embedded in the floating world
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nmazca.blog embedded in the floating world |
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Of course, there have been quiet and subtle experiences: surprise at the blooms on the poppies and peonies, watching the rain of cherry blossoms with their feather-soft patter on the grass, the stunning blue sky Friday afternoon after a week of clouds and chill, spending most of the same afternoon on the playground with the children, noticing the lengthening twilight each evening (I'm told that by midsummer, it stays twilight-ish until 11; life on the 47th parallel). Anyway, been picking up on all sorts of stuff lately (most of it on the bus, or waiting for one). I see that the moon's been in Aquarius for the last couple of days* (thus all the airiness). So many things have gone on or caught my attention -- a Quickening, as Jason said recently -- I had to write some down: "I am almost nine. An ordinary girl. Nothing special about me. One of the youngest in my class. But then again, there could be magic in my hands?" - a Metro bus poem by Roxie Hower "You Drink, We Drive." This was tagline pasted across two buses that passed me near the university tonight. When I noticed the first one, it was stopped at the light on 45th and The Ave, jostling side to side. "They do _not_ have hydraulics on that thing..." I hoped. As they rolled by, I was witness to the sight of some college boys playing at stripper pole-dancing, disposal-camera flashes, rope lights running along the top of the windows, sound system bumpin', people cavorting... The second bus stopped in front of me and one guy opened the transom while I stared and shook my head. "Hey, how's it goin'?!" "Fine." His friends started chuckling, tickled by this brief interaction with a black guy on the curb. "Want a beer?" he asked while someone else took my picture. "That's alright." "Stop the bus," indeed... -- "800 New Parking Spaces Open May 2003," an almost-two-story-tall banner read above University Village (the driving-maze mall complex near UWash). It's like they were announcing a new store... -- My friend Michele and I met for Indian buffet on Wednesday. She's finished (?) her first novel, I'm halfway through this studio project. We of course discussed the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent obliteration of much of its history**. She prompted me to read George Orwell's (a penname; he was Indian?) 1984. Since her last offering was Olivia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower, I'm sure it will be well-timed... not unlike my experience of hearing the album I Phantom by Mr. Lif while CD-shoppin' today. I've gone for months without buying anything but in the last month I've been drawn into the stores -- today it was really like some force said "Yes, go in now." "Earthcrusher" on I Phantom was... man. Borrow, burn or buy that one soon. -- I recently finished Mama Day by Gloria Naylor (took three years, oops). Yesterday I finished Wabi-Sabi by Leonard Koren, a used-bookstore acquisition from a few months back. It provides background and theory on "the quintessential Japanese aesthetic" as developed through tea ceremony but evident and sought after in many facets of traditional Japanese life... a tradition or state of culture that he asserted is under threat from modernist, technological values and Western lifestyle. I am going to apply for an artist's residency/retreat on a volcanic slope in Central Oregon. I'd be going for the Sept-Feb session. At the same time, I'm going to apply for scholarships/fellowships for the summer term (well, maybe a year) at Pratt Fine Arts Center here in town. So either way there will be more art workin'/workin' out art. I'm also going to move across town to a location yet to be determined. End of May at the earliest, solstice or so at the latest. Mr Day-Day * I know most sources will say the moon was in Pisces, but in actual space the moon's been in Aquarius, entering Pisces tomorrow. ** http://www.thememoryhole.org/history/iraq-natl-library.htm http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/IRAQ/iraq.html *** The trip where Ramesh and I flew out of ABQ, bought snacks from the Nation of Islam at Oakland Int'l, drank lots of wine, ate lots of crab, and got into a drunken curbside brawl in Microsoft's parking lot. The last few days have been kinda wacky, hectic, jumbled |
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