Blue Saturday

Oh. Also. Thank fuck, I did not mention Fingerbanging. But we did end up discussing semiotics at length. What even is my life.

"sometimes the finger is just a finger, you know?"

"Well, the finger is only the Signifier, but the Signified is the weight of sexuality and desire and the symbolic desired phallus..." <- this is so *almost* how it went, but not quite. Thank fuck.

Branwell is yr dn a joke about the tuberculosis

Thorstein Veblen, actually.

Oh I don't know who that is. Well you've prevented me from making a terrible consumption joke anyway

What was the consumption joke.

(Thorstein Veblem invented the concept of "conspicuous consumption" in The Theory of the Leisure Class, which was a bit of a totemic tome I read at a particularly vulnerable stage in my intellectual development. I've been thinking lately about how there is a strand of conspicuous un-consumption in a certain strand of leftie anti-consumerism or whatever, but also, a pun-failure on a misreading of "conscious uncoupling" or whatever. Display names that have to be explained are a failure, but here I am explaining anyway.)

http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/5

cc: hepatic misery thread. I will post in that thread tomorrow when I will be dying but for now just gonna say that video was a help

BB I know the phrase conspicuous consumption obv but I never knew where it originated. There is stuff in the news about cats spreading tb & I had idly considered playing on that and then I saw your sn, just a coincidence really

It's OK, when you don't know where a concept originated, just assume it's the Simpsons, and all of ILX will back you up.

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQljA8VHZVXlatC1Y31rE-k49yDV_dodojhGZmKeLU-wbff6CQzZucBHkDU

wins OTM

It is a fuckin beautiful day in Cambridge. I'm wandering around aimlessly cause I'm sick and locked out of my house still (I haven't been home since Thursday morning). Pretty sure I smell like a chip shop too cause we've been frying crisps in the lab all week & I can't change clothes. My head is fuzzy. I need eggs.

I am trying to work up the courage to send an email. I also need eggs first, though.

I had time to go home before the gig last night & see if there was anyone about but I was so sick from drinking on Thursday, I had managed to hold it together at work but then I had to go hide in the library, I got myself a booth in the bfi mediatheque, put the headphones on & tried to nap listening to stuff like that eafa film and a Welsh documentary about cerdd dant (is that what It's called, I can't remember. The singingcpoetry with the harp)

Xp eggs are the answer. I would like q dippy egg cause I've got the notion but I would feel weird ordering one out. I might anyway.

I saw the stranglers last night, that was weird. I don't know them except for 2 songs. The crowd was really bald, and male; my friend said there was no queue whatsoever for the women's toilets, but when I went to the men's the queue was ridic. I got really confused because one of the band started talking in a geordie accent, having sung all the songs like a southerner. He also said he had just turned 50, but it was a 40th anniversary tour! Turns out he's a guy they drafted in to impersonate the original guy. They played about 300 songs.

I found some eggs, in a dumpling bar.

hi wins, i enjoyed your review and i'm glad you found some eggs.

Ha thanks. I'm in poundland. I had exactly one pound and I couldn't decide whether to buy a coffee table book about Sylvia plath's art or one about dictators' homes. In the end I went & got some cash out.

I thought I saw a merzbow cd but it was actually merz whoever that is

I need to work on my impulse control. Capricious consumption

Big Issue seller asked me what the matter is. Nothing's really the matter but I told him about my health issues. He had alcohol poisoning at xmas. I dunno tho when you find yourself complaining to a homeless man about being locked out of your house for a couple of days

wins are you in fact larping Ulysses?

(and if so can i play?)

winsday? Sure

It occurred to me that I'm exhausted, and it is too hot to be wearing a coat. Came to the library for another bfi nap but got sucked into actually watching stuff. I bought an edition of Harold nicolson's diaries that had been withdrawn from circulation; I can't be sure but I think I was the last person to check it out, in 2009.

There is some big community event going on today to celebrate the re-opening of our library, which I should really go to, because I'm technically part of the Friends society (even though I got about as far as drawing them a logo before deciding the meetings were boring and giving up).

I have managed to email my rock star (hopefully without rambling too much) I was like "send me spacerock!" and he was like "send me recommendations of good books to read" so hopefully we can swap. It's fun feeling this giddy and starstruck and crushy.

Capricious consumption, this is the way forward, yes.

bleeee saturday :)

New display name; thanks, Estela!

:D

adults shouldn't have "crushes"

why is win locked out

Thank fuck I'm not an "adult", eh?

soi-disant online hardman explains maturity, sweet sign me up

It's a day for gin. Or white port, with a decent tonic. Not gonna have any, I'm being stupid but it's not like I'm an idiot or anything. Drinking nice light ales. Once I get to bed I'll be right, & get back on the abstinence thing.

It's Barrett's Cambridge today, def. There is no other day.

Haha this pub is playing dub side of the moon, that album is sick

seem to be childless this weekend and that and the sunshine are calling me out to play but i really don't wanna have to pal up with Mr Wonga so i guess i'll just get a few things to eat and sit it out here playing games

But that's the great thing about a sunny day isn't it, that you don't really need any of those extra things. Just be outside with a book or whatevs, bring your own food

Yes! Today has been me going to the newly refurbished library and coming home with SEVEN BOOKS none of which I paid a penny for, then sitting in the park in the dappled sunshine, reading (Angel by Elizabeth Taylor at the moment) and all for FREE GLORIOUS GLORIOUS FREE. Screw you, Capitalism. Who needs ya.

went to the shops - it's clement, but not warm. the light is wintry - strange, silvered and misty. i got some chores done today so i can feel almost content with 5 Live on the radio and the fish and chips i just bought.

It's basically summer here, not to gloat we're lucky with our weather

BB I used to check out that many books but now there's no way I'd be able to read them all before they were due :-(

Thats the wonderful thing about unemployment; I can read 7 books a week if I feel like it!

I wish I could do that. But with, you know, my salary. Is that too much to ask?

apparently yeah. i've asked. and my salary's shit.

Mine is good maybe I think, its above what I earned at t€$co and I don't think I lived a much meaner existence then

I like my job a lot but jobs are a bad deal

I've had a really good day but I will be violently sick later, I'm on my 4.5th pint. I'm moving like a sloth too, this happened before a bit after I was diagnosed, a kind of physical depression I'm not used to

It is one of the great unfairnesses of this world that no one gets paid to read (or write) books all day long.

word

I was gonna start a thread on reading while drunk: that point where there is 100% comprehension but barely any retention. What the fuck is that about

Like I could read 10 chapters now, and take it all in, and think about it, but I would have to read it again tomorrow.

truth, the prose goes crystal clear for a little while but don't bother trying to remember what you've read tomorrow