Ah, Peeps there is so much to say... But I'm too confused to say it (and still slightly drunk and/or hung over this AM.) In some ways I miss the Mini:(E:Strip), back in the ole days, when I could post my private thoughts and personal events without worrying about them popping up on Slashdot! 8* Eeep, Peeps! Nuff Said.

So I will tell you all a little bit about Toronto, where I ran away to mid-week, to see some film festival films. I had to cancel like, totally everything in my life, but spur of the moment is always worth it. And those are always the most fun times, don't you think? Too much planning seems to take the spirit out of things. First thought, best thought, as the Zensters says.

Here is the quip I keep making about Toronto (whenever I think of something I think is witty I continually repeat it. Do I quote myself? Very well, then I quote myself.--HJ (WW)) Toronto is like the face of someone very beautiful. You know not to look too directly at it since the more you look the more you are entranced by it. So you kind of have to look at it only peripherally or only a little part at a time: an eyelash, a tower, the upper lip, an art museum. Otherwise you can't resist.

The first film I saw was sadly disappointing, since I really love the other films I've seen by the director, Alejandro Amenabar. He did The Others and Abre los Ojos, the film Vanilla Sky is based on (but is so much better than.) This movie, Mar Adentro, was about a quadriplegic who wants to die, and his family/legal/romantic struggles with said dilemma. It was pretty much a one trick pony. Oh so sad the poignant poet can't move and loves death. We're all trapped in our bodies in one way or another, I say. But then, I've never been paralyzed, so I should probably shut up. But the one cool thing was that the actor in it is one of my favorites, Javier Bardem, and he was there to introduce the film. He's in a great movie about Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas [inlink]holly,9[/inlink] called Before Night Falls. Anyways, he's so grand and beautiful. Even from the high red velvet balcony seat where I was sitting I could see his lovely giant hands. They were as large and soft as fresh loaves of bread. I wanted to inhale their warm scent and nibble them. Too bad he was fakely bald and in bed the whole movie. What a waste of a beautiful man.

Anyways, after the sadly disappointing film I went to the Horseshoe Tavern, a really great bar for live music (and the inspiration for one of my longest journals [inlink]holly,9[/inlink]). The band that was playing was called Divine Comedy, they're from the UK. They were very drole but not ironic. And they hand a banjo. I thought the singer sounded quintessentially English, a cross between Bowie and Morrissey. My friend who is English thought he sounded like Jim Morrison, very American. Mind the culture gap, I guess.

The next day I went to the AGO, Art Gallery o'Ontario, where I had just been on Sunday to see the Turner, Whistler, Monet show, but nothing else. So I went back mostly to see some really lovely Inuit carvings, and works by this artist Mark Lombardi . He makes these really elegant anatomical maps of global influence and corruption. There'll be a little circle that says George H. W. Bush and then lines drawn to banks, sheiks, gov't front agencies, etc. It all has its own grammar and timeline and aesthetic. The future of information, if you ask me. I showed some pictures and tried to explain it to my freshman Critical Thinking class, and they just stared blankly at me. Maybe I'm as confusing as I am confused...

Coming up on hour thirteen since I've been home. My poor cat. Matthew has just informed me that it is indeed illegal to keep livestock in your suburban house. If my sister gets arrested it won't be the first time a Johnson's been in jail! We still love you Daddy, in your great big padded holding cell in the sky.

Okay, a little stream of consciousness from my beleagured brain. I kinda wanna update just because I haven't in a few days. I feel so loyal to you peeps. Plus I want the hits. The hits! I'm hit hungry.

So the first Swan screening was tonight. Our classified ad wasn't successful, but we were able to interview some people from Brian's class since he was there with them to do the taping. Brian rocks, by the way. He gave me some pointers on how to conduct interviews better. I was kinda "reading off a list" in my head, mostly because I didn't want to lead the responses (I tend to do that in conversation, I think, although I've been trying not to fer like years...) We interviewed the men too, since they were very forthcoming with their opinions. Have you ever noticed how men are encouraged to have an opinion on everything, including womens' body images? The women were far more sheepish about it. I'm just a raging femi-nazi I guess. But not all you fellas out there need reprogramming, and I'm grateful for that. And I'm not exactly your typical sheepish co-ed either...

In other news, all is well with my figure drawing class at last. I had a long talk with the head of graduate studies in Fine Arts and he rocked, he was so cool, and he was really into my idea. Why didn't I just get a fine arts degree, whhhhyyyyyyy!!????

Okay, so funny story to end this theme-less journal. I'm teaching a class of college freshman about critical thinking. So I talk to them for awhile about the imprtance of evaluating sources and thinking independently and being sceptical of authority. Then I told them that we were going to talk a lot about current events. So I asked them if they knew what recently happened in Russia, and they had some vague ideas about a hostage situation and the children etc. So I said right, a group of Chinese rebels took over a school, because China wants to be independent from Russia. And then I asked why China might want to be independent from Russia, and people responded, but more and more faces started to look confused. So finally I said, does anyone see a flaw in this logic?. And some girl raised her hand and said "uh, China isn't part of Russia?." So then I told them the real story, about Chechnya, etc. But I said in the end, you're in college now folks. You've been taught your whole life to do as teacher says. When I say think for yourselves, I mean trust your instincts, and when I say question authority, I mean me too. Nobody ever got exiled or sentenced to death for corrupting the youth or being a gadfly, right?

::Download Flash SWF::

Here is my first baby steps attempt at animating the giantess. Yes, I know she limps. But the poem words also give some idea of what I want to do, word movies that morph meaning.

Last night I went over to my sister's house because they just got some new animals: a baby mini-pig (not to be confused with a "meat pig", which we've also had), three fancy feathered-feet chickens, and da da da dum, a goat! Yes, a baby goat named Carmine (after Carmine Gotti) who now has a punky pink dyed mohawk and a pierced ear. He looks a lot tuffer than he is. Sometimes he likes to wail BAAAAAAAAAAAA! so loud your ears ring and also he drinks from a bottle. So! Cute! But since he's only a few days off the farm he's not house broken in any way. He likes to stand on the leather couch and launch little goat turds out his butt like a gumball machine. Cute, but not really tenable in the long run, eh?

So my sister's plan is to keep the animals in a makeshift stall of chicken wire and rubbermaid storage containers in their suburban Kenmore basement, complete with UV sun lamps. See, they're trying to hide their managerie from their prying old fogey neighbors. Is it illegal to have livestock in the suburbs? We're pretty sure it is. I said "Oh! You can't keep this goat in your basement! He needs to be free and feel the breeze" yadda yadda. But we're all cramped up in our little apartment boxes, aren't we, when maybe we'd rather be scraping in the dirt and wandering around in animal pelts. Sounds lovely, doesn't it?

So all this resolved into a new idea. My sister will buy a house with some land on Grand Island, and I will move there with the goat, the pigs, the ponies, and whatever other furry creatures we have laying around. My goat farm dream is coming to fruition [inlink]holly,47[/inlink]. I asked my sister if I could have ragin' parties there, and she replied "I don't see why not." Do you all love me enough to rock out with me on Grand Island? If not I'll just fufill my other dream of becoming a reclusive artist who paints giant canvases and writes into the wee hours.

What a weekend, huh? In reverse, here are my memories: yesterday riding my bike around Hoyt Lake I smelled an overripe apple tree, squishy shriveled purple fruits still hanging on the branches and giving off a warm, sweet, fermented late summer scent. Saturday the beach party was divine. The stars, the lake, good folks old and new. I'm still finding fine grains of sand in all kinds of crevices. It was so luxurious to be damp and half nude and slightly inebriated talking about who knows what, Indians and bodies and bands and national identities, and whatever else moved us. A physical, mental, spiritual respite. And earlier that day (e:Ajay) and I had a really nice hike in the Niagara Gorge. Once you get the hang of it, leaping from rock to rock in the stony river basin is like an athletic ballet of balance and strength. One false step and your ankle would go "snik!" and there you'd be. But of course I thought it was funner the faster you went. I have a pathological aversion to going slow, and following. I gotta be out in front, sweating and huffing, in order to get the full effect. Of course my thighs and butt still feel a little sour and sluggish. My body's revenge for too much sitting.

So on the docket for today is... more sitting. I have to put together the syllabus for a class I'm teaching, which is why I'm writing this now... avoiding my real duties. But in the background I have the US Open on TV. I also used to be somewhat of a tennis freak myself, so I would play if people want to [inlink]paul,1876[/inlink]. Although late-night half-drunk half-volleys with flat tennis balls is hard to top...

Why should it be so hard to draw naked people! Is it so wrong? I'm beginning to think it should be a requirement for everyone before they graduate. I can imagine conversations like "Dude, did you fufill yer figure drawing requirement" "Uh, shit, no. Do you think spring break in Cancun counts? I took a lot of pictures..."

In case anyone hasn't heard me whine about it, my life's energy flow is still being blocked by the bureacracy, and just when I thought it was over, it all fell apart.

Non-students, ignore this detailed explication, which will seem cryptic, kafkaesque even, and just plain inane: See, the grad Media Studies people wouldn't let me take figure drawing to count towards my master's thesis, since it was an undergrad course. So I thought I had it worked out that I would sit in on the class, and register as if I was taking an independent graduate study with the prof. Everything had been given the okay, but then the prof went to Sri Lanka to care for his ailing parents, so he can't sign my stupid form work. Soyeon warned me, but did I listen? The prof will be gone for two weeks, well past the last registration date.

So now what? I say fuck it and draw. Here is what I made my first day in school, mommy:



It's okay, I think. But after living in the nurturing womb-like bubble of support from you, my dear peepers, i had come to believe i was a talented artist. Well, I have discovered, much to my chagrin, that undergrad fine arts majors can draw circles around me! (heh heh) But that's awesome. I feel like I can really learn something in the class, and I really want to learn it, and I've paid my own (future) earnings to learn it. And isn't that what education's all about? Me setting out to learn what I want to know, despite any obstacles? Sheesh! Hasn't anyone seen an after-school special?

End rant transmission.

(e:drchlorine), is (e:mang) available? hot kitty! [inlink]drchlorine,24[/inlink] I love a cat with a sense of humor.

Some nuggets of Gertrude Stein wisdom, just to give everyone a (eyebrow) lift:

"A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears."

"It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing."

And some film recommendations: all you lonely office gals and ex-cons out there should watch this movie called "Read My Lips (Sur Mes Levres)". I've already watched it twice this week, and will show it at a movie screening on Friday, I believe. Lonely Parisian office gal, mostly deaf, hires ex-con to be office assistant. Imbroglios ensue.


Oh, and Buster Keaton too.