Hear/Say » university

PANTS GUY

admin — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 06:50:08 +0000

I had no idea the dude had a street name. Stereotypical of Seattle and especially of U. District, I love this, I love this, I love this.

“They have the worst timing too, ya know? if you know, you’re waking up and like, you’re like, doing your early morning jack-off session, they come and like, f*ckin’ like, tell you’re ass to get out and you got your hand on your dick and you’re like, hey man, ya know?”

It’s almost poetic

Graceee

A Poet’s Breath

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 17:31:07 +0000

"Love Letter" G. S

University of Washington’s hosting a free poet’s reading at the Roethke Auditorium; free admission. Might be going. The poet: Gjertrud Schnackenberg. If her name’s not enough, I’ve just read one of her poems “Love Letter”, and it’s quite impressive. When teachers teach poetry, there’s always the T.S. Eliot, the Whitman and Poe and of course Baudelaire, but I wish they would introduce some more contemporary stars onto the scene. Perhaps I just need to take more poetry classes.

I haven’t read many contemporary poems, but many young authors that do write poetry tire me out– themes of intense emotions, or ghastly images symbolizing some sort of angst or lack 0f– in their lives, oh, how to express them through typical words and typical themes of violent love, or sinking despair– but what dazzles me with poetry is the nuances of precise moments in a life; the hidden and subtle that you feel so fully but at the same time, take for granted, or lack expression in describing such swells in your heart or thick tongues in your skull. I dislike the performance of poetry; I would prefer the simple medium of existing… after all, you can’t try too hard to be a poet; in fact, trying isn’t really an option, is it? Those with an extraordinary ability to communicate micromoments of life in a way that transports an audience with their eyes open (unrealizing that they’ve been transported until the last quatrain hangs in the air and dissolves with the audience’s wistful sigh) are simply themselves… simply… human.

Here’s Schnackenberg’s “Love Letters”:

Love Letter

Dear love, though I am a hopeless correspondent,
I found your letter habits lacking too
Till I received your card from H.-lulu.
It made me more-than-slightly-less despondent
To see how you transformed your ocean swim
Among dumb bubble-blowers into meters
And daffy rhymes about exotic tweeters
Beyond your balcony at 2 a.m.

I went to bed when you went to Hawaii,
And shut my eyes so tightly I saw stars,
And clenched my sheets like wadded-up memoirs
And made some noise like wah-wah-wah, i.e.,
I find your absence grimly problematic.
The days stack up like empty cardboard boxes
In ever-higher towers of cardboard
Swaying in senseless-lost-time’s spooky attic.
I’ll give the -atic rhyme another try.
To misconstrue the point-of-view Socratic,
Life is a painful stammered-out emphatic
Pronunciation of the word Goodbye.

Or, as it came out on the telephone,
Sooner-the-better is the way I see it:
Just say, “I guess not”; I’ll reply, “So be it.”
Beloved, if you throw this dog a bone,
TO readopt the stray-dog metaphor,
I’ll keep my vigil till the cows come home.
You’ll hear me howling over there in Rome.
I have no explanations, furthermore–
But let me say I’ve had it up to here
With scrutinizing the inscrutable;
The whys and how-comes of immutable
Unhesitating passion are unclear–

I don’t love you because you’re good at rhymes,
And not because I think you’re not-so-dumb,
I don’t love you because you make me come
And come and come innumerable times,
And not for your romantic overcoats,
And not because our friends all say I should,
And not because we wouldn’t or we would
Be or not be at one another’s throats,
And not because your accent thrills my ear–
Last night you said not “sever” but “severe,”
But then “severe” describes the act “to sever”–
I love you for no reason whatsoever.

And that’s the worst, as William S. the Bard
Wrote out in black-and-white while cold-and-hot:
Reasons can be removed, but love cannot.
The comic view insists: Don’t take it hard,
But every day I’m pacing up and down
The hallway till I drive my neighbors mad,
And evenings come with what-cannot-be-had
As lights blink on around this boring town,
Whence I unplug the phone and draw the shade
And drink myself half-blind and fantasize
That we’re between the sheets, your brilliant eyes
Open me and, bang, we have it make–
When in reality I sit alone
And, staring at my hands, I think “I think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink”
While hating everything I’ve always known
About how you and I are sunk as well.

Under the aspect of eternity
The world has already ended anyway.
And, without you, my life can go to hell
On roller skates, as far as I’m concerned.
Two things are clear: these quatrains should be burned,
And love is awful, but it leads us to
Our places in the human comedy,
Frescoes of which abound in Italy.
And though I won’t be sitting next to you,
I’ll take my seat with minimal complaints.
May you sit in the company of saints
And intellectuals and fabulous beauties,
And not forget this constant love of Trude’s.

Gjertrud Schnackenberg

http://www.poemhunter.com/

Cog my Nates

admin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:22:46 +0000

These words actually took a surprising amount of effort to find. Usually, I would think my awareness was keen enough to pick up on these cues and curiosities of varying meanings and cross-cultural conflicts within every-day semantics. Instead, I think I was pretty preoccupied with social-cross-cultural conflicts being experienced, and so looking for these words took more concentration and focus in looking for cognates. Once I began looking, however, they were everywhere. It just takes a little more to catch them, and you realize that a lot of information you inadvertently suck in every day is taken for granted until you don’t understand them. Also: a lot of the cultural background plays a huge part in the nuances between similar words.

phrases intimo

1. “Sono eccito” ==>“I am [turned on]”
I wasn’t looking for this expression specifically, but I asked Andrea, my Italian teacher, how to say “I am excited”. Directly translated, the meaning of the phrase has a culturally sexual implication. This also happens in the Spanish language. Here is an interesting example of what isn’t “lost in translation”, but rather, what is unknowingly said…

Smoking and comics come together in this great Tintin comic

2. “Il fumetti” ==> Comics
As it stands, the phrase seems like a derivative of the action “to smoke”, or “fumare”. The entire exercise where the class is supposed to ask each other what activities or hobbies they like/enjoy or do not like/enjoy, everyone believed that the phrase meant “to smoke” or “cigarettes”. However, Andrea explained to us how the association came about: the word bubbles and thought bubbles of comic book writing are parallel to the idea of cigarette smoke coming out of one’s mouth. This sort of shows how much and often Italians may smoke…

bookz

3. “Libreria” ==> Bookcase
Naturally, I thought this meant library. With a second thought, I thought it meant bookstore. Upon looking this up, the direct translation means “bookcase”. The terms for library, on the other hand, is the same in Spanish: “biblioteca”.

Yellow Pages

4. “Gialle” ==> yellow
During Italian class, the descriptions used with the term “gialle” had me thinking it meant “giant”. I was very wrong; in fact, it means yellow. The term was also used to describe mystery novels as a genre.

Fabbricati

5. “fabbricati” ==> manufactured
Originally, I automatically associated this word with “fabric”; but it makes sense it means manufactured, or fabricated. Interesting that this word would be used, because of how relatively obscure “fabricated” is for us, at least in terms of everyday, colloquial language.

Confezioni = biscotti?

6. “confezioni” ==> confection
This word reminded me of “confession”, but confection makes sense too. Although, it was referring to the units of biscotti that came in a singular box—so I’m still not sure how this works, but I’m guessing they are referring to the actual biscotti as confection (as a type of food), rather than just biscotti.

Cristal

7. “cristal” ==> glass
Doesn’t everything sound better in Italian? Including glass? Incidentally, “crystal” is “cristallo” in Italian. Whether or not crystal becomes a derivative of glass (in the sense of Italian technology) would be interesting to find out…

Abiti

8. “abiti” ==> suits/dresses
I actually thought this term was derived from the Italian verb “to live”, or “abitare”, but instead it’s a noun defining dresses. In the case of suits, I’m guessing dress-suits.

merceria

9. “merceria” ==>haberdashery
This term had a surprising definition. Looking at the context, I assumed that the term meant “merchandise”, and was going to contrast it with the similar appearance to “mercury”, but it was more difficult to extrapolate the precise meaning. The original definition of haberdashery means “men’s outfitters”, but applied to other signs—i.e. “intimo-merceria”, it has a more precise meaning of “boutique”.

fiasco

10. “fiasco” ==> flask
This surprised me because the sign was actually in broken English. They even misspelled bottle as “bootle”; so I was taking another gamble that they didn’t really mean fiasco. So fiasco means flask, rather than the a chaotic occurrence; the sign clarified that it could clear security for carry-on luggage.

piano

11. “piano” ==> slowly
This disconnect is pretty obvious. The translation from the English word for the musical instrument to the adverb actually shows up in reading music. The meaning is slightly different though; in the musical context, piano, or pianissimo means softly, while forte or fortissimo demarcates where one is to play loudly or with more force.

laboratorio

12. “laboratorio” ==> laboratory/office/workshop
While this word actually aligns with a predictable definition, the cultural nuance lies in its versatility as a term. When we use the word “laboratory” in English, it usually means a very specific scientific work-place, for chemical experiments. However, it seems like the Italian word can be applied to any work-place of artistic trade- i.e. antique crafts.

Conquistadora

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:49:29 +0000

COM Rome program at the Spanish Steps

So I made it to Rome.

A decent 8 hour flight ruined by a stuffy cabin. My body lost control of its temperature as it slipped into a feverish frenzy. I distracted myself with The September Issue, which is a great documentary on Vogue and the inner methodological workings and politics in the world of fashion, and then made a Bad Decision by watching 500 Days of Summer, or as I would love to name it, 500 Days of SUCK. I’ll admit I’m in crush with Zooey Deschanel and her alt-vintage-60′s hipster look and haircut, but an entire movie need not be dedicated as her personal music video with a slip-shod plot. But it was all worth it when Amsterdam displayed beautifully fragrant restrooms, and even more glorious when I finally arrived to Rome, Italy.

Today was our first day of class; these past few days have consisted of catching up on sleep, settling in, and an evening at the Drunken Ship.

So far, I have to say:

1. Cobblestones are a way of life

2. So are fine Italian boots

3. … and fine Italian men.

4. … and bidets.

More to come, amoré.

Gracious

Power Through It

admin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:35:24 +0000

I love old people

OMG, getting old. I’ve been thinking about this lately. I’ve noticed my cheeks gradually sinking, my laugh lines deepening with threat of imminent mortality… tender 21 my ass.

A beautiful autumn morning today in Seattle– crisp, sunny, UNwet… for once. I’m sure tomorrow will disappoint.

Today I received several pleasant e-mails, one of which notified me that I am being featured on Imagekind’s “Featured Artist” site. Which is super exciting! I’m the one on top, too! You don’t even have to scroll down!!!! ;asldkfja!!!

As a boi

Rainn Wilson is coming to UW/Seattle and I’m attending his event on November 6th. He’s promoting his website, soulpancake.com. Followed by Q/A, and a $30 “hang out sess” with the Dwight Schrute IRL.He’s donating all proceeds to a charity of choice…it will be an entertaining evening, at the very least.

Fall quarter is always a punch in the gut. You either take the punch well because you’ve flexed, or it makes you vomit summer laziness all over your homework. I think I’ve flexed. I think.

Some incredibly interesting pieces mixing shapes and linear graphics with human forms:

via butdoesitfloat.com

By Erik Nitsche. See more of his pieces HERE.

Aiiii!!!! Blogg-ed-about it lates!

Gracie