Cirque du So'Gay

And on the third day

2006-08-28T22:00:00.000-04:00

I've almost moved out of Brighton as of this past weekend, which is terribly exciting and morbidly sad at the same time. You might check out Annie's blog (95% likely to be how you got here in the first place) for a reasonable summary of my feelings upon leaving The Compound. Luckily, rather than moving to Dorchester, which was at one time on the table, I've moved to Cambridge, albeit an out-of-the-way residential section of "Boston's Left Bank" (as the T advertisements call it). I stand a better chance of not getting stabbed here, although I do stand a significantly higher risk of running into random Swatties of years past (total count so far: 2. This number will climb like a Basra body count.) Odds are also good that I'll eventually wind up owning affordable ethnokitsch.

Somehow it's a totally lateral move in terms of commute time-- still hovering around 1 hour. This hour is half-spent walking, with the remainder spent on the Red line and the MGH shuttle to Charlestown. Yesterday actually marked the first time since March that I've not even touched the Green Line. And it's slow, inconvenient hand didn't touch me, either. I can feel my blood pressure decreasing already.

Today marks the first day that I'm actually using non-stolen internet in over a year, barring work, that is. The cunning genius that is my new roommate X (I'm holding off on names for the time being until I can gauge their take on instant blog celebrity) has named our network 69 bois, the second move in two days to stick it to the heterosexual component of our gorgeous house, which happens to be number 69 on our street. Our landlord, who lives on the first floor, is probably not amused, and most certainly is not a boi. Not a grrrl either, I guess. Maybe she has a past though.
The first gay victory occured last night, upon the arrival of our fourth and final roomate Z. It being Monday, we all decided to go out and paint the town red. Having mortified trendy (in a good way. really!) X by taking him to the Cantab Lounge over the weekend, I decided to yield and suggested we go to Middlesex Lounge. I kind of hate Middlesex between Thursday and Sunday, but do actually enjoy the vibe during the week. For one thing, there's no line. Waiting in line for a Cambridge lounge is like paying a doctor to induce hemorrhoids-- a needless pain in the ass (rimshot) (HOA!). Secondly, inattentive servers have fewer places to hide when the floor isn't full of lame MBAs, whores from colleges small (Simmons) and large (BU), lost starfuckers, and other fans of Improper Bostonian. The DJ also played an insane Beyonce remix (it sounded like Jose Gonzalez was singing along, but that seemed too unlikely). So the four of us sat, slowly getting to know eachother, tracing mental arcs of likely yearlong trajectories. A very good time. Earlier in the evening I had told X that we'd go to Paradise, as the only consistently open gay bar barely within walking distance of our apartment.

The Dise wasn't exactly hopping on a Monday night. The surprisingly almost-naked go-go boy (way hotter than the one pictured at right) was hopping though, and showcasing a crotch sillhouette that dropped a few jaws. It should be noted that Y and Z are in fact straight, not to their discredit. Paradise isn't exactly a "starter kit" as far as bars go, what with the hardcore porn on the television screens, the donkey-hung go-go boys and the craven look on each face in the sparse crowd. Vocal house comprised the predictable background noise. Not my kind of place. Or so I thought until I drank the strongest $3.50 gin and tonic of my life. By the second I was making plans to go back later in the week, and by the third I'd probably have harrassed the go-go boy, but luckily my survival instincts kicked in. I pulled out, so to speak, in not nearly enough time to prevent a killer hangover and that lack-of-sleep look I really haven't rocked this fully since college, but I have very few regrets.

And with this post, like a phoenix from the ashes, so rises Cirque du So'Gay once more, if only for a few weeks, like all the times before.

I'm Not A Young'un, not yet a Legend

2006-05-23T11:33:00.000-04:00

Do you think Pine-Sol Lady Diane Amos felt left out when her gilded invitation did not arrive? Also, on whose shoulders does she stand, and are they getting tired?

I'm a Troubled Man

2006-03-21T08:32:00.000-05:00

So I'm spending this week teenager-sitting in NH while my parents cavort about Hawaii, all the while commuting to the lab in Boston, so I'm kind of a wreck. If you were travelling on 95 or Route 1 this morning, you'd have seen me, newly-shaven (I grew ambivalent about my facial hair), singing along with Stellastarr* and just kind of listening to Arab Strap (too much about really bad sex before 8am can be really profoundly aggravating, as it turns out). It could have been the angstiest minivan in the Northeast, for no apparent reason, as I'm really in relatively good spirits given the circumstances. I read a review of Stellastarr*'s recent album Harmonies for the Haunted in The Phoenix last week, and was disappointed to see the reviewer essentially trash what is to my mind a solid release. I mean, it must suck to constantly draw unfavorable comparisons to Interpol. Here's why I like the 'starr*. They're easy-- the rock is straightforward without ever becoming dull, and the lyrics are far from obtuse. I honestly don't think that there's even any PSAT vocab on this album, compared to, say, Antics, chock full of GRE words and frustrating grammatical and instrumental composition. Additionally, I really enjoy the 80's balladry of Harmonies. It's hard to get solidly behind anything on Antics, and for that matter, Turn on the Bright Lights isn't the most accessible album either. Lastly, the dude who does the main vocals for Stellastarr* has one of the lower-register voices in all of post-punk, which makes it all the easier for me to sing to and think that I actually could pull of a few songs in a Karaoke death match, if it ever came to that. He's also gorgeous. Some might complain about the retarded asterisk in the bandname, but as one who has taken more physical chemistry than most people should ever have to, I appreciate the bold use of non-sensical symbols in order to convey very little meaning or minor distinctions. Unfortunately I haven't been able to see Stellastarr* live, but I have the sneaking suspicion that they might not put on the most explosive set. I hope someday to be proven wrong.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

2006-03-13T19:03:00.000-05:00

It would appear that there is a marked similarity between the way I manage my blog, and the way I once managed my grow-a-frog. In the case of raising a mail-order tadpole, my neglect somehow led to the creation of one of the fatter creatures I've ever seen in captivity, so perhaps my postings will become more robust. On the other hand, the poor frog most certainly died one of two equally terrible and equally likely deaths: a) jumping out of his container and finding his way to the garbage disposal, or b) jumping out of his container and finding his way into my dog Bandit, who was at least 13 years old at the time and had breath that would make your eyes water. Both of these are far better deaths than most hamsters in my family wind up with.
It's true that I do go through alternating periods of shallow introspection and deep pseudo k-holes, so my lack of attention is not all that uncharacteristic. I blame it more on general failure to thrive, which is definitely a chronic condition at this point, with some noteable exceptions. How, though, could I possibly hope to rival the great Bostonianne? Indeed, not an exercise worth trying, as we both share the same pool of friends, and most of my non-leisure activities are strictly confidential, subject only to obscure references, or are scientific, which I've found really only saddens people. On the other hand, notoriety does have its drawbacks. Still, I have the haunting feeling that my site-counter is not actually defunct, and I have in fact never had a visitor, as it reports to me weekly.
This is a big week, though, and this has kicked me into high gear. For one thing, my almost lone posts to the newly-minted Schlockbuster Video site have helped my fingers to grow nimble, my mind to put to use some small bits of utterly neglected vocabulary. I'm alarmed at the rate of my typos, and not sure if I'm losing the ability to type, or the ability to spell, and I'm even less sure of which would be a worse fate. I suppose it depends on how far the syndrome goes. Eh. Secondarily, I'm growing a beard. Having a real hospital ID dangling from one's beltloop is a quick way to dismiss any street cred in Brighton, so I'm hoping to employ a few straggly hairs as, what else, my 'beard.' If all goes according to plan, there will be eventual photos, most likely posted on Annie's blog, so that people will see them.
Also, I'm having a few moles removed tomorrow, which will bring my scar count to 5ish (only one of which is at all bad-ass, and I got that one at the age of three). One of them is on my chest, which vexes me. I just KNOW that I'm going to have to either shave my own goddam left boob, or have my left boob shaved by someone else. Furthermore, it's not like they'll finish the job, or give me complimentary nair for a smoother look, longer. So essentially I'm going to be putzing around with a half-shaved chest, and somewhat fewer than ten stitches, which is really the gay male equivalent of a bloated red ass on a baboon. Get ready, this bitch is about to estrus HARD all over you.
Lastly, I'm departing this weekend for the land of bearded women and libertarians, a place where a noun is "a person, place or idear." Yes, Virginia, there is a red state in New England, essentially, at least. I'm somehow agreed to watch the younglings while my parents cavort about in Hawaii. This would be ok if I desperately needed time to study for the MCAT, didn't have to commute to work, and wouldn't be missing a number of really compelling shows in Boston. Drugs would also help, but then I'd do something stupid like drown the kiddies in the bathtub and then put the bodies in the van before backing it into the river. And the youngest is 15. Luckily, my folks have agreed to some pecuniary consolation, but I do think that the low-end of the opportunity-cost is much higher than the price I'll be collecting. Granted, this does represent a really pleasant opportunity for that family bonding with the most perplexing members of my nuclear family-- until the last few years it wasn't worth trying to get more of the scoop anyway-- my brother and sister. And I will get to see the dog. On the down side, I'll have an hour and a half commute in a minivan in which I can't smoke, won't be able to get blisteringly drunk for wednesday night TV, and won't have much access to porn. Expect a lot of posts and a lot of posed photographs featuring Lucy and Kitty.
Oh. I'm also going to a St. Patrick's Day Party thrown by a Jew and a Korean (whom I both respect and enjoy, for the record). Now, I'm appreciative of any opportunity to socialize in a non-intimidating setting, and you know I love drinking (although not recently, so much, which I guess is good?), but seriously. What the friggity fuck? Half of my ancestors will turn over in their graves if this truly comes to pass.

It's Like Girl No. 6 Meets Rainman Up in Here!

2006-01-31T20:00:00.000-05:00

On Sunday afternoon I was waiting at Tremont and Park for the arrival of my good friend Dina, so that we could proceed to dish the last two weeks at eachother from fresh perspectives, when I witnessed what was probably the funniest interaction ever to take place outside of New York. Let me set the stage. Obviously, being on the Common, the un-homed are ubiquitous, and in that part of town they're usually damn frightening too. (I found myself thinking, in response to the haunting visage of one zombie-like denizen, that being successful at begging is really all in the presentation. Thus, walking in circles and screaming for spare change while hitting the side of your head would be a fairly unproductive way to spend your time while homeless. If they'd dance and sing for me, I'd always walk around with a pocket full of Sacajawea dollars.) But I digress, even if parenthetically. So it's a warm-ish Sunday afternoon and the park is alive with the bustle of Bostonians so pleased that they can walk around without tears streaming down their face that some of them are even doing good deeds, and the brave few are, gasp, talking to strangers with warm familiarity! Furthering the all-around sensation of goodwill and willing vulnerability was the presence of a high school volunteer (presumably religious-based) corps handing out bag lunches to the scads of homeless folks lining the sidewalk. They definitely researched their location, that's for damn sure! You know, I never did participate in that program Swarthmore had for a while, where you'd prepare food in the quaker meeting house and proceed to bring it into Philly and distribute it. I was scared of two things: a) mistaking dirty people for homeless people and b) Philadelphia. `Now I know why.
While the kids seemed well-trained in spotting and approaching the needy, they began to lose points when it came to actually communicating, let alone sustaining the difficult dialogues often demanded by the clinically insane. It was though the kids were caught off-guard by the interactive nature of the exchange. Michael Taussig would have had a fucking FIELD DAY with the whole ordeal. The best moment of all, however, came as two hearty youths approached the smiling preacher guy that can often be spotted heckling street performers outside of Faneuil Hall. He's one of my favorites, I might add-- he's lucid, non-offensive, and dresses better than most people at the Watertown Mall. It's clear that he's off his rocker, but in a benign way, and more importantly, an entertaining way. So he's just doing his thing, standing on a bench (a bench on which he could just as easily have been sitting... but I've never seen this guy not standing at least three feet off the ground, contributing to his preacher vibe), and appeared to be legitimately pleased with his lunch. But preacher guy doesn't let anyone off that easy. As the kids quickly realized they hadn't practiced saying anything beyond "Would you like a free lunch?" and started shuffling backwards in a bizarrely coordinated group turn-around, the recipient of their goodwill belted out, "You've given me LUNCH! And so I'm going to give you some TRUTH!" Now I'm riveted. I haven't done anything for the homeless (other than step over a dead one on my way out of the Hynes Convention Center stop the night before... it was among the most depressing things ever... the T officials put an orange cone next to his corpse), and I stand to benefit from second-hand truth, straight out of the preacher's mouth! Hooray! He winds up verbally for a bit, listing off the contents of his lunch: "I've got an apple. It looks mighty fine. And that sandwich, ooooh boy. Yall listen up. It's time for the truth. [he pulls out a bag of cheetos from his lunch-pack] You see this? See it? Now this is the truth, guys, listen closely. You see these? God made these. But. Man, man made the Tiger!" I can't possibly convey the rapture that was painted across his face as he scream-uttered "tiger." The look of pure joy and absolute certainty, akin to the look that that musician from the early 90s SNL band. Priceless.
Now I thought about what he said for a few seconds, and didn't really fret over it. A few days have passed, and I can no longer think of anything else. It's as if I've heard the truest words ever spoken, and it's my responsibility to report them to the world ( in which case a link from Annie's blog would help ). Annie's response was priceless: "It's as though his free-thinking and the obvious profundity of his being have neccessarily forced him to the margins of society (paraphrased... yeah)". And I have to agree. No one who has ever tasted Cheetos can deny that they are truly a gift from god. And no one who has ever watched a Cheetos advertisement can possibly believe that a benevolent spiritual being could ever get behind that wretched, addicted, and downright skanky Cheetah. Chester, i think his name was. A product of man, and purely so.

This post is brought to you live from the call center. Reach out and touch faith, people. I'm actually at the end of my FUCKING rope with this volunteer post. I'll rant more about this later. Enjoy the state of the union address you fuckers. I'll catch up on drinking later.

(What's the Story)

2006-01-31T00:46:00.000-05:00

Heroin is so passe. Or at least I hope/suspect. I'll let you know on Sunday, theoretically.
For now I've just written a sentimental email to my youngest brother, and am listening to "The New," thinking about the shit I want to break. Hey, you're looking alright tonight.

At Least I'm Not in Nevada

2006-01-30T20:43:00.000-05:00

I was just watching The Daily Show with special guest Sir Anthony Hopkins and it turns out that he had to stay in Wendover, Nevada for five weeks while filming The Fastest Indian. He described it as godforsaken, and I have to agree, having spent a night in West Wendover while hurtling across the country with my dear friend/enabler Dylan. Imagine, spending three hours driving across the salt flats of Utah, periodically finding beauty in the broken glass jutting out of the otherwise monotonous landscape, and then emerging into a shabby casino-driven economy surrounded by trailer parks where the Native Americans lived. I remember trying to call my friend Marc from the parking lot, avoiding the june bugs that were fucking falling from the sky. On my way back into the Motel Six, the Hopi security guard (who I suspect had been drinking even more than I had) admitted to me that some kids from the nearby trailer park had stolen all of the surveillance cameras from the hotel to sell them for drugs. I can't convey how utterly depressing that town was-- casinos that made Atlantic City look glamorous; slot machines in the gas stations; dusty children running around, looking like they ought to be selling Chic-lets or something. Anyway, I'm really amused thinking of Anthony Hopkins spending 35ish more days than I did there.

Things I Shouldn't Be Thinking About At Work, Part I

2006-01-26T11:02:00.000-05:00

Here's a private window into the mind of this young scientist. For no apparent reason I've been trying to come up with the worst sounding situation imaginable. I mean, you walk by whatever scene this is and you're instantly driven stark raving mad for the rest of your life. And I've got something good, although highly implausible. Fran Drescher is chained to a jack in the box that will explode if she stops cranking it. The damn head never pops up though, so the tune is left without resolution for hours on end. The only way she will live through the day is by convincing Macy Gray to cannibalize Mario Cantone, both of whom are also trapped in this room with her. It's like of like No Exit, but with way more jokes about faggots and Jersey. So there you have it. That's what I think about at work. Back to the tissue culture room....

Who Will Clean My Teeth When I'm Gone?

2006-01-23T08:56:00.000-05:00

It's before 9am and I'm sitting in the company of my dog, freezing and hungry in my living room at home in NH. "A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work." So read the fake license plate on the front of my grandfather's Lincoln Towncar for a good portion of my childhood-- I never really caught the significance. That's also totally not true. Fishing is the most alternatingly boring and frustrating thing in the whole world. Tantamount to having to complete a black-velvet inspired color-by-number poster with only white-out. In my instance, I would say that it probably ought to be reinterpreted.... a bad trip, perhaps? "A bad trip is better than a good day at is there a frog? coming out of my head?" (Thank you, Joaquin.) Or even bad sex (like that ever happens). It's likely, though, that a good day at work outweighs a bad sushi experience, at least in the sense that a bad day at work is presumably followed by a pleasant evening of studying, television, and maybe some bourbon. The bad sushi is often followed by night sweats, gastric distress, and visions of dying alone on the toilet with an overturned bucket of vomit lying at my feet. The question of the day is, however, how will my dentist appointment go, and in the event that it is categorically bad, will that still be better than a good day at work? In the sense that even the worst trip to the dentist won't include a lunch rife with five-minute silences, post-blunt putdowns delivered by German accents, and, hopefully, getting splattered with HIV positive blood (or blood of any sort, for that matter), it's a tight game.
This dentist appointment comes at a particularly bad time, as I really should be at work preparing for a presentation I have to give to the entire AIDS Research Center a week from today. To the minute actually. One week from now I'll be going off on the importance of early-timepoints in assessing HCV pathogenesis, and just how crazy one particular subject's immune response is. Unfortunately I can't include a video of a smoking monkey, which really conveys best the extent of my confusion over this particular case study. And I don't yet know how to use the software the Germans tell me will be essential here. Save me. Also, I've eaten A LOT of junk food this week for a few reasons, so I'm not looking forward to being reprimanded for having missed half a Pop-Tart in my back incisors (do those exist?) thanks to my lax, although existent and generally effective flossing routine.
Did I mention that it's snowing fluffy cats and dogs outside? Why is it that every single fucking time I make any sort of plan that involves driving and a commute of sorts, the heavens open up? Need I remind you of Shackleton's adventures in Framingham? (scroll down for that one) More hangs in the balance than is immediately apparent. Having missed last week's conclusion to the 24 premiere, and having remained somewhat isolated from spoilers all week long, I've been scrambling to find anyone who TiVoed it. Luckily Annie's folks fit the bill, and seem to like me at least as much as my own parents do (with fewer apparent obligations, although I do grow worried that the other shoe is about to drop. or is it foot?). But how the hell are we going to drive to their house in the blizzard? For that matter, how am I going to walk from Washington Square to my apartment this afternoon without destroying my sneakers and sending the level of laundry alert to RED, as my new jeans will be caked in road-salt, slush, and surely traces of frat-boy/homeless-woman urine.
So, yes. Life is more of less a trainwreck right now, but I think it's largely of my own making. While the problems at hand are infinitely less tricky than, say, solving the radial distribution function for a single helium ion (yes, solving it), the ramifications are generally more applicable to how the next day will play out, and so forth, and actually say something about me as a person/ideal/entity. Luckily, I can fall back on being a likeness of Berlin-era Bowie (let's take 15 seconds and consider the damage Bowie could have done to 1920s Berlin-- Caberet indeed, Iman) (courtesy of Jackie).

Which David Bowie are you?

Case in point: I'm spending this morning drinking Folgers, blogging and smoking on my porch in my brother's slippers, rather than studying physics for the MCAT. If it weren't for the smoking it would be healthier, but I've got to avoid eating before my appointment at 11:45. Granted, that makes no sense. The shredded wheat or toast from this morning probably wouldn't aggravate the hygienist nearly as much as the chex-mix/bubble gum/nicotine "tooth" that has probably started forming in the back of my mouth, where conventional brushes don't reach, and where, quite frankly, I could give a flying fuck about flossing all that routinely. It reminds me a little bit of our "light lunches" in Turkey, a radical diet program intended to help the six of us on our little program to lose the weight we gained in the village while studying in the city. One-hour lunch=three cigarettes and a can of Coke Light. I fared better than most, as my host family woke up after me and fairly regularly didn't really feed me at night. Which is to say that I was actually starving in Turkey. Better than bird flu. I've yet to really reflect on my Turkish delights in Blog form, but I promise I'm planning it. Expect gold, people. Comic gold coming at you from the place where East meets West, where rabbits tell your fortune, where little boys shine your shoes and young men hawk aphrodesiac nuts (and a whole lot more) on the narrow strip of developed land between the farmlands of Western Turkey and the Aegean coast.

Does this make me the gatekeeper?

2006-01-15T03:57:00.000-05:00

Indeed!

All Hands on the Bad Channel One

2006-01-07T03:13:00.000-05:00

It's time for a late night rant. I was just watching music videos on OnDemand, as I tend to do when I'm drunk very late at night. In general I appreciate being able to see music videos at all these days, and ComCast does a decent job of stocking the "indie rock" categories with relevant artists and interesting trifles... I'm not sure if The Mountain Goats should even be making videos, but more power. Anyway, tonight I took in two pleasures (it would have been three, but the Morningwood videos have been removed, sadly... you can watch them at the link, and they are WORTH it): Sleater-Kinney (Entertain) and Spoon (I Turn My Camera On). The Spoon video was vaguely Huey Lewis and the News, but still worthwhile, and the song is good enough to carry even a mediocre video (Ava Adore by the smashing pumpkins trounced this particular video in nearly every way, which is sad when one considers the implications of this). And the S-K video was pretty mediocre too-- the creative force behind just making the girls rock out in The Woods for what could have been an amazing video with found footage and grainy 8mm and all that ought to be shot, or at least dug out. Granted, Dig Me Out is one of my top five favorite albums ever, so I have a few things at stake (not to mention that One Beat might be one of the best rock songs of the last five years). But I'm not actually that angry over production values... I mean, whatever. I'm glad enough to be able to see it. Here's the clincher. OnDemand comcastically has decided to mute the word "gun," derived from the fairly innocent (at first blush, at least) lyric "Johnny get your gun." OK, I live in Massachusetts, and I'm more likely to live here due to the gun control and the anti-Stop Snitchin' tshirt campaign (what would Maura Hennigan do?), and having grown up in reaction to New Hampshire, I'm staunchly anti-gun anything. There are some issues here:
1) Censorship. I'm all about censoring Kanye or Korn or whoever the fuck. But censoring Sleater-Kinney is tantamount to female circumcision, at least in this context. I was pissed enough about the muting of "fuck," but given that I don't hear that one too often issuing forth from the television, I'll settle. But "gun?" Come on. If I had pressed fewer than 7 buttons on the remote, I could have followed the video with the unrated version of High Tension. Does comcast mute the word "chainsaw" routinely? Or "knife?" Or "decapitated head blow job?" No, no, and debatable. This does strike me as a strange double standard, especially considering the relative likelihoods of children stumbling upon either product. From the main OnDemand menu, High Tension is but 3 clicks away from the fertile and impressionable minds of those that village has raised. To get to "Entertain" one must scroll off the first screen, select music, select MTV2, choose Indie Rock, and finally opt for Entertain. That's almost too complex for me, let alone a four year old. Fuck. My 15 year old sister doesn't even really use OnDemand due to its complexity.
2) ComCast. I willingly let them rape me (is that possible, logically?) on a monthly basis for basic digital cable. We've had numerous billing issues with them as well. And creating the word comcastic? Fuck you! If at all possible I will always use fabulash or meatnormous in its place.
3) [and here's the part that pitches me into existential murk] MTV2 on OnDemand is sponsored by the US Fucking Army. Each video is followed by that bullshit commercial that takes place on a fire truck. "you know we're a pretty tight team." Oh, I know all about tight teams. I was in the army. You can't jerk off another private and then go shoot up some three year old Iraqi girl beyond all recognition without understanding the fundamentals of teamwork. (I don't mean to trivialize handjobs here... teamwork is essential.) Let's consider this. Does the army really want anyone who would go out of their way to watch a Sleater-Kinney video? Feminists, 90s nostalgics (not that sk is no longer relevant, but the idea just worked better then), people who lost their virginity to "Jenny" (would that I were so lucky, though I wouldn't say I was particularly unlucky), and the rest of the rag tag assortment of womens' lib/LGB (I'd add the T, but I'm not about to assume that trans people automatically gravitate to angry women with guitars to the extent that lesbians, gays and bisexual (women) do [on that note I have a few things to say about Felicity Huffman's Letterman appearance the other night, promoting TransAmerica... but that comes later]). Would anyone who places some small percentage of their identity squarely behind "one beat" even enlist, let alone not commit sutee upon being drafted? I'd be rather surprised if the army was actually intending this... we'd all be better off if Carrie Brownstein had some sway with the commanding officers.
Things are clearly amiss. Spending tomorrow studying for the MCAT and celebrating my grandfather's 80th birthday at a chinese restaraunt in fucking Westford won't help elucidate anything. Right now I'm hoping I don't fall asleep with my headphones in, as I'll wake up deaf and with sore ears. And I've also linked to the US Army website, so the patriot act is totally going to destroy me. Btw, what the HELL is going on with the Patriot Act? Did anyone else find the coverage of the Sentate votes last month to be completely mind-boggling? Is this a victory for civil rights advocates? Are free-thinkers going to get more fucked? Christ... I need another drink before bed to soothe my anxiety over this.

Don't Be Fooled by the Gas That I Got

2006-01-06T23:18:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't updated in a long while. Then again, your asses haven't really been commenting, have they? Well, I promise some good stuff is in the works. For now... Just five minutes ago I was at the local 7-11 (the one that closes at midnight), buying diet coke for the bourbon fest I'm about to have while watching Stranger than Paradise. Everything seemed shockingly normal for Brighton at 11pm. And then I realized. The guy in line before me was buying FORTY DOLLARS worth of frozen burritos. If it's the dude who lives above us, I know he's just going to drop them from a height of three meters all night long until they shatter. Somehow I think the reality will be somewhat more indulgent. I'm no gastronome, as evidenced by the fact that my dinner tonight was a morning star burger, the same thing I ate every other night this week, except last night when I ate a few peanuts, but that many burritos could kill a small chulo. Right?

My Dog Says Merry XXX-Mas

2005-12-25T14:47:00.000-05:00

The only way she knows how. She flaunts her vag like it's her job. I'm actually really conflicted about posting this.... it almost seems like a betrayal. Then again, it's unlikely that her mother will ever stumble upon it. And how great will it be to get hits from people looking for this sort of thing.

It's a Good Thing I've Stopped Using a Mach 3

2005-12-25T14:28:00.000-05:00

Because I tore my face off shaving this morning. Seriously. Nothing says Christmas like bloody shaving cream in the wash basin. Of course, I'm going to forget about this the next time I'm exfoliating, and the result will be rather unattractive. Now that I've stopped bleeding, I'm left with the slightest red slash beneath my eye... truly outrageous! On the plus side, now I have an edgy new friendster picture.

T'was the Night Before Tomorrow

2005-12-24T23:20:00.000-05:00

Christmas Eve is always a special time for me. I blame it on years of being deceived by parents, coupled with the warmth and low-expectations of home contrasted with the cold, shriveled teat of Swarthmore's blood and guts requirements. We used to leave a plate of cookies (not that cookies lasted too long in our household... they were usually the chips ahoy cookies with sprinkles... those were kind of nasty [on an unrelated note, I once won a contest sponsored by Chips Ahoy! in which the contestants were asked to guess the number of chocolate chips in the average (blue) bag of cookies. I apparently kicked ass, and won some legos for this.]) out in the living room on top of the VCR next to the tree. Invariably we'd come down the following morning to find crumbs and half-chewed carrots (for the reindeer, duh) resting on the plate, but most of our attention was focused on the piles of presents that we hoped contained games for our Sega. That's right, Sega. I could never figure out, though, why the reindeer horde couldn't finish the damn carrots. Incidentally, the seed of doubt that grew into my Santa-skepticism was based on my parents using the same wrapping paper for my birthday and Christmas. Mind you, I was four, and my birthday was in August. It's safe to say that my growing up has had an impact on my attention to detail. Just one year before, plagued by ear-infections, I would spend the weeks after Christmas mourning the deconstruction of our christmas tree, muttering "Christmas tree down" to anyone who would listen, or just to myself, confirming my reality and suggesting to strangers that I might, in fact, be autistic. Then again, when I was three I looked eight, which got me into trouble with truancy officers many a time. When they'd ask me how old I was, my answer was always a lazy hand backed by a twittery "This many!" But I'm rambling. It's Christmas Eve, and I'm in the living room, watching South Park with my brother Sean who was just today admitted to Bryant College ED, his first choice (!). We're not talking about it. Rather, I'm posting to my blog and sipping an Evan Williams + Diet Coke. As you can imagine, Christmas is a time of heavy tradition for my family... to the extent that you'd almost suspect kinship diagrams and the like. For as long as I can remember, we've gone out to breakfast on the morning of the Eve. For the first 19 years of my life, we would do so at the Exeter Inn, a stodgy, anachronistic, bizarrely huge inn dedicated almost exclusively to housing visiting dignitaries to Phillips Exeter and students' families (or bipolar students who couldn't handle living in the dorms, nor, apparently, taking the SAT IIs. Ask me about that, why dontcha.) It was impeccably decorated, steeped in Romanticism and French Toast. It has slid down the precipitous slope of decay in years past, however, and we've since started looking for new traditions. This has been a severe example of social trial and error. There was the year that we went to Betty's Breakfast Shack in Greenland NH (the only time I've ever left a meal to have a cigarette... out of sheer mortifiedness). Then there was the year at the Hampton Inn (less decadent than the Exeter Inn... but then, Hampton is trashier than Exeter). Then last year we were cordially invited to a private breakfast at the Inn By the Bandstand (in downtown Exeter, if you were wondering, where we do, in fact, have a bandstand) (weirdly enough, the owners dogs share the names of my mother's brother's children). We were served course after course of wonderful, traditional breakfast foodstuffs in a holiday environment. We left in wonder (and full of eggs, bacon, sausage, pineapple souffle, stuffed french toast, croissant, etc). This year was less impressive (baked apple, croissant, french toast), which sent my brother Pat on a 'roid rage that is probably only rivalled by Jose Canseco after hours of being picked at by Janice Dickerson. However, as my breakfast usually consists of instant coffee and a cigarette (and sometimes a free muffin at lab meeting), I was unduly sated. The afternoon passed without event. No, that's not true. I traded in my cell phone for a newer model today. I now have a color display, voice-activated dialing, ring-tone capacity, and many other grrrrreat things. Anyhow, I skipped church to wrap gifts and masturbate, before meeting my family at the second-to-worst Chinese restaurant for vegetarians in town (second only to whichever establishment runs the building occupied by Jade Panda/Ho Kong/Rainbow Jade/Sake Panda... it changes every few months). My family has some serious cred at this place-- we get free fried ice cream each time we go (which means my parents go at least once a month... quite a deal, no?)-- because my dad once did business with the owner or the owner's cousin in China. I'll take it. Functionally this means that my family assumes an air that it really isn't entitled to in the scheme of things... knowing the waiters, joking with the waitresses (the daughters of the owner, with whom my brother Pat and I went to high school... that's awkward:

"so what are you doing these days"
"Oh, I got my degree in electrical engineering from RPI... graduated this year"
"Excellent. Congrats. I'm working at MGH in boston. Could I have the crab rangoon?")
The whole thing is fucked up. It's like we're part of some bizarre Chinese mafia. Our waiter was ridiculously attractive-- as if a very recent Chinese immigrant had joined the Bravery, or at least joined their aesthetic. My bean curd casserole sorta sucked.
In other news, my Mom keeps making me promise that I'll be available on Friday evening the 30th, without explaining why. this is the question that burns for me... the only real excitement behind waking up tomorrow. WHAT could she possibly be planning? As I may have mentioned before, I'm afraid the options are few. A) Heterosexuality camp (I don't want to be brainwashed) or B) A musical in the city (I don't want to be that gay). So where do I go from here? You'll find out shortly after I do. Merry Christmas to all my Xtian brethren, and Happy Holidays to all you heathens. Let's make plans for New Years, Ok? Ciao.

Weekend Wrap-Up

2005-12-19T19:31:00.000-05:00

Like many a Monday before this, I find myself in a privileged position to review the too-short string of days that composed this past weekend. So what went on? Huh? Well, I got out of work wicked early on Friday, anticipating a calm afternoon and maybe some big-time bed-buying. It was going to be the kind of late afternoon I often had in college-- spent idly on the internet, napping or reading... perhaps an indulgent cigarette (just for the hell of it)--or seem to think I had, although I realize as I write this that afternoons of that character were indeed few and far between. Maybe I'm thinking of the week before senior week (back when I had many friends, steady [but bad] food, a part-time job, and potential). About ten minutes after I got home, though, in sauntered Annie and Ed, a truly fortuitous albeit unexpected turn of events. It's safe to say that within ten minutes I was on another planet entirely, watching cartoons, being struck by the repetitive nature of my time at work that day, and anticipating with a heavy heart the take-out we'd be purchasing... all this before 4:30. I'm fairly certain that the rest of the evening passed without real event. Annie and Ed went out to the Publick House, while I stayed in to mellow out and watch Comedians of Comedy. Somewhere between Annie's departure and her return, though, I stumbled into a K-hole of sorts. I was essentially catatonic on the couch, with spare words here or there, lulled into my regressive state by the throbbing bass of what must have been the most kick-ass frat-like party the Brookline side of Brighton has experienced in quite some time. Seriously. Now, this came as no surprise-- these are the neighbors who stomp around all day and night like rodeo clowns with ricketts-- yet the timing was poor, and the party raged until at least 3:30 am. Through this all, no cops! Not a one, or at least no effective ones. Which makes me wonder-- what about softly-played Interpol on a Saturday afternoon would give the neighbors a stroke, a stroke that was not apparently caused by Black Eyed Peas booming through the building very early on Saturday morning. Then again, lovely lady lumps are one thing, 200 couches are another thing entirely.
On Saturday Annie and I took a roadtrip out to casa di Ronan, where I was fed exuberantly by her mom. Mr. and Mrs. Ronan have done more for my nutrition than I have, which is at once a testament to how awesome they are, and a clear sign that my self-destructive tendencies are easily superable by TLC from a familiar adult. This is a reasonable time to relate the story of my dinner on Wednesday night. Returning home late from work, with a date looming later in the evening, famished but lazy, I rummaged about the kitchen for the brown paper bag I suspected was hiding behind numerous empty wine jugs. The week before my boss George took my lab out to lunch at Sel de la Terre, and insisted upon buying me bread. Now, I love bread, and am completely willing to accept donations to the feed Brian fund. I can't fight the feeling, however, that this bread is collateral for something... a down-payment, if you will. That's another story, and he's away for the next couple of weeks, so don't hold your breath. So I'm hungry and it's late on Thursday and I need to eat FAST... so I find the bread, pull out a tub of cream cheese, and set about dipping the stale-ass bread in it. I cut my mouth to shreds, but it was delicious. So I ate well at the Ronan's. Damn well. So well that I didn't even eat dinner later that night... back to my old tricks, so to speak.
More excitingly, I bought a bed for a real boy later that day! That sounds wrong. I mean, I bought myself a real-sized bed, finally! Slumber, here I come. And non-slumber, now I have almost twice as much room with which to enjoy you! I wound up choosing from Bob's Penultimate Collection, which is just the most depressing name for a mattress possible. It just screams: "ALMOST!" which is hardly what I'm looking for. Funnily enough, I was rejected for store credit by this maniac. But let's roll back this story before pressing on. Annie and I arrived at the Bob's Discount Furniture on Rt. 1 in Saugus MA, to a nearly empty parking lot-- the addition of our ride brought the grand total to no more than 8 vehicles in a fairly large lot. We walked in and were immediately sniped by a viciously short woman with a bad haircut and worse glasses. I was all business though-- knew what I wanted, and that was to be in and out in under half an hour. Strained smiles all around, she led us back into the sleep system showroom, shuffling us past a collection of other employees, lounging about on the floor furniture, looking like the zombies at the end of 28 Days Later... a slow day, their expressions mouthed... how am I going to pay for that xbox I bought my son?

one woman's furrowed brow plucks out a mournful tune. Skip forward twenty minutes or so, Annie and I are collapsing left and right on Bobby Bears, on Bob-o-pedic memory foam, and other stupidly named beds, waiting for our Igor-lady to return with the delivery specs. Finally we get to the money-talk, and I ask for credit. It takes about 20 minutes for me to learn that I've been denied store credit for my purchase. Just as well. I was really hoping to get a $900 credit bill right before christmas. What irked me, though, was looking around at the human garbage that (I assumed) was being offered store credit. How do I compare to these "people?" Let's see... I have all of my original teeth, most of my original hair; I cut a dashing figure; I'm articulate and speak with virtually no accent (slight bits of NH creep in here or there), and so on, so forth. I'm a class fucking act, but Bob doesn't believe me. I can just picture his skanky face as he reviews my application. "Mass General Hospital? I doubt it!" or "Have another cookie while I wipe my pale ass with your application, rookie!" (while his stupid bitch of a [wife? succubus? VP of marketing] woman-friend gestures wildly and reads off a card: "Where your health is on the line?") If you haven't seen the commercials, I apologize, this holds less for you than it does the intended audience. I neglected to choose the ridicula-warranty on the mattress pads (up to three in ten years, saving me 80 dollars over the lifetime of the bed, provided that I pay 49 on the spot... yeah right). I figure, if I'm still sleeping on this bed in ten years, I sure as hell won't be living near Saugus (please, God), AND, let's say four years from now my mattress pad does actually implode and need to be replaced, I hope to god that it's stained enough not to be acceptable by mass. state law. I think I chose wisely.

Saturday night was a comedy of errors that ended just as I most fervently hoped: curled up in bed, listening to music and falling slowly asleep. On Sunday I woke up, kissed on the train (as I remember the moment, it was somewhat cuter than the link) and went Christmas Shopping, the subject of my next post.

Oh Little Town of Framingham

2005-12-12T21:20:00.000-05:00

My deepest apologies over the lack of original material as of late. I'm not sure if what I've got counts as an excuse per se, but I'm sticking to my guns. I took this past Friday off from work for a number of reasons: a) my coworker is taking two goddamn weeks off from the week before Christmas to the day after New Years. Now, this is totally within her right, and she has been there longer than I have, and she's generally an awesome person, so whatever. But, it means that I don't have a day off until FOREVER, and I'll still be drinking like it's the holidays. Cowboy up. b) I've been working INSANELY hard recently. We just the week before last received an assload of blood samples from our Brazilian cohort that needed to be processed the day they arrived... this means that I left work at 10:30pm, having worked hard since 8:30am. And I mean like "Phyllis Diller scrubbing the smell of cigars our of her labia" hard. (Make a yogurt commercial out of that, you Yoplait assholes.) We were also recently audited by the administrators of a clinical trial we're carrying out (results so far would indicate that you still don't want to catch the hepatitis). c) I had a number of errands to run that could only be completed during the hours that others were working. This included the post-office. And Bob's Discount Furniture (although they're technically open on weekends. and late at night... I Doubt It!!!). d) I fucking earned it. Whatever, I do what I want!
So I woke up cozy and content on Friday morning to see snow falling outside, which I worried might foil my plans to borrow Annie's car and drive her to work and then breeze on out to Stoughton to pick up a desk from Ikea and a mattress for a real boy at Bob's Discount Furniture. Would the snow stop me? "I doubt it," I chuckled to myself and went about getting back to our apartment to shuttle Annie to her personal waking nightmare. When the T was having trouble getting up the hill in front of Fairbanks street, I knew I was in for some fun. I aborted the idea and let Annie shuttle herself through the wintery mess. I walked to Washington Square to get my hair did by Geno at Salon Bimala (the only straight male I've ever seen cutting hair, and the only male to cut my hair ever... what a disappointment. although he did a good job, and didn't make fun of me.), and then walked to Brighton Center (about 20 minutes in the crazy snow) to pick up a certified letter. I was sort of excited-- certified mail! It was actually just an old letter from my father's company informing me that I was no longer enrolled in their insurance. I had figured this when I got my new insurance. No big deal, but it would have been exciting to get a check for a million dollars. Or $150, ahem. This brings me to the biggest mistake of the month (so far), grabbing a commuter rail out to Framingham in order to walk 4.3 miles round trip and purchase a real-sized bed in under 3 hours. In a fucking blizzard. You owe me this, at least: I have HEART.
Unfortunately I didn't have snow-goggles, boots or goretex. Functionally this meant that I was trudging up the main drag in blinding snow, completely caked in it, and stumbling over rapidly forming snow drifts as cars spun out around me and sidewalk plows made no dent in the 8ish inches of white death. Minutes seemed like hours, and the carnage taking place on the road not four feet away was muffled by the density of snow in the air, coating my face-- the most serene disaster I've ever witnessed. Valiantly I passed the community playhouse, the CVS, the Dunkin Donuts, and I went onward. And onward. Coated in snow, my nose running down to my chin, I finally give up and saunter into the Dunkin Donuts, there to drown my anguish in a medium regular. Of all the places I never thought I'd spend an hour. Quite the cast of characters at this dunkin donuts. I ought to have gathered this from my first pass: In the parking lot an older woman was wiping snow off her windshield and shouting to her companion in the car...
"There was this old fucking man in there just laughing at me. So I says 'What's so funny?' and he says, 'Oh no, ma'am, I'm not laughing at you, but it's a funny thing. Is that person with you in the car a man or a woman?' Fuckin asshole." Leave it to me to find gender trouble in a blizzard in Framingham.
At the DD, there was an elderly man seated in the corner, playing dirge-versions of popular christmas songs. His "little drummer boy" was particularly mournful. It did lend a holiday spirit to the whole thing, coupled with the anemic decorations strung about throughout the seating area. It was almost like a scene from the Alf Christmas special... what Mr. Foley MUST have been doing before he decided to jump off the bridge. Isn't this picture HORRIBLE, btw?There was another old man there too-- I watched as he poured sugar into his small coffee, his chapped hands shaking with concentration and effort of grasp. I watched as he stirred slowly, looking outside at the wintery tableau, thinking to myself "Rosebud." Then I watched as he ever so slowly began to fold up on himself-- his head teetering forward to his chest, his arms lightly resting on the trash receptacle particular Dunkin Donuts, his knees slowly dipping, never rising, but moving just so slightly as the seconds passed. My good deed for the week, I went over to ask if he was alright. "Jesus!" He sort of barked. "I must have fallen asleep. I've been awake for almost 45 hours. I dreamed I was in a Western movie... but now I see that's not the case." "The harmonica, perhaps?" I suggest, and sit back down in my corner, pissed off that I'd be spending another week on my childhood bed, that I'd spent 10 dollars to get nowhere and a cold, that the hobo wasn't playing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.
To top the whole affair off, I made one of the more embarrassing purchases at the CVS, thinking to myself, what the hell, it's not like they'll see me on the green line and whisper to their friends. Have you ever played that game, the convenience store/drug store game? It's WONDERFUL, depending on who you ask. I don't think Emily liked it very much though. Basically in a group of people you go around composing lists of three items that when bought on their own probably aren't too remarkable, but when bought in tandem give the cashier the willies. My perennial favorite is white bread, tunafish, and desitin. On that particular day it was Astroglide, Prep H, and a mini-pak of Kleenex. Luckily the cashier appeared to be somewhat mentally challenged, so I didn't get judgement from him. Unfortunately, he took forever to bag the above items, and the entire line behind me stood and watched, constructing my story, the tall guy covered in snow with shattered plans written across his weary face, and presumably an urgent hemorrhoid problem.

The Worst Paper I Wrote In College

2005-12-08T00:24:00.000-05:00

But it had the best title I ever came up with, besides "The Kinetics of the Helix-Coil Transition in Polyglutamic Acid." I blame this paper on the coincidence of my taking American Narrative Cinema and Shamanism (which turned out to be a critique of ethnography... not a course on how to become a shaman, and also turned out to be the best class I took at Swarthmore barring Inorganic Chemistry). Despite not having a clear sense of semiotics, formal analysis or post-structuralism, I got an A. Thanks Patty! Of course, I didn't fall asleep during our screening of Birth of a Nation, and every time Godfather was mentioned I didn't scream "Fucking Great Movie" and do a kegstand in the back of the screening room. So I present to you a timely analysis of the original King Kong. And fuck you, Adrian Brody.

(Ma)King Kong: Ethnographic Spectacle
A well-dressed, middle-class, white audience sits in the New Roxy Theater, New York City, in 1933. They await the premiere of King Kong, “The Eighth Wonder of the World.” One particular matron might even request that she not be placed so near to the screen, as it “hurts her eyes.” The crowd is filled to capacity, the result of a marketing blitz which included a half-hour original radioplay, and the serial publication of the story of “King Kong” in Mystery Magazine (AFI, 2003:2). A willing yet captive audience ready for the pure pleasure and horror of the spectacle, New York, and the rest of the world took in King Kong readily, praising it up and down, and believing it (2003:2). A fifty-foot ape? Perhaps not, but the narrative structure of the film, combined with the filmography of the directors Merion C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, induced an authority of representation, which I would like to closely examine here. Cooper and Schoedsack’s King Kong is a compelling intersection and demonstration of the interplay of ethnography, (mis)representation and horror, presented as a “fantastic” feature film (Hall, 1933). Kong is pop culture entertainment, but it is also ethnography, and a reading of this dual nature can help to illuminate problems inherent to ethnographic ideology and the production of representations and knowledge of the Other through the medium of film.
In analyzing the ethnographic aspects of Kong, I am largely relying upon Fatimah Tobing Rony’s piercing study of cinematic racial ethnographic spectacle The Third Eye, particularly her chapter “Teratology,” which involves a close reading of King Kong as ethnographic spectacle par excellance. Having read portions of Rony’s work after constructing my own analytic framework for reading Kong, I realized that several of my points correspond closely to her own, predated and presaged by them. While I rely on her groundwork, I will try here to avoid her “close reading” of Kong, instead positing our mutual theses from my point of view and drawing mainly on the film as text. In my examination of the nature of ethnography, I am employing terminology and concepts culled from two works of ethnography and anthropological theory, namely Johannes Fabian’s Time and the Other, Michael Taussig’s Mimesis and Alterity. I have been equipped by these magnificent studies to approach ethnography and colonialism, the relationship of the West with the Other.
The recognition of King Kong (and other films, of course) as producing ethnographic knowledge is of great importance, as it keys the viewer into more clearly viewing their role in the maintenance of the dialectic (image?) of the west and the rest. The image, and particularly the moving image, are powerful modes of representation, and understanding that the cinematic real (reel?) is really made up (to borrow Taussig’s phrase) helps to evidence the act of the production of ethnography. Finally, I wish to express the enormity of this task, and my inability to capture all of it. I will focus on one particular scene of the film to demonstrate Kong as ethnography, though it should be noted that numerous other approaches are viable and worthwhile, and are exceedingly well presented in Rony’s work.
First and foremost, I would like to describe the ethnographic film in general—what it is, what it means, and how it works or is made to work. Rony defines ethnographic cinema as that “broad and variegated field of cinema which situates indigenous peoples in a displaced temporal realm” (1996:8). She goes on to include in this wide category the artistic cinema, scientific and educational films, films of colonial propaganda and commercial entertainment, choosing to use the word “cinema” as opposed to “film” so as to “stress the institutional matrix in which the images are embedded” (ibid). The ethnographic cinema is a social institution, encoding race in the collapsing vertex of anthropology, nationalism and popular culture (1996:9). I refer to Kong as an ethnographic film, recognizing that it operates within the institution of American cinema while insisting on its uniqueness as an institution in and of itself, spawning a handful of sequels, re-releases and a fully different kind of spectacle at Universal Studios theme parks (2003).
Rony further posits that “cinema appears to bring the past and that which is culturally distant closer” (1996:9), at odds with classical anthropology, which relies on the formulaic and implicit spatial and temporal distancing of its referents (Fabian, 1983:xli). This is deeply problematic however, as this same cinema represents and removes from dominant discourse the indigenous objects it spectacularizes. Furthermore, Rony writes that this is “especially dangerous because of the perception that film is a window onto reality” (1996:13), turning the viewer and critic alike into “unwilling propagator[s] of a new postcolonial form of fascinating cannibalism, a reification further entrenching the categories of Same and Other” (ibid). As I mentioned earlier, the ethnographic cinema must be interpreted as really made up, a staged show rather than a picture of the really real. Taussig provides a telling example. In examining Robert Flaherty’s classic ethnographic film Nanook of the North, and specifically the scene in which Nanook is first exposed to the phonograph, he reminds us, “Shouldn’t we assume that this look and this eating is a contrivance not of the ‘primitive’ but of the primitivist film-maker?” (1993:200). Interpreting the ethnographic “documentary” as really made up dampens, or at least complicates, the hegemonic discourse of alterity that is so strongly put forth via the films of this category, and King Kong in particular.
Having said all this, what makes King Kong an ethnographic film? This is a hugely broad question that has several different types of answers. The what of the question can be read as the narrative devices and formal structure of the film, the mise en scene of Skull Island, and so on. Before travelling down that road, however, it is worth noting that the question posed can be asked in a slightly different way, and produce a whole set of equally interesting answers by replacing the “what” with “who.” Kong is based on English mystery writer Edgar Wallace’s unfinished fictional efforts, which were completed by his assistant Leon Gordon, and transformed into a screenplay by James Creelman and Ruth Rose, director Schoedsack’s wife (2003:4). Of course, Cooper and Schoedsack can be credited with a fair amount of authorship as the directors of the film. The story of the film’s production is remarkably complex, drawing on a great deal of other cinematic resources, chronicled in the American Film Institute’s Production Notes (2003). The authorship of the directors is of particular interest due to their prior filmography, notably Grass (1925) and Chang (1927), both ethnographic documentaries (2003:3). As ethnographic producers, it is arguable that the directors’ styles and methodology carried over into their creation of Kong.
King Kong itself is a veritable store of ethnographic material. Rony writes that it “is not merely a classic Hollywood film, it is a work which in significant respects builds on and redeploys themes borrowed from the scientific time machine of anthropology” (1996:159). Before drawing this out, I preface this portion of my investigation by stating that unless otherwise noted I am citing the film-as-text directly. In the first ten minutes of the film, we learn that a “jungle film” is to be made. Director Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) is a reputed wild man, intrepid in his film-making, having traversed the globe in the pursuit of spectacle. Indeed, he states that he will “give [the audience] what they want,” and is willing to travel to an uncharted island in the deep Pacific to find it. He recruits the down-and-out Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) as his actress, and a ship’s crew to transport him to his imaginative geographic destination that one “won’t find on any chart.” In this sense, King Kong is a film about the production of an ethnographic film, deriving its power from its presentation of the production of ethnographic production, serving almost as a how-to manual.
The dizzying intersection of ethnographic production comes to a head as Denham, Darrow and the crew sail into the fogs surrounding Skull Island, the home of Kong, and his indigenous keepers. The film establishes the island as far from civilization in any sense of the term, and certainly far from the West and its anticipated audience. For a short duration, Denham’s map of the island fills the screen, not unlike a figure from an ethnographic text, locating the referent of its analysis to a specific and distant spatial realm. Denham later describes what little he knows of the island and its inhabitants: “On that island is a wall, built so long ago that the people who live there have slipped back, forgotten the higher civilization that built it. They keep that wall in good repair; they need it.” It’s unlikely that Denham would interpret the society that constructed the wall as a “higher civilization,” and ridiculous to suppose a de-evolutionary passage of time and culture on such an isolated (and made up) island.
This is a prime example of what Fabian terms allochronism, the implicit practice of anthropology to place its objects in different times from the producers of ethnographic knowledge (1983: xli). Monstrous as Kong may be, it can not be supposed that he is immortal. Logically, the wall could not have been constructed more than one hundred years or so before Denham’s arrival on Skull Island, and the first contact between the islanders and the crew. The construction of Skull Island as lost in both space and time is further demonstrated through the anachronistic, and thereby allochronistic, placement of dinosaurs behind the wall with Kong. By including leftovers from the silent film of 1925, The Lost World, Cooper and Schoedsack are able to push the natives back into universally recognized prehistory (2003).
A formal analysis of the scene of first contact between the explorers-cum-ethnographers and the natives demonstrates the role of the ethnographic cinema in creating referents and otherizing indigenous peoples. Before we are allowed to see the spectacular tableau of the sacrifice of the Bride of Kong, we hear the ceremonial drumming, around which the rest of the diegesis seems to be constructed. We hear the natives speaking what the Skipper identifies as the language of the Nias islanders, the really real referents of previous ethnographic study (1996:176). In this manner, the natives are not permitted their own mode of expression, allowed only to communicate meaningfully through the speech fragments of others, and through gestures, a racist ethnographic theory which Rony describes in great detail (1996:4).
Upon viewing the sacrifice, Denham remarks “Holy mackerel, what a show!” at once solidifying the spectacular quality of the fictional ceremony, and reducing a meaningful practice to a show for the explorers and the presumably white audience of 1933. As the crew peeks around the fronds of a palm, we see as though we are them, taking in the full panorama, thoroughly kinetic, savage, and ultimately unknowable. Denham then activates his camera, recording the spectacle and suggesting that we are watching found-footage and not the fictional production based out of a sound stage in Hollywood.
Upon revealing his kino-eye, his machine of ethnographic production, Denham causes his party to be found out by the natives. The drumming stops, the show stops. Instantly we see through the eyes of the natives, presumably the chief, and turn the gaze back upon the crew, all too briefly. With the exception of one or two short shot-reverse shot sequences, we are placed solidly in the midst of the crew, watching the chief as he plods down towards them/us, mickey-moused all the way by playful yet ominous extradiegetic music. The show has stopped, but we are still in awe of the natives. The film grants this, though it does not express the fascination the natives must have with the explorers, let alone their technology. The film is not a two way street. Indeed, the natives have no means of capturing their invaders on film, resorting instead to physical abduction, mirrored later by the acts of Kong himself.
Ah, yes. Kong, the “fifty-foot ape.” How does he fit into all of this? Kong is in a particularly complex position in this film. He is at once the racialized other, the dilated species other, almost human, but undeniably monster. Kong is the only inhabitant of Skull Island to whom the directors bestow a gaze of his own. In a scene following the initial abduction of Darrow from her crucifix/stage, a series of shot-reverse shot sequences unfolds, we view Kong from Darrow’s perspective, Darrow from Kong’s, and the two of them from Driscoll’s (Darrow’s hero and future husband). Kong slowly and gently undresses his captor, eliciting an unsettling moment of sexual tension, and culminating in what can be interpreted as both the naïve olfactory exploration of beauty, and as the lewd sexual reference of sniffing the fingers with which he undresses the lady. Kong is almost human—more so certainly than his indigenous counterparts.
Kong is a monster in shape, in disposition, and primarily in action. Rony brilliantly analyzes the role of the monster in the horror film, and Kong’s specific ways of being (made) an ethnographic monster:
As a monster, he embodies the collapsing of the future into the prehistorical, the “primitive” into the technological, the Ethnographic into the Historical. King Kong is a meditation on ethnographic realism, on the audience’s desire to believe and disbelieve, to travel backward and forwards in time. King Kong creates both a monster object and a monster viewer.
(1996:188)
Kong seems to function as ethnography in reverse, troubling practice and ideology with his very monstrosity. Anthropology, as was seen earlier, establishes distance in space and time, marks the primitive as devoid of technology, and accords no historic capacity to its objects.
Discussing King Kong as a horror film, Rony writes that “the horror film genre works because the audience is fascinated by the monster’s impurity, its hybridity” (1996:170). This fascination is alluded to in the block quote above. Not only has a monster object been created (literally out of bear fur and metal framework [2003]) but so has a monster viewer been constructed. The interested patrons of the cinematic spectacle, the audience of the film is mocked, aped, if you will, and parodied through the film, cannibalizing Kong as he is splayed out on stage, in a pose reminiscent of Darrow’s earlier mock-crucifixion. In his original review of the film, Mordaunt Hall notes the fright rippling through the early audience in New York: “Needless to say that this picture was received by many a giggle to cover up fright” (1933). What is not mentioned in the review, however, is what exactly the audience feared: the “fifty foot ape,” or their own capacity for savagery, mirrored excellently by both the depicted natives, and by the intrepid explorers.
This is the last example of King Kong qua ethnography I would like to examine—its message, where it leaves us, how we are made to feel as an audience. In viewing our internal others, the audience at the exhibition of Kong in New York, we are given a healthy dose of reflexivity. Indeed, in the epistemic murk of Skull Island, or for that matter, the concrete jungle of New York, who are the savages? (Taussig 1993:79). Kong is a most interesting example of an ethnographic film, as it reminds its audience of its role in the powerful comodification of entertainment, and to a greater extent, culture. While I may be reading too deeply into this, I equate such a self awareness with Michael Taussig’s prescription for the living of life “subjunctively,” as “neither subject nor object” (1993:255). Through recognizing the savage side of oneself, perhaps in one’s status as a member of a fascinated yet devouring audience, as a complex force which interacts with the depiction and construction of the native as savage, a static perspective is complicated. Neither subjects nor objects, the audience and the viewed can both exercise greater freedom when the strictures of ethnographic interpretation and representation are loosened, and recognized as constructed.
Understanding that the ethnographic cinema as an institution exerts force over its referents and its audiences enables both the signified and the observers of the sign to break out of the system of fictional spectacle, of suspension of disbelief. This facilitates the recognition which is perceived so often as the real being really made up. Rony writes that, “King Kong is the ultimate carnivalesque version of early ethnographic cinema” (1996:160). Indeed, “carnivalesque” is quite an applicable term, evoking images of the House of Freaks, Siamese Twin acts (which served a pre-screening entertainment in early showings of Kong [2003]), and caged natives, and justifies the construction of a larger-than-life ape as a sexual threat to the white women of the world. As Denham announces to the eagerly awaiting crowd at Kong’s physical spectacular debut,
Seeing is believing… I’m going to show you the greatest thing your eyes have ever beheld. He was a king and a god in the world he knew, but now he comes to civilization. Merely a captive, a show to gratify your curiousity.
Perhaps the only way to fully recognize the ethnographic spectacle of King Kong is to watch the film attentively, as both entertainment and as a propagator of anthropologic discourse. A reading such as this could be the most instructive way of understanding just how beauty killed the beast.

works cited
The American Film Institute Online Catalog. “King Kong.” 2003.
http://afi.chadwyck.com/film/4005
Fabian, Johannes. Time and The Other. Columbia University Press, New York. 1983.
Hall, Mordaunt. “The Screen.” The New York Times 5 March 1933 p 3.
Rony, Fatimah Tobing. The Third Eye: Race Cinema and Ethnographic Spectacle.
Duke University Press, Durham. 1996.
Taussig, Michael. Mimesis and Alterity. Routledge Press, New York. 1993.

I Forgot It In People

2005-12-04T18:19:00.000-05:00

So I got one of those Swarthmore/Skidmore confusions going on in an otherwise great conversation (It happens... no offense taken, seriously) this weekend, and thought I'd give you all a little bit of info on Swat. The following has actually been published in Penguin Books' Students Guide to Colleges for 2006 (with some changes... I'm not violating copyright, right?) Bear in mind it was written some time ago, and late at night. This also represents a sort of cop-out post, in that I am too tired to come up with a truly original post, and very little of what I could report from the weekend would not cause social havoc in at least two states. Needless to say, the weekend was almost unprecedentedly awesome for a variety of distinct and beautiful reasons. My thanks to those who helped make some memories in Boston, and those who helped erase some in Providence.

Name: Brian Nolan
Major: Chemistry
What is your career goal? unknown
How would you describe your school's reputation? Swarthmore is well known in certain academic circles,though poorly characterized just about anywhere else("Isn't it an all-girl school?"). It has a reputation for dazzlingly brutal workloads and an unconventional social scene. The students, I think, are more or less approached as freaks or geeks. The typical response I get when I tell folks I'm from Swarthmore is a blank stare.
Is this reputation accurate? Why or why not?By and large I think the school's reputation is accurate, inasmuch as one sentiment can really describe an entire (small) population of diverse, different, and amazing people. Yes, the work is very difficult, but it is often administered with care and understanding from professors, and the student approach to the workload is just as intense as the volume of work we're faced with. As for the social scene, we live in a dry suburb of Philadelphia,s urrounded by students who are just as likely to get enveloped in a good book on a Saturday night as they are to wind up at a dance party.
What would an admissions officer at your school probably not tell a prospective student? Generally admissions would not tell you that the town of Swarthmore is far and away the worst college town outside of Beirut.
The Institution:I was really really excited to be at Swarthmore my freshman year. I had a perpetual grin on my face, the dark circles and sallow complexion had not yet settled in. Armed with a back pack, pens and pencils, and whatI considered a liberal humanistic approach, I could take on anything. Two years later I find myself returned from studying abroad, acrimonious, overworked, addicted to cigarettes, unhealthy approach to drinking, desperately single, and generally unmotivated. Who's to blame? I want my freshman year back!
The Education:Professors are genuinely available for interaction with students, in and out of class. They are largely approachable and friendly, interact well with students, and go out of their way to demonstrate this. Some even show up at parties, even drag parties. I haven't decided whether or not this is a mark of a cool Prof. Academics truly INVADE social experience. Whether it's misery poker at every meal, or dissecting arguments and classmates over a gin and tonic on a Saturday night, you will find it hard to mentally get out of class. Students are very passive-aggressively competitive. It's somewhat gauche to be demonstratively so, and mentioning grades, GPAs and test scores is frowned upon. There are very few students who are not secretly grinding axes to get to the head of a class.
The Students: Largely left of center student population. A friend of mine once claimed that "Everyone at Swarthmore is either queer or Jewish. Or left-handed." That particular evening it covered everyone in the room. In general, if she had added "oppressed," she'd have a universal statement. LGBT groups on campus a restrained, but welcoming. Swarthmore as an institution is actively queer-supportive, and the student population is tolerant if not actively interested in queer issues, the groups are sort of superfluous, and find themselves catering to the confused bisexual freshmen girls and the sex-radical transfeminist advocates. While seemingly open, it's VERY rare that anyone comes out after freshman year. This may be due to clique-yness, though I can't really justify it. Personally, I've found Swarthmore to be a great place to come into my sexual identity... I just wish there was a larger dating/whatever pool to splash around in. And more time in which to do so. Students typically mix pretty well. There are too few of us not too. Still, there is a significant amount of polarization between black students and students of other racial backgrounds. This is not unilateral, but it is present.
The average student? Wears sandals 9 months out of the year. Voted Democrat this year, but for Nader four years ago. Is wealthier than they would have you know. Wishes they were as cool as that girl with the boots. Has a radio show. Drinks too much coffee. Prefers hard liquor to beer. Doesn't smoke cigarettes, but can be convinced to take a hit.
The Activities: When I leave campus, which is rare, it's usually to the liquor store. Or to Philadelphia/UPENN. There are no bars in Swarthmore, and while the college policy on alcohol is VERY progressive, sometimes the aspect of being seen drinking a classy drink outweighs the pricetag. Well, It's 12:30 on a Wednesday night, andI'll be awake for a while. Most likely I'll be working for a few hours, I'll slam back some Nyquil, and wakeup at the crack of dawn to TA an orgo lab. If it was a weekend, and I had my senses about me, I'd probably take a walk in our beautiful arboretum. There areusually some great late-night conversations going on... it's the only way to get your mind off the utter lack of food after midnight. This is truly a campus of gremlins. The people sitting outside? A) The freshmen who go to EVERY multicultural event and feel the needto really make you know that they are getting a lot out of this school. B) The athletes are throwing a frisbee around, not terribly anxious about work. Some people find them attractive... hmmmm. C) The kids who wear capes, read fantasy, and juggle. They're a hoot. And they'd prefer that I said "Cloaks." D)Hipper-than-thou arts/theater/radio/NYC crowd, lounging about with affected accents, their anthropology books sprawled about, trying to say fuck as often and loudly as possible. They're a good time.
The Social Scene: Thursday, Friday and Saturday night are typically the nights that party situations are available. Most people only choose one on a weekly basis. This campus... approaches alcohol... strangely. Teetotallers, the moderate, and the problem drinkers. We all get along. Friday night starts with a room party. Loud 80s music, shared drinks. We probably saw a movie on campus, or just took a nap to make up for the 2 hours of sleep the night before. After an hour or so of prepartying, we head off to the dance party for a night of sweaty bad dancing to hiphop and top 40 delights, hoping to get groped by the right people,and hoping that the condom that's been in your back pocket for three months might get some fresh air. // I feel like I know just about everyone on campus, by sight if not reputation. It's a burden... news travels SO fast. My friends who are abroad right now are often cluing me in on some gossip I've missed while buried in the basement of the science library. // Funny you should ask. Unless you are INTIMATELY familiar with someone, you do NOT say hi to them on the sidewalk."Hey, you're in my math class. How's it going?" "" . I hold doors though.
What do you and your friends do at college when you're bored?1) Whine 2) Masturbate (alone) 3) Come up with stupid puns
Five words that describe your school are: aggravating, rewarding, awkward, brilliant, inertial
What do I wish I’d known about college life beforehand? I personally don’t think that college life can be prepared for. It’s far more interesting and fun, and not significantly more difficult, to just jump in headlong and deal with what you find once you’re up to your chin in it.
Swarthmore College in one sentence: You’ll lose all the little battles, and you’ll probably lose the war, but those scars are pretty damn cool!

Everybody has AIDS!

2005-11-26T10:34:00.000-05:00

So I saw RENT for the first time (not again for the first time) last night, in Newington NH of all places. I can think of many worse ways to spend $9, but I'm also pretty sure I could come up with many better ways. Here's my beef with the film and with the show in general, in no particular order of vehemence.

1) Yeah, life is really terrible when you're living in a 3000+ sq foot studio in Alphabet City. I would like to see what this movie would have looked like if it had been set largely in my neighborhood in Brighton. I'd also like to see what kind of burning cross Micozzi Management would thrust through my heart if I missed even one month of rent, let alone "Last Year's RENT!"
2) The last time Annie and I were singing about our shitty lives off our balcony, the neighbors didn't participate, nor did they hurl burning screenplays excitedly down to the parking lot. This may be that Brighton dreams are not New York dreams-- no one really wants to light their passport on fire to stay warm.
3) 30-somethings make terrible 20-somethings. While the charm of using the ORIGINAL CAST! in the film production might have held something for the thousands upon thousands of folks who actually saw the original production on stage, the only actor worth seeing in the film is Rosario Dawson (and most of the extras, actually). Her vibrance is tangible, her excitement physical, her smack habit delectable! Who but Rosario could live on the streets for at least a month, with HIV, with a smack habit, and still look ravishing upon being found by members of her urban tribe. Anthony Rapp, who actually sang to three of my friends and I at an ill-fated youth-pride event in Boston in early 2002, looks even more tired now than he did then.
4) Living with, not dying from. This show has done more to promote AIDS apathy than just about any other cultural product (not as much as medicines for those who can afford them, but as a non-scientific player in the transformation from epidemic to afterthought, it's pretty fierce). Just look on craigslist sometime... lots of raw sex going on, damn the consequences. Now, I'm all about reducing stigma, treating and understanding infected folks singularly and without a pathologizing condescension. But seriously-- that group of friends has more AIDS than my group of friends in college had alcohol and depression.
5) Dying from, not living with. This show is also responsible for, I think, self-conscious bohemianism, which disgusts me. It might just be aggravation with seeing what I've somehow wound up tangentially embracing myself without seeing the show displayed so garrishly, dissected so perfectly. The La Vie Boheme sequence almost made me retch. Let's bring Bohemia to the masses! Yes, a good idea, that. I want waifish trust fund girls on the B line EVERY hour of every day. I want Guster to be considered indie. I want sodomy to be de-scandalized. The question remains, what kind of sex are any of these people actually having, and when does it become at all appropriate to mime it out on the table of your favorite cafe (look out, Other Side!)?

There's more, but I'm having trouble concentrating, as I'm trying to plan when I'm going to buy my NH-priced cigarette cartons considering that I have to tape my brother's football game on ESPN (those are two SEPARATE and DELICIOUS links, folks). Seriously, EVERYbody's on television these days. Watching RENT in Newington was also tremendously interesting-- the crowd, their reactions, what they were prepared to believe, and where that left them a little shorthanded. The storyline is essentially as well-known as the Old Testament, so most folks knew what they were getting into. Still, there was a lot of uncomfortable stirrings when Angel and Tom kissed. The old man sitting next to me definitely seemed uncomfortable. It was also great to watch the audience's transformation throughout the film-- early on Angel got laughs for just about every one of his actions, quips, mannerisms. That stopped about halfway through. Which is not to say that a crossdresser wouldn't be beaten with chains in the parking lot once recognized, but does represent that middle america might be somewhat sympathetic to a very small minority of gender-non-conformists. What the audience CERTAINLY wasn't ready for was a preview for Brokeback Mountain (perhaps it hit too close to home?). I was really suprised they even showed the trailer up here! I mean, audiences at the Coolidge were a little bit shocked to see it (more in the giggling sense than the "oh my god" sense, which prevailed at the Newington 12).

Also, I bought Annie's Xmas gift today, and let's just say that it might be the greatest thing ever bought for three dollars. A hint? And who names their album "Hung for the Holidays"? I'm pretty sure I've seen three different versions of that timeless classic... and as far as I can tell, the dude's CD isn't going to have scenes of rail-thin Czech boys in Santa hats having sex in a barn. Other things I bought: two books (Flicker, The Coming Plague) and I finally caved and bought a legitimate version of Turn on The Bright Lights from the best music store in NH, as far as I'm concerned. All the aimless little hipster boys from my high school wind up working there... it's kind of sad, I guess, how limited their scope is, and how early on to be washed up in Portsmouth of all places. At the same time, a month in Allston would kill most of them. That's the store where last night I ran into an old high school classmate of mine who I actually always thought might be a little retarded. I wish I could find a photo of him... there's one in my yearbook (winner of "most unique" if I remember correctly). We awkwardly caught up-- I had never really talked with him in school. He told me that I had gotten taller... doubtful. I asked what he was doing and he said he's working on a movie in LA. Also doubtful. Upon being asked how life in LA was, he replied that he's actually living in NYC as an assistant to an actor. Curious, I asked if it was anyone I had heard of. His response: Luke Wilson. Riiiiiight. If this is true, I'm just going to drink a bottle of draino and sit in the bathtub until I explode later tonight (sorry, Tim). But this probably isn't true, and just adds to the catalogue of bizarre things that come out of public school in NH.

I Ate More Today Than I Drank All Weekend

2005-11-24T22:57:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, despite my vegetarianism. Oddly enough, though not surprisingly, Tofurky has never been sprung for by any members of my family-- nuclear or extended. I get the impression that I would be bannished if I even suggested it non-jokingly, let alone supplied it myself. All was not lost, today, as my thoughtful Aunt Denise did cook a small amount of stuffing outside of the bird, and sent me home with about two pounds of peas. Fast-foward to Saturday night, me sitting in our disgustingly dirty apartment covered in peas and garlic instant potato, mumbling something about forgetting to floss and wishing I wasn't alone but being glad no one is around to see me in my fall from grace.

It was a strange one, this Thanksgiving. For one thing, my brother Pat, cousin Emily and the entire O'Brien wing of my maternal-side family were conspicuously MIA. As it turns out, Pat's playing in some big-time football game vs UNH on Saturday, and is holed up in some hotel nearby, quarantined... seriously- no visitors allowed. It's just as well... hotels in NH, while perhaps glamorized by John Irving, leave much to be desired overall. In terms of sheer wackiness, they rival all those squalid, disease-harboring holes squatting on the side of Route 1 in Saugus (and I'm not talking about the dancers at the Golden Banana---shockingly there are no photos of the GB... settle for the link, please). Emily, on the other hand, is working temporarily in Australia. Not bad, cuz... not bad at all. What this meant for me, though, was that my brother Sean was actually the closest in age to me at this affair (and he's sporting a beard, which is just WAY too odd for me to deal with... I wish I had my camera. Seriously. at the same time, it's TOTALLY not ironic, which leaves me at a loss of how I even begin to treat him. So far I've just kind of ended every sentence addressed to him with the words "Mach 3?"). The whole thing was very Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman for me. Indeed, I wish someone had suggested "plastics" to me Graduate style... as the afternoon wore on it was unveiled that a disturbing percentage of the adults in the room had seen "Derailed" and didn't have any scathing comments. And as we're not a drinking family (except for grandpa... and the absent O'Briens), it was difficult for me to make things ok. I bade my time by walking my uncle's dog Finnegan, and smoking as discreetly as possible.

This post is actually being written from north of the border. I'm ambivalent. It's nice to have a kitchen I can turn around in, fewer than 300 beer/wine bottles in random piles throughout the apartment, and things are generally clean. Plus my dog lives here, which rocks. Although my mom put a retarded christmas bandana on her recently. Usually this treatment of animals pisses me off, but I feel like it's actually just serving as a warning that Lucille (the dog) is considerably below average canine intelligence (she appears to LUV the bandana). On the down side, my eyes, exposed to smoke-free air, are constantly watering. And I miss Annie's laugh. Tomorrow I'm supposed to go to the mall with my mom and sister (which ought to provide superb cirque material, provided I don't commit hari-kari in the parking lot, next to JoAnn Fabrics), see Harry Potter with my family, and go on a dinner date with my one remaining friend from the high school years. I'm trying to describe the kind of coat I want to buy to my parents, but it's really not working. It's amusing to hear the exchange though.

Oh, and the worst thing to happen to me today: well, there are two. First, after guzzling a bourbon and coke on my way out the door from my Aunt's place in South Dartmouth MA, I woke up from a brief nap to find the family car barrelling up 93N and to the sensation of my bladder ready to explode. When we finally got out of the city and into Saugus, my dad kindly pulled over at the first Shell station, where I was told by the congenial employee that the bathrooms were closed. That SUCKED. Luckily there was a Sheraton next door. Worse, however, was later on in the ride home, somewhere on NH-28. An unidentified member of my family let loose the most putrid, foul and gaggingly permeating fart I've ever encountered (and living with two brothers and my father, this is saying something). My natural response was to roll down the window in the back seat, which started my sister complaining of the cold (she, apparently, can deal with the smell of death... perhaps it was her?). To appease her, I electronically zoomed the window up most of the way, but cupped my hand just outside of it to direct much-needed fresh air into my face. My headphones were on at this point, and my sister must have complained again, because my dad over-rode my control and sent the window the rest of the way up, crushing my hand. Most bizarrely I didn't turn into the hulk and hurl obscenities like Sandra Bernhardy at a Raw Bar in Jersey. I simply, but powerfully, commanded the window be rolled down so I could have my hand back. I spent the rest of the ride home blasting sleater-kinney into my ears, cradling my busted hand, and breathing fart air. And frowning. Definitely frowning.

2005-11-19T20:20:00.000-05:00

Which came first?
This really isn't a matter of chicken and egg, so much as it is of Dylan and omelet (in which case we know the answer to that question). Dylan crashed with us this week as he prepared to withdraw from Boston for the greener pastures of Siberia. I know. We had a great time overall, using his trivia might to crush the competition at Sunday night's equivalent of Quizzo at The Publick House in our neighborhood, watching TV, and generally abusing his amazing laptop. We got this email from him the day he left:

"I'm afraid I've taken advantage of your hospitality...and made
myself a Kraft Single® and SmartBacon® Omelette. It was delicious and I won't
apologize. In fact, I'll highly recommend it."
Now, this SLAYED me when I read it at work, because I knew something he didn't. Those eggs had been in our refrigerator for at LEAST 1.5 months, making an appearance in my pumpkin and rum-creme tort at our last and only dinner party. I was almost crying at work, and was definitely in hysterical laughing tears as I called him on Friday night to inform him of the impending botulism (this link is graphic, by the way... TV-MA material all the way) (which, by the way was my 7th grade home ec teacher's greatest fear... we would lose points on the food we prepared if we didn't check the cans for dents, the tell-tale symptom of botulism, apparently... I don't know if you can get it from eggs). I was therefore FLOORED this morning when I looked at the package of eggs (which he left on the counter) to see that they were good until Nov. 15th. So he made it within three days, which makes me think he'll be ok.

2005-11-19T19:59:00.000-05:00

MVPapi
So I went downtown to hang out with a friend on Thursday night with the intention of eating burritos and heading to Cambridge to see Blue Velvet at the Brattle. Interesting people watching, at least, right? I mean, it would HAVE to be. I get to Copley and meet this guy, when I'm told that we're going to be going to his favorite restaurant. Turns out this is the Armani Cafe. Presumably I don't have to tell you that I was wearing a hoodie under my coat, which seemed to be desperately out of touch with the tacit dress code, but as this friend is apparently a 'regular' there== first name basis with the barstaff, preferential treatment from the hostess, so I scraped by by association. I cannot put into words how uncomfortable I found this setting. The Asiago and Gorgonzola Gnocci was fabulous, and the wine was stellar, and the company was great, but I have something of a chip on my shoulder regarding Newbury Street in general, and in particular the clusterfuck of fake smiles and botox the Cafe caters to. I was not surprised, but still amused when halfway through dinner David Ortiz walks in with his entourage and sits at a table not 15 feet from where I sat. Now, I could give a shit about baseball, and I have no appreciable Sox loyalty, but I did recognize that this represented something to impress my family with at Thanksgiving. He seemed affable, Papi did. I wonder what he ate? I also wonder if the predictably delicious but sparse food was able to sate what must be a considerable appetite. I am so happy, in retrospect, that he did not have to piss at the same time as I did, because I'm pretty pee-shy, and throw celebrity and giant athlete into the mix, I'd be lucky to squeeze out a drop. I'm still figuring out what the most bizarre part of the evening was... seeing as I read the Weekly Dig and not Boston Common, I probably was. That's always reassuring.

2005-11-14T21:10:00.000-05:00

This weekend was b-a-n-a-n-a-s!

So, this weekend actually rocked big time. I've chosen a selection of pictures that represent some of the good times had by myself or those I'm close to. Choose your own narrative. Paul Scheer was only nominally involved, as my roommate and I considered what would be the oddest and most uncomfortable for all parties involved three-some ever. But it would solve the problem of who gets to sleep with Paul if he comes over to our place.

2005-11-14T11:31:00.000-05:00

Today is going to be great because I woke up to the song "Magic Man" or more accurately, I hit the snooze button until it came on and decided that THAT was how I would start this wonderful day. Early reports are indicating that I might be wrong. Lots to catch up on, I've got some backlogged posts sitting around in my head, so check back tonight/tomorrow night.

2005-11-08T08:58:00.000-05:00

It's been a while... apologies. It's been a hoary week. This morning's commute was one of those affairs where it seems like it should be obvious to all that you're wearing your failures on your face, outlined in detail on the skin that you're hiding and hinted at by posture and the extent to which you sway with the train, the resistance you offer. It was a Xiu Xiu playlist morning-- for those unfamiliar with the experience, it's more or less the equivalent of what I imagine a vicodin and red wine Saturday night would be, except that the sunlight is substantially less forgiving and certainly less concealing than even the brightest moon. I came across an amusing article yesterday that I hope to give the full-on treatment by this evening, so do check back.

2005-10-31T20:21:00.000-05:00

Amuck, Amuck, Amuck

This past weekend was our more-or-less Halloween celebration, and given what little bits I do remember of it, it would seem that it was both more and less. There was definitely more elderly woman to our revelry than we anticipated, but substantially less booze, at least in me. Way less flirting than I anticipated, and the T was insanely more creepy than it should have been (seriously, Gary Bauer was wearing a bad mask). Annie has essentially covered the important details of the weekend in Boston, so I'll just move on to that which I did on my own, which, this weekend, was actually fairly substantial.

My aunt from NYC was visiting this weekend, and took me out to dinner on Friday night to the Franklin Cafe, another aunt and her boyfriend in tow. All in all, the FC gets 3 stars out of 5. Now, considering that I would have been eating a hot pocket, or something of that nature had I not been brought out to dinner, I should probably be more forgiving, but the restaurant was tiny, had a 1.5 hour wait, and was way too loud to hear the people sitting right across from you. Of course, it's in the south end, so I was getting cranked on Manhattans and starting to size up the varieties of gay surrounding me until I remembered that I was in fact with family, and was slated to attend a soiree on par with a random scene from No Exit.

Then on Saturday, I woke up balls-to-the-wall early and went to my youngest brother's football game in South Dartmouth MA. This was actually the first time I had ever seen the Exeter High Blue Hawks play a football game while I was not laden with a sousaphone (seriously, google "brian nolan" AND sousaphone, and search through that page. Hi-LAR-ious). In order to get to the game, I had to take the Red Line all the way to fucking Braintree. By the way, this is totally bizarre.

But yeah, Braintree. How about that? I've never taken the Red Line to a terminal stop before, but apparently it's pretty creepy. Let's just say that Braintree is no Cleveland Circle. But back to the game, you may recall that Saturday saw the first snowfall of the year for much of New England, and while we were spared from snowfall for the duration of the game, it was still pretty damn cold. My parents were dressed like Antartic explorers outfitted by Derelique, but I had to represent NH by looking stylish. I was freezing. I drank about five cups of $1 coffee from the snack shack. Tasty. At one point I asked a police officer if I could smoke outside the gate, despite it being school property. He said I could, but that I'd lose 45 seconds off my life. I thought to myself, "how great would it be if I could choose those 45 seconds..." I think the end of every break-up conversation/phone call would be subject to that selective loss. Since that's impossible, I tried to calculate how many minutes I've taken off my life according to this dudes rubric. It's loosely 6900 minutes at this point, relying on an average of 10 smokes per day, which is probably underestimating in the scheme of things. That's about 115 hours, or less than a week. I've reconciled this. At dinner later that night my grandfather asked me if I was dating any of the girls I had lived with over the summer, to which I replied "(Hell) No". He shrugged and mentioned that the only girlfriends he's still in touch with are married or dead. That got my "Halloween" night off to a jolly start.

Lastly, I'm writing this post at work, here ONLY to attend a Halloween costume party thrown by the blondes from downstairs. I have no costume. I haven't really had work to do for the last hour, either. I knew this would happen. Captive to sugar. And I can't even drink a little bit more than I should, as I'm operating a hotline later tonight. That could be pretty fabulous, considering that it's Halloween and all. I can just imagine it: "I was bobbing for apples and then I blew this dude. Does that make me gay?" All told, I'd rather just eat dinner at home and read for the first time in a while. Happy Halloween everyone.

2005-10-24T08:37:00.000-04:00

Sudden Weekend Death Syndrome

What should have been a fairly awesome weekend wound up dead at about 3pm yesterday afternoon, after being put to sleep on its stomach some point on Saturday night. Annie and I, in a last ditch effort at salvaging anything from a category 7 shitstorm, decided to drop $2.99 on Comcast's OnDemand version of Death Becomes Her. We fell asleep roughly half an hour into it, independently. SWDS is a crime without a perpetrator, a disease that leaves all those at all touched by it feeling the part of the victim. On the plus side, Tim was visiting all weekend, and he, Annie and I all got our hair did after a pornographically good breakfast on Saturday morning.

2005-10-18T19:01:00.000-04:00

Ingrate; (n)

So it turns out that my undergraduate advisor (pictured left) has finally put out a new publication based largely on our research. Good news, right? Well, it would be, if I were being listed as an author. His current students are, but the year I spent working with him has apparently been neglected. So along with ~16-hour work-weeks for half a credit, an insane schedule of semester-long research, and mind-numbing effort expended on minor poster sessions, it would seem like once again I get screwed over by this seemingly good-natured man. You know what? It's been a long time coming, but FUCK YOU, ED.

2005-10-17T23:32:00.000-04:00

This weekend was quite the affair, let me tell you. Following a slow Friday night whereupon Annie and I remained locked in our apartment hiding from the monsoon watching a really fascinating documentary on Henry Darger and drinking bourbon , we decided that we should play host to a dinner party on Saturday. The food would offer incentive for our guests to make the trek out to Brighton from Cambridge in what we figured would be apocalyptic weather. The menu: Yellow Split Pea and Pumpkin Soup, Mushroomania Lasagne, and a Pumpkin Torte with Rum-creme Filling. Mmmmm, taste the bloat. This took quite some effort on the part of the chefs, the primary barriers being the cost of the supplies, and the ridiculous size of our kitchen. Still, we managed quite well, given these and other about-to-be-described setbacks. Now, I'm one who enjoys listening to music while completing mundane tasks. For example, back when I was a TA for chem courses at Swarthmore, I would often listen to Pretty Girls Make Graves while grading lab notebooks. If I were to become a knitter, I'm pretty sure that I'd be listening to a lot of Iron and Wine, and so forth. Saturday afternoon called for something specific, an aural answer to combining 1.5 cups of white flour with 1.5 cups of whole grain flour and folding in 8 (yes, 8) egg whites along with a number of not-so-hard-to-come-by spices, to the extent that the action can be considered a question (and the way I went about it, it most certainly could be). So I was playing Antics at a truly modest volume from my room such that I could hear it in the kitchen.
Fast-forward half an hour and I'm combatting salacious removal and buttering a pan at the same time, rocking out ever so slightly, and baking a cake. The album ended, and I proceeded to bake in an almost preternatural silence-- Sprint commercial silence. After fifteen minutes of this church-like atmosphere, a jarring series of knocks on the door brings me to my feet and my senses, flour all over my hands, the smell of pumpkins and spice wafting about the apartment. I open the door to two police officers, who themselves seem kind of stunned at the silence, at my welcoming and cordial visage, a skinny young gay man baking a cake in reverent solitude and silence. I did admit to playing music earlier, and they suggested that I elevate my subwoofer off of the floor to interrupt the propagation of bass throughout the building. "Of course. I'll get right on that," I volunteer, demure and blushing slightly. We bid each other a good day, and I close the door gently, lock it and go about preparing the whipped cream. I fucking hate my neighbors. Seriously. WHO in their right mind calls the police about vaguely loud music issuing forth from a generally quiet apartment on a Saturday afternoon, and why haven't they done the same to the girls next door who will blast Shakira any night of the week after 11pm? This is especially troublesome as our entire unit seems to be populated by young twentysomethings who aren't Amish. I'm hoping that we'll be able to establish a "call us before you call the cops-- we'll always turn it down" policy, if only to avoid the somewhat imminent potential for a bad scene. Still, the dinner party went without a hitch, and the only reminder of that afternoon's aggravation came in the form of my suggestion that we not play Karaoke revolutions at 1 am. I think that was probably a good call no matter what.
I also came across this on Saturday afternoon, the best Missed Connection EVER!

2005-10-13T11:33:00.000-04:00

So I'm sitting at work viciously hung-over after the hour-long commute from hell, and I'm afraid I look pretty much like this hound, here. It was one of those mornings where the train inexplicably travels about 150 feet in reverse between each stop, and then proceeds to regain its ground with breathtaking slowness. On the plus side, my blog is finally up and running, thanks to Annie. We were really in poor shape by the time she got to explaining the "how" and the "details," and here's why: our heat isn't really turned on yet, and the wall between us and our porch is essentially just rotting wood and "glass". It's been fairly cold the last couple of days... the apartment is appropriately chilly, natch. So we're watching Top Model, eating my disgusting Garlic'normous Tofu and cinnamon couscous dish, and so cold we want to die. I then had the brilliant idea that we should drink our bourbon to stay warm (that's how the cowboys did it, right?). Eventually we ran out of Diet Coke, and shots on a Wednesday is just never a good idea. In any event, I'm feeling pretty ill this morning (although Annie tells me that we're making cookies tonight. Cookies! Then again, Annie promises me a lot of things. Like that time when we were going to go to Architecture in Helsinki. Or that we wouldn't smoke in the apartment. Or that she wouldn't blog-nag me about forgetting to take the mailbox key off my keychain.)

I am at work, so I've got to go do some immunology, hard. But, am I the only one who thinks that the weather recently is somewhat evocative of The Nothing? I went to the ATM the other day, and the whole experience felt somewhat like this. One of these days we'll just all wake up in an existential vacuum lying next to a whiny child empress who claims her name is Moon Child. Then again, I'll bet the Ivory Tower, even suspended in deep space is somewhat warmer than our apartment.