Yeah, I know I haven't posted for 21 weeks, but since I have five years of year-end wrap-ups in this journal I might as well crosspost them to here. *shrug* In lieu of Livejournal, I've mostly been blogging to Facebook, Blogger and Twitter. So if you aren't, you should follow me on those things.

( End of year survey 1 )

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
( Read more... )

Tullycraft and the Sprites are playing Red and Black Bar in D.C. on June 15.

!!!!

Wah! Hold Steady at Ram's Head Live, June 27!


Who wants to go with me? Brian, I'm pretty sure you want to look for apartments in June.

"Finally, I hope that next year the Student Body can move beyond the personal
vendettas and political power plays that marred this year. Those evils of our
democratic system only serve the individuals who employ them and do a great
disservice to the shared goal of bettering the lives of students and the College that
we all call home."

HAHA! What a dweeb. I bet he didn't even think the Flunk Day issue of TKS was funny.

A: I have a question about the magazine design project -

B: Oh yes, we all have questions.

A: Um, so, are we supposed to write about specifically about print design, or about trends in our given time period?

B: You can write about whatever you want. The sky's the limit.

A: So, it would be okay if I wrote about fashion? And sort of, how the bicycle contributed to feminism through fashion?

B: You could, but it would be extremely limiting. You would have to write about industrial design, and how functional design relates to architecture, and somehow incorporate print design into that.

A: That doesn't sound limiting. That sounds like I have a lot of options.

B: I really think you'd be better off if you wrote about...[insert rant about obscure illustrators of the 1890s and their influence on such and such a thing that I really don't give a fuck about] Why do you want to write about fashion, anyway?

A: Because, uh, we're making magazines, and fashion is my favorite thing to read about in magazines.

B: But that's not what this project is about, really.

A: ...So we have to write about print design.

B: Well, yes, this is a print design class.

A: But you said...oh jesus christ, what's coming out of my ears?!

Internet, I'm ashamed of you. Image-searching "robot apocalypse" gives me NOTHING suitably badass. (Ditto for "robot explosion" and "robot explosion" breasts. I promise, these things are being Googled in the name of art.)

Maybe the funniest anecdote I've ever heard (from Howard's roommate, Tim): "So, I was in the library, at one of those cubbies, and I was just about to leave, so I bent over to grab my backpack. When I got back up, I caught a glance through the window, and guess who I saw running by, naked, clutching a purse, his wing-wang flying every which way?"

(If you attend Knox, ask me later who he saw. I promise you'll be pleasantly surprised! As always, by "surpised" I mean "disgusted.")

Spring's most intense thunderstorm is wailing outside the window of the computer lab. All things considered, conditions couldn't be much better.

You know what would be awesome? If being someone else's life experience was tax-deductible.

Funny how frequently "learning-disabled" gets mistaken for "stupid."

If I had a dollar for every time the phrase "gay telepathic alien sex" was uttered in my narrative journalism class today, I could buy a six-pack of double chocolate stout with money to spare.

I just signed up for three writing classes next term: fiction workshop, beginning poetry, and newswriting/reporting.

Next year was supposed to be devoted to developing my minor (now an independent, called "Visual Communication Design") Instead, I'm supplementing my major, which is practically complete. (All I need is Neil's playwriting/screenwriting workshop, which he's hopefully offering in the winter, my writer's forum and Senior Portfolio.)

Hopefully, fiction workshop will allow me to nurture my new concept, a collection of short stories contrasting real anecdotes from circus sideshow performers, carny lore and traditional pitches.

...no, I didn't stay up until 4 am researching circus sideshows, how could you possibly insinuate such a thing.

Wouldn't it be great if the verb for adding youth to something was "youthanize"?

WE MUST YOUTHANIZE THE GREYHOUND. Break out the ovoid architectural silhouettes and television commercials with cartoon characters in them.

So, someone just sent me an insult via AIM bot. At 3 in the morning. Does anyone recognize the screenname "provokedsalmon"?

Interestingly, it was a Star Trek-based insult. Someone ought to be ashamed.

Happy Flunk Day, to my extraordinarily creative "218 gang" ...!!!

I can just envision you all in Standish Park today -- on deadline, on location --
groaning about the GCAC "Art in the Park 2008" project deadline:
wearing your Flunk Day t-shirts, snapping/downloading pics, tapping your laptops and flip-flops ...
searching campus for a functioning scanner (Laura: Stellyes) ...
then ultimately muttering that perhaps a traditional (but artsy) typographic logo might just work, after all?
Okay, so I'm dreaming (sans my second cup of coffee, this early morning).
If you do decide to organize a special Flunk Day edition of "Art-in-the-Park Mob" in Standish, take photos!

Thanks to many of you, who sent preliminary "Art in the Park" concepts and attached files!

Seriously (or not), it is my wish that you all:
GLEEFULLY ENJOY this very special Knox tradition.
As I vividly recall:
The Student Union Board was forever FORBIDDEN from again renting the old Orpheum Theatre
(where the entire campus gathered for a first-thing-in-the-morning-breakfast-of-champions,
while watching classic cartoons/movies),
because a gaggle of rowdies jeered and pitched beer-cans at poor little Mickey Mouse, on the big-screen.

BEST,
Christie

Did you know that more than one city exists in the world?

Did you know that people who don't live in that city (or a city at all) can lead perfectly fulfilling lives?

AMAZING!

Yesterday, around the hookah, I suggested an Arbor Day scare. That is, a Flunk Day scare (going out in the Quads banging on pots and pans, screaming "It's Flunk Day!" and being generally obnoxious at 5 in the morning) but for Arbor Day.

"When is Arbor Day?" Olivia wondered.

"I don't know, in the fall? All I remember is they gave us those trees wrapped in paper towels."

Out of curiosity, I looked up Arbor Day, and it is the last Friday in April. That is, today.

So happy Arbor Day, everyone. Let's celebrate all of our pleasant and not-so-pleasant premonitions.

"The faculty and I are trying to, um, launch you into, uh, your futures with, uh, technology and uh, your dreams."

Woohoo! I've gone another term without failing out of college! I got an A in Shakespeare! Not an A-, but an A. Maybe I should be a Lit minor. or something. but anyway, I'm really excited.

Woohoo! Also, Godsil must love me because I got a B in photo and even I know that back-focusing isn't really a legitimate technique.

Bragging about my grades is pretty lame, but you may have noticed that there was no "Oh my god, I want to kill myself, I'm pulling an all-nighter and this is the worst paper I've ever written" post this term. Not a single one. And you know why? Because I didn't pull an all-nighter and my paper wasn't the worst I've ever written and yeah I was freaking out in Minneapolis about finals but I rocked them, you guys. For possibly the first time ever.

Anyway. There's so much to feel happy about. I still don't undertstand why life is going so well.

Matt: I wish I were Jewish sometimes.

Me: It's not worth it. You'd have relatives named Miriam.

Matt: But then I'd be able to identify with Adam Sandler on a totally different level. Right now, I feel like how white people feel when they laugh at black comedians who say "nigga."

Me: Jews feel like that even when they aren't watching comedians.

Matt: That uneasy "should I be laughing?" feeling?

Me: Yes. Also, nausea.