the blob

Alexandra is a large and unpleasant person. She is really cool in the sense that she is really aloof, Alexandra is loath to engage other people. Instead, she drags her heft around the store reminding herself that she comes from a European country and speaks french. Alexandra is the first person I have met who has been anything less than helpful in helping me learn french. This is not surprising given Alexandra's general opposition to learning, she is much too aloof and snooty to have anything to learn for learning requires an earnestness absent in the vast plains of her elephant flesh. I think when anyone is quite so large and wears tiny shorts it is probably inevitable that its looseness and flaccidity will appear. Her massiveness is evident in the way she moves her feet. They are the last thing that moves when she takes a step. She lurches forward and her clodhoppers belatedly join her. She wears these fat black shoes called desert boots. I have a pair, though in green instead of black. They're really nice shoes in theory because they have an excess of material which extends up towards your ankle. it doesn't really serve any purpose but adds structure and novelty and attractiveness to the shoe. On Alexandra's foot, however, there is no excess. Her Desert Boots can barely contain the evidently enormous thing therein, her ankles and toes bursting alike. Bursting might actually seem like a problem for a gigantic person like Alexandra if she didn't have quite so much skin and wasn't so lacking energy, zeal or anything to demonstrate that she is happy to be alive.

mother Joon-ho Bong

this movie was really beautiful because it humanized and made comprehensible and believable things that are too often the stuff of grotesque tabloids and cursory disgust. it makes a murderous mother into a sane and beautiful individual, well maybe not entirely sane. it was also really amazing because it was about a person following their heart, truly their heart and guided by nothing more than the passionate, awe inspiring love of parenthood and the horrors that arise from that unfaltering, uncompromising love. by the end of the film, i even believe the insecticide thing. i believe it all. what a dangerous and awesome power. its like if the epic mama bears of the forest could think and feel and do beautiful things, could live with nuance, maybe they could some day be like that incredible woman. jin tae is a bit absurd. but still, full of so much mysterious magic. i loved the way it ended with the dancing on the bus. what a terrific film.

courtship

men have a funny look on their faces when their in clubs. its a very focused look, staring straight ahead at something. its a blank stare, however, and they are never actually looking at anything. rather, its a look that endows them with purpose. this far seeing stare, across the crowd, towards some hypothetical person or thing on which has caught their attention, is an attempt to deflect attention from their not having any purpose. they glower morosely into the distance because they cannot and must not admit that there, right in front of them, they have no rationale for being there. this is essential in a club because the rationale is an unspoken and desperately avoided one, they are there to rub themselves against other people.

cellphones and other little meaningless devices are also pivotal tools of avoidance and deflection of the rubbing themselves against other people rationale. in theory, a cellphone provides an infinite portal into a whole other world in which the man is invested. it supplies him with a structure against to lean, a world full of motives like love, beauty and friendship which theoretically occupy his interest, much the same way he would like you to interpret his staring into the distance. there, you must imagine, he is preoccupied with beauty love and friendship and such motivates his intense observation of that neon thing on the other side of the room. he does this because he is terrified that you will look at his base, horny and utterly straightforward self and so tries to foist attention onto auxiliary objects in which to find meaning (or, importantly, make conversation and further obfuscate his obscene simplicity).

things like waiting in line are actually great for this man. it provides him with purpose: something to follow, to cling to. waiting in a line, the man can even dispense with his distant stare, his waiting speaks for itself. he now has something to complain about, a waiting external to himself and hence ripe for commentary -- as anything external is very ripe for our ever deflecting man.

he has probably been doing a lot of furtive and diffident smiling at this point. openings often appear for something beyond the uncomfortable period of trying to get something from nothing. which brings us to what our man really wants. what he wants would best be satisfied without talking. talking complicates matters for our man because he could stumble and is altogether unable to speak very well right now because he's become so accustomed to his silence and his autonomous and disinterested staring. he will never look anything he actually wants in the face because he is so terrified of rejection or, even worse, exposure of his simplicity, which is why he is always staring at inanimate or otherwise neutral objects. this is his way of being cool and trying to be attractive because it helps establish a comfortable layer of indifference to his environment, "hey look i could totally care less about any of these individuals." if this was actually true, he could totally succeed in getting all the rubbing against other people any man could possibly want, but by and large it isn't. his blasE attitude and aloofness are unhappily belied by the seriousness and above all shyness of his demeanor. the stakes are high.

this is of course a hilarious thing to bear witness to. these men in clubs, hungry and abashed, are almost endearing in a way. even when they're armed with a brusque, unpleasant and often wholly contrived machismo (note the way people going clubbing dress, it is a special occasion), they evince an agonized, and very suppressed desire. he is a tortured soul, our horny clubber.

the brothers karamazov

right now the book is at jesse and patrick's house so i have to go get it. it's the most incredible book and i don't want to forget why i think so. it's got all sorts of unbelievably wonderful things, alyosha himself in particular. there's a passage where it describes how unreasonably affected and sad he is after zosima is "corrupted" and smells after he dies and his passion and how its beautiful if naive and that reason, for reason would have squelched his passion, is cheap for its the most common thing, we all have plain old reasonable thinking. and there's ivan when he says "i'm a scoundrel" as he's leaving on the train back to moscow when its perfectly obvious he shouldn't and his relationship to that cook who bewitches and strangely entrances him who he despises, its all so unfamiliar and still somehow strikes me as so true and wise and beautiful. and grushenka, the awful grushenka who alyosha really is stupid in thinking she somehow has a beautiful heart, i guess that's his boundless heart (soi meme) but he's totally wrong she's just sort of pathetic for acting that way. and fyodor pavlovich himself the total loony with all his cognac and the sad and spiteful and bitter little rakitkin who wants to ruin alyosha's saintliness and father ferapont the lunatic who sees all the little demons and wears the chains and is the stupid holy fool. so many terrific happenings in this book and they often seem so loosely thrown together, its really just a fantastical parade of the extraordinary goings on of people's brains and souls and how beautiful man can be in his thoughts. what a pageant! and the grand inquisitor is a truly majestic idea, the whole idea of man being free in this life is pretty stupid. gotta curtail us and live for the afterlife. great way of suppressing the crazy masses. i am going to go for a walk to take in all the hilarious sights of st laurent at night.

AA

its funny at american apparel how aggravating and insulting finding things can be. since you're always totally surrounded by clothes and headbands and thong leotards, whenever you're looking for something it's never more than like 5 feet away from you. the label is staring at you and you, blankly, can't find it. the only labels i ever manage to recollect or find again are the ones with the pictures of beautiful women. the others, in black and white, i can never seem to find. and while i whine and stamp the boxes must be ogling my shoelaces or my nose. its labyrinthian by sheer volume even though its all right in front of me, really stupid-making.