Haiku for the season
6.30.2009
New York City summers
How I always forget you
Stank like the homeless.
How I always forget you
Stank like the homeless.
Labels: Fletch, haiku, New York City
Studying for comps, week 3
6.29.2009
Last week's reading:
*Biondi, Martha. To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003.
*Brinkley, Alan. Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression. New York: Vintage Books, 1982.
*Gilmore, Glenda Elizabeth. Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2008.
*Woods, Jeff. Black Struggle, Red Scare: Segregation and Anti-Communism in the South, 1948-1968. Baton Rouge:: Louisiana State University Press, 2004.
*Dittmer, John. Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994.
Labels: comps, Lauren, summer reading
A movie for the pre-derivative boomtimes
6.28.2009
There was once a world before the stock market crashed and everyone who had money got all freaked out and everyone who didn't have money got laid-off where you could make a movie about two young people who didn't have money to pay their bills even though they had jobs. Their answer was, of course, to make a porno to earn the cash to pay their rent. While in theory this movie should be funny and titillating, in practice it is sort of neither. Unless you are titillated by spotting all of Kevin Smith's standard cast of characters. Which I am. In that case the movie is awesome.
But otherwise Zach and Miri Make a Porno is utterly unredeeming. It does however make things even for Lauren making us watch Role Models last week.
But otherwise Zach and Miri Make a Porno is utterly unredeeming. It does however make things even for Lauren making us watch Role Models last week.
The secret is that its a cult, right?
6.25.2009
My plans to spend a pleasantly sunny evening in Bryant Park was spoiled by several hundred people being instructed to hold various poses through a megaphone. Exceedingly loudly.
Really, who chooses to do yoga in large groups in public places?
Apparently lots of lithe hippie types who also like to engage in yoga ON TOP OF ANOTHER PERSON. This is either a folkster mating ritual or as a way of showing off to the finance types that being unemployed doesn't mean that you can't contribute to society.
Really, who chooses to do yoga in large groups in public places?
Apparently lots of lithe hippie types who also like to engage in yoga ON TOP OF ANOTHER PERSON. This is either a folkster mating ritual or as a way of showing off to the finance types that being unemployed doesn't mean that you can't contribute to society.
Labels: bryant park, Fletch, yoga
Spending the evening with Steve Nash, Tony Parker, and Kobe...Jones
6.24.2009
This drizzly evening was Steve Nash's celebrity soccer game to watch athletes of both the tall and short kind run around aimlessly. I kid. Did you know that the US National Soccer Team defeated Spain in the semi-finals of the Confederation Cup? And ended their record-tying 35 game unbeaten streak?
I thought you did Jake.
At any rate, Tony Parker appeared to be the best cross-over player in the celebrity match, or at least the one most willing to ignore the offsides rule and cherry pick goals in the early going. Steve Nash looked like he had the best all-around game, what with defense and all. Chris Bosh looked like he was having the most fun, with the crowd yelling for him to head crosses and his teammates feeding the ball to him in the box. However, by the time he managed to actually make contact with the ball twenty minutes had gone by.
And then, as I made my way out of the crowd, who should pull out of a black chauffered Escalade? A very, very tall man who will most likely be tomorrow's #2 draft pick: Hasheem Thabeet.
Oh yeah, and ESPN's Marc Stein was there. Apparently playing, definitely tweeting.
I thought you did Jake.
At any rate, Tony Parker appeared to be the best cross-over player in the celebrity match, or at least the one most willing to ignore the offsides rule and cherry pick goals in the early going. Steve Nash looked like he had the best all-around game, what with defense and all. Chris Bosh looked like he was having the most fun, with the crowd yelling for him to head crosses and his teammates feeding the ball to him in the box. However, by the time he managed to actually make contact with the ball twenty minutes had gone by.
And then, as I made my way out of the crowd, who should pull out of a black chauffered Escalade? A very, very tall man who will most likely be tomorrow's #2 draft pick: Hasheem Thabeet.
Oh yeah, and ESPN's Marc Stein was there. Apparently playing, definitely tweeting.
Labels: basketball, Fletch, soccer
Studying for comps, week 2
6.22.2009
Last week's readings.
*Sanders, Elizabeth. Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877-1917. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
*Painter, Nell. Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919. New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, 1987.
*Arnesen, Eric. Brotherhoods of Color: Black Railroad Workers and the Struggle for Equality.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
*Bates, Beth Tompkins. Pullman Porters and the Rise of Protest Politics in Black America,
1925-1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
*Kantrowitz, Stephen. Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
*Sanders, Elizabeth. Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877-1917. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
*Painter, Nell. Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877-1919. New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, 1987.
*Arnesen, Eric. Brotherhoods of Color: Black Railroad Workers and the Struggle for Equality.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
*Bates, Beth Tompkins. Pullman Porters and the Rise of Protest Politics in Black America,
1925-1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
*Kantrowitz, Stephen. Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
Labels: comps, Lauren, summer reading
I'm not sure how to tell the internet this
But Lauren finally received the full collection of Gilmore Girls on DVD. Its going to be a long time until I manage to get her out of the house.
Buy nothing month is getting harder and harder every day.
6.19.2009
Apparently last month we spent $64.00 on pots. For plants. Three of them. This sort of blows my mind. Also, I bought a new (refurbished) nano, Gilmore Girls the COMPLETE SERIES on DVD (competitively and expertly bid on thank you very much), and new glasses OVER THE INTERNET (http://39dollarglasses.com/), which were surprisingly LESS than all the pots we bought. Crazy. Anyway, to make up for it, I've been eating lasagna every night, which averages out to $2.50 a meal. The problem is that by eating it every night, I mean I ate it twice. Leftovers: how long can you keep eating them until you get sick of them? Apparently my threshold is lower than Fletcher's.
Labels: buy nothing ever again month, glasses, iPod, Lauren, leftovers, spending money, TV marathons
