Coursework Killed My Dissertation Star:

I miss smoking at the AS3 stairwell.

"Happiness is a Warm Gun"

There were tornado and flash flood warnings last night, which made it incredulously fictional for LA. He said once that he liked listening to 'The Breeders' when it's gray. He should have added that the above song title is fitting for all seasons.

The last two weeks saw spoilers for my start-of-semester blockbuster hit, still untitled. The drop-out-wannabe is in the house, again. However when I put down the last editing correction to 'Echo and Politics of Friendship' before it hits the road (!), it somehow reminded me of how much I loved that paper. Perhaps re-runs will make good spoilers for now.

I also got off my ass and "did" things:

1) Had a car accident and fixed up the Nian-Mobile. We are both still in shock.

2)Caught Cornelius at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Splendid, just splendid. Also found a bar ran by a certain Japanese-Elvis where people smoked, sang karaoke and are forbidden to chew gum. Arghh home sweet home!

3)Witnessed the building and destruction of Rome in 24 hours, courtesy of Machine Project, our good neighborhood art gallery. The experience of thumping down on a Styrofoam -and-plastic Coliseum midst the mob was therapeutic to say the least. You should try it someday. Made perfect if you are a TA for a Classics course called 'Masters of Power: Ten Ancient Lives' and if you run into an old acquaintance from the post-Wala-teh-ping days.

4)Descended from the tower and attended 'Listen Again' at the Redcat. Three of our professors were there in a panel where each had 5 minutes to play/talk/cheer about their chosen piece of pop music. Chronologically arranged from the year 1938 to 2007, the event was a riot madder than the Stonehenge scene from 'Spinal Tap.'

5) Love, love, love Los Angeles.

5 and 1/2)Despite a whirlwind romance of things, I do not know what things are, really. And we found out last week that Heidegger does not know either. Same for Marx and so forth [...] and Derrida will (be) haunt(ed). Es spukt.

Uncle, We're Not There Yet

One afternoon before I was supposed to make my way to Hollywood to meet a friend for dinner, I took my camera to Griffith Park. (I never thought it would be so soon). It was a cloudy day, before the weekend rain would come in plastic bags of shame.

I have not been back there ever since the fire this summer. (But to talk about the fire this way is once again evading the subject). Right, I have not been back here ever since we last held ice-cream hands in cheese-stained sunsets. (We would get so hungry after a hike). The roads looked different: if I were more certain I would say that the roads changed completely, making the way to the top almost impossible. I got up as far as mid-way through a high slope, and reluctantly came down the same way when I knew the sun was going to set and I would run late for the dinner appointment (Ironically I must get home quick to mapquest my way to the Hollywood restaurant). I saw some eagles though, or ravens. From my height alone it was difficult to tell the difference. From your height then, I mistook your looking out for an eagle to be a sign that we were lost.

After I got home and looked at the pictures I took, there was one road I recognize. And I think the fire did at least spare this one. Either that, or I am making my own co-ordinates up once again.

(How could I not recall 'One-Way Street' at this point? My predictability should extort nothing from its brilliance.)

This street is named
Asja Lacis Street
after her who
as an engineer
cut it through the author (W. Benjamin).

"Who's Viewed Me"

How does one welcome a new year, already aged?
(Aged not so much with the years themselves – no, a thing does not age with what it is itself made of)
2008 started with expired impressions, like alien communists passed out in pumpkin pies.

We have come full circle, you and I:
a search a friend's birthday, a connection a Chinatown fried.
It is all in the presentations, the introductions,
The “my favorite places in town” -- "Now Online!"

Surely our renewed subscriptions did not
Prepare us for telling this lie:
“Nothing much happened the last time I met someone here.”
After that, go home and cry knowing
Just how old that "last" felt.

But a renewal does buy you a pie
To match the familiarly suited smirk.
I am not sending you a wink
But I hope you eat the whole thing this time
Before the year claims it for another dating headline.