i'm sorry for you

one pot of tea and five champagne flutes

If you were to look me squarely in the face and say, "Why, dear, that can't be what you mean,"

I would look you in the eyes and sighing say, "Why, love, if only I could say so seriously."

fruit is a symbol of fertility. and fertility. and you can take that whatever way you want.

a little list for you:

gothic poetry

oversized mauve sweatshirts

golden rose earrings

playing paul simon on a broken guitar

cynical federalists

the prospect of eating breakfast pastries for dinner

my literature teacher in the jazz age

dead, gray flesh and dark, dead eyes

Collages courtesy of the talented Thomas Eggerer. My favorite is the first, because Adidas' little tribal skirt get up matches the colors on his car. Very classy. And I like his furry legs. And it is just a beautiful collage. 

let's defeat evil with an awesome dance party

Today made my life. According to some personality Harry Potter character match/quiz, I am Lord Voldermort. Tom Riddle. The Dark Lord. BEAST. And look at this wonderful photo of two of my favorite people, Harry Potter year 4 and Harry Potter year 7 of Harry and the Potters, or Paul and Joe, if you are like me and have been to so many concerts you know them on a first name basis. 

this craziness, also courtesy of Paul and Joe

my sister's old man computer she just brought up from the basement 

this pencil skirt 

and this piece of beautiful beautiful art hanging on my sisters bedroom wall, in a wooden frame she made herself. 

good use of eastern philosophical thinkers. thanks andrea.

really. i don't think you look familiar at all.

Today marks the beginning of a very long, very stressful week. I have too many articles to edit for newspaper, and by edit I mean tear down to quotes and bare bones and rebuild with my very own words. I have too many missing assignments from my week long pneumonia absence to make up, too many essays, translations, tests. And I have too many distractions (i.e. the office, chocolate milk, upcoming concerts, library volunteers). At least fall is one hundred percent here, and I have been celebrating with chai tea, sweaters, Neil Young, and great big books. And also red dresses that I will posting on soon. And, courtesy of a friend, I have discovered that I very much like Over the Rhine. Listen. 

 

listen to john and paul. not the apostles, the beatles.

These are by artist Andro Wekua. The color and the shape is great. There seems to be a theme of shadow and, I don't know, would you call it evasiveness, in the first four pieces. And then the last is out of place, more real, honest, maybe. Plus the women in the first four are all facing the right, and the girl in the last photo is turned left. I don't know, I just notice things like this. 

god bless this mess

this is sick. 

and i am in no way condoning homemade tattoos, which are not not not sterile and are a little disgusting. 

but this is some serious craziness sickness. 

from serps press, "home made tattoos rule"

trouble ye no more

Just read the most charming little novel, The Clothes They Stood Up In, by Alan Bennett. Mr. and Mrs. Ransome go out to the opera, and return home to find that they have been burgled. Of everything, leaving them with floor to lie on, baseboards to lean against, their opera clothes, and the contents of Mrs. Ransome's handbag. It involves beanbag chairs, dry humor, top of the line stereo technology, and some rather shocking plot developments. What else can you ask for, really. Read it in a day, it's only a little over 100 pages, and the characters are so beautiful. 

And here is what I did today:

bought a golden sweater. and also t-shirts, to be cut apart, torn apart and otherwise beautified.

took the PSAT, and, after discovering that i do prefer wooden pencils after all, walked around all afternoon with a number 2 tucked behind my ear, scribbling out long shopping lists. 

where the wind lieth where the wind dieth

the poem of my life.

Come lie with me and be my love  
Love lie with me  
Lie down with me  
Under the cypress tree  
In the sweet grasses  
Where the wind lieth  
Where the wind dieth  
As night passes  
Come lie with me  
All night with me  
And have enough of kissing me  
And have enough of making love  
And let our two selves speak  
All night under the cypress tree  
Without making love

by fabulous lawrence ferlinghetti. 

i am impatiently waiting for my american lit class to come to the beat poets. ah, to be separate from one's soul generation. my heart aches for late 1950s, early 1960s 

they save all the cheap desserts for the carry out anyway

We took my grandma to a sausage and sauerkraut dinner at a church somewhere, and there was a small band, and the old man with an accordion sounded just like Sinatra. And I had to tell the little German men that I wouldn't be eating any of the sausage because I don't eat meat. That was hard.

ten minutes in a library

by Kenneth Pobo...

I read fantasy and science fiction. My parents hope I'll gravitate toward Billy Graham's complete oeuvre, but no dice. Last week, my minister saw me sitting in a yellow chair in the local library reading Orwell. He sniffed, asked is this the kind of book that glorifies the savior? 
    Having no words, I smiled. He's not the kind of guy you can argue with. He has a wife named Millie. She's not the kind of wife you can argue with because she never speaks. She lives in a box and he takes her out each Sunday morning. After the benediction, he puts her back and stuffs her in the vestibule closet. 
    Vestibule. Who uses words like that? 
    He didn't smile back. He looked like a car that's been sitting in the sun all day in a mall parking lot. 
    "Well, is it?" he asked. 
    "I, I" still grinning. 
    In a black leather jacket and sandals, the savior dashed through the library doors, said hi to Mrs. Havens who nodded politely and went back to processing Mrs. Gill's library card, and stood before my minister. 
    "Leave this boy alone, you dreary old ratbag." 
    "I, I" still grinning. 
    My minister didn't "fall" to his knees. His knees dropped below the floor, through the basement, and ended up close to the center of the Earth. The rest of his body followed. 
    "But Lord, Lord, I was only...." 
    "I didn't come to Earth so you can nitpick about books. I came to... wait, why did I come? Well, whatever. What's done is done." 
    Turning to me, he asked, "Would you like to watch All About Eve with me?"
    I hadn't heard of it. He got positively giddy talking about how great Bette Davis was, how she this very minute was on the right hand of his father and they were having a gay old time trashing Jack Warner who was already trashed in hell. He did make the film sound good, but, black and white? How ancient. I remembered that the savior was ancient, that he reportedly had done a soft shoe with Adam in Eden while Eve went shopping. 
    "How does it feel to be ancient?" 
    "Many gorgeous things are ancient. Think of the Rocky Mountains. I made them and did a damn fine job of it. Satan is ancient too. We've tried to patch things up, but he's difficult. He says I'm difficult. He's a good poet, though." 
    "How does it feel to be perfect?" 
    "Less good. I'm always happy and at peace, a regular bliss cowboy, but there's little surprise. Every now and then I'd love to have an argument, but I'm always right, so why bother?" 
    Mrs. Havens started flicking the lights, the five-minute-to-closing warning. I carried my Orwell to the desk for her to check out and said "See ya" to the savior who was sticking out his tongue at my minister who had little chance of climbing back up from such a deep pit. What would Millie do now? Would anyone find her box on Sunday and take her out? Had the minister at least poked air holes in it? 
    The savior breezed out the door and, presumably, back to heaven. I kind of thought he might check out a DVD, but I guess he can play every film ever made on a screen in his head. 
    My family lived five blocks away. I walked out into the night punctured by a few street lamps. I thought about stopping in at Joy's house, it wasn't all that late, but I admitted to myself that Joy wasn't my girlfriend. And that there was no Joy. But there was Orwell and the things he told me from the book's spine as I picked up my pace scared me. He said he believed in no God. 
    Yet I had just seen Jesus and rather liked him. At least he stood up to my minister bully. Orwell said no, no, it wasn't Jesus at all. Even if it was, there's another book to write, one that takes eternity to finish, and Satan ran all the publishing houses so he had no choice but to offer him first rights. 

the greatest horror film of modern cinema

The first version of the Phantom I saw was the 1925 silent version starring Lon Chaney and Mary Philbin. And it's the best, hands down. In middle school it inspired a movie I made with my friends, which we called the Lukewarm, about Judas Iscariot. It was pretty good, considering our age, and I would gladly share, if the computer hadn't crashed just days after the movie was completed. I guess it couldn't handle it. 

I promise better posts after I recover from pneumonia. Which I am blaming on my flu shot. Someday I will be a conspiracy theorist old woman, ravaged by disease, who sits in my armchair, all my cash stuffed in the refrigerator, which is empty anyway because how can it be trusted. 

every way you look at this you lose

I love polaroids. Probably more than anything else. Just because of that white border. And the color shifting. It's sort of reminds me of sleazy motel rooms and cheese pizza. This is Rhiannon Adam on polaroid, and I think she hit it spot on. 

"As I would later learn, Polaroid is the chosen medium for candid moments, illegal activity and secret rendezvous."

                     

photos courtesy of DazedDigital

And what is this craziness about no more polaroid film, might I ask? An outrage. What are the candidates going to do about that?

i was misinformed

Todd Selby's fashion photography...

and a few other photos of his I liked...

pussywillows, cattails

So busy, haven't had much time for posting. Went camping this weekend, playing Gordon Lightfoot on the guitar around the fire, reading poetry, and carving pumpkins. But I was too busy downing hot chocolate and sucking on cough drops to take pictures. This is a new teapot recently added to my (modest) collection. Given to me by a great aunt. 

I took some pictures at my grandma's house a couple nights ago. Thinking of submitting one for the first photography club contest of the year...

And happy October. The weather is finally cooling off, which means black tights, hot tea, and jack-o-lanterns.