Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement.
They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever.
Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colors seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon.
“Friends for a reason” by Pookaburra on the deviantart.
You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.
Oh, Milton May. You say goodbye, but I say hello — to John Milton June! Coming tomorrow.
This is a far more relevant picture for me than you, likely.
Out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose, like an exhalation.
(John Milton. Paradise Lost, Book 1, 710.)
I’ve been trying to quit smoking so I can, like, live longer or whatever. Mixed results but I’m doing pretty well all in all. I just hate to admit anything like that because then if you fuck up or fall off the wagon everyone knows and people can’t know things about me. Anyway, hence the smoking picture simply because of the word “exhalation.” I’ve made flimsier illustrative leaps to promote vice along with literature, but usually for nudity, not cigarettes.
When her feet fly over the gopher holes and hummocks, past the tangle of chokecherry bushes and the edge of the marshy slough? In that difference she runs out of herself, out of her skin. Into freedom.
And then there are the dishes.
(Aritha Van Herk, In visible ink: crypto-frictions. The Writer as Critic III. Ed. Smaro Kamboureli. NeWest Press: Edmonton, 1991. 159-60.)
Normally when you see this quote, it is incompletely cited and quite chopped up to read, “She runs out of herself, out of her skin. Into freedom.” Go ahead and google it and you’ll see what I mean. The lines are very optimistic when taken out of context; when viewed in the passage’s entirety as originally intended by Ms. Van Herk, not so much, yes?
There are always dishes. There is no way around it.
The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.
Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human–
looks out of the heart
burning with purity–
for the burden of life
is love,
but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.
No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love–
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
–cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:
the weight is too heavy
–must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.
The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye–
yes, yes,
that’s what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.
This entry was posted in its original form October 4, 2009 at 3:30 pm. This was less than a week before Paolo and Miss D’s wedding. They have a wonderful relationship and a good marriage, and I want to point that out because I feel I’ve come off as down on the marriage thing lately. It is my own shit and observations and nothing to do with the good people who make a beautiful thing work.
Ah, then, I must have it all backward; do I, Anna Karina?
This is how antisocial I am, and this is the price I pay: just a bit ago, I called Thai House on Tully (best. I am sorry, best. — no, stop talking. best.) to see if they were open, and when someone picked up the phone, I simply hung up, because I felt my question had been adequately answered by the mere fact of a voice on the other end. Are there people at Thai House working? Yes, I deduced. And did not bother to speak, just hit “end.” That’s right, I wordlessly disconnected a call with the business I was planning to patronize purely for the purpose of limiting my level of interaction with other people.
I enjoy this restaurant and bear its employees nothing but good will, but did my actions remotely reflect this? No. I admit they did not.
So then. THEN. I go to Thai House, my mind teeming with satay and moo yang daydreams, and, as I likely deserved, it wound up they are closed until 4:30. Whoever answered the phone would probably happily have told me that, had I not hung up to avoid talking to a fellow human being.
I deserve the wait. To make up for what I’d done, when Gorgeous George hopped on to the yahoo chat and asked me to look over a recent draft of his toast for Paolo and Miss D’s wedding, I suggested that he join me at Thai House later. It is good to have a reason to comb your hair and act human. It’s important to do these things and not hole up in my cave. I’m sure of it. Otherwise I will fall out of practice at being talked to and I will lose whatever magic I might still have, and then how will I ever interact again, as I am striving to do because I have good reasons?
This is a tattoo on the arm of an Illustrated Man which is of a very ancient and hip little meme — the so-called Sator square.
Earliest records of the Sator Square date from Pompeii. M-m-much, much, much, much more (please read that in a combination of Ray D. Tutti from Baron Munchausen and an old school Max Headrome voice) than just your “standard” palindrome, the Sator Square reads the same backward, forward, in rows, and in columns, evinced by the above unfortunately irrevocable tat which can only be removed by expensive, skin-altering surgery, and below, in the defacement of a wall.
There are several translations of the playful-but-persistent square phrase, of which I will only reproduce the one I like best.
“The sower, Arepo, holds the wheels [of the world’s machine] at work.”
Parantheses mine. I’m just suggesting the prospect of a wide definition from the standpoint of a popular metaphor, here, is all.
(ugh! lame, lame caption — unlike this one right here which cures cancer and enlarges penises — call me for your super-official and 10,000% legal prescription!)
There is no “Arepo” of any note who sows or does anything else in the mythology of any proposed countries of origin for this meme, so it’s been assumed since time out of mind that Arepo, like the “she” of “she sells seashells by the seashore,” is referred to in the phrases of the square only for the purposes of making the wordgame pleasing and symmetrical.
Scene.
edit: “It’s actually a tattoo on the lower left lumbar region of an Illustrated Woman.” Please do read the comment from Fafner for up-to-date fact-checks if you plan to re-blog. Accuracy is cool, good for the skin, and it brings good karma!*
*Karma sold separately — and use witch hazel to enhance good skin effects. But still!
Girls Like A Boy Who Reads … comics! Thought it was time for some rare female fan service up in this piece — wink-wink. You’re welcome. Photo via iheartbatman on the tumblr, very cool bloggy-blog.
San Francisco-based artist Jeremy Forson’s work has appeared in Proteus Mag, True Eye, Juxtapoz and Spectrum.
“Light Thief.” My topmost favorite in a field of favorites.
The troop number on the scout’s vest is 415, which is a reference to the telephone exchange for San Francisco. The area code for numbers in The City is 415 (probably at this point another has been added, but that’s what I always think of). I dig it.
“Green Shirt.”
The 2005 CCA grad (although then it was still called California College of Arts and Crafts) also does LP covers and skate decks, because he is too cool for school, and I mean that with the most far-sars and sincere admiration. Also he rocks Stand By Me specs like me and all the other inadvertently hep cats! Witness:
Mr. Forson is on the far left.
See? Super-cute. You feelin’ that?
“Lyon.”
You can enjoy more artcrush cyber-stalkytimes by becoming imaginary friendohs with Mr. Forson on the myspace, fanning him on the facebook, reading his profile at Illustration Mundo, subscribing to his blog, or following him on the twitter.
“Perfect Predator.”
He is also on the flickr, and don’t forget to swing by his etsy shop and pick up some prints. The man has got web presence in spades, which is both smart of him and nice for people who want to see more of his awesome shit. A win-win all day.
“Peonies.”
“The general theme of the series captured all things mundane and beautiful and guilty in San Francisco– documenting night life, body art, apathy within crowds, Victorian homes, fashion, trees, and light pollution; all told through Forson’s mastery of color and haunting imagery.”
“I’m here early, but the kind folks at Edo Salon are nice enough to let me in. Thank you for that. This time around, Jeremy Forson, essays on life in San Francisco– elegant, genteel and Victorian for the most part, but sometimes it can be a long hard night. His tattooed tarts appear to basically update the Patrick Nagel idiom. Nice quality work overall.”
(“Edo Salon: Jeremy Forson – The Lost Fight.” 4 Sept 09. Alan Bamberger. ArtBusiness.com.)
“Gatekeeper.”
If I had to reluctantly accept it at all, I’d have to say that the Nagel comment is at best a dramatic oversimplification. So, no. … No, I just plain respectfully disagree. There was much more to that show than “tattooed tarts,” to boot. So it seems like an upbeat review that is nonetheless somewhat misleading. Nagel reference image in case you’re lost:
Let me be absolutely clear: this is a “work” by Patrick Nagel. It is not done by Jeremy Forson. At all. Do not get confused. Stay with me.
But the gentleman in the review was approaching his visit to Edo from an art-business-consulting p.o.v., so perhaps that plays a part? Like, maybe it benefits art-business-consultants to generalize and “pitch” the “look” of an artist because of how galleries and private collection operate? That weird liminal bit of space between salesmanship mixed with snobbery where the business guy admits he has an artistic side, but knows his primary goal is not to criticize art but to move it into people’s hands? It seems so arbitrary and subjective and also frighteningly commercial to me. Whatever. If it made some old school Nagel-loving collector pick up some of Mr. Forson’s work, then I guess no harm. Back to the good stuff.
“SF Mag noir.” A very scarrry cover. San Francisco Magazine.
Of course, Mr. Forson does not focus his talents exclusively on the clever incorporation of physical and cultural references to San Francisco into already kickass portraiture. He also has some relatively un-415 related work as well.
Cover for “Poe,” Boom! Studios.
“This is one of the most unique ideas I’ve seen cross my table” said BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid. “There’s always so much about our classic writers we don’t know, and examining their works and their history can reveal new information, but that’s hardly any fun! POE is alternate history with a horror twist, and is perfect for fans of mysteries.”
“Stargazer.” Unrelated to the Poe information preceding and following it, I just wanted to include it to show Mr. Forson’s range. “Tattoed tarts,” indeed. Pfft.
BOOM!’s new four issue mini-series reveals Poe’s relationship with famous characters and stories from his body of work — like The Raven, the Mask of the Red Death, and many more! Similar to the way SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE showed how William Shakespeare was inspired by his own life events to create some of his creative masterworks, POE takes Edgar Allen Poe on a supernatural adventure that proves to be the fodder for his life’s greatest accomplishments in literature.
(Ibid.)
“Valentine’s teddy bear.”
Dude, that Poe comic sounds all kinds of hella cool. Now I want to get that. Final thought: I. Love. This. The “miwk” part is the part that cracks me up.
Taking Special K up to Humboldt for the next several days, so I’m going to pack, schedule some ghost posts, and be mainly outie. Don’t take any wooden nickels and I’ll catch you on the flip!
*I kind of ♥ the WCBR forever. Swar to gar. Smart, genuinely heartfelt reviews. I rely on them a lot when I have spare cash burning a hole in my pocket and it’s a Wednesday (comics day).
“A cynic is a man who looks at the world with a monocle in his mind’s eye.” — Carolyn Wells (1862-1942): librarian, mystery writer, poet, absurdist, Jersey girl, baseball aficionado; heroine.
Via timbravo on the tumblr. Hell and goddang if that is not just about the g’est picture of a little kid I have ever seen.
Ms. Well’s famous limerick abount canny canners:
A canner exceedingly canny
One morning remarked to his granny:
“A canner can can
Any thing that he can
But a canner can’t can a can, can he?”
Illustration from Such Nonsense.
The awesome Ms. Wells, who began her literary career as a librarian in Rahway, NJ, had a binary-brained love of both words and wordplay, resulting in the kind of mind that invents riddles and complex, skillful patterns out of what appears to be nonsense. She compiled and published an anthology of clever verses by herself, some friends, and great absurd poets of the past who she admired called Such nonsense! an Anthology through George H. Doran Company, New York, in 1918. Some of the authors included in the anthology are G. K. Chesterton, Rudyard Kipling, William Makepeace Thackeray, Carroll, and W. S. Gilbert. You can read the entirety of the volume on the googlebooks, one of the seemingly last bastions that values lit without lumping it alongside lattes and shitty cd samplers of some Juilliard sophomore covering Bessie Smith. You know the kind of horrible CD sampler I am talking about:
All black and white picture of the skinny blonde singer playing piano on the cover with her eyes closed, all you push the button on the screen to hear a sample and it sounds immediately like she has grown up on at least a quarter acre with probably a pony that she rode in jodphurs until she decided she wanted to be a ballerina instead but she was never so vulgar or interesting as to imagine combining the two interests and she is presently dating a trust fund guy with dreads who was obsessively checking his iTouchPhonesALot thingy the entire time she was in the studio making what we are broadly defining as a “record,” the record apparently being a record of the time some flat chick from upstate New York saw a homeless guy pawing through the trash in front of the Dean and Deluca and decided that because she had Feelings about it, she now had the right to perform herself some blues and has now come at the undertaking metaphorically wearing goggles and carrying a graduated cyllinder. (“Blues, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.”)
Like so many times with me, that got way out of hand. I’m not sorry, but I am a little disappointed in myself. Seriously, though, dudes. Fuck the megabookstores: save the libraries.
Seen in several places. I choose not to credit until I can find an original source.
That last shot reminds me — PSA: I have pretty eyes. In fact, I have the prettiest brown eyes. Did You Know? Established fact, suckas. [citation needed]
Me: Have you seen my Batman shirt?
Kidlet: (long-sufferingly) Which one?
Bat attire — it is a thing!
After she said that to me, I started tallying up my batman and related shirts, and I realized her question was a valid one. I don’t have enough to go a week, yet, though, so I think I’m out of the woods on complete immaturity. But now that I print that, I kind of view it as a challenge I’ve just laid down for myself … Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? I will have to think about this.
I got another writing project. This one a) is legit-illegitimate, where I have to straightforward plagiarize and cannot delude myself the person needs the help or is using this as a model paper or some folklore, and b) has some whiff of the racysauce to boot. Double ooh!
Cheezits, I don’t even like being bad, this is me putting an upbeat face on it. Well…I can’t say the topic is the worst thing ever in my book, I admit.
Alternative Secretary poster design by Dawn Patrol on the IMP awards website.
So, yes, I came home from the SJ trip with Miss D and, after meeting up with Paolo at Chevy’s for some strategy and relaxation (gown is safe and sound in the actual town where the wedding will be, one less care on the list this week, thank god!), I got back to the ol’ compy and found I’d won a bid on a paper for which I’d forgotten even devising a quote. Got all those dogs in the fire, stanimal, I keep saying so, and a few other frankly distracting things swirling around me.
Quelle surprise: the topic is masochism. SS Funtimes, ahoy!
Ah, then, I must have it all backward; do I, Anna Karina?
This is how antisocial I am, and this is the price I pay: just a bit ago, I called Thai House on Tully (best. I am sorry, best. — no, stop talking. best.) to see if they were open, and when someone picked up the phone, I simply hung up, because I felt my question had been adequately answered by the mere fact of a voice on the other end. Are there people at Thai House working? Yes, I deduced. And did not bother to speak, just hit “end.” That’s right, I wordlessly disconnected a call with the business I was planning to patronize purely for the purpose of limiting my level of interaction with other people. I enjoy this restaurant and bear its employees nothing but good will, but did my actions remotely reflect this? No. I admit they did not.
So then. THEN. I go to Thai House, my mind teeming with satay and moo yang daydreams, and, as I likely deserved, it wound up they are closed until 4:30. Whoever answered the phone would probably happily have told me that, had I not hung up to avoid talking to a fellow human being.
I deserve the wait. To make up for what I’d done, when Gorgeous George hopped on to the yahoo chat and asked me to look over a recent draft of his toast for Paolo and Miss D’s wedding, I suggested that he join me at Thai House later. It is good to have a reason to comb your hair and act human. It’s important to do these things and not hole up in my cave. I’m sure of it. Otherwise I will fall out of practice at being talked to and I will lose whatever magic I might still have, and then how will I ever interact again, as I am striving to do because I have good reasons?
Earlier today Panda Eraser quoted Tori Amos, saying, “You’re just an empty cage, girl, if you kill the bird.” I told her that it always made me think of a line from Tennessee Williams: “A prayer for the wild hearts, kept in cages.” That in turn made me think of the lyrics to a song I really like by awesomely offbeat and unusual indie Australian artist Sia Furler.
She is even more delightful in person, apparently, as is evidenced by this video of her performing her song “Electric Bird” live, off of her album Some People Have Real Problems. (There is another video on youtube of her performing this song live at Bush Hall in London which begins with her in mid-rapport with the audience, saying, “I’m into trannies, too, and sometimes chicks. Whatever: send me a letter!” Attagirl. That one has embedding disabled by request but you can easily find it. Oh, heckfire, here’s a link.)
Someone plugged you in
And sadly they clipped your wings
Now you can’t fly away electric bird
Yeah someone took your tweet
One day they fed you that bad seed
You can’t fly away electric bird
Well you’re art, you fell into this part
You play the victim perfectly holding your beating heart
You used to be so smart
You fluttered round the yard making your magic
Got to set you free, you were blinded by deceit
You can’t fly away electric bird
So now this rooms all staged
While you’re stuck there in that cage
You can’t fly away electric bird
Well you’re art, you fell into this part
You play the victim perfectly holding your beating heart
You used to be so smart
You fluttered round the yard making your magic
—Sia, “Electric Bird,” Some People Have Real Problems.
You can listen to the album version here.
I think the point which Sia is making is that we often cage ourselves, we set ourselves up to be the victims, whether consciously or un-. I don’t know if it’s a devil-you-know situation or an issue of masochism, and I’m not sure yet how this relates to Tennessee and Tori — or me. But I’ve got some ideas and I’m thinking about it!
The Thought Experiment 