dogclogs and glockshocks

i recently returned from my first trip to europe, where i learned a lot about the world and myself. even though each day was loaded with adventures travelling all over the netherlands to germany and back again, a few moments really stuck out in my mind. in berlin, it was the boy in the car window who drew a heart with his fingers, and pointed to me, and the TV tower emerging in and out of the clouds during a surreal sunrise the next morning.

it was the artist with blue hair selling his drawings out of a spray-painted black van parked in front of the berlin wall…probably illegally… who reminded me of the dark and complex history of destruction and creation in the city. that dualism was reflected again in the overturned t-rex figurine in the abandoned amusement park, who sat adjacent to a crumbling viking ship marked by traces of squatters and unwelcome visitors, and a creaking ferris wheel with the tags of the brave kings of the urban jungle on every car to the very top.

juxtaposing the deeply countercultural, troubled berlin is the surface-level city of amsterdam, a place where nothing has been destroyed but only created, like the adult version of disneyworld. it is a facade of a city- full of immaculate, conspicuously constructed shopfronts, restaurants, coffee shops, and boulevards- to the extent that it almost has no reality, but more so exists as an idea, a collective dream, a place where fantasies of escape and sex and indulgence can be played out in the material world, the world of capital. beautiful, by day, but deceiving- by night the city operates as a system in which the alcohol, weed and sex industries work together to bankrupt hedonistic travelers like myself, feeding people (like sheep) through the machine to make money on their desires. the idea of a distant getaway, a city without rules which champions ultimate freedom- amsterdam, in a nutshell- has been given a price tag like the rest of society, making me wonder what hasn’t been touched by capitalism, or if there even is such a place. amsterdam was a city in which everyone was in transit- making the fear of being run over by a bike quite real- but they seemed to have no distinct destination, nor an idea of where they were. does anyone even live there? or are those town homes along the canal just for show- empty spare mirrors, replicas of dutch art and golden chandeliers? even the young opera singer testing the acoustics in dam square...who put her there? is it all- the whole city- just a performance? a fun house mirror?

then there were my travels through germany, driving 200 kilometers per hour on the autobahn, standing in front of the massive, breath-taking cologne cathedral, spending quality time with my friend dani and her newborn son in their small town of ahaus, and our day trip to munster where the gold-gilded facades reflected the medieval city planning i learned about in school. sitting in her new apartment and soaking in her new life in a foreign place, i was able to reflect on myself and my relationships and my future. could i do what she is doing? could i be vulnerable enough to another person to share my life with them? could i give up myself and my identity for motherhood? maybe not yet, but it is more clear to me now the sacrifices i will have to make to get there. to be that happy old couple on a side-by-side tandem bicycle riding through the little town square, still very much in love.

while many travelers would say that their trips show them how infinitely big the world feels, i thought it made my world smaller. it did so by showing me that while places and people may change, desire, wisdom and the mundane stay the same across the artificial boundaries we have set up. everyone wants to eat, to belong, to feel important, and apparently everyone knows who bill clinton is, especially in berlin.

aaand a few media recommendations for the week:
movie: X-rated puppet show Meet the Feebles (brace yourselves)
music: artful, pensive music by my friend Jonathan @MorbinMusic
article: a well-written evaluation of the borderline psycho/sociopathic personality traits fostered and rewarded by the money=success paradigm

as simple as breathing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lately i’ve been considering the possibility that our energies are synced. do you think it is a coincidence that my mom and i both couldn’t sleep last night? do you think it is a coincidence when you think of someone random and then you see them later that day? maybe you can’t get someone out of your head because they’ve been thinking about you too. maybe someone shows up in your dream because you showed up in theirs. i mean to suggest that we’re synced in a way that we cannot perceive, reacting constantly to each other in a way that is not just through our words or through body language. “subconsciously” is perhaps the closest word i can use to get to the thing itself, but it involves an interpersonal network, somewhat of a “collective subconscious” which links us all.

 

 

 

 

yes, okay, i’ve been thinking about vibes (again), but don’t let this word scare you away. my friend jake suggested the alternate term “biorhythms”, if you like that better. on a practical level, i’ve been thinking that phone behavior magnifies the evidence. for example when you pick up your phone to text someone and they’re already calling you. or when you receive an unexpected text and you don’t have to look at your screen to know, to have this gut feeling of who it is. i’m pretty sure i’m not the only person this happens to. maybe if you start looking out for it you will start to notice it. maybe you think of a person because they spoke your name somewhere else, to someone else. maybe we cross paths more often then we think, in a metaphysical world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Georgia O’Keefe (1887-1986) searched for the feeling of infinity through her clear, universalizing forms. Like traditional Japanese flower painters, whose art Van Gogh himself described “as simple as breathing,” O’Keefe explored the idea that art could be meditative, allowing the mind to contemplate the spiritual and philosophical truths which belie all natural ones.

 

 

 

 

 

“The universe lies outspread in floods of white light…There is no name for this life unless it be the very vitality of vita. Silent is the preacher about this, and silent must ever be, for he who knows it will not preach”

~Henry David Thoreau

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m having difficulty embedding this video, but it’s a part of this post, this music, this vita.

 

 

 

today’s featured artists: andreia gil, christian zander,ana pater

dot dot dot (when two mirrors face each other)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[…a struggle to render those truths in Nature which for Her are eternal, but are as yet for the multitude but new]

~Stephane Mallarme, 1876

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

carmel seymour

 

 

my uncle made a good point yesterday. he’s an author, and i was sharing with him my insecurities about writing fiction, my fear that there is already so much out there that it may be impossible for me to write something original. in addition to mentioning that whatever i write will become original as i write it- for no writer expresses in the same exact way, no matter how basic the plotline- he also explained that a writer never really knows whether what they’re doing is important or groundbreaking in the moment they’re writing it anyway. they’re just writing, because it is a condition, because they have to. when you think about it, most writers never achieve fame or success in their lifetimes. we don’t recognize what a writer has done until fifty, sixty years later, when someone wonders how we got to where we are today, and, in offering an explanation, goes back in time to pinpoint the critical texts which have changed the idea of what writing is, does and can be. in other words, we don’t understand a text’s effect, if it truly is an origin, until we see what comes after it. this notion is liberating, for it suggests that there is nothing to lose in writing- that all you can do is start, and keep going. after all words are free, you can’t ever use them all up, and the only limitation that exists is the crippling fear that you can.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

[Let two mirrors reflect each other; then Satan plays his favorite trick and opens here in his way (as his partner does in lovers’ gazes) the perspective on infinity…]

-Walter Benjamin

 

 

Gemma Capdevila

 

nothing is ever complete…

SpaceScape

 

 

 

 

 

 

“There is another world, but it is in this one”

~Alexander Theroux

 

 

 

 

Ernesto Caivano

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The next thing I knew, all the lights were out, and the telephone, no matter what number I dialed, kept connecting me with an automated recording of the story of Rapunzel.”

~Stanislaw Lem, The Futurological Congress

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts from the beach grass, 8/13/14-

I am grateful. Why do we spend so much of our lives looking at what yet is to become? Why are we always thinking of the things we want, things we want that will someday make us happy, instead of just letting ourselves be happy? Why is it so hard to appreciate the moment we’re already in? You know what? It’s now or never. It’s now or never to think, “I don’t need anything but my consciousness, life to know how blessed I am.” And I mean consciousness alone, in all of its unordered, unplanned and uncontained form…like thinking with no words… I say just look at the beach grass. Just be here. Just be.

 

 

I recently stumbled onto what I think is the strangest interview I’ve ever read. I was looking into whether or not anyone plays croquet for a living, since I decided one of my Sims, Chip Fowler, became the wealthiest Sim in Sim Town through playing professional croquet. Apparently gentlemen all over the world do win money through croquet, but after reading this interview with the agreed upon “best croquet player in the world”, Robert Fulford, during the Sonoma-Cutrer World Singles Championship, I’m even more confused as to whether professional croquet is a serious thing or not. When asked “What’s your most significant accomplishment in croquet?” he responds “Winning the OTHER world championship”, as if there could be more than one world championship. When asked what his strategy will be for the tournament, if he will attempt to make every single sextuple, he responds that “these are very unusual conditions here,” and that his “tactics will very much depend on lawn conditions.” And then there’s this exchange-

Interviewer: When you’re already the best, where are you going to go? That’s the question.

R: I don’t know what you mean by that.

I: You’re the best player in the world…

R: Yes…?

Check out the full interview at croquetworld.com/people/interview-one.asp and decide for yourself whether or not professional croquet is real. Because I seriously can’t tell.

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featured artists: jonathan zawada, alexis rockman,zeitguised, ernesto caivano

thoughts from the train (What Could Have Been)

In high school I tried to adopt a ferret. But my application was denied. I don't know why there had to be such a questionnaire for ferret adoption, but they asked why you wanted the ferret, and I said because I want something to sit on my lap and cuddle with me. Their justification for denying me was that I was better suited looking into elderly rabbits, for all they would do is sit on my lap, and they would probably die by the time I went to college.

I'm reflecting on this because I wonder how my life would have been different had they given me the thumbs up. If I had indeed adopted a ferret. 

I wonder if there would be regular blog posts about it. I wonder if it would have brought me to strange new places, like under the couch, in the crawl space or behind the furnace. I wonder if its novelty would have worn off by now. I wonder if I would have still adopted my cat, luckylu. If I did, would they get along? I wonder if I would have made different friends, because my room would have always smelled like ferret, and no one would want to be in there. I wonder if I would have been obsessed, and been a weird ferret lady, who goes to ferret lover conventions or joins ferret loving communities. I wonder if my mom would be taking care of it right now. I wonder if she would have kicked me and the ferret on the streets by now. I wonder if we would be homeless, together. 

I wonder if it would be alive right now. I wonder if I would be alive right now. 

Maybe this all happened the way it did for a reason. I wish I could go back and console my high school self, and tell her that it's probably for the best. That sometimes you fail for a reason. That maybe, sometimes, you should give up your short term goals for some long term ones. Like, in this case, your social and physical survival. I think this serves as a good reminder that in the future, when something doesn't go my way, I shouldn't fret too much. Things will work themselves out. The story is never over. I'm glad I have a cat.

thoughts from the beach

[song: star blanket river child by bright black morning light]

Throughout my university career, I learned that life is a delicate, yet at times violent, push and pull between our inner selves and the outside world. Between our emotions and experiences on the one hand and the institutions and methods of communication by which we attempt to stabilize them on the other. Between what we want, and what the world wants for us. 

My first philosophy class taught me of the theory of determinism, this depressing notion that we are only reacting to the world rather than creating it, a lesson which stunned me and left me in an existential crisis. Coming full circle, my last English class taught me that so far as our dreams are real, so long as WE are real, we also must take responsibility for creating the world, or at least the illusion of it... At times when the universe has seemed to spin out of control, out of our hands, it is us and only us that have the free will to take back hold. To make our own path. Maybe it's too ideal to think that everything can change, or maybe it's just seeing the big picture, the fact that nothing stays the same. 

Out of the tension of self and other, inner and outer, nature and institution, we are shaped into being, at times in control and at times left to react to controlling forces. It is in this tension, this indeterminacy, in which truth lies, always fluctuating, revealing itself to us only for a moment before disappearing like a flicker of sunlight caught on a spider web in the wind. 

       [American Gods by Neil Gaiman]

Last summer I picked this flower and put it in my hat. When I came home from my long day at the beach, the flower had wilted, and I asked my mom if she thought it was salvageable. Looking at the sad thing she suggested I should probably just throw it away. I thought about it for a minute, and looked back at her and told her I thought it would live, that I wouldn't give up on it just yet. I put it in my water glass and lulled to sleep. In the morning I opened my eyes to gladly find my flower standing upright in the glass, its petals extended like bursting rays of sunshine. To me it represented the miracle of life, and healing, and the sheer power of belief. For if I had not believed in it my water glass would have been empty, in a physical yet deeply profound sense. 

Run

[song: Just Move by Uneaq]

This is my first post as a college graduate 

To sum up my experience of this milestone,

I would say that everyone else seems to be a lot happier about it than I am. After all, it really marks the end to something I loved. I even told some people I was in mourning. They took pictures of me anyway.

"Goodbyes always make my throat hurt...I need more hellos..."

-Charlie Brown, 1967

In order to cope with my loss, I decided I would find new sorts of classrooms. 

For example,

I started playing the glockenspiel, I ordered one off the internet. I think the sound brings clarity to my life. I mostly improvise, but have thought of a few jingles to play over the PA of the sailing beach. Now that I'm a supervisor I can do things like that. I have made it my goal to be able to play Mozart's "The Magic Flute" to speed by the end of the summer, at which point I will treat the sailing patrons to an impromptu classical music concert, preferably on a Sunday evening when all the boats are pulled in and drinks are being poured.

When I brought my glockenspiel to Montreal for my graduation week, the staff missed playing with it so much that they sawed a park district owned kayak paddle into 5 pieces hoping to make a xylophone of sorts of their own. So we can add the xylophone to the list of trends I've started down at the beach, including drinking pirate juice, inserting sailing puns into conversations with patrons and the girls wearing skirts to work. 

In order to continue my education I also started scuba diving lessons, which have me excited to explore the world. Underwater is perhaps the coolest visual field we can access; at least the most colorful. Not to mention it feels as though you're floating in zero gravity. What surprises me is that many people don't even consider what it's like in the other 2/3 of the world. When convincing me to take his class, the scuba instructor had me at "other-worldly". 

I've been reflecting a lot on how college has shaped me as a person- where I was at the beginning of it and where I am now. One thing that has come full circle is my faith and interest in fiction, which I stopped reading at school in order to make time for all the dense, theoretically challenging texts I had to read for my degree. I lost myself a bit in all that, for if you would have asked me at my high school graduation what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said a children's book author. If you asked me now, I would say I have no fucking clue. But I suppose I learned that's what growing up means. Realizing that "knowing what you're doing" is bullshit that adults put on for other adults so that they can convince themselves that everything is "accounted for". I don't intend to fall into that trap. So I'm reading fiction again, where no one is trying to say anything empirical and we can be honest with ourselves.

If Disney on Ice doesn't work out, I figure I'll skate on a cruise ship, scuba diving off the coasts along the way. If not, I'm thinking the Netherlands, Australia, something far. Something new. My recent dream is to work at the Heineken Museum in Amsterdam. Combining my passions for beer and art for the betterment of society.

"Dr. Patrick: How can you joke--and look so serious?

Lizzie Borden: It's a gift."

-Blood Relations

But really, I'm starting to realize that this graduation thing isn't the end, but the beginning of a new chapter. The beginning of MY life, one in which I don't have to ask anyone what to do, or tell them, for that matter. I can go wherever I want, see whatever I want, go with the real flow of things. Move from country to country, paycheck by paycheck. Live with random people. Join new communities. I can take opportunities when they reveal themselves to me, and it will only be up to me, and we will see how good of judgment I really have. It sounds all cliche, it sounds like what your parents and uncles and professors tell you. But now I'm finally feeling it; I'm writing it, goddammnit, I'm bringing it into being.