BEST. THING. EVER.

Germonicorn Pictoral Spread!

Germone's new haircut (thank god- he looked like an overgrown middle-earthling before).

this is germone after he cut his hair the first time... it's progress and everything, but you can still kind of see the hobbittyness. Also, "wispy" probably isn't a word that you want jumping into somebody's mind when you show them a picture of your new haircut. Just saying.

Germone reading a book over spring break, pre-haircut(s).

I summoned my demonic underlings to torment him one night after he indulged in some herbal refreshment. i tried to warn him, but he's all like "nothing bad will happen! nothing bad ever happens because of *****!" Needless to say, lesson learned.

Germone and i enjoy a nice pony ride together through the beautious hills and thickets of New Mexico, land of mystery and wonder.

Ahhhh, it's so nice to get away. Thanks to our hosts: Zane Zigmund (seriously, that's his name) in Elephant Butte, and Donny and David in lovely Las Cruces. We had a great time in Elephant Butte with Zane, but Donny and David are the most amazing hosts EVER, no disrespect to the runner-up. Hooray for them!

in which i unwisely discuss my own arrogance in somewhat graphic and unlikeable detail

So i'm at Germone's apartment this weekend. He's got work and so i have all this freeform time at night, but i've got quite a bit of homework to plow through, so i'm trying to make good use of the time/space tucson limbo. one of the things that i'm supposed to do during the break is read "dreaming of palestine" by randa ghazy. i guess the book started as a writing assignment that she got when she was 15, and her teacher pushed her to expand it into a novel. i'm only 20 pages into it, but my kneejerk opinion is that this book is a nut-and-corn bedazzled P.O.S. it's like somebody told a teenage e.e. cummings to write a political novel about someplace he'd never been to. i'm not a big fan of the free-form, unstructured, experimental novel. unless you're william burroughs or joyce or even kathy acker, you're probably not good enough to jump the narrative shark, ESPECIALLY at the age of 15, and ESPECIALLY when your subject matter is the israel/palestine conflict, and ESPECIALLY when the author is born and raised in italy. i'm extra bummed because this book is going to be a big part of at least two upcoming papers that i know of, one a reading/viewing log incorporating the novel with the film "Paradise Now" with an article from the International Socialist Review and the other our first major research essay. At least there's the movie and the ISR article, so there's other stuff to write about.

Having said that, the class is getting really interesting, if more because of the subject matter than the class's format or the instructor. In all fairness to him, though- he has been excellent about helping me write more technically driven papers. i've met with him with drafts and he does have a keen technical eye, and i appreciate his more bare-bones journalistic sensibility. i tend to get kind of flowery when i write and he challenges me to be less ornate and more factually stubstantial, and that's HARD! four pages of facts and citations and really thesis-focused writing is hard without (very much) stylistic embellishment.

another thing that i'm starting to think about the teacher is that maybe it's not his job to be providing that much instruction in class for this course- a lot of the course requirements are like, read this book, watch this movie, read this article, dissect this theme/concept and stir. he spent a great deal of class time going through the pretty simple one or two paged handouts (thomas jefferson, david hume, kipling, aime cesaire and vijay prashad) about colonialism and that really rubbed me the wrong way, because WHY? IT'S NOT THAT GD HARD, but the kids in my class ARE FUCKING IDIOTS and they STILL haven't wrapped their tiny little dinosaur brains around the ideas, so maybe it's the kids and not the teacher. also, he's a poly-sci major, not an english major, so he's got a different sensibility...

finally, i have to admit that a significant portion of my sense of self revolves around the idea that i am a good writer, and for me to be in an english class and not immediately recieve some sort of acknowledgement (proverbial handjob) of talent recognition, then i get pissed. it's kind of gross, and i probably need to outgrow that, but i'm just not there quite yet. i think that he sort of picked up on that from my overactivity in class discussions and was-perhaps understandably- put off. the respect that i've gotten from him i think is about 30-40% because i'm a good writer, and that 60-70% is because he sees me working really hard to do the best work i can. it's humbling to have to work so hard at something you like to believe you're already really good at for relatively modest feedback... still, it gets me to try really hard, and it's nice to be known for that, too.

david from santa ana

mercilessly jacked from the amazing http://www.houseofvader.com/

OIL!

apparently, oil is a problematic energy source?

*WHAAAAAT?!?!?!?*

I know, i know. it is i, bringer of radical new ideas.

anyway, went and saw a speaker at school tonight: Lisa Margonelli, author of the book "Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline"and here's a link to her book's website: http://www.oilonthebrain.com/.

one of the interesting things she had to say was how she had to change some beliefs she held after she went to different countries and got to see oil in a context that was overtly exploitational- one of them being that drilling in Alaska is an absolute no-no. Then she saw Chad, and the unregulated hell dimension that oil drilling in that area engenders, and she decided that given the choice, morality would dictate that Alaska would be less diabolical, primarily because it would be regulated, and thus about 1000 times less likely to give residents of the area um... damn, it's on the tip of my tongue. oh... you know.... flippers? that's it. flippers. that's what i was trying to say.

it's oil-is-evil month at my school, so there's a pictoral thing in the library. here's some of those. they're cell-phone pictures of pictures, but you get the idea. if you're confused about what a guy in a hammock or a boy making a screamy face has to do with oil, just assume that they're either deformed or dying or both.

you know, i've never been really politically or environmentally fixated, but this stupid college bullshit is forcing me to understand things more completely and to give a shit more than i would have particularly cared to. i mean, i've always known that the world is a fucked up place (duh!) but when you start to learn about the specifics, and the specifics about how the way shit is now and about how the process of humanity has essentially been fucked up in exactly the same way for forever... it's pretty bleak. makes me want to make sepia-toned abstract art films about cigarettes and potatos in the former soviet union that reveal greater truths about humanity.

Bringing the Disabled Unicorn Realness

"your hoveround enables you to lure, capture, and ride unicorns!"

(mercilessly jacked from the ever-delightful: http://knifefight.typepad.com/ )

oooh-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu!

been studying the algerian war of independence for my "FREEDOM AND TERROR(!!!): CULTURES(!!!) IN(!!!) CONFLICT(!!!!!!) class and "The Battle of Algiers" is an awesome movie. i would like to say something about my already somewhat non-patriotic sentiments, but i don't want to get put on a list.

check out the movie, though. pretty good!