click!

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I just finished (the wrong word to use, but for class and grade sake, it's true) my short story for Fiction Writing class. Katy, specifically, do you want to read it? It's all messed up and whatever - like I said, I finished at 5 40 AM but I'll send you a manuscript if you do. (That's really exciting... sending a "manuscript," Ahhhh!) Everyone else... well, I'll be tinkering with it for awhile until the deadline for the class collaboration... which is sometime in July. But at least, for now, there's a step towards completion. And even if the entire story is total bunk and rubbish, at least that's something.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. One of you will receive this book, from me, when I finish it... which will be very soon.

[Homer's mom just died]

Homer: Does my mother know I feel bad about things I said?

Apu: Well, perhaps she's around us now. She might already have been reincarnated as that newborn baby or that tiny mouse in the nacho cheese.

Flanders: Oh for crying out loud, people aren't mice!

Apu: Oh, what a surprise! Joe Jesus Junior's gonna set us all straight!

Flanders: Look, Homer. People don't come back as anything, except for our Lord who came back as bread and that's it.

Homer: That's it.

Homer sighs, picks up his groceries and slumps out of the Kwik-E-Mart

Apu: That's the thing with your religion - it's a bummer.

Flanders: Even the sing-alongs?

Apu: No, the sing-alongs are okay.

Loss of All Control

It's 2 30 AM. I got here - the darkroom - at 7 45 PM, which means that I've been in here for almost eight hours. There are six speakers arranged within Elbert's room and mine. Yeah, okay. Only three of them work right now, but it's been very enjoyable to work with a booming bass and decent treble. Officially, I'm out of full-sized sheets of photo paper. On Monday, I hope to obtain a good stash.
Summer is here and that means a number of things. Most noticeably, campus has become a ghost-town, a shell. During the year, I wouldn't normally call Dordt full of life, but still something alive. Maybe it's not constantly in motion, but then, at least you could tell yourself that everyone is sleeping or on facebook.
Steady, tedious movements, but movements nonetheless.
Now there isn't even that - just an ominous wind that shoots around the caverns of what used to be the living quarters of students.
Again - yeah, okay. I know a good number of people that stuck around. And I'm looking forward to seeing you guys, regularly, this summer.
I found a few days ago that large amounts of sleep lead to bouts of depression in morning... or whenever it is that I wake up, lay in bed, and close my eyes again. It's better that I'm in here, working on images from the show. Hopefully Luke Society contacts me soon so I can start editing, so I can start working. Working, I mean, before I start a regular, wake with the sun, sleep with the moon, job. Organic farming, hooray!

A lot of people left for good the other day. Strangely, it took until the last couple hours of their residence here for Mary and I to have a lengthy conversation. It was really fun - heard an outrageous saga of fear, fear, near-death disaster, facades and then they got married and do things together like drive to Minneapolis for a puppy or purchase homes mostly for the sake of rebuilding it. Terrific - we'll see you guys sometime this summer.

Mostly, this post is something I'll use to put some thoughts into words. You know, to keep up on it. Also, for anyone else who will need some more time to adjust.

Best American Short Stories may have had their best year in 2004. The fourth story, Accomplice by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum came very, very close to my favorite short story ever. And then I read the very next one, Screenwriter by Charles D'Ambrosio. Perhaps just as marvelous.

Despite the first, winding paragraph of emo, I'm really looking forward to the summer - largely because of these short stories and a discussion I had with my mom. It started as one of those, "What are you going to do with your life," deals, but it seems she was very excited about my pursuing writing, film, photography and that jazz. She even supported a potential culinary venture. What the heck? Maybe it was exactly what I needed midway through my college career. (Yes, it's still jarring to say that.) (Oh by the way, my dad asked me before this discussion if I felt lonely without a girlfriend. Hahaha!) Mom thinks I should work as a journalist for awhile, initially after graduation, to gain some experience and practice. Super smart. And then I told her that I really don't like working for people (it's not that I hate all authority - I love working with people - I think I could more productive, however, if I didn't have a 'boss.')

A lot of my friends are headed to LA Film school for senior year. Should I join them or should I take Chicago instead? Film or Writing? Mom, I'll be taking photographs wherever I go.

(you can click this to make it bigger!)

I hesitated to post again because the image (Sarah, Sam and myself) is so terrific and the song (Resurrection Fern), so beautiful, that I didn't want to put something on top of it. But I thought of another beautiful song. The above image is of Sir Duitman and NISO company practicing for their last concert together. At the moment of shutter release, the symphony was warming up in swooping progressions and there was power - disturbances in the air so great and in such control, I ceased to breathe.

Sleep
Sleep tonight
And may your dreams be realized
If the thunder clouds passes rain
So let it rain
Rain down on he

So let it be

So let it be

Sleep
Sleep tonight
And may your dreams be realized
If the thunder cloud passes rain
So let it rain
Let it rain
Rain down on he

-MLK, u2

Yeah, I coupled the power and control of the image with this song, which actually plays very serenely but I suppose I associated the song with more of power than of rest and comfort. Dr. King's non-violent stance was stronger than anything he was ever up against. So let it rain.

I have thirteen pages to write in a little more than nine hours. I have the research read, the ideas running about my cognitive factory... but I'm not sure I have what is needed to discuss the relationship between Buddhism and medicine. The Dalai Lama has a great essay about how religion affects the modern world - "To wear robes and speak about God but think selfishly is not a religious act. On the other hand, a politician or a lawyer with real concern for humankind who takes actions that benefit others is truly practicing religion. The goal must be to serve others, not dominate them."

I suppose I also have a speech to write within ten hours - due to present the class after term paper is handed in. But I'm schedule to go last, after six or so other people so I might not even have time to give my speech. Wouldn't that be nice? BUT THEN, I have an hour break after THAT class to write a compare/contrast paper on two films that we have seen this semester, but that I don't remember all that well.

After that class (three hour class!), I'll be in the mac lab, furiously editing a documentary that must be accessible by Wednesday for Ideafest. Hopefully then, dead week will begin.

I really didn't imagine this post to become about my obligations - I really wanted to talk about love and how difficult it is, but at the same time, how drawn we are to that action (yes, action).

For those of you who are interested, THIS (click) is the article on Buddhism and medicine.

In our days we will live
Like our ghosts will live
Pitching glass at the cornfield crows
And folding clothes

Like stubborn boys across the road
We'll keep everything
Grandma's gun and the black bear claw
That took her dog

When Sister Lowery says, "Amen"
We won't hear anything
The ten-car trains will take that word
That fledgling bird

And the fallen house across the way
It'll keep everything
The baby's breath
Our bravery wasted and our shame

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

In our days we will say
What our ghosts will say
We gave the world what it saw fit
And what'd we get?

Like stubborn boys with big green eyes
We'll see everything
In the timid shade of the autumn leaves
And the buzzard's wing

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Our tender bellies are wound around in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

-Resurrection Fern

A lot of these are vulnerable to time changes, but next semester looks like...

Tuesday/Thursday

Design and Composition
Advanced Expos. 1
Scriptwriting and Analysis
Photo III

Monday/Wednesday/Friday

Canadian Literature

...and then indie film whenever the hell we can.

Another 18 credits. Eventually, I'll have to take Econ. or Poli. Sci and some friggin' HPER courses. Weirdly enough, I think I'm pretty close to fulfilling my major (English: Writing) already. I have a friend that took on another major - she's double majoring - because... well, I think because she was in my situation... but intensified... as in she had almost fulfilled HER English:Writing major last year... so she took on a Lit. major too.

We are shooting a documentary about Dungeons and Dragons.

I know, "Why? Why does it matter?"

That's what we're wrestling with. We began the semester with a more clear focused project - compare and contrast a public high school with a private one, follow one kid from each around, look at state and national statistics, interview family and assess how each school prepares their students.

And then we decided, a little bit in, that it was too ambitious, that the red tape involved with cameras at a school is too much, we don't have enough time to do this important topic justice.

I wonder what we'll do with this one... because we don't have a clear POV, a stance.

The other kids in class are
-following a (former) homeless man and exploring his life and family
-following a mentally disabled maintenance worker around, exploring his life and (somewhat) his family
-looking at tattoo culture, interviewing tattoo artists and obtaining different students' opinions

We have footage on a table-top role-playing game.

Do we focus on HOW TO PLAY, THE PLAYERS ON CAMPUS, or, to be vague, WHAT THE GAME IS... that last one encompasses every specific path we could have gone.

Because in order to show what Dungeons and Dragons is... we have to, at least, lay the basics of how to play... and somehow make it interesting enough for people to watch within ten minutes? Maybe more? There are different facets, if we do go with this POV, that we have to cover... and it's extremely tedious to START watching a game, pausing to have some voice-over narration (yes, it may come to that) explain what they're about to do... watch them do it... and then start to do something else right before the narrator pauses and explains THAT part of the game.

Grar!

Would you watch this?

At this point, I don't think I would. Why does this matter?

Maybe, in a couple days, I can find the words that describe how this photograph makes me feel.

Undercover

A friend of mine, let's call him Alonzo, told me about an opportunity to make $40 doing clerical work for a company right outside of town. "Seven thirty to nine or nine thirty, do you know where Teerzjik trucking is?" I said why not and, also, yeah, I've passed by it before. Alonzo, I also said, keep your phone on so I can find you.

Here I am, in the building with the Teerzjik truck in front, next to the Sup Ream factory. It smells like damp and industrial cleaning supplies. Through the front door are two stairways - one going down, with a sign that says "WORKERS ONLY" and one going up with a sign that asks you to please use the handrails for your safety (the one going up led to the office, where I am typing this right now - both stairs were wet and slippery, why slippery?). There are posters with photographs of hog carcass as they are going through the line, indicating the levels of lung damage that the factory employees can impose on the inner organs. There are piglets playing in hay and American flags on the wall paper trim. In this lady's desk in which I am typing this, there are pictures of her daughters. They are adorable. A lady came in without a word to mop the floor in here.

I don't know what I should do. A part of me wants to hide in one of these closets until everybody goes home, call Bearemy to bring me the camera (and a barf bucket), call Skip to bring video cameras - Alonzo turned off his phone - and explore. Something just creaked. Shit, that was scary.
These office workers left all of their things as if they had just stepped out for a cigarette - this lady's calculator is on, her travel mug full and various papers are still out. The gentleman next door left all his electronics on as well.

Document: Head Counts by Hog Type
4/1/08

Beelor - 155 31,806
Boars - 433 82,728
Niman - 1,191 237,551
REG/Other - 1,462 253,783

Grand Total - 3,321 620,829

Whoa.

Shit. The phone is ringing. Ah!
I'm getting out of here!

(to be continued...?)

It isn't possible to be who I want to be to everybody... because of various reasons, but one of them is that it's not in my constitution to be a good guy. This is not okay, but it isn't horrible because I'm not supposed to meddle in everybody's business. Forcibly involving yourself onto other people and their problems because you THINK you care about them is extremely destructive.

Outside of Dan's bedroom are four, maybe five, stacks of books from the library that he will use on a research paper. Each stack is about six tall and each book is dense.
Outside of mine are the remains from that one night. Hamlet, essays of Thoreau, poems of Yeats, McCartney's Blackbird, Milton's collected works and so forth.

All around this room tonight,
now there's nothing we can do
to make each other feel alright

Instead of trying to tell me how to be
just focus on tomorrow
instead of on me

Nothing Happening, Ben Kweller



On Sunday, there should be a "Dress Up Like Your Hero" shindig. And there may very well be, even if it's just celebrated with smoke and a walk around town with me wearing a nametag that says "Elliott Smith." Or standing next to a tall white guy shaking a tambourine around, trying to get into movies.

bats aren't bugs

this

and this

I don't remember a white fungus on ours... do you, Matt?