Oh, pissy me. The red dragon's approaching. I can feel hard little knots of anger (or maybe gas, but practically speaking it's the same difference) building in my stomach, and I know I've been spoiling for a fight for at least 30 hours already. So I'm going to write at least one positive thing today as the next few entries will probably be sweary catalogues of things I wish would die and stupid things people have said to me, like "Can I ask you a question?" or "I know no-one's interested in this but me, but . . ."
Okay. I must say, I love my job these days. It's so nice to go into the office and enjoy sitting there for the however many billions of hours that had me staring angrily at the clock everywhere else I've ever worked. It's such pleasant work. Pity the pay is so shit and the newsletter is propagandist. But then, aren't they all? I think the pleasantness of this job is one of the things that pushed my subconcious into suddenly informing me we're going back to university if someone gives us the money for it - we know we can't stay here forever, but there's no way we're going back to shitwork, even if it pays us five times as much. It's difficult enough as it is to get out of bed in the morning . . . lovely lovely bed . . .
Alright, there's my gesture to decency. Now let it begin. How the fuck do people get through an undergrad degree without learning how to write a reasonable introduction and conclusion to a paper? And why do they use so many rhetorical questions? How am I supposed to clean that up? Fuck. If you pay tuition do you just get passed automatically, or what? Where's the education? Where's the love? Ah, fuck everything, ever.
mercoledì, giugno 21, 2006
martedì, giugno 20, 2006
The Guardian is a snotrag
Recently I made the mistake of sending someone who I knew liked the Guardian an alert about a news digest they’re offering – with the message attached that I don’t know why she likes the Guardian so much because the reporters use too many commas. I shouldn’t have made that comment, since obviously she didn’t care, but here’s the thing. The Guardian bothers me. I think it’s slovenly. As a news outlet I hold it just a few notches above the Washington Post. I read them because it’s my job, but they’re both messy punditry and I’d rather read the Economist, the New York Times, even the Globe & Fucking Mail. I’d rather read a commie newsletter and balance it out with the Wall Street Journal. I’ll pass on information about it to oblige a friend, but I refuse to ignore the fact I’m fucking sick of “left” publications that mix up counter-culture and social revolution - and use crappy punctuation while they do it. But I didn’t say any of that. I just commented on the Guardian’s abuse of commas.
Anyways, she got stroppy, saying that even though it was sloppy it chose better things to report internationally than any other paper. I mentioned the International Herald Tribune – a paper which also has the benefit of apparently being proofed before it’s published (I didn’t say that last bit out loud, though). She said she didn’t like the IHT because she’d read it on a plane once and couldn’t get into it. What the fuck do I say to that? Nothing. It'd be like trying to convince Adam Smith man wasn't born into a garden so urban centres may have pre-dated agriculture. I wish people were legally obliged to read three newspapers a day. Or else to read a different newspaper every day. That would be so keen. It’s far, far too easy to choose something that doesn’t challenge its readers – playing to the choir, playing to the choir. How the hell we’re supposed to figure each other out like that, I’ve got no idea.
Anyways, she got stroppy, saying that even though it was sloppy it chose better things to report internationally than any other paper. I mentioned the International Herald Tribune – a paper which also has the benefit of apparently being proofed before it’s published (I didn’t say that last bit out loud, though). She said she didn’t like the IHT because she’d read it on a plane once and couldn’t get into it. What the fuck do I say to that? Nothing. It'd be like trying to convince Adam Smith man wasn't born into a garden so urban centres may have pre-dated agriculture. I wish people were legally obliged to read three newspapers a day. Or else to read a different newspaper every day. That would be so keen. It’s far, far too easy to choose something that doesn’t challenge its readers – playing to the choir, playing to the choir. How the hell we’re supposed to figure each other out like that, I’ve got no idea.
lunedì, giugno 19, 2006
Lazy sow
This weekend was spectacularly unproductive. I worked some on my proposal – but so little! I’m de-motivated until I hear from the ex-advisor, which I’d better soon because last week he did an interview series on Canada which I know full well was informed by my thesis. Mostly I slept because the heat has been turning my head. I don’t like excessive heat – it was actually pleasant to me when I opened the roof door today and found crappy cool rain. My cat was relieved too. She, when it’s hot, loves to be brushed down with water. I thought cats hated water, but there you go. It makes her coat look a treat.
And I kept reading the Economy of Cities. Jane Jacobs has a great style: you can tell someone told her to explain her idea so that the dumbest person reading could understand (which is probably me, during a heatwave), and she’ll introduce paragraphs with sentences like “Here is another example of what I mean, included because I like it.” What she liked, in that case, was how the industry of fire-carrying probably spawned the industry of pottery. Containers for holding fire were often clay-lined, and when they were old enough and the rushes binding them up for carrying fell off, the fired clay would be pretty from the rush-prints.
It isn’t academic writing because of all the visible personal enthusiasm and involvement in her own ideas, but has a lovely academic clarity. I’d love to write like Jane Jacobs. I wouldn’t mind thinking like her, either. She’s full of pertinent ideas and evaluations that don’t come off as too loaded or bandwagon-y. There was just a great bit where she lay into Adam Smith and Karl Marx in the same sentence for relying too much on accepted wisdoms instead of truths. So nice! So lateral! I hope when I get old and wandering in my mind, I can still wander laterally.
I hate being at work today. Our Montréal contact is an irredeemable stupid lazy jerk of a bitch. In September a good quarter of my insistence on a healthy raise will be having had to work with her. Anyways, to cheer me (and you if necessary) up, here's the bassist from Megababe, the first act we saw during NXNE. If you look at the picture full size, you can see an image of her in the view screen of one of the legion of creepy filming fanboys. YECH. So don't look at it full size.
And I kept reading the Economy of Cities. Jane Jacobs has a great style: you can tell someone told her to explain her idea so that the dumbest person reading could understand (which is probably me, during a heatwave), and she’ll introduce paragraphs with sentences like “Here is another example of what I mean, included because I like it.” What she liked, in that case, was how the industry of fire-carrying probably spawned the industry of pottery. Containers for holding fire were often clay-lined, and when they were old enough and the rushes binding them up for carrying fell off, the fired clay would be pretty from the rush-prints.
It isn’t academic writing because of all the visible personal enthusiasm and involvement in her own ideas, but has a lovely academic clarity. I’d love to write like Jane Jacobs. I wouldn’t mind thinking like her, either. She’s full of pertinent ideas and evaluations that don’t come off as too loaded or bandwagon-y. There was just a great bit where she lay into Adam Smith and Karl Marx in the same sentence for relying too much on accepted wisdoms instead of truths. So nice! So lateral! I hope when I get old and wandering in my mind, I can still wander laterally.
I hate being at work today. Our Montréal contact is an irredeemable stupid lazy jerk of a bitch. In September a good quarter of my insistence on a healthy raise will be having had to work with her. Anyways, to cheer me (and you if necessary) up, here's the bassist from Megababe, the first act we saw during NXNE. If you look at the picture full size, you can see an image of her in the view screen of one of the legion of creepy filming fanboys. YECH. So don't look at it full size.
Also, when I saw this, I laughed out loud - the milking bit especially. I know it looks good, but RUN ladies, RUN! Those beautiful, milk-fed lickable exteriors, calm demeanours and fuckable smiles hide depths of madness that makes football hooliganism look like a mild-mannered discussion of whether Tom Selleck's political views are Libertarian or Conservative. But have I downloaded the spot? Yes. Yes, I have.
domenica, giugno 18, 2006
Lessons from Elvis
Elvis was an important teacher for me; he taught me how to couples-dance to mid-tempo songs and how to roll spliffs - without him you might have had to put up with another nickname. The Dread Pirate What-A-Mess, for example.
When I was a wee girleen and pining over some young man, Elvis saw my mental agony and gave me this advice:
1. The second you know you like a boy in a special way, make a pass at him.
2. When you make the pass at him, propose a specific yet generic activity for the close future that involves a change of location.
3. Then chat, and wait for him to initiate the sexiness so he feels the thrill of the chase.
So that sort of scenario would go: “Hi! My name’s Mistress La Spliffe! What’s yours?” (Response) “Say, would you like to get a coffee with me in Yorkville in 20 minutes?” (Response) (Activity+chat) "Why . . . why . . . alright."
Elvis’s rationale was that by making a pass right away, you had no time for nervousness, excessive horniness, disproportionate disappointment or disproportionate joy. In proposing a specific activity in a new locale, conditions make the passee more likely to say yes, as it gives them the chance to start thinking of you in detailed sexual terms over a low pressure activity in a low pressure place. Finally, Elvis pointed out most people will hit/fall for anything if they think it’s their own idea, so I should concentrate on the chatting to inform myself whether or not I in fact and indeed wanted to be hit/fell for.
Seems simple, no? He taught me that when I was fourteen; if I’d followed it more often I’d probably be a full time lovin’ quarterback by now, as my attempts were usually successful. So here’s my question: if men are supposed to be the seducers, why do they fuck up the formula time after time after time? Why do they get drunk, try to kiss you out of the blue, and then get sulky when you react with reflexive disgust? Why do they say things like “uh, you wanna do something some time?” It’s bugging me today because yesterday was the first time in a long time a man actually got the formula right.
Man: (approaching Mistress La Spliffe as she looks at World Cup schedual at the gym) What team are you following?
Spliffe: England. But they’re going to lose.
Man: Let me introduce myself. I’m Curt.
Spliffe: Hi, Curt. I’m Mistress La Spliffe.
Man: Do you want to play racquetball?
Spliffe: No, sorry, I have a bum knee.
Man: Ah. I’ve seen you around and I think you’re really pretty. Are you single?
Spliffe: No. But thanks for asking.
Man: Just thought I’d try . . .
How fucking hard is that? I had to say no, but I wasn’t creeped out. If I hadn’t had to say no, I probably wouldn’t have, though this man wasn’t my type. And you know what else? He didn’t stare at my tits while he said it. Take notes, male readers. This sort of shit could really cut down cross-gender strife and resentment. Elvis was beating women off with a shitty stick until he settled down with the Vermeer Lady, and you never heard him bad-mouthing women because he understood what they wanted and they understood what he wanted.
Take notes female readers, too. We have a greater propensity to build castles in the sky with men we’ve never even given the opportunity of thinking dirty about us, and then if they don’t materialize we end up hating on the whole gender for disappointing us. And now our physical/verbal communication is so bad, so divorced from reality, people are turning en masse to internet dating, taking out all the variables of excitement and hormones and straight animal attraction – that marvellous first thirty seconds when you look at someone and say to yourself, “YES. Hmm. I think I’ll try coffee this time.”
When I was a wee girleen and pining over some young man, Elvis saw my mental agony and gave me this advice:
1. The second you know you like a boy in a special way, make a pass at him.
2. When you make the pass at him, propose a specific yet generic activity for the close future that involves a change of location.
3. Then chat, and wait for him to initiate the sexiness so he feels the thrill of the chase.
So that sort of scenario would go: “Hi! My name’s Mistress La Spliffe! What’s yours?” (Response) “Say, would you like to get a coffee with me in Yorkville in 20 minutes?” (Response) (Activity+chat) "Why . . . why . . . alright."
Elvis’s rationale was that by making a pass right away, you had no time for nervousness, excessive horniness, disproportionate disappointment or disproportionate joy. In proposing a specific activity in a new locale, conditions make the passee more likely to say yes, as it gives them the chance to start thinking of you in detailed sexual terms over a low pressure activity in a low pressure place. Finally, Elvis pointed out most people will hit/fall for anything if they think it’s their own idea, so I should concentrate on the chatting to inform myself whether or not I in fact and indeed wanted to be hit/fell for.
Seems simple, no? He taught me that when I was fourteen; if I’d followed it more often I’d probably be a full time lovin’ quarterback by now, as my attempts were usually successful. So here’s my question: if men are supposed to be the seducers, why do they fuck up the formula time after time after time? Why do they get drunk, try to kiss you out of the blue, and then get sulky when you react with reflexive disgust? Why do they say things like “uh, you wanna do something some time?” It’s bugging me today because yesterday was the first time in a long time a man actually got the formula right.
Man: (approaching Mistress La Spliffe as she looks at World Cup schedual at the gym) What team are you following?
Spliffe: England. But they’re going to lose.
Man: Let me introduce myself. I’m Curt.
Spliffe: Hi, Curt. I’m Mistress La Spliffe.
Man: Do you want to play racquetball?
Spliffe: No, sorry, I have a bum knee.
Man: Ah. I’ve seen you around and I think you’re really pretty. Are you single?
Spliffe: No. But thanks for asking.
Man: Just thought I’d try . . .
How fucking hard is that? I had to say no, but I wasn’t creeped out. If I hadn’t had to say no, I probably wouldn’t have, though this man wasn’t my type. And you know what else? He didn’t stare at my tits while he said it. Take notes, male readers. This sort of shit could really cut down cross-gender strife and resentment. Elvis was beating women off with a shitty stick until he settled down with the Vermeer Lady, and you never heard him bad-mouthing women because he understood what they wanted and they understood what he wanted.
Take notes female readers, too. We have a greater propensity to build castles in the sky with men we’ve never even given the opportunity of thinking dirty about us, and then if they don’t materialize we end up hating on the whole gender for disappointing us. And now our physical/verbal communication is so bad, so divorced from reality, people are turning en masse to internet dating, taking out all the variables of excitement and hormones and straight animal attraction – that marvellous first thirty seconds when you look at someone and say to yourself, “YES. Hmm. I think I’ll try coffee this time.”
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