Last night I met (very briefly) a guy who works for the Onion. I took the opportunity to ask him a question that's been on my mind for some time:
"Why is The Onion only funny every third week?"
"Uh, I don't know," he responded. "Why is Victoria's Secreet only funny every third week?"
"Oh," I said, "You must be one of the guys who writes the other two weeks." K 12:42 PM
4.7.2004
Happy anniversary
A year ago today there was a huge snowstorm. I broke my nose in yoga class in the morning and outed my blog at work in the afternoon.
Today I didn't go to yoga. I woke up at 4:15 and discovered that when my window is open I can still hear the chickens crowing on my block.
At about 5:30 am there are apparently always amazing songbirds outside my window if I am awake to hear them.
Despite the fact that I have resolved never again to think about work when I'm not at work, I thought about how pointlessly stressful my day at work was going to be until 6:30, then slept until 8:30.
On my way home from work I ran into Kevin Davies on the subway. Then I got off the subway and ran into my neighbor.
I bought bread and juice and went home and ate incredible tomato soup and talked on the phone while I put together a mushroom carrot loaf, which I will bake tomorrow.
I put Henry on his perch and put his perch on the kitchen counter. He talked a blue streak and ate some dill. He was thrilled to be included in whatever important thing it was that I was doing. I hadn't seen him so happy in a long time.
Henry's happiness reminded me that cooking is something I used to do when I lived in Berkeley, when I had a lot of time and I spent one tenth of it in my basement apartment writing and the other nine tenths in the apartment or walking around it, avoiding writing. Is it necessary to have a lot of time to spend avoiding writing, in order to do the writing? Is that my problem?
Henry is definitely very much his or her own person, but I can't help being attracted to the poetic notion of the bird as a soul, a delicate barometer of one's inner weather. If I don't spend enough time alone in my apartment being productive, I am very unhappy, and Henry shows it. But tonight we were happy.
Henry flew back to his cage and the red tulips and the pink tulips from my birthday party lost most of their petals in his wind, so I threw them out.
I found Nada's empty little bottle of Godiva liqueur on the bookshelf and recycled it.
I listened to track 4 of Joanna Newsom's "The Milk-Eyed Mender", which I fell in love with about a week ago. I discovered that my CD player is more broken than I thought and won't repeat the same track over and over again.
I skimmed "Letters to a Young Novelist" and decided that I am a poet.
I skimmed "Letters to a Young Poet" and decided that I am a novelist.
I saw Rocky Horror on TV recently for the first time in about 12 years and was openmouthedly shocked at how blatantly certain scenes were clearly pinched, nodded to, or otherwise acknowledged as paradigms of masculine symbolism by Matthew Barney in Cremaster 3.
The similarities don't extend throughout Rocky Horror, which, if you ask me, should have ended after Susan Sarandon sings her "I wanna be DIR-R-TEE" song. (Replacing super-soft, hilariously campy porn with an alien subplot is probably never a good idea.)
But the middle portion of the film, in which the male prototype Rocky is revealed, is creepily similar to the portion of Cremaster 3 that's set in the Guggenheim.
Please believe me. I have evidence:
CREMASTER 3
Glammed-up, oversexualized female henchmen feel up Matthew Barney in a weird, round, cream-colored, high-vaulted arena that can be ascended via a circular ramp.
ROCKY HORROR
Glammed-up, oversexualized female henchmen Columbia (who, by the way, looks JUST LIKE Boy George – another influence exposed?) and what's-her-name feel up Rocky in a weird, cream-colored, high-vaulted arena that is suddenly ascended by Meatloaf on a motorcycle, bedecked in full hick paraphenalia, via a circular ramp.*
CREMASTER 3
Immediately after scaling the Guggenheim, our newly proven hero Matthew Barney encounters a huge pyramid of strange-looking barbells shaped like huge bones and, in a nod to some kind of ancient Scottish ritual, spends some time showing off his strength while trying to get them lined up in exactly the right way.
ROCKY HORROR
Immediately after awakening the lust of every man and woman in the room, our newly created pin-up Rocky encounters a large pyramid of strange-looking barbells wrapped in plastic and, with the encouragement of Tim Curry, spends some time showing off his muscles by moving the barbells around in exactly the right way.
CREMASTER 3
Matthew Barney, dressed only in a kilt and displaying superhuman strength, represents the prototypical male hero (also known as the testicle).
ROCKY HORROR
Rocky, dressed only in some really tight shiny boxers, represents the idealized male fuck (also known as the penis).
*Hicks and motorcycles are two more Barney tropes (see Cremaster 2 and 4 respectively).
I can't wait to see what Google's automatic adbox makes of this post.
This morning in yoga we all kept hearing a very loud retching sound coming from outdoors. Not just any retching sound, but the worst imaginable retching sound, so awful it was almost theatrical. Several of us collapsed into giggles.
Turned out there was a junkie or bum outdoors who was puking blood on the shala steps. Someone called an ambulance to come take him away, and our poor teacher -- he was absent for much of the class mopping up the blood.
"I guess there's still a little bit of character left in the neighborhood," he said. K 6:05 PM
