language is everywhere!

colloquium topic! current events! more!
(some new yorker pieces about the role of words/language in politics )

lately, talisa has been:

Dutifully keeping up with her news feeds (perhaps better than with her friendships? she can't even seem to keep up with the ones in the same city as her. Maybe some pruning needs to be done--with the feed, not the friends--how does she have over 200 new items on her Google Reader every morning? ), feeling informed and overwhelmed, trying to seek refuge in more than just Sarah Palin jokes (who would have thought Les Parapluies de Cherbourg could be laugh-out-loud funny? Certainly not Catherine Deneuve. But it absolutely is. Just make sure you watch it with Duke.), wondering how her brain keeps functioning given colloquium/rationale preparations and Ulysses, and mostly, living in that strange college universe in which the phrase "All I do is ______." can be filled in with any of these words: sleep, stay in, go out, have fun, go to work, go to school, homework, hang out with my roommates, miss my roommates, bum around, drink, smoke, procrastinate, etc. and still be completely true.

also, capturing herself with 1.3 hp pavilion megapixels:

side note: south africa, for any one who's curious.

Too Big to Fail
by Andy Borowitz

"...Why am I too big to fail? It’s important to grasp the critical role that I play in a wide-ranging but fragile web of economic relationships. If I go belly-up, I will no longer be able to tip my doorman when he gets me a taxi. This is not a hypothetical situation. I have studiously avoided tipping him for a solid month now. Consequently, he no longer has cash to spend at the liquor store after work, and the liquor-store owner no longer has money to spend on Internet porn. Given that Internet porn is the only fundamentally sound engine of the American economy, we’re playing with fire here. If that stalwart industry is allowed to fail, Asian porn companies will rush to fill the void, offering porn that is both cheaper to produce and way hotter than ours. What will it take to keep this from happening? There are no guarantees, but sending me a check for twenty million dollars would buy us all valuable time.

How did I find myself in this hole? Like most financial crises, mine had its origins on a slippery slope. First of all, I made the mistake of logging on to iTunes when I was high and downloading every Electric Light Orchestra song ever recorded. Second, I created my own e-commerce site, the ill-fated DressYourBadger.com. I mistakenly believed that a Web site for people who kept badgers as pets and wanted cute outfits to dress them up in would work as a subscription-based service, especially if I charged subscribers a thousand dollars a month. When there were no takers, I switched to an all-advertising model, not realizing that I was plunging headlong into the jaws of an epically weak advertising market, particularly for products relating to pet badgers."

the whole thing:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2008/09/29/080929sh_shouts_borowitz

it's one minute just watch it.

-Afrika.

- me:

- claire:
-my neurotic/ ocd tendencies have been put to the test, as both of my internships have given me the task of re-shelving their disorganized libraries. (i work in books. this means there are a lot of them.) i have equipped myself with an arsenal of highlighters, printouts, and step-ladders. still needed: a helmet, because books keep falling on my head =(.

attempts at being a blog

I wrote this when I was in Cape Town last year. I don't know how much I like it but I was going through old stuff and thought I'd share.

Power Lines

Begin anywhere. Climb up through the cold steel frames that rise from the dirt, from the grass, from the pavement—glimmering and imposing in the sun. Surge through steady parallel wires—thin and kinked, but sure in their path as they cut through the South African landscape. Soar through a blue sky, uninterrupted except for you, over grassy hills dotted with purple and yellow flowers. Soar over sunken playgrounds rising up from grass, over children swinging high, their stomachs and hearts suspended in the air. Look down as you rush through the sky; see grass that is scattered with shiny bits of broken glass, glimmering amongst tall, uncut blades.

Diverge amongst the wires and find yourself racing in a hundred directions—over the bright, candy colored houses of Bo-Kaap, each street a glossy array of painted dwellings. Race along the water’s edge, following the railroad tracks through sunny, windy, costal towns. Or fly over the vast and empty desert, watching the soil change colors and farmers tend to their cattle as you pass under bright white clouds, low and big in the sky. Pass over flea markets, over vendors selling wooden giraffes and soda can flowers, beaded necklaces and colorful prints. Wind around Table Mountain, shrouded in a wispy blanket of fog. Pass over the single story houses nestled unobtrusively on the side of the mountain in a lush, thriving green. Rush through bustling cities, through financial districts, suburbs, and shopping centers. Pass over taxis swerving through the roads; pass over men at intersections, smiling into car windows at cold faces, at passengers uninterested in their wares. Pass over government buildings, over parliament, over officials, over documents filled with plans, with promises.

Slow down as you make your way over the townships, vast and expansive under a cotton ceiling of clouds. Pass over their patchwork of rusted metal and faded pastels, over houses low and quiet and angry and resigned, growing from the ground, becoming the ground. Pass over horses grazing and stray dogs chasing. Pass over piles of trash and bones, over garments hung and blowing in the wind, meager and unassuming as their colors slowly fade in the sun. Pass over a woman and her child, wide-eyed and slung tight across her back. Pass over school children returning home, their uniforms bright and clean and hopeful.

Surge and pulse over a never-ending landscape, safe in your insulated wires. Find your way across highways and streets, into neighborhoods and homes. Give power to office buildings, tall and looming. Power computers and DVD players. Power flat screen televisions, power X-boxes. Power electric fences. Power cell phones, power kettles. Power hotplates for a family’s one hot meal for the day. Power lights, power heat. Power life.

Begin anywhere—in a night sky, dotted with stars; on a freeway, lit with rows of orange lights. Begin in rolling hills, in flat desert sand, in rich green fields. Begin in city centers, or in small rural towns, in a one-room school house or a prominent university. Begin anywhere and end in the flick of a switch, lighting a room. End in a turn of a dial, starting a stove, or in a push of a button, turning on a radio. Begin anywhere and end in rooms full of laughter and chatter, full of sadness, full of hardship, full of struggle, full of the past, full of hope. Begin anywhere and end everywhere. End in homes, quiet with sleep and the hushed sound of steady breathing, waiting for the morning.

hello, lover

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