Love/Hate/Internal Conflict

So here are the lovely new plates and bowls and such! Looking at stuff like this makes me wish that I could do ceramics. I mean, I can. I know how. But it never looks any good. I just think about how satisfying it must be to churn out something clean and simple like a plate or mug and glaze it beautifully so it is shiny and lovely from something as messy and lumpy as clay. I’ve decided that of all the arts, ceramics must be the messiest. Every time I’ve done it, especially when I’ve used the wheel, it’s taken just as much time to clean up as it has to actually do the project. That's probably where I lost interest. I don't like cleaning very much.

Anyway I got these from Anthropologie, a store that I both love and hate. I love it because it has some really cool and unique looking things like these plates. But I hate it because its owned by the same company that owns Urban Outfitters (which I also love/hate) and they have a target that they want to get at: women that are starting up families but are also career oriented and want to seem funky/cool/indie or whatever. So pretty much everything is ridiculously expensive and also its kind of gross corporate because its an identity that has been made commercial. That's how it goes, though. Huzzah for capitalist pigs!

That reminds me of an episode of Daria. I started watching it online and it's stunning how different it is than MTV now. It totally makes me miss old school MTV that actually played music videos and such. The episode in question, however, was one where they were fund raising to open a cafe. Daria had to partake because her parents would send her to music camp otherwise because she had to get extracurriculars to impress colleges, so she wrote something to recite at the opening of the cafe. Here is what she read:

"As students standing at the dawn of a brand new century, we face certain choices. How do we prepare for the future? Melody Powers knew how she was going to prepare, as she checked the fit one more time on her tooled leather shoulder holster. She thought about all the communists she would be taking out tonight. Melody harbored no illusions about unilaterally stemming the resurging red tide. 'But,' she reflected with a grim smile, 'what special agent could resist the opportunity to fill a few Bolshevik cemeteries?' As Melody sun-bathed on the Rio beach, she looked back upon the past few days with a certain quiet satisfaction: twelve dead Russians, five dead Chinese, three or four dead Cubans. The world was once again safe for democracy, she reflected while watching Tonio's exquisite chest rise and fall with his light snoring. Safe for democracy, or almost safe. Melody brushed some errant grains of sand off her fingers, tied her top back on, and reached into her beach bag. Tonio heard nothing, and that was a pity, because he would never hear anything again. 'So long, Tonio,' she thought as she calmly stood up. 'I could have loved you, if you weren't as red as the blood stain now spreading across the sand.' Melody walked calmly away toward the hotel. There'd be a message there from HQ, no doubt. She hoped she had time to shower."

I literally burst out laughing the first time I saw it. Later in the episode we found that Daria's prose had caused the entire football team to go into an anti-communist rage. You can watch it here.

listening to: Maddi on el radio. Arcade Fire is playing!