One-1-ii

One1ii Had Moved!!!

2010-06-09T16:03:00.002-04:00

Cows Come Home To NOTSOX

2010-06-08T21:59:00.001-04:00

Let me tell you a story, a story about a place, and about a group of people that I love. Anybody who reads this blog knows that I lived in Burlington, VT for about 5 years. So far the years I spent there were the happiest in my life. Here is a place where you know your neighbor. People are so friendly, honest, open, and accepting that sometimes, to an outsider, it can be unnerving. When I first moved there I was confused as to why cars would stop if you were standing on the side of the road. It took me month to realize that they were waiting for me to cross. It's the type of place where at the end of the day kindness and human decency trumps all.

In that city there is a small but devoted group of kids that make movies and documentaries. They are called NOTSOX. They just finished a project about a public art piece that really captures the spirit of the city, and I think it captures their spirit as well. Working with them when I was up in Vermont was one of my chief pleasures. I'm proud to have been able to help them a little with this project as well.

This is the way that Filmmaking should be. Please take the time to watch their short. You'll be glad you did.

Our Cow Comes Home from Jeff White on Vimeo.

Link to NOTSOX

Satire, the other white meat.

2010-06-03T17:56:00.000-04:00

Review of The Radio Bean and ¡Duino! (Duende)

2010-06-02T13:52:00.004-04:00

Radio Bean on the Web

What's the deal?: Mention Vermont to any east coaster and certain topics are sure to come up: Ben & Jerry's, Phish, communes, and great skiing. Locals know different. Just off the beaten path in the Queen city on North Winooski Ave is the venerable Radio Bean, a hipster institution well known for their heady cocktail menu, damn fine coffee, and great live music. At a certain point though, even the most bohemian of locals is going to have to eat, and now they need to go no further than right next door. Lee Anderson, the community driven, Radio Bean owner has now expanded into the the former tortilla restaurant next door. ¡Duino! (Duende) is a hotspot of international street food at prices even a poet can afford. (I.E. very, very reasonable.)

Field Notes: Relying as much as they can on local ingredients ¡Duino! (Duende) manages to put a new spin on old favorites. Their "Frietjes" are bomb, even boasting homemade ketchup with a hint of banana, the perfect balance between delicious saltiness and exotic sweetness. Another strong menu offering is the "Kofta Slider" a locally farmed lamb burger mixed with couscous, spices and dried fruit that is served on middle eastern manakeesh, with fried onions, labnhi and arugula. In a similar vein is the "Seperatist Slider." Touching on the unique character and rebellious leanings of Vermont, this slider is a far cry from the Kofta. Grilled beef with red onion maple marmalade ketchup, arugula, and homemade dill pickles makes for a savory indulgence. On my last visit I opted for the "Shin Ramyun." The powerfully spicy Korean soup with delicious traditional noodles. The slightly crisp vegetables give the spicy broth a great balance and the kimchi is some of the best I've had from the states.
The cocktail menu is innovative without being pretentious, and they have a fairly wide selection of beers on tap. My favorite is the "Hot Tottie." ¡Duino! and the Radio Bean took the golden girls favorite of whisky, honey, and lemon a step further with a twist of ginger. It's a cold and flu killer, and the perfect drink to get you through the cold Vermont nights. The real star of the cocktail menu though is the "Five Dollar Shake." An ingenious blend of stout and espresso with a swirl of maple syrup that perches on the stout's foam head. It's a grown up, caffeinated pint of heaven.

The second best thing about ¡Duino!, next to the food, is the ambiance. The decor, which is mostly scavenged and hand built, calls to mind a combination of beatnik paradise and mexican brothel, which may or may not be the same thing. Making an effort to be sustainable and local friendly is something that seems to be at the top of the list at ¡Duino! (Duende), and that helps make it the heart of Burlington's thriving music and art community.

Menu Highlights:
"Evil Jungle Princess Ceviche"
A selection of fresh fish imported by Wood Mountain Fish Company marinated in citrus juices with avocado, thai basil, lemongrass & mangoes served with crispy things $10

"Old World Burro"
Avocado, queso blanco, black beans, sour cream, & salsa bandera in a flour tortilla $7

"Flourless Chocolate Cake"
A rich dark chocolate cake with a strawberry rhubarb zinfandel sauce topped with fresh whipped cream $5

Special Events:
Live music every night of the week
Monday: No guitar open mic
Tuesday: Honky Tonk night! A raucous celebration with a serious dose of down home fun. Frequent contributors are Gordon Stone, from the Gordon Stone Band and Mike Gordon from Phish.
Friday and Saturday: Local and touring acts, check the Radio Bean's website for specifics

If movie posters were honest....

2010-06-01T16:36:00.000-04:00

More Hilarity Here

RIP Dennis Hopper 1936-2010

2010-05-29T15:01:00.003-04:00

Article About His Death
Fishing With John: The Dennis Hopper Episode

For Allen G

2010-05-29T14:54:00.001-04:00

If knowledge is power than I am building a bomb in the garage. I go out there after work and family dinner, faithfully tinkering with my city killer. In America, nobody notices, because the rich are busy pretending to be poor as if poverty were street credit in a game you feign not to win. The poor too though, are counterfeiting wealth, a cubic zirconium nightmare. They front knowing the ladder's rules but the real manual comes at the price of a silver spoon. Yes, flesh has always been currency but we are running out, and with inflation there is more silicon, more plastic, and we are going into debt. Silver spoons make for broken teeth.

I am looking for special deals on answers at James Dean's five and dime. I'm going to run off and join a circus, train swine to dance in dresses. It won't be hard, even a pig owns a dress these days. Everybody takes the train into the city, they pine, they ail on vinyl seats. Ever take the train into the city? Commute sweat smells like anxiety. It smells like sickly yellow and formaldehyde. Even a corpse hates the smell of formaldehyde. All the children on the subway are malformed and have demerits. But not the good kind that makes you look like a badass. The kind that means when you grow up, you'll still have issues and they wont be in style anymore.

Nobody in my generation wants to be present, preferring a state of perpetual adolescence. I advise youth to die before you get old. Who takes that advice? The bald eagle's young are cultural cannibals. Princely avifauna. Do you know about the vulture? It gorges itself until it is too heavy and then has to vomit to fly. Bulimia bird. They will reprocess dead punk, dead dance music; pretend that reassembly means transcendence.

The rain pelts these old streets, and the smell of wet asphalt perfuses everything, and everything is washed down the drain. At night, I crawl on my belly and siphon gas from car's tanks. Just to make it north to freedom, to see my love. This love is pure from faith, eyes closed echoing forward, entwined by the sound.

If knowledge is power than I am building a bomb in my garage.
Such a dirty bomb.

Errol Morris called it the greatest commercial of all time.

2010-05-27T17:08:00.001-04:00

The Most Awesome and Epic Local Commercial Ever

Tom Waits and Jim Jarmusch

2010-05-27T14:01:00.002-04:00

2 out of my 3 favorite guys

The third being a certain "last prophet of rock"

Soho-tos

2010-05-26T17:03:00.003-04:00

Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Interning in Film and Television

2010-05-12T21:41:00.000-04:00

1. The company does not own you.

2. Sometimes saying "no" is the right decision.

3. Common sense is your best friend.

4.Asking if you can observe someone's process shows a desire to learn.

5. Even if the people around you aren't using it, etiquette is key.

6. Be nice to the other interns, even though you are competing against them, in a few years you'll be getting each other work.

7. Don't be afraid to tell someone what you did, a task unnoticed is a task that never happened.

8. Remember that you are a free human being, not a slave. (Sounds stupid, but you will forget)

9. Even the most menial of tasks have the capacity to showcase your abilities if you do them well.

10. When in doubt, ears open, mouth shut.

11. If you see a serious mistake being made, don't be loud and obnoxious in pointing it out. Quietly take the person next up on the chain aside and tell them. This is called having tact. They may get the momentary glory, but guess who that person calls the next time they need someone. You.

12. You are the lowest on the food chain.

13. If someone gives you their two-cents, take it under advisement.

14. Don't "correct" anyone.

15. Charm is superficial. Deal with it.

16. Separate your "work self" from your "home self." It will help to keep you sane.

17. Someone is waiting to take your place, this is both good and bad.

18. People can tell when you're being fake.

19. Listen.

20. Never point out the inadequacies of superiors.

21. If someone is trying to mentor you, let them. Even if you have to pretend that ideas like "networking is important" are new to you.

Cross Cultural Hilarity

2010-05-11T18:06:00.002-04:00

One of the things that I really enjoy about my internship is the fact that I've met alot of cool people who are interested in the same business that I am. Some of the interns are like me; post-graduates who are looking to break into the business. Others are college students looking for experience and credit towards their degrees. Some are local, and others are international. The group itself is diverse, and though everyone speaks english, sometimes there are some really great interactions. Out of all of us though Steve has the best misunderstandings. Let me be perfectly clear, the kid is great and his english is, by and large, flawless. However it just seems like he has the most hilarious misunderstandings.

My favorite was today:

Steve and I are headed to the subway, to go on an uptown errand

Steve gestures to the downtown subway entrance.

Steve: Come on, let's go down.

Me: No man, we'll have to use the underpass and it smells like hobo pee.

Steve: What's a hobo?

Me: Umm.. A hobo is...

Steve: No wait! I know. It's those little guys with big feet in Lord of the Rings right?

Me: ::laughing:: That's a hobbit.

Steve: Oh yeah...

More as it comes

2010-05-10T22:46:00.002-04:00

LINKS!

The Feverbreakers!
Hungry Man Productions
Funky Pumpkin Productions

RAINCOATS - Fairytale in the Supermarket

2010-05-10T22:22:00.000-04:00

Further Tales From The Flunkie Pool

2010-05-06T15:12:00.001-04:00

"This stuff will kill you, but it's loaded with fun!" - The Cramps "Bikini Girls With Machine Guns"

...
Sometimes I'm blown away by the duality within myself that I ignored; and how in my spurning of it, how much of myself I lost.
…

I met Helen, and old friend of my aunt's on 23rd and 7th today. She started her own production company a couple decades ago and is now a damn successful producer. Sitting in the Starbucks waiting for her I have to admit that I was expecting someone a little more straight-laced than the woman who showed up. With a head of curly blonde hair and the kinetic energy of a coiled spring Helen seemed fun and far less stuck up than a lot of the other producers I'd met so far. We talked shop, I told her about what I wanted to do with my life, told her that I "couldn't not write" which is a mess of double negatives but just flows so well that I can't resist it.

At the end of our little pow-wow Helen had pretty much promised to call me in a few weeks when some more work came up, gave me a bunch of numbers out of her blackberry for casting people and said she might be able to hook up some freelance writing for me. All good things.

I may just make this crazy idea of mine work. I want to be like Jarmusch, Tarantino, and Lynch. (Not in personality, just in the whole "writer, director, producer" thing) I'm a control freak, I know that. But I've got to learn to be a charming one or I'm never gonna make it. I know all this stuff is just a game, and it's one where they don't tell you the rules. But I think that just maybe I'm beginning to figure it out.

For My Regina

2010-04-28T22:39:00.000-04:00

rhea rhea regina lacrimosa icarus it’s our child-song you keep making me repeat the nonsense phrase because it tastes good in your mouth. Like a full meal of sounds, even if the parts don’t go together, like the beets and the ice cream we’ll pass off as a two-course meal before we go out drinking.

Contrast our healthful endeavor to the junk food noise of the 2-train. To sit in a sea of the terminally hip and simply terminal. Rocket underground back into the fractal where you can be an asshole because, Seriously look at this motherfucking jacket. Do you know how much it’s worth? Do you know how much I PAID for it? …at least those are the words on the street.

rhea rhea regina lacrimosa icarus what can we give the city that it doesn’t already have? Maybe you can offer it your good looks, but you spent them at the supermarket, and now you just look referential. On the corner the rain will soak us through, wrench us sideways, but in a city of everyone most people came prepared and we can hitch rides under the oversized umbrellas of day traders all the way out to where we need to be, which is nowhere yet and that’s fine.

Hey momma I was thinking, just give the city your phrase like a gift, like a sacrifice. Like a barley and oat cake, maybe it will get us past the dogs at the door. Pay the ferryman, pay the cabdriver, remember your jacket, break change. rhea rhea regina lacrimosa icarus

Babydoll, those words were from you, and I want to keep them, hold them, just my own, since the only thing you can give me now is now anyway.

2010-04-20T23:21:00.001-04:00

Matt, 2004

2010-04-17T01:25:00.001-04:00

resume'

2010-02-24T15:42:00.000-05:00

2010 demo reel

2010-02-19T01:09:00.000-05:00

Christa Pagliei's 2010 Demo Reel from Chris Pagliei on Vimeo.

Macaroni Sunday

2010-02-16T17:37:00.000-05:00

The link below is to a script for a super-short dialogue project I'm shooting at the beginning of March to contrast with my more avant-garde stop motion piece Four Girls. Between the two, and waiting tables, my schedule is getting kind of hectic but in a really great way. I've never appreciated my insomnia more!

Fair warning, it seems googledocs messes with the format a bit, but it's all there.

Script!

How each part will proceed...

2010-01-27T17:49:00.001-05:00

I.
(Vomit into flowers)
Pull back from white
The subject (A) leans against the frame of the door, and attempts to unlock it but is obviously having difficulty. Finally (A) enters the apartment. (A) leans against a wall, and slides down it falling over. (A) closes his eyes and a slight shade of green spreads out over (A)’s face. (A) vomits purple velvet with flowers on it. The flowers begin to grow from the pool of velvet.
Zoom into black

II.
Pull back from black
(Sing back the dark, pray)
A girl enters a bedroom, obviously depressed. She sits on the edge of the bed, and looks about the room. Pushing herself backwards, she moves onto the bed, knees to her chest in the corner of the room. (Bed Against a wall)The light around her begins to narrow, like a spotlight. She drops her knees and straightens herself, back leaning against the wall. She breathes in, and then out. On the exhalation of breath black tendrils crawl up the blank wall behind her, pushing back the circle of darkness around her. When tendrils have grown to take up the whole wall and the room is full of light again, the girl directly addresses the camera
Zoom into black

III.
(Severed)
Pull Back From Black
(B) walks into a bedroom and sits down at the mirror. (B) gazes into the mirror and begins to brush her hair absently. It is revealed that the mirror that (B) is looking into doesn’t provide a real reflection but rather (SOMETHING UTTERLY BRILLIANT). Moving behind the mirror the gaze is transferred. (The mirror looks at her) (B) bites off her fingers at the second knuckle, and the proceeds to pull clean silk ribbons from the wounds.
Zoom Into White

IV.
(Blood into Butterflies)
Pull Back From White
A young woman sits in a chair next to a small table with a jar on it. She looks almost coy. Glancing around her surroundings she puts her hands down at her side palms facing out head turned slightly to the side like one of those “Our Lady of Guadalupe” prayer cards. She then unbuttons the top buttons of her shirt and peels open her chest to reveal a void out of which Butterflies escape. She collects the butterflies and then exits the frame. The glass jar with the butterflies remains. They move their wings.
Fade to white.

Shot list to follow

Not Even a Working Title

2010-01-23T16:05:00.001-05:00

What’s going on?
I have decided to use some of my remaining time in Burlington to create a short series that could either be shown in succession as a traditional film, or used in a video installation.
The project is a series of four short stop-motion animation pieces that explore the connection between pain and beauty. The contrast between negative action and visual appeal as well as the indication of a dream like state will, hopefully serve to create a lasting and effective visual metaphor.

Each segment will be shot using a “live stop motion” technique. In lieu of manipulating inanimate figures frame to frame to create the illusion of movement I will mostly rely on using actual people. Employing a system of 24 frames per second will provide some simulation of the look of film, despite my intention to shoot digital.

Scheduling wise I have the completely mad notion that I will shoot one person’s sequence each Sunday in February, thus completing principal footage before March. If I am careful and organized I’m pretty confident that I can reduce post-production time significantly.

The Sequences

I
An ill (read intoxicated) young man vomits flowers

II
A young girl pushes back an encroaching darkness with her voice.

III
The subject bites off their own fingers, pulling clean silk ribbons from the wound.

IV
A young woman peels open her chest, revealing a void. Butterflies escape from it.

More as it happens,

Chris

Waitress, Temp, and former Scribbler seeks to expand horizions.

2009-09-04T14:21:00.009-04:00

Ginevra kept saying it to me as she sat next to me on the park bench, her legs draped over my lap as she munched on a sandwich.
"It's the end of an era."
I nodded to her that it was. I had been pretty silent, half because I was exausted from a busy lunch shift, and half because the news had come so suddenly.

That morning while racing, nearly late, to the cafe' I had hurredly checked my phone for the time.

One Voicemail, Scribbles.

"What the hell do they want? Is there an issue with the Martinau wedding invites? I'm already late as it is."
I mashed the speed-dial to get to voicemail and held the phone to my ear as I trucked down Church Street, hoping that I wouldn't have to stop into the shop on my break between lunch and dinner shifts. The robotic voice came over the speaker, inexorably slow.
"You have one new message. Press one for your messages."
What followed the beep however was not Scribbles manager Jenny's chai-latte fueled, rapid-fire speak but the sound of crying.
"Scribbles is closing."
I stopped walking for a moment.
But only for a moment.
The message went on, but the first sentence was the most important. I don't really even think I heard the rest of the voicemail at all. Fiscally I wasn't too worried. I had just landed a full time job waiting tables at a local asian cafe, and though I had been considering working there as well as my part-time job at the venerable stationery store with the silly name I knew that I wouldn't be able to work seven days a week for more than a few months before I burnt out. Yet as I rushed around waiting tables that afternoon the phrase kept repeating in my head.
"Scribbles is closing."
Thus my break between shifts found me sitting in the park next to the chick I called Nev. Inhumanly petite, with a massive amount of red hair, Ginevra looks more like a pixie than a woman, and one can imagine a timid voice coming from her bespectacled person.
One COULD imagine that...and one would be wrong.
"What the fuck happened!?"
I leaned back on the bench and pushed some hair out of my eyes.
"The recession happened."
A homeless hippy, hair dreded down the back of his dirty tie-dye t-shirt, walked by the bench,
"You got a smoke?"
I shook my head no wondering if he'd ever smoked one of his dreds. I've heard that marijuanna residue can get stored in your hair follicles. I was particularly enjoying this train of thought half giggling to myself when Ginevra snapped me back to attention.
"I mean, it's not like we didn't see it coming."
It was true I supposed, the store had been carrying less and less stock but it never seemed like we'd actually close. Alot of small businessses were forced to reduce stock due to the economic downturn and we were no exception. Thing seemed to be getting better at the end of that summer. Burlington's beloved kitch, card, and wedding stationery store, with it's Franz Kafka finger puppets, off beat cards (my favourite being a romantic one one that read "I want to have text with you") and other odds and ends seemed to be coming back from the finacial dip. Vermont passed Gay Marriage and there was an increase in the number of invites we were printing as a direct result of that. All in all, the feeling among the girls was that things were looking up. But looks were decieving.

It wasn't just the sudden nature of Scribbles closing that unsettled me so, nor the loss of the wages, since I already had another job, but the loss of an important peice of my personal history. This was the place I had worked for 2 1/2 years, a long time in my young life and over half the time that i'd lived in vermont. Starting as a sales girl and ending as weekend manager and a custom stationery consultant, it was where I met Ginevra, learned to really sell, became a typography snob, and even learned design, something that opened up a world of possibilities to me creatively. A small family business, I became close with the Mom and Pop owners, and called Joe on more than one occation to ask for directions. That's not to say that it was idyllic all the time, like any workplace there were ups and downs and occational conflicts of personality. (Even Ginevra and I, who are close of friends went through a period of three months where I wouldn't speak to her.) But shit happens, and we'd all weathered it together.

I pushed my pad thai around with a chopstick and then closed the box I was eating it from.
"Let's go look at the store."
Hiking back up Church Street I found myself doing exactly what I hadn't wanted to earlier in the day, going to the shop on my break. We stood side by side in front of the plate glass window, and I looked in. My paper lanterns hung from the ceeling, un-moving. Usually they would sway and bob as people came in and out of the store but now they hung, heavy on their strings.
"I want my paycheck man."
Ginevra said, cupping her hands around her eyes and peering into the dark store.
"They don't owe me any money, I took last weekend off to go camping."
"How'd that go?"
"I discovered something about myself."
"Oh yeah."
"I'm a city person."

Sighing, Ginevra pulled her face away from the glass, leaving a smudge on the window pane. The bright light streaming through the glass made the outline of a sticker that had been removed a long time ago visible.
"Book? Is that what it says? Do you see that?"
I pointed to the window.
Nev squinted her eyes,
"I guess this place was a bookstore or something before it was Scribbles."
"It will be something else after Scribbles too."

I stepped back and silently prayed it wouldn't be another chain store. As the recession closed down small businesses the storefronts were being bought by what we called "box stores." Those corporate franchises that could weather the slow times in a way that the grassroots places couldn't. Ginevra kicked the brick below the window.

"C'mon let's grab a beer before your second shift."

I followed her up to the dive bar with the free popcorn. Not because I wanted a beer especially, but because it seemed like the best thing to do. End of an era my ass, it was just the end of Scribbles.

Video Up

2009-08-28T12:48:00.000-04:00

Dork Rap

2009-07-14T20:09:00.000-04:00

I'm the only person to ever rap in an oxford university polo. Probably.

Flies, Pie Charts, and Instructional Videos

2009-07-04T18:02:00.006-04:00

Burlington, Vermont, where you spend a third of your year freezing your ass off. It’s not such a great motto, nor does it make a particularly pretty silhouette. Shoulder blades hunching forward trying to meet in the middle of your chest for a kiss until you have a back knot of epic proportions. Bent over in the wind, the end of the winter finds you three inches shorter than you were at the beginning. Other seasons in Vermont include being knee deep in mud, and of course, Fall.

However now it that wonderful part of the year where it gets blistering hot and everyone’s house and apartment fills with bugs.

The flies are everywhere, fruit flies and house flies, there is no amount of cleaning or wine traps that can stop it, it’s a simple fact of a Burlington resident’s existence. Somewhere in my head I can hear my mother’s mantra of “BLEACH EVERYTHING” echoing, yet even the Jersey matriarch’s beloved corrosive chemical can’t kill them. Boiling water is poured down drains, wine traps, and pheromone traps are left out and if you are, as I am, inclined towards sweet drinks (read: Whisky and lemonade is my poison of choice) you draw the little f*ckers to you like, well, like flies to honey.

Thus the invention of my brand new game.

Perhaps an out-cropping of a childhood spend in figure skating locker rooms, I can crack a dishtowel like a pro. (I pro what, I don't know. Maybe there's a league for that sort of thing) It’s something that I’ve use to chase Irish boyfriends out of the kitchen for years, but finally it has come in actual handy. So here’ s the points system.

Housefly : 4 Points
Fruit Fly: 7 Points
2 Fruit Flies at once: 10 Points

So Burlington residents, get your dishtowels ready, check out my helpful instructional video and keep score. It’s hunting season.

MOVIE TIIIME!

2009-06-19T22:41:00.002-04:00

2009-05-21T14:17:00.001-04:00

They call it shooting for a reason...

2009-03-20T00:17:00.003-04:00

So there's been a kind of change of plans in my shooting schedule. I'm going to be shooting all next week and editing the week after. The weather is looking pretty good, and suddenly I have access to this pretty good camera, and a letus 35mm adaptor, (which is sweet, trust me) and if I really kick out the jams I think I can have a good cut of the film for the uvm film festival... Anyway, all this insanity means I need to do all my schoolwork for the next 2 weeks this weekend. I hope that on Saturday I can go out and have a good time, since the next 14 days are going to be full of all nighters and the like...

I am really nervous to shoot, I'm DPing on my own and I want it to look as good as the stuff Jeff does, but he sets a pretty high standard. (If you're interested, look at Box Party under my videography links on the left, he DP'd that shoot.) Sometimes I feel like my shots lack depth, and maybe that's a product of cutting my teeth in theatre rather than film, though I'm hoping to really get past all those hang-ups in this piece. I haven't told you very much about my project, except that it's a dance film, but here's the general idea.

There is a group based in New York City called Troika Ranch, they combine media/dance/theatre in digital films, art installations, and live performances. I happened upon them through a media program called Isadora, which is kind of a long story. Anyway they created this short called BKLYN (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEL0TWF6sBQ) that really got me thinking about how time and space is used in film. I also find myself looking at work by Maya Deren, I know you're not one for arty cinema, but her short experimental films are really engaging to me. I'm also trying to address the issue of the feminine gaze and deliberately have her break the fourth wall on two occasions in the dance. Essentially I will be shooting the dance in the same way in 5 different locations and then editing the footage together as one, shifting location via jump cuts, split screens (sometimes up to 5 at once), combined with moments of the "Algorythmic editing" that's in the "BKLYN short.

The conceptual part of the short as a whole is essentially an exploration of personal perception of space and time. I'll attempt to address the issue of the private mind functioning in the public space, and the gap between who we are seen as and our personal understanding of ourselves. This leaves me with the dubious task of visually expressing the personal experience of time. Reading Deleuze expanded on this kind of thinking for me, and his theory has effected how I am viewing the project as a whole. Though the work itself doesn't directly hinge on the theoretical, it does make some attempts to bridge certain gaps between practice and theory...

I'll be updating everyday through the filming and editing process. Even if it's just grawlix.

Word of the day: Grawlix-A grawlix is a sequence of typographical symbols used to represent a non-specific, profane word or phrase. Here's an example of a typical grawlix: #@$%*!

Shoplifters Beware or Mess with Jersey and feel the burn.

2009-03-10T15:02:00.002-04:00

The other day I had some serious girl-detective action.

What with the ecomonic downturn, we've been seeing alot more shoplifing at good old Scribbles. Sadly I'm sure that most of it goes unnoticed, since we have a ton of little erasers and the like. However recently the girls and I had an epic adventure in apprehending a theif The woman in question entered our store on March 7th, 2009 at approximately 2:30pm. After browsing the store she approached the counter with one of the activity books from the front, the On-The-Go Kids activity book. She claimed that the book had been purchased by her husband, and that she wanted to return it, but didn?t have a receipt. One of the girls, Amelia Devoid, thought that she was behaving oddly and decided to check to see if the last activity book was on the shelf where it had been previous to the woman entering the store. It was not. This made it fairly clear that she had taken the book from the front of the store, and tried to return it to us. After this Amelia began to keep an eye on her, and noticed that she had a Jill Bliss wallet in her basket. These wallets are extremely distinctive as they are hand-sewn from old sheets, making no two exactly alike. The woman then began to move to the front of the store to exit. Amelia suspected she was shoplifting, and after checking to see if she had simply moved the product or perhaps returned it to the shelf (which she hadn?t) Amelia alerted me, Christa Pagliei. There was a moment of pause for Amelia to tell me the story, since I was helping some customers at the time and during this second the woman ducked out and onto Church Street. I grabbed my cell phone, told the girls to call the Burlington Police Department and went outside to follow her at a distance, since I figured it would be the easiest way to get back the merchandise. She went into Sweet Thing across the street, and I called one of the girls inside Scribbles so that we would be in contact. (Isn't technology wonderful?) The woman then proceeded up the block and went into Lake Champlain chocolates, but looked back and noticed me. I fell back a little, feigning embarrassment. I then crossed the street and tried to stay out of her sight. Upon exiting Lake Champlain Chocolates she headed towards the Burlington Mall. She entered the mall and I followed behind. Standing in the mall vestibule where I could see her and she couldn?t see me I noticed her crouching next to a kiosk, which I thought was kind of weird. She then continued through the mall, and I followed some distance behind, taking better care not to be seen. She then exited the mall at 110 Cherry Street and proceeded to the bus stop. By this time Ginevra Shay, also a Scribbles employee, had gotten the Police on the phone and it was just a waiting game for them to get to the bus stop. She boarded the bus to Essex junction, and I walked past it and signaled to the driver to please wait. At that point Officer Paul Glynn showed up, and I pointed her out and he began to talk to her and search her bag, neither the wallet or the activity book was in there. The other officer, who was very sweet, but I don't remember his name, asked if maybe she had seen me and ditched the merchandise. As I walked back towards Scribbles I remembered her squatting by the empty mall kiosk, I ran back to the mall, to the kiosk and noticed that the storage door on the one side wasn?t locked. I opened it, and low and behold there was the activity book! I brought it back to the officers. Later Office Glynn stopped into Lake Champlain Chocolates and discovered the wallet! He was right, she'd ditched it right after she spotted me.

And that?s what happened!

6 Brief Impressions of Wyckoff New Jersey Upon Returning

2009-02-23T18:37:00.004-05:00

It is a strange moment when you realize
that in the place where you grew up,
skinned knees,
learned to bike,
kissed Ben Goodman by the water fountain
and then denied it,
you are now just a tourist.

***
Woke up.
There is a sort of dizziness
with a momentary heart palpitation.
Where is the girl from this room?
Did I kill her? Strike her out.
Or is she hunkered down in my heart

waiting to jump forth,

sass-faced and switchblade-tongued
when I say something foolish
or trip over my own two little feet.

***
In Polish there is a word, teskanota,
which means nostalgia with a twinge of sadness.
I keep running this through my head as I bike to the old library soaked in sweat.
Having been small here I remember it as bigger, mustier.
I did not recall the lack of anything
other than children’s books and Danielle Steele novels.

***
Ponch shows up at noon
and we shiver in the park drinking bitter coffee.
We talk about Mexico,
his abandoning of this place for a warmer climate.

He ran south as I headed north.
He shakes his head,
“You can’t bleach it, you can’t burn it, it’s in the marrow of your bones.”
We will crack that history open, and examine the red insides.
Then part, not to see one another for a few years.
We will still lean towards one another,

across countries and continents,
little sunflowers.

***
I get lost in the park and somehow end up at a strip mall,
all paths here eventually lead to one I suppose.
The same five kids are hanging out
and the cliché familiarity breeds contempt hammers in my head.
I find myself hoping that these five do not breed at all
for the sake of humanity, and the Wyckoff P.D.

***

This is the place

where I

fell down went bang

and set the precedent for my whole life to follow-

fell down went bang

got up again

again

until the falling and the standing

molded me

by the force of my own weight crashing

over and over

amen

2009-02-16T11:43:00.000-05:00

Organizing my records alphabetically. Only in my collection could this happen...Chaucer, Clash, Copland.

I trawl the webs so you don't have to.

2009-01-06T22:01:00.002-05:00

#1

2008-12-30T00:00:00.002-05:00

i wake
to the sound
of bones clacking
and when I open my eyes
all i see is your face floating
taunting me
waiting for me to tell you
that you were the only one
who ever looked this creature in the eyes
and saw me.

it would be easier
if you had no legs
to stand on in this matter
but at least with this silent way
we are both unsatisfied

maybe in another three years time
you will throw yourself bodily
into my path
again
and we will spend the length of your cigarette
knowing each other
just to rip it all apart again

the bleeding of the feet is difficult
but the dance is too beautiful to cease
a skeleton embrace
stripped it down to the base of everything
white and red and black

Exit 65

2008-12-28T22:53:00.001-05:00

It’s in my blood.
“jerz.”
You know what I’m saying?
My non-native friends call it “the jerz”
but it’s a flexible word.
When I am being frank & vehement
I am “getting jerz” on the recipient of my attentions.
Sometimes it even sneaks up and becomes my name.

I had a Vermonter boyfriend who would ask me to say hot dog over and over
“hot dawg”
“hot dawg”
They just don’t know it like me honey.
They don’t have a skull crammed with goomba-english,
with that special “coming home to cousin Nick in the cucina”
something
that makes it home.
Walnuts, oranges, and figs
a course on their own.
Entire conversations held in yells from different parts of the house.
Trains pulling out of the yard
two blocks dopplered.
Their whistles cry destinations
“Hoboken”
“Hoboken”

The abandoned swimming hole in the woods,
it’s concrete docks, jutting out of reeds like aching molars
and haunted by echoes.
The twisted pine barrens, with their wet sap smell, and the 13th child of Mrs. Leeds.
The bitter and gentle shore, and the Cape May diamonds.
They could not know
So I lie,
content between my devil and my atlantic sea.

For some reason this strikes me as hilarious.

2008-12-14T10:05:00.001-05:00

Gorehound

2008-12-11T17:31:00.000-05:00

I’m a gonna bust you up
break you down
make you cry
I’m a gonna thrust
this axe in your head
but you ain’t gonna die yet.
Hot cherry!
You look good in red

Lemme go an’ trap you
stalk you, with a chainsaw.
Lemme tie your wrists raw.
Get the device revved up.
I know you ain’t fed up
you’re a gonna beg me
you’re a gonna beseech me,
entreat me and implore
and I’ll always always
have just a little more for you.

You like a good screw?
How ‘bout one through your eyeball?
Gotta get those bodily fluids going
all that vitreous humor really flowing.
And I’m a gonna get that fire going
get that pyre really growing up.

I got this need
you’re gonna oblige me.
I’ll fill your mouth,
but please
don’t stop crying.

And who’s a gonna tell me
it’s not exactly all the same?
There’s hysterical shrieking,
someone nearly naked.
But this way everybody’s
gonna be a screamn’ your name.

...

everyone please remember that writers are liars

The Collegiate Sexual Apocalypse

2008-12-10T19:11:00.004-05:00

A friend of mine recently admitted to doing what almost every college student considers at one point or another, screwing in the library. I wasn't particularly shocked by the confession, I've actually HEARD people getting freaky on the third floor and the person in question was also just the kind of person who could actually pull off having sex in the library, but it left my wheels turning. I have to admit that I've never really understood the appeal of sex in public places, and to a sick sick biblophile like me, the act of nooky in those hallowed halls almost seems sacrilegeous. There's this little newspaper that comes out at my school, the "alternative" to the big school paper, that described the library around midterms as a "place where learning, drug-use, misery, and sexual tension... all intermingle." I'm of the mind that this could accurately describe almost all of UVM, but considering that that brick-shaped, brick-made building is essentially a microcosm of the school itself it's not surprising. But back to the interesting part.

Why DO people want to boink in bookville? Is is just the taboo? Some collegiate rite of passage that somehow combines academics and sexual recreation? Is it true, as my friend Sophia so often asserts, that "Finals make you horny"? (Please note that ALMOST EVERYTHING produces that effect in Soph.) For most it's probably one third taboo and one third tension relief and one third "sticking it to the man." (pun intentional)

It also helps that college students are also in an interesting point of their life in general and that this time lends itself to all sorts of odd behaviour. It's a time of discovery, a time that you kind of figure yourself out a little, and apparently it's also time when you knoodle with people just because you're both reading Karl Marx. (Also not me, maybe Jung might do it though.) One of my professors, David Huddle (google him, dude's a bomb writer) referred to our generations way of hooking up as Instamace, and it's fairly accurate. We're an almost completely media driven generation, we want our email in our hand, our entire music library in our back pocket and we want a double mocha skim no whipped cream TO GO NOW DAMMNIT. It makes sense that we would expect the same of our relationships, even the purely sexual ones. I feel like the word isn't even exactly pertaining to the speed at which these relationships develop, though that is often part of it. It's the fact that that there is this TERROR of traversing the fantasy. Of getting to know the real person behind the "I'm the free spirited political science major" or "I'm the stoner math dude" or "I'm the cynical english major with a blog."(GUESS WHO THE LAST ONE IS) I don't feel like this is a new revelation by any means but I feel as though since we're essentially the "igeneration" its effects are a little more dramatic.

Like Hipsters, there's a primo example. An entire group of people who essentially culture vulture the rest of the art community and then turn those elements into completely vacuous, vapid crap.

So I suppose that the Symbolic Collegiate Sexual Apocalypse would be two hipsters screwing in the library as some jaded form of protest.

Which is fine as long as I don't have to watch.

And then I get to kill them.

And eat them.

image by Alexander Milligan

Collected Notes from a Month of Sundays

2008-12-08T20:49:00.002-05:00

i.
Mornings are feral.
One sock half on, every hair growing in a different direction
I drag myself out of the den. You is up up up.
I’m making eggs and quinoa
and
do you want any?
and I tell her
baby
please
I don’t want no hippie food,
I just want rye toast, black coffee.
(then I cringe cause it sounds rough outside of my own head.
homegirl is just trying to make me eat breakfast
and don’t I have half a kind word for her this early?)
so I try to make you laugh
bring up about last night
when Jefferino told us rapid fire
that quinoa was only $1.50 a pound
recommended we make a big bowl every week
and that it was, in fact,
the mothergrain…yo.
you tell me
Hubert likes quinoa more than rice.
I grind the coffee.
Hubert also made a tattoo gun
out of a pencil sharpener
and got Rex to carve
“Welcome Theives”
in Russian
on his ass.

ii.
See I was at that party
and so was she.
We hadn’t met yet,
didn’t meet that night.
Separated by the oceanic divide
of Hubert’s bleeding ass cheek.
Our mutual fear of being presented
with the bloody horror
(the gun didn’t work so hot)
kept us on opposite sides of the house
and so we missed each other.

iii.
I chew my fingers and eye up that quinoa with suspicion.
They look like curly little tails in the eggs,
and though they seem kind of cute.
I still just want rye toast, black coffee.

iv.
Stop pacing, and if you’re looking for the radio, it’s busted on the floor over there.
The stove’s heat melts the patterns on the pane,
it refreezes into slashes across the glass.
how’d it…
oh it just fuzzed and popped and stopped.
That asshole of a trained rabbit
pokes his head from under the couch
and climbs in my boot,
probably to shit.
A large piece of mirror stands in the corner
reflecting a sliver of the scene.
And I cannot remember
when the glass monster was trasmuted
by lack of time or indecision
from art supply to home décor,
but I have nearly cut my foot open on it twice already.

v.
–I remember
how we did eventually meet.
All five of us were moving into the slanted house together.
You and I were the only ones who showed up early to sign the lease.
You opened the pickup door and the ice cracked like a pistol shot
get in, it’s freezing.

vi.
The radio’s bowels are all over the coffee table.
I am searching for a loose wire.
You don’t have to fix it.
but I really am desperate to fix the thing.
After I drop you off at the hospital
I will be home, alone, before work,
feeling useless as all hell.
I’ll want the news
and the paper ain’t gonna sate me.
I want to lose myself in those disembodied voices,
let their words become my thoughts,
let the waves bounce through my brains.
My toast pops up, it’s burnt.

vii.
oh ¬ and I am wide awake
and it is morning

VERMONT!!!!!!!

2008-12-08T10:27:00.000-05:00

you so crazy

Bloodless

2008-12-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

It is common in the case of anemics
to develop Pica and eat any number
of strange objects. Coal, hair, metal
wax and dirt. I could never imagine
feeling that familiar weakness
and consuming nails and bolts.
Washers filling the void in my belly,
till my stomach jingled like a change purse.

But when I peel the heart shaped beets,
their red dye, reflective and pooling beneath,
and I eat the raw slices,
they taste like the earth that they were born from.
And I know what the others were trying to devour.

It is the fortification of the self.
Each piece a charm against the flaw in my blood
that grows up from my liver,
until it hits the follicles and I?m left pulling
a thousand tiny hairs from the bath drain,
and the comb, and the rugs of my house, and the pillow where I sleep.
As if my body laments the innate disconnection
in my mode of consumptive urban living
and the brick and mortar worlds and shells I?ve constructed
and then expresses it's sorrow by rejecting a thousand slivers of me.
Screaming as they fall, each piece reminds
that such surroundings are no path to real safety.
You must be brave enough
to swallow all the earth yourself
and stand to be shaped
by the wind and by the rain.

...
Christa Pagliei

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-28T20:51:00.000-05:00

I am blessed in so many ways. Thank you for my family, my friends, and my opportunities.

Ok, this is too good not to link.

2008-11-10T00:36:00.001-05:00

Nazi Name for Dutch Ship Draws Outcry
AP
posted: 10 HOURS 3 MINUTES AGOcomments: 182filed under: WORLD NEWSPrintShareText SizeAAA
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Nov. 9) - It ought to be a proud milestone in the Dutch seafaring heritage — the construction of a new ship its owner claims will be the world's largest. But there's one problem: its name.

AP
Pieter Schelte Heerema
Edwin Heerema, founder of the company that has commissioned the $1.7 billion vessel, wants to name it the Pieter Schelte after his late father, Pieter Schelte Heerema, who was renowned as a maritime engineer but was condemned for his service in the murderous Nazi Waffen SS.
The choice of name has provoked outcry and has revived painful questions about Dutch collaboration with the country's World War II occupiers.
"For people who know his pitch-black history, this ship should not be named for him. Not now, not ever," said Ronny Naftaniel, director of CIDI, which monitors anti-Semitism in the Netherlands. He said Edwin Heerema's desire to honor his father was understandable up to a point, but the choice of name was "tasteless and unethical."
Edwin Heerema's company, Swiss-based Allseas Group SA, rejected the criticism.
"Pieter Schelte Heerema was widely appreciated in the industry during his life and the companies that came from his heritage have an excellent name in the offshore industry," spokesman Jeroen Hagelstein e-mailed in response to questions.
But it's an awkward matter for the government. It gave Allseas' Netherlands subsidiary a $1 million tax break for its part in designing the ship, and now acknowledges it didn't notice the name until a Dutch journalist, Ton Biesemaat, raised the issue.
Hagelstein said Heerema joined the Nazis out of opposition to communism rather than enthusiasm for national socialism. He said he then switched sides and joined the resistance in 1943 "as he could no longer associate himself with the ideas of the Nazis."
He noted that Heerema was tried and released shortly after the war, which shows he "cannot have been seriously delinquent."
The respected Netherlands Institute for War Documentation said that's technically accurate. Heerema was sentenced by a Dutch court to three years in prison but quickly released, the courts having recognized his unspecified but "very important" services to the resistance between August 1943 and March 1944.
"You have many different kinds of collaborators: some are passive and some are active. This man was prominent, a leader," said NIOD spokesman Fred Reurs.
Truus Menger, who was a prominent member of the Dutch resistance, called the naming of the ship "an open display of disdain and aggression."
In an interview with The Associated Press, she acknowledged that Heerema ended up aiding the resistance, but said: "Oh, I know how that goes — he had a change of heart. But in the end, he wore the suit and he served Hitler."
Heerema's file at the NIOD contains a report of a speech he gave in 1941 in which he was quoted as saying "The German race is model. The Jewish race, by comparison, is parasitic ... therefore the Jewish question must be resolved in every Aryan country."
Some 70 percent of the Netherlands' 140,000 Jews perished in the Holocaust.
After winning promotions within the Waffen SS, Heerema became assistant director of an organization that rounded up unemployed Dutch workers and resettled them in Nazi-occupied areas of Eastern Europe, where hundreds died.
After a falling-out with his German superiors in August 1943, Heerema disappeared until his arrest in Switzerland in March 1944.
After his release in November, 1946, he headed to Venezuela where he began a new company and rapidly achieved success.
As a postwar industrialist he was credited with such important innovations as the semi-submersible crane vessel for work in rough seas.
He became a multimillionaire and member of the Dutch elite, but questions about his past resurfaced periodically until his death in 1981.
The new ship, to be used for laying oil pipes and decommissioning North Sea oil rigs, will be 1,253 feet long and 384 feet wide, making it the world's largest in area, and the heaviest at 210,000 tons, Allseas says.
It said on Oct. 24 the financial crisis would not prevent the ship's completion in 2012. It said it has reached agreement on around $250 million worth of contracts and is reviewing bids from shipyards in Southeast Asia to build the hull.
The tax break prompted Sharon Gesthuizen, a lawmaker of the opposition Socialist Party, to put formal questions to the Economic Affairs Ministry on Oct. 28.
"Do you see it as your responsibility to protest the naming of this ship, given the extreme sensitivity of the historical events that are connected to that name?" She asked.
The ministry has two weeks to respond.
From Associated Press and AOL

Whaaaa!

2008-11-09T18:23:00.005-05:00

What a weekend. You know you're on the rocket car to dork town when you find yourself excited about the prospects of spending the evening listening to NPR's Wait Wait! Don't Tell Me and Say Anything and doing laundry. In my defense, at the end of this laundry party there's my girl Rhea, a Homemade pizza, and a bottle of wine, but seriously folks this has been a doozy of a weekend. Friday I realized that I double booked my two part time jobs. The realization of that fact at 8 in the morning nearly sent me into a panic attack. Now, a normal person would probably figure it out and THEN inform all nessiary parties of the outcome. But instead Hilary, who is the current head of our film department and to whom I am the assistant (Job #2!), got these ~~wonderful~~ batshit crazy emails from yours truly:

Email One 9:53am

Hilary,

I did something really stupid.

I'm on the work schedule at my other job for 2:30-6 today and I didn't notice until now because I am an idiot. I am calling the other people at work to see if someone will cover. If someone can't cover for me I have to go in. I will fix this. I am so sorry. Between this and the flyer mixup I feel like an jerk. I promise this will be the last "thing."

Chris

Why am I so self depricating? It's like. IN CASE YOU DIDN'T NOTICE I AM A F*CK UP

Email Two 10:10am

Please disregard my former message of incompetence. I will see you at 3pm. Should I be there early to help organize? I get out of class at 2:15.
I'm sorry about that email, sometimes I get anxious when I feel like I put things out of my control.

Chris

So what exactly am I doing here? The email is 20 mins later, when Ginevra said she could cover my shift. (thank you thank you thank you degerotype goddess of my heart.) Why couldn't I just have waited to send the e-mail. It's like my first impulse it always to FREAK OUT instead of say...considering the actualities and true nature of the situation I find myself in.

So the event that I had to go help at that night went fine. The rest of my daylight hours were spend in Migrane hell in the dark UNTIL I felt alot better and decided to go spend the rest of my night hanging out with Jeff at his place. So I descended from my apartment, only to discover that...

My bike got stolen.

The bike that was my moms and that I loved forever is no longer in my possession because some ass decided to cut through my chain and take it. I called the police and filed a report but I am just like UBER bummed about this whole event.

I can't even type about it I'm so friggn' distraught.

That being said. If I find the individual who took my bike I will make them rue the day learned to ride. By breaking their legs. kidding. kind of.

Saturday was better, I worked at Scribbles and had some beers and good talk with friends who I hadn't seen in a long time.

Which brings me to where I am now. Listening to NPR and drinking smartwater.

Isadora, Multimedia Dance Piece

2008-10-26T19:49:00.004-04:00

Boy! It's been such an epic gap between updates! In my defense though, there have been a ton of new developments in my personal and kinoeye (ie moving image making related to camera work) life. Midterms hit me with vengeance and though they all went well they took up most of my extra time and left me fairly dead to the word and unable to post.

So, since my last post I've been keeping pretty busy. I was a PA for a commercial shoot with Verde Group which was a cute little two day gig. They're a great little VT based indie production company owned by a husband and wife, so it was local.

I've started working with the choreographer Susan Levine, doing the experimental videography for her dance piece titled Miss. We're using this really interesting program called Isadora.

Here's a little video that explains what it does and how it works:

Should be pretty cool. I'll keep you updated. Check out Troika Ranch, they do a lot of really dope multimedia work.

Turn, Twist, Wrench

2008-10-02T12:31:00.003-04:00

if you clip the wings of a dragonfly

it will contort on the wood floor, until someone kills it

flapping in desperation

unable to move properly, only to squirm

that’s what’s in my gut

I can feel its rise, like mutant ecstasy

shattering my concentration

ripping through my grey matter like gojira

rising, born out of my shadowy depths

…breathe slow.

lest the beast overtake you

fingers on collarbones tapping constantly

with the part and parcel and whole twisting inside me

digging teeth into cuticle flesh

and gnawing the inside of my mouth

like a trapped animal trying to bone-saw an appendage

sacrificing a limb to save it’s own life

the unrelenting hum in my brain, sturm und drang

warnings of danger long-past or never-was

memory, open now

I remember convincing myself of suffocation

on route four, in the morning, in the traffic,

in the car, driving to work, having to pull over

I wanted to climb out the window in the filthy truck stop

and scream

the tsunami has reached my shores

it blows out my mind

I’m acting weird and my hand starts bleeding

the blood filling the empty space between nail and flesh

there is no escape, it’s inside your head

and the congestion of people is so frightening

even familiar faces, like masks

vulgar trauma personified

till my whole self, wrenched by dread

barely cognitive

is sucked through the wind-tunnel foyer

out the door, into the night

expelled onto the porch

invisible, sweating, pupils narrow

cold air makes me shudder harder

…breathe slow.

delicately, strand of hair by strand of hair

I unmount my terror, and open my pack

Don’t you know that’s bad for you?

Excuse me, I only smoke so I can breathe.

squish and crunch

a rocket out of horror

It's wednesday. Rhe and I got food

2008-10-02T01:22:00.005-04:00

Some things that happened:

Terror

Permanent Trauma, wtf is up with this mask?!

I bought delicious mushrooms. From the co-op guys, seriously.

City Market Co-Op has the best produce man. Organic and local goodness baby!

Even the bag is heady and recycled and edible!

Good Girls Love Yogurt

Cake Mix for a dollar!

I menace Cliff with a mixer!

Rhea's mouth

Obama is a Trekkie

2008-09-29T21:50:00.001-04:00

"One of the presidential candidates saw me and gave me the vulcan signal. It wasn't John McCain." - Leonard Nemoy

I need me some action jeans!

2008-07-30T11:18:00.000-04:00

List of My Favourite Words

2008-07-28T22:50:00.004-04:00

1. Aberration

2. Atomic

3. Aperture

4. Beatific

5. Brain

6. Betwixt

7. Belladonna

8. Clandestine

9. Clever

10. Climax

11. Casanova

12. Cluster

13. Door

14. Dystopian

15. Dirigible

16. Dialogue

17. Death

18. Ectoplasm

19. Engendered

20. Ecstatic

21. Exoskeleton

22. Fever

23. Fig

24. Foe

25. Ginger

26. Grave

27. Gizzard

28. Happenstance

29. Haggle

30. Hand

31. Ichthyosaurs

32. Ignoramus

33. Idiomatic

34. Ice

35. Ink

36. Juniper

37. Juxtapose

38. Jingle

39. Knuckles

40. Kipper

41. Laudanum

42. Lux

43. Lithium

44. Mighty

45. Minx

46. Marvelous

47. Narcoleptic

48. Nifty

49. Never

50. Orgasm

51. Open

52. Oval

53. Panegyric

54. Pantheon

55. Polymath

56. Posthumous

57. Popcorn

58. Quixotic

59. Quagmire

60. Queasy

61. Rage

62. Ring

63 Ravenous

64. Ritzy

65. Sasquach

66. Shallot

67. Sea

68. Sacred

69. Tremble

70. Transverse

71. Tinker

72. Underwhelmed

73. Union

74. Ugly

75. Vapid

76. Vortex

767. Virile

78. Vista

79. Vanguard

80. Whimper

81. Wallop

82. Wonky

83. Wiggly

84. Xenon

85. Xerox

86. Young

87. Yearn

88. Yammer

89. Yes

90. Zephyr

91. Zeitgeist

92. Zipper

Gabba Gabba We accept you...

2008-07-27T14:33:00.004-04:00

Lately I've found myself deeply interested in the history as well as the current incarnations of the circus side show. Though it is plagued with pain and alienation I've developed a real respect for the people whose lives I've come to learn about. It wasn't a simple life, especially for these people who were often treated as human chattle, yet many of them persevered and developed in the face of adversity in a time when society at large wanted nothing more from them then to gawk and stare. These were people who were often deeply intelligent and sensitive but had to figure out ways to protect themselves from the public at large. (Though at the time I'm fairly sire that the public at large was convinced that it was they that needed protecting.) Here are some of my favourite performers that I have discovered...

Mary and Elizabeth Chulkhurst were a pair of conjoined twins born in 1100 (before the advent of the freakshow) to a well to do family in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, we might not even know of their existence if it was not for the fact that they sold molded cakes with their image on it. These were sold with the profits going to the poor and needy in their area. When one passed away the idea that they should be separated was postulated, however the surviving twin rejected the notion saying "As we came into this life, so shall we exit it." Though really with the quality of medicine in 1100, who can really blame them?

Here's a picture of the cake mold.

Another character in sideshow history that I quite admire is that of "Clifford Thompson" or "Count Olaf" the 81/2 foot tall norwegian farmer from North Dakota. He was often billed as a descendent of the King Olaf the Viking, and was thus a "Viking Giant." I can practically hear P.T Barnum rubbing his hands together from here. Aside from the distinction of simply being one of the tallest people ever on record Clifford was a member of the Elks. He was also a dairy farmer and would often endorse milk at county fairs holding a sign that said "Look what milk did for me!" Later in life he earned his law degree in under two years and was thus the tallest practicing lawyer on record. Though he married dancer Mary Mars, who he met while in Barnum's show in 1939, I can't find a record of them having children.

The last person I'm going to talk about today is my favouite. Zippy the Pinhead was a Liberty Corner, New Jersey native and the catalyst in my interest in the sideshow as he is in many ways a favorite son of Jersey. Famous for his unusually tapered head freak shows would tout him a a micro-cephalic, yet he displayed none of the educational difficulties associated with the disease. In fact Zip, as it would seem, was a shrewd showman, using his unusual physical appearance to pull his poor African-American family out of poverty. After he had ceased touring with both Ringling Brothers and PT Barnum Zip settled down in Coney Island. During his exhibition time there Zip once saved a young girl from drowning in the ocean off the boardwalk. After rescuing the girl and returning her safely to her parents Zip disappeared to avoid the accolades of the crowd. It seems that this man, who would often screech and howl behind bars in a furry suit as a "missing link" felt uncomfortable with being on display in the more average sense. Or maybe he was afraid it would blow his cover as being of inferior intelligence. In fact Zip's last words were to his sister, "Well, we fooled 'em for a long time, didn't we?"

13

2008-07-22T18:03:00.001-04:00

He was calling out to her

2008-07-18T13:39:00.002-04:00

It was only after the gun went off that she truly knew what it meant to be alone.

save a life,
no faith in love,
my sickening vice,
grows larger everyday

2008-07-15T23:45:00.001-04:00

working on something longer. will post soon.

gore

2008-07-13T23:47:00.001-04:00

When she woke up, with the sheets all covered in blood she knew something was very wrong.
But the real question was...where was the rest of the dog?

started this instead of writing tonight

2008-07-13T11:41:00.004-04:00

i'm going to the movies to see hellboy2 now.

have i filled your shoes with lead darling?

2008-07-12T00:07:00.005-04:00

virginia woolf filled her pockets with rocks

i read her last letter and i decided to take a bath

in the bathtub her ghost came to me

told me that my egomaniacal self absorbtion was the result of the mtv generation

i said i didn't have cable and that she was crazy and maybe she shouldnt bother me in the tub

she handed me a razor

i shook my head and said that if i was going to die it wouldn't be naked

she said maybe i should think of the people that i bring down and make depressed

i said that i wasn't her and if she felt guilty regarding her husband that was her business

but it made me think unsettling things anyway

i hummed the little song i sing to myself in bed

I don't exist I don't exist I don't exist

and i submerged myself waiting for some answer to come from this lukewarm baptism

i just got cold and the water got dirty

virginia was getting impatient.

can you at least hand me a towel? i asked

no.

i explained that i was american and twenty one and lonely and had writers block

and that combination made one too lazy to make decisions relating to the cessation of ones life

she said it was a clear cut lack of commitment to my craft

and i asked her if she wanted to watch eraserhead with me, it's pretty fucked up and you might like it i told her

she said ok, but only if i would consider hanging

i said i'd think about it just to shut her up

she handed me a towel

she's a huge david lynch fan now

and she doesn't bother me in the tub anymore

What're you screaming as if it's the end of the world?

2008-07-11T01:14:00.002-04:00

when i wake up around one am i can't even function well enough to vomit.
i keep wondering if this is all that i'm good for, and I remember you and the little house and the phone call.
there is something worth fighting for, i tell myself, something more important than work at noon or making a chicken soup. there are all-night-conversations and stars and wrapping blankets around the two of us on nights that ware almost-warm-enough-but-not-quite. i think back to before we were lovers, when we sat awkwardly in my tiny bedroom watching movies. lying foot to head on that twin bed. did you know that when it got too late I thought about asking you to stay? now after these two months of solitude i really honestly regret those few months of lost nights in your arms? I can't sleep anymore without you really. when I do the dreams are full of the sheriff and of sleep paralysis and nightmares

please save me baby. i'm dying here without you.

its still 21 days and I have no place to live but the bottom of some bottle that in the end makes me teeth feel fuzzy and my heart feel sore. I keep trying to escape my loneliness but there is no escape but you,

you said you'd call. I guess you didn't have time. and that's ok.

21 days

and tomorrow i want to take a fucking bath

The night the metal heads shattered the window.

2008-07-08T23:23:00.003-04:00

By the time he arrived it was too late. The plasic solo cups were strrewn about the living room and the place stank with the acridic air of burning cigarrettes. Pushing his way throught the crowd he searched the living room's bumping and grinding bodies for his pink haired roomate.
"Elise! What is going on?"
She turned, smiled and appeared at his side on a wind of burbon.
"It's a party, dumbass."
She handed him a flask. He looked around and realized that he was in a sea of people that he couldn't escape and that he would never be able to get out of his house. He took a swig.
"Atta boy! You'll have fun."
Suddenly she made a ridiculous face and gestured double thumbs up as if she were the Fonz.
"I'm gonna get you laaaaaid!"
Nicky sighed. This was going to be interesting.

A Poem that is Half by Ben and Half by the internet

2008-07-06T03:08:00.003-04:00

Nuke The Fridge.
Jump The Shark.
If they can make art into schlock.
I can make schlock into art.

Considering Canada

2008-07-06T03:07:00.000-04:00

Crinkly Roses

2008-07-04T23:27:00.002-04:00

The flower,the last he gave her, dried to a crisp long ago and spun in the bud vase from the draft coming in from the window. She was waiting for it to fall apart. When it did, maybe her heart would stop breaking.

A note

2008-07-03T00:37:00.002-04:00

reading the last few entries...i guess i'm feeling a little trapped in the house. I don't know why. I went to a movie today.

I'll be back in VT soon.

disfyn-shui

2008-07-03T00:24:00.003-04:00

the cookbook rips in half
a break in the heretical text
allowing the real question to slip away
like a rat through a crevice
bones chatter
and night blooms, a black flower
damask prints, and missing links
this house is a tomb

A mayfly really in the grand scheme of things

2008-06-28T23:25:00.002-04:00

Sitting wrapped in her towel she tried to remember a time when she didn't feel trapped in this old house. It's gingerbread trim and bright colors should have inspired some other emotion, but it didn't. When passersby would stop to talk about the towering Victorian's history her mother would gladly oblige with dates and the names of previous owners, but to Alice she felt like a brief blip in the life of this house. A fly on the wall, and it made her queasy and produced feeling of unwelcomeness. When she was little she would pretend that she was a princess in her turret room. The days of such imaginings were gone. She counted the days before she left for University.

diary 2

2008-06-26T15:55:00.001-04:00

I exit the book-store clutching my copy of the diary of Anis Nin like a talisman against some unforeseen danger. The sun blinds me upon exiting into the street, and the crowds of people milling bout along the long brick avenue make me dizzy. My contacts bother my eyes and I curse my vanity that forces me to wear them even though they pain me. As my eyes adjust I see Jenna standing. She is, as she always is, resplendent in her ease. She stands in a floral skirt and sandals, her jet-black hair, dark skin and composed bearing remind me of the grace of the Indian women I see along the streets. She fumbles with a lighter and places a cigarette to her lips. This fumbling, I know, is the result of nerves. I inspect the scene with more care. Standing in front of her is Hunter, a former boyfriend, who has all the vulgar earthyness and bearing of a steel worker. Her hands flit and her mouth smiles but I can see the weariness in her eyes. He cannot. I suddenly feel so very protective and defensive of her, which makes no sense. I don’t desire to posses her, she interests me as she is, but this protectiveness bothers me and I do not know why. I approach her and she doesn’t notice me until the last moment. I am her escape from this unwanted conversation and when she notices me I can see the thought flicker through her mind. Her shoulders relax and she makes the excuse of our date to leave. As we walk down the red colored street the crowds of people that were so offensive to me suddenly melt away. I am elated to step by her side and wonder why she has this effect on me. We pause while she speaks to some people that we both know, but I am quiet, Jenna loves to talk and I let her, which is probably why she spends time with me. I watch her put out her cigarette on the sole of her shoe and I notice that her toenails are painted a florescent green and it reminds me if Sally Bowles from Cabaret. We had planned to get a drink, but she tells me that she has no money so I promise to buy her one. We enter the nearest bar, which is full of people and dark. She weaves through the crowd and finds a table at the back. Men stare at her wherever she moves and I am not envious. I always shrink from the masculine gaze, it makes me feel uncomfortable and uneasy. As if I am being analyzed and dissected, open and naked. Yet she seems to thrive, to blossom under the gaze which utterly destroys me. As we sit together and she talks of her difficulty with men. The difficulty being that there are too many. I want to hold her hand. I don’t. That kind of closeness that seems so easy for most women eludes me. My mother calls me a cold fish, I think it’s just emotional reservation that comes from being an over-sensitive child.

Ghost in a Teacup

2008-06-26T00:15:00.003-04:00

She picked up the fragments of the teacup off the living room table. It had survived so many moves between houses and apartments and cross-state trips and now it lay in two halves. It was her own fault for leaving it in the living room where everyone got drunk and played games and had the kind of discussions that involved large sweeping arm gestures. She had just wanted some piece of her history in the community space like everyone else, but her history was laying there cleaved in two. She hadn't even been there to see it break. Even the cup itself seemed faded. She remembered buying it at the garage sale with her mother before they started fighting so much, when she was little and was still convinced that one day she'd grow up to mosaic the kitchen walls with sea shells. She would glue the pieces together but the cup would never again hold water. It seemed so appropriate, because it the early afternoon light, in the dirty living room, she felt as though nothing could stand the test of time. The dreams were just ghosts in that teacup, and now even the ghosts had nowhere to hide.

She felt naked.

Chlorinated

2008-06-25T17:57:00.000-04:00

The corporate courtyard fountain re-pumps it's water again and again in an endless loop. People ask me again and again if I'm OK, if I'm tired. Yes, I am exhausted. I am that cheap concrete fountain, recycling old joys in a glass cage courtyard. The water, stale and septic, reeks of chlorine and prays for rain. But even this water will evaporate, and I too will return to the lakes where I belong.

Monday, June 23, 2008

2008-06-23T23:36:00.003-04:00

There was nothing left. The houses had crumbled. The streets had grown over with weeds, their winding tendrils reaching over the tar that had become sticky under the sun. The corpses had long since rotted away, the bones bleached in the sun. The silence was unending and thick. There was a sickening wet crack and a tree crashed to the ground. It proved beyond any doubt that a falling tree makes noise, even if not a soul is alive to hear it.

Dean Koontz interview with Newsarama.com

2008-06-10T22:09:00.002-04:00

NRAMA: In the larger view of your works, many of your novels contain genre elements. Were you a comic book reader as a kid or did they or their stories influence you at all?

DK: I was never into superhero comics. I was fascinated with Tales from the Crypt and that sort of thing, and also with Scrooge McDuck and his endless battle with the Beagle Boys. Once I began having success with novels, I really had to restrain myself from building a giant money bin, filling it with coins, and driving around in it with a bulldozer.

I've never been a huge Dean Koontz fan but this might possibly be enough to make me want to read his book Frankenstein: Prodigal Son. It's being adapted into a new comic book by Chuck Dixon and Brett Booth.

LadyKiller: A Short Film

2008-04-05T13:09:00.001-04:00

Bizzare Moments In Comic Book History

2008-03-11T19:18:00.008-04:00

Lately, I'll admit, I've been addicted to stumble upon. Spending hours upon hours clicking the stumble button. Looking at the bizarre things that people put up on the internets. My favorite things to find however are the old comic book covers that seem to make little or no sense. It seems to go a little like this, Stumble: hilarious prat fall, Stumble: Scenic Photos of India, Stumble: GIANT GREEN NAZI GORILLAS!!!

No Kids I'm not joking. At what point did Hitler go, "Fuck this, it's giant green gorillas all the way!"

Or perhaps this classic moment...

Yes, ladies and gentleman, his superpower appears to be taking sterioids. And Wearing really shitty white hotpants.

Yet nothing hits me like this one...

HENRY THE NEIGHBORS CALLED AND THEY ARE CONFUSED. I'm confused why he wants to confuse the neighbors and why he needs a BOOK to do it. Who the hell wrote this tome? Is there a market for texts like these?

This too gets honorable mention...

Why is she a nurse at a castle and where did she get such a dope cape. I want it. Want want want.

And for the finale...

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE THE LIGHTNING!!!!!!!!

In other news, I am in Jersey and Drew is coming tomorrow to hang out for a few days. We're going to the MOMA! Hooray!

Cool as Hell! Find Credit:Stumble Upon

2008-03-08T00:31:00.001-05:00

Why didn't I think of this?
Now officially part of my memory castle.

Link to original blog: http://www.curbly.com/DIY-Maven/posts/3688-The-Amazing-Staircase

Video Blog # 3

2008-02-28T21:38:00.003-05:00

Hey yall. I know it's been a long time, but as you are all aware this is frequently the last thing on my to do list and therefore often gets pushed onto the next one and the next one... Just suffice to say that things have been really really stressful lately. I'm running on all caffeine and it's taking it's toll on my sanity. On the bright side boyfriend-face Drew is considering starting a blog of his own! WOOT. I'll keep yall updated. WATCH MY VIDEOS

BAFFLING ASPECTS VIDEO IS UP!!!!!

A New Short

2008-02-20T19:50:00.001-05:00

Based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Eyes of a Blue Dog"

Just Kidding

2008-01-29T18:08:00.000-05:00

I love the song hash pipe apparently

lolzorz

So for some reason my party shuffle decided to only be Hash Pipe. I came home from old english translation and there it was. Suddenly my computer was the guy at the party pretending to be the guy at the party who listens to indie rock to pick up chicks. my computer was a frat-guy-at-the-party-pretending-to-be-emo.

oi vey. I'm sorrry it's been so long between posts. First I turned 21, which was pretty awesome. I don't have too much to say regarding that except I had a nice party. Here are some pictures!

Ok so then I've been wicked sick and then I had to make up piles of work...I had no blogging time. Let's leave it at that. I am planning on some really cool video shorts this semester at school. It seems like it's going to be a lot of fun. I've rediscovered coffee. Coffee is amazing. I was all into Tea, especially chai, forever but now coffee is my drink of choice. I may or may not be turning into Henry Rollins.

I had a crush on him in highschool. Which explains alot about me actually.

I'll be posting a vblog friday, but now I got work up to my eyeballs.

Peace

heath is dead

2008-01-22T19:08:00.000-05:00

Heath Ledger Discovered Dead in Soho
Posted by Michael Clancy at 5:55 PM, January 22, 2008

The actor Heath Ledger was discovered dead, pills sprawled around his naked body, in the Broome Street apartment of Mary-Kate Olsen, the NYPD said Tuesday. According to various news accounts, the 28-year-old Australian actor appeared to be a victim of an accidental overdose or suicide.

The NYPD released a short statement that did not mention the actor by name:

ON TUESDAY, 01/22/08, AT APPROXIMATELY 1530 HOURS, IN THE CONFINES OF THE 5 PRECINCT, POLICE RESPONDED TO 421 BROOME STREET AND FOUND A M/W/28 UNCONSCIOUS. THE VICTIM WAS PRONOUNCED DOA AT THE SCENE. M.E.'S OFFICE TO DETERMINE THE CAUSE OF DEATH. INVESTIGATION CONTINUES.
Voice film critic J. Hoberman had this to say about Ledger in Brokeback Mountain: "But moony as Gyllenhaal is, he's only barely able to hold up his side of the equation; it's the self- contained Ledger's repression and scary, sorrowful, hard-luck rage that fuel the movie."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

his last film was the dark knight

oh man this whole thing is whole weird

UPDATE COMING SOON!

2008-01-17T21:57:00.001-05:00

image from NatalieDee.com (she's pretty much a rockstar)

CHRISTMAS EVE. THIS IS WHAT I WILL BE DOING EATING COOKIES FOREVER YUM

2007-12-24T12:00:00.001-05:00

Drew and I

2007-12-23T15:25:00.001-05:00

Short Story to Become a Short Film

2007-12-22T17:38:00.001-05:00

Rainier lay breathing, her face planted in the cold snow. She lay, contemplative of the sensations around her. She felt the melting of the snow under her warm live body. The metallic taste in her mouth was from her bleeding nose, she watched the cardinal stain spreading on the snow before her face. Her arm lay at an odd angle up the hill behind her. Wind stirred the trees. She closed her eyes for a moment.

Jack waited on the side of the road looking for a ride into town. He was careful about who he let give him a ride, they had to be just right. No truckers or men alone, he would only stick out his thumb for little families and women. Hippies were alright too. His general rule for hitching, and he had developed quite the list of rules was “Nobody I couldn’t take down in a fight.” Though this generally spelt more walking for him, he didn’t mind. He was in no rush, nobody in town was expecting him to show up. He’d been gone for almost three years now. Traveling around the country, working seasonally on farms. He’d saved up some money traveling light. Jack considered this his grand adventure, there had been no rules, no one to answer to. By now, he surmised that he was certainly off police radar. His infractions had been minor mostly but after the last big job he felt like it was time to move on for a while. Yet something had drawn him back to the town where he had grown up. A car pulled down the lonely north-eastern highway, around a curve of snow heavy pines preceded by a cold gust of wind, a young woman was at the wheel. Jack stuck out his thumb.

Rainier ran panting through the woods, she didn’t look back. Her legs screamed out in lactic pain, she couldn’t stop. Fight and flight had surely kicked in now and there was only the gnawing on instinct on her mind. She sprinted at top speed down the path. Pursuit she though almost blandly, was inevitable.

Jack was surprised when the car pulled to the side of the road. His face, reflected in the passenger side window of the car looked scraggly, dark circles ringed his eyes. The window rolled the glass slowly down, revealing a petite dark haired slip of a girl. She smiled brightly.
“Hey stranger, where you headed?”
Jack shifted his rucksack on his shoulders.
“Just into Burlington.”
“Well that’s where I’m headed!” she grinned “One stop excepted, if you’re in no hurry I’m your gal.”
Jack grinned, “That’ll be just fine Miss.”

She was out of breath, her asthma was catching up with her. The path divided, which way did she have the best chance? She knew that there could be no escape. A hunter never lets go of wounded prey. The trees about her stood like thin dark tombstones, marking places long forgotten. Rainier chose a path and dashed.

“Unusual name, Rainier. After the mountain I suppose?”
She smiled at Jack, he seemed nice, a little down on his luck, but a good guy.
“Yup, hippie parents, the whole deal. Anyone expecting you in town?”
“Not a soul,” he said leaning back into his seat relaxing. “You know it’s dangerous to pick up hitchers on lonely roads don’t you?”
Rainier smiled again, “Well Jack I used to do a fair amount of hitching myself. Mind if I turn on the radio?”
Jack grinned, and ran his nicotine stained fingers though his hair. This was all too perfect.
“Sure thing missy.”

The hunter had caught up with the prey, the shovel slammed down over and over. Screams of pain reached nobody’s ears this far into the woods. The deep red splattered all over the snow, bits of skull and brain clung lovingly to the now crimson shovel. The colors were perfect. So perfect. Everything had been, just as the hunter dreamed it would be. The satisfying crack of skull, the pink mists of blood, and the chunks of brain stuck in dark hair.

Rainer turned down the radio.
“You mind if we stop on that trail up ahead? I’m a photographer and I want to take a few pictures. There’s a little brook not too far into the woods.”
Jack was pulled out of his daydream in disbelief.
“Sure Rainer.”
He always liked to say a new person’s name a few times, it helped to get their trust. She pulled the car over to the side and he got out.
“Would you mind running round the bend of the path and grabbing me a trail map? I want to make sure I don’t have us wandering all over creation.”
Jack knew that his little name trick had worked, she was so trusting already. He walked around the corner and out of sight of the car.
Rainer went to the trunk, and unlocked it with the key. Moving the large camera aside, she grabbed the rusted old shovel. She took a deep breath and prepared herself for the hunt.
Besides, who would miss a drifter?

prelude to a massacre

2007-12-22T11:38:00.000-05:00

Her boots were dusty and her jeans were dirty but that wasn't what told sam she was from a place far from here, or no place at all, it was the top of a tattoo that peeked from under the back of her shirt. It sat there, calm, and half hidden, but there was no mistaking the shape. On her skin sat a cathedral window, but instead of depicting a bible story each window had a symbol he had never seen before. He followed her into the gas station's little general store. People opened up to him easily, he could get her to say something. But he was dead wrong...

As per my request: Sofi writes the Ballad of Issac Hayes

2007-12-18T21:17:00.001-05:00

Vlog 2

2007-12-14T19:58:00.000-05:00

Holiday Party 2007

2007-12-12T01:58:00.000-05:00

And so it was said that she should only make the face of metal in her party photos!

Oliver is the male version of me.

Tomorrow! WILL BE AWESOME

Well about Damn time! Halloweeeenie 2007 Pictures!

2007-12-09T18:54:00.000-05:00

all of these were taken by The Lovely Miss Ginevra Shay

vlog1

2007-12-07T19:57:00.001-05:00

Alan Moore isn't taking my calls...

2007-12-04T09:40:00.000-05:00

Well as if by magic, I was browsing the webs yesterday to find that Alan Moore's The Watchmen is now in production. Terry Gilliam said that the film was too complex and ditched it, saying it would do better as a five hour mini series. (CORRECT!) Such wonderful ideas have been thrown around while this project was in development hell like " Arnold Schwarzenegger as Dr.Manhatten! Brilliant!" or KEANU REEVES. like at all. Who ever even suggested that Keanu be in the watchman is an idiot. UNLESS BILL AND TEd ARE MEETING SUPERHEROS KEEP KEANU OUT OF IT.

I'm mad tired. There are finals all over and I can barely type.

c to d (tower of london version)

2007-11-19T01:10:00.001-05:00

D,

I assume that you will probably receive my text message before you read this, but if that isn't so "I am back in New Jersey." Exausted and feeling a bit like I smell of airplane but overwhelmingly Alive, which is a good thing. It was rainy and my flight was delayed, the resulting wait wasn't as bad as it could have been however and I was much releived. Once in the tiny airplane I came to the realization that there was only myself and twelve other passengers. I sat alone with not one single person in sight and since I had my book and my journal this suited me fine. The flight felt longer than it's 50 minutes but we did fly through a storm and I must admit it was pretty thrilling. I could look out the window and in the flashes of bright white light that mark the wings of the plan for others see the raindrops miles before they hit earth seemingly suspended by the strobe. It was really fantastic, I wish you had seen it. It was a like a sneak preview of these little drops that hadn't reached the earth yet.

My family seems well. There is now a cheerleading bumper sticker on the car. My sister is more like my mother every day. I feel strange and old here like I don't quite belong. I am wearing stupid pajamas. You'd laugh if you saw me. They are warm though. Did you know that the root of "pajama" is persian? It derives from "leg pants." My question is, of course, are there pants that are not for one's legs?

I miss you. I am going to write you another letter on hotel stationary. If I meet Alan Moore I'll tell him not to let anyone make his comic books into movies. Especially Watchman. I wish neil gaiman still lived in london, I could sit outside his house chanting his name and asking him to teach me his ways of writing wave to him.

I'm Exhausted, and I found my pocket edition of Dracula.

Yours,

Chris

shut up

2007-11-01T15:22:00.000-04:00

no one's impressed you fuckwit.

2007-10-24T15:03:00.001-04:00

Haloween!!!!!!! IS COOOOMING

2007-10-24T14:48:00.001-04:00

When I was little I desperatly wanted to be Morticia Addams, because I mean damn she speaks french is a botonist AND can take on Gomez in a sword fight. I asked if I could be her for halloween and my mother suggested that I be Wednesday instead since the Morticia costume would be hard for people to know what I was. I was indignant and said that I just needed a dress like hers. "The one that makes you like this!" I said and then proceeded to outlines a tiny waist and large hips. My mom had a hard time explaining to me that it wasn't the dress, that it was just the way Morticia was. I was crushed. I was a nun that year and for 2 years after it.

weirdest 5 year old ever.

Guys, Dumbledor was Gay.

2007-10-20T01:32:00.000-04:00

Weird

http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=c2b40da2-2406-4e8f-bc89-6fc11d1b0e41

I guess I thiught of him asexually...like merlin or gandalf. I guess merlin was a little sexy.

hmmm. I'll have to think about this

I can't help but think that this reminds me of my whole school

2007-09-25T09:22:00.001-04:00

2007-09-10T19:56:00.000-04:00

I wake up absolutly terrified some mornings. Shards of nightmares lie on my pillows and keep trying to consume me whole throughout the day. It's this nagging awful feeling in the bottom of my heart. Weights around the ankles the whole thing. The thing is thats even heavier than that is that it's become glaringly obvious that I don't relate well to people. Even with people that I consider friends I consistanly feel distant and pull away from the group. Maybe it's a combination of being anxious and stressed out.

The thing that really gets me is taht I should be happy and well adjusted and all thet crap, but I'm beginning to think that I may be a genuine misanthrope. I dunno, when I feel this down I think that Ponch is the only one who can understand me. Who is Ponch? Here's a journal entry from 18/02/2004. At this point I was on LJ and in a "change the names of my friends" kick, so I keep refering to him as "donald" but it's Ponch.

so tonight i went to a party and i got there pretty late and everyone was drunk with the exeption of zandra who never drinks and donald who used to have a problem with that sort of thing so he tries to avoid it. The moment I walked in I could see that there was somthing bothering Donald, he had that look in his brown eyes, that darkness, the dull pain that somtimes comes into them, crowding that inense caring. All that in warm brown. So I asked his about this place he told me about once, some cliffside nearby where you could see everything for miles, including the New York skyline. He said he really couldn't give me directions but one day he woulsd drive me there. Then he looked thoughtfull for a moment and said "How bout now?" I nodded and we went off, leaving the party very much confused. Climbing into his car I could feel his heaviness weighing on my chest. We sped off into the blackness, 10 miles over the speed limit, and I asked him "Whats wrong, talk to me." And we did, about people and life and his college audition untill we pulled into the parking lot of a church and parked. We walked a-ways and climbed up a steep hill and then, the city, our town and the towns next to it spread beneath me liek a blanket of stars. The sky opened up and extended into infinity and there I was, standing next to this boy surrounded by the most intense beauty that I had ever seen. And I hugged him in appreciation. We stood there and continued to talk and I was SO infinite it was incredible. Then some drunken kids came up there and Donald and I decided to leave. We got in the car and drove back to the party. I wrote a little poem about Donald and then I noticed a little argument break out, apparently a girl Laura was drunk and wanted to drive home, which we wouldnt let her, so I drove her home in her car while zandra tailed us and then I got out of Laura's car and zandra drove me back to my car and I Drove home, calm and happy and hoping that everything for Donald would end up in bliss.

Tonight Donald asked me "Why are you so good to me?" and I told him "Because I like you." I wish...I dont know, he posseses this amazing gentle beauty of the spirit that I never see.

The main theme of this entry is that I feel like shit, and I don't want to write right now and just want to be left alone.

With My Glasses Off

2007-09-03T15:56:00.001-04:00

I step out and close the door.
Car headlights blossom like fungi,
growing in size as they pull away
Leaving behind the gentle ache of bitten, dirty fingernails
Try to tell yourself: if there is no kindness and courtesy there must be something.
I am not convinced anymore.
Stop talking about me like I'm a tinfoil valentine.

Mantra.Mantra.

2007-09-02T00:05:00.000-04:00

I am not allowed to feel down when things are going fine.

New Baffling Aspects Short Film is UP!

2007-08-25T14:18:00.001-04:00

In Which: Oliver Gets His Drunk On, Steals My Camera and bothers sophia, who is asleep.

2007-08-18T19:52:00.000-04:00

I really wish I could give these some witty caption but really, Oliver is just insane. I didn't even know that he took all these until i was uploading all the pictures from my camera and they appeared in the midst of photos from the cliffs and of flowers.

He's a real nutcase Oliver, and how Sophia didn't wake up for any of this I'll never know.