(no subject)

[lapsedmodernist]

i got a new tattoo. it's one of the illustrations to the book my dad wrote. it's, like, a blueprint for a ladder, with diagrammed arrows and the crescent of the moon over it. totalvirility examined it yesterday upon his return from Virginia and declared that it looked both arty and techie, with the second part being kind of surprising.

i can't get this damn grant proposal written. there are too many words and they all want to be used. i guess words want their day in the sun too, when they are not expressing anything in conjunction with each other, they are pretty much nothing. this gives me insight into the life of my scrabble pieces, by the way.

i had 5 hours of video tech lab class yesterday. we are not supposed to shoot anything we want to actually use until, like, november, but i am conscripting people to help me with equipment on wednesday night, because i want several minutes of footage of WTC commemorative lights, and they are only going to be up for a week, i believe.

i have had Abba's "chiquitita" stuck in my head all weekend, except instead of "chiquitita" in my mind it's "drosophila." you know, the fruit fly you had to do experiments about genetically dominant and recessive traits with in AP Bio.

totalvirility, don't forget, i am volunteering you for Williamsburg voter registration on Sunday. if anyone else in Brooklyn is interested in volunteering themselves or their unsuspecting friends/fiends/roommates/gimps, let me know. it's only about 2 hours of your (their) time.

Comments

[totalvirility.livejournal.com]

What's up with the LJ time codes? I'm confused, because it says you posted that at 12:30 AM this morning, by which time I had not even seen your tatoo nor made the techie/arty comment, much less made that comment 'yesterday'. Weird.

Just to comment that when the song "Chiquitita" starts going through your head with the name of a fruit fly in place of the titular word? Means you've crossed over into the Total Nerd Zone. You can't sit with me at lunch, but I'll still hang out if nobody sees it.

[claudelemonde.livejournal.com]

it's okay, i once made smiths cover songs for all the spices on my spice rack. you know, "i am cumin and i need to be loved," "cinnamon, it was really nothing," "if it's not love it's cardamom that will bring us together," etc. Anthrochica and i will sit at our OWN awesomely nerdtastic table and NO BOYS ALLOWED (tongue sticking out).

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

dude.
at my departmental party last year i got drunk and made up new lyrics to "i saw mommy kissing santa claus."
in my version, santa claus's role was usurped by famous structuralist anthropologist claude levi-strauss. try humming it. doesn't it just roll off your tongue?
there was stuff about stairs and liminality there, too.

incidentally, have you heard T.A.T.U.'s cover of "how soon is now"? it rawks!s

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

sweetheart, i crossed over into "total nerd zone" a long time ago. later today i will post quizilla results to prove it.

you don't have to sit with me at the lunch table. you can stuff yourself with canned microwaveable Chef Boyardee Ravioli and chase it down with ho-hos and Poptarts and twinkies all by yourself.

you know, the twinkies was what killed Harvey Milk. and yet you consume them. and pork. bad gay! bad jew!d

[totalvirility.livejournal.com]

You've gone and confused the fine folks at Little Debby's with Hostess' murderous bigots. I eat neither Twinkies nor HoHos; I eat Swiss Cake Rolls and Oatmeal Cream Pies.

Shit's the BOMB. Seriously.

[nuncstans.livejournal.com]

If it helps, it's drosóphila, not drosophíla.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

i know that. that's what makes it worse.

I make up songs about Bok Choy!

[(Anonymous)]

Actually it's drosophila melanogaster, if you want to be truly accurate. Drosophila is just the genus name. Clearly, I will be joining you at the nerd table. Can you post a pic of your new tattoo? Otherwise, since I never see you, I will have to rely on totalvirility's verbal descriptions of it, which are likley to be, if not innacurate, interspersed with various witty, but altogether irrelevant side tangents.

- J
(That's Japhy. http://www.japhygrant.com)

Re: I make up songs about Bok Choy!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

just as soon as i figure out why my relatively new digital camera is misbehaving.u

Re: I make up songs about Bok Choy!

[totalvirility.livejournal.com]

Dude, you became Grand Imperial Wizard of the nerd table back when you were playing an online fantasy game based upon Star Trek characters.

I always kept myself at the Spazz table, where members murmur to themselves, pull at their hair, and eat paste; some of us tried to upgrade our positions in life by sitting with the foreign exchange students and cultivating a Continental attitude, but you could still see the paste oozing from the corners of our mouths.

Re: I make up songs about Bok Choy!

[(Anonymous)]

It was more about writing, then Star Trek and besides, my character was a beautiful sci-fi allegory for schizophrenia. And you subscribed to "Roller Coaster Enthusiast"! Nabokovian angst doesn't manifest itself on "The Cyclone" you know! Actually, maybe The Cyclone.

And don't even get me started on your gay clothes or your chest hair stubble.

Regardless, this is anthro's LJ, not yours, so I shall demure to her. I long to see your lovely tattoo, but more importantly, does anyone want to see "Lost in Translation" with me. I adore Bill Murray and I adore Japan. Surely, won't you adore with me?

- J

[apathyfabulous.livejournal.com]

We wanna see the tattoo. And hear about your father's book.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

for new tattoo, see my new user pic.

my dad's book, in translation to english would be called "Decals" and it's a novel in verse, highly allegorical, but on a narrative level, about a sea creature that possesses the power of total mimicry that one spring day crawls out of the sea because it cannot bear the solitude and decides to live among people and learn about them, so it meets a little girl who brings it home, then it meets her father, her father sees it for what it is, but suggests that it could become his missing brother. he takes this man's life and appearance as his own, gets an apartment, a girlfriend, but can only pass for a human, rather than be human because he is completely selfish and incapable of empathy, so in the end he transforms himself into a bird because he realizes that he needs to learn more basic things about not being alone before he can be human. in the epilogue, as his first unselfish act of relating to someone and caring for them, he flies to the aid of a baby crow that is caught up in a storm. it's a really amazing book. the decals in question are left behind by the vanished man whose identity the creature assumes, and they serve as illustrations to the book and also get referenced at various points in the text.

[apathyfabulous.livejournal.com]

wow that sounds amazing.
Anthony Burgess is the only english author I am aware of that has written a novel in verse.

[never-the-less.livejournal.com]

this is totally totally totally horrible of me (because i shouldn't need to go to a voter outreach thingy), but where are they holding the voter registration this weekend?

i need to get my registration changed to NY state before November, and this seems like it would be the easiest way possible to do it.

thanks.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

i think there are several; the one i am coordinating is in Williamsburg next Sunday from 3-5. I am not sure where exactly yet, b/c i need to see how many volunteers i get first, but the first place i am going to station them is at the Bedford & North 7th. Also prolly in McCarren Park.

hey, wanna help out??? :)

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

never mind, scratch what i just said.

the williamsburg registration for this weekend just got cancelled because instead they need people to work Atlantic Antic this Sunday. BUT there is a guy who is running the next Williamsburg registration Sunday after this one.

if you go to www.deanforamerica.com and then follow the "get local" link and search within 10 miles of 11211 or whatever, you will see where all the voter outreach events are happenning and when. hope this helps!

[never-the-less.livejournal.com]

thanks. i'm sure i'll figure out a way to change my registration -- it's just that my life is SUPER hectic right now and this seemed like it would have been easy. which is what i need.

i also thought i was going to be able to do it when i went to the dean rally in bryant park, but alas, there was no one set up there for this, which i found surprising.

thanks for the info.

Re: pretty

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

fer sure! when is the moseying up commencing?

wait, which is the new tattoo? i remember you having a very beautiful tattoo in a circle on the lower half of your back. did you add to it, or did you do something around it? what is it of? (both of them, actually)

Re: pretty

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

wow, i just went to friendster and that looks great. i think mucha is fantastic. i love art nouveau and i love tattoos and i really dig the combination of the two. for a long time i was toying around with an idea of getting one of Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations to La Morte D'Artur done, but i was afraid that it was too intricate/detailed to really translate over to the medium of skin that well.
days are pretty busy on the whole, but either friday or sat. night hanging out and drinking sounds great...i am sure totalvirility and universaldonor and whoever else would agree. where are you staying, anyway? oh, and w/r/t your apt. inquiry in your friendster post, at this point (and mind you, i have moved 6 times in my 3 years in NYC) i have concluded that the only way to find a place to live in NYC is through craigslist, 2-3 weeks before the planned move date, short of some fortuitously unexpected word-of-mouth.