Apparently this is a popular title for me. I saw this commercial last night and my first thought was "Island of Misfit Toys!!!". I always loved this part, partially because of the polka-dotted elephant. I should make myself one.
Then I saw the iPhone come in, and the rest of the commercial played out, and I thought, "Awesome!". I have nothing against the iPhone, and the Verizon "map for that" commercial was rather clever, but this one just cracks me up. It has a pop culture reference with zing. Who wouldn't love that?
It seems I'm in a D mood lately. Dependency, dreaming, domestication... DDD.
This morning I had a realization how dependent I've become. I was thinking of going for a run or a bike ride, or both. I thought a bike ride on the trail would be nice, but I would have to go alone. That was a big deterrent in my mind (there's the D again). Then I wondered, "What the hell is wrong with me? I can ride a bike alone." Yet even after that realization, I was still debating (D) on whether or not to go.
I went. It was grand. I decided (D) to only ride, mainly because I couldn't find the bike racks at the park (found them after I gave up the idea of the run, so I'll know next time). Six and a half miles, mulling over and over in my mind why I don't want to do (DD) things alone anymore. I no longer want to go out and grab dinner (D) by myself; I rarely go out to shop, because it will be by myself. I used to never have this problem. I did all sorts of things all by my lonesome.
Goal: get over it. Realization: I love having Raju to do stuff with. It's like having a best friend around all the time. Except he's not around all the time. He has a life. I have a life. We have a life. I should live my life. Starting with the bike ride this morning. Maybe I'll follow up with lunch at the pho restaurant. Hopefully dinner will be shared over a nice glass of wine, though. Me sharing - that's another topic.
We spent the earlier part of this year searching for a house, then we finally found one, put in an offer, luckily didn't get that one, found another (which we actually had found previously, but it took us a while to decide it was right), found out someone else had put in an offer, we put in an offer, got in contract, and finally bought a house. Then reality set in - houses cost money. The life we knew was gone. The savings we had was gone; in its place is home equity. Welcome to grown up life, Courtney.
I make this sound bad, when really, it's great. I wouldn't trade it for the world; it's really nice having a place to call home, though it's taking a while to sink in that it's ours. It's a new project on a grander scale than previous projects. Walls to paint, tiles to break, bricks to fix, rooms to decorate. Grown up furniture, guest bedrooms, in-laws visiting. A bar that hides the liquor instead of showcasing it.
But my creations these days are very domestic. A decorated house, a yummy meal, a tomato or a cayenne pepper I grew and used in dinner. I have trouble with that, but I also enjoy that. There's not enough time to create - art, dinner, a home - and work. Actually, I'm sure there is; I'm just lazy. Or maybe I just have too many ideas and not enough focus.
Ahh, but I've finally posted another post. I've put images back on Etsy for sale. I can make a resolution now to do better, to promote myself, to set aside time to work on the site, the blog, the art (as I haven't created anything in 2 years now), exercise, learn new languages -- all that stuff I want to do, but never get around to. Instead of resolutions, though, we'll just see what happens. Resolutions, even made in August, seem to be the thing you break. At least, for me.
I've been on a bit of a consumption binge lately. Needing to consume - purchasing, consuming movies, books, knowledge. Just trying to break out of my rut, watching the same Family Guy episode for the umpteenth time while glazed over.
This weekend I watched Summertime, a movie from the 50s starring Katharine Hepburn. I'm not sure that I have ever seen one of Hepburn's movies before, but I decided I really don't care for her. At all.
However, the movie itself was good. It had technicolor on its side, and it was set in Venice which made me long for another trip there. It's already being planned in my head. Heavy wine drinkers need apply.
One of the things that struck me about this movie was Hepburn's character - she arrives in Venice, and she carries this film camera with her everywhere, capturing every moment, preserving it on film. She doesn't really experience anything - the only contact she really has at this point is with the other tourists at the hotel. A hot blonde and her artist boyfriend, the proprietor of the hotel (who offers her some fine Italian drink, which she decides to mix with bourbon), and some tourist-old-couple she met on the water taxi.
Then she meets a man - the man. He sets her heart (or something else) aflutter, but she spends the next half hour acting like an ass instead of enjoying the moment. Then she gives in, and the camera disappears. She begins to experience Venice, experience love and life, and the camera is no where in sight for the rest of the movie. Of course, I guess she should have acted like an ass - turns out he is married. But that is beside the point.
I have to wonder if the obsolete camera is intentional as she begins to experience Venice. Does this mean David Lean felt the same way I do? That the camera somehow abstracts you from reality, from the moment, even though it is capturing that moment for a lifetime or more? That the camera interferes with your ability to experience by placing a mechanical device and a lens between you and life?
Blink. A year went by. 2008 was a good year where I feel like I did a lot of nothing. I rested up from event-filled 2007. I wasn't quite as crazy as I was in 2005 heading into 2006, though the way this work week is going, if I'm not careful, I'll be back there. I guess I'll just have to keep my sage friend pappy's advice in mind, "Fuck work. :D"
I'm back to blah again, with nothingness sitting in my brain. My mind is blank - right now would be a great time to take up that whole zen meditation thing, because I can't force a thought out of my head, except, of course, this rambling. Which hardly counts as a thought.
Lately, when I start to wake, instead of remembering part of a dream, I have a novel running through my head as I come into consciousness. Crazy stories, just like I'm reading it from a book.
This morning's was something out of science fiction. A person, in the future, doing some schleppy IT-related work because he wants to slack off. Only he realizes the work he does fuels what he hates about society and aids in lining the pockets of his enemies. There were spaceships involved - a la Futurama, but more grown up and realistic and grimy.
It just always strikes me as odd when I wake up and there are these well-formed sentences running through my head, and I'm not the center of the dream or even watching it - someone is narrating it. I find it even more odd that I have some sort of science fiction brewing in my unconscious; I don't even like science fiction. But that can mainly be blamed on Star Trek.
It's time to pick up work on the pod series again.
I'm not big on watching political anything. It's just not for me, listening to people drone on. Put a transcript in front of me, so I can read, deconstruct, take notes - that I can do, though I realize you lose the human element, body language, the tone. I just can't stomach 90 minutes of chatter and blah, blah, blah.
But highlights - a 3 to 5 minute recap, I'll listen to that, stay current (again, taken with a grain of salt, since what is shown is very subjective to the producers, reporters and editors). The thing that really strikes me this morning is, "Biden vs. Palin - there's no clear winner, but Palin didn't fail, which is what many expected. She held her own."
Yes, that's a good motivator for me when I'm at my lowest. I may not have sparkled and shined, performing top-notch, but at least I didn't fail. Quite frankly, I don't see that as I'm successful at something. Is that really what we need in a leader of our country? "Wow, she didn't fail, so that's successful." That's bullshit. You need a leader, someone who can take charge, bring value to the table and clearly come out on top. Not someone who scrapes by, because they didn't fail.
Since I didn't really listen to the debate, and I haven't actually read any in-depth information on the debate, this isn't so much a criticism of the two candidates as it is the press and the reaction of the hand-picked "public" on the TV this morning.
Does anyone remember when Senator Clinton was running for the democratic nomination? How it was insinuated that women would vote for her just because she was a woman - damn her policies, positions, etc. And women were up in arms because we're not that dumb; we do have functioning brains.
Then along comes Sarah Palin. An inexperienced governor from Alaska with a knocked up 17 year old who has taken over the news for the past week or two. What on earth would make a man choose such a person as a running mate? Possibly angling for the women's vote? Doesn't that mean the Republicans are insinuating that women will vote any woman into office - the thing we were up in arms about to begin with when the press portrayed our support for Hillary in the same manner?
I had one of the most wonderful, most eye-opening experiences about a week ago. As many of you know I sell my work on Etsy - a great place to find handmade work by artists & crafters (if you didn't know that, you should pop on over to my shop and check it out). CBDImagination - another Etsy shop owner - messaged me to tell me how much she loved the picture posted above, that it brought back many memories for her.
I do love this photo, the way the light pours out of the windows and reflects on the rainy streets. The life that is portrayed down the street, the person in the red jacket who pulls your eye down there.
But as much life as I see in my pictures, I sometimes can't shake the art school feeling. "It's just a pretty picture," they would say, "... it has no meaning, no depth, no insight into something greater." Like everything you have to make as an artist has to make that big, political statement. It has to generate some controversy. And, somehow, any work that doesn't do that, isn't as good.
So, CBD, she made me realize that a pretty picture can be more than a pretty picture. Photographs, just like music, just like a scent, can bring back waves of memories for a person. That's how I feel every time I look at one of my photos - and often how I feel when I look at the work I own from other artists. Photography is documentation of a moment, a particular point in time. And just because something is beautiful, mainstream, doesn't make it any less worthy of the term "art" for some people.
To each their own - their own feelings, their own memories, their own opinions.
Gray is a color that comforts me. The moment I slip into a gray t-shirt, sweatshirt, or sweater, I'm just so damn comfortable and I get the warm and fuzzies.
I'm slowly learning it's not just being wrapped in gray - just the color cues my mind to fall into this feeling. My breathing gets a little deeper, my mind stops racing quite so much. I'm comfortable and chill.
A couple of weeks ago I came home from work and everything was hazy. It was actually rather beautiful although it was an odd, surreal feeling.
I know the picture isn't purple haze, more yellow, like that eerie color the sky gets before a really bad thunderstorm. I didn't get a picture of the purple haze - it was off to the left for a short time period.
I know the fires are destructive and the air I was breathing was really bad for me, but it was beautiful that night.
I find it funny that some people don't realize how much I love music - even I miss that about myself occasionally. It has the power to lift me up out of my blues, or sink me farther into them, depending on the mood I'm in when I hit that play button.
I'm not sure if there's anything better than driving down the road, windows rolled down on a sunny day, listening to something that makes you want to move. Move your head, tap your toes, dance with your fingers, wiggle your booo-tay.
I just love it when people look at my work and that is the first (or second) line out of their mouth. As if my camera jumped out of my hand, ran back down the street, centered the scene perfectly, focused and snapped the shot, noting that it didn't need a flash to get the best lighting.
My hubbie once said this about a friend, but after some thought (I said nothing, neither did his friend) he came to the conclusion that maybe there has to be a smidgen of talent at least to get the camera to produce a nice picture.
And for the record, I do have a nice camera :-) I also have some others that might not be qualified as nice, but will produce some fantastic results if it's the effect you're looking for. Because in the end, the camera is just a tool that the entire world has access to, just like paint, pastels, pens, and clay.
My brain is mush. I don't remember anything anymore. I don't think this is a result of getting older, though, as I'm sure my parents or grandparents will tell me. I think it's a result of the internet and easy accessibility to information. It's because when we drive by a funny business sign in San Francisco, and try to remember it one block later, I think, "Oh, we can just look that up later." We did, and I still don't remember what it was, other than a strip club with a funny name up the street from City Lights bookstore.
I see the same with my photos. Once upon a time I made sure to either note everything or just mentally stash away the info. Now I comb wikipedia and take a look at the photos surrounding to determine where I was and what else I was looking at. Such as the above, "Oh, Pantheon, Raphael's Tomb, Madonna of the Rock".
Yesterday morning the sky was gray - huge, puffy gray clouds provided a few variances in the shade of gray. I had to stop for gas and there was an eerie quiet for a few minutes - which is odd considering the gas station is on a busy street, and I was there during rush hour.
The British royalty, if they haven't always been, are now classified as "Entertainment". Yes, alongside American Idle gossip and Mike Tyson gets jail time, there was a two minute clip on Queen Elizabeth's 60th wedding anniversary with Prince Phillip. Poor guy, being second in command with his title, the ABC News clip assures me he's in command in their personal life, well at least, he got to make the decision on where to school the children.
And we all know how well they turned out...
If you're wondering, the title are their nicknames for each other. You guess who's who.
Wow - I'm in a rather smarmy mood this evening... Cheers!
It was one of the first things that ran through my mind in Rome. We're staying near Vatican City, and the place is surrounded by junk shops and street vendors hawking pictures of the Pope, Jesus, and pretty much any other religious figure you can think of.
Everything in the city of Rome elicits a small "WOW" from me, followed by silence because I'm floored by the beauty of it. Toward the end of day one I figured this out, after seeing St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and Hall of Maps at the Vatican Museum, while enjoying a gelato in front of the Trevi Fountain. I know it's all the tourist spots, but I'm not sure what isn't in Rome. The entire city is like one big museum, only people live in and around every piece of art in it.
The mosaic work in St. Peter's is amazing
The proportions of the buildings and the lighting add to that WOW-factor I believe. I'm a huge fan of the golden light, unfortunately, I only see it in the early morning here in the U.S. -- and I'm not a morning person. It's pretty much a golden hue through most of the day there, as you can see from the photos.
We also got to see the Pope this morning, not so much because we planned it, but because we were walking by and noticed the crowd. We decided seeing the Pope might be a once in a lifetime thing, so we stuck around.
Unfortunately I had left the longer lens at home, so you get to play "Find the Pope!". Should be a good way to kill an hour of your Monday morning.
The entire popage-sighting was very spooky though. He was brought out in the pope-mobile and driven through the crowd, so it appeared he was floating in his white robes. Add to that some organ music, and the entire event seemed made for Halloween. Odd, interesting, unforgettable.
Heineken, I've learned, is much better in other countries. I'm not sure what they do to it here, but I won't drink it. However, in Dubai and Europe, it's not a bad beer -- not my first choice, but drinkable.
I started this post 21 days ago - 8/31 at 7:16 AM... amazing how time is still flying, even though the wedding has come and gone.
Occasionally there are moments in my life where everything else seems to fade, to quiet-down, and one subject sticks out, defined very clearly, and overtake everything in that moment. And that moment just sloooooows down time. It's rather hard to describe, but these moments stick in my head, and they seem so surreal to me. I'm not sure if I've ever posted about the tree, the rain, and the Doors in Kentucky... if not, I will sometime. I'll have to dig around and see if it's anywhere in the diary.
The thing about these moments - they would make wonderful pictures, but bringing the camera into the situation would break the mood and the experience that's happening. People often assume that the camera goes everywhere with me, that I can't wait to travel and take pictures. While it's true that when we go on the amazing honeymoon my husband has planned I will have the camera in tow, and enjoy that, it's not normally my preferred method of photographing anything. It disrupts my moments. I'd rather go back, re-create the moment, on another day, after the experience.
The point I'm getting to... During the wedding week there are a couple of these surreal moments, where time slowed and a subject came into clear focus. The first was meeting Raju's cousin Geeta. I believe in my list I described her as smoldering... fiery, full of life... those things all popped into my head during this one instant -- blink of a second really. I was thinking someone else caught this side profile view that I had of her at that moment, but I've yet to find the picture. Maybe the smoldering Geeta just burned her image into my memory and that's my picture.
The other slow, surreal moment was when I grabbed a bit of cool air, drifted away from the party. I was sitting on the ledge, talking to another of Raju's cousins (he has almost as many as a Southerner, maybe more). Diane had walked away, leaving only Shankar standing below. Again, time slowed and in one instant, a lull in our conversation, I can remember the cool air, the sky above, and the look on Shankar's face, standing below. No snap judgments this time, just a singular moment in time that is as clear in my head as if I'd taken a snapshot.
A while back, during the wedding planning mania, I stumbled across the work of a couple of artists that really piqued my interest. I never got around to posting it, so I will now. Both were posted on yumsugar, one of my favorite daily reads.
The first of the two is a book, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio. The premise of the book is something fairly simple but pretty astounding when all binded together. The artists photographed families around the world with the food they consume in one week. The amount of money they spent on the bounty is also noted in the captions.
While I do find the pictures fascinating, I can't help but wonder how they picked the families. Did they decide to pick the family in Chad to prove a point of the lack of food in Chad? Is there not a rich family in Chad that would have photographed much differently? And what about the U.S. families? They seem to be middle-income. Was there not a lower-income family that they could have photographed?
Of course, this is why I need to go buy the book. Maybe they chose the most representative of the country as a whole to feature (i.e. most of Chad has a $1.23 to spend on food, and most Californians spend $159.18 per week). Or, maybe they took artistic liberties and showed families that would prove whatever point they wanted to make. I will only know once I search out this book and read it.
The other artist I discovered is like a mix of Cindy Sherman and Sandy Skoglund. Her name is Daniela Edburg, and she has some fantastical photos, mostly featuring food. In her series Drop Dead Gorgeous the subjects are consumed by the food, dying by an OD on MnMs, or being chased by a tornado of cotton candy.
It was refreshing to see this work. It's been a while since I've looked at any art that has impressed me much -- not sure if this is my fault or if there's just been a lack of impressive art lately, but I'm glad this is changing for the better for me.
Art is about experiences. It is about the experiences you, as a viewer, bring with you. It is about the experiences I've had over my lifetime.
So I'm giving you a glimpse into my life and experiences. This diary is a compilation of current events, reminiscences, thoughts, and even a few posts about my pieces.
Feel free to share your experiences with me via the comments links.
A southern girl, displaced, but loving every minute of it. A drifter through life, living in the moment or just enjoying that moment. An artist who forgoes the thinking to just create. An impassioned soul, but only for the briefest of periods... until the next new thing comes along. A comedian, well, I amuse myself anyway. :-)
