Oh, so I was walking around in circles at Trader Joe's as I often do, and as I was perusing frozen pizzas, this poor overworked mommy stood in the middle of the aisle trying to round up her two little boys. She was like, "omgah! Tommy (or whatever) come back here and stop running like a banshee!" And this made me chuckle, because little 4-year old Tommy has no idea what a banshee is! He will find out when he is like 12, and be like "OH."
It makes me chuckle also because I will similarly use SAT vocabulary on my small children in the distant future, which they will also not understand.
Teehee!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
best dream ever
I had a fantastic dream last night that I forgot until way after I woke up. I was hanging out with Bill and Hillary Clinton at an outdoor Kelly Clarkson concert. I forgot to ask Bill if Chelsea mentioned me at all. I was totally comfortable with them, although Bill was funnier. I can't vouch for the accuracy of my dream, but
Hillary was also charming, but I wouldn't trust her with baking a batch of cookies from scratch. She'd screw them up.
Hillary was also charming, but I wouldn't trust her with baking a batch of cookies from scratch. She'd screw them up.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
bollywood banter
So for no reason at all, I pulled an all-nighter. I stayed up till 4am watching Bollywood movies again-- yes, Hindi movies! And now I can't sleep. I just keep thinking about the movies, interpreting and reinterpreting them in my head.
You might ask when I became interested in my old country's film industry, and the answer is, like a few weeks ago. I decided on doing my long-term project for my honors program at school on Bollywood, even though I have never really cared for them. I always thought of them as silly movies banking on the audience's desire for escapism. I hadn't seen any real meaning, and the industry pumps out what seems like a movie per baby that pops out in that country. But since doing some academic reading on the subject I've realized that you can come up with an endless barrel of commentary about India based on Bollywood alone. It's incredible. Where can I start? The films depict internal social struggle through the caste system, through Muslim-Hindu relations, through women and women's rights, love versus arranged marriages, violence, and it goes on. But I'll start where I situated my project. I'm looking into how Bollywood has constructed the West (America, Europe, Australia) and how it imagines India in relation to these industrialized, culturally dominant nations. Phew!
So anyway, as part of my project, I get to watch movies and find all these subtexts and undertones that most movie-goers wouldn't really see. For example, I'm currently working on Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. It's pretty much the most famous Indian movie ever and it apparently still packs the house in theaters today. It's a good movie, so that makes sense.
I can't vouch for all movies, though. There's this other movie called Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Wow, that movie is effing retarded. Personally, all movies containing Aishwarya Rai offend my delicate ears because that skank knows how to scream. And then she puffs up her big, haughty, fake-hazel eyes and screams some more. Spare me. And really, there's a limit to these Shakespearean dialogues on love. In this particular movie, the hero (played by Salman Khan, veteran douchebag) does NOT waste time getting into it. "Do you believe in love at first sight," he yaps. She yaps right back. Sorry if I got the quote wrong, I was laughing hysterically. The only thing that redeems the film is that you could write a great paper on it. Basically, Aishwarya Rai's character Nandini (what a beautiful name!) falls in love with Sameer, played by the hopelessly unattractive Khan. But her daddy makes her marry an even uglier but totally loaded guy named Vanraj who finds all her love letters AFTER marrying her. Oops! He gets pissed, but he doesn't beat her up like I thought he would. He takes her to Europe to find Sameer. They eventually find him, but she's all like, "I'm in love with my husband now. He loves me so much he was willing to give me up so I could be happy with your poor musician ass." So she runs back to Vanraj, the end. First off, the director could have cut like, 40 minutes from the movie if he had this brilliant couple look the man up in The White Pages. Secondly, why did this movie win so many awards if she just ends up with the husband like she was supposed to in the first place? I would have liked to see her tell Vanraj "Peace out," and have Vanraj go back to India and like, explain the whole deal to his relatives and have him slowly descend into alcoholism and marry her sister, or something. I don't know. I guess I don't like happy endings.
It's just that I've finally found this mode of understanding Indian people and how they view (I'm going to use that pronoun just because I identify as an American) the rest of the world, and how these views are evolving through this slow, symbiotic process of movies churning out ideas and people evaluating themselves and society. It's helping me understand more about where I came from and how to negotiate my identity. SO COOL.
Also the other reason I couldn't sleep is because I got this wicked idea for a short story. You see, I've always wanted to write a short story like Jhumpa Lahiri, but that lady seems to come up with great little plots that are pretty ordinary but she makes them feel significant. She writes about all these little things and somehow they add up to make a poignant story. Anyway, the themes in the plot are pretty dark but it's going to be told from the point of view of a little girl so there's going be this crazy, thematic clash. Truth is, I'll probably never show anyone any piece of fiction I ever write. I don't understand how authors ever get the balls to do that. Kudos to them. I'm sure it's like giving birth to a baby and putting pictures of it all over the neighborhood and worrying about people calling it ugly (and that it looks like its mom.) I've also never written fiction, although I frequently come up with ideas that would be really great. This will be the first time that I've come up with a beginning, middle and end.
It's now 6:45 and my bathroom needs to be cleaned. Who knew I was such a talker this early in the morning?
You might ask when I became interested in my old country's film industry, and the answer is, like a few weeks ago. I decided on doing my long-term project for my honors program at school on Bollywood, even though I have never really cared for them. I always thought of them as silly movies banking on the audience's desire for escapism. I hadn't seen any real meaning, and the industry pumps out what seems like a movie per baby that pops out in that country. But since doing some academic reading on the subject I've realized that you can come up with an endless barrel of commentary about India based on Bollywood alone. It's incredible. Where can I start? The films depict internal social struggle through the caste system, through Muslim-Hindu relations, through women and women's rights, love versus arranged marriages, violence, and it goes on. But I'll start where I situated my project. I'm looking into how Bollywood has constructed the West (America, Europe, Australia) and how it imagines India in relation to these industrialized, culturally dominant nations. Phew!
So anyway, as part of my project, I get to watch movies and find all these subtexts and undertones that most movie-goers wouldn't really see. For example, I'm currently working on Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. It's pretty much the most famous Indian movie ever and it apparently still packs the house in theaters today. It's a good movie, so that makes sense.
I can't vouch for all movies, though. There's this other movie called Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Wow, that movie is effing retarded. Personally, all movies containing Aishwarya Rai offend my delicate ears because that skank knows how to scream. And then she puffs up her big, haughty, fake-hazel eyes and screams some more. Spare me. And really, there's a limit to these Shakespearean dialogues on love. In this particular movie, the hero (played by Salman Khan, veteran douchebag) does NOT waste time getting into it. "Do you believe in love at first sight," he yaps. She yaps right back. Sorry if I got the quote wrong, I was laughing hysterically. The only thing that redeems the film is that you could write a great paper on it. Basically, Aishwarya Rai's character Nandini (what a beautiful name!) falls in love with Sameer, played by the hopelessly unattractive Khan. But her daddy makes her marry an even uglier but totally loaded guy named Vanraj who finds all her love letters AFTER marrying her. Oops! He gets pissed, but he doesn't beat her up like I thought he would. He takes her to Europe to find Sameer. They eventually find him, but she's all like, "I'm in love with my husband now. He loves me so much he was willing to give me up so I could be happy with your poor musician ass." So she runs back to Vanraj, the end. First off, the director could have cut like, 40 minutes from the movie if he had this brilliant couple look the man up in The White Pages. Secondly, why did this movie win so many awards if she just ends up with the husband like she was supposed to in the first place? I would have liked to see her tell Vanraj "Peace out," and have Vanraj go back to India and like, explain the whole deal to his relatives and have him slowly descend into alcoholism and marry her sister, or something. I don't know. I guess I don't like happy endings.
It's just that I've finally found this mode of understanding Indian people and how they view (I'm going to use that pronoun just because I identify as an American) the rest of the world, and how these views are evolving through this slow, symbiotic process of movies churning out ideas and people evaluating themselves and society. It's helping me understand more about where I came from and how to negotiate my identity. SO COOL.
Also the other reason I couldn't sleep is because I got this wicked idea for a short story. You see, I've always wanted to write a short story like Jhumpa Lahiri, but that lady seems to come up with great little plots that are pretty ordinary but she makes them feel significant. She writes about all these little things and somehow they add up to make a poignant story. Anyway, the themes in the plot are pretty dark but it's going to be told from the point of view of a little girl so there's going be this crazy, thematic clash. Truth is, I'll probably never show anyone any piece of fiction I ever write. I don't understand how authors ever get the balls to do that. Kudos to them. I'm sure it's like giving birth to a baby and putting pictures of it all over the neighborhood and worrying about people calling it ugly (and that it looks like its mom.) I've also never written fiction, although I frequently come up with ideas that would be really great. This will be the first time that I've come up with a beginning, middle and end.
It's now 6:45 and my bathroom needs to be cleaned. Who knew I was such a talker this early in the morning?
Sunday, June 1, 2008
catcher in the rye as an almost 20 year old
I finished re-reading Catcher in the Rye last night, and it was so much of a different experience than it was the first time i read it in 10th grade. I gave that book a hell of a lot of respect because at several points in time, it had been banned from schools. My English teacher said that she went out of her way to get her hands on that book back when she was a kid because she was stuck in Catholic school, and she wanted to read it as much as they didn't want her to read it.
It hit me while reading yesterday that Holden isn't the guy I thought he was. He's a miserable bastard, and that this whole idea of a permanently angry kid is now more exhausting than it is refreshing. I guess when you're younger, you look at Holden and think how great it would be to be as big a pain as he is, because not everyone can sit there faulting everyone and everything all the time, all day. His character is kind of romantic because he seems to be that one real guy in a sea full of phonies, calling everyone out in his head because he's hopelessly cynical and he can't turn it off. And I guess that because he's 16 with this ridiculously precocious mind that rejects everything while everyone around him at Pencey Prep or whatever is absorbing it, he's got nowhere to spit it out. Back when I read it the first time, I think I decided that you had to be sitting outside of the ring to be able to do that. But now that I'm in college, and since I need a job after that, and since you need to be able to shoot the shit in an interview to get a job in the first place, I've struck a compromise with myself.
My deal is to call out those phonies in the narrative going on in my own head, say to myself what despicable people they really are. But I'm also going to play the game. You have to be phony to get where you want in the world. If you want a comfortable little life, you got to be able to shoot the shit in an interview, talk nice, play nice with bastards you hate, but think dirty in your head. I don't care if I come off as the biggest phony in the world on the outside, as long as I know that somewhere inside, I have a genuine set of feelings and contempt for the people and things that deserve it. It's because of this new outlook I've adopted that makes Holden such an annoying character. Holden's a smart kid. He should put his anger to good use, somehow. He's a kid now, but he's going to get tired and anxious of walking around alone when he gets older.
This new view I brought to Catcher in the Rye sort of parallels something Holden says nearing the end of the book while he's in the Museum of Natural History:
"You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way--I can't explain what I mean."
As I get older and fatter and more wrinkly and get a real job and maybe a family of my own and go through menopause and all that, Holden's going to remain the angsty little twit he's always been. I wonder if I'll feel completely different about him in a few years when I'm kissing corporate ass.
It hit me while reading yesterday that Holden isn't the guy I thought he was. He's a miserable bastard, and that this whole idea of a permanently angry kid is now more exhausting than it is refreshing. I guess when you're younger, you look at Holden and think how great it would be to be as big a pain as he is, because not everyone can sit there faulting everyone and everything all the time, all day. His character is kind of romantic because he seems to be that one real guy in a sea full of phonies, calling everyone out in his head because he's hopelessly cynical and he can't turn it off. And I guess that because he's 16 with this ridiculously precocious mind that rejects everything while everyone around him at Pencey Prep or whatever is absorbing it, he's got nowhere to spit it out. Back when I read it the first time, I think I decided that you had to be sitting outside of the ring to be able to do that. But now that I'm in college, and since I need a job after that, and since you need to be able to shoot the shit in an interview to get a job in the first place, I've struck a compromise with myself.
My deal is to call out those phonies in the narrative going on in my own head, say to myself what despicable people they really are. But I'm also going to play the game. You have to be phony to get where you want in the world. If you want a comfortable little life, you got to be able to shoot the shit in an interview, talk nice, play nice with bastards you hate, but think dirty in your head. I don't care if I come off as the biggest phony in the world on the outside, as long as I know that somewhere inside, I have a genuine set of feelings and contempt for the people and things that deserve it. It's because of this new outlook I've adopted that makes Holden such an annoying character. Holden's a smart kid. He should put his anger to good use, somehow. He's a kid now, but he's going to get tired and anxious of walking around alone when he gets older.
This new view I brought to Catcher in the Rye sort of parallels something Holden says nearing the end of the book while he's in the Museum of Natural History:
"You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way--I can't explain what I mean."
As I get older and fatter and more wrinkly and get a real job and maybe a family of my own and go through menopause and all that, Holden's going to remain the angsty little twit he's always been. I wonder if I'll feel completely different about him in a few years when I'm kissing corporate ass.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
oh right, blogger
I just finished my sophomore year! It's been so long since I've even thought about blogging that I forgot what I titled this thing and everything. I'm glad I remembered it because I have thoughts on Scott McClellan that I would like to preserve on the internet. Also, it's summer again, so maybe I'll indulge myself and write here more often because I seem to be losing this writing habit that I never really had.
So, anyway, what up with Scott? Can you really hate that dude? He's got this pudgy, fresh sort of face that you can't really hate. But for him to write a book that damns the Bush administration and Washington after he stood for three years in front of the press, feeding tightly wound lines to reporters, refusing basic information to Americans, and lying about the administration's role in the Valerie Plame scandal, is sorely detestable. I don't think what Bob Dole said was harsh in the least:
"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues. No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique.
"When the money starts rolling in you should donate it to a worthy cause, something like, 'Biting The Hand That Fed Me.' " Another thought is to weasel your way back into the White House if a Democrat is elected. That would provide a good set up for a second book deal in a few years."
"I have no intention of reading your 'exposé' because if all these awful things were happening, and perhaps some may have been, you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job. That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively."
"You're a hot ticket now but don't you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?"
There's no reason that an adult man like McClellan can offer for continuing to work for an administration that was so clearly misleading us. What happened to that morality that his people always talking about? Right and wrong? Good and evil? He knew what he was doing the whole time he was working there, because being press secretary means crafting a carefully worded message so that you can cover both yours and the White House's ass. He's also kept quiet for a few years now while adding up anecdotes for his book. What's kind of sad for him is that he's getting it from all sides. Bob Dole hates his ass and so does everyone else who thinks he's taking way too little responsibility for his own role in our country's politics.
I think that the job of the press secretary is a really awkward position. Who are you ultimately serving? The president or the people? There's talk that McClellan violated some sort of sacred "covenant" when he wrote this book. But if there's serious shit going on in the White House, Americans absolutely deserve to know. Duh.
So, anyway, what up with Scott? Can you really hate that dude? He's got this pudgy, fresh sort of face that you can't really hate. But for him to write a book that damns the Bush administration and Washington after he stood for three years in front of the press, feeding tightly wound lines to reporters, refusing basic information to Americans, and lying about the administration's role in the Valerie Plame scandal, is sorely detestable. I don't think what Bob Dole said was harsh in the least:
"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues. No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique.
"When the money starts rolling in you should donate it to a worthy cause, something like, 'Biting The Hand That Fed Me.' " Another thought is to weasel your way back into the White House if a Democrat is elected. That would provide a good set up for a second book deal in a few years."
"I have no intention of reading your 'exposé' because if all these awful things were happening, and perhaps some may have been, you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job. That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively."
"You're a hot ticket now but don't you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?"
There's no reason that an adult man like McClellan can offer for continuing to work for an administration that was so clearly misleading us. What happened to that morality that his people always talking about? Right and wrong? Good and evil? He knew what he was doing the whole time he was working there, because being press secretary means crafting a carefully worded message so that you can cover both yours and the White House's ass. He's also kept quiet for a few years now while adding up anecdotes for his book. What's kind of sad for him is that he's getting it from all sides. Bob Dole hates his ass and so does everyone else who thinks he's taking way too little responsibility for his own role in our country's politics.
I think that the job of the press secretary is a really awkward position. Who are you ultimately serving? The president or the people? There's talk that McClellan violated some sort of sacred "covenant" when he wrote this book. But if there's serious shit going on in the White House, Americans absolutely deserve to know. Duh.
Monday, October 1, 2007
i should drop out
I should really drop out of college. I should sing on the streets of some American city and waitress part-time. I should save up and buy a roadside stand and make stuffed naans or burritos. There's a guy with a stand like that on 15th and K in DC, Pedro and Vinny's and he's been there for like a decade. And he banks. Then I could write a book about it.
Out of 6 billion people in the world, I'm in the one-third (or fourth) that has it good. I'm a spoiled piece of junk. I'm clothed, fed, sheltered and I'm getting a higher education. The worst thing to do with luxury like that is to sit around crying about the unsolvable problems on this globe and corner myself into an ivory tower. Yea, that's what's up. Intellectualism without practice is a dead language.
It was just that while I was at the bookstore today, I walked by around 8 books that I knew I wanted to read that I'd probably never get to actually sit down with. I thought about how nice it would be to take a semester off and wake up in the morning (yes, theoretically, the idea of getting up before 10 is fascinating to me), sit down with a coffee, an iced tea, a smoothie, whatever seems appropriate for the climate and to READ. I have time to read, but I don't have time to read everything I want to. I guess no one does. There's no point spending all your time reading.
This summer, I read a lot of fiction and my head started spinning. I decided that I'd make this the semester of non-fiction and biography, in the spirit of equal time. So far, I've been bad about it. I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and I'm continuing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I'm only 1000+ pages away from the end! The only non-fiction thing I've been reading is God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, the funniest angry man I know. When I finish that, on to my homeboy's new release, Giving. It's shorter than My Life.
Kaay, I have to go get some work done!
Out of 6 billion people in the world, I'm in the one-third (or fourth) that has it good. I'm a spoiled piece of junk. I'm clothed, fed, sheltered and I'm getting a higher education. The worst thing to do with luxury like that is to sit around crying about the unsolvable problems on this globe and corner myself into an ivory tower. Yea, that's what's up. Intellectualism without practice is a dead language.
It was just that while I was at the bookstore today, I walked by around 8 books that I knew I wanted to read that I'd probably never get to actually sit down with. I thought about how nice it would be to take a semester off and wake up in the morning (yes, theoretically, the idea of getting up before 10 is fascinating to me), sit down with a coffee, an iced tea, a smoothie, whatever seems appropriate for the climate and to READ. I have time to read, but I don't have time to read everything I want to. I guess no one does. There's no point spending all your time reading.
This summer, I read a lot of fiction and my head started spinning. I decided that I'd make this the semester of non-fiction and biography, in the spirit of equal time. So far, I've been bad about it. I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and I'm continuing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I'm only 1000+ pages away from the end! The only non-fiction thing I've been reading is God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, the funniest angry man I know. When I finish that, on to my homeboy's new release, Giving. It's shorter than My Life.
Kaay, I have to go get some work done!
Monday, September 24, 2007
i haven't posted in here forever!
Quick update: I'm a college sophomore now. I apologize to my one or two readers for not updating more often. I'm making Blogger into my homepage so I remind myself to update more.
So anyway, I left my room today to grab dinner at the Diner and got on an elevator with this large-ish white guy holding a tuba. So down we went, from the 5th floor, stopping at the 4th floor and then the 3rd. By the time we were at the 3rd floor, the tuba guy was pretty frustrated, to the point, I think, that he took on an Irish accent when he said, "Lord, why's it keep stopping!"
The guy getting on at this point asked, "Is this elevator going down?" The tuba guy replied, "Seems to be a popular direction."
To this, the first guy said, "Well, I guess there's only two ways to go. Up or down."
And for some reason, this to me seemed a satisfying comment on life.
So anyway, I left my room today to grab dinner at the Diner and got on an elevator with this large-ish white guy holding a tuba. So down we went, from the 5th floor, stopping at the 4th floor and then the 3rd. By the time we were at the 3rd floor, the tuba guy was pretty frustrated, to the point, I think, that he took on an Irish accent when he said, "Lord, why's it keep stopping!"
The guy getting on at this point asked, "Is this elevator going down?" The tuba guy replied, "Seems to be a popular direction."
To this, the first guy said, "Well, I guess there's only two ways to go. Up or down."
And for some reason, this to me seemed a satisfying comment on life.
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