random pontification

the brooklyn neighborhood where i live is a place where it is impossible for me or my roommate to walk down the street without getting hooted at (so even when it's hot i try to wear a hoodie, which kinda pisses me off, but whatever). if someone asked me why i mind someone hooting at me, my response would probably be phrased in a knee-jerk second-wave-feminist kind of way, about machismo and objectification etc. however that is an intellectual framework that is a way to mediate the visceral objection that it creates in me. i started thinking about this because the other night i was with a few friends, and we were leaving a bar in chelsea after hours, and as we were lighting cigarettes in the street this older guy, drunk or on something, also exiting the bar, looed at me, stopped and said "you are so fucking gorgeous." but i did not mind, because i inferred that he was gay. that got me thinking. obviously i appreciate the sentiment. logically it would seem that that sentiment would be more valid from a heterosexual guy, because it would have more agenda, and not just be aesthetic appreciation. then i thought about it more, and decided that maybe what pissed me off about random guys whistling from street corners is precisely the fact that masquerading under the guise of unchecked id-response is...nothing, just phatic function of how men interact with women. the guy at the bar had nothing to offer except aesthetic appreciation, so his compliment was equivalent to his intent. and by no means am i implying that i would actually want the random guy hawking a loogie at the streetcorner to fuck me, but any comment i hear on the way home just activates a hatred for this sort of linguistic filler, aa simulacrum of interaction, a simulacrum of even the most crude attraction, because it's never about the other person, it's about some passive-aggressive intrapersonal thing where people need to prove their own machismo to themselves (not to the random girl passing by). so i guess my meta-problem with all this is the same one i always have--that people are not self-aware and they manifest their issues and needs and insecurities and social standing on a level projected into a metaphorical medium that they do not recognize as metaphorical, and onto an "other" when the real subject is themselves.

commodity fetishism

yesterday sharon, ilka and i went to a moving sale a few streets away, and bought a bunch of random crap. i bought one of those vintage suitcases, little and funky-colored (dark green) that i totally imagine 1950s anthropologists having. and now i have one of my own, which will probably make the baggage claim process at the airports easier. they were also selling one vintage light blue suitcase that was super-cute but too heavy. also i considered a gray overcoat, kind of soviet-stern-40s style, but i tried it on and stood in front of the mirror in this coat, the blue suitcase in hand, and it was all way too doctor zhivago, so i passed.

(no subject)

haha, i can't sleep and someone just forwarded me these links



Which Angelina Are You?



Which Kirsten Dunst Are You?




you're high art. you're about lesbians and heroin and take place in new york. how trendy.

take the which prettie movie are you? quiz, a product of the slinkstercool community.

Contrary to popular belief, not much sleeping is done in here. *wink*
If you were a room in a house, what room would you be?