New Blog!

I decided that I'd rather get started on my new blogsite than finish watching The Orphanage. Horror movies aren't really my thing anyway. (Go away, Tomás. No one wants to play with you.) Plus, I can listen to Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, which I just received for my birthday, which was technically yesterday. So here it is. It looks shiny (yes, that's a Firefly reference).

To the people who read my old blog on livejournal: thanks for your patience while I try to get my feet under me here at college. Also for reading my posts. You're the best.

To any hypothetical newcomers: you may have noticed that there were no less than three italicized phrases or words in the first paragraph. That's because I like music and literature and film, and when I find something I really like, I make it my personal mission to ensure that everyone else knows about it. For the rest, it's philosophizing, anecdotes, and not too much personal stuff. If you really want to read the old posts, you can. It's here. Some good stuff.

Alright! Moving on. I'm a freshman at University of Chicago. I have classes, and they take most of my time. I have work ten hours a week, a litmag meeting Thursday evening, and a D&D session for about five hours on Saturday. Here's what I don't have: time to write. This is a problem for someone who wants to make a living as a poet (I know, right? Practical.) The major problem is not knowing what to write about (I've been able to edit old poems to good effect - interesting how different the writer's work is from other arts: he can see the total effect of his work but still have complete freedom to change whatever he wants, whenever he wants - no time pressure of drying paint nor irrevocability of a chisel mark - on the other hand, he doesn't have to worry about whether he will screw up the piece this time through or if he will forget his lines. Once he has finished writing, he is done with it - it exists, now, immutable, indestructible.

Perhaps we get lazy. Or maybe it's just me.)

There is a very short list of things that will automatically make you my friend:

1) adulating Italo Calvino (author, If on a winter's night a traveller and Invisible Cities are his best)

2) liking Gravenhurst (obscure British paranoid/indie/folk/experimental band - check out their myspace for a sample)

3) considering xkcd a way of life (webcomic. Read it. Buy a t-shirt.)

If any three of these are true, you and I are fundamentally compatible. (Yes, there are authors and bands I like more than Calvino and Gravenhurst (T. S. Eliot and Yes, for instance) but these are the best indices I've found.) If all three of these are true AND you are a woman - well, I'm not promising anything, but that's a really, really good start.

In other news, I am part of an awesome church. It's called Fusion, and it's about twelve or fifteen people right now who really love each other. Cons: it's on the other side of the city.

Oh. Birthday presents: I got Physical Graffiti, as has been mentioned. It will take several listenings to get all of this, which is good and one of the reasons I love Zeppelin. I also got Finnegan's Wake (a replacement for the copy I lost in Milan.) Fun fact: I now own the complete works of James Joyce. So does my roommate. Also a volume of selected poems of E. E. Cummings, which I will enjoy thoroughly. Other items include pistachios, pumpkin bread, and money, all good things. Anyway.