Note to Self

Self: Must go see this before it's gone.

Unfinished...

The wind blows, a cold wind with a secret that stops me in my tracks. It carries a hint of days gone past and days to come, and for a second I'm torn between the two of them, struggling to hang onto this moment. And then it's something else; sweetness and light, the smell of you, all around me and sweeping past me and bringing a smile to my face. I close my eyes and when I open them the wind has stopped and you are there. I take your hand and we walk down avenues and along beaches as the sun smiles on us. You ask me what time it is and I look but my watch is broken. “Look,” I say, as I show it to you. You smile and we walk on in silence, a silence that envelops us and binds us together: our happy secret, the secret the wind was whispering to anyone who would listen.

Which way?

Unknown

It's too bad that I forget where I got that pic from. I was thinking picturesofwalls.com, but it's not a wall so I'm not sure. In any event, it's a neat little bit of graffiti.

One of my roommates and I chatted about something along these lines briefly yesterday; whether or not we believed in the concept of a destiny. I think there's a number of different paths your life can take, but I also strongly believe that the choices we make can impact the way our lives turn out, and that it can be possible to miss positive occurrances and paths if you don't (refuse to) open yourself to the opportunity.

As an interesting aside, the mandarin character for crisis is a combination of the characters for danger and opportunity. Just a neat little tidbit to think about.

I like to think that there is no such thing as a completely negative experience. Even the things that happen that are most heartbreaking and emotionally draining at the time can be turned into a positive experience through meditation and reflection. At the same time, I say this having gone through relatively few such experiences. I like to think that when I'm faced with them (I'm not going to kid myself and type "if I'm faced with them"), I'll be able to hang onto this view, because I think it would be the most conducive to emotional growth and release, as opposed to sinking into one of those horrible depressions when you don't do anything with your life for months or years.

From PostSecret

Translation: I don't love you

Lately PostSecret has been getting a bit on the ehhh side; not to denigrate the secrets that people continue to send in, but from my aesthetic point of view. When I first found the site, it was guaranteed that one or two of the postcards every week would not only express an incredible vulnerability and beauty, but it was also clear that a lot of time and effort went into the execution. I suppose it's somewhat horrible to look at it that way, but I do think part of the point of the project was that aesthetic side to it. There's a book out that I flipped through at Barnes and Noble the other day that's very neat; I might consider getting it as a coffee table book.

You know, if I had a coffee table.

I Love Wrapping Shit

The picture's a little dim but my camera's phone sucks balls. Yay for wrapping shit up! The ribbon is sexeh too. These people better appreciate my talent...that's another reason why I slather the presents I wrap liberally in scotch tape, so they have all the more time to admire my wrapping job while trying to figure out how the hell to open it.

That, and I just like being a pain in the bee-hind.

Downtime

Very odd day today. Felt very reflective after all the crap that was spinning around in my head when I went to sleep last night (see the last 2 posts); went out to grab lunch and it was nice out (yes, I do categorize temperatures in the high 40s as nice out), so I walked over to my Thoughtful Spot: Bethesda Fountain, with a brief stopover in Strawberry Fields. Sat out there for a few hours in the sun and shade, watching the tourists come and go and thinking thoughts in the most thoughtful way possible. When I was done there I walked back to 72nd and Broadway, and I was thinking of stopping by the Barnes & Noble down at Lincoln Center (the one I usually go to), but I felt like walking some more so instead I walked uptown towards the 96th Street station. Stopped into the Barnes & Noble on 80-whatever it is and flipped through some astrology books. And on the end of the shelf directly opposite where I was sitting is this pile of books on Tibetan Buddhism, this one being the one at eye level. It catches my eye; I keep flicking through the astrology books with the intention of grabbing that one and flipping through it when I'm done. I do so, and the first page I turn to, the first paragraph I look at reads:

"For Tibetan Buddhists, because karma affects everything, there are no chance occurences. It is no accident, for example, that you are picking up this book. As you read this sentence, all of your past actions, your present thoughts, as well as your intentions for the future have brought you to this specific intersection of your life where you have opened a book talking about a timeless way of life that was first introduced in Asia some 2,500 years ago."

Sold!

On a more serious note, I do like to believe in the underlying sentiment of the paragraph. It just feels right to me. I like to believe that there are reasons why you meet people when you meet them, why they are a part of your life for periods of time and then not and then sometimes they come back into your life, and why sometimes you don't meet people when you want to meet them - it's because you are or aren't meant to at that time, for whatever reason...because you're not ready, because they're not ready, or maybe just because.

Mantra

My biggest fear.

Looking at it now it seems so fucking retarded and pretentious and melodramatic AND unoriginal, but what the fuck, who cares. I actually posted this late last night/this morning, but thinking about it just now I felt it needed something a little extra.

Midnight Obsessions

I'm lying in the darkness, cradled by a low pitched hum that sustains and worries me. I keep trying to remember to forget you but the hum keeps bringing you back, tormenting me with whispers of flesh and blood. Laughter from the next room mocks me, a recorded track that ebbs and flows but never stops, like my mind, circling in the dark. You told me not to let me hurt you and I said I wouldn't, but I never promised the same thing to myself, and it's pathetic and I hate it and that only makes it worse. The hum burrows its way into my brain, and I think if I could crush it I would. Or maybe it's myself I would crush, smash into a pulp in order to be reborn, to be remade into all I am and was and would be. And maybe that's what life is, to die and be reborn in every minute of every day, until you're too tired to remake yourself and you begin to fade away, like a stain on the wall. And what color is my stain? All the colors of the rainbow, of course: one for every sin and every good deed, the tapestry of life in which I'm but a single string to be woven in and pulled out at whim. "I'm not," I say, but I don't know who I'm talking to, and I close my eyes while the hum lulls me to sleep.

And then, while I was lying there, something else blew into my mind that I'm going to try to reproduce in Paint...we'll see how that goes.

Haven't Posted One of These in a Bit

Your World View

You are a happy, well-balanced person who likes people and is liked by others. You question whether many conventional views on morality are valid under all circumstances. You are essentially a content person. Sometimes, you consider yourself a little superior. You are moral by your own standards. You believe that morality is what best suits the occasion.

What Is Your World View?

On another note, I just grabbed my jazz songs offa my iPod and have been listening to them for the past while. Diana Krall + John Coltrane + Harry Connick, Jr = 1 chill evening.

Shakespeare + NIN = ???

So I've been lazing around the house all day (probably not the best idea with the transit strike looming). Yesterday I picked up some poetry books; one being Shakespeare's Sonnets, the other a combination of two of Rainer Maria Rilke's books, Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus. I'd never really read any of the sonnets before (aside from #19, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..." which you'd have to be a total savage not to know), and they're brilliant, like most of his work...I just found that unlike most of the things I read, I can't read them and listen to music at the same time, because Trent screaming something about the perfect drug makes it rather difficult for me to concentrate on heartfelt professions of eternal love and devotion.

Whoda thunk it?

The Whitest Kids U Know

Went to see these guys at UCB (Upright Citizen's Brigade) last night, I know a couple of 'em and they were doing a free show for some judges for the Aspen Comedy Festival. As such, it was a real short set, only about 35 minutes, and all skits I'd seen them do before. Still, funny shit. It's actually quite depressing to see a funny show of sketch comedy like that, and then see what passes for sketch comedy on SNL these days. Anyways, if you're looking for a night of wildly inappropriate comedy, you can't go wrong with them. They have some videos up on their site; some are recordings of sketches and some are little pre-recorded bits they play between sketches, so if you might be interested, you can take a look and get a tasty taste of their humor.

Manhattan

The moonlight shines like a halo around the building, and you point up at it with the wonder of a child. For a moment I'm captivated by the glow on your face, and then we walk on through memories and over dreams. Our breath mists in the air and you stop. “This is where I get off,” you say. “You go on ahead, I'll catch up,” but I can tell from your face that you're lying and we'll never be on this corner again. I want to think of something intelligent to leave you with but nothing comes to mind so I walk on in silence. I walk on past store after store, and every mannequin has your face. But the further I walk the more faded they become, until they're harmless again. The sun's come out and my feet are tired so I sit on a bench for a rest. “It's for the best, you know,” a mannequin tells me through a crack in her window. “You were walking too fast for her anyways.” I start to make an excuse, to apologize, but then I realize I have nothing to apologize for. “Now you're getting it,” says the mannequin. I give the mannequin an apple and she turns into an eagle. I tell her that was a neat trick and she offers to show me how, and I turn myself into one too. “Come away with me,” I say, and we fly off into the skies.

I Like Donuts. Do You Like Donuts?

www.picturesofwalls.com

Candlelight

In the candlelight I see you, an alabaster statue in the bed next to me. I touch you, leaving trails of love where my fingers pass and I wonder what it feels like, if you enjoy my touch as much as I enjoy touching you. “It won't last,” a voice says, but it doesn't have to. “It doesn't have to,” I repeat. You roll over and your hair falls across your face and my fingers are moving before I can stop them to brush it away. In between the flickers I can see your heartbeat, drawing me in and pushing me away. The room is cold and my skin is pebbling and I burrow down into the covers with you, seeking your warmth, wondering what tomorrow will bring. But tomorrow is tomorrow and today is today and I'm screaming on the inside, screaming in joy and surprise at having found you, even if it's just for this minute between the hours.

Muppet Christmas Carol

Your Christmas is Most Like: The Muppet Christmas Carol

You tend to reflect on Christmas past, present, and future... And you also do a little singing.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

I fucking love Muppet Christmas Carol. It's the greatest rendition of A Christmas Carol I have ever seen. I have no problem watching it in the middle of June if I feel like it. And if you think otherwise, bollocks to you.

Barbara Cook Masterclass

Noticed this story over at nytimes.com. Couple highlights:

"We have to find the courage to take off our emotional clothes." Ms. Cook elaborated on that danger in speaking of the essential fear that crawls around in most performers' hearts, an anxiety that in a curious way may also be a motivating factor in the desire to become a performer: "We feel that we're not enough, that the world doesn't want us."

"The truth of this insight was illustrated before our eyes, and it was a fascinating process to watch. Erin Morley, a soprano with a bright, silvery tone, sang "With You," a flowery ballad from "Pippin." "I don't hear you letting us in," Ms. Cook said, and tried to strip away all the mannerisms Ms. Morley had been trained to use in recital. When she started in on the song again, Ms. Cook stopped her virtually before she started: "I can still see her gathering herself to sing," Ms. Cook said, to the audience, and once again implored Ms. Morley to let her real self into the song, and invite the audience with her. "You don't need to do that," she said, referring to the performing stance Ms. Morley kept donning like a costume. She reiterated her encouraging mantra: "You are enough.""

"When performers first step onstage, they may be looking for validation, for approbation in the form of nourishing applause. But the lesson Ms. Cook came to teach was that artists achieve their peak when they learn to stop proving themselves and simply, to borrow the Shakespearean phrase, let be. It's their humanity we respond to in the end, their ability to strip away the self-consciousness that locks us inside ourselves, and reveal the stuff that really boils in our souls."

I've noticed that so many of the actors I know and have become close to at one time or another are also among the most insecure people I know. I could go all amateur-psychologist and espouse theories about how people become actors in reaction to some perceived lack of attention or love in childhood, and there might be a point there but it isn't really what I wanted to talk about.

There are few things I've encountered that irritate me more than a person with a beautiful voice who doesn't do anything with it. Josh Groban, for example. Technically, he's incredible. But when he sings he's just making noise; there's nothing actually behind it. Then you look at someone like Elaine Stritch, a woman who's voice left her somewhere in the 1970s, and yet, when she sings you don't care because she brings a whole new element to the song; she brings herself, she opens a part of herself to the audience. That's where real musical theater lies, and that's what every great performer in musical theater brings to a production and to a role, no matter how big or how small.

Little Prince

I'm lying in bed and a cold wind is blowing. I get up to close the window and a draft pulls me outside and I'm falling into the sky. "Follow me," says the fox, and I do, above the clouds and to the moon. "You're early," he says. "Do you know why you're here?" "To get some answers," I say. "But what's the question?" I think of you and the fox smiles. "Now you're talking," he says. And then you're there, and I wonder why every time I see you it's like the first time I ever saw you, and how you can make me feel so young and so old all at once. "I'm only going to disappoint you," you say, and I wonder if it's because you know something I don't, or if you're trying to tell me something but I'm not listening hard enough. I take your hand and we jump while a solo saxophone plays. I want to kiss you but I'm afraid, and then the moment is gone. Maybe it was never even there to begin with, maybe I imagined it just like I imagined that you loved me. "What is it?" you say. I want to tell you everything, want to pour out all my hate and shame and doubt and fear. "Nothing," I say, "I love you."

The Promised Land?

Graffiti'ed oil painting by Banksy

Man...that guy is fucking brilliant.

Big Fish

Just got finished watching it. Sobbed like a baby towards the end. Well, not fully like a baby, I wasn't like...sobbing sobbing, but the tears were pretty steady.

To me, the basic premise of Big Fish is the question of how much like your parents you are or become - in this case, father and son. What's beautiful about the end of it is that throughout the whole movie, Billy Crudup has spent so much time (in reality, the majority of his character's life) wondering who his father is, seeing him as this total stranger. And yet, at the end he finds that he is like his father after all, that his father was inside of him all along, just waiting for him to have the understanding and the need to bring it out. In telling his father his last story, he finally begins to understand his father for the first time in his life.

It's true. You never realize what an impact your parents make on you until the day comes when you do something or say something that they always do or say. But at the same time, I wouldn't say you're destined to literally become your parents, because you will have different experiences than the ones they had. Your parents give you a base of ideas and beliefs. What you go on to do with them is your choice.

Richard Pryor is Dead

Shit man...that's death on three out of the last four days (Pearl Harbor, John Lennon, Richard Pryor). At least he wasn't murdered...well, except by himself, if you count all the drugs he did back in the day. Your body can only take so much before it breaks down, as his did. Still, what a loss. Anyone who hasn't seen any of his stuff and loves crazy, inappropriate standup comedy, you don't know what you're missing.