Category: Angst
My family is a shotgun shell
My sister has landed by now, I think. Mom and Kyle and I saw her off at the airport yesterday evening, carrying her life in four bags bigger than herself. Caitlan is a packrat. She is also a genius. She’s going to have a degree from Oxford and I could not be more jealous or more proud.
Today is my brother’s birthday, and he is alone in Los Angeles, sans roommate, sans internets. Happy birthday, Ian. I’ll call you later and tell you that you should go to a bar and let drop that you’re alone on your birthday on your first week in California. If you can’t wring some makeouts out of that, you’re just not trying.
This post is actually about gloating over seeing Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams seemed happily surprised by the enthusiasm of the crowd last night. “Y’all are so great,” she said. “What is this, is… is Louisville just a well-kept secret or something?” (Roars of assent, even though she pronounced it “Looeyville.”) “Y’know, Austin used to be like this… back when I moved there in ’74. Before the Wal-Marts and the Starbucks moved in…”
I wonder if she saw any of the billboards and bumper stickers for Keep Louisville Weird, which is (by their admission) a direct rip of Keep Austin Weird.
The correct pronunciation of “Louisville,” incidentally, has been codified in Elizabethtown, and is audible in the theatrical trailer, I think (can’t check at work, sans sound card). Elizabethtown filmed for a few days and held its premiere afterparty at the Brown Hotel, adjoining the Brown Theatre where we saw Lucinda Williams last night.
Lucinda Williams is a good show! She is also the most awkward-looking human on earth.
Disturbing Search Result (that led somebody to my site):
tv remote control fall down and don't work
Ten bucks says that’s a Kentucky original!
Getting more hits for “thinspiration,” too: Ana has moved up to the #84 Google result.
The Central Ethos of Harry Potter
I’m not sure what Fantine was going to say, but here’s my overanalysis: the central ethos of Harry Potter–that one should trust children to be competent, but shield them from the consequences of failure; that a parent should protect them from harm, but never information–is a highly political one. It’s also already stated in about a jillion other YA books, but when was the last time it was distributed on such a scale? When was the last time it was internalized so widely, so willingly, outside the classroom, by children and adults?
It’s at that question that I start to wonder what the book-burning groups are really out to fight.
Today’s Anacrusis will be late because the one I was going to put up is just too awful. Too awful. I couldn’t inflict that on my readers.
Here it is!
C H I L I J O H N
– – – –
“I was told we’d be noncombat!” shrieks Lester as he presses up against the trench wall. Phosphorus shells scream and gob-smack.
“That’s right,” Chili John nods, “you’re the civilian component of Operation Wombat.”
“Oh, that’s much better,” Lester says. He looks relieved.
“See that metal-plated monstrosity over there?” Chili John points. “That’s the Tomcat. Your job is to carry some fuel to it–here, use this top hat.”
Lester scrambles off with the crude naptha. Moments later, he and it are splashed all over the ironside, burning happily.
“You’re a bad man,” chuckles Moon.
“Stop that,” Chili John snaps.
I am waiting for familiar resolve
Got the first search referral for “thinspiration” today. That story is currently the #113 Google result for it. Think I’ll get any mail?
I’m not sure whether it counts as irony that I only realized this morning that “Me and Mia,” one of my favorite songs ever, is about, um, ana and mia. Ted Leo should enunciate better, and I should listen harder. It’s a vicious song.
What the hell, B button.
Everyone’s a-tizzy about the controller for Nintendo’s next console. By “everyone” I mean “all my friends are nerds.” In case the article I linked is still down, allow me to summarize for you:
- it’s a TV remote
- with a thingy that goes in it
The general reaction is positive. It’s new and different! It’s not the ten thousandth attempt to recreate the Dual Shock! You move the whole controller to move things on screen! (Yes, lovely, and check out the front end. That’s an IR panel. Want to know what happens when you point it straight down?)
My reaction is not positive, and this morning I remembered why: I am one of a rarefied set of humans who have actually played a video game with a remote before. That’s right. There was, for some time, in my living room, a Philips CD-i. I tried to swing a katana with it. I directed a claymation man through an Egyptian sewer. And, though I’m not ungrateful to Bruce for letting us play his video games, the fact of the matter is that its user experience
STOP READING HERE, MOM
sucked a dog’s penis.
Metaphorically.
You didn’t stop reading, did you, Mom? Sorry.