zelda gazelle

"I want to watch it more than I want to drink or eat"

2008-08-05T14:31:00.004-04:00

— Noah Shachtman on the trailer for Jeff Howe's new book, Crowdsourcing:

this looks comfortable!

2008-07-09T12:43:00.005-04:00

this comes from a post I found on digg (and then dugg) called "7 ways to green your job"...

...but their grass-keyboard-mouse image really looked comfortable! it was hard to even get through the article i was so mesmerized! but I did. all pretty basic tips for going green at work (turn off computer/lights/printers, use less paper, tell boss to do the same), though admittedly, i'm not allowed to turn my computer off at night because of the midnight updates. le sigh.

UPDATE 1:10 pm: Whoa! Looks like I've spotted one strange/comfortable-looking design trend. Here's a Kensington keyboard ad off of Wired's epicenter blog. Check the grabs:
And let me know if you find any more awesome grass-keyboard combos. I'm thinking I'd like some around my feet. Maybe an Astroturf floor protector??

thanks a lot, wired!

2008-07-02T15:49:00.007-04:00

for nothing!

i mean, for a lot of things.

but decidedly not for reminding me that I wanted to get on the Momofuku Ko bandwagon, especially since it's a few short blocks from my current sublet -- and then reminding me that it's only after 25 minutes spent registering myself on their website, giving them my credit card info, and then requesting a reservation for one (just one!) of their 12 bar seats, that I can be denied. Even if I had the patience to try their online reservation system right at 10 am, this article, and many outside opinions, lead me to believe that I have no chance whatsoever. Maybe in another few weeks I'll remember again, just to be denied again.

(It's been awhile, but here are things about my life you can probably gather from this post: i have graduated; i have moved to new york; i eat.) -Z.

Repeat function

2008-05-12T02:56:00.005-04:00

Fourteen-hour road trip yesterday, and at many points, I couldn't help but wonder if long car rides were meant for listening to songs on repeat. With passengers scrambling to come up with entertaining/valuable/nostalgic songs, it becomes an auditory shitshow, and, though often a delightful one, sometimes it takes a number of playcounts to space out in the right kind of way on the road. It probably takes a particular kind of ear to appreciate 87 plays of one 3 minute song, but this is an ear I possess. Keep in mind that on a road trip, the song needs to be vaguely high-tempo, to keep the eyes open, lungs breathing, car moving, etc etc.

I have, in the past, appreciated 40-60 consecutive plays of songs such as:

Digital Love
My Love is like Wo. In no way am I kidding.
James Brown Live at the Apollo. Is this short enough to be considered one long [concert] track? Probably not, but Please Please Please has received its own form of worship in the form of consecutive plays.
Stay
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Beast of Burden
Polar Opposites

... and mostly whilst studying.

BAG OF CRAP
since I've been gone so long.
(that's a woot joke ... wikipedia explains for those not in the know)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ej84nN1WcE

Gondry and oversized hands:

(From Be Kind Rewind website)

(from Science of Sleep)

(then there's the sequence with the large hands washing baby Joel in the sink in Eternal Sunshine, as well as the large boxing gloves in BKR...anything I'm missing?)

and finally, here's a portrait of me drawn by Rachel Rose (my collaborator on The Picture Book, a project which will, contrary to popular belief, have its day... one day):

day 1

2008-04-01T17:07:00.004-04:00

April:

•Fool's Day. Only good Foolery witnessed so far was Maya calling her boyfriend, about to tell him she had gonorrhea.

•Also half-birthday. Fairly insignificant.

•Saw a tour group walking through old campus, a big clique of girls wearing UGGS. Don't know why it bothered me so much (this one's also for Mark Aronson, Chief Conservator, YUAG, who suggested to me awhile back that I start a blog on UGGS). Make of it what you will:

•Best friend from high school, code name 'Yellow and Blue' started an eco-chic blog. Very cool. Thinking of selling my car. It's taken an unfair amount of heat lately, especially considering I made it move to New England.

•Mom and sister are in the general east coast vicinity on college tours. Over breakfast Monday morning we went through odd recollections from our childhood carpools. My favorite was: one girl in our carpool from elementary school always had her nanny driving us on her assigned days. The nanny was this old, grumpy woman, slightly balding, who drove a huge blue mini-van, and the only music she EVER let us listen to was the soundtrack to "That Thing You Do," over and over. I don't think I've been able to listen to it since. I had one of those strange hysterical-laughing reactions when I remembered it, the same thing as when other people fall.

In-betweens

2008-03-15T22:19:00.004-04:00

Two ideas that reminded me of each other:

"Out of the two hours you spend in the cinema, you spend one of them in the dark. It's this nocturnal portion that fixes our memory of a film."

--Chris Marker on the role of the shutter in cinema.

"The few seconds of absolute quiet between symphonic movements or song tracks actually engage your brain more than music itself, say researchers at McGill University and Stanford University School of Medicine. 'It's a moment when the brain can enjoy what you've already heard and anticipate what you'll hear next," says Stanford neuroscientist Vinod Menon, PhD. That stimulates areas of the brain the control mental focus and memory, studies show. "

-From Prevention magazine 12/07, found in the pile next to guest bathroom toilet 03/08

After all, Non-Fiction is really just different kinds of "Media" and "World History" mixed together, right?

2008-03-12T01:52:00.005-04:00

Went to the Borders in Century City today, attempting to collect varied books for certain members of my family whose birthdays are soon approaching and, I kid you not...

THERE IS NO NON-FICTION SECTION.

Not a joke. There is no non-fiction section. There is an extensive supply of charted music, a large number of Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, DVDs and box sets, but somehow, "Non-Fiction" never made it along with "Literature/Fiction," "Health," "Science Fiction," "Cooking," "Media," "Film," "Television," "World History," and all the other very precise genres officially designated.

A little dizzy by the possibility after having conducted a light initial search, I inquired, and was given a response that amounted to:

"Check World History or Media."

....Wow. Why won't the city of Beverly Hills ever be able to sustain a good bookstore? Oh, for the days of Dutton's Beverly Hills....

twitter dreams come true?

2008-02-28T00:18:00.011-05:00

Despite the fact that a college town à la New Haven is arguably the best place to have an active Twitter life, I've completely failed at convincing any of my friends start Twittering (which is kind of like group text messaging + facebook status...). For awhile, my only two Twitter friends were Max and Ben, who both live in L.A, and who both actively Twitter away every detail of their post-collegiate lives. After weeks of this, I'd had enough, and regretfully deactivated my Twitter account...

This, however, could be the answer to my Twitter woes:

TWITTER PLANTS!!

They Twitter you when they're thirsty!

I'm not sure I can say much more about this... It's almost like having a pet that texts you for affection when it's at home all alone and you are also alone but at a coffee shop, wondering if there's anyone anywhere who needs your affection. And then you get a text! And you go home. And feed your pet. Except it's a plant. And it's attached to your computer.

My question: Can you twitter the plant back? I have a feeling this can only end badly for me.. like when I get into extended conversations with SmarterChild, or Let's Have Text's SexBot.

010101000010101000101000.

for the chase files

2008-02-26T17:23:00.007-05:00

After telling Chase at 5:30 pm that she needs to wake up, she needs to eat protein, she needs to stop eating Cheerios:

"Oh god, it's the condescension of the awake."

i <3 keyboards

2008-02-23T19:01:00.004-05:00

According to an AP article published on Wired's website today, Bill Gates, speaking at Carnegie-Mellon on Thursday, said he thinks voice commands and touch screens will soon replace keyboards, and that in 5 years, people will conduct internet searches through speech recognition rather than through typing.

I understand the appeal of voice recognition; I get just as psyched as anybody else when my Blackberry accidentally voice-dials the right person. I get excited when it dials the wrong person -- hey, I spoke and it dialed! Every so often, I'll even give "Speakable Items," Apple's speech recognition software, another shot, which usually lasts until I realize that I only want it for its knock-knock jokes, and that I've been yelling "Tell Me A Joke!" at my computer for almost an hour.

Sure. It's tons of fun.

However, I strongly believe that voice recognition will never replace keyboards. I do think that there's something powerful in seeing what you've typed, visualizing the combinations of words you're searching for, and in crafting searches (punctuation, grammar, etc.) on your own specialized terms that will never lose appeal for computer users. The authoritative strength of offering printed words and receiving printed words back seems like it would always trump a user talking to the search engine -- there's something uncertain about the translation and the clash of forms, no matter how much the technology improves.

Finally, coming from the girl who sits in coffee shops and googles her professors, TAs, and crushes, who conducts extensive hypochondriacal searches on possible acquired illnesses during class-time, and who spends hours upon hours in the library finding new ways to purchase "metallic leggings" -- I really don't think people want to be talking out loud to their computers in most of the places in which they use them. And more than other people eavesdropping, even I don't want to actually, verbally hear the manifold ways in which I'm distracting myself spoken out loud. That's between me and my keyboard -- ears left out of the picture.

[Here's a conversation I just had with my MacBook. The question marks indicate all the times I had to scream the words "Tell me a joke" without it understanding what I was saying:]

didn't we meet at marienbad last year?

2008-02-22T13:16:00.006-05:00

I'm not sure how it's taken me this long to find this headline, but Alain Robbe-Grillet, best known probably for writing Last Year at Marienbad, has died...

I also have to confess that somewhere in my December book-a-day fantasy, I picked up Robbe-Grillet's La Jalousie... a story about a man suspicious of his wife, recounting his manner of watching her in an architectural (? if that makes sense -- it's all about the angles, almost like a big book of stage directions, if you can imagine) fashion.... I had a hard time taking pleasure from it, but it was completely fascinating, and a short read, as well...

But Last Year at Marienbad....

on killing a cockroach

2008-02-21T20:09:00.005-05:00

"I feel so strong right now. I feel like I could kill someone"

-Chase Olivarius-McAllister, who just rescued me from a cockroach she says was 4 x 4 inches, but which I believe was, in fact 3 x 2 inches. In any case, Chase imprisoned the beast between a red plastic solo cup and one of Mona's Us Weekly subscription renewal envelopes, and then we bagged it in not 1, not 2, but 3 white garbage bags. We then placed the whole thing in the leftover chocolate cake box from The Literary Magazine's Valentine's Crush party last week, at which point we actually heard it squirm and knock against the cardboard sides. Screaming -- I kid you not: screaming -- we then ran to the dumpster with the cockroach cake-box and an extra bag of recycling I happened to pick up along the way.

"This is what men must feel like. When they beat things."

Affirmative, Dave. I read you.

2008-02-21T18:34:00.010-05:00

The Whitney Humanities Center could not have picked a more perfect night to screen Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. After watching a beautiful 35 mm print shown for a class I'm regrettably not taking on American (arguably, though, this one's British) films from 1960 to the mid-1970s, we emerged from the Dawn of Man and his evolution to witness the end of last night's total eclipse, which, setting over the large stone that is The Eli apartment building, looked vaguely like the monolith shots from 2001. Check it:

The Eli

O
[Eclipse]

2001:

Something I was thinking about -- since I guess this is always what I'm always thinking about, nowadays -- was a comparison to my on music video by way of the lack of dialogue, and the way that silence prompts sets of visuals (nuclei of visuals? -- is there something circular going on here? the more I think about it, definitely) over linear visual narratives, especially in the way that the film is broken into sections that revolve around specific visual settings: the "Dawn of Man" sequence, then the ones with Dr. Floyd -- I suppose revolving around the space shuttle environments (lots of silent, circular-moving time there), then with HAL at the center of human life on the trip to Jupiter, then the trippy light-effect time/space sequence Dave travels through to get to the final environment, the final room in which he ages, and the Dave-fetus orbiting earth.

The time/space travel sequence does a crazy pre-music video thing, as well, focusing on the visual effects correlating to those trippy, almost operatic voices swelling. We barely even see Dave, and when we do, he is freeze-framed, his face increasingly distorted. The frozen frame highlights the technology, the spectacle, the time.

Oh my god 2001 is so awesome. Why am I such a nerd?

Afterthought #1: CHANGED PICTURE AGAIN. CAN'T MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY. HERE IS A PICTURE OF THE FLOOR. ALSO, GLOWSTICKS IN THE CORNER. WHO DOESN'T LIKE GLOWSTICKS?

Afterthought #2: REALIZED THAT I HANDED IN A DIALOGUE-LESS SCREENPLAY TO A PROFESSOR TODAY. MUSIC VIDEOS TAKING OVER MY BRAIN.

monsters / hearts

2008-02-20T19:06:00.005-05:00

i don't want to get all hipster here, but i like monsters, and i like hearts, and the most accurate description for the new picture on my blog would definitely be "this monster is giving another monster a heart," so i'm thinking that's going to stick around for awhile.

the actual title for this picture is "if you want me to" and it comes from Exploding Dog, a website where people submit pretty sentimental/ridiculous lines and this guy, Sam Brown, makes images that usually reinterpret them in a dramatically less sentimental/ridiculous fashion, and quite unexpectedly.

for example, here's a recent one whose title is "i'm certain that this is time well spent no matter the outcome":
this one is "You are the reason I get up everyday":

answering machines

2008-02-20T17:06:00.005-05:00

right now mine is just an automatic recording with my name inserted in the middle like a robot. i think i need a new one but if i start trying to record one i know it will take hours and then i'll be stressing out about how funny my voice sounds.

...some of my favorite answering machines ever:

CHASE: "It's Chase, I'm sorry I can't be there. Please leave a message"

ALLEGRA: "Hi, my name's Allegra! Leave a message!"

DR. T. KEMPER: "Please leave a message so I can get brain cancer."

ALEX'S ANSWERING MACHINE IN LEOS CARAX'S MAUVAIS SANG: [Prokofiev piano composition]

(speaking of third party applications)

2008-02-20T14:04:00.005-05:00

I've officially, for maybe the 7th time, switched to Firefox from Safari, for the following reasons:

1) Blogspot works better in Firefox and I want to blogspot more, because I have little things that I want to say all the time that I end up just texting to people -- and then they laugh, and then it dies. More of these little things should end up here. This should be easy to do when I am in a coffee shop like right now, pretending to work on my laptop.

2) Virgin America works better in Firefox and I like purchasing airplane tickets to Los Angeles, or at least, looking at the prices regularly.

3) Amtrak works better in Firefox -- which is to say, it works in Firefox. It does not work in Safari, and then I don't buy train tickets until the last minute and then it costs more.

Dear Adium --

2008-02-20T13:38:00.004-05:00

I don't care about any of your software updates unless you can make the people I want to talk to sign online right now.

(For those without a little green Adium duck-pet on their Apple Dock, Adium is my AIM client. I love him)

Literacy Problems

2008-01-29T13:05:00.003-05:00

Words I haven't ingested correctly recently:

1) At Rite-Aid, I thought I saw a box that said "Age-check." I thought, hey, that's a cool idea. But it actually said "Accu-check," and was a pregnancy test. But an age check could be a helpful thing, I guess. Sometimes I forget.

2) Walking by an ad for a Yale School of Drama production, I read: "What is your wildest dream? Tell us!" and then right below it: "Pregnant." I thought, wait what? That can't be right -- I leaned in closer, and it was an ad for Ibsen's Peer Gynt.

3) This is not so much a reading thing as it is a brain thing: in class this morning, we were discussing Freud's Mirror Phase. For some reason, every time anyone said it, I kept thinking they were saying "Freud's Mirror Face." You know, like:

Playlist Evolutions

2008-01-29T00:32:00.001-05:00

It seems I only blog when I should be doing other things. I think it's great that way.

Tonight, trying to get my business together before leaving town once again (haven't seemed to be able to spend more than 5 days at a time in New Haven since I've been back), some girls (now one boy, Sass), came over for work/play. The playlist and its phases give complete insight into our lives. You'll notice a few repeat plays:

MUSICAL PHASE / WHAT WILL MAGGIE DIRECT?

-The Wiz: Ease on Down the Road (Sampled from iTunes)

-The Wiz: No Bad News (Sampled from iTunes)

-Guys and Dolls: If I Were A Bell (Sampled from iTunes)

-Guys and Dolls: Adelaide's Lament (Sampled from iTunes)

TRANSITION

-Kanye West: Golddigger

-Michael Jackson: Beat It

-Janet Jackson: Someone to Call My Lover

MIMS LIKE THIS, FEAT. SOPHIA "LIKE THIS?" DANCE

-Mims: Like This

LIL KIM

-Lil Kim: The Jump Off

-Lil Kim: Magic Stick (Feat. 50 Cent)

PETER GABRIEL

-Peter Gabriel: Salisbury Hill

-Peter Gabriel: Misc.

LIKE THIS REPRISE

-Mims: Like This

RECAPTURING THE MAGIC

-LL Cool J: Doin It

-Lil Kim: The Jump Off

-Foxy Brown Feat. Jay Z: I'll Be

My life otherwise: our bathroom is falling apart. The wall hook thing from Bed Bath and Beyond on the back of the door lost its grip and all of our blowdryers, combs, hair straighteners, hair curlers, gels and mousses are sprawled on the tile. My scale is broken. I rearranged my room by myself and then pushed it back to the way it was, so nobody noticed. I lost my right slipper but refuse to stop wearing the left one. Boys worry me. This is how I want to spend Valentine's Day:

https://tickets.filmlinc.com/php/calendar.php?

month=2&day=14&year=2008&sid=&cmode=0&org=#10041

And that's the news.

blackberry maladies

2007-12-26T02:29:00.000-05:00

At the tail-end of my daily browsing quota here, and I found this crazy crazy picture on Gizmodo.

It's RIM's new patent for Blackberry keyboards with waves and angles and numbers coming out of it.... but it looks like it maybe has Dutch Elm Disease.

I s'pose, like my artificial sweeteners, I really don't want to know what goes into my Blackberry. I just want to uuuse it without being afraid of its mad brain cancer-inducing, carpal tunnel-causing aura.

(P.S.: There is a very loud owl outside my window!! I didn't even know they liked Beverly Hills --I didn't even know they really made such strong and well-pronounced noise..)

Christmas? -- Oh, you mean Laker game

2007-12-25T23:47:00.001-05:00

It's Christmas. Usually, we like to pretend something fancy. You know, fake celebrate.

This year, though, my family indulged in our distinct disinterest in the whole Christmas thing (aside from those 12 sugar cookies in my tummy) and went to the Laker game.

Oddly, we're complete Laker fanatics, but have never been interested in actually going to the games, mostly because of acute superstitions that the place and position in which you are sitting directly dictates the team's luck....

For example, at home, my mom and dad will be sitting at the kitchen table watching the Lakers. We will start to lose. Someone will be decided(/accused) as the bad luck-bringer, and will then be forced out of the room, or even out of the house. If it is an especially important game, my parents will likely start in separate rooms, or separate wings, even. In times of desperation, outsiders will be called in for viewing support. It's true: some people, when they contribute their energy towards the game, bring good luck. Usually I get kicked out before the first quarter even ends.

The logic about attending the games is: if you're sitting in a single seat at Staples Center, you can't really switch seats if the team starts to lose. You're stuck in the one perspective, helplessly.

Luckily, I think today disproved that theory -- we had a great time, got to sit in a fun little luxury box in which we could move around, and we beat Phoenix (another team I've always liked; in my high school stint as a fantasy basketball player, I would be well-advised by other, more NBA-savvy friends, to put Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion on my teams, in addition to Steve Nash, who was not yet on the Suns but whom I also loved.)

We were also excited to be at the game after the game in which Kobe became the youngest NBA player to make his 20,000th career point, and to properly celebrate it through lots of cheering, the continued chant of "MVP" every time Kobe was up for a free throw, and a little presentation at one of the time outs with some very serious musical accompaniment to honor the event.

Overall, a good experience, and already thoughts about purchasing further tickets -- then again, things would probably be very different if we'd lost. We'd probably never go back to a Laker game again. My parents wouldn't be speaking to each other. And maybe a law suit in there somewhere. Oh, god.

Final notes:

-Phil Jackson, whose picture still hangs on the wall in the room in which I grew up, looked crazy. They aren't putting up any of the pictures of him from tonight yet, but you can see in the lower left corner in this picture of Trevor Ariza shooting— he's wearing a polka-dotted bowtie with a black suit and shirt. Whoa. It's awesome:

-Here's an article on the game from another Crossroads alum, J.A. Adande, that also mentions Phil's silly red bow-tie.

(On the book-a-day thing from the last post: I've been suprisingly good about it. It's been more or less a book a day. --And you doubted me!!! Pshh. More later.)

-Zgzlda

a book a day

2007-12-19T20:39:00.000-05:00

When my little sister and I were younger, my mom used to try to get us to read by bragging that when she was in college, she'd read a book a day. We both enjoyed reading anyways, but I think maybe she just wanted to make us jealous of how much she'd read, hoping we'd emulate.

Sometimes, it worked — but when I finally had time to read a book a day (summer, winter, spring breaks...), and would decide on a book list, I could never really pull through, mostly because I'm just so frustratingly slow. I can't move on until I've absorbed every single word on a page; I read less efficiently, but I'm also good at recalling things I've read. To be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Now that I'm starting the last winter break of my foreseeable future, I've decided to reinstate the book-a-day goal. It probably won't work, but I'm making it easier on myself by including magazines as eligible items. So, after having linked to her site here on the blog, I read Miranda July's book of stories, No one belongs here more than you, which makes for a really fun read as well as a pretty great present. I gave it to my adviser, as well, and was glad I did.

(There's a definite guilt thing going on here about linking to or referencing someone, and then feeling like I should read the book, and then buying it and reading it. This is the third time this has happened.)

Today, I finished July (and felt like it was acceptable given the regulations because I really only started it 24 hours ago), and then I sunk and read the Pottery Barn catalogue, which I take a special pleasure in reading, especially around the holidays. Most people would hesitate to admit that kind of thing, but they probably haven't picked up the Pottery Barn catalogue recently, either. (They probably also spend more money on things that are made look cheap. Fuck. I hate that I know people like that.)

Now I'm hooked on the idea of this faux fur throw pillow/blanket set (pillows are $24 in magazine - I've memorized the prices, but can't remember ever having bought anything from a magazine). They look comfy and bachelorette-ish. One of my best friends, who consistently drops hints that it's weird how much I love/am blatantly willing to wear fur, would probably make a lot of fun of me for it, but I can't help how fond I am of the hunting lodge look (er...see first post for obvious, permanently ingrained reasons why..).

my study songs; like other people's sex songs.

2007-12-15T23:39:00.000-05:00

Everyone has favorite music for different activities.... like sex songs, or sleep songs; in my current subterranean bookish state, this translates to study songs.

I'm a big fan of writing/studying/working to high-tempo songs on repeat.....

Used to be Nelly Furtado "Do It."

Zanna just pointed out that I've listened to "Starry-Eyed Surprise" 98 times. I can't remember when that might have been.... must have been a study song at one point.

Whoa this is going to sound silly, but Prince's "Kiss" is an awesome study song.

And right now, I've got "Digital Love," at play # 60. You'd think I'd be sick of Daft Punk by now, right? --No, not so. Pretty surprising.

My study playlists usually make awesome party mixes.

Things that are good, followed by things that are bad that trump the good things

2007-12-13T19:47:00.002-05:00

• Last Friday, successfully completed two (2) senior essays without dying.

Mass consumption of Red Bull in weeks leading up to said completion has wreaked havoc on my body/system/intestines/all the soft parts. Eating system messed up. Sleeping system messed up. More work left.

• The Winter Issue of The Yale Literary Magazine, after too much time laboring over its limbs, has been released -- it is beautiful.

It is not online yet; I cannot show it to you. (BUT: it will be soon -- Keep checking www.yale.edu/ylit) **Update! Click for link to the PDF.

• Applications to Yale Writing Courses are due tomorrow. Zelda will apply.

The English department tends to favor its own douchebag majors over the likes of an outsider such as myself.

• It started snowing today!

Then it started hailing. My weather widget did a very funny thing in order to convey its dismay:

Actually, Celeste pointed out that this widget isn't even correct, because it doesn't include the "feels like" temperature, which accounts for wind chill factor. New Haven weather right now actually looks something more like:

Notice the little 12˚ in a tiny font below the fake temperature? Why do they even do that? There's only one temperature outside right now, and I can tell you for a fact it isn't 25˚.

Luckily, on Monday I'll be headed back to:

Certainly not ideal, but at least a girl can think in 54 degrees.

And finally:
•Somehow, I have been able to write continuously for several hours in the completely creepy Catholic Center, which has nevertheless been a good spot for today because it's so snowy outside, and so warm and festive in here. I'm working on something that I must have written in my sleep but after a dream in the middle of last week (while still in thesis mode) -- I vaguely remember the images it describes, but not really. I think it's actually not that bad.

Other, arguably more important work has been left untouched. This to be corrected momentarily...

o problems

2007-12-02T21:06:00.000-05:00

as evidenced by the complaint i just sent to our landlord....:

"digital love"

2007-12-02T16:36:00.002-05:00

from Interstella 5555 (a Daft Punk film animated by Leiji Matsumoto to which "Discovery" is the soundtrack).

This clip is from the part wherein "Shep" is dreaming about "Stella," the lovely bassist of a very popular rock band in a galaxy far away (that's why they are blue aliens). He wakes up to learn that Stella and her band (who are later called "The CrescenDolls") have been kidnapped and taken to the planet Earth by an evil record company who wants to make them the greatest rock band in the world in order to win Golden Record Awards, and thus gain control of the Universe....

Can't believe I spent most of my day watching / writing about this.... but it was worth it.

miranda july knows the secrets in my heart

2007-12-01T23:33:00.001-05:00

Miranda July's website/blog thing welcomes you with this prompt:

(if you can't read it, below "ENTER SECRET PASSWORD," it says: "(you know the password, just clear your mind and look within. it will probably be the first word that you think of.) (if this doesn't work, try looking at a candle for a few seconds.)")

into which you can enter anything you want...

(I tried to enter INTERSTELLA 5555, which I'm watching now for the thesis, but there wasn't enough space)....

...and then the following screen pops up:

Ha. Fuck, she's good.

(Or I'm tired?)

Plus, the design is pretty.

I could also swear this is a fairly new thing on her site -- before, it took me straight to "YOU OBVIOUSLY KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT." Which made less sense, because I did, but then again, I didn't really. Now, I do.

Day Without Art / New Museum

2007-12-01T14:39:00.001-05:00

If I could do anything I liked today, I'd get out of this crazy library and go to New York, get free admission to the New Museum on its opening day, and see what they're doing with the Day Without Art (which began on World AIDS Day, December 1, in 1989) -- whether it's a tribute to the efforts of the 80s and 90s to increase AIDS awareness, or whether it treats as an urgent, contemporary concern...

In the early aughts, I worked on a Day Without Art-related project at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry in L.A. called the "AIDS Chronicles Project." One of my professors, also a huge mentor (my first art history teacher) Lise Patt, was also the Director of Institute, and at the time, I remember thinking of it as this quirky, creative haven on Robertson Blvd., a bizarre place with bookshelves and gadgets and tiny boxes with art in it, and everything that could make an odd creature very, very happy. I had never witnessed anything quite like it prior. (I hope it's still in existence. One of my high school classmates appears to have taken a gig as the assistant to the Director, our old Professor, which gives me cause for optimism...)

So, the AIDS Chronicles Project was this installation wherein every day, the cover of the New York Times was collected, and the entire page was blacked out with paint except for any references to AIDS, AIDS research, etc. Then, the pages of each year were bound together into this volume that had mostly pages painted in all black, except for these white spaces that were able to visually communicate the media's coverage of AIDS. My job was to take these sort of haphazardly-collected pages and cut them neatly, organize them, and skim for AIDS references. Obviously, it wasn't the most creative task, but then again, it was a fairly literal project, visually blocking out everything but the AIDS references so that they appeared as a contrast to the rest of the media, as a separated entity.

Here's an example of a page that had no references to AIDS, which was not infrequent:

On December 1, the Day Withotu Art, they were fond of bringing the year's volume to a public space as an installtion (when I was in high school, it was brought to our art gallery once or twice), and conduct a "Turning of the Pages," slowly going through the volume as onlookers waited for white spaces (coverage of AIDS) to appear.

I never realized this, but in 1995, the project was displayed at the New Museum of Contemporary Art:

....which, today, I'm pleased to say, on its opening day at its beautiful-looking new Bowery location (whose construction I passed by almost every day this summer), is still commemorating the Day Without Art.

"Today, as activist and arts organization mark Day With(out) Art around the globe, let the record show that many in the arts community still choose not to be silent. For the opening of the new building at 235 Bowery, the New Museum pairs the old with the new, presenting significant works in the collection that address the AIDS pandemic such as Act Up’s Silence = Death and Gran Fury’s Wipe Out (New York City Subway Project)." (from their press release)

So, if you're in NY, go visit and let me know.

(And maybe somewhere, the ICI's pages are being turned....?)

tao lin / new haven murder mystery

2007-11-29T17:59:00.002-05:00

this is good

Third-highest level of greatness a fiction writer can achieve in America:

"USED HONDA CIVIC IN "GREAT" CONDITION: Jonathan Franzen/ Rick Moody/David Foster Wallace

Frequently cited in comments sections of blogs with 2,000–4,000 unique visitors a day as "Great American Novelists," or sometimes "the greatest writer ever that is still alive and American." Published novels at first, then got distracted and published nonfiction books, story collections, essay collections, and other things that made them less powerful. Also held back by their inability to write about the Holocaust, genocide in Africa, racism, or the immigrant experience; that they sometimes publish in places that are not the New Yorker; and that photos of them exist where their faces do not convey "I am very smart and this is my serious literature."

----------------------------------------------------------

(here's how I got there:

Ned ---> Nick Antosca -----> Tao Lin

I feel like some other friends' sites I've stumbled upon also link to Tao Lin (er..Lexy, maybe?), who, if my memory serves me right, read at Yale sometime last year or the year before or the year before. Maybe with Nick Antosca?... at St. A's? O, I can't remember.)

-----------------------------------------------

His blog makes me laugh. Also, this part of a recent poem:

"I could hear my breathing

and it sounded scary, like I had left

my earphones in, which I had, I had left them in.

I took them out and held them sadly

and put them in my pocket."

--------------------------------------------------------

My neighbor's light keeps flickering. I came to the conclusion months ago that this particular window is a bathroom, and I've considered permanently closing my blinds in that direction, but decided that nobody looks out their bathroom window, that even if they did, it's a relatively harmless view, and that it was far too nice to look out of my bed outside to shut out the view. Now, though, it's 2:30 am, and I have a certain movie on my mind:

a good seats kind of day

2007-11-29T14:29:00.001-05:00

When you frequent certain coffeeshops, you come to learn which seats are the best in the house. For example, today, at Booktrader, I was able to obtain the highly-coveted Outlet Seat, which, despite being next to the garbage can, is the only seat with access to a power outlet in the entire place. When I arrive at Booktrader, I immediately scan for availability — often, someone with a computer will have already claimed the Outlet Seat, in which case, I move on to Atticus, or to Starbucks. (It's no use working if you don't have all day..) Sometimes, someone without any device that needs powering will be sitting at the table, in which case, I get upset and loiter next to them, annoyingly stretching my power cord around their seat and belongings, until they get up and leave or, at the very least, move.

Today, this seat was empty. I ran for it. I wasn't going to leave until I absolutely had to.

HOWEVER, someone had, in the most despicable move I have ever seen in Booktrader, plugged in their cellphone charger and left the cellphone on top of the garbage can, charging. I thought about moving it, about unplugging it -- but the charger (charged ) could have been anyone in the place. Luckily, very shortly thereafter, the cellphone rang one of the most annoying tunes I've heard (er .. I guess there's a chance I'm projecting my hatred for the phone and its low-battery power onto its more innocent ringtone), and this woman who had been sitting in the other room at Booktrader came running over to answer it, leaving the charger there.

Needless to say, I unplugged the charger, neatly coiled it, put it on the garbage can, and proceeded to plug in my laptop.

She left Booktrader shortly thereafter.

Other good New Haven café seats:

-Atticus: against the wall, next to an outlet. Free wireless makes us happy, as well, although the slowest wait service I've ever encountered doesn't.

-Starbucks: North-west corner seat, which has access to Yale Wireless for free (as opposed to the ridiculous $15 a day or something that T-Mobile/Starbucks so graciously offers its addicts who have already spent an entire life savings on skim lattes...), as well as power outlets. This is where you can find me right now. I rather like being above ground for a change. People, sky, cellphone reception.... this might be the fresh air talking, but who knows if I'll ever return to Bass library? I may have overdone it there...

unexpected repercussions/remembrance

2007-11-28T16:32:00.000-05:00

Russell: why did you change the gazelle picture?

Zelda: because it was scary

Russell: yeah
it was a pretty gazelle

Zelda: should i change it back?

Russell: i wanted to buy it a drank

Zelda: i don't think it would have minded

Russell: it was tagged though
which means it might have a man at home

Zelda: oh
ohh

(the old gazelle picture)

new picture

2007-11-28T15:09:00.000-05:00

so, there were some frightened reactions to the old picture of a miserable-looking imprisoned gazelle with a flourescent green tag on its ear in front of a cement wall.... I thought it was a pretty great picture, but I don't want to be too scary.

This gazelle is much happier. No concrete.

-naturegazelleder.

the flask umbrella and its bright future.

2007-11-28T12:55:00.001-05:00

Urban Daddy, the world's most awesome "exclusive, daily email magazine," posted something on Monday (when it was still raining) about the "Flask Umbrella."

I concede that at the time, I thought it was a silly post, meant only to pad their equally silly "Gear" section, one of their subcategories of email-types (the others are pretty standard: "Style" "Nightlife" "Leisure" "Food" and "Travel").

I have since been informed by my good friend Russell, who does not work at the Daddy because you simply can't buy editorial love from the Daddy, that the Flask Umbrella has been met with tremendous enthusiasm. Witness: Ed the Gent's coverage.

If the Daddy can make people put umbrellas in handles of whisky, I'm a fan. Unfortunately, my digital camera broke and I can't emulate the brilliant combination -- but I think that perhaps a LOLWHISKYUMBRELLA phenomenon is in order: "...I iz drinkin mah umbrellaz!"

-gazeldacat.

You know you spend too much time in the library when....

2007-11-28T11:19:00.001-05:00

...it takes two days to realize that a huge package has arrived at your front door for you because you've only been exiting and entering your building via the "back entrance" (fire escape) to access your bike, which you ride to the library in the morning and then leave in one place for the entirety of the day as you grumble in the bowels of Bass Library, returning 15 hours later, after it closes at 1:45 am, only to again ascend your fire escape, trudge across your living room towards your still-unmade bed, where you haphazardly and half-consciously and very much mistakenly decide that this would be a good time in your life to start a blog.

Repeat.

... but at least I finally received my Gnu Bars. Flavor and Fiber! Banana Walnut is the best.

-ziggazelleda

nota bene: ben roth prefers cinnamon raisin.

"You Met Me at a Very Strange Time in My Life"

2007-11-28T01:02:00.002-05:00

My grandfather, who used to hunt for sport, has a gazelle head mounted in the room where he spends most of his time, along with other collected hunting items, a topi head and a bear rug. He insists that they died naturally, that he only helped a little. I suppose this is morally wrong in several ways; nevertheless, I grew up with them, and am very fond of these exotic dead animal bits -- as a girl, I'd memorize their species names avidly. I'm also not averse to fur-wearing, mainly because it keeps me warm in the winter, a difficult feat. Though guilty in some ways, I feel excused for wearing fur items by treating them like pets. In the summertime, they go to stay at Joseph's Fur's -- and I mention this to strongly assert that Joseph's Fur's is, in fact, a furrier, and not, contrary to popular belief, a brothel, despite the amazing would-be euphemism. Each time I go to Joseph's Fur's, the owner (I believe), an old man (his name must be Joseph?), says to me:

"Zelda, right?"

[Me:] "Mmm-hmm."

"Now, how can you put your arm around a woman name 'Zelda' and tell her you love her?"

"Oh--"

"My wife's name is Selma. How can you say to a woman, 'I love you, Selma.' 'I love you, Zelda.' It's not right."

Regardless, it's Zelda. And it does wonderful, funny things with the word "Gazelle." Maybe you can't tell a girl named Zelda you love her, but at least you can call her Gazelda. Gazelleda. Zegazelleda.... Zelda-Gazelle. Da.