Fuzzy Memories

As anyone else, I've had many interesting experiences lately. We all find different things exciting, but these, to me at least, were the most notable:


-Breaking a board in half with my fist: During Out-of-the-Box club, we had a martial arts "expert" (his expertise was questionable) come in to teach us about the physics and training involved in his sport. To my pleasant surprise, he taught us that success has to do with your state of mind. If you encourage yourself enough, you will find the adrenaline inside of you to accomplish your goal. After he was done explaining this, he proceeded to break a board in half with his fist. Seeing a few boards on the table behind him, I jumped at the opportunity knowing that I would probably never be able to try this again. I stood up, my body already buzzing with adrenaline, as he began to walk me through the arm motion. He put the board in front of me. I looked at it once. I swung my arm and struck the board with as much force as I could muster, following through the broken wood shards until I heard the entire club cheering in excitement. I am looking at the two wood halves in my room, sitting with pride on my dresser, and I do encourage you to take opportunities when they come knocking at your door.


-Talking with the friendly neighborhood Jehovah's Witness, Mark: Walking into the train station to meet my friends, I did not expect to find them sitting in front of a normal looking, 40-something year old man holding a bible. Claiming that he could tell us the future, Mark preached to us how the economic, politic and moral world was going to collapse soon and God would intervene to salvage us from extinction. Using quotes from the bible, he attempted to answer all of our skeptical questions regarding evolution and creation. Among other things, Mark agreed with me that man has to return to nature to be salvaged. Most importantly, when I asked him "When humans flee the earth and live on other planets, will God be there too?", he answered "Yes."




Memories will lay in our subconscious forever unless we make a point to write them down. We as humans are constantly creating "fake memories", which are in fact memories that are changed by our own imaginations, usually to make them easier to cope with or understand (it is beneficial for humans to move on after trauma so that they can be productive). False memories explain why different people will remember an event differently. For example:
"Hey, remember when the goat nibbled on your mom's pants?"
"That wasn't my mom. That was you."

This being said, I would like to write down a few memories that have resurfaced lately, and I promise they are probably not fake.

-One time, while on a trip with my brother's hockey team to their tournament in Michigan, we went out to a bar and the boys were enjoying some karaoke. My brother, roughly 11 years old and still chubby at the time, decided to ham it up and sing "Paradise City" in front of all the players and parents. While on stage and in the middle of one of the guitar solos, Denny grabbed the mic chord and started swinging the mic in circles. With a huge grin spread across his big, round cheeks he started skipping across stage while rapidly swinging the mic as everyone in the entire restaurant turned their heads to watch the entertainment. All of a sudden, the music stopped and the host walked forward and grabbed the mic mid-swing. "Will you please stop swinging the mic? Thanks." They started playing the music again, yet it was obvious that Denny had lost his mojo.

-During a spontaneous family vacation to San Fransisco, we were weaving in and out of the shops and casually walking down the street, minding our own business. To see what happens next, watch the following video: The Bush Man





Last but not least, I encountered an interesting concept, the Cat Cafe. Supposedly, it is a huge trend in Japan to meet for coffee with cats instead of people. Why not in America? I see this as something our country needs to address.

The Canvas, Part II

The guests were expensively dressed and roaming around her home with cocktails in their hands. The caterers were busily picking up empty glasses and delivering new ones to the snoody social elitists. Emerson clung to her mother’s side as she was introduced to several of her family’s acquaintances as they pinched her cheek and told her how cute she was. Emerson hated this sort of thing; no matter how many guests she met, she would never remember the names of all these old people.
After an hour or so of this tiring socializing, Emerson decided she would wander around her home alone and see if there was anywhere that she could escape the drunk madness that her house had become. She snuck into the living room, wove in and out of conversing adults, and opened the hidden door behind the couch. The tunnel was only big enough for children; there was no way she could be followed in here. She crawled through the dark, dusty tunnel with peeling wallpaper and burnt out sconces until she saw the light from her favorite room in the house.
She entered the small pink room and dove into a pile of elegant floor pillows and stuffed animals. With a huge, relieving sigh, Emerson laid back and closed her eyes. She started to daydream about the usual- jumping into a sparkling lake, riding a cloud up to the stars, and her other imaginative fantasies. She was finally at peace.
“Hey,” said a muffled voice. Emerson let out a shriek and jumped so high she almost hit the ceiling. She ran to the other side of the room and flipped the switch. The chandelier illuminated the room as the pile of stuffed animals started to dismantle and a hand and foot broke through the fluffy barrier. Pretty soon, a little boy emerged and stood in front of her, her jaw dropped wide open and eyes as big as the moon. “I’m Riley,” he said. Emerson was so shocked she still could not muster a word.
“Is this your house?” Riley asked.
“Well yes, I don’t know how anyone else could’ve found this room…then again, here you are!” Emerson responded.
“I was just wandering. I came here with my dad. He’s the governor,” Riley bragged.
“Why do you think I care?” Emerson sassed. She picked up a stuffed giraffe and threw it at his head. Grinning like a fool, Riley picked up a green elephant and returned the favor. Before they knew it, there was a full blown stuffed animal war, tigers and bunnies flying through the air, until they found themselves fighting back through the dark hallway they had entered from.
The competition was getting fierce as they giggled and pushed each other through the tunnel. Emerson tumbled backwards in her little pink dress as she knocked open the hidden door and fell into the living room. Without realizing it, Riley chucked the biggest, heaviest stuffed animal goat through the door and over the couch until it stopped at a 90-year-old’s neck as she fell to the ground, taking a giant vase and her cocktail glass with her. The vase and glass smashed on the floor and the little old lady lay helpless on the ground with the stuffed goat at her side. An uproar of the houseguests pursued and Emerson’s mother came running into the room. Emerson and Riley ducked behind the couch in hiding, but it was too late: Emerson’s mother was stomping over in their direction, face red with anger.
“Come out Emerson, you’re in a lot of trouble young lady!” Emerson’s mother yelled. Emerson felt a wave of guilt, then of desperation, then grabbed Riley’s hand and sprinted past her mother.
They ran through the massive rooms and bumped into innumerous adults until they reached the back door. Emerson led the way as they ran through the snow in their fancy attire until they reached the ladder of the treehouse. Without words, they both climbed as rapidly as they could to their safe haven, a beautiful room with candles and Emerson’s own artwork displayed on the walls. Breathing heavily and with shoes covered in snow, they collapsed on the giant beanbag in the middle of the floor in each other’s arms.

The Canvas, Part I

Here is the first installment of my new children's story, The Canvas. Enjoy!

“Emerson, the guests are almost here, will you please let me in?” said Emerson’s mother as she knocked on the door. Emerson removed the blockade of chairs and stuffed animals from the door and let her mother enter.
“You look darling! Oh, aren’t you so glad that you’re wearing the dress your grandmother gave you?” Emerson looked down at her dark pink dress, mumbled inaudibly under her breath, and longingly glanced at the heap of jeans and a t-shirt that she was planning on wearing to the banquet that night.
Emerson’s family lived in a giant white mansion on the mountainside. The house itself had been passed down generation to generation, and now is the staple venue for dinners and balls for family and friends. Two monstrous white pillars and a circle driveway framed the beautiful double-door entrance, while a massive field and towering trees set a picturesque backdrop behind the house. In the tallest tree sat a gorgeous two-story treehouse, Emerson’s personal getaway and playhouse. Emerson loved her home, but disliked the strict rules that came with having expensive things in every single room. The treehouse was her only refuge from constant nagging about manners, discipline, and the responsibilities of growing young girls.
Emerson was especially not thrilled about the banquet tonight, for her mother had been criticizing her every move since they were asked to host this event. Emerson was asked not to braid her hair at the dinner table, for it was impolite; she was asked to sit up and cross her legs while in the family room, for it was not ladylike to lounge; she was scolded at for running through the hallways in her socks and sliding on the floors, for she could break something valuable. Emerson was sick and tired of all the rules, and now she had to be a “lady” in a pink dress with ruffles and gold buttons that her grandmother had probably paid a fortune for. She knew tonight wasn’t going to be any fun at all.
The doorbell rang. Emerson looked out the window to see a few guests arriving in big fur coats and fancy bow ties. Her mother grabbed her hand. Emerson dug her heels into the ground as her mother started pulling her towards the door.
“You better be on your best behavior tonight, missy,” her mother said with a stern look. Emerson, fearing the wrath of her mother after the banquet, decided she would at least try to follow some rules. She smiled the biggest, fakest smile she could bear, then politely walked down the spiral staircase with her mother.

A Quintessential Manifestation of Daily Life

I got an Alice in Wonderland t-shirt, a bag of lollipops, and a red rose for Valentine's Day. Considering that's the first time I've ever received anything for the wannabe holiday, I was elated!


Check it out, you won't regret it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw
I found this video on StumbleUpon.com, which is fascinating. They find what you're interested in, then they show you stuff that you would like. I particularly enjoyed a list of Albert Einstein quotes, for example:

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

and

"A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."

I'm happy to know that Einstein and I think alike.



Moving on to the juicy stuff--

FEARS
1. Loss of freedom/police (they are essentially the same)
2. Growing up
3. Boredom*
4. Violence
5. Permanence
6. Waste
7. Scary movies
8. The millipedes/centipedes that thrive in my basement. And the weird offspring they had with the crickets.
9. Fear itself
10. Spiders (depending on mood and size of creature)

*Whenever I feel overwhelmingly bored (or if I feel boredom teeming), I will often spontaneously buy a pet. Many times, this means a simple goldfish or beta fish, but I've gone to the extremes of hamsters and sea monkeys in the past. Over the summer, I applied to adopt a ferret from an animal shelter in the city. I spent an hour or so meticulously filling out the application. After checking my email every night that week in hopes for a positive response, I finally received my feedback.
They told me that ferrets are not the kind of animal I want.
They do not sit in your lap without moving.
They do not let you pet them for hours.
They do not like to cuddle in your bed.
They recommended that I should get an elderly rabbit.
They said the elderly rabbit would die just about the same time I would go to college.


They seem to have me all figured out.

Peter Pan Syndrome

I believe that I have Peter Pan Syndrome. I just don't want to grow up. I don't really like responsibilities, or the idea of incapable body parts or having to support myself financially. It would be sweet to be a teenager forever.


Discovered a cool artist today...well actually, he's a "Freelance Artist, Poet and Sculptor, Inovator, Arrow maker and Plant man, Bone artifacts constructor, Photographer and Architect, Philosopher”, and his name is Eugene Von Bruenchenhein. He seems like a perceptive, out-of-the-box thinker: "His was the world of dreams, ideas, of escaping, traveling to far off undiscovered worlds beyond Earth."

Von Bruenchenhein pondered the bigger questions about life and sought answers to universal mysteries, for example, “Why is there no wall beyond the fringe of Universe? Because something always lies beyond a wall, And because no Universe can be contained.”

He also wrote poetry.

Our Night of Life

In dreams we float
To other worlds
And other shores,
To salvage what we may,
To build and beautify
Our night of life.

Most noticeably, Bruenchenhein makes some kick-ass art...did I mention that?





And here's some other eye candy I found today.




I especially like Molly McCracken:

Luise Andersen 'ART OF FIRE LSCPE Night Pic Feb six' Glass, 2008 - Premiere Artist Portfolio at absolutearts.com

Luise Andersen 'ART OF FIRE LSCPE Night Pic Feb six' Glass, 2008 - Premiere Artist Portfolio at absolutearts.com

Art Instinct

My boyfriend and I are in an infinite snowball fight. One time I got him in glass art. A couple of days ago, I was just standing in the lunchroom minding my business when I felt something hard hit my back. I didn't really know what was going on. Then I turned around and Luke was standing there, and there was a puddle of snow behind me. I bet he'd call that sweet revenge, but he should watch his back.


Today in Spanish Conversation and Composition class, I recited this poem in front of the class:

Si yo comiera muchos cocos,
muchos cocos compraria.
Pero como pocos cocos como,
pocos cocos compro.

My teacher gave me a sticker that said "Muy Bien". I thought it was pretty cool of her.


Later in the day, I got a text that said this:
"Joe dumped the rest of the grapes on the ground so we could hit em with the hockey sticks then we started hitting the grapes at eachother but then we ran out of grapes...so we used apples. Then joe accidentally stuck his thumb in the bruise in the apple and it was all warm and soft and gooey and he screamed like a little bitch then i was laughing so hard i had to sit down on this white table and then the table collapsed and i went crashing to the ground."


Anyway.

Recently, I've been reading this book called "The Art Instinct". It's basically an art philosophy book. Author Denis Dutton explains that our instinctual love for viewing and creating art is an innate piece of human psychology, something inside of us that gives us pleasure and understanding. Painting, literature, music, theater etc. can be appreciated cross-culturally, in addition to its ability to withstand the test of time. As Dutton explains, “’the same Homer, who pleased at Athens and Rome town thousand years ago, is still admired at Paris and at London.’” This proves how art is in fact a universal trait and an important part of human nature.

"'But like dreams, and unlike other forms of conscious conceptual order—science, philosophy, scholarship—literature taps directly into the elemental response systems activated by emotion. Works of literature thus form a point of intersection between the most emotional, subjective parts of the mind and the most abstract and cerebral.’”

This quote is especially interesting to me because it describes how reading and dreams are similar. Both use parts of the imagination, namely because when we read we are creating a mental image in our head, but it also uses thematic and emotional responses to achieve pleasure. By deeming dreams and art very similar, it shows us that art is one of the most primitive and strictly human functions of our brain, just like dreams.