drunk nights on bikes

19.4.05

After some thought

A band that I think sounds British, but isn't: Spoon.

Listen to a song off their upcoming album here.

13.4.05

DeAnn made me do it

And since I'm a horrible follower, and seeing I haven't blogged in forever (although I have started several posts and never finished), and since it's 4:30 a.m. and I can't sleep, here it goes:

The Sound of Memes

1. Song that sounds like happy feels:

"So Happy Together" by The Turtles. Second runner up: Anything by The Polyphonic Spree.

2. Earliest (music) memory:

I'm not sure which one came first, but Michael Jackson's "Thriller", Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" and Madonna's "True Blue" all come to mind. So does Cat Stevens' "Teaser and the Firecat", and seeing Joan Jett sing "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" on MTV.

3. Last CD you bought:

"Mona Bone Jakon" by Cat Stevens and "Four Seasons" by Vivaldi.

4. Reminds you of school:

Mazzy Star is the best make-out music ever.

5. Total music files on your computer:

Approximately 5,796.

6. Song for listening to repeatedly when depressed:

Just one? (Argh!, gasp!, Sigh!) I can make any song depressing, but the Oscar goes to Nico's "These Days".

7. Sounds British, but isn't:

Uh, I'll have to get back to you on this.

8. Song you love, band you hate:

I have no room in my life for hate. But I am occasionally ashamed of certain guilty pleasures, which I refuse to reveal.

9. A favorite song from the past that took ages to track down:

This is a stupid question (yes, there is such a thing).

10. Bought the album for one good song:

I have to like at least two songs to buy an album.

11. Worst song to get stuck in your head:

Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon".

12. Best song to dump a beer on someone's head to, then storm out of the bar?

"99 Problems" by Jay-Z.

13. Who should do this next?

Anyone who reads this. "Hello ... is there anybody out there?"

24.3.05

Reading: "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" by Milan Kundera

By no means am I an expert on Milan Kundera; I experienced his writing for the first time only one year ago, when I picked up "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" on a whim. It came on the coattails of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera," a transition that made no literal sense, but plenty of emotional sense. The utterly romantic and whimsical tale of Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza left me teary-eyed and hopeful. Garcia Marquez is that good at making the impossible seem just the opposite. Kundera, on the other hand, puts it all on the line. Affairs aren't so dreamy in his world, they are cruel and heartwrenching. People don't make love, they fuck. Death isn't glossed over by destiny or fate, it's matter of fact, like life.

Funny then, that I list both novels among my favorites. I have trouble explaining it, even now. What I can say is that Garcia Marquez writes of worlds that I dream of inhabiting, where ill-fated lovers pen letters to one another in hard-to-find invisible inks and eat tropical flowers in hopes of satiating their desires. Kundera is less idealistic, but no less fantastic. I can talk of Tomas and Tereza and Sabina and Franz in the same way I talk about Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. But I do not dream of living in their world; I have a sneaking suspicion that I already do.

I approached Kundera's "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" with the same recognition, and the results have been just as satisfying.

I imagine if I read enough of him, I'll come to look at Kundera as I do Woody Allen. Aren't all of Allen's women essentially the same? Isn't it that little bit of Annie Hall that makes me love them? Whether "comedy" or "drama", isn't it all jazz and neurosis? And isn't it Kundera's insistent exploration of literature/love/politics/religion/sex/writing that make "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" as profound as "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"?

Don't we really only torture ourselves with a handful of subjects?

I read something recently in "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" that has not left me, and I doubt that it will for some time (truly, it seems to be at the heart of my existential crisis). While telling us about a woman who wants to write a novel, Kundera digresses into a non-fictional account from his own life (something he does often, thus blurring the line between fiction and reality):

"Recently I took a taxi from one end of Paris to the other and got a garrulous driver. He couldn't sleep at night. He had a bad case of insomnia. It all began during the war. He was a sailor. His ship sank. He swam three days and three nights. Finally he was saved. For several months he had wavered between life and death, and though he eventually recovered, he had lost the ability to sleep.

'I live a third more life than you,' he said, smiling.

'And what do you do with the extra third?' I asked.

'I write,' he answered.

I asked him what he wrote.

His life story. The story of a man who swam three days at sea, held his own against death, lost the ability to sleep, but preserved the strength to live.

'Is it for your children? A family chronicle?'

'My kids don't give a damn.' He laughed bitterly. "No, I'm making a book out of it. I think it could do a lot of people a lot of good.'

My talk with the taxi driver gave me sudden insight into the nature of a writer's concerns. The reason we write books is that our kids don't give damn. We turn to the anonymous world because our wife stops up her ears when we talk to her."

Incidentally, I'm going to see the new Woody Allen film tonight. More on this and that soon.

4.2.05

Can't. Stop. Watching. Love. It. So. Much.

20.1.05

And again ...

I had to laugh that it was Pez who demanded I get back to blogging. You may remember, she was the one who flaunted the "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude back in November, when I started drunk nights on bikes. And although I hate to say I've been less than committed, I will say thank you to Katie for giving me a swift kick to the ass. I needed it.

I've sat down to write several times over the past few weeks, but the things that came felt wrong. I thought about New Year's resolutions (too cliche), my beautiful new apartment (too boring), and the death of a close family friend and my grandfather (both too personal).

At the same time, everything else (cool Web sites, movements, politics) felt not personal enough.

Then it hit me: Who gives a shit?

And so today, as President Bush enters his second term of office and my family arrives in Southern California to bury my grandfather, who died Sunday after a long battle with cancer, I toast better times, for my family and the world at large.

And I leave you with a quote by Milan Kundera:

"There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes."

29.12.04

In Memory

I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life,
but rather for my life to interpret my dreams.

-- Susan Sontag, 1933 -- 2004

28.12.04

Stuck "inn" an airport hotel ...

Drunk, hating Delta, wishing I had my swimsuit. But at least I have free wireless. DeAnn says I have to do this, and since I haven't posted in a while, I will.

Three names you go by:
Chrissy
J
You

Three screennames you have:
nelsonj3
pugnaciousspirit
scurvsgrl

Three things you like about yourself:
Humor
Optimism
Taste

Three things you hate/dislike about yourself:
Optimism
Lack of patience
Vulnerability

Three parts of your heritage:
Danish
French
German

Three things that scare you:
Alzheimer's
Death
George W. Bush

Three of your everyday essentials:
Coffee
Music
My brother

Three things you are wearing right now:
Bangs
Jeans
Scarf

Three of your favorite bands/artists (at the moment):
Arcade Fire
The Delgados
Earlimart

Three of your favorite songs at present:
"A.M. 180" -- Grandaddy
"Drop It Like It's Hot" -- Snoop Dogg
"Jet Boy, Jet Girl" -- The Damned

Three new things you want to try in the next 12 months:
Eastern Europe
French
Trust

Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given):
Admiration
Inspiration
Loyalty

Two truths and a lie:
I am hungry.
I am tired.
I am tired of being hungry.

Three physical things about the opposite sex (or same) that appeal to you:
Attitude
Hair
Jeans

Three things you just cant do:
Drink goat's milk and blood
Keep my mouth shut
Swallow

Three of your favorite hobbies:
Sleeping
Talking
Walking

Three things you want to do really badly right now:
Go swimming in Norway
Talk to XXX
Write hate mail to Delta Airlines and P.F. Changs

Three careers youre considering:
Criticism
Lush
Writer
(a.k.a. The Life of Henry Miller)

Three places you want to go on vacation:
Estonia
Hungary
Tahiti

Three kids' names:
Chrissy
J
You
(Like DeAnn, I don't get this question.)

Three things you want to do before you die:
Learn to belly dance
Live abroad
Swim with a humpback whale

Three people who have to take this quiz now:
Cory
Kehoe
MOR