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.