A late post written early.

I'm writing this at 2:15 in the afternoon because I know that I'm going to be a bit busy this evening... I have to pack. However, I have managed to keep my apartment clean(ish) until now, so when I come home I'm actually going to be coming home to a clean apartment... hopefully a mirror won't have fallen off the wall in the meantime. :)

No, really, that happened after a vacation one time. It was no fun. Welcome home to shattered glass!

I've been pinteresting like there is no tomorrow. Found some amazing things like this:

And this:

By the way, if ever I say "this" and then give an illustration that means that the "this" is, in all likelihood, a link. You can't tell on my blog unless you hover over it.. should probably change that. Haven't yet. I think you will notice when I do.

I watched "Leap Year" this evening... Determined that the Irish accent is indeed my favorite of accents... I mean pretty well they are all great over in Great Britain, but the Irish... ach, be still me beatin' 'art.

I think they should make an Irish GPS.

Oh heavens. Can you imagine Darren Criss with an Irish accent? I think God didn't let Darren grow up in Ireland on purpose so that I wouldn't just lose consciousness every time his name was mentioned.

Also I've determined that you can't go wrong with the name Declan. I've liked every Declan character I've run into... I've never run into an actual Declan but I imagine that I would like him too.  

OK I should go. I'll talk to you upon the morrow. Until then, I bid you adieu.

Art and Unhappiness

Is unhappiness required to create good art?

Something I began to wonder about today. Something about sadness.. about hardship... about suffering makes a person need to express themselves. Something about all that makes you motivated to get it out. For me, to write. For someone else, to paint. For someone else, to dance. But you can write or paint or dance when you are happy. Is there something to the poignancy of the heart that you put into a work when everything else in your life seems to be unhappy? Is it easier for others to connect with pain than with happiness?

The boy who you like doesn't talk to you as much that day. You sit down and write a 20 page treatise on the pain of the human experience.

You hate your job. You sit down and write a 10 page imagining of what would happen if you quit tomorrow.

You are lonely. You sit down and write friends.

Maybe it's not even unhappiness that's required, so much as a restlessness of the soul. When I was content I had no motivation. All I really wanted was to be. Now I hunger for something more... and maybe that's what is needed to achieve.

overall I'd rather be blissfully happy though.

Who is this girl? This girl who writes on this blog? I don't know her. She reminds me of someone I knew once but something happened to her... and this girl took her place... and I don't know where she came from, but she likes things that I never expected and she says things that seem to come out of nowhere.

It's all saints day... I'm not catholic, but I am remembering... It's a lot easier when I pretend the other me didn't exist. When I pretend my life went straight from mid-college to now.

Just to lay my head on his chest and for him to stroke my hair.

Every minor frustration leads me back here... I know how to be happy without Nathan... I don't know how to be sad or frustrated or nervous or scared.

It's not so lofty of a dream, which I think is what makes it hurt so much.

Please, God, turn the page? Let's finish this chapter and start a new one? Please.

Thoughts on art... and being come upon unawares.

I don't know that I actually like any of Tennessee William's plays, but golly gee if he isn't an incredible writer... I've only seen the Glass Menagerie once in my life but this last monologue of Tom's somehow manages to stick in my head and float to the surface from time to time for no apparent reason. To steal William's own line-- this monologue has a tendency to come "upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise."

I didn't go to the moon, I went much further - for time is the longest distance between places. Not long after that I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoebox.
I left Saint Louis. I descended the step of this fire-escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father's footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space - I travelled around a great deal. The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly coloured but torn away from the branches.
I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something.
It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of coloured glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colours, like bits of a shattered rainbow.
Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes ...
Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be !
I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger -anything that can blow your candles out !

[LAURA bends over the candles.]

- for nowadays the world is lit by lightning ! Blow out your candles, Laura - and so good-bye.

I'd like to start more sentences with for.... though I think it would probably sound rather pretentious when not in the context of a play. For the real world is not made up of the supposings and dreamings that the imagination creates.

Yep. Pretentious.

Hello wistful. I've not seen you for at least a few hours. Welcome home.

At least it's not it's cousin, melancholy. That would really be a bummer.

It's interesting, isn't it? That we can recognize art and appreciate the beauty of something and know that it is good, all while still maintaining this distaste for it... Humans are strange creatures full of odd juxtapositions, aren't we?

And why do we disparage art that is created out of a desire for money... I mean is it less an expression of creativity if we work within parameters? Is it less of a creation if we do it to please someone else? I would say no-- the desperation for money is as great a muse as any other, I think.

And why are these the things I ponder at 4:30 in the morning?

Blow out your candles, Renée - and so good-bye.

I heart Andy Goldsworthy

Once upon a time I read a Smithsonian magazine that had an article about Andy Goldsworthy. I have since that time been enamored with Mr. Goldsworthy's work. I usually go in spurts of remembering. I will forget for a while and then remember and get excited about him all over again. Why? Well, let's take a look...

Because his work is beautiful.

Because I like how he arranges nature.

Because it's just so darn cool!

Plus, I'm totally impressed by the man's incredible patience.

For example: to get the next image he laid down just as it started to rain and then waited for the rain to stop.

And those ice sculptures were made by taking found ice and re-melting it together in those shapes... And the leaves were all painstakingly sorted... Yes, Mr Goldsworthy is greatly in love with the the hollow circle, (there are a lot of versions of that red leaf one I posted in all sorts of material) but I will forgive him that. I say, "Nothing, tra-la-la." too often.

Just do yourself a favor and Google image search "Goldsworthy" and be impressed. He's all about his art ("touch") being transient, as the world is transient. But I for one am glad he takes pictures of it, because I find something incredibly beautiful in the simplicity, and I doubt I'll be visiting Scotland any time soon to see his work in person.

So anyway that's my post for the day. An I heart Andy Goldsworthy post. Feel enlightened, be impressed, drink chai, become someone.

(I seriously saw that last part as an ad campaign in a coffee house once my freshman year of college before chai really took off. "Drink Chai: Become Someone." I wanted to punch the stupid trifold in the face, but I didn't know which side the face was.)