers on her.
Killah workout yesterday. My triceps feel like inflatable pool toys. I'm pondering getting on the juice. I think Rolly my workout partner already is: he gets pumped up for his sets by punching himself in the tits and slapping himself in the face. Also he keeps barking at the front-counter girls to play Van Halen's 'Eruption' on the intercom -- it's a seven-minute guitar solo. Okay, I'm a little worried.
Current Mood: sore
Current Music: William Orbit -- Pieces in a Modern Style
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11:49 pm
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Who?
Today a co-worker ventured the opinion that I resemble a moderately famous actor. Sadly, it made my day. I also started to see said co-worker in a new and favorable light.
Have you noticed that when people wear motorcycle helmets indoors they appear deranged?
Sometimes an automatic door fails to sense your presence and there is a delicious moment of unease, akin to watching a sex scene on television in the company of your mother, and the thought hits that maybe you have ceased to exist as a physical presence and are now no more than spirit. When this happens to me, the elation I feel is completely at odds with what I regard as my essentially life-affirming nature.
Current Mood:  sleepy
Current Music: By Your Side - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
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09:09 am
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Starbucks Vertigo
So you're standing there in a Starbucks with all the other sleep-starved animals in office casuals and cheap shoes. It's 8:20 am. Some fucked-up medley of a Christmas carol is playing -- Joni Mitchell and Lenny Kravitz singing Feliz Navidad. Everyone queueing unblinkingly. You have a vertiginous thought: Is everyone, in every Starbucks, listening to this song right now? Is everyone waiting with three bucks in their hand for the last cup of daily blend -- the one they have to tilt the coffee tankard to pour out?
Your brain spirals up up up into the sky, to see more clearly the little Starbucks shops all down below. Yes, it is the same song.
I always go to Starbucks. I always get that last cup. I wonder why I wait so patiently for it.
Current Mood: listless
Current Music: The New Pornographers -- Three or Four
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08:00 pm
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New Toy
Exerting the thrill of a new toy, this blog has drawn me back and I feel challenged to make yet another entry, hopefully avoiding prolixity. I think it was Austin Osman Spare who said "Enough is too much", so I should end it here. However that would make for rather spare reading, don't you think?
Nobody has posted a comment yet. I keep hoping to hear from some people with Fascist sympathies so I can ask them "What does a snappy dresser wear with brown shirts?" Even if you are free of such tendencies, please feel free to advise on my sartorial conundrum.
Current Mood: exanimate
Current Music: Odetta - Another Man Done Gone
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03:52 pm
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Nazism Continued...
Whoa, I'm a little concerned you'll get the wrong idea, what with my talk of "falling by the wayside" and Nazis and all.
I'm not saying that boring, fruitless people SHOULD "fall by the wayside," just that they occasionally do, and that when they do, it's not a dress rehearsal, and that that's okay. There's no do-over, right?
By the way, "Nazism": doesn't the word dance in your mouth? Do you say "NAHTZ-ism" or "NAHTZ-yi-ism"? My parents always used to argue about that one.
Current Mood:  giggly
Current Music: Wagner -- Sygfride Idyll
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02:59 pm
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On Nazism
I used to be a busy person. My life involved many things and people. I don't know why exactly, but I found I've needed less of everything over the past year.
Why change the world when you can change yourself, right? Subsequently a process of attrition has taken place. I've faded out a lot of noise, given away some possessions. I caved and got an iPod though. Lately, instead of trying to be in two places at one time, I've found myself in two times at one place. It's a little confusing,yet it is a mode of being that I'm beginning to navigate with some success. Sometimes things get a little mixed up but that's ok. People who do not understand fall by the wayside. Life is not a dress rehearsal.
We all get trapped in long, boring and fruitless conversations with people we'd rather not speak to, yet one can't forget they're human too. Otherwise you may just as well be a Nazi or something. And I'd rather not... be a Nazi that is.
Current Mood:  contemplative
Current Music: Elton John -- Tiny Dancer
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