8.28.2009

the day:

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the ocean.

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the mother.

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the boy.

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the jetty.

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the colors.

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the waves.


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the crashing & smashing.

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the play of foam and feet.

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the {small} birds.

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the collecting.

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the videos.

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the departure.

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currently listening to: all for the best - thom yorke

8.27.2009

headshots

so, for those of you that haven't seen the facebook album, here are the results of an hour on make-up {by a professional} and then another hour and a half in front of the camera.

my personal favorite.


some of the below aren't good headshots, but are interesting photos, so i included them, too. we had a hard time getting me to look tough on camera. i know i can pull out uber bitch face, but it's one of those things that in hindsight, i know exactly what i needed to do: get in touch with my character, hester, from the final scenes of meisner.






photographer: mark brennan of vancouver, b.c.

8.24.2009

up

they are constantly passing by overhead.
every few minutes the measured roar of engines spans the horizon
in a soaring act of clockwork.

and when i get a chance,
i take a moment and feel the lives flying over me.
and i savor the weight and mystery
of their worth pressing down on me.

for the span of a few inches of travel across the sky
our paths cross.
however peripherally.

but today,
i moved in the other direction.
suddenly the space between us came alive
and it was no longer the passengers coming down to meet me,
but my self expanding upwards
feeling the brush of the plane belly graze the upturned skin of my cheek.



{photo credit sahra zanetti}

currently listening to: riceboy sleeps - jonsi & alex

8.22.2009

closer.

i've always dreamt about them, the band {radiohead}, and over the years the dream has almost become formulaic. i've come to recognize the variations on the themes: tour, show, unspannable distance between me and the musicians, chaotic disconnect, and desire, or, more accurately: unmet desire.

and every time i wake up, i feel like i've been handed the best and worst possible gift. for a moment, i had them in my world and undeniably connected to me, even if they never spoke or looked at me. i can even remember once or twice when there was a definite point in which they, no, him, thom, wouldn't look at me when everyone else would. yet every time that fleeting sense of connection is swept away as i surface suddenly into reality and realize it wasn't mine to keep.
just an illusion.
just another dream.

but a few weeks ago, something changed.
everything got a little closer.

the night before this new kind of dream, i sent an email to someone i met down at the santa barbara show on august 28th, 2008. he was one of the two people i traveled from los angeles to santa barbara with the morning of the final show of the united states tour. we had met online via the radiohead message board and i never for second regretted the decision to trust my gut instinct that it was safe for me, a single woman, to travel these few hours with two people i had just met. beyond the safety issue, there was also the risk of sharing one of the most emotionally intimate and raw things i can image short of {and actually, even perhaps beyond} sex: a live radiohead show. but my gut was right and not only did they hugely alter the course of the trip, but one of them was directly responsible for getting me into the after party with the band that night. i'm also still in contact with both travelers and hold both the drive there, and back {with another person entirely}, very warmly in the memories of the tour.

i digress. onward to the email.

in an earlier email he had sent some videos of their tour through japan and the night before this shift in dreams i had written back to him, explaining that i couldn't watch them.
these were my words:

i played about three seconds of the live version of 15 step and then couldn't watch any more. it's hard to explain. my heart hurts. i never got around to playing the live concert from the santa barbara show and/or diving in for an evening {or however long} of writing, and until i do that, watching them play live makes me feel really raw. i can't explain it more than that. it's like seeing an ex before you're ready to see them. the breakup is still too new. and i think that's kind of what's at the heart of it. it's like this thing that held so much promise or desire and it can't possibly be the thing i want it to be. taking it on the grander scale, it's like all my desire is present when i listen to them. the desire i have to be an artist. to be a good artist. to make beautiful, soul-wrenching, soul-elevating things. and when i hear them, i hear someone who has done this and done it so well and i'm not there yet. i'm not there.

and that's just the start.

shortly after the email was sent that night, i went to sleep and that's when the dreams changed.

that night, i dreamt i was seeing them play live at this outdoor venue that was rather sparsely filled. the concert was winding down but we still had a ways to go when they stopped playing and ended the concert. it was so sudden and disappointing it felt like an injustice. as the musicians were putting away their equipment {which they haven't had to do for themselves for over a decade}, i walked up to the bassist, colin greenwood, and explained to him that i had this radiohead waterbottle that i had purchased earlier in the tour and that i really wanted thom yorke to sign it {he was conspicuously absent on stage}. i explained how this has always symbolized to me how simple and easy he makes even writing his name on a water bottle look like art. it's just this small gesture, but i can distinctly see his presence, his vitality and his inner life living itself out in this small and unselfconscious way. {part of me wonders for the first time if one of his kids actually signed the bottle...but no matter.}
colin immediately took to my idea, smiled and escorted me back stage. thom is legendarily a prickly person, and i've seen him up close in his post-concert exhaustion {in real life} to know he's probably not his most congenial then, so colin {in my dream} also automatically assumed the role of lobbying for my plan. he walks up to thom and starts talking and i can see that initially thom blows the idea off, but colin works him a little more and says i want to collect everyone's signatures from the band and that he and phil, the drummer, have already signed it. in the way of dreams, it was already done and one of them had even put his signature and note to me in a playful heart shape. i was sad to have my initial idea veer off course a bit, but if that was the price i had to pay, than so be it. it didn't take long for thom to agree to the idea, and there was genuine warmth in him as he took the bottle and signed it in green sharpie. i remember looking at it and being a little disappointed in the combo of blue bottle {that's the color that i bought last year on the tour} and green sharpie, but after a year of pining over this desire to have him sign my bottle i could hardly nitpick. the dream ended shortly after, as i turned to leave to collect ed's signature. {and yes, to all the loyal fans out there, i somehow forgot about johnny in this particular dream.}

and despite the fact that i never had a real dialogue with thom and there wasn't a huge amount of interaction in the dream, i still finally after all this time, got a little bit of one on one time. even for a few seconds. and not only that but i got my very own take away gesture of thom-ish magic to have and remind me to be as spontaneous and uncensored and true in my art.

i remember speaking to one of my best friends the next day and trying to keep my voice steady as i said my dreams about them were getting closer. yet somehow, despite the appearance of progress, brokeness seemed to be the only thing i could feel. the unrequitable longing for something had deepened and the sense of loss a presence i can't ignore. and perhaps the most frustrating part is how uncertain i am about what it is i am reaching for. i can't tell beyond the fact that it runs so deep and is swathed in so much {so so much} that i can't make heads or tails of who is standing in for what. all i can say is that this man, this band, and their work is a key. the transportive and evocative quality of their music simultanously represents the thing i'm reaching for in myself while providing a direct line i can borrow to take me there. and this is a generous and heartbreaking gift because even as i travel down the path their work creates, i am always always aware that i'm only just borrowing their key.

fast forward to last night.

in this dream, i first saw his daughter, who's name in real life is agnes, but who went by something different in my dream. something that began with an "m," i think. and more melodic. {was it melody? or some lovely variation on that word?} she was about five in the dream, which is a pretty accurate reflection of her real age {i just now looked it up on wikipedia...no, i'm not that big of a fan}. in the dream she noticed me right away and attached herself to me in the endearing and adoring way of children and she pulled me into her parent's house with her enthusiasm. the band was practicing and a small gang of the band's friends were hanging out. the daughter announced that the friends are all coming back later and wouldn't i like to come?, while thom yorke, her father, was at the other end of the room a little distant and listening to his daughter's determined invitation and ignoring her in the hopes i would go away. there was almost a question of me becoming a nanny to the girl and she was so excited about this prospect and was petitioning heavily in my favor. i suddenly noticed my mother who said, rather boldly on my behalf {in regards to the invitation to hang out later that night}, oh, you would like that a lot, wouldn't you, nathania? and i was left in painful embarrassment as i realized the obligation thom would now feel to invite me back later that evening. the girl was satisfied and smiled as her father obligingly extended a formal invitation and i happily, though somewhat guiltily, accepted.

i came back later that night and the band was just finishing their work and thom was going to bed, but i was still allowed/invited to come hang out with this random group of strangers in his house. i cautiously entered and descended to the basement conscious of this oblique form of honor to be there, but also feeling a little out of place. in the strange narrative of dreams, there was a part here that had to do with an abduction of sorts. i can't remember the particulars, but this darkness swept down to get me in some scary and ominous form and i found myself hiding in a small dark space. thom shooed them away and opened the door, calmly rescuing me.

then there was a third section i barely remember beyond the fact that it is the crown of not only the night's dream, but, in fact, all of my dreams about radiohead. i'm sifting through my mind's images, praying for one to come back to me in full color, but the only thing i am left with is the lingering delight of having a conversation, an entire conversation with thom. the part i do remember is the intoxicating glow of being in his presence and somehow achieving this gift. he had a warmth and openness to him and there was a frankness to our conversation about his lyrics that implied a connection and friendship that must have ocurred between the second and third parts of the story.

the details are slipping farther even as i am pulling at them, trying to extract some value, some feeling. but the realization i made this morning upon waking still lingers and it was centered around how this series of radiohead dreams has paralleled my journey toward becoming my own artist. my relationship to this band is not just about the art that they make, even though their music, inherently, is worth all that it evokes in me. above and beyond all the resonance and beauty and life and universal truths their music taps into there runs another story that is so particular to me and my journey and my burning/pulling/pinching/prodding/throbbing drive i have to made my own version of the kind of art they make. and i'm not saying i am going to tour the world and i definitely am not aiming to be a musician, but i want to create art on that level of density in lush, gorgeous, emotionally evocative colors. and i think what i am running headlong into is the heartbreak i have deep inside me.

my heart is broken and i can't seem to make progress on how or why. it's something to do with not trusting myself to get there, wherever there is. i don't know what place it is, but i can feel the coordinates inside my chest to the thing that's blocking me from just living there and the block is alive and scared and scarred. the tensions between the two is vibrating with such a frequency at times i can literally feel myself oscillate.

the part of me that is analytic and self aware asks how to manage and control this situation. how do i get beyond this "block" so i can tap into this space and take all these little projects of painting, sewing, writing and color exploration and make them something whole, something significant. but this is how i've always approached this wall inside myself and it hasn't seemed to work. the paradigm of broken and fixing.

going in the opposite direction entirely, how do i change my perspective on this thereby altering my reality around this point? i am fighting so much inside myself, and what if i throw in the towel? what if i realize the part i'm struggling with so much is that i percieve myself as not being the artist i want to be, when really, i'm already there. when i paint, i hear each layer speak to me in such a calm and gentle voice and it tells me what layer needs to follow it and when i have perhaps gone too far or need to switch directions. and when i finish a painting, it calmly lists the things that are perhaps a little incongruous and i would change next time, but i don't stretch endlessly for the phantom of perfectionism. it's a peaceful journey of creation that has it's ups and downs, but i don't tether my worth to it with piano wire.

while my acting isn't to the point of such easefulness or flow, i can reason that it's because 1. i haven't been doing it for that long and 2. because i have so much pressure on myself to be perfect and to make the pinnacle of my life's work tomorrow, or even better, yesterday. an ex of mine {and now, nicely, one of my best friends} jokes that instant gratification isn't fast enough for me, i need preemptive gratification. somehow, i'm racing myself here and i know this journey takes time. {radiohead's first album is one i can't listen to. it's too green.} perhaps upping the stakes a little is the perception of my body and self as the instrument. i have to put myself out there in such a way and in order to do that, i have to come to terms with the last remaining scraps, or let's face it, chunks, of insecurities i have about myself. my looks. my worthiness. how can it be me? and silmultaneously why can't it be me?

and during this agitation surrounding this whole story i'm laying out before you, there is this calm voice in me saying, nathania, what are you worring about? you have this lovely short film project in front of you and you're investing all this energy into restlessness which could be going into making this piece of art. begin, child. and then i rustle about paying rent and making art that supports me financially and the calm retort is merely have we ever failed you yet? well...it hasn't been a comfortable ride so far, though i must say i'm in a better car, clothes, and house than i ever have been in before. it will be easier if you stopped worrying. just go out and mix your colors.

okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
okay.
breathe, nathania, and spend this afternoon making your art.

8.20.2009

radom 2am stuff

a restless night of writing and attempting not to spin my head and heart and soul into the same circles my thoughts are going. anyway, here's a lovely site that is solely dedicated to documenting book covers. well designed and the images are warming to the far reaches of my creative self.

and, another bit of randomness is that i finished a painting yesterday. the second to be adorned with a signature by me {and even years later, i hear my freshman year drawing teacher's voice in my head scolding my now best friend for signing a drawing for class...what audacity}. this painting is for my meisner teacher and the birds are numbered 16. one for each of the classmates.


the arrival

my very first tapestry has arrived safe and sound after traveling several oceans and one hemisphere, so now i can show you the whole piece without ruining the surprise. and for anyone who traveled with me through my photo major, the translucent white cloth is cheese cloth, of course.



the lovely treat for me are the images she sent me of receiving the package and then opening it, which is part of the fun i can't partake in with snail mail {though i adore the ritual of sending and receiving mail as a whole}. the note on the package says: a little bit of trivia: this envelope originated from waterdown, ontario with cameron. he put the smiley faces on it. :)
he's a mutual friend and i found it particularly satisfying to pass forward the joy of receiving mail-magic to someone he's also connected to.



8.19.2009

eat pray love

i just finished this magnificent book today. so wonderful.
the writer, elizabeth gilbert, is funny, grounded, and completely open and unapologetic. towards the end she even wrote about masturbation {this is a true story of her travels} which is something i give her a lot of props for in my head. her account chronicles the ups and downs of her spiritual and personal journey {one and the same in my view}, love life, sex life {or celibate life for most of her trip}, etc and it's all there is clean and simple words.

in a slightly tangential direction {i circle back, i promise}, one of the things that has most lingered with me after seeing gloria steinem speak last month {after the elegant lines and gestures of her hands} was a question i misinterpreted. the facilitator for the panel of feminists had asked: what do you risk to write? and she received answers like i risk to be seen. i risk to be heard. or not heard. etc. what i had initially understood of the question was: what is risky for you to write?

this is a question i want to answer and challenge myself to risk here in this space. on this blog. what are these risky bits of myself that i don't feel like i can advertise? the first and foremost answer i always hear is: my sexuality. my sexual development and confidence, that, quite frankly, has made leaps and bounds in these past 8 months of being with my current lover and dear dear friend, az. {yes, we shy away from boyfriend/girlfriend. yes, it's a serious relationship and yet at the same time, no, i don't necessarily see him as the man i will marry or have children with, but if that happened, i wouldn't feel sorry about it. i just feel pretty certain there are other long term partners for each of us.}

so, how can i present this journey toward a confident sexual being here in this space and how do i make it tactful, graceful, elegant and yet still be open and unapologetic? how do i let it be what it is truthfully, without editing and controlling the presentation too much for fear of its reception?

it's something i've been mulling over for the past month, so reading her story has been a good way of observing the way she navigates these waters. i've taken a lot of mental notes on how she discusses everything from sobbing on the bathroom floor with gobs of snot running out of her nose, to {non-judgmental} observations of her body while she slowly gained 25 pounds inhaling pasta in italy, to the physical and emotional transformations associated with crossing over into early stages of enlightenment. so easefully written. truthful and unadorned except for sprinkles of humor and vavacity that make me feel like she's one of my good friends.

well done, liz.

oh, and if you haven't seen her TED talk, you should do so here. she speaks as nicely as she writes.

8.18.2009

in response to "thom cat"

mmmmmm.....yes. here i am in my apt, putting away laundry. enjoying not only the new radiohead that they've been sending out into the world (my current favorite of the new stuff is "all for the best" which never stops breaking my heart), but also enjoying the small opportunity i recently had to relive bits of last summer's tour.

i had headshots taken this sunday and pretty quickly my vancouver, bc photographer and i realized we were both in the crowd at thunderbird stadium last august, almost exactly a year ago. a whole animated conversation ensues.

now i'm in my apartment, trying to congeal my life into a coherent direction forward and knowing it's all cooking inside me, i just am waiting until the moment i'm ready to start moving...or perhaps waiting for the anais nin quote to manifest itself back into my life:

one must be thrust out of a finished cycle in life,
and that leap is the most difficult to make
—to part with one's faith, when one would rather renew
the faith and recreate the passion.

radiohead is playing via shuffle and i'm puttering around, organizing and cleaning my exterior space, while internallly i'm uttering silent prayers along the lines of universe, what this world needs is one more artist making a living off the art they create, and particularly one dedicated to making it easier for other artists to do so as well. please elect me for the next one to step forward.
though oftentimes it's more simple
the right things are happening, i'm okay, things are moving. relax. breathe.

i'm currently looking for new housing, and on the way home from browsing the top floor apt of a neighborhood building, i randomly thought about this stray "mike" i have in my phone book. it's a teasing number to my memory. a 360 area code. i scan through all the mike's i know, which of course evoked you, properly filed under the "h" section of my phone book. but i guess what i'm saying is, about 30 minutes before you sent this email you meandered through my mind.

how are you? how is thom cat?

~n

8.17.2009

900!


today, my book collection officially turned 900 {plus!}.
well, i guess the official moment was sometime on friday evening when i tried to buy the whole book store.
well, i have been looking for this book for ages, so i have to get this one.
and this one is only fifty cents...oh look, there's the sequel to
howl's moving castle, i've been meaning to pick that one up, and next time i go prowling through my collection looking for a comfort read, i'll know exactly where to go...
etc.
etc.

but, the thing that really pushed me over the edge was the stack of books i brought home from my grandfather's collection. some old mark twain, rudyard kipling, a lovely copy of little lord fauntleroy advertising the book sarah crewe which we all know and love as the little princess. this particular copy is from 1889 and is one of the few that does not document the date it came into my grandfather's collection with little penciled in numbers on the opening page.....and it's just now at this very second occuring to me that perhaps this is a copy that he grew up with.
wow.
that would be lovely.
but anyway, after carting off 40 books or so rather dutifully, though happily as well {my aunt charged me the night before with carrying out at least a suitcase full of items in an effort to start clearing out my grandmother's house so when she moves it's easier on everyone}.
i also picked up several photography monographs from the likes of weston, stieglitz, strand, etc.
and even after my four bags full of booty, you can't even tell one book was removed. there are so many, oh so many.




which makes me think just a little bit about my compulsive book buying tendencies.




and then i see how much i have enjoyed acquiring even 40 books from his collection, so i must do my duty and collect enough so all my progeny can have equal joy themselves in 60 something odd years.


that justifies me for a few thousand more book purchases and in the meantime, happy birthday book collection!

these are my twisted words

the new song from radiohead. oh, how my heart sings.






currently listening to: these are my twisted words - radiohead

8.16.2009

doll face

that's what the boy called me all evening after i got back from my headshots photoshoot. the make-up artist had spent 45-50 minutes on my face and hair, so i guess it's well put. here are a few images he took in the car on the way to grocery shopping.

p.s. the photographer loves radiohead so we had a lot to talk about that would make me smile naturally and make my eyes light up. he also found last summer's audience at the vancouver show to be quite obnoxious.
p.p.s. the red dress made an appearance during one of my wardrobe changes.

and a slightly off topic p.p.p.s.: the several day silence is due to an incomplete entry from a week ago that's been a choke point for getting any other writing out and on the blog.


8.07.2009

some sun from cam

it was just a little pick me up because he knows i'm a bit blue these days. the filter effects are so dramatic it's like a rainbow is reaching out to me.

lovely cam, thanks.

8.06.2009

a letter to a farmer

i know i never ended up writing much about being on the farm. i guess that was part of the beauty of the ten days i spent there. i lived in my hands, not through keyboards or paintbrushes, but directly into the earth and i ended up spending very little time in front of the computer {except on hot afternoons while waiting for the sun's reign to wane a bit}.

toward the end i did have a completely surprising conversation in that i had sort of {mis}understood that i wouldn't really connect with this person. it's not that i dismissed him, but more that i observed him during the first visit to the farm and assumed that we wouldn't necessarily have a pull toward each other.

of course, i would say almost the exact same thing about the man i've been seeing for the past seven months, if not more {the exact words my inner monologue supplied on meeting him for the first time were: hmmm....he's from a completely different universe as me. interesting...and of course here we are seven months and one week into our unique, but fitting relationship interviewing to move into a group house together}.

but i digress.

the point of this letter is the byproduct of the first failed day of cherry sorting. the farmer had some cherry pickers fail to show up, so he didn't need me to help sort the cherries {pull out the bird pecked, overripe and/or undersized cherries}. i trooped back down the hill to the veggie fields and helped with the csa harvest which included carrot harvesting with the aforementioned farm hand. his name is daniel. he's twenty three and so much the opposite of a similarly adorned and numbered fellow i met a few days before heading out, but that, my dears, is another story entirely.

i digress again.
{perhaps it is the hour.
currently nearing midnight and i'm restless and writing—a sure sign life is rustling up some change for me.}

carrot uprooting can be an arduous task so we had the considerable length of the bed {and size of the csa order} to sustain a hearty conversation on the topic of beauty, aesthetics, philosophy, spirituality and resonance. it was divine in the figurative and literal sense and still makes me feel alive whenever i think about this lovely convergence of two souls over carrots {and later strawberries and paper pints}.

as any conversation i would have on aesthetics {which, he informed me, is derived from the greek meaning to excite the emotions}, it included a raving review of thom yorke and radiohead, which he knew very little about. as the jasper concert of radiohead never happened during the last days of my time there, the next best option is a care package complete with two discs of radiohead and a copy of my current favorite piece on beauty: hillman's the practice of beauty.

here are the playlists and letters i sent accompanying the music:

so daniel, how do you give someone your favorite band? it's quite hard. but i tried to make it easier on me and made an upbeat {relatively} and downbeat disc so you can put in whichever your mood dictated. a lot of radiohead is rather downbeat, but i find it's not depressive for me as many people find it. the music, and most particularly thom yorke's voice, brings me alive and makes me resonate in whatever my mood is. resonance. blessed resonance.

i arranged the albums chronologically and have made some notes about particular songs below. tell me what you think.

upbeat:
1-4 are from
kid a and always hearken back to the kid a tour when i saw them perform summer of 2001 at the gorge. stellar show and my favorite of all of these is #4, idioteque, which makes me want to jump around and dance no matter where i am or who i'm with. and it's not the dancing of a five year old, not the dance of innocence and abandon, but of intensity and presence. the song is so full for me. so full.

5-10 are from
hail to the thief which i purchased in scotland while traveling in the summer of 2003. all of them have this rollicking rhythm but wolf at the door {#8} really took me to a new place about this time last year during a particularly tough break up. i love the way he sings/accuses "flan in the face."

11-15 are from
in rainbows and the b-sides from that release, made oct 2007. i could write volumes on this album alone, but #12, the reckoner, is so so so beautiful it's almost painful. it makes my heart vibrate in my chest and struggle to let something out even now i can't name. recently i realized the song was coming up shortly on my player and almost turned it off because i was chewing something and knew i didn't want to be chewing still when the song came on. too much resonance happening. too much emotionally and nothing left to take care of mundane things like chewing.

a small note on #14
down is the new up. i always play it when my world is turning upside down. it reminds me that things will still be okay once down is the new up.


downbeat:
1-3 are from
the bends, which i listened to in high school. there are still good songs. nostalgic and beautiful. #1, high and dry, the lyrics are fantastic and good breakup lyrics.

skipping ahead to #7,
pyramid song , i bought this album {or listened to it a lot} in australia, and particularly during a writing for film class. we had a story outline due one day and at 12am the night before i still didn't have a word written down for my 9am or 10am class the next morning. but i was sitting my room with this song on repeat and suddenly the story he's telling in the song took shape in my head. i hammered out the outline in an hour or so and turned it in the next day. when we got the outlines back a week later, after an extended conversation about the challenges of dialogue, he passed mine back and started talking about the choice NOT to have dialogue, which i hadn't added. it's a film of images. i explained that since i'm not really a writer {which now, 8 or 9 years later, i do consider myself}, but a visual artist, i thougth i would stick to what i know. and i still remember how he took the rolled up outline, tapped it against his head a few times and said: "well this...this is visual art." he wasn't one to just make compliments really ever. it was a good moment.

8 & 9 are two b-sides from earlier albums that are beautiful and heartbreaking.

10-13 are from
in rainbows with the highlight being videotape, #12. this is a tragic song of goodbyes and parting of ways and it's simple, but i love the primary image of capturing it all on "red, blue, green." also, listen to the restless and rattling percussion.

14 & 15 these are two lovely live versions that were either better than the original {#14
like spinning plates} or never on a normal album {#15 true love waits}

#16 i just discovered this via a friend. it hasn't been released but it's a cover the lead singer, thom york, did for another musician's goodbye album for his wife who evidently died very young. i don't know the full story, but i can't stop listening to this song.

#17
cymbal rush - this is from thom yorke's solo album and it's super mellow and great driving music when you just want to think. i realize i forgot to put some of his upbeat solo work on the other disc, but i guess i can always send more music again.

the playlists. limited, yes. missing wonderful songs, yes. there's always time and room for more.

upbeat:

everything in it's right place
the national anthem
optimistic
idioteque
there there (the boney king of nowhere)
2+2=5 (the lukewarm)
where i end and you begin (the sky is falling in)
a wolf at the door (it girl. rag doll)
the gloaming (softly open our mouths in the cold)
myxomatosis (judge, jury & executioner)
15 step
reckoner
weird fishes/arpeggi
down is the new up
up on the ladder

downbeat:

high and dry
fake plastic trees
street spirit (fade out)
exit music
no surprises
morning bell
pyramid song
gagging order
fog
bude
all i need
videotape
last flowers to the hospital
like spinning plates
true love waits
all for the best
cymbal rush

a part standing in for a whole

i committed an act of sacrilege tonight.
i didn't finish a movie.
and not just any movie, but a charlie kaufman movie.
synecdoche, new york
{random note: blogspot spell check doesn't know the word synecdoche, pronounced suh-NECK-dough-key}

anyway, i decided half way through that i would rather spend the subsequent hour of my life just hanging out with the person next to me than finding out what happens to these people in this story i don't really care about. luckily he agreed and also found me more interesting than the characters parading about amongst jarring leaps in timeline and a depressing string of events. not much contest, i guess, but i still won out.

so there.

i flaunt my act of cinematic treason here and a couple of hours later, find myself not regretting the decision one iota.

8.05.2009

the book

in my afternoon shower yesterday i realized what book i would write. it wouldn't be a book thief, a keturah and lord death, or even a beauty, as much as i lovelovelove them, i am not that kind of storyteller. it would have to be about what i know best, which is me and my story, and the things i'm interested in most, like memory, family history, death, loss, and where they all meet: place.

so my book would be a mosh of eat pray love and housekeeping. not that i aspire to reach the literary acclaim that either of these have achieved, but merely that one is a larger story that unfolds within all these smaller stories of traveling—vignettes lined up and put on display like beads—and the other is one person traversing through a family history and how she has navigated their story and hers simultaneously. its soul is the ephemeral and its legacy is the loss.

so this trip i have envisioned, traveling back to my hometown has always included writing as well as several unconventional cameras {holga, pinhole, etc}, but now the goal might be writing, or perhaps an intersection of the two {see: extremely loud & incredibly close}.

yes, this is the book i would/could/will? write.

8.04.2009

an afternoon city sky


ha! what i initially thought was a speck on my lens is actually that seagull i was hoping to capture since it was specifically for my friend, sahra, who is suffering through melbourne's winter. she likes seagulls and suns. and i'm glad it is not a speck because that sky is pretty lovely and somehow if i have to photoshop it even slightly, it takes the magic of the spontaneaity and dulls it down a notch or two.

what can i say, i'm a purist.

8.03.2009

do not corner me

do
not
corner
me into the shape you have created.

it stinks of your own fears and your own inability to see how terrified you are.

and you're ugly too.

and i'm grumpy.

can you tell?

my day is taking a different shape because things won't wind up properly. oh technology. you always flaunt the facade of convenience, but manual knobs on vehicals never caused this much grief.

8.02.2009

they call him mr. buttons

saturday was a stay at home, be lazy and make pancakes for breakfast day. it was good and much needed. the week of heatwaves, moving boxes and fanless nights had taken a cumulative toll and it has been an extra long time since he and i have had time together when one or the other {or both} of us haven't been exhausted out of our minds and bodies.

so, we had a leisurely morning involving aforementioned pancakes and then we slowly meandered into closet cleaning. i put on an extended show and tell and he helped me get rid of a garbage bag full of clothing. sometimes a little encouragement goes a long way.

by 4pm i was getting a little stir crazy and sifted for some incentive to get out of the house that didn't require a copious {read: any} amount of money and landed on the easy, catch all solution: walk down to the antique store on the waterfront to go button shopping. at ten for a dollar i can splurge and only spend a few bucks, maybe five, so we put on our walking shoes and trekked down the hill.

despite running headlong into a wall of exhaustion about three blocks from my apartment {my adrenals were super taxed out during my time on the farm}, we made it down uneventfully, albeit a little too sunnily according to some people.

i walked back to the huge basin that holds the store's button collection only to find it almost entirely empty. even though i was glad to be out and moving around a bit, it was a sad sad day that i couldn't indulge my button collecting genes. after double checking the neighboring aisles to make sure the collection hadn't migrated to a new location, i took his very good advice and asked the people behind the counter if they knew what had happened to the buttons. true to my insticts, someone had swooped down on it, spent $120 and cleaned out the house.

but

he had a new supply in back. a tin he had recently purchased after a split second decision so i got to happily spend fifteen minutes of my life sifting through one handful at a time. the worker pointed out this button and that button, speculating one is from the 1920's and another is made of resin, or wood, or what have you. i kind of tuned out his helpful suggestions of what a cool button was since they tended to clash with my very particular aesthetic i can't put into words, and eventually he stopped trying to be helpful and let me sift and sort in peace.

it was a good trip, despite not living up the the big $17 haul i made shortly after finding this source. those buttons are the pinnacle of my collection, but i guess these little handfuls help flesh out the collection a little bit at a time. and there are some gems i nicked this time around and for a steal as well. i knew i had close to 40 buttons, but he kept on insisting it was about three dollars worth, so i accepted his deal, smiled and we headed back up the hill for a celebratory he's done moving dinner from a little tucked-away-to-the-point-of-near-invisibility fish 'n chips bar that opens at 5pm and obviously caters to the local bars' late night clientele. good food though. particularly eaten out in the park under the shady trees.

it wasn't till long after we got home again, probably some point after we watched coraline together on my bed {where buttons are featured rather prominently, coincidentally enough} that he told me about a little exchange that happened in the store. one of the workers {there were two of them bantering around} came up to him while i was happily pouring over the tin of buttons and had asked: "are you mr. buttons?" and he just smiled and nodded yes.

mr. buttons. i like it.

and it's a day later and it still makes me smile.