inertia ...

a few weeks ago chuck told me that i was inertia: in motion, i tend to stay in motion; at rest i want to stay at rest. nonscientifically this means that i never want to go to bed and i never want to wake up once i do.

this past week i was definitely at rest. and by the time i was bored by my own lack of motion, i got a throbby drippy sneezy cold and it hurt my hair to be in motion. bah!

in other news:

NEW FAVORITE BANDS!
the teenagers: Reality Check: this is french pop music with naughty lyrics and pop culture references and i love it. “If Shannen Doherty stayed on 90210/Maybe she would have never met Alyssa Milano"

EVERYONE SHOULD READ WHAT I READ ON THE INTERNET!
"just asking ... chuck klosterman": [via] this fun Q&A with you-know-who goes into the T&F of "downtown owl." this novel had so many mini stories going on, and i wondered about the genesis of a lot of them, for instance the kissing triangle, as the interviewer refers to it. you know, i'm starting to think that i feel exactly the same way about chuck klosterman as i do about diablo cody. i may need therapy.

"mysteries: Who hired this private eye to investigate me": gawker's hamilton nolan learns that he is being investigated and turns around and investigates the investigator, including photos and home phone numbers. this is pretty frickin' funny.

MOVIES
Repulsion 1965: roman polanski's first english movie is about a woman's rapid schizophrenic tumble. but first it includes long stretches of her slack jawed, staring off into space or walking down the street. then her sister goes on a trip with her married boyfriend and our hero very rapidly loses her mind. and this part makes you forget the previous hour of tedium.

The Amateurs 2005: ted danson, jeff bridges, the wholesome brother from "wings,"that sassy mom from gilmore girls and the ever-more-homely kid from "almost famous" made this seem like a titanic "this is your life in moving pictures" overview. hapless jeff bridges decides that the thing he has to do is make a porn -- using his small town friends as the crew. bridges' folksy voice over makes it seem like it's going to be a hallmark movie, and in the final scenes it probably technically is. had i not just seen the worst movie in the world [the smithereens] this would get the obvious nod for that title.

Iron Man (Ultimate Two-Disc Edition) [Blu-ray] 2008: equal parts interesting and hokey, robert downey jr. plays tony stark a techno genius who invents gadgets and weapons for the military. after he is ambushed and has to fight his way to freedom, he has a change of heart. he invents the iron man suit and becomes a sort of super hero. god i love robert downey.

STUPID TV
"the hills": trying to understand the motivations of lauren conrad is like solving the puzzle on the back of a cereal box. basically, what she is saying is, it is not okay for her friend to date her ex but it is okay for her to have dated him, even though he is friends with her ex. got it?

"90210": anxiously awaiting a luke perry sighting. it's getting closer. i can almost hear that sexy whisper over the sound of my pending disappointment of what life has done to his face. and what a post aaron spelling hollywood has done to his character.

"one tree hill": stephen king must be so pissed. first chanelling misery, then the shining. luckily this is some mint tv.

"dirty sexy money": donald sutherland is so far the only guest on my fantasy celebrity dinner party list. this is suddenly my favorite show. it's like gossip girl without the

READIN'
Story of My Life In August, it became national news that there was a Jay McInerney novel that I had somehow overlooked. I thought I had McInerney covered — I even read his winefesto Hedonist in the Cellar for the love of God — and here was a novel-novel, probably set in New York City in the ’80s, probably filled with a cast of coke fiend scenesters, and probably something I should have read years ago.

Story of my Life is written from the perspective of 20-year-old Alison Poole, a party girl and aspiring actress. She is a slightly nasally uptalker, who drops a lot of “like” and “rights?” and “and then he goes, so I go …” into the running monologue that is this story.

Like the other women in her girl posse, Alison has grown accustomed to a certain father-financed lifestyle, but lately his check-writing trigger finger has slowed. She gets resourceful, in one scene pinching smarmy ex-fling Skip Pendleton for $1,000 cash to abort a fictitious pregnancy, then using the money for tuition.

This is truly the See Dick Run novel of the McInerney collection

full review here.

OCTSOBER GOALS
david foster wallace project: i played bumbley fumbley with an essay on ... um ... tv and maybe irony for awhile from "a supposidely fun thing i'll never do again" and had the sudden realization that hey! this is my independent study of david foster wallace. if i don't want to read an essay that isn't interesting to me, i don't have to!

how liberating.

now i've spent half the week reading various things online and a very complete essay about the 1993 illinois state fair.

for those who want to play along at home:

"consider the lobster": coverage of the maine lobster fest turns into an essay on the morality of eating lobsters. filled with fun factoids. i actually wretched once. [and actually haven't eaten meat since i read it. i think that's an accident.]

the view from mrs. thompson's: a non new york 9/11 story.