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the royal ubiquitous handi-cam
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| nothing really holds a roman candle to... |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|11:06 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | paris | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  exhausted | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | drip drip drip | ] |
one way to make a bad day better...
i woke up at 5.30, quick breakfast, auschecked, train to hamburg at 6.30. got there fine. had about 45 minutes. read. train for frankfurt left at 8.00. we passed through hannover. somewhere around goettingen things began to go wrong. we arrived in frankfurt so late, after circling the city, that i missed my train to paris. so they sent me to koeln. there i had two hours, so i plied myself with a couple of koelsch or three. then got on a train that would take me to paris. at one point i was in belgium. fucking belgium.
so i get to paris 4.5 hours late. tired. hungry. disgusting.
so what do i do?
i run. up the stairs behind my apartment. up. and i'm by the sacre couer. i eat a crepe. i turn around and the city is spread out before me, people spilling off down the hillside. all the way down the random flash of roman candles red and green and somewhere off to the south, behind that tower -- you know the one i mean -- fireworks begin, early, but anticipating tomorrow. |
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| faraway, so close, up with the static and the radio, with satellite television you can go anywhere |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|09:49 pm] |
how to bond with your favorite place in the world:
1) attend a party in a park
2) get rained on, as you shield your friend with an umbrella ('if you feel something in my pants vibrating, you're sitting on my cell phone'), eat gurken, and drink beer
3) as your feet get dirty, kick off your havianas and flee the torrential rain barefoot through wet streets splashing your feet into the puddles until they are washed clean
and i wake up and i ask myself what state i'm in, and i say, 'well, i'm lucky, 'casue i am like east berlin: i had this wall and what i knew of the free world was that i could see their fireworks and i could hear their radio. i thought that if we met, i would only start confessing and they would see that i was scared, they would know that i was guessing. then my wall came down and there they stood before me with the stumbling and mumbling and calling out just like me.' |
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| 1000 angels loose their wings every time a cell phone rings |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|10:14 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | krakow | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  cold | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | bbc, b/c my german soaps lost their signal | ] |
yesterday i braved the polish regional rail (my train had seen better decades, possibly centuries) to visit the most important pilgrimage site in poland, czestochowa (that's pronounced chin-stuh-ho-vuh), home of the black madonna and queen of poland. see:
if she looks familiar, you may recognize her from her cameo appearance in kieslowski's dekalog 1.
the scars are from when she was kidnapped by a band of hussites (that's hussites, not hussies) and disfigured.
anyway, the room where she lives is covered in votives and crutches of those she has healed. there's a whole ceremony of uncovering the icon. i go in. pilgrims are walking around the altar on their knees. priests and nuns and milling about. people kneeling and praying. one woman completely prostrate on the floor.
and then...
BRRRRRRRRING!!! BRRRRRRRRING!! BRRRRRRRRING!!
sigh |
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| save me, jebus! |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|02:34 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | copacabana, rio | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  cranky | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | oprah with portugese subtitles | ] |
today began well. rosa was at the conference, so i went to explore the artsy bohemian neighborhood of santa teresa. took the old tram there, over the aqueduct (we went there last night...i hung over the side. today i sat). walked around, had some nice views, great public art at the escadaria selaron (stairs that an artist -- selaron -- has covered in tiles). saw the artist, too!
back to copacabana to meet rosa and jessica. we get in a cab to corcovado -- the big jesus. all the way up we see great views of the city. as soon as we get up to the bus to the top -- rain!! by the time we get to cristo, its a monsoon coupled with a whiteout. total gyp. it's probably best not totalk about how pissed we were. i mean we are in rio. but our one day to do this together, shot.
phooey.
why, jesus? why me? o yeah....the sins =) |
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| at the copa, copacabana |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|07:30 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | rio | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  calm | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | can you guess what's in my head? | ] |
it's been quite the adventure...e and am dropped me at dulles and after many thunderstorms and delays and cancelled flights i was moved to the direct flight to rio. but enough of the boring stuff.
this hotel is much nicer than the last one that i rosa and i stayed in, right on copacabana.
yesterday was full of exploring the area, drinking coconut with a straw in it, eating food sold by weight, swimming in the ocean in winter, watching the water swirl out the drain, and drinking capirihnas. saw cristina last night and will again today when i will not be tired and dehydrated.
it's like staggeringly beautiful here, the mountains and water. i wish i was staying longer, but my visa is good for 5 years.
the money has jungle kitties and monkeys on it. srsly, it's like i designed the currency here. for real (see, the currency here is teh real...so i was just being super clever)
they are conferencing now and i am going to find coffee, get my computer to cristina, and then we are going to go play! |
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| file under "disgruntled" |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|10:59 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | annoyed | ] |
dear post office,
i am pretty sure i am not the first person you have ever encountered who is going to be out of the country for more than 30 days and would not like to have their mail accumulate in their box. there's no reason to be so unhelpful and sullen.
i'm just sayin'.
peace,
marc |
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| game! |
[May. 28th, 2009|03:22 pm] |
Read the following passage from an academic work and guess what year it was written and what academic press printed the book:
"[Climate] differences have not been without their effect on the inhabitants. The Galicians are friendly and cheerful; the people of the meseta are dour, sullen, and charmless."
( full bibliographic info ) |
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| lies. dammed lies, and statistics |
[May. 14th, 2009|01:36 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | weidensall 309 | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | hold steady - slapped actress | ] |
some final statistics:
dissertation: 1
chapters: 7
pages: 257
footnotes: 585
lines: 7659
paragraphs: 1753
words: 86,507
characters: 444,300 (536,647 counting spaces) |
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| the other side |
[Apr. 27th, 2009|01:40 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | hall of languages | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | the chatter of the religion department | ] |
...that's dr. _aurelius to you now!
+ three glasses of celebratory champagne on an empty stomach. now: yummy falafel! |
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| defense! defense! |
[Apr. 26th, 2009|09:41 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | sorrycuse | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | calm | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | jens lekman - the opposite of hallelujah | ] |
i am sitting at nell's apartment in syracuse, armed with a bracelet of the saints 9from cris) and a tiny jeebus (from liz), waiting for tomorrow morning. if all goes as planned, i'll enter into the chrysalis at about 10.30 and emerge about 2 hours later as dr. _aurelius.
i've been asked a lot of i'm nervous or excited. the truth is i'm neither. the truth is i don't care.
so how did i prepare for this monumental event?
friday night rachel p., and noel, and richard hell, and miriam came up. (they were some of my beloved smcm students). they were pegged by one of colleagues as 'not gettysburg students' (since they looked too cool.) they attended a class of mine and we ate thai food and watched youtube videos and had dinner at richard hell's parents, and sang mary prankster songs, and watched strangers with candy, and were delightfully immature. it was a lot of <3.
saturday liz and cris brought me coffee and dropped me off and i went to the airport and i flew back to 'cuse. seen a lot of old friend (mike d, rachel c., tyra, francis, wilson, shawn, eglute, vasaris, sangeetha, etc.), eaten a lot of good food (eva's polish, conveyeor belt sushi), drank a lot of beer. read my dissertation. yeah.
and just waiting...
we'll see how it goes...wish me luck or whatever. |
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| looking for some truth, dancing with no shoes |
[Apr. 9th, 2009|09:50 pm] |
first the good:
germany was fun. mum and i had a really really good time.
i'll be at gettysburg again next year.
i defend my dissertation on 27 april.
today was bad. this morning, a young 19 year old woman, an anthro major here at the college, was strangled and stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend, also a student here.
i didn't know either of them, but it's a small school here and i know people who know them, my students are friends with them.
this makes me think about a lot of things: how young she was, their families, how this is for a lot of my students a rude awakening (these kids don't know that most people in the world don't have toilet paper let along toilets) to the world, and the price we pay for being alive, for getting to live here. there will be pain, people will be taken from you (and it always seems that it's the good), we don't get the good of this world without scars.
we don't really have a lot of time, just a wisp of smoke. be nice to each other. let those you love know it. |
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| holly wore a cross to ward them off... |
[Feb. 17th, 2009|01:36 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | weidensall 309 | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  relieved | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | sufjan stevens | ] |
so up date from yesterday...
mum heard back. her tests came back normal. which is good and bad. there is nothing seriously wrong, but she's going to have put up with the occasional (knock wood) attack of vertigo for which there's nothing they can do.
so that is a relief.
other issues remain unresolved.
thank you all for the concern. <3 to all.
and ( two funnies )
so hopefully this cheerful post makes up for the depths of despair last night. |
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| pilgrims march to compostela, visions of a saint in yellow |
[Jan. 6th, 2009|07:47 am] |
i went to the pilgrim mass today. the organist played white christmas. i nearly lol'ed.
ok, one thing i find really tacky here is the churches don't have candles you light, just electric ones that turn on when you drop your offering in.
you may note that i sat through an entire mass and was not smited (smote? smat?). i'll take that as a good sign. |
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| in the kingdom of spain there are such colors |
[Jan. 5th, 2009|01:42 pm] |
greetings from not so sunny spain!
i´´ve beeh having an exciting few days of art and religious studies joy. the museums in madrid are fantastic -- i´ve seen picassos and el grecos and velazquezes and bosches and dalis and miros and...
i´ve been eating a lot of churros con chocolate, to the almost exclusion of anything else.
i went to avila, through fog and mountains and snow, to explore the hometown of teresa of avila -- it was very nice, plus i got to see her ring finger. i sampled the yemas de teresa, an egg yolk and sugar sweet she apparently invented. I also noticed there were a lot of condom vending machines in avila. ¿anyone have any ideas why? ¿might it have something to do with teresa and god´s special closeness?
christmas time is in full swing here, through tomorrow.
tonoght i am on my way to santiago de compostela. i don´t think flying counts as a pilgrimage, though... |
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| it would be pretty bad ass... |
[Dec. 4th, 2008|10:39 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | middle street | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  silly, but kinda serious, too | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | air - cherry blossom girl | ] |
ok, so between now and when i go to spain on 2 january, who thinks i should get a (small)hippogriff tattooed on my chest? |
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| o brave new world that has such people in it |
[Nov. 13th, 2008|06:47 pm] |
so, dear lord, what the hell have i been up to? it's been a lot...
i've been all over (nyc, dc, chicago, baltimore...) and been seeing a lot of old friends. and were i a better person i'd write all about it. but i'm not. it's just hard to keep this up.
but i was so fucking thrilled about the election! (i kinda but not really voted twice -- i voided my absentee ballot...). and i've canceled class on inauguration day...that's gonna be the best birthday present ever.
i had a ton of fun at the aar. went to some really good panels, but i'm pretty sure they held the lgbtq panel in a closet. just think about the irony of that one... and of course hung out (book shopping + brownies in hyde park) with megan and melissa and paco (our now annual tijuana day). the aar is really turning into an excuse to get a pretty much free trip to hang out with m&p and that's pretty much all good.
i also caught up with a lot of friends. and went shopping. and ate a lot of good food. (are we seeing a pattern here?)
saw the decemberists in baltimore and it was a lot of fun, everyone chanting "yes we did!" and singing "hear all the bombs fade way." a catharsis after the catharsis of election night.
AND...it looks like i'm defending in the spring. i'll be sending the final revised revisions in soon. i've not gotten a date confirmed...but spring it will be!!
AND AND...i scored an interview! it's with coe college, in cedar rapids, ia. my position here is cloudy, so this is a very good thing. it's near iowa city, so not all is a loss. the extra goodness is that to interview i have to go to the sbl (which isn't good) except that this sbl is in boston. woo-frickin'-hoo!
other than that, i'm up to wild random adventures with some of the other new faculty here. lord knows what we'll get up to next... |
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| of shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings |
[Oct. 9th, 2008|01:07 pm] |
1) so whoever planned this AAR meeting for the trial separation from the SBL must have been on crack. who the fuck backs a conference right up against a presidential election? since most academics do lean towards obama, i wonder if this is part of a vast right wing conspiracy. but i managed to get an absentee ballot. and i voted. for that one. whether or not they count my vote, that's another matter.
1') why schedule women and religion, liberation theology, and feminist theory groups at the same fucking time? no sense this aar makes!
1'') on the good side: i get to see many of my bffs there, and since it's in chicago, this includes ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) thin_ice_waltz.
2) would of you ever go to see one of your professors with your boxers in full view? 'cause really not needing to see that. i do not understand gettysburg fashion. blokes in pink trousers. hideous republican pants. and those trousers with the fish and lobsters or what have you embroidered on them? weird.
3) i am applying for a job in oklahoma. it doesn't look that bad. and norman doesn't seem to be that bad of a place. i don't know. i feel just off about it in general. i really don't want to leave the east coast. i like it. i want to stay here. but i guess we'll obsess about that if we come to it. i guess obsessing about returning to the middle of the country beats obsessing over which steam grate i'm going to live on?
4) i get to go to nyc this weekend. i have tickets to equus. starring nekkid harry potter. |
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| calling all latin speakers! |
[Sep. 17th, 2008|05:23 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | casa | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | in media spes | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | camera obscura - shine like a new pin | ] |
i don't know if i ever mentioned classicist mary beard's (no relation) blog on here, but it's pretty swell.
she has posted another compelling reason to support obama, and it's all about the future tense. perhaps the gods are trying to tell us something? |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 5th, 2008|04:16 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | weidensall 309 | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  better | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | lemonheads - confetti | ] |
omg. this is the best thing ever.
also: new favorite website bay of fundie |
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