31.10.07

I ♥ Hemingway (in the 1920s)

I remember the first time I discovered the Decemberists: I was reading the arts section of the Sunday Oregonian (which we buy on our Saturday trips into town), and the review of Her Majesty, The Decemberists jumped off the page, grabbed me by the throat, and shouted, "Your life will never be the same again!" Most intriguing was the review's mention of their song "The Legionnaire's Lament" on Castaways and Cutouts. Anyone who sings about legionnaires, I decided, must be the most brilliant songwright in the world since Joachim Neander. And I was right.

In other news, I am now reading A Movable Feast, about Ernest Hemingway's adventures in Paris with Gertrude Stein and Shakespeare and Company, the descendant of which the Artiste One visited this summer. What happened to him? He started out with such wide-eyed promise, producing the beautifully sparse, yet heartwrenching, The Sun also Rises and other masterpieces, and then he just turned into a drunk, womanizing, hypermasculine, killing-obsessed misanthrope who wrote about old men battling mackerels. And then he killed himself. Sad.

For more information about the below, see

Happy Halloween

My coworker Joseph Hinckley (as in the grandson of the man above immortalized in gourd) sent me this picture from a man in the ward of another man who works with Joseph's dad.

30.10.07

My Upstairs Neighbors 2

Three elephants lived in the flat above mine,
whose friends were a large herd of kine,
they loved pogo sticks
and shouting for kicks
on Sundays for hours past nine.

29.10.07

My Upstairs Neighbors

Three elephants lived above my house
Who knew a pack of jersey couse
They partied at night
Thumping with might
Until I blew them to tiny bits with a bazooka and their brains looked like souse.

And then I went to sleep.

28.10.07

Report on Architecture in Helsinki at In the Venue

The Decemberists and Architecture in Helsinki are both quirky indie groups who use about five times as many instruments as they have band members, including the elusive glockenspiel. However, while the Decemberists may be as left-brained as a band can be, Architecture in Helsinki is so right-brained that I can see the music rising and shimmering before me: changing colors with pitch, changing pattern with rhythm. It looks kind of like the macrophotography effects in The Fountain:

Or maybe that was all because of the vast amounts of marijuana smoke permeating the overheated air.

27.10.07

Psalm 116

I love the Lord,
because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.

Because he hath inclined his ear unto me,
therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.

The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me:

I found trouble and sorrow.

Then called I upon the name of the Lord;
O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
yea, our God is merciful.

The Lord preserveth the simple:
I was brought low, and he helped me.

Return unto thy rest, O my soul;
for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.

For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.

I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

I believed, therefore have I spoken:
I was greatly afflicted:

I said in my haste,
All men are liars.

What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?

I will take the cup of salvation,
and call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

O Lord, truly I am thine handmaid, and the daughter of thine handmaid:

thou hast loosed my bonds.

I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and will call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people,

In the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem.

Praise ye the Lord.

24.10.07

Things I've Learnt at College

  • I can write two (double-spaced) pages an hour with sources early in the morning.
  • Putting the lid on the pan really does make water boil faster.
  • Being male and an idiot gives one an inalienable right to speak up in class at every inopportunity.
  • Being female and an idiot gives one an inalienable right to lots of first dates with intelligent men who think dumb women just need a little missionary-style encouragement to be smart.
  • Two jobs at once is a bad idea.
  • Pop·Secret Homestyle is excellent for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
  • TV shows download much faster around two in the afternoon.
  • In winter, failing to rub Cetaphil Moisturizing Cream into your hands at least three times a day will cause your knuckles to bleed.
  • Pantene Pro-V Relaxed and Natural intense moisturizing conditioner is the best.
  • Monday evening is the busiest time in the laundry room, for everyone forgets to wash their clothes on Saturday and gets really desperate on Sunday.
  • Don't ever ask a group of Latter-day Saints to talk about things they've learnt from people in other religions.
  • Dancing is related to sex, so guys who dance like total weirdos (lots of head-bobbing independent from their bodies) and ignore pesky details like rhythm turn me off to the point of nausea.
  • Many, many white people don't know that they're white.
  • Men with scruff are devastatingly attractive and devastatingly self-absorbed.
  • The uglier you look, the more people whom you know will be dying to talk to you.

23.10.07

Please, Professor, let me wake up.


Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man disturbs me more than any book I've ever read, and I've read disturbing books before: 1984, Lord of the Flies, The Yacoubian Building, The Bell Jar, Night, Rebecca, The Fortress of Solitude, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Okay, I guess I haven't read too many disturbing novels. But at least I enjoyed the ones I have read.

Invisible Man is a hyper-vivid, hyper-violent, hyper-voluptuous nightmare. It's like a memory that's too real to be true. Like hallucinating responses from ten senses instead of five. Like paranoid psychosis on acid. Like waking up one day and the entire population of the world is torturing you mentally, physically, socially, and spiritually.

I want to stop reading, put the book down, and never pick it up again. I'm not even drawn to it just to find out how it ends; I just want to forget I ever started it. The only reason I keep reading (very slowly, I started reading two months ago, and I'm just now halfway through) is because the stupid book was assigned to me. Reading it makes me sick, makes me loathe humanity.

22.10.07

Where are you, Gareth?



Whilst watching the original The Office once again, I suddenly had an urge to contact my childhood friend, Gareth. (He looked and acted like Tim, but Gareth on the show has his name.) He was half Welsh, half English, told great jokes, and figure skated. He's probably gay now. I was so in love with him.

Man, 24, loses 82-year-old wife

Again, from BBC News:
An 82-year-old Argentine woman who attracted media attention last month when she married a 24-year-old man has died as a result of heart problems.

Adelfa Volpes was admitted to hospital soon after she and her new husband, Reinaldo Waveqche, returned from their honeymoon in Brazil.

She died in a sanatorium in Santa Fe, the city where the couple were married.

Ms Volpes had rejected criticism over the age difference with the groom, who is the son of one of her best friends.

"I don't want to resign myself to the idea that I lost her," a disconsolate Mr Waveqche told EFE news agency.

The couple were married on 28 September in a civil service after several years of engagement, and later walked through a local church surrounded by reporters.

Their love is said to have blossomed when Mr Waveqche went to live with his future bride after his mother's death, when he was 15.

I feel a little sad for the guy, first his mother died, then the old woman he went to stay with comes on to him, then they got married, and now he's a widower at twenty-four. I hope they were happy together.

21.10.07

One kitchen gaget I crave above all others:

an electric kettle.

20.10.07

Tired

I am so, so, so tired. I've hardly slept all week.

I want to talk about Benazir Bhutto, I want to talk about The Queen, but my brain is cold peanut butter.

Now the cows upstairs are slamming the furniture around.

18.10.07

Truth in Comedy

My question is this: . . . Is English capable of sustaining demagoguery? . . . I mean highly charged oratory; persuasive, whipping-up rhetoric. Listen to me, listen to me. If Hitler had been British, would we, under similar circumstances, have been moved, charged up, fired up by his inflammatory speeches, or would we simply have laughed? Is English too ironic to sustain Hitlerian styles? Would his language simply have rung false in our ears?
—Stephen Fry, in episode 2 of A Bit of Fry and Laurie

17.10.07

Chuffed to Bursting

Why, oh, why are Britons so much funnier than Americans? Do they have a better sense of humour, or does their accent make everything they say funny?

This afternoon I discovered A Bit of Fry and Laurie, featuring Stephen Fry, of recent Harry Potter audiobook fame, and Hugh Laurie, now playing Dr. House on Fox. It's a little like Monty Python's Flying Circus, but it has more (relatively) high-brow wordplay. I'm just surprised that I can still find British comedies that delight me after the disappointment of Little Britain.

16.10.07

La Vida Bellísima en México

In June 2005 my aunt and uncle invited me to spend a month in a colonial town in Guanajuato (wa-na-wha-to), México with them. Guanajuato is a beautiful and prosperous state in central México, nothing like the dry pockets of desperation in places like Sonora. Above all else, I noticed how happy the people were.

And why wouldn't they be happy? Every afternoon, the abuelas bought several kilos of warm golden corn tortillas hot off the press at the local tortillería. Every Tuesday, the tianguis outside town was full of warm red and yellow mangoes, loads of fragrant spices, at least five kinds of bananas, fifteen kinds of beans, and every other wonderful thing one could possible desire. In the evenings, people met their friends in the plaza and then later gathered to set off fireworks in honor of one saint or another. When a small town finally got cobbled streets, there was much rejoicing. Few people looked hungry or sad, but also few people looked lonely.


I don't know much about Nigeria. In fact, I just realized that I've never knowingly met anyone from Nigeria. I do completely understand why México rated second in self-reported happiness. People there take setbacks in stride and treasure their families over nice cars and huge houses. Though they may have less than some (U.S.) Americans, they are a lot happier.

New Beth


This summer, I created the New Beth. She is underhanded, she is indirect, she is oh-so nice. She can better deal with BYU culture than could Old Beth. For example, New Beth dealt with the four-hundred-pound, combat-boot-wearing, screaming people upstairs:
Upstairs Neighbor. Hi?
New Beth. Hey, I'm Beth, from downstairs. Hey, cool! My bedroom's right below your living room—weird, huh?
UN. I'm Sarah. Do you want to play with us?
NB. Oh, that sounds like so much fun, but actually, I'm getting ready for bed. I just came by to see if you were okay.
UN. Uh . . . Yeah, of course we're okay.
NB. Gosh, I just heard so much pounding that I thought someone must be hurt up here. My walls were shaking! I'm so glad no one's being murdered!
UN. No one's being murdered, but I'm sorry you were worried about us. See you later!
This is what Old Beth would have said:
Upstairs Neighbor. Hi?
Old Beth. Hi, I'm Beth from downstairs. Did you know my bedroom's right under your party?
UN. Nope.
OB. Well, it is, and I'm trying to sleep. Please keep it down a bit.
UN. Whatever. (Shuts the door on Old Beth.) Can you believe that chick?! She's spoiling all of our fun!

This is how New Beth dealt with the manager when the toilet broke:
Manager. Hello?
New Beth. Well, I plunged and plunged like you told me to, and I still can't see a clog. Gosh, I just don't understand enough about toilets and plumbing and stuff. What should I try next?
M. Don't worry about it. I'll come right now.
NB. Thanks!
Old Beth's method:
Manager. Hello?
Old Beth. Well, it's been an hour since you said you'd come look at the toilet . . .
M. Did you try plunging?
OB. Yes. I missed a quiz this morning because I was plunging the toilet. I'm pretty sure that's not the problem because I had to turn off the valve to make the water stop running all over the floor. Water ran into the heat register. Could you come now?
M. Okay, whatever. I'll be there in the next few hours.

Here's an actual conversation between exboyfriend and Old Beth last spring after he hurt her best friend and she decided to tell him the naked truth:
exboyfriend. You've been pretty quiet. How are you?
Old Beth. Y'know, I used to think that we could still be friends, but now just looking at you makes me violently ill.
Here's New Beth's method of dealing with exboyfriend in front of her best friend after he continues to torment said best friend:
New Beth (knowing his lack of work experience and the great competition made his chances for said job approximately zilch). Did you get that job at the optometrist's that you were talking about?
exboyfriend: Uh, that didn't work out.
NB (knowing that he wouldn't get a job even though he's nearly 26, and that he continues taking undergrad classes full-time after graduating this April to avoid getting a job and paying off his massive student loans and MasterCard bills). Oh. So, where are you working this semester?
ex. I'm just going to school, y'know. (Trying to change subject.) My little brother just got a really good raise, though.
NB. Oh, I get it! Does your brother give you money, then?

See, New Beth is much better suited to the saccharine climate of her surroundings.

Too bad I hate her.

15.10.07

Socialism Is Funny


Wonderful blog that I've been following for a while: A Soviet Poster A Day

For a long time I had a Franco-era poster on my wall; it said, "En él que sabe de la grandeza de nuestro mañana, no cabe el pesimismo," in front of a burly, salt-of-the-earth man and a burly, salt-of-the-earth woman looking forward with determination. I'm not sure why socialism makes me so happy.

Today in Middle East History to 1800, two people behind me were arguing about school vouchers. I was considering turning around and supporting the antivoucher guy, but then he said, "Well, that's socialism, so we can't do it," to provoucher gal. What?! Like the entire public education program isn't based on a socialist ideal!

In other news, the happiest populations in the world live in Nigeria and Mexico.

14.10.07

The Cynical Romantic's Lament

I'm tired of smiling when my head hurts, of attending activities I dislike, of pretending to be interested when I just want to go home. I'm tired of the games I'm supposed to play—of flirting with purpose and of remembering names. I'm tired of "Sorry!" I'm tired of being so nice that I nauseate myself. I can't even say the word nice without hissing, without afterward swallowing the tiny bit of vomit that came up with it.
Tonight I was chatted up. I should have responded; I should have giggled and patted his arm and asked about his interests. Instead I answered a few questions, then flipped an excuse and headed back to my couch.
I like my couch, even if it does reek of cancer-causing flame-retardants. It does not stress me out. My couch does not voice expectations from our cuddling sessions. My mother does not ask me about my couch.
Yet with all that, I can't purge myself of the idea that somewhere out there is someone who will make me feel real and alive instead of fake and dead. If I could just get rid of that nasty expectation, I would be so much happier.

13.10.07

Twelfth Night Idea

I just came up with an amazing idea for performing Twelfth Night: Viola and Sebastian are from modern Greece, sailing the Aegean when their ship is wrecked on the shores of (also modern) Turkey. Malvolio is an obnoxious strict Muslim; Toby Belch is Olivia's drunk uncle; Sir Andrew Agucheek is the playboy Toby's trying to get Olivia to marry; Feste is a wandering acetic Sufi.
Culture clashes, misunderstandings, and hilariousness result. Am I brilliant, or what?

11.10.07

When they are learned they think they are wise


"Everyone gets their wisdom teeth out these days," the hygienist told me as she committed me to $797 of dental work, which I can't pay for, before the dentist will sign my mission papers.
Why do we even have wisdom teeth if everyone gets them out? How on earth do people in the UK and other less-teeth-obsessed countries than the United States live with their wisdom teeth? Why are they not all writhing in pain and dying of infection? Why can't I just let my (straight, healthy) third molars grow in?
I can understand that some people may have problems with their wisdom teeth as some people have problems with their appendixes. But everybody? That doesn't make any sense. I'm guessing that the dentist wants me to pay six hundred dollars (the other two hundred is for cavities) for a precaution.

10.10.07

If life never is better than this moment


I will always remember
thick sweet orange juice from the bottom of the pitcher
in a tall square glass
after watching Sequins

Weird Things My California-Bar-Member Mother Says

  • ¡Ábrete la boca!—Open your mouth!
  • ar-kaan-saww (said with a lilt)—Arkansas
  • boob tube—television
  • favor-īte—favorite
  • turkey—troublemaker
  • goomy bears—gummy bears
  • rain galoshes—rubber Wellington boots
  • I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.
    I love you lots.
  • It woulda bi'cha if it were a snake!—It's right under your nose.
  • You're bored outta your gourd.—You're bored stiff.
  • Hold your horsies.—Be patient.
  • You've got ants in your pants.—You can't sit still.
  • Go stand on your head and stack BBs.—Please find something to do besides bug me.
  • You're cruisin' for a bruisin'.—You're bugging me on purpose. (These last five usually came at me in this order when I was little.)

7.10.07

Pain in the Neck

If I sued the Graduate Records Examination Board because my neck hurts after bending over their subject test for three hours yesterday, would I get a higher score?

6.10.07

Dear Jake Barnes,

I wish I could tell you how much I crave you, how I go through withdrawal every time you leave me, and how I stare at my pillow at night worrying about you. I wish I could hold you instead making my back stiff like the wall between us. I wish I could be close to you without hurting you. I wish I were a better person. I wish I knew whether I loved you, or whether I'm like Brett, who "only wanted what she couldn't have."

I know I could be everything you want from a woman, but I don't know whether I should be. I want to solve your problems as your aide-de-camp, your sponsor, your helpmate. I wish life weren't so complicated: I wish I could be yours and you could be mine forever and ever.

Jake's parting words in The Sun also Rises are so like us:
"Oh, Jake," Brett said, "we could have such a damned good time together."
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
"Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

Maybe someday I'll get over you, but I'm not sure. I may still wait for you on shores of the sea of glass. You, unknowing unripe one, have part of me.

3.10.07

Dear Stupidhands,

You are the sickest piece of near-humanity to ever crawl out of the primordial slime. Please crawl back—soon, if possible.

Thanks!

Bethylene

2.10.07

Good Hair Day

I'm feeling very beautiful-and-tragic today, but no one is here to see.

EU Constitution Take 2

Personally, the only reason I'm opposed to the European Union is because it took away most of the super-cool local currencies and coins. I can also understand why the UK is less than excited about the EU, for they are slightly non-European in ideology, Zeitgeist, and economy. But I'm interested to see what will happen next for the EU reform treaty.

1.10.07

First Will and Testament

I, Bethylene, being of relatively sound mind, do hereby make my first will and testament, so that I will not be embalmed if (due to some extraordinary circumstance) I die.My workable organs I leave to whoever needs them most.

I want to be cremated, and I absolutely refuse to have a viewing. Viewings are probably the sickest ritual to ever spring from some psychopath's morbid fantasies. I will not have viewings for my parents either; I want to remember them and to be remembered alive, not as made-up, preservative-laden shells. Why on earth would anyone think that pickling and painting their relatives' dead bodies was a good idea? I don't get it.
From a religious standpoint, I do not believe that resurrection is hindered by cremation or anything else. God's power is infinite, and it would take just as much of His power to reanimate a rotten corpse as it would to raise a burned corpse.

As for everything else, I leave the $3.95 in my bank account to my brother's trust fund. He also shall inherit my heavy Revereware pans, my pan lids, and my laptop, so he can look at star charts for hours without bugging everyone else who wants to get on the computer.

My sister gets my cat (whom she must care for tenderly), my DVDs, and all the books on my shelves that she actually wants. She can have my dishes, mismatched silverware, measuring cups, and jewelry if they are not too ugly for her.

My mom gets Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, my coin collection (which is hidden in several different places), and any of my clothes that she would consider wearing. She also may reclaim all the books that I have stolen from her over the years. The lacy full-length slip and a lot of the socks in my underwear drawer shall also be returned.

Grandmother gets my books about Byzantium and the Crusades.

My dad gets my battered scriptures, in which I've scribbled many answers to my prayers. I am very sorry if I leave unpaid medical and phone bills when I die; please understand I did my best to pay them off, except I died.

My diaries and Plead should be either burned or published, whichever is the most feasible. I like to believe that the piles of mementos I've collected (including the souvenirs on my wall) will be kept and cherished, but I think I'll be okay if they're tossed out.

The Seventh Roommate gets one copy of The Reporter, since it may change his life as much as it changed mine. He can't let it depress him too much, though.

The Disney-obsessed One may search my computer for photos she wants to keep. She may also have my gold bangles, for gold looks very good on her, and they would fall off my sister's slender alabaster wrists (I'm not jealous).