Archive for the ‘Frivolous Nonsense’ Category

hi-dee-ho

March 4, 2010
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tri-x in mamiya 645af pushed a stop. shortcake in a friend's playroom (best playroom ever!)

 

 

My brain is an absolute mess.

The kind of mess where you don’t even know where to start.  Not that I’ve ever been any good at cleaning.  Not that I intend to declutter this cranial disaster.  I’m just letting you know, in case you don’t just automatically default to that assumption.

And so besides showing you this (awesome, if I do say so myself) photo, I defer you to Shel.  No, really.  I want you to seek out The Missing Piece, even if you’ve read it a million times before.  And read it.  Aloud.  And maybe even sing the singing parts.

I like books with lots of big words.  But this truly is one of my favorites.  I get something different from it every time I read it.  Ahem.  I mean, read it to the kids.

My Experience

March 1, 2010

There are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is consistency – and a virtue; and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency – and a vice. (Mark Twain)

tri-x 400 mf film in mamiya c330, shortcake
tri-x 400 mf film in mamiya c330, shortcake

I often chastise myself for my inconsistency, despite my apparent tendency to praise it.  Or maybe it’s the other way around?  And I don’t, in self-pity, mean inconsistency in skills, but in interests.  

This is not yet another defense or justification of my fickle-ness.  (There are far too many of those on this blog.)  I’m just sharing my thoughts.  I won’t even quote Emerson.  I promise.  But I might quote William Blake.  Yes.  I believe I shall.

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained. (William Blake)

I do not have weak desires.  And I have many—some yet restrained, some not.  Here is where I am, regarding a few of the unrestrained ones:  1) in love with this film, and with putting bits of light and shadow on it.  2) in love with my novel again, and with fixing and strengthening it.  3) in love with this new guitar, and with building up these finger calluses.  (not only can i sort of play and sing my funny little nonsense song, but i can also sing and play “blowin’ in the wind,” and so how sexy is that?)  4) in love with pencils and ink and watercolor paper, and working on a new drawing.  5) moonlighting, obviously.

When I think about it, there is this annoying grown-up in me that wags a finger and says things like, “Stop this frivolous nonsense!”  and “Do the dishes!”  and “Go to bed before 1:30 AM!”  and “What is the point?”  and “If you would just focus, maybe you’d finish something.” and “Be responsible.  Make money.”  But when they are quiet, which is most of the time, there is myth and art and music.  And I can’t quite remember why that is a problem.  Myth and Art and Music!  I don’t want to remember why that is a problem.

So, to answer the annoying, finger-wagging, grown-up-me; there is no point, really—that is the recent epiphany.  The only purpose of all of “this” is simply to share my experience of It with a capital I.  If my whore-ish muse wants to flit and float, who am I to stop her?  This is how I experience it: an overwhelm of inspiration and emotion and passion and . . . everything.  And I do what I can to express that experience, simply because I want to.  It’s never enough, I’m never enough, it will never be enough, and yet it is.  And I am.

So there.

. . . and post a cute picture of my kid.  See?  Just like you thought I couldn’t.  Suckas.

Except in the shot, he has just told me that he is Anakin, who he likes because, of course, Anakin goes to the dark side and becomes Darth Vader.  And maybe that’s not normal.  And maybe it’s not normal that it makes me proud when he says these things.  And so, just forget the whole normal thing, already.

mini-me + light saber on tri-x in mamiya c330

mini-me + light saber on tri-x in mamiya c330, neg scan

I’m glad my villain-loving genes run strong in him.  There are other similarities, too.  heh.

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And to quote Nina’s little boy, “I like being negative; that’s my favorite of all!  Oh OK, I’ll be positive when I’m done being negative.  Now, as I was saying…”

And so as I was saying, the villain is almost always my favorite, too.  Not only are they just plain cool, but they’re also just so beautifully complex.  Right?  Surely you have a favorite villain.  Tell me.  And your answer can’t be Terri Fischer.

nightmare

February 8, 2010

hi.

excuse me please, while i have a temper tantrum.

i am just all whiny and piny and altogether feeling like throwing things and screaming.  strangely enough, it’s not a terrible feeling.  i think it would feel really good and not at all negative.  the negative part is not being able to do it right now. 

hmpf.

so over the weekend (this is not the temper-tantrum.  just my exposed soul, is all.)  i had the worst dream i’ve ever had.  not one of the truly terrifying ones; no loss of a loved one or anything.  i mean like gory, horror-flick style.  i am still quite amazed at the twisted horrificness (nope.  not a word.) that came from the depths of my subconscious.

i’m going to tell you about it, which is sort of a problem because a.) it’s just nasty and not really inspiring blog material, and b.) if you were so inclined, you could analyze a road map of my inner workings.  and i don’t want you to know.  i really don’t.  and yet, i’m telling you.  (idiot.)  so look away if you must.  i will have a lovely guitar-playing, dread-headed, tube-sock-ed girl to post soon, and you can just hold out for that if you came here hoping for loveliness.

this is not lovely.  and also it is long.

there was more to the dream in the beginning, but this is where it got ugly:  it was my first day back to work as a nurse.  the hospital building was dark and there were no patients in the rooms.  the hospital was also sort of a dormitory and maybe a church and had a mental institution vibe.  i stood with three other new workers, and we wondered what we were supposed to be doing.  we figured out that we had been assigned to some experimental project that had, that night, been suddenly abandoned.  the phlebotomist came onto the floor and asked where all of the “scions” were.  (i should note that i woke up from this dream wondering where i came up with the word “scion.”  i can’t ever remember hearing it.  googling it gave me the chills: a descendant or offspring.  a shoot or twig from a plant for grafting.)

we told the phlebotomist that apparently, the project had been abandoned.  she stared at us in horror, then relief, and went running, full-speed, from the room.  slowly, the “scions” or patients or subjects or whatever began to wander into what was like a large surgical area.  they were sort of zombie-like and bloody, but cordial enough.  (ha!) one doctor was with them, and it seemed like he was trying desperately to save the experiment, and he took a few of them into the operating room. 

somehow we new workers ascertained that this experiment or whatever it was was intended to help the human race live to its highest potential.  the scions were people who were dead or dying, their bodies (but not souls) salvaged by some new medication.  the surgeons, we learned, performed procedures not unlike lobotomies, nipping and scraping off different internal organs, trying to find the right combinationfor their ambitious goal.  some of the patients ended up being exceptionally “good,” or moral, after a procedure, some gained genius intelligence, some could actually fly.

as we were learning this all (maybe the surgeon was telling us, as he operated?  i don’t remember), a beautiful blonde woman sat up on her surgical table, her chest oozing new blood upon the old dried blood.  she was screaming and screaming in agony and pain and sorrow, pointing at a stainless steel table across the room.  there, on the small table, sat her heart, bloody and beating.

i backed away slowly, half-listening to the doctor explain that things had started to go terribly wrong.  i quickly found a set of many open doors, and walked outside into a group of scions.  i was about to just walk away, the fresh air felt so fabulous in my lungs.  but i noticed the scions staring at the humans playing in the snow in the distance.  the other workers were with me, and we decided that we could not just let these things escape.  there was a definite sense of martyrdom:  “save the human children!”

suddenly we workers all had bloody swords, and we ushered the scions inside.  it all got really terrifying, then.  they were disgusting and putrid and it was a bloody mayhem amidst the surgical steel hospital equipment.  there were too many, and there was no controlling them.  it became every-man-for-himself, and i was running, opening doors that led only to windowless rooms, finding small openings and squeezing through them only to find another room, often dorm rooms or classrooms or apartments.  i would search under beds for trap doors, climb into empty elevator shafts, scream and pound on locked doors.  it was endless, and each new escape led to another prison.  and all around, there were scions.

at last, i found myself in a darkened hallway, dark rooms with locked doors everywhere.  i noticed the sword still in my hand, and suddenly remembered a rule that i could leave if i took a scion outside with me.  there was a woman in a lobby trying to deal with the chaos, and i was trying to show her my xeroxed rulebook, to point out the rule about escape.  but she could not hear me.  i grabbed a bloody scion anyway, the sword to her neck, and suddenly i noticed a glass window open a crack.  i could hardly contain my emotion.  it opened onto a rooftop, but we were a story or two above that.  i had to muster the courage to jump out, and to kick out the entire window so both of us would fit, but i was desperate, and left with no other choice.

i kicked, i jumped, and then beside me, (real) Shortcake woke me up.  i couldn’t even find the courage to look around the room.  i held my little teddy bear girl and shivered.  to take my mind off of the dream, i imagined a story plot about secret lovers sending letters to post office boxes, and a granddaughter discovering them.  i didn’t go back to sleep for hours.

how bout them apples?

Cue Obsession

February 2, 2010

grace1914

This is a photo of my great aunt Grace on the beach in 1914.

How gorgeous is this?  I could stare at it all day.

Except instead of stare at it, I’m going to develop a roll of film and print out staff paper. *

Because I’ve got my music back. 

I don’t know what happened, but some dam burst in my head.  And suddenly, it is all MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!

Actually, it’s rather annoying.  I mean, seriously.  I must have ADD.  Just do one thing already, right?

But the damn . . . dam.  It’s as if it was always there, the MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC! building and building and building, and it just reached this threshold, and fwooooosh.  I can’t really stop obsessing about music right now.  It’s quite obnoxious.

I do tend to be fickle, of course.  And so, surely this too shall pass.  But for now, there is nothing more pressing in my life than to learn to play the electric guitar, and more specifically, to play this one song on it.  And maybe one or two more.  Luckily, I know a guy.**

It was impossible to not be musical growing up in my family.  For as long as I can remember, up until I left the house, it was always MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!  For the rest of them, it still is.  But it hasn’t been, for me, for whatever reason.  I mean, I’ve got a piano sitting in my living room.  And I play it sometimes.  And I’ve even played this one song on it.  But the full moon, and the thought of an electric guitar, these were the last two straws.  Or water molecules.  Or whatever.

fwoooooooooooshhh.

I’m not predicting future mother-of-four rockstardom or anything.  Just, MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!MUSIC!  until I’m bored.

 

* You should know that I forgot to pick up Mowgli from school while searching for this.  Doesn’t the red flag for clinical psychosis have something to do with being unable to perform daily tasks?  shit.

**I’ve known these people for a couple years, and never took the time to listen to their music.  Don’t make the same mistake, go listen right now.  Scroll down and find Hello, Hospital.  RRRRRRRRRRRROCK!

“STOP!  THIS FRIVOLOUS!  NONSENSE!”

This is how it began, my mild obsession with those two words, hearing them shouted in a strained voice by Mrs. Blue.  Actually, she did not shout.  Ever.  It was more of a slight and painful elevation of her perpetually monotone speaking voice.  Those of you who remember her, who were also students in her English class, or who knew her as my ex-boyfriend’s mother, know exactly what I’m talking about.  (You also know that she has a different last name, but I’m trying to be somewhat coy here, people.)

The poor woman.  She was probably trying to inspire us with Shakespeare or Camus or Emerson or Thoreau, forgoodnesssake.  What kind of numbskulls could remain uninspired by such genius?  A bunch of stupid teenagers, that’s who.  I was passing a note, someone was making pretend obscene noises, and someone else was farting for real, and she snapped.  God!  I would have, too!  Except my f-word would not have been “frivolous.”  Hers was. 

“Stop this frivolous nonsense!” she cried said.  Oh, the poor dear.  It really pains me now to think about it.  I feel guilty, of course.  But mostly, I feel, as I felt then, pity.  I remember the silence that fell over the room.  I remember thinking, I hope I am never ever as miserable as that woman.  I also remember thinking, what the heck does “frivolous” mean?

 friv-o-lous [friv-uh-l uh s] : –adjective 1.  characterized by lack of seriousness or sense: frivolous conduct.  2. self-indulgently carefree; unconcerned about or lacking any serious purpose.  3. (of a person) given to trifling or undue levity: a frivolous, empty-headed person. 4. of little or no weight, worth, or importance; not worthy of serious notice: a frivolous suggestion.

So I looked it up, and decided that frivolous actually was important.  I decided that if I did not include plenty of frivolity in my life, I’d end up as miserable as Mrs. Blue (who, by the way, made the most delicious rhubarb pie, was the first person to really encourage my writing, and was a genuinely beautiful person beneath all that monotone).

I fight with that conclusion, with my love affair with all things frivolous.  I talk to myself when it comes up (which is often).  Why are you crocheting a doily?   Because it is fun.  But you have more serious things to do.  True Art is serious and important and has a capital A.  But, look!  It’s turquoise!  It is still a fucking doily.  What if we call it a mandala?  Because it goes in circles?  Loser.  Stop this frivolous nonsense.

And, so, aha!  There you have it.  There is this young bratty kid inside me that comes to poke around when big important philosophical intellectual spiritual Artiste is around.  And she’s like, wheee!  Let’s do something pointless.  And so sometimes, I do.  I don’t know if it is the wrong thing to do, an evil distraction from some grand vision.  But I simply cannot take myself so seriously when there is this inner wild child bouncing around, begging for frivolous nonsense.

And so I honor that inner brat by making this frivolous print my first etsy listing.  Also, it is yours if you contributed to this frivolity.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! 

wildx

nevermind

January 26, 2010

well

whatever

nevermind

(Nirvana)

tri-x in mamiya tlr

tri-x in mamiya tlr on a foggy day in November

I think I promised something in that last post.  Well, whatever, nevermind.  I meant the next one.

I shot several frames of play equipment on this roll of film.  Looking at all of them made me think about how much fun kids have going around and around and up and down and back and forth . . . and that they’re OK doing the same thing emotionally. 

That’s all.

frivolous nonsense the first

January 24, 2010

 I’ve just crocheted a fucking doily.

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A doily!  If that fact does not inspire you to conclude that there is something  s e r i o u s l y  wrong with me, then I’m sorry, but there is something  s e r i o u s l y  wrong with you.  And, I mean, I didn’t even do it well.  But here is the worst part.  Oh, I don’t even know if I can say it.  Here I go.  Letting it out.  Confessing . . .

I liked it.

OHMYGOD !!!  The shock and horror.  I, too, am gasping aloud.  It is just shameful.  I am ashamed. 

In my next post, I am going to try to desperately salvage my honor from the bottom of this stinking pile of shame.  I’m going to tell you the story of “frivolous nonsense.”  Perhaps, then, you will understand my compulsive desire to frequently do nonsensical things.  Perhaps, then, you will forgive me.

But since we are on the subject of frivolous nonsense, check this out.  Have you heard of formspring?  Pretty please ask me a question.  It will be fun, in a frivolous-nonsensical way.  Maybe.

Also, I am going to start replying to comments via email.  “That’s all I have to say about that.”  (Not in a big-dramatic-I-can’t-say-anything-dot-dot-dot sort of way, but in a I-really-just-have-nothing-else-to-say-regarding-that-subject sort of . . . way.)

Also, I did not forget about you brave warriors who contributed to that failure of a New Year’s story we tried to write.  I’ve finally decided what I’m going to send you and I’ll show you with the next post.  But I need your addresses!

Happy Monday, or Happy Last Few Hours of Sunday, whichever applies.

(ohandbythewayiamgoingtostarttakingclientsagainandalsoimopeninganetsystorebutillgettothatlaterokbye)

 

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 from my moleskine today:

{yes. there are dishes and there is laundry and there is the floor, which Karen Maezen would suggest attending to attentively.  and zen . . . . . “meditation” according to the man in orange robes is “doing what needs to be done joyfully mindfully etcetera” but it always seems like this is the thing that “needs” to be done and so then what is the other stuff?}

 The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.  ~St. Augustine

(and / or )

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.  We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.  ~Henry David Thoreau, “Solitude,” Walden, 1854

 

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cutest snow-capped sunflower ever, digital

 

<<<—-Tell me this isn’t the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.

Dead lil’ sunflower, wearing a cap of snow . . .

This particular plant was sowed by the birds at our bird-feeder this summer.  Somehow, one flew to the exact location at the back corner of the house that needed a little decoration, and dropped a seed from its beak.  We returned from vacation to find a sweet little sunflower plant growing there. 

I find this so much more inspiring than landcaping (although I have got high hopes for my magnolia this Spring).

I see this photo as a paradox: wild and free, versus buried in snow.   But, Nature herself  is a hypocrite.  Snow is wildness; it is Nature.  So, it’s all good.

(I’m confused.)

Anyway.  The point is, I’m currently experiencing this crazy mix of both wanderlust and a desire for hermitage.  I feel, comfortably, a bit dead and snow-capped like the flower.  And, like her seeds, I’m feeling the distantly approaching Spring like an itch.  At the same time, visions of travel are dancing in my head, as I’ve mentioned.  I don’t need fancy travel, I just need to roam.  I need no souvenirs with which to boast, no intelligent well-traveled conversation material. 

JUST GET ME THE HELL OUTTA HERE!!!

Now, wait.  Let me defend this spontaneous outburst.  I don’t need to flee.  I am very adept at fantasy and coffee dates and other diversionary tactics of escapism from this mundane domestic life.  Truly, I would be perfectly happy to sit and cozy (as if it were a verb) and read and doodle and veg for days and weeks on end.  This wanderlust is not cabin fever. 

It’s just an intense desire for the unfamiliar.  I cherish the familiar and the ordinary and the everyday.  But the feeling of being blindsided by the incomprehensible scale of that mountain, or merging with the warmth and depth of that sandstone canyon wall, or the feeling the strong pull of that ocean current . . .  Oh, that.  I need me summadat.

And soon.

But, apparently, nobody seems inclined to donate to my wanderlust fund.  So, whatever.

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