rebecca hall

vicky cristina barcelona

should've just been called
vicky vicky vicky

some websites i want to remember

http://www.chickipedia.com/sayaka-ichii/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuWht3OvbQg (this video made me really happy / nostalgic today, even though i've never seen it or heard the song before; it's more of a genre thing)

http://www.chickipedia.com/kaori-iida/

Ode to Brooklyn (inspired by RZA's ''Domestic Violence'')

Listen, Brooklyn. Now that I'm gone, and I've had a chance to talk with my man Roc Belushi on the subject (love to the Black Scott Summers), I have a few points to make with you:


Now that I do have that out my system, Brooklyn, let me just say this: I'll miss your bars, and I'll miss your teaching fellows that I've liked, loved, dated, and hatefully avoided since moving out there. Much love to the NYCTF.

As for Manhattan, and all my men and women sporting Harlem hubris--especially in light of the election results--just know that I will be back in your loving embrace as soon as I handle my business on the west coast. I hope to be back bearing good news.

Peace, love, and Obama.

Sarah Palin is a problem

And nobody's talking about it!

This fucking beauty queen could ruin everything. I'll tell you why, and it's something no one on CNN is going to be bringing up any time soon:

She gives moderate, liberal-minded white people (mostly men) a BIG FUCKING OUT.

Over the course of this campaign, they have had to adapt themselves to the responsibility of doing something fairly radical, something that their baser instincts may be opposed to. Many of them would have gone to McCain regardless, but many of them probably would have bit the bullet and voted for Obama. To make history, and assuage all that guilt that comes from privilege.

But now, thanks to this hot librarian of a governor with her hair up and designer glasses, moderate and liberal white men have no choice but to make history one way or another: either with Obama, or with Palin. They can no longer miss, and because of that, they can no longer be made to feel guilty for voting for McCain. This morning, a vote for McCain stopped being just a vote against the first black presidency, it became a vote for cracking a glass ceiling.

See, I study white people. Especially the moderate and liberal ones that are all around me on a day-to-day basis. And the one thing that matters to them most in the 21st century, is being able to fall asleep at night comfortably. They need that keel as even as possible. And I think a sexy museum curator would preserve that comfort a lot more than a brilliant mulatto who happens to have lips as black as pitch.

day 1 at dubois

[cut]

so today was day 1 at my job. not even job. my career. it was good. i realized today, how much i'm needed. that sounds vainglorious, but i don't mean it arrogantly. schools need more teachers. more importantly, the social stigma around teaching that allows teachers to get dicked around is a problem. oh well, maybe a change will come.

while i was enjoying my summer, and the fact that i've dated more women in the past 3 months than usual, i missed the season 2 premiere of mad men. i acquired the episodes i missed, and just watched ep 1. it's gonna be another good season, i think. don draper is a man who is in touch with what he is. nowadays, so many people--mostly women, but men are guilty of it too--spend so much time concerning themselves with who they are, that they forget what they are. we're animals. not to begrudge us our creativity and our capacity for generosity, love, friendship, and the like: animals, nonetheless. it's good to be reminded.

so i've been trying on a few different relationships this summer. five to be exact. and while i wish the first one, the caustic spanish teaching fellow who was a bitch everywhere except in my bed, would have worked out, i'm enjoying getting to know number five. four is still in contention, but she has this weird conviction that there's something special about her. she's cute, but there isn't. it's like patrice says, regarding that thing that women bring to a relationship: it's important, but it ain't special. it's a fork at the dinner table. i need it to have my meal, but i don't fellate the waiter for remembering to bring it to me. maybe women get confused when they get their PhD. either way, the girl needs training.

my coworkers seem like great people. even the one that people told me to watch out for. i already have the scope of the first month or so planned out, but i need to write some lessons this weekend--preferably ten of them. :) we'll see how it goes.

anyway, i think i'm gonna kill another episode of mad men before obama makes his speech at the convention. i heard that some neo nazi types were arrested in denver with rifles in their car. i worry about obama. there isn't one america, there are at least six americas i can think of, and they don't all love obama. but one thing is certain: they are all crazy about him. so good luck, barack obama; however it comes out in the end, i'm still




your friend,
BA

Eastern European gymnasts rule my world

Especially Steliana Nistor











... and Misty May-Treanor ain't bad either

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner --- a speech and a half, by Sidney Poitier

Mr Prentice's speech to his father:

"Listen to me. You say you don't want to tell me how to live my life? What do you think you've been doing?

You tell me what rights I've got or haven't got... and what I owe to you for what you've done for me.

Let me tell you something.

I owe you nothing.

If you carried that bag a million miles, you did what you were supposed to do, because you brought me into this world, and from that day you owed me everything you could ever do for me. Like I will owe my son, if I ever have another.

But you don't own me.

You can't tell me when or where I'm out of line, or try to get me to live my life according to your rules.

You don't even know what I am, Dad. You don't know who I am, how I feel, what I think. And If I tried to explain it the rest of your life, you would never understand.

You are thirty years older than I am. You and your whole lousy generation believes the way it was for you is the way it's got to be! And not until your whole generation has lain down and died... will the deadweight of you off our backs!

You understand? You've got to get off my back.

Dad.

You're my father. I'm your son, I love you. I always have and I always will.

But you think of yourself as a colored man.

I think of myself... as a man."