I learned a lot today...
Maud Casey is, simply put, super awesome. Everyone read her books: Drastic and Genealogy, and also the shorter story The Shape of Things to Come. I have yet to read any of these, but I did luckily just win a copy of Drastic. I have to say...she was a brilliant reader. It was natural, not performed, and extrmely lucid-full of small nuances and plays on otherwise extrmely mundane images. She had a rather cynical, yet somehow playful tone to topics that are considerably "untouchable." And I am veryexcited to embark on reading her short stories. Speaking of short stories, I'll be posting part of one of mine a bit later.
I also attended an info session on the School of the Americas and the SOA Watch, which is essentially a peace organization working to shut the school down. It was extremely informative and I think, necessary for people our age to hear about militarization in our South American neighbors' communities. I think a little education on issues such as these will create a necessary spark in people who always think about doing, but can't necessarily find that motivation to "DO" (like myself at times). Check it out, it's pretty cool:
http://www.soaw.org/
I'll be back soon to post a bit of my new writing
A standard for living often comes from philosophy, religion, or authority. Mine...well, it comes from a children's book. The Velveteen Rabbit offered one profound, yet simple principle and at age seven I learned that I did not want to forsake it. Be ugly, get old, smell awful, suck as things, get made fun of-but through it all be very, very REAL. Let's explore the velveteen of it all...
The Velveteen Rabbit
here's how I'm looking at things...
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
Welcome to Taking Lessons from Toys!
Let's talk about the things that matter to a nineteen (and counting) year old: poetry, music, amazing places, and food...
A Place for Poetry...
half of me on land
[sitting in front of the ocean: 8.02.09; 7:35 am]
i’m imaginary while stationary
next to the woman who wakes the gods that I do not believe in
the gods in the haze, the swell
before noon, the little girl in me
breezed away, swept over,
overlooked, the little girl in me
only under my toe, only thicker
than the froth, the washed up
entities, my self, my fears:
the wars, whatever I am crying about
i ask the sun saluter
to my right to intercess, maybe it’ll
mean something more when she
reaches up
it just might within the slight
dusting of light and grain beneath
me, I may cry forever and
never cry again and I myself
may gently salute the sun
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