| A thought for this fourth. |
[Jul. 4th, 2008|12:54 am] |
Today is a national holiday, a day for sleeping in late, polluting the sky with pretty colored smoke, and watching Law and Order marathons until your eyes bleed. It's a day when people across the US will be reveling in unbridled patriotism. Year after dreadful year, this decade has brought us mindless flag waving in the name of patriotism. But on this anniversary that people like to think of as our nation's birth (although it's not quite), we really ought to take a step back to remind ourselves what it is that this holiday commemorates.
* * * * *In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ( Read the rest ) * * * * *
This patriotic holiday is not about blind loyalty to the government. It's commemorating our declaration of independence. No, we will not sit idly by while a too-powerful leader does whatever he wants to our detriment. THAT is the principle upon which our country was founded. (Vive la revolución!) |
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| update |
[Jul. 2nd, 2008|03:53 pm] |
I got my first paycheck in the mail yesterday. Post-taxes, I made just a little less working half time for two weeks than a month's worth of my grad stipend. Ah, the benefits of a real job. Of course, it's only for five months, but still, it's nice. I almost feel like a grown up. Now, to get out of my parents' house. In celebration, I ordered a tee shirt from RetroCampaigns.com that I've been really wanting. (I ♥ Hubert Humphrey.)
I went to see WALL-E on Sunday with David and Mike. It was fantastic. I want to post more about it, but I don't have time right now. Just... if you haven't seen it, get thee to a theater, pronto. |
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| video casting for commercial |
[Jul. 2nd, 2008|03:22 pm] |
I had to read this script today:
"Some said...feed the skin by the whitening nutrients would give radians skin from inside. That is so true. :)" [sic] |
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| hovel is as hovel does |
[Jun. 30th, 2008|07:42 pm] |
Completist collectors of ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) elysesewell idiotica will be pleased to know that I failed to confirm the date of my Chinese visa expiration, only bothering to look in my passport to check on it after I was already in the country illegally. I had to evacuate Shenzhen quicklike, as in late at night, with my head still lacquered in the day's swathe of makeup and Hairstyle. Fortunately, I didn't get fined or searched or imprisoned; the immigration officer just made me trundle my enormous suitcase off to a little back office and spend twenty minutes in a sweat of uncertainty while he produced a written warning.
So I arrived in Hong Kong a few days early, and the little hovel my agency had prepared for me was not yet ready. I had to spend a few days in the agency's model quarters, a weird place indeed: a half-floor of a huge industrial building, a warehouse retrofitted into a giant apartment. All the bedrooms were bricked-in, windowless chambers with portable dehumidifiers chugging away 24/7 lest they explode with mildew. Every model from the agency lived there- a lot of girls, but no one knew exactly how many because some emerged from their concrete mausolea so infrequently.
After a few days there and a few enjoyable moments of chewing the fat with my Zadie Smith-reading chambermate, my hovel had been vacated (I asked the previous occupants to set aside any unwanted stuff they'd accumulated during their stay so that I could use it instead of the maid just throwing it away, and what did I get? A couple of bent-ass wire hangers, some margarine and half a jar of Skippy) and I was able to move in.
The new hovel is not swanky: it's the smallest apartment I've ever lived in, and in a less-than-ideal neighborhood, but it was the best anyone could rustle up during the summer of the Ohhellnolympics. This is how I summarized it (via email) to my quondam cellmate (the 'Bay and the Wanch being two neighborhoods of HK):
I had a feeling, had a hunch:
it ain't in the 'Bay, it's in the Wanch.
Many hallmates pitter patter.
Crappy aircon rattle clatter.
Narrow slot for model's butt
Like Gulliver in Lilliput.
But I dassn't bitch and daren't moan,
For here I lay my head alone.
Far right: hanging laundry sack.
My friend in Seoul would make a beeline for the bottles of squid ink sold in every Korean grocery store and roll one around in his hands, moaning, "I want to buy this SO BAD but I have no idea what to do with it." Mike, unless you've decided to take my advice and chug it straight from the bottle, may I offer you this sinister inky spaghetti and squidballs? Just be sure to make frequent mirror-checks: it turns your teeth black.
Finally, Jumpshot 101: raise the ISO or there will be blurred.
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| So... |
[Jun. 29th, 2008|12:08 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | 14223 | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Now I'm saving all my lovin' for someone who's lovin' me. | ] |
I'm here! |
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| People are strange. |
[Jun. 27th, 2008|07:03 pm] |
I always thought that people didn't participate in politics because they were uninterested and lazy. They had better things to do with their time than read the paper, learn about the candidates, go to the polls, whatever. It's kind of stupid, but I can understand it.
I discovered today, though, that some people are just willfully ignorant. My organization has been doing robodials in the district to the east of the one I'm working in. I'm the only actual on-the-ground organizer in New York, though, so I've been getting a lot of calls from people who found my name and want to be removed from the list. They're too dumb to realize that they don't live in the 26th district (or else they don't care and just want to harass me), but they're mostly angry conservatives who want off. Whatever. I tell them we're a grassroots organization so I don't have administrative control, but I'll pass on their whining about what a great guy Randy Kuhl is to the national guy and get them off the list.
Some guy called today who completely baffled me, though. I was in the shower, but he left a message to the effect that he's nonpolitical and doesn't care and wants off the list. Moreover, he "threatened" to call me every single time he got a political call. What. The. Fuck. This guy had to: 1) actually listen to the message instead of just deleting it, 2) make note of the name of our organization, 3) look it up on the website, 4) find our local section to get my phone number, 5) call me to complain about it, and 6) leave a message when I didn't answer the phone. That's a whooooole lot of effort to be apathetic. I wanted to make a snide comment to that effect when I called him back, but I restrained myself.
My dad left State College this morning, and I am enjoying my last little bit of my apartment alone. The calvary is on its way down here as we speak, even though Uhaul pretty much screwed me over. It occurred to me this afternoon that this is the last Friday evening that I will spend either waiting around for David to get here or driving back home. As of tomorrow, we'll be living in the same city, and soon enough after that in the same apartment. Weird. But nice. |
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| do what we came to do |
[Jun. 25th, 2008|03:52 pm] |
I propose to elevate the status of "conversate" from a Biggie-perpetrated malaprop to a legitimate member of the lexicon (though I think it could be argued, ye prescriptivist tightasses, that there is really no such thing as a "Biggie-perpetrated malaprop," only usage and syntax that we did not yet know was correct until he uttered it. I feel the same way about R Kelly; this is why I know for sure that it's "butt-" and not "buck-naked").
I was admonishing my American male model colleague for having lived in Paris for almost a year and not learned a lick of French. His defense: "Why try? No matter how much you learn, there's always going to be the point where you go [comical shrug of incomprehension]." What a ridiculous and wrongheaded way to live, but what an apt definition of "conversatation": a conversation destined for eventual incomprehension by virtue of one or both parties' incomplete grasp of the language in use.
I'm not going anywhere with this; I just thought about it a lot during my last couple of days in China as I strove to conversate in Mandarin. My tiny mental magnetic poetry set of verbs and nouns provided a surprisingly wide variety of mix-n-match meanings, but it was still frustrating how quickly I reached the [comical shrug] point in all conversatations. Also, I studied Learn Mandarin audiotapes on my iPod and had a couple of sentences memorized with impeccable tonality, giving some people the impression that I really spoke the language; I hated being aware of the realization slowly creeping over someone that, "Oh, this bitch is just conversating."
Anyway, it was such a good month (physical discomfort on jobs notwithstanding). Did you know that the way to say "owl" in Chinese is "cat head hawk"? Excellent little tidbits like that made every leaping ladypose in every bedazzled acrylic turtleneck so, so worth it.
Last few pics from China.
Broom pedaler:
Hot frog oviduct soup in papaya, anyone? It's "good for the skin"! (I think my date ordered this to shock me; however, I had already seen it in 7-11 and didn't blink. Taste was neither froggy nor eggy, just spongy and bland; if not told, I never would have guessed that it didn't come from a plant).
If you won't have the soup but are still craving something genital: a MONS beer.
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| You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. |
[Jun. 25th, 2008|01:08 am] |
Today's (yesterday's) dinosaur comic is too funny. ( FASCISM! )
Edit: I also just learned from wikipedia that Tom Reynolds (aka: The Devil, Jr.) is originally from Bellefonte. Somehow, I am not surprised that that man is from Central PA. |
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| Mood theme, whee! |
[Jun. 24th, 2008|05:47 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | bsc | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  geeky | ] |
New mood theme, yay! I've been working on it sporadically for ages, but I finally managed to finish it. No duplicates or anything; they're all filled with unique images! I realized that I don't use moods as much as I used to because I was bored with the Simpsons one. And in truth, I haven't really watched that show in ages, anyway. |
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| *dies* |
[Jun. 24th, 2008|12:34 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  hysterical | ] |
Hahahahahahah, Joe Clifford added me as a Facebook friend. |
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| If I believed in owning personal firearms, you'd be in trouble. |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|02:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
I hate birds with every fiber of my being. I wouldn't mind them so much if they had the decency to start chirping at a respectable hour. Like, oh, say 10:00 or something. But no. WEE ooh WEE ooh WEE ooh WEE ooh WEEEEE! 5am. WEE OOO WEE OOOH WEE OOOH WEE OOH WEEE! Over and over and over. Echoing off the walls of the courtyard. WEE OOH WEE OOH WEE OOH WEE OOH WEEEE! What is so important that you must announce it to the world at an ungodly hour, you stupid, stupid bird? |
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| my biznass |
[Jun. 22nd, 2008|11:59 pm] |
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I'm back in Hong Kong! If you are a client in need of some grade-A ladypose (or if you are a Vitasoy Malted Soymilk tycoon and require a spokesmodel or an escort to the annual Soymilk Ball), you can request my services through my new agency, Model One. |
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| run come save me |
[Jun. 21st, 2008|01:34 am] |
I went in to my agency yesterday; my booker said, "Elyse, you can arrive at your job at 1:00pm tomorrow, or you can go at noon and the client will take you to lunch."
"I choose lunch, please."
She called to inform the client, then covered the mouthpiece of the phone: "They want to know what kind of food you like." How nice! I said, "Spicy."
I skipped brekkie and arrived at the job, all, "Hi guys! Where are we going to eat?"
"Start the makeup."
No mention of my spicy food, nor any food at all, nor indeed water or any stopping until all the pastel pleather boleros had been thoroughly ladyposed in. Do you know what it is to change pantyhose forty times? Forcing a lower half that wears size "Q" in L'Eggs into miniscule tights made for Chinese legs, sweating, rolling the waistband over sweaty ass cheeks, giving up pulling any more when the crotchal lemniscate spans somewhere around mid-thigh, sliding the pleather jodhpurs on over that, ladypose ladypose ladypose big pose action pose, Chinese boy band blaring from the stereo, "Model, change!", strip off the jodhpurs, thumbs under the waistband of the stockings, peel, stand on one leg and strip them off entirely, grab the next pair and start gathering it up to insert the naked foot and begin yanking anew, all in a frantic hurry with three dark heads bobbing around at tit level, six grabby hands pulling and tugging and unzipping at sundry other garments the whole time. And the hairstylist reaching over everyone to forcefully right the askew wig. There, two pair down. Now the third, now the fifth, now the eleventh, twenty through twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one. Getting tired. Ripped the thirty-fifth, oops.
Speed cataloggin'! The reason that every model who's been to China knows how to say "Hurry up! Hurry up!" in Mandarin. "Kuài dian! Kuài dian!" I think I make my speed catalog jobs more strenuous on myself because I'm excessively vain about changing clothes so fast that I never hear "Kuài dian." What a ridiculous skill to have honed.
Anyway, I threw the fortieth pair of pantyhose on the floor, staggered out of the job crazed with hunger and made for the nearest street meat. These aren't even half of the pictures I took while slavering on my lipglossed chops, waiting for it to be ready. The lady smeared a layer of batter over the griddle, flipped it over, cracked an egg on top and spread that around with her little bamboo spatula.
Do I want chili (two kinds)? Yes. Onions? Yes. Lettuce leaf? Yes.
I burned my finger poking this aperture. I burned my head trying to climb through it into Narnia.
For your reference: client + designer + assistant + makeup artist + hairstylist = ten grabby hands. That's a lot of grabbin'!
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pensive
impressed
anxious
tired