south of the loop

Okay, not really. Maybe I'm being a little, ahem, melodramatic. But my closet started to crash at 1:30 the other morning, and it continues to collapse in on itself. I'm not sure how long it can remain in its current bowed state before gravity takes over. It has already fallen approximately twelve inches from where the doohickeys held it to the wall.

This will require me to remove everything from the closet–and you'll note that it is both MESSY and FULL–and see if the shelve can be re-situated into the little doohickeys that hold it up. My guess is that the doohickeys are broken and will need to be replaced.

• Problem #1: there is no additional closet space in my apartment. There is really no additional space in my apartment, period. If the closet-cleaning and doohickey replacement cannot happen in one day, then the only place for the contents of my MESSY and FULL closet are the living room floor.
• Problem #2: it is impossible to keep Monte out of the closet. He can, and will, open the doors if I close them. This means that an 11 pound monster jumps up onto the shelf at least once a day. Doesn't exactly help the problem.
• Problem #3: I have exactly three weeks to finish my master's thesis. This does not allow time for closet-purging or doohickey-replacing.
• Problem #4: I am behind–like, really, really, behind–in my two classes. I have FOUR papers to write in addition to finishing my master's thesis.
• Problem #5: when I do get a "free" day, it is really going to have to be dedicated to getting Clarabelle spayed, since there is a chance she might be knocked up. And dealing with a litter of kittens is WAY more terrifying than the contents of my closet being spread out on the living room floor.

So I know that I'm probably making a mountain out of a molehill, but the impending closet collapse is just more than I can think about right now. Take a look:

* * *

current book: I think I could recite my thesis to you from memory.
current music: Kings of Convenience, Versus
current socks: royal blue with red toes and heels, and Superman's "S" shield on the ankle. Who knew all three primary colors could look so good together?

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Last night, I drowned my thesis sorrows in:

• one IBC root beer
• one-half of a medium shroom & spinach pizza
• one hour of America's Next Top Model
• three consecutive hours of Grey's Anatomy

Slightly hungover, but otherwise feeling much better today. Spent the afternoon confronting my thesis and attempting to organize and discipline the notions of immediacy, authenticity, wonderment, and aura. Meeting with Advisor on Monday. 

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I just got official comments back on the rough draft of my essay. It includes things such as “this is in decent shape for a formal rough draft, but you have a frenzy of work ahead of you,” and “rewrite the entire first essay from scratch,” and “You’re in danger of making us chuckle” (not in a good way!).

Damn.

See you sometime after May 22. I’ve got a frenzy of work ahead of me.

* * *

current book: the essay “Narration in the Fiction Film” by David Bordwell. Yawn. oh, and also my thesis. perhaps only my thesis for the next month.
current music: Joy Division’s “She Lost Control” over and over and over and over
current socks: I think today shows a clear need for the crabby socks. they are bright turquoise with red crabs all over them.

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It saddens me a little bit that my life is so consumed by school right now that every social activity must be blogged for posterity, or at least as proof of my leaving Hyde Park. Saturday night, after attending a BBQ at a friend's house on the north side, I met my roommate at the Sox/35th Red Line stop in Bridgeport. We hopped on the 35 Bus to Iron Street, where we walked a block on a deserted brick road punctuated by waterlogged potholes and lined with old warehouses.

Awaiting us at 3636 S. Iron Street, a dark warehouse building, was Version Fest, a "festival focused on emerging art, technology, and social activism." I'd wanted to go because the festival seemed to have a special place in its heart for street art and other urban ephemera that might have some impact on the things I've been thinking about for my thesis. We found the side door, paid our $5, and entered.

The ground floor was, well, interesting. It was populated by hopelessly self-obsessed hipsters sipping PBRs. (side note: when did hipster fashion take a turn toward the 80s? All the gold-threaded lace tights and legwarmers and–gasp–neon leggings.) Our normal clothes rendered us invisible. The hopelessly self-obsessed hipsters never even saw us walking through the art. I found most of the ground floor art poorly thought out and moderately executed. A few notable exceptions included a huge, acrylic, tent-like dome. Images of trash–cigarettes, crushed Negro Modelo cans, wadded up paper–were printed all over the acrylic. I'm not sure how the artist made it; it looked like the image had been hand-painted and then mass-reproduced. The reproduction was done in very muted colors, but the pixelation was pop art-esque, like Roy Lichenstein's comic books.

Another interesting piece was a little wooden cabin, maybe three feet high, wedged into a corner. Cedar chips spilled out of its front door. Its lit interior revealed a number of paintings hanging on the wall, crude renditions of girls and birds. Again, there weren't any labels or other explanatory text, so I don't know anything more. But I liked it.

We wandered up to the fourth floor, which promised "Urban Gardening." This art, even though I didn't love all of it, was much more carefully thought out. Photos of recent immigration rallies, instructions for making your own sidewalk stencil (best one: map of the world with an arrow pointing to the USA with the words, "not an island"), live action silk-screening, and free stickers proclaiming "You Are Beautiful." And, of course, more hopelessly self-obsessed hipsters sipping PBRs.

On both the ground floor and the fourth floor, a group called Go! Postal had set up shop. They had created a little scene meant to look like a post office. But they had rubber stamps. And how! I was like a little kid, stamping everything in sight (including my hand–"Duchamp is a Jerk"–and my roommate's hand–"X RATED"). Singing cowgirls, abstract designs, stars cut from rubber erasers (genius!), "Art? Yes or No", and all other manner of rubberized ridiculousness. I'm pretty sure the Go! Postal people had some point to all of this, but really, it was like being set loose during arts and crafts hour.

Another artist had recycled street signs into urban swings. He chopped up the signs, nailed them to a wooden board, and secured them to the ceiling with rope and other fancy hardware. I think I might still be high from all the swinging–seriously, it's the best therapy ever. Totally worth the rope burn on my hands. I highly recommend you find a playground one night soon and touch the stars with your toes.

* * *

current book: Mrs. Fucking Dalloway and her motherfuckin' party. I think the pages are laced with opium, as it puts me to sleep everytime I crack open its spine.
current music: Talk To Her soundtrack. It's heartbreaking until Caetano Veloso sings "Cuccuruccu Paloma," which explodes with hope and bittersweetness and everything in between. The cello is this beautiful, sad voice underscoring Veloso's words. Get your tissue handy and download it immediately.
current socks: I wore flip-flops today, which left blisters on the tops of my feet. Hmph.

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Some friends of mine in Indianapolis found this little girl hunting for breakfast beneath their bird feeder one morning. It wasn't until the kitty snuggled into my friend's neck that she realized somebody had cut off all her whiskers–even the ones on her eyebrows. So of course my friends took her in, gave her a bath, got her dewormed, and began searching for a home for her. I was in Indy over Easter, and I met her, fell in love, and took her back to Chicago to meet her big brother.

Monte was named after Monte Hale, the last of the singing cowboys, who starred in a number of B-westerns in the 1940s and 50s. (My Monte doesn't sing, but he does do all his own stunts). I'd been calling the new kitty "Gorby" because of the silly-looking black splotch across her nose, but making fun of somebody else's birthmark doesn't really make me feel like A Good Person, so I did a little noodling around the internet to see if I could find something that would go with "Monte." Turns out that Monte Hale starred in a 1946 movie–as himself, natch–called The Man from Rainbow Valley, in which he has a kid sister named Clarabelle. And, of course, there's the old Disney character Clarabelle Cow, and this little black-and-white girl does make you want to mooooo at her.

Introducing….

         Clarabelle Gorbachev

Monte couldn't be happier. The two of them chase each other, wrestle, tumble, play through the dust ruffle on my bed, and then chase each other some more.

And no crazy cat lady jokes, please. Two cats does not a crazy cat lady make.

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I'm fascinated with spaces lately. If there's space, there's time, unpredictability, possibility. Spaces between the art and artist. Spaces between art and observer. And now, spaces between the aura and the jolt. I came across this particular space, or the idea of it, in the poem "Seizure" by Philip Jenks. An excerpt:

the spaces between the aura
and the jolt are shorter
like some epileptic thunderstorm
waiting for the eye.

Analyzing poetry really isn't my strong suit, and I know I'm bringing all of my own incorrect meanings to this little stanza (it's about a seizure, after all, not art). Presumably Jenks is talking about the space and time between the aura of the seizure, that first premonition, and the moment it actually starts. But I'm still hooked. Hooked on the idea that there's a space between the perception and the synthesis, a space between knowing something's about to happen and it actually happening, a space between the shimmering web of an idea and being suddenly captured into its sticky strings, a space between the aura and the aha!, the aura and the jolt. Even though Jenks and I are talking about two different things, I'm intrigued that he calls it a space, not time. For both of us, it's a place. A place of unpredictability and possibility.

* * *

current book: Mrs. Dalloway. *sigh*
current music: The Sixths' Wasps Nest
current socks: brownish-red with cats and the words, "here kitty kitty"

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One thing I've learned about writing this year is that much of it is a science. Grammar plays a huge part in elegance and eloquence, and part of being a good writer is being able to tap into that during the revision process. But, of course, much of it remains subjective.

I just received comments on one of my essays from An Established Writer (not Advisor or Preceptor). Writer read the essay about my experience of seeing a Georgia O'Keeffe calendar seven months after condition-reporting the original painting. The essay begins in Borders at Christmastime, where I saw the O'Keeffe calendar with Yellow Cactus on the cover. It moves to the Eiteljorg museum, where I condition-reported Yellow Cactus, and then to Taos, where the painting was born. I think it's probably my strongest essay, and I've worked and worked and worked to tighten the narrative structure. I want it to take the reader on the same kind of journey that the painting took me on. I want it to stare art right in the face, with lush, vivid, descriptions, and then take a step back and think about why my experiences were so powerful.

Writer suggested that that framework was awkward and unnecessary. He says:

The problem is that your great subject–the difference between studying an original painting and looking at a mere reproduction–is hung, so to speak, in an awkward frame: the Borders/Christmas thing. You can cut all of that stuff and lose almost nothing. I know it's there to warm up to your subject, and to provide some comedy, but the reader doesn't want to warm up, she wants to go straight to the chase. And Christmas is not funny. It's been done to death. Avoid the subject at all cost. Your framing of your real, original story with this device detracts from the fascinating process of "interrogating" the paintings with the loupe, about which I urge you to say even more in your next draft. Hone in on that and the unnecessary information about Borders and Christmas and Taos' "discovery" by the white man and Walter Benjamin will fade away entirely, or into a mere sentence or two, and your essay will come into perfect focus. It's almost there.

This is incredibly interesting advice, and I don't really know what to make of it. I like the idea of having a framework that, to use museum jargon, is a kind of way-finder for the reader. And I've been pretty attached to the idea of reflecting on my experiences, not just relating them (hence Walter Benjamin). But I also appreciate that those aren't the strongest moments of the essay.

I've been working on this essay for months and months now, and it's difficult for me to have a good idea of what a reader might want. So I'm paying close attention to Writer's advice, since he hasn't seen previous versions of this essay. And subjectivity reenters the scene: who's to say that framework is better than no framework? Advisor and Preceptor–both excellent writers–have encouraged a narrative framework that carries the writer through the story. I wish that this was as scientific as establishing elegance through fun grammatical tricks, and I wish that there was some gold standard I could hold my work up to compare to.

I thought that the worst of the frustration would be over now that I've turned my rough draft in. How wrong I was… but I'm going to play around with Writer's advice and see what I think of the essay when it's been stripped of its frame. Stay tuned.

* * *

current book: still Mrs. Dalloway, although I'm far, far, behind where I should be
current music: The Deathray Davies' The Kick and The Snare
current socks: "I Heart San Francisco" socks covered in hearts and trolleys and sunshines and palm trees and golden gate bridges

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I really do love the irony of spending Easter in Zionsville. I arrived in Zionsville Friday night in the midst of a huge storm. I rather like the idea of big thunderstorms before Easter; it seems an appropriate way of announcing death and resurrection. And there is other Good News to announce: the rough draft of my thesis is polished, shiny, and turned in!!!!! Hooray! I'll get the revisions back in 11 days or less, and then I'll have till May 22 to keep polishin' away.

Some pictures from this Easter…

This little guy was hanging on to the back door for dear life, even once the thunder and lightening subsided.

This is OC (that's "Outdoor Cat," not "Orange County") peering into the basement:

And Easter itself, in all its springtime glory:

* * *

current book: Mrs. Dalloway (for my Time & Narrative class)
current music: I might be going to see Canasta again tonight. With that in mind, I've been listening to their cover of Kraftwerk's "The Model."
current socks: light blue with chocolate bunnies–with one missing ear, natch.

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One concept I am really struggling with as I finish my thesis is the idea of the “aura,” which was so named by literary critic Walter Benjamin. He is a beautiful writer, but I have it on good authority that the concept of the “aura” is one of the most difficult things he talks about. That makes me feel a little bit better about all the time I’m investing in trying to understand it. Here’s a sample of what I’m trying to untangle right now. It’s from a 1931 essay entitled “Little History of Photography:”

“What is aura, actually? A strange weave of space and time: the unique appearance or semblance of distance, no matter how close it may be. While at rest on a summer’s noon, to trace a range of mountains on the horizon, or a branch that throws its shadow on the observer, until the moment or the hour become part of their appearance–this is what it means to breathe the aura of those mountains, that branch. Now, to bring things closer to us, or rather to the masses, is just as passionate an inclination in our day as the overcoming of whatever is unique in every situation by means of its reproduction. Every day the need to possess the object in close-up in the form of a picture, or rather a copy, becomes more imperative. And the difference between the copy, which illustrated papers and newsreels keep in readiness, and the original picture is unmistakable. Uniqueness and duration are as intimately intertwined in the latter as are transience and reproducibility in the former.”

* * *

current book: see above
current music: “A Perfect Day” by Eiffel Tower. sweet, gritty pop bliss.
current socks: red stripes n’ hearts. yes, I know valentine’s day was two months ago.

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