Friday, December 31, 2010

choose your own songs

advertising presents a strange face to the world. on one level, it manages to introduce people to music that actual purveyors of music are unable to successfully share with large audiences. on the other hand, it has a remarkable ability to water down and declaw any genre whatsoever.

shut ins

it's mostly language that causes problems. communication through nonverbal means is remarkably efficient, which is the main reason people need to declare a single day next month to be non-talk day. non-talk day will commence with a gala brunch, during which people will be free to fill their plates with french toast, omelettes, flaky pastries, and sliced fruits without any need to maintaint a polite level of vocalized noise. perhaps while eating they might wish to wave or salute fellow brunchees, but there should be no obligation for this.

the day will continue with a series of audiovisual presentations, including instrumental musical performance and silent film. on numerous occasions throughout the day, breaks will be given for the further digestion and rest people might need after the large meals and snacks to be distributed on a thorougly regular basis.

in the evening, though there will be no conversation, guests are welcome to partake in televised or broadcast entertainments, even if these should include speech sounds. a day of not talking should not chiefly involve non-listening, and certainly should not be used as an excuse to dismiss oneself from the many responsibilities of media consumption that may arise.

this would taste just fine

why are certain people described as sarcastic? it seems that most people make a comment at some point during a typical day that expresses a skeptical or doubtful opinion in ironic terms. at this point, a sarcastic person is probably as common as a chocolate-eating person. are there people who are described as chocolate eaters?

oh man, if you've never met him--he really likes chocolate. so, you know, don't go waving those toffee bars around without thinking about the potential consequences. i had to warn you, right?

oh, just watch out anyway

it's not important to be able to deal with chaos. chaos is much less important than the ordinary trouble that comes along a couple of times a day. the little steps to failure are more significant than the giant ones.

stop protecting stuff

most things from the store are more fun when they're a little worn

familiarity as a science

textbook.

open and shut.

dime novel.

between the lines.

what's with all these metaphors? it's as if literature is the dullest or least imaginative thing imaginable. perhaps it would be better to take movies and show them on the printed page, so that people would be convinced they are superior to the objects they view on screen.

this would solve a lot of problems. for one thing, it would eliminate a lot of the concerns about being condescended to. virtually everyone feels superior to a flimsy old book. the book has been on its way out for at least the past eighty years. when it's time to get a new perspective on some other artform, best to project it in the shape of a book.

never trust a bon bon

When you hide your true feelings from people, it only invites them to pry even more. It's like a scavenger hunt. Everyone likes scavenger hunts, especially when they're the one who's set up the scavenger hunt and sent everyone else scurrying around the city looking for clues. Even better when the city is your mind, right?

For most people, the key to hiding information is to make sure the person looking for the information doesn't know what form the answer will take. It could be that someone is looking to figure out your favorite recipe or childhood food, but what they're actually going to discover is that you are three hundred dollars in to a novelty popcorn collection. These sorts of secrets are easy to hide, because the seeker is looking up the wrong barrel of candy.

What is more difficult is when the person asking the questions is acting like they know the answer already, and he or she is probably right. The best way to distract these people is to admit that the exact answer they have envisioned is in fact the answer, but do so in a confusing way that will throw them off the track. For example, if someone is convinced that you have moved your television to the attic because you are allergic to prime-time dramas, then you should tell them that you moved the television to the attic because those medical shows make you break out in hives. No one will believe you're a hypochondriac if they're the sort of friend who's convinced they already know what you're thinking. It's too confusing to them to discover something by being told the answer, rather than figuring it out themselves, and so the gears will start turning and their next line of questioning will veer far of the track. Just remember: one of the easiest ways to escape the truth is to admit it in a context that makes it seem overly simplified.

winter is tough on the whole experience

it is extremely difficult to operate a computer while wearing mittens

milk bottles, for example

what exactly is the deal with squiggles? i would think, after so many years of innovation in the writing instrument sector, there would be at least a couple of solutions available to default to the creation of straight, orderly lines. so many objects are better designed than the actual pens we use to design objects.

lalliopreten delbn excerpt

In the future, far too many people are late for their pant fittings. Time and space may have been conquered with the advances in pan-physical technology, but that odesn'[t prevent folks from the usual needs: air, wather, power bars, and tight-fitting pants. Strangely, though, it seems that while most people stand in their ribbed cotton undershirts listening to the rhythms of their own galactic starboats, the humble tailors, stilll poorly ompensated in a neo-communicative economy, wait with stale plates of sstrawberry shortcake and tiny bank accounts.

this is a recipe for disaster

eat chocolate chips until your eyeballs itch.

fire your third-favorite sneakers.

lie on the floor for seven hours a day and call it a job.

then, talk about your day.

really truly yes, but i hadn't realized it

first year spent entirely in one apartment since 2005

bees, too, i bet

computers have the following problem: when disconnected from other computers for an extended period of time, they become surly, lost, overtaken by feelings of inadequacy. after being reconnected, the urge to communicate so overwhelms the computer that it becomes temporarily a soul of its own, unwilling to complete any other task.

dreaming in miniature

i constructed a fence from candy and nuts.

you cannot take things from me, only items

watery mashed potatoes - really no worse than mashed potatoes

too many sweatshirts today might just be the right number of sweatshirts a year from now

your hats will never complain that you bought more hats

they will, however, die

when people ask you how much soda you drink, that might cause you to drink more soda

the sleeping bag lives another year.

and yes, they are making the pants shorter these days. how will the universe make up for this horrible plague of shorter pants?

the future asked for an iou

three of my toes fell off in my sleep last night. i wouldn't ordinarily be bothered by this, but i had dreamed, as i slept through the tornado outside, that i would awaken with the ability to jump on one foot further than any living person. i dreamed it was just one foot that possessed this ability, but when i awoke, the one thing i couldn't be sure of was whether it was the left or the right.

remember

emily haines doesn't have your back either

Friday, December 10, 2010

tomato style

i remember when dinner was just a meal. now i find myself neck-deep in a bowl of lettuce, hoping there are no giant forks on the horizon.