Robin Behn has a series of "Yellow House" poems that are thematically linked--sometimes very loosely, sometimes very intensely. She's working on a collection of these poems. In my advanced creative writing class, we were required to read a handful of these works, and I loved a few of them so much that I couldn't stop reading them out loud last night before bed.
Today, our professor read each of the poems one-at-a-time and after each was finished, we were told to write down particular words or short phrases that we remembered--things that jumped out at us. We did this with six separate poems. Then, after we had the lists made, we were instructed to go outside for twenty minutes and write something new using, or inspired by, Behn's words that we'd recorded.
I tried to use every single word on my list, and I came up with this, although it has no title. Also, because of the nature of blogger, it's not formatted the way it is in my notebook.
The perpetuity of dank stones,
chestnut smell of death, a
filmic latch-key monster
with velvet teeth and
fallen feathers.
Your fingers,
your beard as curators of my neck, no--
more like fluttering tails
of blind cavefish
climbing
the lattice of my ribcage.
And then you are,
you are
arched over like a spoon, like
the letter r on its side,
unaware of the policing squares
of light
that pass through latitudinal
tree trunks and jagged crosshair
branches.
in the still--okay, cemetery;
in the exact middle of what is not
not a dream,
but a street where I once lived
in an--
almost--yellow house.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
Squealing Inside!
13 Reasons I really really really want to go to Bonnaroo this June 14th-17th:
1) The Police.
2) Wilco.
3) The White Stripes.
4) The Decemberists.
5) The Black Keys.
6) Spoon.
7) Wolfmother.
8) Franz Ferdinand.
9) Damien Rice.
10) Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals.
11) Martha Wainwright.
12) Gogol Bordello.
13) David Cross.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
The Making Love of Art
An assignment in my Advanced Creative Writing workshop this week was to combine two favorite works or literature and turn them into a new original poem. They didn't have to be poems--they could be short stories, novels, etc. I asked my professor if I could use a poem and a painting. She approved.
As soon as I heard the assignment I immediately thought of one of my favorite poems, Recovery of Sexual Desire After a Bad Cold by Fred Chappell:
Toward morning I dreamed of the Ace of Spades reversed
And woke up giggling.
New presence in the bedroom, as if it had snowed;
And an obdurate stranger come to visit my body.
This is how it all renews itself, floating down
Mothy on the shallow end of sleep;
How Easter gets here, and the hard-bitten dogwood
Flowers, and waters run clean again.
I am a new old man.
As morning sweetens the forsythia and the cats
Bristle with impudent hungers, I learn to smile.
I am a new baby.
What woman could turn from me now?
Shining like a butter knife, and the fever burned off,
My whole skin alert as radar, I can think
Of nothing at all but love and fresh coffee.
-------------------------
As soon as I knew I wanted to use this poem, I knew I needed a Frida Kahlo painting to team up with it. The Ace of Spades sold me, a tarot symbol, a supernatural force symbolized by a skull. I can't think of skulls without thinking of the Day of the Dead. Then I remembered Frida Kahlo's painting "Tree of Hope" and I knew this was it. The fertile, proud, healthy version of herself, perched in a nightscape next to the daytime bed of invalid Frida. No more back brace. There's a duality here, broken and virile, color and absence of color, day and night, sickness and health, and a strong theme of renewal that I see in both Chappell's and Kahlo's work. So here's what I came up with:
Desiring Frida by Marissa DeSantis:
This morning the brace is gone,
for in the night the stubborn bolts
vacated and left the blood and blister, sweat to dry,
the skin to renew.
A woman in a red dress was here,
or perhaps a fever dream
or perhaps the Ace of Spades
reversed,
a tarot skull with
chiclet teeth white as dogwood,
chattering through the forest para Dia De Los Muertos.
But I am alive
in this bed with my flag and my forsythia.
And I wave for the woman to come,
Come, I am virile, I am not asleep
I am waiting for coffee,
for this clean snow to fall and kiss
your dark eyebrow
while I touch you again
for the first time.
As soon as I heard the assignment I immediately thought of one of my favorite poems, Recovery of Sexual Desire After a Bad Cold by Fred Chappell:
Toward morning I dreamed of the Ace of Spades reversed
And woke up giggling.
New presence in the bedroom, as if it had snowed;
And an obdurate stranger come to visit my body.
This is how it all renews itself, floating down
Mothy on the shallow end of sleep;
How Easter gets here, and the hard-bitten dogwood
Flowers, and waters run clean again.
I am a new old man.
As morning sweetens the forsythia and the cats
Bristle with impudent hungers, I learn to smile.
I am a new baby.
What woman could turn from me now?
Shining like a butter knife, and the fever burned off,
My whole skin alert as radar, I can think
Of nothing at all but love and fresh coffee.
-------------------------
As soon as I knew I wanted to use this poem, I knew I needed a Frida Kahlo painting to team up with it. The Ace of Spades sold me, a tarot symbol, a supernatural force symbolized by a skull. I can't think of skulls without thinking of the Day of the Dead. Then I remembered Frida Kahlo's painting "Tree of Hope" and I knew this was it. The fertile, proud, healthy version of herself, perched in a nightscape next to the daytime bed of invalid Frida. No more back brace. There's a duality here, broken and virile, color and absence of color, day and night, sickness and health, and a strong theme of renewal that I see in both Chappell's and Kahlo's work. So here's what I came up with:
Desiring Frida by Marissa DeSantis:
This morning the brace is gone,
for in the night the stubborn bolts
vacated and left the blood and blister, sweat to dry,
the skin to renew.
A woman in a red dress was here,
or perhaps a fever dream
or perhaps the Ace of Spades
reversed,
a tarot skull with
chiclet teeth white as dogwood,
chattering through the forest para Dia De Los Muertos.
But I am alive
in this bed with my flag and my forsythia.
And I wave for the woman to come,
Come, I am virile, I am not asleep
I am waiting for coffee,
for this clean snow to fall and kiss
your dark eyebrow
while I touch you again
for the first time.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Holy Grounds
I ask the barista which of today's blends is the darkest and she tells me that it's "Frank's Big City Blend." When I first sit down to read a collection of Kelly Magee short stories in a coffee shop with wood floors and paperbacks and perfect lighting that is so far away from the big city, a woman enters with three kids right next to where I'm spread out on a leather couch by the front window.
These kids are young--all of them over four but under nine, and all equally expressive. I wonder why a mother with kids who are obviously difficult to quell would seat them beside a studious-looking lass like myself, clearly trying to get reading done. When she gets up to order her coffee, I try, so hard, to get in a paragraph. A really long one with lots of syllables.
The youngest one, a boy in a gray knit cap and mittens, attempts to spell the word "Fox" and gives up before the "x." His mother encourages him. "What would Jesus do? He wouldn't give up, would he? He'd try his hardest."
Now I'm too involved in this family and their love of Jesus to concentrate on pages. So I move, and as soon as I stand up I hear the mother say, "Do you guys want to snag the couch?"
I imagine that every man in this coffee shop walks up to me and asks what I'm reading, and then hits on me. I smile politely, tell him I'm spoken for by a man in a town that's even farther removed from Frank's Big City, who works out harder than I'm trying to concentrate on this book. It looks like Chick Lit but it's not, I swear. I'm a smart girl. You don't know what you're missing.
I have a scratch on my right shin and I itch it, lifting the leg of my jeans just high enough so he can see my grey knee socks, and then I realize that I'm also revealing my boyish (albeit incredibly hip) tennis shoes. My toes wiggle nervously and because the tops of these shoes are nylon, I think he probably notices and falls in love with me.
I've heard this stupid Bon Jovi song three times in the past two days. I've got to befriend one of the baristas so they stop playing such awful music in here. So far though, this isn't my place. I just read here. I mean, sometimes I read here. Sometimes strange men hit on me and sometimes I get distracted by noisy children and two old ladies in matching red wool coats discussing politics in the corner where I usually hide away.
When I pull on my hat and throw my bag over my shoulder, I notice the empty coffee cup I've left on the table. It's not far to the counter, to the gray plastic bin with all the dirty dishes in it. So I pick up my cup with the half-sip lingering at the bottom and take it up there, depositing it in the bin and balancing it on top of a stack of saucers. I wait for a moment, listening across the room for the mother of three to notice and tell her children, "See? That's what Jesus would do."
These kids are young--all of them over four but under nine, and all equally expressive. I wonder why a mother with kids who are obviously difficult to quell would seat them beside a studious-looking lass like myself, clearly trying to get reading done. When she gets up to order her coffee, I try, so hard, to get in a paragraph. A really long one with lots of syllables.
The youngest one, a boy in a gray knit cap and mittens, attempts to spell the word "Fox" and gives up before the "x." His mother encourages him. "What would Jesus do? He wouldn't give up, would he? He'd try his hardest."
Now I'm too involved in this family and their love of Jesus to concentrate on pages. So I move, and as soon as I stand up I hear the mother say, "Do you guys want to snag the couch?"
I imagine that every man in this coffee shop walks up to me and asks what I'm reading, and then hits on me. I smile politely, tell him I'm spoken for by a man in a town that's even farther removed from Frank's Big City, who works out harder than I'm trying to concentrate on this book. It looks like Chick Lit but it's not, I swear. I'm a smart girl. You don't know what you're missing.
I have a scratch on my right shin and I itch it, lifting the leg of my jeans just high enough so he can see my grey knee socks, and then I realize that I'm also revealing my boyish (albeit incredibly hip) tennis shoes. My toes wiggle nervously and because the tops of these shoes are nylon, I think he probably notices and falls in love with me.
I've heard this stupid Bon Jovi song three times in the past two days. I've got to befriend one of the baristas so they stop playing such awful music in here. So far though, this isn't my place. I just read here. I mean, sometimes I read here. Sometimes strange men hit on me and sometimes I get distracted by noisy children and two old ladies in matching red wool coats discussing politics in the corner where I usually hide away.
When I pull on my hat and throw my bag over my shoulder, I notice the empty coffee cup I've left on the table. It's not far to the counter, to the gray plastic bin with all the dirty dishes in it. So I pick up my cup with the half-sip lingering at the bottom and take it up there, depositing it in the bin and balancing it on top of a stack of saucers. I wait for a moment, listening across the room for the mother of three to notice and tell her children, "See? That's what Jesus would do."
Friday, January 19, 2007
Ballad of a Hipster
I wrote this song tonight. The challenge was to start a song with the line "Woke up this morning" because I think everybody should have a song that starts that way. It turned into a sort of self-reflexive/social comment thing. The italicized parts are spoken!
I find that it adds to the humor of the piece.
See?
Ballad of a Hipster
Woke up this morning
feeling like a metropolitan pocket-sized version of me.
Yea I'm such a hipster.
Gonna meet my friends for some hookah and darjeeling tea.
After the shisha
Gonna head downtown to a place where they have some good shows
once in a while
and they're usually indie bands that nobody knows.
But I knew them before they were on the radio.
But after a while
it all feels the same.
A person gets tired
trying to remember all those names.
Can't see through my glasses,
at least not enough to spot all the phonies in here
who enjoy Oprah's Book Club
and offend me by drinking pitchers of domestic beer.
Yea, I prefer imported sake.
It's so hard to smile.
You might think I'm a little mean,
but I'm surrounded
by poseurs and philistines.
And when it's bedtime
I pull my vintage covers up over my head.
The four Ninja Turtles
in ironic nostalgia, crawling all over my bed.
I'm sleeping alone.
It's the price you pay when you're the coolest person you know.
I'm such a martyr.
Yea I hope I die young;
it gets exhausting looking down my nose.
I guess that's why I need glasses...
With such thick frames!
With such thick frames!
With such thick frames!
With such thick frames!
I find that it adds to the humor of the piece.
See?
Ballad of a Hipster
Woke up this morning
feeling like a metropolitan pocket-sized version of me.
Yea I'm such a hipster.
Gonna meet my friends for some hookah and darjeeling tea.
After the shisha
Gonna head downtown to a place where they have some good shows
once in a while
and they're usually indie bands that nobody knows.
But I knew them before they were on the radio.
But after a while
it all feels the same.
A person gets tired
trying to remember all those names.
Can't see through my glasses,
at least not enough to spot all the phonies in here
who enjoy Oprah's Book Club
and offend me by drinking pitchers of domestic beer.
Yea, I prefer imported sake.
It's so hard to smile.
You might think I'm a little mean,
but I'm surrounded
by poseurs and philistines.
And when it's bedtime
I pull my vintage covers up over my head.
The four Ninja Turtles
in ironic nostalgia, crawling all over my bed.
I'm sleeping alone.
It's the price you pay when you're the coolest person you know.
I'm such a martyr.
Yea I hope I die young;
it gets exhausting looking down my nose.
I guess that's why I need glasses...
With such thick frames!
With such thick frames!
With such thick frames!
With such thick frames!
Monday, January 15, 2007
Workshop it Out
I'm back in a workshop-style creative writing class. Advanced Creative Writing: Fiction & Poetry. I took Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry as a freshman with this very professor. She's tough as nails, and quite demanding, but I've put out good work under her tutelage so I'm psyched to start another semester with her. There are only seven other people in my class and I always find that smaller groups are more conducive to workshopping.
I'm posting my first workshop poem on here. Over Christmas break this year I spent a lot of days at the mall with my sister--usually I end up at the mall a maximum of four times a year. I think I went to the mall seven times in a matter of two weeks this December.
On one of these trips, I saw an elderly woman fall and hit her head in front of the cosmetics counter. She was with her daughter and her granddaughter. I don't actually know if she died or if she lived, but I wanted to write down what I saw because I can't get the image out of my head.
Christmas Shopping
I watched the old woman fall
against the trampled
marbled department store floor
in front of a dozen make-up artists,
who stirred to life like entranced mannequins.
The fragrance saleswomen rushed at her first,
angels on commission,
through a sinking overpriced haze
of floral spray.
It already smells like a funeral home.
I stood an aisle away
between racks of discounted Christmas sweaters,
the kind I give to my grandma,
who is the same age,
because I can't think of anything better, or maybe
I don’t know her at all.
Her face looks powdery and desolate,
a latex mask with eyes as wide and hollow,
a frozen front-porch grimace,
cracked lips,
parted.
Nobody heard her daughter scream for her
over the Muzak and the hard hurried footsteps
and because everything is unwittingly absorbed
in places like this.
I fear she died instantly upon falling.
That her brittle soul is mistakenly headed
for the garishly bright fluorescent light
of the cosmetics counter.
I want to scream
You're going the wrong way!
You're going the wrong way!
But instead I flee in fear
up the down escalator.
I'm posting my first workshop poem on here. Over Christmas break this year I spent a lot of days at the mall with my sister--usually I end up at the mall a maximum of four times a year. I think I went to the mall seven times in a matter of two weeks this December.
On one of these trips, I saw an elderly woman fall and hit her head in front of the cosmetics counter. She was with her daughter and her granddaughter. I don't actually know if she died or if she lived, but I wanted to write down what I saw because I can't get the image out of my head.
Christmas Shopping
I watched the old woman fall
against the trampled
marbled department store floor
in front of a dozen make-up artists,
who stirred to life like entranced mannequins.
The fragrance saleswomen rushed at her first,
angels on commission,
through a sinking overpriced haze
of floral spray.
It already smells like a funeral home.
I stood an aisle away
between racks of discounted Christmas sweaters,
the kind I give to my grandma,
who is the same age,
because I can't think of anything better, or maybe
I don’t know her at all.
Her face looks powdery and desolate,
a latex mask with eyes as wide and hollow,
a frozen front-porch grimace,
cracked lips,
parted.
Nobody heard her daughter scream for her
over the Muzak and the hard hurried footsteps
and because everything is unwittingly absorbed
in places like this.
I fear she died instantly upon falling.
That her brittle soul is mistakenly headed
for the garishly bright fluorescent light
of the cosmetics counter.
I want to scream
You're going the wrong way!
You're going the wrong way!
But instead I flee in fear
up the down escalator.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Amuse, O Muse!
I wrote a new song tonight. I wanted to use the word "saline" in a set of lyrics so I set off for the task by making that word the first line of the song. After that it sort of evolved into a piece about the frustrating failings of memory.
Saline.
How your fingers taste to me
I've tried to re-create.
My senses discern and refuse to wait.
Come clean.
Do your hands ever think of me?
Do they scratch at your bodyand make you feel free?
We're safe behind eyelids,
they're curtains that hide our dreams.
Just like Ulysses I'll block my ears
I want to keep your voice right here
The sirens silenced by the din
of your soft whisper from within.
In my head there's a matinee.
You're on three screens but to my dismay
the film breaks in the projector's haste
and it warps the angles of your face.
Saline.
How your fingers taste to me
I've tried to re-create.
I think I've waited too long.
I think it's getting too late.
Saline.
How your fingers taste to me
I've tried to re-create.
My senses discern and refuse to wait.
Come clean.
Do your hands ever think of me?
Do they scratch at your bodyand make you feel free?
We're safe behind eyelids,
they're curtains that hide our dreams.
Just like Ulysses I'll block my ears
I want to keep your voice right here
The sirens silenced by the din
of your soft whisper from within.
In my head there's a matinee.
You're on three screens but to my dismay
the film breaks in the projector's haste
and it warps the angles of your face.
Saline.
How your fingers taste to me
I've tried to re-create.
I think I've waited too long.
I think it's getting too late.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Sky High-atus
I wrote these journal entries during my trip to visit my sister and her betrothed in Cincinnati the week before Christmas. I thought it would be an easy way to work myself back into the habit of posting in this journal regularly. The personal journal entries end abruptly, so don't expect some grand objective/retrospective look at the totality of my stay in Cinci. I actually started writing what I think may be my first novel in the middle of my regular day-to-day journaling.
12/14/06
As I make my descent into Cincinnati's Lunkin Airport from a tiny little prop plane, I'm reminded of why I'm so attracted to the water. From ten thousand feet above land, everything that's paved or settled looks so linear--just a bunch of interlocking pieces of nature, tiny terrariums subdivided and demarcated like dioramas by men. But the bodies of water are different. They are awkward and unruly, curved and seductive, rippling and sparkling circles amidst an otherwise stoic and rectangular landscape of olive drab and brown.
The water appears in different shades, the deeper, the darker; the rougher, the whiter. I'm the only passenger on this plane and I feel like a celebrity. The captain says "ma'am" to me in a slow drawl over the intercom in the cockpit. The flight attendant, Debra, offers me a sundry assortment of food and beverage, but I decline. It's only an hour trip.
I wonder what her story is as I see her black trunk shift under her seat as we make a smooth landing. Stickers from London, Vancouver, and Honolulu grace its weathered skin. She is wearing a white turtleneck and glasses like mine. I imagine that she and the steady, long-legged pilot are lovers.
To save my ears from the uneven pressure in the noisy cabin, I'm chewing a folded-up drinking straw that my friend Cory playfully presented to me two nights ago. I'm fairly positive that I left my pack of chewing gum on the living room floor before I left this morning.
I laugh audibly at a particular house, surrounded by a white picket fence that is clearly askew from up here. I can see all of your imperfections, suburbia. And they are much more calculated and precisely awry from up here. Height--distance--is a truly great objectifyer.
12/15/06
First day in Cincinnati felt a little bit like a homecoming, only the kind of homecoming where it's the people who are familiar while the setting stays foreign. Down here I get overly excited when I see restaurants or stores or streets that I remember from prior visits.
Yesterday we shopped for hours and Natalie spent a record $22.00 at the Dollar Store. We bought some fabulous puzzles, one with a mythical beast fight scene that looks something like this:
[WILL TRY TO SCAN DIAGRAM SOON!]
Unfortunately, this gift is being forfeited to the family "Yankee Swap." I'll have to beat up my kin for it, I suppose. [Update: My cousin Derek has since won the puzzle. We all assembled it on Christmas day and I will add a picture of us with it. It's fab] Anyway, we assembled a 100 piece winter-scape puzzle and started a tragically obnoxious train puzzle (500 pieces and just as many similar shades of green to contend with!) We drank champagne (good stuff, from Michigan I reckon) and then went with Seth to eat Mediterranean at a swanky place called Andy's. Delicious, delicious! We destroyed a sampler platter filled with tabouli, hummus, baba, and ludmeh (?) (I'm also definitely destroying the spelling of these names, I'm sure.) I ordered fattoush, and it was the best I've ever had in my life (don't tell the Vajskops!)
After dinner was the Over the Rhine Christmas Concert with friends Christie and David--charming folks. Christie is a truly earnest and friendly girl in an adorable tweed cap, boyfriend David snaps unlimited candid photos on his miniscule digital camera. He wears a corduroy vest that's a size too small over a boyish striped rugby.
Just passed a place called "Unicorn Miniatures!"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Must go tomorrow!
?/12/06 I don't know the date
Today saw bumper sticker: "Your child is a Honor Student, Mine is a Marine." Get it? "A" Honor Student? How about "An" Honor Student? Sounds like that Marine's parents are on board the Ship of Fools.
I can't concentrate on anything in this coffee shop. There are two college-age kids in jeans and button-down shirts, with hip haircuts, who sat down and immediately began talking "business" which apparently translates to pretentious dissertation of the latest James Bond movie.
Now they're debating which Bond girl is the hottest. They're actually quite eloquent. I like the curly-haired one's Pumas.
This place is charming, but not too charming.
Now they're discussing the finer points of the VHS-DVD conflict. Part of me wants to jump in and say something clever about how the gentle hum of the spinning heads of a VCR help soothe me to sleep. I'll win them over, they'll ask me to co me out with them tonight for an art film and a beer, and then I'll decline and let them in on my "out-of-towner" secret.
The folks at this place roast their own coffee daily and it's very rich and bold, but never burnt. Today I'm drinking Guatemalan. I'm allowed one free refill. I'm a sucker not to take it.
Everyone who works here is hip--pierced, tattooed, vintage. The clientele doesn't seem to mind with their bifocals and their sweater vests and moth-eaten age. I think there's an English professor one table beyond the film geeks. He's wearing denim, clicking away diligently on his slim Sony laptop, glancing occasionally over his cluttered array of textbooks, one of which is the "Best American Essays of 2004." I imagine that he is a creative writing professor and that no one in his class gets anything higher than a "B+." He's saving his "A's" for the next O. Henry or O'Connor. I should pass this journal to him so he could...(insert self-deprecating comment here.) =) [Edit: That smiley face is upright in my journal.]
P.S. The Mocha Java is great!
On the next page, I began writing my novel.
12/14/06
As I make my descent into Cincinnati's Lunkin Airport from a tiny little prop plane, I'm reminded of why I'm so attracted to the water. From ten thousand feet above land, everything that's paved or settled looks so linear--just a bunch of interlocking pieces of nature, tiny terrariums subdivided and demarcated like dioramas by men. But the bodies of water are different. They are awkward and unruly, curved and seductive, rippling and sparkling circles amidst an otherwise stoic and rectangular landscape of olive drab and brown.
The water appears in different shades, the deeper, the darker; the rougher, the whiter. I'm the only passenger on this plane and I feel like a celebrity. The captain says "ma'am" to me in a slow drawl over the intercom in the cockpit. The flight attendant, Debra, offers me a sundry assortment of food and beverage, but I decline. It's only an hour trip.
I wonder what her story is as I see her black trunk shift under her seat as we make a smooth landing. Stickers from London, Vancouver, and Honolulu grace its weathered skin. She is wearing a white turtleneck and glasses like mine. I imagine that she and the steady, long-legged pilot are lovers.
To save my ears from the uneven pressure in the noisy cabin, I'm chewing a folded-up drinking straw that my friend Cory playfully presented to me two nights ago. I'm fairly positive that I left my pack of chewing gum on the living room floor before I left this morning.
I laugh audibly at a particular house, surrounded by a white picket fence that is clearly askew from up here. I can see all of your imperfections, suburbia. And they are much more calculated and precisely awry from up here. Height--distance--is a truly great objectifyer.
12/15/06
First day in Cincinnati felt a little bit like a homecoming, only the kind of homecoming where it's the people who are familiar while the setting stays foreign. Down here I get overly excited when I see restaurants or stores or streets that I remember from prior visits.
Yesterday we shopped for hours and Natalie spent a record $22.00 at the Dollar Store. We bought some fabulous puzzles, one with a mythical beast fight scene that looks something like this:
[WILL TRY TO SCAN DIAGRAM SOON!]
Unfortunately, this gift is being forfeited to the family "Yankee Swap." I'll have to beat up my kin for it, I suppose. [Update: My cousin Derek has since won the puzzle. We all assembled it on Christmas day and I will add a picture of us with it. It's fab] Anyway, we assembled a 100 piece winter-scape puzzle and started a tragically obnoxious train puzzle (500 pieces and just as many similar shades of green to contend with!) We drank champagne (good stuff, from Michigan I reckon) and then went with Seth to eat Mediterranean at a swanky place called Andy's. Delicious, delicious! We destroyed a sampler platter filled with tabouli, hummus, baba, and ludmeh (?) (I'm also definitely destroying the spelling of these names, I'm sure.) I ordered fattoush, and it was the best I've ever had in my life (don't tell the Vajskops!)
After dinner was the Over the Rhine Christmas Concert with friends Christie and David--charming folks. Christie is a truly earnest and friendly girl in an adorable tweed cap, boyfriend David snaps unlimited candid photos on his miniscule digital camera. He wears a corduroy vest that's a size too small over a boyish striped rugby.
Just passed a place called "Unicorn Miniatures!"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Must go tomorrow!
?/12/06 I don't know the date
Today saw bumper sticker: "Your child is a Honor Student, Mine is a Marine." Get it? "A" Honor Student? How about "An" Honor Student? Sounds like that Marine's parents are on board the Ship of Fools.
I can't concentrate on anything in this coffee shop. There are two college-age kids in jeans and button-down shirts, with hip haircuts, who sat down and immediately began talking "business" which apparently translates to pretentious dissertation of the latest James Bond movie.
Now they're debating which Bond girl is the hottest. They're actually quite eloquent. I like the curly-haired one's Pumas.
This place is charming, but not too charming.
Now they're discussing the finer points of the VHS-DVD conflict. Part of me wants to jump in and say something clever about how the gentle hum of the spinning heads of a VCR help soothe me to sleep. I'll win them over, they'll ask me to co me out with them tonight for an art film and a beer, and then I'll decline and let them in on my "out-of-towner" secret.
The folks at this place roast their own coffee daily and it's very rich and bold, but never burnt. Today I'm drinking Guatemalan. I'm allowed one free refill. I'm a sucker not to take it.
Everyone who works here is hip--pierced, tattooed, vintage. The clientele doesn't seem to mind with their bifocals and their sweater vests and moth-eaten age. I think there's an English professor one table beyond the film geeks. He's wearing denim, clicking away diligently on his slim Sony laptop, glancing occasionally over his cluttered array of textbooks, one of which is the "Best American Essays of 2004." I imagine that he is a creative writing professor and that no one in his class gets anything higher than a "B+." He's saving his "A's" for the next O. Henry or O'Connor. I should pass this journal to him so he could...(insert self-deprecating comment here.) =) [Edit: That smiley face is upright in my journal.]
P.S. The Mocha Java is great!
On the next page, I began writing my novel.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Pointy Bangs
I've been studying pictures of TomKat's Baby Suri for a few weeks now, and I finally realize what it is that's freaking me out about the thing. She looks like a miniature Liza Minelli. Don't question me on this one. Just check out the evidence:
That is all....Jazz hands!
That is all....Jazz hands!
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
A Seasonal Mix
I'm one song away from completing this year's Fall Mix CD. I'm putting a draft of it up here, and I'll add my "liner notes" later on. You'll notice a severe lack of female representation on this one. Originally, I had some tracks from Joni Mitchell, Loretta Lynn, and the Indigo Girls on here. Unfortunately, they got crossed off (and so did a large number of perfectly qualified men.)
Right now I should be writing my Odyssey paper. I'll do it after this, I swear.
The final track is a song called "Saffron" by a local band (made up of some mates of mine) named Return of Simple. They play piano-driven pop/rock with really smart, introspective lyrics. I don't yet have their new album, but I'm seeing them play at Wilbert's downtown, so I'll pick up a copy there.
Here's the list:
1. Beck--Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes (from the Eternal Sunshine soundtrack. This movie, and this song always remind me of the fall.)
2. Cat Stevens--The Wind.
3. The Raconteurs--Steady as She Goes (acoustic version.) I know it's a pretty well-known pop song, but it felt good here and I like the unplugged version very much.
4. The Shins--Gone for Good. Again, another fairly well-known tune, but I dig it. It's a song about a transitional time and there's really nothing quite as transitional as the fall.
5. Simon & Garfunkel--Old Friends. I wanted an S&G song and it took me forever to decide which one was the most appropriate. Again here, I've included a song that lyrically speaks to the theme of change.
6. Sufjan Stevens--Romulus.
7. Iain Archer--Canal Song (End of Sentence).
8. The Decemberists--My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist. I may still strike this.
9. The Walkmen--Another One Goes By.
10. Billy Bragg & Wilco--Remember the Mountain Bed.
11. The Long Winters--Ultimatum.
12. Bob Dylan--I Want You.
13. Elliot Smith--Needle in the Hay.
14. Jolie Holland--Ghost Waltz. The only girl!
15. Ryan Adams--My Winding Wheel.
16. Iron & Wine--Naked as We Came.
17. Wilco--Say You Miss Me.
I think I just realized that Wilco is my favorite band. I was never able to answer that question before. My favorite solo artist has been Ellis Paul for the past five years or so. But I've always answered "early Police" when people asked me my favorite band.
My favorite band is Wilco. Just FYI.
Right now I should be writing my Odyssey paper. I'll do it after this, I swear.
The final track is a song called "Saffron" by a local band (made up of some mates of mine) named Return of Simple. They play piano-driven pop/rock with really smart, introspective lyrics. I don't yet have their new album, but I'm seeing them play at Wilbert's downtown, so I'll pick up a copy there.
Here's the list:
1. Beck--Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes (from the Eternal Sunshine soundtrack. This movie, and this song always remind me of the fall.)
2. Cat Stevens--The Wind.
3. The Raconteurs--Steady as She Goes (acoustic version.) I know it's a pretty well-known pop song, but it felt good here and I like the unplugged version very much.
4. The Shins--Gone for Good. Again, another fairly well-known tune, but I dig it. It's a song about a transitional time and there's really nothing quite as transitional as the fall.
5. Simon & Garfunkel--Old Friends. I wanted an S&G song and it took me forever to decide which one was the most appropriate. Again here, I've included a song that lyrically speaks to the theme of change.
6. Sufjan Stevens--Romulus.
7. Iain Archer--Canal Song (End of Sentence).
8. The Decemberists--My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist. I may still strike this.
9. The Walkmen--Another One Goes By.
10. Billy Bragg & Wilco--Remember the Mountain Bed.
11. The Long Winters--Ultimatum.
12. Bob Dylan--I Want You.
13. Elliot Smith--Needle in the Hay.
14. Jolie Holland--Ghost Waltz. The only girl!
15. Ryan Adams--My Winding Wheel.
16. Iron & Wine--Naked as We Came.
17. Wilco--Say You Miss Me.
I think I just realized that Wilco is my favorite band. I was never able to answer that question before. My favorite solo artist has been Ellis Paul for the past five years or so. But I've always answered "early Police" when people asked me my favorite band.
My favorite band is Wilco. Just FYI.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
The Cake Mistake
Last night after a family friend's wedding, my mother told me of a ridiculously silly old wedding superstition that she learned in her youth.
When the wedding cake is cut and passed out in a wrapper or napkin for guests to take home, you're supposed to put your piece of wrapped cake under your pillow. Then, whoever you dream of in the middle of the night is allegedly the man who you're supposed to marry.
I did this, mostly as an experiment in absurdity.
I remembered my dream this morning. I had a foggy/unclear dream mainly involving one of my best guy friends. He's gay.
This is just like Prom.
When the wedding cake is cut and passed out in a wrapper or napkin for guests to take home, you're supposed to put your piece of wrapped cake under your pillow. Then, whoever you dream of in the middle of the night is allegedly the man who you're supposed to marry.
I did this, mostly as an experiment in absurdity.
I remembered my dream this morning. I had a foggy/unclear dream mainly involving one of my best guy friends. He's gay.
This is just like Prom.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Books Are [In] My Bag
Today I visited Berea Library's "Friends of the Library" book sale. It was one of those rare dealies where they hand you a paper grocery bag upon entry and whatever you can fit in it, you get to take home for a mere dollar.
Days like these remind me why I should probably try to stay alive.
I thought I'd create a post detailing the many gems that I snatched up today. The sale seemed pretty picked-over, but I was able to procure a great deal of decent (and some indecent) literature. I also found a few prize CDs. Here's the grand list:
1) Dante's The Divine Comedy. A paperback prose translation by H.R. Huse, Copyright 1954. I have a copy of this'n already, but I really liked the annotations in this one. It has a lot of personality and really sweet cover art. Pitchforks a-plenty!
2) Maurice Sendak's Higglety-Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life, Paperback Copyright 1967. In this "children's" book, the hero of the story, a mutt named Jennie, renounces her possessions and goes on a journey to discover the meaning of life. Heavy, man.
3) Bob Colacello's Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up, Hardcover Copyright 1990. This actually doesn't look that great, but having a Warhol book on my shelf couldn't hurt.
4) Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s God bless you, Mr. Rosewater, Paperback Copyright 1965. I haven't read this and I'm genuinely excited about doing so.
5) Anne M. Raso's New Kids on the Block, Paperback Copyright 1989. Yea, it's an NKOTB classic with "fabulous photos inside" AKA pop trash!
6) Frank S. Caprio M.D.'s The Sexually Adequate Male, Paperback Copyright 1952. It's got case histories about impotence! Sold!
7) A gift for James. Secrets!
8) David C. Cooke's Better Bowling For Boys, Hardcover Copyright 1963. This book was owned by someone named "Nikki" who wrote his/her name on the inside cover. I always thought Nikki was a girl's name. This made it okay for me to buy a book explicitly targeted toward boys.
9) Jeremy Daldry's The Teenage Guy's Survival Guide: the real deal on girls, growing up, and other guy stuff, Paperback Copyright 1999. The irony of books with titles like these is that if you're a guy and you're caught reading them, it's probably less likely that you're going to survive a severe ass-kicking. This fascinates me so I grabbed it. My favorite section of the book is in chapter two (Surviving All the Changes in Your Body.) It's called "Plumbing (Masturbation, Wet Dreams)" and it's just after "Greasy Hair" and "Being Stinky." Awesome.
10) Munro Leaf's El Cuento de Ferdinando, Hardcover Copyright 1962. The original English translation of this children's book is Ferdinand the Bull. It's one of my dad's favorite stories, so now I can torment him by dangling a version that he can't understand in front of his face.
11) Ben Franklin's Wit & Wisdom, Hardcover Copyright ? This book is lame. It's basically a collection of witticisms from the Poor Richard's Almanack. I like Ben Franklin so I picked it up. Whatever.
12) John Osborne's Look Back in Anger Paperback Copyright 1974. One of only two plays that I got. I've never read this one and I should.
13) Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman Hardcover Copyright 1949. My favorite play! I was lucky to find it because it was mistakenly categorized as "Horror and Science Fiction." Ha.
14) The Pocket Book of O. Henry Stories Paperpack Copyright 1948. I haven't read O. Henry in a long time. I used to really admire him. Now I can revisit whenever I want to.
15) The Jesus And Mary Chain Hate Rock 'N' Roll (1995.) A CD.
16) Spike Jonze's Adaptation (2003.) VHS. Every time I go to a library sale or to Blockbuster, there's a dirt-cheap copy of this movie. I even saw a bunch of them at Marc's one day. I'm taking this as a sign. I really liked Adaptation and it was free today so I might as well own it.
17) J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey Paperback Copyright 1961. This was the prize of the afternoon. I am happy and incredibly psyched to read this one.
18) John Beecroft's Kipling: A Selection of His Stories and Poems Vol II Hardcover Copyright 1956. I always liked Kipling.
19) William Faulkner's The Faulkner Reader Hardcover Copyright 1954. He writes his own foreword in this sucka'.
20) Darby Conley's The Get Fuzzy Experience Paperback Copyright 2003. I can't believe this didn't sell before I got to it. What a score! Get Fuzzy is fantastic.
21) Grace Catalano's New Kids on the Block Paperback Copyright 1989. Ideally, I would have found two NKOTB books from different stages in their career. Oh well. You work with what you've got.
22) Sol Gordon Ph.D.'s How Can You Tell If You're Really In Love? Paperback Copyright 2001. This book looks as though it was never opened and it still has a Borders price tag on the back. This is the same author who wrote the book Why Love is not Enough.
23) Denise Johnston (ed)'s Cats, Cats, Cats--I Love Them All Paperback Copyright 1987. This is a sort of animal rights book, but the title just kills me. Don't kill the cats though,or Denise Johnston will find you and own your face.
24) Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Hardcover Copyright 1943. Good times.
25) Moulin Rouge OST (2001). A CD. I like the soundtrack better than the movie.
26) Shawn Colvin's Whole New You (2001). A CD. Go, Shawn Colvin. I'm a folk nerd.
27) Cornershop's When I Was Born For the 7th Time (1997). CD. Track 2 = Brimful of Asha. Oh yea.
28) PUSA's Self-Titled Album (1995). I lost my copy of this years ago. Everyone had this sucka back in the day. Now I've got it again, and it's just about as scratched up as my original copy would be by this time.
29) Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, April 2000. This is really lame. I just picked it up because it was on a "free"table and it's almost Halloween so I guess I have a sweeter spot for Hitchcock these days.
I also got five free vinyl records and I made friends with two gentlemen in the record room. We exchanged trivia about the Captain & Tenille. It was swell.
Enough literature. I'm going to study math now. Eesh.
Days like these remind me why I should probably try to stay alive.
I thought I'd create a post detailing the many gems that I snatched up today. The sale seemed pretty picked-over, but I was able to procure a great deal of decent (and some indecent) literature. I also found a few prize CDs. Here's the grand list:
1) Dante's The Divine Comedy. A paperback prose translation by H.R. Huse, Copyright 1954. I have a copy of this'n already, but I really liked the annotations in this one. It has a lot of personality and really sweet cover art. Pitchforks a-plenty!
2) Maurice Sendak's Higglety-Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life, Paperback Copyright 1967. In this "children's" book, the hero of the story, a mutt named Jennie, renounces her possessions and goes on a journey to discover the meaning of life. Heavy, man.
3) Bob Colacello's Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up, Hardcover Copyright 1990. This actually doesn't look that great, but having a Warhol book on my shelf couldn't hurt.
4) Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s God bless you, Mr. Rosewater, Paperback Copyright 1965. I haven't read this and I'm genuinely excited about doing so.
5) Anne M. Raso's New Kids on the Block, Paperback Copyright 1989. Yea, it's an NKOTB classic with "fabulous photos inside" AKA pop trash!
6) Frank S. Caprio M.D.'s The Sexually Adequate Male, Paperback Copyright 1952. It's got case histories about impotence! Sold!
7) A gift for James. Secrets!
8) David C. Cooke's Better Bowling For Boys, Hardcover Copyright 1963. This book was owned by someone named "Nikki" who wrote his/her name on the inside cover. I always thought Nikki was a girl's name. This made it okay for me to buy a book explicitly targeted toward boys.
9) Jeremy Daldry's The Teenage Guy's Survival Guide: the real deal on girls, growing up, and other guy stuff, Paperback Copyright 1999. The irony of books with titles like these is that if you're a guy and you're caught reading them, it's probably less likely that you're going to survive a severe ass-kicking. This fascinates me so I grabbed it. My favorite section of the book is in chapter two (Surviving All the Changes in Your Body.) It's called "Plumbing (Masturbation, Wet Dreams)" and it's just after "Greasy Hair" and "Being Stinky." Awesome.
10) Munro Leaf's El Cuento de Ferdinando, Hardcover Copyright 1962. The original English translation of this children's book is Ferdinand the Bull. It's one of my dad's favorite stories, so now I can torment him by dangling a version that he can't understand in front of his face.
11) Ben Franklin's Wit & Wisdom, Hardcover Copyright ? This book is lame. It's basically a collection of witticisms from the Poor Richard's Almanack. I like Ben Franklin so I picked it up. Whatever.
12) John Osborne's Look Back in Anger Paperback Copyright 1974. One of only two plays that I got. I've never read this one and I should.
13) Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman Hardcover Copyright 1949. My favorite play! I was lucky to find it because it was mistakenly categorized as "Horror and Science Fiction." Ha.
14) The Pocket Book of O. Henry Stories Paperpack Copyright 1948. I haven't read O. Henry in a long time. I used to really admire him. Now I can revisit whenever I want to.
15) The Jesus And Mary Chain Hate Rock 'N' Roll (1995.) A CD.
16) Spike Jonze's Adaptation (2003.) VHS. Every time I go to a library sale or to Blockbuster, there's a dirt-cheap copy of this movie. I even saw a bunch of them at Marc's one day. I'm taking this as a sign. I really liked Adaptation and it was free today so I might as well own it.
17) J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey Paperback Copyright 1961. This was the prize of the afternoon. I am happy and incredibly psyched to read this one.
18) John Beecroft's Kipling: A Selection of His Stories and Poems Vol II Hardcover Copyright 1956. I always liked Kipling.
19) William Faulkner's The Faulkner Reader Hardcover Copyright 1954. He writes his own foreword in this sucka'.
20) Darby Conley's The Get Fuzzy Experience Paperback Copyright 2003. I can't believe this didn't sell before I got to it. What a score! Get Fuzzy is fantastic.
21) Grace Catalano's New Kids on the Block Paperback Copyright 1989. Ideally, I would have found two NKOTB books from different stages in their career. Oh well. You work with what you've got.
22) Sol Gordon Ph.D.'s How Can You Tell If You're Really In Love? Paperback Copyright 2001. This book looks as though it was never opened and it still has a Borders price tag on the back. This is the same author who wrote the book Why Love is not Enough.
23) Denise Johnston (ed)'s Cats, Cats, Cats--I Love Them All Paperback Copyright 1987. This is a sort of animal rights book, but the title just kills me. Don't kill the cats though,or Denise Johnston will find you and own your face.
24) Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Hardcover Copyright 1943. Good times.
25) Moulin Rouge OST (2001). A CD. I like the soundtrack better than the movie.
26) Shawn Colvin's Whole New You (2001). A CD. Go, Shawn Colvin. I'm a folk nerd.
27) Cornershop's When I Was Born For the 7th Time (1997). CD. Track 2 = Brimful of Asha. Oh yea.
28) PUSA's Self-Titled Album (1995). I lost my copy of this years ago. Everyone had this sucka back in the day. Now I've got it again, and it's just about as scratched up as my original copy would be by this time.
29) Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, April 2000. This is really lame. I just picked it up because it was on a "free"table and it's almost Halloween so I guess I have a sweeter spot for Hitchcock these days.
I also got five free vinyl records and I made friends with two gentlemen in the record room. We exchanged trivia about the Captain & Tenille. It was swell.
Enough literature. I'm going to study math now. Eesh.
Monday, October 09, 2006
A light is waiting
I realized today that Full House is absolute crap.
It's not even bad enough to be good. What was I thinking?
This is possibly one of the worst sitcoms ever created.
I can't say much more right now. I'll come back with some worthwhile analysis later on. But for now, this revelation alone is blogworthy.
It's not even bad enough to be good. What was I thinking?
This is possibly one of the worst sitcoms ever created.
I can't say much more right now. I'll come back with some worthwhile analysis later on. But for now, this revelation alone is blogworthy.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Strangers in the Stacks
I have a collector's nature. I keep things in plastic, I leave tags on, I save heaps of ticket stubs and theater programs, I have four closets, etc. I also revisit things. There are some books I've read at least five times, and some movies I've seen at least forty.
I also have this thing where I collect people. This man I met at a pet store when I was twelve, a girl named Amy who indexed her poems as she wrote them in the back of a lined leatherbound notebook every Thursday at Arabica in Pleasant Valley. Mark, a stocky kid with thick glasses who was hypnotized at an orientation program my freshman year and who I've been secretly observing ever since.
And today I thought of a gentleman I met at the Brecksville Library in the middle of the summer, one night after work whilst I was picking up a few essentials. Here is a transcript from my other blog giving a detail of what occurred:
I was browsing through the movies, just looking for some new films to watch because I realized I was going to have more time at home this weekend and I always like to be well-versed when it comes to cinema. I picked up a few movies and went to stand in line at the check-out. There was some sort of altercation. A woman and her two girls were having a battle of wits over whether or not their copy of "Madeline" was in fact overdue, since they had allegedly just turned it in tonight. They were arguing for a good two minutes when I started to get antsy. Now normally, I'm such an impatient person that I wouldn't hesitate to just reshelve the movies and come back another time but just as my weight began to shift away from the counter, a voice distracted me from my nervousness. "I'm sorry but I can't help noticing--are those shoes in reference to the film, "Me and you..." "Me and You and Everyone We Know? Yes they are!" I interrupted him excitedly, pleased to death that somebody had actually picked up on my reference. See, several years ago at Marc's I found a pair of flat-soled brown corduroy tennis shoes for a few dollars. I bought them, wore them a few times, but then inevitably another pair of hot new tennis shoes took their place and my brown cords got stuffed in the back of the closet. This year, however, I began wearing these shoes religiously. My wardrobe has grown to be overwhelmingly brown so they're practically essential these days. In the movie, "Me and You and Everyone We Know," the main character is a kind of performance artist. She's an intense romantic, almost to a fault. When a charming and mysterious department store shoe salesman encourages her to buy a pair of pink flats, she does, and creates a moving artwork by writing "Me" on one shoe and "You" on the other and then films her feet from above, gently caressing each other. It really is a beautiful moment in a cleverly-crafted film. So I expressed my excitement to this strange man with the well-kept gray hair, thinning, but appearing to be quite soft and smooth. It had the appearance of being pressed flat and then shaken out, which made sense to me after I noticed the shiny, sleek motorcycle helmet nestled under his left arm. In his right hand, he held a copy of the Robert Duvall film "The Apostle." I mentioned that it was an interesting choice and he explained to me that it was a revisit because he had recommended it to a friend and remembered how great it was. I thought I was the only person to frequent the library and check out films that I've already seen multiple times. We chatted. We chatted about "Me and You and Everyone We Know" and about how we weren't sure what to think of the girl for being so brazen with a man whom she just met. (Metafiction?) He smiled endlessly. His round wire-rimmed glasses caught the light so I couldn't look into his eyes the whole time. Then I finally got called up to the counter, checked out my three movies, and left. I turned around and said "bye." And then passed through the Stanley Power Assist doors into the parking lot. His bike was parked right outside to the left in the closest spot to the door. On the way out of the parking lot I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw him leave the library, looking left and right--I assume for me. I kept waiting for him to come up behind my car driving up 21. I turned before he could catch up to me and I lost him.
Today in my Religion & Film class, we discussed "The Apostle," which was the film that this strange man was checking out of the library the night we met (and the night we parted.) It's so strange that I still feel a connection to him so many months later. I was familiar with "The Apostle" before seeing it in class and before I met my stranger. Still, I wonder how much longer I'll think of that gentleman's face whenever I see "The Apostle" on a shelf at the video store or at the library, or even whenever I see Robert Duvall.
Because, you know, I see Robert Duvall a lot. That dude is everywhere.
I also have this thing where I collect people. This man I met at a pet store when I was twelve, a girl named Amy who indexed her poems as she wrote them in the back of a lined leatherbound notebook every Thursday at Arabica in Pleasant Valley. Mark, a stocky kid with thick glasses who was hypnotized at an orientation program my freshman year and who I've been secretly observing ever since.
And today I thought of a gentleman I met at the Brecksville Library in the middle of the summer, one night after work whilst I was picking up a few essentials. Here is a transcript from my other blog giving a detail of what occurred:
I was browsing through the movies, just looking for some new films to watch because I realized I was going to have more time at home this weekend and I always like to be well-versed when it comes to cinema. I picked up a few movies and went to stand in line at the check-out. There was some sort of altercation. A woman and her two girls were having a battle of wits over whether or not their copy of "Madeline" was in fact overdue, since they had allegedly just turned it in tonight. They were arguing for a good two minutes when I started to get antsy. Now normally, I'm such an impatient person that I wouldn't hesitate to just reshelve the movies and come back another time but just as my weight began to shift away from the counter, a voice distracted me from my nervousness. "I'm sorry but I can't help noticing--are those shoes in reference to the film, "Me and you..." "Me and You and Everyone We Know? Yes they are!" I interrupted him excitedly, pleased to death that somebody had actually picked up on my reference. See, several years ago at Marc's I found a pair of flat-soled brown corduroy tennis shoes for a few dollars. I bought them, wore them a few times, but then inevitably another pair of hot new tennis shoes took their place and my brown cords got stuffed in the back of the closet. This year, however, I began wearing these shoes religiously. My wardrobe has grown to be overwhelmingly brown so they're practically essential these days. In the movie, "Me and You and Everyone We Know," the main character is a kind of performance artist. She's an intense romantic, almost to a fault. When a charming and mysterious department store shoe salesman encourages her to buy a pair of pink flats, she does, and creates a moving artwork by writing "Me" on one shoe and "You" on the other and then films her feet from above, gently caressing each other. It really is a beautiful moment in a cleverly-crafted film. So I expressed my excitement to this strange man with the well-kept gray hair, thinning, but appearing to be quite soft and smooth. It had the appearance of being pressed flat and then shaken out, which made sense to me after I noticed the shiny, sleek motorcycle helmet nestled under his left arm. In his right hand, he held a copy of the Robert Duvall film "The Apostle." I mentioned that it was an interesting choice and he explained to me that it was a revisit because he had recommended it to a friend and remembered how great it was. I thought I was the only person to frequent the library and check out films that I've already seen multiple times. We chatted. We chatted about "Me and You and Everyone We Know" and about how we weren't sure what to think of the girl for being so brazen with a man whom she just met. (Metafiction?) He smiled endlessly. His round wire-rimmed glasses caught the light so I couldn't look into his eyes the whole time. Then I finally got called up to the counter, checked out my three movies, and left. I turned around and said "bye." And then passed through the Stanley Power Assist doors into the parking lot. His bike was parked right outside to the left in the closest spot to the door. On the way out of the parking lot I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw him leave the library, looking left and right--I assume for me. I kept waiting for him to come up behind my car driving up 21. I turned before he could catch up to me and I lost him.
Today in my Religion & Film class, we discussed "The Apostle," which was the film that this strange man was checking out of the library the night we met (and the night we parted.) It's so strange that I still feel a connection to him so many months later. I was familiar with "The Apostle" before seeing it in class and before I met my stranger. Still, I wonder how much longer I'll think of that gentleman's face whenever I see "The Apostle" on a shelf at the video store or at the library, or even whenever I see Robert Duvall.
Because, you know, I see Robert Duvall a lot. That dude is everywhere.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
You're my Rushmore.
Upon the invocation of the t-shirt muse, I created a new piece of art yesterday with a $1.39 Jerzees cotton tee and a black Sharpie. I don't have much time to write about this'n because I have a paper to write which is exponentially more important than this, but I thought I'd post anyway.
Why, yes! It's Jason Schwartzman as Max Fischer in Wes Anderson's brilliant comedy, "Rushmore!" Thanks for knowing! Go, Yankee Racers.
A simple stencil-style design traced (I don't usually trace but I had the luxury of being able to do so since it's a thinner/lighter fabric) with a black Sharpie.
"The secret, I don't know... I guess you've just gotta find something you love to do and then... do it for the rest of your life. For me, it's going to Rushmore."
Here I mimicked Wes Anderson's handwriting to capture the youthful precociousness of Max. I wanted something that looked somewhat childish to make a striking contrast with the actual phrase.
Alright. Off to write about the Iliad. Wish me luck, lovers!
Why, yes! It's Jason Schwartzman as Max Fischer in Wes Anderson's brilliant comedy, "Rushmore!" Thanks for knowing! Go, Yankee Racers.
A simple stencil-style design traced (I don't usually trace but I had the luxury of being able to do so since it's a thinner/lighter fabric) with a black Sharpie.
"The secret, I don't know... I guess you've just gotta find something you love to do and then... do it for the rest of your life. For me, it's going to Rushmore."
Here I mimicked Wes Anderson's handwriting to capture the youthful precociousness of Max. I wanted something that looked somewhat childish to make a striking contrast with the actual phrase.
Alright. Off to write about the Iliad. Wish me luck, lovers!
Friday, September 08, 2006
You been out ridin'....bicycles.
When I was a wee little girl, I was very close with the four boys next door. We would play together almost every day and during the summer we spend hours riding our bikes up and down their long driveway, playing "garage" and "drive thru" and other such games. Anyway, one afternoon their father unveiled to them the bike that he rode before he got his first car. It was a 1982 Huffy Desperado, tan with a dark brown banana seat painted with an orange and yellow desert landscape. The handlebars curved and tilted back so when you leaned all your weight against the back of the seat, it felt like you were riding on a chopper.
Soon after the boys received this bike, its novelty wore off. They were distracted by cooler, newer models and Desperado started gathering dust and rust in the back of their barn. It stayed there until a fateful garage sale one summer day when I was in my third year of high school. I saw Desperado, marked with a price of five dollars, and vowed to save him from his life of celibacy. I took him home and gave him new tires. I oiled the chain, I put new bolts in the bar holding the seat in place, I took steel wool to the chrome and rubbed all of the rust away. I weather-treated every inch of Desperado. When I was done, the bike looked quasi-new. It looked so good, in fact, that the boys next door found a renewed interest in Old Desperado and soon I found that they had taken him from my back porch and had begun to ride him again. I was proud that I had made Desperado desirable once again, so I hardly protested.
It wasn't until this summer that I was reminded of Desperado when I began to take leisurely bike rides around the park. It would be nice to have a bike at school but I wouldn't want to bring my good bike there. It's cumbersome and worth too much money to just leaved chained in the basement of my building. Besides--most of my walking is confined to a very small area. A bike isn't completely necessary--it would just be fun. And then I thought, "what's more fun than Desperado?"
And so, dear friends, yesterday I ventured to my neighbor's house and spoke with one of the twins who is quite savvy with mechanical things. I asked if he remembered Desperado, and slowly, he recalled the splendor of this rusty relic. We ventured to the attic of the barn and found Desperado, now looking like Frankenbike, with the seat of another bicycle transfixed where the banana seat used to rest, and with a few of the wrong parts attached to his handlebars. After a good hour of labor, however, Desperado was back in business, and I pedaled him up to my car (with a bit of a running start actually--without the gears and all, it's hard to get going on that little cuss.)
Today for the first time I rode a bicycle to class. He waited loyally outside for me whilst I engaged myself in lectures on philosophy and world literature. And then we went for a jaunt around Coe Lake and through downtown Berea. My friends all seem to "get" Desperado. They appreciate him for his kitsch and for his good rattly nature. But I think other students at my school are still skeptical. I watched as one young man chained his mountain bike next to mine on the rack outside of Marting Hall. He looked quite perplexed, indeed.
I may need to get a helmet. Desperado's tires rattle a little bit because they have these weird plastic mudflap things over them and they shift when I go over bumps. Today I almost faceplanted in front of a construction worker sitting outside of Pizza King. I think I might want to get a Vespa helmet and some oversized goggles so I can look even more alien to today's modern college students. Actually, I think the next step is designing a new picture for Desperado's long and lean banana seat (which I'm confident can fit at least two people, provided their legs are short like mine.) At first I thought that a photograph of Kenny Rogers would be delightful, but now I'm considering that Hank Williams might be a little more badass.
With or without the handsome mug of an outlaw country singer gracing his seat, Desperado is my little buddy and I look forward to riding him off into many more sunsets this schoolyear.
Soon after the boys received this bike, its novelty wore off. They were distracted by cooler, newer models and Desperado started gathering dust and rust in the back of their barn. It stayed there until a fateful garage sale one summer day when I was in my third year of high school. I saw Desperado, marked with a price of five dollars, and vowed to save him from his life of celibacy. I took him home and gave him new tires. I oiled the chain, I put new bolts in the bar holding the seat in place, I took steel wool to the chrome and rubbed all of the rust away. I weather-treated every inch of Desperado. When I was done, the bike looked quasi-new. It looked so good, in fact, that the boys next door found a renewed interest in Old Desperado and soon I found that they had taken him from my back porch and had begun to ride him again. I was proud that I had made Desperado desirable once again, so I hardly protested.
It wasn't until this summer that I was reminded of Desperado when I began to take leisurely bike rides around the park. It would be nice to have a bike at school but I wouldn't want to bring my good bike there. It's cumbersome and worth too much money to just leaved chained in the basement of my building. Besides--most of my walking is confined to a very small area. A bike isn't completely necessary--it would just be fun. And then I thought, "what's more fun than Desperado?"
And so, dear friends, yesterday I ventured to my neighbor's house and spoke with one of the twins who is quite savvy with mechanical things. I asked if he remembered Desperado, and slowly, he recalled the splendor of this rusty relic. We ventured to the attic of the barn and found Desperado, now looking like Frankenbike, with the seat of another bicycle transfixed where the banana seat used to rest, and with a few of the wrong parts attached to his handlebars. After a good hour of labor, however, Desperado was back in business, and I pedaled him up to my car (with a bit of a running start actually--without the gears and all, it's hard to get going on that little cuss.)
Today for the first time I rode a bicycle to class. He waited loyally outside for me whilst I engaged myself in lectures on philosophy and world literature. And then we went for a jaunt around Coe Lake and through downtown Berea. My friends all seem to "get" Desperado. They appreciate him for his kitsch and for his good rattly nature. But I think other students at my school are still skeptical. I watched as one young man chained his mountain bike next to mine on the rack outside of Marting Hall. He looked quite perplexed, indeed.
I may need to get a helmet. Desperado's tires rattle a little bit because they have these weird plastic mudflap things over them and they shift when I go over bumps. Today I almost faceplanted in front of a construction worker sitting outside of Pizza King. I think I might want to get a Vespa helmet and some oversized goggles so I can look even more alien to today's modern college students. Actually, I think the next step is designing a new picture for Desperado's long and lean banana seat (which I'm confident can fit at least two people, provided their legs are short like mine.) At first I thought that a photograph of Kenny Rogers would be delightful, but now I'm considering that Hank Williams might be a little more badass.
With or without the handsome mug of an outlaw country singer gracing his seat, Desperado is my little buddy and I look forward to riding him off into many more sunsets this schoolyear.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
I am the Charter!
The Maelstrom is making great strides this year and the community of Baldwin-Wallace College would be wise to don their water wings, lest they drown in our massive and beastly wake.
Five years ago, a humble little group of hyperintelligent and progressive students at Baldwin-Wallace got together and felt dissatisfied with the available campus media. Back then, we were a one-paper college. We had the Exponent, a by-the-book campus newspaper with little to say. The Exponent was bad back then. It's changed since, but more about this later.
So these like-minded kids decided that it would be cool to start an underground newspaper. And just like that, it happened. Using only Microsoft Word and some pilfered office supplies, a renegade group of would-be journalists began to serve up a subversive and satirical bi-weekly magazine that kept students laughing and thinking in ways that no other campus newspaper had. This was a different sort of magazine. It was edgy but it hated being called edgy. It was different but it prided itself on uniting all of the college's bizarre subcultures.
When I was a freshman, I joined up with the Maelstrom. After nervously submitting two writing samples to the editor-in-chief, I was embraced as the youngest staff writer in their history (brief as that history was, I was proud of this feat.) My first story made it onto the front page of the year's debut issue. Ever since, I've been devoted to this publication.
Last year as a sophomore I stepped up as co-editor-in-chief with a very capable partner. I didn't want to see this thing die but it was clear that the dynamics would soon be changing drastically. Four of our strongest staff writers were seniors and they were all set to graduate. And without funding, the only way to recruit new writers would be to beg around campus. It slowly became apparent that we might need to reconsider our place on campus. Can the underground sustain us forever? Will we have to sell out? Will our demographics change? Do any of us know how to manage a budget?
For the Maelstrom to live, we need to become legitimate. And so, today I say with no hesitation, that the Maelstrom is now an official club at Baldwin-Wallace College. I'm proud of this. I'm proud because I was able to sustain something that was created by people who came before me and now it has a chance of becoming a legacy. Even after I graduate, the Maelstrom will rave on if all goes well.
I hung my first club poster in the student Union yesterday with a fellow Maelstromite. He's my friend. Everyone who writes for Maelstrom is my friend. Everyone who reads Maelstrom is my friend.
I'm not afraid of being a sell-out anymore. It's more important to me that as many people as possible are able to get in touch with the Maelstrom and become a part of it. Our ideals aren't changing. We're still a little elitist. We're still going to be irreverent. We're still going to print really offensive advice columns and declare "victory in Iraq!" on April Fool's Day. That's who we are.
I think as an officially sanctioned club we get to nominate people from our group for homecoming court. So the minute I get to ride around downtown Berea in a tiara on the back of a float, you can talk to me about selling out. Until then, I have new business to attend to.
Five years ago, a humble little group of hyperintelligent and progressive students at Baldwin-Wallace got together and felt dissatisfied with the available campus media. Back then, we were a one-paper college. We had the Exponent, a by-the-book campus newspaper with little to say. The Exponent was bad back then. It's changed since, but more about this later.
So these like-minded kids decided that it would be cool to start an underground newspaper. And just like that, it happened. Using only Microsoft Word and some pilfered office supplies, a renegade group of would-be journalists began to serve up a subversive and satirical bi-weekly magazine that kept students laughing and thinking in ways that no other campus newspaper had. This was a different sort of magazine. It was edgy but it hated being called edgy. It was different but it prided itself on uniting all of the college's bizarre subcultures.
When I was a freshman, I joined up with the Maelstrom. After nervously submitting two writing samples to the editor-in-chief, I was embraced as the youngest staff writer in their history (brief as that history was, I was proud of this feat.) My first story made it onto the front page of the year's debut issue. Ever since, I've been devoted to this publication.
Last year as a sophomore I stepped up as co-editor-in-chief with a very capable partner. I didn't want to see this thing die but it was clear that the dynamics would soon be changing drastically. Four of our strongest staff writers were seniors and they were all set to graduate. And without funding, the only way to recruit new writers would be to beg around campus. It slowly became apparent that we might need to reconsider our place on campus. Can the underground sustain us forever? Will we have to sell out? Will our demographics change? Do any of us know how to manage a budget?
For the Maelstrom to live, we need to become legitimate. And so, today I say with no hesitation, that the Maelstrom is now an official club at Baldwin-Wallace College. I'm proud of this. I'm proud because I was able to sustain something that was created by people who came before me and now it has a chance of becoming a legacy. Even after I graduate, the Maelstrom will rave on if all goes well.
I hung my first club poster in the student Union yesterday with a fellow Maelstromite. He's my friend. Everyone who writes for Maelstrom is my friend. Everyone who reads Maelstrom is my friend.
I'm not afraid of being a sell-out anymore. It's more important to me that as many people as possible are able to get in touch with the Maelstrom and become a part of it. Our ideals aren't changing. We're still a little elitist. We're still going to be irreverent. We're still going to print really offensive advice columns and declare "victory in Iraq!" on April Fool's Day. That's who we are.
I think as an officially sanctioned club we get to nominate people from our group for homecoming court. So the minute I get to ride around downtown Berea in a tiara on the back of a float, you can talk to me about selling out. Until then, I have new business to attend to.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
The Wayward Spiral
This morning I woke up and felt like something was missing. I feel like this a lot of mornings upon waking, but usually it's just one of those "who am I and where do I belong" type conundrums that I forget about by lunchtime. Today there was something actual and concrete missing from my world and I couldn't figure out what it was.
I took my shower, brushed my teeth, got dressed. When I walked into my living room I noticed that I had left my hummus out on the coffee table overnight. So that must be it. I must have been feeling lost because I knew I had forgotten to do something semi-important the night before. It's the funniest thing too, because I can't tell for the life of me if the hummus went bad. It's got an overpowering smell to begin with so it's not like it suddenly smells rank like sour milk or something.
Anyway, I forgot about my emptiness for a while after I replaced the hummus in the fridge. Note to self: don't let any of your guests eat that hummus.
Then I packed up my books for class. Women's lit. Religion & film. Respective notebooks. Respective folders. Day planner. Journal. Journal. Journal? Bueller?
It was nowhere to be found. Not in desk drawers, not in closets, not under chairs or in my laundry basket. Not in the fridge with the spoiled (?) hummus. It was just simply gone. I didn't have time to look for too much longer so I began to walk nervously to class, feeling strangely like I wasn't wearing trousers or like I was sleepwalking the night before and unconsciously plucked off one of my eyebrows.
Now, reader, you must understand the importance of this, the mysterious disappearing notebook which eluded me so cunningly and cruelly this morning. I carry this notebook with me everywhere. I fill at least a page every day with some of my most vulnerable thoughts and musings. I've got song lyrics in it, poetry, hypothetical conversations between myself and people I love, even a really embarrassing sharpie cartoon drawing of Weezer.
What if someone finds it? I can't even imagine. I don't have my name in it. The closest ID stamp within the pages is a cartoon self-portrait that only vaguely resembles me. If someone were to find this notebook, he or she would have a field day leafing through pages and pages of my existence. He could steal all my good ideas and chastise the bad ones. He could read the most unfinished and sophomoric passages aloud to members of the English department.
The English department. Located in Marting Hall. I was in Marting Hall when I realized that literally every one of my classes this semester is in Marting Hall (the philosophy and religion departments are located here as well.) There was still an off chance that my spiral notebook could have found its way to one of the tables in the Union or the Cyber Cafe (where there are FOOTBALL PLAYERS! Eeesh!) but I've only eaten there three or four times this semester. It had to be in Marting.
Frantically, I ran up to Barb in the English office. Barb is one of those all-knowing secretaries that every institution seems to have one of. She's Superwoman. She's untouchable. She's probably got a third eye or something. Anyway, I talked to her and she showed me that the only item in the English "lost and found" was a yellow folder. But she told me to go upstairs and check the Religion office.
I've never run up that third flight of stairs faster in my life. And this is saying a lot because that third flight is a killer. The stairs in Marting are insanely steep because the engineers of this building all those decades ago must have thought that they needed to conserve space. Or maybe it was designed for the pygmy literati.
Anyway, I made it up the stairs and as soon as the secretary in the Religion Office put the defibrillator paddles back in her desk, I resumed normal breathing and from my reclined position on the floor I noticed, in a small printer paper box top under a table to my left...
my spiral notebook.
It's okay.
It's going to be okay.
I'm gonna go buy one of those child leashes now. Later.
I took my shower, brushed my teeth, got dressed. When I walked into my living room I noticed that I had left my hummus out on the coffee table overnight. So that must be it. I must have been feeling lost because I knew I had forgotten to do something semi-important the night before. It's the funniest thing too, because I can't tell for the life of me if the hummus went bad. It's got an overpowering smell to begin with so it's not like it suddenly smells rank like sour milk or something.
Anyway, I forgot about my emptiness for a while after I replaced the hummus in the fridge. Note to self: don't let any of your guests eat that hummus.
Then I packed up my books for class. Women's lit. Religion & film. Respective notebooks. Respective folders. Day planner. Journal. Journal. Journal? Bueller?
It was nowhere to be found. Not in desk drawers, not in closets, not under chairs or in my laundry basket. Not in the fridge with the spoiled (?) hummus. It was just simply gone. I didn't have time to look for too much longer so I began to walk nervously to class, feeling strangely like I wasn't wearing trousers or like I was sleepwalking the night before and unconsciously plucked off one of my eyebrows.
Now, reader, you must understand the importance of this, the mysterious disappearing notebook which eluded me so cunningly and cruelly this morning. I carry this notebook with me everywhere. I fill at least a page every day with some of my most vulnerable thoughts and musings. I've got song lyrics in it, poetry, hypothetical conversations between myself and people I love, even a really embarrassing sharpie cartoon drawing of Weezer.
What if someone finds it? I can't even imagine. I don't have my name in it. The closest ID stamp within the pages is a cartoon self-portrait that only vaguely resembles me. If someone were to find this notebook, he or she would have a field day leafing through pages and pages of my existence. He could steal all my good ideas and chastise the bad ones. He could read the most unfinished and sophomoric passages aloud to members of the English department.
The English department. Located in Marting Hall. I was in Marting Hall when I realized that literally every one of my classes this semester is in Marting Hall (the philosophy and religion departments are located here as well.) There was still an off chance that my spiral notebook could have found its way to one of the tables in the Union or the Cyber Cafe (where there are FOOTBALL PLAYERS! Eeesh!) but I've only eaten there three or four times this semester. It had to be in Marting.
Frantically, I ran up to Barb in the English office. Barb is one of those all-knowing secretaries that every institution seems to have one of. She's Superwoman. She's untouchable. She's probably got a third eye or something. Anyway, I talked to her and she showed me that the only item in the English "lost and found" was a yellow folder. But she told me to go upstairs and check the Religion office.
I've never run up that third flight of stairs faster in my life. And this is saying a lot because that third flight is a killer. The stairs in Marting are insanely steep because the engineers of this building all those decades ago must have thought that they needed to conserve space. Or maybe it was designed for the pygmy literati.
Anyway, I made it up the stairs and as soon as the secretary in the Religion Office put the defibrillator paddles back in her desk, I resumed normal breathing and from my reclined position on the floor I noticed, in a small printer paper box top under a table to my left...
my spiral notebook.
It's okay.
It's going to be okay.
I'm gonna go buy one of those child leashes now. Later.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Dig the New Digs...
Here is a shot of the essence of the apartment. See how worldly we are? We're rocking an Indian throw over our decrepit recliner, a wooden Japanese sake set, a Costa Rican tablecloth (I think it's South American anyway), and out of this picture is some Chinese art that we've yet to hang. We also have a French painting which will also grace the wall somewhere.
Below is a view of John looking disapprovingly at my antique sake set.
Another view of the apartment at large...
My bed. I read and write and sleep here.
We have so many appliances. All of them are essential. Well, maybe not the ice shaver..,
Here is a shot of the kitchen, where we've got a huge fridge, a small (but mighty) stove, and much storage space.
My desk, tucked away behind a bureau. I like being hidden whilst I work.
So that's that. Come and visit sometime.
Below is a view of John looking disapprovingly at my antique sake set.
Another view of the apartment at large...
My bed. I read and write and sleep here.
We have so many appliances. All of them are essential. Well, maybe not the ice shaver..,
Here is a shot of the kitchen, where we've got a huge fridge, a small (but mighty) stove, and much storage space.
My desk, tucked away behind a bureau. I like being hidden whilst I work.
So that's that. Come and visit sometime.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
In the van, with my friend
You never told me you were leaving
So I never thought to cry.
The concept of distance is deceiving
people grow closer
but that's not you and I.
Everybody says I'd love Chicago.
Maybe that's why I'm afraid to go.
I'd rather drown here in the wake you left behind,
wondering if it's better not to know.
You've got your own skyscrapers now.
I hope you never take your head out of the clouds.
I always knew you'd take off and fly
but not without saying goodbye.
It's pretty cold back here in Cleveland.
I turned my collar up today.
I passed three places where we might have stopped for coffee
back when our words still knew just how to melt the ice away.
If you happen to get carried away
by Chicago winds while you're walking down the street one day,
just think of me and I'm sure you'll be astounded
by how the ones you left behind can keep you grounded.
You've got your own skyscrapers now
I hope you never take your head out of the clouds.
I always knew you'd take off and fly
but not without saying goodbye.
This is another jealous song
But it's too late now because you're long gone.
You're bigger than this town could be
but are you so much better than me?
Are you so much better than me?
Is there something there that I can't see?
I don't know where that song came from but I really like it.
So I never thought to cry.
The concept of distance is deceiving
people grow closer
but that's not you and I.
Everybody says I'd love Chicago.
Maybe that's why I'm afraid to go.
I'd rather drown here in the wake you left behind,
wondering if it's better not to know.
You've got your own skyscrapers now.
I hope you never take your head out of the clouds.
I always knew you'd take off and fly
but not without saying goodbye.
It's pretty cold back here in Cleveland.
I turned my collar up today.
I passed three places where we might have stopped for coffee
back when our words still knew just how to melt the ice away.
If you happen to get carried away
by Chicago winds while you're walking down the street one day,
just think of me and I'm sure you'll be astounded
by how the ones you left behind can keep you grounded.
You've got your own skyscrapers now
I hope you never take your head out of the clouds.
I always knew you'd take off and fly
but not without saying goodbye.
This is another jealous song
But it's too late now because you're long gone.
You're bigger than this town could be
but are you so much better than me?
Are you so much better than me?
Is there something there that I can't see?
I don't know where that song came from but I really like it.
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