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Wednesday, January 4th, 2017
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6:11 pm
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| Friday, September 27th, 2013
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12:09 pm
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| Friday, August 30th, 2013
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12:01 pm
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Best Western Center City
501 North 22nd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19130
Phone: (215) 568-8300
Four Points by Sheraton Philadelphia Airport
4101-A Island Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19153
Phone: 215-492-0400
Hampton Inn Philadelphia Center City-Convention Center
1301 Race St.
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Phone: (215) 665-9100
Hilton Garden Inn
1100 Arch St.
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Phone: (215) 923-0100
Holiday Inn Columbus Boulevard
100 North Christopher Columbus Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Phone: (215) 627-7900
Holiday Inn Express Midtown
1305-11 Walnut
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Phone: 1-215-7359300
Holiday Inn Philadelphia - Stadium
900 Packer Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19148
Phone: (215) 755-9500
Hyatt Regency Philadelphia at Penn's Landing
201 South Columbus Blvd
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Phone: 215 928 1234
Latham
135 S. 17th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone: (215) 563-7474
Radisson Plaza Warwick Hotel
1701 Locust St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone: 215-735-6000
Sheraton Philadelphia City Center
17th and Race St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone: 215-448-2000
Sheraton Suites Philadelphia Airport
4101-B Island Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19153
Phone: (215) 365-6600
Sheraton University City
3549 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Phone: (215) 387-8000
Sonesta Hotel Philadelphia
1800 Market St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Phone: 1-215-5617500
Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District
400 Arch St.
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Phone: 1-215-923-8660
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, April 13th, 2013
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1:01 pm
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| Sunday, February 24th, 2013
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12:21 pm
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| Sunday, January 6th, 2013
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12:59 pm - chapter 1
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Chapter 1: Universal Monsters
It could be argued that the people who lived in the Saville Arms, on the whole, made poor choices. Living there was mistake #1. The apartment building was made of unremarkable limestone, with an inner courtyard. The interior of each apartment was unremarkable, the rent was an unremarkable amount, the location was unremarkable. The architecture was nondescript. An argument could be made that it was art deco, but only if you squinted. The only remarkable things about the building were the gargoyles. Facing both the courtyard and the street, each rainspout housed a mean-mugging gargoyle. As a result, the people who lived in the Saville Arms were the sort of people who decided where to live based on rooftop sculptures. “So quirky” and a little shallow.
People in general appear to be a set of performed eccentricities, until closer inspection hopefully yields a more well-rounded soul. Perhaps an examination of the Saville Arms residents’ morning routines will give that multi-layered portrait. After all, the morning shit is a universal experience.
It is 6 am, and T. Cooke (apartment 3C) has been up since the sun rose. More specifically, he sets his alarm every night to go off two minutes before sunrise, so that his first sun salutation of the day is also the first salutation the sun receives. By six, he is meditating in front of a Zen print he bought at the Chicago Institute of Art while his gunpowder green tea brews in the imported Japanese tea service. He sits in the lotus position, breathes Om mane padme hum under his breath, and unconsciously worries the hem of his silk pajamas.
It is 6:30 am and Kat Lacey (apartment 1A) bolts out of bed to turn her alarm off. She then remembers that it’s Tuesday and she doesn’t have work. She throws her alarm against a wall, and throws herself back into bed with equal rage.
It is 7:15 am and Margaret Walton (nee Xiang, apartment 3E) managed to pop the cork to the bottle of 3 dollar champagne without waking the kids. She fills half a glass with it and half with orange juice before starting on her family’s breakfast. While the kids are at school and her husband is at work, Margaret will finish the champagne and move on to Jim Beam hidden in dust compartment of her Swedish-designed, never-used vacuum cleaner.
It is 7:35 am and Percy Frye’s (apartment 2A) Marvel alarm clock wants him to know that if he does not get out of bed soon, Hulk will indeed smash. He shuffles out of bed and into the shower. The coffee was brewed yesterday, or possibly the day before, so he doesn’t have to make a new pot before skating out the door to school.
It is 7:45 am and Justine Diodati (apartment 3D) still has not fallen asleep. She’s smoking on her balcony as Percy leaves his apartment. She doesn’t know whether to find his clueless punk aesthetic charming, or to throw her empty wine bottle at him. She decides against violence (for the time being) and instead walks back inside her apartment and changes robes, hoping the cool silk will encourage sleep. Soon, Ambien #3 has done its job and Justine is drooling slightly on her Pappa-San chair.
It is 8:45 am and Kat wakes up again at her own discretion. She strips naked and stomps towards the shower. She takes a cigarette out of a plastic bag and lights it with a book of waterproof matches with Ronald Reagan on the cover. It is her habit to smoke four cigarettes in her morning shower: two before washing her hair, two after. She has gotten very good at keeping them dry. As she smokes, she fixes her glare at a random point ahead of her. It is an expression of determination and ire that one does not usually see on a face so soon from waking.
It is 10 am. Felix Dawley (apartment 2D) hits snooze. He will do this every fifteen minutes for two more hours.
It is 10:30 am. Kat has finished showering, as well as getting dressed in grey pants, a grey t-shirt, and a red hoodie. She draws the shades in her bedroom, and pulls back the carpet in the middle of the room. It reveals a small trap door. She opens this door and descends the stairs.
The stairs take her to a room in the basement of the Saville Arms (Apt BB). Kat treads carefully. She is fairly certain that John (Apt. BA), her across-the-hall neighbor, is asleep. However, it wouldn’t do to arouse his suspicion. As far as the other residents are concerned, no one is living in Apt BB. Technically speaking, this is true. The only person currently occupying the apartment, besides Kat, is not alive. Not yet.
Kat readies the space for what she is about to do. She preps an IV full of something light green, and inserts it into a body lying on a table. She attaches electrodes to strategic points. Thanks to running electricity, she does not need to wait for a thunderstorm to bring her creature to life. She just has to flip a switch in the circuit board. No giant sparks, nothing Tesla-esque. She flips the switch back off, counts to thirty, and waits for the creature to wake up. Thirty one, thirty two. Kat turns around, dismayed, and wonders if she needs to increase the solution in the IV bag. Then she hears a clang and a thud. It’s the sound of a converter box falling to the ground because the reanimated corpse it’s attached to has sat up, and the electrodes are still attached to her chest and arms.
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, January 4th, 2013
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2:32 pm
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1) What is your perception of the profession of social work and how do you account for
your interest in this field? This could include a history of paid or volunteer experiences that
support your choice of social work as a profession.
2) The social work profession goes beyond working with individuals, groups and families to
also include advocacy, public policy, leadership and management, community organizing and
development. How do you see this fitting into your career as a social worker?
3) The concept of cultural pluralism emphasizes respect for diversity of values, heritages,
customs and lifestyles. We are interested in your experiences with people from diverse
populations. For each of the following diverse groups, describe how you have worked with each.
If you have gaps in your exposure to diversity, what is your plan to broaden your effectiveness to
work respectfully and effectively with each of these populations?
a) Ethnicity (race, culture)
b) Spiritual tradition different from your own
c) Age
d) Disability
e) Socio-economic status
f) Sexual orientation
4) When social workers are in a situation where they must choose between two relevant, but
competing choices, and where each choice may have an undesirable consequence for the parties
involved, this is called an ethical dilemma. Describe an ethical dilemma you have experienced.
Discuss your decision-making process and factors which contributed to the ultimate outcome.
Please protect confidentiality, and DO NOT reveal names of individuals or organizations.
5) An online graduate program provides learning opportunities that require an investment of
time and energy. You will need to plan to spend an average of 18 hours per week devoted to
your two online courses each quarter. In addition, for the two field practica experiences, up to 20
hours a week of internship hours may be required depending upon the number of quarters over
15
which each practicum extends. Please note in some cases practica field agencies can only
accommodate daytime hours.
Discuss why you are prepared to be in an online graduate program at this time in your life/career.
Please describe plans that you are making to adjust your personal and professional life in order to
successfully participate in this educational endeavor.
6) Your ability to participate in an online graduate program requires that you have a reliable
internet connection and adequate hardware. Please describe how you plan on connecting to the
program and the kind of computer equipment you plan to use.
Font: 12 point
Pages: 6-8 pages of text, no more no less, excluding title and reference page
Spacing: Double spacing, one inch margins.
Format: Include title and reference page
Citation style: American Psychological Association (APA) preferred
For assistance with APA see http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resources/560/01/
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, December 3rd, 2012
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6:24 am - Kanye West
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Fur pillows are hard to actually sleep on
Sometimes when it hurts so bad we have to just lay in the bed
Just lay in bed and don't move
'cause the penis, y'know, had little feet and eyes
Look at the drive that people have to get sex—
girls are super-calculating, planning every step
having no woman in my life to support me –
If I can hone that . . . then I have, like, nuclear power,
like a superhero,
like Cyclops when he puts his glasses on
I feel like the type of girl I would be with is a fellow superhero
like Björk
If she wanted to pose naked, you'd be like, “Oh, that's Björk.”
But if I wanted to pose naked
You look like a writer
I was trying to look like an old man
Michelangelo and Picasso, you know, the pyramids
working on being a doper person
I never feel like I'm not the underdog
I'm an alien
I'm super devastated
I know how it feels when the night demons come
Sometimes I turn the music up and drink and cry
I'm back in Groundhog Day again
so many missed stuntastic moments
It's on cruise control
One of the problems with being a bubbling source of creativity—
I was gonna wear a coat today, but it would be so cliché
And I plan to celebrate and scream and pop champagne every chance I get
I only want to do good.
I am passionate I am human I am real.
Would you believe in what you believe in if you were the only one who
believed it?
I know what I'm doing
This is gonna be a dope ass day
Life is awesome
I love me
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, December 2nd, 2012
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6:12 pm - Kristen Stewart
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I didn’t know what to say
all of the books have been written
The weirdest fucking themes run through this story—
like dominance and masochism
And it’s pretty deep, heady foreplay
I love him, I love him, I'm so sorry
as a person, I can’t do anything!
There’s an idea about who I am that’s eternally projected onto me
I am a boy
I was a kid
I was no one
but I couldn't say I know myself
and sum it up and give it to you in a little package
I know a few people my age who have a strong sense of self,
I mean, you have to question their motivations
everything around them is absolute chaos
the people falling over themselves,
screaming and taunting to get a reaction
The first thing I want to say to them is,
that I feel so boring
and that it’s fleeting
But as pretty as it is to watch
and as nice as it is to have watched
All I’m thinking of is the fact that everything that I say is going to be criticized—
not criticized, just evaluated and analyzed
She’s like a little vessel
What a faker!
I love how she goes up there and tries to be so serious.
Why does she always try to sound so smart when she's not smart?
I don’t care about the voracious, starving shit eaters
who want to turn truth into shit
I prefer to be hated than be false and fool people
I think romance is anything honest
As long as it's honest, it's so disarming
But then I think to myself, God damn it, shut the fuck up
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(comment on this)
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5:08 pm - Taylor Swift
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Everyone has had fair warning
If you really take it in
And you hear that many people screaming,
It will make you cry
There are some times when I can just brush it off
When I was 8
When I was 16
When you smend so much time daydreaming
Maybe you have skills you shouldn't
Maybe you know how to be conniving, like, naturally
This is not a surprise
It's no small feat
WHen that actually happens you don't ever complain about it
I never wanted to be the girl
Who wanted something so bad her whole life
And then gets it and complains about it
Like a turtle shell with my face painted on it
I'm not that weird anymore
I've never been shy or secretive
I get tired a lot
If you walk into my life
at 3:30 in the morning
You have to learn how to deal with that
And how to get up the next day
And go on with it
I'm not going to be that girl
I used to sit there and think
About how lucky I would be one day
Where people cared about the words
Those things that I feel that I can't say
That I wouldn't say to them if I was standing face to face with them
Realizations you come to
Based on the beginning
And ending
Well, I've never interrupted a wedding. But if I did, that's how I would do it
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(comment on this)
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5:08 pm - Madonna
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Condoms saved my life
Therefore, I feel free to take whatever risks I want
Whether it's Palestine, or East LA,
Or the Bronx, Miami, Mexico City
All over the place
I must admit that I didn't really know
True suffering
And it seems never-ending
To sit and watch your child die of starvation
What it feels like to lose your parents
Children lying on the ground in a daze
In a pool of urine
With flies buzzing around their heads
And they all weigh about three pounds,
And they're all a year old
I can't take it. I can't take it.
I want to get rid of this inferiority complex
I want to be like Gandhi,
And Martin Luther King,
And John Lennon
That's naïve and impossible
The platform I'm standing on
To feel an escape
Being loved keeps you young
Passive beauties have their place in the world
I am my own work of art
Everybody loves you when they are about to come
When I get down on my knees, it is not to pray
Jesus' message was to love your neighbour as yourself
Masturbate, don't judge people by their religion
Scrounge up a dollar and go to Kentucky Fried Chicken
That's what I want to do
Americans live in a bubble
It was a spell somebody put on them
Your problems are the most important problems
But when it seems there's so much bullshit around,
You start turning over rocks and reaching out to help people,
There's a whole avalanche coming right behind it
I'm saying celebrity is bullshit.
And who knows that better then me?
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(comment on this)
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5:00 pm - Chevy Chase
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There are two choices
The two white girls — the two pretty, young girls
Somehow they took to the tall, thin, handsome guy
The most initial obvious attraction that warthogs go through
That kind of personal touch is all they're really seeking
I was watching the tongue-tied-ness of those women
And as a typical father
who cares about male dominance,
I never wanted to really know the daughter that well
Sometimes I'd forget her name
Aren’t these women reasonably intelligent?
I'm not really gonna buck you all up a lot and say that this is the one
It is what it is
It's got its own secrets that reside in the creator
You're gonna live to be about 57, if you're lucky
Every week in the same clothes
Relegated to hell and watching "Howdy Doody" for the rest of your life
I don't find it particularly enlightening
How much more do you have to write about Jonah and the whale?
And that poor guy?
They're probably more like people that we can all understand
There's your God
He's a bigot
That's what keeps the world spinning
It's your house,
You can invite whatever friend you want
You think that's the right way to behave?
I’m thinking to myself,
It’s not that difficult to speak like a human being
Without a writer
The raising of an eyebrow, how you do it;
when you look, how you look
All those little things are physical
You might think he'd have known better than to hit kids
I broke bones in both hands
Wondering why Daddy was kissing someone else
I have no idea what's going to happen to him,
But if he were to die,
I could think of many funny ways
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, December 1st, 2012
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1:56 pm
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To Read
any kathy acker
Fatal Vision -Joe McGinniss
The Journalist & the Murderer -Janet Malcom
Columbine -Dave Cullen
The Stranger Beside Me -Ann Rule
Green River, RUnning Red -Ann Rule
Death Comes to Pemberley -PD James
Bowling Alone
High Rise -JG Ballard
Running Wild -J Ballard
Saint Maybe -Anne Tyler
The Left Hand of Darkness -Ursula K Le Guin
Nova -Samuel R. Delamey
Innocent Blood -PD James
THursday Next series
Knots and Crosses -Ian Rankin
Longshot -Dick Francis
ALias Grace -Margaret Atwood
We Need to Talk about Kevin -Lionel Shriver
The Judas Goat -Robert Parker
Old Bones -Aaron Elkins
Dark Adapted Eye -Barbara Vine
The Scold's Bride -Minette Walters
The Woman in White -Wilkie COllins
Rebecca -Daphne DuMaurier
The Moonstone -Wilkie Collins
the marriage plot -jeffrey eugenides
The Cse of the Not-So-Nice Nurse -Mabel Maney
Tipping the Velvet -Sarah Waters
Fingersmith -Sarah Waters
Fall on Your Knees -Ann-Marie MacDonald
RUbyfruit Jungle -Rita Mae Brown
Bastard Out of Carolina -Dorothy Allison
The Sewing Circle: Hollywood's Greatest Secret -
Axel Madsen
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal -Jeanette
Winterson
Sexing the Cherry -Jeanette Winterson
The Passion -Jeanette Winterson
Zami: A New SPelling of my Name -Audre Lorde
11/23/63 -Stephen King
Rose Madder -Stephen King
Cycle of the Werewolf -Stephen King
Needful Things -Stephen King
Firestarter -Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes -Stephen KIng
SWAMPLANDIA! -Karen Russell
10,000 Saints -Eleanor Henderson
Them: A Memoir of Parents -Francine du Plessix
Gray
Uncommon Arrangements -Kate Roiphe
The Glass Castle -Jeanette Wells
Looking Back -Joyce Maynard
A Visit from the Goon Squad -Jenifer Egan
Freaky Green Eyes -Joyce Carol Oates
A Girl of the Limberlost -Gene Stratton-Porter
Garlic & Sapphires -Ruth Reichl
Home Front -Patty Reagan
Just After Sunset -Stephen King
Desperation -Stephen King
The Dark Half -Stephen King
From a Buick 8 -Stephen King
Lisey's Story -Stehen King
The Dead Zone -Stephen King
'Salem's Lot -Stephen King
Are You my Mother? -Alison Bechdel
The Liars Club -Mary Karr
Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
-David Blight
The Lost Children on Wilder -Nina Bernstein
Mothers of Invention -Drew Gilpin Faust
The Girls Who Went Away -Ann Fessler
Drinking Coffe Elsewhere -ZZ Packer
Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood -bell hooks
Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race
Befre Roe v. Wade -Rickie Solinger
The Group -Mary McCarthy
Memories of a Catholic Girlhood -Mary McCarthy
Just My Type: A Book About Fonts -Simon Garfield
Important Artifacts &Personal Propery from the
Collection of Lenore Doolan & Harold Morrs,
Including Books, Street Fashion, & JEwelry -Leanne
Shapton
1Q84 -Haruki Murakami
Whip Smart -Melissa Febos
Imagine -Jonah Leher
The Enthusiast -Charlie Haas
Office Girl -JOe Meno
The Talisman
Ghost Story -Peter Straub
Arcadia -Lauren Groff
The Vanishers -Heidi Julavits
Election -Tom Perotta
Buffalo: The Life and Style of Ray Petri -Jamie
Morgan and Mitzi Lorenze
The Song of the Lioness -Tamora Pierce
Cunt: a Declaration of Independence -InGA Muscio
Glam! An Eyewitness Account -Mick Rock
Pink Smog -Becoming Weetzie Bat -Francesca Lia
Block
The Magicians -Lev Grossman
Lois Duncan books?
The Forest of Hands and Teeth -Carrie Ryan
Holidays on Ice -David Sedaris
Rat Girl: A Memoir -Kristin Hersh
Cat's Eye -Margaret Atwood
Don't Breathe a Word -Holly Cupala
Lost at Sea -Bryan Lee O'Malley
Horns -Joe Hill
Heart Shaped Box -Joe Hill
Old School -Tobias Wolff
Man and Superman -George Bernard Shaw
The Master of the Senate -Robert Caro
The Leopard -Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
On Moral Fiction -John Gardiner
Daisy Miller -Henry James
Fifth Business -Robertson Davies
City of Glass -Paul Auster
Wise Children -Angela Carter
The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism,
and the Cultural Politics of Memory -Catherine S.
Ramirez
Rubyfruit Jungle -Rita Mae Brown
The Violent Bear it Away -Flannery O'COnner
The Fall of the House of Usher -Poe
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie -Muriel Spark
A Wild Sheep Chase -Haruki Murakami
Road to Nowhere -Christopher Pike
It Chooses You -Miranda July
Rebel Heart: An American Rock and Roll Journey-
Bebe Buell
The King Must Die -Mary Rennault
NW -Zadie Smith
The Casual Vacancy -JK Rowling
When We Wake -Karen Healey
34 Pieces of You -Carmen Rodriguez
Steps _jerzy Kosinski
Omensetter's Luck -William H Gass
Adverbs -Daniel Handler
The Reef -Edith Wharton
Stranger Things Happen -Kelly Link
The Summer Book -Tove Jansson
Englishness -Simon Featherstone
Redshirts -John Scalzi
In the Peanut Gallery with Mystery Science Theater
3000 -Robert G Weiner & Shelley E. Barba
The Empty Glass -JI Baker
Bird by Bird -Anne Lamott
The Artist's Way -Julia Cameron
On Stranger Tides -Tim Powers
The Turn of the Screw -Henry James
The Historian -Elizabeth Kostova
Hell House -Richard Matheson
Neptune Noir -Rob Thomas
Reality is Broken -Jane McGonigal
Vampire Academy -Richelle Mead
Divergent -Veronica Ross
Dragon's Bait -Vivian Vande Velde
Under my Hat: Tales from the Cauldron -Edited by
Jonathan Strahan
Sister Spit: Writings, Rants, and Reminiscence
from the Road -Michelle Tea
Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents the Art
of the Short Story
Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise -Sam Irvin
Vernon God Little -DBC Pierre
The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep & Nver had To -DC
Pierson
Rat Saw God -Rob Thomas
Project X -Jim Shepard
King Dork -Frank Portman
Gone Girl -Gillian Flynn
Life -Keith Richards
How Should a Person Be? -Sheila Heti
Almanac of the Dead -Leslie Marmon Silko
Hollywood Babylon -Kenneth Anger
The Temple of my Familiar -Alice Walker
The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat -Oliver
Sacks
The Devil All the Time -Donald Ray Pollock
The Last Samurai -Helen De Witt
Stars -Richard Dyer
The Fixers -WJ Fleming
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(comment on this)
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| Tuesday, November 13th, 2012
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12:58 am - convo starters
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I am utterly alone.
I myself am strange and unusual.
Assert your personhood!
We're your friends, we’re not like the others
What a marvelous rapport we’re having.
C’mon, it’ll be very.
You know, I've always liked that word, "gargantuan." I so rarely have an opportunity to use it in a sentence.
Do you think the dead come back and watch the living?
tennis, anyone?
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, November 10th, 2012
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4:08 am - options
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…cartography, the mapping of uncharted territory.
I don’t care for ____
The alliance is gonna frown on this.
the greed and the selfishness and all the taking
Fuck off, traitor.
There’s always money in the banana stand.
I am having a love affair with this ice cream sandwich.
Small price to pay for self-esteem
Weeping. Copious tears.
Well I just apologize like hell.
I’ll show you the life of the mind.
Damned interesting work, I’d imagine.
Damned difficult, I’d imagine.
I myself am strange and unusual.
Let’s turn up the juice and see what shakes loose.
Don't be angry, you dear little man.
Are you addressing I?
If you wanna play house with the unwashed masses, that’s fine.
Forget them. Live forever. We could start a band.
We’re not talking about nice, we’re talking about right from wrong.
Holy Jesus, what are these goddamned animals?
no more of that talk, or I’ll put the fucking leaches on you, understand?
well why not? i mean, if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing right
but only for those with true grit
terrible things were happening all around us
impossible to walk in this muck. no footing at all
That makes me feel all warm inside.
It's ticklish business, any way you look at it.
Well, that's very possible.
Please don't be silly. We're talking serious.
That baffles me.
It’s actually totally depressing.
We just need to find out which apartment is his so we can stalk him from a distance.
Some people are OK, but mostly I feel like poisoning everyone.
He’s a gay old blade, isn’t he?
How very.
You stupid fuck!
Dreadful etiquette, I apologize.
I just want my high school to be a nice place.
Greetings and salutations.
We scare people into not being assholes.
I wish you weren’t such a stinker.
big fat lummox
You’re wonderful in a bothersome sort of way.
From now on, I’ll ask you to keep your nose out of my affairs.
This place could use a shrub or, hell, even a stick would cheer it up.
It’ll be so fine and laid back and mellow and profitable.
You can’t tell them the whole story. It’ll bore the audience.
This is a narrative of very heavy proportions.
Do you think you could follow an intelligent conversation for just a moment?
Will you stop bellowing?!
People with sense belong wherever they’re put.
I guess I’m not the girl I thought I was.
Oh I love funny exit lines.
I don’t envy you the privilege.
Pity you have to grow up.
How tiresome of him to ____, and how typical.
I can see by your clothes that you don’t give a hoot about what people think of you.
such a placid little thing.
How funny. How supremely, wonderfully funny.
i’m having much too much fun
lanky brunettes with wicked jaws
So what’s the fuss about?
Perhaps this was the work of a sadist or a paranoiac.
C’mon kid, shed the chapeau.
You got your rollersaktes on? Well let’s get rollin’!
This is all swell, brother.
Your peddling your fish in the wrong market.
on account of we had an argument
That’s known in burglary circles as a flashlight.
I've only been going to this school my whole life.
He made her laugh. I've never heard him say anything remotely intelligent.
Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.
But some people without brains do a lot of talking, don't they?
Not nobody, not no how.
In the misty mist or the dusky dusk.
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(comment on this)
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| Tuesday, November 6th, 2012
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1:00 pm - Chapters and Wishlist
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The Door in the Floor
Because It Was There
Weird Tales
The Year Without a Summer
Perfect Day
Pigeon Man
Katherine Called Kiki
Book of Hours
A Fear of Paternalism
Frankie Lacy
Comfortably Numb
Cellar Door
Why We Don’t Sleep
Bring the Boys Back Home
The Hairy Pits Club
The Cold Swedish Winter
The Artwork of the Future
A Comprehensive Study of Depravity
Bela Lugosi’s Dead
Mindless Self Indulgence
Little Edie
The Cyborg Manifesto
Light Treason
Outside the Walls
skinny dipping
maria and frankie talk about _____
breaking into somewhere
pathetic attempt at date with percy
justine teaching frankie what it means to be a woman
girls’ bathroom shame circle
accusations of lesbianism (followed up with Elizabeth)
people watching
family tree project at school
dias de los muertos
felix’s art show
frankie learning animism/expousing said views
frankie bonding with the pigeons
some sort of big prank
idiotic lit discussion in class
mr hays
putting up stickers
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12:58 pm
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It is 6:30 am and Kat Lacey (apartment 1A) bolts out of bed to turn her alarm off. She then remembers that it’s Tuesday and she doesn’t have work. She throws her alarm against a wall, and throws herself back into bed with equal rage.
It is 7:15 am and Margaret Walton (nee Xiang, apartment 3E) managed to pop the cork to the bottle of 3 dollar champagne without waking the kids. She fills half a glass with it and half with orange juice before starting on her family’s breakfast. While the kids are at school and her husband is at work, Margaret will finish the champagne and move on to Jim Beam hidden in dust compartment of her Swedish-designed, never-used vacuum cleaner.
It is 7:35 am and Percy Frye’s (apartment 2A) Marvel alarm clock wants him to know that if he does not get out of bed soon, Hulk will indeed smash. He shuffles out of bed and into the shower. The coffee was brewed yesterday, or possibly the day before, so he doesn’t have to make a new pot before skating out the door to school.
It is 7:45 am and Justine Diodati (apartment 3D) still has not fallen asleep. She’s smoking on her balcony as Percy leaves his apartment. She doesn’t know whether to find his clueless punk aesthetic charming, or to throw her empty wine bottle at him. She decides against violence (for the time being) and instead walks back inside her apartment and changes robes, hoping the cool silk will encourage sleep. Soon, Ambien #3 has done its job and Justine is drooling slightly on her Pappa-San chair.
It is 8:45 am and Kat wakes up again at her own discretion. She strips naked and stomps towards the shower. She takes a cigarette out of a plastic bag and lights it with a book of waterproof matches with Ronald Reagan on the cover. It is her habit to smoke four cigarettes in her morning shower: two before washing her hair, two after. She has gotten very good at keeping them dry. As she smokes, she fixes her glare at a random point ahead of her. It is an expression of determination and ire that one does not usually see on a face so soon from waking.
It is 10 am. Felix Dawley (apartment 2D) hits snooze. He will do this every fifteen minutes for two more hours.
It is 10:30 am. Kat has finished showering, as well as getting dressed in grey pants, a grey t-shirt, and a red hoodie. She draws the shades in her bedroom, and pulls back the carpet in the middle of the room. It reveals a small trap door. She opens this door and descends the stairs.
The stairs take her to a room in the basement of the Saville Arms (Apt BB). Kat treads carefully. She is fairly certain that John (Apt. BA), her across-the-hall neighbor, is asleep. However, it wouldn’t do to arouse his suspicion. As far as the other residents are concerned, no one is living in Apt BB. Technically speaking, this is true. The only person currently occupying the apartment, besides Kat, is not alive. Not yet.
Kat readies the space for what she is about to do. She preps an IV full of something light green, and inserts it into a body lying on a table. She attaches electrodes to strategic points. Thanks to running electricity, she does not need to wait for a thunderstorm to bring her creature to life. She just has to flip a switch in the circuit board. No giant sparks, nothing Tesla-esque. She flips the switch back off, counts to thirty, and waits for the creature to wake up. Thirty one, thirty two. Kat turns around, dismayed, and wonders if she needs to increase the solution in the IV bag. Then she hears a clang and a thud. It’s the sound of a converter box falling to the ground because the reanimated corpse it’s attached to has sat up, and the electrodes are still attached to her chest and arms.
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| Thursday, October 18th, 2012
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8:09 pm - Night of the Comet
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Chakotay! This was an exciting discovery, you guys. Shame has yet to kick in about my love of Star Trek: Voyager, y'all. I identified heavily with B'Elanna Torres, the half-Klingon chief engineer with anger issues. But that's neither here nor there.
Night of the Comet is great for so many reasons. Two capable female leads, hispanic love interest, truly bizarre sets and costumes, and gross monsters. Set in LA on the night (and day after) a comet passes earth, two sisters hat their stepmom and love guys and typical valley girl stuff. The comet turns everyone (who isn't shielded by steel) into red dust. Those who were only partially shielded become blood-sucking zombies.
Regina and her sis Samantha both happened to be safe on the titular Night of the Comet (Regina was in a steel-enforeced projector room, and Samantha was in a tool shed or something. Also I want to add "titular" to everything I write. Follow along, kids. Make a game of it.) After the initial shock wears off, they arm themselves, go shopping, and meet fellow survivor Chakotay, I mean Hector. A group of smarty-pants military scientists, who are working on a cure, are alerted to there presence. AND THAT'S ALL I AM GOING TO SAY. Just watch it, OK?
This movie is mostly awesome visually, so Ima give you three arguments for watching this thang.
So this dude:
This hair:
And this is supposed the be a radio station:
4 Chakotays out of 5
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| Friday, October 12th, 2012
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1:04 am
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A discussion of The Mummy, and the bullshit therein, between Bethy and her bf Colin.
B: So we just finished watching The Mummy.
C: Yeah
B: And throughout it you seemed… upset.
C: Yes. Because it was basically the white guys fighting the Egyptians over a lady.
B: Who was half white and half Egyptian.
C: Yeah.
B: That is essentially what happened. What did she feel about things?
C: Umm…whatever she was hypnotized to feel at the time.
B: That did seem to be the case.
C: Yeah.
B: At first it did seem like she was all "Screw you, random British man, i'm into this Egyptian mummy who, even in life, was twice my age, but now is like 3000 yrs older than me." But then i guess that was also magic, and not how she actually felt?
C: The only part where she was actually herself was at the beginning when she just seemed bored and nostalgic
B: She didn't like western artifice. She went *goes into a deep voice, pretending to be this huge-foreheaded leading lady* "Is this the Egypt of Now?"
C: But when she said that, she was looking at mosques and modern Egypt, like Cairo city stuff.
B: But I thought she was looking at the pyramids. She was looking at the pyramids but at a party, and she was like *re-dons deep voice* "fuck this paaaarty."
C: But when she said "this modern Egypt" she was looking down, at the buildings around the building she was in. So I think she was just scorning modern times. I think she likes the part where people bring her drinks.
B: Mmm.
C: That seems to work out pretty well.
B: I like that part as well.
C: So, it's not to say she was a blank slate, but, y'know, it was an old etch-a-sketch.
B: It's not so much that she didn't feel things, so much as her feelings didn't matter to anyone, including the people who made the movie.
C: It's like when a magnadoodle gets old, and a lot of the little filings just stick to whatever.
B: ...Right.
C: So really whatever you can mash onto that is an improvement.
B: Hmm.
C: Cuz at least she wants something. And this is all because they don't care about her feelings.
B: This metaphor is very belabored. Cuz then the mashing would be all of those people just magicking feelings upon her.
C: Mm-hmm.
B: And you're saying that was am improvement to her staring off into the middle distance?
C: From their perspective, yeah.
B: Oh ok. I just found it really interesting that you got really mad at how basically she was a MacGuffin, which is its own trope, the MacGuffin Girl, but that made you mad. And for me, I'm just so used to it.
C: It's one thing for the girl to be a MacGuffin, but part of it was that it was so close in. So really, it was like a tug of war. I'm surprised there wasn't a scene where they each had her by one arm.
B: And it's also the fact that the stakes were so low, because it's just "I wanna bang her," "No I wanna bang her."
C: Yeah it wasn't like she was the key to something. It was "you can't take this girl, she's white." "But she's mine from thousands of years ago."
B: I think what they were saying wasn't that she's white but she's of the present and not of the past. But to be fair, the present is ruled by white people.
C: It's hard to get past the fact that she was really white.
B: You cannot get over the fact that she looked super white.
C: Yeah
B: Even though she's supposed to be half Egyptian. and totally Egyptian in flashbacks.
C: Yeah.
B: Boris Karloff, also white.
C: True, but...
B: They put him in brownface?
C: Between browbface and he looks more non-white...There were non-white actresses, even at this time. Even actresses of Spanish descent would have looked more Egyptian.
B: Would that have been better?
C: I don't know! it just seems like it's just a casting decision. it just seems really odd that they wouldn't have even taken that weird racial leap, given how many others they took.
B: We have this idea in our heads that the ancient Egyptians were very European-looking. Like they were sorta brown, but really they just looked like Yul Brenner...but speaking of colorism, I feel like we should talk about how the Nubian servant couldn't be trusted because he was easily enslaved.
C: So easily magicked.
B: Ugh that was weird.
C: Did he [the mummy] pick him because he was close to the family? Or was it because...
B: He was their servant. But I think it was that he was ancient Egyptian. The ancient Egyptians conquered the Nubians therefore he could very easily mentally conquer this Nubian.
C: Ohhh!
B: Still fucking weird.
C: Yeah. Also he [the mummy]'s so threatening because he's already taken some of the human property and now he's coming for the rest.
B: Ha!
C: He's coming for the good stuff.
B: *still laughing*
C: Was there anything else?
B: Egyptian gods don't work that way?
C: Egyptian gods do not work that way.
B: Bast is not a bringer of bad tidings who kills pet dogs.
C: Did they have dogs?
B: Yeah they had dogs.
C: Oh yeah.
B: Priestesses of Isis were under no sort of virginity clause.
C: Especially when vestal refers to...
B: Vestia, which is the roman version of Hestia, goddess of the hearth. but still, Rome. not Egypt. Also they kept talking bout how they were pre-dynastic but everything they were doing was super Middle Kingdom.
C: See, I can't speak to that cuz i haven't learned anything about ancient Egypt since elementary school.
B: Me either, but I had a huge boner for ancient Egypt back in the day.
C: I remember liking The Egypt Game more than learning about Egypt.
B: Aw the The Egypt Game was soooooo good.
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| Tuesday, October 9th, 2012
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9:45 pm - The Masque of the Red Death
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Today I watch The Masque of the Red Death, one of AIP's Vincent Price/Poe adaptations. I was excited to watch this, y'all. The other Price Pic I saw was definitely the most fun I've had on this venture so far. Right off the bat, Vincent Price almost runs a baby over in his carriage. Apparently, he's a wealthy landowner. Total dick. He orders some people garotted, which is pretty cool. He's about to make some girl Sophie's choose between her dad and her boyfriend, when -gasp!- an old crone is found to be suffering from the Red Death (it's like the Black Death, but redder. You bleed out of your face Outbreak-style). So he instead abducts Francesca, Francesca's dad, and Francesca's special friend and orders her village burned to the ground.
Vincent Price (Prince Prospero) is planning to ride this whole plague thing out in style. He's invited his best prince-buddies to his castle, and they're going to ignore the plague outside their doors. It's hella debauched. Right off the bat, there's some knifeplay. They also bring out a child to dance for them, bedecked in Toddler and Tiaras finery. I'm getting verr verr skeeved out. (Apparently this girl is supposed to be a little person, but it’s clearly a 7-yr-old. When she talks later her voice is dubbed by an old-ass lady, but she looks like Ginny Weasley in the 2nd Harry Potter movie. Everyone keeps refering to her as “Tiny Dancer,” which is never not hilarious.)
Francesca is getting child-groomed and inducted into the ways of sin. Some guy prentends to be a pig and she is morally outraged for some reason. I believe she finds it unchristian to perform charades. Perhaps she sees that down this pass furry fandom lies. (I don't know if you can tell that this film is affecting my word choice. I desire to be how high-fallutin'.)
It appears that Prospero's ultimate goal is to make Francesca stop believing in God. Also to bang her, but that almost goes without saying. For he is some sort of satanist/behavioral psychologist, and has daaaaark rites to undertake. He keeps telling her about how monks suck and stuff, and life is pain, and belief in God blinds you to stuff and junk.
I don't know if it's some sort of metaphor, but the two principal ladies in this film (Francesca, and Price's apprentice in the daaaaark aaaaarts) have the most busted ginger wigs on. Red hair/red death. The fakeness of wigs maybe signifies the hollow artifice of Prospero's satanist partying. Or maybe it was the 60s and wig technology has since marched on.
I’m not entirely sure this movie has a plot. It’s just a bunch of stuff that happens. Here is some of that stuff: Francesca's dad and bf are still alive, apparently, and are being trained to fight to the death. They are not into it. Prospero’s apprentice brands herself with an upside-down cross; a little person jester suggests to Propsero’s creepy friend to dress like a gorilla later. It’s bonkers.
Francesca and her peasant posse try to escape, but it is to no avail. Prospero throws a masquerade, as “a celebration of victory over death, of evil over good,” because he has made a pact with Satan to keep everyone in the castle from dying of plague. He makes Francesca’s dad and bf cut themselves as dinner theater. Everyone gets boner faces about it. It’s a pretty weird party.
There is some nasty race stuff going on in this movie, especially during the acid trip sequence. A lot of blackface in a 5 minute sequence. And before, when people were talking about what costumes they were gonna wear, someone suggested dressing as “a chinese.”
The Red Death is personified as a dude dressed like the Emperor’s Imperial Guard. He uses Francesca’s bf as a vessel to get into the castle and makes everyone Red Die. In the end, only Francesca, her bf, a baby, and the little person couple are left alive. And we have all learned a very important lesson about not trying to placate death.
So, do I like this movie? No. The set design was cool, and the dance sequence and the end was well done, but the movie was rather racist and super repetitive. There was so much cacking and pontificating in this movie. Usually one person pontificates while everyone else in the room cackles. Everyone has their favorite themes: Prospero likes to talk about how God is dead, his assistant won’t shut up about being the bride of Satan, the servants keep talking about what might amuse their master Prospero (hint: killing poor people). The premise is good (it’s Poe), but this movie could have lost about 40 of its minutes, especially those minutes containing blackface.
1 Ghoulie
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