The Hit List 6/6/06

The Antichrist is coming! Or not, since everything seems appalling normal right now. I did, however, encounter one somewhat odd occurrence when the lamp on my desk fell directly onto a plate of grapes, shattering a small chunk of the plate. Prophetic? Metaphorical? Ominous? Who cares?

If then is to be some apocalypse today, I would first like to take a moment to rue the end of one wonderful class—AP Bio. In a class where silliness and nerdiness mingled abashedly with intellect and science, I had some of the highest highs and lowest lows of my junior academic career. As we reluctantly left the class during its final moments, the last few minutes of Contact played out in the darkened classroom. And what a finale. I loved Contact. I loved the delicious layers of irony. I loved the corny clichés of its genre. I loved Jodie Foster. I loved the tracking shot to the mirror. I loved everything except a smarmy Matthew McConaughey, who ribbed me to no end.

I finished reading Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (aka book with boob on cover), an awkwardly translated but entertaining novel. Perfume takes on the diffcult task of transcribing smell--a sense all too epheremal and unfamiliar in the language of words.The novel does a more than adequate job in that regard, but its main character, the thoroughly evil Jean-Baptist Grenouille, failed to interest me in the least. The ending, however, was so gruesome and flamboyant as to blast itself into my mind. Interesting read, and despite its dark tone, a rather fluffly one. On a side note, I can totally see Tom Twyker adapting this book into a movie; the flashforwards are all too reminiscent of his directorial style.

To further prove the frightening amount of information colleges have managed to accrue me, I got a call from an economics major at Carnegie Mellon. After bumbling about awkwardly for a few seconds, I realized he was trying to get me to ask questions about CMU. Not wanting to turn him down flat, I proceeded to quiz him on the economics program at CMU, when he half-admitted was transferring elsewhere and found his job prospects rather poor. The kid was pretty nervous. I hope he is getting paid to deal with stupid people like me.

Like a bird on a wire
Like a drunken midnight choir
I have tried, in my way, to be free...
Why am I so attracted to slow, sad music? Leonard Cohen has such a beautiful, deep, soothing, and melancholy voice.