How each part will proceed...

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

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.

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

Dork Rap

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

Flies, Pie Charts, and Instructional Videos

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!

They call it shooting for a reason...

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.

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

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

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

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

#1

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

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.

Gorehound

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

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

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!!!!!!!

you so crazy