I remember that a few hours ago (possibly while sitting in the bathtub trying to decide whether I'd rather smell like Pears or sandalwood), I told myself to google the phrase "shot through with" as soon as I had a moment. It was for some specific purpose; I'm quite sure of that. But I can't remember what. Argh.
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(1)
11:44:04 PM,Sunday 23 February 2003
Little-known facts about the Rogue Nation of Asafoetida:
The scientific name of the Hawfinch, also known as the European Grosbeak, is Coccothraustes coccothraustes coccothraustes.
Its motto means "The sower Arepo holds the wheels at work".
It has a long-standing rivalry with Antidisestablishmentar, which is beginning to foment wrath among the warmongering sects of the nation.
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10:12:29 PM,Sunday 23 February 2003
"An useless and inauspicious bulkiness"? Sounds about right. Why do all Latin-speaking alchemical rock bands have to be so silly?
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07:46:34 PM,Sunday 23 February 2003
I'm so bourgeois, it hurts. "But at least you're not petit-bourgeois!" my mom would tell me.
...
Like I said.
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11:29:55 AM,Saturday 22 February 2003
Beverly
Meredith
Ashleigh
Evelyn
Lindsey
Andrea
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(1)
09:02:33 PM,Thursday 20 February 2003
What I really want is a lychee nut suspended in a sort of firm bland colloid. But I'll settle for a backrub.
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(2)
08:04:49 PM,Wednesday 19 February 2003
Casual sex is similar in many ways to cannibalism, at least in principle. You don't want to become the other person, or even join yourself to them in any massive and inextricable way; you just want to incorporate a select and particular attribute of them into yourself. Their looks, their wit, their strength, their charm, the way they swivel their hips and bat their eyes -- if you can claim it for your own in a dramatic, decisive way, you get to enjoy the virtue of it. Now, you can slaughter them, boil them up, and feast on their organs, or you can seduce them, stimulate them, and provoke an impressive involuntary spasm of the nervous system, but either way, it's a conquest. Whatever bit of them you most desire, or, to put it another way, whatever bit inflames your own desire to the point at which your own involuntary spasms take effect, is transferred from them into you, and you become richer and more mighty. The rest is left for scraps. I've got a prudish palate... I don't think I'd eat human flesh if it was offered me. But when it comes to the other thing, my scruples are often in danger of being drowned out. That's what hunger is, I guess.
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(6)
06:13:47 PM,Tuesday 18 February 2003
My dad can define "metempsychosis" and "shibboleth" off the top of his head. My dad is the man.
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(7)
11:21:24 PM,Thursday 6 February 2003
The Devil's Interlocutor: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Can I have them back?"
Everything around me is splendor... why do I keep dunking my head in the trough to go bobbing for mediocrity?
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11:39:37 AM,Thursday 6 February 2003
So I've got a job, which I'm actually digging way more than I expected to, and it means money. Whoah. Along with the boring stuff like loans and savings and reimbursing my mom for all the Jarlsberg, I've decided to save up for an mp3 player. I was thinking about going the mp3-cd route, and I probably will spend a bit of time backing up at least all the files I don't have original CDs for onto mp3-CD just so they won't get lost forever in case of some reckless tragedy, but finally I realized I don't think I really care about the distinction between 10-hour CDs and 1-hour CDs, y'know? I want it all together in one purty little doohicky, 666 hours of it, if possible. I've been poring over all these webpages and stuff and have narrowed things down a bit.
For a while, it was between the iPod and two Creative Labs products, the Nomad Jukebox 3 and the Zen. After much thought and careful consideration, I've decided the iPod is a rip-off. Well, that's maybe a little harsh. If I really loved its style and color and precious widdle features maybe it'd be worth paying so much for it, but I think it's a little garish, to tell the truth. It looks like some unpleasant clinical device, like a psyche-sucking navel probe or something. And, yeah, it's small, but that's not such a big deal; I've got deep pockets in the literal but not the metaphorical sense, yagetme? Oh, also, everyone agrees that Creative's offerings give significantly better sound quality. So suck it, Apple.
And, anyway, I've always liked Creative Labs. I remember sixth grade when my brother bought me my first sound card and I stayed up playing with that talking parrot 'til two in the morning, and then again a year or two later when I got my first CD-ROM from Creative... they just rub me the right way, in general. Though I can't say I care much for their naming scheme. "Nomad" is ok -- it sounds all flighty and mysterious -- but "Zen" just, I dunno... I don't want to be all tightassed about it, but it just doesn't seem very classy to name your flyaway consumer junk after an ancient and profound religious sect. It's like trying to market "Big Daddy Loyola's Patented Sacred Heartburn Tablets" or something. A quibble, especially since it's a hot item in Japan, and if they don't object I guess I don't really have the right to, but... y'know.
Of course it's the goods that I gotta go by, not the marketing. The Zen's advantages: it's a short slim silver rectangle, and it's got USB 2.0. Dunno why, but a part of me does keep insisting that mp3 players are better when they've got corners and all this curvy oblong stuff just ain't right, and I'm definitely a sucker for metallic hues in general, silver (and copper, but I think I'm a minority there) in particular. You can make your NJB3 all silver too, but it takes some intercontinental wrangling, apparently. I only have USB 1.1, so if I can't take the molasses I'll either have to buy a Firewire card or a USB 2.0 card, and that means I'm still on the fence about which one suits me better. The NJB3 has everything the Zen has (sans USB 2.0) and all this other groovy shiz (optical and analogue recording, 4-line output, dual battery support (22 hours, no stopping. That's the whole freaking Ring Cycle, yo.)) too, but the main dealbuster is that it comes in a 40-gig model, twice as big as anything else around. I'm leaning pretty heavily toward it at this point, I gotta say. It's bigger, and it's a little funny-looking, but it really seems to be the tops.
Yeah, so, basically I've been mooning around lusting over this thing for the last several weeks, printing up reams of consumer reports, calling stores all over town, ripping its picture out of a magazine and gazing at it rapturously day and night, setting that silver jpg above to my desktop wallpaper... I've got it kinda bad. Not that I'll be able to afford the bugger for at least two more weeks, but at least it's keeping me occupied. I was just doing a little last-minute research when I discovered a potential dark horse, the edigital Odyssey 1000. On the cheap end, brand new -- officially comes out tomorrow, I think -- and looks just like a slightly bloated shiny silver iPod with irridescent lettering and voice recognition. Yeah, like, you say the name of the song you want and it plays. It sounds sort of cool until you think about it and realize its utter useless dorkitudity. It also turns out that it's pretty crude for an iPod copy (it doesn't have a real jog dial, just a mock-up), and the ultimate skidmark: it doesn't accept id3 tags; you have to restructure your entire directory system by artist and album to make it happy. Screw that. It only gets a mention at this late date 'cause of the surreal Johnnyicity. Not only is it named after a prominent program book, but the company which makes it is apparently on shaky (not to mention shady) ground after borrowing a large sum of money on the security of all its concrete and intellectual assets, from Immanuel Kant International Limited, in the British Virgin Islands. Hee.
Anyway, I think my mind's still fairly well made up, and it just remains to work a little more and hoard a little more and then it'll be Mine, All Mine! Muahahahaha![tm] It'll be the first big thing I've bought with my own money since, well, ever. Score.
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(8)
04:24:55 AM,Tuesday 4 February 2003
I wrote a non-micro pantoum a couple years ago. It's all I got... the micro ones hurt my brain to try to write -- too much counting.
Them Two Details
It ain't too unkind an' it ain't too laconic
Might instruct, might deprave
The form's a pantoum an' the meter's Adonic
Them two details is all they gave
"Might instruct, might deprave"
That's what they said, all bent down an' shamanic
Them two details is all they gave
Down in the muck it was cold and chthonic.
That's what they said, all bent down an' shamanic
While they fumbled in her grave
Down in the muck it was cold an' chthonic.
I was whimpering by the cave.
While they fumbled in her grave
Clammy with graylings and probably bubonic
I was whimpering by the cave
Set up a shiver and sweat something chronic
Clammy with graylings and probabyl bubonic,
but they're greedy, and they're brave --
Set up a shiver and sweat something chronic!
You'll learn quick how they behave.
But -- they're greedy, and they're brave.
Their victory's Pyrrhic; their grinning, piranhic
You'll learn quick how they behave
Their victory's Pyrrhic; they're grinning, piranhic
She had been a kitchen slave,
(Their lessons lean toward the Sublime an' Sardonic)
Cradling just the kind they crave
She had been a kitchen slave
Something she read and she'd gone catatonic
Cradling just the kind they crave:
A torn scrappa foolscap, a little gnomonic
Something she'd read and she'd gone catatonic
The form's a pantoum an' the meter's Adonic
A torn scrappa foolscap, a little gnomonic
It ain't too unkind an' it ain't too laconic.
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(1)
03:39:28 AM,Monday 3 February 2003
Hm. I ain't been able to be online for a day (feels like eons) 'cause they had this lobster festival thing and I ate a two pound lobster in the four hours between sleep and work that I could have been blogging. It was really damn good.
And then I worked and slept and woke up and tried to tie my bowtie and failed and got slightly gussied and went to a concert performance of The Marriage of Figaro, in English, with Missoulians. I was thinking about writing a big old punctilious review of it but I don't know if that's quite fair and I doubt anyone would be interested, so I'll keep my comments very brief and direct them mostly at any member of the cast who happens to be googling themselves:
Petey Torma, I gotta say I am damn impressed. I know you were my rival back when we were competing Rumpelstiltskins, but now that I'm not such a dink I can speak freely. You've got one hell of a voice -- the best in the cast, really, or maybe a close second with the guy who played Bartolo, and you make a damn cute Cherubino, even if you played it kinda broadly. Well, kinda... ok, you were mugging, but so was everyone else in the cast and, hell. I forgive you. Good work, stud.
Carla Horn: you suck. Everything my voice teacher said about you was true. You won the Metropolitan opera contest probably because you've got a loud and moderately pleasant voice which might still be salvagable. But quit putting on airs and strutting around with a face like an affronted Pekingnese. Your intonation is terrible, your vibrato makes me seasick, and you obviously can't be bothered to sing with anything resembling human feeling. Do something about it, or you'll be up there with Florence Foster Jenkins. Ugh.
Sam Childers, first bassoonist: gorgeous. radiant. incredible. You and that EJ guy, I can't find the program, so I don't remember his last name, were absolutely the best part of the performance, no contest. Soulful, limpid tone, witty phrasing, just, like... everything. I think I played with you once -- didn't you go to Big Sky? Or was it Sentinel? Anyway, you rule unbearably. I shouted "bravi fagotti" three times after your various triumphs, but I don't know if you heard me. But take my heartiest congratulations. And shoot that timpani player before it's too late. Talk about "non so piu cosa son cosa faccio..." {shudder}
It was Missoula so, yeah, the strings were out of tune, the voices (particularly Figaro, who was otherwise animated and charming, but also Susanna, whose technique was a little unformed around the edges but otherwise sang so very very purely and sweetly) were nearly always too soft to be heard clearly, there were a couple trainwrecks, and it suffered from the lameness of all operas chopped and stuffed into concert form (It was in English, there was no recitative, and you still had to read from the score? Weak.), but there were some lovely moments -- the chorus after the "Contessa, perdona" bit was really glorious, I've got to admit, in spite of myself -- it was done with a light touch and plenty of joy, and overall it was worth giving $20 to the hospice foundation just for a couple sparks of real music in the middle of the ambitious floundering. Hell, it's way-ass better than I could ever do. So, um. Yay.
Now I go read "The Golden Compass" which I have been wanting to read for ages and found yesterday for forty cents at Goodwill. I've got the house to myself most of the weekend (my parents went up to Bigfork), but I don't have anything terrifically shocking planned so far. I'm still checking on the rate of combat-trained razorback warthogs by the hour. More as it happens.
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(2)
02:55:10 AM,Sunday 2 February 2003
Strangely, and I can't quite explain how, this picture precisely sums up my state of mind at the moment.
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(6)
10:37:30 PM,Thursday 30 January 2003
Yes! Ha! This movie is going to rule!
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(1)
11:21:17 PM,Wednesday 29 January 2003
It is P.A.R.Q.O.Y.B.D. and I, for one, intend to do my part.
Do you like sardines?
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(13)
08:38:06 PM,Wednesday 29 January 2003
It makes me happy that I once unconsciously emulated Theodora without ever even knowing her.
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(2)
08:31:29 PM,Wednesday 29 January 2003
In happier news, I'm gonna go see a dude with a theramin tonight.
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(5)
10:08:19 PM,Monday 27 January 2003
{sigh}
It's no surprise. I knew it all along, of course. I'm not stupid. But I did hope, against all evidence... well, now it's official. {sob} I'm not a mezzo. I'm a {shudder} lyric or a lyrico-spinto or (I think she was just saying this to make me feel better) maybe even by some vast unforseen miracle a wannabe dramatic. Fat chance. I mean, it's ridiculous, I know -- I'm not an opera singer. I've never planned to be an opera singer. I have never made the slightest effort in the direction of being an opera singer. I don't want to be a professional singer of any kind. I'm an instrumentalist, for God's sake. I've made my peace with being a happy slacker amateur a long long time ago. Lord knows what I'm going to do for a living, but music ain't it. That's fine. But sometimes it's nice to dally in the hypotheticals... No Sesto for me. Orfeo? As if! No Arsace. ("You're no coluratura either, my dear...") No Serse or Komponist or Orlando Furioso or Cesare or Romeo or Octavian or Ariodante or even Cherufriggingbino. What's left? Oscar. The little twerp. Or, or... {curls lip} Sophie. If I'm lucky. BLEAGH. I don't got no low notes. I don't got no rich, thrilling, dark, vibrant, virile, ringing brilliance. I could never cut an album called "Chestnuts for Chest Nuts".
I'm sweet and light and delicate and I can sing up to an F# above the staff, whoop-de-doo. My mom said helpfully, "Well, there's always steroids." Har har. I don't care that I'm short and weedy. I don't care that I get my ass kicked in boxing matches and lose every arm-wrestling match I'm ever in. I don't even care that I'm not all that smart, compared to most people I know, even though I live most of my life inside my head. It's comfortable in my body. It's comfortable in my mind. I got no complaints. I just hoped that maybe I'd be stranded in some podunk town in the middle of noplace and a travelling opera company would come through and they'd say "Our Cherubino has the mumps, whatever shall we do?" And I'd jump off the fence and flick away my hayseed and say, "Well, shucks, I reckon I know that role purty near as good as anyone else round these parts." And they'd say, "Hurrah! We're saved! Just go put on those breeches." And, um... heh. All right. That particular dumbass fantasy is officially all washed up. I'll go get myself a new one. I'm strong. I'm resolute. I should have ditched the whole idea long ago? Yeah, well, Fach you.
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(8)
10:07:17 PM,Monday 27 January 2003
