The sudden cessation of stupidity

"I was writing a paper about creativity, or the lack there of in
school systems... and was dealt a heavy serving of irony"
- A Harried College Student (and a friend of mine)

It's true, you know. Creativity really does seem to be going down the drain. People don't have time or motivation or the resources. Or the desire.

Why? What's so wrong with the clever, creative things?

I suppose they're expensive. AND you'll never make it in the field... Is that it? Despair? Is that our problem? The lack of hope is slowly killing us. Yes, it can kill us, this lack of creativity in the world. No, not physically. But I suspect physical death is a mercy in comparison to death of the heart and soul.

Is it worth a physical life if all that once justified that life is gone?

Picasso once said that "All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up".

Maybe that's what's happening to the world. We're growing up, and growing out of the artistic era. I suppose many people take up art again once they've retired, but if the world is only just growing up, then how long before we start cashing in on the social security?




Link of the day: http://www.clublaugh.com/es-items/712.swf
woah. Trippy.

Tooth and Claw: an artistic red-eye special

For those who don't get it, the three-liners are haiku. Some form of Asian poetry. The only rule is that the first and last line must have five syllables, and the second must have seven. That also might tell you why they're so cryptic. It's okay, I've given you translations after each verse.

I got my nails done
Fancy black nails with white tips
Glittery between

(I got my nails done at a salon today! first time evAR! The nails are black and the tips are white. On the border between black and white there's a little line of silver glitter! Uber pretty.)

Long nails pained digits
I write in terms of typos
So awkward at first

(My fingers HURT! Getting fancy nails is NOT a painless ritual. There's sanding and burning chemicals involved. I keep making stupid little typos because I'm not quite used to typing with long nails yet.)

Home now inspired
I go now to my paper
Embrace with sharpie

(When I got home I was suddenly all inspirey! I really need an outline for my book so I'm not writing blind. So I pulled out the world's largest type-writer roll- it's a huge roll of 4 1/2 foot wide white paper. I just rolled out about ten feet and started making a GIANT story web with a big fat sharpie.)

My dreams are homesick
I beg them return to me
That I might nurture

(I've pushed my writing and art aside for some time now because of school. Now I'm trying to get back to them, make them a priority. I want to finish what I've begun.)

Tadaaaa! I hope you enjoyed it! I wrote it at 4 am, hence the title red-eye special.

So long, and good morning!




How about a link of the day? http://fmylife.com
Somehow hours pass as I read about all the miserable stuff that happens to other people.
Should I feel bad about that?

Fantasy is a fantastic thing, if you've got the imagination for it.

The Ancient Mayan Culture absolutely fascinates me. Who were these geniuses that rose to such a formidable peak of civilization so much faster than anyone else? What mysteries lie behind this people! Honestly, if I only had one chance to travel back in time (clearly unrealistic, seeing as no one travels back in time, so far as I know), it would be then, and there!

WAIT! I've got it! If Doctor Who were to come and pick me up in his Tardis (a time and space traveling phone booth), I could ask HIM to take me to visit the Mayans! Naturally the Tardis would bridge any language barriers (yeah, it does that too). I’d meet them, talk to them, see their temples, discuss their fascinating calendar with them. As long as they weren’t the "kill first, socialize later" types. Being as Doctor Who is very clever, I’m sure he’d find a way to convince them not to sacrifice us to their god(s) right off the bat.

Then again, I doubt that they would try to sacrifice us, strange foreigners, to their god(s). They are thought to have preferred children, because they were considered more pure. If adult Mayans were not pure enough for human sacrifice (which involved the tearing out of the heart: yeeAUGhhhhh....) then me and the Doctor would certainly not qualify. They had a bit more respect for their god(s) than that.

The reason I say ‘god(s)’ (rather than ‘gods’) is that they had many gods that kind of blended into one. They were all sort of bondable to the other gods. Like tinker toys. The center of their collection of gods, sort of the main god, or the brain of the pieced together god tinker toy tower of deities, was the maize god (for all you normal folks out there, maize is corn)

Now the Mayan calendar? The Doctor would probably know what was up with that, and he might even know if the world really does end in December, 2012. But I can’t make sense of it even now, with wikipedia to guide me.

Perhaps my visit would help me to better understand the Mayan calendar, as well as the Mayan people. A people shrouded in that much mystery have GOT to be interesting to have dinner with (seeing as Doctor Who often gets to have dinner with famous folks like Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, I see no reason why we would not end up at a Mayan dinner table).

Ah, it’s such a shame that I have to maintain such geeky gall as to wait for a timelord to drop by in his Tardis and invite me to join him on a time traveling adventure before I can see the Mayans in first person.

When my dreams came out to face me

I wrote this a few months ago, during the summer. I was living in Philadelphia with my brother and his family at the time, and I was nanny to my baby nephew during the day, while my brother and his wife were at worked. It was a long, long summer. I was left alone for much of the time.

I’m all alone in a mostly empty house. All the time. Or at least until 4 pm. Every weekday. Other than the three cats, two dogs and the baby, I’m alone.

My dreams come out to face me. They look me in the eye and speak (clear evidence that I’m mentally deranged, or schizophrenic). “Why do you ignore us now? There is nothing and no one to get in our way. Write your book. Sing your song. Take dancing lessons.”

I turn away from them and click on safari. I first look to see if there is anyone on line I want to talk to. None. Then I search the web for weird stories about creepy mysteries like big foot, vampires and spring heeled Jack.

“How about that comic book?” one of the smaller, quieter dreams steps out of the group. “You got that computer with me in mind. So why don’t you draw up a final draft of one of your old pages and use that fancy new scanner/copier/printer to put me into your computer. Then google programs for comic colorists. Maybe they’d be expensive, but you’d be a step closer to making me more than a dream. How about it? Please?”

I look up pictures of chupacabras and find videos of the extinct thylacine.

I go up to my room and lie on my bed. I dream of my own secret world, with my own secret friends and family. People that know me, people that I’m not afraid of. One of my taller dreams steps forward to make a plea, “What about me? I’ve already been realized! All you need to do is work on me. You needn’t buy anything, or go out and learn something you don’t know. There are no tools that you don’t have. All you need is patience, diligence and your computer”.

This dream is my book. He’s right, I need only take time, of which I have much, and start to type. Perhaps a little outline would be nice. I shan’t know the end until I get there, but my story will let me know how he should end. “I will!" he says, "As soon as you write me, I will be that story! I’ll tell you how I’m to be ended, once we get there. But you know how we’ve got to start, don’t you?”

Of course I know. However, I was online for all that time, and then I wandered through my fantasy world for so long. Now it is nearly midnight, and I’m very tired. Perhaps I'll start tomorrow. No, definitely tomorrow! When my dreams are my only sentient companions, I cannot deny them for long. Can I?


Here it is! Another link of the day! http://lifejustkeepsgettingweirder.blogspot.com/
Life just keeps getting weirder. This is by far the funniest blog I've come across yet. She is freakin hilarious to no end! From Pan Flute gigs to the Undead of JoAnnes, this gal had me rolling on the floor in endless convulsions of hilarity. You simply MUST check this out.

A page from the notebook (specifically my notebook)

2-26-09

Today I was given this fantastic note pad [really it is truly fantastic. It's this pretty little spiral notebook, and the background of the cover is black, and then it's got pretty, swirling, vine-like designs in silver, with a skull and crossbones (also in silver) overlaying it. It isn't too large. maybe 9 by 6 inches. It's adorable, in a dark kind of way] and seeing as I couldn't stand to see it go unused, I went ahead and began writing in it.

[I was at work and had nothing better to do (slow day for a grocery clerk), plus I wanted to practice my cursive.]

I seriously doubt in my capability to keep a journal, so I shan't say that I will, to save myself the shame and embarrassment later on in about four years when I find it at the bottom of a cardboard box with this as its only entry.

Of course in this case that means I shan't be introducing myself, even as I cross my "i"s and dot my "t"s. [In the notebook I accidentally crossed the "i" in "introducing", rather than dotting it. Hence the rather odd ending to that sentence] Nope. No introduction here. I only intend to write, which is what I'm good at. [That sounds a bit pretentious, in retrospect.] And frankly I ought to practice what I hope to do with my life more often.

[It's true, I hope to be able to write for a living some day. And sell my art. Both, hopefully. Of course that's just my dream, and those don't always come true.]

Really, think about it for a moment. If that's what I intend to do for a career than I had better get used to the idea of doing it all the time, even when I don't really feel like it. The same of course goes for my artistic endeavors. I would love to be able to live off of my art and writing. It is my dream to do so.

Wow. My own raw writing is a little embarrassing. This was just a scribble that I did in that notebook solely because I desired to write in it (because it was such a pretty little notebook).

Then again, Oscar Wilde said that all bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. (he did honor poetry, the good and the bad, in his short story The Decay of Lying)

The random scribbled page in my notebook wasn't bad poetry, but it certainly was terrible writing. And definitely genuine feeling.

Perhaps I benefited from my little scribble, after all.



Okay, link of the day! http://jumpinginartmuseums.blogspot.com/
This is a link to a blog called Jumping in art museums. Yes, it is EXACTLY what it sounds like. And it is FANTASTIC! And to think if I hadn't been googling images of Jackson Pollock paintings for my art history homework, I would never have found it. Thank goodness for college!!