Wednesday, May 31, 2006

I killed a centipede last night.
I stepped on it.
Afterwards, I couldnt get its slimy guts off the bottom of my shoe.
It served as a temporary yet constant
reminder that I had killed something innocent and
completely independent of myself.
How selfish.
I feel horrible.
I shouldnt step on things anymore
Im always find myself, sitting here trying to think of something great to say. But everytime I open my mouth my words have an consistent empty substance. I continue to wonder why that is. I thought I was bright enough to let intellegent words flow from my mouth and onto this screen or into my book, but, I've now come to realize that I'm not. Only you are. I now see that those who speak real truth and wisdom are only being used by you. These are not completely their words, but the words you have blessed them with. I always marvel at these individuals, attributing their wise words to some personal internal strength, a strength that doesnt come from you, which is untrue. They are yours and you are theirs.

Oh savior, I wish for you to use me in this way. Even now I fear that my words are empty. That my plea is lacking something genuine. Please tell me that it isnt. My savior I long to confess the words of submission. Why dont I. Is there any way you can invite yourself in and work a miracle? My mother was right. I expect results without putting in any effort. Whats wrong with me? Please take my life. Take my pain. I want to dance with you again. I dont want to be a baby anymore. Please.
I must start living with a purpose.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Agreeing is such a wonderful thing really, it is the act of being compatible or consistent. It creates harmony and Im all about harmony you see.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Some pleasant images

By Dave Beckerman




I want so badly to be seen as someone who has a good head on her shoulders. I try to practice good habits and I try not to be silly but it never seems to work out. Im never truly being myself. I write these blogs, thinking, hoping that someone will read them. I wish that after they're done they would feel some kind of cosmic connection with me. But the truth is, I dont even have a connection with myself. I feel so detached from all space and time. Its like Im looking back at myself and seeing someone wearing this Jessica mask, and I say to "Hey! She's stolen my clothes!" Its all very silly really, but its seems that everytime I look in the mirror I dont recognize the eyes staring back at me...or through me. I can image that murderers or rapists dont like mirrors. I can image that if they ever saw themselves while they committed their dirty act, that they would go crazy or would be sent into a raging fit. Maybe they would snap out of it and flee. There's nothing like seeing yourself in the mirror doing something horrible that'll freeze you in your tracks and send you running in the opposite direction. Im speaking from experience of course. I dont know how I got off on this tangent, but anyway, Im gonna try to be real, although, Im not sure that Im being fake. How can I say the words that I do and not mean them? Ive come to realize that my words are how I want to feel, they are where I want to be, but I just dont think Im there yet. I always wondered about that. How could someone say something so beautiful and honest but be a liar? How is that possible? I figure that if you're able to speak those words then you've surely got mean them.

I should do some reflecting and try to figure myself out.

Chased and Chaste


Now I do.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Peanut Butter and Jelly Mona Lisa

I first saw this picture while thumbing through my old english composition book. It is entitled Peanut Butter and Jelly Mona Lisa. It was lost in an essay about Mona, which was called: Seeking Mona Lisa. I couldnt tell you what the piece was about, only that when I saw it I began to feel my nagging sweet tooth. A sweet tooth for Mrs. Lisa. I began to dig and soon after found that this wonderful work was done by Vik Muniz in 1999.

Brief history on Muniz:
Vik was born in Brazil in 1961 (thats just five years before my mother). He uses a quote from ancient Roman poet Ovid to describe his artistic statement: "My mind is bent to tell of bodies changed into new forms." Haha I have no idea what that means. He uses materials such as chacolate, spaghette sauce, and PB&J to represent icons of art history and challenges us to see images as "the containers of memory and information." Ah, now I get it!

When I first saw this...deliciously exquisite work, I must admit, I licked my lips. It had been so long since I had eaten and I couldnt fight my unfettering hungry for Mona. Now I see why she has intrigued so many for 500 years; Shes is irresistably inticing. I soon after gobbled a PB&J sandwich.


However, I also thought to myself if it was ok for Muniz to reproduce Da Vinci's work in such an unimaginable way. I think it is. Who cares? We are so uptight when it comes to medling with classics. The unimaginable is welcome when it comes to art I say. Dont hold back from fear of critisism and exile. Embrace difference and invite trouble.

Spread away Vik, and Godspeed!

I'm obsessed with the idea of hidden messages. Secret communication. Codes and secret societies.


1e4

BY JOEY COMEAU

I spent my mornings for a month, playing chess against an unknown opponent through encrypted messages in the personal ads like we were Victorian lovers. It started with a simple monoalphabetic cipher, an opening chess move, repeated day after day until I stumbled upon it. I have no idea how long that message had been repeating, but I found it and I answered in kind, with a move of my own. Then it was “hello,” and the second move. We played for a week, and at first I treated it as just another cryptoquote, just another daily puzzle. I’d heard that Cryptoquotes and crossword puzzles help to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, and so I couldn’t open the newspaper without finishing the puzzles. Alzheimer’s disease is death before death, and I’m terrified of it. But this wasn’t just a cryptoquote. I soon found that it was magic, this secret correspondence, that I was falling in love with this unknown player. It was like writing letters to dead relatives, and having them answered. I came home from work on Friday night, and I felt like I was really coming home, for the first time since my wife passed on. I fell asleep without feeling as though my bed were half empty. I felt alive, solving those private puzzles. The following Monday the cipher changed. There were homophones, now, and nulls. Frequency analysis wasn’t enough. I worked harder to solve the puzzle, and once unearthed it was still chess moves, and little private messages. Fragments of messages, the thought never completed, each day the beginning of a new fragment. Monday was “I am pleased”, Tuesday “I was hoping you would”, Wednesday “there is so much to,” and Thursday “under my clothes I” The Monday after that, the move came in a more complicated form, modelled after a military code from World War Two. I could still solve it, (“your lips are so”) but it was harder. Already I could see where things were going. Already I could see the end of the line. And so on Tuesday I placed an ad in the paper, in the latest cipher. Not my next move, but “Please,” and “There’s only one end to this.” My life had been empty, and now I had this game. I was paralysed with the fear that it was going to advance beyond my means. What cipher would come next? If it was DES encryption, I could crack it with the help of a computer and some time. But then? After that I would be lost. I found I couldn’t sleep again, worrying. I knew that I should just enjoy the time I had left with this game, that I was ruining everything. The response came Wednesday, in monoalphabetic cipher. It was an opening move. An invitation to another player.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Zombie

by The Cranberries

Another head hangs lowly,
Child is slowly taken.
And the violence caused such silence,
Who are we mistaken?

But you see, it's not me, it's not my family.
In your head, in your head they are fighting,
With their tanks and their bombs,
And their bombs and their guns.
In your head, in your head, they are crying...

In your head, in your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie,
Hey, hey, hey. What's in your head,
In your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie?
Hey, hey, hey, hey, oh, dou, dou, dou, dou, dou...

Another mother's breakin',
Heart is taking over.
When the vi'lence causes silence,
We must be mistaken.

It's the same old theme since nineteen-sixteen.
In your head, in your head they're still fighting,
With their tanks and their bombs,
And their bombs and their guns.
In your head, in your head, they are dying...

In your head, in your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie,
Hey, hey, hey. What's in your head,
In your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie?
Hey, hey, hey, hey, oh, oh, oh,
Oh, oh, oh, oh, hey, oh, ya, ya-a...
My never is now. How soon is now?
If my heart whitles like a flower destroyed by the rain, will the earth swallow my remains?
My mind is sedate, beaten and broken by the thoughts that tear at me down.
I hold my body, shivering, shaking...crying.
Why do I hold onto the things that try their hardest to break away from me?
Why cant I just let them go, let them fly away and be free as I wish to be?
Billowing wolfs hunt down the ones I love. The ones I love are in me. The billowing
wolfs hunt down me.