Hell Week

Hell Week,

They call it.

So busy.

Things to do.

Papers to write.

Tests to take.

Experiments to execute.

Plans to make.

Things to do.

So busy.

I walk through the museum

And look for apocalyptic horses.

When they appear in the dark

I stand to the side

And make notes about color and brushstrokes,

Ignoring everything I’d like to say,

Because if there is one thing I have learned

This semester

It is that no one has anything worthwhile to say about art.

Then downstairs to type type type

To write write write

And then across the room,

You look like Emile Hirsch.

You are wearing a stupid hat

A dressy shirt. 

A glossy black vest.

And, like a pompous asshole,

You are in the members lounge at an art institute.

But, like a pompous asshole,

I am in the members lounge at an art institute.

I didn’t pay for mine.

You have the beard

The eyebrows

The eyes.

Like Emile Hirsch

When he was pretending to be Alexander Sumpertramp

Who was Christopher McCandles disguised from himself.

Would you be

Could you be

Tick Tick Tick

I took your seat

But you didn’t notice

Because you were already gone.

In Summation: 2010

Every year my immediate family puts together an Epiphany Letter that we send out to acquaintances, friends, and family members. It's basically your run of the mill Christmas letter, but we call ours an epiphany letter so we have a little extra time to put it together. Of course it usually goes out around Easter anyways, but we deserve a couple creativity points regardless. This year my mother posed the following questions for us to answer:

-four highlights for you personally and/or for your family in the past year.
-three personal/family learnings in 2010.
-two books you especially enjoyed reading
-one goal you have for 2010.

Obviously this is an excessive amount of questions to answer when there are seven of us and we're sending the letter out to a large audience that probably only has a moderate interest in our activities from the last year, but I'm going to flatter myself and imagine that people who read my blog care enough to read my responses. So...here we go.

Highlights:

1. Playing Twinkletoes the (crazy/scatterbrained/funny) fairy in Sleeping Beauty. It was fun to put on a show for the kids from local elementary schools, who make a much more interactive audience than the typical group of adults. (It's always nice to know that the audience is awake.) Evie, who worked as a para at one of the attending schools at the time, told me that several of the kids pretended they were Twinkletoes during recess, and you know what they say about imitation and flattery...

2. Directing a production of No Exit, by Jean Paul Sartre. This has been my favorite play since 2008. I had never seen it performed, but it's a really interesting commentary on hell and people and I LOVE IT. It was great to direct again, especially for my favorite script.

3. Although it was rather short-lived I enjoyed the few weeks of summer that I got with Sarah in Minnesota this year. It was so much fun to rollerblade and play speed scrabble and watch Bones streaming on Netflix, and other every-day, but truly enjoyable activities with her. It was almost disappointing when I got the job at the fish processing plant in Cordova, because I was having so much fun in Minnesota.

4. Seeing Child's Glacier in Cordova. Last time I worked in Alaska (Naknek, for those who haven't been keeping track) it was all tundra and the mountains were so far away that I may as well have been working in North Dakota or the ugly part of Montana. This town was beautiful and, although I would never work there again, I would definitely visit and do outdoorsy things.




"Learnings:"

1. I realized how much I enjoy theater. I participated in several plays at my school this year and enjoyed all of them, each for different reasons.

2. I realized how important education is to me in general and for obtaining a future I can be proud of and enjoy. My summer was spent in a fish processing plant in Alaska and it very quickly became obvious that working 16 hour days standing in one place and doing one task over and over again was not for me. It was hard on me physically and mentally. Definitely not the kind of work I want to do for more than a couple months.

3. I also learned how influential a single conversation can be. Several times over the course of the year I heard friends echoing sentiments I had expressed earlier, sometimes realizing that they had come from me and sometimes believing that it was their own unique idea. It helped me realize how fluid knowledge and ideas are, and how important it is to express oneself well and positively at all times.

Books:

1. Deeply Rooted, by Lisa Hamilton. I read this book for my Environmental Ethics class, and enjoyed it very much. In typical ethnographic style it chronicles stories about three unconventional farmers working in the United States. The book explains problems with farming in the 21st century and then showcases people who are trying to farm in a more environmentally sustainable and healthy way. Really well written and relevant.






2. The Walking Dead series by Robert Kirkman. Ever since I read the Watchmen I've been getting ever more enthusiastic about graphic novels. My newest kick is The Walking Dead series (which is ongoing) and I love it. The books are about a zombie apocalypse (bear with me). The author writes them not because he likes horror (although he does) but because he wants to explore what happens to people when everything they know and love falls apart. How do people deal with extreme crises and what does that say about us?

Goal:

-I would like to increase my self-motivation to accomplish things more successfully on my own, regardless of deadlines and requirements.

College App Essay Part ZOMBIE.

Recently, at the behest of several friends of mine I started reading yet another series of graphic novels. This one is about zombies. I used to snobbishly avoid graphic novels, deeming them inferior to "real" books. I liked to say that graphic novels were for those who had never grown out of picture books. Now I cannot get enough of them and laud their ability to tell stories in a way that no other medium can quite replicate. The series I just started, "The Walking Dead", chronicles a man trying to keep his family together as zombies overrun the world. I cannot say the book has made a difference in my life (although I have had a few messed up dreams recently), but the series manages to ask pertinent, powerful questions amidst the blood and gore without coming off as pretentious...only curious.

What happens if the world crumbles and cannot be fixed? How do people live when those they love most are constantly in harm's way? To whom can we turn when our leaders, police forces and armies fall? What must we become when the only rulebook to a hell on earth is the one we write and rewrite as life continues to surprise and shock us as we tramp through the darkness, trying not to succumb to it?

"The Walking Dead" does not provide definitive answers to any of these questions. What I especially enjoy about this series is that it acknowledges the diversity amongst personalities. A preacher locks his congregation out of his church, denying them a safe-haven, so he can survive. A small band of young adults turn into cannibals out of "necessity" and explain their motives to their victims, almost looking fot understanding if not forgiveness. Murderers, rapists, and thieves: criminals of all kinds appear when the law disappears.

Then there are those few that give us hope. Our survivors might be ruthless at times, but they love and protect each other as best they can. They always try to do what is right, whatever right may be in their newly diseased world. Each individual is broken in his or her own way, but their fluid community offers a necessary sense of security and family they cannot find anywhere else.

The first two or three books of the series spend most of their time exploring how different personalities take shape when exposed to severe and extended trauma (in this case a zombie epidemic). There are those who become leaders out of necessity, those who lie to get what they need, those who sell themselves or their skills for protection, those who go a little crazy or break completely, and those who are so set in believing in a greater force, be it God or the government, that is going to save them that they become a hindrance to themselves and their friends.

The later books in the series focus are more situational in nature, Members of our group are constantly dying, but there is also new life, and new recruits, an underlying desire in everyone to pursue as conventional of a life as is possible, and a wariness (sometimes warranted and sometimes not) whenever meeting new people.

These books offer a glimpse at humanity purified by fire. In book twelve, a young boy leaves his dying father's side for a moment to lure away the zombies outside their door. Three zombies attack him and somehow he manages to kill them singlehandedly. He returns to his comatose father and tells him he has outgrown his Daddy and can take care of himself. Not five pages later, he is a child again and he begs his father to wake up because he cannot face the world alone.

It is these moments that make these books so powerful. I am not fond of gore, but I can look past it for watching the process of growing up expedited by circumstance, seeing how love and greed are equally powerful motivators for all kinds of people and learning, along with those in the book, that evil can be performed and experienced for both right and for wrong. The only thing that we can hope is to always be able to distinguish between the two.

An Educational Experience for Your Perusal

College Application Essay Numero Uno:

Upon initially reading this prompt I starting thinking about all the classes and teachers I have encountered in 15 years of school. I have had inspiring teachers and challenging classes along with teachers who made interesting subjects seem useless and classes that could not hide their frivolity if they tried. During the time I have spent away from school, though, I have learned an educational experience does not require either texts or lectures. As such, I would like to tell an illustrative story regarding something I recently learned that is simultaneously frustrating and beautiful.

My friend Caspian* and I agree that our friendship hinges on our conversations. We talk deeply about religion, politics, family, friends, love - anything is fair game. Generally speaking, there is no one with whom I am more candid.

One night, on the way home from a "Ninja Assassin" viewing, our conversation turned to religion. Neither Caspian nor I are religious, but I see the validity of religion when it brings personal peace and happiness and is not used as an excuse to hurt others. I love that some people can put their faith in the unknowable, and I like listening to people talk about what they believe and why. Caspian says that he adheres to a "to each his own" code as well, but religion is clearly a sore spot for him. He would prefer that the religious keep their religion to themselves.

We talked about religion for hours that night. Caspian expressed his disgust for the evangelical, to which I responded by asking how missioning is any different from arguing for the superiority of Star Wars. Although the ramifications are different, the sentiment is the same. When a person loves something they share it, and hating them for trying to spread something from which they derive profound meaning makes no sense. The advocated individual has no more need to become a Christian than they do a Star Wars fanboy, and preemptively deciding not to be convinced is silly.

Although I did not know it at the time, what I said affected Caspian. When I returned to Minnesota several months later I found out that he and a very religious girl had given a romantic relationship a shot. He had many times before told me that he would never date anyone religious, but told me that the conversation we had that night swayed him.

I consider this series of events a rewarding educational experience even though it is unconventional. The things that we learn outside of a classroom, through relationships and conversations tend to be more truthful and meaningful than anything gleaned from a text, no matter how classic, or anything said by a teacher, no matter how inspired. I learned definitively that people change and that simply through a conversation I can personally shape those changes.

The frustrating part of this experience was that when the relationship did not work Caspian blamed it singularly on the girl's religion and used that one experience as incontrovertible proof that his former stance had been correct. He is once again convinced that religion is nothing more than a tool of alienation.

I realized that people are wonderfully malleable, but they do not want to be, so whenever they have a chance to revoke a personal change, no matter how positive it may have been, they will do so. That is a tragedy. It takes so much willpower to change in the first place that I hate to see how easily we are willing to wipe away all of that hard work for nothing more than a hollow "I told you so" that probably will not even ring true in our own ears.

*Name change for the internet because I'm a good person like that.

I want to call you a fool.

Fool.

I'm listening to a song for you. It's Jenny Owen Youngs' "Fuck was I" and it fits your current situation almost to a tee. Give it a listen:



Seriously, darling. What are you thinking?

We've talked it over several times and I understand that the two of you have certain similarities that make it easy for you to relate to each other in a powerful way. A large part of your relating to one another seems to be your desire to protect her and what seems to be an underlying sense of guilt...perhaps you feel that if you hadn't acted how you did initially she wouldn't have run into the problems that she did. (A logical fallacy, if I may offer an extra two cents of mho here.) I understand that you were both brought up in similar environments and that you reacted in similar ways. I understand that you have essentially fallen into the place that you are now, but what I don't understand is how you now refuse to do anything about the pit into which you have fallen.

What you have stumbled into is sacred and beautiful and important and you know and believe this as much as I do, but instead of treating this thing of yours with reverence you mold and shape your situation to fit it. You rip, tear, recolor, glue and cut your circumstance until it almost fits into what this thing requires. You are bastardizing what you are a part of in an attempt to make it more worthy of the this thing you're forcing it into. Essentially, you are dressing your infant child in clothing its' older siblings aren't yet big enough to wear.

But I can't shake the feeling that you're in the right for sticking with it, even if you're an idiot for being in this situation. This sacred thing you've committed yourself to requires work, a reality too few people realize these days. Maybe your fall into...whatever you're calling this, is a good thing. People find themselves where you are younger and less prepared and with more baggage than you have and make it work. Despite your relative freedom (the only thing holding you where you are is your guilty conscience) you are determined to make this work, supposedly for the long term.

I'm stuck between my "what the fuck are you thinking" mentality and a nagging sense of admiration.

Just make sure that you're in the right place for you. And her.

That is all.

Sidewalk Cruising

There have been two separate occasions in my life (that I can think of) when I have gone sidewalk driving with two different friends. Both of these excursions have been made unique by two things: 1) We were stone cold sober. 2) The activity was done solely for fun, not out of necessity. Today was different. Allow me to introduce you to the culprit, the devil, the MINI COOPER:



Okay...this wasn't THE mini cooper, but as far as I'm concerned, this one is guilty by association.

Allow me to tell my most traumatic story.

I was innocently driving down a half-hearted residential street (45 mph speed limit, mostly just a street, but sporadic driveways every half mile or so, just to keep drivers confused and, therefore...attentive?) I looked down for a MOMENT to switch the radio station and when I looked up again I realized that the two cars in front of me have come to an unexplainable dead stop in the middle of the road, a solid quarter mile from the nearest stop sign. I use my viper-like reflexes to slam on my brakes, but I realize that the screaming metal death trap that I drive (1996 Chrysler LHS, weighing in at 3596 lbs, thank you very much) will not stop as quickly as it needs to, so I pull the oldest trick in the book and also swerve to the side while breaking, but the FOOLS in front of me favor the right side of the lane, so, even with the shoulder, there is not enough space for me to roll to a halt beside them. Next best scenario: I drive up with a clunk and a crash and a thud over the curb and onto the sidewalk, narrowly missing the mailbox.

And of course the hijinks do not cease here. The mini cooper does not realize that she barely escaped creating a three car pile up and instead of doing the wise thing and just driving up to the nearest intersection and turning around there, she continues to sit in the middle of the road. (This is a reasonably well-traveled road, btws.) The Jeep that had been occupying the space between myself and Stupid Cooper drives around the mobile, white roadblock and I stare out my windshield at her. I am not about to drive over the curb again, because my car is already struggling these days, and unless it is an emergency I don't plan on scraping the bottom of my car, because, last time I checked, that's not a fantabulous idea. After readjusting my car slightly on the sidewalk so the nose of my car is pointed down the driveway I wave at the mini cooper lady to make it clear that she should drive on so I can drive out. She is about one car length past the driveway she wants to enter and I am occupying, making it impossible for me to drive past her without entering the opposing lane of traffic. Finally she realizes that she should move, but instead of moving FORWARD like a NORMAL PERSON she reverses her stupid, tiny car until she is on the other side of the driveway, forcing more oncoming cars to halt mid-road so I can exit the driveway.

Someone needs to get her license revoked, and I swear to Bokonon it is not me.

There comes a point when a person just needs to pick a side instead of moseying around no-man's land. So...I should do that.