Bookends Theme
(5-14 August 2001)
14 August 2001
[from the Grand
Canyon]
-Seen about a billion shooting stars tonight. I
thought about a
lot.
-It's only been a year.
-The Canyon never fails to impress.
13 August
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-Ariela definitely brought the clouds with her.
-I
can't believe that
in 2 weeks, I'm gonna be back in Waltham. Wow.
12 August
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-Well, the weather held up for the show, & what a show
it was!
Though it was not as great for Ariela (no "What a Good Boy"), they
played just
about everything else I could've hoped for. It was a very theme-laden show
for me, as the
setlist will demonstrate. Mainly one theme.
& it
sure didn't help that PLB's brother was on the lawn blanket NEXT to ours. Go
home &
calculate those odds. He was with Rachel Syme of BTATBF fame & some
other AA folk I
didn't recognize. Anyway, it was not well timed, given my recent mental
wanderings, but
so it goes. Then BNL was like "Oh, we hear you too!" Christ.
Anyway,
all that amounts to heaps of nothing worthwhile, so I'm just going to leave it
where it is &
let the list speak for itself. They're really hysterical & wacky live
though (as
advertised), so it was a good time & even my Mom really liked the
show!
-When is
UNet gonna get its act together?! Now
it says my
page doesn't exist, along with every other Deis student's!
-Ah, the night
drivin'...
-For
the love of the baby, WHERE are the people I've sent my novel to?! Feedback
ANYone?!
-"Anyone perfect must be lying, anything easy has its cost, anyone
plain can be lovely,
anyone loved can be lost. What if I lost my direction, what if I lost a sense
of time,
what if I nursed this infection, maybe the worst is behind."
11 August 2001
[from Albuquerque]
-Lousy dreams last night. One in particular,
really.
-This
weather does not look promising for tonight's show. But maybe if it starts
out bad, it'll
be good by afternoon; the opposite of the afternoon thunderstorm
pattern.
-Ariela, guest
introspecter, is here. Not that she's writing this, but she's reading this!
"Ah ha!" she says. Introspecter? That's a weird word.
Also,
you won't read this till the 13th because blasted unet is down. Go bomb
their site.
Uh, I mean, thanks for the free webspace, Unet!
10 August
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-Schneider & I could not be much more
different.
-Gris is in
& Ariela begins her week in town later today!
-Are my priorities really
THAT uncommon?
I sure hope not. 1 in 6 billion would scare me infinitely more than 1
in 3
billion.
-The date of the roadtrip launch is now set at 20 August.
Subject to change,
but most likely that's when we're taking off. There's already disagreements
on where
we'll stay along the way, but hey, it's gonna be a good time nonetheless.
& this is
the fullest schedule we've got... all on-trip planning will be done on-trip, when
it
belongs.
-Who knew that my views on global warming weren't known by all my
friends? Jake &
Fish, that's who. Who knew they aren't exactly popular or widely held
beliefs?
Me, but also everybody. The only good way to close this entry is with
some Bobby D:
"Half the people can be part right all of the time & some of the
people can be
all right part of the time, but all the people can't be all right all of the time.
I
think Abraham Lincoln said that. I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in
yours. I
said that."
-Whoa! CC in October in Massachusetts! What could
be better? Who's with
me??
9 August
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-Drew says he reads this page sporadically, but often only
searches
through the Archives for instances of the word "Drew". Methinks I
will start
ending every 12th entry with his name, just to throw him off. So don't be
alarmed if
random "Drew"s start popping up.
-I love all this rising discussion
of global
warming because the east coast is in a heat wave. It's SUMMER. It's
supPOSed to
be hot! & here's a news flash: the climate goes in cycles.
It's going to
be warmer some years than others. If you think the planet is so stable as to
not have
cyclical climate changes over long periods of time, talk to the people under Mt.
Etna.
Planets so stable as to not have rising & falling temperatures on
possibly
centuries-long cycles do not have earthquakes & volcanic eruptions! But
Earth is not
that stable. Again, don't get me wrong, I think the belief in the mythical
global
warming has a good IMPACT (environmentalism is good), but I do not buy the myth.
It's a
good thing that some people do, though, so we don't destroy the planet in other
ways. Call
it the noble lie.
-Since it's been requested, & since I've been reading,
methinks John
Irving is getting lazy as a writer. I preface all this by saying that my own
recent
writing process has made me obscenely more conscious of style & details &
flow than
normal, so maybe this is just an outgrowth of taking 3 months off from reading to
write instead.
But he really seems to do a lot of after-the-fact weaving of his story, so
that the
details look forced rather than natural. But that could just be my biases,
as well as
not having finished the book yet. Also, though, Irving always makes me feel
a little
shameful. Part of me thinks he's just a romance novelist hack in literate
clothing.
I mean, I'm not a reading prude, but sometimes the graphic nature of his
sexual stuff
just makes me feel like I'm not getting much redeeming content. I never can
be sure,
though.
-Where is everybody?
8 August
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-LB#4=Dad. But Lisha has yet to give feedback...
(hint,
hint).
-Feeling good, feeling good.
7 August
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-& second across the "Loosely Based" finish
line is my
mother.
-Where is my Diplo GM?! This
is getting
ridiculous... he's consistently 36+ hours behind deadline pace. Ah
well.
-Anybody
got spiffy ideas for the APDA site? It
looks mighty
dull right now, but Schtenio's still hoarding the files. I want to work on
something,
but I don't think there's anything neat I can do till we have the full old site
back.
-I
should also scan some pics for this site, but the monitor on that computer's been
having
trouble. Also, the resolution quality is marginal. Where can I scan in
JPG format?
Maybe at the 'Deis computer labs. Which reminds me that I still don't
know what
classes I'm taking next year! Hmmmm, do I have a coursebook lying
around?...
-& now for something truly amusing: since I'm allowing
myself to read again, I've
been dabbling into Irving's latest ("The Fourth Hand"). Anyway, he
goes on for
literally 4 pages or something about how thin this one particular character is,
culminating in
the shocking fact that he's (gasp!) 5'11", 135. 135?! I've NEVER been
135! My
best day ever was 132 or something, & I happen to be 5'11". Right now,
I'm probably
125. Jeez.
-I hate Kinko's!! Bastards! They've flipped one set
of pages &
actually LEFT OUT another!
-As she posted, LB#3 is Alisha Creel. Not that
I want people to hurry through it or
anything...
6 August
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-Happy Birthday, Shannon!
-Looking over a year ago's
editions of this
page, it would seem that I'm a bit different. Maybe it's just the novel this
summer being
quite a departure from last year & the GC, but I feel like I may actually have
changed a bit
since then. Or maybe I just had different focal points for the same
lens.
-Mesco's right. Lisha & I really do dialogue through our update
pages. Ah
well. To continue the trend, I liked "Things to Do in Denver When You're
Dead"
mostly because I found it hysterical. Also though because Jimmy the Saint is
just too
ridiculously cool to be a real character, & all his lines are funny.
& who can
argue with Christopher Walken as a mob boss? With Christopher Lloyd as a guy
called
"Pieces"? All the characterizations are great, but it has an
undercurrent of
meaning & depth to it that's also neat. The old man in the diner helps
really make
the film. I guess I just like the atmosphere of it mostly. It may be a
little
predictable, but I'm sometimes willing to suspend plot complication for mood in my
movie
watching. Did I mention "boat drinks"?
-The closing credits of
"Rush Hour 2" are better than the movie. Not to
say that the movie was bad, just that the credits were AWESOME.
5 August
2001
[from Albuquerque]
-It's afternoon thunderstorm season in a big way 'round
here. I
find that very fitting for the time being.
-Now only lasts for one
second.
-Random House
takes THREE MONTHS to get back on unsolicited novel submissions. Three
months?! I'm
prompted to believe that they do all the things I talk about in the Fine
Print of yore... i.e. "copied, faxed, re-transmitted, re-done, talked
about, flown
around the world, saturated, posted to a wall, sat on, thrown away, burned, eaten,
indicted,
shoplifted, lectured, operated on, sued, translated into Dutch, buried, fried with
bacon, worn
as a hat, converted to gold, made into one of those Origami cranes, or anything
else you can
think of". That must be their book submission review process.
-Why
do some people
just get lousy parents?
-Ladies & gentlemen, David Kunkel is the first
person on the planet to finish reading
"Loosely Based". Other than the author, of course. (He liked
it quite a
bit, too.)
-I guess nobody delivers mail on Saturday anymore.
-I haven't seen
"Trainspotting", but I highly doubt it's better than "Things to Do
in Denver
When You're Dead", as Lisha argues. The latter is probably on the top
twenty list,
though I only have a definitive top ten right now. BOAT DRINKS!
Introspection, My Worst
Friend* (Current)
Ye Olde Archive (Past)
Tell me this is not the end...*
*-lyrics from an as-yet unreleased song, "The Same Old
Frontiers",
by SWClayton.