Sunday, February 28, 2010

the weekly check-in and pop song collage.

yesss! o wonder of wonders, the radio station worked tonight!

my family heard me way away in chicago.

here is how tonight's show went. it had no theme. it is a sonic collage assembled for use last sunday but shelved and altered until this sunday.

lexicon devil - the germs
wake up - essential logic
mechanical flattery - lydia lunch
mythic - brilliant colors
jail la la - dum dum girls
goat hurt - no age
irukandji - smith westerns
spiritus sanctus - smith westerns
oh globe - JEFF the brotherhood
fuuuuuun - be your own PET
bicycle, bicycle, you are my bicycle - be your own PET
new wave hippies - psychedelic horseshit
when i'm with you - best coast
heavy days - JEFF the brotherhood
in the garment district - bird names
where is my mind? - the pixies (i saw the movie fight club for the first time last night. this song was so perfectly placed at the end. oh my god. i just sat there after it was over kind of frothing at the mouth for a while. i believe the first words out of my mouth when i heard those shimmery opening notes of this sweet sweet pixies song were, (building in volume and bewilderment) "what the fuck!" that movie was awesome. more on my thoughts about it coming in my 'zine. oh yes the 'zines are gonna happen. more on this later.)
endless fascination - psychedelic horseshit (last saturday, my friend called this song the " 'teenage riot' of our generation." he then revised it, saying "well, not the whole generation, but, like, you and me and michael and raul." yeah, i can see that.)

i'm in the library now and there's this kid here who i know has been here for hours and we was kind of eyeing me when i walked in and he just felt the need to get up and stretch for a bit. man, i sure do hope his essay is going well. he should take a break and come talk to me. that way i can put off studying for my lifeguarding test tomorrow. oh yes, part one (the multiple choice, dry-land part) is tomorrow. i know little more than the things that are figured out through sheer common sense. i have good common sense.

okay. now that the radio station is working i expect you to listen.
next week is the last show before spring break.
click it! sunday at 6 p.m., eastern standard time

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

and you can too!

dear charles dickens,
as i sit here in the library trying to do too much conference work on your brilliant novel bleak house in far too little time to give it adequate insight, i just want to take a moment to thank you.
i was on the second to last page of some critical essay that i was reading on an online database and i was letting my mind wander to the awesome scope and intermingling lives of your characters and the thought of being a grandmother crossed my mind. i thought very briefly of being eighty years old and having a crazy-looking house with a porch and dilapidated roof and flowers of various types in every stage of life and cats and baked goods. and i thought about my daughter and her crazy kids coming to visit. well, i didn't think about my daughter. i don't know anything about her. she is just an assumed part of the equation to get me to the crazy grandkids in grandma-made wings and fair isle sweaters running up my porch steps for water that i've colored blue and pink and green with food color and cloves-and-cinnamon apple cider served in a collection of neon wine glasses and thrift store mugs. i then thought about how even if i just barrel on through college for the next 3.5 years, just straight through, buckle down, i have so much life to live. i still have time to be fantastic and eccentric. maybe it's good to be normal (that is, a college student straight out of high school) or eccentric in a smaller setting (the college) first and then graduate and be brilliant in the real world. and even if i'm not brilliant, then, as i've learned from you, dear charles, and the neo-futurists, i even as a seemingly normal person am actually bizarre and fascinating.
thank you charles dickens, thank you!
love,
emma

p.s. i hate your fucking guts for writing a novel so long and intricate that i cannot remember and understand all of it and i am still a little angry at my don for assigning me to read it and read about it and all.

Monday, February 22, 2010

sluts.

so fine the radio station probably hasn't been working since that one fluke night where i got a call and freaked out.

it's okay. whatever. i have been busy.
doing stupid,
ill-advised things
and saying it's okay, calling it all experience,
it will never happen again
just this one time.
i would want to make will power a new years resolution, but new year's resolutions take will power.

i went clubbing. on friday.
and i went walking and to shows. on saturday.
and today i went swimming.
and today i could barely breathe.
i had swam on friday and between then and now i undid so much
...fitness...?
and i knew i would and i saw it coming and i'm not scared yet.
i'm worried.
and today i woke up feeling fat. i don't normally feel it, you know?

they're hiding in my bottom desk drawer. in the back right corner. out of sight out of mind out of words out of my filthy hands and chapped lips and and and oh christine. oh.

also i'm feeling like saying fuck all this online journal crap and maybe i'll just make zines instead. cause analog is the way to be, maaannn. and also i think one of the library's copiers is broken and doesn't deduct cost for the pages you copy.

so i'll only update when.....i do a radio show or make something brilliant or FINE WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT. IT WON'T BE ANY DIFFERENT. I WON'T BE ANY DIFFERENT. I'LL JUST REBEL AGAINST MY SUPER EXPENSIVE LIBERAL ARTS SCHOOL BY BEING A LOSER SLACKER. (somedays i really to think that is what i might be doing - dumbing myself down. or making myself numb to the could-be intellectual challenges. i don't mean to purposely i think. it's just reactionary. reacting is no way to go through life.)

Thursday, February 18, 2010

the sun is still up in rogers park right now.


so this band JEFF the brotherhood is playing in brooklyn on tuesday and i really want to go but to go to a show is about a $30 round trip ($13 round trip to get to the city + $4.50 round trip to get to the show space + $10-13 to get in = $27.50-30.50) so that's kind of out of the question (so bummed).
but i just laugh when i see these video and pictures of this band. look at all those people!

let's see, it must have been summer 2006, i was 15 and my friend wanted to go to this club in rogers park - the no exit cafe. i don't know if this was before or after his own band played at the no exit for the first time, i'll guess before. JEFF (no "the brotherhood" back then) was playing that night. my friend had burned me castle storm a few weeks earlier. i dug it. actually, i don't know if i listened to it more than a handful of times, because at that time i pretty much had the woods on repeat, the woods and nothing else (i was implanting every note into my brain in preparation for watching sleater-kinney at lollapalooza later that summer, okay?).
JEFF at no exit. i forget who opened for them. maybe the smith westerns? no that would be way too early. (would it? they were getting popular the summer i got my wisdom teeth out...summer 2008?) fuck, maybe it was my friend's band. i should call him. (the kid's phone was off, i'll maybe get back to you on this.) (oh man, update: it was the smith westerns who opened. back when my friend's friend (a kid i had gone through elementary school with) was the drummer.)

anyway. there were like twenty people there. maybe twenty. between fifteen and thirty for sure. they didn't play on the stage. they just stood in a corner and asked us to get close. no, come closer, you guys.
and now they're filling the bowery ballroom or some fucking club.
i almost feel like i was on the cutting edge, but i'm not that naive.
it was a good show. the one three.5 years ago, i mean. i haven't thought about that in a long time. i do remember the show being like really docile, like, we, the crowd, didn't know what to do so close to the band. should we dance? should we sit cross-legged like we're some fucking hippies listening to acoustic music? well maybe that's not how it was, but that's how i remember it.


(here: listen to the smith westerns, back when they were garage punks, before the t.rex pop. there was this awesome music video for "irukandji" on youtube, but they've since taken it down 'cause the singer is kind of a prick.)

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

we go together like devo & wine.


a new flyer. a little belated, but better late than never, yeah? for posting around campus.

fine print, i guess: the bird-hand image is from an old showpaper, the lady who has dropped her purse is from a 1961 Listerine ad, the postal service sticker is from the united states postal service, and the background is an advertisement from T the NYTimes style magazine. i forget whose ad. on the back is a tommy hilfiger ad, if that helps.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

dude, the hallway reeks of weed. isss all goood.

today and yesterday.
i haven't been talking so much. when that's all i want to do. excuse to logorrhea. i haven't been touching much and it nearly killed me when a girl who i guess i call a friend took my hand in acting class today. we held hands quietly for several minutes before class ended. i wanted to crawl inside her mouth and hold discussions with her tongue and brain and wisdom teeth, if they're still they're. i have been eating too much and sitting at my computer too much and boiling water too much. saturday's blue sharpie slash is still on the back of my hand. all i can do is look forward to saturday. to the city. i'm having the naive notion that everyone is looking at me and thinking about me. when i pass the pool's lifeguards on campus, the ones who have seen me swim so slowly so jagged, i instantly assume they smile at me out of sheer pity and then whisper to their friend when i am out of earshot all about my sad attempts at forward buoyancy. i don't know why i assume this. it is stupid. and a million times over i have had the justification conversation in my head where i say to the then-off-duty lifeguard, "i know i'm not such a good swimmer, but that's why i'm doing it. i'm trying to improve." and then they say, "yeah, i respect that, when you're just getting started it's tough. good for you." the conversation follows similar lines with record store clerks, because i occasionally have the paranoid feeling that they are judging what i'm looking at thinking like, really, sleater-kinney? could she pick a less obscure band? whatever, man, i have all (okay, most) their recording in real life maaaann, i didn't download that shit and yeah they're all on cd so i'm just gonna stand here gazing at this dig me out 12" record for a minute because carrie and corin are such babes and this fucking album totally changed my world and i like looking at it in real big artwork size.
it's ridiculous. it's like she's sixteen and worried about the size of her thighs. oh wait...

isn't it weird when your roommate walks in and describes your love life as another person's in the same story as
"she broke up with her boyfriend"
and (when asked "why?")
"i guess, God was just telling her that it wasn't right."

that's weird.

isn't it weird when you scrape your teeth together and you think it feels like you might have a cavity (even though you don't know what those feel like) because you have been eating so much fucking sugar.

that's diabetes.
that's my human genetics lecture making me want to find out everyone in my family who's ever had diabetes and make myself some nice little pedigree lineages (redundant?) and pundt squares and figure out my risk. if only i understood that shit. i forgot how science classes work with problems and applying what you learned to bigger issues. it's like literature, but literature is more cultural. and therefore more accessible to my mind. in genetic class i sat down next to a girl who was knitting a beautiful yellow sock and we talked about knitting. during class i felt a little like she was giving me smiles to try and seduce me. she was nice. i've seen her read her poetry before.

maaaaaaaannnn i missed the men's figure skating short program. i will not miss the women's figure skating events for the world. well, maybe for class.

i just learned that today is mardi gras. i wonder what my family ate for dinner. my dad always has the idea to do a really all-out southern feast. i don't think this vision has ever been realized.
that means that tomorrow is ash wednesday, which is lent.


and then i write about religion for a while. and then i stop. and then i edit. and then the religion talk is for another day.

Monday, February 15, 2010

the blue sweater. the v-day? the heyhowareyou.

dear ...,
how come yesterday you wanted to talk to me? when i had somewhere to go? why right then? why not sometime when i could stay and chat and we could find that we should be best friends and fall madly in love? why not one of those times? why do you always run into me when i am wearing this sweater? and when i have my hair done in this way. why don't we go see the runaways movie when i comes out? i'm sure it will be awful.
love,


Sunday, February 14, 2010

dream girl.

so even though you probably didn't listen to my radio show,
i will forgive you and tell you what i played so that you can recreate the experience in your own home. or your friend's home while you down a bottle of whiskey and fill in my witty banter where you deem appropriate.

summer holiday - wild nothing (i watched them play in brooklyn last night.)
the girl who lives on heaven hill - husker du
in my room - best coast
taste of cindy - the jesus and mary chain
lucy in the sky with diamonds - the beatles
tonya harding - the coathangers
the glam goddess - the smith westerns
suzanne - leonard cohen
and she was - talking heads
venus - television
tunic (song for karen) - sonic youth
luv goon - pearl harbor

listen in next week, ya hear?

p.s.a. well, at least a p.a.

golden
radio show tonight.
a valentines themed show would be too obvious, so i've given tonight's show the theme of
dream girls
and you know i'm not talking about that beyonce movie.

6 p.m. est.
that mean 5 p.m. cst. etc. etc.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

no time, no hope.

okay, could this be my life, please, a blend of color and music and city and woods and hanging out. well come to think of it, that kind of sound like my life now, only with school and no friends and i'm not the one making the music. ho hum. i really love this band and this song.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

la-la-love.

bare feet tentatively out the window to scamper across the would-be balcony (it's illegal) and leave my sugar-filled heart lying in my sno-angel before the mighty breezes blow it right off. one batch of snow and one batch of pancakes with two chicken eggs, fried excessive in butter and nutmeg, holding hands with my brain to wade in bleak house ICAN'TDOTHIS, fuzz-eyed in the library and glass email inbox pressured with pins and needles of retired blood drops. i like winter a whole lot, but somedays i just want to put this winter season's baggage in the alley and wait for the tuesday trash pick up with a lighter in one hand ready to strike. there are NO ALLEYS IN NEW YORK.

out my apartment window is the roof of the indoor parking lot. we are not allowed there. we made sno-angels there.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

placid.

i'm starting to wonder why i don't just walk next door and insert myself into the party that i'm watching from my bedroom window. i know a handful of girls that i can see. well, i've met them once or twice.
tomorrow has been declared a snow day at sarah lawrence. tuesdays are not usually loud party nights. tonight is.
i think i should drop out of school. i don't care about any of this shit and i'm just accumulating silly debt every second i sit in my bronxville bed self-loathing and reading "classic" texts. i am so tired. and i have so much work, which i shouldn't even bitch about because i guess i elected to go to college. i just hate it here. i think some night i'm gonna stay out in bronxville all night, sitting on street corners and behind that abandoned house-shed.

i guess to clarify:
i like sarah lawrence as a place, as a college, but i am fast realizing that i am not ready for college. you need a clearer game-plan to go to college, even one that's free-form and weird like this one. if you don't know at least a little who you are and what you want to know more about, then it's a waste. this is a romantic time waste. a beautiful expense. i guess if college was free i would feel differently.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

soaking my butterfly wings.

so, i'm on youtube. like, fuckin' weird man. it's last friday's midnight cabaret.

i got two pieces in the show, which was kind of cool i guess. i made a mess.

this one was called "dear breeze, can you feel me?" and it was a movement piece to the song "moody" by best coast, which i was kind of obsessed with all of last week.


this one was called "hold.hand.breathing.drinking.save.breathe.hide."


never mind all the silliness before and after the plays. midnight cabaret kids are weird. the camera work is poor. laurel isn't wearing a shirt. i look like a lesbian. okay.

also, i made those really cool zine-style programs that people are holding. they are cool, trust me.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

tiled lines and chlorine fingerprints - the persistence of my inner thighs.

i have been swimming.
just a little bit.
i have been swimming less like the spry camp counselor i once was who finished the swim test faster than all the girls and all but one of the boys and more like the octogenarian two lanes over, but i am slower than him and i swim in a bizarre zigzag where i run into the ropes with my poorly formed hands.
i breathe out large bubbles and bring my head up for small gasps.
when my legs learned to pedal a bicycle, they forgot how to scissor kick. when i my lungs learned to breath in time to the street, they forgot how to breathe with my rotating arms.
i'm not crying, it's just the chlorine,
turning my full hazel eyes into squinty red blemishes.
i'm crying because i can't rescue the brick at the bottom of the pool.
because i'm scared that at nine feet i'll forget how to do anything other than get back to air and i can't distract myself with a ten-pound weight.
my mom told me to imagine that the brick was my orange tabby, arthur. i started to cry. i can't save arthur.

i don't think i'll make a very good lifeguard.

i signed up for a lifeguard training/certification class for my p.e. credit. the class started monday. before monday, i hadn't swam in a year and a half. and i am really out of shape. part of the lifeguard PRE-TEST is swimming to the bottom off the nine-foot deep pool and rescuing a 10-lb brick and bringing it back to the other end of the pool. i tried like three times on monday, each time paralyzed by fear, treading water above the brick. i kept thinking of summer camp, when the councilors who could swim (always me) had to learn how to do "waterfront searches", our emergency action for when we thought a kid might be drowning in the swimming area. we had to swim two strokes forward, surface dive three strokes down with hands open and searching ready to grab a body, come back to the surface, one stroke back, surface dive, repeat. it was slow and i was utterly terrified every time i dove, even though it was only practice. what if i found someone? what couldn't i see?
so i have been swimming today and yesterday, and hopefully everyday, just to get more comfortable in the water.
if i can't get that brick on monday, i can't learn to be a lifeguard - i will have failed the pre-test and i will not get to take the class. i don't even want to be a lifeguard. i would be either negligent or incredibly paranoid when i sat in that lifeguard chair.
i have to get that brick.
i have to save my cat.