In other news, here is a cool new word I found:
AUTOSCHEDIASM
It comes from Greek, auto is self and schedios is casual or offhand. Together they make a noun that refers to improvisation or something extemporized.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Snow Day
It has been snowing since I got up at 6 this morning, and it has not yet stopped or slowed. My car is buried under at least a foot of snow, but I don't have to go anywhere today because school was cancelled YEAH! An extra day to study for my Euro test. Another plus, it's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful outside.
But I have a problem with snow days; when I am alone for long periods of time, I think. Generally I just depress myself. Today was not much different.
I tried to figure out what inanimate object I am most like. I had already decided that I was m ore like an inanimate object than an animate one, you see. At first I thought perhaps a dead leaf. It lets itself drift about stiffly and then crumbles into pieces beneath a boot or buries itself beneath a pile of other dead leaves and rots. Then, the lamp on the little desk in the living room caught my eye. I thought, "I am like a lamp." I am purely decorative. People light me up when they will, use whatever illumination I provide, and turn me off again. Then I realized that I could not be a lamp, for a lamp may be turned on, and the reason that I was comparing myself to these various inanimate objects was my uncertainty that I was at all sexual. So, now I was thinking about lamps and sexuality and I noticed that lamps are, in fact, rather sensuous. The squat, rounded base I was picturing seemed like some sort of fertility symbol. I was reminded of that voluptuous prehistoric stone Venus that appears in the first chapter of every art history book I've ever read. The lamps are pregnant, I suppose. And even more appropriately, pregnant women are often said to be glowing. Then, I realized the lamp I had had in mind was hidden away in the back room, and the lamp that I was actually looking at had a very straight base, more like a brass dowel. In fact, as I looked around the room, every lamp that I could see was long and thin. The only one that was even slightly bulbous was clear glass with a straight metal rod inside. I cannot decide whether this is another example of my family's sexual repression, or whether it means that my mother (as she is the one who decorated the house and chose the lamps) is somehow dominated by my father, the only male in the household and therefore the only one to whom a phallic symbol could refer. Sometime within the week I shall take inventory of all our lamps. Maybe there are curvy ones upstairs?
Gah! This is what happens. I can't even decide whether or not this sounds idiotic yet. It probably does and I won't be able to see it objectively enough to notice for months. Frustration.
But I have a problem with snow days; when I am alone for long periods of time, I think. Generally I just depress myself. Today was not much different.
I tried to figure out what inanimate object I am most like. I had already decided that I was m ore like an inanimate object than an animate one, you see. At first I thought perhaps a dead leaf. It lets itself drift about stiffly and then crumbles into pieces beneath a boot or buries itself beneath a pile of other dead leaves and rots. Then, the lamp on the little desk in the living room caught my eye. I thought, "I am like a lamp." I am purely decorative. People light me up when they will, use whatever illumination I provide, and turn me off again. Then I realized that I could not be a lamp, for a lamp may be turned on, and the reason that I was comparing myself to these various inanimate objects was my uncertainty that I was at all sexual. So, now I was thinking about lamps and sexuality and I noticed that lamps are, in fact, rather sensuous. The squat, rounded base I was picturing seemed like some sort of fertility symbol. I was reminded of that voluptuous prehistoric stone Venus that appears in the first chapter of every art history book I've ever read. The lamps are pregnant, I suppose. And even more appropriately, pregnant women are often said to be glowing. Then, I realized the lamp I had had in mind was hidden away in the back room, and the lamp that I was actually looking at had a very straight base, more like a brass dowel. In fact, as I looked around the room, every lamp that I could see was long and thin. The only one that was even slightly bulbous was clear glass with a straight metal rod inside. I cannot decide whether this is another example of my family's sexual repression, or whether it means that my mother (as she is the one who decorated the house and chose the lamps) is somehow dominated by my father, the only male in the household and therefore the only one to whom a phallic symbol could refer. Sometime within the week I shall take inventory of all our lamps. Maybe there are curvy ones upstairs?
Gah! This is what happens. I can't even decide whether or not this sounds idiotic yet. It probably does and I won't be able to see it objectively enough to notice for months. Frustration.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The Least Threatening Tailgater
A sunny yellow bug with a flower in the windshield followed me for ~10 minutes on the way home today. It wanted me to go faster, but I couldn't take it seriously!
Poetry!
I chose this poem to analyze for an English paper and it was COOL.
Musee des Beaux Arts
W. H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there must always be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a cornor, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the foresaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
So, why was it cool? The Musee des Beaux Arts = the Musee royal des Beaux Arts de Belgique in Brussels. It is the home of Breughel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. The coolness comes in here - I had been a bit confused about the entire first sentence. Seriously, I thought, where did this stuff about dogs and torturers and horses with the itchy butts come from? Then, while looking through a collection of Breughel's works, I saw The Census of Bethlehem (containing a pregnant Mary, a dude opening a window, and a bunch of kids skating) and the Massacre of the Innocents (dogs and a knight on a horse by a tree in the bottom right corner). Better, they're both at the Musee, too.
I love finding things that allow you to imagine the situation surrounding the conception of a creative work.
Yes! And Mrs. B says my analysis of sound devices and structure rocked her socks (my words). AND she didn't get angry when I called Auden a little raincloud. Overall, this paper writing experience rates a 10, I think.
Musee des Beaux Arts
W. H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there must always be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a cornor, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the foresaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
So, why was it cool? The Musee des Beaux Arts = the Musee royal des Beaux Arts de Belgique in Brussels. It is the home of Breughel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. The coolness comes in here - I had been a bit confused about the entire first sentence. Seriously, I thought, where did this stuff about dogs and torturers and horses with the itchy butts come from? Then, while looking through a collection of Breughel's works, I saw The Census of Bethlehem (containing a pregnant Mary, a dude opening a window, and a bunch of kids skating) and the Massacre of the Innocents (dogs and a knight on a horse by a tree in the bottom right corner). Better, they're both at the Musee, too.
I love finding things that allow you to imagine the situation surrounding the conception of a creative work.
Yes! And Mrs. B says my analysis of sound devices and structure rocked her socks (my words). AND she didn't get angry when I called Auden a little raincloud. Overall, this paper writing experience rates a 10, I think.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
So, I am actually going to keep up a sketch blog. For real.
To start:
A nice transition from my old blog to this new one, I think.
+the blue is appropriate because it is MIDTERM WEEK. This could fuck with my straight A average, which would make me look like a slacking senior, which would prevent me from getting into a good school - THIS IS ALL VERY DEPRESSING I MUST STOP.
It is nice that my grades won't really matter next semester, though. I might actually have time to read some books outside of those assigned for school. I'm thinking... Kant, maybe? Supposedly you need to reread his books several times to understand them, and now that I have time, why not?
Getting ahead of myself. You don't have time yet, silly! You have a calculus midterm.
To start:
A nice transition from my old blog to this new one, I think.
+the blue is appropriate because it is MIDTERM WEEK. This could fuck with my straight A average, which would make me look like a slacking senior, which would prevent me from getting into a good school - THIS IS ALL VERY DEPRESSING I MUST STOP.
It is nice that my grades won't really matter next semester, though. I might actually have time to read some books outside of those assigned for school. I'm thinking... Kant, maybe? Supposedly you need to reread his books several times to understand them, and now that I have time, why not?
Getting ahead of myself. You don't have time yet, silly! You have a calculus midterm.
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