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By
Thanh Christopher Nguyen
14 Jun 2004
I’m done with Thompson’s GENERATION OF SWINE. It was good, but has thus left me with the itch, once again, for fiction at its finest. In lou of last weeks comment about crack smokers being better than others, I have picked up Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. This book was given to me years ago, by a fellow admirer of the printed word, but I never read it because I had my head too far up the cracks of VOnnegut’s many works. I think I’m going to like this book, and can definately see why. In case any of you would like something interesting to read, and rich of language, I think this could be a good one. You can wait a couple of days to a week and ask me about the whole, or you can race me to finish it. Here’s something to entice you…
(The first page)
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. SHe was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always LOlita.
DId she have a precursor? SHe did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no LOlita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? ABout as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fance prose style.
LAdies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.
V. NAbokov, LOLITA (Pg. 1)
THere’s just too much richness to consider this anything but a misfortune that I have not read it sooner. (Forgive the double capitals, this keyboard at work is not very nice.)
By
Thanh Christopher Nguyen
11 Jun 2004
It never fails. I knew posting that pic of me with the cigarette would get me into trouble. Diana gave me a little friendly harassment at work today about it. Now I am the druggie burnout. Ha! I told them I was a straight-edge, but of course, no one believed me. I always make these comments and do things that half-bite me in the ass. I once made a comment about smoking crack. In my junior year of college someone in an english class was talking about smoking pot in the dormatories, and getting caught. I asked her why she didn’t put a towel by the door, and then I went off in a tangent. “I don’t understand why crack isn’t more predominant in dormatories and with highschoolers. It’s odorless, tasteless, and about as cheap.” This caught the attention of my professor, but more importantly, a girl I wanted to shag. “Ah well… Better a crack head than a pedefile,” they say.
By
Thanh Christopher Nguyen
10 Jun 2004
How do I get it to post to my journal without posting to the main page, so you don’t have to surf through garbage like I wrote today? Or should I just stop writing garbage? Yes… You know… I think I wrote this just because I wanted to say the word garbage in my head… over and over. Garrr-bage. Garbage.
By
Thanh Christopher Nguyen
10 Jun 2004
Hmmm? I don’t feel like reading, for some reason. I don’t feel like writing, and there isn’t much to do after seven in the morning, except Re-Q a couple of tapes for a cut-in tease for the noon news, and wait for the 25 and 55 minutes, to go punch something into the teleprompter. When I get there, I feel like I should be snorting coke like it’s free, and after seven in the morning, I feel like I should OD on the stuff, because there’s nothing better to do.
<p>Everyone asks me if I like my job, and I say, I don’t dislike it. It’s like saying you’re dating someone because there’s no one better to date, or something like that. It’s a definate indication that I should be doing something else.</p>
<p>I’m still waiting to hear back from Nova. I’d like to go work in Japan, teaching English for a couple of years and working on a screenplay and a TV show portfolio. I just may become an RA in Limestone for a year, just to get the other side of the coin, and to refresh things in my mind for a story I’d like to write based on the experiences.</p>
<p>My friend moved out to Seattle, and didn’t even call to say goodbye. That sucked. </p>
<p>My sister and Kellee (www.kelleeart.com) are getting along well. I’m glad, and I hope Manda moves to Florida, because I bet the two of them would raise hell together, and I could go visit and the three of us would most likely cause the end of the world. If Kellee were my soul-mate, and Amanda were my twin, then the three of us combined would be f’n Voltron or something.</p>
<p>You know what I love? The thick smell of lilacs as I drive down the Georgia highway.</p>
By
Thanh Christopher Nguyen
04 Jun 2004
I’ve been reading Hunter S. Thompson’s GENERATION OF SWINE. It’s very entertaining. It is a collection of his articles from the 80’s, mostly surrounding the political world, but branching out with a strong mechanic’s hand towards everything that puts fear into the hearts of fathers and revelry into the rest of us. I recommend it to almost all readers. It is good in many ways, and for those of you that cannot read for lenghier periods, either because you are too busy, or your attention span is without you, each article is short – articulate. Here are some examples to entice you, you bastards…
<p>“Tenure is short in the fast lane.”<br />
“There is no need for the president of the United States to be smart. Year-end polls show him always to be the ‘best-dressed,’ the most popular, and the most-desired donor to all sperm banks. They laughed at Thomas Edison, but they whimper like dogs when they come to the gate of the White House.”<br />
“The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down.”<br />
“The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.” </p>
By
Thanh Christopher Nguyen
03 Jun 2004
I’ve been building, for years, journals and journals of quotes and passages from my reading. I was thinking, at first, about building a large search engine that would bring up quotes on various topics. I’m sure someone has already done this, and that you can get book after book on quotes with a Topic based Index. But I want my very own. I think I can easily do it with a spreadsheet program. How, Anders, do you have your little keyword thingy set up? If I were a programmer, I’d steal the code, but I’m not a programmer, and I’m well out of the stealings&loans business.
By
Thanh Christopher Nguyen
31 May 2004
“We are all slaves to the water… It is the last pure thing in the world.” -Skinner
<p>“Writing is a hard dollar, but it is a lot better than reaching up inside some maddened cow and grabbing a breeched calf by the legs.” – H.S. Thompson</p>
By
Thanh Christopher Nguyen
31 May 2004
Anchors do wear pants behind the desk, but as soon as the camera is turned off – at every commercial break, and every pre-taped package – they crack jokes, and thoroughly destroy their aura of professional unbiasedness. They sound like high-school trendy people, but they’re awefully nice to my face. Some even draw silly cartoons while delivering the news – yes, on the papers they constantly shuffle (which do actually have things written on them that they seldom pay much attention to). I edit their video. I make them look good and bad, depending on how good or bad the photographer was, and how motivated I feel at three in the morning.
By
Thanh Christopher Nguyen
25 Apr 2004
How the hell do you get diary entries to show up on the main page of my user interface page? Everytime I click on myself, I get that there were no new messages posted, and I’m wondering… Where the hell did that entry go, and then have to find it in my posts.
By
Thanh Christopher Nguyen
25 Apr 2004
http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/morrissey/37/percep.htm