October 2008 Archives
Miranda July, on voting:
Here’s why you should vote: you are going to really love it, the whole strange procedure. You get to walk right into a building that you would never normally be allowed in, often an elementary school. You can pause in the hallway to look at all the weird school-art and feel the eerie vibe of hundreds of kids living their endless kid lives right nearby. Then you follow the arrows to the voting room and look at the faces of the volunteers - who are these people? There is a hush of secrecy, the voting booth is clunky, the whole thing seems fake somehow. You consider filling in all the bubbles, like you did on the SATs. But you don’t. You vote. You walk back outside feeling like you just gave blood or something, lightheaded from citizenry. You are wearing a sticker that says “I Voted” and you wish you could continue to get stickers like this throughout the day: I Ate Dinner, I Went To Sleep, I Got Out Of Bed, I Went To Work.
But alas, it is just this one thing that we all do together, savor it.
Here’s why you should vote: you are going to really love it, the whole strange procedure. You get to walk right into a building that you would never normally be allowed in, often an elementary school. You can pause in the hallway to look at all the weird school-art and feel the eerie vibe of hundreds of kids living their endless kid lives right nearby. Then you follow the arrows to the voting room and look at the faces of the volunteers - who are these people? There is a hush of secrecy, the voting booth is clunky, the whole thing seems fake somehow. You consider filling in all the bubbles, like you did on the SATs. But you don’t. You vote. You walk back outside feeling like you just gave blood or something, lightheaded from citizenry. You are wearing a sticker that says “I Voted” and you wish you could continue to get stickers like this throughout the day: I Ate Dinner, I Went To Sleep, I Got Out Of Bed, I Went To Work.
But alas, it is just this one thing that we all do together, savor it.
me: i'm love's jaguar
i'm love's fucking mercedes
Matt: LOL u are,
panthar, skirting the territory
ur a vessal dude
me: love is like james bond on a road in the alps
i'm the fucking car, man
This is an email from one of my brother's seventh-grade students in communist northern Virginia:
"Mr. Fishback, I was finishing up my research on Barack Obama's position on taxes, doing the part where we have to find what the other candidate says about his position. McCain keeps saying that Obama's going to raise taxes on small businesses, but I looked through all of my resources about Obama's tax plan, and it doesn't make sense -- none of them say that Obama will do that. I'm so confused! What should I do?"
I played a show at Phoebe's Cafe tonight, and a rad girl told me, "I used to come to the city, to see you play at Sidewalk, like every weekend in high school." I'm turning 27 next week. Or, as the Jeff song goes, "I'm turning 27 soon." I always tell people I just wanna skip ahead to 30. But, with the election coming up, and all of the changes in my personal life, I'm starting to think that maybe my late 20s will be better than I could have ever imagined.
Love
Dan
"Mr. Fishback, I was finishing up my research on Barack Obama's position on taxes, doing the part where we have to find what the other candidate says about his position. McCain keeps saying that Obama's going to raise taxes on small businesses, but I looked through all of my resources about Obama's tax plan, and it doesn't make sense -- none of them say that Obama will do that. I'm so confused! What should I do?"
I played a show at Phoebe's Cafe tonight, and a rad girl told me, "I used to come to the city, to see you play at Sidewalk, like every weekend in high school." I'm turning 27 next week. Or, as the Jeff song goes, "I'm turning 27 soon." I always tell people I just wanna skip ahead to 30. But, with the election coming up, and all of the changes in my personal life, I'm starting to think that maybe my late 20s will be better than I could have ever imagined.
Love
Dan
I've been thinking a lot about the last episode of Golden Girls, when Bea Arthur marries Leslie Nielsen, and their wedding-night sex is so good that they name it. The ladies ask what name they chose, but Bea doesn't reveal the sacred moniker until Leslie says something like, "I can't wait for our honeymoon -- just you, me and Freddy Peterson." Bea looks at her friends dreamily and says, "That's what we named it."
I've been thinking about the notable sex events in my own life, and I've named some them:
Anyway.
Love
Dan
I've been thinking about the notable sex events in my own life, and I've named some them:
- Basil Dustworthy
- Veronica Feinberg
- Jacques Milbanks
- Seymour Tanner
- Jim
Anyway.
Love
Dan
I couldn't sleep last night. I forgot how. Like the time I spent ten minutes staring at the word "wide," not remembering what it meant, what it sounded like, if I'd ever seen it before. Last night I stared at my bed and wondered how it worked, what I was supposed to do there. Sleep suddenly felt so ridiculous, like a magic trick, like a stunt where you make yourself die, but then after a few hours you come back to life, and the audience gasps and claps and weeps and laughs and screams your name.
I've been thinking a lot about naming, and how scary it is to articulate something, even if that something is a Good Thing. I've consequently been thinking a lot about Max's totally psychadelic porno story Namer. Someone's asleep, and I'm tip-toeing around them, afraid of waking them or saying their name. When you wake up my mother, she says, "Oh! Ohhh! I was in a DEEEP SLEEEEP. I was in such a DEEEEP SLEEEEP." It's the worst feeling in the world, to wake up my mother. She makes you feel like you accidently slipped a dagger through her ribs.
I think today I'm going to stomp around and wake everyone up. Their torsos spring forward (boing-oing-oing), jaws in their laps, crying MURDER MURDER MURDER. By the time they've figure out what's happened, I'm already asleep.
Love
Dan
I've been thinking a lot about naming, and how scary it is to articulate something, even if that something is a Good Thing. I've consequently been thinking a lot about Max's totally psychadelic porno story Namer. Someone's asleep, and I'm tip-toeing around them, afraid of waking them or saying their name. When you wake up my mother, she says, "Oh! Ohhh! I was in a DEEEP SLEEEEP. I was in such a DEEEEP SLEEEEP." It's the worst feeling in the world, to wake up my mother. She makes you feel like you accidently slipped a dagger through her ribs.
I think today I'm going to stomp around and wake everyone up. Their torsos spring forward (boing-oing-oing), jaws in their laps, crying MURDER MURDER MURDER. By the time they've figure out what's happened, I'm already asleep.
Love
Dan
Joyce Conner, creation of my friend Cole Escola, gives me great solace and comfort. She is a monument -- an altar in the temple of Tenderness.
Love
Dan
Love
Dan
I can't believe this was eleven years ago.
Tonight, I am thinking about the things I need to survive. The results? People, mostly. Particularly Dibs. I forget if it was Tony Kushner, or Tony Kushner quoting Karl Marx, who said that the smallest indivisible unit of humanity is two. I feel that, right now, very strongly.
Love
Dan
Tonight, I am thinking about the things I need to survive. The results? People, mostly. Particularly Dibs. I forget if it was Tony Kushner, or Tony Kushner quoting Karl Marx, who said that the smallest indivisible unit of humanity is two. I feel that, right now, very strongly.
Love
Dan
Slow Hand Motem is my spirit animal. I've been neglecting my blog, I know. I'll return to it soon, with soft kisses and delicate rogering.
Love
Dan
Love
Dan
1. A few weeks ago, a bunch of us went to the Medieval Festival in the Cloisters. Afterwards, obviously, we rented Deliverance. As Phoebe was prepping the DVD player, Deenah made root beer floats out of sorbet and PBR ("sorbeer"), and Jeff and I figured out how to play "Dueling Banjos" on dueling ukuleles. I expected the movie to involve lots of chase scenes, lots of blood, lots of torture, etc. But it was mostly just people being AFRAID that those things WOULD HAPPEN, and so I found myself really RELATING.
2. I started re-reading "The Autobiography of Red" for the sixth time this morning, and it makes me want to stop doing everything and learn how to write. Or unlearn how. Or something. Jeez.
3. Today is Yom Kippur, but I'm going to atone on Friday instead, and brainstorm everything I've done wrong in the past year. I'm mortified by the things I might come up with.
Love
Dan
2. I started re-reading "The Autobiography of Red" for the sixth time this morning, and it makes me want to stop doing everything and learn how to write. Or unlearn how. Or something. Jeez.
3. Today is Yom Kippur, but I'm going to atone on Friday instead, and brainstorm everything I've done wrong in the past year. I'm mortified by the things I might come up with.
Love
Dan
I'm at home with a cold. I just finished watching a news special about Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain. They both seem really uncomfortable talking about their personal lives, but Cindy seems way more uncomfortable, what with the drug addiction, the adultery, the Savings & Loan scandal, etc. Aside from all that, it was interesting -- in a television landscape filled with people EAGER to talk about themselves -- to see two women who would honestly rather go home and hang out with their kids, or, ya know, eat pills.
Lying in bed tonight, this makes me think of two friends of mine who, more or less professionally, talk in public about people they've slept with. If I was teaching a class on queer performance, I would ask my students to write a five-page paper comparing and contrasting their techniques. If you wanna go ahead and do that, I will totally GRADE YOU.
1. Jeffery Self:
2: Max Steele (click the image):
Love
Dan
Lying in bed tonight, this makes me think of two friends of mine who, more or less professionally, talk in public about people they've slept with. If I was teaching a class on queer performance, I would ask my students to write a five-page paper comparing and contrasting their techniques. If you wanna go ahead and do that, I will totally GRADE YOU.
1. Jeffery Self:
2: Max Steele (click the image):
LoveDan
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