Maybe morning should be my blogging time; it seems to be when I'm feeling suitably melodramatic.

Today for the first time I wonder if it might have been a mistake to buy the house. Like me, it wants for so much fixing. We are both high maintenance, leaky, cracked, jerry-rigged but still beautiful, needy if we're being honest with ourselves, and I wonder if there's really room in this life for the both of us; there don't seem to be enough resources to sustain us.

For the first time I remember, I've started craving sunshine so much I can't enjoy rain. I miss the overwhelming, careless plant growth that happens everywhere back east. I'm hungry for blues and browns and greens, for ultramarine and scarlet, for distilled malachite and skies so bright you can barely see. I'm hungry for wet heat that slams into you like a wall when you walk out of the air conditioning at the airport, wide lazy rivers that are barely cool at all, and the lush, dense forest that asserts itself when water is no object--where nothing chokes out life but other life.

This is better, probably--it's a different kind of sadness than what I'm used to. The old things are still present, but this is here also--carrot, tantalizing, painful but drawing me from my rut. I hope.

1) depression. Woke this morning and imagined an enormous pallet load of red bricks falling from above as a packed mass, bones crunching, blood spatters everywhere.

2) deleting facebook and some other online accounts in hopes of focusing on real friendships.

3) Had dinner with some friends, and it was wonderful! Pale blue damask on the coffee table, crystal stemware, leg cramps, spicy chickpeas, and low-stress interesting conversation that made me wonder about gregorian chants and Wittgenstien and music school. Let me take this moment to reveal how much I sometimes love being a grown-up.

4) love--contemplating feeling unloved. . . which I do, almost all the time. Wah wah. This will be another post.

5) happy would look like light, and color, and music--and love. Thinking of how to go about it.

also safe.

Confession: what I have been thinking about is fashion. Part of this taking-care-of-myself nonsense. How very women's magazine.

History? Armchair fashionista, all longing and anger and doom.

I started without a chance, no money, sacks of old hand-me-downs many times picked over, two blocks from the public library. I can tell you about the Dior dress. I can tell you about thread count, and rayon viscosity, and the de-constructed genius of Chanel. I can identify silk and cashmere from their synthetic counterparts by touch, from walking down the aisles of value village and examining every piece, from stealing into banana republic for moments at a time only to fondle and gape.

I wear enormous men's wool hiking socks under four year old sauconys, layers of plain threadbare t-shirts, black thrift-store jeans, sometimes hats.

I resent my passion, because this is what's expected of me, as a woman. I resent it because it at first was fueled so entirely by expectations of others which I would ABSOLUTELY NEVER be able to meet. But--there are things you need. Clothes to wear, for example; to sleep in and hike in, to work or work out or go grocery shopping.

I resent it also because it is most commonly followed with such vapid, brainless persistence. There's nothing say with clothes if your entire world is clothes, nothing but self-referential circles to chew off your tail in. It is social appropriateness; it could be art.

I definitely don't have this clothing and gender stuff figured out. It helps that my closest guy friend is an artist and dresses well--equality, or at least a taste--what would the world be like if everyone would dress well? Prettier, for sure. More expressive. Aesthetic preferences say something about your soul.

I've been coming together about it in pieces. Slowly.

My personal style preferences include a lot of steampunk, so I've been reading up on it. It turns out I love steampunk. There's a lot of darkness, and a sense of whimsy; it's creative, playful, passionate. They talk about maker culture; they resist the idea of a world they have to helplessly or passively accept.

I hate the fact that for so many people, it's about escapism. I want it streamlined, functional; I am hungry for a making of this same aesthetic that is grounded in the reality of here and now. I want to imagine the world is still alive, still dark and beautiful and dangerous worth exploring every inch of.

Very little delights me more than the elegance of an object that was made clean, simple, and strikingly gorgeous in both functional and aesthetic ways. Combine this with whimsy, creativity, violence, and that's exactly what I'm looking for.

Be afraid of the lame
They'll inherit your legs
Be afraid of the old
They'll inherit your souls
Be afraid of the cold
They'll inherit your blood
Apres moi, le deluge
After me comes the flood


I must go on standing
You can't break that which isn't yours
I, oh, must go on standing
I'm not my own, it's not my choice



(soundtrack to the book. . .)

* * *

I was ranting to Jacob at the restaurant yesterday:

"I stayed up for an extra two hours after work to finish reading The Handmaid's Tale. I read it before, a long time ago, and didn't begin to understand.

Now I find it real, horrifying. Compelling."


I don't know why feminism feels so central to me. For all the substantial violence I've been subjected to in my life, there's little I can point to as concrete evidence of oppressive widespread patriarchy that doesn't come off as paranoiac whining.

Paper-thin parodies of liberatory thought that find their way into the popular consciousness don't scratch the surface of the problem that concerns me, personally, the most; I want to be taken seriously. Women are taken seriously at some things, a few things, but the largest parts of me are most interested in being in the places where we aren't taken seriously--continental philosophy, hardcore non-humanities scholarship, violence, emotion.

I want to be taken seriously without giving up fun.

And I want my priorities to be taken seriously, even when they don't match up with the patriarchal ideal--stay at home mothers, for instance, are not a solution to the complexities of adequate childrearing in an egalitarian society--and yet these complexities deserve to be understood, dealt with, respected, maybe even solved. Wanting to be safe, but not patronized by a "protector" (who himself is free to subject you to whatever he likes; see: God) is not "trying to have it both ways."

Still, I feel that I must be exaggerating; it can't be that bad.



The waitress came back with the receipt and returned my debit card to him.

Things are not done.

This

http://blip.tv/file/3122155/

is a great intro to the idea of "the essential subject" and "the other"--which, I should mention, is the most applicable-in-my-own-life bit of philosophy I've yet encountered.

I should also mention that I think the clip provides a really interesting example of something that may be hypocrisy--I find myself critical and sympathetic. The piece critiques something foundational to current gender construction, and at the same time uses current gender construction (maybe ironically, but functionally as well) to market itself. You can see this in the visual storytelling; the visual and comedic style constantly stops you and says, "Look! Pretty girl! Pay attention." Whether that undermines it's broader message or not (I think it does) is an interesting question.

When I was nine, my father, against my will, cut off my long hair. With profound melodrama, I swore never to cut it again. This was a serious thing; it even survived my discovery of that terrible passage in Corinthians when I was thirteen.

That's why, at sixteen, my hair was down to my waist. I had promised myself not to commit suicide, but something had to change, so I hacked it off with my sewing scissors, coiling it in my hands and hiding it away like a keepsake. Then I sat through night prayers, breakfast, and morning prayers, before--after scripture study--my sister said, "is your hair pulled back?"

I still think that is the worst kind of loneliness; to be trapped in a room with people who should see you, but can't.


I thought of this during the keynote on Friday, called "what we owe the dead." He suggested that, contrary to Freud, we can never finish the work of mourning--contrary to Heidegger, we can truly mourn for each other, not just for reflections of our own future. We are composed, in part, of each other; when one of us dies, the rest loose a part of ourselves. The rest of us, then, must process the grotesque affront of life going on after death--after the death of a part of ourselves, after the death of someone we cared for.

In typical egocentric fashion I am terrified. Not of the death of others, though I worry about that too--but mostly, I'm afraid that when I die there will not be an absence left behind. I'm afraid I'm already gone, passing my life with people who almost never see me.



I don't mean this as a criticism, or an insult to my excellent family and friends; this fear may not be a rational one. Sometimes I feel I'm the only one, like I'm somehow by nature unseeable. Other times I think it must be everyone, that we pass by each other on the street like ghosts, each calmly and politely suppressing a Munch-like scream. Of course it has to be something else, neither of those extremes--but it is not a stretch to say that we would see each other better, in a better world.

Lately, I've been thinking about a lot of things that I'd traditionally consider a waste of time. In honor of this: my first fashion post. Not cultural critique of fashion, just fashion. With no commentary. At all.

We'll call it an exercise in restraint.

Outfit--

Shirt:

http://www.textilejunkiebrand.com/inc/sdetail/142

Corset: I love the green, but for this particular outfit, I think greys--maybe with one that matches the hat color.

http://www.clockworkcouture.com/?q=handsoftimecorset

Gloves:

http://www.clockworkcouture.com/?q=woolengloves

Skirt:

http://www.totally-ballroom.com/images/details/d_2836.jpg

Boots:

http://www.shopping.com/xPO-Born-Born-Thicket-Womens-Boots

Overcoat:

http://www.clockworkcouture.com/?q=blackwoolmilitarycoat

Hair: something like this, but with a bit more pulled back--and maybe in a more interesting color, or more than one more interesting color:


Hat:

http://media.rei.com/media/ll/5b6e1928-453f-40c1-8599-147c57008471.jpg

Jewelery: maybe these? I'd also keep the pocketwatch, but in silver.


http://ruthwaterhouse.com/studio/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/276e.jpg

Today has been one of Those days. You know. The days by which this blog will earn its title.

Motrin is the elixir of life, but I'm living off of V8 juice that expired last week, dry handfuls of kix my mother bought me, and ramen. Every night I lay awake for forty minutes or an hour, trying to sleep, being cold and remembering things I've done wrong. Today I didn't get much done; I walked six miles, worked six hours, and attended a lecture for Marxism, laundry is behind but dishes are done. My entire torso hurts, and so do my limbs where they're attached to it. Everything is hectic; it would have helped her with her test, but I did not show isha-bear my favorite biology textbook. I'm lonely. More color might help me breathe.

I gave away the green wool coat, the one that boy I loved told me was fitting for me because it was really sturdy and so was I. I never quite could take that as a compliment. It's too small for me now; makes it hard for me to move my arms. I think it found a better home.

Fashion and Beauty

What isn't evil about it:

-Presenting the best of yourself; using creativity, craftsmanship, color, texture, line, drape, and function; self expression through physical appearance; fashion as one of the ultimate forms of art which is for people in an incredibly tangible and concrete way.

What is:

-Excessive valuation of physical beauty; beauty as an essential component, or even the most essential component, of identity--particularly for women

-Defining beauty as being some incredibly unhealthy and incredibly unobtainable standard

-Thereby a) generally screwing people over psychologically and b) making sexuality competitive, which diminishes the quality of sexual relationships



Solutions?


One obvious thing is an attempt at reclaiming; to use creativity, self expression, and craftsmanship to reject unobtainable standards of beauty. I see three problems with this.

First and most obviously, it doesn't address the incredibly excessive emphasis placed on appearance. This is a huge problem, and I'm unaware of any easy solutions to it. I can only suggest we try and remember that it's always more important to be amazing than to look amazing--always.

Secondly, reclaiming is not going to win the war. This kind of action alone, contrary to liberal mores, is never going to create a world where people have a healthy attitude towards their bodies, their appearance and their sexuality. The best you can hope for is to create a liberating subculture, a chance for a few people to practice democracy in discourse, a chance for a few people to have freeing experiences. If reclaiming does not win the war, and something else--say, lobbying for restrictions in advertising--possibly could, should we be spending our resources on this?

Thirdly, lots of things about aesthetics are not universal. Current aesthetic standards will influence what we find to be appealing; this is inevitable. I haven't studied aesthetics a lot, either practically or philosophically. However, it seems that to an extent, you would have to play into the current consumption-oriented aesthetic standards to successfully create something beautiful. I need to read and think more about this.


The other obvious thing is to simply disengage--to act in a way that doesn't accept making yourself an object for the aesthetic consumption of others as a value. It seems like an ineffective and unsatisfying option; it's not going to win large scale against corporate hijacking of aesthetic values, it has lots of practical disadvantages in day to day life, and it looses all of the potentially healthy things the art of personal appearance has to offer.



I have some sort of idea about the balance on this that I personally want to strike, but I'm interested in other people's thoughts. :)

Corpse de ballet / Imperfect

The only other time I've posted any of my poetry on here, I asked for gentleness. As before, I present to you a classic instance of a new genre I'm pioneering: emo spine poetry. By now (I wrote this when I was still trying to dance) I've much more come to terms with this sort of thing, so if you would, I'd like you all to be as brutal as possible. I don't know much about the craft of poems, but I enjoy them and would like to improve. Also, I KNOW there are some really smart English majors who read my blog. Hopefully you'll have something to say. :)



I'm tired of laying here, trying to remember what it was for my body to be whole.


I want to climb into the mountains and
wrap myself in God
but tonight I can not walk

So instead I feel
the God who pools himself
as numbness across the heel of my left foot

reaching up in patches till
he thrusts his
flames into my
un-wrapped
spine.

I remember what it was to dance
or some days only try to
see congre devant, derriere, but suddenly

the memorable corps
de ballet
has snapped
broken spine dangling
and my eyes fill up
with blood


I was always wrong for ballet
but I loved

the slow music
and the long degages
where I could breathe into my body
and not have to be anywhere
else.

Streetcorner ballerina

Today was an altogether new job experience; I started work as a Sign Holder.

I'd thought that this would be a straightforward matter of selling my body to the market in a whole new way, but no; not at all. There's much more to it. Perhaps this wouldn't be so if I weren't such a perfectionist, but here we are.

You see, there are people in all those cars. People who are bored, hurried, tired, stuck. Waiting, at the light. Captive people, who will expect a fake and tired smile, half hearted sign wiggling, whole hearted efforts to avoid eye contact. They will watch me count the minutes. We could all be zombies together, I supposed, and I would still get paid. . . But I am not a fan of Terrible.

So it goes something like this. I walk; sign held aside, arms moving adagio, third and fourth. I am listening to well tempered clavier on guitar without an ipod, feet pointed, tracing, articulating; torso lifted, ever so subtle the epaulement. I am open, projecting, concert hall virtuoso making sparkling eye contact with every passing car. At the change of the light I return to the corner and hold the sign out like a barre, doing a few rounds of exercises while the audience returns again.

And they watch; they more than watch. My favorite expression is on the faces of the ones so clearly delighted it can barely be contained.

After an hour I can't hack the precision for ballet. I try African, ballroom; general overplayed goofiness. They stop watching; some give the ultimate insult, too cool to make contact, eyes resolutely ahead. I am tired. I wonder why the coffee shop doesn't put just their advertising money into sponsoring community events in the arts, and then remember--this is not expected of me. We are all used to be zombies.

It seems a little elegance and calm, warm-wrapped in irony, has clearly been the order of the day.

waltz

and I ususally hate songs about adultery

So, I am safely back east with my parents for my winter holiday, which means it's time for a very quick post, leaving more time to hug my parents, wander around the east coast, and consume mass quantities of frozen blueberries. :)


I really enjoy this song; it seems to convey a certain pathos beautifully, and there are certain lines--"an half blind we wrote these songs on sheets of salty wood. .." "such distance from our friends, like a scratch across the lens"--

anyway, enjoy. :)



"I do not exist,"
we faithfully insist
sailing in our separate ships,
and in each tiny caravel -
tiring of trying, there's a necessary dying
like the horseshoe crab in its proper season sheds its shell
such distance from our friends,
like a scratch across a lens,
made everything look wrong from anywhere we stood
and our paper blew away before we'd left the bay
so half-blind we wrote these songs on sheets of salty wood

you caught me making eyes at the other boatmen's wives
and heard me laughing louder at the jokes told by their daughters
I'd set my course for land,
but you well understand
it takes a steady hand to navigate adulterous waters
the proppeller's spinning blades held acquaintance with the waves
as there's mistakes I've made no rowing could outrun
the cloth low on the mast like to say Ive got no past

but I'm nonetheless the librarian and secretary's son
with tarnish on my brass and mildew on my glass
I'd never want someone so crass as to want someone like me
but a few leagues off the shore, I bit a flashing lure
and I assure you, it was not what it expected it to be!
I still taste its kiss, that dull hook in my lip
is a memory as useless as a rod without a reel
to an anchor-ever-dropped-seasick-yet-still-docked captain spotted napping with his first mate at the wheel floating forgetfully along, with no need to be strong. we keep our confessions long and when we pray we keep it short
I drank a thimbleful of fire and I'm not ever going back

Oh, my G-d!

"I do not exist," we faithfully insist
while watching sink the heavy ship of everything we knew
if ever you come near I'll hold up high a mirror
Lord, I could never show you anything as beautiful as you




Happy New Year.

for dancers--and everyone else?

I came upon this on youtube tonight, and was delighted. I found it said something about the dance that I've been failing to articulate for some time now.

Metal is very stylized, and in some ways that makes it perfect for the ballet.

Ballet is all about extreme stylization. Each generation of dancers since the court of Louis XIV has faced some pressure to be lighter, more stately, graceful, delicate, and higher on their toes--growing generation after another towards heaven, up out of dark medieval symbolism that associated downwards and bodies with hell and earth.

As time has come and passed, that heavenly ideal became an idol of self-destruction. In a world where virtually all the stars are women, blooming young and retiring by thirty, generations of men follow student to master as they shape, dictate, choreograph and direct. By the late 1980's the image that dominated ballet was the inherited ideal of Bruce Balanchine's work: transparently slender, long limbed, tall, and young, with the disposition of an adoring child and skin the color of a freshly peeled apple.

In keeping with the tradition of Dance, the visual surpassed the corporeal. Balanchine taught his dancers how to "cut some corners" on technique, creating spectacular stage performances alongside premature retirements and tendinitis. Children ready to give anything for the New York City Ballet sacrificed physical maturity as they starved themselves into--and then sometimes out of--the shape proscribed.


Set against nightwish, figurine grace and surreal, doll-like perfection have made ballet real for me again. In this fantasy playground, historical footage emphasizes every marionette pause, and the dark undercurrents of ballet's approach to sexuality and gender are left clear. Here we remember her invisible bones, the impossible thinness of her ankles, the irrevocable constancy in which she exists only for her beauty, and the way all of us worship her for it as she dances on, forever--in every way that matters--alone.

Here, removed a step from The Great Western Heritage of Culture And Dance, it is easy to believe the ideal is not real; it is easy to believe that no one really thinks this is the ultimate embodiment of who and what I am supposed to be.

Here it is possible to conceptualize ballet as only one aspect, to raise it from it's dark beauty and, in some small way, integrate it to myself--without being eaten by what I would have left behind.



Here's a link to the blog of the fellow who did it; deep thanks for a masterful and insight provoking job.

This is another amazing film piece. It showcases a very tangibly corporeal side of the dance, and at the same time, overwhelming performance, grace, and technique.

shameless

But so beautiful.



So That You Will Hear Me
By Pablo Neruda

So that you will hear me
my words
sometimes grow thin
as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches.

Necklace, drunken bell
for your hands smooth as grapes.

And I watch my words from a long way off.
They are more yours than mine.
They climb on my old suffering like ivy.

It climbs the same way on damp walls.
You are to blame for this cruel sport.
They are fleeing from my dark lair.
You fill everything, you fill everything.

Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy,
and they are more used to my sadness than you are.

Now I want them to say what I want to say to you
to make you hear as I want you to hear me.

The wind of anguish still hauls on them as usual.
Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over.
You listen to other voices in my painful voice.

Lament of old mouths, blood of old supplications.
Love me, companion. Don't forsake me. Follow me.
Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish.

But my words become stained with your love.
You occupy everything, you occupy everything.

I am making them into an endless necklace
for your white hands, smooth as grapes.




Full text including the original can be found here.

portraits

Of many creatures.

rather than continuing in my tradition of posting beautiful unattributed images that I found floating around unattributed on the web, I've decided to cut you all in on one of the most lovely image sites I've found.

If anyone out there reads Russian, feel free to let me know what it says. :)

http://2photo.ru/2007/12/24/print:page,1,raboty_prizera_mezhdunarodnykh_konkursov_fotografa_dikojj_prirody_tim_flach.html

this is about us

(original music video)


(lyrics)


*tips hat to rise against*

this is most effective if you can get them playing simultaneously; try letting the first one go for about three seconds, then starting the lyrics on 0 volume.



P.S. Happy birthday, Dad.

jam for thought

Or is it. . . better than jam?


note for my dear paranoid parent friends: mild profanity in some images.

Perhaps this is rather silly of me, but I never really considered--until Darrin made that comment--culture jam as art. As far as wholesale acceptance of herd mentality. . . well. . . that's quite a larger topic.

But I was thinking about the comment, and did a bit of poking about for images of culture jam. Certainly some of them qualify as art, and I think some of the ones I came up with that I've included here may likely not have been intended as culture jam at all.

What I'm trying to do is consider the potentially powerful use of images as a tool to goad people into thinking more, and perhaps in certain directions, about their world.

Here are my favorites from the search--images I found particularly effective, artistic, interesting, or powerful.



Deurbanization


Nike


London, after (global warming)


When we grow up




Playfulness can go a long way too. . . consider:

Live in Russia (instead of playing games)


Speeding (what's your excuse)


Clear Speech


Democracy


Abstinence


P.S. Looks like these images are cut off. The idea in most cases gets across, but if anyone knows how to fix the html and wants to give me a hand, it would still be much much appreciated. Thanks all for putting up with my learning curve.

In "when we grow up", the foot in the foreground belongs to an elderly woman.

What do you think of radiohead?

And also, what do you think of the culture jam movement?

Radiohead is the jam, by the way. I think. *snark muffled by sincere respect for radiohead. . .*

I've some pretty mixed feelings about adbusters, the organization who's page hosts this. Here's a documentary about them, if you're interested. . . I find it's a pretty good concise exposition, at about 40 minutes.

So here's my gripe about culture jam. Is it enough? Is it everything someone can do? Is it effective? At all?

And I confess, the cheerful font of the sticker that said "enjoy debt" on the ATM was pretty striking. But most of the work they do? Not so much. I don't think soundbites will ever be enough to convert someone away from capitalism. Without development of the ideas behind it--without an understanding of the reasons one would wish to deface ads, and background for the alternative message presented--it doesn't come to much.

Perhaps some of my resistance comes from the book culture jam, which is simply not well written, and the official adbusters website, a recently de-slickified construct full of what look exactly like ads and--paradoxically--selling their own brand ("black spot") of products. I believe them when they say they aren't in it for the money, but it feels very odd to support someone who uses the Exact methodology they're dedicated to fighting.

It's not that I don't appreciate what they're trying to do, but it's a superficial makeover. Alone, it's no more than a pitiful attempt to turn vast impressionist sweeps of advertiser's image building into a dialogue. .. but a dialogue where no one ever says anything that takes longer than those two seconds it takes you to look at an ad.

It doesn't work.

Is deconstructing and elaborately mocking adds the best way for a cultural revolutionary to spend their time?

And then comes another question: exactly what are they proposing instead? Economic suicide isn't useful for much, and to support only ethical companies, at this point, is still economic suicide for most of us. The votes of dollars will never be enough until supported by a real public discourse, and meanwhile the majority of our time and our dollars go to the enrichment of those same people we "jam." In perspective, it's like leaving informative little notes in bigoted history texts as a protest against their use in public education. . . except, following that metaphor, all the textbooks would have to be bigoted, and they would have to be most of what was available. Hmn.

I can see it as a useful tool, but only when used more substantiatively. . . in conjunction with a more substantiative discourse, and a more substantiative plan for action.

P.S. Also, everybody shout out a big happy birthday for my sisters number three and four, for birthdays yesterday and today, respectively. They rock, each in their own awesome way. :D