Our Particles are in Motion!

post from prague for emily

2009-11-12T06:32:00.000-08:00

it's 6:29 AM in prague and i have not slept nor will i ever for the rest of my filmmaking career.

abyss'

2009-08-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

the past six months, the next ten months. instead of stating it all, i will just state what it's been and what it is and what it will be:
-evanston, illinois
-amherst, massachusettes
-san francisco, california
-amherst, massachusettes
-evanston, illinois
-chicago, illinois
-milwaukee, wisconsin
-evanston/chicago, illinois
-new york, new york
-evanston/chicago, illinois
-london, united kingdom
-prague, czech republic
-berlin, germany
-evanston, illinois
-knoxville, kentucky
-amherst, massachusettes
-chicago, illinois
-?

this time, i really do plan on cubicles not being a part of the picture

we chased it out with a broom to the sky

2009-08-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

there is a beautiful gold light shining into my room right now and it is making everything all glowy.

if my parents were never around, i would love to make this house into a collective of sorts. where haggard and weary travelers come to sip perfect coffee on the porch. and in exchange they would just tell me stories from the road. or the sky. or outer space. i would take them to places where you climb and sit and jump and walk. and they would suggest good books.

i guess i love it when people come through because i get to be vicarious and this house gets a feel it's never had before and makes everything different and interesting. and bats even come inside and fly around.

i can't imagine ever leaving this room.

where the heart is

2009-08-02T00:29:00.000-07:00

son of a bitch! it smells like shit here!

-mother

...and you, yes you

2009-07-27T01:48:00.000-07:00

i feel like i've lost touch with practically everyone.

and you and you and you!

a sordid and unintentionally comprehensive pitchfork review from the cubicle

2009-07-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

so pitchfork music festival was this past weekend and it was beautiful. the key moments went a little something like this:

if you're reading this and you know me somewhat well, you know my recently past obsession with beirut and it's lead singer, zach condon. so seeing him was a MUST. the problem- the two bands that were the main reasoning behind attending the festival were beirut and matt & kim. days before the festival i went through the schedule and realized that they were playing at the SAME TIME. this killed me. absolutely crushed my soul. i spent days agonizing over this, trying to decide what to do. i came to this conclusion: although matt & kim are pretty much my current idols, and their shows are SOOOOO FUUNNNNN, i've seen them twice. and about a year/6 months ago, beirut was my #1. he was my AIM buddy icon, he was my desktop background, i'm sure he was my facebook profile picture at one point. i was infatuated with him. i had every single song of his, and many videos, listened to nantes, scenic world and elephant gun on repeat. because of this, he's my most listened to artist on last.fm. his voice wooed me into oblivion. and i could NOT get enough. all that was left to do was to see him live. and then prmptly start dating him of course. SO although, i had ceased my total obsession with the guy, i kind of owed it to myself to see him. so i did. and i had a semi well planned plan to get right up front. i wanted eye contact. i wanted to see the shape of his cuticles and the drops of sweat on his brow. i wanted him to know i exist, even though he has no idea who i am, i would be just a body in the crowd, but one visible to him. one who's facial features he can define. BUT getting that close didn't really work out. i mean, we did have to eat. so we figured we'd scarf down some [unbelievable] tempura in the crowd and then make our way up. what i should have done was brought granola bars and staked my place as early as possible, so i could reach that bar. but alas, other things happen and i still had a rather killer spot practically right in the middle of the crowd. we got high. real high. and he started playing. and i don't even really know how to explain this, but, something in me happened. i had a perfect and clear path through the crowd to him on stage. i could see him perfectly, he was right in front of me, albeit far away, he was there, he existed, i existed, we existed in the same time and place and he was THERE, right THERE, playing for me. and no one else. i saw him. and he was playing for me. i swayed. and sang. and then got dizzy. after about 3 songs, my concentration with his beauty broke. and i had to get out. although he was the most beautiful creature i had ever seen exist in front of me, although he was playing ALL of my favorite songs, every single one, although i had fallen back in love with him during those moments, it was too much. i couldn't handle the emotion, i thought my heart was going to explode and my head dissipate into the thick of the crowd. the same thing had happened last year at pithfork during animal collective. the emotion and passion they displayed was so beautiful it was unbearable. so i told my friends i couldn't handle it, i was tingly i was dizzy i was nauseous, and had to get out. at least a little bit. i needed grass. i need to sit. i fantasized every single person around me suddenly dissapearing and me floating onto the ground while zach still crooned away, for no one else but me. i would lay in the grass of this field, completely alone, and he would continue playing as if nothing had happened. it would be perfect. i would be relaxed. and then i looked around and realized that was not going to happen and i had to immediately get out. douglas saw my panic and agreed with it and because he is 7 feet tall and i am not, he triumphantly led the way out and i followed behind, coyly smiling at the giggling crowd we were passing through. and found a patch of grass and collapsed. and listened. and i was sad. but convinced myself that it is about the music, that it is about listening much more than seeing, no matter how much physical love i have for zach. so it was alright. then he SEEMINGLY ended and the rest of the crew found us and we made our way over to the end of matt & kim. but to my sadness, beirut was not over. and at one point, i was standing between the two stages and could hear both bands playing at the same time. i paused. my heart split in two. one went back to where it was, regretting the decision to leave, and one lunged forward to matt & kim. my feet followed the latter. and due to inebriation my mind completely let go of beirut and forgot everything that had just happened and engulfed itself in daylight and silver tiles and it was kind of perfect because in those last 10 or so minutes i experienced, they played the songs i was lamenting over not hearing them play when i made the decision to see beirut instead of them. so, i got what i partially wanted. i got a little bit of both instead of a lot of one. which i still can't decide if that's what i wanted or not, but regret is fruitless so i suppose i need to just revel in the fact that i HEARD them. i saw no sweat on the brow, but i was there and they were there and we were all there together in union park in my chicago, illinois. MY chicago, they were in my town and i heard them live (take your pick for which "live" that is) and i got to dance and sing and shout to my two favorite music groups. and if i've done that, then i'd say i achieved some sort of satisfactory goal. at music festivals, perfection in anything executed is a distant thought. when it reaches somewhere close to that, everything is swell. so everything that day was swell. albeit cute rain drops, i discovered the grooviness of yeasayer. and the black lips singer smashed his guitar on the first song. owen pallett of final fantasy was adorableness at it's most talented. fucked up was... fat and hairy. pains of being pure at heart were not so memorable but i do remember enjoying them. after the black lips i got an ice cream cone and sat on some grass and listened to the end of the national and everything felt pretty perfect. any paranoia and panic i had previously had from being surrounded by people and bodies was melted into the chocolate chip cookie dough i had purchased for cheap from a VERY enthusiastic bearded man behind the counter. either he was acting like a maniac all day or it was the end of the day and he was really stoned or he knew i was really stoned and was making fun of me because his compatriots were laughing, but i didn't really care and went along with the jaunt because i just wanted to be saved by ice cream.

due to a HARD sleep that night (i don't really know how else to describe it, but i don't think i had every slept that HARD before), douglas and i didn't get there until about 3 the next day. but there wasn't anything we wanted to see for another hour, so i sat in grass and smoked a cigarette and he went to look at records. i met up with some kids and we saw the thermals, of which i was only slightly familiar with, and they ruled. it was a killer show and we even sat for some of it and a girl came up to me and asked if she could bum a cigarette and i said sure, they're rollies and she said ok and i handed her the pouch and she paused and looked at me sadly and asked if i could roll it for her. it was really very adorable. and i said yeah! and she explained that she tried rolling a joint once and it just did not work out. i told her that the only key to it is practice. and then she explained that she's quitting smoking and her boyfriend just went to the bathroom, so now's her chance. and then i handed her the cigarette, and she asked for a lighter and giggled, and i giggled and handed her one. and it was really all just adorable. even though i was feeding the addiction she was trying to avoid. i felt good for silly reasons.

grizzly bear was that night, and i was/am just in the thick of my obsession with them and this time had an actual plan to get to that bar when they played. i scoped out an opening at the other stage, where the walkmen were about to play, preceeding grizzly bear, and during the thermals last song, we made our way over there. the key to getting to the front of a crowded crowd at a show is via the sides. and timing. it's all about when you decide to get to where you wanna get. giving yourself much more time than you think you need is essential and you usually have to make several other sacrifices in order to stake out a spot. but if you do it right, it's so worth it and the experience is heightned because you spend the show with the band members, not smelly bodies next to you and the big hair in front of you. you get to know them by watching them so closely in the throws of their passion. it's such a different experience because it's so much more easy to concentrate on the music and appreciate the musicians when you can see the bends in their knuckles strumming the chords, not when you have to spend the entire time craning your neck to see the left foot of the bassist. i forgot about all of this during beirut, that working a crowd is a skill and there are many tricks to it. i tried to get in by just tiptoeing through the people from behind. this second day, i knew better, and was extremely determined. i needed to see grizzly bear and i knew i would have another panic attack if i was standing in the middle of bodies again, especially with those epic chords of theirs and the immaculate spliff i had rolled for experiencing them at their fullest. i wanted those chords struck in more instruments than guitars. in HEARTS. well, my heart. so we waited for the walkmen directly under the big screen, and within arms reach of the edge of the railing on the right side of the stage. as the time neared, and by the time the walkmen started playing, i was grabbing that fence and was not going to let go. i convinced friend ben that my idea was going to work and he made his way to me with company and izzy and christine left early to get flaming lips spots and my plan began to work and me and ben and company kept getting slowly pushed closer and closer to the middle of the stage. we grinned. and then the walkmen ended (and they rocked really hard, i didn't even realize it because i was there for grizzly bear, but i did a lot of dancing to them, a whole lot). and we waited. and my legs wanted to buckle from exhaustion before they even started playing. and then something in my plan malfunctioned and i lost my grip on the railing. but i was front and center. though 3 rows back, with 2 people in front of me. it was slightly frustrating because during the show i had to keep convincing myself i was alright and that i didn't need to hold on to that railing, and if i REALLY did, it was just right there. and everything was going to be ok because although i didn't have a grip on salvation, it was within arm's reach. i had lost douglas and company to the crowd. i told him i WAS going to get up front and no one was going to stop me, and i did, so he knew that's where i was going to be. and he was going to make it there too, and we were going to smoke our spliff and revel in bear glory, but he got stuck behind bodies and i spent the spliff with ben and friends and though they were appreciative, it got passed pretty far around, which was fine because i'm all about the shared love and think it's stupid when people are protective and inclusive of their pot, because it's supposed to make you feel good. so why not be nice about it? when that much care goes into the posession of drugs, you probably need to stop doing drugs. anyway, i felt completely guilty because it was supposed to be in the hands of me and douggy, but there wasn't really anything i could do at that point and i mean, the deed had to be done. it was a loaded one and i was going "oh yes oh yes oh yes" in my head while waiting for the band to play and then promptly "oh no oh no oh no" when i discovered the same panicky feelings i was feeling during beirut. and one of bens friends was talking about how my spliff just made everything better and he was in a terrible mood moments ago and now he feels completely awesome and can't wait for this show. so i smiled. even thoug i wasn't facing him. and convinced myself it's ok it's alright everything's perfect. and they started and the entire time they played there was all of this feedback and the speakers were making a very loud and obnoxious hum. that was sad. and the louder the hum, the worse i felt inside. at one point they were just standing on stage, staring around at eachother, stuttering into the mic "uh... umm... uh... i mean, ahh... we don't... we don't really know what to do... um... this is the part of the show where the stage hums..." and they stood some more. and it was the drummer's birthday, and then we the crowd started singing happy birthday to him and it was one of those moments. and they smiled and laughed and the hum stopped. and everyone was happy and relieved and they said "we really didn't know what to do there. it was one of those moments when you think absolutely everything is going wrong and you have no idea what to do next." and they played more. and 2 weeks was an unmentionable experience. i attained nirvana and wanted to call so many people and hold up my phone and sing "OHHHOOOOHHHOOOOOHHHHHHH!!!" into the reciever but i couldn't break myself from the beauty of those 4 minutes. and then the hum came back. and things were sad again and they kept shooting evil glares backstage but at this point it didn't really even matter and they just tried to drown it out by playing over it and it kind of became a joke. i hope. but nonetheless, i found god during that show and it was detrimental to my health in that it made me step out of my convultued and tumultuous spinning head, it made me take my hand off my pounding exploding heart, and threw me into this existence of sounds and sights and maybe gave me some permanent damage to my right ear drum. they were loud. and rightly so. and there were moments when me and the drummer found eachother and as he wailed and flailed, i daydreamed about our children.

the second they stopped playing, the flaming lips began their shenanigans. and i'm sorry, but they're a little ridiculous. this was my third time seeing them, and their charm had pretty much worn off. after grizzly bear, i wanted nothing other than to sit in the grass. so i did so. and friends found me and we lounged and watched on screen, and sometimes stood up to see in person, crazy wayne coin rolling around in a bubble on top of the crowd. AGAIN. the first time i saw him was at lollapalooza a few years ago and i had a pretty good spot, so good i could ALMOST touch his bubble (hehe), so good i had confetti in my hair for days and streamers wrapped around my entire upper body. the second time i saw them was at bonnaroo and me and ellie had decided to take mushrooms, but we were naive and swalloed capsules of "them" and it did nothing but make us cold and want to sit and giggle at things. so it was just like being a little bit high, which was fun and all, but pretty much ruined the concert experience because we really wanted nothing to do with it. so we didn't really experience it. and everytime i've seen him, he's done the EXACT same routine. the only difference was that the first time i saw them, the hot girls and boys dancing on stage were dressed as sexy santas and elves, the second time the hot girls and boys dancing on stage were dressed as sexy aliens and warewolves, and this third time the hot girls and boys dancing on stage were dressed as sexy cats and dinosaurs. i mean, that's hilarious and all, but cmon. cut it out already. depend on your music for fulfillment, not this silly entertainment. and all 3 times, he's rolled around atop the crowd in a giant clear plastic ball, like, don't you guys get it! he's physically telling you that he's above you! and everytime he litters the stage and crowd with TONS and TONS and TONS of confetti and streamers and literally thousands of huge ballons and all i think about is what the grounds crew is going to have to go through after this show is over and what they'll be mumbling to themselves as they're picking up pieces of confetting one by one out of the grass and what they'll be telling their spouse when they get home at 3 AM that night. there were so many oversized balloons that we, sitting in front of the grizzly bear stage on the other side of the park, were able to kick away balloons literally every minute. that shouldn't even be legal. we deduced that the reasoning behind this form of INYOURFACE show is because wayne spends so much time on stage talking. TALKING. talking talking talking about nothing. or maybe something, but you can't understand a word he's saying because he'll stop after every song and talk about the pursuit of happiness for a good 10 minutes straight and obviously the audience gets bored, so they are kept happy and fresh with all sorts of fun party favors that will never cease to entertain them. it's amazing how entertained an audience gets when they're waiting for a show to start and there's a blow up beach ball being bounced around. fans go NUTS for that shit and will give anything to make their mark on the world by hitting this ball of air as far as they can. AWESOME. so, it was kind of like that. i can respect the flaming lips, and i like their music i do, and at one point they were the focal point of my obsession, so i felt obligated to experience them this time, but after a while there wasn't even a point to being there and it was just getting silly. so me and douglas looked at eachother, and sylvia and new friend michela, and promptly left. calves hurt. eyes hurt. heart hurt. it was perfect because we didn't have to tromp and lose ourselves downtown in order to find a less crowded train like the night before, and just hopped on the empty seat filled green line, then brown line, then red line, then purple line. we transferred 3 times and it was such a smooth and completely painless process it was perfect and a bittersweet end to the night. bitter because it was the end, sweet because it was the end. we got home early enough to find lucy still awake from exploring the hip parts of town and hannah came over and we did backyard sitting smoking. and then i ate pancakes and fell asleep and woke up and went to the doctor.

2009-07-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

Time Flies - Lykke Li (Dir: Will Galperin) (2009) from William Marshall Galperin on Vimeo.

most influential person of 2009: william marshall galperin. stay close please.

philmmind

2009-07-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

i'm glad that i decided to do cinematography in prague next semester because it really just makes sense; every film i have recently watched i have been deciphering visually. i have been examining the way in which each scene is lit, or for that matter, each actor and where the light hits their face exactly, coming up with conclusions for the reasons behind these lighting decisions, contrast in color decisions, etc. i have been looking for clues hidden in the scenery. i have been viewing each film as a film, always keeping in mind that precisely a billion people worked on it to make it EXACTLY the way it is. absolutely everything was consciously created and decided, if it's a somewhat cohesive piece. i haven't been able to watch a film recently and not analyze every moment of it and take everything involved within in each scene into some sort of consideration, figuring out the WHY and the HOW. mainly so i can be aware of these decisions to be made come september.

this summer has truly put me in a filmic mindset. which is perfect. which is what i need for the upcoming trek to the homeland. every inspiration and idea i've come up with i've wanted to portray through some sort of film work. it is now the first form of expression that comes to mind when i want to create something. thinking like a filmmaker has become inate. whenever i see something beautiful or strange or different in the real world, i only think of how it would look on film, of what a lens would do to that scene. for some reason, i find things so much more interesting and full of depth that way. i don't really know why. it just makes the most sense to me.

maybe because this entire summer has been/is dedicated to watching great movies and that's it. really, that's the one constant thing this summer has been for, everything meaninful i've been doing has been for that sake, to watch a movie. my list hasn't gotten any shorter though.

eek.

things keep expanding and it's all attributed to my facets class and professor/cinematographer/genius. he rides a motorcycle.

cubed

2009-06-16T15:30:00.000-07:00

no place or location should ever be named after a three dimensional geometric shape.

2009-06-11T14:18:00.000-07:00

Avoiding the Poison: The Immaculately Quiet Beauty of Red Desert

Emma Zbiral-Teller

I recently attended a Facets Night School class called Light Narrative: The Rhetoric of Exposure in which we watched and discussed Michaelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert (1964).When it comes to first impressions of a film, I am completely biased in a sense. If the first 10 minutes capture my full attention, which is incredibly admirable, I’m usually set for the rest of the film. If they find a way to immediately pull me in, no matter what the remaining content, I will at least respect it for its attempt. Red Desert or Il Deserto Rosso enraptured me for its entire duration. Not only did it pull me in within the first minute, it kept my eyes glued to the screen and my brain suctioned to the plot and all recurring themes. I’ve never been able to pay full attention to something that isn’t at least slightly beautiful, and this, was stunning. I was obsessed with it the moment it started and all I could think about was how awesome the rest of it was going to be.
The opening credits of the film appear over an out of focus background of treetops, and pans to factory smokestacks billowing out fuzzy smoke. It spends the entirety of the next three minutes with these same factory shots, completely out of focus yet easy to decipher as monstrous human inventions. By softening them, they were made much more innocent and dreamlike, signifying the theme of the film, that being a disconnection with reality. With these shots, Antonioni jumped right in, asking the audience the think, to say to themselves, “focus…focus…focus… why isn’t it focusing?!” In just the first three minutes, he starts an argument with his viewers, asking them to participate with what they are seeing. I was drawn in by these three minutes because I knew it was about to get real, this was serious, Antonioni wasn’t fooling around here. This wasn’t about to be an entertainment flick, I was about to witness a heavily meaningful art film. I knew I was about to spend the next two hours intently thinking as well as watching.
I’m drawn to the obscure and the unique, to what’s different, and this beginning was unlike any I had seen. Thus, I couldn’t look away, and it didn’t matter that it was my tenth hour at Facets and that I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before and that I was previously bemoaning these facts, wondering how I was going to keep myself awake for this class, because suddenly all that mattered was how the rest of this film was going to look. Now, this may not be everyone’s reaction to the film. The pace is excruciating at times, but if you’re willing to interpret the meaning behind this excruciation and if you’re able to see its stunning visual glory, then it is completely and totally worth it. I am also easily obsessed with discreetly beautiful things, so it was easy for Red Desert to serve as a Mecca of passion for me.
As the opening credits end, the factory comes into sharp focus and balls of bright orange fire are seen spurting out of the top of a smokestack. It pans down to a crowd of people; seemingly workers in midst of a strike. It is rainy. It is grey. It is gloomy. There are factories all around, everything is metal and concrete, everything is focused on the grey pallet. Every surrounding is a human invention. Then, a woman, Guiliana, is seen walking towards the camera in a green coat with her young son clad in a yellow coat. Because of this, it is apparent that she is the protagonist. The moment I saw her I immediately thought, “We’ll be seeing A LOT of this woman.” It was easy to automatically notice the intensity in her eyes and the lines on her forehead, and you can’t introduce a character in a film with a furrowed brow without spending time on them for the rest of the film to discover why their brow is furrowed. Although their coats are the only dash of color thus far, making them important characters, they do not contrast with their surroundings. They are apparent as deep colors, yet remain in the same range of color with everything else. Although full of brilliance, there is a slightly recognizable sadness in their coats, simply because of the relation to their surroundings or the way they tiptoe through the mud. Guiliana’s desperation is easily noted when the first thing you see her doing is bribing a man for his half eaten sandwich and then rushing away to devour it amidst a thicket of bare, dark and twisting branches. There is never an explanation to her reasoning behind this, because she doesn’t seem to be penniless, and afterwards she contently walks away with her son, but even before seeing this woman’s face, you know there is something not right. She is different, and trapped. Although her coat stands out, it is natural in its surroundings. It is supposed to be there. It will not change settings. This is all there is.
Many shots throughout start with the same blurriness the film began with, yet only for mere seconds because someone immediately walks into the scene, in perfect focus. Antonioni grapples with the theme of physical space in that he puts an overwhelming amount of sky and atmosphere in this film. He gives it this space. He makes you look up into all of it, yet there is nothing to look up into because it is always overcast. The viewer is forced to look up and up and up, and there is nothing. He begins with a space and has characters enter into them, attributing the control of the scene to the surroundings and the environment, not the characters themselves. This can go on to assume that he was trying to convey our sense of non-control over the land, no matter how much we try to tame it, to build on it, to throw slabs of concrete over it, we will always remain prisoners to our land. We will always be trapped, and the only character in the film that knows this is Guiliana. Throughout the entirety of the film she grapples with the throws of insanity. With intensely bizarre mannerisms, she is consistently on the brink of reality. In one scene she even talks about how she tried committing suicide when she was in the hospital after a terrible accident because she felt like she was on a consistent decline, she was slowly sinking into her environment and soon she would be engulfed. But she, apparently, saved herself. Although she was alive now, she was still constantly disturbed by her surroundings and could never leave. Several times, she was placed wedged in a corner, up against a wall, stuck on a pole, and so on; pigeon holed in the dark, little corners of her life.
Patience in this film is essential. As the viewer, you keep waiting for things to happen that you know are going to happen, but sometimes never do. There is an orgy scene in which no orgy takes place. Yet, it is an orgy scene. It alludes to this subject, it talks about it and minimally shows it, yet it never really occurs. Instead the characters end up tearing down the interior wooden slats that make up the wall of the bedroom of this tiny shack of a house, teetering on the edge of a mysterious and foggy dock. They go on to throw the slats into the fireplace, feeding it for warmth, but they leave them sticking completely out of the fire. It’s a strange scene, because all the while they are doing this, they are hysterically laughing and jumping up and down with joy, and you, the viewer, are either waiting for an actual orgy or for the entire place to go up in flames and sink into the sea. It is ridden with this feel of anxiety, something Guiliana is constantly struggling with, no matter what is happening. This shack is an odd setting, extremely theatrical in its outlook and obviously metaphorical for the bleak and bizarre human condition. You don’t really know why these people live in a run-down shack on the edge of a foggy dock, and why they think it would make for a great party location, but it doesn’t really matter because the poetics of this are outstanding. Every single aspect of it is a perfect metaphor of Guiliana’s feelings of isolation, desperation, anxiety and depression. It is dark, grey, mysterious, they are in the middle of nowhere, no one, including the characters, has any idea what is going to happen next, and they revel in this. Just like Guiliana, you keep thinking that if they rattle the shack enough, it will suddenly slip into the unforgiving sea closely surrounding them. They are tearing at the slats of the house just as time and space are tearing at Guiliana’s soul.
Her husband is a plant manager, attributing to their location of residence, so the majority of the film is placed within factories and between smokestacks. Although many reviewers link this to a statement about the deterioration of the environment, I think it was much more representational than that. I found the outlook of these monstrosities stunning in that they represent both banality and beauty. It shows the unintentional aesthetic behind human innovation and how it will pollute our souls if we stand close enough to breathe it in, yet from a distance or behind a window, where safety is contained and survival imminent, these smokestacks are quiet, looming giants; classic and simple in their demeanor. The last line of the film sums up this theme perfectly. Guiliana and her son are walking through a factory field in which a nearby smokestack is billowing out yellow smoke. The boy asks why the smoke is yellow. Guliana tells him that it is poison. The boy inquires about the safety of the birds that fly through it. Guiliana responds by telling him that the birds have learned not to do that. Antonioni leaves the viewer with this statement, asking them to meditate on what it means. I saw it as an explanation of Guiliana’s sanity and how maybe there’s hope, because she’s learning not to fly through the yellow smoke. With her son at her side, she is discovering how to avoid the poison.
This was Antonioni’s first color film, thus it was exploding with an immaculate color palate, perfectly attuned to a central range. Cinematographer Carlo Di Palma genius-ly crafted the feel of Red Desert by keeping its tonal range smack in the middle of perfection. If one decided to take out the color, making it a black and white film, this point would be proven in that it would be incredible gray, a sign of a great cinematographer. True blacks and true whites would be sparse. You would think intense contrast in a color film would be essential, but it’s the complete opposite. Perfection on the color scale of a film comes when every one of its colors is in the same range. Contrast can be exciting, but if you want a film that is consistent in its tonality, a central range must be achieved. An honest theme can only be reached if the filmmakers are aware of every detail, if they craft it so that the visuals create a constant feel. No matter what its texture, the look and feel of it must mirror its voice. Otherwise it will attain no deeper meaning.
This class was taught by cinematographer, professor and genius, Michael Wright. Cinematography has always had an allure to me, since I am extremely interested in and obsessed with the visual aesthetic of things, especially film and art, and this class completely blew me away. It was laden with understanding the perception of a cinematographic mindset and thought process. Red Desert was a perfect foray into this mindset and is one of the only films I’ve seen that somehow knew exactly what I find essential in a film and displayed it for me on screen. That being the creation of deep meaning through odd beauty. Thanks Michaelangelo, I appreciate it.

say that ten times fast

2009-06-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

when i'm sitting and eating an apple during my lunch break, i usually end up zoning out and spend most of the time watching people come in and out of the Walgreens across the street, as kerouac waits in pages on my lap. examining people in their cars, hand out window with cigarette. man flicked a finished one onto the road, i watched it roll back and forth for several minutes still cylindrical underneath cars. i waited for its fate when BAM it was finally flattened by tires. immobile.

on my lunch break today i also discovered that almonds are much more maliable than i ever thought. maliable almonds. maliable almonds. maliable almonds.

the ragged rim of oblivion.

2009-05-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

i was in a cubicle all day and it was a little bit better because i got to venture out every once in a while to pretend i was helping pull film clips. and then i called 400 places to beg for employment. and then i wrote down what i probably won't tell you and scratched a love poem in my little notebook. and then i sat on the train and looked at strangers and thought about what makes me miserable and then the indian man at the health food store i asked for a job from held my hand for too long and the pimply kid behind the counter at the video store didn't know if they were hiring and then i saw a dead bird on the sidewalk and then i came home to my blind dog bumping into EVERYTHING. none of those things helped. and now i have to figure out what to eat for dinner.

maybe i should just write a memoir where i complain for 300 pages about the suburban doldrums. or the urban neurosis.

maybe i should just not take amphetamines anymore.

maybe i should just leave the country for 5 months in 3 months? the continent even? europe??? yep. that's being done.

maybe i should just be content because in time very due there will be cobblestones under my feet and a camera in front of my face and everything will start happening.

there is modern romance only in other countries. there. it's simple. see it?

2009-05-12T13:09:00.000-07:00

Animal Collective - My Girls from Rob Chesnutt on Vimeo.

Matt & Kim "Lessons Learned" from POPFRENZY HQ on Vimeo.

dentrimentally sentimental

2009-05-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

there is nothing left in this room but the apocalypse. where there once was abundant thriving life, there is now an empty dresser, a bare mattress and walls that look as though they have suffered through the fourth world war. this sucks i could cry.

no sleep. off to kathy's diner. on to plane. off to home. think about that one. HOME. thank god for amphetamines and jazz.

parting is such sweet sorrow

2009-05-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

film scripts and film strips and test strips and darkroom chemicals and kurt vonnegut and rice cakes and cat litter and kittens and owls and late night art projects and red bull and fake bacon and kanye west and cigarettes and amphetamines and small children and tantrums and babies and diapers and time magazine and snow hikes and borrowed clothing and flannel and index cards and art talks and existing and airport lounge sunrises and bubblegum and avant-garde film screenings and farm mornings and smith buses and san fransisco and division II and prague and tea and reich and lykke and walking on a dream and dirty kitchens and skinny mirrors and paychecks and caffeine and stinky cigarette compost and rabid skunks and those days and those nights and UGH! THIS LIFE!

hampshire college, it's time for a break.
hampshire, i'll still call i promise.
hampshire, i'll always love you.
hampshire, you're the only one for me.
hampshire, i just need a change.
hampshire college, i'll come crawling back, don't worry.

you're my favorite moment. you're my sad day. cuz you're my number 1.

sunless

2009-04-23T06:02:00.000-07:00

When you don't sleep at night, it's terrifying how quickly daylight comes.

people will say all kinds of things

2009-04-15T01:46:00.000-07:00

there's no modern romance.

2009-04-03T19:04:00.000-07:00

"One of the oldest games there is, cat's cradle. Even the Eskimos know it."
"You don't say."
"For maybe a hundred thousand years or more, grownups have been waving tangles of string in their children's faces."
"Um."
Newt remained curled in the chair. he held out his painty hands as though a cat's cradle were strung between them. "No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's..."
"And?"
"No damn cat, and no damn cradle"

plastic bags full of water

2009-03-31T22:07:00.000-07:00

see the thing about seemingly unrequited love is that it is so haunting it is almost unreal. so it's confusing. and it's tangible, it's just pointless.

like this!!!:

so much of my life has been spent as this fish in a bag!!!

oh dear.

haunts!

2009-03-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

i'm going to prague i'm going to prague i'm going to prague i'm going to prague i could say it 700 more times and it would never lose its charm. i got into the prague film school so i will be spending all of next semester making films in PRAGUE. and doing all this stuff too:

In-between all this time you’ll find the students in the school café; chugging coffee between classes, sipping it slowly while downloading music for their film, chatting, watching films and music videos, eating one of Lima’s delicious hot sandwiches. Outside in the courtyard; fellow smokers and much more of the same; chatting about the last shoot or the next party.
Almost everyone is in student arranged accommodation. There are many parties, especially after big productions. It’s a lot of mostly hard work at PFS. And at the end of every long day you’ll always find someone to go for a well-deserved beer at one of the many neighbouring bars, if that‘s just exactly what you‘re in the mood for.
There’s a big nightlife scene; from late-night drinking haunts, jazz bars and clubs to quirky cinema retrospectives. There’s a lot going on, just ask Steve or Isaac; ex PFS students now working at the school; they always seem to know what happenings are going on about town.

chatting! parties! jazz bars! beer! smokers! sandwiches!! what. more. could. i. EVER. want. http://www.prague-life.com/prague/prague-pot it's going to be epic.

i remember thas bridge when i was there at the little age of 7. can't wait to experience it as an aaaaadulttttt.

cal. if. ornia.

2009-03-13T12:58:00.000-07:00

kill your computer and read this in space

2009-03-03T21:48:00.000-08:00

i got rid of my facebook a couple weeks ago and have since felt the glory and beauty of freedom and self-reliance all those poets speak of. It's much easier to focus on my own life when I'm not looking at baby pictures of someone I was in a biology class with my sophomore year of high school. that's just silly and creepy. because, really, there are so many other things to be looking at. it became such an addiction. and i really haven't noticed at all it's nonexistence in my life. instead of going on facebook, i read a book. or do my homework. or or or. the possibilities are endless when you are free. hm.

the intangibility of the internet only proves its lack of reality.
this modern human need to display personal information on screen, because that is all the internet can provide, a list of information, tears us away from our own grounding.
this "necessity" destroys everything natural about existence.
it tears our communication skills to shambles.
it puts a plethora of information in our mindset that only confuses our thought processes, because we don't know how to think for ourselves when we are enraptured in reading about the lives of others.
it tampers with the beauty of experience, which is how any sort of real connection is made.
it disables the ideals of learning, which is only wholly achieved by EXPERIENCE.
it takes away our holiness as human beings because it gives the ILLUSION that we are these tangible objects that can be felt and examined and understood by simply seeing as opposed to HOLDING.
we cannot feel with our hands experiences behind a screen.
and the only experiences worth experiencing are ones we do not look at, but ones we EMBODY.

thus, the internet has forever ruined the preciousness of human connections (yes, this blog is in that realm) and facebook has taken these ruins and constructed further lies around them that claim to be honest, but really, honesty rests in the collaboration of all senses, not this single sense of sight that makes us think we don't have to dig any further because all the information we could ever need is right in front of us, on this cleverly crafted machine whose insides are infinite. this is a lie, because it is only infinite due to human ingenuity, not nature. it is hiding more than we think. it is hiding so many so many things things things. we will never ever be able to see it all, so until we understand the idea that the internet is this singular invention we will never ever be able to see as a whole, will we be at peace with it. thus, i will never be at peace with it because i have this everlasting fear of the unknown and if i can't see everything in front of me and reason behind it, i am lost and confused and frustrated. this is why i deleted my facebook, because i'm afraid of it. because i don't understand its reason and purpose. it's. just. silly.

but don't worry friends, i'll be back. haha... afterall, i am only emma, a modern human unable to make real-life connections anymore, just like the rest of my gross generation.

godspeed...

2009-02-23T17:40:00.000-08:00

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reduce it to the ground

2009-02-15T13:40:00.000-08:00

everything is everything. nothing is nothing. everything is nothing. nothing is everything. ETC.

i saw a number in the sky. in the sky.
and if there's a god, he's a little god.
and he holds you closely inside these walls.
but he hates his babies
most of all.

i've been toying with the notion. i accidently typed nothing. at first. i've been toying with nothing too. and that and this and this and that.

so some of it's gone and it was valentines day yesterday so fuck thattt. i'll escape to the darkroom and get lost in chemikals. that way, i can still play god.

attention deficit definitely

2009-01-28T02:07:00.000-08:00

infinite distractions. being infinitely distracting.

may cause drowsiness

2009-01-23T13:06:00.000-08:00

my insides are all tied up.
my outsides are all wrong.

they prescribed me something to trick my brain into thinking i don't have to cough.
and a chemical steroid that i inhale in exchange for breath.

and everything. still. will never. leave me. alooone. drowning in the beaurocrasea. baahh.

wonder dose does

2009-01-08T01:38:00.000-08:00

i caught the smell of last year earlier tonight. it suddenly stopped me in my tracks and made me feel everything i was feeling at that exact time last year and i couldn't decide if it was a little sad or strange.

hmm wonders what a year does?

letha(l)rgic

2008-12-06T18:07:00.000-08:00

Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, and eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'? How many rainbows can light create for the untutored eye? How aware of variations in heat waves can that eye be? Imagine a world alive with incomprehensible objects and shimmering with an endless variety of movement and innumerable gradations of color. Imagine a world before the 'beginning was the word.'

-sb

depricat(er)ing

2008-12-02T22:32:00.000-08:00

i really don't know what it means to work anymore. to DO work, that is. the beginning of the year was so crazy hectic and stressful, but only because i had a ton of places i needed to be. not because of any amount of work i had to do. and now it's finals. and i have to write a paper. and i don't remember how. and it's a little freaky. i have absolutely no idea what to do. even thinking about it makes me nervous and anxious because i feel i don't have anything of value to say, and i'll end up bullshitting everything because that's all this year has been. i've smoked way too much pot and have created absolutely nothing of value this semester. i haven't been motivated to throw myself into my work like i expected i would, because now i'm finally doing exactly what i've been wanting to do and i'm letting it completely pass me by. which is depressing. because i absolutely cannot seem to get myself out of this lazy mentality. i have zero self control. and zero self discipline. that combination is. a. disaster.

thanksgiving was nice.

this is all i have to say...

2008-11-08T17:50:00.000-08:00

FUCK YEAH AMERICA

happy november

2008-11-03T18:27:00.000-08:00

halloween was great. i was a lightnin bug.

more importantly.
RIP studs terkel.
RIP harriet prentiss.
RIP barack's grandma.
RIP syd's grandpa.
RIP humanity?

what is going on.

"update this shit"

2008-10-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

ok. ok fine.

happenings:
-i'm getting into vegetables and creative, HEALTHY meals. i'm really going to try and keep it up. carbs will be playing a minimal role in my life. (just kidding maybe)
-i'm writing my screenplay about that one (plural) thing that happened that one time. it's not as easy as i thought it would be. whoops.
-making crazies with div II shit. trying to get the best of the rest on my committee.
we'll see what happens. good thing it's ALL due on friday. good thing my life is due on friday. which brings me too...
-THEE hampshire halloween. i want to be an artichoke. i'm going to be an artichoke (on drugs).
-DJANGO (reinhardt) THE KITTEN.

django facts:
-he is going to be a panther.
-he will beat up your cat.
-he is regal.
-i am his mother.
-we are deeply in love.
-he is completely bonkers insane.
-i think that is why we are deeply in love.
-he likes to sit like a "little man":

-we are now a full family:

-i mean, we're in love:

-he is currently purring on my lap.

i am content.

the woods the woods

2008-09-25T00:05:00.000-07:00

i don't really know what i'm supposed to write in this anymore.

i'm so busy. as a bee, they say. but i'm making more than honey. nothing quite as SWEET though. except for the moneys.

loopy loopy been running since 6:30 this morning. i guess i'd like to keep it that way. but, maybe not.

the walk to the farm at sunrise is so beautiful sometimes i think i can reach out and grab the sun and shake it and say "YOU'RE NOT REAL BECAUSE YOU'RE TOO BEAUTIFUL!". but i don't. because i would burn my hands. so i just accept it, instead.

and the children's center is therapeutic. they win the cute contests.

the barnyard animals and the pre-schoolers are keeping me sane.

birth daze

2008-09-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

i turned 20 yesterday.
and had a panic attack.
at the same time.

happy birthday dad.

inner workings

2008-09-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

bad decisions are still decisions. so at least i made one! haha.

i'm thinking my next tattoo will be a maple leaf. because it represents hooome and rooots and bridging my two resident locations. yeah?

it's raining. thanks to hanna and gustav. that's kind of cool, that we're affected by it, right? helloooo mother nature. you are present today.

i'm going to stage manage a show with masks.

maybe i'll borrow one to wear.

oh good morning, sun!

2008-09-05T00:35:00.000-07:00

so here i am. at college. it's a heavy life. a utopian society at times. dysfunctional. but fun! always the fun. modlife is wonderful. i love having a whole place, instead of just a room. but still a room.

"the one spirit's plastic stress
which sweeps through the dull,
dense world"

is stamped onto the front of the shelf on my desk. i decided to keep it. just in case i wanted to remember how depressed hampshire students get.

my ankles hurt. boots kill. but live.

i'm working at the farm now, eternal cow odor upon my existence. i don't mind, i hope i don't get immune to it though so i'm not aware it's there. anyway. i'm a cow milkin, calf, pig and turkey feedin girl. livin the life. it was enjoyable being up with the sun.

weird ups and downs. trying to keep last year out of my head as much as possible. adapting is weird, but so natural right? i guess everyone does it. we are not unique. but only when together. apart, we are snowflakessssss.

anticipate her, anticipator

2008-08-29T03:09:00.000-07:00

i'm making a mix for my czech cousin. going through itunes. listening to old songs. being 15 being 16 being 17. clever graphic tees. not getting it yet, but getting there. feeling trappppped feeling awwwwwwkward feeling hormonal! sufjan stevens obsessed. postal service influenced. i had the t-shirt first.

but then i realize that i leave evanston to start my 2nd year of college the day after tomorrow.

!

times they achange.

sir realist

2008-08-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

so i go back to the hampshire college in t-minus 3 daze. it's weird. i assumed i was going to be in evanston forever. i've been here since the beginning of may, with one lovely weekend in michigan and music festivals as vacation. this summer was such a staple to my emotional diet. it was definitely the most interesting summer yet, the most stressful the most busy possibly the most fun. and just completely over the top ridiculous. the zt b&b, is what we called it. due to the amount of humans coming in and out and in and out and in and out over the past 3.5 months. i've met more people than i thought i would, more has happened than i ever thought, ever bargained for. which is both good and bad. because it helped me mature yet again, even though i thought it couldn't go any further. but OH IT WENT FURTHER. i guess the lesson i've learned is that it always will. and i can't get invested in something that won't come back. as much as closure is needed, for me. in countless situations in just the past year, ive had to settle with telling myself "he's just crazy and crazy people can't explain themselves".

it's getting annoying. but that's been the only way i can move on without reasonable explanations given.

good thing i'm off to hampshire where everyone is so normal. what a relief that will be! wait. nope. just kidding.

this is what came up in google images under "crazy boy".

lack of somnia

2008-08-18T04:09:00.000-07:00

moon is very bright tonight
think it might be full
maybe i won't sleep

inspired through my window
the sky is never ending
fish still swim upstream

therapy

2008-08-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

i don't know what to do when it comes to other people's problems. anymore. i used to be all into giving advice and being all knowing about everything, which is totally still fun, but this summer has been such a distraction from caring about other people. i guess i've only been distracted by myself and my need to figure things out i have no idea about yet. so it's confusing. because how am i supposed put myself in the middle of someones plural when i can't put myself in the middle of me? and not come out a bad guy, assuming to take sides and etc. when really, i just go with whoever whenever wherever and don't think about any implications. oops.

that dream last night has kept me in a state very unattached to the real world. i keep thinking the joker ACTUALLY did try to kill me but i escaped through the window and ran through the streets calling people for help (including a someone that didn't really react, my un-home parents, the un-answering police) and trying to find my way home or just somewhere and ended up by train tracks with people i didn't know that were happy and helpful and comforting. and then i ended up in the same room with mr. joker while i was supposed to be hiding from him in a resort, i kept putting my book and magazines in front of my face so he wouldn't see me and well, try to kill me. that same someone was sitting and talking with him at the other end of the room. and i thought "ohhh ok, so that's why they haven't been calling. that would just be awkward." and didn't really think twice about this person cavorting with the enemy, the psycho trying to kill me. which made me kinda pissed when i woke up. woke up, at which point i opened my eyes to my room and my closet and my very safe life with no one trying to kill me. which was a huge comfort.

all the dreams i've had lately in which i'm running from something or someone or some psycho is trying to kill me (which is very recurrent...), there is never any reason behind the running away and the killing. why would anyone want to kill me? i never think about the reason, i just run like a maniac, sometimes panicked thinking my life is about to end, sometimes completely calm and just in the zone of escape.

gahh.

now i have to go to family dinner

2008-08-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

me and ellie are wizards of the kitchen.
baking happiness into chocolate!

how brilliant!
we'll be filthy rich. filthy and dirty.

the bubble

2008-08-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

i miss it so fucking much
i can't wait to go back
it's the only place i want to be right now

kids in their cars, cigarette smoking

2008-08-08T14:47:00.000-07:00

he reminds me of my father if my father was a lunatic.
but taller and much wiser...
i held your hand on the 4th of june
you're lovely as the moon but darling you know i just can't love you.
there was a song you taught me and it sounded like the blues
if the blues was full of screaming and it had no other meaning

we spent a week on your lover's lawn
you said you never loved him
but back then you couldn't see him being gone
and you didn't think you'd live this long

but if there's something that i know it's that you did it for yourself if you included me and jim and tom and someone else
if i could hold you know like i did when you were leaking
and the blood was just a trickle in this flood of greater meaning
then i would tell you what i did back when you were here

and right here is where i'm staying and by god you know my love is going nowhere.

i had a dream this morning that reminded me of this movie for some reason. i'm pretty sure it was in black and white. i had just married a very classically handsome man. our bed was covered with wrapping paper from all of our wedding presents which we proceeded to throw to the side, in order to canoodle. hubby then goes "i hear something", and runs into the other room. i am not very happy that he did this. AT WHICH POINT, i hear a gunshot from the other room. i freak out and jump into the pile of wrapping paper between the wall and the bed, in order to hide, obviously. i cover myself completely and think i'll never be found, but 30 seconds later these two dudes who shot my beloved husband come into the room and find me. the end.

hmmm.

this is love, so will i survive?

2008-08-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

it's really just a matter of confusion.
a familiar state, attributed to misunderstanding, misjudgement, miscommunication, and just general unfairness.
when the question marks dot themselves, there isn't really much we can do. no control, no avoidance, can't we all just talk to eachother??

this is how i feel:

searching through a messy room for a communication device.

lollapalooza was great. not as great as expected, but still real great. no more hampsters in the basement. no more love in my heart. just kidding. that's all i EVER have. and well, if everything went my way, you would have been there dancing next to me instead of the countless creeps trying to cop a feel. feels. plural. too bad things haven't gone my way since the womb.

on a more exciting note, DJ MOMJEANS. aka danny masterson. yes, you heard right. this beautiful boy:

is the best fucking dj in the world.

well. no. he's not. at all. BUT LOOK AT HIM. it was probably one of the most fun shows at lolla. missed rage against the machine and wilco for him. OOPS. anything for hyde. i've always had a gigantic crush on him, so it's very ok. AND his brother was there, francis from malcolm in the middle. i saw him groove. :)

haha

all our dreams come true

2008-07-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

so today, the woman i nanny for told me never to have kids. haha oops!

new favorite toy= the rapman.

(note the turntable.)

the hampsters are trickling in, one by one, day by day, fun by fun, drug by drug.

and ellie is back on the homestead. and and and. really frightened for lolla this weekend because APPARENTLY it's about to be 99 degreez. so. um. yep. woo.

will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

2008-07-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

so i could talk about pitchfork and it's glory, i could talk about the incident on the train which sent me home unable to understand the brutality of urban humanity thus in tears, or i could talk about how interesting it is that all of the people i find close connections with end up being redheads.

let's go with the latter. the other two another time. i feel like blogs are for whatever's IN your head and ON your mind at the time. :)

i mean, i wouldn't say i'm automatically attracted to red heads, i've just recently realized that they tend to be some of my favorite people i have the weirdest deepest coolest connections with. interesting, right? right.

backyard family barbeques these days really are some of the best places to have fun, because you always get to unexpectedly hang out with those people or that person you played with as a wee one, and now are awkwardly growing up next to. and then you smoke pot or something together and so many things change!

bababa
dear evanston summer,

you are turning out to be pretty beautiful and interesting and complicated and confusing and i think just pretty neat. so keep it up, i could do without those few annoyances and confusions, but such is life. so. ok. you're ok. you're swell.

that'll do pig, that'll do.

forever,
emma.

i take my coffee, bittersweet.

2008-07-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

i can't really figure out what that was.
what a beautiful surprise though. pretty sure i needed those kinds of faces. and a very occupied basement.

i've realized just being nice and sweet and cool about it and everything, creates a very pleasant experience. so. ok. i guess i'll just stay a sweet pea from now on.

the last month and a half of evanston summer will be very interesting, i think real good. real. good. pitchforkkkk this weekend. it's about time i got my dose of hipsters and great music all the time. and cheap water.

strangely, being home here has made me more of a hipster than i ever was. before coming home, at hampshire hipster haven, i would never consider myself a hipster (just friends with them, of course), but being home has just bored me out to such a level that i need to dress cool to entertain myself. i find it so much fun. and i guess i care more about my appearance when home because evanston cares, and camp hamp does not whatsoever. which is lame. which i always knew but never realized. i was so immune to it.

hampshire really just gave me new needed eyeballs.

oh also. so keeping my marijuana in my tissue box was not the greatest idea of all time. or it was. because whenever i blow my nose now, i feel like i'm getting high.

buddy-o, yiddam, diddam dee

2008-07-14T19:36:00.000-07:00

my henna is fading faster than my dog's eyesight. and now i just look diseased. but it's alright. "but let the mind beware, that though the flesh be bugged, the circumstances of existence are pretty glorious." thanks jack. i am starting to feel less and less ailed with the rest of my recent body malfunctions. hurrah.

went garage sailing yesterday and picked up some gems. another, yes another, typewriter for $15. working and beautiful and blue(ish), olympia. we'll see what magic can't be worked.

among others, also picked up "poetry for your table" and some bizarrely sweet eskimo coasters. mod 19 get ready for weird beauty.

chloe left for camp today. :(
lonesome be had. i liked having a housemate. but OH she'll be back.

adlai, adlai, what did you say?

2008-07-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

"you're the best."
-addie, now 5

so. so so so.
in my spare time, i'm working for my dad in a cubicle. it's $10/hr, so that helps ease the pain a little, as much as i want to make database entry my career choice. it's ok though, because i get to hang out with adlai stevenson III. who's grandfather convinced honest abe to run for the presidency. thus, through connections, i convinced abraham lincoln to become president. neat!

we have this girl staying with us right now from niger. it's very interesting. she's here on a program that takes 3 girls from the top 10% of the country's brightest, and brings them too good ole america and teaches them how to empower themselves. how bitchin, right? she's the sweetest thing. she's an orphan. and completely shell shocked.

i mean, i guess i feel like i just had to update this. i've started a short story. due to the inspiration of the cubicle. EVERYTHING IS JUST SO GRAY. grey? (i can never decide.)

last night, i went a little wildlife crazy. geckos and snakes, really are underrated. i held the big one. all. night. i became addicted. i miss him. it was so therapeutic, to have a living breathing animal made entirely of muscle and beautiful soft scales wrap it's entirety around my arm, neck, etc. if i didn't have to feed it LIVE BABY MICE, i would have like 12 snakes. and just walk around with them.

(he's much oh much prettier)

thoughts

2008-07-02T03:50:00.000-07:00

-these days are no longer romantic. two thousand eight. THOUSAND.

-fate is okay? getting used to the idea.

-i held a snake tonight, i felt beauty and the lightness of being. no second unbearable. i beat 3 boys in mario kart, played what i haven't played since that sillyness, first first first. the lightness of being. haha.
-they are ideas because i am thinking them, about.

-i did not dry my face.

-listening to DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE. feeling that feeeeeling, there's only one, everyone knows. and everybody knows it. (so i'm proposing a swift orderly change, etc.)

-the time for sleep is now. in the morning i will only think things.

escapade etcetera

2008-07-01T22:59:00.000-07:00

emma's idea of a perfect wonderful beautiful perfect perfect perfect weekend:

-wake up in a pit of pillows, alongside much adored peers
-make a delicious breakfast of hashbrowns, eggs, toast, fruit, etc.
-eat breakfast alongside much adored peers
-sit for a little
-smoke a pre-rolled j
-hike alongside the ever lovely lake michigan to some dunes
-sit on said some dunes, get some tannies
-lie on the beach
-disregard underwear and shorts and swim around in the ever lovely lake michigan
-lie on the beach
-get approached and invited to a swingin party by hot sexy teens, pretend to flirt but really know they're incredibly lame
-lie on the beach
-hike back to books and fruit and more inebriation
-sit for a little
-eat for a little
-drink attempted daquiries for a little
-walk along the ever lovely lake michigan alongside much adored peers, looking for the swingin bonfire, find awkward families only and decide to sit a little and smoke a little and look only upwards into the breathtaking planets and things
-crawl back to books and fruit and more inebriation
-collapse in a pit of pillows, alongside much adored peers

oop. looks like i had a perfect wonderful beautiful perfect perfect perfect weekend! exactly what i needed. :)

on another note, i have a sinus infection. how can so much snot come out of one person's nose???

on another note, someone hardcore graffiti'd my dad's work door with pink and purple CHALK. hahaha not that funny

on another note, i miss ellie. a lot. my spouse my mouse.

on another note, i have a mosquito bite on my NECK. fucking vampire bugs.

on another note, i still really wish i could talk to who you used to be. missing that comfort...

dumbstruck with the sweetness of being

2008-06-26T14:34:00.000-07:00

i'm materialistic in that way. nostalgically.

oh i am so happy in my room now.
i am thinking i might not have to have that doctor's appointment after all.
because my job is back and the little one puts some light in my life
and now i can sit under nostalgia for the rest of my home daze and feel how i've always wanted to feel in a place i call my rooooom. my womb.
taking down that loft bed was one of the best decisions i've ever made. now i can ACTUALLY literally roll out of bed. instead of falling 8 feet to my death.
yes, i could sit here forever. staring at my walls, thinking of everything and anything and nothing at all. content. i have my own corner. :)

off to michigan. to woods to sun to sand to collaboration to inebriation to HAMPSHIRE.

i'm a chicagoan till chicago ends

2008-06-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

favorite addie quotes:
"i'm small but i can do big things."
"words don't exist! words don't exist!"
"I WANT SUN! I WANT SUN! I WANT SUN! IIIII WAAAANT SUUUUNNNNN!!!!"
"you're only talking about the sand! what about the water?!"

i had a beautiful night on top of the city last night. took jenna on a date to that really bourgeois restaurant at the top of north point tower (oprah's prior residence. word.), where we could see the ENTIRE city with the most beautiful skyline in the world. and we were at the ONE spot in the city with thee most perfect view of it all. and then randomly fire works started going off at navy pier, right behind us. it was perfect. too bad it wasn't an actual date. too bad all the dates i have are with girls... i go on the best dates with girls. (because girls are better) the only flowers i've ever gotten have been from girls when i've gone on dates with them. discounting my parents at graduations and junk... but anyway, boys shouldn't even be allowed to go on dates. it should just be a girl thing. we're way better at it. we don't have to try as hard, we're naturally nuturing.

amiright?

i also had a dream last night where i found out both my parents smoke tons of pot. and my dad was partial to blunts.
how complete would my life be?

yes.

2008-06-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

relief is a beautiful feeling.

("relief", according to google images. i mean, i guess that's an accurate portrayal of how i feel...?)

i had a dream last night where i wanted to photograph my footprint that i left on some table. i thought it would make a really beautiful image. and i couldn't decide if i wanted to use my digital camera or my pentax. decisions decisions.

and yesterday i had a nap dream where my dad was carrying around this nest of little artificial eggs, and he couldn't decide where to put it. he wanted to put it in the ground but i wouldn't let him because i said the cats would get it. mmmm symbolism. yum.

i should be in bed but i'm here instead

2008-06-19T03:40:00.000-07:00

i am starting to look at your words differently. maybe because i am only looking and not reading. maybe because there is finally a distance, that i've just discovered. i am finally viewing myself a widow, as you are gone. because this is now. and that was then. and you are finally in the books, finally made it to history, so that you are intangible. i always knew you were a dream, just a good one. just.

heartache is heavier than the atmosphere. yes, STILL.

it's going to be a long time before someone like you comes along again.

and you're not reading this, i know. because you don't read me. and if so... well congratulations drifter, you found me out, blue handed. it doesn't matter anyway because we don't exist.

"i didn't know what would have happened though, maybe towers would fall, bridges break
well all that mystery is gone now...it'll seem to come back when we are at hampshire though" remember?

i was always just your idea. just.

magical babes

2008-06-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

it's crazy incredible how every single stupid and terrible issue in your life seems to vanish when you're holding a newborn baby. even the terrible day/life altering ones that make you think the world is out to get you and there's nothing you can do about it and it's all you can think about. but then someone hands you a 3 day old BABY. and what else can you think but everything is perfect? gets me every time.

freaks and geeks

2008-06-15T04:22:00.000-07:00

that is one of the best shows ever created
word
james franco is my ideal man
what episodes
um why is he so fucking hot?
I HAVE NO IDEA
when he smiles during the intro, i freak out
but it's out of control
hahahahah same!
that little grin
gets me every time
if i ever see him IRL, i'll just void my bowels and die
hahahah
i might not be held responsible for my actions
crimes of passion would ensue
oh you know it
steven left and i watched another episode and me and hannah just died every time he was on screen
I love when guys leave so I can swoon in peace
hahaha yeah
it's a good feeling
3:55 AM
but also a sad feeling because getting all hot and bothered over an image on screen is scary
yess true
because you knwo it's never going to happen
and the devastatingly handsome are never good news
oh i know
they reel you in with their cheekbones and then treat you like garbage
btu it doesn't even matter cuz they're so hot1
!
4:00 AM
!
you got it
it is basically worth it because their eyes turn your joints to jelly
yeah and who doesn't love some good jelly joints
it's like they can stab me in the face and then just smile and i dont care anymore
hahahahhaha
so true
i would give my face to get a smile from james franco
if i had a smile from him, just for me, I would stab myself in the face
hahaha
of course after making out with him
i think my mouth would go all slack and my eyes would roll back in my head before i could make out with him. my favorite episode of freaks and geeks is the one where he gets all punk as fuck
4:05 AM
ooh i havent seen that one!
i've only seen a few
man if we had guys like that in my freaking highschool, i never would have hated it so much
man, if we had guys like that at hampshire!
our lives would get 10X worse
only because our faces would be disfigured
but other than that
it would be pretty great
in the episode, he and kim fight, but at the end, he goes to her house and they have the cutest make up ever
EW I FUCKING HATE KIM
she's the ugliest girl ever born
i grew to love her
she's such a witch
she is cool! but not as cool as millie

uughfghheflkhjgyg

2008-06-13T19:34:00.000-07:00

writer's block. agaaain. yay yay yay.

where does it even come from?!

2008-06-10T00:42:00.000-07:00

peach ice cream is incredibly underrated. think of peaches. now think of ice cream. uhh BAM.

noggin

2008-06-06T19:13:00.000-07:00

so i'm babysitting a 4-year-old full time for my summer job. i didn't realize the toll it would take on my vocabulary and general way of thinking. it's hard going from assuring her that the fly in the kitchen CANNOT hurt her and making sure she doesn't fall off the monkey bars, to smoking a j on my porch and talking about existence and things. that's what evanston summers are i suppose.
i know every show on noggin. and that stupid annoying moose and his creepy owl friend zee. yes, we understand you're trying to teach the little ones how to count and tell obvious differences between things, but "shorter taller" is NOT a fun game, let alone a game at all.
i babysat for 11 hours today. usually after about 4 or 5 hours i start to get that constant internal monologue saying how i really can't take this anymore. it's just so exhausting. but for some reason, 11 hours was pretty easy. maybe because she makes a really darn cute superhero.

i had no idea there was a supergirl...

what are rowdy adolescents doing in schoolbuses revving down chicago avenue at 3 A.M.??

2008-06-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

lately, when i'm a little out of it and driving home at the early morning hours, i've been witnessing the strangest series of events. expectedly bleak, that is the hour when the most bizarre instances occur that only few can catch (hello), and when midwest wildlife is at it's peak.

i'm pissed as hell that they killed that cougar, tracked from SOUTH DAKOTA. why the fuck did they put illinois police in charge of that. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE. THEY'RE RARE. apparently, it is on display at the field museum. i want to go pay it homage. lay down some flowers.

To: Bill

2008-06-03T16:57:00.000-07:00

Disconnected Nude

He frames her perfectly. Making sure she’s
nude,
demure,
but never trapped.
With skin melting
into the border,
and a beam of light
for an arm,
she gazes towards the bottom,
a direction.

Beyond these borders
are similar existences,
making her struggle barely comparable.
Her body is whole here
because she is in control of the
placement of her pieces.

Inside,
her exposure isn’t shocking, merely a separation
of body parts, disconnected, but still creating
a larger figure.
She appears to be holding her head, subject to Picasso
and a chilling grace.
Using dark and light to push her apart,
corner to corner.

She is thinking things we will never hear
thoughts held by a never-ending hand,
grappling with lips, half erased by her own shadow
coming to grips with a face, existing in only two dimensions.
Breast to elbow to wrist to hairline, invisible,
her connections flow with the ease of light
creating a sense of extreme contrast,
maybe between her expression, position, thought.
Singular.

breakdown town

2008-05-22T03:39:00.000-07:00

this is breakdown city
where i've come home
to the breakdowns
and the downtowns
and the sultry 24-hour 7-11s.
and the kids and their basements
are all we have.
with pipes on the ceiling
and cat litter strewn about the
urine stained carpet.
stuck in this illusion muck
oblivious that everything means nothing,
let alone here
letting it alone
saturated in
small town glory,
brainwashed and gory.
pumping organic,
gasoline running just beneath your feet,
remember that.

gonna get my space face on

2008-05-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

the messiah has come, in the form of mr. dan deacon.

Nantes

2008-04-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a long time, long time now
Since I've seen you smile
And I'll gamble away my fright
And I'll gamble away my time
And in a year, a year or so
This will slip into the sea
Well it's been a long time, long time now
Since I've seen you smile

that one time without the world

2008-03-05T03:29:00.000-08:00

smile.
and then leave me with those grim accusations
you were always accustomed to.
grin.
and it's all over.
we will start at the beginning,
that one at the edge of the world.
that one that twists our brain hairs
and skin tears.
and then we will end right here,
right in my palms,
and replace our hearts for something breathing,
something better, something broken.
(which you always found just that much more poetic)
i still find it so fascinating,
how our time and space began, continued, and
ended.
here.
and how i am merely your widow.
still.
that one night i keep replaying,
forest lengths behind the books,
will never cease to become more and more of a dream.
soon, i won't consider it reality.
i won't consider you, with descriptions confidential.
remember that time we...
thought we didn't exist?
remember that place where...
it was never real?
and that's why it worked, because we were stuck in
an endless daydream. no escape in sight.
except for that time you...
became real. much too much too real.
you never gave me my valve back,
which i guess is why i'm still wheezing.
breathing. heavy.
i'd like to say that was my fault,
but if you hadn't refused my eyes that ONE time,
if you had only given in that ONE time,
if you had taken the universe to notice
that at one point we shared atoms,
maybe we'd still be talking.

For Class

2008-02-18T16:09:00.000-08:00

Eleanor

Silent and perfect, we are hair in water.
Floating just below the surface,
Just below existence,
Everything is perfectly parted.
Stranded in familiar follicles.
Mirroring water, your face forms lines of beauty,
Paralleled lips and eyes and brows.
There is something eerie about your presence,
Riveting, something worthy of chills.
Without your eyes, you pull us into your water.
Without “the windows to your soul”, we see you in your existence.
Natural and complete, all we need is essence.
Contemplative and content, all we are is skin.
Where are we supposed to look when you close your eyes?
We see you as everything.
We see everything in you, as whole.
We see it all together, and that makes you perfect.
You are exposed and you don’t mind
Because it gives you depth.
If I look at you long enough,
You become stronger in your image.
Your hair blacker, skin paler, face calmer,
Evoking echoes and a love I’ve never seen.
I can’t tell if you’re standing,
But it’s all the same anyway,
So we might as well all just float.

Framed and Faceless Flag

We drag flags like combs,
Across the dirty windowsills of our faces,
Covered in hair resembling stars and stripes.
We cannot see through the glass
Because of the cloth we’ve blinded ourselves with.
There are frills on our blouses
And buttons on our pea-coats,
But still we look demeaning.
Still we keep our faces dark and shielded.
We are protected by your symbol of freedom and justice,
But have never noticed that the bricks of our buildings melt together.
Tomorrow, it might change direction and your
Shades might as well be drawn.
So keep looking out, even though
All you don’t understand is me with intentions of finding you.
Be sure to stay separate from those ominous stripes,
Waving to your children.
Be sure to wash those stars out of our eyes,
That’s what eyelashes are for,
Catching dust, catching stars, catching dreams and lies that wave to our children.
The reds of your lips aren’t as romantic as they’d like.
The whites of your eyes aren’t as pure as they’d like.
The blues of your veins aren’t as patriotic as they’d like.
But if you remain blinded and disgruntled, they’ll let it slide this time.
You would never dream of cracking that window,
The panes are too perfectly still,
The pains are too perfectly bearable.
And you are merely watching us down below,
Us exalting in the flagless freedom, fictionless,
But you beg to differ.
So remain where you are, dappled in stripes,
Stifled in stars,
And I’ll make sure your eyelashes do their job.

how strange it is to be anything at all

2008-02-11T01:16:00.000-08:00

i am rapid with emotion.
and now it's perfect, i think.
and now you're gone from mind
and different waves have set in,
new and sporadically happy.
and i am new and sporadically happy. :)

medusas

2008-02-08T17:18:00.000-08:00

something dappled and grey
has become subdued, much more quiet now.
it has crept into a conscience
ridden of you.
it has crept and crept and crept
into your non-existence
and that state of mind you refuse
to let go of,
that state of mind i despise.
you sat there atop your throne,
with that silly expression,
like you knew it all,
like you pretended to be always comfortable.
i can't say what i know,
because it's all too distant now
and you are merely an illusion of past sorts.
tragically, you asked for something worse
and it came bursting towards you in flames.
medusa.
how you shape eachother so perfectly,
or so you think.
you'll only turn to stone when people see
you looking.
you'll only remain human if you watch yourself
in secret.
but isn't stone just that much more tragic?
i don't mind if your mirror breaks.
it's for the better, i suppose.
it's only for now, i suppose.
but that's all we ever have.
gracefully stumbling towards eachother,
blinded by one another's light,
it's perfect now.
because nothing is real.

in bed all day

2008-02-03T00:46:00.000-08:00

i am somewhere between
the breathing silences
and the clouds.
same thing.
i am somewhere foggy,
somewhere in bed.
unable to rise, i guess.
unable to speak,
to tell you you're lying.
i'm drifting and that's all
and that's everything i don't want
and everything that is.
underneath my blankets,
i can see you clearly.
i can underestimate you as much as i want
and as little as the rest.
i've been sipping tea for hours now
and it's become rather desolate.
so pull me out of this puddle you call existence
and let me breath.

i'm in love.

2008-02-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

the eyes are green. very green.

this is the impossibility of the existence of anything

2008-01-29T22:10:00.000-08:00

what a horror it would have been if the world was real, because if the world was real, it would be immortal.

all is here

2008-01-29T02:36:00.000-08:00

it gets me
this confusion.
it gets at me
bewilderment of wilder dreams
wanted in 19 different states.
where are you now, lovers and freedom?
you've taken my sanity at much too early
with your pages rusty,
you will learn to heal yourself,
feeding on fire.
you will look at a skyline
and tell yourself that you're the best.
i am learning to meditate because of you
to raise my mind into a median deemed mine.
you go splunking, tumblings towards tastelessness
let me know when you arrive.
you're beginning to look alike.
act
speak
please not feel.
once you feel the same, it's all over.
it's all heavy.
this game of hide and seek has gotten me pale,
although all that's shed on me is
an altered brilliance.
make it grey, i don't mind.
make it addicted and dumbfounded, i don't mind.
i can't decide if you're real.
because all i hear are notes,
all is here.
so kindly step away,
let me breathe in this bubble
before it's popped.

clean room= clean mind

2008-01-27T19:37:00.000-08:00

points to make:

-hey if you go to yale, your campus is WAY over the top. and sorry if we messed it up. shenanigans had to be pulled ya big, nervous nerds.

-at sunrise the other day, somewhere in connecticut, three dumb adolescents jumped into the atlantic ocean for "the hell of it". one of which later attained frostbite and had to nurse her feet back to feeling. it hurt. alot. now i understand when jack talks about how cold the ocean is in titanic.

-the walkmen are a very nice, very cool, very drunk group of incredibly awesome, talented musicians. and their tshirts are very easy things to sell. they had two opening bands, one of which was so. good. they invited us to come to a show they were having that friday at a frat at upenn. we were gonna do it. then didn't. injured toes. "the subjects". check em.

-philly is cute. i'd like more of it.

-i'm sorry if i glared at you. the death-stare was not intentional, but i mean, you deserved it. so deal with it.

-it's difficult to smoke all your pot in one day.

gone healthy

2008-01-22T23:21:00.000-08:00

i went to boston. :)

monreal fell through. and i had to had to had to get out get out get out. so i went to boston and hung out at tufts for a good few daze and found a nice spoonfull of inner peace. which is doing me quite well at the moment.

currently: listening to joanna newsom and devendra banhart
currently: into green tea
currently: into massachusetts winter woods
currently: meditating
currently: content. fin.

In due time we will see the far butte lit by a flare
I've seen your bravery, and I will follow you there
And row through the night time
Gone healthy
Gone healthy all of a sudden
In search of the midwife
Who could help me
Who could help me
Help me find my way back in
There are worries where I've been
Say, say, say in the lee of the bay; don't be bothered
Leave your troubles here where the tugboats shear the water from the water
Flanked by furrows, curling back, like a match held up to a newspaper
-jn.

tea, bagels and marijuana.

2008-01-19T15:17:00.000-08:00

my room smells like it. i'm alright with that. "...an accurate reflection of your personality." thank you for that explanation, chloe. so there's that, and i'm starting to realize how i could so easily freak out right now. right. now. because the only good thing i've got going for me are the bagels my parents sent me. no more montreal. have to take an NS course again. and of course, THAT. and that and that and that. WHAT THE HELL.

shit. i need to not be in the country right now.

nineteen!

2008-01-18T02:44:00.000-08:00

it's ok, the view from here
i guess it's independent now.
there is a constant icing on the cake,
when will the sugar stop falling?
my fingernails will be filled with this earth
this earth
this earth
this island in an ocean of stars.
tiny, we barely notice ourselves.
grab a shovel,
dig me.
grab my dirt,
mold it into this earth.
i'll even let you orbit.
it's ok from here.
we'll end up perfect, i can tell.
we'll end up around strangers, just like the beginning.
windows from lofts
laundry dirty
drenched in an automatic beat, encapable to the human ear.
you are beyond it all,
all the stars and voices in their heads,
and those circling little, yellow birds and those goddamn buzzards,
and that puddle narrowly missed, containing an entire little universe of lies.
wretched in our ways, we begin to yield the upmost something,
those branches at the top, deemed crazy
doomed maybe.
you're a regular scratch-and-sniff,
flaky and unexpected, pleasant and guilty, brilliant and tacky,
but never full of tact.
what will we see?
stale cities and immature countries constructed of teen angst.
puberty is a myth.
make us think we grow older,
it's more than physical you know.
it's more than reciting a prayer, you know.
19, stop accusing me. i'm not there yet.
i'm not that kind of ager,
you are deceiving and awkward.
find me spinning under your vinyl,
doped on dreams.

YEAH

2008-01-14T22:02:00.000-08:00

hey look, there ARE good things in my life:

-getting into the sold-out philly walkmen concert for FREE! (running the merchandise table SWEET)
-beautiful plural feet of snow outside? yes.
-tai chi works wonders
-"i need to get out of here."
"right now?"
"no. soon though."
"wanna go to montreal this weekend?"
"YEAH."

i am putting my canadian citizenship to good use and leaving the country.

and i can't lift you up, my mind is tired

2008-01-14T02:24:00.000-08:00

it's so distant now,
you've become faceless.
i can't tell if you're growing older from here
i can't tell who you are from here
do you have wrinkles now?
are you gone now?
at least you're "better than the last one".
but the last one won't be able to save you this time.

some beautiful place to get lost

2008-01-12T15:40:00.000-08:00

all i can do now is focus on the tiny notches in my curtain
all i can see now are the little things
there is no bigger picture
i don't know you
i don't think you were ever real,
did you know that?
it's different now.
no longer a candy coated dream.
not that it ever really was
unbeknownst to me.
there's too much salt
i can't really breath
i've forgotten how
there's nowhere to go
i am stuck in endless deja-vu
circling towards un-discoveries
this whole place is illusion
this whole face is confusion
you don't understand.
i can't type, my ribbon is mirroring the world.
upside down with you.
it's tainted.
it fainted.
so all i have is here. sorry.
i didn't mean for it to be that far.
this is what it's like then,
to get to that point i only hear about.
i already knew, everyone knew
i avoided, they joked
don't look at me now, it's too much.
don't give me that politeness, i can't deal with it.
don't offer me cancer, i can't handle it.
i threw you up last night,
and now i can't eat.

i don't think i miss you anymore.
how can i miss something i don't know?

tell me when i can open my eyes again.

everything you are, you are everything.

2008-01-10T15:28:00.000-08:00

sometimes i see you when i close my eyes
sneakers and all, it's meant for an ending less tragic.
a poem less sunken
a gaze less stolen
my skin is only wallpaper,
and you are barely breathing.
they say you won't make it.
dreams of static, clinging to my insides,
constructed of things resembling resemblings.
rumbling through bubble wrap,
you will pop every last one until motionless.
you will understand now, true taoism.
stay still, keep quiet, they won't see you if you don't move.
no, that's not it.
look twice before you forget your good looks,
they'll grey over before the rest of us.
they'll be convinced, convicted of prematurity.
moving through your follicles like those ominous clouds.
like those ominous clouds.
hey you, don't look back.
hey, you'll hurt yourself.
they'll throw stones, they'll throw you out of town.
don't sing those melodies. they're too painful for us mortals.
just find your best friend for us,
find him hiding hiding hiding from the world.
find her standing standing standing with pinkies raised, right in front of it all.
i know you know. i know you see it all through dappled lenses,
made just for you.
what now?
you are everything.

now what?

our particles are in motion

2008-01-09T12:45:00.000-08:00

lost and found

2008-01-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

i found these scribbled in my notebook this morning (afternoon). words and things kept running through my head last night and i kept grabbing the little guy and scratching up his innards. it's possible the spell of writer's block has been broken. it's possible.

prematurely grey skies.
i quiver beneath you,
between you.
struggling for a late night fix,
dragging ourselves through the offsets of time,
the back streets of infinity.
your chairs are cursive,
your positions perfect.
you are meant to be there.

part 2- the day is habitable

2008-01-08T01:09:00.000-08:00

i crouch with rancid eyes
slanted and penetrating your glances.
your visions are saran-wrapped and ready to serve,
where is the order?
one time we said nothing and it did nothing but drip
drip
drip
drip your stale momentums into my coffee, black. bitter.
longing for an unescapable nightmare.
your light bounces like a thousand stars of distraction,
infinate? unknown.
what do you see in those bricks? it's not that constant, really.
it's not that solid, i swear.

"The cold has immobilized the world
Space is made of glass
glass made of air
The lightest sounds build
quick sculptures
Echoes multiply and disperse them
Maybe it will snow
The burning tree quivers
surrounded now by night
Talking to it I talk to you"

octavio, thank you for presenting my canvassed future.
stretched across the bars of it all, subtly sustaining trees.
i wish we could see and hear and feel and taste it all at once.
then, we will know time.
then, we will know the difference between you and me.
we will eat with our tongues and swear with spoons.
we will cry for keys forgotten.
because they are notes unwritten, potential in a past generation.
so we are now.
forgotten and lazy,
a little bit drunk and always stoned,
illogical and beautiful,
so we are now.

marijuana daydream

2008-01-07T22:13:00.000-08:00

currently: eating fruitcake

i don't think i know how to write. i don't know if that's ok or not. i know how to type, that's for sure. but is there destination in the un-inked words within this computer screened universe? un-inked. we are made of links of ink. permanent and deceiving, we grace ourselves towards an ego once removed. diving on dope, we strive for a future ending tonight. there is never tomorrow, only now. there are never extroadinary tonalities, there are never never lands and lands and islands. ice lands. iceland. brrr.

dear Hampshire College

where is the weed?

soberly yours,
emma

haha

How do I know the world is like this?

2008-01-06T22:57:00.000-08:00

By this.

So I have just joined the blogging community and I don't know if it's a good idea or not. Trial and error. People have been telling me to get one of these for a while, but I've been resisting. I had a xanga in middle school, and I mean, I was in middle school. Thus, it's content was worthy of poop. So I've kind of had this negative conotation towards writing my thoughts, feelings, ideas, current happenings, etc. on the internet. But I am one to give in, so here I am. Welcome to my mind. Please wipe your feet before entering.

"And I must borrow every changing shape
To find expression... dance, dance
Like a dancing bear,
Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance-"

In a tobacco trance. That would be the title of this blog if i was a smoker. Thank you Sir Eliot. Now, there's a difference between a smoker and a person who smokes. I semi consider myself the latter because I go to Hampshire College and it's a way of life here. But 98% of my close friends here are the former. They live it. Pack(s) a day. Sacrificing proper circulation for a puff a puff a puff. Good evening Massachusettes winter, may i replace your air with mine? It's unfiltered.

"I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots." -t.s.e

I am "impatient to assume the world."
I am certain that this one is still a dream.
I am certain everything is still asleep.
What do you do once the world has gone back to it's room?
What do you do when your typewriter becomes cliche?
It's possible I had a breakdown today,
It's possible I saw it all.
When I realized it's infinite, I used single spacing and took a nap.