Creepers

Welcome to a sunny Sunday in Westwood!

Here you have 4 movie theaters, numerous cheap restauraunts, and one comprehensive bookstore that overprices everything. Given that its a college area you'd think there would be more bookstores.

Oh and I mustn't forget the creepers. Lots and lots of creepers. And some puppies but they're all small enough to be carried in a purse and therefore of no concern to me.

My day, which was really 'my' day because I basically had a date with myself, began with me waking up around 11:00, finishing up The Zero - which had a really depressing sort of ending -and rolling out of bed at 12:40.

I was supposed to get my hair cut today but I spent more time trying to psych myself into it then it was worth so I just decided to bypass the experience. It's not that I'm afraid to lose my locks, believe me I've rocked some awkward dos. I'd rather spend 5 minutes freaking out about what my hair looks like then 30 minutes styling it. The problem is that I don't want to be stuck in a chair, imprisoned by that plastic cover, and forced to either make stilted conversation with the stylist or sit in sullen silence staring at myself.

But moving on to the creepers. After arriving at the theater with an hour to spare and not wanting to leave the block because of my fear of walking into a movie late, I decided to sit in Starbucks, people watch, and read Naive. Super because I'm a nerd and I felt like reading a book for class ahead of time. It's really good by the way. I plan on finishing that tonight.

While I was sitting there, the guy to my left kept staring off into space with his math/science book and computer open in front of him. Normally I wouldn't think that was too creepy, I mean I stare off into space a lot thinking about nothing, but because Starbucks was crowded it was little inevitable that he'd end up staring at someone instead of point in the wall, which led to numerous awkward glances and shifty eyes.

Let's not forget about the woman digging through the recylced newspapers because she couldn't afford the $1.50 to buy her own, waiting 25 minutes, and THEN buying a drink. The baggy striped polo, faded jeans, and awkardly fitted baseball cap didn't help dispell the generally creepy impression.

Surprisingly, I ended up almost late for the movie, Hot Tub Time Machine, which turned out to be a good thing because the moment I walked in I noticed that it was mostly middle-aged to butt ugly old men scattered about the theater sitting by themselves. There were also a couple of teenaged boys and a few scattered couples. I fit right in with that crowd.

Now apparently middle-aged to butt ugly old men don't have the same rules in movie theaters that normal people do. For them it's perfectly ok to get up three or four times during the movie, walk around a little, and then sit someplace else. It's also perfectly ok for them to completly violate the buffer zone while doing this which I thought was not ok when the theater is wide open like that. I guess they really needed to sit directly in front of someone when there were literally hundreds of other seats out there.

It's also perfectly acceptable for them to talk to random strangers during the movie. The douchebag who migrated over to the seat in front of me decided to inform me that the scantily clad woman about to screw two guys at once was his wife. This guy, in a too tight shirt that made his belly really pop, badly shaven, and balding would SO not be married to this woman. I don't care how 'progressive and free thinking' she might be.

Thank god he decided to drift after that although for awhile there I thought I was going to be molested by another creepy old man with a cane who wandered in for the last 20 minutes of the movie, stood in the aisle next to me for awhile, and then decided I wasn't worth the trouble and left.

Thinking I had had my fill of creepers for the day, I decided to walk to Borders, which is actually an unnecessarily long walk from campus. Given that this is a school, I feel there should be more than a mystery book store and the odd bible store for people to buy books. I mean I know we're kind of over reading these days but really, there are 5 (used to be 6) movie theaters closer to campus then Borders.

On the walk I got to deal with a group of about 7 16-year olds who stood in front of Chipotle and stared at people, got asked for money by 4 homeless people, got ogled by 3 more, and had to walk behind groups of slow-moving people who take up the whole sidewalk and glared at me whilst I squeezed my way past them.

To top it off, on the way back I got to witness the glory of a homeless woman on a mission to blind everyone in Westwood by wearing a mini t-shirt that showed her gloriously disproportionate stomach.

Also the guy at Subway gave me the wrong cheese.

Luckily, the books I've read today were good, the movie was adequate, and I'm pretty good company for myself, so I'd still classify this as a good day.

Blah. Blah Blah, featuring Beige A.

Finals are almost over...meaning not over yet...meaning I still have a paper to write and a multiple choice question thingy to wing because frankly, I'm not studying for that. It's St. Patrick's day and I'm sick, tired, and I know I'm boring but I'm not going out. For whatever reason I can be pressured to go to the gym at 12 AM after 4 hours of interrupted sleep in a 30 hour period but the prospect of drinking when I have a scratchy throat is too much. So lucky (haha) for you guys I'm posting to make sure I go to bed at a reasonably late hour.

My prospects for Spring Break are looking pretty bleak. I've got work from 8-5 everyday except for Sunday and maybe Friday. Basically the only thing I have to look forward to is a Sunday visit from my fav cousin where we will sit around and watch a season of a sitcom, Alice and Wonderland Saturday night with co workers, Cat sitting over that weekend and then maybe being awake enough to read a fun book the rest of that week.

Past that, I'm almost looking forward to next quarter's classes. Taking Ancient Tragedy which should be fun...I mean I get to hear someone besides myself whine for 3 acts so there might be issues but we'll see. Some history class (I'm not being vague I just literally don't know which one I'm taking yet) and a Norwegian literature class. I know right. I'm a history major, not a lit major, why am I taking two lit classes?

Who knows.

Maybe I'll find my future.

Probably not though.

KK fool it's not midnight yell yet so stop tooting your horn. I don't care if it's the fight song.

There that's my dbag for this post. and I already threw in the cat word so I guess I have my pet too.

Time to force myself to eat dinner and then go to sleep.

Random Conversation

"Hey what's your favorite food group in the pyramid?"

"The sugars"

blank stare

"You're gonna say that doesn't count but you can't have a pyramid without the little pointy section on top so suck it"

blank stare

"Fine, if hypothetically, the sugars weren't on there, I'd go with the breads"

"The starches, they don't count either"

"What do you mean they don't" ...sigh..."So of the four middle icky parts you're asking me what's my favorite of those"

"Yes!"

"ummmmmmm its a toss about between dairy and meat"

"Me too!"

"I mean I like fruits and vegetables they just aren't my fav"

"You mean you just don't like most of them"

"Yeah"

"k"

Art Speak 2

So, after shitting out the brick that was my 3,000 word essay on Constantine I felt that I should write something I want to write before whisking myself off to bed to sleep, snore, and annoy the hell out of my roomie. <3>

As usual, I can think of nothing worth writing about without severely discrediting people that don't deserve it. There hasn't been that many douchebags at work lately. I mean we're starting to get the random professors who storm in claiming that we never responded to an e-mail that they, in fact, never sent but they really can't help themselves.

I think we'll go with another Art analysis. I'm basically stealing this one from a lecture I had last quarter that will severely taint the rest of my life. I'll constantly be throwing back to phrases that basically translate into"well Ovid said such and such and so actually you're wrong because he's always right". Sorry I'm edumacated....kinda.

Anyway here is the image:

It's called The Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Salvador Dali and it has a lot of random shit going on. Left to Right you've got the basic image of Narcissus as a stone, then transferred into a hand holding an egg, and then in the far back corner you've got what I like to think of as a dragon hatching out of an egg way off in the mountains but really goes undefined by anyone who analyzes this piece. Since I just looked back at the picture I've got and you can barely see it I suggest googling for an image you can zoom in on.

Now the stone figure is easy because it looks basically humanoid. His body, set in stone because he won't move away from checking his reflection. (although in the poem he actually moves around a lot so he can admire himself moving/trying to make out with himself. reaching out to touch etc). But since paint doesn't really move once it's dried you can't translate that and so the myth has metamorphosed into a fixed image of Narcissus just sitting there. Next you've got the hand sprouting from the ground, also stone like, holding the egg (symbolic of the world? creation? the seed? growth? with a Narcissus flower sprouting out of it. the idea of Narcissus is more alive to the viewer as a flower than he is as the human. which equals 'Change is good?' while Obama would certainly agree I'm not so sure that that's what this message is. I'm not so good when we get to abstraction/things representing other things which are symbolic of twenty different things. I'm much better with form analysis. Which is why I at least am immediately drawn to the same oval with a crack of something growing out of it that's way off in the distance that no one else notices.

Most people usually then move on to the muscle man on a pedestal on the checkerboard next. Basically he's got the 'look at me, look at me" (picture julia stiles saying it in 10 things I hate about you) attitude going on. In fact now that I've made that reference I'll probably always identify the creature with Joey and his 'pensive' white shirt. This probably represents something like what Narcissus has evolved to mean in current society, something akin to vanity I guess that is so the opposite of what Ovid (I won't say was trying to say because he wanted his characters to evolve. just as he took the idea from something else and ran with it so his readers should do with his) but it's the oppose of what Ovid wrote. Which was that Narcissus was running away from people fawning over him only to fawn over himself (all while the reader stares down at the image presented by the poem).

If you look down you've got the dog eating an undefined figure that looks like it could have once been a hand/antlers. Which brings us way back to Actaeon's story which occurs in the beginning of the poem (which you should read).

The only other two things I find interesting to note but have no theories for is the creepy shadow (of what?) behind the hand and the crowd of people admiring each other in the background (which probably is akin to the Joey - the guy on the pedestal).

Hope I didn't bore the shit out of you. I'm off to bed now. While trying to come up with a title I realized there might be a short addendum because I forgot all this stuff about painting materials and how on earth you depict something that's supposed to be perfectly clear. reflective and still be seen as water. lol....well i think I just did. So I guess no addendum.