I love this as a tattoo . . .

. . . if I loved "a clockwork orange" enough to get a tattoo about it. this is different and I think would translate beautifully on skin!

the best ayn rand description I've ever read

from the comment section from a post (inadvertently) about ayn rand on my celeb goss fave, ohnotheydidnt. this comment was a response to someone saying (in response to someone saying they weren't into the fact that this celeb said the fountainhead and atlas shrugged changed their life) "i haven't bothered to read any of her books or ~philosophies~...can someone explain why so many people seem to hate her?"

stellarlullaby : Hopefully literary geniuses won't jump on me, but her philosophies amount to: If you aren't self-serving to the point of being a social outcast, you're fake. Charities isn't really worth it because charity isn't a "moral duty", people exist only for their own pleasure. Believe in nothing other than yourself, not government, not religion, nothing. Rational to the point where it's truly pedantic and stupid. FYI: They support the "Tea Party" movement and that the government shouldn't regulate anything, like even making sure medicine is safe and shit.

I always think it's stupid, I've read several of her books and it makes me a little upset each time. While I get that being an individual is important, but I think she takes it too far. She had some fucked up complex because she was Russian and her family was angry about having their wealth taken by commies (because they were well off while everyone around them was starving). In the end, she had a valid point that government shouldn't control speech like communist Russia, and while I understand why she left, I think she was one of those people who didn't understand a happy medium in government intervention.

Either way, I think she's a self-serving, bitter bitch and people who like her normally have no real view on life other than an incredibly sheltered one where they think her way of life would work. She's often reference by people who are argumentative and "unique" to the point of being asses. All the fans of her writing I've encountered have been the most aggravating, ignorant people, usually hipster kids trying to sound smart.

aynrand.org has more info on her.


that little crazy ruskie

xmas wish list *part 2*

(can't get a picture of "Looking Back" by Lou Andreas Salome)

books, books, and more books, please.

roald dahls writing room

roald dahl's writing room


from the guardian and this blog

take this, you twi-hards

definitely want to see this

everyone (read: all 4 of my friends) knows I didn't have a childhood (read: don't ever recognize childhood references), but I DID read where the wild things are. and I like spike jonze, who directed this. and minus the hipster douche attraction of the soundtrack, I really do think this will be good. even if the little kid does kinda talk like owen wilson.

kd's book club

oh hai,

i'm reading an erotic novella at the moment. no, it doesn't have a picture of fabio on the front in an open ruffled shirt with the sun setting in the background, and no it doesn't use sentences like:

"Her embrace made his manhood swell like week-old roadkill on hot asphalt in the Georgia sun. "

"He awoke my slumbering womanhood with his double tall loin latte. "Starbuck!" I cried. "

it's Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille, and i am super into it in the sense that i feel like a.) i am being risque and b.) i'm reading something with literary significance and not something that ladies who read romance novels would be able to handle (at all). but sometimes i feel bad reading it on the bus when a granny is sitting next to me and i know she just looked over my shoulder and saw 'there was a period when simone developed a mania for breaking eggs with her behind'. but they probably secretly like it.

anyway, it's sweet. they talk about pee and eggs a lot. it was written in 1928 (which i knew because they describe one of the girls outfits. costume history, what what!) and deals with the duality of sex and death, how deep.


oh but if you do want some real trash in your life, this website: Smart Bitches, Trashy Books reviews romance novels and seems pretty sweet.

comics!

i just read a comic (actually i should call it a graphic novel, because i might offend someone, namely the too serious nazi femminist from my Graphic Novel course at uni) called David Boring by Daniel Clowes (who also wrote Ghost World!) I am way into it because it's a story about nothing in particular, which i decied are the best kind - stories about weird things and quirky people with not that much plot and a lot less action that are all character driven. AND David Boring reminds me of like 2-3 people i know in life, but i am sure this would be the same for anyone who reads the book.

It's made into a movie one day, but I can do the costumes this time. I think david boring should be played by...

love is a mix tape

I have yet to read high fidelity, but I love nick hornby and I’ve read a bunch of his essay collections. Music plays a huge role in his writing, which I am into, and I just came across this book that I haven’t read yet but am going to get from the library this week, called “love is a mix tape.”

It’s by rob sheffield, a rock critic, and it is about how he met his wife in 1989 and she was a punk and he was a nerd and they fell in love and then she died unexpectedly in the late 90s but throughout the book he documents different mixed tapes he made (“falling in love mixtape,” “breaking up mixtape,” etc).

Mostly I want to read it to see how my music knowledge/tastes line up with his, but it seems like a sweet story, too.

The Art of Marriage Maintenance

I was reading this article in the NY Times a few days ago about rich psychiatrists and their crazy-loaded patients, and how sometimes when therapists have rich clients they fall into the trap of wanting to be their friend b/c (apparently) everybody loves rich people, but they interviewed this one psychiatrist dr. karasu who totally knew his shit and was amazing so I googled him and he is awesome and wrote a book w/ his psychiatrist wife called “The Art of Marriage Maintenance.”



Usually “the art of _____ maintenance” books bore me (I’m talking to you motorcycle maintenance), but I will also be getting this book from the library. I think it is important to put work into a marriage (not that it should be hard work, but I don’t think you can just laissez-faire it till the end), so I am excited to read this.

The only thing that I know I already disagree w/ in the book (from a comment/review on amazon) is I guess there is a chapter where they talk about how you shouldn’t share a bathroom w/ your partner, or sometimes even sleep in different beds b/c then you stop seeing each other as sexual beings or something, and I deff don’t agree w/ that. I mean first of all, what if you’re not rich enough to have two bathrooms/two bedrooms, but second of all, sex (like everything else) comes and goes in waves, and I only think you should be worried if you haven’t boned in a couple months or something. Plus seeing each other as sexual beings does not necessitate sex. I think a good make-out sesh a few times a week can keep you both seeing each other as sexual beings. I think I just used “sexual beings” too much. Anyways, I will definitely be checking this shit outttt

dancing w/ cats

At the beach last week on of my friend’s sister had this amazing book called “Dancing with Cats.” It is exactly what it sounds like (although when I first saw it I thought it was an instructional book on how to learn the different dances from the musical “Cats”). Different stories (and pictures!) of people (old, young, etc) dancing with their cats, how they got started, and what it means to them. they are totally serious. It is completely fucking bizarre.



Here are some funny examples. It is amazing. Go buy this from amazon right now!







As a side note since I love titties so much, here is a video mr. jones showed me called “kitten surprise” . . . the surprise starts at :35

true confessions

I recently finished a book I've had on my bookshelf for like 6 months that I just never got around to reading called true confessions by john gregory dunne and I loveddd it

I bought it after I read joan didion's (his wife) the year of magical thinking about her life after he dies and I wanted to read his shittt






and I was super into it and reccomend it to all, especially if you are v. into LA/Hollywood set novels about murder and detectives in the 1970s and 1980s who think they are in the 1940s. I especially think muffy crosswire will like this.

what I esp. liked about it was there wasn't a specific protagonist. the main cop I guess is the dude who it all revolves around, but they have little parts 3 or 4 times in the book where someone else (his lover, his brother, etc) is the narrator for a bit.

also, I guess they made a movie out of it, too, where robert deniro plays the priest-brother and robert duvall plays the tough-cop brother, which is now on my list to-see.

hayyyyy

pierre et gilles

i was in the bookstore yesterday and i saw a book by and about the romantic/ artistic french couple; pierre and gilles. i wasn't familiar with their work, but they've done loads of celebrity portraits, including dita von teese, and porn star portraits as well. they remind me of jean paul gaultier + glitter + david la chapelle. but maybe that is a really ignorant comparison... their pictures have a very theatrical feel to them; they make most of their sets and costumes, and most feature homosexual/ religious/ pop culture/ sailor themes. the other really interesting thing about their work is that they retouch a lot of their photos to give them the feel of a black and white photo that has been painted (my great aunt had a job doing this) or a posterized, pop art type look, which i think adds to fantastical nature of each piece.

the pictures of their home in the book remind me of pee wee's play house.

I just ordered this off of amazon for $25

lately I have been a hater all things manhatten and by extension brooklyn and am just not into it nor am I into how into all people who live there are so into it. that was a v. complicated sentence. however, I came across this book and I am into this.


it is a collection of innovative and unique ways people have updated their apartments, and I think will be v. useful to me for my IH (imaginary house). plus, I am swayed by looks and advertising and I am way into the freestanding bookshelf on the cover.

http://www.rizzoliusa.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780847830435