Sunday, November 30, 2008

Empyrean



Journal Entry Number 3

The Empyrean is a story that has no action in the physical world. It all takes place in one persons mind throughout his life. The only other character is someone who does not live in the physical world but is inside it, in the sense that he exists in peoples minds. The mind is the only place that anything can be truly said to exist. The outside world is only known to us as it appears within us by the testament of our senses. The imagination is the most real world that we know because we each know it first hand. Seeing our ideas take form is like being able to see the sun come into being. We have no equivelent to the purity of that in our account of the outside world. The outer world appears to each of us as one thing and it is always also a multitude of others. Inside to outside and outside to inside are neverending. Trying and giving up are a form of breathing.

- John

Sunday, October 26, 2008

I was travelin on....

everything was so vivid.

I encountered a childrens colony, laughter and running, squeals of brown, trees of green. I wandered alone, feeling full of life, calm and content

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

The Decisive Moment

The Decisive Moment - Henri- Cartier Bresson

"What is there more fugitive and transitory than the expression on the human face? The first impression given by a particular face is often the right one; but the photographer should try always to substantiate the first impression by "living" with the person concerned. The decisive moment and psychology, no less than camera position, are principal factors in the making of a good portrait. It seems to me it would be pretty difficult to be a good portrait photographer for customers who order and pay since. apart from Maecenas or two, they want to be flattered, and the result is no longer real. The sitter is suspicious of the objectivity of the camera, while what the photographer is after is an acute psychological study of the sitter.

It is true too, that a certain identity is manifest in all the portraits taken by one photographer. The photographer is searching for identity of his sitter, and also trying to fulfill an expression of himself. The true portrait emphasizes neither the suave nor the grotesque, but reflects the personality."

Tuesday, September 9, 2008






















transient memories...

" If I remember correctly they call that the irreversibility of time. The feeling adventure would simply be that of the irreversibility of time. But why dont we always have it? Is it that time is not always irreversible ? There are moments when you have the impression that you can do what you want, go forward or backward, that it has no importance, and then other times when you might say that the links have been tightened and in that case, its not a question of missing your turn because you could never start again."


- NAUSEA

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Those last few thoughts whisping in and then away before drifting to the land of sleep, attempted lucid dreaming nothing ventured nothing gained. Those ephemeral epistological embryonic thoughts, those are the ones most poetic. When you stop filtering, when its in the moment - beyond analysis and you're one self, not the dual selves you are throughout the day as perceived in other dimension, tweaking.

My room is bright in the dark, i can see the shapes protruding out, the open closet door, the rattie cage, my bookcase. Everything is real, and does not take on any other feel that what it is through out the day. Organic shapes remain thus, and the geometric ones follow their rules of thumb. My lower arm bears stripes as shadowed on to me from my venetian blinds, as reflected from the orange street lamp hovering 20 feet above in the labryinthainal in the concrete one way street outside. Its only gray and orange now and will be for the next few hours to come. The garbabe pile outside my window has still remains, some men rustle through it, i can hear their grunts.

" Whats that?"
"Its a mattress"
"... minimum $150 "
Lets take it..."

I hear the base of the matresss as the two men carefully drag it down the orange gray asphaltine abysss. They are headed toard the beach. I imagine them walking it over to the soft sands, not to far from where I lay, parallel in fact 400 meters from me. They will float away , let the waves carry them... they will not selll the matress for its professed value. $!50. They exit the gray orangness, while i fall asleep in an eddy of tangerines and layered of grey, each textured so it the crannies of each layer puzzle-fit eachother just right. Now i can dream away, dreams that will not be recalled in the morning. Dreams thats will be intangible, and only color will be recalled.

on that note i fall asleep

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Bonnaroo 2008




BONNAROO 2008 was amazing, it was more than I could have expected. Its truely the last time I was really at peace for so many consecutive days this whole summer... It reminded me of the vibes and spirit of Praha, I felt centered and inspired. Im still wearing the bracelet to remember the great energy on those days in humid Manchester, TN. The drum circle was great, I really got into the beat, delved into the cadences and really felt it, not since that day in November in prag when i went with Allison ansd Chip to Matrix in Zizkov have I been inside like that... expansive. I was on beat and I have been tone deaf since birth. Holla-hooping in the laser lights was also pretty sick... both at night and in the day.

Allison Krauss and Robert Plant on the last day was great/ Gogol Bordello had a the most energetic concert and crowd the fans moshed on like it wasnt 100 outside...

Mama J & I at the fountain





Fountain in Centeroo


The Drumcircle in the Art shack


Our tent area !



Eugene! one of the favorite performances at the Festival


The Battle of Evermore- Robert Plant & Allison Kraus





Gogol Bordello- Alcohol




Monday, July 21, 2008

I am here, this is now

Ive had my heart broken, the first time it was a man, a mere mortal. This time I feel like I was dumped by an entire continent. My heart was broken by a myriad of faces/places/feelings... IM still in limbo getting over this tremendous break up.
Ive felt empty since I arrived, I know its time to snap out of it. The present and future only count, not the past. This convo with my friend really opened my eyes. She is right...

Genie814XX (1:24:46 AM): i only met the sweetest awesomest people in europe

itchygrasshopper (1:25:02 AM): i met plenty of douchy ppl everywhere

Genie814XX (1:25:12 AM): they actually valued me and abve all were INTERESTING and creative.

Genie814XX (1:25:27 AM): here im just a joke to people it seems

itchygrasshopper (1:26:05 AM): all ur friends yesetersday made comments on how wonderful and creative u are

itchygrasshopper (1:42:40 AM): i dnno gina mayeb u met a good bunch of pll but "ppl in EUrope" are just as ignorant and douchy as anywhere else

itchygrasshopper (1:42:56 AM): trust me, i met a bunch

Genie814XX (1:50:05 AM): i know im just generaling but still

itchygrasshopper (1:50:34 AM): u had a good experience it passed and now ur whole life revolves aroudn it

Genie814XX (1:54:02 AM): maybe you're right

Genie814XX (1:54:11 AM): but maybe its trivializing it too

Genie814XX (1:54:13 AM): i dont know

itchygrasshopper (1:54:22 AM): move on

itchygrasshopper (1:54:32 AM): ur still living in prague
itchygrasshopper (1:54:36 AM): even tho ur here


IM still living in Prag, even tho im here...

Thursday, July 17, 2008

fitter happier citizen

job searchHHHH< frenzy everyday, i feel soo anxious, and depressed, useless and bemused...I cant seem to break out of the wake up at 2pm Cycle. Last night my dreams involved fleeing from corrupt political officials... I think George Bush Sr. was in my dreams, we hid out in a hotel, and glanced past the Venetian Blinds to see when they would come. I forgot what the circumstances were.

Last night I had to leave the house. What the fuck is a target job title on Monster.com?? I never thought I would endlessly spend time on career building websites... I cleaned my room, firmly, washed the wooden floors, they will never shine the apartment is far to old for that. No a/c I sweat my balls of. I sat on the beach and watched the moon, nice breeze, midnight swimmers and kids on the lifeguard chairs. The water only existed beneath the moon, where it shown tinted white and rippling. I brought my Illuminated Ginsberg, I had originally purchased it as a gift but decided to keep it for myself. I read " An Eastern Ballad"
I dream of love that comes to mind, the moon is faithful although blind, she moves in thought, she cannot speak perfect care has made her bleak.I never dreamed the sea so deep, the earth so dark, so long my sleep. I have become another child, I wake to see the world go wild."

How lucky I am, I thought. that I can observe the moon and sea on one night. Czech Republic was landlocked, for infinite kilometers, some see the moon and not the sea. But seeing both is definitely a privilege that only certain inhabitants of the earth can attest to having. You can see the tidal connection, indirectly sense the relationship of the moon to the waves.
Everything was black, the sky, the sea. An aperture in the sky, was the round moon. And the aperture of white in the sea was the white foam from the crashed waves. 6 mississippi counts between the waves. Now I feel like the moon, im blind i cannot form comprehensive sentences, I cannot speak, I exist in my thoughtatataxia mindmedley. I was spoiled living in Europe, free thought, art ,movement, esthetic beauty in everyday places and emotions. Now im bleak, disillusioned, I never would have thought readjusting would be like this... A part of me has already readjusted but a part of me doesnt want to, for it would be regressing. I have to make NY work for me, where else do I have to go and with what funds? Exactly! Soo the job search continues, I need to enroll in a Masters prog. in the fall hopefully before Im completely detached from academia...
For now I feel like the Unknown Citizen, a squalid state, one from which we can all escape, better never to visit to begin with.



THE UNKNOWN CITIZEN
(To JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Installment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for he time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

-- W. H. Auden

the "odd in" pun is a a self reference that Auden made to himself to mask and mock society's persecution his gay lifestyle.

-------------------------
FITTER HAPPIER

a few decades later no change :
Fitter, happier, more productive,
comfortable,
not drinking too much,
regular exercise at the gym
(3 days a week),
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries ,
at ease,
eating well
(no more microwave dinners and saturated fats),
a patient better driver,
a safer car
(baby smiling in back seat),
sleeping well
(no bad dreams),
no paranoia,
careful to all animals
(never washing spiders down the plughole),
keep in contact with old friends
(enjoy a drink now and then),
will frequently check credit at
(moral) bank (hole in the wall),
favors for favors,
fond but not in love,
charity standing orders,
on Sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants),
car wash
(also on Sundays),
no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate,
nothing so childish - at a better pace,
slower and more calculated,
no chance of escape,
now self-employed,
concerned (but powerless),
an empowered and informed member of society
(pragmatism not idealism),
will not cry in public,
less chance of illness,
tires that grip in the wet
(shot of baby strapped in back seat),
a good memory,
still cries at a good film,
still kisses with saliva,
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick,
that's driven into
frozen winter shit
(the ability to laugh at weakness),
calm,
fitter,
healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Goodbye's too good a word

I knew that when I created the "Prag" blog there would come a time where it would no longer apply no would it be true, it would be a mere nostalgia. And that time has come, for I am no longer in Prag, no longer in Europe no longer so embedded in this specific lifestyle that was my world. No more Latin Cafe, Vlatva River picnics on the ostrov under the Narodni Divadlo bridge. 25 crown juicebox wine that we would drink through straws. No more Blind Eye, Domshke Djing and that expat crowd. No more walking on the railroads by Zizkov park with Jo, and discovering a giant trampoline, obviously there just for mine and Pierre's enjoyment. No more delicious beer that was so perfectly carbonated that the temperature gave you tongue the best zing, it would freshen your breath and compliment and meal or lack thereof. No more Pilsner Urquell(anywhere) Cerny Kozel/Krusovice in Cross Club, and Budvejser Budvar in Blind Eye. yes, we had haunts, our places that we could always rely on, and whenever visitors would come they could be sure experience the awesomeness of Cross Club. A 5th Element esque dystopia, filled with spinning car parts, green lights, a radical, living breathing art installation, providing to levels seating and a huge bar and dance floor. This was the place I snapped my first few pictures in praha, back in September 2007. It was Olivia, Virginia, Chad and Mikey, thats when we first tried the weed Crossclub had to offer. We rolled on the 2nd floor of the smaller room, in a tiny booth with only a metal railing guard, above us a spinning robot octupus , robooctupus ? below us a glass transparent bar with neatly stacked empty beer bottles, green with hints of yellow and orange reflecting off, and above...! Cerny Kozel , our beer of choice, any day!
This was where we first rolled and made friends with our group, and this was where we hung out during the year... up until April when our Slovenian couch surfing host came to visit Johanna and I in Prag. This was the night, I was unconscious, bc we drank his crazy whiskey that tasted more like an eau de parfum than a liquor. The night I lost my bag with my cellphone, Charles Univ. ID and 200 crowns inside. Then I weaned myself off of the phone dependency for 2 months of unplanning everyday and whimsical spontaneity. That was the night I came too at 4am and in a frenzy searched and harasses all the Czechs for my purse, after all my fruitless efforts I dunked my head into the fountain in the front courtyard. I could hear the pebbles on the unpaved ground and the water was freshing. Then I looked up at the clear Prag sky, so black and self- positing its nature , its function, its reason. Then my heart began to pound as I knew I was lost, like my bag I had no idea where i was and what my purpose was. I knew i was having the best time of my life, but a return was in the midst, and thats when the nausea began... the death sentence was coming.... but not until we had a few more memorable nights....

In the morning I went on the Tram

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

what I'm looking for

Well I don't know what I'm looking for
But I know that I just want to look some more
And I won't be satisfied 'til there's nothing left that I haven't tried
For some people it's an easy choice
But for me there's a devil and an angel's voice
Well I don't know what I am looking for
But I know that I just wanna look some more

I used to be involved and I felt like a king
Now I've lost it all and i don't feel a thing
I may never grow up
I may never give in
And I blame this world that I live in
I visit Hell on a daily basis
And I see the sadness in all your faces
I've got friends who are married and their lives seem complete
And here I am still stumbling down a darkened street
A darkened street

And I act like a child
And I'm insecure
And I'm filled with doubt
And I'm immature
Sometimes it creeps up on me
And before I know it I'm lost at sea
But no matter how far I roam
I always find my way back home
But I don't know what I've been waiting for
But I know that I don't wanna wait anymore
- Brendan Benson


Culture shock, its so weird being back, i need to write down all the stories,feelings,people,personalities,laughs,highs,drum&bass ostrava parties, roadtrip on a skoda fabia across the czech republic with 2 mexicans and a hippie from New Paltz, amazing times, people , I always/always want to remeber... This is from my Praha self to my self now, my non self. I've lost my ability to identify with NY, the people culture, the waves of things, the pace of walking the sounds and smells. The lingo,the police state ( I tried to light a cigarette in a bar forgetting the rule? Ha! imagine smoking regulations! I attempted to purchase wine from a corner store bodega,forgetting the fact i was no longer in Europe... )

It seems like an awkward time to be going through an identity change but being abroad did change me, i think for the better- spiritually, emotionally, in what i value , how i think,, i developed... and now being back, its forcing me to regress, i cant fight for long, this strange wind of conformity, pressure and stress that comes with the package... why? why not acceptance and trascendence, why not??
essentially this is PTSD studyabroad style.

- Cesky Krumlov
-Telc ( belch)
-Trebic
- Holubov
-Olomouc ( divche kamen)
- Ostrava ( Stodolni Street- party town)
-Cesky Raj ( Czech Paradise)

What is the media covering? Everything seems so stupid here, I havent watched tv in a year. I missed sushi. not the grafitti, glass shards. All the amazing people i have met, so kind great energy.

Alexi Meteni
Olivia Sandoval
Damaris Reyes
Ana
Allison
Johanna Neumann
Tomas Beran

so different so beautiful, one thing in common, love life live!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

May 13- Annual Lety Bus Trip







Official memorial flowers curtosy of the Czech State- President Klaus



Charles University Student Spring 2008-
( From Left: Me,Olivia Sandoval, Johanna Neumann, Damaris Reyes )
finally a post that is not a dementia infused mindrant!

My Roma thesis is coming to an end, and unfortunately I never got to apply it to the extent that professor and I envisioned. I emailed a colleague of Dominik's who is working in a village in Slovakia to come visit, help observe for a week but my lacking of language skills both Czech and Romani really hindered anything. Calling local school, like in Smichov ( many Roma ghetto schools) to teach also failed, so my research was just that, could have been done from NY, which really made me feel shitty. But we have an interview with a special school teacher set up which will be interesting.

So the annual bus trip to Lety would be the only thing that ended this primary source to all my research and provide me with a first hand experience of almost 5 months of research,reading,writing.thinking etc.

MAY 13 ANNUAL LETY BUS TRIP

Lety was a Czech run concentration camp, in the late 1930s. At first just " workshy" males were easily arrested and brought there but.
The messed up part, adding ultimate insult to injury, the site of all the victims , instead of being made into a memorial, a place of reverence a pig farm was constructed there instead in the 1970s by the instated Communist regime.


SO i got to meet Paul Polansky, i remembered how entranced i got in his book The Storm, a historically accurate yet fictional account of Roma living in the region of Lety, by the town of Pisek, working the Hapsburg owned land, which was sold to the Czech government to begin building the concentration camp.

Official press release
On 13.5.2008 at 12:00, the Committee for the Compensation of the Romani Holocaust (VPORH) will hold a commemorative ceremony for the Romani victims of Nazism at the burial site of the former concentration camp for Roma at Lety by Písek (next to the pig farm).

_en_k R__i_ka, VPORH president, responded today to recent proposals for how to deal with the Lety issue as follows: “One fine day, a modest but dignified memorial will stand at that site. There will be not a trace of a pig farm left. No one can prevent this. It is unacceptable to the former Romani prisoners of the camp and to the relatives of the camp’s victims to propose building a museum next to the pig farm and leaving the pig farm where it is. The only correct solution is to remove the pig farm from this place of reverence. We will then provide our own monument.”

Participation at the commemorative ceremony has been confirmed by the following dignitaries, among others:

• Romani Rose, President, Central Council of German Sinti and Roma
• Felix Kolmer, Vice-Chair, International Auschwitz Committee
• A representative of the Office of the President of the Czech Republic
• Senator Petr Pithart, Vice-Chair of the Senate of the Czech Republic
• A representative of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic
• D_amila Stehlíková, Czech Human Rights and Minorities Minister
• Ond_ej Li_ka, Czech Minister for Education, Youth and Sport
• A representative of the German Embassy in Prague
• A representative of the Hungarian Embassy in Prague
• A representative of the Polish Embassy in Prague
• A representative of the Austrian Embassy in Prague
• A representative of the Slovak Embassy in Prague


Links to the press and more coverage of the eventful day ;)
http://video.respekt.cz/
http://www.romea.cz/english/index.php?id=detail&detail=2007_896
http://www.romea.cz/index.php?id=detail&detail=2007_4267

The site of the pig farm

Sunday, May 11, 2008

and so there was a great earthquake

and so there was a great earthquake...
( tarkovsky haunts my mind) he died in 1986, the year I was born, the year of Chernobyl...


Tarkovsky for me is the greatest, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.

— Ingmar Bergman

excerpt from Stalker (1979)

and so there was a great earthquake
and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair
and the moon became like blood
and the stars of the sky fell to earth,
as a fig tree casts its unripe figs,
when shaken by a great wind.

and the sky was split apart
like a scroll when it is rolled up.
and every mountain and island were
moved out of their places.
and the kings of the earth and the great men,
and the rich and the chilliarchs,
and the strong and every free man,
hid themselves in the caves
and among the rocks of the mountains;
and they said to the mountains
and to the rocks,
"Fall on us and shield us from the face of
Him who sits on the throne,
and from the wrath of the lamb,
for the great day of His wrath has come,
and who can withstand it?"

Friday, May 9, 2008

now you don't seem so proud

so much so much has happened... time is going by unrecordably fast,

- mom finally came to Praha- we hadn't seen eachother for 8 months, i greeted her in Ruzyne with orange flower

- We went to Rome! I saw everything i wanted: Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, Colleseum, Capitoline Hill/Museum, Spanish Steps,
Via Appia Antica ( Regina viarum)

- We went to Karlovy Vary, hot stone massage and Dessert at the Grand Hotel Pupp (why not splurge? =) )

Im almost done with this chapter, now its real

I booked my flight back to the states yesterday, I received the flight itinerary in my yahoo mail, its so fuckin real, and seeing it in my inbox almost made me cry. I return May 28, so I have until then to make the time worthwhile.

I did my Andrei Rublev presentation, I like Tarkovsky and might do the final paper on the film Stalker, FAMU class was worth taking.

I need to finalize and finish the Roma thesis, hopefully the bus trip to Lety, (the former Czech run concentration camp, now the site of a pig farm) will happen and be informative.

Then hopefully I will graduate but I dont think that will be finalized until all paperwork transcripts and credits will be sent to Stony, that probably wont happen until July, fuckers.

Last Praha endeavor, Roadtrip to Cesky Krumlov and Cesky Raj, yes that means Czech paradise...

the paradise is in your head...

Friday, April 25, 2008

&being¬hing&

and if my thought dreams could be seen...

M. Laporte says that an abstraction is made when something not capable of existing in isolation is thought of as in an isolated state. The concrete by contrast is a totality which can exist by itself alone. Husserl is of the same opinion; for him red is an abstraction because color can not exist without form. On the other hand, a spatial-temporal thing, with all its determinations, is an example of the concrete. From this point of view, consciousness is an abstraction since it conceals within itself an ontological source in the region of the in-itself, and conversely the phenomenon is likewise an abstraction since it must "appear" to consciousness. The concrete can be only the synthetic totality of which consciousness like the phenomenon, constitutes only moments. The concrete is man within the world in that specific union of man with the world which Heidegger , for example, calls "being-in-the world"

Thursday, April 10, 2008

what is going on?

SO i stumbled upon pictures of my friends graduation... radio city music hall, Chuck Schumer giving the trite inspirational speech recycled from past events, "You are the future, yadda yadda."

then

nausea hit...

like for real

the split pea soup in my tummy wanted out.

What are we all graduating from?

I graduate this May....

COLLEGE is over?

now what???

fuck it , im not even attending the commencement, I would rather stay in Europe longer, but I must go home to start working and paying off debt...

i dont know and its starting to drive me into a chronic frenzy.
i think i almost had a panic attack today.

so i looked up graduate on m-w, here is what it means

Main Entry:
3grad·u·ate
Pronunciation:
\ˈgra-jə-ˌwāt\
Function:
verb
Inflected Form(s):
grad·u·at·ed; grad·u·at·ing
Etymology:
Middle English, from Medieval Latin graduatus, past participle of graduare, from Latin gradus step, degree
Date:
15th century
transitive verb
1 a: to grant an academic degree or diploma to b: to be graduated from
2 a: to mark with degrees of measurement b: to divide into grades or intervals
3: to admit to a particular standing or grade
intransitive verb
1: to receive an academic degree or diploma
2: to pass from one stage of experience, proficiency, or prestige to a usually higher one
3: to change gradually
— grad·u·a·tor \-ˌwā-tər\ noun


" to pass from one stage of experience to a higher one"

I beg to differ, all I know during this past year is that traveling and living, the more I thought about it the more I realized how lost i am. The more I travelled the more confused I have gotten. More confused about the kind of life I want, or dont want.

The more I see, the less I know.

"we choose what we are, were condemned to be free. We can't escape choice, thats the anguish of existence."

- Sartre

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

confettiConfetticonfetti

Slovenia was amazing, i felt free and free and freeeee.

Connecting with the right people is the best thing.

Then you can connect with/in yourself.

SO we connected but I went a little crazy in my mind.

.... maybe it was those cookies*...

and so i wrote:

I know its there.
I just have to jump in, its about wavelengths
So this will be like an analogue, a theorem or observation of anthropological importance.

I think people who try to understand themselves go crazy.
Sanity exists in ignorance.

Yet, going insane is a rebirth because one can deconstruct long engraved perceptions that society has ascribed.
Unfettered from the former dimension, you can create your own. You are only happy when looking through the lens you have made for yourself. Set your own aperture, think at your own shutter speed. And so we work toward this, we live to the next day to try to understand ourselves, the surroundings and interactions. Its always a question of why. Its the slash in the canvas I saw at TATE MODERN.

INSPIRATION > INFORMATION

WHY > WHAT

DIMENSIONAL > FLAT

its not where you think it is.

" Create your own eyes by closing them" ( andre breton/ Paul eluard)

exPlode

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?


- Langston Hughes



death and fame is the game
Macbook,
cock block
i am, i pod, i mac
macaroni and cheese
hind sight
short sight
near sight
vintage retro/retrospect
speculate propogate
engender!
the sun

hybrid, torpedo waves, military commisisons act,
hold em in suspension suspension of habeas corpus

bbc, cnn, nyt
and then again
what we see, what we learn
it wont make a difference in the end
spoken word, darfur, a fund raiser
raised blunder
a raisin in the sun,

chaste slumber

bumble bumble
stop all this mumbo jumbo

a klutz shlepping iraqi bodies,
iraqi improvemt not getting enough ink

NAFTA NAFTA what comes after?
NAMBLA NAMBLA
What is left to descrambl(a)?
desire desire desire
lorna simpsons is desire , gordon matta clark is
detached desire

loan sharks, lost souls in concord
shoot out a think tank
in this cosmic picasso cactus

oh, cosmic cactus
wrinkled oath
oblique ode

a porous kiss
from this celestial town
will bring down the
CONFETTI
confetti

con F e tti


( i can't wait to see it fall)

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

If you existed, you had to exist all the way

It left me breathless. Never, until these last few days, had I understood the meaning of"existence." I was like the others, like the ones walking along the seashore, all dressed in their spring
finery. I said, like them, "The ocean is green; that white speck up there is a seagull," but I didn't feelthat it existed or that the seagull was an "existing seagull"; usually existence hides itself. It is there,
around us, in us, it is us, you can't say two words without mentioning it, but you can never touch it.

When I believed I was thinking about it, I must believe that I was thinking nothing, my head was
empty, or there was just one word in my head, the word "to be." Or else I was thinking . . . how can I explain it? I was thinking of belonging, I was telling myself that the sea belonged to the class of green objects, or that the green was a part of the quality of the sea.

Even when I looked at things, I was miles
from dreaming that they existed: they looked like scenery to me. I picked them up in my hands, they served me as tools, 1 foresaw their resistance. But that all happened on the surface. If anyone had
asked me what existence was, I would have answered, in good faith, that it was nothing, simply an empty form which was added to external things without changing anything in their nature. And then
all of a sudden, there it was, clear as day: existence had suddenly unveiled itself. It had lost the harmless look of an abstract category: it was the very paste of things, this root was kneaded into
existence. Or rather the root, the park gates, the bench, the sparse grass, all that had vanished: the diversity of things, their individuality, were only an appearance, a veneer.

This veneer had melted,
leaving soft, monstrous masses, all in disorder—naked, in a frightful, obscene nakedness.I kept myself from making the slightest movement, but I didn't need to move in order to see,
behind the trees, the blue columns and the lamp posts of the bandstand and the Velleda, in the midst
of a mountain of laurel.

All these objects . . . how can I explain? They inconvenienced me; I would have liked them to exist less strongly, more dryly, in a more abstract way, with more reserve. The chestnut tree pressed itself against my eyes. Green rust covered it half-way up; the bark, black and swollen, looked like boiled leather. The sound of the water in the

Mas-queret Fountain sounded in my ears,
made a nest there, filled them with signs; my nostrils overflowed with a green, putrid odour.

All things, gently, tenderly, were letting themselves drift into existence like those relaxed women who burst out laughing and say:

"It's good to laugh," in a wet voice;


they were parading, one in front of the
other, exchanging abject secrets about their existence. I realized that there was no half-way house between

non-existence and this flaunting abundance.

If you existed, you had to exist all the way,

as far as mouldiness, bloatedness, obscenity were concerned. In another world, circles, bars of music keep
their pure and rigid lines.

But existence is a deflection.

Jean-Paul Sartre - excerpt from NAUSEA

Thursday, March 6, 2008

London T-minus 12 days!

so this blogger thing a ma bobber wont upload any photos, later perhaps so finally i get to explore Western Europe so far i booked :

London!!! ( with Stony Brook people)
Madrid!!! ( to visit Marina )
Rome!! ( with Mommy!)

then Im definitely going to Berlin again, now that Elena is there I can stay at her placed and Budapest on a bus, being that i dont get deported, Im an ass and still have not applied for a visa. My 90 days that were re-stamped upon entry into Czech from Kiev on Jan. 12 , so that means they run out April 12 ! Mom and I fly out April 28th to Rome so I may not be able to return, i pray things will go smoothly. Tommorow Im consulting some visa agency to settle my fears.. then I want to hitchhike, wiki hitch? No thats probably not a good idea but Im out of money, fuck New pAltz, program fee $3500 is due ,last month...

I will worry about that bridge when i cross it. ( my new phrase)

now I go downstairs for a haircut! how bad can it be?

Gina scissor hands



Until I became I really cheap Jew I never dared to try my hand at cutting my own hair, not even my thin brown bangs. The thought of my trembling hand holding a foreign silver steel object of scissors was a recipe for crooked bangs , a disastrous cut. Crooked bangs were supplied to me free of charge my whole life, courtesy of Babushka Polya. You see, her father, or as mom and me call him Dedushka Motya was a barber , so that is where Babushka learned how to cut, but somehow I feel like she always cut me with a masculine hand, a manum dextra trained to cut short straight, military, haircuts. Neat and swift the scissors went in a one dimensional manner. But as I was growing up, getting a haircut and actually paying for it was out of the question while we had a capable hairdresser in the family.
Babushka was always passionate about cutting my hair, she always claimed 2 things for my entire childhood. One , that I was too skinny and she would take upon herself to feed me enough so I was a plush , rosy youngster and two my bangs were always too long , and a young girl should look neat and long bangs were perhaps a gateway into rebellion in her views. So that is what cyclically happened, I ate well at Babushka’s house and my bangs were always too short. The truth is I was a chubby elementary schooler and junior high schooler, hell Im chubby period. But to Babushka , who lived through the war , food was important, that was the bottom line. I wouldn’t dare leave any unfinished food, every action had a proverbial cultural, superstitious saying. For example, if you left a morsel of food behind, and I often left the butt of a sausage in the plate, the creased asterisk in the end simply did not esthetically please my pallete. Babushka would threaten that the morsel would haunt me old day by meticulously, hop skotching behind me on every move I made. So I would eat it for her, with slight disgust. Rule number 2, “ bez chleba, ne obed !” that is “ without bread, it is not a meal” A meal without bread is impossible, bread keeps you alive, you must respect bread and therefore it accompanies your every meal like a best friend always by your side. So even if I was already eating the starchiest, carbiest meal imaginable , potatoes or macaroni, bread had to be consumed. That was that. After I was well fed, and watched 30minutes of television with Deydushka on the valore olive tone loveseat, that had beveled and embossed circles of our butts that were a lime green shade from hours of sitting in the past few years,Babushka meanwhile would finish all the dishes and tidy up in the kitchen.

Dedushka was always free to sit and watch tv after dinner, so was I, and Babushka always washed all the dishes herself. She never requested my help, in which case I would have helped, but neither did I once volunteer to help her, I still have guilt for being such a selfish,lazy child, ignorant of how truly hard both my mother and grandmother worked. So after she had cleaned our mess, she would invoke me into her personal, hairdresser seat and salon, that is the small bathroom near the kitchen. The toilet seat was placed down and as soon as I sat down the on the foamy, flowered embroidered toilet seat cover, Babushka would carefully whisk a towel around my neck to catch the falling hair. She turned the faucet on, cool, water but never to brisk, and after holding her inner palm for 2 seconds she would reverse to splash the top of her hand as well, then it felt like wet pancakes were slopped onto my forehead, she matted my bangs with her wet hands. Next she instructed me to close my eyes, eyes had to be closed for the duration of the haircut, and no squinting, I always squinted as a reflex. The hard fractioned, coil sounding metal made its way across my forehead, the cold edge of the scissors languidly traversed the landscape of my forehead. She went across with her father’s old scissors once and then returned back to straighten any mistakes. Therefore, my bangs were one layer, and lay perfectly parallel to my eyebrows, perfect Mary Jane bangs, before they became a trend in Hollywood. Then Babushka would admire her job and me, and say now, you look like a nice girl, the way a girl should look. What did I resemble before the reputation saving haircut, some sort of vagrant , loose moral filled girl? I was never happy with the result, the always too short bangs that were 3 inches about my eyebrows, only 3 weeks later I would approve of the length and by then pressure for another trim would be imminent ! It would only be in high school that I would regularly go to a hair dresser.


Finally to the reason I began speaking on the topic of haircuts, I started to give careless trims to my bangs since I have been In Prague. I have not been to a Salon here, only in Kiev. So some nights if under the possession of Bachuss I will give myself a friendly trim and try to rock the imperfections of it and the crookedness…. But to give another a haircut was a joke, out of the question. My hands are untrained , period, I took art and still I can not draw for the life of me, its just not immanent to my creativity and soul. So when I returned from Kiev to Prag in January I spent a week living with my Austria friend, Dominik, in the neighborhood of Zizkov. He lived on the highest floor, on Husinecka, and we would go out on the Balcony for flat vacations aka smoke circles. From his balcony we could see Zizkov park with , the Mausoleum on top, with Zizkov planted atop a jumping horse. Olivia who was also living there at the time had no apartment so we were a team, pseudo homeless and just messy. So when Dominik went out for Dinner with tereza, the anal , bitchy , selfish, pretentious Austrian girl , who through temper tantrums.
Olivia & I stayed behind because we had no money for dinner, we lived of rice and random Mexican dishes that she had the gift of conjuring up from just flour and left over meat and beans. But I was glad not to go, all because we would have the flat to ourselves and I could pretend like I lived there and Olivia was my flatmate. Also Dominik had a great record player and tons of records, hundreds between his collection and tereza because both of them DJ’d at Blind Eye , a bar up the hill from them. So we put on Simon & Garfunkel, Parsley, Saige, Rosemary & thyme and Pavement and Two Gallants which became my favorite and rocked out. We went on a flat vacation, this time with some weed, soon we found Nutella in the kitchen and started eating out of the container with a spoon. Olivia had been wanting to get a haicut and as a joke I said “ I’ll cut you’re hair” and she said Yes! Then I revoked my comment, Im just jokig I explaied ive never cut anyones hair in my life and her hair was not this Wasp, stringy, no fuss no muss hair she had beautiful thick curls, powerfurl Mexican follicles. But she was already immersed in the idea, she ran to the bathroom and got tereza’s scissors who had preciously cut her hair. Come on, she encouraged. I was laughing, almost peeing my pants, as I always do when I get too high. Ok, why the fuck not I thought? I got so into it, I felt like Edward scissors hands, but I pictured he hair like a bush and tried to dimension it in a round bushy shape, but don’t worry it had edgy choppy layers, very hipstery trims too. It had no strategy behind it, I tried to emulate the way professional did my hair, dividing sections of hair and working on each at a time for a uniform length at each level but then I just chopped where I pleased, it was beautiful it was art. Sometimes I would burst into laughter because I cut too much, and Olivia being so down would only ask what’s up, whereas I would freak-out and leave the seat. I said its ok and shoved a spoon of nutella in her mouth.
Ultimately, the bathroom floor lay covered in her curls, now there was nothing left of them. She looked in the mirror and actually like her hair cute! Success! I don’t think most people would have appreciated such a haircut but it suited her personality and way of life. It was asymmetrical, unpredictable, yet followed a generous pattern in most placed, it was itinerant, and ephemeral, it was out of time, it reflected a collective subjectivity. By collective subjectivity is that whomever Olivia encountered would instantly be drawn to her, people could relate, and even if they couldn’t they tried and if that failed she would relate to them, even if not a single tangible thing was in common. I emphasize this because of my inability to relate to people, in fact there are very few that I do feel I connect with, nevertheless the ones I do connect with ,it a real and strong connection, mercurial connection but connections nonetheless. So I think that is what I both envied and admired, I do not wish to be liked by everyone, there is no fun in that-I don’t care enough for that, all I ask is to be understood by more people.

IF STRANGERS MEET ( french love grows in Prag)

The French love affair in praha…
The memories are one of a kind and although Im still a little hung up on my French love I intend to get over it soon but that being said why can’t I write about how we meandered the streets of Praha, kissed by the Astronomical Clock in Staromestske Namesti , the escalator ascending to his residence of Karlovo Namesti and on all the trams we possibly could in Prague. I want to get over it and writing passionately surely would not aid the aforementioned objective. Yet , on the other hand why should I trivialize an amazing part of my life, that is now gone. Like a photograph it will be crystallized in words, and I assure you photographs too. The last text message I received from him read: “ A farewell kiss for my little americanrusse girl from Prague. Stay in touch. Gros bisous”
The rest of his texts have been deleted on my phone since new ones have been sent from others. The last night was among the best, it actually began the night before the night in question. It was his good bye pub gathering with friend. I came to meet him around 10pm with Johanna. It was at a bar called Jamayka in Andel , and the only thing vaguely referencing Jamaica was the flag on the wall. We had split a gin and tonic, I was tipsy. I wanted to be drunk, because I thought the farewell would indeed sting the open wounds in my heart. But then I decided to pretend like this was just any night and not assign a countdown, this would have ruined the atmosphere. Also I wanted to be positive and happy for my Frenchboy. We took shots of Czech rum, which was so overly sweet and then we just chatted at the table. He was wearing a matted button down with light blue stripes sporadically verticalling themselves down, Abercrombie reminiscent style. His brown chest hairs peeked out to remind everyone that he is a mn even though his eyes still have the young boy zealous , in awe of everything , pure glee. Perchance is was that gleam reflected in his deep brown eyes at night and hazel in the sun that made me fall for him. The language barrier existed , yes, and made it challenging to talk about any dialectical, epistemological philosophical concepts. Otherwise everything we worked through, love has no lanuguage we spoke with our eyes to convey the deeper things, and that is how I liked it.

a closed Aperture

Air blows through me,
Hazel eyes subdue me,
----------------------------------

if strangers meet

if strangers meet
life begins-
not poor not rich
(only aware)
kind neither
nor cruel
(only complete)
i not not you
not possible;
only truthful
-truthfully,once
if strangers(who
deep our most are
selves)touch:
forever

(and so to dark)

- e.e cummings

----------------------------

[somewhere i have never travelled]


somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

-e.e. cummings

Monday, January 28, 2008

How is your heart ?

during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

-c.b

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Thesis: Roma and discrimination in education

Today I had my 1st meeting with Prof. Roubal, Petr, I dont know how but I am embarking upon a long journey, tedious and technically challenging. I forsee this already. So this semester instead of signing up for multiple course in Charles I decided to do independent study since in Stony Brook I would be doing something of the like anyways in spirit of the Senior Thesis Project. So that will be my academic life for this semester, also I want to take a film class. I think I will benefit more from this research, though it may be very concentrated and I really want to learn about other aspects of Czech and Central European politics, I suppose I can read on my own. Frankly , many classes were a joke.... not a complete waste of time but the professors went in their knowing these students are here to travel and study , more like a 70/30 ratio of Traveling/Partying to Studying, Hmm perhaps even more disparity of the two existed at times... hehe. SO this is my Project... I think the Narodni Knihovna is my new home away from home( away from home?) A baroque library that used to be a Jesuit university! Its beautiful in the general reading room. ( MAny cute people study here too, med students...)

Discertation- an ORIGINAL contribution to science

vs

My objective: the task is to create an intelligible thesis, via intellectual exercises of researching about the Roma, then strategically analyzing and summarizing. This will demonstrate by ability and potential for a future discertation.( If there ever is one to follow) So basically I need to improve my analytical skills...

Therefore the issue of originality is not significant here, since this is not Ph.D work- or even MA work for that matter. I dont want to classify it ...

The goal of my thesis, it will not be original and I certainly need not regurgitate previous research...What was worrying me was that my research was redundant but Petr clarified that originality is not the main objective here, but basically for me to ultimately prove via the final paper which is planned to be at first consisting of 5 shorter papers of 2,000 words each so ultimately the final thesis is roughly 15,000- words - I dont know how many pages that will be.

Now Im researching Roma History in Central Europe up until the Velvet Revolution ( 1989). An emphasis of Nazism, Holocaust, Roma experience under Communism, will be most relevant.

This Monday Czech Intensive begins... Advanced czech for 5 hours a day! goshHHh!

Sunday, January 20, 2008

crow jane

so im back in Prague from kiev, quite a journey... 2 nights on the train 6 hours in Krakow- praying the Polish passport control lets me across the border- phew! I stayed on the top bunk and read Visotsky under the little yellow submarine lamp. Perhaps i was in a prison. I arrive disoriented and lose my bag on the way to Domshke's. Thank god my passport or wallet wasnt in that bag, but my notebook and all my makeup some jewelry were in there. yeaa so now ive been staying with Dominik for a week and I think i will return to the Kolej tommorow to the complete disdain of my heart.
Dominik has a record player, I want one too now, I fell in love with these songs . I originally thought they were Neil Young but they are from the band Two gallants. one song is the kind that you remember forever and fall in love under.
Here it is my new boyfriend, my nostalgia. Nostos " a return home"
utopia : ou topos- no place - A return home to nowwhere--- thats what Prag has felt like, i dont know why. Because everyone left and I missed old friends... it wont be the same . Anyways this is the song, my song.

you losin' out

can't forget the day you walk away.
when you come back next time you're here to stay.
for that reason i'm tellin' you, mama you losin' out.
it was early one mornin' you come draggin' home.
said, " forgive me daddy for i done wrong."
mama you losin out
you left that time and you ain't gonna leave no more
cause I'm putting a lock on my back door.
mama you losin' out.
i followed my baby to her burying place.
can't get another rider to take your place.
mama you losin' out.
you oughta heard me cryin' "baby you're all I crave"
while i wrote your will out upon your grave.
mama you losin' out.




crow jane

well crow jane don't make no sense to me.
she left me swinging from the poplar tree.
well no I never ever felt so free.
hey look at mama what you doing to me.
cause it ain't no difference which way i smile.
i ain't good lookin' from a quarter mile.
once had a woman call me angel child.
my reputation keeps me on trail.
now whose gonna save me from myself.
gotta lay the blame on someone else
but somehow i ain't got no hope
cause im still runnin' from the sheriff's rope.
my shoes don't fit me cause they filled with dope.
crow jane quit me and i just can't cope.
but all i know is that i'll still run
and pledge allegiance to the setting sun.
i must have lost cause crow jane won.
i'll never learn from anything i've done.
well crow jane's the strangest thing that ever talked.
lips of honey but her tongue's of chalk.
feet may be crooked but she sure can walk.
she took my money left me in shock.
got so many matches that it makes me sick,
so many habits that i just can't kick,
so many women that i just can't trick,
but crow jane burnt me like a candlestick.
well crow jane ain't nothin' but a painful case.
she left me suckin' on my own disgrace.
she's off truckin' at a cheatin' pace
and a lawless life is all i can embrace.
i'll dress like a preacher so i can't be found.
chase crow jane from town to town.
i smell her brain so she must be around.
just like my pain when the sun goes down.