The Co-Laboratory Grand Opening!

WINTER READS

Featured artist: Chuck Palahnuik

Featured novel: "Survivor"

I went into this thinking about the popular reality TV show "Survivor" (for obvious reasons), the novel is titled "Survivor", so I was not too thrilled to pick it up. However, as Chuck always does, he engaged me with a simple, easy to read introduction.
The story not only begins at the end, but the first page is actually numbered the last page and the chapter 1 is the last chapter you read. So if you're a slow reader you can say "I just started this morning and I'm already on page 200".
This particular Palahnuik is about the last remaining member of a religious Creedish cult. Like many of his books, the story jumps around and gives you all kinds of information and teasers at random moments that keep the pages turning. He (as the main character and narrator) criticizes the world as a shallow, materialistic place with a twisted society.


"Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? A big, scary unknown".


The way his does dialogue is so smooth, flows so naturally, like you're listening to a conversation.


"She's saying "what?"
Kill yourself.
She's saying "what?"
Try barbiturates and alcohol with your head inside a dry cleaning bag".


But where is it all going? Everyone of Chuck's stories don't really end with a resolution. They're just a form of entertainment. Read about some absurd character's crazy story for a few pages because in the end all you get is what you make of it. Is this Creedish character a survivor of the radical religious "death cult"? Or a survivor of the "real world", the "outside world"?
This winter I would strongly recommend curling up on your couch with this serious page turner that will have you looking for more Palnuik novels.


Feel free to post your feelings about this novel under comments.

The Co-Laboratory

Through serious time, dedication, and a hefty amount of beer, wine and cigarettes, we have successfully set up our production studio/gallery.

Check out zecolab.tumblr.com for all the cool videos of the progression.

Grand opening will be Friday, January 8, 2010!
Free food, free drinks and fun prices!

Help us open an art gallery in Savannah, GA

The Smoking Future

The computer screen is filled with "subscribe to this" and "prescribe to that", you'll be thinner and prettier and happier. You ignore it after years of endurance to billboards and commercials,but you still glance, even if subconsciously, your mind picked up that information and it will remain there until it resurfaces either in dreams or in reality when you find yourself in the dental isle buying that toothpaste that guarantees a whiter, fresher smile.

This is the future.

Loads of information and persuasion beamed into your head through visuals of moms in mini vans, super models, kittens and catchy phrases-

"Mom Makes $77/hr Online!"

"DON'T Pay For Whiter Teeth!"
"Smoking Can Be Healthy?

       The smoking future"

Random Thoughts Thread

Savannah, GA- The all new Seed Eco Lounge opened just a few weeks ago featuring "organic" liquors. Seed is suppose to be an "eco-friendly" bar because of their pesticide-free drinks, however, since when has liquor NOT been organic? Vodka is made from potatoes, gin from berries, rum from sugar cane, etc. And if youre so worried about putting chemicals in your body... you shouldnt be drinking.
Someone did bring up a good point -organic farming isnt just for the fruit and vegetables; pesticides can also damage water. So for that, we congratulate you Eco Lounge -for making the world a potentially better place!

Ode to Bukowski -The Poetry Thread

I used to drink a lot.

A glass of wine at 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon,
one at 2:30,
another at 2:45
and a few more until 6pm
when it is socially acceptable to unscrew the cap,
smell the whiskey,
and taste it in the back of your already raspy throat
because you smoked too many cigarettes while thinking
“God, I am so sophisticated”
and writing drunken nonsense that
you won’t be able to read
whenever you do become sober again
because you were too shit faced to write legibly,
does not make me a drunk.

The Poetry Thread

This is a poem I wrote a few years ago.
Before I fell in love.

What I Think About When I Think About Love

After a long pause,

I looked into his eyes

questioning this thing we've been taught to know as

'love'.

A deep, tender feeling of affection,

an intense desire,

an emotional attachment,

an ever lasting frustration to

conquer one another

through adoration and admiration.

Hoping to be faithful and loyal,

we are enamored with the consistency

of falling asleep in each others arms

and waking up a tangled mess of

sheets and legs,

satisfied with the voids no longer empty

we could not have filled alone.

Relying on our bodies to keep warm,

dependent on our skin to sooth restless concerns,

surviving everyday

through beating hearts,

steady breaths

and tenacious thoughts of one another.

Compulsively fixating on

his mouth, and my lips,

his laugh and my smile.

Captivated by habitual routines

performed out of excessive need

to be conquered,

to be adored,

to just feel love at its purest,

pretending to be pure

but still wondering

what we could be missing.

This, love is no longer just a mere liking to another,

but a sick arrangement between two people

drawn together in order to continue their own existence.

He looked at me and said,

“I love you”,

and surely, I will reply,

“I love you, too”.

Making Myself Work -The Stuck Indoors Thread

Time: 2:30 pm
Location: Alex's computer listening to Air as my ankle thumps and thumps from the blood rushing to it's rescue, not helping but swelling the injury (which was really me just hitting the little bone on the inside of my ankle against the skateboard over a week ago, yet it's still bruised? Preventing me from continuing my "skating training"). At the computer, even though it is a beautiful August day and I should be by Kellie's pool, or the beach waiting for the tide while soaking in the sun.
Thoughts: Yesterday I saw a comedian (the name escapes me but he's a character in the show Arrested Development) talk about McDonald's. This is me paraphrasing it-

If McDonald's stopped advertising for like four months, people wouldn't forget. They're not going to be like
"Where'd McDonald's go?"
just because they aren't being force-fed Grade D meat at value meal prices. If McDonald's didn't advertise for just four months, they would save millions of dollars that could be put back in the system. Starting maybe by paying the employees a dollar extra, so when I go to McDonald's I don't have to deal with an understandably pissed off 19 year old, sweating over the 900 degree frialator thinking
"why am I not selling drugs?

Good News GA -The Current Events Thread

Good News
Oglethorpe Mall in Savannah, GA. -A new state of the art, eco-friendly library has been built. LEED certified, it comes equipped with lights on sensors that will turn off if there is no activity in that particular area. The bathrooms use low-flow water fixtures and even the carpets and paint are environmentally friendly.
The two story building offers a 200 occupancy auditorium, a classroom, a puppet stage, an area to serve the blind and physically handicapped, and --a teen room?

Or Is It?
This generous, new building cost over $15M and is still looking for funds to hire a staff. Because they don't have the sufficient funds to hire a new staff, they are closing Oglethorpe Mall a few hours or days a week, and are cutting the open hours of both The Savannah Bull St. Library and this new library from an original 70 hours a week to 30 hours.
So what will happen to the people whom you would normally see at The Savannah Bull St. Library sitting at the computers, desperately searching for jobs?
And the original staff at The Savannah Bull St. Library whose hours will be cut back?
Would it have been better to just improve on the already generous Bull St. Library?

Though the new library will cost the old library staff hourly wages, and library users hourly use; the new library will attract people from a different part of town. Now job searchers in Southside Savannah will have somewhere to go when in need of the generous resources the new library is supplying.
So congratulations, to the new Oglethorpe Mall Library!