20 June 2007

Hiatus

["Game paused. Press 'P' to continue."]

07 June 2007

Things We Searched while at Work

A new column! "Things We Searched while at Work" (TWSwaW) is pretty titularly-self-explanatory. And now, the first entry for TWSwaW:

"is it illegal to quit without notice"

NYT = Sucks


A few weekends ago, we noticed that the NYT Sunday Mag was devoted (not in a really thematic way, but just, like, in a perfect storm confluence of forces (forces = editors' ages, ages rising, gray hair, etc) the mag was devoted to middle age/aging/old people. We hate old people. After last year's Shamu marriage article dominated the most emailed list, we figured something was up. But, like, lots of people are married: our friends (who are young) are married. But the two most emailed stories this morning on our personalized Google page were well you can see above.

That second-most emailed article, like, 1) totally ripped off Slate's "I'm fiftysomething, and I'm joining Facebook" article; 2) seems to make the ethical/pathetic (in the Greek root sort of way) appeal to the reader, but the reader can't help but notice that when the author's daughter says

“wayyy creepy,” it said. “why did you make one!”


she's, like, totally right; the author's daughter is; 3) besides creepy, pathetic.


We didn't even read the fucking menopause one. Jesus Christ. Periods, child birth, menopause. You'd think women want a fucking medal the way they always write/talk/advertise about these things. Men don't talk about nocturnal emissions, dodging baby mamas, and erectile dysfunction all the fucking time. (Well, the last one is out of mens' hands because of, like, spam; and men don't talk about problems getting it up, anyway.)

Even if the news coverage is good, from this point onward we refuse to read the NYT and their middle-aged, creepy, trend-piece-dominated, preoccupied-with-aging, perceived-as-liberal ass.

What a Lazy Sow





















[Morphemically misleading as it may seem, "revolution" fails to imply that the world "revolves around you."]




Heard in the office this morning:

"[Co-worker's Name], would you trade jobs with me?"
"No thanks. Oh, wait. Just for today?"
"Yeah. And then you can answer the nine emails I got this morning."
"Oh." Walks away confused.

Who bitches about having to answer nine emails? Probably the same lazy sow that spends every day all fucking week telling the new hires how to write a 300 word market report. S/he couldn't work his/er way out of a paper/lastic bag/sack.

06 June 2007

Well, we get our ideas from everywhere
















































[All the {well-educated, taste-making, media-controlling-parents-having, only-people-you-seem-to-hear-about} kids are doin' it.]






We were watching 30 Rock the other day, and there was this episode where Lemon (Tina Fey) totally owned Josh (generic Jewish funnyman) during the latter's contract negotiation. Besides making him do the worm, Lemon makes Josh list off ways that she's better than him. One of them, which made me laugh, was when he yelled out "You read the newspaper!" And she says, "Yeah, it's true." Who reads the newspaper anymore? Masochists we are, we picked up the Saturday NYT the other day to try to fill in correctly one or two pieces of the crossword. Of course, we had a hard time finding the crossword, for a paradoxical reason--the paper was so thin that we thought we lost a section. What did it have, about 15 pages total? That's a goddamn shame. Thinking about it, we decided we'd have been better served giving the dollar to the homeless, or, like, putting it toward a latte at Starbucks.




[Oops. Can't figure out how to insert more pictures]




Add that to the Times Select on-line wall, and you're left with a double-forked plan to kill readership (maybe?). You can't read everything online, but when you actually buy the paper you're inevitably disappointed because it's, like, a ten-minute read. If we wanted ten-minute reads, we'd totally read FP Passport and The Ag. Oh, what's that? Yeah, we do.



[See above.]



FP Passport collects various World News stories together in an intelligent fashion. For instance, we learned yesterday that we share a birthday with the Six-Days War. Interesting! Besides which, we were alerted that the G8 meetings are going to be a shitstorm, and that the next Cold War is on the horizon.





The Ag collects news and presents it in the cutesy Harper's Week in Review and Findings style. This style is awesome. NYT take note: what the people want isn't reliable reporting (over which point print can hardly claim superiority over Internets), they want conceptually interesting presentations or even re-presentations of the news. If the past is doomed to repeat itself, and every presentation is already a re-presentation anyway, etc., etc., then why not hire some of the Harper's editors and have them turn your publication into something interesting-on-the-page-to-look-at. Your both heart-run-dry-from-bleeding-so-profusely liberal rags anyway.

04 June 2007

It's FIVE! (Facebook)

[Facebook v1.0 = LAME!]



Damn a few things: Last.fm's scrobbler: It's not transmitting our tunes; Flixster can't find Woman is a Woman; and Twitter just sucks. But why do we care about these things? What t** fuck are these things? We dunno; but they're all on our Facebook now! You can even share news stories, to make it look like you've been, you know, reading the newspaper. See [poor-quality] image below. Facebook is totally the cooler, Wall Street trader, striped-shirt wearing, non-smoking goes to the gym, Red Bull + Vodka-drinking, Alphabet-City-apartment-complex-buying older brother of MySpace... Wwwwait... this is a good thing?



01 June 2007

LeBron James

[LBJ was the 36th President of the United States (1963–1969).]




We were lucky. We got home from the store and regulation had five minutes left in it: plenty of time. And then five more minutes, overtime one; and five more, overtime two. It was awesome. We ate sushi. Beer, gin. And we don't even like basketball that much. But still.

31 May 2007

We're just saying


The morningnews.org is the best website. We're just saying.

Church signs are weird and funny. You know, we're just saying.

Puns are kind of corny, like religion... just saying.

Putting the Wu all up on the Zion Pentecostal Tabernacle Church is pretty fun. Just saying.

We used, what, the church sign generator, 'natch.

Slate sucks.

30 May 2007

Like, whoa

















[riding retro.]




We were all like reading the Chuck Norris rules thing because, well, yeah bored etc etc. And then we were all like whoa.

If you Google search "Chuck Norris getting his ass kicked" you will get zero results. It just doesn't happen.


It turns out that for this to be a fact, it has to be false. Rather, for this to be a proposition, it has to be false. Because once it is written on the Interwebs, it becomes a target for Google. Like Godel's thing or Russell's or whatever. 'Tevs! We'd talk more but this dreary guy just walked up to us and made us start doing work. Totes stoops.

25 May 2007

What Should We Do?


































[The Proud Duck bears "Stunning Witness;" also, in the mirror is prefigured the concept for the video for "Take On Me."]








What should we Do:

a.) Write a story;
b.) Do a Drawing;
c.) Take a Photo; or
d.) Make a song?

24 May 2007

Kelly Kapur, con't.

















































[No door is too spangled for the Door Gym.]









OK Kelly, you're back in my life. You like the Door Gym? One of our friends used the Door Gym to great effect. We absolutely love doing pullups, too. There seems to be a theme of upper-body enthusiasm. Maybe the Times would write a trend piece. But really. Ok; you're not dead to us anymore for your seeming marginalization of 3rd World Workers. (But, you know, your people... offshoring... etc, you know, right?) Unfortunately, after reading your blog all day, we found, like, $1203934323's worth of gifts for our girlfriend, none of which cost less than $3.23, which is how much our bank account has.

Anyway, bringing Kelly Kapur back into our lives isn't the reason for this post. The reason is because of this most excellent review on Door Gym's amazon page. Most excellent. "Well, you don't. It's just a bonus" should be the catch phrase of the year. ("But why do I need to strip naked and roll around in the honey?" "Well, you don't. It's just a bonus.")
This is a pull-up bar. If you want to do pull-ups it is the best solution for your home. Put up and take down in seconds with no tools. Comfy foam padding, sturdy design. Some assembly required.

As a bonus you can also use the thing as a push-up bar. You may ask why you'd need a push-up bar when you have a floor. Well, you don't. It's just a bonus.

Kelly Kapur is no Lebron James, but still!










































Associative Chain:

Office Season 3 Finale; Bittorented Office remaining episodes Season 3; Lost Sucks, not as good as the Office; Boss calls come to Office!; Work; Read The Morning News for years; Read it at Work; Best Websites, yay!; Link to Blog, Office; Work at Office, watch Office, hmm; Office, buy stuff; Look on eBay; blog buy stuff about buy stuff; find stuff on eBay; Wish there were an American Apparel; Also, used music equipment store, box of money; Office work; coffee, too much?; Office, office; work work; work = office sometimes when work doesnt = Office; Office = office, or Office = Office, sometimes, too; "Office" funny word, sounds like "orifice," doesn't it?; crazy...; Lebron supports genocide, hmm; Hope the Cavs win; Time for some pretzels; Programmable distortion pedal; sell power soak for ~$140, like yeah!; maybe buy a new pedal; office... Office; Think about Office; read Office blog; blog; OMG SWEATSHOPS LIEK WTF!!!?>!?!! OMGH STUFU!!!!!


Forever 21 is a total mess always, with kind of vacant, unhelpful teenage girls working there, but there are gems everywhere. It's also disgustingly cheap. Like cheaper than H&M. Like so cheap you kind of wish they charged more cuz you're like "Ew, why is this so cheap, what's wrong with it?". But then you realize it's probably South East Asian laborers making everything and it costs a tenth of a cent to produce and you see how you're cashing in on the best deal in town! (don't think about this stuff too much though, you'll start feeling guilty for the poor people, in like, Macau or wherever sewing together a knit jumper so you can own it for 17 bucks).

Kelly Kapur, you are dead to us. Spicy Curry Award recipient indeed.

Brilliant

[We think clicking on the image will intimate the link.]

23 May 2007

Breakin the Law

[Ticketed for being too hot, Ms. Beckham.]

22 May 2007

Idiocracy

[This is not funny = This is as funny as Idiocracy.]




We just figured out why we didn't like Idiocracy. It was boring, the jokes were dull, and the only persistent image it carried out was an increasingly pessimistic, ultimately quite cynical disposition. The kind of disposition that leads to movements like the involuntary sterilization of white trash.












[Facebook + Thong - Shirt = Rules]

We love facebook. Clean design aesthetic; stalker-tracker mini-feed; they just opened it up to highschoolers; etc. Facebook us.

21 May 2007

Rivers Cuomo = James Joyce?!?

[Suck My* Art Hole]



So we were making the drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe this morning, and it occurred to us: What if Weezer (blue) were a concept album? The concept being one day in the life of the protagonis. Like, have you ever read Ulysses, or listened to A Grand Don't Come For Free (Joyce and The Streets, respectively)? Those two pieces follow a character(s) for about a day, and track the rise and fall of a life. Well, we think maybe Weezer does the same thing. We present the Payne Schemata of Weezer (blue).


Chapters

1. My Name Is Jonas
2. No One Else
3. The World Has Turned And Left Me Here
4. Buddy Holly
5. Undone-The Sweater Song
6. Surf Wax America
7. Say It Ain't So
8. In The Garage
9. Holiday
10. Only In Dreams






1. My Name Is Jonas

Time: 8am; Place: An Apartment in Los Angeles, California; Art: Interpretation of Dreams; Symbol: Wheel.

Introduces the protagonist, Jonas. Jonas dreams of a wheel, and his mythical, Biblical namesake. Awakes to a voicemail from his brother, a real estate developer who faces problems with his latest property: the workers are striking. End scene.


2. No One Else

Time: 8am; Place: Betty Ford Center; Art: Narrative (Old); Symbol: Photograph

Jonas' father, Harry, awakens. He's enjoying a stay in rehab for his alcohol addiction. His first thoughts upon rising are of his wife (divorced, named Polly). Polly's incessant affairs with other men led Harry to his heavy drinking; and thus, he feels his addiction can be cured if he meets a nice girl, who "leaves her makeup on the shelf" when he's away.


3. The World Has Turned And Left Me Here

Time: 830 am; Place: Shower; Art: Narrative (Young); Symbol: Photograph/Memory

Jonas, in the shower, thinks of his ex-lover, a girl named Mary whom he met at a surf party. Though it isn't certain from the text, it is implied that he pleasures himself.


4. Buddy Holly

Time: 11am; Place: Arnold's Drive-In; Art: Hallucination; Symbol: Jukebox

After showering and eating some Coco Puffs, Jonas heads off to Arnold's Drive-In, a local hangout and Happy Days-themed bar. This chapter takes course over several hours, during which Jonas drinks heavily, alone. After making several unsuccessful passes at a girl who reminds him of his ex, Jonas falls into drunken delusion and despair. Spurred by the Buddy Holly song "Peggy Sue" playing on the jukebox, Jonas begins to think he's a member of the cast of the popular 70s/80s Happy Days. A fight ensues, in which Jonas basically gets his ass kicked since he's so drunk that he can' punch or kick. His friends come in the nick of time and help him out.


5. Undone-The Sweater Song

Time: 6pm; Place: The El Rey Theater; Art: Knitting; Symbol: Superman Skivvies

Jonas is waiting outside the El Rey with his friends. They are waiting for a show to start; Jonas is still drunk, and he's introduced himself to some people as Ed. A girl, even more drunk, starts hitting on Jonas. Or maybe she's only trying to use him for a ride to a party? No one seems to know. While in line someone's zipper catches on a thread of Jonas' sweater, causing it to unravel a bit. As a joke, his friends--and later everyone--starts pulling on the thread to see if they can destroy his sweater. Someone pantss Jonas, revealing his Superman-themed underwear.


6. Surf Wax America

Time:12am; Place: Manhattan Beach; Art: Epiphany (Drunken); Symbol: Beer Keg

At the aforementioned party. The protagonist found a new pair of pants. He stands by the keg looking out at the ocean. Some people surf. He first compares the sea to a bottle of beer; later, a "thousand pound keg." (C.f., "winedark sea.") Jonas' mind wanders to a No Blood For Oil surf-themed protest he'd went to previously. This chapter introduces us to the idea that Jonas may be an alcoholic, given his persistent alcohol-themed characterizations of the ocean.


7. Say It Ain't So

Time: 130 am; Place: Manhattan Beach, further north; Art: Epiphany (Sober); Symbol: Bottle of Stevens Point Brewery Beer

Jonas is sobering up. He wanders north on the beach. Sitting down to rest, his eyes fall on a bottle of Stevens beer, which causes an epiphany in him: He's becoming an alcoholic like both his father and step father. (His mom, Polly, has poor choice in men?) Time grinds down, and Jonas begins to feel like one of the dead from the Flood. Feeling God has forsaken him, he screams "Say it ain't so!" Writhing around on the ground, he thinks up a pretty sweet guitar solo. He dreams he sees his father on the beach, then his little brother, whom he tries to strangle. He passes out.


8. In The Garage

Time: 2am; Place: Manhattan Beach, still the same spot from last chapter; Art: Garage Rock; Symbol: Twelve-sided die

Jonas dreams of being a rock musician. He dreams of black-framed glasses and Peter Criss. He dreams of dungeons and dragons, and remembers what a dork he really is. But his dream continues. He feels safe. No one cares about his ways. He belongs in the garage. But no one can hear him sing his song.


9. Holiday

Time: 12am; Place: Better Ford Center; Art: Fugue; Symbol: Math Homework

It's lights out at Betty Ford. Harry wishes he could go on holiday. He's almost recovered and he's been reading this awesome book called On The Road. He's been trying to get his GED, and he's sick of the math homework. Harry wishes he was immortal, and that he could hang out with his son and be the "cool dad," but not too cool, coz otherwise he'd been an alcoholic, which is exactly what happened.


10. Only In Dreams

Time: 4am; Place: Manhattan Beach, still; Technique: Guitar Solo; Symbol: Toenails

Jonas wakes up, only to realize that he wishes he were still dreaming. Which realization causes him to reflect on the nature of dreams and reality. In dreams only can his ideal girl be in the air, in between molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide. In reality, he would totally step on the feet of the girl with whom he's dancing at the high school prom, which he totally did. He takes his frustration out on himself, masturbating for, like, five minutes on his metaphorical guitar. Falls asleep.









*We found this image on google image search. It's not really our drawing. (Too bad!)

16 May 2007

Sky Blue Sky; like whoa

[Dirty kats don't get feeded.]



We haven't bought a new cd since Neon Bible; but don't let that fool you. Because before that we hadn't bought a cd since before we discovered private torrent trackers. Now, naturally we picked up Spank Rock, El-P, Ratatat, Sonic Youth, said Neon Bible (again), Matmos, Battles etc on lp. We just don't usually get them right when they come out, because of the split release dates that usually accompany cd and lp releases. So imagine our surprise--imagine it, really--that's an imperative, not an invitation--last night when we were at the book store and we saw Sky Blue Sky. We were all like whoa. Our bad on the Internet versus print review thing because we just don't know when cds come out anymore. We're like ... well. No. But we live in a fantasy world.

15 May 2007

Battles, Mirrored, Pitchfork

And after yesterday, they have to go and do something like this.

Battles
Mirrored

[Warp; 2007]
Rating: 9.1

We couldn't agree more. Tyondai "Son of Anthony" Braxton's band is tight; fierce; and sounds like militant smurfs. (We can't say more; and that's because we got work to do.)

14 May 2007

eBay: 4 Sale Buy Now Fender Pro Junior Tube Amp









Oh, uh look at this thing here. It's cool, isn't it?

Wilco: Sky Blue Sky, Pitchfork, Stylus, & PopMatters

[Dude looks like a lady: Aerosmith and Robin Williams were the original sellouts.]





We can't believe the new Wilco album must be coming out tomorrow. Is that right? We've been listening to it for a while now (mad props to Oink!) and we think it's O.K. What's wrong with it? It's pleasant. The sun is sunny right now! What's wrong with pleasant? We were driving around with our girlfriend yesterday, after picking her up from the bookstore. In the store, we saw a book about Merzbau, the Kurt Schwitters' exhibition. Well. Naturally we put on in the car Merzbow. It was unpleasant: ahhh, but that's the point, you say. Well, we agree; but sometimes we just want music to sound nice.

Pitchfork loves Merzbow. (Well, they don't exactly, but all Merzbow albums are rated higher than this new Wilco album.) And they hate the new MOR Wilco. Is new Wilco MOR? Who cares. Giving the album less than five-and-a-half on the Pfork scale, they say


An album of unapologetic straightforwardness, Sky Blue Sky nakedly exposes the dad-rock gene Wilco has always carried but courageously attempted to disguise. Never has the band sounded more passive, from the direct and domestic nature of Tweedy's lyrics, to the soft-rock-plus-solos format (already hinted at on Ghost's "At Least That's What You Said" and "Hell Is Chrome") that most of its songs adhere to.



We really like the first two songs there on A Ghost Is Born. WTF? What's wrong with writing straight-ahead rock/pop songs? "Dad-rock" is just another name for "sounds pleasant," and not all music sounds like Merzbow. We're glad that all music doesn't sound like Merzbow. If "Hell is Chrome" is MOR dad-rock, well then goddamnit, we fucking love dad-rock.


PopMatters' review sounds like a direct, considered rebuttal of the 'Fork's review. The little thingy under the byline (or where the byline would be, which must have a technical name, but which technical name eludes me) says, "If you're prone to confusing honest musical maturity with banality, then you'll surely miss out on the treasures of Sky Blue Sky." Which, is exactly what Pitchfork seems to have done (according to PopMatters). PopMatters ultimately gives the album a 9/10. It argues throughout that the tunefulness of the new album conceals a deeper artistic integrity and musical complexity, which sounds like, say, what the Beatles did with their music. Or something. We're only interested in scores, and PopMatters scored the album almost twice as high.


Stylus (we read this trifecta of online music mags, obvs) gives the album a "B-," and compares Wilco's new effort to what the Grateful Dead recorded in the twilight or falling-action phase of their career. I think. The reviewer made some allusion to a place that seems from context to be related to the Dead, and then he mentions them, sure. But I think Mr. Cohen here knows a bit too much about the Dead to trust his taste. We exclude Stylus from our considerations because it's too much of an MOR review. A B-??? WTF. Pick "awesome" or "shitty." Our short attention span can only parse extremes.


Let's turn again to PopMatters. (We're really done with Pfork's divisive qua a fortiori polarizing reviews; nah, just kidding!) At the beginning of the review, the PopM says,

There is already considerable opinion and criticism in print and on the internet regarding Wilco’s sixth studio album. I’m writing this review approximately one month after the band streamed Sky Blue Sky in its entirety via its website (and the subsequent file-sharing leak of massive proportions) and one month before the album’s official release on aluminum poly-whatever.







[The noodles is boiling over, kid. The fix is in!]


This section gave us pause. Three big music online music magazines review the new Wilco album a month before its release--all on the same day?? This sounds like a conspiracy of Oliver Stone-ian proportions. What gives? Did the Big Three get together in a smoky back room somewhere and decide to review simultaneously the new Wilco album, thereby scooping traditional print media, whose natural restrictions already place them at a temporal/scoop disadvantage, which disadvantage only swells when the Allied Powers carve up Berlin a month in advance? We rather see the editors of the three, Stylus, Pitchfork, and PopMatters videoconferencing with their MacBooks, drinking Shasta and smoking parliaments in run-down but expensive apartments in various cities. Well. Really who cares? Much like ESPN pressured John Kruk to pick the Pirates as division champs, which he apparently admitted on radio, we think the three online mags drew straws: short one rips it, middle one stays lukewarm, and long one loves it. Either way, we can't see a better way at least to generate interest in the album than to conspiratorially ally in order to give the new Wilco album an aura of critical ambivalence.




UPDATE: Tiny Mix Tapes sides with PopMatters on the matter. They also reviewed the album today. Weird.

11 May 2007

Les Enfants Terrible

[Old people are poor at learning new things; the act of aging and being-in-the-world as an old person is a new thing; therefore, all old people should be killed immediately. QED, motherfucker.]






We hate old people here at then no sound. Ian McEwan's Saturday (I.M., whom we love to read) stunk up the joint with all its subtle, well mannered portrayals of an upper-middle-aged person. Any time the graduate students brings up the fucking 60s, the fucking Summer of Love (tm), life fucking experience, their children, their wife, their hemorrhoids , their I-don't-care-fucking-what something to do with being old: Our pens bend under the grip of our overcaffeinated, enraged hands. Particulate matter from our teeth makes inaudible sounds as it drops from our grinding mouth. Etc.

Old people are greedy, ruined the world before we were born, and try to atone for that burden giving us their wisdom, which is shit because if they were so fucking wise they wouldn't have ruined the world before we were born. We like the Beatles qua band; we fucking hate the Beatles, though. We especially hate Paul McCartney. His newest album will be available for download on iTunes, and Starbucks is going to shill it for him, on the iTunes storefront. Good luck asshole, I don't think my mother even knows how to turn on the Internet.

10 May 2007

Google Me, Bitch

[Looks like a Commercial for Conditioner.]







The NY Times said I should search for myself. I used to come up as the first hit when I put in my name, but since I took off my name from this blog, I don't even come up for like at all ever. (We're using the first person singular here because this is a very first person singular-type post.) Yahoo!, though, gave me more love and I found this. It's a pdf of an article I wrote in college. So, I'm either Tom, B. Michael Payne, Stephanie LaCava or Jess. Rock on.

09 May 2007

Let's Get Out of This Country

We would like to declare a moratorium on the use of the term "chamber pop." It doesn't mean anything. Belle and Sebastian/Elliot Smith/The Decemberists don't write chamber music, and their music isn't written in a chamber (despite evocative cover art featuring Kafka).

The closest teleological cousin we can think of to "chamber pop" is Chamber Music, Joyce's (terrible) book of poetry, which title, though, puns on and refers to the tinkling sound of a woman making water in a chamber pot. So when critics (it's always critics, the lice between the sheets of great art) use the phrase "chamber pop," what they're doing is pissing all over your record. So critics: stop using it.

And Amazon? There is no genetic trait linking Evanescance; Sigur Ros; Rufus Wainwright; Goldfrapp; and Brian Wilson. Except overwhelming whiteness. So is that what Amazon thinks chamber pop means, namely whiteness?

08 May 2007

Wal*Mart

Wal*Mart, which we've heard is a already a pretty difficult place from which to take things on a non-payment/no-payment basis (aka shoplift) is awesome.

[I am a Thief I stole your Swag.]

Funny, funny, funny Things




The Morning News has a funny thing on its site. Much better than both the Bill Simmons article generator (too tedious) and the backlash against trend pieces (itself a trend--hypocritical!). So we present to you,


"Walk Like Katherine Mansfield, Talk Like a Dork."
by R-E-D-A-C-T-E-D

The city was invaded by "Mannies," as they're called over the weekend when a convention landed here, drawing 4.5 billion fans of Katherine Mansfield.

then no sound, otherwise known as R-E-D-A-C-T-E-D, a 23-year-old software engineer, was dressed in full, lacy Bloomsbury regalia as he waited in line to pay the $25,000 fee to carouse, enjoy spotted dick, and discuss literature with others drawn to this, the greatest spectacle in the tri-state region involving Katherine Mansfield.

“This is it. This is the Olympics of Katherine Mansfield,” said Johnny GoPlodding, a 64-year-old video-store clerk whose mother drove him here all the way from Missoula for the event. “Everyone who’s anybody in the world of Katherine Mansfield would give his left over pieces of high modernism-aping writing to be here with his co-equals.

“I spent the last 10 years of my life making sure I had every last sentence, watched all the horrible adaptations for 5.6 million hours this week and spent $ 5.6 million having my mom sew up this costume—all in preparation for this,” he said. “This is the most important thing in the world to me for reasons that will make absolutely no sense to me once I get a girlfriend. Unless, of course, she’s into this, too, in which case I’m going to become really weird.”

The co-founder of the event, Jane Mansfield, a 97-year-old London-themed line dancing-store owner, said the event would also feature London-themed line dancing and a tarot-card reader.

“The rest of the world could really learn a lesson from this,” she said. “I mean, where else can so many different people of different backgrounds get together so peacefully and have a good time like this? Except for the Nazis and Hindus (who use the logo, dontcha know?).”

While taking a break from Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero, then no sound addressed the mainstream criticism of Katherine Mansfield fans as socially inept people who use their obsession with an inconsequential and unconstructive esoterica to escape from reality and avoid dealing with the challenges of improving their own lives or the world around them.

“We’re not geeks or jocks,” he lisped. “We may be shamans in the lifedance of death and life, but we’re also human beings. If you prick us with a dogbone, do we not bleed? We’re not here in this soulless, overpriced and plastic-smelling convention hall just for the amusement of the quote-unquote mainstream with their 40-ounce beers, cheese-flavored Pringles, and quote-unquote normal sports franchises, like the amusement of the quote-unquote mainstream with their 40-ounce beers, cheese-flavored sharks in a bowl or sharks in a cage. We’re here to be with other people like us, other people who are scared of the real world like we are. We’re here to be the mainstream for a brief few hours before we have to go back to a real world that relegates us to the fringes. Here we’re not freaks.”

With that, then no sound lifted up his swag and disappeared into a crowd of crowds.

We got nothing Today




























Feeling like an elegy, but we don't even know what that would mean--we call bullshit!--and it's not even our fault because elegies are things you learn about in 11th grade English class and we were drooling and napping. Not banging on desks. We were going to write a post about the soft, nameless loss that comes with familiarity--that is, the loss that Ford M. Ford describes in the Good Soldier: that the moment you know someone you cease to know him because you know your image of him, not him himself--this loss we feel sometimes in our commerce with other people.








But then we just got thinking about commerce and how we got a promotion, and how these summer days have ended before they began; we won't have time to screw around at work anymore, we'll be busy really doing work, etc. Our chest hurts and we don't feel like eating, smoking, sleeping, or fucking.






Finally, we thought about how we'd like to be back in a place where we can listen to music all day, and this isn't that place; but we'll be making more money here than we have ever in our short recorded and unrecorded history made. And we wanted to try to write like Faulkner, but of course we're writing like Faulkner on a weblog, and so, we're writing like Faulkner on a weblog. Duh.







And past finality, we decided just to post pictures of google images, and to try not to split our infinitives.













(And we're incredibly bowled over by this (we don't know why): that one of our coworkers is so stupid, she is so so stupid that she can't make a pot of coffee without blowing a fuse, fucking up the coffee pot, and ending up with shitty brown water and grounds all over the floor--she is so stupid--and now she's an editor and part-office manager; and she doesn't know how to form proper sentences, or how to read for comprehension, so she has to check with another editor every two-and-a-half minutes to see if her first impulse, which she must suspect is just as stupid as she can't even begin to suspect is is, is right--which it isn't--and then the other editor has to edit verbally through her like a retarded, down syndromed medium, the type of spirit from whom you would not seek to elicit any advice, information, or spiritual guidance because it would tell you to walk through a fucking wall, that the Red Sox would win the world series by 1925, and that the fucking Klingons would have landed by the time in which you ask so don't bother, that stupid woman is also our part-office manager,




who is responsible for buying office supplies like chips, soda, coffee, etc. And we expect with no amount of irony for her to return with rocks, used car parts, topsoil, ANYTHING but food, because she's too dumb even to identify what is and what is not food. A dog could do that. We don't think she could. Every time she asks a stupid question we long for the near silence of keys being pressed and depressed, the fax making barely audible beeps, and phone conversations from a few doors away: the sounds that drive us batshit crazy. Being batshit crazy would be a better mode of being than the mode of being that calls for us to listen to her stupid questions.)




07 May 2007

Eh-bay


[The Children's Crusade rendered in MS Paint.]




We won an auction on ebay, and we don't wanna pay. Is $10 too much, or will the terrorists have already (always already) won?

06 May 2007

[Yeah we just took this photo from the article and put it here. Sue us.]







The NY Times extends its reign as the paper of record. Hard. Hitting. Report.

"But in general it is agreed that people kiss in private mainly because it is nice."

04 May 2007

Un Blog Terrible




This blog sucks. Shame on you.

03 May 2007

Mobile Disco Party

[Come with me if you want to live.]





We got a new mobile phone. We think it's better than our last one, but we miss having a ring volume rocker on the side of the phone. And we hate accidentally pressing the splatter guy, which charges us money. It's the bug-on-windshield-money-suck button. What a bad button for us; what a good button for them

02 May 2007

We <3 R Kelly

[R. Kelly abuses children, makes awesome songs; people make tribute mannequins of him.]


We love R. Kelly over here at then no sound. A post like this just adds redundant data points to a system that logically excludes outliers, facts that could diminish said love. A lot of people already knew this, but we can't spend all our time reading the Internets to track his moves--we're too busy contemplating the greatness that is R. Kelly.

R. Kelly has set aside the Trapped In The Closet hip-hopera (Chapters 13-22 out via DVD this July!) long enough to be touched by, and offer support for, the Virginia Tech tragedy. Kelly's releasing "Rise Up" digitally on May 15th, with Jive contributing 100% of the proceeds to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, assisting Va. Tech victims and their families. The AP says that Kelly the ballad after "watching the events unfold on television while he was on tour."
We don't really care that R. is making a benefit track for VTech (heartless!); but we just about flipped our shit when we saw that he's making ten new chapters of In The Closet! We finally get to figure out that midget shit!

Under Milkwood for the Second to Last Time

[Not a wanksta, he's a P.I.M.P.]








We've always wanted to right a poem that ends with a rhyming couplet, which rhymes "Rilke" and "milky." And thinking about Rilke. Did he steal from Nietzsche the beautifully-named Lou-Andreas Salomé? Rilke's mother: dressing him up as a girl, making him go about in public as a girl--until the age of seven; naming him Rene. Is his imagery heavy-handed or romantic? An addendum to Markson's point about the year 1922: The Waste Land, Ulysses, Reader's Digest, and the Duino Elegies. We think it wholly sound to consider Rilke's work to be the one that doesn't belong, the rounded figure to the others' quadrilateral, if you will. Little irony, no self-awareness (abasement in excess, though), and much God this God that blah blah blah.


Tumescent, abashéd, we find Rilke:
Not unlike our cereal, soft and milky.

01 May 2007

No posts Today

We're at an appointment all day. Bjork's Volta sucks. Camp Lo still is the truth. Sunny, balmy weather ain't the truth, but it approximates closely to it.

30 April 2007

Aristotle + Mimesis + Gisele

[The cracked lookingglass of a servant.]


From a Southern Oregon University English department page:

For Aristotle, mimesis comes from a fundamental "desire to know." Human learning is inherently mimetic. People derive a pleasure of "learning and inference" from mimesis.
Mimesis = Mirror. The connection's too obvious. Etc.

Aristotle + Mimesis + Gisele

[The cracked lookingglass of a servant.]


From a Southern Oregon University English department page:

For Aristotle, mimesis comes from a fundamental "desire to know." Human learning is inherently mimetic. People derive a pleasure of "learning and inference" from mimesis.
Mimesis = Mirror. The connection's too obvious. Etc.

The Last Novel

[We judge books by their covers. This one's sexy.]




We love David Markson here. Ever since Wittgenstein's Mistress and title character's crazy thinking about Clytemnestra's vacation plans with Helen, and Cassandra lurking at windows; shooting out galleries and kiteskating with canvases; and asking Heidegger to name her cat (which reply is Argos--LOL!). We've been hooked. So when we were at the bookstore the other day and we saw the pretty new cover to Markson's latest novel, The Last Novel, well, we just had to get it. For our friend, from whom we promptly borrowed it. The style is. Well, the page looks something this,



The sections in The Last Novel are a little longer. Here are some of our faves.

No further martinis after dinner, Conrad Aiken's physician once commanded.
Following which Aiken frequently refused to eat until practically bedtime.

Stephen Dedalus, at Sandymount, in 1904.
Is he aware that Yeats was born there?

A quirky new impulse of Novelist's, at news of several recent deaths--
Dialing the deceased, in the likelihood that no one would have yet disconnected their answering machines--and contemplating their voices on final eerie time.

Novelist does not own a cat, and thus most certainly could not have thrown one out a window.
Nonetheless he would lay odds that more than one hopscotching reviewer will be reading carelessly enough here to never notice these two sentences and announce that he did so.

Only this tardily realizing--that if he had not made use of his middle name, among the better-known twentieth-century American poets would be a William Williams.

Act. Then call upon the gods.
Says another Euripides fragment.

A heart attack while swimming, Theodore Roethke died of.

For no reason whatsoever, Novelist has just flung his cat out one of his four-flights0up front windows.

It may be essential to Harold Bloom that his audience not know quite what he is talking about.
Commenteth Alfred Kazin--pointing out other immortal phrasings altogether.

It was Beckett's wife who took the call informing them that Beckett had won the Nobel Prize. Her first reaction, even as she turned to tell him:
Quel catastrophe!

The writer Bret Easton Ellis, who imparted to a New York Times reporter that he had been reading the Bible--but then seemed uncertain as to whether in the Old Testament or the New.
Were the stories about Moses or Jesus?
Jesus. I think.

Of no significance whatsoever. But the hospital where Dylan Thomas would die, sixty-one years after the fact, was the one after which Edna Millay had been named.

Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.

Losing her sight in later life, Constance Garnett arranged to have Russian books read aloud--and then dictated her translations.


1922. Ulysses.
1922. The Waste Land.

1922. Reader's Digest.

A seminonfictional semifiction.
And with its interspersed unattributed quotations at roughest count adding up to a hundred or more.

Theodore Dreiser's general preference for the word kike, rather than Jew.

You have but two topics, yourself and me, and I'm sick of both.
Johnson once told Boswell.

Baseball is what we were, football is what we have become.
Said Mary McGrory.