I feel like I am getting sick and I don't want to so I have been popping chewable vitamin C's like a junkee. At first they were wonderful, then kind of a part of a process. Four days later I still feel like I am on the verge of getting sick and i am tired of the C's... so I am eating them with a banana. Its ok now. Last night I made chicken soup, I haven't been drinking.. I haven't had sugar(ok one brownie).. fresh ginger, lemon tea..fluids.. etc... and I will probably still get sick.

i go through similar rituals when i feel ill coming on..vitamins of all kinds..especially C..lots of hot tea with lemon and honey.. i haven't been sick in years..so i must doing something right..

ginger blast. fresh grated ginger, cayenne pepper, honey, lemon juice, and fresh grated garlic. heat and chugalug. also, alternate echinacea with goldenseal. seems to help.

Since most colds originate in the upper respiratory tract and oral cavity, you should try gargling boiling salt water. Let us know how it works out.

RIGHT!! the key is BOILING.... be careful taking to much vitamin C, if do not chase with ample amounts of liquid, i understand that can lead to kidney stones becasue it starts to build up in yer, well ...uh KIDNEYS! Some of those pills that offer like 500% of your daily amount jsut seems so ridiculous. As a smoker, i understand cigs depleat vitamin C, i try and eat a lot pepper and tomato combo dishes to help replace it. I am allergic to some raw fruits including orange, peach, banana..... i love kidney beans though

vitamin C is water soluable and does not build up in your system. you should drink a full glass of water with any pill. except pure sodium. chewable vitamin C is bad for your teeth.

i meant to say "...if you do, chase with ample..." you don't know everything mr. nate...beav is there any truth to what i said?

pure sodium ignites upon contact with water, right?

I found that Trader Joe's has these great vitamin C and echinacea pills that'll knock out damnnear any cold. Oh, and Goldenseal depletes a lot of important vitamins. It's a great blood cleanser, but you should use it sparingly. My sister doesn't want me shopping Trader Joe's though because they compete with small-time health food stores or something. But hey, it's convenient. There are limits to my sense of social responsibility.

last i checked Trader joes is not a large corporate conglomerate eating up mom and pop business...i love trader joes....although i can't get by shopping there exclusively, i buy a lot of wine, bread, flowers, chips/salsa, and frozen taquitos there. When does a succesful company reach a point in which you exercise this kind of social responsibility you refer too. They were small once, they became succesful and now they have (i am guessing) a few dozen stores....they still seem to be an honest, good company to support and work for.....

I don't know... I think she has a grudge b/c they drove one of her favorite health food stores out of business. And, as I recall, I said that I was *not* exercising that kind of social responsibility with regards to Trader Joe's. I only boycott companies that definitely do bad things, rather than just for being big. (Buy Levi's people... they're just about the only ethical jeans manufacturer out there and they're taking a hit because of it) You are just ready to leap to the defense of those maligned CEO's aren't you? Don't bother. What has a CEO done for you lately?

no you misunderstand, I won't defend any evil corporate entities anymoe than you but when you mentionend trader joes, i was little set back because they seem like the type of business that you and/or your sister would advocate patronizing. i agree wholly not punishing simply becasue they are big. at the same time i realize we live in a capitalist society, this type of thing is natural. Businesses will be outsold all the time. It may not be for the better as far as business ethics are concerned but what can you do? The people ultimately decide either in gov't reform or with their pocketbooks. Like i have said before i find it so amusing because my neighborhood is like that. People bitch and moan when the starbucks came YET people are going there.....wtf? SOMEBODY must want their services. Although the silverlake chamber of commerce did fight a burger king that was to go up on a nearby corner and WON! so they just expanded the space for the parking lot of the adjacent Mayfair Market. Some capitalists might see that as defeatist since we opted for asphalt as opposed to 15-30 new jobs and tax dollars, but hey just a few blocks away up on sunset we have amcdonalds and a pioneer chicken, so we have our fast food. Most people in my hood prefer the burrito and burger stands which is fine with me. Nothing beats a god damn Jay's Jayburger at 2:30 am, double with chili, cheese and onions. It's the kind of burger that makes your car reak for a week of onions and chili, if you get it to go. A business sees a need and fills it, under our current system you can't argue with that. I am a *relatively* concious shopper as far as what products I buy and where i spend my money. SO the way I see no one can bitch about anything. You spend your dollars where you want and i will do the same. no ceo's have done anything for me, but our publisher just gave me $300 for 4 images for a book cover. YAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

i like starbuck's. i am not ashamed. oh yeah, and i love trader joe's, too.

We don't have Trader Joe's on this side of the Mississippi. I gather it's a health food store, like Fresh Fields?

their coffee is not bad but they drive all of the smaller and not so smaller coffee shops out of business which inherently have more personality and individuality. all the starbucks look the same and have no character. they are as bland as can be. have they started selling potpourri yet? god my brain hurts, i wanna go home......

i live in the land of coffee, where there are plenty of both starbuck's and smaller independent coffee shops. they are not suffering out here, believe you me.

well i wouldn't call it striclty a health food place cause they sell unhealthy food stuffs as well as alcohol, but they have quality food for cheap.......and cool paper bags with handles so you can use them as trash recepticles for the little cute 11oz cans pilsners they sell......

yay Trader Joe's. I shopped at the very first one, in Pasadena, when they started many years ago. The past few years they have donated tons of stuff to me for Joaquin Murrieta Days benefit dinners. They always cheerfully give, whether it's dozens of cheesecakes or chocolates or veggies fresh or frozen. The time we fell off Dogtown Road and wrecked the van, the new washing maching, the new vacuum cleaner, 200 pounds of cat food and spilled 60 gallons of gasoline from the cans in back, we had been shopping at TJ's. One of their apple pies survived the crash. We ate it the next morning. I called and told them, because they know me, and we get free pies now.

What's Trader Joe's? I'm gonna start talking about Canadian shops soon, you bums. Is sugar bad for you when you're sick? I wish I had saved my "Escape From the Planet of the Apes" quote for this thread.

You damn dirty apes! "planet of the apes" - i hit that stuff at the same time I was going through my whol enuclear annihilation scare during the first Reagan administration. Man, those of us who grew up then must be among the last kids who had that seriously hanging over our heads. Maybe that's why so much of today's music seems shitty to me. Maybe not. Patrick - go check out some of the stuff Linus paulding did with Vitamin C. I take a 1000 mg time realease every morning, and I never get colds.

Patrick, the answer to your question is "Who knows for sure". There is no proof that vitamin C can promote stones. Some medical people think so but...there is also no proof that vitamin C does anything to prevent colds or lessen their severity. Vitamin C may stabalize the cell walls. What is proven to prevent colds is those zinc lozenges. Since most colds take hold in the nasal/oral cavity, the zinc makes an inhospitable enviornment. Since vitamin C is water soluble you can't overdose, you just end up with expensive urine. Smoking is bad for cold prevention, with that said it's Marlboro time for me.

trader joe's is "your unique grocery store," where you can get good food for cheap. cheap pure maple syrup, a liter of italian olive oil for $5.99 (spanish for $4.99), a packet of pita bread for 79 cents, cheap bagels, a package of frozen mango chunks for 99 cents, etc. it's all good and it's all cheap. that's trader joe's.

rhi- there's a trader joe's in boston

trader joe's is fun and quirky and all, but i can't help feeling like i should put on my full-length skirt and my huraches before i go there. plus, the seattle trader joe's is right by my mom's house, where i lived for seventeen years, so that's a little freaky. what if she should see me with a bandana on my head, buying salmon ravioli?

trader joe's is fun and quirky and all, but i can't help feeling like i should put on my full-length skirt and my huraches before i go there. plus, the seattle trader joe's is right by my mom's house, where i lived for seventeen years, so that's a little freaky. it's like going back in time. and what if she should see me with a bandana on my head, buying salmon ravioli?

shit. how do you delete messages?

what could possibly happen if your mom saw you with a bandana on your head buying salmon ravioli? what, maybe you'd say hi?

oh, i don't know. she'd tell her vast network brothers and sisters about it. she's the malicious type. either that, or she'd just exclaim loudly over how cuuuute i look. no one wants that. i definitely would not say hi. i would run.

you can't delete messages. that's the beauty of it. no regrets.

a million regrets a million consequences nuthin' to do about it yee haw!

i just naturally assumed that i could. right, then. no accidents, either. bear with me.

*sigh* Amateurs. I'm getting sick. Yesterday I started developing a dry cough, and tonight I have made it (I don't want to say "infinitely"...how about "exponentially") worse by talking nonstop for about 8 hours. This is what happens when you get me started on poetry, Margaret Atwood, and C.S. Lewis. The larynx does not get a chance to rest.

Try humming your poetry. It makes the rhyme and meter much more meaningful if you can't part your lips to pronounce words. Also, try whispering it. Also, try tapping it out in morse code. OK, maybe that's going a bit too far. Well, maybe not in C.S. Lewis' case.

Just kidding.

hey. listen, lady. do not forget that you, too, were once an amateur.

Ugh. I'm sick now. I just woke up. I was having a dream that the friend who had visited me tonight had found in the margins of one of my books some long division I had done. She thought I had made an arithmetic mistake and was insisting I do it over again. "You're just being careless," she told me, and she was really angry about it. I did the problem over and was so irritated at the whole situation that I grabbed her by the hand and dragged her outside and locked her out. Then I woke up. I had been sleeping flat on my back, as my pillow had fallen to the floor, and this must have not been the best position to be in because now my lungs felt solid. I tried to cough to clear me some air passages, and it was one of those coughs that are more like prolonged wheezing and scraping air against the back of the throat. Very painful, but apparently it did in fact dislodge a tiny bit of the congestion, because suddenly I couldn't breathe for about 5 seconds. That's 5 seconds too long. Scared the living daylights out of me. And now I'm wide awake. Antigone: it takes you an hour and a half to drum up some remorse for being less than kind? For shame. Anyhow, it was not my poetry we were discussing. And C.S. Lewis has written some brilliant books on religion. From now on, when any of you poor heathens has a theological bone to pick, I direct you to him. Hydrozoa: very true. My apologies.

Not remorse. Morse. Most people don't know morse code. .. .----. -- / --- -. . / --- ..-. / - .... . -- .-.-.- .-- .... --- / -.. --- . ... -. .----. - .-.-.- And I don't have any bones to pick with religion. But I am a heathen.

Morse code

rhiannon - licorice root pills for congestion. you'll cough like hell, but it clears you up. hope you feel better soon, too. Hope you have some Throat Coat as well. I realized the day after sending your tape , and trying to decipher Mule lyrics, that I should 've put some of my freind Glade's music on the tape instead of teh Housebreaker, since i think nyou would like his lyrics. Next time.

I'll look for the licorice root today. I was up all night coughing anyway, so I don't see how more coughing could hurt any. What are Glade's lyrics like?

hey patrick... you see? I KNOW EVERYTHING. sem, agatha, swine: i burnt you cd's last night. give me another couple months to get around to mailing them.

pffft! anyway......... I say good columbian drugs and a kitchen table with some muddy waters on the juke and there is no other way to make good friends out of complete strangers. scene, friday nite...we are at spaceland, its almost closing time. I just have given the wifey a vicodin, thinking we will be leaving shortly and i will still have 2 eyes to drive home with. as she is going to the bathroom and trips over these new guys that just sat down, she says sorry, "vodka and vicodin something something" we start chatting about various narcotics and our experiences with these long haired sunglass wearing freaks...... All of sudden the lights go up, it's time to go. They say "hey , want to come do some drugs?" "sure I say." "got any beer?" they ask...well no it's after two o'clock....... I give nico the look that says at the sign of weirdness we are out. We go back to this guys house just around the corner...I don't even know their names....we go into this house, of whom one of them is house sitting, so it's a strangers house belonging to someone even more strange. BOOM BOOM out comes a dish and columbians finest. we sip our beers, they throw in muddy waters, i say it can't be so bad, these guys have taste. the frig is stocked with a smorgas borg of bizarre trader joe imported beers...."RIGHT" i say. we start talking about all kinds of stuff. These guys turn out to be about 15 years older than us. we talk about everything from old school skateboarding (they are LA natives) to silver apples. i dazzle them with some RL Burnside I had in the car and this guy is the first guy i have ever met that knows who the silver apples are and agrees that evry electronica bad to date owes a little something etc etc......Nico ends up reading henry miller standing on this person's kitchen table and i end up with saddles sores from fucking later that morning. i have never gotten saddle sores from fucking. my groin is completely outta of wack even today. she was hurting herself. i didn't fall asleep till about 8:30 am. eventually i stopped fighting it. the sun rising in our now entirely shaded (mini blinds) apartment was quite pretty, the cats were up as usual running rampant to and fro. The birds used to scare me, i hated it. I hated the stark reality of morning, it made me feel bad, but this time after tossing and turning for half hour, i gave up the good fight and accpeted it. I was asleep 15 min later. I awoke at noon and prepared to go to the darkroom to do some window matting. I was in no mood to be cutting with precision but damn it if didn't. A kitchen table, a 1/2 gram of columbia's best, and a couple a strangers........we met some space coyotes if you will.......... i love it when that happens

oh right and the relative parts are in the "Vitamin C" and the trader joes beer in the fridge

Trader Joe's also has this relatively passable Spanish champagne for really cheap. Just because my sister doesn't approve doesn't mean I don't shop there. Oh, and Waffleboy/Patrick, you and the wife are officially invited to whatever party I may have at LosCon on Thanksgiving Weekend, if you're around. Lather won't be there (you'd like him, we have a lot of political differences), but I will and some other friends of mine will. No band of evil feminists, though.

LosCon? what and where is that? I will be around, i have tenative photo shoot with this dumb blonde art school girl, but otherwise. Elaborate

LosCon It's a science fiction convention. Many good parties. I know my friend is having one. I may contribute to one party, or I may contribute to two. Bring the dumb blonde art school girl, if you can.

where is this being held, in your neck of the woods or down here? I don't think we can afford to go to Mammoth, so we may just hang out in the shelter and do mushrooms

oh, my god. i haven't been to a con since i was about sixteen. what a lot of unpleasant memories. toward the end of my con era, my (then) best friend ran through a plate glass window at the everett doubletree. she took much too much acid, ran out into the hall screaming and wearing nothing but a bra, saw a security guard coming toward her, and charged full-steam ahead through the window. she was quite the mess--blood everywhere. people thought she was dead and they cancalled dreamcon forever because of it. she gained con circuit wide infamy, though. now she's a speed addict with a kid. ecch.

Hilton Burbank Airport. Your neck of the woods. That's why I told you about it. Lessee... Lather will be out of state (so it will be a sad Lucy), but I will be there, my friend from Baltimore will be there (with lasers and misc. special party effects) my friend who recently moved from the Bay Area will be there (he does bellydancing, which is pretty cool, and he may do a class or workshop or something), and my sister and her boyfriend will be there. If you can make it, you'll get along well with my sister... she's at Cal Arts and very talented. Oh, and a former co-worker who moved to Santa Barbara has been notified and may turn up. I don't know if he does anything interesting, but he's a very nice guy.

Mind if I show up?

Yes.

Just kidding.

I bought some 3.99 merlot at trader joe's last week. "trader joe's probably doesn't stock total shit" was how my justicification went. we'll see.

Hee, hee!

I'm still sick. My hallmates are probably hoping I'm terminal, as I have this hideous cough that sounds like a seal bark and I can't sleep, so I'm up coughing all night and all day. The cool part is that I can sing really low now -- down to a B flat -- so I can hum along with Elvis and not have to switch octaves in midphrase. I wonder why and how that happens...do my vocal chords lengthen when I'm sick? And since I'm on the subject, may I point out that, no, Mariah Carey does not have a 7-octave or 17-octave or however large her people would like the public to believe her range is. She may be able to sing high, but she can't sing way down into the bass range, so her vocal span is 4 octaves, max. There was one woman, Yma Sumac, who did have a 7-octave range and was able to sing all the notes on a piano, but she was a genetic mutant. Speaking of mutants, Antigone, what has gotten into you lately? You're acting so strange.

Jeez, am I the only one on this damn board who doesn't get to go to LosCon? This sucks. :(

I think we got him all worked up about his pecker again,though God knows,I thought we talked that one out,or maybe that woman is fucking with him again.I hope not,cause I,ve been really cranky recently and it wouldn,t take much to make me break my foot up someones ass.

captain beefheart had a 71/2 vocal range from deep contrabass to falsetto. i don't know what happens to your voice when your sick, but when my a friend of my sister's was sick a while back, and her voice was low and husky, i thought she was incredibly sexy. antigone is too cool for this site. picked up a margaret atwood book this weekend: alias grace.

email me some info, I may be up for a party, I don't think I will attend the "CON" but I may crash a party you direct me too.......would it be ok if me and some friends showed up in hockey gear and just checked everyone all night and acted all surly

surly.

I've heard good things about Alias Grace, but I've never read it. My favorite book of hers, and it's one of my favorites in general, is The Robber Bride. It's the story of 3 women, and Atwood is just brilliant at making their characters seem completely real. She even gives each of the women a different sense of humor, which I imagine is very difficult to pull off well, which she does. It's rather long, and it takes a while to get through, and I don't know how much spare time you have, Droopy, but I recommend you read The Robber Bride next.

If you haven't already.

i haven't; this will be my first atwood experience. i'm liking it. and i have all the time in the world.

Um sure Antigone. Patrick: checking is probably a bad idea if we have special laser light type effects, but I'll email you as soon as I know what is going on with that. But show up. (if I can even get a room... otherwise I'll have to trash a room in a different hotel.) And I'll be easy to locate. My screen name is the same as my con name. As a matter of fact, it was a con name first.

Just kidding.

I am not so too kewl for 'dis site, flurg. It be crueler than I crould ever b.

Just a bit surlier lately. It's my time of the century.

I couldn't really go to the con, Lucy. Then you'd find out that I'm really a woman posing as a man with a female pseudonym on these boards. I have to keep that a secret.

Alias Grace is worth reading. I like everything Atwood writes, with the exception of The Cat's Eye, a book I couldn't even finish years ago. The Edible Woman is great, too.

Sounds like somebody needs a nap Or some Thorazine

Jane: Have you read Bodily Harm? I hated it -- it was like one long nightmare -- but I couldn't put it down.

that book was wretched. i was so disappointed. i still like handmaid's tale best.

What's the book of hers where she keeps having kooky flashbacks of herself as a girlscout or something? I don't know what I'm talking about. I can't remember anything that happened in the book, I just remember images.

-I don't believe poetry is or should be "self-expression" in any narrow personal sense. rather I see it as a condensing lens through which the human universe can see itself, an aural focussing through which human languages can hear themselves. -Poems are made of words as paintings are made of paint. To bypass the words, the texture of a poem, in favour of "image," "theme" or "idea" is to neglect a poem's physicality in favour of some abstraction. To concentrate only on the verbal texture, though, is to ignore the nature of words temselves, since images, themes and ideas inhere in them. There is no such thing as a nonsense poem, if by that it's meant a collection of syllables that suggest nothing. -A poem is compleated not by the writer - who goes as far as she can, granted - but by the reader; which is to say, it is never fully compleated, since each reader and therefore each reading is different. -A poem that uses language or image in a new or unexpected way causes the electrical impulses in the brain to jump their habitual paths and form new synaptical connections. Those who revel in language enjoy this sensation. Those who would rather have their synapses strokes in familiar directions prefer highly conventional modes of literature. If you like having your synapses stroked, you should probably avoid poetry, especially modern poetry. Though it too has its conventions.

Is this cool or what? "Poems are made of words as paintings are made of paint." I think of it in the same way. My friend L. and I were discussing her poetry (L's) when L. came to see me this weekend. She tends to sacrifice word choice for more general imagery. I was telling her the whole point of writing a poem, as opposed to writing an essay or writing a play and so on, is that poetry actually focuses on the *words* and uses words in a way unlike other forms of writing. Its scope is smaller. And the shorter your poem is, the more weight is given to each word, so each word has to be chosen carefully and placed carefully. L. is rather misguided anyway. She doesn't believe in revising poems...she thinks they have to stay the way they come out of her. *sigh* Gee: sounds familiar, but I don't think I ever read that one. Agatha: I did read The Handmaid's Tale years ago and liked it very much. My favorite part about it was the Scrabble games the narrator would play with the man who owned her...how the fact that he slept with her occasionally was completely out in the open, while their intellectual/personal interactions had to be kept a secret.

gee - cat's eye is about girlhood in toronto. the kids do really nasty things to each other. then she grows up to be an artist or something. I haven't read it in a long time.

maybe it's the fact that most of you guys are all a few years older than me, i dunno, but you sure have a lot of books under your belt, i am not as avid as I want to be, but hell when do you have the time? my lunch hours are dedicated to reading a)the local weekly b) any of my magazines I get c) continue reading the book i started weeks prior d) walking around hollywood blvd with camera intow

I'm younger than you. Age has nothing to do with it. I think it has to do with appetite.

indeed.

i stopped reading for awhile until i learned how to read intoxicated. maybe that would help you.

"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance As those move easiest who have learned to dance 'Tis not enough no harshness give offense The sound must seem an echo to the sense" -Alexander Pope

I can't read drunk (I skim) or stoned (I read too slowly). and neither way can I remember the next day what I read the night before. hey, patrick, if you want more time to read, you should hang out here ( http://www.gutenberg.net/ ) instead of HERE.

also, if you drive to work, books on tape count as reading. if you take the bus, well, then, duh.

it just takes a little practice, cyst. obviously i'm not talking about being totally shiftased, then i can't really see anything and it doesn't matter what my concentration level is. reading slowly when stoned is something that goes away with practice. i find a rhythm and i'm reading fine. it's a matter of blocking out the distractions around you. sometimes this involves eating a large bowl of ice cream first.

rhiannon - here's a book for your reading list (if it isn't there already): "the end of the affair" by graham greene. trust me.

I usually stay up too late. I have a hard time willfully relinquishing consciousness. but last night I went out and had a pint of anchor steam porter, and when I came home I found that I didn't worry about fun things I could be doing instead of going to sleep, and I slept easily and well. so tonight I am going to try drinking two glasses of red wine before I go to bed. I am then going to try finishing my book. no roommate chats, no internet, no hour-long late-night phone calls, no radio talk shows. I can't wait.

i can't read stoned......usually when i am drinking i am outside of the home in a social setting in which reading would be rude. two nights out of the week i am at the darkroom until 10, in which I come home eat, pet my pussies (wife included), sit and talk to her a bit, fly a few missions in my current Ukraine campaign, watch the simpsons at 11, do some sit ups, and do some dumbell reps, sometimes screw, othertimes wank if necessary, the other three nights are spent cooking with the wifey, fiddling with pictures, orgainize negatives, spot prints, fly a few missions in my historical Vietnam campaign, sometimes watch a little tv, have my "dumb-time" to unwind, chores such as laundry, dishes, grocery etc... then it's like damn! it's 1am already, gotta go to bed. the weekends are spent playing hard for my weeklong hard work, spend 3-5 hours in the darkroom on sat, entertain the wifey, see friends, do shit, go places, clean sundays are often spent being lazy, some cleaning, screwing, cooking a nice meal whan i try and read stoned, i end up reading the paragraph like 5 times because i forget the context b/c my mind easily wanders. forget the gutenberg thing dear cyst, i like the diatribe around here much better....and tapes on book just seem silly. I don't like to be read to, and my car doesn't ahve atape player, just a cd player and these days i am taking the bus less and less cause the wifey has a company car......although when I do ride i try and read, i get easily distracted though by the various tongues and smells all of the above things seem to me to be esential to mental health with the exception of any tv time, but god dman if i don't like my simpsons, x files and star trek.... throw in another 1-3 hours photographing in the mix OH WELL!!!!! i read when i can, just wish i could engage more on all the books you guys blab about

everyone has 24 hours in their day.

your point being? anything other than the obvious

"A study of reading habits" When getting my nose in a book cured most things short of school, It was worth ruining my eyes To know I could still keep cool, And deal out the old right hook, To dirty dogs twice my size. Later, with inch-thick specs, Evil was just my lark: Me and my cloak and fangs Had ripping times in the dark. The women I clubbed with sex! I broke them up like meringues. Don't read much now: the dude Who lets the girl down before The hero arrives, the chap Who's yellow and keeps the store, Seem far too familiar. Get stewed: Books are a load of crap. -Philip Larkin

I hate the frequency with which I hear the complaint that someone doesn't have enough time to do something. you're right, it is obvious. do less of something else so you can do more of the activity in question. just like I don't like listening to vegetarians talk about how they can't eat certain foods. her: "I wish I could eat chicken mcnuggets." me: "you can! here, open your mouth." all the time people say they can't do really easy things. I hate hearing sentences that start with the words "I wish I could ..." because they're usually false. that's all.

ah....sorry....your right i could, i just wish there was 26 hours in the day thats all....I guess I am ambitious, i have shit to get done, things to accomplish, but I also am the type of person to hate to miss out. so I am torn eitherway

There are 26 hours in a day. Each one is roughly 3323 seconds long. Rhiannon - When I was a poetry writer, in my long past college days, I too thought of poetry as performance. I couldn't revise my poems. The act of writing was like a frozen epiphany. If I did change a poem I always kept a copy of the original, even if I later thought it was crap.

Droopy -- I'll look for the Greene when I next go to the library. Antigone -- To me it's the difference between the paintings of Jackson Pollock and Hieronymous Bosch. So Pollock danced all over the canvas and rode on it with a little tricycle and did all sorts of things that made the process of painting the focus. But can you honestly say you like one of his paintings more than another? How? Painting is a visual medium, and visually, to me anyway, his paintings don't say anything. Bosch, on the other hand, you can tell planned the hell out of his paintings. Every square inch of canvas is covered with something that catches your eye and makes you think and makes you wonder how on earth he ever came up with that. Bosch is a genius, in my opinion. And that's how I think one ought to approach writing poetry. You just get more bang for your buck when you can work different layers into a single piece, which you can't do spontaneously. You need to plan out where you end your lines and how you want to set up the poem on the page and even basic structural stuff like that, because the form of the poem can carry meaning with it too. So it's like you're cramming as much meaning as you can in a little poem, using all these things that don't come to mind at the time that you get the inspiration for the poem. haven't you ever written something that you didn't understand at all when it came out of you, but then a few weeks or months later, you finally understand what you were trying to say, and then you go back to the poem and straighten out a few lines and the whole thing just falls into place? But then poetry is extremely personal, in that everyone has their own style and approach, and it all has to do with the way one thinks. In daily life, my friend L. is a lot more impulsive than I am, so it makes sense that her poems are impulsive. And I like to sit back and analyze things, so my poems are more deliberate than hers in that way. Well, whatever. I like thinking about this.

PS. I'm excited because I get to do an independent study next semester with the woman who taught me poetry two years ago. I haven't written anything since then, because I felt like I needed her looking over my shoulder, and now that she will be, I'll be able to write again! Her name is Margaret Holley. She's a great poet in her own right, and she's also a fabulous teacher. Just the right amount of guidance...she's never negative....she always makes the best suggestions. I love her.

writing- for me most of it's between the lines there seems to be nothing to add or take away usually i can't even rewrite something by hand and i can never type it- the exact placement on the page, color, slant, spacing.... it all counts

i think some of the truest art is what first spurts out of the mind like a pinned up orgasm. Pollack's paintings are extrememly inspiring, to me, becasue of exactly what you say. He made no painstaking effort to have hidden meanings or severe symbolism in his work. To me that is the truest form of the mind. Ever hear the phrase, your first guess is usually the best or your first response to a sitaution is often the best? same idea i think. "But can you honestly say you like one of his paintings more than another?" easily, the answer is so obvious I might sound insulting saying it, but different color patterns, schemes lines etc affect each of us differently. Some are more appealing than others. Art doesn't alwys have to have greater meaning. Some of the greatest art just sits there and looks back at you. Art imitating life imitating art. I think he in fact challenged the notion of painting. Much like experimental and improvisational music artist such as Roland Kirk, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Holger Czukay and Coltrane's more bizarre work, Tony Conrad, John Zorn, John Cale etc There is a human element there that says something. Some of my best poems I ever wrote, the one's that one my wife's heart were written once through, stream of conscious, no editing, no looking back straight through man. I found the more I thought about it the less I took away from the content. I'll will bring in a few and share with you folks. But my work also played heavily or rhyme and beat, my poems were very influenced by the *beats* as well as my passion for percussion, so as long as I had a meter going i could flow. Same with my photography. Sometimes the best photos come when you least expect it, no planning, dumb luck. I often do alot of shots with my Holga ,Spartus and Polaroid cameras by shooting "from the hip"....no aiming, no calculating exposure (although this often has become second nature with these cameras), just pointing and shooting. There is a human essence still there. And I don't want to say everyone can get away with it, and call it "art". I sure can't. I just don't think one's work should be discredited simply because his means seem unconventional and seem unplanned.

I don't either. But I do say there's a lot to be said for being deliberate, in making planned choices, in revising your work to make it even better. Plus, the way I work, I often have to write for a while before I come to what I want to use as my first line. And the first line that comes to my head is usually the last line of the poem. I know I would make a terrible performance artist in just about any medium. So when I see someone struggling with their poetry (like L. is) I want to tell them that it doesn't have to be perfect the first time through. She writes something and throws it out if she doesn't like the way it comes out. That's ridiculous! Put it aside for a little while and then come back to revise it. Who knows how many good starts she's lost?

I think, in all these media, there is a difference between a genius and a visionary. However, I think that even visionaries need to study. You need to know the rules before you break them. This may sound elitist, but I don't think great poetry or great art can be created by sheer talent, (even first-run unedited poetry, or splatter art Jackson Pollack stuff,) any more than an incredibly talented person can create great jazz music (the improvisational type of music) by picking up an instrument without studying. And I don't mean to discount selftaught artists, but that still means studying. I'm not sure how coherent this is. Oh, well, I suppose this is stream-of- consciousness. Alia jacta est. So be it.

so much for my nighttime drink-moderately-and-sleep-well experiment. I ended up going to a wine bar for my two glasses of pinot noir, and that would have been fine, but then we went to a tavern for loads of cheap beer and pool and a shitty jukebox and a cigarette and drunkenness. well, I guess I could change this into the learn-to-read-drunk experiment.

whatcha readin'?

I don't understand why someone would go to all the trouble of getting stoned and then do something mudane like read. If fact I find it kind of alarming. I thought you were supposed to do nothing or something really neat when you were high, not everyday activities. Cyst - that might be the book. The name doesn't register, though. I remember a balcony in the story. Set in the present day. And I seem to remember the heroine's mother being really dominating. Actually, yes, it is registering now. I think you're right. Thanks. Did I mention that overall, I don't love Margret Atwood? She's too arrogant. That was a good book, though.

for some folks, getting high *is* an "everyday activity."

when I used to try to read stoned, I was getting high three times a day, more on the weekends. I can't think of anything I didn't do stoned. I'm finishing a book nate's roommate gave me. nate's read it too. it's called "stone junction." I don't think I like it as much as they did. it's sort of like a feel-good fantasy james bond novel, full of undercover agents and diamond heists and tom robbins-type hippie soothsayers.

maybe you just don't get it. it's a california thing.

what books do you like, cyst? if not specific books, then styles, subjects, whatever. and i mean fiction. why is atwood arrogant? i haven't quite finished alias grace

i loved Alias Grace and Handmaid's Tale and Cats Eye but i just could NOT get through The Robber Bride. bored me to tears. droopy, i have a question. are you really as cool as you seem?

my guess is that droopy really is as cool as he seems. I'm not a serious reader. I have a hard time explaining my criticism of novels, and I choose books for dumb reasons, such as sale price, pretty covers, good nyt blurbs. my friend who recommended the philip roth is both a serious reader and moviegoer. I asked him what question I should write on my card tonight at the gore vidal lecture, and he said, "is 'palimpsest' the single most pretentious title for a memoir ever?" he reads and considers what the books mean in relation to each other, to the world. I read a bunch of interviews with martin amis from his "the information" book tour, and my friend's was the best one. it was everything that the oregonian's gore vidal interview was not. [at this point, I must type in a couple excerpts. from ellen heltzel's "writing in the rain" column, sunday oregonian, nov. 14, 1999: Q: Please comment on the American literary scene. A: There is none that I am aware of. ... Q: Politics post-Monica? A: ... Happily, Americans are easily kept in ignorance while the few who do vote are always eager to vote against their own interests. Q: How do you explain your forthrightness on sex? A: Except for one sentence in "Palimpsest," I have made no reference to my private life. My generation didn't go in for that sort of thing. I also regard categorization along sexual lines as yet another sign of American sectarian lunacy. Q: What about gay politics? A: I'm all for political action to undo discriminatory laws. I even proposed, after the murder in Wyoming, that a class action be brought against Sen. Trent Lott for deliberate incitement to murder. I wrote this in The Advocate. No response. Sen. Lott has said that "homosexuality," whatever that might be, was on the order of a disease like kleptomania or alcoholism, the two vices most indulged in by United States senators. Q: You have said that your relationship with Howard Austen is platonic. If so, how do you explain its longevity? A: You have a gift for asking a question and then, in the same sentence, answering it. Treasure this charismatic gift.] this year I've read a lot of 19th-century british novels by women. george eliot, frances burney, the brontes, etc. I was very sad to finish my sixth jane austen book, the prissy "mansfield park." I complained about this to a real reader, hoping she'd know of a set of letters or an unfinished work or good biography, and she told me, "start again! reread 'pride and prejudice'! that's what I did." but I don't think I could even name a favorite author. and I'll read anything except genre fiction. I was asked once to join a literary circle and all I could think is "what would I say?"

what do you read, droopy?

"Persuasion" was my favorite Jane Austen book. I liked the movie, too. There is one unfinished work that has been published (and finished by someone else), but the name escapes me. Margaret Atwood: I think it is unfair to call her arrogant. She is very sharp, sometimes bitter, always dead on in her descriptions of people, but not arrogant. She is not scornful of any of her characters (I'm using "The Robber Bride" as my chief source of info., as it's the novel I know the best) but makes them all pretty 3-dimensional. Speaking of which: yeah, I guess if you're not into the characters -- as it's almost entirely character- rather than plot-driven -- "The Robber Bride" would be boring. But I loved all the characters. I found a lot of myself in Tony, down to her fascination with war and her obsession with speaking backwards. And I love the way Atwood writes, and I thought she was in very good form there.

droopy is truly as cool as he seems. of course, i have never met him, but i can just tell. when i ever put my website back up, you can read his fabulous stories. someday, i will meet him. he's high on my list.

I don't think MA is arrogant as a writer. I think she's an arrogant person. Anything I've ever read of hers that's personal and not fiction comes across as having that "I know everything" attitude, and I can't stand that. Her little poetry notes above (even though she has a few good points) are an example. She talks like she's the authority on the subject, not like she's just stating an opinion. As a writer, she's nice. But it's hard for me to forget what I think of her as a Person. Jane Austen is my favorite writer, but I haven't read "Persuasion" yet. I make an effort not to read too much of her stuff too fast because I hate the idea of not having anything new left to read. I'm reading "The Medea" right now, and I have to say (even though it's all translated) everything I've read from Euripides is wonderful. He's very passionate.

I never feel like I'm reading the real thing when I read a book in translation. it occurs to me at this moment that even greeks probably have to read medea in translation too. I read the iliad before that new fancy '90s translation came out, and I remember thinking that it was dumb the way the guy kept referring to "white-armed hera." apparently, in the original, that compound adjective came after the noun, and it was used a lot in order to keep whatever meter homer (or whoever really wrote it down) used. so you could recite the whole goddamn thing in a sing-song voice. a few years back I started translating jean-paul sartre's "the age of reason" because I thought it would be fun to update and americanize the slang. but then I got lazy and justified my quitting the project because it's set just before wwii and no one would have been talking about getting fucked up, even if they had been speaking american english. or maybe they would have.

i don't know how i got on people's good side just from what i've posted here, which is not much. unless that's the reason. agatha and i go back about 2 years as cybertypepals; and besides, she has infinite good will. cyst - i wasn't trying to put you on the spot, i just wanted to know what you enjoyed reading. you tend to be passionate about things in negative terms - people don't read enough, translations don't feel real (the italians say translator is the traitor, i think), i don't read genre, and whatever else. i just wanted to know what you like. i'm not a serious reader, and i'm not a scholar. i pick books pretty much for the same reasons you do. i get the daedalus remainder book catalog, and i usually pick the books that are no more than 3.98, or else just catches my eye by title, picture, or nifty-ass description. i can't give you all-time favorites, either. but i do like william kennedy, kafka, graham greene, willam trevor as authors. some favorite books are "grendel"(gardner), "ironweed"(kennedy), and "the end of the affair"(greene). i tend to like books for characters rather than the story, sometimes i finish a book without really knowing what the whole book was supposed to be about. i like those first-person, single fascinating character books - "herzog" was a big deal to me because that was the first book of that type i'd ever read. i like robust writing (bellow or miller, say) or i like it so understated that it gets you with tension (kafka, greene). i'm a sucker for loneliness (trevor, gardner). my low-brow vice is mystery novels. last night i went to dinner with a friend and we went through much wine. i want you all to know that.

God love you Droopy,GOOD!!!!

somewhere i can hear swine's voice coming through the radio static perhaps it is saying "bite me, sensitive guy."

no SHIT!!! i heard him this morning as i finally came to.......my alarm clock ....BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! ("chucklehead!") BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! ("chucklehead!") BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! ("oink! oink!") BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! ("chucklehead!") BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! ("bitch!") BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! ("chucklehead!") BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

it's not just from what you posted here, droopy. i'm sensing an overall coolness, a compilation of coolness from your various postings around these boards. the fact that you're generally brief and still come across as being infinitely cool says something. i'm going to start a Droopy Fan Club as a subsidiary of the Sorabji.com Empire. i will be president, of course. i also drank way too much wine last night and now i am hungover and not going to work.

I remember hating "grendel" in high school because it was gross and depressing. I wonder what I would think now. it's easier for me to talk about what I don't like than what I do. but I do like lots of things. I like pretty clothes and fabrics. I like drinking red wine with friends. I like flirting with cute boys. I like romance languages. I liked that movie "happiness." I like what I had for lunch today, sushi and ben and jerry's mint chocolate chunk ice cream (though it has some new name). I like the bookman swimming pool in northeast portland. I like going to trivia night at beulahland on tuesdays, even when we lose. I like the setting sun lighting up autumn-colored trees against a dark gray sky to the east. it's been a nice day.

last night someone asked gore vidal if he had any advice for the children, and he said, "read! read! read! read!" then he said that it's more interesting to dwell on what you think of the world than what the world thinks of you.

just think, none of us would ever have been introduced to the fabulous word "chucklehead" if it weren't for swine. god bless him. droop, do you ever read any raymond carver? how about john irving?

I hate reading through translations so much I actually limped through Medea in the orgional Greek. It actually took me a surprisingly short amount of time...a week or so, I think. However, I must admit, sometimes it is better to give in and read the damn translation. But don't try it drunk.

They use the word "chucklehead" a lot in Marvel comics, so I have Stan Lee to thank for that. I guess. I don't know Greek, so I'm stuck with translations. That's okay. I admit I'd prefer to read the real thing, but a translation can have something valuble to offer too. I'm interested in other peoples inturpretations of certain stories. The wonderful thing about Euripides, is that his passion shows through the translations. I'm a big fan of passion.

swine may be sorabjiland's voice of reason. he's been needed lately. especially since R.C. has been denied to us.

i like raymond carver a lot, even though i've been exposed to him only through esquire magazine. i like how stark and unopinionated his writing is. it lets you draw your own conclusions. i guess his wife found three or four more short stories of his recently, when she went through his desk. i wondered what took her so long.

if swine is the voice of reason around here, then i am the voice of virginity.

heh.

Droopy, I got "The End of the Affair" from the library. I got an assload of schoolwork to do, but it's due Jan. 17 .... so I'll probably get to in a few weeks. I'll let you know what I think. If you care.

if swine is reason, and sarah is virginity, then i must be tolerance and forgiveness. but if they are not, then maybe i am not, either. we all need to be Something, right? or do we?

i am the walrus. rhiannon - i'd care; or i'd be interested. i just thought the book might interest you. you might not even like it. agatha - yes, i've read some of both. i've read a lot of carver through reprints and stuff, but i actually own the book "will you please be quiet, please?". i think it was his first published book. i don't always like him, but when everything comes together he's great. and i've read "garp". in fact, this thread got me to thinking about it. there's a part in where garp talks about his writing habits. he says that he agrees that writers rarely read for pleasure; and he also says that he doesn't read voraciously, but tends to read the same books over and over. in the december vanity fair there's an ad for the new vidal bio. there's a picture of him as a very young man. i found a picture of my grandfather in close to the same pose and at the same age: they could be brothers - same eyebrows, full lips. gore vidal looks more like my grandfather than any of my uncles do. at the top of the ad is the quote: "style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn." i like that. you can read, read, read all you want, but until you know what you want to to do with it, it's all just a useless heap. i've got to rent "happiness" sometime. have you ever seen "life is sweet", cyst? it's a mike leigh film.

swine IS the voice of reason. I detected this using my ability to interpret the shapes between the letters in his posts.

was "life is sweet" released in 1987? I saw every film that came out in 1987. that was my first mike leigh film. I saw it downtown with my friend amy. I've seen "naked" (my favorite so far), "secrets and lies," "career girls." which have I missed, which should I see? I've liked it all so far.

i hope you read them backwards, llama.

he came to me in the radio again this morning...i paid him no mind......

it's supposed to be a guy thing. reality check, balance. cyst - i was asking because i bought a tape of the movie for $8 at a flea market. i rarely go to movies (nobody i know does) and i thought i might get a little review of it. i've never seen a mike leigh film, but i recognized the name. it says 1991 on the tape cover. i haven't watched it yet.

Euripides in the original greek is not that much different than Euripides as rendered by some oxford don or other, except that with the former you spend a lot of time with Liddell and Scott. The Medea is one of my favorite anythings anywhere; I get so pissed when people talk about Sophocles and Greek tragedy. Sophocles was not fit to lick Euripides' nutsack.

......UHHH......WELL!! where ya been margret.....? whats up?

margret! yay!

Margaret is... umm... I don't know, but that was quite a post... yay Margaret. Swine reminds me of Gregory Bateson sometimes. And yes, he does seem to be one of the most sensible people here. I am, um, I don't know what I would be. Jung, anyone?

The dark mother, maybe? I often feel like the neurosis poster-child.

hello boyzngrrlz i am back in albuquerque and i have been playing the get a job game and now i have a job. the company is cool; you can check them out at www.prolaw.com my favorite things i have read in the original language have been euripides' medea and rhinoceros by eugene ionesco. i have always wanted to read le petit prince but have never gotten around to it. i have been lurking here with nothing to say since i moved back. i have been playing computer games and knitting and crocheting at night. sometimes i cook. i have emptied a lot of cat litter. p.s. Lucy, love yah though i do (i mean, you went to Baltimore Friends, you prolly know Zita Dabarres or however you spell it), i spell my name m-a-r-g-r-e-t.

Does this mean you'll be talking to us more now? We miss you when you're gone so long.

i've really been getting into hypertext fiction these days. there's some really interesting stuff being published. i've been reading bits of: http://www.nyupress.nyu.edu/hypertext/straightpath/ this guy is a lot like rushdie. and i don't say that because he's from India. the thing i like about hypertexts is the same thing that bugs me about it. i like being able to choose my own path in the story, to let it unfold however i randomly choose. but it's got to be written really well in order for this to work. anyway. i'm at home again. i should probably get back to the office but i just feeling like eating and dicking around.

1991. ok. I got "life is sweet" confused with "high hopes." I never saw "life is sweet." I now recall previews of it. there are scenes in a stairwell in a house. please tell me what you think of it. I never know what to get at the video store.

mike leigh: Topsy-Turvy (1999) Career Girls (1997) Secrets & Lies (1996) Naked (1993) Life Is Sweet (1990) High Hopes (1988) does anyone remember a film called "topsy-turvy"? I assume it's already come and gone. I like his films because they seem so real. his characters are fat and lonely and scabrous, and they stutter and scream at each other. he never takes any easy outs. his films are basically character studies. they're thin on plot, but they really give you a feel for what it would be like to be someone else (but no one you would want to be). apparently he uses no scripts -- every scene in every film is improvised. an actor may be told what they're supposed to reveal in that scene, but it's a surprise to the others.

I've never seen either of the two nor even heard of them. But I did just see a bunch of movies in the last couple of days that really fucked with my head and weren't half bad, if you ever don't know what to get, I suggest them: Jacob's Ladder *** Brazil * [you'd have to see this one like 3 times to really soak it in] Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas *** 12 Monkees **** Being John Malkovich ** Bladerunner ** [but I was stoned, so I donno] Happiness **** [I just saw that yesterday and it's really good] 4 Rooms ***** I could not BELIEVE that the lead character of Fear and Loathing was Johnny Depp. Oi.

oh. I was wrong. they improvise the scenes first, then dialogue is written later. this is a nice little fan boy's essay on mike leigh. http://www.tohu-bohu.com/leigh/index.html

I really want to see the John Malkovich movie. I'm somewhat obsessed with all the actors who played in "Man in the Iron Mask" because I enjoyed that film so much. Don't ask me why. Margret - I finished the Medea today. They talked about it a little bit in my class today and compared Medea killing her children with Herakles killing his children. A boy thought it was acceptible for Herakles because he was Mad, and not for Medea. My impression was that Medea was somewhat mad herself. Herakles was driven mad by Hera (a spell?). I think Medea was driven mad by Jason. She gave up everything for him. She not only turned her back on her family and home, and spit on them and rubbed it in with the heel of her boot. And then he ditches her for some young tart. The jerk! I love Euripides. Even though Medea did all kinds of crappy things, I really felt sympathetic towards her. That's one freaking good writer. I think this version was translated by Richard Lattimore. Next up is Helen, also translated by Lattimore. My mother asks about you from time to time. "How is the Coloraddy girl?" she says. She really liked that.

i watched "life is sweet" tonight. it's great. there's no much more i can add to what cyst or her link has said. except maybe to add "unpretensious". it's a very natural, realistic, warts-and-all potrayal of an english family, but without the overdramatization. i've always deeply hated those exposing-the-hidden-underbelly, "ordinary people" kind of movies.

unpretentious. heh. so much for my career as movie reviewer. really is a good flick, though.

Well, I have this take on Medea which is pretty much a standard castrating feminist type one, which is that Medea very much loved her children (it's obvious in her scenes with Jason that she is very concerned with them and with what the effects of his defection will be) but that killing the children was Medea's only avenue for having a life which was self-defined after she's basically been through the wringer for being everyone's little barbarian princess. And Glauke and her daddy-o got exactly what they deserved. What I really enjoy about the play is the, if you will pardon the wretched pretentiousness of this, the poetic justice of leaving Jason still standing, bereft, in the ashes of his dream and aspirations. The irony precisely of him EATING HIS CHILDREN, since wasn't that what he was doing figuratively before she made him do it literally? Yeah, buddy, dish it up Medea. Sigh. Anyway, in order for Medea to reclaim her life she can't be defined in terms of any relationships with others. She was daddy's little barbarian princess, then she was a fratricidal barbarian trophy princess, then she was a scorned and bitter soon-to-be divorcee. I love Medea so much. I wish I had been alive to see Bernhardt play her. She used to be the defining cyborg in my pantheon of feminist icon.

P.S. Gee tell yer ma I am in Albuquerque now, and doing well. I have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, but Albuquerque is a good place. Ciao, bellas.

good choices there Jina, thats lot to absorb in a few sittings.....Blade Runner is probably my fav......i have been meaning to read more Philip Dick, Brazil IS indeed a lot, my friend and i saw it in the theater many years ago, we though it was cool to get totally baked and see it, we almost passed out......

I've forgotten if you've ever mentioned where you live, droopy, but if you have any problems finding a place that rents "happiness" (blockbuster and hollywood don't), I can mail you the dvd and you can send it back when you're done. I've found it doesn't hold up well to multiple viewings (at least not by me), but it was really powerful the first time I saw it.

Jinafishes - you should see: Pi eXistenZ Delicatessan The City of Lost Children and every one should see Leningrad Cowboys Go America

I liked eXistanZ. Callum Keith Rennie was in that. He was the one who mentioned that he "sucked" at the end.

i also recommend Doom Generation and Nowhere...two great Arkai films

droopy, you wouldn't like American Beauty then. also, Oprah Winfrey's character kills her children in the movie "Beloved". which was a creepy flick. did anyone see Henry Fool?

yeah, american beauty is pretentious, and its characters are two-dimensional, and that whole something-evil-in-suburbia thing has been done to death already, but it's good anyway.

yes. naturally, i loved all of the fantasy scenes, and i loved the scene where Lester and Ricky are smoking a joint together and Ricky quits his job, and how they both start cracking up when Carolyn comes out and catches them. i thought Ricky's dad's character... can't think of his name... was astounding. the way Ricky had to handle his father psychologically, throughout the movie, well, i thought that was handled absolutely brilliantly, both in the acting and the actual screen play writing of it. i thought that relationship was the most intriguing one. it reminded me a lot of the way i had to deal with my first step father when i was growing up. the other thing i liked about the movie was how it allowed every major character to fully develop, and how well the subtleties of the relationships between the characters came through. i mean, they really did not leave anything out. and the ending was perfect. the last 15 minutes of that movie were breathtaking. (btw, i knew somehow that Ricky's dad was gay right at the beginning of the film...) anyway, even people who already know the lessons and the philosophies of the movie can stand to see it and learn it over and over again. it was a really nice reminder to me of making sure that i'm staying alive, not being numb. it affirms choices i've made in my life, makes me thankful that i am not them, that i somehow have been able to escape that whole type of reality. i was talking to someone at a party about that movie and this guy said, "Yeah, but why did they have to make the neighbor kid a drug dealer?" And i just about screamed. i was like, wow, you really didn't get it. i think that alone will separate the people who get that movie from those who don't. the neighbor kid was the hero of that movie, the voice of LIFE. but my favorite part of all... is the fact that Lester was so blatantly sexually aroused by that little teenage girl. i know it's the whole Lolita thing and it's nothing new, but this movie taps into something else too. i think it exposes a natural part of human sexuality in a very real way. and it's also a huge slap in the face of denial. it's like, HELLO AMERICA! this is real. this is your husband, your father, your grandfather, your brother, your uncle. these are real desires, this is human sexuality. you may call it "wrong" or "sick" or "perverted" or "inappropriate", but you know what? too fucking bad. this is how it is. deal with it. and what the hell, what kind of weird morality trip do we have going on anyway? uh, anyway. happy thanksgiving sorabjiites. i adore each and every one of you. even the ones i wish i could slap around a bit. i think i love you the most.

thanks for ruining the movie for me, sarah. phooey on you.

Thanks for saving me seven bucks. Woohoo!

yeah, you gotta start a post like that with a warning for those of use too slack to get to the movie theater