sublevel

discombloggulated

there is something to be said for the examined life.
-margaret salinger (j.d.'s daughter), new york times

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three italians, three spaniards, one french boy, and me, ugly american, all at an outdoor disco at idroscalo called billy's holiday. stayed till 5am, drinking cuba libres (libri?), dancing, and looking at the gogo boys wearing american flag briefs and cowboy hats.

and this face: would you trust this face? (no.)

e questa faccia: vi fidereste di questa faccia? (no.)
 
and so far, the most commonly entered phrases in my search engine are as follows:

• sex
• anal
• brooklyn
• cock
• fuck
• pics
• throbbing pussy

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sent to me by accident:

-----Original Message-----
From: vera*****@redoak.org [mailto:vera*****@redoak.org]
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 1999 12:48 AM
To: *****@netscape.net
Subject: Hey

Hey Linda,

Nope, I'm not pregnant yet. But, boy, do I have a story for you. You know that girl at the gym who keeps smiling at me when I'm on the treadmill? I found out yesterday she works high up at the Pentagon. Maddie told me she's even got a photo with the President in her wallet. Believe that! Apparently she hangs out with the military brass at that restaurant across the street. Maddie tells me he saw her with a 3-star general the other day being rather seductive. Apparently the guy was red and wet like a watermelon with her. I can imagine these military people going gaga over her - everybody here at the gym even thinks she's the hottest thing with that tight tush she moves around. Anyway I don't know what she wants from me with all the smiles she sends my way. She doesn't come across gay or anything like that, but you never know these days...

Oh, by the way, before I forget, the other day Mark sent me this link to some secret international organization called the Stillwater Committee that's involved in some way with JonBenet, yeah the Ramsey kid. Isn't your company working on a documentary about her murder? If so, this site'll really get you ticking. Here's the link... www.the-shield.com Spooky.

Okay, gotta run. Just heard Bob get in. Yeah, in case you're wondering, he's been very nice to me sofar. Bye.

Vera.

 

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i don't normally publish recommendations and reviews, not formal ones at least, but russell leong is one of the inspirations for this site and for me, so i thought i'd share:

los angeles times wednesday august 23, 2000
west words southern california living

by jonathan kirsch, special to the times

russell charles leong, the poet and filmmaker who serves as editor of amerasia journal and the publications of the asian american studies center at ucla, offers his own take on the asian experience in america in phoenix eyes and other stories (university of washington press) a collection of startling and unsettling short stories that are mostly set in the landscape of contemporary california.

some of leong's rich and evocative stories confront us with the horror of what might be played for cheap exoticism in less skillful hands. "daughters," for example, introduces us to a woman at work in a suburban brothel in the san gabriel valley and shows us how she was forced into a life of prostitution at 14 by her own a father, a fate that followed her from asia to america. abruptly, the tale shifts from the mundane details of a prostitute's life--the norplant implants, the can of lysol spray in the bathroom, the tic tacs that are chewed three at a time to conceal a recent meal of "fish paste and garlic and sweet oyster sauce and ginger and black beans and chili"--to an almost mythic scene of crisis and redemption.

"now the moon was full and her blood was flowing freely," writes leong of the prostitute called haishan at the very moment when both body and spirit fail her. "unable to avert her eyes, she saw everyone whom she had known as if in a waking dream. for an instant, she even saw herself as a nun. she would shave her head as she had threatened to do long ago and toss the filaments into the burning temple oven."

other stories in the collection are more restrained, but leong always shows us how memory and identity persist even in the melting pot of america. "bodhi leaves," for example, is a fable that focuses on the efforts of a pious monk from vietnam to transform an orange county tract home near little saigon into a proper buddhist temple, a project that relies on the exertions of mexican day laborers, the concrete status of buddha on sale at a korean nursery in hollywood, and the efforts of one young vietnamese artist who works to the strains of jay z's "hard knock life" and another who spends more time surfing than at prayer. the monk is thankful to be out of the refugee camp in thailand, but he is not entirely at ease in his new homeland. "he did not feel as liberated in america as he had hoped," leong sums up with a deadpan shrug.

"to see life as it happened, and to imagine other possibilities," is how leong describes his own mission as a writer. both of these qualities--his acute powers of observation and his poet's gift for capturing the experience of transcendence--are given full expression in the pages of "phoenix eyes."

on an unrelated note, use my new search engine (found below left/sinistra) to find the naughty bits.

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this is me multitasking: reading/listening to the following at the same time:

• bahraini jetliner crashes into persian gulf (i hope it doesn't come across as downplaying this because i'm reading other things too; i just take in information this way)
• listening to fresh air online
• giggling to jami's exchange with her mom about crotches and rubbing. i'm still giggling, actually.
• actress heche hospitalized in calif. after breakup, courtesy of jonno's compelling blog, "anne heche: the margot kidder of the new millennium?"
• registering for united airlines' frequent flier account

• senior red technochino pants
• one-year subscription to wallpaper*
• chrome fireball bag
• heather green ringer t-shirt

• "helter skelter," meat beat manifesto (love it, it's dark and sexy)
• "coffee and tv," blur (like it, it makes me feel straight when i listen to it)
• "sunday morning," no doubt (ehh.)
• "doesn't really matter," janet jackson (making her the third, after lauryn hill and madonna, to use that song title in the last year. pop music is original)
• "the light," "geto heaven part 2," and "pops rap iii ... all my children," common (i like him a lot, which makes me even more pissed that he said "faggot" in one of his joints)
• appetite for disctruction, funkstörung (which is almost the same title as the old album [golly, 13 years old now!] by guns 'n roses, but with an oh-so-clever typo)

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have other people seen this awesome french hyundai commercial? a colleague sent it to me and i love all the sexual innuendi. download it here.

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