My Firefly-related OCD wants to follow that up with "The earth got used up..." But I will restrain myself. (This time. I make no promises about gratuitious Firefly-quoting in future.)
*Dusts off cobwebs*
Okay, so I disappeared from the internet. I've been hiding in something of a corner over here for some time now, but I'm starting things up again. Because I need to actually start communicating with the world again, at least a bit, and putting some creativity out there - because I know it's still in there, but it's gotten a bit of a beatdown of late.
Here's what's happened -
I graduated from my big fancy college last May. (Small fancy college?) I kind of can't believe I pulled it off, and believe me it was touch and go there for a while - stopped going to classes, kind of fell off the face of the earth a little bit, got myself thrown into the hospital, had some breakdowns, kind of stopped eating, refused to talk to anyone about it or ask for help. It wasn't pretty, and graduating was kind of a close thing, to be honest. But I got through it. Somehow. Two majors in seven semesters. I can't say I exactly recommend my method of coping, to anyone, but I managed. I got my degree and got out of there.
I've been home ever since. Aimless, and pushing all those feelings of anxiety and frustration way the fuck down, so that I'm sleeping too much and not doing a damned thing of any value any longer. That's part of where this blog comes in. I don't know what I want to do with the rest of my life, but I know I need to write (at the moment television writer is kind of my dream job, and I foresee it staying that way), and in order to do that I need to get my shit together a little bit, get myself out there and stop it with this hidey-hole bullshit. I don't know when I'll move out, and frankly I'm terrified of leaving, but I'm scared of staying, too. I know this kind of stasis and arrested development (ha!) can't, and shouldn't, last.
I should have left Smith. I should have transferred somewhere less academically demanding so that I could focus on other things. Learn to drive. Get a job. Get in a real relationship. Maybe study abroad, even. Have actual life experiences. But I didn't, and now I have to make up for all of it.
So, the blog is coming back. (The posts won't be like this, I promise. I'll try to keep the self-indulgent bullshit to a minimum and talk about more interesting things.) I have some ideas and I am open to suggestions. Pop culture stuff, fun stuff, beautiful stuff. Exciting and life-affirming and analytical. Bringing myself into it, just better. I want to do all of this better. And enjoy myself. Good resolutions, yes?
Join me. Play with me.
To reward you for listening to me thus far, please enjoy this buddy-comedy version of Tyrion and Bronn in Game of Thrones:
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/06/is_game_of_thrones_considering.html
Showing posts with label smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smith. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
I don't know if I've mentioned this before here, but for a couple of years now, I've decided that I want my first-dance song at my wedding, should I ever choose to get married, to be "Fade Into You" by Mazzy Star. It's a really beautiful, dreamy, lush, gently orchestral song with a softly lilting rhythm that is just perfectly romantic without being saccharine. There is, of course, only one person I've ever actually fantasized about marrying (and only one person with whom I've ever actually seen any real point to marriage. I never understood why people even really bother until I met him.)
I try not to get overly sentimental. It's so easy to slip from being emotional into being maudlin.
But I'd rather be at the mercy of my emotions than be dead inside. My therapist that I saw while I was home wants me to get a tattoo and drink and have sex and wear leather pants and be a little bit reckless and young and feel strong. I would rather be a mess than feel nothing. And I've felt so little over the past few years, other than a quietly deadened loneliness. I so rarely get really sad or happy or angry. All I feel is my weak, sick, painful body.
That's not who I want to be, anymore.
I used to go to a lot of concerts. They're one of the real highlights, actually, of my middle school and high school life. Music was a big part of what kept me going. When I had super long thick hair I gave myself whiplash from thrashing around in my room. To Nirvana, usually. In early high school I was in love with someone who loved Nine Inch Nails, so I started listening to them, too. For weeks at a time I would wake up to "Head Like a Hole" playing from my CD player. (Pretty Hate Machine was my favorite NiN album. It still is. I find that there's a playful and irreverent spirit to it that was just lost later on.) I painted my fingernails black over crimson nail polish and wore combat boots. I didn't sleep much. I dreamed a lot. I was skinny and nervous and too pale. I cried a lot and sometimes forgot to eat. I hissed and sneered and sometimes walked arm-in-arm with the boy I loved down the hallways and felt so happy that it hurt, because I know how fleeting that intensity was. I loved him painfully, unimaginably, with an almost physical force. I wrote all the time.
And I was oh, so far from happy. But that girl is gone. I'm afraid that I'll never be that bold, that intense, that vital ever again.
Being back at school isn't so bad. It's hardest on the weekends. My classes are great and exciting and stimulating and they keep me going through the week. The weekends are the tough part. They always have been. I dig deep and find little more than emptiness.
Leather pants are a start. Tattoos maybe, body piercings. Modeling myself, slightly at least, in this regard, after the pure raging id that is Faith from Buffy, played by the ravishing Eliza Dushku.
Obviously, crossbows come later. But a little more id in my life is not a bad idea.
I try not to get overly sentimental. It's so easy to slip from being emotional into being maudlin.
But I'd rather be at the mercy of my emotions than be dead inside. My therapist that I saw while I was home wants me to get a tattoo and drink and have sex and wear leather pants and be a little bit reckless and young and feel strong. I would rather be a mess than feel nothing. And I've felt so little over the past few years, other than a quietly deadened loneliness. I so rarely get really sad or happy or angry. All I feel is my weak, sick, painful body.
That's not who I want to be, anymore.
I used to go to a lot of concerts. They're one of the real highlights, actually, of my middle school and high school life. Music was a big part of what kept me going. When I had super long thick hair I gave myself whiplash from thrashing around in my room. To Nirvana, usually. In early high school I was in love with someone who loved Nine Inch Nails, so I started listening to them, too. For weeks at a time I would wake up to "Head Like a Hole" playing from my CD player. (Pretty Hate Machine was my favorite NiN album. It still is. I find that there's a playful and irreverent spirit to it that was just lost later on.) I painted my fingernails black over crimson nail polish and wore combat boots. I didn't sleep much. I dreamed a lot. I was skinny and nervous and too pale. I cried a lot and sometimes forgot to eat. I hissed and sneered and sometimes walked arm-in-arm with the boy I loved down the hallways and felt so happy that it hurt, because I know how fleeting that intensity was. I loved him painfully, unimaginably, with an almost physical force. I wrote all the time.
And I was oh, so far from happy. But that girl is gone. I'm afraid that I'll never be that bold, that intense, that vital ever again.
Being back at school isn't so bad. It's hardest on the weekends. My classes are great and exciting and stimulating and they keep me going through the week. The weekends are the tough part. They always have been. I dig deep and find little more than emptiness.
Leather pants are a start. Tattoos maybe, body piercings. Modeling myself, slightly at least, in this regard, after the pure raging id that is Faith from Buffy, played by the ravishing Eliza Dushku.
Obviously, crossbows come later. But a little more id in my life is not a bad idea.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
So! It's been quite a while, yes? Haven't had much to report. It's summer now, and I'm still home, and still jobless and mostly directionless. I have been seeing doctors and am in therapy, which was the most important part about this taking a semester off thing, anyway. I do sometimes regret it and wish I had stuck around, had that spring semester with Lisa - which I so wanted after she'd been away last fall - and had a last semester with my senior friends, but it was kind of the only choice. I was just too sick to continue. Full stop.
I have been officially readmitted, and hopefully will actually have a place to live in my house in the fall (not quite clear on that yet.) Hopefully I'll be able to graduate with both my majors, but if I have to drop one it's really not the end of the world. Finishing my English major won't be a problem at all, since I took so many of my required classes so early on. It would break my heart to have to drop American Studies as a major, but not as much as it would kill me to be taking two seminars each semester which could be what I would have to do. I don't know. My advisors will work some kind of magic, I bet.
As for why I'm writing so obscenely early in the morning, well, there's really only one reason I would be willingly awake and alert and having free time this early: namely, I never actually got to sleep last night. I'm not sure what happened there. I had some brief in-and-out sleep between about 4 and 5:30, but only for a few minutes at time and never deeply at all. I got up at about 5:30 because I was starving, came downstairs for some heavy bread and apple juice. (To the delight and confusion of Duncan and Mabel, who were quite excited for the company so early in the morning.) Went back upstairs and tried to sleep. Got up again at 7 to take some Advil for my headache, hoping that would help. Realized I was just not falling back asleep, said "fuck it" and took a shower and got up for good. My mom isn't even awake yet. She'll be pretty disoriented when she sees me. When left to my own devices I usually get up around 1.
I understand why I had trouble actually going to sleep - I had a chai latte too late yesterday while at Barnes & Noble, where I spent the bulk of my afternoon, reading foreign Vogues. (An extremely pleasant way to spend one's afternoon, all told.) I really shouldn't have caffeine of any quantity higher than green tea. It makes me jittery, lightheaded, and my heart race, and apparently robs me of sleep.
The Voguefest was delightful, though. I discovered that British Vogue has sections on fashionable deals that are ACTUALLY deals (as opposed to American Vogue, which lists, like, a $250 bathing suit as a total steal.) I also discovered that Lara Stone is fucking ubiquitous lately, as part of the fashion industry's attempt to foster a healthier body image and make a better name for themselves - look, this one size 4 model! We don't put incredibly unreasonable standards of thinness on our models and clients! Never! It's just so self-congratulatory.
I do like Lara, though. I especially love her Versace ads, as she's perfect for them. Bold, sexy and sometimes a little loud and trashy. A rail-thin model just can't really make those kinds of clothes sing. So good for her for coming along at the right moment and getting the opportunity to capitalize on it.
I dig her tooth gap, too. Another part of being unexpectedly just-right - it's unique and instantly recognizable a la Lauren Hutton, but also somehow actually makes her sexier. No mean feat.
Honestly, I'm not even sure what I'm talking about anymore, at this point. I am so bloody exhausted. (But not sleepy at all. Hence the problem.) Wish me luck, you guys.
I have been officially readmitted, and hopefully will actually have a place to live in my house in the fall (not quite clear on that yet.) Hopefully I'll be able to graduate with both my majors, but if I have to drop one it's really not the end of the world. Finishing my English major won't be a problem at all, since I took so many of my required classes so early on. It would break my heart to have to drop American Studies as a major, but not as much as it would kill me to be taking two seminars each semester which could be what I would have to do. I don't know. My advisors will work some kind of magic, I bet.
As for why I'm writing so obscenely early in the morning, well, there's really only one reason I would be willingly awake and alert and having free time this early: namely, I never actually got to sleep last night. I'm not sure what happened there. I had some brief in-and-out sleep between about 4 and 5:30, but only for a few minutes at time and never deeply at all. I got up at about 5:30 because I was starving, came downstairs for some heavy bread and apple juice. (To the delight and confusion of Duncan and Mabel, who were quite excited for the company so early in the morning.) Went back upstairs and tried to sleep. Got up again at 7 to take some Advil for my headache, hoping that would help. Realized I was just not falling back asleep, said "fuck it" and took a shower and got up for good. My mom isn't even awake yet. She'll be pretty disoriented when she sees me. When left to my own devices I usually get up around 1.
I understand why I had trouble actually going to sleep - I had a chai latte too late yesterday while at Barnes & Noble, where I spent the bulk of my afternoon, reading foreign Vogues. (An extremely pleasant way to spend one's afternoon, all told.) I really shouldn't have caffeine of any quantity higher than green tea. It makes me jittery, lightheaded, and my heart race, and apparently robs me of sleep.
The Voguefest was delightful, though. I discovered that British Vogue has sections on fashionable deals that are ACTUALLY deals (as opposed to American Vogue, which lists, like, a $250 bathing suit as a total steal.) I also discovered that Lara Stone is fucking ubiquitous lately, as part of the fashion industry's attempt to foster a healthier body image and make a better name for themselves - look, this one size 4 model! We don't put incredibly unreasonable standards of thinness on our models and clients! Never! It's just so self-congratulatory.
I do like Lara, though. I especially love her Versace ads, as she's perfect for them. Bold, sexy and sometimes a little loud and trashy. A rail-thin model just can't really make those kinds of clothes sing. So good for her for coming along at the right moment and getting the opportunity to capitalize on it.
I dig her tooth gap, too. Another part of being unexpectedly just-right - it's unique and instantly recognizable a la Lauren Hutton, but also somehow actually makes her sexier. No mean feat.
Honestly, I'm not even sure what I'm talking about anymore, at this point. I am so bloody exhausted. (But not sleepy at all. Hence the problem.) Wish me luck, you guys.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Y'know when you have some caffeine to prepare yourself to work/give yourself more energy, and instead of making you more awake and focused, you just get sort of scatterbrained and sleepily jittery?
Yeah. That's what's happening with me right now. I had some chai to work on this paper (and ugh, I'm tired because the goddamned cats were in and out of my room all night, wanting to CUDDLE and PLAY!) and instead of it increasing my focus, it's just made me kind of jittery and nervous. Besides I'm freaking out a little about going back to school, mostly for various emotional reasons, and this is seriously not helping. At all.
I don't know. I mean, on a certain level I'm glad that I had work to do over this break since it kept my brain from atrophying in absence of school, and all (and obviously I'm grateful that I got the extensions, because there was no way in hell I would have been able to get it done with all the seizures I was having in the last few weeks of the semester), but ugh, it really does suck to have work to do when on winter break like this. I'm freaked, is what I'm saying. I never feel totally comfortable at school, and I'm so much lonelier and sicker there - like, always.
I do always do better spring semester than the fall one, though, because I'm going towards more light and warmth and longer days, as opposed to fall semester, when I'm going towards darker and darker and colder and colder and it's like some kind of hellish descent. Fall semester really fucking sucks. All the time.
Also? Grateful for these paper topics. It's been an American Studies-heavy semester (next semester is going to be an English-heavy one, and I anticipate it being way harder), so in the past couple of weeks I've written on Trainspotting, Citizen Kane, His Girl Friday, Twin Peaks, and now Mad Men. (The Twin Peaks research also got me a chance to correspond with Ms. Sherilyn Fenn, a.k.a. Twin Peaks' Audrey Horne - a fangirl's dream, if ever there was one. She was a peach.) Not that there aren't difficulties associated with this shit, because trust me, there are, but it's much easier when you're studying something you really find to be a lot of fun.
All this popular culture studies stuff has really given me a new appreciation for aesthetics. I've been following lots of variously aesthetic-focused blogs and I really do think it's just as valid as the study of anything else - I don't see why substance and style have to be pried apart and differentiated (they certainly aren't in film), or why styles and aesthetic can't be every bit as thought-provoking as a "higher" form of culture. And I don't think one has to be "trained" in this stuff to appreciate it - you just have to have a good eye for what you find beautiful and visually arresting, and cultivate and seek out what you like and find compelling. Sure, having studied art or film or fashion helps, but I don't think it's a requirement if you have a natural compulsion towards it.
I caught Vertigo on TV the other night after the Golden Globes (which were really good this year! Good show, good show), and it's still one of my favorites. Just hits all the right notes - dramatic and romantic and tragic and deeply creepy. Kim Novak gives the shivers - good AND bad ones! (Jimmy Stewart just gives me the bad ones.) She's exquisite. My favorite scenes are the early ones, seeing her dreamlike, haunted wanderings around San Francisco, her obsession with the portrait (that portrait still gives me major fucking creeps), her almost out-of-body hurling herself into the San Francisco bay. The sensuality, the paranoia, the obsession - it's all some of my favorite stuff.
And who could forget that fucking hair swirl?
More shivers. I read this terrifically creepy short story by Joyce Carol Oates called "Fat Man My Love" about Hitchcock from the perspective of one of his blondes. She's great when she's not completely grossing me out, which can definitely happen. I can kind of overdose on her stories a little bit and end up a bit woozy.
Enough morbidity! Let's see some aesthetic perfection! ANTM again, here. From the "short cycle," Ms. Rae Weisz:
Fucking perfect.
Also, my absolute all-time favorite photo from that show: Cycle 11's Lauren Brie:
I feel a little better now. And now, to the paper-writing!
Yeah. That's what's happening with me right now. I had some chai to work on this paper (and ugh, I'm tired because the goddamned cats were in and out of my room all night, wanting to CUDDLE and PLAY!) and instead of it increasing my focus, it's just made me kind of jittery and nervous. Besides I'm freaking out a little about going back to school, mostly for various emotional reasons, and this is seriously not helping. At all.
I don't know. I mean, on a certain level I'm glad that I had work to do over this break since it kept my brain from atrophying in absence of school, and all (and obviously I'm grateful that I got the extensions, because there was no way in hell I would have been able to get it done with all the seizures I was having in the last few weeks of the semester), but ugh, it really does suck to have work to do when on winter break like this. I'm freaked, is what I'm saying. I never feel totally comfortable at school, and I'm so much lonelier and sicker there - like, always.
I do always do better spring semester than the fall one, though, because I'm going towards more light and warmth and longer days, as opposed to fall semester, when I'm going towards darker and darker and colder and colder and it's like some kind of hellish descent. Fall semester really fucking sucks. All the time.
Also? Grateful for these paper topics. It's been an American Studies-heavy semester (next semester is going to be an English-heavy one, and I anticipate it being way harder), so in the past couple of weeks I've written on Trainspotting, Citizen Kane, His Girl Friday, Twin Peaks, and now Mad Men. (The Twin Peaks research also got me a chance to correspond with Ms. Sherilyn Fenn, a.k.a. Twin Peaks' Audrey Horne - a fangirl's dream, if ever there was one. She was a peach.) Not that there aren't difficulties associated with this shit, because trust me, there are, but it's much easier when you're studying something you really find to be a lot of fun.
All this popular culture studies stuff has really given me a new appreciation for aesthetics. I've been following lots of variously aesthetic-focused blogs and I really do think it's just as valid as the study of anything else - I don't see why substance and style have to be pried apart and differentiated (they certainly aren't in film), or why styles and aesthetic can't be every bit as thought-provoking as a "higher" form of culture. And I don't think one has to be "trained" in this stuff to appreciate it - you just have to have a good eye for what you find beautiful and visually arresting, and cultivate and seek out what you like and find compelling. Sure, having studied art or film or fashion helps, but I don't think it's a requirement if you have a natural compulsion towards it.
I caught Vertigo on TV the other night after the Golden Globes (which were really good this year! Good show, good show), and it's still one of my favorites. Just hits all the right notes - dramatic and romantic and tragic and deeply creepy. Kim Novak gives the shivers - good AND bad ones! (Jimmy Stewart just gives me the bad ones.) She's exquisite. My favorite scenes are the early ones, seeing her dreamlike, haunted wanderings around San Francisco, her obsession with the portrait (that portrait still gives me major fucking creeps), her almost out-of-body hurling herself into the San Francisco bay. The sensuality, the paranoia, the obsession - it's all some of my favorite stuff.
And who could forget that fucking hair swirl?
More shivers. I read this terrifically creepy short story by Joyce Carol Oates called "Fat Man My Love" about Hitchcock from the perspective of one of his blondes. She's great when she's not completely grossing me out, which can definitely happen. I can kind of overdose on her stories a little bit and end up a bit woozy.
Enough morbidity! Let's see some aesthetic perfection! ANTM again, here. From the "short cycle," Ms. Rae Weisz:
Fucking perfect.
Also, my absolute all-time favorite photo from that show: Cycle 11's Lauren Brie:
I feel a little better now. And now, to the paper-writing!
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Some awesomeness, academic and otherwise.
So, I should be writing (several!) papers right now, but I want to write about this and it might actually HELP stimulate ideas for this particular paper (we quite literally have no topic. I mean, seriously.) Trying to get the brain going. It's a bit more sluggish than usual these days. I blame the internet. And my unhealthy eating and sleeping habits. Oh, and my body, of course. It's always easy to pin the blame on one's body, especially one that is structurally unsound as mine. I think God was a little drunk that day.
(Defense mechanism back in full swing, what up.)
What I actually want to talk about right now is Chekhov. I have a serious thing for Russian writers, Tolstoy in particular (Anna Karenina is one of my favorite books, ever, for both the gorgeous language and the total trashiness that abounds through parts of it.) I've read two different translations of the book, the second of which is by my favorite! translating! team! ever!, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (whose names I know by heart because I am such a fucking nerd). My mom got me a copy of War and Peace for Christmas a couple of years ago, to which I geeked out and said, "Oh! Those are my favorite translators!" Those two also happen to be a married couple. Can you imagine the fucking awesome life they have? Cutest ever, for real.
Anyway, we're reading Chekhov in my 19th century story class - for which I am grateful, since I haven't liked much of anything we read in that class since Poe. (Oh, Poe!) Because Chekhov is great - not to mention that the book is translated by my favorite translating team. I love him for things like this, in "The Lady With the Little Dog," which I had read previously in a "love stories" anthology that I got in preparation for my own short story work, and which is way, way more depressing to read than it sounds:
"Anna Sergeevna came in. She sat in the third row, and when Gurov looked at her, his heart was wrung, and he realized clearly that there was no person closer, dearer, or more important for him in the whole world; this small woman, lost in the provincial crowd, not remarkable for anything, with a vulgar lorgnette in her hand, now filled his whole life, was his grief, his joy, the only happiness he now wished for himself; and to the sounds of the bad orchestra, with its trashy local violins, he thought of how beautiful she was. He thought and dreamed."
I mean, that shit is beautiful. There's something about the recognition of the utter ordinariness (which the story keeps getting you back to over and over again), seeing the flaws all around him and yet adoring her anyway, that I find so much more moving than a strictly idealistic or epic love. I don't know, all the people with whom I've ever fallen in love have had such obvious flaws of which I was always aware, and I think recognizing what is exceptional about a person as well as what is perfectly ordinary is just a really powerful thing. Whenever literature captures that I think that can be really beautiful. I also love that this story is never really resolved, and that things don't end really well or badly for these two - their lives just go on, and you know that they will with or without one another, but more rich for the time they've had together.
Similarly, I love this Shakespeare sonnet:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Beautiful. Kind of funny, also, and not exactly glowingly complimentary, but it's rather wonderful nevertheless. It was also used to delightfully sappy purpose in My So-Called Life:
Which is an awesome show, and also a perfect segue for me to talk about Claire Danes!
(Queen Eadie for the win!) I wish she'd go back to the red hair, though. Alas.
Truly, though, I love this girl. She manages to be Hollywood-level beautiful while maintaining a completely believable level of gawky awkwardness. I watched Shopgirl with Shannon last night (for a Film Studies paper, which ugh, I should be writing right now), and I was reminded once again of how wonderful she is. She has one of those faces that you can't take your eyes off of when she's on screen, and there's something about the way she acts that feels so effortless to me - like she perfectly inhabits the body of the character she's playing, and she says so much more with the way she moves and laughs and moves her eyes than she does with actual speech.
(I was utterly enamored with Scarlett Johansson for that same ability a few years ago, but she's decided to rest on simply being hot, which makes me sad. In any case, she was so much hotter back when she wasn't trying so hard!)
But now she's all Hollywood and bombshell and sanitized and perfect. Boo! Another before-and-after (and this is getting waaay tangential, but whatever), that also runs parallel to taking actual good roles and demonstrating lots of acting ability: Christina Ricci, before she got all skinny and "perfect":
(LOVE that movie, by the way.)
And now, for a contrast:
Not that she isn't still beautiful, but...come back to the light, Christina! Be sexy and curvy and weird again!
Well, that's way more than enough for now. Sayonara, for now.
(Defense mechanism back in full swing, what up.)
What I actually want to talk about right now is Chekhov. I have a serious thing for Russian writers, Tolstoy in particular (Anna Karenina is one of my favorite books, ever, for both the gorgeous language and the total trashiness that abounds through parts of it.) I've read two different translations of the book, the second of which is by my favorite! translating! team! ever!, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (whose names I know by heart because I am such a fucking nerd). My mom got me a copy of War and Peace for Christmas a couple of years ago, to which I geeked out and said, "Oh! Those are my favorite translators!" Those two also happen to be a married couple. Can you imagine the fucking awesome life they have? Cutest ever, for real.
Anyway, we're reading Chekhov in my 19th century story class - for which I am grateful, since I haven't liked much of anything we read in that class since Poe. (Oh, Poe!) Because Chekhov is great - not to mention that the book is translated by my favorite translating team. I love him for things like this, in "The Lady With the Little Dog," which I had read previously in a "love stories" anthology that I got in preparation for my own short story work, and which is way, way more depressing to read than it sounds:
"Anna Sergeevna came in. She sat in the third row, and when Gurov looked at her, his heart was wrung, and he realized clearly that there was no person closer, dearer, or more important for him in the whole world; this small woman, lost in the provincial crowd, not remarkable for anything, with a vulgar lorgnette in her hand, now filled his whole life, was his grief, his joy, the only happiness he now wished for himself; and to the sounds of the bad orchestra, with its trashy local violins, he thought of how beautiful she was. He thought and dreamed."
I mean, that shit is beautiful. There's something about the recognition of the utter ordinariness (which the story keeps getting you back to over and over again), seeing the flaws all around him and yet adoring her anyway, that I find so much more moving than a strictly idealistic or epic love. I don't know, all the people with whom I've ever fallen in love have had such obvious flaws of which I was always aware, and I think recognizing what is exceptional about a person as well as what is perfectly ordinary is just a really powerful thing. Whenever literature captures that I think that can be really beautiful. I also love that this story is never really resolved, and that things don't end really well or badly for these two - their lives just go on, and you know that they will with or without one another, but more rich for the time they've had together.
Similarly, I love this Shakespeare sonnet:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Beautiful. Kind of funny, also, and not exactly glowingly complimentary, but it's rather wonderful nevertheless. It was also used to delightfully sappy purpose in My So-Called Life:
Which is an awesome show, and also a perfect segue for me to talk about Claire Danes!
(Queen Eadie for the win!) I wish she'd go back to the red hair, though. Alas.
Truly, though, I love this girl. She manages to be Hollywood-level beautiful while maintaining a completely believable level of gawky awkwardness. I watched Shopgirl with Shannon last night (for a Film Studies paper, which ugh, I should be writing right now), and I was reminded once again of how wonderful she is. She has one of those faces that you can't take your eyes off of when she's on screen, and there's something about the way she acts that feels so effortless to me - like she perfectly inhabits the body of the character she's playing, and she says so much more with the way she moves and laughs and moves her eyes than she does with actual speech.
(I was utterly enamored with Scarlett Johansson for that same ability a few years ago, but she's decided to rest on simply being hot, which makes me sad. In any case, she was so much hotter back when she wasn't trying so hard!)
But now she's all Hollywood and bombshell and sanitized and perfect. Boo! Another before-and-after (and this is getting waaay tangential, but whatever), that also runs parallel to taking actual good roles and demonstrating lots of acting ability: Christina Ricci, before she got all skinny and "perfect":
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(LOVE that movie, by the way.)
And now, for a contrast:
Not that she isn't still beautiful, but...come back to the light, Christina! Be sexy and curvy and weird again!
Well, that's way more than enough for now. Sayonara, for now.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
So, it's been like a million years since I wrote in this, right? (Or six weeks or so, but hey, close enough...)
I'm well into my semester now and overall it's going pretty well. Classes are pretty great for the most part, and my health is...well, it's been worse. There's definitely been some sick badness (nausea, stomach pains, headaches, body aches, chest pain, heart palpitations, a seizure the other day, and even some weird new shit), but hey, at least I haven't gotten the swine flu, right?
I have been really homesick this semester though, worse than it's been in awhile. I always missed my mom really badly, but never "home" so much, and it sounds silly, but honestly I think a lot of it has to do with my missing my cats. Seriously. I am having serious cat withdrawal and it's a problem.
Also, a piece of awesome awesomeness that I forgot to put into my last entry and clearly have not put in since, as I have not updated and all and blah blah blah: The day before moving all my stuff in, when my mom and my brother and I were hanging out on campus, we went for a long walk on the Smith trails. A little dog ran up to us, and as I was, you know, talking nonsense to the dogs and so forth, the dog's owner came over - who happened to be Thurston Moore, of Sonic Youth fame. I looked up (way, way, way up because the dude is TALL), and there he was. With his dogs. I mean, I knew he lived in the area, but seriously, that was about the last place I would expect to run into him. Go figure. I basically squealed my face off.
But enough of this. My mom sent me some pictures of the cats and I'm gonna post them now.
Mabel in the cabinets:
Cuddling cats:
More to come, as always.
I'm well into my semester now and overall it's going pretty well. Classes are pretty great for the most part, and my health is...well, it's been worse. There's definitely been some sick badness (nausea, stomach pains, headaches, body aches, chest pain, heart palpitations, a seizure the other day, and even some weird new shit), but hey, at least I haven't gotten the swine flu, right?
I have been really homesick this semester though, worse than it's been in awhile. I always missed my mom really badly, but never "home" so much, and it sounds silly, but honestly I think a lot of it has to do with my missing my cats. Seriously. I am having serious cat withdrawal and it's a problem.
Also, a piece of awesome awesomeness that I forgot to put into my last entry and clearly have not put in since, as I have not updated and all and blah blah blah: The day before moving all my stuff in, when my mom and my brother and I were hanging out on campus, we went for a long walk on the Smith trails. A little dog ran up to us, and as I was, you know, talking nonsense to the dogs and so forth, the dog's owner came over - who happened to be Thurston Moore, of Sonic Youth fame. I looked up (way, way, way up because the dude is TALL), and there he was. With his dogs. I mean, I knew he lived in the area, but seriously, that was about the last place I would expect to run into him. Go figure. I basically squealed my face off.
But enough of this. My mom sent me some pictures of the cats and I'm gonna post them now.
Mabel in the cabinets:
Cuddling cats:
More to come, as always.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Well, I'm back at Smith. Moved in yesterday. Classes haven't started yet but they do tomorrow and I just saw my mom off. I'm going to miss her terribly but it's much better than last year, when I was moving into a new house and had very few friends, or my first year when I was totally suspended. This year I know and love my house and I know I have friends (even though Lisa is abroad this semester and I already miss her dreadfully) and I'm fairly well settled. I know my majors, I've declared, I have a better idea of what I want to do with myself, I'm working on finding a work study job and I'm a little more confident that I know I can handle things. I'm just going to miss my mom terribly, that's all.
And the kittens! I'm going to miss them awfully, too. I spent almost all day every day with them this summer and it's going to suck not having their screaming furry little faces around all the time. They got fixed and declawed this past Monday and we got them back Wednesday (Abbey, aka Princess Bitchcat, was VERY happy with the two-day vacation she got from them), and so it was a lot of antibiotic-giving. Those two just don't know to take it easy. Poor Duncan's front paws swelled up to nearly twice their normal size because he got cat litter in them AND is apparently not smart enough not to figure out that maybe he shouldn't be jumping up and down such high surfaces. Mabel, for her part, is a little bit OCD and would not stop licking and picking at herself. I now have cat blood stains from her feet on the surface of one of my notebooks, which is just LOVELY.
Plus they're going to be going insane without the attention and affection to which they've grown accustomed. My mom joked that she'd have to get a baby sling and hold Duncan in it while she cooked and cleaned and went about her evenings.
She also says that if she does that, that's the moment that she officially becomes a crazy cat lady and I am inclined to agree. Still, I can imagine doing that myself. Duncan in particular is my baby, after all.
I also left my computer charger at home - of all the things! so my mom is going to next-day it to me and in the meantime, I'm trying to limit my computer time and I'll try to borrow a charger from someone who has the same computer. It's hard, though. What am I going to DO with my free time??
It really is good to be back, though. I'm a little worried about how things are going to go, but there's no doubt that this is where I'm supposed to be right now and I'm sure I'll end up having a pretty good time. I'm excited about my classes and really excited to be back in Northampton. I want to try to start working out again (which I say every time a season starts or ends, I know), if only for my energy level, which seems to be decreasing quite a lot over the past couple of years. I don't have the same level of energy that I had even a couple of years ago, at all, and I want to try to make that a little bit better if I can. And I want to try to write more again. It's something that I've missed and I have a feeling I'll feel more like myself again if I can figure out how to get that going.
Till then.
And the kittens! I'm going to miss them awfully, too. I spent almost all day every day with them this summer and it's going to suck not having their screaming furry little faces around all the time. They got fixed and declawed this past Monday and we got them back Wednesday (Abbey, aka Princess Bitchcat, was VERY happy with the two-day vacation she got from them), and so it was a lot of antibiotic-giving. Those two just don't know to take it easy. Poor Duncan's front paws swelled up to nearly twice their normal size because he got cat litter in them AND is apparently not smart enough not to figure out that maybe he shouldn't be jumping up and down such high surfaces. Mabel, for her part, is a little bit OCD and would not stop licking and picking at herself. I now have cat blood stains from her feet on the surface of one of my notebooks, which is just LOVELY.
Plus they're going to be going insane without the attention and affection to which they've grown accustomed. My mom joked that she'd have to get a baby sling and hold Duncan in it while she cooked and cleaned and went about her evenings.
She also says that if she does that, that's the moment that she officially becomes a crazy cat lady and I am inclined to agree. Still, I can imagine doing that myself. Duncan in particular is my baby, after all.
I also left my computer charger at home - of all the things! so my mom is going to next-day it to me and in the meantime, I'm trying to limit my computer time and I'll try to borrow a charger from someone who has the same computer. It's hard, though. What am I going to DO with my free time??
It really is good to be back, though. I'm a little worried about how things are going to go, but there's no doubt that this is where I'm supposed to be right now and I'm sure I'll end up having a pretty good time. I'm excited about my classes and really excited to be back in Northampton. I want to try to start working out again (which I say every time a season starts or ends, I know), if only for my energy level, which seems to be decreasing quite a lot over the past couple of years. I don't have the same level of energy that I had even a couple of years ago, at all, and I want to try to make that a little bit better if I can. And I want to try to write more again. It's something that I've missed and I have a feeling I'll feel more like myself again if I can figure out how to get that going.
Till then.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Well, I am very nearly done. Had my English Literary Tradition final paper due Monday, did my Modern American Writing final paper for Tuesday, History of Rock take home final for Wednesday, took my Modern American Writing final last evening, and took my English Lit final this evening. Now I just have my American Studies final to take tomorrow morning.
*Huffs and puffs*
Yeah, it's been a Week. Caffeine is not a suitable substitute for sleep, and my right arm is in terrible cramping pain because of the ridiculous amount of time I have spent typing and writing this week. But, yeah. Finals week. Finals week just always sucks; it's the rule. After finishing the final tomorrow I just want to crawl into a nice warm dark hole somewhere, sleep for a week, and never analyze anything ever again.
We'll see how that works out.
I'm really looking forward to going home, although I'll miss Smith and Northampton. Home is just so incredibly goddamned boring, and I can't drive which makes it even worse, and I'll be seeing so many doctors over the course of the summer...which is, of course, completely necessary, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant. I have no doubt that I'll be hospitalized while they do freaky shit to my brain at some point this summer.
Stay tuned for THAT. (Especially you, Jenny! The things I put myself through to help your RESEARCH! ;) )
And I'll miss my friends, obviously - especially Lisa, especially given that she's going to Prague next semester. Ugh. And Hannah won't be here, and Leah might not be here either...not that there won't still be awesome friends kicking around, just that there are people I'll really miss next fall.
But I'll be home very soon. Packing up with my mommy tomorrow, leaving on Saturday. There will be lots of resting, and lots of reading, and a part-time Colgate job. Not exciting, but what I need.
*Huffs and puffs*
Yeah, it's been a Week. Caffeine is not a suitable substitute for sleep, and my right arm is in terrible cramping pain because of the ridiculous amount of time I have spent typing and writing this week. But, yeah. Finals week. Finals week just always sucks; it's the rule. After finishing the final tomorrow I just want to crawl into a nice warm dark hole somewhere, sleep for a week, and never analyze anything ever again.
We'll see how that works out.
I'm really looking forward to going home, although I'll miss Smith and Northampton. Home is just so incredibly goddamned boring, and I can't drive which makes it even worse, and I'll be seeing so many doctors over the course of the summer...which is, of course, completely necessary, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant. I have no doubt that I'll be hospitalized while they do freaky shit to my brain at some point this summer.
Stay tuned for THAT. (Especially you, Jenny! The things I put myself through to help your RESEARCH! ;) )
And I'll miss my friends, obviously - especially Lisa, especially given that she's going to Prague next semester. Ugh. And Hannah won't be here, and Leah might not be here either...not that there won't still be awesome friends kicking around, just that there are people I'll really miss next fall.
But I'll be home very soon. Packing up with my mommy tomorrow, leaving on Saturday. There will be lots of resting, and lots of reading, and a part-time Colgate job. Not exciting, but what I need.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
I have recently been informed that I overuse parentheses and hyphens in my writing, not that this is news to me, particularly. I wonder if it's because I like to imagine myself giving an elaborate speech with a mildly ironic tone as I write.
Dear God.
It's cooled down outside, for which I am supremely grateful. By the time it gets really hot again I'll be home, and I have central air at home. Another thing for which I am supremely grateful.
I have one more class left of my sophomore year of college - Modern American Writing, which I have tomorrow morning. And then I'll be left - with my two papers, my take-home final, and my three regular finals. Which is flipping ridiculous, especially seeing as I'm only taking four classes. Why, why, why do so many professors find it totally acceptable to assign a long-ass paper due and then think it totally acceptable to expect you to take a final the following day? It ought to be a final paper OR a final exam (or some combination thereof, in the case of the take-home final.) Not both. No. Not at all.
At which point, I'll be halfway done with college. (Assuming, of course, that I pass all my classes - not that I'm really concerned with that.)
I had my final History of Rock class today (snff) and it just brought me back around to Nirvana again. Things I thought I had grown out of. Angers and passions that I thought I had moved on from. But we were watching the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video and all of a sudden I was fourteen again, watching those cheerleaders with the anarchy signs emblazoned on their uniforms, my blood boiling and heart pounding, and Kurt Cobain was this blond, scrawny, bratty, utterly ingenious form of Second Coming. An annoyed, smirking, reluctant superstar, tragic in his hilarity.
I thought I'd grown out of all that, but there are still these moments - and apparently today was one of them - where I'm back there again, back again in a place where I was discovering grunge and where Soundgarden and Hole and Pearl Jam and Nirvana - especially, especially Nirvana - were my new saviors. Only I was discovering it a good thirteen years or so after everybody else, and so it was already over - and I was clinging to something that was long gone. I knew how the story would end.
When I was about twelve or so, I asked my mother what grunge was. She cocked her head and thought about it, and after a moment she responded, "It's something like...listless punk." I nodded, further intrigued about this phenomenon.
She has absolutely no memory of this exchange, and is still rather in awe that she produced such an evocative and fairly accurate (not 100%, but still pretty spot-on) definition. It's worth noting that my mother is a few months younger than Kurt Cobain.
So I'm listening to my whole collection of Nirvana - which is not nearly as comprehensive as I would like, or as lengthy as my obsession with the band and the lore of the period would suggest - just the three studio albums and a couple of B-sides and live tracks. But I'm listening to it all, in chronological order, and, well, it's still great. And it turns out the Kurt's ghost is still kind of around for me.
Go figure.
Dear God.
It's cooled down outside, for which I am supremely grateful. By the time it gets really hot again I'll be home, and I have central air at home. Another thing for which I am supremely grateful.
I have one more class left of my sophomore year of college - Modern American Writing, which I have tomorrow morning. And then I'll be left - with my two papers, my take-home final, and my three regular finals. Which is flipping ridiculous, especially seeing as I'm only taking four classes. Why, why, why do so many professors find it totally acceptable to assign a long-ass paper due and then think it totally acceptable to expect you to take a final the following day? It ought to be a final paper OR a final exam (or some combination thereof, in the case of the take-home final.) Not both. No. Not at all.
At which point, I'll be halfway done with college. (Assuming, of course, that I pass all my classes - not that I'm really concerned with that.)
I had my final History of Rock class today (snff) and it just brought me back around to Nirvana again. Things I thought I had grown out of. Angers and passions that I thought I had moved on from. But we were watching the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video and all of a sudden I was fourteen again, watching those cheerleaders with the anarchy signs emblazoned on their uniforms, my blood boiling and heart pounding, and Kurt Cobain was this blond, scrawny, bratty, utterly ingenious form of Second Coming. An annoyed, smirking, reluctant superstar, tragic in his hilarity.
I thought I'd grown out of all that, but there are still these moments - and apparently today was one of them - where I'm back there again, back again in a place where I was discovering grunge and where Soundgarden and Hole and Pearl Jam and Nirvana - especially, especially Nirvana - were my new saviors. Only I was discovering it a good thirteen years or so after everybody else, and so it was already over - and I was clinging to something that was long gone. I knew how the story would end.
When I was about twelve or so, I asked my mother what grunge was. She cocked her head and thought about it, and after a moment she responded, "It's something like...listless punk." I nodded, further intrigued about this phenomenon.
She has absolutely no memory of this exchange, and is still rather in awe that she produced such an evocative and fairly accurate (not 100%, but still pretty spot-on) definition. It's worth noting that my mother is a few months younger than Kurt Cobain.
So I'm listening to my whole collection of Nirvana - which is not nearly as comprehensive as I would like, or as lengthy as my obsession with the band and the lore of the period would suggest - just the three studio albums and a couple of B-sides and live tracks. But I'm listening to it all, in chronological order, and, well, it's still great. And it turns out the Kurt's ghost is still kind of around for me.
Go figure.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Well, this is kind of more health crap, but I had another seizure on Thursday (boo) again in History of Rock (sorry professor Steve and assorted classmates!) Basically I've had a persistent headache ever since, and have been extra more dizzy than usual (which is saying something, since I'm dizzy all the freaking time as it is.) I feel bad about asking for extensions and work and leniency and so forth, because I feel like I haven't been resting as much as I should have since it happened and am therefore exacerbating it (more on that in a minute), but the fact is that the headache and dizziness are very much real, as is the slightly blurry vision I've been having today and the slight coordination issues, and numbness in my fingers. I'm calling Health Services in the morning to see if they can check me out. Of course, being as it's Health Services, they'll probably write it off as "stress" like they have all my medical problems thus far and send me on my merry way, but it's worth a try.
My weekend, however, was pretty packed. Certainly for me, anyway. Friday night I went to see my History of Rock professor Steve's book reading, which was really awesome and just totally reinforced my love for Smith and Northampton in that places like these obviously foster such total awesomeness. Really, Northampton is amazing. Lisa and I had a bit of a revelation about it a little while back while, for a few minutes at least, I kind of gave up on the idea of going to New York and trying to get into the high-powered academic world where everything is so serious and rushed and exhausting, and just wanting to live in Northampton for a couple of years after graduation and work in a book store. I think that in a way that would be every bit as valuable. Probably not forever, but it might be a nice thing to try out.
Saturday Lisa and I hung around in town for awhile, which was not all that awesome since it was kind of cold and gross out, but we had a pretty good time nonetheless. She wanted to buy a $20 puppet, which I fortunately managed to talk her out of. Then we chilled at Hopkins and drank a lot of tea, which is always super nice and a really great environment to (pretend to) do work.
And LAST night we went to see David Sedaris. The reading was at 8:30, but student rush with the half-off tickets was at 7:30, so she and I were there at 6:30. We were the first people there, and we were the only people there for quite a long time, so it was obvious that we were ridiculously early, but I got a bit of homework done while we were waiting anyway. Besides, it all paid off when David Sedaris walked in and actually struck up a conversation with us. (HOLY SHIT AWESOME.) He was adorable and funny and sharply dressed and he called Lisa a pauper (which he then did again when she got her book signed. I had no book for him to sign, so I just stood there grinning awkwardly while she and Alicia struck up further conversations with him.) And the actual book reading was a complete hoot. He read hilarious short stories and he even read us excerpts from his diary, which I thought was super cool. It was a huge venue and we were way way way up in the balcony (which gave me terrible vertigo) but it was still completely awesome.
Seriously. David Sedaris = win. Can't believe I met him. Lisa asked him the secret to happiness and he replied, "Attention."
Amen, hilarious gay writer man. Amen.
My weekend, however, was pretty packed. Certainly for me, anyway. Friday night I went to see my History of Rock professor Steve's book reading, which was really awesome and just totally reinforced my love for Smith and Northampton in that places like these obviously foster such total awesomeness. Really, Northampton is amazing. Lisa and I had a bit of a revelation about it a little while back while, for a few minutes at least, I kind of gave up on the idea of going to New York and trying to get into the high-powered academic world where everything is so serious and rushed and exhausting, and just wanting to live in Northampton for a couple of years after graduation and work in a book store. I think that in a way that would be every bit as valuable. Probably not forever, but it might be a nice thing to try out.
Saturday Lisa and I hung around in town for awhile, which was not all that awesome since it was kind of cold and gross out, but we had a pretty good time nonetheless. She wanted to buy a $20 puppet, which I fortunately managed to talk her out of. Then we chilled at Hopkins and drank a lot of tea, which is always super nice and a really great environment to (pretend to) do work.
And LAST night we went to see David Sedaris. The reading was at 8:30, but student rush with the half-off tickets was at 7:30, so she and I were there at 6:30. We were the first people there, and we were the only people there for quite a long time, so it was obvious that we were ridiculously early, but I got a bit of homework done while we were waiting anyway. Besides, it all paid off when David Sedaris walked in and actually struck up a conversation with us. (HOLY SHIT AWESOME.) He was adorable and funny and sharply dressed and he called Lisa a pauper (which he then did again when she got her book signed. I had no book for him to sign, so I just stood there grinning awkwardly while she and Alicia struck up further conversations with him.) And the actual book reading was a complete hoot. He read hilarious short stories and he even read us excerpts from his diary, which I thought was super cool. It was a huge venue and we were way way way up in the balcony (which gave me terrible vertigo) but it was still completely awesome.
Seriously. David Sedaris = win. Can't believe I met him. Lisa asked him the secret to happiness and he replied, "Attention."
Amen, hilarious gay writer man. Amen.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
So this will be MOAR HISTORY OF ROCK BABBLING, but whatever.
We talked about early heavy metal today, and in the context of watching footage from Altamont, which I found really fascinating - I'd heard all about the concert and the tragedies and how it signified the end of the 1960s (both literally and symbolically) but I'd never actually seen the footage before. It was pretty amazing to watch the whole thing unraveling before your eyes. Anyway we talked about how both heavy metal and punk sort of arose from the concerns in the wake of the ending of the idealism and optimism that surrounded rock in the 1960s, and in conjunction with that, the rise of arena rock and the differences in concert experiences and the sense of community (I'll get back to that later.)
Listened to some music as per always - first "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin, which simply served to remind me just how much I fucking love Led Zeppelin (if that song doesn't move you, and my "move you" I mean make you need to get the fuck out of your seat and MOVE, then there's something wrong with you), and Black Sabbath, which served to remind me why I can't stand Black Sabbath. (If, by any chance, there is a Black Sabbath devotee in the blogosphere reading this, I apologize. I find Ozzy Osbourne's voice infuriatingly grating.) Also, Steve imitated the death metal voice (which was pretty funny, since imitations, along with the real thing, usually sounds like an unusually low-pitched cow being gored to death) and I contributed with an affirmation that that is, indeed, what death metal vocals sound like. I mention this because of the hilarity of virtually the entire classroom turning to look at me with an O RLY?? look on their faces. It was pretty funny.
The point of all of this is that it lead me to ruminate on rock concerts and their connective spirits in general. I've been to a lot of concerts (not as many lately, but I went to a lot in middle school and high school), with my first attendance being the Lilith Fair when I was about eight. (Well, I guess technically my first concert was in the womb - my mom went to see 10,000 Maniacs while she was about 8 months pregnant with me. Incidentally, Natalie Merchant played at the Lilith Fair I attended.) Maybe I didn't feel it at that concert because I was too young - I can't remember it very well - but at virtually every concert I've ever attended, whether it was Bob Dylan or Hanson or Evanescence (yes, those last two are embarrassing, but suck it), I've always felt an extremely strong sense of community and transcendence.
The strongest I ever felt that was definitely at the Dylan concert which I just mentioned, and when I went to see Fiona Apple. When I went to see Dylan, it was without a doubt the most chill concert I have ever attended. There were always people shoving and yelling at every other concert I'd ever been to and I never minded, because it's exciting and it comes with the territory anyway. But this? It was a GA concert, which usually calls for complete mayhem, but my friends and I walked right up to the second row from the stage without the slightest problem. Maybe it was because virtually everyone there was high, but it was so ridiculously relaxed. Waiting for Dylan got very, very tedious. There were three (THREE) opening bands, and I ended up standing in the same couple of square feet for about six hours. It was an unusually cold day in September, and it was wet and cold and uncomfortable. But finally, finally Dylan came out, and then nothing else mattered.
I'm not going to lie and say he was a perfomer in his prime, or anything close to it. He played behind a keyboard, hunched so that we could barely see him. There were no asides to the audience, no banter. His voice was scratchy and thin, and when we did see him, he looked tired. But when he played "Lay, Lady, Lay" I nearly fucking died.
The best moments, though - without a doubt - came during the encore. First he played "Rainy Day Women" (more popularly known as "Everybody Must Get Stoned") and I could hardly even believe he was playing THAT song - of all the things. Everyone started getting out their joints and bongs (as if they weren't all high enough already) and the security guards were all looking around to check if people were getting high, considering the song, which was pretty funny on its own. And then he played "Like a Rolling Stone."
Which was just...I mean, it just felt so historic, and I think it was then that it occurred to me that I was watching Bob f'ing Dylan. When he played the chorus the lights went up on us, and he gave us this little half smile and shook his head, like we were such silly kids for following him like this. Because it was so obvious he would have played the same song the same way whether we were there or not, and it was like we were just allowed to be there and watch. And that's okay. Because he's Bob fucking Dylan and it was true - WE were the priveleged ones.
And after it was over, he took a bow, and made these bizarre hand gestures, and took off his hat (he was wearing this really weird top hat kind of thing - he looked like some kind of pervy Confederate soldier in his suit and reedy little mustache) and - I shit you not - sprinked out glittering dust at us. Dylan dust.
And then, just a couple of minutes later, as we were leaving the field, it started raining.
Fiona Apple was even more communal. Let me start this by saying that I have loved Fiona Apple just about since I turned double digits. There is no musician - nor do I think there ever will be - that has affected me on the personal level the way that she has. If I have a passion for music, it is because of her. I remember one day back in 8th grade (my lowest year, and one of my lowest day) when I came home early from school feeling ill and desolate, and turned on Tidal and closed my eyes. Sometimes that album soothes me in a way nothing else can. I knew every in-and-out of her voice on that album, when every instrument comes in, every word she sings. It's weird to think that I am now the age she was when the album came out.
I went to see her in my junior year of high school. It was a weekday and I didn't go to school. Some people were astonished that my parents let me not go to school to go to a concert, and I told them that if they didn't let me, I would have found a way to hitchhike.
When I went to see her I expected to cry when she was onstage, I expected to sing along to the songs or mouth the words at the very least - but I did none of that. I was too hypnotized. When she was onstage she was so jittery and tiny and mercurial, with her tiny skinny body and her giant eyes. She never sat or stood still, she was always kicking her feet and wiggling her arms and jutting herself out in a strange, nonrhythmic dance. She has absolutely terrible posture. And she had more stage presence than anyone I had ever seen, because there was the knowledge that at any time, she would go from mercurial to catastrophe. When she sang she went so deep that it was almost frightening - and heartbreaking - to watch. I knew that the last time she had toured, she'd had a nervous breakdown, retreated, and ended up holing up in an apartment for a couple of years with no furniture in her house.
There was a moment, midway through the show, when her face started contorting - at first, I thought she was going to have a seizure, and then there was this deathly, deathly angry look in her face. It turned out that the crew was screwing up the mike and let me tell you, Fiona was freaking out. She looked like she could hardly bear it. She looked like she was going to start tearing out her hair, she was storming around the stage - and the band hardly looked even surprised, which made me figure that this was probably a fairly regular occurrence.
And then an amazing thing happened - the audience, myself included, started to sing the song for her. There was this outpouring of love, of compassion - all I wanted was to hug her and tell her that she didn't have to finish the set. She didn't have to try so hard, she didn't have to dig this deep for us, she didn't have to torture herself beyond the point of losing self-control with the depth of these emotions for our sake.
I knew that she'd had no intention of releasing her album until she heard about the uproar her fans were making - they'd thought the record label was holding off on releasing it and they (we) were campaigning to get it released. It turned out that Fiona had recorded an earlier version, scrapped it, and had no intention of returning in the forseeable future. She realized how much people actually wanted her back. And she re-recorded it, released it, and went in tour.
She finished the song, and finished the set, but for awhile, it felt like we were holding her up, giving her our strength when she was searching to give us what she felt our devotion had warranted from her. And for the love of the music, which so clearly is her passion.
It was definitely the most communal, the most transcendent, the most extraordinary concert experience I had ever had.
We talked about early heavy metal today, and in the context of watching footage from Altamont, which I found really fascinating - I'd heard all about the concert and the tragedies and how it signified the end of the 1960s (both literally and symbolically) but I'd never actually seen the footage before. It was pretty amazing to watch the whole thing unraveling before your eyes. Anyway we talked about how both heavy metal and punk sort of arose from the concerns in the wake of the ending of the idealism and optimism that surrounded rock in the 1960s, and in conjunction with that, the rise of arena rock and the differences in concert experiences and the sense of community (I'll get back to that later.)
Listened to some music as per always - first "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin, which simply served to remind me just how much I fucking love Led Zeppelin (if that song doesn't move you, and my "move you" I mean make you need to get the fuck out of your seat and MOVE, then there's something wrong with you), and Black Sabbath, which served to remind me why I can't stand Black Sabbath. (If, by any chance, there is a Black Sabbath devotee in the blogosphere reading this, I apologize. I find Ozzy Osbourne's voice infuriatingly grating.) Also, Steve imitated the death metal voice (which was pretty funny, since imitations, along with the real thing, usually sounds like an unusually low-pitched cow being gored to death) and I contributed with an affirmation that that is, indeed, what death metal vocals sound like. I mention this because of the hilarity of virtually the entire classroom turning to look at me with an O RLY?? look on their faces. It was pretty funny.
The point of all of this is that it lead me to ruminate on rock concerts and their connective spirits in general. I've been to a lot of concerts (not as many lately, but I went to a lot in middle school and high school), with my first attendance being the Lilith Fair when I was about eight. (Well, I guess technically my first concert was in the womb - my mom went to see 10,000 Maniacs while she was about 8 months pregnant with me. Incidentally, Natalie Merchant played at the Lilith Fair I attended.) Maybe I didn't feel it at that concert because I was too young - I can't remember it very well - but at virtually every concert I've ever attended, whether it was Bob Dylan or Hanson or Evanescence (yes, those last two are embarrassing, but suck it), I've always felt an extremely strong sense of community and transcendence.
The strongest I ever felt that was definitely at the Dylan concert which I just mentioned, and when I went to see Fiona Apple. When I went to see Dylan, it was without a doubt the most chill concert I have ever attended. There were always people shoving and yelling at every other concert I'd ever been to and I never minded, because it's exciting and it comes with the territory anyway. But this? It was a GA concert, which usually calls for complete mayhem, but my friends and I walked right up to the second row from the stage without the slightest problem. Maybe it was because virtually everyone there was high, but it was so ridiculously relaxed. Waiting for Dylan got very, very tedious. There were three (THREE) opening bands, and I ended up standing in the same couple of square feet for about six hours. It was an unusually cold day in September, and it was wet and cold and uncomfortable. But finally, finally Dylan came out, and then nothing else mattered.
I'm not going to lie and say he was a perfomer in his prime, or anything close to it. He played behind a keyboard, hunched so that we could barely see him. There were no asides to the audience, no banter. His voice was scratchy and thin, and when we did see him, he looked tired. But when he played "Lay, Lady, Lay" I nearly fucking died.
The best moments, though - without a doubt - came during the encore. First he played "Rainy Day Women" (more popularly known as "Everybody Must Get Stoned") and I could hardly even believe he was playing THAT song - of all the things. Everyone started getting out their joints and bongs (as if they weren't all high enough already) and the security guards were all looking around to check if people were getting high, considering the song, which was pretty funny on its own. And then he played "Like a Rolling Stone."
Which was just...I mean, it just felt so historic, and I think it was then that it occurred to me that I was watching Bob f'ing Dylan. When he played the chorus the lights went up on us, and he gave us this little half smile and shook his head, like we were such silly kids for following him like this. Because it was so obvious he would have played the same song the same way whether we were there or not, and it was like we were just allowed to be there and watch. And that's okay. Because he's Bob fucking Dylan and it was true - WE were the priveleged ones.
And after it was over, he took a bow, and made these bizarre hand gestures, and took off his hat (he was wearing this really weird top hat kind of thing - he looked like some kind of pervy Confederate soldier in his suit and reedy little mustache) and - I shit you not - sprinked out glittering dust at us. Dylan dust.
And then, just a couple of minutes later, as we were leaving the field, it started raining.
Fiona Apple was even more communal. Let me start this by saying that I have loved Fiona Apple just about since I turned double digits. There is no musician - nor do I think there ever will be - that has affected me on the personal level the way that she has. If I have a passion for music, it is because of her. I remember one day back in 8th grade (my lowest year, and one of my lowest day) when I came home early from school feeling ill and desolate, and turned on Tidal and closed my eyes. Sometimes that album soothes me in a way nothing else can. I knew every in-and-out of her voice on that album, when every instrument comes in, every word she sings. It's weird to think that I am now the age she was when the album came out.
I went to see her in my junior year of high school. It was a weekday and I didn't go to school. Some people were astonished that my parents let me not go to school to go to a concert, and I told them that if they didn't let me, I would have found a way to hitchhike.
When I went to see her I expected to cry when she was onstage, I expected to sing along to the songs or mouth the words at the very least - but I did none of that. I was too hypnotized. When she was onstage she was so jittery and tiny and mercurial, with her tiny skinny body and her giant eyes. She never sat or stood still, she was always kicking her feet and wiggling her arms and jutting herself out in a strange, nonrhythmic dance. She has absolutely terrible posture. And she had more stage presence than anyone I had ever seen, because there was the knowledge that at any time, she would go from mercurial to catastrophe. When she sang she went so deep that it was almost frightening - and heartbreaking - to watch. I knew that the last time she had toured, she'd had a nervous breakdown, retreated, and ended up holing up in an apartment for a couple of years with no furniture in her house.
There was a moment, midway through the show, when her face started contorting - at first, I thought she was going to have a seizure, and then there was this deathly, deathly angry look in her face. It turned out that the crew was screwing up the mike and let me tell you, Fiona was freaking out. She looked like she could hardly bear it. She looked like she was going to start tearing out her hair, she was storming around the stage - and the band hardly looked even surprised, which made me figure that this was probably a fairly regular occurrence.
And then an amazing thing happened - the audience, myself included, started to sing the song for her. There was this outpouring of love, of compassion - all I wanted was to hug her and tell her that she didn't have to finish the set. She didn't have to try so hard, she didn't have to dig this deep for us, she didn't have to torture herself beyond the point of losing self-control with the depth of these emotions for our sake.
I knew that she'd had no intention of releasing her album until she heard about the uproar her fans were making - they'd thought the record label was holding off on releasing it and they (we) were campaigning to get it released. It turned out that Fiona had recorded an earlier version, scrapped it, and had no intention of returning in the forseeable future. She realized how much people actually wanted her back. And she re-recorded it, released it, and went in tour.
She finished the song, and finished the set, but for awhile, it felt like we were holding her up, giving her our strength when she was searching to give us what she felt our devotion had warranted from her. And for the love of the music, which so clearly is her passion.
It was definitely the most communal, the most transcendent, the most extraordinary concert experience I had ever had.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Well, I went to see Cuentos de Eva Luna with Lisa (and some HopKids) last night. It was really great - reminded me of how much I love Isabel Allende. I've read Eva Luna, but not the sequel, Stories of Eva Luna, on which the play is based (one of very few Isabel Allende books I actually haven't read - I'm pretty sure I've read all her novels at this point.) Back in high school, and when I was entering college, one of the big things that motivated me to continue taking Spanish to a higher and higher level was so that I could read her books in the original Spanish. Of course, I've totally abandoned that...I haven't taken Spanish since my junior year of high school and therefore have lost almost all of it, but maybe I'll take it up again someday.
It was odd to me to see a play after not actually having been involved with one in so long - because I could imagine the work that went into it, imagine the endless rehearsals and the set designing and the lighting fuckups and the constant line-forgetting, because I've done it before, and at the same time be unable to see it, since I was only seeing the finished product. It felt kind of strange.
I do miss acting occasionally. It was never a passion of mine or anything, but I did really like it in spite of my horrible stage fright which I never got over, no matter how many times I was up in front of an audience. I think I was good at it, at least reasonably. People always told me they could never see my nerves when I was onstage, even though on the inside I always felt like vomiting all over my shoes.
By far and away the best role I ever had (and the most fun I ever had doing a play, which is even more important for my purposes) was as Gwendolen in the Importance of Being Earnest junior year. Part of it was the role and the play itself, which was so funny and so fantastic, but also the fact that Evie was Cecily and we had such a ridiculous amount of fun doing it together. The Gwendolen-Cecily dynamic is fairly accurate for the two of us, too (not that we ever hated each other, but our general characters.) So naturally that made it even more fun.
So in the past 24 hours I've watched 3 Hitchcock movies. Who's surprised? I'm not surprised. I do tend to get obsessive about these things. I was taking advantage of my Netflix's "instant queue" feature, and so I watched Psycho last night (not the best one to choose to watch late in the day, let me tell you), Vertigo earlier this afternoon, and Dial M for Murder later this afternoon. Psycho I found terrifying, Dial M for Murder was entertaining (and, my God, I could watch a whole film of close-ups of Grace Kelly's face - she is absolutely astounding), but Vertigo was the one that really got to me, especially after reading further reviews. The layers of manipulation, of creation and destruction and insanity, was so intense and so affecting. I also thought it interesting (and strange) to read that people had apparently at first criticized Kim Novak's acting as poor and overly stiff, because I thought she was absolutely wonderful. It was certainly one hell of a role, but I thought she was great. (Then again, what do I know? This was certainly my reaction to it, though.)
Psycho definitely fucked with my mind as well, although in a different way. It was so terrifying because so much of what happens in that movie is so simple and so plausible. The characters are ordinary people who get in complicated situations, and one man who, although he is undoubtedly completely criminally insane, is...normal in a way, too. Even after I knew he was a killer I found myself watching with a strange sense of sympathy, because of the obvious way that Hitchcock turned him into the protagonist. Whether you hate him or not, you are inside his head in some way and waiting to see what happens to him. (Also, if by some chance there are film buffs reading this, I apologize. These are the observations of a novice!)
What I really, really want to see is his adaptation of Rebecca. I absolutely love the book, and I'm sure his adaptation is fantastic. However, for some bizarre reason, it is not available on Netflix. What the hell, Netflix? WHY YOU GOTTA LET ME DOWN LIKE THAT? They might have it at the video rental place here, though. They have the craziest things there, so I'm told.
Parting thoughts: a couple of weeks ago, Lisa and I were randomly combing Northampton, going to record stores, used clothing places, and so forth - the usual haunts - and we went to this antique store which had a lot of things I really loved (and I generally strongly dislike antique stores, so that's saying a hell of a lot.) One of the things I came across was an illustrated children's book by Edward Gorey, which I now really wished I'd picked up, especially as it was only 1.25 or somewhere around there. Google image offers the following illustration, among many others:
Maybe I'm showing my 19 years of age and my wannabe gothiness a little too much, but I really, really enjoy his artwork and aesthetic. Dark and childlike and playful. I really wish I'd picked up that book now.
It was odd to me to see a play after not actually having been involved with one in so long - because I could imagine the work that went into it, imagine the endless rehearsals and the set designing and the lighting fuckups and the constant line-forgetting, because I've done it before, and at the same time be unable to see it, since I was only seeing the finished product. It felt kind of strange.
I do miss acting occasionally. It was never a passion of mine or anything, but I did really like it in spite of my horrible stage fright which I never got over, no matter how many times I was up in front of an audience. I think I was good at it, at least reasonably. People always told me they could never see my nerves when I was onstage, even though on the inside I always felt like vomiting all over my shoes.
By far and away the best role I ever had (and the most fun I ever had doing a play, which is even more important for my purposes) was as Gwendolen in the Importance of Being Earnest junior year. Part of it was the role and the play itself, which was so funny and so fantastic, but also the fact that Evie was Cecily and we had such a ridiculous amount of fun doing it together. The Gwendolen-Cecily dynamic is fairly accurate for the two of us, too (not that we ever hated each other, but our general characters.) So naturally that made it even more fun.
So in the past 24 hours I've watched 3 Hitchcock movies. Who's surprised? I'm not surprised. I do tend to get obsessive about these things. I was taking advantage of my Netflix's "instant queue" feature, and so I watched Psycho last night (not the best one to choose to watch late in the day, let me tell you), Vertigo earlier this afternoon, and Dial M for Murder later this afternoon. Psycho I found terrifying, Dial M for Murder was entertaining (and, my God, I could watch a whole film of close-ups of Grace Kelly's face - she is absolutely astounding), but Vertigo was the one that really got to me, especially after reading further reviews. The layers of manipulation, of creation and destruction and insanity, was so intense and so affecting. I also thought it interesting (and strange) to read that people had apparently at first criticized Kim Novak's acting as poor and overly stiff, because I thought she was absolutely wonderful. It was certainly one hell of a role, but I thought she was great. (Then again, what do I know? This was certainly my reaction to it, though.)
Psycho definitely fucked with my mind as well, although in a different way. It was so terrifying because so much of what happens in that movie is so simple and so plausible. The characters are ordinary people who get in complicated situations, and one man who, although he is undoubtedly completely criminally insane, is...normal in a way, too. Even after I knew he was a killer I found myself watching with a strange sense of sympathy, because of the obvious way that Hitchcock turned him into the protagonist. Whether you hate him or not, you are inside his head in some way and waiting to see what happens to him. (Also, if by some chance there are film buffs reading this, I apologize. These are the observations of a novice!)
What I really, really want to see is his adaptation of Rebecca. I absolutely love the book, and I'm sure his adaptation is fantastic. However, for some bizarre reason, it is not available on Netflix. What the hell, Netflix? WHY YOU GOTTA LET ME DOWN LIKE THAT? They might have it at the video rental place here, though. They have the craziest things there, so I'm told.
Parting thoughts: a couple of weeks ago, Lisa and I were randomly combing Northampton, going to record stores, used clothing places, and so forth - the usual haunts - and we went to this antique store which had a lot of things I really loved (and I generally strongly dislike antique stores, so that's saying a hell of a lot.) One of the things I came across was an illustrated children's book by Edward Gorey, which I now really wished I'd picked up, especially as it was only 1.25 or somewhere around there. Google image offers the following illustration, among many others:
Maybe I'm showing my 19 years of age and my wannabe gothiness a little too much, but I really, really enjoy his artwork and aesthetic. Dark and childlike and playful. I really wish I'd picked up that book now.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
So I kind of love Christina Rossetti. We just read her in my English Literary Tradition class (I hated a lot of the reading in that class early on, but it's starting to pick up now. Anything but Wordsworth. Ugh.) and while we read her in my Victorian Sexualities class too (best class EVER - we read Victorian porn, for Chrissakes) I think I like her even better in this class. We mainly focused on "Goblin Market," and justifiably so, especially since it's about lesbian sisters. No, really. It's about sisters who save each other through their female sexuality with each other and by breaking away from the evil temptations of men. It's about other things, too, but that aspect is the most fun.
I love her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti even more (and not just because every one of his three names is made of awesome), who was mostly a painter, but he wrote poems too - among them a wonderful poem about a prostitute called "Jenny," which I wrote a paper on for Victorian Sexualities. He didn't do this painting, but he married the model for it (and she modeled for others of Rossetti's paintings, too):
I love that painting. So hard. When I was sitting on in a Smith class during April visit days, I visited Art and Death, a class I ended up taking my first semester at Smith, and students were doing presentations on their independent research projects of artworks depicting death. What I love about that painting - which has so much to do with the poetry of Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, too - is the incredible sensuality of it while also being incredibly morbid and kind of creepy. And it's of Ophelia, which makes it that much cooler. It's by John Everett Millais.
Speaking of art, my American Studies class has assigned us an art project, of which I heartily approve. When my mom was up here for the weekend a couple of weeks ago, we went to the art museum (whenever my mom is here I end up doing the kind of Smith things I always feel like I should be doing) and we were completely fascinated by this really bizarre surreal painting that we saw. Anyway, it turns out that that particular painting is one of the options for our project! I'm psyched. It's called Mourning Picture, and it's by an American painter named Edwin Romanzo Elmer:
The scan is a little muddy - the colors are actually a lot sharper - but the creepy surreal feeling, the flatness, and the strangeness of the perspective is definitely still visible. (Although the blogger scan doesn't show the entire thing - you should click on it to see the end right corner. It is worth it.) I love it. It's like the coolest thing I ever done seen.
I know, I know, my nerd is showing. /sigh Can't be helped, I guess.
Probably going to see Cuentos de Eva Luna with Lisa tonight. I'll definitely go at some point - it's a very happy thing that Lisa often forces me to get out and be social (she nearly forced me to give my phone number to some possibly underage guy on Saturday, but that's a story for another day), and Isabel Allende is one of my very favorite writers. Really, it's the only logical thing. (And I'm ALL ABOUT THE LOGIC, right?)
I love her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti even more (and not just because every one of his three names is made of awesome), who was mostly a painter, but he wrote poems too - among them a wonderful poem about a prostitute called "Jenny," which I wrote a paper on for Victorian Sexualities. He didn't do this painting, but he married the model for it (and she modeled for others of Rossetti's paintings, too):
I love that painting. So hard. When I was sitting on in a Smith class during April visit days, I visited Art and Death, a class I ended up taking my first semester at Smith, and students were doing presentations on their independent research projects of artworks depicting death. What I love about that painting - which has so much to do with the poetry of Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, too - is the incredible sensuality of it while also being incredibly morbid and kind of creepy. And it's of Ophelia, which makes it that much cooler. It's by John Everett Millais.
Speaking of art, my American Studies class has assigned us an art project, of which I heartily approve. When my mom was up here for the weekend a couple of weeks ago, we went to the art museum (whenever my mom is here I end up doing the kind of Smith things I always feel like I should be doing) and we were completely fascinated by this really bizarre surreal painting that we saw. Anyway, it turns out that that particular painting is one of the options for our project! I'm psyched. It's called Mourning Picture, and it's by an American painter named Edwin Romanzo Elmer:
The scan is a little muddy - the colors are actually a lot sharper - but the creepy surreal feeling, the flatness, and the strangeness of the perspective is definitely still visible. (Although the blogger scan doesn't show the entire thing - you should click on it to see the end right corner. It is worth it.) I love it. It's like the coolest thing I ever done seen.
I know, I know, my nerd is showing. /sigh Can't be helped, I guess.
Probably going to see Cuentos de Eva Luna with Lisa tonight. I'll definitely go at some point - it's a very happy thing that Lisa often forces me to get out and be social (she nearly forced me to give my phone number to some possibly underage guy on Saturday, but that's a story for another day), and Isabel Allende is one of my very favorite writers. Really, it's the only logical thing. (And I'm ALL ABOUT THE LOGIC, right?)
Thursday, February 26, 2009
So the time posted feature is messed up and is not in my actual time zone (and I can't figure out how to fix it. Bit new to blogger), but for posterity's sake, it is, in fact, nearly 2:30 in the morning at the time of writing this. I have been in bed, with the lights off, eyes closed, for about two hours now and I am no closer to sleep than I was when I started.
Part of it is the fact that my knee is really hurting and bothering me (why? Who the fuck knows. Stupid temperamental knee), but most of it is the fact that this is what my body wants to do these days. No matter what time I get up in the morning, for the past couple of weeks I haven't been able to go to sleep before about 3 a.m. This leads to either sleeping through my morning classes or taking long long naps in the afternoon that leave me incredibly groggy and nonproductive.
I don't even know. It's not so much that my insomnia has returned as that my body now apparently thinks I'm better off being nocturnal. My body and I part ways on that particular point, leading to a bitter stalemate of psychological war.
See how awake I am? A person should NOT be this wide awake after lying in a warm comfy bed with soothing white noise with their eyes closed for two hours. Wat. (The illustrious title of my blog, right there. Isn't it just delightfully descriptive?)
So in taking my English Literary Tradition class I learned that I am completely useless when it comes to poetry written before 1900 or so. Even with Keats, even though I totally have it bad for him. (Death-obsessed, prodigiously talented poet who died young of TB = hot in Overly Romantic College Girl World.) Seriously, fucking useless. I was reading Tennyson's In Memoriam, which has absolutely stunning language AND is about death AND has romantic homoerotic subtext and I STILL wanted to kill myself while reading it and didn't get a damn thing out of it. I don't get it. (Okay, so I guess Poe is an exception. <3 Poe.)
I am not this way about modernist poetry, however. Oh no. It's still way more of a struggle for me than prose, but I really want to figure it out. Check it:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
It's one of those poems that makes a lot of people who hate poetry want to kill themselves, but I love it. William Carlos Williams is awesome.
That poem was included in some things we read for Modern American Writing, though we didn't talk about that particular poem. I guess Thurston figured it had been done to death. There's another section in there that we read called "Songs of a Girl" that I absolutely fucking loved, but I can't remember the poet's name. I'll definitely write something more about it after I dig around in my room for it, but I don't really want to right now (nor do I want to turn on lights.)
Once again for posterity's sake, until I gain some blogger skillz, it is now 2:51 in the morning as I publish this. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Part of it is the fact that my knee is really hurting and bothering me (why? Who the fuck knows. Stupid temperamental knee), but most of it is the fact that this is what my body wants to do these days. No matter what time I get up in the morning, for the past couple of weeks I haven't been able to go to sleep before about 3 a.m. This leads to either sleeping through my morning classes or taking long long naps in the afternoon that leave me incredibly groggy and nonproductive.
I don't even know. It's not so much that my insomnia has returned as that my body now apparently thinks I'm better off being nocturnal. My body and I part ways on that particular point, leading to a bitter stalemate of psychological war.
See how awake I am? A person should NOT be this wide awake after lying in a warm comfy bed with soothing white noise with their eyes closed for two hours. Wat. (The illustrious title of my blog, right there. Isn't it just delightfully descriptive?)
So in taking my English Literary Tradition class I learned that I am completely useless when it comes to poetry written before 1900 or so. Even with Keats, even though I totally have it bad for him. (Death-obsessed, prodigiously talented poet who died young of TB = hot in Overly Romantic College Girl World.) Seriously, fucking useless. I was reading Tennyson's In Memoriam, which has absolutely stunning language AND is about death AND has romantic homoerotic subtext and I STILL wanted to kill myself while reading it and didn't get a damn thing out of it. I don't get it. (Okay, so I guess Poe is an exception. <3 Poe.)
I am not this way about modernist poetry, however. Oh no. It's still way more of a struggle for me than prose, but I really want to figure it out. Check it:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
It's one of those poems that makes a lot of people who hate poetry want to kill themselves, but I love it. William Carlos Williams is awesome.
That poem was included in some things we read for Modern American Writing, though we didn't talk about that particular poem. I guess Thurston figured it had been done to death. There's another section in there that we read called "Songs of a Girl" that I absolutely fucking loved, but I can't remember the poet's name. I'll definitely write something more about it after I dig around in my room for it, but I don't really want to right now (nor do I want to turn on lights.)
Once again for posterity's sake, until I gain some blogger skillz, it is now 2:51 in the morning as I publish this. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Hello Satan, I believe it's time to go.
Welcome to my blog, ladies and gents. (Though I suspect this blog is viewed mostly by ladies. Women's college and so forth.)
So I'm creating this in the wake of giving up on my xanga. I've had my xanga since...tenth grade, I think? Therefore it is rife with over-personal crap such as my unending depression (real, actual clinical depression, not emo-kid depression) health issues, and lovelorn drama. Oh, and a few really crappy poems, I think. If you want to read any of that (though I don't know why you would) you can head over to: xanga.com/eclectictsunami Sure, some of it is embarrassing, but hey, it's part of me, too.
So while I was thinking about this during my interminable classes today, I realized that I could possibly say that History of Rock is the best class I've ever taken at Smith (or at Colgate, or in high school, though that latter part should be obvious.) But that's not really entirely true. The truth is that the best class I've taken is American Sounds plus History of Rock - I took American Sounds last spring, a history of strains of American music including blues, country, folk, and Latin music, with offshoots of each. Not because either of them isn't great, but because they really connect and inform each other. While they can certainly stand on their own - and I highly recommend taking both - they're really even better when you take both of them. And they're closely related, and I don't just say that because they're both held on the same days of the week, in the same time slots, in the same classroom, with the same (awesome) professor, and I've taken both of them in the spring.
Okay, so that probably has a lot to do with it. But they're both mad awesome and I just can't separate them for Best Class at Smith status. Just not happening.
Well, I was thinking about this in class - my mind was wandering, which is actually really rare for that class, so it just goes to show how exhausted I am today - and we're talking about Jimi Hendrix right now (woot) and reading this amazing book for it - Crosstown Traffic by Charles Shaar Murray - and there was this passage where the writer talks about how much of the myth of Jimi Hendrix is in his early death. Not to discount from what he accomplished, but that always informs a myth like that. And I got to thinking about so many artists who died young. There's the talk about the "forever 27" group - Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain - but there are so many more.
Jimmie Rodgers, Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, Otis Redding, Eddie Cochran, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, Hillel Slovak, Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls...and I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty of others - all were under 30 when they died. Jeff Buckley was 30, John Bonham was 32. John Keats, who we just read a lot of in my English Literary Tradition class, was 27 when he died of tuberculosis. Edgar Allan Poe was 40. And there are countless others.
I wonder, not for the first time, if I'll be among them. I guess at least I can hope that I'll achieve some small fraction of what they have before that happens. Such fucked-up lives a lot of them had, too - depression, poverty, violence, drug addiction. And in some cases, just terrible luck. Can you imagine the differences our cultures might have had if these people had all lived to a ripe old age? For better or for worse. Their great artistry may have been done when all of them died, but we'll never know.
It all comes back to death, I guess. Death and sex. Whether you're talking about literature, music, art, history, or even fucking biology, it all comes back to sex and death.
That's as good a place as any to end this blog entry, don't you think?
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