From the ice age to the dole age, there is but one concern. I have just discovered: I have to remove the tinting from my car windows before I can get it registered. Damn.

Flagg is kvetching like he was born to whine. He goes from pressing his nose against the glass door and staring as if God Himself were descending from heaven into my back yard, to looking back at me imploringly with all the passion of a mother pleading for the life of her child, to calling out with a voice like that of a man who is dying of thirst, to rushing over to my chair and jumping on the back and pawing at my face and pointing at the door and saying, "let me out, let me out, let me out. Bee-yitch." He kvetches like he got a doctorate in the subject. Little user. Why couldn't he be more like his brother Mulder, Best Cat in World?

I'm almost certainly asking the wrong people, but has anyone who reads this seen the show Six Feet Under? And if so, do you happen to agree that it's an excellent drama, but that dramas make for bad television? By the way, if you read this, please comment "yes" or "no", just so I can tell for sure. It's important, goddamit.

For anyone who cares, the All Music Guide review of Bright Eyes' two 2005 albums is the first honest assesment of his carreer that I've seen. He's been getting a free ride so far: immediately placed on NPR's "All Songs Considered" list of best songs of 2005, glorified by critics both indie and mainstream, and eaten up by unthinking indie rock fans (Febbie Steve, Josh Kazmin, that chick Elise from Barnes and Noble who Scott met). And he isn't even . . . talented. It's a long review, and I give you permission to scan it or, hell, not read it; but one that made me feel deeply pleased at finally seeing an independent and intelligent reviewer say that it's reasonable to disdain the dude. Ah, nothing like a good hatchet job of someone I sense I don't like.

Rather than simply say he's no Dylan or Springsteen, the review says why: ". . . Oberst is as precious as Paul Simon, but without any sense of rhyme or meter or gift for imagery, puking out lines filled with cheap metaphors and clumsy words that don't scan." Ah, yes, lyrical vomit. In this instance, I think, it was the right choice to go with the puking image rather than fall back on the tired diarrhea metaphor. My favorite line, for its disdainful implication and astute cultural criticism: "He's leapfrogged over Chris Carrabba in Dashboard Confessional to be the figurehead for how certain strands of modern rock is judged solely on whether it's a personal emotional expression or not, never taking into account such niceties as craft, in either music or lyrics, or in the sheer impact of the music." Truth! Just look at all that truth. Craft is exactly what Bright Eyes lacks, and it would be ok if he were at least intelligent, but he isn't. The two star ratings might be excessively low, but then again, they might not. Would anyone be hearing these albums if Oberst weren't a master of marketing?

Last year I received an email from Paypal informing me that a class action lawsuit against Paypal had resulted in a damages payment and that I was eligible for a small portion of it by virtue of the fact that I had signed up for Paypal before the class action lawsuit was initiated. I have no idea what the case was about--I have a vague recollection that it had something to do with improper withholding of information from certain Paypal members, although I didn't understand it at the time, either--but I downloaded an affadavit that I had become a Paypal member before some date in 2003, sent it to the address they had given me, and forgot about it.

About a month ago, I got another email from Paypal telling me that the money had been distributed, and that my Paypal account now had an $8 positive balance. It had been in my account since then, essentially the only non-family money I'd gotten since the library job ended.

Tonight, after being alerted by a text message from Anne, I found an entry on Daily Kos reporting that, as a result of the Homeland Security Department, the Red Cross has had no presence in New Orleans. One of the reasons HSD gave for keeping the Red Cross away is that the presence of food, water and medical aid would discourage people from evacuating the city. (Fun game: can you spot the absurdity?)

Among the hundreds of comments to this post, some people questioned the appropriateness of an organization called Liberal Blogs for Hurricane Relief, whose goal is to raise $1,000,000 from the readers of liberal blogs and donate it to the Red Cross. Of course, the Red Cross may not be in New Orleans, but they are nevertheless providing relief to those who have made it out. It's frustrating in the extreme, but there don't seem to be organizations for whom it would be more appropriate to solicit donations than for the Red Cross. I don't think liberal bloggers would feel more comfortable donating to FEMA, for example.

You've probably figured out by now where my Paypal $8 went. I looked at the page I linked to above and saw that they were asking for donations through Paypal. I had wanted to donate to the Red Cross, but since I'm broke, anything I gave would essentially be my parents' money, and they're already planning to make a donation. I had forgotten about the Paypal money until I saw the page.

It's hard for me to express how my donation made me feel. Being broke, miles away from the crisis and unconnected with any people bringing help to the victims, I am limited to the following responses: I can either get as much information as I can about what is going on now and hope that the situation improves, or I can attempt to put my mind on other things. The one other action I was able to take was to give a paltry contribution with the only means at my disposal to an organization whose legitimacy I had just seen questioned.

It was an easy decision to make, but if anything, it reinforces my feelings of powerlessness.

I just got an email from Polewach in which he told me that he "think(s) everyone who likes learning and needs money should go to grad school and be a t.a. and study, as long as they're prepared for what it's going to be like and can combat the dangers of the system without getting kicked out of it." That's John, all right.

If I were Franz Kafka, it's true that I would hate myself, would not know Anne, would be consumptive, would fear that I was inadequte in my mid-level government position, would have awful creaking headaches all the time, and would never be able to sleep when I wanted to. But damn, would I be able to write! One short paragraph of his writing has the ability to control my mood for hours.

Then again, if I were Franz Kafka, I couldn't be Tim Kile.

I am about to check job listings in New York City. I can say this already: the NY posts on Craig's list are a hell of a lot more interesting than those for Baltimore.

Lately my night walks have been punctuated by people calling out to me from passing cars. They always do this psychically, I suppose, as I myself idly wonder where pedestrians are going and what they are like. These calls are rather different, though, more akin to Jess's surreal "nice book, bitch." I just came back from one of the circular walks, hugging the increasingly limited forest that surrounds a new community in the area, and a passenger in a speeding car called out, "slut!" Last week, it was "hey, faggot!" I wonder what I would think if I were, in fact, a slutty faggot. I guess I'd have to conclude that these were some very perceptive and chatty people driving by me, who perhaps felt obligated to label the things they saw, much like Adam in the first days of Eden.

Along Main Street in Ellicott City, the trend is for drivers to throw trash at me. I haven't gotten anything of value yet, just some soda bottles and a bannana peel, but I still have hope. I may not get an iPod, but maybe someone will hurl, say, a usable air conditioning unit or a crate of avacados.

The dogs are barking and what's done is done.

If Ingmar Bergman were here right now, I would buy him a soda
I'd buy him a soda
I'd buy him a soda and then I'd molest him in the parking lot yep yep yep

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

HA!

Hal-le-lu-jah,
(unh!)
Halle-luuu-jah
(oh, oh, oh)
Hal-le-lujah
(a-hooooooooooooooooo!)
Halle-luuuuuuuuuuuuu-jah

I'm really starting to doubt my analytical abilities. Today I finished Barry Miles's biography of Burroughs, in which he briefly lays out the essentials of narrative being driven by changes in consciousness. I had never quite pieced it together so fully. When the speaker's mood changes, the perspective changes to the extent that, in a more traditional book, it would be considered a different speaker altogether. Dedicated adherence to the narrator's consciousness produces nonlinear narrative; events are interpreted in such a way that there is no explanation of causes, if the narrator is not focused on these causes. This isn't the same as "stream of consciousness", which Burroughs defines as a transcript of subvocalization, the words and images that constantly pass through a person's mind without being spoken.

Burroughs's writing is rather different from earlier experiments in represententing consciousness. In the writing of Joyce, for example, the narrative is driven by the consciousness of a particular character, and is written as if the book is inside the character's head. In Woolf, it is less tied to a character, more of a disembodied third-person consciousness with occasional forays into one character or another. Burroughs is closer to Woolf, although the consciousness in question is more that of the author, and he allows himself considerably more room in the way of uncensored, total access to the mind in its full range of thoughts. He is much more open about sexual fantasies, in particular; in addition, he includes the tendency of the mind to combine reality with subconscious dream imagery. His books often include elements of science fiction and fantasy, more or less formally, and when informal, this is a result of combining his mind with the text to such an extent that it effectively manifests his subconscious.

Now, I could certainly analyze this further now that I have a basic model (already have), but the fact that I didn't already have this level of awareness distresses me somewhat. For a while, I've been idly considering a written project in which the consciousnesses of the characters come to the fore, and yet I was never clear what this would mean. Moreover, even after reading Hegel, Freud, etc., I never had a complete concept of the significance of their projects. Of course, I wouldn't say that I have this complete concept now, either. I can't tell how much of this is a failing on my part, and how much is simply a matter of not yet having taken the time to do much serious analysis.

Then, I had a further realization while reading Miles's bio of Kerouac: one could consider Kerouac's books to be early postmodern fiction, given that they make use of fiction, memoir, the occasional section of meaningless sounds, real conversations, etc. It is, of course, a hallmark of postmodern art to combine, and sometimes deconstruct, genres and mediums. The other half of postmodern art usually involves being aware of these actions, and allowing this awareness to influence the work. In this respect, Kerouac is completely removed from the postmoderns, as he's so caught up in himself and, ultimately, so adolescent that this doesn't seem to occur to him in the least. Nevertheless, even if I didn't think Kerouac's books had any other literary merit (and I think they do), they would be significant for this alone. They are one of the earliest examples of these important postmodern tendencies.

Yet, partially as a result of a biased introduction to Kerouac in my late teens, and partially because I never did much serious thinking about it, I had no awareness of this aspect of his work until seeing it suggested in Miles's bio. His book was the first serious analysis of Kerouac's work that I've read, the first that actually criticizes and analyzes. It's given me a rather intriguing avenue of inquiry, as well as a decent framework to use.

I spent the day sitting in an office in the lobby of a building on Charles St., reading Barthelme and the New York Times and writing prose sketches, catering to the needs of an obsessive, looming property owner. A one-off, extremely temporary job, just a few hours yesterday and 9-5 today, due to the anything-but-absentee property owner's odd-ball policy of ending all of his leases on July 31st. The leering, preening, grasping owner wanted people in the office and in the back watching the doors and preventing damage. As it happened, only two people moved out while I was there, and the most worthwhile thing I did all day (from the perspective of the paranoid, shiftless, nosy owner) was buying the peering, insectile owner a lemonade from a coffee shop a few blocks from the building. At the end of the day, the batty, prickly spook of an owner offered to recommend me to a friend of his, a vice president at Agora publishing, one of the places where I happen to have applied for a job. It's good to have base friends in high places.

And then, there it was. It had been right in front of me this whole time, and I just hadn't seen it. And it was so simple! That's what it meant when I washed my hands for hours on end, that's why I had to tie my shoelaces in a clockwise manner. Of course! I was acting out the suicide of my cat!

Thank you, Freudian analyst!

Here I don't want to move, and there Lance Armstrong goes showing me up yet again.

I have a new haircut, gotten with the intention of looking more professional so that job interviewers think that I am reliable. It will deliver the message that I take life and formal relationships seriously. Its composed follicles and layered structure will make such a strong impression that the most seasoned judger of qualifications will be powerless against it. My hair is my best spokesman. It will remain unflappable and relentlessly promote my cause, even if my face betrays me by grimacing, my hands turn traitor and attempt to strangle the armrests, or my aura chooses to switch from gentle to cagey. My hair will politely communicate to the interviewer and the world that the person it's decided to bedeck is worthy of trust. It will inspire people with confidence in me, will direct them to consider that I clearly have good taste, and also have the necessary agility and consideration to apply mousse and a rigorous combing. It will soothe the soul of everyone I encounter, even as it impresses them with the obvious signs of my excellence. Do not understimate my hair, for it is persuasive and it will overcome. It is both sexy and composed, strong and gentle, confident and inquisitive, bold and nuanced, firm and supple. My hair is better than you, and it knows it, but it isn't patronizing. The legacy of my hair will be as expansive and bright as the night sky. For generations to come, children will be told the story of my hair and its great deeds; historians will debate which of its accomplishments were the greatest; legions of imitators will desperately struggle to capture even a small fragment of my hair's magic; the fashion world will study every tuck and splendorous wave of my glorious locks; poets will sing my hair's beauty and bravery to all corners of the earth.

It's two years later and I'm finally ready to say it: Elephant is a godawful awesome album. Just a real knockout. At the time, I was terrifically underwhelmed. I basically thought it had no good qualities at all. I thought each song was poorly developed and leaning toward weak, and that the album had bad pacing as a whole. I thought that the copious overdubs killed the feeling that Jack's songs had had up to that point. I thought there were no original ideas, no real expansion as a band.

My God.

Every record critic seems to have a "What the hell was I thinking?" moment. As a critical listener of music, this was mine.

I take it all back. Sorry, Jack White.

A conversation held between two go players after I had left a game I won by over a hundred points (not that I'm boasting):

Nimphy [24k]: sukkel
Wiskid [12k]: heheh
Wiskid [12k]: heeft blijkbaar een ego-boost nodig of ze
Nimphy [24k]: ja lach maar
Wiskid [12k]: *zo
Nimphy [24k]: dag 23k
Wiskid [12k]: die ranking komt echt wel
Nimphy [24k]: denk dat ik maar naar bed ga
Wiskid [12k]: mag ik ff control?

I think this is Dutch. Babel fish doesn't know the word "sukkel", but I can guess. The rest is
Wiskid: "Apparantly he had to have an ego-boost."
Nimphy: "Well of course, ha ha."
Wiskid: "Indeed."
Nimphy: "23k day."
Wiskid: "The ranking really comes, however."
Nimphy: "I think I'm going to bed."
Wiskid: Something like "You think I can control it?"

I am requesting a transcript so that I can apply to work for the federal government. I am not at all sure that this is a good idea, but it causes anxiety, which can not be overstated in terms of awesomeness. If I were a religious man, I'd ask Jesus whether he likes hotdogs.