So I'm going to be enormously busy with various reports/papers/outlines/conferences/etc. this weekend but today I'm exhausted and fairly slap-happy and feeling self-indulgent, so I guess it's time for
Le Grand Life Status Update
Real disappointed that's the biggest MT's text editor will let you make text.
It's been a few months since the last one of these unfocused grab-bag posts that no one ever reads. Obviously I finished the first semester of grad school. It was much easier than I expected, but in retrospect it's probably because two of my four classes were enormously easy. This semester is a different beast entirely. So let's do a roundup.
Brace yourself! Here comes a moody, overly personal blog entry to drive away anyone who ill-advisedly subscribed to my RSS feed after my previous, rather popular, post. Because obviously my goal in life is for no one to ever read my blog except my parents and Max Eddy (Hi, Max!)
I'm not sure what I really meant to accomplish with that essay. Certainly a part of me actually wanted to convince skeptical parents the world over of how fabulous T&E are, but it was also yet another in a longseriesofbids for the attention of people I idolize. And, unlikely enough, I actually succeeded. Between Saturday morning and today, I gained a coveted retweet from Tim Heidecker, an email from Krink, and Davin Wood as a Facebook friend. All of which still make me nervous and excited when I think about them for too long.
But that excitement and disbelieving happiness is also tinged with a healthy serving of depression (as is almost everything these days, it seems). When people are abstract entities you see on a screen who live somewhere out in the mythical West, the fact that you aren't doing what they do, even if it's your dream job, is not all that hard to bear. But when they interact with you and you're confronted with the fact that yes, they are actually real people, it can become kind of overwhelming.
If you know me, you know I'm not the kind of person who tends to get enormously excited about graphic violence or '80s nostalgia. Which makes it strange that I absolutely LOVED Drive, a film that prominently features both of those things.
I'm trying to think of a good place to start. That preceding paragraph isn't really one, but it'll have to do.
The best thing about Drive is relentless, constantly ratcheting tension. The action scenes are masterfully composed of pauses and flurries of action. Things are carefully left off-screen or deliberately placed on-screen to heighten shock and excitement. Even peaceful, romantic scenes are built from a series of lingering, loaded shots of long silences.
But wait, that makes it sound boring. And it's the furthest thing from a boring movie. Even with all those long, tense blocks of silence, the whole thing moves along at a good, steady clip. It feels as if it's been trimmed of all narrative fat. Only the essentials are shown, just enough for us to understand the relationships, scenarios, and motivations. It's not an acting showcase, although its cast is stellar (I mean, come on--Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, Christina Hendricks--you can't get a much better ensemble than that). I doubt that a whole lot of Oscar nods for acting are going to come its way, if only because nobody has all that many lines. But the cast are all fantastic nonetheless.
The soundtrack is wonderful. Even listing to it on its own evokes the film's moodiness and tension brilliantly. It's very synth-y and '80s-y, but doesn't grate on me the same way, say, the Blade Runner soundtrack often does. The violence is shocking, surprising, and often graphic, but I found it making me smile more than grimace. I think I was just dazzled by how artfully and matter-of-factly it was integrated into the narrative--no ominous music or melodramatic buildup. At the same time as much of the movie (most notably Gosling's character's relationship with Mulligan's) seemed to exist in a kind of heightened reality, the violence was gritty and visceral.
Anyway, I could keep talking about it for a long time. In short, I thought Drive was wonderful, and I encourage you all to see it too and let me know what you think.
It's kind of a weird feeling. As much as I kind of had the run of the house while living with my parents over the past year and a half, the situation was what it was--living with my parents. Before that, two years of roommates and two years of weird pseudo-isolation in single dorm rooms. I've never been in a situation where everything from the front door to the toilet was mine and mine alone. And I have to say, it is really goddamn nice.
My toilet
It's weird to have a full-size refrigerator to myself. Weird to realize how many gaps there were in my collection of kitchen utensils. Weird to be able to shower with the door open. Weird that I don't have to worry about guys peeing loudly in my bathroom while I'm trying to sleep (this was actually a major issue in Garghouse). Sure, I'm rapidly getting used to it and certainly will soon be taking it for granted, but it's fun to marvel at while the novelty lasts.
Grad school has been flying along so far. It's pretty intense, especially for my big foundation class, SI 501 - Contextual Inquiry and Project Management. It basically subscribes to the "throw your children into the middle of a lake filled with horrible lake monsters in order to teach them to swim" school of thought. My group is going to be working on improving patient processing flow for U-M Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. Cool! Do any of us know a single thing about how to do that? Nope! But I've got to draft 15-20 useful interview questions for them by Tuesday anyway!
Other extremely intimidating things I'm supposedly going to do this semester include very quickly becoming Python-literate, making a database-backed portfolio website using the Google App Engine, developing a working knowledge of cognitive psychology, and having social interactions with a lot of people I've never met. We'll see how those all pan out. One thing I've already become really good at is making events in iCal. Oh, also drying and preserving tomatoes. But that's a different thing.
I was accepted into UMich's School of Information MSI program a couple weeks ago! I was expecting it (and didn't have a contingency plan), so it's not a big shock, but I'm relieved anyway.
I'm currently knee-deep in trying to find housing for next year and it's such an amazing pain in the ass. I was lucky enough to have roommates willing to undertake the bulk of the legwork during the two years I had to find off-campus housing as an undergrad, but now it's just me. It's probably healthy and a life experience, but goddamn if Ann Arbor rental companies aren't almost universally horrible.
I'm sort of coming to grips with the fact that I'll have to live relatively far away from central campus to conserve money. Right now I'm not even sure what my budget will look like next year because I haven't gotten a financial aid offer yet. I'm assuming I'll get at least a decent chunk. Hopefully I won't be disappointed.
In other news, that Borders job that was looking so promising for a couple weeks seems to have fallen through. I'm sure you can figure out why.
In other other news, I finished reading my first Pynchon novel, V., which I started reading back around Thanksgiving. Certainly one of the hardest reads I've come across. So, so dense! I'm pretty proud I made it all the way through, though, regardless of how long it took. Now I'm reading The Handmaid's Tale and it's a total breeze in comparison. I've plowed through about half of it already today.
And I made bread. And it didn't work out as I'd hoped. AS USUAL. I don't know why it gives me such trouble. I think part of it might be that I always have the urge to make it in the middle of winter, and that's definitely the worst time for it in terms of humidity/temperature/latent bacteria in the air. Considering doubling the yeast. Or just making half-loaves.
I feel like I haven't done a very good job of directing my internet social circle (such as it is) to the humor news/reviews site I made over the summer in the wake of my Ze Frank-related trauma. I sort of let it fall quiet over the Fall, but now it's back with plenty of piping hot 'n' fresh content!
Right now I'm really the only one posting stuff to it, which makes for kind of a limited range of content, so if anyone's interested in contributing, let me know. It can be anything from news/gossips/slanders to reviews/opinions/angers to fictions/top-10 lists/jokes/bad puns/pictures of old men. I want it to be entertaining, irreverent, and unconventional. If it isn't, I'll certainly lose interest again soon.
So go check it out, please! What are you waiting for! Geez!
I haven't been very talkative here recently, partly because I've been less certain about the composition of my audience here and partially because it's hard for me to publish things online that I'm not even certain of myself. So I didn't post anything about the strange, ill-fated four-day job I had last week. I haven't discussed how my holidays went. And most importantly, I haven't mentioned the fact that I've applied to graduate school.
Yep. U of M's School of Information. "Cathy, this is unexpected," you will say. Maybe. Maybe it is. But unlike a lot of things I've done over the past year, it doesn't feel futile or depressing or futureless. It feels like a plan to achieve a goal, and that's something I've come to realize I really need. I'm not cut out for going with the flow or letting the cards fall where they may, as much as I wish I were.
UMSI might very well lead me into a career in User Experience design. Or I might end up riding the wave of fate to a magical TV writing job. Either way, I plan to come out of the next two years with some real, marketable skills. And that's a far cry better than what I've got now.
Oh, also I'm interviewing for a barista job at the cafe in my local Borders tomorrow.
It's the end of the year, and that means it's time for a self-indulgent list!
2010 (you might know it as "two ought one ought") was a rough year in a lot of ways for me, but here are some of the things that made it worthwhile, or at least tolerable. Note that a lot of these weren't actually made in 2010, that's just when I became interested in them. Which is, after all, ALL THAT REALLY MATTERS.
10. The League of Gentlemen
Relentlessly dark and extraordinarily hilarious, Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith, and Jeremy Dyson comprise this British sketch show, which I have previously discussed here. Papa Lazarou pretty much single-handedly rescued last winter for me. Which is kind of horrifying, when you think about it. I guess I'm his wife now.
9. Dan Herbert's "Contemporary Film Industry" class
This one isn't really accessible to anyone who isn't a Screen Arts major at Michigan (but if P. Eldred is reading this, I know he knows what I'm saying). It was by far one of the best classes I took in college, and a great way to close out my last semester. A great combination of entertaining lectures, discussion, and the undeniable underlying sense of dread and desperation of a class full of soon-to-be-unemployed film majors. Lots of laughs at the expense of weekend box office returns.
8. True Blood
It's campy, it's wacky, it's melodramatic, but goddamn is it addictive. Season 3 had its shaky parts, just like the previous two, but its high points were very, VERY high. Most notably, every moment Denis O'Hare, James Frain, or Alexander Skarsgard were on-screen. As always, a story is only as good as its antagonists. It doesn't really matter if Sookie and Bill are about as interesting as lampshades as long as Franklin makes me giggle with glee whenever he shows up.
7. Bat Fight
It's a game of honor and diplomacy.
6. Sherlock
The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss teamed up with Doctor Who writer Steven Moffat to create this modern reboot of the Conan Doyle classic. It's in turns delightfully fun, deadly serious, and genuinely heartwarming. For fans, or even casual readers, of the original stories, there are a lot of a references, nods, and winks to unpack. For the relatively uninitiated, it's just good, stylish, briskly-paced TV. Benedict Cumberbatch is perfectly cast in the titular role. Martin Freeman (of the British version of The Office) gives the show both heart and a wry sensibility as Watson. Certainly some of the best television of the year.
5. Tim and Eric
My general conceptual aversion to Adult Swim meant that I never actually watched Tim and Eric's shows (Tom Goes to the Mayor,Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, and Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule) while they were on the air. I first got a whiff of them when I was in full Mighty Boosh mode last year and heard Noel Fielding mention in a couple interviews that he'd heard Tim and Eric were similar to them (now, knowing both of their work, I can safely say that they're generally not similar at all). I then stumbled across a few clips from Awesome Show throughout the year, enjoyed them, and eventually watched the whole series.
The show can admittedly be hit-or-miss, but ultimately Tim and Eric are masters of deadpan delivery, satirizing every kind of low-budget video, '90s aesthetics, wearing pleated pants, understated celebrity cameos, absurdism, and male lip gloss. Awesome Show is over, but they continue to use their signature style to make music videos, commercials, short films, and hopefully much, much more.
4. White Russians
The White Russian: You saw it in The Big Lebowski, but did you truly understand it? DID YOU UNDERSTAND IT WITH YOUR MOUTH?
3. Absofacto
Jon Visger, the ornamental figurehead of Mason Proper, has been putting out solo stuff for a few years now, but it hadn't been until 2010 that he really started coming into his own. Instead of intermittently releasing EPs, this year he consistently put out about one track a month, and all of them have been fabulous. Sit back and put "Triangle 3" on a loop for a while if you don't believe me.
2. Lost
Six seasons of extraordinary TV came to an end this year. Many were disappointed with the ending; I thought it fit the show. It was simultaneously a horrible loss and a celebration of the characters finally finding peace. If nothing else, it was a reminder that having a dog by your side while you die never hurts.
1. Barack Obama
People been hatin' on the poor prez. I still think he's doing a damned good job, considering what he's up against. At the very least, I won't have to worry about not having healthcare for a few more years. Sure, he's made some mistakes, failed to accomplish some of his goals, but there's still at least two years left, right? Yes we can...?
Amazingly, I finished National Novel Writing Month exactly on time, which was triumphant for me in a lot of ways because I bailed on it after only a couple of days last year and because I've never written anything on that scale. On the other hand, it was a little bit of a disappointment, because the "novel" I wrote has a bevy of serious faults.
The reason why I ended up seriously committing to the endeavor this year was because, well, I was unemployed and a seemingly unlimited amount of free time, for one. I also was in New York, in a new situation, doing a bunch of things I wouldn't normally do, and I felt that I should push myself in new directions as much as possible. I also was pressured into it by Max, who was a 2009 NaNoWriMo winner and assured me it was a worthwhile experience.
So I didn't really end up deciding to do it until November 1st, and thus I didn't have any ideas, any rough plot outlines, or much of anything in my head. I decided it would be easy to write a young adult-oriented fantasy novel because they have pretty basic structures, are stylistically simple, and I happen (shamefully) to have a lot of experience with them.
I managed to write just that for about two days, and then I got so fed up by the triteness and over-earnestness of the genre that I started writing basically some stream-of-consciousness on my then-situation. In New York. Bored, somewhat alienated. Okay, actually it was more my feelings about New York last summer. I started alternating between that and the fantasy novel (justifying it with the New York protagonist being the author of the shitty fantasy).
It soon became abundantly clear that the New York half of the novel was massively more interesting than the fantasy half--it grew from bitter semi-autobiographical realism into a fictional sci-fi psychological thriller verging on body horror. By the time I reached the last quarter of the novel, I'd completely abandoned the fantasy narrative. I found myself running out of space to tell the story that I'd unearthed, and pretty angry that I'd wasted all that time on my original idea.
So my final product was really a little more than half a novel consisting of some interesting action but not really enough to sustain itself, along with maybe 20,000 words of garbage. I'm not really invested enough in the project to go back and see what I can salvage, though. I'm mostly happy it's done with. Which might be an indicator that writing novels isn't for me. Or maybe just that I should plan better next time.
My time in New York is drawing to a close. There are, naturally, the requisite number of regrets and successes. I think this time the latter column is longer than the former. But let's see.
REGRETS
I have not (yet!) gotten a job
A Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit closed before I got to see it
There weren't as many good jobs to apply to as I would have liked
I let annoying blisters sneak up on me (bastards)
I still didn't go to Please Don't Tell
I didn't hang out with certain acquaintances who are actually pursuing careers in some of my fields of interest
SUCCESSES
I went to an Upright Citizens Brigade show and it was amazing
I said yes to activities as much as possible
I didn't feel bound to the location I was living, and spent a decent amount of time just walking around
I went to Shake Shack
I had multiple responses to job applications, and at least one very legit interview
I finally had a celebrity sighting
I went drinking a satisfactory number of times
I've stuck with National Novel Writing Month (mostly)
I haven't been consumed by homesickness
I went to the Burp Castle and it was fantastic
I made new friends
I think I got adequate value out of my 30-day unlimited MetroCard
I tried a variety of Asian foods that I would never have to chosen to eat if left to my own devices
I went to the MoMA (amazing)
I went to a photo exhibit and saw a really large print of a large-format photo of Tom Waits (double amazing)
I had good times with friends in one of the greatest cities in the world--and no regret can outweigh that
You can certainly say one thing about New York--it's a great city for walking. Now that the blisters on my sorely disused feet are hardening into callouses, walking is once again becoming something pleasurable. The weather today was just about perfect for a fall stroll. Just cool enough that I wasn't sweaty under my layers, and just warm enough that I wasn't uncomfortable. I got some nice one-on-one time with the Hudson River and Chelsea. I still find a lot of the warehouse-y stuff near the river kind of unpleasant, but the area's redeemed itself in a bunch of other ways.
Tomorrow I'm having coffee with Rebecca, the former EIC of the Penn State Phroth, basically a bizarro Pennsylvanian version of me. We met last fall when we invited a handful of Phroth staffers up to Ann Arbor to celebrate our magazines' mutual hundredth anniversaries together. She's finishing up an internship at Buzzfeed and is now basically in the same unemployment boat as me, so we're probably going to swap war stories and commiserate.
Unrelatedly, the Lincoln Tunnel is very loud. And it's right outside my window. Cool down, guys, it's just New Jersey!
If you are either a person who doesn't know me in real life or to whom I don't talk on a regular basis, you probably don't know that I'm in New York. I've been here a little more than a week now. My coming here is kind of a long story, and one I'm growing tired of telling. Suffice it to say, I'm hoping that actually being here will make it easier to find a job, on both my side of things and that of potential employers'.
Last week, I was staying with Max and his cousins over in Queens at Fort Eddy. Until Thanksgiving, I'll be mostly at my friend April's apartment in Manhattan while she's away on a business trip. So far I think it's been going pretty well. I've gotten a few pings back from places I've applied to and I still have a list of friends and acquaintances in the city to have coffee with that might yield some leads.
Besides that, there are just so many parts of the city that I failed to experience or appreciate last summer. I refuse to leave this time without seeing the MoMA. I've already quadrupled the number of boroughs I've visited. And this time, I'm old enough to drink, which is always a nice bonus.
The main excitement so far, though, didn't even take place in New York. This past weekend, Max and I drove down to Washington, D.C. to attend the Rally for Sanity and/or Fear with Zack (my former roommate, now a Very Successful Nuclear Engineer). It was a fun, whirlwind experience. The rally was immense, but there was a fantastic sense of camaraderie amongst all the attendees. I didn't see a single person getting angry about the crowd, being packed into the Metro, or not being able to see the jumbotrons. It felt great to be a part of something so positive considering the current political climate.
I'm also planning on starting National Novel Writing Month today. I don't really know what I want to write about, so I figure I should just start and see where it leads. More on that to come (or not).
That should be helpful in getting my juices flowing for this post, but it's really not, probably because the answer is "Not much." I'm getting really bored of saying it, since it seems like every conversation I have these days consists of: "What's up with you, Cathy?" "Oh, not much. Applying for jobs." "Any luck?" "Not a lot." "Oh. Okay." So I've decided to come up with an interesting fictional life with accompanying anecdotes with which to pad out my human interactions.
Some potential interesting fictional events to discuss:
Buying a cool leather jacket
Going to the museum, seeing fun exhibit of real, successful vivisections
Having a hot date with someone I was secretly in love with in high school, but who has since been blinded and was completely unaware of my identity!
New dashboard mount for iPhone
Waking up to discover that (older dog) Sydney had completely devoured one of (puppy) Max's back legs, but finding that both of them were still on good terms
Being diagnosed with restless face syndrome
Getting lost at the mall
The birth of my first child, Hamzstoneworthson, and his sad decline into infant alcoholism
My parents' deaths in a tragic murder-suicide
My best friends' deaths in tragic murder-suicides
Puppy ate the shoelaces on my moccasins (this one's close to reality--he actually only ate one shoelace!)
Shopping for a new clock radio--unsuccessful
Driving to Indiana to live on a goatherd's commune (I've actually used this)
The drive back from Ann Arbor today activated one of my stronger recent sensory memories. At ten o'clock or so in the morning on sunny days during the warmer months, light hits the trees and streets of southeastern Michigan suburbia in such a way as to make it uniquely beautiful. A landscape that typically looks dull and unlovely in afternoon sun is transformed into a gentler, quieter, more mysterious place.
I first (or, at least, most strongly) experienced this as I took a roundabout drive home after completing my last IB test in May 2006. With a cool spring breeze in my face, the prettier-than-normal landscape, and the light traffic of a post-rush hour weekday morning, I was really sublimely happy. I had successfully completed what was by most accounts a harrowing high school experience, and I had a long summer and the exciting prospect of college ahead of me. The feeling that day really stuck with me, and echoes back whenever I encounter those particular conditions.
This morning's drive was also pleasant and peaceful, but there was a distinctly more melancholy edge to it. It wasn't May this time. The foliage is already starting to fade and brown. The air is cool because Fall is on its way. And my immediate future is no longer quite so glowing and carefree.
One of the reasons I was looking forward to college so much that May four years ago was that I was excited about the prospect of becoming a legitimate adult. I don't think I'm really there yet, but I'm certainly much closer. Unfortunately, it seems to me that adulthood is, in a lot of ways, about losing that innocent enthusiasm for the future. More and more, my fantasies about how things will play out are tempered by a pessimistic, pragmatic voice in the back of my head that relishes in crushing flights of fancy.
These days, the way that ten o'clock sunlight falls through the leaves mostly reminds me of things I've lost.
I always feel like I get into bands via the wrong routes. I suppose there's really no right or wrong way to decide to listen to something, but I get that slightly guilty feeling nonetheless. Maybe I'm ashamed I don't follow the music world as closely as I'd like.
Anyways, before last week, I had only known The National from their track on that magnificent compilation of indie splendor, Dark Was the Night. I saw in the paper that The Antlers were opening for The National at the Royal Oak Music Theater. I've been wanting to see The Antlers since The Last Hurrah derailed my attempts to go to their Ann Arbor show in April, so I decided to check The National out to see if the show was worth going to.
I started with their most recent album, High Violet. It is excellent. Very genuinely excellent. It's hard for me to pick a favorite track because every song packs a firm musical punch. The first impression you get of The National is that it's kind of like Interpol, since Matt Berninger's vocals land in that particular deadpan, baritone-y zone. Upon further listening, though, the band's distinct sound and style emerges: intense, round, full, carefully orchestrated, ebbing and flowing, sometimes playful and poppier, sometimes dark and threatening.
By the time I got to Royal Oak last night, I'd gotten a good grasp on High Violet and Boxer, the album preceding it. The Antlers were fantastic, but The National blew me away. It was definitely one of the best live shows I've been to. The energy and sound were both amazing. If you have a chance to see them live, I couldn't recommend it more highly. Regardless, buy their albums. Do it. You'll thank me.
[Addendum:] Here's a video of "Fake Empire," the pre-encore conclusion of the show on Tuesday night. The quality's not ideal, but it conveys the energy of the show pretty well.
