player hater?

Twice in two days a photographer doggypleaded me to pose in his photographs of the new dorms at Reed. "It will take like five minutes," he assured us this morning. We stared silently back at him and uneasily at each other. We didn't know what we were going to do anyway but we were pretty sure that looking like liberal arts college kids for this guy was not it. "I'll buy you coffee. All you need to do is sit down or stand around over there." He pointed towards the new cafe.

The cafe was empty, as usual. New is bad when it is concrete. New is good when it is abstract.

We continued our conversation as he shepherded us into position. He reminded us of the coffee deal although no one was interested. In fact, when I met Greg that morning, I told him that this was the only morning so far for me on campus that I allowed the coffee in my thermos to get cold. I was on my way to pouring it down the drain.

As the photographer barked at his buddy to fill some empty space in the cafe and gathered more students, probably secretely pleased to have an alien excuse to keep them from their books (we can't figure out how to do this ourselves), he assured us that these pictures were strictly for the architect and would not be otherwise shared, "except with the school, maybe, and I don't know what they'll do with them."

I read the Times, and wished that he understood that we were cooperating, even though the irreverant dick in me wasn't allowing the communication. I just wanted him to stop justifying this before it got worse. I don't know why Reed hired architects that need to admire their final product with students articifially scattered throughout, but I don't think that was the case. The guy was just lying and doing his job. If I had called him out for it, I would be honestly voicing the way I felt about the situation, but I would have had to pursue this distraction even further, and recognizing him as a person meant sinking to his level, kind of like the United States talking to the Iranian terrorist Ahmadinejad.

Anyway, Reed is no place for that righteous bullshit, and I'll pose unhappily for what they call architectural photographs. I thought my cold coffee was something to be proud of. It really turned me around to be offered another cup.

bar close

A walk at 2:30 in the morning means a walk at bar close, a discovery of the hooligans in neckties. We tried to share our popcorn with them, but sharing goes two ways. You can't share with a hooligan in a necktie.

Madison #2

I left Madison this morning. Oops on the underwhelming sequencing.

Madison #1

It's way colder in Madison than I expected, and I struggled removing my blankets this morning. My sister's place was empty, and I was disappointed that I slept pretty late. I obviously remembered some things from last night, including the name of a coffee shop that Allie went to study for her last midterm: Steep & Brew.

Trying to get a jump on my reading, I ended up paging through a notebook. I was glad that I was alone when I saw this note in hardcore scrawl floating in the corner of a page. It was from Margot Minardi (just for the record):

Suspend these notions:
1. History is fact
2. History exists in the past


Hardcore Scrawl:

Allow me to outdo myself

My Grandiose Walks

I honestly thought that I would chain smoke and think about my love life last night. I did neither. I didn't have a lighter.

Is this wrong?

Inflation is merely a mechanism (one of many) for government to spend more money than it has.

Rage covers are cool!

He kind of sounds like Iggy when he wants to.

Sticking to my gunz

I have a lot of suppressed disrespect for many people I went to high school with. I disapproved of everything. I thought to myself, "you are hurting me the way you selfishly disregard me." There was strife at high school. Call it high strife. I questioned where the heads of my contemporaries were. Granted, I don't know where my head is or was, but I needed a reference point somewhere.

All I am trying to get at is a story I was told about an aggressive slacker, let's call him Dean, that in my eyes was both admired and feared. When a former schoolmate returned from his "rehab" program in Utah, there was a lot of excitement. He was the only one we knew who had a different recent adolescent experience than the rest of us.

Dean was blunt: "I'm sick of his negative shit."

In Their Eyes

Space

i know that the reason that this page exists is because i thought it important to occupy a space on the web that is dedicated to my bullshit. i'm switching to myspace.

Girl mama talkin

eyes toward library white wall
two kinds of strife
hiding near the window

Trimet Poetry

There are cutesy poems on the buses in Portland. We're in college so we criticize them. "There's so much bad poetry," or "Mediocre poetry is so easy," we say. We're usually the only ones talking. Portland should have gotten quality poetry or no poetry at all. We were sure of this when a local girl dropped this Bukowski on us:


there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art


She was nicer than we were.

new kids on the blogs

In case you were wondering why I haven't posted in 12 days, it was because I was stretching. I can almost touch my toes.

Meanwhile, those kids from back home have been hitting the bench press. T. Hawks is pushing twice his body weight. Props to everyone. I guess this means we're smarter than facebook users.

Tyler
Santera
Rory

We're ashamed of ourselves!