MICK LOVES HIS LIL SMOKIES

I DIE! I DIE! I DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
today's obsession: kate lanphear
next haircut: kate lanphear
fashion blog j'adore: jak & jil

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From Monument To Masses
Noise Pop 2009

with special guests Crime in Choir and Built for the Sea

FMTM will be making an all-too rare SF appearance—the first since December 1, 2007—at the annual Noise Pop Festival in anticipation of the band's long-awaited fourth album entitled "On Little Known Frequencies" (March 10, 2009).

SHOULDER SWIVELING
my room on saturday mornings looks as if i have been robbed. the level of drunkness on thursday and subsequently friday is indicated by:

- whether the clothes are on the ground, thrown into the closet, still on the bed, or all three (trifecta!)
- whether the aforementioned piles of clothes are mysteriously damp with what i hope is water or rain (smell test results inconclusive)
- whether there is an empty plate next to my bed or whether there are nine uneaten tater tots on the plate
- whether i am still wearing my makeup from the previous night and find odd traces of eyeliner on my upper arms
- whether my forehead is tender from banging it on the floor (in a non-falling related incident)

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8 tracks i've been into this month - still trying to figure out the best method for embedding music here, bear with me

murakami on lying and novelists

Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and military men tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling lies. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?

My answer would be this: Namely, that by telling skillful lies -- which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true -- the novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.

SO STEVE
steve: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenchung/3292418202/
ive spent $6 so far trying to win it
i think the lobster is just too heavy

me: omg i thought you meant a plush lobster

steve: real lobster
it fights back too
its a bit inhumane i guess

lay the real thing on me
it rained all night and in the morning there was a strange stillness.

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there are moments at bars when, through the chatter, the peanuts, the clinking ice, the bitten straws and mikey's maniacal laughter, i can faintly hear a song that i have forgotten that i love. i shall share with you as and when this happens.

from homestead last night -

Moonage Daydream - David Bowie

really moving since you asked column

'...for the desire, even in the face of death, to set down, for readers still unborn, all the sweetness of our common life.'

..the sexual explicitness that he pioneered in American fiction was additive, ameliorative—the one thing that had been left undescribed, a piece of the world’s experience previously unfixed. Compared with more obvious pioneers of sex writing, how blended his descriptions are into a larger world of memory: sex in Updike happens not in a stripped-down theatre of two but in a coliseum of many, part of the continuum of sensation in which we live.

Throughout all that varied work, one theme rose and was repeated over and over. Updike’s great subject was the American attempt to fill the gap left by faith with the materials produced by mass culture. He documented how the death of a credible religious belief has been offset by sex and adultery and movies and sports and Toyotas and family love and family obligation. [...] He viewed the material culture of American life with a benign, appreciative ironic eye. But he had no illusions, either, about its ability to cover the failure or wish away mortality. His 1996 novel “In the Beauty of the Lilies” [...] makes this almost schematically apparent: the death of American religion is matched by the rise of American movies.[...]

One has a sense of someone who—as much as, though with more wit than, Andy Warhol—has spent a good deal of his life liking things. Women’s clothes, their hair, the hybridization of American accents; the way that the hyper-cold of the airline baggage compartment can be felt like a secret in the bag as you unpack—all these images and moments, recalled at random from his work, are not just reported but quietly rhapsodized, registered with love. It is his affections that rise, and that we recall.

nonniversary

five years ago, i wrote on a walgreens valentine's card (the tear-off kind you gave and got in fourth grade - i think this one was WWF-themed): "love is for suckers!"

the best advice i've received over the past few months is that there are no rules (i think i got this from benjamin button, but still).

my valentine this year is this dress. i'll have to save two unemployment checks to buy it.

playlist 1

lost, near sanchez x 21st street

one great thing about getting lost in san francisco is that you will come upon amazing gorgeous vistas (like this one, at left).
on another note - i cannot believe i got lost between here and toast! FU google maps. i shall only trust my native's instinct from now on.

chai: "you know what they say about people who make complicated snacks"



giada's chicken and avocado napoleons

what i should have said was nothing

i've been talking about this for days: comic mike birbiglia's bit in last month's episode of this american life. i was literally laughing out loud. check it out, it's act 2.

i'm going to start blogging again now that i'm unemployed. i plan to stay away from whining, feeling sorry for myself, or gloating about doing things working stiffs can't do. just notes from someone who has a lot of free time during the day, let's say.

so first note: the winter sky around 4:30 to 5 p.m. - absolutely gorgeous. kind of a crystal blue-grey that just looks cold. something i haven't seen in a long time.

-don't watch the food channel when you're hungry. i think most of have figured this out a long time ago. goes hand in hand with the rule of not going grocery shopping when hungry. when you watch giada cooking 'california light' while feeling like you need to detox all the cookies and PUMPKIN PIE! from the holidays, you end up devoting yourself to a recipe that is way too ambitious and time consuming and not nearly as tasty or satisfying as say, the minimalist, who i completely j'adore. have you seen his recent piece on things to have and to toss in your kitchen?

-while the streets are less crowded with cars, there is a ton of street construction going on in the city during the daytime. and senior drivers. maddening.

for your own good winter:

Skinny Love - Bon Iver

laurie: yo
i made u a presetnt
http://bacolicio.us/http:/macabasco.com
me: LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
laurie: LOL
me: HAHAHAHAHHA
laurie: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
me: HAHAHAHAHHA
laurie: HAHAHAHAHAH
HAHAHA
me: HAHAHAHHAHA
laurie: did you die?
me: i died


FIN.

our secrets sleep in winter clothes



one of a few songs that i couldn't get out of my head on my last-min. trip to the philippines over the weekend. owen serenaded me with it with his guitar from the back of his car in greenpoint, brooklyn, for my 25th birthday (i was in the front seat). i had never heard it before and thought he wrote it himself. he has a surprisingly sweet singing voice, something most people may not know about him.

other songs i couldn't get out of my head:
-"fido your leash is too long," magnetic fields
-"all or nothing," o-town (there was karaoke at my grandma's house, natch)

two new tagalog words i learned over the weekend: "bukas" (tomorrow) and "mabuti" (i'm fine)

my 16-year-old cousin has a one-month-old baby girl named nesle (pronounced like 'nestle' - it's her mom's name spelled backwards)

my 10-year-old cousin diana had a birthday and we all gave her money. she racked up 54 american dollars - and in this economy!

my sister is now a melatonin addict, thanks to mikey, our dealer

i managed to escape without one mosquito bite (probably too much alcohol in my blood) but i predictably ended up with a cold. i am counting down to when i can take this medicine and be dead to the world...

cary tennis can take your breath away. this one's good.

'it's a salad that tosses itself'

Seoul
Originally uploaded by tangents01

got a preview of the new academy of sciences!

spotted on the N
- white woman, grey hair, ethnic-looking bag, reading one-day old ny times
- young black woman, brown glasses, black sweater over grey sweater (with white bearded dude in sweater vest and grey sauconys), reading oscar wao
- white dude, sloppy hoody and tee shirt, reading data modeling essentials
- tall, thin white chick, in yoga pants, fleece top, and pristine nikes, with timbuktu bag, reading women's health
- young asian dude, bald, glasses, reading zombie survival guide
- young asian woman, short hair, keeps looking around, reading two-day old ny times (me)

blogging from casa macabasco -

spent the day boating with the family and then cleaning for a few hours my old junk that i left here since the move to the maxi pad. by old, i mean like from since i was born.
i've been doing it sporadically on weekends for the past month, since steve left. i promised my parents i'd clean one thing each time i was at their place. the whole time it's been a strangely intense emotional experience. like i find scraps of paper with itineraries, packing lists, questions for interviews, notes to self, etc. (i am and always have been a major writer-downer, which is why i still have a planner instead of a palm or itouch).
today i cleaned a huge amount of stuff. i used to be one of those sentimental types that kept everything as mementos. there were tons of photos of friends that i no longer speak to (or care to), short stories i wrote when i was in elementary school, a report i did on isabel allende, a report on the california miners that had a cover page watercolored by me (?), ticket stubs, museum maps (who keeps this stuff?), a pair of leather pants (an unfortunate fashion decision), photos from so many formal dances that i want to dump but will keep for now, mix tapes, metro cards from everywhere, team sweatshirts and warmups from my basketball days, birthday cards, notes - jesus. i found a notebook with a five page letter to a guy - written on one of those long solitary flights where all you can do is wallow in your loneliness and the mistakes you've made - that i never summoned the courage to send and couldn't bear to read now.
god who needs a nap?