Off To Reno
I'll be driving to Reno tomorrow. I'm not really lookin forward to the long drive...but (thanks to the suggestion from Diana) I got me a library card and checked out a couple books on tape (CD) so I should be well entertained for the drive despite the lack of company.
feel free to gimmie a call while I'm on the road tomorrow!
So I downloaded a new book to my PDA (I was tired of re-reading Al Franken over and over again while waiting for take-out). Short stories, and essay collections are really well suited to E-books, since I'm likely to only be reading it in short spurts. SO (once again) on my buddy Mike's suggestion I started reading
"Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs". Lo and behold the first chapter was a really good example of the sort of thing I was talking about in my last post (the "real").
His first chapter is about how he'll never be satisfied by a woman, and that women will never be satisfied with him because our ideas of love are based less on real life experience, and more on "Say Anything". It's funny stuff.
speaking of funny stuff. You should really check out Gwen Stephani's train wreck of a new video. You'll have to patiently sit through Jackson-esque (in terms of length, not entertainment value) intro before the meat of it gets going. It's a fuckin
disaster. I dare you to look away once it gets going. My favorite part is this line: "Take a chance you stupid ho!" Which she sings over and over again.
The whole video reminds me of that scene in every "rise and fall of the superstar rock-god" movie, where the hero has gone too far. She's forgotten her roots, cashing in on her success, and looks positively ridiculous doing it. Everyone in the audience knows it's the wrong move...But all we can do and watch. It's the moment in the "true Hollywood Story" right before the car wreck, drug overdose, near-death experience, or discovery of Jesus.
Anyhow...My dad is sending me to Reno with some of the stuff my mom had in storage own here. While poking around he found a small box filled with old letters I had saved. I guess I used to be quite a letter writer cause there's a bunch of cool stuff in that little treasure trove. Email has made actual letter writing pretty irrelevant, but I miss sending a receiving snail mail. I used to labor away for long periods of time making clever little decorations for envelopes and stuff. It was fun.
I read through a lot of these old letters tonight. Out of respect for the innocent I will not post the contents here...Although I really want to. I was surprised by a few of the more frequent contributors. People who I barely remember and have definitely lost touch with. I corresponded regularly with one girl who I barely spent much time with while we went to school together. Once I left UOP though we engaged in some pretty lengthy correspondence.
Some letters where from people whom I'd entirely forgotten. I mean I still can't remember who they were or how I knew them -- Even after reading their letter.
Overall I felt like I'm not quite as good at keeping in touch with people now...Despite all the fancy new communication technology. Maybe I'll start writhing more traditional letters again. It's more likely that I'll just resolve to write more letters and not do it though.
ONe more thing:
This has me all sorts of fired up!
Labels: links, pop and/or culture, Travel
"Real" Cream Cheese
Last Friday I was preparing my morning bagel when I was suddenly whisked back to my college days. The label on the small, single-serving package of cream cheese read: "Real" Cream Cheese.
The use of quotations here struck me as incredibly strange. What was I about to eat? How real is "real"?
I was first introduced to
Baudrillard in college, and despite being a philosophy major, I actually only ever heard about him through my friend (and at the time girlfriend) Rebecca. I have only the simplest and most unreliable understanding of the man's works and writings. But I do know that much of it is focused on "The Real".
In the simplest terms I can muster, the difference between "The Real" (which is what we encounter everyday) and real, is like the difference between "
The Real World" and the real world. One is basically a copy, or a representation of the other. The idea being that our current culture can not really differentiate between the two. We see the war in Iraq on television and to those of us watching it "is" the war -- even though the real war is taking place far away, being fought by other people.
I'm thinking of all this while starring at this tiny package of cream cheese.
It's a good topic for conversation at your local coffee house. Which segues into my next segment:
Miracles No More
I went out to my
favorite local coffee house on Saturday to sit, sip, and sketch, only to discover that it was gone. In it's place was an empty dirt lot. Where there was once outcasts playing Magic, old burnt-out hippies, and that one jackass playing shitty acoustic guitar...There is now just rocks and rubble.
I'm running out of non-starbucks establishments to go and hang out at if I need to get out of the apartment. Plus I loved the ocean-view patio at Miracles. I'll just have to find some other place with decent coffee, weird people, and uneven tables.
-B
PS If I just completely butchered Baudrillard in that short lil paragraph feel free to call me out.
Labels: pop and/or culture, random, San Diego
