"There's a bit of magic in everything,
and some loss to even things out."
- Lou Reed (March 2, 1942 – October 27, 2013)
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Quotes - Magic
Quotes - Magic
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Art - Blank pages
Art - Blank pages
Beginning art is paralyzing. I know that from having lived as an 'emerging' or 'young' artist for so long. Beginning ideas, putting words to thoughts, brush to page, or ink to paper is a paralyzing task. It's a vulnerable proposition, committing. I used to think of myself as being generally noncommittal, floating through life where the currents take me, but I've begun to realize that in fact to be a good artist, you need to have a sort of sense of stubbornness to you.
Beginning things starts with the simplest of things for me. Sometimes I watch ink run down a page, or the interaction of people. I scrawl notes on scrap paper, quick little ink drawings of gestures and facial expressions. I concoct elaborate scenarios and scenes in my mind of how moments might have played themselves out. The exchanges of people, the gestures, the way they look at each other, their worlds and what they see.
Pull back the camera, look at them, study their motions, imagine their home life, their relationships.
Their thoughts.
And then I throw it all away and ask them.
People are blank pages until you ask.
I'm no longer paralyzed by creating new things, there are no new things to create, only existing stories to be cataloged, imagined, and shared.
Beginning art is paralyzing. I know that from having lived as an 'emerging' or 'young' artist for so long. Beginning ideas, putting words to thoughts, brush to page, or ink to paper is a paralyzing task. It's a vulnerable proposition, committing. I used to think of myself as being generally noncommittal, floating through life where the currents take me, but I've begun to realize that in fact to be a good artist, you need to have a sort of sense of stubbornness to you.
Beginning things starts with the simplest of things for me. Sometimes I watch ink run down a page, or the interaction of people. I scrawl notes on scrap paper, quick little ink drawings of gestures and facial expressions. I concoct elaborate scenarios and scenes in my mind of how moments might have played themselves out. The exchanges of people, the gestures, the way they look at each other, their worlds and what they see.
Pull back the camera, look at them, study their motions, imagine their home life, their relationships.
Their thoughts.
And then I throw it all away and ask them.
People are blank pages until you ask.
I'm no longer paralyzed by creating new things, there are no new things to create, only existing stories to be cataloged, imagined, and shared.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Life - Last Priority
Life - Last Priority
Here's the truth, if you treat other people like they're always your last priority? You know the "Yeah if I don't have anything else I'll consider it..." the "Sure maybe, I'll think about it."
Eventually people catch on. I'm not the sharpest social knife in the drawer, but I'm tired of being taken advantage of. I think I cook a pretty damn good meal, and am a fun host. I haven't had thanksgiving with my own family in 9 years. Every year I try and have a little slice of thanksgiving for my friends who are without homes to go to, without family to make them a good home cooked meal, the orphans of the city where we are, us artists who can't afford sometimes to make a real meal.
I don't have to do this. I don't at all, I get that. But it makes me so angry when I'm the lowest priority on the totem pole for people. The fallback. The noncommital. If we have nothing else to do, we can always join Lester's.
Well fuck you.
Thanksgiving is cancelled. No turkey for anyone.
Here's the truth, if you treat other people like they're always your last priority? You know the "Yeah if I don't have anything else I'll consider it..." the "Sure maybe, I'll think about it."
Eventually people catch on. I'm not the sharpest social knife in the drawer, but I'm tired of being taken advantage of. I think I cook a pretty damn good meal, and am a fun host. I haven't had thanksgiving with my own family in 9 years. Every year I try and have a little slice of thanksgiving for my friends who are without homes to go to, without family to make them a good home cooked meal, the orphans of the city where we are, us artists who can't afford sometimes to make a real meal.
I don't have to do this. I don't at all, I get that. But it makes me so angry when I'm the lowest priority on the totem pole for people. The fallback. The noncommital. If we have nothing else to do, we can always join Lester's.
Well fuck you.
Thanksgiving is cancelled. No turkey for anyone.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Writing - Can We be Lovers and Not Have Sex
Writing - Can We Be Lovers and Not Have Sex
From http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/10/can-we-be-lovers-not-have-sex/
From http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/10/can-we-be-lovers-not-have-sex/
Quotes - Music
Quotes - Music
"I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger than reason" -Anais Ninn
Monday, September 30, 2013
Life - Dishonest
Life - Dishonest
This might be a bit more...true to life than most of my writings. Anyway Patrick and I have been house hunting for the last month, either for a 2 bedroom place for ourselves or for a house that can enclose us and all our proverbial roommates at the moment, all of us orphans in Vancouver who have no family.
This might be a bit more...true to life than most of my writings. Anyway Patrick and I have been house hunting for the last month, either for a 2 bedroom place for ourselves or for a house that can enclose us and all our proverbial roommates at the moment, all of us orphans in Vancouver who have no family.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Writing - Missed Connection
Writing - Missed Connection
Posted to Brooklyn's Missed connection section. A lovely piece of prose/wordplay. Haunting and wistful all at once.
I saw you on the Manhattan-bound Brooklyn Q train.
I was wearing a blue-striped t-shirt and a pair of maroon pants. You were wearing a vintage red skirt and a smart white blouse. We both wore glasses. I guess we still do.
You got on at DeKalb and sat across from me and we made eye contact, briefly. I fell in love with you a little bit, in that stupid way where you completely make up a fictional version of the person you're looking at and fall in love with that person. But still I think there was something there.
Several times we looked at each other and then looked away. I tried to think of something to say to you — maybe pretend I didn't know where I was going and ask you for directions or say something nice about your boot-shaped earrings, or just say, "Hot day." It all seemed so stupid.
At one point, I caught you staring at me and you immediately averted your eyes. You pulled a book out of your bag and started reading it — a biography of Lyndon Johnson — but I noticed you never once turned a page.
My stop was Union Square, but at Union Square I decided to stay on, rationalizing that I could just as easily transfer to the 7 at 42nd Street, but then I didn't get off at 42nd Street either. You must have missed your stop as well, because when we got all the way to the end of the line at Ditmars, we both just sat there in the car, waiting.
I cocked my head at you inquisitively. You shrugged and held up your book as if that was the reason.
Still I said nothing.
We took the train all the way back down — down through Astoria, across the East River, weaving through midtown, from Times Square to Herald Square to Union Square, under SoHo and Chinatown, up across the bridge back into Brooklyn, past Barclays and Prospect Park, past Flatbush and Midwood and Sheepshead Bay, all the way to Coney Island. And when we got to Coney Island, I knew I had to say something.
Still I said nothing.
And so we went back up.
Up and down the Q line, over and over. We caught the rush hour crowds and then saw them thin out again. We watched the sun set over Manhattan as we crossed the East River. I gave myself deadlines: I'll talk to her before Newkirk; I'll talk to her before Canal. Still I remained silent.
For months we sat on the train saying nothing to each other. We survived on bags of skittles sold to us by kids raising money for their basketball teams. We must have heard a million mariachi bands, had our faces nearly kicked in by a hundred thousand break dancers. I gave money to the beggars until I ran out of singles. When the train went above ground I'd get text messages and voicemails ("Where are you? What happened? Are you okay?") until my phone ran out of battery.
I'll talk to her before daybreak; I'll talk to her before Tuesday. The longer I waited, the harder it got. What could I possibly say to you now, now that we've passed this same station for the hundredth time? Maybe if I could go back to the first time the Q switched over to the local R line for the weekend, I could have said, "Well, this is inconvenient," but I couldn't very well say it now, could I? I would kick myself for days after every time you sneezed — why hadn't I said "Bless You"? That tiny gesture could have been enough to pivot us into a conversation, but here in stupid silence still we sat.
There were nights when we were the only two souls in the car, perhaps even on the whole train, and even then I felt self-conscious about bothering you. She's reading her book, I thought, she doesn't want to talk to me. Still, there were moments when I felt a connection. Someone would shout something crazy about Jesus and we'd immediately look at each other to register our reactions. A couple of teenagers would exit, holding hands, and we'd both think: Young Love.
For sixty years, we sat in that car, just barely pretending not to notice each other. I got to know you so well, if only peripherally. I memorized the folds of your body, the contours of your face, the patterns of your breath. I saw you cry once after you'd glanced at a neighbor's newspaper. I wondered if you were crying about something specific, or just the general passage of time, so unnoticeable until suddenly noticeable. I wanted to comfort you, wrap my arms around you, assure you I knew everything would be fine, but it felt too familiar; I stayed glued to my seat.
One day, in the middle of the afternoon, you stood up as the train pulled into Queensboro Plaza. It was difficult for you, this simple task of standing up, you hadn't done it in sixty years. Holding onto the rails, you managed to get yourself to the door. You hesitated briefly there, perhaps waiting for me to say something, giving me one last chance to stop you, but rather than spit out a lifetime of suppressed almost-conversations I said nothing, and I watched you slip out between the closing sliding doors.
It took me a few more stops before I realized you were really gone. I kept waiting for you to reenter the subway car, sit down next to me, rest your head on my shoulder. Nothing would be said. Nothing would need to be said.
When the train returned to Queensboro Plaza, I craned my neck as we entered the station. Perhaps you were there, on the platform, still waiting. Perhaps I would see you, smiling and bright, your long gray hair waving in the wind from the oncoming train.
But no, you were gone. And I realized most likely I would never see you again. And I thought about how amazing it is that you can know somebody for sixty years and yet still not really know that person at all.
I stayed on the train until it got to Union Square, at which point I got off and transferred to the L.
Posted to Brooklyn's Missed connection section. A lovely piece of prose/wordplay. Haunting and wistful all at once.
I saw you on the Manhattan-bound Brooklyn Q train.
I was wearing a blue-striped t-shirt and a pair of maroon pants. You were wearing a vintage red skirt and a smart white blouse. We both wore glasses. I guess we still do.
You got on at DeKalb and sat across from me and we made eye contact, briefly. I fell in love with you a little bit, in that stupid way where you completely make up a fictional version of the person you're looking at and fall in love with that person. But still I think there was something there.
Several times we looked at each other and then looked away. I tried to think of something to say to you — maybe pretend I didn't know where I was going and ask you for directions or say something nice about your boot-shaped earrings, or just say, "Hot day." It all seemed so stupid.
At one point, I caught you staring at me and you immediately averted your eyes. You pulled a book out of your bag and started reading it — a biography of Lyndon Johnson — but I noticed you never once turned a page.
My stop was Union Square, but at Union Square I decided to stay on, rationalizing that I could just as easily transfer to the 7 at 42nd Street, but then I didn't get off at 42nd Street either. You must have missed your stop as well, because when we got all the way to the end of the line at Ditmars, we both just sat there in the car, waiting.
I cocked my head at you inquisitively. You shrugged and held up your book as if that was the reason.
Still I said nothing.
We took the train all the way back down — down through Astoria, across the East River, weaving through midtown, from Times Square to Herald Square to Union Square, under SoHo and Chinatown, up across the bridge back into Brooklyn, past Barclays and Prospect Park, past Flatbush and Midwood and Sheepshead Bay, all the way to Coney Island. And when we got to Coney Island, I knew I had to say something.
Still I said nothing.
And so we went back up.
Up and down the Q line, over and over. We caught the rush hour crowds and then saw them thin out again. We watched the sun set over Manhattan as we crossed the East River. I gave myself deadlines: I'll talk to her before Newkirk; I'll talk to her before Canal. Still I remained silent.
For months we sat on the train saying nothing to each other. We survived on bags of skittles sold to us by kids raising money for their basketball teams. We must have heard a million mariachi bands, had our faces nearly kicked in by a hundred thousand break dancers. I gave money to the beggars until I ran out of singles. When the train went above ground I'd get text messages and voicemails ("Where are you? What happened? Are you okay?") until my phone ran out of battery.
I'll talk to her before daybreak; I'll talk to her before Tuesday. The longer I waited, the harder it got. What could I possibly say to you now, now that we've passed this same station for the hundredth time? Maybe if I could go back to the first time the Q switched over to the local R line for the weekend, I could have said, "Well, this is inconvenient," but I couldn't very well say it now, could I? I would kick myself for days after every time you sneezed — why hadn't I said "Bless You"? That tiny gesture could have been enough to pivot us into a conversation, but here in stupid silence still we sat.
There were nights when we were the only two souls in the car, perhaps even on the whole train, and even then I felt self-conscious about bothering you. She's reading her book, I thought, she doesn't want to talk to me. Still, there were moments when I felt a connection. Someone would shout something crazy about Jesus and we'd immediately look at each other to register our reactions. A couple of teenagers would exit, holding hands, and we'd both think: Young Love.
For sixty years, we sat in that car, just barely pretending not to notice each other. I got to know you so well, if only peripherally. I memorized the folds of your body, the contours of your face, the patterns of your breath. I saw you cry once after you'd glanced at a neighbor's newspaper. I wondered if you were crying about something specific, or just the general passage of time, so unnoticeable until suddenly noticeable. I wanted to comfort you, wrap my arms around you, assure you I knew everything would be fine, but it felt too familiar; I stayed glued to my seat.
One day, in the middle of the afternoon, you stood up as the train pulled into Queensboro Plaza. It was difficult for you, this simple task of standing up, you hadn't done it in sixty years. Holding onto the rails, you managed to get yourself to the door. You hesitated briefly there, perhaps waiting for me to say something, giving me one last chance to stop you, but rather than spit out a lifetime of suppressed almost-conversations I said nothing, and I watched you slip out between the closing sliding doors.
It took me a few more stops before I realized you were really gone. I kept waiting for you to reenter the subway car, sit down next to me, rest your head on my shoulder. Nothing would be said. Nothing would need to be said.
When the train returned to Queensboro Plaza, I craned my neck as we entered the station. Perhaps you were there, on the platform, still waiting. Perhaps I would see you, smiling and bright, your long gray hair waving in the wind from the oncoming train.
But no, you were gone. And I realized most likely I would never see you again. And I thought about how amazing it is that you can know somebody for sixty years and yet still not really know that person at all.
I stayed on the train until it got to Union Square, at which point I got off and transferred to the L.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)