Posts (page 2)
A few days ago, I had a sex dream about Bill Murray. Not Ghostbusters era Bill Murray, or even pensive Broken Flowers Bill Murray, but fifty-seven-year-old, pockmarked, alcoholic, Bill Murray. Freud tells me that this dream is simply an externalization of some repressed fetish, but I know that this is bullshit because Freud was a cokehead and I certainly do not have any sexual fantasies about Bill Murray, unconscious or otherwise. My subconscious is just lost in itself, like I am lost in this lonely world and this world could lose itself in me.
Who has had more cultural impact, Homer (as in author of the Iliad) or Homer Simpson? Is it even possible to say? Clearly the former Homer has thousands of years of advantage, but which image comes up when the name is mentioned to anyone born within the past fifty or so years? Does the cultural impact made by Greek Homer hold as much weight as Homer Simpson's? Even though the author and philosopher had thousands of years to make an impression, is his impression as strong as Homer Simpson's is considering that the latter had/has the benefit of technology and mass media to ensure his image is recognized internationally? Does anyone realize how absurd it is that simply because some cartoonist decided that it would be amusing to name a boorish oaf after a Greek philosopher the cartoon has now practically usurped the philosopher's fame and accomplishments? Is it even worth trying to do well in this world if some day we can all be reduced to a few lines and some yellow coloring?
I wanted to give a quick shout-out to my friend AJ's style blog, The Stitch Society, a cool wardrobe-remix-style collegiate fashion photo-blog. Many thanks to AJ for featuring me and inspiring lots of bold fashion choices. :)
p.s. He and I are organizing a big photoshoot for June, I'll update after the long weekend with more details. Happy Memorial Day, all!
Oh, how times have changed.
I've been meaning to write about marijuana use for a while now, because I feel that the perspective I offer on the matter is one lacking from the public eye. Teenagers who use marijuana are generally portrayed in one of two different ways: the enviably cool stoners of Dazed and Confused or the drug-addicted "bad girls" of Thirteen (correct me if I'm wrong; I haven't seen the latter film and am basing this dichotomy on a superficial knowledge of the film's plot). The only time that I have seen anything comparable to my experiences with the drugs was in the "Chokin' & Tokin'" episode of Freaks and Geeks in which the main character, Lindsey, after getting stoned for the first time, proceeds to read the entry on "marijuana" in the encyclopedia. Let's just say that I read no less than twenty articles and research papers on the subject before finally conceding to myself that I was not going to get schizophrenia or kill all of my brain cells, never to see the light of conscious thinking ever again.
What I said in the old entry I linked to above is still my opinion on the use of narcotics and other "hard drugs," and while I do believe that some people may use marijuana as a "gateway drug," that number is small and depends largely on outside factors affecting the person (socioeconomic background, personal life, genetic predisposition to addiction, etc.). I have never made attempts to hide the fact that I occasionally use marijuana (occasionally meaning once every few months to twice a month), because I am neither ashamed of it nor displeased at the choices I have made. It was a wholly personal choice, uninfluenced by "peer pressure," and a well-informed one at that. Reading articles like Stephen J. Dunber's collection of opinions on the legalization of marijuana and watching documentaries on the war against drugs made me realize that many of the government's efforts to stem marijuana use in the teenage demographic are based on propaganda and, simply, a waste of money. In 1993 alone, the government spent $19 billion dollars on the "war on drugs." This money was reported as being largely spent on locking up people for marijuana possession-- people who were engaging in personal use of the drug, not even selling it to others. In a country in which healthcare and public education seem to be at a loss for money, why is this astronomical sum being spent on "crimes" that are, in many other countries, decriminalized, instead of spending it on the bettering of the public being? Has there been a drop in drug usage, particularly marijuana, in the last forty years that we have been fighting this war?
I'm not saying that the country should stop educating children about drug usage, it's just that, in my experience, all of the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) classes that I was made to take in elementary school and throughout middle school didn't prevent me from doing anything. Whether or not I do certain drugs, and this seems to be a running theme amongst the teenagers that I know, is a personal choice. I have friends that do drugs because their home life is difficult, I have friends who do drugs simply because they would like to expand their consciousness, I have friends that don't do drugs because of bad personal connotations with it, and I have friends who don't do drugs simply because they just don't. I don't even hide my marijuana use from my parents, because I think that as the people who raised me, they deserve to know what I'm doing and to understand my reasoning for it.
When I first told my mother that I had tried marijuana, she was visibly somewhat upset. I think that she was accepting of my choice, and understood that it was almost inevitable for me to try it, but did not entirely see the reasons for a straight-A student to want to try drugs (although she herself had tried it a few times when she was younger). I explained my reasons to her, and we agreed that I was mature enough to make intelligent decisions.
I simply wish more people would talk to their parents about it. If they are resorting to drug use because of personal issues, this is of the utmost importance. Some parents will likely not be as accepting and understanding as mine have been, but some might-- and that makes a difference.
As for me, I'm going to a party. Time to be a teenager.
I was going to make an attempt at a decent post, but I've been swept up in my senior thesis lately (a study on sensory memory) and can't quite get my brain to function correctly. Although my column for this issue of the Dawg Print (which will be my last) is finished, I don't think that I want to post it on here until the issue comes out. Not that anyone from school will read it on here anyway; it's more the principle of the matter.
But here's something I can show you: my new portfolio site. I'm testing out the usefulness of a portfolio website separate from places like flickr and deviantART as well as a .mac account. Give it a go and let me know what you think.
There is a place in my mind that I only now realized I have been creating since I was a child. You'll have to bear with me, because as difficult as it is to remember real things that have happened, it's even harder to remember things that haven't happened. Ever since I was little, I've been dreaming of places that do not exist, places which have become woven into an entire collection. Last night, in my dream, I began to live in this world. There were references made to places I had dreamed of before and forgotten, comparisons between these dream places made by my dream mind.
Last night was a particularly strange new place. It began as a nearby park that I had frequented as a child, but as I continued on I passed a place I used to dream about. When I was younger, it had been the carved out side of a mountain, half of which was a beach and half of which was a wave pool. It was now waterless and muddy, with large construction machines idle along the shore. This became the beach that I dreamed of after I broke my arm at the Jersey shore: a cliff of sand that drops down to a violent ocean. I continued through the park and cherry trees became huge tomato plants. Suddenly, my house was in the park. But instead of entering it, I decided to enter a one-storied building that had popped up beside it: it was a maze. This wasn't the first maze I had ever seen in my dreams; I remember a few years ago I dreamt of a line of bungalos on some far-away island that offered endless mazes of rooms once you stepped inside. Like the bungalos, the building twisted and led around to nowhere until finally I entered a small set of offices. I have surely seen these offices before; I remember dreaming about a modeling agency and having run around a huge hall and grandiose staircase connected to tiny offices just like the ones I saw last night. The lighting in the offices was dim, and one door at the end offered an entrance to the foyer of a hotel, where groups of people, some that I knew and some that I've never seen, were congregating. I usually don't see people's faces in dreams, but last night I saw everyone with astonishing detail. I went back into the offices, changed my clothing (for some reason), was asked if I was there for the Vogue casting (I wasn't; to which I was told "You are beautiful"), and went off to find my "boss."
I found my boss, an asian woman of about thirty-five, and she explained what we were doing (putting together a fashion magazine), but never gave me a job to do. I saw an old friend of mine and began to talk to her. We went around together, and at some point I was in my parent's bathroom telling her a story on the phone when she became silent. I asked if everything was okay, and she responded by saying that she didn't want me to tell anyone about the fact that we had been speaking to one another. She explained that I was embarrassing to be associated with.
And then I woke up. What a dream.
Okay, back to what I've been meaning to do for months: a summary of some of my favorite bloggers and artists. This will probably (hopefully?) be a semi-regular installment, at least when I'm not writing essays comparing Robert Herrick to MGMT (I wish I were kidding! I love senior year assignments):
illustration
Krisatomic
photography and illustration
I used to read Kris' livejournal back in ye olde underclassmen days, and have remained a big fan. There's something decidedly fresh about her decadent and crisp photographs, not to mention her charming illustrations and paper-cuttings.
Jezebel
blog
There's no place I'd rather get my daily dose of femi-snark. Granted, the material can be superficial at times, but that's something that I'm willing to forgive when I'm trying to veg out in front of the computer after school. (Side note: How can anyone seriously find this attractive? The girl looks less human and more Stick Stickly.)*
*Wow, serious childhood nostalgia.**
**File under "how you know you've seen Fight Club too many times": The music in that commercial totally sounds like a little kid version of the scene in which that guy cleaning the sidewalk with a hose sprays water onto a priest passing by in order to start a fight.***
***I have friends, I swear.
We slept in Hartley, which is a dorm building comprised entirely (I think?) of bi-level suites. (I prefer the single-level suites in Wallach-- if I can get a single room in a suite there, I'll be set.) Sleeping arrangements, if they could be called that, were five girls who had never met before squished into a small, cold, common room. Not exactly accommodating, but it did make for some female bonding. We stopped by a party in Carmen the night before and it was, to say the least, the lamest party I have ever seen. I mean, like twenty kids, one half-full bottle of Smirnoff, and a case of beer lame. It sort of made me miss the frats at Rutgers, but I'm sure that things are more exciting off-campus at bars and the such (I smell fake IDs?).
In the morning I sat in on a really excellent class, Modern European Intellectual History, taught by Samuel Moyn (who was apparently in today's New York Times). I have to say that the name of the class originally deterred me from considering it (I mean, come on, who wants to admit that they go to a class with the word "Intellectual" right in the name. Pretentious much?). Semantics aside, Moyn taught a really informative, interesting class-- no surprise that he was given "Columbia University's annual Mark Van Doren Award for outstanding undergraduate teaching."** The day's lecture was largely about Marcel Proust, with some bits thrown in about Thomas Mann. Apart from making me feel literarily inadequate, the class got me really excited about academics at Columbia.***
*I am happy that the experience made my appreciate just how down-to-Earth and realistic my parents are.
**Colbert be damned, I love Wikipedia.
***Side bit: I guess this would be more exciting if you knew me better, but I was absolutely thrilled to discover Proust's views on pleasure (sexual and otherwise). Proust, to paraphrase, felt "sadness... once [his] desires [were] satisfied... [finding them] trivial simpy because [he] had achieved [them]." Could that be any more Charline?? That basically sums up the source of the past three years worth of existential crises I've been having. I'm so ridiculously happy that someone else has felt like this and I'm not just some sort of freak. Then again, Proust can't really be used as a basis for psychological normalcy. At least I can say that I am not repressing any homosexual tendencies... I think.****
****I did sort of disagree with Proust on his theory of the meaning of life (writing In Search of Lost Time being the main purpose of his life, etc.). As much as I love writing, I really don't want to over-think the purpose of life, go all Albert Camus, and spiral into some existential nihilist black hole right before embarking on the most exciting part of my life to date.
Dude... college. Sweet.
I sent my deposit in to Columbia yesterday. How surreal is that? I can't believe I'm actually going to college in a few months. Absolutely insane.
Apparently The Dodos have been getting quite a bit of press lately, although I only heard of them for the first time a little while ago and had my first listen last week.
It is hard to imagine a feeling better than the one I am experiencing right now. To say that I had an amazing March would be an understatement-- it could have very nearly been the best month of my life. My eighteenth birthday was fun and symbolic, I had a fantastic vacation in Europe, my sister had a beautiful baby boy, and I was admitted to my two top-choice colleges. I finally feel like all of the hard work I have been doing has paid off, and more than I could have imagined.
Okay, I'll cut the sappiness and start on the European escapades:
Our stay at Venice was nice. I'm not a big fan of the city (as beautiful as it is, I always felt that it was just too swamped with tourists). Our hotel was in Lido, which is a short boat ride away from the city. My friends and I were too jet-lagged and concerned with the legalized drinking to do much in Venice besides get plastered and walk around smoking Gauloises. Classy, I know. While some of the others were on a gondola ride, my friend Rena, one of our chaperones Mr. White, and I explored the Giardini part of the island. We stumbled upon what we later dubbed "Excot" (Ex-Epcot)-- a group of bizarre abandoned buildings, each emblazoned with the name of a country. Turns out it's the site of the Venice Biennale, a biennial modern art expo.
Vienna
