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[personal profile] lapsedmodernist
Although it does not in any way affect my recent epiphany that I need a vehicle, other people's cars and MBTA have enabled my urban nomadism lately.

The hours in this week were so full that they must have been well-oiled with the time-equivalent of that balm kvarturin I was talking on the beach about, from the old Russian science fiction story about a man who uses this balm that stretches space inside a room but not outside inside his communal apartment share until it becomes a huge, scary, neverending existential space where he gets lost, hopelessly trying to find his way back to the lightbulb that is casting uneven shadows onto the shapeless walls, while from the outside it looks like a normal room of a disenfranchised Soviet Citizen. Yes, like that, but a lot better.

***
Tuesday: Communist nostalgia pub, existential/sexual jokes about grandmas and tram cars, topless cartwheels on Memorial Drive late at night
***
Wednesday: Mount Auburn Cemetary, winding up the tower, rolling down the grassy hill, my date with an Angel, a "way Abu Ghraib statue," James F. Gay AND
***
Russian Store #1, Russian Store #2, Aphrodite's Left Breast, William Buroughs in Russian {ew}, earrings out of redcurrant berries, crashing a community cookout at a playground, admiring poodles, refusing Krispy Kremes, my fascination with a Raphaelite girl. I kept looking at her in a way that, I imagine, one day, when she is, like, 12 and remembering this day, will make her wonder if I wasn't her real mother. Swings. Bubbles. Girls on swings. Girls in bubbles. AND
***
Overwhelmed at SuperStore 88, Thai, Korena, Vietnamese, Chinese food, I have Very Spicy properly done Korean Ramen bowl, the sort I haven't had since Mato Bento around the corner from the anthro department closed last year. AND
***
Swampscott beaches in the Dark AM, where we were apparently mistaken for a suicide cult by the local young adults. beach, one of our companions digging A HOLE THE ENTIRE TIME, like a visual equivalent of background music. I kept rapping Eminem's "Cleaning Out My Closets" under my breath b/c it was TOTALLY LIKE THAT with the silent cathartic digging and the shirtless and short blonde crewcut you KNOW what I'm talkin' about from the video, yeah?
***
On Thursday, lunch with Mz. Aud at the Buddhist Cultural Center, delicate sweet soup and ginger tea and perfectly fried tofu, followed up with burnt caramel ice-cream on Harvard Square. I picked up more TZ film at the Ferranti-Dege, along with some Kodak to try out the cross-processing and the man fixed the lens on my camera for free because [my] boots are cool! (and that seems to be the consensus, either that, or all of a sudden EVERYONE wants to sleep with me). Then a visit to Mz. Aud's amazing office, perfect timing to catch the bus back to Lynn, only to return to Cambridge for some Pale Ale at Bukowski's (verdict: Boston hipsters seem more diluted and user-friendly than the Thermonuclear Hyperbolic Hipsters that populate the Brooklyn Hipster GZ circa Bedford and 7th)
***
Finally, last night, Gogol Bordello, the most energetic show I have ever had the pleasure of attending, but note to self, wear yr steel-toed Docs not yr suede knee-highs if there is going to be moshing.

BONUS:
Alchemy in the kitchen, where cheap store-brand vodka is being turned into Gold through [profile] theophile's Midas touch. The elixir lives in the Britta filter and I keep almost adding it to tea, as coolant. Huzzah!

Tomorrow the compass is set to North-North-East, I will be back in about a week.

I leave you with pictures

I am drinking beer
writing typing on the wall
Gypsy Punk
GYPSY PUNK: [livejournal.com profile] anthrochica, [livejournal.com profile] lullibyborn, [livejournal.com profile] mashuta
Start wearing purple for me now
start wearing purple for me NOW

We met a wild beast, staggering, he came from the woods...
we met a wild beast, staggering, he came from the woods...
splendor in the grass
splendor in the grass
kara
[livejournal.com profile] fluttr
kara and masha
[livejournal.com profile] fluttr and [livejournal.com profile] mashuta
way Abu Ghraib
as [profile] theophile said, this statue was "way Abu Ghraib"
you shall be judged
YE SHALL BE JUDGED
the tram and its ghost
a streetcar named Ghost
Bubble Girl
Bubble Girl
red lantern Mimi
by the temple walls, each night, they burn a red, red lantern bright
you may bury me but you will not keep me underground
Water turns to sand and turns to sound, follow me I'm going underground
(deleted comment)

Date: 2005-09-14 02:09 pm (UTC)

Date: 2005-08-21 05:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] damiella.livejournal.com
Does the cheap-vodka-through-Brita-filter trick work? I've heard about this, but have yet to try it. Also, can you go back to using the filter for water or should you get a separate one for the boozy experimentation?

Date: 2005-08-21 06:19 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] theophile.livejournal.com
it totally works. after about three runs through the filter, the vodka has lost its rubbing-alcohol smell; after six, it goes down like water.

water that gets you very, very drunk.

for reference points, I've been used to drinking Smirnoff and Stoli lately, thanks to Russky friends who frown on the shit-quality vodka I used to settle for. this Brita-filtered bottom-shelf vodka is definitely far better than any mid-shelf brand, and I suspect it would match up well against unflavored top-shelf American brands.

I haven't tried using the filter again. I plan on doing a plain water run through it to wash it out, and then seeing if the water it filters comes out fine. chemically there's no reason it shouldn't, but if the alternative is drinking potato-flavored water, I'll be setting aside separate filters for my separate Brita needs.

Date: 2005-08-22 02:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mjmj.livejournal.com
really now, should you be posting this where pnts can see it? we don't want more "pavement" incidents. for a while, anyway.

Date: 2005-09-14 02:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com
pnts is a whiskey girl, after my own heart, huzzah.
(deleted comment)

Date: 2005-08-21 02:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com
I refuse to see that movie on the grounds of Hate (mine).

BUT if you ever get a chance to see GB live, you totally should!

Date: 2005-08-22 12:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] exterra.livejournal.com
aren't they fun live? i had more fun at their show a month or two ago than i've had at a live concert in qutie a while.

Date: 2005-08-21 04:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mycrust.livejournal.com
Something about those T trolley cars reminds me a lot of Eastern Europe. Particularly Lechmere station and the curious "Trolley Snacks" booth by the platform. It's like being back in Hungary.

Date: 2005-08-27 07:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com
totally. very Prague.

Date: 2005-08-21 05:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] watchamacallit.livejournal.com
i'm so jealous you went to GB! my plans were conflicted that night and i ended up at another show instead.

Date: 2005-08-29 02:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] watchamacallit.livejournal.com
Mr Airplane Man's final show.

Date: 2005-08-21 06:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ersatz-life.livejournal.com
mmm brita vodka. hmm...

what kind of typewriter is that?

Date: 2005-08-27 07:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com
I have no idea! It was the typewriter on the wall of a bar named after Bukowski.

Date: 2005-08-27 07:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ersatz-life.livejournal.com
oh, i thought it was yours and i kept trying to figure out if there was a reason why the keys weren't in qwerty but like *almost* in qwerty. and then i imagined you trying to switch between that and a computer and ok yeah... this didn't go on for long this imagining. but still. cool picture then.

Date: 2005-08-21 07:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] orpheusinhades.livejournal.com
I am never quite sure whether I read your journal primarily for the intellectual ranting, or for the pretty pictures. Fortunately you are good at both.

Date: 2005-08-27 07:18 am (UTC)

Date: 2005-08-21 08:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] christophrawr.livejournal.com
I see Kundera.... :)


What other titles on the pile? I'm going blind, here!

Date: 2005-08-27 07:20 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com
you'd have to ask [livejournal.com profile] lullibyborn, c'est her apartment.

one more advantage of the inner city?

Date: 2005-08-23 12:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mjmj.livejournal.com
> Tuesday: Communist nostalgia pub, existential/sexual jokes about grandmas and tram cars, topless cartwheels on Memorial Drive late at night

never mind that this is a risky maneuver without a sports bra, you can do those cartwheels late at night with no worries about mosquitoes? there are some benefits to not having an ecology nearby, i guess.

Re: one more advantage of the inner city?

Date: 2005-08-27 07:20 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com
I think it was fine, no mosquitos bit me during the very brief interval when I was cartwheeling shirtless.

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