Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Better get some shit done

It sounds as if we are having the same kind of week, Ritch. Except that you are graduating, and I will be here for a longer period of time than anyone thought when I started this stupid degree. Even longer if I don't pull up my socks and catch up on assignments/readings. Were you at a resume workshop or something?
Got addicted to a new television show. Girls? Nothing like watching privileged New Yorkers fuck up their lives. They have developed some truly horrible characters, although it is nice to see a protagonist who has a normal fat layer on her body and still gets laid on a regular basis. Although she does sleep with a 19 year old, turtleneck-wearing, bowl-cut-sporting dude. Another girl gets trapped inside an exhibit that consisted of a box made of television screens playing loops of dead dogs and vicious animals; the artist locks the door and refuses to let her out.  Creative folks can be a disturbing breed.
Talked to a good buddy tonight, her job comes with a free heli-skiing pass. Whooooaaaa. Woke up to find a visitor sprawled out on our couch and kind of liked it. It's lovely to have a place that people feel comfortable visiting.
All of tonight's texts from the boyfriend indicate that people are beating each other up in his living room. We're going to hit up some pet shops this weekend. Pet shop-shopping is what I imagine shoe shopping is for fashionistas.
Stay well.     

No One Tries

Hi,

Had a discouraging week so far. Today I learned that I am total shit at interviews, even with the unfettered ability to spin endlessly in a rolly chair provided by the kind office of the co-op army. Because there is about 25 employees of this office, all of them aggressively smiling middle aged women who "just want to chat" and "revamp my resume"
And all the while my friend's urges to come to Van this weekend because now he has beer money is whispering in the back of my otherwise blank mind.
If my parents weren't constantly giving me apprehensive looks from the safety of my imagination I would probably just cash in and be an alcoholic dishwasher, maybe for good.
I mean how does a person even get a job post-grad that isn't shining rich people's shoes.
And since when is "having a baby" an automatic status brought to you by FB?

Love always,
Emma

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Self-titled "the most Colombian of Colombian artists" early on

Oh Fernando:


Today is still a sunny day. I'm cleaning my room and trying to get a couple odd things done. (wish me luck):D I've also been slowly getting into Iranian film culture and following theses words is the first I've watched:


I really enjoyed it, I'm always a suck for female focused movies and that being said, it's fun seeing these bunch of girls trying to see a soccer game and then being locked up for the entirety of it. You get to see how the young soldiers/young men individually react to the rules that are in modern day Iran and how... I guess they understand why they are there, but wonder how the rules are. There is some very heart touching characters and this once scene that easily became my favorite and made me think: the young soldier stops on the side of the road to buy drinks for all the girls in response of the whole bunch of them being thirsty. Simple right? I can't explain it, but it made me wonder if we would be off better if there would be more men like that around... overwhelming generosity, or at least that's what Cyrus calls it. It's very appealing.With further conversations with Cyrus, he explains that there is huge emphasis on "the mother" in Iran, that women play an integral part of society and you show them the same respect as you would as any other (which differs from the 'over- protective-father type' that many surrounding middle eastern countries demonstrates. I really enjoyed this film, and in response I'm researching and learning more about the director of it Jafar Panahi

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Hey Bring me tea and something sweet while you're at the grocery store pretty please!



I've been reading about Lebanon tonight. It seemed like a good way to erase a headache that's been filling my head tonight. It's weird, lately it's been I've had a series of harder-then-normal, pounding headaches. And in result I've been thinking of Elizabeth's past encounters, where it was a series of intense headaches that lead to her getting drilled into her head. True Story(more or less).

Things to think about (in accordance with Lebanon):
Neopatrimonialism
Consociationalism

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

yes I did

When I used to come home from dances in high school my dad would always ask me if I "got up and danced." In a pained voice too. First he would ask if I had fun, and I would mumble something and he would say, no fail : "No, but did you get up and dance though?"

Shit of course I did Dad, whose daughter am I?

Sunday, February 24, 2013

I turned my left foot, then my right foot.



This is Mina Milk, who does a lot of ink drawings like this one, and also a lot of lesbian love scenes in the same style.

Removed my space bar today,with a deft flick of the towel from my head.
I've had some pretty interesting encounters at bus stops these past few days. I tell you stories in form of lists so that you might digest them nicely.

1- Today I was the most hangry a person could be. Sitting at the bus stop, waiting to get home and devour every scrap that I could pile into my hand. Sitting at the bus stop next to this woman in blue tinted shades with a pink wig over her full head of (brown) hair. Anyway the whole time I am glaring at the passing cyclists and she is muttering to herself about how many fucking cars are going by. And then she says, more coherently "Seven pounds eleven ounces at 4:20 in the morning Dec. 23 1968 the first word I ever said was shut up" She says this methodically, like she is testing her own sanity. And then the bus pulls up and we travel  one stop before she gets off.

2-Few days ago, sitting at the stop with a giant Renoir book on my lap, and about 6 others in my backpack and this smiling old man comes and sits beside me and starts asking me questions. Tells me that Renoir, near to his death wrote a letter to a friend that mourned the fact that he had never noticed black until then. And I replied that all the letters I had seen that he wrote were bugging his friends to give him money. And he said, did I know, close to the end, Renoir painted with brushes strapped to his wrists because his arthritis was so bad. And the bus pulled up and the enchantment ended. Like I was just another early twenties school girl lugging her books to school and he was just another old guy that lived in Oak Bay.

3- Few weeks ago, the streets were wet from rain. I was leaning against a wall, casual like, and this older man comes up and starts talking about how much his pussy cat hates the rain. And how much his pussy cat hates being turned out of this man's bed when the cleaning lady is changing the sheets.  And all the while he is pacing and looking up the street. And eventually he asks me if I am in school and what I am studying. And I tell him, and he looks pleased. He tells me how when he was a kid he was committed to an asylum because he was epileptic and they didn't teach any of the kids there because it was assumed that they were idiots. So he says he taught himself to read using paintings in books. And here he starts talking really fast at a low rhythm and I lose his words. He finishes by saying he got his bachelors, I think he said Harvard.
And the bus comes right after this so I never found out, really, how one teaches oneself to read through art.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Why is the night so long?

The fact that I still haven't mailed your birthday card pretty much means that I can alter it to also be a valentine. Valentine.
Had a killer week in which my wrist was annihilated by frantic scribbling. Not being safe, Sarah C. And you can blame it on the grinning anarchist at the front of the room in the two tone purple shirt. With his suspicious drawings by small children and no answer as to where they came from. With the newspaper clipping of goats in trees in Morroco pinned to the door of his office.
So I was elated to get on the bus and come home before the sun came down today, to apply for this job in the Rockies that would help in my future ass-kicking career. But it is no longer posted, this job. Kat sang me a tune about not giving up until I get a firm reply on whether the position has been filled but mein gott. I hate being pushy.

Yesterday, V-Day, often synonymous with D-Day. Ate sushi, read dates off of a piece of paper, which my mind quickly forgot. Luckily dates only mean so much, as long as you've got your context nailed. And I mean, Franco-Prussian War ends 1871, same year of the Paris Commune, year after Bazille is killed. Poor guy never got to be an Impressionist.
This painting is 19th c. name dropping. For serious. Bazille would paint his studio every time he got a new one, and in this case he included a bunch of his friends in the picture. So he's like: Look! I'm best friends with  Manet! There he is checking out my painting! (in the hat; Bazille himself is the extremely tall man in the center; Zola is on the stairs, Renoir under them, Monet in the fancy pants and some critic is tinkling the keys in the corner). He also shows all his million dollar paintings stacked around like he's just hording them for the end of the world. 
Not sure where that info-vomit came from. You're welcome though.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

I'm sorry in advance for not mailing any valentines

Hey girls,
I'm currently engulfed with an headache that just won't dissapear, the mountains are clearly visible  I've ate five pieces of bread, a steamed milk coffee and la. My birthday was filled with Ukrainian dolls, ice cream cake and half dozen ice cream cupcakes. I was craving birthday cake, but whatever. Next year!

Thursday tuned into friday, and I was called up for a girls night with Carmanagh,Natalie and Rebecca. It was hilarious, we built forts, played board games, and played this hilarious game where you take a huge gulp of a water, and everyone watches a hilarious video or listens to something funny and whoever just spits it out last, wins. In that process, I got spit on my head by two girls.

The night ended with a couple of us falling asleep in the fort, the rest found bed and that was it. Or so I thought!

Start around 3 in the morning, carmanagh was sick. It turned into eventually something serious and I later got shook awake from Natalie telling us we are going to the hospital. We rushed to the hospital, and we were there from 4-11 easily. While Carmanagh was getting checked up, we watched soccer and laughed our pants off waiting and waiting. It was Manchester united against some team that started with a "t". One of the players looked like a monkey and it wasn't the worst way to spent a morning. We got out to eat breakfast at a tim hortons and got to watch the sunrise downtown at the waterfront before Carmanagh needed to be back at the hospital for an ultra sound. This long story ended with Carmanagh being perfectly fine. Her and i then met up with her mother at the mall,still in our pjs and we watched the hobbit. There is a ton of fighting in the hobbit. But I guess little boys would go balls to the wall excited for it.

The book sounds interesting Emma. I'll try to look it up someplace. How did you guys spend "family day"? I painted faces up in Coombs then went for a little hike in little qualicum falls.

Hope you guys are happy healthy.