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Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
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7:48 pm
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For the two of you who are still reading this: take a look at this guy. My friend Alex and I decided to start a blog, and we haven't written in it very much, but there will (probably) be more to come. Now I'm an internet narcissist twice over!
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| Tuesday, July 10th, 2007
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11:51 pm - And the scariest website award goes to:
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You may know about www.conservapedia.com, a conservative version of Wikipedia that boldly proclaims, "Tired of the LIBERAL BIAS every time you search on Google and a Wikipedia page appears? Our study suggests that Wikipedia is 6 times more liberal than the American public. Now it's time for the Conservatives to get our voice out on the internet!" What you may not know is how completely batshit crazy many of its entries are. Here's a short list of excerpts from what I found to be the most jaw-droppingly insane, insipid, and infuriating articles:
Homosexuality : "Homosexuality is an immoral sexual lifestyle between members of the same sex. It is more than simply a sexual act, it is going beyond the boundaries that God has setup for marriage; one man and one woman. ...Opposition to homosexuality has been branded as irrational and hateful with the use of terms like "homophobia". However, this term itself can also be a form of intimidation against opposition. Rather than attack their arguments they use a personal attack, labeling the opposer simply afraid. ...It is commonly argued that an inclination to homosexual behavior is inborn and immutable. It is also widely believed that the public will become more accepting of homosexuality if they are convinced that it is inborn and immutable. However, there is no scientific consensus on the subject."
There is an ENTIRE SECTION devoted to discussing the "Cultural effects of an immoral lifestyle." Arrrrggghhhhhhhhhh.
Harry Potter : "The English "public" schools Hogwarts resembles are ostensibly Anglican institutions; but at Hogwarts, chapel is conspicuously absent. A failure to mention Christianity, other than a celebration of Christmas, combined with the presence of wizardry, have led some to wonder whether Rowling is substituting paganism for Christianity."
Dinosaur : "Creationists cite a number of reasons to believe that dinosaurs have existed until relatively recent times, and perhaps still survive.
- There have been a number of claimed sightings of dinosaur-like creatures.
- There are drawings of creatures resembling dinosaurs.
- Creatures matching dinosaurs and similar creatures have been described by various people groups.
- Descriptions of dragons are widespread and match descriptions of dinosaurs, suggesting that dragons were real creatures and were actually dinosaurs."
Abortion : "The most powerful political action committee (PAC) is EMILY’s List. EMILY's List contributes money to Democratic candidates who support abortion-on-demand, including forced taxpayer funding of abortion. ... There is no comparably funded organization opposing abortion, because there are no monetary rewards to defending human life. Instead, candidates and supporters who oppose abortion are motivated by religious and ethical principles."
George W. Bush : "Though the liberal media continues to disparage Bush's handling of the economy, they often neglect to report the many aspects of the economy that Bush has improved. For example, during his term Exxon Mobil has posted the largest profit of any company in a single year, and executive salaries have greatly increased as well."
And, of course, this is the kicker: the page on liberals.
Looks like I'm a baby-killing pornography lover who's opposed to a strong American foreign policy, guys!
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| Friday, June 15th, 2007
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9:36 pm - Hillary Reads Books
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Ah, summer in New York City - sweltering heat, crowded streets, the unsettling experience of walking underneath a building, feeling something wet drip on you, and praying with all your strength that it was just water from a rogue air conditioner. Summer has also given me the time to finally catch up on my reading. I feel like writing up a list of some of the stuff I've read so far this summer; hence the entry. Hooray for self indulgence!
A Sampler Of Things I Have Read Recently:
A Separate Peace - This is apparently part of the Shady Side Middle School's curriculum, which means that the copy I found in my house has some helpful underlining my brother did when he was in 7th or 8th grade, as well as a useful chart mapping out the different parts of a story ("rising action... climax... falling action," etc.). Otherwise, I don't have much to say about this one; I do know that I probably would have hated having to read it when I was 12. At 19, it's not bad, though.
The Alchemist - People routinely name this as one of their favorite books on Facebook, and I can see why: it's a quick read with an inspirational message that originally written in another language, which automatically gives it some kind of prestige. Here's the thing, though: The Alchemist sucks. It's Mitch Albom in Spain. It's maudlin and simplistic and filled with the kind of Hallmark profundity nobody should be able to take seriously. I kind of feel like Paulo Coelho is laughing all the way to the bank with this one.
The Outsiders - As you can probably tell by now, the theme of my summer reading is "books I've been meaning to read forever but haven't gotten around to for some reason," and this is no exception. The best part of The Outsiders is the characters' names - Ponyboy? Cherry Valance? Did S. E. Hinton ever meet any real people? In any case, I'm a sucker for trash, so of course I enjoyed this book. I'm really curious about the movie version, mainly because it seems like every single actor who was famous in the 80s makes an appearance in it. Anybody got this puppy on DVD?
The Kite Runner - I read this in high school, loved it, and recommended it to everyone I knew. Having read it for a second time, I'm not such an unequivocal advocate. It's an easy read, sure, but The Kite Runner does have quite a few problems. The writing can be cringeworthy, and the plot twists are overly melodramatic. That's understandable, though - this is a first novel by a guy with no previous writing experience, right? Anyway, it still fills a niche that I think few American books do... I know I didn't know anything about Afghanistan before I read The Kite Runner, so for that, I'm grateful. And despite everything I said already, the story remains pretty gripping even if you already know what's going to happen.
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - Generally speaking, I don't like short stories much; this collection has made me reconsider my stance. I've honestly never read anything like it... which means I don't have much to say about it besides telling whoever's reading this to go buy a copy immediately. If you like Dave Eggers or Jonathan Safran Foer, you'll love David Foster Wallace.
Maus - I never would have thought a comic book could have this kind of power. Art Spiegelman teaches at Columbia sometimes; I'm doing whatever it takes to get into one of those classes.
The Other Boleyn Girl - Loved it loved it loved it. It's like Gone with the Wind in 16th century England! There are, of course, some major problems with the novel - for one thing, it portrays Mary Boleyn as a young ingenue who comes to court at 14 when in reality she was a good deal older and kind of a slut (mistress to the king of France, apparently, before she started banging Henry VIII). Also, Philippa Gregory struggles to maintain her tone; she regularly has characters spout figures of speech that definitely didn't exist in the 1530s ("Anne walked in like she owned the place"). None of that matters, though, because the story is so juicy and just true enough that it's immediately gripping. I couldn't put this down for two days straight.
Other things I've read but don't feel like writing much about: The World According to Garp (thumbs up), Me Talk Pretty One Day (INCREDIBLE), Tuesdays with Morrie (ew), a book about a woman obsessed with plastic surgery called Beautiful Stranger (not as fun as you'd think). Right now, I'm halfway through The Hours, and as of now I think it's great. What should I read next?
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| Tuesday, February 27th, 2007
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12:28 am
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A friend and I just got into an away message war, and I'd like to share it with the internet. First he'd put up something awful that I supposedly said, then I'd do the same about him, and so on until it finally went too far...
His away message: ampersandtheape: man, i love minorities! hillbusis: i hate them and want them to die!
Mine: ampersandtheape: man, pork-filled babies sure are great to eat.
His: hillbusis: you know what i love about veal? the cruelty inherent in its production. also: pit stains are sexy.
Mine: ampersandtheape: i think that ann coulter is the voice of our generation. how does she stay so thin and trim?! also i eat poop.
His: hillbusis: sometimes i get bummed out, but then i remember that slavery still exists in other parts of the world, and it's mostly black and brown people involved.
Mine: ampersandtheape: i would just love to rape a little girl
After that, it kind of petered out.
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| Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
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2:25 pm
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Funny story - I was walking to the gym earlier (no, that isn't the funny part of the story), and I saw that the guy who was walking in front of me had dropped something. I picked the item up and was about to run over and give it back to him when I noticed what it was: two condoms.
Needless to say, I would have felt pretty strange going up to a random stranger and saying, "Hey, you dropped your birth control." So I did what anyone would have done - pocketed said condoms and quietly kept walking. Happy Valentine's Day to me!
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| Monday, February 12th, 2007
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11:31 pm
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Okay, weirdest thing ever - at the beginning of senior year, I couldn't find my beloved TI-89 (the only thing that kept me from failing BC), so I was forced to alternately use my sister's old calculator and borrow Jimmy's when math got too hard for a simple 83. When I was packing for college, though, I came across my calculator; who knows how I managed not to find it until right when I no longer needed it.
It wouldn't turn on, but I wasn't worried; I just assumed the batteries had run out due to a year of disuse. Because I didn't have to take a class involving numbers until this semester, I didn't replace said batteries until about two hours ago. When I finally turned my calculator on, it was like looking into a time capsule - the last calculations I had made on it were all staring at me from the screen. It appears as though the last thing I used the calculator for was figuring out my junior year GPA, as well as the math section of the SAT.
It's strange to think how different things were the last time I punched the numbers on my 89. I hadn't left for Israel yet, I had no idea where I wanted to go to college, I didn't know that in a few years, I'd no longer be speaking to a lot of the people who were close to me then.
Christ, even a fucking piece of plastic can make me sentimental these days.
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| Sunday, January 28th, 2007
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3:02 pm
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Jesus H. Christ.
So sometimes when I procrastinate, I like to look at old journal entries (online or otherwise). Apparently, on Tuesday, December 21st, 2004, I took one of those stupid surveys that just screams "I'm really self-involved and think that you actually care whether I prefer pink or purple" (hm... I guess by extension all blogs scream that). Those were all the rage back in the day (by which I mean junior year. I use too many parenthetics). Anyway, in the section of the survey entitled "LOVE AND ALL THAT CRAP," I found the following gem:
What’s the most sexual thing you’ve done with the opposite sex?:: Anal. Lots and lots of glorious anal.
So yeah. I have a weird sense of humor. As Augustine would say, "At one time in adolescence I was burning to find satisfaction in hellish pleasures. I ran wild in the shadowy jungle of erotic adventures..." or, at least, I talked as if I had. Speaking of Augustine, I should get back to him... he's probably looking down on me from heaven and shaking his head right now.
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| Friday, January 12th, 2007
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3:04 am
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I think I spend maybe half of my time buried in the past. At what point does a person become too nostalgic? I looked at pictures from lower school and camp in the '90s with Whitney tonight, after we listened to a tape we made when we were 8. Earlier this week, I asked my dad to go through his dresser so that he could find a picture of me getting slimed at Universal Studios when I was in fifth grade (the crowning achievment of my life thus far). I've been reading over old journal entries for the past hour.
Speaking of the old days, I visited Shady Side on Wednesday. It wasn't nearly as weird as I feared it would be - I got to see all of the teachers I wanted to see, and I found out that I still have a few friends in the classes of '07 and '08. The new building is cracked out, though... I'm not really sure what that expression means, but, in any case, it's ridiculously nice and strangely sterile at the same time. The walls are all starkly white, the carpets are pristine and unstained; it looks less like a real live school and more like a movie set of a school. I guess when all's said and done, I'm glad my class didn't get to use the new building. I prefer to remember SSA the way it was.
Which is my problem, I guess - I generally prefer remembering old times to actually going out and making new memories, at least when I'm at home. That last sentence probably only made sense to me. I'm hoping that going back to Columbia will get me out of this past-centered funk. "Past-centered funk" - kind of sounds like a bad '70s cover band. They'd probably do an awesome version of "Hot Stuff."
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| Friday, January 5th, 2007
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3:10 am
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Don't ask:
thattheatrekid (3:08:03 AM): if you wanted to have it be similar to look who's talking
thattheatrekid (3:08:07 AM): you could have
thattheatrekid (3:08:11 AM): look who's staplin' babies!
thattheatrekid (3:08:19 AM): the answer: VAL KILMER
thattheatrekid (3:08:23 AM): is staplin' babies
thattheatrekid (3:08:24 AM): why?
thattheatrekid (3:08:32 AM): he's a renegade, damnit!
thattheatrekid (3:09:00 AM): julianne moore, a clever cia op even though she's a lady, is put on his case to figure out why he's always staplin' babies
thattheatrekid (3:09:06 AM): and they fall in love!
thattheatrekid (3:09:08 AM): and they have twins!
thattheatrekid (3:09:14 AM): VAL'S ULTIMATE TEST
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| Saturday, December 23rd, 2006
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11:48 pm
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After I left for school, my mom hired a dogwalker named Lori so that April, my dog, wouldn't be cooped up inside all day while she was at work. I opened the front door today to find that said dogwalker had left a gift bag on our porch. Attached to the bag is a tag that says,
"To April,
Happy holidays!
[heart], Lori"
I haven't looked to see what's inside it, since I figure it isn't fair to open up someone else's present. It's kind of funny that Lori doesn't know April is Jewish.
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| Tuesday, December 19th, 2006
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4:46 pm
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This entry will be the first in a series called "the most embarrassing misspellings I found in my notes while studying for finals," or, "awesome new ways to butcher the English language."
- "schenario"
- "audult"
- "lynchpin" instead of "linchpin," repeatedly
Maybe I'm just ahead of my time and someday my alternative spellings will be canonized. On second thought, perhaps I'm a moron.
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| Monday, December 11th, 2006
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1:31 pm
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I just thought the internets should know that my roommate just wrote a paper comparing Jesus and Oedipus entitled "The Father, the Son, and the Motherfucker."
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| Wednesday, December 6th, 2006
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12:13 am
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As it turns out, libraries at college are more places to go to study than places to go to find books. I had been reading an electronic version of an ethnography for my Anthro class, but the website kept not working, and after two hours of struggling to read twenty pages, I resorted to going to find a hard copy of the book. Because of the amazingly confusing call number system, it took fifteen minutes to find the damn book in the first place - the stairs to the mezzanine where it was located were cleverly hidden.
When I at long last had my copy in hand, I went to check the book out. However, there was nobody at the circulation desk on the third floor. Confused, I went downstairs - nobody was at the circulation desk there either.
I asked a security guard at the front desk where I could go to actually check out the book. She replied, "You're going to have to hide it somewhere and come and get it tomorrow - the circulation desks close at 11."
"But I need to read this tonight!" I said, beginning to panic.
"Well... hide it." The security guard winked at me.
Finally, I understod what she meant. I turned around, walked a few paces, and slipped the book under my jacket. Then I walked out of the library, right through those menacing wooden security gates that apparently don't do shit.
Moral of the story - imminent finals turn even mild-mannered English majors into dirty, dirty thieves.
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| Wednesday, November 15th, 2006
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7:46 pm
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Not to brag or anything, but I'm going to brag now. This has been Hillary's Week of Seeing Famous People Do Things. Just look at my list:
Friday, November 10: Went to poetry reading with Charles Simic, Mark Strand, and Charles Wright. Also in attendance was Wallace Shawn, a.k.a. Vizzini in "The Princess Bride," Mr. Hall in "Clueless," and Rex the Dinosaur in "Toy Story." Yeah, I just went on IMDB. So?
Sunday, November 12: Saw reading of Vaclav Havel's "The Garden Party," starring Ben Shenkman from "Angels in America" and DUSTIN FRIGGIN' HOFFMAN, who actually was kind of a jackass. Also sat like six seats away from Havel.
Wednesday, November 15: Went to "The Challenges of New Democracies" talk, featuring Havel (he's at Columbia for seven weeks doing some kind of playwright-slash-former-president residency) and Bill Clinton. Also Lee Bollinger, but I don't know if he really counts as famous.
And upcoming event involving famous people...
Thursday, November 16: Will be in studio audience for taping of "The Colbert Report." Don't know who Colbert's guest will be, but I couldn't care less. Am so excited about this I may pee my pants.
Did I mention that I love, love LOVE New York?
I could be seeing Ben Folds at a concert on Friday, Sunday, or Monday, but my stupid friends are too cheap to pay for $37 tickets. Anybody out there in Internet-land who lives in one of the five boroughs and wants to see some suburbs be rocked?
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| Thursday, November 9th, 2006
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4:43 pm
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[I am walking down the street, wearing a yellow sweatshirt.]
Guy behind me, singing: "The girl in the yellow ain't got no booty, no booty."
I love New York.
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| Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
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10:57 pm
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I've discovered the best thing ever - participating in research studies to get money. Between today and Monday, I made $16. It's also great procrastination... you're getting paid and giving back to the university, but also avoiding doing actual work. Sure, filling out surveys is getting a little dull, but who cares? A few more weeks of this and I'll be a millionaire.
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| Tuesday, September 19th, 2006
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12:47 pm
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Every time my silly German University Writing Teacher said the word "Kant" today, because of his accent, it sounded like he was saying "cunt."
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| Saturday, September 16th, 2006
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10:34 am - Things that bother me, in no partucular order:
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1. Use of the word "eclectic" in basically any context. It's just nearly always an indicator of pretension, or, at least, that's how I interpret it. For example, if you're filling in the "favorite music" section of your Facebook profile by saying "my taste in music is really eclectic. i like maroon 5, the beatles..." you should shut up a) because you're really not all that eclectic and b) because Maroon 5 sucks.
2. When there's a set of double doors and a group of people walking either into or out of a building, and the first person in the group opens one of the doors, and the entire stream goes through that door, not realizing that there's ANOTHER DOOR and that if both doors were opened, traffic would go twice as quickly. I HATE that.
3. How books tend to italicize words that aren't in English. That's what inspired this rant - the authors of my Anthropology textbook took it upon themselves to italicize "numaym," just to make sure that, you know, I wouldn't mistakenly believe they were talking about an American numaym. When I'm reading and I see a word like that, I always feel like I have to pause and give it special emphasis, and it's jarring and irritating. I'm probably alone on this one.
4. People who stand around with their mouths open.
5. Leggings worn under skirts, especially really really short skirts. As Nina Garcia on "Project Runway" would say, "It's just not aesthetically pleasing." Nobody around here, especially the Barnard girls, seems to have heard of this new invention called "pants" that you can wear instead of a skirt if you're cold.
So other than the occasional annoyance of the items on the list, college is going swimmingly. If I'm feeling inspired, maybe later I'll actually tell the internet about it.
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| Thursday, August 17th, 2006
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12:31 am - Food for thought:
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When I was in fifth grade, I wrote a play about a group of people putting on a variety show (entitled, creatively enough, "The Ellis 5th Grade Variety Show"). The crowning glory of the show was its finale, a retelling of Snow White where the characters rapped their dialogue. I remember thinking how clever my concept was; I was really proud of the show, but the last section was what I liked most about it.
So imagine my surprise when today I watched an episode of "Saved By the Bell" in which the drama club's play is a retelling of Snow White... where the characters rap their dialogue.
The weird thing is I'm absolutely positive that the first time I ever saw "Saved By The Bell" was sometime around 8th grade, since prior to that the only channels I ever watched were Nickelodeon and ABC on Friday nights at my grandma's (family TGIF - oh, those were the days). I don't understand what's going on here - did I unintentionally plagiarize a TV show I never watched, or did I somehow magically have the exact same idea as the writers of a well-known sitcom?
Neither explanation makes complete sense, although I guess the former is more likely. Man, there goes my integrity as a writer. I can't believe I was a fifth grade plagiarist. Oh well... I guess it's better than if I had seen an episode of "CSI" that reminded me of the time I committed homicide in kindergarden.
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| Saturday, June 3rd, 2006
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6:23 pm
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Here are the six words that sum up what I've been thinking for the past day:
I am done with high school.
Weird, right? I think that Little Red Riding Hood from "Into the Woods" describes my emotions pretty well right now - "It made me feel excited... well, excited and scared."
Over the past week, I must have written somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 pages altogether between Gender journals and the interminable final, my Experimental Lit essay, and that stupidass Bio paper... which is why I'll keep this short.
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