A couple of weeks ago, flush with a paycheck from my part-time minimum wage job, and ignoring the valid and reasonable debts that I have, I decided to take the plunge and spend the 25USD to get become a lifetime member on LibraryThing.
I can't even tell you how pleased I am about this decision. Cuz here's the thing: I read a lot of books. A Lot of Books. Wait a minute, I need to back up a bit.
I have a library of just over 225 books in my office. It is small, and it is growing. A few years ago I decided that I would go to Portugal and so began to weed my life, including my library. I think that I ended up getting rid of about 3/5 of it, maybe more. That was before my appendix burst in August of 2007, I stayed in Lincoln, and by the spring of 2009 my library was 182 books precisely. I had room for every single book on a book shelf, standing vertically. Never let it be said that I have always been in need of new bookshelves. There has been a moment in time when it all fit.
I kept trading books in and out for about a year. In fact, I went 6 months or so without buying books (I even stopped grabbing books from the free book boxes outside of A Novel Idea (those are so damned dangerous)) at all. It was awful. But a growth experience. I am not really fond of miserable growth experiences, and suspect I will not decide to inflict them on myself in future. All that said, I don't have room for all of my books. I work in a used book shop. I get a good deal on them. And I love to read. Also, I am very curious about the look of my library - not the physical set up or the visual aspect of the spines, etc., but the subjects and the range of authors and the quality of the books. By quality I refer to something more subjective than outward monetary value.
There are titles of which I have two copies; one of them a paperback and much written in by me, and the other hardbound with a dust-jacket and relatively pristine. Some books are more comfortable in the pocket of my cargo pants, and some hold up a backpack with ease. There are some titles I love that I never have on hand because I buy cheap paperbacks of them in order to give them away because I think they ought to be read by as many people as possible. I love the size of Loeb Classical Library and Everyman Library books. I love the thin thin pages of collections of Shakespeare and Milton. I love the smell of my father's old textbooks and the trade publications of Freakangels. If a book possesses some such quality that appeals to me and will draw me to it in the future, it is likely to be something that will do well in my library. I might even read it.
Because I do have to be drawn back to my own books again and again and again. I love libraries. I use them, I revel in them, I want to spend the rest of my life working in and around and for and about them. So I tend to use university and public libraries more than I use my own. Which means that in order to be drawn back, there must be something on my shelves that cannot be replaced by someone else's.
I tend to prefer following paths that are known to me and the exercise of cataloging my books online is how I choose to become ever more familiar with these breathing bits of other people's lives and works that define such a large part of this space. I had long wanted to just get the lifetime account, but put it off and off and off until finally I could not justify having rated more than 1000 movies on Netflix, and only 168 on LibraryThing.
Next time: Thoughts on writing reviews (because you know I can talk).
Monday 28 February 2011
Sunday 27 February 2011
Just one of those mornings
I've begun practicing yoga again. Patiently and slowly and with all manner of understanding that because I am a crazy person, I will get far too into it without some kind of balance. I love meditating. I think that it is a wonderful way to spend an entire day. I also love cobra and leg stretches and would likely spend far too much time doing those as well.
Fortunately, I do have a sort of low threshold for absolute irresponsibility. Sort of Low. Sort of Absolute.
One of the issues that I struggle with, as many creative types have found themselves doing for the last, well, since the beginning of creative types, is the focusing thing. Difficulties with or pertaining to focus have been prevalent enough that I probably could construct my autobiography around them. No jokes about staying focused long enough to finish it, please. Balance is a good thing, and in a constant state of flux, so I ought not be too surprised that in my quest for balance, I'm almost always in a constant state of flux.
Fun times with self-aware poets, eh?
(the cat, who has successfully stalked my lap, is now sliding off of it. i am not helping or hindering her. i am just giggling. very softly.)
This morning found me a bit cranky, owing to temporary physical blerg. I am not fond of being cranky when there is no one to expel it at. Home is not a place for that kind of thing. I like it here, why muck it up?
Mind you, it did take about 20 minutes to get around the complaining to the place where activity became possible and rational thought entered the conversation and I could get up and get on with everything. This is the part that I forget about every time I get around to changing my life on purpose: the part where I'm a stubborn cranky-pants. Every Single Time, I forget. It's kind of ridiculous - like Midwestern drivers who are always So Surprised when it snows. Assholes.
That's really not the point, I was just writing there because I find that just saying a thing doesn't actually tell anyone what I want them to hear. Particularly me. And since I do reference these bloggy bits on a not even remotely regular basis, I oughta leave something that is communicative and whole for FutureMe to read and nod and remember the entirety of the morning and why it matters that in the middle of gentle morning twists, I looked out of the window onto a snow-covered late winter day and thought of Agra and a foggy morning street behind the entry wall.
It makes no real sense. Which is normally not something I notice or acknowledge as important. Sense is best left to people who do not spend a whole lot of time in my company, including me. Paradox does not startle or confound; I am not undone by different perspectives. And yet. Between the almost constant deja vu, and now this - I will be happy in the library for a few hours today - nested in the spaces left by the covers of books I will never have the time to read.
Fortunately, I do have a sort of low threshold for absolute irresponsibility. Sort of Low. Sort of Absolute.
One of the issues that I struggle with, as many creative types have found themselves doing for the last, well, since the beginning of creative types, is the focusing thing. Difficulties with or pertaining to focus have been prevalent enough that I probably could construct my autobiography around them. No jokes about staying focused long enough to finish it, please. Balance is a good thing, and in a constant state of flux, so I ought not be too surprised that in my quest for balance, I'm almost always in a constant state of flux.
Fun times with self-aware poets, eh?
(the cat, who has successfully stalked my lap, is now sliding off of it. i am not helping or hindering her. i am just giggling. very softly.)
This morning found me a bit cranky, owing to temporary physical blerg. I am not fond of being cranky when there is no one to expel it at. Home is not a place for that kind of thing. I like it here, why muck it up?
Mind you, it did take about 20 minutes to get around the complaining to the place where activity became possible and rational thought entered the conversation and I could get up and get on with everything. This is the part that I forget about every time I get around to changing my life on purpose: the part where I'm a stubborn cranky-pants. Every Single Time, I forget. It's kind of ridiculous - like Midwestern drivers who are always So Surprised when it snows. Assholes.
That's really not the point, I was just writing there because I find that just saying a thing doesn't actually tell anyone what I want them to hear. Particularly me. And since I do reference these bloggy bits on a not even remotely regular basis, I oughta leave something that is communicative and whole for FutureMe to read and nod and remember the entirety of the morning and why it matters that in the middle of gentle morning twists, I looked out of the window onto a snow-covered late winter day and thought of Agra and a foggy morning street behind the entry wall.
It makes no real sense. Which is normally not something I notice or acknowledge as important. Sense is best left to people who do not spend a whole lot of time in my company, including me. Paradox does not startle or confound; I am not undone by different perspectives. And yet. Between the almost constant deja vu, and now this - I will be happy in the library for a few hours today - nested in the spaces left by the covers of books I will never have the time to read.
Wednesday 23 February 2011
Thinking about Love and other regulated activities
I started thinking about this blog as I was enjoying my Valentine's Day Week celebrations. As a single woman who lives with cats and her parents at the same time, there is some expectation that I'm to be bitter or apathetic or, at the very least, desperately obsessed with someone unsuitable, unlikeable and inaccessible. (We are, of course, going to ignore my revolving door of movie star crushes. Because I said so. And they aren't really the point.) That I'm going to somehow miss out on a holiday that claims to celebrate the joyousness of love.
It finally struck me this year that I could take advantage of my status as a single person and make whatever plans I wanted whenever I wanted them to bask in the holiday. I painted my nails. I never do that. I watched a movie that I'd been wanting to see. I sat quietly with a cat on my lap and just listened to her breathe. All of the things that I would have enjoyed with someone - the right someone - at my side. Which got me to thinking about my friends.
Which lead directly to thinking about India and traveling.
Which lead to population issues and driving instructions.
Which lead to normalizing posters - expectations communicated through advertising - the power of the spoken word to define a life whether that life requires outside definition or not.
(and since this is a train of thought I ride a lot, I've got quite used to the stops.)
Which got me to thinking about how impossible it is to standardize human beings, and how often that is exactly what people try to do.
It is easy to think of standardized shoppers and workers and politicians and archetypes. It is a bit startling when the easy thoughts of generalized expectations lead on to something like Valentine's Day.
We celebrate the holiday of a man who was martyred, and so the tale goes (altho the facts are a bit imaginary) he was martyred for performing weddings for soldiers, directly against the order of the Emperor Claudius II who believed that unmarried men made better soldiers. Learning that the facts are unfactual is a bit of a downer, but we'll pretend I didn't learn that part and go on.
It is not the spending or the gift-giving that I think of when I consider the standardization of lovers. It is the constant repetition of the form: one man and one woman and nothing and no one shall be loved as much as these two love each other. Friendships are not important. Family is only sought, never received, never expected, never involved. Co-workers are co-cattle. And please don't consider changing the sex or number of the people in the basic relationship, because there is nothing stable in the world if you do that.
How many romantic movies are about a man and woman who are only barely involved in family life and function solely as the subject of a spot light in the life of a friend group? How often is the word 'bromance' used as something kind of meaningless or sketchy? And, yes, as a woman who shared a home with another woman for more than two years, it is old and immature to believe that every female friendship involves naked pillow fights. And it is a dealbreaker. Then again, I also like my friends quite a little bit and do not tolerate being around people who can say nothing good about the people they claim to like. It is my choice to love the people around me and my choice to be around people I love.
But what about this world that has such issues with individuals loving other individuals, to the point that while in my country there is a need to keep the Church and the State separate, there is no need to see that regulating marriage is allowing the State to regulate Love. Married people are given perks that single people are not - socially, legally and economically.
In a world that is obsessed with zombies and robots and vampires taking over - things which are not human, things which do not make human decisions, things which are inhumane at best - the conversation about what makes a human being different than a robot or a zombie or a cow is less and less easy to have. Affection is a thing we share with other mammals, not just primates. We do, however, feel something that we elevate to a position of Proof of God: we can love each other. In our little skull prisons, we imagine the suffering and the joy and the stories of other people and sometimes those imaginings involve a greater concern for the happiness of another person than for ourselves - people call that love, the thing that takes you out of your selfishness and brings you into the world of other humans.
I think of how much it matters to hear the laughter of my friends. How easy it is to be with them. Not to have to speak. To debate the merits of pickles. The gift of dappled sunshine and a light breeze.
It is no grand adventure. It is not covered in hearts and flowers and balloons and it doesn't cost me anything.
To me, this is love. Whatever you call it, it is part of our human experience. Another very real part of our human experience is the inability to be standardized: it doesn't work, it never has, at some point people will stop following orders or suggestions or subliminal messages and they will resent the intrusion.
Humans will continue to love as humans will. Unstandardized. Legal or not. It is a only a lazy and desperate act of commodification and mechanization that does not see this. And it will fail. It always does.
My prayers to those who are in the center of the fight.
My respect to those who support them.
My love to all.
It finally struck me this year that I could take advantage of my status as a single person and make whatever plans I wanted whenever I wanted them to bask in the holiday. I painted my nails. I never do that. I watched a movie that I'd been wanting to see. I sat quietly with a cat on my lap and just listened to her breathe. All of the things that I would have enjoyed with someone - the right someone - at my side. Which got me to thinking about my friends.
Which lead directly to thinking about India and traveling.
Which lead to population issues and driving instructions.
Which lead to normalizing posters - expectations communicated through advertising - the power of the spoken word to define a life whether that life requires outside definition or not.
(and since this is a train of thought I ride a lot, I've got quite used to the stops.)
Which got me to thinking about how impossible it is to standardize human beings, and how often that is exactly what people try to do.
It is easy to think of standardized shoppers and workers and politicians and archetypes. It is a bit startling when the easy thoughts of generalized expectations lead on to something like Valentine's Day.
We celebrate the holiday of a man who was martyred, and so the tale goes (altho the facts are a bit imaginary) he was martyred for performing weddings for soldiers, directly against the order of the Emperor Claudius II who believed that unmarried men made better soldiers. Learning that the facts are unfactual is a bit of a downer, but we'll pretend I didn't learn that part and go on.
It is not the spending or the gift-giving that I think of when I consider the standardization of lovers. It is the constant repetition of the form: one man and one woman and nothing and no one shall be loved as much as these two love each other. Friendships are not important. Family is only sought, never received, never expected, never involved. Co-workers are co-cattle. And please don't consider changing the sex or number of the people in the basic relationship, because there is nothing stable in the world if you do that.
How many romantic movies are about a man and woman who are only barely involved in family life and function solely as the subject of a spot light in the life of a friend group? How often is the word 'bromance' used as something kind of meaningless or sketchy? And, yes, as a woman who shared a home with another woman for more than two years, it is old and immature to believe that every female friendship involves naked pillow fights. And it is a dealbreaker. Then again, I also like my friends quite a little bit and do not tolerate being around people who can say nothing good about the people they claim to like. It is my choice to love the people around me and my choice to be around people I love.
But what about this world that has such issues with individuals loving other individuals, to the point that while in my country there is a need to keep the Church and the State separate, there is no need to see that regulating marriage is allowing the State to regulate Love. Married people are given perks that single people are not - socially, legally and economically.
In a world that is obsessed with zombies and robots and vampires taking over - things which are not human, things which do not make human decisions, things which are inhumane at best - the conversation about what makes a human being different than a robot or a zombie or a cow is less and less easy to have. Affection is a thing we share with other mammals, not just primates. We do, however, feel something that we elevate to a position of Proof of God: we can love each other. In our little skull prisons, we imagine the suffering and the joy and the stories of other people and sometimes those imaginings involve a greater concern for the happiness of another person than for ourselves - people call that love, the thing that takes you out of your selfishness and brings you into the world of other humans.
I think of how much it matters to hear the laughter of my friends. How easy it is to be with them. Not to have to speak. To debate the merits of pickles. The gift of dappled sunshine and a light breeze.
It is no grand adventure. It is not covered in hearts and flowers and balloons and it doesn't cost me anything.
To me, this is love. Whatever you call it, it is part of our human experience. Another very real part of our human experience is the inability to be standardized: it doesn't work, it never has, at some point people will stop following orders or suggestions or subliminal messages and they will resent the intrusion.
Humans will continue to love as humans will. Unstandardized. Legal or not. It is a only a lazy and desperate act of commodification and mechanization that does not see this. And it will fail. It always does.
My prayers to those who are in the center of the fight.
My respect to those who support them.
My love to all.
Friday 18 February 2011
Fun with Misreadings
I enjoy those moments when the words my brain reads are only slightly similar to the ones that are printed for my reading convenience. For instance, one of the self-motivational things that Barnes&Noble sells reads something like Creating Your Life blah blah blah, and I read it as Cheating Your Life and then ignore the blah blah blah's because that's just fucking funny.
Today, in the midst of getting around to reading through the messing about with cats and moving boxes, I picked up a DVD on which is printed Live Your Dream. And I read Live Your Brain. And it made me happy. Happy enough that it's on twitter.
And happy enough that it's hanging in front of my window.
The part that really giggles me is the part where the little tassley bits are skulls made from bone that I got from a random ex. The stuff you find lying about the place, I tell ya.
Today, in the midst of getting around to reading through the messing about with cats and moving boxes, I picked up a DVD on which is printed Live Your Dream. And I read Live Your Brain. And it made me happy. Happy enough that it's on twitter.
And happy enough that it's hanging in front of my window.
The part that really giggles me is the part where the little tassley bits are skulls made from bone that I got from a random ex. The stuff you find lying about the place, I tell ya.
Wednesday 9 February 2011
Head in a Trashcan Day
Cold cold cold out there. Just like most February days.
I wrote in my journal this morning, a feat which lead to many smiles, and also to the search for a notebook as yet unfilled. I found one. And there was rejoicing in the land. Well, not in the land of Ethel, who has been following me around for the last several days just waiting for me to provide her with lap. She spent several minutes with her head in a trash can earlier this morning. I was adding books to my LibraryThing account and generally being internally brilliant. The head-in-a-trashcan move was her way of staying entertained. I don't think it was a message of any kind.
I really shoulda got a picture. Hm. Well - here's one of her hanging out in the rungs of an upturned bar stool. Just so you know that this is a Thing That Happens in my house.
Probably just over half of my books are now on my LT account. Interestingly (well, to me), (I'm having comma placement issues) about half of the books listed in my LT library are not in my physical library. They belong to proper public or university libraries or are just for wishing upon. le sigh. I am considering the paid upgrade. Honestly, it's not like LT isn't incredibly useful and made of a fantastic community. Book nerds, baby, Book nerds. Another le sigh, shall we?
Since I got the 1st issue of Nix, I've been reminded of writing that I want to do that is not (repeat Not) Mary Sue fiction. I am so stupidly excited about this that I cannot even tell you. I really will have to go and find my skinny and elusive drawing friend. We will discuss things. And then I will discuss other things, less like fiction and more like libraries with another person. And I will make a Valentine this weekend.
*headshake*
But back to the part about writing: I just like reading and writing non-fiction better than anything else unless it's well-done fairy taling or has visual art to go with it (comic books, my dears, comic books (only not superhero comic books unless there are no supe types with bulging bits and scanty cloths covering them (it's not good story-telling and does nothing for the readers (at least not when the readers are me)))) (also, didja ever notice that the Doppler effect of nested parenthetical expressions only ever goes in one direction - like the words are just headed toward you but will never get there because you've already read them and then gone on by the time all the closing parentheses have their say?) (yes, this is a thing that I thought of while trying to go to sleep last night.) (you should hear me go on about sandwich making) (I'm actually not joking there.)(at all)(it's the only part of Mostly Harmless that I liked right off the bat.)
Right. Non-fiction. So I write a couple of reviews yesterday afternoon, and one of them was fairly well-written about a book that I've not really got any emotional attachment to, and one of them was a piece of dreck. Absolute dreck. Brilliant! I can write terribly, post it on the internet, share it with people I'd really like to like me and still sleep well at night and still be a desirable source of heat for the heat-seeking feline (who is curled up wedged between my wrists as I type this. She's got one paw down on my thigh for support lest I move too suddenly and she roll off the desk. It's a smart thing for her to do. I am a bit UnpredIctaBle. *snerk*).
Also, and this is the Big Main Point: I skimmed a few old journal entries after writing this am and found that this is a time of year that makes the difference in the rest of it: when I write and read and organize and blah de blah de dooby doo, it matters in ways that are terrifying and positive and show up sometime in the early summer. My Lent begins in just under two weeks, and I'm terribly excited about it. Partly because it means that I get to spend 40 days (no breaks for a Sabbath in which I do not believe or fasts that will do nothing but build jealousy and self-righteousness) doing the things that I love to do without anything that distracts me from them.
Last year's Lenten experience was tremendous, altho a bit more Puritanical that this year''s will be. Nice thing about learning: you can change how things get done.
Update: Ethel did it again and this time I grabbed the camera just in time!
I wrote in my journal this morning, a feat which lead to many smiles, and also to the search for a notebook as yet unfilled. I found one. And there was rejoicing in the land. Well, not in the land of Ethel, who has been following me around for the last several days just waiting for me to provide her with lap. She spent several minutes with her head in a trash can earlier this morning. I was adding books to my LibraryThing account and generally being internally brilliant. The head-in-a-trashcan move was her way of staying entertained. I don't think it was a message of any kind.
I really shoulda got a picture. Hm. Well - here's one of her hanging out in the rungs of an upturned bar stool. Just so you know that this is a Thing That Happens in my house.
Probably just over half of my books are now on my LT account. Interestingly (well, to me), (I'm having comma placement issues) about half of the books listed in my LT library are not in my physical library. They belong to proper public or university libraries or are just for wishing upon. le sigh. I am considering the paid upgrade. Honestly, it's not like LT isn't incredibly useful and made of a fantastic community. Book nerds, baby, Book nerds. Another le sigh, shall we?
Since I got the 1st issue of Nix, I've been reminded of writing that I want to do that is not (repeat Not) Mary Sue fiction. I am so stupidly excited about this that I cannot even tell you. I really will have to go and find my skinny and elusive drawing friend. We will discuss things. And then I will discuss other things, less like fiction and more like libraries with another person. And I will make a Valentine this weekend.
*headshake*
But back to the part about writing: I just like reading and writing non-fiction better than anything else unless it's well-done fairy taling or has visual art to go with it (comic books, my dears, comic books (only not superhero comic books unless there are no supe types with bulging bits and scanty cloths covering them (it's not good story-telling and does nothing for the readers (at least not when the readers are me)))) (also, didja ever notice that the Doppler effect of nested parenthetical expressions only ever goes in one direction - like the words are just headed toward you but will never get there because you've already read them and then gone on by the time all the closing parentheses have their say?) (yes, this is a thing that I thought of while trying to go to sleep last night.) (you should hear me go on about sandwich making) (I'm actually not joking there.)(at all)(it's the only part of Mostly Harmless that I liked right off the bat.)
Right. Non-fiction. So I write a couple of reviews yesterday afternoon, and one of them was fairly well-written about a book that I've not really got any emotional attachment to, and one of them was a piece of dreck. Absolute dreck. Brilliant! I can write terribly, post it on the internet, share it with people I'd really like to like me and still sleep well at night and still be a desirable source of heat for the heat-seeking feline (who is curled up wedged between my wrists as I type this. She's got one paw down on my thigh for support lest I move too suddenly and she roll off the desk. It's a smart thing for her to do. I am a bit UnpredIctaBle. *snerk*).
Also, and this is the Big Main Point: I skimmed a few old journal entries after writing this am and found that this is a time of year that makes the difference in the rest of it: when I write and read and organize and blah de blah de dooby doo, it matters in ways that are terrifying and positive and show up sometime in the early summer. My Lent begins in just under two weeks, and I'm terribly excited about it. Partly because it means that I get to spend 40 days (no breaks for a Sabbath in which I do not believe or fasts that will do nothing but build jealousy and self-righteousness) doing the things that I love to do without anything that distracts me from them.
Last year's Lenten experience was tremendous, altho a bit more Puritanical that this year''s will be. Nice thing about learning: you can change how things get done.
Update: Ethel did it again and this time I grabbed the camera just in time!
Tuesday 8 February 2011
The Most Beautiful Thing I Have Ever Written
I just found this. I remembered writing it, but after I moved out of the apartment I lived in at the time, it seemed to vanish. As if it had never happened.
It had. It is real, and it is still beautiful, and I can no longer remember more about the writing of it than the clues I've left myself, the same clues I've left every reader. I am audience, weighted.
Context: Watched Simon Schama's Power of Art. This was written after the one about Bernini. (As an aside, I should note that I am rendered hopelessly enthralled in whatever Simon Schama is talking about owing to a massive weakness in most of my body parts whenever he starts speaking. I'm okay with it; it's fun. But I'm also big on a certain degree of disclosure.) The show is available at the Lincoln City Libraries. I refer to Martha Nussbaum in the piece. The book I refer to is called Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. It took me almost a year to read, and reading it changed my life.
++++
And now the time of stillness as I sit and wrestle with my memory of the last 20 minutes. Bernini thawed the chill of this day with its wind and threatened snow and gray showing all the budding flower plants almost, no, not almost, very clearly a shock as I have not even begun to think of what that means as I carry on. How closely studied can St. Teresa be through a television set/camera/commentator? How devastating the thought-notion of creation without access to the inside, the organs forever out of reach beyond her teeth. Beyond her pose what exists to make this real, and there I am lost in the worlds of flesh shown sublime not perfect. Sensuality without death or disfigurement. Michelangelo made marble float in light, Bernini granted it blood and heartbeats. I needed flan after all that Chocolate flan in a box on my counter next to the bag of muffins, cookies and cheesecake that I bought in the bakery where everything smells alive and sweet crusty with honey not cane. I smiled like I'd just been kissed. Words are not marble, no chisel or mallet or smoothing substance will ever render hard stone into such fluid stuff as lives in my hands and my throat getting in the way of every thought feeling action merely by its presence. Every mark in marble is seen, must be accounted for in some way or another and while it may seem presumptuous to speak about an art form wholly unfamiliar to my hands and muscles and language, there is something deliberate in the sculpturing of such as Teresa's ecstasy that sets the tone for the total re-creation of self and habit as Bernini is said to have undergone. We artists create in a sense of odd awareness no matter how adept or prolific or focused we are. It is no small element of that life to be responsible for its definition, no matter what that set of characteristics may be. The world of the bakery a golden yellow smelling warmth sending gifts into the world all gray like a movie, hard angles and biting wind and me typing in fingerless gloves at my table, drinking tea. Waiting for the laundry to be finished so I can start the next load, next chore, next round of this life in the afternoon: Chocolate flan and tea with Rembrandt. There is no asceticism in this nature of my home and body and brain as they wander about, running the internal mental thrums up next to the articulated finger motions, the sounds that do but throw my focus off like a girl in a scary wood. I would know more of the workshops of these artists, their sketches and plans and tools. I would hear the work marble uncovering its inner self in the form of veins and shades where the heat advanced and retreated slowly or consistently between the outside and the center. Where the pressure left its mark.
Thoughts of cities and art and humanity and the sublime and exaltation swirl about, but the DVD player is insistent and there are a least 3 more loads.
I wonder if it is right to continue Nussbaum's arguments about the different ways of experience perfect love into the world of Caravaggio and Bernini? It is impossible for me to see a Caravaggio without feeling weak at the knees, even when I do not know it is his work. The visceral nature of these sublime moments reaches a depth of understanding that I have found in few other ways and never as palpably. I wonder how it is that it is a purer thing to let go your self in witness to some great panorama of oil and light and shadow than it is in the act of sharing that self with another who is presumably sharing with you. I expect that says more about my own human frailty than that of all humans, but I am happy to know a place where it can happen, where the loss of self, even for a moment in awe or forgetfulness is the important part of the work. The artists very likely did, it would be a poor audience that did not show the same respect.
31 March 2009
++++
It had. It is real, and it is still beautiful, and I can no longer remember more about the writing of it than the clues I've left myself, the same clues I've left every reader. I am audience, weighted.
Context: Watched Simon Schama's Power of Art. This was written after the one about Bernini. (As an aside, I should note that I am rendered hopelessly enthralled in whatever Simon Schama is talking about owing to a massive weakness in most of my body parts whenever he starts speaking. I'm okay with it; it's fun. But I'm also big on a certain degree of disclosure.) The show is available at the Lincoln City Libraries. I refer to Martha Nussbaum in the piece. The book I refer to is called Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. It took me almost a year to read, and reading it changed my life.
++++
And now the time of stillness as I sit and wrestle with my memory of the last 20 minutes. Bernini thawed the chill of this day with its wind and threatened snow and gray showing all the budding flower plants almost, no, not almost, very clearly a shock as I have not even begun to think of what that means as I carry on. How closely studied can St. Teresa be through a television set/camera/commentator? How devastating the thought-notion of creation without access to the inside, the organs forever out of reach beyond her teeth. Beyond her pose what exists to make this real, and there I am lost in the worlds of flesh shown sublime not perfect. Sensuality without death or disfigurement. Michelangelo made marble float in light, Bernini granted it blood and heartbeats. I needed flan after all that Chocolate flan in a box on my counter next to the bag of muffins, cookies and cheesecake that I bought in the bakery where everything smells alive and sweet crusty with honey not cane. I smiled like I'd just been kissed. Words are not marble, no chisel or mallet or smoothing substance will ever render hard stone into such fluid stuff as lives in my hands and my throat getting in the way of every thought feeling action merely by its presence. Every mark in marble is seen, must be accounted for in some way or another and while it may seem presumptuous to speak about an art form wholly unfamiliar to my hands and muscles and language, there is something deliberate in the sculpturing of such as Teresa's ecstasy that sets the tone for the total re-creation of self and habit as Bernini is said to have undergone. We artists create in a sense of odd awareness no matter how adept or prolific or focused we are. It is no small element of that life to be responsible for its definition, no matter what that set of characteristics may be. The world of the bakery a golden yellow smelling warmth sending gifts into the world all gray like a movie, hard angles and biting wind and me typing in fingerless gloves at my table, drinking tea. Waiting for the laundry to be finished so I can start the next load, next chore, next round of this life in the afternoon: Chocolate flan and tea with Rembrandt. There is no asceticism in this nature of my home and body and brain as they wander about, running the internal mental thrums up next to the articulated finger motions, the sounds that do but throw my focus off like a girl in a scary wood. I would know more of the workshops of these artists, their sketches and plans and tools. I would hear the work marble uncovering its inner self in the form of veins and shades where the heat advanced and retreated slowly or consistently between the outside and the center. Where the pressure left its mark.
Thoughts of cities and art and humanity and the sublime and exaltation swirl about, but the DVD player is insistent and there are a least 3 more loads.
I wonder if it is right to continue Nussbaum's arguments about the different ways of experience perfect love into the world of Caravaggio and Bernini? It is impossible for me to see a Caravaggio without feeling weak at the knees, even when I do not know it is his work. The visceral nature of these sublime moments reaches a depth of understanding that I have found in few other ways and never as palpably. I wonder how it is that it is a purer thing to let go your self in witness to some great panorama of oil and light and shadow than it is in the act of sharing that self with another who is presumably sharing with you. I expect that says more about my own human frailty than that of all humans, but I am happy to know a place where it can happen, where the loss of self, even for a moment in awe or forgetfulness is the important part of the work. The artists very likely did, it would be a poor audience that did not show the same respect.
31 March 2009
++++
Tea for the morning
noaa.gov - my favorite weather website - showed information last night that made me decide that today is a day to not leave the house. At all. It is a day for reading and for drinking tea and maybe even jamming out to Bitches Brew while I finally begin the process of making room for Lent. More on that not right now.
The thing is, the tea kettle drips like a moody bitch.
Wait, I have to explain: I live with my parents. I did not used to live with my parents; I used to live with cats and stuffed animals in small apartments in various places in downtown Lincoln. I have also been known to live with roommates and the occasional husband, but that doesn't seem to be a good idea, so ... yes.
umm.
I live with my parents in a very large house that has a very large attic. That attic holds all of the boxes of things that we've got stored away because there is not room or need for them right now. Most of my kitchen stuff is up there. None of my books are. There's also a really lot of china and goblets in boxes labeled with my name, which tells me that I'm gonna need that china cabinet when I go. And maybe a few more. eeesh.
It was sort of assumed that most of my stuff would not get unpacked, except that boiling water is kind of a thing that we do around here. We use it for all sorts of stuff: hot chocolate, pasta, hot buttered rum and, most importantly, tea. A saucepot works for boiling water for pasta or rice or eggs. For pouring into fairly narrowly open mugs or tea-pots, it is fail. Just fail.
But we couldn't find their tea kettle. The stress of moving is enough without access so comfort tool, so when I found mine I proudly contributed it to the cause of family happiness. Except, see, I forgot about the thing where the damn spout drips water everywhere. But only when the kettle has been filled past a certain point. If you only fill it 2/3, there is no drip. If 5/6, no drip - but you just try to fill the damn thing 7/8 of the way and then it's the inverse of Mount fucking Vesuvius.
And here's the part where it's important that the people that I live with are my parents, and not my peers: I have forgotten how to be self-sufficient. On my own, I had Ways Around Things that involved study and consideration and specifically placed empty mugs that would catch the splooping water and would then be warmed (yay!) while preventing stove-grody.
Not today. Today I watched the water sploop onto the hot stovetop and heard the crackle and crunch and did nothing but let my eyes float over to the shelf where my mother keeps my special Daughter Cups and wondered if I would take the honey upstairs with me or just season the whole pot of tea in the kitchen.
The thing is, the tea kettle drips like a moody bitch.
Wait, I have to explain: I live with my parents. I did not used to live with my parents; I used to live with cats and stuffed animals in small apartments in various places in downtown Lincoln. I have also been known to live with roommates and the occasional husband, but that doesn't seem to be a good idea, so ... yes.
umm.
I live with my parents in a very large house that has a very large attic. That attic holds all of the boxes of things that we've got stored away because there is not room or need for them right now. Most of my kitchen stuff is up there. None of my books are. There's also a really lot of china and goblets in boxes labeled with my name, which tells me that I'm gonna need that china cabinet when I go. And maybe a few more. eeesh.
It was sort of assumed that most of my stuff would not get unpacked, except that boiling water is kind of a thing that we do around here. We use it for all sorts of stuff: hot chocolate, pasta, hot buttered rum and, most importantly, tea. A saucepot works for boiling water for pasta or rice or eggs. For pouring into fairly narrowly open mugs or tea-pots, it is fail. Just fail.
But we couldn't find their tea kettle. The stress of moving is enough without access so comfort tool, so when I found mine I proudly contributed it to the cause of family happiness. Except, see, I forgot about the thing where the damn spout drips water everywhere. But only when the kettle has been filled past a certain point. If you only fill it 2/3, there is no drip. If 5/6, no drip - but you just try to fill the damn thing 7/8 of the way and then it's the inverse of Mount fucking Vesuvius.
And here's the part where it's important that the people that I live with are my parents, and not my peers: I have forgotten how to be self-sufficient. On my own, I had Ways Around Things that involved study and consideration and specifically placed empty mugs that would catch the splooping water and would then be warmed (yay!) while preventing stove-grody.
Not today. Today I watched the water sploop onto the hot stovetop and heard the crackle and crunch and did nothing but let my eyes float over to the shelf where my mother keeps my special Daughter Cups and wondered if I would take the honey upstairs with me or just season the whole pot of tea in the kitchen.
Monday 7 February 2011
Links before supper!
I smell cooking happening downstairs.
My stomach is made of macrame knots right now, but damn, does that smell good.
Beautiful things found in my feed:
Friends of the Pleistocene From their sidebar: FOP is dedicated to exploring the conjuncture between landscape and contemporary human activity at sites shaped by the geologic epoch of the Pleistocene (2.588 million to 10000 years BP).
serious thinkers whose acronym spells 'fop'. win.
Legislation forces archaeologists to rebury finds. Not beautiful, not at all. Important is the word here.
A view of the news from the scientist who work in the ground at Archaeology.org. Alternate perspectives.
Part of New Zealand's Submerged 'Pink Terraces' Found and how cool is that? Really? Yeah.
The best news on this list, though?
Civil Rights Activist and Congressman John Lewis to write a graphic novel autobiography focused on civil rights activism and his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement in the US. Yes.
And from Stumble, because I felt like something else was needed:
Early 1900's in Color
From the site: "In the early part of the 20th century French-Jewish capitalist Albert Kahn set about to collect a photographic record of the world, the images were held in an 'Archive of the Planet'. Before the 1929 stock market crash he was able to amass a collection of 180,000 metres of b/w film and more than 72,000 autochrome plates, the first industrial process for true colour photography"
My stomach is made of macrame knots right now, but damn, does that smell good.
Beautiful things found in my feed:
Friends of the Pleistocene From their sidebar: FOP is dedicated to exploring the conjuncture between landscape and contemporary human activity at sites shaped by the geologic epoch of the Pleistocene (2.588 million to 10000 years BP).
serious thinkers whose acronym spells 'fop'. win.
Legislation forces archaeologists to rebury finds. Not beautiful, not at all. Important is the word here.
A view of the news from the scientist who work in the ground at Archaeology.org. Alternate perspectives.
Part of New Zealand's Submerged 'Pink Terraces' Found and how cool is that? Really? Yeah.
The best news on this list, though?
Civil Rights Activist and Congressman John Lewis to write a graphic novel autobiography focused on civil rights activism and his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement in the US. Yes.
And from Stumble, because I felt like something else was needed:
Early 1900's in Color
From the site: "In the early part of the 20th century French-Jewish capitalist Albert Kahn set about to collect a photographic record of the world, the images were held in an 'Archive of the Planet'. Before the 1929 stock market crash he was able to amass a collection of 180,000 metres of b/w film and more than 72,000 autochrome plates, the first industrial process for true colour photography"
New stuff from last week
For whatever reason, last week was the kind of week that brought good things on the drifts of snow that we all watched pile up and up and up. I am pleased to say that not only did most of it wait until late January to fall, but I'm pretty stoked for it to all leave and melt in the not too terribly distant future. Last winter was far too long and snowy for any mortal soul, and I'm ready for my move south of the winter, Mr. DeMille.
So, going to college early may not have all of the glamorous perks that I figured it would (then again, I am the stubborn one who lacks all manner of good homework habits), one of the many wonderful surprises was rekindling a friendship with a guy who has just published the first issue of Nix Comics Quarterly. It arrived in my house last week, and I'm writing about only now because my father (ahem ahem) absconded with it and I've only just found it again in the piles of paper that define my space in the living room.
Happily, I loved it. The stories are quick and well-written and Ken's found artists whose work compliment the sort of story-genres very well. Also, he's just wrong in the head and the little blurbs between the stories are just fun. Almost makes me sad for the days of Dr. Pepper and Rum. Almost. But not really. He's accepting submissions for his second issue and if the website doesn't lie, it looks like he's going to be out and about in public and at events doing things this spring.
On a side note: Ken financed the first issue through Kickstarter just as some other fine people have begun doing, and I'm getting to think that this is a wonderful idea for a way to use the Internet that doesn't suck ass.
Also, I love you, Whitechapel.
And!
My webcomics reading has informed me of things that I wish to share!
Like, The Beat and Girls Gone Geek, both comics news sites that have given my daily feed an unwholesome dose of nerd-love and geek-gasms, and frankly, I like them better than Bleeding Cool. Sorry, dudes, but it's true. io9 is still pretty fun, but too much graphics for my little 'puter some days.
And!
Andre's moved his blog to something named Treacherous Grey Matter, going with nomenclature that more accurately represents the state of his brain. Pitch Black is still where it was before (whew, changing feeds is just like 30 seconds worth of work, mang!)
um.
I think that's all.
Oh!
I remember: Love On The Run! YAY. I love this. I love that porridge papers does it. I love that other people love it. I super love that I get to volunteer at it on Sunday morning. (psst: you could come and see me and we could hug!)
So, going to college early may not have all of the glamorous perks that I figured it would (then again, I am the stubborn one who lacks all manner of good homework habits), one of the many wonderful surprises was rekindling a friendship with a guy who has just published the first issue of Nix Comics Quarterly. It arrived in my house last week, and I'm writing about only now because my father (ahem ahem) absconded with it and I've only just found it again in the piles of paper that define my space in the living room.
Happily, I loved it. The stories are quick and well-written and Ken's found artists whose work compliment the sort of story-genres very well. Also, he's just wrong in the head and the little blurbs between the stories are just fun. Almost makes me sad for the days of Dr. Pepper and Rum. Almost. But not really. He's accepting submissions for his second issue and if the website doesn't lie, it looks like he's going to be out and about in public and at events doing things this spring.
On a side note: Ken financed the first issue through Kickstarter just as some other fine people have begun doing, and I'm getting to think that this is a wonderful idea for a way to use the Internet that doesn't suck ass.
Also, I love you, Whitechapel.
And!
My webcomics reading has informed me of things that I wish to share!
Like, The Beat and Girls Gone Geek, both comics news sites that have given my daily feed an unwholesome dose of nerd-love and geek-gasms, and frankly, I like them better than Bleeding Cool. Sorry, dudes, but it's true. io9 is still pretty fun, but too much graphics for my little 'puter some days.
And!
Andre's moved his blog to something named Treacherous Grey Matter, going with nomenclature that more accurately represents the state of his brain. Pitch Black is still where it was before (whew, changing feeds is just like 30 seconds worth of work, mang!)
um.
I think that's all.
Oh!
I remember: Love On The Run! YAY. I love this. I love that porridge papers does it. I love that other people love it. I super love that I get to volunteer at it on Sunday morning. (psst: you could come and see me and we could hug!)
Tuesday 1 February 2011
From the desk of me
I've moved the furniture around a bit. Mostly in fits of irritation that I've accomplished so little else. Ever.
Also, I like moving furniture around. It's an environment thing. Every season saw a new arrangement in our living room, and I frequently moved the things in my bedroom about as well, in mimicry. I am good at a certain amount of mimicry.
I'm going to buy a very odd lamp and octagonal end table (with storage) once the weather clears up and I can get to work to get my paycheck and put the things on hold.
Anyone who has ever lived in a house with limited closet space will know the struggle of the storage tubs. I do not make things any easier for myself by beginning to collect books for the library that I will eventually be involved with creating. It's five years hence, at least, and yet: literary criticism and anthologies of literature and BF Skinner have taken up residence on the floor of my office.
The cats are restless today because of the wind and the snow and the fact that because of the wind, the snow does not look the same out of every window. Out of the east windows everything is horizontal and apocalyptic. The world to the south is merely blanketed and falling.
And everywhere is chaos. And everywhere go my prayers. I do not worry that there will be no wind to carry them, not in this weather.
I have been happy in the water of Carl Sagan's voice and Cosmos these last few evenings. The show is very specific and careful and yet utterly odd feeling in its organization. The music is familiar and makes things like Coilhouse's blog archive that much more fun to see.
And Warren Ellis tells me of fab blog that I need to read, and now will, and so can you! The Beat: The News Blog of Comics Culture
Dark Roasted Blend has a whole page for Steampunk stuff and links to more of it. That is today's moment of beauty.
My afternoon is undecided. The Chronology of Librarianship, Philobiblon, Possession and browsing the catalog at Lincoln City Libraries for the books of library history I've already read all vie for my attention, as do the lap-seeking cats who seem to find peace only in the act of keeping some human or other firmly attached to a chair.
I may prefer more Cosmos (I'm only on episode 4, after all) to all of that. But I will need to be careful: I've discovered that I'm inadvertently crocheting with my hair.
Be well.
Be safe.
Be joyful.
Also, I like moving furniture around. It's an environment thing. Every season saw a new arrangement in our living room, and I frequently moved the things in my bedroom about as well, in mimicry. I am good at a certain amount of mimicry.
I'm going to buy a very odd lamp and octagonal end table (with storage) once the weather clears up and I can get to work to get my paycheck and put the things on hold.
Anyone who has ever lived in a house with limited closet space will know the struggle of the storage tubs. I do not make things any easier for myself by beginning to collect books for the library that I will eventually be involved with creating. It's five years hence, at least, and yet: literary criticism and anthologies of literature and BF Skinner have taken up residence on the floor of my office.
The cats are restless today because of the wind and the snow and the fact that because of the wind, the snow does not look the same out of every window. Out of the east windows everything is horizontal and apocalyptic. The world to the south is merely blanketed and falling.
And everywhere is chaos. And everywhere go my prayers. I do not worry that there will be no wind to carry them, not in this weather.
I have been happy in the water of Carl Sagan's voice and Cosmos these last few evenings. The show is very specific and careful and yet utterly odd feeling in its organization. The music is familiar and makes things like Coilhouse's blog archive that much more fun to see.
And Warren Ellis tells me of fab blog that I need to read, and now will, and so can you! The Beat: The News Blog of Comics Culture
Dark Roasted Blend has a whole page for Steampunk stuff and links to more of it. That is today's moment of beauty.
My afternoon is undecided. The Chronology of Librarianship, Philobiblon, Possession and browsing the catalog at Lincoln City Libraries for the books of library history I've already read all vie for my attention, as do the lap-seeking cats who seem to find peace only in the act of keeping some human or other firmly attached to a chair.
I may prefer more Cosmos (I'm only on episode 4, after all) to all of that. But I will need to be careful: I've discovered that I'm inadvertently crocheting with my hair.
Be well.
Be safe.
Be joyful.
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