pan kisses kafka v. 2.0

Yoo hoo, it's my centennial!

Happy 100th Post, ME! In honor of this momentous occasion, here is a picture of an angry, bigoted hick from the anti-sorryeverybody.com site, werenotsorry.com (enjoy visiting them both and see if you can find the picture of moi on sorryeverybody if you dare).

Anyway, here is an angry bigot. Hopefully he'll find his picture on my blog and send me some death threats because I'm stuck at home writing papers and could surely use the excitement.

Gaah!

Yeah. So. Uh. Hunh. Great. And I see from the NRA insignia he's armed too. Goody. I shall fend off his bullets of hatred with an impromptu lesbian orgy!! Now who's with me?

Climate Change: Now it's PERSONAL

The Disney World state getting pummelled by storms is one thing. Ice caps melting on continents I'm too poor to visit is also one thing. But when the weather in Brooklyn, NY is in the 30s, aka "wintry," one week, and then back to the 60s, aka "springy" the next, and this all takes place mid-November...well, it makes me want to walk down the street trying to find SUV owners so I can punch them in the balls. Because listen up, SUV owners: some of us take seasonal fasion VERY SERIOUSLY, and have SMALL CLOSETS, and therefore our giant winter coats must be one of two places with no exceptions: in constant use, as per normal in the Northeast 'twixt Thanksgiving and mid-April, or stuffed at the bottom of a buried storage container. Last week I needed my winter coat, a scarf, AND a hat. This week, it's back to a flimsy cord blazer and hooded sweatshirt. What is the meaning of this? I mean, worldwide extinction in fifty years is one thing (who gives a shit? I'll be OLD), but I moved to the Northeast for a very specific reason: SEASONS. Four of them, in a row, that go: Warmy-Hotty-Cooly-COLDY, in that order!!! Not: Warmy-Rainy-Hotty-Rainy-Rainy-Really Damn Hotty-Warmy-Warmy-Warmy-FREEZY-Warmy-FREEZY. This is retarded, and it's only going to get worse. If you own any car that gets less than 25 mpg, do NOT drive it by my apartment, or I will KICK! YOUR! ASS! (I'll be the one wearing either a flimsy blazer or a giant winter coat, depending).

some german guy think's I'm awesome. Sort of. Awesome or pale, I'm not sure.

Some really, really, really, fucking smart German guy. Sorry if you don't speak German. I do, although I bet he didn't know that. But, as he referred to me as an "anemic black-haired girl" I figured hey, fair game.

The Beatnik's Guide to the States Whose Majority of Residents Think We Are Morally Depraved Sodomite Heathens Who Cheat Welfare, Part Deux

Yes, hippies, that's right. Get out of the patchouli bath and pay as much attention as your pot-addled span will allow, because it's time for another lesson in American Geography, S. Style.

Today: Some Of That Stuff In The Middle (previously, see The Bottom Right-Hand Corner)

Texas
Visited in: 1999, 2002, Next Week
High Point: the food at Austin's Magnolia Cafe, specifically the "love migas," which are, simply put, the fucking best edible creation ever invented; also, the fact that many of my boyfriend's relatives actually talk like Boomhauer, my idol.
Low Point: that would have to be when Jacob's uncle yelled across the table: "Now, AH have a question for YOU, as a JEEEEEEW." Me: "Yes?" Uncle: "Is it true that h'when y'all get married, y'all have arranged marriages to keep y'all's money in y'all's family?"

What Texas lacks in religious tolerance, it makes up for in landscape, down-to-earth folks, and the lost art of slow talking. Despite feeling like I may at any moment be rounded up and shot, the time I spent on Jacob's aunt's farm was really nice, and while they probably thought I was the devil incarnate, I still enjoyed their hospitality. The out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere Texas, the one Pee Wee sings about in "Pee Wee's Big Adventure," is pretty awesome, but if I had one honest nonpartisan complaint about Texas it would be: too much highway and too many ugly personalityless real estate development gated communities. If I had a partisan complaint about Texas, it'd be that the rest of Texas hates Austin and makes fun of it all day long until the Longhorns game is on, at which point everyone watches rapt, even if they are at a barbecue in the middle of the country without access to running water or bathrooms (in case you're wondering, they rig up a long, long, long extension cord from a trailer and put the TV on a folding chair).

Nebraska
Visited in: every time I've driven across the country (a lot)
High Point: driving through without stopping
Low Point: the Country Kitchen in Ogallala, which is connected to some sort of masonic elk's club or something. Actually it was kind of cool, although why anyone would need a full stack of pancakes with an omelette is beyond me.
Apparently Omaha is where all the new indie rock gods come from because one guy from Bright Eyes grew up there. I can't pass judgement on Omaha because I've never been there, but I can pass judgement on the rest of Nebraska, which seems to have about four residents and absolutely no landscape. I think if Nebraska disappeared, nobody would notice for like a week, until the smell started bothering Iowa. And don't get me started on Iowa. Iowa can kiss my ass.

Missouri
Kansas City was going to call itself "The Buttcrack Of Civilization," but since Newark, NJ already had the patent on that title, they had to settle for "City of Fountains." I once had to go to Kansas City for two friends' wedding (the two friends were marrying each other, natch), and it was the middle of the summer and I was stuck without a car and I hate weddings, so maybe my perception of Kansas City was tainted. My friend (half of the now-married couple) refers to it as "The Paris of the Plains," but he might be being sarcastic.

Oh, God, NO! Take me, but SPARE THE PICTURES OF EUROPE!

This site is UNDER ATTACK BY MONSTERS!!! Somebody help!

(via metafilter)

Greatest. Timewaster. Ever.

All the news and politics got you down? I thought so. Well, why don't you do like the majority of the country and stop paying attention to all that crap? And instead, decide which imaginary characters from TV shows extant and cancelled you would snuff if you could. It's not as good as punching a Bushie in the face, but it's better than a stick in the eye.

A Beatnik's Guide to the States that Screwed Us, Part Un

Listen up, cool cats. Put down your doobies, adjust your berets, finish your daily abortions and get ready to learn about some stuff. Yes, I realize that "Desperate Housewives" is on, but you're smart, you can multitask. Starting this morning, I am going to make concrete use of my well-traveledness in these great countries of ours, both the U. S. of C. and the newly-ordained Jesusland (see Nov. 4 for clarification). In fact, the only two U.S. states I've yet to visit are North Dakota and Alaska. Therefore I shall refrain from comment about them. The others? You are not so lucky. Therefore, in no particular order and until I get bored with myself, here is the first installment of Your Pocket Guides to the Red States, by me (and to keep it topical I added a Kafka-only component. How tubular, I know).

Lesson One: The Bottom Right-Hand Corner

Louisiana
Visited in: 1996, 2002
High point: the greatest food ever invented
Low point: a homeless man yelling "show your tits" at me. Not during Mardi Gras.
Telling anecdote: While driving through Louisiana (or rather, getting chased through it by Hurricaine Isadore, which is coincidentally the name of my dearly departed though rather jowly Belarussian great-grandfather), Mr. Stained Sweatshirtpants and I decided it would be prudent to cease and desist all efforts to maneuver the car through a torrent. We exited the freeway around Baton Rouge and ambled into a Holiday Inn lobby. The woman at the counter took one look at us (Jacob was wearing the aformentioned Sweatshirt I Would Burn If It Didn't Mean The End of my Relationship; I had short hair that was partly dyed blue) and told us they were "all sold out," even though there was nary a car in the parking lot. We ended up staying at the Motel 6 next door, which was immactulately clean and much cheaper than that stupid Holiday Inn. The funniest part was that that night, Mr. I Think The Sweatshirt Makes Me Look Cool had a guest role on the show "Ed," which was on the network NBC, which was probably watched that night by the self-same woman who refused to let us sully her fine establishment with our heathen seed. Not that that should have made any difference in us getting a room there, I just throught it was funny.

Most Appropriate Kafka Parable: "My grandfather used to say: 'Life is astoundingly short. In my memory things are now so compressed that it is impossible for me to see why a young man would decide to take a ride to the next village without fearing--aside from unfortunate accidents--that the normal span of a happy life is far from adequate for such a ride." ("The Next Village")

Florida
Visited in: 2002
High Point: Disney World (and I do mean "high point" if you get my drift)
Low Point: Disney World, when it wore off
Most Bizarrely Out of Place Accent: out of the mouth of one of the guys who mans those con-artist "discount park tickets" booths in parking lots all around the Orlando outskirts, promising free or half-price tickets to Disney World for the simple act of checking out of the Golden Link Motel (which was 27 dollars a night) and into whatever shithole "resort" he was pushing for no less than nine days. This wouldn't have been so weird if he hadn't talked like a sterotypical New Jersey mobster.

Most Appropriate Kafka quote: "'Like a dog!' he said, as if the shame of it would outlive him." (from The Trial)

Georgia
Visited in: 1999, 2000, 2002
High Point: The Atlanta underground mall
High Point #2/Scariest Place Ever: Stone Mountain
Fun Fact: Every street, avenue, lane and boulevard in Atlanta is called "Peachtree," so unless you are a homeing pigeon, do not attempt to go anywhere there, ever.

Most Appropriate Kafka Parable: "It was very early in the morning, the streets clear and deserted, I was on my way to the station. As I compared my watch with the tower clock I realized it was much later than I had thought and that I had to hurry; the shock of this discovery made me uncertain of the way, I wasnt' very wella acquainted with the town as yet; fortunately there was a policeman at hand, I ran to him and breathlessly asked him the way. He smiled and said: 'You asking me the way?' 'Yes,' I said, 'since I can't find it myself.' 'Give it up! Give it up!' said he, and turned with a sudden jerk, like someone who wants to be alone with his laughter." ("Give It Up!")

Alabama
Visisted in: 1996, 2002
High Point: Who the hell are we kidding? I drove through that motherfucker as fast as I could. Those people are boiled nuts. They even have signs admitting it!

South Carolina
Visited in: 2002
High Point: "South of the Border"
Low Point: Jesse Helms
I was supposed to go to the fifth official S. Family Reunion on Kiwah Island this year, and I was looking forward to it for months, both seeing my extended family and the alleged best beach in America. Unfortunately Hurricaine Francis (who had the same name as my bestest friend) had other plans and I spent the weekend sitting around my apartment watching Da Ali G Show. Now Ali G is the funniest piece of walking performance comedy since Andy Kaufman (and a hell of a lot more mentally stable), but I still rather would have been in South Carolina.

Most Appropriate Kafka Story: "A Hunger-Artist," in honor of the many Shoney's buffets.

Vassar girls against (George) Bush unite!

From Jane Smiley, in a Slate piece that ran today, about why the heartland hates us. Read the whole piece and tell anyone who insists that as a Democrat you must find a way to "reach out" to "traditional family values" that you are going to punch them in the face*. Since when is it OK to accept bigotry and ignrorance as the status quo? Did the civil rights movement curl up in the corner with a roll of Smarties and a blankie because Eisenhower (and Nixon, and Reagan and Bush I) was a racist? Codified bigotry against gays is bullshit and do not, for a second, pretend you're hip to it just because barely half of this retarded country said so. But enough of me. Jane Smiley, a fellow and distinguished alum of my alma mater, said it much better today when she wrote:

Here is how ignorance works: First, they put the fear of God into you—if you don't believe in the literal word of the Bible, you will burn in hell. Of course, the literal word of the Bible is tremendously contradictory, and so you must abdicate all critical thinking, and accept a simple but logical system of belief that is dangerous to question. A corollary to this point is that they make sure you understand that Satan resides in the toils and snares of complex thought and so it is best not try it.

Next, they tell you that you are the best of a bad lot (humans, that is) and that as bad as you are, if you stick with them, you are among the chosen. This is flattering and reassuring, and also encourages you to imagine the terrible fates of those you envy and resent. American politicians ALWAYS operate by a similar sort of flattery, and so Americans are never induced to question themselves. That's what happened to Jimmy Carter—he asked Americans to take responsibility for their profligate ways, and promptly lost to Ronald Reagan, who told them once again that they could do anything they wanted. The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above all, do not what to be told what to do—they prefer to be ignorant. As a result, they are virtually unteachable.

Third, and most important, when life grows difficult or fearsome, they (politicians, preachers, pundits) encourage you to cling to your ignorance with even more fervor. But by this time you don't need much encouragement—you've put all your eggs into the ignorance basket, and really, some kind of miraculous fruition (preferably accompanied by the torment of your enemies, and the ignorant always have plenty of enemies) is your only hope. If you are sufficiently ignorant, you won't even know how dangerous your policies are until they have destroyed you, and then you can always blame others.

*In case you haven't noticed, it's National Say You'd Like To Punchicize A Bushie's Face For Free week~mention it at least once a blog post and start an imaginary face-punching revolution!!!

To: England | From: America | Re: Take Us Back

We are obviously incapable of self-government. How indeed.

black is how my blog is on the outside

...because it is how the souls of approx. 51 percent of the country look on the inside.

"Would you like me to punchicize your face for free?"

Oh, Farva. Not even you can help us now.

Audrey and her new domestic partner Frank of Moonereth have done this as well. If you enjoy fucking around with the design of your blog as much as they do and I do (they did it first but I thought it was a good idea; they probably got it from some hidden Blog Commandment I'm not cool enough to know about), then you should, too. Not that I'm telling you what to do. That's our new theocracy's job. (See below).