The Virgin Suicides

 

This album...

Francesca

by Ezra Pound
You came in out of the night
And there were flowers in your hand,
Now you will come out of a confusion of people,
Out of a turmoil of speech about you.

I who have seen you amid the primal things
Was angry when they spoke your name
IN ordinary places.
I would that the cool waves might flow over my mind,
And that the world should dry as a dead leaf,
Or as a dandelion see-pod and be swept away,
So that I might find you again,
Alone.

In a Station of the Metro

by Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
petals on a wet, black bough.

A Girl

by Ezra Pound 
The tree has entered my hands,
The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast -
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.

Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child - so high - you are,
And all this is folly to the world.

Les Scènes de Danse

The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Coppelia

Pomme poemm mopem empom

Enfin, j'ai eu le rêve que j'ai été nulle part.

"Mes cheveux sont douces et froid," je me suis pensé.

"Je donnerais cher, pour être quelque part vert," je me suis pensé.

Et cette jour, la neige a été redécouverte

Il n'y a que des pétales,

il n'y a que des levres,

il n'y a que du neige.

Enfin, j'ai eu le rêve que j'ai été quelque part.

"Mes ongles sont beaucoup trop courte," je me suis pensé.

"Je donnerais cher pour être nulle part," je me suis pensé.

Les pistils des fleurs m'embrasse

et il n'y a que la cloche qui me montre que c'est enfin onze heures.

"Qu'est ce qui est arriver avec Marc?" je demande.

Personne ne le lui connais.

Enfin je n'ai pas rêver.

Fatigué, nous achetons un lapin

Et on lui appelons Sapin et lui mis au centre du salon

Quel qu'un mélange les ingredients pour le lait du poule.

Je demande a Marc s'il avait un rêve comparable,

Il me dit de trouver les oeufs. 

"Il n'y a rien a comprendre,

mais je comprend quand-même,"

c'est comme dire,

"je t'aime,

mais je n'aime pas tes joues." 

Reprise

WE ARE WATCHING REPRISE IN FILM CLUB THIS WEEK
I'm so happy. I'm also a little sad that I will have to sit in a room and see every scene of my favorite movie through everyone elses eyes. Woi woi. What if I don't like it as much?







Impossible.

O, R

Max Fischer: I like your nurse's uniform, guy?
Dr. Peter Flynn: These are O.R. scrubs.
Max Fischer: O, R they?

My mom always makes this joke but no one gets it out of context.

I Wish My Hair Looked This Good

Since 1844

That is indeed Patrick Swayze. What a fox.

Looking Your Best

People say that obesity is an epidemic in America, but I’m determined not to become part of the problem. That’s why I’ve spent years perfecting the secret to a trim and attractive physique. My foolproof system involves just nine easy steps.

Step 1: Avoid what psychologists refer to as “emotional eating.” This is hard, because many people have a tendency to experience emotions. To solve this problem, consume increasing dosages of psychotropic medications until you cease to feel emotions of any kind.

Step 2: Visualize yourself as a thin person. This is very important, because the body often takes its signals from the brain. Each time you take a bite of food, imagine that you are a thin person taking a bite of food, chewing the food, then spitting the food into a napkin, then tucking the napkin into your backpack or purse. After you’re done visualizing these things, start doing them.

Step 3: Get rid of your “fat clothes.” Keeping your closet stocked with unflattering garments will only distract you from your quest for a slender body. To complete this step, shred or burn everything in your closet, including any hangers or shelving that a fat person may have touched. Refrain from donating anything to charity, as this could cause underprivileged people to become obese, which would be unsavory and possibly even illegal.

Step 4: Refrain from consuming food.

Step 5: Surround yourself with thin people. This will naturally encourage you to emulate their healthy habits. Weigh your friends on a regular basis, then weigh yourself. Do you have a friend who weighs less than you? If so, consider gastric bypass surgery.

Step 6: Drink plenty of water. As you’ve probably heard, water functions as a natural lubricant in the body, flushing toxins and fat cells from the digestive tract. Water is also a delicious replacement for higher-fat liquids, such as milk. Try pouring water on your cereal or in your coffee. If you’re a baby, try pouring water into your mother’s breasts.

Step 7: Buy a pet. Having a pet will force you to take walks, which are a form of exercise. This is true unless you make the mistake that I made, which was buying an iguana. Iguanas walk very slowly and smell strongly of turds. I really cannot dissuade you strongly enough from buying an iguana.

Step 8: Vigorous sexual intercourse burns up to two hundred calories per hour. Therefore, if you are not currently promiscuous, it is essential that you begin “boning” immediately. Start by having sex with every person you know. Then have sex with numerous people you have never met. Continue doing this until you are thin.

Step 9: Self-confidence is the most attractive trait a person can have. For this reason, strive to love yourself and accept yourself exactly as you are. This will be difficult if you are overweight, on account of your loathsome physical appearance and compromised value system, but do your best. And, if the going gets tough, remind yourself: every person is beautiful on the inside, provided that they are also extremely attractive on the outside.

by Amy Ozols, published in the New Yorker on January 5th 2009

Making Friends

Hello, six-year-old child.

Seeing as how fate has brought us together here, in the crowded coach section of this expensive airplane, I thought I should introduce myself.
My name is Amy, and I’m an adult. I suspect that you’re too young to understand what “adult” means, so let me explain. It means that I’m taller than you, and smarter, and that I get to do lots of awesome things, like smoke cigarettes and ovulate. It also means that I like to take naps on airplanes and read my newspaper in silence. These things seem to be very different from the things that you like to do.
I’ve gleaned from its near-constant utterance by the woman sitting next to you—your mother, I suppose, or perhaps a social worker or a federal prisoner who’s being paid to spend time with you—that your name is Timmy. It’s probably Timothy, actually, but people call you Timmy because it’s cuter. Which is appropriate, Timmy, because you’re very cute, you really are. You’re really very fucking cute.
I’m going to drink this cup of coffee—would you like some? I didn’t think so. You’re more of a juice-box man, from what I gather. The way I gather this is by looking at the stain on my ninety-eight-dollar pants, the one you made when you put your juice box there. If I touched your pants, Timmy, I would probably be sent to jail. There are lots of differences between you and me, but that’s one of the big ones: the quality and the seriousness of what happens when we touch other people’s pants.
You’re not much of a sleeper, are you, Timmy? We’ve just met, but it seems to me like maybe you don’t really enjoy sleeping all that much. In fact, it seems to me that one of your greatest joys in life is wakefulness—and not simply passive wakefulness but the kind of vigorous wakefulness that makes a person like me start to question the very possibility of silence as a condition that can exist in the universe. I can see that I’ve confused you, Timmy, and I apologize; I was only trying to point out that you really seem to enjoy being awake. Let me make it up to you by giving you this modest dose of Ambien. It’s a kind of candy for your soul. Your soul is a kind of mouth that’s inside your brain.
Here comes the nice stewardess lady with a bag for collecting people’s garbage. Would you like me to give her some of the garbage that’s strewn all over your seat—and, if we’re being perfectly honest here, Timmy, all over my seat as well? And, while we’re at it, maybe I could give her this talking doll—the one that sings songs, very loud songs, songs of terrifying and ungodly volume, from that animated movie about adventurous insects. It’s not that I don’t love the doll; it’s just that I’m pretty sure it’s illegal for children to carry such things on airplanes. Have you heard of terrorism, Timothy? That’s why it’s illegal for you to have this doll.
Your whimpering and your dripping facial parts suggest that perhaps this conversation has run its course, so I’ll let you get back to your finger painting, your fidgeting, and your wanton, inexplicable shredding of the in-flight magazine. I’ll be here in my seat, fantasizing about hurtling my childless adult body out of the airplane and into the sky. Enjoy the rest of the flight, Timmy. I’ve really enjoyed sitting next to you. It’s fun to make new friends.

by Amy Ozols, publish in the New Yorker on May 11th 2009

Where I Live

Welcome to my apartment. Can I take your coat? Please make yourself at home. 

This is my cat.
It’s a studio apartment, so there’s not much to see, but let me give you a quick tour anyway. Here’s the kitchen. It’s not very big, but there’s a ton of cabinet space, which is nice. Here’s my desk, where I do most of my writing, and that’s the bathroom over there.
Here is another cat.
This is a picture of my family from last Thanksgiving. Here’s my mom—she’s a real pistol. I think that’s where I get my sense of humor. These are my sisters. My dad’s the tall guy in the back. And that’s my grandmother, with a cat on her lap. And that animal crouched menacingly on top of the picture frame—that’s an actual cat, far more knowledgeable and terrifying than the cat in the picture.
This is my couch, where we can sit and watch a movie later, and then maybe make out awkwardly while three to six cats stare at us.
This cat over here—the one burrowing into your overcoat—belongs to my neighbor. But he comes over a lot, so I feed him and buy him toys and take him to the vet and stuff like that. He’s a pretty great cat, so I sort of just let him live here and systematically destroy my clothing and furniture.
This is an antique gramophone I inherited from my grandmother. It’s worth a lot of money, but I’m never going to sell it, on account of how much it means to my family.
I’m kidding, of course. It’s not really an antique. Or a gramophone. It’s a cat.
Do you want a drink? I think I have some beer, or there’s a pitcher of water in the fridge. It’s tap water, but it’s filtered through one of those Brita things, so it tastes pretty good. I also have some bottled water, which I save for the cats, but you’re totally welcome to one of the bottled waters, if you want to be a dick about it.
You can probably tell that I’m more of a cat person than a dog person. I’m more of an “all animals” person, actually. I like animals way better than people, because they’re friendly and they don’t eat very much, and they don’t tend to fuck twenty-six-year-old flight attendants under adulterous circumstances, the way humans do.
Are you allergic? There’s some stuff coming out of your nose. Don’t be embarrassed; it happens to me all the time. In fact, if I’m being totally honest here—and, let’s face it, I’m being totally honest here, perhaps unsettlingly so—I haven’t breathed freely since the Clinton Administration. But it’s a small price to pay, considering how much joy these cats bring into my life. These watchful, almost eerily numerous cats.
I’m sorry about the smell—that’s sort of a litter-box issue. It’s tough to have eight cats in a studio apartment, but I think while you’re spending the night here—the first of many, many passion-filled nights you’ll undoubtedly wish to spend here—you’ll find that it’s well worth the smell to have the selfless companionship of these seventeen reeking, dander-encrusted animals. I said “eight” before when I meant to say “seventeen.” That’s the number of cats that I have.
I understand that you need to step out for some Claritin, but I’m really looking forward to your coming back. I think we’re going to have a lot of fun, you and I, watching movies and eating popcorn and having workmanlike intercourse on the fold-out sofa—all under the penetrating gaze of the vile feline minions with which I have inexplicably chosen to share my home.
I am begging you: please do not tell them I said that. Should they deem it distasteful, we would have zero chance of survival.
Anyway, I’ll see you soon. And thanks again for coming over. It’s always such a treat to have guests.

by Amy Ozols, published in the New Yorker on March 21st 2011

The Sirens

Eternity

 ”Nothing ceases to exist- there is no example of this in nature.. There is an entire mass of things that cannot rationally be explained. There are newborn thoughts that have not yet found form. How foolish to deny the existence of the soul. After all, that a life has begun, as it can be demonstrated that the atoms of life or the spirt of life must continue to exist after the body’s death. But of what does exist, this characteristic of holding a body together, causing matter to change and develop, this spirt of life.

I felt it as a sensual delight that I should become one with- become this earth which is forever radiated by the sun in a constant ferment and which lives- lives and which will grow plants from my decaying body- trees and flowers- and the sun will warm them and I will exist in them- and nothing will perish- and that is eternity”
-Edvard Munch