Re-watching this film I briefly rethink my decision...

Ever see this film? Closet Land? It's great. and scary. and fucked up. it's so Orwellian in its tone. And freakily relevant...

some people seem to have gone insane lately. what did I read about some idiots stomping on a woman's head? hear about this craziness? What the fuck? and this... WW2 only ended, what, 65 years ago? Has she read her own country's history for Christ's sake?

What has happened? What's going on, and why? Have we really become that afraid of each other? Maybe we just know too much about everything. Or, more accurately, we know as much as we are supposed to know. As much as we are given. and after that, that's it. Can't really unknow something.

Gilda Live... through the looking glass

first, you just have to watch this... but maybe turn down the volume on your computer...?

Rhonda and the Rondettes

So I'm watching this, and loving every second, thinking things like, "Now this is funny!!! How can people get so crazy about bland, one dimensional Kristen Wiig? Gilda had it all!!!"

and I feel so old with thoughts like that, and then I think about my speculation of needing a context, and I realize I have one, but it's kind of unfair to compare anything today to what was thirty years ago. Times have changed so much! The culture is so incredibly different than it was then. 

Just because I have spent so much time and energy resisting change of this kind, stalwartly refusing to adapt in so many ways, does not mean that I am untouched by it. and I wonder where my mental flexibility is in cases like this one... why I'm so forward thinking in so many arenas, but I cling steadfastly to an ill-fitting culture of what it used to be. 

I feel no need or desire to cling to youth, that's not it, or I would be completely into what is happening now. I wonder what it is...? I wonder why I have idolized so much of the past? Why I would rail against the Lady GaGa phenomenon, for instance, or remain in denial about any of it? What kind of a choice is that to make? 

I'm starting to see this as an opportunity to reexamine my self-image; it's perfect, as so much of my identity has been inadvertently but irrevocably wrapped up in school, where a flexible mind is a beautiful thing. I think that it's possible my beliefs have taken on a fear infested hardness, a solidity that the intangibility of notions was never meant to attain. 

I think I might be afraid because it is time to start building again, and I haven't taken a proper inventory of my materials. and now to have realized this, to have found the voice of this exercise in narcissistic introspection, it feels like an embarkation into a tributary of my self-education. 

I feel like both Susan Orlean AND her orchid thief... I get to look through both sides of the lens that is the meta-fiction of life, and stare into my own eyes. What an opportunity! 

How could I have forgotten?

after leaving the Norton Simon, I cruised back to KTown to take part in an inspired "It Gets Better" video. The Gay Men's Chorus here in L.A. invited some people to come and sing with them, Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors", to post as part of Dan Savage's wonderful "It Gets Better" movement. we taped it in a large hall with incredible acoustics, and the harmonies written for the guys to sing were just gorgeous. it was a lovely way to round out the day. will post that video when it's up.

there's likely to be a lot of stuffing for a while, until I get my application done, but i suspect it's all a necessary part of this journey.

art and stuff

hit the Norton Simon today. haven't been in a couple of years. it was much more crowded than I'm comfortable with... it's hard to really look at and experience art with idle chatter around... i think i spent equal time in the museum shop; it was less crowded. it's pretty cool, though. i really love to look at
the Picasso:    

Picasso's Woman With a Book

                                  













 the Matisse:

The Dessert, Harmony in Red, 1908

and the Bazille:

This is "Woman in Moorish Costume," or, "Mauresque," by Frederic Bazille. Ain't she purty?

I figure looking at art will help to hone that critical eye I want to further develop. will have to plan to attend a lot of performance pieces of all kinds, as well. a museum is wonderful, and yet it houses the past. i have spent too much time in the past... i need to be present.

modern dance, experimental theater, film festivals, opera (if i can find it subtitle-free, anyway) will have to somehow become food. i know this. i need a context. i think that may be why i am having trouble getting this blog off the ground... no context. haven't been out in the art world enough at all lately.

freaking out a little bit

this whole applying to grad school thing smacks just a little too much of auditioning. Aaargh! I don't like the feeling of my fate and future being in the hands of others. Brings up my control issues a little bit. In my mind, I should just be able to walk in, radiate my brilliance, and bowl them over to the point where they beg me to be part of their program... and they can throw all kinds of grant and scholarship money my way while they're at it!!! It's amazing being afforded the opportunity to lay aside my ego and have something so personal as my writing up for someone else's approval again.

day 2

I haven't done this before because I guess I feel like nobody will want to read what I have to say, but I guess in a way, everyone feels like that. I know I have to build a blogging practice, though. I used to journal every day, so I guess this is the same thing, except I'm inviting you to read it.

So, I'm doing an internship this quarter for my school's online literary journal, Two Hawks Quarterly. Here's the link if you want to check it out, read, submit:

Two Hawks Quarterly

I also recently toured CalArts, for their MFA in Creative Writing. That was pretty amazing...

CalArts Writing Program

I will be spending the next several weeks getting my application packet together... I have no idea when I might find out whether I've been admitted or not. It's great practice at that whole letting go thing. tonight's post kind of sucks. Sorry. Once it becomes habit, it will be better.

the in-between time

It's almost midnight a few days after my birthday. I'm 44, about to finish my undergrad. Sometimes I wonder if I should have gone to school to learn to do something, like my brother did. I read my evaluations from last quarter today, and they said that although I have original thoughts, an expressive manner, and a lot of passion, and other things along those lines, I need to further hone my critical thinking skills, which are apparently taking a back seat to my emotions of late. It's obviously time to be done with my BA already. I'm very tired, and I fully acknowledge that I need a substantial break. I am doing my best to prepare myself for life without school, albeit temporarily. I am GOING to get into grad school. But even when I get into the program of my dreams, I won't start until September of 2011. What the hell do I do with myself in the meantime, the above named in-between time? And so I've started this blog, since I want an MFA in Creative Writing, best to keep it up daily. See you tomorrow!