10.31.2009

What I meant with that list was that I have finally been making enough time for (in no particular order): friends, classes, work, a mutually-beneficial thing with TMBBITW, preparations for the future, my health, and my parents. Success!
Enduring hunger became part of one's patriotic duty. Posters went up in the capital, Pyongyang, touting a new slogan, "Let's Eat Two Meals a Day." The North Korean government offered a variety of explanations. People were told that the government was stockpiling food to feed the starving South Korean masses on the blessed day of reunification, or that the United States had instituted a blockade against North Korea. North Korean television ran a documentary about a man whose stomach burst, it was claimed, from eating too much rice....The foreign press began reporting on North Korean's food shortages in the early nineteen-nineties, and in 1992 the country's news service issued an indignant reply: "All people live a happy life without worries about food in our land. The state supplies the people with food at a cheap price next to nothing so that people do not know how much rice costs. This is the reality of the northern half of Korea."
--Barbara Demick, The Good Cook

The reality of North Korea was that 10% of the population was dying of starvation. This article reminded me of the class I took on the USSR in which I learned how frighteningly easy it is to exercise control over a population. Constructions of reality, ya know?

A BAKER'S DOZEN OF :)

01. Submitting that stupid application
02. Seeing UCB perform
03. Hangin' with friends (and UCB) till the wee hours
04. Making cinnamon buns at 3 am
05. Not going to class the next day
06. Ginkgo fights
07. An airing of grievances
08. Growth
09. You've got to be kidding me with this weather, it is too perfect
10. I am a statistics genius
11. Reading outside with Justin and a Dixie cup full of M&Ms
12. A car full of my loved ones, belting out Matchbox 20 songs
13. Everything about last night

10.28.2009

I HAVE TIME FOR THIS NOW

You see, I’m in the middle of a great experiment. I’ve tried it on a guinea-pig and it seemed to work. But then a guinea-pig can’t tell you anything. And you can’t explain to it how to come back.
--C. S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew

10.27.2009

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Then suddenly--whaddya know, I'm happy again.

10.25.2009

AN EMPTY WHITE ROOM

He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad...Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad.
--Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

OO-DE-LALLY OO-DE-LALLY



Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?
--Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick
The to-do list gets longer, but today I baked cookies (browned butter is the king of all mouthfeels).

When this is all over I will kick my legs and celebrate. In the meantime I will receive upsetting phone calls, I will hate not feeling in control, I will allow myself to be overwhelmed, and then I will pull. Myself. Together.

10.23.2009

These are things you fret about in your kitchen in your silent house with no one but the maybe-roaches for company. These are things that can make you sad if you're not careful.



Plink,
plink,


plink.

10.21.2009

Today I took a nap and now I am electric.


Why yes that is me right there can't you see me smiling.
Altman: If you had a single piece of advice to offer young journalists, what would it be?

Gladwell: The issue is not writing. It's what you write about. One of my favorite columnists is Jonathan Weil, who writes for Bloomberg. He broke the Enron story, and he broke it because he's one of the very few mainstream journalists in America who really knows how to read a balance sheet. That means Jonathan Weil will always have a job, and will always be read, and will always have something interesting to say. He's unique. Most accountants don't write articles, and most journalists don't know anything about accounting. Aspiring journalists should stop going to journalism programs and go to some other kind of grad school.
--Alex Altman, Q&A with Malcolm Gladwell (via Philip)


Every goddammed science writer I ever met with (and man oh man I met a lot of science writers in Chicago) told me to go to journalism school out of undergrad. What terrible advice! I told myself and anyone that would listen (lulz, sry Kt, Boyland, Ellis, Timothy, Martin, etc. etc. etc.) that journalism is a skill, one that I could learn at any point in my life, and that it seemed better to know something before you start to write about it. Oh, Malcolm. I always knew I liked you.

AUTUMNFEST09 PART IV

"It's fall, fuckfaces. You're either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you're not."
--Colin Nissan, It's Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers




This is best experienced as a dramatic reading by Martin, but not all of you are lucky enough to have Martin readily available for such treats.

10.20.2009

He shrugged. “It’s a violent game. I suppose if you want to you could play touch football or flag football. For me, as a Jewish kid from Long Island, I’d be just as happy if we did that. But I don’t know if the fans would be happy with that. So what else do you do?”

Casson is right. There is nothing else to be done, not so long as fans stand and cheer. We are in love with football players, with their courage and grit, and nothing else—neither considerations of science nor those of morality—can compete with the destructive power of that love.

--Malcolm Gladwell, Offensive Play via Boyland (or Ellis?)



I emailed this article to Jim Tressel, Gordon Gee, and the Vice President of Athletics.

10.18.2009

AUTUMNFEST09 PART III

We drove to Hocking Hills on square tires, watching the trees explode and relating the tale of Urgan Nagru through mouthfuls of Almond Joy. Once there, we closed our eyes and lost our balance while our toes grew numb at Old Man's Cave. In Aunt Beth's cabin we thawed by the fire with warm food and warm dogs at hand. On our way home, on the blackest of black roads we stopped the car and trampled over fallow fields until we reached the center of the universe--and then we looked up.

10.16.2009

I think with a lot of daughters it's impossible to see your mother cry without becoming overwhelmed with sadness yourself or maybe crying yourself. Because even during periods when you're not getting along with your mother, there's this kind of connection, there's this emotional connection I think a lot of us have felt where it's just...if your mother's crying you can't...you are too. It's like, it's impossible not to.
--Terry Gross in an interview with Ruth Reichel

10.15.2009


The thing is, we sit in a room on our laptops and come up with these ideas that we think are awesome and wildly hilarious but on Facebook they probably just translate into unfunny and potentially creepy. Not this, though. Diana's status is objectively hilarious and Philip's baby pictures are objectively awesome.

10.13.2009

WAITING FOR FORTINBRAS

I am experiencing a wrinkle in time and don't know whether to find it more or less reassuring that someone else I know is doing the same. What up, 2007! You weren't so great the first time around, but maybe this time things will be different.


The thing is, the ability to make it different is mine and mine alone. I don't have to answer my phone when I leave work tonight. And maybe I won't.

LISTEN TO ME

But when, at the end of my sophomore year, I became a philosophy major and started doing my first seriously pretentious thinking, I became a vegetarian again. The kind of active forgetting that I was sure meat eating required felt too paradoxical to the intellectual life I was trying to shape. I didn’t know the details of factory farming, but like most everyone, I knew the gist: it is miserable for animals, the environment, farmers, public health, biodiversity, rural communities, global poverty and so on. I thought life could, should and must conform to the mold of reason, period. You can imagine how annoying this made me.
--Jonathan Safran Foer, Against Meat



This is such a good piece of writing; I can't wait for his next book.

MEMORIAL IS UNDERAPPRECIATED

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This thread continues for a while (luv u, Tim).

10.11.2009

SITTING DUCKS



Reversible (!) duck print (!!) raincoat (!!!), $2 (!!!!)

10.10.2009

BONNIE P. BILLY MADE AN ALBUM ABOUT THIS OR SOMETHING

Something I have been seeing/feeling a lot recently is the importance of knowing when to let go. In the past it has been very difficult for me to let go of people, but there seems to be maturity in understanding that there can be very very good people who are not necessarily good for you--or even just not good for you at the time. It is okay to consider and then reconsider decisions about who is deserving of your love and care and affection (your love and care and affection being, after all, of incredible value) and the nice thing is that these decisions are rarely irreversible. Oftentimes, a person who may not seem like any sort of positive influence now can reappear later in a completely different and enriching way. On the other hand, it is also a good idea to periodically evaluate your reasoning for valuing the people that you do. If your reasons are lacking, then maybe it is time to let go. That isn't meant to sound harsh, but instead could lead to a greater appreciation for the people who enhance your life in a multitude of ways.

And uh, for good measure--check out this home. From the creators of this blog, which is a current fave.

10.09.2009

Nabokov smoked a cigarette and polluted and gave everyone around him cancer a little, thereby increasing the pain and suffering in the world.
--I wish I remembered because I've found it so wonderful for so long, but even Google is of no help

HONEY AND BLACKBERRY SCONES WITH MAPLE ICING, TOO

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Yayyayayayya! Thank you, Philip :)



10.07.2009

YOU DON'T HAVE TO STUDY TO GET STRAIGHT A'S






Our family Thanksgiving dinner is going to be Redwall-themed. Our study parties devolve into superfluous Facebook activity. We just get so excited! About Narnia, about Redwall, about meadowcream and scones and strawberry fizz. Brady Stag Hare, Martin the Warrior, Justin Vorbeak, Samkim--we make a good team. I am a lucky lady.
[via Garance]
Things that seem yellow: maiden aunts, gumdrops, diffidence, the letter H, all women's poems (except Emily Dickenson's), lewd suggestions, debt, the seventies, Nat "King" Cole's song "China Gate," sadness, the Yale English department faculty, the name as well as the country of Brazil, August, the House of Congress, the word "hills," lampshades, physicians, insurance agents, the thin squealing noises of children in playgrounds, political compromise, the state of Nebraska, illness in general, old wagon wheels, whispering, and the vapid name Catherine.
--Alexander Theroux


The vapidity of the name Catherine is a result of spelling it with a C, which we all learned from Anne of Avonlea.

PERFECT PERFECTION WHOA

Diana: hang on you're not in 145 are you?
and I'm at the library
it's about to close so I'm packing up
me: omg
Diana: because I'm in stats 145...
me: are you taking 145
Diana: no!
NO
me: YES
Diana: YES
me: YES
Diana: OMG
YES
me: HOLY SHIT
Diana: HAHAHAHA
PERFECT
ahahahahhaha
me: OMG I AM ECSTATIC
Diana: when is your section?
OMG ME TOOOOOOOO
me: how did we not discuss this?!
Diana: mine is hahahahIDK 830 in the morning MWF
bleh
me: hahahahaha
Diana: but we can STUDY TOGETHER!!!!!
me: mine is MWF 1.30
YES YES YES
a
Diana: yes AND DO HW TOGETHER
me: nd
do homework together!
Diana: YOU BITCH I HAD CLASS DURING THAT TIME
me: YES!!!!!!!!!
HAHAHAHA
Diana: YESSSSS
HAHAHA
OH GOD
I NEED TO PACK UP
THE LIBRARY IS CLOSING!
me: NOOOOO
Diana: man, another instance where i need caps plus lock, you know?
hahaha
me: WHEN IS YOUR RECITATION?!
Diana: hahahaha
1130 TR you?
me: so your quiz is thursday?
Diana: man, I didn't do my hw yet!
YES
OMG
me: 2.30 WF
Diana: PERFECT
PERFECTION
WHOA
me: hahahahahah


When I talk to Diana, everything feels like the best thing ever. Unflagging enthusiasm! Also, stats study buddy!!

10.06.2009

GOOD MORNING

I just want to have these songs that will make people be like, "Alright, let's dance here in the kitchen, baby."

--Devendra Banhart

10.04.2009

NOT YET DEAD

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We picked apples and made promises of the autumn sort.
Then a different we cooked dinner with Neil Young* and Paul Simon and it was delicious, warm, and joyful.
Then another we flipped a coin and saw a dance (which was really many dances) by many dancers (but really one) and it was chilly but that was okay.


I have a bed now.
And I haven't been sad in a while.







*Tomorrow night is the harvest moon, celebrate.

AUTUMNFEST09 PART I


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Courtesy of Ian!

10.02.2009

Jeni's seasonal ice creams include Pumpkin 5-Spice, Smoked Chocolate with Handmade Marshmallows, and Red Hot Apple Cider Sorbet. I love fall.

10.01.2009

I felt a little good after reading this book because I am pretty sure that when I am almost fifty I will also not understand anything in my life, it's good to know that I am not alone in this.
--Tao Lin, The Easter Parade by Richard Yates

I don’t like to look at Penélope directly. It is too overwhelming.
--Woody Allen