this hideous confection is an example of the topic i'd like to touch on today:
crazycakes
as in, yesterday i realized there are a scary number of people who walk around my campus talking to themselves
in public, outloud, conversing
with themselves
they are crazycakes

but see then i had a mini panic attack in class
induced by the act of writing a list of things i had to do this term
and by the realization that i might become so overwhelmed by the stress and looming due dates and performance anxiety that i could get to june and find myself walking up to my diploma without any memories of the only thing i really want to do this term:
lie on my back all over campus beside people i love.
and sitting in class sweating and drilling my fingers on the tabletop i realized:
i was talking to myself.
i was going crazycakes.

so here is my public announcement:
i will not lose my sense of humor
i will not light something on fire
(not even my script which i was threatening with a lighter recently)
i will sit still long enough to enjoy the things i accomplish
i will keep my people close
i will breathe
i will love
and so help me god i will not join the ranks of the outer-monologuers

oh. and i will take this song twice daily like the happy drug it is:
MGMT - Kids
boomp3.com

she's more than just that apple ad

yael naim
lonely
boomp3.com

sweet things

The ingenuity of the designs on this site blew me away
id wear any of them
my bdays around the corner
juuuust kidding
most of the designers dont seem to be selling them
im putting them up because they inspired me to look twice at the materials we trip over
or throw away
here are three of my favorites:

poured concrete rings by 22 design studio
wrapping foil ring and necklace by leonor hippolito
cork ring by margarida matos

Adele is Swell (and im obnoxious as hell)

If i could figure out how to post more than one song per post i would now
one song by this chick is just not enough
especially considering how her style swings between songs
shes a brit and shes got some serious chops...her voice is winehouse-y
buuuut if i were her id want to stab everyone who said that
also shes a real human, not a cracked out human toothpick

listen:
boomp3.com

and if you likey, go get:
Chasing Pavements
Make You Feel My Love (a lovely cover)
Last Night (another cover, very fun)
Best For Last

i looked into a giraffe's eye and burst into tears

For the last three days I've been at a place called White Oak Plantation and Conservation Center
which, i think, can be abbreviated to... heaven.
the view from my bedroom:I walked among titans of the arts and animal kingdom:
James Lapine
and giraffes...
...to name a few.

Howard Gilman is the beautiful human responsible for heaven
Mr G was born in 1924 and died in 1998.
the fourth and last in a line of Gilmans starting with Isaac Gilman who founded the Gilman Paper Company.
Dartmouth Grad, Phi Beta Kappa, served in the Navy in WWII.
He was a huge animal lover and ended up taking thousands of acres of company land for timbering in jacksonville FL, creating the conservation side of White Oak to "provide conservation options for the future by maintaining genetically diverse populations of threatened species in spacious, natural facilities."
the other side of White Oak, though, is related to his incredible sensitivity to the work and needs of young artists...houses, studios and theaters dot the preserve, built to showcase and incubate his artist friends, like, say, Baryshnikov, who credits much of what he's become to Gilman's support... personal and financial.
One of the 200 signed posters lining the halls:
Unlike other heavy hitting arts patrons, Gilman treated artists like he did his animals: supporting their lives and conserving their habitat; not teaching them tricks or putting them on display like trophies.
as Mark Morris said in an interview i saw, "Howard was faaabulous. and he handled me just like he would a rhino. he said, 'look at that beautful rhino over there. i'm going to make it possible for that rhino to be as beautiful and happy as it can be."
thatd be a white rhino named bernie. (not mark morris)

anyway.
a small group of special people who have donated a lot of their resources to the arts at dartmouth were invited to White Oak to enjoy the facilities, see the animals, and mostly, participate in a three day residency with about 15 invited artists.
there were actors, writers, directors, producers, dancers, chreographers, musicians... it was like a creative noahs ark.
and other than me, they were all the big time kind...
i was brought down to present a portion of the play that will be produced later this spring.
what i actually did was lay low and take notes while my brilliant and incredibly big-league cast and director did their thing.
Annie and Jamie in rehersal:
We ate all meals as a group and had separate but open rehearsals so the patrons could walk through and watch our proooocess and then there were informal presentations with equally informal (drinking at the bar) discussions of the work.
Gilman's collection of decanters behind one of at least a dozen bars on the property:
Basically it was a massive creatively inspired mix of minds in a place bursting with art and animals and saturated in the spirit of an incredible man...
it was beautiful
and i will never forget what i felt when i looked that giraffe in the eye

note: giraffes hearts weigh on average 25 lbs.

there is suddenly a lot of wind where i am wind that seems to have come from somewhere else from a cliff in Arezzo at dusk that i stepped to the edge of and was almost swept off by wind from a field in county Clare where it all but lifted me off a horses back from home late spring or early fall when wind urging the season forward flattens a beachwalking human to the sand as easily as it does dune grass and i remembered last night trudging home at 3 am from 18 hours of sedentary studying angled against this element that so rarely graces new hampshire how much i sometimes need to be buffeted

all i want is more than echo

Echo and Narcissus by Mitch Barrett
boomp3.com by Susie Suh

For Every Chip You Chomp In My Vicinity...I Shall Kill You

Its exam time people
not the time to tick me off:
ive slept about five hours in the past three days
not including the nap i took face down on my key board that produced five pages of the letter J in the middle of my thesis
as someone kindly pointed out, its the most prolific i've been all term
i was not amused:
in fact i was going to post a little ditty called I Hate Everyone by Go Set Go
but thats a bit harsh
i don't hate everyone
i just hate the girl sitting across from me
who just spent 5 full minutes opening a bag of chips
she was trying to do it quietly
but instead simply prolonged the torture so that riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip criiinckle crinckle riiiiiiiip echoed through the silent library
i was one second from jumping on her and tearing the satanic bag from her hands
but i refrained
and was rewarded for my patience with the joy of listening to her eat them
at which point i shot her a look that stopped her mid crunch:
she's since changed chomping styles to what i have to assume she thinks is less distracting:
she puts a chip in her mouth, waits a moment, and then frenetically chompchompchompchompchomps.
pauses...and then gulps down the mashed chip.
which reminded me of this hilarious video
and since watching it i'm feeling much resolved not to reach across the table and throttle the chick.
...simply because i would never harm a hedgehog:

breaking the blog silence

Apologies to my loyal readers. :)
i've been in a funk
i'm coming out of it now but i swear its the funkiest funk ive ever experienced
on paper, things are coasting along if not clicking into place
in fact recently its been a little like an early birthday
or a late christmas
or some event where lots of shit is handed to me for no reason
but being a contrary type, I insist on looking the gift horses square in the quacker
its not that i'm unappreciative, because i am, deeply so.
i'm just not great at trusting a good thing
so ive been doing a lot of 'yay'-ing
because 'yay' is about all i could muster in the way of enthusiasm
but yay is obnoxious

i think I needed a good slap
or to be knocked unconscious so i could get some sleep
either way it looks like someone should have hit me
i'm sure i wouldn't have been hard pressed to find a taker
my dear friend L, for example, who remarked recently that my negativity made her feel like i'd
"shoved ice down the jacket of her soul"
love you, L.
In the midst of my funk I've been seeking out songs that keep me awake and happy
Liam Finn's song Second Chance has been played twenty times in the last 24 hours.
boomp3.com
The guys a ball of musical energy
he plays almost all the instruments on his album
and if you want to see a pretty jaw dropping live performance look him up on youtube on Letterman.

Feeling less funky by the second...

"I just want to be filled up a little more with what exists..."

Choosing to Think of It

Today, ten thousand people will die
and their small replacements will bring joy
and this will make sense to someone
removed from any sense of loss.
I, too, will die a little and carry on,
doing some paperwork, driving myself
home. The sky is simply overcast,
nothing is any less than it was
yesterday or the day before. In short,
there's no reason or every reason
why I'm choosing to think of this now.
The short-lived holiness
true lovers know, making them unaccountable
except to spirit and themselves--suddenly
I want to be that insufferable and selfish,
that sharpened and tuned.
I'm going to think of what it means
to be an animal crossing a highway,
to be a human without a useful prayer
setting off on one of those journeys
we humans take. I don't expect anything
to change. I just want to be filled up
a little more with what exists,
tipped toward the laughter which understands
I'm nothing and all there is.
By evening, the promised storm
will arrive. A few in small boats
will be taken by surprise.
There will be survivors, and even they will die.
-- Stephen Dunn