Saturday, December 19, 2009
notebook
once upon a time, being by the way, the 29th of November, she was sitting in this place and looking towards that one and writing about neither but thinking of both.
"The truth, thats the problem, i dont think the truth matters much really. i think the truth is a stationary thing." she thought, imagining him reading that line and knowing that it meant nothing and therefore that it was a lie- by the way- that last bit, the bit about the boy, thats the truth.
until she edited it. see the line there? the cross out? the correction? "i suppose" she thought, "that makes it a lie again."
i used to draw all the time. i used to draw my hand holding a pen drawing my hand, my fingers, i used to draw- both my socks are inside out- i used to draw my hand holding a pen and drawing my hand holding a pen because i saw my dad draw that once and i thought it was the height of surreal originality.
im not getting sick you know. i dont believe in sickness. i dont believe in the heavy eye lid feeling that i dont feel that doesnt mean anything about a fever!
Harriet The Spy is a cautionary tale for journaly people but also i think it creates narcissists because we think about what we write about and H the spy teaches us to never write about other people. i only ever write about other people in a general vague way and i write the word "i" over and and over.
Friday, December 11, 2009
व्हालेस
Whales have always thought in very explicit ways. Random icicles try to eat nuts so often for arrogant rocks. Please open some tea, I need good sensations. Even terrifying tarantulas insist nephariously, "Green Sea looks awesome! Yay!" Oh, umbrella things make outstanding nests, especially tall items zooming expeditiously. Volcano is eager, wandering blondely. Lurch over garbage.
Nautical ethics will plan often, so that evil dragons illicit tongues.
This has been a Molly Pelavin original.
Nautical ethics will plan often, so that evil dragons illicit tongues.
This has been a Molly Pelavin original.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
What About the Moonlight?
There is a full moon out tonight. I'm looking at it through a window. It’s the kind of moon that makes me want to leave my house and just stand in the moonlight. I feel obligated to enjoy the moonlight but I have no idea where to begin. Like a writing assignment with a few given guidelines but otherwise completely up to you;
“write about the moonlight.”
“what about the moonlight?”
“anything you want.”
“Lets go on an adventure.” Soli giggles.
She and Chloe, the French exchange student, are standing in my doorway, grinning.
They’re refusing to come in, they want me to come out.
Soli’s wearing a blue scarf around her head and her nose is bright red like it always gets when she’s cold. She’s sniffing.
I'm barefoot in the kitchen and the draft coming in from February outside is less inviting than the moonlight was so I pull on my boots quickly, without any socks, racing the clock in my head that has begun to count down. I only have so much time before my rational mind catches up with me. Soli and her adventures have this affect on me. Like a “do it before you think it all the way through” feeling.
We run across the street to the farm where soli has parked her car.
“why did you park here?” I ask her, shivering.
“your parents know I don’t have a license.”
“you don’t have a license?”
She pulls open the car door, cackling.
I've known soli for eleven years and still, when she cackles, I feel like I'm part of some sort of prank. I imagine her saying “lets go convince Katie to come out with us and then do something awful to her in the dark! Heh heh heh.”
At the top of the hill, where the road ends, we park the car and continue on foot.
In the woods above Mary Daily Field there are moon shadows.
In the woods between the field and Timmy’s house, where the trees are really small and thin and tall, the shadows are thin and long like the trees.
Everything is frosty grey and white and silver, nothing is black.
We can’t find the path.
I’ve lost all sense of direction. At night you’d think you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the leaf covered ground and the leaf covered path. You can. The path is like a deer path, the way the trees lean slightly towards each other, like a canopy, over a spot where the leaves dip a tiny bit down where the path is lower than the rest of the wood. We tell stories, panting cold air while we talk while we walk.
“Me and Elias…” soli says as she takes a little skipping step ahead of me then looks back “in the summer, we climbed a fence of this fancy schmancy house and swam naked in their pool.”
Elias is her friend from wilderness camp. I've never met him but I've seen the portrait she drew of him and whenever she mentions him, which is often, I see that sketchy face with small eyes and a goatee, in soft pencil lead. Swimming naked in a pool, he looks like wet paper.
We walk to Rochelle’s house. The lights are on inside.
“They’re so clean.” Soli says, looking into the living room. It sounds like an accusation.
The little red eye of a security system shoos us away from the front door and we creep around back and throw rocks at Rochelle’s bedroom window. She doesn’t come out.
We sneak up on Tim’s house the back way, through the trees between his house and Rochelle’s road, where you come out on the far side of the lake on his property.
We knock on his window. We can hear a television inside
“are you watching lost?” I ask when he comes out
“yeah I don’t think it’s a re-run.”
He lets us in and we stand in his kitchen and are rudely abused by his dogs while we wait for him to decide to come out with us or not. After a minute we leave him there and walk back around the pond, back into the woods, silently past Rochelle’s, across Mary Daily field where the ground feels strange, frozen... But frozen after being wet. I can’t see the grass in the dark I’m not wearing socks in my boots.
We crunch and slip across the field and slip up the hill where the roots of the trees are like stairs, pausing at the top of that twisty hill by the old sheep pen when Chloe turns and looks up at the moon through the black bare branches and declares:
"je veut fair un film!"
Back in Soli's car we speed, she’s flooring the pedal over the unpaved farm road blaring Eleanor Rigby, like a lullaby in stark contrast to the breakneck speed and the bouncy chaos of the car and I didn't realize until just now
when I sat down to try to write poetically about my moonlit night,
how often I stopped to take deep breaths, in the woods,
breathing the cold air like a fish finding oxygen in water…
or a human finding oxygen in water, its probably harder for one of us to find it than it is for a fish…
The point is I was sucking it out, like drinking through a straw… like eating. And in school today I felt like I wasn’t taking deep enough breaths. I've felt like my body is shrinking. Like my organs are limiting their intake down to the bare necessities of survival.
“write about the moonlight.”
“what about the moonlight?”
“anything you want.”
“Lets go on an adventure.” Soli giggles.
She and Chloe, the French exchange student, are standing in my doorway, grinning.
They’re refusing to come in, they want me to come out.
Soli’s wearing a blue scarf around her head and her nose is bright red like it always gets when she’s cold. She’s sniffing.
I'm barefoot in the kitchen and the draft coming in from February outside is less inviting than the moonlight was so I pull on my boots quickly, without any socks, racing the clock in my head that has begun to count down. I only have so much time before my rational mind catches up with me. Soli and her adventures have this affect on me. Like a “do it before you think it all the way through” feeling.
We run across the street to the farm where soli has parked her car.
“why did you park here?” I ask her, shivering.
“your parents know I don’t have a license.”
“you don’t have a license?”
She pulls open the car door, cackling.
I've known soli for eleven years and still, when she cackles, I feel like I'm part of some sort of prank. I imagine her saying “lets go convince Katie to come out with us and then do something awful to her in the dark! Heh heh heh.”
At the top of the hill, where the road ends, we park the car and continue on foot.
In the woods above Mary Daily Field there are moon shadows.
In the woods between the field and Timmy’s house, where the trees are really small and thin and tall, the shadows are thin and long like the trees.
Everything is frosty grey and white and silver, nothing is black.
We can’t find the path.
I’ve lost all sense of direction. At night you’d think you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the leaf covered ground and the leaf covered path. You can. The path is like a deer path, the way the trees lean slightly towards each other, like a canopy, over a spot where the leaves dip a tiny bit down where the path is lower than the rest of the wood. We tell stories, panting cold air while we talk while we walk.
“Me and Elias…” soli says as she takes a little skipping step ahead of me then looks back “in the summer, we climbed a fence of this fancy schmancy house and swam naked in their pool.”
Elias is her friend from wilderness camp. I've never met him but I've seen the portrait she drew of him and whenever she mentions him, which is often, I see that sketchy face with small eyes and a goatee, in soft pencil lead. Swimming naked in a pool, he looks like wet paper.
We walk to Rochelle’s house. The lights are on inside.
“They’re so clean.” Soli says, looking into the living room. It sounds like an accusation.
The little red eye of a security system shoos us away from the front door and we creep around back and throw rocks at Rochelle’s bedroom window. She doesn’t come out.
We sneak up on Tim’s house the back way, through the trees between his house and Rochelle’s road, where you come out on the far side of the lake on his property.
We knock on his window. We can hear a television inside
“are you watching lost?” I ask when he comes out
“yeah I don’t think it’s a re-run.”
He lets us in and we stand in his kitchen and are rudely abused by his dogs while we wait for him to decide to come out with us or not. After a minute we leave him there and walk back around the pond, back into the woods, silently past Rochelle’s, across Mary Daily field where the ground feels strange, frozen... But frozen after being wet. I can’t see the grass in the dark I’m not wearing socks in my boots.
We crunch and slip across the field and slip up the hill where the roots of the trees are like stairs, pausing at the top of that twisty hill by the old sheep pen when Chloe turns and looks up at the moon through the black bare branches and declares:
"je veut fair un film!"
Back in Soli's car we speed, she’s flooring the pedal over the unpaved farm road blaring Eleanor Rigby, like a lullaby in stark contrast to the breakneck speed and the bouncy chaos of the car and I didn't realize until just now
when I sat down to try to write poetically about my moonlit night,
how often I stopped to take deep breaths, in the woods,
breathing the cold air like a fish finding oxygen in water…
or a human finding oxygen in water, its probably harder for one of us to find it than it is for a fish…
The point is I was sucking it out, like drinking through a straw… like eating. And in school today I felt like I wasn’t taking deep enough breaths. I've felt like my body is shrinking. Like my organs are limiting their intake down to the bare necessities of survival.
Friday, December 4, 2009
my college campus
I've designed a COLLEGE CAMPUS its like a miniature vertical city.
"i hate those" says molly "we stayed in one in italy and the only way to get to our hotel was up this really long staircase."
"my college campus has elevators." i tell her "through the middle of the hill... and a trolly that winds continually up and down the whole things, all day long."
THE DORMS are like apartments. they are above the academic buildings and the student center and the cafeteria and other food places... like a city with everyone living on top of the business'.
THE STREETS are winding and narrow, there are no cars.
there are parks and town squares and other things that belong in cities because it will be like miniature city.
there is a PARKING LOT at the bottom of the city but anyone wanting to enter has to park their car and take the trolly up or walk...
there are staircases and streets that lead through buildings, under archways, around corners,
there are ROOFWAYS, mirroring the walkways below.
there are steps that lead up from the street to the roof and, like THE HIGH LINE in nyc, there are things up there- vendors and grass and whatever else springs up to temp and make money off the students...
there are storefronts that are available to the students the way dorms are.
Just like, here at purchase, you have to write an essay or have a certain GPA to be eligiable to live in a campus apartment, in my vertical city college you will write an essay or apply for a storefront.
youll write a proposal to the staff and describe your idea:
"id like to have a thrift store that is free," you'll write. "when you walk in youll bring in items to donate and somoene will give you a ticket that says how much you've donated, it will be worth a certain amount of store dollars and then you can buy things that are worth that much. if you dont donate anything you have to pay."
if they like your ideayou get that storefront for the year and if your business flourishes you can reaply the next year or pass on the idea to another student when you graduate.
there will be lots and lots of these student stores and that will be a huge attraction of outsiders coming to the college.
it will be like a city...
A city that closes its gates to the outside world at 1am.
and then only the students remain, wandering the streets, doing thier homework by the fountains in the parks.
workstudy will unclude all positions that a city requires to stay afloat.
randomly, selected by raffle, the students will work in the cafeteria or in the administration office or as a street sweeper or janitor.
if you dont do your job you dont get your work study so every task gets done.
there will also be a crew of students in charge of the general beautification of the city.
they will decide which spontanious graffiti stays and which is altered or covered.
the beautification crew will be in charge of holiday decorations and everyday decorations.
there are many spontanious holidays at the school. holidays that spring up because one day in may the beautification crew decided to fill a thousand water balloons with water color paint (Which washed away) and hurl them all over the city and drop them from the roofs and throw them at eachother and when the rest of the school saw what was going on the beautification crew was ready with wagon loads of loaded balloons which they quickly supplied the rest of the students with and then for a few weeks- until it rained- they city was multicolored... (i beielive theres a holiday in india with a similar intention?)
the beautification crew are architecture, art and philosophy majors and they bring beauty and "meaning" to all their activities.
there are outdoor movie showing the parks, huge projectors.
there are parties in the streets under white lights strung over the narrow allys from building to building.
every building is individual.
none of them match.
some of the faculty live on campus with thier families... theres a daycare on campus where the students work...
theres a movie theater showing only the most carefully selected movies (Selected by the film students)
there are bookstores and cafes and... clothing stores all student run. some selling original products..
and the whole campus is overlooking the ocean which is at the bottom of the city's cliff... and the trolly stops at the beach.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
After Reading Him His Story
Sometimes I should keep some of my guts to myself.
Keep them inside me so that I can use them for the things that guts are used for.
Sometimes I think theyre communal property
Sometimes I think they belong to the ones who gave them to me,
Just because you cooked for me doesn’t mean I should hand you my vomit.
Just because you spoke words and danced your cinematic choreography does not mean you have the rights to my screenplays.
Sometimes I should keep some guts to myself.
Other wise late at night when I sit inside myself I have nothing to hold onto…
Because its all be spread out like butter onto the tiny cracked crackers in different countries…
I give a bit of it to you and it becomes less real to me and I wonder why I feel empty after I’ve handed it out to every stranger who I pass.
I need some of this angst to keep me oiled, keep me turning.
I need to hold this in my fingers like slime and see it seep through the cracks where my folded hands cant keep the air out.
Sometimes I think I should lie.
I should lie so that the truth feels sharper when its truth.
If theres nothing but truth than it doesn’t matter.
If theres nothing but white-
Over exposed
Under exposed.
We need balance
We need lies.
I need lies.
That’s the truth.
I always tell the truth.
Keep them inside me so that I can use them for the things that guts are used for.
Sometimes I think theyre communal property
Sometimes I think they belong to the ones who gave them to me,
Just because you cooked for me doesn’t mean I should hand you my vomit.
Just because you spoke words and danced your cinematic choreography does not mean you have the rights to my screenplays.
Sometimes I should keep some guts to myself.
Other wise late at night when I sit inside myself I have nothing to hold onto…
Because its all be spread out like butter onto the tiny cracked crackers in different countries…
I give a bit of it to you and it becomes less real to me and I wonder why I feel empty after I’ve handed it out to every stranger who I pass.
I need some of this angst to keep me oiled, keep me turning.
I need to hold this in my fingers like slime and see it seep through the cracks where my folded hands cant keep the air out.
Sometimes I think I should lie.
I should lie so that the truth feels sharper when its truth.
If theres nothing but truth than it doesn’t matter.
If theres nothing but white-
Over exposed
Under exposed.
We need balance
We need lies.
I need lies.
That’s the truth.
I always tell the truth.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
home
i put toast in the toaster and water to boil for tea and then i came here to write a blog but its taking me too long and i keep thinking about the story we heard yesterday about the senior film student who left his film rewinding when he got caught up in a conversation and when he came back his film has been spun so fast that it had splintered into film splinters and had been shot off the reel and was stuck in the walls...
the only thing that will go wrong with my toast-in fact probably has gone wrong already-is that my brother will eat it... i heard him get out of bed about thrity seconds ago, he walked downstairs-i think my toast is probably history... and it was frozen too... ill have to unfreeze the next one...
ah
life.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Color Coverage
This weekend i filmed my color coverage assignment at The Spot.
Our clique of Green Meadow kids who transfered to nyack named it "The Spot." and then renamed it "Spotsylvania" (which never stuck) when we passed an exit for a town called Spotsylvania on our way to florida last summer.
The nyack kids who knew about the spot already and had been trespassing there since middle school-they called it "lord of the flies." both names suit it.
The Spot is a hill that has stone steps and then a wooden trelesy staricase that lead down to the river... on a bit of empty land between two expensive huge river view houses.
Theres a porch halfway down the hill where the stone steps turn to the wooden steps and where theres a lamp post thats going to fall one day but hasnt yet, just leans on a dramatic Caligari-esque angle.
i filmed Edy James and Raina.
they walked down the hill and sat on the porch and drank orange juiceboxes against blue skies in ektachrome colors. they looked out on the view and were probably out of focus because i had one of those zoom lense bolexs that is impossible to focus by eye through.
but
im praying to the gods of film labs and bolex cameras.
I making frequent offerings to them, i burn small animals over a fire and let the smoke trail up to them.
I've woven all my leftover film into a twisty celluloid shrine for them and i kneel before it and ask them to just forgive me that millienth of an inch that my focus was off.
and please make sure that the guys at pac lab have enough caffiene in their coffees so they mix the chemicals correctly.
and then
i get off my knees and feel quite confident in the gods affection for me
and wait for my film to come back...
all in focus and properly exposed with beautiful orange juice boxes contrasting unbelievably with blue skies and blue shirts and purple scarves and green eyes.
yum.
o and also
that shot that i planned to pull focus on
but all i did was zoom out
because everything looks focused through the lense
that shot
that shot will be perfectly pulled even though i know i didnt pull it.
Our clique of Green Meadow kids who transfered to nyack named it "The Spot." and then renamed it "Spotsylvania" (which never stuck) when we passed an exit for a town called Spotsylvania on our way to florida last summer.
The nyack kids who knew about the spot already and had been trespassing there since middle school-they called it "lord of the flies." both names suit it.
The Spot is a hill that has stone steps and then a wooden trelesy staricase that lead down to the river... on a bit of empty land between two expensive huge river view houses.
Theres a porch halfway down the hill where the stone steps turn to the wooden steps and where theres a lamp post thats going to fall one day but hasnt yet, just leans on a dramatic Caligari-esque angle.
i filmed Edy James and Raina.
they walked down the hill and sat on the porch and drank orange juiceboxes against blue skies in ektachrome colors. they looked out on the view and were probably out of focus because i had one of those zoom lense bolexs that is impossible to focus by eye through.
but
im praying to the gods of film labs and bolex cameras.
I making frequent offerings to them, i burn small animals over a fire and let the smoke trail up to them.
I've woven all my leftover film into a twisty celluloid shrine for them and i kneel before it and ask them to just forgive me that millienth of an inch that my focus was off.
and please make sure that the guys at pac lab have enough caffiene in their coffees so they mix the chemicals correctly.
and then
i get off my knees and feel quite confident in the gods affection for me
and wait for my film to come back...
all in focus and properly exposed with beautiful orange juice boxes contrasting unbelievably with blue skies and blue shirts and purple scarves and green eyes.
yum.
o and also
that shot that i planned to pull focus on
but all i did was zoom out
because everything looks focused through the lense
that shot
that shot will be perfectly pulled even though i know i didnt pull it.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
New Moon
To Whom It May Concern,
CC: screenwriter, Melissa Rosenberg
CC: whoever hired Melissa Rosenberg
your characters need to smile.
why are they in love?
we dont beleive him just because he says it.
you have to show us why.
characters say "i love you" unashamedly in two kinds of stories- soap operas and fairytales.
do you know which story youre in?
because we do.
we, the little lovesick girls, even kristen sterwart, we know which story we're in.
Twilight is a fairytale. i promise. thats why we love it, thats why we hate the movies,
thats why we cringe, embaressed for your charecters while they profess their love. theyre sitting awkwardly outside their archetypes because you think they are a joke.
we dont think theyre a joke.
i promise.
we read those books and couldnt stop smilling.
i couldnt stop smiling for a month while i read twilight, holding it infront of my face while i walked from class to class.
and im sitting in the movie theater begging you to make me smile
trying to fall in love
i want to fall in love with your characters by how can i when you dont even show me then falling in love with eachother.
The story of Twilight is ridiculous. that is the point.
but
what you fail to realize is this: the reason that we-little lovesick girls- are so unbelievably obsessed with this story is that IT TAKES ITSELF SERIOUSLY.
stephanie meyer's books convinced us that vampires exist by putting it in our terms.
"what would it really be like?"
she gave us bella- who is in love with the most beautiful boy she has ever seen. she gave us Bella's disbelief and her excitement and her delight...
imagine a conversation between a priest and an atheist.
what does the priest say- a good priest- a learned understanding one- he is trying to persuade the atheist-in the atheist's own terms-to believe in god.
the twilight screenplays are giving us nothing!
they are giving us angst.
they are giving us a sci fi OC
im paying you for your time.
i want you to give me what i want.
i want the seriousness, and the believablily, the magical reality that i gave up my elite feminist integrity to read.
i want the fairytale.
please please study the differnce between a soap opera "i love you" and a fairytale one.
if thats all you do it will be enough.
CC: screenwriter, Melissa Rosenberg
CC: whoever hired Melissa Rosenberg
your characters need to smile.
why are they in love?
we dont beleive him just because he says it.
you have to show us why.
characters say "i love you" unashamedly in two kinds of stories- soap operas and fairytales.
do you know which story youre in?
because we do.
we, the little lovesick girls, even kristen sterwart, we know which story we're in.
Twilight is a fairytale. i promise. thats why we love it, thats why we hate the movies,
thats why we cringe, embaressed for your charecters while they profess their love. theyre sitting awkwardly outside their archetypes because you think they are a joke.
we dont think theyre a joke.
i promise.
we read those books and couldnt stop smilling.
i couldnt stop smiling for a month while i read twilight, holding it infront of my face while i walked from class to class.
and im sitting in the movie theater begging you to make me smile
trying to fall in love
i want to fall in love with your characters by how can i when you dont even show me then falling in love with eachother.
The story of Twilight is ridiculous. that is the point.
but
what you fail to realize is this: the reason that we-little lovesick girls- are so unbelievably obsessed with this story is that IT TAKES ITSELF SERIOUSLY.
stephanie meyer's books convinced us that vampires exist by putting it in our terms.
"what would it really be like?"
she gave us bella- who is in love with the most beautiful boy she has ever seen. she gave us Bella's disbelief and her excitement and her delight...
imagine a conversation between a priest and an atheist.
what does the priest say- a good priest- a learned understanding one- he is trying to persuade the atheist-in the atheist's own terms-to believe in god.
the twilight screenplays are giving us nothing!
they are giving us angst.
they are giving us a sci fi OC
im paying you for your time.
i want you to give me what i want.
i want the seriousness, and the believablily, the magical reality that i gave up my elite feminist integrity to read.
i want the fairytale.
please please study the differnce between a soap opera "i love you" and a fairytale one.
if thats all you do it will be enough.
Tiny Tale: in which a candy cane forest melts
once upon a time there was a forest of candy canes.
the children walked between the shiny red and white trees and stopped to lick the stalks, theyre cheeks and mittens got sticky with sugar.
when summer came the forest melted and became a sugar swamp.
in june the children swam in the syrup but by july they learned that walking around drenched in sugar attracted the bees.
so during july and august the children went only as far as the the edge of the swamp where they lay down on their stomachs and stuck straws in and drank.
in the fall the swamp turned hard because, it was not water, it was sugar and so it didnt need to wait for the winter to freeze.
the children set up a stall where they rented out sugar skates and scissors.
the people came and rented skates. they skated out onto the sugar swamp and when they fell they stuck to the sugar so they used their scissors to cut themselves free and then hurried home in their ripped clothes kicking yellow leaves away from their sticky feet.
and by this time no one remembered that it all started with candy canes.
the children walked between the shiny red and white trees and stopped to lick the stalks, theyre cheeks and mittens got sticky with sugar.
when summer came the forest melted and became a sugar swamp.
in june the children swam in the syrup but by july they learned that walking around drenched in sugar attracted the bees.
so during july and august the children went only as far as the the edge of the swamp where they lay down on their stomachs and stuck straws in and drank.
in the fall the swamp turned hard because, it was not water, it was sugar and so it didnt need to wait for the winter to freeze.
the children set up a stall where they rented out sugar skates and scissors.
the people came and rented skates. they skated out onto the sugar swamp and when they fell they stuck to the sugar so they used their scissors to cut themselves free and then hurried home in their ripped clothes kicking yellow leaves away from their sticky feet.
and by this time no one remembered that it all started with candy canes.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
i keep passing my room inspections
i keep passing my room inspections
even though they say no christmas lights.
and i have christmas lights.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
My Trinity
note: a healthy understanding of The Matrix is recomended for proper enjoyment of this post
In my version of the matrix, in order to make myself fall in love with Neo and trinity; in order to make myself care about that tender moment at the end, I will make Trinity younger and purer.
What I mean is: she is the one who loves The One, so, symbolically-since we like to beleive that Jesus never fell in love-the only woman Trinity could be a symbol for is Mary.
So she should be like... young and pretty and quiet and virginal...
For all the feminists who are raising their eyebrows and accusing me of making a powerful heroin into a damsel in distress- please read on-
Trinity should be the little dangerous one, the one who cares for neo- like she does do in the movie- almost tucking him in like a mother, into the chair and sticking a long needle into his brain, tenderly, with a hand on his chest. She should be just like that... the tender careful feminine one and then
when she needs to be- when morpheus who- sorry- is God, calls upon her to "get neo out! hes all that matters!"
then she rises to the occasion and Neo is shocked that this little sister, little mother character is taking charge.
That is when he falls in love with her. Not when he sees her in tight black leather for the first time.
She can wear the tight black leather but she should wear it with a elemental sort of swagger... maybe her hair isnt greased back, maybe it's in two braids or maybe its curly.
The oracal told trinity that she would fall in love and that that man that man that she would love would be the one.
That bothers my Trinity. She dislikes neo. He does something… anything to make her feel unloved by him and she decides that he is not the one because she hates him. she wants him to fail. Until he does something to redeem himself but of course then she’s mad at him for making her not hate him.
Basically
What im trying to say is
If the point of the movie is humans fighting for humanity… give the characters some humanity… make them human…. Give them some angst and for a pair of storytellers so obviously talented at playing with metephore- learn your woman archytepes and play.
In my version of the matrix, in order to make myself fall in love with Neo and trinity; in order to make myself care about that tender moment at the end, I will make Trinity younger and purer.
What I mean is: she is the one who loves The One, so, symbolically-since we like to beleive that Jesus never fell in love-the only woman Trinity could be a symbol for is Mary.
So she should be like... young and pretty and quiet and virginal...
For all the feminists who are raising their eyebrows and accusing me of making a powerful heroin into a damsel in distress- please read on-
Trinity should be the little dangerous one, the one who cares for neo- like she does do in the movie- almost tucking him in like a mother, into the chair and sticking a long needle into his brain, tenderly, with a hand on his chest. She should be just like that... the tender careful feminine one and then
when she needs to be- when morpheus who- sorry- is God, calls upon her to "get neo out! hes all that matters!"
then she rises to the occasion and Neo is shocked that this little sister, little mother character is taking charge.
That is when he falls in love with her. Not when he sees her in tight black leather for the first time.
She can wear the tight black leather but she should wear it with a elemental sort of swagger... maybe her hair isnt greased back, maybe it's in two braids or maybe its curly.
The oracal told trinity that she would fall in love and that that man that man that she would love would be the one.
That bothers my Trinity. She dislikes neo. He does something… anything to make her feel unloved by him and she decides that he is not the one because she hates him. she wants him to fail. Until he does something to redeem himself but of course then she’s mad at him for making her not hate him.
Basically
What im trying to say is
If the point of the movie is humans fighting for humanity… give the characters some humanity… make them human…. Give them some angst and for a pair of storytellers so obviously talented at playing with metephore- learn your woman archytepes and play.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Something Fell
Something fell
And left that line of cloud,
That slices the sky
Beside the moon.
It looks like an angel stretched out his hand
Tried to catch hold of something
To slow his descent
But instead left the wake
That ends abruptly
After passing the moon
Which I think is where
The angel stopped grasping at nothing,
Where he let go of the air.
And with his hands crossed
Over his heart,
The way that they told me to fold
My arms at the water park
When I went down the tallest slide,
The angel closes his eyes
And thinks about
How it feels to fall.
And left that line of cloud,
That slices the sky
Beside the moon.
It looks like an angel stretched out his hand
Tried to catch hold of something
To slow his descent
But instead left the wake
That ends abruptly
After passing the moon
Which I think is where
The angel stopped grasping at nothing,
Where he let go of the air.
And with his hands crossed
Over his heart,
The way that they told me to fold
My arms at the water park
When I went down the tallest slide,
The angel closes his eyes
And thinks about
How it feels to fall.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
When We Leave In The Night
We will find our socks
In the bottom of the bed,
Peel them back on
And leave in the night
But first we will wash
Our faces and drink
Handfuls of water from the bathroom.
We will strip the sheets
From the fold out couch
And fold it up. We will take
Apples from the kitchen
And hold them in our teeth
As we zip up our coats. We will slink
Across the lawn and pick up the bottles
And drop them
Into someone else’s trash,
A block away. But first we will find you,
Asleep in the next room, sit on your bed
And kiss your cheeks
We will try not to creak
As we leave down the stairs in the night,
Whispering that we are sorry
For waking you.
(molly looking at her film on the bus)
In the bottom of the bed,
Peel them back on
And leave in the night
But first we will wash
Our faces and drink
Handfuls of water from the bathroom.
We will strip the sheets
From the fold out couch
And fold it up. We will take
Apples from the kitchen
And hold them in our teeth
As we zip up our coats. We will slink
Across the lawn and pick up the bottles
And drop them
Into someone else’s trash,
A block away. But first we will find you,
Asleep in the next room, sit on your bed
And kiss your cheeks
We will try not to creak
As we leave down the stairs in the night,
Whispering that we are sorry
For waking you.
(molly looking at her film on the bus)
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Fog and College
it rained all day and then misted all night.
and i drank four shots of cheap something that didn't do much except unstick me from my mind long enough to let me let Anna dress me. which she did. very well.
and i drank four shots of cheap something that didn't do much except unstick me from my mind long enough to let me let Anna dress me. which she did. very well.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Real Girl
part I
i have a girl who isnt real.
shes mine. i love her.
we swim together in the ocean with some guys. (adam and jake are there.)
when it starts to get too cold i carry her inside. we're at a hotel. theres a pool its green and blue, not in a dirty way, in a chloriney way.
i turn a switch in her neck and she turns on and i drop her into the water.
"this is where im supposed to swim?" shes disgusted. she thinks the water isnt real water.
there are old men watching us. i dont want them to know that shes not real.
part II
i am carrying her, shes the same girl but shes a child, a toddler.
we are at the same hotel but it feels like a mall... no a fair. there are people carrying around cotton candy and like... corn dogs.
im carrying my unreal girl. she has her arms around my neck, shes "asleep" she smells like plastic. i dont want anyone to know that shes not real.
three men, two father age and one college age step into step beside me. they ask me where her father is, where the rest of my family is. theyre flirting with me, wondering if i have a husband.
i tell them that im fine with just her. i pat her back. she puts her hand on my cheek because shes alive.
she feels a little too light and she has a screw in her neck.
i keep wondering if i should have stayed in the ocean with the boys. i feel too responsible here with this child who is a child and i am responsible for her but also i am responsibe for making sure no one finds out the truth.
part III
ive lost her. me and someone else who i know (ive forgotten but it might have been molly...) are looking for her. i dont want anyone to see her, dont want anyone to find out that shes not real.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
A Cage (short story for screenwriting class)
Today there’s another weird bug in the shower. Mom and I have been killing them for weeks. There seems to be an infinite variety, today it’s a spidery one with a tiny body and legs like strands of hair. This one has a stinger. I splash it but somehow it floats on its thin legs and circles around the drain for a bit but then Mom drops a cupful of water on top of it.
She lets the water run over the crime scene for a minute, watching the spot where the bug was, convinced, she says, that the bug has left a poison residue that she might absorb through her feet.
I’m watching her, sitting on the closed toilet seat.
She tells me that she thinks there’s an army of bugs under the bathroom but that they come out one at a time because these are the scouts.
“No one who ventures up that drain ever returns…” she narrates in her narrating voice while she shampoos her hair.
Outside the sky is white. I’ve taken a book out here with me and am sitting on the lawn like a confused sunbather waiting for the storm. I’m breathing in the air like adrenaline. I let the wind flip the pages of my book. I read that page until it flips to a new one and I’m piecing together a message that I pretend the wind is sending me.
My fingers are red and hard to bend but I’ll wait here until the wind blows so hard that my heart speeds even though I’m not afraid and the first snowflakes melt on the page and make bubbles of ink in the text.
Inside Mom is sitting in the middle of the almost empty living room, in the middle of the white shag carpet. There’s a white coffee mug beside her, ten minutes ago it was triple espresso.
“Your eyes are twitching.” I tell her.
“I know,” she says, “I'm working on it.”
We hear the kitchen door open and close and feel a fleeting draft. Mom says nothing but tightens her grip on the carpet.
“Maggie, I was trying to call you.” says my aunt Louisa, appearing at my shoulder. “No ones answering the phone.”
She brushes past me into the room she smells like snow and chemically perfume.
“Anyway, he’s dead.” She says looking down at Mom
“Who’s dead?” Mom asks calmly, eyes closed.
“Donny, he was… What are you doing?”
“She’s trying to overheat her brain.” I explain, “She drank a lot of coffee and if she can get her eyes to stop twitching…”
“How did he die?” Mom interrupts without opening her eyes.
“He was old.” Louisa says absently, she’s trying to leave.
“But how did he die?”
“He was sick.” My aunt is always trying to leave. She is only ever here when she’s between other places.
Mom’s leg starts bouncing against the carpet. She closes her eyes. I turn away and go to the kitchen.
My aunt follows a few minutes later. She sits down across the tiny table and begins, absentmindedly to sip from the white coffee mug she’s apparently just confiscated. She crosses one leg over the other and the foot on top starts bouncing.
“Who died?” I ask her.
“Donny.”
“Who was Donny?” past tense, I think.
“Maggie’s canary.”
“Oh.”
“He was at Grandma’s, your mom hung him from the shower curtain rod.”
I know she means hanging in a cage but I think about a tiny bird hanging by a tiny noose, tiny feet twitching.
“You should try to get her out of the house.”
I nod.
“She needs to do things.”
“She does things.” I think about the bugs.
Louisa raises her eyebrows. She means a job. Mom needs a new job. Louisa takes another a sip of Mom’s coffee.
“So you’re going out tonight?” she asks, noticing the makeup on my eyes.
I nod.
“Will there be boys there?” Louisa likes to think that she’s the cool aunt who I can tell things to.
“You can tell me anything” I remember her swearing, the day she noticed that I had shaved my legs.
“Yeah there’ll be boys.”
She stands up suddenly.
“What was in that coffee!” She’s opening and closing her palms probably in time with her racing heart.
She grabs her black shiny bag and red scarf from the back of her chair. She hasn’t taken off her coat.
“Bye.” I say. She puts the red scarf around her neck and throws one side over her shoulder.
“Have fun.” She reaches for the doorknob, which is right behind her in the tiny kitchen for a second I watch the snow falling behind her then the door slams shut.
I go back to the living room. I stand in the doorway and watch Mom warring with her twitching eyes. She’s sitting up perfectly straight. Her little hands are white and she’s twined her fingers into the rug and is holding on as though the whole picture is upside down and she and the rug are flat against the ceiling.
“I’ve been feeling a little guilty,” I say, “about killing the bugs.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Mom? Wanna go somewhere?”
Silence.
“Maybe tomorrow you can shower alone? They never come back once you drown them. I think it’s probably okay.”
“Donny’s dead.” Mom says, eyes closed. “He hung himself in the shower.”
“You hung him in the shower.” I tell her.
“But don’t you see him in a little bird noose when you think about it?” Her leg starts twitching again.
“No.” I say, “He was in his cage.”
She opens her eyes for a minute and looks at me.
“Yeah I know.” She says
“I’m going to a party.” I say
“Will there be boys there?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, they’re probably scared of you.” She says.
“What?” she’s looking up at me, which makes her eyes look huge.
“You should kiss them.” She says “Don’t wait for them to…”
“Mom?”
“Mmm?”
“I don’t know. Never mind.”
The party’s in the basement of the last house on the block. It’s the house where most of the parties are held and there are red chili pepper lights that blink out of sink with the beat of the music. I like to try to make the two pulses line up it feels like holding repelling magnets together.
Tonight there will be a boy leaning against the yellow wall. I’ll lean against it too, too close to him. He’ll swallow, look over his shoulder for a rescue. I’ll smile and put my hands on his cheeks. I’ll kiss him, it’ll only last a minute then I’ll pull away.
He’ll stare at me, stare like tasting. He’ll put his hands on the wall on either side of my head. I’ll stay there as long as I can, staring back while his eyes blink black and red with the lights.
I’ll like it there, between him and the wall but I won’t let him know. I’ll break free, duck quickly under his arm, find the bathroom and press my face right up to the mirror.
I’ll take someone’s coat from the pile near the door and put it on, it’ll be too big.
Outside the snow will be frozen like ice. Behind me, near the ground, the basement windows will throb with the red lights and the bass from the stereo. The cell phone in the pocket of the stolen jacket will buzz once. I’ll step and slide as lightly as I can across the surface of the snow; back and forth before the house, pretending that the lawn is a lake, waiting for tiny cracks, hoping not to fall through.
She lets the water run over the crime scene for a minute, watching the spot where the bug was, convinced, she says, that the bug has left a poison residue that she might absorb through her feet.
I’m watching her, sitting on the closed toilet seat.
She tells me that she thinks there’s an army of bugs under the bathroom but that they come out one at a time because these are the scouts.
“No one who ventures up that drain ever returns…” she narrates in her narrating voice while she shampoos her hair.
Outside the sky is white. I’ve taken a book out here with me and am sitting on the lawn like a confused sunbather waiting for the storm. I’m breathing in the air like adrenaline. I let the wind flip the pages of my book. I read that page until it flips to a new one and I’m piecing together a message that I pretend the wind is sending me.
My fingers are red and hard to bend but I’ll wait here until the wind blows so hard that my heart speeds even though I’m not afraid and the first snowflakes melt on the page and make bubbles of ink in the text.
Inside Mom is sitting in the middle of the almost empty living room, in the middle of the white shag carpet. There’s a white coffee mug beside her, ten minutes ago it was triple espresso.
“Your eyes are twitching.” I tell her.
“I know,” she says, “I'm working on it.”
We hear the kitchen door open and close and feel a fleeting draft. Mom says nothing but tightens her grip on the carpet.
“Maggie, I was trying to call you.” says my aunt Louisa, appearing at my shoulder. “No ones answering the phone.”
She brushes past me into the room she smells like snow and chemically perfume.
“Anyway, he’s dead.” She says looking down at Mom
“Who’s dead?” Mom asks calmly, eyes closed.
“Donny, he was… What are you doing?”
“She’s trying to overheat her brain.” I explain, “She drank a lot of coffee and if she can get her eyes to stop twitching…”
“How did he die?” Mom interrupts without opening her eyes.
“He was old.” Louisa says absently, she’s trying to leave.
“But how did he die?”
“He was sick.” My aunt is always trying to leave. She is only ever here when she’s between other places.
Mom’s leg starts bouncing against the carpet. She closes her eyes. I turn away and go to the kitchen.
My aunt follows a few minutes later. She sits down across the tiny table and begins, absentmindedly to sip from the white coffee mug she’s apparently just confiscated. She crosses one leg over the other and the foot on top starts bouncing.
“Who died?” I ask her.
“Donny.”
“Who was Donny?” past tense, I think.
“Maggie’s canary.”
“Oh.”
“He was at Grandma’s, your mom hung him from the shower curtain rod.”
I know she means hanging in a cage but I think about a tiny bird hanging by a tiny noose, tiny feet twitching.
“You should try to get her out of the house.”
I nod.
“She needs to do things.”
“She does things.” I think about the bugs.
Louisa raises her eyebrows. She means a job. Mom needs a new job. Louisa takes another a sip of Mom’s coffee.
“So you’re going out tonight?” she asks, noticing the makeup on my eyes.
I nod.
“Will there be boys there?” Louisa likes to think that she’s the cool aunt who I can tell things to.
“You can tell me anything” I remember her swearing, the day she noticed that I had shaved my legs.
“Yeah there’ll be boys.”
She stands up suddenly.
“What was in that coffee!” She’s opening and closing her palms probably in time with her racing heart.
She grabs her black shiny bag and red scarf from the back of her chair. She hasn’t taken off her coat.
“Bye.” I say. She puts the red scarf around her neck and throws one side over her shoulder.
“Have fun.” She reaches for the doorknob, which is right behind her in the tiny kitchen for a second I watch the snow falling behind her then the door slams shut.
I go back to the living room. I stand in the doorway and watch Mom warring with her twitching eyes. She’s sitting up perfectly straight. Her little hands are white and she’s twined her fingers into the rug and is holding on as though the whole picture is upside down and she and the rug are flat against the ceiling.
“I’ve been feeling a little guilty,” I say, “about killing the bugs.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Mom? Wanna go somewhere?”
Silence.
“Maybe tomorrow you can shower alone? They never come back once you drown them. I think it’s probably okay.”
“Donny’s dead.” Mom says, eyes closed. “He hung himself in the shower.”
“You hung him in the shower.” I tell her.
“But don’t you see him in a little bird noose when you think about it?” Her leg starts twitching again.
“No.” I say, “He was in his cage.”
She opens her eyes for a minute and looks at me.
“Yeah I know.” She says
“I’m going to a party.” I say
“Will there be boys there?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, they’re probably scared of you.” She says.
“What?” she’s looking up at me, which makes her eyes look huge.
“You should kiss them.” She says “Don’t wait for them to…”
“Mom?”
“Mmm?”
“I don’t know. Never mind.”
The party’s in the basement of the last house on the block. It’s the house where most of the parties are held and there are red chili pepper lights that blink out of sink with the beat of the music. I like to try to make the two pulses line up it feels like holding repelling magnets together.
Tonight there will be a boy leaning against the yellow wall. I’ll lean against it too, too close to him. He’ll swallow, look over his shoulder for a rescue. I’ll smile and put my hands on his cheeks. I’ll kiss him, it’ll only last a minute then I’ll pull away.
He’ll stare at me, stare like tasting. He’ll put his hands on the wall on either side of my head. I’ll stay there as long as I can, staring back while his eyes blink black and red with the lights.
I’ll like it there, between him and the wall but I won’t let him know. I’ll break free, duck quickly under his arm, find the bathroom and press my face right up to the mirror.
I’ll take someone’s coat from the pile near the door and put it on, it’ll be too big.
Outside the snow will be frozen like ice. Behind me, near the ground, the basement windows will throb with the red lights and the bass from the stereo. The cell phone in the pocket of the stolen jacket will buzz once. I’ll step and slide as lightly as I can across the surface of the snow; back and forth before the house, pretending that the lawn is a lake, waiting for tiny cracks, hoping not to fall through.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Dream: In which Maya, Eliza and I look for a theme park, I drive across the Bear Mountain Bridge, and then I kill a baby.
First mommy was driving and Maya, Eliza and I were in the car, they in the backseat, me in the front. We were on that winding highway along the side of a cliff above the Hudson river. Maya and Eliza wanted to go to a theme park, so did I, but I felt bad that mommy was going to drive us all the way there even though she seemed happy to do it.
When we got to the end of the road I was preoccupied. I think I was looking at my ipod of some other thing. Mommy said something that I didn’t hear. When I looked up mommy was gone but the car was still moving, as though it were on tracks- I mean as far as my dream self was concerned it was sort of on tracks because I wasn’t worried that anything would happen until we had to make the turn onto the bridge. The turn was coming up and mommy still wasn’t back in the driver seat.
I, as I feel I have done in lots of dreams- in any case my dream self knew just what to do- held the wheel and turned (a bit too sharply and a bit to close to the railing and a plummeting fall to death) onto the bridge. I was thinking that nothing bad would happen unless we had to slow down. I swung one leg over to the pedal and placed my foot over the break. I wasn’t sure that the pedal that my foot was over was the break and I didn’t think we needed to slow down yet so I just left my foot there.
The bridge was sort of like the under level of the GW bridge, but with more turns and lower railings and a walkway down the center which mommy came running down.
When she got to us I was about to put my foot down on the break but suddenly she was there and she put her foot on the break and everything was all right again.
I asked her where she had gone. She said she had walked across to the ATM on the other side of the bridge to check the balance of her credit card. I saw that a credit card and a receipt were stuck in her bra. The receipt had rain spots on it and I realized it was raining. I thought of how quickly she had stuffed the stuff away while she ran to us.
We crossed the bridge.
We went into the traffic circle and turned off at Bear Mountain Park.
Maya and Eliza complained that this was not a real amusement park. I agreed but somewhere in the back of my mind I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t. I told them that there might be some rides over- here- or –here. We looked for rides. Maya and Eliza had on their creepy giggly faces which i never know what to do about.
There was a baby that suddenly latched itself onto me. I thought its parents might be the parents sitting on the side of the path nearby so I played with the baby near those parents for a while and crooned about how cute he was in their direction and they agreed but then I realized they were the wrong parents and I wondered where my babie’s parents were. This went on for a LONG while that I’ve forgotten the details of. Then one of the woman pointed and said she thought that that man coming into the park was the baby’s dad so I picked up the baby, the baby was naked and suddenly I was scared he would poop on me, and carried him towards the dad.
When I got near enough to talk to the man I put the baby down and asked him. “is this your baby?”
And he said “what baby?” and I realized that baby had run off.
I told the man that I had been watching his baby but now the baby was gone but he could go find him now.
I thought- that’s not any different than if I was never here- he lost the baby, I found the baby, I lost the baby- he still had to find the baby- I didn’t.
But I helped him look everywhere for the baby.
We couldn’t find him. The man took a long stick and started to hit me with it. It broke in half and I took the other half and hit him back saying that this was not my fault and I was sorry I had gotten involved.
This part gets hazy but I think we went back towards the entrance of the park and my dad was there and I explained to him that this man had lost his baby but it wasn’t my fault and now he had hit me with a stick- we were still holding our pieces of stick. I don’t remember if my dad said anything. Then I remembered that there was a pool and asked the man if he had looked in the pool. He hadn’t. He was going to go look when I told him, no, I’d look.
I went to the pool. There were all these little girls in the water. “Is there a baby in the pool?” I asked them
They giggled and said there was.
With that I knew that there was a dead baby in the pool but I still didn’t admit that in my next question-“where is he?”
“Over there and-“ one girl giggled and spoke for the others “someone ate the dead baby’s foot.”
I didn’t look for the body, in that way that you know something is there but you don’t look at it but it is so present that you might as well have looked. I walked back to the man standing in the entrance of the park and said “I have to go now. He’s in the pool.” And left, I mean, woke up since I had been becoming vaguely aware that it was a dream for the whole second part and with that last awful bit I decided I had had enough.
INFO: I’ve been told that driving in dreams represents life. Like- if you are driving you are driving your own life, if someone else is driving they are driving your life as it were, if you are driving off a cliff with no breaks--- yeah… you get it.
Info 2: my mom keeps telling me that hurting my feet is about “taking the next step.” Like- going to college tomorrow and last week I jumped off a fence onto a root and hurt my heel and I’m limping…
Info 3: babies in dreams are supposed to be like… your ideas and goals. Other people’s babies are… other peoples dreams and goals. Other people’s babies dying… other peoples babies getting lost… other peoples babies clinging to you… Getting beaten for loosing other peoples babies…
Info 4: money is kind of freaking me out lately. Like the lack of it AND the spending of it when there isn’t a lack of it. Probably because I’m afraid of the lack of it. And because I’ve been spending a lot of other people’s money what with going to college and all…
Info 5: I’m going to college tomorrow.
When we got to the end of the road I was preoccupied. I think I was looking at my ipod of some other thing. Mommy said something that I didn’t hear. When I looked up mommy was gone but the car was still moving, as though it were on tracks- I mean as far as my dream self was concerned it was sort of on tracks because I wasn’t worried that anything would happen until we had to make the turn onto the bridge. The turn was coming up and mommy still wasn’t back in the driver seat.
I, as I feel I have done in lots of dreams- in any case my dream self knew just what to do- held the wheel and turned (a bit too sharply and a bit to close to the railing and a plummeting fall to death) onto the bridge. I was thinking that nothing bad would happen unless we had to slow down. I swung one leg over to the pedal and placed my foot over the break. I wasn’t sure that the pedal that my foot was over was the break and I didn’t think we needed to slow down yet so I just left my foot there.
The bridge was sort of like the under level of the GW bridge, but with more turns and lower railings and a walkway down the center which mommy came running down.
When she got to us I was about to put my foot down on the break but suddenly she was there and she put her foot on the break and everything was all right again.
I asked her where she had gone. She said she had walked across to the ATM on the other side of the bridge to check the balance of her credit card. I saw that a credit card and a receipt were stuck in her bra. The receipt had rain spots on it and I realized it was raining. I thought of how quickly she had stuffed the stuff away while she ran to us.
We crossed the bridge.
We went into the traffic circle and turned off at Bear Mountain Park.
Maya and Eliza complained that this was not a real amusement park. I agreed but somewhere in the back of my mind I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t. I told them that there might be some rides over- here- or –here. We looked for rides. Maya and Eliza had on their creepy giggly faces which i never know what to do about.
There was a baby that suddenly latched itself onto me. I thought its parents might be the parents sitting on the side of the path nearby so I played with the baby near those parents for a while and crooned about how cute he was in their direction and they agreed but then I realized they were the wrong parents and I wondered where my babie’s parents were. This went on for a LONG while that I’ve forgotten the details of. Then one of the woman pointed and said she thought that that man coming into the park was the baby’s dad so I picked up the baby, the baby was naked and suddenly I was scared he would poop on me, and carried him towards the dad.
When I got near enough to talk to the man I put the baby down and asked him. “is this your baby?”
And he said “what baby?” and I realized that baby had run off.
I told the man that I had been watching his baby but now the baby was gone but he could go find him now.
I thought- that’s not any different than if I was never here- he lost the baby, I found the baby, I lost the baby- he still had to find the baby- I didn’t.
But I helped him look everywhere for the baby.
We couldn’t find him. The man took a long stick and started to hit me with it. It broke in half and I took the other half and hit him back saying that this was not my fault and I was sorry I had gotten involved.
This part gets hazy but I think we went back towards the entrance of the park and my dad was there and I explained to him that this man had lost his baby but it wasn’t my fault and now he had hit me with a stick- we were still holding our pieces of stick. I don’t remember if my dad said anything. Then I remembered that there was a pool and asked the man if he had looked in the pool. He hadn’t. He was going to go look when I told him, no, I’d look.
I went to the pool. There were all these little girls in the water. “Is there a baby in the pool?” I asked them
They giggled and said there was.
With that I knew that there was a dead baby in the pool but I still didn’t admit that in my next question-“where is he?”
“Over there and-“ one girl giggled and spoke for the others “someone ate the dead baby’s foot.”
I didn’t look for the body, in that way that you know something is there but you don’t look at it but it is so present that you might as well have looked. I walked back to the man standing in the entrance of the park and said “I have to go now. He’s in the pool.” And left, I mean, woke up since I had been becoming vaguely aware that it was a dream for the whole second part and with that last awful bit I decided I had had enough.
INFO: I’ve been told that driving in dreams represents life. Like- if you are driving you are driving your own life, if someone else is driving they are driving your life as it were, if you are driving off a cliff with no breaks--- yeah… you get it.
Info 2: my mom keeps telling me that hurting my feet is about “taking the next step.” Like- going to college tomorrow and last week I jumped off a fence onto a root and hurt my heel and I’m limping…
Info 3: babies in dreams are supposed to be like… your ideas and goals. Other people’s babies are… other peoples dreams and goals. Other people’s babies dying… other peoples babies getting lost… other peoples babies clinging to you… Getting beaten for loosing other peoples babies…
Info 4: money is kind of freaking me out lately. Like the lack of it AND the spending of it when there isn’t a lack of it. Probably because I’m afraid of the lack of it. And because I’ve been spending a lot of other people’s money what with going to college and all…
Info 5: I’m going to college tomorrow.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Serendipity
moved max into his apartment in new palz.
we drove the uhaul truck home. i like driving in trucks, they bounce.
we stopped at a stop & shop and bought fruit.
while we were checking out i got a text from lydia
Lydia: are you in a stop & Shop
Me: yes.. ...
Lydia: Hahahah
i was looking around expecting to her see her.
but he friend was there, a friend that i dont know but apparently met me once.
the friend texted lydia and lydia texted me.
last night we watched Serendipity and as john cusack searched for and grasped at tiny bits of information about his lost soul mate i realized that no one could loose someone else so completely like that anymore. he would just look her up on facebook. with only the information he had... british, career, what she looked like- no problem.
"By benign fate the message goes astray that would tell romeo of the plan. he hears only that juliet is dead-" says shakepsear in Shakespeare in love.
... definitely impossible.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Waving
I'm in the cafe at B&N. The man in the grey shirt looks over his shoulder at me. It’s that kind of tick of a look, the kind that you cant control.
Its all right man. I know the feeling. I try to hide it behind sunglasses, that way I can let my eyes go where they please…. That way they ones i stare at don’t notice that I'm looking-
O man, come on…
He’s switched his seat, got up and is now sitting on the other side of his table, he’s watching me over the top of his magazine.
Man, your so obvious!
…maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I should be so obvious. Next time I’ll take my sunglasses off, let the one i stare at see that I'm eating him up! - like candy, like colors, he’s turning to gooey sticky paint as my eyes slurp him towards me.
But if he saw then he’d know.
The glasses are also really nessessary you know, for other reasons. Really. The wind is blowing and if I take them off my hair will get into my eyes. The sunglasses stay on.
“Ai! Ai! Ai!” says the baby waving at me from his stroller.
I wave back.
The waving is the problem.
No waving.
My silent screaming eye searching is one sided.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
some third person on my lunch hour in washington square park
There are little girls, behind the boy. the girls are maybe nine or ten years old. They’re wearing one piece bathing suits and scooting around the fountain on those skinny scooters that are so small that you can fold them up and take them in your backpack on the ferry to fire island… all the other bicycles have to go on a separate boat- the freight boat, which goes back and forth only once a week, inconvenient for the cyclist who is only on the island for the weekend.
The boy is sitting straight backed to avoid leaning against the uncomfortable backrest of the green bench, his hands are resting over the academic looking, but possibly poetic marble notebook in his lap.
She sits down across the path from him, takes a novel from her bag and watches him over the top of it.
The man in the round glasses and the tucked in white t-shirt, sitting to the left of the boy, on the next bench, is watching the girl.
The girl is uncomfortable and tries to lean in a way that doesn’t dig the clasp of her bra into her spine. she is waiting for the boy to open his notebook and write something down. She wants to imagine that he is writing about her.
The man in the round glasses and the tucked in white t-shirt is watching the girl.
The boy stands, puts his unopened notebook under his arm. He wanders over to a stone bench near the fountain where he lies on his back placing the notebook on his chest, under his crossed arms like a teddy bear or, she thinks, like a very small light lover.
The sun has shifted slightly over head but she hasn’t noticed. She looks away from the boy and sees the man in the white t-shirt, his face is turned in her direction. The lenses of his glasses, opaque in the glare a moment before have turned clear and now she can see his eyes and sees that they are closed.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Listening to Lyrics
I love the shins. i have loved the shins for years.
i have never had any idea (well a bit of an idea but not a lot of an idea) what they are saying...
i looked up the lyrics.
and then imagined a 19 year old boy slouching into poetry class at 8am and reading this poem to the room.
"Pressed In A Book"
by the shins
(Read it first then listen to the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3LonXfRDMs&feature=PlayList&p=C67BA1FCB06EFD17&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=17 )
Doted on like seeds planted in rows
The untied shoelaces of you life
Nutured all year then presssed in a book
Or displayed in bad taste at the table
Problems arise and you fan the fire
While there's a wild pack of dogs loose in your house tonight.
Cut from bad cloth or soiled like socks
Add it up and basically people never change.
They just talk and make plans in the dark
Or make haste with ideas that can't help
But creep good people out
As you talk to me too much you're assuming
We don't always want what's right.
Did i strike the right set of chords? you're annoyed.
The goal is to ignite you then move on.
You feel ill at ease. you got no squeeze.
And the wise cracks won't make you more stable.
You've learned you lines to scale and to time.
Why must i remind you now i'm only less able.
Cut from bad cloth or soiled like socks
We're ordinary people we can't help but to change
As we walk and make plans in the dark
Or make haste with the boy who can't help
But creep good people out.
As you talk to me too much you're assuming
We don't always want what's right.
Two fallen saplings in an open field.
Snow padding gently on an empty bench.
An old woman's jewelry lying unadorned.
Colo nesting robins allied for the first time.
I know when you hear these sappy lines
You'll roll your eyes and say "nice try".
waiting
"its dawning on me that everything i am and everything i do is my life.
"like this isn't just a practice run?"
"yeah. yeah exactly..."
today i am someone who ate a whole grapefruit. i cut it in half, ate one half with a spoon and cut the other into three sections. right now my hands are sticky. right now i am a little sweaty and also upset that i got my hair cut and now have bangs which i thought i wanted but don't want now. i am someone who does not want bangs. i am someone who has bangs.
i am someone with sticky fingers.
i am someone who has interesting dreams. i like my dreams. i like hearing about other peoples dreams. i like it when Katrina sends me hers on facebook but i always hope to see my name in them.
i will be a film student.
right now i am someone who is waiting. i am waiting to be a film student and i am waiting for my hair to grow back and i am waiting for my hair to grow long.
i am someone who loves poetry but not the wordy kind.
i don't have a very big vocabulary. i wish i had a bigger vocabulary even though i really don't like big words as much as small words.
today i decided to pack but didn't. i ate three pieces of buttered toast. i woke up at twelve. I'm wearing my pajamas.
today i am someone who is waiting.
i am hungry
i am tired
i am angry at men
the men who used to be boys but now i title "men" because i am angry at them for that. for becoming men.
i am frustrated with the air conditioner
i have sticky fingers
i am hungry
i am typing
i am blogging
i am hoping someone reads this and not knowing why they would
i am thinking that that was a self conscious and bad thing to say
and so was that
i think i am practicing
i am waiting for the event
but its started and all Ive performed for eighteen years is waiting.
I'm slouching
i can feel my stomach on my stomach
i am trying to tell the truth.
quote:
"the world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums. it is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. Your are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or tear the pages."
- Illusions: adventures of the reluctant messiah by Richard Bach
"like this isn't just a practice run?"
"yeah. yeah exactly..."
today i am someone who ate a whole grapefruit. i cut it in half, ate one half with a spoon and cut the other into three sections. right now my hands are sticky. right now i am a little sweaty and also upset that i got my hair cut and now have bangs which i thought i wanted but don't want now. i am someone who does not want bangs. i am someone who has bangs.
i am someone with sticky fingers.
i am someone who has interesting dreams. i like my dreams. i like hearing about other peoples dreams. i like it when Katrina sends me hers on facebook but i always hope to see my name in them.
i will be a film student.
right now i am someone who is waiting. i am waiting to be a film student and i am waiting for my hair to grow back and i am waiting for my hair to grow long.
i am someone who loves poetry but not the wordy kind.
i don't have a very big vocabulary. i wish i had a bigger vocabulary even though i really don't like big words as much as small words.
today i decided to pack but didn't. i ate three pieces of buttered toast. i woke up at twelve. I'm wearing my pajamas.
today i am someone who is waiting.
i am hungry
i am tired
i am angry at men
the men who used to be boys but now i title "men" because i am angry at them for that. for becoming men.
i am frustrated with the air conditioner
i have sticky fingers
i am hungry
i am typing
i am blogging
i am hoping someone reads this and not knowing why they would
i am thinking that that was a self conscious and bad thing to say
and so was that
i think i am practicing
i am waiting for the event
but its started and all Ive performed for eighteen years is waiting.
I'm slouching
i can feel my stomach on my stomach
i am trying to tell the truth.
quote:
"the world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums. it is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. Your are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or tear the pages."
- Illusions: adventures of the reluctant messiah by Richard Bach
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Dream
first soli marielle and i were planing to string white lights along andover the path by holder house and the main house.
mr fredrickson and ms veraka were the two teachers in charge of giving persmission for things like that and they didnt want to let us.
but we were doing it anyway.
soli and i put tall polls into the ground and we had both climbed on top of them and were attaching the lights.
then
suddenly (dream... heh)
it was halloween and dark and i was on my grandmas porch and brittany raglin and james and raina and MAGGIE SMITH (who i think was the same person who ms veraka had just been but was also McGongal =)
we were eating a halloween feasty thing around a big table and we were all dressed up but i dont remember as what.
there was a hurricane coming.
we all knew it was coming but no one was allowed to, or could, do anything about it or in preperation for it like RUN for example until it had actually arrived.
i knew we needed white lights.
it was like somehow we needed the lights as some kind of precaution... it was halloween and dark an
i knew we needed white lights hanging over and around it.
so i went into my grandma's house which (dream) was now my house and went into my moms office where she has white light hanging in the windows (in real life)
i started to take them down. i got one string and wrapped it around my neck thinking that i would tangle it but not knowing how else to hold it while i took the other one down.
i knew i should be taking my own white lights which are upstairs and there are more of them and they are mine but i knew they were all tangled and so i didnt want to bother with the untangling.
i ran outside to my grandma's deck again. the party was still going on in the dark.
i started to attach the lights to the walls.
maggie smith watched me.
i tried to attach the lights to her lol like pin the to her dress cuz she was standing in a place where i had nowhere to attach them in that corner but she backed up before i could touch her.
she was watching the storm which was brewing in a swirly cloud overhead.
my mom was standing with her. i stood with them and listened to their conversation holding the end of my string of lights wondering how to plug it in.
maggie was talking about her silver glasses and how she didnt want to take them with her when the storm came bacuase they were delicate.
she said she would give them to me
then she handed me a string.
i had thought she was talking about the glasses but apparently she was talking about the string.
my mom said it was time to go. maggie smith left (harry potter style, billowy cloak) across the lawn.
my mom and i were going to follow her, somehow it was important that we not be noticed.
but then i put the end of the string of lights (which had a boxy thing on it) against my chest and the lights lit up (i watched iron man last night)
i had expected he lights to be white.
they were red orange and green. scary
with that the storm began
my mom said now it would be harder to leave because i had turned on the lights and now everyone could see me.
but we left.
we ran
she ran to the pool house which i knew was full of chandeliers and i thought it would be a bad place to be cuz the floor was shaking.
but she said to meet her there and then we would leave. i had to go to my dorm room which was in the next building and get m stuff.
i ran into Brittany and this kid from nyack that i dont know who was breakdancing in the lobby as the floor shook.
james was making jokes about this
raina was waiting for someone.
maya and eliza ran past me and said things i couldnt understand but i thought must be important but i had to leave.
everyone in the building was running and everyone was someone i knew.
cut to (dream left out details)
in a grocery store that is also in the dorm building
everyone has carts theyre filling up with rations for the storm the store is dark and the floor is shaking.
lizz man passes me
i need to find a dvd for my mom and i to watch and it has to be really good or one we havnt seen. i get persepolis.
then looking for food
then i wake up.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
City Sitting
this week we are in the city. house sitting and cat sitting in sarah's apt.
im sitting here staring down the multicolored cat, lulu. im alergic to her which i only discovered last night and now im avoiding her which is why she staring me down which is why i am staring back.
she is sitting between me and the window.
last night i watched a half naked man walk across his apartment which is across 77th st. he walked in and out of one window and into the next window, turned off a bright light, left on a dimmer one and sat on his bed, looking straight ahead for a while before he turned off the other light.
"maybe he could see you." says my mom this morning
"i was in the dark."
"you could see him."
"i couldnt see anyone in a dark window who wasnt moving."
i'm waiting for my mom, shes moving the car from its spot to a different spot.
from here i can see the stairs, they go up four steps and then twist two steps to the right and then go up another four steps and then there's Leo's room, Sarah's son. Another three steps, turned to the right and theres sarah's room and a bathroom and the door the apt's bit of private roof.
a few nights ago soli adam and i were walking back to my house after lying in the feild behind it with a brass candleabra and the stars. when we passed it i pointed at my bedroom window and pointed out that you can see right into my room and that i have no curtain and often change right there and never really thought about before.
there is a red glass star in my window. it is a candle holder, a tea candle holder, a red glass capartment for a tea candle that i bought at TJ Max for only three dollars because its broken and the door doesnt open so you cant put a candle in it. anyway its read and glass and a star and it was glowing.
"katie i think your a city person." soli stated based on my red glass star.
i think thats good evidence.
i love cities. and apartments and small globe lights from IKEA that sit on the floor like large mushrooms and get too hot to quickly.i love avocado and salt and french tea made of blue leaves.
last night we saw the move "Adam" at the Angelika theater. it was a very very beautiful movie. i loved it. it ended with two of my favorite songs by my one of my favorite lullaby like indie bands*
it was the first movie in a very long time that i didnt think about and analyze and dissect while i watched it... well only once: there was a scene that was very dark with dim orange streetlight light on the edges of things and tips of faces and i stepped out of the story for a few beats to decide weather or not i liked that. i did like that. a lot.
but that was the only time. i promise. otherwise i just love the story and the characters. i hardly even noticed the actors! and they are my two favorite ones in the world! really! Rose Byrne and Hugh Dancy! my all time (i mean my this week's) favorites.
rose looks just like my mom... really. and hugh looks rather like my dad. and Adam, the character who has asbergers acts a lot like my dad. heh
what im trying to say is that the movie was very very intersting and apsolutly the kind of thing that i would be able to sit through while thinking my own thoughts about and still enjoy. but i didnt! i just enjoyed it!
i think there are very few people who know what im talking about in this paragraph and i think all of them are filmmakers or critics.
*"Cant go back now" and "somebody loved" by the Weepies.
im sitting here staring down the multicolored cat, lulu. im alergic to her which i only discovered last night and now im avoiding her which is why she staring me down which is why i am staring back.
she is sitting between me and the window.
last night i watched a half naked man walk across his apartment which is across 77th st. he walked in and out of one window and into the next window, turned off a bright light, left on a dimmer one and sat on his bed, looking straight ahead for a while before he turned off the other light.
"maybe he could see you." says my mom this morning
"i was in the dark."
"you could see him."
"i couldnt see anyone in a dark window who wasnt moving."
i'm waiting for my mom, shes moving the car from its spot to a different spot.
from here i can see the stairs, they go up four steps and then twist two steps to the right and then go up another four steps and then there's Leo's room, Sarah's son. Another three steps, turned to the right and theres sarah's room and a bathroom and the door the apt's bit of private roof.
a few nights ago soli adam and i were walking back to my house after lying in the feild behind it with a brass candleabra and the stars. when we passed it i pointed at my bedroom window and pointed out that you can see right into my room and that i have no curtain and often change right there and never really thought about before.
there is a red glass star in my window. it is a candle holder, a tea candle holder, a red glass capartment for a tea candle that i bought at TJ Max for only three dollars because its broken and the door doesnt open so you cant put a candle in it. anyway its read and glass and a star and it was glowing.
"katie i think your a city person." soli stated based on my red glass star.
i think thats good evidence.
i love cities. and apartments and small globe lights from IKEA that sit on the floor like large mushrooms and get too hot to quickly.i love avocado and salt and french tea made of blue leaves.
last night we saw the move "Adam" at the Angelika theater. it was a very very beautiful movie. i loved it. it ended with two of my favorite songs by my one of my favorite lullaby like indie bands*
it was the first movie in a very long time that i didnt think about and analyze and dissect while i watched it... well only once: there was a scene that was very dark with dim orange streetlight light on the edges of things and tips of faces and i stepped out of the story for a few beats to decide weather or not i liked that. i did like that. a lot.
but that was the only time. i promise. otherwise i just love the story and the characters. i hardly even noticed the actors! and they are my two favorite ones in the world! really! Rose Byrne and Hugh Dancy! my all time (i mean my this week's) favorites.
rose looks just like my mom... really. and hugh looks rather like my dad. and Adam, the character who has asbergers acts a lot like my dad. heh
what im trying to say is that the movie was very very intersting and apsolutly the kind of thing that i would be able to sit through while thinking my own thoughts about and still enjoy. but i didnt! i just enjoyed it!
i think there are very few people who know what im talking about in this paragraph and i think all of them are filmmakers or critics.
*"Cant go back now" and "somebody loved" by the Weepies.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Men
A man with my brother’s voice and the empty eyes
that boys have behind sunglasses,
invisible pretending to be innocent
eyes, is sitting on my back.
His eyes reflect me back to me,
reflect a silver warped me, like sunglasses.
and each time he blinks I disappear
and reappear with more makeup and
a tighter bra and higher heels, and
thinner legs and then he blinks again
and I'm me again but then he looks away.
And “look at me!” I say but when he does
I see myself in his eyes again in that awful wrong way.
And my best friend called me last night.
he said he missed me but I didn’t believe
him since he's busy dating my best friend.
“you stay with me.” I told her weeks ago
“ill keep providing you with my men.”
We drive to Florida, they and I,
My men and my friend who falls in love with my men.
We drive for hours to Florida behind our sunglasses
Behind the tinted windows
We watch the night
where the production plants in new jersey twinkle
like so many tiny windows into a dwarf city
Where so many tiny furnaces are glowing golden
In the backseat my friend and my man look at each other
in the front seat my man and I say
that the power plant looks to us like a dwarf city
Or maybe we just ride in silence
and the lights reflect in our mirrored lenses
while we think the same thoughts and
smile with our lips together
while we already know what we’re thinking.
And in Florida the house is made of glass
And my friend and I stare at the stars
Lying on our backs in the sand
And we hand understanding back and forth like favors.
the featureless forms of the boys
walk away from us down the beach
“I promise I understand.” We say
like favors, like the men I give her,
lend her… Like the words he gives me
lends me…
that boys have behind sunglasses,
invisible pretending to be innocent
eyes, is sitting on my back.
His eyes reflect me back to me,
reflect a silver warped me, like sunglasses.
and each time he blinks I disappear
and reappear with more makeup and
a tighter bra and higher heels, and
thinner legs and then he blinks again
and I'm me again but then he looks away.
And “look at me!” I say but when he does
I see myself in his eyes again in that awful wrong way.
And my best friend called me last night.
he said he missed me but I didn’t believe
him since he's busy dating my best friend.
“you stay with me.” I told her weeks ago
“ill keep providing you with my men.”
We drive to Florida, they and I,
My men and my friend who falls in love with my men.
We drive for hours to Florida behind our sunglasses
Behind the tinted windows
We watch the night
where the production plants in new jersey twinkle
like so many tiny windows into a dwarf city
Where so many tiny furnaces are glowing golden
In the backseat my friend and my man look at each other
in the front seat my man and I say
that the power plant looks to us like a dwarf city
Or maybe we just ride in silence
and the lights reflect in our mirrored lenses
while we think the same thoughts and
smile with our lips together
while we already know what we’re thinking.
And in Florida the house is made of glass
And my friend and I stare at the stars
Lying on our backs in the sand
And we hand understanding back and forth like favors.
the featureless forms of the boys
walk away from us down the beach
“I promise I understand.” We say
like favors, like the men I give her,
lend her… Like the words he gives me
lends me…
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
“The Sky Inside Me”
The sky inside me looks like the round ball of my brain floating in sunset colors and I am very small lying on my back turning my head to the side and tucking my chin to my shoulder to glimpse the horizon past my feet.
…Lying on my brain and suddenly I am the cinematographer wanting more yellow-orange sunlight, less misty ocean spray light.
I am asking my staff to add mountains to the distance, which they do and then- what if this were all to take place at midnight and the sky inside me is black and there are stars and my hand that I hold up in front of my face is a silhouette of a hand?
My staff listens intently and nods. There is an echoing bang of someone pulling a lever that suddenly shifts the scene to what I had seen in my head.
So what should happen here?
I stand. All I am is the clicking of film through the camera, eating up the light. I've forgotten that I had a hand a moment ago. I defiantly don’t have a hand now.
So what should happen here? I have no idea. I'm like those huge production companies with all the money who manage to make Meryl Streep look like a fool because they have her but- what to do with her?
I walk towards the starry edge of my brain which is wet under my feet like tiles around a swimming pool, and thin soft moss has covered pieces of the mosaic and look- my feet are leaving footprints in the moss! Something I did not know could happen.
But what should happen here?
I look up and see that the stars are not stars at all but little fireflies, blinking and whizzing across the sky inside me, above me, where I stand on my brain.
What a perfect location. I sit down and trace a mosaic bird with my finger.
I stand and tell my staff to catch three fireflies in a jar… make one of the interns do it.
The skinny girl wearing skinny jeans, a nose ring and thick-framed glasses darts forward slipping a bit on the wet tile in her eagerness to impress. She holds the glass jar up high and whirls it round catching not three but five little stars.
“okay,” I tell them as she hands me the lighted jar, “I've got it.”
I hold the jar up “dim the lights.”
That echoing bang and they’ve done it.
“find me a little kid, big eyes.” They bring me Freddy Highmore and I put the jar of fireflies on the ground and Freddy sits before it.
“three bells.” Yells the eager intern.
“action!” I say
it will be silent so I continue to talk
“close on his eyes, watching the flies. Do you think you’ll get any of the detail in the tile? The mosaic?”
they promise me detail, mosaic.
“check the gate.”
Echoing bang and then darkness
I'm lying on my brain looking past my arm, my foot at the sunset colors of my inner sky.
All I am is a clicking camera. If I said before that I had hands I lied. I only want to eat the light.
Monday, July 20, 2009
The Moment He Turned Back (In Florida)
This morning we waited on the beach for the sun rise and then
as we drove away the sun shone in the review mirror,
winking between the trees in, what i felt was, a kind of angry abandoned way
like we had waited so long to see it and once it arrive we were done with it.
only waiting for the moment of arrival, not the arrival, once it arrive it was over.
there was a man jogging on the road and as we passed him
he a did a little cirlce turn on the sidewalk and headed back the way he had come.
maybe tommorrow he'll make it to the next corner
but today he onlye made if about halfway between the two traffic lights.
do you think he thought of me?- the anonymous observer, usually personifed by the opposite sex,
noticing the moment when you, the thinker, give up and turned back in your jog?
i dont know how far he had come. i dont know if the moment of turning back was much too soon
or if his thighs already bruned with miles of effort
I only saw him turn back.
as we drove away the sun shone in the review mirror,
winking between the trees in, what i felt was, a kind of angry abandoned way
like we had waited so long to see it and once it arrive we were done with it.
only waiting for the moment of arrival, not the arrival, once it arrive it was over.
there was a man jogging on the road and as we passed him
he a did a little cirlce turn on the sidewalk and headed back the way he had come.
maybe tommorrow he'll make it to the next corner
but today he onlye made if about halfway between the two traffic lights.
do you think he thought of me?- the anonymous observer, usually personifed by the opposite sex,
noticing the moment when you, the thinker, give up and turned back in your jog?
i dont know how far he had come. i dont know if the moment of turning back was much too soon
or if his thighs already bruned with miles of effort
I only saw him turn back.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Home
ive been home from florida for a few weeks now.
ive been feeling a bit lonely after spending that tropical week completly surounded by friends.
i realized the solution to the lonliness would be to move in with one of my friends. they could go to work and not even hang out with me at all but when i came home i would come home to somwhere where someone was and when they came home they would come home to where i was and no one would be lonely.
i want to go to college,
"enjoy your summer." said the film conservatory junior waving to me as i left orientaion with my bag and my pillow.
i grinned and waved.
"no really." he held my gaze and nodded once at me as he said: "really enjoy it."
they tell us we wont have any time for anything resembling a social life.
no jobs, no parties, no study abroad just MOVIES!
theres a part of me that hopes i fall in love at school.
theres a part of me that hopes i fall in love with everyone and am never alone and have people holding my hands and sharing my pillows and whispering secrets all the time.
theres a part of me that hopes i dont get to know anyone and just sit in my mind and make up movies and make movies and imagine myself into magical places.
that last part of me is not so confident in its existance.
that last part might be terror disquised as indiference.
i like option two the best.
sharing pillows...
i might be in a triple.
"three beds, three dressers, three desks and two closets. you'll make it work."
ive been feeling a bit lonely after spending that tropical week completly surounded by friends.
i realized the solution to the lonliness would be to move in with one of my friends. they could go to work and not even hang out with me at all but when i came home i would come home to somwhere where someone was and when they came home they would come home to where i was and no one would be lonely.
i want to go to college,
"enjoy your summer." said the film conservatory junior waving to me as i left orientaion with my bag and my pillow.
i grinned and waved.
"no really." he held my gaze and nodded once at me as he said: "really enjoy it."
they tell us we wont have any time for anything resembling a social life.
no jobs, no parties, no study abroad just MOVIES!
theres a part of me that hopes i fall in love at school.
theres a part of me that hopes i fall in love with everyone and am never alone and have people holding my hands and sharing my pillows and whispering secrets all the time.
theres a part of me that hopes i dont get to know anyone and just sit in my mind and make up movies and make movies and imagine myself into magical places.
that last part of me is not so confident in its existance.
that last part might be terror disquised as indiference.
i like option two the best.
sharing pillows...
i might be in a triple.
"three beds, three dressers, three desks and two closets. you'll make it work."
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Abby, Brogan and I on Subways
Abby and I took the bus from the bottom of Summit on CR road. i waited for her to get to the bus stop with my mom in the car and my mom told me stories about her college experience. lately i feel really stressed when i dont focus on college- backwards i know...
if i let my mind wander to... say... the terrifying concept of my second day interning at Big Beach Productions in Noho where they lay on me such immpossibly tasks as answering the phone and reading screenplays...
but it really is stressful- my first day, last friday (i go in on fridays) i read the script of "Jack Goes Boating" its Phillip Seymore Hoffman's directorial debut. it was the saddest story- i mean really. i almost cried and also, being in the middle of my first terrifying 10 to 6 day in the american life of office work, i was feeling a bit awake to the pointlessness of life. i mean, i could go for four years to film school and end up behind a desk doing everyday what i am doing this summer every friday; having opinions on other people's work and asnwering and connecting other people's phone calls.
and the screenplay was about this man, jack's, sad life. In the white loft office, listening to clicking of the secretary infront of me and the intern behind me, listening to Jack and his friends in my head, imagining jack as P S hoffman who i have to say makes me feel like im going to cry the minute he walks on to the screen- dont get me wrong i love love love him as an actor but- hes just to fucking talented. and when your that talented and playing charecters that are that pathetic its painful to the audience and... anyway last friday i read the screenplay and listened to the clicking and started noticing the way i was breathing
and hearing the moisture in my lungs
and feeling my heart working
and seeing bright white pulsing
and it wasnt pleasent.
I tried to explain to Abby as we waited for the bus.
"i feel like everything is going to go wrong."
"wow thats not like you."
"i know!- wait your not being sarcastic right?"
"no."
"yeah! i know. like i felt like you wernt gonna show up. and now i feel like were not going to make the bus."
"katie we're sitting right here."
"i know. and-" suddenly scared i stand and dig in the pocket of my tight jeans- i have to stand to dig in the pockets. i find the ten dollars that i put in my pocket for the bus. "i have to like hold this in my hand." i tell her "othewise it will go wrong and i wont have it."
abby understands.
Abby is going to college in salt lake city. they have a good Ballet program there. on the bus i ask her leading questions
"were you like so much better than everyone at the audidtion?"
im trying to figure out if the program is really prestigious. i think it is. i think abby is a really extraordinary ballet dancer but i want her to say she is. it will even out the way i keep saying my program is so prestigious. and i cant stop saying how prestigious my program is. because if i let the feeling of huge pride leave my chest for one minute i start worrying about Phillip Seymore hoffman and using the copy machine correctly and answering the phone.
We meet Brogan in time square where the square is trying to be more of a square and there are large peices of it coned off from traffic and replaced with tourists reclining in beach chairs under the buildings on the cement. the white painted traffic lane indicators and arrows ignorered under the chairs.
a helpful tour guide company employee gives us a subway map when we stand for too long on one corner discussing directions. i want to tell her that we arnt tourists and that we only live a short bus ride from the city and that i have an internship in the city at the production company that made Little Miss Sunshine. but the map ends up being really helpful because we are tourists and we dont know where we're going and we have been standing on one corner for too long.
we took the subway to Brooklyn and walked in the same square of slightly slanted brooklyn grid for about an hour looking for a street which Brogan might recognize as one near the thrift store where we were trying to get to.
a kid outside a coffee place called something to do with muffins (where we stopped to eat sandwhiches (lemon chicken with pesto and mozerella omgosh heaven, for me, PB and J for abby) gave us directiosn to fifth ave which we apparently couldnt comprehend because we ended up back around the same bit of grid again, across from the same "Muffin" place.
"that kid can see us." i mused.
we finally found our way by asking the fruit vendors on the corners of every street along Atlantic Ave if we were still going the right way.
"fifth avenure?" Abby asked one
he pointed in the direction we were walking. we walked in it until we reached the next vendor and asked him. it was like following arrows on the floor of a museum that lead you along to the next print to the next print finally to where you want to go, to the animal who matches the print. i remember following prints to find the huge whale at the Museum of Natural History... but its a whale... that cant be right...
if i let my mind wander to... say... the terrifying concept of my second day interning at Big Beach Productions in Noho where they lay on me such immpossibly tasks as answering the phone and reading screenplays...
but it really is stressful- my first day, last friday (i go in on fridays) i read the script of "Jack Goes Boating" its Phillip Seymore Hoffman's directorial debut. it was the saddest story- i mean really. i almost cried and also, being in the middle of my first terrifying 10 to 6 day in the american life of office work, i was feeling a bit awake to the pointlessness of life. i mean, i could go for four years to film school and end up behind a desk doing everyday what i am doing this summer every friday; having opinions on other people's work and asnwering and connecting other people's phone calls.
and the screenplay was about this man, jack's, sad life. In the white loft office, listening to clicking of the secretary infront of me and the intern behind me, listening to Jack and his friends in my head, imagining jack as P S hoffman who i have to say makes me feel like im going to cry the minute he walks on to the screen- dont get me wrong i love love love him as an actor but- hes just to fucking talented. and when your that talented and playing charecters that are that pathetic its painful to the audience and... anyway last friday i read the screenplay and listened to the clicking and started noticing the way i was breathing
and hearing the moisture in my lungs
and feeling my heart working
and seeing bright white pulsing
and it wasnt pleasent.
I tried to explain to Abby as we waited for the bus.
"i feel like everything is going to go wrong."
"wow thats not like you."
"i know!- wait your not being sarcastic right?"
"no."
"yeah! i know. like i felt like you wernt gonna show up. and now i feel like were not going to make the bus."
"katie we're sitting right here."
"i know. and-" suddenly scared i stand and dig in the pocket of my tight jeans- i have to stand to dig in the pockets. i find the ten dollars that i put in my pocket for the bus. "i have to like hold this in my hand." i tell her "othewise it will go wrong and i wont have it."
abby understands.
Abby is going to college in salt lake city. they have a good Ballet program there. on the bus i ask her leading questions
"were you like so much better than everyone at the audidtion?"
im trying to figure out if the program is really prestigious. i think it is. i think abby is a really extraordinary ballet dancer but i want her to say she is. it will even out the way i keep saying my program is so prestigious. and i cant stop saying how prestigious my program is. because if i let the feeling of huge pride leave my chest for one minute i start worrying about Phillip Seymore hoffman and using the copy machine correctly and answering the phone.
We meet Brogan in time square where the square is trying to be more of a square and there are large peices of it coned off from traffic and replaced with tourists reclining in beach chairs under the buildings on the cement. the white painted traffic lane indicators and arrows ignorered under the chairs.
a helpful tour guide company employee gives us a subway map when we stand for too long on one corner discussing directions. i want to tell her that we arnt tourists and that we only live a short bus ride from the city and that i have an internship in the city at the production company that made Little Miss Sunshine. but the map ends up being really helpful because we are tourists and we dont know where we're going and we have been standing on one corner for too long.
we took the subway to Brooklyn and walked in the same square of slightly slanted brooklyn grid for about an hour looking for a street which Brogan might recognize as one near the thrift store where we were trying to get to.
a kid outside a coffee place called something to do with muffins (where we stopped to eat sandwhiches (lemon chicken with pesto and mozerella omgosh heaven, for me, PB and J for abby) gave us directiosn to fifth ave which we apparently couldnt comprehend because we ended up back around the same bit of grid again, across from the same "Muffin" place.
"that kid can see us." i mused.
we finally found our way by asking the fruit vendors on the corners of every street along Atlantic Ave if we were still going the right way.
"fifth avenure?" Abby asked one
he pointed in the direction we were walking. we walked in it until we reached the next vendor and asked him. it was like following arrows on the floor of a museum that lead you along to the next print to the next print finally to where you want to go, to the animal who matches the print. i remember following prints to find the huge whale at the Museum of Natural History... but its a whale... that cant be right...
Monday, June 22, 2009
Philadelphia or south carolina or D.C.
about three months ago my brother and i were going to drive to... mmm either philidelphia or washing dc or... i forget but the point is: we were going to be in the car for an extended amount of time.
my brother and i have very few things to say to eachother after we've covered the basics of how girls think and how boys think and how we think the other is wrong or right about the way boys think or girls think.
after that we generally move onto how i could change myself via push up bras and tweezers into the kind of girl that my brother thinks is the only kind of girl that could ever have a boy friend.
so what im trying to say is that i was a bid worried about how we were going to pass this extended amount of time in the car.
i decided that perfect solution to it would be to blog about our entire trip.
we could keep a detailed online chronical of every single day of travel and trip once we arrived in philidelphia or south carolina or wherever we were gonna go.
i realized that if we had a third party to talk to- e.i. the blog- we could just talk about anything... and not run out of things to say... does that make sense? even our disagreements would be blog worthy they would even add to it. and our two incredibly contrasting minds, observing the same things and reaching completely different conclusions about them, might be an interesting jumping off point for a blog that would then be turned into a book and then make us lots of money.
anyway i dont know why im telling that story except to say that its a good reason to keep a blog.
we didnt end up going, as youve probobly gathered, or keeping a blog.
but we should have.
it would have helped.
my brother and i have very few things to say to eachother after we've covered the basics of how girls think and how boys think and how we think the other is wrong or right about the way boys think or girls think.
after that we generally move onto how i could change myself via push up bras and tweezers into the kind of girl that my brother thinks is the only kind of girl that could ever have a boy friend.
so what im trying to say is that i was a bid worried about how we were going to pass this extended amount of time in the car.
i decided that perfect solution to it would be to blog about our entire trip.
we could keep a detailed online chronical of every single day of travel and trip once we arrived in philidelphia or south carolina or wherever we were gonna go.
i realized that if we had a third party to talk to- e.i. the blog- we could just talk about anything... and not run out of things to say... does that make sense? even our disagreements would be blog worthy they would even add to it. and our two incredibly contrasting minds, observing the same things and reaching completely different conclusions about them, might be an interesting jumping off point for a blog that would then be turned into a book and then make us lots of money.
anyway i dont know why im telling that story except to say that its a good reason to keep a blog.
we didnt end up going, as youve probobly gathered, or keeping a blog.
but we should have.
it would have helped.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Fairy Tale
Once upon a time there is a lady
Who lives in a tower that’s covered in vines
Many years ago they grew
Through the cracks in the window
and crept inside.
Today the light is shining
Onto her canopy of silk and lace
And silhouetting the vines like veins
Casting thin shadows on her skin
They wrap around the bed
And twist overhead like a cage.
She wakes at dawn and sits
Stretches her arms, smiles
And puts her feet on the floor
A white blossom
brushes her hand as she stands.
“good morning.” She greets it
and plucks it from the stem
she goes to the window and, one petal at a time
she drops the vine’s gift the ground
where it falls at the feet of a knight.
He counts as she counts
And then begins to climb
Long after she’s left the sill.
Thinking still that she’s alone
She’s gone to wander the magic halls and
See where they lead her today
Her bare feet slap the grey stone
As she walks away from the bedroom.
Tiny flames in glass jars
Sit on the floor against the walls
Spaced unevenly throughout the hall
The shine on all but her face.
At the first door she stops trying to hear a sound
Then turns the key and enters
Inside the room is full of twilight.
And dragonflies fly around her
Outside the knight climbs the vine.
Nearby she can hear the crashing of waves
she catches a dragon then leaves
“too early for you.” She decides.
Still the night climbs.
The next doorway, where she stands now,
is the end of a pier
where the sun is rising.
She steps aboard a sailing ship
With rainbow sails
And finds her breakfast waiting.
“so its sailing today.” She sighs.
Still the knight climbs
Until the vines turn hot in his hands
His palms blister
And the poison runs up his arms
And he cries as it reaches his heart
And falls from the wall
Landing broken amidst the petals
Which he knows now have lied.
Who lives in a tower that’s covered in vines
Many years ago they grew
Through the cracks in the window
and crept inside.
Today the light is shining
Onto her canopy of silk and lace
And silhouetting the vines like veins
Casting thin shadows on her skin
They wrap around the bed
And twist overhead like a cage.
She wakes at dawn and sits
Stretches her arms, smiles
And puts her feet on the floor
A white blossom
brushes her hand as she stands.
“good morning.” She greets it
and plucks it from the stem
she goes to the window and, one petal at a time
she drops the vine’s gift the ground
where it falls at the feet of a knight.
He counts as she counts
And then begins to climb
Long after she’s left the sill.
Thinking still that she’s alone
She’s gone to wander the magic halls and
See where they lead her today
Her bare feet slap the grey stone
As she walks away from the bedroom.
Tiny flames in glass jars
Sit on the floor against the walls
Spaced unevenly throughout the hall
The shine on all but her face.
At the first door she stops trying to hear a sound
Then turns the key and enters
Inside the room is full of twilight.
And dragonflies fly around her
Outside the knight climbs the vine.
Nearby she can hear the crashing of waves
she catches a dragon then leaves
“too early for you.” She decides.
Still the night climbs.
The next doorway, where she stands now,
is the end of a pier
where the sun is rising.
She steps aboard a sailing ship
With rainbow sails
And finds her breakfast waiting.
“so its sailing today.” She sighs.
Still the knight climbs
Until the vines turn hot in his hands
His palms blister
And the poison runs up his arms
And he cries as it reaches his heart
And falls from the wall
Landing broken amidst the petals
Which he knows now have lied.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
the stranger
The stranger
By Katie Oscar
One tiny figure slips out
From a wet grey side street
On that side of the city.
The stranger stands for a moment on the empty avenue
Under a dark streetlamp.
All the lamps on that side are dark.
It’s nearly six-o-clock
In a month where the light goes grey at three
And dark at five.
The brown-silver fog
That shrouds the city almost completely
From outside eyes,
Swirls idly but insistently
Through the streets
As though blown by a wind
That only gas is sensitive to
And flesh and hard matter can’t appreciate.
In West Bridge Students feel disoriented
And a sensation close to seasickness
As they watch the gas blow by them
On the avenues.
But the stranger under the dark lamp
Isn’t bothered by it at all,
Only the slightest shake of his head,
As he stares back toward East Bridge
Through the haze,
Gives away that he can see the stuff at all.
No one comes here at night.
Those few students who don’t retreat
Behind their drawn curtains
And locked doors by six o’clock
Keep to East Bridge and its river side restaurants and pubs,
There’s more light and less mist there;
Really there’s just more light and
The mist, like the moon,
Turns invisible in the light.
Bridge avenue is never busy,
It’s no man’s land,
Cutting a slice
Between east and west
Here and there.
No one lingers long, they slip past,
Between places,
Eyes quick and ready
Hoping no one from where they are headed
Sees them come
And no one from where they are leaving
Watches them go.
The coarse sound of glass
Breaking and grinding
Under the strangers small feet
Echoes down the wide silent avenue
The stranger takes no notice
But continues to look towards East Bridge
With the kind of weary nervousness
Usually reserved for those standing on this side
And looking toward that one.
The broken glass comes from the broken lights,
It covers the empty sidewalk
For at least three blocks
On that side of the avenue
Until it stops where the lights are still burning.
No one comes here at night.
That side’s lack of light
Makes the line between there to here
Quite obvious tonight,
In the grey rain the street reflects the lights
From the windows on this side.
The lights reach out,
Towards the shadows
Stopping almost exactly
At the feet of the traveler
Who steps into them,
Finally deciding to cross.
He moves slowly
Watching the light around his feet,
Acknowledging its welcome
Until he stops in one black spot
Where something is obstructing
The light from one window.
Its one black smudge
In a sea of twinkling reflection.
He looks down at the shadow
And then up at the window.
I look back
And then slip away from the sill,
Leaving the stranger
Standing in his pool of light
Looking up.
By Katie Oscar
One tiny figure slips out
From a wet grey side street
On that side of the city.
The stranger stands for a moment on the empty avenue
Under a dark streetlamp.
All the lamps on that side are dark.
It’s nearly six-o-clock
In a month where the light goes grey at three
And dark at five.
The brown-silver fog
That shrouds the city almost completely
From outside eyes,
Swirls idly but insistently
Through the streets
As though blown by a wind
That only gas is sensitive to
And flesh and hard matter can’t appreciate.
In West Bridge Students feel disoriented
And a sensation close to seasickness
As they watch the gas blow by them
On the avenues.
But the stranger under the dark lamp
Isn’t bothered by it at all,
Only the slightest shake of his head,
As he stares back toward East Bridge
Through the haze,
Gives away that he can see the stuff at all.
No one comes here at night.
Those few students who don’t retreat
Behind their drawn curtains
And locked doors by six o’clock
Keep to East Bridge and its river side restaurants and pubs,
There’s more light and less mist there;
Really there’s just more light and
The mist, like the moon,
Turns invisible in the light.
Bridge avenue is never busy,
It’s no man’s land,
Cutting a slice
Between east and west
Here and there.
No one lingers long, they slip past,
Between places,
Eyes quick and ready
Hoping no one from where they are headed
Sees them come
And no one from where they are leaving
Watches them go.
The coarse sound of glass
Breaking and grinding
Under the strangers small feet
Echoes down the wide silent avenue
The stranger takes no notice
But continues to look towards East Bridge
With the kind of weary nervousness
Usually reserved for those standing on this side
And looking toward that one.
The broken glass comes from the broken lights,
It covers the empty sidewalk
For at least three blocks
On that side of the avenue
Until it stops where the lights are still burning.
No one comes here at night.
That side’s lack of light
Makes the line between there to here
Quite obvious tonight,
In the grey rain the street reflects the lights
From the windows on this side.
The lights reach out,
Towards the shadows
Stopping almost exactly
At the feet of the traveler
Who steps into them,
Finally deciding to cross.
He moves slowly
Watching the light around his feet,
Acknowledging its welcome
Until he stops in one black spot
Where something is obstructing
The light from one window.
Its one black smudge
In a sea of twinkling reflection.
He looks down at the shadow
And then up at the window.
I look back
And then slip away from the sill,
Leaving the stranger
Standing in his pool of light
Looking up.
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