this is sort of "nothing".

No, Jonathan Lethem did not find me and kill me. I have merely been very busy / very tired / very unmotivated. But it's not too bad. I am in a state of nothingness right now. I feel like "nothing". I am not happy, or sad, or excited, or depressed, I don't think I'm going to ace this semester but I also doubt that I will fail it, I sort of want to stay in new york this summer but I also want to go home. I don't really care. I really like eating and sleeping at the moment. This is an entirely boring state of mind to be in, this "nothingness". I hope something happens soon to fix it.

Now that we're all very informed on my current feelings, I can tell you what has happened.

Vera, Björg & Pétur came to stay with me over spring break. We were drunk for a week. well they were drunk for a week, i tried to keep up but couldn't really while doing homework and going to bed embarrassingly early every night. We ate delicious bagels every morning. We watched the entire season 3 of Felicity, the utterly terrible TV series that Mona left with me when we stopped living together in the dorm and i never watched it and I TRIED to return it to her but no. Of course we ended up watching the entire damned thing.



since they left I have been up to no good.

I'm trying to make a real website. you know I have this whole domain, juliahermanns.com, it's not just for this blog. this blog is just supposed to be a bonus. my friend gave me Dreamweaver CS3 claiming it was sooo easy to use, and even if I know html and css just writing out the code would be a bitch. But Dreamweaver is looking like the most complicated, time consuming shit right now. I really need to put up some things that are semi serious. Because I never do. I need someone to come sit with me and walk me through this. I just want a simple normal 2 column page. I will make them limeade and rice pudding. I make really good limeade by the way. help. me.

Jonathan Lethem is trying to tell me something, I am not listening.

You know what I like almost as much as movies? Books. Yeah super original, I know. I wish I had a cool hobby like rock-climbing or extreme body modification. Well I don't so I bought a bunch of books last night/this morning. I'm not gonna bore you with long descriptions of them but I feel the need to mention a couple of things. Okay I need to mention a couple of long boring descriptive things.

First: Jonathan Lethem. Jonathan Lethem fucking haunts my life. Jonathan Lethem is trying to brainwash me or some shit. He is a writer. He is a New York Jew person. He is everywhere. This is Jonathan Lethem, trying to force me to think about ducks:



I first came across a book of his in the Powerhouse Arena bookstore in brooklyn in the fall. I picked up a book thinking it was on color theory or disappointed people (I was kind of disappointed at the time) because it looks like this:



But then I read the back and found out it was actually a collection of Jonathan Lethem's essays on star wars, cassavetes, new york etc. So I bought it. And read it. And it was pretty good.

okay so I am in this book "club" (bookmooch, link on the right) where you can swap your books that you dont want for books you want. I have a list of maybe 30 books that i want if someone decides they wanna swap them, and what's the first book that I am offered? The only Jonathan Lethem book on my list: Motherless Brooklyn. Okay, fine, I wouldn't mind reading something else by him, but not for a while. So it's sitting on my nightstand. ok.

I go home to Iceland for christmas and ask my mom to get me some books in icelandic from the library because I haven't read any in a while. She sort of misunderstands and gets me all these originally english language books that have been translated into icelandic. She picks up, yeah you guessed it; Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of solitude and says "this one is supposed to be really good!"

I tell her yeah I wanna read it but maybe later in english, Give me something by Gyrðir Elíasson.

Last night I hung out at the St. Marks bookstore for a while because it was freezing outside and decided to buy a cool looking book of short stories about made up people mostly because Daniel Clowes is in it (and Charles Burns did the cover and I ALWAYS judge a book by its cover):



I totally DID NOT NOTICE until this morning in school when I was reading it that, guess who, YES Jonathan Lethem has a story in it. Okay wow. I can't really get rid of this guy.

So I pick up another few books at Strand after school, including Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings that I have been super excited about. As I was reading that this afternoon, Rachael London who's sitting next to me on the couch says "oh did you buy this because Jonathan Lethem loves it?" Surely enough, THERE HE IS AGAIN on the back cover of Tomines book praising it.

What the fuck. Did someone do a Jonathan Lethem voodoo curse on me? please let me read something that he is not involved in for ONE MINUTE.

Alright. Sorry about that. I just... if my life is to be taken over by one writer I would want it to be someone I really really love and not just pretty-good-Jonathan-fucking-Lethem.

The End.


As for Adrian Tomine, he happens to be one of the first people I was into when I got into my serious alt-comics stage at around 12. I remember reading this online and being like "yeah seems like a pretty cool guy." Then I read Optic Nerve and Summer Blonde, and always just thought of him as such a typical white american comic dude, maybe because he sort of did that on purpose as I learnt in a great radio interview with him (Fresh Air with Terry Gross). Turns out I've been pronouncing his name wrong for half of my life and his new book that's blowing everyone's mind these days, Shortcomings, is sort of intensely about NOT being the person I (and a lot of other people) assumed he was for a long time. I can't even comment on it further, I am too intensely intensed out after just having finished it. Well he's come a long long way since those teenage comic strips that I linked to earlier. If you like graphic novels you kind of need to read this. I just want to say this: in the beginning of the book there is a list of characters with pictures, names, occupation, birthplace and height. Every character in this book is shorter than me.

Thanks Tomine, thanks a lot for making me feel like a FREAK OF NATURE GIANT.


(this is the sad face that Adrian Tomine makes when giant scandinavian people get angry at him.)

Two people really thought I was so american for a long time recently. It makes me kind of sad, although being so terribly ambiguous can come in handy some times I guess.

Who's going to make a graphic novel about being really icelandic and confused in america? Me? I don't have time for that. I'm too busy being mistaken for an american person.

WATCH FILMS (WITH ME) IN NEW YORK

I just want to talk about films right now.

first of all, I went to see a really great one last night; Katsuhito Ishii's Funky Forest: The First Contact. A year ago I saw an earlier film of his; The Taste of Tea and fell in love instantly. It was kind of like an awesome Japanese version of the royal tenenbaums. Funky Forest was a bit more surreal and less traditional, but it was no less awesome. It had lots of great choreographed dance scenes and dream scenes, fun music and all around un-serious david-lynch-ish fun weird shit.

The cast does a great job (it's partially the same in both movies), plus Funky Forest notably stars Rinko Kikuchi (Babel) and Ryo Kase (Letters from Iwo Jima, Scrap Heaven). So if you have ANY interest in asian cinema (or like the royal tenenbaums or eraserhead (but don't take yourself too seriously)) SEE THIS! both films are showing right now at the Imaginasian theater in NYC. here are trailers:

The Taste of Tea (2004)


Funky Forest: The First Contact (2005)



Next up is stuff I want to see:


City of Men (Citade dos Homens, Paulo Morelli, 2007) now playing at the angelica. I really really liked City of God when that came out (and I've talked to some people who were peeing their pants over the City of Men miniseries) so seeing this makes sense.



Paranoid Park (2007). Watching Gus Van Sant fetishize little skater boys (like so many before him) and little Jenny from gossip girl be, well, someone other than little Jenny from gossip girl: sounds like a fun time. Now Playing at the angelica.



Funny Games U.S. remake coming soon. I really really like Michael Haneke. He is so wonderfully morbid and depressing. He makes the perfect films for me to watch when I don't want to watch happy shit. If you're into that and not familiar with him I recommend La Pianiste, Le Temps du Loup and the original Funny Games. Or hey, if your english is better than your french and you're too lazy to read subtitles you're in for a treat because Michael Haneke just remade his own movie in english! because he can do that! Because he's awesome! and Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet are in it! And Naomi Watts and some other people! But who really cares about them! Morbid + scary + Haneke = I'll see it.



Harmony Korine's Mr. Lonely. Yes! So exciting. coming soon to IFC center.



Frownland by some dude named Ronald Bronstein. This is some crazy shit. yes. now playing at IFC center.



...If you want to watch any of these with me, let me know soon. or if you want to tell me about good new films that I am not expressing excitement about. Or if you have questions. Or if you want to tell me I suck and that I'm wasting my life watching pretentious films while I could be doing my homework or eating more vegetables.

HIS FONT GOT SERIFS GODDAM

(click to enlarge)



maybe I would vote for him if this was his actual campaign. or if I were actually allowed to vote.

---

this is all I do: sit on my couch and think about how much i have to pee, or how hungry I am, or how much work I have to do, and then I just sit on the couch for eternity thinking about it instead of doing something about it.

maybe obama can make a change in my life.

---

I went to see Mýrin, or Jar City, the other day at the IFC center.



I took andrew and rachael with me. they liked it. this was very exciting for me. this was the third time I saw an icelandic film in NYC and every time it has been exciting. I don't know what is wrong with me, I shouldn't get so excited. but there is something so strange about watching a place that's so familiar but not being there at all. I guess I just like to think about these things more than other people. By these things I mean location and the difference between the two parts of the world where I spend my time. especially when I'm watching a movie like this that intentionally makes fun of one of the characters for being some sort of a "coward" or not tough because he lived in america for some time. that is funny and at the same time makes me feel uncomfortable, especially when i watch it with my friends who are american. a few things in the movie actually made them think that iceland is anti-america, but not in a super serious way. it's completely understandable because the movie did that on purpose, and we probably are in some ways. sometimes that makes a little part of me embarrassed of living here or liking it here. mostly i just want my friends who have never been to iceland to think good things about it because it's such a huge part of me and i want them to think good things about me. yes, this is something I think about a lot.

Anyway, I want to quote loosely a conversation that 2 american girls had in the bathroom after the movie:

So funny that we went to see this just because you hooked up with that icelandic dude. yeah. this was so weird. yeah. iceland is like, so depressing. because the sun NEVER shines ever, so it's just like totally depressing. and people are just angry all the time. totally.

I'm not going to comment.

---

Anyway. Rita Pavone is really amazing! Here, watch her:

this one's about an american potato that sort of relates to what i just sort of talked about.


this one is just her purely being awesome:



and if you right click here you can download my favorite song by her. it is a very fun song to dance to.

you're welcome.