Moving

to tumblr. Sorry blogger. You shoulda made it easier to post A/V.

Expect more frequent, random updates at http://ridingitdown.tumblr.com/

In Case You Forgot How Awesome Charles Schulz Was

Snoopy is also a tennis player. He does tend to double-fault frequently, which sends him into rage-filled temper tantrums during which he screams and destroys his racket, a la John McEnroe. He has also played in mixed-doubles, usually pairing with the garage door (whose best quality as a player, according to Snoopy, is that "he never foot faults") and later teaming up with the short-tempered Molly Volley.

Snoopy loves root beer and pizza, hates coconut candy, gets claustrophobia in tall weeds, and is deathly afraid of icicles dangling over his doghouse. One of his hobbies is reading Leo Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace at the rate of "a word a day".

Snoopy also has the uncanny ability to play fetch with soap bubbles, and can hear someone eating marshmallows or cookies at a distance, or even peeling a banana. Snoopy is also capable of disappearing, like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, as shown in an extended strip, whenever Charlie Brown reads the book to him. ("Grins are easy. Noses are hard. Ears are almost impossible."). Two things Snoopy dislikes are listening to balloons being squeezed and cats.

He can also use his ears to fly about as a "whirlydog". Snoopy even became a canine helicopter, with Woodstock piloting. This gag appeared in the strip several times, most famously rescuing Linus from the top of a barn after being commissioned by Sally. When asked by Linus where he learned to pilot, Woodstock replied in his usual apostrophes, which Linus interpreted as meaning "'Nam".

Snoopy "understands a little French and Serbo-Croatian." His dog food brand is called "For Dogs who flew in World War I and understand a little French". He later was also depicted as a sergeant in the French Foreign Legion (inspired by the film Beau Geste from 1966), with Woodstock and his avian friends as members of his patrol. He failed his high school geometry course, which was his excuse for not being able to follow a golf course's 90 degree golf cart driving rule.

Snoopy climbed trees at least five times—once to rescue Schroeder's piano, once to rescue Linus's blanket, once to see a "strange creature" in Woodstock's nest which turned out to be an egg, once after Frieda's cat Faron, and once with Charlie Brown, Schroeder, and an unnamed Peanuts kid. He fell out of the tree almost every time.

In early 1965, he met a girl beagle at a skating rink and fell in love. However, his girlfriend's father forbade marriage between the two; "he could never allow his daughter to marry an obedience school dropout", as Snoopy put it, and so turned to eating to attempt to forget her. It didn't work: "I'll always have a few memories and a fat stomach", he griped. Later that same year he met her again on the beach and tried surfing to impress her, only to wipe out. Charlie Brown told Snoopy he'd been making a fool of himself for nothing; the girl beagle in question had been seen walking on the beach with a golden retriever.

In 1970, he went to the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm (where he'd allegedly taught Sunday school at one point) to give a 4th of July speech. However, as he was about to begin, he was beaned with a supper dish by anti-Vietnam War protesters, and a full scale riot broke out, during which police used tear gas to control the crowd. In all the confusion, Snoopy ran off the podium and was lost in the crowd. While blinded by tear gas, he felt a girl beagle's paws, but the tear gas prevented him from seeing her. By the time Charlie Brown had tracked her down, the farm informed them that she'd been sold, thus breaking Snoopy's heart again. By this time, Snoopy had regained his vision. "What do you do?" Snoopy woefully asks, and then immediately answers: "Back to eating!"

Snoopy also served a short term as the "Head Beagle," the dog apparently in charge of all other dogs in the world. The pressures and responsibilities of the job became too much for him, and he was replaced.


*Excerpts from the wikipedia page for "Snoopy."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoopy

Keep the Sunny Side Up

Latest bullshit I keep running into: “Until moderate Muslims publicly denounce extremists, we shouldn’t trust any of them.”

From the place I hail from
to my latest projections
it's been a melting pot
of over-consumption and deflated ids
and I have a mind
and a knot
from always playing with my tie
and my skin crinkles in
Qu'est-ce que c'est?

In the box where I live
in the cave where I work
I'm making names for myself
I am making the worst
of almost crimes
and your kids
won't begin to understand it
Cos they're all dying to get in
all the scenes that you abandoned
I have the time
to be weird
to be wrong
I got mine
and I got years
and I've had 'em all along
catching up with me

You gotta keep the sunny side up
keep the sunny side up




New York City is the Place Where

It’s been a hot June, it’ll be a hotter July
It’s supposed to rain soon, maybe tonight
I take the L out, I take the L back in
But tonight the Q has got me waiting

Remember going out on Avenue B?
My first BYOB in Alphabet City!
After drinks, we headed for the bar
and when it was time to head home, we took a car

Or remember when you all took me in
when I didn’t have a place to live?
About the disappearance of that gin
after I moved out—
I gotta say I don’t think it was there when I moved in.

And how about that month I had to take those pills?
I bought that suit that’s still down in Clinton Hill
I left it at that place I was subletting,
The day we moved to that place on Roebling

Tonight the Q has got me waiting,
but the view will make it worth it.

I’m waiting for a train
To take me to my home
It’s taking its sweet time
I’m waiting for my train

Old Stuff

Two stories from my thesis. The only two I can really stand to read anymore.

The Uncanny Valley

Riding It Down

Fall, Winter

Two short stories I wrote. They share main characters. The first chronologically, which I wrote second, acts as a sort of prelude to the second, though I hope it stands on its own. You have to read a bit more into it, which is normally the case with short-shorts, I guess.

September 3rd

Violins

Both link to google docs.