Things I miss about Los Angeles
Inspired by the almighty Dooce, I wrote my own list of things I miss about Los Angeles. For those of you who are shocked by this because of something along the lines of "I thought you live in San Francisco. So how can you miss anything about Los Angeles? Shouldn't you, like, hate LA?": I used to be a devoted Angeleno, and Los Angeles still is and always will be one of my favorite cities, ever. I love it and I can't wait to visit again next weekend.
Things I Miss About Los Angeles (in no particular order)
Not being broke because the rent is actually reasonable for a city of its size.
The blue sky that is so incessantly and glaringly blue, you wish it was grey.
Seeing Perry Farrell on Melrose EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Having to get on the freeway to go anywhere, even to the bathroom.
The colorful, in-your-face, totally freaky hand-made costumes people wear to raves there.
Being able to drive a stick shift and not be completely screwed.
Having my "urban orgasm" every time I zoom by downtown.
Driving all the way to Pasadena just to have a Mocha out of one of those huge bowls at Equator.
Being around people who care even more about their skin than I do about mine.
Playing the "Let's see if I can see the mountains today or not" game.
Recognizing people from commercials.
Those trianguloid towers in Century City.
My friends! Lyzz! Kitty! Natalie! Colin! And more!
Being the only car on a ten-lane freeway at 3am in the morning.
Giving people directions that start with "Get off on Robertson, ..." or "Get off on La Brea, ..."
Red Balls.
Being able to ask "What would I have seen you in?"
Having at least ten different beaches to choose from every day.
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.: posted by Vera 
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So, I got my hair done. Or, you might say, I got it fixed. At least that's what Laura called it. Laura is my new hair stylist. She is a blond middle-aged Russian woman with a heavy accent. Her accent is so heavy, she pronounces the w in answer. Yeah. Laura knows exactly what she wants, and yesterday, she knew exactly what she wanted for my hair. When I first walked in, she confirmed my inkling that my hair sucks.
What happened to you? Somebody really messed up your color. Where did you get this done?
Madusalon.
I don't know that.
It's a new salon on Divis-.
It doesn't matter. I will fix it. Trust me. You've come to the right place.
Laura told me that I have a Russian name. (Really, it's Latin, but I didn't tell her that.) She said Vera is one of three popular Russian names and that it means Faith. The other two are Lubov (Love) and Nadejda (Hope).
We, or rather, she decided on a dark reddish color for me. For now. Because there is still too much black in my hair.
Laura said "Your haircut right now is just awful. It's not even really a haircut. I don't know what it is." I showed her a picture of myself from four years ago and said "I would like it like that." She said "Yeah, that's cute... But I don't think so. Here are some books." So then we looked at some haircut books together. I pointed at a picture of an Asian girl with a short bob.
My hair is already kind of like that in the front, so if we-
No, your hair is much shorter in the front.
-could just trim the back to match it?
It's too short in the front. Trust me, I saw it when I colored your hair.
Really? I mean, maybe it's a little bit shorter than that but-
I don't want to argue with you but it's definitely shorter than that. Trust me. I'm going to make it look like Halle Berry.
So Halle Berry it was. Like I said, Laura knows exactly what she wants, and yesterday, she wanted me to look like Halle Berry. I didn't dare argue. Laura proceeded to cut my hair. Then she blow-dried it. Her torch was so hot and she held it so close to my hair and scalp that I yelped a few times. She was so determined to weld my hair into the shape of Halle Berry that I saw smoke rising from strands of my hair. I pointed this out to her and she said "Yes, smoke. So? Do you want to look cute or not?" I nodded sheepishly.
In the end, I looked very glamorous. My hair was a reddish black with an outward flip. I said
It's cute.
Thanks.
I like it.
I told you I would fix it.
Yes, you did.
I told you you would look like Halle Berry.
I do look like Halle Berry.
Next time I will make you look like Hilary Swank.
Hilary Swank? What about Winona Ryder? Can you make me look like Winona Ryder?
No.
Okay. See you next time.
Laura knows exactly what she wants. So much so that I still don't know what my new haircut looks like in its natural state because my hair is still stuck in that Halle Berry flip even after washing it.
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.: posted by Vera
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The SF Independent Film Festival is coming up! The boy and I already have a date to go see Spun next week. I can't wait. It has everything I could ever ask for in a movie: Brittany Murphy, Los Angeles, methamphetamines, and the guy who directed Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up.
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.: posted by Vera
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I remember the time when I first learned about the colors pink and purple. I was probably about 4. The colors blue, red, yellow, and green had already become a part of me through some of my toys. I was vaguely familiar with orange. One day I got a new set of felt pens, and the set included a pink pen and a purple pen. This is when I was officially introduced to them as colors that had names.
Hi, I'm Pink. What's your name?
My name is Vera. Hi, Pink.
And I'm Purple.
Hi, Purple. Good to meetcha.
Pink and purple, or rosa and lila as we call them in German, seemed very exotic to me at the time. If blue and red were the apples and pears, pink and purple were the mangos and papayas of colors.
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.: posted by Vera
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When somebody like my boyfriend, who doesn't even know how to spell HTML, tells me that "Flash is limited," maybe it really is time for me to expand my horizons. But I just don't feel like it right now. Do I have to?
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.: posted by Vera
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DJ Rap did a Twix commercial. I saw it on television with my own eyes. Good for her, and I'm sure she could use the money. But it made me feel a little... funny. What's next? DJ Polywog in a movie? Wait. Sage doing a sitcom? Maybe not. Some artists will always be more commerciophilic than others. This just makes me want to give extra props to Frankie Bones for saying "I've been offered to go on Dateline and other TV programs, but I have declined because 'The revolution will not be televised!'" (BPM Magazine 12/2002)
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.: posted by Vera
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This weekend I saw two excellent movies, one yesterday and one today. Yesterday I FINALLY (yes, I am embarrassed it has taken me this long) saw Bowling for Columbine. I absolutely loved it. I am not going to say that it opened my eyes because my eyes were already wide open (no, really), but I am so thankful that there are people who feel the way I do about our country, the global bully, and our media, the fear factory, and even make movies about it. My favorite part was when, in the cartoon A Brief History of America, the African natives actually wave at the newly arrived American slave recruiters and greet them happily.
Today I saw Morvern Callar. This was the first time since The Parent Trap that I read a book that I later watched as a movie. I read Morvern Callar on the train back from visiting my boyfriend in New York in July 2001. I agree with the writer of this Salon article and thought that it would be difficult to turn Morvern Callar into a movie because most of the story seems to go on in Morvern's head. But Lynne Ramsay did a great job and even stayed very faithful to the course of events in Warner's novel. The movie contained a lot more color and laughter than I would have expected, but that didn't violate Morvern's essence in any way. Go see it but be prepared to have to cock your ears a little at the Scottish accents.
The movie also has a great soundtrack. I like that Morvern's walkman plays a supporting role and seems to be on even after the screen fades to black. I like this because on the flap of my copy of the book, it says "..., and as she narrates this strange story, she takes care to tell the reader exactly what music she is listening to, creating the stunning effect of a soundtrack running behind her voice throughout the novel." This blurb was one of the reasons I had bought the book in the first place.
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.: posted by Vera
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Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would blog about the Super Bowl, but: This morning as we were milking and sugaring our coffee and tea at the coffee shop, this guy who was also milking and sugaring his coffee asked us who we were rooting for in the Super Bowl. Our response was that we didn't have a preference. The funny thing about that is that we live in the Bay Area, and the Raiders are one of the Super Bowl teams this year, and the Raiders also live in the Bay Area. Despite our indifference, the boy is watching a little bit of the Super Bowl right now to have "something to talk about with people on the elevator."
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.: posted by Vera
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If I have to look at another picture of Catherine Zeta-Jones doing some kind of Chicago-style dance pose with the short bob and bangs and the smokey eyes leering at me semi-seductively, I swear to God, God, I am never going to open another magazine or newspaper again. You have no idea how much I mean it. I also promise that I will never EVER watch the movie, not even on video.
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.: posted by Vera
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How I (never) became a raver
 Yesterday I confessed to my friend Monica over lunch that I am still very attached to rave culture despite the fact that I am a few years older than the average raver. I told her that I think it's because I never went through a hardcore raving phase. What I mean by hardcore raving phase is a period of about six months to a year or more of going to one or more raves a week. Instead of doing that and getting it out of my system, I have been a half-assed raver since 1995. And now I believe that it's too late and I'm too old to go through a hardcore raving phase, hereinafter referred to as HRP. Here is the history of Vera the Raver and why my HRP never happened:
In 1988 I read in a German teen magazine about Acid House parties in the UK. I read that people wear gas masks to these parties and blow into whistles and may or may not exert Acieeeeeeed cries while dancing. I thought "When I grow up, I want to go to Acid House parties."
In 1992 I had been developing a vague taste for techno music for a couple of years. But that type of music was very commercial in Germany. I actively suppressed my interest in the music because it had the reputation of being cheesy and because I still preferred music that used lyrics to express pain. I had a conversation about this with my friend Starrie once, and she said she felt similarly for a while as a teen: "I wasn't interested in going to raves and dancing and being happy all night. I considered myself to be deeper and more intellectual than that." That's sort of how I felt. There was only one girl at my school, Birgit, who was going to raves at the time. She invited me along at least once. But we were living in small towns, and the closest raves were one to two hours away, and it didn't seem worth it to me. So I wallowed in morosity for a while longer and secretly sort of liked the music when nobody was looking. I should have gone with Birgit.
In 1995 I had just spent a year in California as an exchange student. My American then-boyfriend was now visiting me in Germany for a year, and he liked techno. We went to a few so-called techno parties that were held at clubs, but we never made it to any of the big raves. We missed out.
In 1996 I was back in California with the same then-boyfriend. My friends at the time were too mod and straight-edge to go to raves. I did know two girls, Judy and Priscilla, who went to raves and who offered to take me, but I was too poor ($20 seemed like A LOT of money for one night of fun), plus my friends didn't want to go, so I thankfully declined. Another bummer.
In early 1997 I got really into electronic music from watching MTV's Amp with my then-boyfriend. For the past couple of years, Industrial had been my music of choice, but my tastes were now starting to shift. I went to a few ravish events in 1997 and 1998, but it didn't blossom into a HRP because I preferred going to Electronica concerts instead of raves. Don't ask me why I preferred the overground to the underground.
In 1999 a guy from school and his friends took me to a rave called Massive Love, and this is when I finally got hooked. Massive Love launched a mini HRP which lasted until the end of the summer. That's when I decided that I needed to get straight A's during my senior year and to focus on studying instead of raving. So that was that. And yes, I did get straight A's during my senior year.
In 2001 I realized that I wasn't done raving yet and starting going again, sporadically. But now I was going on 25, and a HRP just didn't make sense anymore. That brings us to today. I'm still not done raving and I'm not sure how to get if out of my system! I should have had that HRP while I had the chance. The thing is that a lot of people fall into raving through their friends. That never happened to me. I knew people who were going to raves but my closest friends weren't going to raves.
So this is what it's come to, now that I have finally had to admit to myself that there have been many forgone chances: I daydream and fantasize about other people's old school HRP's. I daydream about Monica's boyfriend Tony's HRP in San Francisco in the early 90's. I fantasize about my friend Starrie's HRP that started in Philadelphia in 1994. I daydream about my boyfriend's friend Seth's HRP in London in 1994/95. I just imagine what it must have been like for them, back in the day, and pretend-reminisce about being there with them. I imagine what the music must have sounded like, what the people looked like that were dancing past them, what they might have felt the day after. In short, sometimes I retreat to a fantasy world in which I am able to time travel and share their experiences. It's sort of like a methadone treatment for this half-assed addiction of mine.
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.: posted by Vera
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I hate it when, in the checkout line, somebody stands halfway next to me rather than all the way behind me. Let's not mess with the natural chronology, okay? Stay right behind me, buddy, right behind me. When I look straight ahead, I don't want to be able to see any part of you in the corner of my eye. Thanks.
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.: posted by Vera
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When reading this article, I had an ingenious idea for a blog add-on: A script that searches your archive pages for broken links, both internal and outgoing, and then for each invalid link automatically takes out the href tags and inserts a little message, such as [link now stale]. Wouldn't that be swell? The script would run anytime someone opens one of your archive pages and perform an automated check-and-replace. Instead of inserting a broken link message, it could even link to a custom-made error page that says something like The link you just clicked used to link to a valid www destination, but something happened and it doesn't anymore. Sorry. I did a little research, and it doesn't look like a gadget like this exists yet. Feel free to correct me. There is the Web Link Validator but it only alerts you to broken links and doesn't automatically replace them.
I think this would be a nifty little script for Dean Allen from Textism to start developing for us. Let's ask him.
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.: posted by Vera
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I would really like a Pocket PC. I recently started a freelance project, and when I get my first check, I am thinking about spending it all on a Pocket PC. When the first handheld devices came out, I was still in college. A classmate brought a Palm Pilot to class one day, and I asked her what it was. She said that it was a Palm Pilot and that she could use it to store notes and addresses. I thought it was ridiculous that she had spent over $200 for a digital address book. A few months later - I had now graduated - I remember a coworker taking notes with a stylus during a meeting. I thought he was showing off and was mildly annoyed.
But see, now that you can do stuff online with handheld devices, I am suddenly all about the handheld devices. I no longer find them showy and pretentious, not even that pretentious stylus. I really want to get a Pocket PC. But the boy I live with doesn't think I should get one because he thinks that I want one for all the wrong reasons. Here are my reasons:
1) Yahoo Maps and Yellow Pages when I'm lost.
2) Yahoo Maps and Yellow Pages when I decide in the heat of the moment that I want to go to Shoe Pavillion and I don't know where the nearest one is.
3) Yahoo Maps and Yellow Pages when the hardware store I am standing in front of is closed and I want to find another one just like it that's open.
4) Yahoo Maps and Yellow Pages when I am approaching Las Vegas and feel like cheesecake and I want to find out where and if there is a Cheesecake Factory in Las Vegas.
5) Bayarea Citysearch when I want to know if the Vietnamese restaurant I am standing in front of has gotten good reviews or not.
6) I think that's enough logistical reasons.
7) Never having to print directions again. Priceless.
8) Checking my email from anywhere. This is essential for a telecommuter who likes to sneak out once in a while.
9) Listening to the mp3's from my computer while I'm not near my computer.
10) Making last minute bids on Ebay auctions from anywhere.
11) Testing Flash applications on a Pocket PC when I start making Flash applications for the Pocket PC.
And here are the boy's reasons for getting a handheld device. These are also the reasons that according to his view of the world are the right reasons:
1) Organizing his notes.
2) Organizing his contacts.
3) Organizing his schedule.
4) Looking cool on the subway when whipping out that stylus.
Who do you think is better qualified for the Pocket PC? Me? Thank you. I think I should get a Pocket PC, and the boy should make better use of the secretary at his firm and maybe get a copy of The Armchair Millionaire or something for the subway. Or he can get a Pocket PC, too. I would be fine with that.
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.: posted by Vera
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I found out today that San Francisco has a burger joint named Burgermeister. That's kind of a cute name, and I'm not sure if the person who named this burger joint Burgermeister was aware of this, but the only way you could really appreciate the name Burgermeister is if you understood German and knew that Bürgermeister is the German word for mayor, and that's why I am going to tell you right now, so that you will really appreciate that there is a burger joint named Burgermeister in San Francisco, that Bürgermeister is the German word for mayor.
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.: posted by Vera
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It all started one day in May of last year. The boy and I had been driving since we left Charlottesville, Virginia about five days earlier and were approaching Las Vegas, Nevada. It was almost lunch time.
The boy: So, what should we do for lunch?
Me I feel like cheesecake.
The boy: Cheesecake? For lunch?
Me: No, for dessert. I don't care what I eat for lunch as long as I can have cheesecake for dessert.
The boy: Okay.
Me: Let's try to find the Cheesecake Factory in Las Vegas.
The boy: Do you know where it is?
Me: No. Do you?
The boy: No. Do you know if there even is a Cheesecake Factory in Las Vegas?
Me: No. But I'm sure they have one. They must have one. Pasadena has one, so why shouldn't Las Vegas?
The boy:
Me: Oh look, there's In-n-out.
Cut to seven months later, and I still hadn't eaten any cheesecake anywhere. Partly it was because I had forgotten about it and partly because the opportunity just hadn't presented itself. So the other day the boy and I were hanging out.
Me: I think I want some cheesecake.
The boy: What?
Me: I think I want some cheesecake. Now.
The boy: You want some cheesecake? Now?
Me: Yes. I think I need some cheesecake. Right now.
It was as if I was pregnant. Everything else in my head went blank, but the need for cheesecake was sharp and unhampered, beckoning, crystallizing into determination. I needed to have cheesecake RIGHT THIS SECOND. Nothing was going to come between me and that cheesecake. Not even that pushy cop behind me with the blue and the red lights. No. Not even her. Too many things had come between me and that cheesecake.
I was just going to get one slice of cheesecake from a bakery, but the boy wanted to go to the grocery store and pick up a WHOLE cheesecake. I wasn't going to argue. So we came home with "Festive Favorites Cheesecake: 4 slices each of 4 great flavored cheesecakes: Creamstyle, Strawberry Swirl, Triple Chocolate, and Caramel Apple." And this, my friends, is the story of how I ended up eating cheesecake for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the last 48 hours. And my advice to you: If you haven't had a certain food item in a while and you suddenly feel a certain craving coming on for that certain food item, don't wait seven months to satisfy that craving. Do what a pregnant woman would do.
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.: posted by Vera
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Veg Fair is coming up on February 1st. I am thinking about going.
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.: posted by Vera
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 Today I went to the flea market. The living-room ensemble pictured here was the coolest thing the flea market had to offer, but it was also the most expensive. Will you look at that table? It's so shiny! And those chairs? Populuxurious. But since I wasn't prepared to shell out a couple of hundred dollars for the table and another couple of hundred for the chairs, I took a picture instead. It'll last longer.
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.: posted by Vera
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My friend Josh gave me a short panoramic video he shot when we went to Folsom Street Fair in September: Watch it. I love how distorted the music sounds.
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.: posted by Vera
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My hair sucks
I hate nothing about my body as much as I hate my hair. My hair sucks, and it keeps on sucking. Sometimes I just don't even bother with it anymore. I just let it be and try not to look in the mirror. Maybe I am turning into one of those people who just don't care what they look like. Wouldn't that be something.
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.: posted by Vera
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I want to talk about vomiting* some more. Do you mind? If you do, just go back to your own vomit-free sandbox. But don't worry, I am not going to get into the gory details such as viscosity, color, or ingredients.
My vomit theory
Vomiting is a total bitch. I hate it. I knew someone once who hated vomiting so much, he hadn't eaten in six years. Oh yes, he was totally in a mental hospital and everything. The point is that nobody really likes vomiting. But I think that the more in tune you are with your body, the more you vomit. Some people vomit when they are upset, when something terrible has happened in their lives, or when they are nervous. Ariel, for instance, seems to throw up more than average. For details, read her Regurgatory Erotic Response essays I and II. Me? I only vomit when I have ingested something my body physically couldn't handle, such as spoiled food or too much alcohol. I have never vomited because of an external factor whose initial receptor was my brain and not my body. I think this might be evidence that my body and brain aren't communicating very well. They just say hi to each other when I wake up in the morning but pretty much ignore each other after that.
Hi Vera's Body.
Oh, hey Vera's Brain.
What are you up to today?
Oh, the usual. Sit around most of the time, bounce a little if the right music comes my way, maybe fart once or twice. What about you?
Eww! Well, I'm going to help her work and write blog entries. Whenever Vera feels a little too comfortable, I am going to be sure and tell her that the grass is always greener on the other side. And as soon as it gets dark, I am going to remind her of all the scary creatures she has ever seen on TV.
You're sick. Now leave me alone.
See what I mean? I wish they would just get along. I think it can be beneficial to have a strong concord between your body and brain. When you do, you can sense right away when something is going on with your body, like when you are pregnant or have contracted the Nile Virus. If I was pregnant, I probably wouldn't know it until the baby bit me in the butt. When you do have that concord, your body would also tell you - or rather, you would let it tell you - when it is unhappy with what you are doing to it. And I am not talking about the really gross violations of your body's bill of rights such as "Do not smock crack" or "Do not touch that pimple." I am talking about the body's more subtle needs, such as "Eat more green beans this week" or "Stretch," that are going to help you be a healthier and happier person in the long run. Ideally, this would be a two-way feedback loop. That's where the vomiting comes in. If you want your brain to listen to your body, your body will have to reciprocate the consideration and listen to your brain. And that means that certain cerebral stimuli will make you vomit. So, if my theory is true, then, if I want to become a better mediator between my body and my brain, I have to be willing to vomit more than, say, once every five years. So if I'm ever hanging out with you and you tell me that my blog sucks or that I look more like Celine Dion than Chloe Sevigny and I then barf all over your moon rock collection, please accept my apologies in advance. Thanks.
*I am only referrring to the naturally occurring vomiting here, not the voluntary kind where you singlehandedly grab food from your stomach and throw it into the toilet.
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.: posted by Vera
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Sunny pictures
Today is the first beautiful sunny day we have had in a while, so I took a bunch of pictures near where I live.
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.: posted by Vera
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Good news in the blogosphere: Helen Jane is revolutionizing the context of the word blogger. She has recently started working on the set of the movie I Love Your Work as a paid blogger. A paid blogger, people! It's sort of a promotional tactic to hype up the movie while it is being produced. I think it's brilliant! And I think this is just the beginning of bloggers finally getting recognized and paid for their wit and creativity. Go Helen Jane! Thanks for paving the way!
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.: posted by Vera
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The other day in the park, this strange-looking toothless woman with two sweatered dogs (yes, the same one) asked me "What are you doing March 26-28?" I said "I have no idea!" But the thing is that now I know what I will be doing March 26-28: Flash Forward 2003! I registered yesterday. This is my first conference of any kind ever, and my boss is paying for it, and I am very excited. I remember when I first started out with Flash, I used to think "Flash Forward? That's for the hardcore." I guess I am hardcore now. I can't wait till I hang out on the red carpet in front of the Herbst Theatre and till all these people run up to me and take my picture and look at my name tag and say "Ah, Vera Fleischer. You're the girl who built the Blog Viewer!" Or better yet "Ah, Vera Fleischer. I heard you're going to be the next Jessica Speigel!" Maybe, just maybe, I am getting ahead of myself but I can dream, can't I? Like a famous late philosopher once said, "Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real."
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.: posted by Vera
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 I went to a very interesting restaurant today: Suppenküche. That's German for soup kitchen. The soup of the day was a vegan lentil soup that was finger-lickin' lecker. I think it had lemon in it. I also got to drink an Erdinger which I hadn't had in years. That also had lemon in it. We had to share a wooden table with a young boy, his parents, and his boyfriend. What I found fascinating about Suppenküche was the combination of a rustic and old-fashioned interior, a modern exterior with a minimalist logo, and the sounds of Orbital coming from the speakers. What a fusion. Sure, you could find a restaurant like this in the part of Germany where I grew up. Minus the architecture and the music and the vegan dishes.
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.: posted by Vera
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A few years ago I had this painful obsession with the show Jack & Jill. All week I would look forward to watching it on Sunday night. I cried when it stopped airing after two seasons and everything. I even wrote the network asking them if they could please pop out a few more episodes because, even though the rest of the country didn't care much for the show, I really liked watching it. But the network didn't listen, and I am still Jack & Jill-less on Sundays. All I can do is wax nostalgic with myself and read scathing recaps on Television Without Pity. But I think I may finally have found a substitute for Jack & Jill: Jack & Coke. It's almost as entertaining. Some Sundays, the boy and I start drinking Jack & Coke at about 4pm, and we don't stop until we go to bed. Then, when I squint my eyes, I can almost make believe that I am going to bed with Ivan Sergei.
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.: posted by Vera
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I saw a very sad documentary last night: Paragraph 175. It's about the treatment of homosexuals in Germany during the Nazi Regime and beyond. A young historian named Klaus Müller looks up, interviews and portrays some of the few German homosexual men alive today who survived the Concentration Camps. The narrative is not very coherent, and some of the (very old) men are hard to understand at times, but the end result is very powerful, and I find myself thinking about the film a lot now. What gets me the most is that no gay man has to date received reparations like many Jews did after the holocaust. Also, all throughout the 50's and 60's gay men were still being imprisoned under Paragraph 175. I never realized Germany was this homophobic for so long. I don't like it one bit.
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.: posted by Vera
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I just got some super cute and super cheap new Fornarina sandals, and so I am auctioning off my old black ones. What are you waiting for? Go bid!
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.: posted by Vera
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Does anybody know of a good international grocery store in San Francisco? In Charlottesville, I used to go to Foods of All Nations, and I really miss it. If I don't find Remoulade or Kroketten soon, I am going to drop-kick a Safeway employee! Or just pout for an hour.
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.: posted by Vera
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Very cool word of the day at the Word Spy today: desire line. I like the Backgrounder:
Desire lines (or natural desire lines, as they're also called) are those well-worn ribbons of dirt that you see cutting across a patch of grass, often with nearby sidewalks - particularly those that offer a less direct route - ignored. In winter, desire lines appear spontaneously as tramped down paths in the snow. I love that these paths are never perfectly straight. Instead, like a river, they meander this way and that, as if to prove that desire itself isn't linear and (literally, in this case) straightforward.
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.: posted by Vera
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I can think of at least four reasons why knee high socks are the coolest thing since, like, the Eiffel Tower:
1. They look totally, totally cool.
2. They remind me of high school.
3. They aren't as skanky as knee high boots.
4. Nobody will ever know you haven't shaved since, like, Ally McBeal went off the air.
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.: posted by Vera
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I just had another blogger sighting. I saw Leila. At Escape From New York Pizza. With blue hair!
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.: posted by Vera
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A couple of my imaginary readers have asked me why they didn't get a Christmas present from me. I said "You're imaginary. What are you going to do with a present?" But then they said "Uh, how about listen to it?" And that's when I came up with the perfect present for my imaginary readers: A song! I think even imaginary people can appreciate good music, no? So here we go. My belated Christmas present for my corporeal and imaginary readers alike: The title track from the Technasia CD I got from my sister and brother. For a limited time only. Download while it lasts! I love the rippling stairwells in it, I love how it gets all quiet and somber in the middle, and then it gets all ripply again, and I love that I confidently put it in the Techno drawer of my mental electronic music cabinet the first time I heard it, which a few years ago I probably wouldn't have been able to; I would have wondered if it might not be Trance. It's an awesome song. If you like Techno.
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.: posted by Vera
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This morning my boyfriend and I went hiking near Golden Gate Bridge, and it was foggy and beautiful and fun and exhausting, and it made me want to go skiing soon, and then he went shopping for music, and I went shopping for clothes, and that's why I am now wearing the world's greatest pair of dark blue corduroy pants, seriously, and the reason I am writing like this is that I am reading The Rules of Attraction, and I really like it so far, and this is how Bret Easton Ellis writes sometimes.
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.: posted by Vera
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As promised, here is my review of Nymphomation. May contain spoilers. Read at your own risk.
The bottom line is that I wasn't very impressed. Noon seems to think that he is some kind of mathemagician, but he clearly is not. My take on his throwing around pretentious mathematical terms is best summarized by the Things I didn't like section on this page. I appreciate the brave new world Noon has created, in which a corporate lottery game based on the game of dominoes is holding an entire town hostage, in which kids get high off of ultragarlic, in which a digital world produces new life forms that affect the physical world, in which swarms of blurbflies (organic advertisements) harass and influence people much more than telemarketers ever could. I also appreciate his style of writing: repetitive but with subtle aberrations, much like electronic music, remixed and adulterated. But I didn't like the story he tells. I found it a little too convenient. It is too convenient that several of the former students of a 1949 second grade mathematics class are all involved with the evil lottery in one way or another, voluntarily or involuntarily. The way the mystery of the lottery unravels is a little too convenient as well. Every 50 or so pages, a new snippet of weirdness is, out of nowhere, revealed to our hero, Daisy. But the thing is that the events inbetween these revelations don't seem to lead up to each other. They are just filler and fluff until Noon decides that now is a good time to reveal that "Georgie found the centre" or that "It was Susan who came up with the rule of not going in alone." Dramatic statements like these remind me just a little too much of bad sci-fi movies. In fact, that's exactly how this book read: like the script for a bad movie. You know how there are usually good arguments to be made for a book being more intriguing and more artistic than the accompanying film? The film version, on the other hand, tends to be more teleological, more predictable? Well, this book is the film version. Bummer.
The story is full of totally unrealistic moments of code-breaking, just like in the movies. You know, kind of like this (note that this is not a quote from the book, just an illustration of what I mean):
How do we get into the secret files on Buster's computer?
I know! He is a big fan of Tori Amos. Let's try that.
Password rejected. Toriamos is not it.
I know! Let's switch the first and last letters to make it Sori Amot!
Dude, we're in.
The Hollywood dramatism and ridiculous convenience climax in the end when Daisy and her father play a last game of dominoes as Jazir simultaneously attacks the lottery building with his own squadron of blurbflies and mastermind Hackle walks through "the maze" while Joe is doing his computer voodoo to the virtual maze, and all of this is planned and timed perfectly to reveal the big fucking secret and to undermine the evil lottery. Whoop-dee-freaking-doo.
So yeah. The book wasn't great. But that doesn't mean that I am completely dismissing Jeff Noon as a creditable author or that I am not still interested in reading some of his other books, especially Needle in the Groove.
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.: posted by Vera
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Have you ever thrown up in public, in front of a bunch of strangers? I haven't. But I can imagine that it would suck bigtime.
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.: posted by Vera
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When I was teenager I did a lot of babysitting. Some of the kids I babysat had very interesting parents. They were more natural, more bionomic, more organic than my family or other families I knew. They dressed their kids in earth tones only, voted for the Green Party, didn't allow their kids to have any plastic toys, didn't own a TV, fed their kids pureed carrots instead of formula, and had friends in Heidelberg. I don't want to call them hippies because they weren't hippies, really. I'd prefer to call them ecos. I remember looking up at them and thinking "I want to be like that when I grow up."
Today I went to Rainbow Grocery for the first time in my life. It reminded me of those eco families. I haven't been doing a very good job at "being like that when I grow up" because I do own a TV and I don't bring a hemp bag to the grocery store like my mom does, but I am still young and have time to work on it. Going to Rainbow Grocery might be a good first step. I would like to go there a lot but it's a little farther away than I would like my grocer to be. So we'll see. I liked what I saw so far. They had an abundance of grains and spices that I had never heard of. This is good, I think. They also had a homeopathic counter where you can pick your homeopathic tinctures. My aunt Inge has opened her own homeopathic practice since I last saw her, and I haven't been able to make an appointment with her. But perhaps she can tell me what type of tincture might help with my known physical and mental maladies, and then I might just buy it at Rainbow Grocery. I should be superwoman in no time! Just you wait. Oh yeah. Make that eco superwoman.
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.: posted by Vera
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San Francisco is making me sick! No, I don't mean it that way. What I mean is that this is the third time I have been sick since moving here. It's the mercurial weather, I know it.
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.: posted by Vera
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Time for a list!
I buy a lot of stuff on Ebay. Do you? Here are some of the things I bought there and still love:
What's the coolest thing you ever bought on Ebay?
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.: posted by Vera
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HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Like I mentioned before, my New Year's was celebrated with friends at a rave at the Cow Palace called Planet New Year. The cool thing about this was that I was the youngest one in the group. Let me reiterate: I am 26 years old. I went to a rave with four other people. Each of these four people is older than 26. It may seem like ravers are getting younger and younger, but really, they are getting older.
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.: posted by Vera
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