amplified to rock
If you're not doing anything tonight: My brother's experimental video exhibition is at 7 PM. It's free and there will be snacks available. Good deal, eh? Here's the details:
Technicolor Revelations: an experimental video exhibition
Friday, June 1, 2001, 7 PM
Hokin Auditorium
Columbia College Chicago
623 South Wabash (Harrison El Stop)
Also, if you'd like to send Mike a graduation card or a congratulatory e-mail (it would mean a lot to him), his email address is mike@spoonbender.org.
You're not funny, chump: There's one of them in every literature class I've taken in the past two years: a wannabe comedian. Think "class clown," only not funny. Usually it's the guy who sits in the back of the classroom, cracking jokes whenever he doesn't understand the readings. I thought I had experienced the peak of the wannabe comedian in my literary criticism class a couple of years ago. This guy (we'll call him Jimmy, though that's not his name) had taken classes at Second City, therefore, he assumed that everything that came out of his mouth was automatically hilarious. What nobody told him is that ANYONE can take classes at Second City, that they don't discriminate against the terminally unfunny.
Anyhow, every time there was a concept that Jimmy didn't quite get, he'd crack some inane joke about it. If I could find my notebook from that semester, I'd be able to tell you what they were, because whenever he said something particularly irritating or annoying, I'd write it down. He popped up again in my Philosophy of Literature class last summer, but he dropped the class after two sessions. This was good, because I was not looking forward to hearing his jokes about Graham Greene and Hermann Hesse.
This summer, I've been dealing with another wannabe comedian in my contemporary lit class. I have had to restrain myself to keep from insulting this guy because he's so fucking irritating it gives me a rash. Every time there's something he doesn't understand (which is all of the time, because this is contemporary literature and we're reading a lot of experimental postmodernist fiction) he cracks some idiotic joke. He made some inane joke today, and the few people sitting around him laughed, and when they were done laughing, I emitted this loud-but-weak "heh." I couldn't help it. His wisecrack was THAT stupid.
He tried to accuse me of some sort of elitism on Tuesday night because I said that I didn't like the novel we read. I looked at him and said "Shit, I'm an English major. Of course I think there's books out there that are crap. If that's elitism, well then, I'm cool with it. If you spend enough years reading 'great literature,' you'll eventually develop a distaste for most not-so-great literature. You become critical. It's an occupational hazard."
That shut him up.
He thinks I'm an elitist because I made fun of Blink-182 on the first night of class when we were talking about mainstream culture co-opting underground movements. I said that I would really love for my favorite bands to make shitloads of money, that they deserve recognition for their talent, but I really don't want to battle the 16-year old Blink-182 fans for tickets to their shows. (No offence to any 16-year old Blink-182 fans who may be reading this. But anyway...) Apparently Mr. Wannabe Comedian is a huge Blink-182 fan, and I offended his sensibilities in a fundamental way. Since I think that one of his favorite bands sucks, I'm obviously some sort of an elitist who hates any music that is popular. Nevermind that I have mentioned several times in this class the fact that I listen to a lot of pop music.
I think he's just a doughy little turd in an XFL t-shirt. I'm neither kidding nor exaggerating. On Tuesday night, he was sportin' an XFL t-shirt. You don't know how hard it was for me to keep from asking him if he was wearing an XFL t-shirt to make an ironic statement about popular culture. I mean...you can't be serious about the XFL, can you?
So...yeah. I spent the morning doing housework and baking a cheesecake. Tim's birthday is this weekend, and he likes cheesecake, so he will have cheesecake. A chocolate-chip cheesecake, at that. My laundry is done, the house is vacuumed, the dishes are done...yay, clean house. I think I'm going to take the vacuum out to the garage so I can clean out my car. There's a bunch of Rainbow Nilla Wafer crumbs all over the passenger seat. The colors are pretty, but I'm getting kind of tired of reminding my passengers to brush off their asses upon leaving the vehicle.
Things are very, very uneventful around here, which should help explain the lack of constant updates. I'm at mid-term with my classes (yay for summer mini-session!) so I'm trying to keep ahead with reading and paper writing. Yeah, you heard me right--ahead. I actually started taking notes for a paper that isn't due for almost a month, and I plan to finish the reading for a paper that isn't due for two more weeks. Yes, you should be impressed. Heh.
I talked to Colin last night for a few minutes. We're both getting excited about our Jeopardy auditions next month. We're not auditioning on the same day--he's on Wednesday and I'm on Thursday--but hopefully we'll both make the cut.
I'm going to go scrub the bathroom sink now. Yuck.
Rain and more rain: It rained all last weekend. And it was not just any rain--it was a cold, nasty, heavy rain. With wind. Not pleasant.
I came really close to not doing anything on Saturday afternoon. When I woke up and looked outside, it just looked awful. It was one of those "let's rent a movie and sit on the couch" sort of days. But I had told Joey that I'd give him a ride to the Dismemberment Plan show in Evanston, and I knew I'd have a good time if I went to the show, and Quinn would be at the show, so I had no excuse. I missed the last Dismemberment Plan show due to laziness and whining and apathy, and I decided that it would be really lame to do it a second time. I showered, I motivated myself, I picked Joey up, and we made the trek to Evanston.
The rain kept picking up and then slacking off and then picking up again. Neither of us really knew where the show was, aside from "near the lake." Yes, I could have asked Colleen, who goes to Northwestern, but that would have made too much sense. So we drove around Evanston aimlessly, trying to figure out where we were and where we were going. We came pretty close to asking some kid with a Black Flag patch on his jacket if he knew the whereabouts of the show, but we didn't get around to it. We eventually found the lake, we eventually found the parking for the festival, and we eventually found out from a friendly security officer that everything had been cancelled. Crap. So we drove back down to the city, I dropped Joey off, and I went back over to Tim's to sit around on the couch and watch TV.
Now, for all I know, the show was moved indoors and I missed it anyhow. Which would suck. But I'm sure The Plan will be back soon enough, and I won't miss them next time.
I went to Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind for the first time since December on Saturday night. We sat on the floor because we were the last five people to get in. The show was good, and Steve recognized me and said "hi." Every time I go to TMLMTBGB, I think "I need to do this more often," but I never end up doing it more often.
Something to bitch about: I managed to completely neglect my comp theory homework this past weekend, and I'm paying for it. I have an insane amount of reading that I really need to finish before I go to class at 4:30 so I can participate in the discussion. See, that's the thing about being an outspoken participator: when you're unprepared, it shows, because you're not your usual opinionated self. I can't get away with not doing my homework.
Unfortunately, a couple of my co-workers have decided that it's a good day to shred about a zillion pieces of paper. I swear, there are people in this office who are so damn fascinated by that paper shredder that they shred EVERYTHING. I can understand shredding some things--counseling records, test results, anything containing personal information about students--but they're shredding handouts about the parts of speech and the writing process. Why bother? Just throw it in the recycle bin and be done with it!
The shredding situation wouldn't be so annoying if they hadn't parked the shredder directly outside the door to the office where I sit. It's kind of distracting. Just a little bit. Shutting the door would seem kind of rude, so I've been trying to just tune the noise out.
So yeah, the weekend. It was long, it was busy, it was fun, and the stories will have to wait until later. Rhetoric for Writing Teachers and Cross-Talk in Comp Theory are calling my name...
