I Miss Hating The Summer Heat [Some E Cards]

I also miss having conversations not centered around how cold it is.


[Some E-Cards]

Fate by S. G. Browne

Fated by S. G. Browne is basically about the personification of Fate, getting screwed over by Destiny (who is also personified....and also a huge slut).

I liked it. It was quirky. And I love reading brief asides like:

The thing about Love is that she's codependent. 

Or:

The thing about Desire is that she's bulimic.

And it was nice to read. I'm still a little bit weirded out by the end, but overall I liked it.

On The Rez by Ian Frazier [This is not a tragedy]

From the first page of On The Rez:

This book is about Indians, particularly the Oglala Sioux who live on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota, in the plains and badlands in the middle of the United States. People want to know what a book is about right up front, I have found. They feel this way even if the book does not yet exist, if it is only planned. When I describe the subject to non-Indians, they often reply that it sounds bleak. "Bleak" is the word attached in many people's minds to the idea of certain Indian reservations, of which the Oglala's reservation is perhaps the best example. Oddly, it is a word I have never heard used by Indians themselves.

The point of this book, I think, is to show that even though life is hard on the reservation, it isn't bleak. There is hope, these are people living their lives, and to compose one note tragedy stories on the news does a disservice.

Frazier recounts the story of SuAnne Big Crowe, star basketball player. Even though her life was cut short due to a car accident, her existence didn't seem bleak. The same week her team won regionals, while the entire rez was riding high from the victory, NBC ran a story called Tragedy at Pine Ridge, where (page 226):

NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw announced, "This is Thanksgiving week, of course, but on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota it's hard to find reason to give thanks, when tragedy is never out of season." 

Of course, the success of the high school girl's basketball team was not mentioned. Or anything good about life on the reservation. And that's pretty much the crux of the problem. Page 227:

Indeed, from the beginning of the report to the end, NBC did not find one good thing to say; the "bleakness" story is a rigorous form, with little room for extraneous details. [...] the NBC story irritated people on Pine Ridge no end, especially SuAnne. She talked to anyone who would listen about all the good on the reservation that NBC had overlooked, and about the unfairness of only showing the suffering and apparently hopeless side.

The cool thing about now is that when Frazier mentions the Boys and Girls club on the reservation, started in memory of SuAnne Big Crow, I can look it up on the internet immediately. The book was published in 2000, before the last recession. I had a sinking feeling; please, please don't let this have gone under. And it hasn't!

So not everything is bleak. Things are rough, yeah, but its not tragedy 24/7.

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Creative spellings, or, they're called the Old 97's!

Part of what has been awesome about the many hits coming into the Champaign, Illinois that I wrote a few months ago has been the many creative spellings of "Champaign" (and a few creative "Illinois" spellings).

Until I saw this:

Yeah. This blows creative spellings of Champaign, Illinois right out of the water. The search words are "according to the old ninetysixers, is champaign ill bad"...

The band is called Old 97's. Really, really close. One number off.  I've also never seen anyone spell out "ninety-sevens" before when referring to them.  Named after the Johnny Cash song, Wreck of the Old 97.

Anyway...did you know there are people using Bing now? Yeah, me neither.

Grad School Seems Like A Terrible Idea, Or, Quotations!

From this video on Library Sciences Grad School:

"You will live on gin and valium, and when you run out of them, you will survive on pure spite."

Lisa Loeb - "Do You Sleep?" [Or, Laundry is TEH SEX]

On the train (392 Saluki!) up to Champaign from Carbondale, the above song came up on shuffle. 


I really, really loved this song in high school, but never had the stomach to listen to it whenever I was actually going through a similar situation. I mean, "Now I don't know and I don't care if I ever will see you again" comes right after she practically begs to know if he's still thinking of her. Begs to know if he's losing sleep over her. 


And the video? As close as you get to washing a man right out of your hair...er...laundry. Its painful, your hands are going to blister from the hot water, but when you're done its all clean and you're exhausted and it was totally worth it. 


Lyrics:

do you eat sleep do you breathe me anymore?

do you sleep do you count sheep anymore?

do you sleep anymore?

do you take plight on my tounge like lead?

do you fall gracefully into bed anymore?

I saw you as you walked across my room

you looked out the window -- you looked at the moon

and you sat on the corner of my bed and you smoked with the ghost in the back of my head

Now i don't know and i don't care

if i ever see you again

i don't know and i don't care

if i ever will be there

do you eat sleep do you breathe me anymore?

do you sleep do you keep me anymore?

you kick my foot under the table

i kick you back can't say that i'm able

to stand for you or fall for you ever again

wish for a perfect setting

wishing that i am letting you

take me where you want me all over again

you can't give yourself

absolutely to someone else

now i don't know and i don't care

if i ever will see you again

i don't know and i don't care

if i ever will be there

i saw you as you walked across my room

you looked out the window -- you looked at the moon

and you sat on the corner of my bed

and you smoked with the ghost in the back of my head

do you eat sleep do you breathe me anymore?

do you sleep do you count sheep anymore?

do you sleep anymore?

i don't know (do you eat sleep do you breathe me anymore?)

and i don't care (do you sleep do you count sheep anymore?)

if i ever will be there (do you sleep anymore?)

will be there 

Connie Willis's Remake [Frankly, My Dear...]

From page thirty-eight of Remake:

"Frankly, my dear - I love you, too," Clark Gable said, and crushed her in his arms. "I've always loved you!"

 There's a knee jerk reaction to this, that they're fucking with literature and they should just leave it the hell alone. The happy ending comes at the price of meaning. And in some cases, yeah, okay, I get it. The ending to the movie for I Am Legend had that feel, yeah.

But changing the parts you don't like is what fan fic is all about. And maybe sometimes parts need to be changed. Maybe I want to change the end to Lost, because I hated the end and I knew what I wanted to happen with it, and it didn't.

In case you've forgotten the ending to Gone With The Wind:

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