Thursday, February 4, 2010

Some of My Works

Hey Doodely-Doodely!!!!
(Salutation Flanders-Style)



This is a self portrait of yes myself DUH playing the cello that I drew (which started out as a doodle... like most great things) right before I left for Paris (place-dropping I know it was only for a week haha completely touristy) hosted by The Kelsique for her something-birthday... it is currently the profile for my facebook fan page. It is the dolled up version with a border and quote bubble added for aesthetic profile picture purposes.

It is a scan so if you click to enlarge it it will most definitely be nice and beautifully big (alliteration solidarity)!

Some stuff I've written/ made ... a.k.a., past junk I created/ gave birth to I found on my computer that I am desperate to share XD.

So I'm going to start off completely off topic (unless you want to consider these my influences, a spin that happens to be completely true) - Stuff that is definitely not mine but I like immensely:


Chagall. This is what my first date with my soul-mate will look like.


Picasso. One of my favorites. I will never smoke - I smoked a filtered Malboro cigarette once (I keep being thoroughly American and pronounce it sig-ahr-at) - believe it or not, as geeky research for a chain-smoking character in my as of yet unfinished novella. I was aware my first and only inhale of smoke would not equal the experience of a chain-smoker, but it was a million times better than having not smoked at all. ANYWAY, my point is that though I will never smoke, not even socially, you have to admit (at least in your head, if not aloud) that Picasso in this painting has rendered smoking as thoroughly cool.

James Christensen. This painting is entitled, "Puffy Guy on a Short Leash."

Okay, NOW onto the supposed subject of this blog post, MY WORKS. Stuff I did.


A PROJECT

Read Watchmen for school last year (I'd already read it when it was assigned to my older sister back when she was reading it for school - I'm a nice blend of curiosity and competitiveness). Our assignment? To create our own superhero (one of those creative, end-of-the-year assignments.)

So I'm including mine. Because it is semi-relevant to the theme of my blog. But mostly just because it's entertaining. I dressed up and everything too. For both the ego and the alter-ego (beyond the requirement, of course. My life is full of extraneous details that I feel I need in order to make a thing complete. Hence this blog, for instance XD). I wore a black wig.

Me as My - oops I mean as Miss Elite's Alter-Ego, Ulva Malone.

[Jo Bingo]

Watchmen Project

English

Superhero based off a real person’s story – inspired from [Jo Bingo]’s tendency to be snobbish and lend out her favorite books in a slightly condescending fashion.

Identity: Miss Elite (first name Elberta, Teutonic name meaning nobly brilliant)

Secret Identity: Ulva (wolf, German) Malone (maol being Gaelic for "follower." Because the bearers of the name were for the most part illiterate, there are many different spelling of this surname) – therefore for all intents and purposes the name means “illiterate wolf follower,” the polar opposite of what it means to be “elite.” Ulva Malone is a loner who works at Wendy’s as a Cashier, collects celebrity posters, wears dark colors – a dark blue plain hooded sweater and black pants, purple with red polka dots scarf tied around neck, black haired wig

Costume: A brown felt beret hat, a feathered black New Orleans Cat Mask covering all of face except mouth and eyes, white gloves, a small black cape.

Paraphernalia:

Literacy Wand – A silver Wand with a star at its end, kept on a loop on pants meant for belt, a touch to the crown (head) bestows literacy, the ability to write, and a moderately good vocabulary, including some stylish French and Latin phrases

Book Backpack – Filled with the classics of culture ranging from Dostoevsky and Tolstoy to Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and Elizabeth Gaskell, to James Joyce and Jonathan Swift, to Vladimir Nabokov and Gustave Flaubert, titles such as Metamorphosis, The Canterbury Tales, and Little Women, and nonfiction texts including Life in a Medieval City, Frank Zöllner’s Leonardo Da Vinci, Barbara Deimling’s Sandro Botticelli, and Thames & Hudson’s Toulouse-Lautrec, Painter of the Night. Also includes blank journals to encourage original ideas and thought-processes in the individual, and gift-cards for bookstores.

The Triple P (Placeholders, Papers and Pens) Purse: Includes Colorful and Inspiring Bookmarks as well as Stationery and Pens to give away to promote reading and writing

A Rocket Pen: Used so she can write handsome checks to suffering libraries and bookstores at any angle, even upside down, and under water, at any moment, whenever called for (always signs and writes in cursive)

Mission: To Educate and Edify, To Convert the Populus into Well-Informed Bibliophiles

Includes: Providing Literacy, journals, books, gift-cards for bookstores, bookmarks, and pens to those in need, Helping Children Pronounce big words, financially supporting libraries and bookstores, directing anyone to the nearest bookstore or library in town.

Natural Abilities: Can Fly, Can be summoned for educational purposes by repeating her name aloud three times – “Miss Elite, Miss Elite, Miss Elite.” Will not be summoned to aid those in the midst of a test, for she does not condone cheating, but rather learning for learning’s sake.

Identity of Sidekick: Polyphony Boy - can sing all parts of Bach fugues, can produce a classical instrument with a snap of his fingers to give away or to play, can also fly

Sidekick’s Secret Identity: Tacitus (Latin, Silent) Pan (Chinese, meaning “villager” or “farmer” – essentially meaning “silent farmer” – opposite of elite singer/musician – is a dog-walker, and a Trekkie

Sidekick Costume: A Horse Mask, a small black cape, a black felt beret hat, white gloves

Go-to Dog: Discipline Dog –when petted by person or passerby, instills the will-power, discipline, and ambition to achieve goals and dreams – secret identity – Ulva Malone’s pet dog, named Zeke - costume - wears an even smaller black cape – Additional special power - knows how to read and write, thanks to Miss Elite’s literacy wand

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


FLASH FICTION


And here's some flash fiction I wrote pre-2006 - kind of for an assignment. It was an online course. I didn't get very good marks for these. Flash fiction is supposed to be a bit more focused than this, with real epiphanies. I tried to fit tons of stuff in and made my epiphanies so cryptic that it ends up just being gibberish to the reader. However since I'm presenting it to you in a feminist blog I'm hoping you will read these two stories with gender roles - and a growing woman's identity - as well. Yeah. I said it. A Growing Girl. Female Frusturation. - I really am not writing code for dealing with periods/ puberty here. I just mean, since these stories don't have a point, maybe you can find one, and since feminism is pretty much always in my writing, you'll probably find some of that. So, read on - and sorry for the major wafts of teenage angst coming off it.

Deracinated Dungeon of a Domus

Flash Fiction

By Jo Bingo

“Joan, take it down,” says I, oozing antipathy for her long, sandpapery-fingernails and fear of her bulky spectacles with the detestably old-fashioned and poor nurse-like pink rope extensions from their hooks behind her ears, thinks I, there is no life in her hooded sweater.

“You adore rugs! Ginny, I had to give you something to cover up the odious, masculine red wallpaper you’ve got practically leaning over you on this odious wall.” Hanging on two plastic, pale yellow hooks, the rug probably has things reveling in interbreeding within it… thinks I, who wants vile things dropping onto your visage mid-REM sleep? The awakening with the spider poised to its hairy living potential on the top of my crooked nose yesterday was enough, I thank you most sincerely, sis.

Says I, “I’ve history to mull over – take your – “ I gagged on my own oil-covered thought; or was it the crackers I’d crammed into my mouth? But Ginny, she would shove them up her nose – along with everything else, even this green and yellow, ‘I’m a transcendentalist – don’t smoke’ rug of hers. Her blonde hair was in awkward, almost spiky curls; I wished I’d poisoned her hair-gel. I reached to tear the dreaded tapestry from its upper roots -

Joan jabbed me with eight of her sharp nails, “Its called generosity!”

***

Akin to Ink

Flash Fiction

By Jo Bingo

Janet, a skinny slumping imp, shuffled as slowly as possible (like she had to do behind decaying ancients at church), toe first and heel second, as she had read (long ago) in a pretentious fake preteen-targeted book that American Indians did (this meant it was the smarter, more healthy thing to do – bogus, but published and in print nonetheless). Her aim was the garbage can, the paint cushioning her outline, the classroom – blackboard, purple chalk, shriveled purple-haired, purple-headed teacher with purple veins making her appendages seem the results of a toddler’s sketch, lacking the resolve to stick with whatever line comes out in the black ink.

But Janet, just as the very first letter in her namesake had an obnoxious curve that crossed the borderlines of protection on her paper, so too also had that flair of determination merely for variety as well as for identity and originality instilled in her very blood boiling behind her eyeballs as she squinted across the arena at the inscription, “Graph: X^3 + Amen” – oops, that must be wrong, she needed knew glasses anyway – funny that the mingling of arithmetic and religion should always be incorrect.

Janet had computated all derivatives and point discontinuities in ink – she always felt it should be so, she needed a sort of reassurance that this medium of numbers was pliable, and yet cable of retaining its beauty – she wanted to have that feeling in her throat as she scraped the page that she was solving for something of dignity.

The trash can yawned open, the floor as of yet was solid – not yet opening up to claim her – the floor was dust, the teacher – with her dry tongue and black hole cannibal of a waist, sucking in the entire substance of her body – she was dust - the ceiling, it was like the roof of a mouth, permanent and confining in its very limited sources of direction, smiles, defenses, solidity – like how you can’t see through your hand, but you can cut it off – like how water, clear, nonetheless blinds. She had always hated pencil – it was so light colored, gave birth to blurry marks that shrieked with fear and withdrew in sunlight, the vampire of writing utensils, void of boldness – she’d rather write with her nail.

Teacher stooped over her desk, enshrouded in papers and shadow, sunken eyes, more tasteless then any other typical light-head student in the room, she, squinting too, at that unsmotherable “J” imprinted throughout Janet’s curved chin -

- and, thought Janet, what are points on a test anyway? Why don’t I see a bunch of percents flying about the page, romping as live things? Because they were all dead (long ago). Teacher deprives me of these zombie points simply because I tried to liberate them from slavery, give them blood instead of sand, to march from their head to their feet. Yes! Life even exists in feet, teacher, as vigor heartbeats exist in my pen.

Teacher, exhaling invisible smog, squeezing the suds out of her brain and biting her nails in nervous contentment – suddenly shifting her headlight gaze across to – suddenly interpreting the girl’s meaning! - and the tidal waves accelerate with a newly inherited divine power further up and further in, charging toward the distant, though evident, focal point, vomiting madness and utter drive to wash out the newly penned, wet dot of black ink on the white stone –

“JANET!”

Too late. The girl ripped the test in half and forced the sorry wastebasket to swallow her pain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


FIBS!

Yes, I wrote fibs (poems based on the fibonacci sequence - read the wiki article on them). Our school had fibs contests. These were written - but not submitted. I never bothered to find out where to submit them and before I knew it the date to submit them had gone by - that year, anyway. They all have actual thought out reasoning to them - and I've only included the ones that bring up my twist on feminist issues. Most refer to books - in such a way that you'd kind of have to have read the book to get it, and even if you did, you still might not. Still, I'm including them, fodder for thinking (I hate saying "food for thought" so I'm trying to change it around a bit).


On Mystic - What’s in a Corpse?

D.

H.

Lawrence

Eat Apples

Like a Romantic

Bold Lonely Librarian

~~~~~"Mystic" is a Poem D. H. Lawrence wrote that I very much like. Here it is:

Mystic

They call all experience of the senses mystic, when the experience is
considered.
So an apple becomes mystic when I taste in it
the summer and the snows, the wild welter of earth
and the insistence of the sun.

All of which things I can surely taste in a good apple.
Though some apples taste preponderantly of water, wet and sour
and some of too much sun, brackish sweet
like lagoon water, that has been too much sunned.

If I say I taste these things in an apple, I am called mystic, which
means a liar.
The only way to eat an apple is to hog it down like a pig
and taste nothing
that is real.

But if I eat an apple, I like to eat it with all my senses awake.
Hogging it down I call the feeding of corpses.

--D. H. Lawrence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The Okay Earth

Wang

Lung-

Damn Dirt!

So much breath!

Rate alveoli

And ugly wife above bound feet


~~~~Am Definitely going to cover Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth" at some point - one of my top favorite books!~~~~~~


Addressed to the Flushed Clergyman in A Room With a View

Beebe!

hate

marriage

why do you?

Dweeb! You would too if

You were wet naked preacher snob


Misunderstanding of the Radiant Name of the Radiant Lucrece

Loo-

Crease?

Crinkle in toilet?

She had a toilette

But she was too smooth for blemish


Misunderstanding of the Intellectual Name of the Intellectual Elizabeth Gaskell

Gas-

Kill?

That’s cruel!

No, No, Fool!

Dead gal wrote ‘bout mills

Smart dead killer’s a killer still


To Old Pink Suit and the Absolute Rose (Fitzgerald can Listen, too)

I’ve

Not

Bled green

Daises but

I’ve not thrown over

Bakers, either, so let me know


~~~~~Relevant Book: "the Great Gatsby"~~~~~


To Mary Musgrove in Persuasion: As if

Seized!

If

You were

Charles’d cry

And forget his gun

You’d spring up and clean anyway


~~~~To give you an idea of the character of Mary Musgrove, and her relationship with her husband charles, start this video at 4:19...


...and watch my really bad quality youtube video - worth it for the subtitles I made (the others don't have that and they speak quietly in this scene. It is what directly follows the scene above)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And... MORE POEMS

...another thing from 2006 - for school, a poetry project. It contains the word "housework" in it. Therefore it must have feminist issues. (Note: the prior two sentences are an attempt at dry humor.)

The original poem:

The Zen Of Housework

By Al Zolynas

I look over my shoulder
down my arms
to where they disappear under water
into hands inside pink rubber gloves
moiling among dinner dishes.

My hands lift a wine glass,
holding it by the stem and under the bowl.
It breaks the surface
like a chalice
rising from a medieval lake.

Full of the grey wine
of domesticity, the glass floats
to the level of my eyes.
Behind it, through the window
above the sink, the sun, among
a ceremony of sparrows and bare branches,
is setting in Western America.

I can see thousands of droplets
of steam- each a tiny spectrum- rising
from my goblet of grey wine.
They sway, changing directions
constantly- like a school of playful fish,
or like the sheer curtain
on the window to another world.

Ah, grey sacrament of the mundane!

~~~~ and now, my poem inspired from that poem:


Thoughts of a Carnation in a Coma

I see scarce even my sluggish, archaic suspension of sense

In my silly loss of leaves, torpid my petals, my stupor

A tingling throb, numerous and unanimous trances

Dance, and next a daze of diminution of feeling

Like negative vigor, minus malus, a grey, singing, dormant, duplus, death.


~~~My attached explanation:

This little resembles “Zen of Housework,” which was my favorite poem of this “moment” section of the poem anthology. However, I picked up several ideas from it; a general theme – such has housework – is constantly emphasized throughout the poem with nearly synonymous words, such as “moiling,” “domesticity,” and “mundane.” Also, many metaphors and similes are used. Using these two concepts, I chose the theme of sleep, and spent a considerable amount of time looking up similar words in the dictionary. To emphasize my sluggish theme, I added the two tactics of alliteration and consonance, so as to allow for the reader to be lulled asleep simply by listening to my poem. Each line is also very wordy; parallel to the aimless track of thought a person (or plant) might have when asleep, dead, or in a coma. The last similarity between my poem and Al Zolynas’ – both are line poems, though mine consists of one solitary stanza.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


AN ESSAY


My Catcher in the Rye Essay - an Analysis of the Last Chapter. I'm including it because I haven't read it in ages but I do remember that I wrote about Holden's brother's actress companion vs. Holden's general approach towards women.


[Jo Bingo]

“I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I’d care too much” (pg. 89): In J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Holden purposely isolates himself from adult reality, and so doing drops all relationships and sinks into depression. Since he is isolated, Holden meets everyone with the viewpoint of a stranger, and thus becomes acquainted solely with his or her faults, which only serve to justify his immature cynicism. In his first two days truly independent and alone, Holden is exposed and in turn, exposes to others the personal troubles and curiosities that each human goes through, old or young. This dose of reality would eventually dampen his negative passions and brighten his opinion of the outside world. Holden’s character progression is taking a better, more optimistic turn in the last chapter of Catcher in the Rye because he is no longer troubled by phoniness, stubbornly opinionated, or socially isolated.

A milder, less meticulous tone and a lack of criticism indicate that Holden recognizes people’s capability to be both “phony” and “for real.” Although Holden retains the habit of separating the “hard core” and the “stimulated” attributes of people he meets, he learns to recognize “fake” characteristics as “faults.” This is shown in his description of his brother D.B.’s actress companion: “She was pretty affected, but very good-looking” (pg. 213). Before, Holden would have continued to describe for the next page or two miniscule details about her that proved her phoniness and depressed him simultaneously; however, he depicts her in single sentence, as if just in passing, as if her phoniness and her appearance had no influence on his mood or disposition, even in connection to his brother. He also flattered the reader’s picture of her by moving from the bad features to the good, as opposed to vice versa, like he might have formerly. In the rest of the book, Holden sometimes becomes violently critical of people he’s only caught a glimpse of: “…[at the ice rink] there were at least a couple of hundred rubbernecks that didn’t have anything better to do than stand around and watch everybody falling all over themselves” (pg. 129). In contrast, here it is as if Holden is aware he is unfit to provide a representation of her personality, and therefore mentions those characteristics easy for a stranger to recognize.

“That stuff doesn’t interest me too much right now” (pg. 213): Although Holden still has priorities only in what interests him personally, he has become more flexible and accepting of the idea of change and imperfection in himself. He is still reluctant to discuss topics such as home and school; however there is an emphasis on the present, implying that his opinions are subject to future change. In the quote, “I mean how do you know what you’re going to do until you do it?” (pg 213), Holden no longer claims to understand the complexities of his personality, no longer claims his actions are always predictable or reasonable. He neither makes promises, nor resists his future adulthood, perhaps because he realizes it is not all as dark, boring, technical or fake as he used to believe it: “We’d have to go downstairs in elevators with suitcases and stuff. I’d be working in some office, making a lot of dough, and riding to work in cabs and Madison Avenue buses, and reading newspapers, and playing bridge all the time, and going to the movies and seeing a lot of stupid shorts and coming attractions and newsreels” (pg. 133). By saying, “I don’t know what I think about it” (pg. 213-214), Holden admits to his confusion and lack of know-how, dropping his usual superior, disinterested, and anticonformist air of “I don’t care much. I mean I’m not going to be a goddam surgeon or violinist or anything anyway” (pg. 39). Although frustrated with a question which asks him to set concrete goals, Holden leaves room for speculation and development, and is willing to allow life, for himself and for the world – to move on: “… If they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off…” (pg. 211).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


A POWERPOINT


And lastly, but not least-ly, I will include a powerpoint I made for my Image and Representation Class on Dorothea Lange. Why it would be included in a feminist blog is obvious once you read/ know about who she is. I think. Or maybe I'm just including her because she's a woman and she's famous. You decide.


PLEASE click on the images to enlarge them if your eyes need a break!

This is the youtube video that I linked in the previous powerpoint slide:

The Sources again so that if you want you can highlight and copy them:

Abbey, Susannah. Artist Hero: Dorothea Lange. 16 Apr. 2009 < http://www.myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=d_lange >.
Women Come to the Front: Journalists, Photographers, and Broadcasters During World War II - Dorothea Lange. 19 June 2006. Library of Congress. 16 Apr. 2009 <http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0013.html>.
Unwilling Icon: Dorothea Lange and Florence Owens Thompson, the "Migrant Mother". 16 Apr. 2009 <http://www.airarchive.com/migrant-mother.htm>.
PhotoQuotes.com: Quotations from the World of Photography - Dorothea Lange. 16 Apr. 2009 < http://www.photoquotes.com/ShowQuotes.aspx?id=146&name=Lange,Dorothea >.


A DRAWING


PLEASE click the image for a larger version. I really worked hard on this.

It is what I think of when I listen to Schubert's "Death and the Maiden," the chambermusic piece that I played that convinced me that I want to play the cello professionally. I put a lot of thought into it. For instance: the top left corner is the baby she was. The bottom right corner is the old woman she could have been who is now chained into nonexistence. The book under the bed is "Little Women," one of my favorite books, the title spelled backwards to enhance the dreamlike state going on. The cover image is my depiction of another maiden that was taken too early, Beth (a character in the book) - a specific scene too, (SPOILER COMING UP) the one when she tears a little at the windowsill after Laurie had spoken through it from outside - Jo thinks at the time that this means that Beth is in love with Laurie (at that time in the book Beth is 18) - but later she learns (because Beth tells her) that this is because she at that time knew she was dying and the sight of the alive and vibrant and joyous Laurie and Jo duo made her sad that she would never - and in fact had never - felt so alive. In addition, in this drawing I include the imprint of a body on the bed, as well as the figure of a body - that of the dying maiden. The one jumping up to confront Death (with the fire of rage and frustration erupting from her mouth) is in fact the spirit of the maiden, which the mourner by her bedside cannot see of course. Too support the fact that the battle within is all a fevered dream of a dying girl, the entire drawing is placed within a larger picture of the fevered (and no longer conscious of the "real world") face of the maiden herself - events at different times and planes happening in her mouth, on her forehead, etc. Across the nose it is right before they meet, she is full of fight that will soon die with her last fever. Accompanying each spirit are mini-versions of themselves, all very bendy because they are even more spirit-like than the spirits themselves - and Death is obviously at the advantage with more mini-minions, himself emerging from smoke with a masked and eccentric face of the non-human and immortal, full of towering and domineering naked masculinity, but still with claw-like menacing feet. In the left eye is a depiction of the clash between the two when they meet in the form of two clawing hands with eyes - in the right eye the picture of her defeated, dead as a doornail. In her mouth she is hiding behind a tooth, trying to hide from death - this is dated before her last fight, when she had hopes of recovering, Death coming from the drool dribble coming out of her mouth signifying that he is embodied also in the disease and fever itself. The entire image has both horizontal and vertical (and diagonal) aspects to emphasize the confusion of the process and private nature of the death itself. The succession of flowers at the windowsill in the maiden's room is the depiction of gradual decay - one flower in a flowerpot for each stage. "Death and the Maiden" is in fact based on an original song by the same name - not in English - which consists of the Maiden telling Death I am not ready, I am too young, and Death saying, let me take you into my arms (semi-romantic, thus I made him very naked, with only a spare encircling smoke hiding his parts - and emphasized the sexual nature of the maiden's body by making her sweat-soaked nightgown - due to the fever - quite see-through haha). Let me see if I can find a translation...

Der Tod und das Mädchen (Death and the Maiden) D.531. Text by Matthias Claudius (1740-1815) set by Franz Schubert (1797-1828), D. 531 (1817), published 1821 as op. 7 no 3.

Original GermanEnglish Translation

Das Mädchen:

Vorüber! Ach, vorüber!
Geh, wilder Knochenmann!
Ich bin noch jung, geh, Lieber!
Und rühre mich nicht an.


Der Tod:

Gib deine Hand, du schön und zart Gebild,
Bin Freund und komme nicht zu strafen.
Sei gutes Muts! Ich bin nicht wild,
Sollst sanft in meinen Armen schlafen.

The Maiden:

Pass by me, oh, pass by me!
Vision of skull and bone!
I am still young, deny me,
Go and leave me alone.


Death:

Give me thy hand thou form so fair and mild!
A friend am I, not come to pain you.
Be of good cheer! I am not wild.
My arms in soft sleep shall contain you.

Thank you, wikipedia. I cannot believe I used to shun you, I was blind but now I see! Here is the link for the wikipedia article on the song; and here is the link for the wikipedia article on the Schubert quartet (I only heavily rehearsed and preformed the first movement, and the first movement is my focus, but I have a story I envision for each movement).

Here is a widget provided by Glorious Grooveshark of my Beloved Favorite First Movement (of four movements):

JUST CLICK PLAY AND LISTEN TO IT FOR YOURSELF!!!!!! SO EXCITING!

oooooooh, I love it so much. It breaks my freakin' heart.

Unfortunately not-so-glorious Grooveshark did not say what Quartet did this recording, grrrr...


Some funny and pretty much true quartet humor (the cartoon is not mine, of course):



A DRAWING ACCOMPANIED BY A QUOTE FROM A BOOK A MOST BELOVED FRIEND BOUGHT FOR ME AT A TIME WHEN I NEEDED THIS SORT OF ADVICE:

(Enlarge to Read)

The text of the quote in case you want to copy it:

Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird (Illustration above of course by [Jo Bingo])

Part One, Shitty First Drafts 21-28

How to get Rid of the Critical Voices In Your Head:

“Close your eyes and get quiet for a minute, until the chatter starts up. Then isolate one of the voices and imagine the person speaking as a mouse. Pick it up by the tail and drop it into a mason jar. Then isolate another voice, pick it up by the tail, drop it into the jar. And so on. Drop in any high-maintenance parental units, drop in any contractors, lawyers, colleagues, children, anyone who is whining in your head. Then put the lid on, and watch all these mouse people clawing at the glass, jabbering away, trying to make you feel like shit because you won’t do what they want – won’t give them money, won’t be more successful, won’t see them more often. Then imagine that there is a volume control button on the bottle. Turn it way up for a minute, and listen to the stream of angry, neglected, guilt-mongering voices. Then turn it all way down and watch the frantic mice lunge at the glass, trying to get at you. Leave it down, an get back to your shitty first draft.” Pg. 27


A COLLAGE


A... Work of Art... of some kind... that is included in the above collage (top left). I guess it is a collage of sorts. The baby and hand images are from one of my favorite Leonardo Da Vinci paintings (though "Lady with an Ermine" remains my top favorite) that started out as a doodle (the doodle is the image in the middle), which by the end had become a Nautilus. I've also painted one. All the surrounding imagery that is drawn is various artsy versions of tears/ water. The gold circle is from cheap earrings I bought in Florida that broke. The two forms of money are 1) paper money from my 4th grade trip to Chile to visit relatives from my mother's side and 2) Coins from my summer after my sophomore year orchestra-outside-of-school NJYS week trip to Ireland. All my friends and family say I love weird/ quirky animals. And it is so, so true. I also like Malayan Tapirs and Horseshoe Crabs. Platypuses remain my favorite though.

Again, You MUST click to enlarge this image PLEASE.

The Writing: "In the town of crying there was serious trouble!/ No one was/ crying, not even a/ baby. So a hero came/ and said such a terrible thing that it made them all/ cry. The End."

Made it up mee-self, of course. It is meant to have multiple layers of meaning - including the hopefully obvious sardonic approach to storytelling.

A Real Live Photo of a Nautilus:

They are so hard core!!!!


Some Horseshoe Crab Art (NOT MINE):



And this is the early Da Vinci Painting that I got the images of the baby and hand from (the baby is Jesus, and the hand is Mary's, of course):

Did you know Da Vinci was a stud, too? He was fit and could bend an iron bar or something. A stud. I Da Vinci!!!! (Too bad he was probably gay and is now most definitely dead. Very unavailable and uneligible, wouldn't you say?)

- This work/ collage also brings up a subject I favor "What Makes a Hero" which I referred to in My Collage Entry.


P.S. Will definitely rant about my past obsession with the story/ paintings of Judith and Holofernes in the VERY NEAR future. I have many, many images stored on my computer. At one point I had it as my desktop for my school account - very much freaked out my Mr. Latin Teacher, it was hilarious. Still find it awesome, but no longer obsessed... that was the closest I have ever came to being a man-eater/hater, but I wasn't really there. I just found the subject vibrant and beautiful. (The collage above (not the town of crying one but the one above that) includes two Judith and Holofernes images... and I still have my favorite Botticelli one (he did more than one) taped to the outside door of my room - will devote a complete blog entry on the decorations on the door of my room in the near future as well.)

My favorite Botticelli Judith and Holofernes Painting:


And here is my favorite painting of ALL TIME/ of Leonardo Da Vinci's, "Lady with an Ermine":


Jimmy Stewart's Ladies Posts to Come,

-Just Call Me Jo

P.P.S. On a completely irrelevant note, I also love Capybaras. This moving image is fun proof: Look at them Go!

P.P.P.S. QUESTION OF THE ENTRY: Am I not a Genius?

3 comments:

  1. What a wonderful cornucopia of work! Much food for thought. I am especially moved by your "Death and the Maiden" artwork and analysis.

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  2. You're interests and style are so eclectic yet so incredibly consistent (especially when a person knows you ^_^) and passionate. So developed a sense of individual beauty and strenght of subject matter! I love it!

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  3. Regarding wikipedia: I think it is a great resource, especially when used as a jumping-off point. It can give you a broad overview of a topic; if you look further this overview is either underscored and fleshed out, or contradicted... when contradicted this is often quickly found out. Thus I too like it LOADS. Generally it is very helpful!

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