Blogger formatting sucks

The formatting of the poems I just posted is completely wrong, by the way. Apparently Blogger left-aligns everything whether you want it or not??

More Quiet

Here's where my reflections on silence have led me so far. Not sure why they're tending sexual, but maybe the first stage of removing language tends one towards another kind of basic connection? Although... they are definitely more, um... auto-sexual... Anyway, there are 3 more poems that are in their infancy-- these two are tweens. :) The middle one (#2) is a bit of a Wallace Stevens poem that keeps emerging out of silence, but I haven't quite worked out the less-than-obvious parts of its relevance.


Quiet #1

link to: external
salvation, hegemony,
one ethic of control
the spilt, dripping
reminder of descending in-

to hell with
an empty bottle,
the lightening fast doubt as He
rubs one out


Quiet #2

Think about:
“the maker’s rage to order words of the sea” (Wallace Stevens)


Quiet #3

I am a comma,
one. quiet.
pause that’s bound by noise

nvr txt w/ punc
tu
a
tion
no stopping no
place to
read my
rest my
rapid running
(self)

I swerved against the traffic, one
small slower death was
buzzing
in my jeans

Hey!!!

So I have completely changed my approach on this project. I have been having a lot of second thoughts about what I was doing and although I think the movie/documentary would and still could be a cool concept I don't think it really fits so much in a creative writing class.

I do want to keep my theme in film though, I just think I might focus on the writing side. I want to write some sort of screenplay for this idea of power and make something of my own, with my own words. If I stayed with the documentary side then I would have been taking others words and merely editing, something that won't really push me in my capstone.

I want to have a new topic of power as well. Now I am thinking the power of control or happiness in life. What is true happiness and how can it be found in life? I think that a lot of people focus on what society says happiness is whether it is money, family or success. Figuring this out, and discovering how it is different for us all is something that I want to explore. I want to create a screenplay about several different characters each with a different quest for true happiness.

Today I wrote about 15 pages of the screenplay and I am going to email it to the class because this blog won't let me post pdf files...I don't think it would be easy to read on the blog because it moves away from the screenplay format and gets pretty clustered! So feel free to open the attachment that I send the whole class and check out what I've been working on...I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks, Joey

Zach's Rd. 2 Post--more ideas

For those who didn’t read my last post, I will be doing on project on gay rights. I am going to create a chapbook. My book will contain found text. What I am going to do is collect the language and refashion it. Appropriate it with a sensibility that feels right to me as the artist, in creating a piece that meaningfully explores homosexuality. Since my last post, after having thought about what I direction I ought to take and discussing the project with some of you guys, I am trying to stay away from scripting the piece. So that I’m not having pre-conceived notions about message or the ultimate goal here. I think the nature of the project is to help me find something or learn something in the process. So I can figure out interesting ways to include the material, and hopefully make my own self-discoveries in the writing process.

I will be extracting language from speeches, possibly gay rights legislation, and interviews (historical and modern interviews I can find as well as interviews I personally conduct with homosexual individuals & people who are passionate about gay rights). I’ve redirected my project in this way, so that the art dictates the message and not the other way around. Though I do have my opinions and personal ideas about prejudice towards gays, I realize that I don’t want my project to appear as though I am trying to be pedagogical. I can sense that it wouldn’t be satisfying to create (as writer) or experience (as reader) an artwork with a message that is so obviously preordained.

I think when dealing with found language, I will have to be especially careful with how I construct it visually. I’m thinking about form and how, in representing the language, it might be interesting to play with procedural techniques like chance operations. I this way the reader will participate in extracting his/her own meanings from the text. I am thinking that I would use chance operations with articles, speeches, and newspaper clippings. If any of you guys have any good ideas for specific chance operations, that would be great! For the interviews I conduct, however, I don’t think I will be using chance operation because I want to capture the human element of the interviews without interfering in a way that alters the heart of the language. With this, I’ll be interested in my own visual representation, and I’m hoping that my own emotional and personal opinions about homosexuality resonate with the language I gather.

I have started composing music for the CD. For those who don’t know, I’m planning on composing a piano score that will go with the book. The music will reflect my current emotional ‘ness.’ Not how I feel now, but how I feel when I’m playing the piano. I think I will probably record it after I have gathered all of my language. I want the music to reflect the language. That way, to me, the music won’t be arbitrary; rather there will be personal meaning in each note.

Making a Real Life Connection Concrete

Continuing with my "Connection" project, I would like to add another medium. 
After reading some of the "Black Arts" poems, especially "Poems are bullshit unless they are/teeth or trees or lemons piled/on a step." I liked the idea of creating poems in a way that they would become concrete and something to hold onto. So, in addition to my earlier brainstorming, I would like to add another aspect to the "Connection" and "Body Language." I would like to turn the material I receive from participants into a poem, that will somehow be collaged with pictures from the physical language on bodies. I would eventually like to put all these creations into a book form. 
In order to get a sufficient amount of material I will sit down and interview various people about their "story." At this point I've decided to interview my friends/family, because I think I will get the most information, in depth, and true answers. Instead of asking them really specific questions I will simply say: Tell me a story about yourself, something that has made you who you are today. 
Then I will give him/her a piece of paper and ask them to write down, or "free write" about themselves- anything they feel comfortable sharing.
I will put these two things together to make a poem. Then I will take a line from that poem and give it to someone else, then I will find someway to write it on their body.
I will take a picture of the "body language" and use it in the collage.


Free Write: from a friend about their story


being in a bad place
drug dealing
unexpected bursts of firearms
life choices
trial separation
supportive friends
character witness reports

being susupended from school

delaying my education

deciding which friends are worth keeping 
and which ones are not
real world work while on probation 
free sandwiches
free time to think about life 
being cut off from your parents
life on your own
lack of electricity 
too much partying to forget
realization of what is necessary
eventually re-acceptance into education system
reminding myself that life does go on
a new start

Life and Death and other stuff (macaroni?)

So a lot of the thinking and free writing I have done per Cathy's suggestion has persistently lead to questions of life and death. More importantly, who decides who lives or dies and who has decided in the past? One of my most recent freewrites that I would like to share focuses more on life. Basically, I created a catalogue of life experiences that begin with the same phrase "I have." these phrases are intended to capture a variety of life experience, but in a past tense framework, as if the person speaking is already gone. I'll go more into detail in my proposal...but I'm thinking that all these "doo-dads" of writing are going to end up in a chapbook....tentatively entitled "end of life issues" (the buzz phrase thrown around during the healthcare debate) or something to do with the idea of killing with words.

Another thought before I post a portion of the free write: there's a teaching in Judaism known as lushon hara. Basically, it means to gossip or talk about another person behind their back. (There's a lot of other things it can mean too, but that's the basic meaning.) The teaching states that talking about another person behind their back is worse than physically hurting them. An interesting concept for this project of mine...killing someone with words (whose words? the questions go on and on...)

Anyway, more stuff that will eventually be a poem/fiction piece. (Mal: I'm definitely doing something a la 'Severance' for this chap book too...thought you would enjoy that.)

here you go:

I have stood in perfect thrill at the top of a snowy hill, sled at my feet.
I have stumbled home drunk, laughing.
I have crashed my bicycle into a tree.
I have picked the itchy scabs.
I have been in the room with someone only a few hours old, twice.
I have caught my mother's puke in a basin.
I have wiped her mouth.
I have smoked weed all night and gone for a long, losty drive in the country.
I have floated half naked on salt seas.
I have gulped chocolate milk.
I have failed a math test.
I have cried to my toys about failing that math test.
I have given those toys away.
I have held a girl under my chin, her black hair in the creases of my mouth.
I have fucked the living shit out of you.
I have been afraid of the dark.
I have sought exits from awkward class rooms.
I have switched gods.
I have wrapped myself in my country's flag.
I have wept.
I have spent too much money on shoes.
I have put a roof on a house in the Mississippi sun.
I have pierced my lip.
I have loved.
I have attempted to paint a portrait.
I have programmed my computer to my specifications.
I have lied to my parents' faces about getting in late.
I have walked barefoot across a golf course.
I have let music's open jaws consume me.
I have held a newborn kitten before you were supposed to.
I have finally peed after waiting for an eternity.
I have gone a week without brushing my teeth.
I have made my bed according to my specifications.
I have created new games in the pool with my sister.
I have hidden Easter eggs.
I have had a boa constrictor coiled around my neck.
I have been courageous.
I have made friends on the first day.
I have lost those friends.

enjoy!

Power Structures of Beauty

I've decided to take a different track on my project. I was thinking about power structures that effect me personally, and among the many I came up with was how people percieve/how I perceive my body - the physical ideals by which we judge ourselves and others -- even if it is subconscious.

People are more likely to think you're moral and give you the benefit of the doubt if you are more "beautiful". People are less suspicious if they are better looking. People who are more "attractive" tend to get better jobs.

Our percetptions of beauty affect how we relate others, but also our notions of self-worth, reflected in eating disorders and body agumentation, or even those one or two minutes spent poking your body in front of the mirror. I think make-up plays a roll in this as well. Relating back to us being more likeable if we are better looking.

Scientifically, beauty is linked to symmetry (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080818-body-symmetry.html). So I've been trying to create asymmetrical poems about beauty and self-worth:

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Bwb4AYF6ohvwMzkwYTRiMzQtYjczOS00MjZkLThjMzEtZmJmYTJlOTMxNDM0&hl=en

Please let me know if this link works. Oh, and the J and K lables are out of order :/ sorry. It won't stay that way.

thoughts and writings of a religious nature

So the old idea has been scrapped (for now). Perhaps after graduation or sometime next semester I'll do it.

The new idea is to take (positive) quotes from religious texts (Koran, Sutra's, Bible, ect.) and put them on the front pages throughout the text. I will include my own writings and images to accompany and create a dialogue in the text.

On the back pages I will include texts that deal with war, oppression, and other 'negative' aspects of religion. These to will be accompanied by writings and texts. (Note: I want to print these upside down on the back pages. This is not only interesting in what it means that negative aspects are printed upside down, but will also encourage different ways of reading the text)

I will also include statistics and bits from news articles throughout the text, wherever I find appropriate.

My idea is to create a book that explores the positive and negative aspects of religion. I want to delve into what happens to the mind when one gives up ones autonomy and submits to the creed of tradition.

Questions I want to explore are:

- Why do people/do people have a choice to be religious?
- What does our religions say about human nature?
- Are the non-religious different from the religious in behavior/action?
- Are there some religious 'truths' that span geographic region and culture?


Any other ideas/questions you could offer would be helpful. Thanks.

Solar Gardens

Comments and interests taken into account, I've pretty much finalized my decision to move ahead with the 'Idea #1' from last week - A world of man, machine, and nature, and the tenuous distinctions between them.

I'm envisioning a world where the bioshere has been all but scrubbed clean from the earth. DNA mapping has improved substanially, to the point where scientists have catalogued and stored away the genomes of virtually every species on earth. With technology able to reproduce any animal at any time with the push of a button, there arises the argument of why keep them around any longer? Most endangered species and exotic animals appear to the public eyes as nothing more than needless, outdated aesthetics in a glittering new world of silver and chrome - and with time and pressure the bioshere continues to blink out of existence, encroached upon by man for the land beneath their feet - land becoming more and more necessary for agriculture and industry.


Your iPhones are outdated these days: The new buzz is the iThought, a cybernetic neural lace that interfaces directly with the human brain. There are a number of methods in which this can be accomplished, but most prefer a non-invasive, external connection - a sort of probic headset. In this way both motor and sensory stimuli are now able to be overridden and/or entirely created.

What does this mean, for the community? Telepathy, more or less. The ability to connect with others over the wifi and communicate with them, as if they were sitting right next to you. Audio connections are the simplest, but full-sensory arrays, preprogrammed into the iThought and tweaked/augmented by the mind of the user, can be accessed as well. The best form of virual reality, iThought customers are able to navigate whole new worlds from the comfort and safety of their homes. A suitable and sizeable distraction, the gingerbread house of the Modern Age.

(While most citizens fall into the middle ground, there are extremists on both sides. Some avid transhumanists have elected for surgical implants or nanoscopic injections for a more permanent connection to the net (with HighDefinition!). Others, the naturalists or purists or traditionalists, view mankind's march toward such extreme connectivity as a sign of a loss of our individuality, and thus humanity. They mock iThought ("iThought, therefore I was") and the hivemind mentality of their techsavy neighbors.

Around the same time, a continuation of nanoscopic swarmbot technologies and 'smart dust' have produced utility fogs, or foglets - a community swarm of picobots programmed with basic AI systems and the ability to self-assemble into preprogrammed shapes. Foglets are put to use a marketable cure for issues of living space. A room full of these lil' critters could take on the function of any room required. (think of the holodeck from Star Trek, I suppose). Foglets were later applied to prostheses, and eventually full AI-powered drones. They are a beautiful and terrifying feat of technology - a shapeshifting supercomputer with data stored at the near-atomic level, able to be torn to shreads and still function, adapting (and shifting its form) to whatever needs may arise.

All of this was drawn upon in later years to combat the growing problem of enviromental instability. Radiation levels were critical and mandatory SPF levels are Solar alerts have been broadcast regularly across the globe. Severe weather patterns have been increasing and eventually the world on the surface was becoming too unstable, too unkind, for people to exist there anymore. Some flew off, up with the stars. Space travel has developed substantially, but interplanetary travel is still unreasonable. The moon has been colonized and mined - the skies are populated with a network of satellites and spacestations. Most wound up underground instead.

The Solar Gardens were a fortunate fluke, a comingling of an art project (The cyberflora exhibits) with Foglet technology, iTouch compatibility and a significantly advanced AI system. (one not programd to think and dream and speak, but to learn and adapt to future hazards on the surface. Technoorganic Plantlife needed a certain level of elasticity in order to survive. No one counted on it becoming as successful as it did.


Life is good, until the new CyberPando has it's very own Skynet moment. The process is decidedly much subtler. It was not programmed to speak our language, or communicate in anyway. But little by little, it begins to assert an influence on the development of the forests. The trees and flowers learn how to tremble, then vibrate, then 'sing.'

And everything is compatible, so the consciousness finds itself in every computer, every system in the underground. Even in the minds and hearts of those connected to the iThoughts.

Some think it beautiful. Others think it abominable. The sudden loss of control is enough to cause a panic and lines are drawn, man against machine. Those too far across the line are cast out. The girl with respirocytes (artificial red blood cells) who would die without the implants? She is the enemy. A man with new vision? A spy for the machines. Fear of the unknown and a desire for control and relevance in an advancing system is a recipe for unpleasant action.
__________________________________________


As has been mentioned, the depth of this world is such that I will not be able to cover everything I envision in the short span of this semester. I have been debating, more and more often, how I wish to go about tackling this project. I'm finding myself drawn to a collection of short shorts - something between flash fiction and short stories - each one highlighting a character and a point of view and in this way illuminating my world in pinpoints of light each time. (very much like a field full of fireflies). I am inspired by Masters' Spoon River Anthology, and I hope to achieve something similar to this, displayed on a large board and intermixed with graphic illustrations of the world as well. (Perhaps technical looking schematics of respirocytes, iThoughts and foglets, along with vistas of the Solar Gardens and the Underground cities, and portraits of the various characters along side their bit of prose.


I'm still very open to collaborrating with Quinton on this project, and as I commented in his post, I love the contrast between the almost clean and organic and holographic nature of my world (one of the abstract and illusion) and the gritty, visceral and so very human nature of Quinton's world, where the technology is elegant and advanced but the installation is crude and almost barbaric, hacking and stitching metal bits and wires into the flesh.


I'm also open to any and all suggestions (provided they don't send me off on further tangents and frivolities.. lol) Something to help focus the project or some theme or topic you think should be covered but otherwise appears missing.


Thanks!

I keeping thinking of how The Drop Inn will go. I guess I'm just going to imagine my experience there for next week. It will probably be completely different...

I imagine the walls to be blue. Light blue, like the ceiling of a ten-year-old girl's bedroom. When there are painted clouds and a yellow sun in the corner. Torie had a room like that. A couple years a go she changed it to deep red.

But yes, the walls will be blue. On all four sides. To emphasize happiness, that this life may get better. Blue provides a feeling of hope. But it could also mean sadness. That may not be good for the homeless people.

We'll walk into the room and it will have high ceilings, with long metal tables, lined in rows. The florescent lights cause a shine on the table tops. It reminds me of my middle school cafeteria. The permanent workers immediately usher us to the kitchen. More long metal tables and metal ovens and stoves. They give us hair-nets. I hate hair-nets. We bring out, again, metal dishes with saran wrap covering watery food. The smell of soup mixed with plastic makes my stomach curl.

And then we're set into place. All aligned behind metal tables. The homeless file in, some with smiles, others with puffy eyes, half closed. Some look at the ground and I can't tell what color hair they have, knit gray hats cover their heads and half of their ears.

"Give me more of that," A man lethargically points to my pan. He has wrinkly skin and bulging eyes. They are the same color eyes as those Huskie dogs, like Balto. Intense. I wonder what those eyes have seen. Where those eyes have rested. In a public bathroom? Or an alley during a snow storm?
"Make sure you're spoon doesn't make contact with his plate," a permanent worker says, eyeing my hand. "You're pretty close and if it touches, it may contaminate the rest of the food. We'd have to get a whole 'nother pan out. And we don't like waste."
I come out of my head and quickly flick the spoon away from the man. Bits of soup flies onto his shirt.
"Look what you've done," the man with Huskie eyes says. He shuffles towards a metal table, mumbling under his breath.

Procedure Questions for "Power of Love"

Well, I'm not sure if 'power of love' is going to be my title, but I think it's interesting. If you didn't read my older post - I'm basically interested in finding out who has more power in relationships and why, because usually - the relationship isn't equal (i.e. one person likes the other more, therefor the one who loves the least has the power in the relationship). What I was going to do was interview people and take pictures of them, and somehow combine their answers to fit into a book - sort of how Peter Jaeger does in "Rapid Eye Movement" when he collages peoples dreams. The question I was going to ask was "who has more power in the relationship" - but then I realized I wouldn't really get straightforward answers and I should really ask this in more of a roundabout way. I haven't interviewed anyone yet, I've just been figuring out how to combine things - but anyway, here are the questions I've come up with.

1. name
2. how long you've been together
3. who approached/pursued who in this relationship (tell me the story) - I would watch for differences in the story told by each person
4. Say you wated to see a chick flick/dude movie with a lot of explosions, and your partner wanted to see the other, explain what would happen.
5. how often does your partner make you cry or feel upset?
6. tell me a time you were reminded of your past relationship by something in the media (i.e. a movie, a song, a tv show)
7. quote some dialogue between you and your significan other that exemplifies a problem in your relationship
8.give me the ratio of how much time you spend with friends without your s.o. vs. the time you spend with your s.o.
9.how has the media shaped your expectations of what your partner "should be doing"?
10. Who has more power in the relationship and why do you feel that way?

I figured I can ask the other questions first and hopefully they'll respond to the last one honestly, but I should be able to tell by the other answers if they're telling the truth or not.

I also think I want to interview some homosexual partners as well as heterosexual. Just for diversity.

Tell me what you think I should add or change. Thanks!

Ideas

I am thinking about doing a mix tape cd for this project. This is my first time actually writing lyrics and trying to formulate a song and a flow so I thought that it would be best to try and experiment for this project because it is so free with what we do. I will not be the one on the tracks I will have other people but it will have a couple songs dealing with the whole stance of freedom and what it means to certain people and I will also take it from different view points as well. Here is one that I am trying to see if it works.




Ay freedom matters, for this girl for that boy, make sure you read tha chapters
cuz when it comes down to it yea freedom matters

We got people on the street tryna beg for a dolla
when the CEO walk by with his popped colla
we dont kno this man's story or how he got to be on the street
but Americans think it s so easy to get back on ya feet
yea we gree to have the world at our hands do what we want, we all got a plan
a lot wonder how to make it happen
everybody just tell us to tap in
my mesage is do whatever you want and what makes you feel good just dont harm ya self
try looking into your brain in the book of ya life on the top shelf

(HOOK)

when the beat comes around feel it in your heart and go make ya own sound
want it all and strive for it
tell the world this is you, no reply for it

round 2

I still haven't decided on which path to take. I'm interested in both the soldier's story, focused on tension, and an AI story, which I would like to involve a Prometheus-type revelation. An AI freeing humans, perhaps. This chunk takes the guy from the things they carried and tries to zoom in on a scene with his mother. If I'm still interested in the flip side, I'll post it next week.

He clutched the glass to his lips. Hands still numb, leftovers from bad coordinates, could barely keep it raised. Something like milk slid to his tongue, and slid down his throat. The light in the room screamed in, shining off every white tablecloth, arranged vase and waxed fruit. Keep it together, Ray.
"Almost lunch," he said, leaning back but not settling in. Chair was full of lumps, or something. Leaning forward didn't work either. He set the milk back down and licked his lips to feel the cool drops. She moved through the living room, a little blotch of orange flower pattern bobbing over couch cushions.
"Soup's in the refrigerator. I can heat you some." She whump-whumped a few cushions and arranged them on each side, corners up. She always said the whole word, refrigerator. Fridge was for the beer cooler in the garage. Toaster oven.
"Not yet." His eyes traced the pattern of the red berries on the tablecloth. That branch only had three.
Turning now, hands planted on stout hips, she surveyed the bookshelves. On her way she bent down, blowing dust off the plastic chrysanthemums that graced the coffee table. The ones next to the sailing books, neatly fanned. A puff of white obscured her face, and she squinted.
"Why? You hungry?" Some sort of Phil Collins played over the radio. She liked to hum while she dusted. Did she used to do this when he was gone?
He opened and shut his hands a few times below the table. Felt like his fingers were asleep.
"I had another dream this morning," he said, eyes tracing the berries.
She had moved to the bookcase now, feather duster in hand, and was making her way up. The board games offered little resistance, her duster invading the darkest corners, but the books seemed to have more mettle.
"Oh? Did you tell doctor Lyons?" Her duster moved up another row, her free hand giving a quick staccato on the side of the TV. Her white feet dug into the carpet, red toes scrunched in for traction. Her calves tensed on tip toes, with some veiny blue showing through her hosiery.
"I thought he wanted to hear about them. I thought he wanted you to write them down."
He considered the milk, and it stared back, gelatinous.
"I don't meet with him until next week." He tried to feel the lace frill on the edge of the tablecloth. Each edge hung evenly over each side, frozen.
She swept the duster to the top shelf, too short to see. The duster worked on it's own, finding its way behind each framed picture of his grandmother and cousins. With a swipe, Kayla's picture wobbled, then steadied. Dusting complete.
The phone rang. One of those screaming twitters that you can feel in your bones. So she was getting harder of hearing. Dad said that the other day.
Not missing a beat, she deposited the duster in the pantry and entered the kitchen. Bare feet padding on linoleum. She picked up the phone, pausing for a minute to clear her throat; Hmph!
"Hello?" A voice parroted out into her ear, squawking and muffled. Her teeth toyed with her lip, and she glanced at Ray briefly, before he could look up.
"Oh," she said, "I'm afraid you have the wrong number. Yes, you too. Goodbye." The phone latched back into its holster. She padded to the refrigerator.
"Here," she said, "have some soup."
He nodded, saying nothing. He let his hand drift to the spoon, already laid out, and grabbed it, tight. The tupperware container cracked open and she keyed in digits on the microwave.

Free Write for project

Here is basically a small piece of what I'm thinking will be my story. Things are very likely to change so don't hold me to anything. Especially if Kyle and I create intermeshed/stories that go together. 

The recent implant on Doug's right arm itched where the skin was fusing with the metal, nerves with wires. It was an upgrade to his current system. It took all of three paychecks to afford and itching the skin around the circular connection ports all down his wrist could effect his body into rejecting the implants. 

Some damned expensive itch, Doug thought. He rewrapped his arm in gauze. He ran a finger lightly over the line of five bumps. He opened his right hand slowly. Fingers still sore, Doug thought. He stood, grabbed his coat, and left for The Drifter five blocks away.

The open sign wavered on the stone wall. The Drifter was the scummiest bar in the north side of the city. Like other hacker hot spots the scummy aspect of the bar was a ploy to keep everyone that didn't already know of the bar's existence out. Everything was clean. Exceptionally clean. It just looked dirty. 

Doug opened the door and descended into what some would call the fifth ring of hell. He held up three fingers to the bartender who nodded. Hipsters of all kinds sipped drinks and chatted amongst each other. A dark haired woman looked up. Fara Voniview Her youthful eyes glistened for a moment in the light above her table. She looked back down. Doug approached her.

"You're late. Again," she said.

"Yeah. Got work done to my arm today. Hurts like hell," Doug said.

"What did you get? USB input ports?" she said.

"Shit. Any terminals use USB anymore? Fuck. I got the new Z49 hand input installed."

"Let me see it already."

"It still hurts. Can't touch the skin. It itches till it burns sometimes." Doug sat beside Fara. He shook his coat off and slowly unwrapped his arm. The plugs glistened.

"You didn't want the wireless one?"

"Eh, extra three hundred for it. Plus you can't always connect if you need to."

(This refers to a point earlier in the story where I was thinking about having someone close to Doug die or get maimed from a wireless devise he was using at the time. And it turns out later that people can track you down if you don't turn off the signal.)

"Right," Fara said. She downed the rest of her drink and signaled for another. "Try it out yet?"

"Hell no. I can't even touch it let alone activate it. Shit. This is illegal to have." Doug wrapped the gauze back around his arm. 

"Do you listen to everything the Docs say? Hey look at what just walked through the door."

Doug looked towards the door. A nearly seven-foot and almost half as wide man stood scanning the bar, his chest was heaving.

"You think he's on fluids?" Doug asked.

"Fluids? No. Don't know if his brain is all there though."

"Why's that?"

"Look at him. He's obviously is looking for someone and hasn't stopped for long enough to catch his breath. And, here is the kicker, he hasn't ordered a drink."

The bartender sat two drinks down on Doug and Fara's table. One had a yellowish tint and the other a bluish. 

"Thanks. Both on my account," Fara said.

"No problem." The bartender walked back behind the bar and inputed several numbers before clearing the screen. 

"He's coming over here." Doug slunk into his coat.

The big man pulled out a chair and studied both Doug and Fara's faces. His left iris was red and it spun three-quarters of a clockwise turn. "Douglas Fairborne."

"Him?" Fara asked.

"Me? What do you want me for?" Doug asked.

That's it so far. I am trying to incorporate more technology terms. Things that we used everyday into the story instead of words that might fit better. Computer terms. Also, I am creating the main character Doug in respect for my Uncle Doug. The character has a few computer inputs to connect directly into terminals. My uncle has to have brain surgery this coming Thursday to remove a hand-shaped growth that is effecting his brain. 

To continue and clarify what I started with last week I wanted to try and write a few more short scenes in which power relationships and expressions of power are the main focus. My ultimate goal is to combine what I have observed with what I observe or collect from visiting the Drop Inn center into a longer piece of creative fiction. As it is now I am only trying to get the hang of writing situations where power relationships are the main focus. Any ideas or suggestions on how to improve my writing, or any possible suggestions as to where to take my initial idea would be much appreciated. I wrote two scenes. The one that is not posted here has a young man who buys his first suit. Wearing a suit is all about expressing power, I thought the power relationships between the buyer of the suit and seller of the suit was interesting. Here is the other scene I came up with recently, partially from first-hand experience:

“You can’t see him,” Mary said to her two grandkids. “He’s sleeping.” Her back hurt from leaning over the bed too much, to collect excess spit from his lips, or to pat an arm reassuringly. Hospitals, despite the amount of time she’d spent in one, had never sat right with her. The doctors too professional. Little hand sanitizer dispensers; the surfaces so clean life couldn’t possibly exist. Her grandson Sean saw her jaw tremble after this thought. He wasn’t sure if it was because she’d yet to have a drink that day.
“That’s alright, we’ll see him later. How are you doing?” said her granddaughter Jackie.
Youth and their irrelevant questions, Mary thought. She felt scared, trapped by the past fifty years and an event that would happen too soon. She picked at a scab on her hand. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just hanging in there. I’m so glad you two made it.” She provided each grandchild a hug.
“How’s he doing?” said Sean, Jackie’s brother.
“He’s in and out. He’s been sleeping a lot lately. He really only talks when I’m around.”
The two grandkids murmured reassurances, asked who else had been to visit, and provided stock answers to questions about their own lives. A nurse let them know they could see their grandfather if they wished. They didn’t match their grandmother’s crawling pace and entered the room before her. When she entered she could only see their backs blacking the view of her dying husband.
“Pops, it’s good to see you,” Sean said. Jackie bent down to give him a hug. Over her shoulder, Mary could see the look in her husband’s eye, and wished that he would look less scared. They stayed in the room only for a few minutes. Their mother was calling and both needed to talk to her. She could hear pieces of her grandchildren’s phone conversation as they paced in the hallway.
“Bill,” Mary said to her husband. “Why don’t you try to eat something?”
“He looks bad, Mom. He’s lost a lot of weight, I don’t think…” She could hear Sean saying.
Bill shook his head and closed his eyes, shrinking farther into the corner of his bed.
“Do you want anything? Do you want me to get the nurse?” He only responded with labored breath.
“…when we found that raccoon trapped in our dumpster? That’s what his eyes look…” Mary heard as Sean paced back in front of the door.
“Do you want me to shut the door?” She wanted him to say yes. He didn’t respond.
“…Not sure how long we’re staying. I’d like to get back at a decent hour. I have to…” Jackie had the phone now.
“I could just get the nurse,” Mary said to Bill. “She could do something for you.” She took a thick cough for an affirmative answer and buzzed the nurse. She could still hear her granddaughter in the hallway as she watched the nurse make adjustments to his medication, and then all feeling drain from his eyes.

While I sat trying in vain to read through "Uncle Vanya" for theater class, something in the back of my mind kept calling me to this final project. Normally, I have a pretty good idea right away what I'm going to to, but this has been eluding me somewhat. Then it occurred to me that, in keeping with my music/lyrics theme for this project, that the music that affects me most, more often than not, is music that asks me a question rather than positing someone's opinion.

Then I started thinking. Could this be it?

So I starting considering the options. Would it be more effective to make someone think by telling them what I think or asking them what they think? How can I relate this to power? Who has the power? The thinkers or those who only listen? If I wanted to get a message across to you, why would I just tell you what I think? For some things I suppose that's okay. Research papers, etc. are designed for such endeavors, but music, especially the music and lyrics I write, are meant to evoke thoughtfulness and inspiration rather than just a "here's what I think" kind of deal.

These thoughts led to the more relevant issue of power, political, religious, etc. I have always had a problem with authority and especially those who abuse their power. Power corrupts, etc. My greatest defense against those who impose their will on me is usually a well aimed question, or fist, but usually a question. So the people who really change things, those with real power, are those who take a system that is stagnating its gears in its own good-old-boy rancid juice, cigar ash, and leather polish and ask it questions it cannot answer under the current administration. this gives rise to doubt, doubt gives rise to suspicion, and suspicion gives rise to investigation, that usually ends in the discovery of a new way to do things better, more efficient, etc.

So it's my contention that the true power lies in the question rather than the answer and I have just the lyrics for that.

Question is, can I record it all in time?

Ok so time for an update. I know I had originally decided to do the interviews, which I still want to do. Now, however, after receiving my comments back from everyone including Cathy, I have decided to go a little deeper. The poetry may not be the route. In fact, I think I am going to try to construct a story from the material gathered in the interviews. I am still going to start with myself as a guinea pig. I recently visited the art museum on campus, and they have a large painting on display in the black and white exhibit. The painting is in memory of the three gentlemen who lost their lives in the Freedom Summer volunteer work in Mississippi. This then inspired me to try something new. With my interviews, I could take the responses and create a story, playing with different points of view. I actually have a piece I have been working on recently told from the point of view of one of the boys who was murdered, and it is written post-death, recalling the events. Anyway, let me know what you think. I am hoping this will allow people to grasp more concretely some kind of message or feeling involving Freedom Summer as well, if I can create a story of sorts out of it. A portion is posted below:

The bus screeched up to the station, opening its door to the designated white section of the Canton Bus Depot in the heart of Mississippi. My heart raced as I gathered my single suitcase and removed the handkerchief from my back pocket to smear the sweat beads from my oily forehead. The heat of the Deep South smothered me, saturating my lungs with a thick and hot swirl of air. Musty puffs of dust swirled at my feet, and I unbuttoned the cuffs of my shirt to shove the white sleeves up to my elbows.

“Goodman, Andrew,” I heard our group leader call.

“Present. Coming,” I called. I gathered my courage and followed my fellow volunteers inside. Mickey and I were assigned to bunk together, which helped a little since we had done most of our training side-by-side since leaving school in New York. It wasn’t much, but what more did we need than a clean set of sheets and a mattress to do the job?

“So do you think there’s actually going to be any live action like they told us about back in Ohio?” Mickey asked.

“I’m not sure, Mick. I hope not. Doesn’t seem right, does it? Fearin’ so much that you can’t even register to vote. It’s goddamn 1964 for godssake.”

“Well I’ll tell ya, Goody. I sure as hell am gonna do my best to register as many people as possible, really make a name for myself, ya know? No sheets and rebels are going to scare me from doing that.”

I pulled a picture of my family out of my suitcase and propped it next to my still unmade bed. Guess I should get these sheets on some time while it’s still light out, I thought. I paused and looked at the smile on my mother’s face and whispered under my breath, “Time for change.”

The next morning, Mickey and I were assigned to Riverside Baptist Church, a tiny building set right up by the Peal River just between Canton and Philadelphia, Mississippi. The training in Ohio tried to prepare us for the badgering we would get on our walks to our destinations. Mickey and I had about a good hour or so walk to Riverside, and knew we might face some heckles. It was the final goal that kept one foot moving in front of the other.

Thinking on it now, I suppose our skin was our best form of defense. No one thought to mess with a couple white boys walking along side the road. Why would you? White boys owned the South, right? Needless to say, our walk to Riverside went relatively smoothly. Besides the air that felt heavy enough to slice with a knife and the incessant buzz of mosquitoes cupping our ears, we made it to our first post. Inside the building the heat seemed to double. We were greeted with smiles and open arms. Mick and I took our places at the scratched linoleum-covered tables and sticky metal folding chairs, beige with rusted speckles where the paint was chipping from years of clanking in and out of cobwebbed storage closets.

On my left, a black man about my age. He wore a short-sleeved light blue button up shirt, loose-fitting but suctioned to his dewy dark skin, making it appear navy near his neck and underarms. His name was James Earl Chaney, but he insisted we call him Jim. He told us he would be working with us for the week, and we manned our stations eager

for visitors.

“So you boys train up in Oxford?”

“Yeah, how about you?” I asked.

“Sure did. Traveled from down here in Meridian on up to Ohio then back here, trying to make some changes here at home. Finished up about a month ago. Been down here ever since. They move ya around enough. Keep ya busy at different churches and stuff. Been gettin’ a lotta people stoppin’ in. Still a lotta fear, though.”

2 - Waiting for the world

The sky is clear. In the sunlight the fur coating his bulging pectorals transforms into a rich yet inviting river of caramel, pulsating downstream with each subtle gesture. His six-pack abs are chiseled beyond what any human has ever seen before and will ever see again. A living Adonis - except the midsection, together with the bulk of four heroic limbs, makes the head seem peculiarly small, garnished with pointed ears that flare up if he leans forward. Not to mention the bushy tail, tinged with spikes of gray, billowing up behind him in a pleasant curl.

"For I am Norvegood the Squirrel!" he says to the metal dragon only paces away. "I will have my revenge."

The strange creature says nothing in response. Yet Norvegood stands at the ready. He has seen the creature's expressionless eyes turn to glowing orbs in the dark, spitting fire, allowing the victim one last breath to see what it sees - the terror under the giant beast's roar as its weight crushes down, tearing the poor soul to bits. He's heard the engine roar in the stillness of night before an even louder, angrier growl, high-pitched with a sense of innate irritation, threatening the sanctity of his eardrums. Underneath - black feet that move so fast they seem to blur into continuous motion - a stark contrast to the strange, watery gem on its forehead. From the top its neck curves over and down into a body compacted for charging. Sometimes the sides expand out into a pair of wings, allowing the magnificent beast to strike a fear even more unutterable and awe-inspiring.

The engine revs as the metal dragon begins to growl. Norvegood narrows his eyes.

"You killed my family. Prepare to die."

The mortal enemies stare into each other's eyes. Norvegood's legs tense, all of his martial arts knowledge flowing back into consciousness as he tries to find the right move. It can't escape this time.

Across the way, the dragon also rumbles a little louder, seeming to tense up as well. And then it charges. Slow at first, but the rate of acceleration is amazing!

It's heading straight for Norvegood, the smokey smell of exhaust filling his nostrils, threatening to make him too light-headed to resist. Not much time - he can jump out of the way, but that would mean he might never get this chance at revenge again. Oh so close now! But what can take down such a massive brute?

It's upon him now. It's now or never.

Norvegood, the brave rodent hero, pulls out a chain gun and unloads.




Seriously, I have no idea where this project's going. You can tell I have serious creativity issues at the moment.

A little bit of quiet

Sorry about the delay in posting. This has been an especially rough week.

My project is going to be about silence.

I come from a talking family- we talk to and through and over and under and around each other. Very fast, very witty, and if you stop to think you’re already three topics behind. And I tend to attract friends of the same sort. But, no matter how fast we talk, lots of things are left unsaid. Those unsaid things seem to make up the bulk of our power/ relating dynamic, and the fast and constant talking is (I think) a mostly unsuccessful attempt to address those unsaid things without actually exposing and talking about them.

My boyfriend’s family, on the other hand, is of the silent variety. His mom talks some, but he and his dad are very quiet. I was barely beginning to get a handle on that dynamic, and to appreciate how their silence operates as its own sort of communication, when his mom was diagnosed with aggressive terminal cancer. She was fine 6 weeks ago, as far as anyone knew, and now they don’t expect her to live more than a few days. As you can imagine, much of my mental energy is tied up in thinking about her and about dying and about what it means for her family.

I am frustrated by all the unsaid things that linger in my own family and friendships but the constant talking mitigates some of that frustration- it feels a little like progress. During all the time spent with my boyfriend’s family, though, I keep expecting them to start talking and trying to get at those unsaid things before it’s too late. But they never do. And I’m wondering if they are communicating all the things they need to, just in a quiet way that I don’t understand.

So… I want to write about, think about, and experience some silence—both as a means to understanding that other family dynamic and because I wonder what I’m missing in my constant drive to communicate everything verbally.

Part of my project will be a period of silence- I’d like to do a month or a week, but I don’t know if that’s possible with work and school. In any case, at least a few days, during which I will endeavor to not speak at all and to write in such a way that I’m not using it as a replacement for speaking. (That is, not just to write notes in lieu of speaking, but also not to write things down/ sort out issues that are meant for later discussion.) In other words: I want to first consider what I am not saying to myself and how that affects my relationships and interactions, and also to figure out what other means of communication are available to me but are overshadowed by talking.

The other part of the project will be concerned with things left unsaid when communicating with other people. Primarily I’m interested in the tacit politics of relating within families/ friendships—the balance of power that we create by the things we don’t say. I think much of what we call communication is transfer of superficial information (most txt, email, IM, etc.) and attempts to be witty or project a certain version of “self” (Facebook, for example, and most conversation). But creative work is more often an attempt to be understood and to express things that are hard to express in words (either because words are not enough, or because convention/ habit makes it hard to say those things to family/ friends/ self). So, for this part of the project I’m going to communicate to my family and friends on actual paper—stories, poems, whatever creative medium seems appropriate—as my only means of communication. No email, txt, etc. I’d like to cease all electronic communication with family and friends for the rest of the semester, but that (again) might be hard to pull off. I think I will choose a period of time for each person and only communicate with that person during that period through some creative medium.

Holy Hanna!

Wow. Apologies, that was waaay longer than I realized.

a Summary: I'm interested in Perceptions and Perceptive reality, and how it relates to Power relationships.

Ideas of majority governing normalcy/sanity, the way people interact with the unknown by prescribing their beliefs to it, etc.

The project plan (for now) is a story of some kind, with art and other creative little tidbits to go along with it.

--Idea 1 (the one I'm rootin' for): Man vs. Nature vs. Machine - a story of singing solar gardens and a terrified subterraneous populace that tries to short-sightedly destroy what it has created.

--Idea 2 (One that's already done): Slow Life - West Virginia in 1923. An unknown illness forged and fed by the panick of the townsfolk, that upends society and reveals the frightened beasts within us.

--Idea 3 (That I'd rather not do): Imagine That - exploring imagination, religion, perceptive reality, and the power struggles produced through and by and for beliefs.

Quarantined

Hey everyone. Nice site you've got here. :) and thank you to those who emailed me a reminder - my head's been flu-addled for far too long and I'm looking forward to getting back on track.

As some of you may know, swine flu found it's way to my door and I've been fighting it off for a little over a week now. Which gave me a lot of time, in between sleeping and hallucinating, to think on different issues of power and what kinds I wanted to explore in a project of my own.

Of course the thought of sickness itself crossed my mind: The way in which H1N1 changed the way people saw me, treated me. I rememeber getting sick in the past and I was always greeted with sympathy and soup - these last few days I've fared little better than a leper, met with nervous glances and cautious isolation.

It got me thinking about the way we treat those around us, and the reasons for our interactions. Do you greet a stranger the same way you greet a friend? Of course not. There is a shared history between you and your friend not present within the stranger. Experiences you can draw upon to make judgements on how to act in future situations.on the power labeling has on power struggles.

Do I greet a stranger in the same way that you would? Probably not. Because we have different experiences, and prejudices based on those experiences. (Prejudice here should not be confused with the offensive contemporary connotations. The word simply means to judge beforehand, and each of us do this everyday when encountering people and places. We take in the scene, filter it through the collection of our past experiences, and act accordingly.)

In this way, it can be said that we are shaped at least partially by our past: We are the sum of our experiences, and because of this each and every one of us must be unique, as no two people can have the same collection of experiences. (it is impossible even to have one truly 'shared' experience, as two people cannot exist in the exact same time and space as another... except, argueably, within a virtual reality via cyberspace... but this is a tangent and I'd better not stray too far from my point. :P)

We are shaped by the expectations of our futures, our plans and goals which drive us to take action in a particular direction. However, these goals and desires are products of our past - what we have observed/experienced in our lives and come to associate as good or desirable.

And the present? Nearly non-existant, the fulcrum between the spooling thread of an evergrowing personal past and the open vista of an uncertain future. It's mind-boggling, to think we forever live in the present but never experience it - the world our senses percieve is always a fraction of a second slow, so the world we see and hear and love is the past, already set and fading.

....AND, to add to that bag of worms, the world we see is an illusion, a trick of that past-produced perception. We are filters, after all, and the world that you see is much different from the one I do.

There are the minor physical differences: Vision and hearing, for example, allow us to sample a slice of the information actually out there. The visual spectrum leaves us blind to infrared and ultraviolet. Our ears are deaf to infrasonic frequencies that many other organisms use for communication. Human to human, the range of each individual spectrum is not perfectly coordinated. Some people see a little more than others. Some hear sounds others cannot.

But the abstract differences are far more influential. Concepts like Tree and House seem so rigid, (because, as we spoke of in class, our own personal interpretations of "treeness" and "houseness" seem so obvious to ourselves). But each individual has a different "treeness" composed in his or her mind, based on that which they have associated with 'tree' in their own past experience. Different leaves, smells, textures, shapes, functions. And those associations are not isolated to 'Tree-ness' - they are interconnected to other feelings, images, ideas and sensations, a web of the mind unique in each of us.

and that's for something as simple and concrete as 'tree'. What of the true abstracts, like love? hope, trust, rage, faith, remorse, religion?


As hard as we try to connect to others, we are and will always be alone in our perception.

...but that doesn't mean we can't get close. Or think, or assume, or believe, that we are truely understanding one another. The more closely shared experiences two individuals have with one another, the closer they are to thinking in the same way.

Just being in proximity to one another is one manner of shared experience, but conversations, actual interaction, is much stronger. People are attracted to people with similar likes and dislikes, and all groups are founded on the basis of at least one shared belief.


But all of this leads to troubles, big troubles. Because all of that chaos in the world would shut us down if we tried to process it all in our heads, all the time. So it's filtered, filtered and muted and simplified until it's manageable. It starts with the physical - I already mentioned that we see and hear only a small range of what's really out there. Because we have evovled to see and hear only what we need to survive. Any more would be a waste of brain power, it would slow us down, perhaps fatally so. We have adapted a balance between head and hands, truth and functionality.

The filtering doesn't stop there. Because even in that limited range of senses, the enormity of what we hear and see and smell and touch is still very distracting, especially if we have to take the time to reason over each and every person or object in view.

So we simplify. That isn't a collection of timber carved and lacquered and fitted together with four legs and a back upholstered in leather and stitched twice around the seams with some sort of thread and a small stain on the upper left corner. It's a chair. Of course all of the detail is there, but our mind quickly notices it's 'chairness' and shoves it into the proper category in our heads, allowing us to more efficiently associate that particular chair with our predisposed knowledge, beliefs and feelings about chairs.




The problem arises when our minds use this same process on people. It takes a categorical Attribute, such as race, or creed, or gender, or height, or whatever group you belong in (say a particular class, or organization, or fraternity/sorority) and it applies the collected emotions and feelings toward that category (based on personal experiences - experiences, which in this case can include the discourse or beliefs of others that have been communicated to them) onto the individual person.


All of last week I was shunned. Not because my friends feared me, but because they feared the category of 'swine flu' that I had been cataloged into. The rest of who I am was momentarily blotted out beneath the shadow of that label.

This is the cause of every argument, every war, every bout of racism or sexism or any such "-ism" you can imagine. This is the fount of Power relations everywhere.

For there to be a power relationship, there must be at least two groups, and an inequality of some sort between them. Typically, majority rules. Majority governs normalcy and sanity: If everyone in a small group (except you) began to see pink elephants in the sky, you would be the outsider of the group, the weirdo. Still, you'd be confident that they are the abnormal ones, and you are Right in your way of thinking. However, if everyone in the country (except you) held firm to these beliefs, would they still be abnormal? If everyone in the world save you could see the pink elephants, where does that leave you?

The world is not absolute, and different ways of thinking exist in variable sizes and forms across the globe. When two different groups - or even two different individuals from these groups - meet, there will always be an argument over who is right and who is wrong. A boiling sea of thought and perception, stretched right across the globe.

*******


Soooo! That was a really long and roundabout way of introducing a keen interest in perception and it's influence in Power Struggles, which I plan to use in my project.



I’m still up in the air on what I am actually going to produce. I had a pretty firm idea, one based on a creative writing concept I've been meaning to pen down for years now. However, it comes dangerously close to breaching Quinton's claim on Power and technology. Perhaps we could work together on the concept and each develop branching ideas (differing perspectives) on the Tech. Revolution?

The story deals with Man, Nature, and Machine, and questions the line drawn between them.
Nature produces Man, which becomes aware and works toward isolating himself from Nature, using/becoming Machine.
Man produces Machine, which becomes aware and works toward isolating herself by using/becoming Nature.


The story is set in the future, but not as far as you might think. maybe within a century.
The environment is ruined, and as it stands the Earth is too harsh to live on its surface any longer. People have moved underground, large cavernous cities protected from the heat and radiation.

The surface of the Earth is not in ruins, but instead a gleaming silver garden, An eden, an untouchable paradice.

Robotic plantlife had been invented and invested in decades prior - something artificial to replace what they destroyed, a means of converting light into power, as well as filtering the atmosphere. Each leaf is a solar cell, collecting the light and siphoning it down the rootwires into the city below, a lifeline to the subterraneous peoples.

However, the plantlife has been changing, adapting, learning. It was produced to repair and manage itself, and without man's hand to prune it back it grew free, wild, untamed. And very recently, it seems the artificial flora have become self-aware, a childlike intelligence that went unnoticed until it began to communicate.

...it's a long and complex idea, but I plan on having issues of power be dominant in the story. There are transhumanists (those with advanced prosthetics and/or augmented faculties) and purists (people who have refused or later rejected the changes out of fear) living underground, and their reactions to the living, singing forests above their heads is something I can't wait to explore.

Body Language

Hi all,

I started thinking about the idea of power, and how it can be conveyed, possessed, shared, and connected. The most powerful connection I could think of, is that which occurs between people. So I brainstormed how I could relate poetry, power, and this connection between people. This is what I came up with:

Everyday we connect with people. Sometimes we are aware of this connection and many times we are not. Every person has a story. What if we could hear these stories play out in our heads as we passed people on the street or in the hallways of Shriver? Would it change our perception of everyone we meet? I think it would. Would it change how we look at people? Would we be more kind, or would we take advantage of the truth and use it against people? Truth = power. If we knew the truth about people, maybe we could try to see things through their eyes, or maybe we would just look the other way. Maybe we wouldn't be so quick to judge, or maybe, we would judge even more. I don't know what would happen for sure, but I am curious.

My next thought:

I want to know people's stories.

I was thinking I could either 1.) interview people 2.) put up flyers in Kofenya asking for anyone willing to share their story 3.) post something on facebook, etc. Once I start getting material from people, I would like to take their stories, their truth, and turn it into a poem. I'm not quit sure what form this poem will take on- but at least it will be the truth (assuming no one will lie about their story).

Next thought:

To take these poems and connect them to people. I want to take someone's story and give it to someone else. I will do this anonymously, unless given permission to use a name. Essentially, I would like to somehow put the language that comes from these stories on bodies. I thought painting poetry on someone else's body would directly connect them to the language and truth of someone else. What will that message or story convey to that person? What will it be like being connected to someone you don't know? You have a part of them on you. You now know their story...except you don't know who's story it is. Maybe the next time you walk down the street you will wonder- Hmm, Who's story do I know?

Just a start.

Fried

Hi everyone!

So, I'm thinking that I'd like to focus my final project around the idea of the death penalty and the issues of power surrounding that issue. The opening writing assignment today was really helpful in kind of jump starting my brain about what exactly it is I want to do...basically, the following post is a repeat of the earlier assignment...I just free-wrote for 10 minutes about the issue and this is what resulted. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Who decides who fries? Who fries first? Why do we fry them first? Did the last appeal get denied? Who decides the point of “last appeal”? Who decides who fries? Do the developmentally disable fry? Who’s developmentally disabled? What’s the lowest I.Q and who decides what the lowest I.Q is? Are more minorities fried? Who decides? Who looks at those statistics? Which prisoners who fry could afford their own attorneys? Which prisoners couldn’t? Who didn’t fry? Why?

I guess we should start with the definition of fried. There are two good types of being fried: the kind of fried where the result is a crispy, golden brown concoction like a potato pancake or a donut, sizzling in hot grease, trans-lucifying napkins upon contact—crunch and they’re gone. The other good kind of fried is when you are just absolutely blown out of your mind and the whole room seems to hum but you don’t mind. And you eat fried thing and they taste so delicious that it’s like you taste that fresh donut, coated in sticky white sugar for the first time, and it’s a revelation. It’s like life has never been so clear and new and exciting. Senses are heightened and dulled at once. Fried.

Then there is the bad kind of fried. The fried where you said good bye to your family two weeks before and now you are walking alone down a hallway. The funny thing is that there are similarities between the two types of frieds. Both of them heighten your sense and you experience things so intensely, you experience things as a fresh thing that you may never experience again. The bad kind of fried means you will definitely never experience them again. So enjoy that donut.

-Allison

Zmerican Dream

the project I have started embarking on is still in its infancy. The initial concept is that I will write several first person accounts from several perspectives about specific grievances the narrator has with America or a particular aspect of American culture. These are some examples of my work:

Beginning (up for a new title)

If there’s one thing in life I know for certain it’s that there’s no point in planning for things. Sometimes I get a strong hankering for an ice cream sundae but by the time I can get to a McDonald’s the machine there’s broken down and all I can say is: “well I guess it’ll be an apple pie then.” Apple pies only taste good when their inevitable, like on a holiday when all that’s to be expected is an apple pie, or a pumpkin pie, or the much less popular mince meat pie. It takes a true man to eat a slice of mince meat, That is to say a true old man who knows what it was like to not have anything and wake up before the gas stations even were open to work long hours at a factory smiting the people he became.

I wanted a place to live. That’s how I came to this realization point about not ever planning. It was because I’d scheduled with my new apartment contractor to move in the 15^th of May and by the time move in time rolled around, the landlord’s office was locked, and the apartment was not finished being painted. So then I had to call the contractor and he sent over this old guy. The man ha a nose the size of a small potato but unlike Chekhov’s image of human blood being soaked up by a ripe raw potato, his nose was red throughout.

A Grandmother:

Here is a list of things I keep on my desk of places to take my granddaughter. We still need to go to the zoo, and visiting the ocean with her for the first time last summer was one of the highlights of my life. There are so many things though that I will never be able to tell her. Not face to face. I’d want most of all to tell her that I love my little doodlebug more than anything in this world, but that isn’t something she doesn’t know already. I would tell her to try her hardest to take every moment in as if she were a human camera, constantly snapping shots of her surroundings. I’d want her to know that taking the time to listen to the world around her will much better equip her for this life than many things her mommy will teach her. I would want to tell my granddaughter everything I told my own daughter, but in many respects I understand that doing so would be infringing on my daughter’s parental right and obligation to fill her daughter’s head with as many senseless notions about the world which she herself retains.

My daughter, Mia, had her daughter, Natalie, when she was 24. It was two years after she ran away from home and she was dating this new schmuck, Ben. He was over weight, stupid, and dirty, and although I warned my daughter that her choices were endangering her life and wellbeing she threw it back in my face telling me that she was in control of her own life and that when I’d been her age I had already foolishly fucked up my marriage. I guess there isn’t really much to say after my daughter yells that I was the reason this entire time why she’s messed up so much of her own life.

“It’s just this intense pressure,” she’d turned to me at the dinner table while we were all eating one night. “I always feel like you guys aren’t letting me live my life and I’m in constant fear of disappointing everyone and not getting what I want.”

“Not everyone can get what they want all of the time. “ I said. “I didn’t know who I married when I married him, I thought he was somehow different, something he wasn’t at all.”

The man I married wanted to offer me the best of everything and being the woman I was the thought of someone truly caring about me and offering his life up in order to better mine seemed to be the most attractive thing about a man I’d ever experienced.

So I went with him, followed him all over the country while he learned how to fly planes with the US Air force and then went on to commercial piloting. He always wanted to be doing something different. Piloting got boring so he moved onto engineering. When that didn’t workout he moved to getting his law degree. I think after that he thought getting a prettier girlfriend would be most important to him. We started wearing on each other more and more. I was a nag, oh was I a nag.

I recently told my son a story. A story about how it was for me to have stayed with his father as long as I did. I always feared that he’d turn out just like his father and I love him more than I ever loved his father, for the one reason I knew I could never fully love his father, the constant fear of a person changing into someone I never foresaw him become. The constant thought that it is going to be like this for the next generation too, that my own son would walk in the footsteps of his father and trample all over another person’s heart.

My daughter somehow always knew the story. I mean she was an infant when her father, my ex-husband, left us without writing or mailing checks back from his tour in Korea. I was in the states trying my damnedest to raise my daughter and work to support us both on the air force base her stupid ass father stranded us on. It was one of the lowest points in my life, the only other terribly low point was when I finally left him and went with my two children to a suburb on the other side of Cleveland from where relocated to while our family was still together to rent a small house.

Older Lady:

I’m fairly certain that there is a long linage of mental illness on both sides of my family. If there isn’t, then perhaps I inherited both side’s recessive traits, but as I think back I am certain that both my father and mother’s sides exhibited some form of insanity in its various derivations. My grandmother wore a girdle through both of her pregnancies, my grandfather’s brother killed himself, and I’m pretty sure depression is just the general tone that clouds my family. It has always been like this and I cannot remember a day I felt differently about myself than this. I wrote to my sister the other day. It was a fairly long letter and ever since a year or so ago she’s been sending me letters she tells me, but I haven’t gotten any of them.

My sister is the only woman living in my family besides me. Our entire generation was infertile, or that’s what we tell each other. Most of my siblings were just unlucky in love all their lives and ended all of their sorrow in one way or another before they could experience any intense romantic connection with any one. Or that’s just what I believe, but I for one didn’t fall in love until I was 30 years-old and every other experience before that made me want to end it all. I guess we Michies are just a more sensitive lot, we’re of Scottish blood, and I guess that’s where our sorrows spout from.

It’s raining out. Somehow the rain always makes things sadder, and I know that it is in correct to speak in imperatives like always or never but sometimes that is just the way things are - imperatives.

I grew up always being courteous and conscientious. I took an etiquette class a the age of eight down at the local department store, Jacobson’s. There I learned which fork to use and how I ought to respect my elders. At the age of eight I didn’t ever question my authority figures I simply obliged and obeyed their every demand and command. It wasn’t until I was pubescent that I wondered what it was that made these older people have any sense of power over me. It was from that point on that I really had issue with people in general trusting them and all that. The only people I ever trusted were my own family and Margie is the last of the family I’ve got left.

In looking back (and I told Margie this in the last letter I wrote her) I think not one person has wronged me and cared afterwards besides the people in my family. It’s only those few people who’ve ever come back to me after we’ve fought and said from the heart “you know, I’m really sorry, and I love you.” That could perhaps be the greatest tragedy of my life, that I never trusted anyone to let them be a friend or a true lover to me. Everyone in my life has known the topical layer of my personality, the one I’ve carefully constructed, which has since broken down.

Woman insecure in her relationship:

We were always tripping over one another. We could never walk apart. That was then. Way back then when we would coon into the telephone and tell each other all of our souls’ most inner woes.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” you said one night into the receiver.

“Don’t say anything; I just want to hear you breathe for a while until we both fall asleep.”

Then, money seemed to be no object. Telephone bills were the least of our worries and our most important priority was being together, all bundled up in a tangle of limbs and elbows, and sternums bucked up against each other.

When I met Brock at the hardware store there wasn’t much to think about. I had you and he was just a handsome stranger. It happens everyday, men look at men, men look at women, women look about, it all surmounts to trouble. That day I wasn’t out for trouble, I was out for screw fasteners. I was trying to put up the curtains I’d had stowed away in my closet ever since my mom brought them down for me.

“What can I help you with?” Brock greeted me at the door. I liked when people used affirmative statements like he had, rather than assuming a negative like “have you already been helped?” or the worst “you’ve already been helped haven’t you?” It is almost like the service industry forgot their manners all of a sudden once the millennium hit.

“I need some of the do-dads that fit in the wall so my screws won’t keep popping out” I said.

He laughed, and I immediately felt less awkward about wearing the shortest pair of shorts I owned on this, the coldest day of the summer.

Ever since that day we just joked around on the phone. I usually called him while you were working, I didn’t want to cause any trouble between us, and you know that’s the last thing I’d want.