Today, I defied College Station’s coercive imposition of immobility on me by braving its pedestrian-unfriendly streets on the way to the cinemas. Got to see An Education, a moderately entertaining film, for three and a half bucks, so no complaints from me. This recently discovered cinematic accessibility, along with the pockets of coolness in the historic downtown, has resuscitated my dying hopes of searching for fun in this town.
And yesterday, those Texas ribs…My goodness!
Today, I read key writings of Hegel, Marx and Engels, and Adorno and Horkheimer of the Frankfurt School for a political ecology class. My brain hurt and my nose gushed, but it was fun in a nerdy, masochistic kind of way.
I wish I could post something here not related to stories of academic orgasm or to whiny complaints about how overworked I’ll be this semester. Then again, what else is there to write about?
Vampire Weekend’s new release became only the 12th indie album to debut at number one in the Billboard 200 charts. From their first album:
And Dirty Projectors weirdness love.
Afropop-influenced indie seems to be the trend these days. Pretentious Ivy Leaguers (but they are awesome!).
Amidst another post-travel depression (coming back to College Station from anywhere is such a bummer), I rediscovered tonight the only piece of fiction I attempted to write in 2009. Not very good but promising.
I saw, from the corner of my eye, how her melon breasts jiggled up and down upon each encounter of the car with humps on the road. The streets were relatively deserted for an 8pm weekday as commuters had earlier scurried home trying to avoid the winds and downpour of the typhoon scheduled to make landfall at nine. Leafy branches already scattered along the road while the trains of drizzle swayed according to the direction of the gust. I had wanted to switch channels to listen to some weather news but she had been quietly humming along with the silly PCD song on the radio in the passenger seat. Her name was Jackie (after the martial artist she told me) and she had the most beautiful pair of eyes.
Prior to the aforementioned lonely paragraph, the last bit of writing I completed, and perhaps one of my favorites, was this final paragraph of an episode called, well, “Cookies”:
We sat on the rug at the foot of my bed and I quietly munched on her cookies as we watched the presidential chopper land in Batasan. She told me she was taking weekly capoeira lessons since April, and I scoffed in disbelief and in my mind couldn’t come up with an image of her taking up any form of strenuous physical activity, and she rose and showed me some moves (which involved air kicks) to dispel my incredulity. Convinced, we were quiet again as we watched the president in her pink dress cheek-to-cheek-kiss a senator and other old ladies with heavily powdered faces. I told her a certain talent agent approached me last week and became a fan of my jaw, and she chuckled and smiled and allowed her fingers to wander in my face, an index finger gently resting between my jaw and cheek. I was finishing the last cookie as we followed with our eyes the president walking across the Congress aisle and up to the platform where the baronged house speaker and senate president awaited. With her finger tapping playfully on my cheek, she adjusted her posture and exposed her knee in my direction. Pretending to not have noticed, I quietly landed my hand on her knees and slowly inched my fingers up her skirt. My face felt red hot and my heart seemed to skip every other beat. The national anthem played on television and our lips and tongues were once again rediscovering each other. We quietly lost our virginity that afternoon amid the background of hovering chopper noises and presidential promises about inflation and agrarian reform.
Yeah, I know, I’m bored and lonely. Bring on the spring semester!
I need to be more articulate.
Three TV series of the Noughties
1. The Wire
2. Arrested Development
3. The Sopranos
The others are nowhere near as great.
And reverseshot.com’s list of 20 films of the Noughties is spot on. Some overlaps with my list (see previous post) include: #1 Mulholland Drive, #3 In the Mood for Love, #4 Before Sunset, #5 Syndromes and a Century, #9 The Son, #10 There Will Be Blood, #11 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, #13 Yi Yi, #14 Werckmeister Harmonies.
28 Films of the Noughties
1. Syndromes and a Century (Weerasethakul, 2006)
2. What Time Is It There? (Tsai, 2001)
3. Mulholland Dr. (Lynch, 2001)
4. Yi Yi (Yang, 2000)
5. In the Mood for Love (Wong, 2000)
6. Talk to Her (Almodovar, 2002)
7. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Mungiu 2007)
8. Adaptation (Jonze, 2002)
9. There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2007)
10. Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr, 2000)
11. The Hours (Daldry, 2002)
12. Le Fils (the Dardennes, 2002)
13. The Russian Ark (Sokurov, 2002)
14. Tropical Malady (Weerasethakul, 2004)
15. In the Bedroom (Field, 2001)
16. Cache (Haneke, 2005)
17. Y Tu Mama Tambien (Cuaron, 2002)
18. Gosford Park (Altman, 2001)
19. Before Sunset (Linklater (2004)
20. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)
21. Ghost World (Zwigoff, 2001)
22. United 93 (Greengrass, 2006)
23. Ten (Kiarostami, 2002)
24. Moolade (Sembene, 2004)
25. Tuhog (Jeturian, 2001)
26. Cafe Lumiere (Hou, 2004)
27. Elephant (van Sant, 2003)
28. Synecdoche, New York (Kaufman, 2008)
Honorable Mentions: Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Puiu, 2005), A History of Violence (Cronenberg, 2005), Nobody Knows (Kore-eda, 2004), The Man Without a Past (Kaurismaki, 2003), Now Showing (Martin, 2008), No Country for Old Men (the Coens, 2007), Maria Full of Grace (Marston, 2004), Vera Drake (Leigh, 2004), Blissfully Yours (Weerasethakul, 2001), Children of Men (Cuaron, 2006), Bloody Sunday (Greengrass, 2002), Inland Empire (Lynch, 2006), Melancholia (Diaz, 2008), Ploy (Ratanaruang, 2007), C.R.A.Z.Y. (Vallee, 2005), Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2001)
I suppose I should post something here as a proper sendoff to the shitty year that was 2009, but I could barely come up with a paragraph that does not reek of bitterness or finger-pointing. So I guess some generic thank you’s (and a few mild, harmless fuck you’s too) to the people who made 2009 particularly memorable would do. Two special mentions: a toast to Trina and our two-person support group, and another to you know who (by this point, I hope you know I’m talking about you), just because. Grated parmesan cheesiness.
gratitude,
Leopold Bloom (non-emo inside a basement room, escaping the dreary Seattle greyness)
Passed by Sleater-Kinney Road on the way back to Seattle, the street where this great band got its name from.
28 albums of the decade
1. Kid A by Radiohead (2000)
2. Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective (2009)
3. Mass Romantic by The New Pornographers (2000)
4. The Moon and Antarctica by Modest Mouse (2000)
5. Funeral by Arcade Fire (2004)
6. Vespertine by Bjork (2002)
7. Kala by M.I.A. (2007)
8. Illinois by Sufjan Stevens (2005)
9. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco (2002)
10. Is This It? by The Strokes (2001)
11. Person Pitch by Panda Bear (2007)
12. Feels by Animal Collective (2004)
13. Fever to Tell by Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2003)
14. Oh, Inverted World by The Shins (2001)
15. Milk-Eyed Mender by Joanna Newsom (2004)
16. Turn On the Bright Lights by Interpol (2002)
17. White Blood Cells by The White Stripes (2001)
18. One Beat by Sleater-Kinney (2002)
19. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga by Spoon (2008)
20. Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea by PJ Harvey (2000)
21. Return to Cookie Mountain by TV On the Radio (2006)
22. Twin Cinema by the New Pornographers (2005)
23. Apologies to the Queen Mary by Wolf Parade (2005)
24. Third by Portishead (2008)
25. The Life Pursuit by Belle and Sebastian (2006)
26. In Rainbows by Radiohead (2008)
27. Z by My Morning Jacket (2005)
28. A Grand Don’t Come for Free by The Streets (2004)
