it seems to me you lived your life like a shopping bag in the wind

merry christmas, consuming suckers!

like most teenagers

i am constantly paranoid that people are not taking me seriously. and, like most teenagers, i am usually correct. but there is one thing that i really, really hate. i really hate it when adults dismiss requests i have made on behalf of the environment (ie: refusing to buy used books and movies because of the quality while chuckling at me). something about them is too slow. they have been exposed to so many situations that they think nothing is really definite. they think oh, global warming isn't that big of a deal, we've been through things like this before. but a teenager who sees such a disastrous situation is horrified and amazed. it's really frustrating. it's like... it's like standing on a wooden bridge which is burning behind you and a person is standing in front of you strolling leisurely along and admiring the view. it's really icky.

The good Lord never gives you more than you can handle. Unless you die of something.

see, i never believed in fate. when i was younger i always thought that the problem with the judeo-christian concept of the afterlife was that you didn't get to go back and fix your mistakes. bad things often happen to us as a result of one stupid mistake that we made, and we always say "i wish i could just go back and change that." so i had this idea that the afterlife could be a big desk with a book on it. you sit at the desk and go through the book (which is your life) fixing what didn't go well. because of this theological theory of mine, i spent most of my life withe the idea that everything i did was being recorded and could be edited later. that's the funny thing about religion. you invent a theory that you like the sound of and all of a sudden it feels true.
anyway, it occurred to me recently that if you were to go back and change certain experiences in a person's life, you would end up tweaking that person's character. everything that happens to you informs you in some way. missing the subway means that you are a person who has recently missed the subway. this is particularly true when one is at such a young age as myself, and everything that happens greatly affects one's experience. so, i decided that everything that happens, happens. not that i believe in fate. i just believe that, well...
we are living in a certain universe where things are going to happen. every fork in the road, every series of events, affects the universe. that is not to say that every chain of events has been previously planned out by the fates or the norns or whatever, but that every chain of events happens. this is harder to explain than i thought.
let me put it this way: god did not write The Book of What Will Happen. The Book of What Will Happen is being written as things happen, and events are random and unavoidable, even though they are not planned. there are an infinite number of possible fates that all depend on things like whether someone in australia gets up five minutes later or whether you eat pretzels or popcorn. things will happen. do not try to manipulate them.

dude, why are you being so serious?

he looked into the sky. it was a lightish but intense blue, the color that turns everything in front of it to black silhouettes and makes the world feel like a slow piece of classical piano music. a crowd of silent rock doves hovered onto the top of an old-time ornate bank. "beautiful." he said.
teenagers never say beautiful, especially boys. the only time they do is right before they start carefully sliding the arm they have around your shoulder further down. they never say beautiful about the sky. and they *never* say it to other boys.
he flicked his eyes over to the boy standing next to him. "um, okay," he said. they had just been talking in the way fourteen year old boys talk--the subject matter of less concern than the mutual agreement of macho-ness. 'beautiful' stuck out like a sore thumb.
teenagers don't want to be so serious. to pronounce something as beautiful seems to require authority, maturity, and a certain romantic sensibility that we are afraid to dive into. that's why we use stupid adjectives like "cool" so much. there is a certain feeling that our emotions are so deep, so intense, so scary that we must only ever speak in gossipy small-talk and snap our bubble gum. well, boys don't snap their bubble gum.
he snapped his bubble gum as his small dark eyes slid decadently over the blue and black world. he soaked it up with relish, drew in his breath slowly, and closed his eyes.

doesn't anyone hate being though of as nice?

i am reading a not-yet-published book by eve ensler that i will not disclose the name of at present. there is a really beautiful idea in it that is as follows:
barbie is not really what we think she is. barbie is actually really smart and angry and passionate. she hates shopping and hight heels. she wants to be let go. and what if we freed all of the barbies in the world? what if we freed all of them and let them just

i don't know. i don't know what they'd do. maybe they'd study calculus. maybe they'd eat chocolate souffle. maybe they'd wear torn secondhand AC/DC t-shirts and patched jeans. maybe they'd look sad. but they'd do something, you know?

there is no reason to hate barbie. there is no reason to hate evelyn nesbit or marilyn monroe or paris hilton or the kano sisters. the people we should hate are the ones who created them. the ones who realized that they were profitable. because they are just as much the victims as they are the perpetrators. maybe dick and jane would really rather trade outfits. maybe the heterogenous group of women who appear on the covers of cosmopolitan are deeply opposed to plastic surgery.

the way they trick you is they convince you that they are on your side. they make you think that they know how it feels to diet your way to looking like an airbrushed seventeen year old. they say i know, honey, i know. you just gotta deal with it. i'll try to help you, but in the end you're gonna have to make the commitment. you're gonna have to try your damnedest to be perfect on the outside. why? what do you MEAN, why? girl, it's your responsibility. that's why. it is your responsibility as a chick [never say woman, it makes you sound old] to look like an anorexic seventeen year old who just went through five hours of hair and make-up and was then airbrushed within an inch of her life. but its okay, buy our magazine and we'll give you the ultimate tips to cover up that pesky nose, or that awful frizzy hair, or that last five pounds.

jesus, i wish i could swear on this blog.

final proof that i am delusional. (this is NOT a poem)

sitting.
knitting.
sipping hot spiced cider from a "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" mug.
all of a sudden-i heard it. a loud shouting outside my window. chanting and screaming, asking and repeating. it sounded like a

revolution.

i couldn't see it. the scaffolding in the window blocked my eyes from witnessing the passion. i ran to my room and grabbed a coat, hat, and keys. left a note on the table:
have gone out for a breif moment. will be back shortly.
dashed out the door.

silence.
silence.
silence.

only soft, upper-middle-class new york ambience greeted my hungry ears.
oh well.

"everything that lives is holy but most of us are trying to escape our beautiful world." william blake

the world is so absolutely amazing. i bet you that for every square mile of land there are at least fifty spectacular things that you could find. i bet. the fact that anyone's life is boring is just ridiculous. if your life is boring, go somewhere else. no, i'm dead serious. quit your job, buy a cheap plane ticket, and go as far away on the globe as you can get before you start coming back around. figi. to go figi. people are worried about doing things like that, because they are worried about things like savings and career longevity and social stability, but if you're not happy, what's the point of those things? you have two objectives in life: to be happy and to make the world better. if you are not doing either of those things, or if you barely are, your life is pointless. i know how harsh that sounds, but it's really what i think. honestly-go to figi.

i've told you ten times already, dad.

do you know what the problem with grups* is? they've been alive too long. i know that that seems really obvious, but it's true. when a person goes through life, they mold and adapt to their environment. if the environment changes drastically, which it always does, they can't really change. they're stuck-in a rut, as flower said. as liberal as they may be, they just can't really understand things like, for example, that rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher is useless and wastes tons of water. they can't comprehend this because they grew up with faulty, old-fashioned dishwashers. even if they believe you, they find themselves rinsing out dishes and bowls out of habit. habit. it's what's destroying our world.

*a slang term for grown-ups stolen from an episode of star trek.

small white stones and daises forming a spiral pattern on the dirt

i have decided that there are two kind of interesting people: the ones with interesting personalities, and the ones with interesting professions/accomplishments. this is an important distinction. there could be that little old mexican lady you always run into at the deli who is the kindest, sweetest person and the entire world and whose brain is full of birds and flowers, and there could also be your idol whom you watch on tv every night and wish you could meet and dream about talking to for hours on end-and then you meet him and he's boring and professional and grown-up-y in real life. these two kinds of excellence are not necessarily linked in any way. but at least 25% of the population exceeds in one of them, i think. i hope.

sometimes

when i've been staring at the computer screen for a while doing nearly fruitless research, or i have to stay up till eleven-thirty doing prep for various things, or i'm so sleep-deprived that i'm deranged and a bit hallucinatory, i wonder why? i'm not totally sure what the point of the work is, other than specific short-term goals that seem to be pointless and only for the purpose of conforming. sometimes i get so tired that i stop caring about run-on sentences correct uses of clauses and "that"s and "and"s and i just want to crawl onto a mountain and sleep like a god.
but oh, well.

a picture that i found somewhere.

is it better to say "a picture i found somewhere" or "a picture that i found somewhere"? i've been wondering about this for quite a while.

in case you were wondering, this is all you really need to know about my philosophy:

live.

AD BUSTER-jordan seiler, 29, is on a mission to replace outdoor advertisements with art. late last month, he coordinated a stealth campaign to...

...whitewash and redecorate swaths of lower manhattan.

















i tried to publish it big enough so that you could read it, but that failed, so:
i don't really have a problem with advertising. i kind of enjoy it. and i'm a freelance photographer, so there are definitely times when i've shot advertisements. there is a difference, though, between advertising that's presented in situations where you have a choice as to whether or not to take in the message and places where you do not.
on october 25th, as part of an ongoing project with my group public ad campaign, about 80 volunteers and i targeted street posters that we believe are put up illegally, first whitewashing them, then making art on top. the advertising company npa found out and started postering on top of what we had done. the cops came. seven volunteers were arrested, and five ended up spending about 30 hours in jail.
i honestly believe that i'm right-that people should be allowed to make commentary like this and that i need to not be hiding. but at this point i don't think i can do my work in the same way anymore. with the nypd vandal squad after me, they're probably just looking for reasons to throw me in jail.

fyi

not everyone who sits on the subway with greasy, unwashed hair and a billion bags, reading a pocket dictionary while humming old songs to herself is homeless! okay? please remember that.

vacharey kichlot hakol and when all shall end v'lo ira i shall not fear.

the world is so incredibly complex-there are billions upon billions of stories and lives and deaths and and crises and epiphanies happening all at once, that to see it all only for a moment would kill you. did you know that 86,300 books are published each year JUST IN SPAIN?! and each of those 86,300 books is the story of an author who has been influenced my millions of other stories-to think about it is like trying to untangle a knot of every color in the universe.
did you know that the universe is actually pale yellow? by average, i mean. we all picture it as being black with little white bits, but in actuality, its a sickly butter-white color.
anyway, what if all of this confusion transfusion retribution illusion delusion were to end? just stop, like a candle? we're pushing the door so hard a million different ways-when will we go too far?

think think think whisper NO NO NO not that just breathe in out in out not so fast shhhhh don't think of that obey me obey obey turn lift life stop stop stop it!!! sigh heartbeat heartbeat beatbeatbeatbeat beat...beat...beat... panic blood racing whew slide move operate pulse throb work work work!!!
boom.
silence.

my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light that split the night

as i type this, i am staring through a murky window across the murky hudson river at the murky state of new jersey. there are a pair of white lights that shine more brightly than any other lights in the state, from what i can see. they look like headlights, but they're immobile and huge. they are like a pair of unblinking white eyes. they reflect on the sewage with a cold, eerie stare. i gaze at them, they gaze at me. we have one of those blinking show-downs that people get into without realizing it. but they win. they have to. they're just lights.
just lights... what makes people people? aren't we just machines? as emerson pugh (not that i know who he is) said, "If the human mind was simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it." so are we as magically human and irrational as we like to think that we are? or are we just incredibly complex machines that can program ourselves and perform commands that "we are too simple to understand?" after all, no machine can understand itself. this computer that i'm typing on doesn't know that it's recording a young human's existential ponderings. those eyes across the river don't care that they caught my attention.
or do they?

who am?

interesting how that's grammatically incorrect, isn't it? everyone knows who they are, the question is who are you? but, when you think about it, what is the correct answer? people ordinarily just say their names, but that doesn't at all answer the question. it answers a completely different question; how do i refer to you? i suppose that we say that because a true response would be impossible. we don't know who we are. and we don't even really know what the question means. who are you. who am i? do you say where you come from? no, that doesn't answer the question. your parents? your personality? your dating status? your interests? your relationship to the inquirer?
none of these actually answer the question. in actuality, the question is unanswerable. we don't understand ourselves. we only understand the things that attach themselves to us. it's like... imagine a silhouette that is only visible because of the clutter around it.


nothing exists.
it's all in the mind, y'know.

It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul.

numbers are so facinating. in a way, they are really a metaphor for humanity itself. we started with one two three and then we got zero and then the philosophy came in so we have things like negative square roots and integers and imaginary numbers and i and pi and calculus and statements like
there are three leaves on this tree. therefore, there are at least three objects in the universe.
when i was young, i said to my daddy
i hate math. its just a bunch of boring numbers that don't mean anything.
and he said
don't think of it that way, then. think of it as...think of it as the magic secrets that unlock the code of the universe.
or something like that. and the fact is, the basic stuff, which is pretty much everything you do in school up to seinor AP math, is boring. it is. at least to me, it is. but then, when you know that stuff, you get into the whole magic taoist school of mathematical thought and its amazing. i'm not old enough yet to be there, but i have glimpsed at it from afar and it looks wonderful.

i don't see what all the fuss is about

why is everyone so upset that people don't know correct grammar anymore? isn't the fundamental point of language just to communicate? and if we're doing that, why does it matter?

these are the days of miracle and wonder and don't cry baby don't cry

i have a theory. and it is this: we are living in the future.
(well, we are actually always living in the future, and the past, and the present, as i stated in another post. i can't find that post, tho, so i can't make a link to it. ah, well.)
anyway, we're living in the future. and this is why: it's possible to do so many things without talking to anyone. you can study, interview, get directions, buy things, find where to buy things, make art, write news articles, make business deals, *hail taxis*, even! you can do everything independently. and that is how i know that we are in the future; we are relying on machines to do most simple tasks for us. i cannot decide whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.
incidentally, this is the topic of one of my favorite star trek episodes, the ultimate computer. see it. its awesome.

clear water

sometimes, when you get to know someone very well, you can say things that don't make very good sense or or only make poetic sense in regular conversation, and that's ok. what annoys me about regular conversation is how prepared and conventional it is, how you first have a thought, then formulate a sentence that is mundane and simple, and then you say it. people always wonder how other animals communicate, and the answer is that they are actually more highly developed than we are. they don't have an accepted format for how to tell each other things, they just *say* things. its an art. sometimes people can look at each other and say things without speaking, but its usually just a single sentence in a conversation.
we're so formal. we're the most formal creatures on earth. even though other creatures have elaborate rituals for specific things like mating, we have elaborate rituals for *everything*. we over-think things. its what we do. and on the one hand, that's great, because we get to have all kinds of deep and interesting thoughts, but on the other hand, we forget to clearwatermountainbuddhalive. you know what i mean?

i am so sorry

that i am hardly ever posting. i am going thru a very stressful time in my life right now and i never have time. i will be able to post more often soon.

the very sad haiku

very, very, very, ver-
y, very, very, very
very, very, sad.

molly crabapple

Look for the bare necessities The simple bare necessities Forget about your worries and your strife

sitting in a huge field of grass.
its the one thing that i keep coming back to. its like an addiction. just that experience. i keep needing to find a field of grass, or something like it, and plunk down in the middle of it, craning my neck back to see the sky. you see, i live in a very intense city, and there are absolutely no fields of grass anywhere. i occasionally make do with a barricaded concrete street or a park, but i need the field. you know how, when you're hungry, you can tell what you're hungry for by picturing different foods in your head? whenever i'm sad or lonely for no real reason, i think about that endless green expanse and realize that that's what i'm hungry for.

a brief summary of my theological theories

wind. sharp, crisp wind. sneaked out of hebrew school class, where people were eating oreos and talking about israel. intricately carved brownstones on all sides around me. abandoned rooftop playground. wet. deep breath. stand on top of monkey bars. deep breath. sing. sinnnnngggggg.....
-hello.
-hi.
(beat)
-sooooo...
i feel stupid.
-why?
(begin to cry)
-don't cry, shhh...let go...
-letgoletgoletreallygo.
mysterious singing inside my brain that no one could possibly articulate into words.
-letgoletgoletreallygo...

in apprehension, how like a god

ah, to think. to think is a marvelous thing. to ponder, to quiz, to speculate, to debate, to suppose, to visualize, to determine, to regard. i have just figured this out. this is the answer to many of my questions. we love to think.
you see, i was reading the book *fahrenheit 51*, by ray bradbury, recently. for those of you not familiar with it, the book is about a futuristic society where books are burned and the brain-dead people sit inside watching their 4D tvs all day. and i could not figure out, what's wrong with that? as long as they're enjoying themselves, who cares if they're blank-minded? but here is the problem-they are not thinking. and thought is the most important thing.
what caused me to realize this was the fact that i am in a very stressful time in my life right now, in terms of my education, and i thought, similarly, what's the point? so my school watched obama's speech to schoolkids, and i realized-unlike bush, the only reason our president is where he is now is his education. not money, not class, not connections, not even intelligence (although he is very smart). what got him there was that he worked his ass off to get a good education, and it paid off.
it's the henry higgins theory.
you see, wealth and class aren't determined entirely by where you live, what you eat, or what you do. they are determined by what you know. knowledge can get you there, and knowledge can make it clear to people that you are there.
now, granted, there is a difference between learned knowledge and thought. in fact, i made a word for this divide- the prudenossisseca (translated into latin, wisdom knowledge line). and they serve two different purposes. thought is what you do to keep your brain in shape, for entertainment, and to be better equipped to learn. the problem with a lot of common Merkin past times (including most homework) is that they actually decrease brain activity, rather than increase it. knowledge, on the other hand, is something you gain by reading, talking to other people, living in the world, and going to school.
these two things are the reason that the human race is where it is today. and that is why we must think.

i see skies of blue, and clouds of white

you know what's so amazing about the world? it all fits. completely. i mean, if even one thing didn't work, there wouldn't be life on this planet or order in the universe. if we were missing even one law of physics or one level of the food chain or one planet, nothing would work. but it DOES.
that's why i don't think that ID is as beautiful or miraculous. if someone could just decide that everything was going to work and then it would, well then, great for them. but the fact that everything just happened to fall into place perfectly astounds me.
except maybe it didn't. maybe there is a flaw. and maybe that flaw is us. humans. i mean, i'm sitting here typing on a computer which is powered by some tall white things with blades on top miles and miles away, and i'm wearing a t-shirt with cartoon owls on it and sitting in an office chair. these things are totally independent of the real, natural world. maybe humans don't want to be part of the real world. maybe we want our own ecosystem. maybe they want to isolate themselves, just like i'm doing right now by blogging instead of eating bagels and lox with the friends we have over in the living room. in which case, i suggest we fly to the moon. all of us. it's much more suited to our needs.

sometimes

it is very hard to know what is right and what is wrong.

that is all i have to say.

sept. 14th, 2009 free write

the yellow blood of butterflies seeping over the concrete clanking, screaming machine killing everything in its path. hummingbirds, bees, and whales, lie on the street, as their corpses soak up the butterfly's blood. these is only one survivor. a proud, ancient tiger, now thin and weak, stumbles through the mess. all of his brothers and sisters have starved to death, and to here he stands. concrete for miles around. once a parking lot-no, once a forest. not even cars left now. just the lonely tiger, staring at the victims of the genocide, his feet sticky with butterfly blood. F***ing fascist humans, he thinks, as a dodo floats by on a stream of the yellow and red muck. the sky is gray above-a huge empty sky which was once full of leaves. the tiger can't breathe. he lies down in the blood, just for a moment...just for a moment...

it's so nice to see you back where you belong...

so, here is a piece of information about my family: we are theater freaks. well, really just my mother and i, but we like to force everyone else to be one, too. the first movie i ever saw was the music man. i memorized all the words in falsettos at age seven. i started quoting shakespeare in conversation at age nine. i keep a constant list of my 5 favorite musicals in my mind. and, out of all of this, comes my brother-a wee thing, devoid almost entirely of musical theater knowledge, trivia, or interest. HOW COULD WE LET THIS HAPPEN?
luckily, he is still very young, so we still have time to take him out of his raw, heathenish state, and into the wonderful world of fosse and sontheim!
i have planned this conversion like this: every week, we will watch one of the movies that i used to love when i was his age, and whenever we are going to see a show that's not too grown-up for him, we will take him along. it will work. he liked hello, dolly.
enclosed is a list of all the movies we are going to watch:
south pacific
1776
hello, dolly!
gypsy
my fair lady
the music man
hairspray
fiddler on the roof
dreamgirls
bandwagon
west side story
godspell

a face to the name

here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am
here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am here i am.

barefoot

a beach or a field, strong wind blowing all of your hair to one side, just walking slowly for the sake of walking, no one else there, no sound but the wind through your skin. faint taste of dirt/salt in your mouth, endless ground seeping forward into the something. seven miles to the horizon, both ways. nowhere to go but the sky.

ah, love

this is one of my favorite songs. i am going to post a link to it and reprint the lyrics, but before i do, i must explain to you its amazing origins.
songstowearpantsto.com is a website where an amazing guy named Andrew writes songs based on ideas, suggestions, and poems you send him. the songs are really amazing. most of the songs are very silly, but this one is just sweet. this is it:

this is the link

and these are the lyrics:

You first met at a game of Dungeons and Dragons.
Your hair long, tye dye shirt and a smile
She had violet colored eyes.
Now she’s your fair maiden, but no damsel in distress;
You’ve found yourself in her adventures.
Where will tonight’s journey take you?
Lost in the mountains in the middle of a storm
Or racing shopping carts through the parking lot
At three-fourteen a.m.… because that’s pie time.
You love her so much, it’s embarrassing
Don the jester’s cap with the singing bells.
A fool in love, but you don’t really mind
When all arguments end in tickle fights.
You play the story, she’ll paint the dreams
In the home that you’ve made together
The toaster and the microwave, the vacuum too,
Smile wide in black permanent marker grins.
Every toad and snail and squirrel your friend
Oversized purple hedgehogs, flying pigs
Poke sharks and roly-poly elephants.
You love her so much, it’s embarrassing
Long, lazy Saturdays with Spongebob Squarepants
Teddy Ruxpin and Gorebash
You can never outgrow being happy
You can never outgrow who you are.
She loves you so much, it’s embarrassing
She’ll join you in a battle with gigantic plastic swords.
Then take your hand and swing dance in the kitchen
She is the pretty one, she is your best friend
She has flowers in her hair
And she loves you.

just so it doesn't look like i'm intruding on copyright or anything, i didn't write any of this.

one hundred percent polyester vinyl chloride...

let me explain the title of the last post. you see, i just went to *chorus of angels* theater camp. there was a class at this *chorus of angels* theater camp called "igniting the creative process". they did a presentation for us on what they had done, and it went like this:
around a dozen kids standing in black on the stage. one girl goes over to a person and touches them. they strike a new pose and go over to a microphone. they say, "and". them saying "and" is recorded, and plays thru the speakers over and over. she goes over to the next person and touches them, they strike a new pose, go over to the mike, and say "i". this is recorded too, so the speakers say, "and. i." this goes on until the speakers are saying, "and. i. know. you're. on. the. outside. looking. in." they stand there in their poses and stare at you for a while while this plays, then they all start to move. someone takes out a cell phone. it rings, and starts to play gibberish. then someone else's cell phone rings, they take it out, and it starts to play what the previous phone was playing, but backwards, so its real words. a girl steps to the front and starts to rap while both cell phones are speaking. then everyone freezes in a pose, stares at the audience, and sings in unison:
"if we had hinges on our heads there wouldn't be no sin, 'cause we could take the bad stuff out and leave the good stuff in."

if we had hinges on our heads there wouldn't be no sin, 'cause we could take the bad stuff out and leave the good stuff in.

i am staring at a pair of metal skizors as i write this. they look like this:
circlllle space circlllle
teddy bear handshake
spinning wool smooth perfect v
reflective parallelogram
empty oreo
bent line
point

and that is something that makes sense only in my mind. for example, take this picture:


i would describe it this way:
lineszwoosh
fooooooooliage
rarwww!!!
swellbubble
ssharrp
bumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpbumpetc
killer moons.

killer moons. that would be a good name for a band. the killer moons. anyway, my point was, i want you to paint this picture with words the way i just did. please do so in the comments section. thank you.

i just did something i have never done before; i made a blog post with nothing in mind to write. i think it turned out okay. ah, well.

a prediction

as everybody in our spoiled-rotten first-world country knows, we are in the middle of a huge technology boom. those who can afford these shiny new toys are doing absurd things like talking to someone in europe whom they have nothing to say to, while writing to someone in texas who they have nothing to say to, while pretending to drive a car, while driving a car, while listening to music from the seventies on a music player the size of a cracker, while *making delicious new lunches in under two minutes!*. this hilarious age of multi-tasking and tech-consumerism probably started because of the (ooh!) new millennium; everyone wanted to stop writing about legless robot maids and start making them.
however, i don't think that this stuff is going to last very long.
you see, there are two groups of people who rely on this new technology: frazzled grown-ups who are
a) oober-excited about it, and/or
b) think that it makes their already crazy lives easier.
then there is my generation-the quote unquote "txt generation", who are unimpressed but use the stuff anyway, out of boredom. i think that once the older generation (the ones who think they need this junk) die off, and the younger generation get more mature, the flashy metal wonders will be put away to collect dust. sure, we'll still have things like the internet and cell phones (because we have rapidly re-designed our lives to rely on those things), but we won't still buy the latest "smart" phone to impress our friends. at least, that's what i *hope*.

we are QUIET we are LOUD: the best young writers and artists in america

that is the title of an amazing book i am re-reading. its an anthology of poems, essays, short stories, paintings, and photographs that won awards. and they're all by teenagers.
i know that i almost never publish reviews or recommendations, but there were a lot of essays in the book that i wanted to re-print here, and couldn't (because of copyright).
so, read the book.

i want to write this down before i forget

i want to document a feeling that children have, which i am rapidly forgetting and must not. it is the feeling of being undermined by what the grown-ups consider important-things like renovations and grocery shopping and tax returns-things that i could not comprehend and so they seemed pointless to me. i would show a grown-up a drawing that i had done, and they would gasp with totally fake admiration, which i saw right through, and then turn to the nearest adult and murmur something about verizon wireless or third cousins. it's a frustrating feeling, the feeling that your accomplishments are only minuscule acts and do not REALLY matter. what makes it even more confounding is that your parents' achievements and dilemmas and arguments seem just as unimportant and uninteresting to you. you have learned to draw a five-point star, who cares about invisible money? i am not saying that either children or adults are better, they are just very different-and forced to interact very intimately. neither really takes the other seriously, although they can love and admire each other. i am currently at an even more frustrating point where i know much of the stuff grown-ups know, and i am still not taken seriously. someday *i* will not take children seriously-and i am already beginning to. it is infuriating.

sometimes i just want to throw up my hands and yell at everyone

today is the first anniversary of al gores challenge to the united states of amewika to run on entirely clean energy in ten years. so far, we have done nothing.

wisdom of the children

i have a very young brother and (as many of you who have contact with young boys could guess) he is obsessed with violence and killing. so i asked him today, in light of my rather political past week (i went to DC), how he felt about gun control.
"do you think people having guns should be illegal?"
"yeah, yeah. i think they should take them away and put them in the museums."
and a spark of hope lit up in my eyes...

if you're a pretender, come sit by my fire.

in a previous post, i showed a kind of intense, serious attitude toward the value of creature comfort vs good deeds. my basic stance was that it doesn't matter if you yourself feel good in anyway, as long as youre doing good things to help other people, because the masses matter a lot more than just one person.
i would like to issue a retraction.
yes, it's important to be a quote-unquote "good person". but it's also important to be whimsical and magical and funny and happy and have your own unique perspective on life. otherwise, we just become robots serving one another. like my mom said- "you don't want to be a puritan" i think that perhaps this is where the concept of communism went wrong-it works great to give everyone their share, but you also need room for people to branch out and be different and independent, and to start their own things.
and, in the spirit of flight, i will include a recommendation for something enjoyable-
although it is a little childish, the book zorgamazoo , which is a fantastical fantasy written entirely in verse, is a whimsical delight and i love it.

born in

this is a really long ballad that is too long to reproduce here, so i will just give you a link for it:
here.

this makes me very happy.

i just got the greatest comment that i ever remember getting. it tops even "you look like someone's grandmother on acid." my brother met a little girl in the park who had a really cool name but i won't write it here. anyway, what she said was: "do you play the guitar? [no] oh, you look like someone who plays the guitar." yay!
also, she said her brother was named junior after martin luther king jr.

something my mom pointed out while we were listening to the weavers.

do you know the song "if i had a hammer"? chances are (if you have one ounce of coolness) you do. well, i was wondering the significance of the hammer and the bell, but i just found out: the hammer represents communism (hammer and sickle), and the bell represents the freedom of america (the liberty bell). so, what the weavers are really saying is-"what we really want is not the totalitarian, corrupt communism of the russians and the chinese, but the fairness of communism AND the freedom of democracy. anyway, i thought that that was pretty nifty.

aha! there she is.

in a previous post, i talked about i hate how when people say, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" they just mean your job. so, i have found exactly what i want to be when i grow up.

i was sitting on the beach, just sort of hanging out, when i caught sight of a woman. she was standing right above that downward slope where the waves start coming in. she was wearing a tie-dyed blue beach cover-up that had a slit for her leg which went all the way up to her waist. she her hair was grayish-white and so short that it clung to her skull like a knit cap. her skin was tan, but it was clear that she hadn't worked to make it that way. she was standing there, doing tai-chi with the wave blowing around her dress and imaginary hair, and i thought-"that's what i want to be when i grow up."

apple

imagine a thunderstorm. a really bad one, with wind and darkness and light and broken cable lines. you suck your teeth in annoyance-you wanted to go shopping today, and the rain is ruining it. so boring. nothing to do but lie around the house. and because of the broken cable lines, you can't even watch tv. ugh.
now go back two thousand years, and imagine that you are hiding in a cave, desperately praying that this one isn't the one that will end the world. you are only 150 moons old, you thinkscream to the god of the sky. not ready to die yet. not yet. your infant old daughter screams. shhhh, you tell her. shhhhh. it's going to be alright-but you don't know that it really is. you don't know that the golden lion will win the battle against the inky snake this time. trees are falling down. the water is moving faster than you have ever seen. it could easily be the end of the world.
weather is currently the only force of nature we have yet to control, but we are the masters of it in that we understand it. we understand the system of evaporation and precipitation, that rain is just a way of purifying water and putting it back where it came from. we understand that hail is frozen water, and not people in the sky throwing stones at us. we are no longer afraid.
what i find amazing about the story of adam and eve is how keenly predicted it is-the fall of simplicity and superstition thru knowledge. notice correct predictions from the story-right now, the thing people most fear is each other. religious leaders are in a frenzy to stir up SOME kind of faith among people, usually ending up looking crazy and violent. and also, people arguably know too much.
here's the funny thing about life-no one has made the rules beforehand, so we have to make them up as we play. the rule that hasn't yet been made up is when we know enough. the prudengnossisseco (word i just invented for the divide between knowledge and wisdom) has not yet been chalked up.
p r u d e n g n o s i s s s e c o

i like that word.

great moments in the city

a bunch of guys in stained white t-shirts using wrenches to spray tourists on the top of a double-decker bus with a fire hydrant, while another guy bikes up next to the bus and jeers.

the airing of grievances

don't want to be a downer, but the only thing i really have to say right now is what i'm upset about:

i don't like the 21st century. even though, as a young person, it's almost the only time i've ever know, i don't like it. my main problem with it is this: we have stop creating culture and started creating technology. take the music industry, for example. look at what the twentieth century invented:
ragtime, jazz, cheery showtunes, rock n' roll, rhythm & blues, blues, country, rock, psychedelic, punk, disco, techno, grunge, rap, and probably a hundred other that i'm not mentioning. albums were invented.
then look at what the twenty-first century has invented:
nothing.
we are so busy making devices to play music on, that we aren't making real music. that's not to say that there aren't great musicians out there, because i know for a fact there are. what i'm saying is that there isn't a scene, there isn't a new sound. the only thing we seem to be doing on a widespread basis is making pop charts songs which disappear after a few years.

there is no artistic movement. photography has disintegrated from an art form to something people do with their tiny, slim, computer-controlled cameras at concerts or on vacation. kodak has stopped producing kodachrome.
movies have sunk to the level that if we come out with one good one every year, we're totally amazed. although, i can't say that there aren't good movies coming out, because there are. but there have only been like, five.
probably you don't live in new york, but i do, and let me tell you-broadway is a mess. the good shows sell out very quickly, and the new shows are all basically musical versions of movies that were popular or something like that. at least 65% of all broadway shows are disney.
at least we've got politics, though. there's plenty of that around.

brothers and sisters, sisters and brothers, ain't we everyone?

so, i was lying on the grass two days ago, trying to figure out a way to celebrate solstice. my big, butterfly-sleeved shirt spread out on the green in a circle around me. i was looking up at the sky and at the leaves gently fanning around it, and i remembered something i had read in a book of greek mythology. you see, in the greek stories, the earth, Gaia, is seen as the mother of all things and the sky is the father. in the beginning, there were just the two of them, and then they had all these children and they formed different species and races, etc. so i was lying there and i thought, if the sky and the earth are our great parents, then aren't we all brothers and sisters? not just all people, but all living, and non-living things. when the earth began, there was only fire and stardust, and we all came out of that. so aren't we all just siblings? right now, the human race is treating the earth, its family, as sort of a novelty to be toyed with as a resource for the Great Cause, making money. this is just about the stupidest thing i have ever heard. once we realize that we are all connected, that we are all a family who live under the same roof (the atmosphere) we will realize how stupid our way of life is and drop it all. but when?

extracts from my third grade notebook

Dear note-book,
I AM in a lot of problems. a SEA of Problems in fact. I have as much reason to fear my father as the humans do. True, I can tell them what they need to know, but I'm worried about [my real name], what if she's not doing good?
-[i sign this with the name of my alter-ego, who's name was my name backwards.]


IN PENNIES WE TRUST I WANT YOU TO GIVE UP YOUR PENNIES!!!


[this is a list of a series of characters i was inventing for a tv show, and what they wore. the girls were superheroes who doubled as race-car drivers, apparently. the show was called: punk-rock super 12 year old girls]
-White Lightning. Absolutely white hair, REALLY bright aqua blue contacts, Absolutely white Jeans and matching Jean shirt with Glow-in-the-dark lightning bolts on them. white car with glow in the dark 1 on the side.
-Red Fire. hair died [dyed] blood red, shiny red hoop earrings, red vinal [vinyl] long-sleeved belly top, red vinal bellbottom pants, high red vinal boots. Reeally Reeeellly red car light up 3 on the side.
-Lioness. Orangish brown hair, Purple contacts, origish [orangish] brownish velvet string sleeved belly top, maching bell-bottom pants, maching sandles.
-Silver-Rain. Rainbow-shine-silver-hoop-earings, silver tank-tops, long rainbow pants, rainbow and silver high boots. princess of all of them.
-Black Velvet. hoop earings covered in black velvet+blak velvet tanktop that looks like this: [picture], black velvet bellbottompants, high boots covered in black velvet.
-Pinkie. Pink metal hoop earings, pink silk tank top and pants.
-Gold ember. redish, goldish, glowing hair with black streaks. red Jeans and tank-top with gold and black sparkles. Gold car. mirrorored [mirrored] gold 5 on the side.
-Gold Sunshine. long gold hair down to her butt, bright gold eyes, gold tank-top, white Jeans with sparkles.
-Black Smoke. black hair, dark skin, black sute [suit] with white belt with a black BS on it. black contacts. Black glossy car foggy-looking glittery 6 on the side.
-Green vine. green smoth [smooth] hair, dark green eyes, jeans with real small emeralds, green tank-tops with no sleeves. Dark green car. shiny 7 on the side. [i made the 7 look like a vine.]


George Bush is a Bad President
1. he isn't doing anything good for the schools:
1. he made a law called "no child left behind" it's the 3rd grade test. It isn't a good law, and he's not funding it.
2. People had to complain a LOT for him to fund schools.
2.He Tells Too Many LIES!!!
1, He lied when he said that we have a lot of fancy, nucler, and powerful weapons, we didn't, but he told us we did, and went to war anyway.
2. he lied when he said that Iraq bombed the Twin Towers, just because they might, might, might, and might, have tried to kill his dad Bush SR.
He's Doing too much War Stuff.


We had just found out the new SCR (student consel [council] represenetive). and [name withheld] was the only happy person in the room. I'm going to give you a list of some girls and what they were doing.
[name withheld]: had locked herself in the closet and was crying.
[name withheld]: crying and coming up with as many complaints as posibel.[possible]
[name withheld]: crying and trying to find a place to hide.
You get it. they People were upset. very upset.Me? I had written "Be Happy" on each of one of a wholle post-it notebook, and was sticking them around the room. Then, I went around trying to make people feel better. We were being so nice that the teacher canceled a period just so we could cheer eachother up! during T.G.I.F I made a sign:
new Rules:
No:
crying, saying everybody hates you, or red eyes.
You MUST:
smile, laugh, and have fun.
nowadays, no one (except ocasonally [name withheld, the kid who got elected]) talks about student concoul representitive.) [the following is crossed out:]
this writer thinks that just because not everyone wante you to have a certin job, dse not mean that everyone hates you.

analogy for a human brain

think think think whisper NO NO NO not that just breathe in out in out not so fast shhhhh don't think of that obey me obey obey turn lift life stop stop stop it!!! sigh heartbeat heartbeat beatbeatbeatbeat beat...beat...beat... panic blood racing whew slide move operate pulse throb work work work!!! death.

it is not about you.

it is about the things that you do. in a hundred years, people will not remember that you liked hot chocolate, or that you failed a test in the third grade. they will not remember your favorite song or your thoughts, your lovers or your clothes. most likely, they will not even remember your name. people do not especially care about other people-they care about events. and that is the way to make yourself remembered, through your actions. i forget her name, but there was a woman who spent her entire life as a washerwoman and a miser, living extremely cheaply, and then at thee end of her life she donated tens of thousands of dollars to charity. think about this logically: your personal comfort is mathematically less important than your good deeds, because it affects only you.

generosity and willingness to make sacrifices is not a "saintly" or "special" thing, but a necessity. it is the reason we are alive. well, not exactly. there is no reason we are alive. actually, the human race is a flaw in nature. only a single, middle-of-the-chain mammal, we ignore the ecosystem and decide that we are above everything else. but i digress-the only way to make up for our...sins, i suppose you could call them, is to improve the world, to strive to become the "paragon of animals". most creatures do not either help or hurt the earth, but simply exist in it. this is all very well for them, but humanity cannot exist this way. we insist that we are here for a greater purpose, a greater cause. we move forward. we cannot help it, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. to deny our struggles would be lying. what we must do instead is make sure that we are indeed moving toward something good, and not simply choosing what is convenient at the moment. that would be pointless and harmful. be careful.

you're right, mom. its kind of sick.

thats what my little brother said to my mother-he wanted to get one of those handheld thingamagigs with buttons and jumping dinosaurs and stars, and my mother said to him,
"look at that boy over there. does he even know that it's a nice day? does he even know that he's in the playground?"
"you're right, mom." he said. "its kind of sick."

i have figured out the thing that keeps people staring transfixed, looking at screens for hours on end (rather like you and i are doing right now.) we have made this marvelous invention-The Moving Thing. you see, if something before our eyes moves, and our eyes follow it, we don't have to go anywhere to feel as though we're doing something. the first example of a Moving Thing is a book. we can sit looking at a book and not moving for hours, because things are happening inside our heads. it is like dreaming. Moving Things are a sure sign of a Civilized Society (not an expression i use negatively or positively; only a state of being.), but they can look scary to someone not involved. if we, not seeing the screen or the page or hearing the music, see a person with their eyes open doing nothing, we are frightened. if seems like they are blank, dead. they are not. they are doing more than we are, with their minds. in creepy sci fi books and movies, the society is always converted entirely to Mind Motion-that is, doing things inside your head rather than outside. this frightens the reader/viewer because it feels like the society is full of dead, motionless people. on a certain level, this is true. The Moving Thing is a concept which had the potential to do great harm, but also the potential to do great good. we must find the balance between intellectual movement, physical movement, and emotional movement. only then, will we be truly alive.

pieces of you

so i was in a thrift shop, and since the people i was with were still trying on a bunch of things and i had picked out everything already, i started looking at the CDs. one particular CD struck my eye, and i wrote down its name. it's called *pieces of you*, by jewel. i'm not a big jewel fan myself, nor do i plan to listen to the album. but i just loved the cover. here it is:

penny for your thoughts.

i dont really have any grand theories to present right now, but there are a few mosquitos buzzing around my brain. here they are:
-i am in the process of tie-dyeing 83 pieces of recycled tshirt fabric to sew into a dress based off of the enterprise uniform, so right now our bathtub is full of yellow and purple dye. my brother asked my mother why he couldn't have a bath? and my mother said "because your sister is an artist." this made me very happy and proud.
-that last post was not fictional. i really am clowning.
-on the way home from school, i heard divine smooth jazz music coming from somewhere. at first i thought it was coming straight from heaven itself, but then i realized that it was floating up through the subway grates. i stood to listen for ten solid minutes, then went into the station just to pay the man. he wasn't at all like i pictured; white and slightly chubby, with a hipster goatee. on the way home, i sang joni mitchell's *for free*.
-people say that you can never be too careful, but you can. you really can.
-the idea of advice makes no sense. the only person's advice you should follow is your own, and this should be based on your experience, and in order to have that experience, you must not follow advice.
-this saturday, i went to a magical place in a great big wood. i live in a hustleconcretesteelwreckingball city of secrets and cloudy thursdays, and right in the middle, there is a forrest. not a park, not manmade at all, but an honest-to-goodness forrest made by nature herself. i hiked through it at night, and found the wizard in glasses. he was an astronomer with a huge telescope and people around him, and he showed me saturn and the twins and the moon. the moon looked just like a piece of soft clay that had been rained on. when i left, we all sang folk/campfire songs on the way back, and i remembered the original purpose of music.


none of this is metaphorical. its all true.

it's so fine, its sunshine.

so, today was my first day of clowning. o, wait. i didn't tell you yet-i am a clown's apprentice. you see, this woman named lulu rednose is teaching me the art of therapeutic clowning. the thing that separates therapeutic clowning from ordinary clowning is that you're not trying to be funny, you're trying to be friendly. that is, the idea is to interact with someone and make them forget their problems for a moment, make them think that there is some good in the world, there are kind, loving people.
so, i did it. and it was great.
i noticed that even though i pretend not to be, i am a very serious person. i have everything calculated and theorized, which doesn't really do much except make me less confused. but the thing about clowning is that it is so selfless; you're just being nice to people in a silly sort of way. and that's really the way people should interact-just nice. i know that sounds stupid and unoriginal, but it's true.
i always talk about this idea of progress versus non-progress; whether life was fine the way it was or whether we should continue to move toward new futures. well, my decision is this: as far as technology goes, we are FINE. we do NOT need to progress any further, except to fix the things we have that are harmful and broken. however, in terms of our human interactions, we are extremely primitive. we have not yet learn to let go of the natural, untrusting aggression and sneakiness that was necessary back when we were wrestling with tigers. aggression is no longer something we need, except to combat other people's unneeded aggression. what we need right now, as i have said many times before and will say many times again, is love.

the rage of selene

her rage was not something wild and uncontrollable, not something that people could even see. for ten seconds, selene would shake violently, with a look of pure murder on her face. then she would go back to being her polite, sweet, calm self. all the while, she would calmly and logically plot how to give the person who had made her angry exactly what they deserved. her wrath was emotionless. she was a vigilante, acting not out of anger but out of her inspired sense of right and wrong.
on this particular tuesday, selene was thinking of doing something rather drastic. you see, her father had made her extremely angry today; he had said that she would not get any treats at all until she agreed to sit down and watch shootings on the telly with the rest of the family. well, selene didn't like this one bit-so she decided to give her father a taste of her inspired justice.


i can't decide how to finish it. help!!!

i don't usually make posts that are just quotes but i really loved this one. its in the sleeve of a mothers of invention album called "FREAK OUT!"

on a personal level, freaking out is a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restricting standards of thinking, dress, and social etiquette in order to express CREATIVELY his relationship to his immediate environment and the social structure as a whole. less perceptive individuals have referred to us who have who have chosen this way of thinking and FEELING as "freaks". hence the term: freaking out.
on a collective level, when any number of "freaks" gather and express themselves creatively through music or dance, for example, it is generally referred to as a FREAK OUT the participants, already emancipated from our national social slavery dressed in their most inspired apparel, realize as a group what ever potential they posses for free expression.
we would like to encourage everyone who HEARS this music to join us...become a member of the united mutations...FREAK OUT!

generation...whatever.

i'm sorry, i just feel the need to rant for a moment, because i'm a bit angry.

it really annoys me when people call my generation (do we even have a name yet?) stupid. people can't get enough of saying that we're dumb, tech-obsessed airheads who have never been to a library in their life, have no lives outside facebook, and can't sit still to read a book. ITS NOT TRUE. maybe 15% of us fit the text-generation stereotype, and the rest are doing very well in the current state of affairs. i think the problem is that the older generations can't cope with the idea of growing up with so much to do right at their fingertips, so they assume that we can't, either. well, we can. actually, we're very sane. think about it. does a kid who texts her friends every day have a million typos on her homework? no, not really. does an expert sims city player have no idea how to have a real friendship? not so much. we understand the difference between virtual and real. we find it amusing. the world is full of grown-ups who on the one hand are constantly inventing pretty new toys for us, and on the other hand are talking about how our brains are rotting. we have just as many ideas, creative thoughts, and "real" lives as anyone else, ok? so just chill *out*.
g2g, my friend's texting me. bb.

the point of it all.

you know, people say that the human race has gone too far, that we've progressed too much, that we need to go backward. its not true. technologically, yes. however, the fact that we still rely on the destruction of nature proves that we are not at the technological ideal. anyway, what i really want to talk about is our social state. we are very, very far from LBJ's "great society". however, we are trying to go further. the "dark ages" are called so because there was no progress. we measure activity in progress. you see, the entire existence of the human race since the discovery of fire has been to further our standard of living. we CARE. we can't help it. this is what separates us from other animals-not that we're smarter, feel more, or can do more things, but that we care enough to actually change. and even if we don't care, capitalism is set up so that the only way to "honestly" gain is to invent something new, something that people want (aka something to make their lives better). when you die, the only reason people in fifty or a hundred years might remember you is if you either furthered the lives of humans or pulled us back. you know the saying "well behaved women seldom make history"? you can't just sit back and do what you're supposed to. it doesn't work like that.
right now, i'm in school. they're teaching me things like math, and grammar, history and science. if you have ever been in school, you will have spoken or heard the famous line "when am i going to have to use this?" usually, the response has something to do with a career, making money, that sort of thing. THIS IS NOT WHY. the only person you really deeply benefit from an ordinary career is yourself. the reason we have to learn in school is so we can *change the world*. we are all slaves to the future generations. the general human race needs to have two goals right now: shape the whole world into a "great society", and don't blow everything up before we get there. this is what we must do with our otherwise small, pointless* lives.

*pointless to everyone but ourselves and the people we know, that is.

art+beauty

flight said something fascinating in response to my post on street art-she said "everything is art if you look at it with an artist's eye". and its really true- we have so much stuff around us, we just take it for granted. that's what pop art is about-making people realize the art all around them. the thing that inspired me to think this, actually, was a broken teacup. i was walking down the street and i saw a teacup broken into two pieces in a trash can. and it was the most lovely thing i had ever seen-delicate, exquisite, elaborately painted and yet still simple and dainty. it was gorgeous, so i took it. then, when i got home, i realized "i just took a broken teacup out of a garbage can and brought it home." i mean, what was i supposed to do with it? so i put it on a ledge near my house for all to admire.
there are two things: natural and artificial. artificial things are all art, and natural things are all beauty.

who's to say?

there is a fundamental problem in ethics and all opinions-says who?
this is probably why humans have invented god-a final place where the buck stops. but really-think about it. zoom way out into space and picture the planet earth. who's to say that it's wrong to kill people? people? but aren't they just thinking for their own benefit? nothing is definite, because there is no one decision-maker. there ARE no truths to be held self-evident, because who are we to make decisions? think of it this way- every adjective you can name is an opinion.
blue
cold
silly
affectionate
destructive
annoying
happy
depressed

says who?

the balance

the elements were once earth, wind, fire, and water. they have changed. they are now human, nature, machine, and art. just as we once had to keep a balance between the dirt and the sea, between the wind and the flames, so now must we keep a balance. the proportion of human: nature: machine: art should look like this:
1:4:2:4
instead, it looks like this:
7:2:9:6
this is the disaster at hand. the amount of nature is shrinking at an ridiculous speed, while the amount of machines and art is swelling so fast that we find ourselves overwhelmed by our "culture", as we call it. these swellings are all caused by one thing: the exponential increasing of humankind. we are reproducing at a quite alarming rate. and i have no idea what to do about it.

happy mother's day.

nooks and crannies

the things that we love are the errors. the world is an unbelievably complex anarchy made by millions of people. it is so complex and chaotic that there must be hundreds of mistakes, hundreds of things with no purpose or "practical function". these things are perhaps the most important things of all, because these are the things that make us happy. examples of these are: street art, obscure shops and restaurants, street performers, chocolate, and all followers of Hermes (ie, all those who live by their wits).

this all occurred to me when i was sitting in my favorite spot in the world (the parts of it i've seen)-my fire escape. now, i live in a very practical, complex, ancient yet modern city. it is full of nooks and crannies. if you've ever been to a city, you will know that the buildings are pressed up against one another in squares, and between the squares are streets and sidewalks. however, the buildings do not fit perfectly together, so there are alleyways and gaps inside the squares.
when you're on my fire escape, you're between four buildings. you're inside on of those squares. its like you're in a secret place, a magical mistake. these "mistakes", i think, are the best things in the world.

my dream

you know, people are always asking me if this is what im like in real life, what is stuff like in my *dreams*?
well, here is the response. this was my dream last night.

im an archeologist or something like that. im in my shul, but its hundreds of years old and theres cobwebs everywhere. we're having some kind of group therapy session, and we're all in folding chairs. theres a woman at the front who hates her name. shes in a clown suit and she's singing "dianna is a very silly name" over and over. then i climb up one of the really tall walls and there are mouse skeletons everywhere and im covered in rotten old mouse bones and they're in my hair and clothes and i cant get them out and im screaming and screaming and
i spend the next few scenes trying to get mouse skeletons out of my pants. its quite unpleasant.
so then i'm, like coming back from boarding school or the army or something. im arriving at a playground, but no playground in particular. im unbelievably happy, and i see my brother playing with his friends. i go over to say hi, and he's kind of unexcited that im back. he welcomes me, though, and i go to play with him and his friends.
this is where my alarm clock goes off.

the great american slicing, dicing, chopping, mixing, churning, beating, whipping, melting pot

here is my brilliant idea:
everyone should be able to choose their culture. well, bits of their culture. for example, if you're born a french catholic and you want to celebrate mexican holidays and be adept in italian cooking and practice buddhism and live in an igloo, nothing is wrong with that. i think a lot of people's unhappiness comes from sticking with their family culture. things would be so much nicer if you could pick bits and pieces from other cultures just because you like them. there would be so much more variety that way, and everyone could pick exactly what they wanted to be. the idea of separation and race would fade away to make way for the concept of individuality and oneness. for example, if i got to pick i would eat only indian and french food and have a quinceanera instead of a bat mitzvah and wear brittish 60's clothing and join a gospel choir.

there will be a meeting at 81st street and lavender drive to discuss the rights of werewolves.

you know, weather is really something that brings people together. when its 95 degrees and humid, who cares what your skin looks like? all people want is to get cool. and if that means running through a fire hydrant spray with someone you don't know, so be it.
same thing with cold weather. if its negative 20 degrees and the guy next to you is freezing, you're going to give them your spare heat pack. and then you will end up chatting with him for a while.
extreme weather brings out not only our need to survive, but our need to help others survive. i think that's because its really the only bit of uncontrollable nature we have left, so we get a glimpse of the way we acted a thousand years ago.
at least that's my experience.

the obvious secret

i have decided that the key to happiness, or at least contentment, is to do what you want to do when you want to do it. if you're hungry, eat. don't wait until the designated eating time. if you're tired, sleep. if you're excited, dance. if you want to talk to someone, talk to them. just do what you want to do without following guidelines or rules.
not that there shouldn't be rules to what you do. if everyone got to do whatever they liked, a lot of us would end up in pretty bad shape. what i mean is that you shouldn't do something simple because you feel obligated. do not be a slave to time.
time is unreal. time is something we made to organize ourselves. organization is not what is necessary to be happy. what is necessary to be happy is simply doing what you want to do. its ridiculously simple, but it works.

the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

theres a type of graffiti that i like to call "public service graffiti". its the type of graffiti that says something clever, or is a really beautiful picture or design. i think that the world would be so much of a better place if everything was covered with art. if people were all trained in the skills of expression through imagery, and if every surface possible was covered with messages conveyed through their images. if the whole world was an art gallery. i think that that is what the real purpose of graffiti should be.
here are some amazing paintings by street artist banksy, of whom i am a huge fan.

the tao is like a stone, not a diamond.

she could see colors and light everywhere she looked-beautiful shapes and mystical symbols clouding her vision. when she looked through, she could see the world shifting and multiplying and shimmering with color and energy. and so she walked around all the time like this, seeing everything that was meant to be hidden, sensing auras and hidden energies.
and then one day she stopped looking through. and she saw only the simple stone wall in front of her, dripping with curly green vines. no light or energy or rainbows or auras at all.
and yet...
and yet it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

racial tension on the 1 train, 8 am.

im about to go through the turnstile when i notice that i'm blocking a young woman right next to me who is trying to get through, and she is glaring at me like i cut her on purpose because i'm a snob. i immediately feel guilty and step back to let her get through with her toddler.
then i walk down the platform and bump into a man who smiles at me, because he's so glad to see another outsider in the neighborhood, and i raise my eyebrows at him like "just because i'm the same color as you does not mean that i'm friendly. this is new york, buddy."
i stop two-thirds down the platform to sit on a red dumpster, because i'm especially tired this morning. a few minutes later a bunch of high school kids come over and sit on the dumpster next to me. i don't look at them, but i can tell they don't like me sitting there, because who am i to sit on their dumpster, move into their neighborhood, breathe their air? the color and texture of my hair are a symbol of gentrification.
i get into the car and it's especially crowded today, and the guy across from me is pretty old and widens his eyes in shock when i get into the train. seven other hands hold onto the same pole as me, and my skin sticks out like a sore thumb.
somebody gets off the train and i dive for the seat like i always do. the woman who was going to get the seat scowls at me, because i am stealing her space. i am a thief.
i get off the train in a much richer neighborhood, and five homeless people greet me on my way to school.
good morning. welcome to the world.

organic means dead.

the preparation and savoring of food is, as far as we know, a uniquely human characteristic. think about it. we are the only species of animal that will take a tomato, cut it into squares, add little bits of plants for "flavoring", can it, sell it, buy it, take it home, put it in intense heat, and then put it on our food. and thats considered very simple!
whats amazing is that we are so highly evolved that we can afford this amazing luxury. by the way, when i say "highly evolved", i do not mean in any way that i think humans are superior to other animals. in many ways, we are inferior. we don't hunt except for fun, we're hopeless at catching fish ourselves, we can't grow plants without throwing chemicals all over them, and we don't have the patience to cook our own food. now, this isnt true of all humans, just over 50%. at least, the ones i know.
whats silly, really, is that weve created so much, we have to create more just to keep up with ourselves. for example, we create time and the days of the week, so we have to invent alarm clocks to be able to wake up when we don't want to, so that we can get to work on time to do things we dont want to do, so that

sorry. this post was supposed to be about food, not what's wrong with our society. i apologize if i offended anyone. i dont know whats gotten into me. goodbye.

in latin, the term familia refers to anyone under your roof.

here are the numbers: in five years, my family went from 3 to 8 people.
i have 3 mothers, 1 father, and 3 little bros. i am not a polygamist, btw.
the stereotype i hate most about adolescents is that we're totally disconnected from our family. were supposed to loathe out little siblings, our parents aren't supposed to understand us, and our family in general is supposed to be bad and evil in everything. and we are supposed to only want to spend time with our friends. i think that its a time when you should spend MORE time with your family, because you develop more of and attention span than when you were little, and you can have conversations and do stuff. im not saying im the perfect daughter, but i try.
oh, another thing i really hate: i hate it when grownups say to kids "dont talk back to me." thats so stupid, because if kids didnt talk back to you, how would you know what they thought?
i dont think you should follow a model (mommy, daddy, two kids, big kid picks on little kid, big kid alienated, little kid sweet but annoying, mommy cooks, daddy works, brother plays sports, etc.) for how a family should fit. just see what you want to do. that's what i think.

cirkus de floramundi

when i grow up, i want to start a street performance troupe that performs in central park, nyc in the summer, and san francisco in the winter. we will sing, dance and create happy mayhem, i will not perform, but i will design costumes and scenery- it will all look very godspell and circus-y. we will have light shows are recite poetry, perform existing plays and parts of existing plays, and some of us will write things for us to perform. we will have a trunk with the words
SUGGESTED DONATION:
WE SUGGEST YOU DONATE
written on it in big yellow letters. we will call ourselves the Floramundi Performers. during parts of your shows, we will take out a big wooden treasure chest full of costumes and toys and we will play with them with the audience. it will be magical.


THE FLORAMUNDI PERFORMERS
An circus/cirque/cirkus/explosion/implosion of joy/wonder

bellybuttons are the keyhole to the soul.

i am a navelist. well, i am many other religions, but one of them is navelism. it is the worship of the sacred bellybutton. if you would like to know more about this religion, please go to our blog. in case anyone's counting, that means i now have THREE blogs. thats a lot.

"i am special. i am special. please god, dont let me be normal"

you know what i hate? pessimism. not pessimism in other people, but pessimism in myself. i hate the image of the grumpy teenage girl with pop rock blasting in her ears who obsesses over her boyfriend and hates all adults, who is nasty to her younger siblings and swears at everyone, who obsesses over being popular and fitting in, and who never has any kind of deep thoughts or revelations. or if she does, she hides them.
not that im saying a lot of girls like this exist. i dont really think they do. i think that most american teenage girls try to be like this (why, i couldnt say), but i dont think that there are a lot of girls who *are* really like this.
me, im not much better than the girls who try to emulate this image-i try to be the opposite. which is also an artificial manipulation of my character, but i cant really help it. anyway, back to what this post was really about:
the thing i hate most about the stage of life i am currently in is that im supposed to hate everything. im supposed to hate my parents, im supposed to hate school, im supposed to hate girls who arent my friends, im supposed to hate whats expected of me, im supposed to hate pretty much EVERYTHING that wasn't designed either by teenagers or for teenagers.
but i dont.
well, thats not exactly true. i do hate this society and whats expected of me, but im not a frikking raving *lunatic* because of it. which is not to say that im not a raving lunatic. just that thats not exactly the reason.

i hate hating things. thats all i have to say.

my theory of relativity

i am an alien on another planet
i am a foreigner
i am a dunce
i am a geinus
i am hideous
i am gorgeous
i live in the ancient world
i live in the future
i am an optimist
i am a pessimist
i am loaded
i am impoverished
i am ecstatic
i am depressed
i am nerdy
i am hip
i am nothing
because nothing is everything
and we live based on each other.

livin' in my own boat/tryin' to keep my own world afloat

i want to be a person. that's all i want. i dont want to be an artist or a businesswoman or a clerk or a baker or a painter. i just want to be a person, living the way people should live. i want something magical to happen to me each day. i want to reach out to people and touch their minds and enable them to see what should be. we should all be together-we should all flow smoothy like a bubbling, churning river of a million different colors. we are a tapestry-and we control what that tapestry portrays. we must






love.

the circus girl

she’s really too old to be a circus girl anymore, but that’s how she thinks of herself. it’s not even really a circus, just a traveling troupe, with some clowns, magicians, and animals. she’s the magician’s assistant. his name is Andrew, but he calls himself Zappo the Magnificent. he used to be a friend of her father’s, before her parents died and she ran away. she thought she could make it on her own, thought she could find a life for herself. she wanted to be an actress. what kind of a character am I? She thinks. my name is Dianna Lincoln, I’m thirty-four years old, and my life is screeching to a halt. sitting in her pretty red dress and lipstick, with polka dotted tights and a necklace of pearls. she’s backstage, whistling. because how could her luck get any worse? her hands are folded in her lap as she stares to the water. she wishes she could just run away. but she’s already away. there’s not a soul in the world that loves her, I mean, really loves her. andrew doesn’t count. she’s all-alone in this godforsaken place, where a few tourists on road trips pass by, their blinking red faces reminding her of raw meat. she’s the funny girl. what does that mean? what was she thinking? is this it?


this passage is based on a picture which i cannot get to load onto blogger. however, i will tell you that the picture was taken by david eustace, and that i found it on this site. try to guess which picture im talking about.

which of my two personalities shall i be tonight?

ok, i have re-opened my other blog. so now i have two blogs. the way i see it, they are my two sides; the superficial and the deep. this is my deep-side blog, and the other is my superficial-side blog. two pieces of me. this blog will be about my thoughts, emotions, and revelations, the other blog will be about... i kno this sounds silly... what im wearing. because, as cool as i may seem from this blog :-), i am actually a very fashion-obsessed person. go figure.
for stalkers who are interested, you can find my other half on my profile. here's a link to it.

for everything...turn...turn...turn...there is a season...turn...turn...turn...

you know what? ive been going over my old posts, and i came to an amazing realization. its april, and i started this blog in november. now, if you know me, you will know that i am EXTREMELY affected by the weather. im usually depressed in the winter, and ecstatic in the summer. so i was looking over my posts and i realized; most of them are pretty depressing. now thing is not because i am a depressed person. on the contrary, i am wearing a pink, yellow, and blue flowered dress with pigtails as i type this. it is just that i get very sad and antisocial in the winter, like a bear. it has never been warm, in the entire life of this blog. but now it is warm. now the buds are opening, and the sun is shining, and hopefully there will be some happier posts soon. heres a cool picture i found when i google-imaged "happiness".

color

i think the most beautiful thing in this world is color. i really mean that. buildings are beautiful, trees are beautiful, people are beautiful, but color is the most magnificent thing of all.

the sun will rise, and the sun will set, and you learn how to settle for what you get.

ok, so here's the thing:
my life isnt ending.
its so weird to think about now. i mean, i always thought that "growing up" was just code for "losing all coolness and ability to have fun/enjoy life." but its not. it just means that you take thing more subtly, more slowly. when you're a kid, everything is so EXACT, so RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW. its a drama-a-minute. i kno, ur probably thinking "she is so wrong-saying childhood is more dramatic than teenagerness! lol!" but i think it is. at least, it is in my case. teenagers i know are either really, really, really, messed up, or having fun. so i think maybe its not such a bad thing after all. you dont have to be tiny to love summer. youre only as old as you feel.




(the pics are from this blog.)

fools in april

the reason april fools day (one of my favorite holidays) was created was that there's this idea of people in springtime being silly and romantic and naive and gullible, thus easy to play jokes on.
so i think that for april fools day, in addition to tricking people, we should also be silly and romantic and naive. cause we need at least one day to do that, you know?

teddy bear

everyone has a teddy bear. we usually associate random things that give people comfort with little kids, but everyone has their calmer-downer. for me, its reading the same books over and over, and watching the same movies. especially star trek. for some reason, watching old star trek episodes calms me down a LOT. probably its because i associate star trek with watching star trek with my dad when i was little, before life got complicated. well, actually, thats not true. little kids lives are just as hard as everyone else. its just that little kids minds make SENSE. and let me tell you, adolescent minds DO NOT make sense. none at all. we're insane, we really are. random things make us happy and sad, and we hate a lot of people and love a lot of people for the most tiny, random reasons. and we all want a teddy bear. i havent been a grown up yet, but i think that they want teddy bears too. we want thing to make SENSE, you know? teddy bears are so simple, so loving, all your problems just melt away in their little black eyes. i have to go to bed now. its past my bedtime. goodnight.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to change it every six months.

floramundi- a world of flowers

i was walking through the forrest. well, it wasnt really a forrest. it was more like the space between two neighbors' houses in an area somewhere between nature and suburbia. i was on a "nature walk" to "get some fresh air". these are both quotes from my father. well, for me nature walks are about finding things interesting, and i had found nothing so far. so i was just about to give up and go home when i found the car.
it was periwinkle, my favorite color. the controls inside looked really old fashioned, like from the 50s maybe. in metal cursive, on the side of the car, was the word Gremlin. but neither the fabulous name, nor the fabulous color were the amazing part. the car was full of flowers. not just little white moldy ones, but daisies and roses and lilies and peonies and tulips and dandelions and baby's breath and jasmine and every flower you could possibly think of. they covered the inside of the car, and filled the hood and the trunk. the roof was beginning to crack from the strain of the enormous bouquet. it was the most beautiful thing i have ever seen.