Your country needs you!

To help me decide my consumption decisions

So, cause I have decided to buy some comics, you can help! Given that these comics will probably reach you at some point in the future, it's advisable to help. I've got a shortlist of sorts, but feel free to add anything you think might be great. Arguments for and against will also be taken into consideration. Here's my what I can think of the top of my head shortlist:

Earth X
Final Crisis
Blankets
Astonishing X-Men (the Joss Whedon run, namely)

Obviously, i'm leaning towards complete works/complete collections of works, but i'm amenable to other things if they are suitably awesome. If no one helps, I will be vewy sad :(

And no one gets anything. It's like an ultimatum...game. Or not. Go nuts! Reader participation is gr-r-reat. For the record: Frosty Flakes - not that great.

Visions of tunnels and scenes from caves, etc

meditations, etc

As you may have already deduced, i've semi/kinda/sorta decided on not giving you a strictly chronological travelogue diary type thing, and doing the whole random thoughts on a topic thing. So basically, i'm going to keep doing exactly what i've been doing on this blog the entire time, except with more seed thoughts in the form of traveling that i'm doing. With that disclosed, consider this:

You know when you've lost control of your Greader? When you see updates and feeds that you have no idea what they're about. You can't remember when you subscribed to them or what they are or why you subscribed to it. It's official, I can't even control my Greader binges.

My name is Rishi, and I'm a greadaholic.

Look at this face

Can you tell I am excited?

Because I am. Oh so excited.

Actually, enough of whatever the hell emotion that is. I am actually extremely extremely excited. Seriously!

I'm going to be back home soon (next week folks! Ready the standard celebratory hookers and blow), I just received a bunch of books from Amazon which I am extremely excited to read and slaver over, L.A. looks to have to stupidly amazing shit happening (fo' free! What the fuck!) , my cousin is looking to hook me up with getting into Conan (connections, natch) and I am currently looking to go to this place, because have I mentioned how freaking much I love lotus root? Taro is great too. Plus, i'm going to see if I can hit up this Kogi truck business.

This is what money can do for you: put an aquarium in a library. With sharks. And obviously, the internets. This is where I am now. It's a pretty swanktacular library. It's almost distressing how good their comic collection is, which is as adequate a segue as I can manage now.

I'm reading Understanding Comics. I don't think I really need to justify that in any way, cause uh, comics are awesome. There's a lot of interesting and cool historical stuff about representation and icon and, well comics. Definitely worth reading, even if I haven't finished reading it.

In a related piece of travelogue trivia, my interest in comics was further sparked by having a very long and involved conversation with a dude who works at this comic store in Toronto (by the way, it's a fantastic comic store, both in range and prices). I was wondering what comics I wanted to buy and created a shortlist, which I presented to the dude in question, who then proceeded to tell me that my selections were crappy/incomplete. Well, not exactly those words, but I got the gist. But it was okay, cause he wasn't like a douche or anything about it. He was in fact quite awesome in recommending me lots and lots of different comics I would enjoy. So woo dude to whom I am very sorry because I cannot remember your name. He had a cast on his leg, so ask for that! Also, as you can see from the picture, it is a lovely little tiny tiny hole in the wall. More on this at some point? We'll see.

So anyway, enough typing, I have to go be sad about missing out on Regina Spektor's sold out concert. Seriously, her concerts all over the freaking country are selling out incredibly quickly. Is she far behind? Tune in at eleven to find out!

Who'da thunk it

in which I give myself a lot of rope, and hope not to hang

I just opened up a bottle of Harbourfest wine ("Red"), and what with its shitty cork and bland mediocrity, while actually-not-bad-an-opening-kinda-like-a-softer-version-of-a-old-school-cabernet-sauvignon which unfortunately contrasts with a finish that's mediciney and 'bleh'. Look, given that i've still got cheap liquor and various cannobinols and bad caffiene and high fructose corn syrup (which is really fucking rank vile stuff, and it deserves heapings, nay, verily shovelfuls and bulldozer-capable quantities of scorn and oppobrium piled deep and high upon it) and whatever other endoc(h)ronological disruptors i've got percolating through me, I'm entitled to describe a wine as 'bleh'.

So right now, i've got to deal with a beautiful imperious purring cat, who feels that her perfect place of repose is where perchance I wish to lay and rest my not particularly weary head, who looks up at me with baleful and cynical catseyes, and gets twitchy and nervous with jealousy at this clanking clack-clack-clack that so distracts my hands from rubbing her fluffy little cheeks.

This calls for icecream.

Harbourfest? Cats? Icecream? More to come, in the next instalment:

wherein I continue merrily merrily merrily on this Joycean stream, and also use that other Joycean phenom of claiming to have a productive day, when only two lines were written. Inbetween, I hope that I try to leave David Foster Wallace's body a recognisable mess, after I am done thoroughly (and I mean thoroughly) raping it.

Who would have thought it

Pretty nearly everyone really

I had an interesting and fun day today. To further explain this would require a lot of backstory and context and necessary and unnecessary justification on my part, which I'm not entirely sure i'm entirely prepared to do at this hour and place and mentality and so on. I'll dispense with the double-doubles (which is another story in itself, albeit definitely shorter and much more delicious, both metaphorically and descriptively) and post what I like most days, which is other peoples' conversation.

This is all to say, I overheard something.



Passing this risque artwork in the National Sculpture Garden, 10-year-old kid runs up to it: Hey look at me!

Parental figure: C'mon Jimmy, stand over there and we'll take your picture. We can pretend that you're a gynecologist!

(I start laughing very awkwardly [both because I was laughing right in the middle of a group of people, and did that guy just crack a vagina joke to a 10-year-old!?] into a jacket sleeve, everyone looks at me and starts laughing)

On the one hand

but on the other hand

I'm helping! I reversed a wiki troll. I do not believe that Harvard University is infact known as:

Harvard Racist Charging University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College)

Or that it is widely asserted to be a:

a left wing liberal nest and reverse racist - private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Though, perhaps out of charity, I should have marked it with a "citation needed".

I don't care how many times i've linked it before, but this is still awesome. Infringe that copyright!

A cat curled up and a warm bed

keys to happiness

I've been searching for a while to say things that might be appropriate to say about New York City, but it's difficult, given the subject matter at hand, my own inadequacies as a writer, and the fact that I don't want to end up looking like a douchebag 'brilliant' thinker, albeit with an Antipodean twist. Besides, I think other, more abler authors have better captured some of the spirit and flavour of NYC.

I could go through the numbers and point out the exceptionalism which is captured in these slices of data, but you can read the featured and very good wiki article yourself. A couple of things that stand out: population density (more than 5 times Sydneys', Manhattans' density is over 12 times that of Sydney) the number of households that don't have a car (more than half, and more than 3/4 in Manhattan) how incredibly environmentally friendly it is (gasoline consumption hasn't changed since the 1920s, water so clean it doesn't even need to be purified; the stats of carbon output are similarly impressive) and a subway system so large and so well-known it's available on umbrellas.

I think one of the most sensible, non-retarded things you can say about NYC is how it tends to resist generalisations of it (mine notwithstanding). But a) that's a total cop out and b) it's such a trivially simple truism that it lacks worth mentioning; pablum, in a word. It might be still be necessary, given the breath, depth and scope of diversity that NYC has.

Instead, i'll end with this:

New York City is the cities' city. It is the ultimate and quintessential realisation of what cities can be and the potential of cities as expressions of human endeavour; it is, in short, an urbanists' (wet) dream.

Changed my mind

That happens...or does it?

I was going to write something about something most likely re: this holiday thing I am on, but i've changed my mind and do a plug for the upcoming Evolution, Emotions and Metaethics workshop, hosted by Richard Joyce (who has a very slick personal page, and is specialised in fields that I love so much that I have no idea why I haven't heard of him till now. He will now be pestered to death.)

Those of you on the SydPhil should already be aware, and I've been excited since it was initially announced way back in March or so. I'll be back the day before it starts (I think, if my calculations are accurate), so i'll probably be very tired and very jetlagged.

But whatever!

This would be funny

Actually, this is pretty funny.

So, a slightish confession. I've been getting pretty damn stoned with my cousins and assorted friends while i've been staying with my aunt in Oswego. In fact, i'm on the tail end of a buzz now, so forgive me if I uh...get, like...totally...rad.

I mean, if I get a little distracted.

The 'getting solidly blazed' thing (see? i'm picking up the lingo) can wait for and really deserves better treatment, in the way of a fuller post that i'll do later. Seriously, small towns and drugs are an interestin' soc-sci project unto itself.

Right now, I just wanted to talk about shit that makes no fucking sense when stoned (which is seriously most everything) and more specifically, infomercials.

Oh but there's more! Spanish infomercials. Though accurately, this should be infomercials in Spanish.

I'm semi-channel surfing, flipping through bombings in Jakarta, Nancy Grace's expose on Michael Jackson (pepsi commerical burned his scalp?!) when suddenly, lo and behold, infomercial. But not just any infomercials, but infomercials dubbed in Spanish.

Now, it's late at night, I'm pretty nicely out of it, and what the fuck? Badly dubbed informercial selling a fucking infrared oven? This would make little sense if I were sober. And oh dear god Spanish is spoken fast during these sorts of things. I was in this great little Brooklyn taqueria, listening to a Brooklyn chica talk in rapidfire Spanglish, telling her friends about how she shot down this one guy ("Oh yeah motherfucker why don't you come over here and say it") and lordy she was fast. Is it even comprehensible when you talk Spanish that fast?

As propagators and continuers of the stoner genre Bill and Ted would say, this is totally bogus. And I am getting tired, and going to sleep. Night!

This is what passes for food these days

Sometime lateish at night in Washington, I wanted to get some icecream. Not really knowing where anything was, I ran into a snack truck offering icecream and other snack food products! Huzzah right? After much humming and froing between an ice-cream sandwich or a 'chocolate eclair', coinflip decides to get the 'chocolate eclair'. This is what that contained:

"Cake Coated
Artificially Flavored
Vanilla Light Ice Cream and
Chocolate Flavoured Fudge
Center Artificial Flavour Added
*Not a Light Food"

All that being said, given time, place, and craving, it was very nom nom nom. It ranked highly on the nomosity scale. Cherish and savour, another little anecdote.

With malice toward none, with charity for all

Lincoln's greatest speech.

I'm on a bus heading up to NYC, after spending 4 great days in Washington D.C. The bus comes with free wifi, among many other conveniences, the foremost of which that it is very very cheap. But surprisingly comfortable. And you really can't beat the free wifi.

Rishi the Tour Guide note: If you want travel anywhere in Northeast/Eastern Seaboard North America, your best bet is bus travel. There's quite a few low cost bus services that all utilise yield management systems, with fares starting at $1(!!), if you book early enough. It's more likely your fare will cost 19-25, but that's still a really great price on these sorts of things. There's no hassle of customs, you can use a phone, most come with free wifi, you can get up and walk around, and they have toilets. And the scenery is much better than a plane.

Though, rail isn't a bad idea either. It's usually more expensive than bus, but less than flying. I've ridden on Amtrak a few times, and it's very romantic. Usually, you're going through picturesque countryside, and there are actual snack cars available on most trains, and some even come with full dining (and beds even!) cars. And the operators and conductors are almost always bound to be fun people, who seem to love announcing things in that great old-timey singsong announcement voice, and being generally funny people. Example:

"We're coming to Albany now, and we're going to have short 20min break to change crews. If you want to get and stretch your legs or grab a bite to eat, feel free to do so. Those of you participating in the smoking olympics should also use this opportunity to do so, as this is our last stop before New York City."

So, now you know.

Anyway, back to NYC. Having come from Washington, where politics is big (seriously, everybody talks about it, and as commonplace as 'what are we having for lunch' talk), i've been fascinated by this State Senate crisis that's apparently just been resolved. New York has had a bit of tumultuous political period in its recent history, what with the Eliot Spitzer scandal and Paterson's abysmal approval ratings and Democrats getting a hold of the State Senate for the first time in four decades and Bloomberg spending $36 million of his personal wealth (so far) into trying to secure a third term as mayor, among other things. It's classic backroom dealings and machinations and manuvering, and totally engrossing stuff.

I'm genuinely missing you guys, which is actually a little weird given that I usually don't give a shit. Love, all.

EDIT: I got new shoes. They are teal/aquarmarine and ZANY. Oh so zany.

In the throes

lust, deprivation and other stories

posts so good we never get to read them!
-sam moginie

To snark on the snark, I think it's appropriate to further that quote by the metaphor of indie bands, given that I have just come back from Canada, home and birthplace of all indie darlings, now and forever:

The best kind of indie bands are the ones you never hear; the more obscure a band, the better. I suspect that it follows some kind of logarithmic distribution, but more research is needed.

My 5 nights and 4 and a halfish days in the T.O. were some of the best in my life. I'm waxing sentimental from the sleep-deprivation and the excitement and various other pretty young things, but something will happen soon. Something, that may not be enough.

On a lighter note: Deadwood is a good show! I watched the first two episodes, and HBO do their we-are-so-edgy-and-gritty-and-make/produce/bankroll-edgy-gritty-shows thang quite well. Watch it, if blood and guts and murder set in Western times rocks your lox or sox.