Sick, Sad World.

11:48PM

It's pretty much all friends only, except for entries on the world at large. Comment to be added.

2:51PM

Hello beautiful LJers who I mercilessly neglect,

I come bearing free music. At my other blog.

Mmmkay. That's all.

2:44PM - celebrating.... isaac newton's b-day

Jen: Oh god, Art! Whatever you're cooking is doing something odd!

Art: Yes. That would be known as boiling.

9:57PM

I bought these two t-shirts today:

( under here... )

Joy.

11:56PM - Area Man Proves Just How Douchey Columbia Students Are

From Metro Diary:

"Dear Diary:

A very nice ice cream store opened recently at 83rd Street on my East Side block. When I went in for the first time, I was greeted by a fabulous-looking blond saleswoman in her early 20s.

She asked me where I was from and, learning that I am originally from St. Petersburg, immediately asked, “Do you think that a recent translation of Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ by Pevear and Volokhonsky is really superior to all others?”

Slightly stunned (after all, I only came for some ice cream), I suggested that another translation, that of Andrew Bromfield, was also quite good and that, in general, only translations with the first sentence starting in French, as in Tolstoy’s original, should be considered. The young lady appeared to be satisfied with my answer and dispensed the ice cream.

A couple of days later I was back at the store, greeted again by a fabulous woman of 20 or so, but this time a brunette. Having established my national origin, she asked, “What is your favorite translation of Dostoyevsky’s ‘Brothers Karamazov’?”

Since I did not know the answer, she asked an easier question, “What is your favorite Russian novel?” I answered that it was Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita.” The answer appeared satisfactory to her, and the ice cream was dispensed.

As it turned out, the two saleswomen were taking the same Russian literature course at Columbia.

I haven’t been to the store for about two weeks now and am dying for some ice cream, but I can’t go back — not until I complete a comparative translation analysis of Pasternak’s “Doctor Zhivago.”
Leonid Poretsky

3:09PM - Wigging out for no reason

...Or, for small reasons.

My family and I are going away to Michigan for Thanksgiving break, which means we have to put the dogs in a kennel. Usually we can find someone to come to the house and take care of them, but we couldn't this time, thus the kennel.

It's a really nice kennel, but still. The puppy has never been to a kennel, but considering he is afraid of everything in the world (vacuums, threshholds, most small objects), I am worried about him. The older dog hates the kennel. She doesn't eat when she's there, and when we bring her home afterwards she is skinny, pissed off, and generally shows signs of being traumatized.

So I'm freaking out about that.

Also, about the "vacation" itself, vacation in quotes because trips that involve going somewhere are never really vacations for me, not to mention we're going to see family on this one. That means all manner of shit to worry about: peacefully interacting with family members, plane flights, weird sleeping arrangements, migraines (even more fun abroad!), getting mountains of school work done, etc.

And of course, I'll spend the whole time worrying about the dogs and wondering if it's strange to call the kennel every hour.

10:18PM - GODDAMN

Some stupid fucking idiot lady at the debate tonight to Clinton:

"Do you prefer diamonds or pearls?"

GGHNNARRRGHHH

8:12PM

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2007/10/28/feminism-is-not-your-expectation/

That is just too excellent.

11:18AM - new blog

I have a new blog at WordPress:
http://jenniferbernstein.wordpress.com/

I might try writing about things that actually matter. Not that what I'll say about them will matter, but the things themselves matter. So there you go.

11:39PM - Craziness on Bill Maher

So because Real Time is filmed live, the cult of nuts that think 9/11 was an "inside job" infiltrated the audience and started yelling. And would not stop. Maher yelled at them in his usual clever way but they would NOT shut up. He actually walked into the audience and (with security) bodily SHOVED a guy out of the studio. But security took FOREVER and so the yelling went on for quite a few minutes. It was just insanely awkward.

Anyway, Garry Kasparov (by the way: born Garri Weinstein, somehow has less of a ring to it) is brilliant. He was on the show tonight via satellite and refuted Bill Maher's stupid-ass claims. For example Bill Maher said that Putin has high ratings and Kasparov asked: How do you know that? From statistics published by a police state? Of course Maher conceded.

Then Maher said something extremely stupid like, Isn't there something in Russian people that loves a strong solid man? And Kasparov essentially said no, that's moronic and untrue, and Maher said yes, you're right. It was fantastic. I love Bill Maher but sometimes he says unbelievably idiotic things (like whenever he says ANYTHING about health/medicine/drugs), and I do enjoy when people set him straight (...so to speak).

ETA: Damn, if you saw Bill's face after the show... he is pissed.

11:21PM - Sleep.

After reading an article in NYMag about kids not getting enough sleep, I'm reminded of one central behavior I live by: I always, always get enough sleep. At first this was because if I didn't I'd get a migraine--and it still is--but then it became a wonderful routine that I decided never to give up. I don't always feel rested, and I definitely don't always feel alert and awake, but I always know that I've done my best.

Sleep is wonderful. It's when we consolidate memories, when our minds can drift, and (thanks Freud!) our screwed-up unconscious has a chance to express its deepest wishes. Some of the unhappiest people I know are people who don't sleep enough--some from reasons of insomnia, some because they're not disciplined enough to enforce a sleep schedule, some because they say they don't have time for it. I think someone's life must be pretty darn screwed up (of course not always of their own doing) if they don't have time for the basic biological function of sleep. It's like not having time to eat, and similar to not having time to eat, if you don't do it enough you will die.

Sleeping at night makes possible the concept of the day. I think it's incredibly important to divide our lives into days, because days are psychologically manageable units of time. If you can just get through today, well, then, there's 7-8 hours of lovely sleep waiting for you. It's stupidly trite, but if you can dispense with today, tomorrow mightn't seem so awful.

6:29PM - Fantasy books & London & a bath.

On Wednesday I am off to London and Paris until school starts. I will be seeing The Merchant of Venice at the Globe Theatre and having afternoon tea at the Cadogan (where Oscar Wilde was arrested) and taking a Shakespeare/Dickens walking tour and OH JOY. And yeah, also some stuff in Paris.

Also, yesterday evening Michelle and I took a long hot luxurious "forest"-scented Jacuzzi bubblebath (welcome to adjective land). More JOY.


...So, fantasy. I've been reading The Dark Is Rising sequence, which is super and imaginative and wonderfully Arthurian, but I do have one problem with it, which other fantasy books make too, namely that it fails to answer this question: What makes the Good/Light good and the Evil/Dark evil, besides that it's always been that way? What does the Big Bad do that makes it the Big Bad, and why does the Good exist besides to prevent Evil from getting too uppity? And what does this epic struggle have to say about human nature?

See, the Good are like the Democrats. We know you're against Evil, but what are you for?

Also, I've discovered that I always like the part in heros' quests right after they first discover their Awesome Power and have to learn how to use it. I loved it in The Dark is Rising but even more in The Once and Future King (Both Arthurian, by coincidence, and both boys learn from Merlin). I suppose I like the idea of people discovering that well within themselves and then rising to their potential, but without discarding the emotional fallout of their previous life.

12:51PM - This entry is about Harry Potter. You have been warned.

So, I finished reading the leak a few days ago, but I held off posting because... well, mostly because I was exhausted from working all week and headaches and other things, but also because it seemed polite somehow. I read the leak in the first place because I'm traveling all week starting tomorrow (or very early in the morning today), and I still need to pack, etc. Although frankly I'm not sure I would have waited in any case.

I went to a midnight party in my Slytherin Best (scarf, tie, shirt) last night, which was mostly sad, because it was my third and of course final, but it was still fun seeing all the fans geeked-out and excited. I believe I scared a small child when I enthusiastically told him his face paint was "awesome!" but he seemed to recover. There was also a creepy drunken man with a grey-and-green scarf who kept coming over to my friend and me (we were both dressed as Slytherins) and leering and saying things like "Slytherin...yeeees...."

On a general and spoiler-free note I will say this: I loved the book completely. Just utterly, utterly adored it, thought it was a brilliant ending to a great, epic story. If I were not such a Potter freak I am sure I would have thought it was not so great, and whinged about all the plotholes, but just reading the Last HP Book was such a strange and thrilling experience that I easily got swept up in it, and didn't really bother nitpicking or criticizing. Even now I can't really criticize, since I still get a tad verklempt thinking about it. Even just the book's dedication had the tears rolling. In fact I cried at several points in the book, especially at references to past books, but also at particular other parts.

( Which I will now discuss, in a distinctly spoilery way. )

Mkay, that's all for now. Need to pack.

11:43PM

I have a strong feeling that in the future no one will believe in God. In fact the word "atheist" won't even exist, because no one will be a theist. People will look back on belief in God/religion as a bizarre, antiquated medieval phenomenon, and moving past it as part of human progress, along the lines of Dennett/Dawkins/Harris, and now Hitchens the Hack.

I just wished I lived in that future age.

Hmm, what else. Cleaned my room today. Everyone is going away and I'm trying to see them all before that happens. This weekend I am seeing Frost/Nixon. At the end of the summer I will be in London and Paris for about a week. I am lusting after my next tattoo.

I was in Seattle for five days about a week ago. Saw family.

Since I last posted I've read Chris Hedges' War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning and What Every Person Should Know About War, which were both good and didn't require much brain power. I finally read Forster's Maurice, and Ian McEwan's collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites: nice clear, descriptive prose, and each story has a weird, somewhat disturbing angle to it. At the moment I'm reading Mary Gaitskill's Veronica which is intimidatingly poetic; whole paragraphs read like prose poems. It's a very distinct style, and I'm not yet sure how I feel about it.

...Also, my dogs are cute.

12:54AM

Oh, wow. Tonight I have finished André Aciman's Call Me By Your Name, and just, wow. Brilliant and breathtaking and mind-blowing and all those wonderful adjectives. I wept at the end. It's a book that makes you feel the pain and joy of maybe every loss and every love and even every memory you've ever known. Like the most interesting books it's a love story, ordinary and extraordinary all at once, but it's a love story wherein one exchange of glances can occupy five pages, all of which fold you into themselves and make you absolutely certain that you must keep reading. It's about intimacy and bodies and desire, and so incredibly much more. It's about how loving someone can make you part of them, and them part of you, until everyone is all wonderfully mixed-up in one another; and it's about how people stay with one another even over lifetimes and oceans; and how we have multiple lives in our one life that appear at different times. The writing is poetic and lyrical and fantastic. Write more fiction, post haste, Mr. Aciman!

11:33PM - AUGH.

Heroes season finale? One big pile of suck. Boring and made no fucking sense. (Check the awesome Pajiba review.)

Veronica Mars series finale? One twice-as-long pile of suck.

I'd write actual reviews but I'm just too disappointed. AUGH.

11:49PM

What in the hell have I been doing since I got home from school? An excellent question. I moved back on the 11th - I think - and since then I've mostly been running, reading, writing, watching movies, and generally loafing.

Books read since I moved back, courtesy of LibraryThing, my new online time-waster:

Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid: So, so good. About a young immigrant woman from the West Indies who works for an upper-middle class family in New York, and her coming into herself. Wonderful, evocative writing. Themes: postcolonialism, feminism, immigration, and others. Not sure what else to say about it except that it was a brilliant reading experience.
Autobiography of My Mother, Jamaica Kincaid: Why is Jamaica Kincaid so brilliant?
Written on the Body, Jeanette Winterson: Freakin' amazing, the best on this list. Every sentence was stunning and original. Beautiful language: breathtaking descriptions of love, sex, bodies, and human relationships in general. I loved it also because there are few concrete descriptions of places and time, yet the language and the characters more than carry the book.
Faith for Beginners, Creative Writing Teacher Whose Name I Will Omit: Awful. Almost didn't make it to the end. This is the novel that my creative writing teacher from this past semester wrote, and after reading it, I will now try to unlearn whatever he taught me. Ack. Boring characters that I didn't care about, trite epiphanies, and endless descriptions of mundane things. Nothing at all beautiful or new about the writing, the characters, or the plot.
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson: Well, it's vampire fiction, but it's high-end vampire fiction. A quick read with interesting explorations of power, what's normal, and uhm, vampires.
The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri: Good but definitely overrated. Haven't read Interpreter of Maladies but apparently that one's better. Precise, evocative writing but no driving conflict or plot to speak of. For a book about a Bengali Indian-American immigrant family read by the granddaughter of Bengali Indian-American immigrants, it just was not that interesting or remarkable.
Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays, Mary Oliver: Mary Oliver is a brilliant poet, plain and simple. Her poems are unpretentious and moving. They have a lot of natural imagery that manages to remain original. Her most famous is "Wild Geese" but I also love love love "The Visitor" and "Morning Poem" and almost all the rest. Some of the main themes of her poetry are human communion with nature and how we relate to the greater world, which appeal to me for some reason.
What Narcissism Means to Me: Poems, Tony Hoagland: Hoagland's poetry is both beautiful and hilarious. Sometimes his poems are just a little bit too self-consciously witty, a little too precious, but mostly they are fresh and original and, damn the word but it fits, edgy. There's one about consumerism that I especially liked.
Call Me By Your Name, Andre Aciman: I'm not finished with this yet, so I'm reserving judgment on it.

As far as movies, the ones I've seen that I hadn't before are Stranger than Fiction and The Illusionist, both of which were great. The Illusionist was one of few movies I've seen that had a very effective twist ending, and one of the few really entertaining period films. Stranger than Fiction was good on all counts: good acting, generous to its characters, not overly schmaltzy, and kind of funny. I recommend both.

(Also I've watched Inside Man about ten times.)

9:28PM

Upon reading Miss Snark I have discovered an awesome thing: www.LibraryThing.com. It's basically a way to keep track of all the books you've been reading; you search for the book and then add it to your list.

My catalog is: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jrb2124. Because I need more ways to be useless.

12:46AM - Tedious hair post.

In my 4-days experience with it:


--The five best things about having really short hair:

1) Finally being recognized by cute girls for the queer that I am.

2) Shampooing, washing, brushing, drying, etc. so fast and easy! Barely have to use any shampoo, and no need to blowdry before going out.

3) No hair annoyingly on neck or in face, especially when wind blows. Huh, my upper back really does exist.

4) Don't have to tie it back when: brushing teeth, washing face, eating pie w/ no hands, etc.

5) Flouting gender norms; feeling like real feminist for once.


--The five worst things about having really short hair:

1) DEAR LORD WHERE IS ALL MY HAIR.

2) Lie down on bed for 10 seconds and all of a sudden hair sticks out in every direction.

3) Can no longer use hair as protective barrier when want to hide face from the world.

4) Shoulders/neck/back exposed more often.

5) No styles/"do"s possible. If I actually ever did stuff like that.

11:57PM - It is time to move, and I mean now.

25 percent of Americans think that 2007 will bring the second coming of Christ.

. . .

I have no words.