| For Zack |
[Nov. 29th, 2009|04:51 am] |
"There is a vitality, a life force; a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly - to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."
-Martha Graham in a letter to Agnes DeMillie |
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| I love things like these... |
[Nov. 28th, 2009|05:52 pm] |
"He is a very great loss. He had a large loving mind and the strongest sympathy with the poorer classes."
That was from Queen Victoria, taken from a journal entry two days after Charles Dickens' death in 1870. I love both the genuine feeling of the sentiment and the regal detachment of it. Of one major historical figure commenting on another. |
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| Hey a Movie! |
[Nov. 21st, 2009|10:03 pm] |
So sayeth blogger That Little Round Headed Boy, "This list means nothing, except to me. It's a list of 50 movies that gave me pleasure over the past decade. I can say without reservation that I would watch any of these again. Would I say that all of them are great films, however great films are supposed to be defined? Probably not. But that's nothing you need to worry about. Because it's my list."
I've seen this picked up at faves like Flickhead and The Sheila Variations. I like that he sets it at "favorite" not "best". These are mine, in no particular order.
( Action! ) |
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| Where It's At |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|03:32 pm] |
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Wouldn't do to run out the calendar without getting a whopping two entries logged in. I'm well and I'm not per my usual. I well enough thankfully to be able to ask and reach out for help. I made an appointmen with a therapist for the first week of December and I'm going to apply to Western Carolina's film program for the fall. Otherwise I'm very glad it's sunny and clear, if cold, as the constant rain and gray skies have been driving me to see just how long I can stay in bed before moss starts to grow on me. I'm also coming to a breaking point with my Father, we get along pretty well but he's been using me as his therapist since I was old enough to listen and that has to stop. I've been going through and cleaning up my old papers, it's funny and sad how little has changed when reading journal entries from five years ago. But the whole picture has kept and edged toward the positive and that's what matters. Halloween was quite fun and next year I must do a costume. I've lost much of my taste for Fall but Halloween has grown on me. The best part of looking through my notebooks is all the story ideas and characters I'd forgotten I'd wrote down. These are definitely getting shaken out of the mothballs and being put to work. I like it when a month starts on a Sunday, it feels neater and gives me a nudge to finally start checking off my to do list. Thanksgiving will be very nice this year, I'll finally get to a movie theater again and thanks to an edict from my sister we're only getting a turkey breast so less of the dry, off tasting leftovers. Though I'll be most thankful to have someone around who I can watch MST3K episodes with. As the saying goes the family that riffs together, stays together. |
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| Picture Picture |
[Apr. 12th, 2009|09:10 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  crazy | ] |
1. Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mudpuppy83 picked a pack of:
Late 70s model Margaux Hemingway, sister to Muriel. Icon made by butchiemcgee . I like the blues in the photo, and I'm facinated by the coke fueled models and rock stars Studio 54 scene.
Saw this, had to right click save it. It's Evil!Superman enjoying a drink after a hard day's work of growing a five o'clock shadow. It's perfect for those "Frak the world and every last frakkin' person in it" venting posts.
Detail from "Exotique" from one of my favorite cheesecake artists Olivia (Olivia De Bernardis). Note, don't do a search on her at work.
Close up of Eli from Let the Right One In, one of the best movies I've seen recently. And after some real stinkers like Mesa of Lost Women, it's nice to go back to a film that doesn't make you resentful motion pictures were invented in the first place.
Soledad Miranda, in a scene from Jess Franco's She Killed in Ecstasy, a film which has no right to be as dull as it is. Still, I'm facinated by this piece of apparel, as it appears to be a lighting fixture hammered flat and worn as a top. I give Franco grief but I do miss that brief period of movie making when fashions like this would nary raise an eyebrow.
Eva Green who is French and awesome. And I want that Serafina Pekkala doll like candy.
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| And the darkest hour is just before dawn... |
[Dec. 24th, 2008|03:57 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | M.I.A. Paper Planes | ] |
After being either benignly indifferent to the Holidays, or looking forward to them like, well, a kid at Christmas I reached a point yesterday where I actively hated them. It had been building for a few days and hit critical mass in the late afternoon. I'm tired, broke, and after picking at the paint on the dorm room walls wanting to go home I'm seeing if I can up my return a few days ahead of schedule. Happily a nap seems to have cleared most the blahs, and grrrrs, and Mean Reds right up. Unhappily it means I'm alert and chipper at four AM. My circadian rhythms are apparently acid jazz. The weather has just been so miserable and misery making, I want snow. (And I know all my friends currently digging themselves out several feet of it wish they could lob a hard packed snowball at my head right now.) But as usual it'll probably snow the weekend I go to Chicago, a tradition and hey, then I finally move from loving snow to hating it like any sensible person. But that's a worry for another day, right now the insulation on my nerves has been repaired and I understand why it's more important than ever to graduate with a degree. This Sarlacc pit of a town is waiting should I do poorly again, and I want to be able to stop hating where I grew up. On other fronts I have a new grey market movie to look for, The Christmas Toy, a Jim Henson production I'd never heard of. |
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| Hey! We Did! |
[Nov. 5th, 2008|01:54 am] |
Nice job everybody. The refrain of this campaign was Yes We Can. But I think the most important word turned out to be "No". No to ignorance, to fear, to outright lies. We had the absolute worst of our national character exposed during this election. But in the end we said no, we would not give into it. But instead choose to honor what's best in us and each other. I'm proud to be living here at this moment. Let's get cracking.
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| Cake and Fake |
[Sep. 12th, 2008|05:14 pm] |
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I got my birthday cake today, I'm saving it for tomorrow but I needed cheering up. I'm coming to a rather uncomfortable realization. America, it's going to take Sarah Palin eating a puppy whole on live national television for 51 percent of you to stop acting like she's the cutest lil' button Alaska ever thawed out isn't it? It is? Well good to know then. Meredith is having it's student body elections too. Among the cadidates who genuinely want it, genuinely want it on their resume, and genuinely like making campaign signs with lots of glitter we've got a few Palin-ettes. Their highly glossed lips pulled tight as they speak to you trying to tamp down the loathing they feel for you in every fiber on their being. I wonder if underneath lies a candy pink hyperalloy combat chassis. But I wonder that about far too many people for it to be healthy anyway. |
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| Where It's At |
[Sep. 9th, 2008|11:17 pm] |
Posted a brief update at Sugarbang. I'll try to have my Superzeroes piece up tomorrow. Things are going well I'm back in a good place and have something to work for. My professors are great, I still don't know what I'll major in but sociology and western civilization are my favorite courses so far. With sociology I dig learning that "everybody knows that" and "common knowledge" are neither, and western civilization illuminating how things began. My love of ancient history, particulary Mesopotamian, was defintely stoked by Raiders of the Lost Ark it's boss to think I could make a career of it. |
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| A More Perfect Union |
[Jul. 4th, 2008|02:39 pm] |
Have a good one everybody, and to my overseas friends feel free to partake of, in your own way, a holiday that encourages drinking and setting off explosives.
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| So... |
[Jul. 2nd, 2008|01:18 pm] |
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Meredith reviewed my case and as I qualified for their 23+ program I got accepted! I'm outta this hick town come August and really could break into a number from Xanadu (complete with unearthly glow) at any moment. Thanks to everybody who has been there for me, tolerated my bitch sessions, and pushed me to keep going. It begins again... |
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| Paul Newman's Eyes |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|10:45 am] |
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Back when AMC was worth a damn there was a summer where Long Hot Summer was on constant rotation. And my dad got cable so on the weekends we would spend with him every time it played he, my sister, and I would watch it. They're doing a fiftieth anniversary showing of the film and Dad invited me over to dinner to watch it. It'll feel like I'm fifteen all over again, cube steak sandwiches and being helplessly in love with Paul Newman. Wall-E was superb, easily Pixar's best work to date and with a generosity of spirit to all its characters mechanical and otherwise. The preceding short set the tone of the evening and was a worthy successor to some of the more antic Looney Tunes shorts. It speaks well to taking a bit of the film's anti consumerist, but non preachy, message to heart when after I raved that this would finally push me to get a bluray player and and hdtv I realized that I should just try to catch it on the screen once or twice more as that will be the acme of the presentation of its breathtaking space set pieces and just get the regular dvd which will play crisp and bright on my computer monitor. And after a typically abominable, chicken grease splattered day at work I bought a little fern plant. I always want something alive in my room. My orchid plant didn't die, they're remarkably hardy, but that's it for it for a while until it decides to bloom again. The fern will tide me over until I can get to the nifty greenhouse in Etowah run by a very cool couple who specialize in orchids. They're another bit of extraordinary in the grey ordinary that I snatch and file away for my stories. I dig anybody who does their own thing without apology and without hurting anyone. |
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| If At First You Don't Succeed Try Picking Up a Drinking Problem |
[Jun. 27th, 2008|11:28 pm] |
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Meredith said no, not a final no, but a not now no. So there's still a flicker of hope, I'm just so tired. I care tremendously what other people think. I care far too much what other people think. I measure myself against others when I try not to. So I feel worse about this than I should. And for all my posturing about not wanting to be part of the herd I'm very concerned that the herd should think me smart, witty, and special. I coasted in highschool and got away with it and it fell apart after that. I had to go to summer school to makeup a math credit. I hated high school so much I didn't care I wasn't graduating with them. But I passed and I went to college as planned. I wasn't prepared for college life, to attending my classes, I didn't find a core group of friends that would have been a life support system, and my anxiety, depression, and insomina which had started in middle school were roiling to a boil. I was put on academic probation in spring of 2002, and I was one point shy of the 2.0 that would have let me continue in the fall. And I've been treading water ever since. I'm still embarassed I'm going to community college as I thought I was going to a regular four year university. I still haven't shaken off the sterotype that it's for folks interested in A.C. repair and Data Processing. It's a good school with good teachers and that I didn't do well there my first few years embarassed me further. I finally gave in and started taking medication in fall of 2004, the year I would have graduated from UNCG, and things turned around somewhat. I applied to Western, another school I thought I was too good for as it has the reputation of being the school you went to if you wanted to major in alchool poisoning. It was another sting when I was turned down. Meredith was kind in their letter at least, they want to meet with me to discuss what I need to be accepted, and I'll talk with my guidance conselor at school to see if I've completed my core credits and how to sell myself as an ideal student to prospective schools. I'll be sending out applications to Western (third time's the "you really didn't get the hint, did you?"), Appalachian, and UNCA for spring too. I sometimes write out the thunddingly obvious as I'm often paralyzed by racing thoughts. Putting down on paper or screen information or what I'm feeling in clear precise chunks makes it manageable. I'm also going to do some Soviet style editing of previous entries as a theapeutic measure. My real life may be a junk drawer but there is a clear narrative in the life I choose to publish. I'm just sorry I let that little girl down, who was so bright, and couldn't help raising her hand too much in class. Who caught hell for being smart and liking it. Who watched Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Sesame Street, and Reading Rainbow everyday after school. And had her mind opened to the possibilities of the world, from being a ballet dancer to an archaeologist. Who right now should be interning at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, or should be a contributing writer and editior to a small magazine while keeping it together as a freelancer, or should have just finished editing her first feature film. I don't know how to say how sorry I am to that little girl. |
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| Turn the World Around |
[Jun. 24th, 2008|11:06 pm] |
So we have a new assistant manager. He spent yesterday and, judging by his behavior when I went in today to check my schedule, engaged in the process of pissing in corners to mark his territory and letting everyone beneath him know that he is middle managment and his will is iron and his judgement steel. He went into Defcon 4 when we sold out of rotisserie chickens at 6. I had to explain why we'd come up short while waiting on a customer who was drawing her lips in tighter and tighter as I did not have my full attention on her. I made four more which didn't sell as people have already bought the chicken that will be that night's dinner by 6. And if you were one of those who came in and could not get a chicken and complained I'm sorry that we ruined Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter forever and told you Jesus wasn't real. In honor of the late Mr. Carlin the trifecta of managment can be described thusly as Asshole, Dickweed, and Jackoff.
My mother stopped by later picking up a few groceries and to give me an update on my sister's European adventures. Dear Jules was complaining about the price of crepes in Paris, adding a dash of tabasco to the rapidly pilling salt in my wounds. But class was nice today, I love school, I hold on to that like a lifeline. And when I got home there was a postcard from sis sent from Amsterdamn, the card coming from the Anne Frank museum. Reflecting on that image my petty troubles became even pettier and meaningless. Then I opened my package from Floresta about the Haitian village I'm helping to sponsor and the flood of seeing how fortunate I am made me rebuke my thoughts about my job. I should be grateful for it, and being glad I'm employed does not mean I have to stop thinking that managment needs to be eaten alive by jackals. The best reactions to negativity is a positive action to cancel it. Simple but too easy to forget. |
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| Summer Has No Memory |
[Jun. 22nd, 2008|10:56 pm] |
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The cherry trees are full to bursting, the figs are filling out, and the blueberries and peaches are jade pale, saving their colors for summer's last gleaming. But solstice has passed and summer is here. When rain breaks the humidity it brings with it a breeze that seems to carry you down the street and send your heart and thoughts soaring. I walk down tree lined Main Street and forget all my petty dislikes for where I live. Nights are cool and dotted with fireflies. Walking into the yard at night to see the trees twinkle you would think a hand full of stars had fallen. John Phillip Law and Cyd Charisse have passed away. And while the world suffers a dangerous drop in its achingly cool levels, if it should happen, like it has to happen, that it would take place in summer when life and nature are at their peaks, and a reminder that winter is only marking time, it seems fitting. And cause to spin Danger: Diabolik! and Singin' in the Rain with friends and a bucket of beer on ice when nights turn swamp thick in July. I'm in a much better place than I have been for a long time. I think living vicariously through my sister's Eurotrip has energized me to the possibilities of the world, whether it's eating fried pineapple in Prague, or singing Bohemian Rhapsody with a group of friendly English backpackers in Amsterdam. I'm not dreading so much turning 25 in September. I won't ever be a girl in a commercial without a hair or word out of place, and I never should have thought I needed to be. I'm making my peace with that. Just walking underneath the apple trees, or looking through a pair of binoculars at the woods across the creek, the lenses transform what was an anonymous green mass into a beguiling window to a different world all together. Then I see how small my doubts are. I don't know if I'll be doing any serious traveling at the end of the summer but I'm doing well in school. And for all the talk of broadening my mind and feeling proud I finally read Amusing Ourselves to Death I'm helpless against summer. Sometimes the perfect end to a day of perfect weather is a viewing of Girls Town. A case could be made that this fits too, that the helplessly ripe Mamie Van Doren is the b-movie goddess of summer. That time where we take vacations to make our fantasies flesh.
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| Universal Healthwhere? |
[Apr. 27th, 2008|05:59 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "The Big Sky" Kate Bush | ] |
Rather than play catch up over the past month, I'll let Steve do the talking for this one...
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| Here I Go Again |
[Feb. 21st, 2008|10:15 pm] |
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...ON MY OWWWWWWWWWWN (sorry). I think I might head to Europe this summer. I'd meet up with my sister for a day or two (she's doing her own backpacking thing) and hopefully meet some London friends face to face. I'm still wincing from some of my classmates' behavior, their slack mouth disinterest in anything other than their cellphones and clock watching is disheartening. Our professor is good and probably the toughest I've had. I like it that I can't fake my way through yet another class. So it's learning how things have come to be so terrible for a semester until I switch to several new courses for the summer. And in the not so higher learning, or any learning really department my long, long journey through Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is about to come to an end. But as I apparently can't learn from history either next up is Galactica 1980. |
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