"Fire is motion / Work is repetition / This is my document / We are all all we've done / We are all all we've done / We are all all we've done / We are all all defenses."

- Cap'N Jazz, "Oh Messy Life," Analphabetapolothology

Sunday, December 31, 2006

let's give peace a chance!

if you're reading this, you are probably sitting in the comfort of your home, having just eaten a warm meal with your loved ones, might have just finished watching a movie, might even be well on your way to getting completely drunk to welcome the new year.

outside, there's probably fireworks and people screaming and cheering. somewhere near you people are dancing, having fun, forgetting that somewhere else in the world, there is complete darkness, save for the flash of bombs and missile fire.

it is so easy for us to forget, in our nests of warmth and comfort, that there are other people dying from disease, starvation, cold, heat, neglect, melancholy. have we forgotten them? just because we cannot see them, does not mean we cannot feel their sadness creeping up to us when we become still in the night.

have we forgotten to love our fellow man/woman/child? were we really put on this earth to hate one another and destroy our precious environment?

giving your old unwanted clothes during the Christmas season is not enough to keep the billions of homeless people in the world warm, and eating organic will not change the fact that many millions of other people will never even see a piece of your unwanted food that day. buying RED is not going to change the fact that america remains the most wasteful nation in the world, and corporate social responsibility still remains the exceptionality, when it should be the rule.

indeed, as RED reminds us, we have the POWER to make a difference. (by buying their product...?) but do we, as they want us to believe, have a choice?

surely not. otherwise, why would millions of children and elderly be dying of malnutrition all over the world? why else would the millions in Africa in dire need of AIDS medication require US consumers to buy additional amounts of Gap jeans they don't need, while giving them false cause to pat themselves on the back for their consumer-based philanthropy?

if we really wanted to make a difference, surely we would find the resources and energy and good will to do it? (after all, we are spending so much money on an admittedly useless war, one that is costing the lives of thousands of innocent civilians' and American soldiers' lives.

and as the RED ad reminds us, "we don't want them to die."

do we really believe that? if we were really so kind-hearted, would we allow this to happen? take a look at the things we are easily allowing ourselves to accept.



then tell me this does not make you sick:

and what are your expensive designer tees gonna do to change that?

---

as you sip your champagne tonight and then crawl into your warm bed, try to remember that all over the world there are countless untracked landmines, children who will never live to early adolescence because of disease and lack of food, young men and women (merely children themselves) in the military, generations of people who will never know a world of peace, who will be the victims of ceaseless, unnecessary war -- and for what?! because we can close our eyes, turn away, can slip into our material comforts and forsake the suffering of those we've never met. how easily we forget our brethren on the other side of the world. how easily we forget!

---

we can do better. now let's actually try.

to a better 2007. (may this be the beginning of the future...)
-stephanie


how you can help:
donate to UNICEF.
tell George to Save Darfur.
help The Global Fund directly, rather than buy from RED.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

while you were reminiscing, the future was passing you by

goodbye 2006. hello, 2007!

reflecting on the past year, i can't say i've been horribly disappointed by or regretful of anything. i think i made the best out of most difficult situations, managed to laugh and cry enough to understand the significance of both, loved and lost enough to appreciate my family and friends more, and risked enough to say i lived.

i'm not spectacularly happy, but i'm not depressed any more either.

i'm another year older, and as my dad would say, that's enough cause for celebration.

but not just yet. there's much to be done, so much to change, so much to spend my idle moments thinking about.

i'm not one for resolutions, never saw much point in making false promises to myself. and i hope that i am constantly reflecting, constantly reforming, that i don't require some silly end-of-year ritual to remind me to self-improve. if something bothers me enough, i shld have the resolve to change it in that instant. "bah to inertia," that's what i say. i'm all about gaining momentous momentums until i'm travelling faster than time itself, until i've met the future and shaken its hand.

so let's have 2007 be the year for reVolutions! rather than expend my renewed energies devising self-involved methods for change, why not think at the global level? how am i going to change the world? what can i do to make the world we share a better place for everyone, and not just myself?

i'll get back to you on this. and you do the same. there is much to be mulled, much to be ruminated.
-stephan!e

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

i want a puppy! (but not that one...)

thank u to all the kind readers and friends who wished me such warm happy birthdays yesterday. my 21st was a blast, but do not worry and do not be alarmed: self-control and dignity were not lost (which is more than can be said for some ppl.) i merely ordered my first drink, a rum ri martini and sipped it modestly at dinner with my family. we ate cake and sang songs and i opened presents. (my family surprised me at the last minute with very kind and thoughtful presents, giving me a stack of DVDs i'd been pining for all year, including MEMENTO, HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG, EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN, and AMERICAN BEAUTY (my other favorite movie).

in all, it was one of the best birthdays i've ever had. thank you. :-)

---

speaking of gifts, i've always wanted a puppy and have asked for one for christmas ever since i was old enuf to know i had needs and wants for things (5 was the age i think). well, i didn't get a puppy this year (surprise surprise), but when i went to the new york times website (my homepage), i saw this:now, let's take a closer look, shall we?
hmm. the cute and (read:) iNBRED dog. (read more here.)

apparently, the NYT thot this worthy online frontpage material. makes me wonder if i shld revert to the BBC (whose editors, despite their ostensibly british readership still found Gerald Ford's death and efforts toward peace in Somalia of primary interest. funny, where did we go wrong?)

---

in other dog-related news, i've been enjoying this satirical view of the long-befuddling comic Marmaduke.



and i thot i was the only one spending my sunday mornings endlessly frustrated by the seemingly guileless and unamusing shenanigans of an overgrown terrorist canine, but apparently Joe Mathlete is providing some necessary and not-easily-divined answers. yay for satire and comic relief!

ruff woof,
stephan!e

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

it's a giant among cliches


"...sing me Happy Birthday
sing it like it's going to be your last day
like its hallelujah
don't just let it pass on through ya
it's a giant among cliches
and that's why I want you to sing it anyway..."

-andrew bird



"Oh happy birthday, happy birthday.
Little Lisa, today is your day.
Sing hallelujah, you know they blew ya'.
There are too many, candles in your cake.
But don't you worry, there's no hurry.
The Jehovas are standing by your door.
And they're offering, eternal suffering.
Eternal life, but you say no.
Turn on the radio, clean the windows.
Do it in slow-mo, as the day unfolds.
Oh how the sun shines inside you, just like I do.
These days are gold.
The nights are silver, they make you shiver.
Tomorrow the Jehovas will come by.
And they will ask you of and excuse.
Not to accept eternal life.

But I love you, yes I love you.
But I would never kiss your lips.
'Cause there's a friendship, a lovely kinship.
Here's a tulip to match your eyes.
Oh drinking cheap wine to bosanova.
You're a supernova in the sky.
The Jehovas, in their pull-overs.
Are no Casanovas, like you and I.
Oh happy birthday, happy birthday.
Happy birthday to you.
Oh happy birthday, happy birthday.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
Oh happy birthday, little Lisa.
Happy birthday to you."

-jens lekman

cheers!

i'm 21 at last!

and i have the best parents ever. they stormed my room at one minute past, and drug me to the kitchen to have a celebratory glass of wine with them.

my favorite thing about my birthday: my dad says "congratulations" every time i turn one year older, like it's a huge achievement to have survived the last 365 days. which sometimes, it is.

and here is how it feels to be 21:

it feels GREAT.

cheers,
stephan!e

Monday, December 25, 2006

on the brink of my 21st birthday (or, how to interpret a myspace-esque self-portrait)

less than one hour until the apocalypse known as my 21st birthday, and i want to remember how i feel in this very moment (for i will never be on the brink of 21 again).


what i was obviously thinking in the fractioned second it took to take this picture:

the 21st year of my life shall mark the beginning of the era henceforth known as 'the emo years' (woe, indeed...)

the holy daze hath blanched my complexion...

feeling more self-conscious than usual about my facial proportions, i decided to crop half my visage from the picture, only to provide the Beatles poster as a frame of reference, to which one might remark, 'hark! what a prodigious forehead!' foiled again! blast!

i'm looking somewhat bloodshot and dry.

progressively creepy, and increasingly close.

this is your face on aderol.

i've replaced Paul in the resurrected Beatles. and i'm grateful (if not a little stunned) for the honour.

i'm just as shocked and crestfallen as you should be to learn that Sufjan is gay.

"i am the most great female hypnotist of the world!"


in summary: i am only slightly more indifferent than usual.


seesons greatings.
-stephan!e

Friday, December 22, 2006

sing me happy birthday

it's my birfday in 4 days. my 21st birfday.

i don't think i can bring myself to get out to a bar. i can't even make myself get dressed up to go out.

it's too depressing, since it's the day after christmas and all. i don't want to be sitting at the bar and buying drinks for all the sad souls without family or friends or better places to go who are just hanging out at a bar on the 26th. and i certainly don't want to be one of those people.

so give me a call. write me an email. or better yet, send me a letter and hide a gift inside for me.

wish me a happy birthday, won't you? (and kwanzaa and boxing day and new year while yr at it...) sing me cheers.

until then, i'm gonna pretend this was a special gift to me from my friend jens (and now my gift to you).

cheers,
stephanie

Thursday, December 21, 2006

contentment.

...maniacal contentment.

i was so proud of myself for having gotten great gifts for all my loved ones while managing to spend as little time as possible in the mall, that i treated myself to the movies i knew no one was going to get me.

i am now the delighted owner of: CAPOTE, MEMENTO (my favorite movie), SE7EN, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, and EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN.

yay for cinephilia.

consumerism- 1. stephanie's will power- 0.

c'est la vie.
-stephanie

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

oh the irony...


when i heard that first lady Laura Bush has skin cancer, my first impulse was to kinda laugh obnoxiously at what i perceived as a burning case of irony:

the wife of our unequaled president, George Bush --whose environmental policies have proven exceedingly and increasingly laughable and ignorant, delusional, noncomittal, ineffective, and damningly negligent-- is apparently suffering one of the symptoms indicative of the impending apocalypse: squamous cell carcinoma, the 2nd most common form of skin cancer.

the skin cancer is one of many manifest risks of depleting ozone, a direct result of our government's inability to acknowledge harmful and PREVENTABLE pollution as a cause of environmental problems, and its inability to prioritize environmental protection (rather than big oil).

you'd think this personal event would make the deteriorating ozone more salient to our boy George (especially since his recent trip to the doc to get 4 sun-induced lesions removed from his face).

but sadly, the administration's wind-up monkey marches on...

hey, at least we can enjoy 50+ degree weather in december...?
-stephanie


p.s. for fun, watch this (below). my favorite part comes at 3:05. "go home and die." wow.

Bush Speech (Edited)

Monday, December 18, 2006

my eyes are tired


i woke up the other day and couldn't see. my eyes were so blurry and tired that they refused to open. upset by the thought i might never see again, i lamented the loss of my film-going abilities, and started crying.

that was apparently just what my eyes needed. they cleared up soon after.

but my eyes have been worsening lately. either painfully dry or constantly tearing, light-sensitive and heavily weary, it's made looking at a glowing laptop screen increasingly difficult. i blame finals for exhausting my thresholds, and for exposing my retinas to inordinant amounts of radioactive laptop light.

anyway, in lieu of spending longer periods of time on my laptop than needed to write posts, i will be posting pictures. at least, until the tearing stops.

besides, some pictures just speak for themselves.

and i love a self-sufficient picture.

pray for my eyes,
stephanie

Sunday, December 17, 2006

mew = me: wow=ew

words can't do some images justice.

so why try?
-stephanie


p.s. i'm trying to decide whether to switch to the new blogger beta. it makes formatting and layout much easier. i played around with it to reformat the avocado couch, with somewhat pleasing results. but i kinda enjoy fumbling around with html. i've been passably decent at it so far (i think). but is the new blogger worth it? help me decide...

EDIT (1.4.07): i updated to the new Blogger and it ended up screwing me over, including changing my profile. i'm too scared to upgrade the template, b/c i've worked forever on the html and don't want to lose it now. i'm updating labels now... hope it pays off somehow...

Saturday, December 16, 2006

randoms

i began my new life today. my new life is boring.

but not to fear. yours will never have to be, with the knowledge that these are indeed real albums that were at one time or another made for wide consumption and distribution.

oh the horrors our species wreaks on itself...

merry shatmas,
stephanie




Thursday, December 14, 2006

mission accomplished!


I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!!!

time to play and have fun again!
(and rest my computer-weary eyes... oy)

thumbs up and high five!
-stephanie

hah. blogger activism wins again.

an update on the facebook ludicrous i posted on earlier.

it was only a matter of time before the scum were shut down and (hopefully) kicked off facebook for life. a small punishment for bigotry and violent prejudice, but a good step in the right direction.

there is also a reactionary group that formed to call attn to the ignorance of the prior group, regrettably called "the group 'laws women will abide by' makes me want to cry" (i was hoping for something a little stronger, but whatever.)

funnily enough, if you do a search on facebook now for the group, a feminist group shows up in its place:


the only "law women will abide by" now?

1. Doing as they please as the equals of men.

now how's that for justice?


my work here is done,
stephanie

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

this makes me lose all hope

UPDATE: as of 10:35 EST on wednesday, december 13, the group was taken down. yes!!


[note: this post contains some objectionable and deeply upsetting content. proceed forewarned...]

[DISCLAIMER: i DO NOT, and do not desire to, have a facebook account. i borrowed a friend's to do the necessary research for this post.]

i saw this today while i was taking a break from finals: an article about a facebook group called "laws women will abide by"

it's ostensibly the most sexist, racist, disgusting piece of college frat boy manifest mentality i have ever read. i spent an hour sifting thru the chauvinistic garbage these boys are peddling as good fun and humor at the expense of women's rights, and wanted to either vomit in my mouth and drown in it from sadness, or hunt each and every one of them down with a blunted rusty spoon and gouge their eyes out before cutting their balls off and feeding it to them with it (apologies for the violent language, but when you read on you will understand...)

understand, i already hate facebook on firm philosophical grounds (i don't believe an online network of creeps will help keep me closer to my friends. if they're my friends, i should hope we can maintain our friendships via more substantial means. moreover, it's from the guy who brought us wonders such as Hot or Not, a website that made superficiality into a sporting event, at the expense of personal privacy rights, damaged self-esteems, and real human interactions.)

but when i found out that this group was permitted to exist on the facebook, allowing mysoginists and women-batterers and racists to convene and encourage eachother's narrow-minded beliefs and behaviors, indeed, even invoking violent attitudes towards women and minorities, that was enough to spark a personal vendetta against the facebook for life.

here's a taste of the things being said on this group's "discussion board" (the script to my personal hell, the mental/theoretical equivalent to 50 drunk frat boys physically violating me):

the only thing your good for is to be someones cum receptacle.
i want to kick these girls in the face with a steel-toed boot on new years morning to start the year off on the right foot

there they go again rambling about some college and grammar. ill be sure to tip you when you finish with my sandwich.

shell never be a good wife cuz she cant make a sandwich just wonton soup and her uncle tsos chicken

I heard Frank tried killing meredith...you know why? He caught her trying to cook one of his dogs

its probably a dykey korean thing

yea your right.. your slanty ass eyes would confuse me too much.. i would never know if you were awake or not.. plus chinese food gets old. and im sure thats all u can cook.. learn to make a sandwich then talk to me.
chainsaw or a blow torch. her choice

im going to finger your mom with a chainsaw

meredith could be my first gook

come on guys we probably should stop making jokes about lesbians, seriously. because if i have to keep on seeing who wrote the last comment from wellesley i might turn gay from the way they look!

here's a sampling of the heinous "laws"* the group proposes:

Law 1. Never...Fuckin ever...will women be permitted to wear leggings under a skirt. Leggings wll be permitted by themselves if the female in question is under 130 pounds.
Law 3. Women will always consider stilettos as the primary footwear option.
Law 4. Women will only drive if there are no men present. However, if the only male present is blind or fully retarded, the woman can drive. If the male is only partially retarded, he will be given driving privileges over the woman.

Law 8. Women over 150 pounds will always wear pants...ALWAYS.

Law 9. Women who have a cup size of AAA, AA, or A will refrain from wearing low cut shirts.
Law 10. Any woman caught wearing a belly shirt while having any type of fat or skin hangin over their pants will be killed...they have the choice between the electric chair and the gas chamber.
Law 11. Women will clean whatever men ask them to clean.

Law 12. Women will cook for men.

Law 13. Women will wash clothing for men.

Law 15. Women will only speak when spoken to.
Law 17. Women will no longer go the bathroom in groups. It gives the impression that dyke type activity is occurring inside the bathroom.
Law 19. Women will not request a particular drink from a male. They will accept whatever a man offers them. A complaint about a free drink is punishable by a donkey punch at a later point in time.

ugh. that's all i can stand to post. i feel so deeply upset now that i don't know how i can finish my work. what's the point? if there are people like this, COLLEGE-EDUCATED PEOPLE who are still thinking like this, who do not see the obvious wrong in this kind of thinking, then what hope is there for positive social change?

i'd say that until the facebook forcibly removes the group and bans these users from the service for the rest of their pathetic lives, everyone i know and all their friends too should boycott (screw that, GIRLcott) the facebook until it's willing to recognize that it's enabling and condoning violent racist and sexist behaviors.

i want an apology from mark fucking zuckerburg, to women and minorities of all kinds, and to humanity in general, by the end of the year.

ugh. and ugh again.
then vomit to clean your palate of the taste.
-stephanie


*according to the group's site: "This is a compilation of laws made by men and women that are to be enforced on women. It is not meant to be sexist in any way, shape, or form. It is intended to guide women in finding their true place in the world and to inform them of what they should truly be." o yum. nothing i love more than patriarchal standards applied and enforced on my way of life and my perception of purpose. hand me a fucking shovel, someone please. so i may beat their heads to a pulp then bury them with it.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

meaningful moments

this is the last stretch before the semester ends, and as i was scrambling away and chipping away at various tasks, i remembered that i had multiple posts that i'd been trying to write over the course of the year that i'd neglected under a pile of other obligations.

i thot i'd resurrect them now, in incomplete forms. but i think the intent in their conception is plain to see and certainly makes them no less real, so let them be. perhaps later i will find time to fill in the holes. until then, allow them to be the living non-dead.

yours,
stephanie

~~~
[from Nov 18, a Saturday]
i have had the most productive day, in the most unproductive way.
-----
i have developed a habit of doing little to no work on weekends, piddling my days away at parties, and in aimless wandering. i've been on a 20 year search for meaning in my life, and with little to no feelings of success.

dreams aren't enough to grow meaning from, and they only float for so long. when you try to cover your holes with feathers, they only get swept away. i've been learning to pack the feathers tight, and building them into wings...
-----
i've learned to actually enjoy my life for the first time. i've quit frittering toward meaningless ends, and have found pleasurable meaning in my own self-determined ways. while i used to feel accomplished because i did well in the university and formal educational system, now i realize the value of an external education. and i firmly believe that more can be learned in brief transitory exchanges with strangers than can be read from the pages of a textbook.

and forging a lasting friendship out of a meeting with a stranger can be the best tutorship one will ever receive. for instance, i have two professors this semester whom i owe a great deal of thanks to, especially my Satiric Film professor. the wonderfulness of this individual is beyond my descriptive abilities, but let me explain what is truly remarkable: our educational system teaches us to value professors as authority figures. this immediately calls into existence a relationship of power, which holds the student in the receptive role. there's no room for interaction in this relationship. in fact, it's not a relationship at all, but a very limited manufacture of knowledge. it's a mechanical view of human value and exchange:
IN: prof's knowledge/experience, student's attention
OUT: knowledge/experience
the products of this exchange are limited and not very profitable. from a capitalist standpoint, this would be a shit-poor business. there's no profit, no gain, the amount you put in is the same as what you get back. there's no room for growth or development, no progress, just a stagnation. it conceptualizes education as a producer of intellectual capital and pretends that capital is all we need.

call me a hedonist, i think i am one.

but for the first time in my life, i feel at ease with the uneasiness, comfortable with the discomfort. which isn't to say that i've become complacent or that i've resolved to accept things the way they are. surely not. but i've found pleasurable ways to deal with them. rather than agitate myself, rather than try to limit

i slept for 11 hours for the first time in years last
night, and it was amazing. i woke up and felt like 20
years had passed me by. the sun was shining off the
dew on the grass outside and lighting up the dark
little corner in my room where i rest my head at
night. i wanted to take a picture of it, but i just
put my head back down and fell asleep again.

luckily i have a mind camera and i wasn't too sleepy
to use it.

i've been seeing everything in vivid cinema lately.
that is, i've been lucky enough to pause and watch
things, and they're somehow fitting together in this
on-going screenplay i have in my head. hard to
explain, but maybe when i see you again it will all be
clearer.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

hand me a fork! i'm done!




just got back from the very last business class of my life. and this is exactly how i feel --->

o what a glorious feeling! i can sleep and dream awake again!

forever yours, and now finally free...
-stephanie

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

they're zombies!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!

<--- a typical day on a Miami street...

oh, it's that time of year again...

miami kids are experiencing the first flush of finals week anxiety, and you can already notice it in their empty stares.

nothing i like more than knowing half the people i see on the street probably don't see me. it creates an invisibility that could be really powerful, if one makes use of it in the right way. when no one sees you, you can play all sorts of non sequitur tricks on them, like intentionally standing in their way on the sidewalk, or faking a seizure mid-stride en route to class. or, if i feel the need to wake some people up: grabbing my bullhorn and reciting the pounding monologue from NETWORK from the steps of an academic building, or on the ledge of a bell tower. tho, on second thought, probably not a good idea. i hear it's bad to wake up a sleepwalker... i wonder if that also applies to the living dead?

anyway, i have several papers, exams, and group presentations to do these next few days. but it's all looking bright because as of tomorrow evening (Wednesday) at 10 pm EST, i will officially be done forever with social entrepreneurship and will never ever step foot in another business class again! no more thoughts of Bono haunting my darkest mind, and no more insipid business papers to write! i will be done and will immediately move on to more invigorating projects. i'll probably spend the whole of that evening celebrating and re-fortifying and replenishing my soul and spirit. (so call/email/write/telegraph/telepath a congratulatory note on Wednesday! remind me of those dreams i once had and spur me on to enjoy my life again!!)

finally, my Satiric Film professor is leaving Miami after this week and i am deeply upset, because she is the most brilliant person i've ever met at Miami. how do i know this? because she's the only one with enough grit to quit this place and leave to pursue real goals. as someone with a shared sense of heterotopian longing, i really admire the ability to abandon safety nets in the interest of pursuing an ethereal dream.

in a semester of worthless droning classes, her class sparked that fire i used to have burning in me, that passion that made me happy to learn and write and do things. it's funny, because i took her class on a lark, thinking i'd fill my schedule with something fun. not only did it prove to be deeply enjoyable, it opened my eyes to a way of enjoying my work again, and loosened me up to the possibility of dreams.

it's not so much a class as a way of reinterpreting my approach to classes and to schoolwork in general. it's made me active in a way no other class has, because i am not only engaging with the course material and the texts and ideas in a purely theoretical way, but i am wanting to put these passions into practice. and isn't that what school should be about? taking education beyond a thinking level to a doing.

so while i should be freaking out about this business paper i haven't started yet, i'm relishing the small revolution my apathy is taking.

and while all my peers are studying furiously for their meaningless finals, writing papers that don't matter to them, i'm smiling sideways at them, imagining the stress the SHAUN OF THE DEAD final must be giving them (which is ironic, since i bet Joanne gets such giggle kicks from having such fun playing with people's expectations and student habits. SHAUN is a satire of consumerism, and our silly bourgeois habits. Joanne's class is a satire of the school system and formal education, and those rote student behaviors we learn in school. people may get the satire in SHAUN, but i bet they still fall into the zombie-like steps when it comes to school. so hahahahaha)

-stephanie

Friday, December 01, 2006

it's december!

i am shocked in disbelief.
-stephanie


p.s. notice the creepy portrait hovering above my left shoulder... that's my boss's security device, the (post)modern panopticon:

RADIOACTIVE MELDA IS WATCHING YOU!!!

be afraid.