Barry and I both made it home relatively late last night, he from seeing Joko and I from yoga--I've been going to the classes at the ashram nearly every day--but that didn't stop us from staying up most of the night and talking. At midnight he wished me happy birthday and I woke up this morning, after only a few hours of sleep, to more lovely birthday wishes. When I made it in to work the ledge of my desk was already stocked with pasteries and my boss gave me a card and a moon-shaped metal paper-weight with a quote from Anaïs Nin engraved on it: Dreams are necessary to life.
As is the usual case on my birthday, I find myself reflecting on who I am, who I was, and who I want to be.
Today, I couldn't be happier.
Later tonight: My cousin's wedding and then the artwalk
Tomorrow: Wickenberg and dinner at Sens
Montgomery belle, a fellow Catholic with whom he once visited
St. Peter’s Church to pay penance. After Scott had cleansed
away his sins, his girlfriend stepped into the confession box
and ticked off a number of minor transgressions against God
and man. When she finished, the priest asked, “Is that all, my
daughter?”
“I ... I ... think so,” she replied tentatively.
“Are you sure, my daughter?”
“That’s all I can remember.”
“No, that’s not all, my daughter,” he answered severely. “I fear I
shall have to prompt you ... Because I heard your young man’s
confession first.”
from Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the
Women Who Made America Modern (2006), by Joshua Zeitz
| I paint polka dots on the bodies of people, and with those polka dots, the people will self-obliterate and return to the nature of the universe. |
| An excerpt from “Infinity Nets”, Kusama Yayoi Autobiography |
Colonel Vogel: What does the diary tell you that it doesn't tell us?
Professor Henry Jones: It tells me that goose-stepping morons like
yourself should try reading books instead of burning them.
Stuff like this always makes me so pissed off... I could spit.
A teen book burns at the stake
A Christian group hopes to set fire to library copies of Francesca Lia Block's novel about a gay boy coming of age.
"At a June 3 public hearing, the library board received two petitions (700 signatures supporting the restriction, 1,000 opposed) on the issue and listened to dozens of statements (you can see video of some of the statements here.) Then it voted unanimously to leave the books where they are. (YAY!)
But the controversy isn't over. Now an outfit called the Christian Civil Liberties Union has gotten in on the act, suing the library for, according to the West Bend Daily News, "damaging" the "mental and emotional well-being" of several individuals by displaying "Baby Be-Bop" in the library. Since attempts to label the novel as "pornographic" have failed, the (somewhat shadowy) CCLU hopes to brand it as hate speech, in part because it contains the word "nigger." The complainants, described as "elderly" by the newspaper, claim that Block's novel is "explicitly vulgar, racial [sic] and anti-Christian." They want the library's copy not only removed but publicly burned." (BOOOOO!)
I've been sort of depressed lately, hence the lack of substantial updating here.
Some good things going on:
- Wednesday was Barry's birthday. I gave him a statue of St. Francis as an early birthday gift a couple weeks ago, and tomorrow I'm taking him... somewhere... it's a surprise.
- Getting back into the yoga routine after having slacked off for a couple of weeks. Trying--thus far unsuccessfully, but I will prevail!--to get up early enough for the daily sadhana practice at the ashram.
- Have tickets to see Wicked in a couple weeks.
- Was asked to be the featured reader at Conspire's poetry night on August 26th. Even though I don't write poetry. It's not close enough yet for me to start freaking out about what I'm going to read, but I'm sure I will when the time comes.
Some random things:
- Came across the website of artist M. Mellon today and fell immediately in love with his work. Am buying this print.
- Also, Tina Tarnoff's papercuts are amazing, and I want them all. (Have I ever mentioned how much I love Etsy? It's a lot. A whole lot.) Also, also she keeps a great blog.
Some even more random things:
- My MSPaint homages to Op Art:
happen to me. I was at the library making last-minute edits
to The Dartmouth Review when Miss Shimock, the young
librarian, walked up to my table wearing nothing but a copy
of Atlas Shrugged. She made a strong case that it was in
my rational self-interest to take off my pants ... Wait, I think
I'm writing this letter to the wrong magazine.
Sept. 18, 1984
- First Fridays: art; people watching; side show freaks.
- Drove out to east Mesa with my dad Saturday afternoon to try on clothes for the Wild-West single action shooting society that he wants me to join with him. (It's a good way to get to spend some time with him, and I'm up for pretty much anything that involves a costume.) Found a great Victorian outfit--a swooshy walking skirt to be worn with petticoat and bustle, a fitted, high-collared shirt with full mutton sleeves, and a lovely satin vest. In it, I looked like I had come straight off of an old movie set. Certainly not the most practical outfit for shooting guns in, but the idea of wielding a six-shooter and shotgun in such a buttoned-up and feminine ensemble appeals to my sense of theatricality (if it weren't for the fact that I'm doing it with my dad, I would unquestionably go for saloon girl). However, it was unfortunately way out of my price range, so I didn't end up buying anything. Stayed in Saturday night and read the 3rd in the Twilight series, in its entirety, after Barry faced the unspeakable and dire humiliation of picking it up at Bookman's for me. (Or: "how to know your husband really loves you".)
- Got up early Sunday morning and went to the Hassayampa River Preserve outside Wickenberg with my mom: overgrown trails; giant fig trees; deeply shaded fields of wild-flowers; cool, clear running water; lizards--everywhere; funnel web spiders; minnows. It was beautiful and peaceful. I think I'll be making lots of trips back--and next time, with a camera. After, we started out for Peeple's Valley but lost steam around Yarnell and stopped for lunch at a great little cafe before heading back home, making one more detour to pick a peck of peaches. A few apples too--they weren't fully ripe yet, but we couldn't resist. I plan to go back for fresh blackberries and the grape harvest at the end of the month.
Here's my latest. It took me almost 2 months to finish it... this is the largest drawing that I've done in that style, I work slow anyway, and tackling a big panel of wood with nothing more than a pen is much more tedious than paper. There's a thick layer of reflective varnish which, combined with the fact that it was taken with Barry's cell-phone cam (thanks!), made it hard to photograph. I'll see if I can get a better picture of it later.
I go through this period with just about every drawing that I do where I hate it immensely and decide that I'm not ever going to let anyone else see it, ever. I usually get over it and decide that it's pretty cool after all... I'm really happy with the way that this one turned out.
In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and
that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you
know you've taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day,
that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the
newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary
new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the
clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you
will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.
--Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything
reassemble itself from the shell-shocked fragments the previous day
had left him with.He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had
provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but
not quite, entirely unlike tea. The way it functioned was very interesting.
When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly
detailed examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic
analysis of the subject's metabolism and then sent tiny experimental
signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject's
brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew
quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid
that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea."
-Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Since I've been conspicuously absent from posting anything substantial lately, I've decided to address such absence by conspicuously stating that I'm not going to address it right now. Things have been difficult, but they're getting better. I've been going through a bit of a "dark night of the soul", as Barry has put it, with spiritual conundrums galore. When he said it, it reminded me of Douglas Adams; "dark tea-time of the soul" is so much less threatening. I know that the whole point of such tribulations is that they are supposed to be threatening but my ego, of course, doesn't like that. Plus, I really like tea. With scones. Blueberry ones, topped with clotted cream and lemon curd.
In her talks, Joko says frequently that people often think that they want a spiritual practice, but what they really want is to be given a cookie (or, in this case, a scone) and told that really they are wonderful and everything is going to be okay. To follow that metaphor, I suppose that I could say that, at least partially, what I am going through is the realization that the cookies at tea-time aren't enough to get me through the long, dark, hungry night.
There's more. There's always more... But it shall have to wait.
In other news, the weekend before last I finally made it out to the Chihuly exhibit at the Phoenix Botanical Garden with my friend Jordan. I would have been very upset with myself if I had missed it--I've alway's adored Chihuly's work. The exhibition was beautiful. Sublime. We had the pleasure of running into
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mv_moorhead , who noted in his blog that many of the pieces in the exhibit unsettled him. I think that he hit the nail on the head by noting that Chihuly's work has an otherworldly feeling about it which is, indeed, unsettling--though this is exactly the quality that attracts me to it--because of which I found it aptly suited for the evirons. Unsettling art in an unsettling place. As we walked through the garden we discussed our mutual late-blooming love for the desert. When I was a kid, I hated Arizona. I thought the desert was ugly and longed for greenery and rain. For years I dreamed of the one-way ticket that I would buy as soon as I turned 18. Life, however, intruded and for one reason and another that ticket never got bought. Now, I couldn't dream of living elsewhere. It's not a matter of concession, or of making lemons out of lemonade when I can't be somewhere else that I would rather be. Rather, it's that at as I've gotten older I've finally grown into an appreciation of the desert for what it is. There was a quote written on a plaque beside one of the paths in the garden that said something to the effect that it is precisely because we have to adapt to it that the desert is so beautiful. I wish that I had written it down.
After we left the garden we then headed out to Chandler for "Bad Bugs Bunny": a showing of early Merry Melodies cartoons put together for the purpose of highlighting both the ways in which cartoons serve as a mirror of the societal conscious, and the ways in which they have changed as we have become more sensitive to violence and racial stereotyping--particularly, our views on what sort of humor is acceptable.
I thought I knew what to expect going into it, but still found the level of discomfort that I felt watching them to be entirely unexpected. They were bad. Really bad. Like, I don't even want to describe most of what made them so objectionable here because I would feel kind of icky doing so, bad. Worse still, I kind of liked them. I thought the animation was beautiful, and I laughed during some of the most inappropriate parts while thinking, "Dear God, I can't believe how horrible this is. And I can't believe that I'm still laughing at it." I was almost more revolted by myself than I was by the cartoons. Which, I think, is exactly why such things should be kept available. They remind us how close our past really is to our present and that we are ever in danger of falling back into the mindset that created such things.
Here is part of the e-mail that I sent to Mark (who had done a write-up about it for The New Times) with some of my thoughts:
I'm not sure what I was expecting to get out of it, but I found that it really made me confront my own feelings and thoughts on what I think is acceptable, not only in terms of race but also in terms of censorship. I've always been radically anti-censorship, and this further confirmed that stance. I think that discomfort is healthy, and that we should continue to confront, and be confronted by, the feelings that we are capable of.
...and buying this house. In about 25 years. When, if save every single penny that I earn, I will have made enough money to buy it. And it will totally be worth it.
I just came across this article, which details a back and forth internal e-mail chain between attorneys at Quinn Emanuel, the law firm behind the Washington Redskins' recent legal victory over a group of Native American activists who challenged the team's name on the grounds that they found it offensive.
Sounds dry, right? Not so.
A first-year associate (quoted in the article as (SOON TO BE FIRED?) FIRST YEAR ASSOCIATE)
[Dad] told me how the native americans would kill buffalos and, in turn, utilize all the buffalo parts for some purpose or another. time for some paraphrased nostalgia!
BABY FIRST YEAR ASSOCIATE: why bother with all the buffalo parts?
dad: the buffalo was dead. sunk cost and whatnot.
and so i learned that if i have been given a gift, then i might as well make something out of it (even if the gift is of the lemons/lemonade persuasion). and dad would continue with a fun game where i would name a part of the buffalo, and dad, who in hindsight was probably bs-ing answers since they were often cartoonish, would tell me the repurpose:
BABY FIRST YEAR ASSOCIATE: the lungs!
dad: they'd inflate them and use them as pillows.
BABY FIRST YEAR ASSOCIATE: really? wow! the hooves?
dad: glue.
BABY FIRST YEAR ASSOCIATE: the tail?
dad: brooms.
BABY FIRST YEAR ASSOCIATE: [and that's when i'd try to get clever.] how about the... nose?
(what good is a buffalo nose, right?)
dad: [pausing before smiling] they'd use it as a thimble.
i went slackjawed even though i wasn't sure what a thimble (let alone a sunk cost) was. i just knew a person could repurpose anything (even a dead buffalo's nose!) and that was pretty darn cool.
"So baby, let's get hot. Let's get down. Let's get Zen." - Perry Farrell, Jane's Addiction
Going to the NIN/Jane's Addiction show tonight withchairmenmeow47 .
It sort of makes me feel old to be seeing one of the favorite bands of "My Youth" for the first time as an adult (I was concert deprived as a teenager). Downward Spiral, along with Dark Side of the Moon, was one of the first cassette tapes that I ever bought (the first CDs being Distance to Here by Live with Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morrisette). I painted my fingernails black and wore a NIN shirt the first day of high school; I now have enough distance from my introduction to their music that I am beginning to feel a little nostalgic about it.
Of course, it could be worse. Barry and I were talking about The Beatles the other day in the car when I stopped and had this moment of realization that OMG, he was alive when The Beatles were still touring. So, I guess I'm not that old afterall. One good thing about having a husband that's 17 years older than me: I'll always feel young.
Anyway, yay to NIN and concerts with Ivy!
I found out today that I'm having a short piece published in an anthology called Unhoused Voices: Granting Change for the Homeless. Part of the proceeds from sales of the book will be donated to charities dedicated to homeless causes--I keep having to catch myself from writing "The Homeless". I dislike the term for the distance that the abstraction lends us from dealing with homeless individuals. I try not to forget that "The Homeless" are people: they have names and lives and stories and needs of their own. Just like me.To a very small extent, that's what my piece is about.
It's actually an amalgamation of a few things that I've written here. I submitted it on a whim several months ago and forgot about it in the interim, so the acceptance letter came as a very nice surprise in my inbox. I'm quite excited, as this will be my first official publication.
( Encounters )
I haven't had much energy to write lately. Though the inclination has been there, it seems as though every time I set fingers to keyboard it leaves me after a few sentences or paragraphs. I've at least 6 or 7 promising starts which I mean to finish… sometime. Part of this laziness, I'm sure, is chemically induced; adjusting and adding dosages leaves one in a foggy limbo (temporary, I hope) until the body and mind catch up with the new medicinal cocktail.
Another part of it is that I've just been busy living. Once, during a conversation withamazonian, she observed that the more she has to say about her life the less inclined she frequently is to say it. In her blog, at least. I've certainly gone though phases during which that was true, when writing about it (whatever "it" was) just seemed like too much work.
Recently, I've been questioning my purpose in writing this blog--especially since I'm writing for an audience that now extends beyond my immediate acquaintance. I've kept it for years now: first as a private journal then, when I opened it up, as a spotty record of my life. Which, at times, has been a bit more emo than I would ever like to admit. Now, I find myself wondering what I should write about. It isn't exacly a journal. It isn't exacly a Buddhist blog. It isn't exactly an art blog. It isn't exacly a lifestyle, or music, or literary blog. Though it certainly contains elements of all those things. I sometimes question whether I should split it up and start focusing on one subject, but then that wouldn't be quite right either. So, I am at an impasse.
If nothing else, at least it comes exactly as advertised: always changing.
Amy Eichsteadt
Anarchist librarian, visual artist, writer and Zen Buddhist living in Phoenix, AZ, with a monk and two cats.
Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.
Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea
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