26 August 2009

take one more left to get to the lost city

Watch out if you ever borrow a coat from James Dean because I've heard that mortal chaos ensues. Not the chaos I heard Brian Greene, the foremost string theorist, speak of a couple of years ago; his "chaos preceeds creation." It's the chaos of a kitchen shared with roommates. Chaos that kills creativity. But then again Don McLean did write that song about devil's friends, marching bands, and books of love*. So, I guess maybe you could borrow the coat from James Dean, but on your way out could you encourage all people everywhere to do their own dishes? Or maybe at least wipe down the counters every once in a while if not immediately after they spill a little of this or that.

Sometimes it's as if Medea and Zeus and Orpheus really lived. Sometimes I walk down the street and think, "There! If I squint my eyes just enough, I can see all the way to Greece and overhead I can see the giant cumulous cloud where Zeus and Hera lived. I know it's the right cloud because it looks strong enough to hold doric columns. There must have been a time when gods threw lightning bolts and shot people with love sticking arrows.

I also know that if I drove out to California I'd find the BuyMore where Chuck works and that Johnny Cash really did ride a Tennessee stud. And there most definitely was a Harold and a Maude. Think they'd be my friend?

Do you have certain levels of belief? I've got the topmost rung with God, Christ and my family. And my closest of closest lovely friends. Then there's the rung with...hmmm...ladders don't work. Anyway next comes all the people I have met, then somewhere after that conglomerately come the Saints (all kinds) (All Saints...ha, get it?) and pioneers and Hamm and Nagg from Becket and music being magic**. Anything I can imagine really. I'll believe it when I feel like it and let it slip out of my fingers when it doesn't serve a purpose. It's just gotta bear good fruit. I like fruit a lot. Kiwis are my new kick. When I was a kid sitting in the school cafeteria with the plastic lunch trays and thirty children to a table, we would eat the brown fuzzy skins.

I'm done with this today. Some day I wish I could draw a word picture for you of Zeus's cloud appearning over small town shop windows.

*American Pie by Don McLean
**Lovin' Spoonful's Do You Believe in Magic (my answer: yes)

18 August 2009

a great day for soft worn jeans bleached by sun

[smile]
You know those times in your life when you feel particularly blessed if you have a jingle of a few changes in your pocket. You know, a quarter seems like ten bucks? Those Days? But you've got a lot going for you, you're convinced of that and things just seem like summer and sunshine and miraculously pulling-through-ish? Maybe I'll tell you more about these days some time. But for now, just know:
I am listening to the music samples for my documentary. This is going to be the greatest thing ever.
[smile]

15 August 2009

powerade is refreshing, too

Some people are of the firm belief that Sherlock Holmes is still alive because the Times of London has never printed an obituary for him (As reported by the book we gave to my sister for her birthday which I immediately borrowed) (I have the best sister ever).

I've been going through the people that I know and wondering who's character I should profile. I've got lists of them and then I think of Charles Dickens and wonder how to appropriately go about my descriptions. I'm lost so I'll just list today.

LIST OF TWO AGREEABLE PEOPLE IN MY LIFE

My roommate who reminds us all to be flexible because we never know when ten people are going to show up to make dinner with her in our kitchen. Or when we decide to delay our plans so we don't leave her alone with a homeless person whom she's invited over for dinner.

The awkward boy at my church who is ever adding interesting moments to my life. I remember my first conversation with him I didn't want to talk to him. Then he stood up in Sunday School and asked if anyone had any little tea lights. I told him I had five dozen and I'd bring over some that afternoon. He wanted them for a science experiment. I made him explain it to me once but I didn't really get it. One Sunday after church he met me in the hall and said, "I wanted to talk to you but I don't have anything to talk about." So I asked him about his life.
I've noticed he's always very concerned about whether or not a girl is happy with her new haircut. He always asks to make sure they're happy with it and they haven't had any of the drastic haircut trauma he's heard about. He's taken an interesting interest in my H.C. In the beginning he met me in the hall after church and said, "I liked your hair better long." Yesterday after church I was talking to a friend and he came over to tell me I should really grow my hair out.
"Oh," I said.
"Well, I guess you'll do whatever you want, I just really liked your hair longer."
"Okay, well, we'll see what happens."
I enjoy people telling me absurdly socially inappropriate things like that. It's refreshing. But it must be authentic and sincere! So don't go starting up cheap imitations!

Yesterday my cousin's sons, mis monstruos, kept sticking their popsicles under my nose to show them to me. Monstruo Uno would like you all to know that if he sticks his rootbear popsicle on Dos's yellow popsicle it tastes like pineapple.

P.S. I enjoy you.

13 August 2009

the moral influence of television

(or "Why I need the Media and Old Men")

I was watching an episode of Northern Exposure last night, minus the mild disturbance when I noticed a spider crawling on the ceiling above my bed and when I might have reacted by climbing onto my night stand and lecturing the spider about manners while my roommate thankfully saved us all by smooshing it, the point is, that I was reminded a little of the point of my writing. I've always dreamed of being not just a construction worker but also a chronicaller of persons like E. B. White and Bradbury in Dandelion Wine. I'm not them. But that's the point and it seems that my interest in life as I live it as opposed to my interest in the life in mystery books like the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes directly correlates to how much I write.
Therefore, I commence writing more full-forcedly this time not to prove that I'm not boring, but to prove that I am not bored.
Which I've tended to be lately.
(Minus all that time spent with my family. and Friends.)

And so, I will tell you now of how I am working with a bear. My documentary boss is a bear and I fought him yesterday. Appropriately it was at our meeting in The Cave.

Bear: (as he reclines in the plastic spiderweb of an office chair) In this opening sequence I think it would be a good idea if we showed a little bit of D and then a little bit of, you know, Ted you can place this little animated car...

And he continued on full lordly.

Marge: I'd like to push back now.

Bear: (surprised) (Is our director who seems to have trouble directing and continues to grow more and more disinterested in this project really going to push for something?) Well, Okay.

Ted, tall and lanky with Dandelion fluff hair and patient face, turns from storyboarding at the white board and sits down on a corner of the table. Bea and Bear turn their spiderweb chairs to face me. I'm certain about this one, because you can't ask me to make a documentary and take away what I make documentaries for.

Me: I think we should just stay with D for that quiet moment, I want us to become connected to D and not the animation, we've got to attach to her. She's important.

Bear: Well, I'm not saying we shouldn't focus on her there, I'm just saying she needs all the help she can get.

Me: I disagree. She doesn't need help. She's the character in our documentary and I don't think she needs that much help that we can't spend 20 seconds with her.

The Film Professor, from whom I've taken five classes and continues to taunt me with thinking I will be hired by him to do something but is such a foggy person, came down to join us in the cave and watched the rest of our meeting. It was a hum drum rest of a regular Post of a Desperate Production meeting.

In the end Bear started saying we could go along with my theory and WHEN (because he's a curmudgeon and a bear) we decide that D needs help-- "You mean IF," says The Film Professor. He'd been fairly quiet up til then keeping his ironic comments to himself.

Bear paused and rolled his eyes, "Yeah, sure, IF it doesn't work we can put in Ted's animation that won't set us back anything."
I told you he's a curmudgeon. I know the secret, though, he wants someone to fight for what they want. So I'll fight.

Well, there's the first exercise in chronicalling. I think I should get better, so if you want to read something worthwhile in twenty years, stick around, please. I need you.

Love,
Marge

11 August 2009

formality, my dear Watson

I'm still writing out animation scripts. I'm banned for saying five syllable types of things like "orchestrate instructional interactive conversations" and "developmentally appropriate" in fact my boss told me yesterday to go home and put on jeans, flip flops, and a t-shirt. I told him I don't wear flip flops. He told me my boots were to formal.

So my question is, how do I say, they bring literacy down to the level of a five year old, without sounding pejorative?


I've been reading Sherlock Holmes. The annotated version. We gave it to my sister for her birthday (two months in advance and wrapped in a plastic sack with a twist-tie bow). I immediately sequestered the fist volume.
I'm so wrapped up I'd name my first born Sherlock.
When my parents were first married my mother would read Sherlock Holmes before bed. One night when she said their connubial prayer, she prayed he would find the murderer.
I can understand that now. These annotations are trippy. I began to notice in the second or third story all of the annotations started with the belief that Holmes was a real person. I had to call my sister to reassure me that he was never a man of flesh and bones.

I'm certain I only sound this stuffy and five syllabled when I write. Please forgive me, I am most certainly pretentious, but I wouldn't like to be.