Blog.

Moments

2011-05-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

I cannot explain why on some days more than others the smallest moments or the most fleeting impressions will burn themselves into my mind. Then, on other days, nothing seems to stick.

I am reading Gilead. It is becoming a favorite. This quote seems to connect: "It is a strange thing, after all, to be able to return to a moment when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing. A moment is such a slight thing, I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve."

Last summer I went down to Moab for a few days and slept out under the stars and hiked through arches and went swimming in the colorado river. It was a nice trip from beginning to end, but for some reason I remember just a few random moments most vividly. I remember the tanned middle-aged woman crouched over by her mini-van in the parking lot by the trailhead stuffing bright woolly blue socks into her hiking shoes. And I remember our waitress at the Pancake Haus. A tall, slender, Asian woman with just a hint of an accent. She had the most gruesome pink scar that crawled through her tank top from the bottom of her neck a good way down her shoulder and that looked like some strange Paleozoic fossil sprawled across her flesh.

Today is another one of those days. Here are a couple images that are sticking:

1. A girl in bright turquoise pants and giant sunglasses sitting on her front steps reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

2. A small crowd of people standing frozen on the sidewalk, arrested by some sight at the top of the hill. By the way they were just standing there, you might have thought someone was about to jump off of a building, or that some crazed, windblown preacher was up there shouting a sermon about hellfire or something. But I followed their eyes and finally determined that they were just watching a swarm of bees. They were hard to see at first, but it was quite a swarm-- buzzing and humming madly around their hive. I was glad that so many people were stopping to watch. It reminded me of that time--two springs ago--when I came by a young man crouched on the sidewalk observing a writhing pile of ants. insects can be fascinating.

3. All those red tulips. A sea of them. Pressed against the chain-link fence.

3. An elderly couple, crouched and ancient-looking, both wearing white nose strips for some reason, standing in their front yard surveying as an older man, perhaps a son, mows their lawn. The man mowing was not young himself, maybe 60.

Advice

2011-04-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

When your roommate is in love, you should always read to her from The Song of Solomon when you are getting ready for bed and need to read your scriptures.

Nostalgia

2011-03-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

I will bow and be simple,
I will bow and be free,
I will bow and be humble,
Yea, bow like the willow tree.

I will bow, this is the token,
I will wear the easy yoke,
I will bow and will be broken,
Yea, I'll fall upon the rock.

This hymn recently came back to me. I learned it while I was staying with the Quakers. Sometimes in the evening after we had finished our chores for the day, we would retire to "the chapel," which was really a big room on the second story of the barn with high windows and lots of books and musical instruments, and we would read or sing together. One night I pulled out my little pocket-sized hymnal, and Joanna pulled out a few of their own hymn books and we shared our favorites. This one is simple (fittingly) and it fills me with all sorts of nostalgia.

Speaking of nostalgia, I also came across this trailer recently and was immediately swept away, back into the high sand mountains of the Atacama, back into the never-ending gray-brown, back to Arica and to the comfortable lulling rhythms of the Spanish language. I still miss it sometimes.

Looking back

2011-02-24T23:23:00.000-08:00

Today I stumbled back into some old online journals that have been tucked deep away in the dusty corners of the internet. I spent too long reading over them. But instead of feeling embarrassed I felt oddly connected to the Brooke of 4, 5, 6 years ago. I liked that girl, and some of her words still resonated with me. Like this bit I wrote on religious identity almost 4 years ago now:

Sometimes I am startled by identity. Startled that anyone has an identity. How did I get trapped (pulled? embraced?) into mine? How is this who I am? By birth I suppose. And by choice too. But how much of the choice part has to do with the birth part? I don't know the answer. It is an interesting thing. I do not regret it or resent it. I find it rich and fascinating, if not a little strange.

Sometimes I am caught off guard by the peculiar language that surrounds me. It is so familiar, and yet at times it becomes so foreign. People say: holy ghost. the spirit. high priest. Like: salt shaker. laundromat. earmuffs.
Sometimes it makes me feel ancient. Sometimes it feels like a glorious game or an epic play I am a part of, where we all believe in the mystic and the impossible and the bizarre. And then sometimes I embrace it all, with my whole heart. not ironically. not bitterly. not partially—because in the end it is an inextricable part of me and I would feel too false to deny it.
Sometimes, though, I feel estranged.

The question remains: how to reconcile the estranged parts (of which there are many) with the core instinctively familiar all-embracing parts?

I am still working on that, and do feel like I have made some progress in the last 4 years. but life still feels like a very large exercise of reconciling, balancing out, working through impossible paradoxes... Opposition in all things I suppose.

Good night.

Scrap Paper Poetry

2011-02-13T14:52:00.000-08:00

"Shock"

The scent of rat office equals p.
We then eat 991 tacos.
Love, aggression,
by an evening port O and P plied the rocks.

The value of land and port.
The hours worked.
Stand nations of scent!
Ours is the coffee.

----

This is what I did in relief society today.
I am particularly fond of the last two lines. I like to see it as a call to revolution.
In fact, if you read it right--that's what the entire poem is about. Very appropriate considering current events in Egypt.
Down with the rat office!

Running

2011-02-08T12:09:00.000-08:00

I have been running. I never had the patience for it before. But right now there is something so satisfying about working my way up through longer and longer runs, listening to the steady rhythm of sneakers hitting concrete, learning to endure a little bit of pain and discomfort. I am learning that in life sometimes you have to just sit with your pain too. There is no way around it. It doesn't just disappear. You can't pretend it away as soon as it surfaces. So it is good to learn to endure.

Some days are warmer, and some are still biting cold. February likes to surprise you. Yesterday I went running outside and it was warm enough that after about half a mile I had to scrunch up my sleeves. Not an hour later I walked to campus in a blustering sleet storm. I had no hat or hood with me so I had to tie my scarf around my head or else I was afraid that my ears would freeze and fall off.

I still have heavy boots but they are getting lighter. I like the new Decemberists album. I've had June Hymn on repeat the last couple of days. It makes me long for springtime. There is something so lovely and constant and comforting about the seasons--about flower bulbs leaping to life and shooting through the ground after a long and frozen sleep. Flower bulbs really know something about endurance.

Snow Picnic

2011-01-23T13:42:00.001-08:00

What's Spinning

2011-01-14T08:30:00.000-08:00

Thank you Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova

and Sarah Jaffe

2011-01-11T09:27:00.001-08:00

Heavy boots.

The Christmas Story

2010-12-23T10:24:00.000-08:00

This is, quite possibly, the cutest thing I have ever seen.
Merry Christmas everyone!

A Motion Picture

2010-09-29T21:38:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I walked outside and the sky was the deepest most unfathomable shade of purple. A deep hazy purple with small pinpoints of starlight peeking through. and on my way home there was a cat lurking around beneath the benches and a family of deer lurking around in the foliage and sprinklers wildly spraying places that never needed to be watered. And the temperature was perfect, and I was in one of those moods where I felt positively compelled to press my hand against the bark of every tree I passed.

Another thing: as much as I love still photographs there is just something about a moving image. Something about shifting light and shadow and color and eyes blinking--a certain glancingness that can be captured in no other way. I can look at old photographs and the humans there feel flat and dead and distant somehow. But I look at even the earliest films--you know the 20 or 30 or 50 seconds of people walking out of factories or strolling through the town square--and I am suddenly caught up! These are people, real people. Where are they going? Who and what do they love? I can almost feel them breathing.

We watched this film today and I found it beautiful and astounding.
You should watch it.
We care too much these days about propulsive plotlines, conflict, drama and adventure. Sometimes a simple moving image, or just a series of them thoughtfully and interestingly juxtaposed is more than enough.

Watch here or just follow the link:

Grow

2010-08-05T21:47:00.000-07:00

Do you know that I have had garden nightmares?
I dreamed that the green beans sprouted up in the cracks in the sidewalk instead of in the garden, and that I needed to transplant them into more fertile soil but I couldn't find a way to pluck them up and keep their root systems intact. And if I couldn't keep their roots systems intact then that meant there would be NO green beans. And I really really was looking forward to those green beans.

The gentlest of nightmares--true, but I still woke up feeling a little anxious.

This garden business is hard and I fear I have not been the best at attending to it. Because, try as I might, the squash bugs are still invading and the onions need top dressing or they'll never get any bigger and the waterline needs fixing and the tomatoes need some serious pruning or else they are going to take over the world and the green beans need trellises and the melons are dying and being invaded by weeds and.... it always always seems that the garden is on the verge of some small disaster.
The truth is, I am not the best gardener. And I am certainly not the best garden manager. I am not detail-oriented enough for such a large operation and, honestly, I know nothing about those plants. After all, this is only my second year trying to grow them. We are just starting to get acquainted.

But I am learning so much. And I am trying to let the anxiety go--to breathe, to relax. This garden is huge. There are so many people pitching in this year, and so many parts that need to come together in order for it to run smoothly. Managing it could be a full time job and I am terribly inexperienced and ill-equipped to tackle that job. Not to mention, there is never enough time.

But I am not intending for this post to be all self-deprecation and whining. That is not the point.
The point is that even though it sometimes feels like everything is chaotic and I am doing everything wrong and the entire garden will be unavoidably ruined-- I am frequently and lovingly reminded that the earth is forgiving. and it is abundant. and even a little effort goes a long way.

I came home from the garden tonight with more food than I know what to do with. Let me show you all of it (pardon the poor quality of the photograph--my cell phone is the only thing I have to take pictures with right now):

Here you see: A beautiful variety of purple string beans (they grew!), carrots, onions, apricots, 2 types of cucumbers, green peppers, broccoli, 4 types of squash and the first glorious blush of tomatoes.

Tonight, I am happy.

"For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare"

The Upside

2010-07-02T23:17:00.000-07:00

I was reminded today of why I love Provo in the summer so much.

Mona lake in the morning. Then Bike riding, gallery strolling, and some extra nice sandwich-making and restaurant promoting in the afternoon.

I don't know who reads my blog that wouldn't know about the restaurant--but some good friends of mine are looking to open up a restaurant. in Provo! I was there for the beginning stages, for some of the initial dreaming up and planning and meeting. But these guys have been working hard on it for the past four months and it was exciting just to get to help out with some of the promotional stuff this evening.

The restaurant is called The Upside. <-- Click there for the website. They also just started a kickstarter fundraising campaign, so if you feel so inclined, please donate a dollar, or two (or five!)

Sorry for the shameless plug. I am just honestly excited about it all. No location yet--but they are looking to possibly buy a double-decker bus and set up shop there. It already has all the necessary restaurant facilities too. Kitchen on the bottom level and seating up top.

And let me just say, they make some revolutionary grilled cheese sandwiches.

Photo by Christine Armbruster

Then tomorrow, there will be all sorts of celebration and revelry to cap off an already perfect summer weekend. farmers markets, community gardens, barbeques and waterslides and fireworks. I love holidays that stretch over the course of several days.

The Realm of the Unreal

2010-07-01T11:46:00.001-07:00

I just watched this documentary. The entire concept of art brut/outsider art is fascinating. and Henry Darger was definitely a fascinating, mysterious, kind of creepy (and yet kind of sweet and innocent-seeming) man--with a very distinctive style of painting/drawing/collaging/tracing.
And what prolificness! pages upon pages upon pages! and no one knew.

I actually like it quite a bit. The colors and composition are so bright and inventive and fantastical.

museum of natural history

2010-06-29T02:37:00.000-07:00

can't sleep.

walrus ostrich narwhal

2010-04-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

Even though the weather has turned I am feeling happy and blessed.
I don't mind bringing out the jackets and the scarves again. This year I feel much less misdirected rage towards the sudden cold snaps--I am rolling with the punches.

What is rain but some moisture for the spring garden? Another week where we don't need to water?

I also noticed that the cold makes the tulips close up a little.
When the sun is beating hot they begin to throw their petals open wide and it feels like they are indecently exposed and a little flamboyantly erotic: "HELLO stamen!"
I have to say, I prefer the neatly closed petals. Skirts untwirled. I hope that doesn't make me a prude. I just want a little decency.

Question.
Is there anything more wonderfully magical than sea animals with tusks/horns?

Another question. Is there anything better than going to a friend's house and being served fresh homemade ostrich egg quiche? And then some strawberry napoleons and chocolate pasta with white chocolate raspberry sauce drizzled on top for dessert?

These days my life is just FILLED with horned sea animals and ostrich egg quiches--so, it is not an exaggeration when I say that things couldn't get much better.

"The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."
-A Child's Garden of Verses

I know that these thoughts and that quote run the risk of sounding a little obtusely optimistic or annoyingly sunny (in an always-grinning-no-matter-what sunday-school sort of way). But I don't mean it like that. I am just feeling truly grateful for small things these days, and I think it is good to make a note, start a list, count your blessings.
Then, during the hard times, I can look back and remember that somewhere out there in the vast oceans of our planet there is a herd of narwhal swimming.

Let me continue the list:

-free old huge heavy television sets to put in my bedroom and decorate with collages and watch old VHS tapes on
-friends who go to DI and surprise you with a working VCR
-camping in the great wide wilderness of southern utah
-hiking in the great wide wilderness of southern utah
-neighbors with baby chickens and a newly-built chicken coop
-anticipating the fresh eggs that said chickens will be producing by the end of the summer
-starting a restaurant
-riding bikes
-gardening, gardening meetings, plant stewardships
-bollywood market opening just down the street
-little brother Aaron coming to Provo oh so soon
-hanging out with that brother and sharing thoughts, books, music, movies
-lovely Elisa coming to Provo tomorrow!!!
-road trip to Santa Fe with mom and Jade
-talking to dad on the phone
-new jobs
-new classes
-making movies
-all the trees in Provo bursting with flowers
-compost piles
-having time to read

2010-04-15T08:50:00.001-07:00

L'Epine dans le Coeur

2010-04-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

2010-04-09T19:00:00.000-07:00

I am always so comforted by the small constants in life.

The sun rising. The seasons changing.
The Jehovah's Witness man in his long dark coat and fedora handing out Watchtower and Awake! magazines at the end of 200 East.

He is always there. Every Friday morning without fail. And I always accept his magazine with a smile and a word of thanks.
Partly because I find them fascinating and have a habit of collecting religious pamphlets and tracts of all kinds* And partly because what's the point of rudely averting your gaze? Or swerving around him? Or making a show of turning him down because you have a religion thankyouverymuch?

In other news, I really do love the seasons changing. It's spring! The weather is fickle. We had a white Easter. But now it is 60 degrees and there is popcorn popping on our apricot tree outside (we really do have an apricot tree in our backyard, and it really has broken out into the most beautiful pink-white blossoms this week)! and we are planting lettuce and spinach and peas and onions and carrots in the garden. and sprouting tomatoes and peppers and eggplants and melons under our grow lights indoors.
And it might snow again next week--but that's alright. That's just mother nature trying to make us appreciate the warm days more. And we do.

*Last time I went sacred harp singing at the local Episcopal church I raided their pamphlet section. I think I took one of every single kind. And I read them all too. I like the episcopal church.
Also, when I worked at Foodland I used to gather all the little evangelical tracts that people seemed to strategically leave in the shopping carts and take them home with me-- not to thwart the missionary efforts but because they were always so interesting and full of passion and zeal and they usually had great cartoons of people burning in hellfire!

2 Documentaries

2010-04-09T18:24:00.000-07:00

Praying With Lior
I watched this documentary a few weeks ago and it has stayed with me. It is simple. It is precious. It resonated.
On top of that, it is very beautifully made. I don't know why, but I love love love the pink-tinged cinematography.
Take a minute (or 87) and watch this.
Lior will steal your heart, I promise...
and make you wish you could prepare for your bar (bat) mitzvah and recite torah and clap and dance in joyful circles and learn to daven and have such constant innocent faith in hashem.
(I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes I really wish I could be Jewish).

A Touch of Greatness
Another good one. I saw it for the first time a few years ago and watched it again last week. It never fails to make me want to abandon all other plans and just go teach 5th grade. Bear costumes? Shakespeare plays in the woods?
Albert Cullum is a remarkable man. If you care about education, watch this film. It actually makes me cry a little because I feel so joyful and inspired when I watch the way he teaches.
It's only 50 minutes or so.

Both of the above films are on Netflix watch-instantly. Do it.

"Cheap Food"

2010-03-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

"Cheap food is an illusion, there is no such thing as cheap food. The real cost of the food is paid somewhere--and if it isn't paid at the cash register, it is charged to the environment, it is charged to the public purse in the form of subsidies and it's charged to your health."

-Michael Pollan, in Fresh

"Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

Genesis 3: 17-19

Reconstructing Memories

2010-03-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

t & s

2010-03-04T12:33:00.000-08:00

love these girls, it's true.

Tegan & Sara - Feel It In My Bones - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Orion

2010-02-22T21:02:00.000-08:00

I turn my head to the winter sky and all I can see are these three stars. They command my attention above all others: Mintaka, Alnilam and Alnitak. Orion's belt.

Lately I have started feeling annoyed with them. Orion is known as one of the most conspicuous constellations. Bright, easy to find--especially in the winter. But for some reason I feel like these stars are being selfish. Not only are they conspicuous but rude, flashy--boldly co-opting the night sky. taking it over. dominating. constantly stealing my gaze away from other, equally deserving and probably more fascinating constellations.

I need to resolve these negative feelings I have towards Orion. He will always be there after all.
Or else take some astronomy classes so I can start noticing other stars.

T-Rex

2010-01-17T10:29:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, she was the perfect cat. RIP little T-Rex.

Cozy Christmas

2009-12-25T22:23:00.000-08:00

Being home is cozy. Our little house is filled to the brim with warm bodies. Not enough beds for all the heads so every night’s a slumber party-- futons and pillows and blankets littering the living room. 3-day-long games of monopoly. Beatle’s rock band constantly serenading us in the background (right now it’s “Lucy in the sky with diamonds…”). Reading books and watching movie after movie. Sharing youtube clips and SNL sketches. Taking naps with my puppy and kitty (sometimes both of them at the same time, which is the best). Eating good home cooked meals all together. Taking turns cooking (and cooking in a real kitchen). Talking and laughing and debating. Playing new games. Singing carols and hymns.

Merry Christmas from Hawaii! I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday.

wikipedia history

2009-11-30T15:25:00.000-08:00

Here are the last 4 articles I read on wikipedia according to my "history" tab.

1. Haredim
For my Judaism and the Gospel class we were assigned to read a few articles in the Jerusalem Post for five consecutive days. I was reading about draft evasion in Israel when I came across the word "haredim" and wikied it. Even after reading 3 Chaim Potok novels over the summer (The Promise, Davitas Harp and My Name is Asher Lev) , This is My God by Herman Wouk and taking this class--I still have a hard time keeping the various branches of Judaism sorted out in my head. I think I was lumping Haredi and Hasidic Judaism together...but the distinctions between the two groups are actually pretty interesting. Danny Saunders in The Promise is Hasidic, the son of a Hasidic Rabbi. Hasidic Judaism was founded with the idea that Judaism, as a whole, had become too academic and lifeless. They wanted to rejuvenate things by focusing more on spirituality and joy (and mysticism!)

2. Charles Spearin
My film professor played a song from his new concept album The Happiness Project in class a while ago and I was going crazy trying to find it. Finally I emailed my professor and he directed me to this article. It is very interesting. The whole album is based on the melodic and song-like quality of the spoken word. Many songs start with simple speech and then layer on music that follows the intonation of the speakers.
Oh how I love a lot of these Canadian artists. I would expect nothing less from the man who brought us Do Make Say Think and Broken Social Scene.

See this episode of radiolab also, for another example of interesting spoken word/song.

3. Cotard Delusion

A rare neuropsychiatric disorder I heard about while listening to a radiolab show on death/dying/the after life. It is dark and eerie and utterly fascinating. Check it out.

4. Gibbous Moon

Sometimes you research very specific things when writing a screenplay. Like the optimum soil and lunar phase for broccoli growth. That is all I am going to say about that. Except when I say "research" I mean "making things up."

...I love wikipedia.

A True Lady

2009-11-13T16:06:00.001-08:00

on why it is that I must shake bits of leaves off of most of my schoolwork

2009-11-10T14:57:00.001-08:00

I have a strange habit of ripping leaves off trees and bushes while I walk.

In the fall months especially, I become so completely enthralled by nature that I am often left grasping desperately for a way to better capture this delight. I am sometimes, quite literally, stopped short--hoping that simple stillness will help me to better absorb the moment. Maybe if I do not move, not even a muscle, I will just melt into autumn. But I can’t stop breathing, so I control my breaths. Slow and steady. Inhale. Exhale. The crisp air. The smell of brown tattered leaves--the trees shedding their coats while we don ours. Sometimes they smell like spit. Sometimes they smell like honey. I can’t stop blinking, either. A soft wind stings my eyes. I blink through the hazy light. It is so golden, so kind. Maybe because there is less of it these days, when it does shine it is more forgiving.

This is not working. I need to get closer. I need to feel this more. Somehow I need to feel it better. Better than I have ever felt anything. I become desperate, I break the stillness. My hand dashes out to touch the leaves, to feel them, for a moment. Pinch them in my fingers, trace their translucent snaking veins. Then, unable to refrain, I rip some off. Hold them. I hold autumn.
Or maybe all I have done is desecrate a tree. The moment is anticlimactic. I shove the leaves in my bag, and continue walking.

The next day a girl watches curiously as I reach for my notebook, but first pull a handful of leaves out of my bag. They are dry now. They crumble over my possessions.

lament

2009-11-05T23:05:00.000-08:00

I had a shocking realization recently:

I now spend all of my time doing everything poorly.
I write papers poorly.
I read books poorly.
I make movies poorly.
I make pottery especially poorly.

I even eat poorly because I spend all my time making crappy movies and pots and papers, leaving no time to make myself real food.
I sleep poorly for the same reason.

And this is why I hate school. I hate how it corrupts my motivations. I hate how it turns what could be genuine learning and creation into a soulless checklist to be ticked off for a grade. Without the arbitrary extrinsic motivator of grades and the ridiculous structure of the school system there would be no reason to do anything poorly. What motivation would we have to skim through books, absorbing just enough information to recognize the answers on a multiple-choice test? For what reason would we hurriedly clack out a paper 10-minutes before class about a topic we don’t care about? Why would we rush to make a film that we are not proud of and show it to others?

I know that there are always going to be deadlines and expectations to meet --school or not. But this semester my workload is really taking a toll on me and its getting me down.
I do not want to have this relationship with my schoolwork and my education. I want to absorb every word of the books I read and let them sink deeply into my soul. I want to have time to reflect on them, discuss them, let them change me. I want to genuinely care about my papers and films and ceramic pots and for them to reflect an honest act of learning and creation.
But there is literally not enough time to do everything well—so I am stuck with 4 depressing months of having too much to do and doing it all poorly because if I didn’t I would flunk out of school (or at least lose my scholarship which is worth thousands of dollars).

I hate it.

The end.

adventures in $3 hair dye

2009-10-10T22:05:00.000-07:00

Today I created a disaster on my head.

And that picture is before it really got bad (that up there was "adventures in $3 hairdye part 1," part 2 is when it got ugly).

And all I can think is...someday this will make for a good story.
But right now it is not so funny.

Okay it is a little funny.

p.s. look! jess, I still have your shirt. I will give it back, promise.

Operation Pegasus X

2009-09-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

Abbreviations

2009-09-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

Here are several commonly used abbreviations that I hate with a fiery passion:

prego* -- pregnant
cukes -- cucumbers
hubby -- husband

*preggers is even worse. sometimes hearing it activates my gag reflex.

...this list is still in progress

Marie added some good ones:

vacay -- vacation
delish -- delicious

terrible terrible abbreviations.

On Buying a Bike

2009-09-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

I hate everything
that moves faster than my body
because everything that moves faster than my body
does so by a cheap trick.

-Andrei Codrescu

After forsaking my last bicycle and spending a few weeks consigned to a lowly pedestrian status, I am moving back up in the world again. I go to pick up my new bicycle this afternoon.

I was feeling very happy about this. But then I read Andrei Codrescu's essays in Road Scholar ("Carless in America") and it resonated so deeply with me that I started to feel like even this was a betrayal. It is not a car--but it is also a speeding flying hunk of metal bound to cause some small destruction. A cheap trick. Moving faster than my body. Making it just that much harder to stop and smell the roses.

Sorry Andrei, but if the true American religion is speed, I want to partake just a little.

2009-08-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

Everything feels noisy and chaotic after spending two weeks in the tranquility of the farm and woodland places pictured above. I woke early this morning to meditate, pray and read (as I learned to do every morning for at least 30 minutes while I was on the farm) and sitting out on our back deck I felt utterly distracted by all the noise: the squeak of the swamp cooler, the clink of the shovels and muddled voices of my neighbors doing yard work, the rattling of machinery as construction continues on that ugly new bank building that is towering above the trees a few blocks away, the sounds of cars, motorcycles and garbage trucks and the distant whistle of a train. I am sure it will only take a few days for those noises to blend back into a muffled and innocuous hum, but today it felt jolting after coming from such a quiet place.

The farm I went to was located in rural upstate New York. In the poorest rural county in the state. It was a founded in the Catholic Worker tradition--a movement started by journalist/activist/anarchist and devout Catholic, Dorothy Day. I've only read a little about her (I'd like to get my hands on a good biography)--but hanging on a wall in the barn was her photograph with this quote written beneath it: "all of our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy rotten system."
That seems an apt summary of the spirit of the movement.

It always feels a difficult task to somehow break down, compress and summarize things into a neat row of pictures and words. I am not sure I know how.

It may take me a few days (or weeks) to collect myself and my thoughts, but I do hope to write a series of posts covering my time on the farm and all of the things I learned and discovered.

holy atomic pile batman!

2009-06-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

This:

Reminds me of this:

An old photo in which I am making my debut (alongside my older brothers and their good and great friend Kenny) as the newest superhero to hit the streets of Seoul. Her name was Helmet Woman and she was the fiercest opponent of evil South Korea had ever seen.

What I Saw at the Bus Stop

2009-06-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

The other day I was sitting at a bus stop reading a book. The sun was high and hot. It was a fine day to eat a popsicle.
As I sat there, a young man approached and sat to my right. I glanced up and mumbled “hello” when he first arrived and returned my attention to my book.
After a few minutes I noticed in my peripheral vision that he was holding something in his hand. The first thought that my mind generated, based on my very limited visual clues and what I assume were random firings of the neurons in my brain was: “oh, he is holding a grape-flavored popsicle!” Which made me wonder where he had been stashing the popsicle when he first walked up and I’d glanced up to greet him. In his pocket? In his fancy work satchel? How did he keep it cold?
I was ready to congratulate him on his incredible ingenuity. How did he devise a way to store this frozen and deliciously icy-sweet treat so that he could whip it out at the exact most ideal moment for its consumption (i.e. long wait, hot bus stop, mid-day)? I had often pondered methods for doing this exact thing, but found no simple solutions.

Soon the curiosity was too great... I turned my head for a closer look only to realize that he was not holding a grape-flavored popsicle at all!! He was holding a cellular telephone, on which he was actively composing and sending text messages.

I was gravely disappointed.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the world were always as it appeared from a peripheral gaze? If not wonderful, it would at least be more exciting!

I’d much rather sit next to people at bus stops holding grape-flavored popsicles than cellular telephones.

I'm a gardener I'm a man

2009-06-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

Tallest Man on Earth - The Gardener - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

+/-

2009-06-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

things I do not like:
-giant prehistoric-looking dandelions and their disturbingly large seed-heads
-seeing people far off in the distance and not being able to tell if they are walking towards me or away from me
-feeling lonely/heavy boots

things I like:
-small, regular-sized dandelions
-kittens. namely, my kitten St. Crispin
-mushrooms growing wild in people’s yards
-compost, recycling and garbage containers—all in my kitchen
-fresh garden produce and all of its wonderful imperfections
-old slide projectors
-turning on the fan after using an olde slide projector to ensure it doesn’t overheat/explode
-silent e's
-movies about imaginary friends and delusions: Lars and the Real Girl, Drop Dead Fred, Harvey
-the word tabernacle
-the place tabernacle
-referring to the body as a tabernacle
-my grandfather’s poetry
-fleur de sel caramel ice cream
-handmade crafts from Kazakhstan

today, the things I like are winning out.

what do you like/dislike? and which side is winning out lately?

Relish.

2009-06-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

My all-time favorite quote about relish: "RELISH! What a special name for the minced pickle sweetly crushed in its white capped jar. The man who had named it, what a man he must have been. Roaring, stamping around, he must have tromped the joys of the world and jammed them in this jar and writ in a big hand, shouting, RELISH! For its very sound meant rolling in sweet fields with roistering chestnut mares, mouths bearded with grass, plunging your head fathoms deep in trough water so the sea poured cavernously through your head. RELISH!"

-Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

Also, please note the long essay on love that I posted below.
This post might be better than that one though. Especially the picture of the relish.

An Essay on Love in 5 Parts

2009-06-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

Dulce Convivencia.

His face peeked out at me, startlingly familiar and just a little painful.
Smooth brown skin, round cheeks, and dark eyes—the way they curved just slightly.
The similarity was striking.
I hadn’t realized how I loved him until he was staring out at me from a TV screen, breathing and blinking, up close.
Losing comes only with loving, I realized.

----

It’s funny, really, how everyone looks like someone else.

In Chile I learned to make ghosts of my classmates. Everyone there was someone from home. I spent several weeks unconsciously re-assigning identities, establishing a security blanket of familiar faces to surround me.

Then I came back home to Hawaii and I had the same problem. Everyone I saw was suddenly from Chile. I couldn’t avoid them. I went to the grocery store and saw Tío Olvaldo wandering the liquor aisle, or my friend Francisca leafing through magazines by the register—strange and aching remembrances.

I still do this. I am constantly turning my head to see people who aren’t really there. Shocked with an electric second of familiarity—the trace of I face I know well hidden within the face of a stranger.

I find the most surprising people in the most surprising places.

----

This time it’s in a short documentary about panela production in a Mixtecan village in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
Panela is a type of raw brown sugar.
In this particular village much of their community life centers around the cultivation, harvest and processing of the sugarcane crop into panela.

It is a nice, quiet little film. Sparse dialogue scattered between long shots of farm workers sitting in the tall grass of a wind-whipped hillside, wiping sweat from their brows, and the calm constant creek of the wooden sugarcane press as it churns out a sweet, pulpy juice. Simple messages about good food and where it comes from. It’s refreshing to hear the same wisdom here that every hip young social activist and his younger brother seem to be writing books and making documentaries about these days; know where your food comes from, know what’s in it and how it is prepared.

But this still isn’t the main impression I take away when the film is finished. There is something else which presses more heavily on my mind...

Near the end, the filmmaker—a young man returning to his home village after several years away—makes a short cameo to thank the audience for watching.
And when his face blinks onto the screen, my heart gives a quick painful start and my insides ache just a little.

He looks exactly like Daniel Soto. From my 12th grade class in Chile.

So much so that it shakes me up. I’m not prepared for it—surprised that after 2 ½ years, his image still causes such a raw and visceral reaction. It leaves me breathless and wondering: what power does this boy have over me?

Well, I’m not sure, but I think it’s love.

----

I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately. About what it is and whether or not I have experienced it.

I had a friend once who told me she fell in love every day, sometimes even multiple times a day.
I didn’t know what she meant by that. I thought it was a little bit ridiculous. I also thought she must be very loose in her definition of love.

Lately, though, I am starting to understand her meaning. My perspective is shifting and I am starting wonder if that's not impossible. Maybe a person can fall in love every day, or multiple times a day. And maybe I could benefit from being a little looser with my own definition of love—allow myself to love more people, more freely. And to call it that.

I did love Daniel. I didn’t realize it. But then I found his face in a movie and my insides ached, and I can’t think of any other explanation.

I loved him with his colorful beanie and his old guitar. The way I would look for him every day at school and listen to him sing songs of revolution: Inti-Illimani and Victor Jara. I loved our long and clumsy conversations about politics, spanish-english dictionary in hand, flipping to entries like “neo-marxism.” He made me read the Communist Manifesto. I made him read Animal Farm. I liked his glasses and the way he smiled. I liked his muddled anger, joy and frustration the day we all found out that Augusto Pinochet died, and the time he took to sit down in the desk next to mine and explain to me all that this meant. I loved how he took me home on the micro my last night in Arica and gave me a pin with a Chilean flag on it, looked me in the eyes and gave a passionate discourse about “his people” and mine and the windows we had opened with our friendship, all while gripping my shoulders.

This is love.
And maybe it isn’t always as complicated or as involved as I once thought. Maybe, sometimes, love can be simple.
I am still very young, and I realize that. So maybe, for now, simple is fine.
If I think of it that way, then I have loved more times than I can count.

I loved the fire-juggling man from my Oregon summer camp. With his wild beard and kind eyes. I think he had a wife, or maybe she was a lover—a folksy dreadlocked woman who wore a long quilt-patterned skirt. He would smile at her when he performed and in between acts he would go and stand with her.
There was a child too, a little boy that he hoisted on his shoulders and swayed with to the music of the African drum group that was also performing that night. When I watched him there with his family, I loved him. I loved that he existed, I was fascinated by him. I watched him all night.*

I loved Martín with his tongue ring and his cigarettes. He lived in the apartment above mine in Chile and asked my host father for permission to take me out on a date. This was my first date. He walked me to the boardwalk on the beach by my house, bought me a diet coke and asked me not to tell his mother that he smoked.

I loved AJ, the Rwandan refugee I met on the bus in Orem. I loved how he dropped everything to come with me and find the nearest Starbucks and told me stories about leaving home at 16 to search for his deadbeat father, his inheritance in Rwanda and his experience with a band of gypsies in Europe.

I loved Joe from the airplane, and those 9 hours we shared easy conversation--talking and laughing. The music he shared with me, the love stories and the loneliness. The panic and urgency with which he spoke when he realized the plane was landing, and although our worlds had been intertwined for a brief moment as we flew suspended between continents, soon we would stand up, walk to baggage claim and part ways to lead two very separate lives.

I have loved perfect strangers: Jorge from the Laundromat. Hyun at the grocery store. Olga from my music class. Cello Joe from the Shake Your Peace concert. The Romanian woman and her little sandy-haired son with his dinosaur toy who I see on the bus occasionally.

I think of them all and I smile.
----

Dulce Convivencia.

The English title for this film is “Sweet Gathering”—but I prefer a more literal, if less graceful translation “sweet coexistence.”
To me, that is love: the simple sweetness that comes from knowing only that someone is alive. That somewhere in this crazy universe they, too, exist: breathing and blinking. And for that to be enough.

----
* I also might have imagined an alternate universe where I was the dreadlocked woman, traveling across the country with him and the other fire jugglers in a beat-up Volkswagen bus. Kicking up dust, racing buffalo herds, letting my growing brood of children run barefoot and free in the plains...

Tune Up

2009-06-02T20:20:00.001-07:00

Hydrate.

2009-06-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

Hello loves. These days I am muddle-minded and scarcely quenched.
My days are long and spent in offices.
Sometimes I forget to drink.

and then I get monster headaches that I can't shake all night long.

But it’s not all bad.
I do research on potential show topics and find wonderful things like the edible schoolyard and the wastach community gardens.
Now I am contemplating attending workshops on solar cooking and urban chicken keeping.

I am working on getting someone from the gardens to come on our show. I think it would be great to do an episode on the benefits of gardening with children and starting gardening programs in schools, or tips on how to start your own community garden.

At my other job I have ample time for movie-watching and intensive music-listening and blog-perusing—all while my hands are busy scanning articles in books for library patrons.

Here are a few things I am excited about that I have been watching/listening to/reading:

Glass: A portrait of Philip in 12 Parts. I started watching this today. I only made it to Part 8 by the end of my shift, but I enjoyed the first 2/3 very much and plan on finishing it later tonight.

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Knock knock.
Who’s there?

Philip Glass.

Joseph Childress--I heard a song by him called Chariots on an online radio station and I fell in love with it. Sadly, it is nowhere to be found online, not even on his myspace. He also doesn’t even have a record out yet. But he is worth giving a tentative listen to anyway. I expect great things from him in the future.

My discovery of Childress led me to my discovery of this blog on the Naturalismo/Freak Folk genre. Genre names and petty categorizations have always confused me. But if this genre includes Joseph Childress, Animal Collective, Joanna Newsom AND Devendra Banhart, it just might be a new favorite.

Movie trailers that I am excited about (mostly old news but...)
The Princess and the Frog
Away We Go
500 Days of Summer
and, of course:
Where the Wild Things Are

Lastly, I am very excited about this year's Twilight Concert Series. Particularly Bon Iver/Jenny Lewis, M Ward/Land of Talk and Iron and Wine/Okkervil River. Those are some pretty great lineups, and you can’t beat free!

Sorry about the media-saturated post. I'll try to post something more substantial soon.

My sister

2009-05-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

This is my sister, Jade. She is an amazing girl and we have a lot of fun together.
I was reflecting the other day on all the things we have done so far. The list can go on and on but it includes:
Writing stories (our first one was called Mermaid Rock, about two sisters who are adopted by a family of mermaids and start a rock band underwater), singing songs from The Little Mermaid at the top of our lungs on the beach, building a doll house, inventing dances (we made up the lazy dance together--a dance where you flail about your arms and legs without ever getting out of bed), reading books and interpreting poetry with shadow puppets.
She makes me laugh. I love her and I know she is going to do great things.

Happy Adoption Day Jade.

Dandelion Bats

2009-04-29T18:16:00.001-07:00

At their old house my Grandpa had little storage drawers in the garage labeled “crap,” “more crap,” and “assorted crap.”
That is sort of like this entry.

The other night I was dozing off in the living room and in the bizarre stage between waking and sleep I slipped into a semi-lucid dream that involved cartoon bats flapping all over the place with these huge soft pink ears.
I was so thrilled with my muddled hallucination, I purposefully woke myself up to tell the others in the room about it.

I bought a hideous, yet oddly wonderful wall-hanging at DI yesterday. I found it hiding out in the “yard” section of the store, utterly out of place. From the second I laid eyes on it I knew I needed it more completely than I have ever needed something so utterly needless. It is hard to describe.
It is this sort of three-dimensional tree made of yarn and wire and frayed string pieces.
Jessica thought it looked like a bunch of colorful hair ripped out of a clown doll’s head and glued to tree branches.
Becca and I thought it looked awesome.
It reminds me of Danielson and the 9-fruit tree.

Sometimes I think that animal collective captures the very essence of romance in their lyrics:
fruity nuts and good grains
solid souls
peculiar ways
I want to walk around with you (just you)

Sometimes I think of love as the chance to start my own empire.
Sometimes I fear that true love will always be accompanied with small doses of apathy. Like “who cares if the world still sucks as long as I can make my world, with you, beautiful.”
Or, you know, maybe love is just wanting to walk around with someone. I wouldn’t know.

The lifecycle of a dandelion is tragically short. I feel like it was only a few weeks ago that they sprouted up in just about every field and yard in Provo and now I can already see their fluffy white heads ready to blow away…

the joy of ear and eye

2009-04-07T22:32:00.001-07:00

I love spring even though it is incredibly fickle: snow one day, sunshine the next.
I love how, with the warmth, everyone seems to emerge from sleepy hibernation and the lawns and walkways buzz with sudden activity. Out come the bicyclers and the football players and the picnickers and the sunbathers and the ice cream vendors.
Tonight I saw a couple of girls studying on a blanket-spread, stubbornly using every last second of daylight--until the streetlamps blinked on and they squinted at their books in the orangish glow.

Today I also saw a man crouched by the side of the road, peering into the grass like a child making some grand discovery. Many people passed him by, but as I approached I looked down to see what he was studying. It looked at first like a small pile of dirt, but on closer examination I saw a massive writhing swarm of ants--all concentrated in one small patch of grass.
I crouched down with him, and without diverting his gaze marveled with him for a moment.

Spring is still a miracle to me. I took the long way home yesterday and stopped to look at every bush, every tree in blossom. I felt the tiny buds with my fingers. I collected specimens of colorful flowers and cupped them in my hands.

It made me want to sing all of the springtime hymns:

For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies;
For the love which from our birth,
Over and around us lies;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

For the wonder of each hour,
Of the day and of the night;
Hill and vale and tree and flow'r,
Sun and moon, and stars of light;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind's delight;
For the mystic harmony,
Linking sense to sound and sight;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

I've never read or sung that third verse before. It is not included in our hymn book, but I believe it is by the original author. I think it is now my favorite of them all.

Summer Plans

2009-04-02T18:11:00.000-07:00

1. Read so much my brain explodes.
2. Work.
3. Plant. Water. Weed. Harvest. Eat.
4. Ride my bicycle.
5. Create things.

On the set of Inspector 42

2009-03-23T14:33:00.001-07:00

I worked on a student film set this weekend. here are two photos.

Mcmansions and the Poetics of Space

2009-03-06T12:06:00.000-08:00

I am getting pretty excited about my final research project for my Utopias class.
I am still trying to narrow my focus a little more, but I have decided I want to examine domestic architecture (house structure/design/size) in modern intentional communities and the way the shape of the physical built environment can affect someone's non-physical reality (social, spiritual, etc.)

I have always been fascinated by place. How does one achieve or detect a true sense of place?
What is home? What is community? How are they related?
Why has the average American house doubled in size in the last 40 years? What do people DO with that much space? Has this trend helped or hindered in fostering a true sense of home and community? What kind of social effects does the physical architecture of a building have?
How do co-housing and other modern intentional communities attempt to remedy this perceived problem? Specifically, how do they achieve this through the built environment? Are they succeeding?

These are a few of the questions I am asking myself.
Or in picture form:

Also, I just ordered this book:

Mexico

2009-02-23T15:54:00.000-08:00

return and revise

2009-02-16T21:11:00.000-08:00

I have returned from Mexico.
It was a beautiful trip and a wonderful escape.

I revised and added to the list below, if anyone is at all interested in reading a few more random things about me...

25 random things

2009-02-12T00:21:00.000-08:00

1. I think the ways people choose to represent themselves online (via blogs, facebook, myspace, etc) and what information they choose to divulge with the world is very fascinating and can be quite telling. I feel shy, even online. So we will see how I do with this list...

2. I am leaving for Mexico in less than 3 hours.

3. I remember being 5 years old and taking ballet classes. I remember never grasping the concept that there was any pattern or rhythm or choreography to it. I distinctly remember thinking it was just a chance to wear cute poofy skirts and leap around. My skills in organized dance have not improved much to this day. I still just want to leap around.

4. I love foraging for fruits and nuts. This past fall I collected great quantities of walnuts, grapes and apples through foraging. Next fall I plan to redouble my efforts as novice hunter-gatherer and collect even more food.

5. I think my new-found foraging passion comes from this exhilarating sense of going back to the basics and connecting with my primitive roots. I also love dancing around fires. and making up tribal chants and rhythms. and face-painting.

6. When I lived in Chile I became good friends with a classmate who was convinced he was going to lead the country (or at least our school) in a Marxist revolution. We would have long conversations about politics and I even participated in a few of his organized student strikes. I also might have been slightly in love with him.

7. I have decided that between passion and moderation, passion is the greater virtue. I fear that so-called moderation often turns into laziness and complicity. Better to be passionate than moderate.

8. Currently my ideal marriage proposal would be for my husband-to-be to quote (or sing!) to me the following Animal Collective lyrics:
"I've been having good days
I think we are the right age
To start our own peculiar ways
With good friendly homes"

9. I went through a period of life where I obsessively researched autism spectrum disorders. I read books, watched movies, visited websites and read many essays on the subject.
some recommendations:
Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin
Emergence: Labeled Autistic by Temple Grandin & Margaret M. Scariano.
wrongplanet.net
the movie Mozart and the Whale

10. I got in trouble in high school for using my AP English speech assignment to talk about how corrupt and ineffective I found the educational system. My teacher thought I was being disrespectful to all the hardworking educators at our school and docked my grade...

11. I have been a vegetarian for almost 5 months now. I started eating a semi-vegetarian diet over a year ago.

12. I have no favorite color.

13. I am very interested in gypsies. I just checked out 3 discs on gypsies and flamenco dancing from the library. Also, apparently I gave an overly-enthusiastic presentation on gypsies today and my Spanish teacher felt compelled to balance my glowing report with the hard facts about how conniving and dishonest and lazy the gypsies can be. I chose not to listen to or believe her.

14. I like collecting odd noises. The sound of the lid on a clay jar, bird calls, the squeak of the dishwasher door. One of the most soothing sounds to fall asleep to is a train whistling. I am glad I live near railroad tracks.

15. I think I would like to name any future daughters after favorite female folk musicians: Violeta, Joanna, Vashti...

16. I made a Virtual Hogwarts website when I was in 5th grade using the free Homestead page maker. It became quite popular for a while and I had people twice my age signing up to be sorted into Hogwarts houses and to buy their own virtual owls from the owlery.

17. The first real concert I ever attended is still my favorite: Sigur Ros, Hawaii Theatre, August 2005.

18. I currently only own 3 pairs of pants. I do laundry about once a month. I swear it is not gross.

19. On a similar note: I greatly admire those who can live an extremely minimalistic lifestyle. I would love to live in an earthen hut. or a re-modeled barn. and hand-wash my clothing and grow my own food. and stuff like that.

20. A while ago I created what I call "the Good Beard List" which I am constantly adding to and amending when I make new and wonderful bearded discoveries. Some of the leading members:Sam Beam

Eduardo Verástegui in Bella

Devendra Banhart

Oregonian Fire Dancer Man

21. I was in Girl Scouts from the age of 5 until I graduated from High School and I got both the Silver and Gold Awards (equivalent of the Eagle Scout award). Also, my mom did a 3 month internship at the national Girl Scout headquarters in New York City.

22. When I was younger my brothers, some friends and I made a Power Rangers rip-off movie called Star Squad. To this day I think it is a hilarious comedic masterpiece.

23. In high school two huge mounds of dirt mysteriously appeared in one of the grassy fields on campus one day. When no one knew what they were for, I decided they were the grave sites of a deceased Giant couple and held an impromptu funeral for Marthew and Glenda Longfellow. Later, I wrote a NaNoWriMo novel about it.

24. The few times I got into trouble during high school it was for ridiculous things like planting sunflowers and vegetables around campus or having French-themed picnics in the hallway during Layout Week in my Newswriting class.

25. I wish I had classier or more sophisticated taste in food, but I honestly think a little bit of peanut butter improves just about any dish.

Freezing Feet Freezing Face

2009-02-02T19:35:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning and my room was only a dozen degrees above freezing.
I felt like an icicle, shivering in my sheets.
The power outlet shorted-out during the night and the space heater shut off.
Casualty of living in an old house. Now it's all fixed up again.
We still live most days like thrifty eskimos and go without heat in the day to avoid high gas bills. Layers. Blankets. Hot rice.

I've decided one of my least favorite feelings is waking up cold...

Speaking of icicles. I still contemplate re-creating the icicle band--music made entirely from the noises of ice clicking. and whale mating calls. and cell phone reverb. and it can only be played in the winter time. or in a giant walk-in freezer.

survey time survey time survery time

2009-01-20T20:51:00.000-08:00

ATTN: Everyone

I would be greatly obliged if you (YOU!) would kindly take the next 5-6 minutes of your day and fill out this survey.

www.writeourscript.com

We really would like to get a bit of market research done, and see what people think of a few tentative premises for a new series on BYU Broadcasting.
So PLEASE take a minute and help me out with the survey.

Now I am off to send out mass-emails!

side note: thank goodness for hot tea and space heaters.

content with content

2009-01-20T19:29:00.000-08:00

And now I'm here, And here I stand

2009-01-13T20:42:00.000-08:00

/

I am in the most ridiculous mood.
Just taking deep breaths, trying to ward it off. Listening to Daniel Johnston wail off-key about unrequited love.

So, I love these two Daniels and am fascinated by their unique dichotomy. I spent many hours last semester pondering it, and then putting it to words in a final humanities essay. I think studying their similarities and contrasting that with their very separate temperaments, styles and sources of inspiration can teach you a lot about the process of creation and inspiration. I am also fascinated by how one can find meaning and transcendence even in dark, absurd and obscure places. In the dissonant, the edgy, the off-kilter.

anyway, that's what I am hoping to find here. I've heard the album's leaked already. But I'll wait. I like building anticipation. !!!!!!

Now excuse me while I chant a mantra...letitgoletitgoletitgoletitgo
let
it

go

Articles and Thoughts

2009-01-08T12:15:00.000-08:00

My work is still in a lull, I'm still sitting in my office for hours with nothing to do.
I've been reading articles.
I don't claim a firm or detailed grasp on the complexities of the situation in Israel and Gaza. There is obviously a lot of historical and political knowledge I lack, and the more I read the more my mind is thrown into a frenzy. I never know what to think or what to believe.

Despite this haze of confusion...I'm just having one of those days where I'm feeling the weight of it all. How did we get here? What could motivate a person to support some abstract sense of state, or country or group identity that overrides any inborn and personal sense of mercy and humanity? How can anyone get so riled up into hatred that they literally don't care if they are hitting the correct target--if they are killing civilians or armed combatants?

I'm not trying to make a blanket judgment of all military endeavors.
I do think, for the most part, servicemen and women in all countries can be motivated by good desires (service, duty, patriotism). but I also feel like we throw around the same patriotic language ("serve the country") all the time, without stepping back and realizing the gritty and morally complex realities that this service entails. Such attractive, idealistic diction does not shed light on any of the complexities of combat. "serve the country" could mean "launch a missile" or it could mean "fire at a suspicious vehicle" ---and all of this without any guarantee that these things won't result in tragic civilian causalities because of misinformation, or propaganda, or whatever else (poor leadership, maybe). and...I suppose morality might, in this specific example, be linked to intention. but just because someone is not morally damned by their actions--does not negate the devastating side-effects of involvement in this kind of violence on all parties. not just on the dead, the wounded, the suffering. but hundreds of soldiers with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder. plagued with these memories for a lifetime--wondering if they did the right thing. who they killed. to what ultimate end (which might be different from the intended end or the stated end) these acts were perpetrated.

These questions are agonizing to me! I don't know how to reconcile them...

In my office we often decorate for major (and minor) holidays. This month we have paper snowflakes on the walls, and today we put up a few things to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Including an "I have a dream" poster with spaces for everyone to write their own dreams down (side note: I often reflect on that fact that my office operates a bit like an elementary school classroom).
I wrote some silly thing about utopian communes, and tribal fire dances and hammock weaving.

But here is a real dream: that one day people can move past their divisive sense of tribal loyalty and be united, instead, by a common humanity.

Don't think I am naive. I know, especially in relation to the Israel/Palestine conflict, that there is a lot more to it than that. I just wish it could happen. I really do.

Winter Break

2009-01-06T18:15:00.000-08:00

Going home for Christmas was warm and kind. it felt well-paced: not too long, not too short.
The sun went into hiding most days. and we enjoyed a constant dark and balmy drizzle. and one drastic 24-hour island-wide power outage due to lightning.

here are a few photos stolen from various friend's facebooks...
seeing old and familiar faces again was very nice:

Now I am back in snowy Provo. It hasn't stopped snowing for 2 days. and when I got off the bus today I was up to my waist.
Still--I am feeling happy and blessed and very lucky.
I am so excited about my classes this semester.
I am taking one entitled "Utopias: The Anthropology of Intentional Communities"
it's a very small class, reading and discussion-based. and the topic is so intriguing.

and just this morning I also found out that......
.....

I GOT INTO THE WRITER'S BLOCK CLASS! This means I get to help develop and write for a new tv show on BYU Broadcasting and maybe (?) get paid a small stipend for it.
Right now I'm just totally shocked I made it in. Even though I felt good about my application--it seemed like pretty steep competition.
Admittedly, I'm also incredibly thrilled and excited. I had thoroughly convinced myself that I wouldn't get in. so the surprise was even greater than it might have been otherwise.

2009 2009 2009 2009

2009-01-01T03:06:00.000-08:00

Smoke hanging so thick in the air you can hardly see.
Firecrackers still sounding off in the distance.
I think the evil spirits have all been scared away tonight...and I think it's going to be a good year.

I recorded some sounds. I've been mixing and mashing. experimenting with the noises of kukui nuts clacking, and birds calling and cell phones reverbing one into another. robot voices. tongues clicking. count downs. boy choirs. explosions
maybe I'll throw some of them up here when I'm done.
good night.

to be a beekeeper

2008-12-15T16:31:00.000-08:00

my brother showed this one to me.
& I liked it a lot!

exams practically over. relaxing week of sitting in my office getting paid to do...hardly anything. then, CHRISTMAS!

boy + balloon

2008-12-04T21:55:00.000-08:00

I am feeling tired but happy because netflix has granted me an early christmas wish: they finally added the watch-instantly feature for mac users!

Now excuse me while I crawl into bed with my happy little macbook propped up on my knees and watch this gem of a short film. no time or motivation to type any more tonight.

adieu.

Take Away Shows

2008-12-03T22:16:00.000-08:00

I have become a master at multi-tasking and can now successfully and (almost) as productively scan books at work while watching videos on youtube!
So this morning I made a wonderful discovery. That Beirut video I posted the other day is just one in a series of just as amazing videos featuring just as amazing artists!
They are called Take Away Shows orrrr Concerts a Emporter and a new one is posted every week by the same Paris-based film team.

www.blogotheque.net/takeawayshows

I really like how simple they are. Raw. Just one-take of the artists performing the song. At the same time they always include visually interesting settings and camera work. and similar pacing (with endings that trail off after the song and occasional footage of the band or artist bantering amongst one another and setting up.)

Maybe I'm late in the game on this one, but if you haven't done so already--check it out.

A few favorites so far:
Arcade Fire (Neon Bible in an elevator!)
Stephen Malkmus (We Can't Help You---roof/dance classes below!)
Beirut (obviously)
Animal Collective

I actually haven't watched too many yet, though.

Flood Part One

2008-12-02T22:30:00.000-08:00

flying turtles. :)

I'm feeling a little worn out. The short days and long nights make me sleepy and unproductive. All I ever want to do is curl up in a blanket and talk or read or watch movies. But I do have ideas for things I want to write about on here. Hopefully I will get to a few of them this week.

I was planning on just ignoring this topic altogether...but after the 10th straight morning of showing up to work and having my co-workers blast the Twilight audio books around the office and talk incessantly about the movie I am feeling a little bit of repressed angst.
This summer I decided to see what all the fuss was about and I read 1 and 1/2 of the books before calling it quits. I have a lot of thoughts on why I think it is just a ridiculous and poorly written series. and maybe I will expand on those sometime.
But today I was just pondering on the reasons that I can't even find some sort of frivolous indulgence in them. (because I CAN find frivolous indulgence in mindless teen literature--believe me! the most embarrassing example being that time in high school I spent 2 weeks reading all of The Princess Diaries books.)
It hit me today that besides the fact that I feel like the writing itself is bad and the characters and plot are shallow--I don't even identify with any of the things that are held up in the book as these greatly coveted ideals.
There is such a strong emphasis on physical beauty, money, style and power. All of these values are sharply embodied by Edward and the other vampires.
and...honestly I have never wanted a dangerous and controlling boyfriend, who is like sooooo hott and sparkly and could crush me in his cold iron grasp and has expensive race cars and a lot of money.
meh...just a thought.

Oldies but Goodies

2008-12-01T22:18:00.000-08:00

beautiful zach condon/beirut video that makes me smile:

a cozy little book with cozy little nooks:

another icelandic gem. Kristen shared her with me. I think this mini-documentary is beautiful and inspiring:

I love how she pronounces "olof" like a softer "olive" and not at all like an ugly Count Olof.

p.s. it is my goal to post every day this week even if it is very little writing and mostly sharing.

Day at the Dump

2008-11-03T22:21:00.001-08:00

This is a landfill. I went on a tour of one this past weekend and learned all about the way we bury our trash.
We all throw things away every day but it’s pretty surreal to see where “away” actually is. I think I always felt like it just disappeared—the garbage truck came with its noisy claw, jostled the trash from our curbside cans and then it all just blinked conveniently out of existence. Modern systems of convenience have a way of engendering those feelings in people. Obviously, at some level, we know that’s not how it really works, but rarely do we bother to follow every-day life processes to their logical end. We live lives of comfortable in-betweens—rarely concerning ourselves with the beginnings or ends of the things around us. We buy pre-packaged food—poptarts, frozen dinners, canned soups—without giving a second thought to where this food began. Who grew the individual ingredients? How is it that they came together in such handy little packages? And food is just one example: every object, every article of clothing, every commercial good began somewhere. And that which is not directly consumed, or actively used is going to end up somewhere someday. It is only logical. Matter is neither created nor destroyed.

I didn’t realize that such a simple truth could be so jolting. As we hopped out of the jeep and walked out over the vast landfill I kept glancing around at every bottle and every box peeking from the dusty earth, wondering if perhaps my trash and I were experiencing an unexpected reunion. I imagined it all rising from the earth and haunting me like a zombie. The un-dead, the un-disappeared. whispering: I am still here.
It’s an interesting yet eerie thought isn’t it?

Another unexpected feature of the dump was the sheer quantity of birds. Hundreds and hundreds of seagulls crowded the landscape, taking off in a frenzy as our cars approached.
We ran out to greet them—pressed ourselves flat to the ground and lay still in hopes that they would settle back down around us. They didn’t, but we laughed and got our backs dirty and talked about what it feels like to know you are laying atop 80 feet of compacted waste.
Anyways apparently the dump is the hit hangout for food scavenging—those birds really know where it’s at. Our tour guide told us that Stouffers alone hauls in batches of botched noodles by the ton. Every single day. I forget the exact number, but it was mind-boggling to think of that many tons of noodles going to waste on a daily basis.
We dreamed briefly of a Patch-Adams-esque noodle-filled swimming pool experiment. But then we got a good whiff of the rotting noodles and changed our minds.

I am still sorting through my thoughts about the whole experience. Overall it was nice to become more aware of the systems I utilize and depend upon. I am obviously thankful that I live in a place and time where such convenient and efficient services are provided for me—but I also think it’s important not to take them for granted. I think there is value in being conscious of both beginnings and of ends. If we are not conscious, thoughtful, and even critical of the systems we partake in then we will become stuck in a state of stagnancy and decay. There should always be room for positive change. This applies in more than one realm: systems of agriculture, waste removal, energy, politics. It extends to the houses we live in, the clothes we wear, the food we eat.
I am still learning every day, and most of the time I don’t even know where to begin…But it is my hope that we can all try to live a little more deliberately and humanely. Leading lives dictated by love and striving to avoid waste and excess as much as possible.

things currently occupying my thoughts

2008-10-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

dreams of one day inhabiting some small friendly corner of the earth...

sea creatures, especially crustaceans and songs about them

nueva cancion! revolution!

fresh meals, with fresh local ingredients.

the edibility of pumpkins.

(They are quite tasty, and can serve to nourish the body rather than only accessorize the doorstep. instead of letting your jack-o-lantern rot away--throw it into a soup! Or a salad! Or a pie! )

Hey Provo, You're Pretty Neat Sometimes

2008-10-09T07:38:00.001-07:00

Well, Provo we are approaching our second year together and I feel compelled to reflect upon our relationship. I’m not sure where we stand. Who are you? And more specifically—who are you to me?

A week or so ago, downtown Provo was buzzing with the Sego Arts Festival. Over one hundred artists, musicians, and filmmakers, gathered together to share their creations (for free!) with the public. Now Provo is not such a big place, “downtown” is comprised of only a few city blocks—so something like Sego can absorb the entire city (at least the part that is not absorbed by BYU football). I was on a road trip to Colorado at the time but I saw the posters, heard the band lineups, and knew many of the contributors. The slogan of the festival this year was “Own Provo,” encouraging everyone to love and ultimately “own” where they live. I found this theme fascinating and very fitting considering that many local college students I’ve met expend a ridiculous amount of energy in their efforts to DISown Provo. No one, it seems, wants to be defined by that perception of a mainstream, white, conservative, small town, close-minded, jello-guzzling, casserole-baking, baby-toting, church-going, prayer-saying, flag-waving population. They’ll do anything to tell you where they are really from. Even more discouraging is that people who actually are from Provo and nearby cities are often timid in their ownership. When asked where they are from, they say blushing, “just Utah.”

It is interesting living in a place that is often embarrassed of itself.
I don’t imagine many people say “just New York” or “just Boston” or “just Seattle.”
Provo, why are you so ashamed? Lift up your head!

It is refreshing to meet people who are trying to fight that sentiment—people who aren’t afraid to own where they live and claim an active stake in their surroundings. There is something beautiful about that, something undeniably good about taking a place for better or for worse and embracing it as your own.
I have to admit the idea of place and ownership is fascinating to me partially because I do not understand it. I don’t know what it’s like to have your identity inextricably caught up in a specific place. I’m not sure what it feels like to be from somewhere, deeply and completely. Down to your bones. I wish I did.

But Provo, I think I am starting to figure you out. Or at least I’ve moved past the juvenile stage of resentment and am beginning to soften up. We’re cool. In fact, I think you’re pretty neat sometimes.
I am willing to look past your idiosyncrasies. I am willing to admit you are deeply flawed and endlessly exasperating—but now I think that is all part of your charm. Not many people are enamored of you when they first arrive. Unlike the great cities your presence is not overwhelming, your substance harder to divine. You work in subtleties.
The way you throw so many into a state of quiet conflict and resentment and cause them to look critically at their culture, their religion, their lives—is precious. You create a certain dichotomy; have a way of highlighting the contradictory.

I have seen your new polished subdistricts, your tidy mansions. They make me feel sick and disoriented, like I am walking through a house of mirrors.
But I’ve also seen your tiny cottages nestled kindly against the mountains, quiet and unassuming. I’ve seen your old rickety houses and gardens where old women grow flowers and grapes.

Just yesterday I had a wonderfully dichotomous experience. I spent the afternoon driving up Provo canyon with a few good friends. The leaves on the trees were stunning, the scenery majestic—it made me want to whisper. We parked the car and climbed into nature. It threw my thoughts into a frenzy: how small I am, how young. I rendered myself childlike to the beauty and immensity that surrounded me.
The experience was very affecting.

Later that night I went to my cousin’s engagement party. There was much squealing and back-thumping and diamond-flashing. Proud parents, paper plates and pizza. While still feeling sincerely happy for her, I couldn’t help but feel like this experience somehow helped to throw the earlier one into sharper relief.
Just hours earlier I stood gazing at the mountains and the trees, absorbed with the feeling that I was standing on the very fringe of my life—shocked at how little I knew and how much I wanted to learn.
Now I was crammed into an apartment room, surrounded by a frenzied crowd who all seemed to feel like at 20 years old there was nowhere else to go, the ultimate goal had been achieved.

But that is just how Provo is…a little ball of contradictions.

And I’ve only just realized, I am fine with that. I can live with it. There is beauty in opposition.

For every grocery store, a garden.
For every football game, a Sego Arts Festival.
For every blushing bride, a babe in the woods.

2008-10-09T05:36:00.000-07:00