ha.

My phone now plays 'Girlfriend in a Coma'.

Everyday is like Sunday

I'd like to be able to appreciate simple things.

I was laying in my bed at my parent's house on Sunday, dozing off in the sunlight, and a powerful breeze blew right into my room and over my face. In that moment, my brain did something weird. I felt like I was in a time warp. The thing about being in a half conscious state while in that room is that I sometimes forget who I am - what age I am, what I am feeling right then. I laid in that spot when I was a 5 year old kid trying to avoid cleaning my room. I laid there when I was 13 and starting high school, listening to the Pixies and Joy Divison, forming new interests in my head. I laid there on my breaks from California, absorbing the comfort of home, dreaming of the ocean 2000 miles away. It's easy to get lost in that cloud -- transport yourself back to a time which may now seem easier, but was just as intense when it was happening. Those moments make me think that I have a reset button in my head.

I knew it all along!

Yahoo! has finally broken the story that living in the suburbs is bad for you.

This is up there with all the Yahoo! stories that start "New Study Suggests Working Too Much Shortens Life Span". These are all things I agree with. Thanks, Yahoo.

(My favorite part of this article is that it points out how awful Riverside/San Bernaadino is. That is correct.)


Study: Living in the Suburbs Can Make You Sick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Living in the suburbs may have once been part of the American dream but it can lead to nightmares such as high blood pressure, arthritis and headaches, researchers reported on Monday.

An adult living somewhere like Atlanta, with its spread-out suburbs and car-heavy culture, will have a health profile that looks like that of someone who lives in Seattle -- but who is four years older, the study found.

And the culprit seems to be exercise, or the lack of it, the researchers report in the October issue of the journal Public Health.

"This is the first study that analyzes suburban sprawl and a broad range of chronic health conditions," said Roland Sturm, an economist at the Rand Corp.'s Rand Health unit who helped write the study.

"We know from previous studies that suburban sprawl reduces the time people spend walking and increases the time they spend sitting in cars, and that is associated with higher obesity rates. This probably plays an important role in the health effects we observe."

The differences between city and suburban people held even when Sturm's team took into account factors such as age, economic status, race and the local environment.

"To improve our health, the study suggests that we should build cities where people feel comfortable walking and are not so dependent on cars," said Deborah Cohen, another Rand researcher.

There was no link between suburban sprawl and mental health. The RAND team found no differences in the rates of depression, anxiety and psychological well-being between people living in downtown areas and those in suburbs.

The Rand team looked at a survey of 8,600 people funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. These people, living in 38 metropolitan areas across the country, were asked a variety of questions about their health and well-being in 1998 and 2001.

It defined sprawling suburban areas as those with poorly connected streets such as cul-de-sacs, separated areas for schools, housing and shops and a lower population density.

The most extreme examples included the Riverside-San Bernardino region of California, Atlanta and Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Dense urban areas where people lived close to each other and the schools and shops included New York City, San Francisco and Boston.

sigh.

I know there is a reason that I shouldn't make phone calls/major life descions after waking up WAY TOO EARLY after a night of drinking. There also must be another reason why I should never really embrace the feeling of "it's my life, it doesn't matter what other people think." Right? Right.

church of the kidnapped baby jesus

Kurt Vonnegut is the most brilliant person ever. I had forgotten that at one point in my life, all I wanted was to be Kurt Vonnegut. Listen: he fought in WWII as a teenager. He was in Dresden as it was bombed. He was confronted first hand with what turned into the most critical issues of the 20th century: imperialism, evolution, racism, jingoism, hatred, religion. And he then managed to create a body of worked that dealt with these issues in a humanistic way that people can understand. He admits his own personal weaknesses through his characters. There is no preaching, no moral superiority. He attended the PhD Anthropology program at the University of Chicago through the GI Bill. And the he publishes Cat's Cradle as his thesis. I spent several years as an Anthropology major, during which I learned how many problems Anthropology has as a discipline rooted in ideas of Imperial domination and Colonial subjugation. Kurt Vonnegut, as an Anthropology PhD, synthesized all these issues and confronted them in historical and societal context in Cat's Cradle. Not that the ethnography of the Yanamomo isn't a valuable source, but who understands Anthropology more?

Of course, as he has gotten older, he has become tired of all the rhetoric that politicians throw around - most of his brilliance stays underwraps now. I can't think of one person I admire more as a human being.

Kilgore Trout in 2008!

derby

Today's question presses on: to roller derby or not to roller derby? At first I thought that I was way more into the idea of the roller derby costume than the actual skating and punching girls until they fall. But I'm coming around on the idea of walking around with some bruises. At least it will be a step in the direction of curing my interest in violence. I hope. I don't want to be the traditional Bettie Page hair-ed pinup girl racer - I want to live in the future. Sex Robot Roller Derby all the way. I'm thinking silver hot pants, some clunky boot-skates (with rockets?), and a giant ponytail. Beat that, 50s rocker.

Anyone else in?

the future comes around again

The Italian Futurists were fascists. They all died off during the span of WWI and WWII. They made friends with Mussolini, were *too* eager to wield a sword in battle, damned all women, intellectuals, classic art, and libraries. However, they did take the idea of absurdity and violence to a level that, if not acted on in physicality, seems very interesting to me. The Manifesto of Futurism (1909) starts by identifying numbness as a factor of apathy. The first three tenets are as follow:


1. We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness.

2. Courage, audacity, and revolt will be essential elements of our poetry.

3. Up to now literature has exalted a pensive immobility, ecstasy, and sleep. We intend to exalt aggressive action, a feverish insomnia, the racer's stride, the mortal leap, the punch and the slap.

Okay, so it's dramatic and invokes all kinds of romantic notions linguistically, but it has heart. The base idea of using violence to foment action is essential. Violence will keep you awake all night - it will make you leave your house - it will force you to think about those around you as well as yourself. When there is violence, there is no time for laziness.

It often takes a "violent" situation for people to wake up. The Futurists were concerned that society was becoming lazy - the formation of the idle classes left so much free time to be wasted. There are so many people who don't know what to do with themselves when the work day ends, or when classes get out for the afternoon. Popular culture rarely invites thought provoking material into it's fold. Instead people settle for a night in front of the TV, sitting in silence, reading cheap literature, watching expensive effects pass by them. This is a product of money, a product of comfort. The Futurists tried to shock people into realizing that comfort will rot your brain - only revolt can enliven your senses.

Of course, they were far too real about their advocacy of physical violence. No one should advocate for the physical harm of anyone or anything. But what will it take to wake everyone up? It seems that it takes someone's comfortable world falling apart before they realize what matters to them the most, what they actually want to live for. Maybe that should be the role of art and literature in the world - an overpowering force that shocks the comfort out of people.

music for love that works

I've been presented with the task of making a CD for Siggy's wedding this weekend, and I think it's coming together. She wanted two playlists - one of "love" songs, and another of
dance-y/love-y music. Although at first I found it challenging to think of ANY songs that aren't ironic, brutally honest, and snarky, it has slowly started to come back to me. Are you dying to read the play list? I knew it.

The "Love" CD
Something Stupid - Frank and Nancy Sinatra
Cheek to Cheek - Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald
Your Song - Elton John
All is Full of Love - Bjork
Love Song - the Cure
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
Wild Horses - the Rolling Stones
Leaving on a Jet Plane - Bjork
With or Without You - U2
I'm Sorry I Love You - Magnetic Fields
We Are Gonna Be Friends - the White Stripes
All You Need is Love - the Beatles
Only in Dreams - Weezer
Oh Yoko! - John Lennon

The "Love Dance/Dance Love" CD
Copa Cabana - Barry Manilow
Big Time Sensuality - Bjork
Bohemian Like You - Dandy Warhols
Common People - Pulp
Gigantic - the Pixies
100% - Sonic Youth
A Message to You Rudy - The Specials
One Step Beyond - Madness
Spanish Bombs - The Clash
Groove is in the Heart - Deeeeee Lite
Crazy in Love - Beyonce and Jay Z.
Kiss - Prince
Just Like Heaven - the Cure
Tainted Love - Soft Cell
Cannonball - the Breeders
Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth - Dandy Warhols
Razzmatazz - Pulp
Punk Rock Girl - The Dead Milkman
The Girl from Ipanema - Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66

It's a combination of what we used to listen to at Bang!, general squishy love songs, and one or two songs that always make me want to hug someone. Of course, I also made myself a cynical/fuck this shit CD to travel with me. Music therapy at its best.

Congratulations Siggy!!

Where was I last time the leaves fell from the trees?

I'm conflicted between two new fall looks. I was pretty set on "Scottish art student" [corduroys, trainers, various school girl/boy sweaters, scarf, mittens] when I was inducted into the bike gang Hammer of the Gods. So now I am trying to incorporate "1950s bike gang" into my look. So far I'm wearing the same Dickies and navy blue hoodie that I always wear, but a look takes some time to develop. Soup is going to play an important role in the forming of Autumn Jecca. If anyone wants to donate an argyle sweater to the cause, I'm way into it.

At least the idea of Scottish Art Student has made me feel like making art, which is actually giving some meaning to the time that passes. Last year, when I spent all my time reading books, I didn't have anything to show for all that time that passed. Now I actually have notebooks full of ideas and a huge stack of photos to illustrate time-space-life.

Fall smells good. Anyone want to make a bonfire?

simple.

Home delivery of the Sunday New York Times, a front porch and a back deck, freshly ground coffee, some good conversation - a little slice of heaven.

SPAM Haiku

As suggested by Aaron $, we should really spend some time making haiku out of workplace SPAM. My first attempt:

Super Viagra!
PAIN MEDS: Soma, Ultram, more...
Hard after you cum!

Sublime, yet telling.