Creation-y things

From a free magazine...
Reconnecting Humanity
Crop Circles
(Who cares who makes crop circles?
They look cool. I would like to see some.)

from thefederationoflight

Okay, body

The best and/or worst thing about bodies: they get your attention. They can say...this indicates that you need to bring the balance back...Okay. I obey. I will evolve. I read in more than one place recently that these are things you should say: "I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you." True, true, true. I guess you can say that to people, to places (yes, places, too), and of course to yourself. If you look up "beautiful anatomy" you come up with lots of pictures of young naked chicks, but this one's a little different. (Yes, yes, yes, universe, you and your pregnancy themes again. Thank you. )

from cassandraforsythe

Interesting...

discovered by accident, rather sad, but good song, in our unfortunately all-too-often body dysmorphic society...

My Body is a Cage - Sara Lov
My Body is a Cage - Arcade Fire w/ Sergio Leone western
My Body is a Cage - Peter Gabriel

Also my friend sent me this Latina Fatale article How to talk to little girls. There is also an interesting conversation about "peahens" in the comments...and a poem. When your daughter tells you she wants to be an astronaut by Andrea Hope.

Alternate link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/how-to-talk-to-little-gir_b_882510.html

Wow, weird but kind of interesting book idea?

MWF Seeking BFF
It's at the library. I will bite.

Following through

Decided to make an effort to follow through on a summer reading list, and as luck (or whatever) would have it, the first to arrive is the viscera-riddled A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. So, that's probably not one for bedtime. Haven't opened it yet. Online, just looked at these for fun:

http://piecesofmargo.blogspot.com/2013/07/and-oscar-goes-to-miss-margo-for-her.html

http://piecesofmargo.blogspot.com/2013/07/pulp-art-what-is-going-on-here.html 

(Oh, to be an illustrator of book covers! Or something visually oriented...)

Also finally read Cold Comfort Farm. I actually feel like this was my first summer reading book. (Not on the list! Ha!)  Had kind of hoped to get a copy with a cover like this:

From Fizzy Thoughts

Instead, I got this:

Very different. The cute illustrations inside kind of remind me of the ones I found in this "memoir" (which I read at a very impressionable age!)

from wikipedia

Altogether, it gave me that enjoyable old-books-retrieved-from-grandmas-house summertime reading feeling. As an added bonus, there was sticky stuff marring the words on some of the pages.

Music to type to

Mmm Skyscraper I Love You
~~~
Oh K. B., thank you for making spellchecking possible this evening
Army Dreamers
Wuthering Heights
(a mere 13 days 'til Emily's 195th)

Wah

"As we grow more separate from nature, we continue to separate from one another physically."

-- Richard Louv, A Life of the Senses

nextnature.net

"Children’s dictionary dumps ‘nature’ words

To make way for modern tech terms such as BlackBerry, blog, voicemail and broadband, the latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary has opted to drop terms pertaining to old nature.  No longer can a child check this dictionary and learn more about the blackberry, dandelion, acorn, heron, otter, magpie, sycamore, or willow."

~ http://www.nextnature.net/2009/02/childrens-dictionary-dumps-nature-words/

read, read, looked at, looked at...

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/26/147195131/first-listen-the-magnetic-fields-love-at-the-bottom-of-the-sea

then

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/stephin-merritt-20000-leagues-under-sea

then

From Children of the World Paint Korea - 1979

Cassettes

I read Magnetic Fields: International Cassette Store Day
and looked at some old cassettes (how did I keep them all these years...)
 3 that might be worthy of converting to mp3...

Youngest to oldest: high school (sophomore yr),
high school (summer before sophomore yr), and jr. high

First 3 from an album

I just decided to listen to an album by The Magnetic Fields and these are the first three...

God Wants Us To Wait
I've Run Away To Join The Fairies
I Don't Like Your Tone

Osaycanyouseesometrees

i'twere a tree that became a cabin

tall burnt tree

probably never need to be this close to a bear again

wall calendar shot

MPDM

sees opportunity instead of claustrophobia

alright, have fun squeezing yourself in there

manic pixie dream male?

outside

Cafe no au lait

Black Coffee
B: You don't want room for cream? You want it black?
M: Yes...I just started to drink it that way recently...
B: I went camping this weekend with some friends and had black coffee and it was great.
M: I actually don't drink coffee that much.
B: Well, they say that your tastebuds change once every seven years.
(Later, doing the math...7...7...7....oh that's probably about right...)

O web o' info

Why do you deeestract me all the time from my little manuscript typing job? Why????

http://carolcassara.com/2011/02/natures-valentines.html

stop that

old fashioned models

http://twentytwowords.com/2011/01/27/the-models-who-were-used-in-american-gothic-standing-by-the-painting/

http://www.lostateminor.com/2013/05/27/pin-up-girls-before-and-after/

2 things liked in the last five minutes

1) http://twentytwowords.com/2012/12/13/retta-tells-conan-about-listening-to-puccini-not-rap-and-sings-some-too/

2) http://twentytwowords.com/2013/07/15/the-same-house-from-the-same-camera-angle-in-remarkably-varying-photos-8-pics/#more-78957

so much

http://longnow.org/about/

This "now/nowadays/the long now" graphic reminds me of a language chart, which puts me in mind of a certain kind of thank you...

S: I don't have my homework.
T: Well, that's bad for you.
S: Teacher, I cannot turn it in late?
T: No.
S: Tomorrow? Yes?
T: No.
S: Not even for less points?
T: Absolutely not. This is the third time you've done this.
S: So I get nothing? I get a zero?
T: Yes.
S bows head.
S: Thank you so much...



http://www.breakaway.cc/Asia/Japan/Japan-Bowing.php



Well, this adds some color to the evening

http://chinoiseriechic.blogspot.com/2013/02/one-room-challenge-week-4-devil-is-in.html

Hah

Read something that tempts me to think that instead of spending Friday night typing a manuscript and feeling relieved to have escaped "cell phone guy," I should try to effect circumstances in my life so that I go out to shows occasionally!

1. Dear Daily Mail,
2. You misogynist pile of twats,
3. I'm tired of these baby bumps, vag flashes, muffintops,
4. Where are the news-worthy cocks?
5. When Iggy, or Jagger, or Bowie, go shirtless
6. The news barely causes a ripple,
7. Blah blah blah feminist, blah blah blah gender shit,
8. Blah blah blah OH MY GOD NIPPLE
   
   
   --AFP "Dear Daily Mail"
   http://pastebin.ca/2426234

wondering wtf "mucous paper" is...

something about civilization that D. H. Lawrence was familiar with, apparently.

"Like the boyz of the hood, as human beings we need direct natural experiences; we require fully activated senses in order to feel fully alive. Twenty-first-century Western culture accepts the view that because of omnipresent technology we are awash in data. But in this information age, vital information is missing. Nature is about smelling, hearing, tasting, seeing below the “transparent mucous-paper in which the world like a bon-bon is wrapped so carefully that we can never get at it,” as D.H. Lawrenceⁱ put it, in a relatively obscure but extraordinary description of his own awakening to nature's sensory gift."

--Richard Louv, A Life of the Senses

iD.H. Lawrence: David Herbert Richards Lawrence (1885-1930), English author, essayist, and literary critic.

~~~~~

"This is New Mexico wrapped in the absolutely hygienic and shiny mucous-paper of our trite civilization."

http://lacasadetowanda.blogspot.com/2008/02/d-h-lawerence.html 

"The know-it-all state of mind is just the result of being outside the mucous-paper wrapping of civilization."

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2011/06/26/manvotional-the-know-it-all-state-of-mind/

Sorry but...

from everybody loves you (somewhere)

Generally, I feel like I am lucky enough to live in a place where walks in the evening are relatively safe, but Fridays are a little weirder. This evening, after watching me walk half a block across the street, some guy started running after me, holding up a cell phone and asking if I could help him work it. I looked at him from across the street, said, "I don't think so," and walked away. He called after me, "I just got a message, can you help me check it?" "I doubt it," I said, and kept walking, really hoping he would not keep following and calling after me. He didn't. (Yay!) If he needs help checking his phone messages, why not ask someone over at the park? I think that females are conditioned to be nice and help out others, but I also think that you are not obligated to reciprocate to strangers who run after you for random suspicious reasons. 

hey, I like the feeelings...

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2013/07/tootsie-role-opened-dustin-hoffmans-eyes-about-womens-looks/

I do. I'm not being sarcastic. Some people can get snarky about anything, because it's just the human condition that there's a weakness to resort to snarkiness, but it's often much more important to just be genuine and express yourself and that's the way people help the world. And if I were better at that, it'd be a shot of vitamins for me too. Life goes on...

Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay

evening song sammich

this album cover makes me think of a sub

from prettymuchamazing

Gangsta
Bizness
Powa
Es-So
Fiya
Doorstep

great free knurdy fun wednesday evening

sometimes i read something and feel a whole lot less bad about feeling as if i'm 10-12 years younger than i actually am (sort of, kinda), and in my gut i have to just go, yaaayyyy younger generation, thank you thank you thank you!!!!! for example:

from http://thefeministfangirl.tumblr.com/post/54520561695/reasons-why-im-not-supporting-disneys-frozen

from http://thefeministfangirl.tumblr.com/post/54520561695/reasons-why-im-not-supporting-disneys-frozen

Plus

Musica esta noche

http://accentmusictherapy.com/music-for-the-heart/

Yuna - Come As You Are



Laura Mulva - Green Garden



VOCO - Steam Plant Body Percussion

Perplexing in any order

b/c of http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mmw/2013/07/muslimahs-want-their-mtv/

THIS SUMMER

from

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/06/14/191568762/at-the-movies-the-women-are-gone

 

http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2013/07/jane-leeves-plastic-surgery-destroying-hollywood-career/

from feministdisney

 

Disney's Frozen Trailer

(watched b/c of http://www.dailydot.com/fandom/feminist-disney-tumblr-mari-rogers-interview/)


MAGNUM LIBROS

From How to live...



From Das mah Church

Halp, Manic Pixieness is Afoot

http://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2013/06/i-was-manic-pixie-dream-girl-now-i%E2%80%99m-busy-casting-spells-myself

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2013/07/02/somewhat-in-defense-of-the-manic-pixie-dream-girl/

I must admit to a fondness for Flora and Elfine...


Robert Post's child



Elfine on a Hillside

It's really hard to find any pictures of Elfine that aren't of her "after" transformation. That's kind of annoying.

Trees

Oh, pristine meadow...

Oh, tree...

hello d my old friend

oh dreams, and weighty meanings...

From fanpop

The Graduate - Sound of Silence/Scarborough Fair
I had an interesting dream a while back and I feel like it's actually gotten a little bit depressing not to write anything about it. But first, I feel like talking about vacation.  A few weeks ago, I was in a motel and there was this movie on T.V. I didn't feel like watching, but, as in many cases, person I was with was being entertained and not bothered by the gratuitous masculine violence, etc. and so, even though I somewhat voiced my disapproval, I let it slide and then it was over and I went to bed. The next morning, I was sick, sick, sick. Icky things about life and the world were getting to me and it was hard to make it stop. Another problem I'd been having was waking up and being excruciatingly thirsty.  I wondered if I had food poisoning again but I didn't think so.  I tried to listen to meditation music, but it didn't seem to be helping. I was just able to drag myself out of bed and get into the shower. Ohhhh...the shower. HOT WATER IS THE BEST. I took one after another. And I did either child's pose or the mecca pose and let the water hit my back. After the fourth shower, I was really doing a lot better. I also decided I had to stay in the hotel another night (no traffic to face in the evening, and the opportunity to take more showers!) and said I would pay for it. I also said "NO violent movies for me before I go to bed." Now I can say something about the dream. Not long after I saw the film about "the bride" getting her revenge, I had a dream where a blond psychic woman wanted to talk to me. She said "He is a person with a lot of integrity and the people who work for him are very happy." She wanted to make sure that I knew this. I feel like it was an interesting and useful dream. Sometimes I think I have interesting ideas and stories inside of me but I don't even know if I want to deal with them, at all. Maybe sometimes I can see that another person is great at something and can get their ideas and stories out into the world. But if I am in a certain place, to me, it's as if their stuff feels like it's laced with peanuts and unfortunately, I become like one of those people with severe allergies. Or, like the grandma in the supermarket who just wants to see nice and happy things. In the words of the estimable Ricky Martin... es la vida que culpa tengo yo...  If I get in a certain space, I only care about being able to function. In that space, in that moment, what I need is just to see/feel the energy of a cheesy, light-hearted Hallmark card. It depends on the situation.

glitter & palm tree silhouettes

Strange thing I've noticed since I've moved here: Viewing 4th of July fireworks requires almost no planning. Simply walk 10 steps out the door to see a fairly lengthy show of pyrotechnics. Just another idiosyncratic feature of living in this part of the world...

From Adhesive Love

These pair well together

Be a Mind Sticker.

It's Not About The Nail.

Foodstuff

From So Moved

Oh good grief, it's a holiday

Flashbacks from grad school and restaurant work aside, I'm not exactly sure how I wound up starting off my 4th of July morning with these?

1) Question:
"Your regimen involves running 10 miles every other day, a ton of push-ups and a strict one-meal-a-day policy, of which you once wrote, “By dinner, I’m starving; more crucially, I’m deserving.”

Answer:
"I can see how the fact that I eat one meal a day is eye-catching for a journalist, but you know, David Petraeus eats one meal a day, and nobody says that’s a really disturbed relationship to food. The assumption with David Petraeus is, Oh, that’s a military man. In women the assumption is you’re some kind of neurotic."       

--http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/magazine/lionel-shriver-does-it-the-hard-way.html?_r=0

~~~~~

2) "The men reminded me of frat boys or something, the type of guys who see getting drunk in public as a way to assert prowess.

They left around one in the morning. I stood by the table and watched them go, dazed and relieved. An older waitress, still an aspiring actress at age 50, came up and said, "Now there goes a cautionary tale.'...I was mad that the old waitress who called herself an actress thought of him rather than herself as the cautionary table. Hers was the fate I feared for myself, not his. And I was mad that Jay Mac made it easy for her to think that. Before I knew who this guy at my table was, I’d already decided I didn’t like him. I never disliked any strangers. Except the ones at this table. And then, that old waitress told me who he was, and I almost lost my mind...

So I left. I moved to Milledgeville, Georgia, where I wrote all day and read thick books and when I got stuck on the thick books, I bailed myself out with Jay McInerney. Reading McInerney in Georgia, his work came to feel like an elegy for a phase I was glad to be done with. And, reading McInerney in the South has its charms. He writes about the South a lot. Alison in Story of My Life is from Virginia. The Last of the Savages takes place in the Delta. Jeff from The Good Life recovers from his affair’s fallout in Tennessee. But reading Jay Mac from the distant precinct of the Deep South, his world started to look, maybe, quaint? Like, taking it as self-evident that beautiful women, financiers, and writers made for the sexiest possible conglomerate of people was a tired-out trope?

I met a girl in Milledgeville. We were at a party and I was fucked up out of my mind and I’ll never forget how her entrance sprung me from my stupor, so incredible was her beauty and command of the room...I don’t know what the hell’s going to happen with her, but at least she’s 21 now, so when I pull into town, I can take her to dinner at Minetta and we can legally split a bottle of wine.

I have a fantasy that Jay Mac will be seated right beside me."

--http://www.salon.com/2012/10/03/jay_mcinerney_the_new_york_fantasy_and_wine_salpart/

8 books I haven't read yet, and one I have

SUMMER READING! SUMMER READING! SUMMER READING!
Of interest!
1)  The Ocean At The End of The Lane
 Also, because of this Summer Reading List...
2) Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway
(even though I almost skipped reading about it because something about the cover threw me off)
3) A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
I will try to get through the viscera...
4) The Woman Upstairs 
Sounds kinda scary...
5) Queen Bee of Tuscany
Before bedtime reading?
6) Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation
I wish to finally learn what "braising" actually means
7) Beautiful Ruins
(waited for weeks for that book and when I finally got it from the library, I didn't get to read it! I will try again)
~~~~
A while back, I did read another book I'd waited for: the YA novel about the red-haired Eleanor and Park.  When it finally became available, I was personally amused to see 1)  an artist's blog I'd just been looking at featured a very red-haired person who was in Milan (an interesting place I've thought about)  and 2) this from the author's website http://rainbowrowell.com/blog/2013/04/why-is-park-korean/
~~~~
And! (not from that reading list) I'm interested in:
8) The Pink Hotel
~~~~
That's 8. 8 is enough. Good luck, self.
~~~~
Then again, if I just spent the summer half-watching old game shows on youtube, WKRP in Cincinnati vs. Love Boat would probably beat out 8 is Enough vs. Dallas because...
It's WKRP in Cincinnati...

A mappy day

significant-moment-of-the-day: zoning out in front of a map on the wall of a quiet, empty classroom...used to...live...there (finger map contact)

now...live...there... (map finger contact)

Thinking about glamourous stories and others

From Evan's Fruit Company

After reading about how Wendy Davis has been compared to characters in television shows, I also came across a show from last week about the dangers farmworkers face, read the sad story of she-never-even-reached-her-18th-birthday Jacqueline Abundez, and wondered, if Rose in The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake really existed, what would she taste in her fruits and vegetables?