Thursday, November 29, 2007

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Friday, November 16, 2007

"66% Then and 33% Now"


I'm slowly trying to move completely away from Myspace. That being said, I'm deleting all of my old blogs there as a first step. As I was doing so, I ran across this poem and couldn't just strike it from existence entirely so I'm moving it here. I don't know what it is, but something about David Berman and his work strikes a major cord within me. All thanks to go Matt Musick for introducing me to the Silver Jews four years ago and letting me have his book of poetry, Actual Air.

Cassette County
This is meant to be in praise of the interval called hangover,
a sadness not co-terminous with hopelessness,
and the North American doubling cascade
that (keep going) "this diamond lake is a photo lab"
and if predicates really do propel the plot
then you just might see Jerusalem in a soap bubble
or the appliance failures on Olive Street
across these great instances,
because "the complex Italians versus the basic Italians"
because what does a mirror look like (when it's not working)
but birds singing a full tone higher in the sunshine.

I'm going to call them Honest Eyes until I know if they are,
in the interval called slam-clicker, Realm of Pacific,
because the second language wouldn't let me learn it
because diet cards may be the recovery evergreen
and there is a new benzodiazepene called Distance,

anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship

I suppose a broken window is not symbolic
unless symbolic means broken, which I think it sorta does,
and when the phone jangles
what's more radical, the snow or the tires,
and what does the Bible say about metal fatigue
and why do mothers carry big scratched-up sunglasses
in their purses.

Hello to the era of going to the store to buy more ice
because we are running out.
Hello to the feelings that arrive unintroduced.
Hello to the nonfunctional sprig of parsley
and the game of finding meaning in coincidence.

Because there is a second mind in the margins of the used book
because Judas Priest (source: Firestone Library)
sang a song called Stained Class,
because this world is 66% Then and 33% Now,

and if you wake up thinking "feeling is a skill now"
or "even this glass of water seems complicated now"
and a phrase from a men's magazine (like single-district cognac)
rings and rings in your neck,
then let the consequent misunderstandings
(let the changer love the changed)
wobble on heartbreakingly nu legs
into this street-legal nonfiction,
into this good world,
this warm place
that I love with all my heart,

anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship.

-D. B.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Remember that the future of the past...

*Remember that the future of the past is always expressed with the past conditional. Thanks Da Capo, I'll do that.
Sounds more like poetry than instructions on understanding verb tense.

No matter how many times I read that sentence it just doesn't make sense. I've moved on to procrastination.

Oh how I love Robert Longo. I've never thought "Damn I wish I'd thought of that!" more than when I see his work. He could quite possibly be my favorite artist. Plus, he's under appreciated, and for some reason I appreciate that.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Maps


I don't know how I found this website but I just thought this map was hilarious.

“This map is basically what would happen if you got a bunch of Japanese guys in a room, got them drunk, and then asked them to draw what they could remember about America on a bar napkin. Hell, that’s probably how this game was originally designed,” says Andrew Vestal on Yukihime.com

Thursday, November 1, 2007

When in Rome...


I just got home from class, and on my way I ran into one of the most interesting people I've ever met in my life: Alvin C. Sella. Sella is a legend in the UA art department. I heard about him on my first day in art class as a freshman.
"He'll rip your work up and throw it out the window if he doesn't like it." That was my introduction. Fast forward two years and it was my turn to take his famous figure drawing class. I will never forget walking into this room and setting up my drawing pad on the easel. I was nervous, frightened even. After a few minutes I heard a shuffle and, "you ready girls?" Two girls strolled to the center of the room and dropped robe. Now I had to add awkward to the mixture of feelings. Sella tells us to go and that he wants to see what we've got.
By the end of class, and Sella's infamous criticism, one girl started crying and left, never to return. All I can say is I'm glad that girl wasn't me, even though we had a fallout one day where he tapped me with his cane and scattered by paintings all over the floor. He liked me though and I knew it so I never let it get to me. A year after I left that class I was in the art department and the secretary said I had a message from Sella. It was a W magazine with a page flagged. I opened it up and it said, "Kate, this looks like you." The opposite page which was stark white, he had signed. This was his apology. I know this because he later asked me if I ever got his message and explained. I know to some this might sound trivial, but to me this man is a monument and a symbol for what I always thought college was about.
So today, when I walked into the art department office and Sella was sitting there I couldn't help but laugh. He remembered me and called me by name. We chatting for a moment in Italian after I told him what I was studying, and then he walked away in his red socks holding a bag of Halloween candy.
Hopefully this won't be our only encounter while I'm here.
Sella's website.