Stop time and watch:

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.

This is worth posting everywhere, let alone spending the six minutes it takes to watch it twice. Beautiful.

Man, I have listened to this Radiohead song for years.

It's a good one:

Red wine and sleeping pills
Help me get back to your arms
Cheap sex and sad films
Help me get where I belong

I think you're crazy, maybe
I think you're crazy, maybe

Stop sending letters
Letters always get burned
It's not like the movies
They fed us on little white lies

I think you're crazy, maybe
I think you're crazy, maybe

I will see you in the next life

Follow up.

And then there is this:

Not so fast there young one...

It's been a little bit since I have posted anything of note. I am not quite sure what to write, but I feel like I should say SOMETHING. So I will start with this:

Today in the print lab I was working on my poster, and another student came in--a senior who shall remain nameless--and pointed out that one of my poster mock ups was on the counter. I had accidentally left it behind days before, apparently.

"Is this yours? Somebody said this was yours."

"Yeah, that's mine. Thanks."

"Oh. Why are you saying thank you, I didn't say it was good."

...oh jesus.

"Um. I was saying thank you for pointing out that it was mine--for setting it out/finding it for me...I was not saying, 'thank you in advance for complimenting me on my poster.' I was saying thank you for letting me know that I had left it behind."

Read my lips, ass. Thank you for making me think you were looking out for one your classmates. But in retrospect, I should be thanking you for giving me a moment of clarity:

Sometimes I can't help but feel that my teeth are nothing more than a rusting cage.

I will say that this person's opinion of my design was very much not negative in the end--though that only informs the point:

What in the hell is going on!? I live in a crazy world of sharp...things! Stares, words, instruments and spiky brains. Huge spikey brains that house itty bitty defensive creatures.

Perhaps it was a clear miscommunication. Maybe I am reading too much into it...

Sometimes I really wonder though if I belong in this place, and under so much pressure, and under such pressure from scrutinizing stations that just don't seem to get it. Or. OR.

they GET IT so much that there is no remainder; no room for tact, or for any of the humanistic qualities that I have grown accustomed to in years walking around in a world still branded with some measure of emotion and unarmed, unloaded remarks. Where "Thank you" means "I appreciate," not "I am looking to steal your approval."

I mean, sure, any given endeavor is filled with individuals vying to argue their brilliance...take any lit class that's come before: Hands and verbosity filled the air. But there was something far less corrupt-seeming about it. Shit, delivering pizzas was downright zen compared to some of the stuff I have seen and heard over the last two months.

It's a shame I need my mouth and ears to get by here:

I was subsequently informed that this person had been informed (it's ridiculous how stupid this already sounds) that I don't really listen to what anyone says in regards to critique.

I spent approximately two days worth of work altering my poster...in response to critique.

At this point, I invite you to roll your eyes and save me from this 3 inch pool of minutia. Seriously. I feel like I need a backhand loaded with enough perspective to create a domino effects of bouncing heads.

sigh.

This is all so exhausting. And I am probably sighing the privileged sigh, what with Job living only a few doors down so to speak. That being said, I can't help but really wonder if it's worth it and it's a question I can't for the world figure out. Is it even worth asking? Shit.

Shit?

I should really sit down and sketch out a Mind Map that begs to illustrate whether or not sitting down sketching Mind Maps for a living is going to get anyone anywhere in the end. It's probably a pretty flat landscape after all.

But.

Maybe I know what the answer is.

It's a design fundamental beaten into us on an almost daily basis:

so what?

So what?

SO What?

The answer is a question.

You are about to graduate. So what?

He is pretty talented. So what?

Look at that mounting job. It's crap. So what?

That person's not going to make it in the professional world, and you are. So what?

She has a story to tell? So what?

You have a degree. So what?

You just trimmed the fat of emotion off of your brain. Having a rough week. Said goodbye.

So what?

He is over it.

So what?

You have an AWESOME portfolio, with AWESOME layouts.

You have a slick reel and nice pants and sharp heels.

He has 20 years of professional work under your belt.

You make products shine and stars fall to their knees.

So what?

You are 19 years old. So what?

You are feeling put out by the administration. So what?

You are 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 years old.

So.

What?

What does that get you?

You have an edge. So what?

You think I thanked you in advance for inflating my ego.

so what?

You know what it's like. SO WHAT?

They make fancy, pretty, sleeky, shiny, neat, wow-filled things.

SO what.

And that wasn't even a question.

Because it's not a question.

It's a frame of mind. Because if you really knew the answer. You wouldn't be here.

What ARE you going to do about it?

Oh. Wait. You mean you DO know the answer?

Well then come over here and whisper it into that crack in the wall, because if anybody hears what you have to say, you know exactly how I, they--everybody, nobody, the black air that surrounds the finishing line--would respond.

So.

What.

The Admirable Admiral's Academy for Seafaring Youth

The Admirable Admiral's Sea-l of Approval

It has been sometime since I last updated, and have in the interim been astoundingly busy in school. Because of Cornish's attempts at my life, I have emerged with a lot of great stuff for my reel/portfolio. I have one animation, Orpheus, that is shaping up to be one of the best things I have done so far, among a bunch of other type in motion style pieces--an old style informative piece on Rockwell for example. The latest piece to be filmed is the Admirable Admiral's Academy for Seafaring Youth: A short, two-minute animation mixing watercolor assets/environments and live action--eventually I would like to use mostly stop motion when I have the time, but for now, After Effects is a friend indeed.

I want it to be incredibly fun. Fun. Plain and simple.

Wish me luck.

Boweling

A few words on group activities:

Whenever it happens I die a little on the inside: A choice group of friends (but more often co-workers) manages to defy the odds and actually plan to assemble in one place--I imagine a bunch of silver marbles tenuously huddled on one of those tilty wooden labyrinths--the site is designated along with the decided activity.

Drumrollllll please!

Bowling.

(or, less frequently planned upon but similarly aggravating, Poo(l)...Bulliards...whatever).

I suppose my beef here isn't with league bowling, or organized bowling for "sport" (however, I tend to regard sporty activities as those that raise your heart rate past the level of Turtle, Food Coma Panda, or Grooming Cat, and bring it ever closer to that fat killing level of Lawnmower Rabbit), but maybe more with what you would call recreational bowling.

I am so disenchanted; though, I couldn't have ever been so seriously won over by anything so brilliant as advanced ball rolling. And while I have watched quizzically as all ten hopes and aspirations for an engaging evening have been dashed into their gutter resting place, I have done so with not much tear shedding.

Before I get into why I hate bowling so much, I might let you know that the first thing I do when arriving at any number of bowling allies in any number of the small or large cities I have ever been to is look for the arcade. It doesn't matter who I am with--it could be a Sufjan Steven's b-day bash hosted by the Pixies and catered by Brad Bird--the arcade is the first thing I look for and damn it if the results don't ever vary. Bowling alley arcades are like the Shriner's club wasteland of derelict electronic entertainment. If these dirty, sticky, hazy-screened machines could say anything more than "bleep," "boop," or "pyooom" I believe their words would speak volumes to the heart of anyone who has, or has had a grandparent left to shifty-eyed convalescent care.

Dusty and subject to grease misting.

Which brings me to my next point.

Bowling cuisine [sic] (there is no way to spell this phrase and have it be technically accurate.

99 percent of everything you can purchase and put in your mouth at 99.99 percent of the allies I have ever been to is

a) really not supporting your body's interest in lasting much longer than whatever it is you are eating can stay crispy.

b) a different shade of the same color...even things normally known as "lettuce."

c) persistent in coating everything within a 100 foot radius in its essence, and

1) seriously destined in part or residue to find its way into every little finger hole in the place.

This in turn takes us full circle to the filthy little lysol coated minutiae of the act itself, and how you had better make sure you don't get strong-armed into a bowl-o-rama fest on a warm, summery, sandal clad evening.

I don't know...am I being dramatic?

I feel ill at ease every time that blast of disinfectant spreads before me like an unjustifiably smug d-list magician's smoke screen. Those counter lurkers always act like they are doing you such favors, what with the backdrop cubby wall of tan and pleather offerings...but they can't fool me. I can see through their haze and into the past, for it is actually the present, it's all around me, and I know where that shoe has been. Not to mention its filthy stepbrother.

And then there are balls. Oh balls!! Frustrating balls. Oh Balls!: I am convinced bowling is why we say this. I don't believe I have ever been able to stick with the same ball through an entire game. They always manage to betray and disappoint with their various sizes, weights, their shifting hole width and distancing.

I will admit that I am the constant here, and that my hands may need adjustment, much as my form needs perfecting (ahem). And it is true that they can be as pretty and enticing as large candy sweet things, all shiny like for to eat and stuff. But damn the finger holes. Damn them damn them straight to rotten spot worm hole hell.

Yes those balls are pretty--yet I couldn't imagine a more horrifying end to your supermodel date than discovering that he or she indeed has three greasy sphincters on the back of his or her head. Go ahead, reach in for that sweet alley kiss. guh.

And me without my hand sanitizer. Always.

Honestly, the next time my friends manage to drag my ass to a bowling alley I am going to show up in a Purel soaked fire blanket.

Test.

At the Hospice

So, I have been volunteering at an AIDS Hospice near my home for the last few months, and have yet to really share much of the experience until now. My shifts are always on Sundays, last about 2-3 hours and are sandwiched between my two Sunday shifts at the Vet clinic. This last Sunday I somehow managed to get hit particularly hard by the nature of my time spent there, and described this in an email to a friend:

Today involved getting by on little sleep, but i made it in to Bailey, the AIDS hospice near my home, for my weekly volunteer shift. I had my usual chat with "Crawford," (confidentiality imparts in me the need to offer up a pseudonym) a patient with AIDS related dementia, which means he is in a constant state of forgetfulness, but I can tell that the visits help to reactivate his brain a little bit. His situation is pretty sobering when I fist get there, and is so on a weekly basis--he usually just looks kind of lost, which is hard to see after having left him the week before in a much more lucid state, but after about fifteen minutes of persistent conversation and questions however, he really brightens up and starts to remember things--lots of things--at which point the conversation really takes off. Today we had an extended conversation about drag queens that involved everything from nomenclature (Sharon Needles, Wilma Fingerdo, Helena Handbasket, Shi Shi Whatever etc) to actual Drag Queen Pageantry:

"What is Miss Gay USA @ Large?" I asked.
"Those are the kinds of drag queens you'd have a hard time gettin'
around to...well you'd have a hard time gettin' around them in
general. Big girls with thighs as big as you..."
"Miss Gay USA Classic?"
"Oh. They are drag queens of a more matronly nature"

Boy.
He really loves himself the drag queens. We also talked about animals and the power that they hold over us. Things such as inherent goodness, uncomplicated love and unwavering attentiveness to the most basic of human emotional needs.

But mostly we laughed our asses off about drag shows, bar-hopping and dancing. If I could ever buy Crawford a drink it would decidedly be a "double L.I.T." though I am not sure how a double of something already inherently tripled would work...other than dangerously.

Regardless, Crawford is a sincere hoot, describing everything from the wag of a tail to the warm sun and even our weekly visits as "powerfully good," and I really value the time I get to spend with him.

After spending about an hour and a half chatting with C, I took a stroll through the halls, stopping by the meditation room on the second floor. Every now and then it seems to invite me in.

The Meditation Room (I suppose it should be capitalized in the proper sense) is a place for anyone who is at Bailey (patients, staff, volunteers, visitors) who would like to have a moment of quiet reflection. It's essentially a little room with a stained glass window and lots of inspirational, non-denominationally spiritual artwork and decorations, as well as a lot of natural items like driftwood, pebbles etc. collected throughout the years.

The centerpiece of this room though is a large large branch of a tree that is mounted upon one of the walls and decorated with a veritable moss-like covering of things: Pictures, cards, writings, emails, ribbons, knick-knacks. The first time I encountered the room, I wasn't sure what it was for other than a place of peace and prayer, but I soon discovered that it is a very purposeful room meant to honor all those who have passed under the watchful care of the facility, as well as the nature of the hangings. The cards are from loved ones, the knick knacks are sometimes personal affects, the pictures are generally of the deceased in question, and if nothing else (usually not the case) each person is remembered by a single polaroid snapshot, usually taken in their beds, and seemingly during the last few days of their lives.

It's this last that really kind of threw me the first time I encountered one of them and realized what I was looking at. My initial reaction was very visceral--a reaction to the aesthetic:
an image, washed-out in quality in the way that only a polaroid can claim. Odd, uneven color saturation and moments of contrast that kind of emphasize the worn color of each person's skin against the darks of their hair. The subject almost, but not always, universally posed, often times with eyes closed, mouth agape, with or without tubes.
And at the bottom a date, hand written in ball point pen.

This may be obvious to say but these are often so overwhelmingly painful to look at.

Today my time in the room was both different and similar to previous visits. In a little basket with the word "remember" placed on it were 4 or 5 new pictures, waiting to be hung I assume, and waiting for their acommpanying mementos. Two of these were familiar faces--not anyone I had visited with at length, but still a couple of people that I recognized and wondered about from time to time. One of them was a small Asian American man whos room I would routinely pass. Over the past few months he was always in his bed and always with family members nearby it seemed. Another picture was of a a tall, bearded Caucasian man in his 50's, up right and alert in his bed clad in a hospital gown--he looked gaunt, but very much still full of life and I remembered saying hello to him on occassion on my way through the halls. They had both passed within the last two weeks.

Seeing them there made me wonder at so many things. I mean first of all, the question that begged the loudest for an answer is "Are they really gone?" It seemed like such a first stage question, but I felt "How can I not ask myself that question?" Other questions, not really needing to be vocalized, were present nonetheless. There were just so many questions.

Over on the branch was a card that a husband sent in after his wife passed that described his relationship to her passing in metaphor:

A ship moving toward the horizon, referred to in the traditional maritime "she," sails away from the docks, growing smaller to the denizens of the beach but only in matter of perception, as this thought invariably leads to the conclusion that somewhere, a ship...THE ship..."she..." would be arriving and growing larger in approach to those on an assumed opposing shore. The story of course stops there.

A little cheesy...but then again not at all, given the harsh context, the accompanying snapshot. Her last hello.

His wife the ship.

I am to assume that it's a vessel built for one...and while remaining functional until those last moments, it gets old, it creaks, the colors fade, desaturated, and I suppose it eventually has to rely on the wind to get where it's going.

The card made the pictures a little easier to deal with in some ways, though the obvious pain, the overt waiting communicated in many of them, not so much. But still, not all of them reflect this kind of existence. Some show joy. Smiles. Laughter. All that stuff. All of that "powerfully good" stuff.

I don't know...it's hard to figure, but I think the unmitigated reality of that room has a purpose:

To show that, even in those last days when the body gives, when skin fades and loses its luster, when you have nothing to do but wait and those around you have nothing but decisions, you are still connected to something essential, something beyond the physical definition of everything.

Even when it goes? Something is always there?

Life is a harsh picture sometimes. Questions. No answers. Lots of evidence. Esoteric instructions. But I felt the reasoning in there, because the funny thing is if you take a step back from the indivual faces--all of those little windows into waiting rooms and well used beds--and just take it in, the branch, and the cards, ribbons, papers, every last hard earned final shot. The stuff. It really is a beautiful thing. I mean really. Almost sublime and certainly intense.

But intensely pretty.

Maybe I shouldn't let it get to me...but moments like these tend to color my days even if infrequently. I suppose I should just keep doing what I can, while I can do it, and while I still have the capacity to learn.