Goodbye Blue Monday

2009-12-25T22:16:00.003-05:00

Going to be trying out tumblr:

http://jgao.tumblr.com

Blue Bunny

2009-10-20T14:01:00.002-04:00

Fun with digital collage.

Where's the Apple?

2009-10-20T13:56:00.009-04:00

First go at using a tablet for my digital illustration class.

Lately

2009-10-10T01:06:00.017-04:00

I haven't posted in quite some time, so just an update on what's been going on. I switched my major from printmaking to illustration, went on a "crackerjack smashing good time" cruise to Bermuda, started going to the gym, and was turned on to an artist whose work really hits where it hurts, Sophie Jodoin.

My illustration class critiques are very different from the ones that I had in printmaking. Whereas the printmaking faculty could go on about a piece for hours, sucking words out of the air where I thought none could be found, here they seem a little brief and shallow in comparison. In one class, a professor went around the room giving comments ranging from "that looks good" to "oh, very interesting," which made me cringe. I didn't like the bullshit talk in printmaking, but wow - I'm really not in the fine arts anymore.

A series that I really admire: Men in the Cities by Robert Longo. I remember first seeing a print hanging in Patrick Bateman's apartment in American Psycho and thinking that it was spectacular.

And now some cheery music! No more crappy embedded player that I have to paste and edit links for.

School of Seven Bells - Half Asleep

Au Revoir Simone - A Flammable Yet Violent World

Friendly Fires - Paris (Aeroplane Remix)

Minnutes - More to Luv

Madison Avenue Repression

2009-10-09T20:04:00.004-04:00

Goodbye Blue Monday

2009-04-04T23:59:00.007-04:00

Marika and I used to make up stories for people we'd see on the street.

A crossing guard would become the leader of a pack of rapscallion thieves. A homeless man would become an exiled amnesiac king. A well-dressed elderly woman would become a full-time museum curator by day, part-time jewel thief by night.

She became the queen of hearts and I became the king, and we lived the rest of our lives together in Wonderland.

And so on.

I wrote about our best moments together. They were the ones with the volume turned all the way down.

I described events in a way that made sense to me, because I couldn't make sense of her.

She had said, "Before I ever become old and tired and useless, I'll walk into the ocean and go." So in my stories I described her like the ocean. Mary, the star of the sea, cold and bitter and vast. She loved it.

Part of me was always afraid because I saw the darkness inside of her - I recognized it and so I knew just how volatile we were. She let me in because I understood that darkness better than most ever will, and because she saw it in me as well.

I wrote another story. I wrote that she'd found someone, that despite everything I thought I knew, I was just like everyone else. I'd been manipulated and taken advantage of.

I told it to everyone who came knocking. Just as she couldn't say the three words, I wasn't ready to say the one. I'm sorry for that.

"The unreal is more powerful than the real.
Because nothing is as perfect as you imagine it.
Because it's only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last.
Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well they die.
But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.
If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. If you do that, you can change the way people live their lives. And that's the only lasting thing you can create."

You'll never read this, but I hope it would've made you smile.

Thanks for everything, Mar.

Bye.

The Lighthouse

2009-04-04T18:00:00.019-04:00

Social workers will tell an anecdote about a hole in the sidewalk.

Supposedly, the worst is when you don't see the hole and fall in.

What's not quite as bad is when you see it, but fall in anyways.

They'll say that you're supposed to walk around it because you can't climb out - at least not by yourself.

To which Marika replied, "The first payphone I get to, I'm calling the DPW. I don't see how a man-sized hole in the sidewalk is acceptable."

The smell of a hospital is the sterility of the place - the latex and plastic and air conditioning. It's a cold vacuum dividing the frail from the strong, the impotent from the virile, and the dirty from the clean.

It's the paper dress that opens your back and the bitter finger that brushes your tongue.

It's your exposure to strangers wandering the hallways, to whom you're expected to tell all of your secrets, not by whisper but by transmission. It's a light that sweeps across your dripping eyes. A tube that pushes into your face, past your ragged breath, through your heart and goes deep inside of you where it can only be black and red.

When the radio comes on, she shakes her head.

"It's going to be okay," I say.

"It's too loud," she says.

"Everything is too loud."

She asks if there's a reason for so much talking and so much noise, if there's sense to any of it. She shakes her head.

The windows are down and cool night air bursts through. It pushes the wet shirt against my chest. Shivers run down my spine and hairs bristle on end.

Her forehead is hot to the touch. Her hair wraps across her face in clotted ropes.

We catch pieces of conversation, shrieks and laughter as we go, from kids still out. They stumble against one another for support on the sidewalks, emerging bright under traffic lights and fading against the long shadows of sleeping buildings. I think of a rose blooming in seconds, or maggots writhing on carrion, and those skipping figures in time-lapse photography, fluttering across the street to the beat of neon lights and cars. It all comes and goes.

She shuts her eyes. Her mouth opens and shuts like a fish out of water, silent and shivering. She puts her hands in her lap and they tremble uncontrollably there. She shakes her head.

When I lift her out of the seat, the sweat seeps through her dress to my hands, and she feels like fire. Her legs dangle messily, uselessly, and her feet bounce as I run. Hot breath blows against the dampness in my shirt, burning through, and I cradle her head against my collar. I back into the door to open it.

Hours later, I browse pamphlets on the table. This is what I see:

"Do you always feel down? You may be suffering from depression."

"UNITY - SERVICE - RECOVERY: The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous."

"Subscribe to the N.A. Way today."

Before any of that, I started going because she needed the help. She started going because she needed the entertainment. She played it off as a joke, saying that she couldn't stand the people we met.

She called them insufferable and pitiful, the lowest of the low.

Strangers baring their souls - women like Cathy, out of touch and so desperate for an answer - this was a surefire recipe for excitement, the ultimate in reality television.

Cathy is a middle-aged Liz Claiborne affair. A striped handbag lays at her feet and black rimmed glasses sit at the tip of her nose. A stay-at-home mother of two, she's exhausted and restless. Dark rings hang from her eyes. She gets up and paces around the circle.

When people sit in a circle, it either means that they're unsuccessfully getting to know one another, or that they're in rehab.

Our guide says, "Take your time, Cathy."

The room is silent except for a sip of coffee and a deep breath. We look down at our feet in an attempt to offer up what little privacy can be had in such a setting.

Out there, in the real world, we can be greedy and envious, full of wrath and loathing and ourselves, but in here, we become small and uncertain. Through the fear and the shame, underneath the tears and red faces, we're all aching to discover something beautiful. I've never witnessed such grace between human beings.

"It was pretty bad last night," she says. "I was exhausted after work so I went to take a bath. John and the kids were over in the dining room, that's on the other side of the house."

She says, "I was trying to relax and then I heard footsteps out in the hall. John knocked on the door. He told me to open it, and I was annoyed. I said, 'Can this wait? What do you want?'"

"He asked me what I was doing in there, and I told him that I was just taking a bath. I even splashed the water around a bit. But he didn't believe me. He pounded on the door and told me to open it, and I started screaming at him to leave me alone. I was just so angry all of a sudden, and it made things so much worse. I couldn't help it. I was so tired and all I wanted to do was take a bath. Not deal with his fucking bullshit."

"I heard the kids in the hall," she says, "and I heard them slamming their doors. I was thinking, 'Way to start all of this for nothing.' Then John left and came back with the key to the door. I could hear the metal jingling and I saw the doorknob moving."

"I was about to fucking lose it. I wanted him to come through just so that I could unload on him. I sat there staring at that door, but nothing happened."

"Thank God." she says. "A minute later, he slipped the key in under the door. Just left it for me to see, you know? And all of a sudden, I felt so bad about it. Just awful... I don't even know why I was so mad. He just wanted to check in to make sure I wasn't using. I've hidden in the bathroom before so it should've made sense, but I wasn't thinking. I went straight to bed after that. I'd completely lost my appetite."

It's the hardest thing in the world to check yourself. In that moment between action and reaction, we so often forget to look to our reason, our compassion, our only saving grace. But together, after the fact, we relive Cathy's night and reveal the how and the why.

It's something worth talking about.

Maybe we help her out of the hole a little bit. In some way, that's good enough.

Some time after that, I held Mar's hand as she looked up at me from the bathroom floor. There was a line in the hall outside, and it was growing impatient. Someone knocked on the door.

I asked, "How much did you do?"

She put a hand on my wrist and asked, "Do you love me?"

"Don't fuck with me right now," I said. "Can you get up?"

She ignored me and asked again: "Do you love me?"

And folded her hands across her stomach.

"Yes," I said.

She said, "No. I want you to tell me."

I looked at her and saw that she was mine, absolutely and selfishly. I knew that everything I could give was hers. I treasured all the joy that I took from her, and all the sorrow. When I opened my eyes and saw her sleeping face in the morning, when I felt her delicate breath and the beat of her heart, I worried about how long any of it would last. All of the quiet secrets that we shared, and all of the angry shouts too.

Well, you were the violence in my heart. So,

I said, "Marika, I love you."

She smiled. There was a profound sadness there in her eyes, oceans full and deep and distant, drowning the entire world. It was a thing no one else saw. We would marvel at her pretense.

Maybe I was the only one who noticed, but maybe I was the only one she showed.

And she said, "I'm sorry for that."

I never understood her completely. I will never. At times, it does seem as though uncertainty is the best that we can hope for.

In some way, that's good enough.

We lean against each other and make our way through the drunken dumbshow, out of the smokehouse and into the cool night air. I open the car door and she slides into the passenger seat. She folds her hands across her stomach.

"It's going to be okay," I say.

When I start the car, the radio turns on, and she shakes her head.

I say, "It's going to be OK."

Milk & Honey

2009-04-04T12:00:00.006-04:00

You don't see things as they happen to others, but as they happen to you.

Do you file your canines so they look more like vampire fangs?

Not until you reflect on it moments later,

It's amazing that you were born that way. Blessed. You should go to Hollywood.

do you even realize that anything is happening at all.

It's the honest truth. I know people who'd kill to have teeth like yours.

Until you fix your eyes on something, the world doesn't stop spinning. Not for you. Naturally, the room you're in spins with the rest of it.

Oh yeah? I've never heard of them. What kind of music is that?

How many times have I heard that college is supposed to be the best time of your life? Maybe as many times as I've heard, "You shouldn't waste your time."

That sounds pretty cool. I recognize a couple of those, but I'm more into the classics: Floyd... Zeppelin...

Drink enough, and everything you experience melts together into one massive heap of unidentifiable colors. Everything loses its context, its place in time.

Do you have a radio show? So do I. When is it? I'd love to listen to it sometime.

I fit into the category of Asians who have a different alcohol-processing enzyme than most. Whenever I drink, even a little bit, my stomach churns and I feel nauseous. I do it because the benefits outweigh the harm. When I drink too much, I never throw up at night. It always happens the next morning, after I pass out, like clockwork. Once every half hour, for many hours on end. I end up incapacitated for most of the next day.

I play a lot of older stuff like I said, but I'm always open to suggestions. You want to look through my CDs? My room's upstairs.

In a few hours from now, I'll be dragging the trash bin next to my bed. She says, Let me tell my boyfriend. A few hours from now plus a few minutes from then, I'll be lying face down. The bottom half of my body will be on the mattress. The top half will be sagging off of it. My fingers will clutch the sheets. She says, This should be interesting. Swallowing hard, breathing down, I'll have attempted to reinforce the bin with a double layer of plastic Target shopping bags. They'll crinkle and balloon as I breathe, like I'm hyperventilating into an airline vomit sack. Up and down, in and out. I'll be kidding myself by thinking that the bags might help. I'll hit as many bullseyes as I want.

"Jerry."

The payload working its way through the maze, bomb bay doors yawning open, she says, He's totally out of it. It's not like I went easy at dinner. I can't remember, now, if I ate anything that might give it a vibrant color. It was hot pink once. That didn't make sense, because all I'd eaten that day were Cooler Ranch Doritos. It should have been blue like the bag.

"Jerry!"

It's a terrible sign that I'm thinking about this so early on in the night. Should I pace myself better? Sure, maybe. Probably. It's hard for me to do anything in moderation, though. I have an addictive personality. I didn't know this about myself until a girl in high school told me so. She said, "Jerry, you have an addictive personality." I didn't know what that meant at the time. Maybe other people became easily addicted to me. I had a crush on her at the time and was so flattered. My cheeks were bright red as I said, "Why, thank you. Thank you."

This douchebag with the popped collar that she's been talking to says, I didn't know you had a boyfriend.

"I'm sure there's a lot about me you don't know," she says. She leans sideways until we're face to face.

"Comfy?" she asks.

I grin from ear to ear.

She says, "I'm going upstairs for a few minutes."

I go to drink some water. It tastes absurdly sweet. My spit keeps coming and I keep swallowing.

Back home, my friend had a party and I passed out on his couch. I remember that over the course of the night, I kept waking up to spit on his nice hardwood floor. I must have felt guilty about fucking up his floor, so I grabbed a TV Guide off the coffee table. I opened it in my lap and started spitting all over the pages of that instead.

But this is how I know that I'll be fucked later: when I go to take a piss, it's crystal clear. Drinkable. I turn to the guy in the next urinal over and say something I'd learned in class: Hey, are you a bio major? My kidneys are so impermeable right now. I extend an arm over the divider and offer a high five. He doesn't respond at all.

Every party is exactly the same. Every person is a blind carbon copy of the next. Out in the living room, I'll say, I think I have that professor. People shuffle past one another and mutter heys & how's it goings. He'll laugh and reply, I love that guy. Everyone tries their best to look their happiest. Nods, handshakes, and high blood pressure, I'll say, Once I fell asleep in class and he woke me up. The next person you talk to could be your best-friend-forever. He'll reply, That class is way too early but it pays off in the end. The next person you meet could be your soul mate. I'll say, It's an amazing learning experience. If you don't talk to anyone, people will know that you aren't worth talking to. He'll reply, Did you see that chick that just walked by?

So much is being said that less is being heard. So little is revealed that nearly nothing is understood. Winks, smiles, and photogenic relaxation, I'll say, Was she hot? There is such warmth in the air that it grows thick with words. Let it incubate. Try to breathe it in, and it will fucking choke you.

In a few hours from now, she'll carefully place her purse under the medicine cabinet. A few hours from now plus a few minutes from then, the light from the bathroom will burn into my eyes. This is what will happen: the plastic will crinkle, I'll gaze into the pattern below me - red circle, red dot, and I'll watch her black silhouette. She'll wash her hands and splash some water over her face. She'll unpin her hair, run a hand through the thin black threads, and sweep the loose bits behind her ear. Her left hand will brush her jaw, reach behind to the nape of her neck, and gently slide back to trace the outline of her collarbone. She'll be wearing a necklace - rarely taken off but rarer seen - and her fingertips will come to a silver, heart-shaped pendant, small and undecorated except for a tiny cross scratched across its surface. Her right hand will be clutching the counter's edge. In the mirror, her reflection will match her every movement, every expression, and maybe every thought. Her pale white knuckles. Swallowing hard and breathing sharply, she'll wrap her fingers around the heart at her throat and stare back.

How often do you look at yourself in the mirror?

You can describe something by what you see, but what about what you don't?

I look at myself, and I can't stand being there.

In other words, is it possible to understand something by what it's not?

I look into my face - my eyes, my nose, my mouth, and my stomach churns.

Can you know a negative?

I can't stand seeing my reflection. When I do, I want to scream and tear into it all.

She never wore any makeup. Maybe this was why.

I want to bite down on my tongue, hard. I'd never have to speak again.

You don't see things as they happen to others, but as they happen to you.

I want to dig my nails under my skin. Run my hands down my face. I want to rip everything to pieces.

Not until you reflect on it moments later,

Maybe in the future, the police will take a bone sample and a machine will tell them my whole life story. They'll know everything about me and everything I've ever done.

do you even realize that anything is happening at all.

They'll look at my dental record and say, this was a troubled girl. She might have been great if she hadn't swallowed her own tongue.

Until you fix your eyes on something, the world doesn't stop spinning. Not for you. Naturally, the room you're in spins with the rest of it.

I focus my eyes on the black silhouette. It walks toward me.

Stop.

"Marika," I say.

"They'll say, 'Tut-tut, but this one only used lip gloss and lotion. No lipstick, no blush, no concealer, not a stroke of mascara. She didn't even fucking exfoliate, for Christ's sake. Before this girl took off her face, she didn't have the common decency to put it on right. She's not worth anyone's time.' And just like that, my name will be ruined. All the practice I've put into getting along with others, it'll have been for nothing."

I shout, "Marika!"

At this very hour and minute, I'm lying face down. The bottom half of my body is on the mattress. The top half is sagging off of it. My fingers clutch the sheets. She lies down on her side, facing me.

She asks, "Am I making you boot?"

"No," I say. It's like clockwork. "I've got a few more hours until that."

She asks, "What is it?"

Can you know a negative?

"Nobody else sees what you see," I say.

I say, "Your reflection is the opposite of how everyone else sees you. What you see in the mirror isn't you at all. You might hate the person you see, but you're the only one who will ever see her."

I say, "Your secret's safe."

She frowns for a moment.

Then she says, "That's sweet," and leans in close.

I could know her by smell alone. Her hair soaked in milk and honey, her skin drenched in smoke and booze. All things that I've taken pleasure in, but right now, I can't handle it. It's too much change, too quickly. It's a punch in the gut that cleaves into my organs and wrenches me up.

I groan, pull away, and lean over the bed. I let loose a torrential downpour of light brown. How many creams would you like, sir, two please, brown.

Right on target.

Despite the suffering that I'm experiencing now, I can take comfort in the fact that this will, in fact, make me feel better. The solution to my problem is simple because my problem is a simple one.

She props her head up with one arm to get a better look.

"Oh, Jerry," she says.

If only she'd join me, we could show this answer to the whole world.

"I don't think those bags are going to be enough."

Ástarsnæðingr

2009-04-04T00:00:00.003-04:00

Marika was born on December 9, 1985.

Parents name their children after friends and family, pop culture personalities, religious figures, and themselves. They name their children for the meaning or history behind the name. Sometimes they try to create a new name. Sometimes they just like the letters and sounds. Children are given names that signify something of their parents’ wishes. It's never quite as clean of a slate as we'd like.

Marika asked me what I saw in her eyes, and I told her that I saw hunger. It was a hunger for life, experiences, and emotions, with the curiosity of a cat and a glutton's appetite. I was afraid of what I saw, that she would eat me whole the same way that she wanted to devour the entire world. I saw those eyes because I knew the meaning behind them.

When people laugh or smile, you can usually tell if they’re being truthful by looking at the corners of their eyes, but Marika never let her eyes change in public. Even in anger, the whole of her face remained frozen over.

I ended up seeing her regular expression as one of detached amusement. When I’d first met her, her eyes seemed to reach out, connect, and involve. They had an infuriating listlessness about them that was both intriguing and patronizing, but they were also full of sympathy and sorrow. They asked to be understood and to understand you.

Wikipedia has this to say about the matter:

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is defined by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood." Deceit and manipulation are considered essential features of the disorder. Therefore, it is essential in making the diagnosis to collect material from sources other than the individual being diagnosed. Also, the individual must be age 18 or older as well as have a documented history of a conduct disorder before the age of 15. People having antisocial personality disorder are sometimes referred to as "sociopaths" and "psychopaths," although some researchers believe that these terms are not synonymous with ASPD.

According to DSM-IV (in a 1994 publication by the APA), antisocial personality disorder is diagnosed in approximately three percent of all males and one percent of all females.

Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote this poem:

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, -
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

Fluctuat nec Mergitur

2009-02-05T01:40:00.003-05:00

Here & Now

2008-12-15T04:33:00.004-05:00

Dwayne Hoover Looking Ahead

2008-11-19T21:29:00.004-05:00

Emily at Banquet

2008-11-07T22:41:00.012-05:00

Banquet, Polyester plate lithograph, edition of 10

IPU sighting, no offense intended.

Dwayne Hoover Looking Up

2008-11-07T12:40:00.021-05:00

Etching

How does it look, Dwayne?

That bad?

Peanut Butter Man

2008-11-06T22:25:00.016-05:00

The following is not safe for children or persons in the workplace, but should be read aloud to everyone within earshot anyways:

I just watched a video entitled "Fuck the Peanut Butter Man." A girl with her back slathered in peanut butter fucks an obese man whose mouth and hands are slathered in peanut butter, and while they fuck, the man slaps peanut butter onto the girl's tits and continues to eat peanut butter. This goes on for a while. At one point, the camera moves in to show a Star of David tattooed on the man's shoulder. Then the girl tells the man to "do the dance." The man makes a retching noise, stands up with a shriveled dick, and his condom has disappeared and they don't know where it has gone to. The man spits on the floor. He does a little dance. Then the girl slaps his thigh and yells, "Dance, fucking peanut butter!"

Well, I laughed. Then I thought, really now, our only hope might be a President Jesus Christ.

I also watched the new South Park. It was fantastic. Sometimes it seems as though Stone and Parker are inside me. I'll wake up in a cold sweat, clutching the sheets, and sadly realize that they were never there, that I may never caress their sweet stubble lovingly into the night.

Election Day

2008-11-05T01:15:00.021-05:00

I hope that Barack Obama's seeming idealism isn't drowned out within a month as President of the United States of America. I hope that he keeps some promises and gets some things done before reaching too deeply into anyone's pocket. I hope that he isn't killed and martyred.

I watched the television tonight, like so many Americans did, but shared little of the joy and shed none of the tears. According to history and common sense, it's never a good idea to rest all of your hopes on one person. It's generally not a good idea to trust a stranger, let alone a stranger who has trained to become the most professional of actors. I am not in love with Barack Obama. I agree more often with him than with McCain, but I do not trust anyone who wants to become president. There is something critically wrong with those people.

I watched the television tonight and saw vast crowds of people cheering, nodding, and saying to themselves that now, everything will be OK. Riding the emotional roller coaster with heads full of magic words and visions of a fuzzy future. "Yes we can." Yes we can leave for work tomorrow, take a breath of fresh air, and pat ourselves on the back, knowing that we made history today.

Politicians, above all, know the power of words:
"Yes we can" is not the same as "yes we will."

It's all become such an elaborate show that we forget: nothing has actually happened yet.

The Pax Americana will continue - fear and trembling and all.

I will be cheering when Obama can say, "Yes we have."

Grave of the Fireflies

2008-11-01T16:55:00.008-04:00

I just finished watching Grave of the Fireflies (火垂るの墓), an anime film from 1988, and basically cried through the entire thing. I saw it once before when I was a lot younger. I remember crying then, but it was much worse this time around.

The story is about a 14 year-old boy, Seita, and his 5 year-old sister, Setsuko, as they endure the harsh landscape of a war-torn Japan. After an air raid kills their mother and destroys their home in Kobe, the two children live with their aunt, who quickly grows sick of them and tells them to take care of themselves. Seita takes offense at this and brings his sister to live in an empty bomb shelter. Eventually, Setsuko begins to show signs of illness and malnutrition as food becomes scarce. She becomes listless and delirious, although Seita is mostly unaware of the danger she's in.

This film can definitely be interpreted as anti-war, but the most poignant moments of the film are those shared by the two children - often silent, tender acts showing the joy that can be found in hopelessness, and a love that at times seems capable of overcoming all odds.

I don't like to analyze things because I feel as though the act of studying something also destroys it. The very things that make this film great are also the things that lose their magic when you start to think too deeply into them. There is a lot to consider - raining incendiary bombs portrayed as gently falling fireflies against a night sky, the firefly itself as a symbol for Setsuko, and the desperation that sets in when our last glimmer of light fades away.

The film is based on a semi-autobiographical account of a man who needed to address the blame he felt for his own sister. We're shown scenes of death without glamor, bombs that fall from faceless enemies in the sky, from a Japanese perspective that's so rarely told. But compared to all of that, Seita's emotional turmoil is far more grave, and far more critical. As Setsuko lies in the bomb shelter and thanks her brother for a piece of watermelon, the irony is bitter and terrible. Circumstances become meaningless.

On a personal note, I have a sister who is eight years younger. When I originally saw this film, we were about the same age as Seita and Setsuko, and I could relate to them very directly on that level. That didn't change this time around. I always joke that my sister is still seven years old, and in some ways she'll always be that little girl to me. Just thinking of ourselves in Seita and Setsuko's position is enough to break my heart.

Towards the end of the movie, there's a scene in which Setsuko is shown doing all the things she did by herself when Seita was gone. It touched me more than anything I've ever seen. At the end of the film, we're left with a scene of brother and sister reunited, overlooking the modern-day city of Kobe. It's a reminder that despite all the uncertainty in the world, there are a few fundamental truths that live on forever.

State of the Union

2008-10-27T05:36:00.016-04:00

I was just looking through my old blog posts, and I think I can safely say that nothing has happened in the last 5 or so years to dissolve my pessimism. But I've learned some things.

I got a kick out of reading this poem I wrote about our president in 12/03.

And this one, from 3/04, about a year into the Iraq War, is kind of interesting compared to the prints I posted here and here. Since then, if it weren't for Jack Cafferty losing his shit on TV from time to time, I probably would have.

I think people have two to three times as many irrational fears now, compared to when I wrote this in 11/03.

And I still feel the same way that I did on election day, four years ago, when I didn't vote. I'm voting this year.

I have time to thank for transforming my trembling state of mind here to a slightly better one here.

I still haven't found God in any of this, but to be fair, I haven't been looking that hard.

Banksy's Village Petstore & Charcoal Grill

2008-10-26T16:21:00.003-04:00

Found a video!

Early Halloween

2008-10-25T15:29:00.015-04:00

Bliven and I were classy last night. I spray painted my mask & stuck a cigarette in the mouth. Here it looks kind of bent and fucked up because something collided into my face and broke it.

You Don't Even Know Me

2008-10-24T02:25:00.042-04:00

I went with my roommates to buy some stuff at the Garment District for my Halloween costume. It's been like 13 years since I dressed up for Halloween. It'll probably be more fun now, because I can drink a lot of vodka and red bull, and be totally belligerent to strangers and friends, who will then become strangers over time when I say horrible things to them.

I also got a nice size 8 black sleeveless dress and lovely black high heels, and the cashier took a look at my items: pig mask, black sport coat, dress, high heels, and just said "Explain." Maybe she thought I was going to come clean right then and there about how I'm secretly a cross-dressing pig transvestite, but the dress and shoes are for form study... which I still haven't passed, and is still an INCOMPLETE from last year, because I still haven't finished my projects, and I have until next week to turn them in or the INCOMPLETE will turn into a FAIL.

And deservedly so. I had all summer to work on it. But I spent my summer brainstorming about how I could be more charming. I drew a lot of idea webs and Venn diagrams, but couldn't think of anything to write in them. I did clip out pieces of George Clooney's face from magazines and tape them to my own face.

If you or anyone you know wants a size 8 black dress, let me know, because otherwise I have to mail it to France because of a promise I made, and that costs money. Integrity costs nothing.

Actually, I will probably just lie and save it for next Halloween. It's not like you have the internet in France.

I would have to drink so much to grow enough balls to wear that dress. Circa 1500 balls. I think I have that phrase wrong. But that's like when you buy clothes slightly too small for your size intentionally, because you think that will motivate you to lose some weight. But it never does. Because losing weight is hard. It will work with wearing a size 8 sleeveless dress on Halloween. Because drinking alcohol is easy.

Anyways, we went to the Army/Navy surplus store because Brian wanted a gas mask to go with his transparent sequin shirt from the 70s, and I bought a sniper field manual or something. I'm not really sure what it is. The cover had a soldier lying prone wearing a ghillie suit, he's looking through a rifle scope, and it said "SNIPER" in a real big font where every letter had a crosshair going through it, and "TRAINING" under that. So I figure there's probably something in there worth writing/drawing about. I already know how to vanish into the night. I do it every time I go to 7-11 at 3 AM and want to avoid the crackheads and panhandlers. Maybe I'll learn how to crawl a mile on my stomach in the middle of a hailstorm, hopefully. I'll find out when I'm done with Breakfast of Champions.

So then we went to Qdoba, which is a fine establishment, and fuck Caleb for going "Rrrreaaalllyyyyy?" when I said so. I got a fajita ranchera burrito and it was delicious, thanks for asking. About that.

Then the MFA, where I looked at some Japanese prints for the paper I'm supposed to be writing right now.

We came back to the apartment and I've been trying to write this 2 page essay for Japanese art history that's due tomorrow. Super easy, I know, but I've been "working" on it for like five or six hours now, because I'm retarded and keep watching videos on YouTube.

Mostly from this girl who went to a high school in the next town over from where I went to high school, and her username has 84 in it, which I can only assume means that she's the same age as me. My roommates weren't taken in, but that's because they don't understand. She's hilarious and I want her. Be mine Molly McAleer. I have a crush on you over the internet, that's how I know it's for real.

I just alt-tabbed to my essay and this was the last thing I wrote, apparently:

"The influence of ukiyo-e Claude Monet’s painting, The Thames at Westminster (1871), suggesto many elements that are quite similarr to Hokusai,,,,,,,,,,"

A+, I can feel it.

P.S.
I finished at 6:30. Expect to see its game breaking conclusions in the next issue of Nature magazine.

2008-10-23T21:17:00.015-04:00

The floor of my room is rotting, and when I move my chair around on its wheels, I lift up great long chunks of wood. These I throw away into the trash. The small bits I'm too lazy to vacuum or sweep away. They tend to stick themselves into my socks.

Maybe I do the sticking, I don't know. I had a few pieces in there that didn't become obvious until about 3 in the afternoon. I walked all over today, and when they became obvious, I said "Ow." I had to stop and take off my shoes.

Next to my chair, in the corner of my eye, is a small hole in the floor filled with dust and tiny pieces of whatever else shit. The hole is in the shape of a capital letter L. In the corner of my eye, it looks like a heart. One of these: ♥

Every time I look over, it turns back into an L. I wonder what that says about me. Probably not something great.

2008-10-22T18:30:00.011-04:00

If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.
If wishes were eagles, then beggars would fly.
If wishes were demons, then beggars would cry.
But horses and eagles and demons alike
Are nothing but wishes in a great blue sky.

Alice Whittaker

2008-10-18T21:34:00.003-04:00

Lately

2008-10-17T20:12:00.015-04:00

Hangers

2008-10-03T17:07:00.008-04:00

Hearts & Hanger

2008-09-30T05:50:00.005-04:00

Reposting some old ones that aren't total shit photos this time around, as well as a portrait you might recognize. Hope you like it:

Been sick since last Thursday & was out for several classes. Wasn't a good time for it, but when is it ever? Not even sure if I'll be able to make today's class, but anyways I'm already in pretty deep shit & it just keeps on raining. Lots of people seem to have little work these days - a luxury inconceivable to anyone in my department, but I'm not complaining. My head's on overdrive, trying to suck the inspiration out of anything I see (*). It's not helping my headache but I have some ideas stored up for when I don't feel like shit.

Corpus Clock & Chronophage

2008-09-29T01:18:00.004-04:00

If you're anything like me, you know how terrifying a time eater can be.

Bruno Te Quiero

2008-09-27T02:35:00.007-04:00

I thought Sasha Baron Cohen's Borat was pretty funny, but I always liked his character Bruno more. Bruno's a gay Austrian fashionista who makes asses out of poor folks working in the industry, showing us that talking about art and fashion is bullshit. I didn't know that his next project was a Bruno movie, so I was pretty excited to see this video up of him invading a runway show in Milan:

A few of his past exploits (on the one hand, these sycophantic suckers deserve it, but they're still just trying to make it):

Runway Music

2008-09-21T04:34:00.015-04:00

I've got a fascination with runway shows and fashion in general. Personally, I dress like shit - a fact that anyone who's seen me could vouch for - I spend no time whatsoever thinking about how to dress. Still, I love watching those walking clothes hangers strut down the catwalk. When the music complements the visuals, it can be an amazing show. I'll hear music that I like, then go looking for the song. Here are a few, click the show name for its YouTube video:

Dior HC F/W 2008
Basement Jaxx - Lights Go Down
MediaFire DL

Versace RTW F/W 2008
Hanayo - Joe le Taxi
MediaFire DL

Chanel HC F/W 2008
Seelenluft - Comme Dans Un Réve
MediaFire DL

Mix & Matchman

2008-09-20T15:40:00.012-04:00

Here is the MediaFire DL for this show's music.

You Used to Be Alright, What Happened

2008-09-19T18:25:00.027-04:00

Edit: Well apparently there's a problem with loading too many flash objects in a single browser window; when I had all of these on one page, they were having problems loading. I tried removing a bunch, and then some would work and some wouldn't, so I just took down the ones that weren't playing. And the Massive Attack song you have to click to start, then pause it, then play it again to get it to go. That makes no fucking sense. Computers are basically magic. I opened my computer the other day and immediately blacked out. Woke up to fairy elves prodding my face, demanding audience with Mantoc the Elder, Arch-wizard of Thalonsuul. Was that world a dream, or is the dream our very lives? We may never know.

I'm in search of new music. My regular playlist has been pillaged and digested for years and by now I've pretty much sucked it dry. Here are some frequent visitors, for working at midnight, walking at 3 am, and drowning at 6 am:

Aphex Twin - Xtal
MediaFire DL

Radiohead - I Am Citizen Insane
MediaFire DL

Hot Chip - So Glad to See You
MediaFire DL

Sigur Rós - Gong
MediaFire DL

Múm - The Land Between Solar Systems
MediaFire DL

Múm - The Ballad of Broken Birdie Records (Ruxpin Remix II)
MediaFire DL

Massive Attack - Butterfly Caught
MediaFire DL

Interpol - NYC
MediaFire DL

Interpol - Wrecking Ball
MediaFire DL

Interpol - The Lighthouse
MediaFire DL

Cat Power - Sea of Love
MediaFire DL

If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Things I don't deal well with include:

-Nickelback

What's a Levigator

2008-09-19T03:01:00.037-04:00

Some music I've been into.

Lykke Li - Little Bit (Diego Chavez Remix)
Fileden DL

Yelle - Ce Jeu (Paul Gold Remix)
Fileden DL

Crystal Castle - Air War
Fileden DL

Couldn't find the mp3 but here's a clip from "Chambermaid Swing" by Parov Stelar, apparently the "king of swing electro." I had no idea that shit existed but apparently he rules the land. I heard this one time one of his fiefs tried to rebel, so he crowd surfed 100 yards into the audience, got up on a platform, and backhanded 2 women in the face. No no wait, that was Akon. They're basically the same person in my mind. That video also below.

That made me hungry.

Radiohead Live

2008-08-16T14:09:00.024-04:00

@ the Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA

1. Reckoner
2. Optimistic
3. There There
4. 15 Step
5. Kid A
6. Nude
7. All I Need
8. The Gloaming
9. National Anthem
10. Videotape
11. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
12. The Bends
13. Faust Arp
14. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
15. Everything in its Right Place
16. Exit Music (for a Film)
17. Bodysnatchers
18. House of Cards
19. I Might Be Wrong
20. Paranoid Android
21. Wolf at the Door
22. How to Disappear Completely
23. Cymbal Rush
24. Karma Police
25. Idioteque

2008-06-24T18:25:00.009-04:00

Rubbernecking

2008-06-24T18:05:00.019-04:00

Silkscreen final

My work in the screen print class has mostly been about mass media and its effect on the American public during the War in Iraq. We are distanced from the conflict - nobody seems to know what's really going on, while talking heads (perhaps not intentionally) feed us lies and misinformation. As a result, the majority of the public and the youth in particular base their reactions on emotion rather than reason. When we turn inward for the truth in a situation like this, we are reduced to apathy and misjudgment.

Accipe Hoc ("Take That")

Si Vis Pacem, Parabellum
("If You Want Peace, Prepare for War")

Carole Landis, an actress from the 40s, known for visiting and entertaining soldiers during World War II. Was plagued by depression her entire life and committed suicide at age 29.

Acedia ("Apathy")

Voice

2008-06-24T17:50:00.009-04:00

of no one

Watchful

2008-06-24T17:42:00.013-04:00

for the country

I used Latin for many of my prints this semester - a dead language, as Max Fischer pointed out in Rushmore. An archaic language seems to command attention and conjures up a sort of authority in the modern day, a phenomenon that may be related to its use in the mottoes of the various armed services. What's unknown is to be feared, after all. The words themselves might evoke something in our own experience better than the words we use daily, repeated so often until meaningless.

Front of the wood block

Back side

Pro Patria Vigilans ("Watchful for the Country")

Big screen television

In Roman times, to be watchful would have meant a sort of vigilance on the part of the citizens. Today, we fulfill our duty as we stay in our homes, close the curtains, and watch the television. We have become separated, by countless layers that we cannot touch, from the truth and reality of things.

VIDEOTAPE

2008-05-07T23:46:00.005-04:00

ANIMATION/VIDEO
VISUAL LANGUAGE 2 FINAL

Chromophobia

2008-04-20T00:14:00.018-04:00

I don't know how to use them,
and maybe never will.

Reminds me of this from last semester:

I usually don't have to use color, and there are plenty of people who choose not to. I grew up drawing in pencil, didn't feel comfortable enough to use pens for mark making until I was in high school, and then only found out about charcoal as a disastrous biochem junior. I tend to see things in terms of line rather than shapes or spaces. The linear aspect of my work has always been strongest.

I guess color never appealed to me because I rejected it in favor of the more dramatic b&w. Now that I'm learning more about printmaking, seeing incredible silkscreens and so on, I really wish that I'd more practice using color.

And then there's painting with color only, I'll be fucked. I've tried painting once before and was shit at it then, so I'm a bit nervous about the painting course I have to take in the fall.

Blanksy

2008-04-10T02:58:00.015-04:00

This short amount of time that I've spent in art school has made me extremely wary of using the word "art." It's like the word "love"; hearing it used so often and with so many different meanings has cheapened its value, especially when the art in question is puerile shit - which is often.

To me, art is communication with intent. Art that does not communicate isn't art - when you put a painting in your house because it's pretty to look at, it becomes decoration. When you sculpt an incredibly ornate dining room table, you've accomplished incredible craftsmanship. Nor is art something created without a goal in mind. You can't control what other people think of your work - everyone comes from their own place, with their own memories - but you are deluded if you think that you can get away with scribbling mindless shit down, pushing pieces randomly because it might end up looking "interesting."

Fuck interesting.

There are so many students here who take in the shitheap world around them, only to vomit it back out, exactly the same in their work. There are those who focus solely on aesthetic style, to the point where their work has no message at all - you might as well spend the rest of your life designing IKEA catalogs. And then there are students who came here to learn how to design IKEA catalogs.

That's wonderful (and I'm not being sarcastic), but it's not the same thing.

The definition of art was fucked ever since people stopped starving and started thinking. Renaissance masters painting rows of figures, gesturing up and down and horizontally across - patrons looking at work and talking about formal elements like line and value and ignoring the subject matter completely - is that art? Maybe it's galleries full of potted plants and clouds and kids riding tricycles. Maybe it's anything in a gallery. Well, fuck that.

Someday I'll realize that all the time I thought I'd been making art, I'd actually been using the wrong colors.

"I'd been painting rats for three years before someone said, 'That's clever, it's an anagram of art,' and I had to pretend I'd known that all along."

-Banksy

Crying Man

2008-04-09T02:13:00.005-04:00

As if there hasn't been enough "Videotape" on this blog,

My first animation, roughly 40 frames or so, put together in some different ways to the beat of the music. I learned a lot:

Never Complain?

2008-04-08T11:31:00.055-04:00

It doesn't matter to me who receives my work. I don't feel strange about selling to a complete stranger. Wall Street wolf or humble accountant, meathead/clubber or retired/philanthropist, she could be strung through with pearls, bleeding mascara on the floor, or he could be racing dirt bikes by day and cleaning toilets by night.

It's not to say that I don't invest myself in my work. It's the complete opposite - I put so much of myself into each image that I'm never satisfied by anything I make. I want to capture all the things that I think about, all the weight in my heart, through a single image. My ambition outruns me; I inevitably fail.

When I finish making something, I have to share it or destroy it. Work is precious to me as long as it's just that - work. A way of turning myself inside out. If there's no one to take the product from me, I end up backspacing, crossing it out, crumpling it up, tearing it and tossing it in the trash. When I find old work that no longer applies to how I feel, it's gone. Just imagine how many entries I've deleted from here. If I am my work and my work is me, then I've committed thousands of fingernail suicides. Blame Mar's self-destructive habits for rubbing off on me.

When my work becomes the property of someone else, it's a validation of the value of my work. When it's seen by others, it becomes more real to me. When it's criticized by others, it becomes less valuable, and when it's praised, it becomes more. We live in a specific culture, the here and now, in a world full of other people. We are Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Save Darfur, MTV, VH1, sex scandals and missing children on the news. We are a society fueled by fear and loathing, and as a translator, I embrace all the things that sway the masses. I refuse to work in a social vacuum. If a tree falls in the middle of a forest and no one is around to hear it, who the fuck cares.

But when my work becomes the property of someone else, it takes on a new meaning for that person alone, even if it's a lack of meaning. Turning work into money and vice versa, we trade utility in terms of an exchange that everyone understands. I dissolve any emotional connection that I have to my work. It doesn't matter to me if the person wants to know who I am or what my work represents. I'm happy to give a tour, but if I never meet the person or see my work again, that's fine with me. With a word too many, it's possible that the disappointment could be great on both sides. When that happens, it's the work that suffers.

"Happiness only real when shared."

Someday, I might make a pretty print that matches the color of your living room sofa. Let me know if you want it.

Hush

2008-03-15T15:34:00.018-04:00

What are you speaking for?

I was planning on writing the title in the space between the trees, but decided against it. This will be in the foundation All-School Show (Mass Art Brandt Gallery), along with my monoprint book.

Please Smile My Noise Bleed

2008-03-14T15:11:00.019-04:00

Show Your Bones

So Glad to See You

2008-02-10T16:21:00.007-05:00

Like all birds together
we will squawk and we squeak

The Change is in My Pocket

2008-02-06T23:14:00.004-05:00

I was given an assignment in class to address some type of environmental issue, so I chose word pollution. A bit offbeat, but it's something that I feel strongly about.

With M and I Deleted

2008-01-21T01:00:00.008-05:00

Mono-print/type final

Inspired in part by FOUR LETR WORD GAME, which left quite the impression on me (for just how deep, check out the link I had up in this post from 2003), and quite a lot of depressing shit to do with humanity's failure to separate the divine from the crude. Also quite a lot of depressing shit to do with someone, though not much of a secret there.

I suppose there's some commentary about supermodels, fashion, and public image in there somewhere. I intended it to be a loose, American story about a loose American woman who loses herself completely and doesn't realize it at all. I see them walking all over... and well, they do terrify me.

Philanthropy

2007-12-07T19:25:00.007-05:00

Food for the needy
Tie ribbons to trees

Make smiles go for miles
And bring some world peace

Form groups and add names
To let the world know

Causes for talking
Put on a great show

We're making connections
We're making a change

With great friend collections
The internet exchange

So this is your love
To be doled out free

Equal employer
Inflationary

Small as the world is
And try as I may

Can't find a needle
Within bales of hay

You'll be the first one I see
You'll be the first one I tell

All the things that I need
Make for laughing farewells

You look in a mirror
And wash out your eyes

This is one we can handle

X O

2007-12-02T04:44:00.003-05:00

Be sure to write us now and then,
We sign by crossing lines.
A letter becomes a promise,
Forgotten in due time.
How does a cross become a kiss,
An act but not a vow?
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us liars, now-

Love is so laissez faire, so we
Redirect your prayer.
We cannot help but feel the loss
Of something never there.
Or something there but now is lost,
We cannot remember.
Let us gently remind you with
Carols in November.

Chiseled from stone and left alone,
Statues will cry and bleed.
On our knees we can do no wrong;
Your sign is all we need.
All the best that is ours to give
Is lost to human sight.
The hopes and fears of all the years
Meet here with us tonight.

Rashest Words

2007-10-22T03:13:00.004-04:00

I cut the trees, made paper leaves.
You wove a net and held my sleeves.
When we knelt down to see the queen,
The king, the court, the house and green,
You kissed the hands of noble hosts,
Worthy men amongst men who boast.

Say two and two make laughing pairs,
And three and three joyous affairs-
Though one and one's a dreadful lot,
A dreadful more your silence wrought.
I gave to you my shrinking words,
A paper promise cut to thirds.

Blame performs a stage in the round,
An actors' discourse without sound
For all those words we could not shape,
We sought in dreams our wild escape.
While hands might sew chance works of art
They could not fill one empty heart.

You cut the trees, made paper leaves.
I wove a net and held your sleeves.
When we knelt down to see the green,
The house, the court, the king and queen,
I kissed your lips and held your hair.
You smiled at me and then were air.

Videotape

2007-10-15T12:01:00.003-04:00

Queen of Rashest Words

2007-10-11T17:05:00.004-04:00

Presemester Project

2007-08-27T01:25:00.003-04:00

Eye teeth, tree fingers.

Mass Art Presemester

2007-08-20T20:40:00.006-04:00

I didn't know what to expect from Mass Art's presemester program, but having started, I'd highly recommend it to new students. In just one week, I've started to look at people and objects differently, and my approach to drawing things has radically changed. The course focuses on gesture, value, and contour drawing. The gesture part has been the most helpful to me by far. I find myself consciously looking at things as a whole now, which goes a long way in planning things out. I'm pretty wary when it comes to following set techniques - they're all new to me and I don't want to trap myself into following rote method - but the class instruction has definitely left an impact.

I've never felt such strong motivation to do work like this before. I'm going on very little sleep every day but I don't feel tired. None of it feels like work. I just want to absorb as much as I can, as quickly as I can, and I feel like a new person. Still, it's strange - after four years in the wrong place, the right one is almost frightening just because it's unfamiliar. I'm definitely more open to everything this time around. I want to experience as much as possible, not just what's offered.

Here are some drawings I did over the weekend at the MFA. It'll be great to see gradual improvement when the semester gets under way.

What Else Is There?

2007-08-10T09:22:00.004-04:00

From then and that to this, my journey postcard.

Slate

2007-08-06T23:07:00.004-04:00

The City

2007-05-16T11:50:00.004-04:00

as it stands.

Neophobia

2006-10-17T17:11:00.004-04:00

A vast majority of the human population is afraid of change, to an extent that they will do anything in their power to avoid a drastic upheaval of what they know and enjoy. In failing to prevent such change, the rest respond by entering into a state of denial. The more education a mind receives, the more likely it is to respond this way. In this respect, a good education can ruin a good mind.

After all, education is, first and foremost, a process that conditions and sterilizes. It teaches us to organize information, recognize patterns, and communicate effectively with other human beings within the rules of a synthetic system. Education entails a planned reconstruction of the mind, to make it rigid but streamlined, so that we can function in a world built upon these systems. This has become absolutely necessary for the advancement of culture and society.

However, conflict arises when this carefully shaped mind inevitably clashes with the biological version that we're born with. It is to say, at times, we may feel that something is terribly wrong. We are empty when we are meant to be whole. The world man has created is as fragile as our very bodies. It is our power to set both afire.

Those who never feel it are frightening to say the least. Those who do feel it, but would rather blind themselves than challenge it, are walking, talking abominations. The rest of us... we're just unhappy.

T. Fernandez

2006-10-10T00:44:00.003-04:00

Portrait of Teresita Fernandez.

Reach

2006-09-30T12:14:00.003-04:00

UNKLE's "Rabbit in Your Headlights."

Cradle

2006-09-29T18:47:00.003-04:00

Portishead.

Numbers

2006-09-28T11:56:00.003-04:00

One of my first charcoal drawings, copied from a photograph by Jonathan Borofsky.

When I was little I had a vivid nightmare in which I was trapped in a room with brightly glowing squares on the walls, numbers flashing across them faster than I could process. I woke up in cold sweat, thinking that my head was going to explode.

Camera Obscura

2006-09-27T23:56:00.004-04:00

With a camera in front of our faces, we mold the world into the reality we prefer, whatever we want - the things we want to fix our stares upon forever. It's the same with any other tools, any other interface we use in the act of creation. They shield us and provide a single pane window to experience the little part of the world that's still beautiful. Through art, we isolate memories and choose the thoughts that we want to dwell on. We label these thoughts and call them the truth. What does it matter if things didn't quite happen the way that we remember them, or in the way that we understood them? Looking through one eyeglass to see the world, we feel as if we've successfully taken a piece of the universe for ourselves. Then we might realize that we're actually peering up from the bottom of a well, and all we've done to pass the time is stare at our own piece of sky. But it doesn't really matter either way. The act of creation gives meaning to what would be just another day. Filling up a photo album, a canvas, a diary... we try to hold on.

Politikus

2006-09-26T19:27:00.009-04:00

People who know me know to not take me seriously. I generally don't act seriously around other people. I make jokes without context and rarely talk about politics, news, or anything of significance. I rarely ask other people what they've been doing and am terrible at staying in touch with people I no longer see on a regular basis. I find conversations about current events and ambitions and the state of the world to be incredibly shallow, and as no one I know is really an expert on anything they speak about, any discussions usually deteriorate into generalizations, opinions, and quotes from the media. All that's left are jokes.

My behavior changes when I interact with different people, drawing from and taking on aspects of their behavior. With every different person, I am slightly different. I can't help it. For this reason, I do all of my work alone and wouldn't have it any other way. It's only when I'm alone do I show a side of my personality that few will ever see, because I only reveal it when I forget that anyone else is there. It's a prickly and hostile state of being; when I feel myself entering it I can feel my mind and body click - trivial thoughts disappear, replaced by a sinking feeling in my heart. It's only there that I can make anything of significance to myself.

On Skin, Deeply

2006-09-24T11:38:00.005-04:00

My sister is in middle school and has monthly subscriptions to Teen Vogue and Cosmo! Girl. I've looked through a lot of them, and the truth is that they're very entertaining. Even though I dislike many things about shopping, modeling, and all the other products of a consumer driven society, these magazines create a culture that captivates and engulfs the reader. Gossip, fashion advice, and etiquette are spliced together with clothing, makeup, and fragrance advertisements under the calculated precision of a surgeon's hand.

I can't deny that these magazines are as much handbooks to the adult world as they are the commercials between Saturday morning cartoons.

"Eyeteeth"

2006-09-23T13:41:00.004-04:00

The white teeth of magazine models and actors are bared in pride and glamour, but just as a wolf bares its teeth to threaten, they also serve to check and overpower. It's a strange world in which a smile may mean so many different things, in which one person may understand something to be terrifying while another understands it to be trivial. By not only smiling out of joy but also out of embarrassment and pity, and to use one's features to manipulate and deceive, the smile becomes more mask than flesh. This is the essence of man's will. These bare bones represent at once the corruption of man and the source of both our infatuation and anguish. They are a symbol of humanity's power and privilege.

παθογένεια

2006-09-21T18:29:00.005-04:00

I lie often when I speak to family and friends. It's skewed I know, but without thinking I begin to invent stories and characters to populate my mouth when I interact with the people I care for. Inevitably, I lose track of what’s what and who’s who, the places I’ve been with the people I know, they eventually begin to unravel until all that remains is doubt, shame, and all the other words that mean emptiness. It doesn’t bother me that I do this, however, I do it so often that sometimes I don’t even bother to connect the dots for myself. I simply toss them into the air and face the repercussions later. After all, it makes things easier for now, and later doesn’t become now until later.

Clocks

2006-01-01T01:29:00.004-05:00

"My Dad told me all sorts of deep shit before he left. Proverbs, you know... shit that would make you cry from laughing so hard." He peeks at me, a quick dart to the corner of his eye. "I remember one - it was about a guy who tries to steal a gong, I think. He sneaks into this guy's house and takes the gong, except as he leaves he accidentally bumps it or drops it, but anyways, it goes off. So this guy, he freaks out. Instead of running, he plugs his ears. He figures that if he can't hear the noise, nobody else can either." He laughs and rests his chin on the steering wheel, hunched over with elbows for devil ears. "So the stupid fuck gets caught."

"Of course," I say. "He was too shocked to move."

Another peek, and it's back to the road. "The hard shock of reality resonating through your ears to your skull, and all you can do is make some stupid gestures until you get fucked in the ass?"

I look at my watch. "I have 2:23 here," I say. "Your car's got 12:15. What time have you got?"

He rolls his head to the right, flexing his wrist outward to get a look. "11:15," he says.

I grin and say, "I have 2:23 here on my watch, another time for my car, another time for my VCR, one for the stove, one for the microwave, one for the TV, and one for the clock in my bedroom. One day I ran from clock to clock, closed my eyes, and held down the hour and minute buttons until I let go. Every time I wake up, it doesn't matter if I'm in my car, my apartment, or my living room... I always believe that the first time I see is the real time."

His chin comes off the steering wheel. "Perfect," he says, and laughs. "They're all perfect."

The Whole Point

2005-06-01T00:06:00.003-04:00

From the couch she says, "Let's say I'm watching the season finale of American Idol when I suddenly want to do something good for my body. I decide that I want to do sit-ups, right then and there. So okay, I lay sideways, stick my toes under the couch, and see that there are two contestants left. It's down to southern rocker Roger Wilco and country bonnet Betty McGee. Let's say I give myself a goal, and my goal is to do five sets of ten, with fifteen second breaks in between. Well, I start off pretty strong. I'm feeling good, my elbows are extended, and I can feel my belly working for it. By the second set I'm really working hard. I start cramping up. I'm pulling with my knees and my elbows end up in my face. By the third set I'm actually using my hands to pull myself up by my thighs, frantically grasping at the air in front of me. And poor Roger, who everyone knows has no chance in hell, hasn't even finished his song."

I say, "So what you're saying is that some goals can't be reached."

She says, "What I'm saying is that if you can't do it right, it's time to step back and try something else. The phrase 'the whole point' is an oxymoron. You teach yourself to do things right. Not to do them wrong."

If your goal is to do something well, you do it. Frequently, precisely and accurately, concentrating on doing it precisely and accurately every time.

Unless your goal is to read books well, books don't count as practice.

"Just because you can try a little bit of everything doesn't mean that you can be terrible at everything," she says. "Both you and I are liberal arts. They joke that it's the path to unemployment, but sometimes I think that's the way it ought to be." She sighs and closes her eyes.

"So much wasted energy."

Soup for the Soul

2005-05-31T21:58:00.005-04:00

"I hate this," he says.

He slops a dripping mess of instant noodle into his mouth. Sweat marches down his forehead. Artificial pork powder dots his beard.

"I hate this," he says, "I really do. One thing for a lion to kill a gazelle, another entirely to fix this shit."

I say, "I thought you liked this stuff. You have boxes of it."

"How could I ever like this? Look at it. What the fuck, I can't even read the label. What does it say?"

"That's Korean," I say. "I'm Chinese."

"Whatever. I never said I liked it, but it's not terrible either. Pretty spicy." He leans over the table, staring into the styrofoam bowl, and blows with his mouth. "That's not what I meant, though. I meant eating this. The act of eating is fucking disgusting."

It's only been five minutes and he's already rambling. Five minutes, and I'm already losing interest. I mumble, "Food is delicious."

"No," he says. "I mean taking all this crap that some machine shat out and dumping it into one end of your body."

He inhales the steam. A droplet of sweat breaks free from his hairline and rolls to the tip of his nose. He says, "Knowing that it's passing through your wet insides and that in a couple hours, you're going to shit it out the other end and have to do it all over again. That's just not natural."

He shifts in his seat. The droplet breaks free and plops into the soup. He wipes himself with the back of his hand and picks up the bowl.

I say, "I wonder if it feels as good for the machine as it'll feel for you."

"No worries there," he says. "Handful of Total every morning keeps me regular."

He brings the bowl to his face and starts slurping. The bobbing of his Adam's apple makes me uncomfortable.

I say to his throat, "You know, male lions don't really hunt. Females mostly do all the work." I say, "The male just sort of sits around and scares other animals off."

He gets up and grabs a towel off the oven handle. "No shit?" he says. He wipes his beard. "I always thought lions were too hyped up. Grab my keys off the counter there while I heat up some more water."

"Making more for the road?" I ask.

"Nah," he says. "The old lady needs her beauty treatment."

When in Rome

2004-11-04T02:45:00.003-05:00

Empires crumble from the inside out. This is not the time for petty bickering.

Radio Show

2004-10-31T17:02:00.003-05:00

Every Thursday is 2 hours just for me
and maybe other people

Broken Hive

2004-10-15T04:09:00.004-04:00

The hive is an individual.

The bees are its hands.
Bees make heat by digesting honey.
Each bee warms the bee next to it.
A large cluster of bees will survive.
To survive winter bees conserve heat.
Bees outside of the hive warm the inside.
Bees take turns warming each other.
If there is no honey the temperature drops.
Below 57oF bees will stop moving.
Bees will not fly to find honey.
Bees will not fly even inches away.
The hive will starve and die.
Days later it will fall apart.
Someone made a mistake here.

Airbag

2004-10-09T01:10:00.003-04:00

Photographs by Steven Marinos.

Scalpel

2004-10-05T03:04:00.003-04:00

The city needs a therapist, not a plastic surgeon.

China, Pt. 13

2004-09-09T10:45:00.003-04:00

The black Audi A6 or A8 is the vehicle of choice for government officials. And as we drive, they swarm the streets of this mammoth bureaucracy. What's power and money if you can't show it off? On the road, it's much the same attitude as anywhere else: anything goes. Cars pass one after another after another, like air, filling up every conceivable space on the roads. Traffic slows, but with the exception of rush hour, rarely stops. Cars don't stop for bicycles and bicycles don't stop for pedestrians. The bigger you are, the more you can threaten to run over.

In the Forbidden City there is a gallery of clocks given to the Chinese emperor by English, French, American, and Swiss diplomats, among others. In Chinese, the word for clock is pronounced zhong. This is similar to a word for death, and as a consequence, clocks were never given as gifts. But these clocks are incredibly ornate, carved by hand to produce the finest details and finished in gold. Most are ridiculously gaudy, although some from the French and Swiss are beautifully elegant. These are notable departures from the horrors of traditional Chinese aesthetics.

The emperor's working and resting quarters are decorated with feathers and symbols of the tortoise and crane, which represent longevity. The colors yellow and gold were worn only by the emperor, whose court consisted of concubines and castrated officials and servants. Here, another A6 passes us on the road. The authorities have no honor. Police cars wail their sirens to pass single cars in traffic. Cops are as unique as their personalities and most would like nothing better than a chance to exercise their power. The uniform is a show, and a tacky one at that. There are few competent authorities here, but many bureaucrat relations.

Such a great departure from the virtuous, if insecure, men who once ruled from the throne. At dinner with a judge of the supreme court, all of the meals on the menu cost thousands of yuan. The judge picks the restaurant, of course. He's accompanied by a pretty girl. All of the waitresses are pretty, young girls. As we eat, the judge answers a call on his cell phone. "Thank you for your gift," he says. "Two hundred thousand yuan should do it. I appreciate it." The courts operate like e-bay. Money and gifts buy the law and the faces representing it. Sons of bureaucrats become fat and follow in the footsteps of their fathers. Bid against your opponent, and whoever wins, the judge sits back and orders a thousand yuan plate of fish.

It all seems so backward, this technologically advanced and structurally efficient city that has such an ugly soul. But this may be the only way. One can only hope that the inside might someday match the outside.

China, Pt. 12

2004-09-08T12:16:00.003-04:00

Like everything, people are best taken in small doses. Small groups of friends, clusters of relatives, and even the occasional man in uniform are acceptable. As we know from the Wonderful World of the Web, anonymity turns even the most mild mannered person into a stark-raving, pic demanding, trash talking, acronym spamming piece of shit. Anonymity comes with the mob.

Tiananmen Square is a nest of people, but it feels relatively open compared to other attractions. So much surface area stretches out the population density. In the West, Christian skyscrapers reach to the sky to get closer to heaven. In old China, heaven is already here on earth. Large, open spaces dominate.

Tall red flags decorate the arena and flap side by side, while underneath, street vendors haunt your every step. Iced spring water, two yuan. Popsicles, two yuan. They're all after you, your money, especially your empty water bottles, which they can sell for ten cents each. Large rice bags are placed side by side with trash containers for this express purpose. Simultaneously a recycling program and employment for the destitute?

An enormous portrait of Mao hangs overlooking the square, where countless worshipers once crowded shoulder to shoulder to witness the great chairman, farmer, soldier, celebrity, father to the people, opiate, and aspiring sun god as he addressed them. They'd imagine a microscopic wave of the hand and go wild with praise and shouts bestowing immortality.

China, Pt. 11

2004-09-07T17:11:00.003-04:00

It's not that the girls here are so much better looking than at home. But they've got little butterfly clips in their hair. They aren't afraid of wearing pink. They hold hands. They wear skirts. It's just that, my God, everyone here is Asian.

She once asked me, in that completely useless and extremely aggravating manner of female interrogation, if I had a choice between two girls, and they were equally attractive and intelligent, but one was white and the other was Asian, which one would I choose? I replied, the Asian one, because we'd have more things to talk about. I replied, our backgrounds would be more similar. I replied, an Asian couple looks good together.

I told her, you're getting a little fat.

It's definitely wanting something other than a defined jawbone, a mountain range for a chest, a six pack, anorexia. I want a good girl. Here is the antithesis of every Playboy fantasy. That caricature of a magazine never did a thing for me.

China, Pt. 10

2004-09-05T00:53:00.003-04:00

In the commericial center of Beijing, there's a long street covered with flamboyant shops and department stores. For the rich, this place must be heaven. Most of the things sold here are appallingly useless: little trinkets, hand carved wooden decorations, China vases three meters tall. The prices range from a couple yuan to tens of thousands. There are intricately painted porcelain bottles that wouldn't be anything special if you didn't know that they were done by hand from the inside out, painted through the neck of the bottle. These cost up to eight thousand yuan. One thousand American dollars. There's no cultural significance to this; they do it because they can, and because people will buy.

In a supposedly communist nation, the difference between the wealthy and the poor is ridiculously pronounced. The rich have more money than they know what to do with, but unlike in America, where the rich are more often than not well educated, here they spend their money lavishly on meals costing hundreds of thousands, these useless ornaments, and expensive clothes that fail to cover up their ignorance and lack of social etiquette. This is capitalism at both its best and its worst. With a society that seems to show no restraint, no self-control, no introspection, what you get is the rich eating meat from snakes - the more poisonous, the more expensive - and indigent farmers who offer meals and lodging in their humble homes for the equivalent of three American dollars a night.

China, Pt. 9

2004-09-03T00:05:00.003-04:00

The grandmother is a package of dried flesh wrapped in a bundle of veins. She can walk! She can talk! Her mouth is a line of mummified yellow and her eyes are sunk into their sockets. She walks with a worn cane and her back curls into a twisted knob. At age ninety-one, any wisdom gained through the years dissipated long ago. You have to scream into her ear for her to hear what you have to say. At age ninety-one, she hates Canada, shits on America, and calls people retarded. If it weren't for the screaming, there'd be no way to vent your frustration. At age ninety-one, she's only human by convention.

With the fan slowly turning between her and us, she talks and we listen. She can't hear, and we can't understand. It's talk of relatives I've never met, the evil Canadian health care system, and New York, apparently the capital of the United States. In her mind, I attend Washington University. This is my father's mother and her entire family speaks with an accent I have difficulty understanding. The food gives my sister the runs, but they've got two wide-screen televisions. There's no toilet, but they've got DSL.

China, Pt. 8

2004-09-02T00:55:00.003-04:00

Grace is so wet. I'm so wet. At this point it's dripping down our legs. It's soaked through our underwear. The only way to tell whether it's water or sweat is to taste it as it runs down our faces. There's a waterfall here, but we don't look. Across the ravine there's a single tree growing out the side of a cliff, but there's no time to waste. My shirt's clinging to my skin. My pants are shades darker than they ought to be. I need a new pair of socks, but the only way to change all of this is to climb, higher, up to where the halfway mark is, where there's a little pavilion to hide from the rain. We'd been told to bring raincoats, but we didn't listen. We'd laughed and cited the humid, ninety degree weather.

Later, at a stand by the side of the stairs leading up, there are raincoats for sale. Of course. The wind is blowing against my wet back and I think I've got a fledgling case of diarrhea. When I ask for a discount, the peddler seems to have a good sense of humor, or at least a good sense of ethics, because he gives me one. Grace's hair is a wet carpet in a streak down her face. By now, the rain's almost gone. Of course. Just little droplets pitter-pattering on the hood. The only thing unbearable is the lack of change. After a while, the steps aren't steps anymore, the people aren't people. They're all obstacles designed to prevent us from reaching the top of the mountain. They're all instruments of suffering. The taxi driver had told us, the climb will take about two hours if you're in shape. It takes us almost five. This is the shorter face of the Yellow Mountain.

All along the steps leading upward, there are men anywhere between twenty to forty years of age, hauling goods up the mountain. They're all wearing the same yellow jacket vests from the same company, using the same yokes made from bamboo sticks from which their loads hang down on each end. They cover this mountain face from the top to bottom, taking up about three quarters of the path as they slowly walk. And as they walk, you can see the wide, sinewy muscles of their calves grind. They walk a couple steps, rest, and continue. Walk, rest, and continue. The ones who have finished go down almost at a run, two steps at a time.

We meet one guy who looks to be in his mid-twenties, and he carries more than the others. He's got crates inside plastic bags, three of them on each side of his yoke, stacked one on top of the other. We're not moving any faster than him, we're so out of shape. For Grace, this is what four years of graduate school will do to you. And for me... well, this is what just plain sloth will do. So between breaths, we talk to this guy. They're paid 0.20 RMB per five hundred grams of goods they can carry up the slope, a total of about seven kilometers of walking distance, amplified a thousand times by that incline. He's carrying a load of beer and will make sixty yuan at the end of the day. Most make about forty. They can only make one trip per day because it's so exhausting. A bottle of water on the mountain costs ten yuan. Of course.

The hotels at the top of the mountain pay these men to transport their supplies and food because the cost of their labor is less than paying to bring the supplies up by cable car. Near the top of the mountain, they're get so tired and hungry that they ask passersby for food and water. The big guy says to us, the harder you work, the less they try to pay you.

In the hotel room at the top of the mountain that costs eighteen carry loads per night, everything appears in terms of their weight on a yoke. Unassembled furniture, potted plant, tea set, bath towels, hot water pot, complimentary shampoo, bath foam, shower cap and toothbrush, put them together and how much does it weigh? This is what passes for fairness and justice. This is what passes for a great master plan. If there is a god, it's a six year old with excited legs behind your seat in coach.

My father has had an aching back since he was a teenager as a result of carrying water to his home by yoke. I ask the big guy, has he been experiencing any back pain? This is what passes for a way of life, and if he weren't blessed with this physique, he wouldn't even be so fortunate. So what can you do? You can try, and succeed at times, to not take the things you know and have for granted. You can give the guy a bottle of water.

China, Pt. 7

2004-09-01T18:55:00.002-04:00

China, Pt. 6

2004-08-28T01:03:00.003-04:00

Farming villages dot the more remote areas of the Great Wall, where people are more scarce than in the major tourist zones. Some people ride the lift to the top of this section, some people climb the stairs, and the borderline insane ones hike through the wild forest up the side of the mountain. We opt to take the stairs.

The wall is like a roller coaster, riding up and down the mountains, stretching into the horizon, branching off into different directions. Hello moon. A thing like this is where trite little phrases go to be reborn. How can you describe something you can't completely see? Even here, in a remote section of the four thousand mile wall, farmers set up little vendor mats along your path and inside the watch towers. If you so much as look at them, they will follow you for a length, attempting to wear you down with their nagging persistence. You've got nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. It's an enormous labyrinth, impossible to escape.

The merlons along the crenelated wall are taller than you are and the gaps in between come open above your waist. If the Wall is a dragon, it's eating you alive. You're the unsightly morsels stuck in its teeth.

China, Pt. 5

2004-08-27T13:58:00.003-04:00

Without the Chinese cars and Chinese road signs, Beijing could easily be an American city. The highway is swarmed with Hondas, Volkswagens, Audis, and Nissans. I see one Mercedes SUV. Several BMW 3-series. A whole lot of Toshiba billboards. Epson. Intel. Hewlett-Packard. But all these buildings are blackened monoliths against a dull gray sky. They're empty and the lights are off. On each side of the road, skyscrapers creep out of the shadows and then disappear. The difference is that here, once you get off the inner ring of the highway, everything around looks the same as every other Chinese city. Young people sitting on the steps outside stores, smoking cigarettes. Folks sitting on benches inside air conditioned stores, watching television, escaping the heat and humidity. People bicycling, people talking on street corners, there are people everywhere. Here, even the smell is the same. A mixture of sweat, urine, straw, and what is that? Rubber? In some places, it smells like Chinatown. Does the smell move with the people? Is it what you eat? Is it the product of what you eat?

There's construction everywhere. Skyscrapers look awkward with empty plots all around them. Old style houses stand side by side with the green and silver of modern steel skeletons. A Microsoft skyscraper overlooks a cloverleaf of highway, only to have a Nestle building tower over it. In Beijing, even the tallest structures seem to be identified by the enormous neon signs placed on their rooftops. A person who lived in the city three years ago would probably recognize little of it today. It's growing, and as the new enters the city as conquerors of the old, the old must become a source of profit or risk being buried and forgotten.

For all of its attempts to look like a first-rate city, nothing under its polished surface is the least bit convincing. Beijing is an unabashedly selfish and needlessly rude metropolis. There are the same bad habits, the same callous personalities, and the same squatting, stinking shitholes. Bring your own toilet paper. There are the same kids chasing after you to stuff cards advertising some brilliant travel opportunity or another into your pockets. The same kids selling two yuan popsicles and bottles of water every ten feet. Big Brothers watch over smaller children, some who look about six or seven, and they will try to profit from your pity.

China, Pt. 4

2004-08-08T23:25:00.003-04:00

The courtyard, if you can call it that, outside the Beijing train station is ren hai- a sea of people. None of us have ever been on a train before, not to mention first class - the power of the American dollar in action. We go to the first class waiting room, where red sofas dot the floor and chandeliers line the ceiling. Mother says to me, look around. This room is full of rich and high class people. But they don't look rich, nor high class. They look like typical Americans, middle-class, middle-aged parents ferrying their children- or here, child - along.

This guy across from me, his fingernails are filled with dirt, his fingers are yellow like his eyes. He's finishing a popsicle, which he throws on the floor, along with its wrapper, for someone else to pick up. The people here, all the money in the world can't buy them the concept of dignity. A guy to my left, he takes a swig from his bottle of Coke, rinses his mouth with it, and spits it on the ground. Men all over this lounge sprawl listlessly across the couches like they don't have a care in the world. They deliberately overextend their bodies, swallowing up as much free space as they can. They invade your privacy and airspace.

The guy on my left, the one with the Coke, watches me and taps his empty bottle on the ground. Tap, tap, tap, tap, just like that, a constant, incessant gnawing at your ears. No change. He must have a death wish. Tap, tap, tap. I look from the bottle to him. Tap. I look from him to the bottle. Tap. I look at him. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap and all the money in the world couldn't buy this guy a fucking clue. Tap tap, it's a tap tap tap as I look at him and he looks right back at me and the station speakers chime, "The train to Haerbin will depart in fifteen minutes, please check your tickets at the gate and board the train," first in Chinese and then English, and tap tap tap Grace walks over tap tap and asks the gentleman tap if he would kindly stop tapping his bottle on the floor.

Thank you, she says. She flashes a winning smile.

All the money in the world can't buy an ounce of politeness. Manners. Class.

Not for these guys, anyway. Not yet.

China, Pt. 3

2004-08-06T01:38:00.003-04:00

A sign on the wall says

pedlars ahead who have no legal license sale the Fake and inferior articles.Such as the greatwall souvenir coin.Mineral water and postcard.Beware off the trickeries and do not buy from them. This kind of deal does not enjoy any Warranty and protection.

When I come across a vendor about five minutes later, I ask her about her roguish ways. Apparently, a village of farmers have gotten together and bought the rights to set up camp at the base of the stairs leading up to the Wall. Other farmers, like this vendor, who climb up every day to peddle their wares, enjoy no such benefits. The sign was bought and put into place by these same farmers at the bottom. It's a mini-monopoly. Who's to be believed? Everything sold by vendors, "tricky" ones or not, is fake and inferior. Nothing purchased in China enjoys "Warranty or protection" of any sort. So in short, nobody.

Witnessing exchanges between foreigners and street vendors is especially amusing. These farmers, lacking formal education, understand English just well enough to hurl out streams of fragmented phrases, luring unsuspecting customers to their counters. Some American college students at the base of the Wall have stopped and one girl haggles with a farmer over the price of a T-shirt. Unless you're in a department store, some prices can be bartered down to half their marked value or even lower. It's a skill that I've never had to develop. The student starts with an offer and the woman throws up her hands in exasperation.

Thirty dollar! My lowest offer!

The student crosses her arms and doesn't budge. Lower.

Okay, how about twenty dollars, she says.

The woman shouts, no, no, twenty-five dollar!

The student stays at twenty and the woman wrings her hands in the air. As the student starts to leave with her friends, the woman calls after her.

You crazy! I losing money! Okay, okay, twenty dollar!

Grace remarks to me, I could've gotten it for ten.

She says, they're selling such crap.

China, Pt. 2

2004-08-04T09:11:00.003-04:00

In Narita, I'm thinking: I have to go to the bathroom. I'm thinking: please just let there be enough time to relieve myself. I'm thinking: there's got to be piss seeping into my bloodstream by now. If my rectum explodes and all my shit's absorbed into my stomach, will I get cholera?

But there's no time to waste, it's out of one plane and into another.

The Japanese are professionally cute. Twenty year old attendants line the halls, giving directions and looking over boarding passes. Twenty-somethings, all of them, in red tops and black skirts, all of them petite and smiling and unabashedly giving directions that combine machine gun Japanese and shattered English. Already, I want to marry one of them. They all have Cat Power hair. They could translate anime for me.

By the end of the second meal, "breakfast," at what should be, but isn't, some obscene number in the A.M., I know that I'm dying. There's feces everywhere and it won't stop. It's a battering ram at the castle gates. Sooner or later it's going to break through, and I'm going to have to make sure that it's got a place to go. And finally, with a magnificent ding, the seatbelt lights go off. There in the cramped WC, I think of Tracy, the Kama Sutra, and Victor. I think of unlocking the door but I know I'm too big of a raging pussy to do it, and besides, this isn't some short domestic flight. Besides, there were three old Asian men in line behind me. I think: my God, this is by far the greatest feeling shit I have ever taken.

On the flight from Narita to Beijing International, the crew is trilingual and anal about stowing carry-ons in the overhead compartments. By this time, I'm exhausted and irritable. Everything sucks. I joke to mother about pretty girls and offering them marriage in return for American citizenship. She takes a look at my expression and asks me if I'm serious. I'm not sure if I am.

China, Pt. 1

2004-08-01T08:48:00.003-04:00

There's a giant hot dog train reminiscent of the Oscar Meyer Weiner mobile making a circuit around the Detroit international airport. Red, long and shaped like the longest phallus in the room that oh-so-many college professors have trained us to look for, dwarfed by God knows how many feet, meters of moving walkway divided into two neat rows, walk or stand.

There are lines everywhere. Lines to check your baggage. Lines to and through the X-ray machine. Lines through the gate. Lines on the runway. Planes stacked front to back like vultures squatting with their wings tucked outward, ready to spread us like famine and disease around the world.

It's easy to ruin flights like these. All it takes is simple things. An irritated flight attendant, an offensive travel companion, an uncollared six year old in the seat behind you. Here, the flight attendant is a smiling man who lets a girl past the Seinfeldian dinner cart. His smile is infectious. He makes fun of the great debate, chicken or beef. I get the red wine. My sister gets the six year old. The answer is always chicken.

Up on the widescreen, we've only moved six inches above the Great Lakes. We've decreased in speed by fifty miles per hour. There are nine hours and eleven minutes, seriously, until the plane reaches Narita. We're to fly a wide parabola across southwestern Canada, over the middle of Alaska, and across the ocean. The music on airplanes is decidedly against me; not even my sister approves.

The Night is for Walking

2004-07-19T22:05:00.005-04:00

1 am walking down the hallway between the living room and the kitchen, the insects outside at this time of night are loud and they saturate the air with their sound, it never stops as long as I'm here, it's the only time that matters.

My eyes haven't adjusted to the dark around me, there's no moon, and the little bit of light coming through the window lands softly, too softly on the wall. I need to get to the light switch soon. Soon I need to flip on the light switch. I'm no longer sure of where I am, standing between what? I don't know where the walls are.

My hand reaches up to my right and it goes to touch the wall but it touches nothing. It slips through the light and the wall, and now I realize that the insects aren't outside, they're here, on the floor, on the tables and chairs, in the cabinets, crawling aross the floors and ceilings, they're everywhere, and if I take one step I will feel my toes crush dozens of them, their shells flattening under my heel and their strange blood splattering my skin, dying it and staining it, so as to mark me and they will know.

The wind is blowing hard against the trees and they wave together in the dark, the trunks forming the spaces between teeth and grinning madly. There is a family of ghosts on the sidewalk walking their dog. A shadow of a cat stretches across the road and dares me to run. There's been a piece ripped from me. My feet can't move and the noise is suffocating. They're screaming for me to move, waiting for me to move, and I finally do, reaching farther with my hand, hoping to touch something, some part of me praying? Anything!

My hands brush against something cold. Lifeless.

Teeth.

The light switch.

I flip it on. None of this happened. I'm standing in a room no more than twelve feet wide. Two feet from the nearest wall. Four feet from the living room. Three feet from the kitchen. What does this mean? Nothing. It means nothing.

Tourist

2004-07-16T00:10:00.006-04:00

Eyepennies said, "Polaroid camera around my neck, look it's the ocean, the ocean."

People who look like they don't know what they're doing are never as good as people who look like they do. These people, they read maps out on the street and by train station diagrams, they carry cameras around their necks, they blind your eyes with the flash, they point at sculptures and photograph each other in overdone poses, and always, they always travel in compact shuffling groups. Me, I don't ever do these things. No looking at street signs. No looking at the homeless. No eye contact. Seriously, no, seriously, no touching. Keep your head and eyes on the closest visible point to your final destination. Disregard everything between here and there. If someone stops you to ask for directions, be curt, be distant, be polite, but never, never smile. They're tourists and they don't belong here, not like I do.

I belong because I know what I'm doing and where I'm going. I'm not out to have a good time. I'm not out to vacation. To explore. I'm out to get something done and be done with it. These people who look like they don't know what they're doing, they're tourists. Fucking tourists. Get out of my niche. Get out of my clique. The teams are already picked, so leave already. They walk slow and talk fast and carry too many bags. They clutter up the aisle with their luggage and sometimes their children. You know they listen to shitty music.

If some filthy part of you comes into contact with me, I'll recoil like a gun. If your eyes come into contact with mine, I'll stare you down until you're physically uncomfortable. I'll stare a while longer for good measure, because your clothes are just so fucking weird. I am undoubtedly much, much better than you could ever hope to be.

Yeah, I'm the guy who felt up your girlfriend on the streets on Halloween. I'm the one who grabbed your wife's tits on New Year's Eve. I'm that guy you threw spare change to on the corner outside Seven-Eleven. Be afraid, because here in the city, I'm everyone. I'm the guy who could have been you.

And you're just another tourist.

Maps

2004-07-14T09:41:00.003-04:00

Chuck Palahniuk, Choke:

With one hand, the Mommy shook the map open across the steering wheel, and with her other hand she unrolled her window. She worked the steering wheel with her knees. With just her eyes, she looked back and forth between the road and the map.

Then she crumpled the map and fed it out the window.

The whole time, the stupid boy just sat there.

She said to get the red diary.

When he tried to give it, she said, "No. Open it to the next page." She said to find a pen in the glove compartment and fast, because there was a river coming up.

The road cut through everything, all the houses and farms and trees, and in a moment they were on a bridge going across a river that went off forever on both sides of the bus.

"Quick," the Mommy said. "Draw the river."

As if he'd just discovered this river, as if he'd just discovered the whole world, she said to draw a new map, a map of the world just for himself. His own personal world.

"I don't want you to just accept the world as it's given," she said.

She said, "I want you to invent it. I want you to have that skill. To create your own reality. Your own set of laws. I want to try and teach you that."

The boy had a pen now, and she said to draw the river in the book. Draw the river, and draw the mountains up ahead. And name them, she said. Not with words he already knew, but to make up new words that didn't already mean a bunch of other stuff.

To create his own symbols.

The little boy thought with the pen in his mouth and the book open in his lap, and after a little, he drew it all.

And what's stupid is, the little boy forgot all this. It wasn't until years later that the police detectives found this map. That he remembered he did this. That he could do this. He had this power.

And the Mommy looked up at his map in the rearview mirror and said, "Perfect." She looked at her watch, and her foot pressed down, and they went faster, and she said, "Now write it in the book. Draw the river on our new map. And get ready, there's lots more stuff that needs a name coming up."

She said, "Because the only frontier left is the world of intangibles, ideas, stories, music, art."

She said, "Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it."

Fourth on the Charles

2004-07-05T15:30:00.002-04:00

House of Leaves

2004-07-01T01:00:00.006-04:00

The "T" is Boston's metro transit system. In the morning, I take the bus from Bedford Center to Alewife, where I get on the red line train, switch to the green line trolley at Park Street, and get off at Blandford Street by Kenmore Square. I get to the lab at 9:30 and work until I get hungry, between noon and 2 o'clock, eat lunch, and then work until I leave in the afternoon at 4:30 and get on the trolley at Blandford Street by Kenmore Square, switch to the red line train at Park Street, and get off at Alewife.

I read House of Leaves by Zampanó, surrounded by eyes that never meet and skins that never touch. What better place to be alone and in the dark? A review in the Globe caught my attention several years ago when it was first widely published. It was given an excellent review and I distinctly remember the author remarking about the unique layout of some pages, the way so many words and sentences are arranged in an unconventional style. A friend recommended it to me recently, jogging my memory, and I found a copy this weekend.

A work that leaves much to the reader's intelligence and experience (arguably the same) always triggers in me a sort of anxiety. Am I missing something important here? Have I caught the right reference? Am I even capable of understanding what is being presented here? Maybe your shoes don't fit me. What then? What then?

I look up from the pages, across the aisle to see a woman, pale yellow blouse curiously watching me, and I look straight across at her for a fraction of a second before she drops her eyes down to my feet and keeps them there. She wears small black shoes and I am completely alone in a circulating mix of strange hers and hims. Lights flicker outside in the black tunnel and she shifts her feet uncomfortably; I'm making too much noise.

Mad Hatter & White Rabbit

2004-05-26T18:36:00.003-04:00

Waiting for the Moon

2004-05-15T15:41:00.003-04:00

Belle & Sebastian:

Don't try to say to me
That this was never meant to be
'Cos the days are long where I come from
The next few days I'm free
There's a train I want to catch
But it won't leave here for a while
'Till darkness fills the eastern sky
And streetlights stretch for miles

Fake Can Be Just as Good

2004-04-30T01:15:00.002-04:00

Little Men with Little Knives

2004-03-23T01:11:00.008-05:00

little men with little knives

cut the cord when we arrive
you won't run away with me
even if we'd win it free
that girl's sprawled screaming
the riot cops are beaming
grumbling heads flew
for a moment or two
why can't you make up your mind?

little men with little knives
take it for a test drive
they care for me
yeah, they care for you

"we like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times"
fictitious election results make for nonfiction crimes
motorcycles on the pavement
shook the first amendment
"sending us to war for fictitious reasons"
you ought to threaten treason

IMF and motley crew -

you can't tell what's true

Cover those eyes.

Pull

2004-02-16T23:26:00.001-05:00

No Flash Photography

2004-02-12T17:28:00.002-05:00

You're so beautiful, you know.