No, I’m not into guns (not even pee-filled Super Soakers). I just like the word materiel, and other words I like–brackish, implacable, bananas–didn’t sound all that felicitous as blog titles. I almost went with the name “Brackish Girl,” because it’s resonant of “Moorish Girl,” but then I had to stop and think–where do I know the phrase “Moorish Girl” from, anyway? Is that from Ulysses? I have this problem of thinking that every little verbal snippet I can’t place is from Ulysses. That reminds me of this dumb dialogue I wrote in my mind once while under the influence:
Person 1: “I think I might have a learning disability.”
Person 2: “Oh no, why?”
Person 1: “I didn’t really get Ulysses.”
So shlocky.
So what am I doing with this blog? Well, I have some tedious applications to fill out and feel like my eyeballs will resume their twitch (they really twitch, for weeks at a time) if I write another personal statement. No statement that’s written without any contractions sounds remotely personal. And yet, use too many contractions and you’re a goofball. Mix it up and your tone is uneven.
Last thing: maybe you’re like me, and you were troubled by the assassination in Pakistan but even more disturbed by how dumb, ahistorical, and uncritical the mainstream coverage was. I find it damn near impossible to read the news reports from NYT or CNN and have any sense of what’s going on. Anyway, I want to make this a fun blog (penispenispenis), but this is important, so here’s a link to Democracy Now’s interview with Tariq Ali, which at least begins to provide some context for the political developments in Pakistan and what the US’s role has been.
No really, lastly, I watched the Karate Kid (Part I) tonight and realized for the first time that Sensei John Kreese is supposed to be a deranged veteran. Fighting the Vietnamese, you could assume. Miyagi’s a veteran, too, but he was fighting Germans, while his wife and newborn son died in an internment camp. That is so f*cked-up. The Cobra Kai dojo kids who terrorize Daniel all have sort of a Hitler Youth look to them, but I guess it could also just be “Californian.”
Good night!
