Thursday, April 17, 2008

Blogospherical

Today I discovered that my department has a secret parallel existence on LiveJournal, an existence of which I was completely unaware. I think perhaps I will spend an inordinate amount of time catching up on online gossip now that I know of this.

My own blog has felt rather lacking in luster recently, so I will attempt to spice it up:

The Mysterious X and I traveled into unknown territory last night with the Pseudocologist (doesn't that sound almost like a real word? It's my contraction of pseudo-musicologist.) to celebrate Wednesday night right with a viewing of the incomparable Teenagers from Outer Space chez Gris. Ich bin's nicht lives directly above, and joined us for the end of the film.

Speaking of the film, I had no idea until watching it that the shadow of a lobster could be so terrifying. Really. Or at least, apparently, if one goes by the reactions of the actors. The Martian "gargans" are lobsters that grow to "one million times their original size" and seem to lose their corporeality along the way, though this does not merit a mention in the dialogue (a term I use loosely).


Today I went on the first field trip I'd been on since high school. The Music in LA seminar went to a postmodern hotel and observed its sonic space. No joke. I won't blog the details or an explanation of what the hell that means, as they would be (a) boring and (b) probably false, since I'm not clear on the whole thing.


On Monday (lack of linear timeline => postmodern?), I received a surprise visit from someone whose code name I am too lazy to look up right now. We had a rather crazy night, beginning at 12:30 when she and her friends arrived, and ending some time after 4. Details are being withheld to protect the innocent. And also because it was days ago and I forget the details.


Divine Love, my 17th century music seminar, is frustrating me. Approximately 3 billion students are sitting in on the seminar because the professor is famous and the topic is supposed to be one of her best. While I don't fault anyone for wanting to attend what might be the last iteration of the class, I just can't get into the spirit of it all; there are too many people for it to feel like a conversation. Instead, it feels like a meeting, with speeches and an audience. At this point, I'm staying in the class solely for the purpose of somehow writing a paper on Sister Act and connecting it to 17th century mystic theology. If that paper doesn't materialize, I will be quite sad.


Here's a thing that has been pissing me off to no end recently: Stuff White People Like. It's not a link because I don't want to support more people reading this garbage. It's basically a pernicious project of mapping various classist assumptions onto a racial framework that just perpetuates race/class unification. According to SWPL, I am approximately 47% white, a patently ridiculous number. Why is this so skewed? Because I'm not rich enough, primarily. White = Rich, they say. My percentage would be far lower if I didn't (1) grow up on the coast, (2) care about the environment, and (3) go to college. I originally intended to make a separate post (cleverly entitled "Stuff this White Person Doesn't Like") about this, but I decided that burying it at the end of a long post would reduce the possibility that I might in any way contribute to the popularity of filth.

3 comments:

Alexandra said...

I am wondering if the person behind SWPL is aware of the classism of the project and is satirizing it as part of a class critique. Because it's so obvious that the blog refers to only a certain demographic of white people, and it kind of ridicules that demographic, so the people who are all like "haha, SWPL is, like, totally about me!" are actually being made fools of. Maybe. Who knows. I'm probably giving it too much credit. It amused me for about five minutes when I first found out about it but then immediately ceased to do so because it's really not that funny.

Unknown said...

I've also been wondering the same thing as Alexandra. Not to start a wild debate wherein I defend SWPL against 100% valid, but I do find the blog funny. It makes fun of many of the people I went to high school with and found so irritating, and I appreciate that. You've pointed out the major problems with the site, so I don't need to reiterate them; I agree with you, though.

But, I felt the need to admit that I still find it funny. Or maybe I just like that I am also approximately 47% white. Of course, in my case, that's true ;)

Anonymous said...

Sister Act and 17th century mystic theology? I am intrigued.