Hear/Say

Went out last night with the program; Campo de Fiori was the spot; the Drunken Ship and Sloppy Sam’s was hot…

We celebrated Shelby’s 21st last night. It was glorious. I had some interesting conversations. This one guy would not stop asking me what I wanted to drink, and when I said some nice ginger ale will do, he cringed.

Which was totally fine, I told him if he can’t find me some, someone else will… I just love ginger ale. What a great drink.

Instead, I ended up having some disgusting Campari. I thought it was a nice fizzy fruit juice; the small little red bottle just reminded me of punch. Severe disappointment followed with a blushing, wistful tipsiness.

I miss everyone at home!!!

Going to wander the wet streets today <3 <3 <3

Gracious

Darling Reader:
take the tired spectacles of the day off and mind the giant flying bats. The entire nervous system is shot with the dead skin of errands, worries, those moments of hesitation where a flash of yearning hits you like a piano that falls to crush your bones into the sidewalk (where a puddle of blood is not as romantic as it sounds; instead, you’re left wallowing in a crusty burnt sienna). Do not think, it will distract you like flecks of spit on the screen. Feel the air and its electricity, the dry or wet pulsing on the minute surface of your skin, and dream about the skies in Africa, the taste of an iceberg, ice cream on the tip of your tongue, and that smile… that smile that breaks you better than that piano, because the deluge of possibilities slaps you silly until it’s impossible to be distracted; the flecks of spit don’t bother you anymore. You see through them and the rest, and realize that the only one dreaming your dreams and seeing what you see is yourself. The dream of that smile is broken (once you know it’s your own, impossible hope), and you’re left with these strange giant flying bats that are anchored into your heart and circling around your head. If you’re not careful, the wiry strings will twist and choke you…

And to you, I want to tell you so much but I can’t. Read my mind. Or speculate away.

Graceee

Harry Clarke via butdoesitfloat.com

via planettampon.tumblr. Omg, Cruella De Vil

One thing about where I work, is that so many smart people are milling about waiting for you to pounce on their ideas and dissect their brains.

This is not as parasitic as it sounds.

“Freigeistig”, for example, I learned from reading someone’s dissertation. German for “free-thinking” and “spiritual”, he relates it to several -isms of Modernism: Monism… humanism… secularism… anti-clericalism… great stuff, really awesome. I have bouts of intense wiki-searches in order to understand the words coming out of their mouths…

Today has been a wonderful day. Although this “wonderful day” precedes a most likely to be difficult weekend, it’s done me great good.

For example, I feel like writing the Federal Pell Grant an intense and inappropriate love letter to express my undying appreciation. But… I’ll restrain myself. *THIS* time.

I’m sure the beauty queen feels the same way as I do today. She seems so sure of herself, confident, classy, enjoying life’s little things like pushpins, tape, and photocopy machines. I guess that’s more like office-work’s little things.  

via planettampon.tumblr

Ew.

<3 Gracieee

A slow morning on campus. Dewey, party cloudy, brightened up with fall leaves. Yesssssssss.

I’m totally ready to plunge into collag-ing again. Since I found out that some actually sold on my other site (http://gracie.imagekind.com) I’m totally back in. SO that’s what I’m doing this evening… covering my bedroom floor with endless scraps of magazine magic. Excellent. Excellent. Muahahaha. Will post finished products soon.

Last night I was at Easy Street (we tried to make the Vera project concert starring WHY? No Kids, and… whoever else was there, but we got there too late, too late…!) Records and saw an amazing doodle book on the best street sketches EVER. I’m so inspired yet again– I can’t find the book online, but I’m probably going back to find out what it’s called.

Anyway–

My favorite is Re Contextualization:

via butdoesitfloat.com

And one of the coolest music video’s I’ve seen in a long time, by the Nujabes: Luv(sic)

PEACE

Gracieee

Check, check, check.... shit

I took Latin for a quarter in sophomore year, but I forgot it all. It’s an intense class. I remember reading aloud in Latin, and enjoying it because it was *so weird* to be practicing a dying language. The pleasure derived from the authenticity of the struggle, and I still don’t remember the five/six tenses that conjugate each word.

Yes!

A new movie about zombies coming out soon, which I’m actually excited to watch: Zombieland comes out October 2nd (the same weekend of Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story documentary on capitalism and the current economic recession) and features funnyman Woody Harrelson and the faux-Michael Cera look-alike Jesse Eisenberg, battling the odds of survival in a world crawling with zombies. Oh, and throw in that one girl from Super-Bad who almost but not really like(d) Jonah Hill. My 12 year old brother recently pointed out that the most satisfying and guilt-less entity to maul in videogames are Nazi zombies. For the following reasons: 1)They’re already dead and 2) the bodies of Nazis are a free-for-all in terms of violence. After Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards, this movie seems perfect for my bloodthirsty, action craving alter-ego…

“Michael Moore has stated that no-one who sees the movie should use currency to do so, and instead should either pirate it or barter for tickets, in order to spark the erosion of capitalist standbys.”

Okay, so it’s sort of missing his point if we’re choosing between a documentary informing us on the failing economic structure in the world and a film on mauling zombies. But which one would you rather watch on the big screen? Zombies getting mauled. SO thanks, Michael Moore, it kinda works out.

Don’t get me wrong, though– I’m still excited to see what he dished out this time.

Which one will/would you see?

Gracie

Remember love letters? Maybe not remember, because I’ve never actually received one, but can you imagine the state in which they still existed? No, no– the probably still do, but I mean love letters must have been similar to the texting stage of a relationship today, right?

And of course, we know how serious the past was, it’s funny how we only notice the very serious things, so that history itself seems so dull and boring. But if history books could show you the precise emotion of the Orwell brothers taking their first flight; or the thoughts of Nelson Mandela the morning he was freed from his cell; or even something as private as the first words Paris and the Helen of Troy exchanged (was it coy? was it obvious? was it lust? was it love?n imagine if it were such a cheesy, disappointing pick up line– like: you want to see my big ship?), wouldn’t history be a lot more appealing then a textbook concluded with the blessing of an exam? It’s surprisingly been increasingly difficult to relate to our history and past, I feel.

ANYWAY– I digress.

The point was really to share this saucy love letter of Flaubert’s. What a horndog:

August 15, 1846

Gustave Flaubert, famous French writer, to his wife Louise Colet.

What if you were to write a love letter to an ideologically engineered soulmate? As in, Yes. Write a love letter to the person you will fall in love with. The task requires a certain imaginary mindset– wait– ok— imagine, if there were someone out there for you who was your match in each and every way; you can’t see their faces, maybe (because that would then be creepy and be of someone you likely know) but you can sense your comfort near them– a wisp of hair you’d like to brush from their face, and a smile that invites you towards… contentment? Through these snatches of imagined idealism– please wade through the awkward, cheesy marshes of love-territory– think of a possible love letter you would write to the man or woman or ____ you hope to fall in love with.

Ahem.Oh, I know I’ll laugh at this. I’m no Flaubert…

Dear, __________:

There are so many damn people in the world. I’ve already judged half of them by the time they raise their eyes to meet mine. If it has been pure chance that we have met in the correct conditions, where I haven’t shallowly dismissed you for a slob, a douche, a slacker, or just plain disagreeable, it has been quite a miracle. If we have kept on, and I have managed to overlook tiny, minor annoyances– like the way you sleep, if you are a reasonable morning/tired person, how you react to my inadvertent outbursts of foolish word vomit– well, the miracle is turned upside down and it has blossomed into a terrible destiny.

And I say terrible because it horrifies me; that a person could have infiltrated my crowded solitude with such natural ease, and that we should discover in our union a rupture of space and time,  in which neither exist and we are stuck in sickening bliss.

And I say destiny, not in reference to what we are somehow lead to do and behave or interact, but in reference to the sheer coincidence of finding each other. The precision of circumstances of our lives that happen to click and fit, and then come to eagerly run in the same sequences.

______________________________

Well that’s all I came up with. I really don’t think I’m one for the flourish of emotions on paper.

In fact, this is a horrible love letter. It’s got skepticism stamped all over it, and tries to explain itself too much. In fact, it sounds like the beginning of a wedding vow, of a wedding for a couple who will get a divorce two years later and then discover that they accidentally conceived during breakup sex, but it’s too late for an abortion.

Gracie

I lost my gloves! They were purple and black stripes, fingerless, and fantastically useful!!!
Bummer-osity.

I have been trying not to care about things like this so much, but of course it still bothers me.

On a completely different note, I had a conversation last night with a friend, and congrats to him because he is in love.

In Love Actually, Liam Neeson asks his faux son, “Aren’t you too young to be in love?” and the son looks at him with serious innocence, furrows his brow, and says “no!”

Is there a way to love and not get lost? It is the worst distraction that I can think of. Besides the loss after love. Love is a curse, an ideology, an empty idea that only exists because of belief– sort of like religion. And I don’t even want to get into religion.

Loving graciously is so difficult, because you have to be conscious of how you appreciate someone in the most unappreciative of times. And even then, does loving graciously benefit you or the one you love more?

Is the best thing to love yourself? To protect yourself?

So what does OSHO have to say about this?

Gracie