Obamarama!
Hey blog! I'm back! I took an inauguration-related hiatus. Thanks for those of you who checked in on me; as Catherine points out, in Web 2.0 you can never die alone.
My hiatus wasn't from blogging entirely -- I was burning my little fingers off over at DCist. Sommer & Co. did a heroic job covering this thing. With a few exceptions of some things that could have gone better (especially the way all the extra troops and police were used throughout the weekend), it was an incredibly successful undertaking (no arrests! very few injuries! lost children all found their way home!). As for DC overall during this process, it was basically... So many people! Everywhere! All the time!
The awesomely close up tickets Alyssa procured for the swearing in were, in fact, awesomely close... and completely obstructed by the grandstands. In those long shots of the mall that were everywhere, I'm... not in them. I'm off to the left. But in this super cool image from SPACE, the red square is around the place where I was standing. See! Right there! Awesome! My jumbotron was way closer to Obama than your jumbotron.
We were actually TOO bundled; we covered ourselves in those i'm an old lady with arthritis heating pads and stuffed handwarmers anywhere we could fit them, and sweat our way through the walk and the ceremony.
Yesterday I took a day of rest and finished reading the Twilight books. And you know what? Totally loved 'em. Yes, the religious (and surprisingly, racist!) overtones are way too in-your-face, but as far as vampire/werewolf/sexy teen awesomeness goes, they kicked ass. I make no appologies. Twilight4ever.
I'm about to go off to Boston for work again. Yippeeeeeeeee. I'll be back tomorrow in time to celebrate Capps' birthday with MORE AWESOME VAMPIRES AND WEREWOLVES. I'd say that this is my new obsession for 09, but really, I'm just getting back to my roots. The real Amanda Mattos, comin back in full effect! Also: don't be swaggerjackin.
posted by Blogs t r e t c h @ Thursday, January 22, 2009
3 Comments:
From the discussion of Kitsch in "The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution":
"The first tear is what we shed in the presence of a tragic, pitiful, or perhaps beautiful event. The second tear is shed in recognition of our own sensitive nature, our remarkable ability to feel such pity, to understand such pathos or beauty. A love of kitsch is therefore essentially self-congratulatory. In a withering critique of Sir Luk Fildes's The Doctor (1891, Tage Gallery), Clive Bell says that this famous portrayal of a thoughtful physician with a sick child creates what he calls a "false" emotion. What the painting gives us "is not pity and admiration but a sense of complacency in our own pitifulness and generosity."
The kitsch object openly declares itself to be "beautiful," "profound," "moving," or "important." But it does not bother trying to these qualities, because it is actually about its audience, or its owner. The ultimate reference point for kitsch is always me: my needs, my tastes, my deep feelings, my worthy interests, my admirable morality. ...
Kitsch shows you nothing genuinely new, changes nothing in your bright shining soul; to the contrary, it congratulates you for being exactly the refined person you already are."
Sound familiar?
sweeeeeeeet. trolling in 2009! that is some serious retro quaint shit! i thought all the kids were just fake twittering nowadays, and didn't have time for treatises in comment blocks.
just trying to enlighten the masses
Post a Comment
<< Home