Un-plugged

I just deactivated my facebook account and breathed a sincere sigh of relief. I'm sick of insincere affections, blurred connections, pictures upon pictures, smiles and inside jokes. I'm trying to unplug, detach, scissor, split, writhe, pull away from all that is untrue. "Real recognize real" so it's pen to paper, cheek to cheek. India on Friday!

The Burning Lampshade

During a certain family brunch (see: bagels and lox, pinky rings, and mimosas), our beloved lamp caught fire. We were sitting contentedly around the rickety dining room table when Dad rose up feverishly. "FIRE! FIRE!" he cried. I turned and the lampshade was up in flames, tassels swinging, singed in the New Year's air. Dad sprang into action, dragging the lamp towards the front door, never unplugging it from the wall. The fire was blossoming and blooming, spreading up towards an oil painting, before the flaming lampshade was finally tossed into a nearby snow pile just outside of the front door. Why do I mention this? To cast some ash on my family name? To make a mockery of family traditions? Maybe. The burning lampshade signified fiery portents for 2011. Apparently, this isn't year of the frog, leopard, or mule. Instead, it's year of the singed silk. It's appropriate for me now: college is ending, the future looms, the typewriter needs a new ribbon, the coffee must be refilled. The air is static, electric, buzzing in wait of future thrills. Billie Holiday, in her classic track "Embraceable You" yearns for a "thrill I can press my cheek to." And while it wouldn't be wise to put my smooth cheek to the lampshade's burning skin, I'm also looking for a little heat, some raucous adventures. Sorry, grandma, but I may just take up pyrotechnics to appease my appetites.

The Cleaning Chorus

At present, I'm hiding from my cleaning lady, Lulu, and her children. I hate to say it but I can recognize the deliciousness of this predicament even as I shrink into my blankets. Lulu and her children are to be known as The Clean Family- they are a package set, three for the price of one. They come every Tuesday and Friday (how much mess can we make in three days?) and proceed to bang about, scuffing up each wooden plank and ceramic tile. Don't get me wrong- Lulu gets down. She mops, she soaks, she soaps, she twirls, she polishes, she sharpens. But her kids stomp and storm and hurricane and whirling dervish like they've waited the entirety of their lives for this new yuppie playground and by god, they will enjoy every minute of it. While they thrash around like dancing torpedos, I hide under my feather comforter, Patty snoring across from me. In my fantasies, I man up. I stroll into the kitchen in a fur coat, cigarello dangling from my lips, and blueprint of the property in my back pocket. I sip my coffee confidently and stride about, careless of their presence in my somewhat limited space. And yet, I never do this. Instead, I slip into the snow with Patty at my heels, and slip even more quietly back into the front door. I give the dog her requisite chicken treat and pad upstairs to my room, cursing the vacuum's raspy hum and the sky's colorless color. I hear everything just outside: the telephone poles crackling, the washer cycling, the little boy hastily pounding his nintendo upstairs. I could enter The Cleaning Chorus and make some rumblings of my own but I'm not there yet. For now, I remain yuppified, the polite white girl who reaches delicately for a piece of fruit before retreating to a cave of her own design- a cavewoman without fire or fight.

Milk of Wonder

This is one of my favorite passages from literature, for life:

"Out of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalk really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the trees-he could climb it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder."

I'm guilty as charged: always searching for the ladder, for magical elevation into the wild blue yonder. I'm going to India in January (!!!) and I'm hoping that I'll gulp down some milky, wondrous, sweetness- the type that refreshes and energizes, and makes me see the world anew.

Here's to hoping!

Sparks

GENERAL IDEAS OF INTEREST:

-girls, art, avoidance of stereotype---> using art/ making art to avoid stereotype
-monsters, magical creatures
-bathtubs
-whimsy in real life situations
-TV (TV Girl songs, girl who drags TV around everywhere, “tv told me how to feel and now I can't feel nothing real”, TV culture, why do we like it? What is it doing or not doing? I'm living in TV though I never watch it)

ALSO:

whimsy, safety, beauty, tangibility, intangibility, romance, non-romance, elegant emptiness, portly fullness, wine, sleep, sex, pens, grocery stores, shrimp, TV, madness, Hamlet, ham sandwich, Shakespeare, early mornings, camping, camping with Shakespeare, determined resistance to superficiality, pimples, follicles, bubbly water, elegance, shoes, cords, cameras, stripes, monuments, a place unknown, a silly smile, your face underwater, mascara, eyes, lashes, music and Stevie Wonder

Onion Rings

CLOSE YOUR EYES AND IMAGINE:

Sam walks down the cobblestone street, intent upon his onion rings. They are airy discs of fried delight, heaped on top of each other, waiting to be consumed. Sam bought these onion rings on the corner, from an Indian man with a silk suit and a yellow caravan. The Indian man was energetic--twirling the deep fryer and splashing hot grease all over himself in excitement. Sam wanted to ask him: "how do you know anything about onion rings, Indian man?" but he didn't for fear of being politically incorrect. After all, he tries to be graceful.

Sam reaches for an onion ring and brings it to his nose. He inhales and it's heavenly: sweet onion inside and crisp dough surrounding. He takes a big bite, and onion juice trickles down his chin and onto his skinny tie. He winces, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and takes another bite.

Sam can't control himself; he eats one and another and another. He keeps up his pace, traveling down the cobblestones, toward the creek, when he perks up. He hears music, full and soothing, just behind McSweeney's garage. His legs go without him; he's helpless but to follow his body through puddles, past the garage, and into the woods.

The music gets louder. It's a strange symphony, all organ and flute and piano and cymbal. The forest is lush, voluptuous, heaving with rain and velvet peacocks. "Peacocks in London?" he wonders to himself before pulling the pregnant branches apart with his greasy hands, going deeper into the music. A boxing ring appears before him. Two men box silently, jabbing and ducking with leather gloves and jutting teeth. They are flanked on all sides by women. These are beautiful women with big blooms of hair and diamonds on their tongues. They cheer for the men, clapping and shouting wordlessly.

Sam looks down into the empty cardboard container. Were those onion rings magic? Suddenly, the container shoots forward out of his hands. The box twists and mutates until it's a golden accordion, with leather strap and ivory keys. The golden accordion settles onto Sam: the leather strap zooms behind his back and the keyboard adjusts to his hands. He licks his fingers and begins to play, enchanted by his newfound musicality.

From his yellow caravan, the Indian man twirls the deep fryer and smiles to himself.

Poison Candy Flowers

Inspired by Allen Ginsberg and "Howl," I started flipping through my journal. I found some scribblings on Cindy Sherman- a contemporary artist and photographer. Sherman is interested in all things simulacral: copies with no original, mass memory, disappearance of the artist/ person behind the mask of stereotype. Sherman is a feminist-I know you're envisioning hairy armpits and Birkenstocks but bare with me. She's interested in the Real World pressure for girls to conform to filmic stereotypes--> fake eyelashes and big breasts and simulated conversation. Sherman examines woman as "spectacle" and "symptom," and as the passive object of male attention. In some ways, to paraphrase her photography and artistic philosophy, characters are constantly constructed in film but also in life through costume, clothing, and manicured nails. Sherman's photography is eerie, and whimsical, and often familiar. She fools you, harkening to previous artistic products though never directly referencing anything. She creates false memories. I'm fascinated by her and by artifice in general. I always have trouble putting together outfits or buying clothes because with any purchase, a commitment is made to a genre or style or icon that I don't necessarily align with. Of course, a shirt is just a shirt...except when it's not. I'm hung up on fantasies. After all, in another life I was matador, leopard with gold bell, Botticelli beauty, burnt toast, gold necklace, Napoleon and Richard Nixon. The point is that when we reapply mascara or cut our toenails, we're secretly trying to tell a story. We're trying to make our own legend and fiction. It's exciting and exhausting...but of course, womanhood is both of those in equal measure.