BELLA BY BARLIGHT

It's amazing they can fly at all, actually...

2007-02-05T21:37:00.000-08:00

Geese: Of the non-Canadian variety. Taken today at noon'ish near my office.

I'm back... I think. Trying to catch up on very belated emails (you know who you are... sorry for the delay). Took a break from blogging, and photography for a bit while I dealt with some health issues and got caught up on all the life stuff that was on hold while I spent what little energy I had working.

I spent last week in Vegas on a business thingy and managed to squeeze some fun into the trip. I highly recommend getting assimilated by the Borg at the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton, and strongly recommend that you avoid the Romulan Ale in Quark's bar. Not because it's strong.... on the contrary. It tastes like Miller Light with blue food coloring.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

Gingerflies

2006-12-16T15:18:00.000-08:00

I'm fully in favor of freedom of religion, but don't fuck with my baking!

2006-12-05T06:20:00.000-08:00

The woman who lives downstairs from me is a Buddhist, and I've never thought one way or the other about that until last week when I sat down to take my boots off when I got home from work, and a mouse darted out of my kitchen. Keep in mind I live in the 4th floor attic... this mouse didn't just saunter in off the street that afternoon!

It turns out, other people in the house have known about the mouse problem and had taken to setting humane traps (catch and release style) to deal with the problem.

No one told me, but in an effort to control the problem, there's been a sort of policy of not leaving any food unwrapped. Makes perfect sense anyway in a general sort of sense, but WHAT ABOUT MY COOKIES?????

For the past several years I've been making gingerbread cookies that I spend quite a lot of time decorating - they take 24 hours to dry, and they need to be uncovered while they do. I'm wondering how to deal with this. I understand not wanting to kill another living creature - It's not like I'm some kind of murderous mouse killer myself, but what about my cookies!

Apparently the people on the ground floor offered to call an exterminator, but "Middle Floor" doesn't want the murder of mice on her karma.

Color me cranky.

S'okay, but it needs more Mary...

2006-12-04T22:54:00.000-08:00

I saw Ludacris on Saturday Night Live a couple of weeks ago and he did this song called Runaway Love which was okay, until Mary J. Blige joined him on stage to sing the chorus and brought the most spine tingling power to what was otherwise a fairly mediocre tune. I was completely riveted when MJB came on stage - In fact I was about to shut off the TV and go to sleep until I became paralyzed by the power of her presence on stage and the intensity of her voice. Anyway, I downloaded the song from iTunes (the uncensored version - since the song is essentially about sexual exploitation, but doesn't contain any swear-words, I can only assume it got a parental advisory warning because it contains the word "Abortion"). In the recorded version, the backup chorus is just that, a back-up chorus to Ludacris's vocals... it doesn't work. Actually, what would be ideal is, take Ludacris out of the mix all together and give the song to Mary.

The last of the snow photos

2006-12-04T22:33:00.000-08:00

Hello, and welcome visitors! The lovely Sheila O'Malley has posted some links to my humble blog over at http://www.sheilaomalley.com/ and suddenly my average number of visitors has gone from roughly 5/day to over 80! So welcome my new visitors, and thank you to Sheila for her kind words which have encouraged me.

Breakfast view

2006-11-29T21:04:00.000-08:00

2006-11-28T06:24:00.000-08:00

Winter Wonderland

2006-11-27T21:01:00.000-08:00

Friday night I went out with my dear friend Peter who was one of my primary partners in crime when I lived in San Francisco, and who I haven't seen in very very long time. It was marvelous to see him, but strange to be out with him and actually feel... COLD! I woke up the next morning to this spectacular view:

By mid-afternoon, the sky was dark with clouds and it started to snow.

... and it snowed

... and it snowed...

... and then it got cold...

Sadly, I will have to go back to work tomorrow, but maybe I can sneak out of the office at lunchtime and take some more photos.

2006-11-21T22:01:00.000-08:00

Mystery Malady

2006-11-16T18:04:00.000-08:00

I have non specific symptoms include general aches and pains, feeling like I could sleep for a month and chills. Previously I had a fever but that's gone now. It's all a bit strange mainly because I don't have any specific symptoms. Like, if I at least had a sore throat or runny nose or something I'd put this all down to the flu. Anyway, I went to the doctor who sent me for a battery of blood tests. I'm half hoping there will be nothing wrong with me at all and they'll call me up and tell me I'm a hypochondriac. On the other hand, I'd hate to think that the way I feel right now is in any way "normal" or something I've just got to get used to.

Southeast winds 60 to 100 km/h to continue today over the south and central coast.

2006-11-15T23:43:00.000-08:00

Click to Play

From Environment Canada: This is a warning that damaging winds are imminent or occurring in these regions. Monitor weather conditions..Listen for updated statements. This video was filmed this afternoon through my bedroom window.

Photographer as subject

2006-11-14T03:02:00.000-08:00

This is a photograph of me:

Taken while I was taking this photograph:

Yellow Teapot

2006-11-14T02:57:00.000-08:00

experimental technique: this photo was taken with a canon G5, pointed at the viewfinder of an old twin reflex minolta autocord.

Urban Art

2006-11-03T10:06:00.000-08:00

Rotect Freezable, originally uploaded by bella1000.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

2006-10-30T21:39:00.000-08:00

2006-10-26T18:53:00.000-07:00

Muse news

2006-10-05T01:05:00.000-07:00

I read a couple of articles recently about Leonard Cohen's inspiration for his poem/song, "Suzanne". One talked about the recent renovations to the small, now "boutique" hotel in Montreal where Suzanne Verdal had a room in the 1960's: her "place by the River." The other article talked about Suzanne herself, who is now virtually homeless and lives out of the back of a renovated wood camper in California. In this second article, an academic speculates on the rights and responsabilities of The Muse: "Is the muse expendable? Perhaps....The muse is the source of what there is, the inspiration. Does the muse have a claim on anything more than that role? My instinct tells me no."

I imagine it would be the death of poetry if artists began having to pay licensing fees or royalties to the people who serve as their creative inspiration, yet at the same time, I can't help but feel irked at the injustice of Verdal's situation. Cohen and others have profited from the song Verdal inspired. The hotel, in the hands of the right marketing manager, can claim landmark status because Verdal once kept a small room there - all while Verdal herself lives out of the back of a truck.

As far as I know, I've never been anybody's muse. I likely don't have the right temperament for it. Maybe I'm not mysterious enough,or beautiful enough, or exotic enough - Maybe I lack that intangible "X" factor that gives certain people a luminous aura that draws one in like a moth to a flame. Maybe it's because it's obvious that I'd only end up wanting to art direct the project myself (which obviously would ruin everything). The one thing I'm really not is passive.

Does the muse get to have his or her own creative life?

I wish that Leonard Cohen would buy Suzanne Verdal a place by a river so she could park her van for a while. Or a place in Venice Beach overlooking the Pacific. Whatever. There's something disturbing about the disposability of the Muse.

Leonard Cohen - Suzanne

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover

And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.


Leonard Cohen - "Suzanne"

2006-10-04T23:43:00.000-07:00

Beloved Beast

2006-09-24T19:57:00.000-07:00

My true first love. He was buried in the back of my closet which I just cleaned out and reorganized. Aside from ancient injuries, he's doing pretty well though a few foam pellets escaped from his armpit as I set up this shot.

2006-09-23T15:58:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday - view from the bus on my way home from work

This morning - view from my front window

The rain was nice. It's been such a lovely but unusually dry summer. The bad part was how brown everything turned in the emerald city. A week ago even hardy old trees in the park were turning crunchy at their tender leaf-tips from lack of rain.

This morning I got up at 7:00 a.m to get this shot:

I pass by this park on the bus every morning on my way to work, and when the sun is coming up the light in the park is so lovely that more than once I've been tempted to get off the bus to snap a photo - call in a traffic-jam excuse for my lateness. It was difficult to get a shot that wasn't full of oldsters out for their morning constitutional.

I'm not sure this shot was actually worth getting up early for. The park looks more magical when I'm stuttering by on a crowded bus than it did this morning when I had all the time in the world to linger.

2006-08-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

Judyta Shoup just emailed me to say that It is common to have some problems with erecxtion and that I might want to Try VIfAGRA.

THANKS JUDYTA!

Dinner Science Experiment!

2006-08-15T23:32:00.000-07:00

"Les poissons
Les poissons
How I love les poissons
Love to chop
And to serve little fish
First I cut off their heads
Then I pull out the bones
Ah mais oui
Ca c'est toujours delish
Les poissons
Les poissons
Hee hee hee
Hah hah hah
With the cleaver I hack them in two
I pull out what's inside
And I serve it up fried
God, I love little fishes
Don't you?"

Tentacle monsters

Rinse

Soak

Long Beans

Spice

"Here's something for tempting the palate
Prepared in the classic technique
First you pound the fish flat with a mallet
Then you slash through the skin
Give the belly a slice
Then you rub some salt in
'Cause that makes it taste nice"

Squid with cilantro, chili and lime. Knotted long beans with sweet rice vinegar, fleur de sel, and crunchy onion bits.

I'd love to go camping with you but....

2006-08-14T23:42:00.000-07:00

I just got this cautionary tale in the form of a t-shirt as a gift from someone who would like to go camping with me. Some people's sense of timing is incomprehensible. I'm mad about the t-shirt though. I never want to take it off - every time I wear it out of the house I feel like I'm doing a community service.

http://www.scarygoround.com/shop-tshirts.php

Happy holiday

2006-08-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

It's some random Canadian holiday today which means I get an extra day off - I'm a happy girl, especially since I think one of the members of my team at work may have quit on friday and this means I get an extra day to strategize before I have to deal with the fallout. To be perfectly honest, she's threatened to quit now so many times, I hope she just up and did it on Friday even though it will mean a lot more work for me over the next couple of months until the dust settles.

I've started planning a holiday adventure for the Autumn. I'm still playing with different ideas - spent a couple of hours browsing travelocity.ca, letsgo.com, and my favorite: lonelyplanet.com

I just checked out Brian's blog and he had planned a trip, cancelled it, then re-changed his mind and is off on a fabulous adventure to the U.K. I was already thinking about my own travel aspirations but now that my sister's baby is here and I've been at my job long enough to have a itty bit of vacation time accrued I've decided that more than anything, I need something to look forward to. And what could be more fun to anticipate, plan for, scheme, and organize than a vacation?

I spoke with my friend Erin on the phone this week and we both got excited at the prospect of meeting in New York for several days to a week in the fall. So there's one part of one plan. Then I started looking into the cost of flights and places to stay in Rome for a week. I wonder if I took a week of vacation, if I could take a week of unpaid leave and go to Rome for a week after my New York trip and fly home from there....

My imagination hasn't been able to let go of this fantasy about going around the world ever since I saw the price for an around-the-world airfare in the window of a Flight Center location a few months ago. The Canadian Flight Center website seems to be malfunctioning at the moment, but have a look at this:

Flightcenter - Around the World

Star Alliance has this:
Star Alliance Round the World Fare fr £1409*
Departing between: 07 Jun 06 - 31 Dec 06
Deal Ends: 31 Aug 06

29,000 miles fare with maximum 15 stops and no seasonality on pricing - Taxes are extra and vary by destination and stops selected.

15 stops may be a bit much for now.

There's this one as well:
One World 4 Continent Fare fr £1389*
The only Round the World fare not based on mileage but on the number of continents visited. (inc continent of origin) Maximum 20 flight segments permitted. taxes are extra and vary by destination and stops selected.

Realistically I don't think I'm going to be able to get the time off work to go on a 'round the world tour this year. I'll put some money aside to do that though. Someone suggested recently that my quality of life would be better if I had a car because then I wouldn't be such a slave to my commuter bus schedule. I have the money to buy a car right now but I don't believe for a second that it would improve my quality of life. The fact that I have a bus to catch at 4:40 sharp means that I leave the office on-time at 4:30 each day. That's a good thing.

No, I'd rather go to Italy, St Petersburg, Krakow, Porto, Mexico City, New York.

I am going to buy a bike next weekend though. Fuck this trying to catch two finicky and erratic express busses. The one doesn't synch up with the other and I waste a lot of time cursing under my breath because I've just missed one or both of them, or the only way to catch one is to catch the earlier one of the other and wait 20 minutes in the middle.

No, a car wont improve my quality of life - but a bike will. My second bus in the morning has a handy dandy bike rack on the front. I just have to figure out where to park my bike once I get to the office.

I'm having dinner with my ex-Andrew - I mean, he's still Andrew, he's my ex, Andrew. I need to work on this punctuation thing. Anyway, he's a great traveler and adventurer, and I'm looking forward to catching up with him and exchanging stories. We haven't seen each other in almost five years so between us, we'll have a lot of stories to tell over a big plate of BBQ and some frosty mugs of cold beer.

Share your adventure stories in the comments section. Where should I go? Where have you been? What did you like about it?

Me: Prague day 1 spring 1999 - Photo by Andrew

I just installed an extra Gig of ram in my macbook pro.

2006-08-05T12:46:00.000-07:00

ALL BY MYSELF!

I = L33t H@X0r!

Anyway, it was that or sell this computer and replace it with one that will actually "go". I got the standard memory package - 512, and despite the fact that that was all my old computer had, this machine ran super slow. Disappointing. It has had the worst trouble running iTunes and iPhoto at the same time, and doesn't everyone who *has* a mac use both those programs constantly and at the same time - even running both in the background while they buy plane tickets online and fart around between other programs? Honestly. Running both of those programs in the background seems like standard operating procedure to me. Apparently not because I spent an awful lot of time sitting in front of the computer watching the ghey-ass little rainbow mobile spin around.

Now I have a gig and a half of ram. Yay me. I mean, YAY ME!!!!!!!

I just ran an impromptu stress test: With itunes playing in the background ("Corporeal" by Broadcast, if you're interested) I attempted to open, simultaneously, iWeb, iCal, Garage Band, Extensis Suitcase, Pages, Flickr uploader, iphoto and safari.

Result: Two thumbs up.

2006-08-04T22:20:00.000-07:00

Struck chords and repeating choruses

2006-08-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

"I think of you every time I hear 'Maggie May'," Jasper said with more than a touch of bitterness in his voice. I wasn't naive enough to be flattered. Never mind that, at the time, I was only twenty two years old and he was, in fact, a year older than me. Okay, so the Mrs. Robinson dynamic wasn't there, but maybe I did "wreck [his] bed, and in the morning kick [him] in the head" and maybe he couldn't - really really couldn't - "try any more."

I associate certain pieces of music with certain people too, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the musical association was as galling to these hapless victims as J's associative confession was to me.

"You're All I Need To Get By" by Aretha Franklin, for example, reminds me of Bobalicious because I used to pop a quarter into the juke box during our once/month breakfast date just to hear that song - even though he was much, much less than I needed. If he were cloned 20 times he might have been halfway there...

"The Love Cats" by The Cure reminds me of my first passionate teenage fling so potently, I still can't listen to it without feeling sick to my stomach.

"Use Me Up" by Bill Whithers... I haven't met that person yet.

There are songs that changed me. For whatever reason, and they remind me more of the person I was at the time, than the person I was with. Embarrassing songs. Songs I could potentially hate myself for loving. A certain Whitney Houston song comes to mind.

"Get Another Plan" became my anthem and mantra the first time I heard it. And to this day, when it's time to reevaluate a situation, when my life feels as though it's in another one of it's cyclical holding patterns, the chorus of this song strikes up it's repetitive refrain, "I need another plan/ I need another plan / I need another plan/ 'cause this ones not working.'"

The 50th or so time I listened to "That's Me Trying" from last years William Shatner album Has Been (hey don't knock it until you've listened to it), I phoned my dad and we met and had lunch and talked for the first time in over four years.

Finally, there are some people who get so deep under your skin that every song you hear becomes infused with iconic significance.

It's almost an anniversary of sorts for me right now. A year ago I wrote the last exam of my degree - I studied too hard for it, it was stupid and easy, and despite the heavy thud of sadness I felt in my bowels, I wrote the exam in record time - but not fast enough to say a second farewell to C before he flew home and before the tide of pre-made plans drew me on and away from the nest we shared for two weeks. Lots of sad songs remind me of last year, but it's kind of backwards... I was so - happy!

So, there's a song - here's a song that lets me remember that time with a broad smile on my face. With apologies to c... but, at least it's not Maggie May.

Here she is!

2006-07-31T21:37:00.000-07:00

Sophia has entered the building:

2006-07-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

The doctors ended up performing a cesarean, but Sarah and baby Sophia are both doing well. I just got back from the hospital where I got to hold the baby briefly before her other aunt who has a voice like Fran Drescher said, "I want the baby back" and to make her stop talking as quickly as possible, I immediately complied with her request.

No photos yet... I'll let mother and child recover from their recent ordeal first.

To market

2006-07-24T22:59:00.000-07:00

2006-07-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

Musical Podcast

2006-07-20T00:22:00.000-07:00

LINK TO PODCAST

I'm trying to figure out how this works in part because I've been brainstorming content development for our company intranet (which currently has on it's home page, the most horrible photo of a bunch of staff at our recent salmon BBQ - mouths full and cheeks puffed out with food, and somehow cross-eyed as well).

I tried to record my voice, but the audio levels were really low, so that's something to try next time. Next time I'll also try to develop a more interesting playlist.

I think if you go to my .mac site, you can either listen online, or you can subscribe to the podcast and if you have iTunes installed, it will download and play in that - then you can listen to it later, and I think skip ahead, though maybe not. If someone can let me know if this worked for them, I would appreciate it!

The reverse metrosexual

2006-07-10T21:47:00.000-07:00

You can't get much more confident than this guy... he used to wheel past me every morning when I was walking to work in San Francisco. Every morning it was some version of the above outfit: Fleece, kaki pants, Hawaiian shirt, ponytail, fanny-pack, camera slung over his shoulder, dorky scooter thing. The hat seemed to be optional. He wasn't a young dude either - maybe late 30's or early 40's...

Just one of the photos I salvaged in my hard-drive resuscitation surgery. Imagine the loss to the historical record if this photo had been lost forever! I know, it's unthinkable.

Is there a "right" reason to want to have a baby?

2006-07-05T22:23:00.000-07:00

My sister is due to deliver her first child (I'll be a first time auntie) soon. Last week I thought it was any day now, but it turns out I was wrong - "any day now" apparently meant "any day now it will be the point in the pregnancy when it could be any day now". So, now we are at the any day now stage for real, and "any day now" means any time between now and three weeks from now. WTF?

Anyway, I've been feeling quite introspective about the whole thing. I got the news of my infertility about ten years ago and it came as a terrible blow. Not because I was actively trying to conceive at the time, but because I was in my mid-twenties, and I always assumed that at some point, if I felt like getting pregnant, I just ... would. More or less. I knew there was something not quite right, but my doctor wasn't too concerned so it took some persuasion to convince her to send me for a battery of tests and to a specialist who, when I saw him, walked in and said, "bla bla bla, so you'll never be able to get pregnant." Until that moment I didn't think I cared one way or the other, but hearing him say, "never" came as such a shock emotionally, it felt as if the child I wasn't consciously aware of even wanting, suddenly died in my arm. I stumbled out of his office and cried all the way home.

Over the years I've grown so used to the idea of not having a child, that I've almost convinced myself I don't want one. The truth is more complicated. Truths are funny that way. Going to University gave me some sense of a larger purpose for myself, or maybe it was just the seemingly never ending string of deadlines and due dates that made me feel like what I was doing was enough - was important.

Now suddenly I'm looking at my life again and wondering, "is that all?" Is this it then? Work?" Don't get me wrong, I've got a great family, great friends. I like the fact that I can plan vacations, that I have money to spare (a little bit anyway), that I can come and go as I please, that I could sell everything I own, pack my bags and bugger off to where ever the hell I chose at a moments notice without having to wonder, "do they have good public schools there?" I like the fact that, if I'm not very hungry, I don't have to make dinner - I can stand over the sink and eat a bowl of freshly picked blueberries like I did tonight and be accountable to no one.

But at some point doesn't that luxury wear a little thin? The way my life is set up right now, I don't even have a regular enough schedule to get a dog let alone have a baby, even if I actually *could*.

Maybe I'm just suffering from some sort of Contact Hormoneitis, but I wonder. At one point I started to look into adoption, but that was just before I started back to school and that was followed up by a sad break-up with my then partner and since then I've more or less abandoned the idea. I'm getting older, I'd want to be in an established relationship first, and "how do you feel about adopting a baby" isn't exactly the kind of romantic small talk that will get you a second date. Then I also wonder, what is the right reason to want to raise a child? I cringe at the idea of people having children because they're looking for that relationship to fulfill them - that's a lot of pressure!

When I was seven or eight I told my grandmother one evening when we were walking along the river after dinner, "I'm never having babies! I'm going to adopt them though because there are so many children without mommies." I remember getting really pissed off because she said, "oh, you'll change your mind when you're older." I still like the idea of adopting a child. I think I'd be a good mum too, even without the luxuries of a two car garage and spring break vacations to Disneyland. But I wouldn't want to do it on my own, and there's the rub.

"Any day now" I'll be an auntie, and maybe I'll find that is enough. Or I wont find it enough. Either way, I'm going to love this kid like crazy, and I can't wait to meet her (we already know it's a girl) but I'll still probably cry all the way home from the hospital. Not out of bitterness for what I can't have, but out of sadness for that lost potential - that imagined child I never thought I wanted until the possibility of meeting him or her was taken from me. I think my kid would have been pretty freakin' cool.

ramdom photo

2006-07-04T00:21:00.000-07:00

Random photo

2006-07-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

Four Seasons Suite

2006-05-30T22:35:00.000-07:00

2006-05-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

2006-05-25T19:23:00.001-07:00

2006-05-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

2006-05-25T18:49:00.000-07:00

Aint no holla-back girl

2006-05-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

Meaning I'm behind in my email correspondence.

HOLLA!

Why do I always think of something clever to say when I'm on the bus and far from a computer internets blog thing? Maybe I'm not bored enough when I'm home. Maybe I'm just not home enough. I dunno.

I've turned into one of those boring people who just works. That's it. I started writing a series of short stories and my main character was so boring I wanted to kick him in the teeth. Fucking architects.

Snore.

Anyway, I invented a friend for him - a complete and utter reprobate who lives by the slogan, "women ain't nothin' but bitchez and hoes". Suddenly I'm interested in this project again. My initial story was suffering from a near fatal testosterone deficiency.

oh! one more thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-05-03T16:52:00.000-07:00

Oops never 5mind timesup

I'm stranded at O'Hare International Airport

2006-05-03T16:45:00.000-07:00

But only for another couple of hours. I found this "gate station" internet thingy and put my 5$ bill in the red blinking mouth part and now I'm at my blog. Hello.

So, the the high point of High_Point (gag, sorry) was def. not the hotel. Or the market. Or the flight, or anything else. The high point of the trip was getting lost and winding up on a little street lined with single story, two room brick military style housing with big ol' porches and finding a drive-way lined with mamoth hideous!!!!! wood carved statues of hideous strangely painted things such as an amazon, a monster thing, etc. Very ugly, very roadside attraction. Maybe it was very North Carolina, but I doubt it from what little of it I saw. I was glad we got lost.

There wasn't anything really to take photos of on this trip. The furniture market things were camera free zones, and the hotel was a boring old sheraton though I took a groovy photo of a my beauty products in the bafroom.

Well, my minutes are up on this internet zone doolybob, so aloha until another time.

I'm not sure the R1 takes better photos, but it takes bigger photos

2006-04-30T17:25:00.000-07:00

No time to post 'cause I have to pack and tidy up this dump before I head off on my A#1 bidness trip to the furniture capitol of the wizorld. I mentioned some blossoms recently. Here's a taste.

Photo Projects and Studies

2006-04-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

Abstract experiments:

2006-04-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

Without access to a "real" computer for a while, I've been taking fewer photos than usual, but of course, there were still a lot on the camera today when I finally plugged my camera into my new Macbook. I have a new camera too, the Sony cybershot R1, but I haven't uploaded any of the photos yet and probably wont until tomorrow. Afterall, it's almost bedtime! Actually, I wasn't going to post at all tonight, but I've been away from my pretty blog for so long, and I'm excited to upload some of these photographs. The abstract ones above and the photos that follow were taken with my Canon G5. I planned to sell my camera to help pay for my new Sony, but when I thought about parting with it, I felt like puking. I love this camera, and now that I see these photos, I remember why. I think the Sony takes amazing photos, (10.3 megapixels!!!) but I'm not familiar with the switches yet.

I'm wanting to do more abstract photography, more staged installations, but these ones are nice too: just a bunch of fairly conventional photos taken around the city over the past month or so.

I'll have lots more to post when I get back from North Carolina Next Thursday.

My commute to work:

Natural Elements:

2006-04-16T14:59:00.000-07:00

The art bidness.

2006-03-14T19:57:00.000-08:00

As you can see, we had some snow here. It was incredibly beautiful for about three hours, it just wasn't quite cold enough to stick around for very long. Ah, but the magnolias are in bloom now!

So anyway, about my job...

I'm still waiting for my biorhythm whatsits to synch up with this new schedule. Getting there.

I've been officially working in the art bidness for five weeks now. I think, in theory at least, this is kind of like my dream job. I get to look at pretty pictures and color chips all day. In between looking at pictures and colors, I write about pretty pictures and colors.

This might just be a case of be careful what you wish for. Let me explain: I get to look at pretty pictures sure, but of course some of the pretty pictures are really crappy art. I'd say there are four categories of art that I deal with.

1) BAD. Bad composition, bad technique, bad color choice.

2) Grade A mediocre. Looks pretty. Composition and content isn't challenging, completely inoffensive. Okay, nothing wrong with "pretty", but totally uninspiring. Boring.

3) Grade B mediocre. Looks okay. Isn't stand-out-bad, but really isn't any kind of good either. This is the kind of stuff that gets churned out by art sweat-shops (I didn't know such things existed). If you squint, Grade B is difficult to distinguish from Grad A.

4) Good. Composition, color palette, and content are interesting, but in the long run, only your granny would dislike what is still essentially a pretty picture.

The crappy stuff is actually pretty easy to deal with. Bad is bad and doesn't require much debate. The trouble I have is with sitting in on art reviews where my colleagues are making comments like, "I don't like that branch on the right, it looks too spikey" or, "can we get the artist to change that from sea-foam to tiffany blue?"

Ah well, I have money in my pocket, I like my colleagues, I've been put in charge of the marketing department, and I will be making my first business trip at the end of April. North Carolina. I feel so... I don't know... businessy.

I didn't really buy 40$ lipstick. Now I'm saving up for a digital SLR camera and a computer with a reliable power supply. (and maybe a vacation)

SHE LIVES!

2006-03-02T23:28:00.000-08:00

Apparently there's some sort of "arctic vortex" swirling around this part of the globe right now, which I guess sort of 'splains wtf is up with the crazy cold weather we've had around here for the past few weeks. Oddly enough there hasn't been much rain - which is fantastic since my new employed lifestyle involves stupid amounts of time standing around at bus stops. Fortunately, that's the only part of my new job that sucks.

Did I mention I have the coolest job evah?????

I get to look at pretty pictures and write about them and research color and design trends and photoshop stuff. One of the thingies I wrote last week will be appearing in a fancy magazine next month, and they're already talking about making it the cover feature. The business park where my office is located has a huge gym which I've joined, so between long days spent in front of a computer looking at pictures and writing about them, my stupidly long commute, and going to the gym after work, my day works like this: get up at 5:50 a.m, leave for work at 6:45, arrive at work at 7:40. Leave work at 4:30 go to the gym, leave the gym at 6:10 pm to catch the bus at 6:25 p.m, arrive home at 7:30 p.m. At which point I am more or less catatonic which is why I haven't blogged or sent any emails of any length for the past few weeks.

I took my camera to work with me the other day and took some photos on my lunchtime walk along the river (there's a river near my office). I saw some ducks and some geese, some daffodils and some cherry blossoms, and almost lost a finger to frostbite. Bloody hell it's been cold.

Tonight I downloaded all of Rod Stewarts greatest hits. I'm not sure why I'm telling you this except that I think it encapsulates my current mental state.

Today I discovered a ridiculous amount of money in my bank account. I celebrated by spending a small fortune at Lululemon Athletica buying new running togs. I tried to think of something I really wanted, could never afford, and would only buy if I won the lottery or something, but the thing I discovered about money is that when you have it, the thing you thought you really wanted - needed even - is less tantalizing when it's only a card-swipe and PIN away. So I didn't buy a $40 lipstick, or a pair of Prada shoes. I bought a "Reverse Crop Slit Boogie,"(black) a "Baja Shape Jacket," (black) a "Sport Tank" (periwinkle) and a "Jazz Wrap SS"(bubblegum) the later being a bubble gum pink plunging neckline number which can't possibly be sports-wear no matter what the label says.

I've realized that deep down I'm hopelessly bourgeois, but with Rod Stewart singing,
You Wear it Well through my headphones, I just can feel bad about it right now. Maybe this weekend I'll go looking for a $40 lipstick.

Lunch photos

2006-02-02T09:30:00.000-08:00

Thai beef-noodle salad with peanut sate

Before any of you pedantic stickler mofos tell me such a thing doesn't exist or I made it wrong, this recipe came out of my head based on almost nothing. Well maybe something I ate once. It tasted yummy, was quite filling, and actually quite low-cal too. The final result was perfect for two people for lunch.

"The True Meaning of Pictures"

2006-01-14T10:39:00.000-08:00

Representation vs exploitation in Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachian Legacy and Lincoln Clarkes' Heroines.

About a month ago I caught a documentary on the photography of Shelby Lee Adams. The True Meaning of Pictures, directed by Canadian documentary film maker Jennifer Baichwal, explores issues of representation and interpretation in the work of a man who has made a career of photographing the rural population of Eastern Kentucky. Baichwal accompanied Adams to a number of the locations where his controversial photos where taken, and the documentary includes interviews with curators, artists, and the subjects of Adam's photos, as well as running commentary by the artist himself on his intention behind individual photographs.

The problem of exploitation vs representation is one that is frequently at issue in the work of photographers, particularly those whose work presents marginalized people. A local example is the controversy surrounding the photographic series Heroines by Lincoln Clarkes who in 1998 released a series of photographs he had taken of women in the Downtown East Side who were i.v. drug users and prostitutes. Some lauded his work for putting a human face on a problem that plagues this city. Others were overwhelmingly critical of Clarkes' work, accusing him of voyeurism and exploitation.

Several years ago I had a short debate with myself over whether to take a photo of a group of Hasidic Jewish boys riding the bumpercars at Coney Island. With their anachronistic hats, ringlets, and long jackets, heads thrown back in laughter, it might have been an amazing photograph. Might have been. I didn't take it. For one thing, some of these subjects were youngish children and I didn't have their parent's permission. More importantly, I didn't have their permission. Even if the photo had been great, I wouldn't have been able to do anything with it. Instead I stole this photo of a guy walking by Dante's Inferno - the fun-house ride. I didn't have the subject's permission to take his photograph, he wasn't participating in the portrait. To be fair, seriously, I was trying to get a shot of the fun-house exterior and this guy got in the way of my shot. As far as I was concerned at the time, that made him fair game from a "personal moral compass" perspective, although probably not from a legal one. Besides, he's an adult, and he isn't identifiable from the photograph. I guess if I had taken the photo of the bumpercar boys, that would be a pretty good example of exploitation. Or, to look at a better example, let's go back to Lincoln Clarkes' work.

Clarkes' argues that his Heroines series was meant to put a human face on a well publicized problem, and I guess in that respect it succeeds. Maybe the problem isn't so much with the success or failure of this work, but of its intent - Clarkes didn't take his inquiry far enough. He does succeed in putting a face on the problem of poor and exploited women, but he fails to convey soul, character, personality, or causation. The viewer doesn't learn any more about these women than the accidental tourist who takes a wrong turn on their walk from Gastown to Chinatown.

Does a photograph succeed if it needs several paragraphs to contextualize it? What's wrong with taking the proverbial "thousand words" a photo conveys, at face value? Some critics have argued that Shelby Lee Adam's photos are exploitative because his subjects are not visually literate enough to understand the way a gallery audience may interpret them. In the first photo I posted above of "Granny" smoking a pipe, the photo viewed by a northern middle class audience can be seen to confirm stereotypes of "poor southern white trash". Those of you who have seen an episode of Saturday Night Live in the past year or so and have seen the skit, "Appalachian Emergency Room" will be familiar with the cliche I'm talking about. It seems Appalachia is still a suitable subject for derision amongst the urban "politically correct" elite. Or to paraphrase one of the critics interviewed in Baichwal's documentary: to be poor in America is bad. To be poor and white in America is almost unforgivable.

What do you see when you look at this photo to the right? In-breeding? Polygamy? Poverty? A family?

The man in the center is the son of a man Adams has photographed for years. The blonde haired woman to the right is his wife. The developmentally disabled woman crouched down on the floor to his left is his sister. This family figures largely in "The True Meaning of Pictures"and it's clear this is a very loving family that has stuck together despite great economic hardships. Adams doesn't claim to be a documentarian. His photos are carefully staged using a full compliment of lights, a large format camera on a tripod and time spent in staging - a process in which his subjects are active participants.

One church lady interviewed in the documentary was harshly critical of Adams', saying that he shouldn't show residents living in such poverty - that it was shameful, and accused him of single-handedly perpetuating the myth of the backward poverty stricken mountain dweller. She wanted to see him photographing more of the pretty parts of the country - people in their Sunday best, posed in a freshly painted room. The question is, would this sanitized fiction bring dignity to the poor? Might it not simply mollify the gallery-going public? It's easier to look at clean happy poor people than dirty tired looking poor people.

Adams' subjects invite him into their homes. Theirs is a world he's been familiar with since childhood. If he's moved away from Eastern Kentucky, it's still "home". In the mid-1960's, a cantakerous old man shot and killed a Canadian journalist for taking photos of his run-down property without permission. So far, Adams has been invited back over a space of decades to photograph the same families over and over again. Maybe the problem isn't with Adams' photographs, but with media portrayals such as "Appalachian Emergency Room," which cause us to look at Adams' work through a lens colored by our own cultural bias, prejudice, and fear.

Finally, I think one of the issues that needs to be mentioned in the context of both Adams' and Clarkes' photographs is one of consent. Each of the subjects of these photographs presumably signed a release - unlike my Dante's Inferno model. Critics of Adams' photographs have argued that his subjects lack the visual literacy to understand the context in which their portraits will be viewed. The question I have regarding Clarkes' photographs, is whether his subjects were able to provide informed consent. I don't know. Maybe my question is insulting to the women who posed for his photographes.

It could be that the most "successful" photograph is the one that challenges the viewer to ask the most questions. Last January I wrote about Uta Barth. I had just fallen completely in love with her portraits of light and color - but these aren't "challenging" images. They still "work".

Despite this long-winded post, I haven't been working up to a grand conclusion. I'm not sure why Adams' photographs are okay with me, but Clarkes' trouble me. Maybe it's because the reality of life in Appalachia is so far removed from my own experience, but I think it might be because Adams' portraits are so intimate. Clarkes' subjects may be looking at the camera, but there's still something guarded in their expression. Maybe the same compositions would have a different implication if the photographer had been female.Certainly, if the camera where in the hands of these women, the implication of this work would be different.

Miss Representation

2006-01-13T15:29:00.000-08:00

So, I haven't been posting much lately and when I do it's usually about something safe and boring. True, I never poured out my soul on this blog. There have been times I've wanted to and there have been times - after the fact - when I've been glad I didn't. Normally I only have about four visitors per day, and that's fine with me. At least I've been able to think that if I did post something indiscreet, I'd only have to kill four people.

I'M KIDDING!

I was surprised by my nomination for a BoB, especially since I was nominated in the art-blog category. I've never really decided what this blog is about, so now I know. The trouble is that since I hung up my camera for a vacation, I haven't had anything to post. Since I still don't have anything "arty" to post, I guess I'll revert back to my usual posting style which consists of banal blathering speckled with a couple of pretty photographs - handy distractions.

Actually, I've been having a rough time lately. It's been interesting to read comments by people on my photos though, and note that I always project such optimism. Andrew at one point commented, "I think your life is just one beautiful event after another." At the time I thought to myself, "if only that were true!" When he made that comment, I was at the tail end of a downward spiral that felt familiar, and yet all my usual "tools" were useless. Oh, it wasn't that bad in retrospect, and it didn't last terribly long. I probably made a bigger deal of it than was necessary. I've suffered from depression most of my life and a bout doesn't usually last very long. This time though, I leaned on the wrong person. Too much weight too quickly, and I broke the poor camel's back.Or at the very least was annoying, needy, clingy and projectile vomited a bloody pool of psychic woe on his best shoes. Sorry about that. Live and learn I guess. How strange that I can simultaneously feel such darkness and despair, and see so much beauty in the most mundane objects.

I've been "head-hunted" for a job in a creative field which I'm quite excited about. the job title is "Production Designer". I've never done this job before but it combines my research background with work in the arts where my interest in color and photography and design will be a benefit. At this place if they say, "you certainly are a creative force!" they wont mean it as an insult. What a revelation! I have a formal meeting with the HR manager and the CCO (Chief Creative Officer) on Wednesday next week. In the mean-time I'm pulling together the fragments of a portfolio I had given up on ever having an opportunity to use.

I realize it's a luxury to be able to take the time necessary to change career paths. I could have taken a job months ago that would have been fine, but instead I've been determined not to go back to my old job, or a job just like my "Old job". I underestimated how difficult it would be, how long it would take. But things are looking up. There are three job prospects on the horizon, one of them reads like it was created just for me.

As far as my grad-school plans go, I've come to the realization that I'm too easily influenced by what other people think. Having said though, I have more or less decided to do my MAS (masters in archival studies). What I have wanted is for someone to tell me, "do this and when you're done you can have this job." That isn't going to happen. Instead I have to think bigger, about what my interests are, and where my talents intersect. One of the reasons I wanted to do a masters in history is because I had a specific project idea in mind, but on further reflection, I've come to the conclusion that I can and probably will tackle that project independently anyway. My protracted job search has lead me to realize that what I *really* want is a vocation. I don't so much care if it is my "calling" or not. Not any more. My calling is always going to be fiddling with my camera and dabbling at bits of writing and as much travel as I can afford. That's it. If I could find the ideal career it would be one that involves toodling around, exploring stacks of information and drawers full of treasures. That's kind of what an archivist does. Some of them anyway. And contrary to the view of a friend who likes to remind me not to get enthusiastic about things, I don't think the employment prospects are all that bleak. Or I could be wrong.

And that's where I'm at this week. My camera battery is charged up and I'm ready to get back to "work". I should have more to post on Monday.

Retrospective and moving on

2006-01-06T16:49:00.000-08:00

Somehow, I'm not sure how yet, I've been short-listed for a BoB - a best of blog award in the category of art/photo blog. I haven't investigated *how* this happy eventuality came about yet - I tend to keep a low profile and usually only have a few visitors per day. All modesty aside however, I'm quite glad to be nominated. My four fans can vote for me at www.bestofblogs.com.

So, wtf is up, my bitchez? I've been on holiday and it's been marvelous. Okay, so one might think the difference between a holiday and real life for the unemployed lady of leisure is an extremely delicate distinction, and you'd be right. The main difference is that I stopped looking for a job and started enjoying my time off. Actually I've been very busy and I'm not complaining.

I haven't taken any photos since the Christmas self-portrait ones. I didn't take any photos at Christmas or New Years. Not even a single "snap-shot" because I left my camera at home and I didn't miss it. However, now I have nothing new to post. Although I don't usually go for retrospectives (I like to look forward, not backward) but I took a lot of photos in 2005, so here are a few of my favorites.

fridge art

2005-12-26T17:46:00.000-08:00

Christmas "object self-portrait"

2005-12-22T16:49:00.000-08:00

This time of year, it seems to me that even the inedible looks delicious if the colours are vivid enough. For Christmas I've had a few photos printed and framed to give as gifts. One of my disappointments was that a photo I posted in my "object self portrait" study in the spring, was shot at low resolution and would only print up to about 3x4 without pixelating. Let that be a lesson to me to always shoot in best quality mode. Anyway, I tried to re-produce the image earlier today since I had some time at home. I thought this would be a fairly easy thing to accomplish but it turns out, even a staged photo is really one-of-a-kind. The light today was all wrong, no matter what I tried. I did get a few new shots to add to my OSP folder on flickr though and here they are: My Object Self Portrait - Part Two, the Christmas Edition.

Happy holidays everyone. See you in the New Year.

X-mas cookies

2005-12-21T21:10:00.000-08:00

Icing and cookies.

Iced cookies

2005-12-20T09:53:00.000-08:00

At this rate, it's unlikely that I'm going to become a world famous Pulitzer prize winning nature photographer, but I'm pretty happy with this photo. The late afternoon light was perfect, most of the pond was frozen, and the ducks were more cooperative than usual.

Seeing as how it's almost Christmas and I haven't done a radio broadcast in some time, I'm planning on uploading something festive later today or tomorrow. Watch this space. And have a happy Christmas or other festive winter holiday.

Return from Mom Island

2005-12-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

Mom Island

2005-12-08T15:36:00.000-08:00

I've been on Mom Island for about a week and a half but I'm going home in less than an hour. My ship sails at 4ish. It's so green here. Relentlessly green. Walking home from "Downtown" Mom Island the other day, I set myself the challenge of photographing every non-green thing I could find but gave up after an hour because the only non-green things I found were brown or green-ish. I did find several patches of red though, I guess I should mention that. Berries and rosehips, that sort of thing. But after I photographed those, well, the only non-green, and I mean *really* non-green things I found were yellow painted tags on powerlines, and a few fluorescent pink strips of plastic ribbon, presumably used to mark the boarder between one guy's patch of green and brown and the next guy's patch of brown and green.

There was a bit of snow the first few days I was here. Not a lot and it melted pretty quickly, but there's nothing quite so pretty as snow falling in the countryside, muffling all that relentless green. Makes it easier to see some of the other colors, such as these pink buds which seem to be seasonally confused.

While I was here, I shared my bed with two murderous cats. The small fluffy cute one called Bunny is especially bloodthirsty, but look so innocent I think her brother Stripe probably gets blamed for the carcasses she leaves at the doorstep. Stripe is long, lean, black and shiny with an intelligent face and a slightly doggish personality. Being here, I can almost understand the instinct that drives those crazy cat ladies. There's something incredibly soothing about having two warm lazy cats waiting for you when you get into bed at night.

I've been reading Henning Mankell mysteries, they're pretty good. I like the descriptions of small swedish towns, and getting a sense of a geography that isn't London, New York, all those fancy places that mysteries take place.

These take place in a little place called Ystad which is a port town in the south of Sweden. I kinda want to go there now. Which makes me think soon maybe I should find and update the post I wrote about a year ago about my dream round-the-world vacation.

And with that, I must go catch a boat.

IT IS SNOWING!

2005-11-29T08:45:00.000-08:00

3-Iron (no spoiler)

2005-11-18T10:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/3_iron.html

Do you suffer from insomnia? Might I make a suggestion? 3-Iron is the solution you've been looking for. Narcotic free 3-Iron will quickly and gently ease you into a peaceful relaxed sleep with no "morning after" hang-over effect. This amazing new award-winning discovery is the solution you've been waiting for. Simply go through your normal evening ritual and half an hour before you would like to fall asleep, insert the 3-Iron™ DVD and view the way you might any other film. Soon you will be waking refreshed and alert following a good nights sleep.

3-Iron. The natural solution you've been looking for.

Disclaimer: 3-Iron should not be consumed in the morning, while at work, or while supervising children. Sleeping on the job has been shown to affect job performance. To achieve maximum benefits from this or any other sleeping aid, make sure you are in bed before taking it. Do not attempt to operate heavy machinery following the consumption of 3-Iron. To do so may cause blindness or even death.

"Estrogen Rock"

2005-11-15T07:28:00.000-08:00

So, I can't claim to have coined a new phrase - a quick google search tells me others have used it before - but it's still the perfect name for the horror show I witnessed (participated in?) on Friday night.

A friend had a spare ticket to see Liz Phair and when I was offered the ticket I wasn't really listening... I said, "when? Ya, okay." I mean, it was a free ticket. To go out to a bar and see a show. For free. And did I mention it was a free ticket? But I should have asked, "who?" I mean Liz Phair she's one of those chicks with a guitar. I hate shit like that. Actually when I was offered the ticket I thought it was for Fiona Apple - a chick with a piano who I don't mind in spite of myself. I always get those two mixed up along with that folk singer chick from the 90's from Alaska - the one with the snaggle-tooth. Anyway, when I caught a clue that I had just agreed to go see Liz Phair I sighed in resignation and put on my boots. It isn't like I had anything better to do, and I thought, "how bad could it be?"

OMIFUCKINGOD.

I went down to the show a little later than usual. Doors were at 8 but I figured if I got there around 10 I'd at least miss the opening band. I should have taken it as a bad sign that I passed a group of people leaving on my way up the stairs to the club. At the top of the stairs I checked my coat and made my way out to the dance floor. Not to dance, to stand around like I always do. First of all, the Commodore was the most empty I've ever seen it. And the crowd... oh man.

Not being a big Liz Phair fan myself, I was a bit confused by the social dynamic happening in the club. The chick on stage (Liz) was wearing something skimpy in a spaghetti strap and had her long blonde hair tousled in a Heather Locklearesque flirt. My confusion stemmed from the apparent disparity between the bottle-blonde nymph on stage and her unfortunate fans. There were three kinds of people at the show: desperate, greasy looking beta males wolfing around the margins of the crowd, ernest frumpy alt-rock females who were probably hot (sorry, hawt) in high school and ... aren't any more. Oh, and me. I was there too. I watched as two girls with slouchy shoulders held hands and nodded knowingly to asinine lyrics. I could just picture them eight years ago, locked in their bedrooms, sulking on their beds, yelling at mom through a locked door, "LEAVE ME ALONE, I HATE YOU!" turn up the music and carefully copy angry lyrics into the back few pages of their diary. This vision gave me vertigo which was compounded when another girl skipped/danced/spasmed past me like a marionette in the hands of a puppeteer with a taste for absinthe.

More people started to leave. The skippy/dancey girl bobbed past me again but was now shadowed by an unattractive "sensitive" and hungry looking dude inexplicably dressed in gortex.

There was so much estrogen in that place I could taste it at the back of my throat. I always think it should smell like patchouli - earthy and raw but in high concentrations it actually smells like Loves Baby Soft - sweet, powdery, clingy, like baby-powder and sex and desperation.

,'

2005-11-14T21:50:00.000-08:00

I don't remember if I mentioned I was reading this. I'm not motoring through it, I pick it up and read a few pages here and there. I'm pretty sure I'm still going to mostly get my its/it's thing fucked up and I'm never going to be a master of punctuation but I had a little chuckle today thinking about the difference between -

I'm Rick James, bitch!

Vs

I'm Rick James' bitch!

2005-11-14T21:15:00.000-08:00

A birds nest is revealed - a couple of leaves hang on for dear life.

Winter is here.

Photo-blog thingy

2005-11-09T14:56:00.000-08:00

I know what you're all thinking,"ya ya ya, another pretty leaf - ho hum." But seriously, isn't that a fucking fantastic leaf? A week ago I picked it off the currant tree/bush thing in the front yard. Well, we don't hardly have a front yard exactly, but there's stuff growing out there that hangs over the front steps and the currant tree thing is one of them. And it has fucking fantastic leaves. This one is fully dried already.

THINGS ARE LOOKING UP, FOLKS!

2005-11-08T22:31:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of some of the jobs I found today!

Mad Science Instructor
National Field Director - Marijuana Policy Project
Fashionista
Copy Ebitor/Writor [sic]
Punk rocker. "This job doesnt involve much, whatever you do day to day is all that is needed"

A short list of needless insults - with examples illustrating correct usage

2005-11-07T17:07:00.000-08:00

What were you back when you had a life, fuckball?

Are you new?

Tenderize this, motherfucker!

Aren't you just the plucky little baddass.

Oh my gawd, I love your car! Is that a Miata?

Asshat.

Just because you sewed button eyes on your tube-sock, doesn't mean you have a girlfriend Basementboy.

Mouth-breathing nuckle dragger says what?

Shut it, ya useless hobag.

Holy Hanna! Isn't he the same fucktard that tried to lick your nipple at last years staff Christmas party?

"...you certainly are creative..."

2005-11-03T14:11:00.000-08:00

Bella's Shadow Puppet Theater <-- click to watch if for some reason you can't see the embedded video above.

No offense to any of the wonderful lawtards reading my blog today, but fuckin' lawyers, man.

First of all, I'm sorry my blog has sucked so much ass recently. Don't think I don't know I've been hit with the boring stick extra hard this month and the past week in particular. So anyway, I had a second interview last Friday for this one job I *thought* I really wanted. My first interview went really well, and I was prepped for the second interview immediately prior to going in for the meeting. I was calm, not nervous. Not arrogant, but well prepared. Or so I thought... DUM DUM DUM, DUMMMMMM MMMMMMMMM.... What I wasn't prepared for, and I don't suppose anyone can ever be prepared for this *really*, is that the interview was conducted by the kind of person who hates the kind of person I am right to the very core of their being.

30 year old female with two law degrees and a PhD in something impressive sounding, wearing a powder blue Ralph Lauren Polo sweater, ill fitting trousers, and sensible shoes.

The kind of person who says, "You certainly are creative..." and what they mean is, "You certainly are flaky" and "You certainly are a freak" and "You certainly are a hopeless loser" but they mean to and will say it with a smile on their face - hence you are "creative" *sneer*.

I'm not sure why this bothers me so much. Like it or not, I certainly am creative. I like making things, experimenting with technology and color and form and ideas. I also happen to be a highly competent person. The two (competence and creativity) don't need to be mutually exclusive. On some level I suppose I myself associate creativity with incompetence which might account for the reason I feel offended when people "accuse" me of being one of those "creative types".

Well, I proved her wrong, dammit. I didn't create a single thing for days and days. I shut down every creative impulse - every suspicious spark of alternative thinking.

I'm not saying I have *talent*! But if I want to make stupid shadow puppet movies on the weekend in my spare time rather than play golf or fucking water polo, what does it matter?

I'm not sure how it happened that so much of the interview time ended up being devoted to a conversation about what essentially comes down to my hobbies.She kept asking me questions about them, even as she was making it clear that she didn't see them as an asset.

Well, live and learn.

Next time I have an interview with a lawyer in a blue Polo sweater, I'll lie and say I like to watch TV or play golf on the weekend.

From Out of Nowhere

2005-11-01T11:05:00.000-08:00

this post comes with theme music - click and download if you like.

Lena Horne, Teddy Wilson and his Orchestra - Out of Nowhere

It is a rainy fucking miserable day. I feel like a lizard in dire need of a warm rock - like my blood is too sluggish to move.

Having said that, I'm going to try going for a run now. I've been hugging the radiator for the past half hour, willing the hot water to brave it up to my forth floor flat from the lazy comfort of the basement. I don't blame it for staying on the lower floors, I have days when four flights of stairs is too far to drag my laundry, and I *used* to have to go to a laundromat.

Weather like this is good for something though. It's really good for putting on Lena Horne, making a mammoth cup of coffee, and reading a book. I mean after the run.

Today I'm reading The Crystal Cabinet: My Childhood at Salterns by Mary Butts, which begins with the most delicious description of yellow mud. There is a lot of that outside today.

The mud in the shallow puddle was lovely, like something you could eat. It happened when the ivy on the porch and on the walls was smooth and glossy and shiny and dripped. You ought to be able to eat it - like cream or the yellow out of the paint-box; you ought to spoon it up. Perhaps something that isn't food and looks as if it ought to be food will taste all right this time.... I splashed full length, and for the quick second, close to the ground where I should not be allowed to stay, my nose in the smooth wet, I put out my tongue. No good, and not so soft. Gritty. So that was mud-taste, the lovely yellow mud that gravel makes. The king - I developed early a child's sense of categories - the king of muds.

I watched Batman Begins last night. I enjoyed it. My expectations of these kind of things are never very high despite the fact that I'm a big action movie fan. Don't get me wrong here, it isn't that I think action movies are good cinema, but they are generally a bit better quality than your average episode of CSI-whatever.

I also rented The Piano but didn't watch it last night. I know some people hated that movie, others loved it. I can't remember what I thought of it, because when I saw it, it was with this guy I was dating who was missing the fingers and thumb on one hand. I never asked him what happened to his fingers, but when whatsisname cut off whatsernames finger, I was so appalled and embarrassed by my own inability to ask the simple question, "dude, what happened to your hand?" that I blocked the film from my memory.

And because I'm a lazy-ass beotch, here is a re-post of that story. The Poet was no Icabod Crane, but 'tis the season for severed limbs and social retardation.

--------------------------------------
http://thediningcar.blogspot.com/2005/02/these-are-no-longer-in-chronological.html

You have to have a certain single mindedness to write a chronological account of your life. You also have to have an interesting life. Notice that popular autobiographies rarely begin with the first conscious thought and progress to the moment the manuscript is sent to the publisher.

I learned two things in my creative non-fiction writing class.

1) Just because it is true doesn't make it interesting.

and this really odd one:

2) The reader needs to know at the end of the story, that the author is okay. That means, if you write something challenging and raw, you should add a ... happy ending? Well no, that's dumb. I've always grappled with this concept. What makes the author "okay"? Why does the reader need to know the author is okay? Somehow I translated that in my own mind, as this:

In order for something to be creative non-fiction (i.e. not simply an exercise in navel gazing) it needs:

A) a thesis
and
B) a resolution.

Both of these are difficult to have in your life, and I think this is one of the reasons that creative non-fiction is called just that: creative. Because sometimes to tell a true story, you need to embellish. Sometime the thesis and the resolution are literary pretensions that have nothing to do with what actually happened.

With that said, I should add that I have not tried to add a "thesis" or "resolution" to these stories. Do you live by a theme? Do you have to weave the untidy strands of your life into an orderly tapestry before you can write about it?

Once I dated a man who was missing the fingers and thumb on his left hand.

Dan was a poet and quite an accomplished one. I still have a couple of his published volumes. I met him one day when I stopped into a bookstore to buy a birthday gift for my sister. The poet was sitting behind a desk reading a book when I walked in. He was spare, thin and pale with light blonde floppy hair, high cheekbones and watery blue eyes, a high forehead and a long straight nose. He looked like he hadn't seen sunlight in months. He looked hungry. I was just wishing I had a snack to offer him when he put down his book and asked if I was looking for anything in particular. I said no, but I was kind of looking for some Hanuman books. Hanuman Books was founded by Italian contemporary artist Francesco Clemente and Raymond Foy. They are out of print now. Anyway, the poet at the bookstore didn't have any in stock. We chatted briefly and he gave me a handbill for a poetry reading happening that night. Not bothering to play the coquette I asked outright, "are you going to be there?"

He was.

After the poetry reading we walked over to the Lotus, a lesbian bar a block away from the Chinese Cultural Center where the reading had been held. We sat in a corner and drank beer. That was when I noticed the fingers. Or rather the lack-there-of.

We had just met, I didn't think it was any of my business where his fingers were, so I didn't ask.

After our beer at the Lotus he drove me home, I invited him in and we had a cup of milky jasmin tea at my kitchen table. He left around two in the morning.

I don't remember what year this was. I also don't know what number I should give him in my list of loves. I do know it was the year The Nightmare Before Christmas came out, because that was what we went to see for our second date.

For our third date he took me to Bruno Marti's La Belle Auberge for a spectacular dinner of pate de fois gras on warmed toast corners, fresh berry sorbet, crackling seared duck confit and some kind of cassoulet. We took our dinner in the Library which we had all to ourselves. It was a quiet evening. Bruno Marti, our chef, served us himself.

We kissed for the first time on the way back to the car after dinner. His nose was cold, there was a chilling fog in the valley and I wanted to draw him into me to somehow shield him from the cold, not just of the weather, but of the world. I wanted to warm and soften all his hard edges.

We drove back into the city and sat in my living room drinking a rustic berry-rich French wine. It was the perfect evening for a couple of young sophisticates. That is, until we bungled the suave tone of the evening by falling upon each other, mouths open, groping, clothes falling away leaving a trail to the bedroom.

Warmed and smoothed, his breathing again soft and regular, we fell asleep in a tangle of bed-sheets.

Several months later I introduced him to my mother when she was in the city. Later she asked me, "what happened to his hand?"

I said, "I don't know. I've never asked."

By then it seemed, I don't know, somehow irrelevant. Like asking a one night stand the morning after, "by the way, what's your name?" knowing you're never going to see them again anyway. Besides, by then I thought I should just know. You know? I should have asked sooner. At first it seemed as though it was none of my business. Later there was so much more we had to talk about. And eventually, it was too late to ask.

I made up some scenarios though. Like, childhood wood-chopping accident. Chef-School accident. Jealous Mafia husband accident, grizzly hangnail accident and Poison Pen accident, and so on.

But I never did ask him, "hey Dan, what happened to your fingers?"

Eventually we drifted apart. Maybe it happened sooner than it had to. Maybe he was thinking, "if she doesn't ask me about my hand by noon on the twelfth of next month, it's over for sure." I flew to Toronto on a business trip and by the time I got back somehow there wasn't much to say to each other. We met one last time and talked in my living room. There was so little to say the words were as out of place as random punctuation on a blank page.

I never saw Dan again and I have no idea where he is now. I'm not sure if this story speaks to a larger theme in my life, no doubt it does. It is probably archetypical in fact. But, the fois gras was delicious, the poetry was great. We laughed without pretension. You might have thought from my failure to enquire as to the whereabouts of Dan's digits, that I somehow managed to feign selective blindness below his left wrist, but I held his fingerless hand inside my mitten when we went for a walk in the snow and really, I didn't think about it much beyond having to occasionally answer the enquiry of a friend, "what happened to Dan's fingers?"

"I don't know. I never asked."
------------------------------------

Maybe later this afternoon I'll write about another love of mine - A certain boy with an Egyptian blue mohawk who serended me with punk rock ballads and was awarded my virginity for the small sum of Elvis Greatest Hits Vol. One and Two.

Punkin

2005-10-16T17:09:00.000-07:00

"It's pretty good, innit?" Mini review

2005-10-13T08:47:00.000-07:00

These things are pretty good:

Is that a kazoo I hear?!

I like it and I'm not even one of those "Stickler" people.

I'm still not sure I *get* what was going on at the ending, but whatever was happening it was disturbing. I also now have a problem with eating squid. Other than that, great film.

I'm not really a fan of the Romantic Comedy as a genre, but I will make exceptions for quirky Australian films about guys who pour cement for a living until a strange accident involving a deck chair and helium balloons. Sooper.

You really have to love a guy you can turn a private worry into a cartoon for all of us to laugh at.

Yeah, I've posted about Metromint water before, but it is getting hard to find so I figure if I want to keep enjoying it, I have to pimp it to increase sales. Go buy a case. I promise it is yummy.

I wasn't really all that interested in this series when I heard about it, but I've been enjoying it.

Bean soup. Who knew it could be so good?

CHIAROSCURO

2005-10-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

(kee-ahr'oh-scyoo"roh): An element in art, chiaroscuro (Italian for lightdark) is defined as a bold contrast between light and dark.

A certain amount of chiaroscuro is the effect of light modelling in painting, where three-dimensional volume is suggested by highlights and shadow. But true chiaroscuro is developed during the 16th century. Dark subjects dramatically lighted by a shaft of light from a single constricted and often unseen source was a compositional device developed by Ugo da Carpi (c.1455-c.1523), Giovanni Baglione (1566–1643) and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610).

View from Interstate 5 - bella by barlight.

One of the last essays I handed in for my degree dealt with the sublime in both Wordsworth's poetry and Constable's paintings.

Constable took a scientific interest in the weather, especially the work of Luke Howard and Thomas Forster who studied cloud formations and weather patterns. This had an immense influence upon his work as is clear by the amount of space he dedicated to complex cloud formations in so many of his paintings. Many of Constable's paintings have one striking feature in common: an uncertain sky. Although it is not always clear if the weather is clearing or darkening, the effect of patches of blue sky peaking out from behind patches of sky that are dark with rain gives Constable's paintings a sense of narrative time passing. If the clouds are clearing, something has come before the moment in time captured by the painting, and if the rain or storm is threatening then there is a future event looming beyond the horizon of the canvas that gives an air of tension to the painting.

Peckham has suggested that one of the critical ideas to develop out of romanticism is that "external reality is a living organism and that the psycho-physical personality is also a living organism" therefore, "change is a positive value; the artists task is to reveal a world in which reality lies in the process of change, not in forms which underlie illusions of mutability."

It sounds a lot like life, this art stuff.

Incidentally, I've changed around the colors of my blog template thingy to reflect a more calm and cheerful emotional state. Or, maybe I should say, "project" since it isn't necessarily a state I've arrived at already, but rather like the changing light in Constable's paintings, just off the canvas but due to arrive any moment.

2005-08-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

TK FEET
Photo: Bella by Barlight

Random photo of the day:

2005-08-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

I DOWNLOADED SOME MUSIC!

2005-08-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

This is what I downloaded!

P.S. iTunes Canada is a perfect example of why the rest of the world thinks Canadians are boring.

Note to self:

2005-08-25T12:26:00.000-07:00

Don't put your cell phone charger in a "safe place" where it will be "easy to find" - you will never see it again.

Interactive barlight chatter

2005-08-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

I just got a 50$ iTunes gift card thingy (only good for iTunes Canada for fuck sake) and I could use some suggestions of music to download. I've posted album reviews on this blog before so regular readers will have some idea of the kind of music I like but I'm very open to suggestions too. What do you have currently in high rotation? What songs can you not live without?

An open letter to John Singleton: (AKA - What were you thinking, man?)

2005-08-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

Re: Four Brothers

Dear Mr. Singleton, What were you thinking? I'm no expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure that movie wasn't just bad, it was terrible. Or to quote Enid from Ghost World, it was "so bad it went past good and back to bad again." Here's a quote from another viewer, this from IMDB: "MOST HARDEST PLOT TO FOLLOW EVER!!!" Granted the person who wrote this doesn't seem to be particularly articulate and may not be especially insightful, but I will verify that this was at least *one* of the MOST HARDEST PLOTS TO FOLLOW EVER! My question, by the way, wasn't rhetorical, I'm really curious, what were you thinking? You seem to have some idea what you're doing, you did afterall produce Hustle and Flow. I'm disappointed, sir, and I didn't go in with especially high expectations. Here are an assortment of things I found problematic about the film. Note, I didn't walk out. I thought to myself, "self, this is a horrible film! Are you going to just sit here and waste another hour and a half of your life you'll never ever get back again?" and I replied, "why yes, yes I am. I'm quite interested to know how much worse it can get!"

I found the flaws in the film so... Fascinating.

Why, for example, did you chose the soundtrack you did? Don't get me wrong, I'm mad about Curtis Mayfield, but, um, the movie is set in contemporary Detroit. I don't know what I would suggest, but maybe ... something more, lets see, CONTEMPORARY? See, I think I know where you were trying to go with this, lets see if I'm right. So, these four brothers were adopted by this crazy cat lady (okay not so much with the cats but whatever) in the mid-1970's? That about right? I'm just guessing here, Marky Mark (sorry, mark wahlberg) is about my age (oh and yes he is... actually he's a bit younger but never mind) which ... yeah okay, so these kids were all adopted roughly around 1970-something. So, I guess from the perspective of setting the mood and so forth, I see what you were trying to get at here. After all, the first dance I learned how to do was The Hustle and it made a big impression on me. So, maybe these guys in Dee-Troit really had Smiling Faces Sometimes going through their head when they showed up to kick some gangsta ass. But, hey Johnny, remember the 80's? And the 90's? They happened in Deee-Troit too, man. And I dunno, maybe it's just me, but this guy Bobby Mercer? He looked more like a Men Without Hats kind of guy than a Jackson Five fan. Safety Dance. And don't give me that whole, Detroit_Soul_City crap. AndrÃ© Benjamin was born in 1975. He nearly missed the 70's altogether.

I forgot to mention, this is merely my own bias showing, but for some reason I don't think "Detroit in the Winter" when I hear Motown tunes, I think "Chicago in the summer". And maybe there's something to this. Someone liked the soundtrack to this flick! But their review just proves my point:

The sweltering fusion rhythms create a malevolently languid backdrop that is perfect for late night hazy listening sessions.

sweltering
languid
hazy

These are all great words to describe soul music, but don't exactly set the tone for DEE-fucking-TROIT IN THE WINTER!

Just sayin'

Another thing I found problematic was the fact that none of the characters were even remotely likeable. I mean, seriously, even the kind hearted old lady, murdered by evil drug lords wasn't terribly sympathetic. I know that scene where her spirit was scolding the boys for shoving too much turkey in their mouths was supposed to be heartwarming and shit, but but it was just kind of annoying. And what was up with all the homophobic crap? The only slightly sympathetic character was the youngest brother. And he dies! Not only does he die, but his older brother is standing over him telling him, "don't die you fucking homo". What is the fuck with that?

There were no good explosions in this movie either, there was too much shooting. And come on, when a gun fight goes on EVEN IN DETROIT for over ten minutes, someone usually calls the cops.

You did a good job with the bad guys even though it was the hardest plot to follow ever. It was pretty cool when that one bad guy made that other bad guy sit at the kiddy table as punishment. Overall though, bad job.

Sincerely,

speaking of spiders...

2005-08-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

There's one building a web across my desk right now - between a painting on the wall, my monitor, my desk lamp, and with any luck it will not add *me* to its triangulation. Or should I say "quadrangulation" in that case.

Last night I finally scanned a bunch of photos I've been meaning to digitize for years. Here are two of them:

This is Rob. He was one of my best friends in grade nine and ten. I think I blogged about him before - we spent one whole summer writing each other love letters but never kissed. I took this photo in the summer at my house. His t-shirt was red. He had dyed his hair black, and I put makeup on him for this photograph. I lit him with a stand-up lamp in the livingroom. The year was 1984.

This is Phil:

We were in love from 1988 (september) until 1990 something or other. I met him in the cafe at school because he looked like a boy I had a crush on in grade 8. Different guy, but all six foot four red haired boys look alike. This photo was taken near VanTerm (Vancouver Terminal - shipping terminal). The car is a Chevy Malibu. That was a great car. Phil left the seminary right before I met him so it isn't my fault his mother went to heaven without having a priest in the family.

Two dinners and a murder:

2005-08-15T16:52:00.000-07:00

First of all, you know what kicks ass? The Kill Bill Vol. 1 Soundtrack, that's what. Right now I'm listening to Don't Let me be Misunderstood by Santa Esmeralda. This is a great song. I used to spend a month every summer in a youth theater program thingy when I was between the ages of 8 and 13, it was super fun. Anyway, one day our teacher brought in this song on vinyl - the original by whatever band it was that did the original - and we had to work out a scene to perform to the music, and some kind of thing that involved choreography. Hmmm, seems a bit complex now. Mind you, this is the same woman who sent a pack of five 11 year olds off by themselves to sit in the bus station of all places to people watch. What a loon.

Anyway, this version makes me want to Flamenco dance. Too bad I don't know how.

It is extremely hot here tonight. It has been hot all weekend. Yesterday I actually developed heat stroke which was super gross. Today I drank about three liters of water and didn't move around too much until the afternoon.

Friday I went to see the Nathaniel Dett Chorale at Christ Church Cathedral. I was invited by the lovely KJ who was my African American History prof. from a couple of semesters ago. Some of you who actually read my blog (hi Darth!) might remember that I nearly failed one of her exams and was so depressed I used Mystery Deodorant of the "Fresh Manly Pine" smelling variety and developed an armpit rash which has lead to many confused people ending up at my blog after googling "itchy armpits."

[incidentally, Battle Without Honor or Humanity by Tomoyasu Hotei,also from the Kill Bill soundtrack is seriously fucking cool too]

Anyways, her gradumacation gift for me (cause I did end up doing fine in her course and made up for my C- with an A on the next assignment and we've since become real life friends) was to take me to this fantastic concert. The lovely Miss P also joined us. The concert was really great, and the conductor talked about the composer and the arrangement of each piece which was really nice. After the concert the three of us went to dinner at this new French bistro place called...

[by the way, I started writing this last night and got too tired to continue so from now on it is today not "tonight". "Tonight" was last night. I have a hangover - too many mojitos. Oopsie]

Cassis. I can't remember the last time I had such a flawless dining experience. Okay, so first of all, there's something really divine about going out to eat with two wonderful warm smart funny women. Who can argue with that? Sharing a bottle of wine to lubricate the conversation, laughing and talking openly - wow. Add spectacular food, a beautiful environment, and impeccable service and you have the evening I had - fan-fuckingtastic.

The next day (Saturday) I went for a long walk with my camera. Now, Thursday was quite cool - slightly overcast all day long and it really cooled down. It smelled like Autumn was in the air and I had to use my duvet to keep warm that night for the first time in almost two months, so for some reason I thought (erroneously) that this was all part of a general "cooling trend". Ha! Saturday was probably the hottest day we've had so far all year. There wasn't a single wisp of cloud in the sky to filter the sun, not a single faint breeze to take the edge off the heat. And I decided to go for a long walk... So anyways, after brazenly walking on the sunny side of the street for an hour thinking, "Oh, I'll just let my shoulders get a *bit* of sun" it was too late for shade. There wasn't any. I kept going along taking pictures until I really couldn't focus any more and then I put my camera in my purse. But did I think to myself, "gosh, Bella! It sure is a hot day! You've sure been in the sun without a hat, sunscreen or bathingsuit for an awfully long time! Maybe you should take the bus home now"? Ha! Of course not! I thought to myself, "I don't feel very well. I better start walking home now cuz it's over five miles!" D'OH! By the time I got home I really really didn't feel very well. I ran and got into a cold bath and after that I was pretty much down for the evening. I did perk up briefly after the bath, but ended up feeling bad bad bad for the rest of the evening. Bad enough to think to myself next time I start to feel like I've had too much sun, "Bella! Look there's a bus stop! GO HOME!" Or at least, "Bella, look there's a cafe with air conditioning! Stop and have a glass of ice tea!" Anything but, "I have a great idea, lets walk home!"

Yesterday I lay low, kept hydrated and saved my energy for another fabulous night out with two more fabulous females. Infobabe (who needs to update her blog more often! [edit: oh, she already did]) and my other bossy friend D joined me for a pitcher of mojitos and some dinner at Havana but didn't drink their fair share (hence my hangover). D and infobabe hadn't ever really met each other before. I tend to have a very compartmentalized life - something I've recently decided to change - and decided that the first step in mixing things up and opening up my life should be to introduce the two best friends. Almost as soon as it occurred to me to have them BOTH join me for dinner rather than see D on Sunday and info on Monday, I realized I was in for ... what? An ambush? No surely not! I knew they would like each other, they are practically the same person. Both brilliant and wise (which is different) and wonderful. The only odd thing about the evening, and it wasn't quite a surprise mind you, is that between the two of them, I felt like a medium or a psychic conduit through which they were able to read each other's minds. Freaky.

Finally, I forgot to mention the murder which occured during my heat-stroke evening some time around four in the morning when I was awake and sitting up in the dark living room nearly naked. I wasn't sure I was awake at first, heat-stroke can do funny things to your brain and when this intruder scuttled across the carpet I wasn't sure it was real. But sure enough, in the bright light of day there on the living room floor was the corpse of my nightmare: The desicated body of my murder victim - head bashed in with a 2L bottle of water.

And that was my weekend. [You know what else is a fucking excellent song? You Can Have it All by the Kaiser Chiefs]

On a slightly less eccentric note:

2005-08-12T02:13:00.000-07:00

Cute animals!

I'm done.

2005-08-04T17:08:00.000-07:00

I got my three hour exam completed in an hour and a half. So that's that.

Here's a fun experiment!

2005-07-31T16:18:00.000-07:00

Pick an album. Any album, but especially one you listened to as a teenager but almost never since. What is it? Does it sound dated? Too much synthesizer? Too much "classic rock"? Too much drug haze to fumble through before you recognize the tune? What do you smell when you hear the music? What half forgotten person suddenly appears before you? Is it summer or winter? Were you in love? Were you locked up in juvie?

Today I put on Thomas Dolby's Flat Earth.

I was 15. It was summer time and the bus drivers were on strike from July to September and all of my friends lived on the other side of town. I didn't have a boyfriend, but I was madly in love with Rob Brown, a tall thin boy with dyed black hair. We wrote each other love letters, made each other mixed tapes. But we never kissed. The air smelled like sun-dried driftwood. The air smelled like longing and loneliness. I wrote in my diary, I listened to Thomas Dolby, and I wrote love letters to Rob Brown.

I Scare Myself
I scare myself just thinking about you
I scare myself when I'm without you
I scare myself the moment that you're going
I scare myself when I let my thoughts run
and when they're running
I keep thinking of you
and when they're running
what can I do?

I scare myself, and I don't mean lightly
I scare myself, it can get frightening
I scare myself, to think what I could do
I scare myself -- it's some kind of voodoo...
and with that voodoo
I keep thinking of you
and with that voodoo
what can I do?

but it's so so very different when we're together
and I'm so so much calmer; I feel better
'cause the stars already crossed our paths forever
and the sooner that you realise it the better
and then I'll be with you and I won't scare myself
and I'll know what to do and I won't scare myself
and my thoughts will run and I won't scare myself
and I'll think of you and I won't scare myself
~Thomas Dolby - I scare myself - from The Flat Earth

MOVING RIGHT ALONG...

2005-07-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

Hello from the center of the vortex.

Tonight's menu includes Gazpacho and tortilla chips with fresh cut salsa. Après sunset, roast beast will be served à la maison. Right now our concierge is serving Diet Pepsi in the lounge, but in half an hour it will be beer o’clock. We have a special on Tuborg but I recommend the Pilsner Urquell - it comes in a larger can. For the comfort of our other guests, please refrain from throwing books across the room. For your convenience, a basket has been provided for the disposal of bad ideas, run on sentences, dangling modifiers and of course bullshit, should you have any you would like to unburden yourself of. Please feel free to use the complimentary matches and lighter fluid only near one of our many exits. We expect to arrive at our destination on schedule, but should there by any delays, your captain will give you ample notice so that you may hyperventilate and/or vomit as you see fit. Our expected arrival time remains August 4th 2005.

Thank you and enjoy your flight.

This person, whatever the name or sex, was dressed entirely in oyster-coloured velvet,

2005-07-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

trimmed with some unfamiliar greenish-coloured fur. But these details were obscured by the extraordinary seductiveness which issued from the whole person. Images, metaphors of the most extreme and extravagant twined and twisted in his mind. He called her a melon, a pineapple, an olive tree, an emerald, and a fox in the snow all in the space of three seconds; he did not know whether he had heard her, tasted her, seen her, or all three together. - so he raved, so he stared. When the boy, for alas, a boy it must be - no woman could skate with such speed and vigour - swept almost on tiptoe past him, Orlando was ready to tear his hair with vexation that the person was of his own sex, and thus all embraces were out of the question. ... Finally, coming to a stop and sweeping a curtsey with the utmost grace to the king, who was shuffling past on the arm of some Lord-in-waiting, the unknown skater came to a standstill. She was not a handsbreadth off. She was a woman. Orlando stared; trembled; turned hot; turned cold; longed to hurl himself through the summer air; to crush acorns beneath his feet; to toss his arm with the beech trees and the oaks. As it was, he drew his lips over his small white teeth; opened them perhaps half an inch as if to bite; shut them as if he had bitten.

Virginia Woolf - Orlando.

There are complications and there are complications:

2005-07-22T11:57:00.000-07:00

However, none of them have to do with our little amateur production of Hamlet which KICKED ASS!

Laertes was groping all kindsa boobie and everything was fine. My sound-scape video thing was quite impressive, furthermore, owing to my particularly good mood, my gushing flattery of each actor’s performance won me friends and influenced many people. Sadly, none of them have offered to write my term paper for me.

13 days until graduation.

Laertes is scared of girls!!! Everyone pass the cooties, LET'S GETIM!

2005-07-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

aka: How not to stage a scene from Hamlet in three rehearsals or less.

Tomorrow is the big day, kids! The graveyard scene from Hamlet - Ophelia's burial - dramatic confrontation between Laertes and Hamlet...

"I love her more!"
"No I do!"
"Screw you, assclown!"
"stupidhead"
"I know you are but what am I?"
"I know you are but what am I?"
"stop copying me!"
"stop copying me!"
"SHUT UP!"
"NO YOU SHUT UP!"
"I'm gonna kick your ass"
"yeah right"
"no really, meet me by the swings and bring your rapier, bitch!"
"ooh, I'm trembling. Broadsword too heavy for you? Pussy."

Oh, sorry yes I was saying, tomorrow is the big day! I've done my bit which was to create a ravishingly intense and frightening video/soundscape to set the tone for the scene (since the dramatic intro scenes will be missing). It is totally excellent if I do say so myself. The only problem is Laertes is sposed to carry Ophelia onto the stage, but he wants to use a blow-up doll. (Dude, fer realz? What you got one a those for?)

Hamlet will be played by a beautiful (no, really OMFG)young North African woman who seems to have some chops for this acting game. Trouble is, during the tussle that is supposed to happen in our scene, Laertes is a bit on the weak side. He can (with prompting) grab Hamlet's shoulders (manfully!) but that's it. I think he might be afraid of touching a bit of boobie. Actually I'm not sure. But since our entire group was ready to kick him out on his cootie fearing ass if he brought a blowup doll to school tomorrow, there's a bit of a standoff.

I'll update you all tomorrow on the doings. I know you can't wait!

Queen of the Universe

2005-07-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

Today I stopped at the mall on the way home. I'm in love with this really comfy lime green bra I bought a month or two ago, and I wanted the same one but ... come on, LIME GREEN!!!! Fingers crossed I went to the brassiere store to get the same only less garish. Well, they didn't have. But I did get a pink bra (what happened to plain old white?) that has more features than a new car. It is actually convertible and came with a little pink mesh sac full of extra strap things and an instruction booklet. AN INSTRUCTION BOOKLET! FOR A BRA! It also came with this really weird padding stuff that I was happy to take out. In the olden days when I wanted padding it used to be made out of foam. Nowadays bra padding is made out of some kinda silicon. Just like real fake boobs!

Ugh.

So I got a pink bra, that wasn't the point of this post though. This mall is your quintessential suburban soccer mom mall. It's an estrogen palace where women with permed hair and babies in strollers can shop without feeling self conscious about their middle-age spread, so the good looking man walking down the parallel staircase to me... well he kind of stood out. But that isn't the point of the story either. The point of this story is that at the bottom of the stairs, that man came up beside me and said, "You are a Kee-yoo-tee!"

Well, I had to laugh really. Because he was pretty cute himself and I think the last time I was paid a compliment like that by a stranger, the stranger looked and smelled like he had just been scraped off a bar-room floor. The time before that I was 21 and the stranger was right. I was cute.

It being rude not to accept a compliment I said, "thank you!" I really meant that thank you too. Sincerely and from the deepest bloodiest bit of my heart. Because those compliments that made you feel gross and awkward and 14, indifferent at 21, and mildly flattered at 29, make you feel like the queen of the fucking universe for about ten hours when you're over 35. Yes. It's true.

Vexed

2005-07-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

Broken sugar bowl. Stupid broken sugar bowl! Stupid, trying-to-make-it-dry-faster-by-putting-it-on-the-windowsill, Bella. Grrr.

The indispensable book

2005-07-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

Of all my books, I find only a few indispensable, and two of them are always with me, wherever I am. They are here, by my side: the Bible, and the books of the great Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen.
~Rainer Maria Rilke~

When I travel, I always bring two books with me to read on the plane, train, airport, bus, whatever. Both are books I've read countless times now. I tend to pick them up and randomly choose a page to start reading from. I don't read them for the plot anymore, I can recite that already. There's something comforting about a familiar book when you're in unfamiliar surroundings. Plus, if we're talking air travel, I tend to be a nervous flyer and, as anyone who has ever suffered any sort of anxiety at all knows, when you're scared your intellectual brain turns off and your lizard brain kicks in. All the more reason to stick to something you know.

For me, the two books are: Virginia Woolf's Orlando and Bruce Chatwin's The Song Lines.

Orlando I read for the language. For the sheer joy of it.

It was now November. After November, comes December. Then January, February, March, and April. After April comes May. June, July, August follow. Next is September. Then October, and so, behold, here we are back at November again, with a whole year accomplished.

This method of writing biography, though it has its merits, is a little bare, perhaps, and the reader, if we go on with it, may complain that he could recite the calendar for himself and so save his pocket whatever sum the Hogarth Press may think it proper to charge for this book. But what can the biographer do when his subject has put him in the predicament into which Orlando has now put us? Life, it has been agreed by everyone whose opinion is worth consulting, is the only fit subject for novelist or biographer; life, the same authorities have decided, has nothing whatever to do with sitting still in a chair and thinking. Thought and life are the poles asunder. Therefore--since sitting in a chair and thinking is precisely what Orlando is doing now--there is nothing for it but to recite the calendar, tell one's beads, blow one's nose, stir the fire, look out of the window, until she has done. Orlando sat so still that you could have heard a pin drop. Would, indeed, that a pin had dropped! That would have been life of a kind. Or if a butterfly had fluttered through the window and settled on her chair, one could write about that. Or suppose she had got up and killed a wasp. Then, at once, we could work out with our pens and write. For there would be bloodshed, if only the blood of a wasp. Where there is blood there is life. And if killing a wasp is the merest trifle compared with killing a man, still it is a fitter subject for novelist or biographer than this mere wool-gathering; this thinking; this sitting in a chair day in, day out, with a cigarette and a sheet of paper and a pen and an inkpot. If only subjects, we might complain (for our patience is wearing thin), had more consideration for their biographers! What is more irritating than to see one's subject, on whom one has lavished so much time and trouble, slipping out of one's grasp altogether and indulging--witness her sighs and gasps, her flushing, her palings, her eyes now bright as lamps, now haggard as dawns--what is more humiliating than to see all this dumb show of emotion and excitement gone through before our eyes when we know that what causes it--thought and imagination--are of no importance whatsoever?

The Song Lines I read for the validation it gives to the impulse to travel:

"Why is man the most restless, dissatisfied of animals? Why do wandering people conceive the world as perfect whereas sedentary ones always try to change it? Why have the great teachers - Christ or the Buddha - recommended the Road as the way to salvation? De we agree with Pascal that all man's troubles stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room?"
....
“as a general rule of biology, migratory species are less ‘aggressive’ than sedentary ones. There is one obvious reason why this should be so. The migration itself, like the pilgrimage, is the hard journey: a ‘leveler’ on which the ‘fit’ survive and the stragglers fall by the wayside. The journey thus pre-empts the need for hierarchies and shows of dominance. The ‘dictators’ of the animal kingdom are those who live in the ambience of plenty. The anarchists, as always, are the ‘gentlemen of the road’.

Do you have a favorite book or two that you return to at particular periods of your life? What are they?

The Lord Flashheart Experience: Blog advisor to the stars

2005-07-15T00:20:00.000-07:00

Seeing as how my blog has become boring, I've enlisted the help of an anonymous blogstar to help spice up the joint:

Lord Flashheart: you around?
bella: a little bit. I'm studying
Lord Flashheart: women make me so crazy.
bella: tell me about your happy life in 200 words or less, I'm busy.
Lord Flashheart: I guess that sums up all I had to say
bella: thats all????????????
Lord Flashheart: That is the short, short, short version
Lord Flashheart: Look at this: *www.link deleted she has been going on
about this guy for months and he looks like an anorexic boy
bella: who is the boy? link to pic?
Lord Flashheart: that pic that just shows his elbow
Lord Flashheart: he looks like a scarecrow
Lord Flashheart: I dont have a point it just seemed funny
Lord Flashheart: I thought it was nicer to be mean behind her back
than in her blog
bella: I hate my blog, s'boring.
Lord Flashheart: You need to talk about anal more, you've gotten all
intamalectual
bella: LOL
bella: no way man
Lord Flashheart: We need to hear about your luscious boobies
bella: I'm going to post our IM convo on my blog.
Lord Flashheart: LOL
bella: I'll change the names to protect the innocent tho.
bella: I might correct the spelling too.
bella: or not.
Lord Flashheart: LOL!!!
bella: tell me about your childhood...
Lord Flashheart: I was like a boy genius and I never got any smarter
bella: can I leave the part in about the guy with the skinny elbow?
Lord Flashheart: Go ahead
Lord Flashheart: So I am still like the smartest 13 year old you will ever meet
bella: you need to say two more clever things
Lord Flashheart: I vomited this weekend. I drank so much it was unreal
Lord Flashheart: I am a superhero of drinking
Lord Flashheart: and sex
bella: what happened to your new old girlfriend?
Lord Flashheart: She is a blog ho, and she has kinda gone crazy jellus
on me and I think she is cheating on me as preemptive punishment for
my imaginary cheating on her
bella: BWAHAHAHAHAHHA!
bella: Can I post that to my blog too?
Lord Flashheart: Ok, go ahead
bella: Note: I wont post about sex or barfing.
bella: I dont want to be type cast that way.
Lord Flashheart: Yeah, you will get like 200 dick pics in your email
bella: I fucking hate dick pics.
Lord Flashheart: Some blog girl was telling me she gets them all the time
Lord Flashheart: what a bunch of asshole
bella: there's nothing more sad and vulnerable
looking than a disembodied dick with splayed toes and all knobby kneed
bellow
Lord Flashheart: LOL!
Lord Flashheart: well, but sometimes you can see it's all nasty though
and avoid a bad experience
bella:Um, what do you want your pseudonym to be
Lord Flashheart: Lord Flashheart

I wonder how Anita Brookner would feel about a three-way with Fay Weldon and Charles Bukowski...?

2005-07-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

Last night after solemnly swearing to myself that I would go to bed early - get a good nights sleep, it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't seen my copy of Memoirs of a Beatnik in months. Maybe even years. In fact, I hadn't seen my copy of The Collected Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke in a few years either. There seemed to be a lot of books missing from my bookshelf, even though the bookshelf itself was stuffed with books stacked on top of each other. Where was the Baudelaire? The Anna Akhmatova? The Amy Gerstler? The Cookie Mueller?

Of course, finding the books took precedence over sleep (it especially took precedence over the reading I was supposed to be doing)

My bedroom closet is like most bedroom closets only more so.

Scrambling to the back of the closet, climbing over an antique television and a box of outdated shoes, sifting my way between winter coats and summer skirts, I reached the back where the Mystery Boxes live and dragged them out of their slumber, groaning and stretching. The first Mystery Box contained lecture notes from first and second year University (the Hitler-Stalin Pact /Faulkner's A Rose for Emily), the second box contained my literary treasures.

I decided I needed to re-organize my bookshelves somewhere around 12:45 am.

I removed some books from the shelves that didn't need to be there, books I had read for school that had left no impression on me (The Collected Works of James Joyce,(no I'm not sorry),the Norton Anthology,The Heidi Chronicles) and replaced them with the books I read in my 20's... before I went to University to get an education.

But of course, I couldn't just put the books directly on the shelf. I sat on the floor and pulled three books at a time out of the box, roughly displacing dust with the sleeve of my sweater and opened each one:

Leonard Cohen - Parasites of Heaven

"I met Doc Dog The Pork Hound
in a clean cafeteria
All the farms of the country
were dark at that hour
I thought of wood and sleeping people
as we slurped the coffee"

Louise Erdrich - Baptism of Desire

"She will climb into your car
but not say where she is going
and you shouldn't ask"

Charles Bukowski - Mockingbird Wish me Luck

just going on
is a greater gut-miracle than the life-death cycle
itself, I mean
going on against uselessness -
that's different than living,
say, the way a fly lives;
the brain gives us enough light to know
that living is only an artful sacrifice
at best. at worst, it's
hogs in the sky

Some time around 3am I sat down at the foot of my bed and surveyed my work, finally picking up The Collected Letters and read:

What else can I tell you? It seems to me that everything has its proper emphasis; and finally I want to add just one more bit of advice: to keep growing, silently and earnestly, through your development; you couldn't disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to question that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer.

I put that book back in the box.

I used to want to be a writer, and then I decided I couldn't write. Besides, Bukowski and Rilke both agreed that if writing doesn't feel as necessary as breathing, you shouldn't do it.

Anyway, in my late 20's and early 30's I looked outside myself and liked the view. I know Rilke was talking about looking outside for approval, not inspiration, but when I consider it now I think part of the reason I couldn't write in my 20's was because I didn't have anything to say that didn't involve my interior life. Anita Brookner is a master of the domestic novel. She could write an entire novel about an agoraphobic whose only conversation each week is with the grocery delivery boy, and it would be brilliant. I'm just not that good a writer.

But if I was going to be a writer, I would want to be the writer born of the bastard child conceived during a three-way between Anita Brookner, Fay Weldon and Charles Bukowski. In other words, in my writing there would be plenty of neurotic introspection, a sick amount of booze and sex, and a revenge driven plot.

Lunch:

2005-07-07T20:40:00.000-07:00

In classic me style, rather than writing on explosions, I will post pictures of bright happy food.

Delicious ham.

Delicious water and bakery bag with treat inside

Italian bun (Mimmo bun) with juicy yellow tomato

Juicy yellow tomato sliced

Mimmo bun with Pesto alla Calabrese (lovely roasted red pepper pesto)

The ham is from the Hungarian deli down the street. It is better than normal ham. I can't remember what he called it.

The tray is ready: The dishes and the tray are from my grandparents' house.

The coffee is actually Coloiera, but I reuse this Illy tin.

I always make one cup at a time with a cone drip filter.

The sandwich is assembled

And lunch is served.

Hmmm, good question.

2005-07-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

Is it plagiarism to use some of my own work in my own work? I just pulled a paragraph from an old essay and stuck it in (masterfully if I do say so myself) a new essay. Is that plagiarism? I mean, I know you're sposed to do new work and so forth, but if it fits, isn't part of the learning process noting connections between things (she rationalized). Someone academic, fill me in here.

Ardent:

2005-07-07T05:57:00.000-07:00

Is a good word.

Much better than that other hated one that starts with a 'G'. Not that I have anything against the letter 'G'. "Go", for example, is an excellent word. So is "gateaux".

I just saw 3 minutes of an interview with Ann Coulter:

2005-07-06T21:09:00.000-07:00

I feel afraid.

giggle

2005-07-06T17:54:00.000-07:00

I hate this word. I mean, I really really hate it. I hate the sound of it, I hate the way it looks and I hate what it implies. I hate the sound people make when they do it. If ever a word suffered from semantic entropy, this one has. What does it mean? Seriously. If you type "giggle" in a message, am I supposed to hear a high pitched suffocated laugh? Laugh for fuck sake! Take a deep breath and laugh your ass or your face or your head off. Just do it. Cut that coy crap.

The end.

The National: Alligator THE BEST CD EVAH!™

2005-07-06T04:43:00.000-07:00

Someone out there called this band's style of music, "alt-country". I haven't quite decided what that means. I like Neko Case, and I like The National, but I'm not convinced they belong in the same category.

This is the best description I've read though:

This is the sound of a man turning himself inside out, letting the listener experience the visceral thrill of emotions on display. It's Leonard Cohen fronting Joy Division, or Tindersticks arm wrestling with The Velvet Underground. This is soul music as dispensed by a rock band, country and urban.

~ MusicOMH.com

Anyways, I LIKE IT!

That is all.