the art of boredom
Month
You can’t even talk about movies without someone saying, Oh, but everything is a remake and a sequel and a reboot in 3D! Nothing is good anymore!
I’ve seen 8/10 of this year’s Best Picture nominations and I loved them all. And there are plenty more that I loved that weren’t nominated. Creativity isn’t dying, people, it just might take a bit more than a quick jaunt to your local cineplex to see it.
Jostein Gaarder (via human-voices)
Truism
The contrast between Libya and its neighbors is stark. When I visited Tunisia just a few months before going to Tripoli, I met plenty of people willing to criticize Ben Ali even when others were present. Sure, they lowered their voices, but they didn’t cower in fear. Egypt under Mubarak was even more open. I spoke to dissident bloggers like “Big Pharaoh” and “Sandmonkey” in restaurants and bars, and they didn’t care if anyone heard them slagging the president. Cairo’s mukhabarat didn’t seem to mind what anyone said as long as they didn’t act on their disgruntlement. Granted, regimes like these wouldn’t have lasted decades if they were easy to get rid of, but, ultimately, they lack the staying power of the hard totalitarian states.
States like Libya, that is. Tunisia is pleasant, prosperous, and heavily Frenchified, while Egypt is a poverty-stricken shambles, but Ben Ali and Mubarak were both pragmatic, standard issue authoritarians. Qaddafi, by comparison, is an emotionally unstable ideological megalomaniac. He says he’s the sun of Africa and swears to unite the Arabs and Africans underneath him. He has repeatedly threatened to ban money and schools, and he treats his country, communist-style, like a mad scientist’s laboratory. What I knew when I was there holds true today, even as his grip on power seems shaky: This guy is not going to liberalize, and he is not going to go quietly.
“Thomas Friedman argues in today's New York Times that events unfolding in Libya and across the Middle East highlight the failures of oil interest-driven US foreign policy. His solution: a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax, to be phased in at 5 cents a month beginning in 2012, with all the money going to pay down the US deficit. Friedman says:”
For the last 50 years, America (and Europe and Asia) have treated the Middle East as if it were just a collection of big gas stations: Saudi station, Iran station, Kuwait station, Bahrain station, Egypt station, Libya station, Iraq station, United Arab Emirates station, etc. Our message to the region has been very consistent: “Guys (it was only the guys we spoke with), here’s the deal. Keep your pumps open, your oil prices low, don’t bother the Israelis too much, and, as far as we’re concerned, you can do whatever you want out back.”
I’m sorry to say there’s too much corruption involved in Fashion Week. I won’t take part in it. My days are very full doing what I’m doing. I don’t want to deal with model agencies. Power conversations with model bookers makes me sick. Those people, they talk to you as if you’ve known them for 40 years, but you don’t know them at all.
I do not belong to celebrity culture. If people only knew what actresses are paid to sit in the front row at the shows in Milan or Paris, they would want to kill somebody. If they only knew 10% of what’s going on, like brands that give bags away to young actresses and tell them to go in that restaurant on that day and leave the restaurant at 15 past 2:00, and hold the bag up for the paparazzi that will be there. This is a fact.
I mean the shit is, fucking ridiculous.
This of course is an aside from his remarks towards the Chinese bordering on racism that run rampant in the rest of the article.
I’m wylin for sure… can’t wait.
Fewer people are getting married than ever. According to a Pew Research poll published at the end of last year, about half of all adults in the U.S. are married, down from 72 percent in 1960. Four in 10 people consider marriage obsolete. At the same time that fewer of us are getting married, more people are doing it for love—93 percent said it was the most important reason to tie the knot. Love is not something that used to factor into marriages; it’s a relatively modern concept. You might say we’re spoiled by even expecting it, and that it’s entirely unrelated to a social “institution” that was really about property and taxes and making sure you had enough kids to work the farm or protect the homestead way back when—not to mention one of the only socially acceptable ways for women to have sex.
But if you confessed to someone today that you’d married without “being in love,” because you’d simply wanted to get married or have the financial foundation to start a family (or buy more shoes), or maybe because you just didn’t want to spend Sundays alone anymore, they would look at you with a horror akin to what you might bestow upon a person admitting to murder.
Excerpted from a lengthy but interesting article that I encourage you to read in its entirety
Jean Touitou
“The rehearsed spontaneity, studied carelessness, and well-practiced naturalness that underlies persuasive discourse.”
Also described “as a form of defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a mask of apparent reticence and nonchalance.”
At times I wonder if effortlessness does in fact come naturally. And if it doesn’t, is forced nonchalance considered cheating?
External imageI cannot express to you guys how much I hate text messaging. I hate knowing that relationships can blossom without any physical or verbal contact. I hate that my drunken antics become more recordable. I hate that I can be contacted wherever or whatever I’m doing. But mostly I hate the way that I don’t hate you, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all. (I did it! I made the movie joke!)
There’s a silver lining in this. One of the only perks of text messaging is being able to lie easier. You can bullshit all sorts of wonderful ways with texts, and that is the only reason I still keep my phone around at all. Lying is thrilling! Anyway, I decided to do a bit of a phone translation for you, so you can keep track of the bullshit you’re sending…and the bullshit you may be receiving:
When somebody asks “What R U doin”
You say: nothing much, you?/ Option Two: Just trying to stream that Banksy documentary online, thinking about maybe going for a run, cleaning up the house while listening to The National, and other examples of ‘not really cool but you think it’s cool given what you’re actually doing.’
You mean: At this second, I’m watching back episodes of Oprah and crying my eyes off at all of the love and things. I’m thinking about masturbating but that would require energy and I am a ball of sloth today. You can’t see me, but I’m eating a bowl of tortilla chip crumbs, shredded cheese, and salsa with a spoon. I call this my ‘nacho soup.’ I’m wearing sweatpants I’ve worn to bed for three days but I keep them on till 5pm and should consider washing them HA. Not sure, but also pretty sure I have an odor. If you caught me five minutes ago, I was parading my cat around the room like he was an airplane and then I scratched my armpits for six minutes. Would you like to hear what Internet puppies I have found online?
When somebody asks “What R U doin tonight”
You say: probably going to a party or hanging with some friends at bar……
You mean: The ellipses mean please invite me somewhere because of course I’m doing fucking nothing. My plans are usually ‘let me text bomb a bunch of people at 9pm being like oh what’s up guys feed me party! I don’t have time to make plans because I was napping all Saturday and thinking about not doing laundry. Also…I don’t even give a shit if I do anything. If I get all dolled up to a party I knew I was going to a week ago, I’d just try to make out with some guitarist who smells like PBR and has a pedophile mustache. And have a terrible time. Therefore, I’d also be okay with ‘eh I’m really tired, I’ll stay in tonight’ so I can trek it to the grocery. I’ll get a flask of whiskey and six pounds of chips candy there. Then I’ll gchat all night and somehow still fall asleep at 3am. Why.. what’s good?
When somebody asks “How’s your night?”
You say: lame it’s so boring
You mean: I’m willing to throw my fun funny friends under the bus because I want you to invite me over so we can do it now.
When somebody asks “???”
You say: Sorrrrry, was away from my phone
You mean: No I wasn’t you are boring me. Don’t take it too personally, I just find you boring AT THE MOMENT. The phone was right here, I had the phone in my mouth the whole time. Just..waiting for somebody hotter.
When somebody says “Yup”
You say: any response at all
You mean: DON’T YOU DARE WALK AWAY FROM ME WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU because I am very needy. Why don’t you like me? Seriously, don’t say K again or so help me God I will go over there and rip your brain out with my bare hands. Love you! I LOVE YOU.
You say: ! I mis u swoooooooooo mcucccch!!
You mean: Usually I am a responsible female. I am aware of how spelling and grammar function. However, today I have had a little too much of the..let’s call it the sauce. The dancing juice. Three jameson and diet cokes. Given that info, it’s 2am. I have either looked through my phone to find some old friend I haven’t been in contact with because I want to get a text of love that FEELS GOOD. If you are a best friend of mine, just know I am upset at the fact that I cannot be there to grab your chest or take shots with you. And if you are somebody I sleep with, please understand that I am probably down to have sex with you at the moment. If you are kind of into that, you should ask me where I am now. I will sex you accordingly.
You say: Where r u?
FACT: 90% of text messages are sent drunk, horny or both. That’s not a fact, I’m not a fucking scientist. But after 11:30, you could say “hey dude, I just murdered a school bus of seals while running around with lobster claws and just generally being alive” and that probably means I want to bone you.
The other reasons I send texts is because I’m bored, want to know your location or plans but hate the sound of your voice, or I’m being a needy possessive person trying to keep tabs on my significant other. However, most of them are about sex. Yay for passive-aggressive sex propositions!
Oh and maybe next week! That usually means…maybe fucking never. Just so you know.
DEAD. witty girls are every man’s weakness