April - May 2003
05/30/03 10:47 PM
05/29/03 6:19 PM
05/25/03 1:17 AM
05/14/03 1:40 PM
4/02/03 11:59 PM

05/30/03 10:47 PM

I got quoted in the New York Daily News. How cool is that!

~LS~

05/29/03 6:19 PM

Shoutouts to people who've mailed me after visiting my website! I feel so pinged! w00t!

John Keen (from Alabama)
Lynda Lee (who's a world traveller!)
David Schachter (a major Donna Haraway fan)
and Jennifer Simon Dunn (your site rocks, Jennifer)

I won't start blogging again regularly until after intersession. Intersession SUCKS. I feel sorry for the good Doctor Gunn, who's doing two classes a day and as much as I bitched about my second class not making, I'm SOOOOO glad. This Monday through Saturday shit needs to go. Someone there needs to get a clue.

~LS~

05/25/03 1:17 AM

Ok, again I'm not blogging. I just can't seem to get around to it. Too many other things are going on. I'm teaching intersession this summer, which is a grind. I'm enjoying it, though, because the students rock, at least so far.

I got to see the Matrix twice. It was fucking cool. Ok, so, there were some problems with it, yeah, but on the whole, it was excellent. I have my own theories about what is going on. Some people agree with me and some people don't, obviously. But I think that, when the next movie comes out, a lot of people are going to re-examine Reloaded and be blown away. I think a lot of the audience didn't have a CLUE what was going on.

So, in the first Matrix, I got the whole deal pretty early on and most of my ruminations were about philosophical issues, social theory, yadda. It was brain candy. Which is why I decided to teach the Cyberculture class. Reloaded. OMG. I have seen it twice now and I still can't figure all of it out, plot wise. I have gone back and watched Matrix recently and in retrospect there are several cool things going on, like, the Oracle telling Neo something to the effect of "I don't know what you're waiting for, maybe your next life." So, there are several moments where you can reinterpret the first movie based on what you know in the second movie. When the third movie comes out, however, I think the second movie will be totally reinterpreted by pretty much everyone. The second time I saw reloaded, I closed my eyes during the scene with the Architect (who, incidentally, Josh thinks is Freud) so that I could focus on what he was saying and not be distracted by the bank of video images of Neo. I still don't get it. Some review I read in Rotten Tomatoes says that Reloaded is all pot philosophy. I disagree with that. I think that these people are telling Neo the rules of the computer game he's in and Neo has to figure them out. They have minimal bearing on the real world, except only loosely. It's sort of the difference between real world philosophizing (or even pot philosophy) and the philosophy you might read in White Wolf that a certain character template might have. I read a really good analysis of the movie on BET.com from a "black perspective," whatever that is. The reviewer talked about the importance of representing many races in the film, which is rare for SF. That was interesting. I went there to read about Cornel West, who had a cameo part in the movie. Someone somewhere (I can't remember where) said the Wachowski brothers cast him to make fun of the culture vultures. Who knows. There is already a canon of what the Wachowski brothers are doing with the film, based on interviews, DVD commentary, making of stuff, etc. I learned this when I started surfing bboards to see what other people thought about the film. That whole experience just reminded me of why I don't go to bboards. People are rude and stupid. I don't see what Steve sees in them. At some point I will probably write a lengthy journal entry about the film, but certainly not until intersession is over.

In other news, Loretta is leaving for the summer and I'm feeling abandoned. Luckily Josh put me on a work schedule. Hopefully I can follow it.

~LS~

05/14/03 1:40 PM

Listening: Matrix Reloaded Soundtrack

It's been a long time since I blogged. I have lived a month web-free. How strange. This is also reflected in my start button on Windows:

Simplemu (the undefeated champ)
Netscape Mail
Spider Solitaire
Wordperfect 9
Microsoft Word (its first ever appearance!)
Wordpad
Windows Media Player

I have a lot to write, but I feel unmotivated. Perhaps tomorrow.

~LS~

Visit my Warblog!!!

4/02/03 11:59 PM

Listening: Dirty Vegas (MP3s)

Am I the only person in the world who selects musical choices by listening to the Mitsubishi car ads? I never heard of Dirty Vegas. Apparently not, according to Rob Walker at Slant who says that the Mitsubishi ad was responsible for getting Dirty Vegas air time and concert dates. Dirty Vegas was fairly popular in England but never "broke" here. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing, TV commercials helping artists to break. Walker says it shows how cookie cutter US radio has grown. Amen to that. Rob also has a nice little piece on Spam's new commercial. "Crazy Tasty." I love the whole retro 50s thing. Spam is such a cold war culture culinary treat. The 50s. I'm tellin' ya. They're back.

I'm still working on the Christi paper. I'm leaving for Bama tomorrow morning. I'm riding with Josh and an undergrad named Laura.

I'm sure I have more to blog about, but I'm brain fried. I will catch up when I'm back from Southern.

~LS~