Tuesday, September 29, 2009

I don't want no abba-zabba


Because yesterday's post was a little heavy...

here's a picture of the man I'm in love with.


If you haven't watched one of his Odyssey films you must. I can't stop thinking of traveling and adventuring now. His passion for the sea is kind of indescribable. In his words: "Some people attack the sea; I make love to it." Oh Cousteau, you have my heart.
AND
I can't stop listening to this. (I'm also a little bit in love with Tom Waits--but maybe it's just his voice)

Monday, September 28, 2009

can't get that monster out of my head


I’ve been mulling over how to write this post for a while now. Sometimes a writer strikes me so precisely and perfectly I get the shivers and I know I have to say something about it but I just don’t know what.

About a year ago I bought Joan Didion’s book Slouching Towards Bethlehem. It’s a collection of essays she’s written spanning a variety of topics but mostly encompassing her native California land in the 1960s. It was mesmerizing to read something written so boldly about an era which has since become so romanticized beyond belief that the reality of what it really was has been lost. She threw herself into the fabled Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco and vividly captured the reality of what the hippie lifestyle had succumbed to. I remember reading over the lines nearing the end of her essay where she’s invited to an apartment to look at something. On the floor is a 5-year-old girl licking her lips and wearing white lipstick. Didion is informed that this girl lives with her mom and some of her mother’s friends who give her acid and peyote. The little girl belongs to—what the mother’s call—“High Kindergarten.” I couldn’t get the image out of my mind; this was real. Didion presents the situation with just the facts letting the situation speak for itself and it is chilling.

I picked the book up again a couple of weeks ago to reread some essays. I couldn’t believe how striking they were the second time around. I kept having to remind myself that these were all published in the late 60s and that “No, Joan Didion did not read your mind. You didn’t even exist then.” Her “Personals” section I think hits home most for me. It’s beautiful and almost uncomfortable for me to read because I feel like she’s exposing the parts of me I try to hide so well.

I think what strikes me most about her writing is how pertinent it still is in today’s world. The poem “The Second Coming” by W.B. Yeats, found at the preface of this collection of essays, strikes well to the heart of the emptiness and dread we sometimes feel in the fast-paced world today. I find myself looking at black and white photos of Native Americans—men like Sitting Bull and Geronimo—and see the intense burning in their eyes. A strong knowing of the self, their heritage, their land; a connection to the world they live in and fought for. I can’t help but wonder where that fire burned to; where that passion stolen from them went. Did it dissipate into the air lost amidst the toll booths and highways, along the barbed wire fences along the plains, and dead train tracks zigzagged across America? Is it cradled in us at birth and slowly stomped out by man?

I think there is still hope. In fact, I think it’s in a lot of us. There’s a longing to dig into the earth with the palms, feel the rain in the creases of the skin, drink deep the pines, taste the honey of life. I’m not trying to euphemize and turn my feelings into a cliché but I want to feel that hope can be nourished. I don’t want the passion for life to die. And I don’t think we should think we’re the first generation to feel this way.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

BAM

So I have a pretty great job. Well, I technically don't have a job because it's just volunteering but you have to tell people something when they ask you what you're doing with your life (since saying "I don't have a job" turns you into a non-person and suddenly no one takes you seriously) SO I work at the Art Museum which means:

  1. I get to read books all day since not too many people care about art in Boise (unless it deals with BSU football...go broncos)
  2. The people that do visit are usually older, out-of-towners, and are fascinated by this little gem Boise, Idaho and ask questions like "So, should we visit Meridian?" (This is probably only funny if you live here)
  3. I sit next to this huge window by the park which makes me even more excited for autumn because I'll get to see all the leaves change.
  4. Old ladies offer me homemade gingersnaps (and if you know me you know how much I LOVE cookies)
  5. I have a box of freshly sharpened pencils within arm's length at all times (and if you know me even better you know I love sharpened pencils almost more than cookies)
  6. Did I mention I get to read books ALL DAY?

One of our featured artists right now (whose work I've fallen in love with): Devorah Sperber. Check her out; her stuff is so overwhelming in person and kind of makes me mad I didn't think of it first.

She takes images of famous paintings and makes them super-pixelated. Then she takes all different colored spools of thread to represent each pixel and strings them on aluminum strands to hang from the ceiling making a larger-than-life, upside-down image fo the painting with each spool corresponding to each pixel. Then she puts a lens on a stand in front of the massive spool masterpiece and suddenly you have a mini image of the painting right side up. Clever.

It's super hard to explain so you should probably just look.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Not Phony

Hi, my name is Lindsay. I think too much. Talk too little. And whatever I can’t write down I try to paint.


I feel like you’re supposed to have pictures on a blog. Here’s a chair I like. It’s in a museum in Oxford so you’re not supposed to sit in it. Sometimes I hate museums for that but mostly I love them for it (Caulfield moment). And yes, I work in a museum—but you can sit in our chairs.