Notes from Underground
Adam turns 18 tomorrow, and in honor of his newly acquired legal rights we're all going to get tarted up and head to the Castle to dance the night away. With any luck, he won't be swept under someone's cloak and run away with.
. . .
Sunday we're off to the Orpheum to see Atom (again!) with Brandon.
. . .
"You scullion! You rampallion! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe!" It's not the RSG, it's Shakespeare - Henry IV, part 2, II.i.58-59. Now all I need is someone at whom to be really furious.

He lived in a world of words.
Words that asked or begged. Words that pleased. Words that insisted or commanded. Words that described or protested or complained or showed off.
Everybody spoke, it seemed to Roger, as easily and effortlessly as blinking an eye. They spoke torrents of words, all without strain or anxiety. How did they do it?
How come everyone has the magic mouth but me?
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from The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear by Kin Platt.
I am lost in this book again. Wandering the streets of a dingy mid-80's New York City, silent and waiting, wondering when the sun will melt the slush and when it'll be safe to go home or to school. Redandwhitestriped scarf hanging to one side, gloves lost, bus money clutched tightly in cold fingers. People's lips move, and sometimes I can even hear the words they make - even when they're looking at me, they're not talking to me. And no one has time. I, though... I barely even feel time.
I'll be under my blanket for a while.

I wanna be in a band when I get to heaven
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Sissyneck – Beck
Speed – Bran Van 3000
Step Behind – Tripping Daisy
I’m Afraid of Americans – David Bowie
Doll Parts – Hole
Do Something – Macy Gray
Lush Life – Lisa Ekdahl
Oh What a Beautiful Morning – Eels
Anyone Can Play Guitar – Radiohead
The Army – Ben Folds Five
One Toke Over the Line – Brewer & Shipley
Learning to Hunt – Guided By Voices
Hello Mr. Zebra – Tori Amos
* * * * *
I Don’t Like the Drugs But the Drugs Like Me – Marilyn Manson
Oh! You Pretty Things – David Bowie
Seasons – Chris Cornell
Perfect Drug – Nine Inch Nails
Sliver – Nirvana
Eye – Smashing Pumpkins
It’s Oh So Quiet – Bjork
Right Through You – Alanis Morissette
Shout – Tears For Fears
First Taste – Fiona Apple
May This Be Love – Jimi Hendrix
Ziggy Stardust – David Bowie

Coming Soon:
Life as Lit 3073, a new enterprise by Rachel. Critics are wary of Fagen's sophomore attempt, recalling the popular and artistic failure of her debut. Fuck dealing with writing as if it's trying to "get" me somehow. I have to realize that the only way Morrison and Campbell and Kundera are going to stop being red lights for me is to keep reading them, read them when they make me cry and read them when they cut me up and read them when I feel disgusting, because it's the truth that crawls my skin and makes dust of my bones. These are living breathing words in malleable organic language; my memories are not their words. Let it flow through, flow with it, let it become me and I it so that I can join their memories to mine and create out of it the shifty tactile thing that is literature. Toni Morrison says literature is something we do. Cortazar says the man at the glass is overtaken by the axolotl, and that a separate part of him stays an axolotl while the man no longer comes. I think they're both right.

The time has come to act.

"Suppose you had been killed?" I asked him.

"I think that would have been best of all. I know I am a coward to say that. But life is so beautiful that I am afraid of it sometimes."

from Mr. Blue, by Myles Connolly

I wandered barefoot and disconsolate today after dark, trailing cigarette smoke and tinsel. It had been too long, and was much needed. I want to have a tea party with vodka and chocolate and coffee, reading Through the Looking Glass out loud with the Virgin Suicides on as background noise. It's that kind of day.