branches were sewn by the color of green

this song makes my heart feel heavy

excerpts

my favorites from the haiku year..

Everyone I love
loves someone else, thinking me
too far away to love.

the bedsheets in disarray
through a magnifying glass
antarctica

studied, drunk. youth
screams from your hairstyle.
it draws me, pulls me in

hand under covers
in bed under sheets
sky outside of few stars

conversation hearts
i eat them without even
reading the words

black cat
white snow
tip toe

in a parking lot
a boy dances with a lunch box
then, seeing me, stops

she says this:
you should get out of your room
it seems more empty than full

my picture
has been taken
own off his wall

her eyes
like a dare
that falters

the plaque reads:
"six known death occurred here"
what a view

your glasses left
without your face, sitting alone
on the windowsill

We trade hats, laughing
He smiles, says he loves some girl.
I take my hat back.

your list of things
to do. my name
glaringly absent

That red lipstick
is the stuff of dreams,
not kisses.

want to just go
naked. no clothes
not even a watch

you didn't know
you liked it
'til i did it

The map on my bed
unfolded, blue, green, alone.
Look, these roads go to you

People in cars
telling life stories
in red light glances

your sultry voice
and wry smile
are affecting my hips

I sit stone-faced
Your sobbing
Just pisses me off

at dawn
we fall asleep
mid-sentence

the part in her hair
falls discreetly, sadly over
her lazy left eye

feeling guilty about
my second donut
i slip on the ice and drop it

new raindrops
the horizon is always
the same distance away


(book link riiiight HERE)

book report

2011 will be the year i read A LOT. 2011 will be the first time i haven't been in school since kindergarten. i have the time to read to my heart's content.

for christmas i got about $100 worth of gift certificates to buy books. and buy books i did. so, here are some of the books i will be reading in 2011. (some i just bought, others i bought a while ago, but hadn't gotten around to reading them yet):

-fragile things by neil gaimen (i've started this one, it's really good. it's a colection of short stories, almost all of which have creeped me out so far.)
-mcsweeney's 27 (i found these books at a used book store in town. it's kind of a literary magazine, but published as books with the coolest covers i've seen in a while. read more about mcsweeny's HERE.)
-mcsweeney's 25
-the white tiger by aravind adiga
-naked by david sedaris
-sellevision by augusten burroughs (finally found a copy of the one augusten burroughs book i have yet to read.)
-an anthology of mine by rex whistler
-the haiku year
-the beach by alex garland (i loved the movie, so i'm sure i'll love the book even more.)
-one hundred years of solitude by gabriel garcia marquez
-the wind up bird chronicle by haruki murakami
-neverwhere by neil gaimen (i'm getting really into neil gaimen again, and when i read the synopsis for this one, i couldn't help myself. i haven't read a good fantasy book in ages.)
-100 selected poems by e e cummings

the mcsweeney covers that need to be appreciated:

clap clap clap

neat.

at home. sick. eating lucky charms.

saw inglorious bastards yesterday, it was alright. very quentin tarantino.
started reading on the road by jack kerouac. about a chapter or two in so can't say too much about it yet.
also started reading fragile things by neil gaimen which is a collection of poems and short stories. so far all of the ones i've read have been pretty dark. i really like his style of writing.

i also picked up white oleander from the library. i've seen the movie several times, and books are almost always better than the film, so i thought i'd give it a read.

i'm on another reading binge.

i was home sick yesterday as well and watched 28 days later again. i had forgotten how good it is. it's actually incredibly well done.

the gardeners

oh me oh my.
the mind races doesn't it?
it can create whole other worlds for us to act out various scenes,
but in the end, the easiest (albeit the hardest) thing to do is just ask,
or pick up the phone.

i always get so nervous on the phone. i much prefer to talk to people face to face. it's less awkward and a whole lot easier to interpret what's going on when body language and facial expressions are involved.



oh boy.
in other news...
i finished year of the flood by margaret atwood. my opinion = fantastic! if you enjoyed oryx and crake, you should enjoy this. if you haven't read either, get on it. read oryx and crake first, though it is not necessary to read either for the other, but if you're planning on reading both, it may be more exciting to read oryx and crake first so you can catch all of the references in year of the flood.

i wish they made these books into films so that for all of those people who refuse to read, at least they could maybe catch a glimpse of these stories.

yowza

what a weekend. my goodness.

my body feels like a sack of wet sand.
completely worth it though.

-------

i've started reading the year of the flood by margaret atwood. so far so good i think. it's told from two different perspectives and the year that the story is taking place keeps switching as well, so i get lost at times, but i think i'm getting the hang of it.

i put some more holes in my head. i got both tragus piercings done.
i like them! my new-piercing-itch has been scratched.
-------------


in other news, i saw inception. really well done!

tonight i might be going to see exit through the gift shop which is a documentary by banksy. i'll let you know how that goes if the plan doesn't fall through.
----------------

i finished that book i think was called "second hand"...it was ok. i wouldn't recommend it, but it was fine. it wasn't about very much. pretty much this guy who owns a second hand shop falls in love (really quickly might i add) with this girl who comes into his shop who happens to fancy him as well. she helps him overcome his mom's death and he helps her get over her commitment issues and her depression because of working at a vet's clinic and putting several animal's down a day. yup. that's pretty much the entire story. they also go to mexico for the day of the dead celebration. there's a lot of chapters where the main character richard aka junk, goes to yard sales and estate sales and describes all this "neat junk" he picks up. so for a lot of the book, you're reading about garage sales. hmm.


also, i just started to read a scanner darkly. i'm only on chapter 2, so i can't say much yet. so far it's about drugs, and i just got introduced to a drug cop.
------------------------

summer course is going well. quiz 1: 90%, quiz 2: 93%, research paper: 80%. all i have is the final exam left. i'm hoping for a 90% again. i'll find out wednesday!
-----------------

here are some songs by arthur russel i like:

join me in the reading corner

i think only revolutions is going to be another mark z danielewski book that i attempt, but do not finish. it's very rare that this happens, i'm usually someone who can't stop something halfway through, but i really can't follow this book. the book tells two sides of the story, one for each of the characters perspectives. you read the top portion of the book, which is Hailey's story. once you get to the end, you turn the book upside down and read Sam's story. okay, easy enough. if it wasn't written in a strange poetry dialect. it's pretty to read, but i feel like i need a decoder to read it. i'll probably work my way through the rest of Hailey's perspective, but unless something amazing happens i wont be reading the other half.
as far as i can tell, Hailey had sex with someone for money, then got gang banged/raped, possibly more than once, then meets Sam and they sleep together quite a bunch, then there's another group of men who want to gang bang/rape Hailey and they run away. right now they're at a party and Hailey is having sex with someone called "the Creep". i'm confused.

here's a sampling of what i'm reading:
Anywho, I've mucho to scorch. No dillydallying for me. But silly boy so impressed still gallops after me. He'll burn too.
If he keeps up.
If he doesn't keep up.
Everyone burns and
no one keeps up.
I'm that fast, man.
Woobling loose the travis.
--Wait, Sam gaps.
Turning me back
to--What?
his offer:
--Okay, you can be mys lave.
My flying kick nicks his nose.
A warning. Worse if I weren't
succumbing to squeal.
What a heel.
I'm too multiple to feel.
A fork ahead.
I take both.

we'll see what comes of this.

i went to the library today to gather books for my research paper i should be working on right this moment. as well as five books on frida kahlo, i also picked up Second Hand: a novel by michael zadoorian (not really sure what it's about, i just skimmed the back and added it to my pile), the Black Dahlia by james ellroy (i've never seen the movie, but have heard it's good, and usually books are better than the film anyway), A Scanner Darkly by philip k. dick (again, haven't seen the movie, but will give the book a shot first), and lastly Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto (no idea what it's about, i think it's a collection of short stories by an author from japan).


oh oh oh to read. it's the kind of adventure that never gets old.

LEAVE ME YOUR BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS.

things from my brain

-i was going through a notebook of mine i've been scribblin lists and random things in for the past two years. most of it are just lists of movies, gift ideas, songs, ect. one thing i wrote at some point though was "i saw your silhouette today."
no idea where that came from, but i like it.

-when someone is putting you into their phone and they ask how to spell your name, it means they have no idea what it is. unless your name is really odd and unique. lauren, yeah, not so much. i will for sure call you on it by the way. (not gonna lie though, i've definitely had to pull this before. it's better then calling someone the wrong name! which i've done embarrassingly at least twice. i called someone carlos whose name is tyler, and a girl ayla whose name was avery. whoops. the carlos/tyler incident was one for the records though lol)

-i finished dear john. i was really sad during the first half, but then i think i removed myself from it a bit and it got real cheesy. all in all, it's in par with a chick flick. read it if you want a book you'll learn nothing from, but want to read some romance and cry a bit. next book o the docket is only revolutions by mark z. danielewski who also wrote house of leaves (which i never finished, but one day will reread because it was really interesting, it was just a very tough read and i was reading it during school when my mind needed to put attention of the textbooks i was supposed to be reading). not really sure what this one is about, it was with the bargain books at chapters, so i just kind of took a leap with it. a brief summary found on wikipedia (obviously a totally legit and reliable source ;) ) is "Sam and Hailey, and Hailey and Sam, wild and wayward teenagers who never grow old. With an evolving stable of cars, the teenagers move through various places and moments in time as they try to outrace history."

-what is a docket? dictionary.com says:
dock·et (dkt)
n.
1. Law
a. A calendar of the cases awaiting action in a court.
b. A brief entry of the court proceedings in a legal case.
c. The book containing such entries.
2. A summary or other brief statement of the contents of a document; an abstract.
3. A list of things to be done; an agenda.
4. A label or ticket affixed to a package listing the contents or directions for assembling or operating.
tr.v. dock·et·ed, dock·et·ing, dock·ets
1. Law To enter in a court calendar or in a record of court proceedings.
2. To provide with a brief identifying statement.
3. To label or ticket (a parcel).

-since my dog died whenever i see any animal or baby, i have the strongest urge to pick it up and give it a huge hug. i miss holding my dog! so give me yours to hold!

(this peacock just looks so plump and soft. i want to pick this up. i think it would peck my face off though...)

-that's it. have a great day.

tears for fun?

why do we do things that we know will make us cry? is it a girl thing or an everyone thing? i ask this because i'm reading a book right now that was recommended to me with "you'll like it. it's really good, you'll cry for sure." the same has been said during movie recommendations. why is it that if a movie/book will make you cry, it's considered a good thing? i guess it's because its a work of fiction that creates real emotions in you and we all like to live vicariously through characters in books and films. we like to travel away from our lives from time to time, and experience someone else's. but still, why do we choose ones that will make us cry?
when you're upset you might go and listen to sad music or watch a sad movie etc that will make you cry it out rather than make you feel happier.

i'm not meaning to criticize any of this. i'm one of the worst offenders for this. i really do love when books and movies make me cry. i like feeling intense emotions for these make believe characters. i'm just wondering aloud as to why.

what book is making me cry? *sigh* i hate to admit it, but it's dear john. yes, a nicholas sparks novel. all of his stories are the same (this conclusion is based on the notebook (movie), dear john (book) and the last song (which i haven't seen, but know enough about). a boy and girl meet. they're from different sides of the track (rich/poor, trouble maker/saint, etc). they're together for a summer and somehow fall head over heals in love. then they are forced apart and they try to cope without each other, or how to cope with the struggles in their ever changing relationship.
all the stories may be the same, but they do work. everyone can relate to the story in one way or another. i bawled in the notebook. i've already bawled several times in dear john (and i'm only half way through!)

rosey faced reader on a reading binge

since school finished i've been going nuts with books. here's what i remember reading since my last exam on april 20th:

-acid house - irvine welsh (i didn't really like it. it's a bunch of sort stories related mostly to drugs. by the same guy who wrote trainspotting. lots of the stories are written the way an accent sounds, which made a few of the stories pretty unreadable to me.)

- a wolf at the table - augusten burroughs (same guy who wrote running with scissors. focuses mostly on growing up with a psychopathic dad. true story.)

-dress your family in corduroy and denim - david sedaris (funny short stories about his life.)

-friends like these - danny wallace (true story about a guy who decides to track down 12 of his childhood friends and catch up. pretty funny, but not as good as his other books i've read: join me and the yes man)

-shop girl - steve martin (this book was so so bland and strangely written. the movie works a lot better than the book. it felt that the book was written more like a screenplay than a book. it was really short and lacked emotion. i would not read anything else written by steve martin because of this.)

-one flew over the cuckoo's nest - ken kesey (i'm just over half way through this right now. i really like it so far. i know i've seen the movie, but i don't remember much of it. it's really interesting the way it's written from the view of one of the mental patients. knowing jack nicholson played the role of McMurphy in the film makes it hard to visualise the physical description given of the character in the book. in the book he is a buff ginger. other than that...spot on casting.)

i'm pretty sure there's one or two books i'm missing in this but i can't for the life of me figure out what they are. my next two books lined up are dry by augusten burroughs (this will be my 6th out of his 7 books i've read. i find him really entertaining...obviously. last one of his to go is sellivision. i think dry is about him overcoming alcholism) and then i have america unchained by dave gorman (his tale of an american road trip. i've also read dave gorman's googlewhack adventure which was pretty great. laugh out loud funny at parts. a lot like danny wallace). i tried to start house of sand and fog, but i've been in a streak of reading funny books or bio's. i'm not much in the mood for a depressing book on racism. one day i'll get around to it, i've heard it's great.

i like books.

update: finished one flew over the cuckoo's nest earlier today. really good. i'd highly recommend it.

Rethink Scholarship at Langara 2010 Call for Entries from Rory O'Sullivan and Simon Bruyn on Vimeo.

very creative.

magazinemagazine where art though

i really like reading magazines from around the world that talk about art and culture and just life in general in other places. here are a few of those such magazine's that i'm reading right now, and think you should check out.



above is "is a cutting edge publication with strong editorial content focusing on the environment and the green life style."


hi-fructose is an ""Under the Counter Culture" quarterly magazine....Hi-Fructose transcends genre and trend, assuring our readers thorough coverage and content that is relevant, informative and original. We showcase a mix of underground artists, emerging and rediscovered counter cultures and awe inspiring spectacles from around the world."


"Pictures are, above all else, COLORS' expressive medium: a method that is universal and reaches the greatest number of people with a strong, immediate impact. Using this visual language, COLORS' themes alternate between the challengingly serious; such as ecology, wars around the world, the fight against AIDS, and the frankly frivolous, such as shopping, fashion, and toys." This issue is on teenagers from around the world.

i also frequent vice, juxtapoze, wad, lodown, and some others. i used to always buy swindle magazine because it had a bit of everything and was oh so wonderful, but they haven't created a new issue in about a year i think. i think they've crumbled out of existence which blows. if you can get your hands on some back issues (i have 4-19 if you want to browse) i would recommend it.

if you have some neat magazine recommendations for me, i'd love to hear them.

your light is spent - final fantasy. what a pretty song.

i went to minneapolis and it was good. the art was great. my mind has exceeded it's new information limit for a little bit and has been screwing me up. it also doesn't help that i had virtually no sleep last night.
i stopped to take out cash today from a bank machine and after i took my cash out of the machine i left. as in, i didn't take my card out of the machine at all or sign out. leaving my bank account completely open for a meanie to walk up and steal from me. i didn't notice that i'd lost my debit card for over 8 hours. then i had a bit of a freak out when i realised what i'd done. i went back to where i'd been and someone nice decided not to steal from me and returned my card to a store clerk.
whoops.

in minneapolis i navigated a group of us from an art gallery back to our hotel. if you know me, you'd know that i have a complete lack of a sense of direction. it was humorous to me that i was the one leading everyone, and even more so how proud i was that i got us all back with only one two second wrong turn.
as we turned the corner from a back alley to our hotel, we passed by a car parked in the alley full of three big older black dudes dressed all in black smoking cigars. their car had a smashed window and one of the guys was holding a huge wad of cash. they looked like some gangsters out of a movie.

in other news:
these are the books i'm reading. so far both have made me laugh or at least smile. i'll let you know how they are when i'm done. i've decided not to read the tenth circle right now. i haven't liked the author's writing style, it's written like a young adult book.

finished the gargoyle. i liked it. it was more of a love story than i thought it was going to be, but it was nice. i like reading about people in love. it wasn't overly sappy either.

next i think i have to read some of my text books...

got 3/5 of my exams back and got B+ in all of them so far. i would like an A on at least one of my exams. i might get it yet, we shall see. i'm pretty happy with the B+'s so far though. especially since one of them was for the exam i barely studied for because i was sick of studying :)



birthday weekend starts tomorrow! i always feel awkward about my birthday just because i don't like organizing things for myself. like oh how about you all hang out with me today because i was born. it just feels weird. also when people sing happy birthday i never know what to do. i usually just blush, get embarrassed and stare at the table. not going to lie though, i think birthdays are great. i'm kind of nervous about this one.
even though i'm pretty outgoing, sometimes i still get ridiculously shy. my brithday is often one of those times.


oh! also, halloween was great. well, the 30th was the halloween party i went to, and THAT was great. actual halloween was alright. it was fun driving home that night and seeing goblins, disco balls, and under dressed people wandering the streets. on the walk to my car i saw a very drunk tigger lying under a tree.

The other day i was searching value village for a last minute piece for my halloween costume, i came up empty handed so i wandered over to the book section to see if there was anything of interest, and hurra! there was! for about $2 each i picked up:


the gargoyle by andrew davidson

the tenth circle by jodie picoult

the rebel angels - robertson davies


i started reading gargoyle a two days ago and i'm on page 317.
the writer is canadian and now resides in winnipeg. i don't know why, but i have this weird bias set up against anything canadian made. which is dumb considering one of my favorite books is by margaret attwood who's canadian, and i took a canadian film course where, again, i was pleasantly surprised how much i loved the class. either way, when the book first came out sometime last year and started winning a bunch of awards, i looked into it and though i agreed the story sounded like something i'd like to read, i just decided i wouldn't. but then i spotted it for $2 in value village when it still sells in store for $20+ i figured i might as well give it a shot.
i'm glad i did, it really is great so far. it deserves all of the awards it was given. there's history (that relates to what i've been learning over the past two years in art history courses), there's fantasy, there's love, there's gore, and great characters. i'll let you know when i finish it if i would recommend it or not. sometimes an ending can kill a great book.

the jodi picoult one i just picked up because i've heard her name so often because of my sister's keeper being made into a feature film earlier this year. i thought i should give it a try, my friend read my sisters keeper and said it was good and she cried through the whole thing. being the sap that i am, it sounds like a book for me. the tenth circle in a nutshell is about a father protecting his daughter from an abusive relationship.

rebel angels just sounded interesting to me when i read the back, i've never heard of it or the author before. i'm not even sure what it will be about.

a while ago i picked up a copy of dante's inferno, which is kind of funny, because they talk about it a lot in the gargoyle. i've never read it and it seems like one of those things everyone who likes learning/reading/poetry should look at. that goes the same with paradise lost which i also own (i got it a few years ago when i worked at the bookstore), but i've never read yet. i think i bought that after watching what dreams may come which was supposed to be a modern take on paradise lost. i'd wanted to read it after seeing excerpts in neil gaimen's his dark materials trilogy.

a friend of mine recommended david sadaris to me, which is funny because i'd seen one of his books around the bookstore quite a bit, but never really looked at it. the other day when i was waiting for my ride, i read the first chapter of when you are engulfed in flames, and it was pretty witty, it made me chuckle. i really respect authors who can write and make me laugh out loud. examples: danny wallace and dave gorman.

well i think that's enough nerd talk for one post. all i asked for for my birthday was books and movies. that's all i ever ask for for anything. i remember someone once made fun of me for giving someone a book for their birthday, i thought it was the best gift. to each their own i guess.

"Then, I turned around and walked to my room and closed my door and put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be. "
— Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

"I had to fold like a grey moth and let go. "
— Margaret Atwood

"There must be millions of people all over the world who never get any love letters...I could be their leader."
— Charlie Brown

shutter island

reading this book right now. so far it's really great. since i heard of the movie first, as i read it i'm thinking about how they'll shoot it as a film, and i think it will turn out really good...although i have to admit, i'm kind of worried about how they'll portray the dream sequences, those are always tough to do well in films. the book's written by the same guy who wrote gone baby gone and mystic river, both apparently good films. (i've seen mystic river, but don't really remember it, but my folks loved it, and gone baby gone, i just never got around to, although i think a few folks at the movie store watched it and they liked it.)
i'm excited for the film. i think kelsey's going to come with me to see it which is great, because she gets really scared and jumpy in movies, which makes me scared and extra jumpy, thus enhancing the movie-watching experience!

update: just finished the book. it was super good. great even. 4.5/5

book/movie updates

here's my thoughts on what i've read and seen (the only ones i remember seeing right now) this past month: (if you want to know what the books/movies are about, click on their names to bring you to their imdb or amazon pages. i'm awful at describing things so i thought i'd leave it for the professionals)
books:


running with scissors - augusten burroughs
i'd seen the movie, which i thought was ok. the book (like most things) was a lot better. i liked it a lot. it was a quick, interesting read. it's crazy that it's all apparently a true story. 3.5/5


dave gorman's googlewhack adventure - dave gorman
really good, really funny. he's pal's with danny wallace (who wrote the yes man and join me, both which i recommend) and writes in a similar style, if you've read any wallace, check out this fella. it was laugh out loud funny. i liked danny wallace's books better, but either way, read it. or if you don't like to read (what? really? what's wrong with you?), he's also a stand-up comedian and you can find this googlewhack adventure as a stand-up performance on youtube. 4/5


my booky wook: an autobiography of sex, drugs and stand-up - russel brand
i bought this book because i liked russel brand. honestly, i like him less after reading this. i guess i'd been in the mind-frame of reading funny books, and since he's a comedian i thought this would be funny as well. things he thought would be amusing stories really weren't. i think his comedy is better to be seen than read. it didn't really leave me feeling sympathetic for him at all, it kind of made me think he was a twat the whole time. i still think he's funny as a stand-up comedian or as the rockstar in forgetting sarah marshall, but the only reason i would tell you to pick up this book, would be to look at the pictures in it of him as a boy and teen. some are amusing. 2/5.

movies:

i FINALLY saw the big lebowski. it was great. steve buschemi had such a small role. but he was still funny. john goodman was great and obviously so was jeff bridges. not much else to say on this one. if you haven't seen it, go watch it. now. 5/5


i also finally saw the girl who leapt through time. i'd been wanting to watch it for a while because i thought it had an interesting concept. i didn't like it as much as i thought i would. it's no spirited away or princess monoke, but it's still decent. the friends who i watched it with liked it quite a bit. if you like anime, i'd say check it out. 4/5