Hey, yo! This is a shout-out to all my home-skillets out there in the sci-fi tv ‘hood. Holla back, geeks, y’know we love you! To my boys: D-Jackson, Connor Temple and the Lone Gunmen. Peace!
We all know that geeks don’t get the respect they deserve, cuz they’re out there bustin’ their ass for our heroes with the guns and their slick moves. Holla to the geeks, cuz you and I—we the same. We come from the same backgrounds and watched the same things. We are alike—you and I, geek. You represent who I am, who others are, and you do it well, dogs.
So, holla boys. Power to the geeks!
Ani Out!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Dreams
He was in my dreams last night, moving with the crowd who prowled the milky-white outskirts of my fabricated reality. His hair was long, his clothes pale, but even in my dreams I can pick him out of a crowd. He stopped, just for a moment, and turned to look at me. His face and expression was empty, revealing no emotion, but his eyes—oh, his terrible eyes—held so much that I think I might have stopped breathing, just for a moment. He didn’t say a word and a moment later he was pushed along by my dream-crowd.
I didn’t move. I didn’t run after him. I just stared and watched him fade away into white.
When I woke up, I ached. I felt the impulsive need to call him up and clutch that bit of Japanese-made plastic and wires and ask, “Alexander, you remember that day when I came over and instead of doing dishes like I said I would, we ate lemon drops and watched The Day the Earth Stood Still? That was nice.” And “Do you recall when you and I fought in the middle of the library and I made you cry? That was awful, but I miss that.” I wanted to do that, but I didn’t, because his number had changed and I promised him a long time ago that I’d only call if I really needed something.
Maybe he needed to hear that, but I don’t think he’d want it.
Alexander is not my ex. He was my friend, but I don’t know the word for him now. In autumn of 2007, he was dating my friend, Sarah. We bonded over sci-fi television, we could complete each other’s sentences, we laughed at the same jokes. If I didn’t think he was such an idiot, I would have probably dated him myself.
Alexander, Sarah and I spent the better part of a year and half with each other. We were seventeen and eighteen and taking our first foray into the big, bad world. We were defying convention: him a Catholic, she a Jew and me a “she’s-just-Ani” and we thought we were just oh-so-cool and original for doing so. I remember sitting in the piano practice rooms, curled up behind the door in the dark and watching them desperately mashing their lips and noses together, writhing strangely on the carpeted floor as the room temperature grew warmer and began to smell more like Alexander’s cologne and incense.
It’s funny how much I believed that this perfect feeling would last forever. I felt like I belonged, like I was watching something amazing grow, both in our friendship and in their relationship.
Of course, things don’t work like that.
Life happened in a flurry where we laughed and danced and sang and stayed out late and got a little bit drunk and lived like this was it, that we only had these years of youth and they would go stretching on forever and ever.
I recall one night after a concert, where we went rushing down the street, singing oldies and I felt so happy. Life was intoxicating! And they took my hands and we went rushing across the empty street against the light, and leaped off the curb and for a just a moment, when I looked up at the night sky, it felt like I was flying.
Gravity, though, is a law of nature and I hit the ground a few months later as our friendship crumbled and Sarah moved downtown and Alexander left the country for a while. I still saw Sarah every Saturday and one day, sitting in a little room by ourselves I asked her why she looked so pensive.
"I’m worried about Alexander.”
“Why?” I asked.
She said she didn’t know, that there was something different in the way he spoke to her. That he was definitely depressed and that something had happened. And because Alexander and I were so very alike, I knew, but I didn’t dare say what I thought had happened out loud.
Alexander is impulsive and impervious, sad and easily manipulated and they used that against him as he drank himself into a stupor at the back of some club where he didn’t speak the language. They pushed him down and made him do things he’d never do—terrible, half-recalled things that haunted his dreams the same way he haunted mine.
I couldn’t get a firm enough grip on the action, on that moment and that idea, to feel anything about. I was grasping at emotions that I didn’t understand, desperately going through the emotions of anger and grief of what my once-friend had lost. Still, I couldn’t begin to understand, except in my dreams, where he turned and looked at me in a crowd, in a milky-white fog and for a moment I stopped breathing. For just a single moment, I had a tiny scrap, an iota of emotion and understanding that nearly broke my heart.
I didn’t move. I didn’t run after him. I just stared and watched him fade away into white.
When I woke up, I ached. I felt the impulsive need to call him up and clutch that bit of Japanese-made plastic and wires and ask, “Alexander, you remember that day when I came over and instead of doing dishes like I said I would, we ate lemon drops and watched The Day the Earth Stood Still? That was nice.” And “Do you recall when you and I fought in the middle of the library and I made you cry? That was awful, but I miss that.” I wanted to do that, but I didn’t, because his number had changed and I promised him a long time ago that I’d only call if I really needed something.
Maybe he needed to hear that, but I don’t think he’d want it.
Alexander is not my ex. He was my friend, but I don’t know the word for him now. In autumn of 2007, he was dating my friend, Sarah. We bonded over sci-fi television, we could complete each other’s sentences, we laughed at the same jokes. If I didn’t think he was such an idiot, I would have probably dated him myself.
Alexander, Sarah and I spent the better part of a year and half with each other. We were seventeen and eighteen and taking our first foray into the big, bad world. We were defying convention: him a Catholic, she a Jew and me a “she’s-just-Ani” and we thought we were just oh-so-cool and original for doing so. I remember sitting in the piano practice rooms, curled up behind the door in the dark and watching them desperately mashing their lips and noses together, writhing strangely on the carpeted floor as the room temperature grew warmer and began to smell more like Alexander’s cologne and incense.
It’s funny how much I believed that this perfect feeling would last forever. I felt like I belonged, like I was watching something amazing grow, both in our friendship and in their relationship.
Of course, things don’t work like that.
Life happened in a flurry where we laughed and danced and sang and stayed out late and got a little bit drunk and lived like this was it, that we only had these years of youth and they would go stretching on forever and ever.
I recall one night after a concert, where we went rushing down the street, singing oldies and I felt so happy. Life was intoxicating! And they took my hands and we went rushing across the empty street against the light, and leaped off the curb and for a just a moment, when I looked up at the night sky, it felt like I was flying.
Gravity, though, is a law of nature and I hit the ground a few months later as our friendship crumbled and Sarah moved downtown and Alexander left the country for a while. I still saw Sarah every Saturday and one day, sitting in a little room by ourselves I asked her why she looked so pensive.
"I’m worried about Alexander.”
“Why?” I asked.
She said she didn’t know, that there was something different in the way he spoke to her. That he was definitely depressed and that something had happened. And because Alexander and I were so very alike, I knew, but I didn’t dare say what I thought had happened out loud.
Alexander is impulsive and impervious, sad and easily manipulated and they used that against him as he drank himself into a stupor at the back of some club where he didn’t speak the language. They pushed him down and made him do things he’d never do—terrible, half-recalled things that haunted his dreams the same way he haunted mine.
I couldn’t get a firm enough grip on the action, on that moment and that idea, to feel anything about. I was grasping at emotions that I didn’t understand, desperately going through the emotions of anger and grief of what my once-friend had lost. Still, I couldn’t begin to understand, except in my dreams, where he turned and looked at me in a crowd, in a milky-white fog and for a moment I stopped breathing. For just a single moment, I had a tiny scrap, an iota of emotion and understanding that nearly broke my heart.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Suspense Junkies Anonymous
Hi, my name is Ani, (audience: hi, Ani) and I’m addicted to suspense.
I guess it started when I was a kid, with the terrible cliffhangers attached to the commercial breaks of the old Wild Wild West TV show. With every commercial break I would wonder: “Oh, will West make it out this time?” and there’d be a glorious tightening of something in my chest, just below my sternum and I’d revel in that suspense.
I seek it out in film and literature and read/watch those suspenseful parts over and over, trying to suck all the delicious amounts of fear—the good kind of fear—out of it. I watch/read it until I don’t get that feeling anymore and have to move on.
Beyond this, I have a friend who hates suspense and insists I tell her what things are going to happen while watching television (example: Is the Cyberman gonna wake up?) which I just don’t get. How can someone not enjoy that tightening feeling? What’s wrong with suspenseful moments? Aren’t they fun?
I guess it started when I was a kid, with the terrible cliffhangers attached to the commercial breaks of the old Wild Wild West TV show. With every commercial break I would wonder: “Oh, will West make it out this time?” and there’d be a glorious tightening of something in my chest, just below my sternum and I’d revel in that suspense.
I seek it out in film and literature and read/watch those suspenseful parts over and over, trying to suck all the delicious amounts of fear—the good kind of fear—out of it. I watch/read it until I don’t get that feeling anymore and have to move on.
Beyond this, I have a friend who hates suspense and insists I tell her what things are going to happen while watching television (example: Is the Cyberman gonna wake up?) which I just don’t get. How can someone not enjoy that tightening feeling? What’s wrong with suspenseful moments? Aren’t they fun?
Friday, May 22, 2009
Gertrude
Yesterday, Dad phoned me up while I was sitting at the computer and bashing my head against the desk, hoping I could somehow force inspiration through violence. “Hey, do you want a birthday present early?”
“Yes, please!”
I knew it could either be one of two things: a more compact phonograph or a typewriter, because these are the things he was hunting down for me.
Somehow I never expected the beautiful, lovely Underwood No. 5 that he sat down in front of me and, after telling me which do-hickey did what thing, he leaned over my shoulder and insisted I write: I love this typewriter on it. Which I did.
I’ve named the typewriter Gertrude. I’ve never loved an inanimate object so much as I’ve loved as this No. 5.
“Yes, please!”
I knew it could either be one of two things: a more compact phonograph or a typewriter, because these are the things he was hunting down for me.
Somehow I never expected the beautiful, lovely Underwood No. 5 that he sat down in front of me and, after telling me which do-hickey did what thing, he leaned over my shoulder and insisted I write: I love this typewriter on it. Which I did.
I’ve named the typewriter Gertrude. I’ve never loved an inanimate object so much as I’ve loved as this No. 5.
-Ani
I love you, Gore Vidal
I love you, Gore Vidal. You speak quotations that are wonderfully true and incredibly amusing. Never will I need to quote anyone else but you, dear beloved Gore. You give us many gems of written word:
The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.
In writing and politicking, it's best not to think about it, just do it.
Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.
There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise
Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.
Write something, even if it's just a suicide note.
The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.
In writing and politicking, it's best not to think about it, just do it.
Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.
There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise
Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.
Write something, even if it's just a suicide note.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Wherein I Reveal My Geeky Soul
To fully appreciate my mind set whilst reading this, please turn on Blur, preferably either the song “Girls and Boys” or “Song 2”.
I’ve been on a Doctor Who kick for the past week and some. It’s such a fun and campy show, and classic. The show, since being resurrected by Russell T Davies in 2005, elevates its actors statuses to that of house hold names.
I originally got into the show in summer 2007, though I’d caught glimpses of it before that didn’t interest me. Mostly because of Christopher Eccleston’s more brooding take on the classic character. Anyway, I was on vacation with my family, godparents and best friend—who that day was annoyed at me. So, I sat down, and with nothing else on except Deadliest Catch, I began watching the Doctor Who marathon on the Scifi Channel.
And I fell in love with it.
Oh, yeah, I’ll be honest, it wasn’t immediate. I had to get used to it. But David Tennant’s Doctor’s energy is infectious and makes the show fun. It initially reminded me of younger Michael Shank’s character of Daniel Jackson, though please don’t ask me why. Perhaps the glee surrounding new and different cultures and things.
I recently had the pleasure of watching Doctor Who with a child. Namely, a nine-year-old boy called Quinn, who during ‘Blink’ bit both of his thumbs, hid his eyes, pulled at his dirty, tangled hair and cried, “Don’t blink! Don’t blink!” at the computer screen. It was terribly fun and I suddenly understood that whole “hiding behind the sofa” thing.
Recent Googling of our late Doctor’s name (by now I assume EVERYONE knows that Matt Smith is the new Doctor) came up with some excited comments all over the internet about him being interested (and apparently everyone else being interested) in him being The Riddler in the next Batman flick.
And here comes the confession: I am quite possibly the only person left on the planet (nay! the universe!) who has not seen The Dark Knight. It’s on my to-do list. On top of this, I am a child of the nineties and when you say Riddler, I say Jim Carrey…and spandex (shiver). I always disliked his version of the Riddler as I can't help but think of the character as a bit of a tranny in all that glitter.
I have trouble seeing comic books as anything beyond campy, fun junk food for the mind (and I grew up surrounded by a lot of Superman and Star Wars comics). So this new rise in comic books films and also Nolan’s ability to turn campy comic villain into full-blown, frightening, multi-facetted, three-dimensional characters with the ability to do the worst things is a bit unnerving for me.
Let me be clear: I think Tennant would do a brilliant job, as well as the other rumored pick, Johnny Depp, though he’s a bit overused these days. I think I’d only be able to say “that’s Johnny Depp”, not “that’s The Riddler”. I think Tennant’s manic energy he puts into the Doctor could easily be manipulated to make a very scary Riddler, but I wonder if the Riddler (along with the Penguin) might be too camp for these new Batman films. Though, if you would have told me that commercials featuring The Joker would frighten two years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you.
So, here’s hoping that I like The Dark Knight when I watch it because a) I’ve just been informed by my brother that it is un-American not to like it and b) I think I might agree. Here’s also hoping for a gangly, Scottish Riddler.
-Ani
I’ve been on a Doctor Who kick for the past week and some. It’s such a fun and campy show, and classic. The show, since being resurrected by Russell T Davies in 2005, elevates its actors statuses to that of house hold names.
I originally got into the show in summer 2007, though I’d caught glimpses of it before that didn’t interest me. Mostly because of Christopher Eccleston’s more brooding take on the classic character. Anyway, I was on vacation with my family, godparents and best friend—who that day was annoyed at me. So, I sat down, and with nothing else on except Deadliest Catch, I began watching the Doctor Who marathon on the Scifi Channel.
And I fell in love with it.
Oh, yeah, I’ll be honest, it wasn’t immediate. I had to get used to it. But David Tennant’s Doctor’s energy is infectious and makes the show fun. It initially reminded me of younger Michael Shank’s character of Daniel Jackson, though please don’t ask me why. Perhaps the glee surrounding new and different cultures and things.
I recently had the pleasure of watching Doctor Who with a child. Namely, a nine-year-old boy called Quinn, who during ‘Blink’ bit both of his thumbs, hid his eyes, pulled at his dirty, tangled hair and cried, “Don’t blink! Don’t blink!” at the computer screen. It was terribly fun and I suddenly understood that whole “hiding behind the sofa” thing.
Recent Googling of our late Doctor’s name (by now I assume EVERYONE knows that Matt Smith is the new Doctor) came up with some excited comments all over the internet about him being interested (and apparently everyone else being interested) in him being The Riddler in the next Batman flick.
And here comes the confession: I am quite possibly the only person left on the planet (nay! the universe!) who has not seen The Dark Knight. It’s on my to-do list. On top of this, I am a child of the nineties and when you say Riddler, I say Jim Carrey…and spandex (shiver). I always disliked his version of the Riddler as I can't help but think of the character as a bit of a tranny in all that glitter.
I have trouble seeing comic books as anything beyond campy, fun junk food for the mind (and I grew up surrounded by a lot of Superman and Star Wars comics). So this new rise in comic books films and also Nolan’s ability to turn campy comic villain into full-blown, frightening, multi-facetted, three-dimensional characters with the ability to do the worst things is a bit unnerving for me.
Let me be clear: I think Tennant would do a brilliant job, as well as the other rumored pick, Johnny Depp, though he’s a bit overused these days. I think I’d only be able to say “that’s Johnny Depp”, not “that’s The Riddler”. I think Tennant’s manic energy he puts into the Doctor could easily be manipulated to make a very scary Riddler, but I wonder if the Riddler (along with the Penguin) might be too camp for these new Batman films. Though, if you would have told me that commercials featuring The Joker would frighten two years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you.
So, here’s hoping that I like The Dark Knight when I watch it because a) I’ve just been informed by my brother that it is un-American not to like it and b) I think I might agree. Here’s also hoping for a gangly, Scottish Riddler.
-Ani
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