You are alone in the room, except for two computer terminals flickering in the dim light
-How We Became Posthuman

Phantasmagoria

a constantly changing succession of things seen or imagined

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnMhiBwrI38. for me, the best part is the last shot of the empty car going around while the camera man focuses on it. where did the people go??

Yesterday Was My Birthday

8/26/1989 - my month, day, and year of birth

This was the poem verse daily posted on my birthday titled No.7, Black Form, 1964 by Martin Rock

Raven desired a doorway to language
so he turned himself into a grain of sand
& crawled inside your glass of water.
He grew inside you until every color was influenced
by his thirst to speak. In this mythology,
pillars of smoke outside your window: a dark planet perceived as the coming of night.
The clouded roman helmet is also a feather
& the faces have crows' feet mewling from their eyes. Stare at an unchanging object
and you cause change around it. So prove the stars.
Remain fixed & the future approaches as liquid& all is swallowed. So shows the river. Here we kneel
to drink. Here our skulls fuse like bottles in the fire.

http://www.versedaily.org/2013/blackform1964.shtml

BHBITB

http://vimeo.com/29436934
http://bhbitb.com/distractions/

DC/Baltimore based video artist
 Joshua Haycraft.  Saw his work this year at artscape

Though the first link/vid is about wasteful, consumer culture, I could still watch it for a long time.

you from the other side

http://www.versedaily.org/2013/itsuptoyounewyork.shtml

I've learned that running away means getting mistaken for an airplane about to land. it means people looking at you like a screen that says DELAYED DELAYED DELAYED -sampled from above link in poem by Meghan Privitello

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0SShuxdR-I

Chance to Cure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OayLgg71rIY


Max Ernst

what it all boils down to

 I am a lucky person.
  "It is true that, on having reflected for some years now that scarcely anything was to be gained by being so, I have begun to be somewhat merry because I have been told that that is good for one's health." (Letter to the Abbé Trublet, April 17, 1761).(Letter to the Abbé Trublet, April 17, 1761). Voltaire to the Abbe Trublet from April 17 , 1761. This interpretation is from a statement in French translated by Barbara Bray and Helen R. Lane in 1979. The French quote is this: "Ayant fait reflexion depuis quelques années, qu'on ne gagnoit rien à être bon homme, je me suis mis à être un peu gai, parce qu'on m'a dit que cela est bon pour la santé."  This is believed to be the original source for the quote attributed to Voltaire "I've decided to be happy because it is good for my health." 
http://video.pbs.org/video/2300857107
wonderful video courtesy of PBS. 

Domination

I was reviewing journal entries from a trip that I took to Seattle/San Francisco and back across the country to Maryland.  I flipped open a page to an entry in which I had sat down in a Seattle coffee shop.  There was a guy sitting at the table next to mine. I noticed him walk in and sit down and fire up his laptop.  He was attractive. Not too long after a woman came in and sat down next to him,
after requisite  small talk he proclaimed "Beautiful women will never know what it's like to be treated normally because they always become an object." I thought to myself that this probably goes for both genders.

Seen near Pike Place in Seattle.

Sometimes I See You and It Makes Me Sad

"like anything focused upon so intently the animal ally will begin visiting the novice shaman's dreams, imparting understandings wholly inaccessible to her waking mind...most importantly because the young shaman is now very informed by two very different sets of senses." Becoming Animal, David Abram p.217

Sometimes I see you and it makes me sad.

The boy fell to the sidewalk and cut his knee. He slowly pulled his leg up so that his eyes regarded the cut as though it were a small ravine. 

A stone was stuck in the soft crimson walls.  He went to pull it out, and winced, and quickly pulled his hand away.  Instead of pulling it out, he bandaged the knee up and forgot about it.  Slowly the walls of sediment settled and healed over themselves again.  The boy forgot about the stone.

However sometimes, in later years,when the weather is muggy and rainy, the stone gives him intense pain.  Not a dull constant pain, but a sharp pain that causes him to wince at inconvenient  moments.  This is when you meet him, in a wincing moment.  And this is why when you rendezvous on rare occasions he will say things like, "Sometimes when I see you, it makes me sad." 

Box

http://vlonde.bandcamp.com/

http://secondcontact.tumblr.com/
 Music and blog  that filled my Sunday morning.

https://soundcloud.com/metal-mother (and thank you Julia for this one)
How we exist and waste away without a warning...
I'm offering a humble gift, I will not hurt you...well you would save me in the storm...a prism of uncanny love that does not falter...if you want to we could work together...if you don't, well we'll never know..ride this baby as far as it will go-various lyrics to PRISM

Thoughts this Morning

Need

Identity

Existence. in that order..?

"We identify our shadow, in other words, with that visible shape we see projected on the pavement or the whitewashed wall.  Since what we glimpse there is a being without depth, we naturally assume that shadows themselves are basically flat-and if we are asked, by a curious child, about the life of shadows we are apt to reply that their lives exist only in two dimensions." p.16

"The apparent gap between myself and that flat swath of darkness is what prompts me, now and then, to accept its invitation to dance, the two of us then strutting and ducking in an improvise pas de duex wherein it's never very clear which of us is leading and which is following." p.17

 Taken from the shadow-depth chapter in this book. I am slowly reading chapter by chapter and absorbing.  Abrams suggests in this chapter that our shadow is actually within that space existing between our bodies and that flat, dark shape we observe projected onto a service.  Apparently at high noon our shadow sinks into us-the time, of course, when no shadow is cast- which causes people to become tired and consequently take siestas.

Hajime Soraya

http://sorayama.net/index.html
http://www.hajimesorayama.com/index.html

I've enjoyed Hajime Soraya's work for a few years now.  One of his books was given to me by a friend.  She said for whatever reason it reminded her of my work.  I then later realized that I make my own version of pin-ups.

For a couple of months, I felt so at odds with this revelation-that my work and my outside interests/obsessions were idealized female forms.  I thought that I'd become one note and boring and that I was being controlled by the outside advertising entity-which I had, I hit a wall.  I don't why I hadn't considered this earlier, but beauty= the sublime for me.  I had always contemplated the idea of beauty as power and control.  You know, sexual power etc. etc. But I think what really put things in to perspective for me was reading/learning about the Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris.  The architects made it so ornate and beautiful with aims to inspire fear within the hearts of the citizens, thus creating a fear in the power of God.  Something so beautiful that they could never hope to attain to in their daily lives.  Thinking of beauty as an unattainable 'thing', thus associating it with God, made me think about my own views and, subsequently, my work. Can you find meaning in it?  On another note, this revelation (of sorts) made me reevaluate the concept 'my body is a temple.'  My interest in bones, being my interest in architecture as it existed in the human form.  Building people, building robots so to speak.

I don't know that beauty is boring, really, for me. I think I had been letting other people's opinions bother me too much.  I will always love Soraya's gynoids..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIViA9nZ7Mc
 love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NLl_U0XZx4
I think about you when your sleeping, and all the secrets that your keeping

Ribbons

http://historicaltextarchive.com/hungary/hungbuj1.gif
la vie quotidienne  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7sktHSC-u0

Marie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25zAd0JFD8g

I think of a friend

Darling

http://www.versedaily.org/2013/darling.shtml with heavy black boots in a calm procession of darling and honey-

Nitrate Nocturne

http://50watts.com/Nitrate-Nocturne-2




















http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkHEjiuYBuM&NR=1&feature=endscreen

Ghosts Before Breakfast

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqguzDeejFk&list=PL2B83EDF2732759E5

I'd like to wear a bowler hat to breakfast.  Have it fly off over pancakes and in between the eggs

http://womanopole.blogspot.com/2012/04/cochon-ville.html
cochon ville

Alaska has long been a place for dreamers and misfits, people who think the unsullied enormity of the Last Frontier will patch all the holes in their lives. The bush is an unforgiving place, however, and cares nothing for hope and longing. -stated by Gallien in Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild

http://thesupremecourt.tumblr.com/#13

Assumptions

The magician is one who frees the senses from the static holding patterns that they are held in by assumptions, by outmoded ways of thinking, and by the styles of speech and discourse. Discovering this is what began to really galvanize my own magic.

taken from this linkhttp://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/abram.html in an interview with author, ecologist, philosopher, and magician David Abram as suggested by Laura Mongiovi.

http://lauramongiovi.com/home.html Here is Laura's wonderful website and work

Blankslate

http://blankslate.tumblr.com/post/45315941069/what-it-is-like-to-live-with-an-anxiety-disorder

Mixing Heroes with Humans

I wanted a hero so bad, I wanted someone to remain that mythic figure forever.   Someone who tumbled through life, never took a straight path to success.  This in and of itself seemed the straight path; Living a life that was open and raw to the complexities of being human. Not just stoically moving forward for the sake of moving forward because going back was either useless, futile, or not acceptable.  As much as I'd admired and felt utterly and completely eclipsed by people like that-admittedly I, more or less, admired anyone who wasn't myself-theirs' was not a life I could identify with, therefore somehow that disqualified them from being a hero to me, which is probably fucked up on some level.  Awe-inspiring and memoir worthy, yes, but I preferred my heroes to be unpredictable and  volatile, personifying a life I felt I thought could only exist in movies. A glorified character interrupted version- a life I kind of thought stopped for me when I submitted to therapy.  Characters, my heroes were characters.  

I guess my problem is separating reality from fiction.  Endlessly, and rabidly searching for movie characters for my heroes.  An Icarus complex?-or the Hollywood version of an Icarus complex. No, there is nobility in my heroes. Hollywood isn't noble.  To play the game was not noble, my hero didn't play games, at least not in my eyes. Skirting the edge of fame, but rejecting it because it somehow didn't feel human or right or just.  They were noble and had a heart. If fame found them, so be it, but they weren't human enough to let it phase them and plague them for to too long.  Walking to the edge, basically (maybe) falling off, and then getting back up and walking back to point A.  A little worse for the wear and wrinkled, but back where they started, physically, none the less.

But being both a human and a hero is a tangled web.  I learned a lesson there. I guess that's the rock star thing...but there's Hollywood again...maybe beating the system was infiltrating, dispatching, and destroying from the inside.  Being a human in the pod people.

We know major toms a junkie

Cellar Door

I tend to be a rather serious person.  However, when I find something amusing I hold on to it and cackle hysterically and randomly for hours. Even carrying the little guy with me for weeks and months at a time. He pops out and whispers into my ear, and pretty soon I'm holding my stomach in laughter in aisle 3 of the supermarket.  A true child fueled by the fire of self help, leaning on my self prescribed behavioral therapy, I muse "Amelia, is this desire to hold onto amusing thoughts some sort of reflection of your inherent vessel of sadness?  Has this thought become some sort of pirate, sent to hijack the U.S.S. Melancholy?!"

And then I just think, nah, your probably just being too serious, pick up some onions and continue walking.

White Magic Above, Black Magic Below

white magic above, black magic below

accomplish the goal of the one thing

alchemy

I am a member of the collective unconcious existing on this framework known as earth.

Creuelle

bestialite, creullement, ensauvager, et ferocite http://dictionnaire.sensagent.com/cruelle/fr-fr/

feroce, inhumain, et sauvage

still corners

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWy6gL2Q8N0

Horiyoshi III

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7yV19WtTws incredible tebori artist

Old Work

I did these drawings back in late June of 2012, after reading about and having my own experiences with shadow people.  Shadow people are believed to be spirits that have not fully crossed over into the next realm of existence-or the afterlife depending on ones' personal beliefs.  They are black, shadowy figures seen out of the corner of people's eyes.  After reading about them, I realized when I was little I used to see them in windows-if they were actually shadow people-I think everyone probably does/did. I don't believe they are evil, but rather troubled spirits who need help passing on.

My experiences this past summer when I made these drawings culminated-in my mind- and passed when an albino california king snake slithered into the foundry where I used to work. He was an allegory.

This past January I was lucky enough to be visiting friends and saw Huma Bhabha's work at the MOMAPS1. Her work was very inspiring-like pieces out of my dreamscapes.  Relics of a recent apocolyptic, catastrophic event, trying to find their way back together again.

 

In Islam shadow people are thought to be jinn-or genies in a western sense.   

Huma Bhabha

Sell the House, 2006, mixed media
photo taken from http://theredlist.fr/wiki-2-351-382-1160-1272-view-india-pakistan-profile-bhabha-huma.html

The Ides

But Beware the Ides of March.
March was named after the Roman god of war and agriculture, Mars.  Harvesting of the wheat seems to be traditionally associated with the month of august/september and Virgo the Virgin, forever clutching her sheaf of wheat while the dualistic bird flies over her humble head. Mars seems to be the opposite, wreak destruction on the living, to make way for the new crop to later be harvested.  It's interesting because the Pisces fish brings in the month of March, the exact opposite sign to a virgo.  Hmm..one is so necessary for the other

And now some awesome tunes that I listened to today

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXrMXnsHKeY&list=UUUPa51J9OSl1DDcIwGdOVeg&index=2. The Future of the Left
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EurxY7l9Nps&list=UUUPa51J9OSl1DDcIwGdOVeg Wilderness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X_mGWOHEKY. Interpol

The Blue

Islands of sand seemed to disintegrate into the lake.  The mountains fell, and the great glaciers crashed.  The birds ceased to sing, and the horses shrieked in utter agony.
"Say hello to the angels," she cried softly to herself while staring at the blue moon hanging high in the sky.

Sometimes I'm Dreaming

And now I know how Joan of Arc felt-The Smiths
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgxEJOi6GtA

The alkaline taste climbed and clawed up the back of her throat..that thing is coming again, she can no longer close the gates.

What the Thunder Says

http://www.versedaily.org/2013/thethundersays.shtml                                                                       wonderful verse for a troubled night

The Grapes

"Tom was silent for a moment, then, "I'm gonna take a fall outa you, Al. You jus' scrabblin' ass over tit, fear somebody gonna pin some blame on you.  I know what's a matter.  Young fella, all full a piss an' vinegar. Wanta be a hell of a guy all the time. But, goddamn it, Al, don' keep ya guard up, when nobody ain't sparrin' with ya.  You gonna be all right." - p.248

"Every night a world created, complete with furniture-friends made and enimies established; a world complete with braggarts and with cowards, with quiet men, with humble men, with kindly men. Every night relationships that make a world, established; and every morning the world torn down like a circus.
At first the families were timid in the building and tumbling worlds, but gradually the technique of building worlds became their technique.  Then leaders emerged, then laws were made, then codes came into being.  And as the worlds moved westward they were more complete and better furnished, for their builders were more experienced in building them.
The families learned what rights must be observed-the right of privacy in the tent; the right to keep the past black hidden in the heart; the right to talk and to listen; the right to refuse help or to accept, to offer help or to decline it; the right of son to court and daughter to be courted; the right of the hungry to be fed; the rights of the pregnant and the sick to transcend all rights.
And the families learned, although no one told them, what rights are monstrous and must be destroyed: the right to intrude upon privacy, the right to be noisy while the camp slept, the right of seduction or rape, the right of adultery and theft and murder. These rights were crushed, because the little worlds could not exist for even a night with such rights alive." -p.265

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

The Voices Ordered Her to Cut Her Hair, and put on male clothing

Joan, or Jeanne, was also called the Maid D'Orleans.  She grew up tending to her families farm and learning religion and various other housekeeping skills. She never learned to read or write.  The general consensus seems to be that around the age of 12 she began hearing voices of St. Michael (held in high esteem and believed to be the vicorious leader and the protector of heaven over the powers of hell. He is also the patron saint of paratroopers and sickness, among other things), Catherine of Alexandria ( a virgin martyr, also known as saint catherine of the wheel. she was martyred on the stake wheel, a torture device that later came to be known as the catherine wheel. A favorite band of mine was named after the catherine wheel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoEav9mAB3U  . Catherine is the patron saint of virgin girls, girls, craftsmen who work with wheels, archivists, and knife sharpeners, among others), and St. Margaret (whose existence has been debateable. there are varying stories, one of which is that she was the pagan Aphrodites transformation into Christianity. She was also a virgin martyr who is usually depicted standing atop a dragon.  Some of her patronages are childbirth, pregnant women, peasants, exiles, and those falsely accused).  It's interesting to note that Joan, who was later falsely accused of witchcraft and martyred, heard her voice. The voices ordered her to cut off all her hair, put on male clothing and armour, and take up arms to save France. 

Joan of Arc

This particular drawing was done in conjuction with my reading about Joan of Arc (Jeanne D'Arc). Joan of Arc was born on January 6, aprox. 1412 in a small village in the Eastern part of France called Domremy. 

 

August

Lip Service
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zrSHl9R7wI

Tall Girl

Today I met a tall girl from the East somewhere in between Marketing and Philosophy.  She was soft and beautiful, but with fragile bags under her eyes like she knew heaviness.  We bonded over architectural design.