Lazy Brain-Pickings

Update from exotic new location!

2010-10-26T13:33:00.003-05:00

I've said before that I'm pretty bad at keeping a consistent blog-diary-journal entry happening. It's been quite a change since my last entry. To recap life: now in Chicago, and loving it. Working, auditioning, paying bills, trying to find a scheme of bedroom decoration that has some semblance of order to it. That's the short story of it, really.

Speaking of stories-- I've been neglecting my book-reading duties something fierce. I actually don't know where The Terror is... either Leanne snagged it back or it's lost somewhere in the black hole that is everything I own. (Leanne, if you're reading, I'm sorry!) I've been thinking about it lately, though, because I really want to finish it. I went through a stressful period with it this summer, where I skipped forward a chapter accidentally, and was really confused and lost in the plot, but then couldn't find the right page to go back to, so it was just a whirlwind of Olde English names and icebergs and ship terminology and "Esquimeaux" and so on. Unnecessarily worrying.

Any reading I've been doing lately has been in the form of magazines, or online skincare / health articles. (I work in the office of a company that sells hand lotion and stuff, so I'm kind of always looking up that sort of thing.)

Regarding the articles: when I research for blog entries or what-have-you, I get on these tangents of looking at skincare facts and ideas that I'm more personally interested in (other than dry hands...), and there's a good deal of interesting tidbits. One thing I want to try is getting grapes, cutting one in half, and rubbing the cut side over your face. Apparently the fruit oils are really clarifying and exfoliating? I don't know, but I'm intrigued. Another is putting straight-up honey on your face like a mask, and then washing it off after a while. I'm more hesitant to try this, because as awesome as it sounds, I don't know how my skin will react. I don't think I have dry enough skin to benefit from this, so it may just gunk up my face. We shall see if I try it or not.

Regarding the magazines: I currently have a slew of bridal magazines. As to how I got them-- that's a whole tangential story of its own. I worked the National Bridal Expo downtown at the beginning of the month. It was totally overwhelming, but in a good, lots-of-things-to-do-and-look-at way. I dressed models for a bridal and pageantry gown company out of Florida. I got elbowed in the face by a model from LA while trying to yank a lace-up gown off of her. How often can people say that?? Ridiculous.

But anyway-- there were lots of current bridal magazines to peruse and take, from listings of local companies to Martha Stewart Bridal. I, of course, took them all. My love for style magazines and potential collaging materials dictated that I had no other choice, really. I love color and style stories that specialty fashion and design magazines have. Like, where they have variations on a theme, and create this whole atmosphere for you with suggested dresses and decor and color schemes? I love that. One of these bridal magazines in particular had a really comprehensive collection of them. They covered everything from bridesmaids to place settings to cake to flowers. It was all really beautiful and cleverly though out-- my favorite story was the mixed metallics. Classy, but still unusual and interesting.

In unrelated news: my roommate and I live above a series of little boutique places-- i.e., dog grooming, dentist's office, kid's clothing boutique. And there's a yoga studio. Their schedule for October features a "community" session / class once a week, which means it's free and open to whomever. I want to go today after work, but... I hope I don't have to bring my own mat. I don't want to show up and feel stupid because I'm the only mat-less one, and they don't have one to borrow. Sigh. My life is so hard.

Also: apparently today's storm is / was / is going to be the worst of the decade? WHY WASN'T I WARNED??

unfinished book ramblings.

2010-07-12T11:38:00.004-05:00

Already July?? Ridiculous!

So I've been- what else is new- kind of slacking on my book list. It started to take a backseat to figuring out my life and my move to Chicago. (Which, by the way, I'm doing.)

I did get about halfway through The Terror, though, and I'm really loving it. Granted, first of all I had to get past the really irritating point of not being able to keep any of the characters straight from each other, but that's gotten better. There is this element of the supernatural and total fantasy to it, even though it's a period drama-- like, there's some unnamed creature/force stalking these iced-in ships. But, somehow, it doesn't seem too fake and hokey. (Yet. I could end up eating my words.) I think the author was really clever in establishing the crew's constant, underlying sense of panic and paranoia at being stranded in a completely unknown and hostile environment. In that frame of mind, this beast or demon or whatever starts to read as a witch hunt. No one knows what it actually is, no one has ever seen it, and we don't yet know if it's just a figment of consumption-crazed imaginations, or if it's really the work of a crewman or one of the two random Inuit people they brought onboard as aides.
(Sidenote about said Inuits: in the book, which is written to follow different crew members in different chapters without being in first person, they spell it "Esquimaux". It honestly took me about 20 pages to figure out what they were talking about.)
I'm excited to see where the rest of this novel goes. I need to start being more productively lazy-- as in, read more of my book list, pack for Chicago, get rid of things I've had since middle school, and keep working on a coffee table that I'm refinishing. It's sitting in our garage, looking very sad and covered in dust from sanding it down.

I've also got more books to add! One of my best friends from high school Maura has recommended The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and the other book by that author which I can't think of the name for right now. I know it just came out as a movie? So I'll have to avoid that until I can read it first. Movies are never as good as the books.
And Seth very emphatically answered my request with any and all Christopher Moore. I can't remember if he specifically named a certain one, but he made it seem like Moore's entire body of work would be right up my alley. Hopefully it's as horrible and irreverent as I am.
PS regarding Seth: I can't comment on his Tumblr because I don't have a Tumblr. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME, INTERNET. sigh.

...okay, time to go retrieve my cinnamon toast from the toaster, from where it has been glaring balefully at me for the past 20 minutes.

Take a look, it's in a book... Reading Rainboowwww!

2010-05-31T20:30:00.007-05:00

Half-a-year from my last post, and I'm a college graduate. Time flies when you never blog.

Plans for this summer (other than find a job SOMEWHERE PLEASEBABYJESUSJUSTSOMETHINGTOGETMONEYAUGHHHH):

- make the money to move to Chicago in September.

- read.

On that second point, I've decided that it's been way too long since I've read for leisure. I still am just barely started in on a longform poetry/prose book that I bought last semester. So, I asked around my friends (and sister) for recommendations. Apart from getting suggestions for books I would otherwise have not really known about, it strikes me as a glimpse into the more private interests of other people. I mean, it's not too often that people discuss what they're reading in passing with each other, and sometimes people are really private about what they read. I like the opportunity of sharing a bit of this world with them.

Anyway! Enough waxing rhapsodic. My summer reading list as it stands now is:

- The Terror, Dan Simmons. (rec'd by Morey, although the book is Leanne's)
I'm excited for this one, because I like history stuff and war movies and the like. It follows the (very real, although novelized) events of late 1800's British sea exploration. By which I mean, the period in Britain's history where they sent ships out to travel up around the Arctic, basically sending sailors off to freeze and die in the name of the Crown. I think this book also has some b-plot of mystery something-or-other, but it still sounds good. And I agree with Morey, that this is going to be a good summer book-- reading about icy freezing waters when sweating profusely? Yes please!

- anything by Jim Butcher; possibly The Dresden Files. (rec'd by Kevin)
I'm also really interested in trying some of Butcher's stuff, but maybe for a more personal reason. Kevin loves to read, but is always really defensive and secretive about what he's reading. He probably thinks that he's going to get judged or made fun of, as a lot of what he likes to read falls under sci-fi/fantasy. What I think is that this genre of book has a stigma that carries the nerdy-D&D-reclusive-teenager association well past "Young Adult" books. Some people don't realize that sci-fi stuff can be clever and mature and well-written and meant for someone older than 13. I consider Ray Bradbury to be a sci-fi writer, and he is absolutely my favorite writer ever-- the way he commands words? Glorious. I can't get enough of his evocative use of language. LOVE.
...Um. Okay. Enough salivating. So back to Jim Butcher (who, for some reason, I keep wanting to call Sam Butcher. Different guy.). I'm really intrigued, because I've never read anything by or about him. I want to make sure to choose something that's appropriately indicative of his body of work. Maybe the first three of The Dresden Files-- apparently they can be found grouped into one hardcover deal-y. I'm excited to read him, because (among other reasons) I feel like I'm being afforded exclusive access to a little world that Kevin keeps kind of private. Accomplishment! Bonding! Et cetera!

- buttloads of Shakespeare; Hamlet, Othello, A Winter's Tale... (bagful given to me by Leanne)
I can't believe my personal *library of Shakespeare* quadrupled instantly! Leanne let me have a bag of 8 books that she has her own copies of, or something. Now, I already own the arguably more common Bard works (read: english class textbooks from high school)-- R&J, Midsummer, and Twelfth Night (that one's from college). I was pleased to find that the ones I got from Leanne are all new to me! Not that I don't know of them, just that I've never read them.
...Cue mutinous theatre-folk across the country perking up like disapproving prairie dogs at the fact I've never read Hamlet. ("But I've seen Lion King so that's good enough. Right? Right??")
So I'm excited to have some summer reading that will stretch my brain and require third and fourth readings. That's something I've definitely always loved about Shakespeare's mastery of the written word; there's so much there that more and new tidbits can be found in each subsequent reading!

- Only Revolutions, Mark Z. Danielewski. (edited-to-add; I can't believe I forgot to list this one! it's the book I mentioned in the beginning that I started but never finished!)
I can't *wait* to finish this. I am already in total and complete love with it. It's art in book form: it's a work of words that reads as a poem; as a rambling run-on sentence; as wanderlust feelings that you never knew you had, put onto paper. I don't even think I can properly describe it. It's the story (I say "story" loosely, as it is so oddly written) of a teenage boy and girl, Sam and Hailey, who meet and begin a road-trip/adventure of sorts across America's land and history. Hailey's take is written from one cover; flip the book, and Sam's begins from the other. The margins are packed with small lists of dates and events from the country's history. The covers are totally gorgeous in their own right; a visual shadowbox of stones, birds, trinkets, and flowers in a rich palette of yellow or green (depending on whose cover you're looking at). The author has a note in which he recommends reading 8 pages of each narrative at a time; there are 2 ribbons glued in the spine to help you keep track.
Here's a taste of Sam's narrative (misspellings are intentional):

From palisade and powdery saddle,
fumarole, flume and falls,
I hurtle free, even if Them allso
hanker to follow me,
something else trailing even
Them, beyond outrage & relief,
a Kindness
never outdone, never survived.
A horror I should easily outrun
but can't leave behind, traversing
all winds except for this one,
which dares me, dogs me,
bewares me to burn
the World quick.

I just can't get over how much of a beautiful and clever little complete package this book is. The cadence of the writing... the details of the presentation... the idea behind it... I love it. All of it. I can't even help how impossibly excited this book makes me.

Ahh, books. How I love you so.

On a similar, book-related note: I can't decide if the Kindle grosses me out or offends me. Like, I know I get this weird disgusted feeling about it... because really? People are *over* paper books? This displeases me.

Over-thinking?

2009-12-15T12:24:00.002-06:00

I took a nap a few days ago, in my break between classes. I dreamt that I went to the bank to make a withdrawal. The nice old lady helping me (her name was Ruth) reached under the counter and pulled out a little hairpin box with 6 M&Ms in it. She told me that this was all I had in my account.
...
Looks like I know where my subconscious stands on my current financial situation.

Untitled.

2009-11-22T11:15:00.005-06:00

We meet again, blog. Let's just say that my not-posting since February was a vacation.... yes. A vacation.
Having a mild crisis of conscience regarding all my courses this semester. I'm always a little disorganized/forgetful/lazy/any of those vague reasons for not getting straight A's, but I've really been struggling lately with finding direction in my art classes, and finding motivation in the other ones. For some reason, painting is my least favorite of the studio arts. (at least, in a formalized setting it is.) I don't know why, but my brain just can't grasp translating the image to how I have to layer the colors and the sections. Does that make sense? Why am I asking you. You're a blog. YOU NEVER TALK TO ME ANYMORE.
Um. Anyway. SO there's that... also, I love x infinity photography-- to the point where, having taken it, I may change my art-ful aspirations and job plans. I love it that much, and want to keep doing it after I graduate. Shane (my professor) is the perfect mix of respectfully knowledgeable and immaturely relatable. He's pushed me through really flail-y stressful times, and continues to push me to find myself in my work. I appreciate him greatly as a person, and as a professor. That being said, I almost feel like I'm betraying him by not taking Advanced next semester... but it came down to: which Advanced studio course will I most need the space/resources to be able to do it? And between sculpture and photography, it will definitely be a case of needing a studio to keep doing sculpture work, but I will be able to do photography anywhere and at anytime. (relatively speaking.)
Other things:
Glee needs to be out on DVD yesterday. (also, Artie? Marry me.)
I am completely over this semester.
I fly down to Florida tomorrow morning for Kelly Jo's wedding this week. WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN. When did we become real people who do real-people things??
I've realized that when my mom is stressed or bothered by things, she works it out by complaining about my hair. She told me yesterday that dying my eyebrows to match my hair has "ruined [my] good looks". I just let her work out whatever she needs to. It's been going well so far.
Money is stupid. I'm over it.

Surprisingly long post-- but about interesting stuff! I think. ...To me, at least.

2009-02-10T21:03:00.005-06:00

Remember when I said I'm bad at this blog thing? Yeah. Still am. With that said: Happy 2009, Pretentiously-Named Blog of Mine!

Ringing in the New Year was pleasantly low-key. Maura and I sat in our pjs in a sea of blankets on her couch, watching True Blood on HBO (in my opinion, the only acceptable rendering of vampires in the entertainment world, as it is well-made and clever, TWILIGHT I'M GLARING DISDAINFULLY AT YOU) and drinking champagne like we weren't sitting in our pjs. We keep it classy for sure.
My resolution was... well, actually, now that I'm trying to think about it, I can't remember it. I guess that just goes to show how life-impacting it was. I'm sure it was something vague about being more organized or determined or something like that.
Saw a really fascinating movie a few days ago-- Elephant, by Gus Van Sant. It was playing on IFC, and we came into it about half and hour late, which kind of didn't help to prepare me for its drawn-out, labyrinthine way of following the characters doing really mundane stuff and then jumping back in time to show what just happened in another character's life-- sort of patchwork-y, almost Picasso-like. By which I mean, Picasso pieces usually look really weirdly pieced together, but if you think about it it's force-showing you every angle of the subject possible, whether that logically makes sense or is physically possible or not. Did that make sense? Well, it did to me. Elephant follows one day in the life of about 10 high school students; a day in the life that just happens to be a day that ends with a mass shooting, a la Columbine. It's treated in an almost documentary style-- all the characters have their real names, the dialogue is unimportant to creating or moving any plot points or narrative. The kids are real people going about their day at school. The passive observer filming doesn't stop when the shootings start, either-- it's really strange to find such a violent event recorded in such a [refreshingly] un-sensationalized, almost mundane way. And it's even stranger to find myself calling it "mundane".
It was interesting to patch up when things happened for each character. For example, a shy, nerdy-type girl is followed by the camera leaving gym class, changing into her normal clothes in the locker room, then walking down the hallway to to the library-- halfway there, the bell rings, so she starts jogging to get to her job (shelving books) on time. A little earlier in the film, an artsy-type guy is seen working in the school's darkroom for a while, and then leaving. Heading down a hallway, he sees a friend and they stop to talk and take some silly pictures to finish a roll of film. Later, you see this scene play out yet again-- this time, from a different angle. In this version (for lack of a better word) of this particular scene, you can see the girl running behind and past the two boys in the hallway. Now you can place where that hallway is, and where this instance falls in the course of the day for these characters. I'm probably not explaining it well, but then again it's kind of hard to explain if you don't see it yourself.
It's really interesting, and probably slightly morbid of me to find it so very interesting-- when I came home from watching it, I immediately searched for anything and everything I could find about it online. I don't know what it is about it that is making it stick so vividly in my brain-- the fact that I've never really explored / wondered about / been confronted with this subject matter before? the fact that I've never encountered this style of film-making before and it's so different that it can't help but stand out in my mind? the butt-cheek-clenching anxiousness and trepidation I felt during the whole thing? the sucker-punching ending? the awesome use of a sense of matter-of-factness and anti-climax when dealing with such a touchy, emotional topic?
I don't know. But I do know that I want to watch it about 40 more times to find out.

PS: I realize that I do kind of have a morbid fascination with certain serious/"smart" or controversial movies. Maybe that can be a constant thing on this here blog-thang-- reviews and discussions of movies like Elephant, or like Passolini's Salo which I am insanely determined to watch whether it makes me cry or barf or what. I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS. I MUST SEE IT.
PPS: I also realize that the idea of anything being "a constant" on this blog-thang is probably not gonna happen, as I am both lazy and forgetful. Lazgetful. Forgazy. Discuss amongst yourselves.
PPPS: Please enjoy the image of me typing up this attemptedly intellectual discussion on a serious movie while sitting in my lounge-y gear with toilet paper stuffed in my nose.
Don't judge. Something's gotta ebb the tide of my sinus infection juiciness.
...AAAAND, you're welcome.

Untitled.

2008-10-01T10:23:00.004-05:00

To recap: I suck at keeping up with journal-type things. Soo here is a stream-of-consciousness post on whatever the hell I want.

I love fall, even though the weather is kind of unpredictably alternating between summer and winter. That I do not like. What I do like is dressing in layers and wearing cute scarves. And I almost just wrote "scarfs".

I look like a shaggy hobo right now. Over the summer I got my hair cut short, and now I have to let it grow out for our production of Rob Reese's Frankenstein, so it's all janky. My saving grace is that it's just long enough to pull back into tiny tufty ponytails.

I'm newly obsessed with my photography class, even though it's hella expensive. But despite that, I'm finding that it's the medium where I can best express all my wackadoo ideas, sculpture being a close second. Right now I'm thinking of doing some multi-media pieces for my senior show-- meaning, one piece being made up of a drawing and photography, or sculpture and drawings, etc etc. We shall see.

Thanks to my roommate Kathleen, I'm also newly obsessed with The Fall, which is a gorgeous movie that I can't seem to watch enough. The visuals are stunning (there is only one scene that uses special effects, everything else is filmed on location and done for real), the acting is honest and endearing (my favorite part may be anything that involves this adorable little Romanian girl), and it's the kind of movie that you glean more from and appreciate more every time you watch it. I wish we had more expansive art classes here-- I'd love to be able to study movies like this in a film class or something. Until then, I'll be happy watching The Fall about 4 times a week. Don't judge.

...That's all. I'm out of random things for the moment. I'm going to go brush my teeth again because last night I had a dream that my gums started bleeding profusely for no reason. If you know me then you know that this is scary shit. I am all up on my dental hygiene in a freaky way, so having a dream like that is practically cold-sweat-inducing. Gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

PS: Halloween. I love Halloween but as of yet have no costume. Currently considering Aunt Lily from Pushing Daisies for an excuse to wear a bedazzled eyepatch.

Professor Bohne, ladies and gentlemen.

2008-05-08T13:08:00.011-05:00

So, I'll probably blog some about fun art professor stories. The department may be small here, but all of the faculty are absolute characters. They are all fun, intelligent, and exceptional at what they do. One person that may pop up on here a lot is my wacky and fantastic sculpture professor, Bill Bohne.

He is crazy, random, kind-hearted, extremely well-versed in all things music, says anything and everything in a complete deadpan, and is a packrat of the highest order. Some days in class, he will pull things out of one of multiple storage rooms and come in touting them like an auctioneer. Things that range from bundt pans from the 60's, army-issued gauze, a Harley Davidson beer can (mine now!), mannequin legs, stacks of promotional CDs, and, one time, two cassette recordings of a BBC interview with John Lennon. (Unfortunately, I didn't get my hot little hands on those.) Most class periods include burning incense and listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn or the Ramones. If we're lucky, he'll bust out the Prince cassette and dance along.
He is very fond of "field trips". Our intermediate class only has 6 students, and he took us somewhere around Green Bay at least once a month. Usually it's Goodwill or St. Vinnie's to get supplies and materials for pieces, but there is an equally good chance that it's any sort of little diner-y dive-- like Chili John's, or Zesty's for ice cream. If there's one thing Bohne loves as much as art and music, it's food. To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, he took us to El Azteca and bought us all the best mexican food I maybe have ever had. He squirted a lime on us, told stories about his travels to Rome and jogging past condoms in Vatican City, and lied to the staff that it was Alli's birthday so she would get free dessert and have to wear the giant El Azteca sombrero. He claimed it was her graduation present, as she's the class' only senior that went out to eat, but we're all pretty sure he had his eye on that sombrero the minute we walked in.

I seem to be taking after Bohne myself, and he couldn't be more pleased. Every class, he makes a point to ask me what I found on the street that day-- I usually come in with tree branches, old books, pinecones, random things from Goodwill, or bags full of crafty things from Michaels. (Only the tree-byproducts I bring in were anywhere near a street, thankyouverymuch.) I love that man like a batty grandpa, and he kind of dotes on me for it. Granted, he dotes on everyone, but he goes out of his way to bring me old magazines and walking sticks he's carved out of tree branches from his backyard and so on and so forth. I have to mention my absolute favorite thing he's given to me: a small, leather-bound book about the studies of Homer. It's tattered and yellowing, and inside the front cover is a thin calligraphy inscription in latin, dated 1911. I was floored when he insisted I keep it.

I can't wait to take more classes with him-- he really makes me happy to be an art major. He's like the sprinkles on my Zesty's turtle sundae!

Dear Bohne: please teach all my courses for the rest of my college career. Thanks.

And so it begins...

2008-05-08T00:31:00.004-05:00

Ho-HO! My blog life, it stretches out before me to the horizon like a shimmering highway of possibilities!
...By which I mean, if I tilt my head and look past my monitor, I can see a tree out the window and a veritable graveyard of ladybugs on our windowsills.
No matter!
I guess this blog isn't going to be too terribly fantastic or insightful. I'd just kind of like somewhere to occasionally dump thoughts, random crap, any artsy sorts of things I can dig up (of my own doing or just things I like), news in my life, questions, hopes, dreams...
And, god willing, the grandest assortment of fart jokes money can buy.
America, land of opportunity!