Observation

Can you believe it? We are old enough to be factota. How crazy!

Pale Liar, Liar

So, you're not supposed to begin any sentence with the word "so." Nor. Neither. Am I really writing? If I could put a footnote somewhere, I wouldn't. No. I refuse to write with an eye toward the intertextual. Since I've been cursing a shitload in other writing assignments that I've given myself lately out of supreme and utter and magnificent and here I am wasting my time am I. Am I. 

After the first paragraph. I don't read on after the thesis usually. When I read other people's shit. Therefore, imagine you're me for a second. You sit down to edit someone's manuscript - i.e. Nabokov or Fitzgerald (your choice I don't really give a shit actually I do ( give a shit) what? Nabokov it is. So, I'm sitting in my New York Penthouse Apartment with three hookers and three butlers and three eyes because you can buy those two on the street get it cuz i'm cyclopean dude. I'm gonna go all cummings over this shit...just like a whole essayistic thing kept within the confines of parenthetical means and weighs like a ball of Godard's spit.)

I sit down with the rough, rough, rough, rough (to give you an idea of how rough this draft is, I'll tell you a little anecdote from my days on the moon, well, I never lived on the moooooooon, so scrap that. Let's talk about something more simplistic) draft of Nabokov's Pale Tire. No, it's Pale Wire? Pale Mire? Pale Sire? YES. It's Pale Sire. NO. Pale Liar, Liar. That's it. Starring Jim Carrey. 

I read this atrocious screenplay by Nabokov. Pale Liar, Liar. A kafkaesque reconfiguration of Liar, Liar. Neither a sequel nor a prequel. It's a new genre. Nabokov had to die and resurrect himself with his bare teeth in order to spark this explosion of a genre. It's only an idea though. Didn't think this shit through much. Dumbass Nabokov. The fucking thing was in the form of index cards. Like three of them. With dialogue, int, ext shit. Whatever. I'll include a snippet for you. 

INT DAY HELL

Jim Carrey's Character: Hey, aren't you Vladimir Nabokov?

Vlad: Don't think so. Do I have his chin or something?

Jim Carrey's Character: Yes, yes. You also have his entire face.

Vlad: Oh, I didn't know that. On earth, some jackass named orpheus banished all of the mirrors. I suppose that a mirror could have solved this problem. 

Jim Carrey's Character: I suppose. Anyway. I best be on my way. I have a little boy to lie to.

Vlad: Wait. Wait. I can't let you do that. 

Jim Carrey's Character: What? Fuck you. Who do think you are?

Vlad: Well, I know who you think I am. I'm world-renowned famous big shot writer guy Vladimir Nabokov, author of This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby.

Jim Carrey's Character: Fitzgerald wrote those. You wrote Pale Fire, Lolita, and Pale Liar, Liar, this movie, which we are currently acting in.

Vlad: So, let me get this straight. I'm the writer of this movie?

Jim Carrey's Character: Yes. 

Vlad: So, I can't let you go lie to that little boy of yours. You're not allowed to lie. I put a spell on you. Poof. Tada. Ladeeda.

Jim Carrey's Character: Fuck you, Vladimir Nabokov. Will you sign my first edition copy of Pale Fire?

Vlad: Who should I make it out to? 

Jim Carrey's Character: Jim Carrey's Character.

Vlad: Oh, okay. Anything special you want me to say to him?

Jim Carrey's Character: I, world-renowned famous big shot writer guy, Vladimir Nabokov, hereby allow Jim Carrey's Character to lie again.

Vlad: Sorry, can't do that. The script won't let me. 

Jim Carrey's Character: What the hell are you talking about? You wrote the script. 

Vlad: No, I didn't write the script. Vladimir Nabokov, the real person, wrote the script. I'm just Vladimir Nabokov's Character.

Jim Carrey's Character: Oh, that's not fair.

Vlad: Of course it's not. I made the rules. I mean, the real version of me made the rules?

Anyway, that piece of shit of a script plopped onto my desk the other day. Nabokov wanted me to make the damn thing, get a script doctor on it, get 1000 monkeys in a room with typewriters and finish the thing. And you know what I said to Mr. Nabokov?

Brian Sherwin's Character: I'll do whatever you say Mr. Nabokov. Just don't write me into one of your shitty scripts.

Vlad: I just did. Ahahahahahahahaahahahaahaha. 

Yeah, so Nabokov is omnipotent. Who knew. Now, I'm in his shitty kafkaesque reconfiguration of Liar, Liar. Guess who's playing me. Mac Krumpak. 

Dudes, WTH

Has the blog died? Please, write things on the blog if you have time. I'd like to hear from everyone that reads this, and I assume that there are still others that check the blog religiously, as I do. Tell me what you think of your first years. I am jealous of their youth. But I am petty, and you are probably not. Tell me about your escapades in second year. I miss you all.

hullo hullo

I wonder if you guys still read this often. I miss you!

Here's something I just came across, pretty cool I think (especially the sticky bot thing):

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/aug/04-3-robots-that-move-just-like-animals?source=mag

WHEN GREAT MINDS COME TOGETHER

Please, excuse the pretension of the title.

It's been so long since we've had a post. Summer can't have you that busy. (Well, maybe, we are after all TASPers, who above all, are busy getting some.)

But, there is finally an occasion this summer that demands a blog post: Katlin and Julieta are in the same place for the first time since August 2007! There have been many such reunions among all of us but this too-short TASPer frolic in it's final moments before we had to say goodbye brought forth a brilliant plan. So here goes:

We've always talked about TASP reunions (we mean all of 34 of us as the factotos don't get out of this one) but along with the dream of having one hell of a swinging TASPer rendezvous (according to spell check this is one word in English--wth?) was the reality of how impossible it would be to get so many people in one place at the same time. So, as we (J & K) drove around the parking lot where we waited for Julieta's aunt to come pick her up, we began to rattle on about a road trip. We started thinking about what the best drive would be and Katlin said something about driving across the United States. And then Julieta said something like "I want to go to New England too. And we should visit the Harvard-Yale-MIT kids." And then friends, it turned into an all out pick-up-every-TASPer-and-factotum road trip. Oh yeah. We would buy the bio-diesel bus off this guy Julieta knows who pretty much drives around the US running on what he gets from McDonald's greasiest deep frying baskets. We would start in Texas (because I said so...I guess. It seems like as good as any place to start at wait no, in Florida so that we get Niko). And head west. Pick up Big Mac and Linda in Tempe (if they were not at school of course, in which case maybe we could chill with their parents). Keep heading west. Break Dylan out of Deep Springs and forced gofer-slaughtering by busting through the gates (they must have gates, right? how else would anyone stay??)and sweeping him into our crazy-ass bus. Keep heading west hit up the rest of Cali getting everyone at Stanford and Berkley...maybe work on the tan at the beach--not that Julieta needs one--and go to Tijuana one night to get drunk and hopefully not killed). Um, drive east. MIDWEST TIME!! And we wouldn't go through Iowa for no reason--Brian Sherwin, check! Next pick up everyone at UChicago (yes, we pick Mac up twice dammit) and stir up a storm to rival the Blues Brother's police car chase. Keep heading east. And northish (we aren't exactly looking at a map this moment). Visit the ivies and thumb our noses at the rich brats clad in Lacoste and Ralph Lauren (actually we don't know what the hell they wear but whatever)and pick up about a third of the missing TASPers and make picking up Ibrahim really fast because there is more on NYC to come. Next reunite the original rule-breaking uber-exclusive couple (Chanel and Joe! We'd probably wouldn't have to go to both Rochester and Syracuse since I imagine they would already be reunited). At this point we should have all TASPers. We'd do this circut so that somehow we'd get to Cornell last (wait no, Olivia would be the last one!). And bust into the House by way of the kitchen pretending to be rowdy frat boys and drunken sorority girls and then refuse to leave until we had the house to ourselves. What exactly we do there is up to us. But two things are mandatory: trip to Collgetown Bagels and sunset at the peace sign--and this time, hell, we might accept that joint. After getting bored in Ithaca...onto NYC! We should just get stuck in traffic in the city and have a party raging inside the bus all night long. Finally drive all the way down to Miami and party the night away in the land of Valentine and maybe, if we're feeling daring visit Havana (although maybe V Fernandez would disapprove). And then it would be goodbyes and most likely terrible hangovers and then some tears and many, many facebook albums.

WE LOVE YOU! YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN!

Katlin & Julieta

(this is posted from Julieta's account because Katlin is having issues with posting on her account)

P.S. Katlin starts West Point on June 29th. Send her letters of encouragement (yes letters, as she has no internet access until Aug. 15th) at the address posted on facebook.

P.P.S. Julieta will be in Paris starting July 1st for about a month. If you are in Europe get your ass down to the city of lights and home of the triplets of Bellville to see her.

P.P.P.S. And if you want postcards from France post your address!

It was a dark and stormy night...

and then Laura Kling came to Chicago and made the sun come out! (This was strangely accurate) [I observed the same, too, myself! Almost uncanny...]

So today was the U Chicago spring festival, the one with lots of free popcorn and cotton candy and giant hamster balls (People tried to run into each other in them. It was sort of ridiculous.) and a mechanical bull and Broken Social Scene and LOTS of hipsters. 

So many hipsters.

Maybe too many hipsters. [This and the previous statements are not even invalid. Also hipster-crowding-into-a-vent-in-the-library was a Scav Hunt item!]

(Actually, there were less hipsters than usual for UChi, which was still more than usual for Yale. The hipster stomping ground in front of Cobb was quite forlorn. But of course Laura didn't know that until we told her.)

Definitely too many pairs of salmon-colored pants. (And by 'too many' Laura actually means two. Which, admittedly, is two too many.) 

Definitely not enough TASPers. Since we miss you. (This,too, is accurate.) [Mm-hmm! Emphatically. We send you transcendental hugs.]

Anyway, we met one of Mac's friends. We're pretty sure he's a serial killer. He was hanging out in the library during the festival, when he should've been running through the inflatable obstacle course (or riding the plastic bull). 

Mac says he's not a real friend of his. That he's unsavory. (Mac knows. He's tasted him.)

So then we went to Chinatown and bought a couple of wooden swords (and had an epic sword fight.) [with a weird straw Asian-looking hat] Then we were obvious tourists. (Arguably, we were obvious tourists from the moment we bought the swords. Or, we were awesome. Probably not.) [But probably so.]

Apparently one time, for the university's scavenger hunt, some kids built a working nuclear reactor (in a 2005 TASPer's room.) [Only a trivial distance away as we speak right now!]

They didn't win.

[Humbert Humbert was married to some gal for some 50 days, says Mac.]

You have to guess who's who. Hint: One of the UChicago TASPers is really, really lazy. Hint: It's clearly not Kim or Rachel. Hint: It's clearly also not Laura. Clearly.

Krzysztof

I was trying to text Mac Krumpak's name, and after I entered "kr" the phone autocompleted to "krzysztof." This is clearly not what I meant. Oh my gosh.