Sunday night I saw Jay-Z and Kanye at the Izod Center just over the state line in New Jersey. My dear friend Susan and I were in literally the last row of the arena. We got to our seats early and were like, this is fine! There was a little platform right behind our seats and we discussed our obvious plan to spend the entire concert dancing on it instead of remaining seated. We sat down and munched on some shitty concession stand food and were talking about art and life and stuff. I saw one of the arena's employees climbing the stairs toward us and I wondered why he was up so high. He approached us and asked how many people were in our group. We both said, just the two of us. He said, here you go. He handed us two floor seat tickets and told us to take the stairs down down down. I asked him why. He said, because I'm a nice guy. Sus and I just looked at each other in disbelief, then climbed down to our new seats, about 50 feet from the main stage and 30 feet from the stage in the audience. We discussed how the universe rewards being chill - how this never would have happened if we had been somehow unsatisfied with our nosebleed seats. To me, it was more a thrilling and poignant example of how the universe rewards gratitude with abundance. It was also appropriate because I feel that Jay-Z himself is a living, breathing example of what God can do. He is so inspiring to me. From selling crack in Harlem to selling out huge arenas - because of poetry. It was a religious experience for me. Forgive the wobbliness. I was dancing my ass off.
Then, the next night, I saw Brandi Carlile at The Town Hall on 43rd street. It could not have been more opposite from the Watch The Throne show from the night before. The Town Hall is a fairly small venue, it was a solo acoustic show, just a woman with a guitar and an incredible voice. Two sisters from Muscle Shoals, Alabama opened up for her. They did a song they wrote while they were on tour in Australia when the tornadoes destroyed so many lives in our home state, in April of this year. I started crying and I'm pretty sure I didn't stop for the rest of the show. This is the second time I've seen Brandi - she likes to do this thing on one of her songs where she divides the audience into three sections and we all sing a three-part harmony along with her. It's so beautiful. I recorded some of it with my phone.
Dear Kanye: Thanks for taking my favorite song on the album and making a video that directly copies a really bizarre art film about being in love with your sister in Tokyo.
I mean damn, you could have at least cited Gaspar Noé. Extra bright, indeed.
Last night I had the most incredible Patti experience thus far, the amazing opportunity to see her read poetry with Lenny Kaye on the 40th anniversary of their very first performance in the same church where it all started. I wrote a review of it for Sound System NYC, and took some shoddy video on my iPhone. This woman is truly inspiring in every way: universally talented, rousing, kind, warm, gentle, humble. She is everything I aim to be in my life. She is a true artist.
I've seen Patti three times over the past year, but this time was different because I had never seen her read poetry before. I recorded her reading "Ballad of a Bad Boy," a poem she wrote about Sam Shepard and his car, over the grisly hum of Lenny Kaye's electric guitar. It was the definition of badass. Turn your volume way up.
I'm working on a post trying to sum up what 2010 gave to me, but it's been really hard because I learned more in 2010 than probably in any year prior. But I came up with a couple of my top 10 lists to bide the time. Deal with it!
Top 10 Albums of 2010
1. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
The haunting sound of tires spinning on pavement managed to conjure so many of my high school memories, along with a wicked nostalgia, and cemented this album’s place at the top of my list.
2. Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
Big Boi’s solo debut gave us the best and most innovative rap album of the year. (Sorry, Yeezy.)
3. Freelance Whales – Weathervanes
This album is the musical version of puppies. Additionally, it’s brilliant.
4. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – The Social Network Soundtrack
Transcends Facebook.
5. Girl Talk – All Day
How does Gregg Gillis know every single song from my childhood and probably yours?
6. LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening
The album that defined summer 2010 for me – and reaffirmed the legitimacy of the cowbell.
7. Drake – Thank Me Later
The album that changed my mind about Drake.
8. Robyn – Body Talk
Because it’s the best dance album of the year, and because she ate a banana on stage when I saw her perform.
9. Owen Pallett – Heartland
Owen did dark and twisted and beautiful way before Kanye.
10. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Because it’s legitimately a great album, albeit over-hyped – and because if I don’t everyone will poopoo my list.
Top 10 Films of 2010
1. The Social Network, David Fincher
What everyone expected to be simply "the Facebook movie" transcends its subject to tell a human story about ambition, creation and the sacrifice required for both. Brilliant writing, directing, acting and scoring make this the best all-around film of the year.
2. Blue Valentine, Derek Cianfrance
My second-most anticipated film of the year (behind a disappointing Black Swan), BV didn't let me down. Raw and honest, it is perfectly beautiful in its beautiful imperfection; it captures the feeling of a first film but with 12 years of development.
3. I Am Love, Luca Guadagnino
This Italian film trumps genre by being stunningly beautiful in every category. It made me fall totally in love with Tilda Swinton, and John Adams' score, reminiscent of Philip Glass' work for The Hours, became my writing soundtrack for weeks after I saw it.
4. The King's Speech, Tom Hooper
I watched this film a few days after I watched A Single Man for the first time, and I now hold firm to my belief that Colin Firth is our best living actor. His face can change in a millisecond and is utterly convincing; the story is great, the cinematography is gorgeous and Helena Bonham Carter is one of my favorites.
5. The Fighter, David O. Russell
Two words: Christian Bale. If he doesn't go home with an Oscar, it will be outrageous. The story is good and Mark Wahlberg and especially Amy Adams shine too, but Bale outperforms every other aspect of this film. Just unreal. 6. The Town, Ben Affleck
This is one of my favorite films of the year, and would have probably ranked higher had it not been for the other amazing films I considered. I love Affleck's performance and Jeremy Renner will certainly be nominated for an Oscar for his role. Transcending the traditional cops and robbers film, it tells the familiar story of leaving home and the people you love in search of a better life.
7. 127 Hours, Danny Boyle
While my fascination with James Franco isn't exactly understated, this film is an achievement separate and apart from that. It tells a story about the slowest, most boring subject - one man stuck in a canyon for days - using quick camera shots, rapid-fire humor and a thumping, brilliant score by A.R. Rahman.
8. True Grit, The Coen Brothers
I will happily watch Jeff Bridges eat a sandwich. The Dude does not disappoint in this re-make, delivering humor and, yes, grit in equal proportion for a country-style feast. The Coen Brothers are surprisingly less nihilistic than usual, which I appreciated.
9. Howl, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
Franco shone again in this bio-pic about Allen Ginsberg. The film was obviously inspiring to me as a writer, and I liked the use of the poem, which is cut in with the interviews Ginsberg did with The Paris Review, to reveal something about the creative process. I also saw it a few doors down from the Chelsea Hotel, which gave me the warm fuzzies. 10. Burlesque, Steve Antin
Yes, I'm really including this in my top 10. Like the wise Cher once tweeted, it isn't Shakespeare, but it's not supposed to be. The film is actually very well done. Fun, entertaining and glittery, yes, but the writing isn't bad and even rather witty at times. I only saw it once, but after it was finished I wanted to watch it again and again, which is more than I can say for Black Swan, the other "dance movie" which I did see twice in theaters. And I adore Stanley Tucci.
Worth noting: I have yet to see Rabbit Hole or Winter's Bone, which are both lauded as two of the year's best films. But I can only rate what I've seen. I'll consider them honorary contenders until I see them - which should be soon - at which point I may edit my list accordingly.
I've been really busy as of late, which is really just another way of saying I have re-prioritized as of late. I am writing columns for The Local Voice (the latest is here, and I encourage you to download the whole newspaper here). I am writing more and more about culture, mostly music, at my job (here, here and here), with some more exciting things coming up.
Also on my list of priorities, this:
When I was a little girl, this was my favorite song. One of my most vivid childhood memories is of bursting through the little plastic shutters on this little plastic playhouse in my kindergarten classroom, singing this song at what I believed to be full volume. I didn't have a lisp, and I'm confident that I wasn't anywhere near this adorable, but obviously her performance reminds me of that day.
If you watch this and don't 1. bawl your eyes out, 2. squeal and cover your mouth in delight or 3. tell someone you love them, then you should probably seek spiritual guidance because you are an empty shell of a person. Also, I realize I am two years late on this, but it doesn't matter because it is timeless.
Sometimes I read the comments on other people's writing,
Poring over twisty noodles mixed with olive oil and parmesan cheese (the cheap kind),
Mixed with turkey sausage and sauteed pears (I ran out of onions),
And I say aloud,
"Fuck them. I'm not like that. And I shouldn't try to be."
I know I'm right,
But it's the same fucking people (or bots, or what have you) who make me upset
When they don't comment on my writing.
Everyday, everyday,
I tell myself it takes years to complete a masterpiece,
Then I google how long it took Picasso to paint Guernica:
One month.
One month.
My ears are popping.
One month.
Fuck the Internet.
Seeing a girl snort coke out of her purse at the LCD show made me wonder
How much art is made
To keep the drugged masses at bay
We are a drugged culture. We live in a culture of alcohol. It's considered normal. I've seen more people lose themselves in an alcoholic oblivion than I care to count. I like nights like tonight when I get high off music, thumping bass pulsing under my toes and through my veins and into my brain. Synapses firing and starting up again, refusing the trespass of fatigue. I don't feel tired when I dance. I felt like I could go on all night, except my feet hurt. But I could just remove my shoes and keep going. When music moves me, it makes me move. A bass drop is a vitamin B12 injection directly into my eyelids. I forget who I am, where I am, who I'm not, where I'm not. I am just alive. I am just bouncing. I don't feel happy, or not feel happy. I don't feel, I just am.
Lately, I've been missing the South. Like never before since I moved to the city, I miss it. It's a movie playing in my head, pausing more than it moves forward, a series of images of things I equate with the South. One moment, I see my foot on the dash, wind blowing through my hair, music cranked up, watching a lightening storm as the sun goes down in the distance. A little later, I see blackness as I wake up in the middle of the night to a loud crack of thunder. God, I miss thunder and lightening and storms more than anything. It doesn't storm up here. It rains for short amounts of time, and even then it sounds so different because it's pitter-pattering on my AC in the window, not on my roof. And thunder in the distance just doesn't exist in New York. I crave that.
Then it's something vague, like a grassy hill. Or those hills in Mississippi, on the drive from Birmingham to Oxford, that rise and fall against the blunt flatness of the Delta to the south. I remember driving that route on the prettiest days the universe ever threw together, and thinking, even then - when I absolutely took it for granted - how the sky seemed to stretch on forever and the clouds were the happy residents of that infinity. The grass stalks on the sides of the highway were tall, and depending on the time of year, they were green or yellow or brown, sometimes all three. But they were always there, and they seemed to constantly sway in the wind, all the blades moving together in one swooping motion, as if they were waving at me along my journey.
It's odd, because I'm not sad in New York. Maybe I just haven't gotten to that point yet, but I oddly feel sort of comforted by my ardent longing for the South. Maybe because it comes from somewhere outside of myself - or at least that's my inclination, since I'm certainly not forcing myself to feel this way - I think each missin' pang brings me closer to where I need to be and what I need to do. As if the script to that movie in my head isn't completed, but is actively being written. The plot is revealed to me in flashes, and the ending doesn't even exist yet.
Remember when I told y'all I'm reading North Toward Home by Willie Morris? Well the same day I started reading it, I noticed a note on the last page, written by one of the previous owners. When I tried to read it, I couldn't decipher the handwriting, which might be referred to as "chicken scratch," and looks like it could have been written by my mom or her mama or her momma before. Then I sort of forgot about it. Yesterday, I looked at it again and it was perfectly clear to me.
I finished! Great day in the morning I finished 1/22/88 betw Boca & Atlanta You come back now you hear!
My birthday is 1/21/86. I was two years and two days old when this person finished the book and felt compelled to make a note of it. Also, no one above the Mason-Dixon line says "great day in the morning." Ever. AND, don't people normally say "y'all come back now ya hear"? This person, for some reason, replaced the "y'all" with "you." And 22 years later, I read it at a particularly vulnerable time, when I miss the South and home with every part of myself. Art - and therefore life - is a complete mindfuck sometimes.
When I read it on the train yesterday, I started laugh-crying. I'm sure I looked insane. But it's just like, OK, universe - after the message this book already gave me when I was sitting in the window of the salon in Chelsea, I can't ignore it.
I'm coming home. I don't know when. I don't even know where or why or how, but I just feel the truth of that statement, without even understanding it.
Update: Authorities are reporting that a boat captain in charge of helping clean up the oil spill at Gulf Shores has shot and killed himself. The scope of this tragedy, and the depth of the sadness and desperation it has induced in the people who thrive on the waters of the Gulf, cannot be expressed in words. I tried, but my words don't even come close. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone on the coast. All the way from New York, my heart is constantly in the South.
A few weeks ago, I was riding the train from Brooklyn to Manhattan when I discovered those first photos of birds covered in oil on someone's Twitter. Until that moment, the oil spill had just seemed sort of unreal to me, and then suddenly it hit me, all at once, and I started crying. The whole ride home, I was either crying or stewing in outrage, feeling smaller and smaller by the second, unsure of what I could possibly do - if anything - to counteract the largest human error yet seen in my lifetime.
Anti-BP graffiti near my apartment in East Harlem
So I did the only thing I know how when I'm seriously impacted by something. I wrote about it. I wrote a really long, really angry poem, and I went home and for several nights recorded myself reading it, in various states of undress and makeup and lighting and all kinds of crazy things. I ended up not being happy with the results, because what I had written - while raw and very true to how I felt in those moments - was not something I wanted to publicly and permanently attach my name to. It was too violent and hateful.
So I re-wrote it, trying really hard to focus my sadness and anger into a different channel, where I re-visited my childhood memories of the Gulf and tried to express as best I could how the people on the coast must feel right now. Even though I don't live down there, a big part of me does, because a lot of my fondest memories growing up center on that culture. It breaks my heart to know that it has been treated so haphazardly.
Anyway, I wrote an essay and recorded myself reading it. Below, the full text of the essay and my recording. This also marks the first time I've put my actual voice on my blog (aside from various videos I've posted). Please read and/or listen, and don't forget you have a voice too. Please donate if you can, or simply raise your voice however you feel comfortable.
Love and art, always.
When I Was Little
When I was little, I made a new friend at the beach. I remember it like it happened yesterday. I was wearing a teal green two-piece bathing suit, with little bows on the back of the top, and little bows on the bottoms. My long brown hair was wet, hanging down to the middle of my back, and my bangs bounced on my forehead as I ran, my feet slapping the wet brick around the edge of the pool.
Sunlight bounced off the water and hit my teeth, reflecting blindly as I laughed and jumped into the pool with my new friend. She was skinny, and much tanner than me. I could never tan, and I still can’t, but the freckles tried desperately to make up for my lack of melatonin, stretching their faces to the sky, which was as blue as the ocean, and reached forever and ever and seemingly ever into the future.
She was skinny, and she wore a tie-dyed one piece. She had long blonde hair. I don’t remember her name. We grasped hands and played games around the pool. We invented worlds on the edge of the water, worlds with rules but without regulations, worlds with no night, only day. No rain, only sunlight. No money, only play. Even now, as I think of her, I can feel the sand coating my thighs, stubbornly clinging, unaffected by chlorine stains.
When I was little, we always went to the beach in the mornings. Always, always, I would wake up and my parents would be brewing coffee, and a fresh box of doughnuts would sit on the counter, open and waiting for me. The house would smell of coffee and sugar glaze and saltwater, and when I woke up the first thing I heard was the waves crashing against the shore. I can smell it now. I can hear it.
We would walk down to the beach, and I would dutifully remove my flip-flops, as I had watched my mother do so many times before. And I would tread carefully on the sand, feeling my calves clench up in resistance, releasing their tension once I arrived at the water’s edge. My toes reached and grasped at the waves, urging me forward. I would always go in, maybe up to my waist, but I was afraid to go any farther. My mom almost drowned when she was little, so my fear is ingrained in my double helices. But the fear just made me love it more, pushed me toward it more insistently, made the splash of my legs cutting through the blue echo more loudly against the coastline.
My parents and I would always make sandwiches for lunch. We sat out on our balcony and ate them while we played card games or backgammon. The balcony over the beach was a safe zone; I have only happy memories of that space – laughing, feet curled up under knees, bellies full of bologna and potato chips, sun-kissed skin straining against plastic railing, the constant whoosh of the waves hitting the shore. That was my childhood.
When I wasn’t so little anymore, I remember going to the beach by myself one night. I sat in the sand, on the very edge of the water. I remember thinking I had never seen anything so black in my entire life. So black, and vast, and empty, and full, all at the same time. I remember thinking I had no idea what I was actually looking at, and wondering if there was someone on the other side of the water, looking back at me. I remember wondering if I tossed a bottle into the ocean, first writing a letter and tucking it inside, if it would ever reach someone, anyone, and if that person would write me back. I remember thinking how everything was actually connected, how any sense of separation was just a human invention, and how the ocean was proof of this.
Now, I’m all grown-up. I live in New York City, and I haven’t seen the Gulf for more than two years. And now, I know I’ll never see it again. I will go down, I will visit, but the waters of my childhood are gone forever. Even as I write it, I deny it. I tell myself I’m just being dramatic, that I should just stop writing right now, because the oil spill’s not that bad after all, and it will be resolved soon, and will be nothing more than a black shadow of a memory, a former version of a slick we almost forgot.
But the truth is that, probably, it is that bad. The thing about oil is that we don’t know how much of it there is, because the universe buried it underneath miles and miles of dirt and sand and earth, and we can’t see where it ends. We found it, and claimed it as ours, but, as usual, we know only the beginning. In the meantime we just see people and animals, stuck in a frozen flail, suspended in space by oil.
To the people at British Petroleum, and across the entire oil industry, who have been charged with repairing this tragedy, know that you cannot. All the money in the world is useless. Nature doesn’t accept our currencies. You cannot repair it, but you can work to stop it. And you have to.
Get off your yacht, Tony Hayward. Of course I don’t believe that you can fix this horror show, and I don’t even believe that you care to, but at least you should pretend.
Just imagine, now, if I dropped a bottle into the Gulf. It wouldn’t go very far. It might float out just a few miles before it got trapped in the sludge. And inside, a letter that would never be read. A letter that says, “Hi, my friend from the pool. I don’t know if you remember me from all those years ago. I was wearing teal green. I can’t remember your name, but I am glad we made friends. I hope you get this letter. Love, Meghan.”
I've been busy with a couple other projects recently, and I haven't been blogging. But I saw this recently and felt motivated to share its ridiculousness with the world.
#thingsthatmakebuddhalaugh
Relevant things you may or may not care about:
I'm coming to B'ham soonish. Like early July. And I have an appointment to get my second tattoo while I'm down there. It will look something vaguely like this, just maybe a bit smaller.
I'm working on a website of my very own, with the help of the multi-talented Zachary, and will obviously post a link to it here when it's up and running.
I'm coming to Oxford for the first time in more than a year in August. EXCITED. I'll be in town for two nights for a friend's wedding. People younger than me are getting married. Crazeballs.
I'm learning how to play guitar. I enrolled at New York City Guitar School and it is AWESOME. It's such a chill environment, and everyone is super friendly. My teacher marched drum corps back in the day - and so did I NERD ALERT - so we geeked out over that.
I wrote a short film and spent the entire weekend filming it with a stupidly talented group of people. I am so so so excited about it.
I envy pretty girls
with pretty skin
and sunglasses on their noses;
I used to be one of them,
carefree and laughing,
then life happened,
love happened,
New York happened:
Dear friend Hannah inspired me with her latest post, which made me realize I hadn't talked to my city in a while. So I sat down and talked to her. Here's how the conversation went.
Oh, hi New York. Hi. It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? I mean, I’ve been here, and you’ve certainly been there, but I feel like we haven’t really talked in a while. The tolls are so high. The tolls are just so fucking high. If you google “toll-free, antonym,” I swear to God “New York” should be the first search result.
I know this. I know this because last weekend I left. I rented a car with two friends and drove to Asbury Park, New Jersey. I know, what the fuck, right? It was for love. Not for, like, “love” love, like I’m going to marry this person love or anything crazy. Nah. But some kind of love. There are lots, you know? Love is the color wheel on the Wheel of Fortune, just more or less annoying, depending on how you feel about Wheel of Fortune. There are, like, 100 varieties, but an infinite number of possible combinations. It can be fun.
Anyway, I drove to Jersey. Actually I didn’t drive. I was drunk. My friend drove. We went down on the FDR, fingered the island on Houston Street, then finally finally fucked the Holland Tunnel to get out. It was good. It was really fucking good. It was cool to be in a car in the city, watching all the drones walk around me. I felt rich, except I know I’m not. I felt like a prince on an elephant in the middle of the dessert, except I know I’m not.
Once we were out, we encountered like a thousand toll stops. Seriously, every 15 to 20 minutes there would be another toll. Why you gotta be like that, New York? Northeast? In the South, there are no tolls. Period. There miiiiiiight be a toll on the bridge to Dauphin Island off the coast of Alabama, but I can’t really remember. Soon it won’t matter anyway because the whole thing will be covered in oil, ugh. But that could be kind of cool, I guess, because it will basically be a huge slip and slide. And who doesn’t love those from their childhood? Weeeeeeeeee!
Toll. Drive. Toll. Drive. On the way back too, driving at 1, 2, 3 in the morning, tolls. Why are you so hard to penetrate, New York? It’s hard to get in, and it’s hard to get the fuck out. Why do you separate yourself like that? I mean, I get it. You’re “New York.” You’re “Manhattan.” You feel threatened, you gotta protect yourself, you feel like people owe it to you to pay obscene amounts just to cross your borders. It’s probably Sex and the City’s fault. Name off all the things you dislike about yourself, dear city, and I promise you I can trace their source back to that fucking show. But whatever. What’s done is done, and it’s a good fucking show anyway.
The tolls are confusing too. It’s not like it’s straightforward, you know? It’s not like “drive here if you have cash, drive here if you have a credit card, drive here if you have that E-Z-Pass shit.” I mean, technically, yeah, that’s how it’s set up, but all the highways in New Jersey I swear to God are like 25 lanes. So cars and trucks and hippie minivans are swerving all over the place, and then there’s us, and we don’t know where we are or where we’re going, we just know we have to pay to get there.
What? Don’t be a smartass. Of course it’s appropriate. Huh? Oh yeah, of course I know I’m using a hackneyed symbol for the crisis of the American youth. I don’t really need you to tell me that. And I really don't need you to tell me not to use the word hackneyed because it's hackneyed! But you know what? There’s nothing new under the sun, New York. Besides, what are you doing that’s new? What shit are you making? I had a dream last night that I got a tattoo of a turtle on my arm and he was wearing a CBGB T-shirt. Fuck you.
Oh, shit, I guess it is time for your monthly bath. Already? Goddamn. I feel like you just had one. OK, I’ll let you go. I’m not mad at you. Actually I’m quite content with you. It worries me. I’ve never been content with you before. Did I change, or have you changed? You look so different to me now, compared to just a few months ago. I should probably be more pissed than ever at you, but somehow I’m not. I’m just like, it’s OK. A cool stream of “it’s OK”s keeps swimming over me as I dunk my head under the brim of summer. I just sit on my bed and strum my guitar and those six strings vibrate with how little I know, and the sound bounces off the walls of my lonely little room, but it’s comforting, you know? I’m just like, it’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK. Splash.
Well, I mean, I feel OK, which is what makes me worry and feel not OK. Like a gnawing in the back of my mind, like my old self jumping up and down saying, ‘Remember when you used to be unhappy!? You were so much cooler and more artsy then!’ I guess that’s one thing: New York, you’re the only place in the world where contentment raises blood pressures. Systolic over diastolic, steady climbin', like a bridge over a tugboat where there’s probably a goddamn toll.
I saw Patti Smith in concert in New Brunswick Friday night. It was the second concert experience I've had that was a religious one - the first being Lady Gaga - where you forget you have a body and just exist only in that moment and you realize the unbearable lightness of your idol standing a few feet away from you, looking at you and touching your hand and changing your life. We rushed to the stage when she came on, so I left my phone/camera behind and didn't take any pictures. That's OK, because Jenny took some really amazing ones. I'm going to post them here, in lieu of trying to reproduce the experience with words, and she's going to post them on her blog (plus a few more) later.
it was a portal
past bumping up
against future
tears on an amp
fists on a stage
guitar strings ripped out
with 60-year-old hands
and ageless
completely
ageless
This weekend I saw the Marina Abramović exhibit at the MoMa. It was amazing and inspiring and I was really moved and changed by it. The performance I found most inspiring was with her longtime lover and collaborator Ulay. When they first fell in love, they talked about walking the length of the Great Wall of China, meeting in the middle and getting married. As they continued to work together for the better part of 10 years, their relationship dissolved and the project evolved: they decided they would walk the length of the wall, meet in the middle, and say goodbye. It took them 90 days, and the resulting film is nearly 17 hours long. When Zac and I went to the exhibit on Saturday, we just happened to be there when the segment of film showing their meeting was projected onto the wall. It made me cry. It was the last project they ever did together.
Part of the MoMA exhibit is Abramovic sitting at a table in a big open room with an empty chair across from her. Patrons of the museum are invited to sit across from her silently and just absorb the experience. I really wanted the chance to sit across from her, but there was a line to get in and a guy sat there for the entire time we were in the museum anyway. So instead we just sat on the floor and Zac sketched and I wrote a poem for her. Here it is.
--
the artist is present
but what does that mean?
when I walked in the museum today
I heard a group of people
laughing boisterously
at a media work on the wall
they said things like
Oh my God
It's a woman
Sucking Juices
Ew
That's gross
I hope that's Jell-o
the masses are so stupid
but at the MoMA
that's who you're speaking to
just a mass of dumb shits
checking things off a list
so I guess my point is
what's the point of art?
why do we make it?
who do we want to reach?
then I walked into the atreum
and saw this shit happening
I sat on the floor
and asked my friend
Do you think he's part of this
Or just a random person?
he said
Oh, he's part of it
I said
I'm not so sure
I got up to read the wall
I realized
what was happening
the world started to spin
my heart started to pump
I got so excited.
I have always lived for this stuff
like this
but I'm just now
realizing it
relearning who I am
the artist is present
and always has been
My body was not born to be an artist’s
Artists never sleep
They drink a lot
They do drugs
They buy supplies and other works to inspire them
Before they buy food
And somehow they’re fine
Because they were born to expend energy making work
When I was an infant
(Now, I don’t remember this)
But when I was an infant
I rolled out of bed or something and bumped my knee
It swelled up to the size of a baseball
My parents took me in
The doctors said I had arthritis
It went away, but when I was a little older
I started scratching myself in my sleep
I had to wear latex gloves to bed
To keep from bleeding all over my sheets
So when that sort of improved
I curled up in my bed one day
Felt a sharp pain
Ended up in the hospital for two weeks with peritonitis
From a pissy appendix that decided to explode
My body was not born to be an artist’s
Now when I don’t sleep
I feel weak
When I drink
I feel all dried up
When I do drugs
I freak out
When I don’t eat
I want to throw up
Everyone else is fine
But I feel like I’m barely makin’ it through
One day, will it be me?
Lying on the couch
One arm raised
Askin’
“Did art get us, Patti?”
Probably.
‘Cuz my body wasn't born to be an artist’s
But something inside me won’t let me stop
So it’s another late night
Writing
Writing
Writing
Or maybe it's something outside
Fuck it
So while I've been not blogging, I've been working on a number of other artistic projects and/or enrichment activities. A couple of weekends ago Zac, Jenny and I spent basically the entire weekend filming things and taking/posing/directing a couple photo shoots. Jenny asked me (and a few other stupidly attractive people) to rub dark eye makeup and Vaseline on my face and act brooding and sexy and dark. Um, yes? Here are my results, and you can see all the rest on Jenny's blog.
When I first saw the shots, I thought, "Boo. I wanted to look edgier. Darker. Harder. Rougher." I thought I looked too soft for what Jenny was trying to accomplish; but the more I studied them and the more I thought about it, the more I loved them. They just look like me. I'm sort of going through a phase right now where I want to reject everything I used to be - soft, pretty, girly, sweet - in favor of some sort of badass rebel vibe that reflects all the hard shit I've been through in the past year. The photos show - and this is why Jenny is a brilliant photographer - that no matter how hard I try, no matter how much dark makeup I put on or how much grease I put in my hair, I will always be that sweet little Southern girl who just believes in the best in people and came to the city to do nothing but pursue her dream.
Looking at these photos, for the first time in my life I thought to myself that I looked like a woman. That I am a woman. Not a girl, a woman. I've officially accomplished some of my dreams and given birth to new ones. I've fallen in love and had my heart shattered. I've explored my own sexuality at new levels. I've made some stupid mistakes. I've learned a lot and forgotten a lot. I've loved my friends with all my heart. I've supported and been supported by my family. I'm still young and I'm by no means finished with any of these things, but I see the beginnings of them all when I look at Jen's photos. Oh, and I think I sort of look like a boy in that last shot, which I totally love.
And apparently, no matter how much punk rock I listen to, I will continue to quote Britney Spears songs and title my blog posts after them. Deal with it.
Zac and I watched the PBS Andy Warhol documentary last night and I got up to get some water and when I looked down into my kitchen sink, it looked really pretty so I took a photo of it. Then I edited it with Photoshop and played around with it a little bit and here it is.
I am getting emotional. As in I am having an emotional moment. Today, Saturday, April 3, 2010, I got my first tattoo. It hurt like a MOTHERFUCKER and I yelped like a little pussy and I did not enjoy the process at all. However, now back at home, looking at my new arm art, listening to Gaga sing Pokerface at her piano - the acoustic version I first heard about a year ago - tears are welling up in my eyes when I remember why, back in September, I wrote about why I thought she would inspire my first tattoo. I wasn't sure then if I would go through with it or not - but the roughness the past year created in me has begun to flower into a celebration of who I am, and I feel more confident in that person than I ever have before. Gaga inspires me to be just who I am, unapologetically, and to explore parts of myself that I've always wanted to but have perhaps feared. Anyway. Before I get into all that, here's the tattoo experience.
I waffled for like 30 minutes before I went through with getting it. I have really sensitive skin, and I also have eczema, so I wasn't sure that it was the best decision. Once I made a decision - after saying something about it being an existential crisis and pulling out my favorite "no one can take a bath for you" spiel - she started inking me, and it only took like five minutes. An excruciating fucking five minutes. This is right after it was finished, all wrapped up, (with) a pretty little bow:
Finished art, unwrapped (with a cameo by my toothbrush):
I love it. It's cute, right? It's cute, but it means so much more to me than just that. Bullet lists are everyone's favorite, so here it is, unedited, what this tattoo means to me, who I am, right now.
- 2009 was the year of my first true heartbreak. Gaga was there with me, somehow, at every step along the way, and in my memories of that year, she always will be. It's not an exaggeration to say that by the end of last year, I was completely fucking destroyed. I've come a long way in the past few months, but I am not ashamed to say that I still miss Andrew and I still sometimes cry for his loss. I cut him out of my life because I had to, but it has not been easy. A part of me still loves him. When I hear Brown Eyes, I think about him, and I probably always will. I'm OK with that. I learned the possibility of my emotional depth because of him, so ultimately I'm nothing but thankful.
- Gaga has always been pretty outspoken about her bisexual experiences. I have always had bisexual curiosity and tendencies, but I've just recently began to explore it. I don't really consider it fodder for this blog, but a world has opened up for me, and I have never felt more free or comfortable in my own sexuality.
- I am more free than I have ever been. I have stopped caring what others think of me, and I have taken to cutting and ripping my clothing however I see fit before I go out. I wear dark eyeliner and slick my short brown hair down with pomade. I wear glittery eyeshadow. I don't really consider something worth wearing unless I have somehow taken my hand to it or one of my friends has. Zachary sketched my tattoo for me. I never even knew what freedom was before this stage of my life, and now that I've tasted it I never want to go back. I can't even remember what I did before I made things or at least felt the drive and necessity to make them.
- I am more in love with New York than I ever have been, if that's even possible. This city continues to inspire me, envelop me, develop me and create new worlds for me. Literally everyday is an adventure, and I am surrounded by my dearest friends, who are actually my family, and I could not feel more blessed. Gaga represents New York for me, because that's where she got her start - she frequented St. Jerome's, which is my new favorite bar on the LES - and she just sort of embodies the grease, grit, dirt, harshness, and glamor of the city.
- Rivington Street
- I have recently discovered about myself that I truly feel like I'm meant to be an artist, and I think of myself as one, even though I am still really young and don't know quite what I want to do. I've been reading and learning about Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, and, yes, Lady Gaga, and what they did as young artists in New York. I'm learning about myself through them. I am dabbling in poetry and songwriting, as well as trying to learn more about the art world in New York.
To that end, I recently transcribed onto my bedroom wall a poem Patti Smith wrote when she was 24, which is obviously how old I am now, about New York.
Here's video of her saying it aloud, back in 1971. I have no idea if she wrote it before the interview and was reading from memory, or if she wrote it on the spot. She was really into improvisation, so the latter would not surprise me.
Patti was born on December 30, 1946. I moved to New York on December 30, exactly 62 years later. I find this appropriate, because it took moving to New York for me to truly be born, and the process, I hope, has only begun.
One of the very first blogs I read religiously was Jezebel, starting in August of 2008 when my then-boyf now-ex sent me a link and told me I would probaby love it. He was right - and, as a side note, we proceeded to get into myriad fights about feminism based on posts written on Jez, at which he always balked and claimed I was attacking his manhood, though he would totally deny this now - and I began reading the blog obsessively at work, and even sent in my information numerous times to try to write for them. I was always rejected, because there was never any money of course. The first writer at Jez that I really latched onto was Tracie Egan, who wrote for a long time under the moniker "Slut Machine" - though the slut got married and is now Tracie Egan Morrissey - and whose personal blog, One D At A Time, I discovered soon after.
I remember staying up late one night just reading reading reading her blog until I passed out. She wrote candidly about her sexual escapades in New York, including her encounter with multiple STDs, her cocaine and alcohol habits, and her unabashed love for a (ahem) well-endowed man. I found her writing so incredibly, um, stimulating because I could tell it was real, and naturally - as a sexually adventurous person - I related to it. I saw something of myself in her, and I had tremendous respect for her balls at putting it all out there. She is also how I got introduced to Rich over at Four Four, her best friend and another one of my blog idols who I had the pleasure of serendipitously encountering on the L train recently.
ANYWAY. Through a really random and mostly boring story centered on my online dating escapades, I got introduced to Nic Rad about six months ago. He's a Brooklyn-based painter whose most recent project, People Matter, is a collection of 100 paintings of Internet and media celebrities. As part of the social experiment aspect of his project, he's giving away for free for absolutely no money whatsoever all 100 paintings to whoever reserves them. And yep, you guessed it, he painted Tracie.
It's so fucking beautiful, isn't it? Naturally I sent him a friendly "remember meeee?" e-mail, to which he responded that he had indeed not forgotten me. He asked me for a couple paragraphs explaining why I wanted the painting of Tracie, and told me that my writing, as well as my blog link and Twitter info, etc. would appear on his site next to the painting. I did as he wished, and he wrote me back today officially reserving the painting for me.
So nearly two years after I discovered her, Tracie will hang in my house. My life tends to work in these incredible serendipitous cycles. Nic's show opens this weekend, so if any of you are in the New York area, go to Rare Gallery on Saturday night. I'll be there trying not to fondle my new - and first legitimate - art possession.
I haven't blogged all week, sort of on purpose and sort of on accident. I've been busy. And I've been distancing myself because I want to work on other aspects of my work. The following is an example. I was talking to Zachary about how early my roommate gets up (sometimes around 6:30), and how I can sometimes hear her morning routine.
me: showers and like fixes breakfast and stuffZachary: like a real personme: rightZachary: i feel like i'm not a real personsometimes
me: im like lemme roll outta bed at 745 and stumble through brushing my teeth
ME. TOO.
i know what you mean
gawd
Zachary: andy warhol (obvs) has a quote about feeling like he lives in a tv show
i totally get that
me: ooohhh
Zachary: and it's interesting because he said that after he was shot
and he said something like before i was shot i used to have this idea that i lived in a tv show blah blah blah
and i thought it was going to be like after i was shot, it was like i was brought into real life
but instead he said after i was shot, i KNEW that i lived in a tv show. we change the channels but it's all still tv
me: v interesting
like nothing really changed
he still felt like he was watching his life happen from outside
Zachary: "Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there – I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it's the way things happen in life that's unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television – you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television."
when i read that i was like i. totally. get. that.
it's kind of sad but so true
me: ohhhh man
so true
ugh
i talked to my friend about that like a few months ago
how things happen but it's like they're not happening at all
like we build up hope and expectations about these events in our life, to marcate our lives, then when they actually happen it just breezes by and doesn't feel like anything
so like when he was shot he expected things to feel real but then they didn't, which just confirmed his belief that he was living in a tv show
Zachary: right. you dont know what it is until you look back like oh, that was pivotal
me: or is it? is anything pivotal?
Zachary: but in the moment it's just life
me: but all there is is the moment
Zachary: i think in retrospect things can be
me: sommmmmmetimes
other times you're just left with this feeling that it happened, it's gone, and it meant nothing
even though you thought it would mean something
or it's like you didn't even fully experience it
forget meaning entirely
it's like you weren't fully there
Zachary: but then sometimes it's the opposite
me: when i look back on my life, my best best best days were the days where i felt like i was fully in the moment
Zachary: i cant remember ever being as in-a-trance happy as i was at gaga and on sunday
me: exactly
i think about double decker 2007
gaga
sunday
Zachary: oh def dd07
me: those stand out to me
three. days.
out of how many thousands ive been alive
Zachary: roughly 9000
me: im sure i could think of more, but the point is which days do you not have to think about to remember?
and i sort of live with this constant fear that the BIG DAYS we all want to experience will not be like that
such as getting married
like will i experience my wedding day and be like.... eh not as good as dd2007 or sun2010
not because of anything situational
just because for whatever reason the universe was not aligned like it has been on those few days
Zachary: not that other days are bad
me: no it's not that they are bad
they are just like tv
Zachary: i dont think tv is a bad thing
me: nope
its not
and it's not even that experiencing your own life like a tv show is "bad"
it's just strange
very strange
and i would not call it pleasant
it's disconcertingSunday, March 21, 2010 was one of the best days of my life. Evidence here.
Late last summer, when I first started writing this blog every single day and pouring my heart and soul into it, it was because I felt a natural urge to do so. Every single post I wrote for months and months came from a sincere place, and if I didn't feel inspired to write something, I just didn't. For the past month or so, I have felt an artistic anxiety unlike anything I've experienced before, and I've been unsure of how to filter it into a product. As a result - and you may have noticed this - my writing and my blog have suffered. I've tried to create posts, and have succeeded at times, but mostly I have faltered. I've noticed that the quality of my work has dipped, and my readership has dropped off. Rather than continue on like nothing is changing, I thought it best to just be honest - since my blog was born out of an honest place - and keep it real in BtoA land.
As y'all know, I write a lot on my phone. I wrote this late last night on the bus home, and I think it adequately expresses how I've been feeling recently. Mostly because it's completely stream of consciousness and unedited. So, here it is.
I feel filled with an energy I can't explain. Up until recently, I have always just wanted to write. Forever and ever I've written, and had the urge to write, and have written. I always thought that was my ultimate calling, but now I'm not sure; not because I don't want to write anymore, but because I feel some new urge to create visual and audial things. I see myself crouched over papers, stop-going on camera, splattering paint on walls. I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing or why.
The fact that I'm compelled to write this down at all means something. Writing is still my first method of expression, my go-to for needing to get things out to the universe. But I feel an undeniable thing growing inside me, to express myself and make things in ways I never thought of before. I want to wrap my arms around a guitar player and have him love me back. I want to sing and write music and stay true to myself as I create beautiful things to share with other people. I want the present, past and future of New York to live through me. I want to breathe it in and feel it grow and burst out of me in whatever ways it deems best. Nanoosh. McDonalds. Symphony Cleaners. The Food Emporium. Duane Reade. Chase Bank. C town town town. Welcome to the johnsons. Brooklyn. Harlem. The 6 train. The M15. Summer in the park. Sunlight. Green grass. Patti and Robert. Love. Art. Friendship. Family.
I want to know my purpose. What I'm supposed to make for the world. I'm pleading with the universe regularly to show me.
Show me.
Show me.
Show me.
Show me.
Please.
How do I find it?
After this post, my blog is probably going to go through a bit of a transformation. I've been wanting to experiment with photography, videography, painting, drawing, decorating, everything. So - for those of you who care - you will probably see more posts relating to that type stuff starting soon. My posts will probably be more sporadic, less scheduled, and more varied in nature. Ultimately, for me, it always comes back to writing, so it's not like I'm going to stop using words. But I'm going to start doing other things too, as soon as I figure out where to start.
On the walk home, on my block, I stopped in my tracks on 104th street when I saw this stenciled on a door outside a church.
It says, "If it is to be, then it is up to me." Then it says, "God loves you."
I've walked 104th street a hundred times, even before I moved here, heading to my old home from Zac's apartment - but I didn't see this sign until tonight. It seems, of course, incredibly appropriate.
I don't know what I'm supposed to do, which is a very foreign feeling. I hope that those of who you really love my blog and feel some sort of connection with me will hang around while I navigate this unknown part of my life. I think and hope and pray that it will be worth it.
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