Sunday , June 13, 2010
nogoodforme Superlative: Brain Crushes
HE'S SMART, AND HE HAS GREAT HAIR, TOO
When I first proposed the idea of writing about our brain crushes, Liz and LJ wanted to know if I meant someone whose intellect is so amazingly sharp and awesome that it incinerates our knickers against any or all resistance--or rather a brainiac type whose physical personhood is also appealingly fetching. Of course I said it was the first one because we're so freakin' deep and we don't objectify human beings, oh no!--but happily in my case, my brain crush fulfills both conditions nicely. Owen Hatherley is an architecture writer and journalist who does a brilliant blog, sit down, man, you're a bloody tragedy. Back in the proverbial day, I once did a "webjournal" (this was well before the word "blog" destroyed our common vernacular) in which I wrote dense, long articles unraveling Jean-Francois Lyotard and dissecting the gender politics of nearly everything under the sun. I threw around words like "heterotopia," "panopticon" and "hegemony" with aplomb; I was about ten times smarter in that blog than I am here, where my voice tends to be a bit "Daria-or-other-sarcastic-teen-girl-archetype ingests uppers with the Valley girl elite while at a crazy slumber party." Nowadays, the idea of writing that kind of a blog is a bit out of the question, since I sadly don't have time to read massive tomes of critical theory and then write about it. (Sorry--I switched my allegiance to movies, and contemporary Romanian cinema awaits!) Hatherley's blog satisfies the part of my brain that could've gone to a proper grad school, gotten a proper Ph.D instead of a M.F.A. (short for "motherfucking asinine") and become a proper professor like my father always wanted for me. I first stumbled upon his blog while looking up something on Fassbinder, but I actually was blown away by his sharp critique of the class politics of certain types of "green urbanism" (which is at his other blog.) Hatherley writes for a broad range of publications, and on an equally wide reach of subjects, ranging from urban space and architecture to good ol' music, film and media. So do a lot of people, but he brings a distinctly fierce, political perspective to his thinking and writing, with a particular sharpness paid to how urban space shapes and reflects class politics. He's also a lanky British dude, and well...I just don't see how that takes away from anything, really. His book, Militant Modernism, gets stellar reviews, but sadly I reside on American soil and haven't read it yet. But I will. After I watch Police, Adjective, of course. (Kat)
SOME UGLY DOCTORS I HAVE KNOWN
I decided to interpret "brain crushes" to mean: dudes who aren't hot, but totally bring it home in the personality department.
ABOVE: Dr. Phillip Calvin McGraw, who is a Virgo; Dr. Peter Mark Roget, who is a Capricorn
1. BEGS LAURA JANE, "DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS!": I don't understand people who "hate" Dr. Phil. WHY???? Do you also hate "logic" and "reason"? Do you hate "the truth"? It seems like you must. That is a firm new opinion I hold: People who hate Dr. Phil are illogical, irrational liars. As far as I'm concerned, Dr. Phil is the smartest man who ever walked the face of the planet in the entire history of mankind. Everything Dr. Phil says is RIGHT. A lot of people claim to be "no bullshit" types of people, but they're wrong about themselves. For one, I'm constantly insisting I'm a "no bullshit" type of person, but, in reality, about 75% of everything I say and/or do is total bullshit. You know why this is true of me? Because I'm too poor to have Dr. Phil be my therapist. But- mark my words- one day, I'm going to be a really famous writer. And then I'm going to develop a whole new set of retarded issues based around my bullshit inability to cope with my own being a famous writer. And then I'm going to call Dr. Phil, and hire him as my therapist. Dr. Phil will tell me the truth, and he will fix me.
I just realized that if you put Dr. Phil's brain in George Harrison's body, HE WOULD BE MY DREAM MAN.
2. WHAT DON'T WE HAVE IN COMMON, DR. PETER MARK ROGET?: Earlier today, I was sitting at my desk, typing furiously about how awesome Dr. Phil is. When I get too aggro and forceful with my typing, things from the top of my desk tend to fall on my head. Earlier today, my Roget's thesaurus fell on my head. Talk about a "brain crush"- literally!!!!
And then I saw- I cannot think of any dude awesome-er than the dude who INVENTED THE THESAURUS. Do you even understand how much I love thesauruses? Thesauri? Holy shit. Words are the best ever! The only thing I love better than words are "sentences," which are just words, really, only more of them. Dr. Peter Mark Roget gets me.
According to Wikipedia, Dr. Roget's "obsession with list-making as a coping mechanism was well established by the time he was eight years old." Don't I know it, Dr. Roget. DON'T I KNOW IT. I also found out that Roget's "work on the thesaurus arose partly from an effort to battle depression." So basically: Roget's Thesaurus is the "Yer Blues" of 1852. If Dr. Roget was my boyfriend, it would be so fun to sit around and talk about words we like! "I'm really into 'edify' and 'codify' right now," I'd say. "Superb!" he'd respond, "Both of those words are exceedingly meritorious."
Then I would sing him his name to the tune of "Dr. Robert" by the Beatles, and he'd say: "Laura Jane, you are truly mellifluous. I fancy, worship, revere, cherish, treasure, prize, adore, and/or love you." And the best part is- Dr. Roget is not even all that ugly! Though he is, unfortunately, dead. (Laura Jane)
Tags: coping mechanisms, Dr. Phil, Dr. Roget, dudes who blog, Fassbinder, hegemony, Owen Hatherley, Roget's thesaurus, therapy
Share | 
| 
| 
|
|
Posted by Kat in Superlatives |
Permalink |
Leave a comment |
Comments (1)
+ Contact Us
+ HOME
1 Comments!!
Say something so insightful and witty, it will blow us away. (No pressure.)
Got something to say? We'd love to hear it! Name, email and "type in the weirdo drunken text" thingie are all required to comment; don't worry, we won't email you or anything, we just want to make sure you're not an evil spambot. Keeping in mind the good-times mentality we like to keep going here, we've worked hard to keep NOGOODFORME.COM as fun as possible. We welcome all kinds of comments, but insults/abuse/general bitchery are not tolerated. In other words, we put the smackdown on evil troll posts. If you want to be a hater, please go elsewhere. Now, as Salt 'N Pepa say, "Only the sexy people..."
...because he panders to his audience like "special" kindergardeners, and reduces psychology to marketing catch phrases?
Dis wiaall nawt be a changin day in mai laife, rev'rnd.
Comon Laura Jane. You can't like Jay Z and Dr. Phil at the same time. The universe will implode. Think of the children.
By tarzanic on January 29, 2010 11:42 AM