amplified to rock
Chicken McNuggets: A Totally Postmodern Food. Hmmm. Where to begin? Perhaps with last night's Yo La Tengo show, which was excellent. My darling
Mike Quinn has already summarized the show in handy weblog form, so I won't repeat what he said. Just go read his post. And ignore the part where he makes fun of me. Mike Quinn is a wonderful man, but he is sometimes misguided.
My only problem with the show was this: the people who kept talking during the quiet songs. It's like this: If you want to listen to Yo La Tengo while having a conversation with your friends, put on a Yo La Tengo CD and stand around your apartment and talk. Don't pay $17.50 (plus Ticketbastard service charges) for the privilege.
After the show, I went down to SmartBar and met up with Ann and Liza. I didn't stay there long because Tim was really feeling sick and he wanted to leave and he was the person who was driving. It was probably good that I left early, because if I had stayed much longer, I would have ended up talking to Ann and Liza until 4 in the morning and then I never would have made it home without falling asleep and dying in a fiery car crash. I will definitely be getting together with them again very, very soon. I think we have many things to discuss, important and pressing topics like boys and sex and bad dates.
I SLEPT LATE TODAY. This was something that I desperately needed, because I've been exhausted to the point of physical illness over the past few days. I also vacuumed the house. When you accumulate little bits of crap on the bottoms of your feet when you walk across the carpet, some vacuuming is in order.
Tim was actually sick enough to stay home from work, so I called him around noon to see how he was feeling. And he was feeling like shit, so he decided that he probably wouldn't go to the Dismemberment Plan show. Then I got an email from that sexy bitch Mike Quinn, who told me that *he* wasn't feeling well and that he probably would not be attending the Dismemberment Plan show. So I thought about it, and I decided that I, too, had a bit of a sore throat that would probably be exacerbated by going to a show in a hot, crowded place full of hipsters who smoke and dancing and yelling until midnight, so I decided to go to my class instead.
The early class was pretty nondescript. It's just comp theory, nothing interesting about comp theory. Between classes I ate one of those Luna Bar things because I needed a snack. It was pretty tasty, and it gave me this weird burst of energy. I was sitting in my Contemporary Lit class trying to rid myself of excess energy. I'll remember not to eat those just before I'm going to spend two and a half hours sitting.
So yeah. I'm sitting there gnawing on my Luna Bar and drinking water when--what do you know?--Beta Band Boy said something about my Elliott Smith shirt. We talked for a little while. It was cool. See, everyone? It is easy to meet people!
Class was interesting. There was some discussion of the nature of postmodernism and some discussion of Burroughs (who I have always considered overrated) and Pynchon (who I really like, even though I've only read The Crying of Lot 49--Gravity's Rainbow is on my List of Things to Read). There's some fairly clever and intelligent people in that class, so between that and the reading list, I think it's going to be an interesting eight weeks.
So I left school tonight feeling really hungry. While the Luna Bar gave me heaps of energy, it wasn't exactly a satisfying meal. I decided to stop at McDonalds (please don't lecture me about this) for some Chicken McNuggets. And I started thinking about Chicken McNuggets as a postmodern food, as a chicken simulacrum. I'm totally kickin' some Baudrillard tonight, yo. Of course, McDonalds was closed, so no chicken siumlacra for me. Bleh.
Oh, and confidential to Erik (with a "k") in Baltimore--it cracks me up that you found my webpage. Are you the person responsible for the St. Pauli Girl poster? That thing is hilarious. Did you notice that it looks like the girl was photographed against a different background and Photoshopped into that bar scene? She has a black outline. Seriously!
Anything to keep from reading my Comp Theory assignment: A DVD version of
Instrument, Jem Cohen's film about Fugazi, will be released soon. As with most DVDs, it will contain some extras, so those of you who are videophile Fugazi fans can jump up and down and get happy and stuff. I still haven't seen Instrument, but someone (
Mike Saul, was that you?) told me it's great. [Via
Adam the Robot, which has lots of other good music news. I found Adam the Robot via the excellent journal
Spiraling. Isn't it fun how the Internet works?]
Things I'd Like to Get Around to Doing Someday, Vol. 347: Order some stuff from
Pander Zine Distro. Ericka has heaps of great stuff.
Inopportune: I went digging through my handbag looking for my
Penguin Reds. I found them, but soon after, I realized that I'm almost out of them. It is not a good week to be almost out of caffeinated cinnamons, I tell you. I should not have let Tim eat all those Penguins when we were on our way to Dayton a couple of weeks ago. Seriously, he was popping them two at a time. If I had been the selfish, awful person that people sometimes believe me to be, I would have had an AMPLE supply of Penguins for this week. Of course, he probably would have fallen asleep at the wheel and killed us both, and the contents of my handbag would have been passed on to
my Internet Boyfriend, but at least he'd have an AMPLE supply of Penguins for this week, in addition to such items as an Indie Cred Punch Card, a free White Castle hamburger, my pink cat-eye sunglasses, a mini-notebook with a leopard-print cover and black paper, a book of matches from the gross Chicago faux-diner Clarke's, and more lip gloss than any normal human being would ever need.
I'll probably go ahead and order a 12-pack of the damn Penguin Reds, and they'll make it here in time for next week. The way things have been going, I'll still need them.
Also, according to the Pitchfork Music News, there's a new Superchunk album on the not-so-distant horizon. Rock. Oh, and watch this space. That's all I'm sayin', yo.
Exhaustion! And nothing but more of the same on the horizon. Between school, concerts, and everything else I have to do, it looks like I won't be getting very much sleep for the next several days. Pardon me while I spend some time bitching about this.
I started my classes last night. I'm taking two intensive summer classes, so I'll be finished with school by the end of June. However, this means that I'll be packing sixteen weeks' worth of reading and papers into eight weeks. This, coupled with the two theses I still need to write this summer, is making my life fairly unpleasant right now. The classes are both interesting--I'm taking a Professional Seminar for Teachers of Writing (yeah, I know I'm never going to teach again, but composition theory is still interesting to me, and I might end up doing some volunteer creative writing workshops) and a Contemporary Literature course. Both classes are actually kind of crowded, which is a little unusual around here.
So I was sitting in my Contemporary Lit class last night, minding my own business, when I looked at the rather nondescript looking guy sitting on the other side of the room. His backpack was sitting on the floor in front of him, and I noticed the tattered, worn-out Beta Band sticker on its front. Suddenly, he became INTERESTING. Suddenly, I was all "oh, I should TALK to him." My attitude, it kills me sometimes.
I got to interview the man sitting next to me for the silly little introduction activity. He was funny, and it turned out that I knew his writing from the literary magazine I used to edit. He's really a great short story writer, and it was cool to finally meet him in person. He described himself as a "former postal worker with an itchy trigger finger," and he said that all the cliches about postal workers being a little...out there...are true. Kinda makes you think.
I'm going to miss my Contemporary Lit class on Thursday because of the D-Plan show, which kind of sucks because we're reading Pynchon and Barthelme on Thursday, and they're probably my two favorite authors on the entire syllabus. I gave Todd the what-for because he didn't include David Foster Wallace. I know that the story in the anthology we're using isn't that great (it's "Lyndon"--if you're familiar with Girl With Curious Hair, you've probably seen it), but as far as current postmodernist authors, he's one of the best.
This is so funny I about choked with laughter. Especially the third paragraph. There's several lines in there that just stick out as particularly amusing because they are so, so true.
Does anyone have any handy hints and tips about how to get people to leave you alone? See, there's this person, and I've wanted this person to leave me alone--as in, don't email me, don't call me, don't read my web page, and, if possible, don't even THINK about me--for quite some time. This person has the email/call part down, but this person still reads my web page and (I would assume) thinks about me. I just want this person to LEAVE ME ALONE, completely. I'm sick of seeing this person popping up in my stats. I know that the person in question is probably reading this, so let me repeat myself once more: LEAVE ME ALONE. I leave you alone--please have the courtesy to do the same for me.
Tonight is the Yo La Tengo show at Metro. If you're going to be there, look for me. I'll be wearing my Mr. Show t-shirt. I will be there with bowling superstar Mike Quinn, who is easy to spot because he is twelve feet tall. Not really. But he's pretty tall. So is my other companion, the Famous Invisible Boyfriend Tim. So I'll be the short-ish girl in the Mr. Show shirt, and I will be flanked by two tall men.
I'd say it's time for me to get some schoolwork done, because it's not like I'm going to have any other time in the next several days to do schoolwork. The endless cycle of bitching and moaning about school has begun anew.
Cider drinks, poems and stories: In retrospect, I think I was drunk last night. I drank two pints of cider, so this should give you an idea of what a lightweight I am. I know this: there was a camera crew last night at the open mic at The Note, and I was rather openly leering at one of the cameramen. I swear, I'm going to end up being a lecherous old woman, constantly leering at young men. Oh well, at least I'm honest about it. I own up to my leering, damn it!
I met Jason Pettus at Quimbys last night. I can't step into that place without buying zines, and last night was no exception. I only spent around $25, but I got a lot of new reading material. My taste in zines tends towards the personal, handwritten, photocopied variety, and those are usually fairly inexpensive. One of these days, I'm going to create my own print zine. Really. It will happen. I've also been toying with the idea of a zine review site, but that's going to have to fall by the wayside temporarily because I have so much other stuff to do.
(And hopefully, now that I've mentioned my idea for a zine review site, someone won't beat me to it. Like once, I had this great idea for re-doing my bio page and having people who know me write about it, and then some asshole who will remain unnamed decided that it would be really cool to steal my good idea. So now if I do it, it will look like I'm ripping this person off, which is the last thing I could ever want. However, I do sleep easy knowing that the punishment for people who rip off the good ideas of others is this: While they are rotting in hell, my toilet will flush directly on to their head, and I will eat chickpeas for every meal. Mmm, chickpeas.)
Anyhow. Back to last night.
I'm relatively new to this whole poetry open mic thing. I think this was my fourth, and once again, I left with an overwhelming desire to write something that would be worthy of performing on stage. I don't doubt that I can do it, and I'm not nervous about doing it, it's just a matter of finding something good to write about. Something that isn't derivative and overdone. I find that the work I like best isn't about the same old dull subjects, or it at least puts a new spin on the same old dull subjects. Any bitter person can write a poem about how they've been wronged in love. The trick is to write a good poem about being wronged in love.
Maybe I should just write a poem about being a dirty old woman in training.
Jason was a lot of fun. We didn't talk too much early in the evening, except on the way over to The Note, and the conversation just kept going off on these tangents. He would ask me something, and then the conversation would turn to something only tangentially related, and it would keep going and going until we went back to the original subject. I think his original question was "Why did you decide to go to library school?" and somehow I ended up talking about the fruit necklace I made for my 6th grade class back when I taught school. (I will tell you all that story later, it's pretty damn funny.)
I enjoyed watching the poets read, but I think my favorite acts were the freestyle rappers. I'm starting to recognize people who read regularly and I'm starting to know what their "styles" are. There's a lot of extremely talented writers in the Chicago area, and I'm glad that I'm getting the chance to meet some of them...just in time for me to move to Champaign.
I gave Jason a ride back to his apartment, and I got started on some of my dating stories and boy stories, and since I was a little tipsy and in a talky mood, I did not shut up. Hopefully he was entertained by my antics. I hope I don't go to his web page later and read "that Nanette, she just does not ever shut up with her stories!"
We had an interesting conversation about the nature of confessional personal webpages, and I got a few things off my chest that I needed to get off my chest. Just some web-related bitching, that's all. Not about anyone, just about general stuff. It was nice.
I got very little sleep last night, and woke up this morning feeling like crap on a cracker. I'm okay now, but still a little tired. My classes start up again today, and I'm hoping that my early class gets out quickly because I have a little errand to run. And if class gets out early, I might be able to get some dinner that isn't grilled cheese from the school cafeteria.
Speaking of grilled cheese, it's time for lunch.
Wanted: One Yo La Tengo ticket: A situation has arisen. Tim thought he was going to be out of town this week, so he told me to go ahead and sell his Yo La Tengo ticket to someone else. So I sold it to
Mike Quinn (who gets linked a lot around here).
Well, Tim just found out that he doesn't have to go out of town, so now I am one ticket short. So if someone has an extra Yo La Tengo ticket, I'd be glad to take it off your hands. Or, if you're one of those people who is so well-connected that you've earned a spot on the guest list, perhaps you could help me out. I'd really appreciate it, because otherwise we're going to be stuck standing in front of Metro trying to buy a ticket, and that's just not fun. I'd appreciate the help.
Now that the work part is over, I can get on with my day: So, yeah. I'm going to that open mic tonight, and I've been thinking that it would be cool if I eventually wrote something so I could read at the open mic. I don't know if I'll be able to polish and perfect anything by 8 PM, but I already have two good beginnings: One is a reworking and expansion of a post from earlier this week, the other is something completely new called "Another Bitchy Poem About an Asshole Ex." Both will be pretty standard spoken word open mic fare.
I spent much of my day working on a top-secret new thing that will go public very, very soon. It won't be located here at spoonbender.org, rather, it will be elsewhere, at a site many of you check out regularly. Don't email me about it, you'll find out what it is soon enough. Maybe tomorrow. I really should have been doing schoolwork, but I didn't feel like it. I'm so apathetic it's disgusting.
Now I would like to sing a Wesley Willis-style song to Mike Quinn:
You are my Internet Boyfriend
All the girls think you are cute
You listen to people's complaints
You work in the suburbs
You are my friend 'till the friendly end
I love you like a milkshake
M-I-I-I-I-K-E Q-U-I-N-N-N-N
M-I-I-I-I-K-E Q-U-I-N-N-N-N
M-I-I-I-I-K-E Q-U-I-N-N-N-N
M-I-I-I-I-K-E Q-U-I-N-N-N-N
You threatened to blow me off twice
I called you and complained about that
Now you will not blow me off
We will go to many rock shows
M-I-I-I-I-K-E Q-U-I-N-N-N-N
M-I-I-I-I-K-E Q-U-I-N-N-N-N
M-I-I-I-I-K-E Q-U-I-N-N-N-N
M-I-I-I-I-K-E Q-U-I-N-N-N-N
Rock over London, rock on Chicago.
Taco Bell: Make a run for the border.
Also, I have an extra ticket to Saturday night's GBV show. Let me know if you'd like to go.
Today is the slowest day ever: I can't believe it's only 10:05. It feels like I've been back at work all day.
It's not like I have anything to do--I probably won't have any appointments all week, which will give me time to take care of some other business (like reading for either of my two theses, which are causing me a great deal of stress at the moment). The day is just dragging along.
I thought I wasn't going to need any books for one of my classes. When I went over to the bookstore today to pick up some notecards, I decided to check just in case. It turns out that I need three books for this class, and they were all fairly expensive (around $20). Gah. I was really hoping that wouldn't happen.
Last night, Tim and I went to Metro to see Badly Drawn Boy. The show was excellent--he played for two and a half hours, and he was very entertaining. I did, however, suffer a meltdown when he covered "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey. When will that band stop stalking me? I have apologized countless times for making fun of Ray's Journey CD. Please make it stop. Now.
I also went to the Indiana Dunes this weekend. For non-locals, the Dunes are just some big sand hills on the shore of Lake Michigan. I climbed a couple of hills, got sand everywhere--even in my ears--and waded in the lake. I learned how to skip stones (my record is six skips) and I saw some insects mating. Tim thought they were fighting, but I know insect sex when I see it.
Speaking of watching sex, I'm meeting up with porn king (warning, kids--that *is* a porn link) Jason Pettus this evening. At an open mic, you perv. It is my big Week of Meeting People: Jason tonight, Ann and Liza on Wednesday at Yo La Tengo. Speaking of Ann, you must read her recent entry about The Smiths. Last night, someone handed me a flyer for a Morrissey/Smiths night at Delilah's in June, and I could barely contain my excitement. I am so there.
