BEFORE YOU READ ANY FURTHER
Read this brief preface by the Author
From 2002-2004, Japhyjunket was my blog. For a number of reasons, I closed up shop and after a nine month hiatus, started a new blog:
The Modern Romantic. It's probably where you want to go.
This site isn't entirely uninteresting, however.
It began in January of 2002, three months after 9/11 and my very personal responses to that event make up the majority of this blog. The period of time it covers has been defining for me and for many. It chronicles the "new normal", the threat of war and finally, war itself. For me, this is the period of time starts just before my ex and I broke-up and ends just after I moved to Los Angeles. I suppose this is my portrait of the artist as a young and terrified man. A lot of who I am today can be read into these sometimes panicked jabs at understanding what was happening to my world and to myself- and truth be told, a lot of it was wonderful, too.
If this sounds like something you'd like to waste a few moments on, you can scroll down (all the posts are on this page) or browse through the archive, but to help you out, here are some of the posts which most interest me in retrospect.
A Selected List of Posts Worth Reading
(Please note that the quirkiness of this blog's code means that you have to scroll down to the bottom to read the text)
- An Answer For America- The first lengthy post on the blog. I propose bringing back ostracism.
- A drunk post, another one, here's one I sent from my phone in a bar while drunk,
- My obsession with Ben Curtis (aka the Dell Guy) is a running joke throughout the blog. Read about it here and then again, after he's arrested here. Ironically, I'm now friends with the Dell Guy that replaced him.
- I also rail against Andy Hicks, my "high school rival" quite a bit here, here, and here,
- I wrote a lot of reviews. This one for Metamorphoses, is one of my favorites. And my first attempt at reviewing art is something I'm still happy with.
- May of 2002 was when I started to really start talking about the WTC. More WTC rebuilding stories here, here,
- I love trains. Also, mountains.
- This story about my train trip from Albuquerque is one of my favorites.
- On the first anniversary of 9/11, I wrote this poem. Later, I adapted it into a short film. I also wrote a prose piece that's a lot less true, but is what motivated me to write the poem.
- Another poem. It's fun to see how embarrassed I was in presenting it.
- A riff on the New Yorker's "Talk of the Town".
- I tried to write a short story called Advent, which involved a new chapter every day, written in real time. I got to Day 16. Day One is here. The rest can be found in random order here. It's about a road trip my ex and I took two weeks after 9/11.
- I even did an audio blog post.
- The days leading up to the war found me at my most snarky and cynical. It begins with faked man-on-the-street interviews, continues with a review of a Simpsons episode, and once war was declared, an open letter to Bush. Right after you get some channel surfing, Ripley's Believe It or Not parodies, Oscar coverage, and analysis on the similarity between Saddam and myself.
- And I totally call how Lawrence v. Texas was going to swing the election way before anyone else did. I also called out the O.C. as awesome from Day 1.
- I piss off Craig Newmark of Craigslist. Part One & Two.
- And- my first dispatch from L.A.
I really wanted to bury this blog for a while, but looking back on it now, there's plenty of wince inducing moments, but also bits of writing and phrases that stick like shards of glass in my brain. I've cleaned up the code and got rid of the password protection I put up to ward people off. I created my new site to take a step away from the person who wrote Japhyjunket: depressed, cynical, manic and incapable of follow-through, but now that I've got some distance on kid, he seems alright.
-Japhy Grant
Los Angeles
Read more! (in beta)
posted by Japhy at 6/28/2006 12:36:00 PM
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