I had such a great time tonight at the party Matt organized for the five year anniversary of his blog, The Music Slut.
The headlining band, Javelin, is kind of amazing live—tons of samplers, dead sexy—they’ve got it all. We were dancing like crazy all night as the boat went around Manhattan.
Such an amazing night. I took a video of one of the songs:
Categories: Ennui
I had so much fun tonight! I saw Beach House tonight at Prospect Park with Matt. I’d never been to the Prospect Park Bandshell before, and it was a beautiful venue.
They did “Gila” (which was mindblowing live) and a bunch of stuff from Teen Dream.
It’s 2 a.m. and I’m just starting work. I don’t think I can get much done. I really shouldn’t have gone to the show tonight. Also, after Beach House, I had to stand through two hours of the anodyne, forgettable stylings of The National while these two drunk fools screamed the lyrics in our ears all night. I probably would have enjoyed the show much more if it weren’t for those Westchester douchebags, but I think I have to face the fact that I find most non-electronic music extremely boring.
Speaking of interesting electronic music, I’ve been listening to a lot of Autechre this week. They have such a vast discography that I was pretty daunted, but I decided to step in at “Gantz Graf” era. It’s great reading music—enough going on to keep your brain chewing on the hidden melodies, but no distracting lyrics or crescendos to distract from the pleasure of the text.
I’m writing this instead of the news items I should be writing. The long phone conversation with Christen, which I thoroughly enjoyed, didn’t help my procrastination either. I feel like I have no time to do work because my sleep schedule is so off-kilter with everyone I know (especially Matt’s). He goes to sleep and I’m up for hours and hours afterwards. I initially liked that because people that are night owls end up having a reinforcing effect on my insomnia (hello Marvin). Not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s bad if you hang out with the person a lot. (Thankfully, Marvin is a consummate flake.)
Speaking of people from the university, I might be going with Jorge to Nacoteque on Friday. I’ve never been, but they hold it so infrequently it might be a fun night out.
I’m drinking a big cup of Earl Grey to get myself pumped to write, but it isn’t happening yet (or is it?). I’m just going to open a document and write a title for each one. That’s it.
Categories: Ennui
Tonight I’m gaying out listening to the new Kylie record. I suppose it’s been a pretty gay night— I went to see a showing of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! at the IFC Center. I hadn’t seen it since the first time, which was with Sam at this movie night that he curated at the Five Star. The film is hilarious and eminently quotable. I’m in love with the vaguely ethnic character with an impossible-to-place fake accent (the one on the left in the picture above). I saw Travis there, that director Mario knows who is working on this supposedly classy (artsy?) porno film, but I felt it indelicate to just approach him out of the blue and introduce myself. I’m also not of the disposition to just walk up and introduce myself to people.
I’m supposed to be working on news items tonight, but that’s not really happening. I spent all day fielding e-mails about the new message board on my work website. I almost wish I could link to it, I’ve outdone myself in terms of design. I’ve been tinkering with Apache, the ubiquitous server software that powers most of the web, and I think I’ve optimized the settings for the resources of my virtual private server. As soon as they have capacity, I think I may move to prgmr, where I can get four times the resources (a 1024MB slice instead of a 256MB slice) for the same price as SliceHost. We’ll see. I don’t relish the idea of setting up another LAMP stack.
So this weekend I went to visit Kelly in Philadelphia. It was the first time I’d ever been to Philadelphia, and I wasn’t sure what to expect (other than crazy black people). I tried to get as much work done as possible on Saturday afternoon, then took the train to Chinatown in order to try and catch one of the buses. It was so odd because every time I walk around Chinatown they are always trying to get you into those buses and the one time I actually need to go to Philadelphia I couldn’t find a single one.
So I walked to the B at Grand and took it up to Penn Station, thinking that if I couldn’t get to Pennsylvania from its eponymous station that there was no truth and justice left in the universe. I took a NJT train to Trenton and transfered to a SEPTA train for the rest of the journey. I think in total I may have spent $30, and Amtrak is nearly $70! America has no fucking idea how to make rail transportation work.
My trip was pretty painless, although I think I was most excited about taking the train because I knew there would be uninterrupted air conditioning the entire journey and it was melt-your-face hot out that day.
I didn’t get to Kelly’s house until about 10:30. She answered the door, and we said our less-awkward-than-I-imagned hellos. I met her roommates, and (as it was still sweltering) we went upstairs to her air-conditioned room and talked for a while as Turn on the Bright Lights played over the hum of the air conditioner. We tried, wholly inadequately, to summarize our last few years, trading an anecdote here and there about the East Coast/West Coast duality, eccentric professors, and ridiculous art school people at Kelly’s university (who we were to meet later in the night).
An hour later, there were sixty or so people at the house, including Devin and his girlfriend, who had come over early in the life of the party. Jello wrestling. Climbing up walls. Pissing people off with racism. Did I mention I got fantastically drunk? I’m really bad with awkward situations where I know no one—I invariably end up extremely drunk. There was a leak in the upstairs toilet that ended up leaking all over the ground floor, creating a sticky mess that ended up smelling a lot like a porta-potty. I woke up on Kelly’s floor cuddling a towel (Kelly had graciously covered me with a blanket after I lost consciousness).
As if the universe had answered our prayers, about halfway through the morning this deliciously cool rain started to fall, which lowered the temperature from the 90s to probably the 70s. Kelly and I were so happy to not be roasting that we made plans to go walk around the city in the rain.
I felt physically weak and borderline nauseous in the morning, but I felt stronger as the day went by. We got fried chicken around the corner, and after Kelly’s boyfriend went to work Kelly and I took the Philly subway to the city center and walked around the historic district.
It only ended up raining for a few hours, most of those we spent in this rather adorable Chinese restaurant (with extremely socially awkward waiters) talking about life. Things had changed and stayed the same. Both Kelly and Devin were flabbergasted that Taggart was still doing all of the things that they had done in their teen years. It’s so odd that someone I almost idolized in my youth has become, essentially, a loser. A sexy loser, but a loser nonetheless.
I’m glad that Kelly and I ended up meeting up. I invited her to come up some weekend, and to come up for holidays (for the drama-free holidays I’ve grown accustomed to here in Jersey).
As we were walking through one of the historic districts, Kelly mentioned “It’s weird to think that there will never be another Thanksgiving.” I didn’t really know what to say. I remember as a child I absolutely hated those family functions because they inevitably ended in a fight, but now as, essentially, a grown-up, I almost have this Stockholm Syndrome about those interactions because they were the only way I had of perceiving family. My subconscious thinks: without the feud, what is Thanksgiving? Also, that was the only time I got to see Kathleen, Kelly, and the gang—so it was almost an ordeal that had one payoff, which was time with the non-feuding part of my dad’s side of the family.
Family always brings with it complex emotions—I suppose that’s one of its charms.
UPDATE: It’s now 5:30 a.m. and I’ve written 80 percent of a story. Time to go to sleep.
Categories: Ennui
I’m hanging on your words.
Living on your breath
Feeling with your skin
Will I always be here?
It’s far too late. 3 a.m. I’ve destroyed tomorrow by staying up this late. It’s my own fault.
I can’t even get excited about the idea of watching porn. I was listening to Depeche Mode while surfing Fleshbot, and as I was about to play a video, the beginning line of “Personal Jesus” came on: “reach out and touch faith.” I chuckled.
I didn’t do much today other than work. Met Abishek for dinner at Tiffin Wallah, which he didn’t remember recommending last time we met. I remember there was snow on the ground as I walked up Lexington because he was late, carrying my big tall canvas I’d bought at Utrecht that day. The Utrecht I was in when Jove’s friend called him telling him that he’d just tested positive for HIV. Manhattan is becoming a locus for memories, but not all of them are good.
Was late to Pianos to see Deluka with Matt, but we got some munchies and he came with me to do some shopping at Whole Foods before I went home.
Briefly noted:
Antoine Roquentin—who burst onto the arts scene at 26, earning the Prix Goncourt for his first novel Your Favorite Mirror — returns for the second volume of his yet-unnamed series, entitled Your Favorite Consciousness (Harper, $26.99). This series of novels, which seem, at this point, to be the beginning of a work epic in scope, follow Benoît, the young protagonist through his young adulthood. While based on Roquentin’s early life in Alsace and Strasbourg, a more deviant vein runs through the novel than ever existed in reality: indecent liasons on the EuroStar, a stint as an erotic slave with a wealthy Parisian businessman, an extended rape on the banks of the Seine. The reader gets the sense that what is happening, as often is the case, is less important than Roquentin’s precise, flowing torrents of prose. A black eye “gleams, glossy and fluent” the events of the rape “slid by, drowsy as smoked bees.” The sequence of events seems calculated to shock, but the narrator, Benoît, is aware of his own fate as a character bound by words.
As I moved down the aisle of the train, I could feel the still-yet-undreamt glow of a raucous, depraved sex act approaching. Not dissimilar to the satisfying feeling of sliding your finger down the length of the soft, creamy paper of a novel, I had to feel the sinuous curves of the Moor. It’s almost as if the paper in your hand were warm, soft, breathing, alive—responding, each paragraph, to your touch. A novel, writing itself to please you more and more, waves upon waves of sensuous letters and their seductive curves distorting your entire field of vision.
One of the novel’s biggest drawbacks is its episodic structure. While the novel does have an overarching plot—that of every bildungsroman—each of Benoît’s antics, such as the indecent train ride, the escape from the gang in the 20th Arrondissement, often seem hollow and staged. What sizzles is seeing the world through Benoît’s eyes. Perhaps he’s right about the world, that “c’est une blague vaseuse,” but he still must saunter on.
Now it’s 4 a.m.
I’m not sure what I’ve accomplished, but it feels like it’s time for bed. Nobody is ever on AIM any more. I don’t know why I bother.
I’ve been having problems logging in and such—I’m not thrilled with this new host but certainly don’t have the time or patience to switch everything again. I need to look through the Apache settings again.
Abishek was talking about writing programs to find out patterns in gene expression. It’s an incredible thing to do. Sometimes I feel like I’d have better prospects of getting hired if my bachelor’s was in engineering rather than writing.
But then I think that many of the engineers I’ve met are philistine bores.
My whole life revolves around whether I get into a grad school now. It’s just too much stress. I need to be a better writer. I need to know when to use “whom.” I’m getting better at my subject/object pronouns, or so I think.
Kelly invited me to a party at her house this weekend. I think I’m going to go. I need to cancel with Jorge. Now I’m being flaky, but he did cancel on me more than once. Now it’s 4 a.m. and I’m officially on a Bad Sleep Schedule. Well, now that I’m there, might as well enjoy it. I’m going to lay down and try to get some sleep.
Categories: Ennui
I just went through a whole bunch of stuff to theoretically increase the recognition accuracy. I’m not sure if it worked.
It’s very hot down here in my room. I would have the fan on, but that interferes with recognition accuracy. I don’t know what it is, but as soon as I sit down at the computer it is immediately two o’clock in the morning.
I suppose this whole journal is time I could’ve spent sleeping. I need to try and write a story this week. I was thinking of writing something very lascivious and very semiautobiographical. If people won’t talk to you, might as well immortalize them in fiction. I tried to write this story where he had this big nervous breakdown, but to tell you the truth I wasn’t really feeling much what was going on so I can only dispassionately describe the situation. Honestly, I was really done with it while it was happening and just wanted to get to bed. I don’t think that’s a good place to start a story from.
I really don’t want to write about death any more. Dave Eggers spread the (fictional?) death of his parents over an entire novel. It doesn’t interest me, save for a passing desire to write about the day that we took my grandma to the home. I had this idea this week to write reviews of something fictional, but I forget what it was exactly.
I think I’m also very hesitant to write a story because I feel like the last story I wrote directly resulted in the end of my relationship with Jon. Or perhaps it was already over. Perhaps I should write a fictional movie review.
NOW PLAYING
L’Infer
Director Antoine Roquentin’s 2002 tale of erotic despair and alienation—to be reprised July 29 at the Alliance Française—stars Paul-Henri Leroux as Karel, an anxious but subdued functionary at an art gallery. His relationship with Augustin, an aspiring writer, is front and center as the couple decide to experiment with what constitutes attachment, desire, and, of course, jealousy. The haunting landscapes of a sinister, claustrophobic Manhattan loom large in the foreground where the characters, as Karel puts it, “aller au-delà de l’idéologie de la propriété hétéronormatif [move beyond the heteronormative ownership paradigm].” Even as art house fare, the moralizing can be dense at times, in the vein of Catherine Breillat in Anatomie de l’enfer. Despite the similarity in title, Roquentin’s work, while displaying some of Breillat’s critical and unshrinking eye in the discussion of raw sexuality, presents his characters in an unquestionably masculine way. Dialogue is sparse while Karel and Agustin perform acts that should draw some sort of reaction from them, but perhaps this is Roquentin’s concession that both participants know the end result of their experiments—the wide-eyed realization that there is a place to be found outside of the stifling universe of the hétéronormatif. — A.L. Sloane
Did I mention that I started using the Kindle app on my Nexus One to read a book for the first time tonight? When I was writing that paper on artificial intelligence and feminism [PDF link], I bought this book called Artificial Knowing on the Kindle store so I could use it as a research source on my computer, but it was so interesting I wanted to read it in its entirety instead of just skimming for stuff relevant to my paper.
I’ve also been reading this book called Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton (that my literature professor loaned me). It is one of the most concise, interesting, and easy to read summarizations of literary theory’s origins and doctrines. I loved this passage about New Critics:
[...] New Criticism was the ideology of an uprooted, defensive intelligentsia who reinvented in literature what they could not locate in reality. Poetry was the new religion, a nostalgic haven from the alienations of industrial capitalism. The poem itself was as opaque to rational enquiry as the Almighty himself: it existed as a self-enclosed object, mysteriously intact in its own unique being. The poem was that which could not be paraphrased, expressed in any language other than itself: each of its parts was folded in on the others in a complex of organic unity which it would be a kind of blasphemy to violate.
I sent a message to Isabel, my friend that I would always have Marxist dialectic with in my literature class, and I hope we can hang out this week. I suggested we go to the new exhibition at the New Museum (I’m dying to go, but I haven’t made plans with anyone yet). I was thinking of Isabel because she and I had this conversation about how Abby Rockefeller started the MoMA.
It’s almost an insult that Americans own The Persistence of Memory, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and The Starry Night. Or would these works not have “value” without the promotion machine of the MoMA? Should I use “quotations” because they remind me of Carles? Should this be the “end?” Should all “articles” end with resolution? Am I rly having a “twitter tiff” w/ Best Coast? Should this post reveal my “deepest inner dezires?” R u turned off by discussion of “faux reviews?” Am I jeluzz I dont own “Broadway Boogie-Woogie?”
Categories: Ennui
My acclamation back to New York is taking longer than I thought. I thought I would be able to slip right back into my old life, but the tiring (but wonderful) weeklong trip to the Shore stood in the way of that.
This weekend, even though I had a lot of work to do, I had to get out and do something intellectual or I would’ve felt closed in during the work week. Last night I went out with Matt for burritos, and then we went over to Union Hall briefly to see some bands that ended up being awful.
Matt also got me a limited edition single of the new !!! track, “AM/FM,” from Strange Weather. It is clear vinyl, which looks awesome.
We got ice coffees and hung out in Prospect Park for a few hours today, drinking in the wonderful weather from a shady bench under a stand of trees. We walked back to his house and watched awful/hilarious videos on YouTube.
In the late afternoon, I went to meet Yevgeny at Shake Shack (which I’d never been to). The weather was fabulous, and we didn’t have to wait too long in line for our burgers. I got this vegetarian burger made out of mushrooms and cheese, which was delicious. We were to see a documentary on the unfinished Henri-Georges Clouzot film Inferno (the above photo is a still from the film).
I want to write more, but my voice-recognition sucks and my wrists hurt. The documentary was interesting, but raised more questions than it answered. I loved all of the experimental footage, but the plot of the supposedly 300-page script was a poorly concealed Proust ripoff. The main characters were Marcel and Odette. Good writers steal, I guess. I should go to sleep. I hate literally not being able to write.
Categories: Ennui
I’ve had such an incredibly odd sleep schedule all week (even for me) since coming back from California on that red-eye flight. I had also run out of my vitamins about a week before, which I think made me look even more wan. However, today is our first day at our vacation rental in Wildwood. Instead of renting a hotel, we went in on a week at a condo with my aunt and uncle. The place is very big (necessary for containing my BB in a boxcar cousins) and has an absolutely wonderful view of the ocean.
I have to work this week, but hopefully I’ll be able to get a lot of beach time in notwithstanding. I just had breakfast out on the balcony, and when somebody wakes up I’ll ask for the keys to go take my morning jog on the beach. Today is supposed to be one of the best beach days of the week. We’ll see how it delivers.
It’s 5:55a.m. and the cousins should be awake shortly. I’d better see how many Amy Hempel stories I can read until then.
Categories: Ennui
I’m on the plane, which still doesn’t have wi-fi. I think I’m flying Virgin America next time, if only for the wi-fi and outlets at each seat. The woman next to me is sleeping, so I have my computer in stealth mode (it’s an application called Nocturne). My last day in San Francisco was fun; Mario and I went to this bar called Moby Dick that had an adorable bartender in a BUTT shirt. We completely embarrassed ourselves attempting to play pool after downing way too many $3 margaritas.
The destination that night was Trigger, a gay bar in the Castro that had an 80s night. The bar itself was decked out in 80s kitsch to the max: they even had a life-size mannequin dressed to look like Michael Jackson. However, the DJing was really odd. The songs would mix from one to another in almost 30-second sets. Just when you’d realize the DJ was playing a good song (like Strange Love), it would immediately be over and mixed into some 80s butt rock.
We had a fantastic time even though the DJing was subpar, watching this drag queen lipsync to Whitney Houston and watching these two guys in booty shorts hump each other. Another attraction was this really cute couple that kept snogging all night. They were there solely to rub in to others that they were unfuckable.
Mario and I ran to catch the 24-Divisadero, and the LaQuonda driving the bus actually checked my super-expired MUNI pass. I like the Asian drivers much better: they don’t give a shit if you have a pass or not and just let you on.
The next day, Mario and I biked down to awesome Burmese at Yamo, then over to Four Barrel for fantastic coffee. After that, we biked to the Castro to go to this awesome vintage porn store, where I bought this chapbook of poems called A Story in a Bottle by this guy named Dan Bellm. I haven’t been able to Google him, but the poems are touching and crammed with wonderful imagery. I like buying chapbooks by random unknown poets. It also helps that most of the poems take place in San Francisco, so there’s that stockpile of images to more fully animate anything he’s talking about.
After the porn store, we hopped on the subway and went to William Stout, this amazing architecture and design bookstore. The only thing I was allowing myself to buy was a book on German/Bauhaus posters from the Twenties and Thirties, but nothing really jumped out at me. There were a bunch of fabulous books on typography, but I knew that it would just sit on my shelf. After that, we headed back to Mario’s house. We said our goodbyes, and I walked down to BART. I have a tendency to get extremely stressed out before a flight, so I tried my best to relax, reading Within a Budding Grove on the way to the airport. I went through security, where I was subjected to one of those full body scanners. I always hear that Benjamin Franklin quote in my head when I go through those checkpoints: “Those that give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither.”
I wandered down to the café, which, ironically, was Il Fornaio, the restaurant my late uncle was obsessed with going to and eating their free hors d’ oeuvres. I was starting to feel less stress as I munched on a tasteless muffin and sipped a very small (“large” on the menu) Italian soda.
It was a motley crew on the plane—the flight is completely full. This man tried to pretend he had the window seat, but I wasn’t taken in. I reserved these seats eight months ago because I get claustrophobic when I’m in a middle seat. Everything seems to be going all right so far. I’m so excited to see Matt and everyone on the East Coast again. I can’t believe my vacation is over. It’s so unbelievable.
It’s odd how the current becomes the old. Kathleen had a priceless relic of my adolescence at her house, one of my first paintings, entitled “God.”
The backstory is that Kelly, the gang, and I were watching a movie and it ended. We were too tired to put in a new DVD, so the screensaver came on. Eventually, after watching it bouncing around the screen for what seemed like hours, we realized it was God. It changed, but stayed the same. It was timeless and immutable. So I painted it for Kelly for her birthday a long, long time ago. The white scratches are unintentional, it should be a black expanse with just the logo.
It’s absolutely unbelievable to me that this vacation I looked forward to for so long is actually over.
Categories: Ennui
By my complete ignorance of holidays, I ended up being in Reno for the Fourth of July. I met Sam in the bar after my long night drive through the wilds of Highway 20 and Highway 80. I’d never driven in to Reno by myself, and it was oddly picturesque: flashing lights and giant marquees.
The two days I spent in Reno were fun, and mostly spent in Sam’s bar. We also did what I’d been looking forward to for a long time, going to the Gold Dust with Jay and the gang for breakfast at 3 a.m.
We also did Mel’s, In-N-Out, and all the fried food available. It seemed like I’d just arrived when I realized I had to have the rental car back the next day.
There was awful traffic, so I ended up taking a detour down Sunrise and Fair Oaks, ending up at my grandma’s house. I even did a drive-by viewing of it, and it looked exactly the same.
It was sadly the same. I wanted it to be bulldozed and rebuilt, but I guess they aren’t renovating the outside, just the inside.
Categories: Ennui
Thursday was my time to leave Sacramento. Christen and I were hanging around in the living room. I’d picked up my rental car hours ago and had finished everything I was to do at the magazine. I was supposed to meet up with Terry once more, but he was having some sort of emergency with his roommates.
The die was cast. I knew I had to leave, but the incipient horror was that it was up to me to determine the exact moment. At least with a train or bus you have to leave at a certain time; however, leaving via car is the most anti-climactic because you choose the time. You have to say, at some arbitrary moment, “Well, it’s time to go.” Which, let it be said, took me hours to work up to. We said our goodbyes, and I just couldn’t believe that it was over. That I wouldn’t see her again for a year. It was just too much.
I burned two CDs for the trip:
The Presets’ Apocalypso
and Beach House’s Devotion.
One happy album and one sad album, respectively. Beach House painfully crooned “please do not go” as I careened down I-80 towards Molly’s house, Google Maps Navigation barking directions at me from my Nexus One, air conditioning blasting.
Driving, it could be said, is just like riding a bike. I felt just fine, especially as the traffic thinned out on 91 and I had a stretch of road all to myself. I continued up 70, through Oroville, trying to race the sun as it set. Its ruddy gaze took in everything—the rushing torrent of farmland, the far-away hills flat and purple, painted on the globe of the sky. The gold-turned-pink of empty fields, grass long-dead from the summer heat, waned to gray as the hours crept by. This was all right. I’d done this all before. Snatches of memory began to return from my last trip to see Molly, where I had made the mistake of bringing Adrian. This time, unlike that trip so long ago, I made it in two hours (not five). Night had almost complely fallen as I wound through the hills around Paradise at thirty miles an hour. Every now and then I’d catch a glance of the grey mountains to the left of the highway, almost completely in shadow under a gray halo of dying sun.
I pulled into Molly’s driveway. The house was exactly as I remembered it, but gleaming with every light on.
It was as if no time had passed. Molly and I stayed up until 2 a.m. talking about everything: literature, writing, education, language, sociology, dysfunctional families, relationships. I’d so missed those talks.
The next day, I wandered into the kitchen to find the family making fresh biscuits. They were flaky and delicious, especially with rhubarb jam. That day, we went down to the lake on her property with her new dog, Cash. Not much more than an overgrown puppy, Molly had only had Cash for about two days prior to my arrival, so we all were trying to get his behavior under control. There were a lot of slobber-covered hands to be washed and “no”s to be said. Despite all his faults, he was an absolutely adorable dog.
Molly’s lake.
Cash bringing back an impossibly large stick.
After we got back from the lake (and changed our clothes that muddy Cash had jumped on), Molly, the family, and I went down to Chico. We walked around the downtown area, spending a lot of time in the used bookstore and talking about Molly’s novels (the completed one in revision and the one in progress). We ended up going to this amazing gelato and candy store, Powell’s, where Molly’s daughter took me on a tour of every single candy variety in the place. I had to try very hard not to buy anything there. After the candy store, we went out for some delicious sushi at this place called the Raw Bar.
Back at the house, Molly was showing me some interesting stuff: books by this really funny cartoonist whose name escapes me without an Internet connection, these amazing RSAnimate videos that I’d never seen before, and giving me an overview of contemporary lit (which I am often undeservingly disdainful of). We also talked about Proust at length, and she seems to be leaning in the direction of reading it. I can’t wait to finish it so I can read some of the wonderful books she suggested (especially from her Philip K. Dick-only shelf).
After everyone would go to bed, I needed entertainment, so I set to talking to people on a certain disreptable website (no, not the one you’re thinking of with the peace sign). I ended up getting caught up in a very interesting conversation about Marxist dialetctic and Ginsburg that lasted well into the night. We ended up planning to meet for coffee the next day before I left for Reno.
On my last day in Chico, Molly, her daughter and I took the dogs and went to this feature of Chico called the Flumes, which are these little manmade rivers about twice the size of a water slide constructed for the Diamond Match Company to float logs down to its factories to make matches out of them. I can’t convey the fresh, crisp, earthy smell in the air, the pleasantly hot sun ameliorated by the cool water flowing next to us.
The flumes.
Alas, the time came when I had to leave. It seemed like I had only just arrived, but I had to return my rental car in three days and hadn’t even arrived in Reno yet.
The Naked Coffee in Chico is, for some reason, much more pretentious than the one in Sacramento ever was. The hipsters lounging on their fixies outside (no joke) were rail-thin and tattooed as hell. I ordered a Thai coffee and ran into Alfredo (odd name, huh) in the back seating area. We ended up getting along quite well—I was making him crack up at the Wikipedia image that is supposed to sum up our generation.
We talked demographics, urbanification, anti-capitalism, socialism, New York, Chico, etc. I needed someting to munch on before I left, so we went to a nearby sandwich place for, well, sandwiches. I was enjoying our conversation so much (and for some reason was loth to leave Chico, perhaps because of its positive associations with Molly) that I invited him to Bidwell Park. As Molly had described to me, the creek that flows through the park is channeled into a large swimming area of fresh water, which was kind of amazing. We walked for a while up the trail as bikers and joggers passed us.
We were both enjoying the conversation so much that he directed me to a place to get awesome iced teas, and we decided to round out the day by going to Upper Park, which he’d been singing the praises of all afternoon.
We drove up to Upper Park rather late in the day, and I was concerned that the sun might set before we arrived, but we beat the sun. We climbed up on top of what he called Monkey Hill, which was a rocky promontory from which the entire valley was visible.
The hill we climbed.
Climbing the hill
Taking in the view
A panorama (stitched together in Photoshop) of the view from the ridge. Here is the bigger version, and the giant version.
The Sutter Buttes off in the distance.
I could see everything: Chico State, the stadium, and the trees that obscured any view of the actual city itself. The “purple mountain’s majesty” was on view to the west, and the Sutter Buttes loomed in the clouds to the south. To say that it was picturesque is an abomination of language: it was like being on top of the universe.
As more people came up the hill, we retreated up further into the hill as the sun set.
Finally, the last wisps of sunlight expired.
I dropped off Alfredo and began my journey to Reno.
Categories: Ennui
