Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Be Happy: It's One Way of Being Wise

People don't describe me as sweet, chill, laid-back, someone with a good sense of humor.  More would say a poor sense of humor, someone who is inconsistent and hard to please.  The whole situation is arcane at the least, because for me to genuinely like something, anything, I must be surprised.  Surprised at its beauty, its horror, wit, insanity, humility, romance, hysteria, darkness, splendor - just give me a fucking adjective and shock me into using it to describe you.  Okay?  Please.  Because reviewing blogs is fucking exhausting.  Why do you think we took such a break?

It began in the Diminuitive Corner of Her Mind, as many other reviews do: with severe annoyance. There's no profile for our blogger, who calls herself $$ (the blogger formerly known as Shalini Surendran) which at first seems contradictory to a template flourished with aged parchment romanticism and a golden ornamental header, but that shit's very hip right now so never mind. Worldly old souls, the polarizing wisdom of antique keys and modern technology and all that.  Honestly, I love that shit. I really do.

Even though she sometimes traps herself into posting a sentence beneath an inspirational photo of a tree in the sunset, DollahDollah can write superbeautifully, with a hazy glow or solid awareness.  Sometimes she shitbombs her prose with alternating text colors, and sometimes she's meandering cheese, and sometimes she uses too many explanation points, but the words work so in the end that's just aesthetics.  I am pleasantly impressed with her. Surprise!

In fact, I really like her, even though she's not a feminist (although I suspect, as I find with many women, that she really cannot define feminism. Feminists are like hipsters: the original social movement has lost all meaning and credibility because motherfuckers don't what the snot they're talking about) I know.  I know.  What the fuck.  Who am I.

Most of her crowded posts could be punched out of their meh-ness.  There's a great deal of purple prose and utter crap, but she's got enough gall to keep me reading.  But what I love, and I do love this about her, is her uncompromising thankful dreaminess, full of hope and love. She is so genuine and infectiously pleased that I have to like her, I don't think I have a choice.  It's rare that I find a blog where someone claims to be happy and I just believe them because their words smell like joy.

So DollahDollah, well done.  Two stars and a very happy puppy.



9 comments:

  1. How can someone be a woman and not a feminist? And be happy? That makes no sense to me.

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  2. Yeah, okay, so I guess she's happy in her complacency. Which is fine.

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  3. There once was a girl from Beijing

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  4. Ooh, how do I make my words smell like joy, rather than day old egg salad?

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  5. awesome !!! a good review for a good blog !!!

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  6. There once was a girl from Bejing
    Who wanted a large diamond ring...

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  7. I agree with Rassles. I guess the review caught Shiner in a generous mood.

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  8. Nice to see you guys back. I've had quite a lot of free time the last few weeks; so for me, you've picked rather a bad time to go on a break.

    As for the blog, I liked some of the writing very much. The "Nostalgia" post is as beautifully written as the one on China is cringe-worthy. But then, I've always preferred the mercurial to the consistent. Shame about the exclamation marks, though.

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Grow a pair.