“Sell out with me tonight…”
When there’s only two choices, there’s only one way to compromise.
Take the money.
Run.
(It wouldn’t be an overplayed song that I hate if I weren’t forced to listen to it all the time.)
“…They tell me it’s cool / I just don’t believe it…”
7/30/10
Inception mythologically explores the dream/reality dichotomy. A Theseus figure attempts to emerge from the maze and return home, dealing with father-figures, abandonment, and the monster in the middle. I was expecting there to be a more explicit revelation regarding Ariadne, literally and symbolically: while she certainly sets the thread to be followed, for her abandonment to fully parallel would require a bit more of an analogue than is necessarily present within the movie- although the final scene could certainly hint to that. Nevertheless, it is even thematically appropriate that the answer is as indefinite and as derivative as any mythological idea is, different entrances to the same labyrinth.
7/29/10
“I want to be rich and I want lots of money / I don't care about clever, I don't care about funny…”
Society is an economy: a complex system of buyers who don’t have, sellers who don’t need. None of who can see the beauty for the trees; for they have gone too far into the forest. Morality is as abstract as time; the only difference between one year and the next is what arbitrary location some arbitrary person was born. Post-apocalypse began the day parents opened their eyes.
“…And it's not my fault, it's how I'm programmed to function / I'll look at the sun and I'll look in the mirror…”
Identity is the difference between what one is doing and what one is thinking of doing.
“…I don't know what's right and what's real anymore / And I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore…”
Society is an economy: a complex system of buyers who don’t have, sellers who don’t need. None of who can see the beauty for the trees; for they have gone too far into the forest. Morality is as abstract as time; the only difference between one year and the next is what arbitrary location some arbitrary person was born. Post-apocalypse began the day parents opened their eyes.
“…And it's not my fault, it's how I'm programmed to function / I'll look at the sun and I'll look in the mirror…”
Identity is the difference between what one is doing and what one is thinking of doing.
“…I don't know what's right and what's real anymore / And I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore…”
7/27/10
7/25/10
7/24/10
“What I hate most about the Socratic method is how well it works.”
Showing up 15 minutes late to class trying to pass off an incompletely done assignment is not a successful solution to forgetting to do homework, not when the class only consists of 2 people, 1 of who is the professor.
It’s like it lied in the application process, but it’s so much harder to fire an employer than an employee.
Showing up 15 minutes late to class trying to pass off an incompletely done assignment is not a successful solution to forgetting to do homework, not when the class only consists of 2 people, 1 of who is the professor.
It’s like it lied in the application process, but it’s so much harder to fire an employer than an employee.
7/22/10
Someone crossing the street got mostly across and then turned back, and seemed very flustered about it. I wanted to tell her, it’s okay, we all do it; but she had already started to cross in the other direction.
Still time to change the road you’re on.
She commits not with her heart but with her schedule.
Still time to change the road you’re on.
She commits not with her heart but with her schedule.
7/21/10
7/19/10
Okay, pretending we're on Amazing Race or something, here's my advice:
Excellent leadin.
Turn off your computer (if you need to save current tabs as favorite, do that, but off off). Go outside, and (not using the internet) find a place that sells Italian newspapers. Buy one, and go to the library or a coffee shop, and translate an article, even if you have to look up every word.
Wow, that is much more Amazing Race than I was expecting.
Non-elimination.
But I mean, ask people. Go all Cash Cab street-shoutout on it.
sh You’re mixing game show metaphors. I should go before you make it worse.
Excellent leadin.
Turn off your computer (if you need to save current tabs as favorite, do that, but off off). Go outside, and (not using the internet) find a place that sells Italian newspapers. Buy one, and go to the library or a coffee shop, and translate an article, even if you have to look up every word.
Wow, that is much more Amazing Race than I was expecting.
Non-elimination.
But I mean, ask people. Go all Cash Cab street-shoutout on it.
sh You’re mixing game show metaphors. I should go before you make it worse.
7/17/10
7/16/10
In some cities, with a late start, after prior events running long, when the train being taken is single-tracked delayed, the street being closed for Transformer shoot location planning only makes all the more final a hopeless evening’s concession that inception is futile.
In any other city, such events would be of misery; but I am in Chicago.
I still don’t want to buy resume paper, he said, riding the el at 2am. I still want to buy a giant stuffed tiger.
In any other city, such events would be of misery; but I am in Chicago.
I still don’t want to buy resume paper, he said, riding the el at 2am. I still want to buy a giant stuffed tiger.
7/14/10
7/13/10
7/12/10
7/11/10
7/10/10
“You can see in your eyes / That you stop believing…”
Ah, to be in the decline of the late Cold War again, when the horizons were watched with fear and hope; when why mattered less than what; when the Russian sleeper agents in our neighborhoods could simply be assumed; and life would just go on.
“…And you go on day-to-day / While your heart just fades away…”
Governments treated captured spies like children at playground games; instead of youths having to navigate geopolitical and socioeconomic paradigms just to get through the day.
“…It’s much too revealing / You can talk your way out / But you can’t fight the feeling…”
This decade is neither a time of hope nor of ignorance. Once complacency was all that was foreign; now inevitability is.
“…That you’re fooling yourself to be here and not belong…”
Listen up, comrades: you might learn something.
“…There’s just no way out…”
Ah, to be in the decline of the late Cold War again, when the horizons were watched with fear and hope; when why mattered less than what; when the Russian sleeper agents in our neighborhoods could simply be assumed; and life would just go on.
“…And you go on day-to-day / While your heart just fades away…”
Governments treated captured spies like children at playground games; instead of youths having to navigate geopolitical and socioeconomic paradigms just to get through the day.
“…It’s much too revealing / You can talk your way out / But you can’t fight the feeling…”
This decade is neither a time of hope nor of ignorance. Once complacency was all that was foreign; now inevitability is.
“…That you’re fooling yourself to be here and not belong…”
Listen up, comrades: you might learn something.
“…There’s just no way out…”
7/9/10
A) A > B
B) A < B
C) A = B
D) there is not enough information
The problem with the SATs is that D is not an answer. Sure, there is a logical necessity to account for it. But D is not an answer to a question: it is an indeterminant between question and answer. D is a lack of an answer made into an answer; it begs the question it purportedly answers. For in real life, one cannot answer D. Nor does not have the luxury of being able to analyze everything into complete conclusion. D is an artificial construction of an imperfect society that accepts acknowledged ignorance as the end, rather than a step.
Time’s up, pencils down.
B) A < B
C) A = B
D) there is not enough information
The problem with the SATs is that D is not an answer. Sure, there is a logical necessity to account for it. But D is not an answer to a question: it is an indeterminant between question and answer. D is a lack of an answer made into an answer; it begs the question it purportedly answers. For in real life, one cannot answer D. Nor does not have the luxury of being able to analyze everything into complete conclusion. D is an artificial construction of an imperfect society that accepts acknowledged ignorance as the end, rather than a step.
Time’s up, pencils down.
7/7/10
7/6/10
While I am not in any way familiar with the original source on which the Last Airbender is purportedly based, that does not stop me from cruelly laughing at the casting, the acting, the dialogue, the characterizations, the showing, the telling- really, every part of this movie. Indeed, admiring the hilarious horrendousness is the only reason and way to see it. Although, such scorn only gets so far through; the rest of my coping consisted of either envisioning a Fifth Element crossover or a video game based on the film. For the material on screen almost works as is as a video game, and better than a movie: an quadruply balanced play dynamic, minimal plot to relay flat protagonists from one encounter to the next, and heavy pauses after every line of dialogue as if to prompt the pressing of a button to bring up the subsequent line.
7/5/10
As I was heading back from getting some chicken from a place caddycorner to my apartment, I'm stopped at the corner, in broad daylight with lots of people around, by "Mike", who seemed to be loosely with 2 others, who shaking my hand introduced himself as a "politician from Detroit", who was I'd guess a late 20s-mid 30s pear-shaped man with greasy dark hair, wearing sloppy clothes and what looked like plastic necklace and rings, and who offered me a "one time offer" (as he was "in town for only 2 days" to "get with 19 year old and Loyola girls" such as one who he "had sex with on the beach at 6am this morning"), to, if I wanted, "hang with them tonight". I apologized, and as I walked away, said that I couldn't; for I had to "tutor some third-graders in Italian".
Hey buddies, it’s Mike.
Hey buddies, it’s Mike.
7/4/10
Fireworks are our Kalashnikov rifles: gunpowder fired skywards in a gratuitous expression of victory. Yet it is gratifying how otherwise egalitarianally absent such display is of symbolism. Even the hues, which would be expected to be starkly repeated reds, whites, and blues, are instead these and greens, golds, and purples mingled without any pattern or purpose. The only overt symbolism is an occasional smiley-face. There is no analysis, just the simple contented expressions of ooh and aah. Such is victory.
7/3/10
A night anon, a meager coupon I’ll
Redeem, obtained for plucking forth a pearl
Of wisdom known by me solely from Style,
Which satisfied the bar trivia girl.
I did explain to stunned Chicago bar
The esoteric contest. One man said,
On hearing a description of this Czar,
“Wasn’t he who wrote some Bell piece which I read?”
A chit in fading ink is all I’m owed,
So fortunate to receive anything
In inkless years since my cup overflowed
Never with more renown than second string.
This tiny violin I play lacks fame.
I beg you, please, reward it all the same.
Redeem, obtained for plucking forth a pearl
Of wisdom known by me solely from Style,
Which satisfied the bar trivia girl.
I did explain to stunned Chicago bar
The esoteric contest. One man said,
On hearing a description of this Czar,
“Wasn’t he who wrote some Bell piece which I read?”
A chit in fading ink is all I’m owed,
So fortunate to receive anything
In inkless years since my cup overflowed
Never with more renown than second string.
This tiny violin I play lacks fame.
I beg you, please, reward it all the same.
7/2/10
What does it all mean.
“I may have edited the wikipage of my high school’s famous alumni to remove her, since she didn’t graduate. Meanest I’ve ever been.”
What do you do when you run into the parents of a girl you totally made cry in 6th grade?
They may not remember it. And for all you know, they may have made their daughter cry in 6th grade too. You could have so much in common.
“Next time you’re about to say something mean about yeourself, instead say something about someone else, and not as mean.”
They’re so self-involved, and I don’t even mean that as an insult.
I realize that she was a very good friend when I needed a best friend. But I also realize that she was a very awful friend when I needed a best friend.
“I may have edited the wikipage of my high school’s famous alumni to remove her, since she didn’t graduate. Meanest I’ve ever been.”
What do you do when you run into the parents of a girl you totally made cry in 6th grade?
They may not remember it. And for all you know, they may have made their daughter cry in 6th grade too. You could have so much in common.
“Next time you’re about to say something mean about yeourself, instead say something about someone else, and not as mean.”
They’re so self-involved, and I don’t even mean that as an insult.
I realize that she was a very good friend when I needed a best friend. But I also realize that she was a very awful friend when I needed a best friend.
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