so it turned out that lunch with dago was a lot of time alone with him and his sons. it was pretty awesome. i didn't gush over him and tell him how much i loved his work, which actually required some effort on my part. we did, on the other hand, talk about how sad it is that after all these years and all these great chicano books, mango street is still the only representation most students get when it comes to mexican american literature. of course, this is a fine line to be walking when you're sitting there amidst sandra's closest friends (and in my case, you're her employee!), but it's not to say that i dislike the book -- i just wish other writers were acknowledged.
anyway, last night we went to eat at oloroso, which was a completely unique experience for me. the wine was great, along with the tomato salad, but apparently my palette isn't refined enough for "contemporary mediterranean cuisine" because i wasn't the biggest fan of the main course... or the dessert. anyway, it was a gorgeous atmosphere and a small group of people. i had the opportunity to meet marjorie agosin who took quite a liking to me because she said i looked "just like her daughter." very interesting. anyway, it was a time.
tonight is the first night of readings. until then, i shall be running around OLLU like a chicken with its head cut off.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
third day
now my room has flowers. yay me.
it's not even noon yet and i've already been up and at it like crazy. today, though, i'm having lunch with dagoberto gilb and i'm preeeetty excited. updates soon.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
first day
live from dorm #222, it's macondo week. today was the first day and i'm effin beat. only six more days to go!
Thursday, July 16, 2009
fuck you, sleep.
i don't need you.
god i can't remember the last time i fell asleep at a decent hour. i'm in pain.
god i can't remember the last time i fell asleep at a decent hour. i'm in pain.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
lookie what i did
i helped design this for the workshop and today it's done! 'twas a month in the making; i'm so proud.
one more before 3 am hits...
there's this couple i know. and in one month (and one day), they will have been dating for two years.
that's right, readers, someone has managed to tolerate my incessant whining/nagging/awesomeness for two years. i like him a whole hell of a lot.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
sleep is for the birds
i have a mean case of insomnia these days. i also have a bum knee that's aching as i type.
since securing a place to live in austin, i spend a lot of time browsing websites for stuff to fill my new place, which eventually led me to etsy, which always leads me astray, which tonight led me to these gems, which i need (obviously):
and! and! and!
who is this person on etsy stealing that which makes me yvette and profiting? wait a second here... i think this means... no it can't... yes i'm quite certain... I'M NOT ALL THAT ORIGINAL (great, just when i found something a little happier to discuss (¿y que bonitas, no?) i lose track and start down another path of wah wah wahs)
since securing a place to live in austin, i spend a lot of time browsing websites for stuff to fill my new place, which eventually led me to etsy, which always leads me astray, which tonight led me to these gems, which i need (obviously):
and! and! and!
who is this person on etsy stealing that which makes me yvette and profiting? wait a second here... i think this means... no it can't... yes i'm quite certain... I'M NOT ALL THAT ORIGINAL (great, just when i found something a little happier to discuss (¿y que bonitas, no?) i lose track and start down another path of wah wah wahs)
back to the happiness
oh dear me, i just realized that the picasso earrings were placed upon a section of none other than Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. sweet relief, this person is not me! i would never, never place such a work of art on such a piece of shit, especially a piece of shit that one, kelly wiechart, forced me to read.
speaking of english teachers, there was once a particular idub teacher that i liked quite a bit. in fact, she was one of the first to actually pull me aside and encourage me to develop my writing. guess what she's doing now? she's fucking teaching yoga. yeah. she's a yoga instructor*. i'm dropping out of grad school. her opinion has officially been invalidated and with it some of the very foundation upon which i built this idea that i am somewhat talented has come crashing down at my feet.
i'm done with role models. 'cept my moms, pops, and bros. the rest of you... i don't need you anymore. all you do is disappoint (this means you, aliana!).
*this post is by no means meant as an attack on yoga instructors in general. i do not think yoga instructors are stupid or below my intelligence level. seriously. i swear it. believe me. pretend?
Monday, July 13, 2009
woe-a-thon
dear blog,
why are all of my old idub classmates vacationing in europe right now? what egregious error have i made against the gods such that i am not currently - nor have i ever been - vacationing in europe? i was amongst the poorer iwhs students; can i attribute their vacations to the fact that they have mummy (shout out to the brits) and daddy funding them?
this is why facebook blows some(most)times. i don't want to see twenty million albums filled with your vacation photos (particularly those of landscapes or famous architectural landmarks - unless you're in them/next to them and you've gotten a terrible haircut and/or gained 20lbs). yeah, yeah, i know i don't have to look, but you pollute my news feed for a week straight as you upload each new album and there's not much i can do about that.
wah
until next time, please enjoy some pics of me and my family on our last european vacation (reader says "huh?!")... yeah, we look a little different, but they're old...
why are all of my old idub classmates vacationing in europe right now? what egregious error have i made against the gods such that i am not currently - nor have i ever been - vacationing in europe? i was amongst the poorer iwhs students; can i attribute their vacations to the fact that they have mummy (shout out to the brits) and daddy funding them?
this is why facebook blows some(most)times. i don't want to see twenty million albums filled with your vacation photos (particularly those of landscapes or famous architectural landmarks - unless you're in them/next to them and you've gotten a terrible haircut and/or gained 20lbs). yeah, yeah, i know i don't have to look, but you pollute my news feed for a week straight as you upload each new album and there's not much i can do about that.
wah
until next time, please enjoy some pics of me and my family on our last european vacation (reader says "huh?!")... yeah, we look a little different, but they're old...
Thursday, July 9, 2009
correction
i'd like to retract most of what i said regarding woody allen. this is a little strange, but i bought the transcript from his interview with terry gross and read it the other day. i for about all the amazing things he said regarding his philosophy of life. it's pretty much exactly how i feel. An excerpt (it's long, but worth it):
GROSS: One day, Boris finds a teen-aged runaway named Melodie, played by Evan Rachel Wood, sitting in front of his Manhattan home, begging for some food. He reluctantly takes her in, she stays, and they eventually marry, in spite of the approximately 40-year age difference between them and in spite of the fact that Boris thinks she’s brainless.
At the start of the film, Boris states his philosophy of life, which is: Life is short, so take what little pleasure you can get in this chamber of horrors. It’s a philosophy expressed in several Woody Allen movies. Here’s Woody Allen at the beginning of “Annie Hall.”
(Soundbite of film, “Annie Hall”)
Mr. WOODY ALLEN (Filmmaker): (As Alvy Singer) There’s an old joke. Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of them says boy, the food at this place is really terrible. The other one says yeah, I know, and such small portions.
Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life, full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.
GROSS: At least three of your films kind of start with the same premise. I’m wondering why has this question framed several of your movies, that life is hard, life is full of pain, but life is short, so do what you can to get some pleasure.
Mr. ALLEN: Well, this is hardly an original thought with me. I mean, down through the ages, all the important writers and all the important philosophers have, in one form or another, come to the conclusion, the obvious conclusion, that you know, life is a terrible trial and very harsh and very full of suffering, and so whatever you can do with the stipulation that you don’t hurt anybody without, you know, ruining a life here or there or causing any damage, there’s nothing wrong with it.
GROSS: So when we talk about making movies, does that give you pleasure? Like what’s the ratio of pleasure and pain in making a film?
Mr. ALLEN: Well you know, it’s a different kind of pain. See, making a movie is a great distraction from the real agonies of the world. It’s an overwhelmingly, you know, difficult thing to do.
You’ve got to deal with actors and temperaments and scripts and second acts and third acts and camera work and costumes and sets and editing and music, and you know, there’s enough in that to keep you distracted almost all the time. And if I’m locked into what would appear to be a painful situation because half my movie works, let’s say, and the whole second half of it doesn’t work, or a character in my movie is terrible, you don’t believe the love story or something, these are all problems that are, or generally are, solvable with reshooting, with editing, with thinking, diagnosing what’s wrong. And they distract you from the real problems of life, which are unsolvable and very painful problems.
Also in the problems of moviemaking, if you don’t solve your problem, all that happens to you is that your movie bombs. So the movie is terrible. So people don’t come to see it. Critics don’t like it. The public doesn’t like it. This is hardly a terrible punishment in life compared to what you’re given out in the real world of human existence.
GROSS: So, may I ask, what are some of the real problems that making movies distracts you from?
Mr. ALLEN: Well, they distract me from the same problems that you face or that anyone faces, you know, the uncertainty of life and inevitability of aging and death, and death of loved ones, and mass killings and starvations and holocausts, and not just the manmade carnage but the existential position that you’re in, you know, being in a world where you have no idea what’s going on, why you’re here or what possible meaning your life can have and the conclusion that you come to after a while, that there is really no meaning to it, and it’s just a random, meaningless event, and these are pretty depressing thoughts. And if you spend much time thinking about them, not only can’t you resolve them, but you sit frozen in your seat. You can’t even get up to have your lunch.
So it’s better to, you know, distract yourself, and people distract themselves creatively, you know, in the arts. They distract themselves in business or by following baseball teams and worrying over batting averages and who wins the pennant, and these are all things that you do and focus on rather than sit home and worry.
And that, my friends, sums up how I feel about life. It really does.
GROSS: One day, Boris finds a teen-aged runaway named Melodie, played by Evan Rachel Wood, sitting in front of his Manhattan home, begging for some food. He reluctantly takes her in, she stays, and they eventually marry, in spite of the approximately 40-year age difference between them and in spite of the fact that Boris thinks she’s brainless.
At the start of the film, Boris states his philosophy of life, which is: Life is short, so take what little pleasure you can get in this chamber of horrors. It’s a philosophy expressed in several Woody Allen movies. Here’s Woody Allen at the beginning of “Annie Hall.”
(Soundbite of film, “Annie Hall”)
Mr. WOODY ALLEN (Filmmaker): (As Alvy Singer) There’s an old joke. Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of them says boy, the food at this place is really terrible. The other one says yeah, I know, and such small portions.
Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life, full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.
GROSS: At least three of your films kind of start with the same premise. I’m wondering why has this question framed several of your movies, that life is hard, life is full of pain, but life is short, so do what you can to get some pleasure.
Mr. ALLEN: Well, this is hardly an original thought with me. I mean, down through the ages, all the important writers and all the important philosophers have, in one form or another, come to the conclusion, the obvious conclusion, that you know, life is a terrible trial and very harsh and very full of suffering, and so whatever you can do with the stipulation that you don’t hurt anybody without, you know, ruining a life here or there or causing any damage, there’s nothing wrong with it.
GROSS: So when we talk about making movies, does that give you pleasure? Like what’s the ratio of pleasure and pain in making a film?
Mr. ALLEN: Well you know, it’s a different kind of pain. See, making a movie is a great distraction from the real agonies of the world. It’s an overwhelmingly, you know, difficult thing to do.
You’ve got to deal with actors and temperaments and scripts and second acts and third acts and camera work and costumes and sets and editing and music, and you know, there’s enough in that to keep you distracted almost all the time. And if I’m locked into what would appear to be a painful situation because half my movie works, let’s say, and the whole second half of it doesn’t work, or a character in my movie is terrible, you don’t believe the love story or something, these are all problems that are, or generally are, solvable with reshooting, with editing, with thinking, diagnosing what’s wrong. And they distract you from the real problems of life, which are unsolvable and very painful problems.
Also in the problems of moviemaking, if you don’t solve your problem, all that happens to you is that your movie bombs. So the movie is terrible. So people don’t come to see it. Critics don’t like it. The public doesn’t like it. This is hardly a terrible punishment in life compared to what you’re given out in the real world of human existence.
GROSS: So, may I ask, what are some of the real problems that making movies distracts you from?
Mr. ALLEN: Well, they distract me from the same problems that you face or that anyone faces, you know, the uncertainty of life and inevitability of aging and death, and death of loved ones, and mass killings and starvations and holocausts, and not just the manmade carnage but the existential position that you’re in, you know, being in a world where you have no idea what’s going on, why you’re here or what possible meaning your life can have and the conclusion that you come to after a while, that there is really no meaning to it, and it’s just a random, meaningless event, and these are pretty depressing thoughts. And if you spend much time thinking about them, not only can’t you resolve them, but you sit frozen in your seat. You can’t even get up to have your lunch.
So it’s better to, you know, distract yourself, and people distract themselves creatively, you know, in the arts. They distract themselves in business or by following baseball teams and worrying over batting averages and who wins the pennant, and these are all things that you do and focus on rather than sit home and worry.
And that, my friends, sums up how I feel about life. It really does.
Friday, July 3, 2009
this.is.my.life.
ANHEDONIA: an inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable life events such as eating, exercise, and social or sexual interaction.
well, minus the sexual interaction part.
well, minus the sexual interaction part.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
you'll always be alvy to me.
so i finally had the chance to listen to terry gross's interview with woody allen. it depressed me (i bet you're thinking "what doesn't depress you?") for two reasons:
partially because he always made me feel better. you CAN be neurotic and crazy and cynical and depressive and funny and smart and entertaining all at once!
1. he sounds so old now. granted, he's in his 70s, but it was still slightly shocking to hear him sound like an old grandpa.
2. he made it a point to go on and on about the fact that people think they know him because of his movies, but they really have no idea what he's actually like. he grew up in a nice neighborhood, was quite the athlete, and is not the intellectual everyone assumes he is. he failed out of college because he wasn't smart enough, not because he had too many better things to do.
truthfully, i don't think i like the real woody allen. nevermind the soon-yi business (i tend to look past such massive mistakes when it comes to celebrities), i'm not even taking that into consideration. he was just... i don't know... not what i expected (cliche, i know). i want this version of woody allen:
partially because he always made me feel better. you CAN be neurotic and crazy and cynical and depressive and funny and smart and entertaining all at once!
or not.
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