Every now and then, I get really excited by an artist. Like when Sarah Silverman says "his brisket is beyond...beyond." Like that. I get beyond...beyond. Last year around this time, it was Regina Specter. Still quite happy about her (especially since moving from "Begin to Hope" to "Soviet Kitsch") but I've found a new love.
So I was at Amanda Palmer's concert at the Avalon, which first of all... have you ever been to the Avalon? The first act was all right, I think--and by 'I think,' I mean 'I have no effing clue,' because it sounded like they were being piped through a long tunnel lined with half-empty tuna cans.
Speaking of tuna cans, I was there with my boyfriend's boyfriend Bradley Giuliani, who gave me a sound verbal beating for whining about the cold which we waited in unnecessarily for nearly an hour before the doors opened. The venue never filled quite to capacity, unless the capacity limit heralds back to the theatre's movie days--back when Charlie Chaplin rolled his eyes up and smiled sweetly through that darling mustache.
But I digress. Venue: cold, windy, large, modestly populated. Acoustics: miserable. Opening act: ??? I do remember cracking jokes with Brad on hearing such lyrics as "I'm going down in the black elevator of death..." or something like that. Hard core emo dressed up as indie/alternative. What fun.
Second act was clearly gorgeous but obviously warped by the insufficient speakers. Zoe Keating, cellist of amazing talent who overlays her own performance aided by the marvels of modern music technology, was sufficiently amazing to make me hate the much younger audience (-than me, definitely -than Brad) when they lost patience and started talking during the second and third songs. No such restlessness was displayed later in the night, however. Oh, no.
Fortunately things seemed to go better sound-wise when AFP made her highly impossible appearance (we were assured many times that she had, in fact, died), elbowed her way through the crowd (at least that's the way Brad tells it) threw off her shroud and attacked the piano in a way that made me a bit lustful.
The Danger Ensemble, an Australian improv? troupe, illuminated her text with at times pitch-perfect performances: disturbing, delightful animatronica for "Coin Operated Boy" and crazed, coordinated fans for "Guitar Hero" (I was cynically amused to see members of the audience around me picking up on some of the moves and dancing along), sometimes bordering on melodramatic (showering fake snow on a tortured Blake for "Blake Says" and falling to the ground slow-mo for the Columbine tribute "Strength Through Music") but definitely adding to the show.
It was basically a kick-ass show. Couldn't have made me love her music more, I almost NEED it (I don't need it, I don't need it, Amanda, I swear...) but it was a great experience and left me with a different impression of the artiste than I got from the music alone, and very different than I got from the multiple music videos, all of which are available on youtube. Thank you once again Bradley (*smirk*). As always your contributions are vital.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
Can't we all just get along?
Okay. Here's my thinking on the gay marriage issue.
Marriage is clearly a social construct. I think everyone can agree on that, since everyone is fighting to decide what KIND of social construct it is, i.e. who can participate. Why don't we acknowledge that in our laws? As a good friend is suggesting, why don't we completely take away the right of the government to marry couples, and instead give our government the mandate to create domestic partnerships for any and all who want them?
I'm going to take his idea a step further, though. Once government-ordained marriages are illegal and a simple contract/rights package is substituted, the only ones who will continue giving "marriage certificates" are churches. And guess what? Churches can give these to/refuse these from anyone they want.
Shouldn't that make everyone happy? No church is forced to acknowledge the marriage of/perform a marriage for anyone. On the same token, everyone's partnership is acknowledged/respected by every government body. Marriage remains intact, rights remain intact. EVERYBODY WINS.
Marriage is clearly a social construct. I think everyone can agree on that, since everyone is fighting to decide what KIND of social construct it is, i.e. who can participate. Why don't we acknowledge that in our laws? As a good friend is suggesting, why don't we completely take away the right of the government to marry couples, and instead give our government the mandate to create domestic partnerships for any and all who want them?
I'm going to take his idea a step further, though. Once government-ordained marriages are illegal and a simple contract/rights package is substituted, the only ones who will continue giving "marriage certificates" are churches. And guess what? Churches can give these to/refuse these from anyone they want.
Shouldn't that make everyone happy? No church is forced to acknowledge the marriage of/perform a marriage for anyone. On the same token, everyone's partnership is acknowledged/respected by every government body. Marriage remains intact, rights remain intact. EVERYBODY WINS.
Monday, September 29, 2008
The Titular Poem
Well, it's not perfect. It's not in the original format. But it's there. My blog's namesake. Down at the very bottom of the page, in all caps, for some reason. It will at least give you the idea. Hope you like it.
Obsessive and Happy
So. I am now a full time college access adviser. I love my job. Some days it's hard, some days it's easy, some days it's Monday. All days I am grateful for this opportunity.
It's lonelier than it looked like it would be at first. The first month we were all together, all of the advisers for the different schools, and that was fun. Now we hardly ever talk, which is sad. We have a meeting on Wednesday, though. Maybe some of us will reconnect. I hope so. But the kids are awesome--they're going through so much, and they ALL deserve to go to college, which in some cases means they deserve another chance. I only hope that I can give it to them.
Some of the faculty are so negative. I hate it. One of the kids that I encouraged to aim for the University of Utah (he'll have to get his grades up and score pretty high on the ACT) was told up front by his counselor, "You'll never get accepted to the U." I can't believe people do that! Why are these people guidance counselors? I can understand being realistic, but realistic should sound like this: "That's going to be tough. You'll have to work hard at this point, and do __ and __, but if you work hard enough, you can do it. Just in case, you should apply to a couple of backup schools that you'd also like to go to. But do your best, and I'll see what I can do for you." Instead they're creating a negative environment that turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. No wonder these kids don't graduate or go on to college. They're just living up to everyone's expectations.
In my other life, the one where I will be a novelist someday, I have entered the obsessive phase of applying to grad school. Nearly all of my free time is spent working on apps or pouring over the Speakeasy posts or TSE or Kealey blogs. I am glad to have them as a resource, even though they feed my MFA addiction. I also spend a bit of time working on my manuscript, a very disproportionate amount of time when I consider how crucial the manuscript is to the process. But I feel good about what I already have finished, and I feel really good about what I'm working on. It should be finished by mid-October and polished by mid-November, when I'll be sending in the packets to the different programs. Here is my set-in-stone list (already gave it to my recommenders, can't change it now):
I believe, deep down in my soul, that at least one of these schools will read my manuscript this year and put me right on the top of their pile (the acceptance pile, you buttheads). If not, my life will essentially be over. I'll have to change my name, shave my head, bind my breasts and become a monk. Or something. Oh! I also checked out books by faculty from most of the programs (I think all but three). I'm putting a lot more time and money in (two things that I didn't have last year) and I'm hoping that will make the difference.
In the meantime, I've got some exciting things going on. I finally found an opportunity to volunteer--I'll be helping out with the Bad Dog Rediscovers America creative writing class for teens every Tuesday night. I'm so excited. I tried to volunteer at the Road Home but no one wanted to take a writing workshop. :(
Also, I just joined the 29 Day Giving Challenge at www.29gifts.org. So I'll be blogging here about that. It should be interesting.
It's lonelier than it looked like it would be at first. The first month we were all together, all of the advisers for the different schools, and that was fun. Now we hardly ever talk, which is sad. We have a meeting on Wednesday, though. Maybe some of us will reconnect. I hope so. But the kids are awesome--they're going through so much, and they ALL deserve to go to college, which in some cases means they deserve another chance. I only hope that I can give it to them.
Some of the faculty are so negative. I hate it. One of the kids that I encouraged to aim for the University of Utah (he'll have to get his grades up and score pretty high on the ACT) was told up front by his counselor, "You'll never get accepted to the U." I can't believe people do that! Why are these people guidance counselors? I can understand being realistic, but realistic should sound like this: "That's going to be tough. You'll have to work hard at this point, and do __ and __, but if you work hard enough, you can do it. Just in case, you should apply to a couple of backup schools that you'd also like to go to. But do your best, and I'll see what I can do for you." Instead they're creating a negative environment that turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. No wonder these kids don't graduate or go on to college. They're just living up to everyone's expectations.
In my other life, the one where I will be a novelist someday, I have entered the obsessive phase of applying to grad school. Nearly all of my free time is spent working on apps or pouring over the Speakeasy posts or TSE or Kealey blogs. I am glad to have them as a resource, even though they feed my MFA addiction. I also spend a bit of time working on my manuscript, a very disproportionate amount of time when I consider how crucial the manuscript is to the process. But I feel good about what I already have finished, and I feel really good about what I'm working on. It should be finished by mid-October and polished by mid-November, when I'll be sending in the packets to the different programs. Here is my set-in-stone list (already gave it to my recommenders, can't change it now):
| Texas-Austin |
| Virginia |
| California-Irvine |
| Brown |
| Oregon |
| Johns Hopkins |
| Alabama |
| N Carolina-Greensboro |
| Syracuse |
| Notre Dame |
| Hollins |
| Wash U-St. Louis |
I believe, deep down in my soul, that at least one of these schools will read my manuscript this year and put me right on the top of their pile (the acceptance pile, you buttheads). If not, my life will essentially be over. I'll have to change my name, shave my head, bind my breasts and become a monk. Or something. Oh! I also checked out books by faculty from most of the programs (I think all but three). I'm putting a lot more time and money in (two things that I didn't have last year) and I'm hoping that will make the difference.
In the meantime, I've got some exciting things going on. I finally found an opportunity to volunteer--I'll be helping out with the Bad Dog Rediscovers America creative writing class for teens every Tuesday night. I'm so excited. I tried to volunteer at the Road Home but no one wanted to take a writing workshop. :(
Also, I just joined the 29 Day Giving Challenge at www.29gifts.org. So I'll be blogging here about that. It should be interesting.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Something to Do
Haven't written for awhile... where to start...
I have a job. A real job. Nothing against my fellow servers, who are amazing people and lovely to work with--I'm sad to leave the food industry because you cannot find a more interesting, diverse, and personable group of people--but I never considered it anything but a temporary measure to pay the bills, and this new job is more than that. I'll be working as a college outreach adviser, helping high school students to think about, apply to, and finance college. I know it's going to be hard work but if I do my job well, I'll be changing lives. It's difficult to find a job that you can say that about. I was shaking when I got the phone call. It's a temporary position, from August 1 2008 until May 31 2009, which may just work out perfectly if I get into grad school next year.
I broke my collarbone. It was one of those random, stupid, silly things, not even a good story, I was just riding my bike down a hill, hit a pot hole, and went butt-over-head, which is a much more accurate description than head-over-heels. I won't be whole until September; in the meantime I'm supposed to wear a sling but almost never do because I am a rebellious child. Also because the doctor told me I didn't have to. My collarbone is always going to stick up funny. This shouldn't be depressing but it is.
Just got back from California (San Diego and then LA). It was a wonderful trip, too short. I got to spend a morning with my Grandma, an afternoon babysitting my cousins (four of them... which is excellent birth control and confirmed my decision to only have two children when the time comes), hours and hours on beaches, an entire day with my Grandpa, who took us sailing to Coronado and then out for margaritas in Old Town, plus a tour of the Gaslamp district. Got to see my brave little cousin Ella who is just three months old and has survived two operations in conjunction with a brain tumor. Andy stepped it up and was a perfect gentleman to my Grandma, asked my Grandpa all kinds of questions that I had never thought to ask him, and didn't grumble too much when I wanted to just sit on the beach for hours. We went to the zoo, where he meowed at all the cats... silly boy. He took me to a couple of beer bars and breweries, where everything finally just clicked for me--he's been trying to train me to really appreciate beer for over a year and I've just humored him--and I got excited about some of the beers we tried, especially the Petrus Aged Pale. We went to Stone Brewery, which is just a beautiful place aside from having an amazing selection, and later in LA we went to a Biergarten where I decided that my favorite patio drink is a good Bavarian Weiss.
Also in LA: saw Wicked at Pantages. Very cool theater, elaborate and well-performed production. Lots of themes to think about. I don't remember the novel being nearly as good. Went to a Dodgers game, which was as fun as a game can be when the scoreboard looks like this:
300000000
000000001
(Andy tells me this is typical of Major League Baseball games. Almost as boring as watching golf.) Venice Beach wasn't quite what we expected--more trinkets and less performers. We wandered along the beach from the end (or start) of the boardwalk all the way to Santa Monica (?) pier.
Now we're back and busy finding a place to live (we're moving closer to downtown/U of U for Andy), working extra shifts where we can, trying to make everything work out.
Things are coming together as far as my manuscript. I feel good about the different projects I'm working on, have one just about completed and a great start on another. I need to get going on my screenplay, though. If I want to enter American Zoetrope I need to finish it by August 1. I'm only about a third of the way done. In the back of my head I guess I'm planning on doing it Kerouac-style, maybe three caffeine-fueled days of writing. Not a good plan. That's how the script started, though. I wrote the first thirty pages over the course of several feverish hours. If I finish it and love it, I'll have a tough decision to face: apply to Michener for fiction or screenwriting? Fiction is my passion but I might have better odds with a screenplay, especially a strong one. We'll see. I wish I could apply in both genres. (I can study both genres, sort of major/minor style, if I get in, but I'd love that extra chance of getting in.)
I miss the ocean.
I have a job. A real job. Nothing against my fellow servers, who are amazing people and lovely to work with--I'm sad to leave the food industry because you cannot find a more interesting, diverse, and personable group of people--but I never considered it anything but a temporary measure to pay the bills, and this new job is more than that. I'll be working as a college outreach adviser, helping high school students to think about, apply to, and finance college. I know it's going to be hard work but if I do my job well, I'll be changing lives. It's difficult to find a job that you can say that about. I was shaking when I got the phone call. It's a temporary position, from August 1 2008 until May 31 2009, which may just work out perfectly if I get into grad school next year.
I broke my collarbone. It was one of those random, stupid, silly things, not even a good story, I was just riding my bike down a hill, hit a pot hole, and went butt-over-head, which is a much more accurate description than head-over-heels. I won't be whole until September; in the meantime I'm supposed to wear a sling but almost never do because I am a rebellious child. Also because the doctor told me I didn't have to. My collarbone is always going to stick up funny. This shouldn't be depressing but it is.
Just got back from California (San Diego and then LA). It was a wonderful trip, too short. I got to spend a morning with my Grandma, an afternoon babysitting my cousins (four of them... which is excellent birth control and confirmed my decision to only have two children when the time comes), hours and hours on beaches, an entire day with my Grandpa, who took us sailing to Coronado and then out for margaritas in Old Town, plus a tour of the Gaslamp district. Got to see my brave little cousin Ella who is just three months old and has survived two operations in conjunction with a brain tumor. Andy stepped it up and was a perfect gentleman to my Grandma, asked my Grandpa all kinds of questions that I had never thought to ask him, and didn't grumble too much when I wanted to just sit on the beach for hours. We went to the zoo, where he meowed at all the cats... silly boy. He took me to a couple of beer bars and breweries, where everything finally just clicked for me--he's been trying to train me to really appreciate beer for over a year and I've just humored him--and I got excited about some of the beers we tried, especially the Petrus Aged Pale. We went to Stone Brewery, which is just a beautiful place aside from having an amazing selection, and later in LA we went to a Biergarten where I decided that my favorite patio drink is a good Bavarian Weiss.
Also in LA: saw Wicked at Pantages. Very cool theater, elaborate and well-performed production. Lots of themes to think about. I don't remember the novel being nearly as good. Went to a Dodgers game, which was as fun as a game can be when the scoreboard looks like this:
300000000
000000001
(Andy tells me this is typical of Major League Baseball games. Almost as boring as watching golf.) Venice Beach wasn't quite what we expected--more trinkets and less performers. We wandered along the beach from the end (or start) of the boardwalk all the way to Santa Monica (?) pier.
Now we're back and busy finding a place to live (we're moving closer to downtown/U of U for Andy), working extra shifts where we can, trying to make everything work out.
Things are coming together as far as my manuscript. I feel good about the different projects I'm working on, have one just about completed and a great start on another. I need to get going on my screenplay, though. If I want to enter American Zoetrope I need to finish it by August 1. I'm only about a third of the way done. In the back of my head I guess I'm planning on doing it Kerouac-style, maybe three caffeine-fueled days of writing. Not a good plan. That's how the script started, though. I wrote the first thirty pages over the course of several feverish hours. If I finish it and love it, I'll have a tough decision to face: apply to Michener for fiction or screenwriting? Fiction is my passion but I might have better odds with a screenplay, especially a strong one. We'll see. I wish I could apply in both genres. (I can study both genres, sort of major/minor style, if I get in, but I'd love that extra chance of getting in.)
I miss the ocean.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
On My Own
I'm finding that being out of college is much like getting out of a long term relationship. I'm having to redefine who I am now that I can't define myself in terms of that relationship: a student working towards graduation. I graduated. I'm out of that relationship. It's a good ending, but still an ending.
I didn't picture it being over. I thought I would be going to graduate school this fall. I still plan on going to graduate school, but in the meantime, I have to figure out who I am. For one, I have to figure out if I'm really a writer. Do I have the self-discipline to sit down for hours and hours every week to write? I'm a little anxious about this. My self-discipline has recently hit an all-time low. What if my dreams and ambitions can't kick it back into gear? What if I continue to spend time reading blogs, watching tv, and blogging instead of reading novels and short stories, doing writing exercises, and working towards publication?
I have been feeling the drive lately, though. The excitement I feel when I think about the several stories that I'm working on. The anticipation of writing. Often it doesn't last once I've got that blank screen and that cursor blinking at me; I stare at it and wilt in the face of my own expectations and can't even write a sentence. But I have got the drive, and that makes me happy. It's a start.
My list of MFA programs for next year is just as ambitious as my list last year; it's just a lot longer. I've been criticized for this by fellow MFA hopefuls. They say that only one-third of my applications should be aimed at top twenty schools; my entire list is made up of schools with around 5% acceptance rates. I know they're right. But I have trouble accepting that. I know it's foolish to dream big, but whatever they say, I know that getting into a top tier school isn't like the lottery. It's not pure chance. A lot of it is arbitrary--I can't control people's opinions of my work--but a huge amount of it is based on talent. I don't think it's arrogant of me to hope that I have the talent level to succeed at one of the big name schools. It's more that I have something to prove to myself. I have to believe that I can do it. I don't know how to define myself except as a writer, and I don't know what to hope for myself except great things.
So maybe I won't get into any of those schools next year. Maybe I'll have to accept that they don't see that talent level in me. But even then I won't be able to accept that it doesn't exist. I'll just have to keep working.
Andy says I'm the hopeful type. He says that only the foolishly hopeful are foolish enough to keep working for big dreams, and therefore the only ones to accomplish those dreams. May that prove to be true. May I not find out later in life that I've been jousting with windmills. Because I don't know how to think in any other way. I'm afraid of the day when I figure out that I don't have it in me to be a great or even good writer. Though it's not my only identity, my romance with my far-too-ambitious dreams is an integral part of me. If I ever lose that, I won't know how to define myself at all.
I didn't picture it being over. I thought I would be going to graduate school this fall. I still plan on going to graduate school, but in the meantime, I have to figure out who I am. For one, I have to figure out if I'm really a writer. Do I have the self-discipline to sit down for hours and hours every week to write? I'm a little anxious about this. My self-discipline has recently hit an all-time low. What if my dreams and ambitions can't kick it back into gear? What if I continue to spend time reading blogs, watching tv, and blogging instead of reading novels and short stories, doing writing exercises, and working towards publication?
I have been feeling the drive lately, though. The excitement I feel when I think about the several stories that I'm working on. The anticipation of writing. Often it doesn't last once I've got that blank screen and that cursor blinking at me; I stare at it and wilt in the face of my own expectations and can't even write a sentence. But I have got the drive, and that makes me happy. It's a start.
My list of MFA programs for next year is just as ambitious as my list last year; it's just a lot longer. I've been criticized for this by fellow MFA hopefuls. They say that only one-third of my applications should be aimed at top twenty schools; my entire list is made up of schools with around 5% acceptance rates. I know they're right. But I have trouble accepting that. I know it's foolish to dream big, but whatever they say, I know that getting into a top tier school isn't like the lottery. It's not pure chance. A lot of it is arbitrary--I can't control people's opinions of my work--but a huge amount of it is based on talent. I don't think it's arrogant of me to hope that I have the talent level to succeed at one of the big name schools. It's more that I have something to prove to myself. I have to believe that I can do it. I don't know how to define myself except as a writer, and I don't know what to hope for myself except great things.
So maybe I won't get into any of those schools next year. Maybe I'll have to accept that they don't see that talent level in me. But even then I won't be able to accept that it doesn't exist. I'll just have to keep working.
Andy says I'm the hopeful type. He says that only the foolishly hopeful are foolish enough to keep working for big dreams, and therefore the only ones to accomplish those dreams. May that prove to be true. May I not find out later in life that I've been jousting with windmills. Because I don't know how to think in any other way. I'm afraid of the day when I figure out that I don't have it in me to be a great or even good writer. Though it's not my only identity, my romance with my far-too-ambitious dreams is an integral part of me. If I ever lose that, I won't know how to define myself at all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
