Sunday, April 02, 2006

Decreation - Anne Carson, triple threat

Working my way through Decreation by Anne Carson.

I got tipped by a literati family member to Autobiography of Red awhile back, and so when my local amazing bookstore posted the new book to their poetry section, I snagged it. And then a week or so later came the review in the aptly named Boston Review.

I can't do it justice, I'm just trying to appreciate it - go read for yourself.

The Knopf site has clips of the author performing pieces of this. Can you beat that?

grups

Grups, at least the etymology is a clever repurposing from "speculative" pseudo-Twilight Zone original Star Trek sci-fi, monosyllabic, and easy to remember.

Gen-x is too old, gen-y is too young, and a guy who would rather buy scissors for $5 and cut his own hair than spend $100 at a salon cannot be described as "metro"; but now, it seems, I have been labeled. sigh.

I feel less than comforted, and it certainly makes me rethink buying a 3rd pair of pumas (oh, yeah wore them before they were cool and had a huge Newbury St. store).
I haven't bought distressed jeans since an embarrassing acid wash incident in the actual 80s - most folks I know got their distressed blues by never throwing them away (and for a few of us, by still being able to fit into what we bought 15 yrs ago).

Maybe it will catch on, maybe it won't. I just can't get all that excited by yet another attempt to establish a stereotype for fertile aging cool kids. Besides I have more jazz than Interpol on my iPod, thanks very much.

I think this may be like writing a horoscope for the 30-ish; there is enough there in its 8 pages for us all to read and find a few things applicable, while remaining vague, superficial and a bit obvious.

You don't want to wear a suit!
You wear jeans and a hoody!
You would rather snowboard than work!
You never stopped listening to new music!
GRUP!

Saturday, April 01, 2006

too long, and too much is wrong

Way too long since I last posted, but more time is at hand.

Talked to my brother, he's hopefully dodging an ID card since he is already in Scotland, and is legal and all.

What a lovely time. Tech makes nations and geography less important (arguably), while politicians highlight the importance of national origin as the difference between criminal and patriot.

Does it need to be said? Villainizing illegal immigrants is a PC way to hate minorities. You know, it's not that they are different and poor and not white, it's that they are criminals (they're illegal , so that means they're criminals, right?) and probably terrorists to boot (right out of the country).

Besides, they are all thieves because they are stealing our jobs. I wonder if the politicians noticed that these "criminals" can't vote before they made them into congressional punching bags?

So maybe, just maybe, this is all code - some subtle form of racism (on second thought, not all that subtle).

When the riots start, please remember I am a petite liberal and not worth smashing.