i decided to organize my life, including all my emails. so i bunched them all up together into one big google account. so if you email me, i will still get it regardless of the address you send it to -- but i decided not to use n07thingbetter@gmail.com (the email address this blog is tied to) as 2007 has passed, and i have discovered that there is in fact many, many things better than graduating in 2007. therefore, since "n07thingbetter" is no longer applicable (and semi-childish), i have a new google email/account/blog. i tried so very hard to transfer this webpage over, but alas ... google refused to accommodate. so here is the new site of The [daily] beast: http://www.mezzosandmeatballsubs.blogspot.com/.
with the ever-happy eye from a sober perspective,
kjir.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
harry potter and the rabid fundamentalists
I would sincerely enjoy writing a hilarious parodoxical essay of the wizarding books where the hero gets attacked by mindless American Christian fundamentalists.
I was talking with someone who mentioned that the books 'promoted witchcraft' and 'disrespect for adult authority.' Not only that, but I was asked pointblank: 'Would you like your children to be reading about magic, witches and evil?'
Perhaps they should have come out and just said 'We don't think kids should be exposed to any hostile outside influences that could possibly help them become mature adults able to face the injustices that regularly beset grown-ups. So they shouldn't read about evil. And while you're about it, you'd better go and burn all that CS Lewis and Tolkien stuff you have on your bookshelf, never mind the fact that they were Christians. Hell, you may as well just go and burn the entire Crime/SF/Fantasy section of your local bookstore. Can't be done, exposing kids to that kind of stuff.'
There's an analogy for this in biology. Some parents warn their kids about the deadly 'germs' which they might pick up if they play in the dirt or generally aren't spotless all the time. The problem is, once these kids go to school and meet people who haven't avoided the 'germs', they'll contract the whole lot and the usual exchange of colds which all kids encounter when first going to school will be even worse for them. You need to build up a resistance to these germs so you'll be able to weather them later in life.
Germs are a bad thing, no doubt about it. And mostly you should avoid them, but first you need to encounter them. Same with this so-called evil. If you grow up thinking that the world is a nice cuddly place where everyone cares, you're in for a nasty shock when you venture outside.
We can't possibly protect our children from all outside influences, even if we wanted to or thought it'd be a good thing. People don't realise that the very curiousity that makes us humans is our main mechanism for learning, and for surviving. And that's called experience.
I was talking with someone who mentioned that the books 'promoted witchcraft' and 'disrespect for adult authority.' Not only that, but I was asked pointblank: 'Would you like your children to be reading about magic, witches and evil?'
Perhaps they should have come out and just said 'We don't think kids should be exposed to any hostile outside influences that could possibly help them become mature adults able to face the injustices that regularly beset grown-ups. So they shouldn't read about evil. And while you're about it, you'd better go and burn all that CS Lewis and Tolkien stuff you have on your bookshelf, never mind the fact that they were Christians. Hell, you may as well just go and burn the entire Crime/SF/Fantasy section of your local bookstore. Can't be done, exposing kids to that kind of stuff.'
There's an analogy for this in biology. Some parents warn their kids about the deadly 'germs' which they might pick up if they play in the dirt or generally aren't spotless all the time. The problem is, once these kids go to school and meet people who haven't avoided the 'germs', they'll contract the whole lot and the usual exchange of colds which all kids encounter when first going to school will be even worse for them. You need to build up a resistance to these germs so you'll be able to weather them later in life.
Germs are a bad thing, no doubt about it. And mostly you should avoid them, but first you need to encounter them. Same with this so-called evil. If you grow up thinking that the world is a nice cuddly place where everyone cares, you're in for a nasty shock when you venture outside.
We can't possibly protect our children from all outside influences, even if we wanted to or thought it'd be a good thing. People don't realise that the very curiousity that makes us humans is our main mechanism for learning, and for surviving. And that's called experience.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
same song, second verse.
When I push my knees out straight before me, I can see the familiar, endearing, pucker of skin right above my scarred kneecaps. I fell so much as an awkward, clumsy kid growing up. Aren't I still growing up? Perhaps the scars are just internal now.
This silence hisses in my ears and my vision is faintly distorted, I don't know, it's like my hands in my lap appear unusually large and at the same time remote, as though viewed across an immense distance. When I raise one hand and flex its fingers, it's natural to wonder how this thing, this machine for gripping, this fleshy spider on the end of my arm, came to be mine, entirely at my command. Or did it have some little life of its own? I think I've bent my finger and straightened it several times by now. The mystery was in the instant before it moved, the dividing moment between not moving and moving, when my intention took effect. It was like a wave breaking. It's funny, I feel like if I could only find myself at the crest of this movement, this moment - I might find the secret of myself, that part of me that was really in charge.
I bring my forefinger closer to my face and stare at it, urging it to move. Of course it remained still because I've just been pretending, not entirely serious, and because willing it to move, or being about to move it, was not the same as actually moving it. But when I did crook it finally, the action seemed to start in the finger itself, not in some part of my mind. When did it know to move; when did I know to move it? This thought took the decision to cease pretending, and gave the final command. And my finger moves obediently. Obedience.
These thoughts are as familiar to me, and as comforting, as the precise configuration of my knees.
They're matching but competing, symmetrical and reversible - look. A second thought always followed the first, one mystery bred another: Was everyone else really as alive as I am? For example, did the people crawling up and down the streets below really matter to themselves, as valuable to theirselves as I am? Was being you just as vivid an affair as being me? Did that old man crossing across 64th also have a real self concealed behind a breaking wave, and did he spend time thinking about it, with a frail hand held up spidering it's fingers next to his face? Did everybody: including my father, mother, brother?
If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone’s thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone’s claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique ... when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance.
But if the answer was no.... then I am surrounded by machines, intelligent and pleasant enough on the outside, but lacking the bright and private inside feeling I just had, have had, will have. This is sinister and lonely -- as well as unlikely. Though it offends my sense of order, I know it's overwhelmingly probable that everyone else has thoughts like mine or better ones at that.
Now see, I know this, but only in a rather arid way; I don't really feel it.
This silence hisses in my ears and my vision is faintly distorted, I don't know, it's like my hands in my lap appear unusually large and at the same time remote, as though viewed across an immense distance. When I raise one hand and flex its fingers, it's natural to wonder how this thing, this machine for gripping, this fleshy spider on the end of my arm, came to be mine, entirely at my command. Or did it have some little life of its own? I think I've bent my finger and straightened it several times by now. The mystery was in the instant before it moved, the dividing moment between not moving and moving, when my intention took effect. It was like a wave breaking. It's funny, I feel like if I could only find myself at the crest of this movement, this moment - I might find the secret of myself, that part of me that was really in charge.
I bring my forefinger closer to my face and stare at it, urging it to move. Of course it remained still because I've just been pretending, not entirely serious, and because willing it to move, or being about to move it, was not the same as actually moving it. But when I did crook it finally, the action seemed to start in the finger itself, not in some part of my mind. When did it know to move; when did I know to move it? This thought took the decision to cease pretending, and gave the final command. And my finger moves obediently. Obedience.
These thoughts are as familiar to me, and as comforting, as the precise configuration of my knees.
They're matching but competing, symmetrical and reversible - look. A second thought always followed the first, one mystery bred another: Was everyone else really as alive as I am? For example, did the people crawling up and down the streets below really matter to themselves, as valuable to theirselves as I am? Was being you just as vivid an affair as being me? Did that old man crossing across 64th also have a real self concealed behind a breaking wave, and did he spend time thinking about it, with a frail hand held up spidering it's fingers next to his face? Did everybody: including my father, mother, brother?
If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone’s thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone’s claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique ... when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance.
But if the answer was no.... then I am surrounded by machines, intelligent and pleasant enough on the outside, but lacking the bright and private inside feeling I just had, have had, will have. This is sinister and lonely -- as well as unlikely. Though it offends my sense of order, I know it's overwhelmingly probable that everyone else has thoughts like mine or better ones at that.
Now see, I know this, but only in a rather arid way; I don't really feel it.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
jenny lewis lyrics -- kjirs.blogspot.com
This is no great illusion
When I'm with you I'm looking for a ghost
Or invisible reasons
To fall out of love and run screaming from our home
Because we live in a house of mirrors
We see our fears and everything
Our songs, faces, and second hand clothes
But more and more we're suffering
Not nobody, not a thousand beers
Will keep us from feeling so all alone
But you are what you love
And not what loves you back
That's why I'm here on your doorstep
Pleading for you to take me back
The phone is a fine invention
It allows me to talk endlessly to you
About nothing disguising my intentions
Which I'm afraid, my friend, are wildly untrue
It's a sleight of hand, a white soul band
The heart attacks I'm convinced I have
Every morning upon waking
To you I'm a symbol or a monument
Your rite of passage to fufillment
But I'm not yours for the taking
But you are what you love
And not what loves you back
So I guess that's why you keep calling me back
I'm fraudulent, a thief at best
A coward who paints a bullshit canvas
Things that will never happen to me
But at arms length, it's Tim who said
I'm good at it, I've mastered it
Avoiding, avoiding everything
But you are what you love, Tim
And not what loves you back
And I'm in love with illusions
So saw me in half
I'm in love with tricks
So pull another rabbit out of your hat
When I'm with you I'm looking for a ghost
Or invisible reasons
To fall out of love and run screaming from our home
Because we live in a house of mirrors
We see our fears and everything
Our songs, faces, and second hand clothes
But more and more we're suffering
Not nobody, not a thousand beers
Will keep us from feeling so all alone
But you are what you love
And not what loves you back
That's why I'm here on your doorstep
Pleading for you to take me back
The phone is a fine invention
It allows me to talk endlessly to you
About nothing disguising my intentions
Which I'm afraid, my friend, are wildly untrue
It's a sleight of hand, a white soul band
The heart attacks I'm convinced I have
Every morning upon waking
To you I'm a symbol or a monument
Your rite of passage to fufillment
But I'm not yours for the taking
But you are what you love
And not what loves you back
So I guess that's why you keep calling me back
I'm fraudulent, a thief at best
A coward who paints a bullshit canvas
Things that will never happen to me
But at arms length, it's Tim who said
I'm good at it, I've mastered it
Avoiding, avoiding everything
But you are what you love, Tim
And not what loves you back
And I'm in love with illusions
So saw me in half
I'm in love with tricks
So pull another rabbit out of your hat
Sunday, May 9, 2010
a dull opal
My MAC makeup compact = 40 dollars.
My Burt's Bee's chapstick = 5 dollars.
Waiting on hold for Bank of America for card cancellation = 1.5 hours.
Canceling the rest of my paper trail of an identity = 2 hours.
Waiting for a new driver's license and debit card = 5-7 business days.
Getting side-tackled then shoved into a bench = a few drops of blood.
Punching the guy in the face with my elbow before he got away with my purse = PRICELESS.
My Burt's Bee's chapstick = 5 dollars.
Waiting on hold for Bank of America for card cancellation = 1.5 hours.
Canceling the rest of my paper trail of an identity = 2 hours.
Waiting for a new driver's license and debit card = 5-7 business days.
Getting side-tackled then shoved into a bench = a few drops of blood.
Punching the guy in the face with my elbow before he got away with my purse = PRICELESS.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
chips and salsa
An open book may have limitless pages with nothing written upon them yet, but it still has a spine to hold everything together.
My life restarted this past February. I am continually a work in progress, an open book: learning more about myself, life, and the meaning behind them both every day. I am not perfect, I am biased, I am a control freak, I am human - but I can also learn to let things go. I can learn to live rightly. I have the option to choose to restart, rejuvenate, and realign myself with who I want to be and who I’m called to be.
Moving to nyc was the best thing that could’ve happened for me. The last two years have been a prelude to the brilliantly orchestrated masterpiece that’s starting here - my life, on track, in line, headed straight. It will not be easy, and it has not been easy ... but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Questions are answered in God’s timing, and I cannot possibly begin to understand His ways. And while I do not know a lot of things in life, I am blessed to know a few things for certain:
I am a unique person with a unique passion with a definite purpose.
Love is in everything. I love. I am loved.
When I wake up in the morning, I choose joy.
Perspective is everything.
God has specifically called me to be in the arts, specifically with music.
I feel at home on the stage. It is like no other feeling in this world.
I feel deeply, and I want to utilize this in my life instead of let it become a bad thing.
I am blessed with a handful of people in my life that I will love forever.
I cannot control life. I will not allow life to control me.
I will always be able to eat chips and salsa at any given moment in the day :)
Praise God for everything He’s given me in this life - even the difficult and stressful things, because I can personally attest that they have made/are making me a better person, like polishing a diamond in the rough. (from the way, WAY rough) haha ;)
And as I sit here in my new york apartment, listening to the clarinetist across the hall practice their scales for the millionth time tonight, I also know that I am truly where I belong.
And boy, am I excited to see what tomorrow brings :)
My life restarted this past February. I am continually a work in progress, an open book: learning more about myself, life, and the meaning behind them both every day. I am not perfect, I am biased, I am a control freak, I am human - but I can also learn to let things go. I can learn to live rightly. I have the option to choose to restart, rejuvenate, and realign myself with who I want to be and who I’m called to be.
Moving to nyc was the best thing that could’ve happened for me. The last two years have been a prelude to the brilliantly orchestrated masterpiece that’s starting here - my life, on track, in line, headed straight. It will not be easy, and it has not been easy ... but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Questions are answered in God’s timing, and I cannot possibly begin to understand His ways. And while I do not know a lot of things in life, I am blessed to know a few things for certain:
I am a unique person with a unique passion with a definite purpose.
Love is in everything. I love. I am loved.
When I wake up in the morning, I choose joy.
Perspective is everything.
God has specifically called me to be in the arts, specifically with music.
I feel at home on the stage. It is like no other feeling in this world.
I feel deeply, and I want to utilize this in my life instead of let it become a bad thing.
I am blessed with a handful of people in my life that I will love forever.
I cannot control life. I will not allow life to control me.
I will always be able to eat chips and salsa at any given moment in the day :)
Praise God for everything He’s given me in this life - even the difficult and stressful things, because I can personally attest that they have made/are making me a better person, like polishing a diamond in the rough. (from the way, WAY rough) haha ;)
And as I sit here in my new york apartment, listening to the clarinetist across the hall practice their scales for the millionth time tonight, I also know that I am truly where I belong.
And boy, am I excited to see what tomorrow brings :)
Friday, April 30, 2010
april is ending tonight
I’m currently lying in bed. My head’s resting on my pillow, and I’m turned onto my side towards the wall. However, my bed is covered solely by a mattress cover, my pillow just with an hypo-allergenic undercover, and instead of sheets, blankets, or a comforter, i’m covering my body with my trenchcoat and peacoat, curled up in the fetal position against the wall to keep warm. :). long story short: my laundry got stolen. but i make do :)
i think the glitz of new york is starting to settle down. a good majority of my friends are almost done with school for the semester, which means my attendance next fall is even that much closer!! SO excited just thinking about it :) i feel at home here, and am stoked to be here every day. some days are up and some are down, but i’m thankful regardless. excited to see where this all goes in the end.
it’s easy to let your mind wander and dwell on negativity, but really ... i don’t see the point in stressing over the minutes of life. i don’t see the point in being in a constant state of denial and questioning... where is the joy and “living in the moment” of life in that? regardless of what ends up being the truth in life, i cannot believe that life was meant to be a negative, clouded experience.
truly, we all should live until we die.
i think the glitz of new york is starting to settle down. a good majority of my friends are almost done with school for the semester, which means my attendance next fall is even that much closer!! SO excited just thinking about it :) i feel at home here, and am stoked to be here every day. some days are up and some are down, but i’m thankful regardless. excited to see where this all goes in the end.
it’s easy to let your mind wander and dwell on negativity, but really ... i don’t see the point in stressing over the minutes of life. i don’t see the point in being in a constant state of denial and questioning... where is the joy and “living in the moment” of life in that? regardless of what ends up being the truth in life, i cannot believe that life was meant to be a negative, clouded experience.
truly, we all should live until we die.
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