oh yeah...

more peanuts for you to read. posted last friday (oops). clickety here and enjoy!

on sweet nectar and dreams

i've just discovered that drinking caffeinated beverages after 4pm gives me really strange dreams. i probably have really strange dreams all the time, but when i drink diet coke, i actually remember them, probably because i don't sleep as well. who knew?

baby snowmageddon

if i’d known when i left school at 4pm that the snowstorm would wreak havoc on normal rush hour traffic, i’d have filled my tank before i got on the beltway. as it was, i had just enough to get me to ben’s, even if it took me twice as long as usual. when i realized, around 5pm, that my commute would take much longer than usual, i called ben. i estimated i’d be there around 6. we chatted till my phone ran out of battery and cut us off. a few minutes later, the real traffic hit: i was moving about one car length every fifteen minutes. two hours later, i started eating the dinner i’d brought for the two of us. i turned up the radio and attempted to dance, belted into my seat. thirty minutes later, i wondered how crazy it would look to jump out and make a snow angel on the shoulder of the highway. i definitely had time and i didn’t think anyone would honk. two hours after that, i silently cursed the people for whom the rules didn’t apply as they created their own lanes. five minutes later, i joined them and drove a whole mile in ten minutes. it was exhilarating. an hour later, four lanes of traffic (and a few invented lanes) funneled into one, snaking around jack-knifed semis and other distressed vehicles stuck in the middle of the highway. twenty minutes after that was a tree, stretched across three lanes. around 8pm, i started hoping that ben would eat without me. then i put a few pieces of gum in my mouth to see how big a bubble i could blow. an hour later, i irrationally worried that he’d go to bed before i got there and send me back out on the highway towards home. with a sore jaw, i spit out my gum. around 10pm, on the exit ramp 1.5 miles from ben’s house, my car heaved and sputtered and coughed it’s last breath of gas and refused to move one inch further. four kind strangers helped me push it through the slush to the side of the road. a fifth kind stranger said he’d watch my vehicle in addition to his while i hitched a ride to get gas for the two of us. i politely asked the kind strangers to drop me off near ben’s house, instead of the gas station. at 10:30ish, i knocked on the door of a very worried ben. five minutes later, i collapsed into the passenger seat of christian’s car and the three of us went in search of gas. two stations later, we'd filled the 5 gallon can and headed back to the exit, dodging a downed power line. christian drove as close as he could to the exit ramp and ben and i sloshed the block across the intersection to my car and the waiting kind stranger. it took another thirty minutes, much spilled gas, some very cold gas-covered fingers (ben’s), a bit of creativity involving a long drinking straw, and another kind stranger’s flashlight to decant the gas into the cars. at midnight, 2 blocks from ben’s house, a large load of snow fell on the roof of my (now breathing, moving) vehicle. 10 feet later, we noticed the power line stretched across the road (a different one), making it impassable. we turned around to discover that what we thought was snow falling on my car was actually another power line, now stretched across the road and blocking our escape. so i parked and we gingerly stepped around the power lines and walked back to ben’s, arriving around 12:30am, stoked the fire, drank some tea and finally fell asleep.

a litta hope

so apparently i can't embed from imdb, but go here to watch. i'll bring the kleenex if you'll bring the chocolate and popcorn and diet coke. fair trade, right?

it's that time again...

that's right. the time of year for beating heads - rather, one head, mine - against desks, walls, tables, really any hard surface. behold these opening sentences for a compare/contrast paper:

"The two photographs or the two art piece that I choose where "The Flagellation of Christ" by Samuel H. Kress Collection. And I lost the other title of my other choice but I guess I'll have to do without."

or this title:

"There Alike but Different"

as mr. mb said, "i think that's a line from The Matrix or something...it's trying so hard to seize the dynamic tension of paradox, but instead is settling for the depressing vagueness of dumb."

the peanut gallery speaks

it's my turn to post again! over here, where we in the peanut gallery speak without you rude people saying, no comments from the peanut gallery.

enjoy :)

why i like modern art, part ii

"every artist has an attic" this is the title of a screenprint by retired ttu professor of printmaking lynwood kreneck. sadly, i couldn't find an image. it's a very clever print, showing partial and complete artworks by famous artists throughout time strewn about an attic; the influences in the neatly jumbled mind of an artist. the following are a few images stashed in my attic:

paul klee's "die zwitscher maschine" (the twittering machine) (1922) found here

paul klee's "hermitage" (1918), here (a "site that is impossible to navigate properly." good luck.)

kandinsky here




cy twombly images found here and here (notice the second is for sale...you have $1,338,351 lying around to buy me a christmas present, right? i've been a very good girl.)




per kirkeby's prints, both "untitled" from 2003 found here. also for sale. {ahem}

and last, but DEFINITELY not least, a woman...who's still alive! i know right? behold: "tumbleweed," by karen kunc (1997):

the woodblocks for this beauty were on display in the printmaking lab at wake because my professor, david faber, helped to print the image during a workshop. i drooled over them every classperiod. someday i'd like to meet her.

i was going to tell you why i liked each of them, but for each one i started writing, the color! the line! the immediacy of the mark-making! delicious! and so, well, there ya go. but even more, i like them because they go beyond what you see to address deeper ideas (remember how artists think?) klee, for instance, manages to merge the monstrous with the playful, addressing industry's horrors and atrocities with childlike honesty and sincerety. twombly's works use line, texture and color (or lack of) very poetically and are often references or responses to literary sources. per kirkeby's abstractions are reminiscent of the danish landscape he grew up around and, likewise, kunc's abstracted landscapes are "interpretation and contemplation on larger issues of the eternal life struggle, of endurance and vulnerability, growth and destruction." (source) and of course, i'd be remiss if i didn't mention my former professor, terry morrow (who defies all links). he helped shape the artist i am today.