kerpingtack | Entries tagged with [*]lj:xanga

The commies can smell the lefty pinko blood running through my veins. They've stopped and talked me up like three times so far this quarter. Two of them were my fault, since I maded Eye Contact (always with the wrong people at the wrong time! damnit self, learn appropriate timing!). But yesterday I was minding my own business, laptopping with my headphones on, surrounded by other people, when Wandering Commie singled me out! Specifically!

WC: What do you think of society today? Do you think it's good?
Me: (thinking) Christ, not again. (out loud) Ummmmmmmm.

Their radar is off. It is true that I am soashilist, but what they are not picking up on is that I'm a soashilist who doesn't know anything about politics or the economy, and one that has no intention of doing anything except taking a nap when my classes are over. (Uhh basically it's just something I decided on one Saturday and then never thought about again.) Heed these words, Wandering Commies! I will just delete all the emails you send me, I shan't attend any of your meetings, and I will not dismantle capitalism with the fury of my red red heart.

I would say that I must look pretty godless too, but I think all these Asian Christian groups are just picking off anyone they can. I dress plainly and have a stupid look on my face most of the time, so I probably look like I would be receptive. Burrrrn! Sorry Asian Christian groups, you just have bothered me one time too many. You wrecked my Sudoku-playing time.

Re-read "How to Tell a True War Story" from Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried today. This book still makes me feel enormously conflicted. Just putting this entry as a placeholder for when I can gather my thoughts better. I got BBQ sauce on the book btw.

- - -

To calm myself down after being annoyed by mon roomie (after listening to some Nina Simone, which also soothed my spirit) I'm going to bash through my issues with this book.

"How to Tell a True War Story" fucked with my head A LOT. I remember reading it two summers ago and feeling FUCKED WITH. I think I can only write about it if I literally respond pace by pace to the lines of the story.

    A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story, you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil. Listen to Rat Kiley. Cooze, he says. He does not say bitch. He certainly does not say woman, or gilr. He says cooze. Then he spits and stares. He's nineteen years old -- it's too much for him -- so he looks at you with thos big sad gentle killer eyes and says cooze, because his friend is dead, and because it's so incredibly sad and true: she never wrote back.
    You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty.
    Listen to Rat: "Jesus Christ, man, I write this beautiful fuckin' letter, I slave over it, and what happens? The dumb cooze never writes back."

"It does not restrain men from doing the things men have always done." This isn't the point O'Brien was getting at, but god that is just another strike against humanity. How history repeats itself; how individual people don't change, so how can we possibly expect this world to be okay? The world is so going to end soon, you guys. I'm pretty convinced of this. Somewhere down the line the only thing we're going to be able to do is make peace with the fact that "oh well, at least I'm not going to be alive" and say a really, really final goodbye to everything we love, and be prepared to know that we've screwed our children over to the nthnthnth degree.

"If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story, you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil." It's so hard to read accounts of war and not think that it was one hundred percent horrible, that it is and completely is evil. Later when he talks about how war brings you closer to life, how war is beautiful in its own way, when people talk about bonds between soldiers and closeness - it's hard for me to reconcile those things with how bad war is supposed to be. Maybe that's just binary thinking, an unrefined desire to take information to extremes, to keep concepts in strictly delineated boxes. War as utterly contradictory? EVERYTHING IS SO CONFUSING IN THIS BOOK, I AM SO DUMB.

I think part of the problem is this equation with war with truth, and the association of truth as good. If war is so close to human truth, and people in war have then come so close to this human truth -- which I think is what O'Brien argues, with all his "you don't understand"ness -- and war changes you, changes you in an irreversible way -- for better or worse? People are not meant to know that truth, how far people can go?

The Rat Kiley letter thing: an unmanageable pain that manifests in this small ugly way, the small ugly pettiness of swear words when you're really trying to mean it. I always cringe when I read that section though. There's too much history of it, of women denigrated with those words and all other words like it. There's too much power behind it, and then for it to be excused with "because it's so incredibly sad and true: she never wrote back." What about her story, her pain, her brother dead half a world away and a letter written by someone she doesn't know describing her brother as someone she doesn't know, couldn't know, because the war had changed him and she can't understand. But is me asking that going to detract from the point he's making? It's not about our story, the civilians, whose pain is out of negative space and the lack of experience. It's about the ones who were there right? Is it right of me to demand a balanced view? He has a right to say "this is going to about my perspective, that's it". And maybe he's not blaming the sister for not writing back; maybe the "incredibly sad and true" is about the abstract pain of putting your soul and sending it away and waiting and never getting anything back, of silence when someone nineteen yrs old and so so out of his depth can't get even grasp this. And even though it sounds obnoxious, what Rat says, "Jesus Christ, man, I write this beautiful fuckin' letter, I slave over it, and what happens?", maybe you transcend the words and access that abstract pain. Because in war, words become meaningless? Does that mean different standards have to be used in evaluating people in war? Then what does that say about their stories?? OMG SO CONFUSED.

edit @ 6/22/08/
Just noticed this part: "Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty." What does that mean? If you send guys to war, they come back talking dirty, because they no longer can try to soften what they say, they can no longer format and paste their thoughts for polite society? Or they've fallen out of "polite society" and the ugliness of swear words is the way they can express themselves? WHAT THE FUCK, I HATE THIS BOOK, I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND IT. URRGHHHH WORRRRGHHH.
/edit

Thing that fucked me up: the baby water buffalo story. I still don't really know what I make of it. I think I get it, and then at the end he calls the old woman dumb cooze in his head and calls that story a love story. AND I DON'T GET IT. OMG. WHAT THE FUCK.

This story was such a mindfuck, I swear. I don't think I'll ever get it. Maybe the point is that it jumbles you up? I SWEAR I WILL NEVER GET IT.

For a brief glorious window in senior year, I thought I understood what O'Brien was saying. LOLOLOL NOT ANYMORE!

Thoughts I wrote down from senior year:

sense out of the senseless:
- war is senseless
--> stories to try to make sense of it
BUT if the stories make sense it's a lie
because the true ones know what the war was like: senseless

in real life no morals

I DON'T TRUST THESE AT ALL.

In war it's hard to tell what's actually happening from what you think is happening. And that perception of reality supercedes reality. The confusion you feel about trying to find out the truth: THAT is the truth. ??????

But what about the rest of it? OMG. Seriously tell me what you thought about this.

I said it once and I'll say it again, being into anime/manga/non-English fandom is HARD. Very difficult to find good fic. You have to rabbit around everywhere and put up with a lot of dreck.

BLEACH. I love Kubo Tite's art so much (SO MUCH), if only for the first book with Ichigo's t-shirts and skinny jeans and Rukia's super tiny awesomeness. It goes beyond the first book obvs but that first book, man, I imprinted on it harddd. I should catch up. SIGH. I hope he's gotten over his weird art stage by now. I like the fine-lines pls.

I have true appreciation for series that really mindfuck their main characters, as long as they do it right from the get-go. If they do it midway through I can't handle it.

You know what's stupid? CLAMP and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, that's what. The art has deteriorated completely. Ugh storyline. Whatever. Vampire. WHATEVER!!!! Too bad X had such great art. XXXHolic has really great art too, and Yuuko, so that puts it above a lot of things. What am I talking about now.

HEY remember when I liked Faust VIII and Shaman King? Hoo boy.

There should be a new Saiyuki every month instead of this every whenever-we-damn-well-please nonsense Tokyopop is on. They don't even bother writing the month the next book is supposed to be out anymore.

Video game fandom confuses me but I forge on ahead anyway because I thought FF7: Advent Children was really pretty. THAT IS ALL I EVER, EVER NEED.

I love AUs. I do.

Tempestuous relationships:
Computer: Low Battery. You should change your battery or switch to outlet power immediately to keep from losing your work.
Me: You should shut your dirty whorish mouth!!!!!

My sister and I had like a three hour conversation today. Some of it was thoughtful, like gender-feminism stuff and race stuff and media stuff, but my FAVOOOOORITE parts were when we talked about what we liked!! Like so:

Me: I like it when boys wear t-shirts!
Her: I like wrists!
Me: Skinny ties!
Her: Scarves with winter hats!
Me: Skirts!
Her: Flats!
Me: Long legs on girls!
Her: Suits!
Me and Her: NO MUSTACHES

If you think I'm exaggerating you don't know us very well.

(For the record:
girl redheads, people with dark hair and light eyes, long-limbed girls - dancer's build, guys with fine-boned/delicate bone structure, skinny guys, blonde ladies, freckles, coats. And I think muttonchops are some of the most hideous physical ailments known to man. The conversation was a lot longer than just listing though because we kept giggling and trying to think of specific examples.)

I totes made up that subject line. Those aren't even words. My frenzied quoting of things to escape doom:

Sonnet 6
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Is he native to this realm? No,
his wide nature grew out of both worlds.
They more adeptly bend the willow's branches
who have experience of the willow's roots.

When you go to bed, don't leave bread or milk
on the table: it attracts the dead--
But may he, this quiet conjurer, may he
beneath the mildness of the eyelid

mix their bright traces into every seen thing;
and may the magic of earthsmoke and rue
be as real for him as the clearest connection.

Nothing can mar for him the authentic image;
whether he wanders through houses or graves,
let him praise signet ring, gold necklace, jar.

(Translated by Edward Snow)

Oh, Rainer Maria Rilke. One of my favoritests for sure. *physically suppresses heart from beating out of chest* Some poems really feel like a cheat to me, like the author really wanted to write prose instead but GOT TOO LAZY to put things into proper sentences, hahaHA. But look at how every word is a windfall in good poems! Even though you have no idea what's going on, it's beautiful and you're whirled up into a maelstrom! Oh, Rainer Maria Rilke. You make me so soppy.

"And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!"

She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.

"I pass the test," she said. "I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel."

- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)

This almost makes me want to read stupid Tolkien. ALMOST. I <3'd this part in the movie.

The best ONTD post EVER. I read every one of those comments, oh yes I did.

Mmm, listening to Exile in Guyville straight through after a long while is like taking a shower after many days of accumulating dust without noticing.

(That sentence...)

Today's the Show with Ze Frank made me want to CRY. Damn you, Ze Frank, and your grateful close-knit community. You know what that shit does to me. ;____; It's ending this week.

edit: *feeling bawly* NEVER GO TO THE FORUMS UNLESS YOU WANT TO CRY.

I swear to god Strange Loop? is the best album closer ever. "But I only wanted more than I knew," and that guitar spiralling. Oh, Liz Phair! Please release one more album, one with your old spirit. I can't handle the self-titled and Somebody's Miracle as your final two albums. You can't let yourself go like this!

My stupid printer ran out of ink and it turns out all the ink cartridges I brought with me are empty. (I don't know why they were all tucked away into boxes yo.) So's, I got to buy a new one. I really, really bored myself there.

This is the worst idea. I can't remember back that far. And yet I insist on doing this. I had Top 10 Songs, Top 10 Earworms, and Top 10 Albums, but I figured that those weren't significant.

( la musique )

IT'S GOING TO BE 2007 IN TWO DAYS! O__o;; How'd that happen? I'm going to be spamming with lotz of end of the year posts. 2006 was a pretty good year in Watching Movies. Usually what would happen is that we'd see a trailer or a commercial or just heeeear about a movie and say "hey! let's watch that" and we never ever would. But this year!

( les films )

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Entries tagged with [*]lj:xanga

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