The Patient Etherized

The Patient Etherized
Q: Et tu, Jonathan? A: Read. Read some more. Buy Red Bull.

Sunday, November 16, 2003

A Taster's Choice of the Quality Culture I'm Imbibing (Is that a mixed metaphor? In the banner headline? Good God!)

JSchroed03 (12:38:17 AM): remember the big black porn star I was talking about yesterday
nomisnisar (12:38:23 AM): yes
JSchroed03 (12:38:26 AM): guess 1) what his name was
nomisnisar (12:38:30 AM): mandingo
JSchroed03 (12:38:31 AM): Mandingo
JSchroed03 (12:38:32 AM): right
JSchroed03 (12:38:34 AM): I told you that
nomisnisar (12:38:36 AM): yes
JSchroed03 (12:38:39 AM): however, what I didn't tell you was this
nomisnisar (12:38:48 AM): he's your brother
JSchroed03 (12:38:51 AM): for the first six or seven minutes of initiating sex
nomisnisar (12:38:59 AM): yes?
JSchroed03 (12:38:59 AM): he was drinking a forty
nomisnisar (12:39:02 AM): haha
nomisnisar (12:39:04 AM): haha
nomisnisar (12:39:05 AM): haha
nomisnisar (12:39:07 AM): yes
JSchroed03 (12:39:14 AM): then he thought better of himself
JSchroed03 (12:39:19 AM): and put it on the ground
nomisnisar (12:39:22 AM): good god
JSchroed03 (12:39:24 AM): but not too far away so he couldn't reach it
nomisnisar (12:39:30 AM): YES!

posted by Jon | 12:00:00 PM

WORST MOVIE EVER and A Hope for Cinema, I think

Because, as Bill Simmons would say, I feel very strongly about this, I'd like to just point out the complete and utter waste of my life that was 10-12 tonight. I saw Le Divorce, which was so bad it doesn't even justify the usual joke en Francais (you know: le movie, how shall I say, oh ho ho -- etc).

My initial apoplectic fit, strained through the harmonies of IM:

JSchroed03 (12:05:28 AM): DUDE
JSchroed03 (12:05:32 AM): Roger Ebert gives the movie three stars
JSchroed03 (12:05:36 AM): what the fuck is he smoking
JSchroed03 (12:05:51 AM): I quote
JSchroed03 (12:05:54 AM): ""Le Divorce," which is about contrary French and American standards for marriage, adultery, divorce and affairs, finds that the two nations are simply incompatible."
JSchroed03 (12:06:00 AM): THE MOVIE IS ABOUT NO SUCH THING
JSchroed03 (12:07:51 AM): He was obviously having gay butt sex too
JSchroed03 (12:07:57 AM): since he quoted this line and said the mother said it
JSchroed03 (12:08:01 AM): "as when she orders in a restaurant: "Could I just get like a steak poivre and a salad vert, tres well?"'
JSchroed03 (12:08:10 AM): THAT WAS SAID BY THE FUCKING SON YOU DIPSHIT
JSchroed03 (12:10:41 AM): For a review that's right on though, read The Guardian

My opinion of Ebert continues to plummet, just as the Merchant Ivory people behind the film should have plummetted to their deaths after making this piece of shite. Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts could do nothing but flounder with a terrible script that gave no character background and created no dramatic tension. Sure, a fine movie can play on these things and create a theater of the absurd, but this movie was anything but fine, anything but nuanced in the possibilities of genre. Yes, the nod to Isabel Archer (Hudson's name in the movie was Isabel Walker) shows that the writer's been reading his James, but small monkeys can also read such lofty books.

The movie contained so many loose threads it was hard not to laugh at random parts of the movie; I was half hoping some robot puppets like in MT3K would pop up and start bludgeoning the poor dialogue to death, and perhaps the characters. I've always found Glenn Close annoying, and the trope of the famous American writer living in Paris was even more hackneyed than the Sylvia Plath-Ted Hughes trans-Atlantic myth of a relationship that the writers imbued into the Naomi Watts-French-husband-that-leaves-relationship.

Why do Hollywood writers lack style?

***

Which brings me to the other movie I saw, on Friday -- Igby Goes Down, quite possibly the best movie I've seen in a year or two. I don't feel moved to write about it because I liked it so much (not to say I'm a cynical bitch that only enjoys criticizing, right?).

posted by Jon | 11:57:00 AM

Thursday, November 13, 2003

What had enabled colonization in the first place was the gap between Europe and other regions in the application of instrumental reason to commercial, technological, and administrative enterprise. The subordinated eventually learned to invoke the right to self-determination and struggled over a long period to acquire the right to independent nationhood. However, when the freedom of self-determination arrived, it did not altogether fulfill all that it had seemed to promise.

-- Rajeev Patke, "Benjamin's Arcades Project and the Postcolonial City," in Diacritics winter of 2000

Note to self: if you can eventually summarize a complex phenomenon in this manner, you too will be a smart monkey.

posted by Jon | 1:02:00 PM

Dirty Deeds [low, gravelly voice] and they're done dirty cheap -- ACDC

In my all-night vigil (aka not being able to sleep) trying to finish as much of the "dirty work" on my grad school applications, I heard about the dirty deeds done by the vermin with the free hotmail account.

As Sonny Chiba says to Uma Thurman in Kill Bill: "You must have big vermin to kill."

Uma Thurman's response: "Huuge."

Beware the sword of Hattori Hanso; if you hear ACDC rocking around your flat, it's time to run.

...concrete shoes, cyanide, TNT... DONE DIRT CHEAP!

posted by Jon | 7:54:00 AM

Monday, November 10, 2003

Well, so much has happened in the past few days, but I've been very lazy about blogging. Let's see if I can do a rundown of events post-Saturday:

1) I woke up early at 10:30am and spent the next few hours accomplishing online tasks and putting off studying for my literature exam. However I took a nap that negated this great accomplishment. Then after eating Japanese with Aruna, Nancy, and Stacey, I saw them off at the Orchard MRT. As I was walking toward Borders I noticed four guys trying to go across the crosswalk as the little green man switched over to the red. Two of the guys ran across and the other two started to but traffic was already streaming past. I didn't really think anything more about this as I tried to type an SMS. Then I looked at the traffic coming the other way and noticed a lull. For a brief instant I thought about crossing but decided to wait for the green signal. Then out of the lull came a solitary taxi speeding by very fast. I let the taxi pass my view but then suddenly turned to the noise and confusion that followed. I turned just in time to see the taxi slam on the breaks ... too late ... and hit one of the guys right in the knees.

The man flew up in the air in such an insubstantial way it looked like he was filled with feathers, not bones and flesh. He went straight up in the air and it seemed like a cartoon the way the force suddenly impacted his body, making him flip completely and then flinging him 10 feet diagonally off the road against a tree.

I screamed instinctively and got incredibly upset. I swore that he was dead because he didn't move at all. The taxi cab driver was making frantic gestures. I called a few people. I crossed the road because I didn't want to be one of those people who gawked at the victim of an accident. I looked across the road for a long time and thought how strange it was, because after the initial accident, perhaps after 10 minutes, people had left the scene and the crowd filtered down Orchard as if nothing had happened before. Traffic was ushered past by the taxi driver, who was eventually replaced by a police man, but still no ambulance had come.

That was a jarring experience and the most immediate and traumatic look I'd had at death. Maybe I'll expound on it later.

2) Saturday morning, after a long bout of insomnia, I took my GRE subject test in Literature (or as I like to think of it -- Subject test in P-A-I-N). 230 questions in a row over two hours and fifty minutes, an average of about forty-five seconds per question. Needless to say it was hard.

After the test I passed my ass out within the friendly confines of Sixth Ave. After a long nap I was partially recuperated. I found out at 7 pm that I could have tickets to the Elite Model show at the Indoor Stadium. Yes, of course I wanted to go. Ooh so many 14-20 year old hotties strutting around in their six foot, 23 inch waist goodness.

But as I was rushing home in the cab, we hit traffic and I couldn't get home until 7:50. So in my frantic rush to get presentable I found out the doors closed at 8:20, so I wasn't able to go. I also might have had tickets to the afterparty at Velvet Underground but we decided to go out to a few bars first -- hit up Blu at Shangri La which was ok except the martinis were small and the lounge singer stopped around 12:30. Next we went to the Fullerton's Post Bar, which was fabulous since the drinks are incredibly well mixed. I had a caipiroska, which is a variant of a caipirinha.

Didn't get to sleep until about 7am, and woke up at 4pm the next day, having had strange dreams where I was in an action-adventure movie that was filmed in my own apartment. Damn simulacrum I live in!

2) Sunday, I woke up late, as mentioned, and then spent the beginning of the day doing a bit of writing. After that I met Aruna and Stacey in Holland V at Brecko's for food. Manish came later and we saw Man U beat Liverpool 2-1. Stayed up until 8am chipping away at my statement of purpose, additional information sheet, and writing sample.

And that brings us up to today, in which I saw Kill Bill a third time (woohoo, thanks for the invite Gail) and generally chilled out a bit from all the stress of the past week. And, yes, that's what I'm doing now.

Adios [-o-]

posted by Jon | 10:52:00 AM

Saturday, November 08, 2003

Finally the quiz of all quizzes

If I didn't get the Eagles question right I think I would have been really bad. This is unbelievably hard.

posted by Jon | 8:00:00 AM

Thursday, November 06, 2003

I actually got to sleep by two last night so hopefully I'm going to break out of my bad sleeping schedule.

I'm also getting a sore throat at the same time so hopefully that goes away because I'm not in the mood to be sick again. It started about the same time I ate a lot of yogurt, but I won't blame the yogurt just yet.

You are my so-oh-oh-oole satellite/ I'd be lost in space without you oo oo. -- Lighthouse Family, "Lost in Space"

posted by Jon | 10:16:00 PM

Tuesday, November 04, 2003

It's 7:43.

I have officially just put my pants on.

A new record.

posted by Jon | 6:46:00 AM

Eh, so sue me if I took the same test as everyone else

pho

You are Form 0, Phoenix: The Eternal.

"And The Phoenix's cycle had reached
zenith, so he consumed himself in fire. He
emerged from his own ashes, to be forever
immortal."

Some examples of the Phoenix Form are Quetzalcoatl
(Aztec), Shiva (Indian), and Ra-Atum
(Egyptian).
The Phoenix is associated with the concept of life,
the number 0, and the element of fire.
His sign is the eclipsed sun.

As a member of Form 0, you are a determined
individual. You tend to keep your sense of
optimism, even through tough times and have a
positive outlook on most situations. You have
a way of looking at going through life as a
journey that you can constantly learn from.
Phoenixes are the best friends to have because
they cheer people up easily.

Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

There are always hideous typos in these quizzes. Typo of the day (since fixed) is "optomism." But that isn't even very good compared to the one Peter King saw on a sign for a coffee/breakfast stall in Manhattan's west side, a sign that yelps:

COFFEE, TEA, BAGELS, DOUNETS

I could understand misspelling "donuts" or "doughnuts" as "do-nuts" or "donutts.' But "dounets?" Who pronounces the convenient breakfast hand-food DOW-nets?

Or maybe the owner's French. Doo-nez anyone?

posted by Jon | 6:44:00 AM

Monday, November 03, 2003

Maybe I'm stressing out too much...

But I just worked myself up into a quivering ball of anxiety over the prospect of having to take the LSATs Dec 5th, the GRE subject test Nov. 8th, finish my journal article by Nov. 15th, and complete my Mellon application by Dec. 1st.

I've written about 500 words of my statement of purpose for grad school essays, which is a good thing. However I'm really stressing out about the LSATs, just like I always have. I think I may end up taking them in February or June since I'll have time this year. Better to do things linearly I think. Also it may not look good to apply to grad and law schools concurrently. Nancy was saying that a lot of grad school burnouts end up at law school which is a good option in my opinion. The LSAT scores are good for five years so they can provide a safety net for me while in grad school.

Funny note of the day: I'm drinking some Tropicana OJ right now out of the bottle, and I set it down on the chair next to my computer. It says on the side:

The Power of Vitamin E: (I'm drinking the "Double Vitamin C with 100% Vitamin E" orange juice)

Bullet Point 1: Quenches the negative effects of oxidation.

Now, and I could be wrong about this, but when you're talking about drinking something, "quench" means to satisfy. So it's saying that it "satisfies the negative effects of oxidation?" Haha. I guess it could be playing on a double meaning of the word but it sounds damn funny anyway.

Listening to: Trance Energy 2002. It's old but I like the songs on it and it has helped me write many a paper before. Fucking empowering music. Yes, Vic, it even has that Resurrection song by PPK. Oh and to make you jealous, Digweed should be here again in a few weeks. And to make me jealous, you live in London, you lucky bastard, so you probably can do anything you want in terms of seeing cool DJs. Plus I bet I'll get the plague and miss him just like I missed Tiesto a few weeks ago.

posted by Jon | 4:07:00 PM

Saturday, November 01, 2003

The Twilight Zone

Just came across this blog, "The Cardinal Collective," from Stanford, primarily made up of current and former members of The Stanford Review, which, correct me if I'm wrong, is the conservative publication in Stanford.

I nearly choked on my cereal when I noticed a few familiar issues that kept cropping up. To wit:

1) The ability of other campus publications to distribute door to door. Hmm, sounds familiar...
2) That pesky daily paper that keeps publishing mediocre writing. (Sample criticism: "DAILY PUBLISHES GREAT OP-ED: That's not a blog title I'd ever thought I'd write.")

Just a few coincidences? You be the judge...

Sidenote: If only the contributors didn't put such an arrogant subheadline on their blog ("the brightest american thinkers under forty"), I'd look at them in a more favorable light.

posted by Jon | 1:45:00 AM