| (no subject) |
[Oct. 26th, 2005|01:10 pm] |
this arrogant tall straight hipster 30-something dude in my fiction workshop turned in the most misogynist, objectifying, disgusting two chapters that i have ever read. how do people get off writing this shit and turning it in, ignorant of how completely terrible and objectionable it is? it's also terribly written, goes nowhere, and only has hateable characters. can't wait for class. "the author--i mean, the tone, is misogynist, sexist, and pompous."
ugggaslkdfalksfh. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 25th, 2005|06:52 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  naughty | ] |
| [ | music |
| | you talking to annie in your room. me typing on your mac. | ] |
evil twin! this is your better half. your soul. your first, your last, your everything.
sing me folk songs in our kitchen again and i will forgive you of your yetzer harah.
and so soon after yom kippur...what kind of a jew are you?
love, the pinko down the hall, evil and sneeky maybe even more than you...
p.s. note to self: log out of lj next time. |
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| cinematic failure of 2005 |
[Oct. 21st, 2005|03:33 pm] |
"elders of zion:" among the worst and potentially destructive films--sorry, movies--i have ever seen. my three pages of notes studded with exclamation points and clusters of question marks attest to my reaction of "WTF?!!" the entire way through. it has: zero artistic integrity, zero intellectual integrity, zero analysis, zero logic, poor narrative structure, failed strategy of audience empathy with the director's self-obsessed NJ pseudo-slick rich self, turned the holocaust into sentimental kitsch, terrible structure, and more. and was hand delivered by a messenger. a fucking messenger!
the worst part about this movie is that it's going to be eaten--no slurped--up by thousands of people. more. all as multi-media testament to the complex that the world hates and is a dangerous place for jews. no matter that everyone you interviewed, mister, is a christian missionary, lives in the hills of west virginia, or is oh-so-frighteningly a disenfranchised brown-skinned person/praying muslim. very dangerous, indeed. i've already gotten two emails from NV writers to the effect of "oh my god i am so scared. anti-semitism is so real. can i please review this film?" naturally, i declined and had the movie delivered directly to shmulik, new staff member + brooklyn neighbor. there's no way i'm trusting a movie endorsed by the ADL to anyone i don't know. gad. |
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| whoa |
[Sep. 22nd, 2005|02:28 pm] |
this morning i interviewed hany abu assad, the director of "paradise now." he rocks.
also, l-word watchers, please help!!! send this to people you know and/or comment with what you know.
Hey,
So I'm currently editing an independent national Jewish student magazine called New Voices. And to cut to the chase--I suspect many of you have seen "The L-Word" and feel strongly about it one way or another.
One of the many bizarre things about the show is the way in which one of the characters, Jenny, is obsessed with the Holocaust. I would love to publish a critique and am looking for someone to write it.
Please get in touch with me if you or someone you know might be the one for the job. And no, you don't have to be Jewish to write. Send this on to anyone who might be interested—in reading or writing.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Ilana
editor newvoices.org
Calling All Readers and Writers
New Voices, the country's only independent, national magazine written by and for Jewish students, seeks print publication writers, artists, and readers. Now entering its 15th year and with thousands of readers across the country, New Voices is stronger than ever and wants you to be involved. The magazine features news, opinions, reviews, essays, fiction, poetry, photography, and art. It comes out five times per year and, with your free subscription, will be sent directly to your school address.
WRITE
Email editor newvoices.org to submit articles, short fiction, poetry and art, and/or to discuss article ideas and guidelines for fiction and poetry submissions, or call 212-675-1168.
FREE STUDENT SUBSCRIPTION
To sign up for a free subscription or to order a bulk pack, email editor newvoices.org.
**The soon-to-be overhauled site can still be visited at www.newvoices.org. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 14th, 2005|10:26 am] |
last night i saw an incredible film. it's called Paradise Now, and is a new film made mostly in the west bank by palestinian filmmakers living in amsterdam. i'm going to review it for new voices so i'll paste that here...this entry has taken me approximately 3.5 hours to write because that is how much i should not be updating lj right now.
write/subscribe to new voices! tell your jewish-type student friends.
brooklyn in september is all morning bustle and late-night bodegas. best.
xo |
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| oh please help |
[Aug. 31st, 2005|12:42 pm] |
Also, and here's a shameless thing to do since I've been an LJ troll for too long and am now making requests, but here's the plug. Are any of you college students? Do you any of you want a free subscription to a really cool magazine? And do you want to write? And do you know people who do? People who are interested in writing about arguably Jewish things? Fiction, news, opinion, whatevs? Here's the blurb:
Ever Wish You Could Read, Write, or Illustrate a National Jewish Publication?
Well, Now You Can.
New Voices, the country's only independent, national magazine written by and for Jewish students, seeks print publication writers, artists, and readers. Now entering its 15th year and with thousands of readers across the country, New Voices is stronger than ever and wants you to be involved. The magazine features news, opinions, reviews, essays, fiction, poetry, photography, and art. It comes out five times per year and, with your free subscription, will be sent directly to your school address.
WRITE
Email to submit articles, short fiction, poetry and art, and/or to discuss article ideas and guidelines for fiction and poetry submissions.
FREE STUDENT SUBSCRIPTION
To sign up for a free subscription, email editor@newvoices.org or call 212-675-1168.
**The soon-to-be overhauled site can be visited at www.newvoices.org. |
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| in new york. |
[Aug. 31st, 2005|12:35 pm] |
I had been planning to update more regularly, sort of. I'm back from my small adventure and am at work, where I sit in a freshly painted purple office under flourescent lights and no ceiling but a door that closes and a poster of a naked woman in a spiral watermelon patch to my right and where soon I'll have a desk lamp and maybe even a floor lamp which will allow me to disconnect the network of flourescence in which I bathe. Tonight I move my two suitcases into my and Mich's new Park Slope apartment which I am now concerned about affording because the rent is squarely over the one-third of my miniscule income mark but I'll make do by downloading all my music and not saving very much. My job is good, I mean, it's great, really. But relative thinking only gets you so far. I worry much more about the magazine in the theoretical than in reality, which is to say that I have ideological or maybe just personal? qualms with making the magazine overtly progressive but in reality, the only thing I'm interested in reading andn editing and publishing is just that, so I'm sort of nervous but also relieved because I don't want to propogate, you know, the Man or something.
This is actually sort of fun. I'll write more substantive things again. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 9th, 2005|07:35 pm] |
i'm leaving for the airport to go to israel in 15 minutes. bye bye upper west side. hello izzy, concentrated in an airplane miles above the ocean. let's pray that i am not in the section asked to leave for prayer. ohh and please don't sing hatikva when we land. please.
will post, hopefully more regularly and interestingly, when there. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 25th, 2005|02:35 am] |
hey does anyone know a good socially responsible bank based in or at least with branches in nyc? i know there's washington mutual but they're so gigantic. i had the best cutest most everything bank in boston called wainwright and now i want another. i have zero cash and zero access to it until i open myself an account.
btw i'm staying with my cousins in the west 70s. swaaaaaaanky. and i started work and i like it but am too tired to write. all i want is a good bank. |
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| lists not bombs |
[Mar. 10th, 2005|12:48 am] |
after letting ambivalence about whether or not i care dominate the past few months, my thesis is finally due in SIX days. since yesterday & until tuesday: i care. freedom is so so close.
to do:
revise hardcore
write intro
write conclusion
buy expensive black binder
to not do:
forget to leave the house
skip class
not go to the gym
not sleep
play minesweeper
be lazy
to do afterwards:
have fun
do yoga and go swimming regularly
sleep but also somehow wake up early
repent for not working for sari for weeks
reclaim my domestic godship
write daily
go home
go to new york
have a life |
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| got this feeling... |
[Feb. 1st, 2005|04:58 pm] |
i just painted my room red, so this is becoming something of a spring semester tradition. except this year i'm living in the same room i lived in last semester, and somehow the paint job makes the room feel like a university reading room. i think i need to get curtains, because the mini-blinds that came with the apt are only exacerbating the office-like atmosphere.
i was going over old lj entries and noticed that i used to use lj to mull over political/intellectual issues and i definitely don't do that anymore. and as nice as it is to have a record of my...progress, it's much less painful to reread the more recent narratives and random musings.
i haven't had class in weeks and weeks, and unlike almost every other student at this school, i didn't have any finals either. the semester starts again tomorrow and i'm mildly excited to go to class again but am already missing the long days of putzing around the house in slippers and snuggling down with a cup of tea to write the big T. right now i'm lying in bed, on my back, with my laptop, listening to old sleater-kinney. i'd be a really happy camper if this day could stretch on for another 24 hours. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 22nd, 2003|08:10 pm] |
i woke up to buckets of thunder and rain but biked to work under steamy-not-stormy skies. the babies and i were then instructed to go to the harvard museum of natural history. so off i go, 1.5 year olds in tow, or rather me lagging behind a larger than life double stroller. we get drenched by a speeding taxi on the way over but manage to dry off tears and brown water before getting to the museum bc of the forgotten shoe debacle, which made the whole journey take a ridiculously long hour. by the time we got there i was sweaty, dirty, grumpy, and only minimally damp. the girls were just damp. they enjoyed the museum as much as could be expected.
post-dinosaurs, stuffed elk, and amethysts, they didn't want to eat their standard atkins-esque mom-made lunch of BEEF and CHEESE so we walked home a much more efficient route and the skies opened up with 5 minutes to go. i opened up the parents' umbrella and was forced to cower under/juggle a gigantic red white and blue "god bless america" flag umbrella which was just creepy and uncharacteristic of the fam. as soon as i opened it, the "made in china" tag floated off and landed on zelly's lap. she laughed, took out her pacifier, and stuck it in her mouth. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 14th, 2003|11:17 pm] |
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this paper is so boring that i feel bad for my professor for having to read it. |
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| did you know that 50 degrees counts as spring? |
[Apr. 12th, 2003|11:48 pm] |
today:
1. read topdog/underdog before leaving bed. it's really good.
2. frustratedly burst into tears on the phone with the HP disservice person. very embarassing and not at all cathartic.
3. took long walk to the amazing mt. auburn cemetary. bummed around with ben on the hill that overlooks boston and laughed at the weirdness of cars and tourists creeping around an ancient cemetary. wondered how many harvard legacy kids have relatives buried there.
4. river sitting with beccah whose family is buried there.
5. neil's dance performance followed by a covert operation around the rooves and tunnels of winthrop house. this involved an illegally copied key, peering into top floor windows filled with frat boy types + bikini girls, and speculating about the inflatable tubs full of whipped cream. rather strange. punctuated by photo-taking and pouring the contents of my nalg' down 5 floors to surprise unsuspecting passersby. we're so bad.
6. bedward to read cindy sherman book. |
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| 5 months! |
[Mar. 25th, 2003|06:30 pm] |
place: yellow and white-tiled terrace overlooking 3 bodies of water (pool, intercoastal waterway, ocean), 2 tennis courts, 1 boat, several old ladies lying out on pool chairs.
(updated place: watching golden girls with savta! she's laughing harder than i ever hear her laugh.)
florida's a very funny place. my biggest activities have been excursions to publix (grocery store), walmart, and the pool. apparently my great aunt mala "i'm busting out of my shirt!" jacobs headed the committee to keep walmart out of this pseudo-tropical pseudo-paradise, but upon defeat became a frequent costumer and says that this walmart is much classier and far better landscaped than what she was picturing.
we got to publix via the shuttle that the community provides. fellow passengers included yitzhak, a charming old feller, yaffa, a friendly israeli lady, and rhoda, a purple-haired crazy ex-brooklynite who ranted at length about the virtues of shmearing on bursted-open vitamin liqui-gels over oil of olay lotion. she says it keeps her looking young. takes off 10 years each time she uses it! wow, rhoda. wow.
my savta (gma) says that people are upset that her formerly predominantly jewish community is being diversified by a) old gentiles, and b) latino families. i said it makes life more exciting. she said, "yeah, okay--exciting. who needs excitement at my age? anyway, i'm not complaining. it's everyone else."
oh and my color palette has been overrun by pastels.
to say that savta was surprised is an understatement--she thought she was hallucinating. i got to her condo after calling countless times, and i went into the card room downstairs to use the bathroom, and there she is with 3 lady friends. it was very cute and they all exclaimed over the beautiful granddaughter who comes to visit, and why aren't i studying medicine. okay.
there's a lot of competition among the folks here about whose happy and who sees the kids more. (and of course about what the kids are doing.) rhoda was gossiping about some woman who never leaves the house and says that if only she would, she wouldn't be so depressed. "she has to get out, see people, talk to people. me? i'm an artist, i go out." savta doesn't like her very much. says she's too loud.
i've heard about more medical and law careers than i ever hope to hear for the rest of my life. also, it turns out that studying literature is not a pre-professional track. who knew? no it's not really that bad, but i'd forgotten how judgmental savta is. about school, what i wear, what i eat, what i'm doing. it's exhausting. she bought me a cute skirt today at walmart even though she didn't think it was as high quality as she would make. "i could make you much better quality with no needle. what's this hem? makes no sense. but okay--you like it, i'll buy for you."
right now we're baking savta cookies and cake cookies, tonight we're going over to my great aunt & uncle's house across the street, tomorrow we go to the mall, thursday i "interview" her on tape/we talk about poland and the war, friday we make shabbos dinner ("what, you still not eat the meat? come on, is stupid."), saturday i leave. sounds fast but these days are very long. |
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| bombs, tanks, terrorists, invasions |
[Mar. 19th, 2003|08:41 pm] |
The Diameter of the Bomb - Yehuda Amichai
The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shore of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won't even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making
a circle with no end and no God. |
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| this has nothing to do with iraq |
[Mar. 18th, 2003|08:17 am] |
my friend julia (middle) took this of my roommate mina (left) and i (right, with no eyes behind the glare).
 |
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| gross (letter to the NYTimes) |
[Mar. 8th, 2003|11:13 am] |
What began as sad interest quickly turned into disgust as the Neiman Marcus advertisement splashed itself across the NYTimes.com webpage. In her article, "When Midlife Seems an Empty Plate," Ginia Bellafante repeatedly laments that "no one knows exactly why" older women are increasingly diagnosed with eating disorders, but sitting in front of my computer, I have a pretty clear picture of what's going on.
Interrupting the text of the article and juxtaposed with a photograph of a still-waify "recovered" anorexic is that of an impossibly thin white Neiman Marcus model in front of a banner screaming, "trend: asian." A culture of mixed messages regarding the persistent objectification and exoticization of women is surely a leading factor in the proliferation of eating disorders across age, class, and racial lines.
I hope that in the future The New York Times will exercise better judgment over the contradictory messages espoused by its advertisements and will examine its role in the societal ills it so avidly decries. |
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naot's journal
