My moma always tole me to speak my mind thoughtfully. That saying only what is nice to say lets the patriarchy win. My moma tole me to speak my mind. And then, one day, it flipped. The stories stopped coming from pages written by other finders, the stories came from a tormenting voice in my gut. The story started like gas, uncomfortable pressure that expanded like pizza in my belly I should never have let pass my teeth. The stories would not let me rest in the river of denial or lazy Sunday morning. The stories were relentless waves, crashing poetry to sand under a rickety declining boardwalk moaning under a foot of snow.
Two girls from the mission. A character map arranged like a newfangled tree of life. A wide infinite universe, timelessness and the eradication of corruption. Walk with me. Put on these shoes. Let these waves make sand of your fears. Let this snow mulch your future spring shoots, insulate them from this terrible cold. Walk with me down the beach out into space. Stand under the dawns as light pours over your skin. Fix the great beasts, and travel in and out of the pockets on their spiny backs. Visit the myths, learn the great songs with the daughters of stars and the sons of asteroids. Walk with me in the shadows, the terror of other people's screams yanking your dreams out of your unrealized places to beam on the movie wall of your worst nightmares. Walk with me out of that land, to quests accomplished and one solution birthing new problems.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Who's aFraid of Doing an MFA?
My Bird and Bear and Buddha Self, Irked on the Commute
It was early.
Gwyneth was purring, her new car smell almost
over-powering the stereo.
Chumps! I chortled, zooming past—
and the world spins madly on
(snippets of a sad song in shafts of light).
This week there was a
super-harvest moon hanging pendulous up there—auspices of
the crazy alignments to come.
Like that one day—I might just fly!
Not little by little (like that dream
I had about holding the magical window above my head)
but at once and as if on mighty wings
shrieking like a fearsome air raid.
I would soar in my blissful soaring,
and like the arctic tern, my wings would be edged
with a smear of soot (only iridescent)
playing in the taste of salt
and the smells of water.
I would bring you treasures, beloved.
Squirming gems of sea-life,
flashing food fumbling low on the food-chain
meant to nourish you, inspire eggs even.
On these pearlescent wings I would perform stunts,
grand and glad journeys.
From close speculation, roundabout wonder
and the focus of a nearsighted bear
(my bird sight obviously gone now)
I study and study and study and establish
that a connection between suffering and the end of suffering
is insurmountable.
It is indicative of so much, I grumble.
(Too soon ambling into the salt mines).
Rapacious patriarchy changed the face of everything, with their cultural
knout, like the historical chastiser they have proven to be.
It was early.
Gwyneth was purring, her new car smell almost
over-powering the stereo.
Chumps! I chortled, zooming past—
and the world spins madly on
(snippets of a sad song in shafts of light).
This week there was a
super-harvest moon hanging pendulous up there—auspices of
the crazy alignments to come.
Like that one day—I might just fly!
Not little by little (like that dream
I had about holding the magical window above my head)
but at once and as if on mighty wings
shrieking like a fearsome air raid.
I would soar in my blissful soaring,
and like the arctic tern, my wings would be edged
with a smear of soot (only iridescent)
playing in the taste of salt
and the smells of water.
I would bring you treasures, beloved.
Squirming gems of sea-life,
flashing food fumbling low on the food-chain
meant to nourish you, inspire eggs even.
On these pearlescent wings I would perform stunts,
grand and glad journeys.
From close speculation, roundabout wonder
and the focus of a nearsighted bear
(my bird sight obviously gone now)
I study and study and study and establish
that a connection between suffering and the end of suffering
is insurmountable.
It is indicative of so much, I grumble.
(Too soon ambling into the salt mines).
Rapacious patriarchy changed the face of everything, with their cultural
knout, like the historical chastiser they have proven to be.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The Grind
Blogging has been low on the priorities of late. June was a whirlwind at work and then a crash-course in emotional endurance that I may just be getting over now. I have been doing a great deal of visioning and hoping in the last few weeks: how can I find a way to be a productive creative person AND keep a house, maintain a relationship & do my job? I have been thinking that not needing sleep would be a nice start, alas that is not really possible unless I want to be a big ole bitch to everyone. Besides not enough sleep would likely get in the way of productivity...
So-- the economic climate being what it is (oil and food prices steadily rising, rising, rising) T and I have been having some serious conversations about how to make it all happen this year. Luckily, there *are places where we can trim. Sadly it is going to require of us a level of inner "lawfulness" heretofore unseen (ie actually following a budget, instead of just writing it and then filing it in the drawer). But we have The Oasis here, and we must make the necessary choices to heat it and feed ourselves in it.
But I have so many wants! And what a powerful drug wanting is. I have spent so much of my brainspace railing against materialistic monoculture-- only to look deep in my heart and see it there lurking like an ironic promise kept by some other self.
I WANT gap jeans.
I WANT a digital camera.
I WANT a new tattoo.
I WANT to go out to lunch.
I WANT to have the summer off.
WANT, WANT, WANTS!
Sigh, the brat factor, eh? or it is it less about my being a brat and more about the American Dream? No matter how "radical" one feels oneself to be there is still a level of inescapable conditioning that seeps in to even the most astute mind. I like my creature comforts, that's for sure. And there was certainly no lack of them when I was growing up (despite the Boston/Shreveport economic split). So here I am, a grown-up with a house and a big pile of want trying to wade through it as best I can. Trying to balance the wants table against the needs table and just hoping that I can find my way through the maze that it is.
I was just re-reading Huxley's Brave New World and marveling at how deep their conditioning was cut into them-- truely starting at conception. Certainly I was not created on an assembly line and then intentionally conditioned to be what I am through "sleep teaching" and specific embryonic advantages and disadvantages. But Huxley's warning feels very timely, still. Some say we are born just who we are-- personality and tastes and procilvities already there waiting to be honed with experience. But I say who we are born as (and become more fully as time marches on) is meddled with by the media monoculture! For exampel, natural tastes are turned into WANT, and therefore exploited by Nabisco and Gap and Delta. How can we escape it???
Perhaps this is what I will try to address with my writing, and with my teaching, for the rest of my days.
So-- the economic climate being what it is (oil and food prices steadily rising, rising, rising) T and I have been having some serious conversations about how to make it all happen this year. Luckily, there *are places where we can trim. Sadly it is going to require of us a level of inner "lawfulness" heretofore unseen (ie actually following a budget, instead of just writing it and then filing it in the drawer). But we have The Oasis here, and we must make the necessary choices to heat it and feed ourselves in it.
But I have so many wants! And what a powerful drug wanting is. I have spent so much of my brainspace railing against materialistic monoculture-- only to look deep in my heart and see it there lurking like an ironic promise kept by some other self.
I WANT gap jeans.
I WANT a digital camera.
I WANT a new tattoo.
I WANT to go out to lunch.
I WANT to have the summer off.
WANT, WANT, WANTS!
Sigh, the brat factor, eh? or it is it less about my being a brat and more about the American Dream? No matter how "radical" one feels oneself to be there is still a level of inescapable conditioning that seeps in to even the most astute mind. I like my creature comforts, that's for sure. And there was certainly no lack of them when I was growing up (despite the Boston/Shreveport economic split). So here I am, a grown-up with a house and a big pile of want trying to wade through it as best I can. Trying to balance the wants table against the needs table and just hoping that I can find my way through the maze that it is.
I was just re-reading Huxley's Brave New World and marveling at how deep their conditioning was cut into them-- truely starting at conception. Certainly I was not created on an assembly line and then intentionally conditioned to be what I am through "sleep teaching" and specific embryonic advantages and disadvantages. But Huxley's warning feels very timely, still. Some say we are born just who we are-- personality and tastes and procilvities already there waiting to be honed with experience. But I say who we are born as (and become more fully as time marches on) is meddled with by the media monoculture! For exampel, natural tastes are turned into WANT, and therefore exploited by Nabisco and Gap and Delta. How can we escape it???
Perhaps this is what I will try to address with my writing, and with my teaching, for the rest of my days.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Truth
It was drag day at Rock-N-Roll High School on Friday. There were, of course, a few freaked out straight boys doing their best to make sure all the world knew that even though their girlfriends and friend-girls had dressed them up they were NOT gay. But there was also some seriously fabulous Drag-- boys who really looked firece, girls who even I mistook for dudes! But my favorite was the contingent of self-described "geek" boys who dressed as the girls they might have been. Picture long, lovely skirts, cute matching tops, modest breasts, and their usually very bound pony-tails now long and lose, and no make-up. There were a few girls who were truely excellent Kings-- a few with very compelling facial hair who manifest stout and convincing walks to match the costume.
Since it was a Friday there was a performance in the theater after lunch/before afternoon classes. There was an award section for out kick-ass Mock Trial team, and then a preview for the african drum and dance troupe that all ended early. It was clear that we needed to fill the last 15 minutes with something fabulous. With only a blip of hesitation I sashayed my high femme ass up to the stage (oh yes, I was in drag, too) and once the yelling died down invited all those who were in drag up for a little parade! Meanwhile somebody was able to put their hand on that silly song you know you all love "I'm Too Sexy" and the kids made a little magic. It was a day of great joy for this queer teacher-- especially, as one colleague noted, in other schools boys can be sent home for wearing skirts and dresses. But no no not at R&R High. We dedicate an entire day to the fine art of questioning gender expression!
In the spirit of the day I asked my classes to discuss a poem by Margaret Atwood about telling true stories and telling lies. It seems to me that outside the oasis of places like Rock and Roll High most folk, especially teen agers, who want to express their gender differently than what convention dictates are at the least ostracized and at the worst in danger of violence. It was cool to hear them digging around this big ole' word, since TRUTH is such a high and heavy word loaded with the baggage of religion, law, and personal philosophy. In any event, we wrote poems in the style of the Atwood one and here is mine:
i
Don't ask for the true story
Why is it necessary?
Truth isn't universal or clear
it isn't on my back like a tattoo.
What I'm walking with
holding like sharpened steel
isn't luck, or fire, or kind words
that tick like my heart telling a tale.
ii
The true story was lost
during that terrible snow and howling hail
when shoes and clothes and hair were
a dark tangle of cues on the outside
a crystal refracting the light of so
many millions of years old light.
Light blurred by salt and the
tiny footprints of Athena's silent fowl.
iii
The true story lies
among a jumble of colors
like specimen on wax tablets, like
sounds, like that owl's kill.
The true story is chrulish
and snide and mythical,
and besides, truth is
improbable, and floats
like pollen in the spring.
Since it was a Friday there was a performance in the theater after lunch/before afternoon classes. There was an award section for out kick-ass Mock Trial team, and then a preview for the african drum and dance troupe that all ended early. It was clear that we needed to fill the last 15 minutes with something fabulous. With only a blip of hesitation I sashayed my high femme ass up to the stage (oh yes, I was in drag, too) and once the yelling died down invited all those who were in drag up for a little parade! Meanwhile somebody was able to put their hand on that silly song you know you all love "I'm Too Sexy" and the kids made a little magic. It was a day of great joy for this queer teacher-- especially, as one colleague noted, in other schools boys can be sent home for wearing skirts and dresses. But no no not at R&R High. We dedicate an entire day to the fine art of questioning gender expression!
In the spirit of the day I asked my classes to discuss a poem by Margaret Atwood about telling true stories and telling lies. It seems to me that outside the oasis of places like Rock and Roll High most folk, especially teen agers, who want to express their gender differently than what convention dictates are at the least ostracized and at the worst in danger of violence. It was cool to hear them digging around this big ole' word, since TRUTH is such a high and heavy word loaded with the baggage of religion, law, and personal philosophy. In any event, we wrote poems in the style of the Atwood one and here is mine:
i
Don't ask for the true story
Why is it necessary?
Truth isn't universal or clear
it isn't on my back like a tattoo.
What I'm walking with
holding like sharpened steel
isn't luck, or fire, or kind words
that tick like my heart telling a tale.
ii
The true story was lost
during that terrible snow and howling hail
when shoes and clothes and hair were
a dark tangle of cues on the outside
a crystal refracting the light of so
many millions of years old light.
Light blurred by salt and the
tiny footprints of Athena's silent fowl.
iii
The true story lies
among a jumble of colors
like specimen on wax tablets, like
sounds, like that owl's kill.
The true story is chrulish
and snide and mythical,
and besides, truth is
improbable, and floats
like pollen in the spring.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Our place in the scheme of things
I had a big burphday party last week. It was a gala event with wonderful food, beloved people, and glorious weather. My mom came-- with Williamsburg Orange Cake-- and amazing people from near and far showered me with affection, books, and music. It was a delightful way to mark 33. The next Monday I thought I was on my way to spend 4 days in Phili with Mom. We were going to bake and apple pie, visit the traveling Frida exhibit, and faff about enjoying the spring weather. On Tuesday early I got the call from my Dad that Paw-Paw had passed away and I was flung headlong into an epic journey down the eastern seaboard to a tour of Louisiana.
The ritual of saying goodbye is important, and Paw-Paw's was heartfelt, partially Hebrew ( a language I am not sure he even knew or revered in life), and short. I was standing with J and A-- T was not in attendence-- looking around at a crowd of people who used to be the grown-ups in the family and I realized that J, A, and I are also the grown-ups in the family now. Like the inevidable motion of the most rhythmic order we moved up in the generational design that day. There were no children a generation younger than us there represented-- in fact none of my generational cohort have divided that way yet. And this was a realization I found notable as well.
Of course, upon return home, T and I had another one of those uncomftorable conversations about spawning. She is much more salmon-like than I, and seems to be quite drawn to the idea of returning to the proverbial grounds to make babbies. I, on the other hand, don't seem to have the slightest inclination whatsoever to do such a thing. Call me crazy-- but the idea of pregnancy and labor is as abhorent to me as becoming a stock-broker. And then there are diapers, toddler rages, outrageous child-care costs... i have real trouble seeing the positive here. This is a source of much constrenation between T and I-- and a conflict that I believe one day may become a grave problem. But for now we simply bump into it occasionally-- and as her biological clock ticks louder and louder each year I simply hope for flexibility of mind and open-heartedness to descend upon both of us.
The ritual of saying goodbye is important, and Paw-Paw's was heartfelt, partially Hebrew ( a language I am not sure he even knew or revered in life), and short. I was standing with J and A-- T was not in attendence-- looking around at a crowd of people who used to be the grown-ups in the family and I realized that J, A, and I are also the grown-ups in the family now. Like the inevidable motion of the most rhythmic order we moved up in the generational design that day. There were no children a generation younger than us there represented-- in fact none of my generational cohort have divided that way yet. And this was a realization I found notable as well.
Of course, upon return home, T and I had another one of those uncomftorable conversations about spawning. She is much more salmon-like than I, and seems to be quite drawn to the idea of returning to the proverbial grounds to make babbies. I, on the other hand, don't seem to have the slightest inclination whatsoever to do such a thing. Call me crazy-- but the idea of pregnancy and labor is as abhorent to me as becoming a stock-broker. And then there are diapers, toddler rages, outrageous child-care costs... i have real trouble seeing the positive here. This is a source of much constrenation between T and I-- and a conflict that I believe one day may become a grave problem. But for now we simply bump into it occasionally-- and as her biological clock ticks louder and louder each year I simply hope for flexibility of mind and open-heartedness to descend upon both of us.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
OMG, shoes
I awoke dreeaming about shoes. I was in this mall-like place with people I don't enjoy much in waking life and we were looking at this place where you put your feet in trash bags and they trace you all up and then create for you a pair of individual shoes. I was hesitant (since I want and need a new pair of hooves in waking life and apparently in dream life, too) but also strangely obsessed with the whole process. I woke up just as dream-friend was putting his feet in the bags and the shoe-maker was emerging from the back to help us.
What could this possibly mean? Shoes could be representative of stability? of status? of standing on my own two feet? of that stupid youtube video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCF3ywukQYA) that I am oddly in love with. Humph.
As my big burphday partay looms I am thinkiing more and more about this notion of identity. How that identity changes over time! Certainly when I was younger I was more focused on WHO I AM and what that looks like, how I manifest that, and what that means. These days I am less intereseted; I care more about kindness, and being honest about what I want and how I feel. These days I am less interested in being some "consistent" person-- especially if that comes at the expense of changing my mind and being wrong. Life is here to be lived, no? Life is here to be present for, not to for forcing and shoving and imposing our will around. More and more the activities that feel important to me live with the people who are important to me-- more so than art, or ideas, or beauty. This particular me has been around the sun almost 33 years. 33 fucking years-- Goddess help us! But that is a long time to be here. Of course, it is nothing on most time scales (the geological one, the galactical one...) And I don't feel "old" really. I feel more and more humble if anything. Maybe that is what being around teen-agers all day does to ya-- they are really, for the most part, the opposite of humble. And having been first hand witness all day most days, except summer, to the mess that attitude whips up I am more and more interested in manifesting humility.
In fact, one of the short quotes up in my classroom is a line from an Ani song: humility has buoyancy. And in my experience so far, truer words were never sung!
What could this possibly mean? Shoes could be representative of stability? of status? of standing on my own two feet? of that stupid youtube video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCF3ywukQYA) that I am oddly in love with. Humph.
As my big burphday partay looms I am thinkiing more and more about this notion of identity. How that identity changes over time! Certainly when I was younger I was more focused on WHO I AM and what that looks like, how I manifest that, and what that means. These days I am less intereseted; I care more about kindness, and being honest about what I want and how I feel. These days I am less interested in being some "consistent" person-- especially if that comes at the expense of changing my mind and being wrong. Life is here to be lived, no? Life is here to be present for, not to for forcing and shoving and imposing our will around. More and more the activities that feel important to me live with the people who are important to me-- more so than art, or ideas, or beauty. This particular me has been around the sun almost 33 years. 33 fucking years-- Goddess help us! But that is a long time to be here. Of course, it is nothing on most time scales (the geological one, the galactical one...) And I don't feel "old" really. I feel more and more humble if anything. Maybe that is what being around teen-agers all day does to ya-- they are really, for the most part, the opposite of humble. And having been first hand witness all day most days, except summer, to the mess that attitude whips up I am more and more interested in manifesting humility.
In fact, one of the short quotes up in my classroom is a line from an Ani song: humility has buoyancy. And in my experience so far, truer words were never sung!
Thursday, April 3, 2008
It isn't every day that you get to moderate a mosh pit at ye olde day job, eh?!
And conversely, it isn't every day that you see a kid running down the sidewalk away from her parent who looks around panicked at the edge of the driveway (I did see the kid look back, once, but then she turned the corner).
And finally it isn't eveybody's reality to be so blessed and so moody all at once: what is wrong with me?!
T and I are on our way to the keys tomorrow at 0:dark thirty for the nuptials of dear friends (who have found a steadfast love) and still my moods are like a capricious ocean this week! Perhaps I am becoming more and more like the teen-agers I spend so much time around, perhaps I am further down on the inner evolutionary trajectory than I had hoped. And perhaps, just perhaps, all this poetry and yoga and kale-eating isn't getting me anywhere but where I already am anyway. And where is that, might you ask? Well, this morning it is right here on the computer, instead of exercising or reading or cleaning the bathroom.
Sigh, I feel like an old Robbie Robertson song this morning: Somewhere Down the Crazy River. Not so much the lyrics or the melody but the atmosphere of it, the nostalgia of it, and the a little bit cheesy nature of it...
Friday, March 28, 2008
Comedy
There is something about a person standing on a stage TRYING to make me laugh that brings out my inner hater, my most stubborn and stone-faced humorless self. Don't get me wrong-- I enjoy laughing, and wit, and irony and synicism; especially when they are employed to critique current doing of this dumb-ass world. And satire, in most of its forms, I especially enjoy, particurally the mockumentary variety (a la "This is Spinal Tap" and "But I'm a Cheerleader"). Camp usually makes me laugh out loud unabashadly, and even occasionally well-played slap-stick has known to squeeze a chuckle out of this old crumdgen. But stand-up, yuck!... http://www.whitless.com/ is one bit of evidence for my cause here. While Jay is not really doing "stand-up" on his show it is damn well close enough, eh?
I was recently invited by a new friend to go see this comedienne at that gambling mecca in CT (the funny lady's name escapes me this early, as does the casino). And while I was really excited for the invitation to spend an evening with her I had to bow out because I don't like stand-up. (That and casinos usually make me cry). I felt unevolved, and a little like a killjoy, untill I really looked closely at my opinion.
I have now concluded that I heartily agree with Henry Drummond in "Inherit the Wind" when he quipped to Rachel Cates “Lady, when you lose your power to laugh, you lose your power to think straight” (50). However there are certain deliveries that make this lady laugh-- and that's a truth.
I was recently invited by a new friend to go see this comedienne at that gambling mecca in CT (the funny lady's name escapes me this early, as does the casino). And while I was really excited for the invitation to spend an evening with her I had to bow out because I don't like stand-up. (That and casinos usually make me cry). I felt unevolved, and a little like a killjoy, untill I really looked closely at my opinion.
I have now concluded that I heartily agree with Henry Drummond in "Inherit the Wind" when he quipped to Rachel Cates “Lady, when you lose your power to laugh, you lose your power to think straight” (50). However there are certain deliveries that make this lady laugh-- and that's a truth.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
This ain't a movie, nah
I have spent a lifetime being a careful student of music that moves me. I have cried along, belted it out in the car, and hummed along in the shower. I have been making mixes since the days of cassete tapes and have long held the opinion that a really great mix is perhaps the best gift any one person can give.
I have nursed a secret fantasy of being a rock star (a fantasy I sort of live out every day in my daily one woman show know as English Class). There are some songs that I have loved for so long they have become like life itself, like my bones and my hands, like the mash-up opera in my head that never fades out completly but carries me thourgh the fire and sailing on the high winds of this mortal coil.
There are voices that resonate in my cells and in my counsciousness both-- that I dream in and that I imagine I might sound like if I practiced enough.
I f music can give me hope and offer the rare balm of solace in this dirty-minded and unjust world-- well that is something, idn't it!
To the east the sun is rising again-- all pink and bold in the sky. itunes is playing me a lovely mix-- quiet and pretty-- and as I mutter along (right in the thick of love, sometimes we get scik of love) musing on sunrise's inevidibility John Lgend is right
maybe we should take it slow.... it's more confusing every day.. no it'snot a fantasy...maybe we should take it slow
I have nursed a secret fantasy of being a rock star (a fantasy I sort of live out every day in my daily one woman show know as English Class). There are some songs that I have loved for so long they have become like life itself, like my bones and my hands, like the mash-up opera in my head that never fades out completly but carries me thourgh the fire and sailing on the high winds of this mortal coil.
There are voices that resonate in my cells and in my counsciousness both-- that I dream in and that I imagine I might sound like if I practiced enough.
I f music can give me hope and offer the rare balm of solace in this dirty-minded and unjust world-- well that is something, idn't it!
To the east the sun is rising again-- all pink and bold in the sky. itunes is playing me a lovely mix-- quiet and pretty-- and as I mutter along (right in the thick of love, sometimes we get scik of love) musing on sunrise's inevidibility John Lgend is right
maybe we should take it slow.... it's more confusing every day.. no it'snot a fantasy...maybe we should take it slow
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The Art of Wooing
I have long been a proponent of the DIY ethic for everything from gardening flowers to fixing cars (if only I knew how to do that!). And art, to me, is the ultimate in DIY: if you don't see enough beauty in your world go ahead and make some your own damn self! I think this is one sure fire way to beat the apathy and hopelessness that all things legislative, heteronormative, and full of saturated fat and corn syrup can bring on.
But I digress-- I am here to tell you all about my friend Kaz's new book that she SELF-PUBLISHED! (I am so proud of her). It is a beautiful multi-media romp through the slings and arrows of dating misfortune, the upsets and false starts of love, and it just so happens to have a little something-sumthin from moi therein (though it transcends the actual writers and is really about the ever-elusive critter known as love).
The website is gorgeous-- check it out and buy a book!!!
http://www.theartofwooing.com/
But I digress-- I am here to tell you all about my friend Kaz's new book that she SELF-PUBLISHED! (I am so proud of her). It is a beautiful multi-media romp through the slings and arrows of dating misfortune, the upsets and false starts of love, and it just so happens to have a little something-sumthin from moi therein (though it transcends the actual writers and is really about the ever-elusive critter known as love).
The website is gorgeous-- check it out and buy a book!!!
http://www.theartofwooing.com/
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Happy Thoughts
How life does sweep me away in its current... last night T and I were scrolling through the "on demand" free movie options on our too many choices TV box and decided to give the 90's "Hook" a shot. Who can really pass up a Robin Williams tale, especially if the theme is Peter Pan?! We didn't actually make it to the end (we got sleepy) but there were a few things that were quite striking!
For one thing, the sets were real. This movie was made enough before the time of digital everything in modern movies, and it was so refreshinging! I will never cease to be amazed by what my fellow humans can build. The set of the lost boy's tree house was so shockingly cool that we both got all woozy wishing we could build one just like it in our backyard. Also, Captian Hook's ship (who I believe was played by Denis Hoffman!?) was a set marvel with wonderful details all over the place. The actors were trilling around in this magical made-up kindom of imagination that was an actual place in some movie lot somewhere! It is so much more fun to watch them in that environment! Much similar to "Aeon FLux"-- a film that was shot in Berlin. Upon first view of this incarnation of Aeon's story (having been a big fan of the liguid television version when I was in High School) I was really struck by the atmosphere of the settings, though I was sure they were all computer generated. But when I learned that they were real places in a city I have long wished to see for myself I was doubly struck by the coolness of it all. Certainly "Aeon Flux" was a digitalized version of Berlin-- while "Hook" was movie magic old school-- they have in common the transformative allure that happens when a story is being told in a real place. All this action packed, digital mumbo jumbo in the virtual world of a computerized scene is fun (don't get me wrong, I just watched "Across the Universe" and was really touched by the whole thing)-- but I crave real sets!
I guess this seems like a silly thing to blog about-- especially as it has been so damn long since I wrote one-- but that is about where my head is at these days. There just seems to be so fcuking much to do all the time (school, future, house, maintanence of the modern life, etc...) that talking about a really impressive set (or setting) in a movie is actually more interesting. I mean I really coud have edited a poem last night, or reckoned the checkbook, or found an outfit for the Island wedding in April-- these all would have been more effective uses of my time last night. But is this not the exact lesson of the Peter Pan saga? Somedays you need to just engage what is enjoyable about life. As Joesph Campbell says: We can reckon the meaning later-- right now it's all about the experience!
For one thing, the sets were real. This movie was made enough before the time of digital everything in modern movies, and it was so refreshinging! I will never cease to be amazed by what my fellow humans can build. The set of the lost boy's tree house was so shockingly cool that we both got all woozy wishing we could build one just like it in our backyard. Also, Captian Hook's ship (who I believe was played by Denis Hoffman!?) was a set marvel with wonderful details all over the place. The actors were trilling around in this magical made-up kindom of imagination that was an actual place in some movie lot somewhere! It is so much more fun to watch them in that environment! Much similar to "Aeon FLux"-- a film that was shot in Berlin. Upon first view of this incarnation of Aeon's story (having been a big fan of the liguid television version when I was in High School) I was really struck by the atmosphere of the settings, though I was sure they were all computer generated. But when I learned that they were real places in a city I have long wished to see for myself I was doubly struck by the coolness of it all. Certainly "Aeon Flux" was a digitalized version of Berlin-- while "Hook" was movie magic old school-- they have in common the transformative allure that happens when a story is being told in a real place. All this action packed, digital mumbo jumbo in the virtual world of a computerized scene is fun (don't get me wrong, I just watched "Across the Universe" and was really touched by the whole thing)-- but I crave real sets!
I guess this seems like a silly thing to blog about-- especially as it has been so damn long since I wrote one-- but that is about where my head is at these days. There just seems to be so fcuking much to do all the time (school, future, house, maintanence of the modern life, etc...) that talking about a really impressive set (or setting) in a movie is actually more interesting. I mean I really coud have edited a poem last night, or reckoned the checkbook, or found an outfit for the Island wedding in April-- these all would have been more effective uses of my time last night. But is this not the exact lesson of the Peter Pan saga? Somedays you need to just engage what is enjoyable about life. As Joesph Campbell says: We can reckon the meaning later-- right now it's all about the experience!
Monday, February 25, 2008
Birthdays and Soldiering
I got an email from my first love this morning. He has been deployed in Afganastan for an entire year now. Usually his emails are full of shennagin tales, trips outside the wire, and the bliss that is PT. But today's message contained more longing for home and hearth than usual. He was telling this short story about wild dogs and how they wouldn't really listen to his reasonable suggestions-- but all I could picture was my friend looking sad in his desert gear with his big ole gun in his arms.
Contrast this experience with this weekend's princess burphday party that we threw for T (she turns 30 tomorrow!). We were making pipe cleaner crowns, and eating junk food, and listening to music in the kitchen-- as though life was just peachy for everyone out there. I beleive this sentiment I am feeling this morning can be neatly rounded up in this quote that I have been including in my emails for months now:
> "If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to change the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."
~~ E.B. White <
When R announced (the second time) that he really was joining up I was more than a little upset. Not only did it require me to put a real (and beloved) face on a war that I would not get my head around, but it also asked me to support my freind who was making a choice I NEVER would have expected in a million years! It was a rocky time for me. But as the years of this have marched forward I have grown more...supple. Is this not the job of a true friend: to require continued mental and love flexibility of us? I can admit freely that it is unlikely I would require it of myself, being naturally incined to stubobrness as I am. Perhaps this is a shard of the meaning we all seek?
Contrast this experience with this weekend's princess burphday party that we threw for T (she turns 30 tomorrow!). We were making pipe cleaner crowns, and eating junk food, and listening to music in the kitchen-- as though life was just peachy for everyone out there. I beleive this sentiment I am feeling this morning can be neatly rounded up in this quote that I have been including in my emails for months now:
> "If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to change the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."
~~ E.B. White <
When R announced (the second time) that he really was joining up I was more than a little upset. Not only did it require me to put a real (and beloved) face on a war that I would not get my head around, but it also asked me to support my freind who was making a choice I NEVER would have expected in a million years! It was a rocky time for me. But as the years of this have marched forward I have grown more...supple. Is this not the job of a true friend: to require continued mental and love flexibility of us? I can admit freely that it is unlikely I would require it of myself, being naturally incined to stubobrness as I am. Perhaps this is a shard of the meaning we all seek?
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Digital Media
When I was a tadpole trapsing around with my carmera and my doc martins, smoking camels and listening to The Cure there was very little more satisfying to me than making images that felt beautiful and then going to the darkroom for a few hours of magic. Since high school there have been too-brief stints where I had access to a darkroom so I could burn-n-dodge to my little heart's content. Sadly those days seem to be over for me.
Yesterday I spent a little time in Iris looking at the digital SLR's and listening to the very informed guy there tell me all about image stabalization, lens compadibility, battery types and lives, and relative costs and qualities. These cameras have almost no delay between the depression of the shutter and the image capture, there is one that is even "weather-sealed" (though likely not for paddling trips or long hikes). Insert here any petulant little noise, punctuated with a "but..."
I don't know yau'll-- at the start of my photography carrear it was serious this question of where does "documentation" end and "art photography" begin. And I beleive that this question burns hotter and brighter now than it ever did when it was just me and my K-1000 stromping the world. Perhaps I am simply resistant to change (why did I bother with that perhaps), and maybe it is an issue of capital (I ain't got it), but possibly it is something bigger. The PHYSICAL, CHEMiCAL, and (frankly) magical acts of film photography are quite different from digital media. The quality of light is quite flat and unrealistic in a digital image--is this perhaps what the analog recording artists are yapping about?
When i was a kid I had this strange fascination with making things "last". I would write dates on things, I would cover paper trasures in plastic tape, and I would THINK about wanting "it all" (whatever "it" was) to last for good. And then later when I met photography this fell in wonderfully with my already developed quest for the permanant. What you have in a negative is the ability to recreate an image over and over no matter how many prints you give away, ruin, or lose. But-- and this is what appeals to the Taurean in my methinks-- it is still a physical item, the negative. And tragically therefore, being physical, can be eventually, or acctidentally, or ruthlessly destroyed.
As I have encountered more ideas on the subject, I have now grown fascinated with the idea that impermanance just might be what causes the temporary state known as ballance. How about them apples. So, all this dithering about digital vs. film: what's the point? Would I even be making a fuss if I could afford that $800 Pentax K-whatever I saw on sale at Iris yesterday and just test it out for myself? Probably. Any philanthropists out there reading one lone girl's blog? Wanna fund an experiment?
Yesterday I spent a little time in Iris looking at the digital SLR's and listening to the very informed guy there tell me all about image stabalization, lens compadibility, battery types and lives, and relative costs and qualities. These cameras have almost no delay between the depression of the shutter and the image capture, there is one that is even "weather-sealed" (though likely not for paddling trips or long hikes). Insert here any petulant little noise, punctuated with a "but..."
I don't know yau'll-- at the start of my photography carrear it was serious this question of where does "documentation" end and "art photography" begin. And I beleive that this question burns hotter and brighter now than it ever did when it was just me and my K-1000 stromping the world. Perhaps I am simply resistant to change (why did I bother with that perhaps), and maybe it is an issue of capital (I ain't got it), but possibly it is something bigger. The PHYSICAL, CHEMiCAL, and (frankly) magical acts of film photography are quite different from digital media. The quality of light is quite flat and unrealistic in a digital image--is this perhaps what the analog recording artists are yapping about?
When i was a kid I had this strange fascination with making things "last". I would write dates on things, I would cover paper trasures in plastic tape, and I would THINK about wanting "it all" (whatever "it" was) to last for good. And then later when I met photography this fell in wonderfully with my already developed quest for the permanant. What you have in a negative is the ability to recreate an image over and over no matter how many prints you give away, ruin, or lose. But-- and this is what appeals to the Taurean in my methinks-- it is still a physical item, the negative. And tragically therefore, being physical, can be eventually, or acctidentally, or ruthlessly destroyed.
As I have encountered more ideas on the subject, I have now grown fascinated with the idea that impermanance just might be what causes the temporary state known as ballance. How about them apples. So, all this dithering about digital vs. film: what's the point? Would I even be making a fuss if I could afford that $800 Pentax K-whatever I saw on sale at Iris yesterday and just test it out for myself? Probably. Any philanthropists out there reading one lone girl's blog? Wanna fund an experiment?
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