The Waste Land

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

T. S. Eliot

Girly Nerdy Goodness: Episode 1

Attention: Girls are invading the internet! On our very first episode of Girly Nerdy Goodness, we take a trip into the wizarding world, learn how to moonwalk (or not), and discuss the possibility of a GNG intern. We also gave one clueless male a peek into the mysterious female psyche. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook. And if you have any comments, concerns, or female-related questions, leave us a comment or send us an email at GNGshow@girlynerdygoodness.com.

Click here to listen to Episode 1: A New Show

Meditations in an Emergency

Am I to become profligate as if I were a blonde? Or religious as if I were French?

Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous (and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable list!), but one of these days there’ll be nothing left with which to venture forth.

Why should I share you? Why don’t you get rid of someone else for a change?

I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.

Even trees understand me! Good heavens, I lie under them, too, don’t I? I’m just like a pile of leaves.

However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes–I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless i know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regretlife. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass. Do they know what they’re missing? Uh huh.

My eyes are vague blue, like the sky, and change all the time; they are indiscriminate but fleeting, entirely specific and disloyal, so that no one trusts me. I am always looking away. Or again at something after it has given me up. It makes me restless and that makes me unhappy, but I cannot keep them still. If only i had grey, green, black, brown, yellow eyes; I would stay at home and do something. It’s not that I’m curious. On the contrary, I am bored but it’s my duty to be attentive, I am needed by things as the sky must be above the earth. And lately, so great has their anxiety become, I can spare myself little sleep.

Now there is only one man I like to kiss when he is unshaven. Heterosexuality! you are inexorably approaching. (How best discourage her?)

St. Serapion, I wrap myself in the robes of your whiteness which is like midnight in Dostoevsky. How I am to become a legend, my dear? I’ve tried love, but that holds you in the bosom of another and I’m always springing forth from it like the lotus–the ecstasy of always bursting forth! (but one must not be distracted by it!) or like a hyacinth, “to keep the filth of life away,” yes, even in the heart, where the filth is pumped in and slanders and pollutes and determines. I will my will, though I may become famous for a mysterious vacancy in that department, that greenhouse.

Destroy yourself, if you don’t know!

It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so. I admire you, beloved, for the trap you’ve set. It’s like a final chapter no one reads because the plot is over.

“Fanny Brown is run away – scampered off with a Cornet of Horse; I do love that little Minx, & hope She may be happy, tho’ She has vexed me by this exploit a little too. – Poor silly Cecchina! or F: B: as we used to call her. –I wish She had a good Whipping and 10,000 pounds.” –Mrs. Thrale

I’ve got to get out of here. I choose a piece of shawl and my dirtiest suntans. I’ll be back, I’ll re-emerge, defeated, from the valley; you don’t want me to go where you go, so I go where you don’t want me to. It’s only afternoon, there’s a lot ahead. There won’t be any mail downstairs. Turning, I spit in the lock and the knob turns.

Frank O’Hara (1957)

My Kind of Survey

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Well, besides J.K. Rowling...I own all of Jane Austen's novels (including two copies of Pride and Prejudice), so that's 7.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I have three copies of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (hardcover, paperback, French paperback).

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
A little, but sometimes it's just awkward to rework a sentence around prepositions.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Mr. Darcy, Mr. Tilney, Henry DeTamble, Westley from The Princess Bride, Harry Potter, Leo Borlock, Robbie from Atonement. Wow, I'm in love with a lot of fictional characters.

4a) What fictional character would you most like to be?
Elizabeth Bennet.

4b) What fictional character do you think most resembles you?
I'm afraid that it's Esther Greenwood. Or Brod.

5) What book have you read the most times in your life?
I have no idea. Probably Maniac Magee because I read it so much as a kid and again a few times as an adult.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Maniac Magee, hands down.

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen.

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
I've read a lot of good books this year...The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, The Brutal Language of Love by Alicia Erian, White Noise by Don DeLillo, etc.

9) If you could force everyone you know to read one book, what would it be?
The Bell Jar.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
I honestly couldn't answer that.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
I think The Book of Lost Things would be fantastic. The Brief History of the Dead might be interesting. I'm also interested in seeing the new Bell Jar adaptation.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
I don't really care...I'm not too picky about books being made into movies.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I remember dreaming about falling through the pages of a book when I was a kid. It was scary/awesome.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
Twilight...it's like a car crash.

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
I'm struggling with The Canterbury Tales right now. Beowulf wasn't a walk in the park, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. I still hate The Turn of the Screw and Heart of Darkness is so dense that it hurts.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
I haven't seen any really obscure Shakespeare plays. I've seen A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, and As You Like It.

17) Do prefer French or Russian?
French, bien sur!

18) Roth or Updike?
Haven't read either.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Probably Eggers, but I like both.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare, for sure. I'm a sucker for the bard. I like Chaucher's stories, but they're such a chore to read.

21) Austen or Eliot?
Austen.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I haven't done much 18th century reading. I feel like I have too many gaps to discuss...

23) What is your favorite novel?
The Bell Jar, Everything is Illuminated, The Trial, Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, The Handmaid's Tale

24a) Play?
The Importance of Being Earnest

24b) Musical?
Godspell, Wicked, Aida

25) Poem?
Invictus by William Ernest Henley

26) Essay?
"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" by Mark Twain

27) Short story?
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates, "The Anatomy of Desire" by John L'Heureux, "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver, "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut

28) Work of non-fiction?
Discourse on the Method by Descartes, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, Night by Elie Wiesel, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints by Dito Montiel

29) Who is your favorite writer?
Sylvia Plath or Jonathan Safran Foer

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Stephenie Meyer really needs to go back to Creative Writing 101.

31) What is your desert island book?
Everything is Illuminated.

32) And ... what are you reading right now?
Let's see...selections from The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and Pop Salvation by Lance Reynald. I also need to finish Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, but that's currently on hold.

It's Hard Out Here for a Semi-Conservative Pimp

As a female in the month of October, I'm faced with an age-old question: slutty bumblebee or slutty nurse? Halloween is looming and I feel as though I've exhausted all of my creative costume ideas:
Vending Machine - X
Teen Girl Squad - X
Lamp - X
Quailman - X
Chewed Gum - X
A Picnic - X
My own myspace - X

Unfortunately, Halloween USA doesn't afford many options for a girl who DOESN'T want to scream, "fuck me" with her costume. A simple Google search for "women's Halloween costume," gave me the following:

I guess I have to give props to the costume industry; they've somehow made it possible for a girl to dress as a slutty anything: every character from the Wizard of Oz, a referee, a police officer, a mail carrier, any Disney princess, an insect. One can even show off the girls at Hogwarts in a low-cut Hermione Granger costume! But what about the girls like me, who'd rather show off their books than boobs? who prefer Star Wars to short skirts? I'm not saying that I'll be dressing up as a nun for Halloween, but I wish that I could strike a happy medium. Is funny and flirty possible? Or is my choice really between Officer Sexy and wearing a black garbage bag to parties? I don't foresee the costume company execs becoming feminists any time soon, but hopefully I'll have a few more options in the future. After all, dressing as a bee doesn't seem too practical...where would I put my stinger?

Back to teachers' dirty looks.

The Fall semester is well underway. This means a few things: my beginning of the semester motivation has worn off, more parking spots are opening up as fewer people are going to class, the sorority girls have stopped trying to recruit me into their cult, and Winter semester is looming closer. The class schedule went up last week and I pored over it obsessively until deciding on my schedule. My temporary Winter 2010 schedule goes as follows:

Monday
Engl 424 (18C Novel)
1:05 - 2:20

Tuesday
Ling 280 (Intro to Linguistics)
11:30 - 12:45

ESci 275 (Intro to Env. Sci)
1:05 - 2:20

Wednesday

Engl 424 (18C Novel)
1:05 - 2:20

Art 204 (Beginning Watercolor)
3:00 - 5:50

Engl 3901 (Shakespeare: from Stage to Screen)
6:10 - 9:00

Thursday

Ling 280 (Intro to Linguistics)
11:30 - 12:45

ESci 275 (Intro to Env. Sci)
1:05 - 2:20

I need a historical English class (18C novel), another random English class (Shakespeare), no-lab science, and two electives. I figured that Intro to Linguistics and Beginning Watercolor would be easy enough for my last semester...but I might replace Linguistics with an online class called "Issues in Cyberspace." So this is my last semester of college, then the "real world" begins. Or maybe more school. All I know is that I'm scared to death.