liking koyaanisqatsi is not self-indulgent and pretentious
2005-07-25

I realize that I almost never write about my personal life in here, and when I do, it's in a very general sort of way. I assume that whatever I'm doing may be interesting to me, but not especially interesting to anybody else who's reading. I'll test it out:

On Saturday L. and her boyfriend J. came into town from lovely Long Island. I proceeded to make them walk ten blocks in the disgusting heat to catch a subway line that turned out not to be running in Brooklyn. So we ended up taking 3 different trains to get to the Met. I hate the east side of Manhattan, I really do (excluding anything below 14th street, I guess). Once there we met up with M., L's high school friend, and walked around the Egypt exhibit because that is what you do with people who have never been to the Met before. Fortunately M. is an amateur Egyptologist and explained all sorts of interesting things about Egyptian beliefs, including why the scarab was so important to them (its molding balls of dung mirrored their own desire to build). We also learned that the Stargate was located in the Temple of Dendur. Spooky.

Afterwards it was quite late and we were all hungry, so we went down to "Curry Hill" and had some really good Indian food. L. and J. are vegetarians and M. is on a cleansing diet with a lot of bizarre rules (such as no alcohol, she's been on the thing for months now and I can't see how she stands it), so I was the only one who got to sample all the lovely dishes. It really was ten times better than the East 6th area, although a bit more expensive (no soup/entree/drink thing going on for $11.95).

We then left for Brooklyn sans M., who went to another part of Brooklyn, then drove up into Astoria to go to the Bohemian Beer Garden. After driving around for ages because Mapquest had told us to take a road blocked off with concrete, we got there just in time to cut in line with S. and some of her friends as they passed through the door. The inside is ginormous, a bunch of picnic benches round what looks like a stage from a summer camp. And you have to defend your seat with vicious anger, or else somebody will steal it right away. But the beer was great ($12 for a pitcher of Hoegaarden, not bad) and it was nice to hear about S.'s new job.

J. was driving, and he was tired, so we made an early exit. We got to see a mattress fire! And somehow go over the Williamsburg Bridge! My knowledge of one small area of the East Village saved the day, and everyone got home safe (I think. I didn't hear from L. afterwards...)

See? Is that incredibly self-indulgent and dull? It's really just the story of my night out, nothing more. If anything, it's self-indulgent and dull in a new, fresh way. And it proves that I am writing this diary for others, not for myself. Maybe I should go back to doing a diary with bad poetry and pictures of the Fire Caves.

While importing Koyaanisqatsi I noticed that one of the song titles is "Pruit Igoe." What is that?

It turns out to be a housing project that's destroyed during the film, designed by the same man who did the World Trade Center.

There's your fact of the day. I hope you spread the story of "Pruit Igoe" far and wide.