Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Yan~~yaN's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
10:25 pm	family album new song http://ghengisyan.tumblr.com/ (Comment on this)
9:35 am	ontologically DIY I made this little philosophy primer for my friend Veronica because she's getting ready to take a Being and Time class.  I thought I would share it. Branches of philosophy   Metaphysics investigates the nature of being and the world. Traditional branches are cosmology and ontology. Epistemology is concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge, and whether knowledge is possible. Among its central concerns has been the challenge posed by skepticism and the relationships between truth, belief, and justification. Ethics, or 'moral philosophy', is concerned with questions of how persons ought to act or if such questions are answerable. The main branches of ethics are meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Meta-ethics concerns the nature of ethical thought, comparison of various ethical systems, whether there are absolute ethical truths, and how such truths could be known. Ethics is also associated with the idea of morality. Plato's early dialogues include a search for definitions of virtue. Political philosophy is the study of government and the relationship of individuals and communities to the state. It includes questions about justice, the good, law, property, and the rights and obligations of the citizen. Aesthetics deals with beauty, art, enjoyment, sensory-emotional values, perception, and matters of taste and sentiment. Logic deals with patterns of thinking that lead from true premises to true conclusions, originally developed in Ancient Greece. Beginning in the late 19th century, mathematicians such as Frege focused on a mathematical treatment of logic, and today the subject of logic has two broad divisions: mathematical logic (formal symbolic logic) and what is now called philosophical logic. Philosophy of mind deals with the nature of the mind and its relationship to the body, and is typified by disputes between dualism and materialism. In recent years there have been increasing similarities, between this branch of philosophy and cognitive science. Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy that asks questions about religion.   In academia, philosophy is generally seperated into Analytical and Continental philosophy.  Analytical is generally taught in American and Britich philosophy departments where as Continental refers more to 20th century continental European philosophy that is more of a critique of French and German philosphy of the past.  Analytical philosophy is getting largely into what the future of science of modern economics will bring us where as Continental philosphy as more to do with teaching us how to question our assumptions and how to think about history.  Continental philosophy is taught more in anthropology, english, and art departments because it has to do with criticizing our way of thinking that developed in the 18th and 19th centuries.  The branches of philosophy traditionally investigated in Continental philosophy are Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, and Aesthetics.  Heidegger has important things to say mostly about Ontology and Aesthetics.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology (Look into: some fundamental questions) Heidegger wrote that in order to understand him one should study Plato for five years and Aristotle for ten.  His main task was to question what Being meant in the discourse of Western philosophy.  Since Plato and Aristotle are the bedrock of Western Philosophy, he uses them as a reference point to reads older and newer philosopher in relation.  One of the reasons he is so important was that he tried to look into what was before Plato.  Pre-plato philosophers such as these had grand philosophical visions that were often tied into their line of work and place in society.  It was their interpretation of the world based on their perspective. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaxagoras   One of Heidegger’s key concerns was over thinking about things as ‘things’ or ‘not things / nothing’.  Is Being a thing or is it nothing?  When people pejoratively criticize ideas as being “platonism” they are usually talking about people who think certains ideas are fixed ‘things’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato (focus on metaphysics, theory of forms, and epistomology) Ontology and Epistomology are deeply related.  Ontology is your view on what is real/not real a thing or not a thing.  Epistomology is your view on what is knowledge, what is belief, what is knowable, what is not knowable.  So of course, whether or something is considered real has a lot to do with how accurately you think you are perceiving the world around you. When studying Epistomology, you always end up dealing with Descartes who wants to establish a rock solid foundation for reality by supposing that he could doubt everything he knew until he couldn’t doubt anymore, and the last undoubtable thing would then tell us what is really real. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descarte From Heidegger’s perspective, the development of a school of philosophy called phenomenology really undermined Descartes’ method by suggesting that perception inherently has knowledge and reality built into it.  You can’t just use your brain to separate things like a math problem.  The problem of reality isn’t so much what we can prove we know so much as understanding how our ideas actually relate and correspond to the outside world.  How do we interpret the world? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_%28philosophy%29 Phenomenology is not so interested in what we can prove we know and more interested in the assumptions that go into every proclaimation and usage of knowledge.  That is why Being is of such interest.  Another way of thinking about Being is simple: what do we mean when we use the word ‘is’? Phenomenology is a 20th century philosophy.  Another major philosophical current of the 20th century is Existentialism, which really developed out of literature and religious thinking of Kierkegaard.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism Every philosopher, prehaps every person, has a say and a perspective on metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics.  Everyone has an idea of what is beautiful, what is right and wrong, and what is real and unreal.  Usually those perspectives are somewhat coherent.  So you can think of existentialism and phenomenology as parts of the same ethos (general outlook) that Heidegger grew up with.  The inventor of phenomenology, Edmund Hussurl never really got into problems beauty or right and wrong.  Nietzsche (the existentialist) had definite ideas about right and wrong and to an extent about beauty as well.  Heidegger tries to talk about all of that (although less so about right and wrong).  Heidegger’s main contribution, I would say, was to turn the discussion toward language.  For him, reality is not something proven or unproven but something to be read and interpreted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics The interpretation of reality was traditionally a purely religious discipline used by Rabbis and Brahmins.  However, if we take reality to be an amorphous book that we have to read using the language that we have, then hermeneutics begins to look like epistemology and ontology as well.  This is why after Heidegger, philosophers such as Jacques Derrida became interested in language, literature, and religion as much as what is traditionally considered philosophy.  Heidegger was personally a Nazi, but after his death, Marxists also took a deep interest in this way of interpreting things.  It was especially nice for Marxists because view everyone on a scale of material history.  By tying in interpretatin of reality to material history, they can then attribute ways of thinking to different material conditions, systems of economic oppressions, and so on.  In this way, reality (ontology) itself becomes deeply political.  Art too becomes political.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidegger Deep down Heidegger was still most interested in the basics, Plato and Aristotle (Aristotle basically decided that the world was objectively categorizable into real things and not real things.  Among real things are people, animals, rocks.  Among unreal things are unicorns, certains ideas and so on).  The most important philosopher before Heidegger was probably Kant.  Kant pretty much used Plato and Aristotle’s foundation and built the largest philosophical system there was fleshing out all that is considered objectively right and true and logical and beautiful in the world.  Of course, there was a lot of problems with Kant’s big creation (he had never been more than 70 miles away from his birthplace).  That is why it was nice for Heidegger to come along and point to the world of thought before Plato and to further develop the philosophy that came after Kant in order to show that Kant’s way of thinking wasn’t everything.  There is a before and after of what is considered traditional European philosophy (that ruled the world for so long).  Our present world still functions largely on a Kantian way of thinking, which is why academics like literary critics, artists, and athropologists are so interested in Heidegger and Derrida and postmodernism, so that eventually society at large will have more of a perspective on why they think the way they do and understand that our ideas about right and wrong and real and unreal and beauty are largely contingent on certain historical forces.  Using a hermeneutical approach to looking at reality allows us to be more flexible and critical about our fundamental supposition since reality is always just another interpretation. Some people now go back to the Greeks and go, oh yeah people have made similar criticisms of Plato and Aristotle long ago, except nobody paid attention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrida There are certain similarities but Diogenes was obviously too silly to be taken seriously.                    (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
6:26 pm	Escape 1.Clearing of the Throat The past three quarter of a year has been a distressing time for me. There were months where all I could do was inundate myself in mind numbing substances so that time could work its healing magic. Art and the blossoming of new friendships have recently freed me from the worst of it. Two days ago I wrote my first song in a year and in it are impressions and expressions reflecting this period of time. The song is called Escape and you can hear it here. Today I started wondering about just what the song is saying. I put some meaning behind it and I believe that its main theme is a flight toward a peaceful kind of love. The distress I have felt can't really be said to the people who caused it. This is partly due to my tone, which I would characterized as anile and virgoic. Virgoic is a made up word based on the astrological sign Virgo, to which I belong. Virgos are generally overly analytical and less than socially graceful or easy going. Anile is like anal but worst because the word literally means "like old women". So my gripes are overwrought and my complaints at times petty but I still need to formulate them for my own peace of mind. 2.The Lyrics "Escape" Maybe it is love Maybe it's just inspiration I'm gonna write it down and keeeeep it forever. What is "it"?  "It" is the feeling I am attempting to convey through song and words.  I cannot tell if the feeling is closer to love or inspiration.  But I believe that the feeling demands that it be written, or at least that is how I am going to deal with this feeling.  I don't think the ambivalence is problematic.  I think the kind of love I am looking for is as much about intimacy as it is about inspiration.  This love needs to take me somewhere else.  Endured flight requires expenses and a certain privilaged status.  Social mobility is a vulgar way of thinking about it. I feel a little push From the back of my memory I feel I'm falling down Struck dead by the hammer of sanity This feeling can be described as a "push from the back of my memory".  A push has momentum and energy; this energy comes from within me; it has been stored somewhere and now it is released to fuel this creative action.  The feeling subsequent to the push is like one of falling.  This memory led me to feel a sense of panic and vertigo.  The sense of rupture is so strong that I can only describe it as a sort of death.  It feels like a bludgeoning blow of a hammer.  I describe the hammer as the hammer of sanity although I also think of it as a hammer of clarity.  The feeling that has set me to panic has to do with me coming to experience certain realities or at least a sense of bodily euphoria that I associate with the Real. The situation demands that we go incognito through barrens and straits and beyond the mountain peaks Our dreams will lead us higher than the tallest living tree and from there we will live amongst the free This verse reveals an abrupt jump to a scene of flight.  The shift also expresses itself in the chord change.  It shows that my gut reaction to the feeling felt during the composition of this song is one of fear and the desire for flight; flight in disguise nonetheless.  Barrens and straits and mountain peaks are recurring motifs in my writing.  These vague geological notions betray a conflation between physical and emotional flight.  The destination of the flight is always somewhere up high where there will be freedom, clarity, wonder, and most of all love. The image of the tallest mountain has to do with a certain art book that my friend Phoebe produced.  This book is the chief source of inspiration for the song.  The image of the tallest tree has to do with our upcoming plans to travel in Northern California where I hope one of our destinations will be to the tallest tree in the world in the Redwood Forrest National Park.    The lack of any transition from the first part to the second, from feeling the euphoria of a wellspring of love to the sudden need for inconspicuous flight suggests certain neurotic and less-than-rational impulses. The devils are all around waiting to steal our imagination the bullies are back in town hoping to strike a mine of misery oh they have a mind for misery x3 The thing that unlocked the feeling of love also brought with it the immense fear of devils and bullies.  The fear is very real.  I live in it.  I was playing Super Mario and every time I made a jump from one moving platform to another my Mario would turn around and face left on the screen.  When I encountered enemies, I too would instinctively turn and face away.  I was taking turns with Esther and she said to me "Yan you can't just runaway whenever you are afriad of something."  This was nearly two years ago but I still think about her simple remark and how apt of a comment it was based on my Mario playing.   The devils are rules and authorities.  In my sernior year at Columbia, I found myself in the midst of a rather rigid and frustrating social scene.  Tania would say things like "so how are the masses" to which I would reply, "I don't know, I don't really know what you mean by the masses."  I knew who she was referring to I just refused to acknowledge my place in it.  I could not have been friends with her or any of the other people I was hanging out with had I acknowledge the norms and protocols of their society.  I played into my eccentricities and my role as an outsider because to fully enmesh myself into that vast economy of desire would have destoryed what I consider to be my imagination.  I would have lost my freedom.  It would have crippled me. The bullies are the reason why I had to find escape.  I wouldn't say that the devils and the bullies are real people.  The devils are more like the administrators that through clandestine design shape the rights and wrongs of Columbia undergrad social life.  This interpolation can be scaled up even further to refer to culture at large.  The bullies are more like my peers who are enmeshed in that system.  They are hardworking and competitive.  They behave within a zero-sum mentality.  This is what I think I mean by "striking a mine of misery."  Because of the zero-sum mentality, the competition is often unscrupulous.  Beneath all of the strife are cultivated and intelligence minds against whom my arguments, complaints, warnings, and needs all fall mute.  Molly would say, "you know, these are kids with real problems."  She was referring mostly to drug addiction problems.  To her, people with real problems are more deserving of her love where as my needs were largely phantasmagoric.  I don't begrudge her assessment; she will perceive the world with her own pair of god given eyes.  But what I do find problems with is the unflinching industriousness with which she participated in that system of rights and wrongs.  I want to run away from people like Molly.  I did run away from Molly.  She workers harder than me but the fruit of her work is more and more misery.  I don't know how much further I can articulate the malice of the devils and the bullies.  I am afraid of them.  Come dear we must flee further and further and further into the galaxy Dream is love; the galaxy is the place we must go to escape the dangers that come with love.  The galaxy is an recurring image in Phoebe's beautiful book.  My dream is that we will really escape together into the galaxy in her book.  Some might see this flight as a cowardice move but I think it's all I can do.  I am a mortal and I cannot fight crazy devils.  They don't really even hear or see me.  So the flight further and deeper into the galaxy, the journey of love, also means a flight into further obscurity, mystery, and lonliness into places with fewer societies, fewers rules, and with no sunken economy of zero-sum love. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009
2:54 am	teen movies there shall be no grand declaration there shall be no doublethink there shall be no posturing there shall be no references there shall be no smiling only a long, sustained, and delayed laughter (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
9:48 pm	i dont treat myself well enough i don't listen to myself when i try to tell myself stuff because i don't treat myself well enough (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
1:56 am	the future i will be wandering because I have always been a wanderer. that is a habit nothing will change i believe. the world that i was born into was not really a state at all. it was a society undergoing a revolution greater anything commonly called a revolution. if the cultural revolution were a comet hitting a lake, my world would have been the splash and the splashes of the splash and the creeks and tributaries that form as the lake refilled itself into a selfsame yet brand new lake. from there i went from one home to another, one constitution to another, one zodiac to another. why then should i stop? this is my root and it is sacred. i want to one day own a home that will do to villas what Warhol did for portraits. it will have multiple components in multiple locations tied together electronically. not all of it would have to be mine at all times but i will also not be 'sharing' them, the new functions made possible from this home will be harbinger for a new way of collective life. no cocktail party of mine will take place in a static environment, there will be gardens and hills and woods and grottos and columns and mazes and rooftops and verandas and concert stages and more. parties here will last for days. naturally intense competition would arise from living in a such a permeable environment with its real estate inevitably forming into a hierarchy. from there competition becomes fiercer until all methods of human performance enhancement reaches a maximized equilibrium. from there no more progress is possible and all art created will be an expression of my architecture, my home. the dynamism of the whole shall be the content of my soul. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
1:30 am	thing cute right right?! now everyone can see it thanks to me (Comment on this)
Monday, October 6th, 2008
4:07 pm	remember me today i read about Gore Vidal fighting against scholar squirrels about his Lincoln novel listened to paul auster's short story about doc hume on paris review listened to interview with guy named edmund white about life of magurite duras and how she maybe lost her virginity to an ugly rich old indo chinese man while squeezing him for money under the direction of her mother and later wrote about it while working as a fascist censor of obscenity listened to how spore is getting sued for reasons i couldnt quite catch concluded (hopefully) 3 day long argument with e drank coffee with left over fried rice brunch drank another cup of coffee using the same coffee grind with pasta supper cleaned puke off white shoes from thursday night oh I forgot that I also watched Democracy Now, I watched two episode things both relating to economics I guess, one by this woman naomi klein bashing milton friedman and reagonomics and another with joseph stiglitz that was like the real answer is not bailout but fixing mortgage. that's not very interesting haha.. oh but what was interesting is amy goodman also talks to third party candidates about bailout, the libertarian candidate Barr is just in this cubicle with phones going off in the background, I don't remember what nader clip looked like, but the coolest is the green party president cynthia mckinney who is so unassuming black woman who enunciated so slowly and clearly the bullet points about how mortgage is the real problem, she reminded me of a kindergarden teacher. Being into politics and history is like so emotionally stabilizing I bet. I think Gore Vidal is a good role model for me maybe. I was just reading thing about Mrs. Ulysses Grant's memoir and she's just like, "i've never read the constitution, dunno where I would find it, from what I hear of it though, they oughta get rid of that darn old thing and just make a new one for today" and after they've traveled around the world she's like yup, i really like the white house, its much better than our old farm house in Missouri, and brags about how it has more gold and fine china now that she worked on it than most of the homes of european monarchs. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
8:19 pm	http://gawker.com/5051193/sarah-palins-personal-email-account-hacked b.b.b.b.(not related to subject line) by YAN YAN Bigger Crude wooden beams stood erect holding up rain-soaked jackets and coats. The ceiling fans gyrated lethargically; three mango shaped light bulbs, glazed over with years of oil and grime, contributed to the dimness of the diner. On a misty grey morning, Ian and Lilie sat facing each other with their plates empty and their softly clenched hands resting on the table. Lilie took a sip of iced water from her red plastic cup. Ian began mumbling, “I miss you.” His pink and fleshy lips barely opened when he spoke, “what have you been up to lately?” Lilie replied, “not too much. I’ve been busy with my new job. We are pushing to pass this bill. It’s called the Bigger Better Bottle Bill. Apparently, in the mid 80’s they passed the Bottle Bill that put a 5 cent bounty on all carbonated beverage containers. I guess they didn’t have enough non-carbonated beverages in the 80’s to worry about water bottles and such. But now, we are trying to pass the Bigger Better Bottle Bill to cover non-carbonated beverages as well. It’s been in the State Assembly for years and has consistently been put down by a certain few Republicans. It’s really pretty absurd how unjust the system is. How about you? How’s your band?” Lilie’s eyes were huge and gemlike. Ian traced a drop of rain water as it trailed down along her golden hair. Her cheeks were round and full. His gaze was on its way down to the black velvet cat she often had pinned onto her dress when his silence became awkward and conspicuous. Ian: “it’s okay. The band’s doing okay.” He stumbled on, “I’ve been trying to get a job.” Ian had been trying to find a job for six months. Lilie rolled her eyes, “I’m glad Ian, but you say that every time I see you. Tell me something else.” She did not quite ask it in the form of a question. Ian understood. Maybe she just wanted him to listen. “Oh okay. Something I did yesterday was that I got three cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery. I don’t really know why I got three. One of them had red frosting, one of them white, and one of them green. Wouldn’t it have been stupid if the last one was blue? Anyhow, on my way home on the subway, there was this old woman. I’m not always sure what I feel about subway beggars. They need help but I also feel like they are a bit too intrusive. This woman was wearing these worn old orange plastic flip flops. Her feet looked like they were gnarled tree trunks. Her ankles were so swollen that you couldn’t even see that little ankle bone that sticks out, the talus. And she had dusty dry elephant-like skin. That really got to me. This woman was just so... iconically... this beast of burden.” Lilie knew that she had made a mistake with the word ‘iconic’. She squinted in apprehension of a derisive remark. Ian knew what she had really meant. He smiled warmly at her as if saying: don’t worry, we’re both dorks, it’s okay. As she told the story, Ian thought only about how totally hot she was. She was wearing a white dress. It was a very hip dress. She wore black stockings underneath and a pair of keds screaming out I am CUTE, and LITTLE, and perhaps a little BADASS. Her shoulders were smooth, round, and ivory white. She had such a big round bosom. Lilie continued, “so this woman was asking for food and money or whatever and I thought ‘oh perfect, I could give her one of my cupcakes’. She ate it and was like ‘gurl is this from Magnolia Bakery?’ and I was like ‘yup, enjoy’ and she just went ‘yuuumm’ really loudly to make me feel good.” Ian liked where the story was going. He often liked her stories. They always alluded to bigger things happening in the world. He was an introvert. Lilie was a worldly gal. Things are always nice when they are big. Ian thought about the nature of bigness. He remembered a theory he once had about love in the city. It went: there are so many people in the city that it is nearly impossible for anyone to achieve uniqueness and without uniqueness how can there really be love? Everyone is interchangeable. Just about every combination of attractive attributes occur in multiple human instances. But at some point he came upon this 1,400 page tome by the architect Rem Koolhaas that talked about the idea of Bigness. The Bigness of New York overrides all previously formulated, tried and true, architectural principles. In the city, design, and by extension, identity itself, begins with Bigness. Ian began to think Big and Lilie was the Biggest thing he knew. Better It is always better to be safe than sorry, thought Ian. He brought a condom to breakfast even though it had been months since they fucked. His fingers went over its outline in the left pocket of his mud-stained white jeans. He fidgeted with the buttons on his yellow polo that he printed with the pattern of a bumble bee. Lilie interrupted her story because her phone buzzed. “Oh, it’s my co-worker Bill,” she explained, “well just to be clear, my boyfriend. I met him at this party with people from my work. We hit it off and, you know, we were drinking and being happy and talking about politics in a really fun way. And then we had sex.” Curiosity got the best of Ian and he asked, “so where do you work?” She got up and waved. She was overjoyed. Bill had already arrived. The introduction was brief and she got straight to Ian’s question, “we work at NYPIRG, New York public interest research...” Ian let out a long “ah.” She continued, “Ian went to Columbia and now works NYPIRG. Guess who else went to Columbia then worked at NYPIRG?” Lilie was so excited when she asked the question that her voice trembled. Her voice trembled because she was forcefully holding back a cackle that made her larynx bounce. “Who?” asked Ian, obviously stumped. “Barack Obama!” the whole world could’ve gone up in applause. Bill blushed and put his arm around Lilie. Lilie’s story continued, “so after I got out of the subway on my way home I heard some kid crying in a playground. I went over to the crying child and asked, ‘what’s wrong little samurai’. I thought he was a guy but she was actually a little tom-boy. She wiped her eyes and said; oh it was so cute and sad; ‘I dunno where my mother went’. Immediately, I took out my second cupcake, the white one, and gave it to her. She took a bite of the cupcake and her tears dwindled from a stream into a trickle. Then she asked, ‘pretty lady, is this cupcake...”. Before Lilie had a chance to finish, Bill and Ian simultaneous interrupted her. Ian bursted out in laughter before violently stopping himself with his hands over his gaping mouth. Bill asked, “where were her parents? Poor kid. Was this in the playground on 108th across from that elementary school?” “Yeah,” smiled Lilie, “no, her parents weren’t actually all that far off. They just ran into some old acquaintances from Japan or whatever and forgot about their daughter for a second. I mean, I think she was just alone for a second and they ran over immediately after I got there. They even offered to pay me for the cupcake, which I refused of course.” Their eyes met and they kissed. The Latino waitress arrived with an order of pancakes and sausages for Ian. Ian wanted to puke. For Lilie, the waitress had an order of steak n’eggs, french fries, toast, and an extra side of beacon. Much to his dismay, Ian finally understood why Lilie had ordered so much food. He also understood why she got so much meat when he knew her as not much of a meat eater. Bill was a meat eater. Bottle “Hey could you please pass the bottle Bill?” asked Ian, pointing to the bottle of Aunt Jemina maple syrup. “Oh certainly,” answered Bill. Bill had dark complexion, brown hair, and a face full of stubble like the artist formerly known as Prince. He wore a skin tight Cannibal Corpse t-shirt. A pair of perfectly fitted skinny jeans covered his long slim legs. Ian felt deeply envious of the white American Apparel hoody that Bill was wearing. It simply had never occurred to Ian to get them in that color. Bill and Ian exchanged some cursory remarks. Bill was a Poli-Sci major at Columbia. He is now working. Ian was looking for a job. He was an artist, musician, and writer of graphic novels. Lilie continued with her story, “I was left with only my green cupcake. I was really happy that it was the green one. That was the one I really wanted all along. I got to my building and I wanted to sit down on the stairs to peacefully enjoy it to the sunset. I sat down, put my purse down, opened the box, picked up the cupcake and BAM!” The boys sat up. She eyed them each intently, “some dude was in such a rush to get out of the building that he ran straight into me, pushing me over. I landed with my face smack in the cupcake. He didn’t even stop to say sorry but just kept running. Then some woman ran out after him shouting ‘you no good nigger’. I got green icing all over my face and in my eyes and I cried. I didn’t get to eat any of the cupcakes.” Ian swallowed nervously. “Oh man,” he mumbled in the most assuring tone he could muster, “that sucks.” Bill grabbed her face and stared into her eyes and made a pouty puppy face and whimpered, “I’m sorry honey, I wish I had been there.” He turned to Ian and complained, “man, people these days can be so thoughtless. Like this Bottle Bill I’ve been working on. I mean like fuck the Republicans. Selfish, ignorant assholes, controlling people’s minds with religion and bullshit. I hope they rot in hell.” Bill and Lilie were playing with each other’s hands on the surface of the table. It was becoming unbearable for everyone. The trio split their check and bounced. Ian hated Bill. Bill hated Ian little but mostly looked upon him with disdain. Lilie felt a little guilty for putting the boys through such an awkward meal but justified it with the fact that she had been working overtime. The couple got a cab. Ian put on his headphones as he rode away in his silver Schwinn. He un-paused his Ipod Shuffle. It was on a Built to Spill song called Big Dipper. It went, ‘bottled up in this time, won’t you rescue me’. Bill What bothered Ian most was the way she said it, “and then we had sex.” She sounded so urbane. It was a Herculean task for Ian to get with Lilie and he lost her so easily after a fight or two. Years of hard work for less than a month of reward. Then that fucker just comes along and gets her drunk and, and, ‘and then they had sex’. She was such an angel. She still is. There is only one explanation. She liked Bill better. She liked him better because he was politically active. He participated in the real world, in the world of law and currency and men in suits. He was a real man. He had value and legitimacy. He had a job. Well fuck that, thought Ian. I can do it too. I can pass some fucking Bill too. All I have to do is to wait for Dad to come home. Him and his cronies are prolly the ones blocking the Bill in the first place. Ian waited at home. He had a little to drink. He snorted a bit of coke. When Dad got home he was ready with a knife. “Hey fucker,” he let out. “What do you want?” asked Mr. Stuyvesant dejectedly. Dad was heartbroken over some whore. He’d been perpetually heartbroken over some whore ever since Ian’s mother died of breast cancer. Ian answered, “listen up asshole. You’re gonna call up your cronies and tell em to pass the Bigger Better Bottle Bill!” Mr. Stuyvesant couldn’t help but chuckle. He would have laughed more heartily if there hadn’t been a knife point three inches away from his throat. “Alright Ian. Put the fucking knife down. What the fuck is this. C’mon, don’t do this to a broken hearted man,” said Mr. Stuyvesant suavely. “No! Fuck you! You’re not getting out of this. Just do what I say. Call your cronies and tell em to pass the Bill,” Ian’s hand was trembling but he managed to steadily inch the knife to within a centimeter of his father’s throat. “Alright Mr. Sandinista, I’ll do what you say. Just know this, all the shit I do is for you. It’s your trust fund. The will goes to you. All the shit I do is to support your pathetic waste of a life. Well, that and breast cancer research. You outta be a bit more appreciative you ingrate.” With that Mr. Stuyvesant called up everyone of his cronies and told them to pass the Bigger Better Bottle Bill the next time it came around. They all complied without much thought. They were probably too busy fucking some whore to think much about it. A few months later Ian saw Lilie again. This time it was across a long dreary table owned by the government. Ian was involuntarily institutionalized for his own good. “Hows Bill?” asked Ian. “He’s okay. I havn’t seen him in two weeks. We are on the outs,” answered Lilie. “Oh,” said Ian, “anyone new?” “I’m waiting for you to come out,” said Lilie. “Bullshit,”said Ian. “Really?” he sounded a little like Owen Wilson. “Yeah,” she smiled, “you’ll be like a war hero. You’ll be my trophy beau.” “You’re so selfish!” Ian replied encouragingly. “It’s called rational self-interest; feminine wiles, something you wouldn’t know anything about Ian.” “Oh yeah? Whatever. I totally knew what you were up to. The samurai kid, he, or no, she was supposed to say, ‘pretty lady, is this cupcake from Magnolia Bakery?’ Am I right?” Ian asked. “Yup,” she was glad he understood. “So it was all a fairy tale? Instead of three blind mice or three little pigs you had three Magnolia Bakery cupcakes?” Ian asked happily. “Fiction and reality, Ian, are not as far apart as you tend think. Words in a courtroom are not anymore real than the words in one of your comic books.” Ian continued to listen. “Quiz:” she said, “red, white, and green cupcakes; what does green stand for?” It was a trick question. Ian was the one who came up with red, white, and green in the first place. He answered, “red, white, and green are the three colors of the flag of our peaceful Nation on the Isle where you and I and all our best friends live in harmony with one another and with nature. Red, white, and green stand for the pursuit of life, liberty, and eternal happiness!” Obviously they were in love once again. Ian couldn’t really quite understand why she dumped him and now wanted him back again. But of all the hypocrisies Ian had to deal with in his lifetime, this one was by far the most wonderful. (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 25th, 2008
5:32 pm	new life So i finished college. I moved into my new apartment. It's still in the process of furnishing. My roommate, she is still in school and so has not had any time to deal with this stuff. It has been pretty stressful. It's not too bad though because I don't have a job right now and I have a good amount of money in the bank. I've been hanging out with the same people pretty exclusively for way too long. It has been a good experience being with a stable group of people I suppose but things have been pretty whack and unnecessarily complicated. I do think I've gained a much better grasp of myself though, through it all. I've been reading general American History books such as People's History of the United States, and United States essays by Gore Vidal, and Birth of the Cool. I got a bunch of CD out of the Columbia Music Library today of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonius Monk. Yes, birth of the COOL indeed, hehe. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
4:22 pm	#fiction We Were Alone in the Studio By Anonymous Jeffy Jeff Jeff what a peculiar mind, your pen is like a sacred sword and your words shine like crystals. Oh, please tell me that I pen your words correctly. Tell me I’m not an idiot. By the bench in this garden where Anne meets her Masked Lover, are there two trees or should there be three? Are they willows or are they pines? And the dog in the next frame who snatches the Masked Lover’s cape. Is it a retriever or a setter? Tell me. What is in your mind dear Jeffy Jeff Jeff? Is Anna’s hair short and curly like this? Or is it longer and wavier like a brunette’s hair shaped like a blonde’s? Anne’s eyes, are they big and bright like yours or small and dull like mine? If only I could see into your mind Jeffy Jeff Jeff, I’m certain I would find the answer. Ah, if I could see into your crystal mind I would see the texture and the movement and the renegade strands of red and grey that I could never capture with my feeble pen; or brain for that matter. It would look and smell like a feeling I’ve never had. Put down that phone Jeff! Good, now put down that pen. Good. Look over at me Jeff so that I could gaze into your mind. Good. But oh dear, I’m staring again. No wait no, don’t come closer Jeff, not here in the office. Don’t swivel that chair this way, no, swivel back stay put! Quit staring at my glasses Jeff! Don’t get up. Eagh! We must look like plastic shits under these Halogen lights. And staplers. And white out. And rulers. Jeff, listen, I can’t have you make this mistake. This is not what I want right now. You ought to know that. A pat on the back, maybe, or a nip on my behind, if I’m feeling kinky. But not this. Look at yourself Jeff, you lumbering giraffe. Watch me put you in your sorry little place. JEFF. STOP. I’M NOT WHAT YOU WANT. LOOK AT ME. I’M FAT. No, I’m not asking for consolation silly. LOOK AT THESE BREASTS JEFF. I’m such a tease. THEY LOOK LIKE BLOBS IN A LAVA LAMP. I havn’t worn a bra since I was fifteen Jeff. Now you know I’m a freak. HAVE I MADE MY POINT JEFF? NOW TURN AROUND. I’M NAKED. I NEED PRIVACY. 4 hours later on the internet So, Fly_Boy709, guess what I did today? What? Jeff tried to put his moves on me and I put him in his place. Again? It was only the second time. I hope you didn’t embarrass him too badly. You dreadful creature. Don’t worry I didn’t. So much for my sex life. How’s yours? Candice, why do you mock this man you like and care about? Maybe I’m a sadist. Anyhow, that little shingamadig is over and done with. I wouldn’t be so sure Candice. I have a strong feeling that the third time is the charm. I have a very strong hunch that tomorrow Jeff’s gonna throw you a fast ball that will put YOU in YOUR place. Fly¬_Boy709 is no longer connected 01:15:24. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 17th, 2007
1:58 am	studying for finals Voyeur She has brown shoulder length hair; She chose the black $1499 MacBook; The volume on it is way too loud, we in the library can all hear her Enya pop and her Yanni jazz bleeding through her headphones. See her long slender neck stretch as her head rolls back to the gushing melodies piercing her heart - she can't stand it! She shivers. She's chewing her fingernails, her brown blouse has semi-circles like smiley faces cupping her small breasts, she rests her other hand on her forest green sweatpants, her toes wiggle inside her black flip flops, look at that long thin buttony nose, big round bulgy eyes, watch her feel, ya I bet she feels things, you know, things. (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 25th, 2007
9:44 pm	myspace i can't seem to sign onto myspace hope you guys still read these carla: thanks, much appreciate, you alexa jon will always be inspirations and reference points, much love rob: where will you live in norcal? what are kyle and levi doing? that's rad ukes are fun did you get a little one or a baritone one? (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007
7:55 pm	i thought I had it bad but she was throwing up in the morning, I jokingly said; don't do it in class, people will think you are pregnant. Indeed if words can make you sick maybe they can do that too and Derrida will be orgazming in his grave. People: be careful of people people will make people crazy! (Comment on this)
Monday, October 8th, 2007
5:55 pm	girls girls girls weak men experience symptoms like mental illness, OCD, even digestive problems due to "love," so says the wikipedia article entitled "lovesickness"; it all has to do with obsession. The cure is to put yourself to some distracting pursuit, perhaps intellectual; okay that's not working. so then i figure well if theres multiple girls it will get spread out and it will be okay. but no... i get diahrea(sp??) seriously this sucks, im spending like 8 hours in bed during the day unable to move... further contact with obsessed objects only INCREASES obsession... obvious. They say to not "idealize" no.. they were shitty to start with, love is sophistry. I think it's because of all the religious books I read for class, they all try to cultivate more and more Love with capital L and since I was already feelin it, it just made me really OCD. God, i can't tell when im hungry and can't digest what I eat... well at least ONE of them is feelin it too, HAh suka... misery loooves company. Speaking of which, this sounds a lot like the symptom of initiating into heroin. whatever, only thing suffering is school, i guess i just have to not care about that and tell the teacher im sick and allow the fever to subside on its own terms, school anxiety can only add to bad serotonin levels. I need to listen to more raincoats and dischord and touch n go stuff, that will take the peaches right outa me! actually.. more about this music stuff, my theory right now is that my most intellectually, emotionally, and for a lack of better word spiritually intense friends are they ones who listen to the most outsider, understated music. At first I related; but then I inwardly reprimanded them for their snobbishness and shallowness and proceeded to listen to more passionate and full sounding popular music. It was a gradual process of reorienting and for a lack of a real word hyperhumanizing. Now all is chaos. I don't mean that people who listen to emotive music are not intense. They probably just have methods of coping with their crazy. Maybe I should start by clean my room. I'm gonna go see Darjeeling Limited by myself. "who needs [wo]men anyways" But also, maybe if she weren't crazy and i weren't being therapist at the same time, it wouldn't be like this. Totally Uncomfortable right? Current Mood: uncomfortable (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 24th, 2007
11:34 pm	hm i should kill this thing now but its so pretty (Comment on this)
Saturday, September 22nd, 2007
11:43 pm	God put me in time out (...g guess what i did totonite...) You're in your boxers and a loose tee, laundry bag slung over your right shoulder and a bottle of detergent in your left. You count your quarters, 12 exactly. Check the time on your cell phone, 9:30pm. You head for the basement but for some reason the elevator won't go down to the basement. You check closely and you noticed that the key slot next the B button is turned to Off. Fuck, so you go back up to your room and you realize that you forgot your keys. This is messed up. You call your roommates, no response. You call the superintendent and he yells at you and says he'll be back at 11pm. You go up to the roof hoping that something might happen. Fuck, the alarm goes off. You go back down to the lobby. You pace around. You exit through the back door. You walk cautiously half expecting another alarm. Well, you may as well go for a long sit. Chill out and enjoy the scenery. The fence looks rather more like a layer of protection from the outside world. You are rather naked. The barbed wire above - extra protection. You look around, you have two shadows. You explore around the area. Hmm not much, let's just sit at the center where the view is the best and lighting the most even. You look around at all the skyscrapers; there are red lights, yellow lights, blue lights. There is a McDonald below you. You examine the rubble at the base of the fence. The bricks are stacked precariously but still more or less doing their brick thing. Y'know, one on top of another. Sprigs of weed are growing through the crevices. Some of the leafs are browned from blight. Or perhaps it is because the weather is starting to turn colder. A few dismembered tree trunks stick out of the ground, twigs twisting through the chain linked fence. Anything that was ever crucified on those poles had long since left this no man's land. Around you are splotches of white pigeon poo. Crash, a pot of flower lands to your left, its content exploding into a dirty mess. You hear shouts from above. The one train comes and drowns out the yelling, both of the trains. They intersect and go their own way. You look at the time on your cellphone. You wonder when the trains will come again. You know it's because what you did earlier right? Y'know, the thing you shouldn't have done. God's put you in time out. You play with your quarters putting them into various formations. You close your eyes and try to meditate; you listen to Saturday night's ambience. You hum a little diddy. You go to the corner to take a piss. As you whip out your bored cock some neighborhood kids show up at your sitting spot. They see you and then take a 180 and disappear. Yo got any weed? You shout at them. They ignore you, undoubtedly frightened. You sit back down at your spot. The downtown 1 train shows up again. You check the time. So this is Reality huh? Pretty neat. Well, but... if THIS is REALITY, then WHO'S THAT?! He wasn't there a second ago. Near your pool of piss in the shadows is a young man in tight jeans and jacket puffing nonchalantly away on his cigarette. His right foot is bent in a 90 degree angle balancing him against the wall. He looks over at you with his dark piercing eyes and smiles. He croaks understandingly: "yup, some night eh." (Comment on this)
Monday, July 30th, 2007
1:00 am	me retrospective im finally not embarased of myself anymore http://www.selfportrait.net/maybeface (Comment on this)
Monday, July 16th, 2007
9:39 am	. cowgirl oh cowgirl when will you retire? the studs are whipped and the bucks are tired. the plains they are silent resting before your view, and you know there's a real man at home waiting for you. Current Music: jenny lewis (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 8th, 2007
2:41 pm	ah that hit the spot.. soon i need to start being more of a shaman! when im ready to forget everything ive learned Current Mood: chipper (Comment on this)