"It's an epiphany of the soul"

I am in love with this film. Truly, madly, deeply.

Where are the drugs, Chris? I asked him.

"But maybe that's why my woozy, wobbly-footed editor friend was smiling when she stared up at the DJ and made her draconian prediction of a Kindle telling us how to dance instead of the Jersey DJ bumping Top 40 hits all night. Because there's still some esprit de corps amongst book authors, because they still care, because there's still a reason to get crunk. Books might be fucked, but at least they're worth saving. It's not all bad." Gawker gatecrashes the National Book Awards

I'm wearing my Bob Dylan mask

"The seeds of big animals contain little animals; through the process of conception these take on new clothing (so to speak) which they make their own, and which gives them the means to feed and to grow, so as to pass onto a larger state and propagate the larger animal. Human sperm are animals that are not rational and don't become so until conception settles a human nature on them. And just as no animals completely come into existence when they are conceived or generated, so none go completely out of existence in what we call their death; for it is only reasonable that what doesn't begin naturally should not end naturally either. What happens at death is that the animal throws off its mask or its tattered costume and returns to a smaller stage, where it can still be just as sensible and as orderly as it was on the larger one." G.W. Leibniz, Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason

Hm.

Also, there's this-

"Thus our happiness won't and shouldn't ever consist in a mind-numbing complete enjoyment with nothing left to desire, but rather in a perpetual progression towards new pleasures and new perfections." (Leibniz)

Vs.

"It's kind of nice to exist less, to live withing the limits of what's bearable and not worry as much about what else there is or how life must be made better." (Radin)

And I don't fucking know; Kundera calls the shots around these parts--

"..flung into the world's misery, man sees that the only clear and reliable value is the pleasure, however paltry, that he can feel for himself: a gulp of cool water, a look at the sky (at God's windows), a caress." Milan Kundera, Slowness

All of the above?

"Credulity--do you all know what that means?"

I am not who I want to be, I probably will not ever be

Okay so. We have one massive Edinburgh street fight that I watched from my bedroom window with Caroline. One impromptu decision to spend my Saturday rearranging my bedroom furniture (with lovely results). One mysterious, sticky white stain on my sports jacket. A whole bunch of new music from the likes of Little Joy and Fruit Bats and Clem Snide. One pint of cookie dough chip. One Washington Irving story, one Tennyson poem, one Dickens novel. One Wii that's come to live with us, and a million games of Mario Kart. One book of naked portraits. One trip to the store in my pajamas to buy cheese. One cheddar/apple omelet. Two well-done burgers with sauteed onions and avocado. One admitted to see the Fantastic Mr. Fox. One candle-lit birthday party; many balloons, one big bowl of punch, two White Russians, and a poetic ode a la Lucy, standing on a kitchen chair. One failed radio show. One "chore chart" hanging in the kitchen. One essay on Gulliver's Travels sitting in the Lit office with the default -20% waiting for those who hand in their work four days late. Two lectures from Jonathan Wild. Two seasons of 30 Rock. One independently-owned video rental place down the block. One ticket home for December. One ticket back for January. One family vacation to Key West. Two mice in the kitchen that scurry back into their hole when I come in silently in the middle of the night.

When you weigh out the pros and cons, I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle.

Mortality

Come see DMG, his decks, and his girlfriend Elliot at Ridhima/Tommy's birthday party!

Chris Brown

Juergen Teller

I had this photo on my binder in high school.

"..letting grease drip in their faces."

A series of scenes from Orson Welles' 1942 film, The Magnificent Ambersons