For the record

Sara Softness thought that the megalodon, a.k.a. "the largest shark that ever lived" (the operative word, of course, being lived, past tense) was actually still swimming the seven seas. Just so you know, class, this shark is prehistoric.  It's been extinct for about 1.5 million years now.  So don't go around asking aquarium employees where you can find their megalodon... 

John Updike

John Updike - American novelist, poet, author, short story writer, art and literary critic - died two months ago on January 27th, at the age of 76.  He was an incredibly gifted writer and beloved by many. I first encountered his work in The New Yorker, for which he wrote for almost half a century.  I was most struck, and touched, by his ability to recognize and describe the beauty and weight in the simplest of moments.  He explains, in few but perfect words, emotions we have all experienced, but whose import we couldn't even begin to vocalize.  

Here is an excerpt from one of Updike's fictional short stories, written for the January 3, 1959 edition of The New Yorker, that I believe exemplifies the beauty that Updike breathes into the quiet moments we are all so familiar with.  

From "The Happiest I've Been"

        Red dawn light touched the clouds above the black slate roofs as, with a few other cars, we drove through Alton.  The moon-sized clock of a beer billboard said ten after six.  Olinger was deathly still.  The air brightened as we moved along the highway; the glowing wall of my home hung above the woods as we rounded the long curve b the Mennonite dairy.  With a .22 I could have had a pane of my parents' bedroom window, and they were dreaming I was in Indiana.  My grandfather would be up, stamping around in the kitchen for my grandmother to make him breakfast, or outside walking to see if any ice had formed on the brook.  For an instant I genuinely feared he might hail me from the peak of the barn roof.  Then trees interceded and we were safe in a landscape where no one cared.

        At the entrance to the Turnpike Neil did a strange thing; he stopped the car and had me take the wheel.  He had never trusted me to drive his father's car before; he had believed my not knowing where the crankshift or fuel pump was handicapped my competence to steer.  But now he was quite complacent.  He hunched under an old mackinaw and leaned his head against the metal of the window frame and was soon asleep.  We crossed the Susquehanna on a long smooth bridge below Harrisburg, then began climbing toward the Alleghenies.  In the mountains there was snow, a dry dusting like sand that waved back and forth on the road surface.  Farther along, there had been a fresh fall that night, about two inches, and the plows had not yet cleared all the lanes.  I was passing a Sunoco truck on a high curve when without warning the scraped section gave out and I realized I might skid into the fence, if not over the edge.  The radio was singing, "Carpets of clover, I'll lay right at your feet," and the speedometer said 81.  Nothing happened; the car stayed firm in the snow, and Neil slept through the danger, his face turned skyward and his breath struggling in his nose.  It was the first time I heard a contemporary of mine snore. 

        When we came into tunnel country, the flicker and hollow amplification stirred Neil awake.  He sat up, the mackinaw dropping to his lap, and lit a cigarette.  A second after the scratch of his match the moment occurred of which each following moment was a slight diminution, as we made the long irregular descent toward Pittsburgh.  There were many reasons for my feeling so happy.  We were on our way.  I had seen a dawn.  This far, Neil could appreciate, I had brought us safely.  Ahead, a girl waited who, if I asked, would marry me, but first there was a long trip; many hours and towns interceded between me and that encounter.  There was the quality of the 10 A.M. sunlight as it existed in the air ahead of the windshield, filtered by the thin overcast, blessing irresponsibility - you felt you could slice forever through such a cool pure element - and springing, by implying how high these hills had become, a widespreading pride: Pennsylvania, your state - as if you had made your life.  And there was knowing that twice since midnight, a person had trusted me enough to fall asleep beside me. 

Lia Goes to Lisbon

Hi, class! I'm about to leave for the airport.  I'll be back in one week with many stories and photos.  In the mean time, I will trust the Softnai to keep it real.  

Tchau!  

Dangling modifier patrol

I didn't even know you could grab a cup of joe at Yahoo! Finance.

Who's with me?
Ben

A Word to the Wise

Cars run on gas.  They also have batteries.  Sass thought they ran on fairy dust and pizza.  That is, until she left her lights on for the entirety of Monday night.  Sucker!  But, no, I'm the sucker, because I was the first to discover what should have been her brutal realization, thereby making it my problem.  Luckily, our angel J Fries descended from Heaven with her jumper cables and helped me out. And when I say helped me out, I mean that she connected all the cables and whatnot while I stood to the side, because I was not trying to touch those fucking things.  She hooked them up incorrectly on the first attempt though, so nothing happened when I started the car.  Thankfully, some hippie on a bicycle rode by and I waved him down, because hippies know cars.  He was quite friendly and helpful.  He also kept repeating, "Good thing you didn't try to start the car when they were hooked up all backwards.  It could have completely shot your entire car's electrical system."  Yeah, good thing.  But we figured it out, and no electrical systems were harmed in the process.  

And then I drove that little bitch around aimlessly for half an hour to recharge her battery.  

Anyway, this is a picture of me and J Fries breathing life back into the car, which will from here on out be referred to as "The Lifestyle." 

So please, in the words of Nelly Furtado, "Turn off the light, [Sass]."

You know what really grinds my gears?

I'm putting my thesis on pause for a second because I need to vent about the low ponytail.  I'm not talking about the semi-low pony that exists somewhere between nape and crown, but the fully nape-of-the-neck pony that borders on rat tail.  I just think it's fucking weird unless you're above the age of... never.  I won't even put a number on when that is acceptable, because it simply never is.  

I don't care if LC does it.  LC is an idiot who shouldn't be famous in the first place.  She also thinks headbands are the ultimate accessory. Plus, her low ponytails are conceived by experts, not by Sandy So-and-So in the  halogen glow of the poorly lit communal bathroom. 

Seriously, try harder to make yourself look dowdy and matronly.  But just as seriously, please don't.  

"Art"

I'm a little too overwhelmed with thesis things at the moment to be posting things with any remote kind of depth, as I think I've already made clear with my previous posts today.  But I thought I'd share some of the watercolors I've been doing lately.  

This is a portrait of Cole Porter. I took all of these pictures with Photobooth, so they're all poor quality. And backwards.  

The two coolest men to have ever lived: Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando. 

A portrait of family and friends.  And my cat Basil.  

More to come when time [read: thesis] allows. 

Notes from a grown up

4:26:41 PM 3/7/09 Sara Softness: we were thinking of letting you be an author
4:27:00 PM 3/7/09 Sara Softness: if you keep the boring philosophy posts to a minimum

I'm doing my taxes today. Is this boring philosophy? Ich don't sink so! Here are free fings all u kids out there should knowz about doing your own taxes!!!1111 (Disclaimer: this isn't financial advice, nor am I a professionally qualified professional qualified to give you advice. If doing anything I say below gets you in trouble, you chose to do this on your own.)

0) It is not that hard. It really isn't. With a little prep, and some understanding (provided below), you can do it on your own. I mean, until you make enough to be able to afford to pay someone else to do it. Glossary at the bottom

1) Use turbo tax. It costs like $30, but it's the best $30 you'll ever spend. I could explain why, but I'd rather you take my word. Email me if you must. ben dot softness at gmail dot com.

2) Here's what you need:

- A computah.
You can do everytihng from a computer now. Do not try to do it otherwise. Even grandma cookie e-files. Note of clarification: an etch-a-sketch works fine as well.

- W2s.
These are the forms you get from anyone you worked for in the previous year. If you're like me (read: grown-up), you have just one, it's from Google, and it has a pretty sweet number in the "total" column. If you're like my Classe American compadres, you probably have 3 or 4, some are from Amherst, some are from summer jobs, and none made you any real money (sorry). Just the same, you need them.

- The tax forms your bank gives you.
All money you "make" is taxable, and "make" is pretty generally defined. Do you have a shitty savings account that paid you 14 cents of interest a month all year? Count it. You can get most of this info online from your bank.

- An accounting of money you made in the market.
If you have stock that you sold for a gain, that's what people call "capital gains." You'll call it taxable income, and you need to know the exact amount. (If you sold shit for a loss, you can deduct that amount from your income.)

- An accounting of any other income.
Really any other income.

3) They're going to take about 2 hours, all told. They're due on April 15, or as its classically known, Boxing Day (jk, that's 12/26 -- trivia, kids).

Glossary.

- "doing your taxes"
Starting real basic here. The government -- actually governments, both state and federal -- needs money to operate and they get the bulk of it by taxing income. They tax all money that companies make, and they tax all money that you make. Doing your taxes is just adding up all the money you made, looking up on a chart how much that means you owe to the state and the feds, and seeing if you already paid it or not, and then settling up. (Note: turbo tax does all of this; you just tell it what you made.)

- deductions
You basically have to "claim" any money you make, but there are some exceptions. For instance, to encourage people to give to charity, the government lets you treat money you gave to charity as money you didn't make. In other words, if you made 50 grand, but gave 1 grand of that away to charity, you can say you made only 49 grand - and as such pay taxes on just 49 grand. Those one thousand dollars are "deducted" from your income; the donation was "deductible." This is also known as "writing it off."

- Refunds, etc.
Your paycheck is always for less than you really make -- income minus income tax -- so what the hell are we even talking about. Well, the government does indeed try to head this off at the pass by taxing you all year, but they tend to get it wrong. They tax every paycheck you get as if that's the amount you make every week, all year. Get that? In other words, if you work over the summer and make $500 a week, they tax you as if you make $500 a week all year -- that is, about $24,000 a year. But you only worked three months and made only $6,000, so you really didn't deserve to be taxed like someone making 24 grand. You'll be requiring a refund.

Oh god they're so going to eject me from the blog,
Ben

Just because I was starting to sound like a big lesbian...

I also find James Franco quite attractive.  Not just because he's simply hot as hell, but also because he's extremely talented.  And because he made out with Sean Penn.  And because he definitely smokes a lot of grass. And because he makes this bear head look good.  

Sass is going to be at once amused and appalled that most of these things would ever serve as criteria for my liking a dude.  Someday, she will learn to accept me as I am. 

The Candyland bitch is hot

Queen Frostine is the only conceivable reason that anyone would play this game. 

Listen.

Animal Collective's latest album, Merriweather Post Pavillion, is simply unreal.  It's about as perfect of an album as you can get.  Of Montreal got pretty close last year with Skeletal Lamping, but there is something about the Collective that is just untouchable.  It's psychedelic, drone, ambient noise, folk, alt... but with an intoxicating and otherworldly melody.  Listen to "Summertime Clothes" and "My Girls" and get excited for summer - sandy naps and wicked sunburns.  Our generation's Beach Boys.

Read.

www.bookcityjackets.com

So Sass and I have different opinions about this, but here's the deal.  Book City Jackets makes paper in the shape of a book. So innovative and new.. But really just another book jacket to replace your real book jacket.  But you can write all over it and whatnot, so it's pretty dope.  I like the idea because I'm often embarrassed about what I'm reading on the subway (Dewey: The Small-town Library Cat Who Touched the World, for instance), and this is a cool way of masking those kinds of things.  Sass only reads books that would impress people, so she wouldn't dress her book up in a cute little outfit.  She also "doesn't read on the train," and "doesn't live in Brooklyn," and therefore "doesn't have to ride the train for hours."  Oh, and "books are one of the most beautiful things we have in this world, and why would you want to cover that up?"  

I think I just made a mockery of an opinion simply because it wasn't my own.  But good friends can do that to good friends.  Or can they?

I would do Kate Moss

Not as she was when she actually had a career, but as she is now.  She's developed some cushion for the pushin' recently and I'm liking it.  Or as Kate phrases it, "I'm a woman now."  That's model-speak for "I'm fat now."  Just kidding. But seriously. 

25 things about your newest contributor

It was a thrill, if an English teacher's nightmare, to receive the email that began "The Blogger user Lia has invited you to contribute to the blog: La Classe American." Now what?

Do you remember that silly fad on Facebook recently in which people kept posting these lists of 25 facts about themselves? Really uncool, right? Which is why I totally didn't make one.

Except: I made one. I just didn't post it. I saved it in TextEdit. So, by way of introducing myself, here's the list that I decided shouldn't be posted online -- totally unedited (absolutely edited).


1) I think I hate these lists. They're either too sincere (author is a loser), or try too hard to be funny (author is a tool). I'll try to walk the tightrope. I'll fail.
2) I try to kick it with the ironic kids, but secretly I dig sincerity.
3) Like Sass and Lia, I could do without words' being intentionally misspelled online. But I make an exception for 'orly' and 'o rlmente.'
4) I love to self-deprecate.
5) Man, I'm so lame at something.
6) I save all my chats.
7) My dad says he likes to read my thesis when he can't fall asleep.
8) I'm incapable of holding a grudge. I've tried. I always end up being glad about this.
9) I love to drive.
10) I'm surprisingly poorly read.
11) I (and the rest of my crew) once finished first in a rowing tournament.
12) I go out of my way to avoid split infinitives.
13) I was almost the child lead in Cop and a Half.
14) I'm a very good mimic.
15) "I'm a very good mimic."
16) I once finished dead last in a New York City bike race.
17) I can whistle very well.
18) I'm such a classic Leo. Just kidding: astrology is nonsense.
19) I'd like to be a stand-up comedian.
20) Two words: Cougars.
21) Also, younger women.
22) I have a crush on every one of my sister's friends. Unless it's not mutual in which case I'm kidding.
23) I've had Twitter-related anxiety dreams.
24) I'd prefer to be the pot calling the kettle black than the kettle being called names by really any appliance.
25) I kind of enjoyed this. Unless you didn't in which case I'm kidding.

- The Blogger user Ben

It's Science

Today is Saturday.  On Tuesday Lia and I have a full first draft of our theses due.  Naturally, this was a PERFECT time for Lia to throw a bottle of water onto my laptop and kill her (the laptop).  At that moment, things turned from real to...unbearably real.  Luckily, I had been backing up my chapters and notes etc onto a mini external hard drive.  Had it been Lia (genius that she is) she would've lost litrally everything.  That showed her!

Anyway, after briefly bugging, we decided to heed some advice from Lia's dad and coax the water out of the laptop in a RICE bath.  You heard me right.  Apparently it's science?  Rice loves eating water...even out of electronics.  It's a chemical affinity...it's love.  So we went to McDonald's.  (hey, we weren't gonna let a soggy computer keep us from lunch.)  Then we went to Stop & Shop for the bag of rice.  Stop & Shop sells 8,000 brands and sizes of rice.  I was envisioning submerging my whole computer in a suitcase full of rice.  Turns out, I really only need to submerge my battery.  (Btw, when I told my dad I was doing this, he appropriately asked : Brown? Jasmine? or a nice Arborio?  classic Dad move...) We settled on a 3-pound bag of long-grain, and as I type we are conducting science in an empty garbage bin.  FINGERS CROSSED IT WORKS.

P.S. This also works for cell phone batteries that have experienced wetness. (Toilets.)

Thanks, Lia.  For your science, and for rueeeeeeeeening my life.  

Love, 

Sass

We Never Thought This Would Happen to Us.. Again.

Welcome to hell.  Check in time is now. Check out time is never.  

No, but seriously.  We (Lia and Sass) are starting a blog about literally everything and absolutely nothing.  We hope that it will be kind of organic, but with its roots still in The Man.  Like the organic section in Stop and Shop.  

We do a lot of stupid shit.  And a lot of really cool shit.  And we have a lot of opinions that we feel morally compelled to share.  We were going to have a radio show this semester  in order to do just that, but then we found out that getting one requires taking a test about radio equipment.  Let's just say we don't have a radio show.  Luckily, you don't need to take a test to operate the internets or the blog and vlogospheres.  Plus you can only pick up the WAMH signal within a 35 foot radius of the DJ booth.  Also, the thought of a small Asian man in Japan reading this tickles us in a way that can't be described.  

Things we love:

Pizza, science, crossword puzzles, being in constant contact with each other, the procrastination nation, linguistics, bad jokes, bad puns, loving them, lottery tickets, television (Bravo), the interwebs, gmail, Justin Kimball, babies, animals (Lia), paper and emoticons (Sass), flowers, punking... ourselves, community service, naps, joyrides windows down music blasting, everything France, everything men, everything French men.

Things we hate:

Other blogs, incompetence (our own included), ppl who tlk lk ths onlne or in txt mssgs, tardiness (Lia), forgetfulness (Sass), responsibilities, binge drinkers, inclement weather, unwavering optimism, the UGG corporation, pedestrianism, chatty drug dealers (Lia), abusing drugs (Sass), philistines, "books for show."

Things to expect:

All of that + weekly features: manswers, that really grinds my gears, things we covet, lottery ticket tallies, artwork of the week, things we talked about today.  And general movies, music, fashion, museums, television, travel, food reviews/opinions/situations/paradoxes/enigmas/trivias.  Lots of anecdotes.  

Enjoy it. That's an order.

Love,

Lia and Sass