You know the one. It's the one that sparkles when she walks in the door, the one that magnetizes everything, the one that brushes her hair five times quick before stepping out of the car. It's the one that starts her day off with a Slimfast bar, the one who tans unconsciously, the one who should add another sheet to her senior yearbook to fit all the inside jokes, but never does, because someone else thinks of it and does it for her. Her yearbook adjectives stretch far, but words like boundless, creative, outrageous, spectacular, "best friend EVER" and "I LOVE YOU FOREVER!!!" are repeated the most. In one word, loved. She is the spunky one.
I can't even go as far as to say I was the angsty one, the angry rebel lurking in the midst of pre-burn-out glories, the hidden Guineverian Einstein. You know me. I'm the one that walked in the door three steps before the true diamond, the one that gets attracted to but does not necessarily attract, the one that rolls down the window to blow dry her hair. I'm the one that starts her day off with cheerios and skim milk, the one who freckles oddly, or pinks and reds THEN browns. The one who thinks to add another page to her yearbook and sticks it in, greedily, then after doing another round of the room, realizes there is no one else left worth having sign. Alright even this is making me sound less confident then I actually am. Yearbook adjectives were still pretty loving, I still got the creative, outrageous, spectacular, "best friend EVER" and "I LOVE YOU FOREVER", but even these same words still left one empty feeling, a void that should have been filled by spunky, but it wasn't.
It's like being prepared for every photograph taken of you three seconds before the picture is taken, and the agility and life of your face is just beginning to freeze as the flash captures the moment. The picture shows you were, at one point, life-full (that is a plus) but it also shows you were conscious of being life-full and you were trying to present it. By preparing to look artful you have just killed any chance of being artful. By preparing to look life-full you have just killed any chance of being life-full. By preparing to look spontaneous you have just killed any chance of being spontaneous. Three seconds ago it was real. Three seconds later it was documented.
That made so much more sense in my mind before I wrote it down.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
To change the world, begin with a sociology experiment on the internet
"To change the world, begin with the maps..." he says. A 26 year old man with jet black hair and serpentine green eyes according to his myspace profile, Nicholas Schiller has become the face of cartographical abstraction and digital isolation. His fame comes from his art, but the tesselations of aerial views of famous cities, schools, and occasionally people, are also the source of his obscurity, and in the catch-22 of most modern artists, also the cause of his fame. Confused? Here's an example: I would have had no interest in this avant-garde artistry if his article in the Philadelphia Inquirer didn't have a direct invitation at the end: "I'm interested in seeing other people's opinions," he says. "Will people blog about it? Will I be made fun of?" He creates a website that cannot be found "unless you've already been there", but also has a prominent article in a newspaper that is delivered everyday to my front doorstep. If you're one of the chosen ones, you can type in the cryptic name sequence (which, ironically, was also provided by the Inquirer article) in the google search engine, and finally press that "I'm Feeling Lucky" button (noted as step 2 in Find Nicholas Shiller by the Inquirer...quite handy, kudos to some spotless journalism there) leading directly to the website's home page. No disappointments here, the home page is impressive, a black page with the words "click here" in between the split halves of a person covered with what looked like hieroglyphics, but is really a warped version of Schiller's maps. No making fun of you yet, Schiller. Points for the metaphor of the empty space between two halves of a person being exactly where a map should be, and a knowing smile for your tasteful rendering of all of us split personalities being as mirror-oriented as your maps are...maybe our splits are not so different after all.
When I first started looking at the maps, I liked them, a lot. I couldn't decide which one I liked the most, though, and I realized it was not because I couldn't pick which color i liked the most or which design was most appropriately done for that particular picture, because I had no way of differentiating them. My home town is not on an ordinary map let alone Schiller's digital ones, so I didn't get to join in on the fun of "trying to find my house on a tesselated map", and once I searched around a little bit more on the different so-called "projects", I realized the only thing that differentiated one "project" from another was the spin put on the pictures...but if you were in a certain project, no matter what the picture was, the tesselation was always the same! So my question becomes, what are you trying to hide? So there can be some hidden irony in the multiplying President Bush pictures, and a bit of humor found that most of these pictures are in the tesselation that Schiller finds makes the pictures look most like gas masks, but honestly, there is so much to be said about creating a world of symmetry...maybe I didn't look hard enough, but I didn't find it.
Honestly, Nikolas Schiller has a whole lot of material to work with. Perhaps the point of the art is not it's meaning, but the irony of maps being hidden. This is an interesting turn, but seriously, he's got America to manipulate. The whole world, and if that isn't big enough, I'm sure NASA has a few solid shots of the solar system that would look nice in repeating planes around a center point...and if that's the only point of this experiment, and to get some bloggers checking out your website, congrats. I'm all in support of making a more symmetrical world...but challenge us. Why is it important to split the world with a mirror? What is there to gain from this test of the curiosity of the digital minds? Schiller you clearly have an interest in it, judging by your myriad of digital profiles, and the well maintained blogs and myspace page, but me, I'm just a fleck on your digital resume, half a pixellation in your map...manipulate that point, but who's manipulating me?
you're showing me the map, but not telling me the destination. Maybe I'm reading into this too much, maybe I expect too much, or maybe I'm just too hopped up on metaphors and meaning that I can't like art just for it's aesthetic qualities anymore...blame it on higher education. The colors are pretty. The likeness to gas masks in the abstract project is pretty interesting. If I had to pick a favorite, I would say the Hurricane Katrina pixellation, but you know why? Because turning something that wrecked such havoc throughout an entire city into a symmetrical, beautiful, calm picture has some fierce irony in it, as well as hope that maybe someday New Orleans will be mirroring it's past self, not Katrina, as it does in the picture. Sorry if that wasn't the point.
When I first started looking at the maps, I liked them, a lot. I couldn't decide which one I liked the most, though, and I realized it was not because I couldn't pick which color i liked the most or which design was most appropriately done for that particular picture, because I had no way of differentiating them. My home town is not on an ordinary map let alone Schiller's digital ones, so I didn't get to join in on the fun of "trying to find my house on a tesselated map", and once I searched around a little bit more on the different so-called "projects", I realized the only thing that differentiated one "project" from another was the spin put on the pictures...but if you were in a certain project, no matter what the picture was, the tesselation was always the same! So my question becomes, what are you trying to hide? So there can be some hidden irony in the multiplying President Bush pictures, and a bit of humor found that most of these pictures are in the tesselation that Schiller finds makes the pictures look most like gas masks, but honestly, there is so much to be said about creating a world of symmetry...maybe I didn't look hard enough, but I didn't find it.
Honestly, Nikolas Schiller has a whole lot of material to work with. Perhaps the point of the art is not it's meaning, but the irony of maps being hidden. This is an interesting turn, but seriously, he's got America to manipulate. The whole world, and if that isn't big enough, I'm sure NASA has a few solid shots of the solar system that would look nice in repeating planes around a center point...and if that's the only point of this experiment, and to get some bloggers checking out your website, congrats. I'm all in support of making a more symmetrical world...but challenge us. Why is it important to split the world with a mirror? What is there to gain from this test of the curiosity of the digital minds? Schiller you clearly have an interest in it, judging by your myriad of digital profiles, and the well maintained blogs and myspace page, but me, I'm just a fleck on your digital resume, half a pixellation in your map...manipulate that point, but who's manipulating me?
you're showing me the map, but not telling me the destination. Maybe I'm reading into this too much, maybe I expect too much, or maybe I'm just too hopped up on metaphors and meaning that I can't like art just for it's aesthetic qualities anymore...blame it on higher education. The colors are pretty. The likeness to gas masks in the abstract project is pretty interesting. If I had to pick a favorite, I would say the Hurricane Katrina pixellation, but you know why? Because turning something that wrecked such havoc throughout an entire city into a symmetrical, beautiful, calm picture has some fierce irony in it, as well as hope that maybe someday New Orleans will be mirroring it's past self, not Katrina, as it does in the picture. Sorry if that wasn't the point.
You know the reason you came home for spring break....
....was to get your ass kicked in mini golf.
....was to watch catholic school mom's cat call their child's math teacher.
...was to pretend you never left high school.
...was to have sleepovers with your 6 and 7 year old sisters.
...was to sip margaritas, wear a bikini and lay out...in your backyard.
...was to sleep. and sleep. and sleep.
...was to babysit. and babysit. and babysit.
...was to fight with your sister about boys and cooties and extra mirror time, like you're back in high school.
...was to talk on aim with all your high school friends at 11:00 at night and think that's really late...like in high school.
...was to get your ass kicked in a public school mom's pilates class.
...was to avoid the high school, but still find yourself back there everyday.
...was to catch up on the big advancements in all the most important events in the family, including plot changes and who's been voted off american idol, america's next top model, 1 1/2 men (or men men men as my family calls it) desperate housewives, and grey's anatomy.
...was to watch Darby O' Gill and look for similarities between a young Sean Connery and my dad, to see if the story of Darby O' Gill might actually be the story of my family (as many people have pointed out).
...was to be entertained by a dog with a plastic cone on it's head so she doesn't rip out her stitches, especially when she gets stuck in doors, under the table, under the bed, in the covers, on the fence...
...was to be told "you look gooood" by all your mom's friends and take it as a compliment.
...was to be told "you look gooood" by all your dad's friends and run in the opposite direction.
...was to have a bunch of respectable goals about catching up on homework and reading and writing, but bag them and end up going for a run instead.
....was to watch catholic school mom's cat call their child's math teacher.
...was to pretend you never left high school.
...was to have sleepovers with your 6 and 7 year old sisters.
...was to sip margaritas, wear a bikini and lay out...in your backyard.
...was to sleep. and sleep. and sleep.
...was to babysit. and babysit. and babysit.
...was to fight with your sister about boys and cooties and extra mirror time, like you're back in high school.
...was to talk on aim with all your high school friends at 11:00 at night and think that's really late...like in high school.
...was to get your ass kicked in a public school mom's pilates class.
...was to avoid the high school, but still find yourself back there everyday.
...was to catch up on the big advancements in all the most important events in the family, including plot changes and who's been voted off american idol, america's next top model, 1 1/2 men (or men men men as my family calls it) desperate housewives, and grey's anatomy.
...was to watch Darby O' Gill and look for similarities between a young Sean Connery and my dad, to see if the story of Darby O' Gill might actually be the story of my family (as many people have pointed out).
...was to be entertained by a dog with a plastic cone on it's head so she doesn't rip out her stitches, especially when she gets stuck in doors, under the table, under the bed, in the covers, on the fence...
...was to be told "you look gooood" by all your mom's friends and take it as a compliment.
...was to be told "you look gooood" by all your dad's friends and run in the opposite direction.
...was to have a bunch of respectable goals about catching up on homework and reading and writing, but bag them and end up going for a run instead.
Friday, March 9, 2007
Forgotten Kisses, Forgettable Kisses
i realized last night that your kisses have changed. i kept wanting to bring it up, but i know you would ask what i meant and i realized i didn't know exactly how to put it into words.
i kept thinking of those peanut butter cookies my mom used to make during Valentine's Day (they were called Forgotten Kisses) and they made me sad because i couldn't remember the last time i had seen my parents kiss, and i thought maybe they had forgotten how. But you, i know you haven't forgotten how to kiss, but maybe forgotten something else.
A first kiss is a huge landmark, i feel. And it shows---it jumps, and impulse of will and fortune that is also an ultimate achievement, no matter how small or botched or alcohol-indused. <> i was told once, <>
They are trapped, they are treasured...maybe. Maybe just a laugh, a memory. Do you remember the first time you kissed, anyone? Do you remember the first time you kissed me?
So what is it about your kisses now? I guess it's that they are not forced, they are not monumental or especially noteworthy (<>) .
Maybe it's because they aren't stolen anymore, from time or other people or eachother. Perhaps a step closer to being forgotten, but not completely. No, not forgotten at all.
i am being too exclusive on this: this is for me, too. (i think back to those first few weeks, the phone conversations, even just a few days ago, and think <> Each kiss was with a reinvented person.
Maybe we are getting closer, maybe we are challenging eachother less, or maybe we are just no longer threatened by being caught unaware.
A cookie is just a cookie. Maybe kisses are forgettable, but not forgotten. That's where my parents went wrong. And we went right.
(this isn't at all a problem, not at all not at all. It would make no sense to be as complex as we are, and have kisses remain stagnant. I like it. I like the change. him, really, him>>(you know what I mean)>> )
i kept thinking of those peanut butter cookies my mom used to make during Valentine's Day (they were called Forgotten Kisses) and they made me sad because i couldn't remember the last time i had seen my parents kiss, and i thought maybe they had forgotten how. But you, i know you haven't forgotten how to kiss, but maybe forgotten something else.
A first kiss is a huge landmark, i feel. And it shows---it jumps, and impulse of will and fortune that is also an ultimate achievement, no matter how small or botched or alcohol-indused. <> i was told once, <
They are trapped, they are treasured...maybe. Maybe just a laugh, a memory. Do you remember the first time you kissed, anyone? Do you remember the first time you kissed me?
So what is it about your kisses now? I guess it's that they are not forced, they are not monumental or especially noteworthy (<
Maybe it's because they aren't stolen anymore, from time or other people or eachother. Perhaps a step closer to being forgotten, but not completely. No, not forgotten at all.
i am being too exclusive on this: this is for me, too. (i think back to those first few weeks, the phone conversations, even just a few days ago, and think <
Maybe we are getting closer, maybe we are challenging eachother less, or maybe we are just no longer threatened by being caught unaware.
A cookie is just a cookie. Maybe kisses are forgettable, but not forgotten. That's where my parents went wrong. And we went right.
(this isn't at all a problem, not at all not at all. It would make no sense to be as complex as we are, and have kisses remain stagnant. I like it. I like the change. him, really, him>>(you know what I mean)>> )
Stories you have to read a second time (or, let's fuck with the readers, shall we?)
So I have this idea for a group of short stories as a literature-creates-optical-illusion art forms. Literally creating an epiphany at the end, readers will realize their previous conceptions were far off, and have to read the story a second time, with the truth. A story of fantastic beasts, the beginning of an epic adventure, and in the end...the realization that it's just a 65 year old man watching television. A story written backwards--it seems like post-modern jumble as you read it forwards, finish, and realize you were supposed to read it backwards (maybe. Well, no. You were supposed to read it forwards. Then, if you want a story, read it backwards). Narrator within a narrator within a narrator, talking to eachother. A conversation that, in the end, you realize is just the person talking to themselves. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe this is the first story, the story that started the story, maybe the television is about to be turned off. What will you know?
Stay posted.
Stay posted.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Death By Fiction
I AM SCREWED. I have a story due on Thursday at 5:00 (technically before that, technically TOMORROW, because I need to e-mail it to all my classmates so they can read it before the class. But let's not get too dramatic.) Basically I have become numb to words. I'm typing this with my eyes half-closed, only checking every once in a while to make sure i'm typing on the right keys and not going off track--I can't stand the sight of words right now. I see a simile and balk; Metaphors make me want to throw up; try any cutesy abstractiv-osity and I'll rip out my eyes. Literally. They're half-closed. NOT half-opened.
The reason is I pretty much had a fiction overdose yesterday. In an effort to catch up on moutains of books/readings, I read a lot. A lot a lot. When I was little, I thought we had word "quotas" each day (which could be transferred over into the next, but only on certain special discounts) meaning certain words were only allowed to be used a certain amount of times. I think this was actually an argument presented to me as a first grader to be prevented from using the word "um" too many times. But anyway, if word quotas do exist, i'm severely overdrawn. NO PUN INTENDED.
Do not be confused: I love fiction. I love stories and words and I want it to be my profession. But too much is too much, I don't know if it was from WHAT I was reading or HOW MUCH i was reading, but I definitely felt the effects today: I was drawn more towards images than words, it took me five minutes to realize the series of dripping lines in front of me during lunch was actually the newspaper and i can't write anything without thinking it's SHIT.
Maybe it's acceptable shit. Perhaps even good shit. That's what I keep telling myself, keep forcing myself to write line after line...just one more paragraph, you can do it...finish it.....JUST FINISH IT. It's painful. This sucks. I have a story, I know what to write....but it's shit. Acceptable, good.....no, just shit.
Just get it...just get it...just get it....down...down...just write it d...own......down down down....just get it down.......just get it...just get it....
That's what's going on in my mind right now. I would make a simile and compare it to a skipping CD, but you know what, that would suck. So no. Just, no. I'm going to the bathroom. NO PUN INTENDED.
The reason is I pretty much had a fiction overdose yesterday. In an effort to catch up on moutains of books/readings, I read a lot. A lot a lot. When I was little, I thought we had word "quotas" each day (which could be transferred over into the next, but only on certain special discounts) meaning certain words were only allowed to be used a certain amount of times. I think this was actually an argument presented to me as a first grader to be prevented from using the word "um" too many times. But anyway, if word quotas do exist, i'm severely overdrawn. NO PUN INTENDED.
Do not be confused: I love fiction. I love stories and words and I want it to be my profession. But too much is too much, I don't know if it was from WHAT I was reading or HOW MUCH i was reading, but I definitely felt the effects today: I was drawn more towards images than words, it took me five minutes to realize the series of dripping lines in front of me during lunch was actually the newspaper and i can't write anything without thinking it's SHIT.
Maybe it's acceptable shit. Perhaps even good shit. That's what I keep telling myself, keep forcing myself to write line after line...just one more paragraph, you can do it...finish it.....JUST FINISH IT. It's painful. This sucks. I have a story, I know what to write....but it's shit. Acceptable, good.....no, just shit.
Just get it...just get it...just get it....down...down...just write it d...own......down down down....just get it down.......just get it...just get it....
That's what's going on in my mind right now. I would make a simile and compare it to a skipping CD, but you know what, that would suck. So no. Just, no. I'm going to the bathroom. NO PUN INTENDED.
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