Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

things yr gonna do


  • start a workshop series
  • host movie night
  • host writing group
  • host salons
  • host art hours
  • make an installation show
  • write a script
  • make a zine
  • publish an essay
  • release an album
  • tour a show
  • write a biography
  • Sunday, October 14, 2018

    florida party dream

    rachel smith's birthday party at her house. it's a lot of people, feels like a lot of people more mature than our crew. then again are any of the other nola folks here or is it just transplants from my memphis group that i'm finding here?
    dexter, rachel's son i've never met, probably 4 or 5 here although he's gotta be almost 10 by now, removes his pants and underwear and runs away from me giggling. i think it's pretty funny too but the adults are generally aghast that i haven't been able to keep him under control. so now i'm chasing him around with the pants in my hand, trying to coax him to put them back on and feeling generally incompetent.

    somehow i end up in the bed in my pajamas? was it a sleepover? the room doesn't really feel like rachel's room although i guess it's supposed to be. the mattress is on the floor along the back wall, and i can see out to the backyard through the windows when i turn around. everybody is out there having a good time, partying, pool splashin. i realize i'm wearing my pajamas (blue firefly shirt) so i look for my bag to put on some real clothes and join the festivities. all i can find is some real dumb shorts i don't like and my floral crop top i've only worn once. i don't want to put it on. do i? or maybe i just go out there in my pajamas and people judge me okay so what. or maybe i'm just distracted by talking to people out there and i forget that's the problem. lots of pals here, lauren dunn, kat, brett, morgan, hunter daniel?? definitely others but i can't remember specifics. i think mallory is here too.
    at some point i remember that rachel recently broke up with another boyfriend who was a narcissistic addict, another mean drunk. i want to find a time to commiserate with her about that, but i don't know when i'll be able to, with all these people around. i've barely spoken to her.
    i need to get in the pool with everybody else, go back to digging through my bag looking for my swimsuit. it's not there, i probably didn't even pack it, but i'm poking around through piles of stuff on the floor and the desk and now that i think about it, it kind of has the quality of one of the video games i played with jerel this week-- moving through the actions of searching in order to go to the next scene. i'm also exhausted somehow. (by now i've been snoozing my alarm clock and/or getting woken up by dogs and then falling back asleep. in real life i know i need to get up because it's getting really late but i guess i'm pretty tired and there's also this sense of things i need to finish in the dreamworld.)
    so in the dream i fall asleep on the bed again. are there dreams within the dream? there must be.
    i remember i'm standing over a desk looking through some papers and i see an infographic about making art and suggestions for process. one header says something like "THE TALISMAN" but maybe not that, it has a picture of a pink clock. it's talking about the important of the initial inspiring words - but actually it seems to be about more than words - it's about the moment that you receive inspiration for a project, or the moment that something clicks, and having a physical object or image that recalls that moment. keep it with you or keep it in your work space to hold onto the source of the feeling. of course this is sounding very obvious typing it down, but it felt very useful in the dream. especially since i don't have a damn process and it's so hard to say "artist" and i didn't learn any of these tricks.
    at some point rachel is standing over me on teh bed, maybe this is even a nightmare within the dream because she's distant and seems irritated with me, but rightly so considering that i'm sleeping through her birthday party. her green eyes are piercing, so vivid, her hair is currently dyed a deep auburn and her hair is long and wavy at her shoulders. she looks otherwise just the same, same rachel i loved so long ago. i guess everything is pretty fuzzy but her eyes and hair are nothing but clear, in the sharpest focus. i remember i remember.
    my body is so exhausted but i have to get up. i look out and i think hunter daniel is gonna play some drums or someone is performing music in front of the pool. it's getting a little darker out now. maybe i fell asleep again. i look up and people are singing karaoke. i can't miss this! I've gotta sing!!! finally i drag myself up, now it's as if the wall has melted away and people can talk to me in the bed from the yard, i can enter and exit this way. brett sees me sit up and calls, "alanna i need your help judging this karaoke contest! come over here!" although obviously i've missed all the performances so it makes no sense for me to judge, which i think i realize. i dip down again, exhausted, and when i sit back up, brett is awarding morgan and two other friends (rex?? kat? i don't remember but they're good buds) who are dressed up as makeshift crystal gems with rainbow fabric skirts and sashes. felt or construction paper hair. they're overjoyed to be winning and i can't believe i'm missing this. how does it keep happening?
    as i'm walking out, morgan is coming in, she says that so and so loaned her this bathing suit and she's done with the pool (at some point before, brett has said "Everyone's done with the pool" ???) and i can wear this loaner suit. it's hideous, tan masquerading as gold, and maybe with sequins. it's actually familiar, i think i've worn it last time i was here (but i never could have been here) and i hesitate because of how it looks (so vain in this dream!) but put it on anyway. finally i walk to get in the pool but find it mostly full, and although it turns out there's a second pool (duh) a few feet away from teh first one, no one is know is here. i am trying to participate but seeing my friends all having fun just beyond reach. i try to make small talk with these new people but i feel awkward and stiff. standing in the corner of the pool facing the other pool - see a little tiny brown spider (but a kind of electric blue outline?) skip across teh water into our circle, very fast. we all overreact, and try to splash it away from us. it lands a few feet away, on top of what i quickly realize is another spider just like this one-- only it's 10 times as big. monstrous!! i look around the pool and it dawns on me that there are critters everywhere. little squat brown toads that could've been rocks, sitting neatly on top of the water. wait that oen's not on the water, it's on top of a fucking tiny ALLIGATOR. well, it's florida after all! and i guess we are partying in the swamp!

    ((this seems like a good image to hang onto for space submarine commander, although saying it out loud to jerel, they said bog witch. good point. and funny that the dream told me to find the image to hang onto-- i think that's probably accurate for both SSC and bog witch. i fucking wish i had a fucking WORK SPACE where i could hang some images on the wall and have a place to freakin think and dream and work. help.))

    Saturday, June 23, 2018

    run with the wolves and make art

    respond !

    be wild

    be stupid

    if you're thinking too much you're not able to be creative

    don't use fear to avoid the river

    work EVERY DAY no matter what

    notebooks. pens. pockets.

    get the fuck off the internet

    Sunday, May 20, 2018

    looking at these tiny ass photos on my phone and trying to choose which one has the best light and the best composition and the best arc of the foot i am grumpy that i'm staring at this screen and not 8x10s hanging from clothespins in a dark room - why did i have to be now - why are my retinas burning and corneas damaged from staring always at these screens
    why am i always saying the same thing
    somebody make me write a sonnet
    how many chances can i get to say it

    Sunday, January 21, 2018

    do you remember the children's book "frederick" by leo lionni?

    the good feeling i've been riding took a dip last night and i'm worried it'll run away and i still won't have pinned it down at all. it's so hard to even believe it enough to say it, or if i manage to find the words, they'll become only that, and the feeling will fade. but now that it's a question it's better to just do it... right?

    i can already feel myself overthinking this. that is the last thing i want to do. what do i have? i have these fast fast fingers and i can type my brain better than i think! i can write the words my mind makes up! i can sound like a real me in text! (i know because laylee told me that 15 years ago and rex told me so today and so i have to BELIEVE or what if i lose it or what if there's something important i could be doing that i miss because i haven't done anything about it. you know.)

    it's so hard to believe. it's so hard to let myself remember what i'm good at.

    BUT after xmas after snata craws and rodent carols and another round of GREAT GROUP i was near convinced, i clowned for myself in the mirror and i was able to get there which surprised me - but why should it? donna said not to look at ourselves to practice our turns and i totally understand that advice. but so often when i look at the mirror and i see this strange face and i think this can't possibly be me or be real or be anything at all, and i just shut down. for so long i have turned away i have pushed my nails into my palms to unsee i have gritted my teeth and pushed breath through to see to be anything else. now i find that in the times in the late night in the mirror i can explore and see what this body can do. i can see how to find the biggest expressions of the face, i can elasticize.


    FORGET FORGET FORGET

    i forget. i forget who the body belongs to. i froget we frog together. the mirror thing, with the perfect dissociative cocktail, surprises and delights. the mirror thing becomes elastic, electric, fantastic.

    the thing that hurt to look at, the thing i could never understand how to belong to, i find this thing, when stared down, goes wild. it can't behave and doesn't want to try. it wasted a lot of toilet paper.

    this is only partially a new discovery. the feeling is in the body, some of it is already memorized. it's burning embers in there all the time, even though i forget.

    i guess i'm rambling now. the important part is -- i have gotten so tired of beating myself up for being bad at stuff. of course that sounds very reasonable written down in such a way. but the things i'm bad at are things that many people find necessary to function - eating, sleeping, organizing belongings, remembering information, simple math, wearing clothes, forming words, etc. i don't really want to care about being bad at all that mess. it happens or it doesn't. i can't remember the names of important people or pretty much anything i learned in school. i can't remember why i hate mother teresa until i look it up on wikipedia (and promptly forget the facts again, but i remember the feeling).

    i remember the feeling i remember the feeling i remember the feeling

    i am toying with the idea of applying to physical theatre school. i am considering how to make my body into a rubber band or flower. i want to be able to squeeze everything out of the present moment and explode it out of myself. i want to roll around and jump and shriek and freak and confuse the fuck out of people. i want to present another way to be.

    if not me, then who? if not a someone with hardly any logical memory but great arches, then what am i even around for? surely someone out there is gonna do it. surely they could stand some company.

    this was all made abundantly clear, several times in fact, right around the winter solstice. as it turns out, that was right when i was completing my first saturn return - and perfect timing to say fuck you everybody, i don't care what you think, i can see so clearly what is important. (reminder of what is important: friends, love, art, magic. this is an incomplete list but you get the idea.)

    morgan got back in town for the holiday and wanted to go out to the bar with friends. she picked the so-called irish pub, not knowing that a bunch of us had gone there for trivia the night before (don't worry, we lost) so many of our group didn't come along this time. and it ends up me & brett (& later kat) in the weirdos corner with morgan's most type A segment of friends all crowded into the booth on the other side and all i can say is "YEP here i am again indeed, oh and what now? i'm doing an in depth study of mental health, now that i'm back from the loony bin" and there's nothing like a night like this to remind me how much i don't want that life, with the husbands and the babies and the business casual luncheons. UGH writing that is so obvious i could just spit on myself but no no that is most of the world and i think i can be allowed to write it down occasionally. the important part here is that i maybe felt a little embarrassed at first and especially trying to explain wtf i'm doing with myself, yes back in memphis, yes living with my folks, yes again, but more than ever, i feel like answering this questions is more a nuisance than anything else. i don't really care if they judge me for the answers. i don't really give a fuck what they think, truly. are they judging me for being practically unemployed and living with my parents at 30 and oh ordering another drink this late? yes they definitely are. and am i judging them for being salaried breeders who always vote democrat? yes i definitely am. so we're even.

    i'm tired of the waffling shuffling pretending i can play for both sides. when i lived in baltimore i felt like 2 people in 1 body-- a demure, polite, if slightly eccentric, part-time librarian with sensible shoes and nothing but patience, and a barefoot feral drunk at the local anarchist commune / urban farm (except not even totally that because i still had to make sure the bills got paid and be The Sensible One which is not me at all and was boring as fuck).

    i'm tired of fucking around with that world pretending i can play along. i just can't hack it.
    i know i know i don't have it. i'm far from it. it's been six months now since i got out of the loony bin and came home. it doesn't feel like that long but i know my folks are getting antsy for me to figure my shit out and get a move on. meanwhile i don't want to rush making a decision because that is what keeps getting me into messes, it seems like. but i think i'm getting somewhere this time. maybe.


    when i was a kid we lived in a small bungalow house in the artsy neighborhood of town, before it got gentrified. the dining room in the center of the house had 8 walls, branching off to the front hallway, our bedrooms, the kitchen, the bathroom, the back yard. "the octagonal room" was the true center & the heart of the house. at that table, my mama accidentally served us inedible cake decorations at the table. at that table, we grew crystals for SIX WHOLE WEEKS on plastic toys & charcoal for a science fair project. and under that table, most importantly, we made our own world. no fort could compare to the one on the persian carpet, table cloth on all sides, and pillows snatched out of beds. what did we do under there? i'm not quite sure but it was all magical, always, because it happened there, in the secret sacred space.

    that's the space i want to create for people. if i am not here to take people under the table, i'm not sure what i am doing at all.

    ***there are other worlds there are other worlds there are other worlds* and they are all around us**

    now i've got 3 glasses of wine in me and i still haven't packed so. i'm annoyed bc i dont think i even said what i was trying to say. or it all come out wrong. fuck all. the point is, i am frederick. (or i wish i were.)

    Tuesday, December 26, 2017

    debacle

    i was already anxious about rodent carols but now it's completely bungled. it feels like everything i'm part of goes horribly wrong. like i'm obsessed with collaboration but i'm potentially the element that is always complicating destroying everything. there's almost something clownish about it. like i really really want to make it work but my wanting creates the complication. is it better not to bother? or does goodness come from the effort? i'm not sure which at the moment. but leaning towards the former.

    Saturday, December 16, 2017

    jumble

    let's be real. i have always been a feelings person. my strength comes from my empathetic side.

    why has it been so hard for me to find my way ?

    some of it i'm blaming on adhd. especially now that my head is more clear and i'm not so depressed i can see patterns better. i focus intensely on something or fixate on an idea for a few days and then move on, for whatever reason. i have not focused long enough to specialize in anything.
    it's not only adhd of course but i think that definitely helps with the quickness and the forgetting. what do i do? even i don't know. but it means i'm good at hyperfocusing and concentrating super hard on one specific thing for an extended period of time - and then also being able to shift my focus quickly to something else. some of this maybe is just keen perception. i see all the things. i see the choices that make sense. (in simple logistical situations anyway. other times i'm a dolt.)

    the point is.
    the point is everything i already know but always forget.
    i am a feelings person. i am an art oriented person.
    i might be interested in things like sociology and herbal medicine and animal behavior but i have never had the drive to focus on those things long enough to really learn them. could i if i wanted to? sure but then i'd have to actually choose a thing. that is the hardest part.

    but when i think about learning something like clown or performance or dance i am just sure i could do it. in terms of my excitement and my confidence i'm all in. it's only REAL WORLD garbage thoughts that crush me. i should be doing the other thing. the real thing.

    HOW IS IT that i am still having this thought process even after being brought up on the value of art? how is it that my parents taught me that and yet they scoffed at every nonacademic artistic dream i ever had???? it's driving me bonkers that i'm just now realizing the full weight of this. i feel like other people's folks tend to swing one way or the other, like kat's parents consumed by their research or alice's music teacher folks. mine are some in between with my dad as collector/hobbyist who finally decided to try his hand at writing in his 50s, and my mama hinting at some vague dreams of writing or storytelling or some wisp of a memory of a dream so incomplete it is just dust, but still she's passing it off, urging us to write, to publish, to create, except no don't go to art school bc you need a job.

    oh it's just a mess it's a muddle. like the world like all our brains.
    and me always in the middle why ??
    does everyone feel that they're here?
    outside in the middle
    not right. not center
    caught between options until you're nothing

    this must be what everyone feels.
    but still for some reason everything is so hard for me. it all takes so much time. i can hardly get anything done. my days disappear. here i am still. driving my parents crazy. no more of a plan than i had in july. where did the time go? everyone tells me i'm doing so well, it's so good to take my time to heal properly, except my mama. why can't she let me do this ?

    i'm up too late. at this rate i will want to skip the social shit tomorrow but i guess i'd better not. damn. rot.

    Tuesday, July 11, 2017

    LIST OF DEMANDS

    • always pen + paper
    • only clothes with pockets
    • good art, better art

    Tuesday, March 29, 2016

    fuck it all.
    you are supposed to be an artist.
    you are meant to do it and you know that.
    quit comparing yourself to other people.
    quit trying to figure out where you fucked up.
    just DO.
    you gotta start reading more first and taking it all in.
    you gotta start practicing writing. that 3 pages a day thing. just go wild.
    you gotta start carrying around a notebook.
    and probably actually leaving the house so that you can get out of your own stupid thought cycle.
    maybe practice with an adaptation. turn a book into a play. or write a dream into a short story.

    Sunday, February 21, 2016

    while working on the concrete site

    this old stuff has me cracking up! I want to be funny again. I think I have it in me somewhere. 
    all these little plans. I need to dream big again. 
    I want to make magic!
    I'm so sad I didn't go to the earth first workshop. I want to find a way to create things. it's important! 

    I'm excited for my pen pal project. I need to write some emails. that will be a start of something.

    Wednesday, December 09, 2015

    night call

    i have a lot to say and a lot of need to say it. it's hard to make myself make time for writing down words. i usually write the first nugget of an idea, intending to continue later, and just never do. half the posts on this blog from the last year are unfinished, you can probably tell.

    i've just been sucked into an internet wormhole for the last 2-3 hours. my latest "hobby" is obsessively saving websites i like on the wayback machine so that they are PRESERVED FOREVER by great mother internet. this evening, the category was livejournals and yes you have to click through the whole journal to get every page archived, but there's a big chunk on the screen there so you can't do a whole lot of reading while you're saving, which is very irritating and not productive.

    first of all, i miss livejournal. which is blasphemous, i know, since i held out for so long and never really got so into it, always solo floundering about over here instead. but i miss the whole concept, people sharing such small thoughts and writing mostly for themselves-- for the exercise and for the document and for the hell of it. facebook has never been remotely close to that, and never will be. (that very thought makes me want to delete fucking facebook right now, but what am i gonna do, sit over there and be the only non-russian person on livejournal? no.) i wonder if people are still writing somewhere... online? on paper? word documents? and, are these people, are my friends and peers still writing at all? (other than the ones who are being paid to do it, the lucky beautiful bastards) or is it really just something that young people do? and i dunno, i guess i'm old, aren't they all on snapchat? or is there anything at all like lj for these kids nowadays. i'm saying.

    and also just seeing these quick flashes, each page a new season, the ups and downs, stresses and excitements, everything so huge and overwhelming, the passion, the potential. and what are we doing now? some of us took off like rockets, having seemingly always known exactly what we wanted. but the rest of us (the real "us") seem to roll along and dip and fall and land and roll along some more. maybe i'm mostly talking about me, but it seems that it's just hard to do the things we're meant to do and harder not to hate every day. i know we're living in a broken world within a spirit-crushing, oppressive system, but to remember so clearly, to look back at all your bubbling words and feelings and the THRILL and maybe you didn't know exactly what you wanted to do with your life, but you knew what it felt like. and we none of us could make it happen.

    i'm tired of blaming myself for not being good enough, for fucking up or feeling like one, for not having things "figured out." actually i do have it figured out dammit and what i figure is that this culture wasn't built for us and that's why we're broken. it's time to take it back. and i don't care if you think it sounds stupid because it's fucking true, and if you know it's true, you won't think it's stupid. so let's fucking go. i'm tired of seeing my friends with tense faces and old news and it fucking kills me and i'm so sad that you're not loving your life because you're the best and i want you to have everything and i want us to build it beautiful together.

    my life is a goddamn wreck. OR IS IT??? the world is a goddamn wreck.
    i have experienced beautiful wonderful terrible things.
    i know there is a whole lot more out there than the tv would have me believe.
    i just ate a whole bunch of delicious dumpstered goat cheese and avocado on wheat toast and it was delicious and i loved it. the whole fridge is full and all of it was free.
    i've met real life witches and i've seen what's in the cupboard and it's amazing.
    i know i have to make the steps to change myself.
    first i'm moving to baltimore free farm, for the garden and the sweet gentle people and the warehouse event space and the evolution and the egalitarianism, and for john waters.
    but the moving, as i've learned before, is not enough. i have to craft a space for myself and my community, i have to create the things i want because they don't exist, i have to make it good.
    probably this means i will have to cut other things out, which will be hard, but it's long overdue.
    i'll jump off that bridge when i come to it, and i'll let you know how it goes.
    there are so many things i need to learn and if i don't start now, i'll be dead soon.
    i really do want you all to join me, i want us to go together. it'll be so much easier, and much more fun. and if not here, then where? what does the good life look like to you? how do we get there? what's stopping us?

    this is the end of the black cherry cider, and the end of the night, almost dawn. if i can sleep, i'll try for some good visions and if i remember, i'll write them down.

    Saturday, December 05, 2015

    on the road with Gil

    the time of being a culture people sponge is coming to a close. after the solstice, in the new year, I will curl into reflection, back to written words,worlds, follow pen and paper trails to make the story.

    I will follow up with my own ideas, goals, visions. don't let them down.
    I will follow up with new friends and comrades, keep connecting with the visionaries and the big beautiful planners. how can we all connect?

    seeing myself as a connector: bring people toward each other, facilitate meeting of minds and ideas for bigger goals.
    an organizer: making events come alive, planning for the big beautiful. MAKE it happen, no more waiting.
    this was always the goal: to create a beautiful world. to be my own ugly in it. to transform what ugly does.

    Sunday, November 15, 2015

    don't trust other people with your ideas.
    don't trust other people to know better than you about your things.

    i would've ordered a new charger, i would've shipped the old one to east wind.
    i knew the package would never make it in time, we'd be stuck here waiting or have to leave without it.
    we waited an extra day and we're still leaving without it.
    so i finally ordered new goddamn gear this morning, which i should've done immediately when i realized my idiot self left the charger in ohio.


    if you had told me you shipped the whole thing back to acorn, i could've ordered a new battery as well as a charger. now i'm down to one.
    yes it's better than nothing.
    yes really there's no one to be mad at but myself.

    and then why am i SO upset? what makes me take this SO seriously?
    (and yet not serious enough, i could've done so much more.)
    ((and yet so serious that i build it up and up until i'm too paralyzed to shoot))

    3 and a half months after i've started this journey and i feel totally unaccomplished and broken down.
    at first i had a lot of ideas for what i wanted to capture, my vision of my role.
    you all wanted heads talking with your own ideas regurgitated. nothing new, nothing true.
    after i adjusted to the reality, i still had lots of ideas-- what i thought would capture people's attention, funny videos and zines and things.
    you all crushed my ideas and i went ahead and finished killing them off.

    so where am i now?
    i felt so good about what i gathered at the midden. not great, but okay.
    i felt so good until alex said "let's do another interview once you've fleshed out your thoughts more."
    i felt so good until rejoice asked if i got exterior shots, after we'd left the state, after knowing that they took the house tour without me.
    i felt so good until my dumb ass left my battery and charger in the kitchen, right there in the wall, right where someone else plugged it in.
    i felt so good when i found mike's phone charger and packed it for him, how thorough i am! (a lie, i felt irritated that dustin had taken his phone and left the charger here, full well knowing this was mike's because he borrowed it, this is part of our party, this comes with us. and even now i feel irritated, surely someone in our crew saw the battery there in the wall, someone knew this thing should not stay in ohio.)
    i felt so good when this journey was an adventure, when i had a purpose, how i was alive and living.

    where am i now?
    i'm so mad at myself about the battery that i'm not present, not engaging, not actively asking questions or trying to learn new people.
    and i'm feeling like a grump, irritated by everything, constant frown.
    i feel myself faking it trying to let loose and it feels awful.
    i hope i don't have to go back on meds.




    back on the road, we arrive at Possibility Alliance just in time to catch a tour with a student group from Truman College. we're just a couple minutes late, so a visitor walks us out to a patch of grass where the rest of the group is gathered in a circle, popcorn-sharing the things we want to change about our world.
    Ethan wears a red baseball cap and leads animatedly, barely able to keep up with himself and the long strings of ideas he wants to share. some of the kids seem already bored or jaded, or maybe i just can't tell what people are feeling anymore.
    it feels good to sit in the grass, in the sun, to watch the cow and feel the eyes of other humble humans who are not (yet) communards, with a whole different kind of jadedness.
    as idealistic or radical or "crazy pants" as ethan might be, i'm still drawn into his words, jogging along after the chasing thoughts, i'm feeling this.
    "we look at screens more often than we look in each other's eyes. humans spend more than half of their waking hours looking at screens."
    i'm wasting my life, it's clear.
    ethan is adamant that we shouldn't feel too guilty about our own habits up to this point; that will only lead to more suffering, more pain. self-hate is not the solution.
    this is a hard one to remember.
    i can feel the others in my party are not so sold. rejoice has gotten this tour speech twice already and dustin's already checked out and "hopeless" (his words, his goal) at 22.
    as much as i'm feeling the impact of these stories, of being here, i can't get rid of the nagging consciousnesses of the other side.
    it's funny what impressions i have of the different communities before i get there. i guess i thought i wouldn't be interested in this place -- why, exactly? i can't recall now, and i can't remember details, just a vague impression.
    maybe because they have a "gift economy" which in Point A world is not as interesting or radical as income-sharing and therefore is null.
    maybe because it's just a small farm with one family in the middle of nowhere, missouri.
    but being here, maybe it's the college tour, i get the sense that they're engaged on a broader level than most of the other communities i've met. they host quaker meetings, craft nights, work days, straw bale building workshops and permaculture trainings. they just got back from a rally (??) in detroit for water rights.
    and they've done all this with ONLY a landline telephone and no other electricity.
    so what do we think we're doing???
    at every community i visit, i consider living there, if only for a moment. on this day, in light of all this mess, i wonder what my life would be like without electricity, without screens. how important are they and how much do i need them, really?
    maybe ethan is a crackpot and an idealist but isn't that what i've always wanted to be too?
    he asks us this question i've heard a lot lately-- if you could do anything, be anything, if someone waved a magic wand and you could have your dream, what would it look like?
    i never do know.
    i think that's a major part of my problem.
    it changes on the daily or it floats just beyond me, a shifting shape in the fog.
    what would happen if i cut it all out, the distractions and the phoneys and the plastics? would i find any answers?
    what if i learned all new arts, what if i learned a whole new way to be myself?

    i might want some of my modern things.
    i might want a manual typewriter.
    i might learn to build creatures and make worlds and take photos on film to tell my stories.
    i certainly will need my cat.
    i don't know what to do about that.

    for that moment when i imagine myself in whichever community, i can be anything, i have a whole beautiful life there for myself.
    and every life, in every land, is always different.


    i listen so much, it's one of the few things i'm really good at, that i value about myself.
    so often i hear you before you've spoken. sometimes i can answer before you've said it -- and then you interrupt me to tell me your thought and it was exactly what i thought. why can't you hear me??


    "Pandora was pretty dopey dude, she had pretty simple instructions. just don't open the box! stupid bitch."

    make this man stop butchering this song.

    Tuesday, September 29, 2015

    (found mind-mapping notes from Acorn, fall 2015)

    create new + better culture

    learn to dance again
    learn to write (creative non-fiction)
    learn to build puppets
    learn art history
    learn animation
    theatre

    DIY archivist / folklorist
    -document ephemeral culture and dying culture
    -oral histories, folk traditions

    be a better clown
    unlearn
    learn new histories
    tell untold stories
    -write historical fiction movie scripts
    -animate with morgan
    vaudeville revival / traveling variety show
    make zines
    write letters
    anachronism - move backward from electronics + technology

    Friday, May 22, 2015

    the porch problem

    when you think you are performing for someone but there is in fact no audience 

    when you try to create something for yourself but can't stop thinking about the impossible potential audience 

    why I never write anymore 

    why I sing only during dishes

    when will I learn 

    or figure how to forgive myself


    amy and I talked about the selfishness of artists and wondered if that's what it takes to make anything worthwhile. do I have to stop everything else? not that it is anything but I haven't written in weeks, months, years. what do I want anymore? can I blame the place or the job or just me?

    a borrowed beer on the porch, a beer too often. a smuggled smoke, ashes again. 

    these small sacrifices grow a larger harvest. they don't answer the questions or the problem. 

    where can I go? my home under the hill? I've almost stopped believing. 

    there's truly no place for me. 

    the truth is I'm stuck again and I hate myself for it. the worser truth is that I don't see any way out. even though there are people out there waiting for me, wanting me to bring the fire, I can't believe that it's the right fire. I only have one flame and it's gone out. nothing to be done now. 

    have another smoke, another drink, don't think.
    the porch is the only place you'll ever be, there's nothing here but what you see.