Expecting
6 years ago
Jun 24, 2008
May 3, 2008
A Brief Memorandum on Existence
One of the things I truly pride myself on is being a good narcissist. I may not be a leader of any one field in art nor science, but I daresay that I put to shame even the total of their achievements to shame in terms of my ability to be proud of the vast extensions in human understanding I have blessed the world with.
—I create, forming portraits of characters that are either pieces of myself or pieces of other people improved to be more like the way they should be in real life. You could almost say that the body of my literature is a sort of self-help book written specifically for you, dear reader.
—The determining factor between yesterday’s pulp and today’s classics is the collective thoughts of a wide sieve of critics, who point out the merit or lack thereof ascribed to a given work. While this process takes many decades and careful analysis by a variety of persons representing a spectrum of perspectives, I like to think that in twenty years my ideas about cinema will have taken full possession of our collective taste. Imagine a world in which people talk about the director of Indiana Jones and people are totally like, “yeah, that guy Spill-what?” and history lessons teach of Tina Fey who became President for being both the funniest and hottest woman in America. Pessimists take heed—our future is indeed bright, for I live and breathe and think.
—Sometimes people say that having children is the ultimate act of narcissism, creating a living being who essentially a shared copy of yourself and one other person, but I think there’s absolutely nothing prideful in simple procreation. In fact, a woman who carries another man’s child ought to be considered a hero after my example catches on. I am going to forego natural biology entirely, choosing instead to insert my mitochondrial DNA in its entirety into a neutral donor egg and having these test tube babies brought to gestation in thoroughly controlled laboratory environment. In fact, the best plan Barack Obama could put into his platform would be to quadruple resources devoted to this type of research and diverting every course of study into helping me to this end, so that within three generations 38 percent of the Earth’s population will be Bradley clones. You see, tomorrow really is a better day.
In summation, if you just skimmed this little memorandum, you basically committed the equivalent to smoking an entire dime bag of cannabis before every class in your high school education, and will probably wind up with a non-functional brain returning to the penitentiary for the third time just like every other common drug-dealer, thief, and felon.
Or you could save yourself one big lifetime of pain and suffering and go back and re read—carefully—this vital communiqué.
Pat yourself on the back for 45 seconds well spent. I can’t begin to express the tremendous honor you have in reading each electron that makes up even a fraction of each letter that I have here deigned to inscribe.
5.2.08
—I create, forming portraits of characters that are either pieces of myself or pieces of other people improved to be more like the way they should be in real life. You could almost say that the body of my literature is a sort of self-help book written specifically for you, dear reader.
—The determining factor between yesterday’s pulp and today’s classics is the collective thoughts of a wide sieve of critics, who point out the merit or lack thereof ascribed to a given work. While this process takes many decades and careful analysis by a variety of persons representing a spectrum of perspectives, I like to think that in twenty years my ideas about cinema will have taken full possession of our collective taste. Imagine a world in which people talk about the director of Indiana Jones and people are totally like, “yeah, that guy Spill-what?” and history lessons teach of Tina Fey who became President for being both the funniest and hottest woman in America. Pessimists take heed—our future is indeed bright, for I live and breathe and think.
—Sometimes people say that having children is the ultimate act of narcissism, creating a living being who essentially a shared copy of yourself and one other person, but I think there’s absolutely nothing prideful in simple procreation. In fact, a woman who carries another man’s child ought to be considered a hero after my example catches on. I am going to forego natural biology entirely, choosing instead to insert my mitochondrial DNA in its entirety into a neutral donor egg and having these test tube babies brought to gestation in thoroughly controlled laboratory environment. In fact, the best plan Barack Obama could put into his platform would be to quadruple resources devoted to this type of research and diverting every course of study into helping me to this end, so that within three generations 38 percent of the Earth’s population will be Bradley clones. You see, tomorrow really is a better day.
In summation, if you just skimmed this little memorandum, you basically committed the equivalent to smoking an entire dime bag of cannabis before every class in your high school education, and will probably wind up with a non-functional brain returning to the penitentiary for the third time just like every other common drug-dealer, thief, and felon.
Or you could save yourself one big lifetime of pain and suffering and go back and re read—carefully—this vital communiqué.
Pat yourself on the back for 45 seconds well spent. I can’t begin to express the tremendous honor you have in reading each electron that makes up even a fraction of each letter that I have here deigned to inscribe.
5.2.08
Apr 9, 2008
Quitting LATE Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health
And now, a word from the esteemed Joshua F. Stricker:
To the Friends of LATE, uncomfortable acquaintances, and apathetic invitees wondering why you’re getting this message,
Greetings.
My name is Josh, I host LATE, and the publicity reps are allowing me to write the reminder. So before we go any further:
LATE Series Finale
Date: Thursday, April 10, 2008
Time: 8:00pm - 9:00pm for taping.
Doors Open at 7:30. Pre-taping entertainment starts when doors open.
Location: Warren Studio One
Other: I’m told there will be cake.
I want to mention that as I sit down to do this I am cranked up on Rift Valley blend. I’m also researching British Colonialism, the theory and practice. What better time to write than this.
As you may or may not have heard, this Thursday night LATE will be put to death. Now that you’ve heard, you’re culpable. You should at least give it a proper farewell. It’s common decency really.
LATE has been running for 5 seasons, and I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of what can now be called the final two. Some people have been asking why we are canceling the show. The truth is we’re not canceling the show because it’s not sponsored, and it’s on the internet. You can’t really cancel something like that. We are simply quitting. In the future please ask, “Why are you quitting?”
In the beginning, LATE was created by a student and run by students, and it remains that way. It is written, produced, directed, edited, publicized, gripped, and lighted by students who pretend to have free time. Now those students are looking at each other and saying alright, it’s time to move on. It’s not that we don’t want to do the show or that we feel we are unable to do it well. To the contrary, I’ve witnessed incredible talent, especially from the new underclassmen. These are fantastic people to work with, but it’s time for other projects. LATE has been around for 5 seasons, and in amateur showbiz years that’s about 43. We don’t intend to overstay our welcome. We certainly don’t want LATE to get washed up, make a lot of poor choices, and become a late night infomercial hawking products that exist solely for the “as seen on TV” demographic. That’s an ugly future.
So this Thursday night we plan to burn bright, and I think we’ll all witness the triumph of the human spirit. It is after all really about us, the people of LATE. I take that to mean anyone who ever worked on the show, knows someone who worked on the show, attended a taping, watched online, looked at an advertisement on campus, or accidentally walked into the studio while looking for a bathroom on McNally. This night is for us.
I recognize there are a lot of other things going on this Thursday night. There are at least two other things I’d like to do almost as much as the show. But this is the final LATE, and I would really like as many of us to be there as possible. The bigger the crowd the more energetic things get and the more fun we’ll have. There is plenty to get excited about. It’s going to be a celebration of the past, present, and hypothesized future. Elijah and I have been working on sketches that can really have no other place than on this finale. We’ll also welcome Venus Infers to the show, a band that has more hipster power in their promo pictures than I’ve managed in my entire life.
That’s it. I have no gripping elegy or ode to the finale. Maybe we can pat ourselves on the back Thursday night. I’ll try to say some really self-aggrandizing stuff. So come hang out, and celebrate 43 years of LATE. I’ll probably revisit some of this in the monolog, word for word. It’ll be like a sing along.
Thanks for all the support through the years. You guys make it worthwhile, and I hope we can all connect through the show one more time.
Godspeed,
Joshua Stricker
To the Friends of LATE, uncomfortable acquaintances, and apathetic invitees wondering why you’re getting this message,
Greetings.
My name is Josh, I host LATE, and the publicity reps are allowing me to write the reminder. So before we go any further:
LATE Series Finale
Date: Thursday, April 10, 2008
Time: 8:00pm - 9:00pm for taping.
Doors Open at 7:30. Pre-taping entertainment starts when doors open.
Location: Warren Studio One
Other: I’m told there will be cake.
I want to mention that as I sit down to do this I am cranked up on Rift Valley blend. I’m also researching British Colonialism, the theory and practice. What better time to write than this.
As you may or may not have heard, this Thursday night LATE will be put to death. Now that you’ve heard, you’re culpable. You should at least give it a proper farewell. It’s common decency really.
LATE has been running for 5 seasons, and I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of what can now be called the final two. Some people have been asking why we are canceling the show. The truth is we’re not canceling the show because it’s not sponsored, and it’s on the internet. You can’t really cancel something like that. We are simply quitting. In the future please ask, “Why are you quitting?”
In the beginning, LATE was created by a student and run by students, and it remains that way. It is written, produced, directed, edited, publicized, gripped, and lighted by students who pretend to have free time. Now those students are looking at each other and saying alright, it’s time to move on. It’s not that we don’t want to do the show or that we feel we are unable to do it well. To the contrary, I’ve witnessed incredible talent, especially from the new underclassmen. These are fantastic people to work with, but it’s time for other projects. LATE has been around for 5 seasons, and in amateur showbiz years that’s about 43. We don’t intend to overstay our welcome. We certainly don’t want LATE to get washed up, make a lot of poor choices, and become a late night infomercial hawking products that exist solely for the “as seen on TV” demographic. That’s an ugly future.
So this Thursday night we plan to burn bright, and I think we’ll all witness the triumph of the human spirit. It is after all really about us, the people of LATE. I take that to mean anyone who ever worked on the show, knows someone who worked on the show, attended a taping, watched online, looked at an advertisement on campus, or accidentally walked into the studio while looking for a bathroom on McNally. This night is for us.
I recognize there are a lot of other things going on this Thursday night. There are at least two other things I’d like to do almost as much as the show. But this is the final LATE, and I would really like as many of us to be there as possible. The bigger the crowd the more energetic things get and the more fun we’ll have. There is plenty to get excited about. It’s going to be a celebration of the past, present, and hypothesized future. Elijah and I have been working on sketches that can really have no other place than on this finale. We’ll also welcome Venus Infers to the show, a band that has more hipster power in their promo pictures than I’ve managed in my entire life.
That’s it. I have no gripping elegy or ode to the finale. Maybe we can pat ourselves on the back Thursday night. I’ll try to say some really self-aggrandizing stuff. So come hang out, and celebrate 43 years of LATE. I’ll probably revisit some of this in the monolog, word for word. It’ll be like a sing along.
Thanks for all the support through the years. You guys make it worthwhile, and I hope we can all connect through the show one more time.
Godspeed,
Joshua Stricker
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